The art of taking health care from the poor to give a tax cut to the rich. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images In March, House Republicans tried to pass a health-care bill that slashed Medicaid by $880 billion to finance a tax cut for the rich; radically increased the cost of insurance for old people in rural America (a.k.a., the Republican base), so as to make it slightly cheaper for upper-middle-class young people in cities (a.k.a., the Democratic base); and established a system of subsidies for insurance so poorly designed it would have actually left more people uninsured than if you eliminated the entire Medicaid expansion and every other part of Obamacare and replaced it with nothing at all. These ideas proved so unpopular with non-millionaire voters and health-care-industry stakeholders that the Houses GOP moderate wing had enough votes to kill the bill, even without the help of the Freedom Caucus conservative purists for whom it wasnt punitive enough. Six weeks later, House Republicans tweaked their bill to allow states to waive the requirement that health insurers cover preexisting conditions and put a fig-leaf amount of backup funding over the massive increase in health-care costs for, say, nonaffluent cancer patients that would ensue. The bills most regressive aspects were left almost entirely in place. And on Thursday, Trumpcare passed the House with a vote to spare. Here are seven reasons Republicans were able to make that happen. 1. Donald Trump made Reince Priebuss life a living hell. The president is not an artful deal-maker. Trump lacks a remedial understanding of health-care policy, legislative procedure, or the ideological disputes within his own party. He is also a deeply lazy man whose favorite (only?) negotiating tactic is to make extraordinary ultimatums and then back down at the first sign of resistance. Its not surprising then that GOP insiders are (anonymously) downplaying Trumps role in yesterdays victory. And its true that Trump contributed far less to yesterdays win than did a handful of key players in Congress. But its still hard to dismiss the notion that the House vote was, in part, a triumph of Trumps will. The president may not be invested in the details of health-care reform. But he is deeply invested in being perceived as a winner. So, when Trumpcares failure produced a flood of headlines suggesting the very opposite, Trumps wounded ego took out its rage on the White House chief of staff. Trump took to mocking Reince Priebus for his too-cozy relationship with Speaker Paul Ryan, merging the two mens names into one long Ryan-ce, and reminding Reince of his health-care failure whenever the obsessive-compulsive Wisconsinite stood idle, as the New York Times reports: In recent days, Mr. Priebus cut back on his stalking-butler tendency to hover over the president, realizing his antsy boss had grown resentful of his constant companionship. What are you doing in here? Dont you have health care to take care of? Mr. Trump asked Mr. Priebus at one recent meeting around his desk, according to a senior White House official. Priebus responded to this bullying and the omnipresent murmurs than another health-care failure would be his doom by ringing House Republicans phones with all the manic persistence of a newly jilted ex-lover. Politico offers details on Ryan-ces relentlessness. When the MacArthur-Meadows deal looked close to being done, Priebus called a White House meeting with Ryan and asked him to cancel a looming two-week congressional recess in order to finish the billThere will be calls for you to resign, Priebus told Ryan, according to two people in the room. (Another source familiar with the conversation but not in the room said Priebus comments were not aimed at Ryan but at Republicans in general.) Priebus hounding didnt stop there, though. In the days before the bill finally passed, he began calling members listed as no votes and asking them what they needed to get to yes whether on health care or other things the administration might be able to do for them. House GOP sources were eager to paint Priebuss efforts as irrelevant or counterproductive. But given the myriad reasons to believe that Trumpcare was better off dead not least the immense liability the bills revival posed to vulnerable Republican House members Priebuss drive to save his own job by any means necessary probably played a part in forcing Thursdays vote. 2. Tom MacArthur decided to spend his beach vacation helping the far right produce a politically tenable plan to make health-care unaffordable for people with preexisting conditions. Trumpcares revival began with negotiations between Mark Meadows of the Freedom Caucus and Tom MacArthur of the moderate Tuesday Group. The purpose of these talks was difficult for outside observers to comprehend. After all, Trumpcare had been too moderate for Meadowss team and too right-wing for MacArthurs. There simply was not any happy middle ground between their two positions. But what outside observers missed was that the Tuesday Group was, itself, a bunch of outside observers. Acting against the wishes of the moderates he ostensibly represented, MacArthur helped the Houses reactionaries make their deeply unpopular plans more politically tenable through the magic of federalism and then allowed them to brand the resulting proposal as a magnanimous compromise. The day after Trumpcare failed, MacArthur couldnt stop thinking about how close conservatives and GOP leaders had come to an agreement at a late-night meeting with Vice President Mike Pence a few days earlier, according to Politico. And so, during a beach vacation with his family over the Easter recess, MacArthur sketched out a plan to allow states to choose to nullify two of Obamacares most popular provisions protections for people with preexisting conditions, and regulations requiring all health insurers to cover a set of basic services, including mental-health and maternity care. The resulting amendment did not make the health-care bill any more appealing to moderates. But the fact that it was drafted by a self-identified centrist made it more politically difficult for the Houses other squishes to maintain the courage of their convictions. 3. Fred Upton got moderates the Michigan Morsel. If only one self-styled reasonable Republican agreed to put lipstick on the far-rights pig, that swine might still have been slaughtered. MacArthurs amendment may have marginalized the other moderates, but as of early this week, the Tuesday Group seemed more in the mood for excommunicating its turncoat than accepting Trumpcare 2.0. And then Fred Upton debuted the years most effective bit of political theater. The Michigan representative was known as a reliable vote for the GOPs leadership one who had been instrumental in getting the original health-care bill out of committee. So, when Upton declared his opposition to the new bill Tuesday morning, Trumpcare was once again pronounced dead. But this climactic crisis only served to heighten the catharsis of the House GOPs happy ending. On Wednesday morning, the president and Upton agreed on a game-changing compromise: The new bill would set aside $8 billion over five years to fund high-risk pools for people with preexisting conditions in states that opted to abolish their protections. As with the MacArthur Amendment, this proposal didnt actually offer moderates anything of substance. The conservative American Enterprise Institute estimates that such high-risk pools can only be maintained with outlays of $15 to $20 billion a year. And the bill already included a $130 billion slush fund for states to use to ameliorate various problems the legislation might create. Out: the Cornhusker Kickback In: the Michigan Morsel https://t.co/5Hmtt7BU3J Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) May 3, 2017 Upton amendment works out to $1.6 billion per year. Context: Cowboys stadium: $1.3B New aircraft carrier: $13B GOP Medicaid cut: $880B Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) May 3, 2017 But if the Michigan Morsel changed nothing substantively, it did change things politically, creating a sense of momentum that House moderates proved ill-equipped to resist. 4. Mike Pence has credibility with the Koch brothers. One of the many obstacles to Trumpcares passage in March was the opposition of conservative outside groups. The White House may not have won over any of the health-care sectors actual stakeholders, but the vice-president was able to sell the new bill to the far-right-funding billionaires. The framework for a deal began when Pence doggedly worked the phones and scheduled meetings to explain the provision [allowing states to opt out of Obamacare rules] to outside groups, Tim Phillips, president of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, told Politico. It needed to be someone really credible since there was no language, and that was him. 5. Obamacare is not working well in Iowa. Per Politico: The last insurer on Iowas exchange pulled out the day before the vote, leaving thousands without an option to purchase insurance. That troubled Rep. David Young (R-Iowa.), who had remained opposed to the measure throughout the talks. The vulnerable Republican felt compelled to vote for a replacement in light of his home-state situation. In a meeting with Ryan, McCarthy and Scalise just hours before the vote, he delivered them the news. 6. The anti-Trump resistance scared the hell out of the House GOP. Many observers interpreted Thursdays vote as a testament to the progressive movements fatigue but ironically, it may have actually been a reaction to the resistances vitality. As the Washington Post reports: As GOP leaders scrambled to bring the last holdouts aboard in recent days, they made the argument that the liberal base is already on fire, anxious to take back control of the House in next years midterm elections. That means Republicans could ill afford to fall short on their health-care promise and risk depressing their own turnout. It may have been political suicide for vulnerable House Republicans to vote for this monstrosity. But in era of hyperpolarization where elections are often determined by mobilization, not persuasion many embattled GOP incumbents decided theyd rather risk alienating the middle than disappointing the conservative base. If Trumpcare dies in the Senate, this may prove to be a decent bet. 7. The Houses Republican moderates lack an independent donor base, and a spine. When they could share the blame for Trumpcares failure with their partys far-right fringe, House moderates were happy to put the interests of their constituents above the presidents self-esteem. But once the Freedom Caucus and Tom MacArthur conspired to isolate them, many sacrificed their most vulnerable voters to give Trump his desired photo op. Whatever political pressures were marshaled against them, they did not have to do this. America is not (yet) an authoritarian country. Trump would have punished dissenters with angry tweets, not a breakfast of polonium. Anyone who understood the cruelty of the bill one month ago but voted for it yesterday is a repulsive coward. But as Voxs Matt Yglesias notes, the power structures of the American right make moderate Republicans ripe for repulsive cowardice: Moderate Democrats have a separate and oftentimes larger donor base than progressive ones, drawn from the ranks of lobbyists and others in the business community. Moderate Republicans fish in the same big-money ponds as their more conservative colleagues, but the conservatives can also fall back on grassroots donors whom the moderates dont have. The moderates distinct value-add is they will reliably deliver yes votes for bipartisan deals the GOP leadership makes that the base doesnt like. That earns them brownie points from leaders and moderation points from less conservative voters. But they dont have a separate institutional leg to stand on in order to fight against the party leadership. The Freedom Caucus, by contrast, has a distinct base of donors among grassroots activists and eccentric far-right billionaires. In other words, Trumpcare passed the House for the same reason Trump became president and the Earth is fast-becoming unfit for human civilization: Politicians are more afraid of libertarian billionaires than an actual populist revolt. Guns dont kill people, lax gun laws allow ISIS to kill people. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images In the United States, you can buy semi-automatic weapon without submitting yourself to a background check, so long as you make your purchase at a gun show. Roughly 90 percent of Americans object to this policy. But the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) like it a lot. The NRA likes the gun-show loophole because the organization is funded by firearms manufacturers who would like to continue making money selling weapons to criminals. (A large majority of the NRAs members support universal background checks, even as the organization does everything in its power to prevent their enactment.) It isnt too hard to guess why ISIS also approves of Americas lax gun regulations. But theres no need for guessing. They say the Americans are dumb they have open gun policies, an ISIS recruit told the New York Times last year. They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no prior record, they can buy guns, so we dont need to have a contact man who has to provide guns for them. In the most recent issue of its magazine, Rumiyah, the terror group lays out its thoughts on American gun-control laws in more detail, as the Washington Post reports. The acquisition of firearms can be very simple depending on ones geographical location, the essay reads. In most U.S. states, anything from a single-shot shotgun all the way up to a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle can be purchased at showrooms or through online sales by way of private dealers with no background checks, and without requiring either an ID or a gun license. With approximately 5,000 gun shows taking place annually within the United States, it continues, the acquisition of firearms becomes a very easy matter. ISIS is far from the first terror group to extol the virtues of the gun-show loophole. The so-called Islamic State and Al Qaeda have had their differences. But they both agree that the NRAs preferred policies make life a lot easier for terrorists. America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms, an Al Qaeda spokesman told fellow militants in a video obtained by CNN in 2013. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for? Americans have long associated terrorism with explosives, rather than firearms. But as the latter have become evermore abundant and lethal, terrorists have gravitated toward them. The article in ISISs magazine implores its readers to take and kill hostages in the name of the Islamic State and describes guns as the perfect tool for such an activity, citing the assault on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last summer as a model worth emulating. Last November, a North Carolina man pleaded guilty to plotting a mass shooting in ISISs name. He had planned to purchase his weapon at a gun show. A vandalized poster of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images The campaign for Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who is currently expected to win Sundays high-stakes presidential election in France, claimed on Friday night that it had been hacked and that thousands of its emails and documents had been stolen and subsequently released in an effort to derail the race. The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information, Macrons campaign said in a statement. About nine gigabytes of data were posted to the anonymous document-sharing site Pastebin by a user named EMLEAKS on Friday and further disseminated by users of the bulletin board 4Chan. The campaign says that both authentic and fake documents were published in the dump. French election authorities are now investigating the Macron campaigns claims and urging the countrys media outlets not to report on the data. Macron is facing off against far-right populist and nationalist Marine Le Pen in a runoff election on Sunday, and he had further expanded his lead over Le Pen in opinion poll results that were released on Friday. The election is widely considered the most important French presidential race in decades, particularly since a win by Le Pen would likely put both France and Europe on the path to dramatic and right-ward changes though its worth adding that in many ways, the real strength of the next French president will not be decided until next months parliamentary elections. Midnight Friday was also the official end of campaigning in France and the beginning of a legally mandated ban on campaign communications through the election, meaning that neither the Macron campaign nor the Le Pen campaign will be able to comment on the contents of the hacked data. Indeed, the Macron campaign reported the hack just minutes before the communications ban went into effect. The vice-president of Le Pens National Front political party also publicized the #Macronleaks on Twitter before the communications ban, alleging that the data might expose Macron in ways the countrys media never would. Frances National Commission for Control of the Electoral Campaign, however, has warned French media outlets not to report on the contents of the hack, reminding them that the dissemination of false information is against the law. The Macron campaign made a similar request in its statement on Friday. The commission went even further in a statement issued on Saturday, insisting that, On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot. Coverage on social media and outside of France is another matter, however, and some members of the American far right have already been working to publicize the data dump, following earlier, coordinated digital efforts to aid the Le Pen campaign. What the ultimate impact of those efforts will be is not yet clear, but so far the social media conversation around the Macron data has apparently been mostly limited to members of Frances far right, rather than the wider electorate. As part of a general warning to media outlets about reporting on the data dump, technology scholar Zeynep Tufekci notes the shady U.S. connection in a piece at BuzzFeed: [S]ome of [these]facts arent facts at all. These days, hacks are primarily fodder for a misinformation campaign to be conducted mostly online. Researchers have already found that pro-Trump Twitter accounts (with #maga, or make America great again, in their handles) are heavily promoting Marine Le Pen, and the leak hashtag may well have started in the US by an alt-right Trump supporter. Reporters have already documented the 4chan trolls actively promoting fake claims of corruption, and watching with glee as traditional media tried to debunk the claims because debunking is a form of repeating false claims and giving them more publicity. She adds that the Macron data dump was clearly meant to spread misinformation in an act of asymmetrical political sabotage, and as such, should be treated and reported on accordingly. As far as who carried out the attack, the New York Times reports that some security experts believe that, as was allegedly the case regarding attempts to disrupt and intervene in the U.S. presidential election last year, Russia-linked hackers are likely behind the attack on the Macron campaign. Le Pen has clearly been the preferred candidate of the Russian regime, having received preferential coverage from Russian state-run media as well as Russian financial support over the years for her and her National Front Party. The Macron campaign was also targeted by a sophisticated phishing attack in March, according to cybersecurity experts. There was also a debunked rumor, based on a forged documents shared on social media, that Macron held offshore bank accounts an allegation that Le Pen herself helped publicize during Wednesdays televised debate. Le Pens campaign has said that it has also been the target of hacking attempts and this week reported that French police had arrested a suspect with ties to the extreme left in relation to those attacks though that report has not been confirmed, and it does not appear that any of the Le Pen campaigns documents were compromised. Veteran vote suppressor Karen Handel displeased with judicial order reopening registration until May 21. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images It may or may not matter in the results of the June 20 runoff for Congress in the sixth district of Georgia. But it could not hurt the field-heavy Jon Ossoff campaign that a federal judge has struck down the states early deadline on voter registration for the runoff, reopening it until May 21, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten made the ruling as part of a broader lawsuit by a Washington-based advocacy group, which last month accused Georgia of violating federal law by reducing the amount of time residents have to register to vote. Voter registration shut down March 20 ahead of the deciding runoff June 20 for the 6th District election, which is being held in the northern suburbs of metro Atlanta. Batten, however, ordered registration immediately reopened until May 21. It probably tells you everything you need to know about the likely impact that Ossoff praised the judges decision while opponent Karen Handel attacked it. Meanwhile, Georgias Republican secretary of State, Brian Kemp (a candidate for governor next year) called the underlying suit a political effort by liberal groups to attack him as a Republican officeholder. As voting-rights expert Ari Berman noted, registration is on the rise in Georgia: Voter registration is surging in Georgia 464,000 more people have registered this year than during the last non-presidential-election year (559,000 voter-registration applications this year compared with 95,000 in 2015). Ossoffs campaign said it is registering more than a hundred new voters a day. Theres some rough justice, moreover, in Handel being negatively affected by the dismantling of a barrier to full voter participation: As Georgia secretary of state from 2006 to 2009, Karen Handel had a long record of making it harder to vote, supporting Georgias strict voter-ID law, trying to purge thousands of eligible voters from the rolls before the 2008 election, and repeatedly challenging the residency of qualified Democratic candidates. This is a do-or-die election for Karen Handel, who lost statewide primary bids in 2010 and 2014. Her political career may yet live by the voter-suppression sword and die by the voter-registration sword. brilliant compilation, OP. That biopic deserved better, so did Nina. ugh. Reply Thread Link I was a toss up between this gif and the picture. But, I loved that she looks like a plum fool in the pic. Reply Parent Thread Link this is all that played in my head. Reply Parent Thread Link She has always been the fucking worst and is one more reason to not watch Nu!Trek. Uhura deserves better. I just want to smack her. Reply Thread Link Sulu and Chekov (RIP Anton) tho Reply Parent Thread Link Anton :'( Reply Parent Thread Link lmao she is just so dumb. so fucking dumb. Reply Thread Link zoe is excruciatingly dumb. like, i get the impression that plenty of celebs are dumb yet they don't present themselves as anything different? but zoe is that dangerous combination of ignorant and tone deaf. Reply Parent Thread Link Mte. She also thinks she's super smart and dropping some major truths with all of her nonsense, which is probably the worst combination of personality traits. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link yeah and there are a handful of celebs who identify the dumb shit they say and try to change...zoe just doubles down lmao Reply Parent Thread Link [I could] end up with a woman raising my children that's how androgynous I am. I was raised that open. I love this one as well:[I could] end up with a woman raising my children that's howI am. I was raised that open. Reply Thread Link omg lmao Reply Parent Thread Link what the fuck lmao Reply Parent Thread Link That was the moment I knew this woman ain't have no sense in her head Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link lol Reply Parent Thread Link LOL Reply Parent Thread Link yes! this one was a classic! Reply Parent Thread Link lol Reply Parent Thread Link lol i think this was like the first quote where i was like "something's not right with this one" Reply Parent Thread Link I hate her sf much omg Reply Parent Thread Link lmaoo Reply Parent Thread Link Lmfaoooo dead Reply Parent Thread Link lmfao Reply Parent Thread Link Isn't the dictionary free, I mean..? Reply Parent Thread Link LMAO Reply Parent Thread Link Hahahahahahahaha ow the stupid, it hurts! Reply Parent Thread Link these were some worthy choices lmao, but you're missing the androgyny quote and how she's soooo androgynous, she might even have a woman raise her kids!! Reply Thread Link I totally forgot that one! Reply Parent Thread Link I'm still not over "people have lives". that had nothing to do with the BS point she was talking about not two words earlier. Reply Thread Link that quote was some next level shit... Reply Parent Thread Link this was so frustrating to read as a black latina myself lol. any time i kept hoping she'd learn, she would end up saying something even more stupid. Reply Thread Link At this point, she is quickly approaching Ben Carson levels of "cooning/self-hatred". Where did we (Black people in general because I am African-American) go wrong? Reply Parent Thread Link I'm going to be chewing on the American is viewed as ethnic outside america (I think?) for the rest of the day. Are the hamsters running her brain drunk? Reply Thread Link if you can figure it out please let me know. Reply Parent Thread Link Maybe I should involve some alcohol Reply Parent Thread Link It sounds like she's going for something in the same vein as, "Americans think people from England have accents, but if you put an American in England, then the American is the one with an accent!" Reply Parent Thread Link I have such a hard time taking her seriously after reading all the things she says gl Reply Thread Link Damn, she's so dumb it's pitiful. Reply Thread Link Her quotes aren't confusing. They're dumb and ignorant. Reply Thread Link I was trying not to be rude. even my tags are nice. :) Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link @ zoe Reply Thread Link lmaooo Reply Parent Thread Link Yes, it is everyone else not her. Reply Parent Thread Link right? it's not like ppl are twisting her words. Reply Parent Thread Link You have to have some degree of competency to be a villain. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Hi Zoe Reply Parent Thread Expand Link wow how dare we call her out for stupid, problematic, offensive statements she has made!!! how dare we!!!! newsflash: 80% of ontd is posts like this, if you don't like it leave your bags at the door. Reply Parent Thread Link no one said she's a villain? Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao Reply Parent Thread Link It's not a matter of people dissecting her words, it's her words that are the problem. I honestly didn't realize how bad it was until I read some of her interviews and I'm like "WTF? Seriously?" As a woman of color, it pisses me off. I think at this point it's giving her too much credit to learn about racial issues she doesn't understand because she doesn't want to and straight up dismisses anyone who tries to say why she's wrong. That's basking in ignorance. Reply Parent Thread Link You can log out at any time. Reply Parent Thread Link finally, a list i can get into...great post, op. lol someone got ~madt at me in the last post for saying that zoe's the worst, so i hope now that they can see for themselves just how fucking ignorant she is, bless. Edited at 2017-05-06 02:54 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link They need to face reality tbh. I used to cut her more slack than I normally would bc she's a poc but she crossed into fuck you forever territory with Nina and has never looked back. Reply Parent Thread Link same...can you believe she actually fixed her mouth to say that no one knew who tf nina simone was?! unbelievable. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm glad the images will have to be labeled. I don't know how the health certificate thing is gonna regulated. Maybe you'll need a license to be a model or just show the certificate at every job? its an interesting idea Reply Thread Link I imagine you'd have to get it renewed annually. Like, a doctor's visit. Reply Parent Thread Link idk how is elsewhere but where I live, you need a medical certificate before you can start any kind of job so maybe in this case, a modelling agency won't be able to sign up a model unless they pass the exam? Reply Parent Thread Link I just knew you had to be from EEurope, pr sure it's similar in my country Reply Parent Thread Link i live in the Czech Republic an it's the same here. i don't view it as invasive, it seems completely normal to me Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i'm from south america and although we don't need a certificate for every job, you must present it to high school, university or government jobs, even some gyms require it and you must renew it every two years. didn't know it was uncommon Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah, I imagine it won't be difficult to find a doctor willing to sign off on anyone for the right price. Reply Parent Thread Link tbh I work in the modeling industry, and I LOVE the opportunities (like.. IN love with them, even), but knowing how the whole thing works... I have a feeling it won't really be enforced Reply Parent Thread Link Feels like carrying water to the sea, but maybe the gesture can start something. Reply Thread Link I get that they think its intent is good but this just looks like more policing of women's bodies. Reply Thread Link I can understand where you're coming from but I don't think people naturally have a bmi of 16/17. Reply Parent Thread Link I do lol Reply Parent Thread Link I'm pretty sure my sister does, and she's always been very slim. Several women in my family are the same and quite tall (though there are several women in my family who are also very short - under 5 feet - and curvy). Reply Parent Thread Link It's policing an industry that polices women's bodies. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Not at all. Reply Parent Thread Link girl, you got it all wrong. Reply Parent Thread Link You have to pass physical exams for certain jobs. This isn't an alien request. Reply Parent Thread Link So you'd rather have someone with a BMI of 4? Reply Parent Thread Link ia tbh. I just feel like the fashion industry won't try to change and somehow the burden will fall on the women. like anorexia weight checks, they might try chugging tons of water before going to the doctor and then continue to starve themselves after regulations should be placed on the industry somehow, like the photoshop requirement. maybe age restrictions so teen models don't develop messed up body image issues at a young age. Reply Parent Thread Link I agree. I think this is invasive and gross. It reminds me of the way society approaches prostitution, where we arrest the sex workers, who are (often) runaways or victims of abuse, because, oh hey, they're def the ones in power. I'm going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb here, but I just don't think the model throwing up in the bathroom in order to get work is the person in this societal situation who has, you know, the apex of power. Is there some goddamn reason we can't focus on the fulcrum of power instead? Reply Parent Thread Link Good, it's about time! Reply Thread Link I don't think this "challenges" eating disorders but I guess it can prevent agencies from employing dangerous practices/rules. Reply Thread Link I'm not sure it will have much of an impact on the models unfortunately, but I think for the people who see these ultra thin women, if definitely screws with you so if that isn't allowed any more, maybe it will help somebody. Reply Parent Thread Link in a way it's really sad that countries have to pass laws about underweight models. it goes to show you how shitty the fashion industries is. It doesn't give a fuck about women. It starves them to work for them, takes money from hard working women, and tells them they're not enough if they don't conform. Reply Thread Link excellent Reply Thread Link I wonder if this will really make a difference, or if models will gain weight for their medical exams, and then try to lose it all again to work - kind of like a reversal of what wrestlers do. Reply Parent Thread Link 100% models will. A lot of them rely on modeling to pay their bills, and they have the mindset that you've gotta do what you've gotta do Reply Parent Thread Link I think, as you say, the models will gain weight to pass the exam. Focusing this effort on the models themselves is fucking useless, imo. If actual change is desired, then the focus of the law needs to be on the people like magazine editors. The big Vogue editor just got made a dame. The law needs to focus its efforts on people like her, who actually wields the real power, rather than the models who are basically in a vulnerable and exploitable position. Fashion house heads, designers, photographers, make THESE people get invasive exams and fines and whatever the hell. THEN change might happen. Until then, it's just another message to these women that their bodies are commodoties that other people have a say in controlling. Reply Parent Thread Link It's great that they're doing something about this, and hopefully it will stop agencies from making models starve themselves in hopes of getting a job. I do wonder how this will affect models who are naturally very thin. Reply Thread Link Hopefully they'll be doing tests with blood, urine, psychological questionnaires etc. In an industry that hires such young people and is as physically and mentally exhausting as modelling I think it's just generally important anyway to keep a check on their well-being. Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao people always talking about all these naturally thin models like they're gonna need a support group what is it with ontd I don't hear this shit anywhere else If models took care of themselves thered be like 3 that still look the way they look today Reply Parent Thread Link interesting post Reply Thread Link I'm so exhausted I legit read the title as models having to get a degree in the medical field, I was like "yeah good luck with that". Reply Thread Link I read it as models needing a doctorate and I was like "what???" Reply Parent Thread Link same, i was like "damn all of a sudden a new career opportunity pops up" Reply Parent Thread Link LMAOOOOOOOO Reply Parent Thread Link I did too and I thought well that's good they have something to fall back on LMAO Reply Parent Thread Link Imagine Kendall Jenner getting a medical degree. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm not sure how this will play out in practice, I hope the legislation is robust enough that you can't (easily) just find a dr and pay them off so they'll sign off on you, and also that it gets reviewed regularly enough to make it worth it. I mean, what is in place to punish people who try to get round this new system? Reply Thread Link I guess it'll come down to how many safeguards there are in place to ensure results stay honest and also by what metrics they'll measure health by. bmi is a start but doesn't always tell the full story. Reply Parent Thread Link That video/remix is the worst fucking thing I've ever seen and heard. Reply Thread Link Does he really think that Reply Thread Link i hate when one-hit wonders come out with remixes of their hit every few years. they all do this and nobody cares. stop it. Reply Thread Link Oh. No thank you. Reply Thread Link someone get us a post about noah's music video for a triple kill and like...cyrus cyrus or just cyrus like cher Reply Thread Link lmao at cyrus cyrus...just like humbert humbert. Reply Parent Thread Link literally no one asked for this. lol at the name change tho Reply Thread Link Lmao did he really say he was gonna go to the hospital to get his name changed? Like he thinks married couples and the like are queuing in the halls of hospitals waiting to fill out paperwork while nurses and doctors mad dash around them. Reply Thread Link I always went by Cyrus, and I begged Mercury Records to call me Cyrus in the beginning because thats what I was comfortable with. Im going to the hospital where I was born in Bellefonte, Kentucky, and legally changing my name. Reply Parent Thread Link He sounds like he's having a mid-life crisis. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link maybe he's smoking weed now that miley isn't? Reply Parent Thread Link I think Miley gave him all her leftover drugs Reply Parent Thread Link time has not been kind to him he looks terribl Reply Thread Link This is probably the most "who asked for this" thing of 2017. He was daddy af when Hannah Montana first started tho ngl Reply Thread Link ur like 60, pls stop /ageism/ Reply Thread Link I'm sure he will shoot straight to the top with this genius career move Reply Thread Link Cyrus Cyrus? Ok. Reply Thread Link The Billings Police Department is asking for help in finding a missing man. Steven Douglas Nelson was last seen Friday at about 1 p.m. The 70-year-old Caucasian male is 6 foot 2 inches tall, 185 pounds with white hair and hazel eyes. Nelson was last seen wearing blue jeans, a button-up shirt, cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat. He was driving a blue 2008 Ford F-350 pickup, with the license plate 3-24713A. Anyone who has information should call the police department at 657-8200. Has ol' fartface tweeted about this yet? Reply Thread Link not yet. Reply Parent Thread Link The Fake News media is officially out of control. They will do or say anything in order to get attention - never been a time like this! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 4, 2017 maybe this? Reply Parent Thread Link ty for this!! Turned off the song the second I heard Justin's vocals so that was A Mistake on their part tbh Reply Parent Thread Link Listening to the song, I can hear how Rihanna might have fit in, especially the Oh-way-oh-way-oh part, but the tone suits Bieber's bland-ass white boy talk singing just fine. Bullet dodged for Rihanna, imo. Reply Parent Thread Link great. can she stop giving other pieces of shit a platform too? like bieber? Reply Thread Link You can dislike Bieber, but he's not on Trump's level. This pained me to say because I can't stand Bieber but they're still not in the same lane. Reply Parent Thread Link no i know, but it just bothers me that she keeps giving me a platform every time he does something awful. Reply Parent Thread Link what about, say, joking around with and humanizing piece of shit war criminal gw bush two months ago? Reply Parent Thread Link Is Bieber your president? Reply Parent Thread Link yet she had danny masterson on the other day.... Reply Thread Link She just has George W. Bush. Reply Parent Thread Link I like how his daughter in law is complaining about networks rejecting Trumps commercial about the media being fake news lol. Reply Thread Link Matt Lauer is stupid and I want justice for Ann Curry! This bitch keeps normalizing Trump and his whole "he doesn't hate the media" shit needs to stop, he's legit turning his supporters against you, stop defending him you dickheads. Reply Thread Link Do you think Tr**p looks gassy? I bet he stinks up the room all the time Reply Thread Link I heard he doesn't eat any fruit and veggies. I bet he spends, like, 40 minutes on the toilet Reply Parent Thread Expand Link tbh, I bet he's like a 7th-grade boy. He fucking BATHS in whatever the pointlessly expensive version of Axe spray is every few hours and forces everyone to suffer through the overwhelming garbage smell because it makes him feel like ~a man~ Reply Parent Thread Link Fucking good, I'm so sick of ~liberal~ people acting like giving assholes like him the spotlight only "shows how wrong/dumb they are" like how much evidence do you need of the FUCKING OPPOSITE happening for you to understand?????? Reply Thread Link Seth Meyers has always refused to have him on, all during the election, and that's even more impressive because he's on NBC (the network who's still protecting Trump by refusing to release The Apprentice tapes, and the network who tried their hardest to normalize Trump on all their other shows--Jimmy Fallon, you a-hole, I will never forgive you or forget. ). Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly. Tired of the left trying to offer a level playing field to BIGOTRY Reply Parent Thread Link That is such a succinct way of putting it, thank you, I'm going to use that from now on whenever people are like, "well we should give them a chance to talk." Reply Parent Thread Link I would beg to have him on so I could ask him questions and watch him squirm to ignore answering them. It's not like they have to lick his asshole on screen if he agrees to an interview. And if they do make you sign some terms beforehand, fuck it. What are they going to do? Arrest somebody? There's a surefire way to get in the history books and get the nation riled up again. Reply Parent Thread Link There were a lot of people during his campaign who were working under the delusion that being balanced/impartial means giving everybody equal airtime. Which just isn't true. Being balanced and impartial still allows you to judge which viewpoints are grounded enough in fact to deserve an airing. Now that idea seems to have shifted to being a mix of respect for the office and this patently dumb idea that when you give a demagogue a platform everybody immediately understands they're talking shit. Which... FFS, if that were true demagogues wouldn't be so bloody dangerous Reply Parent Thread Link i have already turned down numerous offers to appear on failing Ellen show. so many lies from the fake lamestream media. sad! Reply Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link This is probably spot on Reply Parent Thread Link lolol this is exactly what he would say Reply Parent Thread Link @AshLeeStrong Hi! I'm the managing editor for @Snopes and we'd also love links to back this claim + the current score. Thanks! Brooke Binkowski (@brooklynmarie) 6. Mai 2017 Reply Thread Link AshLee Strong: Reply Parent Thread Link Paul ryan's groupies are claiming that this version of the bill has been scored by the CBO and went through 4 committees. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link There is only a CBO score for the first time? The version the House passed did NOT have a CBO score prior to passing. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link she's Paul Ryan's press secretary Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Does this bitch really spell her name AshLee Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link lmao get ha i hate these fucking people and their bald faced lies Reply Parent Thread Link should i have hope? Reply Parent Thread Link maybe Reply Parent Thread Link Is something going on? I try and follow as much as I can but lately Ive been kinda out of touch. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link They fucking better. MY HEART CANNOT TAKE ANYMORE, I NEED RESULTS. Reply Parent Thread Link Jared's family is hocking "investor visas" to wealthy Chinese citizens who invest in their real estate project. Nope, nothing to see here. George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 6, 2017 Reply Thread Link No wonder why Jared and Ivanka are compatible. Reply Parent Thread Link Also the PR person there asked a WaPost journalist to leave bc that's not the story they want or some shit Reply Parent Thread Link Who's looking forward to Sally Yates' testimony on tuesday??? Reply Thread Link Me! I have the day off. Reply Parent Thread Link this is really the only acceptable level of enthusiasm Reply Parent Thread Link I'm trying to not get my hopes up TOO much. I suspect we're just going to get confirmed what we basically know which is that Yates warned the administration about Flynn's Russian ties. Reply Parent Thread Link I know she ain't shit sometimes but I would have honestly been shocked if she ever had him on her show. Reply Thread Link I wouldn't. She just has George W. Bush on. Reply Parent Thread Link Edited at 2017-05-06 09:31 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link oh Reply Parent Thread Link this would be funnier if Bush hadn't actually killed a bunch of people :( Reply Parent Thread Link Memories, President knew how to duck :) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link he's an artist now so it's cool Reply Parent Thread Link "The medias new praise for Bush is indicative of historical amnesia; this was, after all, the man who dismissed predictive intelligence in advance of the most devastating terror attack in US history; who codified torture into US law, started a war of choice in Iraq that killed an estimated half million people, and finger-picked while Katrina flooded, let the country slip into the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and tried to implement the first version of Trumps Muslim ban into place some 14 years ago. (It was, thankfully, just as successful as Trumps first attempt.) After Bushs appearance on Today, he made the media rounds. He appeared on the Ellen Show (3/2/17) on March 2 and posed for pictures on the hosts Instagram account. The chummy pictures and friendly interview might make one forget that Bush called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004 in a blatant ploy for reelection." Source pic.twitter.com/1vSJxV2E5Z Nick Wiger (@nickwiger) May 5, 2017 Edited at 2017-05-06 09:55 pm (UTC) lol yep"The medias new praise for Bush is indicative of historical amnesia; this was, after all, the man who dismissed predictive intelligence in advance of the most devastating terror attack in US history; who codified torture into US law, started a war of choice in Iraq that killed an estimated half million people, and finger-picked while Katrina flooded, let the country slip into the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and tried to implement the first version of Trumps Muslim ban into place some 14 years ago. (It was, thankfully, just as successful as Trumps first attempt.)After Bushs appearance on Today, he made the media rounds. He appeared on the Ellen Show (3/2/17) on March 2 and posed for pictures on the hosts Instagram account. The chummy pictures and friendly interview might make one forget that Bush called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004 in a blatant ploy for reelection." Reply Parent Thread Link he is a cute grandpa and paints and has doggies so everything is forgiven and forgotten :D Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Bush was bad, but obviously Trump is on a whole other level. Don't be obtuse. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link So far in 2017 a number of global energy experts and commodities watchers have looked beyond the current reporting period and they see a growing long term demand for oil and gas. Chevron CEO John Watson on Monday warned that U.S. shale oil alone cannot meet the worlds growing appetite for crude oil, CNBC reported this week. Shale can help. Certainly, between now and the end of the decade it will be a big contributor to meeting that million-barrels-of-oil-demand growth thats out there, Watson told CNBCs Power Lunch on the sidelines of the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles. But ultimately oil fields decline, and were going to need all sources of supply, including the shales, but also deepwater and other sources around the world, Watson told CNBC. Watsons comments mirror the oil market outlook put forth in January 2017 by Jeff Currie, Global Head of Commodities Research, Goldman Sachs. Currie said his group believes U.S. shale has ushered in a new era of price volatility but that the overall demand-supply fundamentals call for a bullish outlook for oil. Its that scarcity premium thats driving our positive outlook on oil and commodities, not higher prices, Currie said. More people: big cities are going to become much bigger megacities. ExxonMobils EnergyFactor blog this week pointed out some facts about the worlds population that could make you wonder if there is going to be enough oil or natural gas in the worlds formations to handle the vast energy needs lurking just over the horizonespecially for the 37 largest megacities outlined in a new report from Demographia. The megacities are topped right now by Japans Tokyo-Yokohama at almost 38 million people. Thats three million more people than live in the entire country of Canada, all living in one geographic metroplex. Twenty-five years ago there were only 10 urban areas in the world that could boast more than 10 million inhabitants. Now there are more than 35 so-called megacities worldwide, and by 2040 the United Nations estimates that nearly 65 percent of the worlds population will call cities home, Exxon reported. (Click to enlarge) Source: Geographia According to Demographias latest World Urban Areas 13th Annual Edition, 37 urban areas provide habitat for at least 10 million people in 2016. The largest 12 metropolitan areas are home to almost 300 million people in those 12 cities alone. And theyre going to get bigger according to the report. Exxon forecasts energy demand rising 25 percent by 2040, but governments look toward economy Referencing its Outlook for Energy, Exxon predicts global energy demand will increase by 25 percent over the same period. But if up to 65 percent of the globes human population is living in cities by 2040, there should be screaming demand growth for electricity and transportation fuels of all kinds. In its energy blog Exxon looks at five of the smaller metropolises12 million down to 7.5 millionwhere it says governments are stepping in to change the energy mix. Increasing urbanization means governments are already changing their energy footprints. Heres how: - Shenzhen, China (12 million people): installing efficient technologies in office buildings According to Exxon, Shenzhen was little more than a sleepy fishing village bordering Hong Kong when the Chinese government made it one of the countrys first Special Economic Zones in 1979. The move unlocked foreign investment, and the population skyrocketed to over 12 million. Today Shenzhens factories produce 90 percent of the worlds electronics, including Apples iPhone. All of these factories consume a lot of energy, but the local government is working with various private companies to install efficient technologies in office buildings. One of the best contemporary examples are the offices of the appropriately named Shenzhen Institute of Building Research, where natural ventilation uses 30 percent less air conditioning than a comparable building in the city, and daylight for office spaces reduces the need for artificial lighting. Moreover, the city has a program that allows building owners to use the cost savings from reduced energy consumption to pay for efficiency upgrades. - Tianjin, China (11 million people): green building codes target energy efficiency According to Exxon, Tianjin, a walled city founded in the 15th century, has a population of 11 million. In 2005, the local government began enforcing tough new energy-efficiency building codes that include increasing heat retention in buildings during the citys chilly winters and natural shading for Tianjins hot summers. According to the Energy Foundation of China, by 2020 over 75 percent of new buildings will meet energy-efficiency standards. By 2030 the local government expects over 90 percent of new buildings to be green buildings. Even residents of older buildings are benefitting from requirements to upgrade their insulation or heating systems. The Tianjin Housing and Urban-Rural Development Commission estimates that 60 percent of residents in an energy-efficiency pilot program paid less in heating costs than they did before the building codes went into effect. - Hyderabad, India (10 million people): energy-saving building codes, solar incentives to stop outages According to Exxon, By 2020 Hyderabad will have 10 million inhabitants, up almost 2.5 million from its current population. This rapid growth comes with its share of challenges, including regular power outages that threaten the citys growing IT industry. To solve their energy problems, city leaders adopted an energy-saving building code in 2012. In addition, incentives for installing rooftop solar panels adopted in 2015 cut through what was previously a stifling bureaucratic process, guaranteeing that applications for rooftop solar panels are processed in weeks. - Bangalore, India (10 million people): government may make rooftop solar mandatory According to Exxon, With a thriving tech scene, Bangalore is one of the worlds fastest-growing cities. However, the citys infrastructure is struggling to keep up with its burgeoning population, resulting in an average of over 50 power outages a day. Many in Bangalore use diesel generators as backup, but Indias Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) believes that making rooftop solar panels mandatory could help curb the use of the generators, providing another source of household electricity and improving air quality. - Onitsha, Nigeria (7.5 million people): switching to energy-efficient household appliances According to Exxon, Few people outside of West Africa have heard of Onitsha, but the port city on the banks of the Niger River boasts a population of almost 7.5 million. Residents of this rapidly expanding city use a mix of oil, natural gas, solar, wind power and biomass to deliver energy. Onitsha is less developed than similarly sized cities in China and India, but the citys rising middle class is hungry to make the switch to modern, energy-efficient household appliances, a change that USAID and the Nigerian Energy Support Program estimate could reduce energy consumption by as much as 40 percent. Energy demand will rise by 30 percent: IEA Related: Oil Prices Turn Corner After WTI Dips Below $45 In its World Energy Outlook 2016, the International Energy Agency (IEA) tops Exxons 25 percent demand increase, predicting instead a 30 percent rise in global energy demand by 2040. The International Energy Agency said that a 30 percent rise in global energy demand means an increase in consumption for all modern fuels, but the global aggregates mask a multitude of diverse trends and significant switching between fuels. For 2016, the IEAs Oil Market Report forecasts worldwide average demand of nearly 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels per day. But the agency says much higher consumption is on the horizon. Natural gas sees higher consumption, oil tops 103 MMBOPD, coal grinds to a halt: IEA - Natural gas fares best among the fossil fuels, with consumption rising by 50 percent. - Growth in oil demand slows over the projection period, but tops 103 MMBOPD by 2040. - Coal use is hit hard by environmental concerns and, after the rapid expansion of recent years, growth essentially grinds to a halt. - An increase in nuclear output is spurred mainly by deployment in China. In developed countries energy demand is falling; but Asias developing countries will consume more oil than the entire OECD: IEA With total demand in OECD countries on a declining path, the geography of global energy consumption continues to shift towards industrializing, urbanizing India, Southeast Asia and China, as well as parts of Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, according to the agency. China and India see the largest expansion of solar photovoltaics (PV); while by the mid-2030s developing countries in Asia consume more oil than the entire OECD. Even in its +30 percent scenario, hundreds of millions lack basic energy services by 2040: IEA The agency believes hundreds of millions of people are still left in 2040 without basic energy services large swathes of the global population are set to remain without modern energy, according to the IEA projection. That would lead to the need for further infrastructure build-out along with a lot more fuel to meet demand in developing countries after 2040. More than half a billion people, increasingly concentrated in rural areas of subSaharan Africa, are still without access to electricity in 2040 (down from 1.2 billion today). Around 1.8 billion remain reliant on solid biomass as a cooking fuel (down by a third on todays 2.7 billion); this means continued exposure to the smoky indoor environments that are currently linked to 3.5 million premature deaths each year, the IEA reports. $44 trillion needed to fill the worlds coming energy needs: IEA According to the IEA, the world needs $44 trillion in investment in global energy supply to fill the coming energy needs. Here is how the agency breaks it out: - 60 percent $26 trillion goes to oil, gas and coal extraction and supply, including power plants using these fuels; - 20 percent $8.8 trillion goes to renewable energies. In addition to that investment, the agency calls for an extra $23 trillion for improvements in energy efficiency. In 2000- 2015, close to 70 percent of total supply investment went to fossil fuels. The IEA projection through 2040 drops fossil fuels to 60 percent and represents a significant reallocation of capital, especially given the expectation of continued cost declines for key renewable energy technologies, the IEA says. Tightening global hydrocarbons supply: decline curves dont go away The main stimulus for upstream oil and gas investment is the decline in production from existing fields, the IEA says, confirming the sentiment frequently expressed by oil and gas company CEOs, including David Demshur, CEO of global reservoir production enhancement technology leader Core Laboratories. During a Core Lab earnings call last summer, Demshur made some predictions based on his companys eight decades of studying global oil reservoirs. Core believes that worldwide crude oil supply and demand markets are close to balancing and will balance this second half of 2016. On the crude oil supply side, U.S. unconventional production peaked at 5.5 million barrels of oil per day in March of 2015, and has since fallen by over a million barrels a day owing to high decline curve rates associated with these tight oil reservoirs. Offsetting these sharp production declines have been additions of approximately 160,000 barrels a day from several deep water Gulf of Mexico legacy projects that were commissioned several years ago and started to bear fruit in late 2015/2016. These additions in no way will offset whats coming from the deductions that will occur on land throughout this year and into 2017. The sharp declines from U.S. land production are continuing in 2016, and Core believes these decreases could reach 1.1 million barrels of oil per day or more by year end. Lower levels of new wells and delayed production maintenance will exacerbate the fall in U.S. land production going into 2016/2017. Remember, production decline curves are linear in time but logarithmic in production declines. A year ago, month-over-month, the U.S. production declines were in the tens of thousands of barrels per day, per month. Now these month-over-month per day losses quite often reach 100,000 barrels of oil per day or more. So look for that to expand and continue to expand into late 2016 and into 2017. From these analyses, we would take the over on the drop of 1.1 million barrels per day by year-end, Core said on the call last July. The IEA believes the decline in global oil production through natural decline curves is equivalent to losing the current output of Iraq from the global balance every two years. The projected growth of global population and the demand for energy from the industrializing countries and their megacities, along with the oil and gas decline curves, the world could be looking at a decades-long growth cycle for E&P. When commodity demand is above commodity supply, deficits result, inventories are drawn down and scarcity premiums begin to ariseand thats whats driving our bullish expectations, Goldmans Global Head of Commodities Research Jeff Currie said. By Oil and Gas 360 More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Back in 1994, when the so-called Contract of the Century was signed, forming an international partnership to develop the giant Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil field, lots of experts believed that Azerbaijan would not have to worry about money for a long time. But just 23 years later, Azerbaijans government finds itself wrestling with revenue dilemmas. Today, Azerbaijan still holds roughly 7 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and produces 841,000 barrels on a daily basis. Yet that volume represents a significant drop from peak output of 1.1 million barrels a day in 2010. Lower yields, rising concerns about the depletion of reserves and falling world oil prices have sent Azerbaijan searching for alternative sources of revenue. Bakus chief hope is to develop its natural gas potential. According to conservative estimates, Azerbaijan sits atop 1.3 trillion cubic meters of gas and condensate, most of it in the offshore Shah Deniz field, which is believed to be among the largest in the world. Production there began in 2006, and is expected to increase significantly during the second development phase, currently underway. Azerbaijans ambition is to supply natural gas through Turkey, Greece, and Albania to Italy and the rest of Europe via the planned Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic (TAP) pipelines that will form the Southern Gas Corridor. Related: Tech Breakthroughs May Save Deepwater Oil Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2018, with around 4 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year slated for the Georgian and Turkish markets. The plan is to then expand this volume to 12 bcm a year in 2019, and finally to a full capacity of 16 billion cubic meters a year in 2020, 10 bcm of it headed for Europe. But even the boost from Shah Deniz exports is not projected to be enough to place Baku on sound financial ground. The ultimate success of Azerbaijans effort to emerge as a global natural gas power rests with new offshore exploration. One recent discovery, announced in 2010, is the Umid gas field in the south Caspian Sea, estimated to contain 200 billion cubic meters of gas and 40 million tons of condensate; the countrys state energy company, SOCAR, has been producing gas there since 2012, and has recently finished drilling the third well. Also of great promise is the adjacent Babak field, yet to be developed, with potential gas reserves of 400 billion cubic meters, plus 80 million tons of condensate. Further off the coast, the Shafag-Asiman field holds an additional 300 billion cubic meters of gas, which Azerbaijan plans to extract in an equal-share partnership with BP. (This field may contain oil too, according to a seismic survey.) And another offshore deposit, Nakhichevan, is being jointly explored with the German company RWE. The difference-maker for Azerbaijans ambitions as a gas exporter is the Absheron field, discovered in 2011. This fields development, currently in its first phase, could greatly boost potential supplies (its reserves are estimated at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate) capable of filling Europe-bound pipelines of the Southern Corridor. This could bolster Europe-bound flows from the Shah Deniz field, and ease concerns that the European Union might have over future supplies. All in all, according to SOCARs strategy document, these steps could expand Azerbaijans gas export volumes to a massive 40 bcm per year. The problem is that this will not happen until 2025 at the earliest, and in the meantime, Azerbaijan has several challenges to overcome. More importantly, it will be at least five years before Azerbaijan begins to see its anticipated windfall from natural gas. The Absheron field will not start producing until late 2021 or early 2022, and the first gas deliveries from Shah Deniz will not reach Europe until 2020 or later. For Baku, it may be a race against time. At present, Azerbaijan faces a gas shortage. It needs 12 billion cubic meters to satisfy its own domestic demand, and in 2016, it was forced to import around one-tenth of it from abroad. In fact, in the first five months of that year, SOCARs gas production had actually decreased by 5.4 percent compared to the same period in 2015. The fall triggered new discussions with Gazprom over potential gas imports from Russia, on the order of 3 bcm to 5 bcm per year, with Baku asking Moscow for a discount. Related: All Eyes On Saudi Arabia As OPEC Begins To Unravel Combined with low oil prices, this shortfall translates into a pressing cash flow problem. Azerbaijan has already had to borrow money around $5 billion from international financial institutions to fund its share of Southern Corridor construction costs. It has also sold $1 billion worth of Eurobonds, and is preparing to sell more, in addition to securing a $400 million loan from the World Bank. When it comes to the TAP project, where Azerbaijan is responsible for 20 percent of the costs, the EBRD has confirmed talks to provide about $550 million in direct financing and to attract another $1.1 billion from commercial banks. Azerbaijans high construction expenses are somewhat offset by the falling world price of steel, which is needed for pipelines; Baku has saved $2 billion on TANAP alone. But its budget is still strained, forcing it to prioritize some energy development projects over others. This will likely leave it focused on the Shah Deniz field and the Southern Gas Corridor initiative, while other projects that have no foreign partners including the Umid and Babak gas fields risk falling behind. Absheron will probably stay on track, thanks to the involvement of Frances Total. This set of problems might soon have repercussions for Azerbaijans domestic politics. The countrys sovereign wealth fund SOFAZ long a cornerstone of its energy development efforts is being rapidly depleted. It stood at a modest $64 million in 2016, a big drop from $323 million in 2015 and $523 million in 2014. This trend is likely to continue as Azerbaijan pursues its natural gas ambitions, and it might not be long before its people feel the effects on their livelihoods. Baku can only hope that its natural gas reaches Europe before then. By Eurasianet.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The governments of Ghana and Burkina Faso have pledged to work towards strengthening the ties of co-operation that exist between them, after the Presidents of the two countries expressed satisfaction with the current state of the relations between them. In a joint communique issued at the end of the 2-day official visit to Burkina Faso by President Akufo-Addo, it was resolved that the two countries reinforce their co-operation in the areas of railway transport, road transport, agriculture, water, security, trade, works and housing and energy. To realize an increase in the movement of goods and persons, and the corresponding economic and commercial benefits long the rail corridor of Ghana and Burkina Faso, both sides re-affirmed the crucial need to rapidly establish the railway interconnection project. To this end, the two countries have agreed to reactivate the Joint Expert Committee to examine the various feasibility studies already undertaken, and define the modalities and conditions of the selection of a technical and financial partner for the project. On agriculture, and in order to curb the smuggling of agro-chemicals across the borders of both countries, the Heads of State agreed to put measures in place to stop the illegal movement of agro-chemicals from Ghana into Burkina Faso. They also agreed to formalize Government to Government trade in cereals from Ghana, and vegetables from Burkina Faso. With the annual opening of the spillways of the Bagre dam destroying lives, farmlands, livestock and property in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo and President Roch Marc Kabore have agreed to extend cooperation in the utilization of the excess water from the dam for irrigation purposes in the two countries. The decision to reactivate the Joint Technical Committee on Integrated Water Resource Management (JTC-IWRM) to oversee and manage the annual spillage, so as to reduce the perennial flooding downstream, was also taken. Touching on the issues of security, it was agreed that a framework to exchange and share information in tackling terrorism, violent robberies and organized crime be established. The activities of trans-humans from Burkina Faso into Ghana were identified as a security concern, and in this regard, both countries decided to hold frequent consultations to address this issue. To efficiently address the issue of illegal activities at the borders, notably corruption and racketeering, both sides agreed to hold regular meetings in order to put an end to these practices, the communique noted. It continued, Both sides agreed to assist companies from their respective countries to export their products under the Protocol of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS). They further agreed to collaborate, with the support of ECOWAS, to establish a Joint Border Post to facilitate trade and free movement of their peoples, goods and services. The two leaders also decided to work together in support of the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) under the auspices of the Africa Union (AU). The Ghanaian government also agreed to collaborate and learn from the best practices of the Burkinabe Bank for Housing to enable the reactivation of the Bank for Housing and Construction in Ghana. In the area of energy, Ghana and Burkina Faso decided to cooperate further to ensure the completion of the Ouagadougou-Bolgatanga Power Interconnection Supply project, to enable the importation of 85 megawatts into Burkina Faso by the close of 2017. Both sides also commended the completion of the Bolgatanga Bingo Pipeline Project. In addition to this, both sides commended the completion of the feasibility studies concerning the extension of the ECOWAS Gas Pipeline Network, the first connection of which would be between Accra and Ouagadougou. In conclusion, President Akufo-Addo and President Kabore reiterated the attachment of their respective countries to the ideals of ECOWAS, the African Union, and the United Nations. They, therefore, decided to increase consultations between their countries within international bodies to further harmonize their views on regional and international issues. Prior to the issuing of the communique, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore decorated President Akufo-Addo with the highest national award of Burkina Faso, the Grand Croix de lOrdre National. 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 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. On Thursday, Amy Fladmo was telling staff and families staying at Second Chance Homes that because of state budget cuts theyd be out of their jobs and kicked out of the homes where women working on their addictions can be reunited with their children. By Friday, following online reporting of the news and a clarifying telephone call from Sheila Hogan, director of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, Fladmo was able to call staff and the mothers affected to tell them the West End homes wont be closing after all, at least not for the time being. Fladmo is executive director of the Center for Children and Families, which operates Second Chance Homes. Currently, 13 mothers live there, together with about 20 children. Hogan told me it was a missed communication, Fladmo said late Friday afternoon. "She informed me they are going through a transitional period and that we can keep the families in the homes, that they will continue to fund those services." In fact, Fladmo said, Hogan asked Fladmo to fill the homes with four or five additional families. That will be no problem, Fladmo said, because we get two or three referrals every day. Fladmo said she was on her way to a family vacation when she got the news. I had to pull over. I was extremely emotional and ecstatic, she said. I called all the moms, all the (12) staff who work there, and all the board members. I couldnt keep driving. DPHHS Spokesman Jon Ebelt confirmed that funding will indeed continue indefinitely and that the Center will be invited to submit a request for proposals to continue providing services to the children and their mothers, who are working to overcome addictions. That process is part of a larger statewide effort, Ebelt said, to evaluate the outcomes that are resulting from these services. That evaluation is in process, and it is a high priority for us. Using metrics to evaluate the success of contract programs is a clear and direct message we got from several legislators during the recently concluded legislative session, he said. Ebelt, too, said confusion resulted from earlier communication between DPHHS and the Center. We think there was a communication issue there, he said, but we called Amy as soon as we saw (The Gazettes) story, posted online Friday morning. Operating the two homes, which are at undisclosed West End addresses, costs about $60,000 per month. Ebelt said he didnt want to put a timetable on how long the RFP process will take. Now that the (legislative) session has ended, we are excited to improve all kinds of things, because now we have more time to work on them, he said. We have a new director on board and a new deputy director (Laura Smith), and were excited to move forward. QUEENSBURY A Kingsbury man who is serving a prison sentence for attempted burglary is headed to prison for two more years for selling drugs in Warren County. Tylor R. Michaud, 25, was sentenced Wednesday in Warren County Court to a felony count of criminal sale of a controlled substance for a sale of the prescription opioid painkiller oxycodone in Queensbury in November 2014. The plea came days after he was sentenced in Washington County Court to 3 years in state prison for a burglary at a Kingsbury home last June, during which he stole thousands of dollars worth of coins and collectible currency. He pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree burglary in that case. Michaud was sentenced to two years in prison and two years on parole by Warren County Judge John Hall. He also was ordered to pay $300 restitution for the money that was paid to him for drugs during the sales he made. Early saber rattling as the Trump administration prepares to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is resulting in continued local spikes in construction prices and uncertainty in the regions dairy farming and logging industries. When you get down to the regional level, you really start to see the unintended consequences, said John Bartow, executive director of Empire State Forest Products Association. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently announced anti-subsidy duties averaging 20 percent on softwood lumber products imported from Canada. Most of the lumber used for framing houses locally comes from Canada. Ross, in justifying the soft wood lumber duties, said Canada already had instituted duties on filtered milk protein products, used in cheese making, imported from the United States. Lumber and dairy trade between the two countries is relatively minimal, in comparison to other industries, said former U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, a lawyer who specializes on U.S.-Canada trade and border issues. Throw that all into the NAFTA picture and those things are relatively small by comparison. They are almost immaterial, Owens said. Yet the two issues, which affect New York and Wisconsin in particular, are at the forefront of debate. I think we all expected some saber rattling with out foreign neighbors, said Bartow, of the Empire State Forest Products Association. Were right now advocating for clarity and predictability. Prices of lumber imported from Canada had already been climbing, due to weather conditions and uncertainty about the expiration of a long-standing soft wood lumber agreement between the United States and Canada. Higher lumber prices will likely be the norm, for the foreseeable future. Its (the tariff) going to raise the price of lumber sales in the United States as a reaction to what is perceived as (Canada) dumping lumber here, Bartow said. The issue has a double impact on the regions economy, because many Quebec lumber mills buy logs from New York. If Canadian lumber mills cut back on production because of higher costs to sell lumber into the United States, loggers in the region would lose virtually their only market for that type of wood, Bartow said. The uncertainty already is deflating wood prices. Lower overall wood prices, in one respect, benefits area paper mills, which buy pulp wood to make paper, Bartow said. But it also threatens the sustainability of the logging industry that supplies the paper mills. When theres an over supply, prices go down, he said. Thats good for the mills, not so good for the loggers and haulers. In New York, the Canadian tariff on filtered milk protein, at this point, is primarily impacting farms in western New York that sell to two large processors, said Steven Ammerman, a spokesman for New York Farm Bureau. But long-term, it could deflate milk prices statewide. Big picture now the milk that was going into Canada is going to have to find another home. And any time you increase supply, that is only going to dampen prices. And prices have already been low for the past couple of years, he said. Certainly the White House as well as our congressional delegation and the governor have all been putting pressure on the Canadian government, Ammerman said. Theres an interesting wrinkle in the debate, because Canadian interests are split geographically between the two tariff issues, Owens said. For Canada, in effect it would be a trade off of benefiting either eastern Canada on dairy or western Canada on soft wood lumber, or the reverse. That creates some real interesting tension on the Canadian side of this equation, Owens said. My guess is that when this all gets sorted out that they reach some sort of compromise that maybe reduces the tariffs for Canadian lumber coming in and reduces the tariffs for American dairy products going into Canada, as opposed to one issue winning and the other issue losing. A passionate rock climber who has scaled hundreds of feet of rock faces over the past four years, Seth Robertus should find it fairly easy to climb the stage at MetraPark on Saturday during the Montana State University Billings graduation ceremony. On Friday, Robertus was awarded the MSUB Golden Merit Award, which is given annually to students who have displayed a strong commitment to community, academics and leadership. He is also part of the 2017 group of MSUB Outstanding Undergraduates. Robertus had several classes with Lynne Fitzgerald, an assistant professor in MSUB's Department of Health and Human Performance, while completing his major in Outdoor Adventure Leadership. Within the Montana University System, the OAL major is only offered at MSUB, Fitzgerald said. What sets Robertus apart from others is his ability to handle himself with tranquility during the decision-making process, Fitzgerald said. "I can always count on him to keep his head in stressful situations and think through and not be reactive," Fitzgerald said. Between administering medical care in the backcountry, explaining to a high-paying client it's not safe to continue, or even convincing someone not to take a selfie with a particularly cute moose, that calm thoughtfulness can be immensely beneficial in the outdoor adventure business, she said. The OAL program was mostly why Robertus picked Billings over Bozeman. The other reason was music. A trumpet player as well as guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele and piano Robertus said he grew up taking music lessons with Mark Fenderson, an associate professor in the MSUB department of music. He initially wanted to double major in OAL and music, but after signing on as a resident adviser his sophomore year, Robertus decided he was stretching himself too thin. He opted instead to minor in music. He continued to be involved in the MSUB jazz band and symphonic band. During his time at MSUB, Robertus embraced volunteer and extracurricular opportunities. "It's been a ride," he said of his very busy undergraduate experience. It's not uncommon for OAL faculty to receive requests to offer instructional workshops in the Billings area, Fitzgerald said. "I try to say yes to as many of those requests as possible, which means I have to ask for volunteers," she said. "He would step up and volunteer to do a lot of those to facilitate rappelling, to facilitate climbing." In his interactions with students and community members, Fitzgerald said Robertus showed consistency. "He's always fantastic, he has that personality that is warm and trusting," Fitzgerald said. "He gives that (demeanor of) 'I am solid. I'm calm. I'm skilled.'" She said Robertus will be missed, though when Robertus will leave MSUB remains undetermined. Next fall he plans to take prerequisite courses at MSUB before ultimately heading to Montana State University to finish out a nursing degree. Either way, Fitzgerald is hopeful for her former student. "I think he's going down a great path," she said. In the future Robertus could see himself combining the majors in a variety of ways, including working as a travel nurse, on a medical emergency flight team or as a medical expert on guided expeditions. "Both majors just really have so many opportunities at the end," Robertus said. "So I think there's a lot I can do." 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 BNSF train collided with a car parked on the tracks early Saturday. The vehicle, a black 2004 Audi, was unoccupied at the time of the crash, said Sgt. Shane Winden of the Billings Police Department. The collision happened in the area of 1501 S. 30th St. W. The call came in from Montana Rail Link to the BPD at 2:35 a.m., Winden said. The Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office was first on the scene. The investigation was turned over to the Montana Highway Patrol. Casper Police Chief Jim Wetzel is no longer serving as head of the department. Interim City Manager Liz Becher decided not to renew Wetzels contract, two sources with knowledge of the change told the Star-Tribune on Friday. The city managers office confirmed Wetzels immediate departure in a news release Friday afternoon, shortly after the Star-Tribune reported that his job was in jeopardy. According to Wetzels contract, he was an at-will employee of the city and his employment could be terminated at any time by the city manager. The interim city manager has decided to take the police department in a different direction, Councilwoman Amanda Huckabay said. Wetzel declined to speak with a Star-Tribune reporter outside the police station Friday afternoon. As a reporter approached Wetzel in a parking lot, he got into a vehicle with his wife, who smiled and swerved toward the reporter. Im his wife. Dont you talk to him, she said after rolling down the window. Just go, Wetzel said before the pair drove away. Wetzels cellphone went straight to voicemail Friday afternoon, and he did not return a reporters call. The city managers office said Becher was in meetings and unavailable to comment Friday. Casper police Captain Steve Schulz was appointed interim police chief, according to the news release. Weeks of uncertainty Problems within the police department became public in early April with the release of a survey by the local branch of the Fraternal Order of Police, which described a toxic environment created by leadership, including Wetzel. It also indicated officers had taken their concerns to city management and were met with indifference a charge that officials in city government deny. In the aftermath, some members of the City Council called for an outside investigation. City Manager V.H. McDonald announced his retirement two days later and then moved up his exit date at the request of Council leadership. Less than two weeks later, 60 officers or about two-thirds of the force gave a vote of no confidence to Wetzels leadership. Huckabay called on Wetzel to resign, and Mayor Kenyne Humphrey alluded to it as well. Still, Wetzel said he planned to remain as the citys top law enforcement official. Im still standing here, Wetzel said last week. One day at a time. After McDonald retired, Becher said the city has been conducting its own investigation into personnel issues at the police department. That investigation was being handled by local attorney Judith Studer. Two weeks ago, Becher said she would not make decisions regarding Wetzels employment until she received verified information regarding the accusations against him. We have to validate everything we do, she said. Assistant City Manager Tracey Belser said Friday she believed the city had received a draft of the investigation into personnel issues at the police department being conducted by Studer but that she had not viewed the results. Becher said this week that she would be personally involved in reviewing any report produced by Studer. In the interview last month, Becher said that despite her interim status, she felt empowered to make a leadership change at the police department if needed. I am prepared to take action if necessary, Becher said. Ive been asked by Council about that, and Im prepared. City Councilman Shawn Johnson said Becher informed Council leadership of her decision at a meeting on Thursday. City Councils role While several City Council members have said they were comfortable with Becher taking action related to Wetzel, Councilman Charlie Powell called for restraint until Casper hired a permanent manager. We are about to go through a process of hiring a city manager and that city manager has a responsibility to evaluate all the department heads, including the police chief, Powell said on Tuesday. Johnson backed the interim manager on Friday. I trust her judgment on this, he said. Given the information that has come to light about everything thats been going on in the police department, I think it was the right decision. Councilman Chris Walsh, who preceded Wetzel as chief, asked Becher last month to request an investigation by state authorities into leadership at the department due to the potential criminal nature of the allegations. But Becher said she could not request a state investigation at the behest of a single councilman, highlighting an aspect of Casper government that has proved controversial. City Attorney Bill Luben has advised Council that only the city manager has the authority to handle departmental personnel issues, including police matters, and that the manager was legally prohibited from sharing information about personnel decisions with Council. Luben said Council had almost no role to play in departmental issues and declined to say in an interview whether he believed members could offer advice or recommendations regarding department heads to the city manager. Johnson and other Council members have chafed at that directive. I cannot imagine that its not ok for council to comment on a situation such as a city department crumbling from within! Johnson wrote in an April email to his colleagues. I do agree we need to be professional but it doesnt mean we need to be blind, bound and gagged. Long history at department Wetzel joined the police department in 1999. He worked as a patrol officer, an officer on a state narcotics task force, a patrol sergeant, a detective and a sergeant who oversaw detectives, in addition to serving with the Marines in Iraq. He is a Casper native and a decorated lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves. Wetzel served more than 20 years on active duty and reserves in the Marines. Former city manager John Patterson promoted Wetzel from sergeant to chief in February 2014. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Flynn had apparently been warned about contacts he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak communications that were certain to have been monitored by US intelligence agencies, according to US officials cited by The Post. The Trump transition teams apparently deemed the matter serious enough to ask the Obama administration for a classified CIA report on Kislyak to share with Flynn. "The document was delivered within days, officials said, but it is not clear that Flynn ever read it," The Post's Greg Miller and Adam Entous wrote. Those warnings from the Trump transition team's national security staff to Flynn came one month before Flynn was captured on recordings discussing newly issued US sanctions against Russia, The Post reported. The Obama administration had leveled those sanctions in response to Russia's meddling in the US presidential election. Just 24 days into his job as Trump's national security adviser, Flynn was forced to resign for misleading Trump administration officials about his communications with Kislyak. Flynn is just one piece of a growing puzzle in a multi-agency investigation of ties between Russia and people in Trump's orbit. A bipartisan inquiry is underway in the House and Senate, and the FBI is also investigating. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House in January that Flynn might be at risk of Russian blackmail, according to a CNN report published this week. Yates was fired by the Trump administration that same month for defying the president's controversial travel ban. The 57-year-old resident of Newton Falls, Ohio was told that a billionaire philanthropist from California wanted to meet and have dinner with his family. I thought it was a prank phone call," Moore told Business Insider during a recent interview. "I almost hung up. Moore pressed the person on the other end of the phone to reveal his employer's identity. While the staffer refused to give a name, he teased that 90% of Americans use his boss's product every day. Moore agreed to the visit. A few days later, another staffer showed up at Moore's house for a "preliminary visit." He walked around Moore's property, took pictures, and asked to come inside and help decide where his boss would have dinner with Moore's family. After a few more days of planning that involved the billionaire's staff arranging the dinner menu and catering from a local restaurant, another employee arrived at Moore's house on the evening of the planned visit. Moore was informed that the identity of his mystery dinner guest would be revealed just 15 minutes before he arrived. And like clockwork, 15 minutes after Moore was finally told the name of his guest, a convoy of black SUVs drove through Moore's quiet neighborhood, pulled into his driveway, and parked in his front yard. Out stepped Mark Zuckerberg. When Zuck comes to town Facebook's 32-year-old CEO has given himself a personal goal of visiting the roughly 30 U.S. states he hasn't been to yet by the end of 2017. The reason why? To "get out and talk to more people about how they're living, working and thinking about the future," he wrote in a Facebook post from January. Moore, who works in a Russian-owned steel mill as an engineer, described Zuckerberg as a real down to earth, outgoing guy with good manners" who asked to take his shoes off before he entered the house. The guest list included Moore's wife and kids, as well as a few local friends. Moore wanted to seat the Facebook CEO at the head of the table, but a staffer told him that Zuckerberg preferred otherwise. "He does not feel comfortable at the head. Moore recalls being told. So instead Zuckerberg sat at the middle of the dining room table, with his staff in the kitchen, pecking away at their laptops during the meal. As everyone ate dinner over plastic plates, Moore asked Zuckerberg to explain what brought him to northeast Ohio. Zuckerberg said he was on a fact-finding mission," according to Moore, and that last year it "dawned on me that I dont know my own country." The elephant in the room quickly became President Trump. Moore is a self-described political activist and independent who voted for Obama twice before voting for Trump. His wife Lisa is a school teacher who also voted for Trump on his promise to abolish Common Core. After Zuckerberg asked them why they had voted for Trump, Moore turned the tables and asked if Zuckerberg had spoken with Trump since he was elected. Zuckerberg, who was noticeably absent from Trump's meeting with tech leaders in December, said he had in fact talked with Trump multiple times on the phone. Presidential speculation Zuckerberg's statesman-like, cross-country tour immediately sparked more speculation that he was preparing to run for president, a rumor that's refused to die over the past year. Zuckerberg has helped fuel the speculation by regularly posting photos on his Facebook page that look like they're from a campaign trail. He's been photographed working the assembly line at a Michigan Ford factory, hanging out with firefighters, and even feeding a calf on a farm in rural Ohio. But if there's one message Zuckerberg and his dozens of staffers want to get across, it's that this U.S. tour is not an elaborate publicity stunt designed to set the stage for his eventual run for office. After his surprise dinner with Zuckerberg last week, Daniel Moore said he was instructed by the CEO's spokeswoman to "hammer home" to anyone who asked that Zuckerberg had no aspirations to make a presidential bid. Even still, Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with numerous former government officials who accompany him on his trips. Amy Dudley, the chief spokeswoman for his philanthropic fund The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, was previously the communications director for Hillary Clinton's running mate and Virginia senator Tim Kaine. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's director of travel operations, James Eby, previously served in the same role for the Department of Defense. The list even extends to Zuckerberg's personal photographer, Charles Ommanney, who worked for the White House during both Obama terms. The eight bodyguards and roughly half-dozen aides who accompanied Zuckerberg to Moore's house for dinner were all identified as former Secret Service members, Moore said. A spokesperson for The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative later told BI that there "t Zuckerberg himself has publicly said that he has no plans to run for president. He shared the same sentiment in private to Moore and his family over dinner last week. I have absolutely no interest in running for president of the United States.," Moore recalled Zuckerberg saying. "Im very happy running my own company. I believe I can make a huger impact through my company and through the initiatives Im rolling out." Scouting for ideas Clad in his trademark gray T-shirt, Zuckerberg discussed his remarkable journey from the Harvard dorm room where he created Facebook thirteen years ago. Never in my wildest dreams did I think Facebook would be where it is today, I never expected to make this amount of money," Moore says Zuckerberg told him. Zuckerberg has committed to giving away 99% of his roughly $60 billion net worth through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which he runs with his wife Priscilla Chan. He's so far invested in education startups and pledged $3 billion to aide curing the world's diseases. Just think, if I was in Washington D.C., how much could I do?" Moore remembered Zuckerberg saying over dinner. "How much progress could I make there? A Chan Zuckerberg spokesperson said that while some of trips are organized by Facebook, many are organized through his fund as a way to see potential areas of investment. "The chance to meet people in communities across the country informs work being done by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to advance human potential and promote equality in communities across the country," the told BI. Zuckerberg's visit to Ohio last week included a community college's machine learning lab, an opioid addiction clinic, and a juvenile detention center, according to the spokesperson. Each of the stops could be seen as hints towards areas of future investments. The spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of what Zuckerberg said at Moore's house or why they were selected for a visit. While Moore admitted to knowing little about Zuckerberg before the visit, he says he is a frequent user of Facebook. And he's now one of the CEO's 90 million followers on the social network. Theres a lot more to Mark Zuckerberg than just Facebook," he said. 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! At a state dinner in Ouagadougou, he said: it would be, for me, perhaps, the highlight of my presidency if, indeed, I was able, together with you (President Kabore), to launch the beginning of the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. He continued: Right at the beginning of my government, I decided to establish a special Ministry for Railways Development in Ghana. In fact, the Minister himself is here to give testimony to the seriousness with which we look at this project. I would be very disappointed if the two sides are unable to find a solution to how we can get the Accra-Ouagadougou railway going. President Akufo-Addo also expressed concern about the yearly opening of the Bagre Dam spillway, which causes flooding in the 3 Northern Regions of Ghana, resulting in the destruction of lives, farmlands, livestock, and property. Nearly one week after adjourning, lawmakers in both legislative chambers are gauging their members' appetite for returning to Bismarck for a one-day session to possibly overturn recent vetoes issued by Gov. Doug Burgum. A veto override requires two-thirds votes in each chamber. Burgum has rejected portions of the Public Employees Retirement System budget passed by lawmakers. He issued a line-item veto on provisions allowing for the early termination of the state employee health insurance contract. The formation of a legislative committee tasked with studying and recommending terms for future contracts also was vetoed. I share the objective that the Legislature was passing, Burgum told the Tribune editorial board this morning. Im all in on (having) a conversation. His office announced line-item vetoes of provisions in eight agency budgets this week as well as one other bill relating to Job Service North Dakota-owned properties. Burgum staff reported the governor issued a total of 13 vetoes. Ten involved line items with the other three being entire bills. He signed a total of 440 bills that passed during the 2017 session, which lasted 77 days. Each session is limited to 80 days, according to the state constitution. The vetoes were the most by a North Dakota governor from a single legislative session since 1993, when Ed Schafer rejected all or parts of 20 bills during his first session as governor. Burgums line-item veto of House Bill 1023 strikes seven sections out of the 13-section PERS bill. A key section, which was vetoed, would have forced the state to terminate its six-year contract with Sanford Health Plan on June 30, 2019, rather than in 2021. As passed, HB1023 would have made the PERS board go out for bids for a new contract, with a self-funding plan for state employee health insurance being the primary bid. It is an unproven hypothesis that a two-year, non-renewal contract period will produce lower rates from potential providers, Burgum explained in a letter to the Legislature. Kirk Zimmer, Sanford Health Plan's executive vice president, thanked Burgum for vetoing the language in HB1023. House Bill 1023 was very problematic for the health of the insurance marketplace because bidders on contracts want to be assured they can count on the state honoring a mutually agreed upon set of terms within a contract. This is true for any bidder, not just Sanford, Zimmer said. This issue has taken a significant amount of time, resources and energy, and we are hopeful this veto allows everyone to gain closure because this effort to sever this contractual relationship has been going on for years. Most importantly, the 67,000 PERS members deserve the stability that this action provided. House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, had been the key proponent of the PERS budget changes, the result of a last-minute compromise, which provided additional funds for Dickinson State University. As long as I can take a breath, Ill keep working to make this right," said Carlson, who argued the changes would lead to cost savings and allow more legislative oversight. I dont agree with what he did, but he has every right to do it, he said of the governor's move. Carlson indicated he is willing to have lawmakers return to Bismarck to address HB1023 if there is enough support to override any of the vetoes. In particular, support in the Senate on HB1023 was soft compared to the House. Overall, Ive gone through all of the vetoes, and I dont really have a problem with any of them honestly, said Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson. Wardner said one issue that might cause some pushback is a line-item veto in Senate Bill 2013, the Department of Trust Lands budget, in which $16.1 million was appropriated for non-oil-producing townships statewide at $10,000 apiece. A total of $8.1 million would come from the State Disaster Relief Fund and the remaining dollars from the Strategic Investment and Improvements Fund. In Burgums letter outlining his rationale, he said no specific case was laid out for an across-the-board appropriation to statewide townships. He said taking from the State Disaster Relief Fund during a budget crunch wasnt prudent, either. In a Facebook post, the first lady thanked Ghanaians for their support in launching the project as well as their financial contributions. To all individuals, churches and companies, your generous pledged support in kind and in cash are very much appreciated. Thank you Seth Kwame Boateng and Multi Media for bringing this to light and putting the event together on such short notice. Together we can provide much needed support and assistance to new mothers with babies in intensive care, she said. Ivory Coast has accused Ghana of using the development of its oil industry to annexe the territory which does not belong to it. Prior to President Akufo-Addo's visit, a powerful delegation from Ivory Coast called on President Akufo-Addo at the Flagstaff House to express concern about the constant pollution of some of their water bodies due to Galamsey activities in Ghana. The Nana Addo-led government has faced intense pressure from the media and the general public to clamp down on galamsey. The government has promised to do all within its power to fight the menace which is destroying major water bodies in the country. Watchers of the sector have further predicted that Ghana may soon be importing water from neighbouring countries if the menace is not tackled. The award follows a two-day working visit to the country by president Akufo-Addo to introduce himself as the new leader of Ghana and also deepen ties between the two countries. Accra and Ouagadougou pledged to strength ties in a bid to boost economy trade and movement of people. The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the current state of the relations between them. In a joint communique, Ghana and Burkina Faso resolved to reinforce their co-operation in the areas of railway transport, road transport, agriculture, water, security, trade, works and housing and energy. To realize an increase in the movement of goods and persons, and the corresponding economic and commercial benefits long the rail corridor of Ghana and Burkina Faso, both sides re-affirmed the crucial need to rapidly establish the railway interconnection project. To this end, the two countries have agreed to reactivate the Joint Expert Committee to examine the various feasibility studies already undertaken, and define the modalities and conditions of the selection of a technical and financial partner for the project. Mr Naabu organised some women in the region to disrupt the meeting over fears the gender minister, who is also the NPP Women's organiser, was inciting women organisers in the region to reject the president's nominee for the School Feeding Coordinator in the region. According to Mr Naabu, Ms Djaba held the meeting without his knowledge and the regional executives of the party. The situation at the Modern City Hotel, where the meeting was in session, got hysterical and armed police and military personnel were called to calm down tensions. "The meeting is illegal. The minister has no right to come to the region and call a meeting without first and foremost asking the regional authority to do that," Mr Naabu said. "Even the President, he will not do such a thing." "We want to state categorically clear that the meeting was only for the the minister to thank her women for working very hard to achieve a resounding victory and moreover to assure us of her commitment to see to the welfare of the women," the statement said."We want to clear the air on the purported lies in the news by the regional chairman that the minister came to introduce school feeding coordinators to them."We are solidly behind our Gender Minister and therefore we will not agreed with any individual who will undermine and disrespect her,'" the statement further noted. She also accused Mr Naabu of lying about her, saying he should respect himself. Her comments follow the disruption of a meeting under her watch in Tamale by Mr Bugri Naabu over claims the meeting was not sanctioned. I dont know why Chairman Bugri wants to lie and use me as a cover-up for his problems. I want Chairman Bugri to understand. Whatever it is that is making him do the things he is doing; he should be very careful. I am the last person he wants to have trouble with, she told North Star Radio in Tamale. She continued: He should respect himself and stop lying about me. He cannot appoint school feeding people. He is not the only one in the region. He wants to be the one to appoint these people; for the Council of Elders and who and who. "I want him to stop telling lies about me and to stop collecting peoples things and promising them jobs he cannot give. When he goes and does that, after he has collected their money and their cows and goats, then he will come and put the trouble on Otiko. Otiko will not accept it. If Bugri wants trouble from me then the trouble will come. On Friday, Mr Naabu organised some women in the region to disrupt a meeting the gender minister had organised over fears she was inciting women organisers in the region to reject the president's nominee for the School Feeding Coordinator in the region. According to Mr Naabu, Ms Djaba held the meeting without his knowledge and the regional executives of the party. We are elated that it is being considered so that Ghanaians outside the country can vote as the law says they should, he said on Accra-based Class FM. Im happy President Nana Akufo-Addo has seen it fit for the Electoral Commission to implement it, he said. READ MORE: Nana Addo wants Ghanaians abroad to vote President Akufo-Addo, on a two-day visit to Togo, said it was time Ghanaians living outside the country are allowed to vote. Every year, a new breed of cocktail emerges as the drink du jour. But what is the ultimate summer cocktail? The one you can drink year in and year out, without worrying about frilly, hard-to-follow trends? That's what we wanted to find out, so we donned our deerstalker hats and made our way downtown. We call it: "Business Insider and the case of the missing drink of the summer." We decided to begin our search at the Dead Rabbit, a favorite hangout of Wall Streeters and delicious cocktails. If we could find the drink of the summer anywhere, it would probably be there. The Dead Rabbit was recently awarded the prestigious "Best Bar in the World" designation by Drinks International magazine. We couldn't think of a better place to search for the drink of the summer. Source: Our man behind the bar, Long Thai, was more than happy to help us with our search. His advice and expertise would prove invaluable. The drink of the summer would soon reveal itself. Thai picked out six drinks that he thought were the most deserving of the title the six most suspicious characters on a menu full of them. SUSPECT #1: Bachelor Pad Our first suspect was the Bachelor Pad. It's a relaxed drink maybe too relaxed? This made us suspicious, and we made note of it. The drink is a new take on a White Lady cocktail. With a base of Scottish gin and lemon juice, the drink also includes a poppy seed-infused syrup, pink grapefruit liqueur, and a dash of pale cream sherry. The Bachelor Pad is shaken, not stirred. There's a lot going on, but the drink isn't overpowering. It's not overly sweet, nor is it overly tart, despite the citrus-y ingredients. It's exceptionally balanced in all flavors, melding and perfectly complicating each other. It has a foamy finish that comes courtesy of the shaken egg white, and it elevates the experience. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet we couldn't quite shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right with this one. It's too perfect. We're keeping an eye on it. SUSPECT #2: Iron Man We moved on to the next: the Iron Man. It's a daisy-style cocktail with a base of Irish whiskey and Guyanese rum. Yellow chartreuse and pale cream sherry complicate the flavors, as does an apple and tarragon-flavored syrup. It's finished with a shot of dry cider and a dash of c Thai strained the drink into a mustache cup before serving it to us. We were entertained. Like the superhero himself, Iron Man is bold. Its flavors are pronounced and distinguished. Instead of melting together, each is identifiable. With its heavy liquors, it is heartier than you might be looking for in a summer drink. Though it is refreshing and fruity, its spicy apple flavors reminded us more of fall than summer. The Iron Man seemed impregnable, but it slowly began to reveal itself after sustained interrogation (i.e. sipping). SUSPECT #3: Show-Off With a name like Show-Off, we weren't sure what to expect. What exactly was it going to do to try and impress us? A whole lot, it turns out. The drink is a flashy Champagne cocktail with brandy, a green apple liqueur, kiwi and lemon juices, and flavors like vanilla and macadamia. Champagne is added to the flute before pouring. One thing is certain: The Show-Off is a splashy drink. There's no subtlety here. As the name implies, the green apple, the vanilla, the kiwi, the lemon, and the champagne flavors all announce themselves in the strongest terms. And yet, the drink doesn't collapse under the weight of all those flavors. It's actually fun, with a rooftop drinking vibe. It's both sweet and tart, and it's refreshing as hell. We could see ourselves sipping it on a rooftop this summer. It seems the Show-Off is exactly what it appears to be. It's a cocktail that is serious about tasting good, and it just wants to have a good time. SUSPECT #4: Fun Lovin' Criminal With a name like Fun Lovin' Criminal, we were sure we'd hit the jackpot. A relatively simple ingredient list tequila, vermouth, apple brandy, grapefruit, and hops belies the work it takes to put it all together. Fun Lovin' Criminal is an alcohol-forward kicker. It doesn't have the fancy-long list of ingredients that the other cocktails have, but the criminal stands on its own. It doesn't hide its tequila, vermouth, and brandy, with just enough from the grapefruit and hops to bring a mellow taste. But watch out, because the alcohol catches up with you you'll feel it in the backbite. The drink is feistier than you might first assume, but it ends up charming you in the end. We couldn't linger long with the Fun Lovin' Criminal, though it surely made an impression on us. SUSPECT #5: Hammer and Tong The Hammer and Tong is a bit deceptive. While it looks like a relatively straightforward drink gin, rum, mezcal, vermouth, and some flavorings (cacao, vanilla, hibiscus, and lavender absinthe) the drink is actually complex. The herbal infusion in the Argentinian gin mixes with the additional flavors in unexpected ways, making something completely new. A minty herbal concoction, the Hammer and Tong is clean and sharp. With its Argentinian gin, cacao, and vanilla, the Hammer and Tong is a bit like a herbal grasshopper shot. It was nothing like we'd ever tasted before. The herbal minty flavors are pronounced in the drink, giving the drink a taste similar to one of your favorite minty summer drinks. It's refreshing and cool. Mint is a quintessential summer flavor, so it was hard not to just arrest this drink on the spot. Intuition told us there was more to see, however, so we moved on. SUSPECT #6: Coup d'Etat Now this was a suspicious character if we'd ever seen one. A take on an Old-Fashioned, but ratcheted up several notches with cognac and various liqueurs, cinnamon syrup, and garnished with orange oils, the Coup d'Etat was a drink best saved for a rainy day. The drink calls for a block of ice, chiseled right in front of us by the the bartender. One taste of the Coup d'Etat begets one thought: that's a lot of alcohol. Every ingredient is a liquor, apart from the cinnamon syrup, and you can feel it. It was at once familiar and entirely new. And while that's true, it's definitely not a bad thing. The cognac, the cachaca, the vermouth, the chartreuse, and the amaro tip-toe across your tongue in unison, forming something that goes down surprisingly smooth and easy. A hint of honey surprises on the initial sip, while the cinnamon aftertaste lingers. So which one of these phenomenal drinks are we going to award the coveted distinction of being Business Insider's drink of the summer? It wasn't easy, but the winner was clear. Among the six drinks we tried, one drink in particular's story just didn't add up. WINNER: Bachelor Pad For its supreme ability to delight, its complex yet melded flavors, and the fun of drinking a foamy drink with some egg whites in it, the Bachelor Pad is crowned our Drink of the Summer. For a drink similar to the Bachelor Pad, ask any bar for a White Lady. Be warned that we cannot guarantee it'll be as delicious as the Dead Rabbit's version. Notable actors such as Bolaji Amusan otherwise known as 'Mr. Latin' and his colleague, Yomi Fash Lanso made a call asking Nigerians to help raise funds for his treatment. Adesanya, who is currently on an admission at an unspecified hospital in Ogun State looked pale based on images circulating the social media. Please Im so sorry to disturb you with this request for I know its truly non of your business, but if you find it good in your heart KINDLY LEND A HELPING HAND. "I dont do this OFTEN, but at times critical issues need quick attention. Just like the man in the picture a Nigerian film actor Mr Adeshina Adesanya popularly known as PASTOR AJIDARA from the film ABELA PUPA needs QUICK ATTENTION. Hes seriously sick with KIDNEY FAILURE and in need of financial aid from ME and YOU. No amount is too small even if its #100," Amusan wrote in an Instagram post published on Friday, May 5, 2017. ALSO READ: Late singer to kick off Kidney trust fund before he died Also known as 'Pastor Ajidara', the ailing actor has featured in numerous movies such as "Agbeku abela" (2009) and "Ologbo Iya Ijebu" (2007). Mrs. Obasanjo who had filed a suit at an Ikeja High Court seeking to stop the wedding of her son and the Premier Lotto boss' daughter, said in a statement that the May 11 and 13, 2017 dates chosen for the ceremony by the families was compelled by Satan to lure unsuspecting souls to a banquet of death that would herald a strange holocaust in the country. The embattled mother had earlier lost the battle to stop the wedding through the courts after her application was thrown out and all attempts and pleas made by her to both families on the evil consequences of the wedding dates and the need to postpone it has fallen on deaf ears. Taiwo Obasanjo who is the brain behind the Abundant Blessing Congress (ABC), a political party she hopes to register with INEC, also claimed that her daughter-in-law to be and her mother, Rosemary Dacosta, intended to use the wedding to prolong their lives and renew their covenant with Satan. In another letter to the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria where the wedding would take place, the aggrieved woman urged the church to consider rescheduling the wedding. The statement she released reads in part: "Please, I want the whole world to know that I am not mad and I am not against my sons wedding but the whole truth will be revealed by the almighty God who sees in secret all that is hidden. I have written to the Nigerian Police and the Military Police of my intention to peacefully have a protest as a citizen of Nigeria. I and my people shall be peacefully singing, dancing and praising God. She has also warned those who will be attending the wedding that immediately after the event, there would be strange diseases, multiple road accidents, plane crashes, fire incidents and strange death across the country as a result of the covenant with the 'spirit world'. Obaseki said this after he made an on-the-spot assessment of facilities at the Oba market in Benin on Friday. The governor, displeased with the decayed toilets, non-functional clinics and poor power supply at the market, promised to revive and create such facilities across markets in the state. The provision of clinics in markets will help to take healthcare closer to traders who spend most of their time in the markets. I have seen and inspected a space designed for clinic in Oba market; I will clean up the space and put a primary healthcare clinic to cater for the health needs of traders and their children. I will also establish creches to allow for proper care of children who accompany their mothers, who are traders to the market, he said. The governor frowned at trading on the streets and walkways saying that it was totally unacceptable to his administration He said his administration would investigate why people preferred to trade along walkways and in front of the markets while there were empty stalls inside the markets. The governor added that drastic action would be taken to stop the trend. Traders at the market commended the governor for the inspection. Some of the traders told the governor that street trading in front of the market affected the sales of other traders inside the market negatively. They said that there were lots of empty stores in the market but were not occupied due to the high cost being charged. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Fari, who spoke during the Friday sermon, said this would be achieved when Nigerians put away their differences and pray together for the Nations leaders. He also stressed the importance of praying for leaders in the helm of nation affairs to ensure good governance. It is important for national development that followers pray for their leaders. We should intensify prayers for the quick recovery of President Mohammed Buhari, he said. He also called on Nigerians to support the effort of the Federal Government in fighting corruption in the country in order to stem the tide of underdevelopment and poverty. Fari said Nigerians must also complement the efforts of government in eradicating the recurring crimes of cattle rustling, robbery and kidnapping by giving information to relevant security agencies. Nwobike, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) , is being tried by the EFCC for allegedly perverting the course of justice. He was also accused of offering gratification to public officials, including court registrars and judges of the Federal High Court and National Industrial Court. At the last hearing on March 28, the defence team led by Mr Olawale Akoni (SAN) had argued that the EFCC did not carry out a thorough investigation of the allegations before charging Nwobike to court. But at the resumed hearing on Friday, the EFCC prosecutor, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, and his team were absent in court. When the case was announced from the cause list, Miss Zainab Ettu, an EFCC lawyer who was in the courtroom for a different trial, could not explain her colleagues absence. My Lord, I am here for another trial, I dont know why Mr Oyedepo is not in court for this trial, she said. Akoni, however, registered his displeasure about the development. I am quite surprised by the absence of the prosecution; he should have at least informed the court if he had some other engagements. There is apparently no reason for their absence, they should show some respect to the court. We have been on this matter since April 21, 2016; the prosecution should come to court and prove its case against the defendant so that the defendant can defend himself. I will be seeking your Lordships direction on at least imposing a time frame for all the parties in this case. We have another court date on May 18, we will be praying for your Lordship to give us an additional date, Akoni said. Adebiyi, while responding to Akonis submission, noted that the court would not be sitting on May 18 because she had other official duties. It is unfortunate that the prosecution did not show up in court, I will be attending a special court session on May 18. The previously adjourned date of May 18 is hereby vacated and the case adjourned to May 23, June 5 and June 6, she said. The judge instructed Ettu to inform her absent colleagues of the adjourned dates. The confirmation was made known via a statement by the DSS spokesman, Tony Opuiyo on Saturday, May 6, 2017. Opuiyo said Ubah was arrested on Friday in connection with the theft of petrol kept by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in his tank farm in Lagos. The agency said Ubahs action amounted to economic sabotage, with capacity to negatively impact on national economy. Giving additional reasons for Ubahs arrest, Opuiyo said the businessman has further engaged in other activities inimical to national security and public order. In furtherance of his gimmicks to undermine the government and people of Nigeria, he has incited members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a critical player in the downstream sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry, to refuse/stop the lifting of products. This is part of his plans to curry their sentiments and cause them to embark on strike and also stage protests in his favour with the ulterior motive of arm-twisting the NNPC to abandon the cause of recovering the stolen products. The implications of this on law and order is, in fact, a common knowledge. It is consequent upon this that the Service arrested and will prosecute him forthwith. The public is hereby reassured that the Service will collaborate with appropriate agencies to ensure that the mischievous activities of any person or group(s) to engage in illegal activities will not affect the effective distribution of products across the country. It will also support such agencies to bring to book individuals or companies involved in any criminal act that undermines the nations economy. The NNPC had on March 17 revealed that about 100 million litres stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot and over 30 million litres in MRS Limited depot, all in Apapa area of Lagos, were not found when needed. ALSO READ: DSS arrests Ifeanyi Ubah Henry Ikem-Obih, who is the COO for (Downstream) in NNPC had said the infraction by the two companies was a clear violation of existing contract which prohibited the firms from tampering with the volumes in their custody without express permission of the corporation. He said the companies were called to explain and given two options to either return the full volume of what was stored in their depots litre-for-litre or pay the full value of the products taken without approval. He had also mentioned that NNPC alerted the Directorate of State Service (DSS), the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and relevant committees of National Assembly with oversight function on the corporations downstream operation to help recover the assets. The MRS paid for the 30 million litres that vanished in its own depot. But Capital Oil and Gas insisted on reconciling its accounts with the NNPC. Ubah described the allegation of theft against his company as mischievous and misleading. He said the NNPC also failed to tell the public that it also owed Capital Oil billions of Naira from their mutual business transactions. It is normal for parties in businesses to owe each other in business relationships and that if reconciliation is carried out with the NNPC, the firm will find out that there may be very little or nothing for Capital Oil to pay the corporation. A fall-out of the missing petrol was the sack in April by the NNPC management of Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, Managing Director, NNPC Retail Ltd; Mr. Alpha P. Mamza, Executive Director, Operations, NNPC Retail Ltd; and Mr. Oluwa Kayode Erinoso, Manager, Distribution, NNPC Retail Ltd. Ihim made the commendation when he received leaders of Supreme Council of Oil and Gas Producing Areas led by its Chairman, Chief Goddy Obodo who visited him in Owerri. He observed that the conduct of indigenes of the two oil council areas in recent months, has encouraged exploration activities by oil prospecting companies doing business in the areas. No meaningful development will be recorded within the oil bearing areas and the entire Niger Delta region, if the people are hostile with the companies doing business in their areas. I want to commend youths of Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta for their exemplary conduct, notwithstanding that Niger Delta youths have been so much into restive activities, those from Imo, have operated with caution. I am also happy over the decision of youths from Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta in embracing peace, leading to the end of militancy in Imo as well as voluntary submission of arms and weapons by these youths. Imo state government led by Gov. Rochas Okorocha is seriously committed to development of oil bearing council areas of the state and l advise the people from these areas to key into the vision of the state, the Speaker said. Ihim also appealed to the people to partner the state government to ensure the re-opening of the multi-million Adapalm oil palm plantation located in communities in Ohaji and Agwa areas. Earlier, Chief Goddy Obodo, chairman of the group, said they were in Ihims office to appreciate the leadership of the state assembly for their maturity and pro-masses legislative motions and laws. He said that the activities of the state assembly had boosted peace and development recorded in the oil bearing areas, especially during the recent visit of Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo. Mrs Tamuno Oyedeji, Comptroller of Immigration Service in the state, disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Saturday. She said the service and Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development provided vehicles for the transportation of the illegal immigrants to Zangon Daura, a border post in Katsina State. She also said that the immigrants were handed over to the Niger Republic Immigration officers at the border post. Oyedeji explained that the immigrants were repatriated because they did not have valid documents, adding that their presence constituted security threat to the residents of the state. They did not have legal valid documents to back their staying here, hence the need for us to send them back to their country, she said. The comptroller said that the command would continue to adopt proactive security measures to ensure the safety of all residents of the state. He observed that with the opportunities in oil and gas, agriculture, information communication technology, power generation and distribution, the Niger Delta region had been repositioned to attract investors. He said specific policy initiatives targeting the root cause of the agitations in the Niger Delta region would further be addressed by the Federal Government. We are also working with the business community to identify ways to overcome constraints and ensure that businesses take advantage of the numerous opportunities in the region. Investors are invited to join us on this journey of discovery of the potential in the Niger Delta region, he said. He observed that that the region was one of the most promising locations in Nigeria, covering nine states. Mr Abba Kyari, Assistant Commissioner of Police and the Commander of the team, confirmed the arrest to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday. According to him, the suspects are Teslim Ibitoye, 38, Sunday David, 35 and Akeem Ibitoye. Kyari said on April 25, after a follow up and support from Technical Intelligence Support of Inspector-General of Police, police officers traced one of the kidnappers of Akin Nureni. He said the suspects confessed to kidnapping the minor; Nureni, who resided at No. 3, Alake Street, Ayetoro Estate, Osogbo, Osun. The suspects confessed to several kidnappings in Osun and Ondo State, including the recent blocking of one Mrs while driving on a road at Dada Estate, Osogbo on April 11. A pistol with seven live and four expended ammunition, two single barrel short guns with 16 live and nine expended cartridges, facial mask, victims jewelry and charms were recovered in the suspects hideout. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem described the U.S. border with Mexico as a war zone last year when she sent dozens of state National Guard troops there. Noem said theyd be on the front lines of stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers. But newly released records from the National Guard show that in their two-month deployment, the South Dakota troops didnt seize any drugs and sometimes went days without encountering any migrants at all. Noem justified the deployment and a widely criticized private donation to fund as a state emergency because of drugs making their way across the southern border to South Dakota. But the records cast doubt on whether the deployment was effective in addressing that. This was disclosed in a statement issued on Friday, May 5, by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande. Akande said the Maritime University opening is part of the Niger Delta New Vision of the present administration. According to him, it is also in line with the demands made by major stakeholders in the region. The statement said the prompt implementation of the directive to the Ministry of Education would be coordinated by a five-man inter-agency committee headed by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu. ALSO READ: The problem of Niger Delta is not amnesty allowances Militants It said other members of the committee will come from: the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, National Universities Commission, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency and Office of the Deputy Governor of Delta State. The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr Ndu Ughamadu, made the disclaimer in a statement in Abuja on Friday. According to him, the announcement is the third in recent times coming from recurrent fraudulent vacancy claims on various social media platforms purporting to have emanated from the corporation. We are constrained to announce, once again, that NNPC is not recruiting at the moment. Members of the public are, therefore, advised to disregard any vacancy announcement on any online or social media platform as they are the handiwork of fraudsters intent on fleecing innocent Nigerians, Ughamadu said. He said the syndicates method of operation included deployment of various means, ranging from text messages to forged letters inviting gullible job seekers for non-existing job interviews, to extort money from them. To this end, we wish to once again appeal to members of the public, particularly unsuspecting applicants, to be wary of fraudulent vacancy announcements or invitations for job interviews at the NNPC Towers. Anyone who entertains such invitations or deals with peddlers of such invitation does so at his orher own risk, the spokesperson reiterated. ALSO READ: NNPC to contribute 4,000mw to national grid within 10 years He advised anyone contacted for the purpose ,other than through advertisement duly placed by the Corporation in national newspapers, should report such invitations to relevant law enforcement agencies. The state Commandant, Mr Desmond Agu, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa on Saturday. NAN reports that NSCDC officers allegedly shot at a medical doctors car with his wife and two children on board for hitting a stray dog on April 28 in Yenagoa. While the dog escaped unhurt, the resident doctor was wounded and being hospitalised. In view of this, he said that the Commandant-General of the NSCDC had ordered full investigation. We have, therefore, set up a seven-man committee to that effect. The committee is chaired by Deputy Commandant Anyanwu G.C., the Head of Intelligence and Investigation Department, Bayelsa Command and Deputy Commandant Idima Austin will serve as the Secretary. The committee is expected to submit its report on Monday, May 8. We, therefore, appeal to the general public to remain calm as the committee undertakes its assignment. We assure you that if the operatives are indicted, they will never go unpunished, said Agu. He said the NSCDC viewed the incident as disturbing, since it could cast doubts on its integrity. Our operations and presence are geared towards the protection of public interests by preventing and discouraging acts capable of sabotaging the economy and hindering public peace. In discharging our mandate, which is clearly spelt out, we emphasise strict adherence to the principles of human rights and the rule of law. Our officers and men are trained to observe these principles and are constantly reminded to apply restraints, especially in their dealings with the public. In a report by Newsbreak, Obanikoros planned defection has been perfected by the ex-governor of Lagos State and current minister of power and works, Babatunde Raji Fashola. It was reported that while Tinubu had shown reluctance to Obanikoro defection, Fashola had embraced the idea and perfected the alleged soft landing for the ex-minister and senator. The report also alleged that Obanikoro, who was indicted for alleged corrupt practices during the 2015 election, will be given an opportunity to contest for a senatorial seat from one of the Lagos constituencies. The popular Lagos monarch, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, who had publicly opposed Obanikoro in 2015, was also said to have mended fences with the ex-minister and senator. Obanikoros defection is not without the involvement of Lagos paramount monarch, Oba Riliwan Akiolu. We learnt he was in Iga Idugaran (the Lagos monarchs palace) when he issued a directive that we ensure victory for the APC in the forthcoming local government election. He equally promised to make some of us supervisory councilors, a source reportedly said. ALSO READ: Obanikoro reportedly says Fayose got $5.377M cash The report also alleged that the move by Obanikoro has seen a faction of the PDP led by party financier, Senator Buruji Kashamu, (PDP, Ogun East) getting worked up. The cleric gave the advice while delivering Jummaat sermon titled, The Duties and Rights of Workers in Islam, in Abuja on Friday. He said it amounted to oppression to delay workers wages. Al-Yolawi said that any organisation or company that used to delay payment of its workers salaries was creating avenue for corruption and insincerity from its workforce. According to him, Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), had directed Muslims to pay the laborer his wages before his sweat dries. Al-Yolawi said Islam clearly stated the rights of workers as community members and maintained a lot of principles that safeguarded and guaranteed their rights in order to ensure social justice. He said based on the teaching of Islam, employers were expected to provide a decent and meaningful life for their workforce and their families in their lifetime and beyond. According to Al Yolawi, long before unions were established to protect workers rights, Islam acknowledged a whole set of rights for workers 1,400 years ago. European Union France's future in the European Union was a central battleground during the campaign. Le Pen's disdain for Europe runs deep. She has predicted the EU "will die" and has vowed to hold a "Frexit" referendum on France's membership in the bloc. She has also long wanted France to drop the euro single currency and return to the franc, as well as leave the Schengen area, Europe's visa-free travel zone. Macron, a former economy minister, wants to reform as well as bolster the EU. He even paid a visit to Europe's most powerful leader, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, during the campaign. He is for setting up a separate budget for the eurozone -- the 19 countries that use the common currency. He also proposes giving the eurozone its own parliament and finance minister. Brexit Macron has indicated he would not give Britain an easy ride in the divorce negotiations. "What the UK is experiencing is that Brexit is not a walk in the park," he said on a campaign stop in southwest France on Thursday. Le Pen, on the other hand, has applauded Britain's decision to quit the bloc as an act of "retaking control of its destiny." Russia Ties with Moscow would likely be a key part of Le Pen's foreign policy, both in the battle against terrorism and as a partner that shares nationalist ideals. Her big international coup during the campaign was a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March, when she said he represented a "new vision" of the world. She has called for closer ties with Putin and approved of Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 which saw the United States and the European Union impose sanctions against Russia. Macron opposes a unilateral lifting of the sanctions and, unlike Le Pen, has insisted that Russian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go. United States Le Pen was the first French political leader to congratulate US President Donald Trump on his shock victory in November. The real estate mogul's anti-establishment appeal resonates deeply with core ideas of Le Pen's National Front party. However, she said she was "surprised" that Trump, after campaigning as a non-interventionist, ordered air strikes in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held area. Macron has said he wants to work closely with the United States, especially on intelligence sharing and combating terror. However, he urged Trump not to go back on former US president Barack Obama's commitments to fight global warming. Middle East and Africa As a candidate Macron visited Lebanon and Algeria, where he called France's colonial past in the north African nation a "crime against humanity". His right-wing rivals in the race accused him of insulting France. Le Pen, who has met few top foreign officials since taking control of the FN in 2011, met her first head of state, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, in Beirut in February. In a further sign of Germany's anger over the affair, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible" but hoped it would not "wreck" the countries' good relationship. On April 28, German prosecutors said they had arrested a Swiss man, identified as Daniel M., 54, who was accused of carrying out espionage activities since 2012. According to the German media, his alleged mission was to identify German tax investigators involved in purchasing stolen data on German residents who illegally stashed their money in Switzerland. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio on Saturday, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible." He said he had discussed the affair with Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who assured him that monitoring of German tax inspectors was not ongoing, as it had stopped in 2014. Gabriel also reacted strongly to arrest warrants issued by Switzerland for German tax inspectors. He described this move as "scandalous," adding that Germany had not yet received the warrants and would not reply to them anyway. Since January 2006, several Germany states have bought CDs or USB sticks containing stolen data on German tax cheats, which come from Switzerland or Liechtenstein. As a result, many of Germany's rich, powerful and famous have had to issue public apologies and paid back-taxes and fines. Switzerland, where secrecy has been a cornerstone of the banking industry, reacted with outrage to the theft. Berlin on Tuesday asked the Swiss ambassador, Christine Schraner Burgener, to clarify the case. Gabriel on Saturday said he hoped that light would be shed on the affair and that German-Swiss relations would not be hurt. "We do not wish to wreck our relationship with Switzerland, which is excellent," he said. According to a report in Bild daily on Tuesday, the alleged Swiss spy was a former police officer and a double agent who at one stage had spied for Germany on Switzerland. In a joint report, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and public broadcasters NDR and WDR added the spy had run a paid informant inside the finance ministry of North Rhein-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. The information reportedly helped Swiss authorities file charges of breaching Swiss banking laws and economic espionage against three German tax investigators. The migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, including 27 women and two children, were stranded at sea for several hours before being rescued by Libyan coastguard alerted by a local fisherman, Qassem told AFP. The International Organization for Migration said a total of 371 migrants were rescued on Friday thanks to the intervention of fishermen in three separate incidents off Zuwara. The Libyan coastguard said on Saturday it rescued another 168 migrants whose boat had run into trouble off Tripoli but was unable to assist a second vessel with an unknown number on board around two nautical miles away. "This type of operation takes a lot of time. We don't have the means," said Qassem, calling for international relief groups to provide Libya with boats and equipment to save more migrant lives. Their conversation took place a day after Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a deal setting up four "de-escalation zones" in Syria during talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. The United States did not take part. "The Secretary of State spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov today about the efforts to de-escalate the ongoing conflict in Syria," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. Experts are skeptical about Thursday's Kremlin-brokered deal because neither the Syrian government nor the rebels were direct signatories and the opposition offered only a lukewarm reaction. Washington gave the deal an extremely cautious welcome, citing concerns about Iran's role as a guarantor even as it expressed hope the agreement could set the stage for a later settlement. The United States takes part in separate peace talks under a UN mandate in Geneva, where the rivals have been deadlocked on key issues. A new round of Geneva talks is set for later this month. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," Nauert said. WWE ANNOUNCES ITALY RETURN, BABY DANIELSON UPDATE AND MORE WWE announced they would return to Italy this November with dates on 11/10 in Milan, 11/11 in Padova and 11/12 in Florence. Brie Bella posted a YouTube update that she recently had to spend some time in the hospital monitoring the breathing for the Danielsons' impending baby. They had previously noted that if her labor doesn't start naturally, they may need to medically induce. We wish the family all the best. WWE Publishing announced that in honor of Free Comic Book Day today, the first 200 people to post a photo from a Free Comic Book Day event on their social media using hashtag #FCBDWWE will receive a digital copy of the first WWE comic book from Boom! Studios. Dave Bautista and the rest of the cast of "Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2" appear in this video for Buzzfeed playing a game of "Would You Rather": WWE released the following videos: Superstars get revved up over Ducati Museum visit Bologna, Italy makes The Hardy Boyz feel at home: If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here! Davenport services feature evangelist Evangelist Bill Ford will highlight Living Hope Community Church services May 7-11. Ford, from Clinton, Arkansas, is to preach at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Sunday to start the week and will lead services at 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. He will challenge and refresh all visitors, according to organizers. The church is located at 216 W. Hayes St., Davenport. For more information call the church, 563-326-4673, or 326-HOPE. Online: LivingHopeQC.com Musical duo to perform Pianist Sylvia Wang and violinist Elizabeth Chang will headline a concert at 7 p.m. May 12 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Quad-Cities, 3707 Eastern Ave., Davenport. The duo will perform Dvorak, Stravinsky and other great compositions as a fundraiser. The pair has played together since 2014, including a six-city tour of China. Wang, the pianist, taught Sheila Doak during her college years at Northwestern University, Chicago. Doak is music director for the congregation. There is a suggested donation of $20 per person for the event. New site for mindfulness Sangha session The Bettendorf location for the Davenport School of Yoga is now 5123 Middle Road, south of the round-about. A meditation session will be 7 p.m. Friday, May 12. This is a location change. Sangha gatherings at other locations are not affected. Information online: meditationqc.org Women offer 'Rainbow of Colors' The "Rainbow of Colors" program by the Mission Ministry of Higher Heights Missionary Baptist Church will be 3 p.m. Sunday, May 21, at the mission's place of worship, or Community of Christ Church, 4221 N. Brady St., Davenport. Quad-City women will speak on the theme, which is from Ezekiel 1:28: "Women Embracing the Purpose, Power and Promise of the Rainbow." Women are asked to wear white, with accessories found in the rainbow, or red, orange, yellow, green, blue, navy blue or purple. For information call Carolyn Adams, 309-781-1538. Sacred Stream founder visit continues A week-long visit to the Quad-Cities from the founding director of the Foundation of the Sacred Stream continues next week with two events. Isa Gucciardi will host Embracing the Sacred Feminine, from 1-3:30 p.m. Thursday, May 11. It is open to men and women and the cost is $30 each. On May 12-13, it is The Path of Service and Nature of Suffering, which explores Buddhist understandings of the nature of suffering, and examines the path of service through the Bodhisattva. This cost is $150. Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat is 2664 145th Ave., Wheatland, Iowa. To register call 563-336-8414, or message: olpretreat@gmail.com. Alison McGaughey has been named public information specialist at Western Illinois University-Quad-Cities in Moline. McGaughey, who held a similar position at the Macomb campus from 2006-2011, returns to WIU after having served the past five years as a community college instructor for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and Black Hawk College. At the WIU-QC campus, McGaughey will be tasked with providing information to the general public and media about news and events taking place at the Moline campus, as well as promoting the university through social media, web and print publications. A 1999 graduate of Monmouth College, McGaughey began her career as a journalist, working as a reporter for daily newspapers. She later worked as marketing communications coordinator for Knox College in Galesburg. She began working at WIU as an editorial writer in the University Relations office in 2006, and later, she was promoted to public information specialist. McGaughey earned her master of arts in English while working full-time for WIU, graduating in December 2010. After completing her graduate degree, McGaughey relocated to the Quad-Cities, where she taught English as a Second Language, as well as GED and Adult Basic Education, specializing in reading improvement. SIOUX FALLS | Retired Air Force Col. Leo K. Thorsness, a highly decorated Vietnam War pilot who was shot down and held for six years at the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" prisoner camp, where he shared a cell with U.S. Sen. John McCain, has died. He was 85. The Medal of Honor recipient, who also ran for Congress in South Dakota and served as a legislator in Washington state, died on Tuesday, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. His cause of death wasn't disclosed. McCain, also a downed pilot during the war, released a statement calling Thorsness a dear friend. "One of the greatest honors of my life was serving with Leo, a man whose service exemplified selfless duty and devotion to others," the Arizona senator said. In April 1967, Thorsness was piloting an F-105 fighter-bomber and attacking surface-to-air missile sites over North Vietnam when a plane in his group was shot down. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to relay the two downed crew members' positions to search teams. He attacked an enemy plane before leaving the area in search of fuel. But when he heard enemy planes were threatening search helicopters, Thorsness despite his low fuel returned and attacked, driving enemy planes from the rescue scene. When he was about to refuel from an airborne tanker, he learned another F-105 in his group was lower on fuel, and he allowed the other plane to refuel first, according to the society. Thorsness was awarded the Medal of Honor the military's highest award for valor for the mission years later. Less than two weeks after that mission, Thorsness was shot down and taken prisoner in North Vietnam. He was held at the notorious POW camp where captives were routinely beaten and tortured. McCain, also a downed pilot, was held at the same prison. "Leo would spend the next six years imprisoned, including a full year in solitary confinement, and endure unspeakable pain and suffering because of his steadfast adherence to our code of conduct," McCain said. "But Leo never let this experience break his spirit, and inspired the rest of us with his patriotism, perseverance, and hope that we would someday be free." The Minnesota native enrolled at South Dakota State University, where he met his wife, Gaylee, in 1950, and he enlisted in the military the following year. He eventually returned to South Dakota, where he was the 1974 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. He lost to incumbent Sen. George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee two years earlier. Thorsness narrowly lost another race four years later, for the U.S. House, against Democrat Tom Daschle, who later became a U.S. senator for South Dakota. Thorsness later moved to the Seattle area, where he was elected in 1988 as a legislator in Washington state. Thorsness also spent time in California and other states, and eventually moved to Florida. "I considered him a patriot," friend and former campaign volunteer Carol Twedt told the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. "His passion for politics was that he wanted to make the world a better place to live." Along with his wife, Thorsness's survivors include a daughter, Dawn Thorsness; a sister, Donna Martinson; and two grandchildren. A group that one expert called the "KKK for Muslims" hosted a two-hour presentation in Rapid City last weekend about the history of Islam. ACT for America, a national organization categorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in America, held the event Saturday at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel in front of around 250 people. South Dakota Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Marty Jackley was in attendance, but his office declined to comment when reached after the event. Following the presentation, the Rev. Craig Moore of First Assembly of God told the audience that Secretary of State Shantel Krebs was also present. Krebs' office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Corey Saylor, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations who specializes in combating Islamaphobia, said of ACT for America: "In many ways, they are the KKK for Muslims." CAIR is a national civil rights group focused on bettering relations within the U.S. between Muslims and non-Muslims. The ACT for America event was sponsored by the South Dakota chapter of the Family Heritage Alliance, a national Christian conservative lobbying organization. Big Horn Canyon Community Church and the First Assembly of God both local Christian churches were also listed among the events sponsors. Addressing the audience Saturday, Amy Wilson, a spokeswoman for the South Dakota chapter of ACT for America, decried the SPLCs categorization of her organization as a hate group. This is a love group, Wilson said, citing the South Dakota chapters efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity. We love Muslims, and we want them to feel the love of Jesus Christ. Wilson said she is opposed to terrorism and female genital mutilation. In a later interview with the Journal, she said, We want to educate so Sharia law doesnt spread to South Dakota. The invited speaker, William Federer Christian author, radio personality, and former congressional candidate spoke about historical events in the Islamic world spanning from the first century to the modern era. Though he praised secular leaders like Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey, Federer spent most of his talk painting a picture of Islam as a religion built primarily on a foundation of conquest and bloodshed. There isnt a day that goes by that people see news headlines and they have questions, Federer said after his presentation. Past behavior is an indicator of future performance. Treating Muslims with niceness and tolerance, Federer told his audience, is a form of weakness. Weakness invites aggression, Federer said. Sharks can sense a distressed animal in the water, and theyre naturally drawn to attack the distressed animal. So the dilemma the West faces is the nicer the West shows itself, theres a percentage of Muslims that view that niceness as weakness. And they take that as an invitation to attack. Rapid City resident Joanna Lawler was among a small group of protesters gathered outside the Ramkota Hotel before the event. I think its disappointing that a speaker like this would have an audience here in Rapid City, she said. But certainly, he doesnt speak for all of us. In his book, What Every American Needs to Know About the QurAn A History of Islam & the United States, Federer questions whether Muslims can be loyal citizens of the U.S. Since Islam is not just a religion, but also a political and military system, he wrote, could a Muslims bowing five times a day be the equivalent of pledging allegiance to Mecca? Does it affect a Muslims loyalty to America to have one of Islams five pillars be the hajj, a pilgrimage once in their life to a city in Saudi Arabia? Federer said he is not a member of ACT for America, whose founder, Briggite Gabriel, attracted controversy when she met with President Donald Trump in March. During a speech to the Defense Departments Joint Forces Staff College in 2007, Gabriel a Lebanese Christian said that a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Quran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Quran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America. Saylor, with CAIR, said those beliefs are simply not true. Theyll give lip service to Oh, yeah, we like Muslims,' he said. But everything they teach is a conspiracy theory that somehow says that if were Muslims, we cant be patriotic Americans. Which is a lie. CAIR has attracted controversy of its own in the past, having been accused of ties to Hamas, a terrorist organization. But CAIR has never been formally charged with criminal activity, and a New York Times story from 2007 said that government officials described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism. I grew up Christian, and I loved the Book of Joshua when I was a little kid, Saylor said. Its one endless war story. That doesnt mean I understand Christianity to be a violent faith. I understand you take the entirety of a holy book within its context. And I always find it intriguing that ACT for Americas understanding of the Quran is the exact same one as ISIS, even when the rest of the world rejects that interpretation. Zeroing in on the most violent chapters of Islams history, Federer in his presentation didn't discuss acts of violence committed in the name of Christianity. "Thats not the topic of my talk," he said. "Its how Islam affected Western civilization, not the comparison of bad things done." Federer describes Islam as a religious, political and military ideology that he claims follows a three-part playbook for entering and taking over communities. "Immigrate, increase and eliminate," Federer said. When asked afterward how people should interpret the information he presented, he said, Dont. Its a historical narrative. Its two plus two, he continued. You can do the 'equals four' in your mind, but dont say that I did that. Rapid City resident Carol Merwin left Federers presentation about a half hour before it ended. They say theyre not being hateful, she said, but to me it seems theyre trying to demonize people of another religion. Since Im not into demonizing people, I cant demonize them for what theyre saying. "But I think its harmful. SPEARFISH | There was a time in Eleanor Ellie Froschmayers young life when she questioned whether she could ever succeed in college. Today, the now-confident, educated and eloquent 21-year-old will walk during commencement exercises at Black Hills State University. Adopted as a baby by Felicia and John Froschmayer and raised in Waukesha, Wis., the youngest Froschmayer suffered from a disability known as dyspraxia and wasnt able to talk until she was 4 years old. But, with the help of speech therapy, she rebounded. When I was younger and in high school, I thought of going to college, but I was really scared that I was really dumb, she admitted in an interview Thursday, amid final exams. But I got over the fact I am unique, and now know I can do most anything I put my mind to. While attending the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha for two years following high school graduation, Froschmayer recalled a family vacation to the Black Hills. That memory spurred her to begin a project focused on Crazy Horse that eventually would encompass the known history of the legendary Lakota leader. It also chronicled how he was portrayed in art, movies and literature, as well as how his life impacted activist efforts spanning from the American Indian Movement to the more recent protests over the Dakota Access pipeline. Her love of Native culture caused Froschmayer to transfer to BHSU and enroll in its American Indian Studies program. It also caused her to break out of her shell and serve as a seasonal interpreter last summer at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, where she addressed hundreds of visitors from around the world each day. I felt I made a difference, because at Rushmore they dont shy away from history that is ultimately considered controversial and they encompass all of the Black Hills history including Native peoples, Froschmayer said. I would introduce myself in Lakota, explain how their language came to their people, and how they almost lost their language through boarding schools. Using a hand-drum as accompaniment, Froschmayer would sing the Johnny Cash song, Drums, in Lakota. Its lyrics included, There are drums beyond the mountain, Indian drums you cannot hear. There are drums beyond the mountain, and theyre getting mighty near. Due to her adoption, Froschmayer said her heritage remains unclear. But she said her great-aunt once told her that she was of Native descent. I dont really know my background, she said. But I do know that last summer at Mount Rushmore I made a lot of people cry. Interpretation is the seed that connects people, and thats a good thing. People said I was brave and doing good things and I felt like I was literally making a difference. It was the greatest thing I ever did, honestly. With her new-found confidence, Froschmayers speech impediment is rarely noticeable, and she credits several people with helping her find her voice. Among them are her parents, UW-Waukesha professor Jon Kasparek, BHSU history instructor Kelly Kirk, BHSU Lakota teacher Beverly Running Bear who taught her the basics of the language and, finally, American Indian Studies assistant professor and adviser Jace DeCory, who shared her knowledge, helped Froschmayer through periods of struggle, and made me feel at home. I still have a bit of my speech impediment and I never thought Id be speaking to hundreds of people in crowds at Mount Rushmore, she said with pride. Froschmayer said she found it extremely gratifying when park rangers told her of a young boy who had attended her presentation as part of the National Park Services Junior Ranger program. When asked by a Rushmore ranger what he had learned, the boy provided an entire timeline of Froschmayers presentation and recounted all the numbers and dates involved with great specificity. That day, I felt I truly made a difference in that kids life, Froschmayer said. While she technically will walk during Saturdays commencement, Froschmayer still must complete two summer courses to gain her bachelors of science degree in American Indian Studies from BHSU. But, shes not going to let that cast a pall on her summer or prevent her from trying to recapture the magic she found last year in the shadows of Mount Rushmore. Early Sunday morning, Froschmayer will set out on her next great adventure, driving to Colorado, where shell begin an environmental education internship on Wednesday at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. And, one day, she hopes to earn a masters degree in multicultural education or counseling. I feel like Im equipped, with my experiences, to help others understand different cultures, she said. Ultimately, I just want to help people understand that we should bridge cultures, that history still affects us today. Thats my goal. After deliberating for almost a day, a jury on Friday convicted a Pine Ridge man of murdering a 13-year-old girl on the reservation last year. James Robert Dowty, 27, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of TeCa Clifford. He was also found guilty of discharging a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence, and faces a penalty ranging from 10 years to life in prison. Clifford and three teenage friends were walking in the town of Pine Ridge in the early morning of July 20 when a man they encountered fired at Clifford. The girl suffered gunshot wounds in her abdomen and back, and died in a hospital that same morning. At 2:20 p.m. Friday, jurors filed back into the Rapid City federal courthouses third-floor courtroom, almost 24 hours after exiting the room to begin their deliberations. Dowty, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and seated beside his lawyer, bowed his head as a deputy court clerk began reading the verdict. When the first guilty verdict was pronounced, Dowtys head jerked up, his gaze flying toward the ceiling. He turned to say something to his lead defense attorney, Jennifer Albertson, his eyes looking red. Before he was led out of the courtroom by members of the U.S. Marshals Service, Chief Judge Jeffrey Viken reminded Dowty that he had an absolute right to appeal the convictions. The victims relatives, who attended the trial that started Monday but had returned to Pine Ridge when the verdict was announced, received the news by phone. Cliffords grandmother, Frankee White Dress, said the family was happy and relieved it is over, according to Ace Crawford, spokeswoman and victim/witness specialist with the U.S. Attorneys Office. The prosecutors credited the conviction to Cliffords three companions that morning, who testified that Dowty was the shooter. The defense, during the trial, had questioned the teenagers credibility since they had admitted to drinking and smoking marijuana, and buying more liquor from a bootlegger, just before Clifford was shot. An expert witness, who had testified for the defense, also said they could not have identified the shooter because of factors such as the dim lighting and their distance from the gunman. They now have the peace of mind to know that 12 people in that courtroom believed them, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Collins said, adding that earning the teenagers trust was one of the challenges in preparing for trial. That was really hard for them Its scary for grownups to be in that courtroom, let alone young people, Collins said in a Journal interview with the lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Kelderman. Without the three eyewitnesses, the prosecutors said, it might not have even been possible to bring charges against Dowty. Authorities found a bullet casing at the crime scene but have not recovered the gun used to kill Clifford. They also did not find Dowtys fingerprints or DNA on the bullet casing. The prosecutors admitted feeling nervous, as well as shaking from adrenaline, as they waited for the verdict to be read. Without a firearm, to convict someone of using a firearm to kill someone isnt easy, said Kelderman. "We hope that this gives a little consolation to the family of the 13-year-old victim ... We hope that this helps just a little bit with the pain that they feel," he said, acknowledging the work of the Oglala Sioux tribal police, Bureau of Indian Affairs and FBI. Dowty is detained at the Pennington County Jail while awaiting sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled. When asked if Dowty will appeal his convictions, his co-defense attorney Erin Bolinger declined to comment beyond saying that they will be discussing his options. North Dakotas attorney general has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit against him that claims a woman was fired after reporting a Devils Lake care facility for at-risk children ignored cruel conduct by a co-worker. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Ramsey County District Court filed a 29-page memorandum this week asking to be dismissed from the case as defendants. Katherine Gray, a former care provider for Harmony House in Devils Lake, claims her employment was terminated in June 2016 because she reported to the North Dakota Department of Human Services that David Kosmatka, who still works at the facility, threatened children, refused them food, verbally bullied them and walked in on children while they were dressing or were naked. One Native American child told Gray that Kosmatka called the child fat and lazy, grabbed and squeezed the child and caused the child to emotionally break down, according to court documents. Gray said she asked Harmony House Director Barry Sundeen to address the issue several times before she reported the incident, but he "covered up and protected" Kosmatka, according to court documents. She told him she would report the incidents to Human Services, and after informing him that she had testified about the matter, she was fired. Stenehjem argued he is only mentioned once in the claim -- as a party in the proceeding. Attorney General Stenehjem is not mentioned by name in any of the Complaints factual allegations, the motion to dismiss states. Nor is he mentioned in any of the seven counts identified as causes of action. The allegations against Attorney General Stenehjem, and the relief sought against him, are unclear. The Devils Lake Public School District, which operates Harmony House with Lake Region Special Education, asked Ramsey County District Court to place a gag order on Gray after she went to police to report the incidents and stayed in contact with a resident at Harmony House after she was fired. Judge Lee Christofferson issued an order prohibiting Gray from speaking about incidents at the facility or from having contact with children there. The motion to dismiss argues the federal court does not have jurisdiction in the case because Stenehjem and the Ramsey County Court District are state defendants. The motion also argues Gray failed to state claims against Stenehjem and the court. The documents do not ask to dismiss the case against other defendants, which include Devils Lake Public Schools, Lake Region Special Education, Sundeen, Devils Lake Public School Board members and County State's Attorney Kari Agotness. Also listed as a defendant was Catherine Miller, who "at all times relevant to the action" of Gray's court filings was an employee of Devils Lake Public Schools. Gray is seeking damages for various reasons, including humiliation, loss of reputation, lost career and business opportunities and "mental and emotional anguish and distress." As Rapid City and Black Hills residents prepare for the visitor season, the Rapid City Convention & Visitors Bureau would like to shine a spotlight on all the "Faces of Travel." The visitor industry is one which relies on human interaction. Our region would not have the fabulous reputation we have if not for the front desk clerks and housekeepers at our hotels and motels, the tour guides who share all the wonderful stories about our area, the convenience store employees, and the attraction and gift shop personnel. Yes, these people, these employees make the difference between a visitor having a wonderful time or a miserable experience. We salute all these promoters, the people who make this industry great, all 9,862 of them from Pennington County alone, this week and all year long. Rapid City is celebrating National Travel & Tourism Week from May 7 to 13, and we encourage everyone to roll out the red carpet for our visitors. Company is coming, and we want to put our best foot forward. Your face-to-face contact with a traveler is also incredibly important; so give directions, suggest your favorite attraction, restaurant or hidden gem, and wave and be patient with our out-of-town guests. We are fortunate to live in an area where four million people visit every year. Without tourism, each South Dakota household would pay an additional $821 in taxes per year. It truly does pay to be nice. Remember to be a tourist yourself. Take time to enjoy all the events, attractions and beauty right here in our backyard. Dont be a martyr at work. Take some of those vacation days you have accrued and explore the beautiful Black Hills. "Faces of Travel" are everywhere, including yours. The Fort Pierre City Council should not have entered into a secret settlement agreement. On Monday, in a five-to-one vote, the council agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Perkins' owner Diane London in 2015. Exactly how much Fort Pierre's citizens could be on the hook for is completely unknown. The city council, as part of the settlement, agreed to keep details secret. How can a public entity agree to shell out taxpayers' dollars without telling the very people from whom that money was collected how much of their blood, sweat and tears are being used to end a lawsuit originally brought because city leaders may or may not have followed the city's rules regarding the development of the Teton Island district? The answer is pretty simple. South Dakota's laws are, at best, abysmal when it comes to telling people what their own governments are doing. South Dakota continually ranks in the bottom five of the 50 states when it comes to openness in government. South Dakota is not an open-government state. That fact is surprising given the majority of our political leaders' repeated calls for a more limited government and their stated commitment to spending the smallest amount of taxpayer dollars possible. One would be forgiven for assuming that a commitment to limited-government principles would extend to such things as not spending taxpayer dollars without telling the taxpayers how much is being spent. In South Dakota, at least, it doesn't. There have been many attempts to fix loopholes in state law that allow city governments to conceal information such as how much they have to shell out for legal settlements. All have failed. That brings us back to Fort Pierre. Rob Anderson, the lawyer to whom Fort Pierre Mayor Gloria Hanson said all questions about the settlement should be directed, told a Capital Journal reporter that he cannot even say whether the city had to pay anything at all or if there's an insurance policy that would help defray costs, if there were any. Confidential settlements on behalf of government entities aren't unique to South Dakota. Local and state governments all over the country have tried repeatedly to conceal details of legal settlements from their citizens. It's often done to prevent the embarrassment of public officials or to protect the person who filed the lawsuit and has received taxpayer dollars as a result of the settlement. Neither of those situations are acceptable reasons to keep financial information from taxpayers. The state should have clear laws forbidding secret legal settlements for all levels of government. There should be few exceptions to the prohibition of secrecy and every elected, appointed or hired official should know the consequences for circumventing those rules. South Dakota has none of that right now. What we do have is vague statutory language surrounding contracts and legal settlements as they apply to governments. The Fort Pierre City Council may not have violated a state law by entering into a secret settlement. They may have been acting in good faith when they did so, hoping to save a taxpayer money by ending a costly lawsuit early. But the councilors owe their constituents more than that. The council owes the people of Fort Pierre good government, and good government can't be conducted in secret. The council also owes their constituents the chance for a full accounting of what may or may not have gone wrong at the Teton Island development. That can't be done now. While a secret settlement may be legal for governments to enter into right, they are almost never the right thing to do. Every citizen of Fort Pierre should demand that the city council make its portion of this settlement public. FARGO While nearly every major medical group in the nation has strongly opposed the bill U.S. House Republicans passed to replace Obamacare, the health care industry in North Dakota is taking a wait-and-see approach. We expect there will be changes to the House bill in the Senate, and we also expect more debate and dialog over the coming weeks, Cindy Morrison, chief policy officer for Sanford Health, said in a statement Friday. It is hard to say what the impacts will be until we see what the Senate version looks like. Sanford is both a health care provider with hospitals in Fargo and throughout North Dakota and an insurer. In Grand Forks, Altru Health System was similarly reticent. It is too early to say the impact the bill will have on our organization as we anticipate changes proposed in the Senate, Meghan Compton, chief legal counsel, said in a statement. We are currently analyzing the details of the legislation, Andrea Dinneen, spokeswoman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, said in a statement. We also recognize that there is much work to be done on the bill in the Senate, and we will continue to monitor the impacts of the changes. The House narrowly passed the American Health Care Act Thursday, despite concerns by groups ranging from AARP to the Catholic Health Association of the United States. They complain that it cuts taxes for the wealthy while allowing insurers to increase rates significantly for those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly. Critics hope the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrower majority, will make significant changes. Not only would the AHCA eliminate health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, the legislation would, in many cases, eliminate the ban against charging those with underlying medical conditions vastly more for their coverage, Dr. Andrew W. Gurman, president of the American Medical Association, warned in a statement Wednesday. The Forum left a message with the North Dakota Medical Association Friday but didnt hear back as of press time. Our top concern is what this change could mean for older and sicker patients, including those with pre-existing conditions, such as cancer patients and those with chronic conditions, Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said in a statement Saturday, April 27, explaining why his group doesnt support the bill. Both Sanford and Altru are members. The Forum left a message with the North Dakota Hospital Associations president, Jerry Jurena, but didnt hear back as of press time. The American Health Care Act needs important improvements to better protect low- and moderate-income families who rely on Medicaid or buy their own coverage, Marilyn Tavenner, president and CEO of Americas Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement Thursday. She said her her group will work with the Senate and other policymakers to improve the bill. Dineen said BCBSND is making decisions now about 2018 insurance plans and has told North Dakotas congressional delegation its concerned about the timing of any legislation that would require major changes to those plans. Our top priority is to ensure our members, including those with pre-existing conditions, have access to coverage that is affordable to them, she said. Of the three places being considered for a future fishing access site at Stevensville, state officials say the property owned by the Capp family is the most suitable. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials recently sent the Town of Stevensville its input following a tour of three potential sites in April. If we erased all the other issues surrounding this fishing access site and started with a blank slate, we would choose the Capp property, said FWP Regional Fisheries Manager Pat Saffel in an interview Friday. If all things were equal, in that sense, its the best. But, of course, Saffel said he knows the issue isnt that simple. We understand that there are a lot of other values that are coming into play, he said. At issue is a popular fishing access site on the Bitterroot River just below the Stevensville Cutoff Road bridge. For decades, people have launched their watercraft on the gravel bar just below the bridge. To get there, they have to cross a narrow strip of land owned by the Capp family. The Capp family has proposed trading 3.6 acres of land they own there for 8 acres of land downstream owned by the Town of Stevensville. The Capps would also give up a little more than an acre inside the city limits as part of the trade. If the trade goes through, FWP has agreed to build a new parking area and pit toilet on the land now owned by the Capps. The new infrastructure is estimated to cost about $250,000. The park board voted in January to recommend the council put the issue to a public vote. Stevensville Mayor Jim Crews said FWPs letter will be read into the record at next weeks council meeting, but he doesnt expect any action will be taken. At the councils May 22 meeting, the council might consider a request to make the 20-plus acres the town owns downstream from the Capp property into a park. Its been used as a park for years, but officially, as far as I can tell, its never officially been accepted by the town as a park, Crews said. If the land officially became a park, it would require a vote before a portion of it could be traded. During the tour in April, FWP officials joined folks from the town government and others to review three potential places for the fishing access site. They included the Capp property, a portion of the proposed park lands just downstream of the Capp property and some land owned by the Montana Department of Transportation and Ravalli County directly across the river from where people currently launch their boats. The letter said the property owned by the Town of Stevensville was the least desirable for a future fishing access site. It would require a new road through an area that is prone to flooding. Since it is farther downstream from the bridge site, the launch site could be affected by the instability of the river. If the town opted for that site, FWP would not be able to commit to building the same amount of infrastructure. Instead, the state would have to build something less expensive initially and then wait to see how well it functioned over a number of years. The site on the other side of the river would require a good deal of excavation to construct a boat launch. Some road rerouting in the area may need to occur, too. Saffel said Friday the two landowners of the site on the other side of the river havent been contacted about the availability of that land. It would need some more vetting, he said. The FWP letter said the Capp property provides many of the key features and conditions that make it the most desirable and suitable for constructing a fishing access site. The site is the most stable and is the least problematic and has the least challenging features for constructing and maintaining a recreational site with vehicular traffic, the letter read. The Capp property is near the bridge and highway which makes it a more stable site, out of the floodplain and easier to access. Saffel said FWP has already completed much of the planning for the Capp site and therefore can make a commitment to the construction of the necessary infrastructure there. We cant have that level of commitment at the other two sites at this point, he said. We didnt want to take them off the table either. We know there are a lot of other values that the community has to consider. An 82-year-old Stevensville man was sentenced to 100 years in the Montana State Prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a child and will not be eligible for parole until he's served 25 years. Gary Gene Dowdle appeared before Ravalli County District Judge James Haynes on five sexual assault charges for molesting a girl numerous times when she was between the ages of 4 and 6. According to court records, when the girls mother confronted Dowdle about the allegations, he told her the girl liked it and came on to him. Dowdle made other admissions to the Ravalli County sheriffs detective who investigated the case. When the detective asked Dowdle how many times he assaulted the girl, Dowdle allegedly replied that he hadnt counted them, but he did it every chance he had. Dowdle was arrested after the girl told authorities in Colorado that she had been sexually assaulted over a two-year period. Ravalli County Deputy Attorney Meghann Paddock said Dowdle accepted a plea agreement that allowed his attorney to argue for a lesser sentence than allowed under Montanas version of Jessicas Law. First enacted in Florida, Jessicas Law was named for a 9-year-old girl who was kidnaped, raped and murdered in 2005. Montanas version requires a 25-year minimum prison sentence for adults convicted of various sex crimes against children under 13. In following the Jessicas Law statute, Paddock said Dowdle will not be eligible for parole for 25 years. I think its an appropriate outcome in this case, Paddock said. In the months of February and March, the Ravalli County Clerk of District Court's office processed almost as many passports as they do in an entire year. Starting Tuesday, a sign posted on the offices door said they wouldnt be doing any more for the time being after May 5. We're shorthanded, District Court Clerk Paige Trautwein said. Until we get through the hiring process, we decided we would have to suspend that service. The rush on passports followed news that federal officials had notified the state that it wouldnt be granted any more delays in complying with the 2005 Real ID Act, an anti-terrorism law. That federal decision meant that people could no longer use state-issued drivers licenses for identification at federal facilities or to board airplanes starting Jan. 1, 2018. Last week, the House and Senate passed a measure that would give residents an option to buy a drivers license or identification card that complies with the requirements of the Real ID Act. As of Wednesday, that measure had not been signed by the governor. Everyone has been scrambling to get a passport recently, Trautwein said. People dont want to take a chance that they might get somewhere in the country and not be able to get back. Security has tightened up so much. In the months of February and March, Trautweins office processed over 200 passports. It usually does about 250 in a year. After receiving notice that two of her employees would be moving on to other positions, Trautwein said she sat down with her employees to talk about the challenges they faced. The whole team decided to suspend it, she said. We wanted to make sure that we could keep this office running smoothly. To train someone to be proficient in this office takes about a year. Everything we do can impact peoples civil rights. We cant afford to make any mistakes. People interested in getting or updating passports in Ravalli County will now be required to do so through either the Hamilton or Florence post offices. Hamilton Postmaster Mike Stahl said passport requests at the Hamilton Post Office have doubled since October. Stahl couldnt say exactly how many have been processed in that time period, but estimated the number to be somewhere between five and seven a week. That demand may grow now that the county has stopped accepting applications. Anyone interested in obtaining a passport needs to call either the Hamilton or Florence post offices to make an appointment. Stahl suggested people have their photograph taken at the post office. It has to be the right size to fit the strict criteria needed for a passport, Stahl said. The cost is $150. It takes about four to six weeks for the passport to be processed. That process can be expedited, cutting the time to three weeks, for an additional $90. If people have their paperwork completed, I think the process can be completed in somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes, he said. With lawmakers' decision last week to approve Montana Real ID-compatible licenses, the state may ask for another extension in the deadline to comply with the federal requirement. If the extension were granted, Montanans would be able to use their current licenses as identification to board airplanes and enter federal facilities. That decision has not yet been made. Comments and links to reports on science, and its applications. America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance! J. Robert Smith Rising tensions and possible war with North Korea have been in the news for weeks. Less reported on would be a war's toll. War on the Korean peninsula would feature technology-juiced conventional and asymmetric fighting. Destruction and casualties would tally quickly. That's military and civilian -- U.S., Korean, and possibly Japanese. Modern warfare's lethality needs to be understood. If a nation goes to war, it needs to go with its eyes wide open. Let's establish this first. President Trump has every right to worry about Kim Jong-un's efforts to develop ballistic missiles capability. Outgoing president Barack Obama warned Trump about the threat. Trump has clearly learned a lot more since. Reported BBC News: North Korea's latest efforts appear focused on building reliable long-range missiles, which may have the potential to reach the mainland United States. Two types of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) known as the KN-08 and KN-14, have been observed at various military parades since 2012. Carried and launched from the back of a modified truck, the three-stage KN-08 is believed to have a range of about 11,500km. The KN-14 appears to be a two-stage missile, with a possible range of around 10,000km. War scenarios have the U.S. launching a preventive strike against the North. The principal aim would be to "decapitate" the Hermit Kingdom's leadership. Simultaneously, the U.S. would go after Kim's nuclear sites. Attacks would target the North's military chain of command and seek to disrupt -- if not shut down -- communications and stymie the Korean People's Army's (KPA) movement. U.S. and South Korean (ROK) forces would act to neutralize KPA's forces massed along the DMZ. A first strike against the North would be a coordinated mix of conventional warfare (primarily cruise missiles and fighter aircraft), special forces and covert operations, and cyberattacks. It's "shock and awe," with more hoped-for finality. If it worked as planned, the war would practically end before it started. It's high stakes. A first strike is unambiguous. Short of killing Kim and the North Korean elites outright, they'd get that it was death match. War with the U.S. and the South would mean inevitable defeat for the North's elite. That's the makings of desperation. What we know about wars is that they rarely go as planned. The KPA isn't Saddam's army. It isn't the Taliban. They're generally well equipped, rigorously trained, and appear motivated via fear and special status -- to fight. (North Korea's military is ranked 23 out of 126 by globalfirepower.com.) The North has concentrated forces and thousands of artillery pieces in the hills just north of the DMZ to strike Seoul. Seoul's a mere 30 miles from the DMZ. Metro Seoul's population is 25 million. In the opening phase of a war, the North would unleash thousands of rounds of artillery fire. Or intend to. It's speculated that much of that artillery is outdated, and munitions may be poor, too. But that's based on documents "leaked" from the North. They may be disinformation. But it's a numbers game, anyway. With thousands of artillery pieces, what portion would have to be operational to wreak havoc on Seoul? From the Washington Post: The Second Corps of the Korean People's Army stationed at Kaesong on the northern side of the DMZ has about 500 artillery pieces, [analyst] Bermudez said. And this is just one army corps; similar corps are on either side of it. All the artillery pieces in the Second Corps can reach the northern outskirts of Seoul, just 30 miles from the DMZ, but the largest projectiles could fly to the south of the capital. How quickly could the U.S. and ROK make headway in destroying functioning artillery? Not overnight. How much time would KPA firepower have to attack Seoul? Add to the mix the North's chemical and biological munitions stockpile. The North has agents deployed throughout Seoul Metro. They would act as saboteurs, yes, but they'd target leaders to kill. Soft civilian targets would be in their crosshairs too. The North has 180,000 commandos. Per the Washington Post: "Strategic SOF [Special Operations Force] units dispersed across North Korea appear designed for rapid offensive operations, internal defense against foreign attacks, or limited attacks against vulnerable targets in the ROK [Republic of Korea] as part of a coercive diplomacy effort," the report said. "They operate in specialized units, including reconnaissance, airborne and seaborne insertion, commandos, and other specialties. All emphasize speed of movement and surprise attack to accomplish their missions." The U.S. has 23,500 stationed in the South. Thousands of U.S. troops are deployed along the DMZ, serving as a tripwire. In the opening days, U.S. causalities would be significant. Rolling up the KPA would mean advancing up the Peninsula toward the Chinese and Russian borders. Fighting would be fierce. Much of the Korean peninsula features hills, mountains, and valleys. It's suitable terrain for resistance warfare. As for the Chinese and Russians, military intervention is unlikely, for obvious and complicated reasons. The Russians don't have a history of direct military confrontation with the U.S. Berlin and Cuba saw tensions resolved without conflict. The Russians were glad to equip and arm the North Vietnamese communists, but not to do the fighting. For the PRC, the early 1950s are long gone. Mao certainly tipped the balance for the North Korean communists in the Korean War. U.S. and allied forces had all but won the fight when Chinese intervention led to a stalemate. Modern China's economic health is tied to manufacturing and global trade, much of it with the U.S. The PRC seeks broad hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. Xi Jingping and Trump may have come to an accord over what to do about the North in hopes of avoiding war. Certainly, Pyongyang is unhappy with the Chinese, lashing out at Beijing for its "lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the U.S." War and the North's defeat would push refugee hordes into China. Managing a refugee crisis isn't something China wants. Nor does the PRC want U.S. and ROK troops perched on the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. For that matter, Putin wouldn't care for the U.S. to be nearer Vladivostok. Avoiding conflict better serves China's interests. There's no question that Kim Jong-un is ruthless, but is he suicidal? Like a poker player, Kim could keep his nuke card in hand, threatening to play it to wring concessions. Kim's father and grandfather were masters at bellicosity and exacerbating tensions to leverage aid and economic help. A White House official is worried about nuclear blackmail, as Fox News reported: North Korea's nuclear weapons development could be used as "blackmail" to influence the U.S. to abandon its ally in South Korea in order to make it easier for Pyongyang to overtake its archrival, a White House official [Mark Pottinger] said Tuesday. Would a future U.S. president abandon South Korea in the face of nuclear blackmail? Who knows if Kim's successor would be ruthless and rational? Even rational men miscalculate. Is conventional war now, even with its high price, better than war tomorrow, with nukes in the mix? Trump is weighing a lot. War, and its consequences, carries the greatest weight. Guwahati: As an extension to the First Year of the US-India Travel and Tourism Partnership Year 2017, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce in support with US Consulate General hosted a day long convention on 'Indo-US Promotion of Travel and Tourism'A in Kolkata on Friday. The convention was attended by Chief Guest Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism, Odisha Special Guest Keshav R Prasad, Special Secretary and Director cum MD Ministry of Tourism, Bihar. Guests of Honour Patrick Santillo Minister, Counselor, US Embassy and Jayanta Malla Baruah, Chairman, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) along with the members of Indo- American Chamber of Commerce, N V Srinivasan, National President, Vasant Subramanyan, National Vice President, B.K Nahata, Regional President-EIC and Anil Punjabi, Chairman-Eastern Region, The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI). The convention explored opportunities for Outbound Tourism, US Visa application procedure, Investment Opportunities in Travel, Tourism & Hospitality sectors, Enhancing Tourism-Airlines & Hotel Chains along with Showcasing of the States of Eastern India. Jayanta Malla Baruah, Chairman, Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) said that Assam Government is ready to extend red carpet to all the investors in the state. 'We are going to organize Tour Operator Conclave in October and Global Tourism Summit in November. We want to popularize tourism among the people, thereby making it a way of livelihood for the unemployed sector as well,' Baruah said. The programme offered a large and meaningful platform to showcase the vast potential in tourism by conducting four Technical Sessions. First Technical Session started with presentations by Brand USA, Destination USA (Florida, New York), Visit USA and Mice followed by a panel discussion on Promotion of Tourism to the US-Initiatives and removal of Impediments and a brief demonstration on 'US Visa Application Procedure' by Shelly Dittmar. Second session included a panel Discussion on 'Potential for investment in Travel, Tourism & Hospitality Sector' and also showcased case studies on 'Using US management for development of hospitality sector s' Vision for Eastern India' by the spokespersons of JW Marriot and Starwood respectively. Third Session included a discussion on 'Enhancing Tourism 'Airlines and Hotel chains and technology as a force and a Multiplier for Regional Tourism Development' by the leading Airlines (Air India, Qatar Airways, Indigo, Jet Airways, and Spice Jet) and hospitality chains (The Oberoi Grand and JW Marriot) along with a presentation on Technology Advancement by IIM and Uber. The fourth session concluded with the showcasing of the Eastern states' potential and positives as tourism destinations, followed by a discussion on 'Positioning East 'experiential Eastern India in the US market 'along with a demonstration by Digital Branz on promoting guidance for tourism via website. In 2016, the United States and India announced that the two nations would participate in a year of travel and tourism partnership in 2017. The US-India Travel and Tourism Partnership Year marks the first year of bilateral engagement between the two countries on trade in travel and tourism services under the US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue. This collaboration generated a vast platform which allowed both the governments and private sectors to increase travel and tourism between the two countries. India is a key market for USA, according to a survey in 2015, the United States welcomed 1.1 million Indian visitors, making India the eleventh largest inbound visitation market and the seventh largest market for US travel and tourism exports. There is an enormous growth potential in the tourism sector of India. (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) PARIS, May 6: Frances election campaign watchdog is investigating a hacking attack and document leak targeting presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron that his political movement calls a last-ditch bid to disrupt Sundays tense runoff vote. Fears of hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout Frances high-stakes, closely watched campaign and boiled over Friday night as Macrons team said it had been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack. His political movement said the unidentified hackers accessed staffers personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts as well as fake decoy documents online. The perpetrators remain unknown. While the hack is shaking up the already head spinning campaign, its unclear whether the document dump would dent Macrons large poll lead over far-right Marine Le Pen going into the vote. After ditching Frances traditional left-right parties in a first-round election, voters are now choosing between Macrons business-friendly, pro-European vision and Le Pens protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization. The future of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global populism. Voting begins in Frances overseas territories Saturday before moving to the mainland Sunday, amid a nationwide blackout on campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying voters views. The leak began just before the blackout descended at midnight, in theatrical timing fitting for the dramatic campaign. Someone on 4chan a site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism posted links to a large set of data which the poster claimed had come from Macrons campaign. Macrons campaign swiftly confirmed it had been hacked some weeks ago, and that at least some of the documents were genuine. Slamming the hack as an effort to seed doubt and disinformation and destabilize the vote, Macrons movement En Marche said it would take all measures to shed light on what happened. It recalled similar leaks from Hillary Clintons U.S. presidential campaign, which also said that authentic documents were mixed with false ones. The No. 2 in Le Pens anti-immigration National Front party, Florian Philippot, asked in a tweet, will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried? The commission overseeing the French campaign said in a statement that it is holding a meeting early Saturday after being informed of the hack and leak. The voting watchdog also called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot systematically torn up. The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics. Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign. In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Le Pen said that win or lose, we changed everything. She claimed an ideological victory and said she could still pull of a surprise win on Sunday. The 39-year-old Macron also helped upend Frances traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign outside standard parties. Many voters, however, dont like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her partys racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande. Guwahati : Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal directed the state forest department to take strong steps for protection of state's forest resources and expansion of forest cover. Saying that wild flora and fauna have been the strengths around which state's tourism strives, Sonowal directed the Forest Department to take proactive steps for conservation of forest areas and wildlife through reserve forests and initiate campaigns to generate awareness among the masses for protection of forest. The Assam CM said in a meeting of the Forest Department's Compensatory Aforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) held on Friday at the Chief Minister's conference room at Assam Janata Bhawan that the CAMPA's functioning at district level must be bolstered for the right implementation of the schemes. Sonowal directed the department to initiate action for tree plantation at government lands for expanding the forest cover. Sonowal also asked the Chief Secretary to issue instruction to the Deputy Commissioners for discussing CAMPA's activities on a priority basis at District Development Committee meetings in all districts and to take measures for starting tree plantation programmes with the cooperation of the public. Directing the forest department to take measures for protection of water bodies within the reserve forests for facilitating healthy growth of wildlife, Sonowal asked the Department to initiate conservation efforts by studying the history of the reserve forests. He also remarked that to reduce man - animal conflict in the state basic needs of wildlife like water, food, shelter must be safeguarded. Directing the Forest Department to implement schemes for large scale plantation of medicinal plants, Sonowal also asked the Department to chalk out plans for making Deepor Beel the centre of attraction for tourists. During the meeting, the Assam CM was apprised by the Forest Department about the scheme of school nursery through which students have been inspired to engage in conservation of nature and ecology as the school campuses would be made greener by planting trees under this scheme. It was informed that 44 schools in Kamrup, Nagaon and Darang Districts have been covered by this scheme and more schools in other districts would also be covered in the subsequent phases. Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma, Principal Secretary of Forest Department Pawan Kumar Borthakur, Commissioner and Secretary to the Chief Minister among others were present in the meeting. (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) Guwahati, May 5 : Suspected militants had abducted three Kuki tribals and killed two of them in Manipur. Police on Friday morning had recovered the bodies near Khokhen area in Kangpokpi district about 60 km away from Manipur's capital Imphal. The deceased Kuki tribals were identified as N Haokip and Nenkholin. According to the reports, suspected militants had abducted a person belonging to Kuki tribes from Imphal East district and two from Kangpokpi district last night. Meanwhile, Manipur police and paramilitary personnel had rushed to the area and launched massive operation against the killers. A top official of Manipur police said that, the suspected militants had abducted the three Kuki tribal persons from their homes. The police official said that another abducted person Jamkholien is still untraceable and operation going on to trace him unhurt. It is the first such type of killing incident in Manipur, after the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) had formed the first government in the north eastern state a month ago. (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) Guwahati, May 6 : Security forces had apprehended two hardcore militants belonging to NSCN (K) from Arunachal Pradesh's Khonsa area on Friday, officials said on Saturday. Kohima based Defence PRO Colonel Chiranjeet Konwer said that, the Khonsa Battalion of the Assam Rifles under DAO DIVISION carried out a major operation at Kunsa area in south Arunachal Pradesh and apprehended two hardcore militants of NSCN(K) identified as Self Styled Lt Wanphai Wangsa and self Styled Cpl Kekho Homku. "These militants were terrorizing people to extort money from the area and were involved in various nefarious activities," the Defence PRO said. Security personnel had recovered one 9mm and a 7.65 mm pistol along with ammunition in possession from them. "During interrogation they revealed that they were tasked to carry out extortion and plan sabotage activities against the security forces. The militants on interrogation also revealed the details of death and cremation of two Manipuri cadres who were injured in Counter ambush on December 3 last year at Nginu. This is the second apprehension of a senior cadre in last 30 days by the Khonsa battalion. Previously Self styled Lt Kijen Rongshang was apprehended by the battalion on April 8 last in Laju. The apprehensions of these senior cadres are going to deliver a strong blow to the banned organisation," Colonel Konwer said. Security personnel has been carrying out aggressive operations in the South Arunachal Pradesh. These operations have acted as a major setback to the extortion network and activities of these banned terrorist organisations. (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) Guwahati: Senior gynecologist from Apollo Chennai Hospital Dr A Vinutha will be available for free healthcare consultations to the women member-journalists of Guwahati Press Club along with the spouses (and daughters) of other members at the club premises on Saturday. The health camp, organized under the series of weekly 'Evening with a Doctor' programs, will begin at 4 pm of 6 May 2017 and continue till 6 pm. Prior to it, the experienced gynecologist will also deliver a talk on various women related ailments and their preventions at the club auditorium. Organized by the city based Apollo Hospitals Information Center, the talk will start at 3 pm on Saturday. The last evening OPD clinic at the press club premises was conducted by the city based Dispur Hospitals, where Dr Udayan Saikia offered free consultations to nearly 30 participants. They also got their weight, blood pressure & sugar, checked by health workers Sonmani Dutta (nurse) and Biswajit Das (technician) from the same hospital. KATHMANDU, May 6: The Election Commission (EC) has asked joint Mayoral candidate of Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal and Naya Shakti Party-Nepal at Mahalaxmi Municipality, Lalitpur, Janak Thapa, to furnish clarification within 24 hours for organising motorcycle rally against EC-enforced election code of conduct. A press release issued by EC Spokesperson, Surya Prasad Sharma, stated that Chief Election Commissioner Dr Ayodhi Prasad Yadav directed stopping the rally immediately after CEC Yadav noticed motorcycle rally in course of on-site monitoring. According to the EC, candidate Thapa had organised motorcycle rally at Satdobato-Krishna Temple area at 12:30 pm today against the election code of conduct for election publicity. Meanwhile, the EC said that its serious attention has been drawn towards polling survey being conducted by setopati.com an online media with question 'who you vote and why in the Kathmndu Metropolis?' against election code of conduct. The EC directed the media not to make public such type of information and message from today onwards as it breached voters' right to vote in a confidential manner. RSS Min Bahadur Sherchan By Review Nepal Kathmandu, Nepal: The octogenarian Nepali mountaineer Min Bahadur Sherchan, who was on his way to ascend the worlds highest mountain-- Mount Everestwith the aim to reclaim the crown of oldest climber of the world, has died at the base camp of the Mount Everest on Saturday afternoon. According Gyanendra Shrestha, a government employee at the Department of Tourism, Sherchan passed away at 5:14 pm due to illness. It is suspected that heart attack would have a cause behind his death. However, the cause of the death is not confirmed officially. The 86-year-old former British Gurkha Sherchan was on his way to ascend the Mount Everest to make a history as the oldest person to scale the Mount Everest. Sherchan had scaled the Mount Everest in May 2008 at the age 76 years breaking the history as the oldest person to scale the worlds highest peak. But his record was replaced by the Japanese national Yuichiro Miura. Miura had snatched the record back from Sherchan by stepping on the summit at the age of 80 in 2013. 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Malawi is thus the 35th African country to withdraw its recognition of the SADR that is not recognized by the UN nor by any major capital in the world. Only a handful of the countries that proclaimed their backing to the Polisario and its pseudo republic at the height of the Cold War in the 1970s are still supporting the separatist movement. This waning support shows that African countries are increasingly aware of the reality of the Sahara issue and are making diplomatic decisions in accordance with international legality and the UN Charter, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said at the end of his meeting with his Malawian counterpart Francis Kasaila, in Rabat on Friday. These withdrawals exacerbate the Polisarios growing isolation, and at the same time they revive hopes for a political solution, negotiated under the aegis of the United Nations. Actually, all countries that have withdrawn their recognition of the SADR have voiced support to the UN efforts seeking to reach a lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to this regional dispute. And the Security Council is no stranger to this new dynamic. In its latest resolution on the Sahara adopted late April, the UN body called for the resumption of negotiations in a spirit of realism and compromise. On the basis of the report presented by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, the Security Council recommended taking into account the efforts made since 2007, namely the presentation by Morocco of the autonomy plan that the international community considers a serious and credible basis for the settlement of the Sahara issue. SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com May-05-2017 18:30 TweetFollow @OregonNews Immigrant Detainees End Hunger Strike with Victory in Oregon Local Clergy to Meet with Immigrant Detainees at NORCOR Image: anphoblacht.com (The Dalles, Ore.) - Immigrants detained at the Northern Oregon Regional Corrections Facility have broken their 6-day hunger strike after NORCOR administrator Bryan Brandenburg committed to the hunger strikers to provide microwaves to heat their meals, radios and access to programs that inmates are offered. Why does it have to come to this? Weve been asking for these things for five months. Why did we have to do a hunger strike? asked one of the hunger strikers yesterday. We need to stick together as people and fight for what we want to believe in. We cant let them do whatever they want to us. Community members in The Dalles will continue their daily rallies today, May 5th from 5-6:30PM. On Saturday, May 6th from 12-2PM, organizations from across the state will join the growing Gorge ICE Resistance coalition in a rally to demand that Brandenburg honor his commitments to the hunger strikers, and an end to NORCORs contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We are relieved that the hunger strikers are eating again, but sorely disappointed it took six days without food and very little water to get NORCOR to provide microwaves and radios, says Solea Kabakov of Gorge ICE Resistance. NORCOR has a reputation for its horrible treatment of those inside its walls despite its big budget. "The Dalles is a wonderful community of people who take care of each other, and I question whether NORCOR shares our values and uses our tax dollars appropriately. Two of the hunger strikers reported that they had children outside, and had been in detention for over two years. Four local clergy, members of the Gorge Ecumenical Ministries, will visit detainees held in NORCOR this morning. They will speak with those who participated in the hunger strike to hear their stories and express ongoing community support to hold NORCOR accountable for its relationship with ICE and treatment of immigrant detainees. Clergy visiting ICE detainees today include: Reverend Red Stevens of St Pauls Episcopal Church in The Dalles, Pastor Tyler Beane Kelly of Zion Lutheran Church in The Dalles, Reverend Judy Zimmerman of Mid-Columbia Unitarian Universalists and Pastor Kelly Ryan of Bethel United Church of Christ in White Salmon. NORCOR is a rural jail in The Dalles. It is a public jail funded by Hood River, Wasco, Sherman and Gilliam Counties. NORCORs participation in federal detention and deportation processes violates ORS 181A.820, which prevents state and local police from using Oregon public resources in enforcing federal immigration law. Friday, May 5, 5-6:30pm and Saturday, May 6, 12-2pm: Rally in support of NORCOR ICE detainees (211 Webber St; The Dalles, OR 97058). Gorge ICE Resistance is a coalition of several local organizations throughout the Columbia Gorge who have formed to support the NORCOR hunger strikers, including Gorge Ecumenical Ministries, Somos Uno, Hood River Latino Network, Mid-Columbia Community Action Network, Gorge ReSisters, Community Action Network, Grassroots IMPACT, Protect Oregon Progress and more. Source: Gorge ICE Resistance _________________________________________ Oregon | Crime | Prison | Human-rights | Most Commented on Articles for May 4, 2017 | Articles for May 5, 2017 | Investigations in to a rash of murders that occurred over a three year period in and around Santa Maria, led police to discover the internatio 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. CANDO -- The 6-year-old boy who wasnt wearing a car seat was thrown from the vehicle and died in a crash in northeast North Dakota was identified Friday, May 5, along with his parents who were also in the car but survived. Eugene Cain, of St. John, was killed in the crash about 3:30 p.m. Thursday, May 4, three miles north of Cando on U.S. Highway 281. Sgt. Robert Kennedy with the North Dakota Highway Patrol said that two vehicles were traveling northbound on Highway 281. A 1999 Pontiac Mountaineer, driven by Alden Cain, 52, and Kathy Cain, 47, was heading to a rural farmstead following a 2014 Toyota Prius driven by Todd Stephens, 44, of Devils Lake. Stephens had two passengers, a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old who was in a car seat. Kennedy said Stephens slowed down and activated his turn signal to make a left hand turn but Alden Cain overtook the vehicle, trying to pass in the intersection, and was struck by the Prius on the passenger side. The Pontiac ended up in the east ditch and rolled over, ejecting Eugene Cain, who was only wearing a seat belt, Kennedy said. The 6-year-old was taken to Towner County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. No one inside the Prius was injured. All three occupants were wearing seat belts or secured in a car seat. The Cains were airlifted to a Grand Forks hospital for medical treatment but have since been released. State law requires any child under the age of 7 to be in a car seat or booster. Opting for nothing less than an examination of the purpose and philosophy of 21st century labour -- in short, how and why do we work in an era of automation and disposable consumerism? -- Stacey Tenenbaum's re-evaluation of the humble shoe shiner smashes any and all Dickensian or Jim Crow notions of the trade with smiles and (mostly joyful) tears. She travels the globe, from Times Square to La Paz, Bolivia and from Sarajevo to Etobicoke to assess the evolution of the most local of services: cleaning and burnishing shoe leather in a public space. Shiners addresses socioeconomic hot buttons issues of the day, such as race, class, ecology, automation of labour, addiction, politics and human dignity. But, it is first and foremost a character study in a waning trade that has always attracted interesting characters. Combine this with Van Royko's low-f-stop cinematography and you almost smell the oil, leather, and Kiwi. Tactile close-ups of fingers and cloth, skin on skin, are mixed with medium shots to emphasize the 'power-difference' between the person 'in the chair' (which is not always a literal chair) and the shiner, which the film then smoothly undoes. Finally, a healthy mix of wide shots to show their labour employed inside the context of their city. Shiners has a craftswoman's ebb and flow as Tenenbaum effortlessly flits back and forth across their stories. In New York there is former accountant and pastry chef, Don, who has a chair (and a megaphone) amongst the thick foot traffic of one of the world's most popular corners. Humourously heckling anyone and everyone to drum up business, he is a street philosopher on freedom and human kindness. He lambastes and connects in that quintessential New York way. Don's ace-in-the-hole is his lack of a boss; the world is his office where he flirts, dances, and engages with the constant stream of humanity Meanwhile, in urban Bolivia, shoe shiners wear full face masks to hide their identity to avoid bullying or embarrassment in their private lives of attending college or raising a family. They work for pennies in church plazas and side streets, their gear neatly folds up in the most efficient of boxes which double functions as the rest for the patron's foot. Sylvia, a mother of three young children, feeds her family by shining. Her husband may or may not appear on screen, several men are suggested by the editing, but in the end this was unclear. In Sylvia's meager subsistence, every day is take your kids to work day by necessity. Unlike the men in her profession, she opts not to wear the mask and emotionally embraces small acts of kindness when they happen. Unlike the rest of the people in the doc, she is not doing the job by choice, but she still does her work with skill and pride. The high-altitude walk above La Paz with her gear and her kids (the youngest in a jury-rigged backpack, is epic and beautiful at the same time as you see the poverty. She hopes her kids become lawyers or accountants just the same. Ramiz in Bosnia is very much in love with his dead father, a man who shined shoes during the ugly conflict in the 1990s, even as the shells were dropping down on nearby buildings. His dad was nationally recognized as a hero for maintaining morale and normality in a crazy time. He now carries on the tradition of shining shoes and the hope of being embraced by the city as 'the last shoe shiner in Sarajevo. It seems trivial, but my favourite detail of this story is the light-switch in Ramiz's apartment which has to be clicked off using dexterity and a dinner fork. In shoe shining, the details matter. An old-timey (ok, ok, it is totally hipster) barbershop in Toronto employs a university student, Vincent, to polish shoes, a practice that has helped him recover from a pretty serious motorcycle accident. Simple human interactions calm his anxiety and PTSD, he is also knitting the barbers hats with Pulp Fiction quotes. The Nite Owl barbershop is like stepping into another world in a nonchalant, of the way, part of town. The upscale analog of this is in Tokyo, where you are served sparkling wine while your shoes are polished (and re-laced) by men in suits. Rather than open air, it is a hidden private experience where you wait out (and witness) the service in a serene and posh lounge, an oasis from one of the world's fastest paced and most populated cities. The owner has a wonderful sense of style, and he has thought about shining shoes far more than you have. He has a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step. His customers are so amazed by the work, they are hesitant to wear their shoes for the walk home. Meanwhile, back in the United States, there is an ex-boxer who gets all the people in his Alcoholics Anonymous circles to learn the art of shining as therapy for their demons. Educated and career driven Americans, men and ladies alike, in this recovery programme take to the working-therapy instantly and effectively. More smiles, more tears. The joy (leavened with the serious situations) in this movie can get quite infectious, and it becomes fun to watch people step down out of the chair and continue the conversation in the absence of awkwardness. Shiners is nothing shy of a complete re-evaluation of what labour means in the modern world, and our relationship between work and identity goes far, far further than simply money. Tenenbaum's film is high on charm and showmanship, it engages with issues without bludgeoning you to death with outrage or didacticism, and weaves its stories to change hearts and minds on things both something specific, and universal. If the film does not exactly re-invent the narrative wheel, well so what? It does what great documentaries, hell, great cinema, is supposed to do: Open your mind, fill your heart. Might Prez Trump conduct something of a federal "drug war" retreat through major budget cuts? | Main | Notable new Atlantic series "on efforts across the United States to move beyond the age of mass incarceration" May 6, 2017 "Designed to Fail: The President's Deference to the Department of Justice in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform" The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract: One puzzle of President Obamas presidency is why his stated commitment to criminal justice reform was not matched by actual progress. We argue that the Obama Administrations failure to accomplish more substantial reform, even in those areas that did not require congressional action, was largely rooted in an unfortunate deference to the Department of Justice. In this Article, we document numerous examples (in sentencing, clemency, compassionate release, and forensic science) of the Department resisting commonsense criminal justice reforms that would save taxpayer dollars, help reduce mass incarceration, and maintain public safety. These examples and basic institutional design theory both point in the same direction: real criminal justice reform requires putting the right institutions in charge of criminal justice policymaking. This Article offers institutional changes that would help future presidents make the system less punitive and reduce prison populations to achieve the broad transformation that Obama desired but did not attain. A critical move is to place criminal justice policymaking in the hands of individuals who can advise the president independent of the institutional interests of prosecutors. May 6, 2017 at 02:34 PM | Permalink Comments I suspect the failure was intentional. That it gave Obama a chance to say the things his supporters wanted to hear while not actually doing anything that would create political risk. Posted by: Soronel Haetir | May 6, 2017 4:53:41 PM Time and again this initiative retreated from it's goal. This evaluation of the Department of Justice and it's influence on the Executive is a comprehensive look at why entrenched bureaucratic systems fail to meet objectives. This is especially true when various entities have their own institutional interests. Now that I've made that wonky statement I'll cut to the chase. This initiative devastated thousands who had been given hope for mercy and compassion. It is so important to have this recap of the various failures and an articulation of the structural flaws that caused them. This structure was financially irresponsible and took an enormous human toll. It is also important to be able to look at this initiative in a clear eyed way and examine the flaws and failures. Many are tempted to be swayed by partisan rhetoric and not confront the success or failures that were inherent in the process. Without an objective evaluation, these flaws will be repeated. Posted by: beth | May 6, 2017 6:04:51 PM Beth. The lawyer reptiles on this blog are not talking to me. Can you answer a question? Aren't all falsely called non-violent drug dealers really serial killers of competitors? Or are they all like the Grateful Dead? Posted by: David Behar | May 6, 2017 6:28:08 PM word for word Soronel read my mind (or I read his). Nothing else to add, my thought exactly. Posted by: Daniel | May 6, 2017 7:10:25 PM Obama did various things but had limited political capital and many things in the air and opposition that made it easier to not attempt to do certain new things. He also on some level was relatively conservative minded regarding change. On some basic level, this made him rather unsurprising, though perhaps not if you have a fictional view of "St. Obama" or have high hopes for lots of change. So, yes, it is easier for him to promote certain ideas -- the bully pulpit -- while actually doing less. "Less" is not "nothing that creates political risk." But, it's less than possible. It is yet again ironic "socialist" or other terms is tossed around suggesting he is so much more radical than he really was. The paper provides some arguments to flesh out details. For instance, early on it noted resistance to change came "because the reforms would make the Departments work more difficult, second guess its prior decisions, or run counter to its judgment based on experience (as opposed to data)." Later it, the paper argued the Administration was to "institutional," which again amounts to "more conservative." I welcome such critique but the more liberal activist approach is harder given the political reality in the last few decades where Clinton came into power with a shift to the right & Obama came as someone who would "work with both sides" etc. Posted by: Joe | May 6, 2017 8:39:45 PM Barkow and Osler are pro-criminal extremists. We did have extreme reform, in US v Booker. It, and subsequent cases, with the charge led by Harvard Law indoctrinated Scalia, reversed the greatest achievement of the lawyer profession of the 20th Century, dropping the crime surge caused by the 1960's and 1970's pro-criminal Supreme Court by 40%. They loosed the criminals. Now, black neighborhoods are paying the price in a surge in murders. There is also no drop in crime. That is false news. There is a surge of crime, with tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of additional crimes. There are at least 15 million identity thefts. Each yields an average of $5000, compared to $4000 for each bank robbery. Then left wing city administrations are forcing the police to place crime reports in the trash. Hey, stupid lawyers, stop saying there is a drop in crime. You sound really stupid when you do. There is no group stupider than the lawyer in our country. There is no lawyer stupider than the Harvard Law indoctrinated stupid lawyer. For example, Rachel Barkow, Harvard Law grad. OK. Mark Osler graduated from Yale Law School, the second most stupid lawyers in our lawyer besieged nation. They know nothing about nothing. Both are know nothing idiots, except the promotion of the rent. Posted by: David Behar | May 7, 2017 9:17:46 AM Prof. Berman. A 1000 pro-criminal posts have taken place. Is not time for the one pro-victim post? Posted by: David Behar | May 7, 2017 9:19:38 AM @Joe writes, "It is yet again ironic "socialist" or other terms is tossed around suggesting he is so much more radical than he really was." Not ironic, also intentional. Yertle and others in DC well understood who they were dealing with and knew that they could box Obama in rhetorically with the following formula: "do x and we will call you a socialist". And it worked. And in my view it was one of the details that help set the stage for the Garland debacle. If Obama had been a stronger, more forceful leader there is a plausible (not certain) claim that the Senate would not have tried to do what it did because Obama would make them pay. I get really tired of the excuse making when it comes to Obama. Obama may be a nice guy, I even agree with him on some profound issues, but there is no doubt that he allowed himself to be rolled, spindled, and mutilated both by his enemies and by circumstances. He led by sticking his toe in the pool. Posted by: Daniel | May 7, 2017 11:47:10 AM Obama. Harvard Law grad. Indoctrinated to Blame America First and to Hate America Most. Affirmative action baby, all the way into the White House, so the American voter could falsely feel pious. Once there, among the worst Presidents in history. Jimmy Carter class worst. Not Lincoln class worst. Lawyer Lincoln was the greatest catastrophe ever. No one has come close. He had 850,000 Americans killed. He exploded the size of government, invented the income tax, enslaved white people in a military draft, and broke race relations for 100 years after his death. This lawyer was the very worst of the worst, in a class alone of the worst of all time. Posted by: David Behar | May 7, 2017 12:02:58 PM David Behar, if you do not like the selection of materials on the blog, you are welcome to go elsewhere. Indeed, because you again have multiple comments with the same tired rants against "lawyer reptiles," you are highly encouraged to go elsewhere. You get ignored here because you so often repeat the same anti-lawyer tropes again and again. And if you think my postings suffer the same flaw, please ignore them and go away. Posted by: Doug B. | May 7, 2017 12:39:20 PM Yes, ironic, a term that has a broad meaning these days as the people at Merriam-Webster will tell you. The fact that people are helped along here by messaging by Republicans is not denied. That is how such mistaken labeling often works out. I don't know how Obama was going to make the Republicans "pay" for their treatment of Garland. Especially since he was going to leave office in January 2017. This magical thinking about the power Obama would have if he just was stronger and more forceful is part of the overall problem probably. Calling Obama a "socialist" is part of a long term messaging plan by Republicans. But, even with the power of the Republicans, aided and abetted by others such as the media, the Obama Administration and Democrats did various things. Obama was not "mutilated" etc. He got things done & in the end was popular, his brand still in good standing. This very well might help the Democrats long term. Posted by: Joe | May 7, 2017 1:14:27 PM Explaining what happened is not merely "excuses," btw, and welcomed the critique of the article. But, the major changes recommended is hard. There are reasons why they don't come about. Those who bring forth such policies have a lot of things going for them, such as FDR having the Great Depression and a large supermajority with the Republicans a very tainted brand. And, even then, he had to compromise in various ways. He could be criticized for such things (such on race) but better to me to see WHOLE picture. Posted by: Joe | May 7, 2017 1:19:08 PM @joe Your missing the point. The point isn't about some "magical" power of the presidency. It has none. The problem is that Obama didn't even try...the optics of that reality are crucially important. Once upon the time the presidency was called the "bully pulpit" but name a single person or issue that Obama tried to bully?! Politics is not just the art of the possible, it is the art of what your opponent thinks is possible. They Republicans knew it was possible to roll Obama and Obama never did anything to convince them otherwise. Yes it is important to see the WHOLE picture and blaming Obama's lack of effort on circumstances is just one more excuse. There is a certain type of person--and @joe is one of them--who will never ever admit that they were just wrong about Obama the human being. The man who was to change everything changed nothing and thus his failures are always someone else's fault but his. That is what is refusing to see the whole picture. Posted by: Daniel | May 7, 2017 3:03:25 PM Doug. I would if I could make the lawyer go away. All social pathologies are 100% the fault of the lawyer profession. I hope you get more pride in the craft of being a professor, and decide to present more sides of this subject. I consider your repetitive pro-criminal posts to be below your intellectual ability. I hope you decide to do better. Posted by: David Behar | May 7, 2017 5:28:38 PM We know lawyers are the stupidest people in our country, stupider than Life Skills Class students. Why are grads from Harvard Law and from Yale Law always the stupidest of all lawyers, such as Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler? The admissions method. They line up the applications by grade point average. Within the packs with the same grade point average, they rank them by LSAT scores. So said, Scott Turow, Harvard Law grad. They do not read essays or anything about the backgrounds of the applicants. So if you were a Navy SEAL who started a high tech company, it does not matter, only the GPA matters. https://www.amazon.com/One-Turbulent-Story-Harvard-School-ebook/dp/B003WUYE2K That means that all their applicants studied 80 hours a week, and experienced little else. When they graduate, they still do not know anything about anything, just memorized 7000 rules, the exceptions to the rules, and the exceptions to the exceptions. Once there, these dunces, get hammered with even more gibberish to memorize. They get indoctrinated with supernatural doctrines. So now, they are not just ignorant, but they have false supernatural beliefs. They believe minds can be read. The future can be forecast. And, standard of behavior should be based on the character of a fictitious character. Why fictitious? So the standards may be objective, of course. Their subsequent jobs just amplify this experience. They end up stupid, ignorant, and believing in nutty ideas. That makes them the stupidest among the stupidest among the stupidest group of people in this country. Posted by: David Behar | May 7, 2017 6:32:40 PM David, I consider your repetitive anti-lawyer rants to be below the standards I am willing to continue to tolerate in this space given the repeated complaints I get from so many concerning your tropes and tripe. (Two+ in this post, a lengthy one to kick off comments in the next post.) I have warned you repeatedly, and you have suggested and shown that you cannot or seek not to control yourself. As A result, you may come to see some of your rants deleted if/whenever I feel they just regurgitate your well-worn complaints. Posted by: Doug B | May 7, 2017 6:41:28 PM Doug I recall supremacy Claus said he would leave if "a certain person request ed him to". I assume that person was you and you have now requested him To leave. I doubt he will live up to his word. It is simply not In him to be civil I suspect you will just have to pull the plug Bruce Posted by: Bruce Cunningham | May 7, 2017 10:33:05 PM Please get rid of David Behar. I'm sick of seeing his pointless comments in this otherwise incredible blog. Posted by: Annie Bafani | May 8, 2017 11:19:04 AM Annie. Recidivism cannot be deterred. It can only be incapacitated. Posted by: David Behar | May 8, 2017 3:50:56 PM Annie. Recidivism cannot be deterred. It can only be incapacitated. Posted by: David Behar | May 8, 2017 3:50:56 PM Annie. Are you a feminist? Posted by: David Behar | May 8, 2017 9:57:17 PM Post a comment In the East Bay community of Albany, four students are suing the school district over being disciplined for commenting on or Liking images on a racist Instagram account. According to ABC 7, the four students had liked or briefly commented on the posts. This to me is no different than having a private drawing book and making some offensive drawings at home and sharing them with a couple of my friends," the students attorney Alan Beck, told ABC 7. "Does the school have the right to ruin my life over something I was doing at my house?" Of the students Beck is representing, three are facing suspension and one is facing expulsion. NBC Bay Area reports that 13 students in all were reprimanded for liking or commenting on the photos. Some of the racist Instagram posts targeted specific Albany High students. This is a hate crime, Sade Don-Pedro, a parent of one of the targeted students, told KPIX. You dont have a First Amendment right to promote a hate crime against a group of people based on their skin color. While one might not hesitate to give the side eye to these litigious youngsters, legally speaking they may have a point. After all, everyone is familiar with the old retweet is not an endorsement defense. 'Likes' are ambiguous in that they could be saying, 'This is funny,' 'I agree with it,' or 'I don't agree, but I want to stand up for your right to say it, UCLA professor and renowned legal blogger Eugene Volokh tells the Chronicle. The Albany Unified School District said in a statement to KPIX that The District is currently reviewing the lawsuit and will take appropriate action in responding to it. The district takes great care to ensure that our students feel safe at school, and we are committed to providing an inclusive and respectful learning environment for all of our students. The district intends to defend this commitment and its conduct within the court system. Related: Inside Cloudflare, The SF Web Company That Reportedly Helps Hate Sites Thrive A recent investigation alleges that San Francisco-based company Cloudflare provides extremist websites with data delivery services and delivers the contact information of people who complain about hate speech to the hate spewers. As a result, some of those who have complained have allegedly been subjected to harassment. According to ProPublica, who wrote about Cloudflare's alleged issues in a recent article, an attorney for the company named Doug Kramer explained that it's cool if they turn over the names and emails of folks who dared to complain because it is "base constitutional law that people can face their accusers." In court, Doug. You can face your accuser in court. Also, brief Googling indicates that the Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment only applies to criminal cases. Cloudflare's clients include the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, The Right Stuff, Iron March, American Renaissance and Storefront. According to Cloudflare, they also have mainstream clients like OK Cupid and the FBI. (Wait, wha? The FEDS?) "We've got 6 million customers," said Kramer. "It's easy to find these edge cases." With so many customers, it probably wouldn't make much of a dent to get rid of the "edge cases." But unlike Google, Amazon Web Services, and GoDaddy, Cloudflare is reportedly not making an effort to shed customers who host hate speech websites. Oh, except one: when asked by ProPublica, Kramer said Cloudflare would not accept ISIS as a client, but only because there are laws against helping terrorism. You can read the entire ProPublica investigation here. As the Subway staffer stabbed Wednesday by 26-year-old Nicholas Flusche recovers at home, Flusche's family is "in shock" following his fatal shooting by the police officer who intervened in the attack. As previously reported, witnesses say that Flusche stabbed an unidentified employee at the Subway restaurant at 940 Market Street at 11:22 a.m. Wednesday. Two San Francisco Police Officers who were walking a foot beat happened upon the altercation, and one of them fired at Flusche, killing him. Since that day, additional details have been released on the victim, the incident, the man who was shot, and the police officer who did the shooting. Here's what we know: Shots fired in Subway at 900 block Market St pic.twitter.com/1Jfs48Ovwh _ (@R27D) May 3, 2017 It all began when Flusche allegedly refused to pay for a sandwich According to NBC Bay Area, who spoke with witness Kevin Ramsay: Flusche walked into the Subway restaurant and asked the employee to make him a sandwich, but refused to pay for it, at which point the employee told him: "No money, no sandwich." The suspect then pulled out his knife, and started attacking him, sources said. "I see this guy behind the counter just stabbing the clerk, so he needed help, and I helped him," Ramsey said. "He was covered in blood head to toe. I grabbed his arm and held it, and we fought for (the knife) till the cops came in the door to do with they had to." "The cops came in and told us all to get down, and he wasn't complying, so I'm not gonna get down," Ramsey said. "So I pushed him away from me and got out of the way, and he came after the cop, and the cop did what he had to do and shot one time." The cop who shot Flusche was also behind SFPD's last shooting, in January The shooting of Sean Moore, a mentally ill man who was unarmed when shot by San Francisco Police Department Officer Kenneth Cha, raised eyebrows at the time for the discrepancy between police accounts of the shooting and what body camera footage reflected. In a bail hearing for Moore Thursday, Deputy Public Defender Brian Pearlman said that it was Cha who also shot Flusche. I have a source that I trust that has verified that it is Cha, Pearlman told the Ex. It definitely troubles me." According to the Chron, "Cha was previously assigned to the police departments Taraval Station, he was transferred to the Tenderloin after the January shooting." Man shot yesterday by @SFPD identified as 26 year-old Nick Flusche of Texas. Family & friends scratching their heads. pic.twitter.com/YrOuRqG3ph Lyanne Melendez (@LyanneMelendez) May 4, 2017 Nicholas Flusche has recently moved here from Texas, seemed like a regular guy The Ex reports that Flusche "was from a Texas suburb and had recently relocated to the Bay Area," and had "attended Texas State University in San Marcos near Austin and had previously worked for a home security company." He'd moved to SF "to start a fitness and nutrition business," a friend said. Nick was always the person who was trying to solve problems, a former roommate told the Ex. The stabbing "doesnt sound like Nick at all. He was a great dude...He was a southern gentleman. The Chron reports that Flusche "didnt finish his studies" at Texas State and "ended up working in sales for a surveillance company in San Antonio." He was "fired from that job three years ago," then "'fell off the grid' among his group of friends. It was unclear how long he'd been in SF. We are still kind of in shock," his father, Phillip Flusche told the Chron. The victim is recovering at home It's always odd in cases like this that so much ink is spilled on the attacker, while the victim appears to go nearly unnoticed. He hasn't publicly identified himself, which at this point is likely his choice and should be respected. According to the SFPD, he "was treated and released from San Francisco General Hospital late Wednesday evening, 5/3/17." Via an email sent Thursday, a PR representative for Go Fund Me wrote "I wanted to make sure you had seen this GoFundMe campaign for the family of Nicholas Flusche." When asked by SFist about the decision to promote the campaign, given the sensitive nature of the situation, a different representative of the company responded and said that they "apologize and will definitely share the campaign for the victim if one is created." So, if anyone knows the stabbing victim, please do pass that bit of information along. Previously: Fatal SFPD Shooting Was Sparked By Argument Over Subway Sandwich The Future Bars group, a team of cocktail bar trendsetters with ventures like Tradition, Bourbon and Branch, and Local Addition, are resurrecting the gay dive bar of yesteryear Ginger's Trois, which once stood in the space now occupied by their bar Rickhouse. Ginger's Trois was the third in a line of bars owned by Don Rogers and named for the actress with whom he shared a last name. It closed in 2009, but now it's back, as the Rickhouse staff teased on their Facebook page. Eater dug in for some details on Ginger's Trois, reporting that the new incarnation of the bar Ginger's Quatre? is located in a space the Future Bars team has been using for prep. The Ginger's entrance is on Hardie Place rather than 246 Kearny Street, and so far, hours are Thursday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to last call. Don Rogers opened the OG Ginger's at 100 Eddy in 1978, where it lasted into the late '80s. In the meantime, it spawned a sister bar, Ginger's Too, on 43 6th Street, then Ginger's Trois on Kearny in 1991. According to a remembrance in the Bay Area Reporter, the late columnist Richard "Sweet Lips" Waters christened Ginger's Trois "an inexpensive bar for people with money," a motto the bar adopted. By 2017 standards at least, the new Ginger's could be worthy of that old nickname. Most cocktails look to be around $9. Rickhouse has had a a cocktail named for Ginger's Trois on its menu for some time, and now Ginger's Trois' menu features drinks named for more former gay bars like Esta Noche, Deco Lounge, and the Lexington. A post shared by Andy (@knucklesamwick) on May 3, 2017 at 7:05pm PDT This isn't the first time Future Bars has delivered a surprise opening, waiting to share details of their projects with the public until a bar was nearly complete. Their downtown tiki bar, Pagan Idol, opened in a flash that felt like the food world equivalent of a surprise album. SFist has reached out to Future Bars for more info on Ginger's Trois and will update this post when they tell us more. Related: Behold: A Map Of San Francisco's Lost Gay Bars This week we saw Showdown shutter, Ginger's Trois return, A Mano prepare to open, and Dolores Outpost do whatever it is that they do. Tartine Manufactory won an award, Aatxe closed, Lucky 13 lost its murals (but remains, for now), and RN74 made way for BBQ. Some local places got James Beard recognition, a Mediterranean/Mexican place made FiDi plans, and here's what it's like inside Three Twins. And that's not all! Let's proceed... Cultivar, the wine bar we had word of in March, softly opened this week, Hoodline reports. Located at 2379 Chestnut Street, a press release boasted of a "unique beverage experienceincluding wine on tap and both wine by the bottle and by the keg for salealong with a hyper-seasonal, small plates menu." Hoodline also has word of a place called Crown & Acre which is expected to open in the old Jeanty at Jack's space at 615 Sacramento Street. It looks like it's owned by Arash Ghanadan, who's also part owner of Barbarossa Lounge and Novela, and will reportedly open in about two weeks. The Lers Ros Thai folks are opening a place called Esan Classic just across the street at 743 Larkin Street. Hoodline says diners should expect Northeastern styles of Thai food, which include "soups and curries with clear broths, rather than ones with coconut milk bases, as well as grilled or roasted fish, meats and sticky rice." They're shooting for an opening this summer. FiDi luncheonette City Counter is expected to open Monday, and Eater has a look at the menu designed by Blue Plate chef Sean Thomas. Look for fancy deviled egg salad, a tuna melt, and more at their 115 Sansome Street location. Moving from openings to closings, put La PanotiQ in that column. The Bay Area chain has closed all both of their SF locations, yes, even the Noe Valley one that just opened in August, Hoodline reports. Don't worry,you can still get their wares in Burlingame, Campbell, Livermore and Mountain View. Longstanding Larkin Street Vietnamese joint Mangosteen has also bit the dust, Hoodline reports, after over a decade in business. A Thai noodle bar is expected to take over its space. Less a closing than a change for Corridor, Inside Scoop reports, as they have "absorbed its sibling neighbor, Corridor Cafe, and has put plans in place to expand its breakfast menu, add Saturday brunch service and perhaps most notably, subtract the counter-service component from its dinner equation." The whole thing where the neighboring restaurants had different offerings and policies confused diners too much, co-owner Ryan Cole says, and making them into one super restaurant is an attempt to refine the experience. This Week In Reviews SF Weekly's Jeffrey Edalatpour heads to Navi Kitchen. They're still only serving what they call "brekkie," so his items to review are limited -- basically pastries and a couple sandwiches. He saves his loudest raves for the chutneys, which he suggests chef Preeti Mistry bottle for sale. Meanwhile, the Weekly's Pete Kane went to China Live's ground-level Market Restaurant. He braved some "structurally deficient" xiaolongbao and a a limp-porked sheng jian bao, but found their Cantonese half-chicken "stunning." He closed the meal with one of the "best panna cottas Ive ever had." In the end, though, he called out the place for being a little too try-hard, as " I kept coming back to the sense that China Live isnt so much effortless as airtight. By that, I mean that theres an emphasis on wowing and impressing above all else." Then there's the Chron's Michael Bauer. For his mid-week review, he ventured to the wilds of Belmont to revisit Divino, which he last reviewed a decade ago. While he shades the decor as "not the type of interior that makes much of an impression," Bauer says the meal "made me wish that something this good would open in my Potrero Hill neighborhood." High marks for the pasta, meatballs, and service, leading to 2.5 stars. SIOUX CITY | An unabashed fan of the blues rock band JJ Grey & the Mofro, Linda Clayton is hoping her brand of Midwest funk will earn her a $500 first place finish at what was originally billed as an All-City Teen Vocal Contest. The competition is set for 4 p.m., May 13 at the Sioux City Conservatory of Music, 1307 Pierce St. "I'd love to win it!" Clayton said with a smile. "That would be so much fun!" However, Clayton isn't really a teenager. Instead, she's a 50-year-old South Sioux City woman who likes to sing karaoke when she isn't working as a receptionist for a dog grooming business. "Yeah, we had to get rid of the age restriction as soon as Linda entered the competition," Gia Emory, the music conservatory's co-founder, explained. "That's OK because more competition (from people like Linda) raises everybody's game." Presently, more than a dozen budding vocalists have agreed to compete in the singing contest that she compared to "American Idol" and "The Voice." "Ideally, I'd love to have at least 20 participants," she said of the competition that will be judged by a three-person panel. Indeed, Emory said the contest is open to everybody in Siouxland, not just Conservatory students. "There's so much untapped talent out there," she said. "We want to be able to showcase it." Vocal instructor Grace Claeys said winning a singing competition meant more than having a good voice. "You need to also have good stage presence and be able to engage the audience," she suggested. This is something that Ahriana Torres, 13, is beginning to appreciate. "I like music that's calming," the Hinton Community School sixth grader said prior to her vocal lesson. "I don't know if I'm ready to compete this year." Carter Allen, on the other hand, can't wait to take part in the vocal contest. At age 12, he's already the lead vocalist in his own rock band. "Even though I like bands like The Lumineers," he said, "I prefer classic rock over any other type of music." Emory can't help but grin listening to budding young vocalists discuss music. "Sioux City has plenty of 'Battle of the Band' contests," she said. "We wanted to have a competition that focuses entirely entirely on singing." "After all, it takes more self-confidence to sing than it does to sit behind a drum set," Emory reasoned. Linda Clayton agreed with Emory's sentiment. "When I was a kid, my mom wanted me to take piano lessons and I did it from age 4 to age 18," she said. "I hated it because it was something mom expected from me." As soon as she was able to do so, Clayton abandoned her music. "I just stopped," she said. "That lasted for years." But two things brought music back into Clayton's life. "I discovered there was an online karaoke community and began making friends with people around the world," she said. "Plus, I started taking vocal lessons at the conservatory and having fun with music again. For the singing competition, Clayton already knows what song she'll sing. But she doesn't want to make the selection public yet. Clayton plans on coloring her hair a dark shade of blue. Her close-cropped 'do is currently pale green in tint. Win or lose, she simply loves to sing. "It's nice being able to share my favorite music with other people," Clayton said. "It's a great feeling." SIOUX CITY | Sioux City is among 80 Iowa community receiving 2016 Tree City USA status through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. To qualify for the award, a city must have either a city forester or active city tree board, have a tree ordinance, have a tree planting and maintenance plan and spend at least $2 per person annually for its forestry program. SPENCER, Iowa | A bustling main street with historic architecture, a beautiful trail system and bacon lemonade from the "Worlds Greatest County Fair" have landed Spencer recognition as one of this year's top 20 towns under 20,000 to visit. The Northwest Iowa locale of 11,206 made Smithsonian.com's sixth annual list of the "The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit," which highlights hidden gems throughout the United States worth discovering. Published Tuesday, the article touts Spencer landmarks including the public mosaic titled "The Gathering, Of Time, Of Land, Of Many Hands," art deco-style main street commercial buildings, the Clay County Trail System, Clay County Heritage Center and "Mr. Spencer" Bob Rose. It also recommends a visit to the 100th Clay County Fair, held Sept. 9-17 this year, which is expected to draw thousands of people and feature classic fair events and even, maybe, a taste of "Baconade" -- which is, just like it sounds, bacon lemonade. Many cyclists will have the opportunity to experience the city firsthand this summer, as Spencer has also been selected as one of this year's RAGBRAI overnight towns. "We are very excited and very honored to be included," said Spencer Mayor Reynold Peterson. "We feel we have a lot to offer people when they come to visit our community." Other towns receiving nods on the unranked list include the following: Hill City, South Dakota; Talkeetna, Alaska; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Rockland, Maine; Kent, Connecticut; Makanda, Illinois; Grand Marais, Minnesota; City of Ojai, California; Snowmass Village, Colorado; Abilene, Kansas; Mineral Point, Wisconsin; Hana, Hawaii; Bell Buckle, Tennessee; Oakland, Maryland; Zoar Village, Ohio; Rincon, Puerto Rico; De Smet, South Dakota; Cheraw, South Carolina; Page, Arizona SIOUX CITY | Effects of 2014 flooding on the Big Sioux River linger at the site of the Missouri River Boat Club, where an undermined riverbank continues to cause problems -- and a potentially expensive fix for the city. An only partially successful project to repair the bank and nearby boat ramp earlier this year proved costly, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in expenses. Now, city officials will likely need to decide whether to spend additional funds to permanently stabilize the banks or whether to knock the bank down, the latter an option that may jeopardize a current parking lot at the club. The city is also testing soil at the boat club to see if the erosion poses any immediate danger or liability. For 62 years, the city has leased the area along the Big Sioux at 1085 Council Oaks Drive to the Missouri River Boat Club, a group of boat owners that maintains a clubhouse and docks. In 2014, flooding wiped out 33 of the 34 docks at the boat club, washing parts or pieces of some docks as far as 43 miles downstream. The flooding also damaged the boat ramp and affected the bank, causing it to sink in. "We've survived a lot of floods," said fleet captain Dennis Butler. "The flood of 2014 was the worst I've ever seen out there." In the aftermath, dock owners reconstructed 29 new docks, and the city moved to restore the river bank and reconstruct the concrete boat ramp. Eighty-five percent of the original cost was to be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to budget manager Luke Roder. The city in December 2016 signed a contract with South Sioux City-based contractor Mark Albenesius Inc. for the project, which had been designed by the architect firm Howard R. Green in conjunction with Certified Testing Services Inc. While the ramp was constructed as planned, additional erosion at the bank between the design and bidding of the project required additional work that added costs. "On June 15 we did borings, and construction started middle of last winter. Between that time period we had a lot more erosion and a lot more of the bank caving in. It became a much bigger job," Jim Bertsch, an engineer with CTS, told the Sioux City Council during its meeting last week. City Public Works Director Dave Carney said the contract with the contractor was awarded in full knowledge that additional work would be needed. As additional costs continued to rack up as work continued around the bank, the city decided to terminate its contract and complete the project with city crews. On April 21, the bank's slope failed again, sinking four feet deeper into the water. The total amount for the contract cost the city more than $175,000, more than 45 percent above the amount of the contract. Just over $78,000 will be covered by FEMA. At its April 23 meeting, the council directed staff to gather estimates on how much it would cost to permanently fix the bank, such as using sheet piling. "Now were paying a price, and we dont even have the job done," Mayor Bob Scott said. Assistant City Attorney Justin Vondrak told the Journal Tuesday that the city is now testing soil underneath the boat club's clubhouse to determine the liability concern. "Right now, were trying to figure out what the soils are on that property before we make any guesses," Vondrak said. Vondrak said he could not comment on who the city faults for the mixed success with the initial project. Butler said he's not interested in pointing fingers but rather wants to work toward a solution with the city. He said the club plans to put the docks in the water May 13. "The club's been there since 1955. I'd sure hate to see it go anywhere," he said. "We just want to work with the city and get this thing fixed." 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. Expedition 15 crew members Fyodor Yurchikhin and Jack Fischer take a break during mealtime in the Unity module. Credit: NASA. NASA The five-member crew aboard the International Space Station was back at work Thursday researching how living in space affects the human body. Two of todays experiments looked at how microgravity weakens bones and alters DNA. Commander Peggy Whitson joined Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet for the OsteoOmics bone loss study. The experiment compares bone loss in the free-floating environment of microgravity versus magnetic levitation on Earth and observes the molecular changes that place. Results may improve the health of crews in space and humans on Earth, possibly counteracting bone loss and preventing bone diseases. Pesquet later checked samples for the Genes In Space experiment that is based on a winning proposal submitted during a student science competition. That study is testing new technology to track how a space mission alters an astronauts DNA and impacts their immune system. The rest of the crew, including NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Novitskiy, split their time between loading a Russian cargo craft, crew orientation and systems maintenance. On-Orbit Status Report OsteoOmics: The crew thawed BioCells and injected them into growth media inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG). After six BioCells were processed they were placed into BioCell Habitat 3, which was then placed in the Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL). Later in the day the crew removed a media kit from a Microgravity Experiment Research Locker / INcubator (MERLIN) and inserted it into a Cargo Transfer Bag at ambient temperature for the next days operations. This is the first of four weeks of OsteoOmics operations. Crewmembers experience bone loss in orbit, stemming from the lack of gravity acting on their bones. OsteoOmics investigates the molecular mechanisms that dictate this bone loss by examining osteoblasts, which form bone, and osteoclasts, which dissolve bone. Improved understanding of these mechanisms could lead to more effective countermeasures to prevent bone loss during space missions and in a wide range of disorders on Earth. This may lead to better preventative care or therapeutic treatments for people suffering bone loss as a result of bone diseases like osteopenia and osteoporosis, or for patients on prolonged bed rest. Genes in Space: The crew completed a session of the Genes in Space 2 Experiment. They retrieved a sample from a General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerator (GLACIER) and inserted it into the miniature Polymerase Chain Reaction (miniPCR) system for processing. The investigation is based on the winning student proposal from the second Genes in Space competition. It tests whether the polymerase chain reaction can be used to study deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) alterations on board the ISS. Spaceflight causes many changes to the human body, including alterations in DNA and a weakened immune system. Understanding whether these two processes are linked is important for safeguarding crew health, but DNA technology that can track these changes is relatively untested in space. At Home In Space Questionnaire: The crew completed an At Home in Space questionnaire this morning. This Canadian Space Agency (CSA) experiment assesses culture, values, and psychosocial adaptation of astronauts to a space environment shared by multinational crews on long-duration missions. It is hypothesized that astronauts develop a shared space culture that is an adaptive strategy for handling cultural differences and they deal with the isolated confined environment of the spacecraft by creating a home in space. At Home In Space uses a questionnaire to investigate individual and culturally related differences, family functioning, values, coping with stress, and post-experience growth. Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU)2 Remove & Replace (R&R Preparations: Contingency Jumper Installation: In preparation for tomorrows planned activities the crew successfully installed the Lab Secondary Power Distribution Assembly (SPDA) Jumper to power the LA2B power bus and the Lab Truss Contingency Jumper (LTCJ) ) to power the power bus. This is in preparation for the unpowering of the LA2B and S02B Direct Current to Direct Current Converter Units (DDCUs) during the R&R. LA2B power bus has been successfully powered through the SPDA jumper. External Thermal Controls System (ETCS) Cooling Loop B was shut down for the installation of the LTCJ. The S02B power bus has been successfully powered through the LTCJ and Loop B was successfully repowered. All heat exchangers have been integrated and internal cooling is back to a nominal configuration. Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Robotics Ground Controllers maneuvered the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) Body and Arm 2 as required to transfer the Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) Flight Releasable Attachment Mechanism (FRAM) on External Stowage Platform (ESP) 2 to the Enhanced ORU Temporary Platform (EOTP) side 2. Once complete, ROBO will break torque on the MBSU H1 and H2 bolts before standing down for the day. Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization (CEVIS) Experiencing Excessive Resistance: Today the crew reported that CEVIS loading was excessively high during use. They reported that loads felt higher in the warmup mode, at settings above zero the load felt like 200, and when crew stopped spinning the petal continues to rotate inside box and felt off center like a side to side vibration. CEVIS is currently no-go for use while teams convene this afternoon to discuss a forward plan. Todays Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. IMS Delta file prep Memory cards audit EKON-M. Observations and photography LT Rack Rotate Down Preparation Meteor Shutter Open ALGOMETRIYA. Preparation and conducting measurements in the tenso- and thermo-algometry mode Plug-in-Plan Utility Outlet Panel Hardware Power Down Microbial Monitoring System On-Board Training Review Microbial Monitoring System MWA Preparation Scheduled monthly maintenance of Central Post Laptop. Laptop Log-File Downlink Long Duration Sorbent Testbed Inlet Filter Change. Mate the SPDA Jumper to the Payload Rack and Prepare to make SPDA connection Microbial Monitoring System Sample Setup Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Stow ISS HAM Video Power Down ISS Crew Orientation LA2B SPDA Jumper Installation Progress 435 (DC1) Stowage and IMS Ops Data Transmission Radio Link (RSPI) Clearing files from Onboard Memory Storage (???) LT Rack Rotate Up Microbial Monitoring System Sample Download of BRI log from RSS1 CEVIS Portable PFS Set-Up Replacement of Gas analyzer CO ??2106 Emergency Cue Card Print BIOCARD. Experiment Ops Microbial Monitoring System Data Transfer Portable PFS Hardware Power On Columbus Video Camera Assembly 1 Adjustment ALGOMETRIYA. Strain Measurements Mode Prepare for MagVector Cleanup Run Manufacturing Device Filament Trim Portable PFS Hardware Power Off CASKAD. Manual Mixing in Bioreactor Genes in Space MWA Preparation VIBROLAB. Removal of SINUS-ACCORD P/L Electronics Unit S02B Lab Truss Contingency Jumper Preparation. Genes in Space MELFI Sample Retrieve Genes in Space Sample Operations Marrow Canister Locate OsteoOmics Experiment Ops ISSAC Stow Follow-up S02B Lab Truss Contingency Jumper Installation. OsteoOmics Thaw Bag Retrieval Radiation Monitoring System [???]. Removal of ?? Unit INTERACTION-2. Experiment Ops Verification of ??-1 Flow Sensor Position Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Tool Configuring Genes in Space Sample End CALCIUM. Experiment Session 5 Terminate MagVector Cleanup Run Plug-in-Plan Utility Outlet Panel Hardware Power Up Genes in Space Hardware Stow ISS HAM Video Power Up Genes in Space MELFI Insert Completed Task List Items Wanted poster for 2.0 CTB Beverages and Coffee Wanted Poster for CWC Sampling Adapter Technical S/N 1005 Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. OsteoOmics support MSS power up for MBSU ops Controlled power downs and repower in support of SPDA and LTCJ Contingency Jumper Installation Three-Day Look Ahead: Friday, 05/05: OsteoOmics media change, At Home In Space questionnaire, MARES deploy, Electro-Wetting Saturday, 05/06: Crew off duty, housekeeping Sunday, 05/07: Crew off duty QUICK ISS Status Environmental Control Group: Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [???] 1 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1) Off [???] 2 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2) On Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Operate Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Operate Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Standby Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Standby Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Full Up Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Off The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie... Washingtons Fish and Wildlife Commission on May 5 deliberated but took no vote on whether a commercial tangle-net spring chinook salmon fishery would be acceptable this year in the lower Columbia River. Washington and Oregon have slightly different polices for managing the Columbia River, the result of the Columbia River reforms process that began in 2013 and go into full implementation this year. Jim Unsworth, director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Curt Melcher, director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, have been delegated authority to negotiate the differences, but the talks are not concluded. Washingtons policy does not allow for a tangle-net fishery for spring chinook in the main stem of the Columbia. Oregons policy allows tangle-net commercial fishing, only after the May update of the upper Columbia-Snake spring chinook forecast and only if the commercials have enough Endangered Species Act allowances remaining on their allocation. Jim Scott of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said the commercials have used 302 of their 610 fish allocation of upper Columbia-Snake chinook in off-channel fisheries. Tangle nets are small-mesh gillnets that capture the fish by tangling in their teeth, not in the gills. The states contend that more than 80 percent of spring chinook released from tangle nets survive, allowing for seasons that harvest hatchery-origin fish while letting wild salmon survive. State, federal and tribal biologists are not close to completing a run forecast update. This years spring chinook passage at Bonneville Dam is the latest on record. The lateness could be due to the high and cold streamflows since March in the Columbia River. The lateness also could be due to the spring chinook run being far short of the 160,400 forecast. However, indications from test net fishing and the sport catch in the lower Columbia prior to the early season closing on April 23 are that there is a good number of spring salmon holding in the river. Daily counts at Bonneville Dam have lagged all spring, but went from 540 on Tuesday to 4,057 on Thursday. Bob Kehoe, a Washington commission member from Seattle, said Friday he was not proposing moving forward with a tangle-net season yet, but if the numbers are sufficient Washington commercial fishers should know if a fishery is even on the table for them. Kehoe said Oregon side commercial fishermen know they will have a tangle-net season if the numbers are right. Miranda Wecker, a commission member from Naselle, said she in not in favor of a tangle-net season for spring chinook, especially with so much uncertainty over the strength of the spring run. Washingtons policy is to move nets off the main stem of the Columbia, which has many salmon and steelhead stocks co-mingled, and into off-channel areas enhanced with hatchery salmon, Wecker said. Commission members agreed that to take a position would hamper Unsworths ability to negotiate over the range of issues with Melcher. Commission member Kim Thorburn of Spokane said she would still like to have the Washington and Oregon commissions meet face-to-face. Commission member Larry Carpenter of Mount Vernon said lining up the schedules of the two commissions has proved difficult. The City of Kelso and local volunteer groups are moving forward with plans to improve the well-loved and much-disputed Catlin Rotary Spray Park. While a group of community members has called for a fence around the park off Washington Way at Twin City Center, the first changes visitors see this summer will be smaller. Longview and Kelso rotary clubs have teamed up to install lighting and to clean and repaint park surfaces before the parks Memorial Day opening this year. Some community members want the park surrounded completely on all sides by a fence with gates that would lock at night. Calls for a fence arose after 6-year-old Charlee Moore stepped on a hypodermic needle at the park during the summer of 2015. Some argued that a fence would help keep out vagrants and animals that would leave trash and waste behind. For the long term, the City of Kelso has contracted with civil and structural engineers Harper Houf Peterson Righellis Inc. to update the citys Park Master Plan and create an entirely separate plan just for the spray park. When creating this years budget, the City of Kelso set aside up to $75,000 for updating its parks master plan. On April 4, the city approved a $72,400 contract with Harper Houf that includes a detailed cost analysis. Part of that contract includes $21,290 for the creation of a master plan for the spray park and adjoining senior center. The city hasnt committed to the idea of fencing off the park. There is a difference in opinion on whether to gate off that area or not, City Manager Steve Taylor told the City Council. This would be addressed in the planning process by the engineering firm, Taylor said. In the meantime, local rotary clubs will install three, 18-foot light poles to help illuminate the park. Theyll also pressure wash the paved surfaces and repaint them with a non-slip paint, according to local architect and Rotary member Craig Collins. Our goal is to maintain (the park) and keep it nice, clean, vibrant and functional, Collins said. Camella Sutton, a member of Kelso Rotary and one of the most vocal supporters of fencing off the spray park, said theres a lot more to do. First, she wants to staff the senior centers adjoining snack bar every afternoon with members of local service clubs. In her attempt to involve everyone in the spray parks future, Sutton recently joined the centers board of directors. For the snack bar, Sutton said the senior center will provide all of the merchandise and snacks, and any service club that wants to come in and provide staffing will keep 50 percent of the profits. Sutton also said that there are still bare patches of earth where grass should be, and there is a need for more shade, picnic tables and additional landscaping. Sutton also conducted a Facebook poll in a spray-park-related Facebook group with nearly 200 members. She asked members what improvement the park needed most. More than 70 people said a fence should be the top priority. Eighteen said would most like picnic tables, while several others stated that improved landscaping and shade structures should come first. The engineering firm will meet with the citys Park Board at 5 p.m. Thursday in Kelso City Council chambers, 203 S. Pacific Ave. Sutton said she will be there, and she is encouraging those who want the fence to submit their comments and attend the meeting. If they want a fence, they have to show up and say so, Sutton said. Assyrian Mother Describes Moment ISIS Stole 3-Y-O Daughter Off Her Shoulders Christina Khader Ebada, a 3 year-old Assyrian girl, was abducted from her family by ISIS as they were leaving Baghdede. A displaced Iraqi Christian mother is desperate to find her now 6-year-old daughter who was stripped from her by an Islamic State militant in 2014 as her family fled from their home in northern Iraq. The mother, who spoke with the Saudi-owned news outlet Al Arabiya, is now living in the Bahraka displacement camp in the Kurdish town of Erbil along with many other residents who fled the town of Qaraqosh, which was once home to over 50,000 Christians, when IS (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) conquered the city of Mosul and areas of the Nineveh Plains in the summer of 2014. But this mother, only referred to as "Christina's mother," is going from displacement camp to displacement with a giant photo of her youngest daughter, hoping that somebody has seen her. Christina, only three at the time, was stripped off her mother's shoulders by a jihadi in July 2014 when they decided to make a last-ditch effort to flee after they were told by the militant group to pay a tax or be killed. Although Christina's mother tried to negotiate her daughter's release, she was eventually told to never ask about her daughter again. The mother recalled her horrifying encounter with IS in an interview with Al Arabiya's "Death Making" program. "My husband, a blind man, was sick and unable to escape. I sent my older children to run away with people in town. I stayed behind with my husband and younger daughter, Christina, and I thought she would be safe, no matter how cruel they were," the mother was quoted as saying. "I didn't expect them to hurt my little girl. What would make them hurt a little girl like her or even a woman?" Like many other Christians who could not escape from their homes before the IS takeover, Christina's mother soon learned that the jihadi death cult taking over their town has a disdain for Christianity. "We were told that we must convert to Islam, pay 'jizya,' (taxation against Christians and other non-Muslims) or leave the city. I told them that we will think about it and asked for more time," the mother explained, adding that the three of them then tried to flee the town. "My husband was recovering, so I took him and carried my daughter on my shoulders looking to leave the city," she continued. "However, she was then captured and I had to go back to Qaraqosh and beg them to return my daughter." The mother explained that a few days later when she met with a Tunisian militant who served as the head of the outfit in Qaraqosh, her daughter was sitting in his lap. "I cried and begged for her return. He pointed to one of the fighters to send me outside," she said. "This armed man told me they would cut my head off if I remained in the city one more day. I left with my husband feeling my heart bursting out of my chest." Nearly three years later, Christina and her parents have yet to be reunited. Al Arabiya reports that Christina's mother tried to negotiate the release of her daughter through mediators in Mosul and Qaraqosh. However, they could not secure her release. Even though Christina's mother received a recent photo of her daughter, she was told to never inquire about her daughter again. Although little is known about the fate of Christina, IS is known to enslave religious minority girls and women, who are bought, sold and bartered by IS militants as sex slaves. Earlier this week, it was reported that as many as 36 yazidi women and girls were rescued after spending nearly three years in IS enslavement. "What these women and girls have endured is unimaginable," Lise Grande, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying. Photo by local source- Villagers were injured during clashes between Burmese government forces and the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan States Namkham Township. According to a member of a Taang youth group who wished to remain anonymous, heavy weapons were launched around three villages in Namkham Township yesterday. He said that a 75-year-old woman was caught in the crossfire and later pronounced dead at the local hospital. The clash broke out at about 10am on May 2 between Burmese army Infantry Division No. 88 and TNLAs Battalion No. 571 in the area between Nampakkha tract and Namkham Township, according to a report from the TNLA News and Information Department published on its website on Tuesday. It claimed that the Burmese military launched artillery and deployed three fighter jets over the villages of Namhom, Kongkhur and Pangzarm. Three villagers from Kongkhur were injured, a local source told Shan Herald. They have been identified as Aiang Tha, aged 48, wounded at the waist; Aiang Than Tey, 13, hit on her hip; and Ei Shwe Oo, 17, hit at the knee. They are being treated at Namkham hospital. Hostilities have been frequent between Burmese armed forces and TNLA troops since 2012, according to Myanmar Peace Monitor, a non-government project under Burma News Internationals banner. In 2016 alone, there were 309 clashes reported in northern Shan State in Naung Cho, Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Kutkai and Namhsan townships. On November 20 last year, the TNLA group and its allies the Arakan Army (AA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched coordinated offensives against Burmese military positions in the areas of Muse, Namkham and Kutkai townships, compelling thousands of local residents to flee their homes. The TNLA, also known as the Palaung Army, was among six armed groups excluded by the government from signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, during the era of the previous military-backed regime. The Palaung have also been sidelined from negotiations between Naypyidaw and ethnic armed groups hosted by the incumbent government, and headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. The next round of the talks, dubbed the 21st Century Panglong Conference, is scheduled to take place on May 24, when representatives of the government, military, political parties, ethnic armed groups and civil society are due to discuss the ongoing peace process in the country. By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) Workers safety, rights top on agenda Bangladesh and the United States will discuss trade and investment issues with a special focus on workers' safety and rights on May 17, the first such meeting after the Trump Administration assumed office. The discussion, the third of its kind, will be held under the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (Ticfa) signed between the two countries back in November 2013, a senior Commerce Ministry official told UNB. He said, the two countries will also discuss new areas of cooperation as Ticfa provides a mechanism for both governments to discuss those issues apart from trade and investment ones. The third Ticfa meeting was originally scheduled for December 13, 2016 but was apparently delayed for recently held elections in the US. The first Ticfa meeting was held in Dhaka in April 2014 and the second annual meeting in Washington, DC. In June 2013, the then Obama Administration suspended the eligibility of Bangladesh for tariff benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme which is designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry. Bangladesh will present 'enormous progress' made over the past years in line with the US-designed 'Bangladesh Action Plan 2013' during the third Ticfa meeting, another senior official told UNB. Many countries have already acknowledged the progress and appreciated Bangladesh's efforts, he said. The US government outlined next steps in a longstanding effort to address workers' safety issues in Bangladesh in a 'meaningful way' after the tragedies of the November 2012 Tazreen Fashions factory fire and the April 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse, said a diplomat. The government expressed its displeasure for not restoring GSP benefit for Bangladesh despite 'fulfilling' all the conditions laid out by the then Obama Administration. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed earlier said Ticfa will remain meaningless if duty privileges are not restored for Bangladesh. Bangladeshi readymade garments are, however, not among the listed products that enjoy GSP benefit in the US market. He also alleged that the US government is not restoring Bangladesh's GSP benefits on 'political grounds' which was disagreed by US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Bernicat claiming there has been no 'political basis' for GSP suspension. For the US, a diplomat said, they 'track and discuss' Bangladeshi efforts to improve workers' safety and their rights. "This is an important priority for the United States," he said acknowledging that Bangladesh seeks to prevent tragedies in the RMG sector and there have been successes. The United States Trade Representative (USTR), the chief trade negotiator for the American government, represents the US government in the Ticfa meeting. The review meeting of the Sustainability Compact, launched on July 8, 2013, is likely to be held on May 18 in Dhaka, another official told UNB. The Sustainability Compact brings together the European Union (EU), the Government of Bangladesh, the United States, Canada and the ILO accompanied by employers, trade unions and other key stakeholders to promote continuous improvements in labour rights and factory safety in the RMG and knitwear industry in Bangladesh. The Members of the European Parliament visited Bangladesh on March 27-29 and said the garment sector, which was the focus of their visit, has played an important role in Bangladesh's growth. They noted that there have been 'improvements' in both buildings and work place safety since the Rana plaza tragedy four years ago. Officials said, the EU is a strong partner of Bangladesh, as reflected in robust trade relations underpinned by the Everything But Arms (EBA) (duty-free) market access regime. The European Parliament delegation mentioned that the International Labour Organization (ILO) called on Bangladesh to address four issues: *full alignment of respectively, the EPZ draft law, Bangladesh Labour Act, with the UN core Labour Convention modalities for establishing trade unions and the right of trade unions to operate freely. "It's important that these issues are addressed before May 18 review of the Sustainability Compact and the June annual International Labour Conference of the ILO," according to an official document seen by UNB. Marine driveway to unlock Cox`s Bazar`s potentials: PM UNB, Cox's Bazar : Inaugurating an aesthetic 80-km marine drive here, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said it will unlock the potentials of the region enabling people to uplift their socioeconomic status and enjoy the natural beauty. "People will have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the nature alongside improving their socioeconomic condition," she said. The Prime Minister said this after formally inaugurating the marine drive from Cox's Bazar to Teknaf. She inaugurated it unveiling the plaque at Inani point. Bangladesh Army constructed the marine drive under the supervision of Roads and Highways Department for protecting the Cox's Bazar seashore and facilitating an easy viewing of the beauty of the Bay of Bengal. Sheikh Hasina said new potentials of tourism have opened up here with the inauguration of the driveway. She said the driveway will attract not only huge domestic tourists but also foreign ones and will help accelerate the socioeconomic development of the district. Sheikh Hasina said Cox's Bazar sea beach is the longest sandy sea beach of the world and people from home and abroad come here to enjoy the natural beauty. "The government has undertaken a number of projects to make Cox's Bazar even more attractive." To make road journeys more comfortable for tourists, Hasina said, the government has decided to turn Chittagong-Cox's Bazar Road into a four-lane one. She said modernisation of Cox's Bazar Airport will also be ensured. A wide-bodied Boeing 737-800 aircraft landed at the airport today as its runway has already been expanded. "Such a flight will come here from Dhaka once a week, at least." Talking about the existing communal harmony in the country, the Prime Minister said the people of all religions will live in the country enjoying the equal rights. The country must be saved from militancy, terrorism and drug abuse, she said, adding, "I urge all to resist these menaces... we'll never tolerate these things...we seek cooperation of all." Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Army Chief General Abu Belal Mohammad Shafiul Haq and Bridge Division Secretary MAN Siddique also spoke on the occasion. Russia says Syria de-escalation deal takes effect at midnight Internally displaced people who fled Raqqa city carry their belongings as they leave a camp in Ain Issa, Raqqa Governorate, Syria. Reuters, Moscow : A de-escalation agreement in Syria takes effect at midnight but Russia's air force will continue strikes against Islamic State elsewhere in the country, Russian news agencies cited the Defence Ministry as saying on Friday. The largest of the four de-escalation zones is in northern Syria and includes Idlib province and adjoining districts of Latakia, Aleppo and Hama with a total population of over 1 million, the ministry said. Iran and Turkey agreed on Thursday to Russia's proposal to establish the de-escalation zones. But details of the memorandum the three guarantors signed were sketchy, while the main Syrian opposition group said it lacked all legitimacy. The zones appear intended to halt conflict in specific areas between government forces and rebels, and would potentially be policed by foreign troops. The fact that the de-escalation agreement was supported by the United Nations, the United States and Saudi Arabia guaranteed its implementation, the RIA and Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin as saying. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters the U.S.-led coalition in Syria had not altered its operations, but declined to comment on the de-escalation zones. With the help of Russia and Iranian-backed militias, the Syrian government has gained the military upper hand against rebel groups, including some supported by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf monarchies. The government supported the de-escalation plan, but said it would continue to fight what it termed terrorist groups. Rebels have rejected the deal and said they would not recognise Iran as a guarantor of any ceasefire plan. The main Syrian opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee, cautioned against attempts to "partition the country through vague meanings of what have been called ... 'de-escalation' zones". The Russian-led deal "was concluded without the Syrian people" and "lacks the minimum basics of legitimacy", it said in a statement. Discussion meeting held Chittagong Bureau : A discussion meeting on the occasion of Legal Aid Day was held at Raozan upazila complex in Chittagong duly addressed by Upazila chairman Ehsanul Haider chowdhury Babul as chief guest . UNO of Raozan Md. Shamim Hossain presided over it. Among others Asstt. Commissionerof Land Junaid Kabir Sohag, upazila vice chairman Fouzia Khanam Mina spoke on the occasion. Before the discussion meeting, a rally duly attended by upazila officials and employees paraded the Pourashava bazaar area and terminated at upazila complex, sources said. What foreign language should you study? Joanna Hughes : By now most of us are aware of the many advantages of learning another language. Multilingualism comes with a host of benefits, including everything from increased employment opportunities to opening your mind to different worldviews. In fact, many graduates cite foreign language studies as among the most important coursework they took in college. The evidence makes it clear: Learning a second language is well worth your time. Not so clear for many students? Which language to learn. While English is undeniably valuable, it's far from the only appealing option. Here's a closer look at five other languages which may offer a leading edge depending on your unique interests and goals. 1. The goal: You want to do business throughout the world. The language: Mandarin Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg garnered major attention when he revealed that he was learning Mandarin. While it's hardly surprising given that his wife is Chinese, the reality is that the China is a great economic power, and the Chinese market is full of opportunities. While many Chinese business people are accustomed to the Western way of doing business, most of their foreign partners are woefully inept. The takeaway? Those who do step up and learn the language are certain to distinguish themselves. Explains FluentU, "What happens when we, as Western professionals doing business in China and with Chinese, step out of that line of thinking and make genuine efforts to understand the language, the culture and the business environment of our Chinese counterparts? Almost without exception, they are unbelievably appreciative of those efforts." And while experts say that it's unlikely that Mandarin will displace English anytime soon as the preferred language for global business communication, it's also true that China-and Mandarin, by proxy-will be increasingly present on the global stage moving forward. Because of this, the British Council has included Mandarin on its ranking of most important languages for the UK's future. 2. The goal: You want to do business or study in Europe. The language: German Switzerland, Austria and Germany are all power players in the European marketplace. What do they all share? The German language. In fact, because of the massive number of native speakers of German throughout Europe, it has the distinction of being the EU's most spoken language. Germany is not only the world's largest exporter of goods, but it's also the US's largest European trading partner. That makes it a smart language to learn for those in the business sector. But German is also useful for academics due to its status as an important scientific language. In fact, 40 percent of US scientists recommend the study of German, while this figure spikes to more than 70 percent in Poland and Hungary, according to the Goethe-Institut New York, which declares German to be "the ticket to a successful scientific and scholarly exchange." Even internet searching is easier if you know German. Why? Because it's the second most common language on the internet. With Brexit looming, meanwhile, experts suggest that the German language-alongside French-will become even more important. 3. The goal: You want to work in diplomacy. The language: Arabic The official language of more than 20 countries, Arabic is the 5th most spoken native language in the world with more than 300 million native speakers. It is also an official language of many different organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Conference, the African Union, and the Arab League. Certainly, US government workers with Arabic skills are in great demand. But it doesn't end there. Says Vistawide, "Relatively few Westerners ever venture to learn Arabic. With the growing importance of the Middle East in international affairs, there is thus an extreme shortage of workers in the West who are versed in Arabic language and culture. Those who study Arabic can find careers in a variety of fields: journalism, business and industry, education, finance and banking, translation and interpretation, consulting, foreign service and intelligence, and many others. Only one percent of the United States 12,000 FBI agents have any knowledge of Arabic at all, and this includes those who know only a few words." The Middle East is also an exploding market for trade, prompting TheRichest to declare, "Because of the fast-growing market of eager consumers in the Middle East, businesses should consider making their products easily available to Arabic speakers, and enterprising businesspeople should consider taking a few lessons." 4. The goal: To travel. The language: Spanish Spanish is the US's second largest language with more than 33 million speakers, but this represents just a small percentage of the world's 400 million Spanish speakers. Indeed, Spanish is pretty much everywhere-making it a wonderful tool for travelers who truly want to connect with their destinations. Says StudySpanish.com, "While it is certainly possible to travel to a Spanish speaking country without knowing any Spanish, your trip will in no way compare with the incredible adventure that awaits the traveler who speaks Spanish. If you only speak English, you will be forced to confine yourself to popular tourist resorts where nearly everyone speaks some English. But if you want to explore the area and get to know the local people, you need to know Spanish. Even simple things, such as reading signs and menus, asking directions or telling a cab driver where you want to go requires some knowledge of the language. Hispanic people are amazingly generous, and if you speak Spanish you will find yourself being welcomed in a way that would never happen if you spoke only English. Simply put, when you travel to a Spanish speaking country, knowing the language will allow you to move from the role of observer to that of an active participant." Again, Spanish also has benefits in a business context. The British Council reports that 34 of UK businesses find Spanish language skills to be "useful to their organization." 5. The goal: You want to pursue an interest in robotics. The language: Japanese QS Top Universities says of Japan, "Known for making things smaller, faster and first, Japan was until recently the second-largest economy in the world (it's now third, behind the US and China). Its economic strength is at least partly due to the strong research and development industry that underlies successful international brands such as Nissan, Toyota, Panasonic, Canon and Sony - as well as producing robots for every need imaginable." Why is Japan the undisputed champ when it comes to the field of robotics and automation? Asserts Time, "Japan's love for robots is rooted deep in the country's history and beliefs." If you want to play a role in building the next three-legged ping-pong playing robot, then Japanese language skills will more than come in handy. Learning a language isn't easy-although some are easier than others-but anyone who has ever invested in foreign language studies will speak to the unquantifiable rewards of doing so. One last thing to keep in mind? Having a goal is not enough. The difference between "getting by" and true fluency lies in having both the desire and the drive to truly immerse yourself in another culture and way of thinking. (Joanna worked in higher education administration for many years at a leading research institution before becoming a full-time freelance writer. She lives in the beautiful White Mountains region of New Hampshire with her family). Students should study humanities Elizabeth Koprowski : Once upon a time, the humanities reigned supreme in the halls of higher education. Philosophy, literature, languages, and rhetoric were seen as the pinnacles of learning and the world's greatest minds were as comfortable with iambic pentameter as they were with the quadratic equation. But as society has shifted towards innovation and technological development, the human sciences are often neglected or disdained as soft subjects without practical application. But there's a reason that the arts and humanities were the foundation of academia - and it's not just because rhyme and music make memorizing the periodic table a lot easier. We're not suggesting that students with STEM aspirations abandon the hard sciences, but here's why a minor in a liberal arts subject could provide the balance that's needed for future success. 1. Broaden your Career View Science doesn't happen in a vacuum, and even in the most sterile lab environment outside forces will have a big impact on the direction of your research and your job prospects. It may not be ideal, but the reality of the scientific world is that research funding is often dictated by politics, and scientific projects can be dependent on cultural shifts. Think about current events and the ways in which politicians leverage infectious diseases, climate science, and technological breakthroughs. And while science students often imagine careers in sterile, white laboratories, STEM subjects and the non-science world are constantly colliding. The recent Zika-virus outbreak in South America is a perfect example of the ways in which science, politics, social planning, and marketing must work together. STEM professionals need to understand not just how the natural world works, but how they can apply their knowledge and skills to real-world issues. 2. Communicate Clearly Liberal arts won't just help you apply your scientific expertise to problems, they will help you communicate with the non-science world. Face it, scientific and technological research can be difficult to understand if you're not an expert. And just like Schrodinger's famously misinterpreted cat, lay-people often misunderstand the scientific world, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Learning to write clearly, to construct a rhetorical argument, and to simplify complex ideas are essential tools for the modern STEM professional. 3. Understand the World and its Inhabitants Neuroscience may teach you how the human brain functions and physics promises that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But people are not just electrical impulses and their reactions aren't always predictable. Literature, poetry, music, and art are all expressions of individual feelings and studying them can help students understand both the world and the minds of other individuals. And, ironically enough, this may be a more important skill for a scientist than a creative writing student. Scientists must understand how their work will effect both the world and individuals in order to innovate. 4. Reinforce Cultural and Ethical Responsibility But understanding the world isn't just about empathy and innovation. J. Robert Oppenheimer is famous for saying "Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds" but the physicist was actually quoting from Hindu scripture. And as science and technology progress, it's important to constantly reassess the ethical and cultural impact of the development. Doing this requires a thorough understanding of the literary, cultural, religious, and social influences that impact society. Reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein isn't just an exercise in literary analysis and nineteenth century literature. The story questions the morality of scientific innovation and the responsibility of the scientist to both his creations and the world. Future scientists take note - the monster in Shelley's horror story isn't the creature. 5. Foreign Languages are a Must! As kindergarteners we learn that sharing is caring, and in the world of scientific and technological research, collaboration is key. This means that successful STEM professionals will often find themselves working in multi-cultural teams, cooperating with international facilities, or communicating across borders and boundaries. Scientists with foreign-language skills will find this multinational environment a lot easier to navigate. As you continue your studies, start considering your areas of concentration and the regions of the world where those industries are most common. English, Chinese, and Spanish are the most prevalent languages in the world, but studying French or German will open doors in both technological and political arenas. Japanes, Korean, and Arabic are also smart choices. Don't forget Latin and Greek, which are vital to students of medicine and botany. But your language choice doesn't even need to be strategic - even studying an obscure language can give your brain and your career a boost! (Elizabeth Koprowski is an American writer and travel historian. She has worked in the higher education system with international students both in Europe and in the USA). Lions club members engage for humanitarian services: Speaker Speaker of Jatiya Sangsad (JS) Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury on Saturday said Lions, is an international platform, engaged for humanitarian services in the world with its own finance. "Members of the organization from all classes and professions, are willing to work on humanity, spending their time, money and labour, voluntarily beyond groups and opinions," she said this on Saturday while inaugurating an annual convention as the chief guest at a city hotel. Lions Multiple District 315, Bangladesh organized its 30th annual convention-2017. Chaired by Council Chairperson Swadesh Ranjan Saha, the programme was also addressed, among others, by Lion Sheikh Kabir Hossain, Lion Nazmul Haque, Lion Kazi Akramuddin Ahmed, Lion Engineer M Abdul Wahab, Lion Moslem Ali Khan and Lion Bashirullah. The Speaker, also, Executive Chairperson of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), called upon Lions club members to work with coordinate efforts along with the government to build poverty, hunger and exploitation free 'Sonar Bangla' dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. She said in this era of globalization, new challenges are being created due to climate change and free flow of information technology in the global context, adding, "Bangladesh is moving forward by accepting those challenges." Meanwhile, Bangladesh has already achieved success in all fields by adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) challenges and is currently working by adopting the challenges of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to become a middle-income country by 2021, Dr Shirin added. "Bangladesh's progress is visible in this challenge," she said. The Speaker further said poverty eradication is not possible only through achieving growth. Rather, building a discriminatory and exploitation-free society is the biggest challenge. She urged all to work together. Colorado prosecutors have dismissed felony drug and weapons charges against a suspect because they learned that Pueblo Police Department offier Seth Jensen defrauded the court by faking his bodycam footage, "recreating" his bust after the suspect's car was in the impound lot. Now the body cam footage of Pueblo Police Department Officer Seth Jensen, which was used in court, is being published exclusively by Ars Technica. The video above shows Jenson finding a .357 Magnum, about 7 grams of heroin, and 43 $1 bills in the vehicle suspect Joseph Cajar was traveling in. The vehicle was towed after Cajar couldn't provide an officer registration or insurance during a traffic stop. In the footage, provided to Ars by Cajar's attorney, Jensen reenacts the vehicle search at a local tow yard. Jensen later texted (PDF) a local Pueblo County prosecutor telling her that the video was staged. That prosecutor then alerted her superiors, and charges against Cajar were dropped. "This was concerning because all indications in the discovery and during his testimony at the preliminary hearing indicated that the body camera footage actually represented the sequence of events as they developed regarding the search. Furthermore, the staging was done in such a way to make it look like it was done in real-time. (The items had to be repositioned etc.)," Joe Koncilja, Cajar's attorney, told Ars in an e-mail. 200 schoolgirls hospitalised Children lie on hospital beds as they receive treatment after complaining of breathlessness and eye irritation following a gas leak from a fuel tanker in New Delhi. BBC Online : At least 200 schoolgirls have been hospitalised in the Indian capital Delhi after a gas leak from a container depot, police have said. The pupils had complained of irritation to their eyes and throats. The gas is believed to be chloromethyl pyridine, a chemical used to manufacture pesticides and insecticides. While the school in the Tughlakabad area was fully vacated, the children are not believed to be at serious risk. Delhi Chief Fire Officer Atul Garg said two fire engines, a hazmat (hazardous materials) van and rescue teams had been sent to the government-run girls' school. "Students and staff members of Rani Jhansi school were evacuated, and the entire area has been cordoned off," he said. Delhi Police and India's National Disaster Response Force are working to identify the chemical, and how it leaked. "Around 200 children were admitted to four hospitals for treatment. No-one is serious. The situation is normal now," police Deputy Commissioner Romil Baaniya told reporters. In a tweet, India's health minister sent his prayers to those affected and said hospitals were on standby. Gas leaks are reasonably common in India, with many caused by failure to comply with safety standards. Six people died in 2014 when a poisonous gas leaked at one of India's largest steel plants in the state of Chhattisgarh. A toxic gas leak in Bhopal in 1984 killed at least 25,000 people, and is still considered the world's worst industrial disaster. I shall make a smart Dhaka :DSCC Mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon Staff Reporter : "To make a smart and digital Dhaka, we have been working hard for last two years and we hope that we shall be able to bring a noticeable change soon," said Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon. "We are watchful so that none can say that Dhaka South is lagging behind. Surely there has been done various significant development work although we have to do more. For this we need a long term planning to build a smart Dhaka to be visible day by day." The mayor said this in a press briefing at the Nagar Bhaban on the occasion of his two years in office. "Dhaka is an ancient city. It has reached this level through history of long four hundred years. Two years time is too little and we need few more years to achieve some of the basic needs," he said. In reply to a question, he said that he first underscored resolving few fundamental issues. The plan of making Dhaka a smart and digital city will be translated into action by 2018. The mayor said, "Tell the citizens to trust me. I shall certainly be able to present them a modern Dhaka they need." To ensure transparency and accountability, Sayeed Khokan laid importance to the establishment of city digital centers in 57 wards, introduction of official's digital presence system and tracking attendance organism of cleaners and workers, installation of CC cameras, 100 per cent e-tendering system and process of issuing online holding and trade license. He said, the process of e-filing process is underway. The corporation has taken also initiatives to map the city of Dhaka with the latest technology. There will be digital switches, so that anyone can ask for help during the crisis by pressing the button, he added. The mayor said also that he made the pavements free from illegal occupation by 60 per cent. The work will persist to remove the illegal occupants from the remaining portions of the footpath at Gulistan, Paltan, Motijheel, New Market and Nilkhet. "I have already succeeded in this challenge. The remaining footpaths of the city will be available for pedestrians," he said with optimism. "I have overcome loads of obstacles while doing this. Five holiday markets have been set up at Dilkusha, Nawabpur, near Motijheel Ideal School, Segunbagicha and nearby the Baitul Mukarram Mosque for hawkers. Apart from these, they have been listed for rehabilitation as well," the mayor said. He highlighted the installation of 25,000 LED lights out of 37,000 in every corner of the city for the convenience of the citizens and effort continues, he added. "These lamps are fully digitalized. The light can be controlled by designated officers with the help of the mobile phone sets. If the lamp is destroyed, then it can be seen on the control board," Sayed Khokon said. The Chief Executive Officer Khan Mohammad Billal, Secretary Khan Mohammad Rezaul Karim, and Councilors Abu Ahmed Monnafi, Humayun Kabir and Ayesha Mokarram, gave speech. In brief Farmer found dead UNB, Pabna A farmer was found dead at Hidaskol village of Atgharia upazila on Saturday morning. Anwarul Islam, officer-in-charge of Atgharia Police Station, said that local people spotted the body of Sadek Ali Mridha, 59, son of Taijul Mridha, in the morning and informed police. Later, police recovered the body and sent it to Pabna General Hospital morgue for an autopsy. Police primarily suspected that Sadek might be strangulated to death by miscreants sometime on Friday night and left the body in the field. The reasons behind the murder could not be known immediately. Youth hammered to death UNB, Munshiganj A young man was killed by hitting with hammer and rod by some miscreants over previous enmity in Gazaria upazila of the district early Saturday. The deceased was identified as Md Sohel, 22, a cable TV line mechanic and son of Md Nasir of Kharakandi village of Tengarchar of the upazila. Officer-in-charge of Gazaria Police Station Hedayatul Islam Bhuiyan said that a patrol police team found him in a severely injured near Jamaldi Brac office in the area around 1:15 am. The victim was rushed to Gazaria Upazila Health Complex and later he was shifted to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, he said. The OC said that Sohel might be lynched by some miscreants over previous hostility. A case was filed over the matter, he said, adding that police were conducting drives to catch the offenders. Jubo League leader hacked to death UNB, Comilla A Jubo League leader was hacked to death by his rivals over land related dispute at Kazir Kona in Daudkandi municipality area on Saturday morning. A group of miscreants hacked Rajon, 35, convenor committee member of Daudkandi upazila unit of Jubo League, following enmity over the ownership of a land around 11 am, leaving him injured seriously, said officer-in-charge of Daudkandi Police Station Mizanur Rahman. Rajon, son of Dulal Munsi of Kazir Kona village, succumbed to his injuries on the way to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the OC added. Man beaten to death BSS, Lalmonirhat : A man was beaten to death due to Indian Premier League (IPL) bet in Mahendranagar Indarpara area in Sadar upazila of the district last night. The deceased was identified as Shantosh Kumar, 30, hailed from the area. Local said the incident took place last night in the area as Shantosh Kumar failed to pay bet money over IPL. He was injured seriously by the gamblers those who set gambling in Mahendranagar Indarpara on IPL. After the incident, he was admitted to Lalmonirhat Sadar Hospital immediately. Later he was transferred to Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RMCH) where he succumbed to his injuries. Final round of French election today Macron condemns 'massive' hack attack The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron says it has been the target of a "massive hacking attack" after a trove of documents was released online. The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones in order to confuse people. It said it was clear that hackers wanted to undermine Mr Macron ahead of Sunday's second round vote. The centrist will face off against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The documents were leaked on a file sharing website late on Friday and the Macron camp condemned the action just before the official campaigning period ended at midnight (22:00 GMT). Candidates and the media now face restrictions until the polls close on Sunday evening, meaning Mr Macron cannot issue further statements. Opinion polls had indicated the former economy minister carried a lead of 20 percentage points or more over Ms Le Pen, the National Front candidate. Separately it was reported that socialist legislator Corinne Erhel, 50, collapsed while speaking at a rally for Mr Macron in Plouisy, western France, on Friday and later died. About nine gigabytes of data were posted online by an anonymous user. Mr Macron's En Marche movement said internal campaign documents, including emails and financial data, had been taken in an "act of massive, co-ordinated hacking". "The leaked files were obtained several weeks ago by hacking personal and professional email accounts of several officials of the movement," it said in a statement. The campaign said the documents showed only legitimate campaign activities. France's election commission warned that publication or republication of the leaked information could be a criminal offence. The hashtag #MacronLeaks appeared on Twitter on an account used by a US alt-right figure on Friday afternoon - and was reportedly retweeted 87 times in the first five minutes, suggesting the use of automated bots to spread the information faster. Within 90 minutes, the information had caught the attention of prominent supporters of Marine Le Pen and was further spread by bots. Some three-and-a-half hours after the initial tweet, #MacronLeaks had been used some 47,000 times and the prominent Wikileaks account played a key role in publicising the hashtag. That too remains unclear. The Macron camp has not blamed any specific party but said the hack clearly aimed to damage it and undermine French democracy, It compared it to the leak of Democratic Party emails in last year's US presidential election that was blamed on Russian hackers. Wikileaks, which published those emails, posted a link to the Macron documents on Twitter but implied it was not responsible. Mr Macron's team has already been the victim of hacking attacks, for which it has blamed groups based in Russia and Ukraine. It suspects the Kremlin of wanting to help Ms Le Pen, who supports a pro-Moscow foreign policy. Russia has denied that it is behind attacks aimed at Mr Macron. On Thursday, the centrist candidate filed a lawsuit over online rumours that he had a secret bank account in the Caribbean. Mr Macron called the allegations "fake news and lies" and said some of the sites spreading them were "linked to Russian interests". France's voters have rejected the two big political parties - the Socialists and the Republicans - that have governed for decades. Voters will be making a decision on France's future direction and on its place at the heart of the European Union. If they opt for liberal Emmanuel Macron, they will be backing a candidate who seeks EU reform as well as deeper European integration, in the form of a eurozone budget and eurozone finance ministers. Media captionEmmanuel Macron's unconventional route to political stardom in France. If instead they choose far-right Marine Le Pen she promises quite the opposite. She wants a Europe of nations to replace the EU. After the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of US President Donald Trump, France is the latest country to deal a blow to politics as usual. One of the overriding issues facing French voters is unemployment, which stands at almost 10% and is the eighth highest among the 28 EU member states. One in four under-25s is unemployed. The French economy has made a slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and all the leading candidates say deep changes are needed. Marine Le Pen wants the pension age cut to 60 and to "renationalise French debt", which she argues is largely held by foreigners. Emmanuel Macron wants to cut 120,000 public-sector jobs, reduce public spending by 60bn (50bn; $65bn), plough billions into investment and reduce unemployment to below 7%. The election is taking place amid a state of emergency, and the first round took place three days after a policeman was shot dead on the Champs Elysees in the heart of Paris. Some 50,000 police will be deployed across the country along with 7,000 troops involved in the anti-terror operation begun after the January 2015 Paris attacks, according to French media. More than 12,000 police and military will be on alert in the Paris area. The security forces will primarily guard polling stations and will be organised into "dynamic patrols" set to intervene immediately in any incident, Le Figaro newspaper reported. More than 230 people have died in terror attacks since January 2015 and officials fear more of the hundreds of young French Muslims who travelled to Syria and Iraq may return to commit new atrocities. Intelligence services believe attackers are deliberately pursuing a Le Pen victory, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris - because that could tip the country into chaos. Ms Le Pen wants to suspend the EU's open-border agreement on France's frontiers and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services. What happens after Sunday? Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen came top of the 11 candidates in total who participated in the first round of voting on 23 April. While the outcome of Sunday's second round should be clear that evening, the results will be officially proclaimed by France's constitutional council on Thursday, 11 May. Sunday, 14 May, marks the end of outgoing President Francois Hollande's term, and is the latest possible date for the inauguration and official transfer of power to his successor. Keenness on overseas investment grows Akij, Nitol, Ha-Meem awaiting BB nod Badrul Ahsan : Country's leading industrialists are now increasingly showing interest to make investment abroad. Central bank officials point to infrastructural drawbacks and some other constraints in doing business in Bangladesh for the industrialists least interest in their own country. Bangladesh Bank (BB) has in the meantime gave go-ahead to some of such proposals for overseas investment. But the recent proposals in bigger number made it worried about a greater pressure on the foreign exchange reserve if those are approved. Akij Group, Nitol Niloy Group and Ha-Meem Group are among the local group of companies keen on big overseas investment. Akij Group has proposed to invest $20m in Malaysia, Ha-Meem Group $10m in Haiti and Nitol Niloy $7m in Gambia. Ha-Meem intends to invest in the island nation's garment sector to prop up its shipments to the US, while Akij wants to buy a Malaysian company that produce fire board and hardboard. Nitol Niloy look to Gambia's banking sector for investment. Besides, some more companies now await BB's nod, the central bank further said. Before approving such investment, usually, Bangladesh Bank wants to make it sure, among four issues, foreign exchange funds are used in specific foreign projects to get back such funds. However, a BB official fears a mounting pressure on the country's forex reserves if overseas equity investment by the local firms is encouraged. A High official at the Bank and Financial Institutions Division of Finance Ministry said it is not clear whether the local firms may return home their equity investment. The official also said local firms' such investment proposals will go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs as the Bank and Financial Institutions Division does not take decision on its own. The Bank and Financial Institutions Division has forwarded the Bangladesh Bank proposals to the cabinet committee. "The proposals will be placed at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs next week on Finance Minister AMA Muhith's return home from Japan after attending the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank," the official added. The local firms' least interest in investing in the country also resulted in an additional liquidity of Tk 2,77,956.29 crore in the banking sector, another official pointed out. But Bangladesh needs 32 percent investment of its GDP locally to achieve targeted economic growth, the Banking Division proposal notes. In the main proposal, Bangladesh Bank said Bangladeshi firms' have capacity to invest in foreign countries. As funds are being spent to import fuel oil and capital machinery along with consumer products, the growth in foreign exchange reserves becomes slow. BB data show deficit in the balance of payment stood at $ 790m at the end of December 2016. Foreign exchange reserves stood at around $33bn - enough to honour at least 7-8 months' import bills. Bangladesh Bank hopes that there will be new avenues of export earnings if Bangladeshi businessmen invest overseas. There is a possibility that the three firms will return home some foreign currencies. The country will financially benefit from the local firms' foreign investment, sources say. Treat bail as right to stop imprisonment without trial It should not have happened to the people of free Bangladesh but it is happening. The police power in fighting crime is being used for the innocent ones to fear the police and frighten the criminal justice system. The arrest by police is not for facing trial but near sure imprisonment without trial. The torture in police custody cannot be ruled out. Our police would not have been so unjust and bold if the court had not cooperated easily. Both the courts and the police are also heard to complain of political pressure under the cover of fighting terrorism. True fight against terrorism must mean speedy trial and quick exposure of the terrorists. We have special courts for speedy trial. But that does not happen. The rule of law and human rights are not proving much by way of protection of law to our people. No government should feel secure where justice is not secured. The helpless people are helpless also for saving the government. A national Bengali daily published a report Friday to reveal that some 600 prisoners are for 5 to 14 years in jail yet no trial has been completed. There are many excuses why the trials did not take place. The main one is failure to produce witnesses. Many other cases being baseless there will be only evasion of justice for delaying trials. We had news earlier also pointing out persons spent 18 years or so in jail without trial and the High Court Division granted them bail sou motto. Justice is not just a matter of law, it is much more a matter of minds and hearts of the judges. Among all the democratic institutions the judiciary is the most humane institution. Only money compensation from public funds for the years they lost in jail cannot be enough. We must re-examine the working of the justice system. The situation is such that the Supreme Court has to do it. The judges must be feeling the pain for not releasing them on bail although they must have been presumed innocent. For the refusal of bail criminal cases are being used to keep political opponents in jail without bail. Impartial justice means it protects the innocent as strongly as it punishes the offenders. The presumption of innocence is the corner stone of the justice system. Granting of bail is never unconditional and the person so on bail remains in judicial custody. He remains under restraint. Fighting for the judiciary is futile if people can be made to suffer imprisonment for years without trial. Speedy trial is not the complete answer to discouraging false cases. Granting bail is more effective against false and vindictive cases. Oral battle of the Chief Justice in defence of the judiciary will have no impact unless the judiciary is also ready to be brave in protecting the people's liberty in doing justice. The judiciary is facing the challenge of its survival as an institution of justice and save the democratic Constitution as its protector. It is be remembered that the judiciary as an important people's organ for securing justice has to fall back on its popular base for its power to fight external interference. We read news often to know how the under trial prisoners spend years under the rigorous regime of jail life away from family. By denying bail the courts have made it easy for the arrested ones to be kept in jail without the urgency of putting them on trial. It is unfortunate that the judiciary is fighting a lonely battle for its meaningful existence. The lawyers are divided among the major two political parties as their activists. They are unmindful of their own role as defenders of the judiciary. They are party activists of undemocratic parties with no respect for the rule of law. Even the Law Minister who is otherwise well mannered is not aware that he is a minister only and the Chief Justice is the Chief Justice of Bangladesh. Nothing could be more disappointing than when the lawyers are not loyal fighters for the independence of the justice system. In the same way the fourth pillar of democracy does not exist in Bangladesh. Because the journalists are mostly party activists seeking political favours and positions. The judiciary alone cannot save democracy without which independence of the judiciary is unthinkable. But as long as the whole democratic Constitution is not buried the Constitutional position of the judiciary is worth defending. If the judges can stand its ground together then no force will find it easy to make the process of justice powerless. There will be hope that though we do not have a functional democracy but we have saved ourselves from the worst of autocracy. No court can think of doing justice without recognising one's liberty. Unless the accused has the liberty of defending himself freely justice becomes a one sided mockery. The justice system in order to be effective as a justice system it must allow the accused the benefit of innocence before his guilt has been proved. We still have our fundamental rights under the Constitution on the side of the judiciary. These fundamental rights are obsolete if these are of no help when a person is arrested by the police for an alleged offence. If a person can suffer imprisonment merely for suspicion of committing an offence then there is no need of impartial trial and credible evidence. To help police investigate the allegation a person should be refused bail is an easy denial of one's fundamental rights. Arrest first, investigation later cannot be acceptable before a court of law. More particularly refusing bail before charge sheet should be an exception and not the rule. We start with the belief that there is nothing wrong to keep an arrested person in jail for some time. The FIR story is to be taken seriously than the presumption of innocence or his right to be free. We are making the country difficult for honest people to live in freedom and honour. If one is arrested for an alleged offence his reputation is in jeopardy. By the time his trial is finished and found innocent after long years in jail he is mentally and financially wrecked. He is not half the man he was. The justice system is to keep us civilised. Impartial justice means it protects the innocent as strongly as it punishes the offenders. But in our system as soon as someone is arrested he ceases to be innocent. 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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 If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs. First-off, a word of thanks to the organisers, the local James Connolly Society , for inviting me to speak here this evening. It is an honour to do so as we gather to reflect on the Loughgall Martyrs. We remember also another Irish Patriot, cast in their mold and whose anniversary we marked during the week: their comrade the Bold McElwain likewise shot dead by paid assassins of British rule not far from where we sit tonight. We pay tribute to them all, remembering with them civilian Anthony Hughes, murdered by the British Forces at Loughgall that 8th of May in 1987.When the story of Ireland is written when at last she stands free before the nations of the world writ large into the history books, alongside Tone and Emmet, Connolly and Pearse, with Barry and Mellows and South and OHanlon and the many more who played their part, who lit up the pathway for Irish Freedom will be the names of Lynagh, McKearney, Gormley and Arthurs, of Donnelly and Kelly, of Kelly again and OCallaghan.It is not an exaggeration to speak of these men as having been to the forefront of the resistance in Ireland. A fearless and committed group of Volunteers, on countless occasion they took the war to the British. In difficult times they stood up to be counted and for that to them we are grateful. For that they will be remembered. Their legend will echo down through the ages, long after we are gone; their sacrifice for our people carved into the hearts of generations to come, who will speak with pride of the Loughgall Martyrs. These men have earned that honour and that honour is theirs for all time.Recent days have bore witness to the most intense campaign of vilification from those who insist the men of Loughgall were terrorists, emboldened in their hypocrisy by years of pandering and sorry initiatives and with them the stripping down of republicanism in pursuit of a pat on the head from their betters this by those who would claim the mantle of Loughgall for themselves alone. Suffice to say, no matter of that, the Loughgall Martyrs were no terrorists. The only terrorists that evening were the foreign, faceless mercenaries of the Crown and none will tell us different.The men of Loughgall set out that night with the All-Ireland Republic in their hearts not a pseudo imitation where the limits of freedom would be bound by the terms of an Agreed Ireland . Emerging talk of continued devolution to Belfast with constitutional expression for the British Monarchy in a so-called United Ireland is an anathema to the cause for which they took up arms and for which they fell on the streets of that Armagh village.That such is now peddled as necessary to the New Ireland reveals how those advancing this nonsense have abandoned the rightful Irish Republic. An Ireland as that they are set toward, as recently spoken of by John Crawley who is with us here tonight is one where the British get to stay while the Irish agree to it. We have waited too long for that. Too many have gone before.This so-called Agreed Ireland is in reality a means not for the Irish to determine a new future but for Britain to restructure her relationship with this country once Good Friday no longer holds. Its intent is to ensure as far as practical, given new considerations born of Brexit and demographic change, that her position be maximised and her interests retained in whatever half-baked republic it imposes in league with its subordinates. Republicans can have no truck with this.The only Agreed Ireland of interest to us is one where the British agree to a declaration of intent, from where we can build, as a nation, a future as that we deserve; a future as promised by The 1916 Proclamation where equal rights and equal opportunity are the preserve of all, without regard to contrived divisions born of colonial rule. This is the Ireland the Loughgall Martyrs were set upon. Were it good enough for them then it remains as much for ourselves.There is nothing to fear from such a Republic and no good reason we should settle for less.To advance that Republic we must harness the dynamism of the people, building and applying real pressure on Britain that she cannot refashion Ireland as she pleases, aided by the usual suspects. This involves setting forward the Irish Republic as the only acceptable alternative to the dying status quo as the only Ireland that can proceed in its stead regardless of border polls or any other vote or mechanism on the substantive of Irish Unity.We cannot afford to waver and certainly not now, not as Brexit brings prospects for change into sight. All of this demands that we organise and this is the task now before us. There are no shortcuts and there is no panacea, only the long hard grind to the Republic spoken of by Ruairi O Bradaigh in the wake of the Long Kesh Hungerstrikes.Thirty years after Loughgall, the issue in Ireland then as now remains the denial of our national sovereignty. The nationalist people of the north have for too long endured the consequence. As Liam Ryan a true Irish Patriot and comrade of the Loughgall Martyrs once remarked, they have suffered the most, waited the longest and worked the hardest. They deserve no less and we will accept no less than the full restoration of Irish sovereignty. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We are out for the Irish Republic and nothing less will do. As the General Liam Lynch rightly asserted, we will live under no other law.The great American President John Kennedy once said, men are not afraid to die for a life worth living words that fit well with the men of Loughgall, who were not afraid to die and who laid down their lives that others might know such a life. Their sacrifice has shown us the way; their contribution to the cause of freedom helping lift the nationalist people off of their knees their deaths on the battlefield just one more reason, if reason were needed, as to why we must finish the long struggle to end British rule in our country, to win that better life for all. Be assured, a chairde, that we will finish that struggle.The Irish Republic, for which they died, is the only fitting tribute to the men of Loughgall. It is for us, who remain, to organise the final push, to fulfill at last our nations destiny and establish that Republic. That is the challenge Loughgall presents us thirty years on and counting. To those who fell on that horrific May evening, when Britain sent her terrorist killers to do murder on the street of Loughgall, we owe no less. Onwards to the Republic together we will get there; its still our day will come. Carbondale Police Department Patrolman Barry Bayles remembers first being sworn in as a police officer. As a new recruit in the Jefferson County, Kentucky, police force, a training officer shared advice which Bayles continues to carry with him. He told me that you need to approach law enforcement like a religious vocation, Bayles said. He said its not just a job, it is not employment; it is something you have to be willing to give your life to. Since then, Bayles has approached law enforcement that way. First, for 10 years in Louisville and for the past eight years as an officer in Carbondale. In some ways, that approach law enforcement as a religious vocation is ironic because this summer Bayles will be hanging up his uniform to pursue another religious vocation. Bayles, who, with his family, served as missionaries in Zambia beginning in 2003 and served as a pastor in Kentucky before entering police work, is putting down his badge to start a church in the metropolitan St. Louis area. Probably in about the last year and a half, my wife and I had begun talking about maybe going overseas again, but a friend of mine is a pastor in the Ferguson-Florissant, Missouri, area near St Louis and weve recently gone over there to help him build up his church, Bayles said. Somewhere along the way, in just the course of prayer and being open to God, Ive felt a stirring toward St. Louis that has grown more and more. Bayles believes the stirring is a calling to move with his family to Maryland Heights, Missouri, and begin steps to start a new church, first by making acquaintances and friends, holding Bible studies and small groups, with an eye toward opportunities to witness and share faith, leading up to the creation of a new congregation. Initial efforts will be under the guidance and support of The Door Christian Church in Carbondale, where Bayles and his family currently attend services. While he said he is excited about the transition, he called the move bittersweet, especially when it comes to leaving the CPD and his current role as the School Resource Officer at Carbondale Community High School. In this position, Bayles spends his days in uniform in the halls of the schools. Being a resource is the main function and motivation of what I do at the school, he said, explaining that he helps the schools social worker, answers policing and drivers license questions for students and even lectures classes on police work and constitutional law. Bayles added that he understands his current position also involves relationship building. To a great deal, I see my role as sort of public relations, something that builds a relationship between students and the police department. I want to establish a relationship with kids so that when they meet a police officer out on the street one that is not me, one that they do not know that there already is a maybe a comfort level or a trust factor involved in that to where they feel that their previous experience with an officer has been good and so the next one will be too, he said. Carbondale Community High School Principal Daniel Booth said Bayles has been an asset to the school and will be missed. Officer Bayles is one of the most amazing people that I have ever met, and as a result of this he is one of the best things that has ever happened to CCHS, Booth said. "He is much more than a police officer, he is a father figure to students, a friend to faculty, and a protector of all. Bayles said his familys move to Maryland Heights likely will happen this summer. His first order of business once he is settled is finding work. There are lots of job opportunities. Im not really looking to get into law enforcement in the St. Louis area," he said. "Initially Ill be working at a job just for the support of my family, our mother church is going to support the work and the transition with resources and backing, but Ill get on the ground and work. One of the things we believe very strongly is to be like Paul in the New Testament. Hes preaching, but he was a tentmaker by trade and he would find a place and involve himself. Thats one of the great opportunities of witnessing is your place of work, to be a testimony and a witness." Bayles added that simply by announcing his plans to return to ministry, he has had the opportunity to share his faith. Even people who dont have a walk with God recognize something about this, he said. A lot of people who dont understand the spiritual side of it, do seem to understand the sacrificial aspect of it. They grasp giving yourself to something greater than what you can see or is tangible. I have been able to share with a couple of coworkers, who are asking questions both here and at the police department. I try to develop an analogy about the commitment. I say I have a marriage to Christ, not just a dating relationship where its fun and enjoyable, but instead one that is life-long. I took the commitment, made the vow and my life is tied up in that. He adds that he, his wife Dora and family are ready for the new life. This position, in 18 years of law enforcement, is the single most rewarding and enjoyable thing Ive done. This has been unique and a great opportunity, he said. I have even said to myself I wasnt ready to leave this job, but I realize that for me personally, it could be a dangerous thing if God puts something on my heart that I should do, but I wasnt willing to do it. I have come to be willing to walk away from this as hard as it will be and do what God is calling me to do. As John McCain is laid to rest this weekend, Barack Obama and George W. Bush will be there to eulogize him. Here's the story behind McCain's unexpected request of his two ex-political rivals (who went on to be president), plus everything else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door. (You can also get "5 Things You Need to Know Today" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.) There are no plans to close Denmark Technical College, but improvements are needed to boost enrollment, reduce overhead and improve programs, one lawmaker says. The college had an enrollment of 1,838 in the fall of 2013 and 1,678 students in 2014, Rep. Justin Bamberg said. There were 1,043 students enrolled on campus in 2015, with only 632 enrolled in 2016. "That is a steady decline in enrollment. That is not how a school generates money that it needs to run. When you have numbers that decrease like that, there are a lot of different reasons that that happened. I'm not getting into all that," Bamberg said. "My job is not to run Denmark Tech. ... We're moving forward. Weve got a plan to fix things, he said. Bamberg addressed Bamberg County Council this week about the issues facing the college. The president was removed in January and lawmakers have asked the governor to replace the Area Commission members. The S.C. House and Senate have approved two different plans for Denmark Tech. The Senate plan would give control to Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical Colleges Area Commission while the House plan would allow the Denmark Tech Area Commission to share control with the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education. The House and Senate now have to come to an agreement over the plans. The House's plan calls for the State Tech Board to take over the duties of the Denmark Tech Area Commission for an 18-month period, from May 2017 to November 2018. At the end of the period, full control will revert to Denmark Tech's commission. Bamberg said there are no plans to close the school and that "the legislation we have passed out of the House is the best legislation that we will be able to get out." He expects the Senate will agree with the House plan. Under the House plan, the State Tech Board will be required to provide quarterly status reports about Denmark Tech to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Bamberg said the State Tech Board will also "receive input" from local government, school boards and economic development officials, along with other local community leaders. He said a priority will be placed on upgrading dormitories and enhancing programs, such as the welding program. He said the possible elimination of some of the college's 33 course programs will also be considered. "We have programs, for example, that have one person in them, got five people in them. ... These are things on the administrative end that have to be looked at," he said. "We know that to remain competitive, we have to be able to offer certain programs. This is a dollars and cents thing. This is a common sense thing," Bamberg said. But the goal is to keep the school open. He also implored Bamberg, Barnwell and Allendale counties to increase their contributions to the college. "Collectively the three counties need to work together to come up with some way to contribute. And if it's not financially, in lieu of. ... I think there is something we can do, it's just a matter of finding out how we do it," Bamberg said. In 2016, Denmark Tech received $500 for operations and nothing for capital needs from Barnwell County. Allendale and Bamberg counties provided no money for both capital and operating expenses during the same time period. Bamberg County Councilman Trent Kinard said he could not recall the council being asked to contribute anything and balked at the idea of having to raise millage to contribute anything in a county where citizens are already heavily taxed. Bamberg said, "I understand all of that, but we need to at least be able to look, and take a hard look." He added, "There was a point where it appeared as though the ship that's Denmark Tech was taking on water, was close to being the Titanic, but we were able to go around the iceberg and on the other side of the ocean is our destination. We're going to get there. We're going to be taking steps in Columbia, but we've got to look and see what we can do down here." Council Chairman Evert Comer Jr. said, "It seems like Denmark Tech has been neglected" and not received proper funding over the years. State Tech Vice President of Communications Kelly C. Steinhilper said in an email that DTC receives approximately $3 million each year from the federal government as a Historically Black College or University. "The college receives $3 million annually in HBCU funds that is obligated operationally. The state has never taken away HBCU funding from the college," she said. In a written statement, Councilman the Rev. Isaiah Odom said he hopes that the school will remain open and get its financial condition stabilized. "If necessary, restructure the area commission board with folk that will remain focused on the school operation, stabilize its financial condition and keep it sound," Odom said. The school should focus attention on industrial-related technologies training. He said teacher and student recruitment and meeting with industries to learn their employee needs will also be key to the college's success. "As an alumni and former part-time instructor, I hope that Denmark Technical College will remain open and operating in the city of Denmark," Odom said. The ribbon will be cut Monday morning on the much-anticipated new exit and extension interchange in eastern Orangeburg County. The celebratory event for the completion and opening of the new Exit 97 and U.S. 301 Extension interchange from S.C. Highway 6 to Interstate 95 will be held at 10 a.m. The stretch of roadway is also known as the U.S. 301/S.C. Highway 6 Connector. The public is invited to attend. U.S. Sixth District Congressman James Clyburn is expected to be in attendance. The $45 million dollar project forms the eastern anchor of South Carolinas Global Logistics Triangle. The GLT is the name Orangeburg County uses to market the area bordered by I-26, I-95 and U.S. 301. The project includes the development of a full-access interchange where I-95 and U.S. 301 meet. The interchange opened for both I-95 northbound and I-95 southbound traffic in February. Full access was also made available to the western side of the interchange on U.S. 301 from Orangeburg at that time. The project has been described by leaders as a key to boosting economic development within the GLT. The GLT is touted by county economic development officials as the heart of economic development for Orangeburg County and provides about 3,000 acres of industrial property for development, according to the Orangeburg County Development Commission. The OCDC is the county's economic development arm. South Carolina Department of Commerce Level IV Certified Sites are located in the area representing 1,750 acres. These include the West Annex, 657 acres; Orangeburg County/City Industrial Park, 250 acres; Matthews Industrial Park 540 acres and Jafza Magna Park 1,322 acres, which is fully served and ready for vertical construction in less than 30 days. A Level IV Certified Site is a classification meaning all due diligence has been done on the property to include infrastructure, environmental and permitting. The region also has a new 75,000-square-foot speculative building. Preliminary work started at the interchange in August 2013 and a formal groundbreaking ceremony was held in October 2014. The project was scheduled to be complete by Oct. 18, 2015, but officials said that months flooding delayed the project. Because the project was done in a design-build format, the contractor has been responsible for any delays or added costs. The interchange upgrade was funded by the Lower Savannah Council of Governments, $17.2 million; a federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Grant, $12.1 million; federal earmarks, $11.2 million, and $500,000 in local funding from the Orangeburg County Transportation Committee. Attendees traveling from I-95 will take the new Exit 97 toward S.C. Highway 6. Those traveling from S.C. Highway 6 will take the U.S. 301 Extension toward I-95 and those traveling on the U.S. 301 are asked to follow signage to the event site. Indvidiuals are asked to submit an RSVP by calling 803-536-3333 or by emailing to info@ocdc.com. News / Education by Staff reporter THE Government has stepped up the industrialisation and modernisation of the country's tertiary institutions through brokering more bilateral agreements with Cuba that will see experts in medicine and ICT imparting their expertise to local universities.Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo has engaged two more ministries here to support the industrialisation drive.Prof Moyo who is leading a Zimbabwe delegation mainly made up of vice chancellors from the country's universities had talks with Cuba's Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Elba Rosa Perez Montoya and senior officials in the Ministry of Public Health.The talks will see more bilateral agreements signed between the two countries.Prof Moyo said the Government was in urgent need of experts to spearhead the industrialisation. The training of doctors falls under the purview of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development. Prof Moyo met the director of the teaching department at the Ministry of Public Health, Professor Jorge Perez who was standing in for the health minister."We have good relations with Zimbabwe. We have been sending doctors to your country and we have no problem sending our professors in medicine to train your people. You must only justify the areas of interest and we sign Memorandums of Understanding," said Prof Perez.Prof Moyo said vice chancellors whose universities have medical schools should import medical experts in the fields of oncology and neurology among others which were not readily available in the country.He said there were 13 medical universities in Cuba and they were born from their late leader Fidel Castro's policy to "take universities to the people and not the people to the universities."The country has 51 other universities in all provinces and a medical university in each province."Despite the challenges we have faced, Cuba has a unique health system which is an obligation from the Government. It is a priority from the state," said Prof Perez.He said teaching takes place in 82 clinics and 54 hospitals."Our students first learn practicals before they go to theory and the professors that teach medicine are practising medical professionals. This strengthens the system because you learn better by doing," he said.He said Cuba had moved from the concept of treating in a hospital to a concept of preserving health. The delegation later met Montoya and had talks which will see professors and experts in information technology coming to Zimbabwean universities to impart knowledge.The Zimbabwe delegation expressed interest in areas of water purification, renewable energy, environment and innovation.Montoya said her country had invested a lot in science and technology and institutional programmes research. 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. Opinion / Columnist Mr Obert MC Makore a Zimbabwean put a number of questions to Dr Brilliant Mhlanga, a fearless Mthwakazian. The response was informative and instructive to an extent that Mr Makore ended up agreeing with a vision of a free, sovereign, and independent state of Mthwakazi. Let me list some of the questions which Mr Makore posed:1. Help me understand this. I have had time to study the history of several territories in and outside Africa that have fought for and won secession and are now sovereign states. Much of it is replete with bloodshed and severe retributions among other sordid acts of suppression against such aspirations. How do you weigh the benefits of an independent Mthwakazi state against those potential consequences? In short is it worth it?2. Secondly, what is the driving thought behind this push for secession? How is it going to benefit the citizens in juxtaposition to the status quo?3. Thirdly, what do you think are the reasons for the current leadership to try to sabotage the calls for a free and independent state of Mthwakazi?The following is Dr Brilliant Sigabade Mhlanga's brilliant response:My good Cde Obert MC Makore, let me attend to your questions. I wish to begin by admiring the sober engagement you have shown in your engagement of this otherwise emotive subject. First, my brother, to answer your question on whether it's worth it or not. The answer is YES, it remains worth it. I will also link this question with your 3rd question, which focuses on the reason why the current leadership would not want to see the Mthwakazi issue coming to fruition.May I also remind you that world over the struggles for sovereignty, self-determination and independence, let alone for freedom and liberation from all manner of colonialism, including the colonialism we now face as Mthwakazians under the Zimbabwe regime are bound to be marred with bloodshed. But we are prepared for it. In fact, what makes those in power view our genuine and noble cause as treasonous is because they know how criminal their actions are towards us and our otherwise genuine cause. And yet on the other hand, we have no malice, nor hard feelings against any Zimbabwean. When we get our independence, you will still be allowed to visit me as a brother. But bearing a passport. Our people will still inter-marry just like the Scottish and the English are inter-marrying. Must I also remind you that even Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, and others faced all these dangers you have just raised and yet they still chose the path of blood for their freedom. We the oppressed have no choice but to choose the path of blood too. Ours is a just cause. It is founded on a qualitatively presentable reality - of our current state as colonised people and our history; not to mention our rich historical identities. 2nd, on the driving thought. Since you did mention in your post above, the Mthwakazi cause has as its impetus an entanglement of a number of factors; that are historical, political, economic and socio-cultural. You may want to know that this Mthwakazi cause was the basis for uMvukela wamaNdebele, in the 1890s; including the subsequent Battles, such as, the Battle of Gadade. All these battles brought together saved as the FIRST war of Liberation by our forebearers. Again the Mthwakazi cause was the basis for iMpi kaZhii!, in the 1930s/40s. Also, its ethos led to the formation of the Matebele Home Society. Allow me to also submit that even the colonial administrators had two separate administrations for Mashonaland and Matebeleland, something which proves even the colonialist were aware of this fact of the existence of these two separate states. The reason for keeping these two states separate was because they too even knew how mischievous their actions were. That's a bit about the historical entanglement and colonial legacy.Then another factor, but still slightly linked to the previous one, is the fact that Zimbabwe itself is a colonial construct. We all know that it was constructed on the footprints or contours of a colonial structure called 'Rhodesia.' We also know that Zimbabwe is a successor state was born in 1980; i.e., on the one hand, designed to mirror and embrace the colonial structure that it sought to succeed, while on the other hand it had as its chief architects people who envisage a reincarnation of what the Mutapa state looked like (on this issue may I refer you to Stan Mudenge's (1988) book; A political history of Munhumutapa, c1400-1902. Having said that it remains a fact that the ethos behind the final formation and actualisation of Zimbabwe as a state was clearly hinged on Shona tribalism and remains quite exclusionary to this day. This also explains why we witnessed that untold suffering in the postcolonial period, which you and me rightfully refer to as the Gukurahundi genocide. Indeed, it was part of the practice of state formation. I know here you might want to respond by saying, '...but I never was involved, or I was not yet born'. My answer to that is simple - it is not our duty to prove to you whether you were involved or not, we owe our duty to posterity - and it is that we should right the wrongs of the past. And so the actualisation of Mthwakazi as an independent state is a very important step. Further, there is the economic factor. You probably have heard people arguing that if Matebeleland was to separate from Zimbabwe it won't survive. That line of reasoning is often raised by those whose wish is to sound unreasonable alarm bells, and also driven by malice. It remains a fact that Mthwakazi is one of the richest regions in the space between Limpopo and Zambezi river. Apart from the fact that we share borders with countries with strong economies in the region, it remains a fact that our state is endowed with a lot of natural resources; such as, uranium deposits in Wankie, Gold, Coal, Methane gas, Diamonds (that stretch through the Kimberlite zone from Botswana into Plumtree/Tsholotsho area), etc. We also boast of leading with a booming tourist industry. I am sure you have probably 'heard' about the Victoria Falls (one of the World's wonders), Hwange National Park, Matopos, etc.For more on these issues, may I refer you to some of my academic writings - Mhlanga (2006). Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) Policy for Change and the Mask for Development: A Critical Analysis of Zimbabwe's E-Readiness Survey Report. Mhlanga (2012). The'ticklish' subject: the 'northern problem' and the national question in Zimbabwe.Then there is the other political factor - it remains a fact that power as a resource in the current configurations of the state remains organised along tribal hands. Even the political nature of Zimbabwe as a state is such that everyone else is excluded, which also tends to have a bearing on the socio-cultural identities. It remains a fact that the people of Matebeleland continue to be subalternised on daily basis. Given the unequal and deliberately inequitable political power matrix and the way our people have had to be treated in Zimbabwe - to the extent of causing them to deny their identity in order to be included. Imagine what our people have to go through everyday - as Desmond Mushai has aptly put it, Matebeleland is one of the most underdeveloped region. Our people continue to suffer under the yoke of oppression to this day. We even saw Robert Mugabe announcing today that Zimbabwe is one of the most developed states in Africa, and also citing those exaggerated literacy rates. But what most people often choose to ignore is that in those high literacy statistics Matebeleland is far below 30%. Surely, looking at all that there is every reason why we should have a separate state. We need to manage our own affairs. We can do it. When our state has been established all these inequalities will be addressed; including giving equal official status to all the languages spoken in the region. Allow me to clearly highlight that the following languages will all be considered official in our state - Tonga, Nambya, Kalanga, Ndebele, Dombe, Shona, Tswana, Sotho, Venda, Tsonga/Shangani, just to mention a few. By Azertac Mali is interested in developing bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, said President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as he met with President of Azerbaijan`s State Oil Company (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev in Baku. He praised rapid development of Azerbaijan, and stressed Mali`s need to benefit from Azerbaijan's technical capabilities and study the country`s management experience in various fields of economy, particularly energy, and defense industry. Boubacar Keita recalled his meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, saying they underlined the importance of exploring prospects for economic cooperation, bilateral trade and investment making. Abdullayev pointed out ample opportunities for expanding economic cooperation between the two countries. SOCAR`s president highlighted Azerbaijan's accomplishments in economy, including oil and gas sector, and defense industry. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and first lady Mehriban Aliyeva have met with Vice President of Bulgaria Iliana Iotova. Vice President of Bulgaria Iliana Iotova expressed her happiness to visit Azerbaijan as a member of the Bulgarian parliament five years ago and now as the country`s vice president. She said she actively worked with Azerbaijan when she was a Member of the European Parliament. The Vice President of Bulgaria said: "Let me give you a letter from President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev who extends his best wishes and kind words on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. We in Bulgaria are well aware of the valuable history of our relations and I am confident that the future of our ties will be more prosperous." The head of state thanked for the Bulgarian President`s warm words in the letter and asked Iliana Iotova to communicate his greetings and best wishes to Rumen Radev. President Ilham Aliyev recalled his brief meeting with President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev during the Munich Security Conference, expressing his confidence that the presidents of the two countries will maintain good cooperation. President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Iliana Iotova on her appointment as Vice President of Bulgaria, and wished her success in her future endeavors. The head of state said Iliana Iotova`s making her first visit in the post of vice president to Azerbaijan is a good sign of close relationship between the two countries. President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan-Bulgaria bilateral relations cover various fields, including politics, energy and culture. The head of state said first lady Mehriban Aliyeva`s active participation in Veliko Tarnovo cultural project contributes to bringing the two countries closer to each other. President Ilham Aliyev described the fact that Iliana Iotova attends the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue as manifestation of Bulgaria`s attaching importance to this event. Vice President of Bulgaria Iliana Iotova said: "I would like to congratulate Madam Mehriban Aliyeva on the occasion of her appointment as Vice President. While I was a student, my first thesis was devoted to Trapezitsa. Madam Mehriban Aliyeva, you made my dreams come true. You made an active contribution to the restoration of Trapezitsa Architectural Museum Reserve." First lady Mehriban Aliyeva thanked for warm words: "Thank you. I will continue our joint activity and cooperation with great pleasure. Please extend my greetings to all my friends in Veliko Tarnovo." The Vice President of Bulgaria presented keepsakes to President Ilham Aliyev and first lady Mehriban Aliyeva. They then posed for photographs. By AZERTAC President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today met with a delegation led by Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey Nabi Avci. You know you need to save for your future. You may have children who will go to college. You will want to retire. You may need to help your aging parents. Every month, you are determined to start putting away part of your paycheck, but you dont. Each month, something else new clothes, a weekend getaway, expensive restaurants consumes your cash flow. When you prepare your budget, it all looks good on paper: You make enough to pay all your basic bills such as your house payment, car payment, groceries, insurance, utilities plus some left over to save for the future. Logically, the numbers work, but you still may be unable to save and invest and to stick to your budget. Why? Something else must be more important to you than your future goals. How you are handling your money isnt about the numbers its about your priorities and values. Once you understand what is really driving your actions, you can figure out ways to better stick to your budget. Going out to nice restaurants may not be about the food but about regularly socializing with close friends. Taking a weekend getaway may help you deal with a stressful job. Buying that new car may help fulfill the desire to keep up with friends and family. While spending money on these things may provide a very nice lifestyle now, it will not continue after you retire if you cannot save now. What is driving you to spend everything today at the expense of tomorrow? Emotions typically play a big part in our money decisions and can override our logic. Consider how you feel when you decide to make a purchase or take a trip it could explain your spending habits. Decisions to spend or save can also be driven by learned behaviors. How well your parents handled money can carry over into your habits. Your view of money as good or bad can be deep-rooted thoughts that also affect your decisions. Simply recognizing what may be directing your spending habits can help turn things around. If your desire to socialize is taking your extra funds, perhaps you can find less expensive ways to be with friends. Try meeting for a hike or a cup of coffee. If your friends invite you to travel to Europe for three weeks, dont be afraid to pass. You can socialize with those same friends doing other things that are more in line with your budget. Wanting a certain status in society can be a big driver in our money decisions. Wearing designer brands of clothing, driving expensive cars and buying homes in certain zip codes makes a statement. Those statements may mean living beyond our means and preventing a nice lifestyle down the road. If you are creative, you can have your cake and eat it, too. Find designer clothing at discount stores. Drive a nice car thats a year old with 15,000 miles. Buy a very nice house two zip codes away that fits in your budget. If you can determine what is really driving your spending decisions, you can probably figure out how to solve those emotional needs another way and stick to your budget. Life is a series of choices made every day. When it comes to money, our choices are often led by our emotional side. Do your best to listen to your logical voice telling you to save and invest for the future, even if your emotional voice may be stronger when current wants are right in front of you. The Best GMT Watches For Men Seven GMT Watches That Are Stylish, Functional And Check All The Boxes The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, the time zone of the United Kingdom. Besides that, GMT is a time system that was adopted in 1884. It originally referred to the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in London. In Greenwich, London, to be exact. This time system divides the globe into 24 parts, based on 24 meridians of longitude. Greenwich in London is longitude 0 0' 0", which makes it GMT. Amsterdam, for example, is in the next zone, and is GMT+1. New York, for instance, is GMT-5 (during winter). The GMT is one of the most popular complications a watch can have. Although it was meant for pilots who travel through different time zones, business travelers also found their way to these watches. RELATED: Your Handsome Timepiece Collection Deserves An Equally Handsome Case Most of the time, a GMT watch just features an extra hand that is able to display home time in the 24-hour format (to make a distinction between night and day). The normal hour hand is used to display the time in the current time zone you are in. In some cases, the watch has an extra dial with hour and minute hands to display an extra time zone. GMT watches are also used interchangeably with UTC (Temps universel coordonne aka Coordinated Universal Time) watches. UTC is the primary time standard the world uses to regulate clocks and time. It does not observe daylight savings time and is within one second of mean solar time at zero degrees longitude. UTC is actually a successor of GMT as GMT is no longer defined by the scientific community. But for watch buying purposes, these mean the same. A very useful complication for people who travel a lot to different time zones (and not +1 or -1 only) and want to know what time it is in their home country. It can also be a useful complication if you do a lot of business with people in a certain time zone. But beware: not all GMT watches are truly GMT watches. An authentic GMT watch must have at least one time on a 24 hour scale. Some watches are labeled GMT but have two 12 hour scales, making the watch not a real GMT. So now youre thinking of buying a GMT watch. There are plenty of watches to choose from, so how do you even begin to decide? While there are tons and tons of GMT watches out there, not all of them are worth the purchase. Weve chosen some of the best and most stylish GMT watches to make your accessory hunting a little easier. Check out the picks below to make sure you wear a watch that will up your style game and also provide the functionality you need (or dont). Seiko SUN057 Mens X Prospex Seikos SUN057 in the Mens X Prospex line is one of the best watches youll ever own thats under $500. This GMT watch has a stainless steel case and the face of the watch is made of mineral crystal, so it can take some hits. Its even water resistant up to 100 meters, so dont worry about getting caught in the rain. Its not just functional, but its also extremely stylish. The yellow and silver accents on the numbers and hands contrast nicely with the black on black that defines the rest of the watch. The hardness of the steel case is softened by the leather strap, making the watch seem more inviting and adding some texture as well. The round shape of the case is perfect to make this timepiece have a little more of a casual vibe. You seriously cant go wrong by wearing this watch out for drinks, at work or even to a wedding. Want to be the most stylish guy there? Throw this baby on. $211.75 at Amazon.com Glycine Airman This Glycine Airman Swiss watch is the classic GMT watch you need in your wardrobe. It displays three time zones, has a strong stainless steel case and is water resistant up to 200 meters! The dial window is made of synthetic sapphire, making it strong but also less expensive. The black band is made of leather calfskin that adds a beautiful rawness to the overall look and feel. Black, white and silver dominate this watch to make it stunningly simple while the brown belly of the strap gives it a small color shock. The Glycine timepiece is beautifully crafted and is a watch that will never go out of style. Get this is you want something that will always be in fashion. $695.00 at Amazon.com Timex T2P424DH Intelligent Quartz Watch A truly good deal, this Timex T2P424DH Intelligent Quartz Watch is a super affordable option that still gives you the look and feel of something much more expensive. The stainless steel case and mineral dial window help protect against damage and the stainless steel link bracelet is a nice touch to keep the vibe of the watch continuous. This watch is also water resistant up to 100 meters. The round face gives this timepiece a nice girth but doesnt get too chunky as it blends into the bracelet. The black inner face and red and black accents pair nicely with the stainless steel silver. It even has a night light for telling time in the dark. Its a go-to watch that will match almost any outfit. If you dont want to break the bank and still have a watch people will talk about, this Timex is the one for you. $71.59 at Amazon.com Hamilton Jazzmaster The Hamilton Jazzmaster is a stunning round watch you wont want to take off. And its water resistant up to 165 meters, so you wont have to. It has a anti-reflective sapphire window, youll know what time it is even when the sun is beating directly on it. The stainless steel bezel contrasted against the black alligator strap gives it a unique character that stand apart from plain black and silver watches. This watch is unique in the fact that it has names of different cities from around the world, adding a certain charm you wont find in most other watches. This timepiece is polished and subtle even with the city names adorned on it. Get this watch if youre looking for something that isnt too flashy but is still unique. $735.19 at Amazon.com Tag Heuer Mens Formula 1 The Tag Heuer Mens Formula 1 is an exquisite watch for a man of tastes. First off, it has a sapphire crystal face, making it extremely scratch resistant. The stainless steel case and band perfectly protect the watch while also making it look stunning. The blue and black aluminum top ring make this watch even more unique and edgy. This watch is water resistant at 200 meters, so this thing can take some serious water damage. The numbers are quite large, making you able to tell the time in a nanosecond. Youll never be late for meetings again. This is a seamless watch that looks even more expensive than it is. Forget about your fancy suit. This watch is what others will be looking at when you walk in the room. $1,400.00 at Amazon.com Versace GMT V-Race Versace has been on the scene for a while, but their watches first debuted in 1996 with just a few limited editions. Luckily for you, they produce more than they used to. The Versace V-Race GMT watch is classic Versace: elegant and somewhat flashy. This watch is gorgeous with its black inner face with gold accents, surrounded by a gold coated case. The window is anti reflective sapphire, protecting you from scratches and glares. Its also water resistant up to 165 meters, making it suitable for swimming and showering. It even has two different colored hands to help you tell the time. The blue hand is for alarm and the red hand is for GMT. The two tone bracelet is marvelous with its silver and gold plated stainless steel. The bracelet runs into the case effortlessly and the Versace name on the case makes sure others know your watch is the real deal. If you want a stand out watch, the V-Race GMT is your perfect choice. $1,380.00 at Amazon.com Rolex GMT Master II Who makes watches better than Rolex? No one, and the Rolex GMT Master II is here to show you how amazing Rolex is. The Rolex GMT Master II has a stainless steel case and a stainless steel oyster bracelet. The blue and black ceramic bezel shows the GMT markings while also giving off a more unique style than if it was just one solid color. The window is made from scratch resistant sapphire crystal to ensure your watch stays flaw free. The silver, black and blue accents complement each other extremely well to create a perfect vision of style. Want a watch that will last forever and make heads turn every time you wear it? The Rolex GMT Master II is the right choice. $8,995.00 at Amazon.com AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use. Distance has always been the Achilles heel of Wyoming industries. Cowboy State coal didnt become king until the railroads deregulated in the 1980s, dropping the cost of shipping. Wyoming's oil and gas are worth less than other regions' because its commodities must travel farther. One way or another, the states energy resources have to find their way to more populated markets, usually losing value on the trip. The same can be said, to some degree, for electricity. The countrys aging grid is struggling to move more diverse types of electricity than it was designed to handle, and Wyoming once again finds itself isolated from potential markets at a time when the need to expand the fossil-fuel dependent economy is front and center in the political debate. Everyone appears to agree that the grid faces hurdles. Yet the complexity of the system makes expanding it beyond Wyoming everyones problem and no ones responsibility. Politicians from the West are again pushing for deregulation, this time for permitting on federal land. State leaders want private investment to lead the charge. Wyomingites themselves are divided. The state already exports two-thirds of its electricity and most of its raw sources of power, making the need for expensive transmission lines, which will likely be built for renewable resources, a tough sell in a fossil fuel state. But experts point to demand for wind and solar as both the challenge and what may ultimately lead to the solution for the electricity infrastructure that carries power across the West, around the Rockies and into the desert Southwest. I think that the grid itself is doing things today that it was never built for, whether that is renewables or conventional power, said Jonathan Naughton, director of the Wind Energy Research Center at the University of Wyoming. Overall, the modernization of the grid is going to have to happen, because of the way we are doing things. How the grid grew up The U.S. electricity grid was first concentrated around large cities before sprawling across the landscape over decades. It was helped to some degree by federal investment in rural electricity. Construction boomed in the '60s and '90s but has since tapered off. The need for electricity power, however, has not declined in kind. Think of it like the highway system, said Rob Godby, an energy economist at the University of Wyoming. So we havent had a major infrastructure building boom in years for transmission. The traffic, the congestion has increased. It just means the capacity of the lines is becoming too small. Thatd be the equivalent of traffic jams outside big cities. Though electricity is the backbone of the nation, its not a nationally owned system. Its a conglomeration of privately owned power plants and high voltage transmission lines that feed into local power lines that power homes, businesses and streetlights. Wyoming is part of the western grid, one of three interconnections that compose the Lower 48's high-voltage electricity system. Power cannot easily move from one grid to another. There are three main high-voltage and -capacity pathways for electricity to leave the state, all essentially pointing west. Its as if as far as Wyoming is concerned, the end of the world is at the eastern border, Godby said. But Wyoming is unique compared with many other states. Instead of sharing in an electricity pool, operators move independently of one another. Rocky Mountain Power takes care of their area. Black Hills takes care of theirs, and Basin Electric and Tri-State take care of the rural electric cooperatives area, said Jason Begger, director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, of the main electricity providers. Then we also have Western Area Power Authority (WAPA) lines moving power through Wyoming from federally owned hydroelectric dams in the region. Some companies may offer a toll for another entity to use their transmission lines, but until two major lines in the works are completed, the ability to send additional power out of Wyoming is at its end. Forging alliances Democrats in California, the countrys top energy-consuming state, recently proposed shifting entirely to renewables by 2045. Such a move would accelerate the demand growth for Rocky Mountain wind in the desert southwest. Some 800 miles away on the Wyoming prairie, an oil and gas companys subsidiaries have spent 10 years developing one of the largest wind farms in the U.S. and a direct current transmission line to carry that renewable power to the deserts of Nevada and Southern California. Wind and other renewables are pushing forward expansion and modernization of the grid, and Wyoming has an opportunity to be a part of that, said Naughton, of the wind research center at UW. Wind and solar have also created new alliances between power providers and operators in the West to move the pulses of excess power created by high sun days in places like California or particularly windy days in places like the Shirley Basin. That power can be cast far afield to where it's needed, feeding Seattle on a rainy day, for example -- if there are transmission lines to carry it. The Western Energy Imbalance Market, launched in 2014, has partners from Idaho to Arizona doing just that. The EIM includes PacifiCorp, the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power and Wyomings largest provider of electricity. These types of mergers of markets and coalitions of regional balancing authorities may become the norm in the West as the grid develops its wholesale approach to power sourcing, Naughton said. But as large amounts of electricity are traded across long distances, the piecemeal operation of the grid thats worked until now wont function as well, he said. We have to think in a broader context, and if we think that way, it will lead us to what we need to do, Naughton said. Point A to Point B Wyoming coal is shipped out daily to serve other states power plants. Its natural gas is pumped along a network of pipelines for the same purpose. And when those fuel sources are converted to power within the states borders, most of that electricity is sent away as well. Wyomings laissez-faire approach to the transmission system is understandable, as the state doesnt need more power. Any increase, such as the proposed wind farms, would feed another states desire for Wyomings renewable resources and require a project of a large enough scale to justify million-dollar investment, said Godby, the energy economist. Moreover, the state doesnt regulate the grid or have any investment in its operation across state lines. When you are already exporting two-thirds of the energy produced, most likely you are not going to have a new transmission line from point A in Wyoming to point B, said Gov. Matt Mead. Its going to be interstate, and when its interstate, you get into the FERC Commission, federal regulations, the county in Idaho, the state of California that is one of the reason it takes the private and federal work. The state has made some effort to lay groundwork for expansion for the grid and other energy infrastructure like pipelines. Its constructed a public data system that maps the environmentally restricted areas, the transmission lines and the current pipelines, a project completed as a part of the governors energy strategy to make it easier for private parties to plan and begin permitting infrastructure projects. But Wyoming, already bleeding from a triple bust in oil, gas and coal, is unlikely to be fronting cash for grid development. Turning to Washington If Wyoming is unlikely to invest in the grid, some place their hopes in the feds, with the Equality State benefiting from national projects. Wyoming isnt isolated from the larger network of lines across the western landscape and the challenges aging infrastructure has placed on the nation's ability to efficiently manage its power. When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012, the southern tip of Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn and shorelines of New Jersey were flooded with seawater, and darkness. Power and transportation buckled. Other weather events have tested the grids resilience in the last decade, from tornadoes to wildfires, drawing attention to the need to modernize and stabilize the U.S. electricity system. A federal study from 2013 reported that 70 percent of the transmission infrastructure in the U.S. is more than 25 years old, and utilities across the country listed aging infrastructure as one of the top concerns in 2017, according to the State of the Electric Utility Survey. President Donald Trumps talk of spending $1 trillion on public works is welcome, but few in Wyoming are counting on money from Washington. I think infrastructure on the electrical grid is in need of significant investment, Mead said. I dont know where theyre ever going to be able to find that money or finance that. But certainly that part of the electrical grid is worthy of focus. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso said in an email that there is bipartisan support for investing in the grid, but he did not respond to a question about Trumps infrastructure plan or how it may benefit Wyomings energy infrastructure. Red tape A long-distance transmission line that starts in Wyoming has to travel through four states for energy to reach a market like California. That means gaining four Bureau of Land Management offices' approval for just one aspect of the project, said Begger, of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority. While new pipelines are being built, we haven't seen many in Wyoming. The same goes for electrical transmission lines, he said. It's not that there's no need or desire, it's just that the length and expense of having to permit those types of projects across federal lands isn't as attractive as it is in places where the land is privately owned. What Washington can do to advance the electricity grid in the West is streamline the federal permitting process, both Mead and Barrasso said. The oil and gas industries in particular say increased regulation and costs have inhibited development and progress. If I had one comment to make, it would be that the time is the most critical problem with the federal permitting process. Nothing should take eight years to permit, whether its a wind farm or transmission line or anything else, said Bill Miller, president and CEO of TransWest Express LLC. The company is no stranger to permitting in the West. Its a subsidiary of Anschutz Corp. which is also in the Wyoming oil, gas and ranching businesses. Miller has watched for nearly a decade as the TransWest transmission line, which will carry wind power from the proposed Chokecherry wind project to the desert Southwest, made its way through the permitting process. When a BLM staffer told Miller years ago that one of the necessary permits could take five years to process, he laughed. When the permit took eight years, he didnt find it quite so funny. Regulation exists -- we know how we can comply with it -- but getting it through the process is the difficulty, Miller said. There has never been a timeline that I have seen in eight years that has not been exceeded. The result is that once again Wyoming is facing an access problem, this time with wind. Wyoming wind power is effectively a stranded asset, Begger said. Wind blowback Addressing the capacity deficit to serve wind power is sometimes discouraged in the Cowboy State by a fierce loyalty to the fossil fuel industry. Oil, gas and coal employ a large percentage of the workforce. The industries have supported Wyoming economically for decades, allowing for lower property taxes and no state income tax, experts say. And proximity to coal sources made the state one of the cheapest in the country for electricity generation. There is an inherent unfairness in Washingtons relationship with renewable industries, some say. As coal production declined in recent years, wind and solar were being offered help from the federal government through tax subsidies, which many see as an advantage over the traditional industries that provide base load power. Additionally, a federal law to mitigate the monopolized nature of the utility industry requires that larger providers buy new renewable sources from small producers. As fewer coal cars left the state loaded down with what was once the king of electricity generation, many in Wyoming shook their heads in frustration as they watched wind turbines go up. Wyoming is wary of alliances that dont share its politics, particularly when it comes to something as close to the state's heart as energy. But fears that renewable development is a detriment to Wyomings traditional resources, in particular the coal industry, are misplaced, said Miller, of TransWest. We are still going to have a fairly robust market for carbon source energy in the West, he said. I know in Wyoming our coal business has really suffered, but we still have a very significant and ongoing coal and natural gas industry. The hydrocarbon industry in Wyoming is not going to simply go away because of renewables in the West. At the end of the day, the grid wasnt made by politics, policy or votes. It was built by companies seeking a return. Some say thats happening again. Renewable resources in places like Wyoming are sought after by companies, from locals to foreign firms, and the changes to the grid are happening in part because new types of power are coming online, said Miller, of TransWest. It think it is the vehicle that will provide for the expansion of the grid. Sunday support meetings Alcoholics Anonymous: 10 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 10:15 a.m., 917 N. Beech; noon, 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 6:30 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 6:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 8 p.m., 328 1/2 E. A. Douglas: 1 p.m, Douglas, 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back), womens meeting; 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. Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 6:30 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 8 p.m., 15th & Melrose at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org. Nicotine Anonymous: 5 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club. Info: Pam M., 577-0518. Benefit breakfast for FFA The VFW, 1800 Bryan Stock Trail, is hosting a benefit breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. for the Kelly Walsh Windy City FFA. Cost of breakfast is $7.50 per plate. All of the breakfast proceeds go to the state FFA winners trip to Indianapolis in the fall to compete at the National FFA Convention. Sunday breakfast at Elks The Casper Elks Lodge serves breakfast open to the public on Sundays from 8 to 11 a.m. All you can eat for $7, children 5 to 12 are $3, 4 and under are free. For more information, call 234-4839. Breakfast at Eagles Twice-monthly Sunday Eagles Breakfasts are back. Serving from 8 to 10:30 a.m. on the first and last Sundays of the month, at 306 N. Durbin. 235-5130. Consignment sale Consignment for a Cause will be holding a sale with proceeds being donated to Drews Decision to benefit survivors of suicide loss in the common area of the Wyoming National Apartments, 204 E. Second St. (downtown Casper), from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Drews Decision, a nonprofit Casper-based organization, has helped many families in Wyoming deal with the tragedy of suicide by offering financial assistance for memorial expenses, consultation referrals and assistance with job training opportunities, if needed. Music of the Masters The 2017 Music of the Masters Concert Te Deum will feature the Casper College Chamber Orchestra and the colleges combined choirs and festival orchestra with a pre-concert program at 2 p.m. followed by the concert at 3. The concert will open with Sinfonia concertante in A-Major for violin, viola, cello and orchestra by the Czech composer Johann Stamitz. The selection will feature Jennifer Cowell-DePaolo on violin, Gary DePaolo on viola and the University of Wyomings Dr. Beth Vanderborgh on cello. The second half of the concert will feature two versions of the Te Deum text: one from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the other, written 125 years later by Antonin Dvorak. The combined choirs, the Casper College Chamber Orchestra and the Casper College Festival Orchestra will perform the work. The pre-concert program and the concert are free and open to the public. Both will take place in the Wheeler Concert Hall in the Music Building on the Casper College campus.Follow community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur on Twitter @WYOSAS After party at coffee house The Gone Johnson Revue is having an after party at The Melrose Coffeehouse, 1511 S. Melrose, from 3 to 7 p.m. Whats the Gone Johnson Revue? Its Donnie Teesdale(ex- of Casper), Bill Fraser and Billy Reed from Seattle, plus Cory McDaniel and Amy Gieske from Casper. Whats the after-party? A final send-off for the Seattle Revue-ers who will be heading back on Monday morning, and an opportunity to learn about the upcoming documentary on Dell Burkes Yellow Hotel being filmed by Dennis Rollins, and featuring songs by Cory McDaniel. Its not exactly a house concert, but sort of ! Bring your favorite beverage and a potluck item if youd like, and of course the donation jar will be going around. It was a daunting task: define Casper, find what people want it to be and craft the necessary policies to make that happen. After nearly a year of soliciting public feedback at dozens of events and poring over previous reports of a similar nature, the city planning department worked with outside consultants to develop a nearly 200-page document seeking to answer those questions. The first draft of the citys new comprehensive plan known as Generation Casper was released last month and couples an attempt to reveal the Oil Citys true character with technical policy recommendations that will affect what is built and how life is lived in Casper for years to come. Rome wasnt built in a day, consultant Kristina Kachur told City Council in April. This is a 10-year, 20-year plan. According to the plan, Caspers best chance for success is as a distinctive regional hub, a geographic advantage that can be enhanced by developing the city core and improving both economic and recreational infrastructure. It is the first major comprehensive planning effort undertaken in Casper since the 1990s. Interim City Manager Liz Becher, who helped draft the document, said cities must have a current comprehensive plan to qualify for many federal grants. Theoretical to practical The plan is broken into chapters running from our story to our path forward. The vision kind of sets the stage, said Megan Moore, who works with Kachur at the planning firm Logan Simpson in Fort Collins, Colorado. Six broad principles have been converted into 68 specific policies ranging from the straightforward install more bicycle racks to broader goals, like securing funding for recreation programs. Project manager Aaron Kloke, one of Caspers two city planners, said the best way to understand how the plan will be implemented lies in four focus areas meant to bridge the wider vision with tangible goals. Those areas center on reducing long-term infrastructure and public maintenance costs, changing zoning regulations and working with the Casper Economic Development Alliance. While some of the recommendations made in the plan appear to come with a hefty price tag, Kloke said changes to zoning rules, for example, can lead to significant results in Casper while costing little more than staff hours. Its low-hanging fruit that could have a really big impact, he said. Those changes could include easing parking requirements to encourage less car traffic and upping standards for landscaping. Infrastructure costs could be reduced by tailoring impact fees to a projects long-term costs or lack thereof to incentivize in-fill development, which is less expensive for the city to provide services to than buildings on the outskirts of town. If approved by City Council in June, the plan will be used by Caspers planning and zoning commission when members review private development projects and by other policymakers deciding where to focus the citys discretionary resources. Generation Casper may also aid developers, with sections devoted to issues like housing needs in the future and suggestions for how future demand can best be addressed. The report also incorporates many previous studies or urban plans focusing on specific areas within Casper, drawing them into Generation Caspers larger plan. Some of these include: Old Yellowstone District Master Plan Senior Services Study Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice Connecting Casper 2040 Casper Area Transit Development Plan Casper Walkability Study Casper Area Trails, Path and Bikeway Plan Elkhorn Valley/Eastside Master Trail Plan Interstate 25 Entryway Beautification Plan the Wyocity branding program Weve really tried to make sure we arent reinventing the wheel where we didnt have to, Kloke to Council. Kloke and the Logan Simpson consultants emphasized that their recommendations are grounded in public feedback outlining what residents like and dislike about Casper today. Residents, the report states, want a city that is safe, family-friendly, economically diverse, and affordable. Beyond the generic, much of the feedback focused on recreation opportunities in Casper. If Casper were to win an award in 10 years... it would be awarded the Ultimate Outdoor City for its outdoor and recreation-oriented lifestyle, one resident offered. The report pairs that comment with statistics showing Casper has double the acreage of parks and open space compared with other cities of a comparable size. Support and questions City Council members were largely receptive to the plan. This is something developers should be looking at so they know what were thinking, Councilman Bob Hopkins said. However, there were some concerns about Councils approval of the plan and the relatively short timeline of two months between the presentation of the Generation Casper draft and the planned vote in June. Thats only seven weeks from now said Councilman Charlie Powell. Youre talking about a 20-year plan kind of hard to push the yes switch without knowing what kind of commitments were making. Kloke said that while the plan was an important guideline, with far-reaching impact in terms of how policies are crafted in Casper, it was not locked. Comprehensive plans should be updated every five years, Kloke said. Youre not necessarily holding a council 15 years from now accountable. He also noted there was nothing preventing Council from amending the plan before the five-year point. Hopkins said that was important because the city is seeing bigger changes on a year-to-year basis than it was in the 1990s when the last comprehensive plan was created. Generation Casper has been compiled at a point when Casper is seeing private investment in downtown, a goal of City Council for several years, starting to grow significantly. David Street Station, the public plaza project downtown, has nearly completed fundraising and is expected to partially open by August along with half a dozen other new bars and restaurants in the area rushing to complete construction or renovation in time for the eclipse festival. I dont think we want to be set there when we see things changing in two years, he said. The current leader of the Natrona County GOP is up for debate, after a faction within the party held a meeting Tuesday night and ousted Chairman Joe McGinley a move the Casper physician and his supporters reject. McGinley wrote in a Thursday email to party members that he remains chairman. But Mike Pyatt is believed by some to be the new leader. Pyatt, when reached by the Star-Tribune on Thursday, said he was not prepared to comment on the issue. McGinley has been described as a centrist by his backers. Pyatts supporters include former conservative lawmaker Tom Reeder and Cathy Ide, an activist in the Campaign for Liberty, a Ron Paul-affiliated group that describes itself as wanting to reclaim the Republic and restore the Constitution. The Star-Tribune left two messages each for Ide and Reeder. They never replied. But McGinleys friends described Ide and Reeder in a number of terms ranging from libertarian to radical to the religious right. Ultimately, whoever prevails in the philosophical tug-of-war will have control over much of central Wyomings political landscape, since the GOP holds all but one of the areas legislative seats and all positions on the county commission. Party leaders are responsible for recruiting candidates to run for office, and they distribute GOP funds to candidates. Naturally, leaders would recruit their friends and other like-minded Republicans, said Keith Goodenough, who is now a Republican but served as a Democrat in the Wyoming Senate, ran as an independent for the Natrona County Commission and served as a city councilman, a nonpartisan position. If candidates are recruited and they know theres a lot more support for their point of view, then theyre much more likely to run for office, Goodenough said. That means the countys politicians could become even more conservative in one of the states reddest counties. State meeting The question of who is chairman is especially timely because on Saturday, Republicans from across the state will meet in Jackson to elect new leaders of the state party. Wyoming GOP Chairman Matt Micheli said the partys official records list McGinley as chairman, and as of Friday night, he will get to vote. Micheli is not seeking another term as chairman. In March, Casper-area Republicans elected McGinley chairman, he said. If somebody wanted to challenge his election, they would have to bring that forward at the central committee meeting on Saturday, Micheli said. Infighting Broadly speaking, the division in the Natrona County GOP mirrors a battle for the soul of the Republican Party that is occurring across the state and country most recently as a division between the insurrectionist and mainstream wings of the GOP. Other incarnations of the war had tea partyers challenging traditional Republicans, and religious and social conservatives facing off against business-friendly Republicans. But in Casper, the fight is manifesting in technicalities over bylaws with each faction claiming the other has misused party rules for their gain over the last two months. The faction that elected Pyatt on Tuesday is upset over some leadership appointments McGinley made in April, believing he broke the rules in how he nominated the people, said Rep. Joe MacGuire, a state lawmaker from Casper who attended the meeting. MacGuire is involved with the county party and said he believes McGinley remains chairman and didnt break any bylaws in April. In emails provided to the Star-Tribune, Ide called a meeting for Tuesday to discuss what she called problematic actions by Chairman McGinley. McGinley said he didnt attend the meeting because it was invalid. The people who organized it didnt follow the rules for calling a meeting, he said. Others also didnt think it was a legitimate meeting. Republican precinct leader Sylvia Kirby described it as the pig roast. MacGuire said it was hastily organized. People like my mom who has been in the party since World War II, she didnt know about it, he said. So she didnt come. MacGuire said Ide, Reeder, Pyatt and others in the group ensured their supporters were at the meeting to stack the deck and obtain enough votes to oust McGinley. A series of resolutions passed the meeting, including one to remove McGinley as chairman. McGinley contends hes still chairman. He called the Tuesday meeting a rogue activity. He said the public can attend a meeting next month, which he described as a legitimate event. This will all be settled at our June 5 reading, he said. Until that point in time, theres no other meetings of replacing chairmen. Brand of Republicanism Since Ide, Reeder and Pyatt declined to be interviewed, its difficult to understand their brand of Republicanism and how it will influence the party. Kirby, the precinct leader, said theyre so far from being Republican theyre not even in the ballpark. Goodenough said theyre religious conservatives. They have a number of litmus tests, he said. Some of those limits tests are more important than others. The abortion test is probably No. 1. (Opposition to) equal rights for gays and lesbians is right up there. Getting religion in schools. Theres a number of opposition to Planned Parenthood, I suppose. Theres religious-related issues that are part of the litmus test. Indeed, Ide testified on bills related to abortion during the 2017 legislative session, saying that if the practice is eliminated, God will bless the country. Rep. Pat Sweeney beat Reeder in August in the GOP primary for House District 59. Ide attended a press conference in which Sweeney announced his candidacy and challenged him on policy. Im sure they see that as a defeat, Goodenough said. And of course Gerald Gay got ousted by a Democrat. They would see that as a lack of progress. Im sure theyll be out recruiting candidates to reclaim those seats. Sweeney said that some of the factions ideals are noble. But they lack flexibility for politics in the real world. I can agree with them on nine out of 10 issues, he said. But that one issue, Im a bad guy and I am the devil. They cast you out. Im working for my constituents. Not everybodys going to agree But they dont look at that. And they dont want small steps. We saw that on the gun legislation. You are either all in or youre an outcast. And thats not how the Republican Party works. They are flat hateful. For frequent fliers who cycle in and out of jail, a judge has begun writing into their release orders that they must take the bus to Salt Lake City. CHEYENNE A rare springtime fire ban for part of southeast Wyoming has been lifted. Laramie County officials imposed the partial ban April 18 after a spell of warm and dry weather. They lifted the ban Tuesday following a pattern of rain and snow. Temperatures in southeast Wyoming in March were more than 7 degrees above normal and in the first half of April almost 6 degrees above normal. Precipitation was half an inch below normal. Then came the rain and snow. As of Wednesday, the Cheyenne area was more than 1 inch ahead of normal moisture for this time of year. County Fire Warden Matt Butler said the fire ban is unlikely to be reinstated soon because grasslands are greening up. Criminal justice reform, including sentencing reform, is nearly as difficult to get through the Legislature as the bill designating Martin Luther King Jr. Day was in its time. This recent legislative session marked the second or third year a reform bill has failed. Before that, efforts never got beyond the study stage. This year the critics were out again prosecutors, mainly, and law enforcement. They claimed the bill gave too much power to probation and parole officers and took some from the judges. House Bill 94 passed the House by an unimpressive 31-26 vote. In the Senate it went nowhere because the Senate President Eli Bebout, R-Riverton, pocket-vetoed it, citing the cost and the folly of starting a new program when the state revenues are dwindling. The bill, or parts of it, may rise again. The second-highest-priority study for the Joint Interim Judiciary Committee is a review of the states probation and parole programs. Part of that review will include the three-month and six-month drug treatment programs from HB 94. The bill will be considered at the committees June 6-7 meeting in Sheridan, Rep. Dan Kirkbride of Carpenter, a co-chairman of the interim committee, wrote in an e-mail. House Bill 94 targeted the 70 percent of people on probation and parole who are sent back to prison for violations for substance abuse. The $2.5 million a year cost of the program was for contracts for substance abuse treatment and with county jails. According to the Legislative Service Office analysis, the state would save about $7.6 million a year by keeping more people out of prison. It also could help the state avoid the construction of up to 160 new prison beds the state is projected to need before 2020. Seems like a good trade-off. The timing has been unfortunate. Wyoming has a low recidivism rate and a high incarceration rate. That anomaly suggests that Department of Corrections is doing a good job in rehabilitation inmates but is getting too many of them, including some who could be handled outside of prison. The bill was designed to deal with nonviolent offenders. As Wyoming continues to struggle, other states have plowed ahead. The states, in fact, are leading the federal government in criminal justice reform, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. At least 25 states have used analyses of data on what drives populations and costs to develop and adopt reforms. As a result, half those states have reduced their prison populations since 2009. More recently, five states Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah adopted reforms that have projected savings or avoided costs of more than $1.7 billion over the next two decades. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have passed successful criminal justice reform, according to published reports. Wyoming is recognized as a state looking to reform its criminal justice system, along with Kentucky, Massachusetts and Illinois. The federal government followed the lead of the states and made some progress last year by nearly getting a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill to the floor of Congress. These House and Senate bills would have reformed some of the worst parts of our criminal justice system mandatory minimum sentences on drug offenses. These are the relics of the federal War on Drugs in the 1980s. As I recall, the guidelines were very unpopular with Wyoming federal judges because they were harsh and allowed them little leeway. No judicial flexibility was possible with mandatory guidelines. Judges, federal and state, want and need discretion in dealing with defendants. The Wyoming Legislature needs some vision in dealing with this long-existing problem. The lawmakers may be encouraged by realities the prospect of the cost of repairing or rebuilding one prison and adding to another. You load 16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt ... I owe my soul to the company store goes the chorus of Sixteen Tons, the song made popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 50s. The words also appear on the preface page of the new book Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship, and Free Speech, by Jeffrey Lockwood. Lockwood is the eminent professor of natural sciences and humanities at the University of Wyoming. Lockwoods title sounds impressive but still understates who he is. He was hired as an insect ecologist at UW in 1986 after receiving his Ph.D from Louisiana State University in entomology. Over 20 years, he became a leader in rangeland grasshopper management but then left the College of Agriculture to become a professor of natural sciences and humanities, with a joint appointment between the Department of Philosophy and the creative writing program. He is one of the most versatile intellectuals and writers among my acquaintances. For years he was director of the board at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Laramie. They didnt have a regular pastor, so often they called on Lockwood to talk: philosophy, world religions, ecology, you name it. And his teaching beyond his own classes, he has been a guest lecturer for 47 courses in 20 departments and graduate committee member for 179 graduate students in 25 departments. He has written more than 100 professional papers and several books. These are only highlights. Lockwood has worked on his latest book for five years. It is about censorship and academic freedom, and he uses Wyoming stories as examples. The University of New Mexico Press published the book, and as a public press, it has to ensure the contents are rigidly documented. In company towns, Lockwood says, employees know better than to bite the hand that feeds them. Tenure by professors at public universities and colleges allows them to give the public documented data and expert opinions. It is what we pay tenured professors to do. Like a company town, in Wyoming most of the breadwinners work for or are connected to fossil fuels. Nearly 80 percent of the states tax revenue comes from these resources. But it is the connection of these industries to the Wyoming Legislature, state administrators and the University of Wyoming that often censors free speech and academic freedom. Free speech, a First Amendment right, may be censored directly but more often indirectly by the energy-political connection. The First Amendment is vital to our democracy but challenged by an economy so dependent upon these finite resources. Those who control exploration, extraction and the distribution of fossil fuels hold great power. After all, oil and coal are the engines of the world economy. In states where economies are overly dependent on fossil fuels, to speak an unkind word about them is often to be considered an economy traitor. Important to Lockwoods book is how he ties curtailment of free speech in Wyoming to the political-energy collusion called a corporatocracy. He says, Political censorship is unconscionable, but self-censorship (like happens in some company towns and Wyoming) is an insidious silence that eats away at the integrity of a community. UW has been Lockwoods employment home since 1986. He speaks freely and responsibly about its issues and knows what its mission was set out to be. Economic issues and politics historically have sent the universitys mission awry, as well as academic freedom. The Carbon Sink artwork by the celebrated British artist Chris Drury in 2010 connected coal to global warming and dead pine trees. It was just south of Old Main. For UW to represent fossil fuels with the Carbon Sink was for the industries to speak evil about them and every consumers complicity. The university was threatened with the cutoff of millions in funds. UW administration put up a posture of respecting free speech while it buckled to the industries. In writing Behind the Carbon Curtain, Lockwood has opened another career, this time as an investigative reporter. He traces the threats by fossil fuel companies made to UW should the Carbon Sink remain. He learned that while UW leadership said academic freedom was alive and well, they fostered a make-believe story about their premature removal of Drurys art. Similarly, with literary bravery, Lockwood investigates the history of fighting the ozone poison in the air breathed by folks in the region of Pinedale since the Jonah Field and the Pinedale Anticline began producing. He exposes the censorship of an art display at the Nicolaysen Museum in Casper. The energy industry threatened funding if the museum were to display scenes of ravaged pristine lands left by the coal-bed methane operations. Be informed. Exercise your freedom of speech. PHOENIX State lawmakers gave final approval late Thursday to a $9.8 billion spending plan for the coming year. The budget is fueled with anticipated revenues of $9.68 billion. But that is being supplemented by $171 million that lawmakers hope to have left over when the current fiscal year ends on June 30. Teachers get a raise One of the highlights is a 1 percent pay hike for teachers for the coming fiscal year at a cost of $34 million. The actual increase will be 1.06 percent. Thats because some school districts have enough local revenues so they get no state aid at all and will have to fund the pay hikes out of their own tax collections. So the difference is being redistributed to the other school districts. An identical 1.06 percent increase for teachers will kick in the following school year. The increase is far above the 0.4 percent annual boost for five years proposed in January by Gov. Doug Ducey. But Democrats, citing the states low teacher wages, were unsuccessful in getting the increase raised to 4 percent. University funding, bonds The budget also includes one-time additional aid to universities of $15 million. But theres really less here than meets the eye. Thats because the schools got $19 million in one-time dollars last year. And of that $15 million, $2 million is earmarked to fund economic freedom schools at the University of Arizona and Arizona State Universities, schools started with seed money from the Koch brothers. There also is authorization for the universities to borrow $1 billion for needed construction and repairs. But there is no immediate fiscal impact, with the first promised state aid of $27 million to repay those bonds coming in the following budget year. Other highlights Results-based funding bonuses for certain public schools $37.6 million, a program some opponents say disproportionately rewards schools in affluent areas; Additional dollars for health-care providers to deal with higher minimum wage $33 million plus $10 million one-time spending; Move dollars from a special ADOT account to instead fund highway construction and repair $30 million; Removes $1.6 million in gang funding from Maricopa County, giving $400,000 to Pima County and the balance to test rape kits; Provides $62.9 million to construct six new schools, but does not fully fund building renewal formula lawmakers enacted to comply with Supreme Court order; $3 million to expand broadband into rural areas; $1.5 million for emergency dental services for needy adults. Amid the daily traffic of workers, shoppers and truck drivers crossing the border on March 21, a customs officer in Nogales noticed a driver acting nervously. A density meter and a drug-sniffing dog led customs officers to 2 pounds of cocaine, 15 pounds of heroin and 17 pounds of methamphetamine stashed inside the speaker box in the Chevrolet Malibus trunk, federal court records show. Cases involving hard drugs seized at the U.S.-Mexico border regularly appear in U.S. District Court in Tucson. They also regularly appear in political rhetoric about border security and the opioid epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in recent years. On April 24, President Trump tweeted: The Wall is a very important tool in stopping drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth (and many others)! If the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be! While Trump proposes building a wall to stop drugs from crossing the border and hiring thousands more Border Patrol agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics obtained by the Arizona Daily Star through a public-records request suggest the rhetoric coming from the White House reflects a misunderstanding of how and where hard drugs cross the border. CBP statistics show 81 percent of the 265,500 pounds of hard drugs caught at the U.S.-Mexico border from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2016 were stopped by customs officers at ports of entry, rather than by Border Patrol agents working in the desert and wilderness between ports. Hard drugs normally are not driven on remote roads or hauled in backpacks through the desert, where they would be stopped by Border Patrol agents or come up against a border wall, although court records show agents catch hard drugs at highway checkpoints, such as the 5 pounds of heroin hidden in a mans pants March 28 at the Interstate 19 checkpoint. A far more common scenario in federal court cases in Tucson involves stashing hard drugs in vehicle dashboards or strapping them under clothes and trying to smuggle them through ports of entry staffed by customs officers. Customs officers stopped 86 percent of the heroin caught borderwide from 2012 to 2016, CBP records show. Borderwide seizures of heroin by customs officers rose from 2,480 pounds in fiscal year 2012 to 3,280 pounds in fiscal year 2016, while Border Patrol seizures rose from 400 pounds to 560 pounds. The National Institutes of Health reported fatal overdoses from heroin in the United States rose sixfold from 2002 to 2015. Seizures of meth at ports of entry along the Southwest border rose from 13,700 pounds to 35,800 pounds and the Border Patrol saw seizures of meth rise from 3,400 pounds to 8,200 pounds. In addition to searching for cocaine, heroin and meth, customs officers in Arizona also handled the border crossings of 8.8 million personal-use vehicles, nearly 400,000 commercial trucks, and $23.7 billion in trade in fiscal year 2016, CBP records show. At the same time, customs officers are under-equipped to handle the workload and desperately need reinforcements, Tony Reardon, president of the union that represents customs officers, wrote in an August op-ed for The Hill, a political website. To address the yawning staffing gap, officers work overtime and the agency brings in officers from other ports on temporary assignments, Reardon wrote. CBP has used other methods in recent years to keep traffic flowing, such as allowing border businesses to pay customs officers to work overtime. In Arizona, Mexican customs officers now inspect some trucks alongside their U.S. counterparts to speed crossings. Despite customs officers playing a key role in stopping hard drugs at the border, as well as dealing with perennial staffing shortages, they often are overshadowed by other agencies when it comes to funding. Trump issued two Jan. 25 executive orders to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers responsible for arresting and deporting people in the country illegally. But the executive orders did not mention hiring more customs officers. Nor were customs officers mentioned in Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kellys Feb. 20 memos implementing Trumps executive order or the presidents March 16 budget blueprint. The 2017 federal spending bill signed into law last week increases Border Patrol staffing but does not mention customs officers, according to a summary from the House Appropriations Committee. Meanwhile, Arizonas congressional delegation is working to fulfill a 2014 congressional mandate to hire 2,000 more customs officers. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., whose district includes Douglas, proposed a bill April 27 to address the staffing shortage of more than 1,000 customs officers and 1,800 Border Patrol agents along the Southwest border. The bill would exempt law enforcement officers who have already passed a polygraph examination from retaking the CBP polygraph when applying to be a customs officer or Border Patrol agent. In December, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., introduced a bill to boost manpower at strained ports of entry along the U.S. border by eliminating obstacles to recruiting and retaining officers. Flake and fellow Republican Sen. John McCain introduced a similar bill in March. Arizonas congressional delegation responded to the call for more customs officers, but it doesnt resonate at the presidential level, said Bruce Bracker, Santa Cruz County supervisor and longtime business owner in Nogales, noting the lack of funding for customs officers is not unique to the Trump administration. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., whose district includes Nogales, repeatedly pushed the Obama administration to hire more customs officers. We have a brand-new facility at Mariposa and we have lanes that are closed because of a lack of staffing, Bracker said in reference to the $250 million renovation of Nogales Mariposa Port of Entry completed in 2014. In the narratives told about the border, people dont think about the blue uniform worn by customs officers, said Michael Fisher, chief of the Border Patrol from 2010 to 2015. Part of the reason is Border Patrol agents are visible in communities as they drive on roads and make arrests, while customs officers are usually seen only at ports of entry, he said. In addition, illegal immigration seen at ports of entry pales in comparison to what Border Patrol does, Fisher said. At Arizona ports of entry, officers stopped about 12,000 people who were deemed inadmissible in fiscal year 2016, while Border Patrol agents in Arizona apprehended about 65,000 people crossing illegally. Although hard drugs are most often seized at ports of entry, Border Patrol agents outpace customs officers when it comes to finding marijuana. Border Patrol agents found 9.48 million pounds of marijuana at the Southwest border from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2016, compared with 2.36 million pounds found by customs officers, records show. The trend of smuggling hard drugs through ports of entry evolved in the past 20 years as smuggling between ports became harder because of surveillance technology and agents getting smarter, Fisher said. Smugglers were pushed further and further into rural areas, he said, which meant expensive loads of hard drugs were exposed for hours or days during the crossing. It was too much of a risky proposition and smugglers turned toward ports, where loads could cross in minutes amid thousands of other vehicles and pedestrians, he said. An agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection was killed Friday in a single-vehicle crash on I-19, officials said. The driver, identified as Edgard Garcia, sustained fatal injuries in the crash, said Kameron Lee, an Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman. Shortly after 5 p.m., DPS troopers responded to the wreck on I-19 near milepost 12, and learned that the vehicle was traveling southbound on I-19 when it crossed the median and northbound lanes, striking a tree, Lee said. It's currently unknown why Garcia's car crossed the median, but he was wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash, Lee said. Sgt. Robert Fierros, a Nogales Police Department spokesman, posted on social media Friday night that a multi-agency police escort was travelling to Tucson from Nogales to pay respects to a federal officer. Appreciation Week is time to say thanks to teachers Tucson businesses are stepping up to honor local educators during Teacher Appreciation Week, which runs Sunday, May 7, through Saturday, May 13. Specials include drink deals as well as free or discounted meals and desserts. For more information, visit schools.pima.gov/teacher-apperciation-week For families looking for a way to honor the teachers in their lives, the Pima County School Superintendents Office suggests a simple thank you goes a long way. Other ideas include sending supplies for the classroom, making a homemade card or volunteering at school. Kino School senior earns full scholarship for NAU Kino School senior Mimi Hoffman has been selected to receive the Northern Arizona University Lumberjack Scholars Award. The full-tuition scholarship is valued at nearly $39,000 and is based on academic achievement in high school. Foothills senior awarded Honor Society scholarship Catalina Foothills High School senior Meena Venkataramanan has won a $4,500 National Honor Society scholarship. She is one of 25 national finalists, selected on the basis of leadership skills, participation in service organizations and clubs at school and in the community, and academic record. Venkataramanan plans to attend Harvard University this fall to study government. STAR Academic teacher wins Vernier/NSTA Award Rene Corrales, a teacher at STAR Academic Center, has been named a winner of the 2017 Vernier/NSTA Award. Corrales was recognized by Vernier Software & Technology and the National Science Teachers Association for his use of data-collection technology with students. In Corrales physics class, students use Vernier voltage probes and an LED as part of a hands-on investigation to study electric and magnetic field lines to see how those fields interact. Corrales will receive $1,000 in cash, $3,000 in Vernier products and up to $1,500 toward expenses to attend an NSTA conference in Los Angeles. Desert Springs Academy hosts open house May 11 Desert Springs Academy is hosting an open house for new students on Thursday, May 11, from 4 to 6 p.m. Parents can meet the teachers, view the curriculum and learn more about the K-5 charter school, located at 10129 E. Speedway. Social studies books to be reviewed at Amphi schools Social studies books under consideration for use in grades K-12 are available for public viewing in the Amphitheater School District. The textbooks are available at most school sites Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., until June 20. Elementary books under consideration are The Arizona Story, Arizona Historical Society, Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2009; My World Social Studies, Pearson, 2013; and K-5 Networks, McGraw-Hill, 2014. Middle school books under consideration are Civics, Houghton Mifflin, 2018; Discovering Our Past: A History of the United States, McGraw-Hill, 2018; and World Civilizations, Houghton Mifflin, 2018. High school books under consideration are American Government, Magruders/Pearson, 2016; American History, Houghton Mifflin, 2018; World History and Geography, McGraw-Hill, 2018; and Understanding Economics, McGraw-Hill, 2018. OPINION: "Let's keep our heads for the next few weeks. It could be chaotic, but we'll get through it. When the dust settles, we'll get to work figuring out if we still have a functioning democracy in Arizona," writes Curt Prendergast, the Star's opinion editor. Help India! TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter The institute of Objective Studies based in Calicut, Kerala will organise a two-day international conference on role of Women in Making a Humane Society on September 22 and 23, 2017. Support TwoCircles The concept note of the aforesaid conference talks about various things and tends to establish the role of women in societys formation. It is evident from scriptures and traditions of the Prophet (PBUH) that woman has a dominant part in the whole scheme and she is created, like a man, to perform a complementary role in human survival and a civilised march, reads the concept note. In the neocolonial times the works of Laila Ahmed, Fatema Mernissi, Amina Wadud, Aziza al Hibri, Asma Barlas, Margot Badran and their ilk have been praised for their sober and objective analyses of the status of women during the time of the Prophet. Abdul Halim Abu Shaqqa, the illustrious Egyptian scholar has dealt with the role of women in Islam with academic rigour and passion. The concept note read as, Muslim women in India and abroad also witness economic, social and cultural changes that ensure greater civil and social rights. Islam, which has liberated women from patriarchal suppression, is playing a constructive role in their lives. The two-day international conference is planned to initiate deliberation on the role of women in conflict resolution which is related to social justice, equity and empowerment. The conference will have sessions on Women in the time of Prophet; Womens participation in electoral politics; Role of Muslim women in Socio-economic uplift; Women and media; Status of women in the Muslim world and Women-related laws in the Muslim world. The conference will also focus on capacity building among women who should be at the table in peace negotiation and post- conflict reconstruction. Help India! TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter A Hindi-Mathili short film The Suspect based on youth who get falsely implicated in terror cases, was screened in Mumbai yesterday. The screening was done in Firstlook Preview Theater based in Andheri (West). Support TwoCircles Attended by 25-30 people that included people from film industry, social activists and functionaries of Jamiat ulama -i-Maharashtra, an NGO that provides legal assistance to the accused who are wrongly implicated in terror cases. Discussion took place after screening of the film which involved questions from the audience. Director of the film Nitin Neera Chandra and Advocate T. Pathan took questions and tried to answer them. Most of the audience members were curious to know if such cases, as portrayed in the film, happen in the real life too. Advocate Pathan answered this and listed several such cases where young Muslims were put under the charges of terror cases, while they were trying to live a normal life. Audience asked director Chandra that why he specifically chose this topic for a short film. Chandra said, There was a case where one Muslim guy was released after 23 year of wrongful conviction. I gone through that story and thought to make a film on it. Moreover, audience member asked Chandra why he didnt make a full length feature film as he dealt with the topic beautifully, to which Chandra opined that Film was made through crowd funding and only a short film was possible with such limited resources. Such an unusual request came from the audience because they wanted to see what happens after a Muslim is implicated in terror cases. People asked Adv. T Pathan if the role of judiciary can be questioned in such cases. T Pathan replied that judiciary does not run on emotions, but on evidences. If investigation agencies make up the evidence on which Judiciary can rely upon, youth will be convicted based on those evidences. Lead actor of film Durgesh Kumar was asked by the audience about how he managed to perform the role of Abdul Rahim Ansari, to which Durgesh said that he thought of what people caught in actual situation would react like, that helped him in getting through the role. TwoCircles.net co-produced this movie along with Neo Bihar and Champaran Talkies. More details about the movie here : TWOCIRCLES.NETS FIRST MOVIE: THE SUSPECT Movie can be rented for just Rs. 25 here: The Suspect | Short Film | A film by Nitin Neera Chandra or here. Last week's dinner between the UK Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was expected to be a productive and positive meeting regarding the UK's Brexit from the European Union. But unfortunately it was anything but. But the questions to ask are, why? What went wrong and what does it mean going forwards? Looking back Theresa May met with Jean-Claude Juncker last Wednesday (26th April) to discuss the Brexit process. It was hoped that the meeting would be positive and as stated before, productive. And after the dinner itself, it was seen to be that that was the case. The Telegraph newspaper reported that on leaving Downing Street after dinner that Juncker and his team "appeared to be in good spirits". Brussels went further to state that the meeting was "constructive". Problems emerging However, things were about to change drastically. Last Sunday (30th April) a wildly different version of events emerged in a German newspaper, in which Juncker "launched a scathing attack" on May. It was reported that he not only stated that Brexit "cannot be a success" but that he was leaving Downing Street "10 times more sceptical". Further on from this the Express newspaper reported that Juncker had called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to state that PM May is "living in another galaxy". From where though? The first question to ask is, why was Theresa May seen to be from 'another galaxy'? The main issue arises from Britain's attempt to leave the EU and the sticking points that come with that. What May clearly wants is a smooth exit and if possible, on her terms. In the past there have been problems also. Not only did Theresa May want a quick Brexit but she also wanted to negotiate trade deals as part of the negotiation talks. However this was strongly rejected by the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, who made the point that Britain would have to meet their "financial liabilities" first of all, according to the Guardian newspaper. Barnier went on to state that "we must settle the accounts". It is this point that has caused the most problems; the 'divorce bill'. As stated on the BBC website, it has emerged that the amount of money needed to leave the EU was 100bn-euro, a figure increased from what was originally 60bn-euro. It is something that has caused anger and disbelief with the UK government. The Brexit Secretary, David Davis stated that the UK would pay what was legally due and "not just what the EU wants". Fighting back As a result of the fallout and subsequent comments, the UK were back on the attack as a result, especially from Theresa May. The PM not only stated that she will be a "bloody difficult woman", as the Politico website reports, but also stated that those in Europe were trying to influence the outcome of the UK general election. This response was widely rejected by the EU Council chief Donald Tusk, who stated that "these negotiations are difficult enough as they are". The future Going forward, how will things pan out? It is going to be a long and difficult process. It is clear that the EU are hurting by the UK's decision to leave the European Union. It has hurt their pride that not everybody wants to align with them. It is because of this, I believe, that those in the EU will make this as drawn out a process as possible, and most importantly, will not give in an inch to what the UK wants. Further on from this, I do not understand the reason why what happened at the dinner between May and Juncker was made public. It is embarrassing on the part of the EU. And the divorce bill? 100bn-euro? It is an absurd amount but further points to the fact that the EU will try to manipulate the situation as much as possible as a result. It is going to be a difficult Brexit process; we just need the parties to work together to arrive at the best possible situation. The US President Donald Trump met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House this week. This in itself is a very positive thing. Why? Because it has often been the claim that the US are wildly pro-Israel and that they ignore the issues of the Palestinian people. As a result, the fact that Trump met with Abbas is a Good starting point. What was said and done? Further on, it seems clear that Trump wants to go where no other President has gone an actually secure a long lasting peace deal between both the Israel's and the Palestinians. He stated, as reported on the Aljazeera website, that "Let's see if we can prove them wrong" and that "we will get it done". In addition to this, it is clear that the Palestinians believe in Trump. This was illustrated by the statement made by Abbas that they had hope in him. It was further said by Trump that direct negotiations are key, stating that, "the Palestinians and Israelis must work together to reach an agreement". However, despite his rhetoric, he did still face criticism. Marwan Bishara from Aljazeera said that "Trump has basically said nothing of importance about the issue, other than promising that he wants to" do it. Will he succeed? The big question to ask is, will Trump go one step further and achieve peace? There is no reason why he cannot. He does have to manage the situation carefully and if direct negotiations do take place whilst he is a moderator, he may just do it. We shall see. The US President had for the last few months been talking about taking some tough action. He had always blamed president Obama for the loss of American prestige abroad by inaction. He has taken up the alleged nerve gas attack in Syria to show that he means business. He ordered the firing of 59 cruise missiles from 2 US destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The missiles were launched against targets in Syria. The secretary of States has claimed that it was a proportionate response to the action of president Assad. The US and western powers have claimed that the chemical attacks were launched by the Syrian air force on orders of Assad. The American attack has been supported by the Sunni allies of the US namely Arabia and Turkey and the traditional allies UK and France. The Attack has been condemned by Iran and Russia The attack by the US The gas attack is indeed heinous and deserves to be condemned. Russia has claimed that the attack resulted because of the bursting of a nerve gas cylinder stored by the rebels. The Syrian president denied using nerve gas. Many of the Western powers are delighted with this attack. They feel their dream of removing the Syrian president will now become a reality. They fail to realise the removal of Saddam and Gaddafi had led to anarchy and the rise of the Daesh and the Islamic state. The problem is not simple but has become complicated. Russia has called the attack an act of aggression against a sovereign country. It has also said it will act against the US attack. Perhaps Donald should have waited for a few days for the investigation to find out the true facts of the gas attack. An impetuous act Donald is an impetuous man and sometimes acts without thinking. All along he has been advocating that the US should not get involved in Syria. He has now done the exact opposite. He has also bypassed Congress and many senators are asking why Donald did not take the sanction of Congress before the missile attack. There is a possibility that this that would lead to a serious rupture of relations between Russia and America and the winner will be Islamic terrorism. Murky future The ISIS is happy. All said and done Assad is a bulwark against Islamic terrorism. The future has now become murky and Tillerson's latest statement that steps are underway to remove Assad does not auger well for the future in the Middle East. America' seems to have lost the main objective in the battle in the Middle East which is fighting ISIS and Islamic terrorism. The Government needs to start focusing on what the people of the UK need and want and not what other countries want us to do. Don't get me wrong I think Theresa May is doing a fantastic job getting us out of Europe, apart from it taking too long! Supreme Court of Florida. TROY MERCK, JR., Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. No. SC16-899 Decided: May 04, 2017 Linda McDermott of McClain & McDermott, P.A., Estero, Florida, for Appellant Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida; and Stephen D. Ake, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, for Appellee Troy Merck, Jr., a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the circuit court's order striking his motion to substitute Linda McDermott for the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Middle Region (CCRC-MR) as his counsel, as well as the successive postconviction motion that Ms. McDermott simultaneously filed on his behalf pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. Ms. McDermott previously substituted for CCRC-MR as Merck's counsel in federal court following the federal court's determination that a conflict of interest precludes CCRC-MR's continued representation. Merck v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152243, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 27, 2014). CCRC-MR conceded below that the same conflict of interest precludes its continued representation of Merck in state court. However, the circuit court struck the motions at issue as unauthorized after construing our decision in Suggs v. State, 152 So. 3d 471 (Fla. 2014), to condition the termination of an attorney's representation upon the filing of a motion to withdraw, which CCRC-MR has not filed. In so ruling, the circuit court erred. As we explained in Suggs, Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.505(f)(1)-(3) outlin [es] modes by which an attorney's appearance for a party terminates. Suggs, 152 So. 3d at 472. Rule 2.505(f)(2) authorizes the termination of an attorney's appearance through substitution of counsel, which is the method that Ms. McDermott sought in this case after we specifically directed her to do so in Merck v. State, No. SC15-1439, 2016 WL 104164, at *1 (Fla. Jan. 8, 2016) (dismissing a prior notice of appeal that Ms. McDermott filed on Merck's behalf without prejudice for [her] to seek substitution of counsel in the circuit court pursuant to Suggs). Accordingly, we reverse the circuit court's order and remand with instructions for the circuit court to enter an order substituting Ms. McDermott as Merck's counsel upon the filing of Merck's written consent to the substitution with the circuit court. Once Ms. McDermott has been substituted as counsel, we further direct the circuit court to address the successive rule 3.851 motion that she filed on Merck's behalf. It is so ordered. NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND IF FILED, DETERMINED. PER CURIAM. LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, POLSTON, and LAWSON, JJ., concur. The tension between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan has been well-documented, and it doesn't look like their relationship is getting any better. During a closed-door meeting with top Republican officials, aides to the president made it clear that he wants Ryan out at Speaker of the House unless he acts to repeal the Affordable Care Act immediately. Trump on Ryan During the 2016 presidential election, Paul Ryan made it clear he wasn't a fan of Donald Trump. More of an establishment member of the party, Ryan pushed back against the nomination of the former host of "The Apprentice," which was made worse during the end of the campaign when the now infamous Access Hollywood tape was released. With Trump's private sexual thoughts now made public, Ryan told House Republicans on a conference call that he couldn't support Trump then, or at any point in the future. Fast forward to present day and the two have attempted to put their differences aside, which was evident when they worked together to put forward a health care reform bill. However, despite a GOP-controlled House of Representatives, the bill still failed to gain much support and the president was forced to pull it from the floor before a vote could even take place. As reported by Politico, and later Raw Story, on April 6, Trump is losing patience with Ryan and is close to giving him the boot. "It was really bad," said one person familiar with the meeting. "They were in total meltdown, total chaos mode." https://t.co/9ILAcHmcIU pic.twitter.com/lKXtaeEn1L POLITICO (@politico) April 6, 2017 According to the report in Politico, top Republican aides and lawmakers got together for a private meeting on Wednesday which quickly became "heated" when it was made clear that Donald Trump was ready to remove Paul Ryan from his leadership position. White House aides informed those in the meeting that Ryan could soon lose his job if he fails to show "immediate progress" on health care reform. GOP in total chaos mode after White House hints Ryan will lose speakership if he cant pass Trumpcare https://t.co/zFTfIlXBkx pic.twitter.com/8vWElTdTYA Raw Story (@RawStory) April 6, 2017 Ryan, out? Politico described the meeting as "tense," with one source saying "it was really bad." "They were in total meltdown, total chaos mode," the Politico source continued. Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner were in attendance in the meeting, with both men making it clear for some time that they aren't on the same page as the current Speaker of the House. Following the meeting, Donald Trump and Paul Ryan spoke privately, though a spokeswoman for the House Speaker predictably denied any trouble between the two, saying they "had a very good, long conversation last night." As of press time, it's unknown what the future will hold for the GOP, but recent reports indicate that there is more trouble behind the scenes than the party is letting on. After the deployment of US troops near the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey issued a stark warning that American soldiers may become targets of Turkish strikes as it battles with Kurdish forces in Syria. The warning was transmitted by Turkish senior adviser, Ilnur Cevik. What is the scope of Turkish threats on American soldiers in Northern Syria? The Turkish government have been constantly at war with the Kurdish rebels in Syria. These rebels are being backed by the United States as it fights ISIS and Assad's regime. Turkish interference in Syria is severely limited due to the US military stationing troops alongside Kurdish soldiers in joint patrols near the Turkish-Syrian border. Cevik said in an interview with a Turkish radio station that US soldiers may become unwanted casualties as a result of Turkish strikes as they continue to destroy Kurdish positions in Syria. Turkey has been targeting Kurdish locations in Iraq and Northern Syria for years. The Pentagon reiterated that the presence of US forces in Northern Syria is not to back the Kurdistan Workers party but to assure the safety of US allies in the region. The US have backed the rebels fighting off Assad, providing funds and training. However, US interference in the area during Obama's administration resulted in the creation of ISIS. This complication further convoluted the Syrian civil war as US policy shifted to destroying ISIS rather than toppling Assad. Thus, the US is drawn into the picture due to a failed program that aims to depose Assad's regime. Russia continues its support of Assad, along with Iran Similar to the United States, Russia backs Assad against the rebels and Kurds. Putin has put forth measures to keep the Russian presence in Assad-controlled Syria as a deterrent to US strikes. This effectively increases the tension in the area as it emboldens Assad to continue destroying the rebels, which is completely backed by the US. The power struggle in Syria is not entirely between Assad and his enemies, but the tactical workings of the United States and Russia on carving up the Middle East to conform with their diverging policies. At the moment, Syria continues to be a quagmire of unrest, war and death. The civilians and their children bear the continued horror of living in such a volatile environment. John Kiriakou was a CIA agent for 14 years. He had a distinguished record and was instrumental in the capture of the notorious terrorist Abu Zubaidah in Pakistan in 2002. He resigned from the CIA in 2004. Three years later in an interview, he made the startling revelation that the CIA frequently resorted to Torture of suspects in its custody. This was like a bombshell, and it hurt the CIA image. He also revealed that this policy of the CIA had the official approval of the US president George Bush. In 2012 the Obama administration filed charges of espionage against John Kiriakou. The espionage charges were dropped a few months later, but John Kiriakou admitted to having revealed the Identity of a secret agent. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. John was released from prison after serving about two years and is now coming out with a book titled "Doing time as a spy: How CIA taught me to survive and thrive in Prison." It will recount his experience with the CIA, and it's torture methods. The book will soon hit the market. Torture After release from prison, John Kiriakou gave an interview do the Al Jazeera news magazine. In the interview, he made far-reaching revelations. He brought out the way the CIA tortured its captives and in some cases even killed them. John Kiriakou feels that this is against the grain of the American constitution. He feels that torture by itself is not an end and invariably it does not lead to the desired results The amendment In this connection, it is worth stating that Senators John Mcain and Dianne Feinstein tabled a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense AuthorisationAct for the Fiscal year 2016.Known as the McCain-Feinstein amendment, it forbade torture and enjoined all prisoners to be interrogated as per the Army manual. This piece of legislation is an important milestone in US constitutional history. The chances are that with this law torture of suspects in custody in the USA will go down. But the CIA has other methods. It has a presence all over the world and can still get torture done by other persons at their behest. Despite this, the amendment is a step forward in the right direction. McCain himself was a prisoner of war and is very competent to pilot this amendment Future and the CIA John is thankful to the CIA for giving him the training that allowed him to pass his time in jail. He concludes by saying that America is a democracy and torture has no place in American culture. Sadly the CIA still continues its torture of suspects in " friendly" prisons all over the world. This has been beautifully depicted on the screen in the film "Rendition" made in 2007.He hopes spies and agents will follow their conscious and refrain from torturing suspects in their custody or in safe prisons around the world. Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday condemned the adoption of the Republican bill on Health Reform at the House of Representatives of the US Congress, CNN reports. "If this proposal became a law, thousands of Americans will die because they will no longer have access to health care," Sanders told CNN's AC360. The former presidential candidate claims the abolition of Obamacare will lead to tax breaks of several billion dollars, but only for the richest 2 percent of citizens. "What kind of health law abolishes health insurance for 24 million citizens?" Sanders emphasized. Anderson Cooper asked him if he thought the law would be accepted in the Senate, and Sanders interrupted him with these words: "Anderson, let me announce the bad news for the president: Mr. President, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The law in this form will not come to the Senate anyway, no chances, no chances." Millions of Americans could lose health insurance Hospitals, doctors, health Insurance Companies and consumer protection groups in the United States have expressed their dissatisfaction with the new health law that Donald Trump wants to replace Obamacare with. The US Health Care Act, which was drafted to replace the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, yesterday went to Congress where Republicans have the majority. The law has far-reaching consequences: millions of Americans could lose health insurance through sharp cuts in Medicaid's budget- the US public healthcare program for the poor, as well as the expected increase in private health insurance, the New York Times reports. This is this where the law proposition faced sharp opposition from the health sector, consumer groups, and also from a part of private insurance companies that largely depend on Medicaid and Medicare subsidies - the second public health care program for retirees. Just a debacle The US Health Care Act needs to be improved to protect families with low and middle income who depend on Medicaid or buy their own insurance," said Marilyn B. Tavenner, Executive Director of America's Health Insurance Plans. "For me, this is not a reform, this is just a debacle. Hospitals that treat low-income patients will only drown when this happens," Michael J. Dowling said. CEO of Northwell Health in New York, was even sharper, adding that an increasing number of people will remain without insurance at the same time as the state reduces subsidies for their insurance. Four million employees, small business owners, and self-employed entrepreneurs received insurances thanks to Obamacare, and another six million thanks to the Medicaid extension, said Amanda Ballantyne, director of the Main Street Alliance, a small-business organization. The law also partially repeals the ban on higher premiums for people with the already pre-existing condition and exclusion of certain health insurance services. Citizens in several United States cities took part in the recent May Day protest. However, the most impressive were in two small cities in Pennsylvania. In the city of Reading three-quarters of the businesses there closed their doors in protest. Reportedly, 500 construction and agricultural workers participated in an organized strike that extends to Allentown. Additionally, another troubling factor with these demonstrators is they were chanting 'Kill Trump! Kill Pence!' along with other expletives hurled at the Donald Trump's administration. The May Day protests were supposed to be peaceful events throughout the United States and other countries. However, the protests plan for the U S turned into chaotic riots in several cities. Protestors pelt smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails In Portland, Oregon, authorities reported that after about an hour an anarchist group disrupted the event by pelting rocks, cans of soda, lead balls, and glass bottles at the crowd. Additionally, officers said smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails, as well as other incendiary devices were pelted on demonstrators. The rallies started at 3 p.m. ET and at about 4:30 p.m. ET violence erupted and the authorities had to quickly cancel the parade and rescind the protest permits. Numerous people were arrested and the police had to use non-lethal weapons and pepper spray to disperse the demonstrators. The citys firefighters were dispatched to battle multiple blazes that were set by the crowd. An angry mob had destroyed a police car and attacked several police officers, who forcefully disperse them. A Target store, as well as several other businesses, had their windows smashed in the melee. May Day protestors chants "Stand up, fight back." Reportedly, officers detained more than twenty protestors near Pioneer Square. An additional eight people were detained in the Olympia area after the angry crowd attacked several police officers, who were also injured in the violence. In the Washington D.C. area law officials ordered several groups of demonstrators to disperse. According to the officers, the group was gathering to start riots in that area. The police said some individuals they came in contact with were wearing masks. These people they stated were firing rocks from slingshots, using pepper spray and throwing bottles at other demonstrators. The May Day protests were supposed to be peaceful events, but it seems to be coordinated events of violence in many cities. At least four individuals were arrested in downtown Seattle where hundreds of protestors had gathered chanting "Stand up, fight back." Last week's scrapped appearance by conservative author Ann Coulter cost uc berkeley over half a million dollars in police overtime, according to Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern. After the university withdrew its invitation to Coulter, the conservative pundit vowed that she would give the speech anyway. Coulter, however, cancelled her appearance after organizations sponsoring the event backed out, citing concerns for Coulter's safety. Protesters and counterprotesters squared off in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park over Coulter's scheduled appearance and engaged in a shouting match, but the tensions didn't erupt into violence, as they did earlier this year. February's clash during former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos' appearance resulted in numerous arrests and several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage, with much of the damage taking place at the university's student center. More than 400 officers were required to keep the peace With conservative speakers being attacked at college campuses across the country in recent months, Bay Area police were on high alert in anticipation of a repeat of February's riot. Sheriff Ahern told the San Francisco Chronicle that he expects to be reimbursed by UC Berkeley. More than ten different law enforcement bodies were on hand at UC Berkeley last Thursday. The police departments of Oakland, Hayward and San Leandro were on the scene, joined by the California Highway Patrol, the Alameda County Sheriff's Department and police detachments from six other University of California campuses. Many of the 400 officers dispatched to UC Berkeley ended up working overtime, at an approximate cost of $1,021 per officer. However, since the law enforcement presence is considered "mutual aid", UC Berkeley most likely won't be forced to pay the entire bill. Open season on conservatives Violence against conservative speakers has become a disturbing trend since the inauguration of President Trump. While the February riots at UC Berkeley garnered some coverage by mainstream media, other incidents were largely ignored. In early March, for instance, conservative author Charles Murray and professor Allison Stanger were attacked by a mob of protesters in black masks at Middlebury College in Vermont. While Murray was not seriously injured, Stanger suffered a concussion and neck injuries. Supreme Court of Florida. IN RE: AMENDMENTS TO FLORIDA RULE FOR CERTIFIED AND COURT-APPOINTED MEDIATORS 10.900. No. SC17-259 Decided: May 04, 2017 The Court, on its own motion, amends Florida Rule for Certified and Court-Appointed Mediators 10.900 (Supreme Court Chief Justice Review) to clarify the procedure for submitting a notice of review of mediator disciplinary action to the Chief Justice of this Court. The amendments to rule 10.900 require a notice of review of mediator disciplinary action to be filed with the Clerk of this Court, rather than, as currently required, submitted directly to the Chief Justice who, under the rule, either conducts the review proceedings or designates another reviewer. Requiring filing with the Clerk will provide a clear mechanism for submitting a notice of review and all other documents submitted in review proceedings. This requirement also will streamline the submission process and make oversight of the filings in these review proceedings more manageable for court staff. Accordingly, we amend the Florida Rules for Certified and Court-Appointed Mediators as reflected in the appendix to this opinion. New language is indicated by underscoring; deletions are indicated by struck-through type. The amendments shall become effective immediately upon the release of this opinion. Because the amendments were not published for comment prior to their adoption, interested persons shall have sixty days from the date of this opinion in which to file comments with the Court. It is so ordered. APPENDIX RULE 10.900. SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE REVIEW (a) Right of Review. Any mediator or applicant found to have committed a violation of these rules or otherwise sanctioned by a hearing panel shall have a right of review of that action. Review of this type shall be by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Florida or by the chief justice's designee. A mediator shall have no right of review of any resolution reached under rule 10.800(g) and 10.810(i). (b) Rules of Procedure. The Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure, to the extent applicable and except as otherwise provided in this rule, shall control all appeals of mediator disciplinary matters. (1) The jurisdiction to seek review of disciplinary action shall be invoked by submittingfiling an original and 1 copy of a Notice of Review of Mediator Disciplinary Action to the chief justicewith the clerk of the supreme court within 30 days of the panel's decision. A copy shall also be provided to the DRC. (2) The notice of review shall be substantially in the form prescribed by rule 9.900(a), Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure. A copy of the panel decision shall be attached to the notice. (3) Appellant's initial brief, accompanied by an appendix as prescribed by rule 9.210, Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure, shall be served within 30 days of submitting the notice of review. Additional briefs shall be served as prescribed by rule 9.210, Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure. (c) Standard of Review. The review shall be conducted in accordance with the following standard of review: (1) The chief justice or designee shall review the findings and conclusions of the panel using a competent substantial evidence standard, neither reweighing the evidence in the record nor substituting the reviewer's judgment for that of the panel. (2) Decisions of the chief justice or designee shall be final upon issuance of a mandate under rule 9.340, Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure. FOOTNOTES . The procedure for seeking review of a disciplinary action by a Mediator Qualifications and Discipline Review Board hearing panel was recently moved from rule 10.880 to rule 10.900 in In re Amendments to the Florida Rules forCertified and Court-Appointed Mediators, 202 So. 3d 795 (Fla. 2016). . We have jurisdiction. See art. V, 2(a), Fla. Const.; 44.106, Fla. Stat. (2016). . All comments must be filed with the Court on or before July 3, 2017, with a separate request for oral argument if the person filing the comment wishes to participate in oral argument, which may be scheduled in this case. If filed by an attorney in good standing with The Florida Bar, the comment must be electronically filed via the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal in accordance with In re Electronic Filing in the Supreme Court of Florida via the Florida Courts E-FilingPortal, Fla. Admin. Order No. AOSC13-7 (Feb. 18, 2013). If filed by a nonlawyer or a lawyer not licensed to practice in Florida, the comment must be electronically filed via e-mail in accordance with In re Mandatory Submission of ElectronicCopies of Documents, Fla. Admin. Order No. AOSC04-84 (Sept. 13, 2004). Electronically filed documents must be submitted in Microsoft Word 97 or higher. Any person unable to submit a comment electronically must mail or hand-deliver the originally signed comment to the Florida Supreme Court, Office of the Clerk, 500 South Duval Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1927; no additional copies are required or will be accepted. PER CURIAM. LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, POLSTON, and LAWSON, JJ., concur. Stephen Colbert has recently amped up his criticism of Donald Trump and it hasn't gone over too well with conservatives. After his most recent remarks led to calls of a boycott, the popular late night talk show host decided to speak out. Colbert on Trump Ever since the election of Donald Trump, it's been clear that the president isn't the most popular person in Hollywood and among most celebrities. During the 2016 presidential election, the former host of "The Apprentice" would routinely be the butt of the joke, regularly getting highlighted on "Saturday Night Live," as well as being the main target for comedians like Bill Maher. With the exception of Fox News, Trump was also hit with serious backlash from most of the anchors and hosts on CNN and MSNBC, leading to a heated war of words between the president and the mainstream media. Over the last three and a half months, Trump has made several policy decisions that have led to criticism, which has on escalated following the growing Russian scandal, questionable executive orders, and other drama surrounding the White House. One man who has made sure to hit back at Trump has been Stephen Colbert. Earlier this week, Colbert ripped into the commander in chief with a brutal rant that resulted in right-wing push back and calls for the host to be fired. During the May 3 edition of the "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on CBS, Colbert didn't hold back. During his opening monologue of Wednesday night's "The Late Show," host Stephen Colbert addressed the recent backlash against him. "While I would do it again, I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be," Colbert admitted. "I am still the host? I'm still the host!" Stephen Colbert responds to #FireColbert backlash over remarks on Trump https://t.co/WofxSViqFe pic.twitter.com/a20mYxVsb0 CNN (@CNN) May 4, 2017 "I had a few choice insults for the president," Stephen Colbert said before noting, "I don't regret that." "He (Trump) I believe, can take care of himself," Colbert went on to say, before adding, "I have jokes. He has the launch codes. So, it's a fair fight." Colbert continued on with his show, not pulling any punches when it came to discussing the president, further resulting in outrage from those who support the commander in chief. Moving forward While Stephen Colbert and other big name stars continue to rip into Donald Trump and the administration, the president has shown no signs of changing his ways. However, if Trump doesn't make a change in the near future, he is expected to watch his poll numbers drop even further, which are currently hovering around just 40 percent approval. Even though Hassan Rouhani is said to be the president of Iran, it is the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who has the final say as to what Iran's foreign policy is. Which is why the former mayor of Tehran, Gholam Hossein Karbaschi is facing a public indictment by Iran for criticizing their role in the Syrian Civil War. Its been reported that Karbaschi was giving a speech in support of Rouhani's re-election campaign on April 29, in Esfahan province, when he said that financing Iranian soldiers, buying arms and killing was no way to find peace for the Shiite Muslims in Syria. Court issuing summons to Karbaschi As detailed in a Blasting News article about Iran's financial support for Hezbollah's fight in Syria and their involvement with the Assad regime and other regional nations, Syria has become a breeding ground for supporting factions, ideologies and a power struggle over Syria's future. On May 2, it was reported that Ahmad Khosravi Wafa, who is the chief justice for Esfahan, said that they would be summoning Karbaschi to court for insulting martyrs and what they refer to as the Defenders of the Shrine -- those defenders being Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the shrine being the Shrine of Zeinab in Damascus. At the time that the chief justice said that they had summoned the former Tehran mayor, Karbaschi said that he had not received any summons. But this is not the first time that he's been in trouble with the Iranian government. In the late 90's, Gholam was sentenced to three years for embezzlement and released under a pardon by the Supreme Leader. Now he is the Sec-Gen of the Executives of Construction Party, which is divided into a left and a right faction with Karbaschi part of the more liberal Esfahan group. 'Blasphemous' criticism against Islamic Revolutionary Guard As with many arguments over the solution to Syria's war, Karbaschi is calling for diplomacy in the region. But even Rouhani's spokesman, Bahram Ghassemi, said that fighting ISIS on the ground doesn't require diplomacy nor are they deserving of it. Mansour Haghighatpour who is an advisor for the Iranian Parliament has made the same argument that many Americans have made about war. In the United States, it's common to praise the military for taking action in World War II against Nazi Germany, saying that most people would otherwise be speaking German. Haghighatpour said that if it wasn't for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Syria, Karbaschi would be "hiding in a hole." The weight of criticism has come down on Karbaschi, especially from the press, who have written headlines saying that he was inviting the Islamic State to invade Iran when he made his statement. Karbaschi has said that there was more focus on a small part of what he said rather than the whole statement. URUMQI "There are two imported things in my company, one is the oil, the other is me," said Miras Kilybayev, deputy director of Jinsi Oil in the bonded zone of Alataw Pass bordering Kazakhstan in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The Kazakhstan businessman, 25, works for one of the largest agricultural companies in his country. Last year, he was sent to China to expand the company's business. "The whole world is looking at the Chinese market, so we can't afford to ignore it," he said. Kilybayev learned Chinese at Tsinghua University and chemical engineering at Beijing Institute of Technology from 2008 to 2014. After graduation he returned to Kazakhstan, but deep down, he knew he would come back to China. "The first time I was in China, I bought a bottle of local cooking oil from a supermarket. It tasted different and made me homesick," said Kilybayev who speaks not only Kazakh and Chinese, but also English and Russian. According to him, farmers in Kazakhstan follow traditional farming methods, use non-GMO seeds, and seldom add fertilizers. "Low yields guarantee high quality, especially in the northern province, where my company manages 20,000 hectares of arable land," Kilybayev said. At its first factory - also the first foreign-funded enterprise - established in the bonded zone, Kilybayev's company received support from the local government: from streamlined approval procedures, low-cost office space to considerable subsidies. The oil refinery, with a total investment of 20 million yuan ($2.9 million), went into operation in July last year. Crude cooking oil is transported by train from Kazakhstan. Customs duties and value-added taxes are exempted in the bonded zone. "It's like producing in my own country," Kilybayev said. The daily output has risen to nearly 100 metric tons. Demand is also increasing rapidly, thanks to local government connections with Chinese distributors. "Our products are on the shelves across Xinjiang, including the regional capital Urumqi. In June, we will enter Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces in South and East China," Kilybayev said. The Alataw Pass is one of the busiest land ports on the modern Silk Road. Last year, a total of 1,727 China-Europe and China-Central Asia freight trains passed through the port, an increase of 35 percent year-on-year, with the volume of goods transported exceeding 1.3 million tons, said Yang Yonghong, head of Alataw Pass train station. More foreign products, including agricultural products from Kazakhstan, are now transported to China by rail. Nine Chinese cities, including Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an and Yiwu, have launched China-Europe trains travelling via the Alataw Pass, which makes Kilybayev optimistic about in his company's future. "We have recently decided to open a flour mill and a poultry farm next to the refinery to bring more quality agricultural products from Kazakhstan," he said. "I will be living in China longer than I originally expected, but my fiancee will be coming so I won't be lonely," said Kilybayev, who is getting married this August. HOHHOT - It is early morning and Qi Xiaojing is driving her van to deliver freshly picked vegetables from her farm to the doors of residents in Ulanhot. The 34-year-old ethnic Mongolian and university graduate manages her farm in Ping'an, a village in Ulanhot city in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. She has 27 greenhouses and seven cold frames, covering 1.36 hectares. "Vegetables and fruit can grow in cold frames in summer, and in greenhouses every season, so I am able to produce them year-round," she said. This May Day holiday, she held the second annual strawberry festival on her farm, drawing more than 5,000 people to pick strawberries, taste local food and enjoy ethnic dance performances. Last year, her farm earned a net income of 160,000 yuan ($23,200). With the financial support of the local government, she now has a new van and six delivery carts. But it was not easy when she started her business in 2013, four years after graduating from the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology. She borrowed about 10,000 yuan from relatives and was only able to rent one greenhouse. She grew mushrooms at first. With her husband, Shan Chunpeng, she would finish picking mushrooms around midnight, and Shan would pack and deliver them around 2 am with a secondhand truck that often broke down. "He only slept three hours a day since he had another job at 6 am as a construction worker," she said. In 2014, she decided to grow melons but they all died. "My relatives were no longer willing to lend me money after seeing my failure. Those were really tough days," she recalled. In 2015, she came up with the idea of opening an online store on the smartphone app WeChat, selling fruit and vegetables from her farm and other villagers'. "The villagers were growing quality vegetables but did not have an effective channel to sell them. So, I thought that maybe I could help them," she said. "To my surprise, they sold really well in my online store." Qi has helped more than 200 local households sell vegetables in Ulanhot as well as chickens to other cities in China. Each family's income has increased by about 6,000 yuan a year on average. "With Qi taking charge of delivery and sales, I no longer have to take a bus to the city and be a street vendor," said Xing Changqing, a 54-year-old villager who sells cucumbers to Qi. Guo Shihuai, the village's Party chief, said university graduates like Qi are brave enough to try new things. Qi's father expected her to stay in the city after graduation, but she insisted on returning to the countryside. "There is a sense of achievement when I can share the benefits with the villagers. Sharing is important for an entrepreneur," she said. With Qi taking the lead, 20 households in the village have started greenhouse-farming businesses. She plans to open Ulanhot's first delivery station in June. "I hope that I will be able to understand market demand better to realize my dream of selling products from my farm and villagers' farms to more cities in the country." Xinhua (China Daily 05/06/2017 page2) France sought to keep a computer hack of frontrunner Emmanuel Macron's campaign emails from influencing the outcome of the presidential election, with the electoral commission warning on Saturday that it may be a criminal offence to republish the data. Macron's team said a "massive" hack had dumped emails, documents and campaign financing information online just before campaigning ended on Friday and France entered a quiet period, effectively forbidding politicians from commenting on the leak. Polls have been predicting that Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, is on course for a comfortable win over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday's election, with the last surveys showing his lead widening to around 62 percent to 38. "We knew that this kind of risk would be present during the presidential campaign, because it has happened elsewhere. Nothing will be left without a response," French President Francois Hollande told French news agency AFP. The election commission, which supervises the electoral process, warned social and traditional media not to publish the hacked emails lest they influence the vote outcome, but may find it difficult to enforce its rules in an era where people get much of their news online, information flows freely across borders and many users are anonymous. "On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot," the commission said in a statement on Saturday. "The commission stresses that publication or republication of these data...could be a criminal offence," it said. French media covered the hack in various ways, with left-leading Liberation giving it prominence on its website but television news channels opting not to mention it. Le Monde newspaper said on its website it would not publish the content of any of the leaked documents before the election, partly because the huge amount of data meant there was not enough time to report on it properly, but also because the dossiers had been published on purpose 48 hours before the election with the clear aim of affecting the vote. "If these documents contain revelations, Le Monde will of course publish them after having investigated them, respecting our journalistic and ethical rules, and without allowing ourselves to be exploited by the publishing calendar of anonymous actors," it said. As the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media on Friday night, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen's National Front party, tweeted "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent?" Reuters Nearly 400 migratory birds of brilliant plumage were killed when they smashed into an office tower in Texas while flying in a storm, officials said on Friday. Office workers arrived at the tallest skyscraper in downtown Galveston on Thursday morning and found the birds with feathers of blue, green, yellow and other hues dead on the ground, said Josh Henderson, animal services supervisor for Galveston police. The birds were coming from Central and South America and arrived in the coastal city of Galveston, likely fatigued from their flight over the Gulf of Mexico. The birds migrate to several areas across North America during the warmer months of the year. "These are showy, beautiful birds that bird watchers really get excited to see," said Richard Gibbons, conservation director at the Houston Audubon. More than 20 species were represented among the 395 birds that died, Henderson said. The biggest group was Nashville Warblers, followed by Blackburnian Warblers. Henderson said he did not know if all the birds were flying together or if they struck the office tower at different times. A storm was battering the city, which probably forced the birds to fly low, Gibbons said. In the dark, they may have mistaken the skyscraper's lights for the sun or moon, he said. "It was really a freak accident," said Gibbons, whose organization has called for tall buildings to limit their lighting at night to avoid such mishaps. Three surviving birds were taken to a wildlife center. Reuters Tonight we want to share with you how we see two Renewals as linked with the theme of our weekend together holiness, for Parshat Kedoshim and the heart of Parshat Kedoshim, to love our neighbor as ourself / . How does Renewal relate to holiness and love? This sense of inner homecoming is Renewal both the lower-case "r" of experiencing the love and joy we call the renewal of spirit, and the capital "R" of Renewing Judaism, and its umbrella organization -- ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal -- that Rabbi David and I call home. And these two Renewals are linked. A Judaism that is vital and vibrant in body, heart, mind and soul what we call the Four Worlds of Jewish spirituality is the quest and passion of Jewish Renewal. Now I freely admit to y'all and I say y'all as a good south Texan transplanted to southern New England, now visiting southern Maine that not every Shabbat in my life lives up to this ideal of a homecoming. But tonight, singing and praying and being with y'all even for this short while, I feel the supernal Shabbat becoming that feeds my soul and I feel at home here with you. When we can "just be," when we really know that we're enough just as we are, we can touch that loving miracle of spirituality that Jewish mystics call the World to Come, right here and now. That's what I mean by coming home. Rabbi David and I are delighted to join you as scholars in residence, or maybe scholars in homecoming. This weekend we hope to share with you tastes of Renewal, starting with the renewal we call Shabbat. For six days we busy in our doings; on the seventh day, we come home to our sense of being human beings. Why am I welcoming you home when you live here and I'm the visitor? I don't mean welcome home to Bet Ha'Am; I mean welcome home to Shabbat or more aptly, welcome home into Shabbat because Shabbat is a homecoming. To tell that story, we begin with a simple premise: Judaism is changing, and change is core to who we are. Both the Reform movement and the Renewal movement share this sense of something that moves. Like waves on the ocean, Judaism never stands still. Jewish Renewal does more than merely accept this idea: we put perpetual change in the center of spiritual life. Jewish life inherently changes -- and changes us. Which raises a paradox, because the comfort of being "at home" isn't the same as "perpetual motion, " unless you live with the perpetual motion machine that is my seven-year-old son. How can we feel at home and also always change? This question is perhaps the Jewish question, because our ancestors had to do just that wander the desert, wander from nation to nation, navigate constant change in society. But many of us, myself included, grew up with a Judaism that felt static little motion, maybe little emotion. Since when did Jewish life stay still? Where did this idea come from that what's most unchanging is "most Jewish?" It dates back to Moshe Sofer of Pressburg, who held in 1800 that Torah forbids anything new: . He feared the radical changes then sweeping Jewish life as the Industrial Revolution began. He thought he could stop change, but trying to stop change is like trying to stop the sea: you just get wet. In his perhaps desperate effort to stop sea changes in Jewish life, the Chatam Sofer forgot that the divine name Moses heard at the Burning Bush, / "I will be what I will be," is a name that evokes constant change always becoming. Constant change, perpetual motion: that's core Jewish theology, and core Judaism. But the Chatam Sofer's idea that Torah forbids everything new made a big splash. It sparked what today we call denominations the Reform Movement that brought the modernity he feared, then Orthodoxy as a retreat from Reform, then the Conservative Movement in response to Reform, then Reconstructionism that saw Jewish life more as civilization than spiritual theology. Today the tide of history is weakening denominations amidst huge social changes transforming who we are, how we connect and what we value. When we can log onto the internet anywhere, when ideas of identity and community are shifting on their foundations, naturally Jewish life must shift in response. Today, according to the landmark Pew study, a majority of Jews no longer identify with a denomination and I say this as a rabbi serving a Reform temple like yours. Today a majority of Jews say they're "Just Jewish," without denomination -- or more spiritual than Jewish and this trend is accelerating among the younger generations. That's where Jewish Renewal comes in. Renewal is a movement in the sense of moving, responding to the constancy of social change, but not structured as a denomination. Renewal seeks experience and tools to open doors to experience the holy in all its forms. So what is Renewal like? Well, it's time for a confession: Rabbi David and I began introducing you to some Jewish Renewal this evening without saying so. If you noticed bilingual prayer, attention to pacing, passionate use of words and silence, focus on feeling, fusing the rational with imagery and meditation, that's part of Renewal's toolkit called davvenology. "Davvenology" hails from the Yiddish word davven, to pray actively, in ways that attune within not saying what's on the page just because it's on the page. Renewal seeks pathways of prayer that deepen experience and connect us more deeply with our inner lives. In service of this, we experiment, fuse ancient words with modern tunes, change words or sometimes go without words entirely; use meditation, poetry, movement, anything to achieve spiritual experience. Maybe you've seen some of these ideas before; what maybe you don't know is that they trace to the founders of Jewish Renewal, including Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who died in 2014, and his dear friend, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. For us, spiritual experience is the goal, and we develop tools to help reach that goal. Often we think that Judaism is the words, the prayerbook, the building, even the Torah and I dearly love all of them. But they're tools, not the goal. To confuse one for the other is like confusing a meal with a recipe: we can't eat a recipe. Renewal cares about the spiritual meal more than the recipe. Or as Reb Zalman put it, every religion is a pointer: don't confuse the pointer for the point. But what if prayer doesn't float your boat? Some Jews aren't davveners, and Judaism is more than liturgy and synagogue life. Renewal says go to whatever sparks experiences of awe, gratitude, and inner transformation: that's where we start. What helps you touch the holy is what we want because when we touch the holy, we are renewed, and that's the point of the Jewish Renewal we cherish. So what else is in the Renewal toolkit? For some it's social justice work. Renewal radically commits to tikkun olam, seeing the planet as alive, taking seriously our duty to tend the earth and treat others well in how we live and what we eat. That's our eco-Kashrut movement, planet-conscious eating as a spiritual practice. For others it's deep ecumenism: not just multi-faith tolerance and acceptance, but living our Judaism in ways that uplift and journey alongside our cousins in faith in radical ways. For some it's using meditation and imagery to engage the mind and heart: we'll offer tastes of that on Sunday when we show how familiar mitzvot we take for granted offer profound mystical practices. For some it's spiritual direction, in Hebrew, hashpa'ah, meaning divine flow, to discern how the sacred flows through the real stuff of our lives. For others it's Sage-ing not lighting a smudge stick to scent the corners of the room, but harnessing the wisdom that comes with age. For some it's a mindset, and a heart-set, that emerges in response to adversity. We chose the topic of "Illness and Healing" for our Saturday learning before havdalah to show how Renewal harnesses ancient wisdom to uplift modern life. These are some of the tools, what we call spiritual technologies, in the Jewish Renewal toolbox. Renewing our individual Judaism means using tools to come home to our inner lives. Renewing Judaism means also seeking the next spiritual technologies, so that Judaism keeps coming home to being ever more alive. How will we know when we succeed? When these tools are available to all of us, and the next ones flow as easily as rain. When you can take your spiritual life into your own hands, own your Judaism and help make it amazing and new growing organically from what came before, like a new spring leaf growing from an ancient tree. When spiritual experience transforms us from the inside and helps us feel alive. When we feel in ourselves and each other a quality of love, an inner sense of home, that transcends our words that we can only call God. When loving another as we love ourselves becomes second nature. That's our subject for tomorrow morning's Torah study together, and it's our definition of holiness kedoshim, whose heart is the mitzvah to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's the wellspring always ready to renew us. Drinking from those living waters is the goal of Jewish Renewal, and all spiritual paths of every name and creed. May you be blessed with a Shabbat that renews your sense of what Judaism can be, and your sense of what you can be. And may this renewal be a living well to nourish you and all whom you love. Thank you for welcoming us, and for learning and being real with us this weekend. Shabbat shalom. 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. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee v. BAJUNE MOSEBY, also known as Junebug, Defendant-Appellant No. 16-41213 Decided: May 04, 2017 Before JONES, WIENER, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges. Bajune Moseby appeals the imposition of special conditions of supervised release included in the amended judgment on remand on his jury trial conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana. See 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), 846; see also United States v. Romans, 823 F.3d 299, 317-19 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 395 (2016). Finding no plain error, we affirm. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135-36 (2009); United States v. Rouland, 726 F.3d 728, 734 (5th Cir. 2013). We pretermit the question whether the mandate rule bars Moseby's claim. See United States v. Teel, 691 F.3d 578, 583 (5th Cir. 2012); United States v. Rodriguez, 523 F.3d 519, 525 (5th Cir. 2008). [A] defendant has a constitutional right to be present at sentencing. United States v. Vega, 332 F.3d 849, 852 (5th Cir. 2003). Consequently, if the oral pronouncement and the written judgment are in conflict, the oral pronouncement controls. United States v. Martinez, 250 F.3d 941, 942 (5th Cir. 2001). No conflict arises if the written judgment includes mandatory or standard conditions not orally pronounced. United States v. Torres-Aguilar, 352 F.3d 934, 938 (5th Cir. 2003). Ordinarily, if the defendant challenges a written judgment as containing a special condition not spoken at sentencing, we review the inclusion of the special condition for abuse of discretion. United States v. Bigelow, 462 F.3d 378, 381 (5th Cir. 2006). Review is for plain error, however, whenever the defendant has the opportunity to seek vindication of [his] rights in district court but fails to avail himself of it. Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 136 (2009). On remand, the probation office revised Moseby's presentence report and issued a fourth addendum to it that recommended imposing specified mandatory and special conditions in addition to standard conditions. The defense was advised of the special conditions before sentencing, and at sentencing defense counsel represented that Moseby had no comments, additions, or corrections to make regarding the revised presentence report. When pronouncing sentence, the district court re-directed Moseby's attention to those special conditions by ordering him to comply with them. Consequently, the claim Moseby advances in this appeal could have been presented to the district court. Rouland, 726 F.3d at 734; see Puckett, 556 U.S. at 136. The plain error standard requires that, in addition to showing that a forfeited error was clear or obvious, i.e., not subject to reasonable dispute, Moseby demonstrate that the error affects his substantial rights. Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135. Even if we assume that a clear or obvious error exists, Moseby fails plain error review because he is unable to demonstrate that his substantial rights were affected, given that his counsel conceded at sentencing that Moseby did not object to the revised presentence report containing the special conditions. See id.; Rouland, 726 F.3d at 734. Moseby's motion for leave to file a supplemental brief pro se is DENIED. See United States v. Ogbonna, 184 F.3d 447, 449 & n.1 (5th Cir. 1999). Moseby's motion for extension of time to file a supplemental brief pro is DENIED as well. AFFIRMED. PER CURIAM:* United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee v. FRANCISCO ANTONIO COLORADO CESSA, also known as Francisco Colorado Cessa, also known as Pancho, Defendant - Appellant No. 16-50326 Decided: May 05, 2017 Before DAVIS, CLEMENT, and COSTA, Circuit Judges. After a jury convicted him of laundering money for the Los Zetas cartel, Francisco Antonio Colorado Cessa was facing sentencing before a federal judge in Austin. Before that hearing, the FBI received a tip about a plan to bribe the judge in exchange for a reduced sentence. A sting operation followed that resulted in bribery charges being filed in Austin federal court against Colorado, his son, and a business partner. The defendants successfully obtained a transfer of the bribery case to federal court in Louisiana as a result of, among other things, publicity in Austin about the earlier money laundering trial and concerns about trying the case in the courthouse where the federal judge who was the subject of the attempted bribe presides. Not long after that transfer, the government presented a superseding indictment (it added the mens rea of corruptly to the allegations) to the grand jury in Austin that first returned the bribery charges. In the trial that followed in the Western District of Louisiana, the jury found Colorado guilty of both conspiring to bribe and offering a bribe to the judge presiding over his money laundering case. We must decide whether a superseding indictment is lawful when returned by a grand jury located in the venue where the alleged crime occurred but from which the case has been transferred. We also consider whether it was reversible error not to include definitions of offer and promise that Colorado wanted in the jury charge on bribery. I. No federal court has considered a challenge to the jurisdiction of a grand jury located in the district where the alleged crime occurred to return a superseding indictment after the case has been transferred to another venue because of prejudice. FED. R. CRIM. P. 21(a). That is the procedure that was followed in an Eleventh Circuit case, but the defendant argued only that the pretrial publicity that warranted trial in a different venue also tainted the grand jury. See United States v. York, 428 F.3d 1325, 1331 (11th Cir. 2005) (involving superseding indictment issued in the Middle District of Georgia after case had been transferred to Southern District of Georgia due to pretrial publicity). York rejected that argument in part because of the entirely different functions of the grand jury vis-a -vis the trial jury and the different types of evidentiary restrictions before each body. Id. at 1332. Although York did not consider the jurisdictional challenge Colorado asserts, it is notable that neither the courts (trial or appellate) nor York's lawyer saw a procedural rule that would prevent a grand jury from returning superseding charges involving local crimes once a Rule 21(a) transfer occurred. The Constitution does not impose such a limit. The Fifth Amendment says nothing about venue, providing only that [n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury. U.S. CONST. amend. V. But the Sixth Amendment requires that trial be decided by a jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. Id. amend. VI; see also art. III, 2 (requiring criminal trials in the state where the crime occurred). As a practical matter if nothing more, in tandem these Amendments mean that a grand jury should return an indictment only in a district where venue lies. Otherwise, the resulting indictment can be dismissed for lack of trial venue. See, e.g., United States v. Cabrales, 524 U.S. 1, 10 (1998). Grand juries' investigating crimes located within their district of empanelment is also consistent with the grand jury's roots as a local institution. See Mark Kadish, Behind the Locked Door of an American Grand Jury: Its History, Its Secrecy, and Its Process, 24 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 1, 611 (1996). Without having to decide whether the Constitution limits a grand jury to indicting only crimes occurring in the district where it is convened, we can easily say that constitutional principles are not offended by the Western District of Texas grand jury continuing to charge crimes allegedly taking place in Austin. The common law practice, antecedent to the Fifth Amendment guarantee, allowed only the grand jury of the county where the crime was committed to indict, though statutes could authorize grand juries in other counties to do so as well. 4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND *300 (The grand jury are sworn to enquire, only for the body of the county, pro corpore comitatus; and therefore they cannot regularly enquire of a fact done out of that county for which they are sworn, unless particularly enabled by act of parliament.). Ancient English law was so firm in this rule that when a person was wounded in one county but died in another, the offender was at common law indictable in neither, because no complete act of felony was done in any one of them. Id. This gap was fixed by statute, id., just as American jurisdictions have overridden the common law rule when thought necessary, an example being a North Carolina statute allowing lynching to be charged by a grand jury in a county adjacent to the county where the crime occurred. See State v. Lewis, 55 S.E. 600, 60304 (N.C. 1906). This strong tradition of grand juries charging only local crimes typically has not been disrupted when a superseding indictment is returned after transfer to a different venue of the case generated by the original indictment. State cases of old and recent vintage have involved the local grand jury retaining its power post-transfer and the great weight of authority supports that practice. State v. Nichols, 200 S.W.3d 115, 122 (Mo. Ct. App. 2006); Pantazes v. State, 831 A.2d 432, 441 (Md. 2003); Smith v. State, 355 A.2d 527, 531 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1976); State v. Tucker, 224 N.W. 878, 881 (N.D. 1929) (A statute authorizing a change of venue or a change of place of trial does not in itself preclude a second indictment in the county of original jurisdiction after a change has been effected.); Stovall v. State, 260 S.W. 177, 178 (Tex. Crim. App. 1924) (holding that a venue transfer does not deprive the power in the court of original jurisdiction to return a subsequent indictment for the same offense, but denies the right in such court to try accused); Ex parte Lancaster, 89 So. 721, 725 (Ala. 1921) ([Transfer] deprives [the transferor] county, where the offense was committed, of the right to try the defendant for this offense; but it does not deprive it of the jurisdictional right to indict for the offense.); Johnston v. State, 45 S.E. 381 (Ga. 1903); State v. Patterson, 73 Mo. 695, 700 (Mo. 1881), overruled on other grounds by State v. Roy, 83 Mo. 268 (Mo. 1884); but see Smith v. Commonwealth, 25 S.W. 106, 107 (Ky. 1894) (holding that transferor county loses all jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the indictment, including the ability to bring superseding indictments). As the earliest of these cases explains, a transfer of the case does not displace the authority of the local grand jury because jurisdiction over the cause is one thing; the power and duty to find a new bill of indictment upon whose charges that cause shall be tried, is another and totally distinct and different thing. Patterson, 73 Mo. at 700 (citing State v. Tisdale, 2 Dev. & Bat. 159 (N.C. 1836)). Many of these state cases do not even doubt the authority of the grand jury in the original venue to amend the charges; more often the contested question is whether the superseding indictment is automatically subject to the transfer order. See Smith, 355 A.2d at 531 (concluding that the better rule is that subsequent indictments for the same offenses should be transferred to the transferee court without the necessity of complying with the provisions of Maryland's change of venue rule); Lancaster, 89 So. at 725; Johnston, 45 S.E. at 382. On that latter question, the prevailing view is that of the Supreme Court of Alabama, which held that, after a change of venue, a grand jury in the county where the offense was committed retains sole jurisdiction to issue subsequent indictments but that those indictments must then be sent straightaway to the transferee county for trial. Lancaster, 89 So. at 725. That is what happened here as the superseding indictment returned by the Austin federal grand jury was docketed and tried in the case pending in Louisiana federal court. Without any constitutional or common law limits on the authority of the Austin federal grand jury to supersede its charges even after the case had been transferred to a different district, Colorado relies on a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure. Rule 21(c) provides that [w]hen the court orders a transfer [t]he prosecution will then continue in the transferee district, which a treatise explains to mean that transfer is not for trial only. The entire proceeding [is] to be disposed of in the transferee court. 2 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & PETER J. HENNING, FED. PRAC. & PROC. CRIM. 347 (4th ed. 2009). It turns out that is not what happened here. After Colorado's trial, his case was sent back to Austin for sentencing so that the judgment being appealed is one issued from the Western District of Texas. But that does not undermine Colorado's argument that when the Austin grand jury superseded his charges, Rule 21 had divested it of jurisdiction. His bigger problem is that the Rule does not go that far. It says the prosecution is sent to another district. Even with that meaning the entire criminal matter is transferred (not just trials but pretrial hearings, sentencing, etc.), we see no authority saying that deprives the grand jury in the original jurisdiction of the power to continue investigating and charging a local crime. The commentary to the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure addressing venue (Rule 18) indicates a prosecution does not encompass grand jury proceedings. It cites Congress's definition of prosecutions in an earlier venue statute (28 U.S.C. 114) that required prosecutions to take place not just in the district but the division where the crime occurred: the word prosecutions, as used in this statute, does not include the finding and returning of an indictment. FED. R. CRIM. P. 18 advisory committee's note to the 1944 adoption; see also BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1341 (prosecution means a criminal proceeding in which an accused person is tried) (9th ed. 2004). The idea seems to be the same one animating the state court decisions cited above: a prosecution and the grand jury are different proceedings. Also reflective of this distinction is that when a dispute arises with a grand jury that is considering a superseding indictment, the matter is treated as a new miscellaneous filing in federal court and not part of the criminal case considering the original indictment. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 201 F. Supp. 2d 5, 12 n.4. (D.D.C. 1999); In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated May 9, 1990, 741 F. Supp. 1059, 1061 (S.D.N.Y. 1990). The broad reading Colorado gives Rule 21 is thus in tension with the independent authority of the grand jury. United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974) (No judge presides to monitor its proceedings. It deliberates in secret and may determine alone the course of its inquiry. The grand jury may compel the production of evidence or the testimony of witnesses as it considers appropriate, and its operation generally is unrestrained by the technical procedural and evidentiary rules governing the conduct of criminal trials.); cf. York, 428 F.3d at 1332 (identifying the distinct role of the grand jury as a reason why publicity adverse to a defendant is not a basis for dismissing an indictment). Seeing no authority clearly providing that a venue transfer displaces the authority of a federal grand jury to investigate and charge local crimes, we conclude that Colorado could be tried on the superseding indictment. II. The trial in Louisiana federal court lasted four days. Colorado argued that he was merely feeling out the undercover agents who purported to be crooked friends of the federal judge. In this theory of the case, Colorado never offered a bribe because he realized that his collaborators on the outside were talking to the police. To support that defense, Colorado requested the following jury instruction: I have instructed you that the crime of bribery is committed if a defendant corruptly offers or promises money to a public official with the intent to induce the public official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the public official's lawful duty. I want to explain what it means to offer or promise money to a public official. An offer or promise is made when the offeror expresses to the public official both the ability and the desire to pay. Mere preparation to make an offer or promise, including preliminary discussions designed to feel out the public official's willingness to accept a bribe, do not constitute an offer or promise to pay a bribe. Similarly, an agreement to engage in preliminary discussion designed to feel out a public official's willingness to accept a bribe does not, without more, constitute conspiracy to commit bribery. The district court refused to provide the instruction, raising doubts about whether the instruction accurately described current bribery law and whether it amounted to a directed verdict for the defense. The jury thus received only the pattern instruction, which requires the government to prove (among other things) that the defendant directly or indirectly offered and/or promised something of value to the public official. Colorado asserts that his proposed instruction defining offer and promise comes from United States v. Hernandez, 731 F.2d 1147 (5th Cir. 1984). In Hernandez, the defendant attacked the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction for bribery. Id. at 114849. Citing cases from other circuits, we stated that an offer is complete when the offeror expresses an ability and a desire to pay. Id. at 1149. That offer was not present because the evidence did not establish that Hernandez expressed an ability or desire to pay a bribe; instead, the evidence reflected that he simply engaged in preparation for a bribery offense. Id. at 1150. Hernandez does not say that its discussion of offer must be included in a jury charge. Nor has any case since; indeed, we have never cited Hernandez's discussion of offer. But Colorado thinks he was entitled to an instruction including its language based on the principle that a court abuses its discretion in denying a requested instruction if (1) the requested instruction is a substantively correct statement of the law; (2) the requested instruction is not substantially covered in the charge given to the jury; and (3) the omission of the instruction would seriously impair the defendant's ability to present his defense. United States v. Dixon, 185 F.3d 393, 403 (5th Cir. 1999). The government hammers away at another principle of our jury instruction cases: that a district court does not err by giving a charge that tracks this Circuit's pattern jury instructions and that is a correct statement of the law. United States v. Whitfield, 590 F.3d 325, 354 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing United States v. Turner, 960 F.2d 461, 464 (5th Cir. 1992)). The bribery instruction given to Colorado's jury tracks the pattern jury charge, see FIFTH CIRCUIT PATTERN JURY INSTRUCTION (CRIMINAL) 2.09A (2015), which we have approved, see United States v. Franco, 632 F.3d 880, 885 (5th Cir. 2011). There is possible tension between these two principles we have repeatedly quoted. What if the pattern charge correctly states the law, but a party requests an additional instruction that is also an accurate description of the law? Our recent reconciling of these principles in another bribery case is instructive. United States v. Richardson, 676 F.3d 491, 50607 (5th Cir. 2012). Richardson wanted the jury charge to include a long definition of the word corruptly that was supported by United States v. Haas, 583 F.2d 216 (5th Cir. 1978). Id. at 507. So as Colorado does, he was requesting a supplement that found support in our caselaw. But when framing the issue, we stated, [b]ecause the district court's instruction tracked this circuit's pattern jury instruction, we need only determine whether the charge is a correct statement of the law. Id. (emphasis supplied). It was thus of no moment in Richardson whether the defendant's requested instruction was also accurate but more specific; the district court did not abuse its discretion because Richardson could not show that the pattern jury instruction [was] an incorrect statement of the law. Id. at 508. The same is true here. Colorado identifies nothing incorrect about the instruction that was given. The terms offer and promise are not so technical or inscrutable that a definition was necessary; the terms appear to be within the common understanding of the jury such that no instruction on the meaning of the terms was required. See United States v. Chenault, 844 F.2d 1124, 1131 (5th Cir. 1988). Indeed, Hernandez is best read as voicing a paraphrase of the word offer, not a limiting definition of the term. Contrast United States v. Grissom, 645 F.2d 461, 469 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981) (reversing conviction because instruction did not limit intent to defraud to fraud against the government). If it were otherwise and Hernandez had given the word a restricted legal meaning, one would expect us to have cited the case for that point of law in the many years since it was issued. Had we constricted the meaning of offer, Colorado could rightly argue that failing to define the word would allow the jury, following the word's ordinary meaning, to convict on facts outside the statute's prohibition. And when an instruction allows the jury to convict on innocent facts, the instruction is incorrect. See, e.g., United States v. Nelson, 791 F.2d 336, 33738 (5th Cir. 1986). Yet this is all hypothetical, for we did not circumscribe the ordinary meaning of offer in Hernandez. In Hernandez, the alleged offerthey want to know if you can be bought, if you will change your testimonydid not express an ability and a desire to pay, 731 F.2d at 1150, or, in the words of the dictionary, did not declare one's readiness or willingness to pay a bribe, WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY: UNABRIDGED 1566 (2002) (defining offer). Treating the district court's use of the pattern charge as a safe harbor is also consistent with a trial court's substantial latitude in framing jury instructions. Richardson, 676 F.3d at 50607. And nothing prevented Colorado from arguing to the jury that the bribe was only discussed in a preliminary manner that did not amount to an actual offer. Indeed, that was a focus of his closing argument. * * * The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. FOOTNOTES . Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 362 (1956) (The grand jury is an English institution, brought to this country by the early colonists and incorporated in the Constitution by the Founders.). . Two cases address whether it is permissible for a grand jury in the transferee district to return a superseding indictment. State v. Alexander, 211 So. 2d 650 (La. 1968); Watkins v. United States, 54 S.W. 819 (Ind. Terr. 1900). Both allowed that practice but in doing so did not hold that a grand jury in the transferor district could not have amended the charges. See Alexander, 211 So. 2d at 65455; Watkins, 54 S.W. at 821. Even on the different question it considered, Alexander drew a vigorous dissent. 211 So. 2d at 660 (Barham, J., dissenting). And Watkins relied on a unique Indian Territory statute that made superseding indictments akin to an entirely new charge as opposed to the traditional view that they do not displace the original indictment. See 54 S.W. at 821. . The outlier Kentucky decision has been distinguished by other courts on the ground that it does not reflect common law principles because it involved a Kentucky venue transfer statute providing that a new indictment may be found, from time to time, by a grand jury of the county to which the removal [wa]s made. Tucker, 224 N.W. at 881 (quoting KENTUCKY STATUTES 1117 (Barbour & Carroll, eds. 1894)); Alexander, 211 So. 2d at 660 (Barham, J., dissenting). . Recognizing what we have said about the local nature of the grand jury, Colorado argues that his motion to transfer venue waived any right he had to be indicted only by a grand jury from the district where the alleged crime took place. But even if that motion waived more than just his Sixth Amendment vicinage right for trial, the waiver would not deprive the Austin grand jury of its authority to act. A waiver does not always have to be accepted. To illustrate, defendants may waive their Fifth Amendment right to face a felony charge only if the grand jury finds probable cause and proceed instead by information. But a defendant desiring to proceed by information cannot prevent the grand jury from investigating the crime and returning an indictment. . Unlike this case, Hernandez involved only a bribery charge, not a conspiracy to bribe. The latter, of course, does not require a completed offense. In any event, we find that the instruction with the Hernandez language was not required even for the substantive bribery offense. GREGG COSTA, Circuit Judge: United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee v. CHRISTOPHER GUERRA, Defendant-Appellant No. 16-41030 Decided: May 04, 2017 Before JONES, WIENER, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges. Defendant-Appellant Christopher Guerra pled guilty to illegally transporting an undocumented alien within the United States and was sentenced, within the guidelines, to 41 months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. As a special condition of his supervised release, the district court ordered Guerra to participate in mental health and drug treatment programs as deemed necessary and approved by the probation officer. On appeal, Guerra contends that such language impermissibly delegated to the probation officer the court's responsibility to determine whether he must participate in mental health and drug treatment. Because Guerra did not object to the challenged release conditions, we review them for plain error. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009). The imposition of supervised release conditions and terms is a core judicial function that may not be delegated. United States v. Franklin, 838 F.3d 564, 567-68 (5th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). However, providing appropriate treatment for prisoners with known mental problems is also a core duty of judges. The PSR reflects that Guerra reported a history of mental health treatment for depression, anxiety, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as well as his past use of alcohol, marijuana, and crack cocaine. The PSR also revealed past diagnoses of PTSD and Antisocial Personality Disorder. Id. At sentencing, Guerra's counsel likewise pointed out his mental health issues. Adopting the PSR, the district court imposed two relevant special conditions on Guerra's supervised release. First, the court order[ed] that [Guerra] participate in a drug and[/]or alcohol treatment program as deemed necessary and approved by the probation officer. Id. Second, the court impose[d] a mental health condition, which requires [Guerra] to participate in a mental health program as deemed necessary and approved by the probation officer. Clearly, based on this history and defense counsel's representations to the court, the judge intended that treatment be mandatory and left only the details to the probation officer. Lest there be any doubt, we AFFIRM the sentence as MODIFIEDmental health treatment including substance abuse is imposed, details of treatment to be supervised by the probation office. AFFIRMED as Modified. EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge: Many commercial banks posted positive earnings in the first quarter of the year, contributing to the rosy outlook for the banking sector in 2017. Photo cafef.vn HA NOI Many commercial banks posted positive earnings in the first quarter of the year, contributing to the rosy outlook for the banking sector in 2017. Ten banks are now traded on the HCM Stock Exchange, Ha Noi Stock Exchange and Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM). Top earners include Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank), Viet Nam Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank) and Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV). Those three banks recorded post-tax profits of VN2.2 trillion (US$97 million), VN2.04 trillion and VN1.85 trillion, respectively. The figures were up 20 per cent, 5.8 per cent and 9 per cent from last years first-quarter numbers. Lower earners included Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MBBank), Sai Gon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) and Viet Nam Export Import Joint Stock Commercial Bank (Eximbank). Private-equity commercial banks, such as Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Sai Gon-Ha Noi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and Viet Nam International Joint Stock Bank (VIB) also recorded higher post-tax profits in the first quarter. According to the Department of Statistics and Forecasting under the State Bank of Viet Nam, the banking systems average growth is expected to rise 13.4 per cent, higher than 2016 growth. Bank stocks have recorded strong growth since the beginning of the year, with shares of Vietinbank (CTG) rising 23 per cent since December 30, 2016; Eximbanks shares (EIB) advancing 26 per cent, BIDVs shares (BID) gaining 18 per cent, and ACB shares jumping 35 per cent. According to BIDV Securities (BSC), the outlook for bank stocks remains positive due to their higher than expected business results, efforts to handle non-performing loans, more transparent business operations and supporting policies issued by the Government and central bank. BSC said Vietcombank has bought back bad debts from the Viet Nam Asset Management Company (VAMC) while ACB has set a target of settling all bad debts this year. Bank operations will become more transparent and secure as they cut lending to companies and individuals seeking capital and investments for risky industries, such as real estate, BSC said. Reducing long-term and middle-term loans using short-term capital would ensure the liquidity and strength of the banking system, BSC said, adding that banks have to be more transparent about their business activities in order to comply with the Basel II standards. Lending will continue to be the main source of bank earnings as Viet Nams economy grows and encourages companies and individuals to borrow money, BSC said. In addition, investors are counting on Government and central bank decisions to allow local commercial banks to raise the bar for foreign investment in their capital, BSC said. Recently, the central bank approved the sale of more than 30 per cent of the Sai Gon Commercial Bank to foreign investors. VNS HA NOI The Ministry of Construction (MoC) has allowed the at Lanh Real Estate Company to temporarily apply the minimum areas of 25sq.m for its commercial apartments. However, the apartments should still ensure enough functional space for living. The companys deputy director on Friday said that the ministry had answered their proposal of constructing commercial apartments of 20-30sq.m in area each. The ministry said the Law on Housing 2005 stipulates that apartments must have a minimum area of 45sq.m. However, many localities also sent documents to the ministry proposing that they be allowed to invest in commercial apartments with areas of 30-40sq.m each. In reality, the demand for such apartments among low-and-middle income earners in big cities and industrial parks was significant, it added. The revised Law on Housing 2014 also removed the minimum area regulation for apartments. The MoC said it planned to issue the National Technical Regulations on Apartments in the near future. As a result, the ministry will allow commercial apartments to temporarily apply the minimum area of 25sq.m each while ensuring suitable design and construction of a closed apartment. uc said many property firms believed that commercial apartments must have areas of at least 45sq.m each while the ministry had not issued an official position on the issue. The answer from the ministry would promote the development of the cheap housing segment to meet the demand of low and middle income people in the big cities, he said. Earlier, the company submitted a proposal to the ministry, HCM City Peoples Committee and the municipal Department of Construction to build apartments with areas of 20-30sq.m and prices of between VN200-300 million (US$8,700-13,000) in the city. It said the city should give support to real estate firms that invest in such apartments in terms of technical infrastructure, increasing construction density and reducing the time for completing administrative procedures. The deputy director said he asked the ministry to build pilot apartments of 30-40sq.m 8 years ago. The company built 780 such apartments in HCM Citys District 12. All of the commercial apartments with small areas sold out quickly. The apartments came into operation 3 years ago, and still ensure suitable living conditions for residents. This has proven that the small apartments have not affected urban planning. Good management could further ensure the quality of such apartments. In addition, more than 7,000 apartments of 30sq.m each in the southern province of Binh Duong have been constructed to settle many workers and poor people. The provinces of ong Nai and Long An have also prepared some smaller apartments. VNS HA NOI The value of foreign direct investment (FDI) capital in Viet Nam reached US$10.95 billion in the first four months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 40.5 per cent. The FDI value mainly came from new projects, additional investment capital and buying stakes, reported the Ministry of Planning and Investments Foreign Investment Agency. In which, the ministry licensed 734 new projects worth US$4.88 billion, equal to 96 per cent of the value of the first four months last year thanks to several large projects being licensed during the period. Some 345 available projects raised investment capital with total value of $4.36 billion, increasing by 241.8 per cent compared with the same period last year. Foreign investors also contributed capital or bought stakes with total value of $1.35 billion, up 106.8 per cent. Samsung Display Viet Nam increased its investment capital by $2.5 billion in northern Bac Ninh Province; a US$1.27 billion joint venture between Japans Mitsui Oil Exploration, Viet Nam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and PetroVietnam Gas Corporation (PV Gas), is designed to transport some 20.3 million cu.m per day of gas for two power plants with total capacity of 3,660 MW; the Plytex Far Eastern factory, funded by Taiwanese investors, raised additional capital of $485.8 million; and Coca-Cola Viet Nam increased its capital by $319.8 million. During the period, the processing and manufacturing sectors hit the highest capital with $7.36 billion, 69.53 per cent of the total. It was followed by the mining and wholesale and retail sectors, with total value of $1.28 billion, and $546.68 million, respectively. Of the total 83 nations and territories investing in Viet Nam, the Republic of Korea led with $4.05 billion in investment, followed by Japan and Singapore with $1.85 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. VNS HA NOI Importing large amounts of scrap steel is turning Viet Nam into an industrial landfill, with environmental risks coming with the waste. Statistics from the General Department of Customs show that Viet Nam imported more than one million tonnes of scrap steel worth more than US$276.7 million in the first quarter of 2017, an increase of 44 per cent compared to the same period last year, while the value rose 20 per cent. Scrap steel was imported from several countries, mainly the US, Japan and Australia, but the largest import growth was from South Africa, with an astounding surge of 1,615 per cent over last years first quarter. Viet Nam Steel Association Vice President Nguyen Van Sua told Thanh nien (Young People) newspaper yesterday that the old technology many factories in Viet Nam use to make steel needs scrap steel for manufacturing. Theoretically, scrap metal used for this purpose was previously construction steel discarded from buildings. In Viet Nam, steel manufacturers that produce steel this way account for more than 70 per cent of the countrys capacity, Sua said. There is, however, a dark side of the scrap steel industry. It is common in Viet Nam that old, outdated machineries and equipment, or toxic electronic components are smuggled into the country disguised as scrap steel. In 2015 and 2016, the authorities uncovered several cases in Quang Ninh Province and Hai Phong City in the North, and ong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces in the South, where containers marked as containing scrap steel turned out to be secondhand machineries and ship components. One of the biggest cases was detected in Hai Phong when 18 out of 20 inspected containers had used electronic chips and components in them despite being declared as scrap steel at customs. These machineries could be reused to make steel, but not until they were broken apart, increasing risks of polluting the environment. Authorities only give licences to scrap steel importers when they meet regulatory requirements like having specialised storage space or wastewater treatment. However, latest reports of 54 departments of natural resources and environment in 2015 pointed out that several scrap steel importers failed to comply with environmental regulations in handling both wastewater and solid waste and generated air pollution. Environment or steel? Professor Le Huy Ba, former head of the Institute of Environmental Science, Engineering and Management of the HCM City University of Industry, said that allowing scrap steel imports benefited companies involved in the industry but harmed the environment. To make steel, Viet Nam has turned itself into an industrial landfill of the world, Ba said. But the irony was that the steel that harms Viet Nams environment cant compete against other countries, like China, which sell steel at very cheap prices, he added. Economist Bui Trinh said that steel production as an industry produced a large amount of exhaust fumes, posing a huge threat to the environment if not controlled. The US in 2014 spent $6.36 billion to handle pollution caused by making 88 million tonnes of steel, Trinh said. But I think no company in Viet Nam will have profits if they follow the US standard, Trinh said. Viet Nam should focus on green and clean production rather than heavy industry like before. We shouldnt encourage expanding the steel manufacturing. VNS HA NOI A series of activities titled Perfectly Magical! will be held to mark the 20th year since the first Harry Potter book, now a bestselling series by British author J.K. Rowling, was released in Viet Nam. The British Council and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the countrys largest Harry Potter fan club, will host numerous events including interactive games, trivia and drawing contests. Making its debut 20 years ago, the novel has become a firm favorite among young Vietnamese readers. Perfectly Magical! will take place on Ha Nois 19/12 bookstreet on May 6-7 and HCM Citys Nguyen Van Binh Str. On May 13-14 . VNS Some 2,000 domestic and international delegates are expected to attend the second APEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 2) and related meetings scheduled to take place in Ha Noi and Ninh Binh province from May 9-21. Photo baocongthuong.com.vn HA NOI Some 2,000 domestic and international delegates are expected to attend the second APEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 2) and related meetings scheduled to take place in Ha Noi and Ninh Binh province from May 9-21, heard a press briefing yesterday. To date, about 250 local reporters and 200 foreign journalists have also signed up to cover the events, organisers said. SOM 2 will comprise 49 meetings, workshops and dialogues of committees and working groups of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, covering a range of spheres such as trade and investment liberalisation, business facilitation, human resource development, education, network economy, food safety, science, technology and creativity, mining, automobile industry and urbanisation. At the events, APEC delegates are expected to push long-term co-operation programmes and plans in key areas and reach consensus on documents to be submitted to ministers for approval, laying a foundation for contents of the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting and APEC Ministerial Meeting in central Da Nang city in November 2017. A multilateral dialogue on APEC towards 2020 and beyond, a high-level policy dialogue on human Resource development in the digital age, a Pacific Economic Cooperation Council meeting, a Senior Finance Officials Meeting and the 23rd Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting will also be held on this occasion. Since its inception in 1989, APEC has become a leading economic co-operation mechanism in Asia-Pacific, focusing on trade and investment liberalisation, business facilitation and economic-technological co-operation. APEC groups 21 member economies, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the US and Viet Nam, which together account for 39 per cent of the worlds population and 59 per cent of global GDP and 48 per cent of global trade. Viet Nam joined APEC in November 1998, marking a milestone in its foreign policy of openness, multilateralisation and diversification of relations and international economic integration. Since then, the country has contributed to APEC co-operation. The country hosted the APEC Year 2006, in which the 14th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting endorsed the Ha Noi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals, approved measures to enhance the efficiency of APEC co-operation and set out long-term prospects to form the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. In 2014, Viet Nam also organised the 6th APEC Human Resources Development Ministerial Meeting. Viet Nam has recommended and joined many new initiatives alongside with proposing and carrying out more than 100 projects related to trade, investment, economic-technological co-operation, small- and medium-sized enterprises, response to emergency, healthcare, food security and counter-terrorism. VNS Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (R) receives Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan, Oshima Tadamori, in Ha Noi yesterday. VNA/VNS Photo Tri Dung HA NOI Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong yesterday hailed the strong progress made in all aspects of bilateral ties between Viet Nam and Japan. Receiving visiting Speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan, Oshima Tadamori, in Ha Noi, he noted the visit was taking place at a time when the Viet Nam-Japan extensive strategic partnership was at its best ever. He expressed his delight at welcoming high-ranking Japanese leaders, especially the Emperor and the Empress, to Viet Nam this year. The visits contributed greatly to deepening the friendship and co-operation between the two countries and peoples, the Party leader said. Oshima said the visit to Viet Nam by Japanese Emperor and Empress marked a new development in bilateral ties, adding that the royal couple carried home deep impressions of the Vietnamese people and land, and the friendship between the two countries. He also informed his host about the outcomes of his talks with National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and stressed his wish to boost the exchange and co-operation between the two legislative bodies. The Japanese House of Representatives gives high priority to promoting ties with Viet Nam in economy, trade, education and people-to-people exchanges, Oshima said. The lawmaker said Japan was willing to cooperate with Viet Nam in organising the 2017 APEC summit. Lauding the outcomes of talks between the top legislators, Trong said the Japanese parliament made significant contributions to growth in bilateral relations. Viet Nam attached great importance to the partnership with Japan considering it beneficial for both peoples, and for peace and security in the region and the world, he added. VNS President Tran ai Quang (r) receives Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Oshima Tadamori in Ha Noi yesterday. VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang HA NOI Viet Nam considers Japan a leading and long-term partner and attaches great value to the strategic partnership between two countries, President Tran ai Quang said yesterday. During a reception held in Ha Noi yesterday for Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Oshima Tadamori, he also spoke highly of the development of parliamentary co-operation between the two countries in recent years and hailed exchanges between young parliamentarians. He welcomed the outcomes of talks held earlier between Tadamori and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, saying he was confident the ongoing visit would contribute significantly to fostering co-operative ties between the two legislatures. He praised the strong development of Viet Nam-Japan relationship in all fields, particularly in politics, economy, security-defence, co-operation among localities and people-to-people exchanges. He said that the official visit to Viet Nam by PM Shinzo Abe and the first State visit by the Japanese Emperor and Empress in March 2017 had generated a new momentum for bilateral relations. The President suggested the two nations continue close co-ordination at multilateral forums, and work together closely on ensuring navigation security on the basis of respect for international law and settlement of disputes through peaceful measures. Thanking Japan for the official development assistance (ODA) it has provided over the last 20 years, the President called on Tadamori and the House of Representatives to continue supporting the Japanese Governments provision of more ODA for Viet Nam. "Viet Nam also welcomes Japanese businesses to expand their investment in the country, especially in infrastructure, hi-tech industries, supporting industry and climate change adaptation," he added. Tadamori said 2017 was a landmark year for the development of bilateral ties with several high-level visits, including the Viet Nam visits by PM Shinzo Abe and the Japanese Emperor and Empress, as also upcoming visits to Japan by Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc. He said many Japanese enterprises and investors were seeking investment and business opportunities in Viet Nam, adding that the nations determination to reform administrative procedures and improve its investment environment was an important factor in attracting more Japanese firms. Tadamori echoed the Vietnamese leaders wish that Viet Nam and Japan further promote their co-ordination at regional mechanisms such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum. He also affirmed Japans support to Viet Nam in hosting the APEC Year 2017. The same day, President of the Viet Nam-Japan Parliamentarian Friendship Group, Pham Minh Chinh, hosted a banquet in honour of the Japanese delegation. The Japanese guest later visited the Nguyen inh Chieu High School for blind children, the Birla Childrens Village and the Viet Nam-Japan University in Ha Noi. VNS HCM CITY Vo Thi Chau of Ben Tre Province, who works as a domestic helper in HCM Citys District 7, has seven siblings, five of whom have moved to HCM City for work during the last three years. We do not have any formal schooling, so we cant find a job in my hometown. We have no choice but to move to HCM City to work with a monthly salary of at least VN4-5 million, she said. In recent years, the prolonged drought and saline intrusion have worsened agricultural production, leading to a sharp increase in the number of migrants from the region to HCM City and nearby provinces like Binh Duong and ong Nai. In Long Phu District in Soc Trang Province, more than 6,000 people have moved to HCM City and ong Nai and Binh Duong provinces to seek jobs, according to local authorities. Most of them have found jobs at factories in export processing zones or industrial parks. Although migrant workers can earn modest salaries, the job is better than staying in their hometowns. Sa Thy, of Chau Thanh District in Tra Vinh Province, said she and her husband had moved to Binh Duong Province for several months. Her husband now works as a construction worker, while she works as a domestic helper for some families in Binh Duong Province. We can save around VN2 million to send money back to my parents to take care of my four-year-old son, she said. We cant find a job in my hometown. We have no choice but to leave my son with my parents to take care of him and move here for a living. We plan to bring our son here if the job remains stable in the next few months, she said. Dr. Vo Hung Dung, director of the Can Tho Chapter of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said with a population of more than 17 million, the Mekong Delta region has an abundant labour force, but due to limited jobs, many people move to HCM City or other provinces like Binh Duong and ong Nai to look for work. Therefore, creating jobs for locals in the region is of great importance, Dung said. According to official statistics, the population of the Mekong Delta accounts for only 19.5 per cent of the countrys total population, compared with 22 per cent in 1990. Bac Lieu, Ca Mau and Soc Trang are among the provinces that have the highest number of workers in the region moving to other places for work, accounting for 6- 14 per cent per year in recent years. The problem has caused a lack of human resources in the region, which has held back socio-economic development in the region. Dung said the region must develop new strategies and clear goals to attract more investors to the region. The low quality of infrastructure and services at industrial parks, the lack of local parts and materials, and poor transport remain challenges in the area. Some economists suggested that, in the short term, the region should call for investment in fields that do not require a highly skilled labour force such as textiles and clothing. Provinces in the region have failed to provide specific policies in recruitment, training, and incentives in land and tax, to attract investment. Tran Khac Tam, chairman of Soc Trang Province Business Association, said the Government should revise planning for the Mekong Delta agricultural production area. The region also needs to continue to improve infrastructure and develop a highly skilled labour force for the future. VNS The Government wants public colleges to become autonomous in order to be competitive, but many of them are worried about such a move, especially the financial aspect. Photo nld.com.vn HCM CITY The Government wants public colleges to become autonomous in order to be competitive, but many of them are worried about such a move, especially the financial aspect. They are worried autonomy would cause them to lose Government funding forcing them to hike fees. At a workshop on autonomy and solutions for public colleges held yesterday by HCM City Technical and Economic College, Dr Pham Xuan Thu, head of the business administration faculty at the College Of Foreign Economic Relations in the citys Phu Nhuan District, said such a hike could lose them students. Current enrolment policies make it easier than ever for students to get into universities, he said. This is on top of an existing preference for universities over colleges, he said. At least one million students pass out of high school every year, but this year the countrys 142 out of 234 colleges have only received 1,000 applications each on average. About 100 colleges each has received only between 38 and 42 applications, said Nguyen Manh Hung, director of the Nguyen Tat Thanh University. Tran Nguyen Minh Nhut of the HCM City College of Economics quality assurance division said the number of students studying in colleges was not consistent. Many of them stop studying in colleges and move instead to universities, he said. With such a small student population, it is not an option for colleges to fund themselves from fees, he added. Nguyen Thi Hang, rector of the HCM City Vocational College of Technology, said hers was one of three colleges to pilot an autonomy programme last year. We have autonomy in finances, training programmes, lecturer recruitment and others. We are allowed to hike tuition fees. After doubling the fees to VN16 million (US$711) this year the college only managed to get half the number of students as last year, she said. However, I still advocate the governments policies on autonomy for public colleges. This policy is right. Luu uc Tien, rector of the Van Xuan Technology and Technical College in the citys Go Vap, said public colleges should not be too worried because the Government has promised that with autonomy it would find a way to fund them. Pham Ngoc Thanh, deputy head of the city Department of Education and Training, said public colleges in the city should soon set up a road map to become autonomous. The General Directorate of Vocational Training should set up training courses for managers and staff of public colleges for the purpose, he said. VNS United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. Kimberly Boude Plaintiff - Appellant v. City of Raymore, Missouri; Joseph German, Police Officer; Raymore Missouri Police Department Defendants Michael W. Heady, Police Officer Defendant - Appellee No. 16-1183 Decided: May 05, 2017 Before WOLLMAN, SMITH,1 and BENTON, Circuit Judges. Kimberly K. Boude sued Officer Michael W. Heady of the Raymore, Missouri, Police Department for excessive use of force under 42 U.S.C. 1983, as well as common law negligence and battery. The district court granted summary judgment to Heady based on qualified and official immunity. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291, this court affirms. I. Boude was addicted to huffing aerosol spray cans, which intoxicated her. On March 17, 2012, Raymore Police Officer Joseph German was dispatched to check on a person in their vehicle in the parking lot of a Sonic restaurant. Arriving, German found Boude behind the wheel of her vehicle, an SUV. Seeing she was not completely coherent, he summoned medical assistance. The next day, Boude huffed two times and then drove to the Sonic restaurant. On patrol, German and Heady heard a radio dispatch about a motorist potentially in need of assistance. The dispatcher's description matched Boude's SUV from the previous day. Heady knew about German's encounter with Boude the day before, and began to search for the car. Within minutes, he saw a SUV matching the description. Stepping out of his patrol car, Heady motioned and told Boude to stop her SUV. Boude stopped. Heady approached the open driver-side window. German arrived within one minute of the stop. His dash camera recorded the events. Heady asked Boude how much she huffed that day. She said not much. Heady told her to turn the car off. Boude reached for the gearshift of the SUV. As she reached, the car's brake lights turned on. Heady said no, no, no, reached through the front window, turned off the ignition, and took the keys. Heady told Boude to step out of the car. She failed to comply. Heady physically removed her, placed her on the ground, and handcuffed her. Boude later pled guilty to driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. She claims injures from the arrest, requiring spinal surgery and physical therapy. Boude sued Heady for excessive force under 42 U.S.C. 1983. She also alleged common law negligence and battery. The district court granted summary judgment to Heady based on qualified and official immunity. Boude appeals. II. This court reviews de novo a grant of qualified immunity. See Stodghill v. Wellston Sch. Dist., 512 F.3d 472, 476 (8th Cir. 2008). While this court views the facts most favorably to Boude, it need not adopt her factual allegations where a video blatantly contradict[s] her version of events. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007). Qualified immunity is a basis to dismiss a claim against a public employee if the alleged conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. See Hayek v. City of St. Paul, 488 F.3d 1049, 1054 (8th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). The qualified immunity analysis considers two questions: First, taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right? See Harris, 550 U.S. at 377 (quotation omitted). Second, whether the right at issue was clearly established in light of the specific context of the case. See id. (quotation omitted). Courts may decide which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009). Boude contends that Heady violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force in the context of an arrest. See Shannon v. Koehler, 616 F.3d 855, 859 (8th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted). Under the Fourth Amendment, police officers are liable for excessive force that is not objectively reasonable under the circumstances. See Brown v. City of Golden Valley, 574 F.3d 491, 496 (8th Cir. 2009). Officers are justified in using force to remove a driver, whom they believed to be impaired, from his vehicle after he refused to comply with their order to exit it. Schoettle v. Jefferson Cty., 788 F.3d 855, 860 (8th Cir. 2015). Accord Wertish v. Krueger, 433 F.3d 1062, 1066 (8th Cir. 2006) (holding that when a driver failed to comply with an officer's orders to get out of the vehicle, it was objectively reasonable for the officer to pull the driver from the truck and handcuff him). Here, it was objectively reasonable for Heady to believe that Boude's reach for the gearshift was an attempt to shift the car to drive and to flee. Heady knew about Boude's huffing the day before, so he had reason to believe she was intoxicated and a potential threat to public safety. See Schoettle, 788 F.3d at 860 (citation omitted) (noting the potential threat to public safety when an impaired driver is in command of a vehicle). When the brake lights to the SUV turned onconsistent with shifting gearsHeady said no, no, no, reached into the car, and turned off the ignition. After Boude refused to comply with Heady's order to exit, he was justified in using force to remove [Boude], whom [Heady] believed to be impaired. See id. True, as the district court found, the dash-cam video does not blatantly contradict Boude's allegation that she reached for the gear shift to make sure her vehicle was in park before she made any move to comply with Defendant's order that she turn the vehicle off. See Harris, 550 U.S. at 380. However, qualified immunity does not depend on whether Boude was in fact attempting to flee when she reached for the gearshift; rather, the key is Heady's objectively reasonable beliefs under the circumstances. See, e.g., Brown, 584 F.3d at 496. See also Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989) (explaining objective reasonableness considers that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgmentsin circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolvingabout the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation). Here, assuming Boude's reach for the gearshift was innocent, Heady could still have an objectively reasonable belief that her movement was a non-compliant attempt to shift the car to drive and to flee. See Carpenter v. Gage, 686 F.3d 644, 650 (8th Cir. 2012) (Even if Carpenter's motive was innocent, the deputies on the scene reasonably could have interpreted Carpenter's actions as resistance and responded with an amount of force that was reasonable to effect the arrest.). Boude contends that Heady's use of force was objectively unreasonable because when he removed her from the SUV, he had already taken the keys, eliminating any risk she might flee. Even after the car was off, it was reasonable for Heady to believe that Boudeintoxicated, and moments earlier non-compliant with his order to turn off the carwould continue to be non-compliant or attempt to flee on foot. See Schoettle, 788 F.3d at 860 (explaining that a driver posed a threat to himself, the officers and the general public, even after [the officer] turned off [defendant's] vehicle). Officers are justified in using force to remove a driver, whom they believed to be impaired, from his vehicle after he refused to comply with their order to exit. Id. (emphasis added). Moments after [Boude] refused to comply with Heady's order to turn off the car, he was justified in using force to remove her. See id. Boude relies on Brown, where this court found a fact dispute whether an officer held an objectively reasonable belief that force was necessary under the circumstances. Brown, 574 F.3d at 496. There, the suspect's husband had been pulled over for allegedly driving under the influence. Id. at 492. After he was handcuffed, the suspectin the front passenger seatbecame frightened and dialed 911. Id. An officer told her to hang up. She refused. The officer then entered the car and tased her. Id. Reversing a grant of qualified immunity, this court said, Whether [the officer] reasonably interpreted her refusal as a realistic threat to his personal safety or whether it constituted nothing more than an affront to his command authority is a matter for a jury to decide. Id. at 497. The facts here differ from Brown in two critical ways. First, the suspect in Brown was in the passenger seat; Boude was in the driver seat. See Schoettle, 788 F.3d at 860 (citation omitted) (explaining there is a potential threat to public safety [when] an impaired driver [is] in command of a car (emphasis added)). Second, the suspect in Brown did not make any movement that could be reasonably interpreted as an attempt to flee. See Brown, 574 F.3d at 497 (finding that the suspect was not actively resisting arrest or attempting to flee). Here, it was objectively reasonable for Heady to believe that, when Boudea suspected intoxicated driverreached for the gearshift after he told her to exit the SUV, she was attempting to flee. Because Heady's use of force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances, he did not violate Boude's Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. See id. at 496. This court need not address the clearly established prong of the qualified immunity analysis. See Harris, 550 U.S. at 377. Heady is entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment on the excessive-use-of-force claim. III. Heady invoked official immunity on Boude's negligence and battery claims. This court reviews de novo a grant of summary judgment based on official immunity. See Murray v. Leyshock, 915 F.2d 1196, 1199 (8th Cir. 1990). Official immunity protects public employees from liability for alleged acts of negligence committed during the course of their official duties for the performance of discretionary acts. Southers v. City of Farmington, 263 S.W.3d 603, 610 (Mo. banc 2008). [A] police officer has the benefit of official immunity. Fonseca v. Collins, 884 S.W.2d 63, 66 (Mo. App. 1994). Discretionary acts require the exercise of reason in the adaptation of means to an end and discretion in determining how or whether an act should be done or course pursued. Id. (citation omitted). The decision to arrest someone is a discretionary act. Blue v. Harrah's N. Kansas City, 170 S.W.3d 466, 479 (Mo. App. 2005). An officer's decision to use force in the performance of his duties is discretionary. Davis v. White, 794 F.3d 1008, 1013 (8th Cir. 2015) (applying Missouri law). Boude argues that Heady forfeits his official immunity because he acted in bad faith. Official immunity is lost if the official acted in bad faith or with malice, which ordinarily requires actual intent to cause injury. Austell v. Sprenger, 690 F.3d 929, 938 (8th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted). A defendant acts with malice when he wantonly does that which a man of reasonable intelligence would know to be contrary to his duty and which he intends to be prejudicial or injurious to another. State ex rel. Twiehaus v. Adolf, 706 S.W.2d 443, 447 (Mo. banc 1986) (quotation omitted). Bad faith means dishonest purpose, moral obliquity, conscious wrongdoing, breach of a known duty through some ulterior motive, or ill will partaking of the nature of fraud. Id. (quotation omitted). Boude believes that her bad faith allegation survives summary judgment because [w]hether or not an officer acted maliciously or willfully is usually a question of fact to be resolved by the jury. See Brown, 574 F.3d at 496. Brown applied Minnesota law. In Missouri, a bad-faith allegation survives summary judgment if a plaintiff states facts from which it could reasonably be inferred that [defendant] acted in bad faith or from an improper or wrongful motive. See Adolf, 706 S.W.2d at 447-48. Boude's conclusory allegations that Heady acted in bad faith are insufficient to defeat summary judgment. See Quinn v. St. Louis Cty., 653 F.3d 745, 752 (8th Cir. 2011) (finding conclusory statements insufficient to establish a material question of fact). Heady is entitled to official immunity on Boude's negligence and battery claims. * * * * * * * The judgment is affirmed. FOOTNOTES . The Honorable Brian C. Wimes, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri. BENTON, Circuit Judge. Indonesian authorities have detained nearly 580 Vietnamese fishermen for illegally fishing in the countrys waters, according to the Vietnamese embassy in Jakarta. VNA/VNS Photo JAKARTA Indonesian authorities have detained nearly 580 Vietnamese fishermen for illegally fishing in the countrys waters, according to the Vietnamese embassy in Jakarta. The captured fishermen are mainly from the provinces of Ba Ria Vung Tau, Tien Giang and Kien Giang in the south, and Binh inh, Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen, and Binh Thuan in the central region. Nguyen Thanh Giang, a staff of the Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia, said the list of arrested Vietnamese fishermen does not match reality, so they are working hard to get updated information so that citizen protection procedures are initiated to get the fishermen back home. Vietnamese Ambassador Hoang Anh Tuan told Vietnam News Agency reporters in Indonesia that the embassy always attaches importance to protecting Vietnamese citizens and promptly addressing relevant issues. The agency has asked the Indonesian side to treat the Vietnamese fishermen humanely and return their assets. It has also co-ordinated with authorised agencies in Viet Nam to complete procedures for repatriating the fishermen. The embassy has recommended that relatives of arrested citizens co-ordinate with the department of foreign affairs in their localities to fulfill related procedures and ask Indonesian authorities to release the fishermen. The number of Vietnamese fishermen arrested by Indonesian authorities has increased this year. Since the beginning of 2017, 42 fishing boats with 392 fishermen have been arrested. The embassy has coordinated with concerned Indonesian agencies to repatriate 390 fishermen. To prevent similar violations, the embassy has worked with domestic agencies to increase communication campaigns to raise Vietnamese fishermens awareness of regulations of both nations and the need to strictly abide by them. Indonesia strictly implements regulations on illegal fishing activities in the countrys waters. In almost all cases, violating ships or boats are destroyed. VNS MARENGO Cora Okonski was killed with a choke slam and buried in a wooded area in a hole so deep steps were needed to reach the top, according to a man who served prison time with Tait Otis Purk. Purk, 50, is charged with murder in the death of Okonski, who was 23 when she disappeared in April 2000. Her body has never been found. Taking the stand Friday, Sean Ward said Purk slowly revealed to him what happened with Okonski over time. Ward and Purk were both housed at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., in 2005. Purk was serving time for drug-related charges he picked up after the disappearance, and Ward was in for federal weapons charges originating from Iowa. Ward said inmates in prison tend to talk about their exploits. We spent a lot of time together because we were from Iowa. Just over a period of time, inmates tend to brag about stuff theyve done or havent been convicted of. Its just something that happens in prison, Ward said. Ward said Purk told him there had been an argument, and Okonski had threatened to call the police on him. Over a period of time, he told me that they had gotten into an argument. She threatened to call the police, she had put him in jail before. Lost his temper, ran across the room at her, grabbed her by the throat and choke slammed her. Thought hed knocked her unconscious, realized he broke her neck, Ward said. Purk had demonstrated the fatal move in his cell, Ward said, and Ward recreated the demonstration for the jury, stepping forward with his hand out and making a swinging downward motion. According to the account Purk allegedly gave to Ward, after he realized he had broken her neck Purk placed Okonski in a bathroom closet and left her there overnight. The following morning, Purk reached over and opened the closet door and found she was dead. Ward said Purk told him he slapped Okonskis lifeless face and said, Youre not telling the police now, bitch. He said Purk told him he loaded Okonskis body into his truck and drove to a state park or a nature preserve a clearing in a wooded area someplace where people wouldnt be doing any digging and buried her. He said Purk told him the hole was so deep he needed to dig steps to climb out. He covered the makeshift grave with leaves and sticks, Ward said. Purk later returned to the site a few times, each time seeing it was less noticeable, according to Ward. Ward said he didnt think much of the story, but asked his grandfather to look into it. His grandfather knew sheriffs deputies in Iowa, and Tama authorities were notified. At that point, Ward said, he became concerned about what could happen if Purk was released from prison. Purk had told him what he did, and Ward had relatives in Iowa, Ward said. Ward said he didnt receive any benefits from authorities for coming forward and didnt enter any agreements, but the defense noted in a recording of his statement it was stated he would get a reduction in his sentence. Jurors also heard how Okonski had allegedly been choked unconscious during other spats. Joshua York, an acquaintance of Purks, testified he was at Tama home Purk and Okonski shared in 1999 when the couple began arguing. York said Purk grabbed Okonski around the neck from behind, and Okonski passed out. She was unconscious for about five seconds, York said. Also taking the stand Friday was Tarah Bear, a long-time acquaintance of Purks who worked as a waitress with Okonski at the King Tower restaurant. Bear testified once in 1999 when she went to pick up Okonski to give her a ride to work, Purk said Okonski wasnt available. She said she saw Okonski sleeping on a couch with bruises on her neck. She shook her but was unable to rouse her. Bear said Purk told her they had been in an argument, and Okonski had to be put in her place. After further questioning by Assistant Attorney General Laura Roan, Bear acknowledged she testified at another hearing Purk told her he had to knock her (expletive deleted) out. I dont know if it was a sleeper hold or he put his hands around her neck, Bear said. She said she initially thought Purk was joking when he said it. During cross examination, defense attorney Scott Hunter asked if Okonskis deep sleep could have been a crash after coming down from a meth high. Deputy Bruce Rhoads with the Tama County Sheriffs Office, who took over the Okonski case after Tama police officer John Carr retired in 2012, talked about injuries Okonski had following a December 1999 incident. She initially told police Purk was responsible and he had threatened to break her neck. Later, she changed her account, saying a scratch was from a cat and bruises were from falling down. This change led to her being charged with malicious prosecution for allegedly lying. Rhoads also outlined several searches authorities have conducted in attempt to locate Okonskis remains. The first was in October 2003 when authorities received a tip that in 2000 someone had spotted freshly dug ground next to a red car on Don Purks salvage yard near Belle Plaine. Don Purk is a relative of Tait Purk. Rhoads said he flew over the site and took photos the informant used to pinpoint a location. The dig turned up bones that were determined to have belonged to an animal. In April 2004, a source told authorities Okonski had been buried on a farm, which prompted some small-scale hand digging and turned up no body. Then in the fall of 2005, acting on Wards information, investigators speculated the Columbia Wildlife Area could be the burial spot. A search involving flyovers, ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs again came up empty. Finally in March 2017, another tip came in Okonski was buried at a salvage yard on Tamas south edge blocks from Purks home. Rhoads said investigators excavated a clearing in the yard and found decaying clothing but not trace of a body. Trial will resume Monday at the Iowa County Courthouse in Marengo. WATERLOO Des Moines Democrat Nate Boulton, the most recent entrant into the 2018 gubernatorial race, is no stranger to taking on the current administration. The first-term state senator made a name for himself during the 2017 legislative session as part of the vocal resistance to the Republicans agenda. Boulton, 36, has been a part of three lawsuits taking on the executive branch. While he and the Democratic minority could not stop much during the session, Boulton saw some success. And hes taken a lesson from that. Gov. Branstad and (Lt. Gov.) Kim Reynolds can be defeated. We have proven that, Boulton told a crowd of more than 50 people gathered at Volks Haus in Waterloo on Saturday. Boulton, an attorney who focuses on workers issues, was involved in the lawsuits against the administration that focused on Branstads unilateral decisions to shutter the Iowa Juvenile Home, two Mental Health Institutes and Iowa Workforce Development offices. But it was what Boulton witnessed during this past legislative session that caused him to throw his hat in the ring. The whole agenda put, I think, a lot of people over the edge this year, said Boulton, who announced his bid Thursday from his Columbus Junction hometown. We have seen what their agenda has looked like now that they have a Republican House and a Republican Senate to work with. Its nothing about what they campaigned on. A handful of Democrats already are vying to run against Reynolds, who is expected to become governor after the U.S. Senate confirms Branstad as ambassador to China. Boulton is putting forth his own vision for Iowas future. We are in a fight for the soul of our state right now. There is no doubt about it, and its a fight we can win, Boulton said. Hes focused on improving schools and addressing water quality issues. But he also said the legislative priorities he resisted last session, including collective bargaining and workers compensation changes, also will define his campaign. Boulton was introduced by Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, one of 14 lawmakers who have already endorsed Boulton. Dotzler said in 21 years in the Legislature hes seen few politicians as talented as Boulton. I have never met anybody who is better prepared to stand up and fight for working families than Nate Boulton, Dotzler said in his introduction. Also in the running for the Democratic nomination are former Iowa Democratic Party Chair Andy McGuire, Rich Leopold, a former state Department of Natural Resources director, and former Des Moines School Board president Jon Neiderbach. State Rep. Todd Prichard has formed an exploratory committee and is expected to run. John Norris, a longtime Iowa Democrat who was a top aide to Tom Vilsack, also is considering it, as is Davenport Alderman Mike Matson. DES MOINES Prior to the 2016 election, political advocacy groups funded by billionaire brothers from Kansas donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates for the Iowa Statehouse and reached hundreds of thousands of Iowa homes via campaign mailers, phone calls and door-knocking. And during the recently concluded 2017 legislative session, those groups provided templates and advocated for multiple conservative bills that were passed into Iowa law. Throughout the session, Iowa Democrats accused Republican counterparts of passing multiple laws that were the will of out-of-state groups funded by Charles and David Koch, billionaire industrialists and big-money conservative donors from Kansas. The Democrats said those conservative initiatives weren't desired by Iowans, not even Iowa Republicans. Democrats charged throughout the often-contentious legislative session that Republican-supported bills that reformed public-employee collective bargaining, workers' compensation, medical malpractice and asbestos claims were not the priorities of Iowans, but instead were the priorities of the Koch brothers and two groups they fund Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council. The Koch brothers and corporate backers theyre the ones who want this bill, not the people of Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Bruce Hunter of Des Moines said during the three-day debate on the collective bargaining bill. Republicans deny their marching orders came from the Koch brothers or their political organizations, but the data shows the imprint of the Koch brothers and their groups are all over the 2017 session of the Legislature, starting with the 2016 election that produced all-Republican control at the Iowa Capitol for the first time in two decades. Campaign support Koch Industries political action committee donated $46,000 to Iowa Statehouse candidates in 2015 and 2016, according to state campaign finance records. All but $500 of that money went to Republican candidates. The largest donations went to Republican leaders: $7,500 to state Sen. Bill Dix, who after the election became Senate majority leader, and $5,000 to House Speaker Linda Upmeyer. And donations ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 went to Republican chairmen of key committees and candidates in competitive districts that were crucial in flipping control of the Senate from Democrats to Republicans. Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy organization funded by the Koch brothers, also was heavily involved in the campaign leading up to the 2016 election. While the group does not divulge its spending, it says during the 2016 campaign in Iowa, it made 718,408 phone calls, knocked on 52,903 doors and sent 318,048 mailers. Session support Americans for Prosperity also was active during the 2017 session, lobbying legislators and drumming up support for some of the GOPs biggest bills, including the public-employee collective bargaining reform. Met with great opposition from Democrats and public-employee unions, the bill, which has been signed into law, greatly reduced the benefits for which public employees can bargain. Multiple bills introduced by Republicans were carbon copies of model legislation offered by another Koch-funded group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The organization calls itself Americas largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism. Among the membership services it provides is model legislation for state lawmakers to introduce. Few bills introduced this year by Republicans followed ALEC models to the letter, but many were ideologically similar. A bill that limits claims for asbestos-related injuries was written with very similar wording to ALEC model legislation on the subject. The Iowa bills on collective bargaining and workers' compensation reform were not copied from ALEC models, making Democrats accusations ALEC wrote the bills erroneous. But the bills were similar in intent to ALEC model legislation. Influence Republicans deny their 2017 legislative agenda was written by out-of-state groups, including those funded by the Koch brothers, as Democrats claim. Republican legislators said their reform bills were needed to update Iowa laws and were desired by the Iowans who voted the GOP into control. Senate Republicans moved bills through this chamber focused on economic growth and improving career opportunities for Iowans, Dix, of Shell Rock, wrote in an emailed statement. "Democrats efforts to portray this agenda as a bizarre, grassy-knoll conspiracy theory show how fully and completely out of touch they are with the priorities of Iowans." Dix in his statement turned the tables on Democrats, accusing them of being beholden to union donors. The real story is how Iowa Democrats were showered with approximately $4 million from public sector labor over the last two election cycles, Dix said. It is no wonder Democrat Legislators are totally committed to their union bosses. A spokesman for Americans for Prosperity said the organization reached out to Iowa voters during the campaign and then advocated during the session for conservative policies Iowans wanted. The impact that (Americans for Prosperity) had on the 2017 legislative session is based on the work that weve been doing across the state for several years, said Drew Klein, the organizations state director and Capitol lobbyist. We have focused much of our efforts on having real conversations with Iowans, whether at our events or on their doorsteps, about the issues that need to be addressed. Klein was the focus of a partisan dust-up when he was photographed with Terry Branstad as the states Republican governor signed the collective bargaining bill into law. The bill signing was not advertised as a public event, and upset Democrats decried Kleins presence and photo as a victory lap for Iowa Republicans and Americans for Prosperity. Klein said Americans for Prosperity will be back in 2018 pushing for comprehensive tax reform. NEVADA With steam from a nearby ethanol plant visible behind him, the nations new agriculture secretary confirmed his support for the fuel and its production Friday. Sonny Perdue, recently confirmed as the U.S. secretary of agriculture, told an Iowa crowd you have nothing to worry about regarding the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard and President Donald Trumps commitment to support the industry. Did you hear what he said during the campaign? Renewable energy, ethanol, is here to stay, and were going to work for new technologies to be more efficient, Perdue said, later sporting a Dont Mess with the RFS pin. A veterinarian and former Georgia governor, Perdue gave a town hall-style speech on a cattle farm in Nevada, in Story County. Nevada is home to an ethanol production plan run by Lincolnway Energy and a cellulosic ethanol production plant run by DuPont. Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, hailed Perdues comments. We fully expect he will continue the USDAs legacy in this area and continue to aggressively pursue greater access to renewable fuels at the pump, Shaw said in a statement. The speech was pegged as Perdues first major policy talk since becoming agriculture secretary. While he stayed away from many specifics, Perdue made priorities of trade, support for farm labor and working as the nations chief agriculture salesman. Im going to be the unapologetic chief advocate, chief salesman for American agriculture products around the world. You grow em, were going to sell em, he said. Speaking with reporters after his talk, Perdue said the administration is looking at about a six-month long renegotiation period for the North American Free Trade Agreement. Members of Iowas congressional delegation U.S. Sens. Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst and U.S. Rep. Steve King joined Perdue, as did Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey. Fridays visit also came as rumors have swirled that the White House is eyeing Northey for a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Citing unnamed sources, political news website POLITICO reported April 27 that Northey was being looked at for deputy secretary, the departments No. 2 position. Northey has said himself that he would consider leaving his current position for a role with the USDA. I dont know what role that might be, Northey said on a call with reporters last week. I certainly would love to work with him as Iowa secretary of ag. If there is another job that is offered, I would be very willing to consider that as well. Perdue said he and his agency are still examining candidates for about 17 positions. He did not give hints about who he would tap for his deputy, but joked that Northeys name has been dropped including by Grassley. I think the timeline, youll probably hear some announcements in the next couple of weeks. Ive even had some suggestions from Iowa about some people, Perdue said with a wink. WATERLOO Music, food and childrens activities brought out a crowd Saturday at the RiverLoop Amphitheatre for Fiesta! A Celebration of Latino Heritage. Children gleefully climbed through a blow-up obstacle course and jumped in a bouncy house, including Dessy Stoychevas 3-year-old daughter. The event was just fun for the family, said Stoycheva of Waterloo, who was also there with her husband. Something fun to do and also take part in festivities that are related to the Mexican heritage. Fiesta! was taking place a day after Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexican-American culture that started as commemoration of an 1862 military victory. The family also watched traditional dance performances and we tried some food that we never tried before, said Stoycheva. Other performers throughout the day included Mariachi Los Amigos de ISU and Parranderos Latin Combo. Nearby, 9-year-old Jadda Howard of Waverly was getting her face painted or at least half of it in a ghostly white with her eyes and lips outlined in black. Its one of the characters from The Book of Life, an animated movie, she explained. She was at the festival with Loria Waskow, her mom. Its a good thing to show her different cultures, said Waskow. Actually, we just like to hang out together, added Howard. It sounded like a fun place to go. Rosa Lopez of Waterloo was sitting at the amphitheater with her 1- and 5-year-old children shortly after the dancing ended. The family attended because its a tradition to come here in celebration of Cinco do Mayo, she said. They expected to spend the day at the event. Her 5-year-old daughter, Briana Perez, said she enjoyed the bouncy house, coloring at one of the childrens booths and singing with the music during the dances. Later, in the afternoon, organizers also hoisted a pinata for children to whack with a stick and try breaking open. Madalina Tincu of Cedar Falls was at the festival with her 8-year-old son. They were enjoying the sunny, breezy weather while gathering with friends at the event. The native of Romania expressed appreciation for such festivities that highlight the cultures present in the Cedar Valley. I love this area, how diverse it can be, she said. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. KIRK C. FISHER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOUIS KEALOHA, as an individual and in his official capacity as Honolulu Chief of Police; CITY AND COUNTY OF HONOLULU, Defendants-Appellees. No. 14-16514 Decided: May 05, 2017 Before: Alex Kozinski, Michael Daly Hawkins, and Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges. COUNSEL Te-Hina Te-Moana Ickes (argued), Law Offices of Te-Hina Ickes, Honolulu, Hawaii; Donald L. Wilkerson, Law Office of Donald L. Wilkerson ALC, Honolulu, Hawaii; Alan Alexander Beck, Law Offices of Alan Beck, San Diego, California; for Plaintiff-Appellant. Curtis E. Sherwood (argued) and Sarah T. Casken, Deputies Corporation Counsel; Donna Y.L. Leong, Corporation Counsel; Department of the Corporation Counsel, Honolulu, Hawaii; for Defendants-Appellees. Kimberly Tsumoto Guidry and Marissa H. Luning, Department of the Attorney General, Honolulu, Hawaii, for Amicus Curiae State of Hawaii. Andrew E. Siegel, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. OPINION SUMMARY * Civil Rights The panel affirmed the district court's summary judgment in an action challenging the constitutionality of section 134-7 of the Hawaii Revised Statues, which prohibit plaintiff from owning or possessing firearms because of his 1997 state law conviction for harassment. The panel determined that although plaintiff stated that he challenged only section 134-7 of the Hawaii Revised Statute, that statute, in relevant part, merely incorporated federal law. Analyzing the federal statutes, the panel rejected plaintiff's contention that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9) was unconstitutional as applied to him. The panel first held that plaintiff's argument that his harassment conviction occurred many years ago, and that he has not committed any other crimes since that time, was not meaningfully distinguishable from the argument that this court rejected in United States v. Chovan, 735 F.3d 1127, 1136 (9th Cir. 2013). The panel also rejected plaintiff's argument that section 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional as applied to him because Hawaii law provides for only one of the four restoration mechanisms listed in section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii): gubernatorial pardon. The panel held that although this argument was not foreclosed by Chovan, plaintiff conceded that he had not applied for a gubernatorial pardon for his 1997 conviction. Thus, the panel concluded that plaintiff failed to avail himself of the one restoration mechanism that was available to him under Hawaii law, and therefore he was in no position to argue that Hawaii's restoration mechanisms were constitutionally insufficient. Ruminating, Judge Kozinksi stated that Hawaii's procedure for restoring Second Amendment rights by way of a gubernatorial pardon was notably slender and vested unbridled discretion in a government official. Judge Kozinski stated that while plaintiff's case did not require a review of Hawaii's restoration procedure, other cases will raise the issue. OPINION PER CURIAM: Kirk Fisher appeals the district court's adverse grant of summary judgment on the issue of whether section 134-7 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes constitutionally prohibits him from owning or possessing firearms because of his 1997 conviction for harassment in violation of section 711-1106 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291, and we affirm. BACKGROUND A resident of Hawaii and former owner of firearms, Fisher was convicted in 1997 of harass[ing] his wife and daughter in violation of section 711-1106 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Following that conviction, Fisher was placed on probation and surrendered his firearms to the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) in compliance with a state-court order. After completing his probation, Fisher requested the return of his firearms. The state court granted his request on the condition that there were no outstanding orders or circumstances that otherwise prohibited his possession of firearms under Hawaii or federal law. HPD then returned Fisher's firearms. More than ten years later, Fisher applied for a permit to acquire an additional firearm. In response, HPD not only denied Fisher's application but also informed him that he was prohibited from owning and possessing firearms altogether because of his 1997 conviction. HPD ordered Fisher to surrender or otherwise lawfully dispose of all firearms that he owned or possessed at that time. Fisher transferred ownership of his firearms to his wife and sued HPD in federal district court. Fisher sought monetary and injunctive relief against the City and County of Honolulu and HPD's Chief of Police, Louis Kealoha. Fisher alleged that he is qualified to own and possess firearms under Hawaii law and that HPD's denial of his permit application and its order to surrender his existing firearms violated his Second Amendment rights. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Fisher's 1997 harassment conviction constitutes a conviction for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence such that both federal and Hawaii law prohibit Fisher from possessing firearms. See 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9); Haw. Rev. Stat. 134-7(a). The district court agreed and granted summary judgment to the defendants on all claims. The district court also exercised its discretion to consider additional constitutional arguments that Fisher raised during the summary judgment proceedings, but determined that applying section 134-7 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes to Fisher did not violate the Second Amendment. STANDARD OF REVIEW We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. Universal Health Servs., Inc. v. Thompson, 363 F.3d 1013, 1019 (9th Cir. 2004). Because the material facts are not in dispute, we consider only whether the district court correctly applied the law. See id. We may affirm on any basis supported by the record. Satey v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 521 F.3d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir. 2008). DISCUSSION This appeal involves the interaction of three statutory provisions: (1) section 134-7(a) of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, which prohibits a person from owning or possessing firearms if that person is prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law; (2) 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons convicted of any misdemeanor crime of domestic violence; and (3) 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33)(B)(ii), which provides that a person shall not be considered to have been convicted of [a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence] if the conviction has been expunged or set aside, or is an offense for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored. Although Fisher states that he challenges only section 134-7, that statute, in relevant part, merely incorporates federal law. Consequently, much of his argument (and our analysis) focuses on the latter federal statutes. Fisher's argument proceeds in two parts. First, he contends that, as a matter of statutory construction, section 922(g)(9) applies only in states where each of the mechanisms listed in section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) (expungement, set-aside, pardon, and civil rights restoration) are available to restore Second Amendment rights. Second, he contends that even if the statute itself does not require the availability of all listed mechanisms, Hawaii's application of section 922(g)(9)'s prohibition to Fisher is unconstitutional without them. A. Interpretation of 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33)(B)(ii). The issue of statutory construction presented in this case is easily resolved. As we have said, section 922(g)(9) provides that [i]t shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to possess firearms. 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9). A person shall not be considered to have been convicted of a [misdemeanor crime of domestic violence] if the conviction has been expunged or set aside, or is an offense for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored unless the pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms. Id. 921(a)(33)(B)(ii). The plain language of these statutory provisions makes clear that section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) creates exceptions to section 922(g)(9)'s general prohibition, rather than preconditions to its application. Cases interpreting 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(20), a similar provision which exempts felons from section 922(g)(1)'s prohibition on firearm possession on the same four grounds, have reached the same conclusion. See Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368, 373 (1994) (rejecting the assumption that Congress intended felons convicted by all jurisdictions to have access to all the procedures (pardon, expungement, set-aside, and civil rights restoration) specified in [section 921(a)(20)]); Logan v. United States, 552 U.S. 23, 3536 (2007) (noting that sections 921(a)(20) and 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) are corresponding and interpreting them in parallel for that reason). Therefore, as a matter of statutory construction, the unavailability of a procedure for either expungement, set-aside, pardon, or civil rights restoration does not remove Fisher from the ambit of section 922(g)(9)'s prohibition or, by extension, Hawaii Revised Statute section 134-7(a)'s prohibition. B. Second Amendment Challenge. The constitutional question implicated in this case, on the other hand, is harder than it seems. To determine whether a law impermissibly infringes Second Amendment rights, we must ask whether the challenged law burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment, and if so, we apply a level of scrutiny that corresponds to the nature and degree of the burden. United States v. Chovan, 735 F.3d 1127, 1136 (9th Cir. 2013). We have previously determined that section 922(g)(9) burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment and upheld its constitutionality, facially and as-applied, under intermediate scrutiny. Id. at 113742. Chovan considered, among other things, whether section 922(g)(9) could be constitutionally applied to a defendant based on a fifteen-year-old domestic violence misdemeanor conviction. Id. at 114142. We recognized that keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers is an important government interest and noted the high rate of recidivism for domestic abusers and the number and likelihood of domestic violence deaths involving the use of a firearm. Id. at 1140. We also rejected Chovan's argument that section 922(g)(9) could not constitutionally apply to him because he had committed no further acts of domestic violence in the fifteen years following his conviction. Id. at 114142. Even assuming that Chovan had committed no such acts, we explained, Chovan had failed to adduce sufficient evidence: (1) contradicting the government's evidence regarding the high rate of domestic violence recidivism; and (2) showing that a domestic abuser who has not re-offended after fifteen years is unlikely to do so again. Id. Thus, under intermediate scrutiny, the statute addressed a substantial governmental interest and was tailored sufficiently to satisfy intermediate scrutiny. Id. at 1142. Here, Fisher argues that section 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional as applied to him for two reasons. First, Fisher argues, his harassment conviction occurred many years ago, and he has not committed any other crimes since that time. This argument is not meaningfully distinguishable from the one that we rejected in Chovan, and we reject it here as well. See id. at 114142. Second, Fisher argues that section 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional as applied to him because Hawaii law provides for only one of the four restoration mechanisms listed in section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii): gubernatorial pardon. Though this second argument is not foreclosed by Chovan, we decline to address it here. Fisher concedes that he has not applied for a gubernatorial pardon for his 1997 conviction. Thus, Fisher has failed to avail himself of the one restoration mechanism that is available to him under Hawaii law, and he is in no position to argue that Hawaii's restoration mechanisms are constitutionally insufficient. See In re Coleman, 560 F.3d 1000, 1005 (9th Cir. 2009) (Where a dispute hangs on future contingencies that may or may not occur, it may be too impermissibly speculative to present a justiciable controversy. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). CONCLUSION Because we affirm the district court's decision on the basis of Fisher's as-applied challenge to section 134-7(a) of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, we need not consider Fisher's remaining arguments regarding section 134-7(b). Nor do we reach his due process argument regarding Hawaii's gubernatorial pardon process, which he raises for the first time on appeal. See AlohaCare v. Haw. Dep't of Human Servs., 572 F.3d 740, 744 (9th Cir. 2009) (Absent exceptional circumstances, we generally will not consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal.). AFFIRMED. A state's procedure for restoring Second Amendment rights bears directly on the degree to which the state encumbers those rights. See United States v. Chovan, 735 F.3d 1127, 1138 (9th Cir. 2013). Thus, despite defendants' and amici's furious protestations to the contrary, we must consider Hawaii's available restoration procedures. Our modern Second Amendment jurisprudence trains its sights on the degree to which the state burdens the right and whether that burden is tailored to the state's goal. See Fyock v. Sunnyvale, 779 F.3d 991, 9981000 (9th Cir. 2015); see also District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 628 n.27 (2008). Whether a state has a procedure for restoring Second Amendment rights plainly affects both the weight of the burden and our measure of its tailoring. Criminal punishment, of course, always involves the deprivation of rights, but such deprivations can still raise constitutional concerns. See, e.g., Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) (marriage and speech); Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985) (equal protection); Mayweathers v. Newland, 258 F.3d 930 (9th Cir. 2001) (free exercise). The extent of the deprivation matters. Most recently, for example, federal courts have looked skeptically at lifelong restrictions on sex offenders' Internet access. See, e.g., Doe v. Prosecutor, Marion Cty., 705 F.3d 694, 695 (7th Cir. 2013); see also Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 368 (2016) (mem.) (granting certiorari on a similar issue). While restrictions on each right have their own distinctive historyand restrictions on the Second Amendment are no exception, see Heller, 554 U.S. at 62628it is unsurprising that we might look askance at a state's permanent restriction on a misdemeanant's right to bear arms. Hawaii's procedure for restoring Second Amendment rights is notably slender: The governor can pardon someone. But gubernatorial clemency is without constraint; as Blackstone put it, an executive's mercy springs from a court of equity in his own breast. 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries *390. This unbounded discretion sits in uneasy tension with how rights function. A right is a check on state power, a check that loses its force when it exists at the mercy of the state. Government whim is the last refuge of a precarious right. And while Fisher's case gives us no occasion to seek better refuge, others will. In other contexts, we don't let constitutional rights hinge on unbounded discretion; the Supreme Court has told us, for example, that [t]he First Amendment prohibits the vesting of such unbridled discretion in a government official. Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 133 (1992). Despite what some may continue to hope, the Supreme Court seems unlikely to reconsider Heller. The time has come to treat the Second Amendment as a real constitutional right. It's here to stay. FOOTNOTES . This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. . Earlier in the proceedings, the district court granted preliminary relief to Fisher based on its determination that Fisher's harassment conviction did not constitute a crime of domestic violence. After the Supreme Court's decision United States v. Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405, 1410 (2014), the defendants filed a new motion for summary judgment, and relying on Castleman, the district court determined that Fisher's conviction did, in fact, constitute a crime of domestic violence. On appeal, Fisher no longer contests that the harassment offense underlying his 1997 conviction qualifies categorically as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Therefore, we will assume that Fisher is a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9). . The defendants argue that our decision in Chovan forecloses this argument as well. Unlike Fisher, however, Chovan never argued that section 922(g)(9) was unconstitutional as applied to him because California (Chovan's state of conviction) provided too few of the restoration mechanisms listed in section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii). See Chovan, 735 F.3d at 113742. Indeed, in Chovan, we applied intermediate rather than strict judicial scrutiny in part because section 922(g)(9)'s burden on Second Amendment rights was lightened by those mechanisms. Id at 1138; see also id. at 1151 (Bea, J., concurring) (concluding that section 922(g)(9) was narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest in part because of the restoration mechanisms listed in section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii)). Thus, we reject the defendants' contention that Chovan forecloses Fisher's second argument here. . Section 134-7(b) of the Hawaii Revised Statutes provides that a person may not own, possess, or control any firearm if the person has been convicted in [Hawaii] or elsewhere of having committed a felony, or any crime of violence, or an illegal sale of any drug. In his briefing, Fisher argues that insofar as section 134-7(b) independently prohibits him from possessing a firearm as a person convicted of a crime of violence, that provision violates the Second Amendment, because it allows no exceptions for expungement, set-aside, pardon, or the restoration of civil rights. We do not reach Fisher's challenge to section 134-7(b) because, as we have explained, we conclude that Fisher can constitutionally be denied a firearms permit pursuant to section 134-7(a). Per Curiam Opinion; Concurrence by Judge Kozinski Erica Benner in The Daily Beast: In the winter of 1538, an Englishman living in Italy travelled to Florence. Cardinal Reginald Pole was a devout adherent of the Church of Rome at a time when the English Reformation threatened to tear the Church apart. He had fled into self-imposed exile from his native shores after opposing King Henry VIIIs divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and settled in Italy. Along with his other business in Florence, Pole had a personal mission. About a decade before this journey, hed had a conversation with Thomas Cromwell, a man of low origins who now served as the kings most intimate counsellor. Cromwell had stopped at nothingor so it seemed to Poleto indulge Henrys lusts and blasphemies. It was this ambitious adviser who, Pole believed, had masterminded the monarchs divorce, put England in a state of war with the Church, had priests and noblemen murderedand had always found some righteous pretext to color these deeds. Contemplating the evils that had driven him from his homeland, Pole longed to get his hands on a book about statecraft that Cromwell had praised when theyd met. The books author was a citizen of Florence. He had died over 10 years previously, so Pole could not meet him in person. But if the cardinal could read that book, it might help him better understand Cromwells mind and Henrys actions, and thereby make sense of what was happening to his poor England. On acquiring a copy, Pole began to read with fascination, then with growing horror. I had scarcely begun to read the book, he later wrote, when I recognized the finger of Satan, though it bore the name of a human author and was written in a discernibly human style. The Florentines text laid bare all the doctrines that seemed to guide Cromwells policies. Princes, it said, should build their states on fear rather than love. Since they live in a world teeming with lies and violence, they have no choice but to practise duplicity. Indeed, the prince who best knows how to deceive will be the most successful. In short, Pole declared, the book Cromwell so admired is full of things that stink of Satans every wickedness. Its author is clearly an enemy of the human race. The book that so appalled Cardinal Pole was the Prince, and the name of its author Niccolo Machiavelli. Aghast and intrigued, Pole was determined to find out more about the man who could write such things. Machiavelli, it transpired, had at one time caused a good deal of trouble for Florences own princely family, the Medici. In 1512, a year before Machiavelli wrote his most notorious work, the new Medici government had ejected him from the civil-service posts hed held for nearly 15 years, then imprisoned and tortured him on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the principality. These fragments of biography must have come up when Pole asked his Florentine hosts about their compatriot. For, he wrote, when he told them his thoughts about the book, they excused the author, answering the charge with the same argument that Machiavelli himself had offered when they had confronted him. Player to watch on every South Dakota HS football state final team A few of the players expected to play big roles in their teams' pursuit of a South Dakota high school football state title this weekend. Dont wait. With near-instant approval and loans for all credit ratings, Car Loans Bank now offers British Columbia car loans Online resources are offered, along with an easy-to-follow application process, to make buying a car simple Dont wait. With near-instant approval and loans for all credit ratings, Car Loans Bank now offers British Columbia car loans With summer quickly approaching, many car owners are looking to upgrade their vehicles or invest in a more reliable car. Two huge obstacles to achieving this simple goal have now been overcome by finance broker Car Loans Bank. Operating in British Columbia car loans are offered to nearly all applicants, no matter what sort of credit history they might have. The offer also includes almost all types of vehicle as well. 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British Columbia bad credit car loans Media Contact Company Name: Car Loans Bank Contact Person: Shama Craig Email: info@carloansbank.com Phone: +1 (855) 261-9884 Address:1120 Finch Avenue West, Suite 701-1622 City: Toronto State: Ontario Country: Canada Website: https://carloansbank.com/ Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park will present a special 45-minute program that will look at class conflict within the ranks of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. This program will begin at the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center on Saturday, May 13 from 2-3:30 p.m. and will car caravan to Brock Field. There program is free. Participants will catch a glimpse of the class issues that began dividing the Confederate Army in 1863 as some soldiers began grumbling that the conflict had become a rich mans war and a poor mans fight. This program will look at several cases where tensions within the ranks began to show as the Army of Tennessee entered the Battle of Chickamauga. As a reminder, dress appropriately for conditions and bring along a bottle of water and a folding chair if you like. For more information about upcoming programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, please contact the Lookout Mountain Visitor Center at (423) 821-7786, the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at (706) 866-9241, or visit the parks website at www.nps.gov/chch. Like you, I have several Google alerts set for autism news. I usually breeze down the list of articles muttering, "Meh, duh, OK, Oh that's a good story, great kid, how wonderful..." This week (at least) three stories hit that helped me acheive a new weight loss number for the week. The hard way. How is it that teachers and caretakers think that our loved ones are so inhuman and unworthy of respect that they can abuse them in a way that would violate the rules of the Geneva Convention and yet go almost unnoticed by the world? Not here. Check out the stories below. And feel free to share your own in the comments. It's not the cheeriest Sunday news - but certainly deserves thought and even prayer. KS Dad Sues Roanoke VA School Board for $20,000,000 for Beatings on Bus Thomas Kilpatrick, 47, is accusing the two women of physically abusing his 12-year-old autistic son on his way to the Laurel Regional Special Education Center, a special needs school in Lynchburg. Lawyers for the family say that boy is still suffering from permanent emotional damage more than two years later. Their most compelling evidence is an hour and a half worth of surveillance video from the school bus. They say it captures the autistic boy being hit, kicked and even choked by the former school employees. (You can watch the video to the right.) P. Brent Brown is an attorney for the Kilpatrick family. "When people look at the surveillance video they will be horrified," said Kilpatrick from his Roanoke office. The suit alleges 12-year-old Timothy was strapped into a shoulder harness the morning of September 24, 2009 when the former aide hit him repeatedly with fly swatter, kicked him, and later sprayed an aerosol chemical in his face. Child Sprayed with Aerosol on Bus (This is the same child as in the story above) New video given to WSLS on Thursday, claims to show a second instance where a 11-year-old boy with autism was physically abused by former Bedford County Schools employees. Horrific video shows autistic boy, 11, screaming for mercy as he is kicked, choked and hit by driver and helper on school bus Autism Advocates Upset Teacher Cleared In Restraining Student 12-Year-Old Boy Tried Up, Tipped Back In Chair Autism advocates are concerned an Indiana Court of Appeals' decision to drop charges against a special education teacher who helped restrain a special needs student could send the wrong message to Indiana teachers.Catherine Littleton, a teacher at Perry Meridian Middle School, was originally charged with confinement, battery and neglect of a dependent in connection with her treatment of a 12-year-old boy with autism in February 2010... Tennessees 2017 spring hunting season for gray, fox and red squirrels opens Saturday, May 13 and will continue through Sunday, June 11. The daily bag limit is 10, the same for the fall/winter squirrel season which is held from late August to the end of February. There are five species of tree squirrels found in Tennessee. Two species, the southern flying squirrel and the northern flying squirrel, are not hunted. They are small, nocturnal and rarely seen. For more information on Tennessee hunting seasons and license information, obtain a 2016-17 Tennessee Hunting and Trapping Guide, available at TWRA Regional Offices and at hunting and fishing license agents or go online to TWRAs website www.tnwildlife.org to view a copy of the guide. A Possible Political Solution for Syria Syria's religious and ethnic minorities are faced with difficult choices as the Syrian conflict shows no sign of abating. They, along with the rest of the country, have suffered at the hands of the Assad regime, which has unrelentingly assaulted the civilian populace and persecuted any political, religious or intellectual figure that dares question the Assad family's legitimacy to rule Syria. Rich in diversity, Syria hosts a significant number of Syriac [Assyrian] Christians and other Christian denominations, as well as a Kurdish community that under Baathist rule was marginalized. Many pro-Iran media outlets in the West continue to push the narrative that without the Assad regime, Syria's minorities will face almost sure destruction. In Washington, this narrative has gained much currency among a vast spectrum of politicians. One of Congress' most colorful proponents of the Assad regime, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, from California, recently used this tired canard while attempting to block additional congressional sanctions on the regime. And while it may be easy to laugh off characters such as Rohrabacher, American social media are packed with fake news sites claiming that the Assad regime defends Christians and other minorities in Syria. I was recently in Cairo where I had the chance to talk with Syrian Christian, Arab and Kurdish opposition figures. On May 3, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jarba, a Shammar tribal leader and a leading Syrian opposition figure, led a conference of the Syrian National Democratic council hosted by Cairo. Al-Jarba is leading a group of Arab fighters in the eastern Syrian countryside who are helping the Kurds and other Syrian rebels battle Daesh. This gathering was a sign of Kurdish-Arab and Muslim-Christian solidarity. Al-Jarba was joined by the head of the Syrian Kurdish National Council and the head of the Syriac Council. The Syrian National Democratic Council and its diverse members want to impress that the Assad regime does not put Syrian Christian interests above all. According to Rudaw, an English language Kurdish news service, Al-Jarba has raised a tribal force of approximately 3,000 Syrian Arab fighters to battle Daesh in the Raqqa countryside. US special forces recently agreed to provide training and support to Jarba's Syrian Elite Forces that seek to encircle the remaining pockets of Daesh fighters and cut them off from the group's self-declared capital Raqqa. A formula that may be successful in the fight against Daesh will require Arab-Kurdish cooperation, as well as the cooperation of Syriac fighters from Christian villages in northeast Syria. President of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq Masoud Barazani could, under one scenario, lend the support of Kurdish peshmerga to help Sunni Arab forces and allies not only defeat Daesh in Raqqa, but also to ensure that Daesh does not re-emerge. This would first necessitate an end to the fight against Daesh in Mosul. Compounding the difficulty of finding a sustainable strategy against Daesh, US forces partnered in Syria mainly with the problematic PYD, which the Turkish government considers a terror group. Moreover, there is no real plan for after Raqqa. When asked this week who will administer Raqqa once Daesh is defeated, a US military representative failed to come up with a clear answer. The PYD will attempt to place proxies to administer the city, and this could be problematic, for it could offer a reason to the Assad regime and Iran -- who both cooperate from time to time with the PYD -- to eventually take over Raqqa and launch a campaign to retake the rest of eastern Syria. At this time, a sustainable peace agreement for Syria is nowhere near the horizon. The ongoing discussions in Astana, Kazakhstan, for cease-fire parameters do not offer much hope in the long run. Although a deal appears to have been struck on "zones of de-escalation," neither side can agree on the details of a cease-fire nor on a true enforcement mechanism. Indeed, the Russian government remains stalwart in its denial that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhun, which makes it difficult to see how Moscow could prevent future Assad regime attacks against civilians in the prescribed zones. It also means that the fighting will continue for some time to come. So the question is how to ensure that Syria's Christians and Kurds are protected, not only from the extremist Daesh excesses but also from an Assad regime that is now totally dependent on Iran-backed Shiite extremist militants? A three-prong approach is in order. First, ensure that the final push to liberate Raqqa and the strategic city of Deir Ezzor is not undertaken without a clear political framework. Two, ensure that Sunni Arab tribes are offered the necessary tools and military support to defeat Daesh and hold liberated territory. And three, ensure that any political solution for Syria includes groups such as the National Democratic Council, to show the world that Kurds and Christians can coexist with Arab countrymen in Syria without the need for Assad's rule. Controversy Over the Political Representation of Assyrians in Iraq Baghdad -- A delegation of Christian politicians belonging to various Iraqi political groups wanted to meet the country's top institutional representatives to focus their attention on proposals and requests for the reconstruction of North-Iraqi areas freed from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (Daesh), and especially regarding the future political and administrative structure of the Nineveh Plain. On May 3, the group of five Christian politicians, including Iraqi parliamentarian Yonadam Kanna (Secretary General of the Assyrian Democratic Movement) and Romeo Akari (President of the Bethnahrein Party), were received by President Fuad Masum and Salim Abdullah al Jaburi, President of the Iraqi Parliament. The politicians - who presented themselves as representatives of the "Christian component" - submitted a list of requests to their interlocutors regarding, in particular, the implementation of the political guidelines - already approved by the Iraqi Parliament in 2014 - aimed at granting greater administrative autonomy to the Province of Nineveh, where the traditional territories of Christian Christian communities are concentrated. Among the proposals outlined by Christian politicians there is also a proposal to seek and obtain an international resolution that guarantees the protection of the demographic balance of the Nineveh Plain and the commitment to protect the populations of that area from sectarian violence. While the political delegation carried out its round of consultations in the Iraqi capital, and met with Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, the local media re-launched statements of leaders of the so-called "Babylonian Brigades", a paramilitary group that aims to present itself as "Christian militia" involved in war operations against Daesh. The leaders of the Babylonian Brigade rejected the allegation of the delegation composed by Kanna and other politicians to present themselves as "representatives" of the Iraqi Christian communities. "Actually," points out Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael to Agenzia Fides, "it seems that the competition to claim the political representation of Christians in view of the 2018 parliamentary elections has begun. And regarding the future of the Nineveh plain", adds the Primate of the Chaldean Church "the priority now is to support the return of refugees, the reconstruction of cities and villages devastated by the war. It is not the moment to lose sight of major projects, which, however, appear to have little realism, in an uncertain stage, also marked by the will of an autonomous state pursued by the Kurdish". Iraqi Assyrian Villages to Begin Rebuilding Process With the First 100 Homes Qaraqosh, Iraq saw part of the destruction made by ISIS of the Christian villages in the Nineveh Plain. ( Aid to the Church in Need) The long road home for the thousands of Iraqi Christians displaced by ISIS is set to begin Monday with the construction of 100 houses-- the first of an estimated 13,000 houses to be built in a venture that will cost about $250 million. Ethnic and religious minority groups like the Assyrian Christians were driven from their ancestral homelands across the Nineveh Plain, a vast region in Northern Iraq, when the Islamic State attempted to establish their caliphate. But now that ISIS forces have mostly been driven out of the region, the Assyrians are looking to return and rebuild. The work is finally beginning due to an organization called the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee (NRC), which has received funding from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a pastoral aid organization associated with the Catholic Church. The NRC will break ground on Monday in the Assyrian towns of Bartella, Karamless and Qaraqosh, when they will either repair or completely rebuild the first 100 homes. Completion of these homes is expected to be completed by summer's end. "One hundred is not a large number compared to the many thousands that will eventually be worked on, but it's a very significant number," Joop Koopman with Aid to the Church in Need told Fox News. "It's a concrete sign that this community is on its way to being rebuilt." The NRC was set up earlier this year to assist in the planning and supervision of the reconstruction program, which is expected to cost upwards of $250 million. According to a survey conducted by ACN this past winter, about 40 percent of Christian families--roughly 12,000 men, women, and children who fled ISIS when they captured the region--have expressed interest in returning to their homes in the Nineveh Plain. Much of the infrastructure in the Assyrian villages, like stores and shops, will need to be rebuilt. ( Aid to the Church in Need) "For a long time people have been saying that Iraqi Christians don't want to return home." Robert Nicholson, Executive Director of The Philos Project, a humanitarian aid organization focused on promoting a pluralist Middle East, told Fox News. "Having spoken to many of them, both inside Iraq and around the world, I can tell you that's absolutely untrue. Many of them would love to come back, and some of them actually are." Nicholson added that protection for the Assyrians as they return will be key. "The big question for all of them is security. Just two years after the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government abandoned them, weaponless, in the path of ISIS, these Christians are still unsure that anyone has their back," he said. Relief workers survey the damage to a church in Qaraqosh. ( Aid to the Church in Need) "So long as the Nineveh Plain remains effectively divided between Baghdad and Erbil, the security question remains front and center." Also known as the Plain of Mosul, the Nineveh Plain has long been the ancestral homeland for the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, along with other religious minority groups like the Yazidis. The villages of Bashiqa, Bartella, Karamles, Qaraqosh and Tellisqof were recently liberated from ISIS by the Nineveh Protection Units (NPU) and Iraqi Special Forces, after the city of Mosul was taken back from the terror group, but many of these villages have been left in complete disarray by the terror group. Most of the infrastructure has been reduced to rubble; in others, dangerous chemical compounds have been dumped, polluting the ground. "It's a catastrophe," one Assyrian from Bashiqa named Laith told Fox News in December. Like many from his village, he was forced to flee two years ago for Kurdish-held territory. "We are hearing that the situation at Bashiqa is terrible ... [ISIS] has destroyed it all," he said. "We hope to return with everyone here. God willing, we will return soon." The 2017 spring hunting season for turkeys is heading down the home stretch with the harvest number already surpassing the 30,000 mark for the 15th straight year. Heading into the final two weekends of the spring season, hunters have harvested a total of 30,289 turkeys. That is in comparison to 28,358 at the same time in 2016. The male harvest this spring so far is 30,090 while the female harvest is 199. Close to 26,000 are classified in the adult category. Maury County leads the way among the counties with a harvest of 753, slightly ahead of Dickson Countys 747. Greene County is third with 731, followed by Montgomery 677, Sumner 630, Henry 602, Hardeman 566, Hardin 558, Stewart 556, and Wilson 555 to round out the top 10. The 2017 spring turkey closes at sunset on Sunday, May 14. Hunting hours for turkeys are 30 minutes before legal sunrise until legal sunset. May 5, 2017 MOSUL, Iraq Its better than it was, a shoe salesman in a small outdoor market on the outskirts of east Mosul said, carefully choosing his words. Ashraf Shahabs stand is full of shoes from Turkey and Syria, but there are hardly any customers. Yet things are better than during the occupation by the Islamic State (IS), or Daesh, as it is called locally. Then, there were hardly any goods, as the roads to Mosul were closed, Shahab said. The situation was terrible, and people had to sell even their clothes to be able to eat. His market is situated in the Gogjali neighborhood, the first to be liberated from IS in October 2016. It became the hub for all trade, with most of the products initially coming in from the neighboring Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The retail market has moved to Gogjali, and shops opened, some of them even lining the pavement with luxury items like air conditioners, washing machines and bicycles. Shahab cannot afford a trade like that; he is happy some of the bigger businessmen have come forward to help with stock. They allow us to pay them only after we have sold the products. Shahabs clients shop mostly in the late afternoon. Many returned from the camps they fled to, and others escaped from the other side of the river, where the battle still rages. And as the government has started paying the first few of its civil servants their salaries again, his modestly priced shoes do get sold. But not to Ilhan Amshed, who lost 35 of her family members in air raids in west Mosul. Her brother lost his wife there, she said, and now she looks after him and his three children. She shops for cheap vegetables in the open market of the Nabi Yunus neighborhood, like many others internally displaced from the west side. Nobody helps us, only sometimes a nongovernmental organization, she said. For that reason, Mumen Mohammed Younis at Al-Malika drugstore told Al-Monitor, Cheap sells best. Women come here mainly for the inexpensive shampoos and beauty products. Yet, in general, the whole bazaar is doing better than during Daesh. Then the trade was really weak. Sales dropped after a recent missile attack on the market, which destroyed the shop and killed its owner, whose picture is pinned between the shelves. But still it is better than during the occupation, Younis said, and it will really get better once the government starts to pay salaries in earnest. For Adiba Mohammed, it is her fathers pension that keeps her family alive. Her daughter Ahra, who still wears the niqab that was obligatory during the IS occupation but no longer is, shows the milk and diapers they bought. Before Daesh, we could buy whatever we wanted. Now we get help from our neighbor, and sometimes from an NGO for oil and sugar, Mohammed said. Her father only receives his pension once every two months, and three families depend on it. Now we all live in the house of my brother. The pensions kept coming, even when Baghdad cut the salaries of all government workers in Mosul in 2015. The pensions have saved many lives, said Abu Safa, an economics lecturer at Mosul University who prefers not to disclose his name, still fearful of repercussions by IS followers. The pensions played, and still do play, an important role. Three or even four families live off one. Thanks to his retired father-in-law, he does, too. His salary is not being paid, but like most other teachers and lecturers, he has gone back to work. Most people in Mosul are dependent on government salaries. Some say the payments will restart for real only after the whole city has been liberated, others think Baghdad cannot afford the burden of the Mosul salaries anymore. Abu Safa pointed out that IS looted the banks and took over the economy. They became the most powerful, and the new rich. And they wanted to get still more money, taxing everything. By stopping all work, they tried to make us all dependent on them. That did not happen. When savings ran out and all gold and jewelry had been sold, people survived on someones pension and whatever they were sent from family outside. Even businessmen had to close down, said Abu Safa. Daesh wanted only people with whom they had a good relationship. That happened to salesman Salem Nather Abdullah, who is now selling fruit and vegetables in the busy Gogjali area, but previously had a shop in the wholesale market in west Mosul. Daesh wanted me to buy my own shop. If I did not, they had three other buyers lined up. I left because I had no money. I did not earn much, as the situation was bad. Since the liberation, the wholesale trade has picked up considerably. Abdullahs shop in Gogjali is busy with shopkeepers choosing their purchases and a lorry arriving full of onions. During the occupation, Abdullahs goods came mainly from Mosul, as all the lines were cut. Now Turkish and Iranian goods come from Kurdistan, but most is Iraqi, from Baghdad. Soon we will have the watermelons from Samarra again. But what is still missing is quality control, he said, and a central wholesale market, like the one in west Mosul that was destroyed in the war. The government in Baghdad must come and take care of this. All depends on Baghdad. Economics expert Abu Safa expects that the economy in Mosul will be revived and continue running mainly on government salaries, just like before IS. When staff return to the institutions, they will be able to spend their money in the shops, and the private sector will revive. Sure, factories were destroyed, but we never had much industry anyway, as products could not compete with those from outside. Soon banks will reopen. What it is really all about is money. May 5, 2017 Mona Mohammed has been trying to adapt to a new lifestyle that was imposed on her by the Syrian regime's siege of eastern Ghouta, to the east of Damascus, on March 21. Mohammed, a teacher based in the city of Douma the most populated city in opposition-controlled Ghouta has been forced to bake at home and cook on firewood due to the lack of gas and the exorbitant price of bread. She rushes to recharge her electronic devices as soon as the generators start operating, because generators, the only source of electricity, only run for about 1 hours whenever residents have the fuel to power them. Ever since the regime closed the al-Wafideen checkpoint, the living conditions have been getting worse by the day, she told Al-Monitor. On March 21, the regime forces closed the al-Wafideen crossing, which is named after a nearby Palestinian refugee camp. This crossing served as an outlet from which the opposition forces in eastern Ghouta brought in essential supplies, though the regime had control over the type and size of these supplies. In recent weeks, many food items have been unavailable in the market, such as rice, sugar and potatoes, as well as gas and fuel, Mohammed said. Prices have increased threefold. The price of a kilogram of sugar increased to 3,000 Syrian pounds (about $14), while the bread bag price soared to 1,000 Syrian pounds (about $5). In conjunction with the closure of the al-Wafideen crossing, the opposition-controlled eastern neighborhoods of Damascus namely Barza, al-Qaboun and Tishrin witnessed a military escalation on the part of the regime forces aimed at settling the battle in the regimes favor. Although the opposition factions in control of those neighborhoods had signed a truce with the regime in early 2014 whereby the rebels are entitled to remain in place and the fighting stops in return for the entry of goods into these neighborhoods through the Barza crossing the Syrian regime completely closed the Barza crossing Feb. 17. In addition, the regime forces, backed by heavy Russian aircraft shelling, have been attacking al-Qaboun neighborhood on a daily basis since Feb. 2, in a way not witnessed in the area for three years. The regime forces broke through the opposition's defense lines on April 24 and isolated the neighborhoods of al-Qaboun and Tishrin from the Barza neighborhood and seized al-Hafiz Street, located between al-Qaboun and Barza. Media activist Abdullah al-Mohammad, who is a resident of al-Qaboun neighborhood, confirmed this in a conversation with Al-Monitor. [Bashar al-] Assad's forces are seeking to advance at all costs. They are destroying everything to move forward," he said. Up until the closure of the Barza crossing, the eastern neighborhoods of Damascus that were part of the truce had been serving as a second outlet for eastern Ghouta. And while the regime forces isolated the eastern neighborhoods of Damascus from Ghouta following their seizure of the Damascus-Homs highway in June 2013, there still was a network of tunnels between the two areas. However, with the closure of the Barza and al-Wafideen crossings and the regime's seizure of most of the tunnels al-Rahma tunnel that links Ghouta to al-Qaboun being the most recent both the eastern neighborhoods of Damascus and Ghouta have become increasingly besieged. The Syrian regime has seemingly become devoted to settling the battle in eastern Damascus. After the al-Wafideen crossing generated enormous profit for the regime's officials and the merchants close to the regime, as the goods entering Ghouta were priced at tenfold their price in Damascus, the regime managed to settle the battle in other Damascus suburbs: Wadi Barada, Daraya, Maadimiya and al-Tall city, which are now devoid of any opposition forces. Activist Ammar al-Bushi, who lives in the city of Irbin, told Al-Monitor that the Ghouta residents are suffering under the harsh siege that has been imposed on them, in particular because in May 2016 the opposition forces lost southern Ghouta, which is a fertile strategic area from which most of the residents needs originate. In other words, this poses a threat to Ghoutas food stocks. The internal fighting between the opposition factions was the direct cause behind the opposition's loss of the southern part of Ghouta last year. Since April 28, the fighting between those factions has restarted at a more violent pace. Bushi wondered which area would fall in the hands of the regime this year. He gave the answer to this question later, saying, Al-Qaboun, which the regime has been continuously attacking for weeks. On April 28, Jaish al-Islam, the largest opposition group in Ghouta, attacked the headquarters of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (former al-Qaeda affiliate) and Al-Rahman Corps in the areas of Irbin, Kafar Batna, al-Ash'ari and Hezzeh. According to Bushi, despite the April 30 demonstrations in which thousands of people took part calling for an end to the bloodshed and for pointing guns at the regime, clashes were ongoing and intensifying between the opposition factions in the city of Irbin as of May 3. In a statement issued April 30, Jaish al-Islam said the objective of the attack is to end the presence of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in eastern Ghouta and dissolve the alien ideology that has dragged our revolution into a scourge. Jaish al-Islam claims that it is only attacking Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and that 70% of the forces have been dismantled in Ghouta. But its attacks also include Al-Rahman Corps, which accused Jaish al-Islam of taking over its stations in Madira, Beit Sawa and Katibat Aleftaris, all the while attacking the two towns of Zamalka and Sakba, where Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was never deployed. The clashes left more than 150 faction members dead, medical sources told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, the latest of which being Deputy Commander of Al-Rahman Corps Capt. Abu Najib. Jaish al-Islam has seemingly failed to fully control Ghouta as it started a battle beyond its capacity, and despite using tanks, it has thus far failed to settle the battle against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, while Al-Rahman Corps is still significantly powerful. There is no doubt that Jaish al-Islams inability to settle the battle in its favor will have negative consequences on the cohesion of the opposition fronts in Ghouta. In addition to the state of tension and distrust that will accompany the opposition fighters, the factions will be watching out for an attack from the back amid no sufficient reinforcements to the fronts the regime is attacking. The oppositions possible loss of the neighborhoods of Barza, Tishrin and al-Qaboun will allow the regime to tighten its grip on eastern Ghouta and then devote itself to attacking it. Meanwhile, the opposition will have been drained by the internal fighting on the one hand and the siege on the other. Editor's note: This article has been updated since its initial publication. May 5, 2017 Mediators from Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum May 4 to create four safe zones for civilians in Syria, a major milestone in the fourth round of cease-fire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Speaking at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing May 5, Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Alexander Fomin credited the constructive attitudes of Turkey and Iran and the helpful position of the United States. The formation of the initiative, as revealed by Russian military leadership, had a twisted pre-history. President Vladimir Putin initially tasked the Russian Defense Ministry to elaborate on ways to secure the cease-fire. On April 25, a special working group of the Defense Ministry went to Damascus for meetings with the Syrian government. On April 26, the group moved to Turkey for meetings with Turkish leadership in Syria and militant opposition groups. Lt. Gen. Stanislav Hadjimagomedov, the deputy head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, recalls those meetings: We explained to them the Russian approaches to the safe zones concept, and the ways we propose to monitor them. Meanwhile, a Russian military delegation was having similar meetings in Iran and Oman. It was critical to get support from Turkey, Iran and the opposition groups, Hadjimagomedov said. According to Fomin, the safe zone issue also involved talks with others, including Israel. There have been extensive contacts between different security and intelligence services, he said at the briefing. By the time Putin contacted US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a political decision to set up the zones appeared to have been made; they helped finalize the details. Moscow seems to especially cherish three remarkable achievements prior to the talks in Astana: Turkey and Iran claimed responsibility for their part of working with the parties in conflict; the United States and Saudi Arabia provided moral support for the initiative, and the United Nations offered mediation support; and some key opposition field commanders echoed the sentiment for the deal. The memorandum was agreed upon by 27 warlords that actually operate in the de-escalation areas. When the parties ultimately came May 3-4 to Astana, Russian representatives observed that a lack of trust between the Syrian government and opposition forces was a major impediment to the initiative. Another insider of the Astana talks, who asked that his name not be used, told Al-Monitor, Everybody there wanted to leave the room with some kind of final paper to sign, but the initial positions looked irreconcilable. From what those privy to the talks share, it is clear that the three mediators had to do a lot of pushing and compromising despite all the pre-agreements. At the end of the day, the troikas efforts, as well as the targeted work, as a Russian general put it, with opposition groups and the Syrian government led to the final decision. At the briefing, Hadjimagomedov was generous in praising the United Nations, and especially the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. He has had a special impact on the initiative, as he held a number of critical meetings with opposition figures whenever the talks stalled, Hadjimagomedov said. He also credited the conflicting parties, saying, Although they were not on the same page and continue to fight each other, they recognize the sense of responsibility for the future of the Syrian people. Safe zones, de-escalation zones and no-combat zones seem to be euphemisms for no-fly zone, which had been promoted under the administration of former US President Barack Obama and supported by Hillary Clinton as she campaigned to succeed Obama. At the time, Moscow opposed the idea, perceiving it as a way, first and foremost, to prevent Russian flights over Syria. The issue had the potential to lead Moscow and Washington into a direct military clash. With Trump in office, safe zones were never off the table, but it was barely clear what exactly the term implied. As Moscow has sought a reliable way to move the Syrian conflict from the battlefield into the political realm (the conflict has gradually claimed more Russian lives and drained more resources) the idea of safe zones became worth exploring. The concept only had to be recalibrated to meet at least three objectives: to not impede Russias own military actions on the ground; to be packaged as Russias own political achievement domestically; and to be presented as a genuine international effort co-mediated by Turkey and Iran to get them on board. Besides, such a move would also be helpful to show Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Iranians that Moscow is not selling them out to Americans as they fear. At the same time there is an understanding that without Washington, implementing the initiative would be more difficult. Hence, Russias Defense Ministry said it is willing to resume discussions with the United States which Russia halted after the strikes on Shayrat air base on a flight safety memorandum designed to prevent midair collisions. For now, the Russian Defense Ministry says safe zones will be a key tool in securing these immediate goals: To divide moderate opposition forces from the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham To more freely deliver humanitarian aid to population in the de-escalation areas To restore infrastructure and water facilities in the zones so refugees can return Most importantly, the memorandum is seen as a key step to stop the fighting in Syria. Operationally, Russians believe that the safe zone initiative will untie the Syrian governments hands and help Assad direct forces to liberate central and eastern parts of Syria from IS, including territories along the Euphrates River and east of Palmyra. All that would help with preparing a large-scale offensive on IS-held Deir ez-Zor. The Russian military makes it clear it will support those efforts with its airstrikes. Describing how the safe zones are going to be organized, Sergei Rudskoy, the chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, explained that the first zone will include Idlib province in northern Syria, northeastern Latakia, western Aleppo and northern Hama. More than a million people live in the territory its the biggest of the four zones which is now controlled by 14,500 militants. The second zone will cover northern Homs and its 180,000 people. That area is now controlled by 3,000 opposition forces. The third zone, in east Ghouta, is home to about 690,000 peaceful residents and is controlled by 9,000 militants. Finally, the fourth zone, in southern Syria bordering Jordan, has 800,000 residents and is controlled by 15,000 fighters of the Southern Front rebel alliance. The memorandum doesnt rule out prospects for creating new de-escalation zones the Russian military has discussed having as many as seven. So far, the rules established for the safe zones include no fighting within the zones between the government and those opposition forces that have joined the cease-fire. Remarkably, that covers all kinds of weapons and includes airstrikes. For the de-escalation zones to function properly, the military has proposed setting up security lines along the zones borders with monitoring and check points to control the cease-fire and peoples movements. Russian, Turkish and Iranian military personnel will manage the zones, with the possibility for third parties to participate if Iran, Turkey and Russia all agree. There are some caveats that might seem to serve as loopholes for the Russian military. [The] signing of the memorandum doesnt mean we will stop our fight against terrorists, against [IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham]. By the memorandum, intermediary states claim responsibility to fight [them], as well as to help the Syrian government and opposition fight them in other parts of Syria, said Rudskoy. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, violations of the cease-fire in the safe zones will be investigated on individual bases and punishment will be applied, including in cases of suppressive fire. This seems to be an important step made in the Syrian civil war, though the initiative is rather raw and in many ways deserves fair criticism. In the next two weeks, Moscow, Ankara and Tehran will create a working group to outline ultimate borders for the safe zones, map security and buffer lines to separate moderate and extreme opposition groups, and promote trust-building measures between the government and the opposition, such as freeing hostages and prisoners of war. The working group will report progress during subsequent Astana talks and other meetings. This process doesnt promise to be easy and might collapse like all the previous peace initiatives. But the parties have yet to come up with a better way to settle the crisis. gymboree pic.jpg Here are some of today's top AL.com business headlines: An iconic breakfast brand is under recall because the products could contain Listeria monocytogenes. -- Pelham-based Automation Personnel Services has settled a lawsuit that alleged it denied an employment referral to someone because of her gender. -- A leading rural broadband solutions provider is joining forces with a North Carolina company while maintaining its headquarters in Huntsville. -- Global fashion retailer H&M will open its store in Leeds' Outlet Shops at Grand River on May 25 at noon. -- Gymboree will shutter hundreds of stores as part of a restructuring effort under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reports. -- Infinity Property and Casualty Corp. will have a new CEO next year. -- A Combi stroller and car seat combo is being recalled because the car seat can disengage from the stroller's frame, posing a fall hazard to infants. -- The leader of Aerojet Rocketdyne will speak at UAH's spring commencement and receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree during the ceremony. -- Chuck Bradley, who was named this year's Grand Champion Auctioneer by the Alabama Auctioneers Association, said part of doing the job well is reading the room. -- Publicly traded companies are required each year to disclose the salaries of their top executives with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Each year, we round them up. -- For more news, visit AL.com/business. Priscilla Hancock Cooper, vice president of institutional programs at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, has announced her retirement. She served as interim president and CEO of the institute from 2014-15. "I have enjoyed a rewarding career at BCRI and am deeply grateful for the many wonderful experiences this work has afforded, especially the friendships I've made," Cooper said."While it is difficult to leave, I do look forward to spending more time with my family." She began work at the institute in 1990 as copywriter and education consultant for the permanent exhibition before the grand opening 25 years ago. In 2000, she returned to lead the institute's after-school program that later received an award from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2006. She was also appointed vice president of institutional programs in 2006. Attorney Doug Jones, board chair of the institute, expressed appreciation to Cooper for her extraordinary vision and leadership over many years. "She will always be an indelible part of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's history and origins," he said. Cooper has worked with local schools and cultural organizations as well as managing national partnerships with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Latino New South Project, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She has been a mentor for numerous youth and adults in museum studies and directed the Leadership Initiative for the Association of African American Museums, a national training program for museum professionals. She was involved in the work of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service to help prepare for the National Monument designation. Kevin Sutton A few tears and many laughs were shared Saturday afternoon as family, friends and community members celebrated the life of Fairfield Fire Chief Kevin Sutton. Sutton, 53, who served in the Fairfield Fire Department for nearly 24 years, was killed in a horrific April 30 crash on Interstate 59 in Birmingham. He was remembered during funeral services at Bill Harris Arena for being the life of the party, a man of value and valor and for his trademark smile. "Kevin was our anchor," said family member Dederick Moulton, during his funeral remarks. "He was the one who expressed love always to us. He was inclusive. He made us feel special. You never felt alone when you were in his presence. He brought excitement, happiness." He said the family is struggling with the loss. "Our hearts hurt," Moulton said. "Although we mourn his loss, family we must celebrate the excitement that he brought to all of our lives," he said. Rather than mourn, Moulton said, we have to "celebrate the giant of our family." Moulton said Sutton sent a text on Easter to all of the family members that were in the contacts list on his phone. He wanted to remind them that they are all connected. If he didn't see them again before one of them leaves the Earth, Sutton wanted them to know that he loves them, he said. Hundreds of community members, including many firefighters and police officers, filled the bleachers of the arena. Hymns were sang and Bible scriptures were read. Speakers included Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper, Fairfield Mayor Edward May II, Birmingham Mayor William Bell, Fairfield Assistant Fire Chief Willie Rodgers and Birmingham Fire Battalion Chief Melvin Brown. Elder Michael Bender, pastor of Faith Apostolic Church, gave the eulogy. Fire departments from Alabama, including Fairfield, Birmingham, Vestavia Hills, Homewood, Hoover, Trussville, Mountain Brook and many others, paid tribute to their fallen brother with a processional following the funeral services to Elmwood Cemetery. The April 30 crash injured Sutton's wife, Phyllis, who was in attendance at the funeral. Their daughter, Tabitha Norman, was critically injured and remains in the hospital. According to authorities, the crash occurred when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and struck two vehicles, one of them Sutton's SUV. City leaders, classmates, fraternity brothers and family members shared their memories of Sutton during the service. Roper and Sutton both graduated from Phillips High School in Birmingham in 1981. At least a few dozen members of the '81 class were in attendance at the funeral. Sutton was credited with working to keep the class together. "He was smart," Roper said, of his friend. "He was cool. He was funny. Kevin had it going on. He was a good man. He was faithful to his family." Another classmate, Terrence Manning, made attendees laugh by recounting his most vivid memory of Sutton. "Kevin made me lose my girl," he said. Manning recalled how back in high school he took, what turned out to be, bad advice from Sutton on how to get the perfect Jheri curl, which was the popular hairstyle at the time. Manning ended up with straight, burnt orange hair that, he claimed, caused his girlfriend to "quit him." "Kevin never let me forget it," he said. May, who knew Sutton for four years, said he relied on the fire chief heavily during the first six months as Fairfield mayor. "He was a man of value not only to the city of Fairfield," he said. "He was a man of value to his brothers in the fire department, his brothers in Alpha Phi Alpha (Fraternity Inc.)." "He was a well-rounded officer and gentlemen," May added. Bell said Sutton's death is a great loss. "When we got the call, I mean, it just sent a shockwave throughout this community, but then we found out his loving wife and sweet daughter were injured, our attention turned in prayer to them," he said. "(Sutton) was a lively spirit. He was a man who didn't shirk his responsibility, even in the most difficult of times, in his profession of being chief," Bell continued. "He always reached out to others, and the other fire departments were not slow, not bashful at all, about coming to support him because, guess what, he supported them. "And that was the kind of person he was," he said. "I never saw him with a frown on his face. He was always upbeat, and when we were around him you became upbeat as well," Bell added. Bell asked for everyone to continue to pray for the family in the coming days ahead. Capital murder suspect Richard Burgin once joked about stabbing somebody, his girlfriend said during a recorded jail phone call that was played during his death penalty trial today. Testimony in the trial ended this afternoon after the jury heard the recorded call. The jury will begin deliberating Monday after hearing closing arguments from prosecutors and defense attorneys. Burgin faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted of fatally stabbing brothers Terry and Anthony Jackson. The brothers were killed May 21, 2013 at West Huntsville United Methodist Church where they volunteered to help with cleaning and distribution in the food pantry. "I want you to know, I also told them about when you were joking with me and you said you stabbed somebody," a woman was heard saying on the call. Michael Leftwich, a former Huntsville police Investigator testified the female voice was Burgin's girlfriend, Ronda Green. Leftwich told the jury the male voice on the call is Burgin. On the call, Green was explaining to Burgin what she told investigators. On the April 14, 2017 call, Green was heard saying Burgin came home one day with a scratch and jokingly told her he stabbed somebody. Burgin has been jailed without bail since he was charged in the killings. "Let me tell you something, that little scratch was bleeding," Green was heard telling Burgin on the recording. "So I said, 'If you checked those mens' fingernails, and you didn't find any DNA, then that right there should tell you.'" In a second call the following day, Burgin was heard telling Green that defense attorney Larry Marsili visited him at the jail and said the Madison County District Attorney's Office was subpoenaing the woman to testify in court. Burgin was heard on the call telling his girlfriend that prosecutors plan to subpoena her because of statements she made about him coming home with a scratch on his neck and claiming he stabbed someone. Green was subpoenaed and listed as a possible witness, though she was not called to testify during the trial. Green told authorities that she didn't remember the date when the incident happened, according to Burgin's statements on the call. Green was heard on the call saying Burgin's joke about a stabbing occurred months before the deaths of the Jackson brothers. Burgin replied to Green that the joke occurred in the wintertime. "I remember having my jacket on -- my black hooded jacket," Burgin said. "It was cold outside. I don't remember it being hot." Several witness reported on the day of the crimes seeing a black man in dark clothes running near the church, a Huntsville police investigator testified. Before deliberations begin Monday, the jury will be provided an exhibit that shows what the weather was like on the day of the killings. That exhibit was not presented in court during the trial. Temperatures in Huntsville reached as high as 90 degrees and dipped as low as 67 degrees on the day of the killings, according to Weather Underground. Burgin was heard on the call telling his girlfriend she shouldn't have spoken with authorities because there was nothing they could do to make her talk without a subpoena. "They said there was something they could do if I didn't talk," Green was heard saying on the call. Before hearing the recorded calls, jurors this morning visited the church on Ninth Avenue where the brothers were killed. The jurors were able to walk or ride along the path where a Huntsville police K9 tracked human scent and found physical evidence, including a cup that had Burgin's DNA. Jurors saw the secondary scene where that cup was found along with the suspected murder weapon, a bloody rag and a church bulletin. Trial testimony indicated Burgin's fingerprints were found on the bulletin. The evidence was recovered outside a home on Eighth Avenue, less than a mile from the church, according to testimony from Huntsville police officer Cory Upton, the lead K9 trainer. Jurors toured the church fellowship hall where the brothers were killed. They also stood on the front porch of a home across the street where a witness had been sitting the day of the crimes. The witness, James Alexander, lived at the home at the time of the killings. He testified he saw a black man leave the church with a red cup on the day of the killings. Alexander did not identify the man as Burgin. Anthony, left, and Terry Jackson loved to serve others through the food pantry ministry at West Huntsville United Methodist Church, where they were fatally attacked on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. A medical examiner on Thursday testified 69-year-old Terry Jackson was stabbed or punctured multiple times in the chest, back, stomach and left arm. Fourteen stab or puncture wounds were found on the man's body during autopsy, Dr. Valerie Green testified. Green, who works for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, also told the jury Terry Jackson had bruises or scrapes on his chest, knee, cheek, chin, right arm and torso. Anthony Jackon, 76, was stabbed three times in the chest, the doctor testified. For both victims, the manner and cause of death were listed as homicide by multiple shock-force injuries, Dr. Green told the jury. Jurors were shown gruesome autopsy and crime scene photos of the men's bodies and blood-covered clothes, as well as the bloody scene at the church. Lane Eason, a now-retired Huntsville police investigator, on Thursday testified Anthony Jackson may have been robbed of his wallet during the fatal stabbings. The jury saw photos of Anthony Jackson's pants, which had blood stains above and inside the back left pocket. The pocket appears stretched, as if a wallet had previously been there for long periods of time, Eason, who worked the case before retiring, testified. The 76-year-old's wallet was not found at the scene, Eason told the jury. Asked by prosecutor Tim Gann what the blood stain and stretch marks indicate, Eason replied, "That somebody with bloody fingers reached in there and removed something. It appeared to be in the shape of a standard wallet." Testimony has not suggested Terry Jackson was the victim of a robbery. Crime scene photos showed his wallet, car keys and other belongings were recovered. At least one dollar was found, the photos show. Eason did not tell the jury if any of the 69-year-old's property was taken. Testimony did not include whether Anthony Jackson's wallet has since been recovered. Holes in Terry Jackson's shirt suggest he was stabbed six times in the front of his body and 11 times on his back, Eason testified. The jury also saw photos of that clothing. "The holes were consistent with somebody just poking -- not stabbing at that point," Eason testified. "It's like they were guiding him around the room." The jury was shown photos of a blood trail that includes Terry Jackson's shoe prints, according to Eason's testimony. The blood trail ends where Terry Jackson collapsed on the floor of the church fellowship hall, Eason testified. The jury also saw photos of a stack of red cups on a table in the fellowship hall. Those cups match the shape and size of a cup that was found about a mile from the crime scene and identified Burgin as a suspect, Eason testified. Burgin's DNA was not found on the suspected murder weapon or the bloody rag, according to testimony. Burgin has not been tied to the crime scene by physical evidence or eyewitness accounts. Prosecutors also have not tied the Jackson brothers to the red cup that had Burgin's DNA or to the church bulletin that had the suspect's fingerprints. Circumstantial evidence is legally enough for a conviction in Alabama. The trial began Monday with jury selection. Testimony began Wednesday, despite concerns from the defense team about a lack of racial diversity on the jury. Gann and Assistant DA Randy Dill are prosecuting the case. Marsili and Attorney Chad Morgan are defending Burgin. A University of North Alabama student died Friday in a two-vehicle accident involving a semitrailer, officials have confirmed. Hannah Bridgmon, 20, of Haleyville, was killed when the 2015 Dodge she was driving collided with a 1997 Kenworth at 8:40 a.m, Alabama State Troopers said. The crash happened on Alabama Highway 13 at the 278 mile marker. Bridgmon was pronounced dead at the scene and the semitrailer driver was taken to a local hospital. According to Bridgmon's Facebook page, she was a sophomore mass communications/radio broadcasting major at UNA. According to her friends in UNA's radio department, she was a young woman who had big dreams and an even bigger heart. My radio family became a bit smaller today with the loss of my incredible friend Hannah Bridgmon. I've known her for... Posted by Kobee Vance on Friday, May 5, 2017 Many from Bridgmon's hometown also took the time to mourn her death on social media. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Hannah Bridgmon. We have nothing but wonderful memories of this wonderful young lady. RLB Alumni / HHS Class of 2015. Posted by Haleyville Roaring Lion Band on Friday, May 5, 2017 Additional details about the wreck were not released since it is still under investigation. Reports surfaced yesterday that outdoor retailer Gander Mountain was closing all 126 of its locations. The stories - at least for now - are inaccurate, according to Marcus Lemonis, the CBNC host and owner of Camping World, which purchased Gander Mountain last week. Camping World purchased the outdoor retailer following its bankruptcy in March. At the time, Lemonis said his company would assume a minimum of 17 store leases with the option to keep others open based on profitability. Lemonis said it was likely that about half of Gander Mountain's existing stores wouldn't survive. On Friday, Gander Mountain's website posted it was hosting liquidation sales with a big banner proclaiming "All 126 locations nationwide going out of business" with information on ongoing liquidation sales. All firearms, ammunition, shooting, hunting, archery, apparel, footwear, camping, fishing and boating items are included in the sale; gift cards will be accepted only through May 18, the website noted. The website led to reports that Gander Mountain was closing nationwide, but Lemonis has taken to Twitter to dispute those claims. "Is the Onalaska/LaCrosse Gander Mtn closing? Seeing a clearance sale article posted today," one person wrote. "It's saying," Lemonis replied. "Is the the Roanoke, Virginia Gander Mountain closing?" another asked. "No," Lemonis said. An Alabama store is among those mentioned in the exchange. In response to a report the Gander Mountain in Huntsville is closing, Lemonis said "not correct." Gander Mountains' website strikes the same optimistic tone. "We at Gander Mountain believe that our best days are still ahead of us and we ask that you join us in welcoming and supporting this successful transition. Camping World shares the same passion for the outdoors as Gander Mountain and our customers, making for a great melding of businesses and outdoor communities," it said on its website. Lemonis didn't address why the website referred to all 126 locations going out of business. As part of its deal, Camping World acquired certain assets of Gander Mountain and its Overton's boating business in a deal worth about $390 million. Gander Mountain announced in March it was closing 32 stores, including four in Alabama, as part of its bankruptcy proceedings. Locations in Gadsden, Mobile, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa are currently set to close; Gander Mountain also operates stores in Dothan, Florence, Huntsville and Opelika. Lemonis said the status of all stores - even those slated for earlier closures - remains under evaluation. One of the earliest Chattanooga duplexes is being retrofit to house over 50 UTC students. Attorney Rich Heinsman, who has long owned two side-by-side quaint brick buildings just up from MLK Boulevard, noted that the university is right next door after it acquired the Mapp Building. He said the building that dates to around 1898 was converted to 28 rooms. Existing rooms were used, and he had a basement dug out for additional space. Additional space was added at the rear. During the construction, the two-story structure grew to over 10,000 square feet. Attorney Heinsman, who served as his own contractor, said some original features in the house, including the ornate staircase, were sold to Estate of Confusion on Main Street. The deteriorating front porch was taken off, but it will be rebuilt. The building got new plumbing, new electrical, new windows and a new roof. He said the building will hopefully be ready for students by the fall semester. In fact, one room should come available in about a week. Attorney Heinsman has operated his law office from that location and a number of other attorneys have shared the space. He also owns the similarly-designed smaller two-story building next door. It is now in use as the Bitter Alibi restaurant. At one time, his wife had a restaurant upstairs and he operated a bar in the lower section. Attorney Heinsman can be reached at 757-9995. Veterans Memorial Park in tiny Belle Plaine, Minn., is packed with remembrances for the town's men and women in uniform. Soon, it will get one more: A solemn black cube holding an upturned helmet, its sides adorned with upside-down pentagrams. The Satanic Temple announced Friday that it had received approval to install the monument, which is in production. Within a couple of months, it is expected to take its place alongside a flag-lined walkway, a marble plaque and a retired UH-1H Iroquois "Huey" helicopter positioned as if it is hovering above the ground. The approval of the monument brings a new twist to a long-running battle that began last summer, when someone put up a metal silhouette of an infantryman kneeling before a cross. A resident objected, calling it a religious symbol that violates the principle of the separation of church and state. After months of acrimony, the city decided to make part of the park a "public forum," open to virtually any group that wants to honor the town's veterans. The Satanic Temple took them up on it. It is not the first such effort from the Satanic Temple, a provocative organization that often pushes the boundaries on free speech and religious liberties to prove a point about religion in public spaces; last year, it started its "After School Satan" clubs as a way of challenging Christian evangelical groups that sponsor after-school religious programming. But this is the first time that the group has succeeded in having a monument placed on public land, said Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the organization, which is based in Salem, Mass. Belle Plaine officials "didn't offer any resistance, to their credit," said Greaves, who also goes by the name Doug Mesner. "We genuinely want something that will honor the veterans. It's not about being shocking or upsetting the locals, though it's an inevitable byproduct." City officials considered that the new policy could invite provocateurs, but approved it anyway. "It was discussed during our city council meeting when we authored the policy that groups that were unpopular or otherwise would put monuments in the park," said Michael Votca, the city administrator. The flare-up in this town about 45 miles southwest of Minneapolis comes as the country is mired in a heated battle over religious freedom and the rights of people of faith, particularly conservative Christians, to opt out of activities that support same-sex marriage, abortion or birth control. On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at expanding religious protections that, among other things, soften enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which bars tax-exempt houses of worship from engaging in political speech. But as the Satanic Temple has tried to demonstrate, expanding religious liberties can have unintended consequences. Because the Constitution bars the establishment of a national religion, it requires that the same protections be extended to people of all faiths, including ones with disturbing connotations such as satanism and those who profess no faith. Greaves said that his organization is now considering applying for the same tax-exempt status that churches and synagogues enjoy. It previously avoided doing so to freely engage in politics. But with Trump's executive order, he said, "there's absolutely no advantage to not be tax-exempt. A lot more organizations should apply and put it to the test." He said that his organization does not worship the devil. Rather, he said, it is a "nontheistic religious organization" devoted to art, free speech and individuality, whose values "are no less deeply held" than those professing a belief in God. In its application to the city, the organization described the monument as a "black steel cube with embossed inverted pentagrams with inlaid gold on four sides. An inverted helmet rests on the top of the cube. A plaque on one side of the cube reads: 'In honor of Belle Plaine veterans who fought to defend the United States and its Constitution'." Belle Plaine has been grappling with its park policy since last summer, when the two-foot statue of the kneeling soldier appeared. Katie Novotny, a Belle Plaine resident and veterans advocate, said it was created by a local vet who died shortly after it was put up. It is affectionately dubbed "Joe." Novotny contends that it is not a religious display. Joe, she said, is simply kneeling at a headstone fashioned into the shape of a cross, which is a common way for gravestones to be depicted. "I don't think 90 percent of people see it as a religious symbol when it's in that context," she said. Nevertheless, fearing a lawsuit, the city ordered the cross removed in January. Someone from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars group was tasked with sawing it off the statue, she said. The person given that job "said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do," she said. The decision immediately prompted protests. People fashioned their own crosses and defiantly installed them next to the statue. Around the town, Novotny said, citizens who supported the original display put replicas in their windows - including the cross. The city eventually hit upon a compromise. It established a "limited public forum" within the park in which groups could erect, with city permission, a monument honoring the town's veterans. The permits last for a year, and no more than 10 monuments may be displayed at a time. The cross was welded back onto the statue. Joe and his cross returned to the park last month. Novotny said she does not object to the Satanic Temple's plans. "If they want to come here from Massachusetts and put something up to honor our veterans in Belle Plaine, go for it," she said. "They deserve to be honored." Some other places have opted to ban all religious displays when faced with this type of conflict. In 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a monument of the Ten Commandments had to be removed from its grounds for violating a state prohibition against use of public property to promote one religion. Another group planning to apply for a spot at the Belle Plaine park is the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which objected to the cross display. It is planning to commission a stone tribute to "atheists in foxholes" - a take on an old saying suggesting that everyone finds God when faced with death. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, predicted that city officials will come to regret opening the park to all displays. "They're going to run out of space," she said. "It will just be littered. . . . One day, they will look at everything and decide, was it really worth it?" Author information: Sandhya Somashekhar is the social change reporter for the Washington Post. The Trump administration's second Army secretary nominee withdrew from consideration Friday, amid mounting opposition to past comments he made about Islam, evolution and gender issues. Mark Green, a firebrand Republican state senator in Tennessee and veteran of the Iraq War, said there can be no distractions in overseeing the military, and blamed "false and misleading attacks against him" in a statement provided to media. The Pentagon and the White House had no immediate reaction to his announcement, but it came hours after a Defense Department spokesman declined during a meeting with journalists to say whether Defense Secretary Jim Mattis still supported him for the job. Green pulled out after a month of calls for President Donald Trump's administration to choose someone else. Advocacy groups for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people immediately launched an effort on Capitol Hill to block his nomination after it was announced April 7, saying his history of antagonism toward them made him an unacceptable choice. Green, a physician who once served alongside Army Special Operations troops, expressed frustration about the effort in a Facebook post late last month, and did so again Friday in his statement. "Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain," Green said. "While these false attacks have no bearing on the needs of the Army or my qualifications to serve, I believe it is critical to give the President the ability to move forward with his vision to restore our military to its rightful place in the world." Among the comments that drew concern were Green saying last fall that if psychiatrists were polled, they would say that "transgender is a disease." He added that while most millennials accept transgender people, he wanted to be a "light" that set the record straight. "If you really want to bring this back to who's at fault, I mean we gotta look a little bit inwardly," he said. "I mean, we've tolerated immorality and we're not reflecting light." The Council on American-Islamic Relations also opposed Green's nomination, citing an appearance before the Chattanooga Tea Party last fall in which Green said "we will not tolerate" teaching the "pillars of Islam" in textbooks. At that same event, Green responded to a man who said he was concerned about an armed insurrection by people who "don't belong here, like Muslims in the United States" by saying he'd asked a "great question." Green's withdrawal marks is the latest chapter in ongoing chapter in the White House's ongoing turmoiil to fill senior civilian positions at the Pentagon. He was selected after Trump's first Army secretary nominee, Vincent Viola, withdrew from consideration in February. Viola, a former Army officer who went on to become a billionaire on Wall Street, cited the complications of getting through the Pentagon's conflict-of-interest rules. A nominee for Navy secretary, Philip Bilden, also withdrew from consideration in February, facing similar difficulties as Viola. No replacement has been named. The Air Force appears to be on the brink of having a secretary, with Heather A. Wilson, a former Air Force officer and congresswoman, expected to get a confirmation vote within a week. Several U.S. senators signaled opposition to Green becoming Army secretary this week, including Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Schumer said in a statement that Green's decision to withdraw is good news for all Americans, "especially those who were personally vilified by his disparaging comments toward the LGBTQ community, Muslim community, Latino community and more." The senator credited advocacy groups with prompting Green to withdraw, and said that he hopes Trump will select someone else who can represent everyone in the Army. Republicans had not openly opposed Green's nomination, but some had suggested that they wanted to hear more about his past views. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview with USA Today this week that some of Green's comments are "very concerning" and that he would have to explain himself. "There's a lot of controversy concerning his nomination," McCain said in an interview with USA Today. "We are getting some questions from both Republicans and Democrats on the Armed Services Committee. I think there are some issues that clearly need to be cleared up." Advocacy groups that had opposed Green's nomination breathed a sigh of relief Friday. Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that Green's "dangerous views and hateful comments are disqualifying for any public servant, let alone someone wishing to serve as secretary of the Army." The nomination, Griffin added, showed a "lack of judgment" by President Trump and a "failure to be a president for all Americans. Author information: Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint. President Donald Trump's revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries is about to be scrutinized by a federal appeals court for the first time. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Monday in the case that has thwarted the president's attempt to bar certain people from entering the country in the name of national security. The Richmond, Virginia-based court will examine a federal judge in Maryland's ruling that blocks the administration from temporarily barring new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A federal judge in Hawaii has also halted that provision as well as the freeze on the U.S. refugee program. Trump's administration is fighting that decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump rewrote the travel ban after the first version was stymied by the courts. Opponents say the new executive order has the same problems and cannot stand. The issue is likely destined for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here's what you need to know about the 4th Circuit hearing: ____ CAN I LISTEN IN? Yes. For the first time, the court will provide a live audio broadcast of a hearing due to intense public interest. The 2:30 p.m. EDT hearing will be broadcast by C-SPAN and the court will provide a link to the live feed on its website. ____ HOW COMMON IS A FULL-COURT HEARING? A three-judge panel is typically the first and last stop for most cases in the 4th Circuit. The full court will sometimes re-examine a case that a three-judge panel has heard. That usually happens a few times a year. In an extraordinary move, the 4th Circuit has chosen in this case to go straight to the "en banc" or full-court hearing. Some of the 15 judges could be recused, so the list of those who will hear the case will be released Monday. The judges' decision signifies the importance of the case and their desire to settle the issue more quickly. The court hasn't skipped the three-judge panel and gone directly to the full-court hearing since 1998, when it considered a challenge to a Virginia law requiring minors to notify their parents before they get an abortion, according to court records. ____ IS THE 4TH CIRCUIT A LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE COURT? The 4th Circuit was long known as the nation's most conservative appeals court. But President Barack Obama dramatically changed its makeup, pulling the 4th Circuit to the center. Now, nine judges are Democratic appointees -- including six from Obama -- and five judges are Republican appointees. Chief Judge Roger Gregory was given a recess appointment to the court by President Bill Clinton and was reappointed by President George W. Bush. Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law school professor, said while the 4th Circuit has become moderate, it still tends to rule in favor of the government when it's convinced there's a compelling case of national security. "I think a lot depends on how the judges view the case," Tobias said. "Is this a national security case or is this an immigration case? Or is this a religious freedom case?" ____ WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN FOR? A key question for the judges is whether Trump's own words about a "Muslim ban" can be used against him. U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, who ruled against Trump in Maryland, said the Republican's comments are evidence that religion -- rather than national security -- was the primary motivation for the policy. Trump's administration says the court should focus on the text of the executive order, which doesn't mention religion. His lawyers say it's inappropriate for the court to rely on statements Trump made as a candidate "before he swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution." The countries were chosen because they present terrorism risks and the ban applies to everyone in those countries regardless of religion, the administration says. The National Immigration Law Center and American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, say accepting that argument would mean that Trump could repeatedly declare that the ban's "sole purpose is to harm Muslims" as long as it didn't say so in the text of the executive over. ____ WHEN WILL THE JUDGES RULE? While the Trump administration wants the court to act quickly, it will likely be weeks before the judges issue their written decision. The judges could rule sooner on the administration's request to let the travel ban go into effect while it considers the merits of its appeal. But even if the court does that, the executive order will remain blocked by the decision in Hawaii. ____ WHAT ABOUT THE 9TH CIRCUIT CASE? A three-judge panel of the San Francisco, California-based 9th Circuit will meet May 15 in Seattle to hear Trump's appeal of the decision blocking the travel ban by a federal judge in Hawaii. The 9th Circuit, which Trump and Republicans say is too liberal, previously refused to let Trump's first travel ban go into effect, prompting the administration to withdrawal the order and issue a new one. Ben Raines The Cahaba lily and the Delta Lily are kissing cousins This is the time of the lily in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and along the banks of the Cahaba River. Down south, in the muddy floodplain where the land of the Delta makes a last stand before giving way to the open waters of Mobile Bay, they are called Delta lilies. While on perhaps the loveliest river in north Alabama, they are Cahaba lilies, sprouting from the cracks between the rocks in riffled and fast running reaches. Don't Edit (Dennis Pillion | dpillion@al.com) Nearly identical, but not quite The Cahaba lily Hymenocallis coronaria is quite rare, living in just a few dozen places spread across Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. The flowers open overnight, and by the following evening have expired. Don't Edit Ben Raines The Delta lily The Delta lily Hymenocallis choctawensis haunts the coastal swamps from Louisiana to Florida. In some places it is called the Choctaw spider lily, but here on the Alabama coast, it is the Deltas lily. Don't Edit (Dennis Pillion | dpillion@al.com) They caught Bartram's eye in 1773 This is the Cahaba lily, note the subtle differences in size and shape of the flowers. Here's what William Bartam had to say on encountering these flowers just before the American Revolution: "But nothing in vegetable nature was more pleasing than the odoriferous pancratium fluitans." Bartram Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the country of the Chactaws 1773 Don't Edit Ben Raines Lilies and iris overlap The lilies and the native blue flag iris overlap in their blooming seasons. The orchids always start first, usually about two weeks before the lilies, and the orchids peter out first, again, about two weeks before the lilies. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Raines Soldier beetles The lilies support a complex ecosystem, including a variety of insects that pollinate them, feed on them, or use them as a hunting ground. These beetles are commonly called soldier beetles, and are members of the tribe of leather-wing beetles, so named because their wing coverings have the texture of leather. They prey on aphids and other insects that suck nectar and juice from the flowers and stems. Don't Edit Ben Raines 12 spot shining beetle Multiple beetle species prowl the lilies, preying on other bugs. This appears to be a member of the shining leaf family of beetles. It may be a 12 spot asparagus beetle. In fact, it has 12 spots! But, there are a few other species it might be as well. Don't Edit Ben Raines Purple gallinule The purple gallinule is one of the most spectacularly plumed birds in our marshes. Most of the places you see them, you're likely to see a blooming lily. The northern Gulf coast is at the tip of their range. They are common in the tropics and Central and South America. Sporting purple, almost black, feathers, the birds back is covered in iridescent greens and blues. Don't Edit Ben Raines Floating nests Gallinules make their livings in the swamps, walking atop mats of water plants and lily pads. Their extra long toes prevent them from sinking into the water. Amazingly, they make their nests in floating mats of vegetation. I consider it a miracle they manage to survive the alligators. Don't Edit Ben Raines | braines@al.com Alligator trails These little creeks sweep all through the lily meadows. These drains were often opened up originally by an alligator making a trail though the marsh to get to a nesting site. Over time the trails turn into creeks, opening an expanding fissure in the marsh mud. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Raines | braines@al.com Ten stories high in Little Bateau In this aerial shot, up about ten stories above the creek that runs into the Delta's Little Bateau, you can see a swath of lilies blooming just a little way back from shore. The lilies bulbs seem to do best on ground thats about six inches above the average high tide, though they are clearly able to handle frequent immersion. Follow their path and you can usually keep your feet sort of dry. Don't Edit Ben Raines When the lilies find ground they like, just the right elevation, they really crowd together by the hundreds. You can use the flowers as a sort of trail, showing you where to walk to avoid sinking in the mud. This flowery road stretches out for hundreds of yards. Don't Edit Ben Raines Almost open This lily is in the final stage of opening. The long tendrils that give the lily the common name spider lily remain attached at the tip as the flower opens. It takes a careful examination of the flower to notice that the white cup is actually completely separate from the long petal-like tendrils. You can see the back of one of these tendrils in the unopened flower at the left. Don't Edit Ben Raines Roseau cane binds the delta mud Roseau cane, locally pronounced as Row Zow is one of the primary plants holding the lower Delta together. Its roots bind the mud in place during floods. Reaching up about ten feet tall, these canes are last years crop. Down closer to the ground, new green shoots are emerging. They will have overtaken the old stems by the end of the summer. Don't Edit Ben Raines On the nest An osprey sits on its nest across from Tensaw Point. This pair of birds could be seen making multiple trips from Little Bateau back to the nest with mullet and bass caught along the edge of the lily fields. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Raines Golden eye You can tell this is an adult osprey by its yellow eye. Juveniles have brown to amber eyes, which change to gold as they mature. Don't Edit Ben Raines Camouflage for an egret An egret prospects among the lilies, perhaps using the white flowers as a bit of camouflage for its white head and body. Don't Edit Ben Raines Lubber and lily A variety of creatures prey on the lilies, chief among them the lubber, Alabamas ubiquitous black grasshopper. This lubber is probably about a month old. Even smaller members of the clan are out and about now, measuring about a half inch long. Don't Edit Ben Raines Rice and flowers Stalks of wild rice are visible on the left edge of the frame. The rice likes its toes a little wetter than the lilies. Here, a slight berm rises just between the rice plants and the lilies. Don't Edit Ben Raines Nose for reeds An alligator eases down Little Bateau as a boat approaches. Note the reeds across its snout. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Raines Landing pad for bugs If you think of the flower as a landing pad for a bug eager to get at the nectar, the array of the pollen-laden anthers seems purpose made for colliding with bugs coming and going in windy conditions. They are spaced so it would be almost impossible to avoid brushing against one. Don't Edit Ben Raines Munching caterpillars I think these are sphinx moth caterpillars. They were present in clumps on the stems of many of the lilies. Don't Edit Ben Raines Munched! Here you can see how the tribe of caterpillars made short work of the flowering parts of the plant. Don't Edit Ben Raines Morning glory A soldier beetle emerges from the center of a swamp morning glory. Morning glories are also known as bindweed from the way their vines entwine around whatever they grow over. Don't Edit Ben Raines Alligator weed invasion A 12 spot beetle climbs over an alligator weed blossom. Alligator weed is native to South America, but has become a common sight in our swamps. Don't Edit Don't Edit Ben Raines Cottontail Here you can see both the long toes that keep the gallinule afloat in the swamps. The red patch above the bill and the white cap help distinguish the gallinule from similar looking birds like coots. The cotton white tail is also a telltale for identifying the gallinule, however, by the time you see it, the birds is long gone. Don't Edit Ben Raines Seeds for the future This is the seed pod of the lily, left behind after the blooming. When they fall, they land in some of the richest mud you can find on Earth, perfect for rearing next year's crop. Don't Edit Ben Raines Dew drops The bugs can find a ready drink from dew collected on the flowers. For the first time in modern history, neither candidate in the decisive second round is from the mainstream parties. A previous version of this article stated the National Front (FN) was founded in 1942. It was founded in 1972. Why is this election important? France is choosing its next president. The election is being closely watched because, for the first time in modern French history, neither of the two candidates in the decisive second round is from the mainstream parties of the left or right. The Republicans which is on the right and the Socialist Party on the centre left represented only 26 percent of the total votes from the first round, which is the lowest cumulated score for Frances two main parties in the history of the Fifth Republic, Pierre Bocquillon, a lecturer of politics at Britains University of East Anglia, told Al Jazeera. They are perceived as disconnected from citizens, not delivering on their promises and conducting similar policies when in power. More than a victory of the challengers, it is first a spectacular failure of both the Socialist Party and The Republicans. Frontrunner Emmanuel Macron, 39, is a centrist running as an independent and launched his own movement just last year En Marche!. He was previously an economic minister under the socialist government of outgoing President Francois Hollande . His 48-year-old rival Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right, recently stepped down from the National Front (FN) party that raised her. The move was seen as part of her efforts to distance herself from the racist roots of the party, which was founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972. France is a founding member of the European Union , and this election could lead to the blocs ultimate downfall. READ MORE: #MacronLeaks Macrons campaign hit by hacking attack While Macron is a great supporter of the EU, Le Pen rails against it at every opportunity. She has promised a referendum on Frances membership, in the hope the country will Frexit in Britains footsteps. Other hot topics in the campaign have included: unemployment, security of the economy, workers rights, globalisation, immigration, refugees and secularism. Further underlining the unpredictable nature of this election, on Friday with one and a half days to go until the vote nine gigabytes of data from Macrons team was posted online in the final hours of campaigning. WikiLeaks has said the dump was authentic, though did not claim responsibility. The leak comes in the wake of accusations that Russia attempted to hack the 2016 US election . Macrons team has said the hacking is an attempt at democratic destabilisation. To find out more about the two leading candidates, click here . Whos going to win? In the first round, Macron won 23.9 percent of the vote compared with Le Pens 21.4 percent. Polls before the campaign blackout on Sundays vote showed Macron winning to the tune of around 65 percent of the electorate. After an unprecedented televised debate between the rivals on Wednesday, he gained one point in the polls as Le Pen was on the defensive, appearing to many as a less convincing leader. Macron is likely to attract voters who cast their ballots for the traditional left and right candidates in the first round on April 23, losers Benoit Hamon and Francois Fillon. Both have urged their supporters to pick Macron. However, Jean-Luc Melenchon, a far-left candidate, won more support than Hamon at the initial April 23 round, and it is less clear what his supporters intend to do. Some say they will cast blank votes, others have indicated they will vote for Le Pen. Unlike several other leading politicians, Melenchon has refused to call on his fans to back Macron. Polls failed to predict two major recent events in the West: Britains decision to leave the EU and the election of US President Donald Trump . And it is these two surprises, many analysts say, that mean anything is possible. READ MORE: Le Pens party a living expression of anti-Semitism Another common subject is whether or not another attack on French soil would boost Le Pen, who ritually condemns what she calls Islamic terrorism. However, polls hardly moved after an attack before the first round, in which French national Karim Cheurfi killed a policeman on the famous Champs Elysees. I would say its unlikely not very unlikely that Le Pen would win, Nacira Guenif, a sociologist and professor, told Al Jazeera. Even if she fails, to some extent she has already won This is the most depressing, preoccupying statement you can make. She has won in many ways. She will pollute and invade the public debates, the political issues for a long time. How has the far-right managed to get so far? The last time the far right made it this close to running France was in 2002, when Marines father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was up against the right-wing Jacques Chirac, who ultimately won. Then, Le Pen won just 18 percent of the vote as millions rushed to keep the extreme right out. However, the younger Le Pen appears more of a mainstream player compared with party figures during the ruling period of her father an outright racist who served in the Algerian War, during which it was later discovered he had carried out torture. She is also riding a gripping populist wave, presenting herself as the candidate for the people and slamming, among other things: immigration , refugees, French minorities including Muslims, the EU and euro, globalisation, foreign workers, and taxes (except on foreigners). This is a moment when we realise how successful the NF has been in imposing some of its ideas on a part of the mainstream right, even though they only have four MPs and Le Pen will be defeated, Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Radical Politics at the Jean Jaures Foundation, told Al Jazeera. What do other countries make of it all? Western Europes far right are watching this election closely. A Le Pen win would give them a significant boost. Among her supporters are Geert Wilders, an Islamophobic Dutch politician who recently lost an election, and Nigel Farage, the former leader of the populist United Kingdom Independence Party. In January, she travelled to the Trump Tower in New York, sparking speculation that the new US president was among her allies. Trump tweeted a mysterious message during the first round: Very interesting election currently taking place in France. France: Who are Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen? Russian President Vladimir Putin officially welcomed her to Moscow in March, saying she represented a quickly developing spectrum of European political forces, but denied interfering in the political process. As for Macron, Barack Obama , the former US president, threw his support behind the former investment banker on Thursday. Macron is said to have taken inspiration from Obamas grassroots campaign strategy. Meanwhile, Angela Merkel , the German chancellor, said she believes Macron would be a strong president for France. Though British prime minister met Macron, she has not unlike the UKs Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and SNP opposition parties endorsed him. What next? In the short term, if Macron wins, there is expected to be a greater sense of calm and security on the streets than if Le Pen wins the presidency. In the immediate aftermath of the vote, if the far-right candidate does succeed, clashes on the streets are expected as anti-fascists and other demonstrators express their anger over the result. Even so, Macrons popularity is by no means universal. At a protest in Paris on May 1, which turned violent, thousands of demonstrators chanted Ni Le Pen, ni Macron translating to Neither Le Pen nor Macron. Once elected, the French president can serve a maximum of two five-year terms in office. Parliamentary elections are expected in June. Early polls suggest Macrons party will emerge as the largest, followed by conservative parties. The far right is expected to come out last. Paris, France In Sundays vote, after a bitter campaign, centrist Emmanuel Macron will go head-to-head with the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. In the first round of the presidential election, Macron won 23.9 percent of the vote, while Le Pen garnered 21.4 percent. Al Jazeera spoke to people on the streets of Paris on how they planned to vote, and why. Not a single interviewee said they would vote for Le Pen, who is traditionally unpopular at the ballot box in Paris compared to other regions of France. Here is what they had to say: Audrey Montseny, works in social centre I voted for Philippe Poutou in the first round. On Sunday, I am going to vote blank. Im disappointed with politics and I dont think that voting for Macron is the way to oppose Le Pen. Of course, Macron is not Le Pen. We have already seen how the current government has damaged the values of the republic, for example, individual freedoms and the rise of racism. I think Macron will lead to the rise of inequality and the people who are destitute will be even more destitute. Mohamed, 23, restaurant delivery worker I will vote for Macron, plain and simple. He presented the best manifesto for young people. In the second round, not that many people will vote for Le Pen. It wont be like in the first round. Just this morning, she went to Reins and received a terrible welcome. Meanwhile, people in Toulouse received Macron well. Unemployment needs to be solved, thats what young people care about. Tahar, 60, retired factory worker I will vote for Macron. Why? Do you know Le Pen? Shes a racist, shes against everyone. Im originally from Tunisia. Its the first time that she has got to the second round with 22 percent. I think Macron will be able to solve unemployment. Nanya, 35, housewife Im voting Macron. He defends immigration. He gives opportunities to everyone. Le Pen is hard, especially on immigrants. It upsets me so many people voted for her in the first round. I dont want the government to do more for me, I want them to do more for the world, for undocumented people to get their papers easily. Kenza, 20, student of history I voted for Melenchon in the first round. I will vote for Macron in the second because I just cant vote for Le Pen. She doesnt represent my values, she wants to reduce the rights of women which women have fought for centuries for. As a woman, I cant vote for her, its a paradox. She herself is a woman. She wants to close the borders, stop globalisation, take us back centuries. Im not counting on Macron to solve everything, but I like his sense of tolerance. Khier Younes, 30, salesman Im voting blank on Sunday. Neither Macron nor Le Pen interests me. I voted for Melenchon in the first round. Le Pen is a troublemaker. She wants to get out of Europe, she wants to do things that are impossible to implement. With Melenchon, I like his socialism; he listened to the people. Aniss, 22, market seller I will vote for Macron. Hes young, hes good. Julian Manirahr, 33, film director I will abstain on Sunday. I dont believe in politics. Its the same if I choose Le Pen or Macron. I didnt vote in the first round. Politicians make laws for rich people and leave the poor destitute. I may have voted for Melenchon, but I didnt because I think even if he had accessed power, he might not have kept his promises. Politics isnt about casting your ballot every five years. Its through what you consume, for example, environmental issues. Additional reporting by Naima Bouteldja The Trump-Abbas meeting this week was, for Palestinians, as expected: useless. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas emerged from the meeting with nothing more than lunch and an empty proclamation from US President Donald Trump that he intends to get this done, referring to Israeli-Palestinian peace. Absent were any concrete statements on how it could get done, and in their place were vagaries on how Trump could be a mediator, arbitrator or facilitator in pursuit of peace. For his part, Abbas lauded Trumps courageous and capable leadership, and praised his great negotiating ability. At the end of their joint news conference, Trump announced that there would be some kind of process in other words, the same failed strategy pursued by three US presidents, spanning six administrations and 24 years. But for Abbas, this is precisely what he wanted. He has spent his political lifetime pushing for one thing negotiations even as this very process has damaged Palestinians dreams for liberation and an end to Israeli supremacy on their land. FORUM: How can Palestinians legally fight occupation? At first glance, the idea of two parties negotiating their differences sounds appealing as a non-violent means of dispute resolution. But in reality, for Palestinians, the negotiation process has facilitated some of the worst forms of Israeli violence, while giving Israel cover to pretend that it wants peace with Palestinians, rather than simply to annex Palestinian land. Take, for example, Israels settlements: When the peace process began in 1993, the number of illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip stood at 256,000. By the year 2000, the settler population had increased by more than 100,000 to 370,000 and today, the number is nearly triple the 1993 figure, standing at more than 766,000. Yet, while its settlements expanded, Israel did not feel the wrath of the international community. On the contrary: Its economy boomed as more countries around the world established diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, and US aid to the country skyrocketed, all without any guarantees that Israels subjugation of Palestinians would ever end. It is for this reason that successive Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have called for negotiations, as this process allows Israel to have its cake and eat it too; to steal Palestinian land while claiming that it is pursuing peace. In the context of military occupation and the gross disparity of power that accompanies it, negotiations cannot ever succeed, nor can they succeed without forcing Israel to abide by international law. Abbas may somehow believe that this time, the process will be different under Trump. Trump is, after all, unconventional. Yet anyone who has paid attention to Trumps history knows that this is not a man capable of being a mediator, arbitrator or facilitator. Rather, he will, like his predecessors, be Israels cheerleader and enabler-in-chief. Although Trumps presidency has lasted just over 100 days, this period has witnessed the fastest rate of Israels settlement growth in any US presidents first 100 days in office, with more than 10,000 units announced. Trump has repeatedly declared that he intends to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, in violation of US policy and international law, and has appointed an ardent supporter of Israels settlements, David Friedman, as his ambassador to Israel. In short, this is not a president who is remotely interested in securing equality for Palestinians. Instead, he will continue to indulge Israels insatiable appetite for Palestinian land. So, while Abbas may get his beloved negotiations process again, it will come without any guarantees that Israels settlement activity will stop or that Israel will finally end its 50-year-old military rule over Palestinians in the occupied territories. Trump acknowledged this when he said the process would hopefully lead to peace in short, negotiating for the sake of negotiating. And this is where change must begin. For years, Palestinians have been disenchanted with Abbass rule, but owing to his repeated cancellation of elections and long-running rule by presidential decree, they have been unable to cast a ballot for anyone else. Public opinion polls indicate that 64 percent of Palestinians are now calling for his resignation, and the support for his failed strategy of negotiations also rests at 33 percent. Palestinians do not have time for more endless negotiations. If the Palestinian leadership wants to demonstrate that it, too, wants the liberation of the Palestinian people, many believe that it should support the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, and press for Palestinian freedom by holding Israel and its supporters accountable instead of clinging to false Trump promises. Diana Buttu is a Palestinian lawyer and analyst who served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team from 2000 to 2005. A Long March-5 carrier rocket has arrived in Wenchang in south China's Hainan Province, for the launch of the Shijian-18 communication satellite, scheduled for June, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said Saturday. It will be the second mission of the Long March-5 which made its maiden flight from Wenchang in November. During the mission, the rocket will further test its core technology, accumulate data and provide support ahead of the launch of the Chang'e-5 lunar probe in the second half of this year. Fuelled by liquid hydrogen, kerosene and liquid oxygen, the Long March-5 can carry a payload of 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit, over 2.5 times the capacity of current Long March carrier rockets. Turkeys air strikes on PKK-affiliated groups in Iraq and Syria should be a wake-up call for the Trump administration. Turkeys April 25 air strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in Iraq and its affiliate Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in Syria were unexpected, but should not have surprised anyone. Turkey has consistently maintained that the PKKs presence in Iraqs Sinjar region was unacceptable. Only two months into the Euphrates Shield Operation back in October 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged that Turkey would not tolerate Sinjar to be the new Qandil, referring to the terror groups base of operations in northern Iraq. While Turkish officials repeated their opposition to PKKs presence in Sinjar several times, officials from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) also asked the PKK to leave the area. Early in March 2017, clashes broke out between the PKK-linked Yazidi militia and the KRGs Peshmerga fighters, a sign of increased tensions among Kurdish groups fuelled by the PKKs lingering presence in the region. Qandil mountains are located along the Iraq-Iran border in northeastern Iraq. The PKK have long been taking advantage of the mountainous terrain and using its bases there to train, plan attacks, and provide logistical support to its fighters. A similar base in Sinjar would help the PKK to operate in northwestern Iraq an area near the Syrian border which is critically important for the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). US military planners must be betting on the promises of the PKK-linked Sinjar Resistance Units to help cut off ISILs route between Mosul and Raqqa. A strain on US-Turkey relations Turkey is opposed to not only PKKs influence in the region, but also the US apparent tactical decision to utilise the PKK against ISIL. Turkey prefers a combination of Peshmerga forces and Free Syrian Army fighters to take the lead in the fight against ISIL, as these groups pose no threat to Turkeys national security. The PKK, on the other hand, has not only continued to conduct attacks against Turkey but has also sought to establish an autonomous region in northern Syria through its Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party, by making deals with prominent actors in Syrias war, including Russia. Creating a hub and a base for its operations in Sinjar is critical for the PKK, but actualisation of this plan would ironically violate the Iraqi-Syrian border just like ISIL attempted to do in the past. US military leaders seem to consider the PKK affiliates in Iraq and Syria as allies in the fight against ISIL. The US Central Command went even further than that and is now reportedly patrolling the Syrian-Turkish border to discourage escalation and violence between two of its most trusted partners in the fight to defeat ISIL. OPINION: US alliance with Syrian PYD alienates Turkey The US military did not hide its displeasure with the Turkish air strikes against the PKK and its affiliates in Iraq and Syria despite the fact that the US and Turkey are supposed to be part of the same anti-ISIS coalition. At the same time, neither President Trump, nor US officials at the cabinet level, have made any statements against Turkish operations. The forthcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart will surely involve extensive discussions around the US-Turkey strategic disconnect in the fight against ISIL and the PKKs influence on the ground. It will be a challenge, however, to resolve this issue in one meeting. Two sides will need to talk more often and in-depth about a military plan to root out ISIL but also, and more importantly, they will need to agree on a political plan that would establish stability on the ground in a post-ISIL scenario. Unfortunately, the anti-ISIL coalitions efforts have been largely tactical and created space for non-state actors such as the PKK to take advantage of a security vacuum spanning Iraq and Syria. There are signs that the Trump administration may be working on a more thoughtful approach that prioritises long-term strategies over short-term tactical gains. It is not clear, however, if this new approach will translate into actual policy. So far, the White House has not made a political decision on whether to arm the YPG directly and include them in operations to liberate Raqqa from ISIL. Turkey has presented multiple proposals that exclude the YPG from the Raqqa operation and replace them with local Arab forces supported by Turkish troops. Any scenario that empowers and legitimises PKKs affiliates will certainly strain US-Turkey relations and risk weakening anti-ISIL operations. It is clear as a result of the April 25 operations that Turkey is determined to limit the reach and influence of the PKK and its affiliates on national security grounds. Beyond Turkeys own national security requirements, it is difficult to see how allowing the PKK to control Arab-majority towns and to establish an autonomous region in northern Syria contributes to long-term stability. The Trump administration needs to go beyond tactical wins and take its time to create a more careful strategy both to avoid alienating key allies, such as Turkey, and to conduct a sustainable anti-ISIL campaign. Kadir Ustun is the Executive Director of the SETA Foundation in Washington, DC. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. There is no diplomacy like candor, the British essayist Edward Verrall Lucas once famously said. Last weekend, US President Donald Trump came under heavy criticism, including from officials within his own administration, for extending a formal invitation to his Filipino counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte. According to the White House, the two controversial leaders had a very friendly conversation. To the chagrin of human rights groups, the American president went so far as to praise the Duterte administrations brutal crackdown on illegal drugs as [a] very hard [effort] to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries around the world. In fact, during their first phone conversation in December, Duterte claimed that Trump was quite sensitive also to our [concerns] about drugs, and was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem. According to the media and civil society groups, Dutertes war on drugs has reportedly claimed an average of a thousand lives every single month. The anti-crime campaign, however, is popular at home, where the majority of the population has expressed trust and approval for their unorthodox leader. A human rights lawyer recently sought to initiate a formal complaint against the Filipino president at the International Criminal Court, accusing Duterte of committing crimes against humanity. Amid concerns over the human rights situation in the Philippines, the European Union is considering imposing sanctions on the country, while the US State Department is expected to cancel a $434m development aid package. To be fair, Trumps invitation to the Filipino leader makes perfect geopolitical sense, given growing concerns over the Philippines lurch into the Chinese sphere of influence in recent months. Moreover, both Trump and Duterte seem to have developed an unusual rapport, given their almost identical populist, anti-establishment bent. Its geopolitics, stupid! A hundred days into office, Trump has struggled to boast of any major achievement, whether at home or abroad. If anything, he still suffers from the lowest approval rating (44 percent) of any American leader at this stage in their presidency. But desperation has bred diplomatic innovation. Reaching out to controversial heads of state was a bold strategic move which could carry political dividends down the road for the embattled American president as well as strengthen his countrys leadership position in Asia. To be fair, Trump didnt only invite Duterte, but also Prime Ministers Prayuth Chan-ocha and Lee Hsien Loong of Thailand and Singapore respectively. This was part of a broader effort to reach out to smaller Asian powers, which have felt neglected by the Trump administration in recent months. So far, Trump has already hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while dispatching his Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Foreign Secretary Rex Tillerson to Northeast Asia and Europe. In April, Pence only briefly visited Indonesia, Southeast Asias largest country, en route to Australia. READ MORE: Rodrigo Duterte The Donald Trump of the Philippines? Establishing robust military cooperation with Southeast Asian states such as the Philippines, the former site of the largest American overseas military bases, is crucial to the success of the Trump administrations increasingly assertive defence policy in the region, particularly in the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea. Trump needs maximum support from all major players. As the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Duterte has huge sway over shaping the regional agenda. Moreover, inviting Duterte over to the White House made perfect sense since Trump is expected to visit Manila later this year for the East Asia Summit, a major annual event regularly attended by Asia-Pacific leaders. Thus it was of paramount importance for Trump to invite Southeast Asian leaders over, reassure them of American commitment to the region, and develop a better understanding of their strategic dilemmas amid rising Sino-American rivalry in Asia. New Best Friends So far, Duterte has demurred from the invitation. While aboard Chinese warships, which recently visited Dutertes hometown of Davao, the Filipino leader said that he cannot make any definite promise, since he is too busy with other scheduled trips, including Moscow and Beijing in the coming weeks. In reality, however, Duterte considers Trump someone he can work with, in spite of disagreements over human rights issues. During his inauguration speech, Trump declared that America will no longer seek to impose our way of life on anyone. As for Trumps chief diplomat, Rex Tillerson, he repeatedly refused to categorise Duterte as a human rights violator during his confirmation hearings. OPINION: Rodrigo Duterte: A new era in the Philippines A few months into office, Tillerson, in a dramatic break with tradition, snubbed the annual human rights report briefing at the State Department. These actions stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric, if not actual policy, of the Obama administration, which made human rights and democracy issues front and centre in Americas regional diplomacy. In response, Dutertes spokesman, Ernesto Abella, welcome[d] President Trumps [new] foreign policy direction, and called for a more placid and mutually beneficial relationship between the two allies. Trumps relentless praise and admiration for authoritarian leaders the world over, from Russias Vladimir Putin to Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicates Washingtons growing emphasis on strategic interests over ideology and value promotion. And this is why a Duterte-Trump bromance could be on the horizon. Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs and authorof Asias New Battlefield: The USA, China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Nigerias Chibok in 2014 spurred worldwide Bring Back Our Girls campaign. At least 82 of the nearly 200 schoolgirls who were still missing after a mass Boko Haram abduction in northeast Nigeria in 2014 have been freed, a government official has told Al Jazeera. The girls were in the town of Banki, close to the Nigeria-Cameroon border, after their release on Saturday, Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from Nigerias capital, Abuja, said. We are told that 82 of the Chibok girls have been freed by Boko Haram, he said. According to sources, this may be a result of negotiations but there have also been some military operations of recent around that area, as well as other parts of northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram seeks to impose a strict Islamic law in Nigerias mainly Muslim north. READ MORE: Father of Chibok girls, 3 years on I lost my peace The armed group seized 276 pupils from the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok on the night of April 14, 2014, with 57 of them managing to escape in the immediate aftermath of the abduction. Some of the schoolgirls have since been released, while others managed to escape. Before Saturday, more than 80, including 21 whose release was negotiated in October 2016, had been freed. Negotiations between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram have been ongoing for some time. Government officials said the talks continued after the release of the 21 girls last year, but in recent months they seemed to have hit a wall amid an escalation in fighting. Following Saturdays release, Al Jazeeras Idris said there were questions around what the Nigerian government might have given to Boko Haram in return for the schoolgirls. A lot of people in Nigeria dont believe that Boko Haram will simply release those girls after three years in captivity for nothing in return, he said. We were told that Boko Haram was trying to negotiate for the release of some of their top commanders in custody of the Nigerian security services. There are also some reports suggesting that they want some ransom to be paid for some of these girls. READ MORE: One million forced from school by Boko Haram war The abduction of the schoolgirls drew international attention to the armed group, while the Nigerian governments failure to act quickly to free the girls spurred a global Bring Back Our Girls movement. About 2,000 girls and boys have been abducted by Boko Haram since 2014, with many used as sex slaves, fighters and even suicide bombers, according to Amnesty International. Some 20,000 people have been killed and about 2.3 million displaced since Boko Haram started its armed campaign in 2009. Four agencies temporarily suspend operations in Ouham in the countrys northern region, UN says. Four international aid agencies have temporarily suspended their operations in northern Central African Republic due to attacks on aid workers by armed groups, the United Nations said. In the countrys Ouham region, aid workers have been attacked on 16 occasions since March, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday. It is one of the most dangerous and difficult countries for humanitarian work, particularly in the northern prefecture of Ouham, OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said, adding that there had been a recent concentration of attacks against aid workers. This temporary withdrawal will certainly have an impact on many people who depend on aid, he told a news briefing in Geneva. Solidarites International, Intersos, Danish Church Aid, and Person in Need Relief Mission will withdraw their staff to the capital, Bangui, while other aid groups have decided to scale back to focus only on life-saving operations, according to OCHA. Central African Republic has been plagued by conflict since March 2013, when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by Christian anti-balaka militias. The Seleka and other groups have since splintered, prompting further violence despite the election in March 2016 of President Faustin-Archange Touadera, which raised hopes of reconciliation. IN PICTURES: Displaced and forgotten in Central African Republic Around 425,000 people have been uprooted by the fighting within the Central African Republic, some 465,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, and more than 2.2 million, nearly half the population, need humanitarian aid, according to OCHA. The lives of more than one million children are under threat amid a lack of funding, said the UN childrens fund (UNICEF). More than 40 percent of children are suffering from chronic malnutrition, one in seven will die before they turn five, and a third are out of school, according to figures from UNICEF. The countrys humanitarian response plan for 2017 has only been 12 percent funded $47m of a requested $400m to date, the UNs Financial Tracking Service (FTS) shows. We cannot allow the Central African Republic to become a forgotten crisis, Christine Muhigana, UNICEF representative in the Central African Republic, said in a statement. Officials say more than 20,000 people desperately needing to travel abroad for treatment remain stuck in Gaza. Egypt has temporarily reopened the Rafah border crossing, in one direction, to allow hundreds of stranded Palestinians to return to the Gaza Strip, according to officials. The Rafah border, the only crossing to Gaza bypassing Israel, opened for three days starting on Saturday, allowing people in but not out. Egyptian authorities reopened the Rafah crossing for three days only, from Saturday until Monday, and only in one direction to allow those stranded on the Egyptian side to return home, Palestinian officials said in a statement, describing the move as a humanitarian gesture. READ MORE: Egypts siege on Gaza Rafah opens only for the dead Gazas border authority also said that more than 20,000 Palestinians, who are considered humanitarian cases, are stuck in the Strip in desperate need of travelling abroad to receive treatment. The Rafah crossing is the only remaining gateway for Palestinians in Gaza to the outside world after Israel imposed a stifling blockade on the Strip enforced also by Egypt a decade ago. But it has remained largely closed in recent years because of tensions between Egypt and Gazas rulers, Hamas. READ MORE: Ismail Haniya elected new political chief of Hamas Egypt has severely restricted entry through Rafah since June 2013, when Abdel Fattah el-Sisi became president following the ousting of his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi. The United Nations said Rafah opened on a partial basis for 44 days last year, compared to 32 in 2015. Only 1,713 patients were allowed to travel to Egypt for healthcare in 2016. Prior to the closure, more than 4,000 residents from Gaza crossed into Egypt monthly for health-related reasons, the UN said. French voters will choose between two radically different candidates to lead their country. Who is Emmanuel Macron? At just 39 years old, Emmanuel Macron seems set to become the youngest president in Frances history. Polls have him consistently at 60 percent in the run-up to Sundays second round election against the far-right Marine Le Pen, who has struggled to break above 40. That 20-point lead over the National Front (FN) candidate should be enough to take him over the line and into the Elysee palace later in May. Billed as an outsider, Macron is anything but, having graduated from the prestigious National School of Administration, which produces the countrys top civil servants and already counts three French presidents among its alumni. As Hollandes Minister of Economy, the former banker at Rothschild and Cie bank saw through many of the austerity reforms that made the incumbent so unpopular. A significant part of the 60 percent expected to vote for him on Sunday will be doing so through gritted teeth. Around 24 percent of voters put him down as their first choice and much of his second-round support will come from voters on the right and left who are voting against Le Pen rather than the status-quo he is set to preserve. As the western world turns increasingly to the far right, Macron is unabashedly centrist and pro-European Union in his outlook, appealing to French citizens who are familiar with the chaotic aftermath the election of Trump in the United States and Brexit in the UK caused. His policies are the status quo, with a nod to the socially progressive currents emerging in the US and Britain. Macrons commitment to Europe and the dominant Western order have earned him glowing references from the standard bearers of liberal values, including former US President Barack Obama. But commitment to the status quo does not equate to shyness in confronting topics considered controversial in France. Unlike Le Pen and several of his former opponents on the left and right, Macron has avoided making pronouncements against Muslim dress codes and is a fierce defender of an open immigration system. In February, he condemned Frances colonial legacy in Algeria as a crime against humanity, earning rebukes from many on the right. Nevertheless, Macron stood firm, apologising only for the offence caused and not for the actual comment itself. In the last televised debate between the two front-runners, Le Pen characterised Macron as a stooge of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and his market reforms as a threat to French workers. The former minister responded by accusing the far-right leader of offering snake oil instead of real solutions to the countrys problems. The bitter exchange could just as well have been a pitch for the 2022 presidential election. If he wins on Sunday, Macron will be taking the helm of a country beset with anxiety over the economy, the ever-looming threat of attacks by groups like ISIL, and its relationship with the EU. Macron failure to address those worries during his tenure will make it harder to dismiss Le Pens ideas as snake oil in future contests. Who is Marine Le Pen? A member of the Le Pen political dynasty has contested seven of the eight French presidential elections held since 1974. No matter what the outcome of Sundays vote, Marine Le Pens performance will be the best showing for a far-right candidate in post-war French history. According to the polls heading into the vote, she has the support of 40 percent of the French electorate, far exceeding the 18 percent her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, mustered after his surprise entry into the second round of the 2002 contest. Marine took charge of the National Front party her father founded in 2011 after his retirement and set about revamping its image. Gone were the anti-immigrant outbursts and brash denials of the Holocaust that characterised her fathers tenure, and in came a more moderate public image. But just how much of the new face is merely a facade is a matter of heated debate in the country. While the language has changed, the issues remain largely intact, with Islam, the EU and immigration dominating her platform. On Frances large Muslim minority, Le Pen has been unequivocal. We do not want to live under the rule or threat of Islamic fundamentalism, she told supporters, further condemning the hijab, prayer rooms in workplaces, the construction of mosques and pork-free options in school lunches. On the EU, Le Pen has threatened to withdraw France from the eurozone and hold a referendum on the countrys continued membership of the bloc. And for all her past detachment from her fathers Holocaust-denial, Le Pen appears to have dabbled in a little herself in the 2017 campaign. The FN candidate denied French culpability in the 1942 Vel dHiv round-up of Jews in Paris, who were later sent to be killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz. In 1995, the French state apologised for the complicity of the French police and civil servants in organising and enforcing the round-up. Far-right overtones aside, Le Pens campaign has been deeply populist and targeted at the most deprived and economically anxious segments of French society. Her attacks on Macron have attempted to cast the frontrunner as a member of an elite that cares little for the working class. That message was underscored by her highly publicised visit earlier this week to a Whirlpool factory in Amiens, Macrons hometown. There she drew cheers from workers, who gathered around her for selfies, as the centrist candidate was booed away. But such public relations victories have been infrequent and positive feelings towards her are far from universal. While campaigning for the second round in her familys home province of Brittany, protesters hit her with an egg and forced her into cover. With a seemingly unassailable gap to close in the polls, victory may elude Le Pen on Sunday, but her partys rise from the political fringe to an electoral force shows no sign of relenting. The appeal of her ideas has increased in part because of widespread disillusionment with austerity policies and an inability by the political class to provide adequate opportunity for social progress to ordinary people. Even if she loses the runoff on Sunday, if there is little improvement in the economic situation of ordinary people in France, there is every possibility she could do even better in 2022. Nine gigabytes of data from French presidential candidates team posted online, just over 24 hours before elections. Media organisations have been warned not to republish information hacked from the campaign team of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, and that doing so could result in criminal charges. Frances electoral commission, which supervises the presidential campaign, said in a statement on Saturday that the publication or republication of the hacked data could be a criminal offence. The dissemination of such data, which have been fraudulently obtained and in all likelihood may have been mingled with false information, is liable to be classified as a criminal offence, a commission statement said. Macrons campaign said on Friday that it had been the target of a massive computer hack that dumped its emails online. The leak came just over 24 hours before voters go to the polls to choose between the centrist and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen. Democratic destabilisation Macrons political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) said the release of thousands of emails, accounting documents and other files was an attempt at democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States. Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting, on Friday. The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information, the movement said in a statement. READ MORE: Five things you need to know about Frances vote Kenneth Grey, a retired FBI special agent and lecturer at the University of New Haven, told Al Jazeera he is not surprised by the hacking attack. It certainly does seem to be the new way to try to affect politics in other countries, he said. Hack into their email, release the contents, and if there is embarrassing information there, it may very well cause a swing in the election. He added that unless there is a smoking gun within these emails, he doesnt believe it will have an effect on Sundays election result. Campaign blackout News about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning went into effect at midnight. The campaign blackout means that candidates and media now face restrictions until polls close on Sunday evening. Macrons team said the files were stolen weeks ago when several officials from En Marche! had their personal and work emails hacked one of an intense and repeated series of cyberattacks against Macron since the launch of the campaign. READ MORE: Neither Macron nor Le Pen interest me The WikiLeaks website posted a link on Twitter to the trove of documents, saying it was not responsible for the leak but that it was examining parts of the cache. The hashtag #MacronLeaks swiftly began trending worldwide on Twitter. Last month a cybersecurity research group said Russian hackers called Pawn Storm had targeted Macrons campaign. Japan-based Trend Micro said the group had used phishing techniques to try to steal personal data from Macron and members of his campaign. Ahead in polls Opinion polls published on Friday before the campaign blackout suggested independent centrist Macron was set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sundays second round of voting, in what is seen to be Frances most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote. Former economy minister Macrons team has previously blamed Russian interests in part for the cyberattacks. On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data. In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Macrons camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers group operating in Ukraine. In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said that the documents released online showed only the normal functionings of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow doubt and misinformation. The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk, it added. University of New Havens Grey told Al Jazeera that if it is an attack by the Russians against Macron, its really an attack against the EU. It may be bigger than France, he said. US intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Hillary Clintons Democratic campaign to influence the election on behalf of Donald Trump, her Republican rival who went on to win the US presidency. German authorities prepare the second biggest mass evacuation in decades ahead of major bombs disposal operation. More than 50,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes in Hanover, Germany, ahead of a large-scale operation to defuse unexploded bombs dating back to World War II, according to officials. A total of 13 unexploded ordnances from the 1940s, found at a construction site, are expected to be removed from the northwestern city on Sunday. Defusing operations will start in the morning, but may last well into the night. The evacuation, the second-biggest since 1945, involves three heavily-populated areas of Hanover, which account for 10 percent of the citys entire population. Early evacuations started on Friday and Saturday as residents of senior care facilities were relocated to other parts of the city. City authorities have announced restrictions on movement for security purposes. Trains, for example, will not stop at Hanovers main station, prompting users to engage in online dialogues with representatives of local rail services in order to plan their day. @DB_Bahn Sehe ich das richtig, das diese Verbindung morgen von der Bombenentscharfung in #Hannover nicht betroffen ist? pic.twitter.com/WvZJtsvQhB Helma (@phelmas) May 6, 2017 Museums, cinemas and swimming pools are offering special, mostly free, programmes for those evacuated. One museum, for instance, is charging no admittance fee for the exhibition What remains of Palmyra? Syrias destroyed heritage. WWII bombs Such evacuations are not uncommon for Germans and construction sites seldom run without stumbling upon unexploded bombs from World War II. German authorities are under pressure to remove unexploded ordnance from populated areas, with experts arguing that the bombs are becoming more dangerous as time goes by due to material fatigue. Last year, the country organised its biggest evacuation to date with 54,000 people relocated in southern Augsburg. Hanover was a frequent target of Allied bombing in the latter years of the war. On October 9, 1943, some 261,000 bombs were dropped on the city. Some Twitter users were impressed that news of the Hanover operation had made it to New Zealand and Indonesia. Airship crash became the first multimedia air disaster of the 20th century, and AP news agency made broadcast history. It was 80 years ago on Saturday that a radio announcer uttered the words Oh, the humanity! into a microphone as the German airship Hindenburg burst into flames. The crash at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, filmed by four AP news agency crews on the scene, killed 35 of the 97 people on board and one on the ground. Word went out as Robert Okin of AP telegraphed the news one minute later, according to AP Archives. But Herb Morrisons words were not heard live that day in 1937, nor were they linked to the film. Yet the Hindenburg became the first multimedia air disaster of the 20th century, and Morrison made broadcast history. It was one of the real moments in media history that had a broadcaster reacting to something totally unexpected, said Ron Simon, senior curator of television and radio at New York Citys Paley Center for Media. Morrisons voice was being recorded on a transcription disc as he described the airships arrival, Simon said. The disc was running slowly, so his voice sounded higher when played back. Its burst into flames! he shouted. Its fire, and its crashing! Hydrogen gas An explosion of the Number 2 gas cell towards the stern of the ship was named as the cause of the disaster. The highly inflammable hydrogen gas billowed into fierce flame as the explosion drove the ship to the air field. Ground spectators said crew members in the stern of the ship never had a chance to escape. For about 40 minutes, Morrison described the final moments, pausing when emotions got the best of him, and interviewed witnesses. But his report was not heard until the next day. Simon said the radio networks had to decide what to do because they had a policy against playing recorded material. NBC decided to play it once, while others used excerpts. No one is certain when Morrisons words were merged with the film, but it was long after the disaster. To this day, theres a generation that associates the two, said radio historian Steve Darnall, of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. The report is so ingrained, it is tempting to reappropriate it as a cliche that diminishes the emotional impact of hearing it. The recording, along with the newsreel, were played Friday at a dinner held by the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. The group, which has more than 200 members, preserves airship history. President Carl Jablonski said time has not diminished interest in the Hindenburg. Younger people are drawn to it after seeing the footage and hearing the broadcast on the internet, he said. The group planned to gather on Saturday night at the crash site to lay wreaths in memory of those who died aboard the Hindenburg and for those in the military who have given their lives. Were honouring people who lost their lives as pioneers who made todays air travel what it is, Jablonski said. Only one person is left of the 62 passengers and crew who survived the crash. Werner Doehner was eight years old when he boarded the zeppelin with his parents and older siblings after their vacation to Germany in 1937. The 88-year-old now living in Parachute, Colorado, told AP that the airship pitched as it tried to land in New Jersey and that suddenly, the air was on fire. US Representatives vote 217 to 213 to pass bill dismantling much of Obamacare, but measure faces uphill Senate battle. The US House of Representatives has narrowly voted in favour of a healthcare bill drafted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The measure, voted in on Thursday 217 to 213, now heads to the US Senate, where it faces an uphill battle. Twenty Republicans went against the bill while not a single Democrat voted in favour of it. The vote against former President Barack Obamas signature domestic achievement, which enabled 20 million more Americans to get health insurance, is President Donald Trumps biggest legislative win since he took office in January. However, in the Senate, where the Republican majority is narrow, lawmakers are expected to subject the new bill to much greater scrutiny and skepticism. Speaking with dozens of Republican lawmakers huddled behind him in front of the White House, Trump said he felt so confident that the bill would pass the Senate as well. It will be an unbelievable victory, he said. Obamacare is dead. If we dont pay lots of ransom money over to the insurance companies, it would die immediately, he said. What we have is an incredible well-crafted [replacement plan]. Al Jazeeras Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, DC, said: It is unusual, to say the least, that the president would take a victory lap before the bill passed both houses of Congress. So it shows how important this is to Donald Trump, to his supporters to be seen, he said. Passed in 2010, Obamas Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid, the government insurance programme for the poor, provided income-based tax credits to help the poor buy insurance on individual insurance markets set up by the law, and required everyone to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Republicans have blamed it for driving up healthcare costs. The Republican bill, called the American Health Care Act, would repeal most Obamacare taxes, which paid for the law, roll back the Medicaid expansion and slash the programmes funding. It will also repeal the penalty for not purchasing insurance and replace the laws tax credits with flat age-based credits. This is a step away from more government control of our healthcare and our day-to-day lives, and a return to freedom for all Americans, said Republican Representative Luke Messer. READ MORE: #IAmAPreexistingCondition Healthcare bill condemned Thursdays victory came just weeks after the conservative Republican majority in the House of Representatives failed to drum up enough support to pass the motion. The decision on March 24 to pull the plug on the Republican-proposed healthcare law replacement hours before a scheduled vote was a humiliating defeat for Trump. The bill was amended for the second try, adding a modest pool of money they say would help people with pre-existing medical conditions afford coverage. Emotional debate An unusually emotional debate erupted on the House floor on Thursday morning as Democrats blasted the bill, saying it would make insurance unaffordable for those who need it most and would leave millions more uninsured. We dont even know how much this bill will cost America, Democratic Representative Joseph Crowley said during a debate on the House floor. READ MORE: The Obamacare debate is not just about healthcare In a push to pass the bill before representatives leave on Friday for a week in their home districts, the House voted before the bill could be assessed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimates its cost and effect on insurance rolls. Republicans have said that the bill will be scored by the CBO and other fixes will be made before the Senate votes. In a sign of the scrutiny it will face there, Republican Senator Bob Corker told MSNBC there was no way the healthcare bill would receive a quick up-or-down vote in the Senate and predicted senators would spend at least a month studying it. Flash Sonia Masood (Front, L2) and other members of the SCO Women's Club visit the former residence of Madame Soong Ching Ling on April 5, 2017. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn] Some members in the Women's Club of Shanghai Cooperation Organization paid tribute to Madame Soong Ching Ling on April 5, 2017 at her former residence in downtown Beijing. Around a dozen members of the Women's Club of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) paid tribute to Madame Soong Ching Ling, wife of Dr. Sun Yat-sun and honorary president of China on April 5, 2017 at her former residence in downtown Beijing. SCO Women's Club consists of female diplomats and wives of ambassadors of SCO member states, along with the observer states and dialogue partners. The tour was part of the Begonia Festival organized by the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), whose aims include promoting communications on the cultural and educational fronts. The CSCLF and the SCO Women's Club pledged to hold more cultural activities together in the future to boost the people-to-people exchanges between China and other SCO countries. They both agreed that close ties among the peoples are the foundation of amity among the governments. Zamira Asimova, wife of SCO Secretary-General and the Tajik ambassador to China Rashid Alimov, was among the many members of the SCO Women's Club who admired Madame Soong as an extraordinarily outstanding female leader. Asimova said Madame Soong set a good example for how women could shoulder a larger responsibility for a country's peace and development as well as its people's welfare and prosperity. Sonia Masood, wife of the Pakistani ambassador to China Masood Khalid, represents Pakistan in the club. Farmers in northern and central India are hoping their crops survive strong winds and heavy rains. Farmers the world over are at the mercy of the weather when it comes to the successful cultivation and harvest of their crops. None more so than in India, where farmers rely on favourable weather conditions for their annual harvest of mangos. This week, a line of thunderstorms with heavy rain and high winds gusting to over 50 kilometres an hour, swept across northern areas of India leaving extensive damage in their wake. Nearly 70 percent of the mango crop in Malihabad in Uttar Pradesh was damaged as the fruit was blown off trees and mango trees uprooted. India produces over 50 percent of the worlds mangos, or The King of Fruits as it is known locally. Nearly all of Indias states grow mangos, with Uttar Pradesh in the north and Andhra Pradesh in the south, producing the most each year. For many farmers, the annual crop of mangos is their only source of income, so when that crop fails, it has disastrous repercussions. Their only option is to sell the fruit off cheaply in local markets, making a fraction of their usual annual income. Each year, India exports mangos to countries around the world. In 2017, India is preparing to export mangos for the first time to Australia, and is set to increase the volume of its shipment to the United States so a successful annual harvest is crucial. With the heat set to increase across much of northern and central India over the coming days, farmers throughout the country will be hoping the threat of heavy rain and strong winds subside. Officials order investigation after gas tanker leak near a southern New Delhi school leaves hundreds of children ill. At least 200 pupils were admitted to hospital after a gas leak near their school in southern New Delhi, Indian police said. Classes were under way at the government-run girls school in Tughlakabad when gas leaked from a container parked at a depot close to the school and filled with a chemical meant for industrial use, officials said. The children complained of irritation in the eyes and throat and were immediately evacuated and sent to three hospitals nearby, Romil Baaniya, deputy commissioner of police, told reporters. No one is serious. The situation is normal now, he said, adding that more than half of those admitted to hospitals have been released. Police will initiate legal action against the handlers for negligence, Baaniya said. Deputy fire chief Rajesh Panwar said, however, the source of the gas leak remains unclear. A teacher at the school told NDTV news channel that when the pupils complained of discomfort, they were gathered in the school grounds. The smell of gas became stronger and we shifted them out of school and some to the hospitals, she said. Manish Sisodia, New Delhis deputy chief minister who is in charge of education, said he had ordered an investigation. Gas leaks are not uncommon in India, with most caused by a failure to comply with safety standards. In 2014, a poisonous gas leak at one of Indias largest steel plants in central Chhattisgarh state killed six people. A toxic gas leak in Bhopal city in 1984 killed at least 25,000 people and remains the worlds worst industrial disaster. Prisoners broke out of a jail in the city of Pekanbaru after they were let out of their cells for Friday prayers. Indonesian security forces have rounded up most of the inmates who escaped during a mass breakout from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island, police said. About 200 inmates broke out of the jail in Pekanbaru, on Sumatra island, after they were let out of their cells to pray on Friday. Almost 80 were quickly recaptured after the incident, and on Saturday the majority had been rounded up, officials said. So far, 171 inmates have been recaptured or surrendered willingly, we are still unable to determine the exact number of the inmates who escaped, local police spokesman Guntur Aryo Tejo told AFP news agency. Amateur footage broadcast on local TV stations showed scores of men, some wearing sarongs, scurrying through the gates of the Sialang Bungkuk prison on Friday, with no sign of officials in pursuit. Most prisoners were recaptured while still near Pekanbaru. Dozens of the escaped inmates headed directly to another prison where they handed themselves in. Tejo said the inmates told the police they decided to escape due to inhumane conditions in the prison. The male-only prison has a capacity of 300 people but was holding 1,870 inmates, with only five guards and a porter on duty at any one time, said director general of prisons, I Wayan Dusak. They also complained about unfair treatment by the prison guards, Tejo said. READ MORE: Indonesia Manhunt under way after mass jailbreak More than a thousand inmates who did not escape the prison were refusing to return to their cells unless the head guard was replaced. Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where inmates are held in often unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons. There was a spate of breakouts in 2013, including one where about 150 prisoners including terror convicts escaped from a jail on western Sumatra island. Freedom March protesters in Warsaw say Polands ruling right-wing party is undermining the rule of law and democracy. Tens of thousands of Poles have demonstrated in the capital, Warsaw, against the countrys populist ruling party, calling for the protection of the rule of law from a series of government steps they deem anti-democratic. Speakers at Saturdays Freedom March alleged that the government under Jaroslaw Kaczynskis right-wing, nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has eroded the independence of courts and other institutions to such an extent that Poland would not be accepted into the European Union or NATO today if it did not already belong. Many protesters were carrying red-and-while Polish flags and blue star-spangled EU flags. We will not allow Kaczynski to take us out of Western Europe. Together we will defend freedom, said Jacek Jaskowiak, the mayor of Poznan, a city in western Poland. READ MORE: How Polands conservatism is playing home and abroad The event was organised by the liberal opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, but other opposition parties and the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, a civic organisation, also took part. PO estimated that 90,000 people took part in the protest. The police put the number at 12,000. The march was smaller than anti-government demonstrations in May 2016, which were attended by more than 200,000 people. Protesters are concerned about PiS consolidation of power since taking office in 2015. PO liberals accuse Kaczynskis government of using its good change policy to push through staff changes that undermine the independence of the Constitutional Court and other public institutions, such as television and radio stations. The PiS, which swept back into power after almost a decade in opposition partly by playing on fears of an immigration influx, has also come under scrutiny for installing loyalists as directors in state-controlled enterprises. Kaczynski has said refugees bring cholera to the Greek islands, dysentery to Vienna, various types of parasites. President Andrzej Duda, who is close to the ruling PiS party, recently stirred controversy by announcing a constitutional referendum in 2018, which critics fear will hand even more power to the government. The latest polling shows the PO scoring 31 percent, pulling ahead of the PiS (29 percent) for the first time since the October 2015 election. We have democracy Kaczynski said on Saturday that the protesters were misguided. Freedom exists in Poland and only those who do not perceive reality can question that, he said. We have democracy: everyone can have their own opinions, everyone can demonstrate, everyone can vote for whom they want, and everyone can write what they want, Kaczynski said in the city of Szczecin. Separately, a yearly pro-EU parade called the Schumann Parade also took place in Warsaw on Saturday. Poland has been an EU member since 2004. Deal signed by Russia,Turkey and Iran calls for end to hostilities between rebel and government forces in four regions. A deal aimed at reducing violence in Syria is again in the news, as regional powers meet in Kazakhstan for a a fifth found of talks aimed at ending a bloody war now in its seventh year. The agreement signed in May by government backers Iran and Russia, and rebel ally Turkey in the Kazakh capital, Astana is the latest in a series of ceasefire proposals aimed at ending Syrias war. The plan calls for the cessation of hostilities between rebel groups and forces fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assads government in four so-called de-escalation zones in mainly opposition-held areas of the country, with Russia, Turkey and Iran to act as guarantors. The deal covers four general areas: Zone 1: Idlib province, as well as northeastern areas of Latakia province, western areas of Aleppo province and northern areas of Hama province. There are more than one million civilians in this zone and its rebel factions are dominated by an al-Qaeda-linked alliance. Zone 2: The Rastan and Talbiseh enclave in northern Homs province. There are approximately 180,000 civilians in this zone and its network of rebel groups includes al-Qaeda-linked fighters. Zone 3: Eastern Ghouta in the northern Damascus countryside. Controlled by Jaish al-Islam, a powerful rebel faction that was participating in the Astana talks, it is home to about 690,000 civilians. This zone does not include the adjacent, government-besieged area of Qaboun. Zone 4: The rebel-controlled south along the border with Jordan that includes parts of Deraa and Quneitra provinces. Up to 800,000 civilians live there. The deal laid out the areas where rebels and government forces should halt hostilities, including air strikes, for six months. More than 2.5 million people are believed to live in the zones. Russia will continue to fly over the areas but refrain from conducting air raids. The Syrian government is to allow unhindered humanitarian aid into rebel-held areas, and public services such as electricity and water are to be restored where they have been cut off. READ MORE: The rise and fall of ISIL explained Violence markedly decreased across all four areas in the first weeks after the deal was announced, although it eventually ramped up in Daraa. But the sides failed to meet a June 4 deadline to determine the exact boundaries of the zones and it remains unclear how and by whom they will be policed. The Astana talks received a boost on Monday after the Syrian army unilaterally announced a halt to fighting until midnight on July 6 in the southern provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida, which cover the rough area of one of the four proposed zones. Of all the four zones, the southern zone has seen the worst fighting in recent weeks. While Damascus has spoken in support of the zones deal, the rebels have been far more pessimistic and slammed any Iranian involvement in the plan. Osama Abo Zayd, a spokesman for the Syrian military factions at the Kazakhstan talks, said it was incomprehensible for Iran to act as a guarantor of the deal. We cant imagine Iran playing a role of peace, Abo Zayd said. Russia has argued that the agreement will help focus attacks against extremist groups such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a group with former ties to al-Qaeda that forms the backbone of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which are not parties to the troubled government-rebel truce. This leaves Tahrir al-Sham with every reason to rally opposition to the Astana deal and to torpedo it through bombings and other provocations, Syria analyst Aron Lund wrote in an article in May. It also seems likely to provoke clashes between the jihadis and those rebels who intend to abide by the Astana plan, which could, in turn, tempt the al-Assad government to seize new opportunities for advancement. Syrias conflict evolved from a bloody crackdown on protests in 2011 to a devastating war that has drawn in world powers, including Russia and a US-led international coalition. Russia has pushed the talks in Astana since the start of the year as it seeks to pacify Syria after its game-changing military intervention in 2015 on the side of Assad. READ MORE: Syrias civil war explained from the beginning The talks in Astana complement broader political negotiations the United Nations is backing in Geneva that are due to restart in mid-July. Alexander Fomin, Russias deputy defence minister, said the deal would allow for the separation of the opposition from ISIL fighters and those affiliated with al-Qaeda. He did not elaborate. The Syrian government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it will continue fighting terrorism wherever it exists parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the US-led air campaign against ISIL. The coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary, said Pentagon spokesman Marine Major Adrian JT Rankine-Galloway. As in previous deals struck by foreign backers of the warring sides in Syria, there is no clear mechanism to resolve conflicts and violations. This is the first plan, however, to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. Troops from the three countries are expected to help to secure the safe zones. But an official with Russias military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Sergei Rudskoi, a Russian colonel-general, said that the work of checkpoints and observation posts, as well as the management of security zones, will be carried out by the personnel and formations of Russia, Turkey and Iran. Turkey, whose agenda in Syria has significantly narrowed over the past year, is a major rebel backer and its forces occupy a sizeable swath of territory in the countrys north. Russia and Iran are key Assad allies and both are viewed as foreign occupying forces by his opponents. Irans presence as a guarantor to the deal has proven particularly problematic for the opposition. Additional reporting by Dylan Collins @Collinsdyl Bus veers off road and plunges into Arusha region river, resulting in the death of 29 pupils, two teachers and a driver. At least 29 schoolchildren have been killed in a bus crash in northern Tanzania, along with two teachers and the vehicles driver, according to police and school officials. A minibus veered off a steep road in rainy conditions near the town of Karatu, in the Arusha region, on Saturday morning and plunged into a river, said regional police commander Charles Mkumbo. The children, aged 12 to 13, were pupils at the Lucky Vincent school in the nearby town of Arusha, according to Mkumbo. We lost 29 students and two of our staff, and the driver died too, said Innocent Mushi, director of the Lucky Vincent Primary School in the northern city of Arusha, where the children were pupils. The dead included 12 boys and 17 girls, he said. National tragedy Several other children were wounded, some of them severely, according to police. President John Magufuli described the accident as a national tragedy in a statement. Tanzania, the second-largest economy in east Africa, has a poor road safety network, but buses remain the main form of public transport between towns. More than 11,000 people were killed in road accidents in Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, according to government data. The police suggest gangs are to blame for twin explosions in Manila that also left six people wounded. At least two people have been killed and six others wounded in two explosions in Manila, capital of the Philippines, a police spokesman said. The first blast occurred around 6pm (10:00 GMT) on Saturday near a mosque in Quiapo, one of the older parts of Manila, killing two and wounding four others, according to city police chief Oscar Albayalde. Two and a half hours later, a second blast hit the same area a narrow street crammed with stalls hawking clothes and homeware wounding two policemen inspecting the site, according to a photographer for the AFP news agency, who witnessed the explosion. The police chief suggested that gangs could be to blame. We do not see any indication that this is a terror attack, he said, and added: We do not want to speculate, but its possible this is a gang war. Albayalde said the first blast appeared to have come from a package that was being delivered by a man on a motorcycle. The man on the motorcycle who delivered the package was killed. The other killed was the person who received the package, he told the DZRH radio station. READ MORE: The lawyers taking on Duterte over his war on drugs The explosions occurred near an Islamic community centre and about a hundred metres from the Quiapo Golden Mosque, damaging part of the Islamic centre and shattering windows in nearby buildings. It was very powerful, Omar Yahya, 22, who was at the Islamic centre when the first explosion hit, told the AFP. Windows were broken and the wooden part of the building collapsed. Manila was also hit by an explosion last week. At least 14 people were wounded on April 28 when a home-made pipe bomb was detonated in the district of Quiapo. That attack occurred as Southeast Asian leaders were meeting for a summit a few kilometres away. The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the explosion on April 28, but police blamed it on a gang fight. One person was arrested over that attack. A look at the tech giants earnings as they are positioning themselves for greater influence over our digital lives. Nearly every Internet consumer in the world is exposed to these technology giants in some way: Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. The latest set of quarterly earnings shows just how much profit theyre generating from our increasingly technology-focused economy. In 2017, the biggest tech companies are just as big as Wall Street banks as they grow their market dominance. These companies own giant ecosystems of products that all tie into each other. Every time Apple sells an iPhone, the customer buys other services. Apples cash hoard is $250bn which is bigger than the market capitalisation of General Electric. It became the worlds most valuable company back in 2011. Companies can't just rest on their laurels and hope to continue to perform with the products and services they have. by Jack Kent, director of operators and mobile media, IHS Alphabets market value is worth $607bn. Its the parent company of Google which runs two-thirds of all searches in the United States. Amazons just introduced the Echo smart speaker to encourage customers to buy more of its services and products. The worlds biggest online retailer just marked an eighth straight quarter without losses and has a market capitalisation of nearly $439bn. Facebooks latest figures revealed that it has 1.9 billion users worldwide and it expects to hit the two billion mark soon. It reported a 76.6 percent surge in quarterly profit on Wednesday driven by mobile ad sales. Jack Kent, director of operators and mobile media for the IHS Technology group, joins Counting the Cost to discuss the top five tech giants earnings. One of the most interesting things in these results is the nature of how expansive some of these ecosystems are, so while Apples iPhone results got a lot of the headlines with relatively flat performance there, interestingly, its services business grew in app-store sales and app-store subscriptions. So, its the variety of services that these companies offer which is really an interesting trend now, explains Kent. He believes that these giant companies will continue to innovate and a big part of their profits will continue to be allocated for research and development. Companies cant just rest on their laurels and hope to continue to perform with the products and services they have, so you see lots of investment in new technologies things like augmented reality and artificial intelligence, so they really position themselves for future growth as well. Also on this episode of Counting the Cost: US retail apocalypse: Is it real and what happens next, if as analysts say, the US mall sector is facing extinction? US retailers are going out of business. Some analysts are calling the rise in bankruptcy rates a retail apocalypse. Others say were witnessing a paradigm shift within the industry. One of the oldest US brands, Sears, has also warned that it may have to close. Tom Ackerman reports from Maryland. Speaking to CTC is Gary Mortimer, associate professor of advertising, marketing and public relations at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Inclusive growth for Africa: The World Economic Forum on Africa was hosted by South Africa this year. The focus was on how to achieve inclusive growth for the continent through responsible leadership. But the host countrys President Jacob Zuma is facing pressure over his reported ties to the rich. Mohamed Vall reports from Durban. Made in China: The first large Chinese-made passenger jet has taken off on its maiden flight, a key milestone for a country seeking a place in the global aviation market. The C919 single-aisle jet, which can hold up to 168 passengers, soared over Pudong International Airport in the commercial hub Shanghai as a crowd of thousands cheered. Canada maple syrup: Maple syrup is Canadas economic and cultural mainstay. Quebec province produces 80 percent of whats consumed around the world, largely through a strict system of quotas and price controls. But as Daniel Lak reports from Oka near Montreal some farmers who want to opt out are facing huge fines. Editors note: This interview was conducted shortly before Ismail Haniya was elected new political chief of Hamas. The meeting between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump at the White earlier this month was meant to set in motion renewed efforts for a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal. But Hamas managed to steal some of the limelight nevertheless. The Palestinian movement labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States and Israel, unveiled its new political document outlining its general principles and policies. It is the first such revision since its inception in 1987. The new document contains descriptions of its position vis-a-vis Israel, its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, and its demand for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders that some see as a major revision in its stance. Outgoing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal talked to Al Jazeera to explain the organisations new political programme and the issues behind it. We also discuss the Palestinian prisoners hunger strike and Israeli soldiers being held by Hamas in Gaza. Al Jazeera: Hamas has just unveiled what it is calling a new political document, a guideline of principles, which many are perceive as a replacement to the founding charter that was written around 30 years ago Why did Hamas feel the need to write a new one? Does this mean Hamas has changed its ideologies or principles? Khaled Meshaal: Hamas presents this document as an expression of the natural evolution of Hamas. Hamas took off 30 years ago. That is a long time. Hamas is just like all other movements, nations and states and like all living organisms that grow and evolve, and become more mature and nuanced, more conscious, without that necessarily being at the expense of principles, values and ethics of the project that underpin our movement. As far as we are concerned, of course, that development will definitely not be at the expense of these values Our charter was issued in 1988, it was an expression of its historic phase, the phase that saw the launch of the movement of Hamas in 1987. This document today, in 2017, is an expression of the current phase. That is a process that reflects development in Hamass political thought and performance, how it deals with the Palestinian scene, the regional and international environments during the past years. That is a natural process, one develops. And it is also natural that ones development will get reflected in ones literature and political documents. Al Jazeera: Development is a natural process. However, there appears to be a change in the identity of Hamas, according to this new document. The founding charter described Hamas as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Whereas this new document describes Hamas as a Palestinian national Islamist liberation and resistance movement. Does this mean that you have broken ties with the Muslim Brotherhood? Meshaal: Hamas belongs to the school of the Brotherhood. But Hamas is an organisation that is Palestinian, patriotic and Islamic. There is no contradiction between these definitions. The first charter in 1988 mentioned the definition and its relationship to the Brotherhood because it was new back then, we were introducing a new name. Today, there is no need for that anymore. We, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, exist in Palestine, work in Palestine. Its roots are in the Brotherhood, its thinking is of the Brotherhood, but its a patriotic movement, a liberation movement, its frame reference is Islamic. That is well-known to everyone. But Hamas is an independent movement, not linked to any other organisations; its authority lies in the institutions of its leadership. Al Jazeera: There is also an important change in the document with regards to the identification of whom you consider to be your enemy According to this document you say, Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against Zionism or Zionists who occupy Palestine This is a far cry from the original document what is the thinking behind it? Meshaal: Hamas, ever since its inception it realises the nature of the struggle against the Israeli occupier, that it is not a struggle because they are Jews, but because they are occupiers. Yes, in the charter the expression that was used, especially in the early days, it was not as accurate as the one we use in the new document. The Hamas thinking from the very start was clear: We are not facing a religious war. We are not fighting people because of their religion, but because of what they did, the occupation, the aggression The struggle against Israel is for our cause, our land. We fight them because they have occupied our land, and attacked our people, and forced them out of their homes. That is the philosophy of the struggle. The first expressions were, perhaps, part of the early start. But in fact, Hamas, throughout its history, believes that the struggle came about because of the occupation. In Palestine and other Arab states, there used to be Christians, Jews and Muslims. Our Arab countries, in particular, especially in Palestine, the land of religions and prophets, it used to be home to several religions. The followers of these religions used to live side by side in peace. Al Jazeera: There is another article that says Hamas agrees and accepts the 1967 borders Do you still believe that Palestine is from the river to the sea, or do you believe you can have a two-state solution? Meshaal: In the document Hamas put forward the permanent principles of our people, their rights, the definition of the Palestinian people, the definition of the Palestinian territory, the Palestinian homeland, where our fathers and our forefathers used to live, decades ago. We are not talking of the distant past. Yet, at the same time, reality has created several political programmes for Palestinian groups, so how can we us and Fatah work together if each group continues to work in accordance with its own programme only. We would remain disunited, our ability to move forward would be weakened. Al Jazeera: Do you believe in 1948 or 1967? Meshaal: We have said that we are prepared to work within a common Palestinian programme with others to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. With Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return. We have said we are ready to accept that as a joint Palestinian programme with our partners in the homeland and also with our Arab neighbours. But our national principles have remained unchanged. There is no contradiction. Hamas is both pragmatic politically and open, but this is connected to principles and rights It [the document] expresses Hamass political development, which helps in presenting our case to the world and to attain our national rights. Al Jazeera: Domestically, there is a mass hunger strike taking place amongst Palestinian prisoners. What is Hamas doing to alleviate this suffering of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails? And I would also like to ask you about the fate of the Israeli soldiers arrested by Hamas in Gaza after the last Israeli waged war on Gaza. Why have we not heard about them, like we heard about Gilad Shalit? Meshaal: Briefly, the responsibility of Hamas and the Palestinian leadership in general towards the Palestinian captives is twofold. First is to support them, whether they are on hunger strike we salute them, as they, with empty stomachs, are sending their messages to the entire world they cause embarrassment to the Israeli occupation and put pressure on it. We identify with them under all circumstances. We defend their cause and support their demands to improve their conditions and their legitimate demands inside the prison, to keep their cause in the public eye on the Palestinian and Arab levels, as well as internationally. Our second demand, which is more important, is to set them free, to force Israel to release them. You know that Hamas has a long experience on that front As to information on Israeli captives held by Hamas, as you know this is a security game, a psychological game, bare-knuckle fight. We use the media to put pressure on Israel domestically. That is why the Israeli leadership started to climb down from its marble tower and make U-turns regarding its bravados that claimed there will be no new negotiation for a prisoner swap. We will force it to do so. No information without a price. And the final price will be freeing our captives, both men and women, God willing. Al Jazeera: President Mahmoud Abbas is meeting President Trump on May 3. This comes a few weeks after President Trump met King Abdullah of Jordan and Egypts President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi What do you think will come out of this meeting? Meshaal: The Trump administration has not yet explained its vision for the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israeli struggle. It receives foreign leaders, there may be some test balloons regarding some demands. But to this moment, the new American administration has not yet announced a specific process or vision. And I dont think that the American administration at the present moment considers it a priority. It is busy with Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Russia. There are many portfolios. Yet, we urge the American administration to deal seriously with the Arab-Israeli conflict and to change its older approach which has led to a dead end What is required is an Arab-Palestinian stance that not only talks of future projects, but to have the strong cards that will make the world respect us, and that will make our enemy, the Israeli enemy, respect us. After taking advice from The Foreign Policy Committee, the Government today decided to deploy a detachment consisting of a Challenger airplane to support the monitoring of shipping traffic in the Indian Ocean. Additionally, the Government decided that Denmark will again make a Challenger airplane available for the Mediterranean efforts to monitor EUs outer borders under []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... Flash The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is a huge project that is giving opportunities to many companies, the chair of delegation for relations with China in the European Parliament, Jo Leinen, told Xinhua in a recent interview. The European Union (EU) and China, two of the largest economies in the world, are well connected in trade and are now going "to a new stage," aiming to better engage in investment. Their investment agreement talks are on track, Leinen said. "European companies like to invest in China and Chinese companies come to Europe to invest," said Leinen, expressing hope that the investment deal could be concluded so that there is a "very fair, balanced and transparent framework." For the veteran politician, the initiative is a good opportunity for investment and cooperation, and that completely new logistics and innovation in the transport sector is needed. The German parliamentarian said "what we need is a common understanding of the projects, the financing and the condition for submission and for applying." He also attached importance to the initiative's green movement, most notably, "how we can reduce the energy consumption, how we can reduce the environment pollution by most modern transport systems." According to Leinen, the welcoming news is that the EU and China also have worked closely at all levels regarding technology and research, from bio-technologies to new materials. "The world of this 21st century has to go to more efficient and less environmental damaging... Europe and China should cooperate," he added. Meanwhile, as both China and the EU are undergoing structural reforms, Leinen, who has closely followed the development in China, applauded China's 13th five-year plan for economic and social development, saying it is "quite forward-looking, and combines important pillars and cornerstones" for the transition of the Chinese economy towards a highly modern economy. "I think modernization and innovation, that's the way to go," he said, noting that the Belt and Road Initiative, with a big potential for investment, is likewise a chance "for innovation to test and invest in very new systems for cargo as well as for people, whether it's air transport, maritime or land transport." Leinen said he hoped the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing would bring all stakeholders together, adding that European companies were "very keen" to take part in the forum as it would bridge connections from China toward Europe. Time was any person who declared himself perfect invited ridicule along with a suggestion he have his head examined. But those days apparently are long gone, at least according to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has recently declared there are classes of people who are born perfect, whose sexual and gender choices are infallible and therefore not to be subjected to anything resembling criticism, much less conversion therapy. A few years ago, NCLR began a campaign to end all conversion therapy, believing that attempts to change any youths sexual orientation or choice of gender invited irreparable psychological trauma, as such choices were inherently infallible. Consequently, NCLR and similar organizations began a campaign to outlaw all conversion therapy. The organization issued a statement: We believe that every LGBT child is born perfect and that any young persons identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender should be honored, celebrated, and supported. We are committed to ending these dangerous and stigmatizing practices across the country once and for all -- relegating them to the dustbin of history, and ensuring every child knows they were #Born Perfect. The idea that human beings are born perfect and therefore the choices they make are beyond reproach and are not to be subject to criticism or persuasion to change is a very dangerous thought. It is an idea dangerous to the LGBT community itself as well as to those who dont belong to that community. All of us humans need to remember Aristotles dictum The unexamined life is not worth living. In other words, self-examination and examination by others is what makes each of us more human, not less. Not to permit persuasion or criticism and to claim perfection as a given is to invite distortion of ones very being. Quite simply, none of us are perfect nor are our choices infallibly correct. The LGBT movement should be very cautious in its proclamations of perfection, for by so doing, it declares itself beyond introspection or criticism by others. Questions such as Am I and are we wrong in any way? should be but are never even floated by perfect people. Further, to demand any young persons chosen identity should be honored, celebrated and supported essentially is to demand worship from the rest of us decidedly flawed mortals. It is to declare Im OK, but you arent. It is to say, I am without sin; and if you disagree, you are a hateful person who deserves punishment by fire. It is to say What I say and do is beyond debate, and if you disagree, your life is forfeit. It is to surrender to the ideas that have always animated tyrants; to become like the perfect and perfectly tyrannous King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who upon seeing three Jewish youths who refused to bow down, honor, celebrate and support and worship him and his god demanded the young men be incinerated. History reminds us that it is self-proclaimed perfect men and women who have wrought the most carnage on their flawed fellow human beings. Maniacs who believed themselves and their vision for humanity beyond reproach or even persuasion and criticism turn out to be tyrants who think nothing of silencing or even eliminating the imperfect people who do not agree with them. However tiresome it may seem to repeat some of historys lessons, it is still salutary to recall the idea of the perfect Aryan race resulted in the deaths of millions. The idea of the perfect communist man resulted in imperfect classes of people being sent to the gulag to be tortured, starved, and worked to death. How did the leaders of organizations such as NCLR get to the point of declaring themselves born perfect? What intellectual trends support their declaration of perfection? Further, what pressures are being and will be brought to bear on those who know through common sense observation and who therefor do not believe anyone is born perfect and that all mankind is in need of persuasion to change; who believe conversion and being born again is essential for the entire sinful human race; namely, Christians and the Church universal? It has been gradual and radical secularization of certain Reformation doctrines that led some to the point of believing that self-proclaimed identity is infallible. Behind the self-proclamation of Elizabeth Warren that she is a Cherokee Indian; Rachel Dolezals insistence she is black and that race is only a social construct; and Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenners belief he is a woman is a radical distortion of the deeply religious belief that one conscience is ultimately responsible to God alone. The LGBT movement is at least partly due to the unintended effects of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the secularization of the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura; that is that the Bible alone was the standard. But individual interpretations of the scriptures divorced from tradition and the history of the Church resulted in a splintering into Protestant hyperplurality. The constant splintering due to varying interpretations of scripture divorced from Christian tradition and history and subject only to individual human will resulted in increasingly unorthodox and unsustainable interpretations. What happened was that secularists saw soon enough that assertion of the authority of human will did not have to have the backing of scripture, as bible verses separated from the authority, tradition and history of the Church could mean anything an individual meant it to be. The secularized interpretation of the doctrine of sola scriptura coupled with the accompanying secularization of the idea that every human being is responsible to God alone led to the idea that each person could interpret for him or herself the meaning of the world and of what it meant to be human. Why bother with scripture or the Church at all? The result: Sola scriptura devolved into sola me. Everyman, once characterized by late medieval theologians as requiring divine salvation, was gradually secularized, needing no guide to life other than himself. For the secularist, John Bunyans Christian pilgrim needlessly staggered through life with his burden of sin, looking for salvation. For the secularist, any traveler through life could be guided solely by the secular trinity of Me, Myself and I. The individual alone had the right and authority to interpret reality, including the reality of ones self. I could save myself. I also could declare myself to be anything I wanted to be. Thus the Reformation doctrine of everyman as a priest and everyman as answerable to God alone morphed into the secular idea that everyman is a god. Complete autonomy meant the supremacy of the human will at any particular point in time. It also meant the denial of history and tradition, which in turn led to the repudiation of hierarchy and authority. Hence the anarchism and nihilism we currently find on college campuses and within our cities. Hence -- unless rectified -- the collapse of Western civilization, as infallibility of individual human choice means anyone and everyone can declare him or herself above any law, human or divine. In sum, the Left and its vanguard movement is a religion that advocates the total triumph of the human will, even over reality. Since not everyones will can triumph without complete disintegration of all societal structures; a few power players would discern what is the collective will and enforce it, inventing rights to achieve a transformation of a society. The real issue, then, is not the will or rights of individual transgenders or others who are disaffected, but the will of those behind it to assert power over entities resisting fundamental transformation. The new ideology of the triumph of the will is essentially related to the fascist and communist movements that have preceded the current attempts at fundamental transformation. The power plays are the same; namely, the obliteration of all hierarchies, all institutions, histories, nations, and classes that are deemed enemies opposed to the new definition of reality. Such a viewpoint Inevitably results in tyranny, as those who oppose the perfect will of the self-anointed gods are viewed as attacking the new gods and therefore intrinsically hateful and worthy of severe punishment. It starts small: Here a butcher; there a baker; there a calligrapher or candlestick maker. But small persecutions are turning into a mighty tide of resistance against the Church itself, which is in the business of conversion of sinful humans and therefore anathema to the intrinsically perfect. For two thousand years (and two thousand years before that when one adds the observations of the Jewish prophets), the Church has realized all human beings are imperfect and are in need of salvation. The Church offers the message of redemption to sinners through belief in the salvation provided through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It offers a new birth; a chance to be born again. The orthodox Church has always repudiated Jean Jacque Rousseaus idea that humans are born perfectly good and are merely corrupted by society. It repudiates his idea that sentiment (feeling) trumps reality. The Church traces the fault in mankind back to the Fall of Adam and Eve, believing the first perfectly good human being was ruined by the sin of rebellion against God; but that mankind can be redeemed. Christianity puts the finger on the heart of every human being, declaring along with the prophet Isaiah that we like sheep have all gone astray but that God has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. By going full bore Rousseau, as has the entire so-called enlightened Left for at least several centuries or more, organizations such as the NCLR have placed themselves squarely against orthodox Christianity and its foundational beliefs. They have declared war against the Church and thus the moral and spiritual foundations of Western civilization. Christians can expect the war to intensify. In response, some within the Church have capitulated to the ideas of Rousseau and other enlightened secularist thinkers. The result, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, has been the acceptance of the secular doctrines that humans are just fine as they are and so do not need conversion therapy: A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. A new Reformation of the Christian Church would and should reclaim the gospel news that all of us imperfect people may be redeemed and reborn perfect because of the love and sacrifice of the only perfect human who ever lived; Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God. Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her its prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in many online publications, including Fox News, RealClearReligion, National Review, CNS and Russia Insider. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com Officials in the Iranian regime have, from time to time, defined their regime as, "if the whole Iranian populace have one position and the Supreme Leader has another, it is the word of the Supreme Leader that will be taken as the fact, and not that of the people. This attitude describes a dictatorial system of rule, a relic of the Dark Ages that rule Iran today. In the ayatollahs dictionary, people are defined as without rights or voice. So it is preposterous that, next month, this regime is about to hold presidential elections. Holding elections in any country, normally, signifies the rulers determination to go by the peoples vote. In today's Iran, it does not go this way. The religious dictatorship uses a sham election rather escape the inevitable consequences of the peoples vote. The regime of ayatollahs is the most detested government in Irans history. Anti-government protests happen every day, on each corner of Iran, and are a sharp indication that it is not the hearts and minds of the people that the ayatollahs so-called Islamic Republic rests. President Hassan Rouhani and the Supreme Leader have preserved their grip on power to an unbelievable extent through repression, arrests, prisons and public executions. On May 19, Iran's regime will hold its mock presidential elections. This is probably a unique election by global standards, in that contains no opposition. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Hassan Rouhani, represent the two factions of the same religious tyranny. The upcoming election is nothing but a power struggle between ferocious gangs within the system. Ayatollahs have already issued their Medieval commands on how to treat their own people, in particular Iranian women. Moreover, the vast extent of meddling and terrorism by this regime is so appalling that people in the region call the government in Tehran "ISISs godfather." Nevertheless, the ghastly memories of the winter of 2009 remain a nightmare for the ayatollahs. That was when a frustrated Iranian people rose up, in every city and town of Iran, to unseat the mullahs. The mass uprising was viciously crushed by the government taking advantage of U.S. and other Western states foreign policies which ignored the sufferings of the Iranian people. Election time can ignite a new mass uprising which, this time, wont be easy for the government to control, and it could be a political earthquake. With seismic waves that travel through the region, the shrapnel and the flash floods of the quake now appear inside Iran. Six candidates for presidential election each have a share in putting their nose into others business and standing behind savage terrorist groups which try to destabilize the regional states. Who are the most likely to win? Rouhani, the incumbent president whose performance has been appalling, an impostor-like, a wolf in sheep's clothing act, is out to dupe average people into accepting enslavement with a record of more than 3,000 executions during his tenure. Ebrahim Raisi Another main candidate, the mass killer of 1988 massacre, and the informal candidate of Khamenei, uses the art of euphemisms , lies, emotionalism, and deceit. He said in his campaign on April 26, 2017: I am able to create create 6 million jobs and triple the subsidies. One Tehran local said: He has yet to create any job or doesnt understand the numbers. However the art of euphemisms does not work anymore in the powder-keg nature of Irans society. On April 26, 2017, Raisi cancelled his meeting campaign due to a lack of attendance, but claimed it was due to bad weather. In Esfahani (the second largest city In Iran) the locals said the election in Iran is a method used to determine which politician was "most able to deceive, torture and kill you. At the end, those who count the fraudulent vote decide everything. Categorizing the regime in Tehran as similar to democratic countries of the civilized world, if not a deliberate treacherous act but will definitely lead us to a misleading conclusion. What is, ironically, called Irans presidential elections is nothing but a power struggle between the savage fragments of this government. These fractions do not represent any part of Iranian society. They rather fear the revenge of the people. Statements published by Irans resistance, the Mujahidin, PMOI, show that, Inside Iran, mullahs are faced with daily protests by workers who demand their months of unpaid salary, by the staff of bankrupted companies, by women who demand their rights and by students whose colleagues are in jail, looking for a savior. Factions inside the Iranian government each have an interest in putting their noses into others' business and standing behind savage terrorist groups which try to destabilize the regional states. The Iranian regime is continuing the daily murder and torture of its own people. Just this past April, Amnesty International reported that Iran is about to put to death two men who were children at the time of their arrests. One of the men has been on death row for 15 years. The organization has identified the names of at least 90 juvenile offenders currently on death row across Iran. Meanwhile, the International Monitory Fund reported this week that in terms of unemployment Iran has descended 13 steps in the past three years from the rank of 29th in 2015 to 16th this year. Elections in Iran means that the despot mullahs are trying to preserve their seats. Iranian people, however, do not consent to anything but a regime change. Hassan Mahmoudi is a human rights advocate and social media journalist seeking democracy for Iran and peace for the region. Staying true to his unpredictable approach to politics, Trump has been keeping us guessing on where hell go with his administrations Saudi policy. During his campaign, he went where few politicians dare to tread when he said the Kingdom wasnt pulling its weight in covering the cost of the U.S. security umbrella. He took a more balanced approach during Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans official visit to Washington in March, when they agreed on the major security threat posed by Iran. Then, just a week ago, Trump veered back towards his campaign rhetoric against the House of Saud, saying that the U.S. was losing a tremendous amount of money defending the desert kingdom. While Trump plays bad cop, hes letting James Mattis and Rex Tillerson play nice. The secretaries of State and Defense travelled to Saudi last month, where Tillerson acknowledged the Kingdoms worries by calling Iran the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism and announcing a government-wide review of U.S. policy on Iran. Trumps approach to U.S.-Saudi relations might look incoherent, but the good cop/bad cop strategy is a smart one. By using it, Trump is getting the point across that free riding wont be tolerated, while Mattis and Tillerson smooth any ruffled feathers and move ahead with priorities in bilateral relations: collaboration on Iran, defense, and investment. This dynamic keeps Riyadh on our side, but also keeps them on their toes. Assisting Trump is that, at this point, the Saudis have much less to offer in return for our political and military support. Thanks to the shale revolution, Saudi oil exports to the U.S. have fallen by 24% over the past 10 years -- while American production has doubled during the same period. Where the Saudis used to be able to dangle their oil reserves over our heads, we now have the upper hand in the relationship. This has become even clearer since the fall in crude oil prices, blowing a hole in Saudi Arabias budget and setting off an economic crisis there. In response, last April, the Saudi government announced a plan known as Vision 2030 to reduce economic dependence on oil, attract outside capital, and open up the Kingdoms highly conservative society. As part of the plan, the government plans to sell a 5% stake in state oil giant Aramco. That IPO, estimated to be worth at least $1 trillion, could be the largest in history and has already attracted interest from the New York Stock Exchange -- something that Trumps businessman reflexes surely noticed. During his tour in the Kingdom, Tillerson touted American companies as partners you can count on and said Saudi Arabia would find numerous opportunities in the U.S. in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But the U.S. isnt the only country with a stake in these new investment opportunities. Other countries, including the UK but also China, have been lining up to take advantage of opportunities offered by a more liberalized economy. In the past six months alone, Theresa May has made two state visits to the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia is Londons biggest trading partner in the Middle East, and May wants to increase trade and business ties even further. Last December, she attended the annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit to discuss the creation of a GCC-UK free trade space, while her second visit last month included the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (there to try and win the Aramco IPO for the LSE). The Chinese, meanwhile, inked $65 billion in investment and business deals back in March, when the Saudi king Salman visited Beijing on an Asia-wide tour. Going beyond economic ties, both the British and the Chinese have stepped up their military presence in the vicinity. For all the skepticism about Saudi-American relations, Trump and his cabinet secretaries know that Riyadh is on track to becoming one of the worlds biggest economies by 2050, equal to France. The Chinese clearly recognize this and are acting accordingly, and so the administration wants to make sure we keep our place at the table by making up for the damage done during the Obama years. Fortunately, we now have more leverage than weve had in decades and can extract better terms for our businesses -- all while containing Iran. If all goes well, Trump may soon be able to point to the Saudis as an example of what America First actually looks like in foreign policy: Americas interests secured via partnerships with allies that finally pay their fair share. Rising tensions and possible war with North Korea have been in the news for weeks. Less reported on would be a wars toll. War on the Korean peninsula would feature technology-juiced conventional and asymmetric fighting. Destruction and casualties would tally quickly. Thats military and civilian -- U.S., Korean, and possibly Japanese. Modern warfares lethality needs to be understood. If a nation goes to war, it needs to go with its eyes wide open. Lets establish this first. President Trump has every right to worry about Kim Jong-uns efforts to develop ballistic missiles capability. Outgoing president Barack Obama warned Trump about the threat. Trump has clearly learned a lot more since. Reported BBC News: North Korea's latest efforts appear focused on building reliable long-range missiles, which may have the potential to reach the mainland United States. Two types of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) known as the KN-08 and KN-14, have been observed at various military parades since 2012. Carried and launched from the back of a modified truck, the three-stage KN-08 is believed to have a range of about 11,500km. The KN-14 appears to be a two-stage missile, with a possible range of around 10,000km. War scenarios have the U.S. launching a preventive strike against the North. The principal aim would be to decapitate the Hermit Kingdoms leadership. Simultaneously, the U.S. would go after Kims nuclear sites. Attacks would target the Norths military chain of command and seek to disrupt -- if not shut down -- communications and stymie the Korean Peoples Armys (KPA) movement. U.S. and South Korean (ROK) forces would act to neutralize KPAs forces massed along the DMZ. A first strike against the North would be a coordinated mix of conventional warfare (primarily cruise missiles and fighter aircraft), special forces and covert operations, and cyberattacks. Its shock and awe, with more hoped-for finality. If it worked as planned, the war would practically end before it started. Its high stakes. A first strike is unambiguous. Short of killing Kim and the North Korean elites outright, theyd get that it was death match. War with the U.S. and the South would mean inevitable defeat for the Norths elite. Thats the makings of desperation. What we know about wars is that they rarely go as planned. The KPA isnt Saddams army. It isnt the Taliban. Theyre generally well equipped, rigorously trained, and appear motivated via fear and special status -- to fight. (North Koreas military is ranked 23 out of 126 by globalfirepower.com.) The North has concentrated forces and thousands of artillery pieces in the hills just north of the DMZ to strike Seoul. Seouls a mere 30 miles from the DMZ. Metro Seouls population is 25 million. In the opening phase of a war, the North would unleash thousands of rounds of artillery fire. Or intend to. Its speculated that much of that artillery is outdated, and munitions may be poor, too. But thats based on documents leaked from the North. They may be disinformation. But its a numbers game, anyway. With thousands of artillery pieces, what portion would have to be operational to wreak havoc on Seoul? From the Washington Post: The Second Corps of the Korean Peoples Army stationed at Kaesong on the northern side of the DMZ has about 500 artillery pieces, [analyst] Bermudez said. And this is just one army corps; similar corps are on either side of it. All the artillery pieces in the Second Corps can reach the northern outskirts of Seoul, just 30 miles from the DMZ, but the largest projectiles could fly to the south of the capital. How quickly could the U.S. and ROK make headway in destroying functioning artillery? Not overnight. How much time would KPA firepower have to attack Seoul? Add to the mix the Norths chemical and biological munitions stockpile. The North has agents deployed throughout Seoul Metro. They would act as saboteurs, yes, but theyd target leaders to kill. Soft civilian targets would be in their crosshairs too. The North has 180,000 commandos. Per the Washington Post: Strategic SOF [Special Operations Force] units dispersed across North Korea appear designed for rapid offensive operations, internal defense against foreign attacks, or limited attacks against vulnerable targets in the ROK [Republic of Korea] as part of a coercive diplomacy effort, the report said. They operate in specialized units, including reconnaissance, airborne and seaborne insertion, commandos, and other specialties. All emphasize speed of movement and surprise attack to accomplish their missions. The U.S. has 23,500 stationed in the South. Thousands of U.S. troops are deployed along the DMZ, serving as a tripwire. In the opening days, U.S. causalities would be significant. Rolling up the KPA would mean advancing up the Peninsula toward the Chinese and Russian borders. Fighting would be fierce. Much of the Korean peninsula features hills, mountains, and valleys. Its suitable terrain for resistance warfare. As for the Chinese and Russians, military intervention is unlikely, for obvious and complicated reasons. The Russians dont have a history of direct military confrontation with the U.S. Berlin and Cuba saw tensions resolved without conflict. The Russians were glad to equip and arm the North Vietnamese communists, but not to do the fighting. For the PRC, the early 1950s are long gone. Mao certainly tipped the balance for the North Korean communists in the Korean War. U.S. and allied forces had all but won the fight when Chinese intervention led to a stalemate. Modern Chinas economic health is tied to manufacturing and global trade, much of it with the U.S. The PRC seeks broad hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. Xi Jingping and Trump may have come to an accord over what to do about the North in hopes of avoiding war. Certainly, Pyongyang is unhappy with the Chinese, lashing out at Beijing for its lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the U.S. War and the Norths defeat would push refugee hordes into China. Managing a refugee crisis isnt something China wants. Nor does the PRC want U.S. and ROK troops perched on the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. For that matter, Putin wouldnt care for the U.S. to be nearer Vladivostok. Avoiding conflict better serves Chinas interests. Theres no question that Kim Jong-un is ruthless, but is he suicidal? Like a poker player, Kim could keep his nuke card in hand, threatening to play it to wring concessions. Kims father and grandfather were masters at bellicosity and exacerbating tensions to leverage aid and economic help. A White House official is worried about nuclear blackmail, as Fox News reported: North Koreas nuclear weapons development could be used as blackmail to influence the U.S. to abandon its ally in South Korea in order to make it easier for Pyongyang to overtake its archrival, a White House official [Mark Pottinger] said Tuesday. Would a future U.S. president abandon South Korea in the face of nuclear blackmail? Who knows if Kims successor would be ruthless and rational? Even rational men miscalculate. Is conventional war now, even with its high price, better than war tomorrow, with nukes in the mix? Trump is weighing a lot. War, and its consequences, carries the greatest weight. A front-page story in the New York Times, January 20, 2017 reported: "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said." The story originally carried this headline: "WIRETAPPED DATAUSED IN INQUIRY OF TRUMP AIDES[.]" A Times article, May 2, on the Face the Nation interview of President Trump indicated that President Trump ended the interview after moderator John Dickerson pressed the president "on his false claim ... that President Barack Obama had placed a 'tap' on Trump Tower." The article, by Glenn Thrush and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, went on to report: Congressional investigators from both parties have said they have uncovered no evidence to support Mr. Trumps claims. But congressional Republicans and White House officials have said that some communications of Mr. Trumps associates were picked up as part of routine surveillance conducted by American intelligence agencies. Why did the New York Times tie a report of surveillance of Trump "associates" to "congressional Republicans and White House officials" and not to the front-page story in the Times, January 20? Is the Times edging toward the kind of practice that occupied Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984 rewriting the past to keep it current with the propaganda needs of the present? It was, after all, the Times that informed its readers, last January 20, that "TRUMP AIDES" had been "WIRETAPPED." This Times story referred to Mr. Trump as "President-elect" (indeed, it appeared the day of President Trump's inauguration); consequently, the surveillance had to have taken place while Barack Obama was president. Why, then, is it "false" to pin responsibility for the wiretapping, acknowledged by the Times, on President Obama? Or are Times readers to conclude that the surveillance was the work of a rogue operation by "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies" intent on rigging the president election for Hillary Clinton? Russian expert Stephen F. Cohen, on John Batchelor's radio show, May 2, called for an investigation of the role of U.S. intelligence agencies in the 2016 presidential election. The American people have been fed more than 100 days of anti-Trump propaganda and disinformation from the monolithic media including the vilest remarks from Stephen Colbert and bizarre claims of individuals practicing political psychiatry. It is indeed past time that Congress cleared the thick and foul partisan cloud over the nation and acted on Professor Cohen's suggestion. Charles Barkley is going to go around with a microphone talking to people about racism. This is supposed to initiate the long-anticipated "national conversation on race" that former attorney general Eric Holder said whites are too cowardly to have. While we wait for Charles to get started, accusations of whites yelling the n-word come from Adam Jones, Baltimore Orioles outfielder. That ugly, race-tinged things did happen are beyond doubt, as somebody threw peanuts and bananas at Jones in center field during a game. But the n-word? Curt Schilling steps forward and says he thinks Jones is lying about the n-word. Schilling says he will apologize publicly and on television if proven wrong, but I think he has a case. Time after time over the last 30 years, national outrage has been stirred over an incident that proved white racism only to turn out to be a lie. It has taken several forms: a black person accusing whites of shouting the n-word or scrawling the n-word on a dorm door or hanging a lynch rope from a tree or over a door or raping a black woman or smearing a black woman with excrement, and it turns out to be a lie. It happens all the time. This kind of lies has kept the race issue white-hot. Remember the congressmen who said they heard the n-word in the D.C. crowd? Then videos surfaced of them walking thru that crowd, every step recorded and from several different cameras. Though people could be heard whispering, not an n-word was to be heard. Those congressmen lied. Remember the lie about poor innocent Trayvon? And the lie about the gentle giant? Remember how the tape of George Zimmerman's phone call was deliberately altered to make it sound as though he was a racist? And the lie about the Duke lacrosse team? And let's not forget Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton's lie. Lie after lie after lie. Whites who use the n-word are few in number. Among blacks, however, you hear the n-word all the time, every single day, every hour of every day. And we all know it. This would be what Schilling's talking about, and he's right. Yet now we will again be treated to the press virtue-signaling its hatred of white racism by ganging up on Curt Schilling. Schilling's no racist. He's just got his doubts. As does anyone with any sense. Let's wait to see if any videos turn up that verify what Jones said, that prove that it was a white Boston fan and not a black Boston fan who yelled the n-word. Or that the n-word was used at all. Then let's see what turns up in Barkley's "national conversation on race" apart from the usual condemnation of white racists and exculpation of black racists. Racism is ugly behavior, rightly condemned by anyone with any sense of morality. And just as ugly practiced by a black as by a white. Emory University will now fund 100% of financial aid to students who are in the United States illegally. It means that if you are in the country illegally, you are rewarded for breaking the law, while Americans who are working hard to attain a college education receive no such blanket aid. Like so many things these days, it's inverted, upside-down, and backward. Breitbart reports: "Emory meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for undergraduate Undocumented Students (with or without DACA) who are admitted as first-year, first-degree-seeking students, and who graduated from a U.S. High school through a combination of grants and scholarships, institutional work study (DACA students only), and institutional loans. Undocumented Students without DACA status may receive an institutional loan in place of the typical work study award," the university's website states. Speaking to The College Fix, Megan McRainey, a spokeswoman for Emory, claimed that providing full financial aid relief to undocumented students reflects the university's commitment to welcoming students from diverse backgrounds. ... International students, who are not afforded the same aid privileges as undocumented students, will be forced to foot a $70,000 per year tuition bill if they wish to attend the prestigious Georgian university. "Diversity!" It's one of the left's favorite buzzwords that they pull out of the hat to rationalize all manner of insanity. (Also, notice how the university's statement capitalizes the term "undocumented students," elevating them to new heights [as if giving them a free college education isn't enough].) Taking a short walk down memory lane, readers may recall that last year, some students at Emory University were traumatized by the words "TRUMP 2016" written in chalk on the pavement. Their "safe space" was violated, they were "in pain," and they demanded action! This they got, when university administrators pledged to get to the bottom of who wrote the "controversial markings." The drama was of epic proportions, with protesters chanting the words of a cop-killer as they ranted about their pain and, ironically, their commitment to fighting for freedom (here and here). So this is Emory University. Where illegals get a free ride, Americans pay through the nose, and chalk is a dangerous weapon. Stephen Colbert wasn't exactly at the top of his game when he entered his fiery opening rant against Donald Trump that recently landed him in hot water. It's not really accurate to call the monologue "edgy," because harsh criticism of this president is as mainstream as it gets. Colbert's monologue wasn't funny, either. But that isn't his problem. "You have more people marching against you than cancer," Colbert fumed, speaking of President Trump. "You talk like a sign language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladamir Putin's c--- holster." It's that final remark that caught the attention of the ever-sensitive leftist SJWs, who found the comment to be "homophobic." The very viewers Colbert hoped to endear with his commentary immediately took to social media with the hashtag #FireColbert and called for a boycott of the show. And that might be the only thing funny about this tirade, which otherwise seemed a collection of bad one-liners better suited for Twitter than the stage of The Late Show. It's a delicious morsel of irony for us conservatives, sure. But where this went from ironically hilarious to frightening is when the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) chairman, Ajit Pai, said "his agency would be looking into complaints made against Stephen Colbert for what some labeled a homophobic joke." "I've had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints and we've gotten a lot of them we are going to take the facts and apply the law as it's been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts and we'll take the appropriate action," he said. What's the "appropriate action"? "A fine of some sort is typically what we do," Pai said. Let's be clear. This is a representative of the federal government. And he is saying that his agency will "typically" punish, monetarily, a person like Colbert, or a private entity like CBS, if public outcry demands that a punishment is warranted for speech that is deemed, after review by an unelected federal politburo, not very nice to gay people. I'm not an attorney. But allow me to cite legal precedent for why Pai's contention that a federal government agency has a right to punish an American citizen or private business entity for such a thing is entirely illegal (emphasis added): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. For those who may not know, that's the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. I'm also not a judge, but allow me to issue a verdict as to the matter of the FCC illegally fining an American citizen or a private business entity for saying things that a lot of really loud, sensitive people find "offensive." Guilty as charged. Pai and his politburo can dissect every Court case ever opined, cite as precedent the rulings and opinions established in it and "other courts," and he and his agency would be irrefutably guilty of a crime, in violation of the First Amendment. So perhaps Ajit Pai can tell me when and where, in law, the First Amendment was abrogated, and thus became irrelevant? If he can't, it should be quite clear that fining Colbert or CBS, on the grounds that whiny people made complaints about the supposedly offensive thing he said about gay men, is not warranted by a federal government that is explicitly forbidden to do any such thing in the very first law enumerated in our Bill of Rights. Ajit Pai is an Obama appointee. That is not the point, though it does likely evidence why he apparently believes that his role in federal authority is to root out and destroy "mean" speech about gay people. Trump did, however, reappoint him for another five years. That suggests something different, insofar as Pai's actions today are appraised. If President Trump hopes to "drain the swamp" in D.C., that begins with a reversion to our core principles. It begins with fostering a culture within the federal government that does not use executive strong-arming to subvert our freedoms and punish enemies. I'm not saying this is Trump's intent. But I am saying he can make it very clear that this is not his intent by calling off the FCC in nonsensical crusades such as this, and declare his support of Americans' First Amendment rights. It would be an incredible statement. And, I dare say, it would be a politically winning statement in every political spectrum outside the rabid leftists who find homophobia in every nook and cranny of American culture, and the die-hard Trump supporters who find any criticism of the president an act of sedition. It is important that we conservatives be consistent. How can we tell our children about the virtues of unabridged freedom of speech, only to selectively apply it in principle? How can any conservative argue against a revival of the "Fairness Doctrine," which the Democrat left has pursued in recent years to define what is "fair" coverage by media outlets, without first recognizing and acknowledging unequivocally that the federal government has no such right? And the inescapably lingering thought is this: why must the danger in a federal government punishing people for unpopular speech, regardless of who's president at a given moment, even be explained? William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter. If I hadn't done a story on vaping and what the heck it is last summer, I would never have noticed how dishonest a new ad campaign coming out of Gov. Jerry Brown's California Department of Public Health is. The ad I saw seeks to discourage teenage mall-goers out in places like Sherman Oaks, California (home of the famous Valley Girl) from vaping. It seems to be part of this year's crop of anti-vaping ads, coming out of a $75-million five-year anti-vaping state ad program fully supported by anti-smoking fanatic Brown. Rather un-transparently, the state agency attempts to make its message appear to be the work of an activist group called "StillBlowingSmoke.org" rather than a green-walled state bureaucracy. Here is a photo of what I saw at the Westfield Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks on Friday: Designed to appeal to rap and pop culture-obsessed white teenagers, the ad features a hip African-American face (which looks a lot like Jimmy Hendrix) clouded in a haze of vape smoke and looking soulful. It ominously captions that image with "E-Cigs: Big Tobacco's New Best Friend," with the sub-header: "There's a lot the e-cig industry isn't telling us about vaping." And in faded letters at the bottom, the ad features a copyright bug with California Department of Public Health, grudgingly admitting sponsorship. Here's what's obnoxious about the ad, based on my research here: Number one, that vaping is being depicted as evil. This is 100% rubbish. The British surgeon general's office equivalent has found that vaping is an effective means of helping smokers quit smoking by allowing them to gradually reduce their nicotine intake so they can quit without trauma. That's what we call harm reduction. Vaping lacks the awful carcinogens of burning tobacco leaves and industrial chemicals, something like 7,000 of them, and allows vaping enthusiasts to use a small amount of nicotine, along with the happy sensation of blowing fragrant steam from their devices instead of the filthy foul-smelling smoke of cigarettes. It's not 100% harmless due to the small amount of nicotine, but it's probably about 95% harmless and a heck of a lot better than tobacco smoking. The bottom line is that it helps smokers quit. The ad focuses on depicting Big Tobacco as the evil force behind vaping, a huge horrible conspiracy being "kept from us." This is even more colossal rubbish. Vaping is a kitchen-table industry where thousands of small merchants manufacture little pipes, nicotine compounds, flavors for smoke, and other small elements that go into the creation of a vaping experience. It's not the one-size-fits all package of Big Tobacco's answer to vaping, which is e-cigarettes, commonly available in convenience stores. Nothing wrong with them, but they are not the biggest part of the vaping industry now being targeted by the state agency. Here's the worst element of the ad: it depicts Big Tobacco as being behind vaping itself. This is humongous rubbish. Big Tobacco got into the vaping industry slowly and haltingly as a result of market forces. Young people were gravitating toward vaping, and the tobacco companies wanted a piece of that action. It wasn't something they thought up by themselves; they just didn't want to be left out in the cold as their sales fell. Now the phony story is being spread that Big Tobacco is the problem in this. It's not. It's a bit player at most. The problem is Jerry Brown's state agency that can't stop spreading distortions and lies about this industry. I speak as someone who has never vaped and never smoked a cigarette in my life. I just investigated the matter. Can we have a few facts here from our state overlords? Emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron have been leaked to a file sharing site, throwing the race into chaos in the lead up to Sunday's vote. The emails originated from Macron's political party, En Marche! (Onwards!), and comprised nine gigs of data. The French press is prevented by law from publishing any information that might sway the election, so very little detail of what was in the emails has been posted. Reuters: "The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said. An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules that forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, which took effect at midnight on Friday (2200 GMT). The presidential election commission said in statement that it would hold a meeting later on Saturday after Macron's campaign informed it about the hack and publishing of the data. It urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges. Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT). Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting, in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote. Former economy minister Macron's campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks. On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, but that the perpetrators had failed to compromise any campaign data. The Kremlin has denied it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine. Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters his review indicates that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. He cited similarities with U.S. election hacks that have been previously attributed to that group. If I were Putin and wanted to influence the French election, I would have leaked these emails a week ago, not less than 48 hours before the election, when it would be illegal for the press to comment on them. I think this fact alone argues against a Russian government conspiracy. There's the chance that Putin knew this and leaked them anyway to damage Macron after he takes office. But would the effort to hack the party's emails be worth it for such a shot in the dark? As it stands, it wouldn't have made any difference anyway. Macron's lead is pretty comfortable. It would take a polling error of "gargantuan" proportions for him to lose to the National Front candidate, says Nate Silver. In the age of Trump, pollsters make such predictions at their own peril. There's a word for what President Trump reportedly did, stepping in to save the job of his falsely maligned top counterterrorism adviser, Sebastian Gorka: leadership. According to a report in the left-wing Daily Beast: When the White House backed off its efforts to dump Sebastian Gorka on another federal agency, the controversial counterterrorism advisor had the president himself to thank, The Daily Beast has learned. After news emerged last week that the Trump administration was setting the stage to move the British-born national security aide out of the White House, President Donald Trump and his chief strategist Stephen Bannon personally intervened to put a halt to Gorkas White House eviction, two senior administration sources said. This is what we voted for. If the Beast is right, it means that the old Trump is finally back. And after an infuriating period where the Deep State, the neo-cons, and the quasi-Democrats seemed to be running the show, it portends the return of a take-charge presidency. Dr. Sebastian Gorka is a first-rate military strategist, scholar, and thinker whose work already has impressed President Trump enough to invite him to work in the White House. Even more noteworthy, he is the most gaffe-free spokesman on the entire Trump team, an unexpected gift to the Trump administration, given that many of his good people have been torn apart by the wolf packs of the press over minor slip-ups. While admittedly, his job isn't as tough as that of Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who must face down the leftist mainstream media every day, Gorka hasn't made any mistakes in his appearances on Fox News and other networks. In fact, on critical national security matters, he articulates the president's moderate, pragmatic, results-oriented vision in foreign policy extremely well. That's an incalculable benefit, and any good leader would not want to lose a team member who could deliver what other team members have otherwise had trouble doing. But it's about more than pragmatics. It's actually the right thing to do. Gorka has been subject to a gauntlet of lies falsely accusing him of bad scholarship, closet Nazi ties, and an anti-Semitic past, all of which is totally without merit. In the Alinskyite playbook, it's the repetitions of a Big Lie to turn it into "the truth." Most people who get into controversies have some sort of role in provoking their own troubles, but in Gorka's case, he hasn't. The reality is, the attacks have been unprovoked and he's completely innocent. This explains why none of the charges have stuck, and why they have come at him from so many strange, unrelated angles. It's all the work of two bitter weasels left over from the previous administration: former deputy national security adviser (and creative writing major) Ben Rhodes and Vice President Joe Biden's former national security adviser Colin Kahl, both of whom have a documented dead-ender campaign on Twitter to smear Gorka, using the left-wing press, academic scream protesters, and slimy little leaks to the mainstream press as their weapons. They have been at it for months, beavering away, and convinced they would succeed because they have gotten away with it. Trump (and his savvy adviser Steve Bannon) saw right through it and put their feet down when the other White House minions decided that the controversy was too much, the cocktail party invitations would dry up, the heat in the kitchen was too hot, and...the only solution was, Gorka would have to go. Trump said no. Trump apparently doesn't respond to that kind of bedwetting pressure. He stood by a good man, and an innocent one, and in this decision, he showed what he is made of. He also made his critics look stupid. This bodes well for this administration. The swamp is going to be drained. The Deep State hasn't truly taken over yet. A leader has. Thank you, President Trump. President Trump signed a massive $1.1-trillion spending bill that outlawed future construction of a border wall, spends more money on Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, allows a small increase in military spending, and increases the number of unskilled H-2B visas by 120%. Most prominently, Trump's planned border wall expansion, which was authorized in 2006 legislation, is now forbidden to be built by law. But I do not blame Trump for this. 1) We are told that Trump signed this legislation, but how do we know this is really the truth? It could be "fake news." Perhaps someone from the "Deep State," or a globalist operative, or a shadowy conspiracy figure Alex Jones talks about, impersonated President Trump and signed on his behalf, hoping Trump would get the blame for this bad bill. Fake news is so endemic. How do we know Trump really signed the bill? How do we know Trump is really president? How do you know you are actually reading this? You simply don't. It can all be questioned. You may only be thinking you are reading this, while in reality you are riding an elephant in India at this very moment. 2) But let's say, for sake of argument, that Trump really did sign this bill outlawing the construction of a border wall, violating the primary promise of the Trump campaign. If he did sign it, it was a stroke of brilliance. I mean, if anyone else had done it, I would call it a total betrayal of a main campaign promise. But if Trump does it, it must all be part of a secret, long-term plan that we cannot hope to understand. Perhaps Trump wants to lull the Democrats into a false sense of security. Perhaps Trump knows that come September, or if not September, some later time after September, Trump will give the Democrats a political karate chop that will force them to fund his border wall, and at that point, Trump's signing a ban on border walls now will look positively brilliant. 3) Keep in mind that the legislation that Trump apparently signed contains more than a billion dollars for border security. It even gives Trump permission to reinforce up to 40 miles of fencing along our 3,000-mile border with Mexico. If I were an illegal alien, I wouldn't want to cross the border at any one of those 40 miles once Trump is done building them up! The legislation also allows Trump to build levee walls, to keep undocumented water out of America. We can name them after him. We can call them the "Trump levee walls." 4) As for all those additional H-2B visas? Once Trump lowers the boom on legal immigration, those will be the first to go! You see, right now Trump is only giving the appearance of giving in on border security and allowing more immigration. But when he springs his trap, just wait and see it will all be reversed! 5) Remember that he's been president for only a little over a 100 days! One hundred days is not nearly enough time to refuse to sign a spending bill that outlaws construction of a border wall. His presidency is still young. What's the hurry? 6) In any event, if Trump's signing of this bill was not part of a greater plan, it's not his fault. It's the fault of his advisers. Blame Ivana Trump for giving birth to Ivanka. Blame Ivanka for falling in love with Jared Kushner. B lame all the Democratic Goldman Sachs advisers in the White House. But don't blame Donald Trump. He's just a passive instrument through which all bad decisions flow. He's not responsible. Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com. The number of passengers using Chippewa Valley Regional Airport for the first four months of 2017 is 3,000 more than the number for the same months last year, the airport director said Wednesday. We are definitely moving in the right direction, Charity Zich told the Chippewa County Economic Development Committee. There was also a 9 percent increase in passengers in 2016 compared to 2015. But that growth may be slowed if the federal Essential Air Service funding is wiped away next year. President Donald Trumps fiscal year 2018 budget calls for getting rid of the funding. Thats why Zich asked the committee for its support to keep the federal project, which she received on a voice vote. Zich is scheduled to take the same message to the Chippewa County Board meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in room 302 of the courthouse at 711 N. Bridge St., Chippewa Falls. Chippewa Valley Regional Airport is served by United Express, which flies to and from OHare International Airport in Chicago. Zich said eliminating the federal funding would mean the loss of airline service in 173 communities in 36 states, or 30 percent of airports with scheduled airline service. In the local airports case, it would mean a loss of $350,000 in revenue. She said Chippewa Valley Regional Airport has received EAS funding since 2010. Asked by The Herald if she would go back to Chippewa County to ask for funding if the EAS revenue is lost, Zich said in an email: Our focus is on building our (air) traffic to the level that we no longer need the program. Mills Fleet Farm update Brock Norman, a lead project manager for developer Ryan Companies, updated the committee on the progress of work on a Mills Fleet Farm Distribution Center being built in Lake Wissota Business Park in Chippewa Falls. The Minneapolis-based company is building the plant, which will be leased to Fleet Farm, based in Appleton. This is probably the first project that we ever started early, Norman said, adding work on the site began in the last week of March. Our next big milestone is precast (concrete), he said, saying that will start Wednesday, May 24. Very soon after that, steel. Very soon after that, roofing. And so on. Paving on part of the site will start in June, Norman said. The committee accepted an appraisal done for the county for Lake Wissota Business Park. The appraisal by Gargulak Appraisal Services, LLC of Rice Lake concluded the market value of each acre in the park for industrial use is $35,000 as of March 26. The committee also talked in a session closed to the public about potential business projects, including one with Xcel Energy. The committees agenda said it would discuss prospective deals, given the names Project Early Bird, Project Fast, Project Interlock and Project Pac Man. The project with Mills Fleet Farm came under the EDC name of Project Timber. This domain was recently registered at Namecheap.com. Please check back later! If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both 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. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. St. Petersburg hotel will be built in Yerevan, and Yerevan shopping center will be opened in St. Petersburg, Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko told reporters in Yerevan, reports Armenpress. In nearest months the construction of Yerevan shopping center will launch in our city. The preparation works were long-lasting, but already the territory exists for the center, there is a project. I am almost convinced that the construction will launch in autumn of this year or in early next year. There is already a clear idea who is going to construct it, who will invest and who will be the resident, Poltavchenko said. He confidently said the project will be completed in a very short period of time since Armenian builders will carry out the works. In his turn Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan said St. Petersburg hotel will be built in Yerevan, and currently talks are underway with the projects investors. The St. Petersburg side will construct the hotel in Yerevan, and we will build the shopping center there. Of course, the private companies will implement this. We have many programs for future, we have discussed them and put the beginning. Currently our teams are working, and I hope we will inform you about the results soon, Taron Margaryan said. The area for the hotel has been allocated for already half a year ago. It will be located on the top of Abovyan park. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan congratulated Guzh Manukyan, film and theater actor, Peoples Artist of Armenia, on his 80th birthday. For over six decades, as a famous actor of Armenian theater and cinema, as well as author of theatrical performances, not only do you create true works of art, but you also nourish human emotions and memories with your characters, Sahakyan said in the letter. Galust Sahakyan wished health, longevity and all the best to Manukyan. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. First Lady of Armenia Rita Sargsyan will fully cover the nutrition issue for the newly-born quintuplets of the Karapetyan family from Metsamor, Armenia, till the children reach the age of 1, the First Ladys Office told ARMENPRESS. The quintuplets were born on May 3 4 girls and 1 boy. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiatsin announced on May 5 it would donate a 4-room apartment to the family, who is currently renting a flat. The health issue of the newborns is under the personal supervision of healthcare minister Levon Altunyan, as doctors said the quintuplets require treatment. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The suspect of the May 5 Gyumri murder has confessed in committing the crime, the Police HQ told ARMENPRESS. Gyumri Police Department received a report on May 5, 10:40 that a man has been found dead in a home of Gyumris Ghorghanyan Street. First responders discovered the body of Stepan Markosyan, 77, in the home. The body had multiple stabbing wounds. A few hours later Gyumri police officers detained the suspect, a 23 year old man, identified as Harutyun P. The 23 year old confessed in committing the murder, which happened during an altercation. The weapon has been confiscated and the suspect is under arrest. Investigation continues. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian-Russian joint troops will be used in case of a threat by Turkey towards Armenias borders, Major General Andranik Makaryan, commander of the Armenian-Russian joint troops, said at a meeting with reporters on May 6, reports Armenpress. The joint troops are ready to neutralize any possible threat by Turkey on our borders, he said. Commenting on the Turkish statements on deployment of military base in Nakhchivan, Andranik Makaryan said we must not be surprised by such statements since this behavior is typical for the Turkish side. If there is a threat on the border of the Republic of Armenia, including also from that direction, our sacred duty is to jointly act against our enemy. This is enshrined in the respective documents, the commander said. Mufti came out in strong support of Modi saying he alone can help the people of the state in these troubling circumstances. Mufti said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation, but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. (Photo: PTI) Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only hope to address the 70-year-old Kashmir issue once and for all. Mufti came out in strong support of Prime Minister Modi saying he alone can help the people of the state in these troubling circumstances. Speaking at the inauguration of a much-awaited flyover in Jammu, the chief minister said, "If anyone can take us out of this quagmire, then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has the mandate. Whatever he decides, the nation will support him." Reiterating her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in Kashmir, Mufti said, "The previous Prime Minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lahore is a proof of his abilities, an example of his moral authority." Mufti said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation, but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had improved the relations between India and Pakistan, which were again disturbed due to the lack of initiative taken by the previous governments. Now after 2008, for the first time, people have started expressing passion in the matter," she added. Reacting to the statement of Congress leader G.S. Charak on the lack of development in Jammu, the chief minister said that a tense situation in Kashmir affected Jammu as well. "Jammu has many tourist destinations and we are trying to develop them," she added. Last month, Mufti met Prime Minister Modi at his residence in New Delhi and briefed him about the security situation in the Valley. After the meeting, she told reporters that it was important to resume the dialogue process initiated by former Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is being reported that the separatist leaders are getting around Rs. 75 lakhs to radicalize the youth of Jammu and Kashmir. A probe into the two captured ISI agents in Kashmir has revealed that the ISI fund separatist leaders to keep anti-national sentiments alive in the valley. (Representational Image) Agartala: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Ram Madhav on Saturday said the Centre has evidence of separatist leaders in the Kashmir getting funds from Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, to create unrest in the Valley. "This is a well-known fact. Today, the documental evidence is also available that these so-called separatist leaders in the valley are actually on payroll of the ISI. They are taking money from Pakistan to create unrest in Valley and make innocent ordinary people of Kashmir scapegoats in their anti-national designs," Madhav told ANI. A probe into the two captured ISI agents in Kashmir has revealed that the ISI fund separatist leaders to keep anti-national sentiments alive in the valley. It is being reported that the separatist leaders are getting around Rs. 75 lakhs to radicalize the youth of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and briefed him on the prevailing law and order situation in the state. The meeting was held at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the continuous unrest in parts of the Kashmir Valley reportedly raised in their discussion. Vohra's meeting with the Prime Minister came after his meeting with Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the similar issue. Born in Lucknow to an engineer of the railways in 1930, Justice Leila Seth was a pioneer in almost every step she took. New Delhi: Leila Seth died the way she lived in the service of people. The first woman chief justice of a high court in India and author Vikram Seths mother, donated her organs before her death, her family said. Seth was 86. She died of a cardiac seizure on Friday night, at 10.28 pm. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here, her younger son Shantum Seth told PTI. Her family said there would be no funeral as she had pledged to donate her organs. My mother has donated her eyes and other organs for transplant or medical research purposes. So we will not have a funeral, Shantum said. On May 28, there would be a prayer meeting in her honour, he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled her death, tweeting that her remarkable contribution to the field of law would be remembered. Vice-president Hamid Ansari said she blazed a trail for women. The eminent jurist, much admired in the field of law and in other professions, championed sharper legislation for women. Seth was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). She started her legal practice at the Patna High Court, where she spent 10 years from till 1969 before moving to Delhi. Her husband, Premo Seth, worked in the private sector. In an interview to PTI in April last year, she had spoken about her experiences at court in the early days of her career and her fondness for Patna. We were very few women as the legal field was all dominated by men. Feisty barrister Dharamshila Lal was my contemporary, in fact my senior, who was known to jangle her bangles at judges in the courtroom, if they didnt pay attention, she had said. On her days in Patna, she said, It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to White Pillars bungalow, our old home. And, like he did in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga. Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she lived with the courage of her convictions and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. Many names have been doing the rounds for the Opposition presidential candidate. New Delhi: Talks for a common presidential candidate from the Opposition ranks gained momentum on Saturday with DMK chief M. Karunanidhis daughter Kanhimozhi meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi to invite her for her fathers birthday. Some of the Opposition parties have also evinced interest in a common minimum programme (CMP) if their efforts at forging a broad-based secular coalition before the presidential poll in July are successful. Kanhimozhi, who had met JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Friday, discussed the upcoming presidential poll with the Congress president, sources told this newspaper. The June 3 birthday celebrations of the DMK chief in Chennai is turning out to be the second-biggest Oppositions show of strength after May 1, when all such parties came together to celebrate veteran socialist leader Madhu Limayes 95th birth anniversary. Sources said that either Sonia Gandhi or her son and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will attend Mr Karunanidhis birthday bash. Meanwhile, Opposition parties which have met among themselves as well as with the Congress president have held talks on whether there was a need to have a CMP if a grand anti-BJP alliance fructifies before the presidential poll. Questioned whether the alliance was looking for a leader, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that there was a need for a CMP before that as it would set the rules of engagement for various parties. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has already put forward a proposal for such a CMP during his meeting with Sonia Gandhi. Sources confirmed that Mr Kumar had discussed the matter with the Congress president, and said that his party was on the same page as Mr Yechury. Many names have been doing the rounds for the Opposition presidential candidate. They are former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, JD(U) Rajya Sabha leader Sharad Yadav and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. There was also speculation that either Mr Kumar or Mr Yechury might emerge as the leader of the broad-based secular coalition. DMK MP Kanimozhi meets Nitish and Lalu, invites them for Karunanidhis birthday. New Delhi: Former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi is emerging as a possible Opposition candidate for the presidential elections even as the campaign for Opposition unity spread down South. DMK veteran Karunanidhis birthday celebrations in Chennai on June 3 is turning out to be the next big event for an anti-BJP platform for these parties. The parties had earlier come together on May 1 to mark socialist leader Madhu Limayes birth anniversary. The event had been attended by leaders across the socialist spectrum as well as the Congress and Left parties. Mr Gandhi, who is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, was the West Bengal governor from 2004-2008. Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had proposed his name as the candidate for the vice-presidents post in 2012. The former IAS officer had written an open letter to Mr Modi after he became the Prime Minister in 2014. Sources, however, added that the name has not been finalised yet and a decision would be taken by the third week of this month. The other names doing rounds are of NCP chief Sharad Pawar and senior JD-U leader Sharad Yadav. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has taken a lead to coordinate among all Opposition parties, is likely to call a meeting of all Opposition parties to thrash out the name of a final candidate after May 15. The parties were hopeful of finalising a name by the third week of this month. The parties which hold the key to the presidential polls include AIADMK, BJD, TRS, YSRCP, AAP and INLD. These parties maintain equidistance from BJP as well as Congress in their domestic state-level political considerations. Out of these BJD is currently miffed with the BJP after suffering losses in the recent civic polls in Odisha while the AIADMK is in the midst of merger talks. CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury met Mr Patnaik on Thursday. Meanwhile, Karunanidhis daughter Kanimozhi met JD-U chief and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as well as RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Friday and invited them for her fathers birthday celebrations. Old friend and social justice companion DMK chief Karunanidhijis daughter Kanimozhi came to invite for Karunanidhis 94th Bday celebrations, Mr Yadav tweeted. Sources said Ms Kanimozhi discussed about the current political situation in the country with the two leaders. Both Mr Kumar and Mr Yadav have accepted the invitation and will attend the even in Chennai. All eyes would be on Ms Kanimozhi when she reached Delhi on Saturday to meet other top political leaders and invite them for her fathers birthday. Speculation is rife that this could also be a move to tap the Opposition leaders for a anti-BJP front during the 2019 general elections and hold parleys on the presidential elections. Khan, the MLA from Okhla, has also been appointed a member in seven newly constituted committees, including the Special Inquiry Committee. Delhi: A fresh round of tussle may erupt in the Aam Aadmi Party as its MLA Amanatullah Khan, who was recently suspended from the party for attacking senior leader Kumar Vishwas, has been appointed the chairman of a panel of the Delhi Assembly. Khan, the MLA from Okhla, has also been appointed a member in seven newly constituted committees, including the Special Inquiry Committee, of the House by the Speaker. The move is seemed to have been taken to placate Khan, considered as a prominent Muslim face in the party. An MLA, who had spoken in favour of Vishwas, termed Khan's appointment as a "promotion". The members to these committee are appointed with tacit approval of the ruling party. The party said the appointment of members to these committees was the "prerogative" of the Speaker. Khan had accused Vishwas of being an "RSS-BJP agent" and plotting a coup in the party. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia had to convince Vishwas who had insisted on stern action against Khan. He had also threatened to quit the party. By suspending Khan, a "mask", Vishwas had tried attacking the "coterie" who was hatching "conspiracy" against him. By suspending Khan, the party also averted a major crisis. Sisodia had visited Khan at this residence, just hours after his suspension from the party. However, with the appointment of Khan to these committees, the party could face a fresh crisis as many MLAs were believed to be backing Vishwas. Sources in the party said all AAP legislators including Somnath Bharti, Alka Lamba and Bhavna Gaur, who had backed Vishwas, have been accommodated in the Library Committee. It is, however, not considered as prestigious with the panel having little work to do. Bharti, who had openly advocated a greater role for Vishwas in the party, was removed as the Chairman of the Privileges Committee and Kailash Gehlot appointed in his place. Sources close to Vishwas declined to react to this development, but indicated that the leader, who was pacified just two days ago, is unhappy over the development. "With this development the leadership has sought to send a message that it backs Amanatullah and has given him a promotion. Whoever gave statements in favour of Vishwas have been cut to size," an MLA who had backed Vishwas said. The Delhi government has also issued a showcause notice to the authorities of Tughlaqabad depot. New Delhi: Around 475 girls at two schools in South Delhis Tughlakabad area were hospitalised on Saturday after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container in the area. The leakage from a container filled with chloromethyl pyridine, a chemical used to produce insecticides and pesticides, parked near their schools led to the incident. Preliminary investigations revealed that pesticides from the container fell on the nearby road. The pesticides turned into poisonous fumes after it came into contact with the sunlight, a local police officer told this newspaper. The students and nine teachers of Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidhalaya and Government Girls Senior Secondary School were immediately rushed to the nearby hospitals ESI Okhala, Batra, Apollo, Majethia and AIIMS. As many as 406 students and teachers were discharged and the remaining are still undergoing treatment at various hospitals. The condition of those undergoing treatment is said to be stable. According to the police, a call was received at 7.35 am about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot. The chemical in the container was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana, it said. Following the incident, teams of police and Natio-nal Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. The Delhi government has also issued a showcause notice to the authorities of Tughlaqabad depot. An NDRF official said there were 80 drums in the container and the chemical leaked from three-four of them. Suniti, a student of Class 8 in Rani Jhansi School, said, I felt dizziness and irritation in my eyes. First, I washed my face, but there was no relief. Three of my friends even fainted and our teachers rushed them to the hospital. I was also taken to the hospital and discharged after two hours. Deputy chief fire office Rajesh Pawar said, A chemical leakage at the customs area of Tughlaq-abad depot caused irritation in eyes of the students studying in Rani Jhansi School. The students were shifted to nearby hospitals and are reported to be normal. The principal of Rani Jhansi School, Manisha Vaish, said that the children had complained of suffocation and irritation in the eyes while they were praying. At around 7 am in the morning, during prayer time, the children complained of suffocation and irritation in the eyes. Without any delay, we got the children out from their classes and called the police to investigate. We later sent the children home and those who complained of breathing problem were admitted to three nearby hospitals. The teachers are currently with the students at the hospital, the principal said. A FIR under relevant sections of the IPC and environment protection act has been filed against unknown persons. Meanwhile, later in the day, the parents of the victims blamed the school authorities for carelessness while stating that the school should not have been permitted to function in such harmful premises. Looks like the container started leaking at around 2 am and the people nearby put mud and water to stop the leak at that time, but they could not anticipate its impact, said Narender Singh Raw-at, a computer hardware serviceman, whose two daughters suffered from the chemical leakage. The company recently announced the Windows 10 S and the Surface laptop at its education party on May 2. The conference will more likely unveil the Surface Pro model, instead of the smartphone. Microsoft will be holding its Build developer conference and a hardware event on May 23 in Shanghai. The company recently announced the Windows 10 S and the Surface laptop at its education party on May 2. Earlier there were rumours about the company introducing the Surface Phone, as Microsofts CEO himself recently reiterated the companys commitment to phones. Unfortunately, this isnt true and the Surface Phone is no where close to the launch. The conference will more likely unveil the Surface Pro model, instead of the smartphone. There are also reports that Microsoft plans to launch the smartphone before fall this year or spring of 2018, though this is pure speculation and the company can hold back the launch of the Surface Phone for as long as it wants. Speaking of the new Surface hardware, the company wont be launching a new-generation of the Surface, but the Surface Pro 4 will witness a hardware upgrade. This indicates that the new hardware slated for May 23 will actually be a refreshed version of the Surface Pro 4, with higher RAM and storage, new chips and 4K screen. These are all improvements that were expected on the Surface Pro 5, but at this point, just a hardware upgrade seems to be more likely than a new-generation model. It seems that the Surface Phone isnt ready for launch as of now and users will have to wait for the company to make an official announcement regarding the device. Microsofts CEO Satya nadella however confirmed that the smartphones are still on the table and it is just the matter of time until the smartphone is showcased. Opposition leaders have repeatedly called on officers to think with their conscience before launching attacks. Caracas: The number killed in Venezuela amid mounting political unrest rose to 38, as opposition leaders reported that dozens of officers had been detained for refusing to repress protesters. Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said 85 officers, a majority from the military, had been detained for "expressing discontent" with the actions of the nation's national guard. Capriles said on Thursday he received information about the detained officers through some of their relatives, who indicated they wanted their position shared with the public. There has been no independent confirmation of the detentions. National guardsmen have repeatedly launched tear gas and rubber bullets in more than a month of anti-government protests. Demonstrators are calling for President Nicolas Maduro to hold elections, but the embattled leader shows no sign of ceding to their demands. Authorities announced on Thursday that Hecder Lugo, 20, had died a day after being shot in the industrial city of Valencia, which has been the scene of ongoing protests and massive looting. His death brought to at least 38 the number of people reported dead by various sources, though the public prosecutor puts the tally at 37. More than 700 others have been injured. Opposition leaders have repeatedly called on officers to think with their conscience before launching attacks, noting that among the protesters could be their own relatives and friends. The opposition is calling for women to march throughout the nation today, while pro-government women's groups are planning a counter-demonstration. About 2,000 women in the United States have filed similar suits against company over health damage caused by company's talcum powder use. The company has said that it would appeal and disputed the scientific evidence behind the plaintiffs' allegations. (Photo:AP) Washington: Multinational giant Johnson & Johnson's has been by directed by the St Louis jury to pay a Virginia woman USD 110.5 million as compensation. 62-year-old Louis Slemp, of Wise, Virginia, had filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson's alleging that she developed cancer by using the company's talcum-containing products for more than 40 years. The jury ruling last night for Slemp comes after three previous St. Louis juries awarded a total of 97 million USD to plaintiffs who made similar claims. About 2,000 women in the United States have filed similar suits against the company over health damage caused by extended use of Johnson & Johnson talcum powder use. The company has said that it would appeal and disputed the scientific evidence behind the plaintiffs' allegations. In March 2013, Maharashtra's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had cancelled the cosmetic manufacturing license of Johnson & Johnson's Mulund plant after it was found that the company did not conduct the mandatory test to ensure absence of traces of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic substance, in its baby powder. Le Pen was one of the first politicians to congratulate Trump on his election last November. Washington: US President Donald Trump will work with "whoever the people of France decide to elect" as their leader, his spokeswoman said Friday. The comment offered no support to either Emmanuel Macron, who polls favor to be France's next president after elections on Sunday, or his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, whom Trump has hinted should benefit from attack-related security fears. "The president is committed to working with leaders across the globe to combat a whole host of issues and certainly would do that with whoever the people elect," Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. She said, however, that "I have not had a conversation about whether he supports any particular candidate." The non-commitment contrasted with the position of Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, who this week released a video statement backing Macron, a centrist who he said "appeals to people's hopes and not their fears." Le Pen was one of the first politicians to congratulate Trump on his election last November, and she has lauded his protectionist stance on trade. She has also traveled to Moscow, where she met Russian President Vladimir Putin and was photographed with him. Trump has said he hoped for improved relations with Putin, though both men have admitted that US-Russia ties have worsened in recent months. Green withdrew his nomination over growing criticism over his remarks about Muslims, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Washington: President Donald Trump's choice for Army secretary has withdrawn his nomination in the face of growing criticism over his remarks about Muslims, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Mark Green, a Republican state senator from Tennessee, said in a statement Friday that "false and misleading attacks" against him had turned his nomination into a distraction. "Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain," Green said, expressing "deep regret" over the decision. Green is the second Trump nominee for Army secretary to withdraw. The move to step aside comes after a video began circulating of a remarks Green gave in September to a tea party group in Chattanooga. Green, who is opposed to gay marriage, said being transgender is a disease. He urged that a stand be taken against "the indoctrination of Islam" in public schools" and also referred to the "Muslim horde" that invaded Constantinople hundreds of years ago. Several Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, declared they would oppose Green's nomination over what they said were intolerant and disturbing views. Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a combat veteran who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm during the Iraq war, said in a statement Friday that Green wasn't fit to lead the service. Schumer welcomed Green's move to step aside. "Mark Green's decision to withdraw his name from consideration as Army secretary is good news for all Americans, especially those who were personally vilified by his disparaging comments directed toward the LGBTQ community, Muslim community, Latino community and more," he said in a statement. Also on Friday, a coalition of 41 organizations led by the Human Rights Campaign called on the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to reject Green's nomination. The letter to Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Jack Reed of Rhode Island said Green's "shameful rhetoric" is at odds with the Army's core values and will affect recruiting. Green's withdrawal underscores the challenges Trump has faced in filling two of the service secretary posts. The president's first pick to be the Army's top civilian, Vincent Viola, dropped out in early February because of financial entanglements, and about three weeks later Philip B. Bilden, the Navy secretary nominee, withdrew for similar reasons. The GOP-led Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on the nomination of Heather Wilson to be Air Force secretary. Trump's decision to tap Green in early April represented a stark contrast to President Barack Obama's choice of Eric Fanning for the post. Fanning, who had been a senior Pentagon official, was the first openly gay leader of one of the military branches. Green graduated from West Point in 1986 and served as an Army physician. Green is the CEO of Align MD, which provides leadership and staffing to emergency departments and hospitals, according to the White House. He served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment where he made three combat tours to the Middle East. As a Tennessee state senator, Green sponsored legislation last year that his critics have said would make it easier for businesses to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. During his remarks before the Chattanooga tea party group, Green said the Obama administration has "bred general officers who are afraid of their shadow." He also said that "if you poll the psychiatrists, they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease." The notification says that visas will not be denied on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation. The State Department on Thursday issued a notification publishing some of the questions that the US State Department wants to ask from US visa applicants. (Photo: AP) Washington: The Trump administration has proposed a rigorous vetting process for US visa applicants, including investigating their social media profiles, to keep foreigners with connection to terror activities or other national security-related ineligibilities out of the country. The State Department on Thursday issued a notification publishing some of the questions that the US State Department wants to ask from US visa applicants. The State Department in the notice invited comments on the impending set of measures. It said an estimated 65,000 applicants annually, or 0.5 per cent of applicants worldwide, will be impacted. "Regarding travel history, applicants may be requested to provide details of their international or domestic (within their country of nationality) travel, if it appears to the consular officer that the applicant has been in an area while the area was under the operational control of a terrorist organisation," the notification said. The applicants who come under the new stepped-up criteria, would be required to provide names and dates of birth of siblings and, for some applicants, children who are new. They will also have to provide the details of their social media handles and other associated online platforms to the Department of State. This is already being collected on a voluntary basis by the Department of Homeland Security in case of certain individuals. The applicants who come under the extreme vetting criteria will also have to show the details of their past international and domestic travel history if the consular officer finds the applicant stayed in a terrorist occupied area. If this is the case, applicant will also have to recount or explain the details of their travel, and when possible, provide supporting documentation. The notification says it has been issued in accordance with the directive of US President Donald Trump to "implement additional protocols and procedures focused on ensuring proper collection of all information necessary to rigorously evaluate all grounds of inadmissibility or deportability, or grounds for the denial of other immigration benefits." The Department of State said the additional information collected will help the Consular officers to identify applicants with visa ineligibilities without going for the assistance of law enforcement and intelligence community. If the scrutiny of the stepped-up details finds that the applicant is involved in activities that warrant to visa ineligibilities, the consular officer can deny the visa. The notification also says that visas will not be denied on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, political views, gender, or sexual orientation. It also adds that if an applicant cannot provide requested details due to valid reasons, it will not necessarily result in visa denial if the consular officer finds the applicant is speaking the truth. In such cases, applicants are requested to carry supporting documents to prove their claim. The stepped-up questions will be only asked if the consular officer needs to resolve an applicant's identity or to vet for terrorism or other national security related visa ineligibilities; when the consular officer determines that the circumstances of a visa applicant, a review of a visa application, or responses in a visa interview indicate a need for greater scrutiny. The consular can ask the stepped-up question either electronically, orally or in writing at the time of the interview. The notification also confirms that the consular officer will not request user passwords nor will bypass any privacy setting implemented on social media platforms by the applicant. An overwhelming majority of respondents to the State Departments notification have described the new measures as "absurd and stupid." "It's absolutely nonsense," commented an anonymous responder to the notification. "The proposed information collection is ridiculous - burdensome, invasive, and unnecessary," wrote one Jennifer Flinn. "I find the idea of my government demanding access to a visa applicant's social media accounts morally abhorrent, and a waste of time and resources," said one Zachery Walters. "This nonsensical rule claims that it will help prevent crime and terrorism, and will not persecute applicants based on protected statuses, but that is a laughably transparent lie," the same responder wrote. At least, nine civilians were killed and 45 others injured before the fighting near the Chaman border crossing subsided late. Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday warned Afghanistan of a response to the firing near a major border crossing where Pakistani Census officials were carrying out a count, if the country refused to stop border violations. At least nine civilians were killed and 45 others injured before the fighting near the Chaman border crossing subsided late on Friday afternoon, said officials. Foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan reserved the right to respond to preserve its sovereignty and protect its civilians. He said the problems of Afghanistan were internal and blaming others for them would not help. Later, Afghan charge d affairs Abdul Nasir Yousafi was summoned to the foreign office and a strong protest registered over the firing. Mr Yousafi was told that the Pakistani authorities were undertaking the Census count and this information had been shared with the Afghan government earlier. The unprovoked firing from the Afghan side not only led to the loss of lives and injured many, but has also disrupted the Census in areas on the Pakistan side of the border and damaged properties, a statement by the foreign ministry said. Pakistans military said at least seven civilians, including three children and two women were killed, and 29 others injured in the firing and shelling by Afghan forces. Afghan provincial officials claimed the Pakistanis fired first, wounding two Afghan policemen. They said the Pakistani Census officials had strayed on to the Afghan side of the border and were attempting to count people living there. The gunfight prompted Pakistani authorities to shut the Chaman border crossing and threatens to exacerbate tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul. The Army resented the leaked news item and asked for a probe. Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa have resolved to amicably address the differences over a leaked report that had angered the powerful army, a media report said on Saturday. In October, a columnist for Dawn wrote a front-page story about a rift between civilian and military leaderships over militant groups that operate from Pakistan but engage in proxy war against India and Afghanistan. The Army resented the leaked news item and asked for a probe. The military had demanded full implementation of recommendations by a committee which probed a story of a meeting in which civilian leaders confronted the military over its alleged reluctance to halt Islamist groups in the country. Mr Sharif following the findings of the committee sacked his foreign policy aide Tariq Fatemi but the Army rejected the move, triggering speculation about the public posturing by the military. However, the situation was apparently brought under control during a meeting between Mr Bajwa and Mr Sharif. Geo News reported that the meeting was held on Thursday night at the wish of the prime minister. It said both had a pleasant meeting. Zakaria claimed that Pakistan was ready to share its expertise and technological know-how and was keen to participate in the project. Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday blamed India for its exclusion from the 'SAARC Satellite' project, saying New Delhi was not willing to develop the venture on a collaborative basis. Pakistan's claim came on a day when India successfully launched the 'South Asia Satellite' to provide communications and disaster support to neighbouring countries. "During the 18th SAARC Summit, India offered to 'gift' a satellite to SAARC member states, to be named as the so-called 'SAARC Satellite'. Subsequently, however, India made it clear that it would build, launch and operate the satellite solely," Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said. However, its registration with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was to be done as a 'SAARC Satellite', he said Zakaria claimed that Pakistan, which has its own space programme at an advanced level, was ready to share its expertise and technological know-how and was keen to participate in the project. "However, as India was not willing to develop the project on a collaborative basis, it was not possible for Pakistan to support it as a regional project under the umbrella of SAARC. The Satellite was then renamed as 'South Asia Satellite' as the project was taken out of the SAARC ambit," he said. Seven of the eight SAARC countries -- India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives -- are part of the ambitious project. Giving a fillip to India's new age space diplomacy and "neighbourhood first" policy, the Rs 235 crore satellite GSAT-9 built as part of a Rs 450 crore project and touted as an 'invaluable gift' to India's neighbours is seen as a significant move in countering Chinese interests in the region. The project is funded entirely by India. The cuboid-shaped 2,230 kg satellite named SAS will enable a full range of services to?the neighbours, including in telecommunication, television, direct-to-home, VSATs, tele-education and telemedicine. The South Asian Satellite (SAS) mission life is 12 years. by Mathias Hariyadi Three priests are ordained in the diocese of Bandung, seven in Manado, and four in Sibolga. Ordinations usually take place in seminaries or episcopal sees. For many Catholics, such locations are a challenge because they are far away and lack the facilities to accommodate large numbers. Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Indonesia has 14 new priests. Their ordination took place recently in the dioceses of Manado, Sibolga and Bandung, in the presence of thousands of faithful. What made these ceremonies a "rare opportunity" for local Catholics was that they occurred in parishes. Contrary to usual practice, whereby ordinations are performed in seminaries and episcopal sees, this group of deacons received their consecration among their people, including family and friends. Indonesia is an Islamic majority country (more than 85 per cent of a population of almost 256 million). The country has a lot of seminars, where most ordinations take place. However, for many Catholics this can be a disadvantage due to the great distances and their limited capacity to host visitors. Therefore, ordinations are such a "rare event," a real "liturgical show" when they occur in village parishes, where everyone can participate. This is what just happened, starting in the diocese of Bandung (West Java), on April 25, for three deacons, a diocesan priest and two members of the Order of the Holy Cross. Their consecration ceremony was held at the Santa Maria Fatima Church in in Lembang (the provinces most famous tourist resort) in the presence of Mgr Antonius Bunjamin Subianto OSC. Seven other priests were ordained in late April at the St Yohanes (Saint John the Baptist) Church in Laikit, in the diocese of Manado. Five of them are diocesan and are two Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Speaking before hundreds of priests and thousands of faithful, Mgr Josef Theodorus Suwatan MSC explained that the "true task" that awaits consecrated people is to "Celebrate the Eucharist every day. In fact, "Through the Holy Sacrament, you extend your prayers from the community to God." Ordinations are usually performed in the cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Fr Agustinus Kandowangko, a priest from Laikit, told AsiaNews, "My heart is full of joy because my parish has been chosen to host this event." On Wednesday, the third ceremony took place in the diocese of Sibolga, on the island of Nias (North Sumatra province). Four deacons (three capuchins and one diocesan) were consecrated in Santa Maria, Mother of All Nations in Gunungsitoli. Fr Posma Manalu said that heavy rains did not "dampen the enthusiasm of local Catholics" attending the Mass. In his homily, Mgr Ludovicus Simanullang OFM encouraged the new shepherds of souls to "focus on their sacramental tasks. Old documents show how to spy, sabotage, and assassinate. About 150 items were found in the home of a ninja heir, including copies of ten pledges written between 1700 and 1829. Ninja gradually faded away during the Edo period, from 1603 to 1868. Tokyo (AsiaNews) Textbooks detailing covert techniques used by ninja Japans feudal mercenaries and written pledges on their secret missions were passed down for generations at the home of a ninja descendant in western Japan, this according to a study of ancient documents. Experts in Japanese history say that the documents discovered in 2000 in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, are valuable because they show that ninjutsu techniques employed by ninja in missions like espionage, sabotage and assassination were handed down to the next generations in the western Japan city. Koka and Iga in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, are widely known as the home of the two most famous ninja clans. Ninja gradually faded away in Japans Edo period, from 1603 to 1868. Among the 150 or so items found in the house of 79-year-old Toshinobu Watanabe, 17 were textbooks on such subjects as how to make poison or conduct night attacks. Of the 17, four were written in the 1670s and 1680s, according to research the Koka city government started last year. One of the textbooks on poison instructed ninja to put into wells powder made by burning lizards or tiger beetles that were believed to be poisonous. Another one on sleeping drugs said enemies would fall asleep when smoke is emitted by burning powder made from insect shells or tobacco. The 150 sets of documents also included copies of ten pledges written between 1700 and 1829 and submitted to a local feudal domain. The papers showed the Koka ninja vowed to join the fighting in the event of an emergency in the domain and not to reveal their status as ninja even to their family members and friends as their contracts were classified. Ancestors of the Watanabes were farmers and worked as undercover ninja on a part-time basis. The approximately 68,000 zero-emissions vehicles (ZEV) sold in California in 2016 represented almost half of the sales level mandated by the state's ZEV mandate for 2025, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The mandate requires about 165,000 zero-emission vehicles sold. About 2.1 million total vehicles were sold in the state in 2016. They represented about 3.5% of sales in 2016. BMW led sales of electrifed vehicles with 8.9% of its sales, followed by General Motors (7%), Volkswagen (6.2%), Volkswagen (6.2%), and Ford (4.6%). Read their full report here. Photo of 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid courtesy of FCA. Fiat-Chrysler has scheduled 24 regional fleet previews from May 9 to June 29 to showcase its 2018 model year lineup to fleet professionals, the company announced. The 24-city tour begins in Kansas City and Dallas on May 9 and concludes June 29 on Long Island, New York. Fleet customers will have an opportunity to drive Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram Truck, and Fiat vehicles at the events. New vehicles that will be highlighted include the 2017 Jeep Compass and 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, which arrived as late models. "This is an excellent opportunity for our fleet and small business customers to test drive our all-new Jeep Compass and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan," said Jeff Kommor, vice president of U.S. sales operations for fleet and small business sales. "Both have been re-engineered from the ground up on all-new platforms, and both deliver class-leading safety and performance. We look forward to showcasing our new products, introducing 2018 model-year vehicle specs and demonstrating why FCA vehicles are above the competition." Other events have been scheduled for May 11 (St. Louis; Richmond, Va.; and Denver), May 12 (Detroit and Atlanta), May 19 (Houston), May 22 (Chicago), May 23 (Philadelphia, Orlando, and Los Angeles), May 24 (Milwaukee), May 25 (Boston and Charlotte, N.C.), May 30 (Minneapolis), May 31 (Baton Rouge, La.), June 13 (Newark, N.J. and Des Moines, Iowa), June 15 (Norwalk, Conn.), June 20 (Cincinnati), and June 22 (Phoenix and Pittsburgh). Fleet representatives interested in attending any of the events should contact FCA Fleet headquarters at (888) 898-1101 to register. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. There will be no medical marijuana implementation bill leaving the Florida legislative session. Florida Legislature fails to compromise on medical marijuana Language on dispensaries, storefronts brought the bill down Dept. of Health not has to implement the amendment by July The Florida House and Senate failed to reach a deal to implement the medical marijuana amendment that Florida voters overwhelmingly passed last november. Republican leaders in the Florida House and Senate went back and forth over several issues, from how patients used medical marijuana (vaping, edibles eventually allowed, but no smoking) to whether patients could use it in public. In the end, the number of dispensaries and storefronts was the issue that brought the bill down. "I felt like we've provided the basis and the groundwork to get this done eventually," said FL Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island. "It just isn't going to be this session." The Florida House sent one more tweak back to the Florida Senate. The bill's sponsor in the House, Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, basically told the Senate to take it or leave, and if they did it was on them. Action on legislation is over for the regular legislative session, save for the budget, which will be debated and voted on Monday. So any bill that was not passed Friday is dead unless a special session is called. It's now up to the Florida Dept. of Health to implement the amendment without direction of the Florida Legislature. It has until July to put rules into place. However, the department is under Gov. Rick Scott's control. Scott is decidedly anti-medical marijuana, which advocates say doesn't bode well for their case. The Department of Health held five workshops throughout the state in early February to take input on rules. Department of Health spokeswoman Mara Gambineri said they still continue to review public comments while coming up with proposed rules. Litigation is expected over whatever rules the department comes up with, based on its prior rulemaking history. "The legislature chose political gamesmanship over the will of 71 percent of voters," said Florida for Care Executive Director Ben Pollara. "The House got to poke the Senate in the eye one last time, but the real losers are sick and suffering Floridians." "You know who else is going to benefit from this? John Morgan," said FL Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando. "I don't know if the Republicans thought about that. Why? Because his main theme, if he decides to run for governor, is that the legislature is full of politicians who cannot be trusted that disrespect the will of the voters. And he's right." Hundreds of other bills did not make it out of the 60-day legislative session, including bills expanding gambling, allowing first responders suffering from PTSD to get workers' compensation, restricting abortion or expanding gun rights. Information from the Associated Press was used in this story. Show the environment some love this weekend by carpooling, dusting off that unused bike or walking. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued an Ozone Action Day for the Beaumont-Port Arthur area Saturday, and the South East Texas Regional Planning Commission is encouraging residents to contribute. Circleville, Ohio-based Berger Health System looks to move away from municipal ownership and become a nonprofit, reports The Columbus Dispatch. Here are five things to know. 1. At present, the city of Circleville and the Pickaway County Board of Commissioners jointly own BHS. 2. Although the city and county own BHS and appoint members to the board, they do not provide tax money to the hospital or weigh in on the organization's daily operations, according to the report. But, the report notes, the city and county remain liable if BHS could not repay debt or pay for operations. 3. In seeking nonprofit status, the hospital aims to eliminate the city and county's liability and also improve the hospital's ability to continue to deliver quality healthcare in the long term, County Commissioner Brian Stewart said in the report. "Berger Hospital is healthy. They are not losing money. But we also see that all the competitors around us are increasingly trying to poach the market," he added. "In today's healthcare landscape, being one of the last two independent, publicly-owned hospitals doesn't make sense." 4. If BHS obtains nonprofit status, it will begin negotiations for a "deeper affiliation" with Columbus-based OhioHealth system, the hospital said in the report. 5. But the hospital requires approval from city voters before it can alter its operating structure, the report notes. The hospital told The Columbus Dispatch voters could decide on the issue this November if it is put on the ballot. More articles on healthcare finance: Advocate Health Care to make $200M in cuts amid financial pressure CHS records $199M net loss, says divestiture spree is over OIG: Mount Sinai Hospital overbilled Medicare by $41.9M The U.S. Coast Guard is seeking a new EHR solution to implement across its 176 sites, which have been using paper records since the branch terminated its Epic contract in 2015. Here are five things to know. 1. The Coast Guard awarded Epic the $14 million contract in September 2010, seeking to replace an outdated system, Becker's Hospital Review reported last year. However, the branch terminated its EHR contract with Epic in 2015, at which point it reverted to using paper records. 2. The initial plan was to roll out the software at two to three pilot sites within six months of the contract, but the Coast Guard never deployed the EHR system to any clinic or vessel, Politico reported in 2016. The go-live, which was slated for 2011, was initially delayed while the Coast Guard obtained secure servers, according to Epic. The rollout had two additional delays when one storage area network server was corrupted which Epic said "had never before happened to an Epic install" and another was accidentally wiped. 3. In September 2015, the system was scheduled to go live a third time. However, the Coast Guard informed Epic it would not continue the contract, according to Epic. In a fact sheet released on May 2, Epic emphasized its work was "repeatedly rated 'Exemplary' by the USCG in formal documented reviews." Epic said the company "fulfilled the terms of the agreement and provided the software and implementation services to meet the Epic obligations of the project. Epic was paid in full for the work done. The U.S. Government did not request any refund. The software was ready to go live." 4. At the time of the termination, a Coast Guard spokesman told Politico "various irregularities were uncovered" during the implementation, along with "concerns about the project's ability to deliver a viable product in a reasonable period of time and at a reasonable cost." The Coast Guard also told Becker's Hospital Review the scope of the EHR project expanded from seeking an EHR into a "Service-wide Health, Safety and Workalike IT re-engineering project. The expansion of scope increased the cost and technical complexity of the project." 5. The U.S. Coast Guard on April 23 released a request for information, seeking industry insight on how to digitize the branch's paper health records. The branch wants its new integrated EHR to be interoperable with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense. To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Lauras uncle, Eugene Simons, was one of the Disappeared Laura Donnelly and Paddy Considine in new play The Ferryman A Belfast-born actress has told how a new play set in Troubles-torn Northern Ireland was inspired by personal tragedy. Laura Donnelly was a child when her uncle Eugene Simons was taken away by the IRA, shot dead and dumped in a bog. Mr Simons, one of the so-called Disappeared, went missing from his Co Down home in January 1981. His body was later discovered by chance in a bog near Dundalk, Co Louth. The story is retold in The Ferryman, a play by Jez Butterworth being staged in London, which Laura stars in. She plays a woman whose husband's body is accidentally uncovered a decade after he was secretly buried - sparking a wave of violence and stirring up forgotten memories. The actress, who was in The Fall, said the play had been "extremely cathartic". She said her uncle's murder was "a very, very cruel thing". Mr Simons, a father-of-three, was 26 when he vanished from his home near Castlewellan. In May 1984 his remains were found in a bog near Dundalk. Laura, who was propelled towards a life on the stage after attending the Patricia Mulholland School of Irish Dancing, said her family was grateful their loved one was not missing as long as some of the other Disappeared. "He was my mother's brother and disappeared the year this play is set, 1981," she added. "He was found by accident in 1984 in a bog by a man walking a dog. "My mum and many other members of my family are just grateful that it didn't go on as long as some did - most other families had 10, 20, 30 years. It's a very, very cruel thing." Mr Butterworth, who previously worked with director Sam Mendes on several Bond films, said talking to Laura about her uncle was central to the drama, which also stars Paddy Considine. "When somebody disappears for 10 years, time stops, which is what I really think the play is about," he said. Laura said her family urged her to accept the part, adding: "It was very important for me for this story to be told." A Ballymoney man who made it to the final seven in Masterchef has revealed he learned to cook when he was a student because he got fed up with eating ready meals. Former Coleraine Inst pupil Jamie Patterson (29) had judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode on the BBC cooking show in raptures with some of his creations, including lamb with anchovies, while his Scottish themed feast wowed renowned chef Tom Kitchin during his guest judge appearance. However, a final invention challenge shown to television audiences on Thursday evening, during which competitors chose from a larder which included no meat or fish, saw Jamie eliminated. Now he has revealed to the Belfast Telegraph plans to grow his London-based Ramekin and Wine supper club - and he also wants to try his hand at running a pop-up restaurant. "My mum was always a keen cook but I started cooking at university (in Newcastle). I got sick of eating ready meals and then I found I absolutely loved it and it was a great way to relax," he explained. Jamie, who works as a Wine Marketing manager for Majestic Wines in London, said he had considered entering Masterchef previously but it was only for this series that he took the time to sit down and fill in the application form. He beat thousands of other applicants, passing both a cookery test and interview process, to be selected to take part in the amateur edition of the show. "You don't realise it is very much a film studio as opposed to a kitchen - it is surreal walking in for the first time, it takes you by surprise," he said. "In the first episode you have just ten minutes to pick your ingredients, your mind goes to jelly." One of the highlights from his experience was preparing a venison dish from the carcass for the first time in front of the cameras. Jamie was born in England to Northern Irish parents. The family moved back to Ballymoney when he was a teenager. He later returned to England to study at Newcastle University, and after graduation moved to London for work. He said his ambition has always been to open his own restaurant and he feels his Masterchef experience will help him to realise this. Split decision: the possible reunification of Ireland has now been talked about for the first time since the IRAs border campaign of the 1950s So, could this EU-UK divorce pull in opposite directions on both islands in the European Union's north-western extremity? On this, John Bull's Other Island, we could become A Nation Once Again. Meanwhile, back on JB's main island, disunity may ensue, as Scotland peels off, leaving a very dis-United Kingdom. A year ago, this writer would have said that the possible combination of both propositions - Scottish independence and Irish unity - was most unlikely, tending towards the impossible. Things have changed quite a bit since that 52%-48% Brexit Leave vote on June 23 last. Devotees of Scottish independence from the UK, who lost 55% to 45% in the referendum in September 2014, have got a second wind. In Northern Ireland and in the Republic, reunification has been seriously talked about for the first time since the IRA's border campaign of the late-1950s. A big part of the argument deployed by the Better Together campaign against Scottish independence was the common EU membership of the four countries comprising the United Kingdom. Going back 25 years, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has consistently campaigned for an independent Scotland within the EU, frequently pointing to Ireland's experience. The long-time SNP leader, Alex Salmond, blazed a trail debunking economic arguments against his country's potential to pay its own way. He also gloried in explaining how Scottish independence efforts had not, in the modern era, caused even serious injury to anyone - much less the lamentable loss of human life in comparable campaigns in Ireland. In time, he will be ranked among the most brilliant politicians on these islands. Mr Salmond's successor, Nicola Sturgeon, has moved the party even further onwards, making huge electoral gains. Take five points off the September 2014 Scottish referendum result and you have a serious game on. Add the acrimonious Brexit fall-out - where Scotland asserts it is being hauled out of the EU against its 60%/40% Remain vote - and you hear a lot more up-tempo singing of Flower of Scotland. Well, things may pan out like that. Then again, they may not. On one hand, the tendency of the Scottish people towards independence remains strong. A poll last weekend showed 54% believe independence within 15 years is likely. Against that, Scottish people to a significant degree share their Welsh, English and Northern Irish neighbours' suspicion and ambivalence towards Brussels and the EU. It's not hard to imagine arguments questioning the wisdom of swapping London interference for that of Brussels. Coming back to Northern Ireland, it is already undeniable that the EU did more for ending partition than the tides of murderous and backward IRA campaigns. The 1992 border-free EU single market banished those lines of shabby customs huts which, among other things, offered soft targets of attack to the IRA. When EU Commission president Jacques Delors was planning the single market, Sinn Fein's EU policies were hard to distinguish from those of Margaret Thatcher. With one stroke, the EU demolished a big manifestation of partition. When the happy dawn of the first IRA ceasefire happened in 1994, generous EU cross-border and peace grants flowed without demur. To date, the north's fragile peace has been backed by some 25bn in EU support grants. While the Brexit campaign last year was a writ-large travesty of half-truths, misrepresentations and downright lies, it played out even more tragically in the north. Despite those peace grants and 87% of farm incomes coming from Brussels, the DUP advocated a Leave vote. Happily, Sinn Fein caught up with the SDLP and backed Remain. But the 56% in favour of staying with the EU should have been stronger. The EU declaration last weekend, that an ultimately reunited Ireland would be an EU member in its entirety, was the most eye-catching part of the outcome. But, in reality, the north guarantee merely recognises the deal East Germany got in 1990 after German reunification. It ensures the north does not end up in a membership queue between Albania and Turkey. The reality is that, in Scotland or the north, Brexit of itself is neither a partition-maker, nor a partition-breaker. That decision will rest with the voters in the north and in Scotland. Arlene Foster has warned a border poll would have a "destabilising" impact on business and politics. With EU officials appearing to confirm a united Ireland could seamlessly rejoin the bloc, fears of a future fragmentation of the United Kingdom are growing. Sinn Fein has stepped up its demands for a border poll in recent weeks, but the Government has said the criteria - evidence of majority support for a united Ireland - has not been met. The DUP leader said: "There has been some talk about the prospects of a united Ireland or a border poll. Whatever anyone's reservations about exiting the EU, our union with Great Britain will continue to be massively and fundamentally in Northern Ireland's interests. Read More: How would you vote in a border poll? "I have absolute confidence that any border poll would see a resounding endorsement of the pro-union position. However, I also recognise the destabilising effect an unnecessary campaign of that nature could have on business and politics here." Her comments echoed those of UUP leader Robin Swann, who warned: "We are living in uncertain times, with no Executive in place and the potential impact of Brexit still unknown. Now, more than ever, Northern Ireland needs a strong and effective voice in Westminster. "This election is not a re-run of last year's referendum on membership of the EU - that boat has sailed. Instead, we should be concentrating on coming together to get the best deal possible for Northern Ireland as part of the Brexit negotiations, and resist those who are attempting to use this election as an attempt to destabilise the Union." Meanwhile, Mrs Foster also warned a return to direct rule is likely to damage Northern Ireland's economy and job creation. In a speech in Londonderry yesterday, the DUP leader questioned whether Westminster ministers would push for improved connections between the city and the rest of Northern Ireland. "Does anyone seriously believe that our chances of getting an industrial strategy for Northern Ireland with sub-regional Industrial Strategies for places like the north west are better without devolution? Would direct rule ministers champion better connectivity between Londonderry and the rest of Northern Ireland with the same intensity as a locally elected and locally accountable minister?" she asked. With the DUP due to launch its General Election campaign early next week, Mrs Foster picked up the party's theme that the contest is about securing the restoration of Stormont. "The DUP is placing no obstacles in the way of a Stormont Executive returning," she said. "No red lines. No pre-conditions. No demands. There is absolutely no need to wait until beyond the election. I would willingly re-establish government today. The public can decide for themselves whether the issues other parties are raising should be sufficient to stand in the way of good government for the province." Mrs Foster also warned of "crucial decisions" ahead in education, health and the public sector, adding: "We need local people with local knowledge and understanding making those decisions. A swift restoration of devolved government with an agreed budget in place is essential." She stressed the dangers of instability: "Local business needs stability. Our public sector workers too need stability. And those depending on the services government deliver most definitely need it. Devolved government allowed us to begin rebalancing our economy after emerging from the deepest downturn in living memory. Unemployment has been falling, economic inactivity is down, exports are growing, tourism visitor numbers and spending are up, and innovation continues to grow. "Growing the economy and creating jobs has been my party's top priority, and determined focus and efforts have delivered strong and sustained success and helped to start rebuilding and reshaping our economy. It is not a coincidence these positive developments have occurred with sustained devolution." Victims campaigner Raymond McCord last night criticised the decision of John Finucane - son of murdered lawyer Pat Finucane - to stand as a Sinn Fein candidate in the forthcoming General Election. Mr McCord (63) - whose son was murdered 20 years ago by the UVF - said he was surprised by Mr Finucane's decision to stand for election on a Sinn Fein ticket in North Belfast. "It came as a major surprise. I know the Finucane family well. I know John personally. I've attended - and spoken at - several events over the years supporting the Finucane family in their quest for justice," he told the Belfast Telegraph. "I fully supported the Finucane family in seeking justice for Pat. "What really got to me was John saying that he took his inspiration from Martin McGuinness. "But John's talking about a man who was the leader of a terrorist organisation. "If the current MP, Nigel Dodds, came out and said that he took his inspiration from Lenny Murphy, or Johnny Adair or some loyalist terrorist, I would be absolutely disgusted, and would speak out the same way I'm doing now. "I deal with victims. I helped as best I could with Loughinisland, Ballymurphy, Bloody Sunday, and McGurk's Bar. "My question is: is John Finucane going to support the Catholic victims of the IRA? "Is he going to criticise what happened to Patsy Gillespie in Derry, what happened to Briege Quinn's son down on the border? "Is he going to call for an inquiry into what happened to them?" Mr McCord asked. He said that his own relations with Martin McGuinness had always been civil. "McGuinness treated me well - but that doesn't affect my view of an organisation that murdered thousands of people," Mr McCord said. "I look forward to seeing John and debating these issues with him. "If, a few months ago, someone had told me that John Finucane was going to run for Sinn Fein, I would have laughed at the idea." Last night, Mr Finucane rejected Mr McCord's criticisms, insisting that, for him, there was no "hierarchy of victims". "I am on the record that my personal and political view is that all victims deserve and are entitled to the truth and justice that I have campaigned for with respect to the murder of my father," he told the Belfast Telegraph. "There is no hierarchy of victims, there are only victims. "I will continue to represent in a personal, professional and political capacity victims from all sections of the community." Mr McCord also claimed his concerns for IRA victims had been ignored by Sinn Fein's Stormont leader, Michelle O'Neill. "Before the last Assembly elections I contacted Michelle O'Neill twice," he claimed. "I congratulated her on her new position, and asked her whether, as a mother, would she help the Quinn family of south Armagh to get justice for her son, who was beaten to death on the border." A Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "Michelle O'Neill has not received the emails referred to by Mr McCord. Sinn Fein has unreservedly condemned the murder of Paul Quinn and the manner in which he lost his life. "The family of Paul Quinn deserve justice and Sinn Fein reiterates the call for anyone with information on the murder of Paul Quinn to bring it forward to the PSNI or An Garda Siochana." The DUP has distanced itself from comments made by one of its councillors who said he will "continue to pray" that Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly will "face the one true judge, just like Marty". Ballymena councillor John Carson made the comments on social media after an appearance by the North Belfast MLA on The View. Last week Mr Kelly said, during a debate with DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson on the BBC programme about the prosecution of former soldiers for Troubles killings, that "there should be equality under the law, there should be no immunity for anybody". He said: "If you believe in the law that's the way you should approach it." Mr Kelly, who was handed two life sentences after being convicted for his role in the IRA's Old Bailey bombing in 1973, was given a Royal Prerogative of Mercy in the mid-1980s as part of a deal to secure his extradition back to the UK from the Netherlands. Posting on Facebook, Mr Carson hit out at the comments and appeared to reference the death of the late Martin McGuinness. Mr McGuinness passed away in March. Mr Carson posted that the comments were "rich" coming from Mr Kelly. He said: "Tell you what Gerry, lead by example give up your letter and face the court, but some of us are wise enough to know that will never happen, so we continue to pray that very soon you will face the one true Judge, just like Marty." Sinn Fein MLA Caral Ni Chuilin said the DUP should distance itself from the comments "immediately". She said: "The comments made on social media by DUP councillor John Carson in relation to Gerry Kelly were disgraceful, tasteless and crass. "There can be no place for abusive or offensive comments and I am calling on the DUP leadership to distance itself from these remarks immediately." A DUP spokesman said: "The comments by Councillor Carson do not represent the party's view." Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour faces a challenge on a "historic scale" if it is to regain power in the general election on June 8, after the party suffered heavy losses in local council polls. The Conservatives made sweeping advances across the UK, gaining more than 500 councillors, winning tightly-fought battles for elected mayors in the West Midlands and Tees Valley, and forcing Labour into third place in its former stronghold of Scotland. The emphatic victories, fuelled by a collapse in the Ukip vote as anti-EU supporters flocked back to the Tories, set the scene for a substantial increase in Theresa May's House of Commons majority if repeated in June. The Prime Minister sought to fight any complacency in Tory ranks, insisting she was "taking nothing for granted". Labour tried to play down the significance of a bruising set of results which saw it forfeit more than 300 council seats, lose control of Glasgow for the first time in around 40 years and suffer reverses in Welsh strongholds. Mr Corbyn described the results as "mixed" and insisted they were "closing the gap" on the Conservatives, but acknowledged they faced a huge challenge. Liberal Democrats had a mixed election, failing to break through against the Tories in the south-west England battleground but making advances in some general election target seats like Eastleigh and Wells. As Ukip shed 109 councillors while holding a solitary seat in Lancashire, leader Paul Nuttall said the party was "a victim of its own success" over Brexit. But the results sparked a furious reaction from the party's former donor Arron Banks, who said Ukip was "finished as an electoral force" under its current leadership and needed "a strategic bullet to the back of the head". The incident took place in Helmand Province At least four police officers have been shot dead in southern Helmand province. Provincial police chief general Aqa Noor Kentoz said all four had been killed the night before at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Gen Kentoz said the four might have been attacked by an insider, and a probe is under way. No-one has claimed responsibility yet, but Taliban have increased their attacks against Afghan security forces across the country. The search operation in France for the body of Seamus Ruddy (Commissioner for Recovery of Victims' Remains/PA) Human remains have been found in a forest at Pont-de-lArche near Rouen in northern France during the search for the remains of Northern Ireland man Seamus Ruddy. The discovery was made by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains team who have been searching the site since Tuesday May 2. The recovery of the remains will take some time and then the process of post-mortem and of formal identification will begin in conjunction with the French authorities. Mr Ruddy, from Newry, Co Down, was abducted from Paris, killed and buried by the republican paramilitary group the INLA in 1985. He became one of the "Disappeared" victims of the conflict. Sinn Feins Mickey Brady said that every effort must now be made to end the suffering of the families of the Disappeared following the discovery of remains. While it is too early to say I can only hope that they are those of Seamus Ruddy," he said. "Growing up together in Ballybot, Seamus is somebody who I would have called a friend and my thoughts are with his family at this time. The suffering of the families has gone on too long. They have a fundamental right to bury their loved ones and there is an onus on those responsible to help bring this about." Party president Gerry Adams has also welcomed the recovery of remains in France. He said: I want to welcome the recovery by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) of what appears to be the remains of Seamus Ruddy in northern France. Expand Close The search operation in France for the body of Seamus Ruddy (Commissioner for Recovery of Victims' Remains/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The search operation in France for the body of Seamus Ruddy (Commissioner for Recovery of Victims' Remains/PA) I want to commend the Commission and all of those involved in today's discovery. Efforts must continue to recover the three remaining bodies. Mr Ruddy's sister, Anne Morgan, visited the forest at Pont-de-l'Arche outside Rouen in northern France this week. There have been three previous searches in the forest area for Mr Ruddy, the most recent by the ICLVR in 2008. The commission's experts, who require those with knowledge of the crimes to come forward and provide information without fear of prosecution, were hopeful the 500 square metre area they are focusing on this time would hold Mr Ruddy's remains. Who are the Disappeared? Sixteen people have been acknowledged of Disappeared victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Expand Close Anne Morgan and her husband visited the search site for her brother Seamus Ruddy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anne Morgan and her husband visited the search site for her brother Seamus Ruddy All were abducted, murdered and buried secretly by republican paramilitaries during the conflict. As tests are carried out to confirm whether remains found in northern France are those of Co Down teacher Seamus Ruddy, here is a list of the other 15 victims. Eugene Simons, from Castlewellan, Co Down, disappeared in 1981. His body was recovered in May 1984 (prior to establishment of commission) in a bog in Dundalk, Co Louth. Eamonn Molloy, from north Belfast, disappeared in 1975. His body was recovered in May 1999 in a coffin left at the Old Faughart Cemetery outside Dandily, Co Louth. John McClory, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1978. His body was recovered in June 1999 in bogland at Colgagh, Inniskeen, Co Monaghan. Brian McKinney, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1978. His body was recovered in June 1999 in the same grave as Mr McClory at Inniskeen. Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10 from west Belfast, disappeared in 1972. Her body was found in August 2003 at Shelling Beach, Co Louth by a member of the public walking in the aftermath of a storm that had exposed her remains. Danny McIlhone, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1981. His body was recovered in November 2008 in bogland at Blessingtown, Co Wicklow. Charlie Armstrong, from south Armagh, disappeared in 1981. His body was recovered in July 2010 in bogland at Colgagh, Iniskeen, Co Monaghan. Gerry Evans, from south Armagh, disappeared in 1979. His body was recovered in October 2010 at Carrickrobin, Co Louth. Peter Wilson disappeared in 1973. His body was recovered in November 2010 buried at a beach at Waterfoot, Co Antrim. Brendan Megraw, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1978. His body was recovered in October 2014 in bogland at Oristown, Co Navan. Kevin McKee, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1972. His body was recovered in June 2015 from reclaimed bogland at a farm near Coghalstown, Co Meath. Seamus Wright, from west Belfast, disappeared in 1972. His body was recovered in June 2015 in the same grave as Mr McKee at Coghalstown, Co Meath. Those yet to be found: A US policeman went beyond the call of duty after he was dispatched to a local store where a girl had been caught stealing. Officer Che Milton from the City of Atlanta Police Department was responding to calls a 12-year-old had shoplifted a pair of $2 shoes from a Family Dollar store. The girl told the officer she had taken the items for her five-year-old sister at home, as their family couldnt afford to buy shoes. Curious and concerned to see what the youngsters living conditions were like, Officer Milton took her home to her family, where he learned she was the eldest of four children the youngest a newborn in a household with terrible living conditions. There were not enough beds for all the children, the only furniture was an old sofa and the food cupboards were bare. The mother explained that she was unable to work as she couldnt afford the childcare fees for the younger children, and her husband is in and out of town for work but doesnt make much. Officer Milton wanted to help the family and contacted the Division of Family and Children Services to alert them to the Staples situation and see if there was anything that could be done. The City of Atlanta Police contacted the Staples family to find out exactly what items they needed, and have since been collecting donations that have come flooding in. Officer Milton also bought four pizzas and two large drinks for the family, who were sincerely grateful. His selfless actions have been praised, and has spurred hundreds with the desire to help and support the family. Mixed feelings: the American nation is still split over President Trump, who recently marked 100 days in the White House It is quite a culture shock to return overnight from a wet and cold Chicago to a warm and sunny Northern Ireland, but that's what happened to me this week. During the previous fortnight I had been on a working visit to the United States where I delivered two lectures on 'St Patrick and identity in Ireland' at Principia College near St Louis in Illinois. This also gave me an opportunity to catch up at first hand with the current mood in politics and religion in a country which has the message 'In God We Trust' on its currency. Not surprisingly the presence of President Donald Trump dominated the media which he so hates. The American jury is still out concerning Trump. Some think he is a disaster, others still back him, but most people are still bewildered and holding their breath. The taxi driver on the way to Chicago airport told me that many Americans would welcome back the formerly scorned George W Bush with open arms. My visit coincided with Trump's first 100 days as president and the political commentators were predictably divided on their opinions. These were the only programmes worth watching on American television, which is woeful and totally dominated by advertisers. The American newspapers were not much better, with only the Wall Street Journal, and to a lesser extent the Chicago Tribune, bearing any comparison to our own leading newspapers like The Times, The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. Incidentally there was no mention in the media of the UK general election, and there was only one short story on Northern Ireland, which featured in the Wall Street Journal. We may think that Brexit and the RHI scandal are big news, but we are still small beer in the wider world. On the religious front there was much more of a sense of continuity. Americans do nothing by halves and on the way in to St Louis I noticed a neon sign outside a church which assured the world that 'Jesus Completely Saves', as if it was not enough to simply state that 'Jesus Saves'. There were lots of wacky church services and even more wacky preachers on US television. Some of these were entertaining and others off-putting. However one of the best, and most radical, sermons I heard on television was that from Pastor Steven Thurston of the Salem Baptist Church in Chicago. He preached on the two-word text 'Jesus Wept' and claimed that Jesus did so out of love for Lazarus, but also out of frustration at the lack of trust among His followers, and the fact that He had to perform another miracle to prove yet again his Messianic powers. I'm not sure that all of the pastor's large flock fully understood the message, but he showed the seductive fluency of a great preacher in full flow. As back home, there were the usual downbeat church stories, including a controversy about a young mother who created dissension over breast-feeding her child in a church, and also a ruling by the United Methodist Church that the consecration of an openly gay female bishop was against Church law. In Chicago I visited the Fourth Presbyterian Church, situated at one end of the rich and fashionable Michigan Avenue, with its Magnificent Mile which is reminiscent of the Champs Elysees in Paris. The congregation of this historic church was established in 1871, but the original church was destroyed on the night it was dedicated by a huge fire which also destroyed most of the city. The current Gothic Revival building on Michigan Avenue dates from 1914, and it currently claims some 6,000 members, and each Sunday around 2,000 people come to its four services, including a Sunday afternoon 'jazz service'. Clearly, Christianity is still a vibrant force in the USA and one of my abiding memories is that of attending an afternoon service in the beautiful old cathedral in St Louis which dates from the 18th century. Their post-Easter service featured Psalm 118 and also the hymn Jesus Christ Is Risen Today. This is exactly what I had experienced six days previously in St George's on High Street in Belfast some 5,000 miles away. It reminded me yet again that Christianity remains truly a world church and that continues to be a source of comfort and inspiration. Director Judd Brannon was inspired by Alex and Stephen Kendrick, the makers of Fire Proof and War Room. He started thinking about what he could do in his own community to encourage people through film in Woodstock, Georgia. There was a race track nearby and Brannon started praying about creating a film based on the sport. He started to meet people and talk with the owners and the film Champion was birthed. This is something he never saw done in a film. He thought wouldnt it be neat to do a film about racing. Over the next couple of years, the script started coming together. Brannon wanted to be sensitive to what God wanted to communicate to the film team. For us, it was forgiveness, which is the overarching message in the film, he said. I know that working in a church and even in my own familys life there is unforgiveness. If we can get people to understand that and what Christ had done for them, theyre going to draw closer to Christ. We really went after the message of forgiveness. The movie is about dirt track racer Sean Weathers (Andrew Cheney) was at the top of his game with an unstoppable career. When a rivalry with another racer turns personal, the ego that propelled him to success causes a tragedy, sending his life into a tailspin. Jack Reed (Gary Graham) had prospered as a businessman but failed as a family man. In a sudden turn of events, his chances for reconciliation are ripped from his grasp. Sean and Jacks lives collide. When people started screening the film, Brannon realized that there was a fatherhood message and a foster kid component to be experienced as well within the plot. Me and my wife are foster parents, so we were walking through the process of foster care as part of our church, while we were making this film, said Brannon. Why cant the church be involved and not the state [regarding foster care]. I thought that also could be part of the story. Weaving the Gospel into the storyline without it being over the top is something that was vital. It is weaved in there as part of the characters lives, Brannon added. And then there is that wow moment in the film of two guys working out their problems together in that Gospel message. It feels like you are watching real life and it feels very authentic. The art of film can shape a person. For Brannon, he wants to see barriers come down in peoples lives after they see the movie. After viewing a screener, a woman said that after viewing the movie, it helped her turn a corner in forgiving her own father after being separated for many years. The movie prompted her to take that step, maybe it can for you as well. Champion will be in theaters on May 19th. How is the Columbus Public Library vital to the community? Read on and you might be amazed. Above and beyond books for every conceivable need, we provide numerous services. For instance, if you want to bring in your laptop and use our free Wi-Fi for online classes, we have tables around the library for individual use or study rooms you can reserve for free. What if the library is closed and you desperately need to use Wi-Fi to get your online assignment in on time? Dont worry. You can park your car right outside the library and use the free Wi-Fi from the curb any time of the day or night. Need a laptop? You can check one out at the library for in-house use. If you are more familiar with PCs, we have a computer lab for your convenience. If you dont have a library card you can use a guest pass to get on a computer. Both laptops and computers can be used to print documents. Its only 10 cents for each page printed in black and white or 25 cents for color. What if you have something on your smartphone and you want to print it? No problem. Send your print to cplconnect-bw@printspots.com for black and white or cplconnect-color@printspots.com for color prints. Need help using your computer or other devices? Any library staff member will help you out. If the problem is more in-depth, or needs more time than a few minutes at the desk, you can book a librarian. We also have a Tech Tuesday that occurs every second Tuesday of each month from 6-8 p.m. Our tech librarians will be available for you during that time. What if you want to buy an e-reader but are not sure which type of device to get? With your library card you can check out different devices and see which one works best for your needs. You can even have the reference librarian download a specific e-book for you to read on one of the devices, if we dont carry the physical book. We have iPads tethered around the library for you to use. Need to send a fax? The library both sends and receives faxes. The cost for receiving a fax is the printing fees of that document. The cost for sending a fax is $1 a page, up to $5. If you have more than five pages it still only costs $5. What if you need a flash drive or ear buds for your music downloads? The library sells flash drives for $3 and ear buds for $1.50. Our reference librarian is also a public notary if you need your documents notarized. Need a book suggestion? Where to find the book about how to build a porch? Need to renew your checkouts? Need an article found in a paper? Need directions to the doctors? Need to know how long it will take to get there? Need a phone number? Maybe find and print that recipe your friend was telling you about? CPL librarians can help you with all of that and more. These services are just the basics of library service. We havent even touch on programs yet. May 30 is the beginning of registration for our summer reading programs. We have so much going on this summer. We have summer reading programming for children, young adults, and adults. Since Im the adult programmer, I will concentrate on the adult/family programming. Our Food 4 Fines opportunity ends June 3. We like to have this opportunity each year before the summer reading programs start so patrons have a chance to clear their accounts of late fees and bring back overdue items. If you bring in three cans of food for each account all late fees are forgiven. This doesnt cover damaged or lost books billed to your account. The cans are given to the Platte County Food Pantry. On June 3, we are holding our first library blood drive. You can call the library to schedule a time or just walk in that day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. On June 17 at 2 p.m., Karen Drevo from the Norfolk library is coming to give a living history presentation of her great-great-grandmother. If you think your life is tough, listen to the struggles this lady went through to homestead in Nebraska. Ive heard Karen give this presentation before and it is riveting. You wont want to miss it. The adult summer reading program is having its biennial short story contest this summer. Story entries need to be in by July 1. First-, second- and third-place prizes will be awarded and the winning story will be published in the library newsletter. The stories can be as short as one page or as long as 20. No novels, please. Several judges will gauge the entries by plot, characterization, setting, atmosphere, writing quality, mechanics and passion. Im always astounded by the talent of our contestants. On July 8, we have wonderful retired school teachers who will show and tell us about crochet. Yarn and crochet hooks are provided for anyone who needs them, but if you have your own please bring them. Beginner and advanced crochet crafters will be able to learn and share at this program. During the months of June and July, for the adult summer reading program, we will be giving out prizes to readers who turn in their reading logs. When you register you will receive an envelope containing two reading logs, a book mark, library sticker, free book coupon for the book sale in August and fliers explaining our programs. We have extra logs on the counter for you to pick up as you read more books. Those reading logs are put into a monthly $10 prize drawing and into the final grand prize drawing of an Android tablet. The summer reading programs are all about encouraging reading, and they have been huge successes. To learn more about all the events and programs happening all year at CPL, call us at 402-564-7116 or visit us at cplconnect.us. Thank you for all the support and kindness of our library users. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan inspects the Royal Malay Regiment Guard of Honor during his welcoming ceremony at the Prime Ministers Office in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Jan. 10, 2014. A third Turkish national has been arrested in Malaysia this week on security-related charges as authorities rejected suggestions that the actions were taken at the behest of the Turkish government tracking down critics abroad linked to a failed coup last year. Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said on Friday that Ismet Ozcelik, a 58-year-old academic who has been given refugee status by the United Nations, was arrested Thursday evening. Khalid said Ozcelik and the two other Turkish nationals arrested a day earlier were a threat to the security of the country. The two international school principal Turgay Karaman and businessman Ihsan Aslan had been linked by Turkish media to U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government accuses of masterminding a failed coup on July 15, 2016. Khalid rejected suggestions that the arrests were triggered by orders from the Turkish government. Why do we want to wait for orders from other country to make arrest here, he asked reporters. We have our own laws, we take care of the security of our people and our country so it is our right to decide who we want to arrest. UN expresses concern The United Nations Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia on Friday expressed serious concern about the arrests and urged the Malaysian government to refrain from deporting the trio to Turkey. There are concerns that these men may have been targeted over their suspected links to the Gulen movement which is accused of being behind a coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, said Laurent Meillan, acting regional representative of the U.N. Human Rights Office in Bangkok. The U.N. office noted that Malaysia had detained and deported two other Turkish nationals in October 2016. It said that they were arrested upon their return to Turkey where they remain in detention without trial. We are very concerned that the three men arrested this week may face the same fate as the other two individuals deported to Turkey last year, Meillan said. We call on the Malaysian government to ensure that the three men are given a fair trial in Malaysia and urge authorities not to extradite them as we have serious concerns regarding their safety if they are deported to Turkey. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Malaysian authorities to provide the basis for holding the Turkish men and to allow them full access to legal counsel and contact with their families. Malaysias administrative detention laws open the doors to easy abuse, so its important for the government to provide the mens location and to allow them immediate access to their families and legal counsel, said Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director. Counter-terrorism efforts Malaysia and Turkey have been cooperating closely on counter-terrorism. Turkey deported several Malaysians who wanted to enter Syria via Turkey to join Islamic State (IS). Meanwhile, a lawyer representing Karaman and Ozcelik said he was not allowed by the Malaysian authorities to meet his clients. We were not able to meet Ismet and Turgay. We can only meet them on Thursday. Even the family, Muhammad Faizal Faiz Mohd Hasani told BenarNews. Ozcelik was a board member of Mevlana University in the province of Konya in Turkey. The university was among the many that have been closed in 2016 because of its alleged ties to the Gulen movement. He was arrested in December for allegedly obstructing Malaysian Immigration Department officers from carrying out their duty, but freed on bail in January. State-run Turkish news agency Anadolu said he was freed after he managed to secure U.N. refugee status, which it said provided him with immunity against detention without trial. Karaman and Aslan were arrested for alleged links to IS, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Thursday. Khalid declined to confirm the IS links on Friday. Again, the suspects were arrested for threatening the security of the country, he said, declining to give specific reasons for the three arrests. We have enough reasons to take action, Khalid said, adding that the three arrests were linked. There is no need for outsiders to come here and threaten the security of our country, he said. Do not bring your countrys problem into our country. Gulens movement, known as hizmet or service in the Turkish language, operates schools and nongovernmental organizations in Europe, Africa and Asia. His movement has been branded a terrorist organization by the Turkish government. Gulen denies government charges he was behind the coup. An impromptu assembly on race took place at a New Orleans school after a black student and a white teacher argued about the use of the N-word. For Immediate Release, May 5, 2017 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org Rep. Labrador Wants to Gut Presidential Authority to Create National Monuments WASHINGTON Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) has introduced legislation that would dramatically restrict the designation of new national monuments by requiring both congressional and state approval before a presidential designation. H.R. 2284 is part of a broader effort by House Republicans to weaken protections on America's public lands and allow the federal government to turn control over to states and private industry. This bill would eviscerate the century-old Antiquities Act and effectively prevent any new national monuments, said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Only the most extreme kind of anti-public-lands zealot, like Raul Labrador, would believe the law that saved the Grand Canyon should be reined in. Congress passed the Antiquities Act of 1906 to grant the president authority to designate national monuments on federally owned land with the express purpose of protecting objects of historic and scientific importance. Over the past century, national monument designations have protected some of the country's most iconic natural and cultural places. Under the bill two additional laws would be required before the president declares a national monument. Both the U.S. Congress and the state legislature where the proposed national monument resides would have to affirm the president's national monument proposal before it could take effect. The beauty of the Antiquities Act is that it allows the president to act decisively to protect our most amazing natural wonders so that future generations can enjoy them, Spivak said. If this legislation became law, the Antiquities Act would effectively be a dead letter. Of course that's exactly what the oil, gas and timber industries want. And Raul Labrador is doing their bidding so they can drill, frack and log America's public lands until there's nothing left. Labrador's bill comes in the wake of Trump's order directing the Department of the Interior to review the designation of every monument designated since 1996. The review is expected to trigger dramatic changes in protections or boundaries for monuments to accommodate special interests like coal, oil, gas and logging industries. The Center for Biological Diversity's recent report, Public Lands Enemies, identifies the top 15 members of Congress trying to seize, destroy, dismantle and privatize America's public lands. Labrador ranks ninth, having sponsored or cosponsored 23 anti-public lands bills and accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from logging, livestock and agribusiness industries. Collectively these members have sponsored 132 anti-public lands bills since 2011. In the first four months of the 115th Congress, Republicans have introduced more than 39 bills to weaken public-lands management, turn over public lands to states or otherwise repeal protections. The vast majority of western voters across political parties support federal protection and maintenance of national parks, monuments and other public lands and waters. Federal lawmakers trying to give away such places to state and private interests are out of touch with the majority of American voters including those in their own states. Jasco Carrier Solutions has been introduced into the East African market. This expansion ties in with East Arica's Tier 1 and Tier 2 broadband strategy, which aims to provide broadband services and fibre capacity to the region. photka via 123RF.com Jasco Carrier Solutions provides full turnkey solutions to Tier 1 and Tier 2 telecommunication operators, including equipment and services related to transmission, access, and core networks. Equipment and the support thereof range from wireless systems such as Wi-Fi, 4G, 5G, small cell and microwave solutions, to wired line services such as fibre, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and broadband. Africa is becoming more fibre oriented and much of East Africa is behind in terms of fibre deployments, despite the fact that several undersea fibre cable operators terminate into countries such as Kenya, says Martin Ferreira, executive head: Jasco Carrier Solutions. He continues: There is a general move in the East African region towards improving their broadband footprint and extending these fast fibre capacities inland. Our carrier solutions are geared towards enabling this growth. Focussing on offering DWDM fibre optic Operating out of Kenya, it will be focussing on offering DWDM fibre optic solutions as well as Outside Plant (OSP) products. The latter includes distribution boxes, fibre tails, connectors and other accoutrements that are required when deploying a fibre network. There will also be a strong focus on technologies such as software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV), which will further support connectivity in East African countries. Ferreira explains, East Africa is geared to leapfrog the rest of the world with the implementation of new technologies as they roll out their connectivity. Due to bandwidth landing on their shores, their broadband services should be fast and effective they just need a way to distribute it to businesses and residential areas further inland. Virtual building blocks NFV is a network architecture concept that uses IT virtualisation to create virtual building blocks that are easily connected to create end-to-end communication services. Coupled with SDN (software that runs on top of a customers existing services and premises and requires less storage space and hardware), these technologies will allow East African countries to implement connectivity solutions simpler, faster and more cost effectively. To enable East Africa to make the leap from todays disconnected landscape to tomorrows fast broadband delivery capability, Jascos expansion of carrier services to East Africa will also address the local skills shortages and create a base for supporting infrastructure locally. Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com. 1862: Disappointed in the lack of progress of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, President Abraham Lincoln departs for Hampton Roads, Va. on the Treasury Department revenue cutter Miami to personally oversee operations. Over five days, the president - a former militia rifle company commander - directs the bombardment of Confederate positions and lands to conduct reconnaissance of the area with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. 1864: The bloody albeit inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness (Virginia) opens between Union Army forces under the command of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, and Confederate forces under Gen. Robert E. Lee. Fighting is grim: Casualties will be heavy on both sides. Union and Confederate generals will be killed. Wounded and trapped soldiers will be burned alive by a battle-sparked woods fire. Within two days, Grant will disengage and advance toward Spotsylvania Courthouse. 1916: Two companies of Marines from the transport USS Prairie (AD-5) land at Santo Domingo, beginning the United States' eight-year occupation of the Dominican Republic. The leathernecks provide protection for the U.S. Legation and Consulate, and occupy the nearby Fort San Geronimo. 1917: Eugene J. Bullard becomes the first black combat aviator, earning his wings with the French Air Service. The Columbus, Ga. native's father came to America from the Caribbean island of Martinique and his mother was a Creek indian. Bullard fled to Europe to escape racism in the United States and joined the French Foreign Legion as a machine gunner, seeing action in the Somme, Champagne, and Verdun campaigns before being wounded. After recovering, he joined the air service and earned his pilot's license. The "Black Swallow of Death" would fly 20 combat missions for the French - claiming two aerial kills - before war's end. He volunteered for the infantry when Germany invaded France again in 1940 and was wounded. Excerpt - the rest of the post can be found at Unto the Breach. Zoe Crothall, an 18-year-old local dancer teacher, is to perform a solo number in David Walliams Gangsta Granny when the Birmingham Stage Company production comes to Lighthouse, Poole from Wednesday 24th to Sunday 28th May. A former student of Bournemouth & Poole College where she studied a Btec Level 3 in Dance, Zoe is currently studying a foundation degree in performing arts majoring in dance at the Jellicoe Theatre as well as a teaching qualification with the ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) and IDTA (International Dance Teachers Association). In addition, Zoe continues lessons at the Janson Modern Stage School where she specialises in a variety of dance skills and is an assistant teacher at Disco Mad Dance Academy in Canford Heath. Zoe said: I became aware of the role from Rachel Foster, the principal of Disco Mad Dance Academy, and she then put me in contact with the Young Dancer Co-ordinator from Birmingham Stage Company. After this I submitted a video of myself performing the routine and was over the moon when I received the good news of being successful. I am really looking forward to sharing the stage with a professional cast, as this is the path in which I would like to go into myself. Ill be dedicating my performance to my very own Gangsta Granny who I unfortunately lost last year but I know will be watching me from above. The story of Ben and his Gangsta Granny is a must-see for all families - both laugh out loud funny with some brilliant comic scenes but also containing some very moving and truthful things to say about family relationships. Tickets are on sale now from the Lighthouse ticket office on 01202 280000. During a recent visit to Beijing led by President U Htin Kyaw, Chinese and Myanmar officials signed a vague agreement which the Presidents Office called an Exchange of Letters of Implementation of Deep Sea Port Project and Industry Park Project in Kyaukphyu SEZ in Myanmar. The meaning of the exchange is not immediately clear. At a recent meeting with Kyaukphyu residents, Union Minister for Commerce U Than Myint tried to allay locals fears by assuring them that the inked agreement represents only temporary recognition of the SEZ. He added that additional evaluations will be carried out before the project can get started. However, at an earlier meeting in Sittwe on April 29, the minister offered a contradictory interpretation, and made it sound like restarting the long-stalled zone in Kyaukphyu was a done deal, one fully backed by the president. It will be beneficial for our country if we can work together on the industrial zones and economic zones. When the president visited China, he told the Chinese minister that Myanmar will cooperate, he said. He added that the Kayukphyu SEZ will be developed by the Kyaukphyu Public Company, an association of 11 private Myanmar businesses that was established in 2014, and will be assisted by an additional 40 companies. If arrangements go according to plan, the project can get started in January next year, the minister said. The Kyaukphyu SEZ was green lit in 2013 under U Thein Seins administration. But for years the project stalled amid controversy over land grabs and inadequate compensation. The SEZ was set to cover 4,289 acres of land from 35 villages under nine village groups, including 1,869 acres of disputed vacant land. The National League for Democracy-backed government promised to scrutinize the details of the SEZ, and make sure it was in the publics interest, before allowing it to move forward. Last week, residents of Kyaukphyu reiterated their call for the government to suspend the project until adequate public consultation is undertaken, and land compensation and resettlement options are provided according to international norms. Ko Tun Kyi, coordinator of the Kyaukphyu Rural Development Association, said the government must reform the legal framework before backing any large-scale developments that may have irreversible consequences on local communities. Before development can be carried out, the policies, laws and bylaws need to be amended. We wont agree to just verbal promises that can be subject to the government changing its mind at any time. We have to protect the rights of the people from Rakhine States Kyaukphyu township who will be affected directly and indirectly by the project. There are still too many weaknesses in the existing SEZ law to implement the project. I believe it should be suspended until the law is amended, he said. In February, the International Commission of Jurists recommended the government reform the 2014 SEZ law to meet international standards and ensure land acquisitions do not violate human rights. Daw Kyi Kyi Hnin, a local resident, urged the government to consider the best interests of the public. The government hasnt taken responsibility to solve [the land issues]. In this situation, the SEZ should be suspended, she said. Commerce minister U Than Myint told the Kyaukphyu residents that the SEZ would create over 380,000 jobs. But locals said they dont want to hear about work opportunities until outstanding land grievances are resolved. The Minister said job opportunities will be created and will be arranged in line with international standards. But what I want to know is how much is the compensation for an acre? What arrangements have been made for the people who have already had to relocate? said Ko Hla Myo Kyaw, a Kyaukphyu resident. Rakhine State Hluttaw representative U Kyaw Lwin said some of the problems around the SEZ could be cleared up if the government agreed to be more transparent, and talked directly with the local residents. When the officials come, they only meet with the authorities and leave without talking to local residents, he said. Protests will arise if they continue to negotiate only with the authorities instead of the local residents, he added. The SEZ will bring no benefits to the public if there are no laws protecting the public. I want them to discuss [the project] directly with the local residents. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron The monk, who the government last month slapped with a sermon ban, is traveling though northern Rakhine State in the area where security forces launched a counter-insurgency operation last October. The crackdown, which was prompted by lethal attacks on border guard posts allegedly by Rohingya insurgent group Harakah Al-Yaqeen, saw more than 75,000 Muslim Rohingya residents flee the area. U Wirathu met with the border guard official at the Border Guard Police headquarters in Kyee Kan Pyin. He was accompanied by 10 monks but reporters were not allowed inside the meeting. U Wirathu arrived in Rakhine State on May 3, landing in the capital, Sittwe, at 1am. He stayed the Alodaw Pyae Monastery in Sittwe before traveling to Maungdaw by road. The official purpose of his visit is to donate 3,000 bags of rice to local Rakhine residents. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron Pu Zincung has arrived in Matupi town on 26th in order to discuss about current peace process in Myanmar at the fellowship program, invited by the student union. But the program was canceled by Mindat district administration group by the order of Home Ministry in Union government, said Salai Thang Lung, secretary of Myanmar Chin student union. We heard that they made excused on not mentioning panelist names in the program sheet. We didnt know what exactly the reason clearly. The objection came from Midat district as district is under controlled by state, and state also is controlled by Union government, he added. Salai Thang Lung said, CNF is now legal organization as they are one of signatories on NCA, and they have freedom to speak and travel, meeting with public as mentioned in NCA. This is the violation of NCA. We are very disappointed on what the government did. In fact, NCA is meaningless for us and we are very sad. In this regards, Salai Isaac Khin, Minister of Municipal in Chin state said, One of the main reasons is that student union is not political party or group, if political group invite him we have nothing to say it. And if he gives address on CNF organizing meeting or conference, we have no word to say, but in this case the organizer is student union. As he is a top leader, his words and opinions have to be harmony with NRPC. In fact, the student union has to inform state government in advance, then government officials will ask the opinion of NRPC, if they have no objection we can arrange as per their invitation to Khonumthung News. On April 28, over 50 religious leaders met with the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) at the Anglican Church in Hpa-An. We need help if we can actually come back. Its difficult to receive aid from NGOs and CBOs [community-based organizations]. But the religious associations are very enthusiastic about assisting the refugees, said Saw Robert Htwe, chair of the KRC. Religious leaders attending the meeting included Roman Catholics, Buddhists, and Baptists, as well as a representative from the Seventh Day Sabbath Church. The religious leaders agreed to monitor the situation, assist refugees who are in need and cooperate with each other to help facilitate returns. The Karen refugees living across the border and the families displaced within Karen State have suffered for many years. I believe religious leaders have the responsibility to assist them whether from a national point of view or a religious point of view, said bishop Saw Stylo from the Anglican Church in Hpa-an. Over 100,000 refugees continue to live in nine official camps along the Thai-Myanmar border despite dwindling funding and cuts to the food rations. The majority of the residents are Karen, with a minority of Karenni, Mon and Burmese residents. The move to start repatriating some of the refugees began in October 2016, with a pilot group of 71 returnees. According to the KRC, further details about where to funnel aid will be discussed at a future meeting. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron We are going to do landmine awareness programs first. Then, the chief minister has selected Kyone Htaw Waterfall and Myaing Gyi Ngu as the priority areas for mine clearance operations, U Zaw Min, deputy director of Kayin States Social Welfare Department, told KIC News. The mine clearance operation wont be carried out with the state budget. International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) will give mine awareness education and then carry out the mine clearance operation. Kayin State is one of the most heavily land mined areas of Myanmar, and has also seen one of the highest numbers of recorded victims. All seven townships are suspected hazardous areas, according to the Geneva-based Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. In January, two people were injured in a landmine blast that occurred along the road to the Kyone Htaw Waterfall, a popular tourist attraction. Around 5,000 people are continuing to take shelter in Myaing Gyi Ngu following clashes in the Mae Tha Wor area that broke out in August 2016. Many of the families have cited fear of landmines as a key reason for not wanting to return home. The people who went back to their villages have stepped on the mines. Nobody dares to go back home. I want to request the authorities to quickly clear the mines, said Saw Tun, one of the leaders of the Myaing Gyi Ngu shelter. The nationwide ceasefire agreement includes provisions for the Tatmadaw and the ethnic armed organizations to undertake demining activities in accordance with the progress of the peace process. In September 2016, Deputy Minister of Defense Major General Myint New told parliament that the Tatmadaw had started mine clearance operations in several locations in Kayin State. The Kayin State Social Welfare Department said it has been carrying out mine awareness projects since early 2015 with the support of UNICEF. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron General Saw Kyaw Than Htay from the JMC (Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee) and General Saw Sein Win from the UPDJC (Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee) are the key players among the representatives, DKBA Commander-in-Chief General Saw Mo Shay told KIC News after the DKBAs May 3 commander conference. But its unclear how many other ethnic armed groups will be attending the upcoming peace talks, slated to begin on May 24. According to the Irrawaddy, government peace negotiators have asked the United Nationalities Federal Council a power bloc of ethnic armed groups to commit to attending the upcoming Panglong meeting. But the UNFC has repeatedly said it will not attend if it is only given observer status. The second 21st-Century Panglong Conference was initially slated for February. It was delayed among contentions about who could attend, and whether the conference would involve debates, or only paper presentations, as occurred at the largely symbolic first conference. In the intervening months, the peace process has seen a swelling crisis of faith. In April, seven ethnic armed organizations led by the United Wa State Army announced their rejection of the NCA, and called for the document to be redrafted. The government has been pressing all ethnic armed groups to swiftly sign the NCA. According to General Saw Mo Shay, at the May 3 meeting the DKBA, one of the eight NCA signatory groups, confirmed its intent to continue engaging in peace discussions with the government. The DKBA plans meet with the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Armys Peace Council (KNU/KNLA-PC) before the 21st-Century Panglong Conference in order to ensure consistency but no overlap in the papers they submit. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron Trucks transporting illegally logged timber are passing through state inspection gates at night, The Kantarawaddy Times has learned. Around 2am on April 22, The Kantarawaddy Times witnessed and took photos of logging trucks passing through inspection gates near the Hpruso central police station. The truck was stopped temporarily in front of the inspection gate while a man from the vehicle went inside the gate. He reemerged about five minutes later, and the truck drove away. Kayah State Minister of Natural Resources and Environment U T Yal admitted that illegal timber is still being smuggled daily through various methods and paths. He said the government has to make frequent arrests in an effort to try to curb the problem. The Presidents Office recently sent a directive to crackdown on reports of bribe taking by civil servants in the Bawlakhe township office. We have given a six-month warning to our staff. We have issued a warning letter instructing them not to repeat the act, Bawlakhe township General Administrator U Win Aung said when he was asked about the bribery case. Logging has been banned in Kayah State for the duration of this logging season. Over 600 tons of illegal timber was seized in Kayah State in the previous financial year. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron We discussed today demining work to be done by Tatmadaw especially in Kayin State. Our Tatmadaws opinion is demining works has to be done by the Tatmadaw in a leading role, he said. He was speaking in reply to reporters after the second day of JMC-U meeting being held today at National Reconciliation and Peace Centre (NRPC) in Shweli Road, Yangon. Similarly, Tanintharyi Region JMC State-level (JMC-S) member Col. Zaw Lwin told Mizzima on February 13 that they had started discussions on demining works in Tanintharyi Region. Col. Wunna Aung added that they would take technical assistance from foreign countries for demining work. He further said that the EAOs had to discuss and reply on this issue to JMC-U and only after that demining workcan be started. Col. Wunna Aung said that their JMC-U had already received a funding allocation of US$ 6.5 million as per a resolution passed by Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC). The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), Chapter (3) paragraph (e) stipulates that demining of mines planted by both sides shall be done in consultation with government. According to Sai Htun Aung, an MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) representing Laikha Township, village elders and MPs met with representatives of the Burmese military on April 28. He said that the military officials agreed to give back the villagers lands. We have submitted details of the case to the Shan State parliament. The deputy minister of defense told us that they would return the lands to the rightful owners, said Sai Htun Aung. We are now moving ahead by checking and preparing the land. [Burmese army] Battalion No. 515 seized the residents lands in Honar Wanparng tract when they set up their base there in the 1990s, the SNLD lawmaker said, adding that the farmers claim about 184 acres of lands were confiscated. He added that no timeline had yet been laid out for when Battalion No. 515 would officially hand over the lands. Shan Herald reported on April 28 that the residents in Kha Laing village in northern Shan States Hsipaw Township had gathered in the street to demand the return of their lands from the Burmese military. During the era of the military junta, arbitrary seizures of farmers lands were common across the country, particularly in Shan State. By the 2000s, much of the seized land had been rented out to agri-business firms, and a massive government campaign was initiated to encourage investment in the harvesting of jatropha oil. Ultimately, the scheme failed; investors lost great sums of money, while farmers lost land and livelihoods. By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) Q: At the Pangkham Summit, the ethnic armed groups in attendance agreed to draft a new ceasefire agreement instead of signing the existing nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA). The government is encouraging all groups to follow the path set out by the NCA. What will the TNLA do? A: The Burmese government kept telling us to come onboard the NCA path, but the National League for Democracy-backed government doesnt have the authority to be actively involved in the ceasefire issue. Only the Burmese Army has the full authority to make decisions about the ceasefire. Thats why the governments invitation to join the NCA is not very meaningful. They are only expressing their desire. The issue of drafting a new agreement is mentioned in Clause 7 of the Pangkham Summit statement, which was issued on April 19. The Union Political Dialogue Committee that we established will soon issue a paper to the government and to the Burmese Army about ending the civil war. Q: Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi have called 2017 the year for peace. What steps will your organization take toward peace? A: The PSLF/TNLA has continuously strived to end the on-going civil war that resulted from the inability to reach a political agreement in not only our area, but also in all of Myanmar. [In pursuit of peace] we met with the [former Union Peacemaking Working Committee] UPWC led by Minister U Aung Min in Muse in July 2013 and also in Rulli, China. Then, we tried to meet with a six-member [government peace] delegation in Myitkyina in mid-May 2014. In September 2014, the PSLF/TNLA submitted two letters to President U Thein Sein asking for a reduction of military tensions in the region and requesting a meeting. He didnt offer any response while he was still in office. In terms of the NCA-guided peace process, we have participated in the process from 2013, which was before the NCA was signed in 2015. But, in the end, the Burmese government barred our fellow [ethnic armed] organizations from taking part in the NCA process. Shortly speaking, the PSLF/TNLA has always strived to end the wars that resulted from politics of the past. We will continue to try to negotiate in the future without changing the policy. Q: What could the government and the Tatmadaw do to convince your organization to join the NCA? If these steps are taken, will you join the NCA? A: Since early 2017, the PSLF/TNLA has wanted to follow the NCA path under the all-inclusive policy and nine-point proposal of the UNFC (United Nationalities Federal Council). We have released our views on the issue. All of us understand that the NCA is riddled with weaknesses and it cannot stop the wars. As everyone can see, conflicts are still breaking out, even with the groups that have signed the NCA. We have tried to follow the NCA path with the desire to end the civil war. Now, we have agreed with our allied organizations to follow the Third EAROs (Ethnic Armed Resistance Organizations) position established at Pangkham instead. So, the PSLF/TNLA will follow a better path than the NCA. Q: The Union Political Dialogue Committee said the NCA cannot serve as the route to peace. Why not? A: There is no single path in order to have peace and stability in the country and end the civil war. You need to open all the best paths. The NCA is riddled with weaknesses if you open it up and read it. The NCA has many weaknesses because it is written by combining five drafts - four drafts proposed by the Burmese government, and one draft proposed by the EAOs (Ethnic Armed Organizations). The Burmese Army also added six policies to the NCA. Clashes broke out after the NCA was signed and some EAOs have used the NCA to trespass territories and arrest, torture and kill civilians. The civil war has been fuelled by the NCA rather than resolved. Thats why I say the NCA cannot implement peace. [The Union Peace Dialogue Committee] has talked about overcoming the issues with a fair ceasefire agreement. Q: Your organization, along with the Arakan Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, was involved in discussions with the governments Peace Commission. Why did you decide to switch tactics and cooperate with the United Wa State Army (UWSA)? A: We have switched to the path led by the UWSA because the path undertaken by the UWSA has more chance of ending the wars. The peace process and ceasefire implemented by the UWSA since 1989 still stand strong after 28 years without firing a single gunshot. The path undertaken by the UWSA has led to the development of Wa State and raised standards of living. So, the PSLF/TNLA is following the path undertaken by the UWSP/UWSA with full confidence. It is also an effort to gather the EAROs to stand in unison and protect against military and political pressures and military offensives from the Burmese government and the Burmese Army. Q: There are three different versions of federal Union. What is your stance on the governments conception of democracy federal, the EAOs ideals of federal democracy, and the Tatmadaws 2008 Constitution? A: The PSLF has officially declared its denial of the 2008 Constitution since 2008. Its impossible to negotiate the 2008 Constitution, which is desired by the Burmese Army. We cant accept it. The entire country does not want the 2008 Constitution. I dont want to debate the terminology of a democracy federal or a federal democracy. Our objectives are these: (1) To obtain freedom for all Taang (Palaung) nationals from oppression (2) To form Taang State that guarantees democracy and human rights (3) To establish federal Union that guarantees autonomy. Q: How do you plan to proceed if there is no good outcome in the negotiation for federal Union? A: In order to have a good outcome frameworks need to be written clearly and restrictions need to be removed. If we can negotiate with the main players, instead of with many people, we believe that a constitution ensuring a federal Union where all people can live together in peace can be achieved one day. Q: Will you attend the 21st-Century Panglong Conference if you are allowed by the government? A: We will make a decision about attending the 21st-Century Panglong Conference in accord with what the Union Political Dialogue Committee decides. Translated by Thida Linn Edited by Laignee Barron Deepikas Look Unveiling At The Press Meet For Festival De Cannes Fashion Trends Dona The ravishingly gorgeous Deepika Padukone unveils the official L'Oreal Paris Cannes Collection 2017 with her charming looks at a recent press conference. With this, L'Oreal Paris celebrates two decades of being the official makeup partner of Festival de Cannes. Deepika recently got appointed as the global ambassador of L'Oreal Paris. She is supposed to walk the red carpet at the Festival de Cannes along with international co-ambassadors Julianne Moore and Susan Sarandon amongst many others. Inspired by this year's theme, #LifeatCannes, she launched her signature look for day & night of Festival de Cannes during the Press Conference organized on Friday in Mumbai. The range includes the True Match Lumi Liquid and Powder Highlighters and the intense Tint Caresse Cushion Lipstick range. At the press conference, she looked extremely beautiful wearing a printed Alexander McQueen midi dress from the Spring 2017 collection. The below knee-length dress has red and black Qalamkari prints all over its white body, red being the dominating colour. It has a squared neckline and red borders around the dress. The puffed sleeves of the dress made it look a lot Indian-ish. The puff is followed by tight full sleeves, adding some ethnic flavour to it. These kinds of sleeves were mostly worn by women in royal families of India. We really like that look on Deepika. The dress has design cuts on each side of her waist, making the look sassier. The ever-so-gorgeous Deepika looks even more adorable with her hair open. It is actually hard to look away from her stances. She looks so perfect! There is no doubt that the huge metal dangling earrings have made the look of the charming Deepika Padukone more illuminated. She chose to wear plain sandals that would not overdo anything. We have seen Deepika to be wise at this, always! Her nails and lips colour complement her dress and seamlessly fit in like a ball in a pivot. She has painted her nails and coloured her lips and has kept the shade lighter. What a fashionista Miss DeePee is! We are so much in love with her matte brick red lipstick. She has put on a makeup base and kept her eyes away from too much of makeup, except a little brush of mascara. The epitome of an outstanding fashion statement, Deepika Padukone has always managed to keep our doubts away from she being a true fashionista. Undergraduates, recent alumni and a PhD candidate win Fulbright grants A group of current Brandeis undergraduates, recent alumni and one doctoral degree candidate have been awarded Fulbright Fellowships. Established in 1946 by Congress, the Fulbright grant program is a prestigious educational exchange that aims to foster cultural understanding between the United States and other countries. Recipients are chosen for academic merit and leadership potential, and are given the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. The following students and alumni have been awarded fellowships: Matthew Chernick '16 has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student English Teaching Assistantship to Romania. He brings to the program a long-standing interest in and personal connection to the host country, a deep passion for teaching, and a highly interdisciplinary background in the humanities. In addition to teaching English, Chernick will serve as a resource for conversation, vocabulary, and reading and writing courses at a local university. He also hopes to organize events presenting American culture such as lectures, film screenings, and dramatic performances through his host institution. Chernick is a graduate student in the Program in Comparative Humanities, and received his Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis with a triple major in film, television, and interactive media; European cultural studies, and classical studies, along with minors in history and English literature. After teaching English in Romania, he plans to pursue a doctoral degree to teach film studies at the university level, and to use his newfound Romanian language and cultural background to become one of the preeminent sources on Romania's cinematic tradition. Liana Gerecht '17 has been awarded an English Teaching Assistantship to Taiwan. In addition to majoring in both psychology and education studies with a minor in elementary education, Liana also has a broad range of practical experiences to draw upon as a teacher, including serving as a student teacher in the Arlington Public Schools, working as a camp counselor at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center, and teaching in a Danish classroom during her semester at the Danish Institute of Study Abroad. At Brandeis, she has served as the Undergraduate Department Representative for the Education Program, as a volunteer mentor to students with disabilities through SPECTRUM, and as a volunteer tutor. In the future, Liana plans to pursue a master's degree in education with a focus on English language learners. Katharine (Katie) Glanbock '14 has also been awarded an English Teaching Assistantship to Taiwan. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduating with majors in language and linguistics and philosophy along with a minor in East Asian studies, Katie has spent the last two years working in software development as a data manager and linguist. She has also served as a teaching assistant in Chinese for the China Institute Children's Program, a teacher's aide at First Avenue Daycare, a tutor with Brandeis' English Language Learners Programs, and a teaching assistant for typology in the Linguistics Department at Brandeis. She studied abroad in Hangzhou through the Middlebury School in China program and is now looking forward to exploring and learning about cultural and linguistic differences between Taiwan and Mainland China, and to understanding which teaching practices best suit the needs of Chinese speakers in Taiwanese educational settings. After her year in Taiwan, Katie plans to pursue a doctoral degree in educational linguistics and to embark upon a career in government, working on educational reforms that will improve English as a second language practices and expand multilingual education. Amelia (Mia) Katan '15 will spend the upcoming year as an English Teaching Assistant in Vietnam. Since graduating with majors in international and global studies and politics along with a minor in legal studies, Mia has been working as a paralegal specialist with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. While at Brandeis she earned the Joel Friedland Study Abroad Scholarship for her semester of study at the School for International Studies in Uganda, a Circle on Democracy and Cultural Pluralism Grant for research she conducted during her semester at the Brandeis in The Hague program, where she also completed an internship at the International Criminal Court, and a Social Justice World of Work fellowship for her internship at Interfaith Worker Justice. After teaching English in Vietnam, where she hopes to facilitate multicultural and multilingual literacy in her students, Mia intends to pursue a master's degree in human rights and international development. Troia Reyes-Stone '17 has earned the Binational Internship to Mexico. Troia will graduate this spring with majors in international and global studies and in East Asian studies. She spent a semester abroad through the Brandeis in The Hague Program, where she conducted an internship at Parliamentarians for Global Action. She also conducted research on the Kellogg Briand Pact as a Schiff Undergraduate Research Fellow and has written several articles for the Brandeis International Journal. The Fulbright internship in Mexico will allow her to learn how to develop and maintain strong diplomatic and business relations between Mexican and U.S. industries and governmental agencies. She also hopes to volunteer as an English teacher at a local school and to explore traditional and modern Mexican art. After completing her Fulbright year, Troia plans to join the U.S. Army Reserves, volunteer as a legal intern for a women's shelter, and pursue a dual graduate degree in law and public administration. Thaviny (Terry) Shaipitisiri '17 has been named an English Teaching Assistant to Thailand. A Posse Scholar from Atlanta, Terry is currently student teaching seventh grade history at McDevitt Middle School in Waltham as part of her combined Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Teaching program. Terry is eager to reconnect with her own cultural heritage while teaching English in Thailand, and to learn more about the Thai dances and songs she grew up hearing and performing. Terry hopes that the cross-cultural teaching practices she learns during her Fulbright year will enhance her ability to connect with and teach students throughout her career as an educator. Yasmin Yousof-Ibrahim '15 has earned an English Teaching Assistantship to India. Yasmin graduated with a double major in politics and education studies. Yasmin was a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar, a poet and performer in Dream Monologues, and an active member of the Student Support Services Program, the English Language Learners Program, the Brandeis Muslim Student Association, and the Brandeis Immigration Education Initiative. She also was awarded research funding from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund and from the Rapaporte Foundation to conduct a study of the Abaarso School of Science and Technology in Hargeisa, Somaliland. During her Fulbright year, in addition to teaching English in a non-profit school in India, Yasmin is eager to engage students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds by facilitating poetry workshops and performances. Upon returning to the US, Yasmin plans to pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching and to work as an English as a second language teacher in an urban setting with at-risk youth. The following individuals were awarded grants, but have chosen to decline their award to pursue other opportunities: Charles Stratford, a doctoral candidate in musicology, was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student grant to Austria to conduct an archival study of Arnold Schoenberg's 1923 composition, The Serenade. Stratford received his bachelors degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and masters degree in musicology from Brigham Young University before entering the doctoral program in musicology at Brandeis in 2012. He has published papers in The Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Center and SONUS: A Journal of Investigations into Global Musical Possibilities, and has taught classes at Brandeis including "History of Rock". Stephanie Weinstein '17 was awarded an English Teaching Assistantship to Malaysia. Currently serving as a student teacher full-time as part of her combined Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Teaching program, Stephanie has also worked as a teacher's aide, a summer camp counselor, and as a volunteer and then intern at Lemberg Children's Center. During her junior year she studied abroad at the National University of Singapore, and later served as a study abroad ambassador. She was also a member of the Brandeis Sustainability Committee, vice president of Students for Environmental Action, a student representative for the Brandeis Sustainability Fund, and an orientation leader. Stephanie is looking forward to a career as an elementary school teacher. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian Predator Hunters could be sued by a man who was video-recorded while being accused of being a pedophile if hes assaulted by a vigilante, says a local lawyer. David Swayze, whose specialties include civil litigation, says the social media shaming group could be accused of negligence if there was such an attack. I think that theyre playing a very dangerous game by doing this, Swayze said during an interview on Friday. The Brandon Sun asked Swayze to weigh in with an opinion on a video of a confrontation that was broadcast over Facebook Live and posted to the groups Facebook page. In the video, a man who says hes with Canadian Predator Hunters confronts a man in a pickup truck parked in Carberry. The hunter accuses the man in the pickup of being there to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex. It appears that the hunter had posed as a female and exchanged messages with the man in the truck online via PlentyOfFish and a phone messaging app and a meet was arranged. At the recorded meeting, the hunter reveals that it was in fact him that the man in the truck had been conversing with all along. He tells the man in the vehicle that the group is non-violent. They just want to get him help and protect kids, he says. He then instructs the man in the truck to get help, referring him to the mental health mobile crisis unit, and directs him to provide proof that he has done so. During the meeting, the target of the sting makes a comment that seems to imply hes admitting the accusation, and tells the hunter that he will do as he was told and get help. The man then drives off, while the hunter walks away. However, when later reached by The Brandon Sun, the man denied parking at the Carberry lot to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex. He says the person at the other end of the messages had provided him with three ages. At one point the person claimed to be 15 years old, but the man from the truck says he questioned that and the person then told him she was 37. He said he believed he was meeting a 37-year-old woman. He said the remarks that appear to be an admission were made because he was caught off guard. As of Friday, the Facebook video had 30,882 views and 445 shares. Swayze identified a number of potential legal problems for Canadian Predator Hunters. Defamation may have been an issue up until the point the man in the truck made some comments that could be viewed as an admission, at least under civil law, as the defence to defamation is the truth. The implication is that the defamation claim may go away at that point, because hes effectively admitted the very fact which would otherwise potentially be defamatory, Swayze said. It should be noted, though, that the civil standard of proof is a balance of probabilities. Thats lower than the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. It seems that, while video-recording, the hunter was monitoring questions posed by live viewers. He tells the man in the truck that some of the viewers want to know why he would want to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex, and the man in the truck responds: I dont know, just lonely I guess. Swayze said another possibility is that the man could sue Canadian Predator Hunters if someone who saw the post was able to identify him based on the video and took things into their own hands by beating him. The man could claim negligence on the part of Canadian Predator Hunters by creating a situation that put him at risk. The hunter uses the mans full, real name at one point in the video, and takes great pains to video-record the mans licence plate and note the make of his truck. While the face of the man in the pickup truck is obscured by sunglasses, the image is easily matched to his Facebook profile pic. I think thats dangerous, Swayze said of the personal information revealed in the video. I think its dangerous because youre inviting other people to potentially take some sort of vigilante action against this fellow, or at least making it easier for them to do so. The hunters group could be liable on the basis that potential harm could have been forseeable as a result of the video, Swayze said. If it can be shown someone identified him using the information in the video and beat him as a result, he could sue the group and the broadcaster for damages on the basis they were negligent even though in the video the hunter says the group is non-violent, and he refuses to punch the man in the truck even though it seems viewers are urging him to do so. The anonymity of the person who recorded the video isnt an obstacle, Swayze said. A lawsuit can be filed against a John Doe, and a motion could be filed against Facebook to have them disclose the owner of the account. Privacy isnt an issue in this case in terms of the video-recording, Swayze said. The meeting was in a public place where theres no reasonable expectation of privacy. Plus, the man in the truck didnt ask the recording be stopped when informed by the hunter that he was on Facebook Live. So, there is implied consent to the recording. Brandon criminal defence lawyer Andrew Synyshyn says it would be a stretch, but its possible Predator Hunters or the hunter involved could be charged as a party to an offence if the man in the truck or his property is attacked. Most realistically, if the man in the truck was to be charged it could be for luring a child. It appears that the person the man was chatting with online was actually a middle-aged man. But the luring charge requires only that a person believes they are communicating with a youth for a sexual purpose. The video wouldnt be enough evidence, however, Synyshyn said. First, police need a complainant, and the hunter said the group isnt about involving police. For the video to be admitted at trial, the person who shot it would have to testify to its authenticity and accuracy. Synyshyn said the key to any prosecution in this case would be the online and phone messages exchanged between the parties prior to the meeting. The person communicating with the child would have to suggest the meeting for a sexual purpose. Simply wanting to meet a youth isnt criminal. If Canadian Predator Hunters doesnt want to co-operate with an investigation, police would need grounds to obtain a warrant to get records. Synyshyn said, based on the video alone, there doesnt appear to be a basis for any criminal charge against the hunter. In another twist to the whole matter, Manitoba RCMP say they are investigating a possible assault related to the parking lot confrontation. Otherwise they said they werent at liberty to provide details. However, the video shows the two parties were calm and never had physical contact. Plus, the man from the truck told The Brandon Sun he wasnt aware of any assault. The Brandon Sun tried to reach Canadian Predator Hunters on Friday but didnt get a response. However, it posted an update on the man in the truck following the meeting. It states that the man had contacted the hunter and told him hed reached the mobile crisis unit which would provide him with more information about getting help. The post claimed the mobile crisis unit had called the hunter to confirm he contacted them. Theres no mention of an assault. ihitchen@brandonsun.com Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Dennis Anderson, the longest-serving Brandon University president since the university received its charter in 1967, will be honoured this month. The BU Board of Governors will confer the title of president emeritus on Anderson at the universitys spring convocation on May 26. Anderson served as president and vice-chancellor of the university from 1990 to 2000. Im honoured and delighted that the board of Brandon University has chosen to award me the president emeritus title at its Spring 2017 Convocation, Anderson said. Its a warm feeling to be recognized for and reflect on service to my alma mater, BU. Submitted Dennis Anderson served as president and vice-chancellor of Brandon University from 1990 to 2000. He will receive the title of president emeritus at the spring convocation on May 26. Anderson was raised on a farm near Libau and graduated from Brandon College with a bachelor of science in 1964 before entering Canadas chemical industry. He later went on to earn a master of business administration from McMaster University and a PhD in business (marketing) from the University of Western Ontario. He credits the education he received in Brandon as a strong platform for his ensuing education and his career. Dr. Anderson is representative of the long-term connections that we value highly at Brandon University, BU president and vice-chancellor Gervan Fearon said. It is very inspiring that Dr. Anderson was able to return to Brandon University as president to make contributions that continue to benefit us today. We are proud of his previous achievements at the university, as well as his continued engagement with BU alumni members. During Andersons term as president, the heart of BU underwent a major renewal with an $11.3-million restoration and expansion of BUs Original Building and Clark Hall, complete with a link to the George T. Richardson Centre and A.E. McKenzie Building complex. The university also added new degree programs in business administration, psychiatric nursing, rural development, First Nations and aboriginal counselling and the first-of-its-kind Hutterian education program. I believe that each presidential era has strengthened BU, and that tradition certainly continues under the leadership of Dr. Fearon, Anderson said. I feel proud about a number of developments that occurred during my 10-year term, thanks to tremendous help from students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the BU Foundation and general community. Anderson becomes the fifth BU president to receive the president emeritus distinction, joining John Mallea, John E. Robbins, Earl J. Tyler and Louis P. Visentin. Submitted Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. When Murray Holden left the Deloraine-area family farm hed grown up on about 24 years ago, he didnt exactly rip off the Band-Aid. It was more a soft departure, with the Holden family trucking the house they had built on the farm in 1980 to their new property at the west end of Brandon. They also brought along a 1928 Ford Model A, which is the same model Holden learned to drive on at the farm as a kid a model that he considers a staple at area farms. Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Local classic vehicle enthusiast Murray Holden is seen behind the wheel of his 1928 Ford Model A the same model he learned to drive on at his familys farm near Deloraine. About 10 years ago, Holden also secured from his brother the very same 1959 Case 211-B tractor that his father had used on the farm. He has also repurchased the 1976 Mercury Colony Park station wagon hed bought brand new back in the day. His home and triple-vehicle garage highlight Holdens nostalgia-driven hobby, with his collection of classic vehicles keeping him busy during his spare time, particularly the Mercury, which is a recent addition hes currently in the early stages of fixing up. His first acquisition was the Model A, which he found locally in Brandon but which had previously come from Newdale. The vehicles body wasnt in too terrible of shape, but the mechanical side of things was a mess. Thankfully, this is Holdens speciality, so he was keen to fix it up. The process took up about two years worth of his spare time, during which he said that he amassed enough spare parts from other vehicles to pretty well build a second vehicle. He built not only one original factory model four-cylinder motor, but two of them, with the spare sitting in his basement in the event he comes to need it in the future. Proudly stored in his garage, the vehicle is in perfect running order and physical shape, complete with a quail hood ornament whose back features a gauge that displays the engines temperature a decorative touch that draws the eye. Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Murray Holden is seen in his Brandon garage, where he fixes up classic vehicles in his spare time, such as the 1928 Ford Model A pictured in the background. An original kind of guy, Holden salvaged all of the parts from other Model A vehicles, including enough components to deck it out with all of the options you can get for that years model. In addition to its place in both Holdens garage and heart, the vehicle has also become a staple at local area car shows, which he drives it out to on a regular basis throughout the summer months. His Case tractor, stored in the same garage bay, also makes an appearance at area shows and is a sentimental companion piece to the Model A. The Case is another vehicle he completely restored, with Holden describing the job as replacing every nut and bolt, every bearing and everything. When I got it, it probably should have been a parts tractor because it was let go too long, but I restored it and everythings original, he said, adding, Theres nothing thats been altered or anything like that. While it would have been easier to have used the vehicle for parts only while depending more heavily on another tractor, Holden said that he didnt have the heart to junk it, with this tractor the very same vehicle his father had purchased in 1960. Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun The quail hood ornament of Murray Holden's 1928 Ford Model A. Retaining this piece of his familys history wasnt an easy task and required Holden to scavenge pieces from throughout North America until hed finally compiled everything he needed. A self-described packrat, he said that, like his Model A, he practically has enough parts in his garage to build a second tractor. A 1981 Mercedes Benz and 1969 Ford XL convertible have since joined his collection, with his current project the 76 Mercury, which had fallen into disrepair during the years since hed sold it. Holdens original vehicle was a lost cause, so he purchased a new body and is using whatever parts from his original that he can. The Mercury currently fills whatever spare time he has when not working his day job in automotive sales, which is only his latest automotive job after having owned and operated a Midas automotive shop in Brandon from 1982 until about five years ago. Through it all, the family farm he was raised at and spent the majority of his adulthood at, minus a 10-year stint after running away with his wife at age 17 to Calgary and later Saskatoon, has remained his nostalgic focus. Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Murray Holden, with the very same 1959 Case 211-B tractor his father used at his familys farm, which Holden fixed up, using original pieces he managed to scavenge. He grew up there, raised his four kids there with his wife, and has now managed to retain as much of the farm as he could within Brandon city limits. tclarke@brandonsun.com Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This week, Manitobans saw their provincial government pursue an old direction in a new way when it came to providing us with services the Triple P or P3. It can be a complicated issue, so lets take some time to discuss this timeless strategy. P3 means public-private partnership. Simply, business and government are working together in an effort to provide infrastructure. Rather than the traditional approach of the government simply hiring contractors and funding the project itself, the P3 turns the process on its head. That is, private contractors build the project to government standards and costs. Rent, or repayment, is paid back by the government at an agreed-upon rate for a fixed time period. Each project can differ including maintenance, union or not, and so on. End of discussion. File Kerry Auriat says the David Thompson Bridge the approach to which is seen here in a 2014 photo with a sign noting a bump ahead is an example where a public-private partnership could have saved taxpayers money. He says rumour has it that the project came in at almost twice the $17-million cost budgeted by the NDP. Want an example of how a P3 could save taxpayers money? Consider the Thompson Bridge on 18th Street toward the North Hill. Originally promised by the governing NDP at $17 million, (youll remember the signs), rumour has it that they came in almost twice the budgeted cost, and years late. A well-managed P3 would set established time frames and costs for projects. Overruns would be the responsibility of the builder, not the government. At the same time, there would also be penalties for construction delays. This type of strategy is nothing new. In fact, years ago after another California earthquake, then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took this exact approach linking the reconstruction of infrastructure to time frames and financial constraints. He even went so far as to provide bonuses for completion ahead of time. It worked and California rebounded from that earthquake remarkably quickly. There are projects across North America that have employed this strategy some successfully and others not. As with any project, the key really is discipline delivery on time and at the budgeted cost. So why do this now? Quite frankly, Manitoba is awash in debt. When even the crown of our province Manitoba Hydro is facing ongoing financial issues, then the reality is we cannot afford our lifestyle. However, the other reality is we need to upgrade and improve our infrastructure. If we waited to rid ourselves of debt before we build new hospitals, bridges and schools, these projects would never get done. Other priorities get in the way. Of course, it goes without saying naysayers will attack Premier Brian Pallister for this collaborative approach. I would expect them to they are the opposition. The reality is the P3 concept is nothing new and has been used by governments across Canada of all stripes, including our former NDP government. Should you care if a new school is a P3? Well, it depends on whether you care about the quality of the service or you are completely fixated on who delivers that service. Brandons new water treatment plant is a P3. For me, as long as my taxes are contained and I get the service I need, then I could care less who built the facility. Keep in mind that while private enterprise is involved in the project, the infrastructure itself is built to government standards. During last years awful snowstorm, did you care who cleared your street? As long as it was done in a timely manner, then once again I could care less who cleared the snow. Government? Private enterprise? Who cares? Taxpayers demand services. Government cant always afford to deliver everything we demand. So rather than wait interminable periods for us to save enough to pay for a specific project, we should explore alternative strategies for improving the lives of all Manitobans. This is called high performance government and we must consider every approach we can to deliver services to Manitobans at a reasonable cost. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. So, is this what we should expect from an old union guy? It is, once and for all, reality-check time on one of Premier Brian Pallisters favoured folksy self-identifiers specifically, the deftly spun notion that his deep roots in organized labour affirm his understanding of the wants and needs of average working people and should, somehow, allay the concerns of unionized workers who feel targeted by his provincial governments agenda. He unleashed the old union guy bromide earlier this spring as discussions on a federal-provincial health accord reached an impasse and, despite his effort to assemble a united all-provinces front that would force Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to pony up more across-the-board funding, other provinces struck individual deals with Ottawa, leaving Manitoba as the lone holdout. Im an old union guy. Solidarity is what it is, Mr. Pallister said in March. Divide and conquer is no way to negotiate health care. Im not happy with a pick-them-off side deal on health care. He also said, when asked about the possibility of a federal-government deadline on Manitoba signing its own health deal, Im not going to be intimidated by threats. People use techniques sometimes that they shouldnt. One cant help wondering what the old union guy who did, in fact, serve briefly as a local union representative while working as a teacher in Gladstone in the late 1970s was thinking on Wednesday. Testimony was unfolding at the Manitoba Labour Board hearing concerning charges that the University of Manitoba employed unfair labour practices during last falls negotiations with the U of M Faculty Association. During his testimony, the universitys associate vice-president of human resources recalled being told the institution could face quite damaging consequences including the potential loss of operating grants and capital funding, and the possible removal of the universitys president if it didnt obey the Pallister governments order to freeze wages. It was made quite clear to us that it was an order not optional and that the government would take steps not favourable to the university if we did not participate in that mandate, Gregory Juliano testified. Mr. Pallister, of course, has made reining in public-sector wages a marquee element of his austerity-minded effort to get Manitobas finances back in order. It shouldnt surprise anyone that he wants the realm of publicly funded academia to shoulder its share of the budget-relief burden. But the tactics described by Mr. Juliano sound a lot like the unseemly sorts of threats and intimidation Mr. Pallister so angrily decried when he felt the federal government was doing the same thing to him. Well, you cant have it both ways. Do unto others. That sort of thing. It can fairly be argued that Mr. Pallister is correct when he says his government inherited a fiscal mess from its NDP predecessor, and that a made-in-Manitoba, all-hands-on-deck approach is the only way to ease the balance sheet ink colour from red back into black. Theres also merit to a very public discussion of the role organized labour should play in that effort. What there isnt much room for is hypocrisy. Or threats. Or intimidation. Any old union guy or girl knows that. For the sake of folksy-bio accuracy, perhaps its time for Mr. Pallister to lean more heavily on his farm-raised roots and his past as an athlete, a teacher and a self-made business success. Old union guy? Enough, already. Winnipeg Free Press Senior garda sources have confirmed they have received a complaint against Stephen Fry in relation to an alleged breach of Ireland's blasphemy laws. The investigation relates to comments in an interview with Gay Byrne on RTE's The Meaning of Life. A gorse fire in the North which forced families to evacuate their homes overnight was started deliberately, a fire service there believes. Some eight fire engines and 60 firefighters tackled the blaze in Newry, Co Down on Friday night, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said. They were called to the fire nearby residential houses on Barley Lane and St Mary's high school at around 8.50pm. Residents were temporarily evacuated from their homes as firefighters brought the fire under control, fully extinguishing it at around 2am this morning. Fire service group commander Brian Stanfield said: "They had to work hard in difficult conditions to bring the fire under control and extinguish the flames. "Members of the public left their houses during the incident." Nobody was injured and no buildings were damaged, he added. The fire service attended more than 160 incidents between 6pm and 11pm on Friday night, Mr Stanfield said. We've attended 221 gorse fires since Monday - 92% started deliberately. Enjoy the good weather but don't put your life and ours at risk! pic.twitter.com/9laS4nITgs Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (@NIFRSOFFICIAL) May 5, 2017 He is urging the public to heed fire safety advice to protect themselves and the countryside, after a spate of fires sparked by the dry weather. A sacked police officer has been charged with murder after the fatal shooting of a black 15-year-old boy in Texas. Roy Oliver opened fire on a car full of teenagers who were leaving a party last Saturday. The little penguin may not have chosen to end up like this, but it got to experience something very few of its species ever taste: flight. Unfortunately for the little one, its first flight took place upside-down and in the talons of a sea eagle. And while we don't know how this story ends, it's likely the poor penguin's first flight was its last. Penguin takes flight: John Prats thought the sea eagle had caught a salmon until he had a closer look. He agreed to his photograph being published to boost his message about getting outdoors. Credit:John Prats This incredible photo was shot by photographer and bushwalker John Prats near Wattamolla in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. Mr Prats, 70, was happy for his picture, taken two years ago, to be published again - as long as he could urge people to get outdoors and among the natural world. Ten months after Karl Stefanovic left his wife of 21 years, the Today show host has reportedly settled his divorce for $6 million. News Corp reported on Sunday that Stefanovic's ex-wife, Cassandra Thorburn, has received $6 million in assets and cash. The couple has three children, Jackson, 17, Ava, 12 and River, 10. Stefanovic - who earns nearly $3 million a year - "put up very little resistance during the negotiations", according to the report. The Channel 9 star ended his two-decade long marriage in July last year, informing Thorburn when she returned from doing the weekly grocery run. Her then husband had packed his bags and told her he would not be returning, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Two young brothers were killed and another has internal injuries after a shocking crash near Dubbo in the early hours of Saturday. Emergency services were called to the crash site on the Newell Highway, about 12 kilometres north of Dubbo, about 3.30am after a 4WD and a B-double truck collided. Inspector Jason Pietruszka, from Orana LAC, described the accident scene as "traumatic". A couple was travelling with their three children in the four-wheel drive when the collision occurred. RBI tightens Rules for JLFs Published: May 6, 2017 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has tightened the rules around making the Joint Lenders Forum (JLF) more effective, directing banks not to break any rules and to meet all deadlines. The RBI has said that any breach of rules would attract a monetary penalty. JLFs are meetings held to revitalise stressed assets. In JLF banks attempt to red-flag stress early and check them by putting in place a corrective action plan (CAP). Need JLFs inefficiency basically stems out from the disagreements between lenders.The entire model of JLF is based on the premise that collective action of banks against a borrower for recovery. However, in reality, different lenders have different levels of comfort or discomfort, based on the exposure, collateral, etc. Many lenders have also complained about the lack of transparency in JLF. Salient Highlights As per the new norms, RBI has lowered the threshold needed for implementing the corrective action plan (CAP). Now, the decisions agreed to by a minimum of 60% of creditors by value and 50% of creditors would now be valid to implement the CAP. Once a decision is reached by the JLF, it would be binding on all other lenders and they must implement it without any additional conditionalities. However, if a lender wants to exit by exercising the substitution option but failed to exit within the given time, it has to go along with the decision taken. RBI has asked all banks to ensure their representatives on the JLF to be armed with appropriate mandates. It has also asked the executives to take an unambiguous and unconditional stand and vote accordingly. As per the new norms, the executives after taking the decision should be suitably empowered to implement them without necessitating any board approvals. The CAP can include resolution through the flexible structuring of project loans, change in ownership under strategic debt restructuring or scheme of the sustainable structuring of stressed assets. Month: Current Affairs - May, 2017 Topics: Banking IBPS National RBI Latest E-Books It was a race against time, as three SES volunteers braved the swollen Albert River to reach a family of four stranded on the roof of their house. Minutes later the house would be swept away. After about an hour of battling against the raging floodwaters on the morning of April 3, the rescuers' boat reached the house and plucked the Gold Coast family from the roof of their house moments before it was crushed by the water. On Saturday, the life-saving actions of three Logan SES volunteers were honoured. Jim Ferguson, Chris Holloway and Claire Browning all received bravery awards from Governor Paul de Jersey after saving a mum, two children and their grandfather, along with two dogs, from their Luscombe home. Helen Gallo, the rescued mother, paid tribute to the team at the bravery awards ceremony in Logan, where the efforts of 700 local volunteers were recognised. Police are appealing for public assistance to help locate a missing teenager. The 15-year-old girl, Erin Norman, was last seen in Station Street, Seville at 6pm on Tuesday. Missing teenager Erin Norman. Police and family have concerns for her welfare due to her age and health issues. The teen was last seen wearing a grey jumper and black ripped jeans. Police are appealing for public assistance to help locate a missing 12-year-old Melbourne boy. Brandon Kregier was last seen leaving an address on his bicycle on Popes Rd, Keysborough, just after 3pm on Tuesday, May 2. Missing boy Brandon Kregier. Police have concerns for his welfare due to his age and the length of time he's been missing. Investigators have released an image of Brandon in the hope that someone recognises him and can provide information on his current whereabouts. Posters for Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in advance of Frances presidential runoff election. Credit:Reuters Florian Philippot, an aide for Mr Macron's opponent Marine Le Pen, said on Twitter that it was a "frightening democratic shipwreck". However, he also promoted the hashtag #Macronleaks, and speculated the leak may "uncover things that investigative journalism has deliberately killed". The Le Pen campaign has repeatedly complained the French media were biased against them. Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte last month. Credit:Christophe Ena Previous hacking attacks on En Marche! were traced to Russia, the campaign has said, though it did not say where the latest attack came from. The En Marche! statement said "This operation is obviously aimed at destabilising democracy, as has already been seen in the United States during their last presidential campaign." "Throughout this campaign En Marche! has consistently been the movement most targeted by such [hacking] attempts, intensively and repeatedly." En Marche! asked media to be careful in reporting the documents, as "a large part of them are purely and simply false", and others related to provisional accounts and estimates rather than campaign commitments. Mr Macron goes into Sunday's vote a clear favourite, with France poised to reject his opponent's far right, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam populism. Unless polls are stunningly wrong, the centrist newcomer has survived a few missteps and a surge of fake news attacks and will comfortably beat the Front National's Le Pen. Not only that, the 39-year-old is on track to push his barely year-old party, En Marche!, to become the largest in the Parliament after elections later this year, giving him the power to choose a prime minister who will assist rather than oppose his agenda. Immediately after his win two weeks ago in the first round of voting, he stumbled: he looked too celebratory at a fancy bistro dinner with supporters after the result, then he was ambushed by Ms Le Pen at a public appearance at a factory where they duelled over their diametrically opposed policies for France's manufacturing future, with Ms Le Pen positioning herself as the protector of the workers. Meanwhile, Ms Le Pen, 48, stepped down as leader of the far-right Front National and made some moves towards the political centre. But the latter days of the campaign saw her looking more strident and desperate. That tone was exposed in a fiery, 160-minute televised debate on Wednesday evening, one of the most brutal political exchanges in recent French history. Ms Le Pen has remained a stubborn 20 points behind in the polls, and would need to persuade almost every undecided voter to back her or Mr Macron's current supporters to decide to stay home instead. So she took a go-for-broke attitude into the debate, goading her opponent, seeking to unsettle him. She flung insults at him, calling him "the darling of the system and the elites", the "candidate of savage globalisation" and the "representative of subjugated France". "We've seen the cynical choices you've made, that reveal the coldness of the investment banker you have never ceased being," she said. "You defend private interests and behind that there is social ruin." This aggressive language has appealed to her base of supporters during the earlier weeks of the campaign, but it was judged by many post-debate commentators as off-putting to the political middle ground that Ms Le Pen would have to win to gain the Elysee Palace. And polling confirmed the pundits, with about two-thirds of the audience marking Mr Macron as more credible in the debate. Mr Macron had returned fire at Ms Le Pen, calling her the "high priestess of fear" and accusing her of lying to the public. French media repeated this line with approval the next day: Le Monde's front page headline was "The strategy of the lie", comparing Ms Le Pen's rhetoric to that of US President Donald Trump. "What's extraordinary is that your strategy is simply to say a lot of lies and propose nothing to help the country," Mr Macron told Ms Le Pen. "Don't say stupid things. You are saying a lot of them." Ms Le Pen was most comfortable, and Mr Macron least, on the topic of terrorism and security. Ms Le Pen accused her rival of complacency, and Mr Macron replied with a rambling discourse on the social origins of terrorism. He also accused Ms Le Pen of provoking "a civil war" with her proposals to ban religious symbols including Muslim headscarves from public places. But Ms Le Pen stumbled on her own proposal to bring back the French franc. And at the end of the debate Ms Le Pen suggested Macron had "an offshore account in the Bahamas", a claim she later admitted she could not prove. Macron told her it was "defamation" and pointed out that Ms Le Pen herself was under investigation for alleged fraudulent payments from the European Parliament to the Front National's staff. He later said the Bahamas rumour had been planted and promoted by the Kremlin's social media troll farms, to favour the Putin-friendly Ms Le Pen. "This is typical of fake news," Mr Macron told a radio interviewer. "Marine Le Pen has troops behind her on the internet who take up positions. Some of these sites are linked to Russian interests . . . People talked and got organised." It is not the first time a rash of social media rumours about secret bank accounts have been boosted by Russian internet pirates and automated Twitter accounts, Mr Macron's team said. They also claimed there had been 4000 hacking attempts against their team's computers, most originating in Russia. Alt-right activists from the US, who rallied behind Donald Trump's campaign last year, have also tried to influence debate and trends online. However a study by the New York Times found that its language and iconography was not hitting the target with the French. Groups on the internet's notorious '4Chan' forum tried to push the Bahamas rumour on the day of the debate. One anonymous user posted screen shots of documents supposed to prove the existence of Mr Macron's Bahamas company. The user claimed they had "sent these to hundreds of French journalists and they've all sat on this anybody even talking about this in France has been shut down Let's get grinding. If we can get #MacronCacheCash trending in France for the debates tonight, it might discourage French voters from voting Macron". On Friday prosecutors in Paris opened an investigation following a complaint from Mr Macron, and his campaign warned they would "prosecute for defamation" anyone who repeated "this false information". Mr Macron's campaign was forced to issue a denial, saying the documents and the news were clumsy fakes. But the denial meant the claims were aired in genuine news outlets. Mr Macron also last week received the backing of former US president Barack Obama, who provided a video message to his campaign in which he said he said the French election was "important to the future of France and the values we care so much about". "I've admired the campaign that Emmanuel has run, he stood up for liberal values," Mr Obama said. "He appeals to people's hopes and not their fears." The final days of the campaign saw polls suggesting Mr Macron had extended his lead against Ms Le Pen. On Friday Ms Le Pen was jeered by protesters during a visit to the famous Reims cathedral, forced to flee through a side door to avoid the crowd. Meanwhile, a confident Mr Macron discussed who he would choose as his prime minister, looking ahead to critical parliamentary elections in June. A poll on Thursday found that En Marche! was on track to win 249-286 seats, just shy of the 290 required for a majority. Thailand has bought the first of three submarines from China in the strongest signal yet the military-ruled country is reducing reliance on its long-time ally, the United States. A Thai navy admiral signed an agreement for the $US393 million ($530 million) Yuan-class diesel vessel in Beijing even though Thailand's state audit office is still investigating the purchase. Prayuth Chan-Ocha, Thailand's Prime Minister. Credit:Getty Images Thailand's cabinet, dominated by military officers who seized power in a 2014 coup, approved the deal in secret in April, prompting accusations of a lack of transparency in the country's largest defence purchase. The US downgraded defence ties with Thailand after the coup, including reducing participation of its troops in joint military exercises. Live coverage: Bucks County results are in Pennsylvanians will choose their next governor and US senator, as well as new state representatives and state senators. 50 women who have raised the profile of sports in South Jersey To mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX, we're spotlighting 50 women who have raised the profile of sports in South Jersey. Reactions have been coming in from local councillors and politicians following this weeks Somerset County Council elections in Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge. As we reported here, the Conservatives won all four local County Council seats in Thursdays election. Peter Burridge-Clayton retained the Burnham-On-Sea North seat and John Woodman held the Highbridge and Burnham South seat. Bob Filmer won the Brent Knoll seat for the Tories while Mark Healey retained the Huntspill seat. Former Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt won the Wells County Council seat from Conservative John Osman by 95 votes. Mr Osman was the council leader. James Heappey, the Conservatives General Election candidate, told Burnham-On-Sea.com on Friday: It is sad to have lost John Osman in a close race in the Wells Division. John has been an excellent servant of the City of Wells for many years and has led Somerset County Council with great passion and commitment over the last five years. Making six gains across the county last night was an amazing achievement but it is a shame that John will not be there to lead the enlarged Conservative group forwards at County Hall. Claims of a Liberal Democrat bounce-back have been dismissed after the party lost six seats across the county and failed to improve on their 2015 vote share in the Wells Constituency. The Conservatives topped the poll locally with 47.5% of the vote with the Liberal Democrats in second on 34%. In the 2015 General Election, James Heappey won with 46.1% ahead of the Lib Dem on 32.8%. Mr Heappey added: These results are an excellent platform on which we can build our General Election campaign. I am delighted that we have maintained our advantage over the Lib Dems but we must now focus on the important question of who will lead our country for the next five years. I have a strong record of action here in the Wells Constituency and Im standing with Theresa May because only she can provide the strong and stable leadership that our country needs in the coming years. Tessa Munt, who won the Wells county council seat, said: I want to thank you very much for voting me in in Wells and for all your support. I am absolutely delighted and its a privelege and honour to represent my familys home as a Somerset County Councillor. Its clear that people out there want something very different and Im glad to give my full attenton to the job. I learnt a huge amount during the five years I served as your MP and in the time since. The time spent listening to people, talking to them, meeting them and hearing their concerns over that time has left me absolutely clear that you will get a bargain. You will get two for one if Im the MP and County Councillor for Wells, so Im looking forward to being your independent-minded MP! Bob Filmer said after winning the Brent Knoll seat: I am very pleased and proud to have been elected to serve the residents of Brent division. John Woodman said: Im very proud to represent Highbridge and Burnham South I would like to thank everyone who voted for me and promise to work hard to improve our towns. Brian Hobbs, UKIPs Burnham North candidate, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: Following last nights Somerset County Council elections results where I stood as a candidate for Burnham North, I would like to congratulate Peter Burridge-Clayton on his success in winning that seat. I would also like to say a massive thank you to all the Burnham South constituents who supported me and gave me their vote. There is no hiding the fact it was not a good day for myself and UKIP, polling just 9% of the vote from a poor turnout of just 38.72%, although that was higher than the local average which was a disappointing 35.16%. Coming in third behind the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems with their massive campaign budgets we at least managed to push Labour back into fourth. So once again thank you for your support and remember its your Council, its your money they are spending and its you that is affected by the decisions they make. You still have the right for your voice to be heard and I urge you not to be affraid to question what they do. We invited Peter Burridge-Clayton to provide a comment about his win in Burnham North his response will be added here. The full make-up of the County Council is now: Conservatives 35, Liberal Democrats 12, Green Party 2, Independent 3, Labour 3, Liberal Party 0, UK Independence Party 0. .LOCAL COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION RESULTS: The local results are as follows: BRENT FILMER, Bob The Conservative Party Candidate 1917 GORE, Tony Liberal Democrats 537 MARSDEN, Janty Labour Party Candidate 216 WILLIS, David Robert UK Independence Party (UKIP) 159 Percentage turnout 36.4% BURNHAM ON SEA NORTH BURRIDGE-CLAYTON, Peter The Conservative Party Candidate* 1485 HOBBS, Brian Royston UK Independence Party (UKIP) 278 MURPHY, Mike Liberal Democrats 1183 PRICE, Colin Michael Labour Party Candidate 178 Percentage turnout 38.72% HIGHBRIDGE AND BURNHAM SOUTH CORKE, Lorna Irene Bromley UK Independence Party (UKIP) 197 PARKES, John David Liberal Democrats 767 SCANLON, Lucy Labour Party Candidate 213 WOODMAN, John Charles The Conservative Party Candidate* 1065 Percentage turnout 29.79% HUNTSPILL CHADWICK, Chelsea Joan Labour Party Candidate 337 HARVEY, Phil Liberal Democrats 513 HEALEY, Mark The Conservative Party Candidate* 1810 Percentage turnout 35.74% Following the election, the successful candidates officially take up their office on the 8th May. The Full Councils Annual General meeting on 24th May will appoint the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council and the membership of the various Council committees. As the current council leader has not been re-elected, the current deputy leader, Councillor David Hall, will assume the responsibilities of the leader until Full Council on 24th May. Immediately after the Full Council Meeting it is expected that the new Leader of the Council will confirm appointments to Cabinet roles. S A Hariharan of Thanthi TV was one of Tamil televisions star anchors. When he was offered a job at Arnab Goswamis much-talked-about Republic TV, an English channel that was launched on Saturday, he was hesitant because of his Tamil accent. But Goswami was insistent because we want journalists from all over the country, not just Mumbai and Delhi. is about the emergence of a new generation of content creators, says he. It is a point the co-founder and editor-in-chief of emphasises while talking about how the channel will be different. If last year was marked by shutdowns, losses and layoffs in the e-commerce sector, this could well be the year when others too were caught in the slowdown. A Delhi court was on Saturday informed that an FIR has been lodged by city police on complaints against Pvt Ltd and its top officials, including Sushil Ansal, alleging cheating and duping of investors in a housing project. Police told Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma that the FIR has been registered at a police station here for the alleged offences of cheating and criminal breach of trust. The action was taken in pursuance to court's earlier order which was passed after going through the action taken report (ATR) filed by the police which disclosed "ex-facie commission of cognisable offences". According to advocate Prateek Tanwar, appearing for the complainants, the court had noted in its order that field investigation by the police was required in the case. 14 investors said in their complaint that in 2008 the builder had come out with a plan to develop a township -- Sushant Magapolis -- in Greater Noida with an assurance of on-time compliance but nothing was done in five years. The builder had assured the investors that all zonal plans have been approved and the township shall have self- sustained civic services with best of amenities, the complaint alleged. There were several complainants who had booked plots, finalised the builder-buyer agreements and made payments to the builder, it said. However, after over five years of booking, no sign of development was visible and the investors wrote several letters to the builder who did not respond, it alleged. Neither the money was refunded to the complainants nor was the property delivered to them, following which the matter was reported to police, the complaint said. Sushil Ansal was recently spared by the Supreme Court from serving jail term, due to his advanced age-related health problem, in connection with 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy case in which 59 people had lost their lives, while his brother was sent to jail for a year. and the Sanand plant workers are likely to sign a wage settlement agreement for five years (2015-2020) by June this year. Earlier, Tata had signed a landmark wage settlement with Pune Workers' Union in March for three years from September 2015 to August 2018, where a portion of workers' salaries was linked to their performance. UM Lohia Two-Wheelers (UMLTPL), the Indian arm of American two-wheeler maker UM International LLC, plans to invest in expanding its capacity in the country as it eyes 100,000 unit sales per year within the next three years. The company is also working on increasing localisation in its bikes from a current 65 per cent to 90 per cent over the next few months. Localisation is expected to reduce costs by 15-18 per cent. Information technology (IT) like and Infosys are facing threats from unknown messengers. Barely a month after Infosys Chennai office received an anonymous letter, along with a packet of anthrax power, demanding a ransom of Rs 500 crore, has received a similar threat. on Friday received an anonymous email demanding Rs 500 crore worth currency in bitcoins as ransom by May 25, failing which its employees may be attacked using highly toxic ricin. S Ravi, additional commissioner of police, cyber crime division of Bangalore Police, told reporters that the mail reportedly was sent to Wipros Sarjapura Road office reception from Ramesh2@protonmail.com. The mail said one kg of high-quality ricin would be used to kill employees, and the poison may be put in cafeteria food, toilet seats and toilet papers, the officer said. Protonmail, an email service inspired by Edward Snowden, the engineer who leaked secret files of the US National Security Agency, encrypts the mails at both ends. In an interview with Business Standard last year, Andy Yen, cofounder of ProtonMail, revealed that ProtonMail itself did not have the ability to read the emails of its users. About a month ago, an unknown messenger dropped a suspicious parcel with white powder, proclaiming it to be anthrax powder, at Infosys Sholinganallur office in Chennai, and demanded Rs 500 crore in ransom. The messenger threatened to spread anthrax at the companys campus, if the ransom was not paid. The message on a paper also contained a QR code. While Wipro has beefed up security measures across locations and lodged a complaint with the local cyber crime division, an investigation on the Chennai incident is still on. However, an Infosys spokesperson said the security personnel had not found anthrax in the packet later. In the latest case, what is surprising to the cyber experts is the demand of ransom in bitcoins. So far, demands for bitcoins have been in the context of cyber crimes against individuals using ransomware attacks. This is the first time I am hearing of a corporation being asked to pay up in bitcoins to avoid an attack on their facilities, said Sunil Abraham, executive director, The Centre for Internet & Society. A probe has also been started based on the threats against Wipro. Wipro has filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source. Wipro has augmented security measures at all its office locations. There is no impact on the company's operations. We have no further comment as the investigation is going on, said a Wipro spokesperson. Analysts say such threats may hardly impact the operational activities of company since there are chances that they may turn out to be hoax. However, a Bengaluru-based analyst said should have strong protocol and implement that to thwart any possible attack in future. The Centre has declared the entire Assam as a "disturbed" area under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act -- the AFSPA -- for three more months, citing various violent activities by insurgent groups ULFA, NDFB and others. In a gazette notification, the Home Ministry said the entire Assam, besides bordering areas of Meghalaya, have been declared "disturbed" under the AFSPA for three months with effect from May 3. The ministry said there were 75 incidents of violence in Assam in 2016 in which 33 people, including four security personnel, were killed and 14 others were abducted. Besides, there were nine violent incidents in the state in which four people, including two security personnel, were killed in 2017. The violence were perpetrated by insurgent groups like ULFA, NDFB and others, the ministry said. The AFSPA has been continuing in Assam since November 1990. In another gazette notification, the ministry declared three districts of Arunachal Pradesh - Tirap, Changlang and Longding - besides areas falling under 16 police stations bordering Assam as "disturbed" area under the AFSPA for three more months. The home ministry cited the continuing violence perpetrated by NSCN(IM), NSCN(K), ULFA, NDFB and others as the reason for enforcing the AFSPA for three months beyond May 4. The AFSPA has been under force in the three Arunachal Pradesh districts since January 2016. Over 300 students of two girls schools were rushed to hospital on Saturday morning after they complained of dizziness and headache following gas leak from a chemical container near their schools in south Delhi, police said. First they wore helmets to work, and now, in the absence of any meaningful security, resident at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences will take taekwondo lessons to handle their attackers. Vijay Kumar, president of the Resident Doctors' Association, tells Veer Arjun Singh why self-defence is not against the code of saving lives. Edited excerpts: Union Minister J P Nadda on Saturday directed Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help victims of a gas leak in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area and also constituted a five-member team of doctors to take stock of the situation. Around 450 girl students from two city schools were hospitalised after they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness due to chemical leakage from a container depot located in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. "Central GoI hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of incident. My prayers are with children & families," Nadda tweeted. The team of doctors is headed by Dr Y K Gupta, head of department of pharmacology at AIIMS in New Delhi. The other doctors include Dr V Aggarwal, assistant professor at R P Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, Dr Sharda Peshin, senior scientist at National Poison Information Centre, department of Pharmacology, Dr Karan Madan, associate professor department of pulmonary medicine and disorders and Dr Pankaj Jorwal, assistant professor, department of medicine. Central GoI hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of incident.My prayers are with children &families https://t.co/plLgXY3gJB Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) May 6, 2017 Meanwhile, the Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Later in the day, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted "Have spoken to the Union Minister, he has created a team of doctors under AIIMS to ensure relevant care in case of any emergency". Have spoken to the Union Minister, he has created a team of doctors under AIIMS to ensure relevant care in case of any emergency. pic.twitter.com/PsfQZYtsmq Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) May 6, 2017 Most of the nearly 450 girl students admitted in various city hospitals for breathlessness and irritation in the eye have been discharged, except four who have been kept in the ICU for observation. In a college course that included training, women were more likely than men to report that the practice improved their mood, a small study found. The Narendra Modi government would not hold any talks in Jammu and Kashmir unless the violence stops, BJP President said here on Saturday. "The Modi government has already clarified before the Supreme Court that it would not hold any talks unless the violence stops in Jammu and Kashmir," he told reporters, adding that the government and security agencies are working on a strategy to tackle the situation in the restive state. To a question, the BJP leader said that the Democratic Alliance government is more success full than the United Progressive Alliance government in tackling the activities of Maoists. Regarding the Presidential elections and Citizenship bill 2006, he said that discussions are on to reach on a consensus. The Citizenship Bill introduced by the NDA government in Parliament has been opposed by many tribal parties in the northeastern region. The bill seeks to enable Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who fled to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh without valid travel documents or with documents that have expired in recent years, to acquire Indian citizenship through the process of naturalisation. Asserting that the Pakistani society was still deeply divided over what the Taliban represented, Mohammad Hanif, a contributing op-ed writer to the New York Times, has recalled the relevance of the saying - "Most countries have an Army, but in Pakistan, it's the Army that has a country." In his latest opinion piece titled 'Pakistan's Triangle of Hate' in The New York Times, Hanif questions the reasoning of enlisting their "children's killers" in their "campaign against India," while also subtly suggesting and claiming that Islamabad has "evidence that India has funded groups to strike at Pakistan for interfering in Kashmir." Hanif also outlines the apparent message being sent by the Pakistan Army to the world: You can kill thousands of Pakistanis, but if you later testify that you hate India as much as we do, everything will be forgiven. The testament to this message is the constant appearance of Liaquat Ali, better known as Ehsanullah Ehsan, on the Pakistani media. A familiar and dreaded figure in the media, after every atrocity committed by the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ehsan would make triumphant statements in audio messages or bloodcurdling videos, putting the fear of God in the media and causing revulsion among Pakistani people, Hanif says. Soon after the TTP killed three employees of Express TV in January 2014, the television channel invited Ehsan on the air by phone. He very calmly explained the reasons for the murder, and the interviewer promised to give him more airtime, while "begging" for guarantees that there would be no further attacks. Ehsan had also claimed responsibility for an Easter Day attack in a park in Lahore last year, which killed dozens of people, the librettist for the opera 'Bhutto' says. Despite a short-lived ban by the state media regulators on a detailed interview with Ehsan before it aired after families of Taliban victims expressed outrage, the Army preferred to parade him and his winning smile in front of TV cameras, and released footage of him telling salacious stories about how his Taliban colleagues had three wives or how the current TTP leader took away his teacher's daughter by force. The author of the novels - 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' and 'Our Lady of Alice Bhatti' - further rues that the purpose of this exercise seemed to be suggesting that the Taliban were not a formidable force with an ideology and deep roots in Pakistani society, but rather a bunch of sexual perverts bankrolled by India; the latter, being Pakistan's forever existential enemy. Referring to them as "supposed assets in Pakistan's historic feud with India", Hanif asserts that even the Taliban want a just society, with the only difference lying in the way they want to achieve it; the methods surely being unacceptable. "If they dare to attack Pakistan, then, God willing, we will share happiness and grief with all Pakistanis," Pakistani Taliban's spokesman Maulvi Omar said when India and Pakistan were on the verge of war in 2008. "We will put the animosity and fighting with the Pakistani Army behind us, and the Taliban will defend their frontiers, their boundaries, their country with their weapons," he had added. Drawing attention towards the much-in-news Dawn Leaks fiasco and its aftermath, Hanif says that the Army seems to be propagating a message that it "won't abide any discussion with civilians over who is a good or bad militant, or a good or bad Pakistani," and "will have the last word on this subject." In a suggestive conclusion, while asserting that many "Pakistanis still love the Army, and many politicians fear it," Hanif advises the Pakistani politicians to stop calling one another traitor just to please the Army, only if they want to take their country back. The first part of this report talked about the background and the security concerns with Aadhaar, the unique ID database of India, the largest of its kind in the world. The Presidential Ordinance empowering the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to enforce expeditious resolution of non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks should hardly come as a surprise. For several past weeks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been hinting at this legal empowerment of the central bank to crack down on NPAs of banks, an area where recovery has been a painfully slow process. Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard. 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. Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has said that mid-term review of Foreign Trade Policy would be completed early to synchronise its roll out with GST Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the revised Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) would be released early to synchronise the same with roll out of GST. The core focus of the revised FTP would be promoting exports from the SMEs and high employment potential sectors. Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman was chairing a meeting on the Mid-Term review of the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 organised jointly by Department of Commerce and Research and Information System for the Developing Countries (RIS) . Commerce Secretary Ms Rita Teaotia, Chairman RIS Shri Hardeep Singh Puri and DGFT Shri Ajay Bhalla also participated in discussions. The event was attended by the trade policy experts from the industry, academia, Research and Government . Major suggestions discussed during the deliberations related to promoting Rupee Trade, facilitating not only exports but also imports and reducing cost of credit. Participant recommended harnessing the high foreign exchange earnings and large employment generation potential of services related to the Tourism, Education and Health sector. Such services fall under the WTO category of the Mode 2 Services, also called the Consumption Abroad category. It was emphasised that promotion of mode2 in services sector shall contribute in domestic economic development and job creation. Concerns were also raised on issues relating to GST and its impact on export. Minister said that Department of Commerce has already taken up these issues with Department of Revenue, and assured that it will again take up theses issues With DoR for placing it before GST council to find a solution. Critical role of Logistics sector for export competitiveness was also discussed;, reducing the cost of credit in promoting exports, export basket diversification, strategy for promoting value added exports, agriculture exports and services exports were also deliberated. It may be noted that while announcing the five year FTP, 2015-2020 on 01.04.2015, Honble Commerce & Industry Minister had announced that the policy would be reviewed on mid-term basis. The exercise has been initiated by Department of commerce in January 2017. DGFT has held consultation with a cross section of stakeholders.- Exporters, Traders, Export promotion Councils, Commodity Boards, Various Ministries of the Central Govt., State Governments, foreign missions of India and Industry Bodies- in this regard. MJPS There is no change in the US' policy towards Beijing on the dispute and use of force and coercion by China in the region cannot be accepted at all, a top American Naval Commander said today. Indicating concern over China bolstering its naval prowess, US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift, here to explore ways to boost Indo-US naval ties, also said China's 'One Belt, One Road' project has caused "anxiety" in the region. Swift said the US and India were boosting cooperation in the maritime domain and navies of the two nations will carry out a mega exercise in July with a major focus on anti-submarine warfare. He held extensive talks with Navy Chief Sunil Lanba and Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar during which a number of issues of common concern were discussed, besides preparation for the Malabar Naval exercise. "I do not see any change (in our policy)," he told reporters when asked about reports that the Trump regime was relaxing its position on the issue to garner China's support to ease tension in the Korean peninsula. He said the dispute must be resolved as per UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the US rejects use of coercion and force. "The US has a view that in order to maintain the veracity of the UNCLOS, it is important to challenge the claims which are excessive and beyond the context of the UN Law and convention," Swift said. The American Naval Commander also referred to India accepting ruling of a tribunal to resolve water dispute with Bangladesh despite the verdict going against it. "India is a major power but still it accepted the verdict," he said, suggesting that China must accept decision on the South China Sea by the relevant tribunal. Asked about the tension in the Korean peninsula, he said the issue should be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue. Referring to China launching its second aircraft carrier, Swift said the Chinese naval capability is going to grow. He added that the US and India were aiming to deepen naval cooperation. Asked whether India and the US were considering joint patrol. Asked whether Australia and Japan will be part of the Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal, he said planning for the exercise was going and suggested that no decision was taken yet. Japan had participated in the annual exercise last year. He suggested that the annual exercise will be bigger this time and that air defence and anti-submarine warfare will form a large part of the exercise. Before arriving here, Swift visited Australia and Indonesia. A draft of President Donald Trumps new counter-terrorism strategy demands that US allies shoulder more of the burden in combating Islamist militants, while acknowledging that the threat of terrorism will never be totally eliminated. Attempts at cyber wire fraud globally, via emails purporting to be from trusted business associates, surged in the last seven months of 2016, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a warning to businesses. You might think, spending enough time on Instagram or Pinterest, that Susan Sontags primary contribution to the world was a line of inspirational postcards. As the Missouri House comes down to the final days of the 2017 legislative session, legislators have seen several of their top issues cross the finish line, but continue to wait for other bills to receive approval from both chambers. Unfortunately, due to the standstill in the Senate, many good bills are still pending; Following are three bills that have passed and are now on the way to the Governor for his signature. Implement substantive tort reform, including new expert witness standards that will make Missouris court system fairer for all; and Create penalties that will protect crops and farmland from the misuse of illegal pesticides; and Establish a regulatory framework to allow rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to expand throughout Missouri and create thousands of jobs. With one day to spare, the Missouri General Assembly gave final approval to a state spending plan that fully funds the Foundation Formula for K-12 education. The budget that now heads to the Governors desk invests approximately $27.7 billion in the states priorities while also dealing with the reality of sluggish revenue growth. At the last minute, the Senate modified a separate House bill that will have a direct impact on several items in the spending plan. Earlier in the Session, the House submitted to the Senate a Senior Services Protection Fund, which would be funded by repealing the renters portion of the senior citizens property tax credit. The Senate made a key change to the plan so that it would instead receive funds by sweeping the un-expended monies from several state funds associated with regulatory boards and commissions. The $35.4 million the Senates plan would generate would be one-time dollars, which means legislators would need to seek other options for funding the plan in future years. The Senior Services Protection fund is directly tied to the budget because several items in the state spending plan rely on its existence in order to receive funding. The fund would restore a partial cut to programs for in-home health care, nursing home services and Area Agencies for use in Meals on Wheels program. Legislation now goes back to the House for either approval or sent to conference where negotiators from both Chambers will work toward a compromise. The Legislature will have until Friday, May 12th for final approval. On a personal note, I would like to extend my thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the flooding this past week. The same day that President Trump hosted the Australian prime minister in New York aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, a political meeting of a different sort took place farther north. After a French police officer, Xavier Jugele, was killed in Paris last month, a service was held at Paris police headquarters. His grief-stricken civil partner, Etienne Cardiles, described their love and, addressing the murderer, said, You will not have my hatred. Ten years ago, men were metrosexual, but now Ive lost track. Currently, the spornosexual, a more body conscious and sexually explicit version of the metrosexual, is vying with the check-shirted, bearded lumbersexual for top spot. Nattily dressed and neatly bearded, the dandy wildman and the hipster also abound, too. Vladimir Putin signed into law on Monday a bill that will severely restrict foreign streaming services access to the Russian market, a move experts say is the culmination of an intense lobbying campaign waged by domestic providers. on Friday accused the US Central Intelligence Agency and South Koreas intelligence service of a plot to attack its supreme leadership with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a pipe-dream could never succeed. In his latest border-closing move, US President Donald Trump issued an April 18 executive order to review the H1-B visa programme, which enables educated migrants with specific skills to work temporarily in the US. The Conversation Sixty Egyptian members of parliament recently approved a draft law on the regulations of using and exploiting social media networks. If adopted by the parliament, the law would require social media users in to register with a government authority in order to use social media websites, including Facebook and Twitter. This week, our Republican team had its own victory under the radar. That is a very important thing for the men and women of the United States military. And its a very important thing for the people of our country. In our new budget and its been a very hotly contested budget because, as you know, we have to go through a long and rigorous process but weve ended years of painful cuts to our military and just achieved a $21-billion increase in defence spending. (Applause.) And we didnt do any touting like the Democrats did, by the way. When Emmanuel Macron rolled out his presidential campaign nearly six months ago, he came to a little-known vocational school in Bobigny, a working-class suburb of Paris. The backdrop was chosen to burnish his image as the candidate who would revive France, especially for young people. "I am not a member of any organized party -- I am a Democrat." -- Will Rogers, 1935 Never mind that at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the president of the United States recently delivered what former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson described as "arguably the most hate-filled presidential communication in modern history." Nor that Donald J. Trump's old pals on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" are suggesting that the great man shows signs of senile dementia and needs a neurological workup. Gee, no kidding. Never mind, too, that Alabama Republican congressman Mo Brooks has suggested (also on MSNBC) that people with pre-existing medical conditions are morally deficient and deserve to pay much higher health insurance premiums than right-living specimens like himself. It's tempting to observe that when you've said "Alabama Republican congressman," you've said it all. Even so, like any proper Democrat, I find myself distracted by party infighting. Not that I've ever actually participated in a political campaign. Readers may not be shocked to learn that I normally vote Democratic. Never mind my misgivings about Sen. Bernie Sanders. When Bernie's right, he's right. He and fellow New England puritan Sen. Elizabeth Warren are certainly correct about the dreadful optics of former President Barack Obama's decision to accept a $400,000 fee for a one-hour speech to a Wall Street bank. Bernie thinks it's "unfortunate," while Warren pronounced herself "troubled." Actually, it's worse than that. Granted, the investment firm Cantor, Fitzgerald wasn't among the major malefactors in the 2008 financial system collapse, and that it's a health care conference that Obama will be addressing. Given Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I'm confident he'll have something interesting to say. But ordinary voters aren't going to hear it. What's more easily noticed is the conjunction of "Wall Street" and "$400,000." Many will be tempted to think pretty much what they thought when Hillary Clinton accepted similarly preposterous speaking fees from Goldman Sachs before setting up to run for president as the working family's friend. To wit, that Lady Bountiful already had more money than she knew what to do with, but no understanding of their everyday lives. I think people were wrong about Hillary's lack of compassion, but it's easy to see how they got the idea. It's the sheer symbolism of the thing. Despite the fact that the Clintons have donated vast sums to charity, and that Bill Clinton has devoted his post-presidency to downright heroic efforts to alleviate Third World suffering (see Joe Conason's book "Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton), the message behind those Wall Street paydays proved hard to overcome. (It didn't help that the establishment media has all but refused to cover the Clinton Foundation's charitable enterprises except to hint at scandal where none has been shown to exist.) And then came "basket of deplorables." But back to the equally unfortunate symbolism of Barack Obama's $400,000 speaking gig. Yes, Ronald Reagan once earned $2 million in 1989 dollars for a gig in Japan (For which he was bitterly criticized). And yes, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have both cashed in, big-time. Nor do I begrudge former President Barack and first lady Michelle Obama a nickel of their reported $60 million book deals. No more than I resent the outsized riches of Steph Curry or the Rolling Stones. One way or another, I figure they've earned it. Given their international celebrity and the fact that both Obamas had already written highly successful books, publishers competed to sign them. Ultimately, these are market decisions, paid for by the ticket- and book-buying public. You can read Obama's presidential memoirs or not; it's entirely your call. But with the Democratic Party struggling to redeem itself in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss, Obama's Wall Street payday sends exactly the wrong signal at a very bad time. The Washington Post's Greg Sargent writes about focus groups put together by a Democratic-oriented polling firm called Priorities USA. Researchers talked to two kinds of voters: those who switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016; and those who switched from Obama to "did not vote." "Skepticism about the Democratic Party," Sargent writes, "was echoed rather forcefully in the focus groups that I watched. In one, Obama-Trump voters were asked what Democrats stand for today and gave answers such as these: 'The one percent.' 'The status quo.' 'They're for the party. Themselves and the party.' One woman, asked whether the Democratic Party is for people like her, flatly declared: 'Nope.'" Shockingly, twice as many respondents said Democrats' policies favor the rich as said that about Trump and the Republicans. It appears that Trump's relentless vulgarity protects him against the Scrooge McDuck aspects of his personality. He may be a jerk, but such voters don't think he's a snob. About Wall Street Democrats, they're not so sure. A study has found that the women who are abused by their partners during their pregnancy are twice as likely to die from assault-related trauma than an accident-related trauma. The results suggested that the widespread screening for violence and trauma during pregnancy may provide an opportunity to identify women at risk for death during pregnancy. According to the researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the trauma from assaults or accidents complicates 1 in 12 pregnancies and is the leading non-obstetric cause of death among pregnant women. The findings are scheduled to be presented at the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists' (ACOG) Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting in San Diego. Lead author Neha Deshpande said that not only it is associated with complications for the baby, but also the management of traumatic injuries in pregnant patients has its unique challenges, given the physiologic changes of pregnancy and restrictions doctors may face when treating pregnant patients. Deshpande further explained that despite the severity of the issue, little is known about how trauma actually impacts pregnant women since accidental and incidental causes of death are excluded in many statewide and national maternal mortality reviews. The team focused on admissions from 2005 through 2015 and included nearly 45,000 cases of trauma among victims, who were defined as women of childbearing age (14-49). The results indicated that pregnant trauma victims, on average, suffered less severe injuries than their non-pregnant counterparts. However, despite less severe injuries, pregnant women were nearly twice as likely to be dead when they arrived at the hospital or die in the hospital. In particular, assault-related trauma was about three times deadlier than accident-related trauma. In addition, after suffering a violent assault, pregnant women were 4.4 times likelier to be transferred to another facility for obstetric services and support. The authors concluded that the findings point to an opportunity for intervention to safeguard pregnant women and recommend universal screening of pregnant women at obstetric clinics for assault and mental illness, similar to screenings for postpartum depression. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to end the VIP culture in the state, the Andhra Pradesh Government on Saturday banned the use of blue beacon and hooters on cars belonging to dignitaries. According to the order, only emergency and disaster management vehicles will be permitted to use the blue beacon, mostly used by police and IAS officers, henceforth. The ban comes after the Centre prohibited the use of red beacon by VIPs with effect from May 1. This was seen as a major step towards ending VIP culture that is prevalent in the nation. The beacon signifies influence and privilege for those in power. The beacon ban is seen as a move to establish the concept of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'New India' that stresses on 'EPI' - Every Person is Important.' "When I say EPI instead of VIP, the meaning is clear -- Every Person is Important. Every person has value and importance. If we recognise the importance of 123 crore citizens of the country, imagine the big strength that the country will have in fulfilling the grand dreams. We all have to do it together," Prime Minister Modi had said. Even before the Centre's decision, there have been several state governments that have sought to do away with the red beacon. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was one of the first to announce that neither he nor his team would use cars with flashing lights. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath issued similar orders after getting elected. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, travels without this mark of power. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a startling incident, a woman opened fire on her husband in a moving car here on Friday. The accused, identified as Hamsa shot her husband, Sairam, the owner of a private security firm, over an argument that began while the couple was driving back from Hosur. The 53-year old victim has been admitted to the Sparsh Hospital in Bommanahalli with multiple bullet wounds near the abdomen, while 48-year old Hamsa was taken into police custody for interrogation. Preliminary investigation revealed that the couple, under the influence of alcohol, was having a heated argument, which ended with Hamsa opening fire at her husband around 5 p.m. on Hosur Road. In order to save his life, Sairam got out of the car and tried to escape by getting into a BMTC bus passing by, only to be followed and attacked again. "The pistol used was a 9mm licensed pistol that was kept in the car itself. Our investigation has revealed that the couple have been married for 20 years and has been having regular quarrels, according to their neighbours. We cannot ascertain the exact reason for the fight, however, we are still investigating," said Seemant Kumar, IG (Central). Since the incident took place in a running car from Bengaluru urban to rural, post assessment, the case has been shifted to Bengaluru rural police. Further details are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President of the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to initiate an investigation against coalition partner Lalu Prasad Yadav. Modi's demand came after an English news channel aired an audio clip of Lalu having a conversation with jailed mafia don Mohammad Shahabuddin. "This tape shows that this is not their first conversation. They used to be in touch through phone. This tape reflects how Shahabuddin has been running a parallel government through jail. This tape further shows how Lalu Prasad is dependent on Shahbuddin and how Nitish Kumar is dependent on Lalu," Modi said. "This tape further established that how Sahabuddin, from jail, is giving directions to Lalu Prasad and how the government is running," he added. Modi said the BJP would seek an appointment from Governor Ram Nath Kovind and ask him to direct the Director General of Police to initiate an investigation against Lalu Yadav. "It is an Agni Pariksha for Nitish Kumar. It is to be seen whether he would take a stand and act on this matter or not," he added. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "We would like to ask you (Nitish), are you going to start and institute criminal proceedings against Lalu Prasad." RJD functionary Jagdanand Singh said, "I have no idea because I have not seen the tape. I have come here for other work. You should ask the owner of the Tihar Jail if such a thing took place," he said, adding that "the party will never expel Shahabuddin from the party." "Shahabuddin is part of the party and it is not hidden," he added. The channel earlier had played a recorded conversation which it claimed took place between Lalu Prasad and Mohammad Shahabuddin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asserting that irregularities have cropped in the past as well in connection with foreign funding of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress Party on Saturday urged the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit to come out clean in the regard. Averring that it is the second time problems have been cited in connection with foreign funding of AAP, Congress leader J.P Aggarwal said that figures of fund which the party submitted were found to be incorrect. "The AAP should give information regarding its foreign funding because they have been accused in the same regard earlier as well. They have not given correct numbers, the figures they have shared do not match," Aggarwal told ANI. "The AAP was claiming that it will make its funding available on the internet but then they have not done that, all that drama is over. Now that an irregularity has been pointed they must come clean," he added. Triggering yet another AAP vs Centre face-off, the Ministry of Home Affairs had yesterday sent a notice to AAP asking it to provide information in connection with its overseas funding. The Home Ministry in its notice has asked AAP to disclose the source, nature and the amount of donation as well as the shareholding pattern the foreign equity in the shareholding pattern of the corporation, company or source from where the donation is received. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The agreement to create de-escalation zones in Syria came into force today. Russia, Iran and Turkey on Thursday signed a memorandum in Astana on creating de-escalation zones in Syria, but agreed to continue offensive against militants of the Islamic State (IS). Quoting Russian Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Alexander Fomin, news agency TASS said that the memorandum will take effect at 12 a.m. on May 6. The de-escalation zones will be established in four areas. They will particularly cover the Idlib Governorante, some parts of its neighboring areas in the Latakia, Hama and Aleppo Governorates north of the city of Homs, eastern Ghouta, as well as the Daraa and al-Quneitra Governorates in southern Syria. Russia, Turkey and Iran will form a joint working group on de-escalation which will particularly determine the borders of the de-escalation zones and safe areas. Maps of these zones and areas will be ready by May 27. Once the zones are mapped, military activities and aircraft flights in the de-escalation zones will be banned, however the offensive against terrorists would continue. Stanislav Gadzhimagomedov, a deputy chief of the main operation directorate of Russia's General Staff, said "all incidents of violations in the de-escalation zones in Syria will be probed into and decisions on retaliation measures against violators, including through fire suppression, will be taken after such investigations". Observation posts and checkpoints would be created in the de-escalation zones. Observation posts would control the ceasefire compliance and checkpoints would provide for the movement of unarmed civilians, the delivery of humanitarian aid and assistance to economic activity. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda has formed a five-member committee of All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctors to deal with Delhi's Tughlaqabad gas leak incident. The committee, headed by Dr. Y.K. Gupta, Head of the Department of Pharmacology said, "Around 400 people were referred to various hospitals of Delhi. Three persons are admitted in ICU, but most of them have been discharged after medical examination. A few of them are still hospitalised. " AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria said people should not panic as the eye and other departments in the AIIMS have enough beds to admit anybody still feeling sick due to the gas leak. Hours after students of a school in Delhi's Tughlaqabad area were admitted to four different hospitals following gas leakage from a container truck, Delhi Education and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that district magistrate has been ordered to investigate the matter. He assured that the students were safe. "I spoke to doctors, who told me that the students were fine. I will visit the children soon in the hospital and have spoken to a few on the phone. I have also asked the DM (District Magistrate) to investigate. The students are being properly taken care of," Sisodia said. Nadda stated Delhi hospitals have been instructed to help all victims. "The Central Government has instructed the hospitals to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. My prayers are with children and their families," said Nadda. Earlier this day, as many as 173 students and nine teachers were admitted to four hospitals after a gas leaked from a container truck parked near a school in Delhi's Tughlaqabad area. "A total of 173 students and nine teachers are admitted to four hospitals. No student is critical," Romil Baaniya, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South-East, said. The local police, Disaster Response Force (NDRF), fire, and Centralised Ambulance and Trauma Services (CATS) teams have reached the spot. The incident occurred near the Rani Jhansi Girls School in Pul Prahladpur, Tughlaqabad. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign claimed to be victim of a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack after a trove of emails appearing to be from his campaign reportedly leaked online a day before Sunday's final run-off. Macron's campaign team said late on Friday it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack and that it was clearly designed to undermine democracy's interests, reports the DW. The campaign team said in a statement that internal communications and financial documents had been hacked a few weeks ago and were now being circulated across social media. It also said that false documents had been mixed with nine gigabytes of leaked campaign data documents. The French Interior Ministry refused to comment as the official campaign had ended. "Neither the ministry, nor any other ministry would be commenting on this because according to the law, campaigning has ended as of midnight," a ministry spokesman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Speaking on the existing situation in the valley, Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Saturday asserted that their focus towards the state had not changed, while assuring to bring growth and development soon. "Our focus has not changed. Kashmir has been facing challenges not because of coalition government, but the situation in the valley has been existing for long," said Singh. Singh further stated that the government was doing its best for the development of the state. "The 70-crore flyover that has been constructed in Jammu is the biggest gift the state can receive. From parking lots to ring road, the government is doing its best for the development of the state. Our main focus is to bring peace and security to the people of the state," said Singh. Earlier this day, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the only hope to address the 70-year-old Kashmir issue once and for all. Mufti came out in strong support of Prime Minister Modi saying he alone could help the people of the state in these troubling circumstances. Speaking at the inauguration of a much-awaited flyover in Jammu, the chief minister said, "If anyone can take us out of this quagmire, then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has the mandate. Whatever he decides, the nation will support him." Reiterating her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in Kashmir, Mufti said, "The previous prime minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lahore is a proof of his abilities, an example of his moral authority. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the 'sans frontier' geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-09) takes off from India's lone spaceport Sriharikota, Isro's space might is pretty evident. India penned her name in the history by launching 104 satellites in a single rocket on February 15, 2017. From MOM to GSLV-9, India has come far ahead from the yore times of Aryabhata. Walking down the memory lane, here's a quick glimpse of the Isro's giant footsteps. 1975, Aryabhata: India's first satellite was a 'make in India' gig, and was launched by the Soviet Union. It reentered the Earth's orbit post 19 years of the space travel. It was built to carry out experiments in astronomy and solar physics. 1979, Bhaskara: This satellite was launched from Kapustin Yar for gathering the data vis-a-vis forestry, hydrology and geology. Albeit second, it happens to be the first satellite which carried TV and cameras. 1980, Rohini: Second experimental launch of SLV-3 with Rohini. Mission successful! 1981, Bhaskara II: It re-entered into Earth's orbit in 1991 and collected huge chunks of information about land and water zones. One out of the two cameras malfunctioned, however, sent back more than 2000 images. 1982, INSAT-1 A: A communication satellite launched by a US rocket. It was first meteorology satellite of our country. 1983, INSAT-2B: A mirror image of the INSAT-1 A and served more than seven years. 1988, IRS-1A: Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite launched through a Russian rocket. It is the second developmental flight of ASLV with SROSS satellite. But the mission was failed. 1992, INSAT-2DT: 1,360 kg satellite was initially an Arab and subsequently an Indian communication satellite, launched from French Guyana. 1994, Stretched Rohini Satellite Series: Abbreviated as SROSS, a group of satellites carried scientific and technology payloads to the space. It aided in the discovery of slew of gamma ray bursts. 1997, IRS 1-D: It is seventh in the line of the remote sensing satellites. It is built, launched, operated and maintained by the . The mission completed in 2010 after serving for twelve years. 2001, GSAT-1: Successful launch of heavy rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with GSAT-1 satellite. 2002, Kalpana-1: The METSAT is the first dedicated metrological satellite and was renamed Kalpana, after Indian born US. astronaut Kalpana Chawla. It was designed for seven years of service and meant majorly for amassing climate and environment related information. 2004, EDUSAT: The first of its kind, Education Satellite is solely designed for the educated sector. The concept of smart class is conceived by this very satellite. It makes two way communication possible and supplied educational materials to the classrooms. 2005, CARTOSAT-1: It was launched by Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The CARTOSAT-1 mission ensured data continuity while introducing improvements in the spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions. 2007, CARTOSAT-2: Launch of Cartosat-2 with Space Capsule Recovery Experiment and two foreign satellites and successful recovery of the space capsule. Launch of Italian satellite AGILE by PSLV and Insat-4CR by GSLV. 2008, Chandrayaan: India's first lunar exploration mission from Sriharikota. It had a mission life of two years and majorly covered planetary and remote sensing sectors. 2011, YouthSAT: A joint Indo-Russian satellite mission which does justice to its name by bringing together the students from graduation, post graduation and research scholar level. The satellite is the part of Indian Mini Satellite Series and is second in line. 2013, MOM: This satellite stole away all the lime light. Mars Obiter Mission also known as Mangalyaan is India's first venture into the interplanetary space and without an iota of doubt it is an enormous triumph. 2014, GSAT 16: A communication satellite. GSAT- 6 features an unfurl-able antenna, largest on board any satellite. Launch of GSLV-D6 also marks the success of indigenously developed upper stage cryogenic engine. 2015, GSAT 15: Communications satellite carries communication transponders in Ku-band and a GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) payload. 2016, SCATSAT-1: The continuity of the OCEAN SAT, this satellite helps gathering the data regarding the cyclones, wind and weather forecasts. It has a mission life of five years. 2017, Cartosat 2D: It needs no special mention. India rocked the world and never ceased hitting the headlines post its launch via PSLV. Launching 104 satellites in a single rocket, it happens only in India. 2017, GSAT 9: Space diplomacy has touched new heights with Prime Minster Narendra Modi's new gift in the sky to the South Asian neighbours. The use of communications satellite for use by neighbour at no cost has no precedent worldwide. The satellite weighing two tones was fabricated in three years. "We're going to go when we have the votes," Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday when asked when the House will pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Lawmakers will not be constrained by any "artificial deadline," Ryan declared. On March 24, when the Speaker pulled the GOP Obamacare bill before what would have been a sure defeat, he said, "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." But why? Republicans have 238 seats in the House. Repealing Obamacare will require 217 votes. Even with unanimous Democratic opposition, Republicans could lose 21 votes and still prevail on repeal. Why haven't they done it? By this time, it's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans have not repealed Obamacare because a lot of Republicans do not want to repeal Obamacare. They don't even want to sorta repeal Obamacare. The bill currently on the table, like the bill pulled in March, falls far short of a full repeal of Obamacare. And yet Republicans still cannot agree on it. About a week after the first Obamacare repeal failure, a House Republican, speaking privately, said the difficulty in passing the bill was not a parliamentary problem involving the complexities of the Senate and reconciliation. No, the lawmaker said, "It is a problem that we have members in the Republican conference that do not want Obamacare repealed, because of their district. That's the fundamental thing that we're seeing here." "I thought we campaigned on repealing it," the lawmaker continued. "Now that it's our turn, I'm finding there's about 50 people who really don't want to repeal Obamacare. They want to keep it." Other conservatives are saying similar things. In an email exchange Thursday afternoon, I asked one member where the latest bill stood. "We absolutely do not have the votes to repeal it," he answered. "The fact that some members are balking at even allowing states to waive out of some of Obamacare regulations is proof positive. We've gone from 'repeal it root-and-branch' to 'Mother-may-I opt out of some of Obamacare' -- and we still are having trouble getting the votes." In a phone conversation Thursday afternoon, another Republican, Rep. Steve King, quibbled a bit with the number of House Republicans who don't want to repeal Obamacare -- he would put it in the forties -- but felt certain there are lots of Republicans who don't want to repeal. "If you don't want to get rid of federal mandates to health insurance, then it's pretty clear you don't want to get rid of Obamacare," King said. "Whatever we come out with, it will say to the American people that a full repeal of Obamacare is no longer in the cards," King added. Yet another Republican member, in an email exchange, estimated that there are 25 to 30 House Republicans "who don't want to be forced to make the repeal vote." Even that lower number would be enough to sink a repeal measure. Other GOP lawmakers are openly conceding that whatever the House does -- if it does anything -- it won't actually repeal Obamacare. Large parts of Barack Obama's legacy legislation will remain standing, a fact that more Republicans are admitting as time goes by. Some Republicans remain optimistic, but in a much longer-term sense. "The process of removing a 2,300-page law with 20,000 pages of rules can't be done in one vote," says the member who estimated that 25 to 30 Republicans don't want to vote for repeal. "The process will take two years." The Republican-controlled House and Senate both voted to repeal Obamacare in January 2016. In the House, 239 Republicans voted for repeal, while three voted against it and four did not vote. President Obama, of course, vetoed the bill. Now, with a president who would sign an Obamacare repeal, there's no way Republicans could get as many votes as last year. When repeal first failed last month, a number of commentators blamed the conservative House Freedom Caucus. In the days since, caucus members have made the case, convincingly, that they have shown an enormous amount of flexibility in trying to reach agreement with the Tuesday Group, made up of House GOP centrists. Now, the centrists -- a number of Republicans refer to them as "the mods," for moderates -- appear to be moving the goalposts, even as the conservatives offer concessions. Conservatives suspect the centrists were perfectly happy for conservatives to take the blame for killing the first bill, but now are showing their true colors by rejecting compromise on the second version. The reason is fear. When the lawmaker said colleagues don't want repeal "because of their district," that was another way of saying the members are all representatives, and the voters they represent don't want repeal. From The Hill on Thursday afternoon: "Many vulnerable Republicans are running scared. One moderate Republican was overheard in a House cafeteria this week telling an aide: 'If I vote for this healthcare bill, it will be the end of my career.'" Whichever faction inside the Republican Party is to blame, it could well be that the conservatives' numbers are basically right: There are a lot of Republicans, say 40 to 50, who don't want to repeal Obamacare. Given unanimous Democratic opposition, that means that there are somewhere around 190, or maybe 195, House members who actually want to repeal Obamacare. That will never get the job done. Even a lower estimate, of 25 to 30 members who don't want repeal, would make success impossible. And if that is the case, the question is, why are Republicans trying? The Indian Army's 62 Rashtriya Rifles unit and police authorities busted the module of the militant organisation Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) here on Saturday. The forces busted modules of three Over Ground Workers (OGW) of the HuM. On Thursday, two Army soldiers and a civilian were injured after terrorists attacked an Army patrol party in the district. Following this incident, a search operation was carried out in the area on Friday by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). "South Kashmir is a bit hot, lots of local militants are joining various outfits and we are trying to bring the situation under control. The operation was important, was carried out successfully," CRPF IG Ravideep Sahi told ANI. Last Tuesday, suspected terrorists barged inside a police post guarding the court complex of southern Shopian. The terrorists decamped along with five service rifles including four INSAS rifles and an AK-47 rifle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It seems like Jennifer Lawrence is taking a leap from the fantasy world to the real world. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new footage of the flick 'Red Sparrow,' shown at a special Fox event, highlighted the adult nature of the film. The director, Francis Lawrence, told during the event that this movie is definitely going to be R. He also revealed that when he pitched the idea of his approach for the movie, nobody chickened out or got cold feet, everyone was up for it. "It is a Hard R." The film, which also stars Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary Louise Parker and Charlotte Rampling, sees Lawrence reuniting with her 'Hunger Games' director. The film is heavy on sex, with the Oscar-winning actress' character trained to seduce the individuals deemed as enemies of the Russian state. Talking about working with the 'Passengers' star, he said, she was willing to take some risks in this movie, but might not have been willing to do for somebody she didn't know. While Lawrence revealed that there was just one week's worth of shooting left to do, with production taking place across Europe and now in London. 'Red Sparrow' is due for a release in March 2018. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Janata Dal (United) on Saturday expressed concern over the reports of a split in the Samajwadi Party (SP) but the Congress Party seemed carefree on the development, which is going to change the political equations in Uttar Pradesh (UP). JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav said it was sad that the Samajwadi Party was heading towards a split instead of being more united after the defeat in the recently held assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. "It is sad and I consider it as a concerning development. There should have been unity in the SP after the defeat but the reports of split in it are not good," Yadav told ANI. Congress, which fought last assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh with the Samajwadi Party, seemed carefree and refused to comment on their split. Congress leader P.L. Punia told ANI, "Reports are emerging that there is a split in the family of SP Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and there will be two parties- SP and Samajwadi Secular Party. It is their internal matter and the Congress doesn't want to interfere in it." Shivpal Yadav on Friday announced the formation of the 'Samajwadi Secular Morcha' to be led by Mulayam Singh Yadav. "In order to restore his (Mulayam) lost dignity and to bring all Samajwadis together, there will soon be an announcement of this secular front in Lucknow," Shivpal told ANI. Mulayam Singh founded the Samajwadi Party but after a bitter internal fight, the party now is in control of his son and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh on Friday termed his uncle Shivpal Yadav as 'Aasteen ke Saanp' (foe in the disguise of a friend). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh today urge the youth of Kashmir to ask separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani why his children were not part of the so-called freedom struggle in the state. "In this logical era, Kashmiri youth should ask Geelani, if jihad is so great, then firstly they should tell their children to leave their studies, jobs and join their so-called fight against freedom, rather than talking about closing schools meant for needy children," Singh said. Singh also appealed to the youth of Kashmir to join the path of development. "As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken the youth of nation on the path of development, so also should Kashmiri youth join it," he added. Singh's view was also endorsed by senior journalist Rahul Jalali who said, "Mr. Geelani should ask himself where his own kids pursue education from." The comments came a day after Geelani blamed the army for indoctrinating children through their educational institutes. Geelani said he was suspicious about the activities run by these army schools. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Welcoming the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the death penalty of four convicts involved in the gang rape case, Maharashtra's public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on Friday, however, expressed his apprehensions about top court's order being challenged. Nikam said the convicts still have the option of approaching the President and can file a mercy petition asking him to revoke the order. "I welcome the decision of the Supreme Court, but the main question is when the death penalty will be executed. According to our law, every criminal, that is the condemned prisoner, has a right to challenge to file a mercy petition before the President of India, and unfortunately, our Constitution is silent as to when the President should take the decision on such mercy petitions," Nikam said. He also highlighted that a delay in issuing a mercy petition can convert the death penalty case to one of life imprisonment. "I have come across a number of cases wherein though the Supreme Court has awarded the death penalty and the condemned prisoner had filed a mercy petition before the President and since there was a delay in giving such mercy petition the Supreme Court or the High Court has converted the said death penalty to life imprisonment," Nikam said. Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir has also welcomed the verdict given by the Supreme Court. The apex court earlier today upheld the conviction and death penalty of four convicts' -- Mukesh, Akshay, Pawan and Vinay awarded to them by the Delhi High Court on December 16, 2012. The matter was heard by the bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra after the convicts challenged the Court order. However, AP Singh, the lawyer for the accused, claimed that he would file the review petition after reading the order. "Justice is not done. We will file review petition after reading the order. You cannot give a death sentence to anyone for a message to the nation. The meaning of punishment is an improvement. There is a right to live. In this, the human rights have been neglected, Mahatma Gandhi's ideology has been neglected," Singh said. Jammu and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only hope to address the 70-year-old issue once and for all. Mufti came out in strong support of Prime Minister Modi saying he alone can help the people of the state in these troubling circumstances. Speaking at the inauguration of a much-awaited flyover in Jammu, the chief minister said, "If anyone can take us out of this quagmire, then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has the mandate. Whatever he decides, the nation will support him." Reiterating her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in Kashmir, Mufti said, "The previous prime minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lahore is a proof of his abilities, an example of his moral authority." Mufti said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the situation, but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had improved the relations between India and Pakistan, which were again disturbed due to the lack of initiative taken by the previous governments. Now after 2008, for the first time, people have started expressing passion in the matter," she added. Reacting to the statement of Congress leader G S Charak on the lack of development in Jammu, the chief minister said that a tense situation in Kashmir affected Jammu as well. "Jammu has many tourist destinations and we are trying to develop them," she added. Last month, Mufti met Prime Minister Modi at his residence in New Delhi and briefed him about the security situation in the Valley. After the meeting, she told reporters that it was important to resume the dialogue process initiated by former Prime Minister Vajpayee. The leaders of different political parties have hailed the Supreme Court decision to uphold the death sentence awarded to the rapists and murderers of Nirbhaya. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shaina NC said that no lesser punishment could have provided justice to Nirbhaya. "The justice could have only been done with a death sentence which is hanged unto death. I am sure that in the days to come the Supreme Court will expedite other such cases when it comes to rape and gruesome murder," she said. "After this judgement, a rapist will think 100 times before committing such heinous crime," added the BJP leader. The Janata Dal (United) leader K.C. Tyagi also welcomed the decision, which according to him came a bit late. "Now, the Nirbhya's rapists have got the capital punishment. I welcome the decision which came late but it is a right judgement," Tyagi told ANI. Congress leader PL Punia too welcomed the judgement and said that death sentence awarded to the rapists of Nirbhaya gives a message that the women have the right to be protected against all forms of suppression. "I welcome the decision. The Congress President Sonia Gandhi clearly termed Nirbhaya as a symbol of women's rights," Punia told ANI. The apex court upheld the High Court's order of death sentence of the four convicts involved in the December 16, 2012 gang rape case. The matter was heard by the apex court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra and consisting of Justices R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan. The convicts - Akshay, Pawan, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh- had challenged the Delhi High Court order which had sentenced them to the gallows. Earlier, the trial court had also sentenced all the four convicts to death penalty. In December 16, 2012, six people gang raped a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus. The woman succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012. One of the accused, Ram Singh hanged himself in prison, while another person, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted in August last year and will serve the maximum sentence of three years in a reform home. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor has listed China's social media app WeChat on the register of prohibited websites. App developers, Tencent Technology, said they are aware of the move and are communicating with Russian authorities, reports the South China Morning Post. Russia requires internet service providers to register with related government bodies, but Tencent "had a different understanding" on this issue, the company said in a statement. Access to the app was restricted on the basis of Article 15.4 of the law on information, information technologies and information security, according to Roskomnadzor. The article stipulates sanctions for failure to discharge various responsibilities of organisers of information distribution on the internet. China has itself blocked many foreign social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, on the basis of domestic regulations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has assured Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa that the military's reservations over the Dawn Leaks notification would be addressed. The Express Tribune said citing reports that Sharif and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif held a low-key meeting with General Qamar Bajwa at the PM House on Thursday. During the meeting, the leader assured the Army Chief that the military's reservations on the notification would be addressed and a fresh notification would be issued. Earlier, the Pakistan Army rejected the federal government's notification on Dawn leaks inquiry, saying that it was incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board after the federal government released a notification stating that Prime Minister Sharif had approved the recommendations of the inquiry committee. The Dawn leaks report pertains to Pakistan's English daily The Dawn staffer Cyril Almeida's story 'Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military' published on October 6 last year, which came under fire for reporting that the civil leadership allegedly criticised the military's policies on militancy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 34 people have reportedly been killed after a small bus veered off a steep road near the town of Karatu, in Tanzania's Arashu region on Saturday and plunged into a river, local media reports said. The bus was taking children from their school in Arusha for an exam. The deceased included 29 students. The driver of the bus and two teachers also died in the incident. Tanzania's President John Magufuli has expressed his condolences to families of the victims. President Magufuli also described the accident as a "national tragedy". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America 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 U.S. President Donald Trump's second nominee for the post of Army Secretary Mark Green has withdrawn his name from consideration following a backlash over his past controversial statements on LGBT issues and Islam. "It is with deep regret today I am withdrawing my nomination to be the Secretary of the Army," the CNN quoted Mark Green as saying in a statement on Friday. Green, a retired Army flight surgeon and West Point grad, was last month tapped by Trump for the post after billionaire Vincent Viola withdrew over issues related to divesting from his financial holdings. In 2016, Green told a tea party group, "If you poll the psychiatrists, they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Trump administration has decided to send a 'much smaller' representative team to the United Nations Climate Change Summit talks to be held in Bonn, Germany, this year. Last week, the United States was seriously considering the option of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that dealt with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaption and finance starting in the year 2020. That meeting, however, was 'inconclusive,' according to The Independent. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by representatives of 195 nations and adopted by consensus on December 2015. As of April 2017, 195 nations have signed it and 144 have ratified it. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is reportedly planning to send acting deputies and civil servants for the Bonn meeting. They will have no real power to act on behalf of the Trump administration. President Trump has stated that climate change is a 'hoax' created by the Chinese. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With effect from 05 May 2017 Amarjothi Spinning Mills announced that Manju Sri A has resigned her post from Company Secretary and compliance Officer of the Company Amarjothi Spinning Mills with effect from the closing of business hours 05 May 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.) Sales rise 9.09% to Rs 2327.45 crore Net profit of Apollo Tyres declined 22.22% to Rs 176.29 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 226.64 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Sales rose 9.09% to Rs 2327.45 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 2133.45 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. For the full year,net profit declined 19.90% to Rs 802.76 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 1002.15 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Sales rose 1.94% to Rs 8816.70 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 8648.51 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Sales2327.452133.45 9 8816.708648.51 2 OPM %11.8918.65 -15.0518.11 - PBDT302.41396.66 -24 1373.831679.67 -18 PBT209.30328.50 -36 1085.631414.53 -23 NP176.29226.64 -22 802.761002.15 -20 Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Productivity Council had submitted a proposal to Asian Productivity Organization (APO) for establishment of Centre of Excellence on IT for Industry 4.0(CoE: IT for I4.0). In this context, in the Governing Body Meeting of APO in Tehran on 10th April, 2017, one of the agenda items was to grant approval of the proposal submitted by NPC on CoE on IT for I4.0. As a part of recognition of IT capacity of India, NPC proposal has been approved by GB of APO. In this scenario, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) can be very effective in coordination with various stakeholders, collection of information, development of knowledge & dissemination of knowledge/information, facilitation in capacity building of industries, support start-ups etc. linking design to customer. The result is the smart factory, which is characterized by versatility, resource efficiency and ergonomic design as well as its direct integration with business partners. This will ensure a number of benefits such as; Creation of roadmap for implementation of Industry 4.0 especially for MSMEs, transfer of knowledge and expertise from other 19 Member countries, one stop destination on IT for Industry 4.0 for Indian industries especially for MSMEs, capacity building, support to start-ups, etc. The total cost component of CoE will be around Rs. 4.15 Crore for a period of five years. NPC's share in the total cost will be around Rs.1.05 Crore and that of APO will be Rs. 3.10 Crore. As part of taking the agenda forward, NPC has signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), under Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Govt. of India on 20th April 2017, to carry forward the demonstration activities of CoE with various technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, sensors etc. The approved CoE is proposed to be launched formally in the second week of June 2017. There will be participation from the various Industries, Industry Associations, and Experts. A detailed roadmap will be prepared to take forward the activities of CoE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sales reported at Rs 5.25 crore Net profit of Victoria Mills declined 26.83% to Rs 0.90 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 1.23 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Sales reported to Rs 5.25 crore in the quarter ended March 2017. There were no Sales reported during the previous quarter ended March 2016. For the full year,net profit declined 90.29% to Rs 1.19 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 12.25 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Sales reported to Rs 5.25 crore in the year ended March 2017. There were no Sales reported during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Sales5.250 0 5.250 0 OPM %21.140 -27.240 - PBDT1.11-0.31 LP 1.5415.88 -90 PBT1.11-0.32 LP 1.5215.85 -90 NP0.901.23 -27 1.1912.25 -90 Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Noxious fumes leaking from chemical drums imported from China led to around 475 students of two girls schools in south Delhi falling ill on Saturday, with complaints of dizziness and headache. They were rushed to hospital, and most were discharged a few hours later. Delhi Police has registered a case against "unknown persons" in the matter. Students of Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Number 2, in Tughlaqabad area, were entering class after the morning assembly session at around 7.30 a.m. when they felt dizzy with the toxic fumes. Students complained of eye and throat irritation. Around 30 students also fainted. Their schools are adjacent to the Tughlaqabad container depot. "A total of 475 students from Classes 6-12 from both the schools were affected by the fumes. They were treated at different hospitals," Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Baaniya told IANS. He said the chemical leaked from four drums containing chloro (methyl) phenylsilane, which was imported from China, and was enroute to Sonepat in Haryana. Each drum contained 220 litres of the chemical, which is used in the manufacture of pesticides. The container, which reached Sonepat later, was being handled by a team of the State Disaster Response Force and a Delhi Police team, Baaniya said. The Delhi government has launched a magisterial probe into the matter. Baaniya said that police has registered a case against "unknown persons" under various sections of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) relating to making the atmosphere noxious to health, endangering life or personal safety of others, causing hurt by act. "We are investigating to see how the chemical leaked," Baaniya said. The affected students were rushed to four nearby hospitals -- Batra Hospital, Apollo Hospital, Majeedia Hospital and ESI Hospital. "After treatment 406 students were discharged while the rest will be discharged soon," Baaniya said, adding that 12 students were referred to Safdarjung hospital, who were later discharged. Delhi Fire Service said it received a distress call about the gas leak at 7.43 a.m. and rushed three fire tenders to the spot. Seventeen ambulances from the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) were also rushed to the schools. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, visited Majeedia Hospital and interacted with the children admitted there and enquired about their health. "The situation is under control. A few students are still complaining of irritation and are being treated. Doctors assured that there was nothing to worry about as they say there is no lasting effect of the gas and all will be fine," Kejriwal told reporters after visiting the hospital. He said the government has already ordered an inquiry and "action" will be taken against the culprits. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the Education portfolio, separately visited Batra Hospital. Sisodia said he had spoken to the doctors and the condition of the students was "normal". He said the District Magistrate has been ordered to probe the leak. Sisodia announced that schools in the area were ordered shut for the day, and exams postponed. He said the situation would be reviewed on Monday. Sisodia later tweeted, "Maximum students have gone back to home. Few are still under observation in hospitals. AIIMS team working on medical impact study." Earlier in the day BJP leader Vijender Gupta also visited the students in ESI Hospital and accused the authorities of "negligence". Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chief Swati Jaihind also met the students at Batra hospital. Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. --IANS am-aks-kd/rn/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 135 NRI Hindus drawn from over 10 countries called on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday after a visit to Ayodhya, where they had a darshan of Ram Lalla and met senior members of the sant fraternity. Anand Goyal, one of the members who met the Chief Minister, told IANS that the meeting with Yogi was "inspiring" and that they were treated to a tasty vegetarian lunch by the hosts. "Yogi Adityanath told us that he was very happy to meet all of us and was indeed happy that despite being in foreign land, we were so interested in Hinduism and had come all the way to Ayodhya to have a darshan of Ram Lalla," one of the delegates said. Yogi also told the visiting delegation that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country was taking a new turn and that his vision of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" was the guiding principle of the state government as well. With a vegetarian spread of pineapple raita, matar paneer, malai kofta and different types of roti's and juicy gulab jaamuns, the NRI Hindus from countries like Hong Kong, China, Bangkok, Singapore and Macau appeared bowled over by the warmth and hospitality shown in the Uttar Pradesh leg of their India trip. Earlier, they met Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah, international President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Raghav Reddy and other senior leaders of the BJP soon after their arrival in the union capital two days back, VHP's national spokesman Vinod Bansal informed. --IANS md/nir/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao on Saturday called for further investment in infrastructure and high-level technology to boost economic growth in the Asia Pacific region. Speaking at the 50th annual meeting of the regional development bank in Yokohama, Japan, Nakao said investment in infrastructure, particularly projects that incorporate advanced technologies, would be the bank's priority in the upcoming years, Efe news reported. "Enhancing the quality of infrastructure is important in realising sustainable economic growth," the president said, adding that Asia will need $1.7 trillion each year for investments in the power, transport, telecommunications and water sector until 2030. "This is more than double our previous estimate, reflecting additional investments needed to support continued growth and address climate change," he added. The ADB will also establish a fund for high-level technology projects, aiming to promote the use of advanced and clean technologies to tackle challenges in developing member countries. "Many developing member countries find it challenging to introduce high-level technologies in their countries due to lack of resources and limited institutional experience," Nakao said, adding that Japan will contribute $40 million over the next two years. "I am optimistic about continued robust growth in Asia. There is strong demand, notably consumption by a growing middle class and increasing investment in infrastructure," the bank chief said. About 5,000 delegates including government officials, academics and business leaders, among others, were expected to attend the summit, which runs between May 4 and May 7. The bank, headquartered in Manila, was established in 1966 to promote economic growth and regional integration, and includes 67 members, of which 47 are from the Asia Pacific region. --IANS ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A member of the high command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) called on dissident members of that guerrilla group to free a UN official they kidnapped two days ago. In remarks to Caracol Radio on Friday, Carlos Antonio Lozada urged those who abducted the official to release him as soon as possible, Efe news reported. Harley Lopez, a Colombian who is employed by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and working on an illegal crop substitution program, was kidnapped Wednesday night by FARC dissidents led by Ivan Mordisco. The abduction occurred in Barranquillita, a remote hamlet two hours by land from Miraflores, a municipality in the southeastern Colombian province of Guaviare. Lozada, a member of the FARC's secretariat, said incidents like these placed roadblocks on a path forged with great effort in recent years, referring to the process that led to the signing of a peace agreement between the national government and the FARC last November. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Thursday that a delegation had traveled to the site where the kidnapping occurred to facilitate Lopez's release. The UN System in Colombia, for its part, denounced the kidnapping and demanded that the official be released immediately. The abduction coincided with the arrival of a group of UN Security Council ambassadors who are visiting Colombia this week to demonstrate their support for the peace agreement and for the process that is to lead to the FARC's full laying aside of its weapons by June 1. --IANS vgu/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French President Francois Hollande is to travel to Berlin on the day after the presidential election for a meeting with the German Chancellor, media reports said. Hollande is set to visit Angela Merkel hours after the winner of the French election will be known, at the invitation of the Chancellor, a brief statement released by the French Presidency on Saturday said. The two leaders are to hold a bilateral meeting at 19.00 (local time), followed by a private dinner, Efe news reported. It was not yet officially known when the transfer of power from Hollande to his successor would take place. Centrist Emmanuel Macron, founder of the En Marche! (On the move!) movement and Hollande's former Economy Minister, and far-right Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN) are to go head to head on Sunday in the second and final round of the presidential election. News of Monday's upcoming meeting between Hollande and Merkel came as a surprise, with French media outlets already considering the president's international agenda over after this week's visit to the Elysee Palace by the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI. Le Pen has attacked Macron throughout campaigning, accusing him of seeking close ties with Germany. --IANS vgu/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India has not issued visas for two months to Pakistani patients who travel to the country for treatment, a media report said on Saturday. According to Geo News, the decision has affected thousands of Pakistanis suffering from liver, kidney and heart diseases. "India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official said. According to the official, Pakistan has summoned Indian envoy to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the latest move. Tensions are running high between India and Pakistan following the death sentence awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav, said to be an Indian spy, for sponsoring terrorism and waging war against Islamabad. --IANS py/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk are to meet the US President in Brussels in May, a spokesperson said. Juncker and Tusk will meet and greet Donald Trump prior to the NATO summit scheduled for May 25, announced European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva on Friday. Trump's visit to the European Union's capital will take place during his first international diplomatic tour since he took office in January, Xinhua news agency reported. Before heading to Europe, however, Trump is scheduled to touch down for a visit to Saudi Arabia. It marks a break in tradition, as US presidents have always tended to choose either Canada or Mexico as their first port of call. After Saudi Arabia, Trump is due to travel on to Jerusalem where he is expected to meet with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas, according to a White House press note. On May 24, Pope Francis is to welcome Trump at the Vatican. Once Trump has met Tusk and Junker and attended the NATO summit in Brussels, he is due to fly back to Italy in order to attend the G7 Heads of State and Government Summit in Sicily, slated for May 26-27. --IANS vgu/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Around two dozen students were injured on Saturday in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara town following clashes with security personnel after a Pakistani flag was hoisted on a college building. Students of the Handwara Degree College marched towards the market square after hoisting the Pakistani flag, police said. Police used tear smoke shells to disperse the students. "Students had resorted to intense stone pelting after they were prevented from carrying out the march in Handwara town", police said. Reports said around two dozen students were injured in the clashes including seven girls. One girl with a head injury was being treated in a hospital. Meanwhile, after the clashes between agitated students and security forces during the last two days, classes in Sopore Degree College and higher secondary schools were suspended on Saturday. Justice Leila Seth was part of a committee along with former CJI J S Verma, to suggest changes to criminal law to deal with crimes like rape after the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case. Photo: Wikipedia.org Justice Leila Seth, the first woman judge of Delhi High Court who played a major role in the making of the tough anti-rape law five years ago, died in Noida on Friday night. She was 86. " passed away on Friday night around 10.30 p.m. after suffering a cardio respiratory attack," a family member told IANS on Saturday. Justice Seth, who later became the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, is survived by her husband, two sons, including well-known writer Vikram Seth, and a daughter. She was part of a committee along with former Chief Justice of India J S Verma, set up to suggest amendments to the criminal law to deal with heinous crimes like rape after the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case. Justice Seth was also a member of various enquiry commissions, one of which was responsible for studying the effects of the television serial, "Shaktiman", on children. She was part of an enquiry into the death of businessman 'Biscuit Baron' Rajan Pillai, who was found dead in police custody in Delhi in mid 90s. Two workers were killed and four others injured in a major accident in West Bengal's IISCO Steel Plant early on Saturday morning, an official said. The accident occurred at 4 a.m. in the Burnpur unit of the Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO), a company statement said. "Prima facie, it appears that molten steel splashed out of a ladle that was being placed on the turret of a caster in the Steel Melting Shop," a statement from IISCO said. The crisis response plan was put into action within minutes of the accident, it said. Six persons affected in the incident were immediately rushed to the hospital, but two succumbed. Expressing grief at the loss, the company said a high-level enquiry committee has been constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident. Management will extend all support to the affected persons and their families, it added. Best medical care was being provided to the four others, the statement said. --IANS sgh/ssp/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a tragic incident, Nepal's octogenarian mountaineer Min Bahadur Sherchan died in the Everest Base Camp on Saturday, making it the second casualty this spring expedition. Scaling the Mt. Everest is considered one of the toughest jobs for climbers globally, as scores of aspirants die every year. According to Dinesh Bhattarai, Director General of Tourism Department of Nepal, Sherchan passed away at 5.14 pm. Doctors suspect "heart attack" to be the reason of his death. Sherchan, 86, was making an attempt to scale the Mt. Everest in a bid to reclaim the honour of being the oldest man to climb the world's tallest peak. Only last week, famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck was lost to the Everest region. Sherchan had left for the Everest base camp this Sunday, leading a seven-member team. He had scaled the Everest summit in May 2008 when he was 76 years and 340 days old, and was recognised as the oldest person to climb the peak by the Guinness World Records in November 2009, replacing previous record holder Japanese Yuichiro Miura. Miura first climbed the peak in 2003 at the age of 70. He scaled Everest again in May 2008 when he was 75, but he did not set a record as he reached the summit a day after Sherchan achieved the feat at 76. In 2013, Miura snatched the record back from Sherchan by stepping on the summit at the age of 80. Before leaving to the Everest Base Camp, the visibly confident Sherchan had said that though he was old in terms of age, he still had the courage to ascend the Everest. Earlier in 2015, too, he had tried to climb the Everest but returned from base camp after an avalanche hit the Everest due to the earthquake in Nepal. --IANS giri/nir/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Pranab Mukherjee was present as the gates of the Bardinath shrine in Uttarakhand opened early on Saturday morning. With this, the annual pilgrimage of the Char Dhaam Yatra became fully operational. The Kedarnath shrine was also opened earlier this week in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after a six-month winter break. Mukherjee prayed before the deity at the sanctum sanctorum amid chanting of hymns and high security. The President earlier went to the Gujarati Dharmshala and had a bath before heading for the rituals. State Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj accompanied Mukherjee during the visit. The President had spent the night in Dehradun on Friday after taking part in an event here. An army band also played as the shrine door was opened for the pilgrims. More than 10,000 pilgrims were present for the darshan of the Lord on the first day, an official told IANS. --IANS md/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Sanjay Dutt attended the wrap-up party of his comeback film "Bhoomi" here along with wife Maanyata and actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Shekhar Suman. The film's shoot has been completed after the extensive work of two-and-a-half months. Aditi, who will seen portraying the character of Sanjay's on screen daughter, said she never thought of getting an opportunity of working with the actor. "I never thought that I would ever get an opportunity to work with Sanjay Dutt. It's a beautiful story of a father and daughter. When you do a film like this, you actually live that character for some time. So, it was very special to have Sanjay Dutt around. "He is amazing to work with and very funny on set, but at the same time really focused and natural. So, it gets easy to react to him while shooting," said Aditi on the sidelines of the get-together here on Friday night. The actress also spoke about Agra city, in which major part of the film has been shot. "Agra has a lot of positive and beautiful vibe. There is a reason why the film is set in Agra," Aditi said. Shekhar, who will be seen as Sanjay's on screen friend, said Sanjay is "fantastic". "He is a director's actor and a very emotional person. He will surprise you all with his performance in this film, the way he had done in films like 'Vaastav: The Reality' and 'Naam'. The udience will love him as he has come back just with a right role," said Shekhar. About his own character in the movie, Shekhar said: "I am playing a tourist guide in Taj, and Sanjay has a shoe shop. We both are friends and life is going on, until suddenly something happens which changes everyone's life." "Bhoomi" is directed by "Mary Kom" fame Omung Kumar and produced by T series and Legend studios. --IANS iv/rb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lendl Simmons and Kieran Pollard hit blistering half-centuries to power Mumbai Indians to a huge total of 212/3 in 20 overs against Delhi Daredevils in an Indian Premier League (IPL) game at the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium here on Saturday. Simmons, playing his first match of the campaign, starred from the start with a knock of 66 off 43 deliveries, featuring five fours and four sixes, while Pollard scored a belligerent 63 not out off 35 balls, milking four sixes. Asked to bat, Simmons and Parthiv Patel (25) gave the visitors a flying start, putting up 79 runs for the first wicket in 8.4 overs. At the end of the Powerplay overs (6), Mumbai were handsomely placed at 60/1. West Indian Simmons, who replaced Jos Buttler in the team, was particularly impressive, using the long handle to good effect. He wasn't afraid of going on the backfoot to hit towards the cover and was equally at ease against the short deliveries aimed at him by Delhi pacers Zaheer Khan, Kagiso Rabada and Pat Cummins. Parthiv (25 off 22) played a perfect foil to Simmons till leg-spinner Amit Mishra ended his innings when the left-hander stepped out and missed a googly, only to be stumped by wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant. Simmons then completed his fifty off 38 deliveries, as he and Pollard took Mumbai innings forward. Pollard made his intention clear from the outset, hitting Mishra for two sixes in the 11th over. Simmons gave further proof of his power-hitting by hitting Cummins and Corey Anderson for two sixes, before being caught by Marlon Samuels off, with Mumbai at 116/2 in 12.3 overs. Pollard, however, continued to assault the bowlers, despatching two more deliveries from Mishra over long on in the next over. Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma (10)'s wicket, however, gave some relief to the hosts. The right-hander unsuccessfully pulled Rabada and the ball landed in the hands of Mishra at short fine-leg, as Mumbai lost their third wicket for 153 runs in 15.3 overs. Meanwhile Pollard completed his fifty in 29 balls with a powerful straight drive off Cummins. He later got good support from Hardik Pandya (29 not out off 14) as they helped Mumbai post a mighty total. Brief scores: Mumbai Indians: 212/3 (Lendl Simmons 66; Kieran Pollard 63 not out; Kagiso Rabada 1/33 ) vs Delhi Daredevils. --IANS pur/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On June 15, 1947, the New York Herald Tribune ran a headline that said "Joliot-Curie Rips America for an Atomic Energy Report". Jean Frederic Joliot-Curie was a French physicist, a professor, a Nobel laureate and France's first High Commissioner for Atomic Energy. He was instrumental in transforming war-damaged France into a predominantly nuclear energy nation, with minor dependence on fossil fuel. Joliot-Curie was angry, stated the newspaper, because the report released by Princeton University had made shocking omissions of the vital contributions of French scientists to the Manhattan project that led to the making of atomic bombs that ended World War II. The world knows about contributions made by American, Canadian and even German (immigrant) scientists to making of the atomic bombs. But not by French scientists. Indeed, without French contribution, as per Joliot-Curie, the Manhattan project, particularly in controlling the chain reaction once started by neutron-absorbing elements, and the reality of atomic bomb would have been delayed. Seventy years later, history is being reversed. When another World War is being waged against climate change, Emmanuel Macron, the favoured candidate to win in 2017 French Presidential run-off on Sunday, May 7, was amazingly inclusive and provocative in addressing, through a video message, American scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers to come to France and work on climate change. In heavily French-accented English, he addressed Americans: "I do know how your new President now has decided to jeopardise your budget, your initiatives, as he is extremely sceptical about climate change." He went on to say: "I have no doubt about climate change and how committed we have to be regarding this issue." The first message he wanted to convey was: "We will preserve our budgets, we will reinforce our public and private investment to do more and accelerate our initiatives to deliver in line with COP-21 (the Paris summit on climate change)." His second message included a direct invitation to the American scientists to come to France! "You are welcome. It is your nation," he said, adding that France likes innovation and innovative people, wants people working on climate change, clean energy, renewables and new technologies. The video message is now considered a shock-wave moving across the Atlantic. Not only is this video message an out-of-box act, but the French election itself can be described as a "French exception", mainly because of Macron's exceptional character. The 39-year-old Macron is a student of the Lycee Henri-IV elite high school in Paris and a graduate of the privileged and fiercely competitive Ecole Nationale d'Admintration (ENA). He married his teacher, who is 64-years-old, against his family's wishes. He has now literally emerged as most favoured Presidential candidate. It was like a magic trick where a figure on centre stage appears from nowhere. His entire professional and personal career can be best described as typical and even bizarre. Like any other ENA graduate, he began his career in the French Finance Ministry but quickly moved to a private investment bank by paying compensation to the French government for breaching his service contract. He was seemingly on a fat salary in the investment bank. He became a member of the Socialist Party after having made a fortune in the investment bank. Incumbent French President Francois Hollande appointed him on his senior staff and then as the Minister of Economy and Finance. Having pushed his pet pro-business reforms through unfriendly Parliament by using special constitutional provisions, he left the Socialist Party to form a new party, "En March!" (On the Move!) at about the same time when the world adopted the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2016. Surprises from Macron never stop. Though once a passionate investment banker, during his presidential campaign he pledged strong and stringent action on climate change. He wants to double France's wind and solar capacity by 2022, and promises to ban the exploration of all new fossil fuels, including shell gas. He promises to close all coal-fired power stations in France within five years (a year earlier than the current target). He vows to reduce nuclear power's share of the energy mix from 75 per cent today to 50 per cent in 2025. His election manifesto targets to "integrate the ecological cost" into the price of carbon. The manifesto promises to make implementation of the Paris Agreement a priority of his agenda. The exceptional manifesto further continues to please green parties and the general public with eye-catching proposals to pursue trade sanctions at the European level against countries that do not respect the environmental clauses of trade agreements with the European Union. Macron specifically signals to President Donald Trump in his manifesto that "faced with the whims of the new American president, France will have to ensure that the United States faces its responsibilities". Macron has previously warned that Trump would be making a "grave mistake" if he went back on his predecessor's commitments on climate change. Macron's rival, Marine Le Pen, is a "legacy candidate" of the far-right party her father founded decades ago. Her manifesto includes anti-immigrant and anti-globalisation policies and also very general ecological pledges. The final TV debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen was abusive, vociferous and disorderly. If she wins, Trump would have a trusted friend in Europe. When Trump is building walls to stop immigrants and discouraging American scientists from spending government money to research climate change, in Macron is a Presidential candidate on the other side of Atlantic praising Americans and inviting them to France to do exactly opposite and promoting renewable energy. While Americans forgot the French contribution to ending World War II, here is a French Presidential candidate openly inviting Americans to come to France and fight the global war against climate change. This is nothing short of "disruptive innovation in political campaigning". Rajendra Shende, is Chairman TERRE Policy Centre, a former Director of the UNEP and an IIT alumni. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at shende.rajendra@ians.in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the Syrian settlement during a phone conversation, media reports said. The diplomats on Friday exchanged views on the tasks of de-escalating tensions, giving stability to the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terror efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the intra-Syrian negotiation process, said a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Lavrov and Tillerson also touched upon regional and bilateral issues and agreed on further Russia-US contacts, Xinhua news agency reported. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the statement added. Friday's conversation came three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to intensify the dialogue between Lavrov and Tillerson on the search for options that help consolidate the truce among conflicting factions within Syria. In a latest move toward a political settlement of the chronic civil war, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on Thursday in the Kazakh capital of Astana on the creation of four de-escalation zones in Syria. Also on Friday, the Russian General Staff said that Russia has stopped operations of its military aircraft since May 1 in regions where the de-escalation zones will be officially established on Saturday. --IANS vgu/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Blood is certainly thicker than everything else. But now, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks to expand its footprint in Uttar Pradesh, especially in places where it is weak, the party is set to use blood as an important instrument to consolidate political loyalties. And so, as part of its expansion plans in the state, where it just romped home to power with a landslide, the party now intends to hold blood donation and blood testing camps at all block and district levels on August 14, on the eve of the country's 70th Independence Day. After this, a detailed "blood directory" will be printed and kept available at the block level to give information of the availability of donors of different blood groups during medical and other emergencies. Confirming the move, state General Secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak told IANS that a list of donors owing allegiance to the party would be made available at all government hospitals, primary and community health centres. Since stocking such a large number of blood donors 100 units per block was not possible, this will be an "on call" list for all future emergencies and need of blood, he added. The blood listing drive is part of an expansion plan that the is set to soon roll out. Party President Amit Shah has asked office-bearers to select dedicated full-timers on an honorary basis who will give their time and energy to take the flag to places it has either no presence or poor infiltration. One-hundred-and-sixteen such "full timers" have been identified by the state unit for one year's service and 16 persons have been selected who would go to other states to spread the message of the BJP in the birth centenary year of its ideologue, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. "The idea is to ensure that after coming to power, the organisational structure keeps moving and is not rusted in the post-poll glory period," a senior minister told IANS. The party has also set a target of 20,000 such "expansion ambassadors" who will give a fortnight to the party every year. As many as 18,000 names have already been picked from the applications received by the party headquarters in Lucknow. From May 10 to 25, senior office bearers will spend a fortnight in such untouched sectors. The party has also prepared a list of 35-40 "key areas" of society which need to be tapped in its quest for further, complete and absolute power and reach. These include temples and monasteries, journalists, advocates, teachers, doctors, chartered accountants, NGOs and trade unions. A listing of such groups is under way and senior party leaders, from time to time, have been asked to interact with these groups for feedback on the functioning of both the state government of Yogi Adityanath and the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Other efforts to woo more supporters for the BJP include "jan kalyan sammelans" (public welfare conventions), wherein beneficiaries of various government schemes will be called between July 5 and 10; tree plantation at every booth between July 1 and 15; symposiums on the party ideology between July 26 and 31; and debates on "hot topics" like triple talaaq will be held by its minority frontal organisation. Amit Shah himself has allocated 95 days over the next one year to visit such places where the party is weak. Meetings of the district executive committee are being held for three days from Friday to take stock of the directives from the high command and an action plan made to roll out the new projects, a senior leader said. The saffron camp's quest for more power seems unquenchable for now. The views expressed are the author's own. The parent company of the USA Today daily has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to probe the increase of spammers on its official page page that accounts for half of the newspaper's followers on the social media giant. According to a report in USA Today on Friday, removed millions of fake accounts from the newspaper's page last month, but millions of its remaining followers also were fake. The daily's owner, Gannett Company, contacted the FBI earlier this week after the spammers continued to flood the social media page unabated. "Gannett has taken steps to prevent its pages from attracting more fake followers, including blocking new followers from Bangladesh -- one of the countries the company thinks is the source of a significant proportion of the spam accounts," Maribel Wadsworth, the publisher's Chief Transformation Officer, said. The newspaper claimed to accumulate a thousand phony followers a day who post spam comments and attempt to look legitimate. According to Facebook, it has detected additional suspicious activity since its April fake-account crackdown. "After we identified the additional set of violating accounts, we notified our partners at USA Today, and are taking action against these accounts," Shabnam Shaik, Technical Programme Manager at Facebook, said. It is not, however, clear why the daily's Facebook page in particular came under such massive attack from the spammers. "We don't know why the scope of impact on USA Today's Facebook Page appears greater than any other publisher," said Shaik. Facebook has previously claimed that around one per cent of its monthly worldwide active users are "misclassified" accounts -- accounts which are either fake or violate terms of service. The removal of millions of fake profiles is in line with Facebook's battle against scammers and spammers flooding its platform that currently has 1.94 billion users. Actor Anil Kapoor says all his family members have a different take on fashion and they all want to keep it individualistic, rather than being dependent on each other for the fashion advise. "Fashion is very individualistic and depends from and person to person. Harshvardhan (son) has a different way of dressing, I have a different way and you know Sonam (daughter Sonam Kapoor) has a different way and so does (my wife) Sunita. We all have individualistic tastes and nobody take advise. They do what they feel like," Anil told IANS. The actor launched the standalone store of premium menswear brand SELECTED HOMME here with Harshvardhan. Located at Palladium, the store comprises three distinctive lines, Indigo, Heritage and Identity ranging from ageless classics to contemporary essentials. Ask the "Mirzya" actor that how fashion conscious he is, he told IANS: "I think because of social media, it has become such an important thing and everybody has been talking about in the last couple of years." Does he take fashion advise from his style conscious father? He said: "Our conversations are more about performance, acting and how one can improve, learn and be better. I think fashion is something to enjoy." Meanwhile, his sisters Sonam and Rhea have joined creative forces to launch a new clothing brand by the name of Rheson on May 12. --IANS nv/rb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Sana Khaan, who made her Bollywood debut in the Salman Khan starrer "Jai Ho", says she wishes to work with the superstar again. "Yes, I do wish to work with him again," Sana told IANS in an email when asked if she would like to share screen space with Salman again. Does she credit her Bollywood innings to the "Dabangg" star? "I have loads of people to thank who have shown their unconditional love and support to make me a part of their job, and I definitely thank Salman to make me part of 'Jai Ho'. I definitely had a great experience." The "Wajah Tum Ho" actress says she credits herself first. "I kept following my dream and fighting for it every now. Then, the credit goes to my mom for being patient with me and the way she supported me and to everyone who believed in me at that point of time," Sana added. The actress has lent her support to designer Ritu Seksaria, who has set a week-long discount sale at her store Vyoum. The proceeds from this event will go towards Angel Xpress Foundation, an NGO for underprivileged children. Asked if she thinks actors associating with causes help in spreading more awareness, Sana said: "Yes, definitely. I feel when anyone who is powerful and influential talks, it makes a difference as they have bigger platform to talk n the reach is 10 times more." --IANS dc/rb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National day receptions of countries are usually solemn and stuffy affairs held in the embassy or high commission premises, where formally dressed (some uniformed) guests mingle, eat, drink and go home (most national day invitation cards clearly indicate when you should arrive and what time you should leave). Businesses, both small and big, are increasingly shifting their processes and transactions online. The heavy dependence on the internet, however, comes with its own risks in the form of cyber crimes. Besides taking cyber security measures, fledgling entrepreneurs, and small businesses in particular need to purchase cyber-liability to mitigate the risk from cyber crimes. Having fallen short of people's mandate in the case of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the (AAP) on Saturday organised a meeting where Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai asserted that AAP is renewing its policies for the state and party. "After the MCD elections, the AAP is renewing its policies for the state and party. Over this month, 14 round meetings have happened with the workers in regards to improvement of the state. Today, we will be organising a joint meeting at Arvind Kejriwal's house. If the government feels that an investigation or notices should be made compulsory for us funding illegally in the state, then we will accept the notice," Rai said in New Delhi. "Every AAP leader is standing with the party and its supporter. We never believed in groupism nor amended it in our party. The party is primarily focussing on growth and development for the state. We are also happily accepting the feedback and will put them forward in the meeting today. Only after that the party will make a comprehensive policy, we will discuss it with the minister," said Rai. Meanwhile, the AAP cried foul over the Union Home Ministry's issuance of a notice to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led party asking it to provide information on overseas funding it has received. Accusing the Centre of 'witch-hunting', AAP leader Ashutosh said that the Union Government was practising political vendetta. "This is nothing but witch-hunting, this is a political vendetta. The Home Ministry once under Manmohan Singh and the other time under Narendra Modi has already conducted an investigation and submitted the report of the same to the Delhi High Court citing that nothing has been found wrong in the funding of the AAP," Ashutosh told ANI. "This is nothing but political vendetta. I will say that with whichever agency they want to appoint to investigate the matter they can, I know they will able to find nothing," he added. Triggering yet another AAP vs Centre face-off, the MHA had on Friday sent a notice to the AAP, asking it to provide information in connection with its overseas funding. The Home Ministry in its notice asked the AAP to disclose the source, nature and the amount of donation as well as the foreign equity in the shareholding pattern of the corporation, company or source from where the donation is received. Union minister Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said with the government in Uttar Pradesh, the state has joined the "Mission Modi", an acronym for "making of developing India". Forty five people, including several officials, have been sentenced in China for their negligence and involvement in a landslide triggered by a giant waste dump which killed 73 people in southeastern Shenzhen city in 2015. The accused, mostly from Hong Ao landfill, were tried in Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen, the People's Court of Nanshan district and the People's Court of Baoan district from April 26 to 28 and the verdict was delivered yesterday. Long Renfu, boss of Shenzhen Yixianglong company which managed the dump site, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 10 million yuan (about USD 1.5 million) for bribery and negligence which led to the accident. The dump site had a planned storage of four million cubic meters and a maximum stack height of 95 meters, but when the accident happened, its actual storage reached had 5.83 million cubic meters and the waste heaps stood as high as 160 meters. Meng Jinghang, former head of the city administration bureau of Shenzhen, was convicted of abuse of power and taking a bribe of 24.9 million yuan. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined eight million yuan, state-run Xinhua agency reported. Peng Shuiqing, former head of the Guangming New District management bureau of the Urban Planning, Land and Resources Commission of Shenzhen, was sentenced to 16 years and fined one million yuan for the same offences. Another 17 government officials were sentenced to three to seven years in jail for negligence and abuse of power. Another 25 also received penalties. The landslide occurred when a huge waste pile collapsed. The December 2015 accident which killed 73 people and and left four others missing had resulted in a direct economic loss of 880 million yuan, and was believed to be caused by mismanagement rather than any geological reasons, the report said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 19 Naxalites, nine of them allegedly involved in the deadly attack on CRPF personnel last week, were on Saturday arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, police said. Of the nine Naxalites who were allegedly involved in the Burkapal attack, six were rounded up from Chintagufa police station area while three others from Chintalnar police station limits, Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla told PTI. Around a dozen suspects were also rounded upduring joint search operations by the Central Reserve Police Force, the CoBRA and the district forcein Chintalnar, Chintagufa and Burkapal areas of Sukma for questioning, he said. "During interrogation, nine of them admitted to their involvement in the attack following which they were arrested today," he said. Those arrested were identified as Sodhi Linga (30), Sodhi Muda (45), Podiam Joga (38), Madkam Bheema (18), Rava Aayta (20) and Madkam Somdu (34) from Chintagufa, Vetti Malla (26), Muchaki Nanda (39) and Madvi Kosa (40) from Chintalnar, the ASP said, adding they all were active as members of Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisaan Mazdoor Sangthan (DAKMS)- a frontal wing of the Maoists. In a separate action, 10 janmilitia members of the Maoists were today arrested from Kukanar police station area by a composite squad of the CRPF, the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and the district force, he said. The 10 were allegedly involved in torching two trucks and opening fire at a police patrolling party in Kukanar area between Jagdalapur and Sukma on Highway 30 on February 26, he said. All the nineteen ultras were produced before a court in Dantewada district which sent them in judicial remand, the officer added. On April 24, 25 CRPF personnel, belonging to 74th battalion, were killed in a Maoist ambush while patrolling in Burkapal area of the Sukma district. Strict action will be taken against those found guilty in the gas leakage incident that led to the hospitalisation of around 450 girl students in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area today, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said most of the girls, who were hospitalised after they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness, were discharged, adding that a few of them were kept under observation. "The Delhi government has asked the district magistrate to investigate the matter and find out how the gas was leaked at the depot. "We have asked the DM to take strict action against those found guilty of negligence," Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the students at one of the hospitals. Sisodia said a team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was carrying out a study on the medical impact of the gas leakage incident. Earlier in the day, around 450 girl students of two schools run by the city administration -- Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School -- had to be hospitalised after toxic fumes spread due to a chemical leakage at a container depot located near the schools. Union Health Minister JP Nadda has instructed all the Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from the AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Algeria's main Islamist coalition, which came third in this week's legislative elections, today accused the ruling coalition of ballot box stuffing, threatening and committing violence against its supporters. Abderrazak Makri, who heads the Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP), said his party and its ally the Front for Change would have won if there had not been any fraud. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's National Liberation Front (FLN) and its ally the Rally for National Democracy (RND) won a clear majority in Thursday's elections. "The administration allowed the thugs of the FLN and the RND to stuff ballot boxes and commit violence without it intervening," said Makri, whose party has links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamist leader, whose coalition won 33 of the national assembly's 462 seats, said official complaints would be filed with the country's constitutional council. Islamist parties won 67 seats in the polls, up from a total of 60 in the 2012 elections. Makri said 70 per cent of polling stations did not have any observers due to a misinterpretation of the electoral law. According to the Islamist leader, in several areas, the vote count of which the MSP obtained a copy does not coincide with the final vote count that was announced. Makri said abstention in the country would diminish considerably when elections become clean, after a turnout of 37 per cent in Thursday's vote. He said there were "more than two million blank ballot papers" out of eight million who cast their vote. But Makri said he would not encourage Islamist lawmakers to resign from parliament, and instead press for change within public institutions. Thursday's vote was marred by voter disillusionment over what many see as broken government promises and a political system tainted by corruption. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Assam Rifles apprehended nine NSCN(IM) cadres along with huge cache of arms and ammunition in Nagaland's Peren district, AR sources said today. PRO of Inspector General Assam Rifles (North), Lt Col. Amitabh Sharma today said that based on specific information about the presence of armed cadres, 36 Assam Rifles launched an operation in general area, Jalukie under Peren district yesterday. During the operation nine NSCN(IM) cadres including a 'self-styled captain' Atum Newmai were apprehended. He said that the AR troops seized four AK-56 Rifles, one AK-47 Rifle, one carbine, one 9mm Pistol, one 7.65mm Pistol, one 12 Bore rifle, one .22 Rifle and one Air Gun. The arrested cadres were also found in possession of five Chinese grenade, nine AK magazines, one Motorola, three antennas, 115 rounds AK ammunition, 101 rounds of 7.62 five rounds of .38, five rounds of 7.65 and two rounds of 12 Bore gun. The apprehendees along with the seized arms and ammunition were handed over to Jalukie Police Station for further investigation, the PRO IGAR(N) said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 20-year-old man has been arrested here on the charge of kidnapping and raping a minor girl, who was missing from her village here since April 27, police said here today. The alleged abduction had triggered communal tension in the area and suspected activists of the Hindu Yuva Vahini had even beaten to death a man named Ghulam Mohammad, a resident of Sohi village, who they suspected knew the whereabouts of the girl. After the girl had gone missing, her family had made a complaint alleging kidnapping to the police. SP (Rural) Jagdish Sharma said today that Yusuf had been sent to jail today. The girl went missing on April 27 from a village under Pahasu Police Station and was later recovered from a place that belonged to Yusuf's relatives on May 3. Raj Kumar Sharma, inspector, Kotwali (Town) said the girl had earlier deposed before a judge after which police added sections of rape and threatening to kill in the FIR lodged against Yusuf. Three persons suspected to be members of Hindu Yuva Vahini have also been arrested in the case of murder of Ghulam Mohammad. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government today issued a show cause notice to the authorities of Tughlaqabad depot after 300 girls were taken ill due to the spread of toxic fumes following a chemical spill there. The fumes spread from a container containing 2-Chloro-5 chloromethylpyridine, which is used in insecticides and pesticides. The chemical was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness. The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police has registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. The police said container truck fled the spot as the chemical leakage triggered panic in the area. It was later traced in Sonepat in the evening, and the leaking drums were safely removed. The southeast district administration issued the show cause notice to the Customs Department and the Container Corporation Of India Ltd (CONCOR), the custodian of the depot, asking it why the depot should not be shut down. "We will take strict action in the matter as hazardous chemicals were stored in the depot ... We have issued a show cause notice to CONCOR and the Customs Department seeking their reply as to why the depot should not be shut as it is unsafe because it is situated near schools," B S Jaglan, district magistrate (southeast), said. Jaglan said the depot has been operating in the area since 1989 and that the container truck was parked inside it at the time of the incident. A CONCOR spokesperson said it is a cause of concern and they are looking into the leakage. "We will cooperate with the probe," he said. He said the depot is like a port where the imported material arrive and their employees do not have access to the "bonded" area, where the containers are kept. "The chemical was imported from China by a company which deals in agricultural products. The container belongs to the shipping line," he said. It was cleared by the Customs Department. "The spill was noticed by some people in the inland container depot. We threw a lot of mud and caustic soda around it to nullify its effect. Whatever was left was carried away by the wind which is unfortunate," he said. "Tughlakabad area is safe now. A National Disaster Response Force team also visited the consignee factory at Sonepat... All containers have been emptied and washed," the force's Director General R K Pachnanda said. He said the driver noticed the leakage first when he stopped for tea outside the inland container depot at around 3.30 AM today. However, the police and the fire department said they were informed about the incident at around 7.30 AM. Sources said the driver tried to approach the authorities at the office where he was supposed to offload the container but apparently, he did not get any response. He did not pay much heed to the foul smell since he has not slept properly and was feeling dizzy. An NDRF official said there were 80 drums in the container and the chemical leaked from three-four of them. The driver unloaded the drums in Sonepat. It is expected that the chemical spilled at the ICD when the loading/ unloading of the containers was taking place. "It was in liquid form and vaporised when it came in contact with the air," another officer said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special court here, designated to hear cases related to chit fund scam, today ordered public auction of properties of a ponzi scheme firm. Special Judge P K Patnaik pronounced the order on a plea filed by additional district magistrate (ADM), Ganjam, Saroj Mishra seeking the court's permission to sell the properties of Katloon Management and Financial Services Ltd to ensure refund of money to the duped investors. Administration had seized over 37 acre land owned by the company in Bhanjanagara area in the district and a luxury car. The landed properties are located in 27 places. The properties will be auctioned and the sale proceeds will be distributed among investors duped by the company, said special prosecutor Bijay Kumar Pradhan. Economic Offence Wing of the Crime Branch had registered the case against the company and arrested one of its directors and a promoter, based on the FIR filed by one Rama Krushna Pani of Buguda on July 15, 2015 at Buguda police station. Six other directors of the company including managing director are still at large, sources said. The company had allegedly purchased the landed properties and luxury vehicles in fraudulent manners by using the depositors' money. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A dalit bridegroom was allegedly beaten up for "daring" to ride a decorated car at Deri village in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, police said today. Arvind Singh, Akhand Singh, Prithvi Singh and Pintu Vishwakarma attacked Prakash Bansal, who was heading for the wedding venue in a decorated car last night, Inspector Rameshwar Dayal of Orchha Road police station told PTI. The group of four men forced Bansal to alight from the car and thrashed him and six others of the marriage party, he said. They also allegedly smashed up the camera of a photographer hired to click the pictures of the wedding, he said. On getting the information, the police reached the spot and arrested Prithvi, Dayal said, adding a hunt has been launched to arrest the other suspects who fled from the spot. A case under relevant sections of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been registered, police said. Incidents of members of upper castes objecting to dalit grooms riding horses or using fancy vehicles during weddings have been reported in many areas, especially in Bundelkhand region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The local court today awarded death sentence to a man who raped and murdered a class VI student four years ago. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Alipurduar A K Pal sentenced Albert Toppo to death for raping and killing the girl in 2013, according to the ACJM court. The accused had tied the victim's body to tea bushes. The death sentence came a day after capital punishment was upheld by the Supreme Court for four convicted persons in the infamous Delhi rape-murder case of 2012. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior Gujarat police official, who had investigated the rape case of a minor girl, told a court here that he does not have knowledge of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. During cross examination by a defence lawyer, deputy Superintendent of Police with State Intelligence Bureau, Dharmendra Desai told the court on Wednesday last that he does not know about the Act, nor does he know the full form of POCSO or when the Act was introduced. He also informed the special POCSO judge B N Makwana that he was not aware about the amendments to the rape law. "I do not know when the POCSO Act was introduced. I do not know the full form of POCSO," he said. Desai was the police inspector of Nikol police station when a rape case of a minor under POCSO Act was lodged on June 18, 2015. When asked by the defence lawyer about the sections of the Act that deals with aggravated, penetrative sexual assault, the official said that he does not know the provisions of punishment under sections 3 and 4 of the POCSO Act. He also told the court that he has no knowledge about the amendments to laws dealing with rape. Desai told the court that he did not verify the age of the victim, a minor girl, with birth registration officer, and nor did he recommend DNA test of the accused. "I do not know if there have been amendments to laws dealing with rape," he said. "I did not recommend a DNA test in a list of samples sent to the FSL (Forensic Sciences Laboratory) for analysis," he said. A minor girl was allegedly raped by a youth known to her in June 2015. A complaint was lodged in July with Nikol police station of the city, where Desai was senior police inspector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) While the other regions were progressing fast in producing startups, it seems eastern region was facing 'baby elephant syndrome'. "It seems eastern region was facing baby elephant syndrome," AVP Brand Capital, Times Group, Rajesh Singhal said here at Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC) organised interactive seminar on startups. In a baby elephant syndrome, a tied grown up elephant does not attempts to set himself free when he can, due to his past memories of inability when it was a baby. Singhal said future of startups will be eastern region given the cost advantages it possess for critical components like infrastructure and talent. There are success startup stories from east though, a few. BCC president Rakesh Shah said there was need for change in mindset and given the support by the chamber, startup culture in East is bound to change. Speaking about the startup policy, experts opined that it will be hard for most of the startups to fulfil the criteria for getting recognised by the government. "It is very difficult for most of the startups to get qualified as per the current norms of the policy," Bharat Chamber chairman (startups), B K Baid said. Another expert, Deepak Kumar Khaitan said beside infrastructure and manpower, compliance cost is also very high which is ignored by the startups. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The backlog of vacancies in the quota for disabled persons should be filled at the earliest, Union Minister for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale told officials here today. Athawale held a meeting with officials of Central government organisations and the state government to take a stock of backlog of vacancies in the quota for disabled persons. Strict action would be taken if these vacancies were not filled speedily, the minister said, speaking to reporters later. Officials of Railways, Air India, Bombay Port Trust, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation and Maharashtra government were present at the meeting. Reservation for the disabled has been increased to four per cent from the earlier three per cent, Athawale noted. "There are 113 vacancies in Railways, 405 vacancies in Air India, 2,573 vacancies in Maharashtra government, 1,750 vacancies in MCGM, 122 vacancies in Thane Municipal Corporation and one vacancy in JNPT (under the quota for disabled)," he said. Athawale also said that he would press the demand of reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the private sector. He informed that Rs 762.85 crore have been earmarked for giving aid to the disabled in the current financial year. About the demand of farm loan waiver in Maharashtra, he said the opposition parties who want loan waiver should also explain from where the money for it would come. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian and Pakistani governments should sign a "no-arrest" pact for the protection of fishermen straying into each other's waters, fishermen community from Gujarat has demanded. A representation in this regard was handed over to 12- member Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. The committee was on a two-day visit to the Union Territory of Diu and Porbandar in Gujarat, which ended yesterday. The demand for having such a pact comes in the backdrop of fishermen of both the countries regularly being arrested and their boats seized by each others security agencies from near the international maritime boundary. They also demanded that the both the countries should release all the arrested fishermen and their seized boats from each others custody. This is for the first time that the parliamentary panel visited both the places to understand various issues related to the fishing community. "Often, we cannot understand the real problems faced by the people sitting in Delhi. So, we have come here to meet the fishing community and listen to their grievances," Tharoor told reporters. President of Porbandar Machhimar Boat Association Bharat Modi, former president of Porbandar Boat Association Manish Lodhari, president of Veraval Boat Association Gopal Fofandi and Rajya Sabha MP Chunibhai Gohil, who is also a fishermen leader, were among others who made the representations to the panel in Porbandar. Lodhari said that they have asked the committee to have a "no-arrest" pact between the two countries for the fishermen. Talking to PTI over phone, Gohil said, "We have also suggested that there should be a Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) between the two countries when fishermen are arrested." "Both sides can agree to a set of SOPs to expedite the release and handing over of fishermen in each other's custody on completion of respective legal and procedural formalities," the Rajya Sabha MP said. At present, there are around 300 Indian fishermen in Pakistan's custody, while the number of boats seized by it stands at 900. The boats have not been handed back since 2004 except for 57 boats which were released as a goodwill gesture after Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif visited Delhi to take part in swearing in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. Gohil said, "As part of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) both sides should agree to intensify cooperation on patrolling and to institute periodic interaction between the Coast Guard of the two countries." "Infact, detained fishermen should be immediately released after carrying out proper searches and verification of documents," he said. Tharoor assured the fishermen that he would take up their problems with the Government of India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai police today rescued two men who were allegedly abducted after a deal to exchange demonetised notes went wrong. Police also arrested five persons in the case. Sunil Bhagwanji Machchar (25) and his friend Bharatkumar Sirai (26), both residents of suburban Mulund, were rescued from Vasai in neighbouring Palghar district this afternoon. Manish Thakur, Janakprakash Rajpurohit, Siddhique Rahin, Prasannakumar Roy and Hitesh Patel were arrested, said Rajaram Vhanmane, senior inspector of Mulund police station. Rajpurohit and Hitesh Patel had allegedly given Rs 1.13 crore in demonetised currency for exchanging it with valid notes to Vijay Ambhore, Riyaz and some others who were known to Sunil and Bharatkumar, the police officer said. However, Ambhore and Riyaz took the old notes and disappeared. The accused then abducted Sunil and Bharatkumar from Mulund and kept them in Manish Thakur's office in Vasai for the last two days. They also beat up the duo, police said. Sunil's elder brother Nitin got a call from one of the accused who told him that they were holding his brother. Sunil was being thrashed for two days, and Nitin should pay Rs one lakh to have him released, the caller said. After Nitin filed a complaint, Mulund police raided Thakur's office in Vasai and rescued the duo, besides arresting the accused. Offence of kidnapping and assault was registered against the five men. Police were looking for Ambhore and others who fled with demonetised notes, inspector Vhanmane said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano today held talks in Tripoli with top Libyan officials on peace efforts for the war-wracked country and ways to curb illegal migration to Europe. Alfano met Government of National Accord head Fayez al- Sarraj and his vice president Ahmad Meitig to discuss "efforts being made towards national reconciliation", the GNA said in a statement. Alfano's trip to Libya came hot on the heels of a two-day visit Thursday and Friday to the oil-rich North African nation by his British counterpart Boris Johnson. Johnson met Sarraj today and congratulated him on meeting earlier this week in Abu Dhabi with Libyan military strongman Khalifa al-Haftar, who does not recognise the GNA's legitimacy. Italy, too, has welcomed the meeting between Haftar and Serraj. The foreign ministry has said that Alfano's visit was aimed at renewing Italy's support for peace efforts to ensure Libya's stability. Alfano and Libyan leaders also discussed ways of curbing the influx of migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya, as authorities Saturday said that hundreds of migrants were rescued by the Libyan coastguard. The Libyan judiciary in March suspended a deal struck the previous month between Libya and Italy aimed at bolstering joint efforts to stop the flow of migrants. In April, the Italian government said that a dozen of rival tribes in southern Libya had agreed to cooperate on securing the country's borders to prevent illegal migration. Sarraj has struggled to impose the authority of his fragile government, which continues to meet resistance at home despite its backing by many political and military leaders. Six years after a revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Each year, thousands of people, mostly from sub-Saharan countries, board boats operated by traffickers in the country's west heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) away. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Leila Seth died the way she lived -- in the service of people. The first woman chief justice of a high court in India and author Vikram Seth's mother, donated her organs before her death, her family said. Seth was 86. "She died of a cardiac seizure last night, at 10:28 PM. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here," her younger son Shantum Seth told PTI. Her family said there would be no funeral as she had pledged to donate her organs. "My mother has donated her eyes and other organs for transplant or medical research purposes. So we will not have a funeral," Shantum said. On May 28, there would be a prayer meeting in her honour, he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled her death, tweeting that her "remarkable contribution" to the field of law would be remembered. Vice President Hamid Ansari said she "blazed a trail for women". The eminent jurist, much admired in the field of law and in other professions, championed sharper legislation for women. Seth was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). She started her legal practice at the Patna High Court, where she spent 10 years from till 1969 before moving to Delhi. Her husband, Premo Seth, worked in the private sector. In an interview to PTI in April last year, she had spoken about her experiences at court in the early days of her career and her fondness for Patna. "We were very few women as the legal field was all dominated by men. Feisty barrister Dharamshila Lal was my contemporary, in fact my senior, who was known to jangle her bangles at judges in the courtroom, if they didn't pay attention," she had said. On her days in Patna, she said, "It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to 'White Pillars' bungalow, our old home. And, like he did in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga." Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she "lived with the courage of her convictions" and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. "We had just got together last month to celebrate Shantum's 60th birthday," Tehmina said, adding that his elder brother, the author of "A Suitable Boy", had messaged her about the death. "He is devastated," she said. Shantum said that about three weeks ago, his mother had fallen down and fractured her hip. "She had undergone surgery at the Apollo Hospital and was discharged a week ago," he said. Last night, the family called for an ambulance and PCR when she collapsed in her NOIDA residence. "But it was too late," he said. The eminent jurist was also an author and her autobiography 'On Balance' was a bestseller. Seth had also authored 'Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India', published in 2014, which looked at critical issues that she had engaged with in a legal career spanning over 50 years. An altercation took place at the venue of a lecture programme on the desired lifestyle of couples during pregnancy when chairperson of West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights Ananya Chakraborti allegedly tried to barge into the auditorium. The lecture session was organised by RSS-backed 'Arogya Bharati'. Jayshree Rakshit, an official of "Arogya Bharati" said, "The High Court had given us permission to hold the programme. So why did she try to barge into our lecture session? Had she followed the proper procedure we would have allowed her. But she did not follow that. She was threatening us," Rakshit alleged. Chakraborti, on the other hand, accused the officials of "Arogya Bharati" of harassing her and lodged a police complaint against them. She said that the organisers could not stop her from entering a programme venue as being the chairperson of West Bengal Commission for Child Rights, she has every right to interfere in every matter related to children". "Being the chairperson of WBCPCR, I went to see what was happening there. I have every right to do so. But they abused me and harassed me. I have lodged a police complaint against them," Chakraborti told PTI. The police said that they were looking into the complaint. The Calcutta High Court yesterday allowed holding of a lecture on lifestyle couples should adopt during pregnancy, disallowing a plea for a stay on it by West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Nishita Mhatre and Justice T Chakraborti had allowed the lecture to be held, while noting that there would not be any physical examination or treatment of couples. Moving a PIL, the petitioner's counsel had claimed that the organisers were proposing to prescribe ways and means to give birth to babies with qualities as desired by parents. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an illustrious legal career spanning over 50 years, Leila Seth donned multiple hats including that of a judge, an author and a loving mother, all with equal aplomb. She started her career in 1959 in Patna High Court as a young London-trained barrister, and spent 10 years there, seeking a foothold in a field dominated by men. But, Seth rose through the ranks to become country's first woman chief justice of a high court, and broke many a glass ceiling in the process while earning respect and admiration, both in the courtroom and outside. She was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, and her younger son Shantum Seth was born there while she was studying after her marriage. The British press had hailed her triumph, describing Seth as: 'Mother in Law'. "Yes, they called me 'Mother in Law', with a clever wordplay to refer to my role as a mother and my legal career, which was just to begin. I and my husband, still recall that cheeky caption," she had told PTI in an interview in April last year. A legal luminary, she leaves a huge void behind. But even in her death, her life will inspire others, as her organs were donated, as per her wish, for transplant or medical research purposes. Vice President Hamid Ansari expressing deep grief, said Seth "blazed a trail" for women in the legal field and will be long remembered for her commitment to protecting human rights in India. Seth also held the distinction of being the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a high court (Himachal Pradesh), an achievement that still inspires many women to take up legal career. Her death last night has triggered a wave of grief and nostalgia, with noted historian and author Ram Guha extolling her as a "remarkable human being, an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace, and courage." In the April interview, Seth, the mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, had also talked about her fondness for Patna, the place where she lived for 10 years, having a "very special" place in her heart. "It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to 'White Pillars' bungalow, our old home. And, like he used to do in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga," she had said. Even in her autobiography 'On Balance', she dedicated a special section for her Patna days and the 'White Pillars' bungalow, the residence of the general manager of the Bata Factory in Patna's Digha area. Her husband Premo Seth worked for the shoe-making major. Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she "lived with the courage of her convictions" and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. While her elder son Vikram made a name for himself as a writer, the eminent jurist was no less an author with a bestseller - 'On Balance' to her credit. The author of "A Suitable Boy" in fact wrote a foreward for her mother in the book. Seth also championed for women and gender rights. She was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. A trail blazer in the legal field and endowed with a compassionate heart, she will be remembered for raising the bar of excellence to a new height. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gunmen mugged 129 migrants on a rubber dinghy headed for Europe and also stole the craft's engine, abandoning them off the Libyan coast, Libya's navy said today. Navy spokesman General Ayoub Qassem said the gunmen in a speedboat chased the dinghy yesterday, boarded it around five nautical miles off the town of Zuwara and stole the migrants' possessions. The migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, including 27 women and two children, were stranded at sea for several hours before being rescued by Libyan coastguard alerted by a local fisherman, Qassem told AFP. The International Organisation for Migration said a total of 371 migrants were rescued yesterday thanks to the intervention of fishermen in three separate incidents off Zuwara. The Libyan coastguard said today it rescued another 168 migrants whose boat had run into trouble off Tripoli but was unable to assist a second vessel with an unknown number on board around two nautical miles away. "This type of operation takes a lot of time. We don't have the means," said Qassem, calling for international relief groups to provide Libya with boats and equipment to save more migrant lives. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After failing to make any headway in the probe of double murder case where a boy and a girl were found killed in a forested area near Lonavla, Pune district police have now formed a special investigation team. Bodies of the victims, both students of an engineering college in Lonavla, were found on April 3. Police have also announced an award of Rs 50,000 for any information about the murder. The victims were found to have been hit on the back of their heads with a blunt object. Pune district police had formed multiple probe teams earlier, but could not crack the case. "We have now formed an SIT, which will be headed by an inspector from the Local Crime Branch and will be assisted by two police officials, one from Pune city police's cyber Cell and another from Kolhapur police," said the district Superintendent of Police Suvez Haque. An award of Rs 50,000 had been announced for providing information about the culprits, he told PTI. Vishwas Nangare-Patil, Inspector General (Kolhapur Range), said the police were investigating various angles and had questioned several people. Meanwhile, parents of the boy said they were going to meet the Chief Minister and demand speedy investigation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Congress today demanded action against BJP MLA Vijaykumar Gavit, who has been indicted in a scam involving siphoning off funds of the tribal welfare department between 2004 and 2009. Gavit, who was tribal welfare minister in the previous Congress-NCP government, had later joined the BJP ahead of assembly polls in 2014. "The committee was constituted by the Congress-NCP government after allegations surfaced against Gavit who was the tribal development minister. "The report was submitted in January this year but the state government preferred to sit over it," Sawant alleged during a press conference here. "Case should be filed against Gavit immediately and the chief minister should clarify what action he will take against Gavit," said Sawant. The tribal leader from Nandurbar is in the race for a cabinet berth during the expansion to take place soon. The five member committee headed by Justice M G Gaikwad was set up on April 15, 2014 on the orders of Bombay High Court that was hearing a PIL. The PIL contended that the tribal department made purchases without calling for tenders and amounts shown to be disbursed towards tribal welfare were siphoned off between 2004-09. "Since the Gaikwad committee has indicted Gavit in its findings, Fadnavis should clarify what action his government will take against Gavit," Sawant wanted to know. Sawant also hit out at Shiv Sena for adopting double standards on the issue of farmers' plight. "Shiv Sena wants to remain in power and at the same time sheds crocodile tears for farmers. It is in power and it should take decision to help farmers," said Sawant. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Having former first lady Michelle Obama tweet your telephone number is one way to get a lot of attention. The telephone number of a former White House staffer was shared on the @MichelleObama Twitter account yesterday. Michelle Obama has 7.67 million Twitter followers. The telephone number apparently belongs to Duncan Wolfe, a former White House creative digital strategist. The tweet was quickly taken down. Calls were met with "I'm not available right now" and a mailbox full notification. An official who works for the Obamas says it was an accident and her account was not hacked. Michelle Obama and other celebrities were in New York City yesterday to celebrate National College Signing Day, which encourages high school students to seek higher education. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir government will take every step to ensure security and peace in the Valley, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said today. "Our focus (on the state) has not changed. Kashmir has been facing challenges not because of the coalition government. The situation in the Valley has been there for long," he told reporters here. Singh was reacting to the Centre's directive to the state government yesterday to confiscate the equipment of cable operators allegedly airing unauthorised Pakistani channels in the state and take action against them. According to reports, over 50 Saudi and Pakistani channels besides Zakir Naik's banned Peace TV and others indulging in "anti-India" propaganda were allegedly running without necessary clearances via private cable networks in Kashmir. On being quizzed over a video showing two alleged Special Police Officers (SPOs) being tortured by militants, the deputy chief minister said, "Pakistan is playing a game in Kashmir. Terrorists are playing a game. Kashmiris are being terrorised. But the people of the state want peace and the tourism season to be normal." The BJP leader said the government was doing its best for the development of the state. "The Rs 70 crore-flyover in Jammu is the biggest gift the state can receive. From parking lots to ring roads, the government is doing its best for the development of the state. Our main focus is to bring peace and security to the people of the state," he said. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti earlier said only Prime Minister Narendra Modi could resolve the Kashmir problem as he "has a strong mandate" and appealed to him to pull the Valley out of morass. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Pranab Mukherjee offered prayers at the Badrinath temple in Uttarakhand as its portals were reopened to devotees after the traditional six-month winter break in the early hours today. Amid chants of vedic hymns and the blowing of conch- shells, the gates were opened at 4.15 AM by the chief priest of the temple, Ishwari Prasad Namboodiri, with thousands of devotees in attendance. The president arrived at about 8.25 AM to pay obeisance at the 7th century shrine located 10,170 feet above sea-level. Accompanied by Uttarakhand Governor Krishna Kant Paul, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, and state Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj, Mukherjee spent two hours at the temple, leaving its premises by 10.25 AM for the Jollygrant Airport from where he was scheduled to depart for Delhi. The reopening of the Badrinath shrine marks the full- fledged beginning of the Chardham Yatra season in Uttarakhand with the other three pilgrimage spots on the circuit having opened already. The reopening of Kedarnath, another major temple on the circuit, had seen Prime Minister Narendra Modi offering prayers there on May 3. The president had begun his two-day visit to Uttarakhand yesterday from Dehradun where he addressed the convocation of the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy. After spending the night at the Raj Bhawan in the state capital, Mukherjee had left for Badrinath this morning to pay obeisance there as part of his itinerary. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A prisoner serving a sentence in a theft case today allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the bathroom of the Modern Jail here. Jail Superintendent Kulwinder Singh Thiara said Satpal (30), a resident of Jalandhar's Mehatpur village, was found dead in the bathroom of the jail's barrack. He was brought to the jail about one-and-a-half month ago and had been sentenced to five years of imprisonment in a theft case, Thiara said. Satpal was taken to the local civil hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead. The jail authorities handed over the body to the local police for postmortem, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab police today offered to train security guards of the banks to prevent robberies, days after armed men looted Rs 1.33 crore cash from a van of a private bank in Banur in Patiala district. The police also stressed upon holding mock drills at regular intervals to prepare the cash handlers in effectively dealing with loot incidents. A team of Punjab police led by DIG (Patiala range) Sukhchain Singh Gill, DIG (Rupnagar range) Babu Lal Meena and Mohali SSP Kuldeep Chahal held a meeting with representatives of different banks at Mohali. The agenda of the meeting was to review the security measures of the banks in the wake of the daring daylight robbery in Patiala district on Tuesday. Gill said police have asked banks to provide proper training to the security guards deployed with cash vans in order to prevent robberies. "We told the banks that if they want, we are ready to provide training to their guards," he said. During the investigation into the Banur robbery case, the police have found that the guards who were there for the van's security had not resisted the armed robbers, Gill said. At the meeting, the officer expressed satisfaction over the security system being used by a particular bank while transporting cash. "A bank showed us that they have digital lockers in their cash vans. The lockers open through the help of head office only when the cash reaches its destination," Gill said, adding that CCTVs were also installed in the vans. Other banks could replicate this model, he said. Cash handlers of the banks could also be given the contact numbers of police of the area which they are passing through, the DIG said. Asked about any headway in the Banur robbery case, Gill said police were working on it. "We are yet to get the GPS logs of the cash van. We even have not got the footage of the CCTV installed in the cash van either. "We also found that the chain with which cash trunks were tied not very strong," said the officer. In a daring daylight robbery, armed men looted Rs 1.33 crore from a van belonging to a private bank on a busy highway after firing at its driver and injuring him in Banur near Rajpura town in Patiala district on May 2. In a yet another bank robbery, six armed men on May 3 looted Rs 10.27 lakh cash from a rural branch of a public sector bank at Sarawan Bodlan village in Muktsar district. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka will deploy nearly 6,000 police officers to provide special security for Prime Minister and other related events during his visit to the country next week to attend the UN Vesak festival, a top police official has said. The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security, according to Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara. Quoting Jayasundara, the Daily News said nearly 6,000 police officers have been deployed to provide security for Modi and for other related events during the Vesak festival. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modi's visit on May 12 to take part in the celebrations marking the UN 'Vesak Day', which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha. "There will be strict security measures in Colombo and Kandy district. In addition, a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held," he added. On the sidelines of the celebrations, Modi is expected to attend a series of religious and other events including the opening of a new hospital in Dickoya, funded by India. "No acts of sabotage can be carried out during the Indian Prime Minister's visit. The Police have been strictly instructed to pay special attention to the matter," Jayasundara was quoted as saying. The official said a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held. Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari today latched on to a comment made by the sacked Water Minister Kapil Mishra to attack the AAP dispensation, saying the "corruption circus" of the Kejriwal government stood "exposed". "It is now established that public money has been looted in the Delhi Jal Board tanker scam by the Arvind Kejriwal government," he alleged. The Kejriwal government today sacked Mishra as the water minister. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would "expose" the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam in distribution of water tomorrow. "Arvind Kejriwal not only owes an explanation to the citizens of Delhi but it is high time he submits his resignation for being involved in this water tanker corruption racket," Tiwari further alleged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami posed for a photograph with a school girl while travelling by flight from Madurai, following a request from her. The Chennai-bound chief minister posed for the photograph with Priyadarshini, studying in a private school in Theni, during the journey yesterday, a government release said. He was returning to Chennai after attending various government events in Madurai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu Government Doctors' Association today informed the Madras High Court of its decision to call off its over two-week stir demanding restoration of 50 per cent reservation for them in admission to postgraduate medical courses in the state. The TNGDA had yesterday announced withdrawal of the strike after the high court took a serious view of it and hoped they would call it off and return to duty to continue their service. A vacation bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and V Parthiban had expressed its displeasure and hoped the strike would be called off and doctors would return to duty to continue their service "while hearing a lawyer's plea, seeking a direction to the TNGDA to roll it back". It had also directed the association to file an affidavit. The government doctors in Tamil Nadu had boycotted work demanding 50 per cent reservation for them in admission to postgraduate medical courses in the state. It had said that if at all they were aggrieved, they could very well resort to the machinery provided under different statutory provisions to redress their grievances. The issue came to the fore after a single judge had on April 17 ruled that incentive marks to in-service candidates in PG admissions would have to be based on the Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation and not as per state government prospectus. A division bench had on Wednesday delivered a split verdict on appeals challenging the single judge order and arguments are now on before a third judge on the matter. As per MCI rules, 50 per cent of the medical seats should be allocated to all-India quota while the rest can be retained by the state. Of this, 25 per cent of seats should be for the in-service candidates. The government had submitted that award of the incentive marks to in-service candidates was being made for the past 35 years to encourage doctors to serve people in remote, hilly and difficult areas and was not violative of the MCI norms. When the matter came up today, the association in its affidavit said they had called off the strike and those who are protesting would be participating only after duty hours. The bench asked the TNGDA's counsel if there was any proposal to revive the strike after the judgement (referring to the PG courses admission which has been referred to a third judge). It then questioned the special government pleader about the decision of other doctors' associations to the strike. "If they have not withdrawn the strike, what is the action you are going to take?" it asked, to which the SGP said they were sincerely trying to settle the issue amicably. After hearing the arguments, the bench said, "The affidavit filed by the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association is taken on record. They are stating they are striking only after duty hours without affecting the treatment to patients." "This court hopes that patient treatment will be taken care of by the doctors without any problem in future.As far as the doctors who are not reporting to duty, it is for the state to take action against them in accordance with law. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Government Doctors' Association today informed Madras High Court of its decision to call off their over two-week stir demanding restoration of 50 per cent reservation for them in admission to Post Graduate medical courses in the state. TNGDA had yesterday announced withdrawal of their strike after the High Court took a serious view of it and hoped they would call it off and return to duty to continue their service." A vacation bench of Justices N Kirubakaran and V Parthiban had expressed its displeasure and hoped they would call it off and return to duty to continue their service "while hearing a lawyer's plea, seeking a direction to TNGDA to roll it back. It had also directed the association to file an affidavit. Government doctors in Tamil Nadu had boycotted work demanding 50 per cent reservation for them in admission to post-graduate medical courses in the state. It had said that if at all they were aggrieved, they could very well resort to the machinery provided under different statutory provisions to redress their grievances. The issue came to the fore after a single judge on April 17 ruled that incentive marks to in-service candidates in PG admissions would have to be based on Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation and not as per state government prospectus. A division bench had on Wednesday delivered a split verdict on appeals challenging the single judge order and arguments are now on before a third judge on the matter. As per MCI rules, 50 per cent of the medical seats should be allocated to all-India quota while the rest can be retained by the state. Of this, 25 per cent of seats should be for the in-service candidates. The government had submitted that award of the incentive marks to in-service candidates was being made for the past 35 years to encourage doctors to serve people in remote, hilly and difficult areas and was not violative of the MCI norms. When the matter came up today, the association in its affidavit ssaid they had called off the strike and those who are protesting would be participating only after duty hours. The bench asked TNGDA's counsel if there was any proposal to revive the strike after the judgement (referring to the PG Courses admission which has been referred to a third Judge). It then questioned the Special Government Pleader about the decision of other doctors' associations to the strike. "If they have not withdrawn the strike, what is the action you are going to take?" it asked, to which the SGP said they were sincerely trying to settle the issue amicably. After hearing the arguments,the bench said "The affidavit filed by Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association is taken on record.. They are stating they are striking only after duty hours without affecting the treatment to patients." "This court hopes that patient treatment will be taken care of by the doctors without any problem in future.As far as the doctors who are not reporting to duty, it is for the state to take action against them in accordance with law. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rich tributes were paid to poet Shiv Kumar 'Batalvi' on his 44th death anniversary here today. At an auditorium, named after him, noted writers, poets, representatives of political parties paid tributes to the famous Punjabi poet. Among them were former education minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan, MLAs Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Lakhbir Singh Lodhinangal, former minister Ashwani Sekhri. Lauding the contribution of Shiv Kumar Batalvi, noted poet Surjit Patar said he gave a new direction to Punjabi literature. While giving advice to upcoming writers, Patar said they should through their writings contribute to the maintaining of unity, integrity and brotherhood. A 'Kavi darbar' was also organised in which renowned poets like Tarlochan Lochi, Sukhwinder Amrit, Gurbhajan Gill, Ravinder, Anup Singh participated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump has lost another nominee he had put forward to be his Army secretary, after lawmakers said the pick was unfit because of his past stances against transsexuals, Muslims and Latinos. Mark Green, Republican senator for Tennessee, yesterday said in a statement to NBC he was withdrawing due to "false and misleading attacks against me." "My life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterised and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain," he charged. Green was Trump's second choice for the post of Army secretary after his first, Vincent Viola, a billionaire, withdrew in February, saying he couldn't overcome conflict- of-interest objections because of certain financial interests. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democrats in the US Senate, said Green "should not have been nominated in the first place." He cited Green's record of supporting a law "to make it easier for businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ community," for opposing gay marriage, and for believing "being transgender is a 'disease'." Green also "supports constricting access to legal contraception and makes deeply troubling comments about Muslims," and was thus "the wrong choice to lead America's Army," Schumer said in a statement. Trump, while putting former or current generals in key posts in his administration, has had a hard time in filling politically appointed positions at the Pentagon. The posts of secretaries of the Navy and the Air Force remain vacant. A number of other senior offices are not yet officially set to be filled. The Defence Department says several factors are slowing the process down, including notably an extreme political polarisation in Congress between unbending Democrats and Republicans. Strict financial ethics rules are also problematic for candidates. And then there are internal party conflicts, for instance Trump's refusal to put forward any Republican who derided him or his ultimately successful run at the White House. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Nations will set up a technology innovation laboratory in Naya Raipur, the new capital of Chhattisgarh, officials said today. A meeting, presided over by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, was held at his official residence here. During the meeting, a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) among state government's Electronics and Information Technology department, International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Naya Raipur and the Telecommunications and IT division of the United Nations, officials said. Expressing happiness over the development, Raman Singh said the lab would help create a new identity for Chhattisgarh and its capital. "This state-of-the-art lab would help Chhattisgarh achieve the dream of 'smart village' and Digital India. The country will also benefit from it," Singh said. The lab will also help in research in different areas, he said adding that the development goals of the UN can also be achieved with its help. According to the officials, the Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) vice chairman A M Parial, IIIT vice chancellor P K Sinha, and head of UN's Telecommunications and IT division signed the MoU. Senior state officials said considering the Chhattisgarh government's IT, innovation and start-up policies, the UN decided to set up the lab in the state. The UN is setting up similar labs in other cities in the country, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A woman jail official in Chhattisgarh was today suspended following her "objectionable" post on naxalism on Facebook, a senior official said. "The prison department has suspended Assistant Jail Superintendent Varsha Dongre, who was posted in Raipur Central Jail," Deputy Inspector General (Jail) K K Gupta told PTI Bhasha. "We had sought an explanation from her on the Facebook post, but so far she has not responded. The state government has issued guidelines for government officers for using social media, but Dongre has violated those directions," he said. Earlier, the department had received information that Dongre had reportedly posted some comment on social media over naxalism and tribal-related issues after the Maoist attack in Sukma on April 24, another official said. Deputy Jail Superintendent R R Rai was assigned to probe the matter to ascertain whether such comment was made by the officer and what was the objective of the comment, the officer said. "The officer had issued a notice to Dongre seeking her reply in two days. But she failed to give a response and went on leave," he said. However, the post which was in Hindi, was deleted later. On April 24, as many as 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in a Naxal ambush in Burkapal area of the state's Sukma district. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bollywood Actor has penned an emotional note in which she welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict in the Nirbhaya gangrape case and said finally justice, which the entire country demanded, has prevailed. The SC upheld the death sentence to four men convicted in the December 16, 2012, gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman. "Justice - that was what the entire country demanded five years ago and never let the nation forget. Each voice that joined the battle was strident and clear - the six must be punished. Finally, they will pay. The brutality of such crimes is something I refuse to accept!" Priyanka wrote in her post. The 34-year-old "Bjairao Mastani" star said she fails to understand how such a heinous crime could ever happen in a 21st century society. She said the past cannot be undone and so every citizen must make a promise that they will never stop protesting against such "brutal and demoniacal crimes" in the future. "That we, as a modern 21st century society, allow such heinous things to happen to our women never ceases to trouble me. Unfortunately, the past can never be undone. So, we move on and make a promise to ourselves. "That when an entire country is unified in wanting something, action is taken. This awakening, this unified voice to stop such brutal and demoniacal crimes, as our Supreme Court said, is what we must never let go onto mute mode. You will never be forgotten, Nirbhaya." Priyanka said it may have taken five years but she is proud of the justice system of the country. "The flame of this verdict should singe not just the dastardly four (of the other two, one is dead and one accused is a juvenile) but such perpetrators in India as well. "I'm so Proud of the justice system for hearing her voice.. In her dying declaration she appealed that her perpetrators not be spared. (Reuters) - Health insurer Cigna Corp , which is trying to ditch a takeover bid by Anthem Inc , said on Friday that first-quarter profit rose and it added hundreds of thousands of new members in its Obamacare individual business. Cigna shares closed up 2.2 percent at $160.25. Anthem also said on Friday it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against the Justice Department's disapproval of the $54 billion merger, which would create the largest U.S. health insurer by membership. Analysts and antitrust experts said they expected the Supreme Court to decline to take the case. Many insurers have lost money on the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, and some of Cigna's largest competitors, including Aetna Inc , have largely left the market. Cigna's individual members, most of whom are on Obamacare, rose to 353,000 in the quarter from 193,000 a year ago, the company said in a statement. The growth was expected, Cigna Chief Executive David Cordani told analysts on a conference call, adding that new members' medical costs are within expectations. Cordani said it was too soon to discuss whether Cigna would participate next year in the individual insurance market, in which the government subsidizes healthcare costs based on income. Cigna has a small individual insurance business and manages large corporate and government health plans. Insurers need to decide in the next few months but are waiting to see if Republicans fund the program's government subsidies as they push to replace Obamacare starting in 2019. The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved an Obamacare replacement measure on Thursday but it faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Cigna raised its 2017 forecast for adjusted income from operations to $9.25 to $9.75 per share, from $9.00 to $9.50. Analysts' consensus estimate is $9.53. Net income rose to $598 million, or $2.30 per share, in the first quarter, from $519 million, or $2.00 per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, Cigna earned $2.77 per share, above the average analyst estimate of $2.45 according to Thomson I/B/E/S. ANTHEM, CIGNA PRESS ON WITH LAWSUITS Cordani declined on the conference call to discuss the Anthem merger. Cigna sued in district court in Delaware to terminate the planned merger and Anthem won a temporary restraining order to block that move. A hearing is scheduled for Monday. In another series of lawsuits, Anthem is fighting the Justice Department and 11 states in hopes of winning approval for the merger. It lost in both the district court and appeals court, which agreed that the merger would lead to more costly healthcare. Cigna insists that Anthem owes it a $1.8 billion termination fee because the deal could not be completed. Anthem likely rushed its petition to the Supreme Court in hopes of using it to press the Delaware judge to extend the preliminary injunction that prevented Cigna from walking away, said antitrust expert Matthew Cantor, of the law firm Constantine Cannon LLP, in an interview. "I think that that judge should say 'No, I'm not going to extend" the injunction, said Cantor, pointing to Anthem's agreement that the deal could be scrapped if not completed by April 30. Cantor said the chances that the Supreme Court would take the case was low and the chance of Anthem winning was even lower. (Reporting by Caroline Humer in New York, Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru and Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Richard Chang) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Online social networking major has received a patent in India for a social advertising innovation that leverages on the activities of a user's friends or groups on a social network website to promote products to that user.In the patent specification filed with the Patent office, the company explains, "A social ad, for example, may inform a member that his friend/s has/have bought a particular product manufactured by an advertiser, or will attend an event sponsored by an advertiser, or has/have added a connection to a profile for a business or other entity." The company claims that while advertisers generally lean on user information to display the ads, which are no different than targeting of ads that exist in other contexts, they have not yet been able to exploit the relationships and connections among members of a social networking website in a meaningful way to present their advertising message to consumers. Commercial Feature is a Business Standard Digital Marketing Initiative. The Editorial/Content team at Business Standard has not contributed to writing or editing these articles. For further information, please write to assist@bsmail.in In a major restructuring in the PSU banking space, the government yesterday appointed heads of various public sector banks besides carrying out rejigs at PNB and Bank of India. PNB Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian has been shifted to relatively small Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank while head of Bank of India (BoI) Melwyn Rego will move to Syndicate Bank with immediate effect, according to an official statement. According to experts, the changes were made in these two public sector banks after a similar rejig at IDBI Bank because of their non-performance in tackling non-performing assets (NPAs). However, a senior finance ministry official said two changes have been made because the Department of Financial Services wanted to give longer tenure to heads of these two large banks. Last month, NPA-laden public sector lender IDBI Bank head Kishor P Kharat was shifted to Indian Bank. Mahesh Kumar Jain of Indian Bank was shifted to IDBI Bank. Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appointed Rajkiran Rai G, currently executive director of Oriental Bank of Commerce as MD and CEO of Union Bank of India for a period of three years. It is extendable up to May 2022 after review of his performance, the official statement said. Besides, R Subramaniakumar, currently executive director of Indian Overseas Bank, has been elevated to MD and CEO. Sunil Mehta, currently executive director in Corporation Bank, will head the country's second largest public sector bank PNB in place of Ananthasubramanian who has been shifted. Executive director of Canara Bank Dinabandhu Mohapatra has been promoted as MD and CEO of Bank of India. At the same time, ACC appointed R A Sankara Narayanan, executive director of BoI as MD and CEO of Vijaya Bank. Earlier in the day, the government empowered RBI to ask banks to initiate insolvency proceedings to recover bad loans, amounting to over Rs 6 lakh crore in case of state-owned lenders alone, and promised more measures to resolve the NPA crisis. Toxic loans of public sector banks (PSBs) rose by over Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 6.06 lakh crore during April-December of 2016-17, the bulk of which came from power, steel, road infrastructure and textile sectors. Gross NPA pf PSBs nearly doubled to Rs 5.02 lakh crore at the end of March 2016, up from Rs 2.67 lakh crore at the end of March 2015. Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Mgr Kleda W. Musa The President of the National Episcopal Council, NEC, Archbishop Samuel Kleda has ended a tour in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon where he met with stakeholders in the education sector of the Catholic Church. His seductive tour was aimed at watering down the tension within Catholic Bishops and Christians in the region after a recent court summon. Archbishop Kleda met with bishops of Mamfe, Kumba, Buea and Bamenda where he discussed the way forward. He was accompanied on his mission by Mgr Abraham Kome, Bishop of Bafang and the head of the sub commission for Justice and Peace and Fr Jervis Kebbei, vice Secretary General of the National Episcopal Conference, acting as notary and translator. The men of God expressed surprised at the fact that activities in Public schools were also paralyzed and not only catholic schools. In the respective areas Samuel Kleda urged the stakeholders to ask parents for a smooth return of their children to school, that dialogue is the only way out of this impasse, he admitted to have met strike leaders in January National Episcopal Conference, NEC, meeting in Mamfe, called for an end to hatred, suspicion civil disobedience, as well as intimidation and arbitrary arrests. Samuel Kleda discussing with Stakeholders (c) W. Musa The man of God said true peace, which is fullness of life, is built on solidarity and fraternity. He also affirmed that NEC has asked the state to respect the rights of all Cameroonians and apply their very 1996 constitution on decentralization. Archbishop Samuel Kleda regretted that summons of Anglophone bishops could create new problems not solution to older ones. HE ended by saying parents should help church foster its mission of education by taking children to school. Whereas all problems are important, schooling is urgent; because time waits for no one. However after his visit to the two English speaking regions, Fr5 Jumbam wrote a lengthily missive to him in which a selected text says, If situations were still as they used to be (by bishops not being able to be taken to court in the face of a pernicious silence demonstrated by their brother bishops), I would not hold my pen to write you and I would not have the heart to write this letter to so high an authority as you. Your public silence on the matter of the Bishops of our Church Province being taken to court has provoked this letter from a priest of the Church you belong. We are not unmindful of the history of La Republique du Cameroun when it concerns bishops betraying bishops. It is not yet clear whether Parents will send thei children to school as recommended by Samuel Kleda. "But then I saw Aleyathiah with so many tubes everywhere and the huge growth. I just bawled - not out of excitement to see her, but out of fear for what would come next." Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ... The oneness of humanity is the animating principle of the Bahai faith. A corollary is that women and men are equal partners in advancing civilization. The Bahai writings aver that The world of humanity has two wings one women, the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. These words were penned in 19th century Persia by Abdul-Baha, son of Bahaullah, the prophet-founder of the Bahai religion. Yet worldwide, the progress of women to achieve full equality has been uneven for example, even in the United States, we have yet to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. At a time when women worldwide were largely confined to the home, the Bahai teachings encouraged women to study science, engineering, agriculture, and other subjects designed to improve the human condition. In the 1870s, Bahais in Iran established schools that taught a curriculum highlighting science and math. In 1911, Bahais established the Tarbiyat School for Girls in Tehran, offering science, languages, math, and even gymnastics, more than 15 years before the government allowed physical education for girls. By 1934, when these schools were closed by government decree, at least 25 Bahai-run schools for girls were thriving in Iran. Against custom, no classes on religion were offered in these schools, and the schools were open to Bahais and non-Bahais alike. In 1918, Abdul-Baha wrote that education must be compulsory, and added that if funds in a family were insufficient to educate both the girl and the boy, the money must be dedicated to the girls education a profound and radical challenge to the status quo. More recently, in 1995, Beijing was host to the Fourth World Conference on Women, drawing 30,000 participants from around the world. The Bahai International Community launched a platform for action in advancing women from the standpoint of moral principle, as distinct from pure pragmatism. The Bahai International Community named the education of women and girls as the key to every countrys development, a theme adopted by the World Bank and now central to global development efforts. Another example is the Tahirih Justice Center. As a law student, Layli Miller-Muro was first shocked, and then galvanized by her experience with the plight of women seeking refuge from physical abuse in their home countries. In 1997, inspired by the principles of her Bahai faith, she launched the Justice Center in Washington, D.C. The center's advocacy led to changes in the law, and the center continues to advocate through the courts and legislatures. Since its founding, it has helped more than 22,000 people. Today, with offices in four U.S. cities, it is a national nongovernmental legal services and advocacy group that focuses primarily on immigrant women and girls. A wealth of information about the center is available online. This April, its fierce advocacy for immigrant women and children was described in The New York Times. Under the recent executive orders, immigrant women are less and less likely to seek help, especially as U.S. courts and churches cease to be places of protection and refuge. In an April 5, interview with Nicolas Kristof of The New York Times, Miller-Muro explains this situation in detail (goo.gl/VHRqTM). Our faith must lead us to action, to enacting laws and regulations that promote education for women and ensure their equality and legal protection. The still-undeveloped female wing cripples the entire human race every country, every political and economic system testifies to this weakness. Only when women equal men in strength, capacity, and knowledge will humanity truly soar. The next mayor will no doubt find himself leading the City Council through countless discussions on a subject that seems to have no clear solution at hand. LEBANON Ronda Pomeroy doesn't know Rialee Roth. But she does know Hodgkin's lymphoma, and the toll it can take on everyone in a family. So when Pomeroy learned the Lebanon 8-year-old was fighting cancer, she contacted Rialee's mother, Rhianna Roth, and asked what kinds of things might help. Rhianna said the family used to love to hunt for the painted rocks hidden by members of Linn County Rocks. Lately, however, the illness has robbed Rialee of the energy to look. "I thought, let's go get some rocks painted and do a rock hunt in her yard," Pomeroy said. "It started out, I got 10 rocks, and I thought, OK, that's cool. Then it just grew." By the time Rialee's surprise rock-hunt party rolled around Friday, Pomeroy had collected about 170 painted rocks, everything from mermaids to "Minecraft," Hello Kitty to a hot dog. She'd also found princesses Tiana and Belle otherwise known as Cherita Wilson, owner and manager of Princess Perfection of Corvallis; and Rebekah Baughman of Eugene to escort Rialee to the party. And she'd arranged for Rialee's chariot for the day: a Lebanon Fire District rescue truck (dad Josh Roth is a volunteer firefighter). In all, Pomeroy estimated about 100 people came together to give Rialee a special afternoon, from the painters to the volunteers who came out to hold signs, tie balloons and tuck rocks into hidden spots around the Roth yard. Like Pomeroy, some of them had never met Rialee before. Jeannette Wilder of Albany just heard about the event on the Linn County Rocks webpage and decided she needed to jump in. "And I took her out of school," Wilder said, nodding at daughter Melanie, 8, "because I think it's important for her to learn how to help somebody else." On Friday, Lebanon firefighters lifted the wide-eyed Rialee down from the truck and the princesses explained about the rock hunt. "We and you are going to help find each and every one of them! Does that sound like fun?" Wilson asked Rialee, who beamed and nodded vigorously. "It just felt like we had to do something. Childhood cancer is very unfair," said Pomeroy, whose oldest son, Chris, battled Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 16. Chris is 32 now and doing fine, a college graduate who's soon to be married. But the family went through some tough times, Pomeroy remembered. Every act of kindness made a difference. "I just want to see a smile on her face," Pomeroy said. "I know how many smiles made Chris feel better. It's important to keep that normalcy: 'This is just another hitch; we're going to get through it.'" Rialee smiled all through her hunt Friday, in spite of a chilly wind and smatterings of raindrops. With the help of her brother, Brantley, 4, and a few of the younger volunteers, she soon cleared two front yards' worth of painted rocks. Afterward, Wilson crowned Rialee an honorary princess, complete with tiara. Rhianna Roth said she knew something was wrong when her normally active 8-year-old suddenly had no energy. In January she started getting sick. She was really fatigued and just crummy-feeling. Thats when it started," Rhianna said. Doctors thought at first the second-grader was just fighting a virus and figured it would run its course. And from time to time, Rialee did seem to rally but then she'd get sick again. By March, Rhianna was looking for another opinion. She brought Rialee to the emergency room and asked for more tests. Although the nodes in Rialee's neck appeared normal, an ultrasound on her appendix and gall bladder revealed enlarged lymph nodes. Doctors recommended bringing her to Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland. The Roths spent a week at Doernbecher, where they learned Rialee was fighting both cancer and mononucleosis, which can both mimic and mask the symptoms of the cancer, Rhianna said. Oncologists still aren't 100 percent sure about the Hodgkin's lymphoma, as its presentation isn't exactly textbook, Rhianna said. But her team is moving forward with a treatment plan with that diagnosis in mind. "The oncologists at Doernbecher are great. Even when were not up there, they call every week to check on Rialee. They talk to you in normal person language and not doctor language, which is very, very helpful, Rhianna said. The family, she said, is holding up all right. As bad as it sounds, Hodgkin's is the most curable cancer, so we know shell be OK. Friends and family are rallying to make sure the Roths have what they need, especially financially. Rhianna has dropped her work schedule at Mid Valley EMTs to part time. Insurance isn't covering all of the tests and treatments Rialee is likely to need, and extra costs, such as travel, will take a toll on the family's finances. A GoFundMe site, "Rialee's Fight Against Cancer," has been established online at https://www.gofundme.com/rialeeanns-fight. A silent auction and cake walk is in the works for this summer. It makes Rhianna cry a little to think of the help they've received, and of the party a group of people she'd never met before gathered to throw for her little girl. The outpouring of, just, love from the community so far, its were so, is 'humbled' the right word for me to use?" she said. "Its incredible. The community we live in wants to make a complete strangers day. I just dont have the words." 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. Introduction to Computer graphics is a free online course offered by the UC San DiegoX, this course helps you to learn, to create images of 3D scenes in both real-time and with realistic ray tracing in this introductory computer graphics course. This course is a part of a Professional Certificate Program. Interested candidates can enroll in this online course, on or before June 1, 2017. About the course: Computer graphics is a central part of our lives, in movies, games, computer-aided design, virtual reality, virtual simulators, visualization and even imaging products and cameras. This course, part of the Virtual Reality (VR) Professional Certificate program, teaches the basics of computer graphics that apply to all of these domains. Students will learn to create computer-generated images of 3D scenes, including flybys of objects, make a real-time scene viewer, and create very realistic images with ray tracing. You will learn how to use real-time graphics programming languages like OpenGL and GLSL to create your own scene viewer, enabling you to fly around and manipulate 3D scenes. Also, this program will teach you to create highly realistic images with reflections and shadows using raytracing. What is learned? Understand the concepts of 3D graphics. Write and develop programs that create images of a 3D scene with lighting. Learn the basics of graphics programming with OpenGL and GLSL. Prerequisites: Solid C/C++ programming background (Java is ok too; you will pick up C++) Access to a relatively up-to-date computer (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) Solid high school mathematics; a review of the relevant linear algebra is included in the first segment. Duration of the course: Length: 6 weeks Effort: 12 hours per week Price: Free. Add a Verified Certificate for $99 Institution: UC San DiegoX Subject: Computer Science Level: Intermediate Languages: English Video transcripts: English For further information & to register click here Delft University of Technology Offers Online Course On Introduction To Aeronautical Engineering CORVALLIS Samaritan Health Services has temporarily withdrawn its application to annex land north of Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. Samaritan originally had hoped the annexation vote on its expansion plan could go before the voters in November. However, Samaritan Health Services CEO Larry Mullins said Thursday that the proposal needs more work, particularly on its transportation components. We just need some more time to do some traffic studies and engineering work, Mullins said. We received some good feedback from neighbors at our community meeting, and we want to be as responsive as possible. Samaritan briefed community residents on the plan at a Feb. 20 meeting at Samaritan Square. More than 50 people were on hand, with many expressing concerns about possible traffic challenges on Northwest Satinwood Drive should the road be extended through the Samaritan land to Highway 99W. Mullins said Samaritan will be attempting to look at ways for the traffic to be concentrated on the highway and Samaritan campus corridors to minimize the impact on neighborhoods. Mullins hopes to have the revised annexation plan ready in time to qualify the issue for the May 2018 ballot. The basic parameters of the Samaritan plan remain the same. The nonprofit health care provider wants to annex the 85 acres it owns to the north of the hospital campus into the citys stock of land. Samaritan plans to expand its hospital campus footprint, adding a mixture of specialty services, outpatient services, family health and mental health services and conference space on 17 acres. Housing is planned for about 55 of the acres. Residential construction is part of the plan, Mullins said, because Samaritan plans to use the revenue from the housing to help pay for the medical facilities. Samaritan still is talking with the city, Mullins said, on a plan to swap about 4 acres of city park land near the expansion area for a similar amount of land in the wooded north of the Samaritan property. Also, Samaritan is requesting 4.55 acres of city land for a stormwater facility. The city would retain ownership of the land, but Samaritan would be required to maintain it. The land exchange and the stormwater facility were the two biggest areas of concern expressed by members of the Corvallis Parks, Natural Areas and Recreation Advisory Board, which reviewed the proposal at meetings in October and November. The City Council discussed the plan in December. Mayor Biff Traber noted that a consensus was reached to continue the review but that such a move did not tie the city to any future action. Complicating the matter is a state law signed by Gov. Kate Brown in March 2016 that limits voter-approved annexations. The city of Corvallis, with support from Philomath and the League of Oregon Cities, has challenged the law, claiming that the law infringes on the home rule decision-making authority and restricts citizens rights to vote on annexations. Benton County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Donohue issued a summary judgment in February rejecting the citys challenge. The matter now is before the Oregon Court of Appeals, but Corvallis City Attorney Jim Brewer said no briefing schedule has been established. Meanwhile, two other annexation applications have been filed. They will be reviewed at a May 24 doubleheader of public hearings at the LaSells Stewart Center. Here is a look at the other two annexations: Caldwell Farms: The site is a 16.45-acre parcel south of West Hills Road. As county land, the parcel is zoned urban residential (UR-10). If the annexation is approved, the land, now a grass seed farm, would be zoned RS-12 (medium- to high-density residential), allowing for approximately 12 housing units per acre. The property is owned by Caldwell Farms, LLC of Corvallis. Marysville: This application involves more than 118 acres northeast of the Southwest 53rd/West Hills Road roundabout. The owners, CWTWH LLC of Corvallis, want to leave 9.5 acres as open space, receive a zone of mixed-use residential for approximately 18 acres and a designation of RS-12 for the remaining 90-plus acres. Several hundred housing units could be built on the property, now used as a tree farm. Volkswagens mea culpa for the dieselgate scandal means the company is focusing on developing electric vehicles for the United States but other brands in the Volkswagen Group arent quite ready to go diesel free. According to Car & Driver, Volkswagen intends to keep diesel engines out of the United States but Audi and Porsche could eventually bring them back. Citing high-ranking sources within the VW Group, the magazine is reporting the two premium brands will likely move ahead with the 3.0-liter TDI V6 engine. When asked for comment, Porsche declined to talk specifically about the U.S. market but pointed to a global statement which said the company continues to believe in the diesel [engine] and will offer the technology where customers demand it. Audi also seemed to praise the idea by saying For us, the diesel is far from dead. While Volkswagen will end up paying tens of billions of dollars for the dieselgate scandal, company officials believe they can make their diesel engine compliant with U.S. regulations. This seems possible as regulators approved the companys fix for the 3.0-liter TDI V6 engine which was used in an assortment of different models from both Audi and Porsche. Photo Gallery The world wont know just how fast the Bugatti Chiron is until 2018 but even still, the successor to the legendary Veyron has already captured the hearts and minds of enthusiasts around the world. Powered by an 8.0-liter W16 engine fed by four turbochargers, the Chiron produces 1500 hp but even more impressive than that huge figure is the design and development work that went into bringing the Chiron to life. In the National Geographic documentary below, we get an extensive look at the lengths the French manufacturer went to before unveiling the car at last years Geneva Motor Show and commencing production. If you love to geek out to research and development work, the clip below is well worth watching. VIDEO Photo: The Canadian Press Air Canada executives say the country's biggest airline is better positioned than it has been in more than a decade to respond to WestJet's plan for a new low-cost service. "We actually have many more tools at our disposal, which gives us a much better feeling and confidence that we are well-positioned to respond to whatever gets put in front of us," says Ben Smith, Air Canada's president of passenger airlines. The Montreal-based company (TSX:AC) has tested the use of its Rouge subsidiary on some domestic routes and could deploy its planes, as appropriate, to compete with a new WestJet basic service that is set to launch next year. In addition, premium seats could be removed from its Rouge and Air Canada planes to match the number of economy seats that WestJet's venture will have. Air Canada also has more flexibility because of the industry's move to charge lower fares but higher fees for checked bags, reserved seats and other things. WestJet (TSX:WJA) has estimated ultra-low-cost airlines could grow to account for five per cent of the Canadian market. However, Air Canada says the country faces impediments such as higher costs, including taxes, airport fees and security charges, that are different from the United States and Europe. Photo: Contributed Respiratory patients in the North Okanagan can breathe easier thanks to the TB Vets Charitable Foundation. The $16,300 donation to the Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation was used to purchase a high-frequency chest wall oscillation (HFCWO) generator and vests for the treatment and therapy of people with compromised airway clearance. HFCWO consists of a vest with an inflatable bladder, a pulse generator, and hose connecting the vest to the generator. Patients are fitted with a vest or wrap, then the Theravest machine delivers rapidly repeating pulses of air that squeeze and release the chest wall. This oscillation dislodges mucus from the bronchial walls, thins mucus, and helps to mobilize secretions up the airways to where they can be coughed or suctioned out. We try to get patients to use patient-controlled handheld devices first, but for those patients who are to acutely ill or chronically sick the Theravest does the work for them, said Michael MacAulay, North Okanagan cardiopulmonary professional practice lead at VJH. This therapy is used primarily with adults although the system is used for some pediatric patients who have an ineffective cough or poor secretion clearance. Moderate to severe patient conditions that may benefit from the Theravest include cystic fibrosis, pneumonia, atelectasis, aspiration, chronic bronchitis, muscular dystrophies and myopathies and quadriplegic patients. The Theravest will help many clients in Vernon and area that are struggling with their breathing when it comes to secretion clearance, said Kristen Hemsing, Registered Respiratory Therapist at VJH. The device is easy to operate and comfortable for the clients. How many people took time to read the story about Tracy Gray stating how she feels about Kelowna City Council budget and the hiring of 20 new staff positions? How many people sat and scratched their heads feeling amazed and confused? If you havent, you should. I sent a letter to castanet months back when this was initially brought up. Colin is all smoke and mirrors, its hard to read without rose coloured glasses on. I want to know how many people were impressed with what she had to say her comments and her position on this issue. I applaud Tracy Gray for stepping up and being honest and candid about her position on this. Transparency and accountability, so refreshing. These are the types of people we need to lead us. Mayor, Premier Christy, I hope you read this too! I want to know if Tracy is running for mayor next election she has my vote! Darlene Stewart Photo: Darren Handschuh Motorists are being encouraged to avoid Otter Lake Cross Road near Tolko in Spallumcheen because of flooding. Jay Keis works at the Armstrong Regional Co-op and said the road between Tolko and the Co-op is flooded. Tolko crews are working on it right now, Keis said Friday afternoon. Keis said the creek became backed up on the Tolko side of the road, causing water to spill over the blacktop. He is concerned about erosion from the fast-moving water and the possibility of an accident. It's like a river running down the road, he said. Photo: Contributed A man was taken to hospital after threatening to kill himself on a Shuswap highway. Salmon Arm RCMP Staff Sgt. Scott West said just before 6 p.m. Thursday, police received a call from a man who was threatening to commit suicide. The male was located by police on the median between the east and west lanes in the 300 block of Highway 1 in Salmon Arm, said West. A number of officers attended. Highway 1 was closed temporarily to preserve public safety while local RCMP officers spoke with the male, who was in possession of a knife at the time. After a period, police convinced the man to put down the knife, and they were able to take him into custody and transport him to the hospital. The incident ended well in this case with no harm coming to the male, the officers or any other member of the general public, said West. Photo: Twitter Mud jeans are so last week. The latest destroyed fashion item to light up social media is a ripped-up sneaker that sells for $1,425 at Neiman Marcus. Pictures on the department store's website show a white and yellow high-top sneaker with large holes, peeling leather and numerous scratches. Neiman Marcus says online that the sneakers have "heavy distressing," and are an example of Maison Margiela's "avant-garde fashion." Just last week, rival Nordstrom got its share of social media attention for selling dirty-looking jeans with caked-on mud for $425. A representative for Neiman Marcus did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Photo: The Canadian Press The trial of two fundamentalist church leaders charged with polygamy wrapped up in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday with the Crown arguing the bulk of marriage and personal records entered as evidence corroborate each other. Prosecutor Peter Wilson rejected suggestions from the defence that the records were unreliable in the trial of Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler, who are from the fundamentalist community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia, where residents are known for practising a religion that condones plural marriage. Blackmore's indictment lists 24 alleged marriages between 1990 and 2014, and Oler is accused of having five wives between 1993 and 2009. Justice Sheri Donegan said she will set a date next week for her decision, but it will be months away. Each man is charged with one count of polygamy. Both men served as bishops for the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Blackmore's lawyer Blair Suffredine said in closing arguments Thursday that records presented as evidence, some of which were incomplete, were unreliable and that the Crown had to prove the accused had both a marriage and conjugal relationship with multiple women over 24 years. Photo: The Canadian Press B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark at a campaign stop in Campbell River, Friday. NDP leader John Horgan campaigned Friday on southern Vancouver Island, where Green party officials say they have a chance of winning. He said the New Democrats have much in common with the Greens. "All of our common interests will be lost if we have four more years of Christy Clark," he told supporters at a campaign stop in Nanaimo. Horgan said the Greens and NDP support reforms to the electoral system, reducing greenhouse gases and oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Minutes after Horgan's comments, Green Leader Andrew Weaver arrived outside the venue where Horgan spoke. He said Horgan's appeal smacks of voter suppression. "I'm trying to inspire voters," said Weaver, who was on his way to campaign events on the Sunshine Coast. Photo: CTV RCMP say a 17-year-old youth has died of his injuries following a multi-vehicle collision in the Cloverdale area of Surrey. Police say he was one of three people hurt in two separate collisions on 64th Avenue on Wednesday night. Mounties say a black Cadillac failed to stop after colliding with a car and then rammed a Honda Prelude, slamming that vehicle into the pumps of a nearby gas station. Police say three people trapped in the Prelude were rescued by firefighters but the driver was critically injured while the passengers suffered serious injuries. A 22-year-old Surrey woman was arrested at the scene of the second crash and RCMP say they have not ruled out alcohol, drugs or speed as factors in the collisions. Police are asking for anyone who may have witnessed the incident on 64th Avenue and Highway 15 to contact them. Photo: TNRD Eleven properties have been evacuated west of Kamloops due to flooding in the area. The homes are near the community of Cherry Creek in Copper Desert Country. The Thompson-Nicola Regional District says the evacuations have been made because of the potential danger to life and health. The evacuations come on a day of widespread flooding throughout the Interior of B.C. Three homes have been evacuated in Kelowna due to flooding and a landslide, while about 90 homes in the Fintry Delta are under an evacuation alert. The TNRD has described the flooding near Cherry Creek as rapidly moving. The evacuated properties include: Photo: Contributed The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says Pinnacle Foods Canada Corporation is recalling Aunt Jemima Frozen Waffles and Frozen French Toast Slices due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The CFIA says distributors, retailers and food service establishments such as hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, hospitals and nursing homes should not sell or use the recalled products. The CFIA says the recalled products were sold to food service accounts nationally, but there have been no reported illnesses. The recalled items are Aunt Jemima Waffles, 144 count, 3.57 kilograms, with UPC code 1 00 19600 43575 1; Aunt Jemima Original Thin French Toast, 144 count, 6.1 kilogram, with UPC 0 00 19600 05870 0; and Aunt Jemima Thick French Toast, 72 count, 4.86 kilogram with UPC 0 00 19600 43560 0. Food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes may not look or smell spoiled. Symptoms can include vomiting, nausea, persistent fever, muscle aches, severe headache and neck stiffness. The CFIA says the recall was triggered by a voluntary recall in another country. Photo: The Canadian Press British Columbia's political party leaders have been frantically criss-crossing the province, making their final appeals to voters who might still be swayed before casting their ballots Tuesday. New Democrat Leader John Horgan, campaigning on Vancouver Island Friday where the NDP holds 11 of 14 seats, said undecided and Green voters should support the New Democrats in a strategic move to keep Christy Clark's Liberals from a fifth consecutive election win. "I'm appealing to those who are contemplating voting Green that we have a lot of concerns in common," he said. "I think we can all agree we can't afford four more years of Christy Clark." He said the NDP and Greens share similar positions on electoral reform, climate change and opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project. Green leader Andrew Weaver also campaigned on the Island Friday, and was unequivocal in his rejection of Horgan's invitation, denouncing the NDP offer as a form of voter suppression built on fear. Weaver said the Greens are looking to inspire voters, not scare them away from supporting a political party. The Greens hold just one seat in the legislature, but are believed to be challenging the NDP for several seats on Vancouver Island. Clark also made a stop on Vancouver Island during a whirlwind of campaigning on Friday that included events in Campbell River, Richmond, Terrace, Smithers and Prince George. She again warned supporters of the negative impact she insisted an NDP government would have on jobs. Clark accused Horgan of having more than 100,000 jobs on his "hit list," citing his opposition to resource projects including Pacific NorthWest LNG and Trans Mountain, along with his plan to hike the minimum wage. "We are going to stand strong to make sure that we support jobs in British Columbia. We are going to fight and we are going to fight hard to make sure that we preserve what we have in the face of U.S. protectionism," Clark said at an event in Campbell River. While water is receding in some areas of Armstrong, other parts of the community remain soaked. Early Saturday, the City of Armstrong declared a state of local emergency in response to flooding. Water along Smith Drive has receded to the point the road is now open to through traffic, but at least one parking lot in a strip mall along the road was still flooded as of 1 p.m. Several businesses stacked sandbags along storefronts and while there is no word on damage, it appears a few businesses were flooded. One local resident told Castanet she knew of at least two businesses that received some flood damage. There also appears to be several homes flooded on Willowdale Avenue near the intersection of Becker Road. Meghan Creek runs through the neighbourhood and water is reportedly up to a metre deep in some areas. Jennifer Genesse lives in a condominium complex 50 metres away from Willowdale Avenue, and said water is within a couple feet of her building. I went to bed at 10:30 last night and it was fine and my neighbour said by 11:30 the creek had spilled over completely, said Genesse. There's at least two to four feet of water depending on where you are. Like many people in the region, Genesse will be keeping an eye on the weather and hoping it does not rain anymore. They are predicting no more rain for the next few days. Let's hope they're right, she said. An ESS Information Centre has been opened at NorVal Arena on Park Drive. Water levels remain steady in low lying areas and have receded slightly in other areas, but some road closures remain in effect. Okanagan Street between Patterson Avenue and Wolfenden Terrace as well as the Patterson Avenue/Becker Street intersection are still closed. Fire Department personnel are manning barricades however emergency access is available if needed. Red Cross Emergency Support Services have been co-ordinated for affected residents including those who are displaced and require accommodation. Individuals needing assistance in that regard contact 1-888-800-6493. Residents are requested to stay clear of flooded areas and creeks. The City of Armstrong website will be updated regularly as new information is available. Missed Delivery? If missed delivery or wet paper please call our office 909-628-5501 ext 110 Leave a detailed message with name, address, and phone number. Readers must call before 1 p.m. on Saturday. Re-deliveries are available for Chino residents until 1 p.m. Saturdays. Click Here This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact The Chanute Tribune office at 620-431-4100 if you have any questions The winning entries for the 2017-18 Tennessee Wildlife magazine photo contest have been selected by staff members of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The selections will appear in the annual calendar issue of the magazine which will be available in early July. The staff selected the winning photographs from hundreds of submissions and had the challenge to narrow the entries to 13 photos that will appear in the calendar issue. The 2017-18 calendar will begin with the month of August. Other entries will be kept on file and could have the opportunity to appear in future agency publications and on the agencys website. The photographers with the winning 2017-18 entries are Paul Bay (Greenback), Ray Gobernatz (Palmyra), Ralph Hensley (Hiltons, Va.), Ron Jackson (Clarksville), Becky McRae (Bartlett), Holly Nelson (Rockwood), Richard Powers (Louisville, Tenn.), Brian Shults (Greenback), Rick Small (Rock Hill, S.C.), and Nicole Witzel (Nashville). The staff of Tennessee Wildlife offers congratulations to all of the winners and reminds photographers that if your photo was not chosen this year, your next years entry could be a winner. Rules and deadlines for the 2018-19 Tennessee Wildlife photo contest will appear in future issues of the magazine and also in the fall on the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agencys website, www.tnwildlife.org. Photographers will again be invited to submit their best photos on fishing and wildlife species native to the Volunteer State, and fishing and hunting scenes in Tennessee. Rumi Spice, a saffron import company founded by U.S. Army veterans, got a $250,000 investment from tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban on "Shark Tank" Friday night. Cuban will get 15 percent of the Chicago startup, which partners with Afghan farmers to produce, process and distribute saffron internationally. Co-founders Kimberly Jung, Emily Miller and Keith Alaniz asked the sharks for that amount, but only offered a 5 percent stake at first. Advertisement On the show, the founders told of their roles in Afghanistan: Miller supported live operations on night raids, Jung was a platoon leader looking for bombs, and Alaniz was an Afghan regional expert working with tribal elders. A fourth partner, San Francisco-based Carol Wang, was not at the taping of the show, which happened last September. Advertisement The founders had a couple of items made with the spice on hand, including a new gummy-like item called the saffron gem. Each of the five sharks was given a two-gram bottle of the spice while the team schooled the panel. On the show, Jung said Rumi Spice would have $400,000 in sales for 2016 and $750,000 for 2017. That's since been revised to $500,000 for 2016; they're expecting more than $1 million in 2017. One gram of saffron, which they said takes about 150 hours to make, retails for $18. The company charges restaurants $140 per ounce. It's expensive because no automation is involved in processing the spice, Jung said. Daymond John was the first shark to bow out, saying the market for the product would be limited because of the high price. Lori Greiner was impressed with Jung and Miller having attended West Point and Harvard Business School together, but took a pass on investing because she doesn't like saffron. Kevin O'Leary went out, saying the team had no real grasp of numbers after Jung admitted that she'd guessed about a 5 percent net income when asked. "For a couple of Harvard grads, I'm a little surprised that you don't have your model nailed down a little bit more," O'Leary said, before telling them they knew nothing about their money. After Cuban made the firm offer, Robert Herjavec revealed he was going to ask for a 25 percent stake. Advertisement "I think your mission is good. I think it's going to be impactful beyond your product," Cuban told the Rumi Spice team. "Striking a deal with Mark Cuban is a game-changer for the women in Afghanistan who work for us, the farmers in Afghanistan," Miller said. "Now we're going to have the ability to scale and bring our brand to all the consumers in America." Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer. Twitter @cherylvjackson Paul Kahan, the Chicago chef overseeing the restaurant empire that includes Blackbird, Avec, and The Publican, shared in the top prize at the 2013 James Beard Foundation Awards in New York Monday, winning in the outstanding chef category. Kahan shared the national award with another chef also operating a large dining portfolio: David Chang of New York's Momofuku Restaurant Group. For the Beards, regarded as the Oscars of the American culinary scene, it was the third tie for outstanding chef since the awards began 26 years ago. Advertisement "Did I expect to win? Never," said Kahan shortly after he accepted the medal. "It was super surreal (when they announced the tie). They said it was Chicago and New York, and I still wasn't sure if I won." This was Kahan's fifth nomination in the category. His win caps a noteworthy year for his One Off Hospitality restaurants they opened Publican Quality Meats in 2012, a butcher shop that centralized the group's meats and bread baking operations. This fall will see their newest, yet-to-be-named restaurant open in the old Sutton Place Hotel on Rush Street. Advertisement "It's not about me. It's about every person who's worked for me, past, present and future," Kahan said. "It's an award for all the hard work of over 500 employees. What we do, we do as a team." The last Chicagoan to win as outstanding chef was Alinea's Grant Achatz, a winner in 2008. Girl & The Goat's Stephanie Izard took the prize for Best Chef: Great Lakes, a regional award regarded as a stepping stone for future national consideration. Four of the five nominees this year were Chicagoans. A third local establishment was a winner Monday: The Aviary, the Next-adjacent cocktail lounge from Achatz and Nick Kokonas, took home the award for outstanding bar program. The ceremony was held at Lincoln Center in New York City. On Friday, the broadcast and journalism awards were held, and two Chicago outlets took home medals: Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader won the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award for "Chicken of the Trees," his story on preparing and eating the urban squirrel. WBEZ-FM's Nina Barrett and Lynette Kalsnes won in the Audio Webcast or Radio Show category for their series "Fear of Frying." A complete list of winners can be found here. (link to PDF) kpang@tribune.com Twitter @pang EDGEWATER A restaurant called Pita O Grill was awarded its serving license in Edgewater last month, according to city records. A verified Yelp page indicates that the fast-casual spot, which offers Mediterranean food, is now open. 1103 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., 773-516-4091 We often forget about pie for dinner. Not pie for dessert, but pie at the center of the menu. The good old-fashioned chicken pot pie would be one example; others are shepherd's pie (made with ground lamb) and cottage pie (made with ground beef), both topped with mashed potatoes. There's another kind of main-dish pie that may be less familiar the "hand-raised" pie. These pies rely on a hot water pastry that is sturdy enough to stand alone while baking. They were traditionally made by shaping the dough into a deep cup by pushing the dough up around the outside of a cylindrical kitchen tool called a pie dolly. Advertisement The most famous of these old "coffin pies" so named when "coffin" merely meant a basket or a box, a reference to the freestanding pastry case that held the filling is probably England's Melton Mowbray pork pie. Melton Mowbray in Leicester is famous for Stilton cheese; whey left over from cheese-making went to the hogs and the meat from those pigs often ended up in these savory pies of uncured highly seasoned chopped pork. The same was true in Parma, Italy, where whey left after making Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese was fed to the pigs used to produce prosciutto di Parma. Fox-hunting gentry in the late 1700s discovered Melton Mowbray pie in Leicester, seeing their grooms and servants eating the savory treat, and soon favored it because its crust made the pie possible to eat while riding to hounds. Advertisement The hot-water crust needed for these pies is not as delicate in both the making and the eating as the more familiar ice-water pastry. But don't let that dissuade you. It is only slightly less so. It is, however, much easier to work with. Its Play-Doh pliability makes for all sorts of interesting possibilities. Since Melton Mowbray pork pie is a protected name, we offer here an Americanized version, using a mix of cured and uncured pork, highly seasoned not just with salt and pepper, but also with sage, allspice and mace. The versatile hot-water pastry also works well with a steak and stout pie, a variant on the traditional steak and ale pie. Wild mushrooms add additional meatiness. Both are worthy guests at your autumnal dinners. Robin Mather is a freelance writer and the author of "The Feast Nearby," a collection of essays and recipes from a year of eating locally on a budget. 3 little pigs pie Prep: 45 minutes Cook: 1 hour 30 minutes Advertisement Makes: 4 to 6 servings Here's an American take on the traditional British pork pie. You could switch a good smoked ham for the bacon in this recipe, if you wish. The filling will shrink a bit in cooking, so pack it into the crust quite firmly. The allspice and mace lend a counterpoint to the sage; please do not omit them. Filling: 1 pound pork shoulder, lean and fat included, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1 pound mild bulk pork sausage 1/4 pound bacon, chopped Advertisement 2 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1 teaspoon dried sage, crumbled 1/2 teaspoon each: ground allspice, ground mace Salt and freshly ground black pepper Pie: 1 recipe hot water pastry, see below Advertisement Gelatin: 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin 2 cups ham or chicken stock 1 For the filling, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl; mix with your hands or a wooden spoon until well blended. Set aside until you have the pastry ready to fill. The filling may be made up to a day in advance; refrigerate, covered, until you're ready to use it. 2 Follow the crust directions to form, fill and bake the pie. When the pie has baked and cooled, prepare the gelatin. Dissolve the gelatin in 2 tablespoons cold water, and let stand, 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the stock over medium-high heat until nearly boiling. Remove from heat; whisk in the gelatin until the gelatin has completely dissolved. 3. Pour the gelatin mixture, little by little, through the vent in the lid of the pastry. Allow each addition of the mixture to "percolate" in and around the filling before the next addition. You may not need all the stock. Advertisement 4. Refrigerate the pie at least overnight before serving. Nutrition information per serving (for 6 servings): 515 calories, 29 g fat, 13 g saturated fat, 116 mg cholesterol, 38 g carbohydrates, 6 g sugar, 25 g protein, 496 mg sodium, 2 g fiber Steak and stout pie is best with a mix of fresh or dried wild mushrooms. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune) Steak and stout pie with mushrooms Prep: 75 minutes Cook: 1 hour 50 minutes Makes: 6-8 servings Advertisement You'll want the gravy for this pie very stiff, so its savory goodness doesn't run away in serving. Use a good stout for fullest flavor, such as Bell's Kalamazoo Stout or, of course, Guinness. You can certainly use button or cremini mushrooms for this sturdy pie, but a mix of fresh or rehydrated dried wild mushrooms will crown its glory. If using fresh mushrooms, skip the soaking; add the stout in step 4 and the fresh mushrooms in step 5. 1 cup stout beer 2 packages (1/2 ounce each) dried wild mushrooms, or 8 ounces fresh wild mushrooms 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 slices bacon, chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed, chopped Advertisement 2 pounds beefsteak, such as round or sirloin, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1/2 cup flour 1 1/2 cups beef stock 1 package (10 ounces) fresh pearl onions, peeled 2 large carrots, peeled, diced 1 teaspoon dried thyme Advertisement 1 bay leaf 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled Salt and black pepper, to taste 1 recipe hot water pastry, see below 1 Heat the stout in a small saucepan over medium-high heat to nearly boiling. Place the dried mushrooms in a heat-proof bowl. When the stock is hot, pour it over the mushrooms; cover loosely and set aside to cool while the mushrooms rehydrate, at least 30 minutes. (If using fresh mushrooms, treat them the same way.) When the mushrooms have plumped, strain their soaking liquid to remove any grit and reserve. Chop the mushrooms coarsely. Set aside. 2 In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chopped bacon; cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp and has rendered its fat, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic; cook, stirring, until golden, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Remove bacon and garlic from pan; transfer to a small bowl and set aside. Advertisement 3 Toss the beef cubes with the flour, coating them generously. Reserve any remaining flour. Add beef to the skillet and brown on all sides, 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer beef to the bowl with bacon and garlic; set aside. 4 Stir any remaining flour into the hot fat; cook, whisking constantly, until flour is well browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the reserved mushroom liquid and the beef stock, whisking to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture is very thick, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat. 5 Return mushrooms and beef mixture to skillet; stir to combine with gravy. Add the pearl onions, carrots, thyme and bay leaf; stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 6 Line an 8-inch springform pan with three-quarters of the pastry, reserving one quarter to roll out for the lid. Use your hands to gently work the pastry up the sides of the pan, all the way to the top. 7 Place beef mixture in lined springform pan. Roll out the remaining quarter of the dough to make a lid for the pie. Place the lid on the pie and crimp edges tightly to seal. Make a hole in the center of the lid to vent steam; brush the top with the beaten egg yolk. 8 Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Serve hot with mashed or boiled potatoes. Advertisement Nutrition information per serving (for 8 servings): 445 calories, 19 g fat, 8 g saturated fat, 104 mg cholesterol, 37 g carbohydrates, 3 g sugar, 30 g protein, 172 mg sodium, 2 g fiber Hot water pastry Prep: 30 minutes Cook: 5 minutes, plus baking time Makes: Enough for a double-crust pie This traditional pastry is far easier to handle than the more familiar ice-water type, and it's sturdy enough to make the tall, sturdy meat pies so favored in England, which are much like the French pate en croute and often served cold. This pliable, Play Doh-like pastry will not be as tender and flaky as an ice-water crust, but it has its own charm. Advertisement 2 cups flour, plus a little extra for dusting 1 pinch of salt 1/4 cup water, or 2 tablespoons water and 2 tablespoons whole milk 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) butter, lard or shortening Glaze: 1 large egg yolk, beaten Advertisement Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > 1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt; whisk until well-combined. Set aside. 2. Place water and butter or lard into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook until the fat has melted; turn heat to medium-high and bring just to the boil. 3. Immediately pour the fat-water mixture over the flour mixture and stir until a soft, pliable dough forms. Tip the dough out onto a counter dusted with flour and, while the dough is still hot, knead it lightly and quickly. It's OK if you can only work the dough for a moment at a time but this dough becomes harder to work with as it cools. 4. Pinch off about a quarter of the dough, pat it into a disk and set it aside, covered with plastic wrap. This will be the lid. 5. Roll the rest of the dough into a flattened disk and use it to line an 8-inch springform pan, using your hands to work the dough up the sides as high as the top of the pan. Place your filling into the pastry, then quickly roll out the disk you set aside for the lid into a disk big enough to seal the filled pie. Place lid atop filled pie; crimp edges to seal well. Make a hole in the center of the lid to vent steam and brush the lid with the beaten egg yolk. 6. Bake the filled pie at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until golden brown. Remove the filled pie from the oven and cool completely at room temperature. If the recipe you're following requires it, when the pie is fully cooled, pour the gelatin through the vent, little by little, to fill in any gaps where the filling shrank from the crust in baking. Refrigerate the pie overnight, and serve chilled. Advertisement Nutrition information per serving (for 6 servings): 248 calories, 13 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 61 mg cholesterol, 29 g carbohydrates, 0 g sugar, 4 g protein, 28 mg sodium, 1 g fiber Humanity needs a new planet -- preferably one like Talos IV from Star Trek. (CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images) The eminent British physicist Stephen Hawking has just killed everybody's buzz by announcing humans have only 100 years to leave the planet Earth. Or die. Advertisement Hawking isn't kidding. And when British scientists issue dire warnings even when they're not speaking in British accents we must do what they say, immediately. Or die. Advertisement "I'm not going anywhere," said a fellow who doesn't give two figs. "I'm going to die right here with the planet." And I can picture him sitting on his porch, in a Brooks Brothers casual look khakis, oxford shirt and sweater and a double Manhattan in his hand, wryly smiling as all of humanity freaks out and dies. But I'm not going to be one of them. I'm going to find a new planet and live, just like Stephen Hawking demands. It's possible, isn't it? As another great scientist once said: Life finds a way. And it's not every day that Stephen Hawking gives humanity 100 years to live on earth. While the universe is full of planets, the ones we can reach with our primitive technology aren't appealing. Mars, for example, is downright revolting. It's cold. It's dry. And nobody wants to fly to Mars and plant potatoes in human waste like Matt Damon and eat them. Nobody. My wife and she's not alone among women would rather die than use a port-a-potty. If Stephen Hawking told her that she must grow her food using human waste as soil, she'd choose death. Though I admire Hawking a great deal, I wouldn't like that. Advertisement Other planets are poisonous, or too cold or too hot. It might be best if Stephen Hawking uses his big brain to dream up new, cool planets that people want to live on, so that after he's dreamed them, we may colonize them. "I want a planet like Iceland, where you can wear pajamas all day and drink, the way my grandma does," said a woman who's planning a trip to Iceland. "And great seafood." That's Finland, I said. In Finland, there's a word for thinking about staying home and drinking in your underwear. Kalsarikannit. "Well, some Scandinavian planet then," she said. "Where you can drink in your pajamas." Another guy wants to get to the planet Westeros, the land of HBO's "Game of Thrones." Advertisement "I won't live above The Wall; it's too cold," he said. "I'm not going to King's Landing, where you might run into Lannisters. Not Braavos, where I'd probably get killed in a duel. "I opt for Dorne, where it's hot and relaxed, and people wear loose-fitting clothes," he said. "Tell Stephen Hawking I want to live in Dorne." In Dorne, a Mediterranean-style land where everyone has sex all the time, eating ripe fruit and plotting revenge? "It's my universe. My planet. Westeros and Dorne," he said, and I could tell by his eyes he was already there. "Yes. I could live in Dorne." The problem, of course, is that bothersome Hawking. Only a few months ago, before freaking out the world by saying we only had 100 years to leave, Hawking said we had 1,000 years to leave Earth. Or die. Advertisement By that time humanity would certainly have developed warp drive and transporters to visit the habitable planets of the galaxy and gently interact with the lusty humanoids, some in furs. The only thing, as everyone knows, is that while we may satisfy our needs and theirs, we must not interfere with their primitive cultures. In 1,000 years, we'll most likely have survived our own Earth wars: Like the War of Superior Genetically Modified Warlords and later the Wars of AI Domination, in which machines take over and speak to us as if we're stupid apes in velvet suits before piercing our skulls with thin metal rods to experiment on our primitive brains. But that was 1,000 years from now, giving us enough emotional time to deal with our problems. Now Hawking has cut that time dramatically by a factor of a lot, saying we only have 100 years to find a new planet, or our species will be exterminated. Hawking said so while hawking his soon-to-be-broadcast new BBC documentary, "Expedition New Earth." Advertisement "Professor Stephen Hawking thinks the human species will have to populate a new planet within 100 years if it is to survive," the BBC reported. Sadly, the money to pay for the development of the technology we'll need doesn't grow on trees. Weirdly, many American politicians and journalists think money shouldn't stand in the way of handing out "free stuff." But I've found the planet for them. The Big Rock Candy Planet, where everything is free and the people are grateful to those who give them "stuff." On the Big Rock Candy Planet, the handouts grow on bushes, and the sun shines every day on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees, until it starts looking exactly like Venezuela. Now I figure the best planet we could find would be Talos IV, which will be discovered centuries from now by the federation starship USS Enterprise. Advertisement The Talosians have skinny arms but big brains. They live not in the real world but in the virtual world. Their lives are woven from the dreams of others. Some might think Talosians are rather American. But what truly matters is that Stephen Hawking has said that we humans must leave our planet. Or die. Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast, with John Kass and Jeff Carlin, at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/category/thechicagoway. jskass@chicagotribune.com Twitter @John_Kass Semaj Crosby was buried in a pink dress and silver tiara, far from the squalid conditions in which she had lived. Hundreds of mourners filled a Joliet church Friday to say goodbye to the 17-month-old girl whose disappearance set off a frantic search, which ended 30 hours later when her body was found under a couch in a filthy home later deemed uninhabitable. Advertisement But more than a week after the grisly discovery, which sparked another crisis for Illinois' scandal-ridden child welfare agency, the toddler's death remains shrouded in mystery. Disturbing questions about whether warning signs were missed and what more might have been done by the Department of Children and Family Services, as well as other public agencies whose employees were in and out of the home in Semaj's final months, remain unanswered. DCFS Director George Sheldon is contemplating a move to a large Florida nonprofit just two years after his arrival. Roiled by Semaj's death, Sheldon met Friday with several Will County leaders and brainstormed ways to strengthen community support for struggling families. Advertisement "There can be some positive coming out of this," he told the Tribune afterward. Asked if the toddler's death would be a factor if he leaves, Sheldon said, "If anything, it's an encouragement to stay." Authorities with the Will County sheriff's office continue to characterize the tragedy as a "suspicious death." An autopsy revealed no signs of trauma to Semaj's body, and results from toxicology tests may take another three to four weeks. Detectives reviewed "a portion of the lab tests" Thursday, but they declined to make public whether that shed any light on how the girl died. In the latest twist, the morning after the child was laid to rest, a fire swept through the small house where Semaj had lived, destroying it. Nobody was injured, and authorities investigating the blaze Saturday said arson was suspected. Her mother, Sheri Gordon, lived in the small rental in the 300 block of Louis Road in Joliet Township for at least a year, according to authorities. They said it wasn't clear who was in the home when Semaj died. In fact, as one sheriff's official put it, as many as 15 squatters would "come and go as they please." Among those living there was a convicted felon who served two stints in prison for aggravated battery and was on probation at the time for a 2016 attack on an ex-girlfriend, the Tribune has learned through interviews and public records. Will County probation officials had been to the home some 40 times in the past year or more to check on the man, probation authorities confirmed. Police took him into custody hours before Semaj's body was found for various probation violations, including that the probation officers smelled marijuana in the home during one visit and that he was under DCFS investigation for a complaint unrelated to Semaj. There is no indication from public records that he is a suspect in Semaj's death or was in the home the day she died. Authorities with the sheriff's office responded to Semaj's house 14 times over the past year as well, they said, though most of the calls were not serious enough to warrant a written report, including two times when they said deputies delivered Easter baskets to the children. DCFS has been working with Gordon since September after receiving repeated hotline calls alleging neglect.The agency deemed four of the investigations unfounded, meaning they did not find credible evidence of neglect, but two probes that began in March remained open. In fact, a DCFS investigator was at the home just three hours before Gordon, 32, reported Semaj missing. Advertisement About 3:20 p.m. April 25, the investigator saw Semaj and two of her three older brothers and found "no obvious safety concerns or hazards at the time," an agency spokeswoman said. The third sibling was not home at the time. Shortly after 6 p.m., Gordon called police to report her daughter missing. At the time, authorities said the child was last seen barefoot in dark blue jeans and a gray shirt with a cat on the front, her dark hair up in several ponytails held with white-beaded ties. A desperate search in the neighborhood ensued, as Gordon and other relatives made pleas in televised interviews for Semaj's safe return. Some 30 hours later, sheriff's police and FBI agents gained consent to search the home. Within an hour, investigators said they discovered the toddler's body under a dingy couch. The couch did not have legs and was flush to the floor. Rick Ackerson, deputy chief of the sheriff's office, said as many as five to 15 people lived at the home at any given time some friends or relatives would stay for a while and then move out and referred to them as "squatters." The Will County Land Use Department deemed the house uninhabitable, and photos released through open records requests showed squalor. The house did not have a working stove, and its doors were blocked by containers of clothes, garbage and other items, making it difficult to open the doors and thus creating a safety hazard, county officials said. Mounds of clothing covered soiled carpets, and the home was infested with roaches and bedbugs. The conditions were so unkempt, a disgusted Will County judge overseeing the placement of Gordon's three other children this past week demanded all DCFS cases in the county be brought to her courtroom. Judge Paula Gomora chastised DCFS for failing to act on the red flags. Advertisement "Quite honestly, from what I saw, I don't know how any caseworker could've walked into that house and let those children stay," she said. "If there were reasonable efforts (by caseworkers), those children would've been removed a long time ago." A DCFS attorney present in Gomora's courtroom said the agency's investigator noticed the filthy conditions in the home that day and instructed the mother to clean it up. Besides the DCFS investigator, a caseworker with Children's Home + Aid was last in the home April 24, officials said. DCFS hired the private nonprofit child welfare agency to work with Gordon as part of its voluntary intact family services program. The caseworker had been making weekly visits to the home to try to help the single mother better care for her children. Gordon, who declined to comment, has been described by relatives and authorities as an overwhelmed but loving mother. The Children's Home + Aid worker had been meeting with her for several months and provided her with cleaning supplies, a vacuum cleaner and bunk beds. She promised to return in three days to check in, but by then, it was too late. "This is a colossal tragedy that never had to happen," Gomora said. In their most recent statement to the media, sheriff's officials Friday urged the public to be patient with its "tireless work on this case." Advertisement "No one is in custody," the news release said. "No one has been ruled a suspect, nor has any person been ruled out as a suspect." The child's father, James Crosby, also has declined comment. He was in custody at the time of his daughter's death on an unrelated theft charge, but a judge granted the 25-year-old Romeoville man's release to attend his daughter's funeral. He and Gordon, who have one other child together, embraced at their daughter's funeral Friday while standing before her tiny white casket. The word "Princess" was written in purple letters on the inside of the open lid. Mourners, some wearing white "Team Semaj" sweatshirts, filed past the girl's casket, which was draped in pink netting and surrounded by balloons and flowers at the Prayer Tower Ministries Church of God in Christ in Joliet. "Let us leave this room determined that we're not going to let any more families fall through the cracks," pastor Warren Dorris told the crowd. "We're going to challenge ourselves; we're going to use this incident to challenge ourselves and the community to do better." Advertisement Semaj was the little child "leading" the community to do better, Dorris said. Still, much of his eulogy was directed at DCFS. "They have failed," he said, sparking applause. "They should be held accountable for what has happened here." He referred to DCFS as "Disconnected Family Safety." On Friday, DCFS' Sheldon had three meetings with various leaders in the Joliet area two near the home where Semaj lived. Sheldon suggested coming to Joliet after a hearing before a state Senate panel Wednesday, said state Sen. Pat McGuire, D-Joliet. "The director has opened the lines of communication," McGuire said after the meetings. "He's made a commitment to continue sharing information and doing what we need to do to heal the wound that this death has inflicted on the community." In his meetings, Sheldon promised to keep officials informed of the results of a quality assurance review he has ordered of the agency's handling of the case. Advertisement "The director wants to get to the bottom of this," McGuire said. "(He said) if DCFS erred, he will take responsibility for that and he will work to do his best to see that nothing like this happens again." Sheldon also said he was optimistic because of community leaders offering help. He said some of the meetings focused on how different organizations, including faith-based groups, could help struggling families with food or money for garbage disposal. "We all bring something to the table," he said. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > But Sheldon's future in Illinois remains unclear. Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed him in February 2015, following high-profile child deaths and other agency scandals. Sheldon has blamed the frequent change of leadership for Illinois' failures to protect some children and teen wards, as well as families. Sheldon has touted various reforms since his arrival, but his resolve to remain in Illinois in recent days has been tested. Besides facing criticism over Semaj's death, the Tribune recently examined some contracts and hires by Sheldon and found ties stretching back to his time in Florida. Earlier in the week, in regards to Semaj, he opined about the important responsibility his agency faces. Advertisement "Is there anything we missed? If we did, how did we miss it and what are the protocols that should be put in place?" Sheldon said. "We need to learn from this." Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter. Christy Gutowski is a Tribune reporter. cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com Twitter @christygutowsk1 A man was found dead in a Berwyn home following a fire Friday, authorities said. The man, who had not yet been identified, was pronounced dead at 1:30 p.m. at the scene in the 3300 block of South Home Avenue in the west suburb, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Advertisement Emergency crews were called to the home late Friday morning following a report of smoke and fire coming from the house, according to a news release from Berwyn police. When police arrived, they saw heavy smoke and fire coming from the roof and some windows. Firefighters from Berwyn and other area fire departments were able to put out the fire, and when firefighters searched the home, they found the man dead, according to the release. Advertisement Police have identified the 64-year-old owner of the home, but had not been able to confirm that he was the man found dead, according to the release. The Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal is working with fire investigators to find the cause of the fire. Police and fire investigators are working together to establish how the man died and his identity. An autopsy was expected to be performed Saturday. Police dispatch audio lays out some of the events in the shooting of two Chicago police officers in the Back of the Yards neighborhood May 2, 2017. The audio has been edited for length and clarity. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune) (Nuccio Dinuzzo / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune) A reputed gang member has been charged for his alleged role in the shooting of two plainclothes Chicago police officers earlier this week in the South Side's Back of the Yards neighborhood. Angel Gomez, 18, was charged Saturday night with two counts each of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Advertisement Sources familiar with the investigation said Gomez was the alleged driver of a Chrysler minivan that was involved in the Tuesday night shooting in the 4300 block of South Ashland Avenue. The suspected shooter a passenger in the minivan who investigators believe used a military-style semi-automatic rifle to shoot the two Deering District tactical officers remains at large. Advertisement Angel Gomez, 18, has been charged for his alleged role in the shooting of two plainclothes Chicago police officers in the South Side's Back of the Yards neighborhood. (Chicago Police Department) It's unclear whether the shooter knew that the unmarked, covert van carried officers or he thought they were rival gang members, police said. A source said the suspects are reputed members of the La Raza street gang, one of four Hispanic gangs believed to be responsible for about three dozen shootings tied to semi-automatic rifles in Back of the Yards and the nearby Brighton Park neighborhood since early 2016. The two tactical officers one wounded in the arm and hip and the other in the back were shot shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday. The officers returned fire, but they apparently didn't hit anyone, the department said. Their van was riddled with bullet holes, Guglielmi has said. Both officers were released from Stroger Hospital the next day. One of them is the son of a high-ranking Chicago police official. Police believe there was only one shooter who opened fire from the Chrysler minivan, according to a source familiar with the case. Police have been looking into whether the officers were followed just before the shooting. The minivan was found by police Tuesday night after the shooting near 37th Street and Racine Avenue in the Bridgeport neighborhood, less than 2 miles away, and a rifle was recovered nearby, police have said. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 17 Police officers gather outside Stroger Hospital after Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson spoke to the news media about the shooting of two officers in the 4300 block of South Ashland Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on May 2, 2017. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune) Investigators have reviewed video from surveillance cameras at two businesses near the shooting scene to try to determine whether the shooting was recorded, employees said. Advertisement The officers were investigating a gang-related shooting that occurred earlier in the evening about 6:30 p.m. near 18th and Halsted streets in the Pilsen neighborhood, about 3 1/2 miles northeast of where the officers were shot, police said. In that earlier shooting, a 15-year-old boy was wounded in the left leg. Police said either that victim or people he was with at the time were affiliated with La Raza. In February, the Tribune reported that gangs in Back of the Yards and Brighton Park were increasingly using rifles. Police said that was the only area of the city where rifles styled after AR-15s and AK-47s were regularly used, a menacing new development in the gang fights. At the time, there had been more than 30 shootings believed to have been tied to semi-automatic rifles in the two neighborhoods over the previous nine months. At least 46 people were shot in those attacks, 13 fatally. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Police suspected the rifles were being passed around by members of four rival Hispanic gangs in the area La Raza, the Almighty Saints, Satan Disciples and Gangster Two-Six. Before Tuesday, the last time a Chicago police officer was shot was Nov. 27 in the West Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side. That officer suffered a graze wound to the forehead while police exchanged gunfire with Richard Grimes. Officers fatally shot Grimes, 33, who police said had just shot his pregnant fiancee in the abdomen. Gomez was arrested in Back of the Yards in January on misdemeanor gun and drug charges, authorities said. Information about the case's status in Cook County court wasn't immediately available Saturday night. According to a police report in that incident, officers responded to a call of a male shooting at a car and running up to the second floor of a nearby residence near 48th and Throop streets. When the officers arrived, they caught up with Gomez at his home and found three handguns in his possession, two of them loaded, the report stated. Advertisement One of the loaded guns had an extended magazine. The report stated that Gomez acknowledged to police he did not have a valid firearm owner's identification card. The report also stated Gomez had marijuana in his possession and police found pellet guns at his home. When Gomez was arrested, he told police that he had been carrying the guns for protection and "holding them for his friends," the report stated. He said this was all in light of the killing of one of his friends, who Gomez said was slain by members of the Almighty Saints, rivals of La Raza. jgorner@chicagotribune.com Twitter @JeremyGorner Police are asking for the public's help finding a girl who went missing three days ago in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood. Shaunquette Clark, 15, was last seen May 3 in the area of the 300 block of East 59th Street. She was wearing a black leather jacket with sequins on the shoulders, jeans and white Jordan gym shoes, police said. Advertisement Clark is known to frequent the areas of 64th Street and Calumet Avenue, and 61st Street and King Drive, police said. She is described as black with a light complexion, black hair with blue and green highlights, and brown eyes. She is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, and weighs about 105 pounds, police said. Advertisement Anyone with information on her whereabouts should contact police at 312-747-8380. Derrick Glass is accused of holding four people hostage for five days in Elkhart, Ind. Glass was arrested Tuesday, May 2, 2017, after he allowed one of his alleged hostages to go shopping. (Elkhart County Sheriffs Department via AP) ELKHART, Ind. A northern Indiana man raped a female friend and held her and two other women captive for as long as five days because he was angry that the friend was telling others that he had shot at someone, court documents say. Derrick Glass is accused of drugging, raping, starving, assaulting, threatening and forcing the woman to cook, clean and sleep naked on the floor next to him from April 28 to May 2 - all while armed with a .40-caliber handgun, The Elkhart Truth reported Saturday. Advertisement Glass, 31, faces one count of rape, three counts of criminal confinement, two counts of battery, all while armed with a deadly weapon, plus four counts of pointing a loaded firearm at someone. He's being held Elkhart County Correctional Facility on $1 million bond. After an April 22 shooting in which no one was injured, Glass spent a few days in Indianapolis before meeting the friend in Elkhart, where he asked her and another woman to sell some synthetic marijuana for him, documents said. Advertisement While the two were gone, Glass heard the friend had mentioned his involvement in the shooting to another person, the documents said. When the two returned to his apartment, he pushed a large dining table against the door of the apartment and punched his friend in the face repeatedly. Glass pulled out a loaded .40-caliber handgun, put the barrel in his friend's mouth and threatened to kill her, documents said. He told both women that they could not leave, confiscated their cellphones and threatened to shoot anyone who did not obey him. Glass also forced a third woman who came to the apartment on May 2 to remove her clothes, hit her in the head multiple times and held her hostage, police said. The woman had gone to the apartment to buy drugs. Police initially said Glass held four people hostage, but court documents say only Glass' friend and the woman with her were held against their will the entire five days. A fourth woman and two other men who also reside in the apartment were present the entire time, but did not help the captive women. Glass allowed the woman who initially accompanied his friend to leave the apartment several times during five days to sell synthetic marijuana for him. On the evening of May 2, he sent her out again to make a drug deal, but this time she called a friend who drove her to the Elkhart Police Department headquarters. Someone broke into a half-dozen North Side cellphone stores early Friday, police said in a business alert Saturday. The burglaries took place in the Lakeview, Lakeview East, West Rogers Park and Uptown neighborhoods, according to a community alert. The burglar or burglars broke windows and entered the businesses, then stole merchandise, according to the alert. Advertisement Police did not have a detailed description of the burglar or burglars. The alert described one burglar, whose race, sex and age were unknown, and who was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, a mask and gloves. Surveillance photos were not released. The burglaries took place Friday: Advertisement About 6 a.m. in the 2800 block of North Broadway. About 5:45 a.m. in the 4800 block of North Broadway. About 4:50 a.m. in the 4400 block of North Broadway. Just before 4:40 a.m. in the 1900 block of West Peterson Avenue. Just before 4:30 a.m. in the 6200 block of North Western Avenue. And just before 4:10 a.m. in the 3900 block of North Ashland Avenue. Anyone with information about the burglaries is asked to call Area North detectives at 312-744-8263. Chicago police Sgt. Arshell Dennis, right, listens to Detective Brendan Deenihan at police headquarters May 5, 2017, as he gives details of the charges against Anthony Moore, the teen accused of shooting and killing his son Arshell Dennis III the previous summer. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune) Bail was denied Saturday for the reputed gang member who authorities say fatally shot the son of a veteran Chicago police officer, incorrectly assuming the young man was a rival gang member. With the victim's police officer father watching from a courtroom gallery, shaking his head apparently in disbelief, Judge Donald Panarese Jr. denied bond for Anthony Moore, 18,at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, calling him a threat to the public. Advertisement Moore, a reputed member of the M.O.B. faction of the Gangster Disciples whose street name was "Gramz," is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the Aug. 14, 2016, shooting death of Arshell "Trey" Dennis III and the wounding of one of Dennis' friends. Dennis was one of nearly 100 people killed last August in Chicago, the deadliest month of 2016 for homicides in Chicago. Moore, of the 7900 block of South Sawyer Avenue, had already been in custody on a charge of possession of a stolen motor vehicle when officials charged him in Dennis' slaying. Advertisement Following the hearing, Dennis' father, Sgt. Arshell "Chico" Dennis, and about a half-dozen supporters left the courthouse without comment. During the hearing, prosecutors said that Moore, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, was traveling with several fellow gang members in two cars about midnight when the group spotted Dennis talking to two friends on a porch in the 2900 block of West 82nd Street on the city's Southwest Side. Thinking Dennis and his friends were gang rivals, Moore's group pulled the cars around the block into an alley, and a member of the group spied on the victim and his friends from a gangway. "In fact, Arshell Dennis was visiting home during a break from his studies at St. John's University in New York," Assistant State's Attorney John Maher told the court. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Moore and another gunman, each armed with a .380-caliber handgun, approached the porch through separate gangways. Moore opened fire with the second shooter then firing shots, according to witnesses, Maher said. Dennis was hit in the armpit and later died at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, while his 20-year-old friend later recovered from a gunshot wound to the chest, Maher said. Telephone data placed Moore in the area of the shooting, while multiple witnesses saw the killing, authorities said. Moore also made four separate statements to three different people concerning his involvement in the shooting, Maher added. Police are continuing their search for the second gunman, Maher said. Advertisement If convicted, Moore faces life in prison. He is scheduled to return to court Monday. wlee@chicagotribune.com Twitter @MidNoirCowboy As Barack Obama took on the role of salesman-in-chief for his Jackson Park presidential library last week, he engaged the audience with some blunt assessments of his adopted hometown. Minority construction job numbers get rigged. Parks on the South Side aren't always as nice as those on the North Side. Neither are the playgrounds. And the first thing people mention about Chicago is its violence. Advertisement Not exactly traditional talking points from the fifth floor of City Hall. That's where Mayor Rahm Emanuel, already eyeing a 2019 run for a third term, is fine-tuning his political messaging: amenities and spending are being spread across the city, schools are improving, the police department is being reformed and the post-recession economy is booming with construction cranes and the jobs they bring. Obama's comments undercut some of that, drawing surprised reactions and applause inside the South Shore Cultural Center at a time when Emanuel could stand to regain support among African-Americans who have soured on him since the 2015 city election amid revelations about the Laquan McDonald police shooting and a federal probe into the department. Advertisement "(Obama's) positions were frank. They are the types of things that we more often have said privately among ourselves, because they are difficult to put out there," said South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, who chairs the City Council's Black Caucus. "Now that he's out of office, he can make those type of statements with ease, and it was refreshing for someone to address them in terms that everyone understands." Going forward, it's a political dynamic to watch. With the presidential library still in the planning stages, how often will Obama be back in Chicago? When he surfaces, will the former president continue to draw attention to the city's problems or embrace the mayor's work to fix them? Emanuel, after all, was Obama's first White House chief of staff, and in turn, the president greatly helped him become Chicago mayor in 2011 with an East Room send-off that ended up in a campaign TV ad. North Side vs. South Side The former president volunteering that Chicago's predominant national image is tied to its surging gun violence doesn't do Emanuel any favors. "As somebody who has not been right here in Chicago over the last several years, whenever I visit, I tell people, 'Chicago has never looked more beautiful. It has never sparkled more,'" Obama said Wednesday. "And yet, if you ask a lot of people outside of Chicago about Chicago, what's the first thing they talk about? They talk about the violence." The mayor already finds his city a frequent target of Republican President Donald Trump for its inability to tamp down the killing, most of it on the South and West sides. Last year, Chicago had 762 homicides, the most in two decades. So far this year, the city has seen a similar rate of killings. Obama suggested he and Michelle Obama weren't willing to wait until the library's completion in 2021 to get started on their work. The couple announced they would start apprentice training programs for young adults and would donate $2 million to summer jobs programs "so that right away young people can get to work, and we can start providing opportunities to all of them." The focus on summer jobs programs does endorse one of Emanuel's approaches to curtailing violence. The mayor, who declined an interview for this story, has increased funding for the city's program over the past several years. Advertisement The Rev. Torrey Barrett, a South Side pastor who attended the library event, said Obama's willingness to openly discuss the city's violence and other challenges also tackles a criticism the former president has faced head-on. "When he was in office, a lot of people criticized him for not doing enough for Chicago, particularly the black community of Chicago," said Barrett, who is the CEO of KLEO, a community nonprofit in Washington Park. "Now that he's out of office, it looks like he's going to use all the weight that he has as an ex-president to address some of these issues that people have criticized him for." Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 12 President Barack Obama speaks to hundreds of young people at the Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus on April 24, 2017. He led a discussion on civic engagement with, from left, Kelsey McClear of Loyola University, Ramuel Figueroa of Roosevelt University, Dr. Tiffany Brown, a pharmacist, Max Freedman of the University of Chicago, Ayanna Watkins, a senior at Kenwood Academy High School, and Harish Patel of New America. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) In his remarks, Obama also made it a point to emphasize how the home for his presidential center, Jackson Park, doesn't measure up with parks in other areas of the city. "Jackson Park is beautiful, but let's face it. ... When you drive through the park, it feels different than Lincoln Park does. It feels different than Millennium Park does. It is not used in the same way. It is not accessible in the same way. It does not have features of the same sort. It's not as good as it could be," Obama said. "So part of what we said is ... how do we transform the park, so it starts looking like Millennium Park and Lincoln Park and thereby stitches the entire city together, so that it's not things are that way on the North Side and a different way on the South Side?" Obama made a similar point on inequity when discussing his vision for a children's playground area at his presidential center. He said he'd like to see features like climbing walls and other activities and programs. "One of the things I wanted the community to do is look at what they're doing in places like Brooklyn in their parks, or Seattle in some of their parks, or what they're doing, frankly, in some of the parks up on the North Side in terms of how to engage young people," Obama said. "What we want to make sure of is the park is not just a dead zone." Advertisement Sawyer, the 6th Ward alderman, said such statements could pressure the city and Emanuel into doing a better job on the issue. "The president can acknowledge a disparity does exist between the South and North sides and the West and North sides, and the mayor is starting to have to make accommodations and also acknowledge the disparity exists," Sawyer said. "I think the mayor is being pushed to make these changes. ... The president's comments help that." A narrative that the South and West sides lack top-quality parks and amenities cuts against some of Emanuel's efforts on those issues. The mayor frequently points to his Chicago Plays! program that he says built or renovated hundreds of playgrounds in neighborhoods across the city. Emanuel has been quick to point out he was the first mayor to place public art along the lakefront on the South Side. He's also highlighted the soaring suspension bridge along 35th Street, connecting Bronzeville to Burnham Park along the lakefront, which he has suggested is so beautiful it makes Lincoln Park envious. Barrett, who has supported Emanuel, applauded second-term efforts such as hiring businesswoman and former U.S. Senate candidate Andrea Zopp as deputy mayor and an effort to siphon off money from downtown developments for neighborhood projects. But Barrett also thinks the spotlight on Obama's library will push Emanuel to do more. "If you're going to be attracting people from all over the world to the South Side, you're forced to invest in it so people who come here are safe, have options and are able to take full advantage of the area," he said. "The president is making a charge, and I think the mayor will step up to make sure he meets that demand." Advertisement 'Cook the numbers' Obama also waded into the longtime Chicago controversy of minority contracting, with city ordinances requiring a certain percentage of public contracts to be dedicated to women- and minority-owned firms. "We will exceed whatever historic or legal goals have been mandated in terms of minority- and women-owned business participation," Obama said. "I also want to point out, though, that and again, this is from somebody who lives here you know you can cook the numbers to make it look like people are participating. I mean, that's just true. I'm sorry." The former president's comment about minority jobs cuts to an ongoing problem for Emanuel. Black aldermen routinely complain the city is failing to bring enough African-American-owned businesses and black employees in on lucrative city contracts. The mayor mustered the bare minimum of 26 City Council votes last fall to let him borrow up to $3.5 billion to bankroll aviation projects, with several black aldermen saying they voted against the measure to send a message that the Aviation Department must do more to make sure the firms that get the bond work have minorities well-represented on their staffs. At the same time, Obama said his foundation would not hire firms just because they are run by African-Americans, Latinos or women. Advertisement "If we have to choose between somebody who is not a woman- or minority-owned vendor and who does really great work and is going to make this whole thing terrific, and somebody who's raggedy, we will choose the folks who do the work," Obama said to a loud roar of laughs. Sawyer said that remark drew a joke from Emanuel. "I was sitting next to the mayor, and when the president made his statement about raggedy businesses, the mayor said, 'Alderman, do you really think I could say that at the City Council?' I said, 'No, you shouldn't, and you better not either,'" Sawyer said with a laugh. Obama-Emanuel relationship While Obama's airing of Chicago problems may make things uncomfortable at times for Emanuel, tying himself to Obama's legacy helps the mayor politically. Emanuel introduced Obama at the library event and spoke wistfully about his former boss' time in the White House and of his influence in Chicago something the mayor said he sees frequently when visiting schools to teach civics classes. "Invariably, there is always a photo of the president or a quote of his, just like if you go to Boston, there is always a picture or a quote from John F. Kennedy, their favorite son," Emanuel said. "It's a sign of a strong connection we all have to our friend, our president. President Obama's contributions to the city of Chicago are already immeasurable, and his legacy is just beginning." Advertisement In his first bid for mayor in 2011, Emanuel aired ads with highlights of Obama praising him at his White House departure ceremony as outgoing chief of staff. In the mayor's 2015 re-election bid, Obama cut a radio ad for the mayor and visited Chicago days before the election to embrace Emanuel's re-election bid and announce the Pullman district would become a national monument. Barrett said he believes Emanuel will continue to benefit from his association with the president, even if Obama draws attention to the city's challenges under the mayor. "It shows that while there are some things that have happened, the president still supports him as the mayor of the city he's called home and the city of his library," Barrett said. "Will that sway everyone? Probably not, but as he continues to do what's needed and makes investments, I think he'll be successful again, and I think his relationship with the president will continue to help in the black community." Chicago Tribune's John Byrne contributed. bruthhart@chicagotribune.com Twitter @BillRuthhart A municipal police officer walks near election campaign posters for French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, left, and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, in Saint Jean Pied de Port, southwestern France, Friday May 5, 2017. (Bob Edme / AP) PARIS Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said Friday she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in France's high-stakes runoff Sunday, while independent front-runner Emmanuel Macron suffered a document leak that his team called a bid to throw the vote. In an interview with The Associated Press in the final hours of a hostile, topsy-turvy campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, "we changed everything." She claimed an "ideological victory" for her populist, anti-immigrant worldview in an election that could change Europe's direction. Advertisement Macron's political movement said late Friday night it has been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack that led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. In a statement, the En Marche movement said it was hacked a few weeks ago, and that the leaked documents have been mixed with false documents to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize Sunday's presidential runoff. Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks, and also said that authentic documents were mixed with false documents. Advertisement Fears of hacking, fake news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized until Friday's admission by Macron's campaign that it had suffered an online pirate attack. U.S. far-right circles were abuzz with the news that Macron's campaign had been hit by a massive disclosure, but the news comes soon after a crude forgery was circulated on an online message board popular with pranksters and extremists. Wikileaks sounded a skeptical note, saying the Macron leaks might be misinformation. The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election. It's a stark choice: Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform, or Macron's progressive, pro-EU stance. Tensions marred the race right to the end. France's presidential voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot "systematically torn up." Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims. The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics as usual. Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign. Advertisement "Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born," she told AP in her campaign headquarters. Her party "imposed the overhaul" of French politics and set the tone of the election, she said. The 39-year-old Macron, too, played a key role in upending France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign. Voters liked the idea, and chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote, dumping the traditional left and right parties that have governed modern France. Le Pen said those parties have been "blackballed." Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande. Students protested both presidential candidates Friday by blocking high schools and marching through Paris. Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers Friday at the Reims cathedral. She left via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself and diving into a black car. Advertisement Le Pen denounced her critics for disrupting a sacred place during her final campaign stop. The site has special meaning for her National Front party because it's the cathedral where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc the party's icon at a time of war and division. In the AP interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can bring the divided country together if elected. "Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place ... we must re-weave the links among people." She said. Macron would worsen divisions, she claimed. The pro-business Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first-round, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers. Violent protests erupted in Paris earlier this week against both candidates, with several police officers injured. And critics decried the bitter tone of Wednesday night's presidential debate. Advertisement Le Pen acknowledged to AP that she became angry at the debate but said she was merely channeling the mood of France. Macron acknowledged that the French are exasperated by the government's ineffectiveness, but he dismissed Le Pen's vision of an infuriated country. She "speaks for no one. ... Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred," Macron told RTL radio. The unprecedented negativity in one of the most unpredictable and scandal-hit French presidential campaigns in recent times has turned off countless voters. About 100 students pulled garbage bins in front of the entrance to the Lycee Colbert in northeastern Paris, with cardboard signs saying, "Neither Le Pen nor Macron, neither the fatherland nor the boss," a reference to Le Pen's nationalist views and Macron's pro-business ties. Students at another school, Lycee Buffon, wrote an open letter calling on the French to exercise their vote and recalling the fate of five students shot in 1943 for fighting the Nazis. Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, has minimized the Holocaust, and her National Front party has been stained by anti-Semitism in the past. Advertisement "Even if I'm not old enough to vote, I'm concerned," the letter said. "Dear reader, you should know that Marine Le Pen's France is not the France we love. Our France is beautiful, tolerant and cosmopolitan. So go and vote on Sunday, for this France, this democracy." Raphael Satter, Angela Charlton, Samuel Petrequin and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed. MAIDUGURI, Nigeria Eighty-two Chibok schoolgirls seized three years ago by Boko Haram have been freed in exchange for detained suspects with the extremist group, Nigeria's government announced early Sunday, in the largest release negotiated yet in the battle to save nearly 300 girls whose mass abduction exposed the mounting threat posed by the Islamic State-linked fighters. The statement from the office of President Muhammadu Buhari was the first confirmation that his government had made a swap for the girls. After an initial release of 21 Chibok girls in October, the government denied making an exchange or paying ransom. Advertisement The April 2014 abduction by Boko Haram brought the extremist group's rampage in northern Nigeria to world attention and, for families of the schoolgirls, began years marked with heartbreak. Some relatives did not live long enough to see their daughters released. Many of the captive girls, most of them Christians, were forced to marry their captors and give birth to children in remote forest hideouts without ever knowing if they would see their parents again. It is feared that other girls were strapped with explosives and sent on missions as suicide bombers. Advertisement As word of the latest release emerged, long-suffering family members said they were eagerly awaiting a list of names and "our hopes and expectations are high." Before Saturday's release, 195 of the girls had remained captive. Now 113 of the girls remain unaccounted for. The freed girls were expected to meet with Buhari on Sunday in the capital, Abuja. A Nigerian military official with direct knowledge of the rescue operation said the freed girls were found near the town of Banki in Borno state near Cameroon. "The location of the girls kept changing since yesterday when the operation to rescue them commenced," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make the announcement. Boko Haram remains active in that area. On Friday, the United States and Britain issued warnings that the extremist group was actively planning to kidnap foreigners in an area of Borno state "along the Kumshe-Banki axis." The 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok in 2014 are among thousands of people abducted by Boko Haram over the years. The mass abduction shocked the world, sparking a global #Bringbackourgirls campaign supported by former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and other celebrities. It has put tremendous pressure on Nigeria's government to counter the extremist group, which has roamed large parts of the north and into neighboring countries. Advertisement "This is a very, very exciting news for us that we have over 80 of our girls coming back again," Bukky Shonibare with the #BringBackOurGirls campaign told Sky TV. "Their life in captivity has been one that depicts suffering, it depicts the fact that they have been starved, abused, and as we have seen before some of those girls have come back with children, and some of them have also come back with news of how they have been sexually abused." The latest negotiations were again mediated by the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Nigeria's government said. At the initial release of girls in October, the government said the release of another 83 would be coming soon. But at the three-year anniversary of the kidnapping in April, the government said negotiations had "gone quite far" but faced challenges. Buhari late last year announced Boko Haram had been "crushed," but the group continues to carry out attacks in northern Nigeria and neighboring countries. Its insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and driven 2.6 million from their homes, with millions facing starvation. Larson reported from Dakar. Associated Press writers Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, and Hilary Uguru in Warri, Nigeria, contributed. Reporting from SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Puerto Rico will close 184 public schools as part of a broad effort to pull the U.S. territory out of a crippling debt crisis, officials announced Friday. Roughly 27,000 students mostly from kindergarten through fourth grade and 2,700 teachers will be affected by the closures, which are set to take place before next school year. Advertisement The U.S. territory is in deep economic crisis. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Wednesday that the commonwealth has filed for a type of bankruptcy to help restructure its more than $70-billion in debt after negotiations with multiple creditors failed. The financial trouble has deepened as many people have left for the U.S. mainland in search of better jobs. Consequently, the population of school children has been in steep decline, making the education system an inviting target for cuts. Advertisement Between 2010 and 2015, Puerto Rico closed 150 schools, according to the Associated Press. This new round will be the largest in Puerto Rico's history. "What we saw in the past 30 years is that the number of students in the public school system has radically declined by something like 20 or 30 percent," said Arturo Porzecanski, an economist at American University in Washington. "And in the meantime the number of teachers has increased. Nowadays it's typical to have 15 or 20 students in the classroom." We saw the list of schools that will close all over Facebook but no one spoke to me. Belinda Plaza, 40, elementary school teacher Porzecanski said he supports the closures but would have favored doing it gradually. "Government agencies should have been whittled down proportionally, and now this is all happening during one of the worst moments in Puerto Rico's history," he said. The restructuring of the school system took several months, Julia Keleher, its secretary of education, said at a press conference. Students from schools that are set to close have been assigned to other schools. But transportation is likely to be an issue, because many of the schools that were told to close their doors are in far-flung rural areas. Teachers will be relocated according to their seniority, Keleher said. Non-teaching employees will be transferred to schools near their homes, and principals and other supporting staff will be relocated to schools that need additional assistance. "We saw in this redesign a unique opportunity to improve the system in an inclusive, respectful and sensitive way," Keleher said. "It is our desire that the good quality of life that many of these students and the school community may be experiencing will not be upset." But teachers and parents on Friday expressed frustration over the closures and concern over the quality of education students will receive. "No to the closing of schools," Shakira Cabrera, a concerned resident, wrote on Facebook. "If they want to save money, then reduce the salary for themselves and stop playing with the children's education." Advertisement Teachers also expressed worry. "I'm concerned about what this means for my family," said Belinda Plaza, 40, an elementary school teacher at Jose Fernandez Rubial, which is slated to close. "I haven't talked to the principal yet, but we are worried about whether we will have a job. We heard rumors before but this time it is really happening. We saw the list of schools that will close all over Facebook but no one spoke to me." Aleida Rivera, 32, a first grade teacher at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in San Juan, which will be receiving students from another school, said she is acutely aware of what many people are feeling. She came to the school three years ago after another school where she was working shut down. Rivera is especially worried about how the closures could affect special education students. She said she is already struggling to meet their needs. "My previous school was small with roughly 150 students, but now we are bigger and some of the special education students are in my classroom," she said. With the new announcement, Rivera said she is giving up on teaching in Puerto Rico and moving to Florida. Advertisement "We have a lot of highly qualified teachers but the truth is that there are not a lot of students," she said. In Florida, she expects to easily find a job and make far more than the $1,750 a month she currently earns. melissa.etehad@latimes.com President Donald Trump smiles at Vice President Mike Pence before signing an executive order aimed at easing an IRS rule limiting political activity for churches, Thursday, May 4, 2017, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. (Evan Vucci / AP) INDIANAPOLIS A private college in Vice President Mike Pence's home state of Indiana is facing backlash after offering a "Trumpism & U.S. Democracy" course that described the president in class materials as a purveyor of "sexism, white supremacy, xenophobia, nationalism, nativism and imperialism." Now officials at Butler University in Indianapolis are doing damage control after conservative news outlets picked up on the description of the fall class, which also indicated students would discuss and "potentially engage" in "strategies for resistance" to President Donald Trump. Advertisement "As a result of the recent media coverage, the University has been the recipient of numerous concerns about the course," Butler Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kathryn Morris wrote in a letter posted to the school's website. "Just as I support this course, I would support a course that is complimentary of the President. Butler offers a variety of courses that tackle controversial topics. Like any University, Butler should and does promote an environment of critical inquiry and engagement on controversial and unpopular topics." Campuses have been a hotbed of activism since Trump's election. That includes efforts to block speeches by provocative figures tied to the alt-right, a fringe movement that helped propel Trump into office and uses internet memes, message boards and social media to spread a hodgepodge of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and xenophobia. Advertisement But Indiana has been comparatively placid. While students at Butler first started registering for fall classes last month, the course description which has since been edited to remove the incendiary verbiage received more attention after former Indiana state Sen. Carlin Yoder, a Republican, tweeted a photo of it Tuesday. By Thursday, the university was receiving considerable criticism, including social media posts revealing a phone number and photos of the course's instructor, Professor Ann Savage. Savage did not reply to a request for comment. School officials said their remarks would be limited to statements posted on Butler's website. Conservatives suggest the course is yet another example of a perceived left-wing bias in academia, but some students apparently didn't have the same concern: School records show the class is enrolled to capacity. Hunter Butterworth, vice president of Butler's College Republicans, called the class "ridiculous" and questioned whether school officials would have offered a similar course focused on resistance to former President Barack Obama. That said, Butterworth said he supports free speech and the school's right to offer the class. "It doesn't surprise me at all," said Butterworth, who will be a junior next year. "Obviously, most college campuses are known to have a left-wing or liberal bias." Butler is also not the first to offer a course examining Trump's improbable rise. Prior to the election, Savannah State University in Georgia offered a Trump-focused class last summer that included studying Trump's biography, reading excerpts from his best-seller "The Art of the Deal" and dissecting some of his more controversial proposals. But that course did not emphasize resistance to Trump's efforts. Advertisement Morris clarified in her letter that Butler, which has about 5,000 enrolled students, would not make it mandatory for any student "to participate in activism" if they enroll in the class. "The professor has been very transparent about the goals of the course and has provided additional context that clarifies students in the class will not be required to participate in a particular form of activism," she wrote. "They will be asked to engage with classic and contemporary readings_including a text by President Trump_and evaluate the rise of the President as a political and social phenomenon." But she added that students could "potentially attend, as participant observers, campus and community events to witness and analyze ongoing responses to Trump's presidency and campaign." FBI Director James Comey's recent statement to a U.S. Senate committee about his role in the 2016 election making him "mildly nauseous" may describe his sentiment, but it is wrong. One can only hope that the current interest in his misuse of the term will serve as a teachable moment. Comey may even feel entirely nauseous because of his ill-timed decision to release email information about Hillary Clinton days before the Nov. 8 election, but it is important to note more correctly that he was mildly nauseated, not mildly nauseous. Advertisement I am hardly a grammar maven, but as a professor of literature at Northwestern University who has graded thousands of student papers and reviewed scholarly articles and book manuscripts from colleagues, I do pause when men and women who hold offices of intense importance make elementary mistakes. Does that make you feel badly? No, it doesn't. That's nonsensical. You feel bad. Advertisement Correcting grammar, spelling or word choice in public can sometimes be rather fraught. I would likely remain silent, for instance, if at some sobering tour of a historic site of a massacre, the tour guide intoned that many innocent people "were hung." If I dared to speak, I would remark that that doesn't sound so terrible pictures are hung on a wall, so these innocent people were likely only put through the relatively minor inconvenience of having their clothing hung up on a peg with themselves still in it. It would be a far worse matter, however, if they were hanged that is, if nooses were placed around their necks before their bodies were forced into a fatal motion upward or down. Other language errors are easier to fix but baffle me. For example, I understand those who become flummoxed between affect, a verb and a noun with different meanings, and effect, also a verb and a noun with different meanings, but ones that can be confused at least a little with the former's. Further and farther almost always lose me, the further I get on in life or is it farther? What I do not understand are those who confuse loose and lose. Really? I'm not sure I stand with the true grammar aficionados who must endure reading and hearing hundreds of errors every day and contend that poor grammar bespeaks lazy cognition. I think that's too simplistic. To be fair, as a language English is a nightmare to navigate, boasting as it does so very many linguistic origins and influences. Have you ever tried to list all the ways "ough" can be pronounced? Through, though, trough, bough, rough, nought and those are just on the tip of the doughty iceberg. After all, language is a living, breathing entity that will be changed by those mouths and fingers that put it to use every day. Still, I dislike those who seem to attempt to enslave it, make it bend to one's own perverse will. Language should be a partner, one with whom we respectfully negotiate as a collective, rather than as individuals, petty dictators who stomp on rules and guidelines to produce a sad mash of incoherence meaningful only to oneself, a language now loosed from its necessary grammatical and etymological restrictions. Advertisement Yes, there is a great deal to lose in such a situation. This isn't a jeremiad against dialect. As far as I am concerned, no matter the language, dialects are welcome, a dynamic reminder that at the end of the day, language is democratic; no one person or collective is able to control it. Which is why Comey should return to Congress and abjectly apologize for his unintended but very revealing pun. He feels bad, he should say, for the effect that this error might have on schoolchildren, who could easily be affected by his mistake, especially the farther they are from those elite schools where such mistakes might be corrected quickly. Yes, he should ruefully admit, schoolchildren and adults alike could be led further astray into the seductive wilds of ungrammatical English should officials such as himself fail to examine their discourse. Advertisement While he might conclude that he may be nauseous to many, he cannot speak to that, only to his own sensation of being nauseated by his actions, however mildly. And may he not be hanged for it. Michelle M. Wright is a professor of African-American studies and comparative literary studies at Northwestern University. Rachel Wolfe, a junior at Northwestern University, and a classmate headed to Oak Park to film a story about Michael Romain, editor of the Austin Weekly News, on April 8, 2017. The two college students followed Romain into the Austin neighborhood for his "Street Beat" column. While there, they were caught in a shooting, experiencing firsthand the strain associated with covering Chicago neighborhoods. (Rachel Wolfe) (Rachel Wolfe/Handout) "Don't freak out," began a text to my best friend sent in the early afternoon. "But I was out on assignment with an editor on the West Side, and we just got shot at." April 8 had started off ordinarily enough. A classmate and I were going to Oak Park to film a story about Michael Romain, editor of the Austin Weekly News. The irony of running the newspaper from the upscale Oak Park suburb didn't escape us, so we were excited to follow Romain into Austin for his "Street Beat" column. Advertisement Our biggest concern at 9 a.m. was that we didn't want to pay for the Uber from Northwestern University, having previously decided we didn't want to risk carrying the expensive camera equipment on public transit. Our biggest concern at 9:45 a.m. was our belief that we had managed to hit every red light in Chicago on our way over, and we probably no, definitely were going to be late. In the meantime, we planned out the shots we hoped to get: "Remember, film him entering and leaving the frame to prevent jump cuts" and "Try not to zoom so much this time!" Advertisement When we made it to the newsroom, we went to work getting the footage we thought we would need: Romain on his computer. Romain picking up the phone. Romain drinking his coffee. Then we made our way to the Street Beat photographer's car, and three minutes later we were in Austin. It's difficult to describe the transition between Oak Park and Austin without appearing hyperbolic. As we crossed into Chicago, we left behind Oak Park's mansions, boutiques and trendy restaurants and passed dilapidated townhouses and fast-food chain restaurants. We started off at Austin Town Hall Park, but those we approached were unwilling to talk. Unperturbed, we made our way across an intersection to a more crowded part of the neighborhood. At 1:30 p.m. we walked into a corner grocery store in the 5600 block of West Corcoran Place. We aimed our camera at the ground, having learned not to shoot without permission in a private business. A group of boys and girls, seemingly about our age, were hanging around inside. One had a radio on his shoulder, from which house music was blasting. My camera partner made a comment to me about feeling "out of place." I responded by lamenting that more Northwestern students don't get out of their comfort zones to see what Chicago is really like. The rowdy group left shortly afterward, and we were alone in the store, aside from the employees. Our biggest concern at 1:38 p.m. was for our lives. Advertisement When the gunshots first started, my partner and I didn't register them as gunshots. It took looking at everyone else scrambling around on the floor and the sound of glass exploding from the front door to recognize we needed to do the same. Crouching behind a shelf stocked with pretzels and Doritos, I cradled the video camera in my arms, as afraid for its life as my own. Then, as quickly as they started, the gunshots stopped, and the screaming began. The boy holding the radio was lying on the ground just a few feet outside the store's front window in a pool of blood. "They got B.J.!" "He dead." "No! No! No!" Advertisement By the time we got out to the crowded sidewalk where the drive-by shooting had taken place, Chicago police officers were on the scene. I was relieved that they would restore order until one of them barked at us to "Get out of the way." As I stepped back, I wondered if I should start filming. Deciding a real journalist wouldn't hesitate, I aimed the video camera at the scene: police officers taping off the corner and numbering the bullet casings, two little girls nudging each other and pointing at the camera, asking, "Are you the press?" The medical examiner's office later identified the victim to the Tribune as Byron McKinney Jr., 24, of the 500 block of North Pine Avenue. I had never seen someone die before, much less witnessed a homicide. But what I'm still thinking about weeks later isn't the image of B.J. lying helpless on the ground. Instead, I've been haunted by a comment directed at my camera partner and me by the woman who was first shouting B.J.'s name in despair: "You see this (expletive)? This the (expletive) we deal with. Every (expletive) day." Why had she approached us? Well, that was obvious: We weren't supposed to be there. Unlike the two girls pointing at my video camera or B.J.'s group of friends, I wouldn't have to continue to feel afraid for the safety of my friends, my family or myself. Advertisement I didn't go looking for violence I only wanted to complete my class assignment. But just by being in Austin, the violence found me. And now, I have to care. Rachel Wolfe is a junior at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Full disclosure: I was angry when I learned President Barack Obama hadn't been entirely forthright when he proclaimed, "You can keep your doctor." I've kept my doctors, but not easily; my credit card company loves me. Yet, Obamacare is a billion times better than the alternative: people going without health care, with some quite possibly dying. Personally, that's not something that I can accept. So I don't understand how so many members of Congress, many who brag about their Christian faith, in good conscience cast votes that may cause people to die. What part of "love thy neighbor" do they not get? Advertisement Diane O'Neill, Chicago A Kendall County jury has ruled that the sheriff's office did not discriminate against former Corrections Deputy Carrie Warren based on her gender in firing her for untruthfulness. "We are pleased the two-week trial is completed and the jury ruled in favor of the Kendall County Sheriff's Office, denying all of the plaintiff's claims," Kendall County Sheriff Dwight Baird, who was not yet sheriff when Warren was fired, said in a written statement. Advertisement By the time it went to trial, the suit, which originally included more individual defendants, named Kendall County, along with four people: Cmdr. Sabrina Jennings, Chief Deputy Scott Koster, Baird, and former Sheriff Richard Randall, who held the office when Warren was fired. Warren was terminated in March 2014 for lying about when she actually became aware she was released from jury duty, according to court filings. She was also untruthful regarding her knowledge of rules about jurors' use of cell phones, according to the complaint. Advertisement During the trial, which concluded April 28, Warren's attorneys argued that she was fired over something for which a man would have received lesser discipline, while the defense maintained she was treated fairly. "This is a situation where the (sheriff's office) terminated Ms. Warren because she lied," sheriff's office attorney Julie Bruch said in closing arguments, according to court transcripts. Bruch, Bhairav Radia and Karin Anderson, all with the firm O'Halloran Kosoff Geitner & Cook LLC, worked on the defense, according to federal court records. Warren was primarily represented by Colleen M. McLaughlin and Gregory Scott Dierdorf, both with McLaughlin's law offices. From the beginning, McLaughlin framed the case as being about two workplace rules: One, an employer can't treat employees differently because of their gender; and two, employers can't retaliate or allow management to retaliate against employees who exercise their right to report or complain about a workplace condition. In the final day of the trial, Dierdorf said the sheriff's office disciplined Warren more harshly than men who engaged in similar conduct. "The parties will never see eye to eye on what happened here," Dierdorf said, echoing McLaughlin's earlier statement that the case involved classic "he-said, she-said" situations. In the complaint, filed in January 2015 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Warren accused the sheriff's office of violating part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discriminating against her based on gender and retaliating against her for complaining about the alleged discrimination, along with a hostile work environment. Warren sought both relief and damages. "Throughout her entire employment at the KCSO, Warren was subjected to sexist language designed to demean and humiliate women," the complaint alleged. Advertisement In their answer, lawyers for the sheriff's office denied any discrimination or retaliation against Warren, along with her claims about the work environment. "The sheriff's office held Ms. Warren accountable for her deliberate misconduct, and you need to support that decision and the future integrity of the sheriff's office," Bruch told the jury in closing, asking them to return a verdict in her party's favor. After less than three hours of deliberation, the verdict was returned, with the jury favoring the sheriff's office on all claims and leaving the "damages" page blank. "The sheriff's office thoroughly investigates complaints of misconduct and takes prudent and reasonable action to protect the rights of all parties involved while holding employees accountable and issue discipline where warranted," Baird said. Employees participate in a training and education program that includes best practices in law enforcement and workplace conduct, according to the statement. Warren's attorneys did not return messages seeking comment. Advertisement hleone@tribpub.com Twitter @hannahmleone Road work at Naperville's 95th Street and Plainfield-Naperville Road intersection has traffic down to one lane in each direction. The project, which includes new left- and right-turn lanes, is one of many on tap in the city this year. (Erin Hegarty / Naperville Sun) With the frosty weather and April showers hopefully in the past, a sure harbinger that better weather lies ahead can be seen in the road signs popping up along Ogden Avenue, Route 59 and other major thoroughfares crossing Naperville. Road construction season is under way, and with it all of the traffic delays and lane closures they require. Advertisement "We try to maintain and update our infrastructure and roadways, and once the nice weather hits, that's our opportunity to do these things," said Linda LaCloche, spokeswoman for the city of Naperville. "We try to be as least disruptive as possible." Among the larger projects, Will County Division of Transportation's overhaul of the 95th Street and Plainfield-Naperville Road intersection, began in April. Traffic lanes in all directions have been reduced from two lanes to one, and will likely remain that way for the duration of the work, which is expected to wrap up in November. Advertisement North and south legs of the intersection are getting double left-turn lanes, and the north and west legs will see new right-turn lanes. The project also includes widening the bridge over Spring Brook, extending the noise wall along 95th Street to Plainfield-Naperville Road and improvements to lighting and traffic signals. On the other side of town, the city of Naperville is replacing an aging water main on the south side of Ogden Avenue between Wisconsin Street and Burlington Avenue. This year's project continues work completed last year on Ogden Avenue between Columbia Street and Wisconsin Street. Eastbound traffic on Ogden Avenue between Wisconsin Street and Burlington Avenue is reduced to one lane from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday for the project's duration. The project should be completed in July. "Residents near the Ogden Avenue water main have seen a lot of construction for a number of years, but that project is a vast improvement for the neighborhood over there and the city," LaCloche said. Other projects in Naperville include: Resurfacing of Route 59 between Aurora Avenue and McCoy Drive, which the Illinois Department of Transportation began the week of May 1. Nightly lane closures will take place on weekdays during construction. The resurfacing project, which will connect two other sections of new pavement, is expected to be finished this summer. IDOT will repair a box culvert on Ogden Avenue over Cress Creek. The work means motorists can expect Ogden Avenue lane closures between Royal St. George Drive and Benedetti Drive. Repairs are expected to be complete this summer. Work to improve the intersection of 75th Street and Book Road began last week. The DuPage County project includes extending the left-turn lanes on 75th Street and the addition of a southbound right-turn lane on Book Road. A left-turn on arrow only sign will also be added to 75th Street. Construction crews are also expected to improve the sidewalk and bike path configuration near the intersection. Motorists can expect daily lane closures on both streets while work is being done. The city expects the project to wrap up in mid-July. Advertisement Phase two of work on Wolf's Crossing Road reconfiguration is set to begin May 15. Wolf's Crossing between the Canadian National Railroad tracks and 248th Avenue will be closed May 15 to 18, pending weather. Work includes a temporary connection that will attach the north-south extension of Wolf's Road Crossing to the existing east-west section. Once the work is complete, motorists will use the new configuration and the section of Wolf's Crossing Road between the new connection and 248th Avenue will be closed. Detour signs will let motorists know to use Eola Road, Haffenrichter Road and 91st Street while construction is under way. The project's final stage, which will entail a multiweek shutdown of Wolf's Crossing Road, expected to begin in late 2017 or early 2018. The city of Naperville will keep residents informed of road closures via the Naper Notify alert system, press releases and the city's e-news. ehegarty@tribpub.com North Central College junior Noelia Reyes, of Aurora, is fitted for a hijab by sophomore Anisha Venkatesh Babu, an international student from India, after a program Thursday at the college focusing on the reasons why Muslim women cover their heads. (Suzanne Baker / Naperville Sun) A great deal of soul-searching was involved in Asfa Anwer's decision to veil her head. Born in the United States, the young Muslim woman grew up in Naperville with the understanding she was free to choose whether or not to cover her head in public with the traditional hijab scarf. Advertisement She wears the hijab as an outward expression of her faith, she said. "First and foremost, I got connected with my religion," she said. Advertisement Anwer was one of four North Central College students who shared how they came to similar conclusions during a discussion Thursday on "The Veil: An Insider's Look at the Hijab" featuring Maha Mourad, a former Fulbright scholar in residence from Egypt. The forum was hosted by the Naperville college's Center for Global Education. Mourad said the reasons Muslim women cover their heads vary significantly beyond purely religious grounds. In some countries, covering the head is a cultural or societal norm. For other women, family, peer or economic pressures influence their decision. She said many women see the hijab as part of their identity. But a head covering is not for everyone. "I tried to wear the veil. It's not me; it's not my identity," Mourad said. Anisha Venkatesh Babu, of India, wore no head covering her first semester at North Central College and noticed her academic performance slipping. "I wasn't feeling like myself," the sophomore criminal justice major said. Second semester her outlook changed when she started wearing the hijab again. Advertisement "It made me complete; it made me perform better. I am comfortable and complete," she said. For junior biochemistry major Asma Al-Odaini, of Yemen, the hijab provides identity. Al-Odaini said she is religious and practices Islam, so wearing the hijab "is an indicator I am a Muslim. My identity is clear." North Central juniors Noelia Reyes, of Aurora, and Hannah Friedle, of Wheaton, said they no longer see the hijab as something oppressive to women. After the discussion, they were given the opportunity to try on one. Reyes said she found it interesting how the veil divides women between their public and private sides and how much it defines their identity. Friedle said she always has been curious about the meaning and the reasons why Muslim women cover their heads. She was surprised how the reasons were so varied, even among the four college students. Advertisement Thursday's discussion was an outgrowth of a conversation between a student and a professor and presented in an effort to inform students, said English professor Jack Shindler, event host and director of the Center for Global Education. Most students don't know much about hijabs because they likely have never had a direct connection with a Muslim student, he said. The discussion allowed those in attendance to expand their knowledge to develop a deeper understanding. He also said many North Central students take a semester to study abroad in Europe. With the influx of refugees into major cities, the discussion gave students a perspective of the issues at play in European countries. The talk by Mourad was possible through the same federal grant that helped establish the Middle Eastern and North African Studies program at North Central College, Shindler said. The college also will host a free screening of "Homs' Rain," a film that traces the story of a family as they attempt to leave their city in the midst of the ongoing Syrian civil war. The film will be introduced by former North Central fellow Riad Ismat, a playwright, director and former minister of culture in Syria who fled his home country because of the war. Advertisement The showing will take place at 6:30 p.m. May 23 in Smith Hall of the Old Main building, 30 N. Brainard St. subaker@tribpub.com Twitter @SBakerSun1 5 things to know about Adam Frisch Laure Boebert is in a tight race for s second term in Congress with Democrat Adam Frisch looking to unseat her and represent Colorado's 3rd district. A Chinese craftsman usually makes a frame of bamboo, which needs cutting and trimming, and then paints the sails in traditional Chinese styles. It is a very laborious process. [Provided to China Daily] Liu Bin, 40, spends most of his time giving classes Many Chinese would think nothing of spending 200 yuan ($29) on a big meal or watching a Hollywood blockbuster. But would they pay so much for a kite - often seen as little more than a children's toy. Liu Bin, 40, wants to change that perception. He owns a small kite shop in downtown Beijing's Di'anmen Street. It is decorated with distinctive kites, mainly in the shapes of swallows, goldfish, the legendary Lord Rabbit, dragons, the Monkey King, and Peking Opera masks. Some are tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand, while others cover an entire wall. Most are handmade and they all sell for more than 200 yuan, about ten times of the price of his online rivals. More expensive kites could cost tens of thousands yuan. Liu says his kites deserve their high price tags: "A kite is more than a flying toy. It is made with rich Chinese culture and a craftsman's wisdom." Kite flying has a history of more than 2,000 years in China. It is thought to have begun as a means to pass military information in war, and gradually became a popular folk pastime in spring. In ancient times, people wrote down their sufferings on kites. When the kites flew very high, they would cut the lines, hoping their misfortunes would also disappear. Unlike mass-produced kites made of umbrella cloth and carbon fiber, a Chinese craftsman usually makes a frame of bamboo, which needs cutting and trimming, and then paints the sails in traditional Chinese styles. He then ties the kite to the reel and flies it. It is a very laborious process. Liu says a kite usually takes 20 days to make. You are here: Home Oil prices rallied Friday as investors bought the dip after previous day's sharp declines. Oil prices plunged Thursday, with both U.S. oil and Brent crude tumbling over 4 percent, as worries about oversupplies dampened investor sentiment. Traders were also encouraged by hopes for an oil output cut extension. Saudi Arabia's OPEC Governor Adeeb Al-Aama said Friday that Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC nations were close to agreeing a deal on supply cuts, according to the Reuters. Meanwhile, the number of rigs operating in U.S. fields increased by 6 to 703 this week, marking a sixteenth straight weekly gains, oilfield service company Baker Hughes reported Friday. The West Texas Intermediate for June delivery climbed 0.70 U.S. dollar to settle at 46.22 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for July delivery increased 0.72 dollar to close at 49.10 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange. You are here: Home Ford Motor Co. announced on its website on Friday that Ford and its joint ventures in China saw an 11 percent increase in auto sales in April compared to the same month a year ago. Overall, their China sales in the first four months totaled 349,228 units, down 12 percent from the same period last year. Analysts said international carmakers saw the same decline in China, largely because government reduced the purchase tax incentive which encourages much purchase last year. Latest Data shows Ford sold 93,967 vehicles there last month. This comes as Ford reports a quarter of consecutive U.S. sales slips, and U.S. April sales industry-wide fell 4.7 percent following a record-setting year. The Detroit-based automaker attributed the April numbers to strong Lincoln sedan sales. The company sold 4,533 Lincolns in April, a 95 percent increase over the same month a year ago. Peter Fleet, vice-president of Ford Asia Pacific, said the Chinese market is showing signs of rebounding and expects Ford's growth momentum will continue. Meanwhile, crosstown rival General Motors Co. and its Chinese joint ventures reported Chinese sales of 272,770 vehicles in April, down 1.9 percent compared to the same month a year ago. Ford said it expects China industry sales to hit 28.2 million vehicles in 2017. Through the Lincoln brand, Ford will launch an all-new, exclusive SUV in China in 2019. Friday saw an Air China Airbus 300-200 take off on its inaugural flight between Barcelona, Spain and Shanghai, China. Air China will operate three direct flights a week -- on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday -- between the two cities. The opening of the route means Barcelona becomes the fifth European city to have direct flights to Shanghai and Beijing. Air China's inauguration of the Barcelona-Beijing route took place in May 2014. The airline highlighted that the departure and arrival times of 12:30 p.m. local time (1030 GMT) with a scheduled arrival in Shanghai at 6:40 a.m. (2240 GMT), took into consideration the needs of the business communities in Shanghai and Barcelona. Business people will be able to arrive in China early on Monday morning and return to Spain on Friday evening, as well the convenience of making connecting flights. Air China said that in 2016, around 100,400 passengers flew between Barcelona and Shanghai, despite there being no direct connections. Forty five people were sentenced in Shenzhen on Friday afternoon for their parts in a landslide that left 73 dead and four others missing in December 2015. Photo taken on Dec. 27, 2015 shows the landslide site in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (File photo/Xinhua) The suspects, mostly from Hong Ao landfill, the Yixianglong company which managed the dump site and local governments were tried in the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen, the People's Court of Nanshan district and the People's Court of Bao'an district from April 26 through 28. Long Renfu, boss of Shenzhen Yixianglong, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 10 million yuan (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars) for bribery and negligence which led to the accident. The dump site had a planned storage of four million cubic meters and a maximum stack height of 95 meters, but when the accident happened, its actual storage reached 5.83 million cubic meters and the waste heaps stood as high as 160 meters. Meng Jinghang, former head of the city administration bureau of Shenzhen, was convicted of abuse of power and taking bribes of 24.9 million yuan and 800,000 Hong Kong dollars. He was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and fined eight million yuan. Peng Shuiqing, former head of the Guangming New District management bureau of the Urban Planning, Land and Resources Commission of Shenzhen, was sentenced to 16 years and fined one million yuan for the same offences. Another 17 government officials were sentenced to three to seven years in jail for negligence and abuses of power. Another 25 also received penalties. The landslide occurred when a huge waste pile collapsed. The accident resulted in a direct economic loss of 880 million yuan, and was believed to be caused by mismanagement rather than any geological reasons. Presumably, Chris Collins (R-NY), infamous as the first congressman to have backed Trump, got back to Clarence this morning. I suspect what was waiting for him in the Buffalo News, his district's biggest newspaper, was worse than what most Republicans who voted for TrumpCare Thursday had to face. Keep in mind, though, that NY-27, has a PVI of R+8 where Obama lost badly both times and where Trump trounced Clinton 59.7-35.2%, his best performance in the state-- and considerably better than Romney had done when he won the district with 55.3%. Collins himself beat Diana Kastenbaum, who was unable to even raise the $5,000 that would have triggered an FEC report, by an even greater margin, 67.7-32.3%. That said, Collins couldn't have been too happy with either his CNN appearance or the report about it in thethis morning. First 2 lines: "Rep. Chris Collins told CNN that he didn't read the entire Republican health care bill that the House passed Thursday. And then he told thethat he was unaware of a key provision in the bill that decimates a health plan that serves 635,000 New Yorkers." Told by a Buffalo News reporter that the state's largest loss of federal funds under the bill would be $3 billion annually that goes to the state's Essential Health Plan, Collins said: "Explain that to me." The Essential Plan is an optional program under Obamacare, offered only by New York and Minnesota, that provides low-cost health insurance to low- and middle-income people who don't qualify for Medicaid. State Health Department figures show that more than 19,000 people in Erie and Niagara counties were on the Essential Plan in January. Asked by the Buffalo News if he was aware of the bill's cut in funding to the Essential Plan, Collins said: "No. But it doesn't surprise me for you to tell me that there were two states in the nation that were taking advantage of some other waiver program and New York was one of the two states." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which says it is targeting Collins when he runs for re-election next year, was quick to attack Collins for his comments. This disturbing admission makes it clear that Collins doesnt respect or care about the people who sent him to Washington," said Evan Lukaske, a DCCC spokesman. "Instead of reading pharmaceutical stock financial statements , Collins should actually read the legislation that would take away health care from thousands of his constituents. Asked about Collins' comments on CNN and to the Buffalo News, his spokesman, Michael McAdams, noted that Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., also told Blitzer he had not read the entire health bill. Once again the Buffalo News is twisting a Republicans words to fit its out-of-touch, liberal narrative," McAdams said. "Congressman Collins has been intimately involved in the creation of this legislation from its inception ... He understands the impact it would have on Western New Yorkers. To infer Congressman Collins doesnt understand the disastrous impact Obamacare has had on our region and our nation is absolutely shameful." Flash Photo taken on May 4, 2017 shows the meeting of Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on the creation of four safe zones in war-torn Syria here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Ospanov) The de-escalation zones deal went into effect in Syria at midnight Saturday, local al-Watan online newspaper reported. The deal was signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey on Thursday, said the report. Earlier on Friday, Russian media reports cited Russia's General Sergei Rudskoi, head of the main operational directorate of Russia's military, as saying that the agreement brokered by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to establish "de-escalation zones" in main battlefields in Syria will go into force at midnight Saturday. According to the agreement, the government and opposition forces will halt fighting for six months in four zones: the northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Homs, the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus and areas in the Daraa and Qunaitera provinces in southern Syria. Under the deal, the safe zones, or de-escalation zones, will be free of battles and airstrikes. By June 4, guarantors of the deal will establish the exact borders of the zones, according to Russia's Defense Ministry. On Thursday evening during the Astana talks, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on the creation of four or more safe zones in Syria. "The cease-fire guarantor states announce that the memorandum on the establishment of de-escalation zones in Syria provides the creation of security zones to stop violence, improve humanitarian situation and create conditions for the advancement of the process and political settlement of the Syrian conflict," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said. The deal excludes the terror-designated groups such as the Islamic State (IS) group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, as the battles against those groups will continue. On Thursday, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura also hailed the plan. "Today in Astana I think we have been able to witness an important promising positive step in the right direction in the process of de-escalation of the conflict," he said. On Wednesday, Syria's Foreign Ministry announced the acceptance of the Syrian government to the safe zone plan. The ministry said the Syrian government's approval comes out of its concern for the lives of the Syrians. However, some factions of the Syrian opposition refused to accept it, saying the pact threatens Syria's territorial integrity. Still, analysts say the implementation will likely happen if Turkey, the main backer of the rebels, signed the deal, as the rebels cannot survive without the crucial support of Turkey and Arab Gulf states. Meanwhile, Bashar Ja'afari, the head of the Syrian delegation to Astana, said the fourth round of talks in the Kazakh capital constitutes a "qualitative leap" in terms of achievements, as the proposal will help stop the bloodletting in Syria. A plainclothes official videotapes Zhongfu Wanmin Church. (Photo: China Aid) China Aid Reported in Chinese by Qiao Nong. Translated by Carolyn Song. Written in English by Brynne Lawrence. (Dongguan, GuangdongJune 23, 2016) Authorities from several different government departments have raided a house church in Chinas southern Guangdong province seven times since May 1. Zhongfu Wanmin Church, located in Dongguan, has been the focus of a concerted persecution effort by authorities over the past two months. Over the course of seven separate raids, the church has had their donations stolen, members accused of illegal activities and have been pressured to register with Chinas government-sanctioned Protestant church, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). On May 29, the local religious affairs and public security bureaus dispatched officers to Zhongfu Wanmin Church, interrupting 30 Christians who were gathered there to pray. They pulled the pastors wife, Huang Xiaorui, from the pulpit, accused the church members of illegally gathering and pressured them to join the TSPM. Additionally, officers pried open the churchs donation boxes, confiscated 2,888 Yuan (U.S. $439), ordered church members not to take any pictures or video footage of the event and intimidated some of the women until they cried. In a subsequent administrative penalty notice, issued later that day, the authorities classified the donation money as illegal income, since it was used for unregistered religious activities. The notice allowed the church three days to file a complaint against the governments actions, but they didnt receive it until the day of the deadline, June 1. Officials raided another of the churchs buildings on June 3. Huang said that the church usually meets in the building on Friday nights but had decided to meet in the home of a Christian on the night of the raid. As a result, the building was locked, and no one was there. Two days later, a group of officials arrived at the church again and photographed the building and Christians at the service. These officers refused to show identification. During the most recent raid on June 12, more officials came to the church. According to Huang: They came while I was leading worship on the stage. There were about seven or eight of them, as well as some plainclothes police officers, all sitting below me. I could not quite hear their conversation, since I didnt come down from the stage. I asked for their identification after I finished, but none of them gave it to me. Today, it didnt seem as if they sat there for as long as the last time, and they took fewer pictures and did not videotape. I asked them which department they are from, and they just said they were from a government department. I said, The government has very many departments; how am I supposed to know which department you are from? They just said they were from an affairs bureau. This springs raids have been part of a long series of government action against the church. Officials began targeting the church on Aug. 23, 2015, when plainclothes officers from the public security bureau and religious affairs bureau interrupted a church service and produced a notice from the Dongguan Municipal Religious Affairs Bureau that accused church members of collectively conducting illegal religious activities and ordered them to stop. Huang said that the church repeatedly sued the religious affairs bureau, demanding that the notice be revoked. After the court repeatedly upheld the original ruling, police told the church members that they shouldnt believe the teachings of the pastor, Li Peng, because he had lost the case and encouraged them to instead join the TSPM. China Aid exposes abuses, such as those suffered by the members of Zhongfu Wanmin Church, in order to promote religious freedom and rule of law in China. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here A night view of the old houses surrounded by new apartment buildings at Guangfuli neighbourhood in Shanghai, April 10, 2016. [Photo/VCG] Shanghai will introduce a lottery system for sales of new residential projects as demand is overtaking supply, according to a circular of the city's housing authorities. The lottery will guarantee "transparent and fair distribution" of units, and is part of the city's measures to curb speculation in the housing market. Shanghai's housing regulator also said real estate developers, agents and sales companies are forbidden from getting involved in speculative home sales. The authorities concerned will blacklist firms and individuals that violate the rules. Property firms and agents need to carry out only genuine, verifiable deals and prevent transactions involving fictitious names aimed at circumventing purchase limits, said the circular, which was issued late on Thursday. Analysts said the lottery system will benefit buyers of smaller, lower-priced properties that are in limited supply and hence in high demand. The lottery system also requires that transactions be notarized to ensure fair and transparent distribution of market-oriented housing projects. The lottery system has been widely applied already in the distribution of subsidized government housing for lower-income families and low-rent houses. "When supply (of new homes) doesn't meet demand, a notarized lottery system will work better than any other system. Unnotarized lottery systems used to lead to underhand dealings in the past, and scalpers would enter the market to resell home purchase qualifications. Now, the new system will maximize protection for homebuyers," said Yan Yuejin, a senior researcher with the E-house China R&D Institute. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst with Centaline Property, said the lottery system supplements existing home purchase restrictions in Shanghai. It is likely to be adopted by other cities facing similar demand-supply mismatches. Shanghai's new homes inventory by April-end stood at 6.28 million square meters, which would be absorbed by the market in nine months, if there are no more supplies, E-house data showed. In Shanghai, stricter limits have been imposed on homebuyers' qualifications and down payment requirements to stabilize prices. The company logo of China National Chemical Corp, or ChemChina, is seen at its headquarters in Beijing, February 3, 2017. [Photo/Agencies] Shareholders' acceptance paves way for completion of China's biggest global takeover China National Chemical Corp, also known as ChemChina, said on Friday that shareholders of Syngenta AG, the Swiss agrochemical and seed producer, have accepted its $43 billion takeover bid, paving the way for completion of China's biggest international acquisition deal. Based on preliminary numbers, 80.7 percent of shares were tendered in favor of the acquisition, higher than the minimum acceptance rate of 67 percent needed for the deal to go through, ChemChina said in a statement The first payment settlement is scheduled for May 18. The Chinese company plans to delist Syngenta's shares in Switzerland and the United States at an appropriate time. "The completion of this deal will help ChemChina become one of the world's largest suppliers of pesticides and other crop-care chemicals," said Ding Lixin, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing. However, Ding said Dow Chemical Co's merger with DuPont Co and Bayer AG's purchase of Monsanto Co, which occurred in the past two years, would continue to provide intense market competition with ChemChina, as the top six international suppliers including Syngenta and BASF SE, have all been vying for market share and financial resources to push research and development of new products. Zhang Xiaoping, director for China at the US Soybean Export Council, said China could use Syngenta's deep experience and resources in intellectual property, risk control and environmental management to bring its products to global markets. "On the other hand, Syngenta will have better access than other global companies to sell its products in our domestic markets," said Xu Hongcai, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. "China's pesticide industry is riddled with low profitability and only global scale can improve that." The government pins high hopes on the reform to solve structural issues in the agricultural sector, where some agricultural products are oversupplied while others rely heavily on imports. China has been encouraging its companies to use both domestic and global resources to ensure the country's grain and food security in its agricultural policy. Niu Dun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said earlier this year that the deal would generate a positive outcome for China to upgrade its abilities in grain and food production, supply chain building and processing. Syngenta has 28,000 employees in more than 90 countries and regions. Its sales revenue dropped 1 percent year-on-year to $3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2017. Beijing-headquartered ChemChina possesses production, research and development, and marketing systems in 150 countries and regions. Materials sciences, life sciences, high-end manufacturing and basic chemicals are its main businesses. It also acquired nine companies in France, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy and Germany. A total of up to 20 billion yuan could be paid at the provincial level as bonuses Beijing will offer rewards to nine provinces that exceeded their capacity cut targets in 2016, financed by a portion of the 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) subsidy allotted to help address overcapacity, Xu Hongcai, assistant finance minister, said on Friday. Rewards for good performance will facilitate overall progress in cutting overcapacity this year, but less-developed areas that face greater difficulties with economic restructuring also need more financial help, experts said. Local governments and enterprises in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces will receive money for going beyond capacity cut targets in the steel sector. Chongqing, and Shanxi, Shandong, Henan and Shaanxi provinces will receive grants for cuts in the coal sector, Xu said. "The final amount given to each province will be revealed after the central government verifies the performance of each province last year," Xu said. "We will make sure that the allocation of money is transparent." The total amount of the rewards would amount to a maximum of 20 percent of 100 billion yuan in special funds established in 2016, Xu said. The remaining 80 percent would be allotted to all regions to help with capacity cuts, he said. Xu did not provide details on when the amounts will be announced or how the money will be spent. "The central government's financial support is vital in helping the province achieve the capacity cut target because relocating workers and business restructuring are very costly," said Ji Jinghang, curator of Hangzhou Low-Carbon Museum in Zhejiang province. Zhejiang's developed and balanced economy allows its laid-off workers to find jobs more easily than those in less-developed places such as in the economically lagging northeastern region. Zhejiang ranked 14th nationwide in economic growth in the first quarter of 2017, with an 8 percent year-on-year growth rate, while Jilin province, saddled with heavy capacity cut targets, registered 2.4 percent growth during the same quarter. Zhejiang plans to cut 2 million metric tons of steel by the end of 2020, while the target set for the steel sector this year alone in Jilin is 800,000 tons, according to provincial government documents. Cheng Gong, a senior China National Coal Association analyst, said economically lagging regions need more financial support from the central government than last year because local governments face higher pressure to achieve targets. Despite some local risks, Chinese investors exploit opportunities presented by the initiative, Xu Wei reports from Phnom Penh. Editor's note: This is the ninth in a series of reports focusing on the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, China's proposed trading routes linking Asia, Europe and Africa. Chinese businessman Li Weichun first visited Cambodia as a tourist last year. After the 10-day trip, he made up his mind to move key parts of his electric wire and cable business from a town near Beijing to the Southeast Asian country. "What I saw then was a country very similar to China of the 1970s and 1980s. The Cambodia market is still yet to be developed, but the booming infrastructure drive means the demand for our products will be definitely strong," Li said. That's because Cambodia does not produce electric cables and wire products, and instead relies on imports, said Li, a native of Nantong, Jiangsu province, who owns a factory in Yanjiao, a township in Hebei province, near Beijing. He started by finding a business partner in Cambodia. Next, a joint venturePhnom Penh Wire and Cable Electric Co Ltdensued, which started production in January. Li expects sales revenue of $4 million to $5 million this year. "I'd not be here without the Belt and Road Initiative," said Li, adding his determination has been boosted by the large number of Chinese State-owned enterprises investing in Cambodia. China is already the largest foreign investor in Cambodia with investment of $748 million in 2016, the Kramer Times reported, citing figures from the National Bank of Cambodia. China has also been the biggest trade partner of Cambodia for three consecutive years to 2015. Bilateral trade reached $4.4 billion in 2015. Li is one of several Chinese businessmen who are eager to exploit opportunities in the emerging Cambodian infrastructure sector, which is also largely spurred by the Belt and Road Initiative. In a report published in January, the NBC said that the expansion of economic activities will be buoyant this year, with the Belt and Road Initiative expected to allow Cambodia to increase its investment and trade with China and other economies along the Initiative. The NBC also said in the report that the country's real estate market had increased significantly last year, with 2,636 investment projects, up 14 percent year-on-year. Capital flowing into the sector expanded by 156 percent to about KHR 34,341 billion ($8.46 billion). The country's GDP growth rate has been robust over the past five years, reaching an estimated 7 percent in both 2015 and 2016. The Asian Development Report 2017, published by the Asian Development Bank, expects Cambodia's GDP to grow by 7.1 percent this year and in 2018. The report noted that the potential for light manufacturing to relocate out of China into lower-cost economies in the region should offer Cambodia scope to attract foreign direct investment or FDI in a variety of areas beyond garments and footwear, which have long been the mainstays of the local economy. China remained the largest source of FDI (60 percent) in Cambodia's real estate in 2016, followed by Singapore (30 percent), the NBC report said. Businessman Li noted that his decision to relocate to Cambodia is in part related to China's cooling real estate market and infrastructure drive. In Cambodia, large Chinese investments have brought about unprecedented business opportunities for his electric wire and cable business, he said. To be sure, opportunities abound in other areas as well. Jiang Shengqiang, founder of the Zhongzhicai Supply Chain Co Ltd, a Beijing-based building decoration company, made a second trip to Cambodia in April, to find a location for an exhibition hall to display his company's products. He said Zhongzhicai Supply is aiming to be a wholesaler of building materials, ranging from ceramic tiles, timber floors to toilets, in Cambodia. "The prices of my products will be unparalleled. When I start my business there, all the small players in the market will find it difficult to continue," he said with a beaming smile. Like Li, Jiang is keen on Cambodia because he believes the country is set to see a infrastructure and real estate boom on the back of a rise in FDI. "We are planning to bring all our products here within two months after the completion of the exhibition hall," he said. He is already facing competition from Chinese peers as the land in capital Phnom Penh is in short supply. "There are already a lot of people who want to have a finger in the pie. Some lands have been leased out in a very short period," he said. But the close relationship between China and Cambodia is encouraging Jiang to invest. "The close ties are part of the favorable investment environment." The relatively cheap labor is another reason that drew him to Cambodia. Jiang estimates labor costs to be only about one-fifth that of China. Te Seurphann, board director of the Federation for Small and Medium Enterprises of Cambodia, said the Cambodian authorities are taking a variety of measures to support SMEs, which could also benefit Chinese investors. "The SMEs are the heart of a country's economy. We need more investors who can create job opportunities, rather than people who are just trying to sell their products. Even though the domestic market in Cambodia is relatively small, the fact that it is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations means about 600 million people are potential consumers." But it's not hunky dory all the way. Cambodia sees frequent droughts and floods, so an investment is not always 100 percent risk-free. "A plot's location appears perfect, but that may turn into a river during the wet season. I've heard stories of entrepreneurs being able to do nothing when their factories are washed away by floods," said Li. The lack of a proper drainage system means that entrepreneurs must choose higher ground to set up factories and prevent them flooding, he said. Chen Chenjiang, the acting president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, told Xinhua News Agency that it is important for Chinese investors to find the right local partners. Background credit checks through the embassy or bank outlets from China is important to protect themselves from potential frauds. Even though there is little competition in the Cambodian market, the market volume is still small, Chen said. Anyone on their first trip to Phnom Penh might be surprised by the lack of transport optionsexcept for the easy availability of auto rickshaws, also known as tuk-tuks. With tuk-tuk drivers waving at you unswervingly and following a few steps behind to offer their prices, I realize Chinese people here might be one of their main sources for clientsanother reminder of our widespread presence here. It is never pleasantnor safe according to local friendsto take a long walk under the scorching, tropical sun. So most of the time, I respond to their offer of "hello, hello" with some bargaining, before taking a trip that at least saves me from being drenched in sweat. The Cambodia Daily reported that there are now more than 6,000 tuk-tuks in Phnom Penh, and a majority of them seem to be serving the tourist population in the country. However, even though the Chinese presence is widely seen in Cambodia, from the large number of Chinese people at the airport to the Chinese workers and construction equipment at building sites, it is difficult to spot any in the transport sector. Vehicles and motorcycles of Japanese brands, ranging from Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi, are so popular on the streets of Phnom Penh that you can barely see any vehicle brands from China, South Korea or even the United States. The Global Times reported last year that Chinese motorcycles had dominated the Southeast Asian market in the 1990s and early 2000s, but cut-throat competition in the local market forced the Chinese producers to lower the prices, which eventually lowered the quality of their products. The report was confirmed by a Chinese friend of mine who is based in Phnom Penh, who drives a Toyota Land Cruiser himself. Another friend, who is a Cambodian, said the reason why people choose Japanese cars over other brands is the easy availability of car parts and car maintenance services in Phnom Penh. To me, that is a sobering reminder for Chinese companies keen to tap into the Southeast Asian market: branding takes a lot more than advertising and undertaking of contracts. It means the winning of people's hearts with your products and services. Female employees leave the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone after work. [Photo provided to China Daily] After 10 years of construction, the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in the southern coastal city in Cambodia has attracted 109 companies and changed the lives of local people. The SEZ, jointly developed by the Cambodian and Chinese governments, is about a four-hour drive from Phnom Penh, the country's capital. It covers an area of 11.13 square kilometers. Companies from China, the United States, France and Japan have established 148 manufacturing plants that produce products from clothing to electronics. It now has 160 well-organized plants, service centers, dormitories, markets and large sewage treatment plants. "It's not easy for small and medium-sized companies to set up camps overseas," said Zhou Haijiang, president of Hodo Group in China's Jiangsu province, one of the developers of the zone. He said: "But their chances of success will increase greatly if they choose to cooperate with the zone, which not only offers advice on various kinds of policies, but also helps with hiring workers. "The zone provides what we called 'one-station service' to companies unfamiliar with local laws, policies, cultures and languages. We often provide language and skill classes to train qualified workers for the companies." According to Zhou, the companies setting up plants in the zone will be exempted from import and export duties and business income tax. Their products can be directly exported to ASEAN and many European countries. The SEZ not only helps enterprises reduce their costs of raw materials and labor, but also offers jobs to local residents. More than 16,000 locals are now working in the zone, which accounts for 95 percent of the total employees in the area. About 300 companies are expected to set up plants in the zone in the near future, which will help create 80,000 to 100,000 jobs in all. Sonai, 50, a local farmer and father of seven daughters, belonged to one of the poorest families living near the zone. His girls used to help him in farming before the zone started to employ local people. Now three of his daughters work at the zone and earn more than $1,500 a year. "We've constructed a two-story building, bought glass tables and wooden beds," said Sonai. "We can buy proper food and send some children to school now." The process of constructing the zone turned out to be more difficult than people had imagined. Back in 2007, there was no water, electricity or road when the zone's construction started. "Local people mainly relied on farming and cattle breeding," said Dai Yue'e, vice-chairman of Sihanoukville SEZ Co. "Most families earned less than $300 a year." To earn the trust of the locals, the pioneers of Hodo promised them that they would earn $300 in three months at most, and they kept their promise. Now more than 70 percent of the local families have members working at the zone. Some locals even voluntarily teach the neighbors Chinese to find better jobs. By now, about 23,500 locals have participated in the Chinese courses offered by the zone. Also, Sihanoukville SEZ Co donates to the Red Cross of Cambodia every year, builds roads for the locals, and sends poor children to receive education. Wuxi city, where Hodo Group is based, has established a sisterhood relationship with Sihanoukville city. Jiangsu province has signed a memorandum of friendship and cooperation with the province of Sihanoukville. Hodo Group has been designated by the State Council as one of the 120 pilot enterprises for deepening reforms. As a leading enterprise in manufacturing and global trade, its sales reached 50.3 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) in 2015. YOKOHAMA Finance chiefs from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as Japan, China and South Korea discussed global and regional economy and financial cooperation here Friday at the 20th ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting. The ASEAN+3 finance leaders agreed that the regional economy, while growing relatively fast, still faces downside risks caused by factors, such as protectionism and financial condition tightening. They agreed to promote sustainable, balanced and inclusive economic growth by deploying all necessary policy tools independently or jointly, including monetary, fiscal policies as well as structural reform. They reaffirmed support for open and rules-based multilateral trade and investment systems, and agreed to enhance monitoring of capital flows and pay close attention to and address possible risks in the region. The leaders also reaffirmed strengthening the role of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) as part of the regional financial safety net and welcomed the fruits achieved in the first joint test run of the CMIM and the International Monetary Fund. Shi Yaobin, China's deputy finance minister, said China's economy got off to a good start in 2017, with economic growth reaching 6.9 percent, 3.34 million new jobs created in the first quarter and foreign trade up 21.8 percent year-on-year. He said that China will continue with proactive fiscal policy, further cut taxes and administrative fees for enterprises, optimize the fiscal expenditure structure to promote reform of the supply side while attaching more importance to controling local governments' debt risks. He noted that the ASEAN+3 region, while keeping a growth momentum, still faces a lot of challenges, including the aging society, the increasing need to conduct industrial structural transformation, and the growing financial vulnerability for some countries. He called on all sides to take joint actions to strengthen structural reform, increase regional infrastructure investment and connectivity, firmly protect multilateral trade system, and continue to improve regional financial safety nets to effectively prevent financial risk. The move came as China's construction of military infrastructures on its artificial islands in the disputed waters is nearing completion. Vietnam has raised concerns over the complicated developments in the South China Sea at a recent meeting between a regional bloc and the United States, the Foreign Ministry said. At the meeting on Thursday in Washington, Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung emphasized the importance of peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation in the waters Vietnam refers to as the East Sea, the ministry said in a statement. The meeting is the first between foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Representatives of ASEAN nations and the U.S. Secretary of State at the meeting. Photo courtesy of Vietnam's Foreign Ministry Dung affirmed that the developments in the South China Sea is a common concern of countries both within and outside the region, including the U.S. He also highlighted the principles agreed upon the ASEAN-U.S. Summit in Sunnylands, California last year. Tillerson and ASEAN representatives shared concerns over the complicated developments in the flashpoint waters and stressed the importance of peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the statement said. Both sides affirmed the exercise of restraint, peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international laws. Tillerson and ASEAN representatives also agreed to fully comply with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and soon complete the Code of Conduct of Parties, the foreign ministry's statement said. Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung (second from right) and Vietnam's Ambassador to the United States Pham Quang Vinh at the meeting. Photo courtesy of the Foreign Ministry China has almost finished construction of military infrastructures on its artificial islands in the South China Sea, allowing Beijing to deploy modern military equipments in the area, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, founded by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in late March. ASEAN has adopted a cautious approach recently on the issue of the South China Sea, with a weekend summit avoiding references to China's building and arming of artificial islands there, Reuters reported. This stance coincided with moves by China and ASEAN to draft a framework to negotiate a code of conduct. The U.S. has conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge South China Sea claims, angering China, but not yet under Trump's administration. Such operations would continue, the newswire cited Patrick Murphy, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia as speaking to reporters. He declined to say when the next operation might be. In a separate development, Vietnam has rejected Chinas unilateral ban on fishing in the East Sea from May 1 to August 16, saying it violated Vietnams sovereignty over the Hoang Sa archipelago as well as its rights and legitimate interests in its sea areas, the Vietnam News Agency reported. The fishing ban neither suits the development trend in Vietnam-China relations nor benefits peace and stability in the region, Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as telling reporters on Thursday in Hanoi. HARARE Zimbabwe and China's Zhejiang province on Friday signed two memorandum as the two countries push for more cooperation and fostering of joint ventures in sectors such as agriculture, agro-processing, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, construction, energy, health and finance. Minister of State for Harare Metropolitan Province Miriam Chikukwa signed a Friendship Memorandum of Understanding with the Vice Chairman of Standing Committee of Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress Wang Huizhong. Secretary for Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Desire Sibanda signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Chairperson of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (Zhejiang) Wu Guiying, under which the Chinese will explore investment opportunities in Zimbabwe. Wang is leading a high-powered delegation with more than 20 people from Zhejiang province which is exploring business opportunities with both the public and private sectors. The delegation joined Zimbabwean government officials and the private sector for the Zimbabwe-China Zhejiang Investment Conference where they engaged with a view to establishing long term cooperation agreements. "We expect them to invest in our economic blueprint Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation priority areas in our Special Economic Zones (SEZs)," Sibanda told Xinhua after the signing ceremony. He told the delegation that the government had come up with highly competitive SEZs incentives such as flexible labor laws, tax free holidays, duty free importation of essential raw materials which are not locally available and relaxed immigration rules for investors. Wu said Zimbabwe and China were highly complementary of each other and announced plans to establish an office in Harare to promote cooperation between the two. "As long as we join hands with each other, I believe that our symposium will bring more opportunities," she said. Chikukwa said that the memorandum she signed sought to foster greater friendship between the two provinces and boost cooperation in various sectors of the economy. Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping said he had once asked investors in Zhejiang why they were not investing in Zimbabwe and they had told him that they did not know much about the country. "They always got negative information on Zimbabwe from the internet," he said, adding that it was time for China and Zimbabwe to transform their comparative advantages into fruitful cooperation. A picture illustration shows a WeChat app icon in Beijing, December 5, 2013. [Photo/Agencies] MOSCOW Russia on Friday banned the access to Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, saying its operator failed to register with the appropriate authorities. Vadim Ampelonsky, spokesman of Russian telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor, said WeChat "did not provide the contact information necessary for registration with authorities." WeChat is the most popular messenger app in China and is widely used by Chinese living overseas. It is produced by China's IT giant Tencent. Currently, some WeChat users in Moscow have been unable to log in or send messages. Tencent's spokesman Zhang Jun responded on Friday, saying the company is in contact with related Russian agencies. Earlier on Tuesday, Roskomnadzor also blocked Messenger, Line and Vchat for the same reason. Cyclists in Tianjin wear masks on Friday, as dust hits the city. [Photo/Xinhua] At least one death is attributed to strong winds, others injured A severe sandstorm sweeping the northern region turned the sky yellow, and caused at least one death in the affected regions. The storm is forecast to persist, and marched south and east on Friday to blanket cities including Shanghai and Jiangsu province. The affected southern regions are expected to see the storm disappear on Sunday, the National Meteorological Center said. In Beijing, a 50-meter section of wall was blown down, killing one person and burying eight vehicles on Friday morning. In addition, a pedestrian was severely injured by a flying brick in Haidian district on Friday morning, Beijing News reported. The wind blew down trees, causing severe traffic jams in the morning. Shanghai has issued a warning that air pollution is forecast to climb to the severe level on Friday night, and that it will persist until Sunday, the municipal environment and weather authorities said. They suggested people take precautions like closing windows, staying indoors and wearing protective masks. In addition, the provinces of Henan, Jiangsu and Hubei have been affected by dust and sand on Friday, and will see it linger until Saturday, the national weather authority said. Wuhan, Hubei province, suspended work on construction sites and demolitions, and the frequency of watering roads was increased to reduce dust generation, the city government said. The ongoing dust and sand storm, the strongest bout this year, has swept over more than 10 provinces and big cities in northwestern and northern regions since Wednesday, including Beijing, the center said. In Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the dust storm has reached alarmingly high levels and lowered the visibility to 300 meters in some areas, according Zhang Bihui, a senior meteorologist at the weather authority. On Thursday, the concentration of PM10the main pollutants in the dusty weathersoared to over 2,000 micrograms per cubic meter, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said, adding that at least seven cities including Beijing saw their air quality indexes reaching the maximum of 500. In Hailar district of Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, the strong sandstorm forced the closure of a section of major expressway and closed schools on Thursday and Friday. Liu Guoqun's father, Liu Wanyong (center), and other family members bid farewell to the helicopter carrying the woman's donated organs from Jiaxing to Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Thursday. It was the first step in a transplant relay. TIAN JIANMING/CHINA DAILY A relay to transport lifesaving human organs on Thursday marked new hope for several seriously ill patients and a new step for China's young but maturing transplantation program. It was the first time a relay involving both a helicopter and a commercial jet had been attempted, and it was all made possible by the generosity of a grieving family who had just lost a young woman in the flower of youth. In a hospital in Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, a 21-year-old woman named Liu Guoqun, who had sustained a mortal head injury in an accident on April 25, was declared brain dead by doctors after efforts to save her failed. Liu's family gathered at her bedside, and her parents struggled with what to do, but finally came to the decision to donate her heart, liver, kidneys and corneas to benefit others. "I believe my daughter's life will continue on through the transplants," her father, Liu Wanyong, told China Central Television. Soon, candidates to receive the organs were found in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, 80 kilometers away, and in Beijing, a distance of 1,220 km. But time was short, and ground transportation was out of the question. A heart, which was the organ needed in Beijing, must be used within five hours. A relay plan was hastily organized. A helicopter rushed all the organs to Xiaoshan International Airport in Hangzhou within 26 minutes on Thursday morning, the CCTV report said. An Air China passenger jet, flight CA 1711 to Beijing, was delayed for 23 minutes and took off as soon as the heart was aboard the plane. The helicopter then whisked the remaining organs to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. It arrived in 12 minutes and the organs were rushed to operating rooms, where doctors and their patients waited. The woman's liver and two kidneys were transplanted, giving three patients a new lease on life. While the heart arrived in Beijing in time, doctors performing tests needed before the transplant found "functional inadequacies" in the organ that ruled out its use, the report said. The patient would have to continue to wait. Two patients will get the woman's corneas, restoring their sight, on Tuesday. "It was a great effort," said Wang Jian'an, the head of Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. "It is China's first helicopter-and-plane relay to transport organs. All departments and organizations gave a green light on transportation." In China, regulations allow organ donations after doctors declare a donor brain dead, but family members must sign documents to permit the donation. Aerial photo shows various sharing bikes lined up at a parking area in Nanjing, May 5, 2017. The bike-sharing business, which took off in major Chinese cities less than two years ago, has seen a growing number of shared bikes from different companies. [Photo/Chinanews.com] Crew members of the C919, China's first homegrown large passenger plane, wave at spectators in Shanghai on Friday after the plane completed its first test flight. [Photo/Xinhua] What you need to know about the C919 The C919, China's first homegrown large passenger plane, made its debut flight on Friday in Shanghai, a breakthrough in the country's innovation and manufacturing drive and a change to the landscape of the global civil aviation market. The successful test flight of the C919 comes only nine days after the country debuted its first homegrown aircraft carrier in Dalian, Liaoning province, showing the world its manufacturing prowess, development of advanced technology and national ambition to regain past glory. After the flight, which lasted about 79 minutes at an altitude of 3,000 meters and an average speed of 300 km/h, the plane returned to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, from which it had taken off at 2 pm. "All the activities made in the air are normal. The C919's debut flight is a complete success," said Cai Jun, captain of the flight. In a letter of congratulation to the C919 project, the State Council said: "The successful maiden flight of the C919 marks a milestone for China's aviation industry. The project carries great weight and importance to the country's innovation drive and manufacturing upgrade push. "It is also a shot in the arm for the ongoing supply-side reform," the letter said. "The large passenger aircraft flying in the blue sky makes generations of Chinese people's dream come true." About 3,000 people witnessed the historic moment of the first flight of the narrow-body jetliner. Before the flight, the C919, whose enhanced version has a range of 5,555 kilometers, passed a series of strict tests after rolling off the assembly line in November 2015. Zhou Guirong, deputy chief designer of the C919, said more than 50 percent of its parts and components were domestically made, either by Chinese companies or joint ventures in China. Since launching the C919 project, the plane's research team has made 102 technological breakthroughs in areas including integrated design of engines and systems control. With 158 to 174 seats, the twin-engine, single-aisle aircraft will be used for medium-haul commercial flights. The State-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, which manufactured the C919, has received 570 orders for the C919 from23 clients. According to its designers, the commercialization of the C919 will take two to three years before getting certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Boeing earlier predicted that China will need 5,110 new single-aisle airplanes through 2035. With China's aviation market growing rapidly as a rising middle class travels more for leisure and business, the C919 aircraft is also expected to eventually take market share from Boeing and Airbus in the lucrative narrow-body market, which accounts for more than 50 percent of the aircraft in service worldwide. "We believe the C919 will bring new competition to the market, and we welcome com-petition, which is good to the development of the industry," said Eric Chen, president of Airbus Commercial Aircraft China. Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, expressed his congratulations on behalf of Boeing for the C919's successful debut flight. "This is a great achievement in the history of COMAC and an important milestone for Chinese aviation," he said. Federico Marziali, head of quality management of Dornier Seawings GmbH, said he is very impressed by the size of the COMAC C919 project. "I can imagine the huge production ability once it starts production, by the size." Meanwhile, Lin Zhijie, an aviation industry analyst and columnist at Carnoc.com, one of China's largest civil aviation web portals, said there is still a long way to go before the C919 enters the market. "Apart from meeting flight safety standards, the C919 team has to make sure all things go right, such as the reliability, fuel efficiency, maintenance cost, as well as the comfort level of the aircraft. They should all be considered before it is put into use in the market," Lin said. The C919 project was launched in 2006. Two years later, the C919 maker COMAC was established in Shanghai. Plans for the plane, which was originally due to fly in 2014 and be delivered to buyers in 2016, were postponed for manufacturing reasons. Contact the writers at wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn and zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn Liu Jianchao, a former Foreign Ministry spokesman and senior official in charge of hunting China's corrupt fugitives, has been appointed discipline chief of Zhejiang province. He became head of the province's commission for discipline inspection and a member of the province's core leadership - the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Zhejiang Committee - in late April, according to an official report posted on Thursday on Zhejiang Online. Ren Zemin will leave his post as commission chief, the report said, without disclosing details. Ren, 63, has surpassed the routine retirement age of vice-ministerial officials in China. Liu, 53, will take charge of investigating graft issues involving Party and government officials in the province, and also supervise them to ensure compliance with Party rules to build a clean government, according to the Zhejiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection website. Liu joined the Foreign Ministry in 1987 and acquired extensive experience at the information department. He became assistant minister of foreign affairs in 2013. In 2015, Liu was appointed deputy director of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, a vice-ministerial-level post. He also became head of the International Cooperation Department of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, the country's top anti-graft watchdog. The commission is the Party's anti-corruption agency, while the bureau is a government department. A commission deputy director will usually also be head of the bureau, and some other officials from the two agencies also will overlap. The appointment took many people by surprise because it opened a new career path for senior diplomats. It was widely believed that Liu's long diplomatic experience would be used to help China better communicate with other countries during the hunt for corrupt fugitives abroad. In late 2012, China launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign after the new leadership was elected. To capture economic fugitives who had fled abroad, China set up the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group, led by the CCDI, and launched Sky Net, an operation targeting corrupt fugitives. In April 2015, Interpol issued red notices - requests to locate and detain an individual pending repatriation - for the 100 most-wanted Chinese corrupt former officials. Forty have been returned to date from more than 16 countries and regions, according to the CCDI. "Liu is very professional and an innovative official. He's especially good at advancing new ideas and taking effective measures to improve work efficiency," said an anti-graft officer who worked closely with Liu at the CCDI but declined to be named. The Palace Museum in Beijing, also called the Forbidden City, said on Friday that it will open its first permanent satellite gallery outside Beijing on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, Fujian province, on May 13. The Kulangsu Gallery of Foreign Artifacts from the Palace Museum Collections will be in a former hospital that was set up by a Dutch-American missionary in 1898. The opening exhibition features 219 artifacts including antique clocks, scientific instruments and paintings from abroad. They come from the 16th to the early 20th century. The artifacts were chosen from the Palace Museum's collection of some 10,000 foreign artifacts, many of which were brought by missionaries and diplomats to the court of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Because the museum has lacked a space to present the items, most of those going on display in Xiamen have long been stored in warehouses. "The Palace Museum has the responsibility to find a place to show the artifacts to give the public a wider view of the world's civilization," said Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum. "Due to historical reasons, in Western museums, we can see many items from abroad, but such institutions are quite rare in China." Gulangyu Island, a top tourist spot once called Kulangsu, hosted the settlements of 13 countries from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, making the 1.88-square-kilometer island a cultural melting pot. "The island is a center of historical architecture from many countries," Shan said. "Its atmosphere echoes our exhibits from overseas, and is thus a perfect place to display them." Gulangyu's bid to become a World Heritage Site will be taken up at a UNESCO conference in Poland in July. Ni Chao, a standing member of the Xiamen committee of the Communist Party of China, said the new, 5,168-square-meter museum will be a bonus for the island's cultural landscape. Three hikers have been killed and two others were frostbitten after they traveled along one of the most dangerous hiking routes in northwest China's Shaanxi province and encountered a terrible snowstorm, a regional rescue team was quoted as saying by West China Metropolis Daily. At least 50 Chinese backpackers from regions including Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Qinghai and Yunnan were trying to cross from Aoshan Mountain to the peak of Taibai Mountain in Shaanxi's Qinling Mountains during the May Day holiday, according to the Shaanxi Shuguang Emergency Rescue Association. Hiking in the mountains is becoming increasingly popular in China, but many people have insufficient knowledge about the sport, and its dangers. "The 120-km hiking trail from Aoshan Mountain to Taibai Mountain takes about seven days to walk along, and it covers depopulated zones," said Chen Xutong, a director at the Shuguang association. "Because the missing backpackers do not have GPS, it is really difficult to find them," he told China Daily. Chen said that the association's rescue efforts started at about 9 am on Friday, when the snowstorm abated. The 20-person rescue team from the association was searching around the Paomaliang area where the mercury stood below - 10 C. Two of the three victims died from hypothermia, according to West China Metropolis Daily. By early Friday afternoon, one hiker from Shanghai and another seven from Changshu, Jiangsu province, had contacted loved ones. Thirteen people from Yiwu, Zhejiang province, and three people from Yunnan province have been confirmed safe. "The extreme weather and low temperature pose the biggest threat," Chen said. The mercury drops 6 C for every 1,000-meter increase in altitude. He also said the rescuers were trained with medical knowledge. Meanwhile, personnel at Taibai county were organizing separate rescue efforts. According to a news release from the county's publicity department on Friday, the regional public security bureau received four reports on Thursday, claiming eight people went missing during the hike. More than 50 rescuers from the county, divided into three groups, headed from different areas on Thursday afternoon for the mountains. All the missing people were successfully reached by 6 pm, according to Huang Ma, who told West China Metropolis Daily that there were about 30 to 40 people in total, including a third one who died and two who suffered frostbite. Cheng Si in Shanghai and Huo Yan in Xi'an contributed to this story. Forty-five people were convicted on Friday by three courts in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, for their involvement in a deadly landslide that killed 73 people. Four people also remain missing after the landslide at a construction waste disposal site in Shenzhen's Guangming new district on Dec 20, 2015. The accident destroyed 33 buildings and caused direct economic losses of 880 million yuan ($127.5 million), the courts found. Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, Nanshan District People's Court and Baoan District People's Court found that the tragedy was a result of irregular subcontracting, loose management, corruption as well as dereliction of duty. Twenty-six executives and employees from Shenzhen Lyuwei Properties Management and Shenzhen Yixianglong Investment and Development were convicted of causing a serious accident and giving bribes to government officials. Long Renfu, chairman of Yixianglong, was sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined 10 million yuan. The other 19 were local government workers. They were charged with abuse of authority, taking bribes or dereliction of duty. Meng Jinghang, former director of the Shenzhen Urban Management Bureau, was sentenced for 20 years and fined 8 million yuan for taking bribes and abusing his powers. How Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City: the history of a name To veterans, the city has always been known by its current name, long before the war ended. Think tanks run by domestic nongovernment organizations, officially named "social think tanks", which were once marginalized if not ignored, have finally earned recognition and strong support from the Chinese government. The government promised on Friday in a circular to make policies to help these think tanks grow, while enhancing regulations to improve their management. Among things to expect, foreigners who work for these think tanks may enjoy more favorable job benefits like public health insurance, which were not guaranteed before. The Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of most NGO-related issues, joined hands with eight other key government organs, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, to issue the circular. Social think tanks will have better access to government information and statistics to facilitate their research. They can also bid for government purchases of public services. Legal channels may be cleared for think tanks to raise funds from various sources to better finance their operations. Think tank employees may also find opportunities to transfer to government organs and vice versa. Meanwhile, they need to accept supervision from civil affairs departments of different provinces and the specific government bureau that oversees their main business. There are many kinds of think tanks in China. A majority are run or sponsored by the government, including public institutions, colleges and research centers, while some operate as business enterprises. But overall, China's top leadership is not satisfied with the status quo of these think tanks. The central government pointed out in a 2015 circular that China's think tanks are not compatible with the development of the nation. It acknowledged that China lacks internationally reputable and respected think tanks, and that there was no established channel for think tanks to contribute to political decision-making, in part because most people have not realized the importance of think tanks. The central government vowed back then to build a number of internationally influential and well-known think tanks, and create a systematic mechanism to make full use of these think tanks by 2020. Miao Lu, secretary-general of the Center for China and Globalization, which was founded in 2008 and with 103 full-time employees is one of the biggest social think tanks in China, said she felt "greatly encouraged" by the circular. "When Mr Wang Huiyao and I first founded the think tank, we had already earned some money and just wanted to give something back to society." Miao said. "Now that the joint statement has been made to support our career, we just need to wait for the implementation." TAIPEI -- A fishing boat from Guangdong Province was seized Saturday morning by a Taiwan patrol in waters near Penghu County in southeast Taiwan, local authorities said. A total of seven crew members were on board the ship. Two were injured by rubber bullets fired from the patrol boat, and required hospital treatment. Their condition is described as stable. The other five are under arrest. Taiwan media reported that the boat was fishing in waters about 23 nautical miles west of Huayu, Penghu's westernmost island at about 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning. An investigation is under way. BEIJING -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson Saturday called on Taiwan to investigate immediately the shooting of mainland fishermen by Taiwan coast guards. A fishing boat from Guangdong Province was seized Saturday morning by Taiwan coast guards in waters near Penghu County of Taiwan, local authorities said. Two fishermen were injured by rubber bullets fired from the coast guard ship. They were sent to a hospital in Penghu for medical treatment. The other five are detained. An Fengshan, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, called on the Taiwan side to respect the fact that fishermen from both sides of the Strait had long been fishing in the area. He said that Taiwan should respect the rights of mainland fishermen and stop seizing fishing boats for no sound reasons. An also requested the Taiwan side to seriously handle the case, release the fishermen as soon as possible and prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents in the future. Tourists visit the Mogao Grottoes, a scenic spot in Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu province, April 13, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] Why do Western commentators look at China's Belt and Road Initiative with Cold War prejudice, calling it a modern-day version of the US-initiated Marshall Plan for rebuilding European economies after World War II, or the 19th century Great Game, in which Britain and Russia battled for control in Central Asia? To begin with, these claims are the result of a zero-sum mentality. Some don't trust China's strategic motivation, arguing the initiative is a geopolitical tool to assert its regional leadership and establish a new sphere of influence. Others resist the China-led initiative, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, for fear of losing their clout in the global financial system. But, while doing so, the skeptics fail to see the fact that China has never had a zero-sum mentality. Instead, it believes in and encourages win-win thinking. As Confucius said: "He who wants success should enable others to succeed." China's initiative is for the benefit of all. Building upon the spirit of the two ancient routes, the Belt and Road Initiative is a transnational network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa with the aim of promoting common development for all the countries involved. Unlike the Marshall Plan, no political conditions have been imposed on the economies along the two routes for participating in the initiative. And China has always said countries should respect each other's rights to independently choose their own social systems and development paths. While Western European countries had little say in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, China is stepping up policy consultation with its partners. Based on the principles of equality and mutual benefit, China and its partners are fast improving their road connections, trade and investment facilitation, monetary circulation and understanding. Openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit are the hallmarks of the initiative and the source of the strong support it has garnered. Since 2013, more than 100 countries and international organizations have responded positively to the initiative, and nearly 50 inter-governmental agreements of cooperation have been signed. And in March, New Zealand became the first developed Western country to join the initiative. Concrete and targeted projects under the framework, which are consistent with local demands, have been rolled out to facilitate economic development, with Chinese companies investing more than $50 billion and building 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the routes, which have created 180,000 local jobs. How has the Chinese approach reaped such an early harvest despite the sluggish global economic recovery, flagging international trade and rising anti-globalization sentiments? The key lies in abandoning power politics, hegemonism and shunning the zero-sum game, while replacing them with cooperation, partnership and sharing. The Belt and Road Initiative, which embodies responsibility, win-win cooperation and genuine pursuit of common development, offers the world a Chinese answer to the challenges of today in the form of balanced, equitable and inclusive development. Living in a close-knit community of shared future, we have no choice but to abandon the Cold War mentality, and redouble our efforts to develop global connectivity, in order to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share the prosperity. -Xinhua News Agency China launched its first cargo spacecraft at 7:41 pm on April 20 on a mission to test refueling technology and perform scientific experiments. Tianzhou 1, the nation's biggest, heaviest spacecraft, blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province. [Photo by Ju Zhenhua / Xinhua] News that space experts from Europe and China are to discuss collaboration on a manned "Moon Village" as a launch pad for potential missions to Mars offers a colorful symbol of a wider growing relationship between the two sides. The talks on the proposed cooperation were first disclosed in April by Tian Yulong, head of the China National Space Administration, and subsequently confirmed by Pal Hvistendahl, a spokesman for the European Space Agency. The "Moon Village" concept, which the ESA also sees as an opportunity to develop space tourism and lunar mining, is regarded as just one area of potential European-Chinese space cooperation. The Chinese space agency plans to launch a mission to collect samples from the moon by the end of this year and conduct its first mission to the far side of the moon next year. The ESA hopes to take part in analyzing those samples. "Space has changed since the space race of the 1960s," Hvistendahl said. "We recognize that to explore space for peaceful purposes, we do need international cooperation." Back on Earth, closer ties between Europe and China are evident in several other areas, including the development of a rail freight network. In January, London became the 15th European city to be served by direct rail service from China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The growing transportation links reflect the importance of China as Europe's fastest-growing export market. The closer ties are for the most part focused on the economic front, with European countries competing in areas that range from encouraging Chinese inward investment to tapping further into the burgeoning Chinese tourism market. However, the election of US President Donald Trump on a protectionist and more inward-looking platform has prompted the Europeans to ponder what some experts see as a broader pivot to China. Even before Trump's election, the European Union adopted a new strategy on relations with China to the end of the decade that outlined the major benefits to Europe of closer ties in terms of jobs and growth. The strategy unveiled last summer went beyond trade issues, however, to encompass cooperation on major global political issues, including climate change. "We can and must do more to connect the European Union and China," Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief, said then. This European open-handedness was unsurprisingly twinned with the usual EU warnings about unfair competition and Chinese industrial capacity, particularly in the steel sector. At around the same time, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reminded an EU-China summit in Beijing that both sides played major roles in maintaining world peace and development. China and Europe should therefore cooperate closely by sending positive signals to a world facing complex political and economic developments. The political outlook in the US, where the new president tends toward protectionism and climate change skepticism, has pushed China and Europe into a joint leadership role on at least two vital issues. At the China-EU strategic dialogue in Brussels last month, Li urged the EU to promote globalization and free trade, while Mogherini said both sides needed to support the World Trade Organization "to avoid any protectionist policy or attitude". Moreover, with the prospect of the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate changeTrump has promised to make his "big decision" later this monthit will be up to China and Europe to take the lead in spurring global action on carbon emissions. Nowhere are differing attitudes to cooperation more apparent than in the "Moon Village" concept. Even the administration of former US president Barack Obama declined to partner with the Europeans on the project, while Trump's main space initiative has been to talk of speeding up unilateral plans for a US mission to Mars. And, as European and Chinese experts prepare to sit down and discuss cooperation on the project, the US space industry has been pressuring Washington to tighten rules on commercial space activity, with scary warnings of China taking over the galaxy. The author is a senior media consultant for China Daily. harvey.morris@gmail.com Zhongguancun industrial zone in Haidian, Beijing has been transformed into a nationwide incubator for entrepreneurship and innovation. [Photo Provided to China Daily] In Beijing's Haidian Book City, an incubator for innovation helps startups, including the company behind the 'poputar' smart guitar, become a success Zhang Bohan used to strolled over to the Haidian Book City in northwest Beijing in 2005. The cultural landmark, one of the largest bookstores in the Chinese capital, was the ideal destination for the then 15-year-old guitar-lover to buy CDs. At that time, it seemed impossible for him to predict that the old building at the center of Zhongguancun industrial zone would be transformed into a nationwide incubator for entrepreneurship and innovation. The Zhongguancun Inno Way company, which is headquartered in the Haidian Book City area, is now a new landmark of innovation with various well-known incubators, such as Garage Cafe, Kr Space and Legend Star. As "a platform of incubators," the Inno Way has met with great success in the past three years, serving as a bridge for both Chinese and international startups, markets and investment. Three years ago, with the invention of a smart guitar, Zhang started a business, Popumusic, after dropping out of the University of California, San Diego. China and Argentina are finding new common ground in a joint love for tango, the seductive and confrontational Argentinean dance that is finding new fertile ground in China. Xinhua spent some time in Argentina with a Sino-Argentinean couple, Shelly Hou and Juan Berthier, who have begun gathering students in Buenos Aires. In the city's Salon Canning, the two dancers put on a "milonga," a space where tango lovers come to dance and give free rein to their passion. Hou, born in Shanghai, told Xinhua that her passion for tango began when she saw it performed on television. "After that, I took a holiday to Buenos Aires and moved here in 2013 to learn Spanish and tango," she said. She met Berthier at the National University of the Arts (UNA), where they began learning tango together. "We were friends for a year and ended up as a couple, dancing together," added her Argentinean partner. "We began practicing together and I was surprised to find he (Juan) knew a lot about China, such as traditional Chinese medicine and history. We have progressed together, we take classes, we practice and work together," explained Hou. According to her, "with the advantage of two cultures, we began giving regular tango classes in Buenos Aires, especially for Chinese people who live or travel here and want to learn tango. We speak about each other's experiences, in China and Argentina." Now, moved by their passion, Hou and Berthier receive many students from China, as well as the US, Canada and beyond. "The classes are not just about tango, and they are also a place to meet new friends, to share cultures, ideas and experiences together, especially between Argentineans and Chinese," said Hou. Asked about tango's appeal, Hou describes it as a "mysterious and beautiful dance which represents Argentina. Through tango, more Chinese like me are discovering this country, the culture and its people. It brings us together as a family." "I arrived here alone, without knowing anything or anyone. I began learning Spanish and tango and I began to discover the country. Tango is not just a dance from Argentina, and it also represents Argentina's culture," she said. Now, Hou and Berthier are preparing a trip to China. "We want to teach tango there," said the Argentinean man. DPRK says foiling US, South Korean attempt to assassinate Kim Xinhua | Updated: 2017-05-05 20:49 PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it had foiled an attempt by US and South Korean spy agencies to assassinate the country's top leader Kim Jong Un, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. According to the report, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and South Korea's Intelligence Service (IS) attempted to murder DPRK's Kim last month with bio-chemical and radio-active substances. The Ministry of State Security of the DPRK said in a statement that CIA recruited a DPRK citizen in Russia's Far East in 2014 and trained him to stage the assassination against Kim when he was making public appearances on April 15 during celebrations of the 105th birthday of DPRK founding leader Kim Il Sung. The KCNA said the spy, surnamed Kim and a resident of Pyongyang, was given equipment, money and instruction to carry out the plot. Confucius Institute at Western Kentucky University held a dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Model Confucius Institute Building on May 5. University President Gary A. Ransdell said the campuss Confucius Institute, launched five years ago, helped the university fulfill its mission of becoming "a leading American university with international reach". Xu Lin, former Director General of Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters, also attended the opening ceremony. The $2.3 million facility, with a floor space of 700 square meters, will become the Chinese-language learning center at the university. [Photo by Zhao Huanxin/chinadaily.com.cn] MANILA - Two people were killed and four others injured, including a policeman, in twin blasts that rocked Quiapo District in Manila on Saturday, police said. The first explosion went off around 5:50 pm local time in Norzagaray Street in Quiapo District, while the second blast occurred around 8:30 pm local time near the same site, police said. Police have yet to determine the type of explosives used in the twin bomb attacks. No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts. Last Friday, 14 people were injured in a blast in the same district as the Philippines was hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila. In Ethiopia, progress in fighting malaria has contributed to the remarkable reduction in overall mortality among children under five, wrote Peter Vrooman, U.S. Charge daffaires in Ethiopia. In an op/ed entitled Ending Malaria for Good is a Sound Investment, Mr. Vrooman noted that global progress in the fight against malaria since 2000 has been truly historic and the U.S. Government has played a key role in this progress. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 6.8 million malaria deaths were averted worldwide between 2001 and 2015, primarily among children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this progress, he warned, around the world a child dies every two minutes from malaria. More than 400,000 people will die from malaria this year and the vast majority will be young children in sub-Saharan Africa. This region bears a disproportionate share of malarias burden. In 2015, 90 percent of all malaria cases and 92 percent of malaria deaths occurred in the region. The U.S. Government has been a leader in the fight against malaria, particularly through U.S. Presidents Malaria Initiative, or PMI, launched in 2005, Mr. Vrooman noted. The initiative operates in 19 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia. The initiative is led by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and implemented together with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through PMI, hundreds of millions of people have benefited from protective measures and hundreds of millions more have been treated for malaria. In Ethiopia, PMI has procured about 20 million insecticide treated bed nets, 9 million rapid diagnostic tests, and more than 15 million treatments to prevent malaria. PMI also trains health care workers to strengthen their capacity to fight the disease. Beyond improving child survival and maternal health, malaria control contributes substantially to eradicating extreme poverty and improving educational outcomes. Experts estimate a $60 return for every dollar invested in malaria prevention in the region. We must all join our efforts to end malaria in Ethiopia and worldwide, once and for all, Mr. Vrooman concluded. Beating diseases like malaria is the right thing to do. Its also the smart thing to do. (Photo : H&K) HK416F assault rifle with UGL for the French Armed Forces. Advertisement The first consignment of Heckler & Koch HK416F 5.56mm assault rifles -- the new standard assault rifle for the French Armed Forces -- was delivered on May 3. The 400 HK416F assault rifles delivered by Heckler & Koch to the "Direction generale de l'armement" (DGA), the French government defense procurement and technology agency, represents the first batch of an order that will eventually amount to 102,000 rifles. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Some 5,000 rifles are to be delivered this year; half by 2022 with the order being fulfilled by 2028. Among the unique modifications made to the HK416F ("F" for France) is the replacement of the flip-up front sight with a specialized bayonet lug, and a custom barrel muzzle to attach and fire rifle grenades. The HK416F replaces the French-made FAMAS bullpup assault rifle, which first entered service in 1979. It's expected this German-made weapon will remain in service with the French Armed Forces for the next 30 years. The French Army (Armee de terre) also ordered 10,767 underbelly grenade launchers or UGLs (HK2969F) with a caliber of 44 mm x 46, as well as accessories, ammunition, various components and support services for 15 years. The HK416F comes in two variants. The first is a long or standard barrel (300 mm long) for combat units and short barrel (280 mm long) for other units of the French Armed Forces. Some 54,600 rifles will be the short version. The HK416 is in service with many Special Forces around the world. In addition to Norway, France now uses the HK416 as the standard assault rifle for its armed forces. In August 2016, the Ministere de la Defense selected the HK416 rifle to replace FAMAS as the new next generation assault rifle for the French Armed Forces. The HK416 fires 5.5645mm NATO rounds out to 300 meters at a cyclic rate of 900 rounds per minute. Its feed system consists of 20, 30-round detachable STANAG magazine, or 100-round detachable Beta C-Mags. Advertisement TagsHeckler & Koch HK416F assault rifle, French Armed Forces, Direction generale de l'armement, FAMAS bullpup assault rifle, standard assault rifle, French Army (Photo : USAF) Red circles show the location of three of four Luneberg Lens Radar Reflectors on an F-35 Advertisement The U.S. Air Force has been countering Russian efforts to detect its Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth jets flying over Syria by making these almost invisible fighters more visible to Russian radar systems. This counter-intuitive solution to foiling Russian radar spying consists of installing a device called a "Luneberg Lens Radar Reflector" or a Luneberg Reflector on American stealth fighters. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement This device increases the radar cross section (RCS) of the F-22 -- which appears like a steel marble on Russian radars -- so the F-22 looks as large as an ordinary fourth generation jet fighter to a radar. Satisfied the aircraft on their radar screens isn't an F-22, Russian radar operators won't spend an inordinate amount of time tracking this aircraft and deducing its combat capabilities. Some experts have described the Luneberg lens as the most efficient passive radar reflector available, and one that doesn't require a power supply or maintenance. The air force has also installed Luneberg Reflectors (also called RCS enhancers) on a number of its Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters to pull off the same trick against the Russians in Europe, and possibly against the Chinese. American media has revealed that a number of air force F-35As operating in Eastern Europe near Estonia (one of the Baltic States) are equipped with Luneberg Reflectors and are now conducting aerial patrols within range of Russian radars. Since Russian radar systems in Eastern Europe are similar to the ones it operates in Syria, the reflectors will also hoodwink Russian radar operators in Europe into believing the planes they've detected aren't stealth fighters, and aren't that much of a concern. Since the reflectors exaggerate the RCS of the F-35, the device is preventing Russia from testing their sophisticated radar defenses against this supersonic stealth jet. It appears the air force has been testing Luneberg Reflectors on F-35s and F-22s since 2010. Advertisement TagsU.S. Air Force, Northrop Grumman F-22 Raptor, "Luneberg Lens Radar Reflector, Luneberg Reflector, radar cross section, RCS, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, Estonia (Photo : Indian Navy) INS Vishal supercarrier (concept). Advertisement The Indian Navy will become the second navy in the world to deploy the advanced Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) to launch planes from its aircraft carriers and the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) to recover these planes after the U.S. Department of Defense recently approved the sale of these sophisticated systems to India. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement DoD recently granted General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS), the California-based developer of EMALS, export approval for both EMALS and AAG to the Indian Navy. EMALS is designed to replace the steam catapult systems currently used on all 10 of the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class, nuclear powered aircraft carriers. The newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), is the first carrier to deploy EMALS. The Ford is scheduled for deployment in 2019. EMALS launches carrier-based aircraft from an aircraft catapult using a linear motor drive instead of the conventional steam piston drive. Its main advantage is it allows for a more graded acceleration, inducing less stress on the aircraft's airframe. It's also lighter than a steam catapult system and cheaper to operate. In addition, EMALS can launch aircraft that are heavier or lighter than those handled by steam catapults. The Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) system uses electric motors for aircraft deceleration during aircraft carrier recovery operations. The Indian Navy's "Indigenous Aircraft Carrier II" (IAC-II) program calls for building 65,000 metric ton supercarriers. The second carrier in the Vikrant-class and India's first supercarrier, the INS Vishal, is in the design phase and will deploy both EMALS and AAG. The Indian Navy in November 2016 confirmed plans to integrate EMALS catapults into its future supercarriers by revealing the dispatch of Letters of Request (LoR) to the U.S. DoD to buy this advanced aircraft launch system. It said the LoRs cover the purchase of three EMALS under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales Program. Sources in the Indian Navy told media the LoRs were issued in February 2016. The navy expects the Pentagon to approve the LoRs and to issue its Letters of Acceptance (LoA) approving the deal within the next few months. Advertisement TagsIndian Navy, Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, EMALS, Advanced Arresting Gear, AAG, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, "Indigenous Aircraft Carrier II" (IAC-II) program, INS Vishal (Photo : Getty Images) Workers check an Eurocopter Tiger military attack helicopter at the Eurocopter plant in Donauworth, Germany. Advertisement China's Beijing 999 Emergency Rescue Center (Beijing 999) has ordered one Airbus Helicopter H145 to be fitted with a hoist for medical, search, and rescue purposes. The rotorcraft is expected to be delivered by 2019 and will be used for airborne mountain rescue services in time for the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Beijing 999, a subsidiary of Beijing Red Cross Foundation, currently has two H135s used for emergency medical services (EMS) around Beijing, Hebei, and Tianjin. Meanwhile, Bell Helicopter and Air Method's subsidiary United Rotorcraft have delivered one unit of Bell 429 helicopter to Reignwood Investment, representing its first EMS in China. United Rotorcraft installed a medical interior including machined aluminum floor, additional crew seating configurations, and product improvements for optimum patient care and assess. The helicopter also has a rescue hoist and other program-specific support equipment. The Bell 429 is the only light twin-engine helicopter on the market with true two-liter capability. It has sufficient room to accommodate two medical attendants and two other crew members plus an extra-large 60-inch side doors. It also boasts of an exceptional flight performance, with a fully integrated glass cockpit, advanced drive system, and an SBAS navigation and instrument flight rules capability. The Bell 429 is also the first helicopter to receive an MSG-3 process certification, resulting in lower maintenance costs for operators. "There is a critical need for HEMS in China, and we are honored Reignwood has selected the Bell 429 to assist in life-saving missions," Patrick Moulay, executive vice president of commercial sales and marketing of Bell Helicopter, said. Advertisement TagsBeijing 999, Airbus Helicopters, Airbus Helicopters 145, EMS, Bell 429 (Photo : NASA) NASA's plan to get to Mars. Advertisement Renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warns humanity faces extinction over the next 100 years unless it finds a way to colonize another planet -- likely Mars -- and become a multi-planetary species. He previously warned human extinction would occur in 1,000 years and his accelerated estimate seems to border on paranoia since it's apparent even to him humanity can't accomplish this fantastic technological leap in only a century. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," said Hawking in early 2016. And to support his new fear, he claims Earth is becoming "increasingly precarious" because of threats arising from "climate change, overdue asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth." Others, however, find it odd Hawking made this dire prediction ahead of his upcoming BBC documentary called "Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth" set to air later this year. A press release promoting this documentary has Hawking saying he will "present his predictions that the human race only has 100 years before we need to colonize another planet." That other planet can only be Mars, and only Elon Musk and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have plans of establishing human colonies on Mars. In June 2016, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk revealed intriguing information about what his space transport company plans to do after becoming the first to land people on Mars. That historic landing on Mars by astronauts aboard the company's Mars Colonial Transporter will happen in 2025, said Musk. After that landing, the key task facing SpaceX will be to establish a supply lifeline to ensure the survival of the company's Martian colonists. This undertaking will involve establishing a regular cargo run to Mars, with colonists and cargo making the six to eight month journey aboard the company's Falcon Heavy rockets still under development. "Essentially what we're saying is we're establishing a cargo route to Mars," Musk said. "It's a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It's going happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station. And this February, the tiny but oil-rich UAE announced its grandiose plans of becoming the first country on Earth to build the first habitable Earth city on Mars by 2117. In sheer size, scope, ambition and brashness, the UAE's City on Mars (yet unnamed) dwarfs any existing plan to colonize Mars. NASA and SpaceX only have plans to establish Martian outposts manned by about a dozen scientists. The UAE will build a city on Mars probably housing hundreds of persons as part of the "Mars 2117 Project" in collaboration with specialized international organizations and scientific institutes. The Mars 2117 Project was made public by Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. "The landing of people on other planets has been a longtime dream for humans. Our aim is that the UAE will spearhead international efforts to make this dream a reality," said Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid. Advertisement TagsStephen Hawking, extinction, Mars, multi-planetary species, BBC, Elon Musk, SpaceX, United Arab Emirates, UAE, 2117, Mars 2117 Project A Houston man remains in custody at the Montgomery County Jail after he was seen driving the wrong way along a stretch of the Grand Parkway in Spring. A Montgomery County deputy constable spotted Shiloh Lee, 44, about 10 p.m. Thursday along the Grand Parkway near Rayford Road. The dash cam video shows Lee passing the deputy constable, who immediately turned around and signaled his lights, officials said. An explosion rocked a home in northwest Harris County's Copperfield subdivision early Saturday prompting a response from the Harris County Sheriff's Office bomb squad. Authorities arrived at a residence in the 8200 block of Pine Falls Drive to investigate a call received around 3:05 a.m. about a fire or explosion. A male homeowner told responders that "rocket propellants" erupted, according to a news release issued by Deputy Tom Gilliland, a sheriff's office spokesman. The fire caused damage significant enough to summon the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office and assistance from the Cy-Fair Fire Department. The Fire Marshal is removing the offending chemicals. The homeowner, whose name was not released immediately, is facing charges from that agency. The street was closed for the investigation and chemical removal, but there was no danger to neighbors, Gilliland said. The explosive chemicals will be destroyed at the bomb squad's training facility. There was always one young girl eager to run out and greet Wendee Nicole when she visited a certain boarding school in Uganda. "It's almost like she recognized her mom before I knew it," Wendee Nicole said nearly a year after she adopted Joyce, a now 11-year-old Batwa child from Uganda. Wendee Nicole's social media pages are filled with the bright eyes and big smile of the girl, a double orphan who came to live with Wendee Nicole because of issues within the young girl's family. Joyce is considered a double orphan because both of her parents are dead. In Africa, a child with one deceased parent is considered an orphan. Last year, Wendee Nicole, who sold her house and moved to Africa to help the Batwa community in 2014, became Joyce's adopted mother after fostering the girl for a year. It had been a big decision, one she spent six months agonizing over, seeking feedback from her two biological children - Savannah, 22, and Sam Holtcamp, 20 - as well as friends and family. "There was one circumstance that was like the answer," Wendee Nicole said. "I needed to protect her. She really did not have a positive future in that village. Sixty percent of the single women have HIV, and there was prostitution. She was failing all of her classes; she was at risk from dropping out of her school and going the way a lot of women in the village do." Wendee Nicole actually met Joyce on her first trip to Uganda in January 2014. She has a picture of Joyce with Beckham, the girl's uncle who is younger than she is, and it was a haunting photo of Beckham that drove Wendee Nicole to move to Africa in the first place. At the time, Joyce lived in a small mud home with her grandfather and five other children. Wendee Nicole brought Joyce back to the United States weeks ago, with plenty of time to see Savannah graduate from the University of Texas-Dallas with a degree in neuroscience May 6. Photos and videos show Joyce experiencing the United States for the first time, riding roller coasters, jumping into hula hooping contests, dancing, singing, drawing and spending time with her adopted family and friends. "She loves it," Wendee Nicole said. "I'm making her journal. She said the first day, 'Everything's clean and neat. The roads, it's not crazy.' Of course, she misses home." Meanwhile, Savannah will follow in her mom's adventurous footsteps, and she is planning to teach in English in Korea before continuing her education. She's already spent two summers in Seoul. Savannah, herself hopes to one day adopt children herself and encouraged her mother to do so, Wendee Nicole said. Though Joyce has been officially adopted in Uganda, Wendee Nicole still is working to raise money to get through all of the immigration paperwork to have Joyce recognized as a U.S. citizen. She spent much of her time in the United States selling T-shirts emblazoned with a dandelion logo and the words "Choose Joy," to raise funding. The shirts were designed by Savannah. She's also sold baskets hand-woven in Uganda at the Kingwood Farmers Market to raise money for Redemption Song Foundation, an organization Wendee Nicole created to support projects in southwest Uganda. Wendee Nicole said she and Joyce have grown closer as the girl's English has improved. At different times Wendee Nicole described Joyce as smart, talented and sweet. Joyce loves everybody, Wendee Nicole said, and loves to give hugs. "Just seeing how healthy and beautiful she is, it makes me yearn to see the Batwa people healthy," Wendee Nicole said. For more information, visit http://www.wendeenicole.com/. A Madisonville man with a past felony drug conviction on his record is now facing 10 years in prison for being caught carrying a firearm, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston announced Friday. A federal indictment handed down today against Reginald Scott, 42, alleges he was in possession of a Springfield .45 pistol on March 30, 2017. A bill that would have Montgomery County voters determine who serves on the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District's board of directors is closer to becoming law after breezing through the state Legislature with unanimous support. House Bill 1982, sponsored by state Reps. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe, and Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, will require that members of the board win their positions in an election, instead of being appointed as they are now. The measure, which also passed the Senate in a 31-0 vote, will reduce the number of directors to seven instead of its current nine. The final language in the bill was amended in the Senate by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who had introduced a similar version. Under the amended version, one of the directors will be elected by Conroe voters, while another director will be elected by voters from The Woodlands. The bill's unanimous approval by the Senate comes after it passed the House last month in a 144-0 vote. "I am pleased that our colleagues in the Legislature saw this issue as a major priority as those of us from the Montgomery County delegation did," Metcalf stated in an email. "This change was well overdue, and I am glad that our citizens will finally have a voice in selecting the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District board." Once the House agrees with changes made in the Senate, the bill will be sent to Gov. Greg Abbott, where he's expected to sign it into law. When approved by the governor, the bill will bring the water district in line with most other Texas groundwater districts, where board members are elected instead of appointed. According to lawmakers, 85 percent of the 99 single-county groundwater districts in the state are run by board members who are elected, not appointed. Officials at Lone Star said they had nothing to add to a comment they had issued last month as the bill progressed in the Legislature. "Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District is a creation of the Texas Legislature," Kathy Turner Jones, general manager of the district, said in a previous article. "It can also be modified by the same body should our elected officials deem it appropriate. We respect this process. The district was created to conserve, protect and enhance the groundwater resources of Montgomery County, Texas. Regardless of how the structure of the board is defined, its mission will remain steadfast." The Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District was created in 2001 to manage Montgomery County's groundwater. According to the district's website, it works both sides of what it terms a "tricky" application to ensure that the amount of groundwater that is pumped does not exceed the amount of water that is replenished. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, is joining an effort to have billions of dollars the U.S. is seeking to seize from a man once considered to be one of the world's richest and most powerful druglords go towards helping to pay for President Trump's proposed border wall. Brady is co-sponsoring the so-called El Chapo Act, or H.R. 2186, a bill that would take the estimated $14 billion the federal government says Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman, commonly known as "El Chapo," amassed while running an international drug cartel and have it go towards construction of the wall and other border measures. "For decades, drug lords like El Chapo have spread addiction and violence, destroying countless lives in the process," Brady said in a statement. "The EL CHAPO Act is a creative and direct solution that will help secure the border while providing a fiscally responsible way of fulfilling one of President Trump's key promises to the American people. I am proud to be working with Senator Cruz and Representative Brooks on this important legislation, and I look forward to helping it pass the House." Sen. Ted Cruz R-Texas, has also introduced his version of a bill that would also have the money and assets seized from Guzman pay for the wall. "Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way toward building a wall that will keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals across our southern border," Cruz said of his proposed bill. "Ensuring the safety and security of Texans is one of my top priorities. We must also be mindful of the impact on the federal budget. By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and his ilk, we can offset the wall's cost and make meaningful progress toward achieving President Trump's stated border security objectives." Meanwhile, a number of lawmakers -- especially Democrats -- are skeptical about the prospects of building a wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, saying it would be impractical and excessively expensive. Some other lawmakers -- including fellow Republicans-- are also dismissing Trump's promises that Mexico will end up paying for the wall. In other matters, Brady, a regular and harsh critic of how the IRS operates and of its top officials, is still seeking to have the Department of Justice to take a "fresh look" at evidence they say former IRS official Lois Lerner broke the law by targeting Americans for their political beliefs. Lerner was at the center of a political firestorm that broke in 2013 when an inspector general's audit found that IRS agents had improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny during the 2010 and 2012 elections. Brady is also seeking to have the head of the agency, John Koskinen, fired. Brady has told President Trump that the federal tax code and other problems at the IRS can't be fixed until Koskinen is removed from the agency. Koskinen was not the head of the IRS when the scandal involving Lerner erupted, but Brady is calling his handling of the matter since he took over at the agency as "shockingly inept." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate More than 150 people sipped lemonade with little umbrellas Friday as the New Caney ISD Education Foundation expressed gratitude for support that is transforming the classroom experience. Sponsors, donors, school board members and elected officials filled the Texan Drive Stadium Community Room for the foundation's only annual fundraiser, the Breeze into Summer Luncheon, where a grant expo displayed five student projects. The more than $50,000 raised at the luncheon will help support the foundation in providing teacher "grants for great ideas" like the student projects on display. Kings Manor Elementary Special Education teacher Julie Jeffs received a $2,500 grant for the "Got IndePENdence" project out of the $500 to $5,000 grants of the $83,000 awarded by the Foundation last year. Jeffs and other teachers led demonstrations during the luncheon to show supporters how the funds were utilized. Her grant helped provide tools like document scanners that students can use to help with reading and comprehension, including those with special needs. Joseph Genovese, of New Caney High School, displayed "Astronomy: The Final Frontier," supported by a $2,400 grant; while Melissa Clifton, of Sorters Mills Elementary, showcased "Let's Hit the Target with Archery" Project, funded with the help of a $3,300 grant. Charlotte Schilten, of New Caney Middle School, presented her students' "Pictures Are Worth a Thousand Words," made possible by a $2,700 grant. In 2016, the foundation was able to award a Cornerstone Grant for $50,000, which outfitted 16 media centers, including 600 3D scanners, green screens and more this year as part of Jeannie Reed's "Transforming the Media Center for Reality and Beyond" project. Reed and Porter High School Campus Media Specialist Lisa Herr pointed out student-created clay animation sets, puzzles, critical-thinking game pieces, and shoe concepts on the table. The students are learning code, video game design and more with an estimated 200 students eager to engage, create and explore career options in the morning and lunchtime at the once-quiet libraries that have been transformed into lively Makers Space Media Centers. "You walk by and hear noise coming from the library, and that's OK - they're learning," said Reed, who thanked the foundation, sponsors and donors for bringing the project to life for the district and students. "The grant helped us implement the Makers Spaces to a much larger scale than we would have been able to do the first year (as a district)," she said. New Caney ISD Superintendent Kenn Franklin described the support as very "helpful" as budget dollars "shrink." He expressed appreciation for the "supportive community." Deputy Superintendent Matt Calvert joined him at the luncheon. "It's great," Calvert said. "It provides the icing on the cake." The foundation also has provided teachers with cameras and calculators to "enrich, maintain and expand programs necessary to meet the district's stated mission of excellence," according to NCISD Executive Director Michele Dykstra, who said teachers also were able to buy materials where children could construct interactive DNA models opposed to simply hearing reading about it. NCISD Education Foundation Intern and Porter High School senior Diamond Perez shared more examples of projects supported by the grants and student feedback with the attendees. "I would like to thank everybody who has made this a successful education program on behalf of the Porter students and staff," Perez said. "If there is anything that has stuck with me since day one with this internship, it is that the work is never done." Businesses in the community, such as The Signorelli Company, that attended as Platinum sponsors are happy to help. "We are overjoyed to be a part of a great educational program that helps achieve academic excellence for all New Caney ISD students," The Signorelli Company Marketing Manager Alyssa McGuire said. Dykstra estimates the foundation has invested more than $430,000 back into the district over the past four years, including the first $1,000 donated by Melecio Franco, who is president of the Rotary Club of East Montgomery County. The Rotary Club also donated the first $5,000 to the endowment fund. "I want to teach my children to give and give generously, even if it involves sacrifice," Franco said. Dykstra told the attendees the foundation needs help to continue to provide "exceptional educational opportunities" for the district's 15,000 students. "Please know your support is so much more than financial," she said. "It's what our teachers can do, what kids can learn, and the lives you can change for the better through your support." For more information, visit ncisdeducationfoundation.org. A bill sponsored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, that would require that only steel made in America be used in state construction projects is moving forward after easily passing the Texas Senate. Creighton's Senate Bill 1289 is with the Texas House after being approved in a 23-7 Senate vote. If passed and signed into law, it would require large state projects - such as buildings, roads and bridges - be built only with steel made by U.S. companies. A similar "Buy America" bill is being considered by a House committee. "This bill advancing is a great step for Texas iron and steel manufacturers," Creighton said after the Senate's approval. "Too many Texas facilities have closed with the influx of government-backed foreign steel hurting American free market competition." Although Texas isn't a state necessarily known for its iron and steel manufacturing, it is nevertheless home to dozens of steel plants that employ scores of people, especially when the facilities are running at full capacity. The industry group Friends of Texas Iron & Steel says Texas steel industry jobs pay an average of $50,000 before benefits, while also supporting an additional 68,000 jobs across the state. The industry also sends millions of dollars of tax revenue to state coffers, while also serving as the state's number one recycler. Likewise during a steel industry, slump local communities are hit especially hard when a plant shuts down. In Conroe, Tenaris laid off 230 workers when it suspended work at its welded tubes mill in April 2015. At the time, the Houston-based company blamed "unfairly traded imports" from South Korea for the closure. "Texas companies should have to compete against other companies no matter where they are from," Creighton said. "But Texas companies should not have to compete against other governments." Creighton's bill, and the companion bill being considered by the Texas House committee, comes as President Trump has been pledging to boost manufacturing in the U.S. and to slow the loss of jobs to foreign manufacturers. Last month, the president issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to "Buy American and Hire American." The directive is intended to boost protections for American-made goods and to save U.S. jobs. The order also calls for a review of the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. In another matter, what Creighton is describing as "the strongest pro-Israel legislation in the country" will soon be the law in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law House Bill 89, a companion bill to Creighton's SB 29, which prohibits the state from contracting with or investing in companies that boycott Israel. The governor signed the bill on Tuesday, coinciding with Israel's Independence Day. The day commemorates the formal establishment of the State of Israel. "We sent a message to the state, country and entire world Texas stands with Israel today, tomorrow and every day," Creighton said after the bill was signed. The law goes into effect Sept. 1. As legal costs mount, surpassing $200,000 per month, pressure is building for Harris County officials to settle a lawsuit over the county's cash bail system that a federal judge has ruled unconstitutional. Newly available documents reveal that teams of defense lawyers are racking up massive ongoing expenses, including one lawyer on retainer since June at $610 per hour and a Washington, D.C. appellate lawyer on board since mid-April at $550 per hour. Among the two dozen county officials named as defendants in the civil suit, one is fed up. "It's time to settle," said Criminal Court at Law Judge Darrell Jordan. "What are we fighting for?" A settlement offer remains on the table from lawyers representing poor people stuck in jail for misdemeanor offenses because they could not afford cash bail. But none of the other defendants in the suit has budged, according to attorney Neal Manne, whose firm donated its services in filing the suit with two civil rights organizations. First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said Friday he anticipates his office will have a recommendation for the Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday morning. Discussion of the case is included on the Commissioners Court agenda, with possible action to follow. As of Friday, however, the county has been billed about $2.85 million by outside counsel - a cost the county attorney's office says is not out of line given the number of defendants and a local criminal justice system that is one of the largest in the nation. "Harris County spends about $1.1 billion per year on criminal justice, 70 percent of its annual operating budget," Soard said. At least 22 attorneys plus support staff are now working on the case, including 10 in the county attorney's office and at least 12 from outside law firms, Soard said. Three firms have been hired to help with the case - Gardere Wynne Sewell, Winston & Strawn, and Cooper & Kirk - with each submitting their own itemized bills for transcripts, hourly work and other costs. Two civil rights groups are handling the case - Texas Fair Defense Project and Civil Rights Corps - with local law firm Susman Godfrey on behalf of Maranda ODonnell, a single mother who was held for two days on a charge of driving without a valid license because she couldn't afford the $2,500 bail. Similar lawsuits involving two other people were merged into the case in August. Last week, Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal ruled the county's bail system is unconstitutional because it keeps indigent people locked up on misdemeanors because they can't post bail, while people facing similar charges can walk free if they have the money. Rosenthal has ordered county officials to begin releasing indigent misdemeanor inmates starting May 15 on personal bonds without requiring cash bail, if suspects do not have other outstanding charges or warrants. She also granted the case class-action status, meaning it applies to all misdemeanor inmates who might be eligible for personal bonds. Legal bills submitted to the county for August 2016 show the biggest strain on the county's pocketbook was the hourly fees for attorneys representing the county, sheriff, 16 criminal court at law judges and hearing officers, who are the first to see a person after an arrest. The county's legal costs averaged about $237,500 per month in the one year that the case has been active, according to spending figures released by the county attorney. An attempt to mediate the case over two days in August cost the county thousands of dollars, including $1,200 per day for mediator Leslie Brock Yates, a former appellate judge hired to help the parties reach a settlement. Mike Stafford, a partner at Gardere, earned $610 an hour. He billed the county more than $28,000 for 46 hours of work that month, part of a $135,745 bill that included work by four other lawyers. Not all the bills have been paid, however. Gardere hosted the mediation and billed for take-out lunches from the Post Oak Grill on Aug. 16. The total: $558, including salads and sandwiches for 30 and $112 for 30 slices of key lime pie. The county, however, balked at the bill and it sent it back to the law firm with questions. It has not been resubmitted. The county's teams of lawyers occupied two long tables in Rosenthal's courtroom during a lengthy hearing in March, and now are poring over the judge's 193-page opinion to decide whether to settle the case or appeal it. On Friday, Criminal Court at Law Judge Jordan hand-delivered a letter to County Judge Ed Emmett asking that he be allowed to settle the case immediately. Emmett spokesman Joe Stinebaker explained the office's response to Jordan's letter. "Judge Emmett has no authority whatsoever to allow or prevent any of the defendants in this suit from taking any action they deem appropriate," he said. The formalities were of little importance to Jordan, who said it seems obvious the county should settle, given Rosenthal's comments that the indigent defendants are likely to prevail at trial. Jordan became a defendant in the year-old suit when he took office in January, and was one of two county officials who took the witness stand during a contentious injunction hearing in March. Newly elected Sheriff Ed Gonzalez also testified about his concerns with the county's bail system. Two other newly elected Democrats, District Attorney Kim Ogg and County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, submitted statements to the court in favor of ending a bail system they said unfairly punishes poor defendants. Ellis applauded Jordan's letter Friday. "It's clearly time to settle and get this case behind us," Ellis said, "to implement the reforms and move on to other cost-saving measures that will help us protect the public safety of the citizens of Harris County and have more resources to deal with issues like flooding economic development, health care and congestion." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The man charged with capital murder in the Feb. 22 fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Subway restaurant employee turned himself in to Houston police shortly after noon Friday. The suspect claimed he had evidence pointing to another person as the shooter, but the police chief said investigators are confident they found the right man. Jeffery C. Archangel, a 25-year-old resident of Houstons Alief area, was charged Thursday with killing Javier Flores when the teen intervened during an armed robbery at the 3933 Broadway location to protect a fellow employee his mother. THE SEARCH: Police release composite sketch of shooter in Subway restaurant killing Archangel turned himself in at the Houston Police Departments downtown headquarters at 1200 Travis, accompanied by community activist Quanell X. Archangel did not comment to reporters. After a police officer handcuffed Archangel, Quanell told reporters Archangel was adamant that he was not the shooter. The activist, who got involved after Archangel called him early Friday, said Archangel has an audio recording that features the real shooter describing the crime in detail. Story continues below... "This young man maintains his innocence. He says he was not even there," Quanell said of Archangel, who said he was at a recording studio at the time of the fatal shooting. Archangel raps under the name "Skylar." However, Chief Art Acevedo said a few hours later that police believed they had the right suspect. "We're pretty confident," Acevedo said at a 3:30 p.m. news conference. "We've got witnesses, we've got good ballistics, we've got the murder weapon." VICTIM REMEMBERED: Friends recall 'hero' teen slain saving mom in botched Subway robbery Archangel had been out on a $30,000 bail bond after he was charged early last month with the robbery the same night of another Subway restaurant, this one at 4807 San Jacinto in the Museum District. An investigator had received information that defendant Jeffery Archangel was a possible suspect, according to a sworn statement filed April 5. The detective then put Archangels photo in a six-image photo spread, from which the robbery victim picked it out. The investigator wrote that Archangels facial features resembled the suspect in the video. Acevedo said homicide investigators had multiple witnesses who put Archangel at the scene of both robberies. However, police did not have enough information early last month to charge him with murder as well as aggravated robbery, so he was able to make bail. We live in a society and a nation where you cant just keep somebody behind bars because theyre suspected, Acevedo said in response to a question about why Archangel was able to leave jail. CHARGES FILED: Suspected shooter faces capital murder charge Archangel has no convictions on his criminal record and never previously was charged with a felony. Archangels court-appointed attorney in that case, Shannon Brichelle Baldwin, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Quanell said he had not spoken with Archangel about the robbery charge. When asked about Quanells role in the case, Acevedo said that anytime you can take a murder suspect off the street ... without anyone getting hurt, thats a win. Acevedo added that police are still looking for at least one more suspect, whom prosecutors could charge with murder regardless of who pulled the trigger, thanks to Texas felony murder rule and law of parties that implicates all accomplices to a crime. Anyone with information in the case is asked to call HPD Homicide at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). A teacher at Uplift Williams High School in Dallas Tuesday was arrested for having an improper relationship with a student. Mauricio Pacheco, 37, taught Spanish at the school, but was fired in April after the allegations, the Dallas Morning News reports. He allegedly had an off-campus affair with a student, whose name and age have not been released. It reportedly happened outside of school hours. The House adjourned Saturday without hearing Houston's pension reform bill, sending hundreds of city employees who traveled to Austin for the lower chamber's vote home without a resolution. The House is slated to reconvene Monday, a week after the Senate signed off the reform package. State Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, remained confident in his bill's prospects. "They know that we spent two years working on this. Everybody has had a chance to have input," he said. The reforms position Houston to pay down its $8.2 billion pension debt over 30 years instead of allowing it to accumulate, cut retiree benefits by $2.8 billion and cap future costs if the market dips. House members would have needed to vote unanimously to take the bill up out of order before adjourning at 3 p.m., as some representatives advocated doing. "We've got a lot of people in the gallery," Flynn said, "but on the other hand, if you set a precedent." City worker Thomas Deboest, who digs drainage ditches, and his wife had brought their three grandchildren to the Capitol for a civics lesson, but they weren't upset about the delay. "We'll just come back Monday, try it again," said Deboest, who supports the reform measure. Others were similarly resigned. "I guess we'll be coming this way Monday morning," retired Houston police officer Paul Holman told his fellows in blue as he left House chambers. Photo from the Texas Department of Public Safety This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list has a new member. The Texas Department of Public Safety is offering a $7,500 reward for information leading to the capture of 40-year-old David Lee Gonzales. Officials say Gonzales is a member of the Tango Blast Houstone gang and is wanted for a parole violation. BAD BEHAVIOR: Singer Chris Brown's Houston birthday celebration ended with unwanted gift Police have been looking for Gonzales since March 2016. His last known address was in Houston and he was arrested in Pasadena, Texas, in 2005. Gonzales criminal history also includes robbery, possession of marijuana and evading arrest. Story continues below Gonzales is 6 feet 1 inches tall and weighs approximately 250 pounds and he has multiple tattoos. Most prominently, Gonzales has a tattoo of a teardrop on his left cheek near his eye; a tattoo of a star on the right side of his head; and other tattoos on his arms, legs, chest and back. Scroll through the gallery to see the most wanted fugitives in Texas AUSTIN Texas lawmakers tentatively approved a proposal Friday that would eliminate straight-ticket voting in every election beginning in 2020. After about two hours of heated debate, the House voted 85-59 to do away with the option to automatically vote for one party's candidates for every office on a ballot, often referred to as "one-punch" voting. The legislation, House Bill 25, would require voters to select their candidate of choice in each race. Democrats questioned HB 25's author, GOP Rep. Ron Simmons of Carrollton, about the bill's potential effects on Latino, Asian American and African American voters. They argued that straight ticket voting allows lines at polling places to move faster, encouraging more Texans, particularly working-class voters, to cast their ballots quickly. Simmons said he did not consider those questions when he filed the bill. "People will still come out to vote, they'll just take a few more seconds to get down the ballot," Simmons said. "It'll make sure that people know who they're voting for." But Democrats accused Simmons of trying to reverse or tamp down Democratic candidates' successes in recent years, especially in local elections in the state's largest cities. "HB 25 is a hasty decision based on election results we did not like from 2016," said Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Democrat from Harris County, where more than one-third of all ballots cast in last November's election came from straight-ticket Democratic voters. Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie, also reminded his colleagues that federal courts on six separate occasions ruled that the Texas Legislature intentionally discriminated against minority voters, hinting at a lawsuit if HB 25 becomes law. The Republican-dominated chamber defeated several amendments by Democrats, including one that would have included an opt-out provision for counties which want to keep "one-punch" voting and another that would have allowed active duty service members vote straight ticket. HB 25 now must pass a third and final vote in the House before it can be sent to the Senate for that chamber's consideration. The legislative session ends May 29. The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p. We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Actress Ritu Varma is popular for her significant performance in the award winning short film Anukokunda and Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyams directorial venture Pelli Choopulu. She was a participant of Dabur Gulabari Miss Rose Glow Pageant and was the first runner up. And after acting in the short movie Anukokunda, she entered in the Telugu film industry and made her debut with Prema Ishq Kaadhal opposite Sree Vishnu in 2013 and after delivering Vijay Devarakonda starrer National award winning movie Pelli Choopulu, she has become well known face for Telugu audiences. She is gradually establishing herself as a talented actress in Telugu film industry and is also praised for her dedication towards her work and her mesmerizing looks. Recently the actress visited at the sets of Konchem Touch Lo Unte Chepta wearing a princess-ey baby pink gown by Vineti Bolaki. She completed her look with jewelry from Tibarumal Jewels and carried a silver box clutch from accessories by Anandita! On the work side, she will be next seen in Nikhil Siddhartha starrer Keshava which is set to hit the theaters on 19th May. Copiii cu nevoi speciale din Stefan Voda au conditii de reabilitare mai bune, datorita UE si Fundatiei Soros Moldova AKRON, Ohio - An Akron man pleaded guilty Friday to shooting his girlfriend in front of her three young children. Jamarian Williams, 26, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, felonious assault a dozen other charges related to the Aug. 31, 2016 shooting outside the woman's house on Inman Street, the Summit County Prosecutor's Office said in a news release. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher will sentence him June 9. The 26-year-old woman survived the shooting but required surgery at Summa Akron City Hospital, police said at the time. The woman's three children were inside the house when Williams shot her on the front porch several times, prosecutors said. None of the children were hurt. Akron police officers took Williams into custody after a brief car chase. The officers recovered the gun used in the shooting, which Williams threw out a car window, prosecutors said. Williams was on probation at the time of the shooting for a 2015 domestic violence conviction, court records show. Williams' criminal history also includes convictions for abduction, child endangering, having weapons under disability and marijuana possession, Summit County Common Pleas Court records show. To comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comments section. cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. Platter.jpeg Launching this week, Knight Cities Challenge winner ExploreAFoot works with individuals or groups to plan local bike or hike trips, and handles everything from booking rooms to identifying the best scenic sites to transporting luggage. (ExploreAFoot) AKRON, Ohio - If you've ever wanted to take an overnight hike or bike trip on the trails of Northeast Ohio but don't want to schlep a tent, ExploreAFoot is ready to help set up your lodging and meals. One of two Akron winners in Knight's 2016 Cities Challenge, ExploreAFoot was awarded $70,000 to create a program that helps people more easily explore the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and surrounding parks. ExploreAFoot, which launched this week, handles everything from booking rooms to transporting luggage. The service was founded by Brian and Tracy Davis. Brian is chair of biomedical engineering at the University of Akron and Tracy is a teacher in the Euclid school system. The couple has spent the past year researching area trails, hotels, lofts and bed & breakfasts, and eateries to recommend to their guests. ExploreAFoot founders Tracy and Brian Davis have spent the past year researching area trails, hotels, lofts and bed & breakfasts, and eateries to recommend to their guests. "We only recommend things we've tried and tested ourselves," Brian Davis said. For ideas, they turned to Akron's sister city Chemnitz, Germany, which the Davises have visited many times and have found information clearly marked, he said. For ExploreaFoot, the couple developed more than 10 of their own maps -- with corresponding apps -- offering guests detailed information on the trails, nearby sites, places to eat and other information not usually on existing marketing materials. Distances are clearly marked. And a phone number for use 24/7 is also available in case of trouble. "We don't want to be helicopter parents but we do check in with the bed & breakfasts to make sure they arrive," he Davis said. Every ExploreAFoot itinerary has been vetted for three things: a nice place to stay, close to decent restaurants and near to the trail. Here's how it works: Chose from one of ExploreAFoot's ExploreAFoot secures accommodations at a bed & breakfast, loft or hotel for your dates ExploreAFoot provides you with a daily plan with lots of options to choose from for quick stops, dining and sightseeing The service can deliver your luggage to each overnight destination before you arrive It also can provide transportation to your starting point and pick up at the end The average price per couple for overnight accommodations on a week night is $140 and on weekends $200. Luggage transport is an extra $25. Featured trips for spring include a three-day bike trip from Cleveland to Zoar; an overnight adventure in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Akron; and a 2-day hike from Akron to Canal Fulton. One-day and urban hikes are also available. To book a hike or bike trip, visit the Explore-a-Foot website or call 216-755-HIKE (4453). cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save danhorrigan.jpeg Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan will address Akron residents at the next Town Hall meeting on May 16 at Innes CLC on East Avenue. (City of Akron) AKRON, Ohio -- Mayor Dan Horrigan will continue his 2017 Town Hall Meeting series this month with a Town Hall at Innes CLC, located at 1999 East Ave. in Akron, on Tuesday, May 16. This meeting has been rescheduled from its original date of May 11 due to a change in Horrigan's travel schedule. "Hosting Town Hall meetings across the city is something I truly enjoy and look forward to each year," Horrigan said in a news release. Horrigan said the meetings are a valuable opportunity for his staff and him to meet with residents and listen to their priorities, concerns and ideas. He said they also provide a venue to have an open discussion about his vision for the city of Akron and how its residents can work together to improve the community and protect the neighborhoods. "I encourage all residents to attend or join us as we stream the meetings live on Facebook," he said in a news release. The meetings can be streamed online at Facebook.com/AkronOhio. Horrigan held his first Town Hall of 2017 at Hyre CLC on April 20. The schedule for the upcoming Town Hall meetings is provided below. Tuesday, May 16, at Innes CLC, 1999 East Ave. Tuesday, May 23, at Forest Hill CLC, 850 Damon St. Thursday, June 15, at David Hill CLC, 1060 E. Archwood Ave. Tuesday, June 27 at Schumacher CLC, 1020 Hartford Ave. Thursday, July 25, at Resnik CLC, 65 N. Meadowcroft Dr. Thursday, Aug. 17, at Seiberling CLC, 400 Brittain Rd. All meetings are held 6-7:15 p.m. For more information, contact Christine Curry at 330-375-2209 or Billy Soule at 330-375-2660. Port of Cleveland earning a profit from dredged sediment The Port of Cleveland's Sediment Processing Center within the Confined Disposal Facility located just east of Burke Lakefront Airport, photographed on May 3. A federal judge on Friday ruled against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a dispute over dredging the Cuyahoga River shipping channel. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer.) Senior U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A federal judge on Friday ruled against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a protracted dispute over dredging Cleveland Harbor and the Cuyahoga River shipping channel, writing the agency violated the law in delaying dredging because it wanted to dump polluted sediment into Lake Erie. Senior U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent of Cleveland ruled in favor of the state of Ohio and ordered the Army Corps to bear the cost of dumping sediment from its 2015 dredging project into lake contaminant dikes. The judge in 2015 forced the Army Corps to dredge and not dump the sediment into Lake Erie. The Army Corps paid those costs but would have been reimbursed had it won. Nugent wrote that the Army Corps' conclusions that the dredged material would not affect the lake and its refusal to dredge unless the state footed the bill was an abuse of its discretion. (You can read the full ruling here or at the bottom of this story.) The Army Corps battled with state and local officials in recent years over the cost of dumping sediment from the six-mile shipping channel into facilities instead of placing it in Lake Erie. The state said the sediment would harm the lake's ecosystem if it was dumped there. The Army Corps disagreed and refused to dredge unless the state paid to put the sediment into a facility. At issue was the dredging of the sixth mile, which serves the ArcelorMittal steel mill. A similar dispute arose in 2016 and a separate lawsuit is pending. The Army Corps delayed dredging last year until the fall but did not complete the project because winter weather interfered with operations. It resumed dredging last month. Ship captains then and now worried the Army Corps' delays would render the shipping channel unnavigable. The state and ArcelorMittal feared the economic repercussions that would come from not being able to traverse the waters. Nugent wrote that Congress has granted states authority to determine how damaging a pollutant can be to a body of water and that government agencies must abide by that determination to the extent possible. "The Corps does not have the authority to simply disregard or eliminate any requirements or restrictions it is subject to by statute or by its own properly enacted regulations," Nugent wrote. "The attempt to do so can indeed be considered arbitrary and capricious, unlawful, and/or in excess of its delegated authority." He also noted that the Army Corps' budget contemplated dumping sediment into dikes. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler praised the judge's ruling in a brief interview Friday, saying he viewed it as a "slam dunk." He said he expects this ruling will have some effect on the pending 2016 lawsuit. "We're going to review it with the attorney general, but we're ecstatic," Butler said. "We think all of the issues we've so long been raising with the Army Corps have been validated by the judge's ruling." Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine called Nugent's ruling "a great outcome for the state of Ohio" in a news release. Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish released a statement saying, "the Army Corps of Engineers has continually threatened the water quality of our residents and businesses, and this order makes clear that dredging needs to happen, that the material needs to go to the (disposal facility), and that it is the Army Corp's obligation to pay for it." The county previously filed a brief urging Nugent to rule against the Army Corps. The Army Corps released a statement that said "we do not comment on active litigation. The Buffalo District is currently dredging the federal channel in the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland Harbor, and will continue to maintain the channel within our authorized and appropriated means for the benefit of all stakeholders." The Corps did not indicate whether it would appeal Nugent's decision, but Butler expects the agency to ask another court to review the case. Nugent wrote there are ways for the Army Corps to challenge the Ohio EPA's water quality decision but that it did not do so. Instead, the Army Corps refused to dredge "an economically vital section of the Cleveland Harbor" unless the state found a way to pay for it, he wrote. He wrote that this led him to conclude "that the motivation behind the Corps' ultimatum is not a belief that its proposed alternative is actually in compliance with the applicable environmental laws, but that the Corps should not have to pay the cost of compliance." The vitriol in the dispute was on full display in a series of emails the Ohio Attorney General's Office referenced in a motion in January, which included insults slung at Port of Cleveland officials. Emails from the Army Corps' Cleveland Harbor project manager also suggested the Corps could reduce the amount of dredging in the shipping channel to affect navigability and "keep the heat on the local users" to approve open-lake dumping. The Corps' lawyers have denied those allegations. It said there is no federal mandate that says it must dredge and denied allegations that it intentionally delayed the process to pressure Cleveland officials. Ohio Sen. Rob Portman recently said he hopes to wrap up an investigation into the Army Corps' decision last year to cut its own budget as an apparent excuse to dump sediment into Lake Erie. cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Always Dreaming, starting in the No. 5 post position, was the 9-2 favorite as of late Friday night for Kentucky Derby 2017 today at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. Kentucky Derby info, including odds The Kentucky Derby features 3-year-olds covering 1 1/4 miles. Post time for the 143rd edition is scheduled for 6:34 p.m. NBC Sports' telecast begins at 2:30. It will be live-streamed on NBC Sports.com Live. The favorite has won the Kentucky Derby in each of the past four years. Bob Roberts, former The Plain Dealer horse racing writer extraordinaire, assessed the field on Friday afternoon (when select odds were different). Former Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Robert Jackson owns a small piece of Always Dreaming, who won the Florida Derby on April 1 in his stakes debut. Todd Pletcher is the trainer and John Velasquez the jockey. As of late Friday night, the only horses in the field of 20 with single-digit odds were Always Dreaming (9-2), Irish War Cry (5-1), McCraken (6-1), Classic Empire (7-1) and Gunnevera (9-1). Sentimental favorite Patch, starting from the No. 20 post, was 13-1. He lost his left eye because of an infection. (He was named Patch before the loss of the eye.) He is trained by Pletcher. This year's Kentucky Derby will take place without the white-haired wonder, trainer Bob Baffert, in a significant role. He does not have a horse in the race. A Baffert entry has won the Kentucky Derby four times. Editor's note: As a student at Northwestern University in 1989, I was fortunate to have joined several friends on a trip to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. We watched from the infield as Sunday Silence won. I encourage anyone who has not attended a Derby: Try your best to get there, because it is a spectacle. The surge of energy in the facility is palpable as Derby post time approaches. (It is not the only race that day.) And if you do attend, proceed with caution around the much-hyped Mint Julep. Its taste is not for the faint of gut. Kentucky Derby Twitter: @KentuckyDerby Police tape.png An 18-year-old Cleveland teen was shot and killed at a party in Portage County. (File photo) FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- An 18-year-old Cleveland teen died after being shot at a party in Portage County. The shooting happened shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday on Ohio Route 43 just north of Ravenna Road, according to a news release from the Portage County Sheriff's Office. The victim has been identified as Jayquon Devione Tillman. Deputies responded about 11:30 p.m. Friday to a report of a large party at a multi-family home, the release says. Deputies worked with several residents to quiet down the party. While they were assisting, a gunshot was heard coming from the interior of one of the homes, according to the news release. A large number of people ran from the home. Tillman was taken to University Hospitals Portage Medical Center where the teen later died. A 20-year-old woman from Columbus also was shot. She was taken to Akron City Hospital where she was treated and released, the release says. Local law enforcement agencies assisted in crowd control and in securing the scene. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation responded to the scene. Portage County Sheriff David Doak is requesting anyone with information to contact the sheriff's office at 330-296-5100. If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comments section. cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. Heroin file photo.jpg A proposal aims to cut funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. (File photo) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Both of Ohio's U.S. senators issued statements Friday decrying a reported proposal to cut funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The New York Times reported Friday that the budget of the ONDCP would be slashed by 95 percent if proposed cuts were allowed to take effect. The ONDCP, which houses the office of the nation's drug czar, runs the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program and the Drug-Free Communities Support Program. Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown each said the cuts would be devastating to Ohio, which is among the hardest hit states by the opioid epidemic. "We have a heroin and prescription drug crisis in this country and we should be supporting efforts to reverse this tide, not proposing drastic cuts to those who serve on the front lines of this epidemic," Portman said in his statement. While campaigning for the presidency, President Donald Trump said fighting the plague of drugs would be a priority of his administration. It is unclear if he would allow the proposal cuts to become official policy. "If these reports are true, President Trump will need to explain himself to the families whose loved ones have been taken by this epidemic and to the Ohio county morgues who've had to bring in extra refrigerated trucks to keep up with the overdose deaths in our state," Brown said in his statement. Ohio led the nation in opioid related deaths in 2014. Cuyahoga County saw the number of overdose deaths double last year to more than 500. Armond Budish's administration put together a coalition of groups to mount a massive opioid-awareness campaign aimed at reducing the number of people who use prescription drugs as a gateway to heroin, fentanyl and other opiates. cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. meals.jpg Guest columnist John Corlett, president and executive director of The Center for Community Solutions, contends that cuts in state funding for programs such as Meals on Wheels have made more Ohio seniors food insecure. (Joanne Berger DuMound/special to cleveland.com/file photo) John Corlett is president and executive director for The Center for Community Solutions. Guest columnist John R. Corlett is president and executive director of The Center for Community Solutions, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank addressing health, social, and economic conditions. He served as director of Ohio's Medicaid program, 2007-2009. Over the last 15 years, the State of Ohio has decimated funds for senior community services. The Ohio General Assembly's current state budget proposal puts it on the chopping block again. These important state funds are used locally to provide "meals on wheels" for seniors who are too sick and/or fragile to leave their homes. So as these funds are cut, agencies like the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging have to cut the number of meals they provide; they funded 600,000 fewer meals in 2015 than they did in 2002. This is one reason Ohio is number one in the Midwest for food insecurity among older adults. Yvette Medina, senior program director of West Side Community House (WSCH), has seen the impact of these cuts. Nearly every day, her organization faces a terrible dilemma: They have to say "no" to a Cleveland senior who is poor, ill and/or fragile, and requesting a home-delivered meal. In any given month, they might have up to 25 clients on a waiting list -- for food. These clients, who on average are 75 years of age and older and living on less than $12,000 a year, have few if any other food options. Some will end up in the hospital because of malnutrition or because they lack access to healthy food to manage diabetes or high blood pressure. Poverty rates among older adults in Cleveland are increasing. WSCH delivers food to neighborhoods, which are often seen as shiny examples of redevelopment and emerging prosperity: Ohio City, Detroit Shoreway and Tremont. But behind the new developments are hundreds of older adults living at or below poverty. Every day, they must choose between paying for food, rent, medicine or utilities. In each of these neighborhoods, 30 to 40 percent of older adults are living below the poverty line. These rates for older adults are four to five times higher than the state average. I used to run Ohio's Medicaid program, so I know the negative health consequences of malnutrition among older adults. Fifty percent of all diseases impacting older adults are connected to poor nutrition. Older adults who are malnourished are more likely to experience depression, report a heart attack, and/or develop diabetes or asthma. This all adds to rising Medicaid and Medicare costs. Increased investment in Ohio's senior community services block grant can help. For example, the cost of providing meals on wheels for a senior for one year is less than a single day in the hospital. Reducing senior hunger in Ohio is one of The Center for Community Solutions' top public policy priorities. We believe that state lawmakers have an opportunity to make things better. They can invest in better health through increasing support for the senior community services block grant, or they can invest more in Medicaid to pay for increased hospitalizations and nursing home stays. I hope they will choose the former and make life a little easier for seniors. Our seniors can't wait forever. Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue) just below. Readers are invited to submit Opinion page essays on topics of regional or general interest. Send your 500-word essay for consideration to Linda Kinsey at lkinsey@cleveland.com. Essays must also include a brief bio and headshot of the writer. Essays rebutting today's topics are also welcome. cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. columbus statehouse.JPG The Ohio Senate needs to get out its shears and prune the state's two-year budget bill of some ill-considered provisions. (Shari Lewis, Columbus Dispatch, File, 2008) The Ohio House got rid of some troubling proposals in Ohio's two-year operating budget, including required business internships for teachers. But House members -- whose budget now goes to the Ohio Senate -- more than made up for it with a long list of wrongheaded moves, led by a proposed "Poisoning Ohio's Children Act." It's not called that, of course, but the budget amendment does just that by taking away the right of municipalities to pass laws aimed at ridding rental housing of lead that can poison young children's minds and rob their futures. Another outrageous measure would give the state the sole power to decide whether Cleveland Metroparks property -- or any other local park land or municipally owned land -- should be part of underground oil and gas drilling pools for the purpose of hydraulic fracturing. In effect, localities would have no say over horizontal drilling and the exploitation of resources beneath their own parks. That is completely off-base. Also on the list of misguided amendments that should be trashed are: * Another legislative attempt to shield dysfunctional charter operators from "F" grades even when they're failing their students. * A stealth effort to take $1 million from established food banks and give it to unidentified food pantries and food banks. * A prohibition on the state closing any rural rest stops on scenic byways. The more sensible Senate ought to abolish these wrongheaded proposals before approving House Bill 49. The Ohio House's bid to make it easier for landlords to rent tainted properties takes direct aim at a recent Toledo law that requires that small rental properties -- up to four-units -- built before 1978 must be lead-safe, based on some simple tests, before they can be rented. State Rep. Derek Merrin, a Toledo-area lawmaker who has rental properties himself, according to The Toledo Blade, got the Ohio House to go along with his proposal to give the overwhelmed (and underfunded) state Department of Health sole control over lead control. But the state already relies on localities to enforce lead-poisoning laws. The amendment is a shameful, self-serving effort to keep children in unsafe housing just to save landlords a little money. About our editorials Editorials express the view of the of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization. * Talk about the topic of this editorial in the comments below. * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions or comments about the editorial board to Elizabeth Sullivan, opinion director for cleveland.com. Such a law could stop in its tracks the city of Cleveland's plan to hire a team of inspectors to comb rental units for lead. Such inspections are a key best practice used by other cities to reduce the number of lead-poisoned children, and should be encouraged, not prohibited. For similar reasons, the state should not bypass park boards so it can allow underground horizontal drilling on park land. A related provision that would let the Ohio House speaker and Senate president appoint drill-friendly members to the state's Oil and Gas Commission, instead of the governor, ought to be scratched as well. The Ohio Senate also should not reward failing charter schools. Besides the effort to erase F grades for some (favored) charter school sponsors, the Senate should nix a proposal to allow failing charters to stay in business if they can find an educational service center to sponsor them. And at a time of undiminished need for food aid for the hungry, the Senate should nix the sneaky House amendment (whose sponsor has not come forward) to swipe $1 million from official food banks and give it to unnamed, unaffiliated food pantries. Otherwise, why not just say outright that any legislator can reward his or her own pet project -- even if it means mangling the state's successful emergency food distribution? Finally, the Senate ought to kill a proposal to prevent the state from closing any rest stops on Ohio's 27 scenic byways. We will concede this: Local officials aren't always right. Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts, and stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Notification Settings (in blue) just below. ************** cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate. A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Brendan McDermid | Reuters The recent hiccups around the VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ ) have highlighted something few people talk about: what index managers actually do. And I think it's genuinely underappreciated. There's a belief in some circles that managing a fund that tracks an index is like riding a bicycle: Yeah, you need to learn, but once you do, it's just on autopilot. Nothing could be further from the truth. In no particular order, here's what goes right every day in a solid ETF shop which nobody ever sees and what could go horribly wrong. It sounds boring unless you're on the hook for it but ensuring an ETF meets any of hundreds of potential regulatory requirements, all day, every day, is not as easy as it sounds. More from ETF.com: ETF picks from a top tactical manager Don't choose an ETF based on fees alone Socially responsible ETFs as dividend plays The recent GDXJ stories are an example of a fund getting it right. Yes, the fund was forced to deviate from its index because the size of its positions started bumping up against a 20 percent limit on ownership imposed by Canadian regulations. What was missing from a lot of the coverage is that this was a huge win for good management. Consider the alternative. If Van Eck had been asleep at the wheel and just let some of its positions cross over the 20 percent threshold, it could have been a disaster. A raft of lawyers would have waded into the fray, filing for exemptions or complying with the rules and making tender offers to thousands if not millions of shareholders. The fund would almost surely have had to close for creations in the chaos. Daily hurdles The compliance burden for a big international ETF is enormous. From 20092013, Brazil just to pick one example was constantly changing the rules about foreign entities buying stocks, creating a near-daily shifting landscape for any ETF targeting that market. Investing in China? You better make sure you're staying on top of your (likely borrowed) renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor quota. And that's to say nothing of the combo platter of U.S. regulatory issues even the simplest ETF faces: IRS diversification rules, SEC disclosure rules, exchange-listing requirements, FINRA communications rules. It's real work. International funds have another wrinkle. Depending on which country an ETF is investing in, the dividends from the holdings may be subject to withholding. In many cases, those withholdings can be recaptured because of tax treaties between the United States and the target country. How good you are at getting that money back can make a real difference, and who knows, you might be even better at it than the index provider itself outlines in its rulebooks. watch now If you manage an S&P 500 ETF, you have to deal with guaranteed at least 2,000 quarterly reports a year, likely with dividend payments. That's not to mention the countless other things that can cause headaches for fund managers: M&A activity, stock splits, special dividends, spinouts and so on. Every index provider has a detailed guidebook on exactly how the index will respond to these corporate actions, and if you as the ETF manager get something slightly wrong, you can kiss your tracking difference good-bye. And of course, how MSCI deals with a particular corporate action won't necessarily be how FTSE/Russell or Standard & Poor's deals with it. And then there's proxy voting. ETFs own a lot of stocks. And at least once a year, each of those stocks is going to have a proxy solicitation asking for approvals and opinions on a host of issues, from executive compensation to merger approvals. While the actual process and decision-making can be outsourced, increasingly, large ETF managers take this business very, very seriously, using their often-outsized ownership stakes to influence how the very companies they own on behalf of their investors are run. Given that many individual investors never even vote their proxies on their individual holdings, this is, to my mind, a huge uptick for corporate oversight versus single-stock ownership. Again, it's real work. Cash management and trading Regardless of the corporate action dividends, splits, mergers and so on the portfolio impact almost always involves a reinvestment trade. Cash dividends are constantly piling up in any stock fund, and that cash needs to be put to work in a way that tracks the index as closely as possible. That sounds straightforward, but it often involves nuances most investors miss. Trading has real costs for an ETF it can generate capital gains, and even the biggest institutional trader incurs commissions and has to deal with spreads. Those effects don't exist at the index level, so the ETF manager is in a constant battle to close the gap between the theoretical performance of the frictionless index and the very messy real world of buying and selling securities. There are many tools that can be used to minimize these costs: negotiated rebalance trades, using futures or options to get temporary exposure, even using other ETFs to provide quick and cheap exposure pending a big reinvestment trade. ETF investors, oblivious to these nuances, simply expect it all to be done perfectly every day. No pressure there. Securities lending If ETFs face an unfair benchmark in the perfect math of the indexes they track, they have one thing up their sleeve that no index includes: securities-lending revenue. Depending on how much the market wants to borrow a particular ETF's holdings, revenue from a well-run securities-lending program can add tens of basis points a year to the bottom line, often overwhelming the impact of the expense ratio. Securities lending can be controversial. BlackRock, for instance, is known for having an aggressive securities-lending program, managed by an in-house team. It takes 30 percent off the top and gives 70 percent of the revenue back to the funds. Most other firms outsource securities lending to a third party, and remit 100 percent of the "profits" to funds. In either case, it can make a huge difference, for very minimal risk. Measuring impact So how do you know whether your fund manager is "good"? For the most part, ETF issuers are very good at what they do, and there's a reason we take all of the accounting and compliance and corporate actions work for granted because it's extraordinarily rare for any ETF or mutual fund manager to mess these things up. The more subtle things the trading and the securities-lending activity show up in performance directly, and you can measure it with tracking difference. Here's the ETF.com Tracking Difference panel for the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM ): Expense ratio: 0.70 percent Median trading difference (12 mo.): 0.62 percent Max. upside deviation (12 mo.): 0.33 percent Max. downside deviation (12 mo.): 0.77 percent If the fund were "perfect," you'd expect the fund to be exactly 70 basis points behind the index it's tracking because that's how much the manager takes out of the fund in fees. But this panel suggests that in a median 12-month period, over the last two years, the fund is only behind by 62 basis points. That means 8 basis points are in your favor as an investor, likely from trading activity and securities lending. In the best-case scenario, you were only behind by 33 basis points meaning you were 47 basis points better off than you expected. And in the worst-case scenario, you were just 7 basis points off worse than expected. Tracking difference and liquidity Crude is on track to double its price per barrel, according to one technician whose bold call had CNBC's "Futures Now" traders scratching their heads this week. Crude saw its worst day in 2 months this week, plunging more than 4 percent alone on Thursday. The commodity also dipped below $46 a barrel for the first time since November 30 of last year, and is down more than 15 percent. Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist at Bell Curve Trading who correctly called for crude's plunge to the $30 range back in 2013 said oil could be on the verge of a massive rally that would send the commodity to levels not seen in three years. "I think over the next [few years] it's not out of the question that you push $80- to $90" per barrel on oil, Strazzllo said in a recent interview with CNBC's "Futures Now." That's a nearly 100 percent rally from where the commodity is currently trading. According to Strazzullo, the "dramatic shift in supply and demand dynamics" that sent crude plunging from its high of more than $100 per barrel in 2013 to its low of $26 in February 2016 has created a new normal for the commodity. "The whole pricing structure has shifted lower. But when you look at the new structure, the bottom is still around $30 a barrel. We think fair value is up around $60, and probably the upper end of the range is $80 to $90," he added. Along those lines, Goldman Sachs said in a research note that the broader picture for oil "remains supportive" of higher prices despite waning demand from China one of the most voracious energy consumers on the planet. The bank added that it expects "robust demand growth" in 2017, particularly with OPEC members appearing to hold the line on production cuts. Strazzullo emphasized that a more positive global economic outlook could boost demand over the next few years. "When you look at a bigger picture, you still have a situation where you have recovering economies in Europe, and we have a stable economy here that should be on the mend," explained Strazzullo. "So you still have pretty good demand going forward." The Vector Institute in Toronto has only been around for a few weeks, and it is already attracting top machine learning talent from Silicon Valley. One reason for this: President Donald Trump. "Geopolitics is playing a part, as people contacting us have said 'I don't want to live in the U.S.,'" Jordan Jacobs, co-founder of the Vector Institute, told CNBC. The Trump administration's recent battles over immigration have made some people feel unwelcome, and others more hesitant to move to the U.S. to do research in artificial intelligence. "People have been emailing and calling to ask: When can I send my application?" Raquel Urtasun, co-founder of the Vector Institute, told CNBC. The institute is an independent research facility dedicated to artificial intelligence, launched in March of this year. It's raised $180 million from both the Canadian government and corporations to create a hybrid structure, which gives researchers the flexibility to do research while pursuing commercial business opportunities like consulting. Yet Trump isn't the only reason A.I. experts are ready to call Toronto home. "Toronto is a dynamic city, and it is culturally diverse with over 50 percent of the people here born outside of Canada. Regardless of where you come from this is a community," said Jacobs. While the cost of living is pretty high in Toronto, it is more affordable than Silicon Valley, New York and London. "Plus, public schools are very good and healthcare is free," said Jacobs. "I came to Canada and fell in love with the country...and I've lived all over the world," added Urtasun. Urtasun is currently doing research into machine perception, with a focus on making autonomous vehicles safer. "Robotics, natural language, machine learning, deep learning, or what some call AI technology is our core focus," said Urtasun. Toronto's deep roots in A.I. has brought talent to the area for years." Many of the best people in deep learning and machine learning come from University of Toronto, following in the footsteps of deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton," said Jacobs. Some of Hinton's former students include the directors of A.I. research at both Facebook and Apple. In the race to grab A.I. talent, the main players up until now have been the U.S. and China. As Canada and other countries join the competition, it could become harder for America to recruit and retain these workers. "Globally there is a shortage of researchers," said Jacobs. Urtasun says the Institute wants to graduate the most PhD and Master's students globally and establish Toronto as the epicenter for A.I. innovation. "We identified a need for creating an ecosystem in Toronto that will allow people to stay in the area instead of going to Silicon Valley," she said. Google recently announced it will be opening an A.I. lab in Toronto, and it is one of many companies expected to work alongside Vector in the A.I. race. "We get an endless stream of requests from founding corporate partners banks, telecom, airlines etc. seeking research collaborations to use machine learning for problems including healthcare, logistics issues, smart cities and computer vision," said Jacobs. "Our biggest problem is that we don't yet have enough people to take on all of the opportunity," he added. Across America many small-business owners are cheering at the GOP win on repealing and replacing Obamacare. After years of debate, the House voted Thursday to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and replace them with new provisions that change the way the federal government funds purchases of individual health plans and Medicaid. Health care has become an ongoing source of pain for many small-business owners. It was the top issue owners wanted Trump to address in a survey of 700 owners and prospective buyers in late February by BizBuy Sell, a marketplace for small businesses. Among respondents, 60 percent favored an ACA repeal. The major reason: spiraling health insurance premiums often a result of insurance companies fleeing the marketplace. It is a trend affecting business owners in all states. Ross Coulter, 49, and his wife, who run a two-person public relations firm in Dallas, have been hunting for a new health insurance plan after Humana notified them it was discontinuing their current one. They had no immediate plans to slow their search after the House vote. They are looking for an affordable replacement by July 1 for the high-deductible plan, for which premiums are $900 a month for the couple and their three children. More from iCONIC: The CEO who writes the letters Buffett likes to read Business lessons from the tech CEO Buffett calls 'remarkable' How Tim Cook followed the toughest CEO act in tech to success "The only plans that are comparable would be a $400- or $500-a-month increase," says Coulter, who is now considering options like a Medi-Share plan, run by Christian Care Ministry, in conjunction with a cancer-coverage policy. watch now Some Americans who have bought high-deductible plans to lower their premiums a popular strategy amidst rising premiums have found that high out-of-pocket costs make getting medical care unaffordable. When Paula Muto, a vascular and general surgeon in Lawrence and North Hanover, Massachusetts, looked into unpaid bills in her solo private practice recently, she found that many were for patients who had high-deductible plans. "It was the people with insurance, that couldn't pay the deductibles, that weren't paying us," she says. Hot-button issues So what changes are small-business owners looking for in a revised federal health-care bill? Topping the list is the overturn of the individual mandate that requires employers with 50 employers or more to provide health care or pay penalties. Paul Entin, 48, owner of EPR Marketing, a two-person marketing firm in Bloomsbury, New Jersey, is among those who chaffed at being forced by the federal government to buy health insurance. He purchased a high-deductible plan for his family. "The individual mandate is the most important issue to me," he said. Entrepreneurs are also hoping the legislation will protect people with preexisting medical conditions. There is concern because, as the bill stands now, states will be allowed to waive rules that stop insurance companies from charging higher premiums for people who have preexisting conditions if they set up a high-risk pool. "Younger, healthier and middle- to higher-income self-employed workers will do better," says Steve King, a partner in Emergent Research in Lafayette, California, which studies independent workers. "Older, poorer and less-healthy self-employed people will likely do worse." "They're trying to rip pieces of legislation out that you can't rip out," says Marc Snyderman, 45, a self-employed attorney in Voorhees, New Jersey, who started his firm in August and gets his insurance through COBRA. "The pieces they are going to rip out are going to change the course of how insurance is delivered." Until the dust settles and a new federal health plan is introduced, small-business owners are trying to figure out what interim strategies make the most sense to insure their families and employees. "Clients have already started to call and email me. I've been advising them sit tight and don't get too stressed about this," said David Lewis, president and CEO of OperationsInc, a human resource outsourcing and consulting firm in Norwalk, Connecticut. Lewis believes the outcome of the bill will be unclear until it comes before the Senate and gets sent back to the House. "Right now, because Obamacare is still the law of the land, we're advising our clients to just stay the course offer the health insurance and make sure that it's affordable and that it provides what is called minimum essential coverage," said CPA Steven Goldstein, an audit partner at Grassi & Co., an accounting firm in the New York City area, prior to the vote. "By doing that, you will keep the IRS off your back." Although the House approved the bill, "it's not going to get to the Senate for weeks, if not months," says Goldstein. "And it is going to be drastically modified under its current provisions." Staying the course watch now Investors may be buzzing about Tim Cook's announcement that Apple will invest $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing jobs, but here are five things from the CEO's Wednesday interview with CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer that may have slipped under your radar: 1. Repatriation Cook revealed that to fund Apple's advanced manufacturing project, Apple will have to borrow $1 billion, so it does not have to pay taxes on its $256 billion it has stashed overseas. The CEO said that both repatriation and comprehensive tax reform would help make sense of this convoluted system. "If you sell globally, you earn money globally. If you earn money globally, you can't bring it back into the United States unless you pay 35 percent plus your state tax," Cook said. "You look at this and you go, 'This is kind of bizarre.' You want people to use this money in the United States to invest more." 2. Developers As Apple's massive developer community grows, Cook said that the company never stops asking itself key questions such as, "How can we empower the next generation of developers? How can we touch even more people? How can we train more people to code so they can pursue their passion?" When Cramer asked if Cook would ever put money behind this mission, Cook replied: "We would. We would, and we will, and you'll be hearing more about that across the summer." 3. Apple Watch Aside from Wall Street's bearishness on iPhone sales, which Cook said were caused by rumors of a new phone coming in late 2017, the company saw growth across the board. "We had a great quarter. If you get into the numbers just a little bit for a few minutes, the Mac grew 14 percent. This is huge. Services continued this really fast growth. It grew 18 percent year on year and we continue to be on target to be a Fortune 100 company this year with our services business. The Watch almost doubled year on year," Cook told Cramer. During the first quarter of this year, the Apple Watch grew so dramatically that it overtook the struggling Fitbit to become the largest wearable tech vendor. 4. Supply and Demand When Cook mentioned that the iPhone 7 Plus was doing incredibly well in China, seeing double-digit growth year on year, Cramer asked the CEO if the quarter would have looked different had Apple produced more of that smartphone model. "No, I wouldn't say that, because I feel that we were in supply-demand balance at the beginning of the quarter," Cook replied. 5. Setting Records Pakistani Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Privatization Ishaq Dar, Indian Minister of Finance, Defense and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Asian Development Bank President Takehiko Nakao share handshakes after a CNBC-hosted debate at the 2017 ADB meeting in Yokohama, Japan. YOKOHAMA, Japan Protectionist rhetoric may be in vogue among some Western politicians, but many of the top economic leaders in Asia are saying they aren't worried. These officials suggest trade will become more open and free, and globalization is the solution to many of the world's problems. From the pulpit at this week's Asian Development Bank meeting in Japan, central bankers and finance ministers from across the region fought back against the idea that international commerce should face more restrictions. Some even rejected the notion that such moves were feasible, despite the occasional setback like the U.S. pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a trade deal that would have established rules and opened markets between 12 nations accounting for roughly 40 percent of global GDP. "I believe that an individual trade pact may not succeed because one country has pulled out, as in the case of TPP," Arun Jaitley, India's minister of finance, defense and corporate affairs, said at a CNBC-hosted debate during the ADB meeting. "But trade is going to move forward." "Trade is going to find ways and means either by way of multilateral arrangements, plurilateral arrangements, or bilateral arrangements of moving forward," he added. "I don't think there is any force in the world today that can prevent trade." Jaitley's comments were echoed by others at the debate, including ADB President Takehiko Nakao, who said he did not believe recent protectionist remarks "by several policymakers in the world" would immediately impact Asia and its continued opening up. "As long as we keep reform momentum, which we are doing, we should be okay," he said, reflecting on the likely demise of the TPP in the absence of U.S. membership. For his part, Nakao took an unequivocal stance on trade. "We are very clear: Free trade is important and protectionist trade practices are not good, and we should make every effort to keep the trade and investment regime open," he said during the debate. Even Japan and China which have shared a rocky relationship agreed to strengthen their financial engagement at a meeting between the countries' finance ministers on the sidelines of the ADB meeting. Earlier this week, finance officials from Japan, China and South Korea issued a statement rejecting protectionism. Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett enjoys an ice cream treat from Dairy Queen before the company's annual meeting. Rick Wilking | Reuters Berkshire Hathaway shareholders love Warren Buffett for the investment acumen that's made many of them millionaires, but they adore him for the nuggets of wit and wisdom he shares with them every year at the company's annual meeting. And there was no shortage of that at this year's gathering as the "Oracle of Omaha" and his longtime-business partner Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire, held court for hours in front of 40,000 attendees at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Here are some of the best quips made at this year's meeting by Buffett, 86, and Munger, 93, who seemed as sharp as ever: Oldie, but a goodie Buffett opened the meeting with a quip he's used before but always works on the crowd. "That's Charlie. I'm Warren. You can tell us apart because he can hear and I can see." Berkshire job for Bogle? Index-investing pioneer and Vanguard founder Jack Bogle was in the crowd and Buffett called him out to stand for an ovation. The Berkshire chairman said Bogle will have saved investors "100s of billions" over time with his low-cost investing philosophy. Buffett called out to fellow octogenarian Bogle: "You're going to be 88 on Monday. In only two years, you'll be eligible for an executive position at Berkshire. Hang in there buddy." 'IQ 30 points below you' Buffett answered a question from a Chinese investor with some observations about how speculation in markets can cause bubbles and it's difficult to stop, a warning specifically for China's young, fast-growing market. "There's nothing more agonizing than to see your neighbor who you think has an IQ 30 points below you getting rich buying stocks." Aunt Katie This was a funny story with a good lesson at the end from Buffett: "I had an Aunt Katie here in Omaha... She worked really hard all her life, lived in a house she paid $8,000 for... Because she was in Berkshire she ended up she lived to 97 she ended up with a few hundred million and she would write me a letter every four, five months and she said, 'Dear Warren, I hate to bother you, but am I going to run out of money?' And I would write her back and I'd say, 'Dear Katie, It's a good question because if you live 986 years, you're going to run out of money. And then about four or five months later, she would write me the same letter again... There's no way in the world if you've got plenty of money that it should become a minus in your life." For millennials Buffett had a lot of advice during the meeting for younger people, including this gem: "When you go out in the world, look for the job you would take if you didn't need the money." Munger's dream The older of the two, Munger, described what he dreams about: "Sometimes when I am especially wistful, I think 'Oh, to be 90 again.'" Castle, moats, and knights When someone asked about identifying good businesses, Buffett called companies "economic castles" and used a medieval analogy for what he looks for in a business and the managers running it. "In capitalism, people are going to try to take that castle from you so you want a moat around it and you want a knight in that castle who is pretty darn good at warding off marauders." 'Fishing where the fish are...' Munger said a friend of his used to say there are two rules of fishing, No. 1 was to "fish where the fish are" and No. 2 was "Don't forget about rule No. 1." Munger then said, "We've gotten good at fishing where the fish are... There's too many boats in the damn water, but the fish are still in it." Compensation consultants When asked about volatile Chinese stocks, investing legend said Saturday that markets can sometimes resemble a "casino." The Oracle of Omaha offered advice to the world's second-largest economy, which in recent years has struggled to manage the fallout from an economic slowdown. Chinese authorities have imposed capital controls, and tightly manage the levels of its currency, the yuan. "Early on in the development of markets there's probably some tendency for them I think to be more speculative than markets that have been around for a couple hundred years," Buffett said, in response to a Chinese investor's question. He was speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. "Markets have a casino characteristic that has a lot of appeal to people, particularly when they see people getting rich around them," Buffett said. "And those who haven't been through cycles before are more prone to speculate than people who have experienced the outcome of wild speculation." The New York Stock Exchange launched in the late 18th-century. In contrast, the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened in 1990. Shanghai composite 3-year performance The plunged more than 40 percent in the summer of 2015 after rampant speculation came to a sharp end. Local investors, who borrowed heavily to buy stock, had to sell shares to pay back their creditors. In the last several weeks, Chinese authorities have tightened regulation on financial markets, keeping stocks under pressure. The Shanghai composite is now flat on the year. "If the market gets hot and people on leverage are doing well, a lot of people will be attracted not only to what I call speculation but what I call gambling," Buffett said, adding that mentality can be true in the U.S. as well. "There's nothing more agonizing than to see your neighbor who you think has an IQ 30 points below you getting rich buying stocks," the investor joked. However, "it will offer investors more opportunity if you have lots of speculation, if they keep their wits about them," Buffett said. In a report last week, Wells Fargo Investment Institute said investors should diversify outside the U.S. and look for opportunities in places such as China. That sentiment was echoed on Saturday by Berkshire Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger, who said in response to a separate question that China should do well in the long run, despite some growing pains. "I do think the Chinese stock market is cheaper than the American market," he said. "I do think that China has a bright future." Justin hats on display at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, NE. Above: Berkshire-owned Justin Brands cowboy hats for sale at the Berkshire Hathaway 2017 Annual Shareholders Meeting. No music festival is complete without branded merchandise, and at the "Woodstock for Capitalists" in Omaha, Nebraska, this weekend is no exception. Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting attendees can snag limited edition products branded with the "Oracle of Omaha" Warren Buffett, and his right-hand man, Charlie Munger. Here's what's for sale at the CenturyLink Center, courtesy of Berkshire brands like Fruit of the Loom: By CNBC's Evelyn Cheng Posted on 6 May 2017 A voter ID displayed on top of campaign flyers of French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in Nantes on May 4, 2017 ahead of the second round of the presidential election on May 7. And while there are articles about the leaks on the home pages of the national newspapers, they contain very little about what is in the leaks. (If you can read French, American journalist Christopher Dickey, has posted a link to the key law on his Twitter page.) This is due to a French law that says the day before an election should be a day of reflection. Starting at midnight Saturday and continuing until the polls close Sunday, campaigning is prohibited along with any kind of speech meant to influence the race. Hence the silence. The collection of emails, spending spreadsheets, and more, appeared on the internet Friday night. Yet Saturday morning, there is absolutely nothing on French TV or radio, and very little on the websites of major newspapers. In France Saturday, there is near silence about 9 gigabytes of leaked documents from the campaign of presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. The French electoral commission has warned the media they can be prosecuted for publishing false information. Without the ability to verify the documents, they may be in violation of the law. And Macron's team put out a statement Friday night, just minutes before midnight, stating some of the documents were false and that journalists should not cover them. And then there's Twitter. No surprise, you can find many of the documents there, retweeted most actively by supporters of the other candidate, Marine Le Pen. Having spent hours getting some of the most distributed emails translated (thanks to our colleagues here with NBC News), thus far there is nothing that falls into the category of a bombshell. (Take that with a caveat: 9 GB of docs is a lot of documents.) One email in heavy circulation on social media is from a Macron fundraiser. He explains to the recipient of the email that he must reimburse him for a donation that is larger than allowed by France's campaign finance laws. He then explains the limits (4,000 euros for one type of donation, and 7,500 for another type of pledge) and then goes on to explain how the donor can achieve achieve his maximum amount under the law. Another is from a lawyer explaining to a campaign worker how the campaign law functions and telling them to instruct a would-be donor not to do something because it would be illegal. One of the most talked about emails makes reference to binge-watching Dr. Who and masturbating to the sound of running water. It sounds generally incoherent. It could be false, or maybe the person wrote it after a few too many. Thus far, the chances of this effecting the election appear to be nil. I've attached a photo from French TV. Instead of talking about the campaign, they are doing stories about the history of the Elysee Palace, the home of the French president. There are some reports about how and when to vote, but you won't see any footage of the candidates or even their campaign posters. David Patterson, former professor at UC Berkeley A year ago the University of California at Berkeley hosted a retirement celebration for David Patterson, who was hanging it up after a 40-year academic career in computer architecture. Patterson encored the event last May with a personal 16-minute history, chronicling his days as a wrestler in high school and college and a math major at UCLA, followed by a job at Hughes Aircraft and four decades at Berkeley. From writing two books with Stanford University's John Hennessy to chairing the Computing Research Association, Patterson told the audience that a key to his success was doing "one big thing at a time." His next big thing could be enormous. Rather than hitting the beach after retirement, Patterson joined Google in July to work on an ambitious new chip that's designed to run at least 10 times faster than today's processors and is sophisticated enough to handle the intensive computations required for artificial intelligence. It's called the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), and Patterson has emerged as one of the principal evangelists. He spoke to about 100 students and faculty members at the Berkeley campus on Wednesday, a few days shy of the anniversary of his retirement celebration. "Four years ago they had this worry and it went to the top of the corporation," said Patterson, 69, while sporting a T-shirt for Google Brain, the company's research group. The fear was that if every Android user had three minutes of conversation translated a day using Google's machine learning technology, "we'd have to double our data centers," he said. Googles tensor processing unit or TPU. Source: Google Google parent Alphabet already spends $10 billion a year on capital expenses, largely tied to data center costs. And now it's addressing what it calls a "renaissance in machine learning." Deep neural networks, or computers that are modeled to learn and get smarter over time as data sets get bigger and more complicated, require big breakthroughs in hardware efficiency. Patterson, who gave the same talk at Stanford on Thursday, was among the lead authors on a report from Google last month on the TPU's performance. The report concluded that the TPU is running 15 to 30 times faster and 30 to 80 times more efficient than contemporary processors from Intel and Nvidia . The paper, written by 75 engineers, will be delivered next month at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture in Toronto. The report was Patterson's debut project at Google. Once a week he treks down to the Mountain View headquarters and twice a week he works at the company's office in San Francisco. He reports to Jeff Dean, an 18-year Google veteran and head of Google Brain. It's not Patterson's first Google gig he worked there while on academic sabbatical from 2013 to 2014. This time, he joined the TPU project as a distinguished engineer, a year after the chips were first put to use in Google's data centers and just two months after his retirement party. Not really a retirement Patterson has never been one to sit idle. In 2013, while still teaching, he participated in a powerlifting competition and set a new California state record for his age group. "Now that I think back, there was no evidence for the assumption that he was retiring except that it was called a retirement celebration," said Mark Hill, a PhD student of Patterson's in 1987, and one of the speakers at his party. Hill, who now chairs the computer sciences department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said that in computer architecture Patterson is "on the short list of the great ones of the last half of the 20th century." He called the computer architecture book that Patterson wrote with Hennessy the field's most influential textbook of the last 25 years. Google says the TPU is being tested broadly across the company. It's used for every search query as well as for improving maps and navigation, and it was the technology used to power DeepMind's AlphaGo victory over Go legend Lee Sedol last year in Seoul. watch now From Akron to Youngstown and Canton to Cleveland, as in cities and towns across the country, workers who once walked out of factories at the end of each shift now stream out of hospitals. While manufacturing employment has fallen nearly 40 percent in northeastern Ohio since 2000, the number of health care jobs in the region has jumped more than 30 percent over the same period. In Akron, the onetime rubber capital of the world, only one of the city's 10 largest employers still makes tires. Three are hospitals. "People who used to make deliveries to factories are now making them to hospitals," said Samuel D. DeShazior, Akron's deputy mayor for economic development. Akron's transformation is echoed in places as varied as Los Angeles, Birmingham, Ala., and Pittsburgh, along with rural areas like Iron County, Mo., where health care accounts for one-fifth of all employment. More from The New York Times: Jobless Rate at 10-Year Low as Hiring Grows and Wages Rise We're Getting Awfully Close to Full Employment To Lift Growth, Janet Yellen Says, Make It Easier for Women to Work The outsize economic role of the American health care industry heightens the risks posed by the Republicans' effort in Washington to repeal the Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010 under President Barack Obama, and it comes at a delicate moment for the broader economy. While the government reported Friday that unemployment was at its lowest point in more than a decade, the health care industry has been an engine for much of that hiring, adding jobs at more than three times the rate of the rest of the economy since 2007. Nor is the growth limited to hospitals. With help from the vast expansion of Medicaid enrollment that began three years ago, nursing homes, outpatient centers and medical labs have also grown, turning a fragmented industry into a strong political force. Governors on both sides of the aisle, as well as many moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill, have expressed concern over whether the repeal will hurt local economies, especially in places where health care has softened the blow from struggling industries like retailing now or manufacturing in the past. Moreover, in a recovery plagued by uneven growth and widening income inequality, the sector has been a reliable source of steady gains. Health care now equals almost one-fifth of gross domestic product, up from 13 percent in 2000, and it is poised to leapfrog retailing and leisure and hospitality as the second-largest source of overall employment, after professional and business services, accounting for one in eight private sector jobs. The boom in health care did not begin with the Affordable Care Act. The industry was among the only parts of the economy to emerge relatively unscathed from the Great Recession, and it has flourished under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. "Demographics and the expansion of Medicare and Medicaid in past decades contributed to the rise of health care's share of the economy, and Obamacare extended that," said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays. Nevertheless, he warned that if the legislation approved by the House on Thursday were to become law, which is far from certain given skepticism of the bill in the Senate, it could undermine overall economic growth. "It's not trivial, and it's much easier to constrain activity than to promote it," Mr. Gapen said. "Reversing Obamacare is negative for the economy in the next year or two." The cost of providing coverage to millions more Americans has its own economic consequences. Many employers, particularly small businesses, complain that they are straining under the demands imposed by the law. They argue that the A.C.A. stifles economic growth by forcing companies to pay heavy taxes and meet cumbersome regulatory burdens. Critics of the law, including many of the Republican backers of the proposed overhaul, say businesses and individuals are also being forced to pay for overly generous coverage. Whatever the macroeconomic dangers, economists say the potential effects on individual consumers are just as worrisome. The House version of the repeal legislation does include significant tax cuts, which usually stimulate economic activity, but with most of the savings going to wealthier households, that bounty is likely to be saved, not spent. At the same time, losing insurance coverage tends to constrain household spending while increasing financial insecurity among families, according to Matt Notowidigdo, a professor of economics at Northwestern. A 2016 paper Mr. Notowidigdo worked on showed that an uninsured hospital stay doubles the risk of bankruptcy for individuals, while lowering credit scores and leaving consumers with an average of $6,000 in unpaid bills. The proposed legislation poses more risks for some parts of the country than others, said Mark Duggan, a professor of economics at Stanford. For example, about 9 percent of the population in Florida buys coverage through the new exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, more than any other state. "If you lower the subsidies for coverage of 1.8 million Floridians, that will reduce what they can spend on other goods and services," he said. Mr. Duggan said states like Kentucky, Arkansas, New Mexico and West Virginia would be hard hit by the planned cuts in Medicaid, estimated at more than $880 billion over 10 years. Another vulnerable slice of the population is workers who are a few years away from 65, when Medicare kicks in. "If there is a group that loses out the most, it's near-seniors," said Craig Garthwaite, director of the Healthcare Program at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "Their health care is so expensive, but the tax credit in the House bill caps out at $4,000." Mr. Garthwaite, who is a registered Republican and describes himself as a conservative economist, said there were few benefits for local economies in the bill, "and from an individual standpoint, it will be financially crippling for the poor." Already, he added, "we're seeing hospitals pause and adjust to the uncertainty by rethinking expansion plans." Hospitals in particular have been able to grow in recent years, with more of their patients now covered by either Medicaid or insurance purchased in the new exchanges. At the same time, an aging population and expensive new treatments like drugs to treat hepatitis C and once-fatal forms of cancer have increased demand from consumers at many health care providers, even as they have strained budgets. Health care now accounts for nearly a fifth of overall consumer spending. The potential loss of billions of dollars in federal money to states like New York, where large health systems like Northwell and Mount Sinai Health are among the biggest private employers, has helped turn state officials like Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo into vehement critics of the repeal efforts. The state estimated that the repeal could shift more than $2.4 billion in costs onto taxpayers and hospitals each year. Economists on both the left and right say the Affordable Care Act needs substantial changes to ensure its long-term sustainability. They warn, however, that the current House legislation is so sweeping and its changes so abrupt that it carries economic risks of its own, especially given the size of the health care sector and how slowly other parts of the economy are growing. Health care workers, too, have been watching the developments in Washington warily. Oscar Onteveros, 37, began working as a nursing assistant at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center three years ago, after working for years in factories and in temporary jobs. "I thought it would be more stable than working in labor and I would be able to move up," he said. "I am worried about what happens next because nothing seems certain." In assessing the impact of the Republican House bill in an earlier form, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 24 million people would lose insurance over the next decade as a result of cuts to the Medicaid program and the decline in people able to pay for individual coverage. Potential changes to Medicaid are "going to put incredible pressure on the states, that will put incredible pressure" on what hospitals receive in payments, said Daniel Steingart, who follows the industry for Moody's Investors Service. How states would react could vary significantly, he said, with some doing more to make up for the shortfall from the federal government. Safety-net hospitals and academic medical centers that cater to low-income populations are likely to be hardest hit by any cuts, Mr. Steingart said. The overall industry has benefited from the strong economy and the coverage expansions under Medicaid, he said. "People have jobs and they have insurance," he said. About 20 million people gained coverage under the federal health care law. Hospitals have seen significant demand, and they "are hiring like crazy," Mr. Steingart said. Hospital executives said they faced tremendous uncertainty. Many, like Dr. Akram Boutros, the chief executive of the MetroHealth System in Cleveland, were talking with lawmakers to make the case against the bill's abrupt cuts to Medicaid, hoping for some relief in the Senate. The Ohio Medicaid expansion has "been incredibly important to the health of the community," he said. Like other executives, Dr. Boutros argues that health system groups need to find ways of reducing the overall cost of care. "The system as constituted today is underperforming and failing the American public," he said. Hospitals could deliver better care for less money, he said, pointing to a program at MetroHealth that improved the health of people with hypertension and diabetes while saving $1,500 a patient a year. Mr. Steingart agreed, arguing that with Washington fixated on the issue of coverage, the difficult debate over how to control costs has not yet taken place. "What's been missing is what makes health care so expensive in this country," he said. "We haven't tackled that issue, and it's a big one." The House health care bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate, which seemed likely to soften some large cuts outlined in the House version that were put in to make the legislation more palatable to conservative Republicans. Still, the prospect of cuts of any size has challenged hospitals to try to provide lower-cost care while preparing themselves to absorb the loss of paying patients. Many health systems say their expenses are climbing much faster than the payments from government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. This month, Advocate Health Care, one of the Chicago area's largest employers, announced plans to cut expenses by $200 million. Advocate Health blamed the cost of providing care for which it was not reimbursed. "Our expenses must be adjusted to meet current and projected Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurance payment rates," Jim Skogsbergh, the chief executive, said in a memo to employees. Atlantic Health System in Morristown, N.J., which benefited from the expansion of Medicaid and the falling number of people without insurance, faces the possibility of losing $65 million a year in revenue. The system's chief executive, Brian Gragnolati, talked to his staff on Thursday about the possible impact of the House bill. "What I worry about in our organization is how are we going to lean into the changes we need to make while we have this uncertainty hanging there," he said. But Mr. Gragnolati also worried about the health bill's potential effects on patients, some of whom have gained access to care for the first time. "What is going to happen here is when people don't have access now to care, they will go back to the emergency departments for their primary care, waiting and waiting and waiting" to get a condition treated, Mr. Gragnolati said. "I just feel like we're going back in time to a place where we were a decade ago. It's an absolute shame." Jennifer Medina contributed reporting from Los Angeles. Long-time U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is pushing to diversify its source of arms suppliers and the Russians are more than happy to help. Up to now, American defense companies have been the top beneficiaries of foreign arms sales to Saudi Arabia and stand to reap billions of dollars more with upcoming trip to the kingdom. Yet Moscow is intensifying efforts to capture business from the Saudis, even as it continues to sell to long-time customers such as India and China. "The global arms market has changed where Saudi Arabia has explored other arms deals with U.S. competitors in Russia, China as well as Europe," said Melissa Dalton, senior fellow and deputy director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Last week, the Russian news agency TASS reported that Russia's deputy defense minister had a meeting with a top Saudi military official in Moscow. The Russian defense ministry played up the meeting afterward on the government's website with the headline: "Saudi Arabia wants to buy modern Russian armament." "It often conveys a very strong political message when certain meetings are announced," said Dalton, a former Pentagon official who served as a senior adviser for force planning. Also, Dalton said the disclosure of Saudi-Russia arms talks follows a strategy sometimes used by Riyadh: highlight alternative suppliers of weapons as a means of getting a better U.S. deal or even approval. The Saudis plan to increase military spending by nearly 7 percent this year, partly reflecting the war in Yemen and the rising military threat from Iran. The spending, almost 10 percent of the kingdom's gross domestic product, was disclosed in its 2017 budget released in December. U.S. foreign military sales to the Saudis accounted for just over half of all arms sales to the Near East/South Asia region from 2012 to 2015, representing a whopping $48.5 billion and exceeding the amount sold to Israel during the same period, according to Pentagon figures. Internationally, the Saudis were the second-largest foreign buyers of U.S. weapons in 2015 after South Korea. "I have to believe that those defense companies are going to be calling on the procurement office in Riyadh to make sure they don't lose business," said Moody's analyst Jonathan Root, who notes that the five top U.S. defense contractors do business with the Saudis. Washington's relationship with Riyadh became strained when the Obama administration put a halt to weapon sales and some military support to the desert kingdom due to concerns about possible Saudi war crimes in Yemen. That move led the Saudis to start looking elsewhere for weapons technology, including Russia. The Trump administration, though, is looking to reset ties with Riyadh. To underscore his support for the Saudis, Trump's first foreign trip abroad as president will include a visit to the kingdom later this month. He also is expected to visit Israel and the Vatican. According to Reuters, "tens of billions of dollars" in U.S. arms sales for land, air and sea use could be sold to the Saudis or announced ahead of Trump's trip to the kingdom. It also reported Friday some of the military sales are new while others have been "in the pipeline." Clearly, Moscow is unlikely to replace Washington as the kingdom's chief arms supplier. American defense firms still dominate when it comes to big-ticket arms sales to the Saudis. Even so, the Russians appear willing to sell advanced weapons systems that probably wouldn't get approved by the United States due to opposition from Israel and members in Congress. Indeed, the Saudis previously expressed interest in ballistic missiles from Russia, particularly the Iskander missile system. Back in the 1980s, the Saudis turned to China for advanced ballistic missiles. "When the Saudis struck that arms deal with China, it was because the United States was not inclined at the time to provide that kind of capability to Saudi Arabia, so they went elsewhere," Dalton said. At the same time, it's also possible Russians could one day help the Saudis develop a homegrown ballistic missile capability, which is something Iran demonstrated last year when it tested a Zolfaqar solid-fuel missile. Iran previously threatened to use the tactical missile against its rival Israel. Russia helped Iran build its first civilian nuclear power plant in 2011 and have teamed with them on a second plant. Moscow also offered assistance to the Saudis as they embarked on an ambitious $80 billion plan to build more than a dozen nuclear power plants. Then again, the Saudis still view Russians with great suspicion given Moscow maintains close ties not only to the kingdom's archrival Iran but another adversary, . Saudi Arabia cut off relations with the Damascus regime back in 2012 and has been a major financier of the anti-Assad rebels. However, Russia has been a leading supplier of military arms to both Tehran and Damascus. The Saudis also have learned Russia can't always be trusted when it comes to defense technology. Earlier this year, the Kuwaiti press reported Iran's military had learned the Russians essentially threw the Tehran government "under the bus" when selling an air defense system. The Kuwaiti report indicated that the Russians had provided the Israelis with so-called codes that would allow its planes to appear as friendly, possibly on a defense system known as the S-300. Similarly, the Syrians also were apparently sold the same air defense system, which may explain why Israel was able to fly its warplanes for so many years into Syrian space and defeat air defenses. The S-300 is a surface-to-air missile system developed during the Cold War in the late 1970s but updated and now sometimes compared to Raytheon's Patriot defense system. Tehran and Damascus reportedly fixed the "codes" issue to make the system less vulnerable. When Israeli warplanes attacked a Syrian military site about two months ago, they encountered anti-aircraft missile fire, according to Syria. For the Saudis, they have no need for Russian air defense systems; they have some of most advanced U.S.-made equipment, including at least two kinds of Patriot missile defense systems. In fact, the kingdom used the missile interceptors in March to shoot down rockets fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen. The Saudis are looking to buy the Lockheed Martin -made THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system, according to Reuters. The proposed arms deal also is said to include about $1 billion worth of munitions from Raytheon, including armor-piercing warheads and laser-guided bombs. Also, U.S.-built warships are reportedly being sought by the Saudis. The Saudis, which also have bought warships over the years from France and the U.K., have been beefing up their navy for anti-submarine capability at a time when Iran's navy is becoming more aggressive in the region and testing new submarine technology. On CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday, Buffett said, "If I was forced to buy [Google-parent Alphabet] or short it, I'd buy it; same way with Amazon . But it's as little hard when you look at something at 'X' and it sells at 10X to buy it." The Oracle of Omaha also professed ignorance on other big technology stocks, whose rallies he missed because he didn't quite appreciate their value proposition at first glance. Warren Buffett admitted to shareholders Saturday that he made a mistake by not buying Google shares years ago, when the company was getting $10 or $11 per advertising click from Berskhire consumer insurance company subsidiary Geico. Buffett has often said he avoided tech stocks in the past because he didn't really understand how they were making money and whether they would be able to do so over the long term. This week, Oracle copped to getting it wrong on another tech company: IBM. For years, Buffett was a true believer in Big Blue, but told CNBC in an interview he had cut his holdings in the stock by a third. "I don't value IBM the same way that I did six years ago when I started buying," he said, adding that the company as "run into some pretty tough competitors." In the case of Google, however, Buffett said he could have figured out the company had a great advertising business because he was, in effect, contributing to its profits. After profusely praising Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, Buffett said he missed that opportunity as well. "I was too dumb to realize. I did not think [Bezos] could succeed on the scale he has," Buffett said, adding that he "really underestimated the brilliance of the execution." The investor humbly admitted that he and partner Charlie Munger "miss a lot of things, and we'll keep doing it." Bill Gates and Warren Buffett met in 1991 and have been friends for almost 28 years. Warren Buffett, who's avoided technology businesses for most of his lauded investing career, pointed out at his annual meeting Saturday that the five companies worth more than his largely industrial conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway , take basically zero capital to run. Here's Buffett, 86, to the crowd of an estimated 40,000 in Omaha, Nebraska: "I believe that probably the five largest American companies by market cap...they have a market value of over two-and-a-half trillion dollars...and if you take those five companies, essentially you could run them with no equity capital at all. None." Buffett called these kinds of companies, where one gets very high returns for very little capital, the "ideal business." He has generally has invested in more capital-intensive businesses like railroads, utilities and manufacturers during his long tenure at the helm of Berkshire. At the same meeting, the Berkshire chairman admitted picking the wrong technology stock, IBM, to invest in for his conglomerate, while also acknowledging that he missed his opportunity to buy Google early on because he didn't quite realize how much money they were making from a few clicks. "You really don't need any money to run these companies, " Buffett added, noting that is very different from the days "when Andrew Carnegie was building a steel mill and then taking those earnings to build another steel mill." Berkshire is the sixth-largest U.S. company by market value behind Apple , Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft , Amazon and Facebook . Buffett, who now owns a large holding in Apple, said people don't appreciate how much the world has changed and how fast it can change further now that the future biggest companies in the world can be built through the use of very little capital and software in a relatively short period of time. In a statement posted on their website , Party Animal said, "The safety of pets is and always will be our first priority. We sincerely regret the reports of the discomfort experienced by the pet who consumed this food.Party Animal wishes to emphasize that we have submitted many recent lots of our beef flavors for testing and all have tested negative for any pentobarbital." "Evanger's will never purchase from this beef supplier ever again. We immediately initiated even more new testing methods and are testing every single beef product before being shipped.," said Holly Sher, Evanger's owner and president, in a statement e-mailed to CNBC. Evanger's is now suing a supplier, saying the meat which was labeled, "inedible hand boned beef," actually contained pentobarbital-tainted horse meat. In the past 2 months, two brands of canned dog food, Evanger's Dog and Cat Food, and Cocolicious, made by Party Animal, were found to contain a drug called pentobarbital that's used to euthanize animals. One dog died, while others were sickened. "No one's really minding that store right now It's left up to the consumer to know that it's safe," said Joseph J. Wakshlag, a veterinarian specializing in nutrition at Cornell University, told CNBC's "On the Money" in an interview. That has led some experts to question the regulations that safeguard the industryand ingredients being used. The rate at which U.S. consumers open their wallet to feed their furry companions has become big business: Pet food alone is now an industry worth more than $26 billion and growing, according to IBIS World figures. Susan Thixton, a consumer advocate, has been fighting for 25 years to change the pet food industry after she believes her dog died from poorly made pet food. Who is regulating the pet food industry? "Pet food isn't food. Pet food is feed," said Susan Thixton, a consumer advocate and author of Truthaboutpetfood.com. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates pets food as animal feedthe same regulations for animals produced for meat and eggsinstead of overseeing the sector as it does food for humans. While the FDA has oversight of pet food, they let the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), a private group, set the standards for ingredients and labeling. In order to get a complete copy of those rules, AAFCO charges $100. "There is no required testing of product by pet food manufacturers. Pet food manufacturers are responsible for taking appropriate steps to ensure that the food they produce is safe for consumption and properly labeled," the FDA said in a statement e-mailed to CNBC. "Safety is a priority for our members of course because if you think about it, producing 98 percent of the food and treats on the market, we are feeding the vast majority of America's 180 million cats and dogs," said Cathy Enright, the Pet Food Institute president and CEO. Evanger's and Party Animal are not members of the Pet Food Institute. "That's a tremendous responsibility that of course our members take very seriously. So they have safety plans that go from A-to-Z," she added. Thixton has been fighting to change many of the pet food industry's practices. Twenty-five years ago, her dog suddenly came down with bone cancer, which she said her veterinarian at the time linked to a chemical preservative in her dog food. "I had no idea what shelf life was, [and I] called the pet food companyThey proudly told me this pet food would stay fresh for 25 years," Thixton told CNBC. "That was three times longer than my dog lived." That preservative, called ethoxyquin, is still allowed by the FDA, and it's just one issue that Thixton wants addressed. "Who would think that FDA allows a dead animal that laid in the field for three days to be recycled into pet food," she said. According to the FDA's website, "The pet food canning industry utilizes undecomposed animal and marine tissues from various sources. These include occasionally meat from animals that may have died otherwise than by slaughter." In a statement e-mailed to CNBC, an FDA spokesperson said, "The FDA is aware of the sale of dead, dying, disabled, or diseased (4-D) animals to salvagers for use as animal food." What's in your pet food? If the label says meat meal or another ingredient that ends in meal, it can contain non-slaughtered animals. The products usually come from a render, or a salvage plant that accepts leftovers and by-products from the livestock industry, then turns them into ingredients for pet food, among other uses. "The AAFCO Official Feed Ingredient Definitions for animal products include that are produced through the rendering process [are] typically identified as "meals" as part of the ingredient name," AAFCO said in a statement e-mails to CNBC. Cornell's Wakshlag said that consumers are the ones who must call the company to inquire about the presence of meat meal, and where it comes from. "And those are the things we just don't really know and understand very well," he said. A Viking helmet in the exhibit represents the warring nature and strength of the Vikings. A knight from the famous Lewis Chessmen is also part of the Viking exhibit. The Lewis Chessmen are medieval chess pieces that were unearthed in 1831 in Scotland. A coin from the Cuerdale Hoard names an otherwise unknown King Cnut who ruled York in the 890s. The Cuerdale hoard is the largest Viking hoard of artifacts ever recovered from Britain, and included more than 7,000 coins. It was found in 1840 and originally contained more than 30 kilograms of silver, a huge fortune in the Viking Age. The Vale of York Hoard included a unique, previously unknown coin. It names the place where it was made, RORIVACASTR likely to be modern Rochester, Staffordshire. The latest datable coins in the Bolton Percy hoard, like the one shown here, were struck for King Osberht. The Bolton Percy hoard was found by two schoolboys in the 1960s. It contained more than 1,500 small copper coins, struck for the kings and archbishops of the Kingdom of Northumbria in the ninth century. The Vale of York hoard discovered in 2007 is the most significant British Viking hoard found in more than 150 years. Coins play a starring role in a new exhibit opening May 19 in Great Britain. Viking: Rediscover the Legend, a major new exhibition by the Yorkshire Museum in partnership with the British Museum, is slated to appear until Nov. 5. The display features the most significant Viking treasure hoards ever discovered in Britain on display together for the first time, according to the British Museum. Connect with Coin World: Sign up for our free eNewsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter The exhibit includes internationally significant Anglo-Saxon and Viking discoveries that are used to show how the Vikings shaped and transformed everyday life in Britain. It includes displays focusing on the most famous Viking hoards ever discovered in Britain, including the Vale of York Viking Hoard, the Cuerdale Hoard and the Bedale Hoard. Coins play a significant role in the displays. Andrew Woods, curator of numismatics for Yorks Museums Trust, explained five coin highlights of the display, representing five different major Viking hoads. Bolton Percy hoard The Bolton Percy hoard was found by two schoolboys in the 1960s. It contained more than 1,500 small copper coins, struck for the kings and archbishops of the Kingdom of Northumbria in the ninth century. The hoard was likely hidden in 867 when the Vikings captured York. It is one of the largest coin hoards from ninth century England. The latest datable coins in the hoard were struck for King Osberht. He was the last king of independent Northumbria, and was killed at a battle with the incoming Vikings. One of his coins in the exhibit names the king with the legend OSBERHT REX, with some letters upside down. On the reverse is the name of the moneyer, VINIBERHT. In the Cuerdale Hoard The Cuerdale hoard is the largest hoard of Viking artifacts ever recovered in Britain, and included more than 7,000 coins. It was found in 1840 and originally contained more than 30 kilograms of silver, an enormous fortune in the Viking Age. It was hidden on the route between York and Dublin, the two largest Viking towns. It may have been hidden by someone fleeing York as the Vikings were briefly expelled from the town in the early 10th century. A coin from this hoard names an otherwise unknown King Cnut who ruled York in the 890s. His name CNVT is divided along the lines of the cross. It suggests that the pagan Vikings quickly adapted to ruling a Christian kingdom. On the back is the legend CVNNETTI, a legend that even 160 years after its discovery puzzles numismatists. Vale of York penny The Vale of York hoard, discovered in 2007, is the most significant British Viking hoard of coins and other artifacts found in more than 150 years. It contained 617 coins carefully hidden in a decorated vessel. The silver was a mixture of coins and hacksilver, broken up silver objects and ingots valued by weight. The hoard was hidden in 927 when the northern Viking kingdoms fell to Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan. In the hoard is a unique coin, unknown before this discovery. It names the place where it was made, RORIVACASTR likely to be modern Rochester, Staffordshire. It was made by a Viking king, and was likely swept up by Athelstans armies as they marched north in 927. St. Peters penny Viking kings in Britain ruled over mixed kingdoms of incoming Scandinavians and local people. The two groups were initially quite different in customs and beliefs. They believed in different gods, with pagan Vikings coming into contact with Christian Britains. Viking kings mixed pagan and Christian imagery on their coinage to appeal to all the people within their kingdom. Connect with Coin World: Sign up for our free eNewsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter The St. Peters penny was struck in York between 921 and 927 A.D. On the obverse is the legend SCI PETRI MO (an abbreviated form of Sancti Petri Moneta, meaning the money of St. Peter). The symbols around the legend are a cross, a sword through the middle and Thors hammer, in a very clear mixing of differing religious imagery found on several coins unique to the Vikings in England. Amidst all the cheering over the local election results there was the odd disappointment for the Conservatives. There were gains in Nottinghamshire but not quite enough to take overall control. It was also curious amidst the general triumph that Oxfordshire remains a hung council. However the most discouraging result was that of the election of the directly elected Mayor for Greater Manchester. The point is not that the Labour candidate, Andy Burnham, won. Even in the context of the opinion polls and the fantastic Conservative progress elsewhere, it would have been pretty astonishing if he hadnt. But it was the margin of the Labour victory that was startling. Burnham won with 359,352 votes to 128,752 for Sean Anstee, the Conservative candidate. That translates as 63.4 per cent of the vote against 22.7 per cent. Compare that to the vote share at the last General Election. That had Labour on 46.1 per cent and the Conservatives on 26.4 in the Greater Manchester seats. So a ten per cent swing to Labour. If that was the swing nationally at the General Election on June 8th then Labour would gain 95 seats giving them an overall majority of four in the House of Commons and Jeremy Corbyn would be our new Prime Minister. Why was the result in Greater Manchester so out of line? It helps with these Mayoral contests to have a high profile and proven senior experience. Burnham was a former Labour leadership contender and Health Secretary although it is not as if he distinguished himself in either capacity. His mentality over Mid Staffs Hospital was to cover up problems rather than deal with them. Still, there would be a sense that he would not be daunted by such challenges as managing the combined 6 billion health and social care budget which he is now responsible for. Also Labour supporters might have felt more motivated to vote when it was for somebody they had heard of. The turnout of 28.6 per cent was actually high relative to some other contests. Anstee had the strong local credibility as leader of Trafford Council which has been a great Conservative success story and is one of the authorities that make up Greater Manchester. Of course that did identify him with one particular area and emphasised his Party affiliation. Andy Streets success in the West Midlands may have been assisted by neither of those factors applying. Voters traditionally hostile to the Conservatives could give Street a vote (or at least a second preference) after telling themselves that hes really an independent. So that might make the case for more leading businessmen to enter politics. It can go down well as Donald Trump has discovered. On the other hand, it often ends in tears for instance if a businessman is given a peerage and then made a junior Minister and then rages with frustration at being given an office in Whitehall but no power. Perhaps the role of a directly elected Mayor is better suited to businessmen than a Parliamentary career would be. There is another advantage in that these tycoons tend to have enough money to pay for the leaflets to be printed and the assorted other expenses. Street was criticised for buying the election. But in this cynical age many voters will have been impressed by him making a financial sacrifice. Not only is he taking a huge salary cut but he put his hand in his pocket for his campaign. Surely that showed strong commitment? A willingness by Labour supporters in Birmingham to break away from Party affiliation and try something different may also reflect the appalling record of Birmingham City Council. This has been going on for years and ranges from financial mismanagement to social work scandals childrens services have been removed from the Council after being branded a national disgrace. But the problems are not over. Earlier this year Dame Louise Casey, the Governments Integration Tsar, raised concerns about the Councils equalities chief. I have had my criticisms of Manchester City Council over the years but it is a much better run authority than Birmingham. Thus there is less local motivation to rebel against local Labour rulers. Another lesson might be to get selected early. Momentum is key. Burnham was selected in August. He declared he wanted the job a year ago. There was a vigorous contest among Labour members which did no harm as they generated more attention than a coronation would have. Anstee entered the race last October amidst a low profile internal Conservative selection process. Voters want the candidate to be hungry for the role. Being first out of the blocks is one way of convincing them that they are. Sadiq Khan had an advantage over Zac Goldsmith in being selected earlier as a candidate for Mayor of London. Amidst the Conservative breakthroughs in so many other places, the electors of Greater Manchester show we still have work to do as a Party that reaches across the nation. Manchester City Council has no Conservatives councillors. Oldham has two. Tameside has six. Wigan has five. Salford and Rochdale each have ten. Even in Bury and Bolton there are substantial Labour majorities. Defeating socialism in these places come about from the bottom up. Only then will Mayor Burnham face a serious challenge. CORNWALL, Ontario With 30-50mm of rain expected to hit the area over the weekend, the Raisin Region Conservation Authority (RRCA) recently shared some helpful insight on the environmental impact of heavy rainfall and flood management. RRCA Project Manager, Phil Barnes says that with this kind of downpour comes surface water runoff, which can cause problems like erosion. With more water running off faster, sediments like dirt and debris are being carried off into rivers and streams, said Barnes. This not only makes the water murkier and more polluted, but it can put stress on aquatic habitats. Barnes says that when it comes to flooding, being proactive is key. Part of RRCAs flood prevention initiative requires them to be very involved with municipal land development. Essentially, we help to protect the environment when a new development is being built to minimize the quantity and quality of the runoff, said Barnes. We try to make sure that the quantity of water isnt more than before the development was built. Barnes says that the conservation authority also actively maps areas more susceptible to flooding in efforts to limit development in those areas. We have a pretty good idea of where the flooding will happen, said Barnes. Through the conservation authoritys flood plane management program, were able to forecast the potential effects and whether or not well have to issue flood warnings. Ultimately, Barnes says that people need to be aware of their own properties. We work on a macro level, and look at the region as a whole, said Barnes. Its important that people check the points where storm water may come in. CORNWALL, Ontario Participants walked on, despite the moody weather at the Alzheimer Society of Cornwall & Districts annual Walk for Alzheimers. The event was held at the Benson Centre this year to ensure that spring showers couldnt dampen the walk. Campaign and Volunteer Coordinator, Roman MacDonald also said that this year, the organization wanted to make the event as accessible as possible. We wanted a venue that could accommodate as many people as possible but still allow for them to stay out of the weather, and give access to people who arent as mobile, said MacDonald. Planning for the event has been underway since Dec. and MacDonald says that the events chief focus was community, which is the greatest asset to someone living with the illness. Cornwall has made such huge strides in dementia care in accommodating those living with dementia, as well as their families, said MacDonald. Executive Director, Shelley Vaillancourt says that communities are the pillars which help support those living with dementia. Its time to get rid of the stigma and talk openly about dementia, said Vaillancourt. Its not just the person who has the disease, or the primary caregiver, its the whole family and the whole community. Following last years success, MacDonald says that the organization began looking into areas of improvement which could be incorporated into this years event. One of the things that really stood out to them was the Wall of Memories, which was initiated in Montreal. We encourage people to bring photographs and write their names or the names of their loved ones, said MacDonald. At the end of the day, we commemorate each one of the people we walked for during the event. While the event itself is organized in efforts to raise funds for Alzheimers research, MacDonald says it goes deeper. Its about getting the community together in one place, raising awareness and saying this is something we need to do together, said MacDonald. Danilo Petrucci fared better than he anticipated at Jerez on Friday as he ended the first free practice sessions as the second fastest Ducati rider. Petrucci was fifth overall behind factory rider Jorge Lorenzo, some nine tenths behind Dani Pedrosa on the Repsol Honda in first. The Pramac Ducati rider is happy with the rear of his Desmosedici GP17 but explained he is having lots of problems turning the bike in the tight corners at the Spanish circuit. "It was better than expected. The bike is working good and the tyres, especially the rear is good. Anyway we have a lot of work to do because I started to ride with the same bike I used in Austin to have the same feeling," he said. "I am quite competitive but there is quite a lot of work to do. We have some solutions for tomorrow but we are competitive anyway, so I'm happy for this because the bike has some issues to solve. I don't feel the front on long corners and I don't feel the confidence. Even in the tight corners like one and two I have to go in with a lot of brake, but when I release the brake, the bike still doesn't turn. "There are too many problems for us but the positive things are that we expected to struggle a lot with the wheelie or the traction, but the rear end of the bike is good and we have traction and not so much wheelie. Fifty per-cent of the bike is OK," added Petrucci "I think it is the behaviour of the Ducati bike and in this track we struggle a lot because there are a lot of tight corners. We are good in braking but when we have to turn a lot the bike, other riders with other bikes can pick up the bike and open the throttle, but we have to stay a little bit more with the lean angle and we cannot open all the throttle. At the moment it is difficult." Petrucci feels Friday's times did not paint a clear picture with mixed conditions impacting on the appearance of the leaderboard. "I think the results of today are not completely true because the track was not completely dry and it was damp and so risky. There were some wet patches we couldn't see and some riders had crashes," he said. "I think not all the riders gave 100 per-cent especially the top riders: I think they wait for tomorrow morning for going into Q2. We have to stay calm and work because tomorrow is another day." Super Sized Smartphones As suggested by their names, Samsung's Galaxy S8 Plus and Google's Pixel XL are the large-sized models in their respective Android smartphone lines. But don't call either of them a "phablet:" neither phone feels huge overall, thanks to design decisions to limit the borders around the display. Which of the phones is a better match for you? In the following slides, the CRN Test Center takes a look at how Samsung's Galaxy S8 Plus compares vs. Google's Pixel XL on specs and price. ELKO Joe Doucette and Hedwig the owl recently kept some Spring Creek Elementary students captivated not an easy job with third-graders. Students of Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Jacobs and Mrs. Hughes Learned not only about great horned owls, but also some basic biological concepts. Joe has kept Hedwig for three years, often taking the owl to visit classrooms as part of his job as the Nevada Department of Wildlife Regional Outdoor Education Coordinator. Hedwig was brought to the department after someone shot it with a pellet gun. Its right wing was severely damaged and had to be amputated. Hedwig cannot fly and rather than being euthanized, Joe took Hedwig for use in classroom education. This is actually Hedwig II since Joe had another great horned owl for 10 years before it died. The original Hedwig was kept for the same purpose. Hedwig lives in a mew (bird pen) behind Joes house. A young red-tailed hawk occupies a second mew, and Joe is working with this young hawk for future educational work. Both birds are fed dead ground squirrels. Joe travels to Diamond Valley, where he fills a cooler with ground squirrels trapped out of hay fields. The third-graders asked good questions: Can Hedwig turn his head completely around? No, but he can turn it 270 degrees, because he has double the number of neck vertebrae as humans have. He has to be able to turn his head since his eyes cannot move side to side. Can he hear a lot better than us? No, a little better than humans but he lives in a quiet world, whereas we humans are surrounded by noise. In an owls quiet world, he can hear very well. How much does Hedwig weigh? Three pounds; he looks bigger with all the feathers. What do owls eat? Great horned owls eat small rodents and especially like to eat skunks. They may even eat small cats around Spring Creek. Are those horns on the top of Hedwigs head? No, they are merely feather tufts. His ears are on the side of the head beside the eyes. His ears do not have an external flap. They are located slightly differently on each side and are different sizes. This helps owls locate prey using slight sounds. When the sounds are heard equally in both ears, the owl is looking directly at the prey. Why is Hedwig panting? He is used to being outside and is warm in this building, plus he is stressed with all of you around him. Joe is an educator and among the talk of owl poop (the students kept track of how many times Hedwig defecated on the gym floor), he talked to them about terms such as carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, predators and raptors. He talked about eye placement on herbivores compared to carnivores. After the 45-minute session, third-graders left with a better knowledge of both owls and biology. BRIDGEPORT Police are investigating two shootings that took place in the predawn hours of Saturday morning. The first, police said, happened at 1:36 a.m., after which officers responded to a shooting scene at the intersection of East Main and Alpine streets. The first man-made pancreas systems are now just becoming available on the marketplace for diabetics who need to dynamically monitor and adjust their insulin intake. Not a real organ transplant, the device manufactured by Medtronic actually can regulate the amount of blood sugar in ones body on a real time basis. This is welcome news to the nations 30 million plus diabetics who commonly draw blood samples daily and inject themselves to maintain their levels. Lets take a look at diabetes and how the machine works. Diabetes mellitus, commonly referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases which result in high blood sugar levels over prolonged periods of time. Symptoms of high blood sugar include frequent urination, increased thirst, increased hunger and irritability. If left untreated, diabetes can cause many long term complications such as heart disease, stroke, chronic kidney failure, foot ulcers, and blindness. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough insulin or the cells of the body not responding properly to the insulin the pancreas produces. As of 2015, an estimated 415 million people on Earth have the adult onset version of diabetes, a claim by Wikipedia that represents 8.3 percent of the adult population of the world. Statistics show that both women and men are affected equally and for some unknown cause, this number seems to be increasing annually. Diabetes is a silent killer and doubles a persons risk of early death. The word diabetes comes from early Latin and Greek words which means basically an excessive discharge of urine or to pass through. The word mellitus in turn was added by physician Thomas Willis in 1675 when he noticed the urine of a diabetic had a sweet taste. This had been noticed by ancient Chinese who tested urine, pouring it on the ground near anthills. A positive test resulted if the insects flocked to the puddle. Diabetes mellitus is characterized by loss of the insulin-producing beta cells of the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, leading to insulin deficiency. If you are a diabetic you can supplement your deficiency by injecting yourself with insulin. The discovery of insulin was a huge medical breakthrough. In 1869, while studying the structure of the pancreas under a microscope, Paul Langerhans, a medical student in Berlin, identified some previously unnoticed tissue clumps scattered throughout the bulk of the pancreas. The function of the little heaps of cells, later known as the islets of Langerhans, initially remained unknown, but Edouard Laguesse later suggested they might produce secretions that play a regulatory role in digestion. A classic story relates the investigations of Polish-German physician Oskar Minkowski, who in 1889 removed the pancreas from a healthy dog to test its assumed role in digestion. Several days after the removal of the dogs pancreas, Minkowskis animal-keeper noticed a swarm of flies feeding on the dogs urine. On testing the urine, they found sugar, establishing for the first time a relationship between the pancreas and diabetes. In 1912, E.L. Scott at the University of Chicago used aqueous pancreatic extracts, and noted a slight diminution of glycosuria, but was unable to convince his director of his works value and it was shut down. In October 1920, Canadian Frederick Banting concluded that it was the very digestive secretions that were breaking down the islet secretion, thereby making it impossible to extract successfully. Over the next several years Banting worked with more test animals and eventually tried his extracted insulin on a 14-year-old diabetic boy who lay dying at the Toronto General Hospital. After a series of injections the trial was successful in eliminating the symptoms of diabetes. After this, insulin was produced in large quantities by the drug firm Eli Lilly and Company and offered for sale shortly thereafter. By 1950 the amino acid structure of insulin was characterized by Frederick Sanger, and the first synthetic insulin was produced. The Nobel Prize was awarded to Frederick Banting and J.J.R. Macleod in 1923. Sanger was also awarded a Nobel Prize in 1958. The Medtronic device monitors the glucose levels by using a set of micro-needles that check the interstitial fluid just below the skin. A tiny digital computer complete with artificial intelligence programming makes the dosing decisions and a small pump injects the insulin. These hybrid, closed loop systems take the guess work out of the procedure and will be ideal for young people who sometimes forget to check their sugar levels. Because the treatment of diabetes is a lucrative medical field of over $200 billion a year in the U.S. alone, look for many new wearable devices and monitors in the next year. PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT: Treatment centre for PTSD in first responders, military opens in Nova Scotia Imagine its your job, every day, to be ready to rush to scenes where men, women or even children had been killed or badly injured, often in horrific circumstances. Really, consider what that might be like. If youre like most of us, the thought ... 125 YEARS AGO April 30, 1892: Ruby Valley flour is selling at Ely, White Pine county, for $4 per 100 pounds. Jub. Dakin has sold his ranch in Lamoille Valley and will put up a flour mill on Lamoille creek, about a mile above the Cross Roads. Mr. Dakin is an old miller and knows the business thoroughly. E.S. Farrington and C.H. Sproule went to Virginia City yesterday morning to attend the Republican State Convention which meets to-day. There will be a meeting at the Courthouse this (Saturday) evening at 7:30 oclock for the purpose of making arrangements to properly celebrate the coming Fourth of July. Turn out and let us celebrate the National Holiday in the good old-fashioned style. 100 YEARS AGO May 1, 1917: At 2:30 this afternoon but 366 votes had been cast in the election on incorporating the city of Elko, and it looks as if a light vote would be cast. The day has been stormy and this forenoon but a very few had voted, but this afternoon the women are coming out and casting their votes. The polls close at six oclock and the result should be known before 8 oclock. The vote by wards at 2:30 was as follows: Ward one, 88; Ward two, 81; Ward three, 62; Ward four, 135. May 2, 1917: A deal was closed yesterday, one of the largest of its kind in the county for years, when the firm of Hylton & Hanna sold their general store business at Hylton to County Commissioner J.G. Gregory and Albert Hankins. The consideration was not made public, but as this business is the largest of its kind south of Elko for many hundreds of miles, it was considerable. Mr. Hylton says that it takes from $60,000 to $100,000 per year to run the business, as a general credit business is done. We understand that the business will be conducted by Mr. Gregorys sons, who will take possession on the 10th of this month. Both Mr. Hylton and Mr. Hanna have large ranching business and do not want to devote their time to the store, although they have been in business there for more than 15 years. Favor of Incorporation Win by Safe Majority Vote was Light. Election day passed off quietly yesterday, but 589 votes being cast, out of a registration of 1,380. There is no doubt but if the day had been warm and sunshiny there would have been nearer 800 votes cast. But one ward cast a majority against incorporation, that being ward No. one, with 85 against and 52 for. The officers elected were Mayor, J.A. McBride; Supervisors C.F. Williams; W.R. Mayer, T.F. Brennen and Edward Lytton. 75 YEARS AGO April 29, 1942: George Hansen, former Charleston rancher, and who has purchased some land from Homer Andrae in the Mountain City area, was a visitor in Elko over the past few days. April 30, 1942: William Murdock, son of Mr. and Mrs. William Murdock of Elko, is alive and a prisoner of the Japanese in Shanghai, China, according to word received here today from the offices of the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. George Boucher, secretary of the Elko County Chapter of the American Red Cross, received a communication from Washington this morning stating that a cablegram has been received from the International Red Cross in Japan which reads as follows: According information received Japanese Red Cross William Murdock prisoner Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. Murdock had received no word from their son since the Japanese attacked the United States possessions in the Pacific on December 7. Murdock was engaged in construction work on Wake Island when it was attacked by the Japanese and eventually captured following a gallant stand by the United States Marines with the aid of the workers stationed on the island. May 2, 1942: The board of county commissioners has decided to use the first story of the Legion Hall for a library building for the duration of the war. They felt at first that the entire building, damaged by a fire, would have to be wrecked. They have discovered, however, after careful examination that the first story and the basement can be reclaimed. The work can be done with the insurance money and it will be allowed by the government as it comes under the heading of replacement. This is a common sense decision at this time. It would be foolish to wreck the entire building when there is no necessity of it. No one knows how long the war will last and as a consequence the building can be kept in service for the duration. It might last for another five years, and even longer. 50 YEARS AGO May 1, 1967: Most clocks were presumably on time by today, following Nevadas changeover to daylight savings time yesterday morning. Clocks were turned forward one hour. The state will remain on daylight time until October. The Johns Rest Home, which has operated at 1036 Sixth Street in Elko since March 11, 1961, closed today it was announced by Mrs. Della Johns. The rest home was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Johns, Sr., in this city as a private rest home for elderly patients who were incapacitated. The largest number of patients at the home at one time was fourteen. The home opened with three patients all of whom have since died. May 3, 1967: Elko voters, following a pattern that held true in Carlin and Wells, yesterday rejected the re-election bids of Mayor Frank Williams and city supervisors Roy Mills and John F. Carson, electing in their stead Frank Weinrauch as mayor; Chester Pitman and Charles Harper as city supervisors, all for four-years terms. With a turnout of over 67 percent of the registered voters, 1,988 of the citys 2,960 were polled as to their preference for the city government during the next two years. 25 YEARS AGO May 1, 1992: Despite the feeble 11th hour effort, April ended at midnight last night with a mere.02 of an inch of precipitation for the entire month. Weatherman Gerald Miles reported that put the month in a two-way tie for recognition as the third-driest April at Elko during the century. April in 1916 and again in 1924 yielded only a trace of moisture here to establish the record at the dry end of the spectrum that is expected to being an abundance of those acclaimed April Showers. May 6, 1992: Despite protests and a petition from neighborhood residents, city planners last night approved a conditional use permit for Alex Guzman to locate a gasoline service station at Spruce Road and North Fifth Streets. Residents of Clearwater Court told the four members of the Elko City Planning Commission that the proposed service station would devalue their property and increase crime and traffic in the neighborhood. Commission Chairman Wilma Stenoish pointed out the property is already zoned for commercial use and the conditional use permit is required only because he wishes to sell gasoline. Opening dates, hours and new policies set for 2022 ski season A price increase on all day and season passes at Seven Springs, Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain ski areas goes into effect on Nov. 20. On this Mothers Day, we will have a family barbecue to celebrate and thank all the mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers among us. This will be a time for appreciation of not only those with us today, but a remembrance of those who have passed on and left us with wonderful memories of the past. As I think back about all the wonderful mothers in our family, I cannot help but admire the strength of character that each of them contributed to their offspring. The influence a mother passes on to her children defines and molds the character of a family as a whole. I remember stories of my great grandmother, Theresa Cassinelli. She raised 12 children in Dayton between 1890 and 1910. My grandfather, Pete Cassinelli, told me that when one of the kids was born during potato harvest, she went into the house to have the child and before the end of the day, she was back out in the field carrying the baby and helping pick potatoes. Later, after the family moved to Reno, the family made their own wine during the Prohibition days. This was a cultural tradition among the old Italian families in those days. It was a matter of survival during the Great Depression, but wine making for profit was still an illegal activity. On March 29, 1931, the Reno newspaper reported that Theresa was arrested when the Reno prohibition force apprehended her for bootlegging and confiscated 100 gallons of wine she had in her possession. She did get off for the offense, since it was legal for families to make 100 gallons of wine for their personal use. By my calculations, 100 gallons of wine amounts to just over one quart per day in a years time. I dont have 12 children but I can easily see where a quart of wine per day would disappear quickly if there were more than a few wine drinkers in a house. Theresa was once seriously injured on our ranch in Sparks when she was struck by lightning as she was walking near a well at the corner of 21st Street and Glendale Road. As a young child, I spent much of my time in the care of my two grandmothers, Edith Cassinelli and Ida Baugus. My mother, Phyllis, and her sister Clare were among the first female blackjack dealers to work in Nevada. To support their children, they worked at Harolds Club and the Palace Club in Reno. We kids were always in the care of a loving mother or grandmother. During WW2 when the Reno Army Airbase was in operation, Pappy Smith, owner of Harolds Club, wisely made the unprecedented decision to hire women as blackjack dealers. This became a major attraction to military personnel and other male gamblers from around the country. Harolds Club became the most successful casino in Nevada during the 1940s and 1950s. Las Vegas casinos did not allow female blackjack dealers until 1962. My wifes mother, Mary Murphy, was an exceptional example of what a good mother should be. Any family led by a strong and caring mother figure such as Mary Murphy is truly blessed. On this Mothers Day, be thankful and grateful for all the wonderful blessings the mothers among us have bestowed on our lives. Cast your mind back 20 years almost to the day. Tony Blair famously declared a new dawn has broken as his Labour Party swept into power in the General Election of May 1997. His supporters gleefully hoped that his thumping Commons majority of 179 would mean the Conservative Party might never govern Britain again. In a bid to consolidate this sea-change, Mr Blair sought to engineer an alliance with Paddy Ashdowns Lib Dems and to turn the 21st century into what he termed the progressive century thus cutting the Tories out of power for ever. The way things were: Two decades ago, Tony Blair stormed to power with a thumping majority of 179 and unrivaled popularity. Now twenty years on, it has been a stunning reversal of fortunes for the Labour Party How times have changed: For Labour, things are now much worse than when Michael Foot led it to catastrophe in 1983 Two decades later, and what a stunning reversal of fortunes! Mr Blair is one of the most reviled figures in Britain as a result of the Iraq war. The Labour Party is seemingly unelectable. Indeed, such is its unpopularity that it may disappear as a significant political force altogether. That is the unequivocal message from yesterdays local election results. For Labour, it is much worse than when Michael Foot led it to catastrophe in 1983. To find a comparable situation, we need to look to the Thirties, when Stanley Baldwins Tory Party secured 470 seats in the Commons to Labours 52. To understand the full scale of the change, let us consider the results in the bellwether constituency of Nuneaton in the Midlands. In 1997, it was a safe Labour seat. Two years ago, it had become a Tory marginal. Today, it is true blue Conservative territory rather like Surrey and Berkshire. This is a phenomenal turnaround. The change is charted by voting patterns in local elections. Two years ago, in the Nuneaton ward of Bulkington, the Tories and Labour were neck and neck, each with 36 per cent of the votes, with Ukip not far behind them both at 28 per cent. This week, Ukip decided not to field a candidate and to concentrate its efforts in more winnable areas. This was a wise move in view of the result. The Tories more than doubled their votes to a stunning 76 per cent. Labours share crashed to 24 per cent. Obviously, the Tories scooped much more of Ukips 2015 vote than Labour did. Certainly, the collapse of Ukip is one factor behind Labours bloodbath in Englands shires. When the anti-EU party first emerged as a force a decade ago, all political experts (including me) believed that it would take votes from the Tories. Corbyn can't be blamed entirely for Labour's huge loss. Mr Blair must shoulder huge responsibility having taken the Labour Partys traditional working-class roots for granted in search of instant political gain This was partly because of a growing anti-EU mood across the United Kingdom as a whole but also because many traditional Conservatives felt that their party, under new leader David Cameron, was shifting away from traditional Toryism. But now with Ukip having declined as a political force albeit after scoring the massive achievement of forcing Mr Cameron to hold a referendum on Britains membership of the EU its supporters are now backing Theresa May. Of course, Ukips powerful showing in the 2015 General Election was partly due to the fact that hundreds of thousands of traditional Labour folk also agreed with its anti-Brussels message. But those people have not now reverted to Labour. Instead, they have voted Conservative. This is a truly seismic episode in British political history. In electoral terms, Ukip has been a transit lounge for disaffected Labour voters shifting allegiance to the Conservatives. It means that on June 8, Mrs May is likely to win a majority of much more than 100 seats, making her one of the most powerful peacetime British prime ministers alongside Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. He was once incredibly popular, but now Mr Blair is one of the most reviled figures in Britain as a result of the Iraq war. This has left the Labour Party seemingly unelectable Labour has been a great political party. Even those who disagree with its policies must recognise that it shaped Britain, in many ways for the better, in the 20th century. Pictured above: Tony Blair and wife Cherie (left) and the family together after the election in 1997 Several profound consequences flow from this. First, Ukip is a spent political force. I predict that many Ukip councillors and activists will join the Tories in the near future. Others may withdraw from politics. Total though the destruction of Ukip may be, its members should not feel too downhearted. The fact is that Ukip was set up with one purpose alone to take Britain out of the EU. They will soon succeed in that task. However, for the Labour party, yesterdays local election results are a disaster. The party will limp through the next few weeks until the General Election when I anticipate things will get even worse. Expect an implosion. In view of this, I would not be surprised if there is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to dislodge Jeremy Corbyn from the leadership over the next few days. Yet, even if such a move were to succeed, it would be a kamikaze act simply opening the way to a chaotic and bloody civil war which would drive away yet more would-be voters. Unfair to blame Corbyn: Tony Blair must take responsibility for the unpopularity of the party. Pictured above, current leader Jeremy Corbyn Without wishing to be over-dramatic, I believe that Labour is in a similar position to the Titanic after it hit an iceberg but before actually sinking. Of course, Labour has been a great political party. Even those who disagree with its policies must recognise that it shaped Britain, in many ways for the better, in the 20th century. It gave a voice to the working classes and the trades unions; it inspired many vital social reforms, including the creation of the Welfare State and the NHS. The heirs of Keir Hardie will always have an honourable place in British history. But now it faces extinction as a front-rank political force. Some will inevitably blame Mr Corbyn, but that would be unfair. Mr Blair must shoulder huge responsibility having taken the Labour Partys traditional working-class roots for granted in search of instant political gain. Should Mr Corbyn stay on or one of his acolytes take over, I am certain that a new centre party will emerge and could attract men and women from all the current parties for example, George Osborne, Tony Blair, Lord (Peter) Mandelson (above) and Nick Clegg Whether it happens in the coming days or the moment that polls close at 10pm on June 8, a brutal internal battle will break out within Labour between those hard-Left Corbynistas and the so-called moderates. Should Mr Corbyn stay on or one of his acolytes take over, I am certain that a new centre party will emerge. It would attract men and women from all the current parties: for example, George Osborne, Tony Blair, Lord (Peter) Mandelson and Nick Clegg. Predictably, it will be hailed by anti-Brexit news organisations such as the BBC, the Financial Times and the Guardian as the Messiah of British politics. In many ways, it will be a repeat of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which broke away from Mr Foots unelectable Labour party in the early Eighties and was feted by the chattering classes. It may thrive longer than the SDP for, without doubt, the British political system needs a strong opposition. There is a contemporary precedent for such a new party. It is the one created in France by Emmanuel Macron, who is expected to be voted as his countrys new president tomorrow. Already, allies of Mr Osborne (whose Evening Standard newspaper this week described Macron as a charismatic centrist who has captivated a continent) have cast admiring glances across the Channel. In the meantime, with an opposition flat on its back, Theresa May will hold unassailable power. The privilege of such power must also mean she has the huge responsibility not to exploit it for party-political advantage, but to use it in Britains national interest. Countless schools were closed on Thursday to be used as polling stations for local elections. Children lost a days education and many working parents had to find extra childcare. This will happen on a greater scale on June 8. A solution would be to change the day we vote. It has traditionally been Thursday to avoid Friday (when workers would go to the pub after pay day, and were thus vulnerable to pressure from Tory brewing interests) and Sunday (with the risk of influence by Liberal churchmen). Please, lets move voting to the weekend. What a lesson in public service Prince Philip offers us all and particularly to politicians. He has been utterly patriotic, totally loyal to his sovereign and wife, and has never been cowed by political correctness. Hes also always shown a sense of humour. Luckily, I dont think we have seen the last of this simply magnificent man. I bet hell be there at the State Opening of Parliament for a few years to come. Prince or pauper, few of us ever really know the place we hold in other peoples hearts while were alive. The loving words, the expressions of pride, the memories shared, are mostly saved for obituaries and funerals. So it must be gratifying even for a man as phlegmatic as Prince Philip that, aged 95 and stepping down from formal duties while still full of vigour, has learned what we his larger family think of him. This week, there has been an outpouring of affection and gratitude which, I suspect, probably left him mystified. To the Duke, the past 70 years have simply been a matter of doing his duty for Queen and country. To the Duke, the past 70 years have simply been a matter of doing his duty for Queen and country Now, as he retires from a life of dedication, Team Windsor has decreed that his children and grandchildren will step up to the plate. Particularly Prince William. Yet heres the rub. William may have inherited his grandads regal bearing and bloody-mindedness, yet he shows little of the Dukes selfless dedication to duty. In the week that Prince Philip stood down, Williams lawyers were in court suing a French magazine for 1.3 million in damages for publishing topless pictures of Kate five years ago. Yes, the European paparazzi are deplorable, but such pictures will never be taken again as long as Kate remembers to keep her top on while shes sunning herself on holiday. Whats the point of raking all this up now? Doesnt it just remind people of that intensely embarrassing episode, and encourage leery blokes to look for them on the internet all over again? And should William really have allowed his lawyers to argue the images were all the more painful because they reminded him of the harassment that led to the death of my mother? One can hardly compare the pain incurred by topless photos of Kate with the loss of Diana. William may have inherited his grandads regal bearing and bloody-mindedness, yet he shows little of the Dukes selfless dedication to duty Of course, Williams grandfather Philip is not unaccustomed to scandal. His alleged trysts with other women have been hinted at or even openly referred to in the media. Yet he has never complained. Hes just got on with the job. Duty first. William is now 34, older than Philip when he took up his role, yet he still appears workshy, stroppy and insular. His desire to have his own way borders on petulance and smacks of an unattractive assumption of privilege. Its time he grew up and took a leaf out of Grandpas book. That way, perhaps, he will receive the same kind of adulation in his old age. Cheryl's name game The pop star Cheryl has named her baby with One Direction star Liam Payne. Hes called Bear The pop star Cheryl has named her baby with One Direction star Liam Payne. Hes called Bear. Presumably, if shed had triplets she would have called them the Three Bears. Being an old-fashioned kind of girl, Cheryl decided their son should simply take the fathers surname, so their little darling is called Bear Payne. Lucky for him he didnt inherit his mums telephone directory of names, too: hed have been called Bear Tweedy-Cole-Fernandez- Versini-Payne. A mother's love is blind The mother of Damon Smith, the 20-year-old convicted of making a bomb full of ball bearings and leaving it on the Tube, says her son is not an extremist but an innocent, vulnerable lad who has Aspergers. Not as vulnerable as the passengers who could have been killed if his home-made bomb inspired by an online Al-Qaeda magazine had gone off. And how ironic that on his computer, police found instructions for making the bomb in the kitchen of your mum. Four years after those pictures of her husband with his hand on her throat led to divorce, Nigella Lawson now appears slimmer and rather fragile. It cant have been easy for the Domestic Goddess when, after a ten-year marriage, her ex, Charles Saatchi, moved on so quickly with fashion adviser Trinny Woodall. Yet she has rebuilt her life, concentrating on her children and her career. Maybe she should write another book: How To Be A Divorce Goddess. Four years after those pictures of her husband with his hand on her throat led to divorce, Nigella Lawson now appears slimmer and rather fragile Fiona's so brave to speak out about depression Former GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips described in her BBC show The Truth About Stress that 3.30am starts, combined with being a wife, a mother of two young boys and daughter to two parents with Alzheimers, drove her to the brink. She was suffering from chronic stress, yet, when her co-presenter Eamonn Holmes told her she was clinically depressed, she denied it. I didnt seek help I didnt have time. I kept telling myself I would be fine and kept blaming myself. But in the show, she interviewed an expert who taught her how to turn stress into a positive emotion. Instead of feeling fear, you should harness it. The mantra should be: I am excited. Yet the most important message from Fiona was that she admits she got help. Even so, despite her happy family life, she still has depressive episodes. But her advice is that they pass. Bravely put, Fiona. Oh Barack, what WILL Michelle say? Sheila Miyoshi Jager, who Barack Obama proposed to twice before he met and married Michelle, says that she and Obama continued seeing each other in 1991, after she turned him down for the second time The woman Barack Obama proposed to twice before he met and married Michelle says, in a major new biography of the ex-President, that she and Obama continued seeing each other in 1991, after she turned him down for the second time. Baracks much-described magical first date with Michelle was in 1989 there was even a movie made about it and they married in 1992. So the claims from his ex-lover, academic Sheila Miyoshi Jager, are more than a little embarrassing. Was it a case of Can we see two women at once Yes we can? Perhaps the oh-so- smug Obama really is, as the Pulitzer Prize winning author David Garrow damningly concludes in the book, a vessel hollow at its core. WESTMINSTER WARS After Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott misspoke ie proved she can barely count to ten over the cost of 10,000 new police, critics said she was not fit for office. I suppose we should be grateful shes not Shadow Chancellor. Abbotts car crash interview unfolded on the talk radio station LBC because its savvy presenter Nick Ferrari knows when a politician is in trouble, and thus when to shut up and let silence encourage his victim to blunder on into the mire. A lesson for the constantly haranguing and interrupting presenters on BBC radio? Following the local election results, Theresa May looks set for an even greater landslide than expected. She could even break Tony Blairs record of 101 female MPs providing an object lesson for the sisterhood of the Left who like to think that they are the only real feminists. Blairs Babes got there through all-women shortlists: Mays female MPs will have fought their own battles, as she did. They have been dubbed Mays Maidens. But if they are forged in her image, they will be warrior queens. The EUs Brexit divorce negotiator, Michel Barnier, says the UK must pay the EU an 85 billion settlement, or the fragile bloc will crumble and not be able to live in the manner to which it has become accustomed. Like most partners who dont bring home the bacon, the EU seems to expect a meal-ticket for life. As any divorcee knows, post-separation you both have to live within your means. Barack Obama has given his support to Frances presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron in a televised video, saying: He appeals to peoples hopes and not their fears. Vive la France. Didnt he say that leaving the EU would put Britain at the back of the queue for trade deals then the Brexit vote soared? In a legal battle with his former management group, Johnny Depp is accused of having psychological issues that led him to squander much of his fortune. He is accused of suffering from a rare compulsive spending disorder. But isnt every woman stuffing their trolley full of clothes in TK Maxx on a Saturday suffering from it, too? You might pride yourself on buying makeup that's not tested on animals and reading the labels carefully to look out for chemicals that may harm the environment. But a report by Ethical Consumer magazine has given poor ratings to hugely popular cosmetic brands on factors such as workers' rights, environmental policies and animal testing. Researchers have unravelled the often complex structure behind brands to reveal how customers may be buying into an unethical system without even realising. For instance, a makeup brand may advertise itself as not being tested on animals, but be owned by a larger company that is not cruelty free. Popular brands such as No 7 makeup, Benefit cosmetics and Maybelline scored less than five out of 20 for ethics, because of the policies of their parent companies. Mail Online has contacted all the brands featured below for further comment. BOOTS A report by Ethical Consumer magazine has revealed how products such as Soap & Glory may not be tested on animals, but is linked to the practice via a parent company Several of Boots' brands, Sleek MakeUP, No 7 and Soap & Glory were at the bottom of the table for ethical policies. Sleek MakeUp came right at the bottom of the table with just one point out of 20, with one contributing factor being animal testing. While Sleek MakeUp is not tested on animals, its parent company is Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). WBA does not test on animals, but its suppliers do 'in order to meet legislative and regulatory requirements and protect health'. Researchers from Ethical Consumer magazine ranked brands out of 20 on everything from labour policies to environmental reporting to use of palm oil and animal testing 'As a result, suppliers of ingredients, components and finished goods used in Walgreens Boots Alliance may have to or continue to carry out tests on animals at the request of regulators.' Similarly, No 7 and Soap & Glory fell down on their animal testing rating for the same reason. A spokesperson for Boots told MailOnline: 'No animal testing is undertaken by Walgreens Boots Alliance. For our own product brands, we do not conduct or commission animal testing on products, or on ingredients used in these products, Popular high street makeup brands from Boots, such as No 7, Soap & Glory and Sleek MakeUP scored poorly in the research 'Until satisfactory replacements are available and all regulatory authorities stop requiring animal tests, we recognise that other companies will continue to carry out some animal tests in order to meet legislative and regulatory requirements and protect health. 'As a result, suppliers of ingredients, components and finished goods used in Walgreens Boots Alliance may have to or continue to carry out tests on animals at the request of regulators. 'Recognising that it is necessary to develop validated alternative methods, we give financial and technical support to the development and introduction of alternative methods.' BENEFIT Benefit scored a disappointing 1.5 out of 20, based on findings on its parent company LVMH. LMVH has not signed up to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and received Ethical Consumer's worst rating for its palm oil policy. The practice of 'slash and burn' to clear land for planting the controversial vegetable oil used in everything from cosmetics to biscuits is a major cause of catastrophic wildfires. A report by Amnesty International last year found a 'wide range of abuses' at Indonesian plantations, including child labour and exposure to toxic chemicals. Expansion of plantations also infringes on the habitats of endangered species such as elephants, rhinos and tigers. Additionally, Benefit cosmetics are sold in China where government regulations require products to be tested on animals. Benefit told MailOnline: 'Benefit does not test our products on animals. 'We are deeply committed to the elimination of animal testing... We are one of only a few companies to have invested in creating our own internal department to test raw materials and ingredients to further ensure the quality of our products and the satisfaction of our customers, which is our top priority. 'As a result, all Benefit products undergo very strict tolerance tests using non-animal methods during the development of each product to ensure quality and safety prior to market. Some customers expressed concern regarding the situation in China. Our products are made in Europe and for imported cosmetics, the Chinese health authorities order some test on animals: they require companies to make their products available to be tested in state-certified laboratories for registration purposes only, as it is currently their only recognized method to demonstrate product safety. We are hopeful that alternative testing methods will be adopted worldwide and we will see an end to animal testing. Benefit makeup is owned by LVMH, which has been criticised by Ethical Consumer for failing to sign up to responsible use of palm oil SUPERDRUG The popular high street chain received a poor score of 2.5 out of 20 from Ethical Consumer, falling down in categories such as environmental reporting. Researchers requested an account of the company's environmental activities from Superdrug, but were told that it does not produce its own report. According to the company's Corporate Social Sustainability policy, it has listed plans such as reducing emissions and making stores energy efficient. But there was no quantifying of what these targets entail or dates set to reach them and no reporting of the company's environmental performance to date, therefore it received Ethical Consumer's worst possible rating. A spokesperson for Superdrug said: 'Superdrug takes its position as a responsible retailer seriously. We are committed to being clear and transparent on our environmental policies (these are available on our website superdrug.com/csr/enviroment), and our parent company publishes regular CSR reports. 'All our waste is processed in our own Recycling Depot, and nothing is sent to landfill; our target is to recycle 85 per cent of our waste by 2020 and we are on track to meet this. To help reduce energy in our estate we have fitted Smart Meters in all stores. 'Our vehicle fleet is low emission and all our drivers are trained on fuel efficient driving and tracked using on-board telemetry. We were the first mainstream retailer to be accredited by Cruelty Free International (in 2009) and all our own brand beauty, toiletries and household products carry the leaping bunny symbol.' Superdrug scored poorly, partly because of its lack of a clear environmental policy YVES SAINT LAURENT, MAYBELLINE, LANCOME AND L'OREAL YSL's eternally popular Touche Eclat is a must for the make-up bag of any self-respecting beauty junkie. But unfortunately YSL cosmetics scored just three out of 20, thanks to being 100 per cent owned by L'Oreal, which is in turn part owned by Nestle. Maybelline is also owned by L'Oreal and received the same score, and the same goes for Lancome. This is partly because Ethical Consumer was not satisfied with LOreal's commitment to end the use of microbeads by the end of 2017. Maybelline scored poorly as it is owned by parent company L'Oreal It has committed to abolishing polyethylene microbeads from its exfoliants, cleansers and shower gels. But it did not widen the commitment to eliminate microbeads from all its products, or to get rid of all types made from plastics other than polyethylene. L'Oreal does not test its products on animals, except where required by law and in China authorities insists on carrying out animal tests on finished products before going to market. A spokesperson for L'Oreal told MailOnline: 'In 1989 L'Oreal completely ceased testing its products on animals, and since 2013, L'Oreal has completely stopped testing ingredients on animals. 'Only one exception prevails for L'Oreal just like all other cosmetic companies: the health authorities in China require some tests on animals for certain products or ingredients. 'For over 10 years, L'Oreal has been committed to working alongside the Chinese authorities and scientists to have alternative testing methods recognised, and permit the cosmetic regulation to evolve towards a total and definite elimination of animal testing. 'Thanks to this, since 2014, certain products manufactured and sold in China like shampoo, body wash or make-up are no longer tested on animals.' Distressing as it may seem, most of these perky, pleading-eyed canines were destined for doggie death row until they fell into the compassionate hands of dog rescuer Sylvia Van Atta. Through her not-for-profit organisation Many Tears Animal Rescue in Llanelli, South Wales, Sylvia has saved thousands of dogs from pounds, broken homes and breeders who no longer need them. Every Sunday she puts her charges into crates in her van and drives them across the UK to meet their foster families at set drop-off points. Dog fostering is the fast-growing way to help abused or unwanted dogs, and Many Tears is a shelter housing rescued dogs until they are rehomed via the centre or through their extensive network of foster homes. Some of the dogs being fostered through Many Tears. From L-R: Maximus, Deano, Lulu, Nala, Sancho, Jane, Soda, Poem, Sarabi and Mustafa Their temporary foster carers will nurture these dogs, giving them love and attention to get them ready for their new home. Animal fostering is important because its the final step in preparing them for adoption into a permanent home, says Sylvia, 60, who set up Many Tears 12 years ago and now has 232 fosterers all over Britain. Many dogs die because rescue centres dont have space. So every one that goes to a foster home frees up space and enables another life to be saved. Some people are reluctant to foster, they think its unfair to establish a bond and then let the animal be adopted. But a foster home is a life- saving bridge for a stray who might never have lived in a real home. Many dogs dont cope well in kennels at a rescue centre so a fosterer gives the dog a chance to get used to life in a proper home. They can overcome phobias and learn to trust people and know they can expect food, warmth and a safe place to sleep. Time in a foster home can also provide information to match a dog with the right adopters, for example a dog thats happy with cats. London-born Sylvia is a woman on a mission. Shes driven by the traumatic experiences of helping run a dog shelter in America. Astonishing as it may seem in a country like the US, before she started there dogs were routinely dropped down a hole and shot, strangled or gassed by local dog wardens. Sylvia was so upset by this that she offered to run the shelter to try to change it and ultimately had to learn to euthanise dogs so such barbaric practices would end. WANT TO FOSTER A DOG? HERE'S HOW To be a dog fosterer for Many Tears there are certain important requirements and conditions... You must be a dog lover. There needs to be someone at home during the day. If you have a family they must be fully supportive of you. You must have a secure garden. You must have a car or access to a car to be able to collect the dog. You must have a safe way of transporting the dog, either in a crate or a secure area in the car. If you already have your own dog it must be friendly, good with other dogs and neutered or spayed unless theres a medical reason why not. You must have an email address and be able to send updates and photos as Many Tears asks for reports on the foster dogs every two weeks. Advertisement Ill never stop thinking of the dogs I murdered. It nearly killed me, so with Many Tears Im trying to make up for it, she says. We take dogs from all over Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Bosnia, Turkey, Romania. Last year we took in 12 dogs from Cyprus whod been in a rescue home for seven years. Theres no shortage of dogs at Many Tears who need foster homes. On average dogs are fostered for three weeks before a home is found. But some are harder to find homes for old dogs, scared dogs and big dogs for starters, says Sylvia. Also pairs of dogs, or those with health issues. At the moment we have two Russian wolfhounds. Theyre a big commitment. The longest we had a dog in foster care for was a year. We rescued Bertie from a pound in Swindon, he was a street dog and mistrustful of everyone. His foster carer worked with him religiously and he was adopted two weeks ago. This is the level of commitment our foster carers show. All the Many Tears rescue dogs are assessed before they go to foster homes. Every dog will have been micro-chipped, vaccinated, wormed, had flea treatment and been spayed or castrated before leaving us, says Sylvia. Shes keen to stress how rewarding fostering dogs is. If youve lost your own dog this can be great because youre not replacing it youre simply helping another dog. It can also be good for retired people and those looking to be part of a community the fosterers all keep in touch. Steph Elder and her mother Marianne, from Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, have been fostering for seven years. We have two Labradors of our own, Skittle and Mambo, and theyre brilliant in helping the foster dogs rehabilitate, says Steph, 33. Weve fostered over 200 dogs. Weve even had dogs whove been pregnant so the pups have been born in our home. Skittle helps the mothers by rolling on her back and enticing the puppies to play. Our dogs welcome the foster dogs as part of our family and help them gain confidence. To be a fosterer you need patience and constant empathy and to be observant, as no two dogs are the same. But its so rewarding. n Email info@manytearsrescue or call 01269 843084 between 10am-4pm. Even with a hairnet to keep her swept-back brunette mane immaculately coiffed between scenes and a pink hot-water bottle clutched to her stomach to stave off the cold, Charlotte Riley looks the spitting image of the Duchess of Cambridge. We dont immediately think of Kate as a tough cookie who wont back down from a fight, but thats how Peaky Blinders star Charlotte portrays her in controversial new BBC2 drama King Charles III. This is Kate behind-closed-doors, she says. I like to think shes as feisty and forthright in private as she is in our show. From left: Oliver Chris, the late Tim Pigott-Smith and Charlotte Riley as William, Charles and Kate Were at Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, which doubles for Buckingham Palace in the one-off 90-minute drama. Adapted by Doctor Foster writer Mike Bartlett from his award-winning play, it imagines what happens when Prince Charles, played by the late Tim Pigott-Smith, ascends the throne after the death of the Queen. Charles has waited a lifetime to accede but when he finally does he finds himself wrestling with his conscience. A law has been passed by Parliament that will severely limit the freedom of the Press, but when the time comes for Charles to sign it he wont, believing his job as king is to protect the rights of his people. A political stand-off ensues, one that causes the entire country to rethink the role of its sovereign. Parliament is dissolved leading to uproar on the streets, and the prime minister locks horns with the monarch. Charless hesitation divides his family, with William (Oliver Chris) and Kate realising his actions may in turn threaten their own familys future. This is where Kate comes into her own in the drama, pushing her husband to take control. Meanwhile, an unhappy Prince Harry (Richard Goulding) starts a relationship with a commoner, not an American actress like his real girlfriend Meghan Markle but a British republican. Charless coronation, with John Shrapnel (left) as the Archbishop The drama dispenses with the playful, smiling Duchess we see at public engagements and portrays her as a very ambitious power player. Shes almost like the CEO of a business, says Charlotte. Theres a hint of Lady Macbeth in there. Shes pragmatic and wants to move things forward for the Royal Family. She encourages William to become the man she knows he can be, to lead from the front. 'Shes doing what she thinks is right. Given the world she comes from, shes saying, Why arent these things talked about? We need to talk like normal people and crack on. 'You have to drive this machine to be more relevant in the society we live in, and theres no shame in that. Both Charlotte and the real Kate are 35, born just 11 days apart, but their backgrounds couldnt be more different. Whereas Kate was born into an upper-middle-class family from Berkshire, Charlotte had what she describes as a typical working-class upbringing in the North East, sharing a bedroom with her siblings in a small house in a village near Stockton-on-Tees. But shes used to playing posh birds as she jokingly calls them (she was most recently seen as American heiress Rachel Lombard in BBC2 spy drama Close To The Enemy). Richard Goulding (left) and Oliver Chris with Tim Pigott- Smith I had to do a lot of work on Kates voice, she says. Shes a lot more Received Pronunciation than we think so I had to get the balance between sounding like her but also being able to open up her voice. Shes quite contained but in this drama she isnt. Charlotte, whos been married to Taboo star Tom Hardy for three years, is exuberant and fun in person, quite the opposite to calm and composed Kate, so she spent a lot of time studying Kates body language. Shes quite held together, not just in terms of posture but shes aware of her movement and body language, explains Charlotte. Youve only got to look at footage of her and William to know that theyre incredibly aware of what body language does. So I started to do a lot of research on YouTube. I wanted to see how the public perceive her so I watched a lot of footage of people meeting her when they do the rounds and shake peoples hands. 'Interestingly, when somebody puts their arm around her, which theyre not supposed to, you can see her grit her teeth, thinking, Dont do that. And she doesnt have dresses that have pockets, so what do you do with your hands? But the key to trying to empathise with Kate was the feeling of being an outsider, which any newcomer to the Royal Family surely must have. Our Kates feisty with a hint of Lady Macbeth The rest of the cast had all performed the play in the West End and on Broadway, but Charlotte replaced Lydia Wilson for the TV drama. I was talking to a friend about how nervous I felt as I was an outsider and she told me to use it for the character, as that was the situation Kate was in, she explains. Not that I was allowed to feel like an outsider for very long because they all took me under their wing pretty quickly. But Kate is an outsider really, and shes made it work. I hope Ive done her justice in the sense of portraying the side of her I like to think is there. Shes a very intelligent woman, and I hope she might think, Oh, thats all right. 'As for the Royal Family, I hope they think its thought-provoking and an interesting take on what could potentially happen in the future its food for thought. Having done this I have a deeper understanding of the restrictions, the protocol and the massive weight of responsibility they have. The late Tim Pigott-Smith, the actor famous for his roles in The Jewel In The Crown, Doctor Who and Downton Abbey, reprised his role as Charles for the TV drama with Margot Leicester as a very spirited Camilla. This is Kate behind-closed-doors, Charlotte Riley (above) says of her role as the Duchess of Cambridge Tim, speaking before his unexpected death last month at the age of 70 just days before he was due to appear in a production of Death Of A Salesman in Northampton, said he barely did any research for his role. Someone asked me if Id done a lot of research but I havent had to as Charles is only two years younger than me so weve grown up in parallel and Ive watched him go through various phases of his life, he explained. When I was offered the part I was working with a friend who did voices for Spitting Image. I asked how he would do Charles and he said that Charles fiddles with his cuffs and that he pulls his mouth down to the side when hes talking and doesnt really open his mouth. 'Watching a video of him I discovered that he does this thing with his hands outside his pockets, they hover outside but they never go in which is wonderfully indecisive and suits the character in the play. We didnt want to do imitations but occasionally theres a suggestion of the actual man. Like the play, the television script is written in blank verse regular metrical lines but unrhymed which only enhances the drama. Its a modern verse, almost like a rap, Tim said. Its absolutely brilliant how relevant the play is because it provokes a huge amount of debate about the state of the monarchy. Its a very clever story but not at the Royal Familys expense. Its proper drama. Its wonderful that its going to be seen on television. King Charles III is on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC2. From certain angles, and in certain poses, they look more like twins than mere sisters. They share the same high cheekbones, the same elegant frames and wide smiles. The young Jackie Bouvier and her little sister Lee, four years her junior, were certainly born into a world of privilege, both destined to make a stylish mark on the world. One of them made more of a mark than the other, of course. Jackie grew up to marry into the Kennedy family, becoming the USAs most famous First Lady. What of the little sister from whom she was inseparable in childhood though? Well, put in context, Lee proved herself to be just as connected. Jackie Kennedy (left) and Lee Radziwill as young women She numbered among her friends some of the greatest names of the century Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Rudolf Nureyev and Giorgio Armani among them. And she might not have married a president, but she did marry a prince albeit a Polish one in exile in Britain. The sisters shared more than genes and a knack of marrying well, though. One of Lees early lovers was none other than Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who would become Jackies second husband. At one point Lee had considered marrying the billionaire, but Jackie apparently staged an intervention. Then, out of the blue, Jackie herself tied the knot with him horrifying the Catholic Church and the US Establishment in the process. The soap opera storyline involving the two sisters is explored in a fascinating new series called A Tale Of Two Sisters, which examines the relationships between three sets of famous siblings, and lays bare the love, rivalry and tensions between them. While the third episode focuses on Jackie O and Lee, the first delves into the relationship between the aviator Amelia Earhart and her little sister Muriel, whom she affectionately called Pidge. The second programme tries to make sense of the dynamic between two of the six Mitford sisters. If you dont have a sister yourself, will this make you long for one? Probably not, laughs Laura Thompson, one of the historical experts involved in the series. But its all there: love, rivalry, ambition. Its gripping. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the series finale is all about Jackie and Lee, who continue to enthrall 23 years after Jackies death. Lee who was married three times but still uses the surname of her second husband, Stanislaw Radziwill is 84 now and living quietly in Paris. Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill aged six and two, with their dog Regent The show paints a picture of two little rich girls whose world fell apart when their parents, the stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier and his wife Janet, divorced. Although the girls wanted for nothing (their mothers new husband was oil heir Hugh Dudley Auchincloss), they were both deeply affected by the split. The scandal filled the newspapers, meaning the girls were only too aware that the whole of New York society was talking about them. I think they were bonded by the fact that their mother got divorced, which in those days was unacceptable, points out author Pamela Keogh in the show. There was one thing their parents did agree on, however, and that was that Jackie and Lee needed to marry well because although rich, the family did not enjoy the pedigree Janet craved (her ancestors were Irish, pushing her further down the social scale). The girls were sent to the best schools and introduced into society via the Debutante Ball. It was Lee who married first, stealing a march on her older sister, the show suggests. Her husband was certainly connected. Michael Canfield was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent. Just two months after Lees wedding, however, Jackie announced her engagement to handsome young senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy. While JFK and his bride embarked on their new life together, Lees marriage was in crisis. The couple moved to London, but there she met dashing Polish prince Radziwill and, although she was 19 years his junior, they began an affair. She later became his wife. He wasnt as rich as shed have liked, but he knew everybody at the top level and he loved her, says historian Sarah Bradford. Mosley ripped the Mitfords apart Were the sisters on a mission to outdo (and outmarry) each other? The programme certainly raises the question. But it also paints a touching picture of how much they depended on one another. As Jackie struggled to make the role of First Lady hers (she was afraid of the White House and terrified that her title made her sound like a horse, the show reveals), her sister proved to be a calming influence. Never was this more true than in the months after JFKs assassination, when Lee flew from London to be at her sisters side. Her reaction when Jackie married Aristotle Onassis the man Jackie had warned Lee off isnt recorded here, but that chapter took the sisters down a whole new path. When it comes to the bumpy roads of sisterhood though, the second episode that shines a spotlight on Diana and Jessica Mitford cant really be beaten. The six Mitford girls (they had a lone brother, Thomas) were once described by the author Ben Macintyre as Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the Unobtrusive Poultry Connoisseur. All intensely bright, they were the It Girls of their era. What times they lived in, too. As the Second World War loomed, Jessica had become a Communist and taken up with the activist Esmond Romilly. Diana fell for Sir Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of Fascists, and Unity became a confidante of Hitler. The programme explores how Jessica hero-worshipped Diana. Diana had a huge effect on everyone who met her, Laura Thompson says. I met her just before she died in 2003 and Ive thought about her every week since. She was charismatic, funny and intelligent. From left: Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity and Pamela Mitford in 1935 In 1929 Diana had married Bryan Guinness of the brewery family, and was moving in rarefied social circles. Jessicas hero-worship became more complicated when Diana became enthralled by Mosley. The attraction was more animal too. She thought he was sexy, says Laura. In 1932, Diana caused a scandal by giving up her lavish life for a world of violent political meetings with Mosley. In an unfathomable way, she must have liked it, says Laura. Mosleys introduction into the family ripped Jessica and Diana apart. Jessica too was appalled at political events of the time but she moved in the opposite direction. She married Romilly and was set on a collision course with her once adored sister. She and Romilly moved to the East End of London, rejecting everything her family stood for, but her first child Julia, born in 1937, died when a measles epidemic hit the area the following year. If shed been in touch with her family, and taken advantage of the help available, things could have been different, says Laura. The animosity between the sisters would last their whole lives. They were never reconciled. Tragedy stalked the other sisters too. When the war broke out Unity by then part of Hitlers inner circle tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head. She failed, but needed round-the-clock care until her death in 1948 from meningitis, caused by swelling around the bullet wound. Now all the sisters are dead, the last Deborah passing away in 2014. The animosity between the sisters would last their whole lives The most positive picture of sisterhood is painted in the Amelia Earhart episode, a tale of love, loyalty and loss. While the story of Amelia, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, is well known, less appreciated is the role of her little sister Muriel. We learn that Muriel loaned Amelia some of the money with which she bought her first plane. Amelias childhood with her sister in Kansas sowed the seeds for her future exploits. The girls who both went on to campaign for equality were outdoorsy. They didnt do the usual little-girl activities, says Muriels daughter Amy Kleppner in the programme. They were tomboys. Muriel married in 1929 and had two children but Amelia, who was in a relationship with publisher GP Putnam, didnt want a family life. She saw marriage as a trap, a cage, says her niece. When Amelia did marry Putnam in 1931, she still refused to take his name. Children were also out of the equation. She was a strong advocate of birth control. She tried to give birth control advice to my mother which would have taken me out of he picture! jokes Amy. In 1932, Amelia made her first solo transatlantic flight and became a celebrity. It was during her round-the-world attempt in 1937, however, that Amelias story ended. A month into her journey she lost contact with the ship that was to meet her to refuel in the Pacific and no trace of her has ever been found. Muriel coped by writing about her famous sister, and campaigning for the causes she believed in. She died in 1998. She loved Amelia for as long as she lived, says Amy. What of the comparison beween the lives of the two sisters? She says it cant be done. One was relatively ordinary. One was quite spectacular. A Tale Of Two Sisters begins on 18 May on Yesterday and is available to preview on UKTV Play from Thursday. Editor: After reading the article Friday about the police memorial ceremony in Carson City, I would once again like to point out the difference between a 21 Gun Salute, and three volleys fired over the grave of a military veteran. First though, since Law Enforcement Agencies are not military but civil, they can call it a 21 Gun Salute if they wish. But by military custom and rules, a 21 Gun Salute (gun meaning artillery) is reserved for the National Colors, foreign heads of state and our President. While Three Volleys (by rifle) fired over the grave is reserved for military veterans only and even the POTUS if not a veteran does not receive them. I am happy to share the tradition with law enforcement, as they embody the same self sacrifice as our honored Veterans. I just hope they will follow custom and not call it a 21 Gun Salute. As a retired Police Officer, I will proudly attend the dedication ceremony of Officer Jose Sancedo's head stone. May he rest in peace. I also encourage everyone to observe National Law Enforcement Memorial Day on May 15th and fly the National Colors at Half Staff. Chuck Sanders VFW Honor Guard Cmdr. Retired E.P.D. Dining out with friends at a curry house right after I moved to the UK from California, I was told how to order from the menu by spice level. A simple lamb curry would be mild. A Madras would be the same but with more chilli powder. The vindaloo would have substantially more chilli powder and the phal, dangerously hot. I love this sweet-and-sour Madras. The addition of smooth mango chutney and a twist or two of lime juice makes this the perfect blend for any curry feast. I love this sweet-and-sour Madras. The addition of smooth mango chutney and a twist or two of lime juice makes this the perfect blend for any curry feast. Serves 4 or more as part of a multi-course meal 3tbsp rapeseed oil 2-4 Kashmiri dried red chillies, to taste (from supermarkets) A few green cardamom pods, lightly bruised 3tbsp garlic and ginger paste (see tip across the bottom of page 71) 2 fresh green chillies, or to taste, finely chopped 125ml (4fl oz) tomato puree (1 part tomato paste with 3 parts water) or use passata 2tbsp ground cumin 1tsp ground coriander tsp ground turmeric 1-2tbsp chilli powder, to taste 2tbsp mixed powder (see tip across the bottom of pages 74-75) 500ml (18fl oz) base curry sauce (see tip across the bottom of pages 74-75), heated 800g (1lb 12oz) pre-cooked stewed lamb (see right), plus 250ml (9fl oz) of its cooking stock, or more base curry sauce 1-2tbsp smooth mango chutney, to taste (see page 74) Juice of 1 lime Salt A pinch of garam masala Fresh chopped coriander, to garnish Heat the oil in a pan over a medium-high heat until hot. Add the dried chillies and cardamom pods, and allow to sizzle for about 30 seconds. Be sure to count the cardamom pods in and count them back out again at the end of cooking if you dont like biting into whole spices. Scoop in the garlic and ginger paste along with the chopped chillies. Allow them to sizzle for about 20 seconds then stir in the tomato puree followed by the ground cumin, coriander and turmeric, the chilli powder and mixed powder. Now add 250ml (9fl oz) of the base curry sauce along with the lamb. Simmer for about 2 minutes, without stirring unless it is obviously catching on the pan, scraping back in any caramelised sauce from the sides of the pan. Pour in the rest of the base curry sauce and the stock, and let it simmer over a high heat until it has reduced down to your preferred consistency. To serve, stir in the mango chutney and lime juice. Check for seasoning and add salt to taste. Sprinkle with the garam masala and garnish with the chopped coriander. Earlier this year, Say Yes to the Dress broke barriers when it hosted its first transgender bride. Now, the show is tackling another unique angle with Saturday's episode set to showcase its first polygamous bride. The upcoming episode titled 'This is my fiance... and this is his wife!' tells the tale of Jennifer and her fiance Peter Runmo, who has already been married to wife Ellen Runmo for more than 10 years. A preview clip from the episode shows how the fitting gets off to an interesting, if not tense, start. Both Peter and Ellen are present at Jennifer's dress fitting, and the trio must explain their unique relationship to the seemingly-mystified bridal consultant Debbie Asprea. Scroll down for video The gang is all here! An upcoming episode of Say Yes to the Dress is set to feature polygamous 'throuple' Ellen (left), Jennifer (center), and Peter (right) Confused? In a preview clip for the episode, bridal consultant Debbie Asprea can't help but come off a bit perplexed, and has to ask for an explanation of the relationship Who's who? Jennifer (left) will soon be marrying Peter (center) who has been married to Ellen (right) for more than ten years After Jennifer introduces fiance Peter, she turns to a woman in a red sweater standing on her opposite side and explains 'this is actually Peter's wife Ellen!' Debbie shakes everyone's hand, but then steps back and admits she's 'a little bit confused.' After playfully explaining the technicalities of the marriage, the three sit down for a confessional in which Ellen admits that, several years ago, she fell victim to serious health issues. Ellen says that, following the birth of her daughter, she developed a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), that caused her to be 'repulsed by touch.' She acknowledged the strain it put on her marriage to Peter, and encouraged him to 'be with someone else' because of her 'unfair' condition. Ultimately, Peter met Jennifer and they decided to bring her into the marriage. The couple, or 'throuple,' explains that the polygamous marriage has no basis in religion. In fact, all three of the members of the relationship are Catholic - a religion that explicitly bans polygamous relationships. Yet, as the Daily Beast reports, the once taboo topic is growing more acceptable each year. A difficult past: Ellen admits that following the birth of her daughter, she suffered from OCD and encouraged husband Peter to 'be with someone else' Stronger than ever: The throuple seems happy and excited as they move towards the upcoming wedding - more details of which will be revealed on Saturday's episode Despite this new terrain for everyone involved, the trio seems genuinely excited about the upcoming wedding. Say Yes to the Dress, a reality series that documents brides-to-be selecting their gowns, has spent 10 years on air, and has spawned multiple spin-off shows. Yet this remains the first instance of polygamy in more than 250 episodes. While polygamy may be a new concept for Say Yes to the Dress, it's old news for TLC, the show's parent network. TLC has aired Sister Wives, a show about a polygamous family, since 2010. Though the preview clip provides some insight into this unique trio's love life, plenty of questions remain. Will both Ellen and Peter await Jennifer at the altar? Who will go on the honeymoon? And, of course, what will Jennifer's dress look like? Hopefully, questions will become answers when this special episode of Say Yes to the Dress debuts on TLC this Saturday, May 6, at 8 PM. Certain major airlines which shall remain nameless may want to take note: Budget carrier Southwest is currently winning the PR game. This week, a Southwest Airlines pilot is earning attention not for brutally kicking off a passenger or knocking someone with their own luggage. Instead, Captain John Richie got on the intercom of his aircraft to make a very special and heartwarming announcement. Richie told passengers that after 22 years flying for the airline, that day he was transporting his one millionth customer ever and he decided to thank her for flying with him by giving her a couple of very generous gifts. Congrats! Southwest Airlines pilot Captain John Richie made a special announcement on a recent flight The big one! Before taking off from Denver to Pittsburg, he said that his millionth passenger was on board that day The aircraft was scheduled to fly from Denver to Pittsburgh when flight attendant Jennifer Todd began recording Richie on the P.A. system, according to CBS. 'About twenty two years ago I retired from the United States Air Force,' he said. 'I had the privileged of flying F-16s, both as a combat pilot and as a test pilot. And for the past 22 years I've been flying for Southwest. And today is a special day. ever since I started with Southwest, I've kept track of the passengers I've flown. And today I'm flying my one millionth passenger.' On cue, the cabin erupted in applause for Richie. Long career: Richie has been flying with Southwest for about 22 year since retiring from the Air Force; he said he kept track of how many people he has flown in that time 'In honor of that,' he went on. 'I have a bottle of champagne. I have an autographed copy of your boarding card, from me. And in addition to that, I did a little bit of snooping, and I found out how much you paid for your ticket. 'So in an envelope, I have in cash the amount of money you paid for your ticket,' he said, before announcing the lucky recipient's name. Likely, the Captain selected the millionth passenger by looking into booking order, choosing a woman who was the millionth to book a ticket on a flight he was piloting. Thankful: The millionth passenger was a young woman, whom Richie presented with a signed boarding pass and bottle of champagne He also gave her an envelope of cash from his own pocket equaling the price of the ticket In the video, which had gone viral after being shared on Reddit, Richie then walks down the aisle to deliver the gifts to a young woman named Mariam. She offers a big smile and thanks him. According to the flight attendant who posted the video and shared it on Facebook, the cash came out of Richie's own pocket. 'I am so incredibly proud and humbled to be able to "work" for this amazing LUVing airline,' she wrote. 'Captain John Charles Ritchie, you, sir, are the epitome of everything Southwest stands for and continues to even though we've grown so incredibly much over these past 45 (+) years. Without a heart, it's just a machine!!' The woman behind the popular kaftan brand Camilla has revealed how she built her international fashion empire from the ground from a single boutique in Bondi to selling her designs in 56 countries. Camilla Franks first debuted her world-renowned bohemian prints while trying her hand at acting as she wore her own designs on stage 14 years ago. The 40-year-old Australian said audience attention was often on her bold printed dresses instead of on her acting, she told news.com.au. Camilla Franks (pictured) shot to fashion fame for her unique printed bohemian designs The bold designs are worn by models and celebrities across the world (pictured are kaftans worn by Coachella festival-goers) A fresh-faced Camilla pictured with publicist Billy Charlton in 2004 - the year which kick-started her global fashion phenomenon 'To be brutally honest, I wasn't a brilliant actress, but people in the fashion world coming to the show were asking me to sell them my kaftans and rehearsal gear,' she said. Camilla's on-stage designs led her to debut her kaftans in an opera cross fashion show in 2004 and she opened her very first boutique in Bondi soon after. She said she started her label as a 'one man band' - and landing a spot in David Jones' collection is what catapulted her stunning couture to international success. But global recognition of her namesake label did not happen overnight. The 40-year-old (pictured) built her fashion empire from the ground up after trying her hand at acting Superstar Beyonce has even been spotted wearing Camilla designs (pictured) Her internationally renowned prints are adored by fashion lovers and are in high demand across the world Camilla (pictured) often wears her bold prints herself and flaunts the stunning designs at social events Camilla travelled overseas to flog her printed kaftans to international buyers, and was rejected repeatedly by big name retailers. She also revealed how she permanently damaged her shoulders furiously preparing her intricate designs for buyers in the infant stages of her brand. Her signature printed kaftans are very much high-end fashion - with most variations of the bold dresses retailing between $599 and $699 a piece. Her designs are now stocked in 56 countries and she has over 300 stockists across the world. There are 18 Camilla stores across Australia with plans to expand her brand into Paris, London, Greece, The Netherlands in the near future. There are any number of small mysteries that populate our day-to-day lives. Why does toast always fall butter-side down? Why does the postman always try to deliver a parcel moments after youve left the house? To this list must, latterly, be added another vexing question: just how on earth does Simon Danczuk do it? A few days ago staggering pictures emerged of the former Labour MP enjoying a sunshine holiday with a new girlfriend one who is not only 19 years his junior but a stunning beauty to boot. Simon Danczuk poses with his new beau Charlene Meade who stunned in a black bikini While 50-year-old Danczuk paraded his paunch under his navy polo shirt, Charlene Meade, clad in sleek designer bikini, looked as if she had sashayed straight off the catwalk. There is even talk of marriage in the air. A more pertinent question, then, may be why on earth shes done it. Its not as if Charlene hasnt been warned. A self-professed social media fan, the 31-year-old needed to make only the most basic internet search to find a colourful charge sheet stretching back some years and involving, in no particular order, sexting, brawling, out-of-control drinking and sex addiction. Yet today, in a gloriously candid interview with The Mail on Sunday Charlene claims she really doesnt mind. And that this most unlikely of romances was, in fact, love at first sight. I read everything, she admits. I wanted to see what had been written and then I asked him and he told me about it all. What, then, about the notorious episode in 2015 when Danczuk was alleged to have sent a series of lewd messages to a 17-year-old girl. Im horny read one of them, while another asked if she wanted to be spanked. She immediately springs to her beaus defence. We spoke a lot about the 17-year-old girl. There were very few sexual messages he sent to her but people blew it out of proportion, Charlene says. In the wake of that bombshell, Danczuk declared not only that he had a drink problem but also that young women were his Achilles heel. They certainly were: a few months later, he was revealed to have engaged in risque sex and spanking sessions at his constituency office with a 22-year-old woman he had met, naturally, on Twitter. Ive heard that, says Charlene, apparently undeterred. In fact, she winks. Well, he is adventurous, she ventures. Simon has made changes to his life, she maintains, which has certainly meant cutting down on the booze, which is said to have been a major factor in the collapse of his marriage to selfie-queen Karen, famous for disporting her generous cleavage. The former politician was married to selfie loving Karen Danczuk from 2012 to 2015 He drinks in moderation, says his new partner. He likes wine and the odd gin and tonic. He is in a much better place now. Its only when it comes to talking about Karen, Danczuks second wife, that Charlene prefers to remain discreet. Except, that is, to say that she hates selfies. Which means she has nothing to say about the time Danczuk was detained by Spanish police for two nights amid allegations of brawling with his ex-wife on holiday. He was later released without charge. It is such a shame that his past is around to haunt him still, Charlene continues. Simon has paid a heavy price for what he has done. He has admitted he was wrong and put his hands up; he has made mistakes and he has learned from them. He was at a very low point in his life. None of this, of course, is conduct becoming of a parliamentarian, less still a father of four Danczuk has a 20-year-old son and daughter aged 15 by first wife Sonia Milewski, as well as two young sons with Karen. Indeed, such is the litany of dubious instances on his personal CV that the Labour Party has banned him from standing as their candidate in any constituency. But this seems not to be a problem for Charlene. Indeed, wedding plans are well under way and she claims that the couple have even discussed starting a family of their own. Weve talked about doing a really small wedding abroad, somewhere hot, she explains. Ive even been looking at dresses, just having a look to see whats around. We are very much working towards living together and getting married. Weve also talked about having a baby. Put it this way: never say never. It would certainly be another eye-popping episode in the life of a politician whose world has latterly become something of an ongoing soap opera and who seems to have attracted a certain breed of fame-hungry women keen to use his affection for the spotlight for their own ends. Could Charlene, a single mother of two, be one of them? She certainly has the model looks for it. Yet perhaps the most surprising thing of all about this unlikely relationship is that she seems cut from an altogether different cloth. Sweet-natured and modest, Charlene has worked as a carer since leaving school and is about to start a new job looking after elderly dementia and Alzheimers sufferers. Naturally shy, she initially cancels our planned interview and is so nervous when she decides to go ahead after all that she apologetically orders a large glass of sauvignon blanc to calm her nerves as she opens up about her unlikely romance. It should come as no surprise that the pair met over social media, exchanging flirtatious texts on Twitter. I started following him and I started to like his posts about food sometimes I would comment on them. Im a real foodie and so is Simon, says Charlene. Indeed, by all accounts it was Simons Caesar salad that really lured her in. One day he put a picture up of a Caesar salad he was eating in a restaurant, it looked amazing so I told him so. Then he started following me, we exchanged direct messages, we were discussing food, then we arranged a date at a wine bar in Halifax. Meade says she doesn't mind her new lover's risque past but admitted he is 'adventurous' The couple were instantly attracted to one another, she says, beaming. I felt like I had known Simon forever. I got that feeling. It is certainly not difficult to see what Danczuk saw in Charlene: today, in a figure-hugging coral lace dress that shows off her uniformly golden tan, she is both beautiful and well-groomed. What, though, did she see in him? Was she simply just star-struck? Apparently not: by her own admission Charlene has never voted and until now has very little to do with politics. Im not into it at all and I wont be voting this year either though Simon has told me that I should do, she admits. I dont really know much about Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, but I have started to watch the BBC Parliament channel I used to love looking out for Simon on there. Maybe its something I will get into over time. Im starting to learn. Instead, it seems that Caesar salad aside it was Danczuks lovely blue eyes that sealed the deal for Charlene. I am so physically attracted to him, she insists. I love his eyes, and I love his smile. She pauses. It is his personality that attracts me more than his physical appearance though, she adds, before laughing and saying: He will kill me. Despite her professed lack of interest in politics, Charlene had done her homework before that first date. As we have seen, there was a lot to tell: while Danczuk did some laudable work to help expose child abuse committed by his parliamentary predecessor, Cyril Smith, in Rochdale work that significantly contributed to the subsequent decision by the Government to set up an independent inquiry it is undoubtedly for his personal life that he has become rather better known. Spanking aside, she says, Danczuk is a diehard romantic. I like how he is with me, she continues. He is so loving and he compliments me all of the time. He makes me feel special. He also treats me to lovely gifts, he sends me flowers and chocolates a lot. He has a great personality too, he is funny and very kind and very down to earth. Early dates were spent on long walks and at the cinema, while Danczuk also showed her his parliamentary office. He made me breakfast, we went for long walks around London, we went to the cinema and he even showed me around Parliament and took me to his office. Simon is a true romantic. It was then that I knew he was The One, that he makes me so happy. There are a couple of blots on the landscape, not least that Danczuk seems to be a bit of a slob at heart. I did have to tidy his flat he had loads of dirty dishes on the side that he hadnt washed up so I did that for him, says Charlene. I had a good tidy up, although he had managed to make the bed. Meanwhile, for a man who wooed her via the medium of food, it seems Danczuk is no chef either. Ive taught him how to poach an egg he couldnt do that before. Now he makes them all the time. I think its his favourite meal at the moment. Then theres Danczuks dress sense, specifically what Charlene calls his predilection for dad jeans and dubious Bermuda shorts, showcased on their recent sunshine holiday to Spain. You should have seen some of them, they were horrendous. He had some flowery ones that I wouldnt let him wear. I told him I wouldnt go out with him wearing them, she says. He needs to be a bit more updated, a bit more 2017. No doubt Charlene has got it in hand: as we have seen, relations appear to be moving on at quite a pace, although Danczuks changed status means the duo will not be able to fulfil his dream of marrying in the parliamentary chapel. Simon was really keen to get married in the chapel but that wont happen now, she says. They have, however, already looked at rings. We went to look at some in London, reveals Charlene. I found one that I loved with diamonds all around it and a big square one on it too. It was beautiful. I told Simon thats the one I would like. Does Danczuk who, of course, has lost his MPs salary have a budget? No, Charlene laughs. It was one of those expensive shops where they dont have the prices on them you have to ask. But at least he knows the one I want and maybe he will surprise me with it soon. This would be Danczuks third marriage, making him not necessarily ideal husband material. What do her parents who have yet to meet him make of it? My dad can see how happy I am, she insists. He can see me smiling all of the time. My mum is also really happy for me she thinks the age gap is irrelevant. She did say she had read the stories in the papers about Simon and she asked if they were true. I told her they were but Simon has put his hands up to his mistakes and bad decisions and he is paying the price for them. Theyre both just really happy for me. Charlene is planning to introduce Simon to them shortly, and is convinced they will be as smitten as she is when she does. Simon is misunderstood and when they meet him they will see that, and they will love him like I do. Time will be the judge of that, of course. In the meantime, it seems unlikely that this romance will unfold without some further drama, at least. The country is on the brink of a post-antibiotic era in which infections will only be cured by fresh air and sunshine, the chief medical officer has warned. Dame Sally Davies is particularly worried about the spread of untreatable strains of gonorrhoea which are already on the rise in some areas of the country. She is also concerned about the emergence of resistant forms of TB which are not responding to antibiotics. Antibiotics may soon be ineffective for treating infections, says Dame Sally Davies These deadly infections know no borders, she warned, and can easily be flown in from Asia or North America. She said that if the spread of drug-resistant bacteria continues, they will claim more than 10million lives globally by 2050. The resistant bugs have emerged after decades of over-use of antibiotics and have mutated to become resistant to them. Last year former chancellor George Osborne warned they posed a greater threat to mankind than cancer. Addressing a health conference in central London, Dame Sally said: Im actually rather worried that if we dont win this battle against drug-resistant infections, were going to be back to fresh air, sunshine and hygiene. We are risking losing modern miracles. Bugs know no borders. In London because of Heathrow we are closer to Hong Kong and JFK airport (in New York) than we are to Birmingham and Glasgow. She pointed to recent outbreaks of super-gonorrhoea in London, the South East and the Midlands. The strain does not respond to the normal course of antibiotics so doctors have resorted to using two combined drugs. But the bacteria appears to be developing a resistance to these two, and there are limited alternatives. The UK's chief medical officer spoke out about a 'post-antibiotic' era She said if the strains do eventually become resistant to all antibiotics, we are going to have to go to the old-fashioned treatments which sound really nasty. You could do urethral irrigation when they used to put mercury and iodine into the bladder to wash out the germs. Or you could try getting into a hotbox and getting heated to 43 degrees in the hope that would kill off the disease. She added: In 1932 children with tuberculosis were treated with fresh air and sunshine it was the best possible treatment. We will probably be all right but our grandchildren wont if we dont take action. At a conservative estimate its currently claiming 25,000 lives in Europe every year. Thats the same as a Boeing 747 crashing each week. But if it was a Boeing crashing each week we would hear about it. The rise of resistant bacteria has been partly blamed on GPs handing out antibiotics too often. Doctors have been told to reduce their use and last year, prescriptions for them fell 7 per cent. There were 34.3 million prescriptions in 2015/16, down from 37 million in 2014/15. Ian Paterson (pictured) has been convicted of carrying out completely unnecessary operations on men and women How rogue surgeon Ian Paterson was able to get away with his atrocious behaviour for so long is a question that many have asked this week. The surgeon, who worked in the NHS and privately, has been convicted of carrying out completely unnecessary operations on men and women after convincing them that they were at risk of cancer when, in fact, they were not. Lawyers believe he may have carried out thousands of botched or unnecessary procedures over 15 years and compensation payouts so far have already cost the NHS more than 18 million. But why wasnt he stopped sooner? Im afraid the answer lies largely in a grotesquely inadequate system that is meant to keep the public safe from rogue doctors. Every one of Ian Patersons victims has been let down by a system of checks thats not fit for purpose. The General Medical Council the body that regulates doctors and the politicians who introduced the scheme should hang their heads in shame for the shocking failure in their duty to protect patients. The system was introduced after the 2005 inquiry into the Greater Manchester GP Harold Shipman who murdered at least 215 victims over 25 years, making him the most prolific killer in British history. It was designed to prevent another Shipman, but the scheme now in place whereby doctors submit themselves to a yearly appraisal and five-yearly revalidation actually makes it easier for dangerous people such as Shipman and Paterson to practise. These tests not only fail to weed out bad, dangerous or rogue doctors psychopaths are very good at jumping through bureaucratic, box-ticking hoops but also instil a false sense of security that patients are safe. The yearly appraisal process involves demonstrating that we have been on a long list of courses and have attended lectures and teaching sessions to ensure our medical knowledge is up to date. We have to complete a mammoth series of online forms, full of infantile questions about how dealing with difficult patients made us feel, which are then counter-checked in a meeting with a senior doctor. Meanwhile, were trusted to report faithfully any complaints against us without anyone having to check whether our version of events is true! For revalidation we all have to reflect on how we feel and how patients feel about us. We are required to write thousands of words of utterly meaningless touchy-feely guff. Ive just gone through revalidation myself and its a complete farce. I have no objection to doctors having to demonstrate that theyre keeping up with current medical knowledge, or being tested and evaluated to ensure that were safe. But in my experience, some of the worst doctors ones I wouldnt want to care for my goldfish, let alone a patient have passed their appraisals with flying colours. Harold Shipman murdered at least 215 victims over 25 years Meanwhile truly wonderful doctors, who dedicate their entire lives to their patients, have been pulled up because they havent been on a training course on how to wash their hands, or something equally ridiculous. The fact is that the Harold Shipmans of this world the ones the test was specifically designed to spot excel at these exercises. Police reports show Shipman was loved by his patients. In court, Paterson was described as charming by the victims he butchered. But the brilliant, dedicated and caring doctors, who realise that all of this management-led procedure and gushy nonsense is pointless, put it off until the last minute and scrape through by the skin of their teeth. A friend of mine was working for a world-renowned specialist in gynaecological cancer, a dedicated, passionate clinician universally regarded as excellent. Yet she failed her revalidation and had her clinic suspended because she had failed to complete part of her form about her career plan. She had reasoned that, as a recognised world expert, she didnt need to plan her career she just wanted to keep doing the same thing she had done for the past 30 years. But she couldnt practise until the form was completed. These tests arent about ensuring that patients are safe. Theyre pointless forms administered by myopic apparatchiks. Doctors have a unique position in society and patients need to know that they can trust us absolutely. But Ian Patersons case shows that trust has been woefully betrayed as a result of a medical establishment that puts political gestures before patient safety. And I fear that Jeremy Hunts announcement of an investigation into this recent scandal will only make things worse. Of course an investigation is essential, but I worry about the knee-jerk response from politicians keen to be seen doing something to weed out bad apples. Weve been here before and it doesnt work. Drunkards belong in drunk tanks, not A&E National Health Service. More like the national hangover service, as Gautam Das, a retired consultant urologist, dubbed it this week. He was speaking out about the pressure drunks place on the emergency services. The cost to the NHS of treating alcohol abuse is about 2.7 billion a year or 90 from every taxpayer. One has only to stand in A&E on a Friday or Saturday evening to see the extent of the problem. Indeed, a further 1 billion a year is spent on ambulances and A&E services to look after drunks. Other figures released this week showed that there was an increase in alcohol-related hospital admissions by nearly a quarter in the past decade. The cost to the NHS of treating alcohol abuse is about 2.7 billion a year It would be easy to blame giddy youngsters, but actually all too often its otherwise respectable, sensible people in their 30s, 40s and even 50s. The scale of the problem is hard to imagine unless youve seen it yourself. I remember one night shift in A&E when a woman in her 30s whod just been sick started screaming at one of the nurses to clean it up. Meanwhile her friend, whod just woken up, was complaining that hed been waiting for more than an hour to see a doctor. He started shouting about where his shoe was, which, judging by the dirt on his foot, hed lost some time ago. It was pandemonium. I counted 16 patients whose sole reason for being there was alcohol. Not because theyd been drunk and fallen over and hit their head, but 16 people for whom the only reason they were in a cubicle in A&E was that they were inebriated. To add insult to injury, most of them had been picked up by ambulance. They had intravenous fluids pushed through their veins over several hours to sober them up, so there was a three-hour wait in reception because they were taking up cubicles. The whole scene was thrown into sharp relief by the woman in the end cubicle who was having a miscarriage. Of course people get tipsy, and inevitably sometimes overdo it and end up in hospital. Fair enough. But its happening to so many people that services which are already at breaking point are being stretched even further. As I stood in A&E that night, the smell of cider being gently wafted around the department by an electrical fan, I overheard the nurse telling two women they were now ready to go. Just wait till I tell everyone at work on Monday about this, said one to her friend, and they burst out laughing. People just dont care. The only solution is to install drunk tanks in all major cities and towns where they can sit and sober up. And they should be made to pay for them a 20 fine, say, for using the facility. Perhaps that will sober them up a bit, too. Fake pills that help you sleep People given a dummy sleeping pill slept better and felt more rested in the morning than those not given the placebo, according to a study this week. How could a placebo have this effect? I think its because a large part of insomnia is due to the anxiety people experience when they find it difficult to sleep. They start to associate going to bed with lying awake worrying about sleeping, which makes it harder to nod off. People given a dummy sleeping pill slept better and felt more rested in the morning than those not given the placebo, according to a study But when people take the placebo, they expect to get to sleep: this relaxes them, so they do actually sleep. Ive seen it work with a patient who insisted that she was taking a sleeping tablet then pointed to her statin, saying it had cured her insomnia. It hadnt but it had transformed her nights! The number of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for surgery could double amid the mounting NHS crisis, it was reported this week. While this is deeply worrying, what about mental health? Despite Government claims that they want everyone to view mental illness in the same way as physical illness, there are still no national maximum waiting times for mental health treatment. So while for prostate cancer which has a mortality rate of about 10 per cent theres a two-week maximum wait to see a specialist, for anorexia which has a 20 per cent mortality rate waiting times may run to more than two years in the part of London where I work. More and more people with severe and enduring mental health problems are unable to get support. Yet if you have a bunion, you wont wait more than 18 weeks for an operation. Celebrity support: Jennifer Aniston is a supporter of Ultherapy It's not hard to see the appeal: a taut, firmer jawline, younger-looking eyes and lifted, youthful cheeks and all without the need for a single injection, let alone going under the surgeons scalpel. With celebrity backers including the ever-youthful actress Jennifer Aniston, 48, it is little surprise that the non-invasive facelift procedure Ultherapy has been a hit with thousands of British women. The treatment administered by a device that emits microfocused ultrasound, similar to that used in scans on pregnant women has the effect of lifting and tightening skin and is offered by cosmetic doctors in the UK. But a Mail on Sunday investigation has uncovered concerns among doctors about complications that may arise afterwards, and a number of cases in which patients have claimed the process has left them looking older. A leading cosmetic doctor claims that the treatment may speed up the ageing process, while one woman told this newspaper that she aged overnight after having Ultherapy. Makers Ulthera, who are owned by German pharmaceutical giant Merz, are now facing a number of lawsuits from unhappy patients. It is alleged that patients have been left with hollowed cheeks and eyes, the loss of facial volume, and slackening and thinning of skin a result of undergoing the treatment. In legal papers, lawyers claim that when used on the face, the treatment resulted in severe and permanent physical injuries and there was a risk of fat loss, deformity, eye damage and nerve damage. One patient even states that her blindness was linked to the procedure. All these allegations are denied by Merz. 'It's devastating' Florida-based surgeon Dr Thomas Tzikas told this newspaper he has seen eight patients who allege complications after having Ultherapy treatment, and that some required surgery to fix the problems. He said: These women, who are in their 40s, tell me their skin is much looser and more pliable than before. They can stretch and pull their skin, whereas the year before it was taut and seemed to have a lot more resistance, and there is loss of volume. Its devastating, because its like a speeding up of the ageing process. And it appears to be irreversible. Asked why some women report being satisfied with treatment while others suffer complications, he added: These women are all of similar ages, usually in their late 40s to early 50s. Legal action: above, the skin of one patient before she underwent Ultherapy treatment Action: after, showing that the skin appears to have aged. Several have reported the ageing process speeding up Decreased oestrogen and other hormone production, in combination with the Ulthera treatment, may result in a very noticeable difference with their facial elasticity. Since it launched in 2009, more than 800,000 Ultherapy treatments have been performed worldwide, with 40,000 of them in Britain, according to Merz. After treatment, the bodys tissue-repair process stimulates the production of new collagen and elastin [proteins found naturally in the skin that give it the firmness and structure which dissipate with age], creating a lifting and tightening effect, its website explains. Ultherapy has proved effective and safe in numerous studies. According to data, patients may suffer brief discomfort during the procedure, and adverse events are listed as transient erythema [redness], edema [swelling] and occasional bruising. Uncommon events include muscle weakness, transient numbness and weals areas of raised, red skin which, claimed a review, appear to be due to poor treatment technique. In none of the available literature has volume loss or skin laxity been observed as a possible side effect. Dr Tzikas claimed: We have seen fat loss [in the face] that seems to be triggered by the treatment in some women. It is this loss that may be responsible for the ageing effect. Ultherapy has been cleared by US medical watchdog the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in specific areas of the face: the brow, under the chin, the neck and decolletage. But many of the patients Dr Tzikas has seen and some of those taking legal action claim they were given treatment on the cheeks and around cheekbone area. So, is the treatment being wrongly administered? If so, is that the reason for the devastating effects? 'Unacceptable' face use Tellingly, when Merz sought FDA clearance to market Ultherapy for the full face in 2012, the request was deemed unacceptable due to lack of evidence on this use, and the request was later withdrawn by Merz. Legal documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday allege that the company marketed the treatment for use on the full face regardless an allegation Merz denies. Currently on its website is the claim: Ultherapy can help you achieve a fresher, more youthful look from your brow to your chest! An illustration of areas of the face that are treated appears to include the cheeks, and around the cheekbones and temples. And there are full face before-and-after photos. Controversial: a patient undergoing the Ultherapy treatment, which is a 'non-scapel' facelift In a case against Ulthera on behalf of three American patients, personal injury specialists Harman Law state: Merz requested from the FDA, and the FDA denied, clearance to market Ultherapy for use on the face Merz nonetheless systematically and deliberately marketed Ultherapy for use on the entire face despite having actual knowledge of Ultherapys risk of injury to the eyes and face. Merz denies these allegations, stating they are without merit, and concede only that an application was made to the FDA seeking to expand the indications for use to full face and neck. A spokesman added: We do not, and have not claimed, FDA clearance for a full face lift or otherwise make off-label [unapproved] claims but physicians are not restricted from treating the full face. Such treatment would be considered an off-label the common practice of using a drug or treatment outside the terms of its licence. While doctors may legally use their discretion to administer a drug or treatment off-label if it is deemed in the best interest of a patient, and if there is good evidence such action would be beneficial, pharmaceutical companies are prohibited from encouraging this. Merz said: We do not promote or encourage off-label use of our device or any of our products. 'I had to cancel wedding' Theresa Baldwin, 51, of Arizona, claimed to have been so devastated by what she says were the results of the Ultherapy she had in 2015 that she cancelled her wedding. Id started to see a few visible signs of ageing and went to a clinic to which Id referred many clients in my work as an beauty therapist, she said. She underwent two separate treatments at a total cost of 1,450. But instead of seeing any positive results, three months after the second treatment Theresa noticed the texture of her skin deteriorating. I seemed to age overnight, she claims. I had the sunken, hollow look of an anorexic and my skin was paper-thin. People at work were telling me to stop losing weight as my face was getting too thin but Id actually gained 5 lb. Theresa went back to the clinic, but claims staff refused to show her the photos they took beforehand that would prove the difference in her skin and offered only to undertake another treatment which she refused. The Mail on Sunday has been in contact with several other women reporting similar problems, though they were unable to speak publicly due to the legal action. Harman Law in Atlanta has filed complaints on behalf of five women against Merz. These include severe and permanent physical injuries including fat atrophy, herniation of the eye, muscle deterioration, scarring, nerve damage and vision loss. THE SOARING DEMAND FOR TREATMENT The demand for non-invasive skin-tightening procedures has soared as numbers of those opting for traditional surgery plummet. All scalpel-free lifts involve devices that emit some form of energy that penetrates the skin: lasers, radiofrequency waves and, as in the case of Ultherapy, ultrasound. The energy creates heat, leading to changes in the structure of the skin. It promises to be mostly painless, requires no injections and leaves no scars. Healthcare provider comparison website What Clinic.com received 13,582 enquiries for non-surgical facelifts last year compared to 9,552 for those for surgery. Advertisement It alleges that the device was defectively designed because it is designed to deliver focused ultrasound energy in a manner that cannot safely be used on the face, and that the warnings provided with the Ulthera System are defective because Merz does not adequately warn about the risk of fat loss, deformity, eye damage, nerve damage, muscle damage and other severe, permanent injury. A woman in California is also taking legal action against a plastic surgeon and Ulthera Inc after having the treatment demonstrated on her at a conference in 2015. It is alleged that she essentially lost all the vision in her right eye as a result of the mis-directed ultrasound energy destroying [her] lens. She claims cataract surgery has not restored her vision. Merz responded: The company denies that Ultherapy treatment took place in any area that could result in ultrasound energy being delivered to the eye lens or that any alleged cataract or vision issues were caused by the procedure. Merz also claims it believed her vision had been restored by surgery. It admitted there have been a handful of individual plaintiffs who have filed product liability lawsuits involving Ultherapy, which the company denies have merit. A spokesman said: Ultherapy is a safe product that can provide excellent results. We estimate there have been more than a million treatments worldwide and believe that the vast majority of patients are happy with their treatment. Ultherapy has been studied in clinical trials and was submitted to and cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration. The treatment has been studied by key plastic surgeons and aesthetic dermatologists and the results published in dozens of articles in reputable medical journals. There have been no reports of fat loss in any clinical trial conducted by Merz and journal articles also have not reported specific incidents of fat loss, to our knowledge. There is widespread patient and physician satisfaction with the efficacy and safety of the treatment. We cannot comment further on the ongoing litigation except to say that we deny the allegations and strongly believe in the safety and efficacy of our product. 'Caused by misuse' Dr Rian Maercks, a plastic surgeon in Miami, claims to have seen up to ten women a month for the past two years complaining about Ultherapy. He said problems many of the women are reporting may be down to practitioners performing the procedure without appropriate qualifications and experience or misuse. He warned: I think the technology is only helpful if used below the chin. However, Alex Karidis, of the Karidis clinic in London, has used Ultherapy on hundreds of patients without any problems. He said: All treatments carry risk. Botox can cause drooping and fillers can cause reactions. That doesnt mean theyre bad. He added: Im happy with Ultherapy. In fact, my wife has just had it done for the second time. Sufferers of a deadly blood cancer have been thrown a lifeline thanks to a new NHS-approved drug that boosts survival by five months. Victims of multiple myeloma include playwright Jack Rosenthal, husband of actress Maureen Lipman, and Jaws star Roy Scheider. But now Imnovid a derivative of Thalidomide, the controversial morning sickness medication that was linked to severe birth defects in the 1970s has been shown to help the bodys own immune system cells find and fight the cancer. Maureen Lipman with her husband Jack Rosenthal, who died in 2004 after he was diagnosed with blood cancer Patients who have exhausted other treatment options will now have access to Imnovid tablets, following approval from watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The disease is an incurable form of blood cancer caused by abnormal cells in the bone marrow. It currently affects 17,500 Britons. A diagnosis was once viewed as an imminent death sentence, but there have been great leaps in treatment over the past ten years, with new drug options both greatly increasing life expectancy and improving quality of life. In myeloma, abnormal cancer cells divide and expand, causing a range a complications including bone damage, bone pain, fractures, kidney impairment, infections, anaemia and fatigue. It generally affects older people 74 per cent of those diagnosed are aged over 65. Currently, one in five myeloma patients dies within 60 days of diagnosis and fewer than half survive for five years. However, a third of parents will live for at least ten years. The drug works by both directly targeting myeloma cells and utilising the bodys immune system to help find and fight the cancer. It is the only available treatment for late-stage patients who have suffered three or more relapses, and who no longer have alternative drug options. This is a very important drug, which improves both the control of myeloma and increases how long patients stay alive, said Dr Karthik Ramasamy, consultant haematologist at Oxford University. A five-month increase in survival is very significant. Helen Watkinson, 62, a retired research nurse from Gosforth, Newcastle, was diagnosed with myeloma in 2010, after donating blood and discovering she was severely anaemic. If I hadnt been a blood donor, I might not have been diagnosed until much later, she said. I thought I was just having a difficult menopause. After several rounds of different treatments and a bone-marrow transplant, in 2014 Helen began taking Imnovid, which she accessed through the then Cancer Drugs Fund. During the two-and-a-half years she was on it, she was able to enjoy a reasonable quality of life to knit, drive, go on holidays and not have to spend time in the hospital. Being able to access Imnovid through the NHS is very good news for patients, she says. If I hadnt gone on to it when I did, I dont think Id be here now. Unlocked Cert: 15 1hr 38mins Rating: Unlocked feels like a thriller that has spent its entire budget and used up all its creativity by the end of about the 25th minute. Which is something of a disaster as there are still 73 to go. Getting to the end is a long, unrewarding but unintentionally quite funny and, yes, I do mean you, Orlando Bloom old slog. Its such a shame as, until the moment when it suddenly drops off a cliff, quality-wise, it had looked perfectly promising, as youd expect from director Michael Apted, whose long career includes the Bond film The World Is Not Enough. Unlocked stars Noomi Rapace (above) as Alice, a CIA agent hoping to get her career and life back on track but it's a long, unrewarding but unintentionally quite funny old slog Spies rushing around London which is essentially what Unlocked is should be just up his street. Especially given the resources he has to play with. Theres Noomi Rapace playing Alice, a traumatised CIA agent whos hoping to get her career and life back on track by going deep undercover as an east London council worker secretly trawling for terrorists. Then theres Michael Douglas as her slightly inappropriate agency mentor who knows what happened in Paris wasnt her fault. Heck, theres even a twitchy John Malkovich being really rather good and really rather funny as the CIA boss who cant quite believe the London station has made such a mess of a simple kidnapping and interrogation. Alongside Michael Douglas, theres even John Malkovich (above) being really rather good and rather funny as the CIA boss who cant quite believe the mess the London station has made Unlocked has all this and yet it goes so badly wrong youll be stifling the giggles well before the end. So what goes so awry? It certainly doesnt help that two of these three key elements go missing for a large chunk of the running time, leaving Rapace whose character is clearly meant to resemble a female Jason Bourne to anchor the film in a way that, as yet, shes not really up to. Still, she gives it her best shot, as Alice is suddenly summoned to interrogate the freshly abducted intermediary between a radical imam and a trust fund jihadi. The real damage to the film is done, however, by the extraordinary entrance of Orlando Bloom, who arrives in the unlikely shape of a burglar whom Alice bumps into as she rushes to a supposedly safe house. The real damage to the film is done, however, by the extraordinary entrance of Orlando Bloom (above left), who arrives in the unlikely shape of a burglar at a supposedly safe house Until that moment, Unlocked has at least aspired to be a serious and reasonably well-plotted thriller, and then, suddenly, theres Bloom giving it the old twinkly-eyed, arent-I-good-looking-under-this-balaclava, London-geezer charm, and its a different film altogether. A much poorer film. Its a film in which top-secret phone calls are overheard because the person making them is shouting so loudly that the by now tied-up burglar can knock over a nearby phone and listen in full on the extension. Its a film in which Peter OBriens hitherto competent screenplay suddenly has to include lines such as Sounds like theres some serious s*** about to go down and Yeah, but most people didnt lose their best mate in the 7/7 Tube bombings. Yes, yes, Apted and OBrien can argue that there is eventual justification for such dialogue but, by then, its too late: the damage is done. Most of all this is a film that, deludedly, would like to establish Alice as a female Jason Bourne and even has the misplaced confidence to set itself up for a sequel (above, Toni Colette) Weve started giggling, were no longer taking the film seriously and, as for Bloom his professional reputation enhanced not a single jot hes picked up his cheque and gone, in what turns out to be a cameo. Inevitably, given the difficult times we live in, the urban-terrorist thriller has become a contemporary cinema staple and, as a result, you have to work really hard and intelligently to make yours stand out. And this, with its increasingly clumsy plot twists and frankly ridiculous denouement, just doesnt, at least not for the right reasons. The central plot is similar to the recent feature film version of Spooks and elsewhere there are distinct echoes of the 2015 Pierce Brosnan thriller Survivor, in which Milla Jovovich played the much-pursued female protagonist, and of the recent Riz Ahmed film City Of Tiny Lights. But most of all this is a film that, deludedly, would like to establish Alice as a female Jason Bourne and even has the misplaced confidence to set itself up for a sequel. To which I respond with just three words. No, thank you. SECOND SCREEN Mindhorn (15) Rating: The Journey (12A) Rating: A Dog's Purpose (PG) Rating: Sleepless (15) Rating: If Mindhorn was conceived late one night in a film festival bar, I wouldnt be at all surprised. How else do you explain a film about an Eighties TV detective fitted with a truth-detecting bionic eye, cast members from The Mighty Boosh and a list of producers that include Ridley Scott, Steve Coogan and Christine Langan of BBC Films? Must have been a good night. Thankfully, its a pretty good, if fabulously silly, film too as vain, deluded, washed-up old actor Richard Thorncroft (played by Boosh alumnus Julian Barratt), still best known for playing the Isle of Man-based Mindhorn 30 years ago, discovers that his only chance of employment is to help the Manx police catch a serial killer. Mindhorn is a pretty good, if fabulously silly, film about a washed-up old actor (Julian Barratt, above with Essie Davies) helping the Manx police catch a serial killer Its very funny, features surprising cameos from Kenneth Branagh and Simon Callow, and has a running gag about John Nettles, who, of course, played that other island detective, Bergerac. But while Barratt is splendid in the central role, we have seen this sort of satire many times before, not least in Coogans own Alan Partridge, of course. One of the great unexplained mysteries of our time is how those former sworn enemies, the Reverend Ian Paisley of Ulsters Democratic Unionist Party and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, somehow came together not just to become First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive but forge a friendship apparently so warm that they were nicknamed The Chuckle Brothers. The Journey imagines how the unlikely reconciliation between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney, above right with Timothy Spall as Paisley) might have taken place In The Journey director Nick Hamm and writer Colin Bateman imagine how this unlikely reconciliation might have taken place, as circumstances improbably force Paisley (Timothy Spall) and McGuinness (Colm Meaney) to share a car to Edinburgh Airport. Spall doesnt have the physical size to totally convince as Paisley but Meaney is terrific as McGuinness, and while the end result is both wordy and not always believable, I found it fascinating and deeply moving. A Dogs Purpose begins with the startling premise that dogs dont die but are actually reincarnated over and over again. A Dogs Purpose is an inevitably episodic film that for all its laboured canine capers never comes close to charming, at least not until Dennis Quaid joins the cast for the final chapter So when that sweet little stray puppy is caught by the dog-catcher dont worry, hell be back as a red retriever any moment. The result is an inevitably episodic and repetitive film that for all its laboured canine capers and my goodness, there are a lot of them never comes close to charming, at least not until Dennis Quaid joins the cast for what I admit is quite a sweet final chapter. Youll have to be a big Jamie Foxx fan to get much out of Sleepless in which he plays a corrupt Las Vegas cop who comes under suspicion from Jan Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) of Internal Affairs. And then his son is kidnapped Its macho, tediously violent and seemingly shot almost entirely within the confines of one of the resorts casino-hotels. I certainly wont be making a reservation. Serzh Sargsyan congratulates the EU Delegation Today, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan visited the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia and congratulated the staff on the occasion of the Europe Day. EUROPE DAY During his visit President Sargsyan held a meeting with Piotr Switalski, Ambassador, Head of EU Delegation to Armenia; the interlocutors discussed the EU-Armenia relations and cooperation. As the official launching event of the Europe Day celebrations in Armenia, the EU Delegation is organizing a classical concert with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra with the participation of "Children of Armenia" choir and art schools' pupils from all the regions of Armenia.will take place at 17:00 on Saturday 6 May at the A. Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan. All media are invited to attend the concert for coverage. For interviews with the Ambassador about the concert and the Europe Day, media should be present at 16:45. Prior to the concert, pupils created topical paintings depicting the EU Member States capitals, landscapes or anything that they associated with Europe and peace. Final selected paintings from all the 98 art schools have been selected by a non official jury composed of the EU Delegation, Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra and art experts from Armenia. These paintings will be screened during the concert as well as will be exhibited at the lobby area of the A. Khachaturian concert hall. The exhibition will continue for three days. The authors of the selected paintings are invited to attend the concert, as well as to receive their certificates and symbolic gifts from the EU Delegation. Pupils from different musical schools of Yerevan are invited to the concert.Europe Day, held on 9 May every year, celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical ' Schuman declaration '. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French Foreign Minister, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe's nations unthinkable. His vision was to create a European institution that would pool and manage coal and steel production. A treaty creating such a body was signed just under a year later. Schuman's proposal is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union. Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Neeme Jarvi Strauss In St Petersburg Chandos, out now Rating: This exhilarating album celebrates the frequent tours Johann Strauss II and his musicians made to St Petersburg in the 1850s and 1860s. The veteran conductor Neeme Jarvi cleverly mixes core Strauss family favourites played at these concerts, such as the waltz Wine, Women And Song and the Pizzicato-Polka, with especially composed Russian pieces. At 83 minutes, this is an exceptionally generous selection. The Estonian National Symphony Orchestra plays extremely well for Jarvi, now almost 80, and who first became their principal conductor 54 years ago. This exhilarating album celebrates the frequent tours Johann Strauss II and his musicians (shown above in an 1855 lithograph) made to St Petersburg in the 1850s and 1860s Among the Russian rarities, I especially enjoyed the march Strauss composed for his first tour in 1856 to celebrate the coronation of Alexander II, which took place that summer. The tsar returned the compliment in 1861 by lining up all the most senior members of his family for a soiree, for which Strauss composed the catchy Homage To St Petersburg Quadrille, which was a huge success and was performed 41 times on that tour. I also liked the Grand Dukes March, composed for the visit of Tsar Nikolai I to Vienna in 1852 and dedicated to his two sons, the Grand Dukes Nikolai and Mikhail. IT'S A FACT Johann Strauss was whipped by his father when he found him playing the violin, even through Strauss Snr was a successful composer. He wanted his son to be a banker. Advertisement Mikhail was an accomplished cellist who played in Strausss orchestra for some of the St Petersburg concerts. Most touching of all the 20 items here is a song, First Love, composed by the 21-year-old Russian aristocrat Olga Smirnitskaya during her love affair with Strauss in St Petersburg in 1858. To understand the magic of this CD, download the Peasants Polka, which Strauss included for a benefit concert for the orchestra in 1863, and which included a chorus for the players, with the audience joining in. The infectious good humour of this piece sums up why Strauss was so popular all over Europe, and remains so today. Arcadi Volodos Volodos Plays Brahms Sony, out now Rating: On this album of Brahmss late piano pieces, a great composer and an exceptional pianist meet in a perfect conjunction. The middle-aged Brahms fits brilliantly the big-boned orchestral music that lies at the heart of his creative achievement. Not just four symphonies but two piano concertos present overwhelming German power at its most uncompromising. Arcadi Volodos is an extraordinary player who didnt take up the piano until he was 16 But theres another Brahms: the composer of delightfully lyrical chamber pieces, such as the two clarinet sonatas and the intimate piano miniatures featured here. Volodos is master of all these moods. Hes an extraordinary player who didnt take up the piano until he was 16. He was playing for fun at a friends villa in the South of France when one of the people present a Sony music executive gave him a contract there and then. Neither, I suspect, has regretted it, although Volodos, for such a remarkable talent, visits the studios only sparingly. His last CD of the equally intimate piano music of the Spanish Master Mompou appeared four years ago. As a young man, he was likened to the legendary Vladimir Horowitz, but I suspect the real Volodos is the one revealed here, a musician of great sensitivity, with a remarkable range of colour and sonority. Simon Rattle Warner Classics (7CDs), out now Rhythm & Colours Rating: Warners have cherry-picked Simon Rattles most popular Berlin recordings for this CD Here Warners cherry-pick some of Simon Rattles most popular Berlin recordings, set down in excellent sound between 2002 and 2013. Theres a Mahler 5, a Rattle party piece, a Planets, a Symphonie Fantastique, a Carmina Burana, a Rite Of Spring, a Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures and a La Mer. With Rattle still in post until next year, its not easy to deliver a final verdict on his tenure in Berlin. But Karajans biographer Richard Osborne recently answered my question as to whether the Berlin Philharmonic were still the best orchestra in the world, as they were under Rattles predecessor, Herbert von Karajan, by saying Theyre not even the best orchestra in Berlin! Meaning he rates Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle higher. Sadly a lot of the second-rate contemporary stuff Rattle has spent so much time doing hasnt enhanced the orchestras firepower in the big orchestral spectaculars featured here. But this is still a fine set, and a bargain online at about 25. Zelda reads all your letters but regrets that she cannot answer them all personally I cant choose between my boyfriend and my first love I am 21 and was with my first love for five years. We had a wonderful relationship. He was quite possessive, but he was there for me through thick and thin. Then we began arguing and I snapped at everything he said. I ended up kissing someone else. We split up, but he is still there for me no matter what. I never thought that I would find anyone as good as him, but I have. My new boyfriend is amazing and treats me well. I think he is the one and I can see us getting married. We are going travelling together next year. I met up with my ex as we are still friends, but we kissed. I told my current boyfriend and he was extremely hurt, but got over it and we are as happy as ever. My ex told me to fight for my relationship with this new man. I know that my new boyfriend is the best thing for me, but I cant seem to fully let go of my ex. When I saw him recently, my heart leapt and my legs went numb. I dont know what to do. Can you be in love with two people at once? I think it is possible to love two people at the same time, but probably not to be deeply in love with both of them. You have said how much your first boyfriend was always there for you, so perhaps you were going through a lot of stress. Maybe there were family problems and you felt that your parents were not supportive, so you turned to your boyfriend. This, and the fact that he was your first love, could be why its difficult to break that addiction. But remember his possessiveness and the arguments that led you to split up, even though you still find him attractive. Despite kissing you, he encouraged you to concentrate on your new boyfriend which suggests that he has moved on. You might still be friends in the future, but for now you need to put some distance between you. Enjoy the new man and if, after travelling, you both feel the same way then you could perhaps get married. You are still only 21, so give yourself time to see whether you are right for each other. She has lost all interest in sex Having retired, I was looking forward to a relaxed time and holidays abroad with my wife. We are now in our early 70s and used to make love on a weekly basis but our love life is in decline. Ten years ago I had a serious operation. When I recovered, I was keen to resume our lovemaking but my wife less so. We went to Relate and the counsellor understood how I felt, but my wife disagreed with everything the counsellor said. We eventually reached a compromise of aiming to make love around once a fortnight, but that caused a lot of tension. Now my wife says that I only want her for sex and she never wants to make love again and that I should be old enough to live with that. We love each other and I want us to stay together even without lovemaking, but feel bitter about her decision. How can I kill my libido so that we can live together contentedly? I know you love your wife, but perhaps she is saying you are only interested in sex as a way of trying to justify her own lack of interest. Or, a painful question, has she lost all interest in sex or no longer fancies you, or is she dissatisfied with the quality of lovemaking? Are there things in the relationship that she finds difficult? For most women, they need to feel emotionally close to their partner to want to make love. She needs to feel loved and appreciated and that you are affectionate at other times not just when you want to have sex. If she felt this, then her desire to make love could return. You are definitely not too old. Some older men have medical problems and the medication can reduce their libido, but it would be very sad to kill it off deliberately. What happens during puberty? I am 13 and my friends are all talking about changes to their bodies. I feel embarrassed by the whole thing because I dont know much about puberty, except that your body changes. What happens and how do I talk to my friends about it? I am worried because they all seem to have started their periods and I havent. Dont worry, it is perfectly normal not to have started your periods at 13; some girls dont start until they are 15 or 16. Sadly, it sounds as though no one has told you about puberty or talked to you about relationships, love and sex. In some families, unfortunately, parents are too shy or embarrassed to talk to their children and let them find out from their schoolfriends. Periods, puberty and sex are all a normal part of growing up, so ideally ask your mother to tell you about them. If you really cant face asking your parents, perhaps you could see the school counsellor or talk to a teacher or another understanding adult you trust. Alternatively, contact NHS Choices (nhs.uk/Livewell/puberty) or Childline (0800 1111), which has a confidential helpline where you could discuss all of this and ask any questions you may have. Once you have talked to an adult and know all about what happens during puberty, you will feel much more confident discussing it with your friends. If you have a problem, write to Zelda West-Meads at: YOU, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS, or email z.west-meads@you.co.uk Going blind is a terrifying prospect for anyone, but for an artist it carries even greater magnitude. Painter SOPHIE BIRDWOOD tells Margarette Driscoll about the condition slowly eroding her vision and why she chose to have children despite the risk that they have inherited it too Sophie in her studio: One thing Ive learnt is that its critical to live in the moment and not project. But I can feel the change very much, so Propped against the wall sits Sophie Birdwoods latest work, a powerful rendering of the Palace of Westminster, its golden stone aglow in a fiery sunset. Its creator, a blonde, slender mother of four, appears to have a life that is similarly picture-perfect. She paints in a peaceful conservatory at the back of her beautiful house in Londons Kensington (near a piano bearing a happy family photo taken outside her second beautiful house in Italy). An adjoining huge sitting room doubles as a gallery, simply furnished with black leather sofas and a large coffee table bearing books on the art of David Bowie and Caravaggio. The decor is minimal by choice, but it is also practical. I have a horrible habit of bumping into things, she says. Sophie, actually the Honourable Sophie Birdwood, 52, is going blind. The past year may have been her most successful ever in terms of sales and commissions, but it has also proved a turning point. She has already lost much of her sight due to an inherited condition, and the degeneration is speeding up. Once I start thinking about the future I get depressed because there are so many things we take for granted that become impossible when youve lost your sight, and mine is going very quickly now, she says. Sophie produces landscapes and abstracts One thing Ive learnt is that its critical to live in the moment and not project. But I can feel the change very much, so For anybody, losing their sight is a terrifying prospect, but for an artist, it holds an added dread. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the condition Sophie inherited from her mother, slowly erodes peripheral vision, rendering sight an ever-narrowing channel that eventually fades to nothing. Sitting a few feet away from me, she says, I can see your face quite clearly but then its all a blur, nothing. Her paintings, as a consequence, are growing smaller. If she works on a large canvas she can see the detail up close but has to position it at one side of the room and walk to the other to see the composition as a whole. In the street, she is hopeless. I constantly have to say to people, If you wave at me and I dont respond its not because Im blanking you, its because I cant see you. 'At parties, one of my favourite tricks is knocking over trays of drinks, which is a nightmare. My husband steers me past waiters but meeting new people is always hard because they put their hand out and I dont see it, so they think, Gosh, whats wrong with her? David has got used to saying, My wife cant see, so they know Im not being rude. She is married to David Montgomery, a former newspaper editor who now heads a group of media investors. They first met long ago when she was a graduate trainee at the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, working on his newspapers account. They met again after her first marriage to Simon Marquis, 3rd Earl of Woolton had broken down. 'Many things we take for granted become impossible when youve lost your sight' Sophie is the mother of three daughters Olivia, 27, Constance, 25, and Claudia, 22 all of whom, like her, stand a 50/50 chance of inheriting RP. David knew Sophies illness might be on the cards when they married nearly 20 years ago (she could sense her sight failing but was not officially diagnosed until two years later, aged 34). Despite knowing pregnancy might speed up her sight loss, Sophie really wanted a baby with David. Their son William, who is also at risk, is 15. It seems an immense weight for her husband to have taken on: I do feel lucky that hes so incredibly supportive, she says. I asked him the other day: How do you feel about the fact that things are getting tougher, that Im relying more on you and that that will only increase? He said he wasnt fazed by it, but I think a lot of men would be. She seems so cool and capable that sometimes even friends get confused by Sophies blindness. In her familiar space, she moves around easily, making coffee, chatting about her work and her hope that research into RP will advance fast enough to spare her children the same fate. She is highly observant, picking up on details on clothes or shoes even the fully sighted might miss. Her look is casual but elegant. Everyone teases me because I have a uniform. I was once asked if I ever washed my trousers, she says ruefully. I had to explain that I had eight pairs and it was simpler to reach into the wardrobe and wear a version of the same thing every day. At night, she is pretty disabled and started using a white stick around 18 months ago. I went to a party before Christmas and it was candlelit and jam-packed with 150 people. I couldnt see anything, she says. A few people came up and said, Hi Soph, and I could rely on voice recognition, but it was really noisy and waitresses with trays were shoving through the crowd and I thought, I cant do this. I went to stand alone at the back of the hall. It was sweet because one or two people came to talk to me, but at least I am blessed with a lack of social anxiety. Someone else might worry that others would think, What a sad person, but I dont mind standing on my own and taking in the atmosphere. There are worse perils than being alone at parties, of course. Five years ago, Sophies aunt (her mothers sister), another RP sufferer, died when she fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a head injury. Im moving around much more tentatively than I used to, says Sophie. If I go somewhere Im not familiar with I take it slowly. Theres always an anxiety about where the steps are. An only child, she boarded at Cheltenham Ladies College then read history of art at Cambridge University. Hers is a family of stalwart tradition. Her father Mark was the 3rd Baron Birdwood. The first Field Marshal Birdy Birdwood fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front and became the much-decorated commander-in-chief of the British Army in India. Sophie at her studio: 'My children have opted not to know their chances, which I think is sensible' A lot of people say to me, Gosh, youre so brave, in relation to my diminishing sight, but I see bravery as putting yourself in danger for the greater good, a selfless act of heroism, she says. What she does is nearer to putting a brave face on it, something she learned from her mother Judith, who was registered blind aged 60 (she is now 78) though the two women have dealt with their failing sight very differently. The variant of RP they carry has a relatively late onset. Judith was 25 when she was diagnosed (though her sister was only nine). Judiths instinct was to carry on as though nothing had happened. My mother tried to hide it, says Sophie. Its a generational thing. She felt shed be stigmatised and had huge shame about being disabled. I dont. Sophies children have grown up with a blind grandmother, a mother losing her sight and the knowledge that one day they too might succumb to RP. They could have a blood test and find out the likelihood now, but they have all opted not to know, which I think is quite sensible, she says. Theres no treatment and until there is, why have that sword of Damocles hanging over you? In her 30s Sophie gave up advertising for full-time painting. That might seem a perverse decision, knowing what was to come, but a surprising number of artists have suffered from issues with their sight. Monets water lily series, painted at the end of his life, was semi-abstract. He had terrible cataracts so everything was very blurry, she says. Monets water lily series, painted at the end of his life, was semi-abstract as he had cataracts Degas, Van Gogh and Georgia OKeeffe also complained of sight problems. Sophie plans to ask an art historian to talk about the link at a private dinner she is hosting on 23 May to mark the launch of a new exhibition, which she is holding to raise money for research into RP. She is hoping to support a gene therapy project at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology. At the moment, gene therapy is the most advanced area of research, though its about arresting deterioration rather than restoring sight, she says, so it will be most useful for people in the early stages of RP. Alas, there is nothing on the horizon yet that promises to cure or treat the variant of RP one of around 250 genetic mutations that cause the disease that runs in Sophies family. Inspiration comes from Sophie's urban surroundings Though every discovery takes us further in that direction, she says briskly. Ive had a blood test so I know what our mutation is and Im in touch with a top ophthalmologist, so I will get the nod if there is a potential trial for our sort of RP. At that stage it would be sensible for the children to get tested if they want to because they could try to stop it before it starts. The decision to have children was easy, Sophie says, even though she knew becoming pregnant with William might and did speed up the deterioration of her sight: Research has moved on massively since Olivia was born, but even then, there was hope. It wasnt a forgone conclusion that my children would go blind even if they got RP. So, weighing it up, I went for it. I suppose I feel RP is lifestyle-threatening rather than life-threatening. Yes, its an annoyance and Id rather not have it, but the decision to have children would have been different if Id had something else. The idea of having a child who was going to be in intolerable pain would be horrific. The children have generally coped well but, inevitably, have their moments. William is at a funny stage. Being a 15-year-old boy, hes very conscious of the situation. He said the other day, Mummy, when you come to see me at school, try not to trip up on things. He certainly doesnt want white sticks flying around and I have to respect that. The prospect of any of her children going blind, though and the thought that she might never see her own grandchildren must be the most painful part of facing up to the future. Sophie has described William to her mother in great detail, but, I so wish she could see him. Losing her independence comes next, not only because she hates the thought of needing help but because, like many women her age, she is still trying to look after her children and an elderly parent. Some years ago, she studied for a postgraduate diploma in psychotherapy and was seeing patients part-time until 18 months ago, when her father died. I am an only child and didnt know how much time I would need to dedicate to my mother, she says. My father was so wonderful, he became her eyes, so when he died it was a double-whammy of emotional grief, plus all the practical issues associated with being blind. Judith lives nearby, with carers visiting each day to cook lunch, read her post and check her clothes. Sophie does what she can to help, but every day it gets a little harder. She had to have a hip replacement and wanted me to take her to the hospital the other evening, which I did, but it really did end up being the blind leading the blind, she says. London bridges are a source of inspiration for Sophie I had my white stick out but I was terrified we would be run over. I said, Mummy, Im afraid I cant do this again, its just too risky. I couldnt see where the steps were. Its frustrating because your instinct is to protect the people you love. Sophie is acutely aware of her mothers isolation. Judith listens to Radio 4 and talks to friends on the telephone, but the solace of reading books for someone who taught English and history at A-level for many years has been lost. Similarly, for Sophie, a future without painting seems very bleak. A source of hope was her friendship with Sargy Mann, a renowned teacher and painter who died in 2015. Sargy started to lose his eyesight in the 1970s, aged 36, when he suffered cataracts and retinal detachments in both eyes, and held four solo shows in nearby Chelsea while blind. He continued painting, declaring that blindness had given him the freedom to use colour in a way he never could when he could see. When he lost his sight completely about seven years ago, everybody thought, Thats it, says Sophie. But he was extraordinary, very innovative. He created a sort of drawing machine to mark out dimensions and transfer them on to canvas, then used bits of Blu-Tack to give him the rough outline. 'He was lucky because his wife was very regimented about laying out his paints and would direct him to ultramarine or white or whatever. I asked how he did it and he said, Its in my minds eye. I still have a sense of what I want to convey and painting is more than normal vision. Could Sophie do the same? She shrugs. Heaven knows, she says. Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 with a landslide electoral victory promising 'achhe din' and 'sabka saath, sabka vikas'. Unblemished of any scam and unburdened with the responsibility of carrying forward the legacy of a family, and of course fired by inexhaustible energy and missionary-like zeal to usher in positive changes, the slew of schemes launched by the PM, if implemented in letter and spirit, has the potential to transform the country by 2022. Growth Addressing NITI Aayog on April 23, PM Modi reminded that poverty remained the biggest problem and it could only be removed with sustained economic growth and development. No wonder, all the initiatives taken by him, directly or indirectly, focus on the realisation of his broad vision. Make in India, Digital India, smart cities, solar alliance, renewable energy, bullet trains, infrastructure projects, ease of doing business, demonetisation and GST are all part of his endeavour to spur economic growth and development. Protests in Rajasthan after the death of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan, killed by 'cow vigilantes' Notwithstanding the claims of his detractors that the black money hasn't been brought back, neither have jobs been created on the scale the PM has promised, the fact remains that India has emerged as the fastest growing economy and the largest FDI destination in the world at a time when most developed and emerging countries are witnessing a steep downturn. Isn't this Modi's impact that the BJP, known as the party of Brahmins and Banias (business class) is going all out to win over the rural poor, especially Dalits? This new-found love for the poor isn't just confined to some senior leaders dining at Dalit households on the eve of elections but also how the party publicly acknowledges the contribution of Dr BR Ambedkar. One can't keep a count of the number of occasions when BJP leaders quote Babasaheb. On April 14, Modi flew to Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur, where a bitter and disillusioned Ambedkar had embraced Buddhism in 1956 with over 60,000 followers. Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is illegal in many states For a change, on Ambedkar's birthday this year, the Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida, established by BSP leader Mayawati after several hiccups and court inventions, saw hundreds of new admirers; it was full of flag-waving BJP workers who outnumbered Behanji's blue flag with elephant. Is this the precursor of things to come? Only time will tell. Positivity It's easy to brand Modi as anti-poor pointing out to his sartorial tastes in attire and lampoon his government as 'suit-boot ki sarkar'. But a close scrutiny of his numerous schemes reveals a well thought-out strategy and concerted effort to address problems of rural India: poverty, lack of education, sanitation, healthcare, crop failure, timely availability of seeds and fertilisers. Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sichai Yojana, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Kaushal Yojana are some of the measures in the right direction. Which prime minister has promoted Swachh Bharat and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao so vigorously? On his foreign visits from the US and UK to Australia and UAE he created a buzz and positivity about India through his oratorical skills and painstakingly prepared presentations. PM Modi must rein in cow vigilantes taking the law into their hands Whether he is talking to the financial czars in New York, or the Presidents and PMs at global and regional summits, he holds his own. Modi's India is now taken seriously. Leading nations want to be friends with India and feel they can do business with it. Is it an insignificant achievement in 35-months for someone who arrived in Delhi as an outsider? Threat As the election results in UP have shown, the Congress, the SP and the BSP can't stop the Modi juggernaut individually or collectively. In spite of the propaganda to the contrary, people at large perceive him as an agent of change who can transform their lives for the better. Pehlu Khan, a 55-year-old dairy farmer, was set upon by cow vigilantes and died 3 days later Alas, all the positivity and the buzz that Modi has created run the risk of getting squandered by the self-appointed vigilantes who take the country's law in their hands and terrorise helpless people. The visuals of barbaric beating of Dalits in Una, killing of those suspected to be transporting cows and buffalos, attacks on women and girls in Jammu, merciless thrashing of Nigerian students in Greater Noida, harassment of young men and women by Romeo Squads in the name of preventing eve-teasing show this country of 1.3 billion people with a 5,000-year-old culture as a place where goons rule streets and administer their own justice. This isn't the 'Swachh' and 'Shreshtha' Bharat which the Prime Minister envisions. Unbridled vigilantism poses the gravest threat to Modi's vision. He must rein them lest it is too late. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday said that by the time he comes up with the report card of first 100 days of his government, the state will be safe for every resident. Speaking at Aaj Tak's UP Panchayat, Adityanath said, 'Jungleraj will end in Uttar Pradesh. Law and order is our priority. Minor incidents are occurring at some places but I am sure that by the time I present the report card of my government's 100 days, such incidents will stop completely.' 'Every sister, daughter and trader of Uttar Pradesh will feel safe in the state,' the UP CM added. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath with his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav Sending a strong message to those involved in antisocial activities to malign the image of Bhartiya Janata Party and other organizations, chief minister Adityanath Yogi on Friday said they will not be pardoned at any cost. 'There are impersonators who are using the Bhagwa Gamcha (stole) to malign the image of the BJP and other cultural organizations. They are being identified and strict legal action will be taken against them,' Yogi, who was speaking at the programme in Lucknow, said. When asked about the recent incidents of cow vigilantism involved in criminal activities, he said that no one is allowed to take the law in their hands. 'If there is one out of 100 such incidents, it does not means that all the Gau Rakshaks are criminals. A majority of them are also doing very good work and have saved many cows. We would like to tell those harassed to go to police for help and soon we will be releasing a helpline to report such activities,' Yogi said. The UP CM also emphasised that VIP culture will be put to an end in the state. 'No one will be treated as VIP. VIP culture will end,' he said, adding: 'Criminals can't seek guarantee of security from the government. They are threat to public security. They won't be allowed to take law in their hands. No discrimination will be done on the basis of religion, caste or gender.' Yogi said that that things are already changing but it will take some time for the change to be visible on the ground. He said the Supreme Court had earlier frozen the recruitment of 1.3 lakh police personnel as it was not satisfied by the working of the previous government. 'However, now we have submitted an affidavit and the court has given us the permission for recruitment. This year, we will be recruiting 30,000 cops and all the vacancies will be filled within the next four years,' he promised. The CM also said there is work to be done on the 'Swachhta' front as its city was ranked last on the latest survey released on Friday. He said that by the next survey, at least 50 cities of Uttar Pradesh will be in top 100 cities. 'Usually when a new chief minister takes charge, he tries to overhaul the administration. We tried to work with the same officers under the previous regime. We started shuffling the officers only after a month,' the chief minister said. The Government has given the RBI greater powers to identify specific cases of bad loans and enforce expeditious action on the part of banks to recover the money. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent on Thursday night to the promulgation of the ordinance cleared by the Cabinet to amend the Banking Regulation Act. The new law comes into immediate effect. Jaitley said: `A list of some of the stressed assets is already with the RBI and it is looking into it. The present status quo cannot continue. And the present status quo is that not much was moving,' he quipped. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley He explained that the Reserve Bank is required to be empowered in relation to specific stressed assets. Sale of assets, closure of non-profitable branches, reduction of overheads and business turnaround initiatives will be part of the resolution process, he added. According to an official statement: 'This action of the Union Government will have a direct impact on effective resolution of stressed assets, particularly in consortium or multiple banking arrangements, as the RBI will be empowered to intervene in specific cases of resolution of non-performing assets, to bring them to a definite conclusion. ' Jaitley told journalists that banks have an unacceptably high level of non-performing assets (NPAs) which hinders their capacity to fund economic activities. Bad loans of public sector banks including non-performing assets (NPAs) and stressed loans touched a staggering Rs 9.64 lakh crore as on December, 2016. The bulk of the loans are in infrastructure sectors including power, steel and highways which turned sour in the wake of the global economic meltdown in 2008. Textiles is yet another sector which accounts for a huge chunk of bad loans. The Ordinance authorises the Reserve Bank to issue directions to any banking company or banking companies to initiate the resolution process in respect of a default under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016. It has also empowered RBI to issue directions to banks for resolution of stressed assets. RBI has been equipped with powers to specify one or more authorities to advise banks for dealing with the problem of bad loans. The Ordinance states that NPAs have reached unacceptably high levels and urgent measures are required for their resolution. The law will also empower RBI to set up sector related oversight committees to advise banks on the decisions to be taken in each case of major default so that bankers are cushioned against later action by investigative agencies such as the CBI looking into loan recasts. This fear had been a major hurdle as bankers shied away from taking bold decisions to move ahead even as huge assets are locked up in projects involving loan defaults due essentially to a downturn in the economy at the time. Bankers have been citing the fear of 3Cs - which include CBI, CAG and CVC - in taking any decision to resolve NPAs which may entail selling assets, at what could be seen as a cheaper price, as the only way out. For example, public sector NTPC has looked into some of the stuck power plants but was not willing to pay banks the price that they were asking for as it involved a distress sale. The resolution of these bad loans will enable these stranded projects to contribute to the country's economic growth again. With the enactment of amendment, RBI will be able to give specific solutions with regard to haircuts for specific cases and also, if required, look at providing relaxation in terms of current guidelines St Stephen's students have threatened mass resignation in protest at the college's decision to allegedly 'punish' students for voicing concerns about the college's move to become autonomous. Teachers claimed the administration has not reassigned student digs to 150 first and second year students after they took part in protests against the move. They said their accommodation was taken during the examination month, which has forced them to hunt for a house rather than study. Students claimed they were denied renewal of hostel accommodation for the next academic year for taking part in protests against the college going autonomous The college faculty said they will conduct a staff council meeting to deliberate over the threatened mass resignation in the coming week. 'It's not just mass faculty resignations that the college administration and governing body should expect in the coming week but also stern reaction from societies in St Stephens if the authorities do not consult staff and students on the issue of granting autonomy,' said Nandita Narain, Delhi University Teacher's Association president and a professor of mathematics at St Stephen's college. According to the students, they were asked questions regarding their thoughts on the autonomy during the residence interview - a mandatory exercise before the grant of a spot in a hostel. They claimed the residence list released on Thursday did not feature names of several students who had been granted spots in the hostel earlier on merit. A worried student requesting anonymity fearing action from college authorities said, 'Administration's decision has left even those students with a neutral take on the issue angered. 'They are facing unfair action for something they did not even participate in.' Students who questioned removal from the residence list were told by Dean of Residence Revd Monodeep Daniel, 'The Heavens were not kind to you.' 'We were also told that discipline was the primary criterion in the interview and the administration will grant residence to whomever it likes,' said another student. In order to protest the move, 360 students out of 400 resident scholars boycotted dinner on Thursday. Calls made to the college principal J Verghese, dean of residence and associate dean of residence were not answered. A giant coal-fired power plant approved by Bangladesh could drastically worsen air pollution for millions and cause the early deaths of 6,000 people over its lifetime, environmental organisation Greenpeace said on Friday. Bangladesh is constructing the 1,320-megawatt power plant on the edge of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, despite warnings the controversial project threatens the fragile ecosystem and human health. The United Nations has already urged Bangladesh to halt construction, warning it poses an unacceptable risk to the UNESCO-protected mangroves that provide a barrier against deadly storm surges and cyclones. Boats are seen at sunset in the Sunderbans in Khulna, some 350 kms southwest of Dhaka. The UN has warned that a coal power plant would 'irreversibly damage' the pristine forest, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 But in a new report Greenpeace warned emissions from the plant represented one of the single largest threats to air quality for millions living across Bangladesh and as far as neighbouring India. 'Over its operational lifetime, the plants emissions will increase the risk of stroke, lung cancer, heart and respiratory diseases in adults, as well as respiratory symptoms in children,' stated the report released Friday. 'People in Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Calcutta (India), particularly children and the elderly, would also be harmed. Even if Bangladesh currently had zero air pollution, the plant alone would cause the premature deaths of 6,000 people, and low birth weights of 24,000 babies.' The plant at Rampal in Bangladesh's south-west could also deposit enough mercury to render fish unsafe to eat for millions living across the Bay of Bengal, and devastate the aquatic food chain of the Sundarbans. The plant -- a joint project by India and Bangladesh -- would be powered by nearly five million tons of coal shipped every year along the mangroves' fragile waterways, a natural habitat for endangered Bengal tigers and rare Irrawaddy dolphins. Scheduled to open in 2018, the plant is projected to discharge nearly 125,000 cubic metres of chemically-tainted water every day into nearby water catchments, Greenpeace said. The UN warned in October that the plant would 'irreversibly damage' the pristine forest, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997. The dense mangroves provide a buffer against violent weather roaring into the delta, which has killed thousands living in impoverished coastal villages and islands in recent years. There was no immediate comment from Bangladeshi authorities or the joint-venture company bankrolling the $1.7-billion plant. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has defended the project and rejected concerns about its impact as politically motivated. The project has galvanised street protests in Bangladesh, with campaigners calling for the plant to be scrapped or relocated. After a series of incidents, the civil aviation ministry has come up with draft rules for a 'no fly list' the first of its kind in the world - which will empower domestic airlines to impose a ban on unruly passengers. The move came almost a month after the controversy surrounding Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who claimed to have hit an Air India staffer 25 times with a slipper for not being allowed to fly business class on an all economy plane. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has proposed the 'national no-fly list' which will include names of passengers identified as unruly after an inquiry by a committee constituted by a particular airline. Ravindra Gaikwad who assaulted an AI member of staff A person identified as a threat by security agencies will also be included in the list. While the list is characterised as 'national' and will have data on disruptive passengers from all airlines, the ban recommended by the committee is not mandatory for all airlines to follow. The rules allow airlines to bar a passenger for three months to maximum two years depending on the intensity of the offensive behaviour. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha termed the move a trailblazer. 'There is no other country in the world with a no-fly list based on safety. There are no-fly lists based on security where people are seen as grave threats and they are not allowed to fly. India is blazing a new trail in this regard,' Sinha added. The new rules will be open for public comments for a month, and will pass through stakeholders' consultation before being finalised. Making the announcement, Civil aviation secretary RN Choubey said, 'We propose to bring out a national no-fly list. It is better to do that by a central mechanism under DGCA than leave it to the airlines.' The government has recommended three levels of unruly behaviours, each with a corresponding duration of flying ban. The first level of misdemeanour includes physical gestures, verbal harassment and unruly behaviour because of inebriation. This level of offence will carry a flying ban of three months. The second level relates to physically abusive behaviour such as pushing, hitting, grabbing, inappropriate touching or sexual harassment. This degree of misconduct will carry a ban of six months. The third category pertains to life-threatening behaviour such as damage to aircraft operating system, physical violence such as choking or murderous assault and attempted breach of flight crew compartment. This will carry a flying ban of two years or more without limit. If a passenger repeats the same degree of offence they will be banned for twice the period of the previous ban. As per the IATA, in 2015, there were 10,854 reported cases of unruly behaviour by passengers across airlines worldwide, which translate into one incident for every 1,205 flights. A passenger can also challenge the ban and approach an appeals committee which will be set up by the Civil Aviation Ministry and headed by a high court judge. The government has proposed to form two redressal committees. 'All such grievances will be addressed within 10 days,' Civil aviation secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said. A plague of moths is invading Britain causing millions of pounds of damage by eating its way through clothes and carpets. Even households not yet under attack are being advised to draw up a battle plan, taking advantage of combat techniques that include everything from freezing to microwaving garments. The population of the common clothes moth is up a third this year due to a mild winter and an early start to spring. Rentokil Pest Control says the number of call-outs it has received to destroy them is 103 per cent up on the same time last year. Invasion: The population of the common clothes moth is up a third this year Brian Roberts is one of the countrys leading moth control experts. He warns that unless you tackle the problem early, ideally before your wardrobes contents are rendered unwearable, you could find yourself spending more than 300 getting professional help. Roberts, from Porth in Glamorgan, is owner of ServiceCare MothSolutions and specialises in tackling moth problems in stately homes. He says: The common clothes moth has expensive tastes. It feeds off proteins found in natural materials such as wool, silk and fur. You might find it nibbling your favourite cashmere jumper, designer silk garments, a top quality bespoke suit or an heirloom such as a Persian rug. Roberts adds: It is the tiny caterpillar larvae that is destructive the mature moth does not eat clothes. You may not notice you have moths until it is too late because it is hard to spot the tiny amounts they eat individually. Advice: Doctor Zoe Randle says only a fraction of moth and butterfly species are a nuisance They start life as eggs laid in dark corners. The spring weather sees many hatch and they later evolve into moths which are keen to breed. A female moth can lay up to 200 eggs in a wardrobe. These develop into hungry caterpillar larvae that are smaller than a grain of rice so almost impossible to spot. Of the 2,500 species in Britain there are only five thankfully that can do your wardrobe and carpets serious damage. The common clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella) and the brown house moth (Hofmannophila pseudospretella) are the worst offenders. The most wanted list is completed by the case-baring clothes moth (Tinea pellionella), the white-shouldered house moth (Endrosis sarcitrella), and the new kid on the block, the pale-backed clothes moth (Monopis crocicapitella). The Butterfly Conservation charity offers an online identify service where you can tap in key details about your discovery such as its size, colour and markings. It will then come up with a shortlist of possibilities. Roberts says traditional methods for tackling moths, such as mothballs and lavender bags, are no longer as effective because moths have become immune to them. He says: It may sound odd but one of the most cost-effective ways to get rid of moths is to put your clothes into a deep freeze for 24 hours. You can buy a zip-up plastic bag for a few pounds and no damage is done to the clothes. I would also recommend this as a precautionary measure for new clothes just in case larvae eggs are hidden inside. A trip to the dry cleaners can do the same job as your clothes will be exposed to heat of up to 60 degrees centigrade. Moth larvae can only survive to a temperature of 49C. Another option is to pop your garments into a microwave for three minutes. Roberts warns against experimenting with chemicals, especially if treating carpets and you have pets living at home it could cause skin irritation and be fatal for some pets. One of the modern ways to tackle moths is to use a pheromone trap that gives off the scent of a female moth. It attracts the male moth but once it comes into contact with the trap, it confuses other males who think it is female and try to mate with it. Female moths are left frustrated and alone. Solutions: An option is to pop your garments into a microwave for three minutes Although traps can be purchased from shops from as little as 10, it is often better to use a professional. Doctor Zoe Randle, of Butterfly Conservation, says only a fraction of moth and butterfly species are a nuisance. She says: Before calling pest controllers or reaching for a can of harmful pesticide spray or moth balls make sure you are doing the right thing. Remember, it is humans who have been stockpiling clothes that are to blame the insect is just trying to survive. Often a big clean-out and vacuum is enough. Scientists group both butterflies and moths in the Lepidoptera order of insects. A way to spot the difference is that almost all butterflies have thin antennae with a bulb at the end while moth antennae are often furry and bulbless. Moths also tend to tuck their wings in behind them while butterflies usually fold them vertically on their back. Randle adds: Moths play a vital role, pollinating plants and providing food for bats and small birds. They are fascinating insects. Artsakh Ombudsman: Process of black listing is concerning (video) As of May 1, 2016 to February, 2017, 20 Armenian servicemen were killed by the Azerbaijani side. During the recent months tension has been unstable at the border, there have been both escalations and peaceful periods. That tension should be used for getting stronger, says Artsakh Human Rights Defender Ruben Melikyan. He says that today dealing with the cases of human rights violations after April War is a priority. But Ombudsman states that they also deal with the elimination of human rights violations during the relations between the state and the citizens, We receive application-appeals from the citizens in connection with military service and social field, says Artsakh Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan. He states that there are problems in the human rights defense sphere in closed institutions, We will try to be more active in PIs for improving the situation. After April War, Artsakh HRD presented an interim report. What was done after that? We carried out fact-finding mission and presented it to the international community and voiced the issue. Even after war Azerbaijan violates human rights in Artsakh. According to the assessment of Ruben Melikyan the process of black listing is more concerning, We should realize that Azerbaijan arouses number one problem threatening security of Artsakh residents. We take our counteractions for it. By the way, Ruben Melikyan doesnt compare level of human rights defense in Armenia and Artsakh, I can make observations, but they may not be professional. Although we have yet to see concrete evidence of what the main political parties want to do with our pensions, there are plenty of experts with strong views on how a future Government can get us saving again. Some of the proposals for reform are sound, others barking mad. What unites these disparate voices is a call for urgent change. It is hard to argue against such sentiment. The Centre for Policy Studies and the Association of Consulting Actuaries are the latest to throw their two pennyworth of advice into the mix ahead of publication of the party manifestos. Both have launched savings and pension wish lists and they make for interesting reading. Pension hand: Chancellor Philip Hammond, left, and shadow Chancellor John McDonnell Those at the Centre are a free-thinking bunch and were one of the catalysts for Thatcherism in the 1980s. In contrast, the Association is deeply conservative with a small c, but it brings to the table a depth of pension knowledge unrivalled elsewhere just dont invite one of their members to your next dinner party because guests will be asleep before you have served the hors doeuvres. As you would expect, the Centres recommendations are as radical and left-field as you will find. Most controversially, it proposes a scrapping of pension tax relief in favour of a bonus system that would be more egalitarian (hardly free-thinking). It is an idea that was mooted when George Osborne was Chancellor of the Exchequer long before he transmogrified into a journalist. But the impending Brexit vote meant it was put back in the drawer. Pension contributions, the Centre suggests, should be paid from after tax income (not gross pay) in the same way we currently fund an Individual Savings Account. Annual contributions (both employee and employer) would then attract a 25 per cent Government bonus up to a maximum 2,500. Any unused bonus could be carried forward and utilised in a future tax year (the Centre suggests a ten-year window). The implications of this proposal are massive. Not only would it end higher rate tax relief on pension contributions but it would drastically reduce the annual allowance the amount we and our employers can put into our pension each year from 40,000 to 10,000. Its suggested scrapping of the 1million lifetime allowance the maximum value your pension fund can become before tax is charged on any surplus becomes an irrelevance because nobody under its new bonus scheme would ever get the chance to build a 1million pension fund. The Centre also proposes that workers should be allowed to divert work pension contributions (plus the new style bonuses) into a Lifetime Isa and a new Workplace Isa. Until age 50, employee contributions would go into the Lifetime Isa. They would then be diverted into the Workplace Isa which would already be funded by the employer element of the contribution. The rationale behind this, says the Centre, is that it would build a stronger sense of personal ownership which in turn would encourage people to get more involved in building long-term wealth. The Associations manifesto is less radical. On reform of tax relief, it is as woolly as an unsheared Merino ram. All it says is that the parties should spell out precisely in their manifestos what reforms they intend to bring in and simplify the pension tax regime. Reform: The most ambitious proposal by the Association of Consulting Actuaries is its call for people to have early access to their pension pot (before age 55) There is no mention of abolishing tax relief or the introduction of a Government bonus system. But like the Centre, it does call for a scrapping of the lifetime allowance (hurrah) and the tapered annual allowance that means additional rate taxpayers are now severely restricted in how much they can funnel into a pension. The most ambitious proposal is its call for people to have early access to their pension pot (before age 55) so they can use the proceeds to fund a home deposit for a child. I also like its recommendation for a simplification of the Isa product a proposal at odds with the Centre and its new style Workplace Isa. What is blindingly obvious to all bar politicians is that pensions are now ripe for reform. Governments past and present have meddled away, turning a simple savings vehicle into a hydra that now deters most and is understood only by actuaries. It is time for political boldness. Lets shake up pensions once and for all, make them simpler, and get people saving again. Mr Hammond, Mr McDonnell, declare your pension hand. Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. A.W. writes: We planned to emigrate to Australia, but because of problems selling our house we were unable to go. But we kept bank accounts there to use when visiting family. We asked Christina Pease, of TaxAssist in Maldon, Essex, to deal with our tax affairs. She told us she would charge 250 each and would deal with Revenue & Customs on our behalf. When she produced some accounts, she wanted 600 each, which we paid, but she did not respond to letters or calls. We wrote to TaxAssist head office and contacted the Financial and Legal Ombudsmen, Citizens Advice and Trading Standards, all to no avail. We had excellent help from the Revenue, whose staff visited us and sorted out our affairs, telling us Pease had not contacted them. We handed over 1,200 to Pease but then we ended up having to deal with Revenue & Customs ourselves. Christina Pease works for TaxAssists Maldon franchise in Essex TaxAssist is a franchise organisation with its headquarters in Norwich, but its local offices are run by self-employed people like Christina Pease responsible for their own businesses. In promotional material, she says she offers a personalised service. So, what went wrong? I invited comments from her and from TaxAssist. Pease did not respond, but the head of TaxAssist, Karl Sandall, told me on her behalf that the price she charged for calculating the tax position on six years of interest on your Australian savings was reasonable. I do not disagree. He also gave me a copy of a letter he said had been sent to you by Pease on February 26. She said her work was complete when she sent figures to the tax office, without waiting for the Revenue to agree how much was due. This was odd because you later told me the letter was actually delivered by hand more than a fortnight later on March 15. Pease told TaxAssist she posted the letter in February but it must have gone astray. But how then would she know to deliver a copy by hand? This is not the only thing that does not add up. If Pease believed she had completed her work when she sent off her calculations to the tax office, why then months later did she tell TaxAssists head office in response to your complaint about her silence that she was waiting for a response from Revenue & Customs and would write to you very shortly, which she did not. The bottom line is that Sandall has been helpfully investigating and has also been in direct contact with you. He told me: I have to assist Christina to ensure she is OK and her practice is efficient, and this is not a symptom of other issues. If this has not already happened, the Maldon branch will be getting a visit from head office. Urged by Sandall, Pease has now sent you a partial refund of 700, which I think is reasonable and you have accepted. This is not quite the end of the story though. You complained to the Institute of Financial Accountants that Pease failed to reply when you asked what was happening about your tax affairs. The Institute wrote to her but it says she failed to reply. Its own enquiries have since been bumped up a notch. Perhaps a hand-delivered response is on its way. Sorry... there is no pension Blow: The scheme was funded by Glaxo Mrs C.H. writes: I recently moved home and found my certificate of membership for the pension scheme run by my former employer Glaxo and a letter confirming this. I contacted the pension administrator only to be told it could find no trace of me. You worked for Glaxo (now known as GlaxoSmithKline) from June 1966 until February 1970, so I asked the company and its scheme administrator, Aon Hewitt, to investigate. Both came back with the same details. Under the schemes rules, and UK law at the time, you would have had to complete at least five years in the job to earn a pension. You completed less than four years and I am afraid this was not long enough to benefit. It explains why the scheme has no record of you. What about your pension contributions? The scheme was non-contributory and was entirely funded by Glaxo, so you have nothing due. If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned. Boost: Mark Whitehead has bought into brick firm Ibstock Global income fund Securities Trust of Scotland is in transition mode. It has a new manager, a renewed focus on increasing income for investors and there is a burning ambition to grow the trust by issuing new shares. This is positive news for investors, but it is still early days for a 200million trust that is overshadowed by bigger rivals with records of dividend growth going back 20 years and more. The funds dividend history much shorter in light of it being launched in 2005 just does not stand up against investment trust giants Bankers, The City of London and Foreign & Colonial. Securities Trust has cut its annual dividend once and has frozen it twice. In the financial year just ended, it managed to maintain quarterly dividends on a par with the previous year only by raiding income reserves, leaving just a quarters worth in the tank for the future. In the previous financial year, an 18 per cent annual dividend rise was in part fuelled by dipping into capital reserves a controversial move. The trust did this to enhance its appeal among income seekers. The individual entrusted with the trusts renaissance is Mark Whitehead, head of global income at Edinburgh-based Martin Currie. He has run the fund for the past year and has already started to galvanise its fortunes, resulting in the trusts one-year performance being better than its three-year record. Whitehead has not hung around in refocusing the trust. He has cut the holdings to 46, providing exposure to 16 countries. We want to back our convictions, he says. These direct holdings are complemented with six positions in investment funds. Portfolio: The fund invests in smaller stocks as well as international brands like Apple He has also shifted the portfolio towards slightly smaller stocks in the hope he can find more dividend friendly companies to boost income reserves and shareholder income. The move has resulted in the trust taking stakes in UK brick maker Ibstock and Netherlands-based global science firm Koninklijke DSM. Ibstock is producing more bricks than ever, he says. A new plant is due to come on stream this year that will help it meet the growing demand for bricks, fuelled by the Governments drive to build more homes. It should help boost the companys earnings and trigger a high single-digit dividend increase. Meanwhile, DSM is benefiting from the strong demand for nutrients. Like Ibstock, it is enjoying good organic growth, generating strong cash flow and paying a healthy dividend. These stocks sit alongside key holdings in international brands, such as Apple a 3.5 per cent portfolio position and tobacco giant Philip Morris. Key holding: The fund invests in tobacco giant Philip Morris, which makes Marlboro cigarettes The trust has also borrowed 25million of cheap money, enabling Whitehead to invest in a spread of income-friendly assets, such as infrastructure, social housing, private equity and real estate investment trusts. The income from these assets, he says, should more than cover the 2 per cent cost of the loans, allowing any surplus to replenish the trusts income reserves and potentially boost payouts to shareholders. In addition, he has not been afraid to use options complex financial instruments to enhance the trusts income. The trust is making headway, he says. We are doing all we can to grow the dividend. Martin Currie is part of global financial group Legg Mason, which owns a number of investment brands including ClearBridge and Western Asset Management. Once, youth culture ruled in the West. Now, times are changing. The over-40s are in the majority in the UK and ageing populations are becoming the norm around much of the globe. However, todays older people are different from their counterparts in previous generations. Fitter and healthier than ever before, they are keen to preserve their looks, stretch their minds and retain as many of the advantages of youth as they can. Venture Life Group makes products for this new wave of discerning, well-heeled older consumer, from pills designed to promote mental agility to cholesterol-lowering capsules to creams that remove age spots from the face and hands. Star quality: Venture Lifes skincare range is associated with products created for Hollywoods Ava Gardner The shares are 58p and should move considerably higher as the company expands both here and overseas. Venture Life was founded in 2010 by Jerry Randall and Sharon Collins, now chief executive and commercial director respectively. A financier by background, Randall spent nine years as finance director of Sinclair Pharma before moving to his current position. Collins has spent her career in the healthcare industry, including a five-year spell at Sinclair. The beauty and drug markets are highly competitive, dominated by huge international players with deep pockets. Venture Life is a small firm with limited resources and it has been listed on AIM for little more than three years. However, the company is carefully targeting areas of the market and of the world where its products can stand out from the crowd. Most of its goods are in the fast-growing wellness market they have been medically approved, but are available over the counter to help people feel generally healthier. Venture Life makes all its products from a factory outside Milan in Italy, so it has complete control of the manufacturing process. But most of the goods are sold via distributors, who take on the cost of selling and marketing the brands and pay a fee in return. Over the past seven years, Venture Life has grown by creating its own products and by acquiring formulations, which it then develops so they can be sold to a wider range of consumers. It owns a luxury skincare range, Lubatti, for example, which was originally devised by Madame Lubatti, a well-known London homeopath from the late 1920s onwards, who is thought to have created bespoke face creams for film stars such as Ava Gardner and Vivien Leigh. Venture Life acquired the secret recipes, created a commercial range and launched it in China, where wealthy consumers are keen to buy skincare goods made in Europe, rather than on their home turf. It has also developed capsules and sachets containing cholesterol-lowering ingredients that are available in Benecol-branded food products such as yogurt and spreads. With products designed to reduce cholesterol levels when they are just a little too high, Benecol has been successful in the UK and elsewhere. Venture Life has taken the active ingredients under licence and developed them for people who want their benefits in an easy-to-take format. The firm has begun selling the capsules and sachets in Turkey and Eastern Europe and expect to roll out sales across the Continent over the next few years. Key name: Its biggest UK brand is UltraDex, a mouthwash and toothpaste range While some of Venture Lifes products have been developed following acquisitions of brands or licences, others have been created from scratch, such as NeuroAge, a range of memory and brain supplements that have been clinically proven to improve cognitive function. Now on sale in Canada, Germany and other parts of Europe, the product should be available in the UK in the near future. As a small business, Venture Life has adopted a practical approach to expansion. Its wares are sold primarily through pharmacies and it works with large partners, such as FTSE 100 group Hikma Pharmaceuticals and Canadian drugs giant Valeant, to distribute them abroad. However, the group works differently in the UK because the pharmacy market here is much more concentrated. So it sells directly to Boots, Superdrug and supermarkets as they dominate sales. Its biggest UK brand is UltraDex, a mouthwash and toothpaste range, which has undergone clinical studies to prove that it can remove bad breath for 12 hours. Unlike other products, UltraDex is medicated and designed to treat the causes of bad breath, not just the symptoms. Despite being more costly than most mouthwashes, it is a top seller at Boots and is being rolled out on the Continent and in Asia. Bought by people of all ages, it is particularly appealing to older consumers as halitosis tends to rise with age. Venture Life reported a 56 per cent increase in sales to 14.3million last year and, even stripping out acquisitions made during the year, revenues rose 23 per cent. The company delivered a pre-tax loss of 1.1million, as it invested in the future. This year, however, a 500,000 profit is forecast, more than tripling to 1.6million in 2018. Midas verdict: Venture Life had a shaky start on AIM and the shares have fallen from 109p to 58p. At this level, they are worth a punt. The firm has amassed a portfolio of products that appeal to the young-at-heart, older consumer a fast-growing swathe of the population, often with money to spend. The products are being rolled out selectively, but the pace of growth should pick up as the firm expands and becomes better known. Buy now. The owner of British Airways has posted record first quarter results, just eleven months after dishing out a profit warning. International Airlines Group said profit rose 9.7 per cent to 170million (144million) in the three months to March 31, traditionally the weakest quarter of the year for airlines. IAG issued a profit warning after the referendum on June 23, and in October warned that ticket prices may have to rise as a result of sterling's slump. Flying high: International Airlines Group said profit rose 9.7 per cent to 170million (144million) in the three months to March 31 Chief executive Willie Walsh said: 'This is a record performance in the first quarter, traditionally our weakest quarter, with the improving trend in passenger unit revenue continuing.' IAG added that it expects operating profit for 2017 to show an improvement year-on-year. However, revenue fell 2.8 per cent to 4.9billion, and the firm was forced to stomach a 32million euro hit from the collapse in the value of the Brexit hit pound. Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said: 'These are highly impressive figures for what's the quietest time of the year for airlines and well ahead of expectations. 'IAG has been able to navigate its way through stormy conditions last year, posting a 31 per cent rise in annual profits in February, so this is continuing the trend and means it's on track to live up to expectations that this year will be even better than last.' Shares rose 5 per cent to 600p this session. In March the group, which also owns the Aer Lingus and Iberia airlines, launched Level, a new long-haul low-cost airline brand. Walsh said that Level was proving a success with 'sales running well ahead of expectations'. Meanwhile fellow Brexit doom -monger, low cost airline EasyJet said it was enjoying stronger passenger growth. The airline transported 7.8 per cent more passengers in the last 12 months than the previous year, while load factor - an important measure of how tight a ship management is running - rose 0.5 per cent to a healthy 91.9 per cent. April load factor climbed an impressive 2.5 per cent to 92.9 per cent on year-on-year passenger growth of 11.7 per cent. Wilson added: 'Both IAG and EasyJet issued profits warnings in the wake of the Brexit vote, although IAG bounced back with stellar annual figures reported in February. 'There are concerns about aviation agreements for British-based airlines flying into the EU although overall investors seem happy to overlook the dire, and rather outlandish, warnings from some others in the industry that there might be no flights between the EU and UK after Brexit. ' Shares in Pearson, the education publisher which used to own The Financial Times, jumped over 14 per cent after it announced more cost cuts and changes to its portfolio. The group, which has already disposed of several businesses and cut costs by 650million over the past four years in a bid to revive its fortunes, said it would cut a further 300million by the end of 2019. It also said it is carrying out a strategic review of its US school materials division. The unit continues to struggle with falling demand for its textbooks and assessments. Pearson said it is carrying out a strategic review of its US school materials division. The measures we are announcing today build on the work completed last year and will allow us to further simplify our portfolio, reduce costs and accelerate our digital transformation, chief executive John Fallon said. Shares in the FTSE 100-listed group rose 92p to 750p following the announcement. Pearson saw almost 2billion wiped form its stock market value in January after issuing its fifth profit warning in four years. Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: Having already disposed of several businesses the group is trimming the cost base to reflect its reduced size, 300million of cost savings announced today are equivalent to 12 per cent of the entire 2016 operating cost base - not to be sneezed at! It comes as Pearson posted a trading update for the first quarter in line with management expectations, with underlying sales up 6 per cent thanks to growth in its US higher education business. It maintained its full-year operating profit guidance of 570million to 630million, but said market pressures were still expected to weigh on gross sales, mostly in the second half. Hyett added: Unchanged full year guidance and a positive performance from North America are both likely to be taken well by the market given Pearsons recent profit warning. However, Pearsons current strategy remains a higher risk bet on the groups ability to seize market share in the emerging digital education space. Even then, with plenty of free resources already available online, questions remain about whether the group will be able to make that market share profitable. Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said Pearson may have finally turned a page, with growth in the first quarter was reassuring. Firstly because its normally a quiet quarter. Secondly because it was an unprecedented worsening in trading conditions for this geography and segment around the turn of the year that resulted in Januarys capitulation by management, he said. Chief executive John Fallon's pay is expected to come under pressure at the group's AGM. The group will hold its annual general meeting on Friday, where Fallon's pay is expected to come under pressure. In March, Pearson pushed its chief executive's pay packet up 20 per cent, despite the publisher posting dismal annual results. The group boosted John Fallon's base salary from 776,000 to 780,000, and shelled out an extra 343,000 for his annual incentive plan, helping his total pay climb to 1.5million. This compares with 1.26million last year. The company's remuneration committee defended its decision at the time, saying it had 'exercised its discretion to reduce incentive payment payouts'. The business rates system was facing meltdown last night as a new multi-million pound super computer blocked thousands of complaints against rocketing charges. Many companies have been facing collapse after receiving soaring business rates bills. Thousands of firms have been trying to appeal against the charges but the computer crisis means they have been unable to even register their complaints. In the first month of the new system being in operation, fewer than 100 companies were able to lodge appeals. In the first three months after the last revaluation in 2010, appeals averaged 4,500 per week. Business rates complaints: Thousands of firms have been trying to appeal against the charges Business owners are having to pay sky high bills with experts warning the first complaints may not be resolved until the end of next year or even much later. Rates bills have to paid even when they are being appealed. Those business owners who have been assured by experts that their appeals are highly likely to be successful are having to pay now and then wait to be reimbursed at some point in the future. The computer fiasco is set to reignite the political row over business rates which engulfed the Government earlier this year amid warnings that thousands of companies could be driven to insolvency by higher bills. After initially dismissing concerns over soaring rates bills earlier this year, Business Secretary Sajid Javid announced an emergency package worth 300million to help the worst hit firms. Sources last night said about 4,000 business had got as far as registering their name and address but were blocked from logging their appeal. Mark Rigby, chief executive at business rates advisory group CVS, branded the computer problems a scandal. He said the owners of many businesses have been left in limbo by the fiasco. Emergency package: Business Secretary Sajid Javid If deterring appeals was the ultimate goal, a better platform could not have been devised, he said. Alternative arrangements must now be made so all businesses who have registered their properties can move to challenge their new assessment rather than simply waiting for IT issues to be resolved. A spokesman for the Valuation Office Agency this weekend insisted that the 3.1million computer system had been working normally. However, the computer system is reported to crash frequently and there have been further delays because there is now a limit on the number of appeals that can be brought by any one advisory firm to just 12. Most appeals are handled by a handful of large agencies which lodge appeals on behalf of companies. Each advisory agency typically handles hundreds or even thousands of appeals, which means the 12 case cap has created a severe bottleneck. A source at one advisory firm said: Businesses are calling us every day saying the system is crashing at the point where you verify your property because of high volumes of visitors. Another senior business rates expert described the new appeals system as a car crash. Sources close to the Valuation Office insisted the new system would eventually make the process better. Rates bills are based on property values, meaning the recent review saw bills rocket in areas where property values have jumped. Barclays is facing a revolt by more than a fifth of its shareholders over the reappointment of its chief executive, following the recent whistleblowing scandal at the bank. Top consultancy Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises investors who own almost a quarter of Barclays shares, has advised them to abstain or vote against the re-election of Jes Staley at this weeks annual meeting. ISS is regarded as the worlds leading shareholder advisory firm. A significant vote against Staley or even a sizable abstention will weaken the embattled boss. Staley is awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority over his attempt to unmask a whistleblower. Revolt: Staley is awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the FCA and PRA over his attempt to unmask a whistleblower Votes against executives are unusual in the UK, where shareholder pressure is more commonly focused on boardroom pay. Figures from PIRC, another voting advisory group, which helps UK local authority pension funds, show that more than 90 per cent of directors in the UK were backed by more than 95 per cent of shareholders in 2016. PIRC is advising investors to back Staleys reappointment. Without clear facts in the public domain this is a matter for the Barclays board, in particular the chairman, to handle, it said. Staley is under pressure because he intervened to try to uncover the identity of an anonymous whistleblower who raised concerns over the conduct of a Barclays executive. Staley has said he believed the concerns amounted to a unfair personal attack. Staley has admitted the attempt was an error and the board of Barclays has already docked his bonus. But this weeks meeting will be the first time shareholders will be able to formally show their feeling on the issue. Paul Moore, a former risk boss at HBOS, who himself blew the whistle on that banks risky lending, told The Mail on Sunday last month that Staley should be sacked. Trying to find out the identity of an anonymous whistleblower where the motivation is obviously to try to crush them is gross misconduct, he said. Politicians including Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron have weighed in to the row too, with Farron saying Staley will have to go if regulators find evidence of serious wrongdoing. Some investors have said they do not believe Staley can survive, amid investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. New Yorks Department of Financial Services is also looking into the issue. Staleys internal security team had tried to enrol the help of the US Postal Service to identify the whistleblower. A security source told The Mail on Sunday: The big retail banks have moved from having hundreds of security staff to thousands over the last five years. Barclays declined to comment. Andreya and Matt Townsend met on a beach in Fiji in 1999. Two years of travelling the world meeting artisans and a wedding later, they went into business together selling accessories from a market stall in Portobello Road in Londons fashionable Notting Hill area. Now they have a 1million turnover business, Vida Vida which sells handmade leather satchels, laptop bags and travel bags and two small children. Andreya has spent her working life in fashion, from her Saturday job in River Island at 16 to working for brands such as Diesel, Helen Storey and Ghost after she had finished university. Prior to setting up Vida Vida, which means Life Life, she was a marketing manager at Replay Jeans. 'Wonderful relationship': Adreya in India, where she works close with local artisans to produce handmade leather satchels, laptop bags and travel bags Matt studied geography at university and dreamed of a running a business that involved travel, was fun, fair and based on friendship. After initially selling handmade products made by people they met in South America, the business expanded and other market stalls followed, and eventually their own workshop in India. Wholesale and retail outlets and a website were developed, with the help of a family loan of a few thousand pounds. Andreya says: We have a wonderful relationship with all of our suppliers, which are family-run firms and expert artisans. We develop our ranges over months, working closely alongside each other. What we have learnt from these gifted craftsmen is priceless in terms of technique and experience. A woman from Alabama has been charged with theft after she faked having terminal cancer and raised $38,000 online for her 'treatment'. Jennifer Flynn Cataldo, 37, of Sterrett, Alabama, was charged with two counts of theft by deception according to a statement from the state attorney general's office. She was jailed Friday at the Shelby County Jail with a bond set at $100,000. Court records aren't yet available to show whether Cataldo has a lawyer to speak on her behalf. Jennifer Flynn Cataldo, of Sterrett, Alabama, pictured left, has been charged with two counts of theft by deception for faking terminal cancer and asking for money on two online fundraising campaigns for her 'medical bills' and a trip to Disney for her and her family, pictured right Cataldo is accused of using two GoFundMe drives to raise money for medical bills and a family trip to Disney. While the campaigns portrayed Cataldo as someone with terminal cancer, authorities say an investigation showed that wasn't true. They say Cataldo acted alone. She mislead her closest friends and family, including her parents, for seven years according to the Alabama Political Reporter. 'I can't understand why she would've done it,' Cataldo's father, Robert Flynn, told the website. 'I just don't know what would drive someone to do something like that. And I don't know how she could keep us fooled for so long.' A joint investigation involving the Alabama Attorney General's Office and the FBI began on April 13 to look into Cataldo's fundraising, according to AL.com. Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS Google Ad There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Twelve athletes from five countries swam from the United States to Mexico to show their support for immigrants. Swimmers from the US, Mexico, Israel, New Zealand and South Africa crossed the border escorted by a Mexican Navy ship and kayakers who paddled alongside them for safety. Supporters held their passports. They began at 11am on Friday from the city of Imperial Beach, California. They went south toward a fence that juts into the Pacific Ocean and completed the 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) journey by 1pm on a beach in Mexico's border city Tijuana. Scroll down for video Twelve athletes from six countries, pictured, swam from the United States to Mexico to show their support for immigrants The swimmers, pictured, from the US, Mexico, Israel, New Zealand and South Africa crossed the border, including a wall that juts out into the Pacific Ocean They started at 11am on Imperial Beach in California and finished the swim at 1pm on a beach in Tijuana, Mexico Mexican immigration officials checked the passports of the swimmers before they left California and supporters held the passports while they swam The swimmers were escorted by a Mexican Navy ship and kayakers who paddled alongside them for safety The athletes were welcomed in Tijuana by more than 100 schoolchildren who cheered when they arrived at the public celebration where Mexico's top immigration official in the area, Rodulfo Figueroa, applauded the swimmers, saying it was a 'very nice symbol,' according to the Miami Herald. 'We are closer than it seems at times,' he added. The swim raised money for the Colibri Center for Human Rights, a non-profit which helps families identify immigrants who die on the dangerous trip across the border. Organizer Kim Chambers of New Zealand insists the swim isn't a protest against President Donald Trump's border wall or government policy but says an air of 'negativity' after last year's U.S. elections was the catalyst. 'At the end of the day, water connects all of us. It doesn't matter which way you're going,' Chambers said, according to the Miami Herald. The swimmers' passports were examined by Mexican officials before they left from California. Though Chambers considered swimming back and forth between Mexico and the US, she decided the trip from the US to Mexico was the easiest. The US Border Patrol told organizers swimmers would have been required to enter the country through an official border crossing. The event raised money for the Colibri Center for Human Rights, a non-profit that helps families identify immigrants who die on the dangerous trip across the border Organizer Kim Chambers insists the swim isn't a protest against President Donald Trump's border wall or government policy but says an air of 'negativity' after last year's US elections was the catalyst The athletes were welcomed in Tijuana by schoolchildren and a public celebration where Mexico's top immigration official in the area applauded the swimmers. Mexican swimmer Antonio Arguellas is pictured Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was warned weeks in advance about the risks of talking to the Russian ambassador, according to current and former US officials. The warnings given to Flynn by senior members of President Trump's transition team in November came a month before he was recorded speaking to ambassador Sergey Kislyak about US sanctions against Russia. Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, had approached national security officials in the Obama administration asking for a copy of the classified CIA profile on Kislyak. He wanted the information for his boss, Flynn, who was then tapped by Trump to serve as national security adviser. Two former Obama officials say Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak and he seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. The document was delivered within days but it isn't clear if Flynn actually read it. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was warned weeks in advance about the risks of talking to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to current and former US officials Billingslea's concerns were startling to the Obama officials given a member of Trump's own team was suggesting the incoming administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary. The request became a warning signal given Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador were soon to spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor's administration. Officials in the Obama administration say they grew distrustful of Trump's dealings with the Kremlin. The concern - compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak - grew so great Obama's advisers delayed telling Trump's team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. One Obama adviser said they were worried the incoming administration could have tipped off Moscow. This timeline of events sheds light on the mounting anxiety the Obama administration had over Russia's election meddling as they raced to grasp the Trump team's possible involvement before leaving the White House. This previously undisclosed account is based on interviews with 11 current and former US officials, including seven with key roles in the Obama administration. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive national security information. Flynn's contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak quickly spiralled into a controversy that would cost Flynn his job Trump has previously said he has no nefarious ties to Russia and isn't aware of any involvement by his aides in Moscow's interference in the election The Obama White House's role in the Russia controversy will come under fresh scrutiny on Monday. Former Director of National Security James Clapper and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are slated to testify before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee - one of three committees investigating Trump's associates links to Moscow. Trump has said he has no nefarious ties to Russia and isn't aware of any involvement by his aides in Moscow's interference in the election. He's dismissed an FBI and congressional investigations into his campaign's possible ties to the election meddling as a 'hoax' driven by Democrats bitter over losing the White House. Yates, an Obama administration official who carried over into the Trump administration, is expected to tell lawmakers that she expressed alarm to the Trump White House about Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador. Trump fired Yates days later, after she told the Justice Department to not enforce the new president's travel and immigration ban. Flynn was forced to resign three weeks later for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about the content of his discussions with Kislyak. Yates's warnings about Flynn in January capped weeks of building concern among top Obama officials. The president himself that month told one of his closest advisers that the FBI, which by then had been investigating Trump associates' possible ties to Russia for about six months, seemed particularly focused on Flynn. Obama aides described Flynn as notably dismissive of the threat Russia posed to the United States when discussing policy in transition meetings with outgoing national security adviser Susan Rice and other top officials. Officials also found it curious that Billingslea only ever asked Obama's National Security Council for one classified leadership profile to give to Flynn: the internal document on Kislyak. The CIA compiles classified biographies of foreign officials, known as leadership profiles. The profiles include U.S. intelligence assessments about the officials, in addition to biographical information. Billingslea refused to comment on Friday. Last month, Trump announced his intention to nominate Billingslea to serve as assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department. The Obama White House's role in the Russia controversy will come under fresh scrutiny on Monday when former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is slated to testify before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee Trump has accused Obama officials of illegally leaking classified information about Flynn's contacts with Kislyak. He's also contended, without evidence, that Rice asked for the names of Trump officials caught up in routine intelligence monitoring to be improperly revealed, a charge Rice has denied. The distrust in the other camp was clear months earlier. In late December, as the White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the in the U.S. in retaliation for the hacks, Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of two compounds the U.S. was shuttering, one official said. The officials said, however, they did not withhold information. The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team's handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition's Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama's national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government's contingency plans for crises. Some White House advisers now privately concede that the administration moved too slowly during the election to publicly blame Russia for the hack and explore possible ties to the Trump campaign. Others say it was only after the election, once Obama ordered a comprehensive review of the election interference, that the full scope of Russia's interference and potential Trump ties become clearer. One official said the information reaching the White House during the transition showed that Trump associates were having 'different levels of association with the adversary.' Privately, some Obama officials betray lingering resentment toward FBI Director James Comey. An adviser said Obama was furious after Comey alerted Congress in the closing days of the campaign that the FBI may have found new emails related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server. And Democrats remain irate that Comey said nothing then about the probe into possible Trump associate contacts with Russians. A 15-year-old boy has been arrested over an alleged carjacking that left his teenage girlfriend, 15, fighting for her life in hospital. The young couple allegedly asked a 24-year-old woman for a lift home from Harbour Town Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast on Thursday night after they claimed a man was chasing them. When the 24-year-old woman gave them a lift from the Helensvale shopping centre, she claimed they held a knife to her throat and demanded her handbag and car. The 15-year-old boy (pictured) has been arrested over the alleged carjacking which left his 15-year-old girlfriend fighting for her life in hospital In an attempt to escape the situation, the driver said she struck the teenage girl with her car, 9 News reports. The 15-year-old girl received life-threatening head injuries in the botched carjacking, the Queensland Police said. Queensland Ambulance Service's Paul Barry said it was a 'very confronting scene for paramedics' when they arrived on Thursday night. 'It's a very young and tender age and she required some stabilisation,' he said. Queensland Ambulance Service's Paul Barry said it was a 'very confronting scene for paramedics' The 15-year-old boy allegedly fled the scene of the crash, leaving his girlfriend for dead. A police dog pursued the boy for half a kilometre to a highway where he crossed eight lanes of traffic moving at 110km/h. The boy has since been found and taken back to Coomera Police Station, where he was arrested over the alleged carjacking. The 15-year-old boy (pictured) allegedly fled the scene of the crash, leaving his girlfriend for dead The 15-year-old girl was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital following the crash, where she remains in a critical condition. Detectives have alerted the girl's parents she was in a coma and could also face charges over the alleged carjacking, 9 News reports. The 24-year-old woman sustained a minor cut on her hand and escaped with a significant fright. Advertisement Labour candidates turned on Jeremy Corbyn last night after he led his party to an unprecedented defeat in the local elections. The party lost more than 380 seats far more than expected including shock defeats in their heartlands of Wales and the north east. In a hugely significant result, Labour narrowly lost the mayoralty of the West Midlands to the Tories putting many of its MPs in the region at risk. The results explained: There were a small number of good results for Labour, which increased its majority at Swansea and retained control of Cardiff, Newport and Durham councils and won two elected mayoralties Liverpool and Greater Manchester. But the overwhelming victors of were the Conservative Party, who gained a sensational 563 seats Corbyn to blame: Disgruntled Labour candidates who lost out in Thursday's election have criticised leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling him 'radioactive' and saying he is killing off the party A Conservative was also elected mayor of the deprived Tees Valley, an area which has backed Labour for decades. In Wales, the party lost control of the formerly rock-solid councils of Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil the mining town whose former MP was Labour founder Keir Hardie. In Scotland, they lost Glasgow and suffered the humiliation of coming third across the country in terms of number of councillors. Last night Mr Corbyn admitted it would a challenge on an historic scale for Labour to win on June 8. The results were mixed, he said. We lost seats but we are closing the gap on the Conservatives. ABBOTT'S IN ANOTHER MUDDLE Hapless Diane Abbott got her maths wrong again as she dramatically underestimated Labours losses. At a lunchtime interview, the shadow home secretary changed her answer on how many seats the party had lost from 50 to 100 in a matter of seconds. It came just days after she was humiliated when she got her figures mixed up on a key police funding pledge. Not again! Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott got her maths wrong for the second time this week Asked by ITV News yesterday if she knew the scale of Labours losses at the time, she replied: I think the net losses are about 50. The interviewer reminded Miss Abbott that, at the time, the net losses stood at 125. Bizarrely she replied: Well, the last time I looked we had net losses of 100. Earlier this week Miss Abbott was unable to answer basic questions about her partys policy of hiring 10,000 police officers. She suggested it would cost 300,000 meaning each officer would be paid 30. Advertisement We have five weeks to win the General Election so we can fundamentally transform Britain for the many, not the few. We know this is no small task it is a challenge on an historic scale. But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, cant afford not to seize our moment. However, the results sparked a backlash from Labour candidates, worried about wipeout in the general election. One described Mr Corbyn as radioactive on the doorstep, while another said: Jeremy Corbyn is killing the Labour party in its heartlands. This is an earthquake. Stephen Kinnock, the son of the former leader who is standing in Aberavon next month, blamed the pretty disastrous results squarely on Mr Corbyn saying he had moved the party too far towards the hard Left. Defeated Labour candidate for the West Midlands mayoral post, former MP Sion Simon, accused the leadership of abandoning the partys traditional values. And the former leader of Derbyshire Council now a Tory authority called on Mr Corbyn to do the honourable thing after the general election and resign. Privately, senior Labour figures described the results as catastrophic, but in public the party line was that the results had been mixed. Mr Corbyn, appearing alongside one of the partys few victors Steve Rotheram, the new mayor of Liverpool City Region admitted Labour had had to swallow some disappointing results. Embarrassingly for him, Mr Rotherham admitted that Mr Corbyn was Marmite on the doorstep and revealed he had kept him off his election literature. Yesterdays results marked the first time that an opposition party lost seats in local elections for three years in row. There were a small number of good results for Labour, which increased its majority at Swansea and retained control of Cardiff, Newport and Durham councils all places which should be easy for the party to win. The party also won two elected mayoralties Liverpool and Greater Manchester, which was seized by former health secretary Andy Burnham. However, Mr Burnham did not appear at his own victory rally last night. He apparently celebrated in a restaurant with champagne while Mr Corbyn addressed the rally. The Labour leader claimed Mr Burnham was already hard at work on his new job. He ignored calls of: Wheres Andy? Overall the results were disastrous for Labour, which lost control of seven councils. In Derbyshire, the Tories took 19 seats from Labour as the county passed directly from one party to the other. Mr Kinnock told BBC News yesterday: We cant just put a spin on this the fact is that Jeremys leadership does come up on the doorstep on a very regular basis. Dave Wilcox, former Labour group leader in Derbyshire, said: We heard it time and time and time again on the doorstep we are not voting for you while you have Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell appeared to be in denial, claiming voters will swing towards Labour the more they see of Mr Corbyn. He told Radio 4s Today programme: It has been tough, theres no doubt about that, but it hasnt been the wipe-out that some people predicted. The Lib Dems' big let-down By Larisa Brown The Liberal Democrats promised fightback ran into the sand yesterday as the party lost 42 of its council seats. The partys hoped-for surge failed to materialise in its former south-west heartlands, with grandee Sir Vince Cable admitting there had been no spectacular breakthrough. Party insiders dismissed the blow and said an increase in its vote share put it on course to treble its Commons seats from nine to 27 on June 8. But the fall in the number of local seats across central and eastern England and Scotland has tempered claims the party will emerge as a genuine opposition to Theresa May. Failed: Lib Dem leader Tim Farron hoped-for surge failed to materialise in its former south-west heartlands as the party lost a total of 42 councillors Former business secretary Sir Vince said the local election results had been neutral for his party. Were in a relatively encouraging position, though there hasnt been a spectacular breakthrough, he said. He said the areas where the Lib Dems had done exceptionally well were where they hoped to win back seats in the General Election. That included Cheltenham, Eastleigh in Hampshire and Wells in Somerset, he said. But in Cardiff, where the party hoped to take control of the council, it lost seven seats. Despite the results Lib Dem leader Tim Farron urged voters to prevent a coronation for Mrs May, saying only the Lib Dems stood in the way of a one-party state. Speaking in St Albans, Hertfordshire, he said Labour is utterly imploding and devastated like no other opposition party in recent memory. But his party came under fire last night after pledging to raise taxes for 30million people. Mr Farron said he would put 1p on income tax to fund a 6billion-a-year cash injection for the NHS and social care. Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Jane Ellison, said: Now we know a vote for anyone other than Theresa May means you will pay more tax. Ukip wiped off map as it holds on to just one seat By Larisa Brown UKIPs former chief backer last night declared the party finished as an electoral force after it suffered humiliation in the local elections. Millionaire Arron Banks accused Ukip leader Paul Nuttall of crashing the car at the first bend following a near total wipe-out at the ballot box. The party won just one of the 141 council seats it was defending, as voters defected to the Conservatives. Wiped out: Ukip leader Paul Nutall attempted a brave face after the party sensationally lost 140 of its 141 seats In an attempt to put a brave face on the disaster, Mr Nuttall claimed a Tory surge at the expense of Ukip was a price he was willing to pay for Britains exit from the EU. He also said Ukip was a victim of its own success. With just five weeks before the general election, former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said its over and urged previous backers to support the Tories. Ukip won a solitary seat in Padiham and Burnley West, Lancashire a gain from Labour. But elsewhere, supporters of the Eurosceptic party appeared to switch to the Conservatives in droves. Mr Nuttall said in a statement: In the local elections yesterday many excellent Ukip representatives lost their seats on county councils despite campaigning hard for re-election. Its been a difficult night. 'Frankly, there is nothing they could have done in the face of a big national swing to the Tories. He added: If the price of Britain leaving the EU is a Tory advance after taking up this patriotic cause then it is a price Ukip is prepared to pay. We are the victims of our own success and now we pick ourselves up and go on to further success in the future. His party lost all its seats in Lincolnshire, Hampshire and Essex key general election battlegrounds for Ukip. Mr Carswell, who left Ukip in March to sit as an independent, leaving the party without any MPs, wrote on Twitter: Its over. It is a pretty disastrous result for Ukip, but we shouldnt be despondent, he told Sky News. He said it was job done because the UK was leaving the EU and urged Ukip supporters to back Theresa May at the general election. He added: I reckon the footnote in history I will occupy is to be their first and their last MP and Im delighted. Mr Banks suggested Ukip needs a strategic bullet to the back of the head. The Leave.EU founder said: If we use the analogy of Ukip as a racing car, Nigel [Farage] was a skilled driver who drove the car around the track faster and faster, knowing when to take risks, delighting the audience. The current leadership has crashed the car at the first bend Ukip under the current leadership, without positive radical policies, is finished as an electoral force. Elections expert Professor Michael Thrasher said: Ukip received one in eight votes cast at the 2015 general election, and therefore those votes are absolutely critical in a months time at the general election. MEP Steven Woolfe, who quit Ukip in the aftermath of an altercation with a party colleague, said he would back the Tories in the general election, adding: The darker forces within Ukip have managed to rise. A dying Army veteran will stand trial for the attempted murder of an IRA suspect more than 40 years ago even though a court ruled the charge should be dropped because of insufficient evidence. A judge said in March that there was not enough evidence to show that great-grandfather Dennis Hutchings, 75, had intended to kill John-Pat Cunningham in Northern Ireland in 1974. Instead, the retired Warrant Officer who last year said he had been thrown to the wolves over the fatal shooting was told he would go on trial for attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to the man, who was 27. Investigated: Ex-soldier Dennis Hutchings, left, and Jon-Pat Cunningham But the Northern Ireland Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory has now re-instated the attempted murder charge. He also decided the trial would take place without a jury. The details emerged during a short hearing at Belfast Crown Court yesterday. The decision is understood to have surprised Mr Hutchings who has kidney failure and has been given two years to live and his legal team. Sir Gerald Howarth, a former Tory defence minister who is stepping down as an MP, said: If a court has already thrown out the attempted murder charge because of a lack of evidence then that should be it. All this leads us to the single conclusion that there is a contemptible determination on the part of some to see a British soldier in the dock at any cost. The Government has got to step in. Mr Hutchings was investigated and cleared of the Troubles killing at the time. The ex-soldier, who served 26 years in the Life Guards, was charged after the case was re-examined by a legacy unit set up by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Up to 1,000 retired troops are being investigated as suspects over actions they took decades ago at the height of the IRAs terror campaign, with growing concerns of a witch-hunt. Sir Gerald Howarth has called on the Government to step in At Armagh magistrates court two months ago, District Judge Alan White said he believed there was ample evidence from which a jury could conclude Mr Hutchings fired three shots at Mr Cunningham but not enough to show he intended to kill him. If found guilty of attempted grievous bodily harm, the retired soldier could be sentenced to up to 16 years in prison. Mr Hutchings was part of a military unit which came across Mr Cunningham, whom they believed was an armed IRA suspect, near the village of Benburb. As he ran away across a field some patrol members opened fire, killing him. It later emerged he was innocent and had a mental age of between six and ten. Mr Hutchings argues he was acting lawfully and that Mr Cunningham was acting suspiciously, was thought to be hiding a weapon and ignored an order to stop. His trial is expected to take place this year. Last month a report by the Commons defence select committee said that British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland have been left in a morally indefensible limbo by the PSNI investigation. In a scathing paper, the cross-party panel warned that if a line was not drawn urgently under the witch-hunt it would grind on for many years. A Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service spokesman said: The prosecution can confirm that the indictment presented at the Crown Court in this case includes the charge of attempted murder. As this case is currently before the courts it would be inappropriate to comment further. All decisions are taken in strict accordance with the PPS Code for Prosecutors. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Fox News tried to disguise a $3.15 million payout to an ex-employee who claimed to have had a 20-year affair with former boss Roger Ailes. Investigators are looking at the seven-figure severance package paid to Laurie Luhn when she left the company in 2011, the Washington Post reports. Luhn, who worked as the director of booking and an event planner at Fox News, later claimed she had been in a consensual but mentally abusive relationship with Ailes for two decades. She accused him of sexual harassment and claimed Ailes had pressured her into performing sexual acts. Ailes has denied the allegations. Prosecutors are investigating whether Fox News tried to disguise a $3.15 million payout to ex-employee Laurie Luhn (right in 2007) who claimed to have had a 20-year affair with former boss Roger Ailes (left) Prosecutors are now reportedly looking at how Luhn's payout was recorded on Fox News' books. The Post reported that one of the checks made out to Luhn in her severance package was signed by an executive in Los Angeles who had no direct involvement with Fox News in New York. Luhn worked mostly in New York and not Los Angeles, which raised questions about where the money for her payout came from. It has been claimed the payout was a possible attempt to make it appear that Fox News was not paying out the severance amount. Prosecutors have taken testimony from a number of witnesses, including Luhn, the network's former chief financial officer Mark Kranz, ex-media relations chief Brian Lewis and former host Juliet Huddy. Fox News, 21st Century Fox and Luhn all declined to comment on the payment. Luhn (above in 2016), who worked as the director of booking at Fox News, later claimed she had been in a consensual but mentally abusive relationship with Ailes for two decades Ailes (above) was ousted in July last year after former Fox host Gretchen Carlson filed a sex harassment suit against him. She settled with Fox for $20 million Ailes's lawyer Susan Estrich told the Post: 'Mr Ailes took no part in any decisions about the accounting, reporting or disclosing of any severance to Ms Luhn.' 21st Century Fox has previously said it is cooperating with the investigation after prosecutors started looking at whether the company had made insufficient disclosures to investors about settlements of sexual-harassment claims made against Ailes. Ailes was ousted in July last year after former Fox host Gretchen Carlson filed a sex harassment suit against him. She settled with Fox for $20 million. The CEO's replacement, Bill Shine, resigned last week amid a number of sexual harassment scandals involving the network. Shine had reportedly become an unpopular figure at the network in recent weeks, following the ouster of Bill O'Reilly amid a new sex scandal at the right-wing network. Shine had been accused in the past of helping cover up Ailes' conduct towards Fox News employees. A dozen people have been arrested following a major police operation in which authorities searched 22 properties and seized more than 11,000 tablets of MDMA. South Australia police worked alongside Australian Federal Police in a 'complex and comprehensive multi agency operation in Adelaide' to seize the pills as well as various quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis. A shotgun, knuckledusters and a machete were among the weapons seized as well as five vehicles. Scroll down for video Police have seized 11,000 MDMA pills and made 12 arrests in a major operation The men were arrested on last week in a series of coordinated efforts Police authorities will allege the men are responsible for distribution and trade of illicit drugs who are believed to be members of Hells Angels, Gypsy Jokers, Descendants and Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gangs. 'This is not the end of it. This is very much about disrupting their business model,' SA Police Assistant Commissioner Scott Duval said. The men were arrested on Wednesday and Thursday in a series of coordinated efforts. He said it is understood the gangs were working with one another and effectively partner to trade illicit drugs. All of the men were arrested 'without incident' and some have now been released on bai The suspects are mostly aged in their 20s and have been charged with a number of offences including drug trafficking. All of the men were arrested 'without incident' and some have now been released on bail. AFP commander Peter Sykora said the efforts were a great example of interagency collaboration and co-operation. South Australia police worked alongside Australian Federal Police to seize the pills as well as various quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis 'Organised crime gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs are still chancing their hand at the criminal activity that they're undertaking here in this state. 'That's drug dealing, that's violence, that's dealing in arms.' British motorists will be fined up to 640 for speeding in Europe this summer under a controversial EU law that comes into force tomorrow. UK drivers caught by speed cameras in France, the Netherlands and at least 12 other EU countries can be traced by police from those nations for the first time. But the system will only work one way because a quirk of the law means Europeans caught speeding in Britain cannot be hunted by UK police. British motorists will be fined up to 640 for speeding in Europe this summer under a controversial EU law that comes into force tomorrow The change in the rules comes as millions of British families prepare for summer holidays in the EU. Britons could previously be fined in Europe only if they were stopped by the side of the road, or were in a hired car whose owner held the drivers details. But EU countries will soon be able to obtain information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. The EU directive covers speeding and seven other motoring offences, including failing to stop at a red light, not wearing a seatbelt and driving while using a mobile phone. But the system will only work one way because a quirk of the law means Europeans caught speeding in Britain cannot be hunted by UK police Britons who break speed limits by more than 31mph could be fined up to 750 (640) under the rules. The vehicle owner is liable for fines in at least 14 EU countries, but in the UK the responsibility lies with drivers rather than registered owners. This means British police will still be unable to fine drivers from the EU who commit offences here. The Department for Transport said it would seek to revoke the powers after Britain leaves the EU in 2019. Phone and internet companies will be forced to hand details of customers communications to the police and security services within one working day, it has been revealed. Details of every internet visit, text and phone call must be disclosed in near real-time, according to a draft paper prepared by the Government. But spies and counter-terror police will not be able to see this content without a warrant signed by a judge. Phone and internet companies will be forced to hand details of customers communications to the police and security services within one working day The regulations include provisions to enable the removal of end to end encryption, used by the likes of messaging platform WhatsApp The regulations are part of the controversial Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), dubbed the snoopers charter. The Open Rights Group, which received a leaked copy of the document subject to a consultation ending on May 19 claims it includes provisions to enable the removal of end to end encryption, used by the likes of messaging platform WhatsApp. But this has been denied by the Government, which says the paper goes no further than the IPA. This states that companies will be ordered to decode customers communications only where practicable. The Home Office said: These regulations do not create any new powers on encryption. Embattled newsreader Natasha Exelby has left the ABC only weeks after she was pulled from the air over a minor blooper. It was reported she was taken off news reading duties over 'behavioural issues', which Exelby said had not been addressed with her before her gaffe went viral. It is understood Exelby denied any 'behavioural issue' claims and made the decision to leave ABC News last Wednesday. Scroll down for video Embattled newsreader Natasha Exelby has left the ABC only weeks after she was pulled from the air over a minor blooper (pictured) It is understood Exelby denied any 'behavioural issue' claims and made the decision to leave ABC News last Wednesday An ABC spokesperson told The Daily Telegraph: 'Natasha Exelby has chosen not to do some casual shifts she was rostered for. Natasha was not taken off-air because of a 'blooper' and ABC News has been clear that we're open to working with her again, including the possibility of future presenting shifts.' Exelby was caught playing with a pen when the camera cut back to her at her desk during a bulletin. Her shocked response gave viewers a good laugh but her bosses were reportedly less than amused, swiftly taking her off news reading duties and relegating her to junior producer shifts. But the ABC appeared to backpedal on their decision to sideline the news reporter following a public outcry. 'Media reports that Natasha has been 'banned', 'barred' or 'fired' are untrue. Natasha is a freelance journalist who works as a contributor,' ABC director of news Gavin Morris said in a statement last month. 'She has been rostered for various shifts and has been assured since yesterday that we want that to continue. While she is not currently doing any on-air shifts, this will be subject to normal performance management. I have spoken to Natasha and conveyed our regret that this has attracted such attention.' Daily Mail Australia has contacted the ABC News for comment. Exelby was caught playing with a pen when the camera cut back to her at her desk during a bulletin Congratulatory message to Gouzh Manukian Serzh Sargsyan sent today a congratulatory message to the RA Peoples Artist, actor Gouzh Manukian on his 80th birth anniversary and wished him good health, bliss, and new creative achievements. You are a devotee of the Armenian theatrical art, bearer and continuer of the best traditions of the Armenian school of acting, and each period of your distinguished work is signified with momentous accomplishments on the stage, radio, and on screen. Your art of acting is notable for natural talent, ability to penetrate the invisible layers of the personages and reveal them for the audience. Inspirational and emotional characters created by you are trustworthy, impressive and testify to your great performing talent, reads the congratulatory message of the President of Armenia. The Speaker of the RA National Assembly Galust Sahakyan sent congratulatory message to the acclaimed actor of theatre and cinema, Peoples Artist of Armenia Guzh Manukyan on his 80th birth anniversary. For about six decades as a well-known actor of Armenian theatre and cinema, as well as an author of theatrical performances, you not only create works of genuine art, but also feed the human emotions and memories with your created characters. Today, you continue the artists grateful activity on the stage of the Armenian stage and in the cinema with the energy and devotion welcoming and worthy of high evaluation. The Speaker of the National Assembly wished the celebrant health, longevity and all the best. An attempted Chinese takeover of a firm which makes radio equipment for Scotland Yard has prompted fears the deal could compromise national security. The Chinese government has a stake in a firm which is bidding to take over 120-year-old Cambridge-based Sepura. Business Secretary Greg Clark was understood to have been handed a report by the UK competition regulator outlining possible national security issues. An attempted Chinese takeover of Sepura, a firm which makes radio equipment for Scotland Yard, has prompted fears the deal could compromise national security Germany is one of Sepuras largest markets and its government is also reviewing the deal on public policy and/or national security concerns. Sepura makes walkie-talkies for the Metropolitan Police and other emergency services. The company, which was founded in 1896 and made radios and radars in the Second World War, is in the middle of a takeover bid from Hytera, a Chinese tech firm. It is seen as hugely important to public safety due to its contracts with law enforcement agencies. It also supplies oil, gas and mining companies. Shares in the company slumped by 26 per cent in London, as bosses fought to save the deal. Hytera is 52 per cent owned by its chairman Chen Qingzhou, a self-made billionaire who started his career as a sales manager in a mobile communications factory. Business Secretary Greg Clark (pictured) was understood to have been handed a report by the UK competition regulator outlining possible national security issue Chinas National Social Security Fund, a sovereign wealth fund, owns 1.79 per cent of its shares. Prime Minister Theresa May has been under increasing pressure to intervene in foreign takeovers that threaten key British industries. Last July she postponed a decision on a new 18billion nuclear power station which was backed by the Chinese. The new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset is being financed by the French and Chinese governments. It was eventually approved in September with safeguards to protect national security. Last year there were also concerns over Hikvision, an electronics company controlled by the Chinese government, which has sold more than a million CCTV cameras and recorders to sensitive British sites including airports and government buildings. Justin Hayward, of Cambridge Investment Research, a consultancy, said the takeover was not a national security issue but a sensible strategic move which brings investment to the UK and Cambridge. The possible UK government intervention threatens all this, he added. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: The Competition and Markets Authority report has now been received and we will be responding in due course. Responding to the German intervention, Sepura and Hytera said they were in the process of assessing any potential impact on the completion of the acquisition and will be engaging with the ministry. A Texas officer has been charged with murder in the shooting of a black 15-year-old who was inside a car leaving a party. An arrest warrant was issued Friday for Roy Oliver, who was fired from the Balch Springs Police Department in suburban Dallas following the shooting last weekend. Oliver surrendered to authorities and was arrested later on Friday. The Dallas County Sheriff's Office said in the warrant that Oliver 'intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death.' Oliver fired a rifle at a car of teenagers leaving a party April 29, killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. Arrested: Roy Oliver surrendered and was arrested on a murder charge Friday evening Jordan Edwards, 15, was fatally shot in the head by Balch Springs officer Roy Oliver near Dallas. Oliver has been charged with murder This undated family photo shows Jordan Edwards, left, posing for a photo with his father, Odell Edwards. Former police officer Roy Oliver has been charged with murder in Edwards' death Edwards and his two brothers and two other teenagers were driving away from an unruly house party in Balch Springs late Saturday night when Oliver opened fire on their vehicle with a rifle. The bullets shattered the front passenger-side window and struck Edwards. Oliver and another officer had turned up moments earlier to investigate reports of underage drinking. The Balch Springs Police Department initially claimed the vehicle was reversing towards officers in an 'aggressive manner' until body camera footage revealed the youngsters were actually driving away when Oliver began shooting with his rifle. According to the Edwards family attorney, Lee Merritt, the teens were driving away from the officers when Oliver opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, fatally wounding Jordan as he sat in the front passenger seat. The shooting led to protests calling for Oliver to be charged. About 200 people attended a vigil Thursday night in Balch Springs. The warrant issued on Friday states that any peace officer may arrest Oliver, and that Oliver could also turn himself in to authorities. About 200 people attended a vigil Thursday night in Balch Springs. The shooting led to protests calling for Oliver to be charged Hope Waters, left, her brother Jeremiah, center rear, and their mother Yulise, center right, light candles with Linda Abrasion Evans, right, during a Thursday vigil for Jordan Edwards Meanwhile, sheriff's spokeswoman Melinda Urbina said, the investigation into the shooting continues. Oliver's attorney, Cindy Stormer, didn't immediately return messages seeking comment. The attorney for the teen's family, Lee Merritt, said in a statement in response to the warrant: 'Although we realize that there remain significant obstacles ahead on the road to justice, this action brings hope that the justice system will bend against the overwhelming weight of our frustration.' Records show that Oliver was briefly suspended in 2013 following a complaint about his conduct while serving as a witness in a drunk-driving case. Personnel records from the Balch Springs, Texas, Police Department show former officer Roy Oliver was suspended for 16 hours in December 2013 after the Dallas County District Attorney's Office filed the complaint. The complaint from the prosecutor's office said the office had a hard time getting Oliver to attend the trial, he was angry he had to be there, he used vulgar language that caused an assistant district attorney to send a female intern out of the room, and he used profanity during his testimony. Oliver also was ordered to take training courses in anger management and courtroom demeanor and testimony. Jordan's parents Charmaine and Odell said in a statement they don't condone violence or threats against law enforcement following their son's death and urged people not to protest. They had called for Oliver to be charged with murder for shooting of their 15-year-old son The personnel records also included periodic evaluations that noted at least one instance when Oliver was reprimanded for being 'disrespectful to a civilian on a call.' That evaluation, dated Jan. 27, 2017, called the reprimand an isolated incident and urged Oliver to be mindful of his leadership role in the department. Oliver joined the Balch Springs department in 2011 after being an officer with the Dalworthington Gardens Police Department for almost a year, and a statement from that department indicated he had no complaints or disciplinary action there. Oliver was in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of sergeant while serving two tours in Iraq and earning various commendations. Oliver's family claim he is the 'perfect father figure' who may have been suffering from PTSD when he opened fire. According to family, Oliver, known to pals as Woodie, was previously a reserve firefighter who wanted to get into policing because he was interested in investigating arson. Roy Oliver's mother, Linda, told DailyMail.com her son would not have endangered Jordan Edwards because he has two toddlers. His ex-wife Amy Michelle gave birth to his daughter Alexa (left) on July 3, 2015 and his son Tab (right) was born 12 days later by his girlfriend Jordan's family, meanwhile, described the slain teen as a 'loving child, with a humble and sharing spirit.' Their lawyer denies that the boys were drinking and says police knew they were dealing with juveniles when they arrived at the party, making Oliver's decision to open fire all the more reckless and reprehensible. 'Not only have Jordan's brothers lost their best friend; they witnessed firsthand his violent, senseless, murder,' the family said in a statement. 'Their young lives will forever be altered. No one, let alone young children, should witness such horrific, unexplainable, violence.' A 'young girl' was sentenced to 10 years in a mock trial for illegal entry, burglary of porridge and vandalism of a small chair in the home of Three Bears just outside of Tampa Bay. Gold E. Locks was picking flowers when she walked into the home of the bears in Pinellas County, Florida and ate their porridge before breaking their littlest chair. In a mock trial performed by members of the Old Clearwater Courthouse for private school elementary students, the girl - played by real life judge Kim Campbell - explained the horror when she woke up later that evening to the sight of three bears looming over her. Gold E. Locks (pictured) was picking flowers when she walked into the home of the bears in Pinellas County, Florida and ate their porridge before breaking their littlest chair According to the Tampa Bay Times, Gold E. Locks told a jury of third graders at her trial on Friday morning: 'The next thing I remember is waking up and the bears were all standing around me. I ran out of the house.' The Clearwater Bar Association has held the mock trial of Gold E. Locks v. the Three Bears for Pinellas County's elementary school students for the past several years and had costumes for their actors to assume their roles. Representing the bear family was Staci Chisholm who walked the jury through the crime scene. While picking flowers, Gold. E. Locks stumbled upon a mouth-watering aroma that led her to a house that was unlocked. The girl entered without permission, eating the family's porridge and also shattering Babe E. Bear's chair. The Clearwater Bar Association has held the mock trial of Gold E. Locks v. the Three Bears for Pinellas County's elementary school students for the past several years and had costumes for their actors to assume their roles - Darren Stotts as Pop A. Bear, Kristine Reighard and Kit Van Pelt as Mom A. Bear, Martha Evans as Babe E. Bear (pictured) and Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Kimberly Campbell as Gold E. Locks When taking the stand, each bear expressed their shock at seeing the door wide open. Mom A. Bear - played by Kristine Reighard - made the porridge and said that she made a 'wholesome, nutritious breakfast' for her family and not for the defendant. Lock's lawyer, David Ellis called the allegations 'ridiculous' and said: 'She thought that she was invited. She certainly did not mean to hurt the bears.' He continued by placing blame on the youngest bear - played by Martha Evans - for breaking the chair. Ellis said: 'I think Babe E. Bear broke the chair. I think maybe that's what happened here.' Presiding Judge Myriam Irizarry asked the jury of hyper school children to raise their hand if they believed the girl was guilty and with a whopping majority believing she was, Gold E. Lock was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Boys at a Melbourne public school have been banned from wearing shorts in winter after parents and students complained about a lack of gender equality. Male students at Norwood Secondary College in Ringwood must wear pants during winter as part of a revised uniform policy. Mother Ange Connolly started an online petition opposing the change, saying students should have a choice in uniform throughout the year. Male students have been banned from wearing shorts in winter as part of a revised uniform policy aimed at improving equality at Norwood Secondary College (pictured) in Melbourne's east 'Most boys dislike wearing pants in winter because some of them play sport and don't feel comfortable,' Ms Connolly told Leader Community News. 'Boys go through so many uniforms and pants get ripped quite easily when playing outdoor activities.' She said her 16-year-old son received detention for the majority of his lunch beak on Monday because he wore shorts. 'I get the feeling they are trying to look like a private school and are failing to be community minded,' she said. Principal Andrew Sloane told the newspaper that the school's uniform policy was reviewed because of concerns raised by parents and students. 'It was pointed out that the girls were expected to wear a summer and a winter uniform, but that the boys were able to choose to wear shorts all year,' he said. Principal Andrew Sloane pointed out that girls were expected to wear designated winter uniforms, while boys could choose to wear shorts all year (stock image) Mr Sloane said over 400 responses from parents were considered when reviewing the school's uniform policy. 'The outcome of the review is that both girls and boys have a defined summer and winter uniform,' he said. Ms Connolly insists in her online petition that female students are allowed to 'dress according to the weather and their level of comfort.' The petition has received more than 200 signatures since it was launched two weeks ago. Fresh from his failed coup to block the Brexit Bill, serpentine Labour peer Lord Mandelson has thrown another hissy fit over Europe. The Prince of Darkness attended a Davos-style conference hosted by the Milken Institute in Los Angeles this week, where the Remoaner worked himself into a fury during a Brexit debate. When the moderator asked the former Labour business secretary for his observations during the discussion, Brexit And The Domino Effect, Im told Mandy delivered a pious, self-important rant on why Brexit is not in the public interest. Remoaner: Grumpy Peter Mandelson stormed off during a heated debate on Brexit at a conference in LA this week after ranting at length When his tirade finally finished, he furiously stomped out before the session had finished. The debating panel included property tycoon Nick Candy and high-living financier Howard Shore, a Tory donor and prominent Brexiteer. My source says: As Mandelsons speech progressed, he seemed to get angrier and angrier with what he called greedy, self-interested businessmen who care for nothing but their profits. Mandy, a former EU trade minister, is in line to receive a 35,000 annual pension from Brussels. But he insists that his gold-plated retirement pot has no bearing on his campaign to keep Britain in Europe. Mandelson grew upset during a debate at the Milken Institute . The panel included property tycoon Nick Candy (pictured above right with wife Holly Valance) and high-living financier Howard Shore, a Tory donor and prominent Brexiteer The night before his rant, Mandelson enjoyed a cosy chat with Prince Andrew, accompanied by daughter Princess Beatrice, at a drinks party thrown by Candy at the multi-millionaires palatial L.A. home. Andrew hosted a dinner for the Milken Institute at Buckingham Palace last year. In 1991, the think tanks founder, U.S. financier Michael Milken, was sentenced to ten years jail for fraud. Released after less than two years, he was banned for life from the securities industry. A spokesman for Mandy says: There was an exchange of views with Lord Mandelson disagreeing with Mr Shores vision of a de-regulated, low-tax post-Brexit Britain, respectfully saying that, in his view, this is not what the British people voted for in last years referendum. Felix Francis, son of the late Dick Francis, the Queen Mothers favourite equine thriller writer, has taken over the family business. Im about to publish my seventh novel, Pulse, says Felix, who collaborated with his best-selling father on his final books. I shall deliver the first copy to Buckingham Palace, just like my father did. I arrive through the side door and the novel is placed in the Queens overnight bag for her journey to Balmoral. Pulse features a brilliant doctor who struggles with mental health issues, which might appeal to the campaigning Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. Felix admits that he tries to protect the sensibilities of his Royal readership. You do hold back on the sex and swearing when the Queen is the first to read your novel, he says. Grumbling from the Lords after it was announced the Queen would not wear her crown and ceremonial robes for the Opening of Parliament following the General Election. Some members hoped they could ditch the ermine as well, saving them the cost of renting their robes and then sparing them three hours of perspiration. But such hopes were dashed this week after the Black Rod sent notice that all members must wear full ceremonial dress, ermine and all. Upholding tradition is one thing, but perhaps theres an ulterior motive for the strict adherence to the dress code. There are fewer gowns than there are members, says a Savile Row insider. Its a way of controlling the crowds. And having one made costs between 15,000 and 20,000. A man convicted of the gruesome killings of his best friend, the man's girlfriend and her four young children 12 years ago should be sentenced to death, a jury has found. Jurors reached their decision about Arizona prisoner Preston Strong, 50, after several hours of deliberations on Friday. Strong was found guilty last month of six counts of first-degree murder in what prosecutors called a crime motivated by money. A jury decided on Friday that Preston Strong, 50, should be sentenced to death over the brutal slaying of six people in Yuma, Arizona 12 years ago Strong spent hours killing Luis Rios, 35, 29-year-old Adrienne Heredia and her four children aged 6 to 13 back in Yuma, south west of Phoenix, in 2005. Prosecutors said Strong suffocated Heredia and three of her children - Andreas, Enrique and Inez. He fatally shot her youngest child Danny, as well as Rios. The two oldest children were bound and strangled, the 9-year-old girl also had been strangled and the 6-year-old was bound by electric cords. Strong and Rios had been arguing over money and how much time he had been spending with Heredia and her children, according to prosecutors. Strong spent hours killing 29-year-old Adrienne Heredia and her four children aged 6 to 13 (above) back in Yuma, south west of Phoenix, in 2005 Strong suffocated Heredia (right) and shot dead her 35-year-old boyfriend Luis Rios (left). Police said Rios had given Strong thousands of dollars in the past but cut him off before the killings Rios had given Strong thousands of dollars over the years but decided to cut him off at some point before the killings, leading to a fight between the friends. Prosecutors said fingerprint evidence was found on bags that were discovered near some of the victims while DNA evidence was on a nightstand and on the steering wheel of Rios' car. Last week, jurors found aggravating factors in the case against Strong. They heard the defense's presentation of mitigating factors and the prosecution's aggravating factors this week before beginning deliberations late Friday morning. Strong suffocated Heredia and three of her children and fatally shot her youngest child and Rios. Pictured above, Heredia's two oldest sons, Andreas (left) and Enrique (right) Nine-year-old girl Inez (left) was strangled, while six-year-old Danny (right) was bound by electric cords Lawyers for Strong had argued that the evidence was flimsy and that Strong's DNA could have gotten on the family's items because he spent a lot of time with them. If the jury had decided against the death penalty, Yuma County Superior Court Judge Maria Elena Cruz would have had two options - sentencing Strong to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or sentencing him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after at least 25 years. He's already serving a life prison sentence over the 2007 killing of Satinder Gill, a Yuma physician who was strangled and bludgeoned in his home. Prosecutors said a large amount of money was stolen. Accused drug smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury is reportedly refusing to leave her prison cell. The 22-year-old Australian woman is also 'permanently crying' inside notorious Colombian prison El Buen Pastor where she remains behind bars. Sources from inside the prison said Miss Sainsbury was not in a good mental state inside the small, overcrowded cell where she was kept with other prisoners. Scroll down for video Accused drug smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury is reportedly refusing to leave her prison cell El Buen Pastor (pictured) Reports of her well-being inside the prison surface after her Colombian lawyer, Orlando Herran, said she was seeing a psychologist. 'I can see she's very difficult, she's very affected, psychologically affected,' Mr Herran told Nine News. 'She's very, very crying, permanently crying and very sad.' Miss Sainsbury will remain behind bars in Colombia while she awaits trial for drug smuggling, after she was caught with 5.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase at Bogota airport on April 11. Sources from inside the prison said Miss Sainsbury was not in a good mental state inside the small, overcrowded cell where she was kept with other prisoners at El Buen Pastor El Buen Pastor prison where Miss Sainsbury remains behind bars after caught with 5.8kg of cocaine Staff at the hotel where Miss Sainsbury spent her last night of freedom, said she was accompanied by a well-dressed Colombian with a stylish haircut and dark skin everywhere she went. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said Ms Sainsbury had just the one visitor during her stay. 'Supposedly she met him around the hotel where she was staying, in the first few days when she arrived here,' Ms Hernandez said according to the The Daily Telegraph. 'She didn't speak Spanish so was supported by him. He helped her, accompanied her, they went everywhere together.' Photographs have emerged of the moment Cassandra Sainsbury checked out of her hotel Miss Sainsbury told family she called the man who gave her the packages when she was arrested, but he hung up on her and reportedly destroyed the phone. She said his name was Angelo, but she had no further information. The hotel manager said they had no record of the mystery man either. 'He came a few times, the receptionists told me, but we don't have a record of him because he didn't stay the night. She said this guy was very friendly, he spoke English and Spanish,' she said. The hotel's deputy manager also saw Miss Sainsbury with a black mystery man. 'I did see her one time with a man. The man, he was tall, he was black and they were talking in the lobby before they left the hotel,' they told Nine News. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said Cassie had arrived alone and with no booking Staff also said she spent most of her time inside the room of the hotel, which was situated in a notorious downtown Bogota neighbourhood. The hotel room where she stayed cost $50 a night. Photographs of her boarding pass and passport have also come to light after they were seized by police at Bogota International Airport. Scroll down for video This is the cramped Colombian hotel room in which accused cocaine smuggler Cassie Sainsbury spent her last night of freedom Staff said she spent most of her time inside the room of the hotel, which is situated in a notorious downtown Bogota neighbourhood The footage, obtained by 7 News, show the personal trainer cheerfully chatting with hotel staff before leaving with a suitcase allegedly packed with 5.8kgs of cocaine. The 22-year-old from Adelaide was on the last leg of a world trip that saw her visit China and the United States before arriving in South America's cocaine capital. But she drew the attention of the DEA when her plane ticket home to Australia via London was reportedly purchased last minute by an 'unknown party' in Hong Kong. Images of her boarding pass shows she was headed for London's Heathrow Airport on an Avianca Airlines Flight AV120 leaving Bogota after 11pm. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said she remembered the young blonde woman well because she was alone, had no booking and didn't speak a word of Spanish. Photographs of her boarding pass and passport have also come to light after they were seized by police Images of her boarding pass shows she was headed for London's Heathrow Airport on an Avianca Airlines Flight AV120 leaving Bogota after 11pm The 22-year-old appeared cheerful as she left the hotel in Bogota, Colombia, carrying a suitcase packed with cocaine and wearing the same clothes she was arrested in 'It is unusual for tourists to arrive without a booking, particularly if they are a young woman alone like she was,' she told News Corp Australia. The security footage comes after claims emerged the personal trainer was in tens of thousands of dollars of debt from a failed gym venture before she landed in a Colombian prison. A woman, who wished not to be named, claimed Ms Sainsbury owed money to several people after her business collapsed last September. A local florist also claimed she 'disappeared basically overnight' from Adelaide owing tens of thousands in debt, 7 News reports. The claims come as ominous social media posts come to light in which the 22-year-old predicted a monumental event before her ill-fated trip. Cassie's last night of freedom was spent in a cramped $40-a-night hotel room (pictured) in a dodgy part of Bogota near the airport A carefree Cassandra bundled her suitcase and another bag of luggage from the hotel on April 12 - totally unaware her whole world was about to be turned around Cassie was reportedly in thousands of dollars in debt from a failed gym venture before her il-fated trip In the January 10 Instagram post, she appeared to be predicting a fateful event on the horizon. '50 days until I make the biggest move I've yet to do ... 50 days until everything changes.' In another deleted post from January 24, she said: 'Moving interstate driving me cray cray! #save me! Not long before the big move now, super excited and can't wait to leave so much baggage behind.' The posts also contained hashtags suggesting her relocation to Sydney in early March, when the countdown ended. Her social media posts appeared to forewarn a monumental event before her ill-fated trip It has been claimed Ms Sainsbury owed money to several people after her Adelaide gym (pictured) collapsed last September The young woman's family claim she was on a working holiday to Colombia to promote her personal training business The posts also contained hashtags suggesting relocation to Sydney for early March, when the countdown ended She faces 25 years in jail after she was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine at an airport in Colombia Colombian police claim a tip-off led to her arrest in Bogota Other posts revealed she jetted to Bogota from LA and arrived on April 3. The young woman's family claim she was on a working holiday to Colombia to promote her personal training business. But her fiance, Scott Broadbridge said she had not been a personal trainer for six months prior to the trip, and was working for a cleaning company at the time. Colombian police claim a tip-off led to the arrest of an Australian woman who was found with 18 bags of cocaine with an estimated street value of $1.7 million. On April 3 she posted a photo of LAX - Los Angeles International Airport - with the caption 'going from China's lovely 27 degree weather to LA's 7 degree weather is killing me'. In January, posts by the young woman indicate she was a separate 'work trip', this time to Canada, where she complained of being tired and used the hashtag #hometimesoon. The young woman posted to Instagram a week before she was stopped in a Colombian airport to tell her followers about her trip which also took her to Las Angeles and China The woman went on a cruise in October, 2016, followed by a work trip to Canada in January. Her trip to Colombia recently started with time spent in China and America trying to kill them both In divorce documents, Edith claims her husband confessed to her that he was Revenge of the Nerds star Robert Carradine says he was in a psychotic state when he crashed head-on into a semi-truck in a crash that almost killed him and his now estranged wife. But the 63-year-old actor claims the near-fatal crash was wife Edith Carradine's fault because she had cut off his bipolar medication, TMZ reports. Robert alleges in divorce documents that he suffered acute psychosis when Edith cut off his medication but she still asked him to drive the day of the March 2015 crash on a Colorado highway. The claims come after Edith alleged in her legal documents filed on Thursday that Robert had confessed to her that he deliberately drove into the semi-truck with the intent of killing them both. Robert Carradine claims he was in a psychotic state when he crashed head-on into a semi-truck in a crash in 2015 but blames his wife Edith for stopping his bipolar medication Edith claims he confessed four months after the dangerous accident when she confronted him about the crash. He 'confessed to me and our two children that he deliberately drove into the truck to kill us both,' she said in the legal documents. In the divorce filings, Robert claims he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after going into a downward spiral following his brother David Carradine's death in 2009. Edith also blamed the crash on the depression Robert suffered since David died. The mother of two said in the court documents that Robert had been wide awake at the time of the accident and said he purposely veered across the highway into the full sized semi-truck. Edith, also known as Edie Mani, has been married to Robert since 1990. She is asking the court to grant her possession of Robert's 17 guns, fearing he'll hurt himself. She also lays out her financial situation, stating that she has no job and is in debt to the tune of $14,000 in attorney fees. Edith wants the court to grant her possession of guitars owned by her husband that are said to be worth thousands of dollars. But Robert claims Edith spent all of the $70,000 they received from an appearance on Celebrity Wife Swap. The actor's 2003 Mercury Marauder was destroyed after he crossed into the path of a tractor-trailer on a Colorado highway in March 2015. He and his wife were both injured. Picture courtesy of the Cortez Journal Collision: The driver of the semi-truck did not suffer any injuries in the crash. Authorities did say at the time that alcohol and speeding were not factors Following the March 2015 crash, Robert was cited with careless driving after crossing into oncoming traffic and slamming into a tractor-trailer. He and his wife were both injured in the afternoon crash near Dolores, in the state's southwestern corner. According to the Colorado State Patrol at the time, the actor's 2003 Mercury Marauder crossed into the oncoming lane on Colorado Highway 145 and collided with the tractor-trailer. The couple, who had been wearing seatbelts, were removed from the car and taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital and then transferred to Mercy Regional Medical Center in Durango. The truck driver, 59-year-old Richard Clayton of Wisconsin, wasn't injured, Trooper Josh Lewis said. James Saunders of the state patrol told The Durango Herald that neither alcohol nor speeding was a factor in the crash. Images of the scene also show that it was not snowing or raining at the time. 'The fact that they were wearing seat belts is why they are with us today,' he said. Famous role: Robert is most famous for his role in the 1984 comedy, Revenge of the Nerds Troubled: Edie claims her husband's actions were the result of depression brought on by the 2009 death of half-brother David Carradine. Robert is pictured left with David and also half-brother Keith and their father John Carrdine and sister Callista, right Robert, who is the youngest son of legendary character actor John Carradine, filed for divorce in November 2015 and divorce papers cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for ending their 25-year union. When he filed for divorce, he allegedly was asking for spousal support from Edith, while requesting that the court terminate its ability not to award spousal support to his wife, People reported. The youngest of a prolific acting family, Robert worked steadily in film and television for more than 40 years. He and half-brother David often could be seen in the same projects, including the TV series 'Kung Fu,' Walter Hill's 'The Long Riders,' and Paul Bartel's 'Cannonball.' Robert's biggest hit came in 1984 with the off-color comedy 'Revenge of the Nerds,' in which he played head nerd Lewis Skolnick. He reprised the role in the big screen sequel and two small-screen follow-ups. Britain's toughest jails are preparing themselves for unrest and violence when a smoking ban comes into force across UK jails. Four in every five inmates currently smoke, and the decision to force them to be smoke-free by August 31 is unlikely to be well received. A trial was held across 21 prisons in Wales last year, with a sharp spike in fighting and vandalism reported at HMP Cardiff. Convicts are being encouraged to sign up for courses and replacement devices in order to help them kick the habit before the deadline. Britain's toughest jails are preparing themselves for unrest and violence when a smoking ban comes into force across UK jails on August 31 (file image) Aside from the risk of increased trouble, critics fear the move could see an rise in contraband substances, such as Spice, being smuggled in. Belmarsh and Strangeways are among the notorious jails where some of the country's most ferocious prisoners will have to deal with the changes. Alex Cavendish, who is now a prison academic after doing time himself, told the Telegraph: 'Tobacco is an integral part of prison life. As well as being regarded as a treat and helping to alleviate boredom, smoking also acts as a crutch for inmates with a range of more serious issues. 'There are lots of inmates who suffer from drug addiction, anxiety, mental health problems and other associated conditions and smoking can help calm them down. To deny them that at times of great stress could just lead to greater problems.' The Prison Officers Association has confirmed that the success of the scheme will be monitored. A spokesman said: 'We are aware that the ban could lead to increased tension among some prisoners, particularly those in high security establishments, but we have learned a lot from the pilot scheme and what we have seen so far suggests that prisoners will take this on board without too much complaint' A trial was held across 21 prisons Wales, with a sharp spike in fighting and vandalism reported at HMP Cardiff (pictured) The move is a complete u-turn from last year, when smokers won back the right to carry on their tobacco habit behind bars. Senior judges ruled that the ban on smoking in public places did not apply to state-run jails. At the time, Government lawyers had warned against a particularly vigorous ban on smoking in state prisons amid fears it could spark disturbances and risk the safety of staff and inmates. The man suspected of killing a MTA conductor on Tuesday has killed himself after a five hour standoff with police at a New Jersey home on Friday. Zire King had been on the run since he allegedly shot dead his girlfriend, Jacqueline Dicks, on Monday night. A search for him led police to a home in Hackensack. City councilman David Sims told NorthJersey.com that it was a suicide, but there was no official word from police or the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. Scroll down for video Zire King had been on the run since he allegedly shot dead his girlfriend, Jacqueline Dicks, on Monday night at her home in New Jersey When the whole ordeal was over, a woman at the home told police that King had barricaded himself inside a closet of a second floor bedroom of the Hackensack home, pictured A NYPD Fugitive Task Force and local police were outside the home for five hours on Friday evening hoping that the 44-year-old would come out of the home and surrender. When police first arrived, a woman at the home told them that King had barricaded himself inside a closet of a second floor bedroom, reported PIX 11. The standoff began around 2pm and lead to a lengthy lock down at the Martin Luther King Jr Senior Center across the street. At 5.45pm, after many hours with no word from the suspect, police deployed tear gas inside the huse. An hour later, SWAT members entered and found him dead in the closet. The standoff began around 2pm and lead to a five hour lock down at the Martin Luther King Jr Senior Center, pictured, which is across the street from the home King was suspected of walking up behind his girlfriend Dicks, who was 41, and firing a .40-caliber bullet into the back of her head. The couple, pictured together, dated for five years and had a four-month-old child King was suspected of walking up behind his girlfriend Dicks, who was 41, and firing a .40-caliber bullet into the back of her head. The weapon police believe that he used was later found in the trunk of his car, reported the New York Daily News. Late Monday night, police believe that King picked up the victim at work before driving her back to her Brooklyn home and killing her in cold blood. The 44-year-old man emerged as the prime suspect after he was questioned and released by detectives. King is suspected to have killed Dicks at her home in Brooklyn, 1010 Elton St, pictured Late Monday night, police believe that King (right) picked up Jacqueline Dicks (left) at work before driving her back to her Brooklyn home in cold blood Additionally, video recovered from the neighborhood where the Dicks lived showed that King had lied in answering police questions, and that he was likely responsible for the woman's death. The couple had a four-month-daughter and had been dating for more than five years, relatives and police told the Daily News. The victim, who is a mother of six and grandmother of three, started work at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 11 months ago. Shavarsh Kocharyan comments on Azerbaijani Deputy FMs statement Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyans answer to Armenpress agency Mr. Kocharyan, how would you comment on Azerbaijans deputy FM Azimovs statements on the Karabakh settlement? The settlement of any conflict, indeed, must be based on international rights and frstly on the UN Charter. The deputy FM needs to be reminded that, according to the UN charter, the territorial integrity of a state cannot be opposed to the selfdetermination right of the people. In terms of the UN Security Councils 1993 resolutions, it was Azerbaijan who failed the realization of these resolutions, resolutions, the main requirement of which were stopping military operations. The existence of NKR territories under Azerbaijani control, as well as Azerbaijani territories under NKR control, are one of the consequences of Azerbaijans aggression against the self-determined Nagorno Karabakh and the failure to meet the UN Security Councils 1993 resolutions by Azerbaijan itself. The Deputy FM, basically, forgot that it is only the Nagorno Karabakh population who must take part in the referendum having a mandatory legal force on the final status of Nagorno Karabakh. While in this issue, citing the Azerbaijani Constitution is irrelevant, because the Constituion has been adopted after the trilateral ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia. By this, Azerbaijan has recognized Nagorno Karabakh at least as a party of the conflict. Moreover, no state has the authority to oppose its internal legislation, including the Constitution, to internationally assumed commitments, moreover commitments assumed under the UN Charter. Finally, it only remains to sympathize Mr. Azimov, who doesnt conceal his disappointment that in case of the Minsk Group co-chairs the Azerbaijani caviar diplomacy was unsuccessful and the Minsk Group Co-chairs do not serve Azerbaijans interests. An ex-model has pleaded guilty to possession of GBL, often used as a 'date rape' drug. Former V8 grid girl Genee Emma Thornton-Shaw, 28, had gamma-butyrolactone in her 'drink' bottle, The Courier Mail reported. The dangerous drug nicknamed 'coma in a bottle' is used by date rapists to spike drinks because it is colourless and odourless. Former V8 grid girl Genee Emma Thornton-Shaw, 28, had gamma-butyrolactone in her 'drink' bottle Police discovered the drug in a Powerade bottle in Paradise Point on the Gold Coast in August last year. They initially thought the drug was GHB, which is similar to GBL. Both drugs are used as a paint stripper or in cleaning products. Thornton-Shaw appeared via video link in the Southport Magistrates Court on Friday. She was fined $114.80 to pay for law enforcement and administration costs. She is expected to face Brisbane Supreme Court for further drugs charges on May 25. One of four men convicted of the Snowtown serial murders could be released from jail as early as next month. Mark Ray Haydon was jailed for assisting John Bunting and Robert Wagner murder seven out of 11 victims. The 58-year-old has applied for early release from the Parole Board in a bid to seek freedom. Haydon becomes eligible for parole 18 years after his arrest on May 21 1999. Snowtown killer Mark Ray Haydon may be free from jail as early as next month The 58-year-old has applied for parole angering the families of his victims Along with his co-accused, Bunting and Wagner, Haydon was arrested the day after the horrific discovery of eight bodies left mutilated in acid-filled barrels in the vault of the former Snowtown bank. News of the impending release has angered the victims' families who will have an opportunity to oppose his release. Haydon's wife Elizabeth was one of the murdered however in 2004 a Supreme Court was unable to decide if Haydon was involved in her death in November 1998 as well as the torture killing of Troy Youde in 2001 at Murray Bridge. It was alleged by prosecutors Haydon had laughed when Bunting opened the large barrel to show him the disfigured remains of his wife - including her severed hands. Haydon's wife Elizabeth (pictured right) was one of the murdered however he was not convicted of her death Police alleged Haydon laughed when he was shown her dismembered body in one of the barrels Bunting and Wagner will not ever be released and James Vlassakis - also involved in the murders - will be eligible for release in 2025. The official date for Haydon's possible release is in 15 days. The Parole Board will not grant his application if the victims' families make formal complaints. Commissioner for Victims' Rights Michael O'Connell who has spoken with some of the victims' families said they were 'strongly opposed' to Haydon's release. 'Their presence and participation in parole hearings is essential as victims should be genuine participants in the criminal justice system,' Mr O'Connell said. The official date for Haydon's possible release is in 15 days. Pictured: Victims Micheal Gardiner, 19 and Ray Davies, 26 Victim Barry Lane, 42, an openly gay cross-dresser was tortured then killed He said Haydon's release would bring on grief and a sense of sadness in addition to anger to the surviving family members. 'All victims who have responded are 'strongly opposed' to Haydon's release on parole but also, should the Parole Board approve his release, want to be protected and have nothing whatsoever to do with a man linked to most heinous, despicable crimes,' he told The Advertiser. Haydon plead guilty to assisting serial killers conceal the killings of Mrs Haydon and Troy Youde after a jury could not reach a verdict on their murders. David Johnson, 24, was the final victim in the murder spree and the only one to be actually killed in Snowtown In a victim impact statement from Jodie Elliot - Elizabeth Haydon's sister, said she would never forgive Mark Haydon who she hated. She said she had never hated anyone however strongly hated him and felt vengeance toward him. Haydon was jailed for 25 years and initially charged with 12 counts of murder however two were quashed ahead of the separate trial in 2004. Riot squads have been forced to storm a Perth juvenile detention centre overnight after detainees smashed windows and sparked fires. Nine detainees reportedly lit scrub fires inside Banksia Hill Detention Centre while they ran amok outside of their cells about 6pm on Friday. Prison officers at the Canning Hill detention centre, in Western Australia's south, were forced to lock themselves in fortified rooms fearing for their lives. Riot squads and mounted police were called in to control the situation, Seven News reports. Scroll down for video Riot squads and mounted police were called in to get the situation under control on Friday The riot comes one night after three juvenile detainees were injured at the centre in a separate riot. Officers stormed the facility on Thursday night after five inmates aged between 15 and 18-years-old broke windows and lit fires. One of the teenagers reportedly got hold of a nine kilogram gas cylinder, which sparked fears the scrub fire could rage out of control. The police were forced to use flash bombs and pepper spray during the riot, which took two hours to control. Nine detainees reportedly lit scrub fires inside Banksia Hill Detention Centre while they ran amok outside of their cells about 6pm on Friday Three inmates were injured with one suffering an asthma attack, one a cut leg and the third an eye injury caused by glass. This week's riots were not the first at the Banksia Hill Detention Centre. The centre has been home to a string of riots, with four reported in the second half of 2016 alone. On November 12, 2016 the centre was locked down for three hours after inmates threw bricks at the guards, The West reports. Inmates also threw bricks at the windows causing $150,000 to $400,000 worth of damage. On September 1, 2016, four inmates armed themselves with home-made weapons and caused $150,000 worth of damage at the centre. Special riot police were called in when the riot broke out on Friday night - it took them two hours to control the situation Union secretary Toni Walkington said guards at the centre were 'outnumbered' and put in danger due to the high number of inmates. 'Things seem to be somewhat unsettled,' she told Seven News. The Union said Western Australia needed a second remand facility to cater for the overwhelming numbers. Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan agreed. Mr McGowan said on Friday there was a chance the Rangeview Juvenile Remand Centre, which closed in 2012, could be reopened. 'We need to get to the bottom of what's going on here. This is happening way too often,' he said. A young boy mauled by two American Pit Bull Terriers who played 'tug-of-war' with his body has lost a bid to receive compensation. The incident occurred at an ACT government housing property in 2010 when Jack Hartigan was six-years-old, but on Friday a judge ruled the government was not responsible for the child's injuries. In describing the attack Jack said: 'It was basically a game of tug-of-war between the dogs. Jack's parents, Patrick Hartigan and Joanna Mangan, filed a civil action against the ACT Commissioner for Social housing in 2015 (jack and his parent's pictured) Jack Hartigan needed 17 medical procedures and lost 13 teeth in the attack. He had to have skin grafted onto his head where the dogs had bitten him 'And it really hurt, from all the pain of them stretching me. And then the one on my leg let go and went onto my face.' The boy, his friend and two adults had waited at the front door while the woman put the two dogs outside. But once they were inside the dogs managed to storm their way in through a door left open in the kitchen, The Canberra Times reported. Jack needed 17 medical procedures and lost 13 teeth in the attack. He had to have skin grafted onto his head where the dogs had bitten him. On Friday the court heard there was no point suing the woman because it was unlikely she would be able to pay. So Jack's parents, Patrick Hartigan and Joanna Mangan, filed a civil action against the ACT Commissioner for Social housing in 2015. They said the government had breached a duty of care they owed Jack. The court heard neighbours had previously complained about the dogs, and they had been impounded at one stage years before the attack. But in a report, Justice Penfold said she couldn't find the ACT government owed Jack a duty of care. 'In the end, so long as it remains within the law for a public housing tenant to keep a dangerous dog within the premises concerned, there is little that [the government] can do to ensure visitors... are not at risk of encountering such a dog,' she said. Advertisement Mexicans and Americans celebrated Cinco de Mayo on both sides of the border on Friday with tasty food, exciting parades and flamboyant costumes. Often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla between the victorious ragtag army of largely Mexican Indian soldiers against the invading French forces of Napoleon III. Scroll down for video Singer Brenda Crystal walks among the crowd while performing as people attend Cinco de Mayo celebration at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument in downtown Los Angeles People take part in a parade during the Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the Penon de los Banos neighborhood of Mexico City Women wear traditional Mexican headdresses in Mexico City (left) and in Los Angeles (right) during Cinco de Mayo Celebrations that took place in both countries The day is observed in certain parts of Mexico, but grew in popularity during the Mexican-American 1960's Chicano movement in California, when Latinos and abolitionists linked the victory to the fight against slavery. Photos in Los Angeles and Mexico City show people decked out in festive outfits participating in parades, playing music and dancing through the streets. In Mexico City, actors put on a reenactment of The Battle of Puebla. People dressed up in Zacapoaxtla indigenous regalia clashed with those playing the part of French soldiers. Often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla between the victorious ragtag army of largely Mexican Indian soldiers against the invading French forces of Napoleon III. Pictured in Mexico city, people reenact the famous battle The holiday is not widely celebrated in Mexico, but it is a chance to celebrate Mexican heritage in some of the major cities. Every year in Mexico City people put on a reenactment of the Battle of Puebla A man dressed as a revolutionary Zacapoaxtla indigenous soldier marches during the re-enactment and 'fought' against people dressed as French soldiers in Mexico City People dressed as the Zacapoaxtla indigenous army, left, clash with others playing the part of French soldiers, right, celebrating the victory of the ill-equipped Mexican army in Mexico City A couple dressed in revolutionary Zacapoaxtla outfits take a photo together in Mexico City during the Cinco De Mayo celebrations Additionally, people dressed in the revolutionary indigenous outfits danced through the streets of the Penon de los Banos neighborhood of the Mexican capital city. In Los Angeles, Mexican-Americans gathered to celebrate their culture near the El Pueblo de Los Angeles historical monument in downtown LA. People celebrated by wearing traditional Mexican outfits, playing music, and dancing through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Young dancers in red dresses represent the Jalisco region of Mexico during Cinco de Mayo celebrations at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument in downtown Los Angeles A young girl dances during the celebrations in Los Angeles wearing a red dress that represents the Jalisco region of Mexico, where the Battle of Puebla took place A Mexican dancer plays drums next to a statue of Spanish King Carlos III in downtown Los Angeles. The holiday grew popular in the United States during the Mexican-American Chicano movement in California and Latinos and abolitionists who linked the victory to the fight against slavery People celebrated by wearing traditional Mexican outfits, playing music, and dancing through the streets of downtown Los Angeles However, in the United States there is some resentment towards celebrating the holiday due to President Trump's stance on immigration and desire to build a border wall between America and Mexico. One Albequerque, New Mexico, resident, Yazmin Irazoqui Ruiz, said that she's reluctant to take part in the celebrations, saying: 'I mean, what is it about? You want to eat our food and listen to our music, but when we need you to defend us, where are you?' The President did take the time to send warm wishes to everyone celebrating on Friday. A man dressed as a revolutionary Zacapoaxtla indigenous soldier enjoys a beer as he marches during a celebratory parade in Mexico City Mexican-American dancers performed during the Cinco de Mayo celebrations wearing traditional headdresses and carrying instruments in Los Angeles In Los Angeles, Mexican-Americans gathered to celebrate their culture near the El Pueblo de Los Angeles historical monument in downtown LA Trump said that the 19th century battle is a reminder of the 'incredible courage and resolve' of the Mexican people as they defended their country and freedoms. He says it remains an important symbol of Mexican bravery and tenacity. Some Mexican Americans and immigrants, though, are feeling uneasy about Trump's immigration policies and rhetoric. He has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration and launched his presidential campaign by attacking the character of Mexican immigrants. Trump marked Cinco de Mayo last year by tweeting 'I love Hispanics!' with a photo of himself eating a taco bowl. A child carries the French flag during a parade at the reenactment in Mexico City. He, as well as those around him, are dressed up as French soldiers and are celebrating their country's defeat of the French forces in 1862 A Mexican-American family wearing sombreros pose for a souvenir picture as they are celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Los Angeles A police officer has been shot in the face at a Massachusetts motel, where the shooter is holed up in a room. Police have officers and vehicles stationed around the grounds of the Motel 6 in Braintree, just south of Boston. Police say officers were at the motel to check a person's warrant status Friday night when the person opened fire around 9pm, hitting one officer. Scroll down for video A police officer was shot in the face at the Braintree Motel 6, pictured, just south of Boston, Massachusetts on Friday night. Officers were going to the motel to check the person's warrant status before he shot The officer was brought to Boston Medical Center and is in stable condition. He was able to speak while being taken to the hospital, according to Boston 25 News and the police chief said the officer is responding well to the surgery he had Friday night. Though the name of the officer has not been released, Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said: 'He's a very good officer,' according to NBC Boston. He added: 'We understand now his injuries are not life threatening, and so we will continue to monitor this situation.' Witnesses to the scene at the Motel 6 say they heard at least three gunshots, possibly up to seven or eight. One witness told CBS Boston: 'I was just watching TV and then I heard gunshots... And that was about it. I went outside and they had the guy trapped in the corner so I just got evacuated, kicked out of the room.' Officers from the State Police, SWAT teams and officers from surrounding towns have responded to the scene, where the suspect is still holed up in a room in the Motel 6. The Braintree Police Chief has said that everyone else has been evacuated and there is no longer a threat to the public, according to Boston 25 News. A nearby train station and many of the streets surrounding the station have been blocked off. Police say they hope to contact and negotiate peacefully with the shooter. A man who answered a phone at the motel wouldn't talk and hung up. Advertisement Hundreds of mourners have gathered to farewell 'kindergarten superstar' Maria-Susana Vaafusuaga, 5, who was hit by a truck and killed in front of her mother after her first day at school. The young girl, known as Sana by her family, had been crossing the road last Wednesday after attending Tacoma Public School, on the NSW Central Coast, when was hit by the truck at 3.40pm, just metres from her mother. Mourners wore black and white and adorned their hair with purple flowers, Sana's favourite colour, for the moving farewell at Wyong Christian School on Saturday. Hundreds of mourners have gathered to farewell 'kindergarten superstar' Maria-Susana Vaafusuaga, 5, who was hit by a truck and killed in front of her mother after her first day at school Sana (seen in the pictured wearing her school uniform) had been crossing the road last Wednesday after attending Tacoma Public School, on the NSW Central Coast, when was hit by the truck at 3.40pm, just metres from her mother Sana usually held her big sister Philomena's hand to cross the road after the got off the bus, but last Wednesday she didn't Sana's aunt Malili Foini reveled the shattering moment she held her dying niece to The Daily Telegraph. 'I held her, I just tried to hold her up,' Ms Foini said. 'Some beautiful people came and helped with umbrellas and CPR but nothing can bring her back.' Sana's older sister Philomena also witnessed the horrific tragedy 'She would usually hold her sister's hand but yesterday she didn't,' Ms Foini said. 'If they had held hands the truck may have taken them both.' Sana loved singing songs from Moana and drawing rainbows and had dreams of growing up to become a teacher. Mourners wore black and white and adorned their hair with purple flowers, Sana's favourite colour, for the moving farewell at Wyong Christian School on Saturday Friends and family carried a large white blanket at the sad scene, as mourners held each other in comfort at the tearful funeral on Saturday A funeral procession led by a woman carrying a large wreath covered in purple flowers Friends and family carried a large white blanket at the sad scene, as mourners held each other in comfort at the tearful funeral on Saturday. There was a heart breaking poem featured on part of the order of service, adorned with butterflies and an image of the bubbly young girl. 'Don't think of her as gone away, her journey has just begun,' the poem reads. 'Life holds so many facets, this earth is only one.' Butterflies were a common motif at Sana's funeral and also adorned her small white casket which was topped with purple flowers There was a heart breaking poem featured on part of the order of service, adorned with butterflies and an image of the bubbly young girl Butterflies were a common motif at Sana's funeral and also adorned her small white casket which was topped wit hpurple flowers Sana's loved ones pose together in front of her casket holding photos of the fiver-year-old and her toys Two tearful mourners wearing badges with Sana's face are seen holding each other following the service A mourner wipes away a tear as the group leaves the service on Saturday Two women dressed in black and white cling to each other as they watch Sana's casket Sana's loved ones hug each other at her funeral on Saturday, the five-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a truck while crossing the road on her first day of school A mourner holds a white floral wreath at the service on Sunday Hundreds gather to pay tribute and remember the life of the much-loved five-year-old Sana's family say they do not blame the truck driver for the little girl's death Sana's family say they do not blame the truck driver for the little girl's death, her uncle Allan Jones telling the Daily Telegraph that the driver will have to live with what's happened for the rest of his life. Aunt Malili Foini echoed his sentiments. 'At the moment we don't blame anyone,' Ms Foini said. 'We don't point the finger at anyone, we just focus on our family.' The kindergarten student from Tacoma Public School was going to her uncle's house when she was hit. Two boys have died in a car accident on the Newell Highway north of Dubbo early Saturday morning. A 9-year-old and a 12-year-old were travelling with three other people in a 4WD approximately 12 kilometres north of Dubbo, north west of Sydney, when their vehicle collided with a truck. The pair died at the scene and a four-year-old who suffered internal injuries was airlifted to Westmead Children's Hospital in a serious condition. Scroll down for video Two boys have died in a car accident on the Newell Highway north of Dubbo The 9-year-old and a 12-year-old were travelling with three other people An adult male and female were in the vehicle and treated for minor injuries but did not require hospital attention. Officers from Orana Local Area Command attended the scene. The male truck driver was the only person in the B-double truck and was treated at the scene for serious injuries and airlifted to hospital. As authorities investigate motorists are asked to use an alternative route as the Newell Highway will be closed while the Crash Investigation Unit assesses the scene. This is the moment accused cocaine smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury is led away by boarder patrol after checking in for her flight. In footage obtained by Nine News on Saturday, Miss Sainsbury can be seen handing her passport to an officer at the Bogota airport immigration desk. The 22-year-old Australian woman appears calm throughout her exchange with the guard, even smiling and chatting with the officer. Scroll down for video In footage obtained by Nine News on Saturday, Miss Sainsbury can be seen walking up to immigration Miss Sainsbury's mood appears to change when the boarder patrol officer asks her to follow him and leads her away from the desk. The footage, which cuts out when Miss Sainsbury is lead away, comes weeks after she was arrested on drug trafficking charges after airport staff allegedly found 5.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase on April 11. Now weeks after the ill-fated day, Miss Sainsbury is reportedly refusing to leave her prison cell. The 22-year-old Australian woman is reportedly 'permanently crying' inside notorious Colombian prison El Buen Pastor where she remains behind bars. Sources from inside the prison said Miss Sainsbury was not in a good mental state inside the small, overcrowded cell where she was kept with other prisoners. Scroll down for video In footage obtained by Nine News on Saturday, Miss Sainsbury can be seen handing her passport to immigration patrol before she is lead away Accused drug smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury is reportedly refusing to leave her prison cell El Buen Pastor (pictured) Reports of her well-being inside the prison surface after her Colombian lawyer, Orlando Herran, said she was seeing a psychologist. 'I can see she's very difficult, she's very affected, psychologically affected,' Mr Herran told Nine News. 'She's very, very crying, permanently crying and very sad.' Miss Sainsbury will remain behind bars in Colombia while she awaits trial for drug smuggling, after she was caught with 5.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase at Bogota airport on April 11. Sources from inside the prison said Miss Sainsbury was not in a good mental state inside the small, overcrowded cell where she was kept with other prisoners at El Buen Pastor El Buen Pastor prison where Miss Sainsbury remains behind bars after caught with 5.8kg of cocaine Staff at the hotel where Miss Sainsbury spent her last night of freedom, said she was accompanied by a well-dressed Colombian with a stylish haircut and dark skin everywhere she went. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said Ms Sainsbury had just the one visitor during her stay. 'Supposedly she met him around the hotel where she was staying, in the first few days when she arrived here,' Ms Hernandez said according to the The Daily Telegraph. 'She didn't speak Spanish so was supported by him. He helped her, accompanied her, they went everywhere together.' Photographs have emerged of the moment Cassandra Sainsbury checked out of her hotel Miss Sainsbury told family she called the man who gave her the packages when she was arrested, but he hung up on her and reportedly destroyed the phone. She said his name was Angelo, but she had no further information. The hotel manager said they had no record of the mystery man either. 'He came a few times, the receptionists told me, but we don't have a record of him because he didn't stay the night. She said this guy was very friendly, he spoke English and Spanish,' she said. The hotel's deputy manager also saw Miss Sainsbury with a black mystery man. 'I did see her one time with a man. The man, he was tall, he was black and they were talking in the lobby before they left the hotel,' they told Nine News. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said Cassie had arrived alone and with no booking Staff also said she spent most of her time inside the room of the hotel, which was situated in a notorious downtown Bogota neighbourhood. The hotel room where she stayed cost $50 a night. Photographs of her boarding pass and passport have also come to light after they were seized by police at Bogota International Airport. Scroll down for video This is the cramped Colombian hotel room in which accused cocaine smuggler Cassie Sainsbury spent her last night of freedom Staff said she spent most of her time inside the room of the hotel, which is situated in a notorious downtown Bogota neighbourhood The footage, obtained by 7 News, show the personal trainer cheerfully chatting with hotel staff before leaving with a suitcase allegedly packed with 5.8kgs of cocaine. The 22-year-old from Adelaide was on the last leg of a world trip that saw her visit China and the United States before arriving in South America's cocaine capital. But she drew the attention of the DEA when her plane ticket home to Australia via London was reportedly purchased last minute by an 'unknown party' in Hong Kong. Images of her boarding pass shows she was headed for London's Heathrow Airport on an Avianca Airlines Flight AV120 leaving Bogota after 11pm. Hotel manager Ingrid Hernandez said she remembered the young blonde woman well because she was alone, had no booking and didn't speak a word of Spanish. Photographs of her boarding pass and passport have also come to light after they were seized by police Images of her boarding pass shows she was headed for London's Heathrow Airport on an Avianca Airlines Flight AV120 leaving Bogota after 11pm The 22-year-old appeared cheerful as she left the hotel in Bogota, Colombia, carrying a suitcase packed with cocaine and wearing the same clothes she was arrested in 'It is unusual for tourists to arrive without a booking, particularly if they are a young woman alone like she was,' she told News Corp Australia. The security footage comes after claims emerged the personal trainer was in tens of thousands of dollars of debt from a failed gym venture before she landed in a Colombian prison. A woman, who wished not to be named, claimed Ms Sainsbury owed money to several people after her business collapsed last September. A local florist also claimed she 'disappeared basically overnight' from Adelaide owing tens of thousands in debt, 7 News reports. The claims come as ominous social media posts come to light in which the 22-year-old predicted a monumental event before her ill-fated trip. Cassie's last night of freedom was spent in a cramped $40-a-night hotel room (pictured) in a dodgy part of Bogota near the airport A carefree Cassandra bundled her suitcase and another bag of luggage from the hotel on April 12 - totally unaware her whole world was about to be turned around Cassie was reportedly in thousands of dollars in debt from a failed gym venture before her il-fated trip In the January 10 Instagram post, she appeared to be predicting a fateful event on the horizon. '50 days until I make the biggest move I've yet to do ... 50 days until everything changes.' In another deleted post from January 24, she said: 'Moving interstate driving me cray cray! #save me! Not long before the big move now, super excited and can't wait to leave so much baggage behind.' The posts also contained hashtags suggesting her relocation to Sydney in early March, when the countdown ended. Her social media posts appeared to forewarn a monumental event before her ill-fated trip It has been claimed Ms Sainsbury owed money to several people after her Adelaide gym (pictured) collapsed last September The young woman's family claim she was on a working holiday to Colombia to promote her personal training business The posts also contained hashtags suggesting relocation to Sydney for early March, when the countdown ended She faces 25 years in jail after she was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine at an airport in Colombia Colombian police claim a tip-off led to her arrest in Bogota Other posts revealed she jetted to Bogota from LA and arrived on April 3. The young woman's family claim she was on a working holiday to Colombia to promote her personal training business. But her fiance, Scott Broadbridge said she had not been a personal trainer for six months prior to the trip, and was working for a cleaning company at the time. Colombian police claim a tip-off led to the arrest of an Australian woman who was found with 18 bags of cocaine with an estimated street value of $1.7 million. On April 3 she posted a photo of LAX - Los Angeles International Airport - with the caption 'going from China's lovely 27 degree weather to LA's 7 degree weather is killing me'. In January, posts by the young woman indicate she was a separate 'work trip', this time to Canada, where she complained of being tired and used the hashtag #hometimesoon. The young woman posted to Instagram a week before she was stopped in a Colombian airport to tell her followers about her trip which also took her to Las Angeles and China The woman went on a cruise in October, 2016, followed by a work trip to Canada in January. Her trip to Colombia recently started with time spent in China and America A man has describe his heroic actions to protect a injured woman from a knife-wielding attacker with a stick. One man was arrested by heavily-armed police in an early morning siege at a Doveton home in Melbourne's southeast, after three people were stabbed. One of the victims is believed to be the alleged attacker's sister, who fled to Ina Maramota's home where he fended off the offender with a stick. Scroll down for video Ina Maramota (right) saved an injured woman from a knife-wielding attacker Three people have been stabbed and one man arrested by heavily armed police at a suburban home Mr Maramota had been inside his home with his partner, Anna Meteka, and their six children when he heard the woman being threatened outside on the street, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. 'I had a big stick - I was pushing him away with the stick,' Mr Maramota said. 'Then I grabbed her [the injured woman] - she was behind me - and I was using the stick at the same time.' After managing to get himself and the injured woman safely inside, Mr Maramota barricaded themselves, as the armed attacker remained outside, shouting. They were forced to escape by climbing over the back fence before authorities stormed the family home. It's understood by the time they escaped, the alleged attacked had entered the home. Two people have been taken to The Alfred hospital, but the seriousness of their condition is not yet known Mr Maramota Anna Meteka, and their six children were forced to escape their home by climbing over the back fence before authorities stormed the property However, he was found out the front of the Waratah Avenue home threatening self-harm before police deployed a taser and arrested him. He has been taken to hospital for assessment before being interviewed. A man has been taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries and two women have also been transported with serious injuries. The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are yet to be determined but all parties are believed to be known to each other. Marc Vallieres and two of his employees have been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment after their rehab clinic in Woodbury, Tennessee was raided by police Police have shut down a rehabilitation facility being run by a Scientologist in Tennessee after two people were found being held there allegedly against their will. The manager and two of his employees have now been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment after a man called 911 in February to report that he had been locked in a cabin at a facility in Woodbury - a small rural town south-east of Nashville. The man told police he was at the rehab facility so he could get cleansed through Scientology but claims he was forced to stay, was allegedly assaulted and given unknown medications. The so-called rehab facility, which is believed to have multiple locations in close proximity, is not associated with the Church of Scientology. A judge ordered this week for the facility to be permanently closed. Authorities said when they originally arrived at the facility in February they saw the man peering out at them through a window of one of the cabins, the Canon Courier reports. A man called 911 in February to report that he had been locked in a cabin at a facility in Woodbury for nine months. Above is a picture of a cabin as advertised on the facility's website Dennis Flamond (left) and Hans Lytle (right) were also arrested and have already pleaded guilty to two counts of false imprisonment They described the facility, known as the Life Center for a New Tomorrow, as a double wide trailer with a number of tiny cabins located behind it in a locked paddock. The man told police he had been held their against his will for nine months and he just wanted to go home. His room only had a single bed with one sheet and the only working light was in the bathroom. Police subsequently searched the facility and found a woman who made the same allegations of abuse. The female victim, who police say was mentally handicapped, had been imprisoned in her cabin for 14 hours a day with no living standards. Both victims were taken to hospital for treatment. The manager of the facility, Marc Vallieres, was arrested and charged with two felony counts of facilitation to kidnapping. He is a Scientologist and is believed to have used his training from the church to open up his own treatment facility to run a therapy program. Authorities were called to the facility, known as the Life Center for a New Tomorrow, (above) after one of the victims called and said he was being held against his will Two men who worked for him as caretakers, Dennis Flamond and Hans Lytle, were also arrested and have already pleaded guilty to two counts of false imprisonment. None of the men arrested were found to be licensed healthcare professionals. Scientology Nashville pastor Reverend Brian Fesler told Fox News 17 that the Life Center run by Vallieres was in no way associated with the Church of Scientology. 'I had no idea what was going on down there. You can't open a Scientology facility unless it's approved by the church,' Rev Fesler said. 'It has nothing to do with our church. It's nothing we would be involved in, in any way.' The facility's website described it as an 'alternative to psychiatric treatment'. It charges clients $2,500 a week for the first month of treatment, which is then reduced to $2,000 per week after that. The website states that the price includes: 'A supervisor 7 days a week, lodging, prepared meals, activities and any other help we can provide to the guest in order for him/her to become self sufficient and able to function in society according to his/her ability.' A 50-year-old man has been accused of a string of 'peeping tom' offences against a teenage girl. He will face court over allegedly taking photographs and a video of the unsuspecting girl in her bathroom. Detectives in Joondalup, Perth, charged the man after an investigation into a number of incidents in Woodvale. A 50-year-old-man has been accused of a string of 'peeping tom' offences against a teenage girl (stock image) Police will allege between December 12 last year and April 19, the man took photos and recorded videos on his mobile phone of the young girl in her bathroom without her knowing. The man was interviewed by detectives on Friday, when they allegedly found several images on his device. He has been charged with 12 counts of trespassing and 18 counts of using a device to record visually a private activity. He will front Perth Magistrates Court on Saturday. A man was caught on camera spray painting the word 'f*g' on the door of a building in Queens, New York on Tuesday. The vandal is believed to be responsible for at least 16 incidents of homophobic graffiti around the 114th precinct area of Queens, much of it directed at Barack Obama. The NYPD has shared the footage in the hope of catching the suspect, who can be clearly seen in surveillance video painting on the glass door. A man was caught on camera spray painting the word 'f*g' on the door of a building in Queens, New York This most recent tag matches the handwriting and profile of the other 15 that police suspect the man of doing. Earlier in the week, two different garages in Astoria, Queens, were spray-painted with the words 'Obama f***ot'. Similar graffiti was found at a subway station in April also. And in March, an office building in Astoria shared by two lawmakers was defaced with the anti-Obama writing three different times. Though his face is mostly obscured in the video, police described the suspect as six-feet-tall and about 200 pounds, and said he was last seen wearing a black hooded jacket, black pants, and dark boots Though his face is mostly obscured in the video, police described the suspect as six-feet-tall and about 200 pounds, and said he was last seen wearing a black hooded jacket, black pants, and dark boots. The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is currently investigating the spree and hoping to find more incriminating footage from other security cameras around the area, according to 114th Precinct commander Deputy Inspector Peter Fortune. Anyone with information is asked to call NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS. The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website. Two mothers have been charged after police busted them running an alleged prostitution ring from their Pennsylvania home while their children were present. Police raided the property in Pittsburgh on Thursday and arrested Brittany Vareha, 27, and 41-year-old Malinda Chalmers. Police busted them after responding to an advertisement on a website called Escort Babylon that stated: 'Fine female with curves that don't quit looking to help you relieve your stress.' Brittany Vareha, 27, and Malinda Chalmers, 41, were arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday after police busted them in an undercover prostitution sting An undercover detective called the number listed and set up a time to visit the house. Vareha allegedly let the officer into the home and told him to go to the third floor where Chalmers was waiting for him. Chalmers told the detective to get comfortable and the visit would cost $60, according to the criminal complaint. She was arrested and allegedly told officers she had been actively involved in prostitution for several weeks. Police busted them after responding to an only advertisement that stated: 'Fine female with curves that don't quit looking to help you relieve your stress' Her 15-year-old son was in one of the back bedrooms when the ordeal was unfolding. Vareha was arrested on an outstanding warrant. She was found in a locked bathroom with drug paraphernalia. Her four-year-old son was in the living room amid garbage and drug paraphernalia. Both were charged with endangering the welfare of children and prohibited acts. Chalmers was also charged with prostitution and possessing instruments of crime. A teenage boy arrested over a carjacking on the Gold Coast has escaped police custody after an 'embarrassing' bungle at the Southport Watchhouse. The 15-year-old boy escaped custody on Saturday when he posed as another prisoner who was granted bail at the watchhouse, the Courier Mail reports. When he was accidentally granted leave at the watchhouse he jumped a fence and dodged policemen who pursued him on foot through the streets of Southport. The 15-year-old boy (pictured) has been arrested over the alleged carjacking which left his 15-year-old girlfriend fighting for her life in hospital The boy remains on the run, with police urging him to hand himself in, the Courier Mail reports. The 15-year-old was arrested on Friday after he and his girlfriend, 15, allegedly attempted to carjack a woman on the Gold Coast. The young couple allegedly asked a 24-year-old woman for a lift home from Harbour Town Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast on Thursday night after they claimed a man was chasing them. When the 24-year-old woman gave them a lift, she claimed they held a knife to her throat and demanded her handbag and car. The woman reportedly struck the girl with her car in an atempt to escape the violent carjacking. The boy fled the scene, and left his seriously injured girlfriend at the scene. She was later taken to hospital where she remains in a critical condition. Queensland Ambulance Service's Paul Barry said it was a 'very confronting scene for paramedics' Acting Inspector Brett MacGibbon said the Queensland Police Service was 'embarrassed' they had allowed the boy to escape from custody on Saturday. 'It is a bit embarrassing,' he said. 'I would hope that it wouldn't be that easy.' Inspector MacGibbon said the boy pretended to be another juvenile detainee who was granted bail. When the detainee's name was read out, the teenager stepped out in his place. Police realised their mistake about 30 seconds after the boy was released, he said. The incident will be investigated internally by the Queensland Police Service. The boy's escape comes just 24 hours after he was arrested over the carjacking. The 15-year-old boy (pictured) allegedly fled the scene of the crash, leaving his girlfriend for dead Queensland Ambulance Service's Paul Barry said it was a 'very confronting scene for paramedics' when they arrived at the crash on Thursday night. Mr Barry said the 15-year-old girl was badly injured. 'It's a very young and tender age and she required some stabilisation,' he said. The 15-year-old boy allegedly fled the scene of the crash, leaving his girlfriend for dead. Acting Inspector Brett MacGibbon said the Queensland Police Service was 'embarrassed' they had allowed the boy to escape from the Southport Watchhouse (pictured) on Saturday A police dog pursued the boy for half a kilometre to a highway where he crossed eight lanes of traffic moving at 110km/h. The 15-year-old girl was taken to Gold Coast University Hospital following the crash, where she remains in a critical condition. Detectives have alerted the girl's parents she was in a coma and could also face charges over the alleged carjacking, 9 News reports. The 24-year-old woman sustained a minor cut on her hand and escaped with a significant fright. Steven W. Chase, 58, of Naples, Florida, was sentenced to 30 years on multiple child- pornography and child-exploitation charges A man who federal prosecutors said was the creator and lead administrator of what's thought to be the world's largest child-pornography website has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, the FBI announced Friday. Steven W. Chase, 58, of Naples, Florida, was sentenced this week in a federal courtroom in North Carolina on multiple child- pornography and child-exploitation charges. Chase created a website called Playpen in August 2014 on Tor, an open network on the internet where users can communicate anonymously through 'hidden service' websites, the FBI said. Nearly 900 suspected pedophiles have been arrested and almost 300 children identified or rescued from their abusers following the investigation that led to the Playpen's takedown, according to the FBI and Europol. Chase's arrest in December 2014 set off a sweeping global probe into the users of the members-only forum. Two codefendants who also were identified as administrators of The Playpen - Michael Fluckiger (left), 46, of Indiana, and David Browning (right), 47, of Kentucky Playpen was buried deep online in what is known as the 'darknet,' where Tor anonymity software and encryption hide often illegal activities. The service had more than 150,000 users around the world, the FBI said. Members uploaded and viewed tens of thousands of postings of young victims, categorized by age, sex and the type of sexual activity involved. The nearly 900 arrests included dozens of abusers and child pornography creators. Dubbed 'Operation Pacifier', the investigation began when the FBI used its own malware to effectively seize the Playpen website and server. Operating it for several weeks more, investigators then hacked and tracked site users by sending malware to their computers. In an operation that critics say was legally questionable, more than 1,000 computers worldwide were hacked in this way by the FBI, and their users identified. In a statement Friday, Steven Wilson, head of Europol's European Cybercrime Center, said the case demonstrated how law enforcement needs to use such methods to fight criminals who can hide behind online anonymization and encryption programs. 'We need to balance the rights of victims versus the right to privacy,' he said. 'If we operate by 19th century legal principles then we are unable to effectively tackle crime at the highest level.' Two co-defendants who also were identified as administrators of the website - Michael Fluckiger, 46, of Indiana, and David Browning, 47, of Kentucky. Each received 20-year prison terms earlier this year. Tor was created by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as a means of protecting government communications. But the network has a downside. 'The Tor network is a haven for criminal activity in general, and the online sexual exploitation of children in particular,' U.S. Attorney Jill Rose noted in a written response to a motion to have Chase's indictment dismissed. The FBI said it became aware of the site after it launched, but Special Agent Dan Alfin said that because of how Tor worked, there wasn't much agents could do about it. But in December 2014, agents said Chase slipped up and revealed Playpen's IP address, which was a location in the U.S. The mistake was caught by overseas law enforcement, which then informed the FBI. In launching its own investigation, the FBI learned that the computer server that hosted Playpen was located at a web-hosting facility in North Carolina and that Chase was the administrator of the server, Rose wrote. Chase was arrested in February 2015, after which the FBI took over the website for two weeks in order to identify its users. Chase argued through his motion filed in federal court in North Carolina that the FBI's operation of the website amounted to 'outrageous government conduct' and that his indictment should be dismissed. Alfin said the agency used a court-approved network-investigating technique to uncover IP addresses and other information that helped locate and identify users. Investigators sent more than 1,000 leads to FBI field offices around the country and thousands more to overseas law enforcement agencies. 'It's the same with any criminal violation: As they get smarter, we adapt, we find them,' Alfin said. 'It's a cat-and-mouse game, except it's not a game. Kids are being abused, and it's our job to stop that.' In January 2015, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice launched Operation Pacifier in an effort to track down Playpen's thousands of members. The operation received support from Europol and other law enforcement agencies around the world. As a result, there were 368 arrests or convictions in Europe and 870 worldwide, according to a statement from Europol. Chase lived in a rural-suburban neighborhood in Naples, tucked between Interstate 75 and Florida's Everglades. According to public records, he ran an excavation trucking company. Chase had been charged with a few crimes in Naples over the years, including battery and possession of a controlled substance, but those charges were dismissed. Having former first lady Michelle Obama tweet your telephone number is one way to get a lot of attention. The telephone number of a former White House staffer was shared on the @MichelleObama Twitter account on Friday. Michelle Obama has 7.67 million Twitter followers. The telephone number apparently belongs to Duncan Wolfe, a former White House creative digital strategist. The tweet was quickly taken down. Calls were met with 'I'm not available right now' and a mailbox full notification. Scroll down for video Michele Obama accidentally tweeted the number of a former White House Staffer on her @MichelleObama Twitter account on Friday. Michele Obama has 7.67 million Twitter followers The telephone number apparently belongs to Duncan Wolfe, a former White House creative digital strategist The tweet was quickly taken down. Calls were met with "I'm not available right now" and a mailbox full notification An official who works for the Obamas says it was an accident and her account was not hacked. According to his official bio, Wolf has an extensive resume working with major companies like McDonald's, Toyota, Amazon, The New York Times and Humana. The St. Louis native was a White House digital producer, travelling with the president, first lady and Vice President Joe Biden. The St. Louis native was a White House digital producer, travelling with the president, first lady and Vice President Joe Biden. Starting as an intern, Wolfe's work became one of the most recognized videos to come out of the White House when in February last year he capture President Obama and the First Lady dancing with 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin According to his official bio, Wolf has an extensive resume working with major companies like McDonald's, Toyota, Amazon, The New York Times and Humana Starting as an intern, Wolfe's work became one of the most recognized videos to come out of the White House when in February last year he capture President Obama and the First Lady dancing with 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin. The video celebrating Black History Month received several million views. Michelle Obama and other celebrities were in New York City Friday to celebrate National College Signing Day, which encourages high school students to seek higher education. She tweeted about the event saying: 'I'm in NYC for my 4th #CollegeSigningDay. Can't wait to celebrate today with 200 college-bound high school seniors! #BetterMakeRoom.' Michelle Obama and other celebrities were in New York City Friday to celebrate National College Signing Day. She tweeted about the event saying: 'I'm in NYC for my 4th #CollegeSigningDay. Can't wait to celebrate today with 200 college-bound high school seniors! #BetterMakeRoom.' The former first lady said Friday that her departure from the White House won't end her passion for education The former first lady said Friday that her departure from the White House won't end her passion for education. She made the comment at a New York City event marking College Signing Day, a nationwide tradition she began participating in as first lady to encourage young people to seek higher education. 'I might not live in the White House anymore, but Barack and I are going to keep on celebrating you all and supporting you and lifting you up no matter what house we live in,' Michelle said. 'Our belief in the power of education to transform your lives is real and it's going to be at core of everything that we do going forward.' The MTV hosted event was held at the The Public Theater, and was a star-studded affair. In late November, a member of Donald Trump's transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request. Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States. The request was for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. To the Obama White House, Billingslea's concerns were startling: a member of Trump's own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary. Obama officials later said the frequency of Flynn's discussions with Kislyak raised enough red flags that aides discussed the possibility Trump was trying to establish a one-to-one line of communication - a so-called back channel - with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Marshall Billingslea (left) wanted a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak (right). The request raised red flags among the Obama administration The request was for his boss Michael Flynn (pictured), who was tapped as national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn was going to speak to Kislyak, according to Obama officials Billingslea's request now stands out as a warning signal for Obama officials who would soon see Flynn's contacts with the Russian spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor's administration. In the following weeks, the Obama White House would grow deeply distrustful of Trump's dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team's ties. The concern - compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak - would eventually grow so great Obama advisers delayed telling Trump's team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. Obama officials worried the incoming administration might tip off Moscow, according to one Obama adviser. The Trump White House declined to comment. This account of the final days of the Obama administration is based on interviews with 11 current and former U.S. officials, including seven with key roles in the Obama administration. The officials reveal an administration gripped by mounting anxiety over Russia's election meddling and racing to grasp the Trump team's possible involvement before exiting the White House. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive national security information. The Obama White House's role in the Russia controversy will come under fresh scrutiny Monday. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are slated to testify in an investigation over Trump associates' links to Moscow Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are slated to testify before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of three committees investigating Trump associates' links to Moscow. Trump has said he has no nefarious ties to Russia and isn't aware of any involvement by his aides in Moscow's interference in the election. He's dismissed an FBI and congressional investigations into his campaign's possible ties to the election meddling as a 'hoax' driven by Democrats bitter over losing the White House. Yates, an Obama administration official who carried over into the Trump administration, is expected to tell lawmakers that she expressed alarm to the Trump White House about Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador. Trump fired Yates days later, after she told the Justice Department to not enforce the new president's travel and immigration ban. Flynn was forced to resign three weeks later for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about the content of his discussions with Kislyak. Yates's warnings about Flynn in January capped weeks of building concern among top Obama officials. The president himself that month told one of his closest advisers that the FBI, which by then had been investigating Trump associates' possible ties to Russia for about six months, seemed particularly focused on Flynn. Obama officials said the frequency of Flynn's discussions with the ambassador raised the possibility Trump was trying to establish a one-to-one line of communication with Putin Obama aides described Flynn as notably dismissive of the threat Russia posed to the United States when discussing policy in transition meetings with outgoing national security adviser Susan Rice and other top officials. Officials also found it curious that Billingslea only ever asked Obama's National Security Council for one classified leadership profile to give to Flynn: the internal document on Kislyak. The CIA compiles classified biographies of foreign officials, known as leadership profiles. The profiles include U.S. intelligence assessments about the officials, in addition to biographical information. When reached by the AP, Billingslea refused to comment. Last month, Trump announced his intention to nominate Billingslea to serve as assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department. Trump has accused Obama officials of illegally leaking classified information about Flynn's contacts with Kislyak. He's also contended, without evidence, that Rice asked for the names of Trump officials caught up in routine intelligence monitoring to be improperly revealed, a charge Rice has denied. Trump has has also lobbed accusations at Obama officials, including former National Security Adviser Susan Rice (pictured) The distrust in the other camp was clear months earlier. In late December, as the White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the U.S. in retaliation for the hacks, Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of two compounds the U.S. was shuttering, one official said. While it's not inappropriate for someone in Flynn's position to have contact with a diplomat, Obama officials said the frequency of his discussions raised enough red flags that aides discussed the possibility Trump was trying to establish a one-to-one line of communication - a so-called back channel - with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama aides say they never determined why Flynn was in close contact with the ambassador. Obama aides say they never determined why Flynn was in close contact with the ambassador Even with the suspicion, the officials said they did not withhold information. The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team's handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition's Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama's national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government's contingency plans for crises. Some White House advisers now privately concede that the administration moved too slowly during the election to publicly blame Russia for the hack and explore possible ties to the Trump campaign. Others say it was only after the election, once Obama ordered a comprehensive review of the election interference, that the full scope of Russia's interference and potential Trump ties become clearer. A species of rare electric blue-coloured crayfish have been spotted by fishermen off the coast of Western Australia. These oddly coloured crayfish with their blue hue aren't a common sight in the wild, but their numbers are slowly growing as people begin to farm them. Bright blue marron aren't a new type of crayfish, they're a result of a genetic mutation and are the same species as black and brown marron. The bright blue crustaceans (pictured) are a rare sight in the wild but their numbers are growing The crayfish (pictured) are a colourful addition to to fish tanks and aquariums across Australia Bright blue marron aren't a new type of crayfish, they're a result of a genetic mutation and are the same species as black and brown marron The crustaceans are a commonly found in the South West and Great Southern regions of Western Australia. Like blue eyes in humans, the marron's distinctive colour is a result of a recessive gene. 'If you mate two blue marron you will get blue progeny,' Craig Lawrence, a research scientist with the Department of Fisheries told The Albany Advertiser. 'But if you mate a black and a blue you will get mainly black progeny and if you mate those progeny together you will get some blues too.' Like blue eyes in humans, the marron's distinctive colour is a result of a recessive gene But they're not a popular choice in the kitchen, turning an orange colour when cooked, as opposed to the preferred red colour of most marron Their beautiful colour means the sea creature is a popular addition to fish tanks and aquariums. But they're not a popular choice in the kitchen, turning an orange colour when cooked. 'Restaurants prefer the dark black or brown marron because they cook up a bright red,' Dr Lawrence said. Marron is the name given to two species of crayfish found in Western Australia and they are considered a luxury seafood. The crustaceans are a commonly found in the South West and Great Southern regions of Western Australia A toy polystyrene plane that a family threw off a bridge to see how far it would travel has been found 150 miles away. Abbie Lee and her two daughters from Anglesey, Wales, bought the toy from a local craft shop before launching it off Menai Suspension Bridge in March with their address written on the sides. Weeks later, five-year-old Tamara received a postcard from a woman known only as 'Kathy', who said she had come across the 55cm toy in Bradgate Park, Leicester. Tamara and her mother are now hoping to use Facebook to track down Kathy so that they can say thank you. The sisters were amazed to receive a postcard from a woman known only as 'Kathy', who said she had come across the 55cm toy in Bradgate Park, Leicester, weeks after they threw it off Menai Suspension Bridge in north Wales Abbie told the BBC that she 'couldn't believe it' when they received their postcard from the mysterious Kathy. She said: 'We flew them off Menai Bridge and never thought we'd see them again. 'We can't really figure it out, following the maps and that, it's just so far.' Kathy's postcard said: 'Hello Tamara, what a great idea! Your plane has reached Bradgate Park in Leicester. Abbie Lee said she and her daughters never thought they would see this plane again after they threw it from the bridge with their address written on the sides Professor Robert Kerr, a specialist in aerodynamics at the University of Warwick, said: 'In addition to a strong water current between the Irish Sea and the outlet to the River Conwy, there could also be a strong air current' that buoyed the plane on its long-haul flight The postcard from 'Kathy' suggests the plane traveled 150 miles to a park in Leicester 'I left it in a hollow tree stump by the entrance. Hope it flies a long way further.' Experts have discussed the possible ways the plane might have traveled such a distance. Professor Robert Kerr, a specialist in aerodynamics at the University of Warwick, told the Telegraph that the toy could have been buoyed along by a low pressure weather system and strong winds. He said: 'The Menai Strait is between the uplands around Snowdonia and Anglesey. 'So in addition to a strong water current between the Irish Sea and the outlet to the River Conwy, there could also be a strong air current.' He added: 'This air would also rise, possibly enough so that the plane could have glided as far as Leicestershire as it was pushed by the west-south-west geostrophic wind.' ISIS has allegedly called for lone wolf extremists to kill the French presidential candidates and burn down polling stations during the upcoming election. An article in the terror group's propaganda magazine, Rumiyah, reportedly called for the deaths of Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron when the country goes to the polls on Sunday. A French edition of the magazine the article is said to state: 'Don't forget your duty as a Muslim. Choose a candidate to kill & polling station to burn.' An article in the terror group's propaganda magazine, Rumiyah, reportedly called for the deaths of Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron (pictured) when the country goes to the polls on Sunday The claims were reported in financial new blog Zero Hedge, which has been criticised for its extreme and sometimes pro-Russian content. Rumiyah magazine urges ISIS supporters to put their faith in Allah over a 'false deity' and Western democracies. Le Pen and Macron are currently making a final push for votes on the last day of campaigning before the election. Centrist Macron has a substantial lead, with one poll putting him 60 points ahead of Le Pen. An Ifop poll says he leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38. Le Pen, who is known for her anti-Islam rhetoric, has vowed to fight terrorism during the her campaign This margin is not as big as the one that centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac beat Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen by in 2002, gaining 82.2 per cent of the vote over Le Pen's 17.8 per cent. The National Front party has - significantly - not even announced where their candidate will be after polls close on Sunday evening following the second and final round of voting. Le Pen, who is known for her anti-Islam rhetoric, has vowed to fight terrorism during the her campaign. Mohamed Amrani pictured outside the Old Bailey An NHS hospital has been accused of covering up 12-year-old claims of sexual misconduct against a top surgeon after he was found guilty of molesting two women. Mohamed Amrani, 54, was found guilty of twice indecently assaulting a woman by groping her breasts through her clothes between 2003 and 2004 and sexually assaulting another woman in 2014 at Harefield Hospital in west London after a trial at the Old Bailey. He was also cleared of four other charges of indecent assault but the jury failed to reach a verdict on a rape accusation. Mr Amrani will be sentenced on June 8. Now the Harefield and Royal Brompton NHS Foundation Trust has been accused of covering up a previous assault claim made in 2005. According to The Times, an inquiry was launched but he was cleared of all wrongdoing and the trust said it could not release details of how it concluded. Hospital sources also told the newspaper that a number of complaints were made against Amrani dating back to the early 2000s. They added: Management have known about Amranis behaviour for years and years. It was never dealt with so he just thought he could get away with it. The irony is that it escalated to such an extent that the police got involved and now the hospital has lost its best surgeon. The consultant has performed a string of life-saving operations around the world and hit the headlines in 2007 when he performed the UK's first double heart valve replacement using keyhole surgery. The trust declined to comment further. French modelling agencies could face fines equivalent to 60,000 if they break a ban on unhealthily-thin models that has come into effect after years of discussion. Models will have to produce certificates signed off by doctors to prove they are physically healthy and have an acceptable BMI. Another key element of the new law is that agencies must label photos that have been airbrushed or otherwise enhanced. Models on the runway during the finale of the Stella McCartney show as part of the Paris Fashion Week in March this year. The ban on unhealthily-thin models aims to reduce the prevalence of anorexia in the French modelling industry Marisol Touraine, the French health minister, said on Friday: 'Exposing young people to normative and non-realistic images of the body leads to a sense of self-depreciation and poor self-esteem that can impact health behaviors.' Touraine added that the ban aims to reduce the promotion of inaccessible beauty ideals and to prevent anorexia in young people. As of October 1, 2017, it will be compulsory for commercial photographs to be labelled with the words 'photographie retouchee' - which translates as 'retouched photograph' - if the image has been edited to refine or enhance aspects of the model's body. The exercise of the activity of mannequin will also be conditioned to an evaluation of the overall state of health of the person, in particular with respect to its body mass index (BMI). There are approximately 40,000 people in France suffering from anorexia, around 90 per cent of whom are adolescents, according to the latest health ministry figures Doctors will be able to issue to the models a medical certificate valid for two years attesting that their state of health is acceptable. Identical requirements are laid out for models working in the European Union or the European Economic Area. There are approximately 40,000 people in France suffering from anorexia, around 90 per cent of whom are adolescents, according to the latest health ministry figures. Speaking in 2013, fashion guru Giorgio Armani said that the fashion industry had a duty to 'work together against anorexia'. He added at the time: 'The industry has to recognise the link between its preference for abnormally thin models and the growth in eating disorders among young women.' Italy and Israel have all also passed legislation on underweight models. A Queensland man has been repeatedly punched in the face and dragged behind a car, after trying to chase the vehicle stolen from his property. Police said unknown people arrived at the property on Munbilla Road in North Maclean in a stolen Mazda utility vehicle about 4.20am on Saturday morning. They stole a Toyota Landcruiser from the property, waking a man and woman in the process, who saw the vehicle being driven away from their shed. Scroll down for video A Queensland man has been repeatedly punched in the face and dragged behind a car, after chasing and confronting thieves who stole a vehicle from his property. Pictured is police dashcam footage as they chase the offenders in one of three stolen cars The man, 44, chased the stolen vehicle in another vehicle, before the thieves rammed his car off the road through a fence and a paddock, police allege. He reportedly jumped out of his car and tried to take the keys from the ignition of his stolen car, before the driver punched him repeatedly in the face and reversed the stolen vehicle, dragging the man along. The man sustained numerous non-life threatening injuries and was takento Ipswich Hospital. The offenders fled from the scene in the stolen Mazda ute and the stolen Toyota Landcruiser, before stealing a third vehicle, a Ford Ranger, from a property further down Munbilla Road at Kalbar. Thieves stole a Mazda utility vehicle, before driving to the 44-year-old's property in North Maclean and stealing a Toyota Landcruiser. The man chased them and was injured when he confronted them. He was taken to Ipswich Hospital (pictured) with non life-threatening injuries The stolen Mazada ute was later found by police abandoned at the third property. Police doing road patrols just before 8am tried to intercept the stolen Toyota on the Cunningham Highway at Yamanto. The vehicle sped away and was last seen going through a red light at Ripley Road and Reif Street, Flinders View before evading police. Police are appealing for public assistance to locate the vehicles, a grey 2008 Toyota Landcruiser with QLD registration 497LCZ and a white 2014 Ford Ranger Utility with QLD registration 448WBO. Anyone with further information should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Advertisement Indonesian security forces have successfully rounded up most of the 250 inmates who escaped during a mass breakout from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island. More than 200 inmates broke out of the jail in Pekanbaru city, on Sumatra island, after they were let out of their cells to pray on Friday. Almost 80 were quickly recaptured after the breakout and by Saturday the majority of the escaped inmates had been rounded up. The inmates reportedly took part in the failed mass escape due to poor conditions in the cramped prison, while others have complained about unfair treatment from guards. Police escorted the prisoners back to their cells at the Pekanbaru prison a day after over 200 inmates broke out in a mass escape A plain clothes police is pictured recapturing an escaped inmate from the jail in Pekanbaru, Riau province on May 5 Police conduct a spot check at the exit access road of Pekanbaru city in Riau province on May 6, 2017, a day after more than 200 inmates broke out of the city's jail 'So far 209 inmates have been recaptured or surrendered willingly, many have returned to their cells,' local police spokesman Guntur Aryo Tejo told AFP, adding that the authorities did not have the exact number of inmates still on the loose. Footage broadcast on local TV stations showed scores of men, some wearing sarongs, scurrying through the gates of the Sialang Bungkuk prison with no sign of officials in pursuit. They headed to the main door of the jail and tried to break though it. When this failed they headed for the side entrance and broke through a wire fence. Some residents found the inmates trying to steal their motorbikes. Most of the prisoners were recaptured by plain clothed officers while still near Pekanbaru. More than 200 inmates escaped from the premises and now Indonesian security forces have rounded up most of the escapees A plain clothed police officer is pictured arresting an inmate who escaped from the Indonesian prison Indonesian security forces have rounded up most of the inmates who escaped during a mass breakout from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island The male-only prison has a capacity of 300 people but was holding 1,870 inmates, with only five guards and a porter on duty at any one time Dozens of the escaped inmates headed directly to another prison where they handed themselves in. Tejo also said the inmates told police they decided to escape due to 'inhumane conditions' in the prison. The male-only prison has a capacity of 300 people but was holding 1,870 inmates, with only five guards and a porter on duty at any one time. 'They also complained about unfair treatment by the prison guards,' Tejo said. More than a thousand inmates who did not escape the prison were refusing to return to their cells unless the head guard was replaced. Police escort escapees following riots at the prison on May 5. Police and locals have managed to recapture 130 of the inmates so far Images show prisoners escaping from their cells in protest at treatment in the prison. According to an official, there were 1,800 men inside the jail which has a capacity of 361 Prisoners tore down a gate near a mosque inside the prison complex after they were allowed out of their cells for Friday prayers earlier today. They broke through a wire fence to make their escape after failing to get through the site's main door Police escort prisoners back to the detention centre after they escaped when they were let out of their cells to attend Friday prayers. They broke through a fence after failing to escape through the main door According to Ferdinand Siagian, head of the regional office of the Law Ministry, inmates had complained about their treatment in the jail and had accused some guards of being violent towards them. They made their escape in protest There has been a heavy police presence in the town after the breakout from the prison in Indonesia. Road blocks in the city were installed to help capture the men as quickly as possible Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where inmates are held in often unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons. There was a spate of breakouts in 2013, including one where about 150 prisoners - including terror convicts -escaped from a jail on western Sumatra island. An additional 400 police and military personnel have been deployed to guard the prison. Dramatic photos show the police's attempt to recapture those that had escaped. Prisoners can be seen with cuts to their faces as they are dragged back into custody. Other captured prisoners can be seen tied up with make-shift handcuffs. In other images, villagers can be seen beating prisoners found in the streets. A plainclothes policeman detains a prisoner who escaped from the Sialang Bungkuk jail on Sumatra Island on May 5. It's reported that the inmates were unhappy about their treatment and claimed that guards have been violent towards them Indonesian police catch a prisoner who escaped from a detention centre on May 5. As many as 250 prisoners escaped with around 130 recaptured so far. Police presence has been upped in the nearby city as they try to locate the remaining escapees Police and locals worked together to help capture 130 of the prisoners so far. Locals found some of the escapees trying to steal their motorbikes and alerted police A man is detained by locals and police after breaking out of the Sialang Bungkuk prison on May 5 in Riau, Indonesia Police officers armed with tear gas launchers stand guard outside Sialung Bungkuk Prison following the escape of hundreds of inmates who were allegedly angry at their treatment by guards Dramatic photos show the police and locals' attempts to recapture those who had escaped. Prisoners can be seen tied with make-shift handcuffs Other images show prisoners left with cuts to their faces after they were caught by locals following their escape from the prison in Sumatra, Indonesia A man holds an escaped prisoner up against the wall while holding a gun. The man had his hands tied together using make-shift rope Dramatic photos show the police's attempt to recapture those that had escaped. Prisoners can be seen with cuts to their faces as they are dragged back into custody Indonesian police catch prisoners who escaped from the detention centre. It's thought that the prisoners had become frustrated with their treatment at the prison in Pekanbaru, Riau province An Indonesian soldier and a plainclothes policeman detains a prisoner who escaped from the Sialang Bungkuk jail in Pekanbaru on Sumatra Island Residents beat a prisoner who escaped from Sialang Bungkuk Detention Station. Around 130 prisoners have been recaptured after they escaped before Friday prayers An son stabbed his father to death with a kitchen knife after he forgot to add fish sauce to his favourite pork soup. Sakdin Duangphakhon, 36, bought the meat for lunch but became angry after dad, Ngor, 65, was taking too long to boil it at their home in Buriram in southern Thailand. He confronted his father and then flew into a rage when his dad told him he had forgot to add fish sauce - a staple ingredient in Thai cooking. Sakdinon grabbed the empty bottle and hit him over the head before slapping his mother Pa, 66, when she tried to intervene. She ran for help while her son picked up a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed his father in a frenzied attack. Police arrived and found the son covered in blood calmly laying in a hammock at the front of the single-storey home. Officers took the handcuffed son to the scene on Friday to re-enact the crime. They even made him kneel down and apologise to his father's corpse. Ngor Duangphakhon, 65, was hit on the head with a bottle before being stabbed repeatedly Deputy Inspector Colonel Nitipat Kitichartchai said: 'The father volunteered to cook the pork. 'The son went to drink a some liquor and then wanted to eat the food. But the dad said it was not finished and not cooked yet. 'The son did not want to wait. Then he said he forgot the fish sauce and he became angry.' The son, who has two brothers, had to kneel down, apologise and say a prayer next to his dead father when he returned to the scene. Col. Nitipat Kitichartchai said the son admitted the murder and has been sent to Amphore Nangrong prison in Buriram to await sentencing. He added: 'It was reported to us that the son had used a knife to stab the father at the home. Sakdin Duangphakhon stabbed his father before calmly laying down in a hammock 'I knew we would have to go to investigate the scene. It is a single storey house. The father was wearing a loin cloth without a shirt. 'He had more than 10 stab wounds on his back, particularly across the left shoulder, and one the deeply penetrated the heart. The smell of blood stained the area. 'I asked the wife how her husband died and she identified her son as the killer. He was found outside the house in a cradle (hammock) with a lot of blood on him but he was not injured. 'He was detained while we investigated the home.' Emmanuel Macron's wife was mobbed by his supporters outside their home - as authorities battle to stop his leaked emails from damaging the election. Brigitte Trogneux met with her husband's fans at the entrance of their home in Le Touquet, northeastern France, the day before the country goes to the polls. Nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, an anonymous document-sharing site, four minutes before the legal prohibition on campaigning was put in place. The election commission, which supervises the electoral process, warned media outlets not to publish the emails to ensure they do not influence the vote. Brigitte Trogneux stands at the entrance as people gather in front of their home in Le Touquet, northeastern France The wife of French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron, carries one of her grandchildren Crowds were eager to catch glimpse of the would-be First Lady of France, with the presidential vote taking place tomorrow A large trove of emails purporting to be from Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign was posted online tonight Crowds gathered in front of the home of the French presidential election candidate a day before voters go to the polls A commission statement said: 'On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot. 'The commission stresses that publication or republication of these data...could be a criminal offence.' Mr Macron announced Russian hackers launched a 'massive and coordinated' bid to destabilise his campaign at 1.56 pm, just four minutes before a ban on media reports liable to affect the presidential race. En Marche! said that several of its leaders had their emails hacked last week but the attackers bundled them with fake emails and delayed posting them for maximum effect. French citizens wait in line to vote, at College Stanislas in Montreal, Canada, on Saturday A woman signs a voters' register during the second round of the presidential election at a polling station at the City Hall of Iracoubo, French Guiana Ballots with the names of 2017 French presidential election candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen Both candidates and French national media were not allowed by law from midnight last night to discuss the presidential campaign until after the electorate has voted. Macron's campaign team says it put in place servers protected by sophisticated software filters, recommended the use of several encrypted messaging and cellphone networks, and required triple authentication to access emails. It says it stored its information in multiple-partitioned cells, with databases separated like fortresses, accessible by passwords that were complex and regularly changed. 'In this kind of organisation the real potential faultline is the human element,' the head of computer services for En Marche! Because security procedures can become long and cumbersome, some people can be tempted to get around them by using personal email services which are little or badly protected. A report by a Japanese cyber-security company blamed the attack on Russian hacking group Pawn Storm, also known as Fancy Bears, Tsar Team and APT28. Deputy Mayor Joanne Briand checks a voter's ID before he casts his ballot for the second round of the French presidential election Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting The group, suspected of close links to the Russian security services, is also accused of having targeted the Democratic Party during last year's US presidential election, in which Republican-backed Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Current President Francois Hollande promised a response to the hacking. 'We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response,' he said during a visit of a cultural institute in Paris. 'If there has been any interference or appropriations, there will be procedures which will begin,' he said, adding: 'We need to let the investigations happen.' The documents spread on social media just before midnight on Friday in what Macron's team termed an attempt at 'democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States'. Hollande added that 'since we learned that there are these operations, that there are these threats, we have been extremely vigilant.' A man casts his ballot at a polling station at the City Hall of Saint-Pierre, on the French archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon Emmanuel Macron's advisor Michele 'Mimi' Marchand (centre), French photographers Sebastien Valiela (right, foreground) and Cyril Moreau (left) in Le Touquet He said he was unable to say whether it was an attempt at destabilising the election, as alleged by Macron's team. 'I can't say,' he said, speaking at the Arab World Institute while accompanied by the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI. Numerama, a French online publication focusing on digital life, said that the hacked material appeared to have been disseminated through users of 4Chan, an online bulletin board. It states the 'banal' documents were held on a hard disk with details of email addresses of associates and political officials of En Marche! It claims to have found invoices, references and personal exchanges about the weather and an email confirming an edition of a novel and a restaurant reservation. The news website states: 'We have downloaded the documents and while it is impossible for us scour them fully in a realistic time frame, it is not in doubt that the documents appear real, compared with numerous fake documents which have been floating around and which were sent out by the Front National in the past few days. 'It will take time to verify these documents but on first site the documents appear to be banal.' An electoral card next to ballots for the French presidential election candidates The data dump contains invoices for rooms rented as En Marche! party office and insurance documents amongst other 'normal' work documents. French political journalist Julien Cabot of French news website Numerama told MailOnline: 'I have spent several hours going through the files. 'There are insurance documents, invoices for rooms rented to act as party offices and receipts for restaurant meals those kind of things. 'What is important is the timing of the data dump. 'It is against the law in France to publish or broadcast any information about either of the candidates so not to give one advantage over the other after midnight last night. 'So newspapers, websites, TV and radio cannot discuss the detail of the data in any way. However the data dump has acted to create uncertainty. Scores of people and media gathered outside Macron's property on the eve of the elections Macron's team said: 'The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information. 'The files were obtained several weeks ago thanks to the hacking of personal and professional mailboxes of several leaders of the En Marche! movement. 'Those who circulate these documents add a number of false documents to genuine documents in order to sow doubt and disinformation. 'The hackers' ambition is obviously to harm the movement En Marche! A few hours of the second round of the French presidential election. 'Obviously, the documents from piracy are all legal and reflect the normal operation of a presidential campaign. 'Their dissemination makes internal data public but there is no concern about the legality and the conformity of the documents. 'It is not a mere piracy operation but an attempt to destabilize the French presidential election.' An Ifop poll says Macron leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent and four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38 French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen at her last rally before the election Former economy minister Macron's team has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests for the cyber attacks. President Vladimir Putin, previously accused of interfering in last year's US polls, is said to favour anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen whose election would contribute to the further destabilisation of the Union. On April 26, Macron's team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data. In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine. It came two days before voters go to the polls to choose the country's next president in a run-off with Marine Le Pen. Le Pen met Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March this year. They are both anti EU Official posters of the candidates for the 2017 French presidential election While one poll puts Macron 60 points ahead, an Ifop poll says he leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38. This margin is not as big as the one that centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac beat Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen by in 2002, gaining 82.2 per cent versus the 17.8 per cent of Le Pen. Ms Le Pen's National Front party has - significantly - not even announced where their candidate will be after polls close on Sunday evening following the second and final round of voting. On the last day of campaigning yesterday, one of Mr Macron's aides said: 'The Louvre will be the venue for our election night party in case of victory.' Crowds will gather on the esplanade by the glass pyramid at the centre of the historic complex, which dates back to the 12th Century, and was once the home of French Royalty. En Marche! - Mr Macron's political movement - had originally wanted to use the Champs de Mars, in front of the Eiffel Tower, but this was turned down. The Champs is at the centre of Paris's Olympic bid for 2024, and there were fears that thousands of people would destroy the grass lawns. In contrast, the area around the Louvre is cobbled or concreted, and always full of people. While one poll puts Macron 60 points ahead, an Ifop poll says he leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38 Macron's (left) gruelling televised debate with Le Pen (right) on Wednesday was 'watched widely' at the highest levels of the European institutions The museum, which contains masterpieces including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, is the biggest in the world, and welcomes more than 7million visitors a year. Previous new presidents have chosen more modest venues, such as restaurants or campaign headquarters. Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen have been involved in an increasingly bitter contest, accusing each other of being unfit to live up to the grandeur of the French presidency. Paris prosecutors have just opened an investigation into suggestions by Ms Le Pen that her rival a former merchant banker has a hidden offshore bank account in the Bahamas. Mr Macron has lodged a legal complaint about 'the spreading of false information', while openly accusing Ms Le Pen of running a deceitful and divisive campaign. Such claims have been widely supported by the French media, with Le Monde running a front page story on Thursday accusing Ms Le Pen of being a serial liar. There will be no campaigning at all on Saturday, before the polls open on Sunday morning. Greenpeace activists were able to unfurl a huge banner under the Eiffel Tower saying 'liberty, equality, fraternity' . President Trump avoided a government shutdown by signing a $1trillion spending bill, even though he disagrees with a provision safeguarding the use of medical marijuana. The provision, known as the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, bars the Department of Justice from spending money that could interfere with 'the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana'. But in a signing statement that laid out his objections, Trump said he reserved the right to ignore the provision. 'I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,' Trump said in the signing statement, a tool that previous presidents have used to explain their positions on appropriations bills. While medical marijuana is legal in 29 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico, marijuana - for any purpose - remains illegal under federal law. Trump avoided a government shutdown by signing a $1trillion spending bill, even though he disagrees with a provision safeguarding the use of medical marijuana The provision bars the Department of Justice from spending money to crack down on medical marijuana. Pictured, a growing facility in Denver, Colorado The provision prevents the Justice Department from cracking down on medical marijuana. It does not apply to recreational marijuana, which was legalized in eight states in direct violation of federal law. Despite signing off on the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, Trump held out the possibility that the administration could pursue legal action against states and territories that legalize marijuana for medical use. Tom Angell, founder of the advocacy group Marijuana Majority, told Business Insider the statement is Trump's way of saying 'they reserve the right to do whatever they want and enforce prohibition regardless of the statutory prohibition on doing so.' But in a signing statement that laid out his objections, Trump said he reserved the right to ignore the provision (pictured, a marijuana medical dispensary in Los Angeles) The administration has so far sent mixed messages on the issue. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president was sympathetic to people who use medical marijuana. But US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has repeatedly voiced his opposition to legalization, saying 'good people don't smoke marijuana' during a Senate hearing in April 2016. He also said: 'We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that its in fact a very real danger.' But in a meeting with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper this April, Jeff Sessions suggested that he would stick to a directive from the Obama administration that allowed marijuana businesses to continue operating in states where it was legal. Sessions has repeatedly voiced his opposition to the legalization, saying 'good people don't smoke marijuana' during a Senate hearing in April 2016 While the provision leaves Sessions' hands tied, Trump's signing statement seems to throw that all into question. Michael Collins, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance, urged the administration to clear up the confusion in a statement to Business Insider. 'After stating during the campaign that he was 100% in support of medical marijuana, he now issues a signing statement casting doubt on whether his Administration will adhere to a congressional rider that stops DOJ from going after medical marijuana programs,' Collins said. 'The uncertainty is deeply disconcerting for patients and providers, and we urge the Administration to clarify their intentions immediately,' Collins added. Pictured for the first time, this is the axe that triple murder suspect Henri Van Breda is accused of wielding to butcher his parents and brother to death in their beds. Shiny yellow barcoded labels still intact on its handle suggest the weapon was bought shortly before the killings. Only some minor scuffing to its sharp, glinting blade hints to it being deployed with such ferocity that blood was sent splattering onto the wall of a neighbouring house. Pictured for the first time, this is the axe that triple murder suspect Henri Van Breda is accused of wielding to butcher his parents and brother to death in their beds Van Breda, 21, stands to inherit a share of a 13 million pounds fortune if he is cleared of using the 9lbs hatchet to murder his parents Martin and Theresa and brother Rudi, 21, at their home on a secure estate in South Africa two years ago. His sister, Marli, 18, somehow survived her own appalling injuries from the night, despite being struck by the axe more times than her parents or brother including through her jugular vein. The schoolgirl reportedly remembers nothing about how she was left an orphan and minutes from death, but is listed as a states witness in the case against her brother. The young heir claims he watched frozen through a crack in the bathroom door as a laughing, masked intruder inflicted 15 or more skull-splitting blows on his loved ones with the hickory-handled weapon. Van Breda (pictured with his legal team at his old family home) says he watched through a crack in a bathroom door as his family were cut down two years ago Prosecutors say Henri (left) murdered father Martin (right), mother Teresa (front right), brother Rudi (center) and tried to kill sister Marli (front left) In his own dramatic account of the bloodbath, he described escaping with only minor injuries after single-handedly wrestling the axe from the hands of the callous killer who had left his entire family dead or dying. Graphic photographs taken in the wake of the bloodshed at 12 Goske Street, on the luxury De Zalze estate, were last week ruled too graphic by Judge Siraj Desai to be made public. Van Breda betrayed little emotion in court as he perused his own bundle, which showed the bloodied corpses of his dead parents and brother. Other photographs which are expected to be presented as evidence by prosecutors include images of the bathroom including the handle of the shower door, the basin and towel, which are all clearly stained with blood. Crime scene images showing cloths and the head of a mop hanging on the washing line, and then later secured in evidence bags are expected to be presented in relation to the charge Van Breda denies relates to tampering with the crime scene. His lawyer, Pieter Botha last week challenged claims made by security bosses at the winelands estate that there had been no evidence of breach on the night of the murders, in January 2015. Marli is the sole survivor of the attack and has been listed as the prosecution's main witness, but lawyers are reportedly argonising over whether to call her It has been reported that Marli can remember nothing of the night she was found with a severed jugular and left in a coma Mr Botha, who helped secure the acquittal of honeymoon murder suspect Shrien Dewani, told the court that robbers known to police as the balaclava gang had been targeting wealthy homes in the area during the period of the Van Bredas murder. The former physics student said in a statement read to the court that he believed the masked intruder who attacked his family had at least one accomplice in the house at the time of the murders. Then aged 19, Van Breda suffered only minor injuries in the process of disarming his familys killer, before chasing him and unseen sidekick off the property. After lighting a cigarette to calm him, he failed to raise the alarm for four hours, after not knowing the best number to phone and then passing out. Van Breda said in his statement that he was unable to remember the correct number to dial for help, having only recently moved back from Australia where the family had lived for seven years. However, one crime scene picture showed a list of emergency numbers that was stuck on the fridge in the Van Bredas' kitchen. These included contacts for the estate's security guards, emergency medical assistance and the mobile numbers of neighbours. Other police photographs revealed that valuables including laptops, phones, a handbag, flat screen televisions had remained untouched in the house. Van Breda denies three charges of murder and one of attempted murder. A man languishing behind bars over cannabis possession has told a court he deserves to be set free because 'all plants were given to man by God'. The NSW man, who calls himself Adrian Ashley of the House of Cooper, was jailed for failing to front court on possession charges, according to his application to be released. Ashley last week sought the representation of another man, Keith Charles of the House of Haffey, to apply for his release in the NSW Supreme Court. Holy smokes: A man jailed for cannabis possession has told a court he should be set free because 'all plants were given to man by God' Mr Charles, who has no legal qualifications, cited a verse from the Old Testament of the Bible as proof God gave him the drugs. 'The petitioner contended that all plants were given to man by God, citing Genesis 1:29 of the King James Version Bible 1611, which states: 'And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.' He also argued his client was a self-governing man and therefore not subject to Australian laws. Higher power: The man applied for his release in a letter citing a verse from the bible as proof God have him the drugs 'Adrian-ashley is a national of the Commonwealth of Australia and not an Australian citizen, therefore the statute/legislation that is being forced upon him does not apply,' the letter reads. But the judge deemed the application 'manifestly hopeless' and suggested it would be 'better received' without 'ill-informed incantation of God's law.' The judge urged Ashley to apply for bail, which Mr Cooper neglected to do in the letter. A teenager who stole $3,000 out of the hands of an 88-year-old retiree while high on drugs has blamed his brazen theft on a 'mind snap'. Kahlym John Phillips, 17, pleaded guilty to robbing Peter Young at a Bank of Queensland in Bundaberg after he snatched the wad of cash meant for bills and fled. Mr Phillips also admitted he was under the influence of illicit drugs during the daylight robbery, Newsmail reports. Police released CCTV vision of the 17-year-old who stole the $3000 in a Bank of Queensland Peter Young (pictured) had just withdrawn the cash when it was snatched from his hands Police released CCTV footage of the theft which occurred on May 3 with hopes of identifying the men, which resulted in Mr Phillips handing himself in. Defence solicitor Lavonda Maloy said the man had shown remorse for the crime and described it as 'opportunistic' and the result of a 'mind snap'. Before Mr Phillips was identified as the offender, BOQ set up an account for people to donate to help Mr Young recover his losses. Upon his arrest Mr Phillips admitted he had already spent the stolen $3,000. His solicitor said the teenager was willing to pay back the money, do community service and attend drug and alcohol counselling. He was released on bail with strict curfew conditions and the matter was adjourned until May 12. The local community quickly rallied around the 88-year-old (pictured) and donated money to replace his stolen cash Advertisement A daring photographer captured startling images of an erupting volcano - and he even managed to shoot the mesmerising milky way in the background. Albert Dros camped out under the stars in order to get the perfect shot of Fuego Volcano in Guatemala mid eruption. The burning lava can be seen spurting out of the top of the mountain while the beautiful milk way glistens in the background. Photographer Albert Dros camped out under the stars in order to get the perfect shot of Fuego Volcano in Guatemala mid eruption The burning lava can be seen spurting out the top of the mountain while the beautiful milk way glistens in the background Mr Dros' carefully planned out tripped paid off and he was more than pleased with the results. He said: 'When I decided I wanted to go to Guatemala to try and shoot the volcano, I started doing my research early on how I wanted my shot to look. 'Erupting lava is best visible in evening and night, so I was obviously going for that. 'But when I finally saw Fuego erupt up close, combined with the power of its sound, I was paralysed with awe.' Volcan de Fuego is an active stratovolcano in Guatemala, on the borders of Chimaltenango, Escuintla and Sacatepequez Mr Dros said it was one of the 'most amazing and impressive' things he had ever seen in nature. He added that his research 'paid off' as all the elements he needed to create the shot fell into place The volcano (left and right) is famous for being almost constantly active at a low level and smoke plumes come from its top daily Large eruptions are rare but a round of lava flows and ash explosion activity began in May 2012 has continued. Mr Dros (pictured) said when he finally saw Fuego erupt up close he was 'paralysed with awe' The volcano is famous for being almost constantly active at a low level and smoke plumes come from its top daily. Large eruptions are rare but a round of lava flows and ash explosion activity that began in May 2012 has continued. Mr Dros added: 'It was amazing and was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen in nature. 'My research paid off, all the elements I needed to create the shot that I wanted seemed to fall into place. It's a great feeling when things go as planned. 'The real show started as it got darker, Fuego kept erupting and the glowing lava finally became visible. 'The sight of an erupting volcano is something I was only used to seeing in movies, it was surreal.' A teenage girl in Georgia who tried to commit suicide on Facebook Live this week is now recovering after the attempt. The incident happened on Tuesday around 7.30pm in Macon, which is about an hour outside of Atlanta, when several Facebook users called 911. Luckily, sheriff's deputies were able to find the girl in time. She is now recovering according to KFOR. Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said: 'It's a good thing that the people watching this called it in. Those people did the right thing.' In addition, Facebook had also alerted authorities to what was taking place. Sergeant Linda Howard with the Bibb Sheriff's Office told WMAZ the teen girl consumed pills and placed a plastic bag over her head. Scroll down for video A Georgia teen's apparent suicide attempt that was broadcast on Facebook Live was stopped by sheriff's deputies on Tuesday. The incident happened around 7:30pm in Macon, which is about an hour outside of Atlanta, when several Facebook users called 911 (file photo above) Roughly 30 minutes after the calls were received, three patrol cars and an ambulance were spotted traveling down Vineville Avenue to the teen's residence. The teen, who has not been publicly identified, still had a pulse as medics carried her downstairs on a gurney, The Telegraph of Macon reported. The teen girl was transported to Medical Center Navicent Health and was pronounced to be okay on Wednesday evening. 'All social media is is a conduit for attention,' Davis said. Bibb County Sheriff David Davis (file photo above) said: 'It's a good thing that the people watching this called it in' 'Even in this tragic situation, this young lady was looking for attention, and thankfully, the right people were watching. It could have been more tragic.' He added that numerous live-streaming suicide attempts have occurred since the Facebook Live feature launched last year, but this was the first ever instance in Bibb County. 'We are a voyeuristic society,' Davis said. 'It's really troubling that you have things like this, to have access to people being able to put something up live, as it happens...We see more often that it ends in regret.' Earlier Wednesday it was announced that Facebook is stepping up its efforts to keep inappropriate and often violent material - including recent high-profile videos of murders and suicides, hate speech and extremist propaganda - off of its site. The world's biggest social network said it plans to hire 3,000 more people to review videos and other posts after getting criticized for not responding quickly enough to murders shown on its service. The hires over the next year will be on top of the 4,500 people Facebook already tasks with identifying criminal and other questionable material for removal. CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote Wednesday that the company is 'working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner - whether that's responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down.' For confidential suicide support call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. A groundsman, 50, is facing extra charges after allegedly installing a secret camera to spy on staff in the bathroom at a Perth childcare centre. The Gosnells man is alleged to have installed the camera between January and February 2017, while working as a groundsman at a child care centre in Karrawara. He was initially charged with unlawfully installing an optical device on February 16 this year. A groundsman, 50, is facing extra charges after allegedly installing a secret camera to spy on staff in the bathroom at a Perth childcare centre (stock image) Detectives executed a search warrant at the man's property on Gosnells on the same day and seized various recordings of staff members using the bathroom at the centre. Police have confirmed the recordings are isolated to the staff bathroom area only. The man has since been charged with a further five counts of unlawfully installing an optical device, which were not connected to the childcare centre, and a charge of destroying evidence. He appeared in the Armadale Magistrates Court on Friday to face the further charges. Military drone recordings were accidentally streamed on the internet. The US government appears to have accidentally streamed footage of a military-style drone. The video appears to be recording thousands of feet above northwest Florida, over the coast, with the camera aimed at random civilian boaters. Experts have deduced that the footage came from Predator drones, which are primarily used by the Air Force and CIA to record an area right before a missile is dropped. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO On Wednesday, an unnamed contractor seems to have accidentally streamed US military drone footage on the internet, recorded above the northwest coast of Florida (pictured above) The servers were discovered on Wednesday by The Daily Beast journalist Kenneth Lipp, who found them while randomly searching Shodan, a search engine for Internet-connected devices. Both servers were accessible just by typing their IP addresses inside the browser. The webpage then loaded with a 'Welcome to FMV!' title. It also included logos for three US government agencies: the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the Aerospace Data Facility-East, and the Washington Innovation Center of the Combat Information Center. The footage that appeared showed civilian boats and people on other water vehicles. 'I...ended up watching jet-skiers via US government aerial video feed,' Lipp wrote on his blog. 'Apparently the Air Force is using fishing boats and vacationers as simulated enemy, dummy targets.' 'FMV' is military language for full-motion video, which unmanned aerial vehicles such as Predator and Reaper drones shoot in war zones including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. This often right before a missile is fired or a bomb is dropped on some suspected terrorist. The footage is still up on the obscure website. NRO spokeswoman Loretta DeSio told Motherboard she wasn't immediately familiar with the video. The servers were discovered by The Daily Beast journalist Kenneth Lipp, who found them while randomly searching a search engine for Internet-connected devices. Recorded were civilian boats and jet-skiers enjoying the water (pictured above) Experts have deduced that the footage, recorded in February, came from Predator drones, which are primarily used to record an area right before a missile is dropped. The civilians in the video were being used as 'dummy targets' Scott Swanson, a former Air Force Predator operator who helped lead the team that added missiles to the drone starting in 2000, confirmed that the video feed seems legitimate. The graphics overlay looks like an updated Predator-type feed but could be any of the modern [electro-optical or infrared] systems,' Swanson told Motherboard. 'As for the feed being put on the internet, even by accident, that makes me go hmmmm,' Swanson said Lipp said he could tell that the video was not live, particularly because the stream showed clear skies while the weather at the time over the panhandle was cloudy. Additionally, the video showed bright blue skies even when it was night in Florida. Journalist Sean Gallagher, from Ars Techna, discovered that the footage was shot in February, and that a Pentagon supplier uploaded it to the website as a part of a product demonstration. Gallagher believes the contractor that built the site hoped no one outside of the NRO would notice it. 'Security through obscurity,' he tweeted. A man who authorities say barricaded himself in a Massachusetts motel room after shooting a police officer in the face has been found dead. Braintree Police Chief Paul Shastany said at a press conference early Saturday that the officer underwent surgery at the Boston Medical Center and is expected to survive, according to the Boston Globe. Police said officers were at the Motel 6 in Braintree, to check a person's warrant status Friday night when the person opened fire around 9pm, hitting the officer. Scroll down for video A man who authorities say barricaded himself in a Massachusetts Motel 6 room after shooting a police officer in the face has been found dead. Authorities surrounded the motel (pictured) and when they finally were able to go in safely, they found the unidentified man dead Braintree Police Chief Paul Shastany said at a press conference early Saturday that the officer underwent surgery at the Boston Medical Center and is expected to survive Braintree Police said the bullet did not go directly into the officers head, and instead hit his skull following some sort of deflection, according to CBS Boston. Rooms at the motel were evacuated and a nearby train station was closed at the time of the incident. Witnesses said they heard at least three gunshots. Shastany said officers later entered the room and found the suspect dead. Though the name of the officer has not been released, Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan said: 'He's a very good officer,' according to NBC Boston. He added: 'We understand now his injuries are not life threatening, and so we will continue to monitor this situation.' One witness told CBS: 'I was just watching TV and then I heard gunshots... And that was about it. I went outside and they had the guy trapped in the corner so I just got evacuated, kicked out of the room.' Officers from the State Police, SWAT teams and officers from surrounding towns responded to the scene, where the suspect was holed up in a Motel 6 room. No other injuries were reported. As of Saturday morning, police had not released any more details of the incident. Police said officers were at the Motel 6 (pictured) in Braintree, to check a person's warrant status Friday night when the person opened fire around 9pm, hitting the officer Video footage has captured the heartwarming reunion between a little girl and her father who returned home after spending several months on deployment. RAF Sergeant Jon Caffrey, 42, was close to tears at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire as his wife and children welcomed him home from Qatar. In a clip that has captured hearts around the world, four-year-old Emily, who was diagnosed with a brain malformation last year, rushes towards her father before he scoops her up in his arms. RAF Sergeant Jon Caffrey, 42, was left close to tears at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire as his daughter Emily rushed to greet him Adorable four-year-old Emily rushed towards her father in a video that has captured hearts around the world The four-year-old was diagnosed with a brain malformation in January last year, even though she presents symptoms similar to someone who has Cerebral Palsy. Dental nurse Hannah Caffrey, 37, from Harrogate, West Yorkshire, captured the magical moment her husband and daughter were reunited. Sgt Caffrey, a Falklands and Afghanistan veteran who travelled across to Qatar for deployment in January, says he was close to tears after seeing 'daddy's little girl' running towards him. He said: 'The greeting I got from Emily when I arrived back in the UK was more than I could ever of hoped for. 'I have often seen other fathers being greeted by their kids but never knew how special it really was until Emily came running up to me like she did. 'Luckily the video hides it, but I was closer to tears than I like to admit. 'She is a very bright and happy little girl and also very much a daddy's girl, which makes it all the more difficult to leave her as she understands enough to know daddy is leaving but can't comprehend how long for or why he isn't coming home everyday. 'Although I have done several deployments in the past, this is the first time I have been away for any significant period of time since having children which makes it so much harder for both me and Hannah.' Hannah Caffrey, 37, from Harrogate, West Yorkshire, captured the magical moment her husband and daughter were reunited Emily was born at 28 weeks and was diagnosed with a brain malformation in January last year Emily was born at 28 weeks and was diagnosed with a brain malformation in January last year. The condition means Emily, who currently attends a mainstream nursery, relies on a crocodile walker. Although the family can Whatsapp and video-call while Sgt Caffrey is away, Hannah said it was difficult for Emily to properly talk to her father over webcam. The couple, who also have another seven-month-old daughter called Molly, celebrated Emily's fourth birthday while Sgt Caffrey was back in the UK. But he flew back to Qatar on May 2 and said another goodbye to his family who he will not see again until he finally returns home in August. Sgt Caffrey, who usually works at RAF College Cranwell within the RAF Police Special Investigations Branch, is currently on six months detachment in Qatar. He has served with the British Royal Air Force in the Falklands, Basra and Afghanistan. After spending months away from home, Sgt Caffrey scoops 'Daddy's little girl' up in his arms Sgt Caffrey, who usually works at RAF College Cranwell within the RAF Police Special Investigations Branch, is currently on six months detachment in Qatar Hannah said: 'Because of the problems she has, she's not very vocal. I had explained to her in the car that we were going to see daddy but it wasn't until she saw him that I think she fully realised. 'My daughter is the strongest little girl to go through what she's gone through already. 'Emily was born at 28 weeks and we have travelled around the country since she was born, moving with Jon's postings but we have bought a house in Harrogate so we have a base. 'Sadly she's one of those children that has a malformation of no name. 'Long term, no-one has any idea what it might mean, we don't know what she'll do, it's very much take every day as it comes and see what happens. 'He sees massive changes in her development and just in herself, she's turned into a proper little girl. 'He's overwhelmed by her, she is out and out a proper daddy's girl Emily and Jon enjoying quality time together. 'Seeing her for the last 10 days has been really good for him to see how much she's changed in that time.' Passengers watched as a 'trainsurfer' crawled out from beneath the wheels of a train after he fell while jumping from the roof of one moving carriage to another. Witnesses said the man, believed to be in his 20s, looked 'dishevelled' after he emerged from underneath the train in Brixton at about 2pm today. Specialist paramedics and British Transport Police (BTP) descended on the area and tried to find him, but he had disappeared. The air ambulance also landed nearby. Passengers watched as a 'train surfer' crawled out from beneath the wheels of the train after he slipped while jumping from one carriage to another. He ran off and passengers were delayed while emergency services searched for him (left and right) Witnesses said the man looked 'dishevelled' after he emerged from underneath the train in Brixton at about 2pm today Therapist Rebecca Gray, from Bromley, was travelling from Victoria to Kent, when the man fell. She told MailOnline: 'The train stopped suddenly and I saw this guy with a ripped top climb onto the side. 'He was staggering a bit - perhaps he was drunk or maybe it was the impact of the hit. 'He just looked at the train and carried on walking. He was dishevelled and had a ripped top. 'He just looked at the train and carried on. Quite a young chap, not old, perhaps late 20s. I just thought, what's he doing? He didn't look hurt.' Witnesses described the man as looking 'dishevelled' after he staggered away from the train. Police are pictured at Herne Hill station in south London A withness said passengers from the rear of the train could see the man running, followed 'a few minutes later' by a Network Rail member of staff Journalist Edward Lawrence was on the train heading to Kent when it suddenly stopped. He told MailOnline: 'The horn sounded for several seconds and then the driver slammed on the brakes. 'We were told about 10 minutes later by the conductor that an individual had jumped in front of the train, that we'd gone over him and he'd then got up, crawled out and run down the track. 'Other passengers from the rear of the train could see the individual running, followed a few minutes later by a Network Rail member of staff. 'We've seen lots of BTP along with the Met and their helicopter. They've been searching the line and under the train.' Specialist paramedics and British Transport Police (BTP) descended on the track and tried to find the him Passengers were delayed for about an hour while emergency services searched for the man. A witness wrote on Facebook: 'A guy jumped from top of one train over to ours. slipped. 'Went under our train... survived. Picked himself up and ran off...But now ambulance and air ambulance here at Brixton station and we cannot get off as stuck in between stations. 'Hope guy is alight but idiot for surfing trains!!!' MailOnline has contacted BTP for comment. Additional reporting Edward Lawrence. A yellow spotted monitor has gone under the knife at a vet clinic to have his tail amputated in a painstakingly intricate procedure. Pictures show the male reptile appeared to be put under anaesthetic and had a heart monitor attached to his claws in the human-like surgery at a clinic in Townsville. Queensland vet surgeons were forced to amputate the yellow spotted monitor's tail after an injury deadened half of it. Warning: distressing images The tiny reptile (pictured) was hooked up to a heart monitor during the surgery The Townsville vet clinic said the yellow spotted monitor needed his deadened tail surgically removed Photos of the monitor show his face placed into a clear tube, in what appears to be feeding anaesthetic. His tiny claws were hooked to a heart monitor. The surgeon can be seen with a pair of tweezers and medical scissors as the amputation was completed. Vets also snapped a photo of the monitor's severed tail post surgery - showing what the reptile looks like without his appendage. In a Facebook post shared by Townsville Snakehandlers, worried commenters asked the vet what will happen to the monitor. His face was put into a clear tube as his tail was removed during the painstaking operation Pictures show the yellow spotted monitor without his tail post-operation (pictured) Photos of the unusual surgical patient show the monitor's face placed into a clear tube to feed it anaesthetic as his tiny claws were hooked to a heart monitor When asked how it will go without his tail, the vet clinic replied: 'He will be ok. They use it for defensive behaviour and climbing.' Another Facebook user questioned if he would grow his tail back, as many lizards are able to regenerate their own tail. But the clinic responded with a simple: 'No it won't.' The vet clinic also said the monitor is doing 'really well' post operation. Monitor lizards are commonly found in the Northern regions of Australia and usually reach around 4 to 5 feet in length. The surgeon can be seen with a pair of tweezers and medical scissors as it completed the amputation A man suspected of murdering an American vet and his Canadian girlfriend in Belize is said to be the woman's 'best friend'. John Deshaies, 54, is the prime suspect after Drew DeVoursney, 36, and Francesca Matus, 52, were found strangled to death in a sugar cane field with their hands bound with duct tape. A family friend who spoke to the Toronto Sun defended Deshaies, saying: 'Its a terrible misunderstanding. Francesca was his best friend. Hes a really good guy.' Deshaies, a Canadian construction company owner who lived in the lower half of Matus' seaside home in Corozal, Belize, is one of two suspects detained in the case. The second suspect's identity has not been released. John Deshaies (above) is a suspect after Drew DeVoursney, 36, and Francesca Matus, 52, were found strangled to death in a sugar cane field. Deshaies is said to be Matus' best friend Matus (left) and DeVoursney (right) had only been dating for six months. They were last seen leaving Scotty's Bar and Grill in Corozal before their bodies were found nearly a week later The couple, who met in Belize, had only been dating for six months. They were last seen leaving Scotty's Bar and Grill in Corozal after a goodbye party for Matus, who was due to fly home to Ontario on April 26. The real estate investor and mother of two moved to Central America four years ago and split her time between Belize and Canada. When another friend Joe Milholen turned up to take Matus to the airport, he said 'the gate was closed and the car was gone.' The car, said to be in good condition, was later found abandoned in a sugar cane field on April 30. The couple's bodies were recovered the following day near the village of Chan Chen. DeVoursney's body was on top of Matus' with their wrists duct-taped. Police targeted Deshaies once he disappeared after Matus and DeVoursney went missing. He was accused of stealing $57,000 worth of goods from a casino in an unrelated case. But Deshaies told 7News he was just doing his job and following orders to remove hard drives, laptops and machinery from the casino. He also maintained his innocence in the deaths of Matus and DeVoursney, saying he was 'absolutely not' involved. He added: 'She is a very good friend of mine.' A family friend who spoke to the Toronto Sun also claimed Deshaies was a scapegoat, saying: 'Belize is a very corrupt country....They want it to seem like it's a Canadian or American problem rather than a Belizean one.' Two men so far have been detained and questioned about the couple's deaths, but no one has been charged, said Raphael Martinez, a Belize police spokesman. An autopsy revealed the victims had been strangled. Police have ruled at theft as a motive, and are exploring previous threats made against Matus (above) Deshaies, who is charged for stealing from a casino in an unrelated case, denied any involvement in the deaths of Matus (left) and DeVoursey (right) Local media in Belize reported that authorities were working on a number of possible motives, including jealousy or a possible deal gone sour given Matus was a real estate investor. Theft was ruled out as the motive after Belizean police said nothing was stolen from the victims' home, nor was his wallet or her jewelry missing. Dennis Arnold, commanding officer in the City of Corozal, said they were investigating some threats that were made against Matus, who did not report them. 'Just open threats. I believe if a report of that threat to Miss Francesca (had been made), maybe she would be alive today,' Arnold said. He said he believed members of the tight-knit expat community in Corozal knew exactly what was happening as Arnold suggested the killings may have been carried out by foreigners. DeVoursney's family is preparing bury his remains in Nashville National Cemetery in Tennessee, near where he grew up and graduated from high school, said his mother, Char. DeVoursney enlisted in the US military after the 9/11 terror attacks and served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. His mother said he was overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder from his time abroad. She added that she was heartened to learn from the US Embassy in Belize that the FBI are assisting with the investigation. The FBI had no comment. 'I'm wondering if with the FBI being involved will we ever be able to get to the bottom of who did it,' she told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. 'That is my number one question and also whatever reasons or why it happened.' Friends and family are also raising money on GoFundMe to hire a private investigator. Houston police arrested Jeffery Archangel (pictured), 25, Friday morning in connection with the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Javier Flores on February 22 A 25-year-old man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a Houston Subway restaurant employee as he tried to protect his mother. Javier Flores, 18, and his mother, Hilda Vasquez, who also worked at the restaurant, were alone at the shop and preparing to close when two gunmen burst in. Houston police announced a capital murder warrant for Jeffery Archangel Friday morning in connection with the February 22 shooting, and he surrendered Friday afternoon. Authorities said Archangel and a second suspect held Flores' mother at gunpoint while they attempted to rob the Subway located in the 3900 block of Broadway St. Flores tried to protect his mother and confronted the gunman. One of the men shot Flores in the neck before fleeing towards the I-45 road in a four-door, gold-colored sedan, according to KHOU. The teen was rushed to Ben Taub Hospital, but was later pronounced dead. Flores was a student at Chavez High School, less than two miles away from the restaurant. A reward for information leading to the arrest of the two people involved in the fatal shooting Flores grew to $40,000 following the tragedy. Authorities said Archangel and a second suspect held Flores' mother, Hilda Vasquez (pictured), at gunpoint while they attempted to rob the Subway. Flores (pictured) tried to protect his mother and confronted the gunman, who then shot him in the neck before fleeing The teen was rushed to Ben Taub Hospital, but was later pronounced dead. Flores (pictured) was a student at Chavez High School, less than two miles away from the restaurant Vasquez has urged people with information about the slaying of her son to 'just turn them in'. The grieving mother said if the two assailants did this to her son, 'they're going to do it to anybody'. She described how one of two robbers pointed a gun at her head. Her son ran to her and was shot. Vasquez says her bleeding son died on the floor of the Subway store while the robbers fled empty-handed. 'They're out here working and doing what they're supposed to be doing and then these two suspects came in and cut that short, and certainly there was nothing in there that was worth the life of the 18 year old,' Detective David Crowder said at the time. Shortly after the shooting, a GoFundMe page raised more than $32,000 for the teen's funeral costs. Flores has been described as a hero who 'pushed his mom away from danger and ended up taking a bullet'. Archangel had been out on a $30,000 bail bond after he was charged early last month with the robbery the same night of another Subway restaurant, this one at 4807 San Jacinto in the Museum District. Vasquez has urged people with information about the slaying of her son to 'just turn them in'. The grieving mother said her bleeding son died on the floor of the Subway store (pictured) while the robbers fled empty-handed Community activist Quanell X told Chron.com that Archangel was 'adamant that he was not the shooter'. Quanell X got involved with the case when Archangel called him early Friday. He said Archangel has an audio recording that features the real shooter describing the crime in detail. The second suspect, who is still at large, was described as being 17 years old. He was wearing a light blue hoodie with dark pants at the time of the shooting. Police are still looking for the second suspect, who Archangel claims pulled the trigger. This photo of one suspect was released by police shortly after the shooting 'This young man maintains his innocence. He says he was not even there,' Quanell X said of Archangel. But police told Chron.com that they believe they have the right suspect. Chief Art Acevedo said: 'We're pretty confident. We've got witnesses, we've got good ballistics, we've got the murder weapon.' Acevedo said multiple witnesses put Archangel at the scene of both robberies. But police didn't have enough information last month to charge him with murder as well as aggravated robbery, so he was able to make bail. Archangel has no convictions on his criminal record and has never been charged with a felony. Police are still looking for the second suspect, whom prosecutors could charge with murder regardless of who pulled the trigger, according to Texas' felony murder rule and law of parties that implicates all accomplices to a crime. Anyone with information in the case is asked to call HPD Homicide at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). Voting for the next president of France has begun in some overseas territories. The first French territories to vote were Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near Newfoundland, French Guiana and the French West Indies. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have been involved in an increasingly bitter contest, accusing each other of being unfit to live up to the grandeur of the French presidency. But in the last 24 hours voting was overshadowed by a 'massive and coordinated' hacking attempt on candidate Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have been involved in an increasingly bitter contest, accusing each other of being unfit to live up to the grandeur of the French presidency Deputy Mayor Joanne Briand checks a voter's ID at a polling station at the City Hall of Saint-Pierre, on the French archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon French citizens wait in line to cast their votes at the College Stanislas in Montreal Early voting in overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean and some French embassies abroad will begin later on Saturday. A 44-hour legal blackout on campaigning began Friday at midnight and is due to last until 8pm on Sunday when the last polling stations close on the mainland and the first pollsters' projections and official partial results are expected. After ditching France's traditional left-right main political parties in a first-round election, voters are now choosing between Macron's business-friendly, pro-European vision and Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization. The future of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global populism. The French presidential campaign has been unusually bitter between Macron and Le Pen's supporters Hundreds patiently took their place in line at the College Stanislas in Montreal A man casts his ballot for the second round of the French presidential election at a polling station at the City Hall of Saint-Pierre This comes after Macron announced Russian hackers launched a 'massive and coordinated' bid to destabilise his campaign just moments before a ban on media reports liable to affect the presidential race. Nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. The French presidential forerunner made the eleventh hour announcement at 11.56pm - four minutes before the legal prohibition on campaigning was put in place. Slamming the hack as an effort to 'seed doubt and disinformation' and destabilize the presidential vote, Macron's movement En Marche said it would 'take all measures' to shed light on what happened. It recalled similar leaks from Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign. The future of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global populism The French voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign of tampering with ballot papers in a way that favors Macron Early voting in overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean and some French embassies abroad will begin later on Saturday In other voting issues, the French voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign of tampering with ballot papers in a way that favors Macron. The Le Pen campaign said administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballots 'systematically torn up.' The French presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and the candidates insulting each other on national television - a reflection of the deep divisions and public disaffection with politics. Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign. 'We changed everything,' win or lose, Le Pen said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. Macron, a former economy minister and investment banker who has never held elected office, also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign outside standard parties. Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish job protections for workers. Students in several Paris schools protested Friday against both the candidates. First daughter Ivanka Trump is facing backlash after a State Department account reposted her tweet promoting her new book Ivanka Trump has come under fire - again - after a State Department account reposted her tweet promoting her new book. The government department, The Office of Global Womens Issues, took down the social media post following mounting criticism that the administration was marketing the Trumps' business interests. In the post the First Daughter, 35, - who has close to four million followers on the social media site - tweeted thanking her sisters Tiffany and Lara for getting a copy of her book, Women Who Work, which has received a slew of negative reviews. 'Thank you to my beautiful sisters for the support of my Women Who Work book!' she said in her post, which showed pictures of her sisters. A day after the tweet posted on May 3, the social media account for the Office of Global Women's issues - a small division promoting women's rights and has been without a head since Trump took office - retweeted her but took it down shortly after the backlash. Ivanka's post read: 'Thank you to my beautiful sisters for the support of my Women Who Work book!' A day after, State Department division, The Office of Global Womens Issues, retweeted the post which already had more than 1,000 retweets A barrage of criticism followed shortly after the State Department's tweet, with one social media user, Patti McBride, accurately citing a governmental law which prohibits those in public office from using their position for financial gain Many other Twitter users questioned the ethical issues surrounding the retweet. The mounting controversy comes after the First Daughter announced on April 20 - weeks before the book's release date on May 4 - that she would not be making any media appearances to promote her book to avoid breaching ethical codes Twitter account Nasty Woman tweeted: '@GenderAtState Shame on you for promoting I Trump's embarrassing new book. Shoule be titled 'Women Who Worlk For Daddy'. Ethics violation.' Others wrote that they believed it was against federal laws. Patti McBride wrote: '@GenderAtState isn't retweeting ivanka's tweet about her new book against federal laws, 5 CFR 2635.702, to be specific?' Amid mounting criticism that the administration has been compromising ethics rules by promoting the Trump's family's business interests, Ivanka announced on April 20 - weeks before the books release date on May 4 - that she would not be making any media appearances to promote her book. @dlryan532 snarkily suggested Ivanka changed the title of her book, - from Women Who Work to Women Who Work for Daddy. This is not the first time the Trump family has come under fire for promoting their business interests while in public office. Last February, Kellyanne Conway was criticized after she told Fox and Friends viewers to 'go buy Ivanka's stuff' while making an appearance on the show Some like Twitter user, Melj330, denounced the administration for 'dismantling campaigns around girls' education' 'In light of government ethics rules, I want to be clear that this book is a personal project. I wrote it at a different time in my life, from the perspective of an executive and an entrepreneur, and the manuscript was completed before the election last November," she wrote in a Facebook post last month. 'Out of an abundance of caution and to avoid the appearance of using my official role to promote the book, I will not publicize the book through a promotional tour or media appearances,' she wrote. Rather the White House adviser has been advertising her book on her Twitter and Facebook pages, posting every day since its release. @SethClark called for the department to be held 'accountable', since it's the third time it's come under fire for compromising ethics rules In classic Twitter fashion, a user sarcastically asked who authorized the department to retweet Ivanka's post While the retweet doesn't break any laws, it could break federal rules that prohibits those in public office from marketing commercial products or using governmental resources such as social media accounts without authorization. Earlier this year, Ivanka found herself under an unwanted spotlight again after Kellyanne Conway told Fox News viewers to buy Ivanka's clothes. 'Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you,' Conway said. 'I hate shopping, I'm going to go get some myself today.' As a piece of career advice, it might be describe as comically misguided and it could have deprived the world of a cultural icon. Thankfully, Charlie Chaplin was not easily deterred. Newly discovered correspondence reveals that the then 23-year-old was advised by Hollywood executives to change his name and hat, lose the funny walk and even shave off his trademark moustache. Charlie Chaplin was told the lose the very traits in his act that he became well-known for when he finally made it The instructions from film studio Universal in 1912 came in a letter to London-based comedian and impresario Charles Austin, who had recommended Chaplin as a new star to replace the increasingly 'demanding' Buster Keaton. The studio wrote: 'The moustache must go and Chaplin will have to change name. Too easily confused with another comic Charlie Chase. Also Chaplin sounds Jewish.' The memo added: 'Please send in new ideas and new name in case tests are successful. Also, do not allow Chaplin to walk comically. This may look alright on English Music Hall stages but for mass audience we must try to avoid offending people who are bow- legged or cripples. DO NOT let him over-act. Try other hats and caps, possibly even beret.' Springing to Chaplin's defence, Austin replied: 'Chaplin strongly objects changing make-up and style.' Chaplin was recommended as a replacement for Buster Keaton but wasn't successful Nevertheless, the studio still paid for him to travel to Hollywood in January 1913 for a screen test. He performed, as requested, without the comic quirks that would later make him world-famous. Universal's verdict was scathing: 'Test unsatisfactory. Very bland style, no personality and too short. Please keep looking for comics. Keaton becoming impossible.' The following year, Chaplin made his first silent film, Making A Living, for the Keystone Studios. Shortly afterwards he introduced his Little Tramp character in Kid Auto Races At Venice and a star was born. Chaplin went on to win three Oscars during a 75-year career as an actor, writer, director and producer. T he correspondence was found in the archives of London showbusiness charity the Grand Order of Water Rats, of which Austin was chairman. Mike Martin, secretary to the Water Rats' trustees, said: 'It's a great thrill that these letters about Chaplin's early days, when he was trying to get a film contract, have suddenly come to light.' The charity plans to display them at its museum in Gray's Inn Road, along with his famous bowler hat and cane. Irish police are investigating Stephen Fry for blasphemy after he called God an 'utter maniac' who is 'mean-minded and stupid' on television, it has been reported. A viewer reported the offence after the comedian spoke about God during an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE in February 2015. The individual, who wished to remain anonymous, said it was their 'civic duty' to report the comments which he alleges were in breach of the Defamation Act. Controversial: Stephen Fry divided opinion when he spoke to Irish broadcaster RTE about God during an interview, aired in February 2015 Police said they will not comment on a complaint of blasphemy allegedly made against Stephen Fry. The man said he had recently been contacted by police after following up the complaint with them late last year. The footage, which showed Fry quizzed by Irish TV presenter Gay Byrne, went viral after it was aired and has now been seen more than seven million times on YouTube. Asked what he would say if he was confronted by God, Fry replied: 'How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. 'It's utterly, utterly evil. 'Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?' Questioned on how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, he responded: 'I would say, 'Bone cancer in children? What's that about?' 'Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. 'Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of God would do that?' The offence of blasphemy, included in the Defamation Act, is punishable by a fine of 25,000 euro under Irish law. Last month Stephen Fry appeared in a candid video, addressing his battle with mental health A spokesman for the Garda said: 'We are not commenting on an ongoing investigation.' Last month the star appeared in a candid video, addressing his battle with mental health. The British comedian, 59, joined forces with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry to support a new campaign spearheaded by the royals to tackle mental health and its different forms. He has previously spoken about being diagnosed with bipolar and addressing his mental health breaking down, Stephen is seen talking to his psychiatrist in a new film created by Heads Together. The day her four-year-old brother died is firmly rooted in Aisha Khans memory. Aisha was only eight when she woke up to find her home in West Yorkshire filled with people; a kindly uncle scooping her out of bed with her three older siblings while her distraught parents mourned. For months she expected Sarfraz, her tiny brother, to return but she never saw him again. For Aisha, now 36, the loss was just one of many disasters to befall her family. Her twin brother Ahmed died aged just two-and- a-half. Her elder sister Tahira has serious learning difficulties, and another brother, Kasim, born just two years after Sarfrazs death, had problems so severe that he required 24-hour care and did not live to see his 18th birthday. Family beset by tragedy: Aisha as a young child with her parents, who are first cousins The familys sadness is unimaginable. Yet the real tragedy is not only that their experience is far from rare, but that it could have been avoided. Aishas Pakistani-born parents, Mohammed and Barkat, are first cousins. There is fresh and growing evidence that marriage between relatives within the Pakistani community may be to blame in part at least for a dramatic rise in the number of children with genetic disorders being treated in British hospitals. Figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday under Freedom of Information laws reveal a huge challenge, not only for such communities, but also for the Health Service. And it comes with vast financial implications. I've been accused of Islamophobia, but we must talk about it. The figures show that up to 20 per cent of the children treated for congenital problems in cities such as Sheffield, Glasgow and Birmingham are of Pakistani descent, a figure significantly greater than the background populations, which can be four per cent or lower. Birmingham Childrens Hospital alone has seen the number of Pakistani children treated for genetic disorders increase by as much as 43 per cent since 2011. Officials admit it is impossible to calculate the cost of treating these problems, but there is no doubting the extraordinary scale of the expense, which even in 2004 was estimated at 2billion a year. Today that figure will be substantially greater still, as hospitals diagnose an ever broader range of conditions and new treatments become available. Scientific studies over at least three decades have linked first-cousin unions to an increased risk of genetic disease. Yet it remains discussed only with extreme reluctance. Medical professionals fear being labelled racist, while individuals among the groups most affected are reluctant to be seen as disloyal. Aisha has been brave enough to tell her family she will not marry a close relative Aisha herself is prepared to be criticised by her own community, and is unequivocal in her belief that not only must it accept the latest figures as proof of a growing problem but that action is needed to address it even if that means taking genetic tests before marriage and in the early stages of pregnancy to prevent further heartbreak. This is a matter of life and death, she says. In a climate of casual racism, terror attacks and Brexit, its hard to discuss but the Pakistani community must accept these findings. Yes, these conditions can happen to white British people, too, but Pakistanis are more likely to be affected because of generations of inbreeding. Testing means these problems would be less likely to happen. Two per cent of the population in the UK is Pakistani or British Pakistani, according to the 2011 Census just under one million people. Estimates suggest half the marriages are consanguineous between blood relatives a largely cultural tradition aimed at keeping wealth and property within families. Such marriages are also common in Arab countries and North Africa. This means a disproportionate number of children from these backgrounds are stillborn, die during childhood, or live with lifelong genetic disabilities. Hundreds of such conditions, many of them so rare they have never before been seen in Britain, are now being diagnosed at childrens hospitals. Typically, the effects include neurological problems, heart or kidney failure, lung and liver failings, blindness, deafness and learning problems. Perhaps it is an indication of a reluctance to address the issue that there are no collected statistics on the number of disorders linked to consanguineous marriage. We obtained our figures through FoI requests, asking childrens hospitals to break down the number of patients they have seen with genetic disorders by ethnicity. The trend is clear. They show that in Sheffield, for example, 20 per cent of affected children are of Pakistani descent compared with a background population of four per cent. In Glasgow, the proportion is about 18 per cent, even though Pakistanis account for 3.8 per cent of the local population. In Manchester, Derby and Leeds, about one in ten children with a genetic disorder is of Pakistani heritage again significantly above the background population. Then there is that extraordinary increase in Pakistani children with genetic disorders in Birmingham a 42 per cent rise in six years, which cannot be attributed solely to new and better diagnosis of such conditions given that the number of children from a white British background increased by 18 per cent in the same period. Clinicians in the city estimate three-quarters of the Pakistani cases are a result of a first-cousin marriage. Dramatic as this picture is, the true overall figures could be higher still, as our data does not include statistics from Londons Great Ormond Street, which deals with some of the most complex cases. The number of children treated there for genetic disorders has jumped by a third in five years. The hospital does not routinely record patient ethnicity but a clinician, who declined to be named, confirmed a significant number of the cases involve first-cousin marriages. One of the fundamental stumbling blocks is, controversially, the way that many of those affected interpret their faith. Aisha grew up in Keighley, where up to 20 per cent of the population is Pakistani and Muslim. Many come from the same few villages in Mirpur, a region now known as Little England. Aisha broke with tradition by refusing to marry a cousin, so great were her concerns about the risk. Aisha's late brother Sarfraz who died in 1988 when he was just four. Other siblings have had genetic problems My dad would not accept that being married to his cousin could have affected his children, she said. Hed say, The doctors are wrong. Its in the hands of God. In his mind, it was all about the will of Allah nothing to do with genetics, which made me hugely frustrated. Hed say if genetics was the reason, how come some of his children were healthy? Many people I know would say that not marrying a cousin is against our religion. There is a powerful pressure to do so, or risk bringing shame on the family. But its a misconception it isnt mentioned in the Koran. The community struggles to accept cousin marriages are resulting in difficulties because they think it [marrying outside the family] goes against their faith. Ive been accused of being Islamophobic or creating problems in the community by raising the issue. A study carried out among Pakistani families in Luton in 2015 found that Aishas father is not alone in his views. The infant mortality rate is a staggering 63 per cent higher in the town than the national average, and is at its highest in the Pakistani community. But a majority of those questioned had a limited understanding of genetic risk even those in contact with specialists because of an affected child and disputed the evidence of the link between first-cousin marriages and birth defects. It is telling that the Muslim Womens Network has received no calls to its helpline on the issue. Callers do, however, ring regularly about subjects including forced marriage and female genital mutilation. So great is the fear of being branded racists, most of the hospitals and local authorities approached to talk about the issue refused to do so. But orthopaedic surgeon Dr Suhail Chughtai, himself a Pakistani, said he had witnessed terrible problems among his own family and friends. There is a problem of segregation among Pakistanis who have moved to the UK, of not looking beyond their community. The country they came from has moved on, but they havent benefited from that cultural revolution. And they havent benefited from their new country because theyre stuck within their own people. This denial exacts a destructive human cost, which is as inevitable as the laws of genetics. While everyone carries the occasional copy of a faulty gene, the damage to any offspring is caused only when faulty genes come together as a pair. And because those who are related to each other are more likely to carry the same faults in their DNA, their children are at a much greater risk of inheriting not just one copy of a faulty gene, but two one from each parent. It means that, for each first-cousin pregnancy, there is a one-in-four chance of having a child with defects. A groundbreaking study, Born In Bradford, successfully raised the issue in 2013. It found cousins who married were twice as likely to have a disabled child compared to those in non-cousin marriages. Such unions also accounted for nearly a third of all birth defects in babies of Pakistani origin. Geneticist Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, said: If you walk up to someone in the street with European ancestry and shake their hand, theres a one in two chance that person is your fifth cousin. In other words, you share an ancestor who lived around the same time as Charles Darwin. There was pressure on one family to have a perfect son. If youre Pakistani and you do this in Pakistan, theres a one in two chance theyre a second cousin. There have been cousin marriages in Pakistan for a long, long time. Within one generation there are fewer issues; following many generations there are a lot. However, he added: Its important to put it into context the risk is equivalent to women over the age of 34 getting pregnant. Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley until standing down in 2010, is among those who have campaigned for greater awareness. She has described the cases she saw as constant and heartbreaking. One middle-class family had six children with two healthy girls, and four disabled boys between toddler age and 11 who needed hoists to move, she said. And yet the mother-in-law had thrown away their contraceptive pills and was pressuring them to have more children so they could have a perfect son. One doctor was dismissed by another womans mother-in-law, who told him, The reason shes having these children with difficulties is because life in the West is not appropriate its the will of Allah, and youre a bad doctor. No one dared talk about it. If youre white, its seen as racist; if youre Pakistani, youre disloyal. If youre going to marry your first cousin, get tested or screened for genetic compatibility first. There are signs of progress. Important work is being carried out by Birmingham Womens and Childrens NHS Foundation Trust, for example. Dr Saikat Santra, a consultant in metabolic disorders at Birmingham Childrens Hospital, describes how local imams are playing a part, advising families that, in some interpretations of the Koran, the soul only enters the foetus at 100 days, which means that they are allowed to seek early pre-natal testing and, potentially, abortion. Dr Santra said families are now more willing to seek advice on genetics. However, even testing before marriage is not by itself sufficient, according to Jenny Morton, a consultant clinical geneticist based at Birmingham Womens Hospital, who said that only certain major problems can be detected this way. Other measures might be necessary too, including early pregnancy screening. A misconception is that these families dont want to hear about genetics, said Dr Morton. What they dont want to hear is that theyre doing things wrong thats when they withdraw. We have had a high non-attendance rate at our clinics among Pakistani families because they didnt understand why they were being sent for and thought we were going to tell them what to do. It could be, also, that a change to British immigration laws is helping reduce the number of problems produced between cousins. Professor Neil Small, one of the Born In Bradford researchers, said: Weve changed the law to introduce an income threshold for spouses coming in from outside the EU, and the experience of other countries such as Denmark and Norway would suggest that could produce a fall in intercontinental marriage generally. The anecdotal evidence suggests it may already be true. Cousins have historically been brought in from places like Pakistan to marry. But this is now more difficult to do. Aisha, too, believes society may be on the cusp of change. Five or ten years ago, no one would have questioned cousin marriage. But my brother and sister-in-law, who are cousins, thought long and hard about having a fourth child because they knew the risk. This is progress. More have to talk about it. Thats key. Ive had three siblings die. If my parents had known, maybe we could have avoided that. Advertisement Rival demonstrators faced off against each other in East Croydon, with fascists being greeted by anti-fascists outside the headquarters of the UK's immigration service. The South East Alliance, a far-right group, organised a rally outside Lunar House, the Home Office's HQ for UK Visas and Immigration. But the 40-odd protesters were met by hundreds at a rally organised by Unite Against Fascism to defend refugees and immigrants. The 40-odd protesters were from the far-right South East Alliance, who protested outside Croydon's Lunar House The group describes itself online as a 'pro-British and English anti-extremist and immigration group' A heavy police presence allowed the far right march to proceed through the suburb while avoiding counter-protests Police were tasked with keeping the rival groups away from each other, the Evening Standard reported. Large numbers of officers kettled the two separate groups away from each to help stop any potential confrontations. The South East Alliance's protest was drowned out by chanting and music, including a track from grime superstar Stormzy - who was born in Croydon. There were a few minor scuffles throughout the afternoon, according to the Croydon Advertiser. Several hundred anti-fascist protesters appeared in Croydon to challenge the far-right group Police used the controversial technique of kettling to keep the rival groups apart A officer from the British Transport police pushes back against an anti-fascist protester The protests come just a month after a teenage asylum seeker was beaten within an inch of his life in Croydon At least one man was reportedly arrested. The protests come just a month after a teenage asylum seeker was beaten within an inch of his life in Croydon. Kurdish-Iranian Reker Ahmed was left with a fractured skull and a blood clot in his brain after being repeatedly punched and kicked to the ground while waiting for a bus. Five people were charged with the suspected hate crime. At least one man was reportedly arrested during the protests on Saturday Equestrian enthusiasts watched in horror as a horse flipped on to its head and hurled its rider onto the grass at the famous Badminton Horse Trials in Gloucestershire today. Australian rider Paul Tapner was hoping to lead Bonza King of Rouges to triumph in the cross country test at the international event when King stumbled at a jump. The crowd gasped as the dappled grey horse caught its hoof on the jump, plunged to the ground and slammed his head onto the turf. Equestrian enthusiasts gasped when horse Bonza King of Rouges flipped vertical and threw rider Paul Tapner out of the saddle at Badminton Horse Trials today - miraculously both rider and horse were unharmed by the dramatic tumble Such a fall is known as a 'rotational' in the equestrian community. Tapner was thrown out of the saddle and landed on the ground before assistants quickly rushed to check that he was uninjured. The rider, who won Badminton in 2010, brushed off the horrendous fall as 'acrobatics' and announced that both he and King were safe and sound on Twitter just forty minutes after the dramatic tumble. The grey dappled horse hit both his knees on the jump and flipped over the fence Tapner, who won Badminton in 2010, remained calm as King plunged to the ground The crowd gasped as King slammed into the ground at the cross country event 'King and I are perfectly OK after our acrobatics especially thanks to protection kit,' he told his 21,000 followers. Fans took to social media to share the horror of the fall and their delight that Tapner and King had survived without a scratch. One wrote on Twitter: 'Yikes, that's a rotational. Paul Tapner off. Horse hit both knees, flipped over solid fence, rider thrown clear, both back on feet.' 'King and I are perfectly OK after our acrobatics especially thanks to protection kit,' Tapner told his 21,000 Twitter followers Despite the horrific fall, Bonzo King of Rouges clambered to his feet, dazzling the crowd Tapner looked disappointed with his performance as an assistant rushed to check he was unharmed Elsewhere at Badminton Horse Trials today, British rider Emily Gilruth was airlifted to hospital by helicopter after a tumble on her horse Topwood Beau. The Cheshire-based rider, 40, was taken to South Meade hospital for observation but Topwood Beau was said to be uninjured. A spokesman for Badminton Horse Trial said that there were no reports of injuries to horses at the event. The Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials is a three-day event held in the grounds of Badminton House in Gloucestershire, the family seat of the Duke of Beaufort. The 10th Duke decided to hold the first event in 1949, with the idea that it would offer British riders the opportunity to train for future international events. Around 150,000 enthusiasts descended upon the estate today for the world-class eventing action. Pippa Middleton will marry fiance James Matthews in May 20 With just two weeks before the big day preparations for Pippa Middleton's wedding are in full swing. The younger sister of Kate Middleton is due to marry fiance James Matthews in two weeks' time at St Mark's Church, Englefield in what is being tipped to be a low key ceremony filled with family and friends. However earlier on Saturday to bride-to-be had a box of flowers delivered to her London home by the upmarket Lavender Green florist rising anticipation for the event. A team from the Windsor based firm was captured delivering a box full of flowers to the door of Prince William's sister in law but Miss Middleton wasn't at hand to collect the flowers personally. Miss Middleton and her investment banker beau are among a host of high profile clients Lavender Green have worked with. The florists have decorated events at the Tower of London, Royal Academy and weddings at plush venues such as Somerset House and Coworth Park. Miss Middleton's nuptials are being held at St Mark's Church in Englefield, Berkshire, with the reception taking place back at the Middleton family home just a few miles away in Bucklebury. Delivery: An employee of Lavender Green florist takes the flowers to Miss Middleton's door Ready: Miss Middleton and her investment banker beau are among a host of high profile clients Lavender Green have worked with Flowers: The nuptials are being held at St Mark's Church in Englefield, Berkshire The Midddletons recently announced, via Kensington Palace, that the star-studded guest list will include Princess Charlotte and Prince George, who will act as the couple's flower girl and page boy. Prince Harry is also an unexpected addition to the bridal party, while royal watchers are hoping for a surprise appearance from his girlfriend Meghan Markle, who is said to have requested a week's holiday in order to travel to England for the nuptials. The 12th-century St Marks chuch is just six miles from Bucklebury where Pippa grew up. It is on a private estate owned by Tory MP Richard Benyon, and is expected to be a relatively small, private affair. Miss Middleton has been spotted jogging through the streets of London over the past week to tone her already slender frame to make sure she looks her best for the day. A doctor faces being struck off after telling a 23-year-old woman who died on a blood clot to take a spa weekend. Charlotte Foster, 23, went into cardiac arrest when she collapsed at work, five months after she started taking Dianette. Three days later, the doctor's daughter, from Newport, Shropshire, died at the Princess Royal Hospital, in Telford, after suffering brain damage. An inquest heard she would have survived if Dr Sunil Idicula Simon had not missed her symptoms and told her to go on a spa day instead. The 23-year-old had graduated from Liverpool University and was working for food company Muller Three weeks before her death, she went to Simon complaining of back pain and shortness of breath - but was told there were no signs of deep vein thrombosis. He insisted the pain was 'muscular in origin' and recommended she 'get a massage' or have a spa day. An inquest revealed Miss Foster had undergone tests that indicated she would be high-risk if prescribed the drug. The brand of pill - which she wanted as both a contraceptive and to treat her acne - carries double the risk of blood clots. Simon is now facing a disciplinary hearing after he refused to accept a warning. He will appear before a General Medical Council (GMC) investigation on June 2 where they will consider what action should be taken. The notification document stated: 'Dr Simon has indicated that he is not prepared to accept a warning as proposed by GMC case examiners, and has elected to have his case heard by the investigation committee at an oral hearing.' Charlotte Foster (pictured, right, with her parents Stephen and Cecilia) died from a suspected blood clot after taking a contraceptive pill Simon is accused of failing to obtain an adequate history or consider the possibility of a pulmonary embolism (PE) or deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from Miss Foster. The statement says Simon did not arrange appropriate investigations after a telephone consultation on December 24 2105 and a second consultation on January 4 last year. It is alleged that during the consultation Simon 'failed to examine Patient A's respiratory system, legs or scapula and failed to record her pulse, oxygen saturations or safety netting advice given'. He did not refer her to hospital or make arrangements for a follow-up consultation if her symptoms persisted, it is claimed. He is also accused of failing to consider stopping the prescription of Dianette, recording an adequate history, or making considerations of DVT or PE. The GMC will discuss if arrangements for follow-up consultations if symptoms persisted or a consideration of stopping Dianette prescriptions were considered. The one-day hearing will be held in Manchester, at 9.30am on June 2. Former colleagues at Miss Foster's workplace and the head of her old school have paid tribute to her Charlotte's parents Stephen, 55, and Cecilia, 60, said they had been left heartbroken by her death. They said: 'We are devastated at the sudden and unexpected loss of a very much loved daughter, sister, and granddaughter. 'Charlotte was a lively, intelligent, beautiful, and caring young lady who will be deeply missed by her family, friends and work colleagues.' Speaking from the family's home in Market Drayton, Dr Stephen Foster, a retired anaesthetist, said: 'It was all very sudden. I'm not sure how long she had been taking the pill for but it was only a matter of months. 'She had a few health niggles but nothing too serious so it was all very sudden and a great shock to us all. She died of brain damage caused by a blood clot at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, Shropshire 'She had completed a degree in Business Studies at Liverpool and was doing very well in her work and had a lot to look forward to in life. 'I don't really want to pass comment [on the dangers of the contraceptive pill] because it is not my position to make public health recommendations. 'We will just wait for the full inquest which I'm sure will reveal more. At the moment we just want time to be able to grieve.' Her sister Hannah, 25, added: 'We are just all so devastated and completely distraught by what had happened.' DOES THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL CAUSE BLOOD CLOTS? NHS guidance does advise about the potential risks of the combined pill but states that they are 'small and, for most women, the benefits of the pill outweigh the risks'. Guidelines warn that the oestrogen in the pill can cause blood to clot more readily. If blood clots develop they can cause deep vein thrombosis, a clot in the leg, pulmonary embolus, a clot in the lung, a stroke or a heart attack. Advertisement Charlotte attended Shrewsbury High School before going to the University of Liverpool where she graduated in 2014. She joined Muller in June last year where she had been working as a Customer Category Executive for just over six months. A spokesman for Muller said: 'In her time with the business Charlotte had a huge impact on both customers and her colleagues. 'She is greatly missed and our thoughts are with Charlotte's family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time.' Michael Getty, headmaster of Shrewsbury High School, also paid tribute to their 'bubbly, happy and immensely caring' former pupil. He said: 'The teachers and staff at Shrewsbury High School were incredibly upset to hear the news that Charlotte Foster, a former pupil of the school, unfortunately passed away after suddenly falling ill whilst at work. 'Charlotte is remembered very fondly at the High School, where she completed her A-levels in 2010. 'Charlotte was always a very bubbly, happy and immensely caring girl who proudly went on to study at Liverpool University. 'Charlotte still retained many friendships with her former high school classmates, who were also devastated to hear of her death. 'The school has sent their condolences to Charlotte's family who they appreciate must be finding her loss so upsetting'. In May last year, another young woman died from a blood clot caused by taking the contraceptive pill. Teaching assistant Fallan Kurek, 21, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, collapsed at her home and died in hospital three days later. Last month an inquest found she died from 'massive pulmonary embolism' caused by the pill after she was not properly assessed by a nurse. And in 2011, a 17-year-old believed to be taking the drug for acne died after her left leg started to swell up and turn purple Advertisement The remains of 602 Russian World War II soldiers have been reburied near St Petersburg after being found by volunteers searching for the missing bodies of four million Soviets. The skeletons were discovered on the bank of the River Neva near the city, previously known as Leningrad, which was invaded by the Nazis in 1941. For 900 days the city fell siege to the Germans, costing the lives of around 200,000 Soviet soldiers and thousands of civilians. Russia lost around 11million soldiers in total and up to four million who have never been found. This has inspired younger generations of Russians to volunteer their spare time to searching for the missing fighters, with the hope of being able to give them a proper burial. The remains of 602 Soviet soldiers, who died during World War II defending Russia from the Nazis, have now been laid to rest after a group of volunteers discovered skeletons near St Petersburg Memorial: Members of volunteer search teams gathered round the coffins during a reburial ceremony at the Sinyavino Heights memorial near the village of Sinyavino, around 30 miles east of St Petersburg on Saturday, May 6 Discovery: The group of volunteers found the remains after searching a river bank near St Petersburg where they found soldiers who had died while defending the city during the war Volunteer search groups have become increasingly popular in Russia in recent years, drawing in people of various ages and professions who spend their weekends and vacations digging for remains on former battlefields. The aim is to identify the soldiers and if possible, make contact with the families, before giving them a respectful burial Today hundreds of people gathered in the village of Sinyavino, thirty miles from St Peterburg, for a solemn memorial which saw 41 crimson coffins, buried into the ground, containing the skulls and bones of those who died. Search groups have become increasingly popular in recent years, as volunteers try to identify soldiers and if possible, reunite the remains with families before giving them a proper burial. In June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched what was to become one of the bloodiest campaigns in recent military history as he invaded Russia for Operation Barbarossa. Targeting Leningrad, now known as St Petersburg, it took the German army just three months to encircle the city. The German siege of Leningrad lasted 900 days from September, 1941 to January, 1944. During that time 800,000 people, nearly a third of the population at the sieges beginning, starved to death. Roughly one in three. Many of them in the streets. Soviet soldiers fought hard to secure a stretch of the river bank, in a bid to break the blockade from the Nazis but hundreds of thousands of troops were slaughtered in the process. In total, the USSR lost around 11million soldiers during the war and up to 20million of its civilians. Of the estimated 70million people killed in World War II, 26million died on the Eastern front - and up to four million of them are still officially considered missing in action. Russia's distressing history and lost soldiers has motivated generations of Russians to find those who died to give them a proper burial. One volunteer group recently discovered a corroded dog tag, with a small piece of paper containing one soldier's identification information still rolled up inside. The volunteers were able to restore the fragile paper note and then track down the relatives of the fallen soldier, Ivan Shagichev, so they could learn where he died and see him properly buried at last. His daughter Tamara Zhukova said: 'I cry and cry, I don't know how to explain it. I never saw my father, but it is so important that he was found and I'll have a place to come to speak to him.' Her father had already left for the front when she was born on September 1, 1941, and he was killed two months later. Today, crowds watched on as servicemen carried 41 crimson coffins containing the skulls and bones of the fighters before they were buried, while Russian war songs played out in their honour The German siege of Leningrad lasted 900 days from September, 1941 to January, 1944. During that time 800,000 people, nearly a third of the population at the sieges beginning, starved to death As many as 200,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in Leningrad between September 1941 and May 1943 in fighting to break the Nazi siege. The searchers have now recovered and buried the remains of thousands of Red Army soldiers, often placing several together in the same crimson casket Of the estimated 70 million people killed in World War Two, 26 million died on the Eastern front - and up to four million of them are still officially considered missing in action. This has spurned popularity for volunteer body hunters across Russia, to try to track down their missing soldiers Volunteer search groups have become increasingly popular in Russia in recent years, drawing in people of various ages and professions who spend their weekends and vacations digging for remains on former battlefields. Their work attracts new attention ahead of Victory Day on Tuesday, May 9, when Russia celebrates the 1945 defeat of the Nazis and honors those who fought and died for their country. The searchers have now recovered and buried the remains of thousands of Red Army soldiers, often placing several together in the same crimson casket. Few, however, have had the intact dog tags that make identification possible. Many of the searches have focused on the former battlefield of Nevsky Pyatachok, about 30 miles southeast of St Petersburg. As many as 200,000 Soviet soldiers were killed here between September 1941 and May 1943 in fighting to break the Nazi siege of the city, which was then called Leningrad. After a burial ceremony last Autumn for a further 400 soldiers, including Zhukova's father, a team of searchers took her to the place along the bank of the Neva River where they had found his remains. Zhukova sat down at the spot and tried to imagine what her father had seen in the final moments of his life. Nearby, members of another search team continued to dig. Aisha Khan, whose parents are first cousins, has lost siblings to genetic problems The day her four-year-old brother died is firmly rooted in Aisha Khans memory. Aisha was only eight when she woke up to find her home in West Yorkshire filled with people; a kindly uncle scooping her out of bed with her three older siblings while her distraught parents mourned. For months she expected Sarfraz, her tiny brother, to return but she never saw him again. For Aisha, now 36, the loss was just one of many disasters to befall her family. Her twin brother Ahmed died aged just two-and- a-half. Her elder sister Tahira has serious learning difficulties, and another brother, Kasim, born just two years after Sarfrazs death, had problems so severe that he required 24-hour care and did not live to see his 18th birthday. The familys sadness is unimaginable. Yet the real tragedy is not only that their experience is far from rare, but that it could have been avoided. Aishas Pakistani-born parents, Mohammed and Barkat, are first cousins. There is fresh and growing evidence that marriage between relatives within the Pakistani community may be to blame in part at least for a dramatic rise in the number of children with genetic disorders being treated in British hospitals. Figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday under Freedom of Information laws reveal a huge challenge, not only for such communities, but also for the Health Service. And it comes with vast financial implications. The figures show that up to 20 per cent of the children treated for congenital problems in cities such as Sheffield, Glasgow and Birmingham are of Pakistani descent, a figure significantly greater than the background populations, which can be four per cent or lower. Birmingham Childrens Hospital alone has seen the number of Pakistani children treated for genetic disorders increase by as much as 43 per cent since 2011. Officials admit it is impossible to calculate the cost of treating these problems, but there is no doubting the extraordinary scale of the expense, which even in 2004 was estimated at 2billion a year. Today that figure will be substantially greater still, as hospitals diagnose an ever broader range of conditions and new treatments become available. Aisha as a child with her parents Mohammed and her mother Barkat Scientific studies over at least three decades have linked first-cousin unions to an increased risk of genetic disease. Yet it remains discussed only with extreme reluctance. Medical professionals fear being labelled racist, while individuals among the groups most affected are reluctant to be seen as disloyal. Aisha herself is prepared to be criticised by her own community, and is unequivocal in her belief that not only must it accept the latest figures as proof of a growing problem but that action is needed to address it even if that means taking genetic tests before marriage and in the early stages of pregnancy to prevent further heartbreak. This is a matter of life and death, she says. In a climate of casual racism, terror attacks and Brexit, its hard to discuss but the Pakistani community must accept these findings. Yes, these conditions can happen to white British people, too, but Pakistanis are more likely to be affected because of generations of inbreeding. Testing means these problems would be less likely to happen. Two per cent of the population in the UK is Pakistani or British Pakistani, according to the 2011 Census just under one million people. Estimates suggest half the marriages are consanguineous between blood relatives a largely cultural tradition aimed at keeping wealth and property within families. Such marriages are also common in Arab countries and North Africa. This means a disproportionate number of children from these backgrounds are stillborn, die during childhood, or live with lifelong genetic disabilities. Hundreds of such conditions, many of them so rare they have never before been seen in Britain, are now being diagnosed at childrens hospitals. Typically, the effects include neurological problems, heart or kidney failure, lung and liver failings, blindness, deafness and learning problems. Perhaps it is an indication of a reluctance to address the issue that there are no collected statistics on the number of disorders linked to consanguineous marriage. We obtained our figures through FoI requests, asking childrens hospitals to break down the number of patients they have seen with genetic disorders by ethnicity. Officials say it is impossible to calculate the cost of treating these problems, but there is no doubting the scale of the expense, which in 2004 was estimated at 2billion a year The trend is clear. They show that in Sheffield, for example, 20 per cent of affected children are of Pakistani descent compared with a background population of four per cent. In Glasgow, the proportion is about 18 per cent, even though Pakistanis account for 3.8 per cent of the local population. In Manchester, Derby and Leeds, about one in ten children with a genetic disorder is of Pakistani heritage again significantly above the background population. Then there is that extraordinary increase in Pakistani children with genetic disorders in Birmingham a 42 per cent rise in six years, which cannot be attributed solely to new and better diagnosis of such conditions given that the number of children from a white British background increased by 18 per cent in the same period. Clinicians in the city estimate three-quarters of the Pakistani cases are a result of a first-cousin marriage. Dramatic as this picture is, the true overall figures could be higher still, as our data does not include statistics from Londons Great Ormond Street, which deals with some of the most complex cases. The number of children treated there for genetic disorders has jumped by a third in five years. The hospital does not routinely record patient ethnicity but a clinician, who declined to be named, confirmed a significant number of the cases involve first-cousin marriages. The number of children treated at London's Great Ormond Street hospital has jumped by a third in three years One of the fundamental stumbling blocks is, controversially, the way that many of those affected interpret their faith. Aisha grew up in Keighley, where up to 20 per cent of the population is Pakistani and Muslim. Many come from the same few villages in Mirpur, a region now known as Little England. Aisha broke with tradition by refusing to marry a cousin, so great were her concerns about the risk. My dad would not accept that being married to his cousin could have affected his children, she said. Hed say, The doctors are wrong. Its in the hands of God. In his mind, it was all about the will of Allah nothing to do with genetics, which made me hugely frustrated. Hed say if genetics was the reason, how come some of his children were healthy? Many people I know would say that not marrying a cousin is against our religion. There is a powerful pressure to do so, or risk bringing shame on the family. But its a misconception it isnt mentioned in the Koran. The community struggles to accept cousin marriages are resulting in difficulties because they think it [marrying outside the family] goes against their faith. Ive been accused of being Islamophobic or creating problems in the community by raising the issue. A study carried out among Pakistani families in Luton in 2015 found that Aishas father is not alone in his views. The infant mortality rate is a staggering 63 per cent higher in the town than the national average, and is at its highest in the Pakistani community. But a majority of those questioned had a limited understanding of genetic risk even those in contact with specialists because of an affected child and disputed the evidence of the link between first-cousin marriages and birth defects. Aisha's younger brother Sarfraz who died in 1988 It is telling that the Muslim Womens Network has received no calls to its helpline on the issue. Callers do, however, ring regularly about subjects including forced marriage and female genital mutilation. So great is the fear of being branded racists, most of the hospitals and local authorities approached to talk about the issue refused to do so. But orthopaedic surgeon Dr Suhail Chughtai, himself a Pakistani, said he had witnessed terrible problems among his own family and friends. There is a problem of segregation among Pakistanis who have moved to the UK, of not looking beyond their community. The country they came from has moved on, but they havent benefited from that cultural revolution. And they havent benefited from their new country because theyre stuck within their own people. This denial exacts a destructive human cost, which is as inevitable as the laws of genetics. While everyone carries the occasional copy of a faulty gene, the damage to any offspring is caused only when faulty genes come together as a pair. And because those who are related to each other are more likely to carry the same faults in their DNA, their children are at a much greater risk of inheriting not just one copy of a faulty gene, but two one from each parent. I've been accused of Islamophobia but we must talk about it It means that, for each first-cousin pregnancy, there is a one-in-four chance of having a child with defects. A groundbreaking study, Born In Bradford, successfully raised the issue in 2013. It found cousins who married were twice as likely to have a disabled child compared to those in non-cousin marriages. Such unions also accounted for nearly a third of all birth defects in babies of Pakistani origin. Geneticist Professor Steve Jones, from University College London, said: If you walk up to someone in the street with European ancestry and shake their hand, theres a one in two chance that person is your fifth cousin. In other words, you share an ancestor who lived around the same time as Charles Darwin. If youre Pakistani and you do this in Pakistan, theres a one in two chance theyre a second cousin. There have been cousin marriages in Pakistan for a long, long time. Within one generation there are fewer issues; following many generations there are a lot. However, he added: Its important to put it into context the risk is equivalent to women over the age of 34 getting pregnant. Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley until standing down in 2010, is among those who have campaigned for greater awareness. She has described the cases she saw as constant and heartbreaking. One middle-class family had six children with two healthy girls, and four disabled boys between toddler age and 11 who needed hoists to move, she said. And yet the mother-in-law had thrown away their contraceptive pills and was pressuring them to have more children so they could have a perfect son. One doctor was dismissed by another womans mother-in-law, who told him, The reason shes having these children with difficulties is because life in the West is not appropriate its the will of Allah, and youre a bad doctor. Former Labour MP Ann Cryer has campaigned for greater awareness of the risks No one dared talk about it. If youre white, its seen as racist; if youre Pakistani, youre disloyal. If youre going to marry your first cousin, get tested or screened for genetic compatibility first. There are signs of progress. Important work is being carried out by Birmingham Womens and Childrens NHS Foundation Trust, for example. Dr Saikat Santra, a consultant in metabolic disorders at Birmingham Childrens Hospital, describes how local imams are playing a part, advising families that, in some interpretations of the Koran, the soul only enters the foetus at 100 days, which means that they are allowed to seek early pre-natal testing and, potentially, abortion. Dr Santra said families are now more willing to seek advice on genetics. However, even testing before marriage is not by itself sufficient, according to Jenny Morton, a consultant clinical geneticist based at Birmingham Womens Hospital, who said that only certain major problems can be detected this way. Other measures might be necessary too, including early pregnancy screening. A misconception is that these families dont want to hear about genetics, said Dr Morton. What they dont want to hear is that theyre doing things wrong thats when they withdraw. We have had a high non-attendance rate at our clinics among Pakistani families because they didnt understand why they were being sent for and thought we were going to tell them what to do. There was pressure on one family to have a perfect son It could be, also, that a change to British immigration laws is helping reduce the number of problems produced between cousins. Professor Neil Small, one of the Born In Bradford researchers, said: Weve changed the law to introduce an income threshold for spouses coming in from outside the EU, and the experience of other countries such as Denmark and Norway would suggest that could produce a fall in intercontinental marriage generally. The anecdotal evidence suggests it may already be true. Cousins have historically been brought in from places like Pakistan to marry. But this is now more difficult to do. Aisha, too, believes society may be on the cusp of change. Five or ten years ago, no one would have questioned cousin marriage. But my brother and sister-in-law, who are cousins, thought long and hard about having a fourth child because they knew the risk. This is progress. More have to talk about it. Thats key. Ive had three siblings die. If my parents had known, maybe we could have avoided that. A North Carolina woman was attacked and killed by her 'beloved' dog inside her home on Monday. Jane Egle, 59, was found dead by Buncombe County deputies who responded to a 911 call shortly after 5pm about an aggressive dog. Authorities say the dog, a Boerboel (also known as the South African Mastiff), would not let rescue workers inside the home located near Bent Creek Forest. Scroll down for video Jane Egle (left), 59, was found dead deputies who responded to a 911 call about an aggressive dog. Police say the dog, a South African Boerboel, would not let rescue crews inside the home. The Boerboel (right) is one of Egle's dogs, but it's unclear if it was the one that attacked her Police said the Boerboel was killed after it wouldn't allow anyone inside. The county's Animal Services Division said seven other dogs were found at the residence and taken to the Asheville Human Society. Six dogs were Boerboels (two pictured), and one was a Great Pyrenees Egle, who was believed to have bred Boerboels, was found unconscious with what appeared to be animal bites, police said. Deputies told the Citizen-Times that the Boerboel was killed after it wouldn't allow anyone inside. As of Friday, investigators said Egle's exact cause of death had not been determined 'After multiple attempts, the dog was finally immobilized and subdued, and deputies were able to remove the dog from the residence,' Natalie Bailey, the Sheriff's Office spokeswoman told the Citizen-Times. Investigators said they spoke with a relative at the residence and learned the dog had a history of aggressive behavior. As of Friday, investigators said Egle's exact cause of death had not been determined. Egle's Facebook and Instagram page shows several photos of Boerboel puppies and adults, whom she called her 'beloved' animals. In some of the photos, Egle's three children are petting and playing with the dogs. She also had a website that was developed in 2016 to advertise a litter of Boerboel puppies. The county's Animal Services Division said seven other dogs were found at the residence and taken to the Asheville Humane Society after the incident. Six dogs were Boerboels, and one dog was a Great Pyrenees. Meredith Riddick, communications manager for the humane society, told the Citizen-Times that two behavior analysts evaluated the Boerboels and determined they cannot be released to the community. The dogs are set to be euthanized, but as of Friday the society hadn't set a date. 'They are dangerous and we don't want to put our staff at risk, so we are still determining the best way to do that,' she said. Egle's Facebook and Instagram page shows several photos of Boerboel puppies (pictured) and adults. In some of the photos, Egle's three children are petting and playing with the dogs. She also had a website that was developed in 2016 to advertise a litter of Boerboel puppies Riddick said the Great Pyrenees will not be euthanized and is not a threat to the public. Authorities said the investigation into Egle's death is ongoing. The American Kennel Club (AKC) says Boerboels were developed as a farm dog in South Africa. These dogs were recognized by the AKC in 2015 are commonly bred for guarding homes. The AKC noted that the Boerboel is one of the most powerful dog breeds Boerboels are large, strong, muscular and confident animals. Sir Christopher Geidt, who will find himself guiding the change over after Philip's retirement To deliver the news of Prince Philips retirement, an unassuming Royal servant stepped on to a throne dais framed by a gold-embroidered canopy of crimson velvet. It made for a regal tableau. But it is unlikely Sir Christopher Geidts 500 colleagues, stretched before him last week in the Buckingham Palace ballroom, thought it ill-suited to the man or his announcement. After all, Sir Christopher is no ordinary servant. With a background in Army intelligence some have suggested he was an MI6 officer his advice and judgment is prized by the Queen above all others. For the past decade he has been her right-hand man and when he stood up to speak on Thursday morning, the ballroom hung on his every word. Indeed, it was on the Queens authority that Sir Christopher made his address, issuing a plea for her family and their staff to cast differences aside and pull together. Courtiers have spoken of last weeks announcement as a line being drawn the beginning of a new era that might yet see the Queen accept Prince Charles as regent. Or as others have put it, the most decisive move yet in what might be called operation handover, the steady, carefully controlled shift of power and responsibility away from the ageing Monarch and her consort to the generations below, ahead of Prince Charless eventual succession to the Throne. And central to this will be two unlikely figures the Earl and Countess of Wessex, increasingly seen as essential to the continuity of The Firm. For some time now attention has been fixed on the younger Royals William, Kate and Harry. But insiders say there is expected be a greater focus on the more senior members and with tension still simmering between his brothers, Prince Edward, the once much-mocked youngest son, will become far more visible. In the background, Sir Christophers deft hand will control the delicate power balance within the rival Royal households. New roles: Queen Elizabeth II with the Earl and Sophie Countess of Wessex during a reception at Buckingham Palace It is a role he has already played with aplomb. Following the death of Princess Diana, the future of the Monarchy seemed in peril, but through subtle recalibration he gradually transformed its fortunes, and secured its existence. Yet for one so powerful he frequently moves unnoticed, rather like a secret agent in a Graham Greene novel, noted one insider. Like a secret agent in a Graham Greene novel. Last Thursdays disclosure heralded his most challenging mission yet. The kernel of Sir Christophers address the decision of Prince Philip, 95, to finally step down was hardly shattering stuff. But what it symbolised and signalled the passing of an era, a message to the Royal Household to unite, a subliminal message to the Queen about the need, should circumstances dictate, to pass on the baton was not lost on staff. When they dispersed, many were said to have appeared deep in thought. Senior courtiers agree that it is vital the Monarch calms the turbulence that has beset the Royal Household. There have been reports of tension between William and his father following complaints that Charles almost never sees his grandson whom he hoped to mentor. Worse has been the alleged row between Charles and Andrew over the roles undertaken by Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Andrew has been forced to deny claims that he wanted his daughters to carry out Royal duties full-time, similar to Princes William and Harry. Prince Philip, who retired from pubic duty last week As they squabble and other petty jealousies beset the palaces, those previously considered bit-part players have been quietly enhancing their positions none more so than Edward and Sophie. The Queen has grown increasingly close to Sophie, who has become a trusted companion. The two women are said to share a passion for military history. Prince Edward, meanwhile, is a favourite of his father he is the only son whose portrait hangs in his study at Buckingham Palace and has taken on his great legacy, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. He has been promised his fathers dukedom, too, although it will not simply pass to Edward as previously assumed. Instead, the decision will be at the discretion of the Prince of Wales, but only after he becomes King. Before that day comes, Edward and Sophie are likely to be at the forefront of Sir Christophers unity project, acting as a buffer between Charles and Andrew and undertaking more engagements with the Queen. Edward has moulded into a quiet and efficient figure, who does not seek attention or acquire headlines, said one insider. He and Sophie are liked for being dutiful and uncomplaining. The task for Sir Christopher and other advisers, said another source, will be to take advantage of these qualities in a presentational way. Since last years celebrations to mark her 90th birthday, the Queen has been gradually slowing down. Her reign has lasted more than 65 years and speculation is rife that she will pass the mantle on to Charles, making him regent, possibly when she is 95. Philips decision to go, with his wifes blessing, may speed up that process. Unifying the households is something Cambridge-educated Sir Christopher has long championed, albeit with varying degrees of success. Each Royal household is like a ship, a senior courtier explained. Each household has a different member of the Royal Family as its captain. So the Queen may be like the Admiral of the Fleet, but it doesnt mean all the ships are necessarily sailing in the same direction all the time. In some cases it is quite the opposite. Another courtier said: He [Sir Christopher] is having to deal with three adult generations of Royalty, all with their own agendas while serving the institution of monarchy as a co-operative. Not easy with all the characters involved. In 2014, Sir Christopher was awarded his second knighthood for a new approach to constitutional matters... [And] the preparation for the transition to a change of reign and he has certainly earned it. Each Royal household is like a ship... but not all the ships are necessarily sailing in the right direction Senior Royal Courtier For now, the Palace insists publicly that the Queen will carry on as if nothing has changed. It is widely acknowledged she will never abdicate and the succession is rarely, if ever, talked about in official terms. But behind the Palace gates, preparations are fully under way. Abdication may be an outlawed word, but regency certainly is not. The Queen has a pragmatic approach to her great age. She wants nothing more than a smooth transition. Her reign is poised and ready for a change in management at the blink of an eye. Granted, Her Majesty is a consecrated Monarch who pledged in her coronation oath to serve throughout her life. But the question remains as to whether she will remain as head of state if she lives to be a centenarian like her mother. The last time the provisions of the Regency Act which has recently been dusted off by senior aides were used was in 1810 during the reign of George III, when the King became deranged. His son was regent for ten years and on his fathers death, became George IV. The wording of the Act is vague enough to allow the Queen to simply pass the baton to her heir and effectively retire thus effecting the smoothest of successions with the minimum of fuss. For many years second in line to the Throne, Prince William, has been cut a lot of slack by his father and the Queen. He has been said to be at a crossroads for some time. All the indications are that his grandfathers decision to retire will require him to be more supportive of the Queen and his father through an increased number of engagements. He may have to take on some of the Dukes military commitments, as will Harry. The role of Captain General Royal Marines, for instance, needs to be filled. Prince Charles, as heir and effectively King in all but name, is in the strongest position. He does not have to take orders from his father in whatever form they come. He certainly doesnt take instructions from Sir Christopher, though they are said to get on well. At 68, Charles has seen all these Palace manoeuvrings before. There was the time Sir Christopher wanted the entire communications team to come under the control of his appointee, former BBC executive Sally Osman. MAN WHO ALMOST TURNED DRAMA INTO ROYAL CRISIS The head of the Queens Household came close to turning the dramatic announcement on Prince Philips retirement from public duties into a crisis. It was the decision of the Lord Chamberlain, Earl Peel to summon royal staff by email to an emergency meeting at Buckingham Palace on Thursday morning. But it sparked worldwide speculation about the health of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and some publications wrongly suggested that Philip had died. Then the carefully-timed media exercise threatened to unravel when some members of staff missed the briefing because they were stuck in traffic on the M4. One palace insider observed that it was unprecedented to call a mass rally of staff merely to say a man 31 years above the normal pension age was going to be taking it easier in the autumn. The Australian Monarchist League said it has written to Earl Peel pictured above with the Queen complaining about the handling of the announcement. Advertisement Charles has effectively opted out of such an arrangement. His team are courteous, sharing information with Buckingham Palace but effectively autonomous both financially and in the way they conduct their business. On the international stage and within the corridors of power, Prince Charles has increasing authority. Crucially, the question of Charles being a meddling King has been resolved, with insiders insisting he knows all the parameters of the top job and will not upset the constitutional apple cart for his own agenda. The Queen has total faith in her son and heir. But while she still holds the reins of power, she is determined all of her family will pull together both for her personally and for the health of the institution they all serve. And she believes that there is no better man than Sir Christopher modest yet razor-sharp, quiet but charismatic to help them. Married with two daughters, the former Scots Guards officer was invalided out after a year and recruited by the Army Intelligence Corps. In 1989, when he was part of a mission sent to oversee Vietnamese troops pulling out of Cambodia, he was mentioned in the Commons when an MP speculated on whether he was an MI6 officer. His friends say his experience in the worlds troublespots made him a perfect choice as the Queens top aide and, along with her youngest son, the ideal man to smooth the tensions in her family. Asked yesterday if other members of the Royal Family would now be supporting the Queen, Prince Edward replied: It is always a team effort and thats what we do, and the show goes on. If an actor retires from a show, guess what? The show goes on and everybody shuffles around and we all fill in the spaces and keep it all going. 'I saw Philip the snarling tiger in close quarters and he's the last of a rare species' Andrew Marr for the Mail on Sunday 'Often naughty, never nasty. Few of us change character, even in a long life; and that assessment of schoolboy Prince Philip by his mentor Kurt Hahn remains useful when thinking about the wiry, flinty-eyed 95-year-old retiree. The case against the Duke of Edinburgh is well known, of course, and asserts that he is, or can be, nasty. The prosecution has crackled confidently through the Press and social media since the announcement that he would radically cut down on public duties after this summer. Andrew Marr, who has seen the Duke up close in his time as a journalist with the BBC And yes, the Duke can be astonishingly rude, directing pleasantries at people who are often too intimidated or surprised to speak back. He has hurt people when he shouldnt have. In an age of multicultural political correctness, he has the salty and uncompromising reactionary views of the upper classes in the earlier part of the last century. He loathes the media with a passion. For many, he is the embodiment of the old aristocratic military elite, a Britain that is dying. So why, as he steps back, has the bigger reaction been a tidal wave of enthusiasm for this undeniably difficult man which feels a lot like love? Is it simply transferred monarchical enthusiasm for the Queen herself? To a certain extent: without her lifelong and passionate love match, Elizabeth R could not have been nearly as effective a head of state. And, yes, after all, the Duke has been around for a long time. Like his wife, he inhabits the reveries of millions of people who have never met him, or ever will. But theres more to it. Those who see him as the ultimate insider, too conscious of his status, or as an unthinkingly conservative pillar of a creaking, hidebound establishment, fail to see the man he always has been. Throughout his formative years, as a refugee Royal from Greece whose father came close to being shot by firing squad, the young Prince was to use a later phrase very much a displaced person. Growing up, he saw little of his separated parents and was packed off to relatives houses and boarding schools. His father decamped to the French Riviera. The war divided him from his sisters, who were married to German officers. Religious mania took away his mother for crucial periods of his upbringing. Two institutions came to stand for the missing family. The first was Kurt Hahns Scottish school Gordonstoun. We should remember that the Duke of Edinburgh was partially formed by a radical Jewish refugee who loathed above all things the militarism and fascism which had overwhelmed Germany. Hahn believed in tough love for teenagers making them experience physical hardship while driving them to despise boredom, mockery and scepticism. He once said: It is the sin of the soul to force young people into opinions indoctrination is of the devil but it is culpable neglect not to impel young people into experiences. That simple radical thought tells us a lot about the origins of the Duke of Edinburghs Award Scheme, Prince Philips most important contribution to national and international life. The second institution that shaped him was the Royal Navy. Much of the humour that offends so many in modern Britain is simply 20th Century naval humour. He was a brave, swiftly promoted and ingenious officer, heavily influenced by his uncle, Lord Mountbatten. Many believe that had he not married the Queen, he would have risen to the very top of the Navy. (He disagrees: he thinks the Press would have destroyed his career, alleging favouritism with every promotion.) At any rate, we have to remember that the tall, sexy officer who caught the eye of Princess Elizabeth when she was just 13, was in almost every sense an outsider. In the early years he was close to penniless. His nationality Greek? German? Danish? was like a card game, only really resolved by the Second World War. And when he entered court circles, first as suitor, then as bridegroom, he was sneered at by the real establishment. Tory grandees, including both Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan, treated him abominably, trying hard to refuse him honours, to cut his family name out of the succession, and to limit any role in public life. Determined to stand by his Queen, the Duke bore it all with extraordinary public stoicism. He bit his tongue and buttoned his lip. He quietly found useful things to do promoting playing fields for inner-city children, working on his awards scheme, championing science and technology and, that watchword of the 1960s, efficiency. For the Queen, he was always there, always at her side as the sheer weight of tedious formal functions grew heavier. None of this, perhaps, excuses or quite explains the edgy rawness in his make-up. But what the British state did to him was to take an extremely ambitious, talented and alpha male; and confine him. Even at 95, he has the restless, rangy air of a tiger ordered into an enclosure too small for comfort. He chafes. He prods. He rattles the chain-link fence. And yes, occasionally, provoked, he bares his teeth. When the Duke of Edinburgh swivels and strides towards a waiting knot of people, you immediately sense nervous tension. There is challenge in the air. There is a hint of danger. Ive never seen him take a bite out of anyone, but the Dukes enthusiasm for the World Wildlife Fund may, one reflects, have started close to home. To have survived in such a stifling world for so long without being entirely domesticated is an achievement in its own right. During the Queens reign we have become undoubtedly a more feminised country with far more female leaders and a culture that is gentler, more empathetic and much more concerned about giving offence. But the Duke of Edinburgh represents, indeed embodies, an older and more uncompromisingly male Britishness. And all around this country there are people who silently nod as he passes, and recognise themselves. Peru Two drugs mule Michaella McCollum has started studying Humanities and Social Science as she rebuilds her life after three years defecating in a hole and sleeping on concrete in a Peruvian jail. The 24-year-old, who was infamously busted smuggling 1.5million of cocaine from Lima airport in 2013, had a spring in her step as she left Belfast Metropolitan College after class on Friday. Donning a cropped orange top and ripped black skinny jeans, she flaunted her Chanel-style handbag, which would cost 2,000 if genuine, as she clutched her smartphone alongside her lecture notes. Education: Peru Two drugs mule Michaella McCollum has started studying Humanities and Social Science as she rebuilds her life Freedom: she had a spring in her step as she left Belfast Metropolitan College after class on Saturday Chic: Donning a cropped orange top and ripped black skinny jeans, she flaunted her 2,000 Chanel handbag as she left college Letting her blonde locks flow over her shoulders, she shielded her eyes from the sun with some oversized shades, completing her relaxed ensemble with some converse shoes. McCollum was last month pictured joining the dole queue outside a Belfast job centre after returning from a holiday in Ibiza - the very place where her ill-fated smuggling plan was hatched four years ago. The ex-convict, from Dungannon, Northern Ireland, was jailed in Peru in 2013 along with Melissa Reid for trying to smuggle 1.5 million of cocaine. The pair were found in possession of 24lbs (11kg) of the drug hidden inside food packets in their luggage as they prepared to board a flight from Lima to Madrid. All smiles: Letting her blonde locks flow over her shoulders, she shielded her eyes from the sun with some oversized shades, completing her relaxed ensemble with some converse shoes Hard at work: McCollum was seen reading through her lecture notes after class on Friday Coffee break: With a leather jacket to shield her from the spring winds, Mccollum was seen recycling her coffee cup McCollum, from Dungannon, Northern Ireland, was jailed in Peru in 2013 along with Melissa Reid for trying to smuggle 1.5 million of cocaine She was found in possession of 24lbs (11kg) of the drug hidden inside food packets in their luggage as they prepared to board a flight from Lima to Madrid They had travelled to South America to carry out the smuggling plot after hatching the criminal plan in the Balearic island of Ibiza. They initially claimed an armed gang forced them to carry out the smuggling but later pleaded guilty after being told they could otherwise be jailed for up to 15 years. In jail they slept on concrete bunks and used a hole in the floor as a lavatory. Three years later they were released and arrived back in Britain last summer. McCollum was released on parole last March after serving less than half of her sentence but initially had to stay in Peru, where she carried out voluntary work until August when she flew back to Belfast. McCollum had travelled to South America to carry out the smuggling plot after hatching the criminal plan in the Balearic island of Ibiza McCollum was released on parole last March after serving less than half of her sentence but initially had to stay in Peru, where she carried out voluntary work Miss Reid was released from jail last June, flying back to Scotland shortly afterwards. It has been reported that McCollum has been offered a 250,000 tell all book deal detailing her criminal exploits and time behind bars in Lima. And rumours suggest she hopes to use her notoriety to kickstart a reality TV career, but claims she was being considered for Celebrity Big Brother were denied by the show's makers. It has been reported that McCollum has been offered a 250,000 tell all book deal detailing her criminal exploits and time behind bars in Lima And rumours suggest she hopes to use her notoriety to kickstart a reality TV career Brooke L. Lajiness, 38, will go on trial next month on 13 charges of criminal sexual misconduct A Michigan mother is set to go to trial next month on 13 charges of criminal sexual conduct. Brooke L. Lajiness, 38, was arraigned earlier this month for accosting a minor for immoral purposes and furnishing obscenity to a child. Her pretrial has been scheduled for May 8 before a judge in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Her attorney, David I. Goldstein, told a judge Thursday that Lajiness was renouncing her probable cause hearing and her right to a preliminary examination. Lajiness' husband has stayed married to her and has been accompanying her in court. In a Facebook post last month, Lajiness proclaimed her love for her husband David, saying: 'In life, nothing is guaranteed,' 'So finding someone who knows all of your flaws, weaknesses and mistakes and still thinks you're amazing is something to hold onto and never take for granted!' Her affair with the young boy allegedly began last summer, as he was graduating from middle school on to high school. Michigan State Police Trooper Donald Pasternak testified that most of the sexual encounters happened in the back of Lajiness' car in a Lima Township driveway. At her arraignment on March 3, Pasternak testified that he started investigating Lajiness a few weeks before, when the victim's mother walked into a police station and complained that Lajiness was having sex with her son. Lajiness reportedly confessed later on to having sex with the teen and exchanging the nude pictures. Police found that she started exchanging photos with the teen while he was still in middle school. She is also facing an additional charge in relation to the photos. Langinesswas accompanied by her husband David in court on Thursday after being accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy Brooke posted this photo of the two in June of 2016, around the time that the affair reportedly began Assistant Washtenaw County Prosecutor John Vella said last week that they are looking into whether they may be more victims. 'This case involves a defendant seeking out minors for sex,' Vella said, according to M Live. Lajiness' attorney, David I. Goldstein, said prosecutors need to focus on the case at hand. 'He keeps talking about 'minors,' but there's one,' Goldstein said. Police say she admitted to having sex with the teen and sending nude photos to the boy Lajiness is currently free after posting $50,000 bail. As part of her bond conditions, Lajiness is not allowed near school property or around minors except for her own children. She is also not allowed to use computers, social media websites or to drink alcohol or take drugs. Attorneys argued in court over whether she should be allowed to travel to Toledo to visit her family while she's free on bail. The judge ruled that she should be free to travel there, so long as she lets the court know in advance. Jeremy Corbyn claims the NHS isnt safe in Tory hands. But the truth is, its not safe under Labour, either. The crisis that is threatening to destroy it gets deeper every day for reasons Corbyn hasnt started to think about and thats why Im running against him. Susanne Cameron-Blackie, better known as the political blogger Anna Raccoon, is speaking in her cottage kitchen, blessed with a stunning view across the Norfolk Broads. She is in a hospital bed, propped up by pillows. It is likely to be her death bed, her last resting place before the cancer that has ravaged her body finally claims her. Yet it is from here that she will register this week as an independent candidate to fight Corbyn for his parliamentary seat in Islington North. Defiant: Susanne does not know whether she will survive until Election Day on June 8. But she is determined to use every moment she has left to fight Corbyn On a bedside table are some of the drugs keeping at bay the agony caused by the cancer which has spread through much of her body: Fentanyl, a clinical form of heroin, and the animal tranquilliser ketamine. A team of nurses visits every day. Susanne does not know whether she will survive until Election Day on June 8. But she is determined to use every moment she has left to fight Corbyn. I may be the first parliamentary candidate forced to lie down, rather than stand, for office. But Im determined to do something useful with whats left of my life. Im taking on Corbyn in his political comfort zone. He talks about shaping the future. As things stand, the future for the NHS is to vanish up its own backside because of the money going on lawyers and damages. Her campaign is based on the urgent need for sweeping reform of the personal injury legal system, to safeguard the NHS from the crippling and ever-increasing burden of medical negligence lawsuits. Last year, NHS Resolution, the body which handles such claims, revealed that cases arising from incidents up to the middle of 2016 are set to soak up a staggering 56 billion in lawyers fees and damages by the time they are settled half NHS Englands annual budget. Susanne, 68, has battled her illness, leiomyosarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer, for six years. After almost killing her several times, it has now attacked her spine, rendering her immobile. Crushed: Susanne, pictured above in her 20s, was a victim of medical negligence in 1973 when she was given a hysterectomy at the Westminster Hospital when she was admitted for a dilation and curettage, a minor operation used to deal with heavy periods But she shows no sign of giving up. No politician has ever tackled this issue, least of all Corbyn, she says. All Labour talks about is the amount of money going in through the NHSs front door ignoring the haemorrhaging out the back. Just how pressing the issue is was brought home to Susanne last month. After spending days in the cancer high-dependency unit at the Norwich and Norfolk Hospital, she had been prescribed the Fentanyl and ketamine, but an error by a nurse meant she was given a tiny dose of a much weaker drug a prescription meant for another patient. She shudders at the memory. I cant even begin to describe the pain I was in, she says. It was a descent into hell. No wonder: a scan revealed that the erosion of one of her vertebrae had left her spinal cord exposed. But for Susanne, worse was to come. Excruciating as it was, the mistake was recognised and put right. But afterwards, I had a visit from someone in the hospitals legal department. She wanted to know if had I engaged a lawyer, and was I planning to sue? I was flabbergasted. Why? What would be the point? I know why the mistake was made: because the nurses in that unit are rushed off their feet. If I were to sue, the only thing that would change would be my husbands bank account in several years, long after Im gone. Susanne will be challenging Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in next month's General Election If I sued, I would be taking away yet more money from the NHS, so making it more likely that a future patient would endure a similar ordeal. This is the point Corbyn and Labour dont get. They say they are socialists, yet theyre doing nothing about a system which treats the NHS as if it were a manufacturer making faulty products, instead of a provider of a vital social good. It wasn't the first time Susanne had become a victim of medical negligence. In 1973, for reasons never explained, she was given a hysterectomy at the Westminster Hospital when she was admitted for a dilation and curettage, a minor operation used to deal with heavy periods. I was only 23 it left me psychologically crushed. Yet 45 years ago, people didnt think of suing the NHS. One thing I do know is money would have made no difference. I picked myself up and moved on. It was not until she was in her 50s that she went to Aberystwyth University and obtained a double first in law. But by this time, she had spent years working for the Lord Chancellors department as an investigator for the Court of Protection, the tribunal which decides when people cannot administer their affairs through physical or mental incapacity. As I thought about what had happened at the Norwich and Norfolk, I realised that through my work, I had witnessed some of the systems worst abuses in cases where incapacitated people were suing for medical negligence and getting enormous settlements. Then Mrs May announced the Election. I knew this was my chance. Among the most crucial reforms, she says, is the repeal of a 1948 law which means, bizarrely, that when patients sue the NHS, their damages are calculated on the basis they will pay for private healthcare for the rest of their lives even though many will continue to be treated in the public sector, at public cost. I saw this time and again, Susanne says. Someone would get a huge settlement, but not fork out a penny on care. Meanwhile big awards, running into millions, are assessed on the basis that the beneficiary will live for several decades. But if they die a few years later, nothing goes back to the NHS. They can leave it to their relatives or a dogs home. This has to change. However, the biggest change she wants is more fundamental: an end to the legal lottery that means two patients with identical needs will be treated differently one receiving millions, and the other nothing. Take, for example, a cerebral palsy patient. The case will probably come down to something in the medical notes that a lawyer can argue means the midwife was absent for 19 minutes. These claims arent based on need, but on a narrow, legal definition of fault. So they drag on for years. And it means a doctor or a hospital can never say sorry, which is all many patients want because to do so will mean admitting liability. The last time the Government appointed a commission to examine this situation in 1978, it recommended a no fault system be investigated. Tomorrow, armed with the necessary ten local resident signatures and a campaign address in Mr Corbyns constituency, Susannes candidacy will be registered with the returning officer. Just imagine: if some of the billions going to law firms and left legacies could be put into patient care, what a difference that would make. I will fight to my dying breath to make people including Jeremy Corbyn recognise this fact. A prisoner is campaigning for sex dolls to be allowed in jails so inmates can enjoy 'a bit of passion' behind bars. Convict Jack Swarez, who is in HMP Lowdham Grange in Nottinghamshire, believes sex dolls could improve behavior by helping pent-up men release testosterone. He even claims the idea won't cost the government a penny because convicts would be willing to pay from their own pockets. A prisoner is campaigning for sex dolls to be allowed in jails so inmates can enjoy 'a bit of passion' behind bars Swarez wrote in prison website Inside Time: 'The trouble is, our prisons are full of young men filled with testosterone who would give their right arm for a bit of passion. The frustration of this situation inevitably makes these young men restless and wanting to cause mischief. 'I have a proposal that should be given careful consideration. It might help to alleviate this ongoing problem and, in turn, help to de-stress the wings of every establishment the length and breadth of our nation. 'It came about when I was watching a documentary on Channel 4 that showed grown men who live with rubber, blow-up dolls. I noticed that all of these men looked very happy and stress-free. 'Furthermore, as these doll women would have to be manually blown-up, all of the inmates who have been forced to pack-in smoking due to the ban, will automatically exercise their lungs, which could help repair the damage that smoking has caused. It's a win-win situation! 'Inmates could spend their bang-up time together with their rubberised partner. They could enjoy date nights, watch the soaps together, listen to music everything that you would normally do with your partner.' Patch, a one-eyed colt, was the sentimental favorite that many had hoped would win the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. But the fan favorite lost the race, coming in at 14th place after more than $2 million had been wagered on his unlikely victory at Churchill Downs. Last June, Patch developed swelling and tearing in his left eye after a workout at Saratoga. The eye could not be saved and Patch has soldiered on with a hole where it used to be. Patch, a one-eyed colt with 14-1 odds, lost the Kentucky Derby on Saturday after being a fan favorite. He's pictured above getting a bath at Churchill Downs in Louisville The underdog lost his left eye last summer when it started to swell after a workout Despite the injury, Patch has soldiered on in the competition and has won over a legion of fans in previous races Patch's trainer, Todd Pletcher, told Bloodhorse that Patch has adjusted surprisingly well since last year. 'I mean, there is common sense stuff, like I don't come up to him without letting him know I'm there. You don't want to startle him, things like that. 'But really, you really wouldn't know it and you don't really have to do anything special with him either from a rider standpoint on the track or around the barn. Pletcher has sent out more than 4,200 winners, trained 10 Eclipse Award winners and had a Kentucky Derby winner in Super Saver in 2010. He is also saddling Always Dreaming and 20-1 shot Tapwrit. Patch is bathed during morning workouts on Saturday and enjoys a teeth cleaning Prior to the race on Saturday, Patch was given 30-1 odds of winning, but he dropped significantly throughout the day to 14-1 With mere hours before the Kentucky Derby was runat 6:46pm EST, Always Dreaming had remained the 4-1 favorite in the wagering On Saturday morning Patch was given 30-1 odds of winning, but he dropped significantly throughout the day to 14-1. Despite his ever-increasing odds, Patch was positioned at the outside gate, which means he wasn't able to see any of the other horses when the race started. 'We're OK with it,' Pletcher said about Patch's positioning prior to the race. 'Theres nothing outside to bother him, so thats good. 'Hes been a good gate horse and I don't see any problems.' Patch won fans over by getting second place last month in the Grade 1 Louisiana Derby. A retiring Labour MP is threatening to sue her own party after it chose a male Sikh candidate to replace her instead of another woman. Slough MP Fiona Mactaggart accused Labour chiefs of flouting party rules that say a female candidate must succeed a woman MP who steps down. The local party has instead chosen Tanmanjeet (Tan) Dhesi, 38, who will become the first turban-wearing Sikh MP if he wins on June 8. The local party has chosen Tanmanjeet Dhesi, 38, to replace the retiring MP who will become the first turban-wearing Sikh MP if he wins on June 8 Former Home Office Minister Ms Mactaggart, 63, one of the richest MPs, reportedly wanted the seat to go to Jayne Lim, a doctor and vice-chairman of campaign group Chinese For Labour. The Mail on Sunday has been told that Ms Mactaggart threatened Labours ruling National Executive Committee with legal action over the matter. According to one source, she said she could stand against Mr Dhesi as an independent. That could split the Labour vote and hand the seat, won by Ms Mactaggart with a 7,336 majority in 2015, to the Tories. Mr Dhesi was born and bred in Slough but is a former mayor of Gravesham in Kent. Ms Mactaggart, a former councillor and a primary school teacher, entered the Commons as a Blair Babe in Labours 1997 landslide On Thursday he was elected as a Labour county councillor in Gravesend. Nearly one in ten people who live in Slough is Sikh. Labour officials defended Mr Dhesis selection in Slough, claiming that exceptions can be made to the partys all-women shortlists rule to accommodate ethnic minority candidates. Ms Mactaggart reportedly told the NEC in a leaked email that she could seek a judicial review in the courts. Labour leaders were said to be stunned by her actions. Mr Dhesi launched his Election campaign yesterday at the partys local HQ in Slough. Last night, Ms Mactaggart declined to comment. A Labour spokesman said: The NEC considered the best applicants for each seat, including the requirement to select more women and people from black and minority ethnic communities. In the 13 seats where Labour MPs have stood down, the party had chosen ten women and three people from ethnic minorities to ensure Labour MPs better reflect the communities they serve. Ms Mactaggart, a former councillor and a primary school teacher, entered the Commons as a Blair Babe in Labours 1997 landslide. She rose to become a junior minister in the Home Office between 2003 and 2006. She decided to quit the Commons after the General Election was called, saying that she was bored by the political squabbles over personalities and that she no longer possessed the passion which has driven my politics. She was one of 13 MPs who voted against the snap Election. In recent years there have been a number of Sikh MPs, including Parmjit Dhanda in Gloucester. However, he and others did not wear a turban. An American woman who had been living in Denmark died in a boat accident that left six others injured on Saturday. The woman has not been named, but it is believed her family witnessed the accident, which happened near the Langebro bridge in Copenhagen, Denmark. One or more jet skis collided with a small boat in the Copenhagen Harbor just before 7.45pm Denmark time. An American woman died in Denmark after jet skis collided with a small boat in Copenhagen Harbor on Saturday evening. Police are pictured near the Langebro bridge, where the accident occurred Those on the jet skis fled the scene, but eight people have since been arrested. The Copenhagen police confirmed that one woman died and six others were injured in the accident. The deceased woman was an American who lived in Denmark where she went to language school, according to Danish television broadcaster TV2. According to the broadcaster, jet skis and other personal watercraft are not permitted in the Copenhagen Harbor without prior permission. Pennsylvania State University frat brothers knew Beta Theta Pi pledge Timothy Piazza was in trouble nearly 12 hours before they called 911, a text message has revealed. Piazza, 19, died in February after falling down stairs at the fraternity's house during an alcohol-fueled pledge night. In total, 18 students and a former fraternity at the school were charged in connection with his death. On Saturday morning Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller released new details of how the deadly night unfolded, citing evidence from surveillance cameras, testimony and phone records, according to ABC News. According to the report, Piazza engaged in drinking as a part of a pledge ritual and his blood alcohol content reached between .28 and .36 on February 2. He then fell down a flight of stairs. His fall was not caught on camera but someone in the frat house heard it and found Piazza lying face-down at the bottom of the stairs. One man sent a group message to other frat brothers that read: 'Tim Piazza might actually be a problem. He fell 15 feet down a flight of stairs, hair-first, going to need help.' Scroll down for video Sickening new details surrounding the death of a Pennsylvania State University pledge, Timothy Piazza (left), 19, have emerged On Saturday morning Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller (pictured) released new details of how the deadly night unfolded, citing evidence from surveillance cameras, testimony and phone records Surveillance video following the fall around 10.47pm showed Piazza being carried upstairs by four fraternity brothers. His body appeared limp and he had a visible bruise on his side. He was then placed on a couch as some of the frat boys poured liquid on his face attempting to wake him up. One member even punched him in his abdomen. At one point, someone sat on his legs to keep him from rolling off the couch. According to the detailed report, one of the new initiates of the fraternity saw Piazza, became upset and screamed at the others that they needed to get him to the hospital. The new initiate told authorities that he saw Piazza 'thrashing and making weird movements on the couch' stressing the need to take him to the hospital because he could have a concussion. He later told the grand jury that Piazza looked 'horrible' and when he wanted to call for help he was quickly told to leave and shoved against a wall as the others said they had the situation under control. Shortly before 11.30pm, the pledge master allegedly slapped Piazza three times in the face. And seven minutes later, one frat brother tackled another brother into the couch, landing on top of Piazza, according to the report. Eight frat brothers at Beta Theta Pi (among them Joe Sala, left, and Nicholas Kubera, right) and the frat are accused of involuntary manslaughter Luke Visser (left) and Jonah Neuman (right) were also among the eight frat members charged with involuntary manslaughter Around 1am, the frat brothers allegedly put a backpack full of books on Piazza to keep him from rolling onto his back. At 3.22am, Piazza tried to stand but fell back and hit his head on the wooden floor. Close to 3.46am, Piazza was in the fetal position on the floor with his knees toward his chest. He fell again at 4am and at 5am, he fell a third time, hitting his head on an iron railing and landing on a stone floor. Piazza then attempted to get up but he fell, this time hitting his head on the front door. Meanwhile, fraternity brothers entering and leaving the frat house stepped over him and just left him there, according to the findings. After 7am on February 3, Piazza fell down the basement stairs again. When fraternity members found him, unconscious, cold to the touch, and with blood on his face around 10am, more than 40 minutes passed before they called 911. The grand jury report said Piazza rolled to his side and clutched his abdomen after falling several times. Surveillance video showed some of the frat brothers shaking Piazza and trying to prop him up. When they did call 911, they allegedly didn't tell dispatchers that Piazza fell down the stairs the previous night. Authorities concluded that after Piazza was taken to the hospital the frat brothers attempted to conceal evidence of the hazing and underage drinking, by deleting messages and attempting to erase surveillance video. Parks Miller embraces Evelyn Piazza (left) as Jim Piazza stands near an enlarged photo of his late son during a press conference on Friday Jim and Evelyn Piazza (right) stand by as Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller (left) announces the results of an investigation into the death of their son Timothy Piazza in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on Friday According to ABC, authorities recovered a deleted text that said: 'If need be, just tell them what I told you guys, found him behind [a bar] the next morning at around 10 a.m., and he was freezing-cold, but we decided to call 911 instantly, because the kid's health was paramount.' Eight frat brothers at Beta Theta Pi and the fraternity are accused of involuntary manslaughter. The other charges range from evidence tampering to furnishing alcohol to minors. Penn State permanently banned Beta Theta Pi on March 30, accusing it of a 'persistent pattern' of excessive drinking, drug use and hazing. Authorities found that 12 hours had passed before fraternity members called 911 after Piazza fell down the stairs. 'Timothy was lying on his back with his arms clenched tight at his sides and his hands in the air,' grand jurors wrote. He was hospitalized and pronounced dead in the early hours of February 4, according to the Centre County, Pennsylvania, grand jury investigation report. The coroner determined that Piazza died as a result of multiple traumatic injuries sustained from the fall. The death was ruled an accident that was entirely preventable, according to Daily Collegian. Authorities also included in the grand jury report, evidence hazing at the fraternity that included forced drinking and paddling. The grand jury concluded that Piazza's death wasn't the result of isolated conduct or a simple mistake but as a 'direct result of the extremely reckless conduct of members of the Beta Fraternity who operated within the permissive atmosphere fostered' by Penn State's Interfraternity Council, according to ABC. 'This didn't have to happen. We are devastated,' said Piazza's father, Jim, at the press conference on Saturday morning. 'This is the result of a feeling of entitlement, flagrant disobedience of the law and disregard for moral values that was then exacerbated by egregious acts of self-preservation,' he added. Timothy Piazza's (above) heartbroken father said: 'We are going to miss him terribly' Jim Piazza said on Friday that his son was 'an incredible young man and an excellent student. He was an amazing son, brother, boyfriend and friend'. 'We are going to miss him terribly. No parents should have to deal with this,' he said. Penn State President Eric Barron called the alleged findings 'heart-wrenching and incomprehensible'. 'The University community continues to mourn his tragic death, but no pain we feel can begin to compare to the devastating heartbreak that Timothy's family and friends are experiencing,' Barron added. Beta Theta Pi has been banned from ever returning to the school. Barron said in the statement that 'hazing and dangerous drinking are not permitted by the University, and the University takes appropriate action to educate its students about these issues and to hold them accountable whenever it learns of such wrongdoing'. Beta Theta Pi International Fraternity also released a statement calling the charges 'incredibly disheartening as the organization and its membership continue to grieve Tim's passing and the pain experienced by his family'. The Fraternity said since the incident, the organization has 'cooperated fully with local officials in their investigation'. 'The early findings of that investigation indicated that the behavior of several undergraduate members was in direct contradiction of the International Fraternity's expectations and risk management policies, as well as the International Fraternity's reputation and commitment to character development,' the statement said. Pictured above is the Penn State Beta Theta Pi house on Burrowes Road after it was shut down following Piazza's tragic death 'Beta Theta Pi International Fraternity has clearly and consistently expressed its position that it does not tolerate hazing or alcohol abuse in any form by its member.' All defendants charged with involuntary manslaughter were arraigned on Saturday. No pleas were entered and bail was set at $100,000 and they were released on their own recognizance. Each defendant is prohibited from having alcohol and non-prescription drugs, cannot leave their home state without express permission from the judge and must surrender their passports, according to the district attorney. The charges against the 18 fraternity pledges were announced during a news conference held Friday by Miller and her special deputy in the case, prosecutor Bruce Castor, according to PennLive.com. 'This has been a very intense investigation,' Miller said. 'I am not sure we have charged as many people at one time in one case.' In a statement, the Penn State Interfraternity Council said its thoughts 'continue to lie with the Piazza family as the justice process moves forward'. 'Our focus, as students, is leading the change Penn State needs to prevent a senseless tragedy like this from happening in the future,' the statement continued. A young British tourist has spoke of the moment she collapsed with kidney failure and blindness after being poisoned by spiked drinks on a Greek holiday island. Hannah Powell, now 22, collapsed last year and was in hospital after her vodka and orange cocktails were laced with methanol, during a party holiday to Zakynthos. The deadly chemical has left her registered blind, as well as causing a number of other medical issues. Miss Powell, who is a GP's receptionist,has spoken of the horrifying moment she realised that she had lost her eyesight. Hanna Powell, 20, remains in hospital. She is undergoing tests and treatment - with Greek press reporting she had taken drinks laced with cheap alcohol She told the Sun: 'One day my friends woke me up and it was pitch black. I asked them to open the curtains but they said they were already open and the sun was streaming in. 'I just fell to my knees. I was blind. It was devastating.' Miss Powell had apparently been holidaying with friends and had been drinking party cocktails in the bay resort of Laganas, famous for its stretch of rowdy bars. After the evening out she was said to be feeling normal, slept but then woke up unable to see. Doctors on Zakynthos immediately transferred her to the hospital in the Peloponnese. It is understood she has made significant progress. Her parents Christine and Derek Powell flew out from Middlesbrough to be with her as she led in intensive care in Patra. Two of her friends that she was with on the trip also fell ill after drinking the cheap booze, although neither of their side effects were as severe. Miss Powell had to have a kidney transplant from her mother, who fortunately was a match, to prevent her from having dialysis for the rest of her life. She added: 'My mum is my hero. Her transplant might be the lifeline I need for getting some kind of life back.' Drinks adulterated with cheap spirit, often home-made, to cut costs have been a consistent problem in the southern Mediterranean. Spiked drinks, or bombes, are served in some bars and clubs in Athens and resorts known for partying such as those on Zakynthos have had problems in the past. Draw: One of the many bars and clubs in the resort of Laganas on Zakynthos Dr Dimitris Goumenos, head of the Kidney Clinic at the University Hospital, Patra, said while she was in hospital: 'When she came in Hannah was on the verge of being blind. 'The problem was much more serious than just a plain methanol poisoning. 'Her parents wanted to take her home to Britain this weekend, but I would not be happy for her to travel on a plane until much later in the week, depending on her condition.' A mobile phone discarded by a terror suspect arrested yards from Downing Street with a rucksack full of knives has been recovered by police divers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. It is believed Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 27, threw the smartphone in the Thames before making his way to Whitehall, where it is suspected he intended to launch a jihadi attack. The MoS understands Metropolitan Police detectives are examining the phone to find if Ali has links to other terrorist suspects or groups, or sent any messages in the lead-up to his arrest. Khalid Mohammed Omar threw his phone in the Thames before the failed raid. Here he is seen getting taken away by police A source said the phone was recovered in the days after Ali was arrested by armed officers near the gates of No 10. At least three knives were seen to fall out of his rucksack when police pounced two weeks ago. Last night, Scotland Yard refused to give details but a spokesman said: We can confirm officers from the Marine Policing Unit searched an area of the Thames in connection with this investigation. It is not clear how divers were able to retrieve the phone, but it is believed undercover officers had Ali under surveillance after being tipped off by his family. Another theory is that police used CCTV footage to trace his movements. Raffaello Pantucci, a counterterrorism specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, said last night: There may be lots of valuable information in the phone, like the people he had been in contact with. Somali-born Ali, from Edmonton, North London, was being questioned this weekend by detectives who have until Thursday to charge or release him. His arrest came just weeks after Khalid Masood, 52, stabbed to death PC Keith Palmer, 48, while he was guarding the Houses of Parliament. Masood, from Birmingham, also killed four pedestrians by mowing them down with his car on Westminster Bridge. It was the worst terrorist atrocity in Britain since the 7/7 attacks in 2005. Ali, an electrician, is believed to have been a charismatic and gifted boy at school who became obsessed with extremist views in his teens. In 2010, Ali tried to enter Gaza as part of an aid convoy called Road 2 Hope. His group was briefly held hostage by a Greek captain in the Athens port of Piraeus over a money dispute. The convoy eventually managed to reach Gaza but was denied permission to enter by Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the territory. Ali is then reported to have travelled to Afghanistan without telling his parents, spending several years there before returning to Britain in 2016. An earlier version of this article said Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali had been on an aid convoy to Gaza in 2010 that was attacked by Israeli commandos. We have been asked by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation to state that all participants on the convoy were registered and Alis name was not on the list. Controversial: Euthanasia supporter Dr Philip Nitschke A euthanasia campaigner nicknamed Dr Death is selling suicide kits disguised as equipment for home-brewing beer. Dr Philip Nitschke, who calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide, sells the 257 kit on his brewing companys website. It can be used for brewing beer but Dr Nitschke has written a guidebook, also available online, that explains how people can use it to take their own lives. Last night, anti-assisted suicide group Care Not Killing described the sale of the kits as utterly deplorable, and spokesman Alistair Thompson called for the police to investigate Dr Nitschke. Its deeply worrying because one suspects there will be no formal controls over who this kit is being sold to apart from the limit of needing a credit card to purchase it online, he said. So this could be going to very vulnerable adults, some of them still teenagers, who are depressed for whatever reason and see this as a way of ending their lives. The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, also condemned the sale of the equipment. He said: Any do-it-yourself kit for assisting in a suicide would be a violation of the law and, therefore, liable to prosecution. Assisted suicide is a criminal offence in the UK and carries a maximum jail sentence of 14 years. But Dr Nitschke has been selling the kit here for three years and describes it as a quick and legal way of ensuring a peaceful death. The brewing equipment Dr Nitschke sells online The Netherlands-based doctor was a GP in Australia but he burned his medical certificate following a legal dispute after he failed to refer to a psychiatrist a suicidal man who went on to kill himself. Support for sufferers For confidential support on suicide matters, call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90. Advertisement Dr Nitschke, who founded the euthanasia campaign group Exit International in 1997, plans to visit Britain next month to give a seminar on assisted suicide, where he may promote his kit. He has said he would help anyone who wanted to take their own lives, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, the troubled teen. He insists it should be the option of every rational adult to be able to peacefully end their life. Political satirist Bill Maher has been criticized for an incest joke about Ivanka Trump Political satirist Bill Maher has been criticized for making an incest joke about Ivanka Trump and her father on his show. While on his HBO program Real Time with New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman on Friday night, the 61-year-old made the incest joke about first daughter Ivanka Trump's relationship with her father President Donald Trump. He said: 'What do you make of Ivanka and her efforts to sort of humanize her father? 'We see all this misogyny at Fox News, we see it in Donald Trump himself. A lot of us thought, Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace.' The political commentator then took it a step further and mimicked Ivanka performing a sex act on her father. 'When he's about to nuke Finland or something, she's gonna walk into the bedroom and"Daddy, Daddy'Don't do it, Daddy,"' said Maher. 'Is that how you see Ivanka?' Maher asked Sherman who, red faced, replied: 'No.' He said: 'A lot of us thought, Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace. When he's about to nuke Finland or something, she's gonna walk into the bedroom and"Daddy, Daddy'Don't do it, Daddy."' President Donald Trump and First Daughter Ivanka are pictured at a NASA video conference in April 'Is that how you see Ivanka?' Maher - seen with Donald Trump at the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 2004 - asked Sherman who, red faced, replied 'No.' Sherman - one of the leading media voices to have contributed to the outing of Roger Ailes at Fox News - added: 'I think, again, she's on the margins trying to save usto the degree that she canbut Donald Trump doesn't listen to anybody, including his own family' Sherman, one of the leading media voices to have contributed to the outing of Roger Ailes at Fox News, added: 'I think, again, she's on the margins trying to save usto the degree that she canbut Donald Trump doesn't listen to anybody, including his own family.' Some social media users were quick to respond to the crude joke, with one writing: 'I can't believe @billmaher just did that... Ivanka Trump... @RealTimers.' This isn't the first time Maher has told an incest joke about Ivanka and Donald. On November 2, the comedian performed a stand-up set at the Los Angeles Largo comedy club on Facebook Live where he cracked a joke many found as inappropriate. Some social media users responded to the joke with disgust. Pat wrote: 'I can't believe @billmaher just did that... Ivanka Trump... @RealTimers' On November 2nd, the comedian performed a stand-up set at the Los Angeles Largo comedy club on Facebook Live where he cracked a joke many found as inappropriate He said, again mimicking a sex act: 'Be nice to Ivanka, she's our only hopebecause she seems like she actually knows rationality, but she's [Trump's] kid, and she's the only one who can get to him, and you know he loves her' He said, again mimicking a hand job: 'Be nice to Ivanka, she's our only hopebecause she seems like she actually knows rationality, but she's [Trump's] kid, and she's the only one who can get to him, and you know he loves her. 'If he's going to do something nutty, we're going to depend on Ivanka going into that bedroom. "Daddy, Daddy! You have to apologize for that tweet where you called Angela Merkela a 'c***.' You have to apologize, Daddy!"' POTUS has reportedly said of his daughter that he might 'be dating her' if they weren't related. National Ferry Fortnight runs from today until May 20. So why not set sail on one of these family-friendly adventures? With easy-to-get-to destinations all around Europe, here are four of the best options. Brittany Ferries runs from Portsmouth to Le Havre, a French port celebrating its 500th anniversary this year Portsmouth to Le Havre Theres no better time to visit this French port, celebrating its 500th anniversary this year, with events all summer. Visit on July 6-9 to catch a spectacular street party run by Royal de Luxe, famous for their enormous marionettes. Returns with Brittany Ferries (brittany-ferries.co.uk, 0330 159 7003) from 65 adult and 35 child. Liverpool to Belfast Popular Belfast attractions include the Titanic Belfast museum and the Crumlin Road Gaol, but dont miss HMS Caroline, the last surviving ship from 1916s Battle of Jutland. Returns with Stena Line (stenaline.co.uk, 08447 707070) from 20 adult and 15 child. Adrenaline junkies should visit Amsterdam-Noord - home to the ADAM tower (pictured). Head to its rooftop to fly 330ft (100m) above the ground on Europes highest swing Hull to Zeebrugge Zeebrugge is just 12 miles from Bruges, and it takes less than two hours to get to Brussels by train to see the Comics Art Museum, with exhibits dedicated to Smurfs creator Peyo, and Herge, who brought us Tintin. Returns with P&O Ferries (poferries.com, 0800 130 0030) from 137 return per cabin. Harwich to Hook of Holland Take the ferry and train to Amsterdam, where the refurbished Hotel Pulitzer, housed in 25 historic canal houses, makes a beautiful base. Adrenaline junkies should visit Amsterdam-Noord home to the ADAM tower. Head to its rooftop to fly 330ft (100m) above the ground on Europes highest swing. Returns with Stena Line from 72 adult and 36 child. Shipwreck! Or, to be more precise . . . barge-wreck! A breakfast-time drama plays out on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, as Captain Adams and his crew set off in the boating equivalent of a long-wheelbase Sherman tank. Crash! I exit our berth and steer straight into an angry couples newly-painted narrowboat on the far bank. Bang! Twenty yards later, we crunch an overhanging tree. Learning the ropes: Guy found it tricky to navigate the 70ft cruiser at first - but once he got the hang of it, the whole family enjoyed their canal barge ride through the Black Country Wallop! I run aground. It will take my increasingly-horrified wife, armed with the vessels emergency bargepole, several minutes to push us to safety. The simple charms of a family barge holiday are worryingly complex when youre a cack-handed novice skipper in charge of The Derwent, a 70ft cruiser with two bathrooms, four bedrooms, and a rudder with a nasty habit of sending you in the opposite direction to the one you expect. We are just outside Alvechurch, a pretty little village where wed loaded our belongings on board the monster vessel. The weekend plans to chug serenely through the Black Country, stopping at a few waterside pubs and over-nighting in central Birmingham are starting to crumble. Meanwhile, our three children (William, six, Megan, four, and Henry, one) are delighted: for them, it is turning into a waterborne version of the fairground dodgem ride: the more collisions, the better. Canal trips create all sorts of happy memories, and this one would bring plenty: the kids hooting with excitement as we chugged into a series of long, pitch-dark tunnels; the fisherman guffawing into his pot of maggots as yours truly managed to get stuck (yet again!) in a smelly reed bed; the white-knuckle drama of letting my son have a go at the tiller. Guy's six-year-old son William takes over The Worcester & Birmingham Canal, built at the end of the 18th century, was one of the great motorways of the Industrial Revolution. Today, its altogether more tranquil, meandering through 30 mostly-picturesque miles of town, suburb, and countryside. Its said that Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice. But the rest of the UK is hardly short of them, either: by Victorian times, there were almost 5,000 miles of waterways, of which about 2,200 remain today. At the helm of a narrowboat, everything moves at its own pace. Once you master the controls, everyday cares recede. Its really quite blissful. If the sheer quantity of barge-ing venues leaves you wondering where to start, a good option is to use one of the large agencies, which rent out narrowboats from locations across the country. They can advise on itineraries. Drifters, which controls 580 boats at 40 boatyards, suggested that we should kick off at its marina at Tardebigge, Worcestershire, thats home to a series of 30 locks which take the waterway up 200ft through the Lickey Hills. Once you master the controls, everyday cares recede - it's really quite blissful Go north and youll zoom into central Birmingham in roughly half a day. We duly arrive at Gas Street Basin, a bustling marina slap bang in the city centre, in the middle of Saturday afternoon, and tie The Derwent up for the night. Our mooring is right next to the National Sea Life Centre, a large, state-of-the-art aquarium that might have been custom designed for entertaining excitable kids who needed to let off steam. After dark, Gas Street Basin is the centre of Birminghams vibrant nightlife scene, so bedtime is jollified by the succession of stag and hen parties sailing past our mooring on disco boats, several equipped with karaoke machines. Our kids think it quite the spectacle. Fortunately, the council requires them to disappear at 9pm, at which point the mooring becomes an oasis of calm once more. We sleep like logs, before chugging slowly home the next day, thankful that, even in the vibrant centre of Britains second largest metropolis, a canal is its own, peaceful world. Advertisement The Northern Rangelands are a great swathe of Kenya which spreads from Lewa Downs and Mount Kenya north to the Somali border. In former days, much of this was bandit country, known to one and all as the Badlands. I am flying north from Lewa with Ian Craig in his tiny Piper Super Cub. We are buffeted by strong winds as we circle over a remote safari camp called Saruni, but Craig is known as a superb pilot, so the sudden twitches and bumps as we land on the camps dirt landing strip do not concern me. It was in these remote northern outreaches that the Duke of Cambridge learned to love African wildlife. He first came to the Craig family ranch in 1997 before Princess Dianas death and immediately bonded with the Craigs, who came to be seen as the Princes second family. The Loisaba Tented Camp (pictured) an ultra-modern, 24-bed resort sits on 56,000 acres originally owned by an Italian count, high on the edge of a plateau with a view of Mount Kenya He frequently visited after his mothers death too, often with Prince Harry in tow. During his gap year, William spent some months at Lewa, and even dated Craigs daughter Jecca. Craig, who was awarded an OBE this year, says William recognised the conservation efforts we were involved in and understood what the issues were. We established a lifelong friendship from there. In fact, it was Williams on-the-ground knowledge of rhino and elephant poaching which for decades has blighted Kenya and neighbouring countries that persuaded him to become Royal patron of Tusk Trust, a wildlife charity that he uses as a platform for his international conservation campaigns. William was also the driving force behind the Elephant Protection Initiative, an international campaign launched in 2014 to put elephant ivory beyond commercial use. However, his attachment to this remote part of Kenya has been much more profound than pure conservation, and his ties with the Craig family run deep and personal. Prince William, patron of wildlife charity Tusk Trust, proposed to Kate in Kenya and holds the country close to his heart In 2008 he flew here to attend the wedding of Craigs son Batian, and later attended Jeccas own big day. And in 2010 William proposed to Kate at Rutundu, a remote lodge in the shadow of Mount Kenya, just a short helicopter ride from Lewa. By the time Craig and I return from our flying excursions in the north to the Lewa Safari Lodge, where Im staying for two nights, the sun is setting and it is time to settle down over gin and tonics on the veranda and to catch up on local developments. Craig is delighted with Lewas progress since I was last here more than a decade ago. You must notice a big difference, he beams. The 62,000-acre Lewa conservancy has indeed gone from strength to strength since Craig founded it in the mid-1980s as a 5,000-acre rhino sanctuary. It is now a World Heritage Site and there is no underestimating Williams role in its development and international recognition. According to Craig, William has been a massive conduit between conservation here on the ground and the Western leaders he is interacting with on a daily basis. The Lewa Safari Camp, where William and Kate stayed on their engagement trip, has recently been taken over by the Elewana Collection, one of the largest groups of boutique safari lodges in East Africa. The company boasts 16 properties in Tanzania and Kenya. The 15 tented rooms at Lewa are spread across the bush so you get a personal relationship with the wilderness. The site is run with calm efficiency by a delightful Zimbabwean couple, Sacha and Tamlyn Toronyi. The following morning I take a game drive across the open plain and within ten minutes come across a black rhino and her calf. In many parts of Africa youll no longer see black rhino their numbers have been devastated by decades of poaching. Lewa has some 60 black and 71 white rhinos, and they are protected by 150 armed guards a highly trained, quick-response paramilitary force that patrols Lewa and the surrounding areas. As the rhinos head towards the distant hills, a small herd of Grevys zebras come into view. The Lewa Safari Camp, where William and Kate stayed on their engagement trip, has recently been taken over by the Elewana Collection, one of the largest groups of boutique safari lodges in East Africa Loisaba (pictured) is on privately owned land where the local communities benefit from tourism and thus form something of a human shield around the animal populations The number of these animals is also dwindling before our eyes there are 300 Grevys at Lewa and only 2,000 on the whole continent. One thing a drive through Lewa teaches you is that this conservancy is providing a refuge for many of Africas fast-disappearing wild animals. It is a night like this that makes me understand why Prince William has been so seduced by this marvellous natural habitat The next morning I take a Cessna 182 and fly west to Loisaba Tented Camp, another Elewana property. It was rebuilt after a fire last year all but destroyed the old camp. Like Lewa, Loisaba is on privately owned land where the local communities benefit from tourism and thus form something of a human shield around the animal populations. As we land, I notice a crumpled Cessna 172 on the side of the runway. Just two days before, it seems the pilot came in to land too quickly, the Cessna bounced hard on the runway, the nose wheel broke and the plane flipped over. None of the three passengers was badly hurt but they were shaken enough to decide to leave the camp the next day. That said, light-aircraft incidents in Kenya are few and far between, and flying is a superb way of getting around this vast landscape. Pictured (left) one of the elephants at Loisaba spotted by Graham on his trip and (right) spear-carrying tribesmen at the Saruni camp I am soon met by Tom Sylvester, Loisabas chief executive. When he arrived in the area 25 years ago, tourism was non-existent. Today Loisaba Tented Camp an ultra-modern, 24-bed resort sits on 56,000 acres originally owned by an Italian count. It stands high on the edge of a plateau with a view of Mount Kenya. On my last night at Loisaba, I sleep under the stars in one of the camps eight Star Beds. Although sleeping under the stars is now common in African camps, Sylvester insists the concept was invented here. That night, I lie in my four-poster listening to the sounds of the African night the whooping of the hyenas, the throaty roars of the resident lion pride males, and the low rumblings of elephants as they make their way across the plains. And I stare out at the inky darkness of space and behold the infinite galaxies with a sense of awe and humility. It is a night like this that makes me understand why Prince William has been so seduced by this marvellous natural habitat and why he has become a most ardent protector of the African wilderness. Whats the cheapest way to get your family to the Mediterranean for two weeks sun and sand this summer? The answer doesnt necessarily involve Ryanair, you may be relieved to hear. Firstly, get to the Continent on a car ferry or via the Channel Tunnel and drive to the sun. Motorways through France are fast and efficient (at a price, of course) but even with the tolls and the petrol, the cost for a family will be a fraction compared with what you would pay for return flights even with a budget airline. Motorways through France are fast and efficient and the cost for a family will be a fraction compared with what you would pay for return flights, even with a budget airline (stock image) As a child, most of my familys summer holidays involved taking our battered car on the arduous drive to the South of France, where we would stay in an inexpensive rented caravan or an even cheaper hired tent. Costs were further mitigated by the fact our parents opted to take most of our food with us. French campers were fascinated, and probably appalled, to observe the concept of canned baked beans. Our early expeditions to the sun happened before the advent of the French motorway (and the breathalyser) so driving had its challenges, not the least of which were the bizarre rule on French roads that gives priority to all traffic joining from the right, including horse-drawn wagons, of which in those days there were still plenty. The old rule of having to give way to traffic coming on to a roundabout was a traffic nightmare which still causes the occasional post-traumatic stress dis-order flashback. The French motoring holiday became fashionable in the 1970s and 1980s with the growth in self-catering gite holidays and the rise of the pre-erected tent campsite managed by the likes of Canvas Holidays and Eurocamp (men and women who began their lives as student employees of these camping operators went on to become senior travel industry executives). But while taking the car abroad has continued to be a significant part of the holiday business, it has never reached the heights one might have expected back in the glory days of continental motoring trips. Frank suggests driving to your summer holiday this year to take advantage of the savings before Brexit causes various costs to change (stock image) I suspect that a substantial number of British motorists simply found, and still find, the prospect of taking their car abroad too much of a challenge. The first barrier is the prospect of having to drive on the wrong side of the road. And then there are the anxieties about language: how do you communicate with the garage when you stop for petrol or what will happen if you suffer a mechanical breakdown, or even worse, an accident? On our first trips across the Channel, as you left the French port there were large signs everywhere reminding drivers to keep to the right of the road. Now there arent any. Nobody, it seems, needs to be reminded which side people drive on the Continent. Actually youll be surprised to find that once youre on the Continent, keeping to the right becomes second nature immediately. On the early part of your journey, you will almost certainly find yourself on motorways and other dual carriageways where its impossible to head down the wrong lane. Buying petrol in other countries, youll not be surprised to learn, is just like it is in the UK. You tell the sales assistant which pump youve used (in preparation it would be handy to know the words for one to ten in French or whatever), the amount appears on an electronic indicator and you are invited to present your credit card (you have, of course, made sure to equip yourself with a card that doesnt carry hefty service charges when you use it abroad, and you never volunteer to pay if they offer an amount in sterling, always pay in the local currency). There are local rules you should observe. The AA, for example, will tell you that you need to have a red triangle, a high-vis jacket and a spare box of lightbulbs and that you mustnt have any sort of device which warns you about speed cameras. The French motoring holiday became fashionable in the 1970s and 1980s with the growth in self-catering gite holidays I have to say that when it comes to abstruse European motoring requirements, the only thing I take is a pinch of salt, but dont follow my example. Insurance used to be a major problem when it came to taking your car abroad since you had to go through the rigmarole of arranging a green card at huge trouble and vast expense. The advent of the EU made all of this superfluous. With the advent of Brexit, I fear the worst on this (and other aspects of taking a car abroad). So, for this reason at least, if you fancy boldly going with your car where surprisingly few have gone before, 2017 might be a very good year for taking the leap. No-frills ferries Brittany Ferries (pictured) has launched economie, which it describes as: A no-frills service offering even more choice to Spain and France' The ferry business has undergone significant changes in the past 50 years. You couldnt drive on and drive off a car ferry until the 1960s. But from then onward, ferries tended to get bigger and better until they began to resemble cruise ships more than car/lorry transporters. Given the success of no-frills airlines, however which have had a huge negative impact on cross-Channel travel it was inevitable we would see no-frills ferries. Brittany Ferries launched economie, which it describes as: A no-frills service offering even more choice to Spain and France. If youre looking for a lower fare and are content to travel without the cruise-style experience offered by our cruise ferries, the economie service is perfect. The ferries Etretat and Baie de Seine have smaller public areas and less space onboard. Both ships have self-service restaurants offering limited but tasty French cuisine. Both have shops selling tobacco, spirits (at French prices), confectionery and gifts but these are limited when compared to our cruise ferries. The cabins are comfortable yet functional. What passengers will notice most is the price: a one-way cross-Channel fare for a car and two people costs from just 79. One of the most fundamental changes affecting ferry travel is how we buy our tickets. Now its all on the internet, so compare and contrast. There are all sorts of special offers and deals which can save the diligent a fortune. I had been in Le Havre for about ten minutes when I spotted a bus heading to Harfleur. Shakespeare lovers will recognise this as the town besieged by Henry V when he exhorted his troops: Once more unto the breach, dear friends King Hal was born in Monmouth and I went to school there, so we have something in common. I had visited Le Havre on a school trip from Monmouth many years ago with a production of Henry IV Part II (a play about Henry Vs dad) which prominently features Henry V and his struggles as apprentice King. The first sight of Le Havre from the deck of the arriving Brittany Ferries ship is not encouraging, but up close, this rebuilt section of the city is truly glorious, according to Frank I played Doll Tearsheet (it was a boys school); I was the woman of loose virtue who dallies tipsily with Sir John Falstaff. My abiding memory of the Le Havre experience, however, was being here when Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967. Six hundred years ago, the English brought war to Normandy; 77 years ago it was the Germans. While the Germans destroyed most of the port before they surrendered, it was the Allies in September 1944 who destroyed the biggest part of the city in their protracted campaign to dislodge the enemy. Paris had been liberated for three weeks by the time German forces eventually gave up in Le Havre on September 12, by which time the centre had been reduced to one gigantic ruin. Le Havre, its worth noting, was the port that succeeded Harfleur, which had been destroyed by Henry V (though the demise of Harfleur had more to do with its silting up than British vandalism). The birth of Le Havre (The Haven) is officially dated to 1517 a hectic programme of events from May to November this year marks its 500th anniversary. Le Havre was not simply one of Frances major ports, it was also a place with important literary and artistic connections. The extraordinary changing light of the big sky affected by the coming together of the Seine and the Atlantic attracted the principal artists of the 19th Century: the rich seascapes were perfect subject matter for the impressionists. Head to Bayeux to see the famed tapestry (pictured), which has its own take on war and peace Le Havres Andrew Malraux modern art museum (MuMa) is reckoned to have the best collection of impressionist paintings after Pariss Musee dOrsay. A local boy, the glorious fauvist painter Raoul Dufy, is well represented there. However, the first sight of the city from the deck of the arriving Brittany Ferries ship is not encouraging. Its all concrete apartment blocks and, rising above them, a concrete church with a skyscraper steeple. At a distance, this vista looks like a bargain-basement Manhattan. But up close, this rebuilt section of Le Havre constructed largely during the 1950s is truly glorious its so splendid that Unesco has allowed Le Havre to join the likes of Bath and Stonehenge on the World Heritage List. August Perret, whose firm of architects was given the job of designing the new city, came from a family of builders whose expertise was the creation and application of concrete. If this doesnt sound joyous, take a look inside St Josephs Church, the design of Perret himself, which in its way is as stunning as Chartres. The large apartment blocks, which look grimly Soviet (and helped earn the city the nickname Stalingrad-on-Sea), boast flats that use wood, light and custom-built furniture to spectacular effect. Now changing hands for 200,000 each, they must be the property bargains of the century. Le Havres Andrew Malraux modern art museum is reckoned to have the best collection of impressionist paintings after Pariss Musee dOrsay. Pictured, Raoul Dufy's Les Regates You could have a great weekend strolling around Le Havre (and taking the bus to Harfleur). But as its so easy, bring the car on the ferry and do some out-of-town exploring. It takes a little more than an hour to drive to Caen, the birthplace of our favourite conqueror: William. If you have children with you, give them a big leg up on the school history curriculum by taking them to Caens Memorial museum. It describes itself as a museum for peace, but details events leading up to the Second World War and the conflict itself especially the Battle for Normandy. It makes much use of contemporary film and newspaper reports to explain events. Its chilling to hear how, in 1919, Marshal Foch said the Treaty of Versailles was not peace but an armistice for 20 years. He was exactly right. We have witnessed so many D-Day anniversary commemorations that you would be forgiven for thinking you might have nothing new to learn. I think we often forget the casualties: the Memorials detailed account makes frequent reminders of the awful loss of life, particularly of civilians such as those in Le Havre caught in the unrelenting crossfire. The Commonwealth war cemetery at Ranville (pictured) has the graves of 2,139 casualties from the D-Day bombings Head to Bayeux to see the tapestry, which has its own take on war and peace. For a more recent account of bravery in the face of extraordinary odds, go to see the superb Pegasus Memorial, a few miles south of the Brittany Ferries port at Ouistreham. You should also visit the Commonwealth war cemetery at Ranville, which has the graves of 2,139 casualties, including 323 German soldiers (French and American war cemeteries refused to allow the burials of enemy soldiers). The cemetery includes one of the youngest casualties of D-Day 16-year-old Private Bobby Jones and two sets of brothers. The most affecting sight is in the neighbouring churchyard, where you can see three adjacent gravestones marking the resting places of two Allied soldiers shot by a sniper on the church tower; the third grave is that of the unknown German sniper who killed them. For visiting schoolchildren there can be no more chilling example of the horrors of war. Last month, schools won the final decision on the matter of whether parents can take their children on holiday during term time. An Isle of Wight father who refused to pay a penalty imposed after he took his daughter to Disney World in Florida was told by the Supreme Court that he was in the wrong. Families argue that parents who have to take their children away in the school holidays have to pay a large premium compared with prices charged for the same holiday in term time sometimes two or three times as much. Meeting mickey: A trip to Disney World was at the centre of a recent row over term-time breaks Despite the possibility of having to pay way over the odds, a new survey of family holidays shows that children nowadays enjoy twice as many foreign trips as their parents did. Travel to destinations outside Europe has increased 70 per cent since 1997 and not all these foreign trips are sun and sand holidays. Almost a fifth of parents prefer to take their children travelling rather than just going on holiday. Todays parents take their offspring away on an average of two holidays a year and one of these will be overseas, whereas they themselves were lucky to be taken abroad at all as children. Family travel to destinations outside Europe has increased 70 per cent since 1997 (stock image) Twenty years ago, 82 per cent of foreign travel was to Europe. Since then travel to destinations outside Europe has increased by 70 per cent. Travel to Central and South America has tripled with travel to the Far East, Asia and the Middle East doubling during this time. Package holidays abroad continue to be popular for those travelling with children, but as independent travel increases, more and more of todays parents want to give their children a more authentic experience. Advertisement Maggots aren't usually something you would expect to be served at a Michelin star restaurant, but this is exactly what had been put under my nose at such an establishment. The little dried worms lay motionless in a dish of fermented lamb broth, which produced a whiffy odour that reminded me of my childhood, playing in farm barns with manure underfoot. This was only the fifth course out of 19 at the newly-crowned Koks in the remote and windswept Faroe Islands, but already my tummy was starting to grumble in a state of mild confusion. Foraged finds: Koks restaurant is the only Michelin star eatery on the Faroe Islands - it is located on the island of Streymoy. A chef checks on some salted cod left to dry, left, while another cook dissects the breast of a fulmar bird, right The tasting meal, using primarily foraged ingredients, had started with a chunk of pilot whale blubber wrapped in a bunch of herbs. Thankfully the nub of translucent fat was overshadowed by the mouthful of greenery, which was a little tricky to eat in a lady-like manner. A swig of the flowery Larmandier-Bernier champagne helped wash away the residue of leaves and stalks from my teeth. Next up, a mahogany clam served raw. The molluscs can live up to 500 years, but hopefully this one was still within its sell-by date. Lost in concentration: Chefs from Koks add the finishing touches to a dish, with tweezers used for precision Fresh from the fields: The tasting meal started with a chunk of pilot whale blubber wrapped in a bunch of foraged herbs (left) followed by various dishes including a portion of freeze-dried cod bladders on top of a stack of fish bones (right) Extra crunch: A cheese cracker with fermented lamb tallow (left) and a selection of fresh greens ready to be washed (right) 'Are you sure we're meant to be eating raw shellfish,' my dining companion Duncan whispered to me as we sat in the homely, ocean-fronting dining room on the island of Streymoy. Despite his fear, the brown-sauced morsel was divine, with a fragrant dill oil adding a depth of flavour as it slid down my throat. The next course also caused us to stop and think, as the waitress presented us with two crispy, freeze-dried cod bladders. The stale organs were a little like pork scratchings, although the cod spine decoration did cause me to think I was munching on fish bones. The appetizer crunched between my teeth but luckily my fillings survived and we ploughed on with our culinary adventure. Swept away: The restaurant, which is hugely popular with local diners, boasts stunning views of the rugged ocean front Fresh produce: A chef forages seaweed from the Faroese coastline (left) while chef Simone Mistarz presents a platter of seafood from the fjords (right) Exterior shot: Koks restaurant is nestled on the sea front in side a cosy wooden lodge, complete with a grass roof The crab course was a little tamer, with a seaweed-wrapped parcel of pinkish meat served on a wooden spoon. But the tameness soon evaporated as we were served up slices of wind-dried mutton. The waitress even brought out the mottled lamb leg - which had been left to hang for around nine months - to show us where the red strips of meat had come from. Luckily it had escaped the invasion of maggots, apparently one of the biggest problems when leaving meats out in the wilds to dry. Despite the unappetising visual, the slices of skerpikjot - as it's traditionally called - melted in the mouth, with some rye bread adding some texture to tender layers of lamb. I'd never had anything quite like it before and it certainly made the silkiness of Serrano ham seem like sandpaper in comparison. Food for thought: Mousse made from dulse seaweed, crystallized dark chocolate, fermented blueberries and leaves made from dried blueberries (left) and traditional cheese biscuits served with a lamb tallow cream spread (right) Fishy business: A plate of mackerel and turnip sits ready to be devoured (left), while some Faroese queen scallops rest on a bed of rocks (right) As with everything we sampled, the attention to detail was on point, with each concoction served on a kooky piece of earthenware. At one point we were presented with two grindaknivur - Faroese daggers, traditionally used by whale hunters to dissect their kill. The implements featured handles made from smooth dark wood, with depictions of whales and love hearts in a metal inlay. When we heard what we were going to be cutting with them however, the romanticism soon started to wane. 'We go and collect the fulmar chicks from the sea when they are too fat to fly and this is what the next dish is. Fulmar breast with beetroot,' the waitress said. I joked to Duncan that the beetroot juice looked a little like blood as we spliced up the plump baby bird fillets. In full flow: The Faroe islands boasts dozens of waterfalls. The stunning Mulafossur Waterfall, above, is located by the remote community of Gasadalur on Vagar island Wildlife watch: Nature is a big attraction on the Faroe Islands with puffins and sheep roaming the landscape Wild at heart: The Faroe Islands is a self-governing archipelago and part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It comprises 18 rocky, volcanic islands connected by road tunnels, ferries, causeways and bridges I felt a little bit guilty as I instantly enjoyed the pink meat and went back for more. The tender chunks were perfectly seared and the taste was akin to duck but much less gamy. The other winning dish - and one of the more 'normal' plates of food - was the meaty monkfish. The bottom-dwelling sea creature had been wrapped into a tubular sausage shape and it was served with an elderberry sauce. The berry flavour perfectly complemented the creaminess of the fish flesh, and we both silently spooned our bowls clean. After 14 savoury courses it was on to desserts. Photographer's dream: The Faroe Islands (located on a map, left) for exploration by car, but the stunning scenery will cause you to take dozens of pitstops Although small and remote, the Faroe Islands are packed with a unique spread of features from waterfalls (left) to colourful housing (right) A dish of 'sorrel and grass' granita certainly cleansed the palette and closing my eyes I could easily imagine rolling around on a freshly-cut lawn on a summer's day. But maybe that was all the wine talking. Koks' paired tasting menu comes with eight generous pours of whites and reds, which complement the dishes extremely well. A Fino Sherry from Andalusia was a favourite but the local gin cocktail was a little funky, with a grass-taste permeating the green-coloured concoction. We popped the final dish into our mouths - a chocolate, thyme and walnut truffle - before calling a taxi back to our hotel. We'd been on quite a taste adventure at the Faroe Islands' only Michelin star restaurant, speeding around the rugged landscape through platefuls of flavour. I'd almost veered off track with the maggot and fermented lamb broth, but head chef Poul Andrias Ziska's 18 other treats pulled me to the finish line. I'd definitely go back for a second lap. She's known for being sexy and stylish. So it was no surprise to see Laura Dundovic in another fashionable yet daring ensemble on Thursday. Despite wearing ripped jeans and a blazer, the 29-year-old model also had on a criss-cross white top that showed off a serious eyeful of cleavage. Racy: Despite wearing ripped jeans and a blazer, Lauda Dundovic also had on a criss-crossed white top that showed off a serious eyeful of cleavage The blonde beauty completed her outfit with a black handbag and tied her luscious locks in a top knot. This isn't the only racy outfit that the star has been seen in lately. The former Miss Universe Australia recently dazzled in a plunging green jumpsuit, but upon closer inspection her busty assets almost spilled out of her outfit. Busting out! Laura came very close to suffering a fashion faux pas while heading out to dinner recently Despite the outfit's delicate fit, Laura confidently went about her evening and proudly shared a busty selfie with her 88,000 fans on Instagram. 'DINNER ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRIDGE,' she captioned from Bistro Moncur Mosman. The jumpsuit, which is from Sydney designer Ruby Sees All, showed off Laura's trim pins as struck a pose outside the venue. Abs-olutely envious? Last week, Laura flaunted her washboard stomach in a crop top and workout shorts in a picture uploaded to Instagram Wearing her blonde locks in a tight bun, the beauty added to her look with a pair of nude heels. In another recent image, Laura flaunted her washboard stomach in a crop top and workout shorts in a picture uploaded to Instagram. Referring to an outdoor yoga session, she captioned the photo: 'NAAAMASTE OUTSIDE Outdoor yoga..Invisible Sunscreen mandatory.' She's appeared on her talk show last year - even stepping in as host for her on her former series Chelsea Lately. But in a preview for this Sunday's Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Khloe Kardashian has some harsh words to say about Chelsea Handler. The 32-year-old said of the comedian: 'She's such a b***h' when talking with sister Kim Kardashian during their family vacation in Costa Rica. Not holding back: Khloe Kardashian has some harsh words to say about Chelsea Handler in the latest preview for this Sunday's Keeping Up With The Kardashians Chelsea has spoken out about the Kardashians over the years; in January, she told Variety she thinks the famous family could be the reason why Donald Trump won the election. The comedian told the publication that the media covers Trump so much so that he's being treated like an 'entertainer.' Chelsea explained: 'We've turned into a reality show. I blame the Kardashians, personally; the beginning of the end was the Kardashians. The way there people have blown up and don't go away - it's surreal.' However, Khloe appeared on her Netflix talk show, called Chelsea, last July; she even posed for a cheeky Instagram photo with the actress. Smile! Khloe appeared on her Netflix talk show, called Chelsea, last July; she even posed for a cheeky Instagram photo with the actress In the preview clip for KUWTK, released on Friday, the family is seen enjoying dinner before a fire show. The name calling started over their outdoor dining set up in Costa Rica, with attendees including Kim, Khloe, Kris Jenner and boyfriend Corey Gamble, Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick. While at their tropical holiday, Scott secretly invited a girl up to his room. Focus: The name calling started over their outdoor dining set up in Costa Rica, with Kim, Khloe (l) and Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner (r) and boyfriend Corey Gamble and Scott Disick Totally in trouble: While at their tropical holiday, Scott secretly invited a girl up to his room After the Kardashian women found out her name was Chelsea, they decided to have a little fun with Scott. Kim stars it off by saying: 'Did you guys hear what Chelsea said?' To which Khloe responds: 'Oh yeah. She's such a b***h' while an obviously uncomfortable Scott listens in. Here it goes: After the Kardashian women found out her name was Chelsea, they decided to have a little fun with Scott Stirring the drama: Kim stars it off by saying: 'Did you guys hear what Chelsea said?' Not a fan: Scott clearly looks uncomfortable during the dinner exchange 'No, she was so nice,' Kim says,' to which Khloe responds, 'She was a b***h.' Kim, with a smirk on her face, says: 'Oh Chelsea Handler. No, no, no, I'm talking about Chelsea Clinton, what she said when she was sticking up for Barron Trump.' 'That's nice that Chelsea did that,' Khloe agreed. 'I thought you meant Chelsea Handler.' Soon after Kim says: 'Let's cut the bulls**t,' but the conversation is temporarily paused as the fire dancers start their performance. Candid: In the preview clip for KUWTK, released on Friday, the family is scene enjoying dinner before a fire show; Khloe pictured Interesting moment: Soon after Kim says: 'Let's cut the bulls**t,' but the conversation is temporarily paused as the fire dancers start their performance; Kourtney and Kim pictured The Kardashian/Jenners were in Costa Rica in January. Scott later tells the camera that he obviously knows that the 'girls know something's up.' Adding: 'Nobody really wants to say what's on their mind. And if this dinner isn't awkward enough, these fire dancers have to come out and start doing hula hoops. I already felt like under fire.' Scott and Kourtney are parents to three children together: Mason, seven; Penelope, four, and Reign, two. They were in a relationship for nine years before splitting up in July of 2015. The brand new Keeping Up With The Kardashians episode airs this Sunday at 9 pm on E! Not impressed: Scott and Kourtney are parents to three children together: Mason, seven; Penelope, four, and Reign, two Awkward conversation: The brand new Keeping Up With The Kardashians episode airs this Sunday at 9 pm on E!; Kris pictured Fun: Meanwhile, Kourtney shared a fun Cinco De Mayo post of herself in honor of the holiday From pink to purple, via bleached blonde, Kylie Jenner loves her wigs. But the teen ditched the fake hair as she gave fans a tour of her new glam room on Snapchat on Friday. 'My hair is just crazy,' said the 19-year-old, who'd wound most of her hair back into a bun, but who'd let her baby hairs spill forward. She ran her fingers through the front of her do, occasionally popping on a filter that gave her a dog's snout and long dangling ears. Scroll down for video Baby hairs on display: Kylie Jenner, famously in command of a fleet of wigs, gave her Snapchat following a glimpse at her natural hair on Friday After a bit of run-of-the-mill pouting for the camera, she uploaded a still photo of her natural look, plus the dog filter from before, complete with protruding tongue. Soon after, she posted a video of what appeared to be a new makeup room, and a small caption at the bottom of the screen trumpeted: 'glam room is ALMOST DONE.' 'This is insane,' gasped a friend as Kylie drew the camera across a plush pink sofa, which was sitting in front of a small coffee table with a white shag top. The look: After a bit of run-of-the-mill pouting for the camera, she uploaded a still photo of her natural look, plus the dog filter from before, complete with protruding tongue The wall behind that setup was splattered with designs of kissing lips in various shades of pink, and at the other end of the room were the makeup counters. White counter-tops sat below massive well-lit mirrors, and Kylie made sure to point out her 'pink chairs' set up for her to sit in whilst having her hair and makeup done. Kylie had quite the glamorous day indeed on Monday, having donned a glistening sheer pink Versace gown dripping with fringe to swing by the Met Gala in Manhattan. Swank: Soon after, she posted a video of what appeared to be a new makeup room, and a small caption at the bottom of the screen trumpeted: 'glam room is ALMOST DONE' Workplace: White counter-tops sat below massive well-lit mirrors, and Kylie made sure to point out her 'pink chairs' set up for her to sit in whilst having her hair and makeup done The Metropolitan Museum Of Art plays host to an annual celebrity-strewn fete -spearheaded by Anna Wintour - to drum up funds for the Costume Institute there. The Met Gala also launches the spring exhibition, which this year celebrates designer and Comme Des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, per Vogue. The last time the Met Gala celebrated an exhibition that revolved about a single living designer's work was in 1983, the designer being Yves Saint Laurent. Kylie had quite the glamorous day indeed on Monday, having donned a glistening sheer pink gown dripping with fringe to swing by the Met Gala in Manhattan The Metropolitan Museum Of Art plays host to an annual celebrity-strewn fete -spearheaded by Anna Wintour - to drum up funds for the Costume Institute there Anna, Vogue's editor-in-chief, co-chaired the bash alongside Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams, and the exhibition opened in full this Thursday, May 4. Kylie, who recently split from her 27-year-old on-off boyfriend Tyga, is now rumored to be dating 25-year-old Travis Scott, and was seen with him last weekend. They'd been spotted together Saturday at Bentley University in Boston, where he'd played a gig, and on Sunday night Kylie and her elder sister Kendall Jenner attended Travis' star-studded birthday dinner at Cipriani in New York City. Looking cozy: Kylie, who recently split from her on-off boyfriend Tyga, is now rumored to be dating Travis Scott, and was seen with him Saturday at his Boston gig She just signed on for another season of Flip Or Flop. So Christina El Moussa treated herself to some upscale shopping along Beverly Hills' glitzy Rodeo Drive Friday. The HGTV star was living it up during her day on the town, enjoying champagne and retail therapy with a friend before heading home in her slick Bentley convertible. Scroll down for video Shop til you drop! Christina El Moussa spent her Friday hanging out with a friend along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, where she did some shopping and drank champagne While enjoying the high life, the 33-year-old star sported a thigh-skimming sweater dress which hugged her body snugly. The mother-of-two's rich tan was accentuated by the dress's cool grey shade while her California blonde locks hung down long and glamorously. Adding an extra degree of luxury to the reality persona's look, the home-flipping hotshot slung a handsome Louis Vuitton bag across her back. Nice ride! The HGTV star was proud to show off her Bentley convertible Lounge lizard: The reality TV beauty sipped on a cool pink drink during her day out The interior decorator was joined by friend Shannon Rhodes, who looked equally lovely in a tank and jeans. The ladies visited Cartier, where they enjoyed a glass of champagne and some sunshine. Capturing the moment, Christina posted a Snapchat of the duo captioned 'Cartier and Champs w my bestie.' Leggy lady: The Flip Or Flop star was clad in a thigh skimming sweater dress, which showed off her long, tan legs Cheers! Christina and pal Shannon enjoyed some bubbly courtesy of Cartier Another snap showed the star sipping on a pink beverage, simply captioned 'lounging.' After taking care of shopping and unwinding with some bubbly, the mother-of-two hopped into her Bentley GT convertible with her bestie and drove off. Before fetching her keys the star made one final splurge, giving the valet attendant at $20 tip as he delivered her slick ride. Besties! During her luxe day out, the mother-of-two was joined by pal Shannon Rhodes. She captioned one of the day's pictures, saying 'Cartier and Champs w my bestie' It doesn't look like Christina is fretting about her finances right now. Although, the star was said to be conflicted about returning to Flip And Flop besides ex-husband Tarek, it appears she was made an offer too good to refuse. A source close to the reality star explained to Life & Style: 'Once the money was presented... Christina changed her mind. It was a good offer.' He last sported bleach blonde hair in 1992, but told a fan in January he 'didn't have enough hair to recreate the look'. However it seems Gary Barlow has gone back to his roots after all, sporting a peroxide Mohawk as he opened the Wonderland tour in Birmingham on Friday. The 46-year-old Take That star posed alongside band members Howard Donald, 49, and Mark Owen, 45, after their performance at the Genting Arena. Scroll down for video Take THAT! Gary Barlow has gone back to his roots (pictured in 1992 on the right), sporting a peroxide Mohawk as he opened the Wonderland tour in Birmingham on Friday But despite appearing thrilled with his new look, his wife Dawn Andews may not be as keen. Speaking to The Sun, he admitted: 'I did say to her, 'Do you really like my hair?' and she said, 'It's not the hair I've got the problem with, it's your mid-life crisis', and I was like, 'Thanks very much'.' And delving further into his makeover, he added: 'Vinyl's back and I thought, 'You know what? I'm taking it back to '92.' It was '92 since I was blond and I thought, 'It's Wonderland. I can't just walk on-stage with me old hairdo,' so I've gone blond for this tour.' (L-R) Gary, Howard Donald and Mark Owen of Take That at the opening night of Wonderland Live 2017 at Genting Arena 'Vinyl's back and I thought, 'You know what? I'm taking it back to '92', he explained In January Gary caused a stir among his Twitter followers when he took to the social network to reveal it was a big day for him... because he had just washed his hair for the first time in 14 years. Inadvertently admitting that his sleek hair may not have been the result of careful preening but greasier causes, Gary tweeted: 'It's such an important day I've washed my hair ! First time in ....... 14 years ! #nojoke'. And despite his questionable confession, a die-hard fan immediately asked whether she could 'sniff' it, adding 'weird I know'. 'Sure xxx', a willing Gary responded, before joking that he would block a fan who replied, 'I thought the wig maker would do that ;)'. He continued the banter with his followers, branding one follower a 'cheeky beggar' after they pondered, 'what hair'?. And he had no intention of going back to his blonde Take That days, telling a fan he 'didn't have enough left', following their odd bleaching request- something he appears to have backtracked on. His throwback transformation comes after they kicked off their 32-date Wonderland tour - which will take place over May and June across the UK and Ireland - in Birmingham's Genting Arena. 'It's not the hair I've got the problem with, it's your mid-life crisis': Despite appearing thrilled with his new look, his wife Dawn Andews may not be as keen The highly-anticipated tour - which is named around their eighth studio album - sees the trio's stage in the middle of the arena floor, giving fans a unique experience of watching the show from all angles. Wowing the crowds with confetti canons, water graphics and rising stages, the band commanded the stage for their first show while they performed a number of their hits Relight My Fire, Never Forget and an acoustic version of their 1992 hit Satisfied. Working a number of eye-catching looks for the show, the long-running music group managed to wow their fans as they used single podiums around the arena to perform on. White hot! His throwback transformation comes after they kicked off their 32-date Wonderland tour which will take place over May and June across the UK and Ireland Getting it going: Gary and Howard stepped out in eye-catching looks for the opening number of the tour Fringe benefits: Mark rocked out on his acoustic guitar while wearing a fringe jacket Wowing the crowd: The trio were welcomed with a wall of energy on their opening night in Birmingham Never once dropping their energy, they showcased some of their signature moves during their hit Pray while they got the audience up dancing for Mark Owen led Shine. For fans who can't make it to their tour, they are set to be streaming their show live into cinemas direct from The London O2 Arena on 9th June. With a career spanning three decades, the band have shared their excitement of being live from participating cinemas around the UK and Europe following their 2015 tour. In the round: The highly-anticipated tour - which is named around their eighth studio album - sees the trio's stage in the middle of the arena floor, giving fans a unique experience of watching the show from all angles No fear: At one point during the show, Howard was hanging over the stage Entertaining: Wowing the crowds with confetti canons, water graphics and rising stages, the band commanded the stage for their first show while they performed a number of their hits Relight My Fire, Never Forget and an acoustic version of their 1992 hit Satisfied Speaking about the stream, they said: 'Were really looking forward to returning to cinemas with the live broadcast of our Wonderland show at Londons O2 in June. 'The last time we did this in 2015, the atmosphere was amazing. The chance to have so many extra people joining us from cinemas around the UK and in Europe for one night only will be really exciting'. Take That are one of the UKs most successful acts having achieved seven UK Number One albums, 12 Number One singles, won five Ivor Novello Awards, and eight BRIT Awards. Sofia Richie's street style on Friday included a shout-out to Harley-Davidson, whose logo was splashed across the charcoal hoodie she'd worn. The 18-year-old daughter of Lionel Richie was spotted that day out and about in Beverly Hills, a chic pageboy cap perched on her head. A black jacket was slung over the half-sister of Nicole Richie's left arm, and that hand was grasping a snakeskin-patterned gleaming black purse. Scroll down for video Out on the town: Sofia Richie's street style on Friday included a shout-out to Harley Davidson, whose logo was splashed across the charcoal hoodie she'd worn High-waisted black trousers featured trios of white stripes running down the outer side of each leg, and she'd slipped on high-heeled black leather Spirit boots from Dear Frances. She'd cut a far more formal figure earlier that week on the other side of the country, where she'd attended the Met Gala in Manhattan on the first Monday in May. Her gleaming gold, silver and blue Topshop gown featured a neckline that fell to her midriff, and she'd garnished the ensemble with several glistening necklaces. Shielding from the son: The 18-year-old daughter of Lionel Richie was spotted that day out and about in Beverly Hills, a chic pageboy cap perched on her head Bit warm for southern California: A black jacket was slung over the half-sister of Nicole Richie's left arm, and that hand was grasping a snakeskin-patterned gleaming black purse A black leather jacket slid down her shoulders into the crooks of her arms, matching her black purse, and she'd slicked her blonde hair back into a severe do. She posed there with a claque of models including Candice Swanepoel, Presley Gerber, Gabriel Day-Lewis, Jordan Kale Barrett, Joan Smalls and Behati Prinsloo. All those names, as well as Sylvester Stallone's 18-year-old daughter Sistine, had been dressed by Topshop or Topman, according to the Topshop website itself. Adding some height: High-waisted black trousers featured trios of white stripes running down the outer side of each leg, and she'd slipped on high-heeled black leather Dear Frances boots The Metropolitan Museum Of Art plays host to an annual celebrity-strewn fete -spearheaded by Anna Wintour - to drum up funds for the Costume Institute there. The Met Gala also launches the spring exhibition, which this year celebrates designer and Comme Des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, per Vogue. The last time the Met Gala celebrated an exhibition that revolved about on a single living designer's work was in 1983, the designer being Yves Saint Laurent. The big day: She'd cut a far more formal figure earlier that week on the other side of the country, where she'd attended the Met Gala in Manhattan on the first Monday in May Note the coat: Her gleaming gold, silver and blue Topshop gown featured a neckline that fell to her midriff, and she'd garnished the ensemble with several glistening necklaces She's the Hollywood actress who juggles blockbuster movie roles with being a mum-of-two. And on Friday, Teresa Palmer proved she can handle more than just a busy schedule, as she headed out for lunch with her boys. The 31-year-old had her hands full during the outing, carrying newborn Forest Sage and a bright handbag in one arm, while other son Bodhi walked happily beside her. Got her hands full! On Friday, Teresa Palmer proved she can handle more than just a busy schedule, as she headed out for lunch with her boys, juggling her son's baby carrier and a bright yellow handbag Teresa cut a casual figure in a blue polka-dot top and three-quarter jeans as she strolled along the sidewalk. The Point Break actress teamed them with a pair of lace-up brown shoes and oversized black spectacles. Keeping the jewellery minimal, she wore a simple golden necklace and let her long golden locks fall in curls around her face. The mother-of-two capped off her look with barely-there make-up, opting instead to let her natural natural beauty shine through. Dressing down: The Point Break actress cut a casual figure in a blue polka-dot top and three-quarter jeans, teaming them with a pair of lace-up brown shoes and oversized black spectacles Young son Bodhi Rain looked equally as trendy in a pair of yellow pants and a splatter-pattern top as he walked beside his famous mum. Keeping an eye on him, Teresa also juggled Forest's baby carrier, looping it over her arm as the tot stared out from under the blue hood. Looking unfazed, she also carried a bright yellow bag, with red and black highlights, which appeared to contain toys to keep the newborn entertained. Mother and son day: Son Forest's was in his baby carrier, which Teresa looped over her arm, with his brother Bodhi walking alongside 'Totally flawed': The bubbly blonde recently spoke about her parenting style, claiming her kids 'sometimes' get TV on the plane and eat chocolate on 'rare occasions' The bubbly blonde recently spoke about her parenting style, describing herself as 'totally flawed' because her kids 'sometimes' get TV on the plane and eat chocolate on 'rare occasions'. Speaking to Vogue, she said: 'I try as hard as I can to parent as consciously as I can, but for instance, my kids get free-for-all TV on the plane'. She added: 'And my son, on rare occasions, will eat massive blocks of ice-creams and will have chocolates.' Conscious parenting: The 31-year-old added: 'I try as hard as I can to parent as consciously as I can, but for instance, my kids get free-for-all TV on the plane' The beauty also discussed her interest in true crime dramas, UFOs and underground rap from the 90's, claiming it made her a good match for husband Mark Webber. The pair met over Twitter, when Teresa tweeted her support for his movie End of Love after seeing its trailer. After writing letters to each other over email, the couple eventually tied the knot in Mexico in 2013, before welcoming their first child shortly after. She's known for her lavish lifestyle. And it seems PR queen Roxy Jacenko has pulled out all the stops to give her son Hunter Curtis the biggest and best third birthday he could wish for. The 36-year-old took to her Instagram story on Saturday to share a short clip of her preparation for her little man's big day. Scroll down for video Three years old! PR queen Roxy Jacenko is pulling out all the stops to give her son Hunter Curtis the best third birthday (pictured with his sister Pixie) In the clip, Roxy flaunted the many presents and colourful balloons she had beautifully arranged for his big day. Taking to Hunter's Instagram account, the blonde beauty also shared a clip of his surprise at seeing the massive arrangement on their balcony. 'Thank you', an excited Hunter says to his mother to which she replies back 'It's my pleasure.' Preparation: Roxy showed off the many presents beautifully displayed birthday presents, and colourful balloons Surprise! The 36-year-old mother also shared a clip of Hunter surprised at seeing the arrangement on their balcony and politely thanking her 'Thank you mummy,' he politely says again, asking if he can open his Hatchimals toy. Roxy also shared a throwback photo of herself three years ago when she was in the hospital ready to give birth to Hunter. In the flashback photo the PR guru can be seen still apparently hard at work with a Toshiba laptop in hand, even while in a hospital dressing gown. Throwback: She even shared a throwback photo of herself still hard at work with a Toshiba laptop in hand, while in a hospital dressing gown and ready to give birth Followers of the family commented on the post wishing Hunter a Happy Birthday. One said: 'Gorgeous boy, very well mannered, enjoy your big day Hunter.' Another wrote: 'Such lovely manners! Happy birthday Hunter!!' Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Roxy for comment. Kourtney Kardashian was ready to party when she arrived at Casa Vega in Studio City on Friday afternoon. The 38-year-old reality star and longtime family friend Jonathan Cheban met up with her sisters Kim and Khloe as well as their mom Kris for a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the famed Mexican restaurant. Kourtney's new beau Younes Bendjima was not part of the party, just a day after reports surfaced that her ex Scott Disick is 'jealous' she's dating again. Scroll down for video Ready to party: Kourtney Kardashian arrived to Casa Vega with Jonathan Cheban to celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Friday afternoon A source told People Magazine, 'Kourtney doesnt care what he thinks. She just thinks he is the last person who should have any opinions about who she is dating.' Kourtney and Younes have been hanging out for months, he was even said to be partying with her the night of Kim Kardashian's Paris gunpoint burglary in October. The source tells people that 'its not serious,' but that 'everyone likes him.' Perky: She skipped a bra for her day out, giving onlookers an eyeful of her enhanced bust LOL: The pals shared a laugh as they appeared to be filming for Keeping Up With The Kardashians Kourtney and Scott called things off for good in October 2015, just shy of one year after the birth of their son Reign. They had been together on-and-off for nine years prior and also had son Mason and daughter Penelope together in that time. On a 2015 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Kourtney said of Scott, 'Scott will be amazing for three months then go out of town and go off the deep end.' Hot mama: The 38-year-old mother of three showed off her enviable figure in a tight tank top Buddies: Cheban is a long time family friend who has been featured on their reality show for years 'I dont know if thats a pattern I can continue with, she said of her longtime partner who entered rehab in late 2015. The final straw came when photos of Disick getting close with a woman in Monte Carlo surfaced online. Though they have remained co-parents for the sake of their children, it appears that Scott always imagined they would get back together. Family affair: Khloe Kardashian (L) and Kris Jenner (R) were also in attendance at Casa Vega Making her arrival: Kim pulled up with sister Khloe as her passenger In a recent episode of their reality show, Scott finds out Kourtney has been going on dates. 'This is probably the worst thing I could ever hear, ever,' Scott says to camera. Kourtney dressed to impress on Friday, wearing a white tank top with silky off-white pants that featured red strips down the side, which she matched with red heels. Before their Cinco de Mayo feast, Kourtney and Khloe both shared Snapchat videos of them working out with sister Kim. Khloe showed off her revenge body in a tight white shirt and blue jeans once she arrived at the restaurant. Momager Kris wore a smart black pantsuit for the celebration, where her daughter Kim posted a photo of a margarita on Snapchat. Silky: Kourt wore baggy silk pants with heels while Jonathan sported a red and black sweatsuit Foppish actor Hugh Grant, 56, knows all about scandal having been caught by police indulging in a sex act with Hollywood hooker Divine Brown near LAs Sunset Strip. So who better to play Jeremy Thorpe in a forthcoming three-part BBC adaptation of A Very English Scandal by Doctor Who writer Russell T. Davies. The drama chronicles the downfall of the former Liberal leader who was cleared in 1979 of conspiring to murder Norman Scott to cover up their affair. Hugh Grant (left), 56, knows all about scandal having been caught by police indulging in a sex act with Hollywood hooker Divine Brown near LAs Sunset Strip, so who better to play Jeremy Thorpe (right) in a forthcoming three-part BBC adaptation of A Very English Scandal? An insider tells me: Hugh is keen to do it but nothing has been firmed up yet. One area that interests him is the way Thorpe was hounded by the media as we know Hugh has a beef with the Press. Koo shows off her daughter at exhibition Prince Andrews ex-girlfriend, photographer Koo Stark, hosted a retrospective of her work at the Leica Gallery in Mayfair, supported by her 20-year-old daughter Tatiana, whose father is American financier Warren Walker. Stark, 61, took up photography after her 18-month romance with Prince Andrew ended in 1983. Their romance was nipped in the bud when it emerged she had starred in the 1976 erotic film, Emily. Tatiana, who is the Duke of Yorks goddaughter, was the subject of a legal battle when she was three. Koo attempted to sue Tatianas father for breach of contract, loss of earnings and emotional distress, but the action collapsed. In 2013, Koo, who founded a cancer awareness agency after surviving the disease, was cleared of theft at Isleworth Crown Court after claims by Warren that she had stolen a 17th-century painting worth 40,000. Prince Andrews ex-girlfriend, photographer Koo Stark (left), hosted a retrospective of her work at the Leica Gallery in Mayfair, supported by her 20-year-old daughter Tatiana (right) Hastings follows new lead In character as Superintendent Ted Hastings in Line of Duty, Adrian Dunbar was described by my colleague Jan Moir as a slightly paunchy sexist with the emotional intelligence of a whelk. Nevertheless, Dunbar has become an unlikely sex symbol and he scrubs up well when hes off duty, too. The hawk-eyed Ulsterman, 58, relaxed after the BBC1 police dramas finale on Sunday night by taking his two dogs for a walk near his North London home, wearing trendy tinted specs and a navy gilet. Excitable housewives have launched a social media campaign for Dunbars craggy on-screen persona to become Prime Minister. Strong and stable leadership? Its a fair cop. Walkies! Line of Duty star Ted Hastings (right) who plays Superintendent Ted Hastings (left) in the popular crime drama has become something of a sex symbol REALITY STAR'S GIRLFRIEND DODGES QUESTIONS ABOUT ROYAL WEDDING Spencer Matthews and Vogue Williams When Pippa Middleton marries James Matthews this month, her future brother-in-law Spencer will be attending on his own. His girlfriend, Vogue Williams, is dodging rumours shes not invited by saying shes busy that day. Vogue, 31, posted this snap of herself in a pink swimsuit with Spencer, 28, from Marbella. She may not be going to the ball, but shes determined to show shes having a ball. Advertisement Pixie will take my name, says singer's fiance Perky pop star Pixie Lott will have to bow to convention when she weds Marks & Sparks underwear model Oliver Cheshire next year. I want her to take my second name, Oliver, 28, tells me at the Belstaff x Vestiaire Collective party in Mayfair. Perky pop star Pixie Lott will take her finance's name when she marries model Oliver Cheshire next year He said: Thats quite traditional, and Im quite traditional. I think its the right thing to do. When we have kids I want us all to have the same surname. Unsurprisingly, he is also happy to leave the wedding planning to Pixie, 26. Ill give a little bit of advice if she asks me, but Im not that hot on flowers and colours. Thats traditional, too. Brooklyn 'walked into' his job, said designer Sewing Bee judge blasts Beckhams From the ubiquitous Beckhams to Kate Mosss 14-year-old daughter Lila Grace, the toxic trend of celebrity offspring nabbing fashions top jobs is too much for Savile Row designer Patrick Grant. I would never use one of the Beckhams kids because I think my customers would think that was deeply uncool; I think its deeply uncool, says Grant, 45, a judge on the BBCs Great British Sewing Bee. Brooklyn and Romeo walked into their Burberry jobs, while professionals are overlooked. I dont support that. Speaking at the book launch for I Actually Wore This by Tom Coleman, hosted at Grants E.Tautz store in Mayfair, he adds: Its deeply disingenuous, the whole thing, and most people with a brain can see through it. Pulitzer prize-winning writer Hilton Als made his name as a theatre critic, but this week his own life became the drama. The Broadway veteran drew on his experiences as a gay man in New York in the Nineties, and the loss of many of his close friends to Aids, as he gave the annual Esmond Harmsworth Lecture at Oxford Universitys Rothermere American Institute. It was a powerful and moving account, says a cerebral observer. Bravo. They're the bikini babes who earned their online megastar status thanks to their skimpy swimwear posts. But even Natasha Oakley, 25 and Devin Brugman, 26, need to venture onto dry land every now and then. The busty beauties oozed effortless chic at the Monday Active Fashion presentation in Miami Beach on Friday, flaunting their toned and tanned frames in stylish Summer-wear. Out of the water and onto the runway! Bikini Bloggers Tash Oakley (L) and Devin Brugman looked chic at the Monday Active Fashion presentation in Miami Beach on Friday Both playing with crisp white palettes, Tash faced a conundrum more closely associated with her swimwear blog, forced to choose whether to opt for a two or one-piece outfit. Her cream jumpsuit with thick gold pinstripes proved an excellent choice, allowing the blonde bombshell to flaunt her ample assets, while accentuating her statuesque frame. The plunging number cinched at the waist, before adopting retro style techniques by flaring out above her nude-coloured heels. Brunette beauty Devin opted for an even more carefree couture, matching her pearly-white grin with a airy cotton shirt and ripped high-waisted skinny jeans. Both playing with crisp white palettes, 25-year-old Tash's breezy jumpsuit accentuated her statuesque frame, while Devin, 26, opted for an even more carefree couture Both of the stunning business partners parted their locks to either side of their face, with Tash opting for a more minimalist makeup palette. Subtle smokey eyeliner and a natural pink lipstick contrasted Devin's approach, which incorporated a bolder red and more liberally applied eye makeup. Later, the besties posed with a scantily-clad group of busty active wear models, flaunting the popular fitness line's latest range. Passion for fashion (and fitness): Later, the besties posed with a scantily-clad group of busty active wear models, flaunting the popular fitness line's latest range The fully-clothed snaps were a rarity for Tash and Devin, whose A Bikini A Day blog has carved a dedicated following. The business partners launched the blog in 2012, which has since gained them international attention. Speaking to Collective Hub, Tash defended the blog against claims it is just 'selling sex', revealing the majority of their readers are women. 'They look to us because we are both relatable and aspirational. We're happy, healthy girls who try to make the most out of life,' she said. Rare: The fully-clothed snaps were a rarity for Tash and Devin, whose A Bikini A Day blog has carved a dedicated following She's been hanging out on the east coast for the Met Gala. And Dakota Johnson headed home to Los Angeles on Friday, as she jetted in to LAX. The 27-year-old actress took a walk on the wild side in an animal print fun fur coat, as she landed back on the west coast. Walk on the wild side: Dakota Johnson headed home to Los Angeles on Friday, as she jetted in to LAX The genetically blessed daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith mixed up her sartorial choices, with cropped jeans and black and white patent loafers. She had a simple checked top, and carried her belongings in a giant black leather tote bag. Dark glasses covered her eyes, and she had a coral lip-stick completing her natural-looking make-up. Leopard print: The 27-year-old actress took a walk on the wild side in an animal print fun fur coat, as she landed back on the west coast Her brunette tresses were worn loose and in waves, with a slight highlight framing her pretty face. She has reinstated her bangs after briefly growing them out. Dakota shot to fame in 2015 film Fifty Shades Of Grey. Fifty shades: Dark glasses covered her eyes, and she had a coral lip-stick completing her natural-looking make-up Well tressed: Her brunette locks were worn loose and in waves, with a slight highlight framing her pretty face Jet-setter: She had a simple checked top, and carried her belongings in a giant black leather tote bag Quirky: The genetically blessed daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith mixed up her sartorial choices, with cropped jeans and black and white patent loafers It was a brave choice given the risque nature of the story in which she plays Anastasia Steele, the naive young object of bondage-obsessed billionaire Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan. Based on E.L. James' erotic bestsellers, their story continued in Fifty Shades Darker, released on February 10 this year and it will reach its conclusion with Fifty Shades Freed, due out on February 9, 2018. Dakota's also slated to star in an Amazon Studios co-produced remake - out sometime this year - of the 1977 Italian ballerina horror film, Suspiria. She's competing in the current series of Seven's less-than-glamorous renovation show. But out of her hard hat and work boots, House Rules Kate has said people often confuse her for a supermodel. The 28-year-old's husband Harry told The Daily Telegraph 'everyone says she looks like Jennifer Hawkins!' Scroll down for video 'Some people call me Jen': House Rules' Kate says she knows she looks like supermodel Hawkins but has never modelled in an interview with The Daily Telegraph on Saturday Supermodel Jennifer Hawkins was crowned Miss Universe in 2004 and is now known as an Australian model, brand ambassador, entrepreneur, television presenter and beauty queen Harry claimed it was his wife's hair colour and signature ponytail styling, as well as her long legs that made her appear like the former Miss Universe winner. Kate acknowledges the resemblance is there, adding: 'Some people call me Jen, it's one of my nicknames.' She also mentioned that the cast and crew on the reality show were constantly commenting on her likeness to Jennifer. 'I'm actually not very photogenic, funnily enough': Kate acknowledges the resemblance between herself and the former Miss Universe winner due to her hair and long legs Kate said despite being compared to the super successful Australian stunner, she had yet to consider whether a modelling career was an option for her. 'I'm a bit of a goof. I'm actually not very photogenic, funnily enough,' she said. Her carpenter husband Harry also laughed off suggestions he looked like Jen's husband Jake Wall. The couple are currently competing against five other teams for the $200,000 prize. Renovations to the runway? Kate said despite being compared to the super successful Australian stunner, she had yet to consider whether a modelling career was an option for her Doppelganger duo? Her carpenter husband Harry also laughed off suggestions he looked like Jen's husband Jake Wall The pair are raising their young son Xavier in their Adelaide home, which they bought for $550,000 after the block was subdivided and split in half, leaving them to live in just bedrooms and a garage. The pair lack a proper kitchen and installed what appeared to be a kitchenette, in a bedroom. The pair said they maxed out their mortgage and owe $473,000 on the property and don't have money to renovate. Help needed! House Rules contestants Harry and Kate are desperate for renovations on their subdivided $550,000 Adelaide family home She's the former glamour model who underwent breast reduction surgery on Friday. And now, Nicola Robinson has opened up about her childhood, claiming she was a tomboy, in a lengthy post uploaded to Instagram. Sharing a throwback photo of her younger self, the 40-year-old revealed that she always 'felt like more of a boy than a girl' growing up, even begging her mum to let her have short hair. From tomboy to model: The wife of celebrity Chef Pete Evans, Nicola Robinson, has opened up about her childhood, claiming she was once a tomboy in a lengthy post uploaded to Instagram The wife of celebrity chef Pete Evans explained that she believed she was meant to be a boy because she 'was so innately into bewwwwbs, especially big ones! (sic)'. But she said that she never spoke about it for fear that others would think she was 'a weirdo'. 'I already felt like I didn't quite fit in, so confessing my feelings seemed like a totally unsafe option!' she wrote in her caption. Embracing her boyish style: The 40-year-old used the post to explain how she believed she was meant to be a boy because she 'was so innately into bewwwwbs, especially big ones! (sic)' 'I already felt like I didn't quite fit in': The beauty said that she never spoke about it before for fear that others would think she was 'a weirdo' Nicola continued the eye-opening post by saying that as a child she was 'completely and utterly fascinated by the female form'. The blonde beauty said she had been 'not at all interested in boys,' instead claiming the only men who caught her attention were those that were 'fluffy and had four legs.' And with three older brothers who she looked up to, the personality said she tried very hard to emulate their 'boyish behaviour'. That meant embracing a love of 'skateboarding, nudie girl mags, motorbikes and V8's,' which stand in stark contrast to her animal-loving social media posts today. Not interested in boys: Nicola continued the eye-opening post by saying that as a child she was 'completely and utterly fascinated by the female form' One of the boys: With three older brothers who she looked up to, the personality said she tried very hard to emulate their 'boyish behaviour' Fans embraced the Paleo advocate's honesty in the comments section of the post, praising her for opening up a discussion on the topic. 'It's lovely to see someone so courageously facing such big inner fears... Well done on sharing this publicly for your own inner growth and to support that of others,' one user wrote. Another added: 'So much love for your open heart space... So so much beauty in truth'. Support: Fans embraced the Paleo advocate's honesty in the comments section of the post, praising her for opening up a discussion on the topic. Post-surgery: It comes just days after the New-Zealand born star underwent a breast reduction , taking to social media again to share the news It comes just days after the New-Zealand born star underwent breast reduction surgery, taking to social media again to share the news. 'I'm so positively thankful and blessed to be carrying a much lighter load of unnecessary baggage,' she wrote. Nicola announced the procedure days earlier with another post of her pets, this time her precious pup who had received a hair-cut. 'My human gets her fake bewbies explanted 'en bloc' style tomorrow & she really wanted to shave her head in celebration, but she shaved my Earth Suit instead!' ' she captioned the photo. She's been linked to a number of hunky men since her breakup with Sasha Mielczarek in December 2016. And it seems Sam Frost had no qualms getting a little frisky with a male friend on Friday night. The 28-year-old took to her Instagram story to share her night out with her gal pals. Stunning in navy! Sam Frost has been linked to a number of hunky men since her breakup with Sasha Mielczarek. It also seems she has no qualms getting a little frisky with a male friend On Friday night, Sam took a boomerang video of her friends as they prepped and primped themselves in the ladies room. The next snap saw the reality TV star greet her male friend, actor David Harrison, with a hug that involved her straddling him. To the photo Sam added a love heart eyes emoji, as well as the flame and red love heart emoji. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Sam Frost's team for comment. Getting a little frisky? She shared a snap of herself greeting her male friend actor David Harrison, with a hug that involved her straddling him With the gals! The reality TV star took was out with her friends and shared a boomerang video as they prepped and primped themselves in the ladies room Earlier in the month, Sam sparked romance speculation after she was spotted with Home And Away actor Orpheus Pledger walking together at Melbourne Airport after the day after the Logies. Today Extra co-host Sonia Kruger added to fire to the flame when she claimed to have seen the former Bachelorette walking through the Crown hotel foyer in her hotel dress at 6.41am the next morning. Speaking to TV Week about her relationship status, she said: 'I really enjoy being on my own.' Loving the single life: Sam recently opened up about her relationship status saying 'I really enjoy being on my own' She also opened up about her mental health and her struggle with depression in a report by The Herald Sun following her split from Sasha and attacks from online trolls. 'I reached breaking point last year. I was like 'oh my goodness I am really, really struggling with my mental health,' Sam said. 'I did research, I think it is really important to find the right psychologist, then I met this phenomenal, phenomenal lady and I could tell she got me straight away. 'It has definitely made me have a different attitude towards 2017. I am like I need to own my space, keep moving forward and try and not let the little stuff bug me.' A new fiery clip could cause these two besties to go video vixens at 20 paces. Amber Rose is the sexy star of rapper Future's new video for hit Mask Off, only problem is he is Blac Chyna's ex. Amber sizzles in the apocalyptic world created to illustrate the massive hit which was released Friday. Scroll down for video Seriously steamy: Amber Rose is the sexy star of rapper Future's new video for hit Mask Off which was released Friday Hopefully she gave her best friend a heads up, as in 2015 Blac Chyna turned up the heat in another video for Future and the pair were rumored to be dating. While Future claimed he was single through their alleged romance, Chyna got a tattoo of the rapper's name on her hand. Girl code issues aside, Amber and Future make for a saucy couple as they speed around the parallel crime-riddled world in a silver wrapped Maybach. As the 33-year-old hitmaker negotiates the road, shootouts and robberies, Amber does all she can to distract him. WARNING EXPLICIT LANGUAGE Chemistry: As the 33-year-old hitmaker negotiates the road, shootouts and robberies, Amber does all she can to distract him Turned up the heat:In the steamy clip, the pair also passionately kiss as outside the world burns much like the movie The Purge And she has a lot of weapons in her arsenal to do so, with the model grinding up against Future as he drove. In the steamy clip, the pair also passionately kiss as outside the world burns much like the movie The Purge. Not only do the pair share a little spit, in one seductive scene Amber blows smoke into Future's mouth. Eyes on the road: And she has a lot of weapons in her arsenal to do so, with the model grinding up against Future as he drove On fire: And she has a lot of weapons in her arsenal to do so, with the model grinding up against Future as he drove Saucy: The 33-year-old rapper grab's Amber's famous derriere at one point Future also was very hands on, with the former partner of Ciara grabbing Amber's famous derriere. Amber dressed to wow too, with the 33-year-old wearing a black latex long sleeve almost thong bodysuit. The star added of sexy fishnets and crystal embellished sunglasses. Tight fit: Amber dressed to wow too, with the 33-year-old wearing a black latex long sleeve almost thong bodysuit Dangerous: Matching the song's title, Mask Off, the model's outfit was finished off with a couture mad Max-inspired mask On top of the world: The Colin Tilley-directed video finishes with Future jumping atop of a building as a crowd and police clash with rioters Matching the song's title, Mask Off, the model's outfit was finished off with a couture mad Max-inspired mask. Another scantily clad woman also inexplicably pops up during the video and has nothing by tar-looking paint on derriere. The Colin Tilley-directed video finishes with Future jumping atop of a building as a crowd and police clash with rioters. Mask Off is Future's highest charting single to date and went platinum this week. Girl code: Hopefully she gave her best friend a heads up, as in 2015 Blac Chyna turned up the heat in another video for Future and the pair were rumored to be dating American Idol came to an end after fifteen seasons on Fox in April of 2016, but it's revival appears more imminent than ever. A deal is 'in place' to bring the show onto the ABC network, according to Variety. Production house FremantleMedia and co-owner Core Media Group are said to be near an agreement with ABC for the singing competition show to return as soon as March 2018. Idol chatter: A deal is 'in place' to bring American Idol back to a new home at ABC, but Fox is said to have put in an 'insane' offer to bring back the singing competition show But Fox is putting in an 'insane' offer to bring the show back to it's original network, according to TMZ. The website reports that Core and Fremantle are open to both offers and that it's 'all about the deal.' Both networks are said to be keen on having Ryan Seacrest return as host, which will be an uphill challenge as he is committed to hosting Live with Kelly Ripa in New York, which also airs on ABC. Seacrest in?: Reports indicate that both networks want Ryan Seacrest back as host in LA, but face an 'uphill battle' with his obligations with Live With Kelly And Ryan in New York City As for the judging panel, Kelly Clarkson is one of the names being 'floated' around for the reboot, according to Variety. She is of course the original American Idol, taking the first season title in 2002, and has gone on to achieve massive pop music success with hits like Since U Been Gone and Stronger. In it's fifteenth and 'final' season, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr judged the competition. The original Idol: Kelly Clarkson, who took the first American Idol title in 2002, has been 'floated around' as a possible name attached to the reboot J-Lo herself doubted that it was the end of Idol when she was asked about the show's cancellation at a press conference in 2015, according to Billboard. 'I'm sad about the show ending, of course. Do I believe it's really ending? I have not come to terms with that yet, it might not.' Continuing to cast her doubt, Jennifer added, 'You never know. You never know with these things.' The University of Technology Sydney may soon be welcoming a reality TV camera crew onto campus. Real Housewives Of Sydney star Lisa Oldfield, 41, shared a VERY racy throwback snap from her collegiate days on Saturdays as she announced her return to uni. Pictured scantily-clad and cuddling up to a mystery man with an errant tongue, the mother-of-two announced in the caption that she'd enrolled in a post graduate course. Racy! Lisa Oldfield shared a racy throwback snap from her collegiate days on Friday, pictured cuddling-up to a mystery man, before announcing she'd be returning to uni Sporting the same bob hairstyle she still wears on the show, a much younger Lisa flashed some skin in a skimpy black halterneck. Curled up on her mystery man's lap, she closed her eyes and pouted her plump lips in apparent reaction to her companion's less than subtle advances. As she ran her hands through his hair, the man - who certainly doesn't appear to be husband David - opened his eyes wide and moved his tongue to the direction of her bust. 'Going back to #uni to do #postgrad course. Wonder if it will be as #fun #twenty #years #later? (sic),' she wrote in the caption. Same same, but different: Sporting the same bob hairstyle she still wears on the show, the RHOS star flashed some skin in a skimpy black halterneck Look out UTS! 'Going back to #uni to do #postgrad course. Wonder if it will be as #fun #twenty #years #later? (sic),' she wrote in the caption, before adding she'd be studying Assisted Reproductive Technology at UTS Answering a fans comment, she later added that she'd be returning to UTS to stduy Assisted Reproductive Technology. Another follower reminded her: 'Remember 'P's get Degrees' so study well but make sure you have fun on campus.' '$2 champagne @ the UniBar.' Unlikely: It seems unlikely Lisa is brushing-up on the topic out of a desire to add more children to her embattled family (pictured here with husband David and sons Albert, 4 and Harry, 6) Although she's studying Assisted Reproductive Technology, it seems unlikely Lisa is brushing-up on the topic out of a desire to add more children to her boystrous brood. After publicly calling her sons, Albert, 4, and Harry, 6, 'd**kheads', Lisa revealed on radio that her boys retaliate with curse-laden insults. 'The four-year-old called me this morning a 's**t-eating c**k master,' the star revealed in a radio interview earlier in the week. Not perfect: After publicly calling her sons 'd**kheads', Lisa revealed on radio that her boys retaliate with curse-laden insults. Courteney Cox looked fresh-faced as she headed to film Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Hollywood Friday. The 52-year-old star matched well in a black top with a heart pattern on the chest with black slacks and black heels with ankle straps. The Tinseltown mainstay had a designer black purse dangling from her shoulder, with her long black mane down and large hoop earrings. Grand entrance: Courteney Cox, 52, resonated beauty and style as she made her way to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Friday The Friends star, who's engaged to 40-year-old Snow Patrol musician Johnny McDaid, has had a busy week, as she attended an event in West Hollywood Thursday evening launching Newbark x Theory, a tandem project between the companies Theory and NewbarK. Fashionista: The Friends actress was impeccably styled in a matching black outfit as she made her way to film the ABC talk show Killer smile: The Hollywood veteran looked ready for her close-up as she prepared for the appearance, with David Spade filling in for Jimmy Kimmel Bling: The Scream actress wore jewelry in the form of rings and bracelets Friday The Cougar Town alum, who has a 12-year-old daughter named Coco with her ex-husband David Arquette, has no ongoing projects listed on her IMDb page after a busy 2016 that saw her appear in the film Mothers and Daughters, as well as the TV movie Charity Case and the show Drunk History. Cox's appearance on Kimmel came just days after the talk show host revealed how his newborn son had to undergo an open-heart surgery April 21 after a nurse noticed how the baby was turning purple and had a heart murmur. Kimmel said on his show that waiting for his son's surgery made for 'the longest three hours of [his] life,' adding that his son was now home and 'doing great.' The loyal family man has since spent the rest of the week at home caring for his family, with Kristen Bell, Anthony Anderson and Will Arnett filling in as guest hosts, and David Spade slated to host Friday's episode. Bringing the star power: Courteney went to an event in West Hollywood Thursday evening launching Newbark x Theory, a tandem project between the companies Theory and NewbarK She shot to fame in Orange Is The New Black. And Laverne Cox made that her colour scheme for a screening and discussion about the show on Friday in Los Angeles. The 32-year-old actress - who portrays Sophia Burset in the Netflix series - looked stunning in the black and orange lace trim dress as she arrived at Saban Media Center at the Television Academy. On theme: Laverne Cox made orange and black her colour scheme for a screening and discussion about the show on Friday in Los Angeles She showcased her long toned limbs in the drop hem outfit, which cinched at the waist. Gold shoes complemented her outfit perfectly, which also gave a glimpse of her red pedicure. Her honey-toned locks were immaculately styled in loose waves around her shoulders. Stunning: The 32-year-old actress - who portrays Sophia Burset in the Netflix series - wore a black and orange lace trim dress as she arrived at Saban Media Center The star - who is the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the acting category - had kohled her almond eyes and added a smokey lid. Her flawless complexion needed little make-up, but did have peachy blush and a mocha lipstick hue. Lauren was joined at the event by her co-stars. Leggy display: She showcased her long toned limbs in the drop hem outfit, which cinched at the waist Metallics: Gold shoes complemented her outfit perfectly, which also gave a glimpse of her red pedicure Well-tressed: Her honey-toned locks were immaculately styled in loose waves around her shoulders Taylor Schilling, 32, kept it simple but stylish in an all-black ensemble. She put the emphasis on her pretty features in the un-fussy outfit, with her hair in a loose updo. Uzo Aduba chose black frills with a bird print. Classic style: Taylor Schilling, 32, kept it simple but stylish in an all-black ensemble Not so crazy: Uzo Aduba chose black frills with a bird print Patterns: Samira Wiley (L) brought summer with her in a flirty floral print strapless cocktail dress and Taryn Manning (R) chose a colourful complex print Dazzling: Danielle Brooks had a fishnet top and metallic skirt from Eloquii, which she teamed with red studded heels The 36-year-old looked elegant in the asymmetric style, which she teamed with black heels. Samira Wiley brought summer with her in a flirty floral print strapless cocktail dress. The 30-year-old newly-wed, who plays Poussey Washington, looked delightful in the outfit which showcased her stunning figure and toned calves. Taryn Manning and Danielle Brooks were also dressed to the nines for proceedings, with Danielle donning a metallic skirt from Eloquii, which she paired with bold red heels - to match the carpet. Posing up a storm: Danielle Brooks, Cindy Holland, Taryn Manning and Uzo Aduba were together on the red carpet Glammed up: Danielle Brooks, Laverne Cox, Uzo Aduba, Blair Brown, Taryn Manning, Samira Wiley and Taylor Schilling stood together Earlier in the week she was hard at work tending to her Honest Company. But on Friday Jessica Alba returned to her acting roots and was back in front of the camera for a new project. The 36-year-old mother of two looked quite comfortable in her fake tummy, which she cradled convincingly. Action! on Friday Jessica Alba returned to her acting roots and was back in front of the camera for a new project The ageless beauty was dressed in a powder blue dress and dark navy, cropped leggings. White loafers and a delicate beaded necklace rounded out her on-camera ensemble. Her brunette locks were pulled back into a simple ponytail, while light eye shadow, blush and a slick of light pink lipstick ensured the Sin City star was ready for her close-up. She seemed quite convincing as she hobbled around the set holding her fake bump, as she no doubt remembers carrying both of her girls, Honor Marie Warren and Haven Garner Warren, ages eight and five respectively. Nothing fancy: Her brunette locks were pulled back into a simple ponytail, while light eye shadow, blush and a slick of light pink lipstick ensured the Sin City star was ready for her close-up The scene also appeared to be a comedic one, as she emerged from a truck toting a roll of toilet paper at one point. While she looked right at home on set, it's no secret that the Honest Company co-founder has decided to focus more on her business as of late. Indeed, she posted several photos to Snapchat on Thursday that showed the Hollywood star enjoying Star Wars Day with colleagues in what is apparently the Honest Company offices. Flushed? The scene also appeared to be a comedic one, as she emerged from a truck toting a roll of toilet paper at one point The clip begins with a fully costumed Darth Vader, complete with glowing red light saber, emerging from a smoke-filled hallway as the Imperial March plays in the background. Jessica then films a procession of what looks to be employees walking down a staircase, with many of them dressed up as various beloved Star Wars characters. Eventually a costumed Han Solo, a Princess Leia and of course Darth gather around the company co-founder, who seemed to forgo dressing up, as she holds a light saber over her head. Her caption read 'May the 4th be with you,' which is a popular greeting on the fan-created holiday. KIIS FM funny-woman Kate Langbroek has taken a swipe at not one but two of Australia's most glamorous stars by starring in a parody perfume advertisement this week. With both songstress Delta and RHOM star Gina having launched their debut, self-named fragrances in recent times, there was plenty of comedic fodder for Kate. The hilarious radio personality is seen strutting around in a beaded gown and donning volumionous waved hair, similar to the style often sported by both Gina and Delta. Scroll Down For Video Ouch! Kate Langbroek appears to take a cheeky swipe at Gina Liano and Delta Goodrem's glamorous perfume advertisements in a new parody clip Opening on a sun-kissed curtain fluttering in the wind, Kate whispered 'I can be crass, I can be loud, but wrong? Never!' Stock shots of a lineup of K-Mart quality shoes faded to a close-up of the radio star's jewel-adorned hand, stroking her own leg. She added: 'Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm really right...Hey! I'm me!' Next, Kate wore a lavish gown as she pensively rode a shopping centre escalator, before the footage shifted to her perched on a lounge, clutching her new pink fragrance bottle. 'I like the pink, and the stink!' she said, as the clip shifted to her sniffing the perfume, 'The scent of cheese and bacon balls.' Closing the clip, she utters: 'I'm Kate, I'm colourful, I'm Langbroek. 'I like the pink, and the stink!': The over-filtering and dialogue are clear parodies of Real Housewives Of Melbourne star Gina Liano's new fragrance range The dialogue is a parody of the lines spoken by Gina in her recent perfume advertisement, in which she says to the camera: 'I'm luminous, I'm fearless, I'm Gina.' Kate's parody also features a meandering piano music track that appears to mock Delta's debut fragrance ad- which was released less than a fortnight ago. 'Are you making fun of Delta??' a user questioned in the comment section. Taking a subtle swipe? Kate's parody also features a meandering piano music track that appears to mock Delta's debut fragrance ad- which was released less than a fortnight ago Making fun? 'Are you making fun of Delta??' a user questioned in the comment section, referencing the Voice star's recently released promo video Parody! Gina Liano's fragrance, simply titled 'Gina' was lampooned in the hilarious clip Now we know what becomes of the brokenhearted, they hit the gym and feel on top of the world - or at least this star does. Jennifer Garner could not stop smiling as she and a friend worked out on Friday. The 45-year-old star was feeling good and looking good in Los Angeles, California. Feeling good! Jennifer Garner could not stop smiling as she and a friend worked out in Los Angeles, California, on Friday Jen, who is currently going through a divorce with estranged husband Ben Affleck, wore a black sweater with a broken heart on it. Whether she is feeling brokenhearted or she just liked the sweater, it was a cute style choice for working out. The actress wore the sweater with a pair of full length black leggings but still seemed cold on the rare grey Los Angeles day. The Daredevil star's pink sneakers added some color to her near all-black ensemble. Wearing her heart on her chest: Jen, who is currently going through a divorce with estranged husband Ben Affleck, wore a black sweater with a broken heart on it A little chilly: The actress wore the sweater with a pair of full length black leggings but still seemed cold on the rare grey Los Angeles day Pink lady: The Daredevil star's pink sneakers added some color to her near all-black ensemble Jen wore her hair tied back from her makeup-free face and still wore sunglasses despite the sun being hidden. Later in the day, Jen headed to party supply store with Violet, 11, and Seraphina, eight, and Samuel, 5. The children had finished karate class so the family made a quick dash into the store where Jen grabbed some Mentos. Party: Later in the day, Jen headed to party supply store with Violet, 11, and Seraphina, eight, and Samuel, 5 Snacks: The children had finished karate class so the family made a quick dash into the store where Jen grabbed some Mentos The star had changed into another casual look wearing loose-fit pants with a grey T-shirt. Her outing comes as ex-husband Ben reportedly moved out of the family home. The 44-year-old actor had been continuing to live with his estranged wife and their three children, despite officially filing for divorce from the actress last month, but it has now been reported he has moved into a new home 'nearby'. She's the iconic Australian model who gave birth to her second son with actor husband Sam Worthington six months ago. And model and entrepreneur Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) was back to work on Friday, as she visited the Sydney factory line of her brand The Base. The 29-year-old took to Instagram as she donned a safety vest and hairnet to get hands-on with testing and reviewing her bronzing and tanning products. Back to work! Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) was back to work on Friday as she visited the Sydney factory line of her cosmetics brand The Base Lara touched down in her hometown of Sydney with her six-month-old son Racer on Thursday. It appears she made the international journey without husband Sam and their other son, Rocket Zot, two, who are believed to still be in the US. Lara gave a tour of the facility to her 477k fans, announcing an exciting product return: 'New palette of LB Creams. Back in stock May 16th!' 'New palette of LB Creams': Lara gave a tour of the facility to her 477k fans, announcing an exciting product return later this month 'Loved testing out new formulations!' The model got hands on as she visited the Sydney factory looking stylish in jeans, black boots, a grey sweater and beige trench coat Fans quickly made comments showing their eagerness: 'Yay!!! Rationing mine til then', 'Perfect mine is just about to run out! Can't wait for the new shades' and 'Yay!' The model captioned another shot: 'Went to @thebasebylb factories... loved testing out new formulations! #thebasebylb.' Lara looked stylish as she visited the factory in jeans, black boots, a grey sweater and beige trench coat. She also revealed a yet-to-be-released creation, as she demonstrated the prototype in a clear glass jar that she shook in her hands. 'This is still in production but think personalized drops': Lara gave a sneak peek of a product prototype that is planned to be used to alter a consumer's existing face and body products 'This is still in production but think personalized drops that can go into any product you already have, for the face and body!' she captioned the short clip. Lara spent a year cultivating her signature range, The Base by Lara Bingle, before it launched in 2014 with eight products. 'I wanted to have my own business - I sold my house to create it,' she told Daily Mail Australia in 2014. While this star did not get to indulge in margaritas and tequila shots she seems to have had a lot of fun regardless. Beyonce marked the Cinco de Mayo holiday and did so in theme-appropriate style. The 35-year-old star was joined by bestie and former Destiny's Child bandmate Kelly Rowland in West Hollywood, California, on Friday. Party time: Beyonce marked the Cinco de Mayo holiday and did so in theme-appropriate style The pregnant star and her 36-year-old pal celebrated at vegan Mexican restaurant, Gracis Madre. Known for its modern and vegan take on Mexican classics, there was lots of things the mom-to-be could indulge in - just not the no doubt plentiful cocktails. The Lemonade songstress wore a giant sombrero and carried a maraca in a nod to the Mexican holiday. For her dinner, the pregnant beauty covered up her bump with a pink and green patterned shirt and a floral jacket. Girls' night: The 35-year-old star was joined by bestie and former Destiny's Child bandmate Kelly Rowland in West Hollywood, California, on Friday Shake it out: The Lemonade songstress wore a giant sombrero and carried a maraca in a nod to the Mexican holiday While expecting twins, Beyonce managed to wear a pair of skinny jeans. Not only that, but she also balanced atop of stiletto platform Saint Laurent heels. Even though it was night - and she had an identity obscuring hat on - the hitmnkaer wore sunglasses at night. Can't miss her: For her dinner, the pregnant beauty covered up her bump with a pink and green patterned shirt and a floral jacket Denim diva: While expecting twins, Beyonce managed to wear a pair if skinny jeans and stiletto platform Saint Laurent heels Kelly also wore a sombrero as well as a denim jacket and white top. Cinco de Mayo is cerebrated very year on May 5 and is to commemorate the Mexican Army's victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. In America, many see the day as one to celebrate Mexican culture while others party and drink much akin to St. Paddy's day. She shot to fame after appearing on Dancing With The Stars. Now Kym Johnson (Herjavec) is no stranger when it comes to mixing with Hollywood's A-list, having attended the 24th annual Race To Erase MS Gala in California this week. On Friday night, the 40-year-old TV personality posed with celebs at The Beverly Hilton Hotel to raise money for the charity event. Scroll down for video Mingling with the stars! Kym Herjavec (nee Johnson) stunned in a white ballgown at the 24th annual Race To Erase MS Gala in California on Friday night Kym wore a white strapless ballgown that was completely covered in transparent sequins. The corset style bodice showed off Kym's enviable hourglass figure as the material gathered at the waist. The sweetheart neckline flaunted her ample assets as the gathered sequins shone. Kym's makeup was kept soft and bronzed as her dark smokey-eye look stood out. Style icon: Kym is known for stepping out in monochrome colours Her blonde hair was pulled back into a bun to show off her her diamond dangling earrings. Kym posed with Dancing With The Stars co-star Sharna Burgess, who stunned in a mustard-yellow lace dress. The fitted dress showed off her figure before flaring out at the knees. The dress has two black bows on either side of the waist and thick black straps which perfectly matched her black pointed high heels. Kym wore a white strapless ballgown that was completely covered in transparent sequins and posed with her businessman husband Robert Herjavec Kym also posed with her businessman husband Robert Herjavec, who wore a blue suit jacket with black trimmings. He teamed this with a pair of black suit pants and a white shirt which he left unbuttoned. The power couple married at in intimate LA ceremony in 2016. A quiet countryside town was transformed into a chilling bygone era as military vehicles and Nazi troops descended on its streets. A battalion of Hitler's soldiers created an arresting spectacle as they marched through Bideford, Devon to film scenes for a Hollywood blockbuster. Starring Lily James, Guernsey is based on the 2008 novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and set during the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War. Scroll down for video Nazi Occupation: The film is based on the 2008 novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which is set during the German occupation of the Channel Islands Occupying force: The actors playing German soldiers wore helmets emblazoned with the black white and red Reich battle flag and marched through the set in three straight lines Period fashion: Lily James appeared to be in high spirits on Friday when she filmed scenes for Second World War movie Guernsey alongside actors dressed as German soldiers Cinderella star Lily James appeared to be in high spirits as she wrapped up and stepped into the 1940s for filming. The 28-year-old was joined on set by men posing as German soldiers who were filmed marching down the street. The soldiers, who wore helmets emblazoned with the black white and red Reich battle flag, marched through the set in three straight lines. The group of actors were marshalled by an officer, carried a red, black and white German flag and were accompanied by a brass band. Realistic: The group of German soldiers were seen marching down an English street, with a tank in the background Breaking rank: The actors relax between takes in their German uniform and talk to the man playing their officer Off duty: When filming stopped, one actor was spotted chatting on his mobile phone while he was in his German uniform NAZI OCCUPATION OF GUERNSEY The German Occupation of the Channel Islands lasted from June 1940 through May 9, 1945. The islands were the only British territory to be occupied by the Third Reich. Nazi troops descended on the islands, forcing many to flee their homes. In Alderney all but a few islanders left their homes for the mainland, and in Sark the population remained intact. The main islands were heavily fortified with reinforced bunkers and guns -forming Hitler's Atlantic Wall, built to withstand any invasion by Allied Forces. Enemy aircraft made raids on Guernsey and Jersey on 28 June 1940, killing civilians and inflicting considerable damage. Guernsey was at war with some 21,000 terrified residents left on the island. British troops landed on 9 May 1945 after the Germans surrendered to the combined British forces, signing a surrender document aboard a warship off Guernsey. Brigadier Snow landed on Guernsey and the long five years of German occupation finally came to an end. Evacuees returned to their homes in the islands and communities began to rebuild themselves. Source: www.germanoccupationmuseum.co.uk Advertisement But when the cameras stopped rolling, the actors broke ranks and one was spotted talking on his mobile phone. On the right hand side of the street, Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay stands and watched the parade. She stars with Game of Thrones star Michiel Huisman as members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie society who oppose the Nazi occupation on the Channel island. Insurgent: Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay was also part of filming on Friday and was spotted dashing from the side of the street towards the German soldiers During filming for the Second World War film, Lily wore a knitted grey beret, which fitted snugly over her pinned back hair. She paired an embroidered cream blouse with a peter pan collar with a powder grey jacket, which was cinched at the waist. Clutching a suitcase, a typewriter case and a handbag in gloved hands, Lily squinted into the sky and smiled. 1940s style: During filming, Lily wore a powder grey jacket, which was cinched at the waist, matching her gloves and knitted beret In high spirits: She paired the ensemble with an embroidered cream blouse with a peter pan collar and was seen smiling and laughing Underneath her jacket, Lily wore a flecked dark grey skirt, which skimmed her knees. In keeping with the times, Lily wore a pair of stockings with a thin black seam which ran up the centre of her calf. When she was filming, her look was completed with a pair of suede brown heels. Prim and proper: In keeping with the times, Lily wore a pair of stockings with a thin black seam which ran up the centre of her calf Keeping it casual: The Cinderella star wrapped up in Uggs and a puffy jacket between takes But when the cameras stopped rolling, the Downton Abbey star wrapped up in Uggs and a puffy black jacket. She was filming for her new film, Guernsey, which is based on the 2008 novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. In the film Lily plays Juliet Ashton, a writer who starts writing letters to Dawsey Adams, who lives in Guernsey. Co-star: In the film, Lily plays journalist Juliet Ashton, who starts writing letters to farmer Dawsey Adams, (played by Michiel Huisman, pictured) who lives in Guernsey The power of letters: The plot of the novel unfolds through the islanders' letters, including Elizabeth McKenna, played by Jessica Brown Findlay The farmer, who is played by Game of Thrones star Michiel Huisman, was a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and tells Juliet about life under German occupation. The plot of the novel unfolds through the letters of several other islanders who correspond with Juliet, including Elizabeth McKenna, played by Jessica Brown Findlay. Jessica, 27, was kitted out in a red and blue vintage ensemble. Accents of colour: Jessica, 27, wore a red scarf and jumper with a royal blue beret and matching bomber jacket and skirt Vintage: Jessica wore a pair of grey ankle socks underneath brown leather shoes, completing her wartime look She wore a royal blue beret on top of her bobbed hair, which matched her blue bomber jacket and flowing skirt. The actress coordinated the blue with accents of red on her scarf, jumper and on the bottom of her jacket. She wore a pair of grey ankle socks underneath brown leather shoes, completing her wartime look. Star-studded cast: Penelope Wilton also stars in the film and was seen in a long mackintosh jacket and brown headscarf As a farmer, Michiel wore a much more muted and practical outfit. The actor, who plays Daario Naharis in Game of Thrones, matched a brown flat cap with a jacket and pair of trousers made out of similar material. His trousers and navy jumper had a distinctly worn feel and his ensemble was completed with a pair of practical shoes. Motherly figure: Penelope, 70, was seen stopping Jessica's character from attacking the German soldiers who were marching down the street Penelope Wilton also stars in the wartime film and was spotted in a brown headscarf and mackintosh coat. During filming, she was seen stopping Jessica's character from attacking the German soldiers who were marching down the street. Filming started this spring and the release date is unknown. She's been taking a well-deserved break from the music scene, and has recently returned from a trip to Mumbai. And a fresh-faced Tulisa 28-year-old, still sported the tan she picked up during her latest holiday during a busy night that started with a swanky meal at STK restaurant and culminated at London hotspot Bodos Schloss in Kensington. Wearing her raven tresses in a bouncy blow dry, the looked trendy in a khaki green military jacket and silk camisole. Scroll down for video Military cool: Tulisa Contostavlos, 28, rocked a casual chic outfit for a swanky meal at STK restaurant and culminated at London hotspot Bodos Schloss in Kensington She paired some ripped denim jeans with the look, and elongated her legs with a pair of nude heels. The star sported a bronze glow from her recent India getaway, and accentuated her pretty features with smokey eye make-up. Tulisa's outing comes after she vowed to make a 'fresh start' following her legal woes in years gone by, which led to huge professional blows Night on the town! The pop-star and former X Factor judge appeared to have a wonderful night painting the town red, and was the last one out of the club's doors at 3.30am Khaki dream: Wearing her raven tresses in a bouncy blow dry, Tulisa looked trendy in a khaki green military jacket and silk camisole The songstress had been accused of arranging for journalist Mazher Mahmood to be sold 800 of cocaine by one of her contacts following an elaborate sting for The Sun on Sunday in May 2013. However, the News UK journalist, dubbed the 'Fake Sheikh', was last year sentenced to 15 months in jail for perverting the course of justice during her drugs trial in 2014. Since the controversy, the former X Factor judge branded Mahmood's jail sentence 'karma'. Fun with friends: The sun-kissed star enjoyed her night out with her pals Fresh start: Tulisa's outing comes after she vowed to make a 'fresh start' following her legal woes in years gone by, which led to huge professional blows Moving on: The star is concentrating on putting her rocky past behind her Style queens: Ashley Jeans (L) wore a stylish pair of jeans ad Olivia Cox (R) donned a pair of leather biker trousers for the STK Ibiza themed brunch party on Sunday Fashionista: Louise Hazel went for a khaki and camel colour scheme Chic: Andreea Cristea opted for a simple all-black look Speaking after the experience on BBC Radio One recently, the former N-Dubz star said: 'You can't do the self pity party. 'You just have to crack on and take the positives. I can take it, I'm strong enough. I'm here.' In July 2014, she was fined for assaulting TOWIE star Vas Morgan at the V Festival in Essex the year before - a conviction she unsuccessfully attempted to have overturned. Low-key: Pips Taylor kept it casual in baggy blue jeans Twosome: Claire Merry (L) and Jordan Turner-Hall were suitably glam for the event She caused a stir with her flirtatious antics on Celebrity Big Brother. And Jessica Cunningham, 30, was up to her old tricks again as she enjoyed a night on the town at London's Cafe De Paris on Friday. The Apprentice contestant flaunted her toned legs in a tiny mini dress, and looked to have a wonderful night with her new man. Scroll down for video Dress to impress! Jessica Cunningham, 30, was up to her flirtatious antics again as she enjoyed a night on the town at London's Cafe De Paris on Friday A source told The Sun: 'She was in a jolly mood and screamed "I love him so much" then snogged the pants off him three times!' The reality star ensured all eyes were on her in the patterned blue mini, and let her raven tresses cascade freely over her tanned shoulders. The mother-of-three, who previously revealed that she was on the hunt for 'Mr right', appeared to be on the prowl for her leading man - and was successful in her quest. Jessica looked like the cat who got the cream as she cuddled up to her mystery man, and was seen to throw her arms around him in a warm embrace and plant a tender kiss on his cheek. Mystery man: Jessica shared a passionate smooch with a handsome mystery man The cat who got the cream: Jessica cuddled up to her mystery man, and was seen to throw her arms around him in a warm embrace and plant a tender kiss on his cheek She's got it! Jessica later posed playfully, kicking her leg up and pouting, clearly in high spirits after her romantic dalliance Her handsome male companion looked equally as happy to have Jessica on his arm, who looked sensational in her figure-revealing outfit. The businesswoman is not afraid to pack on the PDA at swanky celebrity events, where she is often spotted smooching handsome men in her bid to find Mr Right. Jessica later posed playfully, kicking her leg up and pouting, clearly in high spirits after her romantic dalliance. Wild night: She was later seen to party up a storm with fellow celebrity guests, who were all in attendance for the VIPs party after the 7th Annual Asian Awards (Pictured with Lizzie Cundy) She was later seen to party up a storm with fellow celebrity guests, who were all in attendance for the VIPs party at Cafe de Paris after the 7th Annual Asian Awards. Jessica laughed and smiled with TV presenter Lizzie Cundy, and posed for a group photo with Junaid Ahmed, Malin Adesson, Abi Clarke, and Liam Norval. Last month, Jessica revealed to Big Brother star Andy West for his Youtube channel AndyVision at London nightspot DSTRKT that she was single, but on the hunt for Mr Right: 'I'm dating a few people now and again but for me, I'm very open and very straight, when I'm single I'm single, if I'm with somebody I'm 100% committed and I love being in love but the right person hasn't come along for me to have that with them.' Smile! She posed for a group photo with Junaid Ahmed, Malin Adesson, Abi Clarke, and Liam Norval Her ageless complexion has been wowing onlookers in recent weeks. And continuing to favour her natural beauty, Nigella Lawson made yet another make-up free appearance in London on Friday. The 57-year-old TV chef took a stroll with her son Bruno Diamond, 20, making sure to flaunt her strikingly youthful looks as they enjoyed some quality time together in the capital. Scroll down for video Ageless: Continuing to favour her natural beauty, Nigella Lawson made yet another make-up free appearance in London on Friday Heading out for a stroll, Nigella covered up in a stylish black trench coat that tied together at the waist to highlight her curvaceous figure. Underneath her outerwear, she sported a plain top in the same shade and teamed it with a pair of dark denim jeans that she tucked into flat ankle boots. Clutching onto a leather bag that she slung over one shoulder, Nigella hid her flawless skin underneath a huge pair of shades. Her brunette tresses, meanwhile, grazed her shoulders in tousled curls and as she made her way out in her hometown of London, Nigella was later joined by son Bruno. Family affair: The 57-year-old TV chef took a stroll with her son Bruno Diamond, 20, making sure to flaunt her strikingly youthful looks as they enjoyed some quality time together Like mother, like son? He was dressed casually, like his mother, and stepped out in a pair of jeans that he teamed with Converse and a khaki green mac coat He was dressed casually, like his mother, and stepped out in a pair of jeans that he teamed with Converse and a khaki green mac coat. Sporting a large backpack on his back, Bruno was all smiles as he caught up with his famous mother on their family outing. Nigella shares Bruno with her former husband John Diamond who passed away in March 2001. She and John had been married for nine years before he lost his battle with throat cancer aged 47. They also share daughter Cosima, 23. Bonding: Nigella shares Bruno with her former husband John Diamond who passed away in March 2001 - she and John had been married for nine years before he lost his battle with throat cancer aged 47 Off duty style: Nigella covered up in a stylish black trench coat that tied together at the waist to highlight her curvaceous figure Nigella's appearance with Bruno comes after she recently revealed she will be releasing a new cook book titled At My Table - her tenth in total. Taking to her website, the culinary star revealed a sneak peek of the book's cover and explaining the premise behind her new title, she explained At My Table is a book of recipes that tell her ongoing life with food. She said: 'Food is not just fuel, it's about memory and the stories of our lives and for me that means the food I ate growing up, the food I've cooked for friends and family sitting around my table and the recipes in this book reflect that. 'This book, like all the books I've written is not just a manual, but a collection of stories and a container of memories. But of course, for all that, a cookery book - this cookery book - also has to answer that important, everyday question, "What are we going to eat?"' He has built a cult following creating eclectic music under the name Chet Faker. But now the ARIA award-winning artist has gone back to his birth name of Nick Murphy to release his new EP titled Missing Link. This week, the 28-year-old musician from Melbourne revealed to Sydney Morning Herald about how going by the name Chet Faker for five years became a creative burden, causing him to go into an 'anxious spiral'. Chet Faker no more! Nick Murphy has decided to ditch his stage name for his latest EP titled Missing Link After Chet's debut, chart-topping album Built On Glass was released in 2014 and he began to receive invitations to play at festivals all over the world. Despite the international success from his first album, Chet, who now wants to go by his real name Nick, said that: '2014 was, without question, the worst year of my life.' 'I was trying to make sense of all that s**t [fame] and I went nuts completely isolated and I kinda lost it,' he explained. The price of fame: Despite the international success from his first album, Chet, who now wants to go by his real name Nick, said that: '2014 was, without question, the worst year of my life' After starting from humble beginnings in Melbourne, Nick struggled with the notoriety that came with his music. While in the public eye, Nick could no longer cope with his anxiety in the private ways that he was used to and still had to put up an entertaining front to appear on stage for his adoring fans. To deal with the huge shift in his life, Nick up and moved to New York to regroup and get a sense of direction, which ended in him changing his stage name. New York state of mind: To deal with the huge shift in his life, Nick up and moved to New York to regroup and get a sense of direction, which ended in him changing his stage name Living in The Big Apple is a stark contrast to his life in Victoria where he grew up but Nick says he's excited and a little bit nervous to see what the city has to offer. He said: 'It's a lot like a drug: it's so intense, as soon as you leave it you want to come back for more. It's like life on steroids.' After moving to New York and changing his name, the music 'came rushing out of nowhere from behind walls that I didn't even realise had been put up,' which has led to his new EP titled Missing Link. He's the icon of Sydney nightlife who boasts a slew of successful bars under his belt. And Justin Hemmes is certainly living the high life as the result, spotting boarding his private seaplane last month. The 44-year-old Merivale CEO was seen getting on the air vessel alongside pregnant partner Kate Fowler, 26, and their one-year-old daughter Alexa. Not your average commute! Bar tsar Justin Hemmes boards SEAPLANE with pregnant partner Kate Fowler and their daughter Alexa The young family boarded the plane moored at a beach in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Vaucluse where they live. Justin was dressed casually for the plane ride, wearing a black T-shirt with rolled up chinos. His partner Kate cut a chic figure in an oversized hat and blue blouse, which she paired with dark culottes. Weekend ready: Justin was dressed casually for the plane ride, wearing a black T-shirt with rolled up chinos Fashionable: His partner Kate cut a chic figure in an oversized hat and blue blouse, which she paired with dark culottes Baby on board: After ensuring the goods were secured inside their ride, Justin boarded the plane alongside Kate and Alexa While leaving in luxury Justin didn't hesitate to lend a hand, dutifully carrying over an esky and rug to the plane. After ensuring the goods were secured inside their ride , Justin boarded the plane alongside Kate and Alexa. Justin's German Shepherd Thunder was also seen on board hitching a ride alongside the family. Helping out: While leaving in luxury Justin didn't hesitate to lend a hand, dutifully carrying over an esky and rug to the plane Helping out: Justin could also be seen carrying a pile of towels towards his seaplane Where were they going? It's possible the family may have been heading to their holiday home on the south coast Last year, The Daily Telegraph reported that Justin had purchased a seaplane to ease his commute to work and his South Coast holiday home. Previously he had driven a $500,000 McLaren 650S Coupe to get around his Sydney empire of hotels and bars. The Merivale CEO confirmed in January he was expecting his second child with partner two-and-a-half years Kate. Travelling in style! Last year, The Daily Telegraph reported that Justin had purchased a seaplane to ease his commute to work and his South Coast holiday home Pooch on board: Justin's German Shepherd Thunder was also seen on board hitching a ride alongside the family She this month marks 10 years behind the Today show desk. But while she's become a mainstay of breakfast television, Lisa Wilkinson had to convinced to take the gig in the first place. The 57-year-old journalist told Stellar magazine that it was only after an encounter at the bar with Karl Stefanovic during the 2007 Logies that she decided to accept as 'we made each other laugh'. 'We made each other laugh': Meeting Karl Stefanovic at the bar during 2007 Logies convinced Lisa Wilkinson to take Today co-hosting gig In 2007, Lisa was working at as a presenter on Weekend Sunrise and weighing up whether to take a co-hosting gig on Channel Seven's The Morning Show or Channel Nine's Today. Stuck on what decision to make, her potential The Morning Show co-host Larry Emdur introduced her to Karl at a bar during the Logies - and the two hit it off. 'I went to bed that night deciding I was going to do this thing,' Lisa said of the first meeting. 'I went to bed that night deciding I was going to do this thing': Larry Emdur introduced her to Karl at a bar during the Logies and the two hit it off But it wasn't all smooth sailing for Lisa. Her predecessor, Jessica Rowe, had left the gig after a raft of negative publicity. Soon after Lisa began at the desk she received criticism of her own, but Karl refused to let her read the email hate mail she was getting. 'He shut the whole thing down, grabbed my hand and said, "Darl, if this is going to work, its got to be about our chemistry, enjoying ourselves and putting on a great show,",' Lisa said. 'He shut the whole thing down': Soon after Lisa began at the desk she received criticism of her own, but Karl refused to let her read the email hate mail she was getting 'It must have been the way he said it; I thought, "This guy really has my back and thinks I can do this".' It's not the only time Lisa has spoken of her first meeting with Karl, last month reminding her 42-year-old co-host on air of how they met. Lisa said her favourite Logies moment 'didn't happen on screen, it happened off screen'. '10 years ago in the bar when you and I met?' Lisa asked Karl. But it was unclear if Karl did remember, with the Today host pulling an awkward face attempting to 'shush' Lisa. Her financial troubles include a reported $100,000 owed in rent on her luxury Knightsbridge flat and $28,000 owed to her former chauffeur. But Lindsay Lohan, 30, refused to let her money woes get her down as she was spotted enjoying a plush lunch at prestigious restaurant Scott's in upmarket Mayfair, London on Friday. Protecting herself against the elements of the cooler Spring day, Lindsay wrapped up warm in a thick scarf and padded jacket as she strolled along the street. Scroll down for video Carefree! Lindsay Lohan, 30, refused to let her money woes get her down as she was spotted enjoying a plush lunch at prestigious restaurant Scott's in upmarket Mayfair, London on Friday Wearing baggy navy trousers and slip on espadrilles, the star looked worlds away from the glamorous image she normally portrays. Ever the A-lister, she popped a pair of aviator sunglasses over her eyes to create an air of mystery as she carried her belongings in a pink ostrich skin Hermes bag. Her male friend was dressed stylishly with a coffee-coloured jacket and matching boots. The pair were seen going into the Connaught Hotel together, and then joined other friends for lunch at the plush eatery that reportedly went on for five hours. Plush: The pair were seen going into the Connaught Hotel together, and then joined other friends for lunch at plush eatery Scott's that reportedly went on for five hours The upmarket restaurant, which is renowned for its oyster and champagne bar, is a celebrity favourite, with Kate Beckinsale, David Walliams, Trinny Woodall and Kate Moss all being spotted dining there on previous occasions. In October, Lohan was hit with a lawsuit in London after she stopped paying rent on her $4.5million (3.5million) flat. Lawyers for the landlord of the property in the exclusive Knightsbridge area demanded the payment of $100,000 (77,600). She had to leave the property, but her spokesman confirmed she was able to pay off her housing debts. The landlords would have petitioned for her bankruptcy if she refused. Beach glam: The actress has just returned from a holiday in Mykonos, where she sported an array of glamorous beach outfits It would appear that Lindsay is choosing to ignore the swirling financial battles ongoing around her - as she missed her US court case in New York regarding unpaid fees to her old chauffeur. Back in 2015, Edson Ricci sued the Mean Girls actress, accusing her of screwing him out of almost $30,000 while working for her. The driver sent multiple invoices for payment to Lindsay that totalled $43,900. The bill was for his services from August 21, 2012 until October 23, 2012. He claimed the actress never disputed the amount owed and even had a check sent for $17,500, leaving an unpaid balance of $26,400. Whoops: It would appear that Lindsay is choosing to ignore the swirling financial battles around her - as she missed her US court case in New York regarding unpaid fees to her old chauffeur In a March interview on British talk show 'John Bishop: In Conversation With...' the actress said she couldn't afford a driver. Lohan said: 'Paparazzi in LA are hired to get into your car to see your first reaction. They're hired specifically to do that,' she said on the 'John Bishop: In Conversation With...' 'People are just like, ''Don't drive Lindsay, get a driver!'', but it's expensive!' Karl Stefanovic has finalised his divorce from wife Cassandra Thorburn with a 'tough' financial settlement, The Sunday Telegraph has reported. According to the publication, the Today host left his 44-year-old wife with $6million in cash and assets plus child support and 'ongoing payments'. In contrast it is alleged Karl, 42, will walk away with just $500,000 in financial assets from their 21 year marriage, an amount which includes his white Mercedes. 'He was quite prepared to walk away with nothing': Karl Stefanovic receives 'tough' settlement of just $500,000 from divorce with wife of 21 years Cassandra Thorburn The divorce was reportedly finalised before Karl went to the United States and Mexico last month to spend time with his new girlfriend, Jasmine Yarbrough, 33. Sources described the settlement to News Corp as 'tough' for Karl, who makes $3million a year as host of Today. As part of their divorce agreement, Karl and Cassandra will share custody of their three children - Jackson, 17, Ava, 12 and River, 10. Co-parenting: As part of their divorce agreement, Karl and Cassandra will share custody of their three children - Jackson, 17, Ava, 12 and River, 10 Finished: The divorce was reportedly finalised before Karl went to the United States and Mexico last month to spend time with his new girlfriend, Jasmine Yarbrough, 33 Cassandra will reportedly reside in the former couple's $8 million waterfront Cremorne mansion she received in their settlement, which is believed to be 'significantly mortgaged'. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to both Cassandra and Karl's representatives for comment. A friend of Karl's told News Corp he was prepared to 'take a hit' in order to see his children. 'There was always the sense that it would be a big settlement and obviously not in his favour,' they said. His number one priority: A friend of Karl told News Corp he was prepared to 'take a hit' in order to see his children whenever he wanted Ended things: Last September Karl and Cassandra separated after more than two decades of marriage. They are pictured together in May 2016 'He was quite prepared to walk away with nothing, hand everything over with the one condition that he be able to see his children whenever he wanted.' Last September, Karl and Cassandra separated after more than two decades of marriage. After the split, Karl began dating former model Jasmine Yarbrough, with the two being spotted canoodling on a yacht in February. Support: It is understood that Cassandra had left behind her journalism career at the ABC to raise the couple's children He is notorious for his crude on-air antics that have landed him in trouble more than once. Now KIIS FM radio host Kyle Sandilands has been warned to tone it down as he prepares to make his television comeback. The 45-year-old has managed to get away with many scandalous comments on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, but has gotten a stern talking to by Channel Nine ahead of his new role. Scroll down for video Keep it together! KIIS FM radio host Kyle Sandilands has been warned to tone it down as he prepares to make his television comeback on Channel Nine Kyle will be returning to television to narrate the latest pawn shop reality TV series Meet The Hockers, which is due to air on Channel Nine later this year. The show will be an Australian take on the internationally successful Pawn Shop series. Despite only having a narrating role in the new series, Kyle has still been told to hold his tongue. New gig: Kyle will be returning to television to narrate the latest pawn shop reality TV series Meet The Hockers, which is due to air later this year Nine may not be as forgiving as KIIS, given the network is caught up in an ongoing and competitive ratings war with Channel Seven, who have a similar range of shows. According to a Nine source, one bad slip-up from Kyle could attract the sort of publicity 'the network could do without'. A spokesperson for Channel Nine said that any scandal generated by the shock jock during the show would be passed straight to his manager. 'Andrew (Hawkins), who also produced the show, will be the point of contact with regards to any media issues,' the spokeswoman told The Sunday Telegraph. Hold your tongue! According to a Nine source, one bad slip-up from Kyle could attract the sort of publicity 'the network could do without' The warning comes just days after another on-air spat with radio veteran John Laws. The shock jock invited his industry colleague and friend John onto the The Kyle And Jackie O Show recently and the insults kept coming. While Kyle claimed 'we're not going to fight, we're gentlemen', the 81-year-old soon called the radio host out for being 'a little urinal'. She's been following in her famous father's footsteps when it comes to making movies. And Francesca Eastwood made sure all eyes were firmly on her as she joined her dad Clint, 86, for the Eastwood family's Annual Art for Animals Fundraiser held in West Hollywood on Friday night. The actress, 23, teased a look at her incredibly taut torso as she stepped out for the occasion dressed to impress in a satin midi skirt and heels. Scroll down for video Stealing the show: Francesca Eastwood made sure all eyes were firmly on her as she joined her dad Clint, 86, for the Eastwood family's Annual Art for Animals Fundraiser held in West Hollywood on Friday night Francesca showcased her slender frame in her form-fitting attire that paired her metallic hued skirt with a cropped black jumper that featured ribbed detailing and sat at waist height. Slightly sheer in its material, the starlet's jumper made for a revealing display as Francesca's perky assets were almost visible underneath. Toting her essentials in a Yves Saint Laurent handbag that she threw over one shoulder, Francesca finished off her ensemble with a pair of diamond shaped earrings and a dewy complexion. Slender frame: The actress, 23, teased a look at her incredibly taut torso as she stepped out for the occasion dressed to impress in a satin midi skirt and heels Hollywood royalty: Clint cut a casually smart figure for the fundraiser in a pair of stone coloured trousers and a burgundy polo top as he was spotted drinking a Peroni Nastro Azzurro beer outside She wore a rose pink hue on her lips and lengthened her lashes with a slick of mascara to add an extra dose of glamour into her wardrobe choice for the evening. Francesca had stepped out to attend the third annual fundraiser for the Eastwood Ranch foundation in West Hollywood and was joined by her family, including Million Dollar Baby star Clint and her sisters Morgan and Alison. Clint is the father of seven children whom he shares with five different women from previous relationships. He and British-American actress Frances Fisher are parents to Francesca. Stylish appearance: Francesca showcased her slender frame in her form-fitting attire that paired her metallic hued skirt with a cropped black jumper that featured ribbed detailing and sat at waist height Flaunting her assets: Slightly sheer in its material, the starlet's jumper made for a revealing display as Francesca's perky assets were almost visible underneath Meet and greet: The starlet made sure to stop for fans outside the venue that was hosting the Eastwood Ranch Foundation's annual fundraiser Clint cut a casually smart figure for the fundraiser in a pair of stone coloured trousers and a burgundy polo top that he threw a brown leather jacket on top of. The film maker was seen leaving the bash while clutching a beer bottle in one hand, after posing up a storm inside the event with his loved ones. He was in the company of daughters Francesca, Morgan and Alison, along with her husband Stacy Poitras. Big family: Clint is the father of seven children whom he shares with five different women from previous relationships Family affair: He was in the company of daughters Francesca, Morgan and Alison, along with her husband Stacy Poitras (pictured L-R) Sister act: Francesca posed alongside her sisters Alison (centre) and Morgan (right), as well as their niece Graylen (left) Close bond: Clint and granddaughter Graylen - who's dad is Kyle Eastwood - cuddled up together for the cameras Man of the moment: The evening was in aid of the family's foundation and their annual Art for Animals Fundraiser Clint's granddaughter Graylen - who's dad is Kyle Eastwood - was also in attendance. Others present at the party included former Real Housewives of Miami star Joanna Krupa, actress Juliette Lewis and Denise Richards. Denise opted for a glamorous two-piece for the evening that teamed together a fitted nude top with a pair of pink tailored trousers. She swept her blonde tresses up into a high ponytail and while her make-up appeared to be flawlessly applied, the actress seemed to suffer a slight mishap when it came to her fake tan. She showcased a not so subtle orange glow while heading to a waiting car as the evening wrapped up. Glamorous: Former Real Housewives of Miami star Joanna Krupa looked sensational in a daringly cut black dress and matching heels Busty display: Her frock drew attention to her more than ample assets thanks to its plunging neckline Celebrity turnout: Actress Juliette Lewis rubbed shoulders with the Eastwood's at the West Hollywood event Chic: Denise opted for a glamorous two-piece for the evening that teamed together a fitted nude top with a pair of pink tailored trousers She plays an American senator who is secretly spying for the Russians. And Mary-Louise Parker's character in thriller Red Sparrow gets in a sticky situation as a plastic model of the actress was run over by a truck during filming on Saturday. The frighteningly lifelike doll smacked its head off the tarmac when it was hit from behind by the large vehicle in London. Scroll down for video Terrifying stunt: A plastic model of Mary-Louise Parker was hit by a lorry and smashed on the tarmac during filming for spy drama Red Sparrow in London on Saturday Thankfully Mary-Louise, 52, only filmed the moments leading up to the tragic crash as she strutted across a busy street. The Golden Globe-winning actress wore a knee-length rose jacket, with a deep pink leather handbag. She paired the spring-like jacket with a pair of skinny jeans, black heeled boots and a pair of blue-tinted aviator sunglasses. Clever switch: The actress, 52, was not used during the dangerous stunt and only filmed the moments leading up to the terrifying crash Mary-Louise styled her hair in a centre parting, letting her loose curls fall over her shoulders. When the truck hits the dummy, the aviator glasses flew off its head, landing beside the vehicle. Even though the model was lifted up slightly by the impact, it came crashing down to the ground as the lorry pushed it forward. Despite the severe impact of the lorry, the dummy's handbag stays on its arm. Lookalike: The terrifyingly lifelike doll was lifted up by the sheer force of the moving lorry, which smashed into the model Smackdown: The dummy's aviator sunglasses flew off its head as the model started to crash to the ground from the sudden impact Horror crash: The driver of the vehicle looked down at the dummy as it fell on the ground, but its handbag managed to stay on its arm Spy drama: Red Sparrow, starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, is based on the 2013 novel by Jason Matthews and is about a Russian spy tasked with seducing a CIA agent Red Sparrow, starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, is based on the 2013 novel by Jason Matthews. In the film set to be released in March 2018, Jennifer, 26, plays Dominika Egorova, a Russian spy who dreams of being a prima ballerina before she breaks her leg. Dominika is recruited to seduce CIA agent Nathaniel Nash, played by Joel Edgerton. Forbidden love: Jennifer, 26, plays Dominika Egorova, who embarks on an affair with CIA agent Nathaniel Nash, played by Joel Edgerton Spring fashion: The Golden Globe-winning actress wore a knee-length rose jacket, with a deep pink leather handbag Almost real: Mary-Louise Parker plays Stephanie Boucher a U.S. senator who is secretly working for the Russians (pictured, her stunt dummy) The star-studded thriller also features Jeremy Irons, Ciaran Hinds and Charlotte Rampling. Jennifer, who shot to fame after she played Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games, was spotted filming at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday. At the end of April, the star was filming for the slick spy drama in Vienna and her co-stars were spotted in Bratislava. He's about to undergo his 58th surgery. But Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves, 33, looked completely relaxed as he enjoyed a spot of sightseeing this week ahead of a risky eye operation. The TV personality checked out the sights in Delhi, as he prepares to go under the knife to have his eye colour altered permanently. Scroll down for video He's arrived! Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves, 33, looked completely relaxed as he enjoyed a spot of sightseeing in Delhi this week ahead of a risky eye operation Rodrigo dressed for the heat in a dapper look, slipping into a pair of tight shorts and a matching blazer. A jazzy print shirt completed his look while the dapper star accessorised with a gold watch, sunglasses and brogues. He was seen snapping selfies in front of the beautiful scenery before hitting a colourful market for a spot of shopping. In an exclusive interview with the MailOnline, Rodrigo explained his new surgery which doctors in the UK and USA will not perform for solely cosmetic reasons. Taking a ride: The plastic surgery icon checked his phone while riding a rickshaw around the city Surgery veteran: Rodrigo is known for his love of extreme surgeries and in the past has indulged in liposuction, fillers, eight nose jobs and chest silicone implants Making friends: Rodrigo's been attracting a lot of attention from the locals while exploring the vibrant city 'My next surgery will be a permanent eye colour change,' he said. 'I wear hand painted coloured lenses made by an artist here in the USA. Each pair is $500 and I have 14 different colours. 'My natural eye colour is dark brown and I'm tired of wearing coloured lenses.' Rodrigo is planning on getting a brand new eye colour called light icy grey - with the procedure due to take place on Monday following his charity work with orphans in India. He'll return to London to show off his new piercing gaze after surgery. He said: 'Bright Ocular is now making a special eye colour implant light icy grey and the procedure will be performed next month in Delhi. Sweet kiss: The plastic surgery icon shared an adorable moment with a little girl he met while exploring Capturing it all: Rodrigo has revealed his new operation will be filmed 'The procedure will also be filmed,' Rodrigo explained. 'The eye surgeon will implant the coloured implant in front of my natural iris making it icy grey forever.' He said that the procedure would cost around 8,000. 'Such procedure is also done in the USA and the UK but not for cosmetic reasons,' the surgery fan added. 'Some people who don't have iris pigmentation can have these implants to give them an eye colour. Pout: The star showed off his surgically-enhanced lips as he refreshed himself at an upmarket bar Always time for a selfie: Rodrigo showed off his dapper outfit which he completed with a dazzling Gucci belt 'In my case it is for aesthetics reasons and there is no money on earth that would convince an eye doctor to do it in the USA or UK for cosmetic reasons.' He added that he was flying to Delhi on the recommendation of friends: 'Three of my friends had the procedure done and it looks amazing. From the reference I shall be visiting the same doctor in Delhi.' But it's not just sightseeing he's been doing while abroad. He told MailOnline that he had been doing lots of charity work. Keeping his fans updated: The controversial figure has been making sure his followers know what he's been up to with numerous posts on social media Rodrigo said he had been giving clothes and food to the poor - even bathing children at an orphanage in Delhi. Rodrigo is known for his love of extreme surgeries and in the past has indulged in liposuction, fillers, eight nose jobs and chest silicone implants as well as stem cell injections into his face and hair. Much of his income has reportedly come from properties he has in Puerto Banus and Marbella while he was left with 'a generous monthly inheritance' from his European grand parents. He has invested almost 400,000 in attaining his distinctive look. The Kiwi-born beauty made her impressive Victoria's Secret runway debut last year. And on Saturday, Georgia Fowler took to Instagram to show off her model looks while behind the scenes of a prestigious photo shoot. The 24-year-old soaked up the sun as she showed off her tanned and toned physique with a peek of her ample assets. Scroll down for video Sizzling hot! Georgia Fowler took to Instagram to show off her model looks while behind the scenes of a prestigious photo shoot Georgia wore an extremely low-cut black bikini top which showed off a hint of her tanned bust. Her slender arms and chest were also on show as she posed effortlessly in the sun. With her eyes closed and looking away from the camera, she showed off her impressive makeup with a fierce black winged eyeliner. Suns out: Georgia wore an extremely low-cut black bikini top which showed off a hint of her tanned bust The rest of her makeup was kept natural and bronzed with her lips looking slightly chapped. Her hair was slicked back off her face and kept secure with large silver clips. Georgia captioned the snap with: 'Like a cat in the sun, meow!' Model material: Tagged in the photo was Vogue Mexico, leading fans to believe she was behind the scenes of a shoot with the iconic magazine when she shot the selfie Tagged in the photo was Vogue Mexico, leading fans to believe she was behind the scenes of a shoot with the iconic magazine when she shot the selfie. Her 263k followers fawned over the pic as it welcomed over 11,000 likes. Adoring fans commented saying: 'You are flawless!' and 'So stunning'. One makeup fan admired the pic saying: 'Oh damn I bet those wings can cut through butter!' She works hard for her world-class figure. And Joanna Krupa flaunted the results of her hard work on Friday, appearing at the Art for Animals Fundraiser hosted at the De Re Gallery in West Hollywood. There the 38-year-old model looked radiant, wearing a black dress with sheer panels that featured her toned middle and curving bust. Scroll down for video Putting on the ritz: Joanna Krupa donned a chic yet sexy dress to the annual Art For Animals fundraiser put on by the Eastwood Ranch Foundation Arriving to the fundraising fete, the Polish beauty was clad in a silk dress accented with shiny woven fabric and sheer panels atop her perky chest. Joanna kept her beauty look simple, highlighting her green eyes with fluttering lashes while donning a pink gloss on her pout and elegantly sweeping her luxe blonde locks over her shoulder. The Real Housewives of Miami star topped off her look with understated black heels and matching snap clutch. Cut it out! The Polish-American beauty donned a black gown that featured sultry sheer cuts outs which revealed her trim middle and perky bust Snapshot: The star cozied up to a fan for a selfie before heading off to the fundraiser Blonde ambition: The cover girl signed autographs and chatted with fans before the event At the event, the cover girl made time to sign autographs and take selfies with fans before heading into the luxe dinner affair. Others present at the party included Clint Eastwood's daughters Francesca, Morgan and Allison as well as actress Juliette Lewis and Denise Richards. The 3rd annual Art For Animals Fundraiser helps the Eastwood Ranch Foundation in their quest to 'reduce pet overpopulation and increase pet adoptions.' Glamorous: The former Real Housewife of Miami kept her beauty simple with her blonde locks tossed over her shoulder and glossy pink lips Joanna is a longtime animal rights activist, having appeared in several PETA campaigns that criticize the use of fur, animal testing and the zoos. In 2015, the star donned only body paint in support of the organization's boycott of Seaworld. The Dancing With The Stars alum is also a huge advocate for pet adoption, has several beloved dogs and embraces a vegan lifestyle. It's been a well-documented pregnancy, with plenty of social media posts about it from the mum-to-be. But it seems the time has finally come for Love Island's Cally-Jane Beech to give birth as she went into labour in the early hours of Saturday morning. Twelve hours later and the 25-year-old still hadn't given birth to her first child - a girl. Scroll down for video Labour Of Love (Island)! Cally-Jane Beech has been rushed to hospital to give birth to her first child with fellow reality star boyfriend Luis Morrison Despite the presumably traumatic experience of having a baby, her boyfriend Luis Morrison still managed to find time to keep those interested in the loop with how it was all coming along. Taking to Instagram, he posted a shot of him holding her hand, captioning it: 'On the gas and air. You can do this babe!' She had her baby shower at Tea & Bisque-it in her hometown of Willerby, Hull, earlier this month, wearing a sash with the words 'Growing Baby Morrison-Beech' surrounded by pink balloons. Social media upsdates: Luis managed to find time to keep those interested in the loop with how it was all coming along Final countdown: Cally-Jane has somewhat slipped under the radar somewhat for her final couple of weeks of pregnancy Vicky Pattison was there to support her pal at the baby shower as was fellow Love Island star Jess Hayes. Cally first announced her pregnancy with her Luis, who she met on the 2015 series of Love Island, in November. The pair have since heavily documented their journey on social media - sharing a sweet video on Christmas Day revealing that their new arrival is to be a little girl. New parents: Cally first announced her pregnancy with her Luis, who she met on the 2015 series of Love Island, in November She recently admitted that as exciting as pregnancy was, it had put a strain on their previously vigorous sex life as she is anxious the act may harm her baby. Theres a fear, she told new! magazine. People tell you that having sex doesnt harm the baby, but it just feels different and you cant be as rough. You have to be careful and not bang the bump. So we havent done it as much, but not because we dont want to. The TV personality fell pregnant despite 'being careful' after suffering problems with her womb for more than year. Sharing pictures of your new hairstyle on social media is practically mandatory for any young celebrity these days. But Star Trek actress Alice Eve faced an extraordinary backlash from online trolls after innocently posting photographs of her hair in braids while on holiday. The 35-year-old was accused of cultural appropriation the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another for sporting the African-style corn rows while visiting Jamaica. Star Trek actress Alice Eve faced an extraordinary backlash from online trolls after innocently posting photographs of her hair in braids while on holiday The 35-year-old was accused of cultural appropriation the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another for sporting the African-style corn rows while visiting Jamaica Alice revealed her braided hair in a selection of holiday snaps on Instagram, and also included a video of the intricate process, which can take hours. But some Instagram users launched a tirade against the actress, who plays Carol Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness. Claiming that the star was ignoring the struggles facing black communities, one critic told her: You take what you like from us but dont get the pain that went with it. Let me guess, another wrote. You only did that because you were in Jamaica? Another user claimed corn rows should only be worn by black people, telling the star: You aint black lol. Four days later Oxford-educated Alice posted a separate picture of herself relaxing on the beach without the corn rows, suggesting she had removed the hairstyle which usually lasts for up to six weeks as a result of the backlash One troll said the photograph made them nauseous. When a friend of Alice commented that they could get them too and form a corn crew, an angered user replied: Uh, no. Other far crueller comments appeared to have been removed by Instagram for violating site rules. Four days later Oxford-educated Alice posted a separate picture of herself relaxing on the beach without the corn rows, suggesting she had removed the hairstyle which usually lasts for up to six weeks as a result of the backlash. Alice the daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan is the latest celebrity to fall victim to accusations of cultural appropriation. A number of Instagram users launched a tirade against the actress, who plays Carol Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness Brooklyn Beckham was labelled an ignorant white man last month after having a tattoo of a Native American which critics slammed as insensitive to years of persecution. Last week, Kate Mosss daughter Lila Grace wore similar braids in her modelling debut for Selfridges The Braid Bar. The ad campaign came under fire for only ever adopting the hairstyles on white models, despite promising in March to feature more diversity. It is not the first time that Alice has caused controversy on Instagram. In 2015, she was accused of making transphobic comments about Caitlyn Jenner over the former athletes transition to becoming a woman. Until women are paid the same as men, Alice wrote on the site, then playing at being a woman is unfair. She later apologised, saying she had deep compassion for Jenner. The stars holiday in Manchioneal was supposed to provide some much needed relaxation after her recent split from Alex Cowper-Smith, her husband of two years. He's known as the bad boy of Hollywood. But Tom Hardy is well used to the high life as the son of famous English novelist Chips Hardy. So the former Batman villain looked completely at home attending the glamorous Audi Polo Challenge in Ascot on Saturday. Scroll down for video Rugged: Tom Hardy looked handsome in a truckers hat and green t-shirt as he attended the Audi Polo Challenge in Ascot on Saturday Tough-guy Tom looked rugged in a trucker hat and dark shades which he accessorised with chunky leather jewellery and brown leather strapped watch. Emerging from his camo-coloured crew neck T-shirt were a selection of his trademark tattoos, including a smoking skull wearing a top-hat. He paired the rugged look with ripped jeans and sturdy black boots. Relaxed: Tom paired the rugged look with ripped jeans and sturdy black boots Tom was snapped with fellow actors Vicky McClure and Jack O'Connell, both of whom appeared in the This is England series together. Jack rocked the smart casual look to perfection with a fitted navy blazer and trousers combo dressed down with a grey t-shirt underneath. Meanwhile, Vicky wore an asymmetric dress with a country-chic tweed trim. Thesps: Tom was snapped with fellow actors Vicky McClure and Jack O'Connell, both of whom appeared in the This is England series together This isn't the first time that Tom has showed up to a well-heeled event in casual wear. The hunk cut a scruffy figure on Thursday night as he left his shirt and tie at home for the premiere of Hollywood blockbuster Alien: Covenant. The sci-fi sequel doesn't feature the Peaky Blinders star but Hardy will be working with director Ridley Scott on a forthcoming Netflix project titled War Party, so no doubt turned up to show his support. Inked: On display were a selection of his trademark tattoos, including a smoking skull wearing a top-hat While away from the bright lights of Hollywood the heartthrob has been causing meltdowns among mothers who are tuning in to watch his CBeebies story time renditions. Women were begging Hardy to 'tuck them in' as CBeebies began trending on Twitter in March after his readings of classic children's bedtime stories. The father-of-one - who is married to Charlotte Riley - was also praised last month for single-handedly catching a moped thief - proving the action star is all-action is real life. He's an outspoken activist and charitable giver. So Leonardo DiCaprio stepped out to support the island nation of Haiti at a star-studded benefit at Sotheby's in New York Friday. The 42-year-old talent flew under the radar at the Haiti Takes Root auction, where the star sported typically understated duds and a hat while seated next to charity founder and close friend Sean Penn, 56. Scroll down for video Giving back: Leonardo DiCaprio made a low-key appearance at Friday's Haiti Takes Root benefit in New York where he joined charity co-founder and friend Sean Penn The Wolf Of Wall Street actor was low key at the event, dressed in his favorite style of newsboy cap and dark shirt. He sported a scruffy goatee while sipping on a glass of white wine and listening to one of the evening speakers raptly. While Sean Penn was seated to the left of Leo, Israeli-American venture capitalist Aviv 'Vivi' Nevo joined the star on his right. The tycoon and The Revenant actor are pals, having attended the French Open together last fall as well as Leo's birthday bash last year. Fancy friends: The 42-year-old actor flew under the radar, sitting with Israeli-American media mogul Aviv Nevo at his right Cheers! The Wolf Of Wall Street sipped on a glass of white wine at the auction event Penn hosted Friday's Haiti Takes Root dinner at Sotheby's in New York. The fundraiser brought together stars of all sorts to raise money for J/P Haitian Relief Organization, which provides on-going aid to the island nation. Tickets started at $5k for the evening, where Gayle King did the honors of emceeing the event while stars Naomi Campbell, Andy Cohen, Ellie Goulding and many more attended. Guests sipped on Casa Noble Tequila cocktails at a silent auction before enjoying a three course dinner, before Damien Rice and Andra Day performed. Important cause: Sean spoke to guests about the importance of the J/P Haitian Relief Organization fundraiser. The non-profit provides ongoing aid to the island nation Although the organization hosts an annual gala in Los Angeles, Friday was the non-profit's first soiree in NYC. At the gala, the Milk actor explained, 'This auction is about getting at these root causes of Haitis challenges. 'Its about giving the Haitians the tools they need and planting the seeds for a better future.' You can learn more about the J/P Haitian Relief Organization here. She attended the star-studded Met Gala on Monday. But Priyanka Chopra was far from the glamour of the A-list bash as she visited Zimbabwe in her role as UNICEF goodwill ambassador this week. The actress, 34, has been sharing photographs on her Instagram page while meeting young children in the south African country. Scroll down for video Ambassador: Priyanka Chopra has been meeting youngsters in Zimbabwe as part of her role as UNICEF goodwill ambassador During an interview on Saturday, the Quantico star spoke out about the levels of sexual violence against children taking place in Zimbabwe. Wearing a simple white top and yellow midi skirt for the interview, she said it was important for her to use her celebrity status in order to speak out against issues affecting vulnerable people across the world. 'I am from India and I have seen wealth and poverty live together all my life,' she said. 'That is the state of the world. That is our reality.' 'Their stories of resilience are so inspiring': The actress has been sharing photographs on her Instagram page while meeting young children in the south African country over the past week 'Champions of change': She later posted another snap of her with a group of young women, who she described as 'amazing' Important visit: The Quantico star flew into Harare, Zimbabwe, on Wednesday and has been documenting the visit on her social media pages 'It takes people like us who are privileged, who have everything that we may need in abundance, to be able to share it in parts of the world where they may not have that.' Priyaka described meeting girls who had been thrown out of their homes after being raped as 'an eye-opening experience', adding that girls are being told that it's their fault. The actress has been documenting her visit to Zimbabwe with Unicef on her social media pages, posting one photograph with two youngsters on Thursday. She captioned the picture: 'Their stories of resilience are so inspiring.. thank u for sharing with me #EndViolence #thistimeforafrica #bindibonding @unicef'. Campaigner: During an interview on Saturday, she spoke out about the levels of sexual violence against children taking place in Zimbabwe 'Eye-opening': She described meeting girls who had been thrown out of their homes after being raped, after being told that it was their fault Later posting another snap of her with a group of young women, she wrote: 'Amazing women who are champions of change. 'This club is adolescent-led, adolescent-driven and adult mentored. So inspiring to see these girls taking charge of their lives and their communities . Thank you.. for including me.' Her visit to Zimbabwe comes after she attended the Met Gala in New York on Monday, wearing a dramatic Ralph Lauren trench coat on the red carpet. 'So much strength and bravery': Priyanka told the story of three orphans she met, who are being helped by UNICEF 'We cannot ignore what's happening': She said it was important for her to use her celebrity status in order to speak out against issues affecting vulnerable people across the world The India-born actress is starring in the Baywatch movie adaptation out this month as Victoria Leeds, alongside Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson. Speaking about her transition from Bollywood to Holldword, she told the Hindustan Times in a recent interview: 'I will definitely never be stereotyped; I am very clear about that. I havent done it in India as an actor so I definitely wont do it abroad. 'This is not to say that I havent been offered stereotypical roles because sometimes the kinds of films that come to me are the stereotype of what an Indian girl should be. But now, the films that come to me are varied.' She's fresh from her romantic trip to Cape Verde with her Love Island beau Alex Bowen. But Olivia Buckland, 23, couldn't resist posting another eye-popping photograph from their sun-soaked break on Saturday. The busty blonde showed off more than her tan line when she flashed a hint of sideboob in a skimpy pink swimming costume, as the starlet continued to catalogue their holiday on Instagram. Scroll down for video Buxom beauty: Love Island's Olivia Buckland flashed a hint of sideboob as her cleavage spilled out of sexy coral costume on holiday with beau Alex Bowen in Cape Verde She could barely contain her ample assets as her bust spilled out of her tiny motelrocks coral costume. Olivia captioned the snap, 'Last afternoon, last swimsuit, last cocktail...Cape Verde you've been a babe.' (sic) The tattooed reality TV star oozed sex appeal as she wore her golden locks wet curls in a tousled array, which framed her features. Eye-popping! The 23-year-old couldn't resist posting another eye-popping photograph, this time wearing a Miss Pap bikini, from their sun-soaked break on Saturday Looking back on her romantic getaway with her lover Alex, 24, she shared another racy bikini-clad shot where she is lounging in the shade sipping on a cocktail. She wrote: 'I miss the sun already! Cape Verde Sal Island was beautiful, I recommend it to the ground!' (sic) The cosy pair have also enjoyed dinner dates while out in the sunny beach resort. Sizzling! She flaunted her flat stomach in her range of bikinis as she catalogued their sun-soaked holiday in a series of Instagram posts A table for two! The cosy pair have also enjoyed dinner dates while out in the sunny beach resort Olivia was a vision in white when she put her phenomenal hourglass figure on display in a classy jumpsuit. She teased a hint of cleavage in her figure-hugging ensemble, which was embellished with a floral sequin pattern on the shoulders of the garment. The beauty accessorised with a black bag to contrast with her evening attire, matched with nude sandals. Earlier during the holiday, the 23-year-old shared a picture of the couple looking loved up ahead of their 2018 wedding as they giggled while relaxing poolside. Adorable: The pair were relaxed on an inflatable during their Cape Verde getaway With the former Love Islanders displaying their gym-sculpted, bronzed physiques adorned with tattoos in the shot, the pair looked blissfully happy. Earlier in the day, Olivia had once again melted the hearts of her 1.1 million followers with a beach shot of her fiance tenderly kissing her cheek. She revved up the glamour for the sweet shot, with a red lip to match her diamond-encrusted bikini. Heartwarming: Olivia had once again melted the hearts of her 1.1 million followers with a beach shot of her fiance tenderly kissing her cheek Olivia has been keeping her fans thrilled with a torrent of sexy snaps of her incredible figure during her holiday. The reality star proved she was as confident as ever in a bikini on Monday, as she took to Instagram to give another sizzling insight into her trip. She took to her story to share a playful video of her shimmying in a glitzy burgundy bikini - showing off her enviably slender body in all its glory. Bikini babe: Olivia proved she was as confident as ever in a bikini as she took to Instagram to give another sizzling insight into her trip Fit to bust: The reality star, 23, took to her story to share a video of her shimmying in a glitzy burgundy bikini - before she documented her day of tanning (above) The reality star appeared to be in incredibly high spirits as she danced around for her 1.1 million followers in the glorious sunshine, with a cocktail in hand. Clad in a skimpy burgundy bikini, the beauty's enviably slender figure and incredibly tiny waist came into full view as she playfully shimmied for the camera. Plunging into a triangle neckline, her barely-there top gave a saucy flash of her cleavage as she frolicked by the pool, while her bottoms rose high at her hip to elongate her already leggy figure. Relaxed: The reality star appeared to be in incredibly high spirits as she danced around for her 1.1 million followers in the glorious sunshine, with a cocktail in hand Shake it! Clad in a skimpy burgundy bikini, the beauty's enviably slender figure and incredibly tiny waist came into full view as she playfully shimmied for the camera Eye-popping: Plunging into a triangle neckline, her barely-there top gave a saucy flash of her ample cleavage as she relaxed by the pool Maintaining her signature glamorous style even in swimwear, the two-piece was then adorned with gold sequins at the bust and sides to draw further attention to her assets and toned stomach. Leaving her hair in loose waves and adding only oversized sunglasses to her face, Olivia proved her stunning natural beauty and glowing skin as she spent another day in the tropical hotspot. The star has been heavily documenting her getaway on Instagram - posing in a racy semi-sheer costume to show off her tanned and toned physique again on Sunday. Sheer delight: She had already showed off her tanned physique in a racy semi-sheer bathing costume on Sunday as she continued to document her holiday on Instagram The beauty stood on a balcony in the picture with a black cover up slipping off her shoulders to reveal the figure-hugging swimwear beneath, complete with a saucy mesh front panel. In another snap, the blonde cosied up to her fiance Alex Bowen, who she is soaking up with - crossing her leg over her boyfriend's knee and her hand resting on his thigh in the sweet photo. She displayed eye-popping cleavage in a tiny gold bralette which she teamed with a slinky black cardigan and a pair of towering wedge heels. Cosy: In another snap, Olivia cosied up to Alex and displayed eye-popping cleavage in a minuscule gold bralette This is the life:T he Love Islander has been flooding her Instagram page with envy-inducing snaps of her exotic, romantic getaway Olivia also uploaded shots of herself in a burgundy bikini, as her cheeky boyfriend Alex started kissing her chest. While the star has continued to post racy snaps from her hols, she seemed a little emotional on Sunday night as she blasted trolls who hurled abuse at her bikini snaps. 'Fed up with people sticking their unknown noses into my life. Some people will say I asked for it being on reality but IM A REAL SOUL,' she angrily tweeted. PDA: Olivia also uploaded shots of herself in a burgundy bikini, as her cheeky boyfriend Alex started kissing her chest Come here you: The Love Island lovebirds couldn't keep their hands or lips off of each other She went on sadly: 'I have feelings man. Seriously like I ain't an actress. My life is real. Am a young women who feels s**t same as everyone else. Be nice x' Olivia still continued to exude confidence in her swimwear despite the cruel comments - having risen to fame on Love Island, where she stripped to a bikini on TV daily. It was on the ITVBe show last year that she met her now fiancee Alex Bowen - who popped the question in New York in December. She is set to tie the knot with her scaffolder beau, 24, in September 2018, with Love Island's host Caroline Flack, 37, as a guest and Olivia's best pal from the series, winner Cara De La Hoyde, 26, bridesmaid. Hitting back: While the star has continued to post racy snaps from her hols, she seemed a little emotional on Sunday night as she blasted trolls Engaged: Olivia captioned another shot 'Hubby to be' as she cosied up to her fiance Speaking to Closer magazine, Olivia revealed that she wants 'party animal' Caroline to come - despite the TV presenter being accused by viewers of being flirty with Alex in the 2016 show's finale. Olivia said: 'Caroline Flack needs to come to the wedding! She's a real party animal so we need her there. We're inviting all the Love Island producers too, as they made it happen.' The reality star did not mention whether fellow Love Islander Zara Holland, 21 - who slept with Alex on his first night in the villa, resulting in her losing her Miss Great Britain crown - would be on the guest list. Loving life: No doubt the stunner is excited to wed co-star and fiancee Alex in the ITVBe show's first-ever wedding after they met filming in Mallorca last year Olivia revealed she has started planning her dream day with former co-star and best pal Cara De La Hoyde - who won Love Island in 2016 alongside Nathan Massey, before confirming their split last week. Olivia also divulged that Cara is set to be a bridesmaid on the big day, telling Closer: 'Of course Cara is going to be my bridesmaid.' Olivia is keeping tight-lipped about details of the wedding, but admitted that it will be in the UK so the pair's friends and family don't miss out, and they will plan a 'fab honeymoon abroad' after. The curvaceous reality TV star has finished filming Say Yes To The Dress, so fans will have a sneak preview of what her dress is like before the big day. She recently began laser tattoo removal in order to get her inking dedicated to her ex-boyfriend Mitch Jenkins erased. And Charlotte Crosby proved her heart belongs to the one and only Stephen Bear with her latest social media posts on Saturday, sharing a series of seductive snaps captioned with her boyfriend's name. The former Geordie Shore star flaunted her incredible figure in a scarlet dress, putting on a sizzling display in the bodycon number. Scroll down for video The Bear necessities: Charlotte Crosby proved her heart belongs to the one and only Stephen Bear with her latest social media posts on Saturday, sharing a series of seductive snaps captioned with her boyfriend's name Charlotte went braless in the scoop neck Missguided dress, which highlighted her tiny waist and showed off her slim legs thanks to a side-split. The bubbly blonde also posted a couple of close-up snaps, offering onlookers a look at her plumped up pout and new, shorter hairdo. The posts went down a storm with her followers, who branded her beautiful and stunning. The 26-year-old took to her various social media pages to document her tattoo removal earlier this week, which saw her have the 'M' for Mitch - who she split from in 2015 - zapped off her upper arm. Red hot: Charlotte went braless in the scoop neck number, which highlighted her tiny waist Pucker up: The bubbly blonde also posted a couple of close-up snaps, offering onlookers a look at her plumped up pout and new, shorter hairdo End of an era: Charlotte decided to rid her ex Mitch Jenkins from her life for good on Friday, as she finally had the tattoo dedicated to him removed Taking to Instagram and Snapchat, the former CBB winner shared a short video of the seemingly painful procedure. Dressed in a casual vest and loose-fitting trousers, the beauty can be heard squealing and shouting in pain as the laser is pressed against the tattoo to remove the ink. Clearly excited by the procedure despite the pain however, she wrote to her 5.8 million followers: 'And there you have it! My FIRST laser tattoo removal it's been a long time coming... thanks so much.' No more: Charlotte had first got the inking, which saw an 'M' in the middle of two crossed arrows, when she was last dating Mitch in 2015 (above) Goodbye: Clearly excited by the procedure despite the pain however, she wrote to her followers: 'And there you have it! My FIRST laser tattoo removal it's been a long time coming' She then added in support of her practitioner: '@chris_new_look_laser_treatment check him out if you need any laser treatments and your in the north east guys!' Charlotte had first got the inking, which saw an 'M' in the middle of two crossed arrows, when she was last dating Mitch in 2015. She has announced the news on her Instagram with the besotted caption: Happy valentines........ #YoungStupidAndVeryCrazyInlove' On again off again: The couple first called it quits in late summer of 2014, following a year and a half together, but reconciled months later during a trip to New York (above) However breaking up soon after, Charlotte was quick to reveal her desires to remove the tattoo in August of that year. She said in her Star magazine column: 'I need to get my 'M' tattoo removed, though. I can't walk around with that now we're not together, can I?' The couple first called it quits in late summer of 2014, following a year and a half together, but reconciled months later - after Charlotte revealed to MailOnline he had dumped her by text message. For good: However it seems the course of true love was not meant to be for the couple, as they broke up once again later that year, just before they were due to move in together The pair became largely inseparable again following a trip to New York in January 2015 - confirming their reconciliation - before he accompanied her on her mammoth tour of Australia later that year. Yet, it seems the course of true love was not meant to be for the couple, as they broke up once again later that year, just before they were due to move in together. Removing the tattoo not only rids her life of her ex, but also shows a higher level of commitment to her current boyfriend Stephen Bear. The pair have put on an incredibly loved-up display ever since meeting on their new show Just Tattoo Of Us - and have even discussed the prospect of children after mere months together. Moving on: Removing the tattoo not only rids her life of her ex, but also shows a higher level of commitment to her current boyfriend Stephen Bear (above) Charlotte recently told OK! magazine: 'We always talk about children. All the time. He likes Teddy, but I like Wolf, or Elle for a girl.' It seems their relationship is only going from strength to strength, after Charlotte had gushed to CBB champion was 'the one' last year. She had told MailOnline: 'We fancied each other straight away and then things just developed slowly. I knew we couldnt rush into anything because he was going on a dating show so we took it really slow at first. 'Stephen really cares, he even got sacked from Celebs Go Dating because of me. Ive met all of Stephens family and they are amazing, it just works and feels so right.' Cynics have suggested their relationship is nothing more than a showmance to grab media attention. But this snap shows Spencer Matthewss romance with Irish model Vogue Williams, 31, is the real deal. It pictures the couple posing happily together after she invited him back to her home town in Ireland, where her family still lives. Spencer shared a picture with his new love Vogue Williams, to show it's not just a showmance Former Made In Chelsea star Spencer, 27, put the picture taken in the small fishing village of Howth in Dublin Bay on Instagram. A loved-up Spencer whose brother James marries Pippa Middleton later this month captioned it: Beautiful day, beautiful girl. Spencer met Vogue who now lives in London on Channel 4s show The Jump, which he won. A dark moment for Gorillaz Gorillaz, a virtual band by Damon Albarn, has enjoyed huge success Damon Albarns virtual band Gorillaz may have released a new album and dates for a European tour last week, but it hasnt all been good news. Im sorry to report that a ten-part TV series they were due to make with Hollywood giants Dreamworks has been shelved, after the studio raised concerns that the cartoons would be too dark. The band is usually represented by fictional cartoon characters, such as bass guitarist 2-D, left. Unable to pitch it to a family audience, Hollywood producers passed on the series, which would have cost tens of millions of dollars. The band have since made a low-budget show, which is still awaiting a TV slot. Kelly Rowland just wrote a book about the ups and downs of modern mothering called Woah, Baby! And on Saturday the mom-of-one joined forces with fellow celeb parent Kristen Bell to celebrate an early Mother's Day with the charity Baby2Baby in Los Angeles. There, the former Destiny's Child looked lovely in a cool-colored floral frock while the Frozen actress wore a ruffled navy number to enjoy arts and crafts with the party's pint-sized guests. Giving back: Kelly Rowland co-hosted the charity Baby2Baby's annual Mother's Day Party in Los Angeles on Saturday At the event sponsored by Tinyprints, the starlets spent time with kids and moms who's lives have been touched by the charity Baby2Baby. The non-profit helps provide low income families with items essential for growing children, including diapers, clothing, school supplies and other basic necessities. Wearing a blue, green and white wrap dress, Kelly held babies and played games with several of the young party guests. Hostess with the most: Also hosting was Kristen Bell, who looked darling in a Rebecca Taylor skirt and top Charitibly chic: The actresses teamed up to support Baby2Baby, a non-profit that provides low income kids and families with essentials like diapers, school supplies and clothing. Above they pose with a party guest Cool cat: At the event, the former Destiny's Child donned a sweet floral dress in cool blue, green and white hues The Motivation songstress jazzed up her short and sweet bob with a pop of purple color bursting from beneath. Kristen looked darling in a Rebecca Taylor skirt and top that featured ruffling sleeves and a collar while The Good Place talent pinned her blonde tresses back chicly. Polishing up the ensemble, the mother-of-two wore a handsome watch and Mercedes Castillo sandals. Helping hand: The non-profit expects to help out over 125,000 families this year alone Pretty philanthropists: The Good Place actress (center) posed with Baby2Baby founders Kelly Sawyer Patricof (left) and Norah Weinstein (right) at the Mother's Day party Later, actress Rebecca Gayheart dropped by, looking casual and chic in a long pastel skirt and navy jacket. At the party, guests enjoyed painting and snacks before attendees were surprised with tons of amazing basics from Baby2Baby, bringing grins to both the mom's and kids faces. Baby2Baby was founded by high-powered Hollywood wives Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein. Art party! After enjoying some crafts and snacks, the lucky little party guests were given tons of helpful supplies from Baby2Baby. Actress Rebecca Gayheart also stopped by to join the fun Woah baby! Kelly played and joked with the party's pint sized guests. The Motivation singer is an 'Angel' level donor to the family-centered charity Their mission: After founders Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein learned essentials like diapers and school supplies were a big need for low income families, they knew where they wanted to focus their charity (Kelly is the wife of movie and television producer Jamie Patricof while Norah is the wife of CAA head Brian Weinstein.) After meeting at dinner, the ladies decided to team up and focus on philanthropy 'exclusively, instead of having it on the periphery.' When the duo learned that basics like diapers and backpacks are in constant shortage for low-income families, they instantly knew where to focus their attention. Vital supplies: The non-profit now partners with homeless and domestic violence shelters, Head Start programs, and childrens hospitals to offer families vital supplies Star powered board: Several celebs are on the charity's board of directors, including Jessica Alba, Modern Family's Julie Bowen and designer Rachel Zoe. Kristen is an 'angel' donor with the organization Now, Baby2Baby teams with non-profit partners, homeless and domestic violence shelters, Head Start programs, and childrens hospitals to serve 'more than 125,000 children' this year alone. Several celebs are on the charity's board of directors, including Jessica Alba, Modern Family's Julie Bowen and designer Rachel Zoe. Hostesses Kristen and Kelly are both 'angel' level donors to the organization, in addition to Drew Barrymore, Zooey Deschannel, Busy Phillips, Ellen Pompeo and many more. You can learn more about Baby2Baby and their mission here. Protesters demonstrate against US President Donald Trump in New York as he meets Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea Donald Trump met Australia's Malcolm Turnbull for a patch-things-up summit in New York, when the US president said an earlier telephone spat had been "all worked out." Trump claimed a bad-tempered call with the Australian prime minister early in his White House tenure had been "fake news" that was a "big exaggeration" by the media. However, during a speech later in the evening, he admitted it "got a little bit testy." Trump reportedly exploded and cut short the call when he was told about a Barack Obama-era deal to move refugees from Australia to America. The president took to Twitter afterward to call the agreement "dumb," rattling a decades-old alliance. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (R) has said he is "delighted" to meet with US leader Donald Trump and affirm the relationship between the two countries "It's all worked out. It's been worked out for a long time," Trump said on Thursday, as the pair, dressed in black tie, smiled and swapped legislative war stories. "We had a great telephone call. You guys exaggerated that call. That was a big exaggeration. We're not babies," Trump said during his first meeting with Turnbull, reverting to his favored tactic of media-bashing. "We get along great. We have a fantastic relationship, I love Australia, I always have," he added. Turnbull said that "we can put the refugee deal behind you and move on." The pair convened on a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the Intrepid, to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea -- and to steady the long-standing alliance after relations soured at a time of growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific. The World War II fight against Japanese forces helped forge an alliance during which Australia has pitched in alongside the United States in every major conflict since. - Fence-mending - The crisis over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and a fence-mending trip to Sydney by Vice President Mike Pence last month appears to have eased tension between the United States and Australia. After meeting Turnbull, Pence had said the United States would take the refugees but added it "doesn't mean we admire the agreement." US Vice President Mike Pence (L) shakes hand with Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a joint press conference at the Kirribilli House in Sydney on April 22, 2017 A businessman-turned-politician like Trump, Turnbull has said he was "delighted" to meet with the US leader and affirm the relationship. Trump, for his part, said he would be happy to travel Down Under, describing the United States and Australia as "rebellious children of the same parent." "Oh, that will happen. It's one of the great, great places. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I have so many friends there. I'll be there. We'll be there -- absolutely we'll be there." One of those friends is the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who attended the dinner at which Trump and Turnbull spoke. Trump regaled the crowd with stories about how he agreed to give the Fox News owner cash for a US-Australia charity. Turnbull highlighted the close military ties between the two countries. "We fight together in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat and destroy the terrorists who threaten our way of life," he said. "Today, Australians and Americans stand shoulder-to-shoulder defending our freedoms." Despite the bonhomie, the advent of Trump has invigorated a debate over Australia's place in the world and whether its future lies with an unpredictable United States or a closer relationship with China, its top trading partner. Several former senior Australian diplomats have urged Canberra to rethink ties with the United States in light of China's rise. The icy start during Trump's first days in office was further cooled by Washington's withdrawal from a trans-Pacific trade agreement that would have given Australian businesses greater access to American and other key regional markets. In the article entitled "Pakistan's Triangle of Hate", Mohammed Hanif savaged the country's military An International New York Times opinion piece criticising the powerful Pakistani army was censored by its local publisher Friday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to speak out against the military establishment. The online version of the piece by Mohammed Hanif, a high-profile satirist and novelist whose critiques of Pakistani society regularly appear in the New York Times, was trending on Pakistani social media by Friday afternoon. In the article, entitled "Pakistan's Triangle of Hate", he savaged the military for parading a former Pakistani Taliban spokesman before television cameras to claim that the militants are bankrolled by Islamabad's arch-nemesis India. "With his appearance, the Pakistani Army seemed to be sending this message: You can kill thousands of Pakistanis, but if you later testify that you hate India as much as we do, everything will be forgiven," Hanif wrote. "Do we really need to enlist our children's killers in our campaign against India?" A note on the blank page clarified the decision to censor the article was taken in Pakistan, and the newspaper "had no role in its removal". "While we understand that our publishing partners are sometimes faced with local pressures, we regret and condemn any censorship of our journalism," a spokeswoman for the New York Times told AFP on Friday. The former Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, is the man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in Swat Valley in 2012. He also spoke for the group in claiming responsibility for Pakistan's deadliest ever extremist attack, in which gunmen stormed a school in northwestern Peshawar and killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Last month the army announced that Ehsan had given himself up to the military, but gave no details on the circumstances or timing of his surrender. It later released a video of Ehsan stating the militants were given financial and logistical assistance by the intelligence agencies of India and Afghanistan -- a claim often made by the army. Hanif's words echoed the feelings of many in Pakistan repulsed by the publicity surrounding Ehsan -- though others have rejoiced at the accusations against India. Friday's censorship was the second day in a row that the Express Tribune had blanked out a piece in the Times. On Thursday, it removed a piece on an anti-gay crackdown in Chechnya entitled "Chechnya's anti-gay pogrom". In 2016, it censored a Times image of a man in China giving his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. Later that year it blocked an article in the paper entitled "Sex Talk for Muslim Women". A Chinese couple, who were forced to leave their villages upon declaring their love for one another, returned in 2015 to celebrate their marriage in the young man's house, but the parents of the bride refused to attend A stream little more than a metre wide separates them, but for at least three centuries a bitter rivalry pitted two eastern Chinese villages against one another -- until love brought the adversaries together. Wushan and Yuepu in Fujian province, which count between them some 7,500 inhabitants, used to observe an unusual tradition whereby people who lived on one side of the river were forbidden from marrying those from the other. "Nobody can remember where this ban on marriages came from, we only know that we fought each other around 300 years ago for the right to use the water," Wang Hongdong, Communist Party secretary for Wushan told AFP on Friday. The confrontation led to a curse, which said that marriage with a person from the rival village would lead only to misfortune. The rivalry was passed from generation to generation. "They fought again about 40 years ago, over graves," Wang said. "Then relations started to settle, especially over the last 10 years. We started to build a shoe factory together and the young people were getting on well." But villagers remained forbidden from marrying their rivals until a young girl from Yuepu fell in love with a boy from Wushan, around three years ago. "The families were dead against the marriage on account of the curse," Wang said. "They really believed in it". The young couple married anyway but were forced to leave Fujian and move to another province, some 1,500 km (900 miles) from their home. In 2015 they returned to the villages to celebrate their marriage in the young man's house, but the parents of the bride refused to attend. But when the woman later gave birth to two beautiful boys, the inhabitants of both villages stopped believing in the curse, Mr Wang said. To mark the reconciliation and officially abolish the ban on marriages, the two villages this week organised a ceremony in the presence of local Buddhist and Communist authorities. Some 500 people attended. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) shakes hands with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after a press conference in Moscow on April 12, 2017 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the conflict in Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on Friday, the State Department said. Their conversation took place a day after Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a deal setting up four "de-escalation zones" in Syria during talks in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. The United States did not take part. "The Secretary of State spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov today about the efforts to de-escalate the ongoing conflict in Syria," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. Experts are skeptical about Thursday's Kremlin-brokered deal because neither the Syrian government nor the rebels were direct signatories and the opposition offered only a lukewarm reaction. Washington gave the deal an extremely cautious welcome, citing concerns about Iran's role as a guarantor even as it expressed hope the agreement could set the stage for a later settlement. The United States takes part in separate peace talks under a UN mandate in Geneva, where the rivals have been deadlocked on key issues. A new round of Geneva talks is set for later this month. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," Nauert said. More than 320,000 people have died in Syria since the country's war began with anti-government protests in March 2011. A Nigerian army vehicle patrols in the town of Banki in northeastern Nigeria on April 26, 2017 Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict. The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were "actively planning" to seize foreign workers in the Bama local government area of Borno state. Both said in travel advice that the affected area was "along the Banki-Kumshe axis", which is near the border with Cameroon. The US embassy in Abuja said in a message to its nationals that the report was "credible". Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of women and children, including more than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno town of Chibok in 2014, which brought the conflict to world attention. At least 20,000 people have been killed since 2009. But abductions of foreigners have been rare. There was a spate of kidnappings of foreign workers in the wider north from 2011 to 2013, claimed by a Boko Haram splinter group, Ansaru, which was more ideologically aligned to Al-Qaeda. The leader of Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, has been charged with the abduction and murder of foreign workers, among them an Italian, a Briton, a German, Greek, Lebanese and Syrians. Most were engineers or construction workers. International aid workers now account for the majority of foreign nationals in northeast Nigeria. Most are based in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Lake Chad region require urgent food aid as a result of the conflict, which has made more than 2.6 million people homeless and ravaged farmland. AFP visited Banki with other international media two weeks ago. Humanitarian agencies operating in the town include the World Food Programme, International Organization for Migration and other UN bodies. Banki was liberated from Boko Haram in September 2015 and is currently home to some 32,000 displaced people in a sprawling, overcrowded camp. The surrounding area still suffers from frequent Boko Haram attacks on military convoys, as well as suicide bombings. Fighters loyal to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who were pushed out of their camps in the Sambisa Forest area last December, are believed to be responsible. The kidnap warning and the threat to humanitarian operations underlines the fragility of security in northeast Nigeria, despite claims from the government and military that Boko Haram is a spent force. Dallas County Sheriff's office issued an arrest warrant for Roy Oliver of the Balch Springs Police Department over the shooting of African-American teen Jordan Edwards A Texas police officer who fired into a carful of teens, allegedly killing a 15-year-old African American boy, turned himself in after being charged with murder, authorities said. Roy Oliver, 37, who is white, was one of two police officers responding to a call about underaged drinking at a party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs the night of April 29, The Dallas Morning News reported. Jordan Edwards and four others were leaving the party in their car after hearing gunfire. Oliver fired a rifle into the car, hitting the teen in the head, media reports said. Oliver, who has reportedly been fired from the Balch Springs Police Department, turned himself in and was booked on a murder charge at the Parker County jail in Weatherford, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Dallas, according to county records. He was released after posting a $300,000 bond, the records showed. Police originally said Oliver opened fire because the car was backing up aggressively toward him, but the department changed its account after viewing body-cam footage, saying the car was driving away when Edwards was shot. Evidence suggested the police officer "intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death," the Dallas County Sheriff's Office said in a statement announcing the arrest warrant. The shooting is the latest killing of an African-American by a white police officer in a string of similar cases that have fueled outrage across the United States and given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. According to a Washington Post tally, Edwards was the youngest of the 339 people shot and killed by US police so far this year. Moroccan Islamic family laws allocate female heirs half the amount men receive on the death of a relative A former radical preacher is the unlikely instigator of a debate on a topic long seen as off-limits in Muslim-majority Morocco: women's inheritance rights. The country's Islamic family laws allocate female heirs half the amount men receive on the death of a relative. Abdelwahab Rafiki, a former hardline cleric who served time in jail following jihadist bombings in Casablanca, says it is time that changed. "I invite... religious scholars, sociologists and human rights actors to open a dialogue, primarily in order to uphold justice," he said. Rafiki, also known as Abou Hafs, was one of around 100 male writers, journalists and artists who published a book in April called "Men defend equality in inheritance". He also appeared on a prime-time television show on the popular 2M channel, arguing that the social roles of men and women had changed since the early days of Islam, meaning it was time for a debate on inheritance rules. Since his TV appearance, he said, "I have been threatened with death and excommunicated, but I also received many messages of support". The 43-year-old was once regarded as a leader of the Salafist-jihadist movement in Morocco. He was among 8,000 people arrested after jihadist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 killed 45 people. - Death threats - Sentenced to 30 years in prison, he was pardoned in 2012. Last year he stood for election to parliament representing Istiqlal, a conservative nationalist party. His efforts to spark a debate on inheritance have won him plaudits from the liberal media and condemnation from his former peers. "Thanks to 2M and Abou Hafs, a new step has been taken in Morocco: equality between men and women in matters of inheritance can now be raised in the public sphere," local site Medias 24 said. Weekly magazine TelQuel said he had begun "dismantling one by one the dogmas of radical Islam". But Abou Hafs has also received anonymous death threats on social media and been expelled from a national organisation for religious scholars. He has been denounced by the likes of Mohamed Fizazi and Hassan Kettani, preachers who were also jailed and later pardoned after the Casablanca attacks. "He didn't just turn his coat inside out, he tore it up," Fizazi said. Kettani said inheritance rules were not just a "red line" but an "impassable wall". Islamic scholars argue that the Koran allocates women half the inheritance given to male heirs because men are responsible for protecting women and providing for them. - Religious interpretation - They say the rules were a major improvement on women's rights in pre-Islamic Arabia. But Abou Hafs argues that the issue is open to "ijtihad" -- the process of interpretation by religious scholars. "The issue of inheritance must be consistent with evolutions in society" in order to "protect" Islam, he told AFP. It is not the first time the subject has triggered controversy. In 2015 Morocco's official National Council of Human Rights (CNDH) called for women to be guaranteed the same inheritance rights as men, arguing that "unequal inheritance legislation" made women more vulnerable to poverty. Outraged conservatives rejected any debate on the issue and the ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) slammed the organisation for its "irresponsible recommendation". But Nouzha Skalli, a former women's rights minister, said the lines are moving. "Until recently, the question was taboo -- you couldn't even debate the subject," she said. "As soon as you said the word 'inheritance' you were accused of blasphemy. Today, the debate can be held openly." "The time has come to break the taboo, which hides major injustices against women," she said. "The Koran says that God is against injustice." Jailbreaks such as the one at Pekanbaru are common in Indonesia, where inmates are held in often unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons Indonesian security forces were Saturday hunting for more than 200 inmates still on the loose after a mass breakout from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island, police said. More than 440 inmates fled the jail in Pekanbaru city Friday after prison guards let them out of their cells to pray. Police initially said about 200 inmates were involved in the breakout but later revised up the figure. Footage on local TV stations showed many men, some wearing sarongs, scurrying out of the jail, with no sign of officials in pursuit. Authorities launched a massive manhunt and about half had been recaptured by Saturday evening, but security forces were still hunting for the rest, local police spokesman Guntur Aryo Tejo told AFP. Tejo said authorities had initially given incorrect information about the number involved in the breakout due to a "chaotic" situation, adding that the figure was revised up after a meeting of officials Saturday. "We have come to the conclusion that the number of inmates who escaped stands at 442, we have recaptured 216 of them," he told AFP. Security forces have expanded their hunt from Pekanbaru to neighbouring districts, and as far as Batam, an island off the east coast of Sumatra, Tejo said. "We have deployed all of our resources to hunt them," he said. Most of those recaptured had been caught around Pekanbaru. Dozens of the escaped inmates headed directly to another prison where they handed themselves in. Tejo said the inmates told the police they decided to break out due to inhumane conditions in the prison. The male-only prison has a capacity of 300 people but was holding 1,870 inmates, with only five guards and a porter on duty at any one time, said the director general of prisons, I Wayan Dusak. The situation at the jail was now calm, Tejo said. Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where inmates are often held in unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons. There was a spate of breakouts in 2013, including one where about 150 prisoners -- including terror convicts -- escaped from a jail. Brendon McCullum,35, is currently the second-highest run-getter for Gujarat Lions this season with 320 runs from 11 outings New Zealand's Brendon McCullum has been ruled out of the remainder of the Indian Premier League season with a hamstring strain, heaping fresh misery on his Gujarat Lions team. The dashing opener injured his left hamstring during the seven-wicket defeat against Delhi Daredevils on Thursday -- a result that saw the Lions being knocked out of contention for the playoffs. McCullum, 35, is currently the second-highest run-getter for Lions this season with 320 runs from 11 outings. "Injuries are not ideal but part of our sport. Compressed tournament & long travel can be gruelling," the former Kiwi skipper posted on his official Twitter account late Friday. "Sorry for not being there all the way." The Lions had reached the playoff stage in the last IPL but struggled this season, managing just three wins in 11 matches. They are scheduled to play three more matches in the Twenty20 tournament which ends on May 21 after nearly two months of action. "Thank you for all the memories, @bazmccullum! Here's wishing you a speedy recovery. You will be missed!" tweeted the Lions. Sri Lanka's flag carrier has accumulated debts and losses of over $2 billion and has cancelled orders for eight aircraft A US equity firm that bid to buy a stake in Sri Lanka's loss-making national airline has pulled its offer, officials said Saturday as the carrier scrambled for a new partner. TPG, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, has withdrawn its bid for a 49 percent stake in Sri Lankan, dashing hopes of a quick revival of the airline. "After completing the due diligence, regrettably TPG have informed us they will not pursue a potential investment in Sri Lankan airlines," Sri Lankan Chairman Ajith Dias said in a memo to his staff. "It is their opinion that allocating the human and financial resources to make the airline profitable will not realise sufficient returns compared to the many other investment opportunities that are available to them," Dias said. There was no immediate comment from TPG. Sri Lanka's flag carrier has accumulated debts and losses of over $2 billion. Talks are now underway with Dubai's Emirates, which had managed and owned a minority stake in Sri Lankan for a decade and was interested in a new management deal, official sources said. There was no immediate comment from Emirates. Sri Lankan was profitable before Rajapakse cancelled a management agreement with Emirates in 2008 following a personal dispute. The carrier had refused to bump fare-paying passengers and give their seats to Rajapakse's family members. An angry Rajapakse removed the Emirates-appointed CEO of Sri Lankan from the post and replaced him with his own brother-in-law, who had no airline experience, and is now under investigation for corruption. Late last year, in an effort to cut costs, Sri Lankan cancelled the previous government's order to lease four brand new Airbus A350-900 long-haul aircraft after paying a penalty of $115 million to aircraft leasing giant AerCap. A separate order for four Airbus A350-900 planes will also be cancelled, the government has said. Rajapakse had ordered all eight planes as part of a $2.3-billion re-fleeting programme for the airline, which is now being investigated for corruption. India's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) prepares for a clean-up operation at a container depot in New Delhi where a gas leak occurred on May 6, 2017 Nearly 200 school students were hospitalised Saturday after complaining of irritation in their eyes and throat following a gas leak in New Delhi, police said. Classes were underway when gas leaked from a container parked at a depot close to the school and filled with chemical meant for industrial use, police said. "Around 200 children were admitted to four hospitals for treatment. No one is serious. The situation is normal now," police deputy commissioner Romil Baaniya told reporters. Police will initiate legal action against the handlers for negligence, Baaniya added. Images showed scores of disaster response personnel closely inspecting the premises of the government-run girls' school. Indian school girls are treated at a government hospital after a gas leak from a nearby container depot in New Delhi on May 6, 2017 Gas leaks are not uncommon in India, with most caused by a failure to comply with safety standards. In 2014 a poisonous gas leak at one of India's largest steel plants in central Chhattisgarh state killed six people. And a toxic gas leak in Bhopal city in 1984 killed at least 25,000 people and remains to this day the world's worst industrial disaster. A militiaman stands guard as a family returning to Iraq's main Christian town Qaraqosh following its recapture from the Islamic State group makes a bonfire on May 5, 2017 of damaged furniture and rubbish that the jihadists left behind Several plumes of smoke rise above Iraq's main Christian town Qaraqosh, but this time it isn't the Islamic State jihadist group burning crosses and churches. Almost three years after fleeing the town, families are beginning to return and the first thing they do is burn old household items, a way of cleaning their homes and cleansing their bad memories. "As you can see, we are burning our own clothes, our own furniture. We are burning our history," said Milad Khodhr, 42, whose family is one of 17 who have returned to Qaraqosh. "But we see no feeling of vengeance in these fires, we are peaceful... we are the real people of this country," he said. IS fighters swept through the Nineveh plain, east of Mosul, in August 2014 and forced around 120,000 of Iraq's Christians to flee their homes, the biggest disaster to hit the minority in its nearly 2,000 year history. Qaraqosh had a pre-IS population of around 50,000 and was emptied almost overnight. Iraqi forces launched a major offensive to retake Mosul and surrounding areas in October last year and chased IS out of Qaraqosh a few days later. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Iraq's biggest church, was burnt and the reconstruction work that lies ahead in Qaraqosh is huge. The families who have returned in recent days take out all the damaged furniture and rubbish that the jihadists who occupied and looted their homes left behind. A militiaman stands in a church in Iraq's main Christian town Qaraqosh as returning families carried out cleanup on on May 5, 2017, following its recapture from the Islamic State group With virtually no state services available and rubbish collection a distant prospect for the town, residents have no option but to burn their own refuse. The religious authorities have stepped in to organise the return of Qaraqosh's population, which many see as crucial to the long-term survival of the minority. - Reconstruction - "Some of the people of Qaraqosh have gone abroad, but more than half are still in Iraq. We have carried out a survey showing that 68 percent of them want to return," Father George Jahula, who is helping returning families, told AFP in Qaraqosh. "The rest are undecided," he said. In a symbolic gesture, the archbishop of Mosul, Yohanna Petros Mouche, was the first to move back to Qaraqosh in April, just before celebrating emotional Easter services in the town. "The return depends on safety and how quickly the infrastructure is repaired," Father Jahula said. "In the absence of any help from the state for people to rebuild their homes, the church has stepped in," said the clergyman, wearing a tracksuit to run around the town and organise his team of engineers. The church and its volunteers have mapped the destruction in Qaraqosh using satellite images, allocated certain amounts for each sector and set completion targets. "Since the available funding is limited, we have set up a list of those who want to return, and next week we will begin distributing money to start the reconstruction process," said Zakariah Sabah, one of the organisers. A militiaman charged with protecting families returning to Iraq's main Christian town Qaraqosh following its recapture from the Islamic State group surveys the damage to his uncle's house on May 5, 2017 Qaraqosh still looks like a ghost town and access from the nearby Kurdish capital of Arbil -- where many Christians found shelter in 2014 -- is complicated by a gauntlet of checkpoints. But for some of its displaced residents, return is the only option, whether the town is ready or not. "Why did I return? Where else would I go? I have lived here all my life, 87 years," said Najma Boutros, an old lady with a hunched back and sunken eyes. "My daughter and I live alone, we came back because we couldn't pay the rent anymore," she said as she cleaned a sofa in the front yard of her house, which escaped unscathed from the flames that destroyed many of the neighbouring homes. A picture released on March 8, 2016 by Sepah News, the public relations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, shows a member of the Guards next to a missile launcher in an underground tunnel Iran's armed forces warned President Hassan Rouhani against discussing the country's defence programme after he criticised the anti-Israel slogans written on the side of ballistic missiles, local media reported on Saturday. During an election debate on Friday, Rouhani took the rare step of criticising the elite Revolutionary Guards for the provocative messages they wrote on ballistic missiles before testing them. "We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground (missile) cities to disrupt the JCPOA (nuclear deal)," he said during the debate, which comes ahead of the May 19 election. Armed Forces spokesman General Masoud Jazayeri responded that the missile programme had "no connection" to the nuclear deal. "We again stress and recommend the presidential candidates to avoid controversial entries into important and sensitive military and defence issues of the country and giving false information to people," said Jazayeri, according to the website of state broadcaster IRIB. "The existence of underground missile sites are an important deterrent factor against the sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the nation," Jazayeri added. Iran says its ballistic missile tests are part of its legitimate defence programme and are not a violation of the 2015 deal, under which it agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to certain sanctions. But Washington has used them as a pretext for fresh sanctions, saying the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future. All six candidates in the presidential election support the nuclear deal since it had the tacit backing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Rouhani has accused his conservative opponents of trying to derail it during negotiations. "Tell people clearly, what will you do regarding (the nuclear deal)? You were all against it," he said during the televised debate. "When (US President Donald) Trump took office you were celebrating because he said he would tear up the deal. Today people should know whether sanctions and confrontation are coming back or not," he added. Syrian girls walk past destroyed buildings in the rebel-held town of Douma on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on May 6, 2017 Fighting subsided in Syria on Saturday after a deal signed by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey to create four "de-escalation zones" began to take effect. The multi-phase plan, signed Thursday in the Kazakh capital Astana, is one of the more ambitious efforts to end Syria's six-year conflict. It provides for a ceasefire, rapid deliveries of humanitarian aid and the return of refugees after "de-escalation zones" are created across stretches of eight Syrian provinces. Those zones would see a halt to hostilities, including air strikes. The plan also proposes the deployment of "third-party" monitoring forces. It began coming into effect at midnight (2100 GMT Friday), according to Russia, but co-sponsors have until June 4 to finalise the zones' borders. Syrian children pose for a photo near their house in the rebel-held town of Douma on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on May 6, 2017 The four main battlegrounds covered are the northwestern province of Idlib, parts of central Syria, the south, and the opposition enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Some of those areas had already seen a drop in violence by Saturday, and Russia's defence ministry said Syria was "stable" at the end of the deal's first day. "We noticed there are fewer airplanes, almost none. People are buying and selling more," said Abu Qais, a 26-year-old trader in Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province. "Psychologically, residents are relieved," he told AFP. - 'Hostilities have dropped' - A Syrian government forces' MiG-23 drops a payload during a reported air strike on the rebel-held area of Qabun in the capital Damascus on May 6, 2017 Syrian government warplanes could be heard from Eastern Ghouta around midday, according to an AFP correspondent in the rebel-held town of Douma. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces were clashing with rebels in the central province of Hama, dropping barrel bombs and firing artillery at opposition-held villages there. "Despite these violations, we can still say that hostilities have dropped," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. The Britain-based Observatory said a child was killed in government shelling in parts of Homs province that fall within the de-escalation zones, the first civilian death in the zones since the deal began coming into effect. Another seven rebel fighters were killed in other areas, up from an earlier toll of four. Several ceasefires have been agreed since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011, but they have failed to permanently stem the fighting. The new deal was penned by opposition backer Turkey as well as Russia and Iran, which both support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian children walk past a damaged car in the rebel-held town of Douma on the eastern outskirts of Damascus on May 6, 2017 It was reached during negotiations to shore up a faltering truce deal brokered in December. The agreement would initially last six months but could be extended by the guarantors. It does not specify that the safe zones take effect immediately, but gives the three guarantor states two weeks to form working groups to delineate them and then until June 4 to come up with definitive boundaries. Access to the areas will be controlled by security zones with checkpoints and observation posts. - US-Russia calls - The deal also calls for a continued fight against the Islamic State group and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, which could pose challenges. In Idlib province in particular, Fateh al-Sham is a major component of the rebel forces that control the area. The Syrian government and rebel groups are not signatories, and both sides spoke vaguely Saturday about "violations" of the agreement. A senior military source in Damascus said the army had noted breaches but was waiting for the zones to be fully delineated. And a member of the rebel delegation to the talks said the opposition was "recording violations of the deal committed by the regime and its militias". "We will send this list to the Russians via the Turks," the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. Germany said it was worried by reports of violations but that successfully implementing the deal could be the first step towards a real ceasefire. US officials have given the deal a guarded welcome and have followed up its signing with several phone calls with Russia. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasimov on Saturday. World powers are hoping success on the ground could pave the way for a new round of political talks in Geneva this month. More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with demonstrations against Assad. The National Coalition, a leading Syrian opposition body, elected prominent dissident Riad Seif, 70, as its new head on Saturday. Seif, who spent eight years in Syrian prison for his opposition activities, will replace Anas al-Abdeh. Illegal migrants, who were rescued by the Libyan coastguard in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, arrive at a naval base in Tripoli, on May 6, 2017 Gunmen mugged 129 migrants on a rubber dinghy headed for Europe and also stole the craft's engine, abandoning them off the Libyan coast, Libya's navy said on Saturday. Navy spokesman General Ayoub Qassem said the gunmen in a speedboat chased the dinghy on Friday, boarded it around five nautical miles off the town of Zuwara and stole the migrants' possessions. The migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, including 27 women and two children, were stranded at sea for several hours before being rescued by Libyan coastguard alerted by a local fisherman, Qassem told AFP. The International Organization for Migration said a total of 371 migrants were rescued on Friday thanks to the intervention of fishermen in three separate incidents off Zuwara. The Libyan coastguard said on Saturday it rescued another 168 migrants whose boat had run into trouble off Tripoli but was unable to assist a second vessel with an unknown number on board around two nautical miles away. "This type of operation takes a lot of time. We don't have the means," said Qassem, calling for international relief groups to provide Libya with boats and equipment to save more migrant lives. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Cairo's historic al-Azhar is one of the world's leading Islamic seats of learning The head of Egypt's Al-Azhar university, one of the world's leading Islamic seats of learning, has been replaced after labelling a controversial Muslim reformer an apostate, the institution said. The development came as Al-Azhar is pressured by critics who say the venerable Sunni Muslim authority has not done enough to counter Islamist extremism. Ahmed Hosni Taha, the acting university president, had been forced to apologise on Thursday after saying reformer Islam al-Behairy was an "apostate" for attacking some of the founding scholars of Islamic law. His apology was followed by a statement on Friday from Al-Azhar saying that Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, who heads the institution that runs the university, had replaced Taha. Taha had made the remarks about Behairy during a television interview. "My response...was incorrect and it contradicts the way of Al-Azhar," Taha said in an apology posted on the university's website. Behairy was a talk show host who had infuriated Al-Azhar's traditional clergy with attacks on canonical religious books and some of Sunni Islam's most important scholars. He was sentenced to a year in prison for "insulting religion" and released in late 2016 in a presidential pardon. Min Bahadur Sherchan was on a bid to reclaim a title that he lost to Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura when he perished at Everest base camp An 85-year-old ex-Gurkha who was attempting to reclaim his title as the world's oldest person to summit Mount Everest died at base camp on Saturday. Min Bahadur Sherchan was on a bid to reclaim a title that he lost to Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura in 2013. "He passed away at the base camp today at 5:14pm," Gyanendra Shrestha, an official with the tourism ministry who is at the 5,380 metres (17,600 feet) camp, told AFP. The former soldier became the world's oldest climber to summit Everest in 2008 when he was 76, but he lost the record five years later when Miura summited the 8,848-metre peak at the age of 80. Speaking to AFP this year before returning to Everest, the slightly hard of hearing grandfather said he just wanted to prove to himself that he could still make it to the top of the world. "My aim is not to break anybody's record, this is not a personal competition between individuals. I wish to break my own record," Sherchan told AFP from Kathmandu in February. Sherchan's death is the second fatality of the spring climbing season on Everest, which runs from late April to the end of May. Experienced Swiss climber Ueli Steck died last month when he fell from a steep ridge during an acclimatisation climb. Nearly 750 people will be attempting to reach the summit of the world's highest peak during the narrow window of good weather that usually falls in mid-May. Hundreds of climbers have been on Everest for weeks to acclimatise before making a bid for the top. This year is particularly crowded as it is the last chance for climbers who were forced off the mountain by the devastating 2015 earthquake to use their extended permits. This has rasied concerns about dangerous traffic jams on the mountain. Mountaineering is a major revenue earner for impoverished Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 peaks over 8,000 metres. Philippines police officers look on just after an explosion in the Quiapo district of Manila, on May 6, 2017 Twin explosions in the Philippine capital on Saturday night killed two people and injured six others, police said, just over a week after another blast in the same area. Authorities initially said there were no indications the blasts were terrorist attacks but the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility. The militants cited a higher death toll than that given by police and said it was a sectarian strike against Shiite Muslims. "Five Shiites were killed and six others wounded in a bomb blast by Islamic State fighters in the centre of Manila in the Philippines," IS propaganda outfit Amaq said in a statement. The initial blast occurred around 6:00pm (1000 GMT) near a mosque in Quiapo, one of the older parts of Manila where there are big slums, city police chief Oscar Albayalde said. The explosion killed two and injured four others, he said. A second blast occurred in the same area around 8:30pm, according to an AFP photographer who was among a group of journalists near the scene. Two policemen who were inspecting the area after the first blast were injured by the second explosion, Albayalde said in an interview on GMA television. The blasts occurred along a narrow street crammed with stalls hawking clothes and homeware. They were just outside an Islamic community centre and about a hundred metres (300 feet) from the Quiapo Golden Mosque. The Philippines is a mainly Catholic country but it has a significant Muslim minority, some of whom live in Quiapo. The first blast damaged part of the Islamic centre and shattered windows in nearby buildings, according to the AFP photographer and witnesses. "It was very powerful," Omar Yahya, 22, who was at the Islamic centre when the first explosion occurred, told AFP afterwards at a Manila police station. "Windows were broken and the wooden part of the building collapsed." - 'No sign of terror attack' - Police chief Albayalde said the first blast appeared to have come from a package that was being delivered by a man on a motorcycle. "The man on the motorcycle who delivered the package was killed. The other killed was the person who received the package," he said in an interview on DZRH radio. Albayalde said there was no signs that the blasts were terrorist attacks. "We do not want to speculate but it's possible this is a gang war," he said. "We do not see any indication that this is a terror attack." The other explosion in Quiapo just over a week ago, which occurred as Southeast Asian leaders were meeting for a summit a few kilometres (miles) away, injured 14 people. IS claimed responsibility for the April 28 explosion, but police insisted it was not a terrorist attack, nor was it related in any way to the gathering of political leaders. Police said the April 28 explosion involved a home-made pipe bomb and was carried out by people involved in a private grievance. They said one person had been arrested over that attack. Militants who have pledged allegiance to IS are based in the southern Philippines, more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Manila. Those militants mainly operate in the south, although they have been blamed for terrorists attacks in Manila. The Abu Sayyaf group, which is most infamous for kidnapping foreigners and killing them if ransoms are not paid, was blamed for the bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that killed 116 people. Italy Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Saturday held talks in Tripoli with top Libyan officials on peace efforts for the war-wracked country and ways to curb illegal migration to Europe. Alfano met Government of National Accord head Fayez al-Sarraj and his vice president Ahmad Meitig to discuss "efforts being made towards national reconciliation", the GNA said in a statement. Alfano's trip to Libya came hot on the heels of a two-day visit Thursday and Friday to the oil-rich North African nation by his British counterpart Boris Johnson. Johnson met Sarraj on Thursday and congratulated him on meeting earlier this week in Abu Dhabi with Libyan military strongman Khalifa al-Haftar, who does not recognise the GNA's legitimacy. Italy, too, has welcomed the meeting between Haftar and Serraj. The foreign ministry has said that Alfano's visit was aimed at renewing Italy's support for peace efforts to ensure Libya's stability. Alfano and Libyan leaders also discussed ways of curbing the influx of migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya, as authorities Saturday said that hundreds of migrants were rescued by the Libyan coastguard. The Libyan judiciary in March suspended a deal struck the previous month between Libya and Italy aimed at bolstering joint efforts to stop the flow of migrants. In April, the Italian government said that a dozen of rival tribes in southern Libya had agreed to cooperate on securing the country's borders to prevent illegal migration. Sarraj has struggled to impose the authority of his fragile government, which continues to meet resistance at home despite its backing by many political and military leaders. Six years after a revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Each year, thousands of people, mostly from sub-Saharan countries, board boats operated by traffickers in the country's west heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) away. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Riad Seif, seen in 2012, served as a parliamentarian under both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez before him, and is one of the few lawmakers to have openly criticised the regime and its economic policies The National Coalition, a leading Syrian opposition body, elected prominent dissident Riad Seif as its new head on Saturday, the body's media office said. Seventy-year-old Seif, who hails from Damascus, won 58 votes from the Istanbul-based National Coalition's 102 members, beating out the younger Khaled Khoja. Born into a family of modest means in Damascus, he began working in a textiles factory aged 12, before eventually opening his own workshop, which later became a profitable factory. Seif served as a parliamentarian under both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez before him, and is one of the few lawmakers to have openly criticised the regime and its economic policies. He spent a total of eight years in jail for organising weekly roundtables at his home on human rights issues in the 2000s and left Syria in June 2012. When the National Coalition was formed later on that year, Seif served as its vice president. In his new role, he will replace current head Anas al-Abdeh, who was elected in March 2016. National Coalition members also elected Abdulrahman Mustafa and Salwa Ktaw as vice presidents. Syria's war began in 2011 with widespread demonstrations against the Assad government, which responded with a brutal crackdown. It is German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's first visit to Israel since taking up the post in March, although he has made the trip before while serving as foreign minister German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Israel on Saturday at the start of a three-day trip just days after a row between Germany's foreign minister and Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Steinmeier's office said he would meet Netanyahu on Sunday. He is also scheduled to meet Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and on Monday will call on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters in the occupied West Bank. It is Steinmeier's first visit to Israel since taking up the post in March, although he has made the trip before while serving as foreign minister. Netanyahu cancelled an April 25 meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, after the visiting diplomat declined to call off meetings with rights groups critical of Israel's government. Gabriel met members of Breaking The Silence, which seeks to document alleged Israeli military abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories, and of B'Tselem, which works on a number of human rights issues and strongly opposes Israeli settlement building. Netanyahu's right-wing government says the groups unfairly tarnish Israel and strengthen the arguments of its enemies. Steinmeier is not scheduled to meet either group. Gabriel told journalists in Jerusalem after the snub he regretted Netanyahu's decision, but also said he did not think it would badly impact relations between the two countries. Such disputes have arisen in the past between visiting foreign officials and Israel's government. In February, Israel reprimanded the Belgian ambassador after his country's premier, Charles Michel, met members of both B'Tselem and Breaking The Silence during a visit to the Jewish state. But there was no public rebuke when British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met members of Peace Now, an anti-settlement non-governmental organisation, during a visit in March. Israel has occupied the West Bank for 50 years, and Jewish settlement building in the Palestinian territory has drawn intense international criticism. Israeli settlements are seen as illegal under international law and major stumbling blocks to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state. Germany is critical of Israeli settlement policy. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (C) sits among the 82 rescued Chibok girls during a reception ceremony at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, on May 7, 2017 Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday vowed to help to 82 schoolgirls who have been freed from more than three years of Boko Haram captivity after a prisoner swap. The girls -- who were among more than 200 kidnapped in 2014 from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeast Nigeria -- travelled to the capital Abuja a day after their release to meet Buhari. "I cannot express in a few words how happy I am to welcome our dear girls back to freedom," Buhari said in a statement, pledging that the presidency would "personally supervise" authorities charged with ensuring the girls' "health, education, security and general well-being". Presidential aide Bashir Ahmad tweeted a photograph of the girls, most of whom were sitting on the floor of Buhari's official residence, as the president sat in an armchair dressed in white traditional robes. The meeting came shortly before Buhari was whisked out of the country on Sunday evening after weeks of concern over his health, heading to London for "follow-up medical consultation", according to his spokesman Femi Adesina. Nigeria schoolgirls released The teenagers, who had been taken to a medical facility for checks after arriving in Abuja by military helicopter, met with the president for about 45 minutes, said an AFP reporter at the scene. Adesina said they had now been "handed over to those who will supervise their rehabilitation". He did not comment on how many imprisoned members of Boko Haram -- whose fight to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has left at least 20,000 dead since 2009 -- had been released in the swap. But AFP understands at least three suspected senior commanders, all of them Chadian nationals, were handed over. Information Minister Lai Mohammed said he could not confirm claims that as many five militants were released. - 'Joyous moment' - The girls arrived from the northeastern town of Banki, on the border with Cameroon, and were met at the airport by Buhari's chief of staff Abba Kyari. This image provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross on May 7, 2017 at a military base in Borno State shows some of the 82 rescued Chibok girls heading towards a Nigerian Army helicopter "Welcome our girls, welcome our sisters, we are glad to have you back," Kyari told them, describing it as "a very joyous moment". A military source said one of the girls was "carrying a baby with her, a boy of less than two years". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it "facilitated the safe return" of the girls as a "neutral intermediary" and tweeted photographs of girls boarding a military helicopter. Many of the students wore colourful akara print dresses, visibly tired from their ordeal. The presidency had announced late Saturday that months of talks with the jihadists had "yielded results" some six months after 21 other Chibok girls were freed with the help of the ICRC and the Swiss government. - Symbol of conflict - Boko Haram fighters stormed the girls' school on the evening of April 14, 2014, and kidnapped 276 teenaged girls who were preparing to sit high school exams. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the hours that followed but the remaining 219 were held by the group. Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau claimed in a video message that they had converted to Islam. The audacious kidnapping brought the insurgency to world attention, triggering global outrage that galvanised support from the former US first lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood stars. The girls have become a symbol of Nigeria's brutal conflict. Last month, parents and supporters marked the three-year anniversary of the abduction, describing the situation as an unending "nightmare". Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose two daughters were among those kidnapped, said of the latest releases: "This is good news to us. We have been waiting for this day. "We hope the remaining girls will soon be released." Accounting for three other girls who have since been found, a total of 113 Chibok girls are now missing, although Shekau claimed last August that some had been killed in military air strikes. Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war, seizing thousands of women and children, and forcibly recruiting young men and boys into their ranks. In a less publicised attack in November 2014, some 300 children were among about 500 people kidnapped from the town of Damasak, on the border with Niger, in the far north of Borno state. Most are still missing. Illegal migrants, who were rescued by the Libyan coastguard in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, arrive at the naval base in the capital Tripoli on May 6, 2017 Some 6,000 migrants hoping to head to Europe were rescued in the Mediterranean on Friday and Saturday in dozens of frantic operations coordinated by the Italian coastguard. Some 3,000 were picked up Saturday by the navy, coastguard, EU border agency Frontex and several NGOs, the coastguard said in a statement. Some of them have already been taken to shore in Italy while others, including 730 onboard a ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), were on their way. The Libyan coastguard told AFP it had picked up around 170 migrants off Tripoli on Saturday, but had failed to rescue others "due to a lack of means". The rescues came a day after around 3,000 others were found floating in rubber boats and on makeshift rafts after having left Libya, heading towards Italy. The International Organization for Migration meanwhile said fishermen had rescued 371 migrants Friday off the coast of the Libyan town of Zuwara. Italy and Libya have moved to boost cooperation in recent months in order to cut the number of people risking their lives by attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. The Italian government said in a deal signed with Libya in February that it would offer manpower as well as technical assistance to the Libyan coastguard. Rome said this week that it had delivered two speedboats to Libya at the end of last month, with eight more due by the end of June. Some 37,000 people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans, have arrived in Italy from Libya since the start of the year -- a figure some thirty percent higher than a year earlier, according to the Italian interior ministry. More than 4,500 migrants died or were missing and feared drowned in 2016, and another 1,000 have met the same fate this year. NEW YORK (AP) - Laura Poitras announces early in her Julian Assange documentary "Risk": "This is not the film I thought I was making." "I thought I could ignore the contradictions," the Oscar-winning "Citizenfour" filmmaker says in a voiceover. "I thought they were not part of the story. I was so wrong. They are becoming the story." Decoding "the story" when it comes to the WikiLeaks founder has never been easy. It's evolving even now, just as Poitras' six-years-in-the-making documentary - one made with rare access to an explosively controversial figure under ever-increasing international pressure - is hitting theaters. This image released by Showtime shows Julian Assange in a scene from the documentary "Risk." (Praxis Films/Showtime via AP) Following WikiLeaks publishing of a trove of CIA hacking documents in March, the Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to seek the arrest of Assange, who has been holed away in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for nearly five years to avoid extradition to Sweden. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton blamed "Russian WikiLeaks" for swaying November's election by publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. (Assange, responding Wednesday on Twitter, told Clinton to "Blame yourself.") Also on Wednesday, FBI director James Comey, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the FBI had "high confidence" Russia was behind the DNC hacking. Comey said WikiLeaks was publishing damaging "intelligence porn." Assange responded on Twitter Thursday, accusing Comey of lying during his testimony. Poitras, whose "Citizenfour" went behind the headlines to reveal NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, initially hoped that "Risk" would do something similar for Assange. She was making an intimate documentary about a brave visionary who risks everything in his crusade to make governments transparent. But, like many others who have been confounded by the WikiLeaks founder, Poitras underwent an evolution in her opinion of Assange. It's a journey she documents in the film, running right up until now. "The ambivalence and struggle, I share that. I did try to let the audience see a very complex picture. And I grapple with it," Poitras said in an interview Tuesday. "For me, I absolutely support and defend their right to publish and I think that they have brought forward extraordinarily important information through their publishing. And I'm also disturbed by some of the things that are said in the film and I didn't want to exclude those things. That's not my job, to paint a simplistic portrait." Poitras first contacted Assange in 2010 after WikiLeaks published the "Collateral Murder" video, which showed a U.S. helicopter in Iraq shooting several men, including two Reuters journalists. Poitras, who became focused on making films about post-9/11 surveillance, was welcomed into Assange's inner circle. "Risk" captures some of the inside drama behind many earth-shattering WikiLeaks publications; it opens with Assange trying to reach Clinton at the State Department ahead of the imminent leak of thousands of diplomatic cables. It also shows Assange in a bracingly intimate, sometimes surreal way: getting his hair cut by his loyal followers; disguising himself before fleeing to Ecuador's embassy; being interviewed by Lady Gaga. There are hints, too, of the accusations that have often followed him, like that he runs WikiLeaks like its own intelligence agency. Poitras first premiered the film a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was received largely positively. But some questioned whether Poitras was too closely aligned with her subject. Variety wondered if it was a "glorified fan film." The Guardian labeled it "an embedded report that sacrifices impartiality for access." "I never define myself as an activist. I define myself as a journalist and a filmmaker," said Poitras. "There's a long tradition of journalism that's first-person perspective. I don't think that journalism is by definition activism. I think it's just stories that are told from a subjective point of view." But developments that followed that premiere led Poitras to recut her film. She added the voiceovers that question and occasionally distance herself from Assange. She updated the film to include the DNC leak and allegations of a Russian connection, and even late last month went back in to include Attorney General Jeff Sessions vow to make Assange's arrest "a priority." Numerous alleged victims also came forward to accuse Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks insider and significant personality in the film, of sexual harassment and bullying. (Appelbaum has denied it.) Poitras added to the film her acknowledgement of a previous relationship with Appelbaum and said he was abusive to someone close to her after their relationship ended. A representative for Appelbaum didn't respond to a request for comment about the film or abuse allegations. Slate, however, still criticized the updated "Risk" as "what happens when a filmmaker gets too close to her subject." Yet "Risk" also repeatedly shows questionable behavior by Assange. In one scene he calls the rape allegation in Sweden, which he has denied, "a thoroughly tawdry radical feminist political positioning thing." Poitras has shown him multiple cuts of the film. Before the Cannes screening, he texted her that he considers "Risk" ''a threat" to him personally. "There were pressuring demands that I remove scenes from the film - that I didn't - that involved what he was talking about in terms of the Swedish case," said Poitras. "I don't think he has legitimate reason to (perceive the film as a threat)." Assange and WikiLeaks also did not respond to requests for comment. "Citizenfour" came about while Poitras was working on "Risk." She was contacted by Snowden, who said he wanted to leak NSA documents to her, and she put him in touch with reporter Glenn Greenwald and documented their clandestine meetings in a Hong Kong hotel room. "I got pulled into the story in a way that I never anticipated. Being pulled into the story led to all different types of conflicts and shifting relationships that happened that are in the film," said Poitras. "I'm part of the story now." She nearly abandoned the Assange project but, convinced of its value to history, eventually returned to it. "This is a moment of shifting power dynamics and how the internet is impacting that, for better and for worse," said Poitras. "We have a president now who communicates through Twitter. The film, I think, is trying to capture that historical moment." ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP This image released by Showtime shows Sarah Harrison, left, and Julian Assange in a scene from the documentary "Risk." (Praxis Films/Showtime via AP) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - With hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets daily and international pressure mounting, embattled President Nicolas Maduro is doing something that once seemed unthinkable: Tearing up the constitution written by his beloved political godfather, the late President Hugo Chavez. Chavez pushed through what he called an "anti-capitalist" constitution soon after he launched his socialist revolution here in 1999. Maduro's move to rewrite that charter could allow him to postpone elections he was sure to lose. But many are appalled that he wants to mess with one of Chavez's signature acts as president. How did a constitution come to be so important in a country that's rewritten its founding document more than two dozen times? Here's a look at Chavez's constitution and why it's such a big deal in Venezuela: FILE - In this Sept. 27, 2010 file photo, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez holds up a miniature copy of the constitution during a press conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. Chavez's first order of business as president was to rework the old constitution. The results were packaged into a tiny blue book that became one of the most iconic visual symbols of his revolution. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File) ___ LITTLE BLUE BOOK When Chavez was sworn in in 1999, he put his hand on the old constitution and called it "moribund." His first order of business as president was to rework the charter. He had the resulting constitution packaged into a tiny blue book that became one of the most iconic visual symbols of his revolution. He loved to whip it out at public events, and referred to it as the most important text after The Bible. Supporters carried huge posters of the little blue book at Chavez rallies, and begged him to sign their copies. When he died in 2013 and Maduro became president, the blue book became an even more potent symbol, connecting the deeply unpopular Maduro to the revolution's founder. Hardly a day passes without Maduro or some other government official appearing in public and waving the document, which has become the Venezuelan version of the late Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong's "little red book." ___ SWEEPING CHANGES Symbolism aside, the new constitution profoundly altered Venezuela's political structure. It extended presidential terms, consolidated the two houses of congress into a single body, expanded the branches of power from three to five, and let Chavez call immediate across-the-board elections. Together, the changes allowed Chavez to parlay a five-year presidential term into a 13-year presidency, and ushered in two decades of socialist rule. At times, the sweeping changes played both ways. The leaders of a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez cited the right conferred by the new constitution to rebel against undemocratic governments. The constitution also included a raft of more cosmetic changes, including changing the country's name from just Venezuela to "The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela." Chavez himself tried to amend - though not rewrite - the constitution twice. A 2007 effort failed in a referendum, but he won a 2009 amendment that eliminated presidential term limits. ____ CHAVEZ'S LEGACY Chavez remains the most charismatic political figure in a generation here, and the opposition has started to use him as an unlikely spokesman. Protesters last month began circulating videos of Chavez speaking on police brutality and the right to protest. Maduro's bid to rewrite the constitution has played right into the opposition narrative that he is betraying the revolution's core values. His opponents charge that Maduro is using the constitutional convention as an excuse to put off next year's presidential elections, which he was sure to lose. ___ CONFUSION BOMB Maduro has been vague about what changes he wants to make. He says the convention is needed to "restore peace" and has mentioned giving more power to communes, the small neighborhood groups created by Chavez that have been one of the revolution's last bastions of support. The current constitution does not really dictate how Maduro should select the members of the convention, and he will probably pick a sympathetic group. The whole enterprise is likely meant as a "big confusion bomb," according to Northwestern University professor Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, who has studied the country's constitutional history. Maduro's main aim may be to get people talking about something besides the five weeks of anti-government protests that have left three dozen dead. Old habits die hard, though. At his rally to kick off the rewriting process, Maduro could not resist the practice that's dominated socialist rallies in this country for a generation: He held up a copy of the little blue book for the crowd to cheer. ___ Hannah Dreier on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hanahdreier FILE - In this May 17, 2016 file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro holds up Venezuela's constitution packaged into a tiny blue book, during a press conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. Hardly a day passes without Maduro or some other government official appearing in public and waving the document, which has become the Venezuelan version of the late Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong's "little red book." (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File) FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2014 file photo, a man holds up a painting depicting Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez holding his his tiny blue book, in Caracas, Venezuela. When Chavez was alive, supporters carried huge posters of the little blue book at rallies, and begged him to sign their copies. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File) FILE - This Dec. 15, 2014 file photo shows a painting depicting former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during an anti-USA march in Caracas, Venezuela. Chavez remains the most charismatic political figure in a generation here, and the opposition has started to use him as an unlikely spokesman. Protesters in April 2016 began circulating videos of Chavez speaking on police brutality and the right to protest. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File) SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Congress should consider authorizing the U.S. Department of Energy to study encasing much of the nuclear waste at the nation's largest waste repository in a cement-like mixture instead of turning it into glass logs, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Doing so before burying the waste would be less expensive than a process called vitrification to turn the waste into the glass logs, said the report issued Wednesday. The process called grouting might also allow waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in a remote part of southcentral Washington state to be treated more quickly, the report said. FILE - In this July 9, 2014, file photo, a sign informs visitors of prohibited items on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. A new report says Congress should consider authorizing the Department of Energy to use grout to stabilize some of Hanford's radioactive waste, rather than a more expensive plan to turn it into glass. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) The waste is left over from plutonium production for nuclear weapons, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan that led to the end of World War II. The Energy Department replied that it agreed with the office's recommendations but Washington state officials still believe the best way to safely deal with the waste and protect the environment is by turning it into glass. "We remain firm in our conviction that vitrification, or glass, is the superior process," said Alex Smith, manager for the state's Department of Ecology's Nuclear Waste Program. There have been numerous delays in treating the waste stored in tanks at Hanford. Smith said state officials fear a study on a different way to deal with the waste could "redirect critical funding away from the ongoing work to get treatment processes up and running by 2023." U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, also voiced concerns that launching a new study could delay the work. "We can't afford to get distracted from the job at hand," Cantwell said. Hanford has about 56 million gallons (211 million liters) of waste stored in underground tanks until it can be treated for permanent disposal. Some tanks date back to World War II and are leaking. Another 42 million gallons (159 million liters) of similar waste from nuclear weapons production is stored at the government's Savannah River Site in western South Carolina near Georgia. The process to encase waste there in the cement-like mixture called grout has been used for small amounts of the waste. Ground was broken at Hanford in 2002 for a $17 billion vitrification plant - one of the federal government's most expensive construction projects - to separate much of the waste into high-level and low-level radioactive material. But the plant's construction has been halted by design and safety concerns. After the highly radioactive waste is immobilized in the glass logs, it would be shipped to a national repository proposed for Yucca Mountain in Nevada which has not been built. The proposal to study cement-like encasement would only apply to waste with lower levels of radioactivity representing about 90 percent of the Hanford waste. The Energy Department decided two decades ago to turn Hanford's tank waste into glass logs but the new report said innovations in grouting technology now make that process more attractive. No tank waste has yet been treated at Hanford despite Energy Department spending of more than $19 billion, the report said. AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - An arrest affidavit says the University of Texas student accused of stabbing four students, one fatally, told police he didn't remember attacking anyone. Kendrex J. White, who authorities have said suffered from mental health troubles, was charged with murder in Monday's campus attack. He remained in jail Thursday on $1 million bond. Attorneys listed for him didn't immediately return messages left Thursday. The affidavit says after the 21-year-old was taken into custody he agreed to talk. When asked if he knew why he was there, he said, "Yes, accusations of pushing someone down and I think using a bladed weapon." The affidavit says White told police it was possible he used a knife to hit someone, but didn't remember. OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Latest on Oklahoma City firefighters removing riders from a stuck roller coaster (all times local): 1 p.m. Riders who are stuck atop an Oklahoma City roller coaster are slowly being helped to a catwalk down from a peak on the ride. Oklahoma City fire Lt. Ray Lujan says crews with expertise in knot-tying and working at heights and tough angles are helping to rescue the riders Thursday. No injuries have been reported. It isn't clear how many passengers are stuck and how high off the ground. Frontier City amusement park said in a statement to TV station KFOR that park personnel helped to remove some riders from the Silver Bullet coaster. ___ 12:30 p.m. Firefighters are helping to remove riders from roller coaster cars that got stuck on the tracks at an Oklahoma City amusement park. The Oklahoma City Fire Department says no one is hurt. The department tweeted about its emergency response shortly before noon Thursday. The cars are stuck atop a peak on the roller coaster track. It isn't clear how many passengers are stuck and how high off the ground. Frontier City amusement park said in a statement to TV station KFOR that park personnel helped to remove some riders from the Silver Bullet coaster. Firefighters are assisting others. JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Three former South African heads of state teamed up for the first time Friday to criticize President Jacob Zuma, who faces growing calls to step down after a series of corruption scandals. Thabo Mbeki, F.W. de Klerk and Kgalema Motlanthe spoke in Johannesburg, representing both the country's last leader under white minority rule and those who led post-apartheid South Africa along with Nelson Mandela. They launched a series of national discussions on the crisis with backing from the foundations of Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and other anti-apartheid leaders. South Africa has seen tens of thousands protest against Zuma in recent weeks after he fired the widely respected finance minister, leading two credit ratings agencies to downgrade the country to junk status. The firing led some top leaders of the ruling African National Congress, including the deputy president, to sharply criticize Zuma. Former South African Presidents; left to right. F.W. de Klerk; Kgalema Motlanthe and Thabo Mbeki in Johannesburg, Friday, May 5, 2017. The three teamed up for the first time to critisize President Jacob Zuma, who faces growing calls to step down after a series of corruption scandals. (AP Photo) "No person or institution should have more authority than the will of the people," Mbeki said. De Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela for their work in transitioning from white minority rule, said Zuma has failed to uphold the country's laws. The three leaders urged South Africans to defend the constitution as many see threats to the country's democracy. "The rose we planted in 1994 is indeed sick," Mbeki said, referring to the election that brought Mandela to power. A court on Thursday ordered the president to explain the finance minister's firing. The ANC called the order "pandering to the whims of the opposition." Calls are growing for Zuma to resign. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has called for a parliamentary vote of no confidence against him. Scandals around Zuma have included the spending of millions of dollars in state funds on his private home. He has paid back some of the money. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A Turkish court has rejected an appeal filed by Wikipedia against a ban in Turkey on its website. Turkish authorities blocked access to the free online encyclopedia on April 29, on grounds that it was "acting with groups conducting a smear campaign against Turkey." Turkish media reports said a court in Ankara ordered the ban after Wikipedia refused to remove two pages that claimed that Turkey provided support to jihadis in Syria. Wikipedia filed an appeal against the ban earlier this week. The state-run Anadolu Agency said Friday the court ruled that freedom of expression can be "restricted in certain situations." The court also said the pages' content amounted to "unfair attacks." The telecommunications authority has said the ban would stay in place until the pages are removed. NEW YORK (AP) - The latest on Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's New York court case (all times local): 10:55 a.m. A federal judge in New York City has set an April 2018 trial date for Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (wah-KEEN' ehl CHAH'-poh gooz-MAHN'). FILE - In this Jan. 19, 2017 file photo provided by U.S. law enforcement, authorities escort Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, center, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan ruled Thursday, May 4, 2017, that Guzman needs to stay in solitary confinement at a New York City lockup to keep him from trying to control his drug-trafficking empire from behind bars. Cogan rejected a request by Guzman's defense team to order him released from an ultrahigh-security wing of a jail in lower Manhattan and be allowed in the general inmate population and receive visitors. (U.S. law enforcement via AP, File) Guzman answered judge's questions through an interpreter Friday. He spent half the hearing looking across the courtroom at his wife, who smiled and waved to him as she entered. Defense lawyers complained that glass separated them from the defendant during their meetings, hindering communications. The judge said the matter will be investigated. The defendant escaped from prison in Mexico twice. One escape involved a milelong tunnel connected to the shower in his cell. Guzman was brought to the U.S. in January to face charges that he oversaw a multibillion-dollar international drug trafficking operation responsible for murders and kidnappings. ___ 12:10 a.m. Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (wah-KEEN' ehl CHAH'-poh gooz-MAHN') returns to a Brooklyn courtroom as his lawyers fight to relieve restrictive jail conditions. The 59-year-old defendant famous for twice escaping from prison in Mexico lost his bid Thursday to be allowed in the general inmate population and receive visitors. He returns to court Friday. Federal Judge Brian Cogan said the U.S. government could apply tough jail conditions on a man who escaped once through a mile-long tunnel stretching from the shower in his cell. He relaxed Special Administrative Measures enough for Guzman to communicate with his wife through written questions and answers. Guzman was brought to the U.S. in January to face charges that he oversaw a multibillion-dollar international drug trafficking operation responsible for murders and kidnappings. PARIS (AP) - French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told The Associated Press on Friday that whether or not she wins Sunday's runoff vote, "we changed everything." In an interview in her Paris headquarters, Le Pen said there could still be a surprise on Sunday despite polls that show she is trailing independent centrist rival Emmanuel Macron by a large margin. Le Pen has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah with racist, anti-Semitic overtones, closer than ever to the French presidency, riding a wave of populism and growing frustration amid working class voters with globalization and immigration. French far-right candidate for the presidential elections Marine Le Pen poses after an interview with the Associated Press, Friday, May 5, 2017 in Paris. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours) Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the coming parliamentary election campaign and beyond. Le Pen said she has achieved an "ideological victory ... we changed everything." "Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event, there is a gigantic political force that is born," she said on the last day of campaigning, hours before a legally required election news blackout that starts at midnight. Le Pen said her party managed to "impose the overhaul" of French politics and set the tone of the presidential election, which was dominated by anti-establishment sentiment. The two parties that have governed France for decades, the leftist Socialists and the right-wing conservatives, did not even make it into the presidential runoff. "The former traditional parties are all blackballed," Le Pen told the AP. Asked whether she would be able to bring the divided country together if elected, she was adamant. "Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place," Le Pen said. "We must re-weave the links among people." She said Macron, by contrast, would worsen divisions, since she says he represents the urban elite and big business interests. French far-right candidate for the presidential elections Marine Le Pen poses after an interview with the Associated Press, Friday, May 5, 2017 in Paris. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours) A painting made by an unidentified Russian artist shows Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, French far-right candidate for the presidential elections Marine le Pen and U.S President Donald Trump, at Le Pen's campaign headquarters, Friday, May 5, 2017 in Paris. Inscription reads; In the name of People. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours) MADRID (AP) - Relatives and lawyers of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez want the Red Cross to verify his health and are seeking to bring President Nicolas Maduro's government before a Spanish court for alleged terrorism crimes. Spain's laws allow judges to take on cases for crimes committed outside of the country as long as the victims are Spanish, although very few have succeeded. The family's lawyers said Friday that at least two opposition leaders with Spanish passports are being held in Venezuelan prisons in circumstances similar to Lopez's. In this photo taken on April 19, 2017, Leopoldo Lopez Gil, the father of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez cries as he prepares to make a speech during a protest in Madrid, Spain. Relatives and lawyers of jailed Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez announced Friday May 5, 2017 they want the Red Cross to verify his health and are seeking to bring the government of president Nicolas Maduro before a Spanish Court for alleged crimes of terrorism. (AP Photo/Paul White) Lopez's father and sister also said they doubt the veracity of the video released Thursday by the leader of the ruling socialist party in Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, in response to rumors spreading online about Lopez's health. In the video, Lopez appears "unrecognizable," said Diana Lopez, the opposition leader's sister. "We have big doubts about this video and we don't accept it as proof of him being alive." Venezuela is being roiled by almost-daily protests that have shaken Maduro's grip on power and left more than 30 people dead. The crackdown by security forces is the bloodiest since Lopez led weeks of protests in 2014, for which he was jailed and later sentenced to nearly 14 years for what are widely seen as trumped-up charges of inciting violence. "They are fearful of Leopoldo's words. That's why they condemned him, they imprisoned him and now they keep him isolated," the sister said, adding that Lopez hasn't received a visit from relatives or lawyers since April 7. The Lopez family's Spanish lawyers wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, asking the organization to verify, "through a direct personal contact," the whereabouts and health of Lopez. The organization hadn't received an official request by Friday evening, but individual appeals "don't change the organization's strategy of requesting access to detention centers in Venezuela and elsewhere to verify that the conditions are humane and that detainees are treated with dignity and respect," ICRC Spokesman Marco Yuri Jimenez said. The lawyers also announced that they would take the cases of two imprisoned Spaniards in Venezuela, Andrea Gonzalez and Yon Goicoechea, hoping to prompt action by the anti-terrorism prosecutor in Spain against Venezuelan authorities and later expand the case to other prisoners, including Lopez himself. "If the government is arming paramilitary groups, allowing them and encouraging them, then authorities are also responsible for the crimes committed by these terrorists," said Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, a member of the legal team and former justice minister. SAN DIEGO (AP) - A woman attacked by a shark in Southern California remains in critical condition, but a doctor says she's doing "remarkably well." Thirty-five-year-old Leeanne Ericson was bitten in the right buttock and leg while swimming at San Onofre State Beach last Saturday. The shark tore through muscle. Her boyfriend and others got her to shore. At a hospital news conference Friday, the family thanked emergency responders and others for saving her life. Trauma surgeon Gail Tominaga says Ericson is out of a medical coma but remains on a breathing machine and faces a long recovery. She can respond to questions by nodding her head. Doctors are hopeful she'll be able to use her leg again, although it won't be normal. She's had several operations, and more are planned. WASHINGTON (AP) - An embattled U.S. contractor, accused of failing to promptly disclose sex trafficking, alcohol smuggling and security violations on a nearly $700 million contract to secure an Iraqi air base, is denying many of the charges. An attorney for investigators, who were fired by the company, says the explanations don't stand up. Revelations of the allegations, published Wednesday by The Associated Press, were based on documents and interviews with the investigators, whom the company dismissed in March, and multiple other former employees. The company, Sallyport Global, is responsible for securing the F-16 fighter jets at Balad Air Base that are used by the Iraqi air force in efforts to uproot the Islamic State group. FILE - This July 2015 file photo shows one of four new U.S.- made F-16 fighter jets outside a hardened hangar upon its arrival to Balad air base, north of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo, File) The company first called allegations that managers had shut down sex trafficking investigations "absurd" but later acknowledged that senior management had opened a second probe months later. They say the late push to determine whether employees were involved in prostitution, was the initiative of new managers, including a new corporate ethics and compliance officer. "The new company management would never shut down an internal investigation into serious allegations like prostitution," Chief Operating Officer Matt Stuckart wrote in a statement. The company contends the second probe found all the allegations of prostitution on the base were unfounded. But the fired investigators and an attorney representing them, Debra Katz, said their attempts to interview key suspects involved in the first case were again blocked by managers. According to the investigators' original report in February 2016, four Ethiopian women who were suspected of working at a hotel in Baghdad as prostitutes moved to the base after customers at the hotel complained about contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Those customers included Sallyport employees, the investigators said The original report also listed the first names of the women and the going price for four hours of sex: $200 for the women and $300 for their pimp. The company also denies allegations by the investigators that its lawyers ordered them to keep two sets of files in order to hide some of the investigators' information from the U.S. government, which was footing the bill for the company's contract. "The investigators were specifically told to continue keeping a log, available to the U.S. government, of every investigation but not to include any attorney-client privilege information on that log - a standard practice," Stuckert said. But attorney Katz disagreed. "They were explicitly told to keep double books," she said. "There is no argument of attorney-client privilege that could justify the orders." Based in Reston, Virginia, Sallyport was founded in 2003 to work in Iraq on reconstruction, and has since expanded its operations globally. Some of Sallyport's top managers joined the company after stints with other military contractors active in Iraq. Sallyport president and CEO Victor Esposito previously worked at Blackwater Worldwide, a private military company. He then became the chief operating officer of Xe, as Blackwater renamed itself after its employees shot scores of unarmed Iraq civilians in 2007 at a Baghdad traffic circle. Jeff Morin, who worked as a Sallyport director until this week, also previously worked for Blackwater. Twice in 2013 the company was sued by former employees. In 2013, a U.S. Air Force veteran sued the company for negligence in federal court in Virginia, alleging he was severely beaten by his supervisor during a drunken card game at an air base in Iraq. Sallyport's lawyers successfully argued that the veteran had no standing in U.S. court for events that occurred in Iraq. The lawsuit was dismissed. Also that year, another ex-Sallyport employee sued the company alleging she was racially discriminated against and wrongfully terminated over drinking alcohol at a base in Qatar. While she denied she drank on the job, in her lawsuit Eboney Mayfield alleged that other Sallyport employees routinely drank on duty and weren't punished. After a judge denied the company's request to dismiss the case, Mayfield's lawyers agreed to voluntarily drop it prior to trial, indicating the parties likely reached a settlement. ___ Follow Butler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/desmondbutler ___ Online: Read documents about Sallyport's activities in Iraq at _http://apne.ws/2p87fqZ (_http%3a//apne.ws/2p87fqZ) ___ Have a tip on government contracting? Contact the authors securely at https://www.ap.org/tips Steve Anderson, a former employee of Sallyport Global, is interviewed by The Associated Press, Thursday, April 27, 2017, in New York. Anderson says his managers pressured him to sign off on faked manifests for aircraft carrying smuggled alcohol. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Robert Cole, a former Sallyport Global investigator, speaks in Columbus, Ga., on Thursday, March 23, 2017, during an interview with The Associated Press. Cole says he and another investigator were fired after uncovering wrongdoing at Balad Air Base, where the company had a security contract. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz) This undated photo obtained by the Associated Press shows an Iraqi bodyguard hired by Sallyport Global to protect VIPs. When a Toyota SUV was stolen from Balad air base, he became the chief suspect and was linked to a dangerous Iran-backed militia and was viewed by investigators as "a hard-core recruit to become a terrorist who poses a serious threat to all personnel on this base." (Photo via AP) SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Retired Air Force Col. Leo K. Thorsness, a highly decorated Vietnam War pilot who was shot down and held for six years at the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" prisoner camp, where he shared a cell with U.S. Sen. John McCain, has died. He was 85. The Medal of Honor recipient, who also ran for Congress in South Dakota and served as a legislator in Washington state, died on Tuesday, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. His cause of death wasn't disclosed. McCain, also a downed pilot during the war, released a statement calling Thorsness a dear friend. FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2016, file photo, retired U.S. Air Force Col. Leo K. Thorsness, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism as an Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War, is seen at a presidential campaign event in Clear Lake, Iowa. Thorsness died of leukemia in Florida on Tuesday, May 2, 2017, according to his wife. He was 85. Thorsness was once cellmates in a Vietnamese prison camp dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" with U.S. Sen John McCain. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File) "One of the greatest honors of my life was serving with Leo, a man whose service exemplified selfless duty and devotion to others," the Arizona senator said. In April 1967, Thorsness was piloting an F-105 fighter-bomber and attacking surface-to-air missile sites over North Vietnam when a plane in his group was shot down. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to relay the two downed crew members' positions to search teams. He attacked an enemy plane before leaving the area in search of fuel. But when he heard enemy planes were threatening search helicopters, Thorsness - despite his low fuel - returned and attacked, driving enemy planes from the rescue scene. When he was about to refuel from an airborne tanker, he learned another F-105 in his group was lower on fuel, and he allowed the other plane to refuel first, according to the society. Thorsness was awarded the Medal of Honor - the military's highest award for valor - for the mission years later. Less than two weeks after that mission, Thorsness was shot down and taken prisoner in North Vietnam. He was held at the notorious POW camp where captives were routinely beaten and tortured. McCain, also a downed pilot, was held at the same prison. "Leo would spend the next six years imprisoned, including a full year in solitary confinement, and endure unspeakable pain and suffering because of his steadfast adherence to our code of conduct," McCain said. "But Leo never let this experience break his spirit, and inspired the rest of us with his patriotism, perseverance, and hope that we would someday be free." The Minnesota native enrolled at South Dakota State University, where he met his wife, Gaylee, in 1950, and he enlisted in the military the following year. He eventually returned to South Dakota, where he was the 1974 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. He lost to incumbent Sen. George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee two years earlier. Thorsness narrowly lost another race four years later, for the U.S. House, against Democrat Tom Daschle, who later became a U.S. senator for South Dakota. Thorsness later moved to the Seattle area, where he was elected in 1988 as a legislator in Washington state. Thorsness also spent time in California and other states, and eventually moved to Florida. "I considered him a patriot," friend and former campaign volunteer Carol Twedt told the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. "His passion for politics was that he wanted to make the world a better place to live." Along with his wife, Thorsness's survivors include a daughter, Dawn Thorsness; a sister, Donna Martinson; and two grandchildren. DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio pastor has been sentenced to 18 years to life in prison in the death of his foster son, and his wife received three years for endangering the child. The Dayton Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/2qABuL4 ) 38-year-old Torace Weaver and 40-year-old Shureka Weaver were sentenced Friday. Torace Weaver was convicted last month on murder and other charges in the death of 2-year-old Stanley Thomas III. Prosecutors say Shureka Weaver failed to get Stanley treatment for a severe burn. Torace Weave's attorney says an appeal is planned. Shureka Weaver's attorney didn't return telephone messages. Torace Weaver told police Stanley slipped off a table and hit his head while playing "Superman" at a church in November 2015. A coroner said Stanley died of a catastrophic skull fracture and had numerous blunt force injuries and disfiguring burns. SYDNEY (AP) - Cronulla Sharks chairman Damian Keogh has been arrested for drug possession, the National Rugby League club's chief executive Lyall Gorman said on Saturday. "He expressed great remorse to me that he had let me down personally," Gorman said. Keogh has stepped down from his role at the NRL defending champions after police confirmed Keogh was arrested in Sydney on Friday night. A small re-sealable bag containing a quantity of white powder believed to be cocaine was alleged to have been found during the search. Keogh was issued with a field court attendance notice for possessing a prohibited drug and is due in court on June 30. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A former anti-government student leader, Moon Jae-in stands poised to succeed ousted leader Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the slain South Korean dictator who jailed him in the 1970s. Moon, the current front-runner in Tuesday's election, has led a life that seems custom-made for a starring role in South Korean opposition politics. The son of North Korean refugees, he waited in line as a boy in war-ravaged Busan for free U.S. corn flour and milk powder. Imprisoned as a university student for trying to topple South Korea's military rulers, the dictatorship later forced Moon into South Korea's elite special forces. He became a human rights lawyer and then rose to what the media called "King Secretary" to the last liberal leader of the country, with whom he worked to reconcile with North Korea. He later defended that mentor from corruption charges. FILE - In this Thursday, May 4, 2017 file photo, South Korean presidential candidate Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party raise his hands during an election campaign in Goyang, South Korea. Moon, chief of staff for a late liberal president, is forecast to win May 9 presidential election in South Korea. An election victory would be another drama in a life that includes acute post-war poverty, imprisonment for fighting against a dictator and work as a human rights lawyer. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File) Moon, 64, who lost to Park in the 2012 elections by a million votes, says this election will probably be "the very last challenge in my life." He said in a video message last month that he wants to be a leader who "opens the door for a new era, new politics and a new generation. This is my desperate wish ... I'll definitely win." Moon's popularity rose after Park was felled by a huge corruption scandal that left the country's powerful conservative establishment rudderless. Moon's nearest rival is a moderate, Ahn Cheol-soo. But Moon has established a growing lead in recent polls. He has said that if elected, he'll build a more assertive South Korea, improve ties with North Korea and review the contentious deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in the South. Some analysts say Moon's rise to power will clash with President Donald Trump, who wants more pressure on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and has suggested that South Korea should pay more for U.S. security commitments. Others say the seriousness of the North Korean nuclear threat means Moon likely won't push for any drastic changes. Similar worries surrounded Moon's friend, late President Roh Moo-hyun, who was elected in 2002 on a pledge not to "kowtow" to Washington, though he later sent troops to Iraq at U.S. request and forged a free trade deal with the United States. No understanding of Moon's career is complete without Roh, the darling of South Korean liberals who leapt to his death in 2009 amid a corruption scandal involving his family. Both started their careers as lawyers, with Moon joining Roh's law office in the 1980s. They worked together to defend the rights of poor laborers, student activists and other ordinary people until Roh entered politics as a lawmaker in 1988. After Roh became president, Moon took up a spate of top jobs at the presidential Blue House. He oversaw Seoul's preparations for the 2007 historic inter-Korean summit talks between Roh and Kim Jong Il, the late father of current North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. South Korean media called Moon "King Secretary" during Roh's 2003-2008 term. When Roh was impeached in 2004 on alleged election law violations and incompetence, Moon worked as one of his defense lawyers before the Constitutional Court eventually returned Roh to power. When Roh faced a corruption investigation after leaving office, Moon was his lawyer. After Roh killed himself, Moon announced his death on TV. "When I drink a little, I sometimes recall my old days. Then I ask myself: 'What does Roh Moo-hyun mean in my life?'" Moon wrote in a memoir published before his failed presidential bid in 2012. "He really defined my life. My life would have changed a lot if I didn't meet him. So he is my destiny." Moon was the eldest son of parents who fled North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War broke out and settled in South Korea's southeastern port city of Busan. When he was a first and second grade student, he went a Catholic church with a bucket to receive free U.S. relief goods. "It was an unpleasant thing to do. But that was the role of the eldest son. Nuns sometimes slipped candies and fruit into my hands as I was a little kid ... Those nuns looked like angels to me," Moon said in the memoir. After entering Seoul's Kyung Hee University in 1972, Moon joined student protests against Park Chung-hee, an army general-turned-dictator who ruled the country for 18 years following his 1961 coup. In 1975, Moon was expelled from his school and jailed for months for staging anti-Park protests. He was set free after getting a suspended prison term and conscripted into South Korea's special forces. All able-bodied men in South Korea must serve in the army, but Park's government often sent dissidents on tough assignments. The senior Park was gunned down by his intelligence chief in 1979, and Moon was allowed to return to school. But Moon rejoined student activism and was jailed again after Chun Doo-hwan, an army general who seized power via another coup following Park's death, squashed calls for democracy. Moon was later released thanks to what he was told were the lobbying efforts of university officials. Moon said he initially wanted to become a judge, but authorities didn't allow that because of his past record of student activism. He got a lawyer's job at Roh's office. Moon said Roh's death led him to pursue politics; he wants to amplify his mentor's successes and overcome the failures. When millions rallied for months against Park Geun-hye late last year, Moon described it as an effort to eradicate deep-rooted social inequalities and corrupt ties between political and business circles, many of them legacies of Park's dictator father. If he fails again to win back liberal rule, Moon says he'll quit politics for good. "Maybe, I can work as a lawyer again," Moon wrote recently. "But if I become an ordinary citizen, I want to live freely no matter what I do." ___ Follow Hyung-jin Kim at www.twitter.com/hyungjin1972 FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2012 file photo, South Korean presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, left, of the Democratic Party shakes hands with former South Korean President Park Geun-hye before the final televised debate for the 18th presidential election in Seoul, South Korea. Moon, chief of staff for a late liberal president, is forecast to win May 9 presidential election in South Korea. Moon, 64, who lost to Park in the 2012 elections by a million votes, says this election will probably be "the very last challenge in my life." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File) FILE - In this May 23, 2009 file photo, South Korean presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, second left, of the Democratic Party, carries a portrait of former South Korea President Roh Moo-hyun during Roh's funeral near the Roh's house in Gimhae, South Korea. Moon, chief of staff for a late liberal president, is forecast to win May 9 presidential election in South Korea. No understanding of Moon's career is complete without Roh, the darling of South Korean liberals who leapt to his death in 2009 amid a corruption scandal involving his family. Both started their careers as lawyers, with Moon joining Roh's law office in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File) WASHINGTON (AP) - In the paranoid universe of North Korea, the feverish accusations it makes against its sworn enemies bear a creepy resemblance to its own misdeeds. Its latest claim of a South Korean and American plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un using biochemical weapons comes weeks after the North Korean leader's estranged brother, Kim Jong Nam, was slain in a Malaysian airport. Authorities cited the presence of VX nerve agent, and North Korea is widely believed to have been behind responsible. While Pyongyang's allegations can't be entirely discounted, its history is replete with allegations of deadly conspiracies by its enemies, like purported planning for a U.S. invasion or nuclear war plans, and South Korean kidnapping missions. These assertions from Pyongyang often appear like the pot calling the kettle black. The North has a grim record of military aggression, abductions and assassinations against South Korean leaders that pale in comparison to anything it has faced. FILE - In this April 15, 2017, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder and grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un. In the paranoid universe of North Korea, the feverish accusations it makes against its sworn enemies bear a creepy resemblance to its own misdeeds. Its latest claim of a South Korean and American plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un using biochemical weapons comes weeks after the North Korean leader's estranged brother, Kim Jong Nam, was slain in a Malaysian airport. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) Friday's statement on state media was published days before South Korea's May 9 election. A more liberal government is likely to emerge, one that could take a softer line toward the North. But the reclusive communist government may have intended its lambaste as a rebuff to U.S. efforts to reinstate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism - a black mark that was lifted in 2008. "Pyongyang's diatribe could be an attempt to redirect attention away from its own use of a chemical weapon of mass destruction," said Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation. Here are instances of North Korea claiming conspiracies against it, alongside evidence of actions the North itself has perpetrated. ___ ASSASSINATION PLOTS: North Korea has railed against U.S. and South Korea planning for "decapitation" strikes against its leadership. In December 2008, the North even claimed it arrested a South Korean intelligence operative who was on a "terrorist mission" against Kim Jong Il, the current leader's late father. State-run news said the suspect was sent "speech and acoustic sensing and pursuit devices for tracking the movement of the top leader and even violent poison." There is precedent for South Korea plotting to kill the North Korean leader. In 1968, South Korea set up a secret commando team charged with assassinating North Korea's founding leader, Kim Il Sung, the current leader's grandfather. But it never carried out the mission. Amid warming inter-Korean relations, the team mutinied in 1971, killing its trainers and marching on Seoul before being stopped. The mission followed a 1968 North Korean attempt to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Thirty-one North Korean commandos slipped into South Korea and came within striking distance of the Seoul presidential palace. South Korean security forces repelled the assault. The only commando who was captured said he came to "slit the throat" of Park. In 1983, North Korean agents detonated a bomb meant for South Korea's leader while he visited Myanmar, then known as Burma. President Chun Doo-hwan narrowly escaped the attack. But 20 others died, including four Cabinet ministers, his ambassador to Burma and several top aides. In 1987, North Korea bombed a Korean Air passenger jet, killing 115 people. ___ ABDUCTIONS Another regular North Korea accusation: South Korea abducting or enticing the North's citizens to defect. Seoul denies the claims. More than 29,000 North Koreans have fled to the south since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government data. Many North Korean defectors report wanting to avoid the North's harsh political system and poverty. After 13 North Korean workers from a restaurant in China defected last year, Pyongyang said they were kidnapped by South Korean spies. North Korea has demanded their return. South Korea said the workers chose to resettle on their own. It was the largest group defection to the South since Kim Jong Un took power in 2011. North Korea has a record of abducting other nations' citizens, though. A U.N. Commission of Inquiry in 2014 found hundreds of South Koreans, Japanese and others were abducted between the 1960s and 1980s in operations approved by the supreme leader. In 2002, North Korea acknowledged kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens decades earlier to train spies in Japanese language and culture. Five were allowed to return to Japan that year. The North said the others died or never entered North Korea. Japan is investigating hundreds of more cases of possible abductions. ___ MILITARY AGGRESSION North Korea maintains that it must develop nuclear weapons because of the "hostile" policy of the United States, which retains 28,500 troops in South Korea and holds bi-annual military drills the North considers rehearsals for invasion. Tensions have spiked as President Donald Trump deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to waters off the Korean Peninsula. Last week, North Korean Defense Minister Gen. Pak Yong Sik said his country was ready to use pre-emptive strikes to defend against "U.S. imperialists," warning nuclear war could break out because of the "frantic war drills." Typically, North Korea has provoked the periodic military clashes that break out with South Korea. In March 2010, a North Korean torpedo allegedly sank a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 sailors. Months later, North Korea fired artillery at a South Korean island, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians. South Korea returned fire, but it's unclear if North Korea suffered casualties. North Korea is the only country to have conducted a nuclear explosion in the 21st century and it has accelerated weapons testing as aid-for-disarmament negotiations have stalled. Between 1994 and 2008, it did 16 ballistic missile tests and one nuclear test; since 2009, 72 missile tests and four nuclear tests. Even China, which fought on its side in the Korean War, opposes the testing, which violates U.N. Security Council resolutions. Experts say North Korea may already be able to hit South Korea or Japan with a nuclear weapon, and within years could have the capability to target the American mainland. FILE - In this Saturday, April 15, 2017, file photo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder and grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un. North Korea has accused the U.S. and South Korean spy agencies of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on leader Kim Jong Un involving bio-chemical weapons. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2017 file photo, Hazmat crews investigate the check in kiosk machines at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in Sepang, Malaysia as Malaysian police ordered a sweep of the airport for toxic chemicals and other hazardous substances following the killing of the North Korean leader's estranged brother, Kim Jong Nam. In the paranoid universe of North Korea, the feverish accusations it makes against its sworn enemies bear a creepy resemblance to its own misdeeds. Its latest claim of a South Korean and American plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un using biochemical weapons comes weeks after Kim Jong Nam was slain in a Malaysian airport. Authorities cited the presence of VX nerve agent, and North Korea is widely believed to have been behind responsible. (AP Photo/Daniel Chan, File) PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The United States has joined the European Union and U.N. human rights agencies in expressing concern over the extended pre-trial detention of five Cambodian human rights held for more than a year. The five current or former staff members of the group ADHOC - the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association - are being held for allegedly bribing a woman to change testimony that was damaging to then-deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha, who was accused of acting illegally in connection with an alleged extra-marital affair. The related cases are generally seen as part of a campaign by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government to weaken its political opponents, especially ahead of nationwide local elections this June. Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodia People's Party have hounded the opposition through the courts, which are considered to be under their political influence. FILE - Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, file photo, Ny Vanda, center, and Yi Soksan, rear center, staff members of Cambodia Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) arrive at Supreme Court, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The United States has joined the European Union and U.N. human rights agencies in expressing concern over the extended pre-trial detention of five Cambodian human rights held for more than a year. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith, File) A Cambodian court late last month agreed to allow a six-month extension of the activists' pre-trial detention. "They have been subjected to a never-ending nightmare of deliberate delays and political manipulation of the judicial system designed to punish them, and intimidate civil society to stifle any criticism of the government as the country heads into commune, and then national, elections," New York-based Human Rights Watch and FORUM-ASIA, a network of human rights organizations, said last month. Cambodia's veteran opposition leader Sam Rainsy, the head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, is facing prison time for defamation and other charges he alleges are groundless and politically motivated. He has stayed in exile and resigned his position, which is now held by Kem Sokha. Under a recently passed law, the party was threatened with dissolution unless Sam Rainsy resigned. A statement released Friday by the U.S. State Department noted the delay in holding a trial and how it stressed the detainees' families. It urged Cambodia to meet its obligations under international human rights statutes. The EU issued a similar statement on Thursday calling for the rights of the detainees to be upheld. Cambodia's Foreign Ministry expressed dismay over the EU's reference to the activists' extended detention, which it described as "absolutely the domestic affair of Cambodia." It said that the statement violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. BRAINTREE, Mass. (AP) - A man who authorities say barricaded himself in a Massachusetts motel room after shooting a police officer in the face has been found dead. Authorities said Saturday that Braintree Officer Donald Delaney may have to undergo a second surgery to have a bullet moved from his head. Officers were at the Motel 6 in Braintree, just south of Boston, to check the warrant status of 25-year-old Tizaya Jordan Robinson Friday night when Robinson opened fire, hitting the 36-year-old Delaney. Witnesses said they heard at least three gunshots. Many rooms at the motel were evacuated and a nearby train station was closed. Police say officers later entered the room and found Robinson dead. They say Robinson suffered multiple gunshot wounds, including a self-inflicted wound to the head. ___ Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com WASHINGTON (AP) - As the Trump administration weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, the 16-year war grinds on in bloody stalemate. Afghan soldiers are suffering what Pentagon auditors call "shockingly high" battlefield casualties, and prospects are narrowing for a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. The insurgents may have failed to capture and hold a major city, but they are controlling or influencing ever more territory. "The situation is deteriorating," said Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor and close Afghan war observer. FILE - In this April 14, 2017, file photo, Afghan commandos arrive at Pandola village near the site of a U.S. bombing in the Achin district of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. As the administration of President Donald Trump weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, the 16-year war grinds on in bloody stalemate. Afghan soldiers are suffering what Pentagon auditors call "shockingly high" battlefield casualties, and prospects are narrowing for a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) This grim picture forms the backdrop for administration deliberations on a way ahead in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are supporting beleaguered Afghans against the Taliban insurgency and stepping up attacks on an extremist group considered an Islamic State affiliate. The three most recent U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were in combat last month against the IS affiliate, which also was the target of a much-publicized U.S. airstrike April 13 using the "mother of all bombs." President Donald Trump will receive a proposed new approach to the war within a week, according to Theresa Whelan, a Pentagon policy official. "The interest is to move beyond the stalemate," she told senators, offering as a preview little more than an echo of the Obama administration's goal that Afghanistan "reaches its potential." Whereas Trump called for significant changes to how the U.S. fights IS in Iraq and Syria, he has said far less about the much longer U.S. war in Afghanistan. The basic pillars of President Barack Obama's strategy - supporting Afghan forces rather than doing the fighting for them and seeking a political settlement with the Taliban - are likely to remain in place, defense officials said. Testifying on Capitol Hill with Whelan, Gen. Raymond Thomas, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said the new strategy could include more U.S. troops and changes in what the military calls "rules of engagement," laying out when force can be used. The U.S. combat role officially ended in December 2014. Thomas' troops operate separately, targeting al-Qaida and IS fighters. The Pentagon is considering a request for roughly 3,000 more troops, as the U.S. commander in Afghanistan has advocated, mainly for training and advising. The larger question is what they would do and how they'd fit into a broader strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan. Sen. John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, has warned the administration that it is risking failure. Referring to the stalemate, he told Thomas, "If the present status quo prevails, then there's no end to it." But it's unclear what Trump can do. Biddle said the Taliban have little incentive to negotiate a peace deal and "the battlefield trend is against it." Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Afghan forces aren't capable of securing the country. Unless Trump adopts "a far more decisive approach," security could collapse "either slowly and painfully over years or as a result of some shattering military defeat or critical political power struggle at the top that divides the security forces and the country," he said. Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, wants an infusion of U.S. and allied troops to bolster support for the Afghan army. But his request took a back seat to a broader administration review of Afghan policy and a push for NATO to contribute more troops. Both of those matters will be discussed at a NATO summit May 25. The U.S. says it has 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, one-quarter of which are for the counterterrorism mission. Fatigue may be setting in. The war is now in its third U.S. presidency and American taxpayers have committed $66 billion to equipping and supporting Afghan security forces. Although Afghans have become more effective in recent years, they've been unable to break the Taliban's grip on substantial amounts of territory. The government controls 60 percent of the country's 407 districts, slightly up over the past several months. But in January 2016, the government controlled 71 percent. The Taliban's total now stands at 29 percent, according to a Pentagon inspector general report last month. It cited a "shockingly high" figure of 807 Afghan troops killed in just the first two months of this year. FILE - In this April 17, 2017, file photo, U.S. forces and Afghan commandos patrol in Asad Khil village near the site of a U.S. bombing in the Achin district of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. As the administration of President Donald Trump weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, the 16-year war grinds on in bloody stalemate. Afghan soldiers are suffering what Pentagon auditors call "shockingly high" battlefield casualties, and prospects are narrowing for a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) LONDON (AP) - A commission searching for one of the so-called "disappeared" victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland says it has discovered human remains in a French forest. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains has been searching for the remains of Seamus Ruddy. The commission said Saturday the process of recovering the remains found near Rouen in northern France would take some time. Ruddy had been working as an English teacher in Paris when he vanished in 1985. A republican paramilitary group, the INLA, claimed responsibility for his death. If the remains are of Ruddy, only three more of the disappeared remain to be discovered. The commission originally sought 16. The commission's purpose is to obtain information leading to the remains of people killed by paramilitary violence. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The parents of an Ohio State University student who was abducted and slain in February will accept her diploma this weekend. Family members of 21-year-old Reagan Tokes will be called on stage Sunday to receive diplomas from Ohio State President Michael Drake. Her mother says they are grateful for the honor. The university says this will be the largest graduating class in Ohio State's history, with 11,734 degrees being handed out. Tokes was three months from graduating with a psychology degree when she was killed. Columbus authorities have charged Brian Golsby, a registered sex offender. They allege he kidnapped Tokes after she left work and then raped and killed her. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that could bring the death penalty if he's convicted. RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - President Donald Trump's revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries is about to be scrutinized by a federal appeals court for the first time. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Monday in the case that has thwarted the president's attempt to bar certain people from entering the country in the name of national security. The Richmond, Virginia-based court will examine a federal judge in Maryland's ruling that blocks the administration from temporarily barring new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A federal judge in Hawaii has also halted that provision as well as the freeze on the U.S. refugee program. Trump's administration is fighting that decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump rewrote the travel ban after the first version was stymied by the courts. Opponents say the new executive order has the same problems and cannot stand. The issue is likely destined for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here's what you need to know about the 4th Circuit hearing: ____ CAN I LISTEN IN? Yes. For the first time, the court will provide a live audio broadcast of a hearing due to intense public interest. The 2:30 p.m. EDT hearing will be broadcast by C-SPAN and the court will provide a link to the live feed on its website. ____ HOW COMMON IS A FULL-COURT HEARING? A three-judge panel is typically the first and last stop for most cases in the 4th Circuit. The full court will sometimes re-examine a case that a three-judge panel has heard. That usually happens a few times a year. In an extraordinary move, the 4th Circuit has chosen in this case to go straight to the "en banc" or full-court hearing. Some of the 15 judges could be recused, so the list of those who will hear the case will be released Monday. The judges' decision signifies the importance of the case and their desire to settle the issue more quickly. The court hasn't skipped the three-judge panel and gone directly to the full-court hearing since 1998, when it considered a challenge to a Virginia law requiring minors to notify their parents before they get an abortion, according to court records. ____ IS THE 4TH CIRCUIT A LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE COURT? The 4th Circuit was long known as the nation's most conservative appeals court. But President Barack Obama dramatically changed its makeup, pulling the 4th Circuit to the center. Now, nine judges are Democratic appointees - including six from Obama - and five judges are Republican appointees. Chief Judge Roger Gregory was given a recess appointment to the court by President Bill Clinton and was reappointed by President George W. Bush. Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law school professor, said while the 4th Circuit has become moderate, it still tends to rule in favor of the government when it's convinced there's a compelling case of national security. "I think a lot depends on how the judges view the case," Tobias said. "Is this a national security case or is this an immigration case? Or is this a religious freedom case?" ____ WHAT SHOULD I LISTEN FOR? A key question for the judges is whether Trump's own words about a "Muslim ban" can be used against him. U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, who ruled against Trump in Maryland, said the Republican's comments are evidence that religion - rather than national security - was the primary motivation for the policy. Trump's administration says the court should focus on the text of the executive order, which doesn't mention religion. His lawyers say it's inappropriate for the court to rely on statements Trump made as a candidate "before he swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution." The countries were chosen because they present terrorism risks and the ban applies to everyone in those countries regardless of religion, the administration says. The National Immigration Law Center and American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case, say accepting that argument would mean that Trump could repeatedly declare that the ban's "sole purpose is to harm Muslims" as long as it didn't say so in the text of the executive over. ____ WHEN WILL THE JUDGES RULE? While the Trump administration wants the court to act quickly, it will likely be weeks before the judges issue their written decision. The judges could rule sooner on the administration's request to let the travel ban go into effect while it considers the merits of its appeal. But even if the court does that, the executive order will remain blocked by the decision in Hawaii. ____ WHAT ABOUT THE 9TH CIRCUIT CASE? A three-judge panel of the San Francisco, California-based 9th Circuit will meet May 15 in Seattle to hear Trump's appeal of the decision blocking the travel ban by a federal judge in Hawaii. The 9th Circuit, which Trump and Republicans say is too liberal, previously refused to let Trump's first travel ban go into effect, prompting the administration to withdrawal the order and issue a new one. ___ Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Read more of her work at http://apne.ws/2hIhzDb Bree Newsome snatched down a Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse. Lesha Evans calmly faced down officers in riot gear at a Baton Rouge march. Widely published photographs of these and other black women offer some of the most arresting images to emerge from the protest movement of recent years. The photos have come to symbolize the effort by today's African-American women to take, and keep, a place at the forefront of the fight against racial bias in law enforcement, the workplace and politics. "We as feminists of color ... have been involved in building these movements over the decades, but we have never been acknowledged as leaders," said Barbara Smith, co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, an early and influential black feminist group. FILE - In this June, 27, 2015 file photo, Bree Newsome, of Charlotte, N.C., removes the Confederate flag from a Confederate monument at the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. Newsome was taken into custody when she came down. A new generation of black women is moving to take and keep a place at the forefront of the fight against racial bias. Black women have not been strangers to past protests. But historians say they have often been overshadowed, first by white women during the suffragette movement and then by the black men who were lionized during the civil rights movement. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File) Unlike many of their predecessors from previous decades, this generation of black women is "demanding that they be respected. They can assert that publicly and have impact and visibility, because of all the movement work that has come before," Smith said. Newsome scaled a flagpole in 2015 to tear down the Confederate banner in the aftermath of the attack at a Charleston church where a white supremacist shot nine worshippers to death during a Bible study. Evans acted last summer after the police killings of two black men - Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. Images of both women become powerful emblems of protest and unrest. Historically, black women have been no strangers to the quest for social change. Sojourner Truth was a leading abolitionist. Ida B. Wells led a crusade against lynching during the early 20th century. Fannie Lou Hamer demanded voting rights in the 1960s. Black women founded the Black Lives Matter movement. But they have often been overshadowed - during the suffragette movement by white women who relegated them to the rear during marches and put their own rights first, and by the black men lionized during the civil rights movement. "You can find that overshadowing throughout all these movements until very recently," said Jelani Cobb, a historian and journalism professor at Columbia University. "These movements that were trying to achieve democracy were not always functioning democratically." A new era of black, female leadership emerged in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter Movement, Cobb said. "At any given point, the majority of the voices you heard would be female, which is very atypical of the way things have traditionally operated," he said. "It can almost be taken as a given that women have a right to be in leadership. That's crucial, because it's been a stumbling block for decades." A longstanding attraction to a male leadership model often drowned out women's voices. "Black women were really made to feel guilty during the civil rights era," said Deborah Gray White, a historian at Rutgers University. "That was a function of American racism and sexism. Now black women are going back to their foremothers and realizing they can and do represent the race." Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, called black women "the curators of the social justice movement" and the canaries in the coal mine for all American minorities. "What happens to black women is soon to happen to everybody," Garza said. "The conditions of black women can tell us a lot about where this country is headed. We are caught in the crosshairs of multiple forms of oppression." Those circumstances often compel action. Tamika Mallory, the daughter of activists, cut her teeth in the National Action Network led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. She said "young women in particular are being really intentional about the idea that women have been leading, can lead and are probably the best folks to follow in this hour." Women, she added, "are the protectors. We carry the weight of the entire community on our backs." White agreed, pointing out that issues that shift closer to home - gun violence in communities, inequality in education - strongly resonate with black women who see the effects on their families. Mallory lost her son's father to gun violence. America sometimes "operates on amnesia that tells a very different story about who the heroes are," Garza said. "Black women are erased from history, but also erased from the present. It's happening even now." The recent controversy over a Pepsi ad set at a protest and starring model Kendall Jenner - a white woman - as the protagonist was derided as erasing the work of black women and ignoring the uncomfortable conversations that emerged in the wake of police killings of unarmed black men. "I've never experienced a white woman ... pushing me to the side to get to the front of a protest to the police," said Johnetta Elzie, an activist who first began protesting in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and has been arrested and tear gassed at marches. "I don't recall Pepsi having a political stance on anything," she said. "And when they do, they put a white face on it? That's not who I see when I'm standing next to people at a protest." ___ Errin Haines Whack covers urban affairs for The Associated Press. Follow her work on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/emarvelous. FILE - In this June, 27, 2015 file photo, Bree Newsome of Charlotte, N.C., right, is taken into custody after she removed the Confederate flag from a monument in front of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., in the aftermath of the attack at a Charleston church where a white supremacist shot nine parishioners to death during a Bible study. Black women have not been strangers to past protests. But historians say they have often been overshadowed, first by white women during the suffragette movement and then by the black men who were lionized during the civil rights movement. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File) A video of protesters toppling a statue of late President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela emerged as thousands of women took to the streets to protest the country's socialist government Saturday. As women banged on pans and some stripped off their white shirts in an event the opposition billed as a 'women's march against repression', the video footage of two men destroying the statue in the western state of Zulia was carried by local media. Women took over streets in major cities all around the South American country, including the capital Caracas. Thousands of women took to the streets to protest Venezuela's socialist government Saturday. A woman is seen with a bunch of her lilies in her hand in Caracas The protest has been billed by the opposition as a 'women's march against repression' Anti-government protesters stage a sit-in blocking the Franciso Fajardo highway in Caracas An anti-government wearing kneels in front of riot police blocking a women march from reaching the Foreign Ministry in Caracas Wearing the white shirts of the opponents of country's increasingly embattled government, the women sang the national anthem and chanted, 'Who are we? Venezuela! What do we want? Freedom!' Some sported makeshift gear to protect against tear gas and rubber bullets. Others marched topless. One woman came in her wedding dress. As they have near-daily for five weeks, police in riot gear again took control of major roads in the capital city. Local media carried a video showing people toppling a statue of the late President Hugo Chavez on Friday Two men are pictured destroying the statue of the late president in the western state of Zulia The video of the men destroying the statue was shown on local news stations as women marched around the country Clashes between police and protesters have left some three dozen dead in the past month. Local news media carried a video circulating on Twitter of the Chavez statue being pulled down. The media reported that students destroyed the statue as they vented their anger with the food shortages, inflation and spiraling crime that have come to define life here. Crowds of protesters stretched as far as the eye could see at the demonstration in Caracas One woman marches topless during a women's march against repression in Caracas Several young men could be seen bashing the statue that depicted the socialist hero standing in a saluting pose, as onlookers hurled insults as the late president. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez on Friday denounced the protest movement, and said opposition 'terrorists' were attempting a kind of nonconventional warfare. The protest movement has drawn masses of people into the street nearly every day since March, and shows no sign of slowing. Women raise their hands with the words 'No more repression' written on the palms A demonstrator stands in front of policewomen blocking an opposition march from reaching the Interior Ministry in Caracas On Saturday, some of the women marchers approached soldiers in riot gear to offer them white roses and invite them to join the cause. 'What will you tell your kids later on?' one woman asked. In a call with the president of Peru, U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. A statement from the White House's Office of the Press Secretary said Trump underscored to President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski that 'the United States will work together with Peru in seeking to improve democratic institutions and help the people of Venezuela.' Lilian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, left, and opposition leader Henrique Capriles, talk during a women's march against repression in Caracas An anti-government protester holds a sign with a photo of President Nicolas Maduro and a message that reads in Spanish: 'Out! Dictator, Foreigner, Communist' NEW YORK (AP) - New York's American Museum of Natural History has an intriguing proposition: Bring in anything you have and don't know what it is, and scientists will try to identify it. Saturday is what the museum calls its annual "Identification Day" devoted to helping people break the mystery of their specimens such as shells, rocks, insects, feathers and bones and more. The explorations will take place in the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall, named after the U.S. president with a passion for natural history. In this Saturday, May 7, 2016, photo provided by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Senior Scientific Assistant Lou Sorkin, left, identifies a South American Guyana Tarantula during the museum's Identification Day 2016. The AMNH invited visitors to bring in anything they have and don't know what it is, and scientists will try to identify it Saturday, May 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Shanley, American Museum of Natural History) Items identified in previous years have included a whale jawbone, a fossilized giraffe vertebra and a 5,000-year-old stone spear-point from Morocco. Visitors are also invited to explore rarely seen objects from the museum's collections. VOLOS, Greece (AP) - PAOK won the Greek Cup by defeating AEK Athens 2-1 in a final marred by violent clashes between fans that injured more than 40 people, two seriously, according to police on Saturday. The game was delayed about half an hour due to the clashes. Police say at least 10 people were taken to a hospital, two of them in serious condition. Fighting began when AEK and PAOK fans, who were supposed to be separated, met on a footbridge outside the stadium that police forces did not occupy. There were pitched battles that lasted about 30 minutes before riot police intervened with stun grenades and chemicals. Soccer fans clash at a tribune of Panthessaliko stadium, ahead of the Greek Cup soccer final between AEK Athens' and PAOK in Volos, central Greece, on Saturday, May 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos) Police say one of the seriously injured has a knife wound and the other suffered multiple blows to the head. Another 40 or so wounded fans were treated on site, with some requiring stitches. They attended the final. There were no clashes after the game. Police escorted AEK fans quickly out of the stadium while celebrations were going on. Pedro Henrique headed home the winner in the 81st minute off a cross by Marin Leovac, eight minutes after entering the game in place of Djalma Campos. AEK players and the coach loudly protested then and after the game that Henrique scored from an offside position. PAOK opened the scoring through Diego Biseswar, and AEK equalized two minutes later when PAOK goalkeeper Panagiotis Glykos let Lazaros Christodoulopoulos' long-range shot slip out of his grasp and roll into the net. "It was not a beautiful game," PAOK coach Vladan Ivic said, adding it was a case of who made the fewer mistakes. It was the fifth cup victory for PAOK, its first since 2003. ___ Nellas reported from Athens, Greece. Follow Costas Kantouris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CostasKantouris Soccer fans clash at a tribune of Panthessaliko stadium, ahead of the Greek Cup soccer final between AEK Athens and PAOK in Volos, central Greece, on Saturday, May 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos) Soccer fans clash with policemen at a tribune of Panthessaliko stadium, ahead of the Greek Cup soccer final between AEK Athens' and PAOK in Volos, central Greece, on Saturday, May 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos) Soccer fans stand in Panthessaliko stadium in front of flames during clashes with the police, ahead of the Greek Cup soccer final between AEK Athens' and PAOK in Volos, central Greece, on Saturday, May 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos) PARIS (AP) - France's election campaign commission said Saturday "a significant amount of data" - and some fake information - has been leaked on social networks following a hacking attack on centrist Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign. It urged citizens not to relay the data on social media to protect the integrity of the French vote. France's government cybersecurity agency will investigate the attack, according to a government official who said it appeared to be a "very serious" breach. The leak came 36 hours before the nation votes Sunday in a crucial presidential runoff between Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen - and just as a two-day blackout on campaigning began so that voters could reflect on their choice. Election campaign posters for French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are displayed in front of the polling station where Marine Le Pen will vote in Henin Beaumont, northern France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) Voting started Saturday in France's overseas territories and in some embassies abroad. The leaked documents appear largely mundane, and the perpetrators remain unknown. It's unclear whether the document dump will dent Macron's large polling lead over Le Pen going into the vote. The election commission met Saturday after the leaks emerged just before midnight Friday. The commission said the leaked data apparently came from Macron's "information systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers." It said the leaked data had been "fraudulently" obtained and that fake news was probably mingled in with it. The commission urged French media and citizens not to relay the leaked documents. French electoral laws impose a news blackout Saturday and most of Sunday on any campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election. The Macron team asked the campaign oversight commission Saturday to bring in cybersecurity agency ANSSI to study the hack, according to a government official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the details publicly. ANSSI can only be called in for cases where the cyberattack is "massive and sophisticated" - and the Macron hack appears to fit the bill, the official said. Someone on 4chan - a site known, among other things, for cruel hoaxes and political extremism - posted links to a large set of data Friday night. Macron's team quickly confirmed that it had been hit by a "massive and coordinated" hack some weeks ago, in which unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts - as well as fake documents - online. In a cursory look at the leaked documents, they appear to be day-to-day communications, with a few items so out of character that they might be fakes. Other documents, which seem to date back several years, don't appear related to the campaign at all. Le Pen's campaign could not formally respond due to the campaigning blackout, but National Front official Florian Philippot, asked in a tweet: "Will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried?" The Macron hacking announcement came just 10 days after the campaign's digital chief, Mounir Mahjoubi, said it had been targeted by Russia-linked hackers - but that those hacking attempts had all been thwarted. Mahjoubi and other campaign staffers would not comment Saturday. The documents leaked Friday were widely circulated on U.S. far-right sites. Experts dissecting the data say they spotted a couple of Russian names in the dump. Matt Suiche of cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies said "there's Cyrillic script in the metadata," but added it was hard to tell whether that's due to carelessness or a deliberate misdirection. In other voting issues, the French voting watchdog urged the Interior Ministry to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign of tampering with ballot papers in a way that favors Macron. The first French territory to vote Saturday was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago near Newfoundland, where voters came dressed in scarves and jackets to ward off the chilly weather. Shortly afterward, voting started in French Guiana and the French West Indies, where voters wore shorts. French citizens also turned out in droves to vote in the Canadian province of Quebec. The French consul general in Montreal said more than 57,000 people had registered to vote in the province, the vast majority in Montreal. The last polling stations on the French mainland close at 8:00 p.m. Sunday, when the first pollsters' projections and official partial results are expected. The campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and the candidates insulting each other on national television - a reflection of the country's deep divisions. Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, softening its message and seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. The 39-year-old Macron, a former economy minister and investment banker who has never held elected office, also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign. After ditching France's traditional left-right political parties in a first-round presidential ballot, voters were choosing between Macron's business-friendly vision and Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view. Macron wants a strong EU, while Le Pen favors a France-first policy that could see France spin out of the bloc. From depressed northern France to the streets of Paris, few voters seemed aware Saturday of the hacking attack on Macron's team - although several were looking forward to the end of a vitriolic campaign. In Henin-Beaumont in northern France, where Le Pen will cast her ballot on Sunday, 28-year-old Thomas Delannoy said the campaign "looks like reality TV." The construction painter called the electoral process "laughable," saying that neither candidate had a platform he could identify with. Macron will vote Sunday in the seaside town of Le Touquet, where his wife Brigitte went for a walk Saturday with her daughter and grandchildren. ___ Angela Charlton contributed to this report. Children walk past election campaign posters for French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, in Osses, southwestern France, Friday May 5, 2017. France will vote on Sunday May 7 in the second round of the presidential election. (AP Photo/Bob Edme) French independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron shakes hands to supporters as he campaigns in Rodez, southern France, Friday, May 5, 2017. The 39-year-old independent candidate faces far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday's presidential runoff. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) French far-right candidate for the presidential elections Marine Le Pen poses after an interview with the Associated Press, Friday, May 5, 2017 in Paris. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours) Workers prepare the booths at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) A worker prepares the booths at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) A polling station sign is packed into a van at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) Workers prepare the booths at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) A worker prepares the booths at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) A worker prepares the booths at a polling station in Saint Cloud, outside Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu) An worker places the ballots on a table at a polling station at the town hall of Bayonne, southwestern France, Friday, May 5, 2017. France will vote on Sunday May 7 in the second round of the presidential election. (AP Photo/Bob Edme) Workers prepare ballots at a polling station at the town hall of Bayonne, southwestern France, Friday, May 5, 2017. France will vote on Sunday May 7 in the second round of the presidential election. (AP Photo/Bob Edme) An worker places the ballots on a table at a polling station at the town hall of Bayonne, southwestern France, Friday, May 5, 2017. France will vote on Sunday May 7 in the second round of the presidential election. (AP Photo/Bob Edme) Election campaign posters for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are displayed in Henin Beaumont, northern France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - The Latest on the release of Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram extremists in Nigeria (all times local): ___ 12:15 a.m. Nigeria's government says the release of 82 Chibok schoolgirls who had been kidnapped three years ago by Boko Haram came in exchange for "some Boko Haram suspects held by the authorities." The announcement is the first confirmation by the government of any exchange made in its months of negotiations with the extremist group. After the first negotiated release of 21 Chibok girls in October, the government denied that a ransom was paid or that it freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. The government statement says the freed girls are expected to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday in the capital, Abuja. ___ 11 p.m. A Nigerian military official with knowledge of the rescue operation says 83 Chibok schoolgirls are free more than three years after a mass abduction by Boko Haram extremists. Family members say they are eagerly awaiting a list of names and "our hopes and expectations are high." The official says the schoolgirls were found near the border town of Banki in Borno state near Cameroon. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make the announcement. The number could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press. The schoolgirls remained in military custody late Saturday. While 21 girls had been freed in the first negotiated release in October, 195 had remained hostage until this weekend. - Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria ___ 10:40 p.m. A Nigerian official says at least 62 Chibok schoolgirls have been released more than three years after they were abducted from their boarding school by Boko Haram extremists. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to reporters. Family members were eagerly awaiting a list of names late Saturday and said "our hopes and expectations are high." Officials say the girls were freed near the town of Banki along the border with Cameroon. They were in military custody late Saturday. While 21 girls had been freed in the first negotiated release in October, 195 had remained hostage until this weekend. - Hilary Uguru in Warri, Nigeria ___ 9:55 p.m. A Nigerian official says more of the Chibok schoolgirls have been released three years after their abduction by Boko Haram extremists, though the exact number is not immediately known. The official spoke on condition of anonymity late Saturday because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. Nearly 200 of the schoolgirls had remained captive before this release. Many of the girls seized from their boarding school were forced into marriages with fighters and became pregnant. Nigeria's government in October announced the first negotiated release of 21 of the schoolgirls. At the time, it said another group of 83 girls would be released "very soon." The government has denied a ransom was paid and that it freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. Police shot and killed a 15-year-old student Saturday after he pointed a BB gun at them in a high school parking lot, authorities said. The Torrey Pines High School student called 911 shortly before 3:30 a.m. to ask officers to check on the welfare of an unarmed boy in front of the school, according to a police statement. He didn't name the boy, but investigators later determined he was referring to himself, police said. Scroll down for video Members of the San Diego Police Department collect evidence at the scene of a fatal police officer involved shooting of a 15-year-old boy in one of the parking lots in front of Torrey Pines High School, early Saturday morning When two officers arrived, they spotted a youth in the front parking lot. But as they got out of their patrol cars, he pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at an officer, police said When two officers arrived, they spotted a youth in the front parking lot. But as they got out of their patrol cars, he pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at an officer, police said. The officers drew their guns and ordered him to drop the weapon. But instead he began to walk toward an officer, ignoring more demands to drop the weapon, police said. Both officers fired, hitting him several times. They performed first aid and summoned paramedics, but the teen was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. The gun was found to be a BB air pistol. 'Fearing for their safety, both officers fired their weapons at the male, striking him numerous times,' Lt Mike Holden said in a statement. He said the officers were 28-year and four-year veterans of the force. Both were wearing body cameras at the time of the shooting according to KFMB-TV. The shooting took place just hours before students were due to take the SAT college entrance exam at the school Both officers fired, hitting him several times. They performed first aid and summoned paramedics, but the teen was pronounced dead at a hospital Police didn't release the teen's name because of his age. The shooting took place just hours before students were due to take the SAT college entrance exam at the school. 'Our hearts go out to the student, his family and his friends,' said a statement from Eric Dill, superintendent of the San Diego Union High School District. A crisis-response team will be on campus Monday to support students, staff and parents, Dill said. Counseling also will be available at all district schools for anyone who needs a place to talk about the shooting or "to mourn and process this tragedy," he said. The incident comes just a week after Dallas police officer shot dead unarmed 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. The boy was killed after Oliver fired a rifle into a car of teenagers who were leaving a party. A private funeral was held on Saturday for the boy. The officer has been fired from his job and on Friday was charged with murder. Puerto Rico is closing 184 public schools in a bid to save money amid a deep economic crisis that has sparked an exodus to the US mainland in the past decade. Education Department spokeswoman Yolanda Rosaly said officials will relocate 27,000 students to other schools. The closures will occur once the school year ends this month. People carry a large Puerto Rican flag as they protest looming austerity measures The island has a total of 1,292 public schools that serve 365,000 students. Ms Rosaly said Education Secretary Julia Keleher would provide more details soon. Puerto Rico has seen school enrolment drop 42% in the past three decades and an additional 22% drop is expected in future years. Nearly half a million people have moved to the US in the past decade. Singer Rene Perez, of Calle 13, front row, third from right, joins a protest against looming austerity measures It is the largest mass closure of schools announced in the history of the US territory. Officials closed 150 schools over the span of five years from 2010 to 2015. Opponents of previous school closures say that transportation logistics and special education needs were not taken into account. An estimated 30% of Puerto Rico students receive specialised education, twice the average in the US mainland. Much of the population drop is the result of parents moving to the mainland US in search of jobs and a more affordable life, as well as thousands of teachers being recruited from the island for their bilingual skills. The islands low birth rate also is expected to keep driving down enrolment. Labour has suffered bruising losses in Wales, but the Conservatives failed to make as many gains as expected. First Minister and Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones saw his party lose control of Bridgend, the area he represents in the Assembly, after losing 10 seats. The party was also dealt a severe blow in the South Wales valleys, with independents taking control of Blaenau Gwent. And in Merthyr Tydfil, the Labour council leader was defeated. Wales local elections final result Labour fared better in other areas retaining overall control of Cardiff, Swansea, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Newport and Neath Port Talbot councils and winning the same number of seats as it held previously on both Wrexham and Flintshire councils, both of which remained under no overall control. All the nations 22 councils have been subject to the poll, and three are still to declare. One political expert said Labour had shown resilience in Wales, but it would be different for the General Election when it was Theresa May v Jeremy Corbyn. Final state of the parties: Wales Mr Jones said: Welsh Labour candidates and activists can be incredibly proud of themselves today - they fought another tough election, and once again defied the odds. The Tories had been briefing that theyd be walking into power right across Wales this morning - that simply has not happened. People realise that only Welsh Labour will stand up for Wales and we thank them once again for that trust. Carwyn Jones Elsewhere, the Conservatives gained control of Monmouthshire from no overall control and overtook Labour in Denbighshire to become the largest party, with the council remaining hung. The Conservatives are also the largest party in the Vale of Glamorgan. Ceredigion remains under no overall control, with Plaid Cymru retaining its position as the largest party. In Gwynedd, Plaid Cymru held power. Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said: We are incredibly proud of the big advances weve made so far - its been a good night at the office. Some cracking results coming in today - hat's off to the @WelshConserv teams in @PreseliPembTory and Powys @russ_george @BandR_Tories! Andrew RT Davies (@AndrewRTDavies) May 5, 2017 Weve gained overall control of Monmouth, made huge strides in the Vale of Glamorgan, doubled our representation in Wrexham, and reached double digits right in the backyard of the First Minister. Mr Davies added: The result shows that people are moving away from Labour and rejecting their tired and out-of-touch message. Plaid leader Leanne Wood said: We have broken new ground in all parts of Wales, from Aberavon to Blaenau Gwent and from Bridgend to Wrexham - the results are all looking positive for Plaid Cymru. Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood People have recognised that, despite facing some of the biggest cuts to our budgets, Plaid Cymru councils have consistently outperformed other councils across Wales and the UK. The story of the night seems to be Plaid and Tory gains versus Labour and Ukip losses. Nicola Sturgeon hailed the Scottish local elections as an emphatic win for the SNP despite the Tories gaining 167 seats and returning a record number of councillors. The Conservatives returned 276 councillors north of the border, well over double the tally they secured in the last local government elections five years ago. (PA graphic) The SNP remains the largest party in local government in Scotland, with 431 councillors voted into office, up slightly from the total of 425 in 2012. However, if voting patterns are similar at the General Election on June 8, the surge in Conservative support could see Ruth Davidsons party oust some SNP MPs from Westminster. Labour slumped to become the third largest party in Scotlands town halls, and it was kicked out of power in its Glasgow heartland for the first time in almost 40 years. (PA Graphic) A total of 262 councillors were elected on a Labour platform, although one of them had been expelled from the party after the ballot papers had been printed. That compares to the 394 seats the party won in 2012. There have been boundary changes since the last vote. A total of 172 independent councillors were elected, along with 67 Liberal Democrats and 19 Greens. .@NicolaSturgeon claims "fantastic historic result" for SNP in Glasgow "end of an era" for Labour pic.twitter.com/igeb2fr38V Laura Paterson (@LauraPatersonPA) May 5, 2017 Ms Sturgeon, the SNP leader and First Minister, said: The SNP has won the election in Scotland and won it loud and clear. Thanks to the support of people across the country, the SNP has secured the largest number of councillors, the highest share of the vote with an increase on the last result in 2012 and is the largest party in the most council areas. The Tories said they had made gains in every mainland local authority area, adding it was the first time since 1974 they had secured more councillors than Labour. For the first time ever, the Tories had a councillor elected in Paisleys Ferguslie Park the most deprived part of Scotland while the party also increased its numbers in Glasgow to eight, after having had just one representative there previously. Ruth Davidson, centre, celebrates (Andrew Milligan/PA) Ms Davidson declared: Todays result makes one thing crystal clear: all across Scotland, only the Scottish Conservatives have the strength to fight back against the SNP. We denied the SNP a majority at Holyrood last year. We have gained seats in councils all over Scotland today. We are now in a position to lead Scotlands fightback on June 8 in the General Election too. On a non-partisan note, congratulations to all councillors elected today, irrespective of party. Being elected to serve is a brilliant thing Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonPC) May 5, 2017 Ms Davidson said her party will speak up for the millions of Scots who have had enough of the uncertainty and division of the last few years and stand up for everyone who doesnt want a second referendum on independence. She pledged: We will demand that politicians of all parties focus instead on the things that matter: restoring excellence to Scotlands schools and getting our economy back to health. Describing the results as a clear and emphatic victory for the SNP, Ms Sturgeon said: SNP councillors and SNP councils will put their communities and the people of Scotland first. Conservative James Palmer has become the first regional mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Mr Palmer achieved a total of 88,826 votes, while Lib Dem Rod Cantrill had 67,205. Counting included second-preference votes as no candidates achieved more than 50% in the first-preference round. Turnout in the election was 33.57%, with 204,363 verified votes cast out of a total eligible electorate of 604,960. Turnout in the May 2017 mayoral elections South Cambridgeshire had the highest percentage turnout, of 42.43%, while the lowest percentage turnout of the six constituent councils was Peterborough City with 24.71%. Mr Palmer said: Fairness is something that I believe in very strongly, and as mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough I aim to make this whole area a fairer county with opportunities for all, giving the chance to spread the wealth from the south of the county to the north, east and west, making sure that everybody gets the chance to have apprenticeship schemes, of having a skilled job so they can take advantage of the Cambridge effect. What we have here in Cambridgeshire is almost unique. We have the building blocks of success, we just need somebody to put it together. Improving the infrastructure in the city of Cambridge, linking the great city of Peterborough to Cambridge and bringing Fenland into the fold are all absolutely vital if we are to be a success. He said he would work with Theresa May for the people of the area, and he was immensely proud to be the areas first metro mayor. Heres a look at 10 things we learnt from the local elections: A tie meant the final decision on who would control one council was settled by the drawing of straws. The Conservatives failed to gain control of Northumberland County Council after the Liberal Democrat candidate Lesley Rickerby picked the right straw, defeating Tory Daniel Carr. Ms Rickerby said: Its unbelievable that when you consider we have a democratic service that we end up having to draw straws. Watch the Conservatives miss out on control of Northumberland council - as the result is decided by drawing straws : BBC Radio Newcastle pic.twitter.com/neB3y9QmVH PA Media (@PA) May 5, 2017 Even a Rubbish candidate won a seat. Sally Cogley, who founded the Rubbish Party to focus on the issues of waste and littering, won a seat in Scotland. Her campaigning under the slogan Vote For Sally For A Better Valley led to her being elected to East Ayrshire Council where she will represent the Irvine Valley ward. According to her website, the party aims to rid the local community of all types of rubbish, from wasted resources to littering and dog fouling. Although there were historic advances for the Conservatives, both sides played down the significance ahead of the General Election. Theresa May said she was taking nothing for granted, while Labours shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the results were not the wipeout that some people predicted. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the results as mixed and insisted they were closing the gap on the Conservatives. Final state of the parties in all of the 2017 local elections It was the first time areas went to the polls to elect a metro mayor, yet the turnout was very low. Just 28.93% of the electorate voted for a mayor of Greater Manchester, which was won by former Cabinet minister Andy Burnham. Around a quarter of the electorate (26.1%) cast a vote for the Liverpool City Region metro mayor, while turnout was 33.57% for the new regional mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. In the West of England, 29.7% of the electorate voted in the election. Turnout in the May 2017 mayoral elections Ukip was virtually wiped out, shedding 109 councillors and holding a solitary seat in Lancashire. The results led its millionaire former backer Arron Banks to accuse the partys leader Paul Nuttall of crashing the car. He said the party needed a a strategic bullet to the back of the head, but Mr Nuttall insisted the party was the victim of its own success on Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn arrived in Manchester to celebrate the partys metro mayor victory on Friday evening. But onlookers were surprised Andy Burnham, the newly-elected mayor of Greater Manchester, was no-where to be seen. He left the count shortly before 5pm, ahead of Mr Corbyns arrival in the city around 7pm. Local Labour MP Lucy Powell said she had not been asked to attend the rally, tweeting: I didnt get invited (and its my constituency!). She later tweeted: Jeremys office has apologised as it was a simple mistake. Jeremy Corbyn travels to Manchester to congratulate Andy Burnham. He's not at the rally, but he's 'been in touch' pic.twitter.com/HDAhzHqzva Patrick Hurst (@paddyhurst) May 5, 2017 I didn't get invited (and it's my constituency!) Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) May 5, 2017 my constituency as a candidate (for the Labour Party in an election) yes Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) May 5, 2017 Jeremy's office has apologised as it was a simple mistake. Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) May 5, 2017 The lines between politics and music were Blurred when David Rowntree was elected County Councillor for University Ward, Norwich. The Britpop star, who shot to fame as the drummer of rock band Blur, has long been a Labour Party activist and said he was delighted and humbled to have secured the seat. The Conservatives had a symbolic score when Ben Houchen became the first elected mayor of Tees Valley. His remarkable victory in the north-east, traditionally Labours heartland, was akin to his uncle Keiths goal in Coventry Citys 1987 FA Cup Final win. He beat Labours Sue Jeffrey by more than 2,000 votes in the second round of counting. Keith Houchen scores a diving header Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the local elections were an emphatic win for the SNP, despite the Conservatives gains north of the border. The SNP remains the largest party in local government in Scotland, but the Tories returned 276 councillors, more than double the number they secured in the last local government elections five years ago. With @SusaninLangside who will now form a new @theSNP city government in Glasgow - ending 40 years of Labour control. pic.twitter.com/jnXSJ7b1ya Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) May 5, 2017 Former John Lewis boss Andy Street narrowly won the mayoral race in the West Midlands. The Tory candidate gave up his business career last year to stand for the newly-created post with an election campaign which reportedly cost almost 1 million. Mr Street, who ran John Lewis for nine years, described his new role as too important to leave to the local political establishment and pledged total commitment to the job. Charley Hull is through to the third round of the Lorena Ochoa Match Play in Mexico City after victory over Pornanong Phatlum. The 21-year-old Englishwoman won the 16th and 17th holes against her Thai opponent to claim a 2&1 victory in an undulating tie. Hull, who now plays world number 12 Sei Young Kim, was pegged back from two-up as she bogeyed holes 14 and 15. Charley Hull (Steve Paston/PA) But a slip from Phatlum at 16 and Hulls birdie at 17 ensured another win. There were also victories for Lydia Ko and Ariya Jutanugarn, but Inbee Park and Suzann Pettersen were knocked out. The US will continue attending United Nations climate change meetings, even as President Donald Trump considers pulling America out of a global emissions-cutting deal, officials said. While US representatives are in Bonn, Germany, next week for the UN talks, Mr Trumps advisers will meet on Tuesday to discuss the global pact known as the Paris agreement. The conflicting signals suggest the administration is trying to keep its options open while Mr Trump decides whether to withdraw, a move the international community would strongly oppose. President Donald Trump (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) To say that President Trump's position on climate change is pathetic is a huge understatement. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 3, 2017 Though Mr Trumps inclination has been to leave the agreement, he has allowed his daughter, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, to set up an extensive review process, a senior administration official said. The goal is to ensure Mr Trump receives information from both government experts and the private sector before making a decision. Ivanka Trump will hold a separate meeting on Tuesday with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt, the official said. Mr Pruitt is a chief proponent of leaving the deal and has questioned the science which says humans are contributing to global warming. The decision to participate in next weeks UN climate talks should not be construed as a sign that Mr Trump has decided to stay in the Paris pact, a State Department official added. On the contrary, the US will be sending a much smaller delegation than it has in years past, the official said. Under the Paris deal, brokered by former US president Barack Obama and world leaders in 2015, nations agreed to non-binding pledges to cap or reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The pact helped solidify a global consensus about addressing climate change which environmental groups worry may be undermined if the worlds largest economy withdraws. If the US pulls out, it will be a pariah, said Andrew Light, a climate adviser at the World Resources Institute. It will be on the sidelines, and thats going to hurt American businesses. Mr Trump, as a candidate, threatened to cancel the deal, but since taking office has said he is studying it and plans a final decision soon. US officials say the timeline is being driven by the Group of 7 summit, which Mr Trump will attend late this month in Italy. Mr Trump needs to announce a decision before that summit so that leaders can determine whether and how to address climate change issues during the G-7. Paul Pogba is convinced Manchester United can make the top four despite Jose Mourinhos insistence they have already blown it. Fresh from Thursdays 1-0 win at Celta Vigo in the first leg of their Europa League semi-final, the Red Devils face a crunch Premier League match at Arsenal on Sunday. Manchester Citys comprehensive victory at Crystal Palace means fifth-placed United arrive at the Emirates Stadium four points shy of a Champions League berth with just four matches remaining. Paul Pogba has not given up on a top-four spot. A fine win in Spain, but @PaulPogba says it's time to move on as focus switches to Sunday's game with Arsenal: https://t.co/cJvAzNLMtQ pic.twitter.com/dHGj98srbQ Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 5, 2017 United have little wriggle room yet Mourinho intends to rest players in north London, saying they wasted their last chance to reach the top four by drawing 1-1 at home to struggling Swansea last weekend. Prioritising the Europa League makes sense as the competition offers a Champions League place to the winners but Pogba has not given up on a top-four finish just yet. Of course, we have to believe, Pogba told MUTV. Obviously, we want to do it and we can. Of course were strong enough, we are Manchester United and we can do this. An important away goal A clean sheet A second leg to come at home Tonight's work has @PaulPogba's seal of approval! #MUFC #UEL pic.twitter.com/mkUA5bInuS Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 4, 2017 To be in the top four, our mind has to go there and we also want to win the Europa League. We have to keep our heads on the challenge and the big objective; we want to achieve the big goals, not the small ones. Were confident of that. Were young and fresh. Englands fastest bowler Mark Wood is back on track after a year of persistent ankle problems which left him feeling as if his career was standing still and maybe even in danger of ending prematurely. Wood returned to clean-bowl Irelands Paul Stirling on Friday in his first spell for his country for more than eight months, the first wicket of a resounding one-day international victory to kick-start Englands high-profile summer in which he hopes he can be a pivotal performer in all formats. That is a far cry from some of the darker moments, including after three operations on his left ankle, which Wood admits left him wondering if he would ever make it back to England colours. Mark Wood is fit and firing again He did so with a bang in Bristol, where the ball which ended Stirlings involvement bounced only once more as it careered off to the boundary behind the stocky opener after taking out middle-stump - a fair indication that Wood retains plenty of the x-factor extreme pace England prize so highly. At 27, he has come of age in one numerical sense - having taken his tally of international caps to 21 across the formats. As he eyes a 22nd at Lords on Sunday, when England will bid to wrap up the Royal London Series 2-0, Wood admits he found himself questioning at times whether his body would allow him to resume his international career. Practice makes perfect for @AdilRashid03! How's this for accuracy? pic.twitter.com/Us3ooXOyIN England Cricket (@englandcricket) May 6, 2017 Its not something that I thought at times would happen, over the winter, he said. I thought the dream was gone at times. When you try and rush back, and its not happening at the speed you want it to, you think is it ever going to happen again?' Wood returned last summer after his first two operations to impress against Pakistan in four ODIs. But the pain, and further surgery, was soon back - leaving him still with no Test action since October 2015, and an uncertain future. Im absolutely delighted to be back, he said. I had questioned at times whether I would actually ever play for England again. Would your reactions be as sharp as this? Our head coach Trevor Baylis puts the players through their paces with some catching practice pic.twitter.com/u7TVgUFmUN England Cricket (@englandcricket) May 6, 2017 After the first two (ankle) operations, I always believed I would get back. But then this one, because (the recovery) didnt happen at the same rate as it did previously, I was a little bit unsure if I would ever get back to the standard I wanted to set and the pace I wanted to bowl at. It is in recent weeks especially, after returning for Marchs North v South fixtures in the United Arab Emirates and then for Durham at the start of this season, that Wood has begun to believe again. I felt I had sort of stood still for a year, so I really wanted to kick on, he added. Missing tours and missing games, I was getting a bit frustrated. But to be back for the first game (of the summer), in hindsight if I had looked at it like that Ill get back for the first England game I would have been over the moon and sort of took your hand off. Leicester and England scrum-half Ben Youngs has pulled out of the British and Irish Lions squad due to family illness. The Tigers announced on their website the wife of Youngs brother Tom, who is also a Leicester player, is suffering from terminal cancer, prompting the 27-year-old to withdraw from Warren Gatlands team for the upcoming tour of New Zealand. We are a very close family and, as I am sure everyone can respect, time is now precious together, Youngs said. Ben Youngs has withdrawn from Lions tour for family reasons. See statement from Tigers & Ben at https://t.co/xlkkuLzrDN Leicester Tigers (@LeicesterTigers) May 6, 2017 The most important thing for me at this difficult time is to be able to offer as much support as I can to Tom and his family in the remaining time we all have together. Scotland and Gloucester scrum-half Greig Laidlaw will tour in Youngs place. Youngs was one of three scrum-halves picked in the 41-man squad and had a strong chance of being involved in the Test series against the All Blacks. The 27-year-old has amassed 70 caps for England and won a further two for the Lions during their 2-1 triumph over Australia in 2013, starting the second international in Melbourne. (David Davies/PA) Gatland was informed of the decision this week. Both Youngs brothers will continue to play in Leicesters season-ending play-off campaign. It is a great honour to be selected as a member of the Lions squad, Youngs said. I would like to thank Warren Gatland, the staff and the other players for their understanding in this situation. I wish them well and, like all rugby supporters in Britain and Ireland, hope they have a successful tour. Our thoughts are with @benyoungs09, @TomYoungs87 and family at this sad time. Youngs withdraws from Lions tour: https://t.co/VaOnGLmBSo pic.twitter.com/Su3KlaF8il England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) May 6, 2017 The statement released by Leicester added: Both families hope their privacy can be respected at this difficult time. There will be no further comment from Tom, Ben or from Leicester Tigers at this point. Gatland, meanwhile, has offered his support to the family. (Adam Davy/PA) The Lions head coach said: We fully understand and respect Bens decision to stay at home. Family comes first and I know from having toured with Tom and Ben in 2013 how close they are. This is a difficult and important time for them and we send Ben, Tom and their family our heartfelt thoughts. Back in the matchday 23 @ConorMurray_9 is named on the bench for today's clash. Full team details | https://t.co/uqgm28LvJK#MUNvCON pic.twitter.com/kKBsMmQWOK Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) May 6, 2017 The on-field loss of Youngs has been partially offset by the return to fitness of Conor Murray, who travels to New Zealand as first-choice scrum-half. Murray played 28 minutes of Munsters 50-14 Guinness PRO12 win over Connacht at Thomond Park, making his first appearance since suffering shoulder-related nerve damage while on Ireland duty almost two months ago. Gatland had stated that Murray must prove his fitness before embarking for New Zealand and he has a further two matches to prove he is ready to face the All Blacks. Jeremy Corbyn is facing a potential challenge in his Islington North constituency from a terminally-ill cancer patient campaigning for reform of medical negligence laws to save the NHS millions of pounds. Despite being confined to bed in her Norfolk home, Susanne Cameron-Blackie is planning to register as an independent candidate in the north London seat for the June 8 General Election. (Stefan Rousseau/PA) She told The Mail On Sunday she was taking the stand to raise awareness of the vast sums lost by the NHS due to law suits. Ms Cameron-Blackie, 68, said she was motivated by her horror at suggestions she should sue over being given insufficiently strong painkillers on a cancer ward last month. She said: If I sued I would be taking away yet more money from the NHS, so making it more likely that a future patient would endure a similar ordeal. (Ben Birchall/PA) This is the point Corbyn and Labour dont get. They say they are socialists, yet theyre doing nothing about a system which treats the NHS as if it were a manufacturer making faulty products, instead of a provider of a vital social good. She said: I may be the first parliamentary candidate forced to lie down, rather than stand, for office. But Im determined to do something useful with whats left of my life. Im taking on Corbyn in his political comfort zone. He talks about shaping the future. As things stand, the future for the NHS is to vanish up its own backside because of the money going on lawyers and damages. Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 2 hours): KGHM Copper miner KGHM Polska Miedz to release first-quarter results after trading session. DATA The central bank will release April reserve assets data at 1200 GMT. TAXES Poland's ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) has been more effective in collecting tax revenues since coming to power in late 2015 than its predecessor, the daily Rzeczpospolita reports, citing a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. GRUPA AZOTY Poland's Grupa Azoty will not be shipping liquefied gas from the American continent as some of the firm's peers are planning to do as it is more expensive than domestic liquefied gas, the daily Rzeczpospolita reports, citing a senior manager at the firm. TOYOTA Polish government's support for Toyota, which in October said it would invest 650 million zlotys ($168.88 million) in the country, may total 12 million zlotys, the business daily Puls Biznesu reports, citing the contract's details. JPMORGAN CHASE JPMorgan Chase, which is zooming in on Warsaw as a destination for its new back office operations centre has posted its first recruiting ad for a position in Warsaw, Puls Biznesu reports. **** Reuters has not verified stories reported by Polish media and does not vouch for their accuracy. **** For other related news, double click on: Polish equities E.Europe equities Polish money Polish debt Eastern Europe All emerging markets Hot stocks Stock markets Market debt news Forex news For real-time index quotes, double click on: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX ($1 = 3.8488 zlotys) (Reporting by Warsaw Bureau) ADDIS ABABA, May 5 (Reuters) - A renegade general said he was weighing launching his new rebel force into South Sudan's civil war, and called for President Salva Kiir to go, accusing him of spearheading ethnic violence that rights groups fear is slipping towards genocide. Thomas Cirillo Swaka, known as Cirillo, resigned as deputy chief of staff of South Sudan's military in February, citing rights abuses in a war that has split the world's youngest nation, often along ethnic lines, since 2013. Since then, the army's most high-profile defector said he has put together a force of several thousand fighters, but declined to identify their exact plans or locations. The scarred guerrilla veteran told Reuters that before he quit he had seen evidence of a government programme to recruit fighters and procure arms for militias from Kiir's Dinka ethnic group that included secret orders for weapons bypassing military supply lines. The assertions from Cirillo, a member of the smaller Bari ethnic group, were dismissed by the presidency. "It is very unfortunate that Cirillo is getting out of his mind. This is completely rubbish," said presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny. Reuters was unable to verify Cirillo's accusations independently. But if true, they reinforce rights groups' assertions that the government is using ethnic militias, accusations that the government has strongly denied. A senior U.N. rights official said in December parts of the conflict involved ethnic cleansing. Last month, Britain said some of the violence in the oil-producing state amounted to genocide. "Salva Kiir must go and there should be a change," Cirillo told Reuters from a hotel in Addis Ababa, capital of South Sudan's neighbour Ethiopia, where he said he was living in exile while trying to unite the disparate rebel forces. "If Salva Kiir ... tries to close all doors to peaceful solution ... (the National Salvation Front) will have no other option to defend the people of South Sudan and to protect itself," he added, referring to his rebel force. He said his fighters were "friendly" with the country's biggest rebel force, known as the SPLA-In Opposition - which confirmed it sees Cirillo as an ally. REFUGEES, FAMINE, OIL The war started in December 2013 after Kiir sacked his deputy and long-term rival Riek Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic group. Forces loyal to Kiir clashed with Nuer in the capital, triggering retaliatory attacks across the impoverished nation. The surge of violence just over two years after South Sudan seceded from Sudan has fuelled Africa's biggest cross-border refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It has also plunged districts into famine, nearly halved oil production and threatened to destabilise a volatile region. Cirillo said he had largely been sidelined with little power during the period when the worst abuses by government troops took place. Reuters could not verify that assertion, though Cirillo has not been named in any U.N. reports on rights abuses. He said he quit partly because the president and army chief set up a system to recruit militia fighters, bypassing official military channels - a statement dismissed by the presidency. "The president does not seek parallel recruitment," said Ateny. Cirillo said the programme was organised out of Kiir's ranch outside the capital, Juba, in Luri - an area described as a "marshalling point and training area for Dinka militia" in a 2016 U.N. Panel of Experts report on South Sudan. Cirillo said Kiir and army chief Paul Malong, another Dinka, held meetings at their homes, rather than at the ministry or military headquarters, excluding military officers of other ethnic backgrounds. The two also circumvented normal military channels when they recruited thousands of youths from their home region of Bahr el Ghazal, Cirillo said. "They train them there and bring them to Juba," he said. A military spokesman referred Reuters queries to the presidential spokesman. "YOU HAVE TO HIDE GUNS" Cirillo, who has an eight-inch scar on his head from a landmine blast, fought during South Sudan's long wars with the Khartoum government and was head of army training and research from 2010 until February 2016, when he became head of logistics. Cirillo said that less than a week after signing an internationally backed peace deal with Machar in August 2015, Kiir called 60 top generals, including Cirillo, to his palace and ordered them not to withdraw from the capital as the deal stipulated. "The president came and told us that he is not going to implement the agreement and told us in an open way that you have to hide guns," Cirillo said. Ateny described that as "another fabricated lie." Machar returned to Juba in April last year, but was forced to flee in August after fighting between his forces and Kiir's broke out in the capital. South African authorities are holding Machar under de facto house arrest after he sought medical treatment there in October. Alan Boswell, author of an upcoming report on South Sudan for the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, which monitors small arms and armed violence, said Cirillo had support in his native Equatoria region that surrounds Juba and borders Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. "If Cirillo manages to secure an arms supply, the effect would be immediate and drastic, as the rebellion is currently extremely under-resourced," said Boswell. (Editing by Andrew Heavens) ATHENS, May 5 (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sought on Friday to bring his leftist Syriza party on board to approve a deal reached with international lenders, sweetening the pot by saying any above-target savings this year would go to the Greek people. He also repeated his mantra that Greece has done its bit with austerity and reforms and that it is now time for the lenders -- the European Union and International Monetary Fund -- to meet their promises to consider debt relief. "After five years of promises ... our lenders are faced with the obligation to immediately adopt substantial measures to reduce the debt," Tsipras told his party lawmakers. Tsipras was speaking following Tuesday's initial deal on a package of reforms -- including such unpopular moves as cutting pensions -- between creditors and the government The agreement ends six months of staff-level haggling and will pave the way for the disbursement of further rescue funds if approved first by the Greek parliament and then by euro zone finance ministers. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou Editing by Jeremy Gaunt) KORTRIJK, Belgium, May 5 (Reuters) - A Belgium-based group of refugee musicians has banded together in an orchestra that blends musical influences as diverse as their home countries from Syria to Tibet. The "Refugees for Refugees" project run by Belgian music school Muziekpublique aims to highlight the cultures of the refugees' homelands and raise money for refugees with concerts and an album. The orchestra's 10 members - all Belgium-based refugees - are musicians from countries including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tibet. One of the musicians, Asad Qizilbash of Pakistan, was a well-known player of the sarod, a stringed instrument with roots in Afghanistan. But he fled his country in 2010 after militant groups vandalised his music school and threatened him. He was granted refugee status in Belgium in 2012. Working with musicians from completely different musical backgrounds was not easy, he said. "It was a difficult task because I play Indian classical music and it's very different from makam," said Qizilbash, 53, referring to a Turkish classical music style. "To make it happen, we have to agree with each other, so we learn something also. Sometimes you have to listen to each other, get together and try to be together," he told Reuters. The group held its first performance on Thursday in the Flemish town of Kortrijk and embark on a tour to other European towns before returning to Belgium. (Reporting by Clement Rossignol; Writing by Mark Hanrahan; Editing by Tom Heneghan) JAKARTA/BANGKOK, May 6 (Reuters) - The Indonesian government is suing Thailand's state-owned PTT and PTT Exploration and Production for around $2 billion for alleged damage to the environment from an oil spill in the Timor Sea eight years ago. The Montara wellhead operated by subsidiary PTTEP Australasia caught fire in 2009, leaking hundreds of thousands of litres of oil off the northern coast of Western Australia, according to media reports at the time. The incident was considered one of Australia's worst oil disasters, and PTTEP was fined A$510,000 ($394,000) by a Darwin court after pleading guilty in 2011 to charges related to workplace health and safety and failure to maintain good oilfield practice. Indonesia alleges, however, that the oil spill also fouled seawater and coastal areas in the nation's East Nusa Tenggara province, and filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in a Jakarta court against PTT, PTTEP and PTTEP Australasia, seeking 27.5 trillion rupiah ($2.1 billion) for damages and restoration costs. PTTEP Australasia "has not shown good intention in resolving the pollution problem of the Montara oil spill," Indonesia's maritime coordinating ministry said in a statement on Friday. Besides polluting seawater, the incident also damaged mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass fields in East Nusa Tenggara province, the ministry said. PTTEP said in an emailed statement that it was aware of reports about Indonesia's lawsuit, but that it "has not been served with proceedings and has not received any notification of the substance or extent of the claim." PTTEP has always acted cooperatively and "in good faith" in its past discussions with the Indonesian government, and will continue to do so, it said. PTTEP Australasia maintains its position that "no oil from Montara reached the shores of Indonesia and that no long-term damage was done to the environment in the Timor Sea," the company said. In a separate class action suit, around 15,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers are seeking more than A$200 million ($152 million) from PTTEP Australasia to cover damages from the spill. The next hearing in the class action suit is due to take place at the end of this month, according to their legal team. [http://bit.ly/2nUe2Uc] ($1 = 13,327.00 rupiah) (Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa in JAKARTA, and Panarat Thepgumpanat and Patpicha Tanakasempipat in BANGKOK; Writing by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Tom Hogue) By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala DAR ES SALAAM, May 6 (Reuters) - Thirty-two schoolchildren, two teachers and a minibus driver where killed in Tanzania when their vehicle plunged into a roadside ravine in the northern tourist region of Arusha on Saturday, a senior police official said. "The accident happened when the bus was descending on a steep hill in rainy conditions," Arusha regional police commander Charles Mkumbo told Reuters by telephone. "We are still investigating the incident to determine if it was caused by a mechanical defect or human error on the part of the driver." The students killed in the accident, which occurred at about 9:30am in Karatu district, were standard seven pupils, aged 12 to 13, from the Lucky Vincent primary school on their way to visit another school, Mkumbo said. President John Magufuli described the accident as a "national tragedy" in a statement. Tanzania, the second-largest economy in east Africa, has a poor road safety network, but buses remain the main form of public transport between towns. More than 11,000 people were killed in road accidents in Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, according to government data. (Editing by Clement Uwiringiyimana and Hugh Lawson) MOSCOW, May 6 (Reuters) - The Russian and U.S. chiefs of general staff agreed on Saturday to fully resume the implementation of a joint memorandum on preventing mid-air incidents over Syria, Russian news agencies quoted the Russian Defence Ministry as saying. Russian General Valery Gerasimov and General Joseph Dunford of the United States discussed in a phone call the Syria de-escalation zones and agreed to continue working on additional measures aimed to avoid clashes in Syria. The aircraft safety memorandum was signed in October 2015 after Russia began bombing targets in Syria to support Syrian government forces in their fight against Islamic States and other armed groups. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova) By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani ABUJA, Nigeria, May 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Up to 50 Chibok schoolgirls were released by Islamist Boko Haram militants on Saturday after more than three years in captivity, a Nigerian government spokesman said, the largest group yet to be freed after years of tense negotiations. The girls were among about 220 students abducted from a secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in 2014, sparking a global campaign #bringbackourgirls supported by then U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and list of celebrities. About 21 Chibok were released in October in a deal brokered by Switzerland and the International Red Cross, while a handful of others have escaped or been rescued. But about 195 were still missing. "The government will soon release an official statement," a government spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Last month President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that the government was "in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed". The girls were taken from a school in Chibok in the remote northeastern Borno state where Boko Haram has waged an insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state that has killed thousands and displaced more than 2 million people. (Editing by Belinda Goldsmith @BeeGoldsmith ) What does Patali know about politics that Harini doesnt know? Sri Lanka is going through great pains to get its economy in order after the Last May a court in Senegal convicted and sentenced to life-imprisonment Hissene Habre, the former ruler of Chad, for the crime of torture and crimes against humanity. On Thursday last, an appeal court upheld the sentence and now Habre, who ran from Chad after a coup in a military transport that airlifted him, his entourage and a Mercedes to what he hoped would be a luxurious exile in Senegal, is languishing in an ordinary prison cell. Habres government killed more than 40,000 people during his presidency from 1982 to 1990, when he was deposed. The American government made a last minute effort to save Habre but failed. He had long been an important, if secret, ally. He was, according to Michael Bronner, writing in the respected Foreign Policy magazine in January 2014, The centrepiece of the Reagan Administrations attempt to undermine Muammar Gadaffi who had become an increasing threat and embarrassment to the US with his support of international terrorism. Senegal became the first country in the world to ratify the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Hugh Brody, the head of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Senegal is a country that always considered itself to be in the avant-garde of international law and human rights. Nevertheless, for years it gave Habre refuge, before finally succumbing to pressure from human rights organisations, Belgium and the African Union to put him on trial. One of the people who staggered to freedom from his jail in Chad, the moment of the release of all Habres political prisoners, was Souleymane Guengueng. He was a former accountant, nearly blind and barely alive. In 2013 he would prove to be Habres undoing. Brody sent a student law team to Senegal to interview him. While in prison Guengueng had compiled 792 witness accounts that he had coaxed out of fellow prisoners. The students hid copies of the documents in the laundry room of the monastery in which they were staying. One of them took the risk of an airport search by putting them in his bag and taking a plane home. The next step was for Brody and his colleagues in January 2000 to file a case against Habre. Brody says, When we began we didnt know who was who- who would give information back to Habre. We were really afraid he would try to escape from Senegal. Fortunately, they had had Guenguengs documents which were the documentary core of the case. They filed the case on January 26. Two days later the senior investigating judge summoned the Chadians to tell their stories. The case made headlines across Africa. Four days later the judge indicted Habre and placed him under house arrest. The New York Times editorialised: An African Pinocheta welcome new chapter in the evolution of international law. But the drama still had many acts to go. On July 4, the judge was removed from the case. The following year the countrys top court ruled that Senegal didnt have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Habre in another country. Then Brody helped Chadian victims, who had been given refuge in Belgium, to file a criminal complaint under the countrys law of universal jurisdiction. In 2009, after Senegal had repeatedly failed to respond to an extradition request, Belgium took the case to the World Court, the International Court of Justice. In March 2012 the court convened. Days later Senegal elected a new president, Macky Sall. He announced that Habre would be tried in Senegal. Senegals minister of justice, Aminata Toure, told Bronner, We have to walk the talk. On July 20 the World Court issued its unanimous decision, ordering Senegal to, Without further delay submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution. On June 30, 2013 the police arrested Habre at his house where he had lived in gilded exile for 22 years. The Obama Administration welcomed the trial. It began in the summer of 2015 and finished in May last year. It was the first time that a former African head of state has been prosecuted for human rights abuses in an African country other than his own, (and where until recently he had enjoyed the hospitality and protection of his hosts). The conviction is also significant as it required the intervention of courts across several jurisdictions. It also required the African Union with its 54 member states to mandate Senegals prosecution and judges to proceed with the case. It has allowed the African Union to reclaim some of the moral high ground it has lost during its campaign of threatening to withdraw from the ICC because of its alleged bias against Africa. It points the way to reconciling the conflicting demands of international law, regional politics and national sovereignty. Other parts of the world could emulate it with their own human rights criminals. For 17 years, the writer was a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune. The Centre Against Private Medical Colleges (CAPMC) today staged a protest outside the Colombo National Hospital urging the government to abolish SAITM. The protest was held to coincide with the 24-hour strike launched by the GMOA and other trade unions. Pix by Nisal Baduge Healthcare, education and railway services countrywide came to standstill today because of the 24-hour strike launched by several trade unions against the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) in Malabe. The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) Assistant Secretary Haritha Aluthge told a media briefing government doctors including ayurvedic doctors, dental and veterinary surgeons stopped work from 8.00 a.m. today to 8.00 a.m. tomorrow. About 160 trade unions joined in this battle to protest against SAITM, the trade agreements with foreign countries such as ETCA, the selling of the country's assets and the privatization of state institutions, he said. Dr. Aluthge said the GMOA had also requested its members to refrain from engaging in private practice during the strike and warned of more trade union action if the government did not provide them with a reasonable response on SAITM. However, he said emergency treatment at all the hospitals was carried out uninterrupted. Meanwhile, Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) General Secretary Joseph Stalin told Daily Mirror that about 50 to 60 per cent of teachers at State schools kept away by applying for sick leave. The strike action against SAITM was a success. Many teachers applied for sick leave and have kept away from school despite several threats, he said. Railway Guards Association Secretary P.M.P. Peiris said the strike launched by railway guards and drivers despite several threats was a success. Meanwhile, a member of the Federation of Faculty of Medicine Teachers, Professor Lal Jayakody said students attached to sState medical faculties around the country kept away from attending lectures. Those students are really helpless amid several people claiming that they are politically motivated, he said. (Kalathma Jayawardhane) Video by Buddhi A meeting between visiting Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake and Chief Executive Officer of Japan Bank of International Corporation (JBIC) Tadashi Maeda was held on Thursday. This meeting was held on the sidelines of the 50th annual conference of the Asian Development Bank being held in Yokohama in Japan. During the meeting with Maeda, Finance Minister Karunanayake extended Sri Lankan governments gratitude to the Japanese government for the assistance granted to further strengthen the friendship between the two countries. In response, Tadashi Maeda who recognized Sri Lanka for its entry to the journey towards sustainable development said that Japan is ready to support Sri Lanka on every possible occasion. Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe yesterday reiterated that he was not a dual-citizenship holder and invited those who make such allegations to request the Foreign Affairs Minister or the Speaker to check who among the 225 MPs hold dual-citizenship certificates. Responding a question at a news briefing held at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Head office, he said even the thought of applying for dual citizenship had never crossed his mind. Im 61 years old now and never in my life ever thought of applying for dual-citizenship. I personally believe its immoral for a politician to be a dual citizen because a person has to pledge to uphold the Constitution of another country, the minister said. He said he was one of Sri Lankan legislators who continued to defend the country at UNHRC sessions in Geneva by opposing the stance taken on Sri Lanka by other countries including the US. If I am a citizen of such a country, how could I have protected Sri Lanka? How can I raise my voice against those countries? I was able to function independently because I had no dual citizenship, he said adding he was not prepared to betray his motherland. (Lahiru Pothmulla) AFP: Indonesia said yesterday it has filed a US$2 billion lawsuit against an energy company over an oil spill off Australia that it claims caused environmental damage in the archipelagos waters. The civil suit was filed Wednesday in a Jakarta court against PTTEP Australasia, which was operating the rig in the Timor Sea where the accident happened, and its parent company, Thailands state-owned PTT Exploration and Production. The spill in the Montara field, north of Australia, took place in August 2009. Thousands of barrels of oil leaked for close to 10 weeks following a blowout at the rig, in Australias worst ever offshore drilling accident. Indonesia is seeking about 27.4 trillion rupiah (around US$2 billion) in damages, including for damage caused to the environment, after the oil spread into its waters, said Arif Havas Oegroseno, Deputy Minister for maritime affairs. The government is also seeking to freeze the firms assets in Indonesia and overseas, he said. This is an effort to seek justice for the PTTEP oil spill, Oegroseno said. Oegroseno said the oil spill killed and damaged a huge area of coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangroves in Indonesia. Over the years, Indonesia had tried to negotiate with the company to come to a resolution but was not satisfied with their response, Oegroseno said. We feel that they are not serious in handling this issue, he said. An independent commission which included the former Indonesian and Thailand foreign ministers did not manage to resolve the issue when PTTEP failed to show up for the signing of an agreement over the oil spill in late 2012, the deputy minister said. Oegroseno said the companys failure to show up was a clear signal that the company was not taking the case seriously. There was no immediate comment from the energy company. PTTEP has previously said comprehensive studies clearly showed no lasting impact on the highly sensitive and biodiverse ecosystems in the areas closest to Indonesian waters. In August last year about 13,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers launched an AUS$200 million (US$150 million) class action against PTTEP Australasia in Sydney, claiming the accident devastated their livelihoods. HINDUSTAN TIMES, 05th MAY, 2017- Kashmir braced for more clashes on Friday morning as the Valleys joint separatist leadership called for after-prayer protests, a day after a civilian driver was killed and three soldiers injured in an ambush in Shopian district. Strongly condemning the excessive force and crackdown against civilian population in south Kashmirs Shopian district, Joint resistance leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik urged people to protest against state terrorism after Friday congregational prayers on May 5, a press statement said. Kashmir has seen a spate of bank lootings, militant attacks and mounting civilian-police clashes over the past few months following viral videos of alleged human rights violations and roughing up of paramilitary personnel. Jan Walliser, the World Banks Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, arrived in Colombo for an official two-day visit. During his visit, he will gain firsthand understanding of Sri Lankas reform agenda, key for the countrys transition to upper-middle income status and to increasing its shared prosperity. Sri Lanka has made a strong commitment to implement comprehensive fiscal, economic, and governance reforms. I look forward to my meetings with the government to understand how the World Bank Group can further strengthen its ongoing support for these initiatives, said Walliser. During his visit, Walliser will be meeting with senior government officials, with the private sector as well as with the Right to Information (RTI) Commission. Congratulating the government for the passage of the RTI law, Walliser said, RTI law is a game changer in Sri Lankas path to prosperity if used with a focus on development effectiveness. It is a tool for all citizens especially the economically weak, the private/non-government sector, and the media to play a key role in the decision making process of the public sector. He reiterated the banks commitment to support the implementation of the law together with other development partners and key stakeholders. Before joining the World Bank in 2002, Walliser was an economist at the International Monetary Fund and a principal analyst at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office where he focused on the analysis of pension reform and tax reform. He has published in a range of professional economic journals on intergenerational aspects of fiscal policy, tax reform, pension reform, and aid effectiveness. Washington (dpa) 05th MAY, 2017 - US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday appeared to have patched up any differences lingering over an abrupt phone call between the two leaders several months ago. Trump told reporters he and Turnbull get along great and said the media had exaggerated what happened on the call. Thats all worked out. Its been worked out for a long time, Trump said in New York after meeting Turnbull face-to-face for the first time. Exactly right, added Turnbull when Trump described reports on the call as fake news. Trump and Turnbull appeared together aboard the USS Intrepid, which has been converted into a museum moored in New York Harbour. Two Sri Lankans who exchanged fisticuffs onboard a flight flying from Tokyo Narita Airport to the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) were taken into custody by the Police at the BIA. An argument between two passengers had led to the fisticuffs. It was revealed that one passenger had been under the influence of liquor and was behaving indecently. The two from Dankotuwa and Bambalapitiya were reprimanded and later released by the Police. Islamophobia, Afrophobia, crackdowns on freedom of expression, pellet guns blinding people, rapes and assaults by security personnel were all these mere allegations, or the stark-naked truth of a democracy that is treading a dangerous path, now more than ever? When the nation was asked these questions (on human rights violations), India, on May 4, proudly defended its secular, democratic credentials at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). According to Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who led the Indian delegation at the 27th session of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group, India is a secular state with no state religion and safeguarding the rights of minorities forms an essential core of its polity. But without getting into constitutional semantics, what Rohatgi said doesn't seem to hold true amid the wide-spread allegations, especially when on most occasions, the government too didn't bother to clear the air. The attorney general's assertion couldn't be more ironic, especially when recent incidents of mob-lynchings of minorities have gone unnoticed and unaddressed. Pehlu Khan, a cattle trader from Rajasthan's Alwar was lynched by self-styled 'gau rakshaks'. While people were getting killed over suspicions of smuggling cows, not on one but several occasions, the prime minister chose not to condemn a single death directly. As it came under criticism from Pakistan at the UN over treatment of minorities, Rohatgi said that the Indian Constitution enshrines various provisions for the protection of the rights of the minorities and the most marginalised. True, there are provisions in the Constitution, but are those rights and interests being protected? At least, the number of incidents involving rights violations don't say so. Sample this: In February this year, the Amnesty International, in its annual report, summarised how millions in India were opposed to changes to labour laws, and how the marginalised communities continued to be frequently ignored in the government's push for faster economic growth. Talking about human rights violations in India, the report also brought forth the tensions between India and Pakistan following the 2016 Uri attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, and how demonetisation affected the lives of millions. The same report also highlighted the crackdowns on freedom of speech in university campuses and how dissent was silenced under the Modi government. At the UN, the Pakistan delegation also raked up the Kashmir issue and demanded a ban on the use of pellet guns in the Valley by Indian security forces. It asked India to allow a UNHRC fact-finding team to visit Kashmir and review the situation. Although Rohatgi refuted all "allegations", Pakistan, whose own human rights record is abysmal, raised the issue of "mob violence" against minorities including Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Dalits in India. It's a pity that India chooses not to acknowledge the presence of the deep, dark malaise that threatens the foundations of its rich democracy. When Rohatgi claimed that right to free speech and expression occupies its rightful place in the core of the Indian Constitution, he was evidently stating what's written in the Constitution, not what is in practice. The violent attacks on university and even court campuses in the recent past are a testimony of how the government has tried to silence free speech and branded all dissenters "anti-national". Recently, even former Delhi High Court chief justice AP Shah came down heavily on the "sloganeering and flag-raising" as nationalism tests, currently on the rise in the country. Speaking at the MN Roy Memorial Lecture, Justice Shah pointed out the importance of free speech and other fundamental rights and liberties, barring which nationalism regresses into an "antiquated cult". "Today, we are living in a world where we are forced to stand for the national anthem at a movie theatre, we are told what we can and cannot eat, what we can and cannot see, and what we can and cannot speak about. Dissent, especially in the university space, is being curbed, and sloganeering and flag raising have become tests for nationalism. We have a 21-year old university student who is subject to severe online hate, abuse, and threats, only because she dared express an opinion." "This marker of 'anti-national' is used to intimidate and browbeat voices of dissent and criticism, and more worryingly, can be used to slap criminal charges of sedition against them." Despite such repeated warnings against growing intolerance in the country, the government continued to ignore all kinds of rights violations and, in turn, encouraged the rabid fringe into becoming a majoritarian voice. The attorney general couldn't have made a greater mockery of his own "beliefs" as he tried to claim that India has been at the forefront of recognising equal rights of transgenders. His argument, of course, was based on the Supreme Court's landmark judgement in 2014 directing the government to declare transgenders a "third gender", to include them as an "Other Backward Class" entitled to affirmative action benefits. The apex court had reinforced that transgenders should have all rights under law, including marriage, adoption, divorce, succession and inheritance, Rohatgi told the UN. But it's surprising that he is woefully ignorant of the ground realities. The Pakistani establishment is facing severe criticism for the "sham" observance of May Day this year. Academics and pro-labour organisations have squarely condemned Islamabad for its apathetic attitude towards the labour class who are believed to be the poorest in the nation. They reckon that hardly any respect is paid to the work and dignity of labourers who put their lives on the line daily, just to earn enough money for two square meals a day. To reinforce the argument, the complete lack of state control has resulted in the rise of neo-slavery, where peasants and brick-kiln workers mortgage future generations to the land-owners in exchange of a few thousand Pakistani rupees per month. Ironically, Pakistan ranks third in the Global Slavery Index. Weak rule of law, widespread corruption and poverty reinforce political, social and economic structures in modern slavery in Pakistan. Bonded labour is most common in the brick-kiln sector, with the majority of kilns in Punjab and Sindh provinces. Around 2.3 million brick-kiln workers all over Punjab are subject to the bonded labour system. Glaringly, they are denied basic fundamental rights, including social security and the minimum wages legally entitled to them. Workers are paid only Rs 400 per 1,000 raw bricks. Sadly, there are umpteen cases where high-ranking police officers have been operating brick-kilns and keeping workers in private torture cells. Feudal landlords, particularly from Punjab and Sindh, wielding influence through powerful political connections, intimidate the workers into submission, stifling their voice. It's reminiscent of the medieval ages when slavery was rampant and feudal lords' writ ran all over. Meanwhile, workers employed in the ship-breaking industry are not better off either. The notorious industry is more dangerous than mining, employing a work force of 6,000 direct workers. A paltry sum of Pakistani rupees 500 to 800 ($7 to $11) is the daily wage, which doesn't commensurate the hard labour they put in. Also, due to lack of legislation on importing hazardous waste into the country, workers are exposed to perilous waste material dumped by the industrialised nations. Child labour is also rampant in Pakistan. Photo: Reuters As recent as November 2016, in one of the worst cases of fire in the Giddani ship-breaking yard in Balochistan, 26 people lost their lives and many were reported missing and feared dead. Such is the sad state of affairs in the country. Child labour is also rampant there. According to statistics from International Labour Organisation (ILO), in 2014, a decline was observed throughout the world factoring underage workers. Yet, Pakistan remained in the third spot with the highest prevalence of child and forced labour. The Institute of Social Justice reported 29 child house-workers' deaths from torture between 2011 and 2015. In 2013, 13 children died as a result of violence perpetrated on them. Significantly, there are 2,64, 000 underage domestic workers experiencing cruel and unsafe working environments. They are left to the mercy of their employers who routinely subject them to physical and psychological abuse, exploitation and violence. Pakistan needs to develop a clear implementation and monitoring plan for the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1992, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules, 1995, and the National Policy and Plan of Action for the Abolition of Bonded Labour, 2001. Further, labour legislation should be adapted by the government and aligned with the provisions of the ILO conventions. They have to continue to spearhead progress towards gender equality and development for women in the areas of education and employment. American Midstream Partners, LP provides midstream infrastructure that links the producers of natural gas, crude oil, natural gas liquids (NGLs), condensate, and specialty chemicals to various intermediate and end-use markets in the United States and Mexico. Its Gas Gathering and Processing Services segment offers services to producers of natural gas and crude oil, including transporting raw natural gas and crude oil from various receipt points through gathering systems, treating the raw natural gas, processing raw natural gas to separate the NGLs from the natural gas, fractionating NGLs, and selling or delivering pipeline-quality natural gas and NGLs. The company's Liquid Pipelines and Services segment transports, purchases, and sells crude oil. Its Natural Gas Transportation Services segment transports and delivers natural gas from producing wells, receipt points, or pipeline interconnects for shippers, local distribution companies, and utilities, as well as industrial, commercial, and power generation customers. The company's Offshore Pipelines and Services segment gathers and transports natural gas from receipt points to other pipeline interconnects, onshore facilities, and other delivery points. Its Terminalling Services segment provides petroleum products, distillates, chemicals, and agricultural products storage services at its marine terminals for commodity brokers, refiners, and chemical manufacturers. As of May 10, 2018, the company owned approximately 5,100 miles of interstate and intrastate pipelines; gas processing plants and fractionation facilities; an offshore semisubmersible floating production system with nameplate processing capacity of 90 thousand barrels per day of crude oil and 220 million cubic feet per day of natural gas; and terminal sites with approximately 6.7 million barrels of storage capacity. American Midstream GP, LLC serves as the general partner of the company. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. 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. GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom. The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Premier Plan MMAI Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Illinois Inc., Aetna Better Health of Indiana Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Tennessee Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Insurance Company of New York, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Insurance Company of Connecticut, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Ex Pat LLC, Aetna International LLC, Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L., CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Cabot Holdings Inc., CVS Cabot Holdings Inc. Coram Clinical Trials Inc. 99.72%/Aetna Inc. .28%, CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Applications LLC, CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Health Ventures Fund GP LLC, CVS Health Ventures Fund LP, CVS Health Ventures Management LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Management Support LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS Pharmacy Overseas Online LLC, CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS Shaw Holdings Inc., CVS Shaw Holdings Inc. Coram Clinical Trials Inc. 99.72%/Aetna Inc. .28%, CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Austin LLC, CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Los Angeles LLC, CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Philadelphia LLC, CVS-SHC Renal Holdings LLC, Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc. CVS Pharmacy Inc. 75%/Aetna Life Insurance Company 25%, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., Credentials Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California LLC, Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., First Choice of the Midwest LLC, First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Main Street Pharmacy L.L.C., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arkansas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Colorado LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services of Texas Association, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky LLC, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services LLC, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare LLC, Omnicare LLC Aetna Inc 0.28%/CVS Cabot Holdings Inc. 49.86%/CVS Shaw Holdings Inc. 49.86%, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare LLC, Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC. Read More Floyd Henry Harris, a 64-year-old man from Palmyra, was arrested by Fluvanna County authorities Friday following a shooting in Columbia. Responding to a call about a fight in Columbia that evening, Fluvanna County Sheriffs Office deputies found a man with a gunshot wound to his hand and chest. Harris had fled, but he soon was located by authorities. According to county authorities, Harris and the victim know each other. The victim was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center and treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Harris has been charged with malicious wounding and use of a firearm in commission of a malicious wounding. He was held without bond and transported to the Central Virginia Regional Jail. He will appear in Fluvanna County General District Court at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Sgt. Aaron Hurd at (434) 589-8211. In late autumn 1989, I was asked to start writing a weekly column, the subject of which I could choose. I decided to write about local history, the more obscure the better. The first Yesteryears column appeared on Nov. 12, 1989. After more than 1,200 editions, this will be the last. Ive written many more feature stories, but I see Yesteryears as my signature accomplishment at The Daily Progress. Every story I have ever written has taught me something about life. My column has taught me things of the heart. Not long after I started writing it, an elderly woman came up to me. She told me about a relative who had brought dishonor to her familys name decades before. She knew it was just a matter of time before I learned about it. All she asked was that I consider the pain it would cause innocent members of her family if I brought it back into the light. I didnt mention that I already knew the story, had gathered all the information and planned to run the piece within a few weeks. I never wrote that story, but it taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life. That lesson: Just because I could didnt mean I should. One persons history can be another persons pain, and its a hurt that can last for more than a lifetime. After I came to that understanding, I always thought of how my own family would react if a particular story was about one of our relatives, living or dead. That guideline caused the death of more than one story, none of which I regret. My goal for Yesteryears was to provide you, our readers, with an enjoyable way to learn about our local history, and celebrate the people who created it. If I had to choose one story to personify the column, I would select the one I did on Hobert William Clements. I was told about the World War I veteran in February 1990. I reached the Albemarle County farmer by telephone and said Id like to write a story about him and his war experiences. Mr. Clements told me that he never talked about the war. I told him I was an Army combat veteran, too, and that I completely understood his position. Then I added that, in my view, he owed it to history to speak on the record about what it had been like for him. The silent pause that followed lasted so long I started to think he had walked away from the telephone. Finally, I heard him say, All right; let me give you the directions to my place. The afternoon I arrived, many members of Mr. Clements family were there, none of whom had ever heard him say a word about the war. What followed was one of the most moving and amazing examples of raw, human emotions I have ever witnessed. As the retired farmer told us about the horrors of trench warfare, it was so quiet in the room that I heard a muffled gasp. I remember advancing over people, wounded and bleeding, who were probably going to die, Mr. Clements had said. Oh, yes, Ive seen a lot of death. Horrible things, like arms and legs hanging in trees. I remember my gunner, who was firing our machine gun, got shot several times. Its a terrible feeling to have to pull a man off his gun. If theres such a thing as beauty in war, it was when I saw the French cavalry charge the German lines. No one cheered along our lines. We all just watched in silence, because of their bravery. The family members were surprised when Mr. Clements brought out a box containing medals they hadnt seen. He told them that he had never gotten over the war, and sometimes he would go off by himself and cry. I was happy to be home, but sad, because of what Id seen, the quiet-spoken man had said. It changed me, but I cant explain it. I think it softened my heart more than anything else. Ive seen things on the front that would make an iron heart melt. At the end of my visit, Mr. Clements asked me to do something for him. He put on his red wool coat and walked out into a cold, stiff breeze blowing across his front yard. He took me to a large boulder, above which flew an American flag. Fastened to the face of the rock was a polished granite plaque bearing words that the veteran had penned himself: Dedicated to those who fought in any war and to the thousands of broken-hearted mothers all over the world. Then Mr. Clements called us to attention, and together we saluted the flag. Now, I salute you, our faithful readers, for the kindness and loyalty you have graced me with for all these years. Yesteryears became for me something much more than a weekly newspaper column. It became a link that connected us to the past, and to each other. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (fourth from right) and Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Trns (Photo: VNA) Welcoming Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Ulla Trns in Hanoi on May 5th, PM Phuc noted that Denmark is among the first West European countries to invest in Vietnam and is now an important trade-investment partner of the country. He called on more Danish companies to invest and do business in Vietnam. Vietnam hopes that Denmark will use its prestige and position to push for the signing and approval of the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the European Union, Phuc said. On her part, Minister Ulla Trns said she was impressed by Vietnams economic growth, adding that bilateral trade between Denmark and Vietnam has been on the rise and more and more Danish enterprises have noticed Vietnam. The minister stressed that she hopes for the early signing and approval of the EU-Vietnam FTA, which will facilitate trade between Vietnam and Denmark. She suggested the two countries expand cooperative ties to areas of Denmarks strength, such as food safety, animal husbandry and particularly renewable energy, as 70 percent of power used by Denmark comes from renewable energy. The minister appreciated Vietnams efforts to improve the business environment, facilitate investment and fight corruption, urging the country push ahead with those efforts./. Delegates attend the first APEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 1) in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province, in February (Source: VNA) To date, around 250 local reporters and 200 foreign peers have also signed up for coverage of these events, the organisers said. SOM 2 will comprise 49 meetings, workshops and dialogues of committees and working groups of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, covering a range of spheres such as trade and investment liberalisation, business facilitation, human resource development, education, network economy, food safety, science, technology and creativity, mining, automobile industry and urbanisation. At these events, APEC delegates are expected to continue speeding up the deployment of long-term cooperation programmes and plans in key areas and reach consensus on documents to be submitted to ministers for approval, laying a foundation for preparing contents and documents for the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting and APEC Ministerial Meeting in central Da Nang city in November 2017. A multilateral dialogue on APEC towards 2020 and the future, a High-level Policy Dialogue on Human Resource Development in the Digital Age, a Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) meeting, a Senior Finance Officials Meeting (SFOM) and the 23rd Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) Meeting will also be held on this occasion. Since its inception in 1989, APEC has proved itself as a leading economic cooperation and connectivity mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on three pillars: trade and investment liberalisation, business facilitation and economic-technological cooperation. APEC now groups 21 member economies, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the US and Vietnam, which together account for 39 percent of the worlds population and contribute 59 percent of the global GDP and 48 percent of the global trade (by November 2016). Vietnam officially joined APEC in November 1998, marking a milestone in the implementation of its foreign policy of openness, multilateralisation and diversification of relations and international economic integration. Since then, Vietnam has made positive contributions to the APEC cooperation process. The country successfully hosted the APEC Year 2006, in which the 14th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting endorsed the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals, approved measures to enhance the efficiency of APEC cooperation and set out long-term prospects towards the formation of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). In 2014, Vietnam also successfully organised the 6th APEC Human Resources Development Ministerial Meeting. Vietnam has recommended and joined in many new initiatives alongside with proposing and carrying out more than 100 projects related to trade, investment, economic-technological cooperation, small- and medium-sized enterprises, response to emergency, healthcare, food security and counter-terrorism. The nation has assumed important positions in APEC cooperation mechanisms./. President Tran Dai Quang (R) welcomes Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Oshima Tadamori in Hanoi (Source: VNA) During a reception in Hanoi on May 5th for Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Oshima Tadamori, President Quang also spoke highly of the development of parliamentary cooperation between the two countries in recent years as well as the exchanges between their young parliamentarians. Having expressed his delight at the outcomes of the earlier talks between Tadamori and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the President believed that the ongoing visit will significantly contribute to fostering cooperative ties between the two legislatures, and between Vietnam and Japan as well. He praised the strong development of the Vietnam-Japan relationship in all fields, particularly in politics, security-defence, economy, cooperation among localities and people-to-people exchange, saying that the official visit to Vietnam by PM Shinzo Abe and the first State visit by the Japanese Emperor and Empress in March 2017 created a new momentum for bilateral relations in the future. President Quang suggested the two nations continue their close coordination at multilateral forums, while working together closely to ensure navigation security on the basis of respect for international law and settlement of disputes through peaceful measures. Having thanked Japan for its official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam over the past 20 years, the President called on Tadamori and the House of Representatives to continue supporting the Japanese Governments provision of more ODA for Vietnam. Vietnam also welcomes Japanese businesses to expand investments in the country, especially in the fields of infrastructure, high technology, supporting industry and climate change adaptation, he added. For his part, Tadamori held that 2017 is an important year for the development of bilateral ties with various high-level visits, including the Vietnam visits by PM Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Emperor and Empress, and the upcoming visits to Japan by Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc. He said that many Japanese enterprises and investors want to seek investment and business opportunities in Vietnam, adding that Vietnams determination to reform administrative procedures and improve its investment environment is an important factor to attract more Japanese firms. Tadamori asserted that Vietnam and Japan should further promote their coordination in regional mechanisms such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, and affirmed Japans support to Vietnam in hosting the APEC Year 2017. The same day, President of the Vietnam-Japan Friendship Parliamentarian Group Pham Minh Chinh hosted a banquet in honour of the Japanese delegation. The Japanese guests also visited the Nguyen Dinh Chieu high school for blind children, the Birla Children Village and the Vietnam-Japan University in Hanoi./. Mumbai: Chanda Kochhar, ICICI Bank's chief executive officer and managing director, has welcomed Modi government's move to effect changes in Banking Regulation Act that will give the Reserve Bank of India sweeping powers to deal with toxic loans. Kochhar in an interview that she gave to ET now she has said that the ordinance related to bad loans faced by public sector banks will help lenders solve the vexed problem in a time-bound manner. As of December 2016, the public sector banks were sitting on a huge stockpile of bad or toxic loans worth over Rs 6 lakh crore. The figure zoomed in past few years as earlier the banks had recorded Rs 1 lakh crore in bad assets. So far, the banks were unable to tackle such a mammoth debt on their balance sheets that acted as a precursor for government effecting an amendment in Banking Regulation Act so as to give RBI enabling powers. "The ordinance actually authorises the government to empower RBI to direct the banks in many ways,' Kochhar told the channel. She also says RBI's directives to banks will expand scope of overseeing committees that would be formed to deal with the NPAs problem. "The total NPA as well as the restructured base for the banks is at about Rs 10 lakh crore, but almost 40 per cent of that is really the top 50 cases of NPAs," she added. Kochhar backed taking up of large NPAs cases on a priority basis. Mumbai: India's Software and IT major Wipro has lodged an extortion and threat complaint with the Bengaluru police against unidentified 'source' who demanded in an email a Rs 500-crore ransom in virtual currency bitcoin. "We have filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source," news agency ANI quoted the company as saying. The New Indian Express reported that the 'source' of threat email also specified how the IT company should send the money. The unidentified email source said Wipro should send the payment using a link by May 25 or else they will spread toxic protein drug on one of its campuses. Cyber crime investigation cell of Bengaluru police has registered the complaint and informed the media that Wipro's Sarjapura office received the email on Friday morning. The sender has also threatened to contaminate a Wipro campus with toxic protein drug if the payment is not completed. The report quotes police sources as saying that email was sent by the id Ramesh2@protonmail.com. The text claimed that one kg of Ricin has already been stored. "Two grams would be sent in envelopes to one of Wipros offices to assure that the threat is not a fake," the email said. Workshop concluded with a decision that a framework for food smart cities would be further refined and circulated to cities around the country. New Delhi: Regulator FSSAI has proposed widening the ambit of smart cities by incorporating food management system into it to ensure safe and nutritious food consumed by citizens. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and Urban Development Ministry on May 2 organised a workshop on 'Food Smart Cities' to discuss its framework and methodology for rollout. Senior representatives from Smart Cities including Ludhiana, Ajmer, Jaipur, Gurgaon and Bhubaneswar participated in the meeting. FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said that food has been largely ignored in city planning, despite it being the central piece around which life revolves. "There is now a golden opportunity to integrate food systems management into the smart city guidelines," he said in a statement. The Food Smart Cities would have end-to-end solutions for food systems in urban areas. Stating that rapid urbanisation has raised concerns about food quality, FSSAI said: "One of the ways to address this is to integrate sustainable food safety and nutrition systems within the smart city design and create Food Smart Cities". FSSAI has proposed a four-pillar approach that cities could undertake at the local level to ensure safety and hygiene across the supply chain. "The workshop concluded with a decision that a framework for food smart cities would be further refined and circulated to cities around the country, aspiring to be Food Smart Cities," Yokohama: Upset over not getting a rating upgrade, India has lashed out at global rating agencies saying they are far detached from ground realities and must introspect as the reforms initiated certainly warranted an upgrade. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said India was being denied an upgrade even as growth and fundamentals improve. In past too, India has questioned the methodology used by global rating agencies saying the nation compares favourably with other emerging countries on metrics such as default risk. In particular, it points to S&P Global Ratings keeping China at AA- despite rising debt and slowing growth while India has been kept at one step above junk. Moody's and Fitch too give similar rating citing Asia's widest fiscal deficit as a drag on the nation's sovereign rating. "So far as government is concerned, it will continue to take measures which are good for the country, which are good for the economy. The government will continue to take structural reform measures, step up public investment, do what is good for the economy, for our growth, for our employment generation," Das told Indian media here. India, he said, has shown excellent growth over the last few years. "The kind of number and quality of reforms which India has experienced in last two-three years is unparallelled. It is only in India that you see this kind of reforms are happening," he said. Das said with all these changes, India has continued to maintain 7 per cent plus GDP growth rate, while the ease of doing business has improved considerably. Even after this "if the rating agencies do not give an upgrade to India, if they do not give any weightage to it, I think they are probably far detached from ground realities. So, it is really for them to introspect," he said. Earlier this week, Fitch cited weak fiscal position to keep India's sovereign rating unchanged at 'BBB-', the lowest investment grade with stable outlook assigned to the country more than a decade ago. While India is targeting a fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent this year, it will bring it down to 3 per cent next year. China's reported debt surged to 264 per cent of its GDP at the end of 2016, from 193 per cent in 2009. In contrast, India's debt fell to 66 per cent of its GDP from 72 per cent. New Delhi: The government today empowered RBI to ask banks to initiate insolvency proceedings to recover bad loans, amounting to over Rs 6 lakh crore in case of state- owned lenders alone, and promised more measures to resolve the NPA crisis. Acting quickly, the RBI made substantial changes in the norms and also warned banks of monetary penalty for missing NPA resolution timelines. Within hours of the notification on ordinance amending the Banking Resolution Act 1949, the RBI, through a notification, eased the decision making process in the Joint Lenders' Forum (JLF) and Corrective Action Plan (CAP) under the 'Framework for Revitalising Distressed Assets in the Economy'. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier told reporters the ordinance empowers Reserve Bank to issue "directions to any banking company or banking companies to initiate insolvency resolution process in respect of a default under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016". He said the banks have an unacceptably high level of non-performing assets (NPAs) which hinders their capacity to fund economic activities. Toxic loans of public sector banks (PSBs) rose by over Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 6.06 lakh crore during April-December of 2016-17, the bulk of which came from power, steel, road infrastructure and textile sectors. Gross NPA of PSBs nearly doubled to Rs 5.02 lakh crore at the end of March 2016, up from Rs 2.67 lakh crore at the end of March 2015. Jaitley further said an amendment is proposed to the prevention of corruption act which has been introduced in Parliament. The Standing Committee has submitted its report on its and will come up for consideration of both the Houses. "Some other steps also being taken, which once decided, will be communicated," he added. Further, the government is also planning to modify MoUs which banks sign at the time of receiving capital from the government. This, he said, would relate to immediate cash release initiatives, like sale of assets, closure of non profitable branches, reduction of overheads, business turnaround steps, and strengthening of credit appraisal process. Emphasising that ordinance has been notified as of today morning, the Finance Minister said, discussions were on for last one and a half months with regard to NPA resolution policy. The government has issued a general authorisation to RBI in this regard in line with the ordinance promulgated by President Pranab Mukherjee last last evening. The ordinance, which amends Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act 1949, will have to be placed in Parliament for approval in the upcoming monsoon session. It has inserted Section 35 AA and Section 35 AB in the Act. "The object of this Act is that the present status quo cannot continue. And the present status quo is that not much was moving and therefore a paralysis in the name of autonomy is detrimental to the economy itself and therefore that really requires to be broken," Jaitley said. He said the move will expedite commercial decision making of the banks. The minister said one of the objects is that "when bankers take commercial decisions on commercial and banking considerations, they must have adequate comfort level". Jaitley further said that interference of the Finance Ministry has not helped in dealing with the problem of the sector. "Whenever North Block has without power interfered in the banking system, it hasn't done very good," he said. The ordinance has also empowered the RBI to set up sector related oversight panels that will shield bankers from later action by probe agencies looking into loan recasts. "And therefore a committee which oversees such JLF (joint lenders forum) arrangements is one step which will give them (bankers) this comfort level," Jaitley said. He further said an amendment is proposed to the prevention of corruption act which has been introduced in Parliament. The Standing Committee has submitted its report on its and will come up for consideration of both the Houses. "Some other steps also being taken, which once decided, will be communicated," he added. Further, the government is also planning to modify MoUs which banks sign at the time of receiving capital from the government. This, he said, would relate to immediate cash release initiatives, like sale of assets, closure of non profitable branches, reduction of overheads, business turnaround steps, and strengthening of credit appraisal process. Meanwhile, in a major restructuring in PSU banking space, the government today appointed heads of various public sector banks including rejig at PNB and Bank of India. Mumbai: On Friday, May 5, India lifted its diplomacy towards its close neigbours to the space. Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a SAARC summit in November 2014 had promised India's space gift to South Asia. The gift promised was a satellite that Indian Space and Research Organisation launched on Friday. The one common satellite will be for India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutal, Maldives, Bangldesh and Sri Lanka. After the satellite lifted off, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed SAARC leaders through a video call. Here are a few key facts; 1) South Asia Satellite is also called Geostationary Communication Satellite-9 (GSAT-9). It will allow India's six neighbour's to make a use of it, according to a report in The Times of India. 2) Satellite launch was in accordance with India's neigbourhood policy. Government spent Rs 450 crore on the project that included lauch cost and other variables. Satellite alone came at a price of Rs 235 crore. 3) "The control will now be taken over by the Master Control Facility in Hassan (Karnataka) and in the coming few weeks the GSAT-09 will reach the final orbit," TOI quoted Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar as saying. 4) The satellite is now encircling the earth at a perigee of 169 km and an apogee of 36,105 km with an orbital inclination of 20.65 degree with respect to the equator, the report said. 5) India's space agency Isro said major phases of flight happened as scheduled. About 17 minutes after lift-off, South Asia Satellite was successfully placed in GTO, it said. Mumbai: It seems like Jennifer Lawrence is taking a leap from the fantasy world to the real world. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new footage of the flick 'Red Sparrow,' shown at a special Fox event, highlighted the adult nature of the film. The director, Francis Lawrence, told during the event that this movie is definitely going to be R. He also revealed that when he pitched the idea of his approach for the movie, nobody chickened out or got cold feet, everyone was up for it. It is a Hard R. The film, which also stars Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary Louise Parker and Charlotte Rampling, sees Lawrence reuniting with her ' Hunger Games' director. The film is heavy on sex, with the Oscar-winning actress' character trained to seduce the individuals deemed as enemies of the Russian state. Talking about working with the 'Passengers' star, he said, she was willing to take some risks in this movie, but might not have been willing to do for somebody she didn't know. While Lawrence revealed that there was just one week's worth of shooting left to do, with production taking place across Europe and now in London. 'Red Sparrow' is due for a release in March 2018. Mumbai: International auteur Majid Majidi's film Beyond The Clouds has been in news ever since he started shooting for it early this year in January. Starring Shahid Kapoor's younger brother Ishaan Khatter and Malavika Mohanan, the film has been completely shot in India. Says an insider source, "Mr. Majidi recently shot the last scene of the film with the lead cast in Mumbai. Everyone on the sets was very emotional as one of their life's most cherished shoot came to an end, where they got to see the cinematic god in action personally. While shooting for the film everyday over the past few months, everyone had grown close to each other like one big family." The entire cast and crew marked the occasion with an impromptu cake cutting ceremony with the legendary film maker. Says the official spokesperson on behalf of Zee Studios and Eyecandy Films, "The shoot of the film is complete and is ready to get into post-production." Mumbai: Most in Bollywood took to Twitter to give a thumbs up to the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the death sentence against the accused in the December 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case. However, some gave mixed reactions too. The reactions are as follows: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the earlier order of death sentence to four convicts involved in the December 16, 2012 gang rape case. In December 16, 2012, six people gang raped a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus. The woman succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012. One of the accused, Ram Singh hanged himself in prison, while another person, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted in August last year and will serve the maximum sentence of three years in a reform home. The next option for the convicts is to appeal against their death sentence to President Pranab Mukherjee. Even as accolades are being tossed at Kabir Khans quirky, sentimental, lyrical and luminous trailer of Tubelight, the filmmaker is not in India to receive the compliments. Hes currently in Dubai, shooting with hold your breath Shah Rukh Khan, for a movie; albeit a short one. Confirms Kabir, Im in Dubai shooting a short film with Shah Rukh Khan for Dubai tourism. Shah Rukh Khan According to sources close to the development, Kabir and SRK are also going to be working on a feature film very soon. Shah Rukh and Kabir are very keen on doing a feature film; they go back a very long way, says the source. In fact, not many people know this, but Shah Rukhs character in Chak De! India was named Kabir after Kabir Khan. When Kabir asked Shah Rukh to make a guest appearance in Salmans Tubelight, the latter said yes without a second thought. Now, when SRK asked Kabir to shoot a short film for him, the director readily agreed, setting his hectic post-production schedule for Tubelight aside, to fly to Dubai. Earlier this week, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra made their debut at the red carpet event of Met Gala 2017. Although Priyanka walked away with all the attention, for carrying off her long Ralph Laurent trench-coat gown, with tremendous poise and confidence, describing it as her fashion moment, Deepika gave the impression of being simple and low-key with her backless white satin gown. Recently at an event to announce her name as the latest brand ambassador of LOreal Paris, Deepika was asked whether she was apprehensive about living up to the expectations of fashion critics. For me, the opportunity is not about what you are wearing, but the privilege of being at an event like that, explained Deepika, adding, My focus was to feel good in what I wear, some people may not have liked it and some others may have liked it, but the intention was to make the best of the event and enjoy both the atmosphere and the people I met. But it was her next comment that was befitting, The only time I would be truly concerned about what I wear is when my mother admonished me or my girl friend gave me the flak for something I wore. I think that would be the only time I would allow any comment to affect me, she said. When asked about whether she considered it important to be a trend-setter, she said, All of us have an inherent style and a signature look, something that we are comfortable with. There are experts who I work with and they are the ones who ensure that I wear what is trendy. I dont claim to know that but I am curious to learn and I am okay with it. Deepika will be walking the red carpet at Cannes on the 17th and 18th of this month, when she will make her debut as LOreals latest brand ambassador. The actress also hailed the success of Baahubali. Thats the best part of the medium. Whether it is us representing India globally or a Baahubali, which we understand is a regional film thats breaking barriers, the possibilities are endless. Thats why Priyanka does what she does because there is no limit to creativity, she said. She also pointed out that there was a lot more she wanted to achieve in her career, in spite of having completed ten years in the industry, It doesnt feel like its been ten years already. Just when you think that everything is going great there is something else that comes along and excites you. Theres no end to it and thats what drives me, she smiled. Crediting her parents for all that she had achieved in life, Deepika said, The motivation is to enjoy my work, do great work and let my parents know that I am in a happy space, and a lot of it comes from the way they have brought me up. Thats how I see my father and mother conduct themselves as well. Stars promoting small films is a familiar practice in Tollywood. And now another big star Nagarjuna is promoting Taruns film. The young actor is all set to comeback with the film Idi Naa Love Story, which is in post-production work. On Friday, Nagarjuna unveiled the teaser of the romantic drama, and also wished the team luck. Tarun, after taking a long hiatus, has decided to return to the silver screen with his favourite genre, love story. Oviya, who earlier worked in several Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada film, is playing the female lead. The film, directed by Ramesh Gopi, also marks her Tollywood debut. A remake of a Kannada hit film, Idi Naa Love Story, produced by S.V. Prakash is gearing up for release soon. The siege of Seringapatam marked the end of the Fourth Anglo Mysore War and the fall of the kingdom of Mysore, perhaps the most powerful opponents of the British rule. On May 4, 1799, Tipu Sultan fought his final battle. The siege of Seringapatam marked the end of the Fourth Anglo Mysore War and the fall of the kingdom of Mysore, perhaps the most powerful opponents of the British rule. After their victory, the British took indirect control of Mysore, restoring the Wodeyar dynasty to the throne and installing a British commissioner to advise the puppet king on courtly matters. Tipu Sultan's young heir, Fateh Ali, was sent into exile. "My ancestors, Tipu's descendants, were banished from South India, so they fled to Calcutta," said Sahebzada Mansoor Ali, a seventh generation descendant of Tipu Sultan. Ali works out of a non-descript office in Hudson Circle, the nucleus of his impassioned study of the family legacy. Those who appear sceptical of his ancestry invariably find themselves presented with papers, pulled out of large, heavy files and spread out across his desk to confirm his bloodline. About a month ago, when we first met, Ali had just finished dashing off a letter to the Chief Minister, asking for the rehabilitation of the family. "We have also asked for a library and a research centre," he said. It was another project, however, that he held closest to his heart - a website that details the much-misunderstood legacy of the Tipu Sultan Shaheed, freedom fighter and former ruler of Mysore. "It can be translated into 153 languages," he beamed, proudly showing us what was, at the time, a prototype. On May 4, 2017, 218 years since the death of Tipu Sultan, Ali launched the website in Srirangapatnam, where family custom demands an annual ritual, conducted in Sufi tradition, in memory of Tipu Sultan. The need for a more holistic view of Tipu's legacy was pressing. "British versions dominate the narrative around Tipu Sultan," said Ali, visibly distraught at stories of the king's supposed fanaticism that are liberally used in local politics. "The family was imprisoned till 1806 under Lord Cornwallis, who was determined that we should have nothing to do with Srirangapatnam," he explained. "They were banned from entering South India." When India finally won her independence, existing royal families, several of whom had forged alliances with the British, were given their due in Indian politics. "Our family was left out, despite the fact that we opposed the British rule so vehemently," said Ali. "We were never given any kind of political opportunity and we didn't demand it either." Sahebzada Mansoor Ali Trapped in Kolkata, there was very little the family could do to return to its roots. "We made our way back through the women in the family," said Ali. The women married into families in the South and managed to re-establish the Tipu Sultan bloodline in the south. One of these women was Shahzadi Shah Rukh Begum, the daughter of Sultan Yasin, the fourth son of Tipu Sultan. Begum married Mir Humayun Bahadur, who belonged to one of the wealthiest Muslim families in India at the time. Their son, Nawab Syed Muhammad, a deeply patriotic young man filled with ideas of a united, secular India that would go on to defeat the British, made his way to Indian National Congress in 1894, sidestepping the Muslim League - which still hadn't evolved into the vociferously anti-Congress organization it became. INC archives say he was appointed the first Muslim Sheriff of Madras in 1896. "He gave the Congress a great deal of help, offering them land and financial assistance," said Ali. "He became the President of the Congress in 1913." In 1978, Prince Haider Ali Shah, the great grandson of Tipu Sultan, was invited to visit Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Delhi. It was only after Independence that the family returned to South India, this time through the male descendants. "In 1950, we moved to Kolar and even then, never demanded anything of the Congress," said Ali. In 1978, Prince Haider Ali Shah, the great grandson of Tipu Sultan, was invited to visit Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Delhi. "We asked if we would be allowed to take care of Tipu's tomb." This didn't pan out, for political reasons - "Perhaps they worried that if our family came back here, they would occupy the political scene." In 2013, Ali's wedding took place at the tomb, reviving a long-lost family tradition after over 200 years. That's when he first encountered the riptide of communal forces operating in the area. In 2013, Ali's wedding took place at the tomb, reviving a long-lost family tradition after over 200 years. That's when he first encountered the riptide of communal forces operating in the area. "Tipu Sultan's name was being misused and history was misrepresented. Some people call themselves the rightful followers and many people have views on his legacy, but very few actually know the facts." Ali delved into local archives for information, unearthing volumes in different South Indian languages and learning to understand them with translators. "I met them all, from Mir Hussain Ali Kirmani, Bhagwan S. Gidwani and of course, Girish Karnad, to talk to them and learn their references." The narrative, he said, is dominated by stories of Tipu Sultan's fanaticism. "This is one of the reasons why I decided on a website." His research took him to libraries scattered across South India and to every site where Tipu Sultan made an impression. "He may have lost everything, but he was a freedom fighter and people across the world remember his name."The website launched on Friday attempts to set the record straight. On Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur Bahadur was an Indian politican who served as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1913, at the Karachi conference. The son of Shahzadi Shah Rukh Begum, daughter of Sultan Yasin, the fourth son of Tipu Sultan, Bahadur belonged to one of the wealthiest Muslim families in the country at the time. "He gave property and financial assistance to the Congress," said Khan. Muhammad joined the Congress in 1894 and became an active member and believed that the aim of the party was to unite the people of India, regardless of religion, into a strong nation. Tipu's Death Tipu's body was found close to the northern fringe of the Seringapatam fort. A stone plaque marks the spot. Lachlan Macquarie, who participated in the battle of 1799, says, in his account: It is not known how or by whom the Sultaun was killed; nor was it ascertained for several hours after we were in Possession of his Palace and Capital that he was killed at all, most People supposing that he had made good his Retreat out of the Fort at the opposite side that our Troops entered it at the commencement of the Assault. Tipu's body was found close to the northern fringe of the Seringapatam fort. A stone plaque marks the spot. Tipu Sultan and Kunigal Stud Farm Located on the outskirts of Bengaluru, this 400-acre farm is the oldest of its kind in the country. The property, which was leased to United Racing and Bloodstock Breeders in 1991, traces its origins back to the 1790s. Tipu Sultan, an ardent equestrian, set up the farm to breed horses for his wars. "He imported studs from Arabia and France for the cavalry regiments," said Syed. In 1887, the farm housed Pero Gomez, the first ever thoroughbred stallion to be imported into India. Hyderabad: A confusion occurred at Petlaburj Maternity Hospital when two newborn girls were allegedly swapped. The babies were born on April 11. After 11 days Tameena Begum developed a doubt that her baby was swapped with one of Yadamma who was admitted in the same labour room. She immediately approached the hospital authorities but they didnt accept her complaint. So she lodged a complaint with Charminar police on Friday. The inspector said, In the complaint Tameena alleged that the hospital authorities swapped her child when nurses took the child for bath. We registered the complaint and asked the hospital to conduct the required tests. He added, The main reason Tameena developed a doubt was her familys opinion that the girls facial features didnt resemble the couple. So she immediately rushed to the hospital and claimed that her child was swapped. But the hospital authorities didnt take her complaint and told her that the child was not swapped. Upset at the attitude of hospital authorities she filed a complaint with us. Police said that DNA tests will be conducted to set at rest Tameenas doubt. If she is unhappy with the results of the test samples of all relevant persons will be taken by forensic officials for medical examination. Mr K. Anil Kumar a physician said, In the A, B and O blood typing system, humans can possess the A antigen (A blood type), the B antigen (B blood type), both the A and B antigen (AB blood type), or neither of these antigens (O blood type). Red blood cell antigen systems of this sort can be used for paternity testing because there are genes that code for the antigens and these are inherited genes. The DNA test is always preferred because of its accuracy. Superintendent of Petlaburj hospital, Ms J. Pratibha said, If the couple is unhappy with the blood test then we will conduct DNA tests, but they are satisfied now. We tried to contact Yadamma, but was unable to reach her. Despite being hit, Sairam managed to get out of the SUV and take a bus, police said. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) Bengaluru: Following an intense altercation, a woman shot her husband thrice in a car on Hosur road, Bengaluru, on Friday afternoon. However, the man survived after undergoing an emergency surgery in a hospital. According to reports, Sairam, 53 had allegedly hit his wife, Hamsa, 48, over an argument regarding their daughter's engagement, which was scheduled to be held on Saturday. The infuriated wife lost her cool and shot Sairam in the abdomen thrice. Despite being hit, Sairam managed to get out of the SUV and take a bus, police said. But the angry wife was in no mood to leave him and chased the bus in the SUV. The passengers in the bus managed to stop Hamsa after which they handed her over to the police. The 53-year old victim has been admitted to the Sparsh Hospital in Bommanahalli with multiple bullet wounds near the abdomen, while 48-year old Hamsa was taken into police custody for interrogation. Police said that the couple had been married for over two decades. The incident took place when they were on their way back home from Hosur in Tamil Nadu after purchasing some items for their daughter's engagement. They had stopped at a restaurant near Anekkal, where they are suspected to have consumed alcohol. As per the interrogation by police, Hamsa wanted a lavish marriage ceremony for their daughter to which Sairam opposed. The couple run a private security firm of which Hamsa is the managing director and Sairam, the chief financial officer. According to a senior police official, Sairam punched Hamsa after the latter told her husband that the company was hers. This enraged Hamsa and she shot Sairam without having a second thought. Kochi: The crime against women recorded an all time high in the state in 2016 with over 14, 000 cases registered at various police stations with Thiruvananthapuram (1,644 cases) topping the list followed by Ernakulam (1,419) Malappuram (1406) . While Thiruvananthapuram district recorded the maximum cases for rape (204), Ernakulam recorded a total of 91 kidnapping cases, the highest. The year 2016 recorded a total number of 14,061 cases for atrocities against women as against 12,383 the previous year. After a dip, the crime against women has risen sharply. A total of 1,644 cases were lodged with rape charges and another 4,035 for molestation and 157 for kidnapping, according to latest figures released by the Kerala Police. The Ernakulam district recorded the second largest number of crimes against women with 1,419 cases. Wayanad was comparatively the safest for women with only 431 cases. Kottayam and Idukki districts too recorded 500 and 510 cases respectively. A total of 157 kidnapping cases (with women as victims) were recorded in 2016. There were also 332 cases for eve-teasing and 24 for dowry-death. The year 2016 also saw the crime against children registering a sharp increase 2,899 as against 2,384 last year and 549 in 2008. A total of 7,07, 541 cases were registered across the state last year as against 6,54, 008 the previous year. As many as 299 murder cases, 242 abduction cases and 620 attempt to murder cases too were registered last year. New Delhi: As the courtroom erupted in applause after the Supreme Court's verdict, Chhaya Sharma, who was the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP-South Delhi) when the December gangrape took place, embraced Nirbhaya's mother and said, "Yes, we have done it." Sharma called the investigation into the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern a "landmark one". Sharma, who is currently in the National Human Rights Commission, said that even while she was posted in Mizoram, she was in touch with the family of the 23-year-old woman, who was brutally gangraped in a moving bus. The woman was gangraped on a wintry night of December 16, 2012 and brutalised, an act that had numbed an entire nation and brought the young to the streets, lending her the moniker of 'Nirbhaya', the fearless. In such cases, the victim's families require handholding and support, Sharma said. She said that more than 100 policemen worked on the case that was solved and chargesheeted in a record time. From zeroing down on the bus from a list of 370 buses to arresting the accused within 72 hours of the incident, the team worked round-the-clock to crack the case. The officer, a mother to a daughter, said that the case was quite shocking for her as a woman and the verdict is a landmark one. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, through a unanimous verdict, upheld the Delhi High Court judgement on death penalty to the four convicts. The HC had concurred with the trial court decision in the gangrape that took place in South Delhi's Vasant Vihar on December 16, 2012. Those who will face the gallows are Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31). One of the accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail while a juvenile was sentenced to three years punishment in a reform home, and released in 2015. The six men had attacked the 23-year-old paramedic student and a male friend in a moving bus as it drove through the streets of New Delhi on the night of December 16. She was thrown out of the bus -- so grievously injured that her insides were spilling out -- along with her male friend near the airport. Later on, she succumbed to her injuries, on December 29, 2012 while undergoing treatment at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital where she was flown by the government. Thiruvananthapuram: Senior IPS officer TP Senkumar on Saturday took charge as DGP (Law and Order), after a successful 11-month-long legal battle in the Supreme Court against the LDF government that had removed him from the post. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had on Friday signed the order reinstating the senior IPS officer as Kerala DGP, hours after the apex court dismissed the state's clarification petition on its April 29 order directing his immediate reinstatement. The government was also ordered to pay cost of Rs 25,000. The formal order on reinstatement was issued only on Saturday. Senkumar had also filed a contempt petition against the government, which has been posted to May 9. The 1983-batch IPS officer took charge as DGP on Saturday evening from incumbent DGP Loknath Behara, who has been posted as DGP (Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau). Behara and other senior officers were present at the Police headquarters when Senkumar took charge after a nearly 11-month-long battle with the government following his unceremonious removal within days of the Pinarayi Vijayan government coming to power in May last year. Speaking to reporters after taking charge, Senkumar said he was not for any confrontation with the state government and did not feel that the state would create any impediments for his functioning. He refused to be drawn into any issues relating to his legal battle and the contempt petition, saying those were matters before the apex court. "Let us not talk of the legal issues before the Supreme Court. I should not comment on it", he said. Senkumar said that as DGP, his effort would be to do his best for the state. "The state DGP functions under the government and my priority will be to do good for the people," he said, adding his focus will be on women's safety and bringing down accidental deaths. He said he had spoken to the chief minister before taking charge and would be meeting him as early as possible after seeking his convenience. Appointed by the previous Congress-led UDF government on May 31, 2015, Senkumar was removed by the LDF government on May 30 last year and appointed as Director General of the Institute of Management in Government, an apex training institute of the Kerala government. He challenged his removal before the Kerala High Court and the Central Administrative Tribunal, where his pleas were dismissed, before he moved the apex court. Senkumar, who has functioned as KSRTC Managing Director and Transport Commissioner, will retire on June 30 this year. Srinagar: In the wake of militants targeting banks in south Kashmir, cash transactions at nearly 40 branches in sensitive areas of Pulwama and Shopian districts in South Kashmir have been stopped. The step has been taken following an advisory issued by security agencies asking the banks operating in the two districts to stop cash deliveries at the branches located in these areas as they apprehend more such attacks. The cash transactions have been stopped at the branches belonging to the Jammu and Kashmir Bank and Ellaquai Dehati Bank, which were targeted by militants recently. A senior official of Jammu and Kashmir Bank said all other banking operations including ATM services would continue in these areas. "We were told that the security agencies have inputs about more such attacks, so we had to stop cash transactions at these branches designated by the security agencies as sensitive," he said. Other banking operations, including cashless transactions and ATM services, will continue to take place. Also, people in these areas can undertake cash transactions at other designated branches in the nearby areas, he said. The official said the move to stop cash transactions was temporary till effective measures are put in place to ensure safety and security of bank employees and assets. "We have discussed various measures for the safety and security of our employees as well as the cash. "We are putting those measures in place in the coming few days and once they are in place, cash transactions at these bank branches will be resumed," he said. Various measures like providing additional armed security guards at these branches and having bullet-proof cash-vans have been discussed, the official said. The advisory by the security agencies comes in the wake of a spurt in attacks on banks in south Kashmir. On May 1, militants attacked a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank and shot dead five policemen and two bank security guards in Damhal Hanji Pora area of Kulgam district in south Kashmir. Meanwhile, a special state-level bankers committee meeting was held here yesterday in which the issue was discussed. Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, who presided over the meeting, said there was a need to devise special security measures to deal with this kind of situation. "Surveillance is good but it cannot substitute physical security on ground," he said. The meeting unanimously called for revisiting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for augmenting and upgrading physical security as well as ensuring safety of public life and property. The meeting was also attended by state Chief Secretary B B Vyas, Principal Secretary (Home) RK Goel and Director General of Police SP Vaid. Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, who is the son of a retired Baloch Regiment soldier of Dunger Pel village in PoK, was found moving suspiciously near the LoC on the Indian side, Defence spokesman said. (Photo: PTI/File) Jammu: A 12-year-old boy from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been arrested by the Army after he crossed over into the Indian territory along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, an Army official said on Saturday. Army strongly suspects that he was sent by the Pakistan Army along with terrorists to conduct probe of infiltration routes and patrol track of the Army. "A patrol of the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) who had crossed over to this side of LoC late on Friday evening in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district", Defence spokesman said. The boy named Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, who is the son of a retired Baloch Regiment soldier of Dunger Pel village in PoK, was found moving suspiciously near the LoC on the Indian side, he said. On being challenged by the Army's patrol party, the boy immediately surrendered, the spokesman said. It is suspected that the boy was sent by the terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the Line of Control, army sources said. This exposes Pakistan on the human rights front as to how a 12-year-old child has been pushed by them into the Indian territory to probe LoC areas seeded with minefields in a highly militarised belt, army sources said. The boy will be handed over to the police by the Army for further investigation. Chennai: Chengalpet Government Hospital is back in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. Reports of sanitary workers providing first aid to patients coming to the government facility have evoked strong protests and condemnation from the general public. Despite allegedly having sufficient doctors and staff nurses, the hospital has been found to be seeking the assistance of sanitary workers in the hospital to provide treatment to the patients. I had brought a relative to the hospital for treatment and was shocked on seeing sanitary workers administering injections and IV to the patients, said Ramesh, a resident of Chengalpet. Stating that there were no first aid workers or nurses available to provide treatment to those coming with illnesses, he said that the sanitary workers who do not know what medicines to give do so anyway. They administer medication, injections and glucose without checking the expiry date, which is very dangerous. Also, injecting patients with no prior experience of the same can result in problems in the future, he added. Following reports on local television channels on the same, the hospital has stopped seeking the help of these sanitary workers since Friday. Dean of the Hospital Dr Gunasekaran denied the allegations, saying, We have an approximate number of 170 doctors and 140 staff nurses. The doctors are available at all hours and will definitely not seek the help of a basic worker. It is alleged that such cases are seen in a few other govt hospitals as well, while it is extensive at the Chengalpet Govt Hospital. Patients who generally come to this hospital are from Below Poverty Line backgrounds. They fail to understand the seriousness of such an issue, said a health activist. The students were admitted to three hospitals. (Photo: ANI Twitter) New Delhi: Over 300 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness. The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police has registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. Union Minister J P Nadda has instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. A senior doctor at Batra hospital, where 55 children in the age group of 10-14 years were admitted, said their condition was stable. According to the police, a call was received at 7:35 AM about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. The chemical in the container was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana, it said. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. "Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused eye irritation to the girl students in Rani Jhansi school," DCP(Southeast) Romil Baaniya said. According to police, 310 students have received treatment in hospitals. As many as 107 students were admitted in Majithia Hospital and 62 in Batra Hospital. Some children had mild breathing difficulty, eye irritation and mild headache, the doctor at Batra Hospital said. Two children who had come with complaints of breathing difficulty were admitted in the paediatric ICU. "The condition of all the children, including those admitted in the ICU, is stable. They are currently under observation and they are likely to be discharged in three to four hours," said the doctor. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said he has ordered the area district magistrate and SDM to launch a probe into the incident. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident," he said. Sisodia, who also holds education portfolio, said that he spoke to doctors who told him that all the students were doing fine and were under observation. Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Opposition Leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta visited the victims at ESI Hospital and enquired about their condition. Hitting out at the Delhi government, Gupta sought a high-level probe into the incident. Gupta said it is "negligence" on the part of school authorities. At the time of opening the school there were signs of gas leakage. Why didn't the school authorities stop the students from entering the school?, he tweeted. The chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. "V sad. It is a man made disaster as no need for Container Depot to be in centre of Delhi. Shud b imm shifted, accountability fixed for gas leak," she tweeted. Apollo hospital authorities said that the condition of 42 children and an adult admitted there was stable. "Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements were administered to them. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition," the hospital said in a statement. The ban comes after the Centre prohibited the use of red beacon by VIPs with effect from May 1. (Photo: File) Andhra Pradesh: In a bid to end the VIP culture in the state, the Andhra Pradesh Government on Saturday banned the use of blue beacon and hooters on cars belonging to dignitaries. According to the order, only emergency and disaster management vehicles will be permitted to use the blue beacon, mostly used by police and IAS officers, henceforth. The ban comes after the Centre prohibited the use of red beacon by VIPs with effect from May 1. This was seen as a major step towards ending VIP culture that is prevalent in the nation. The beacon signifies influence and privilege for those in power. The beacon ban is seen as a move to establish the concept of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'New India' that stresses on 'EPI' - Every Person is Important.' "When I say EPI instead of VIP, the meaning is clear -- Every Person is Important. Every person has value and importance. If we recognise the importance of 123 crore citizens of the country, imagine the big strength that the country will have in fulfilling the grand dreams. We all have to do it together," Prime Minister Modi had said. Even before the Centre's decision, there have been several state governments that have sought to do away with the red beacon. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was one of the first to announce that neither he nor his team would use cars with flashing lights. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath issued similar orders after getting elected. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, travels without this mark of power. Bengaluru: The decks were cleared for 'Kambala,' a popular rural sport of coastal Karnataka following modifications made to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Amendment ) Bill, 2017 as suggested by the President of India. Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting presided over by CM Siddaramaiah here on Friday, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jayachandra said after the bill was unanimously approved by both Houses, it was sent to the President for his assent. However, the President returned the bill directing the state government to remove a particular sentence which said, notwithstanding as may be prescribed by the state government through notification. Accordingly, the Cabinet decided to remove that sentence from the bill which would once again be forwarded to the President for his signature. The minister said there would be no changes in whatever was decided by the government after a thorough discussion recently, except for the removal of one sentence. Now, it was legal to hold bullock races or bullock cart races provided there was no ill treatment of the animals. Once the President signs the bill, it would return to the office of the Governor. He said the Cabinet decided to waive the water bill of Rs 23.11 crore and an interest of Rs 16.90 crore due from slum-dwellers in BBMP limits till March 31, 2017. Besides, slum dwellers living in houses measuring 20 X 30 feet or less would be supplied 10,000 litres water per month for which the government would pay Rs148. Other decisions BENGALURU: While it took the Indian judiciary four years to pronounce the judgement in the gruesome Delhi gang rape case which had outraged the entire country in 2012, there are many such victims in Bengaluru who are waiting for justice years after the crime was committed against them. Many cases that were investigated and chargesheeted have been delayed because of slow judicial process. None of the 686 rape cases that were reported in the state in 2016 have seen conviction. The Madiwala gang rape case, for instance, where a 22-year-old BPO employee was gang-raped on October 5, 2015 in a mini-bus by Yogesh (27) and Sunil (23), driver and cleaner of the bus is still under trial, though the police filed the charge sheet on January 15, 2016. Similar is the 2014 Frazer Town gang rape case in which five people assaulted a girl on July 16. The police filed the chargesheet a few months after the crime, but the case is still on trial. There are many such cases that are languishing in the courts. Prolonged trials lead to fewer convictions as evidence would be diluted and witnesses lose interest. It reduces the fear of law among criminals, DG&IGP R.K. Dutta had told Deccan Chronicle. Surprisingly, the conviction rate in rape cases has drastically come down even after a fast-track court for sexual violence cases was set up in 2013 following the Delhi gang rape case. Agartala: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Ram Madhav on Saturday said the Centre has evidence of separatist leaders in the Kashmir getting funds from Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, to create unrest in the Valley. "This is a well-known fact. Today, the documental evidence is also available that these so-called separatist leaders in the valley are actually on payroll of the ISI. They are taking money from Pakistan to create unrest in Valley and make innocent ordinary people of Kashmir scapegoats in their anti-national designs," Madhav told ANI. A probe into the two captured ISI agents in Kashmir has revealed that the ISI fund separatist leaders to keep anti-national sentiments alive in the valley. It is being reported that the separatist leaders are getting around Rs. 75 lakhs to radicalize the youth of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and briefed him on the prevailing law and order situation in the state. The meeting was held at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the continuous unrest in parts of the Kashmir Valley reportedly raised in their discussion. Vohra's meeting with the Prime Minister came after his meeting with Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the similar issue. As many as 450 girl students southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area were hospitalised after gas leakage. (Photo: ANI/Twitter) New Delhi: Strict action will be taken against those found guilty in the gas leakage incident that led to the hospitalisation of around 450 girl students in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area on Saturday, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said most of the girls, who were hospitalised after they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness, were discharged, adding that a few of them were kept under observation. The Delhi government has asked the district magistrate to investigate the matter and find out how the gas was leaked at the depot. "We have asked the DM to take strict action against those found guilty of negligence," Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the students at one of the hospitals. Sisodia said a team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was carrying out a study on the medical impact of the gas leakage incident. Earlier in the day, around 450 girl students of two schools run by the city administration Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School had to be hospitalised after toxic fumes spread due to a chemical leakage at a container depot located near the schools. Union Health Minister JP Nadda has instructed all the Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from the AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. Kapil Mishra was on Saturday sacked as water minister of Delhi. (Photo: PTI/File) New Delhi: The Arvind Kejriwal government on Saturday sacked Kapil Mishra as the water minister, days after he sided with senior party leader Kumar Vishwas who has been at loggerheads with the party leadership. The party also inducted two new faces Seemapuri MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam and Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gehlot into the Cabinet. A senior official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would "expose" the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam on Sunday. He said he had met the chief minister earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged scam. "I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The Cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee (the AAP's top decision- making body) was not involved," Mishra told PTI. A senior government official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken after it was found that the minister had submitted several "inflated" bills. Sources in the party said Mishra was sacked because of his poor performance. However, the party had considered him as one of the most vocal and active voices in the government until he sided with Vishwas. Kochi: Congress in Kerala on Saturday accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of "misleading" the state Assembly over the issue of alleged seizure of weapons from a Kochi-based college. Vijayan had refuted Congress allegations in the Assembly on Friday about recovery of weapons from the staff quarters of the Maharaja's college, Ernakulam. He had said no arms had been seized and only some construction materials were found by the police. "The Chief Minister misled the Assembly and society over the issue," senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy said in Kozhikode. When asked about media reports that the FIR registered by police had mentioned seizure of weapons from the college, the state Assembly had witnessed heated exchange between the ruling LDF and opposition UDF members over the alleged seizure of weapons from the college. Congress-led UDF members had alleged that the Government Maharaja's College, a known bastion of ruling CPI(M)'s students wing SFI, has become a 'storeroom of arms'. The opposition had staged a walkout from the Assembly as Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan rejected their demand for an adjournment motion over the issue. Earlier, moving the notice for the motion, P T Thomas (Congress) had said several weapons, including swords and iron rods, had been seized and this should be viewed seriously by the government. Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Government on Saturday issued an order to reinstate T P Senkumar as the Director General of Police (DGP). The current DGP Loknath Behera has been made Director, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday cleared the file to reinstate Senkumar as state DGP. The Supreme Court on Friday issued contempt notice to Kerala's Chief Secretary for not reinstating Senkumar as state DGP. The response has been sought by Monday. The apex court also imposed a fine of Rs. 25,000 on the state for seeking clarification on it verdict of reappointing Senkumar as DGP. Earlier on May 3, the Kerala Government had filed a modification petition before the top court seeking clarification on its order to reinstate Senkumar as the state police chief. The apex court directed the reinstatement of the former DGP after noting he was removed from the post "arbitrarily". The court set aside the order of the Kerala High Court that had earlier upheld the Central Administrative Tribunal's (CAT) decision. The CAT was in agreement with the State Government's ruling that transferred Senkumar from the post of the state police chief. On April 11, the Kerala Government defended its decision to transfer Senkumar, citing his transfer was a punishment for how he had handled the fallout of the 2016 Puttingal temple fire tragedy, in which 110 people were killed and 300 were injured. The fire tragedy refers to an explosion leading to fireworks display going awry at the temple in Kollam district last year. Patna: President of the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to initiate an investigation against coalition partner Lalu Prasad Yadav. Modi's demand came after an English news channel aired an audio clip of Lalu having a conversation with jailed mafia don Mohammad Shahabuddin. "This tape shows that this is not their first conversation. They used to be in touch through phone. This tape reflects how Shahabuddin has been running a parallel government through jail. This tape further shows how Lalu Prasad is dependent on Shahbuddin and how Nitish Kumar is dependent on Lalu," Modi said. "This tape further established that how Shahabuddin, from jail, is giving directions to Lalu Prasad and how the government is running," he added. Modi said the BJP would seek an appointment from Governor Ram Nath Kovind and ask him to direct the Director General of Police to initiate an investigation against Lalu Yadav. "It is an Agni Pariksha for Nitish Kumar. It is to be seen whether he would take a stand and act on this matter or not," he added. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the RJD chief of breaking law by "shamelessly" hobnobbing with a man convicted of murder and accused in over 30 serious cases, saying the development was text book case of constitutional impropriety. Ravi Shankar said, "We would like to ask you (Nitish), are you going to start and institute criminal proceedings against Lalu Prasad." RJD functionary Jagdanand Singh said, "I have no idea because I have not seen the tape. I have come here for other work. You should ask the owner of the Tihar Jail if such a thing took place," he said, adding that "the party will never expel Shahabuddin from the party." "Shahabuddin is part of the party and it is not hidden," he added. Bihar BJP President Nityanand Rai demanded Kumar's resignation, saying the report has exposed the criminal-government nexus in Bihar. "Nitish Kumarji, a crime has been committed. Are you going to launch criminal proceedings against your ally Lalu Prasad?" he asked at a press conference. The channel earlier had played a recorded conversation which it claimed took place between Lalu Prasad and Mohammad Shahabuddin. Ravindra Gaikwad, who was banned by domestic airlines following a run-in with Air India staff, on Saturday said strict guidelines should be laid down for airline crew as well on how to treat passengers. (Photo: PTI/File) Mumbai: After the Centre proposed a no-fly list for unruly fliers, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who was banned by domestic airlines following a run-in with Air India staff, on Saturday said strict guidelines should be laid down for airline crew as well on how to treat passengers. He was reacting to the release of draft rules by the Centre on unruly and disruptive passengers that recommended a flying ban for three months and more. The move came in the backdrop of the row over Gaikwad repeatedly hitting an Air India employee with a slipper for not being allowed to fly business class on an all-economy plane. "There are some guidelines already existing and updating, it is a routine procedure. I think the (Civil Aviation) ministry has deliberately announced it to remind people about the entire episode," Gaikwad said. "There should be similar framework and set of rules for the airline crew as well on how to treat and address the requirements of passengers," Gaikwad said. "As a member of Parliament, I am aware of the number of complaints raised against Air India's crew, and the litigations where the staff have been accused of ignoring passengers or being unruly. "Hardly any action is initiated against its crew. If rules have to be formed, there should be equally stringent rules for the crew members as well," Gaikwad said. On March 23, Gaikwad claimed to have hit a senior staffer of Air India with a slipper "25 times" for not being allowed to fly business class in an all-economy plane. The incident triggered outrage and a flying ban was imposed on him by domestic airlines for two weeks, which forced him to switch to trains for travelling between Delhi and Mumbai. Later on April 8, Air India and private carriers lifted the flying ban on Gaikwad after he apologised for the incident. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has proposed the list which will include names of passengers identified as unruly after an inquiry by a committee constituted by a particular airline. A person identified as a threat by security agencies will also be included in this list. While the list is characterised as 'national' and will have data on disruptive passengers from all airlines, the ban recommended by the committee is not mandatory for all airlines to follow. The draft is an amendment to the existing Civil Aviation Requirement, a set of rules on unruly and disruptive passengers. These are being placed in public domain for 30 days for comments and feedback from stakeholders following which the government will come out with final amendments by June 30. Media outside the Supreme Court that confirmed death sentence for the four convicts in Nirbhaya gang rape case in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: In a rare occurrence, loud applause and someone shouting "they should be castrated first" were heard in the courtroom on Friday when the Supreme Court concluded the pronouncement of verdict in the December 16, 2016 gangrape and murder case, sending the four convicts to the gallows. It took 27 minutes for Justice Dipak Misra to deliver the main judgement, sealing the fate of the four convicts by upholding the death sentence awarded to them by the trial court and the Delhi High Court. In the 17th minute, Justice Misra read out the concluding part stating that Delhi High Court has correctly confirmed the death penalty. "Therefore, we conclude and hold that the high court has correctly confirmed the death penalty and we see no reason to differ with the same", were the words of Justice Misra, which evoked loud applause from a section of public gathered at the visitors gallery. The judge simply raised his hands to signal them to maintain silence and continued for two more minutes to conclude reading the operative portion of 315-page judgement penned by him, for himself and Justice Ashok Bhushan. However, the scribes did not wait for Justice Misra to complete the reading of judgement and rushed out of the court number 2 to break the news. At 2.18 PM, Justices Misra and Bhushan signed the verdict after which Justice R Banumathi started to read out her separate and concurring judgement. She completed reading her judgement in nine minutes and as the three judges rose to leave the dais, a woman from the gallery shouted "they (convicts) should be castrated first". The jampacked courtroom saw the three judges assembling at 2.01 PM and Justice Misra, who headed the bench, saying they were going to read out two separate judgements. Justice Misra said he will be reading the judgement for himself and Justice Bhushan and Justice Banumathi has come out with her separate judgement, which for a moment left the audience guessing whether the woman judge has dissented. However, before any speculation could gather momentum, Justice Banumathi cleared all the air by herself asking Justice Misra to clarify that she is concurring with the verdict penned by him. Justice Misra took a pause and said Justice Banumathi has written a separate but concurring judgement. Lawyers and scribes started to come inside the courtroom from 1 PM onwards while the victim's parents entered the court at around 1.30 PM. The verdict was scheduled to be pronounced at 2 PM. Soon after the court proceeding was over, the photo and video journalists, who had gathered at the apex court's lawn to click and videograph the event, rushed to take pictures and reactions of the victim's parents and the lawyers associated with the case. CHENNAI: The target of robbers who struck at the palatial hill retreat bungalow belonging to late chief minister J Jayalalithaa in Kodanad in the scenic Nilgiris may have been the rumoured cartons full of cash and not any valuable documents. What lends credence to this theory is that the vault inside the sprawling mansion was left untouched. Top police sources told Deccan Chronicle here on Friday that preliminary investigations have revealed that documents were not the target, punching holes in reports that the robbers could have barged into the mansion looking for a possible will that the departed leader might have left. The gang was certainly looking for cash and not documents. As there was no cash, a fight broke out between them and it looks like Kanagaraj, who was late Jayalalithaas driver, had tricked these people into joining him by claiming that there will be a huge stash of cash inside the mansion. And when cash was not found, a quarrel broke out inside the mansion itself, a senior police officer said. The robbers disclosed the details after eight of them were arrested. One more person who is wanted in the case. The main suspect Kanagaraj died in a road accident last Friday, while another suspect Sayan met with an accident on early Saturday morning in Palakkad, while he was driving to Thrissur from Coimbatore. While he is recuperating at a hospital, his wife and daughter were killed in the mishap. Police sources noted that the probe team is waiting for Sayan to recover completely to record his statement. Sayan, who is working as a manager at a bakery in Coimbatore, and Kanagaraj had planned the heist with the former allegedly mobilising a gang from Kerala for the operation. Sayan had earlier worked as an assistant to timber dealer Sajeevan in Ooty, which is when he developed contact with Kanagaraj. Half of the intruders who are now under the custody of the Tamil Nadu Police, the investigators said, were not even aware of the fact that the bungalow belonged to Jayalalithaa. We believe they were told that the bungalow belonged to an MLA. Before they killed the guard and entered the bungalow on the night of April 23, the gang, during the day, had checked the gates to make sure there were no CCTV cameras installed in the premises. The gang members were not ready to believe Kanagarajs version that there are no CCTV cameras. They wanted to make sure and also wanted to check the numbers of guards, sources said. As of now, police believe that the gang had taken only some wrist watches and crystal artefacts from the estate bungalow. Kochi: The alleged seizure of weapons from a city-based college became a major political issue on Saturday with opposition Congress-led UDF accusing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of "misleading" the Assembly on the matter. Vijayan had refuted Congress charges in the Assembly on Friday about recovery of weapons from the staff quarters of Maharaja's college. He had said no arms had been seized and only some construction materials were found by the police. "The Chief Minister misled the Assembly and society over the issue," senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy said in Kozhikode when asked about media reports that the FIR had mentioned seizure of weapons from the college. The Chief Minister rejected the charge, saying he had seen the FIR before making statement in the Assembly on the issue. "I quoted from the FIR", Vijayan said in Alappuzha. The assembly had witnessed heated exchange between ruling LDF and opposition UDF members over the alleged seizure of weapons from the college. Congress-led UDF members had alleged that the Government Maharaja's College, a known bastion of ruling CPI(M)'s students wing SFI, has become a 'storeroom of arms'. The opposition had staged a walkout from the Assembly as Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan rejected their demand for an adjournment motion over the issue. Earlier, moving notice for the motion, P T Thomas (Congress) had said several weapons, including swords and iron rods, had been seized and this should be viewed seriously by the government. Secuirty forces are on high alert in the state of J&K due to a spike in terror attacks. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar: Several policemen and civilians were injured, three of them fatally, in a sneak militant attack at Mir Bazaar along the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Jammu and Kashmirs Anantnag district on Saturday night. One militant was also killed and another has reportedly been injured. The injured militant fled the area a third one. The officials in Srinagar confirmed that one policeman and two civilians were killed and a few other policemen and civilians were injured in the attack by a group of three militants. Another report put the number of casualties at four. The police and locals said that the gunmen targeted a police party with AK assault rifles at Mir Bazaar near Malpora village in Qazigund area of Anantnag, injuring policemen and pedestrians. The hospital sources said that one policeman and three others "who are yet to be identified but appear to be civilians" died soon after being brought there. However, another report said that two policeman and two civilians injured in the shooting have succumbed. The police officials in Srinagar said, Our officers have rushed to the spot and are verifying the exact number of casualties and the victims identities. The police party was helping in clearing the vehicular traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu highway when attacked. DG police, Shesh Paul Vaid, has confirmed one of the assailants has been killed in the polices retaliatory fire. Earlier during the day on Saturday, a 14-year-old boy was injured when the CRPF fired shotgun pellets in Churrat village of Qazigund. The action came after groups of people hurled stones on a CRPF convoy while it was passing through the area. The boy identified as Zeshan Farooq Shah who was hit in the firing was reported sitting in the lawn of a roadside house. Mysuru: Tension was palpable between state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa and leader of Opposition in the Council K.S. Eshwarappa on the inaugural day of the state executive of BJP on Saturday though all leaders portrayed a picture of unity and charted the road map to ensure victory in 150 of the 224 seats in next years Assembly elections. On stage, these two leaders did not greet each other or make eye contact. While Mr B S Yeddyurappa, who garlanded a statue of Basaveswara before commencement of the meeting, told the media: There is no commotion in the party. Mr Eshwarappa will be given equal opportunity to speak like other leaders, his bete noire, who visited Paathala Anjaneya Swamy temple, said, there was a problem, but I dont say it is completely solved, but it is solved to large extent. The Sangolli Rayanna Brigade has nothing to do with the executive committee.Abhyasa varga (Sangolli Rayanna brigade rally) will happen. The date has been postponed. Thats it, he added. On arrival, Mr Eshwarappas his supporters hailed him as the future Chief Minister. Sources in the party said former minister and deputy leader of Opposition in the Council K.B. Shanappa took party leaders to task during the meeting, saying It is only when we are united, it is easy to achieve mission 150. Mr Eshwarappa must understand the partys situation and the intention. And Mr Yeddyurappa, who will be the CM, must strive to organise the party. Former minister Mr Aravind Limbavali, who briefed the media on the proceedings, declined to comment on Mr Eshwarappa and said he would not like to speak on the partys internal matter. There is a bit of the problem in the party. But it will be solved in the coming days. Mr Eshwarappa will address the meeting Sunday, he added. During the inaugural, Mr Yeddyurappa said the state government is number one corrupt in the country as per a survey. Minister Tanvir Sait is found involved in Rs 34 crore scam. Although the state is facing acute drought situation, CM Siddaramaiah has no time to address it, but he finds time to visit Dubai. And they are busy nominating members to the Council. This has been his style of functioning. The law and order situation has completely deteriorated. Last year, there were as many as 6,521 murders in the state. We will hold public meetings along with local our local MLAs and MPs and hear the grievances of people in all districts in the next 45 days. I am not after power. Mr Ananth Kumar said with the formula of unity and activity along with a constructive mind set, the leaders should look forward to winning more than 150 seats in Assembly elections. Mr Muralidhar Rao said Some of the Congress leaders will go before their term ends, some will go later. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, said on Saturday that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, alone can resolve Kashmir and take its people out of the bog. Humein daldal se koi agar bahar nikal sakta hai toh woh PM Modi hain. Woh jo faisla karenge, mulk support karega (If there is anyone who can take us out the bog it is Prime Minister Modi. The decision he take will be supported by the country), she said. The Chief Minister said that Modi enjoyed the mandate of the people of the country to address the issues like Kashmir hence was the only hope left for the people of the State to take them out of the quagmire. The previous Prime Minister also wanted to go to Pakistan but he couldnt summon up courage. Prime Minister Modi went to Lahore which is a sign of power he enjoys and an example of his moral authority, she said after inaugurating a newly constructed 1.5 km flyover in winter capital Jammu. She said, He (former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) had repeatedly said he wants to visit his ancestral home in Lahore. It was an excuse as he too actually wanted to have a solution to this issue but couldnt do it as he lacked the strength. The PM Modi had made a surprise visit to Lahore on his way back from Afghanistan in December 2015. It was the first visit by the Indian Prime Minister in a decade. Mufti reiterated that it were her later father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the then Prime Minister and BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee who successfully worked towards improving relations with Pakistan but these were again unhinged as a result of lack of initiatives by the UPA governments. Recalling the path breaking initiatives of the three-year Mufti government beginning in 2002, she said India and Pakistan signed historical ceasefire agreement along their borders and started the cross-LoC bus and truck services. But such initiative could not be taken forward and the lava back in Kashmir was simmering and the same surfaced in 2008 and 2010 and it is what the Valley is witnessing again, she said and added, Im saying it again and know I will be criticised but if anyone can solve Kashmir issue it is Prime Modi. The Chief Minister while complimenting the people of Jammu for their having maintained communal harmony and brotherhood despite provocations said that nobody would be allowed to disturb the peaceful atmosphere and mischief mongers would be dealt with sternly. Whosoever takes law in own hands would be dealt with appropriately, she said and cautioned people against nefarious designs of some negative elements who wanted to derail the developmental process in Jammu region by creating an atmosphere of hate. The Chief Ministers statement calling Modi as the only hope came on a day when BJP president Amit Shah said that the government would not hold any talks in Jammu and Kashmir unless the violence stops. The Modi government has already clarified before the Supreme Court that it would not hold any talks unless the violence stops in Jammu and Kashmir, he told reporters in Agartala. He said the government and security agencies are working on a strategy to tackle the situation in the restive state. [Attn. Editors: The NCs reaction to CMs assertion can go with the main copy or separately. In the latter case open the story with Main opposition party National Conference (NC) while reacting to the Chief Ministers assertions termed it as her sycophancy and said that the same has humiliated Kashmiris. Has she forgotten how Modi insulted Mufti Sahib? it asked. The NC said that the Chief Ministers continued and unconditional loyalty to the BJP and the Prime Minister in light of her declaration that Modi was Kashmirs only hope despite the Central governments refusal to even acknowledge the political nature of the Kashmir issue her sycophancy is unbecoming and has denigrated the sanctity of the J&K Chief Ministers office. The party spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu said in a signed statement that Muftis unilateral declaration of loyalty to the Prime Minister vis-a-vis the resolution of the Kashmir issue was astounding as the Prime Minister had publicly snubbed and humiliated her father by curtly telling him that he doesnt require any advice on Kashmir during a public rally in Srinagar. The spokesman said, Either Mehbooba Mufti is suffering from amnesia or she is willing to oversee the humiliation meted out to her late father by the same Prime Minister. We have a Prime Minister who refuses to accept the political nature of the Kashmir issue and somehow Mehbooba Mufti sees the same Prime Minister as Kashmirs only hope. This is another ironic statement made by the Chief Minister in line with earlier absurd and ironic statements. The NC also said that the Chief Minister would do well to remember how late Mufti openly declared that Prime Minister Modi was a Toofaan Ka Aadmi and expressed similar unfounded and unrealistic optimism in his political will to resolve the Kashmir issue. What was the outcome of that optimism apart from BJP publicly and officially demolishing every single promise made in the alleged Agenda of the Alliance? There is not a single promise made in the Agenda of the Alliance that BJP has not belittled and ridiculed and despite all of this Mehbooba Mufti shamelessly indulges in this sycophancy which is unbecoming of a CM, the party spokesman said. He said that Muftis declaration of Modi being Kashmirs only hope was ironic and ridiculous in the backdrop of the Advocate General of Indias statement in the Supreme Court ruling out any possibility of talks with various stakeholders in Kashmir including the separatists. Did Mehbooba Ji not read that statement made by the Advocate General in the SC? Her allies have openly humiliated her and continue to humiliate her and sadly it seems like she has become insult-proof in order to remain glued to her chair. The BJP has opposed the revocation of AFSPA, opposed the return of power projects and formally ruled out any political initiative vis-a-vis Kashmir. Is this the only hope Mehbooba Mufti is talking about?, Mattu asked. A group of youth pelting stones on security forces during an anti-militant operation at village Durbugh in Chadoora area of central Kashmir's Budgam district. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Government on Friday told the Supreme Court it was ready to talk to recognised political parties in Jammu and Kashmir to resolve the crisis there but not with the separatists. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi made it clear that the government would come to the negotiating table only if the recognised parties participate in the dialogue and not the separatist elements. He made the submissions before a bench, comprising Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and SK Kaul, while rubbishing the claim of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association that the Centre was not coming forward for discussion and dialogue to resolve the crisis. Rohatgi said recently the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of the state held a meeting to discuss the situation. The bench asked the Association to come with suggestions to resolve the crisis, including stone-pelting and violent agitation on the streets of the Kashmir Valley. The apex court made it clear to the bar body that it would have to come out with suggestions after talking to all stakeholders and cannot shy away by saying that they do not represent everybody in Kashmir. It said there was need for a positive start and the bar body could play an important role by coming out with a game plan and a roadmap for restoring normalcy in the Valley. The bench also made it clear to the Centre that the court would involve itself in the matter only if there was a view that it can play a role and there was no jurisdictional issue. "If you feel the court has no role and if you feel we have no jurisdiction, we will close the file at this moment," the bench told the AG who, at the fag end of the hearing, objected to some of the suggestions made by the bar body including that the separatists were being ignored. The bench also said both the parties have to take a joint step but the first step has to come from the lawyers' body which has approached the apex court. It also said it was aware that the situation in Kashmir Valley was not very palatable, while posting the matter for further hearing on May 9. The apex court was hearing hearing an appeal filed by Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association against the High Court order seeking stay on the use of pellet guns as a large number of people had been killed or injured due to their use. During the last hearing on April 10, the Centre had told the Supreme Court it was exploring a crowd control option that is akin to rubber bullets but not as lethal as pellet guns that are being used currently as a last resort to quell violence in the Valley. The Jammu and Kashmir High Court had on September 22 rejected the plea seeking a ban on use of pellet guns on the ground that the Centre had already constituted a Committee of Experts through its memorandum of July 26, 2016 for exploring alternatives to pellet guns. Asrar Ahmed, who presided over the panchayat meeting, termed the practice of 'triple talaq' at one go as wrong and said the community has decided to do away with it. (Photo: File/Representational Image) Sambhal: A small group of Muslims living in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh has banned the practice of 'triple talaq' at one go. The 'Turk' group will also consider it as the husband's fault if a case of 'triple talaq' at one go is reported to the panchayat. However, it was suggested that in unavoidable cases, a man should utter talaq but only once and give time to his wife for things to resolve. The decision was taken on Friday in a meeting of the 'Turk' group, which has about 50,000 members living in 50 villages of the Sambhal district. Asrar Ahmed, who presided over the panchayat meeting, termed the practice of 'triple talaq' at one go as wrong and said the community has decided to do away with it. "If it is extremely necessary, then a man should say talaq but only once and give a month's time to his wife," he said. If someone divorces his wife by uttering talaq thrice, then the panchayat will punish him, Ahmed warned. In a case of any dispute with his wife, a man should raise the matter with the panchayat which will try to resolve it. The group had last month banned cow slaughter, and also the practice of demanding dowry and extravagant weddings. Among girls, 91.97 percent (2,7,344 out of 2,95,031) passed, while for boys the pass percentage was 91.87 (2,88,909 out of 3,14,471). (Photo: Representational/PTI) Visakhapatnam: As many as 91.92 percent of the regular students, who appeared for the SSC examinations from March 17 to April 1, have cleared them. Among girls, 91.97 percent (2,7,344 out of 2,95,031) passed, while for boys the pass percentage was 91.87 (2,88,909 out of 3,14,471). Human Resource Development Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao released the tenth class results in YVS Murthy Auditorium in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. On this occasion, Rao said that the pass percentage this year has slipped by about 2.6 per cent compared to the results of 2016 (94.52 per cent). And, as usual, the girls outperformed the boys in the pass percentage. East Godavari district registered highest pass percentage of 97.97 while Chittoor stood in the last place with 80.55 pass percentage. Rao informed that there are two schools in the state this year with a zero pass percentage. He said that one can apply for recounting of marks or re-verification of answer books before May 20 by paying the prescribed amount per subject. The supplementary examinations are scheduled from June 17 to June 28 from 9:30 am to 12:15 pm. The percentage of private candidates who cleared the examinations is 63.38. Private schools secured highest percentage of passes, i.e., 97.26. Rao said that they are fully committed to the revival of education in government schools. Chennai: Poachers are now targeting drought hit Tamil Nadu for wild animals. Particularly the tigers in Sathyamangalam and Mudumalai are vulnerable with forests and water holes drying up this summer making it easy for the poachers to follow, said a forest department official responding to the recent case of tiger being poisoned to death at Sathyamangalam tiger reserve. Though in this case the DFO and his team cracked the case arresting four people for killing the big cat, but there is a constant threat for our big cats. Early this year, carcasses of three leopards were also recovered from Coimbatore conservator circle and this shows that the wild cats are under constant threat from poachers. Based on secret information received by forest ranger Talamalai an investigation team was set up by DFO Sathyamangalam and the tribals of Bejjalatti settlement were trapped. The tribes have removed claws and tooth of the deceased tiger, but this shows that the poaching network is still operating in the tiger reserves of TN. We are strengthening our intelligence so that the wildlife poaching can be prevented in future, the official noted. New Delhi: In a huge setback to the Kerala government, the Supreme Court on Monday quashed the June 1, 2016 order transferring former DGP T.P. Senkumar, IPS as chairman and managing director of the Kerala Police Housing and Construction Corporation Ltd. A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta while allowing an appeal from Dr Senkumar rejected the states stand that he was shifted due to the dissatisfaction of the government in the perception of the Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan. It directed the state government to reinstate him in service at least till he completes his two year tenure on May 21 this year or till he superannuates in June. Writing the judgment Justie Lokur said the opinion of serious dissatisfaction must be based on verifiable material and not a perception that the Chief Minister or other senior functionary might have or the public expectation that the Chief Minister might imagine. Quite often public opinion can be misleading or motivated. It is true that where an assessment of this nature is required to be made, there would be an element of subjectivity, but that subjective view must have some basis not a mere perception. The Bench said the facts and the record of the present case indicate that the Puttingal Temple tragedy and the Jisha murder were not the flash points necessitating the transfer of the appellant. The reason for his transfer was his conduct post the Puttingal Temple tragedy in not taking action against the errant police officers (but supporting them) and in apportioning a part of the blame ondistrict administration. The reference to the Jisha murder case was an attempt at padding up the reason while the reference to the alleged interference in the investigations by the CB-CID was a red herring or a ruse the alleged interference was not even in the contemplation of the Chief Minster. The addition of the allegation of interference with the investigations in the Puttingal Temple tragedy is a further attempt in that direction to somehow or the other nail the appellant. On the contention that Section 97(2)(e) of the State Police Act empowers the government to shift the DGP before he completes the two year tenure as mandated in the Prakash singh judgment, the Bench said the provision must be understood in the context of the other clauses of that Section which relate to verifiable facts and events. It said Clause (e) is not a blanket clause that permits the state government to take any decision on the basis of what it believes to be public dissatisfaction. Otherwise, the state government can misuse it and justify an adverse action on the ground of prima facie satisfaction outside the ambit of judicial review. The Bench said the appellant has been accused of failure to take action against these errant police officers (rather supporting them) in the Kollam temple tragedy and unjustifiably apportioning a part of the blame on the district administration. However, the Bench said it must be noted that for more than one and a half months the former chief minister Oommen Chandy took absolutely no action on the home secretarys note dated April 13, 2016 but just seems to have kept it in his office. Under these circumstances, it is not clear what action could be taken by the appellant or any officer of the government including the chief secretary and the additional chief secretary against the errant police officers while the matter was pending with the Chief Minister. Could they or should they have by-passed the chief minister? It is difficult to hazard a guess why no action was taken. In our view therefore, if the appellant failed to take any action against the errant police officers, the entire official machinery starting from the Chief Minister down to the Chief Secretary and the Additional Chief Secretary are equally to blame. We are also a little disturbed with the view expressed in the detailed counter affidavit and elsewhere that the appointment of the appellant was irregular if not illegal. If that is so and the state government of Kerala is bent upon making irregular or illegal appointments to sensitive posts, then no one can help Gods own country. On an overall consideration of the material on record and considering the case in its proper perspective, that is the events post the Puttingal Temple tragedy and the Jisha murder and not the two tragedies themselves, we have no hesitation in concluding that the appellant has been unfairly and arbitrarily dealt with. A judicial milestone was reached on Thursday in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case, among the most shameful episodes in the weeks-long orgy of post-Godhra communal violence perpetrated against the Muslim minority in Gujarat on the watch of Narendra Modi as chief minister, with the Bombay high court upholding the life sentence awarded to 11 convicts, and setting aside the acquittal of five policemen and two doctors found guilty of tampering with evidence. The order dismissed the CBIs appeal to give three of the accused the death sentence. The sense of horror and moral degradation which swept the country after the sordid incident is hard to capture in words after such a long time. Bilkis, then 19, was five months pregnant in March 2002 when she was sexually assaulted by a gang, seven members of her family were killed before her eyes, including her two-year-old daughter whose head was smashed, as they were seeking to flee the frenzied mobs. This happened not far from Ahmedabad. When the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court realised a fair investigation and trial was not possible in Gujarat, the court in 2004 shifted the trial to Mumbai after fears were expressed by Bilkis Bano. The efforts of the wrongdoers and their political backers to have the matter hushed up and sidetracked in the early stages has come to nought. In that sense, the majesty of the law has prevailed. But what is justice in the context of a hair-raising event like this is hard to conceptualise. However, Ms Bano herself has been matter-of-fact. After the judgment she reportedly said: I am happy that the state and its officials who emboldened, encouraged, and protected criminals who destroyed the life of an entire community are no longer unblemished, but today stand charged with tampering of evidence. This is as sober a victim and survivor can get. She stands tall in her fortitude, although it is not certain if those who protected and sheltered Ms Banos tormentors have any remorse. The mob was let loose in the streets of Gujarat and the state did not expend much energy to shield the victims from violence. A minister in the Narendra Modi government, Maya Kodnani, was sentenced to life imprisonment in another case (Naroda Patiya) and is out on bail since 2014. She wants BJP chief Amit Shah to testify in her favour. Legally, the matter isnt over yet. Those held guilty by the high court can move the Supreme Court, hoping against hope. The party which was in power in Gujarat in 2002 holds national power today and the CM of that time is now Prime Minister. But fiddling with evidence is not possible now. There were sadder moments Symbols making cause At the zoo with Bapawaji The monkeys paws Held through the bars A plea for change or mercy? From Kahey Ghabooraen by Bachchoo A curious email arrives with a news link telling me about a riot at Bishops School, Pune, where I went as a boy. Thirty parents, teachers and pupils had protested at a meeting of the schools governors against the enforced retirement of Frank Freese, the CEO and principal for 18 years of three associated schools. The protest turned nasty and the police was summoned and made arrests, charging 15 demonstrators with rioting, trespass, unlawful assembly, damage to school property and assault on a lady governor. Having graduated from Bishops in 1958 and, after college, having moved to the UK to study and subsequently spent most of my life there, I have had very little contact with the school but have kept abreast of reports I get in emails from those who shared my school years. There were never any riots in my time, though some things that went on would have merited moral censure if not criminal prosecution. There were scandals: a masters wife reputed to have liaisons with senior pupils ultra-rich and maharaja stock; some teachers with reputations as paedophiles; senior boarder prefects, who occupied improvised rooms in remote nooks and crannies of the schools rambling buildings, smuggling prostitutes into their rooms at night; bitter fights between the families of teachers who lived in the school compound breaking out into entertaining if foul-mouthed verbal battles The scandal that did rock the schools reputation was the allegation that our beloved headmaster Arthur Lunn, a brilliant teacher, scoutmaster and succinct leader, had sexually molested some underage pupils. I hasten to add that there was no legal conviction for any such offence but he did resign in the wake of this accusation and even those who keep in touch with the gossip of the school have no knowledge of how the allegation(s) came about. It was a very disconcerting accusation but reinforced for me by 50-year-old memories of whispers of the same offence during our time. Did his resignation and virtual exile mean he was resigning to save the reputation of the school, or was it a tacit admission of guilt and indication of a deal that no further consequence would result if he fell on his sword? Any innocent individual of Lunns intelligence and stature would have, I reasoned, stood and fought his corner. These could be read as smoke signals from flaming moral rubble. I wrote about the allegation in this very column and a few months later, being in Mumbai was invited to an old boys reunion of Bishops ex-alumni of my time. I went to a gathering of 30 or 40 Old (literally) Boys and was roundly attacked for publicly mentioning the scandal by several of them who had read my column. I was denounced as disloyal, ungrateful, guttural and worse. Some came to my defence, notably those who had spent years in the West the UK, US or Canada where paedophilia was a crime to be exposed and severely punished and not, as in some societies of the subcontinent, an ancient practice to be veiled and treated as an aberrant appetite. I made some attempt to justify myself with arguments about free speech and concern for the victims of paedophiles, but I knew that it wouldnt get the boys of the loyalty brigade to change their minds. After all the final lines of our school song were: Play up Bishops/Never let our colours fall! (Repeated as loudly and raucously as young voices would permit.) On a subsequent trip to Mumbai I was invited by my good friend, the late Dilip Padgaonkar, to visit him in Pune. On one of those days in our old hometown we decided to visit my old school. Driving up to it, nothing seemed to have changed apart from the fresh coat of maroon and yellow paint on walls and buildings. Dilip told me that Bishops had, like Al Qaeda, become a franchise and there were now three schools with the same name and considering that capitalism was rife in India, the headmaster had been retitled the CEO. And, yes, there were now security guards at the gates who didnt have any respect for the fact that I was an old and ageing pupil of the school, but were quite enthralled by the colour of a Rs 50 note and allowed our entourage in. Looking around the Old Assembly Hall and the largely unchanged grounds, pointing out where we used to park our bicycles and showing off the Honours Board of 1958, which still had my name for some small academic distinction, we were accosted by a lady who asked who we were. When I told her, she said shed been trying to track me down as an old boy of the school to ask if Id contribute to a school magazine which would mark 150 years of the schools existence. I said I would. She conducted us around the school and, as she did, a pupil ran up and said the headmaster had heard that Dilip was walking the grounds and he would like to see us. Frank Freeses residence seemed unchanged from the days when Artie Lunn occupied it. Mr Freese was warm and welcoming and had in his hand one of my books, saying: What a coincidence, I was this minute reading your Poona Company and the chapters about Bishops! He offered to show us the new buildings. The main one, at the rear of the school compound was to be inaugurated as the A.E. Lunn building. This was perhaps just, considering Lunns contribution. But? Reversing Mark Antony: The good that men do lives after them, the evil is oft interred with their bones. Even so, the BBC hasnt decided to call its new buildings the Jimmy Savile Annexe. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has signed the law on ratification of the financial agreement under the Urban Public Transport project between Ukraine and the European Investment Bank (EIB). According to the presidential press service, the corresponding financial agreement was signed in accordance with presidential decree No. 272 dated November 9, 2016. "The purpose of the agreement is to raise EUR200 million of credit funds from the European Investment Bank under state guarantees, which will be used to improve the work of public transport in some cities of Ukraine [Ivano-Frankivsk, Bila Tserkva, Kyiv, Lutsk, Lviv, Kremenchuk, Odesa, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Chernihiv]," the report states. The document assumes the funds raised will be spent on the purchase of buses, trolleybuses, trams, subway cars, construction and reconstruction of trolleybus and tram lines, depots, the introduction of information systems, in particular the creation of an automated system of payment for travel. The corresponding project will also receive co-financing under local guarantees from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for a total amount of up to UR200 million. The financial agreement between Ukraine and the EIB comes into force from the date of the entry into force of the law on its ratification. Skybox TCVM aggregates information from more than 30 security data feeds along with research of exploits available on more than 700,000 dark websites and validated by Skyboxs security analysts. Skybox Security, a global leader in cyber security operations, analytics and reporting, today announced the availability of threat-centric vulnerability management (TCVM) for the Skybox Security Suite, signalling a fundamental shift in the approach to managing and prioritising vulnerabilities. TCVM changes vulnerability management from an exercise of trying to patch everything all the time to focused, an intelligent action that considers real-world threats. TCVM does this by correlating multiple factors to determine vulnerability risk, including: The context of an organisations environment, such as potential attack paths and security controls in place, each assets exposure and importance to the business, and details of existing vulnerabilities Intelligence on vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild With the Prioritization Center in Skybox Vulnerability Control, security leaders can automatically analyse the thousands even millions of vulnerabilities in their environment (including cloud and virtual) to pinpoint those that are truly putting their organisation at risk. This means narrowing a huge volume of known vulnerabilities that are potential threats down to a small, manageable number of vulnerabilities that are identified as imminent threats exposed vulnerabilities known to be exploited in the wild. In addition, TCVM enables a systematic approach for ongoing, gradual risk reduction of potential threats that could escalate in the future. Skybox TCVM leverages the ongoing intelligence of the active threat landscape produced by the Skybox Research Lab. The Lab aggregates information from more than 30 security data feeds along with research of exploits available on more than 700,000 dark websites and validated by Skyboxs security analysts. For example, Skybox analysts have been closely monitoring three major event categories impacting organisations today: the use of a specific, commercialised set of exploit kits, the rise of targeted client-side vulnerabilities and the continued popularity of Internet of Things (IoT) botnets. A small, targeted number of exploit kits are dominating the dark web. In the first part of this year, five major exploits kits dominated chatter on the dark web, targeting nearly 70 vulnerabilities in Firefox, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge, Java, Microsoft XML Services and more. These vulnerabilities are known to distribute different malware as payload for example, popular ransomware and banking Trojans. Threat actors continue to target specific vulnerabilities included in exploit dumps by hacker groups such as The Shadow Brokers. The group, notorious for allegedly leaking the National Security Agency (NSA)'s hacking tools, continues to pepper the dark web with exploit dumps like the major one on April 14 that contained many OS and server-side exploits. These dumps and targeted vulnerabilities impact web apps built with Apache Struts plus VMware, Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft products, to name just a few. Poor IoT security is still vulnerable. Botnets are exploiting vulnerabilities in network devices, gateways, cameras and other internet-connected devices, delivering distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks through things like the HTTP Port 81 Botnet and the Amnesia botnet which is the next generation of Mirai malware after the source code was published and shared online. "Security leaders understand that the threat landscape is always changing. The difference now is that were seeing the growth of an increasingly commercialised cybercrime market. This is making it easier than ever for threat actors to attack, adjust and attack again until they accomplish their objective," said Skybox CEO Gidi Cohen. "They tend to aim for the easy targets and the biggest ROI by exploiting a surprisingly small number of vulnerabilities, many of which current vulnerability management approaches dont consider as priorities. This has to change. Security leaders have to be smarter and way more targeted in their approach aligning it to whats happening in the real world if they are to stay ahead of cybercriminals." Skybox TCVM makes focused action possible by combining attack surface visibility, threat-centric vulnerability intelligence and attack vector analytics to identify and prioritise an organisation's biggest risks according to vulnerabilities known to: Exist and are exposed to the network Be actively exploited in the wild; or known to be attacked within a specific industry or geography Have an exploit available, but are not known to be part of an active exploit campaign Exist but are not exposed in the network Threat-centric approaches to vulnerability management require the use of multiple technologies using several different types of security analytics. Skybox is the only company that brings together and automates the technology stack that makes TCVM possible. Skybox is also the only vendor that correlates network context (using network modelling and attack vector analytics) with real-world threat intelligence. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Two days of huge protests on the streets of Caracas against the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro spilled into a violent Thursday night. (Photo: AP) Caracas: The number killed in Venezuela amid mounting political unrest rose to 38, as opposition leaders reported that dozens of officers had been detained for refusing to repress protesters. Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said 85 officers, a majority from the military, had been detained for "expressing discontent" with the actions of the nation's national guard. Capriles said yesterday he received information about the detained officers through some of their relatives, who indicated they wanted their position shared with the public. There has been no independent confirmation of the detentions. National guardsmen have repeatedly launched tear gas and rubber bullets in more than a month of anti-government protests. Demonstrators are calling for President Nicolas Maduro to hold elections, but the embattled leader shows no sign of ceding to their demands. Authorities announced yesterday that Hecder Lugo, 20, had died a day after being shot in the industrial city of Valencia, which has been the scene of ongoing protests and massive looting. His death brought to at least 38 the number of people reported dead by various sources, though the public prosecutor puts the tally at 37. More than 700 others have been injured. Opposition leaders have repeatedly called on officers to think with their conscience before launching attacks, noting that among the protesters could be their own relatives and friends. The opposition is calling for women to march throughout the nation today, while pro-government women's groups are planning a counter-demonstration. Washington: President Donald Trump's choice for Army secretary has withdrawn his nomination in the face of growing criticism over his remarks about Muslims, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Mark Green, a Republican state senator from Tennessee, said in a statement Friday that "false and misleading attacks" against him had turned his nomination into a distraction. "Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain," Green said, expressing "deep regret" over the decision. Green is the second Trump nominee for Army secretary to withdraw. The move to step aside comes after a video began circulating of a remarks Green gave in September to a tea party group in Chattanooga. Green, who is opposed to gay marriage, said being transgender is a disease. He urged that a stand be taken against "the indoctrination of Islam" in public schools" and also referred to the "Muslim horde" that invaded Constantinople hundreds of years ago. Several Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, declared they would oppose Green's nomination over what they said were intolerant and disturbing views. Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a combat veteran who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm during the Iraq war, said in a statement Friday that Green wasn't fit to lead the service. Schumer welcomed Green's move to step aside. "Mark Green's decision to withdraw his name from consideration as Army secretary is good news for all Americans, especially those who were personally vilified by his disparaging comments directed toward the LGBTQ community, Muslim community, Latino community and more," he said in a statement. Also on Friday, a coalition of 41 organizations led by the Human Rights Campaign called on the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to reject Green's nomination. The letter to Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Jack Reed of Rhode Island said Green's "shameful rhetoric" is at odds with the Army's core values and will affect recruiting. Green's withdrawal underscores the challenges Trump has faced in filling two of the service secretary posts. The president's first pick to be the Army's top civilian, Vincent Viola, dropped out in early February because of financial entanglements, and about three weeks later Philip B. Bilden, the Navy secretary nominee, withdrew for similar reasons. The GOP-led Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on the nomination of Heather Wilson to be Air Force secretary. Trump's decision to tap Green in early April represented a stark contrast to President Barack Obama's choice of Eric Fanning for the post. Fanning, who had been a senior Pentagon official, was the first openly gay leader of one of the military branches. Green graduated from West Point in 1986 and served as an Army physician. Green is the CEO of Align MD, which provides leadership and staffing to emergency departments and hospitals, according to the White House. He served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment where he made three combat tours to the Middle East. As a Tennessee state senator, Green sponsored legislation last year that his critics have said would make it easier for businesses to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. During his remarks before the Chattanooga tea party group, Green said the Obama administration has "bred general officers who are afraid of their shadow." He also said that "if you poll the psychiatrists, they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease." The State Department on Thursday issued a notification publishing some of the questions that the US State Department wants to ask from US visa applicants. (Photo: AP) Washington: The Trump administration has proposed a rigorous vetting process for US visa applicants, including investigating their social media profiles, to keep foreigners with connection to terror activities or other national security-related ineligibilities out of the country. The State Department on Thursday issued a notification publishing some of the questions that the US State Department wants to ask from US visa applicants. The State Department in the notice invited comments on the impending set of measures. It said an estimated 65,000 applicants annually, or 0.5 per cent of applicants worldwide, will be impacted. "Regarding travel history, applicants may be requested to provide details of their international or domestic (within their country of nationality) travel, if it appears to the consular officer that the applicant has been in an area while the area was under the operational control of a terrorist organisation," the notification said. The applicants who come under the new stepped-up criteria, would be required to provide names and dates of birth of siblings and, for some applicants, children who are new. They will also have to provide the details of their social media handles and other associated online platforms to the Department of State. This is already being collected on a voluntary basis by the Department of Homeland Security in case of certain individuals. The applicants who come under the extreme vetting criteria will also have to show the details of their past international and domestic travel history if the consular officer finds the applicant stayed in a terrorist occupied area. If this is the case, applicant will also have to recount or explain the details of their travel, and when possible, provide supporting documentation. The notification says it has been issued in accordance with the directive of US President Donald Trump to "implement additional protocols and procedures focused on ensuring proper collection of all information necessary to rigorously evaluate all grounds of inadmissibility or deportability, or grounds for the denial of other immigration benefits." The Department of State said the additional information collected will help the Consular officers to identify applicants with visa ineligibilities without going for the assistance of law enforcement and intelligence community. If the scrutiny of the stepped-up details finds that the applicant is involved in activities that warrant to visa ineligibilities, the consular officer can deny the visa. The notification also says that visas will not be denied on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, political views, gender, or sexual orientation. It also adds that if an applicant cannot provide requested details due to valid reasons, it will not necessarily result in visa denial if the consular officer finds the applicant is speaking the truth. In such cases, applicants are requested to carry supporting documents to prove their claim. The stepped-up questions will be only asked if the consular officer needs to resolve an applicant's identity or to vet for terrorism or other national security related visa ineligibilities; when the consular officer determines that the circumstances of a visa applicant, a review of a visa application, or responses in a visa interview indicate a need for greater scrutiny. The consular can ask the stepped-up question either electronically, orally or in writing at the time of the interview. The notification also confirms that the consular officer will not request user passwords nor will bypass any privacy setting implemented on social media platforms by the applicant. An overwhelming majority of respondents to the State Departments notification have described the new measures as "absurd and stupid." "It's absolutely nonsense," commented an anonymous responder to the notification. "The proposed information collection is ridiculous - burdensome, invasive, and unnecessary," wrote one Jennifer Flinn. "I find the idea of my government demanding access to a visa applicant's social media accounts morally abhorrent, and a waste of time and resources," said one Zachery Walters. "This nonsensical rule claims that it will help prevent crime and terrorism, and will not persecute applicants based on protected statuses, but that is a laughably transparent lie," the same responder wrote. London: Britain's Conservative Party made strong gains in local elections on Friday, suggesting Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit strategy is winning over voters who should hand her an easy victory in a parliamentary poll next month. Partial results from the local elections, which voters often use to punish the ruling party, showed May's Conservatives had instead gained more than 500 council seats. The main opposition Labour Party lost control of councils in strongholds in Wales but the biggest losses were suffered by the anti-EU UK Independence Party, which after two decades of campaigning to leave the European Union has struggled to find a new raison d'etre since Britons voted for Brexit last June. By calling an early national election for June 8, May has made the local votes a gauge of her leadership, and many Conservative candidates have campaigned in recent days using her campaign mantra of "strong and stable leadership". But turnout was low and the Conservatives were careful not to overplay their expected victory next month. May said she was taking nothing for granted. "Only a Conservative vote at the general election will strengthen my hand to get the best Brexit deal," she told supporters. Labour played down its losses. Finance spokesman John McDonnell described the results as tough, but "it hasn't been the wipe-out that some people predicted or the polls predicted". SCOTTISH GAINS The Conservatives also did well in the vote for six metropolitan area mayors. Former retail sector boss Andy Street won a tight contest with Labour for the West Midlands area around Britain's second city Birmingham, although former Labour cabinet member Andy Burnham won Greater Manchester. In Scotland, which since the late 1990s has largely shunned the governing party, early results showed the Conservatives gaining to the detriment of both Labour and, to a lesser extent, the Scottish National Party, which still looked likely to win the lion's share of votes overall. That would mirror a trend predicted in polls for next month's national election, showing the Conservatives becoming the party of choice for many of those who reject Scottish independence. Opinion polls give May a runaway lead in the national election of around 20 percentage points, which could hand her more than 100 more seats in parliament and bolster her hand in divorce negotiations with the EU. May has accused EU officials of seeking to sway the outcome of the election by issuing threats over Brexit, and warned voters that the other 27 member states were lining up against Britain to win a deal that "works for them". Islamabad: An International New York Times opinion piece criticising the powerful Pakistani army was censored by its local publisher on Friday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to speak out against the military establishment. The online version of the piece by Mohammed Hanif, a high-profile satirist and novelist whose critiques of Pakistani society regularly appear in the New York Times, was trending on Pakistani social media by this afternoon. In the article, entitled "Pakistan's Triangle of Hate", he savaged the military for parading a former Pakistani Taliban spokesman before television cameras to claim that the militants are bankrolled by Islamabad's arch-nemesis India. "With his appearance, the Pakistani Army seemed to be sending this message: You can kill thousands of Pakistanis, but if you later testify that you hate India as much as we do, everything will be forgiven," Hanif wrote. "Do we really need to enlist our children's killers in our campaign against India?" A note on the blank page clarified the decision to censor the article was taken in Pakistan, and the newspaper "had no role in its removal". "While we understand that our publishing partners are sometimes faced with local pressures, we regret and condemn any censorship of our journalism," a spokeswoman for the New York Times told AFP on Friday. The former Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, is the man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in Swat Valley in 2012. He also spoke for the group in claiming responsibility for Pakistan's deadliest ever extremist attack, in which gunmen stormed a school in northwestern Peshawar and killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Last month the army announced that Ehsan had given himself up to the military, but gave no details on the circumstances or timing of his surrender. It later released a video of Ehsan stating the militants were given financial and logistical assistance by the intelligence agencies of India and Afghanistan -- a claim often made by the army. Hanif's words echoed the feelings of many in Pakistan repulsed by the publicity surrounding Ehsan -- though others have rejoiced at the accusations against India. Friday's censorship was the second day in a row that the Express Tribune had blanked out a piece in the Times. On Thursday, it removed a piece on an anti-gay crackdown in Chechnya entitled "Chechnya's anti-gay pogrom". In 2016, it censored a Times image of a man in China giving his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. Later that year it blocked an article in the paper entitled "Sex Talk for Muslim Women". Dehar said initial probe showed that Indian mobile phone SIMs were being used to leak the question papers. (Representational image/File) Karachi: A Pakistani minister on Saturday claimed that Indian SIM cards were used to leak question papers of intermediate-level exams in Sindh province on the social media. Provincial Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dehar's claim came after the Physics question paper for intermediate-level examination was circulated on the social media 40 minutes before the exam. He said initial probe showed that Indian mobile phone SIMs were being used to leak the question papers. "All departments are on an alert. It has been pointed out that the SIMs being operated are Indian SIMs. Because of our relations with the neighbouring country, all agencies have been alerted," Dehar said. The education minister said that it was alarming and the government had asked Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and counter-terrorism department to provide help. According to some officials, Indian SIM cards are used in border district of Tharparkar and those mobile phone might have been used in leaking but it needed to be investigated. It is not for the first time that a question paper has been leaked in Karachi as Mathematics paper for intermediate part-II was also leaked on May 4. So far at least five papers have been leaked on WhatsApp. The examination system in Sindh has been under scanner this year and local media has come up with several reports, showing students openly cheating in the examinations. Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday blamed India for its exclusion from the 'SAARC Satellite' project, saying New Delhi was not willing to develop the venture on a collaborative basis. Pakistan's claim came on a day when India successfully launched the 'South Asia Satellite' to provide communications and disaster support to neighbouring countries. "During the 18th SAARC Summit, India offered to 'gift' a satellite to SAARC member states, to be named as the so-called 'SAARC Satellite'. Subsequently, however, India made it clear that it would build, launch and operate the satellite solely," Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said. However, its registration with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was to be done as a 'SAARC Satellite', he said Zakaria claimed that Pakistan, which has its own space programme at an advanced level, was ready to share its expertise and technological know-how and was keen to participate in the project. "However, as India was not willing to develop the project on a collaborative basis, it was not possible for Pakistan to support it as a regional project under the umbrella of SAARC. The Satellite was then renamed as 'South Asia Satellite' as the project was taken out of the SAARC ambit," he said. Seven of the eight SAARC countries -- India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives -- are part of the ambitious project. Giving a fillip to India's new age space diplomacy and "neighbourhood first" policy, the Rs 235 crore satellite GSAT-9 built as part of a Rs 450 crore project and touted as an 'invaluable gift' to India's neighbours is seen as a significant move in countering Chinese interests in the region. The project is funded entirely by India. The cuboid-shaped 2,230 kg satellite named SAS will enable a full range of services to?the neighbours, including in telecommunication, television, direct-to-home, VSATs, tele-education and telemedicine. The South Asian Satellite (SAS) mission life is 12 years. The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security. (Photo: AFP) Colombo: Sri Lanka will deploy nearly 6,000 police officers to provide special security for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other related events during his visit to the country next week to attend the UN Vesak festival, a top police official has said. The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security, according to Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara. Quoting Jayasundara, the Daily News said nearly 6,000 police officers have been deployed to provide security for Modi and for other related events during the Vesak festival. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modi's visit on May 12 to take part in the celebrations marking the UN 'Vesak Day', which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha. "There will be strict security measures in Colombo and Kandy district. In addition, a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held," he added. On the sidelines of the celebrations, Modi is expected to attend a series of religious and other events including the opening of a new hospital in Dickoya, funded by India. "No acts of sabotage can be carried out during the Indian Prime Minister's visit. The Police have been strictly instructed to pay special attention to the matter," Jayasundara was quoted as saying. The official said a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held. It is not for the first time that a question paper has been leaked in Karachi as Mathematics paper for intermediate part-II was also leaked on May 4. A Pakistani minister on Saturday claimed that Indian SIM cards were used to leak question papers of intermediate-level exams in Sindh province on the social media. Provincial Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dehars claim came after the Physics question paper for intermediate-level examination was circulated on the social media 40 minutes before the exam. He said initial probe showed that Indian mobile phone SIMs were being used to leak the question papers. All departments are on an alert. It has been pointed out that the SIMs being operated are Indian SIMs. Because of our relations with the neighbouring country, all agencies have been alerted, Dehar said. The education minister said that it was alarming and the government had asked Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and counter-terrorism department to provide help. According to some officials, Indian SIM cards are used in border district of Tharparkar and those mobile phone might have been used in leaking but it needed to be investigated. It is not for the first time that a question paper has been leaked in Karachi as Mathematics paper for intermediate part-II was also leaked on May 4. So far at least five papers have been leaked on WhatsApp. The examination system in Sindh has been under scanner this year. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has sent 8.6 tonnes of medical humanitarian aid to the Donbas territory uncontrolled by Kyiv, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said in a report. "One truck from the mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross traveled through the Novotroitske checkpoint to the uncontrolled territory, transporting medical goods with a total weight of 8.6 tonnes for the residents of Donetsk region," the service said. New Delhi, DHNS: Over 450 girl students of two schools in southeast Delhi were taken ill on Saturday morning following a gas leak in a container depot nearby. Classes were underway at the Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya and Government Girls Senior Secondary School Number 2 in the Tughlaqabad area, abutting the Haryana border, when gas leaked from a container parked at a depot nearby. The children complained of irritation in the eyes and throat. They were immediately evacuated and sent to hospitals nearby, Romil Baaniya, Deputy Commissioner of Police, told reporters. Baaniya said none of the students were serious and the situation was normal. He said legal action would be initiated against those responsible for the container movement for negligence. By evening, most of the students were discharged from the hospitals after first aid. Doctors were quoted as saying that a tragedy was averted as the fumes were of a diluted version of Chloromethyl Pyridine, a chemical used in manufacturing insecticides and pesticides. The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. The police have registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. An Indian-origin couple has been killed in an apparent revenge attack by their daughters ex- boyfriend, who too was eventually shot dead in a standoff with police in San Jose city in the US state of California. Mirza Tatlic, 24, fatally shot Naren Prabhu, a Silicon Valley tech executive, and his wife Raynah Sequeira Prabhu, at their home in San Jose, CBS San Francisco reported. Prabhus daughter Rachel, who lives in another state, was not there. Raynah hails from Karambar in Bajpe near Mangaluru. Her mother Lila Sequeira, now 89, had moved to Mumbai about five decades ago, according to Alwyn Karambar, Lilas nephew, who stays in Bajpe. Lila had four daughters and Raynah was the second. Though her mother visited Bajpe occasionally, the last time Raynah had come there was about 20 years ago, according to Wilfred Mathias, Lilas relative. Raynah too had four children - two daughters and two sons, including Rachel, whom Tatlic was dating earlier. Rachel was the second of two daughters. Raynahs sister has left for the US from Mumbai A 12-year-old boy from Pakistan- occupied Kashmir was detained after he crossed over into the Indian territory along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, an army official said today. Army sources said it is suspected that he was sent by terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to conduct a recce of infiltration routes and patrol tracks of the army. "A patrol of the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (PoK) who had crossed over to this side of LoC late last evening in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district," the spokesman said. The boy named Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, who is the son of a retired Baloch Regiment soldier of Dunger Pel village in PoK, was found moving suspiciously near the LoC on the Indian side, he said. On being challenged by the army's patrol party, the boy immediately surrendered, the spokesman said. The sources said that it exposed Pakistan on the human rights front as to how a 12-year-old child was pushed by them into the Indian territory to probe LoC areas seeded with minefields in a highly militarised belt. The boy will be handed over to the police by the army for further investigation. Congress in Kerala today accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of "misleading" the state Assembly over the issue of alleged seizure of weapons from a Kochi-based college. Vijayan had refuted Congress allegations in the Assembly yesterday about recovery of weapons from the staff quarters of the Maharaja's college, Ernakulam. He had said no arms had been seized and only some construction materials were found by the police. "The Chief Minister misled the Assembly and society over the issue," senior Congress leader Oommen Chandy said in Kozhikode when asked about media reports that the FIR registered by police had mentioned seizure of weapons from the college. The state assembly had witnessed heated exchange between the ruling LDF and opposition UDF members over the alleged seizure of weapons from the college. Congress-led UDF members had alleged that the Government Maharaja's College, a known bastion of ruling CPI(M)'s students wing SFI, has become a 'storeroom of arms'. The opposition had staged a walkout from the Assembly as Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan rejected their demand for an adjournment motion over the issue. Earlier, moving the notice for the motion, P T Thomas (Congress) had said several weapons, including swords and iron rods, had been seized and this should be viewed seriously by the government. Referring to the 'Swachha Bharat Campaign', Braga praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his efforts towards clean drinking water and sanitation. "I think Mr Modi is very much concerned with water and sanitation issues. He has even appointed a special secretary in the ministry of water resources to deal with the Ganga River cleanup," he said. "I understand there is a major effort from the current aid in government towards improving water and sanitation access in the country. That's my perception," Braga said. "World leaders realise that sanitation is fundamental to public health, but we need to act now. In order to make water and sanitation universally available by 2030, we need commitment at the highest levels. Of equal importance is that water sources are being optimised to ensure that they are safe water sources," he said. Braga argued that for every dollar invested in water and sanitation, there is an estimated USD 4.3 dollars (400 per cent) return in the form of reduced health care costs for individuals and society worldwide. "This does not take into account the benefits to global development, which enables countries and societies to progress economically, culturally and politically. For example, for every USD 1 billion dollars invested in water and waste water, an estimated 28.5 jobs will be created," he said. The standard of drinking water in India has improved in the last five years but a lot of work still remains to be done, the head of the World Water Council has said. World Water Council (WWC) recently carried out a major survey on water awareness in major parts of the world, including India. The survey was done ahead of the 8th World Water Forum that is scheduled to take place in the Brazilian capital Brasilia in March 2018.As per the survey, more than one-third of Indians think that not enough is being done to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to make water and sanitation for all a reality by 2030, World Water Council president Benedito Braga said. "There has been some work done in the past five years to improve the drinking water standards in India. Of course, there's still a lot of work to do there," Braga told PTI. Braga said more than three quarters of the Asians were convinced that governments need to lead the fight to make global access to safe drinking water and sanitation reality.According to the survey, 31 per cent of Indians said they had been in a situation where it was unsafe to drink water but they had no other choice and suffered from diseases like diarrhoea and gastroenteritis. A majority (71 per cent) of Indians said that safe drinking water had improved over the last five years. The survey stated that 62 per cent of the Indians said they believed that the government was doing enough to support access to safe drinking water. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa have resolved to "amicably" address the differences over a leaked report that had angered the powerful army, a media report said today. In October, a columnist for Dawn newspaper wrote a front-page story about a rift between civilian and military leaderships over militant groups that operate from Pakistan but engage in proxy war against India and Afghanistan. Army resented the "leaked news" item and asked for a probe.The military had demanded full implementation of recommendations by a committee which probed a story of a meeting in which civilian leaders confronted the military over its alleged reluctance to halt Islamist groups in the country. Sharif following the findings of the committee sacked his foreign policy aide Tariq Fatemi but army rejected the move, triggering speculation about the public posturing by the military. However, the situation was apparently brought under control during a meeting between Bajwa and Sharif. Geo News reported that meeting was held on Thursday night at the "wish" the prime minister. It quoted sources that both had a pleasant meeting, adding that matter pertaining to Dawn Leaks, security and border situation were discussed. "PM Sharif and Chief Of Army Staff Bajwa agreed that the issues surrounding Dawn Leaks would be dealt with amicably," it reported further. The Prime Minister's House or the army did not comment on the meeting. Earlier on Friday, Sharif held a meeting with Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, who had last week promised that his ministry will issue a notification based on the recommendations of the Dawn leaks report. A top Tibetan body has welcomed the decision of a US Congressional delegation led by top Democratic leader Nany Pelosi to meet the Dalai Lama next week, saying it sends a "strong message" to China that America cares deeply about Tibet. The high-level delegation will meet the 81-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader in Dharmsala when it visits there from May 9-10. "We welcome this initiative by the US Congressional delegation and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi," Matteo Mecacci, president of the International Campaign for Tibet said yesterday. "The visit sends a strong message to the Tibetan people that Pelosi and the United States Congress care deeply about Tibet, and it also reminds China that as long as the Tibetan issue remains unresolved, the international community will continue to put the spotlight on it," Mecacci said. Pelosi, 77, who is the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, will also lead the delegation for its visit to Germany and Belgium with an aim to focus on global economy, bilateral and multilateral relations and human rights. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the US House of Representative, will be accompanying Pelosi on the trip, a statement said. Other members of the Congressional delegation are Jim Sensenbrenner, Eliot Engel, Jim McGovern, Betty McCollum Judy Chu and Joyce Beatty. "Our bipartisan delegation travels at a vital time in the US relationship with India, Nepal and our NATO partners," Pelosi said. "Our delegation looks forward to meetings on how we can strengthen our economic and security relationships, as well as addressing challenges ranging from regional Russian aggression to global human rights," she added. "America must continue to be a strong leader on the world stage and our bipartisan delegation travels at a critical time for the US relationship with India, Nepal and our NATO allies," said Congressman McGovern who is Co-Chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and has been a leading voice in Congress for strengthening human rights around the world. "I am proud to join Leader Pelosi on this delegation and look forward to our meetings to discuss ways the US and our allies can work together to strengthen economic relationships and global security, while also doing more to strengthen human rights and address our shared regional interests," he said. Congressman McGovern was instrumental in introducing bipartisan legislation to promote travel by American diplomats, journalists and citizens, including Tibetan- Americans, to Tibet where access is routinely denied by the Chinese authorities. McGovern and his Congressional colleague Randy Hultgren introduced the bill HR 1872, the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act (RAT) of 2017, in the House of Representatives, on April 4. Senators Marco Rubio and Tammy Baldwin also introduced the RAT Act in the Senate on April 4. While Chinese officials and citizens can freely travel to the US, American citizens wishing to visit Tibet do not enjoy a similar access. The premise of the bill is if China continues to deny access to American citizens into Tibet, then Chinese officials with oversight on Tibet should not be allowed to travel to the US. Pelosi had previously led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Dharamsala in 2008, when she was Speaker of the House. Speaking to the media in Washington DC, after their return, Pelosi had said the trip "was one that revealed certain truths, to us." "I considered the trip constructive, bridge-building, and we want to continue building that bridge through reconciliation and clearer understanding," she had said. Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. mission to the OSCE Kate Marie Byrnes believes Russia opposes the efforts to cease hostilities in Donbas, does not condemn the intimidation of OSCE missions and continues to violate the rights of the opposition in Crimea, according to the Voice of America. Byrnes stressed strict adherence to the ceasefire and the withdrawal of forces is the main prerequisite for the implementation of the Minsk agreements. She expressed regret that Russia did not support part of the OSCE statement in which attempts to intimidate OSCE observers are condemned. She also noted the need to provide the missions with access throughout Ukraine without restrictions, remarks or delays. Russia continues to violate the rights of those who oppose the illegal annexation of Crimea, the statement said. Russian aggression against Ukraine undermines the foundations on which Europe's security and stability are based and directly contradicts the idea of the integrated, free and peaceful Europe. The United States strongly supports the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the inviolability of its internationally recognized borders, the U.S. official said. Driven to desperation because their parents wouldn't accept their relationship, a young couple belonging to different castes exchanged marriage vows and then committed suicide, police said here. The latest instance of caste rearing its ugly head in the state took place yesterday in Gora Bikniya village under Jaitipur police station area here. Atul (22) and Sumitra (18) belonged to the same village but were from different castes, a fact that was unnacceptable to both sets of parents. Both left their homes yesterday afternoon and reached a temple outside the village and consumed poison after exchanging marriage vows before the deity, SP Rural Ramesh Bhartiya said. Sumitra somehow reached her home. Learning of what had happened, her family rushed both of them to Tilhar hospital where they died, the SP said. He added that they left a suicide note stating that they were ending their lives after getting married as their families were not letting them stay together because of different castes. The bodies have been sent for post mortem examination, he added An estranged couple from Bengaluru that drew shock and astonishment for filing 67 cases against each other have been told by the Supreme Court to make an attempt to decide and part happily as friends on a positive note. A software engineer and his MBA wife have been asked by a bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R Banumathi to adopt a bit of positive thinking. When they recently appeared before the court with their eight-year-old son, the bench pointed out the irony by observing that they would have been a rare couple who made their child visit the Supreme Court. The court tried to impress upon them to end their bitter fight. The bench also put the husband and wife to questions to get to know the problem between them. The judges also interacted with the class-III kid to know about his choice. As charges and recrimination flew among them in the court, the bench said, In order to enable the parties to work out a final solution to the entire problem and part as friends, it appears that they need some more time. The bench rather sympathised with the trauma that they have undergone due to several litigations. Having regard to the background of the litigation, the educational background of the parties and the trauma that they have undergone through several litigations, we suggested that an attempt be made for everything to stop and to move forward with a bit of positive thinking, the bench said. The court posted their matter for consideration on July 31. After hearing senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for husband and advocates Sanjay M Nuli and Sunil Shastry, representing the wife, the bench ordered them not to launch any civil or criminal case without specific permission from this court. Since we are making an attempt for settlement of the disputes between the parties amicably, there shall be stay of further proceedings in all other cases between the parties in all the fora in the country both civil and criminal, the bench said. Meanwhile, the court proposed for handing over custody of the child during vacations between May 7 and 27 to the father. The mother did not raise any objection over it. The Hindu couple got married in May, 2002 in Bengaluru. They went to the US, where a male child was born in 2009. The man obtained US citizenship and wife became green card holder. However, their relations turned sour. The woman came back to Bengaluru with their son. The man also followed her and went on to file 58 cases while the woman launched nine cases. BJP national president Amit Shah today exuded confidence that the party would form the next government in Tripura and termed it as the "only alternative" to the "long Marxist misrule" in the northeastern state. "For the past 25 years Tripura is experiencing an atmosphere of corruption where law and order situation has virtually collapsed and women are not safe," he said at a press conference here. The BJP chief did not rule out the possibility of forging alliance with other non-Left political parties, but said it was concentrating more on strengthening its own base. The state with a population of 37 lakh has over 65 per cent people living below the poverty line (BPL), while around 25 per cent people do not have access to safe drinking water, claimed Shah, who arrived here on a two-day visit. "Marxist violence and vindictiveness cannot stop the BJP's rise in the state. BJP will gain more ground if the ruling party continues to let loose its terror," he said. Asked whether the party would seek a CBI probe into the chit fund scam, Shah said, "There is no point asking for a CBI probe into the multi-crore scam. (Tripura) Chief Minister Manik Sarkar could himself ask for CBI probe on moral ground as the poor people were looted by ponzi firms." Appealing to the people to be part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Vikas Yatra', an optimistic Shah said, "BJP will form the next government in Tripura and the battle will not be a tough one because the Communists have withered away from the world, while the Congress has almost been reduced to a microscopic party." "If the BJP is voted to power in 2018 Assembly elections, the new government would implement recommendations of seventh central pay commission to the state government employees," he said. On being asked how many seats the party is expecting in the Assembly elections due early next year, Shah said, "I will answer that when I return here in November." Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can resolve the Kashmir problem as he has a strong mandate and appealed to him to pull the valley out of morass. Mufti, whose government is battling spiralling protests in the valley, said the situation is the result of pent up anger due to failure of the UPA government to continue with the policy started by the previous NDA government in Jammu and Kashmir during her father Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed's rule. "I say today with authority and I will be criticised for it also. If anyone can find a solution to Jammu and Kashmir problem, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "He (PM) has a strong mandate. Whatever decision he takes, the country will support him," said Mufti, whose party is running a government in coalition with the BJP. "If anyone can take us out of the sticky spot, it is Prime Minister Modi. The nation will support whatever he decides...it is may earnest appeal...," she said. The CM was addressing a gathering after inaugurating a flyover here. Hailing the Prime Minister's decision to visit Lahore on December 25, 2015, she said that it was a sign of strength not weakness. "He has the mandate of the people. This is his biggest power. He went to Lahore and met the PM of that country. This is not a sign of weakness but an indication of strength and power," she said. She took a dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he did not have the courage to visit Pakistan. "Before him (Modi), a Prime Minister had also desired to go to Pakistan for over ten years. He wanted to see his home there," she said, with naming Singh. "He also would have tried to end the confrontation between the two countries, and bring J&K out of this unfortunate situation, but he had no courage to do that." She gave credit to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former chief minister Mufti Sayeed for starting the "chapter of peace" in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002. "They tried their best to bring out Kashmir out of this unfortunate situation. He was successful to a large extent in shortest of period," Mehbooba said. "There was ceasefire (along Indo-Pak border) during Vajpayee's rule. There were talks with L K Advani (in Kashmir). There was beginning of the process of opening (cross -LoC) roads." The chief minister said militancy declined during that period and there was peace on the borders. "These were not small developments. But unfortunately Mufti was out of the government and Vajpayee ji left, and the process came to grinding halt," the PDP leader lamented. She alleged that the UPA regime at the centre and the state government did not carry forward the process thinking "everything is peaceful and there is no need to do anything further". "There was pent-up lava. It started to come out when the youths were out on the streets in 2008 and then 2009 and 2010. This lava has now spread to the streets and we are forced to face this situation," she said. The CM said while her government is trying to improve the situation in Kashmir, there are some forces which do not want it. "Mufti sahib, who had seen a dream, shook hands with the Prime Minister of our country Narendra Modi, who has got the mandate of the people," she said. As the chief minister was speaking, former Minister and senior Congress leader Gulchain Singh Charak interrupted her speech and demanded setting up of two civil secretariat in Jammu and Srinagar capital cities. Charak, who later walked out of the hall in protest, was heckled by some workers after conclusion of the function. Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy here over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said today. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation.Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav took orders from jailed don Mohammad Shahabuddin during a communal riot, claimed an audio tape released by a television news channel. Lapping up the expose, union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to break his "eloquent silence" and take action against his ally Yadav for indulging in the worst form of "criminal-political nexus" in the country. Prasad said the RJD patriarch broke law by "shamelessly" interacting with a man convicted for a murder and was facing charges in 30 other henious cases. "Nitish Kumarji, a crime has been committed. Are you going to launch criminal proceedings against your ally Lalu Prasad?" Prasad wondered at a press conference here. The Siwan leader, who has since been shifted to Tihar jail, is heard complaining against the local Superintendent of Police (SP) to the RJD chief and asked him to take action against the cop. Yadav was also heard giving direction to an aide to connect him to the SP, Prasad told reporters. "Shahabuddin represents the worst form of criminal-political nexus in the country...A convicted notorious criminal like Shahabuddin is running the administration and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad is assisting him in that," the minister said. Another news channel aired a story accusing RJD and JDU ministers in Nitish government of renting out their official bungalows for a huge price. The BJP has also demanded action against them and will stage dharna on May 14 in Patna. A saint from Uttar Pradesh plans to take ''trained'' stone pelters to Kashmir valley to what he says ''counter'' attackers on the army and give the ''anti-national'' elements a ''befitting reply''. The saint Arun Puri Chaitanyaji Maharaj, a resident of Kanpur town, has formed an organisation by the name of 'Jansena', which provides stone pelting ''training'' to the youths from the town and outside. ''So far Jansena has trained more than one thousand youths, including women....some sadhus have also received training in stone pelting,'' Puri said. He said that his team had collected a truck load of stones, which they planned to take to the Kashmir valley to take on the stone pelters there. ''Our jawans are being targeted in Kashmir every day by stone pelters....we have to do something to prevent that,'' he remarked. ''The Jansena volunteer will leave for Kashmir valley on Sunday....some will leave by train while some others may take the road route...we plan to visit Delhi to pay our respect to Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat before embarking on our mission,'' Puri added. Puri claimed that people from other parts of the country were also willing to join his volunteers in this ''mission'. ''A large number of people have expressed their desire to join us,'' he claimed. He said that some saints from the town had submitted a memorandum addressed to prime minister Narendra Modi to the district officials seeking permission to go to Kashmir valley. ''We have so far not received any response,'' he said. Alarmed at the development, district officials said that they would not allow the 'Jansena' volunteers to go to Kashmir valley with a truckload of stones. ''We will try to dissuade them from going to Kashmir....necessary action will be taken if persuasion fails,'' said a senior district official in Kanpur. French commercial catering and foodservice company Elior Group, which recently marked its entry into India, aims to enter the league of top three players in the country, alongside Sodexo and Compass Group. The company entered India through two acquisitions a majority stake of 70% in CRCL and 100% stake in MegaBite Food Services. Elior India CEO Sanjay Kumar said, The business category is growing at a CAGR of 17% in new emerging markets, therefore, it was the right time for us to enter Asia. India was a natural choice because the expansion in workforce in India is rapid and significant in terms of size. The company serves most top corporate offices in the South Indian market, including the likes of LinkedIn, Google and Uber. As of now, the company serves 1.4 lakh meals per day. We want to double this number in three years with some organic as well as inorganic expansion of our client base, he said. Elior Group, owing to its acquisitions, claims good market presence in the corporate offices space, and seeks to enter the hospitals space. We are already catering to a client base of corporates i.e. workplaces as well as factories and some top educational institutions. We want to acquire some clients in the hospitals space, where there is sufficient scope for growth, said Kumar. Explaining how the company sees India as a lucrative market, he said, Market barriers in India are many, especially with the regulatory framework requiring a company like ours to get up to 352 licences. However, the risk to reward ratio is high, which makes it encouraging to expand operations here. While the company is looking to make more acquisitions in the space, Kumar said the industry is rather fragmented, and it would not make sense to acquire small players, who cannot help scale the business right now. The industry stands to consolidate in the near future as focus on quality increases. We will look at making acquisitions then from a scalability point of view, he said. Five Ukrainian servicemen had been injured in the anti-terrorist operation zone in Donbas over the past 24 hours, there are no killed, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman for ATO issues Andriy Lysenko has stated. "Fortunately, none of Ukrainian military men had been killed in the ATO zone over the past 24 hours, while five soldiers had been wounded," he said. Hypermarket chain Star Bazaar, a Tata-Tesco initiative, has plans to take the number of stores from the present 41 to 200 outlets across India in two to three years. Star Bazaar is a unit of Trent Hypermarket, which is part of the Trent, a Tata Group Company. Talking about investments, Trent Hypermarket Director (Commercial and Marketing) Uday Varma said, It depends on the size of the store and the investment in each store will be approximately between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore. Our road map is to open 200 stores in two to three years, and we are focusing mainly on Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and we will make entry into Hyderabad. Star Bazaar has 21 stores across Bengaluru. It operates in three formats Star Daily, Star Market and Star Hyper. While Star Daily is a neighbourhood grocery store with an area of 2,000 to 5,000 sq feet, Star Market is a supermarket format store that operates in 5,000 to 15,000 sq feet, and Star Hyper deals in diverse product categories spread over 15,000 to 30,000 sq feet, Varma said. As far as expanding stores are concerned, the hypermarket chain will focus on the Star Market format. Choosing healthier options Star Bazaar recently launched Closer to Nature, an exclusive section for organic, herbal and Ayurvedic merchandise at its stores, offering customers with over 300 SKUs in this category. Talking about the new initiative, Varma said, We have 100 SKUs solely from Sri Sri Ayurveda, and we have products from Patanjali and 24 Mantra Organic brands too. Customers are now choosing healthier options and also going for Indian-origin products. Starting from entry-level products like toothpaste, they are moving to other products. This particular Ayurveda space has grown at least two times this year, over the last year. Sensing a huge potential in this space, Hindustan Unilever launched a raft of Ayurvedic products under its existing brand Ayush. Sri Sri Ayurveda Head (Modern Trade) Ujjwal Sinha said, Due to the increased awareness of natural, herbal and organic products, the market is growing phenomenally well. We have 2,000 franchisee stores, and we are present both in the B2C and B2B formats. When asked about its major competitor Patanjali, Sinha said, The market is so huge that there is scope for many brands. We are expanding outside the country too. Right now, we are present in 18 countries. JD(S) leader and MLA H D Revanna has said that the party has finalised the names of candidates for 150 constituencies for the Assembly polls in 2018. He said the party would not join hands with other parties. During a press conference here on Saturday Revanna said that party supremo H D Deve Gowda and state president H D Kumaraswamy would decide the candidates. He said the party core committee has finalised the names of 150 party workers as candidates and candidature for the remaining 74 constituencies would be finalised shortly. Candidates for Belur and Arkalgud Assembly constituencies have been finalised and the names will be announced shortly. The party would field candidates in all 224 constituencies and will not forge pre-poll alliance with Congress party, he said. Revanna said, Opposition party leaders are under the illusion that H D Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy and I have differences of opinion. Only two members from the Deve Gowda clan will contest the next election. Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy will decide on it. The party workers are pressuring me to field either my wife Bhavani Revanna or son Prajwal Revanna from Belur constituency. Three members from the family would definitely contest in the 2023 Assembly elections. When asked about the reports on Congress leader A H Vishwanath joining the JD(S), Revanna said, he was not aware about any such development. On the drought situation in the district, he said that drinking water problem in villages has reached alarming proportions and that the government should release an additional Rs 25 crore to tackle the issue. He said a proposal has been forwarded to the government in this regard. The government has already released Rs 1.30 crore per Assembly segment. As the Union government did not release funds for the multi village drinking water project, the works are delayed even as five Union ministers from the state remain mute spectators. The state government should chalk out a permanent solution for the drinking water problems, he said. He said that Hassan District Hospital has no basic facilities because of which people are forced to visit Bengaluru for treatment. He said District in-charge Minister A Manju was not concerned about the welfare of the people and had thus not provided proper facilities. MLA H S Prakash and Hassan District Central Cooperative Bank president Satish were also present. Citizens have questioned the rationale behind the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environmental Management Project (Kudcemp) in the city as preparations are under way to launch the second phase of works under the Asian Development Bank-funded scheme. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel had earlier alleged that works under the project were not implemented properly and vowed to make a complaint to the Lokayukta against the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) officer who was at the helm during the first phase of the project. On Saturday, the NGO, Citizens Forum for Mangalore Development, organised the Discussion meet on Mangalurus experience with infrastructure projects-ADB 50 at Roshni Nilaya. M Raghavan from the NGO, Task Force on ADB Funded Loan Project, said: Though the period of implementing the project is 20 years (2026), its still dragging on with just nine years left. Going at this pace, its not ADB that is losing, but the MCC and the people of Mangaluru. Ward committee Speaking on the occasion, an RTI activist said forming a ward-level committee was inevitable to keep track of the project. Criticising Mangaluru South MLA J R Lobo, whom he saw harping on television about forthcoming projects, he said: Such is the pathetic situation that the authorities are still unable to plug civic problems at the ward level. Citing information obtained from the authorities concerned, he said Rs 890 had been spent under Kudcemp on cutting just one square metre of grass. Incompetent contractor Sumit Rao, a mechanical engineer who runs an industry in the Yeyyadi Industrial Area, also criticised Lobo for creating the mess but stopped short of blaming it on the rotting system. He blamed a contractor Dharmaraj instead. I may be a mechanical engineer, but I can do better than Dharmaraj, he insisted. He also questioned why cant a hoarding with information on Kudcemp be erected in the city when so many advertisement boards had mushroomed all over. Mahvash Sayed, who is associated with the Citizens Forum for Mangalore Development, said any unanswered questions on Kudcemp would raise doubts about the effective implementation of the Smart Cities project in the city. Aloysius Albuquerque, managing director of Summer Sands Resort at Ullal, expressed concern over heavy sea erosion near Mangaluru. Aman Ahmed and Jillian Flanagan from St Aloysius College gave a detailed presentation on the ADB-funded infrastructure projects in Mangaluru. Jeevan Dasan, a graduate from the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Mysuru, currently working as R&D engineer in Germany, was part of the team that won the Energy Efficiency Hackathon2017 award in Berlin. Jeevan Dasan and Samarth Kumar pursued their postgraduation in Germany and were part of the five-member team, comprising engineers from different countries. The team worked on Making Heating Smart for Everyone which was adjudged the Danfoss Challenge Winner of the Energy Efficiency Hackathon2017 and was presented the Best Business Model Award. The team suggested a new business model that focused on initiatives to lower energy consumption and increase tenants satisfaction and strived to find new ways of addressing the multifamily houses market for electronic heating controls. The first Energy Efficiency Hack, organised in the first week of March 2017 in Berlin by the German Business Association for Energy Efficiency (DENEFF) in collaboration with several companies, was a hub that facilitated about 100 interdisciplinary experts, engineers, designers and start-up-entrepreneurs to come together, ideate on new climate-friendly energy efficient solutions and create concepts and prototypes for an eco-friendly sustainable future. Sixteen teams from across Europe were asked to hack on any of the three energy efficiency challenges namely: Making Heating Smart for everyone, powered by Danfoss, a world-leader in energy efficiency solutions; Ensuring Electricians Pick the best parts for Repairs, powered by Sonepar and CO2 Online and Making Energy Consumption Data Actionable for Industrial Managers, powered by Veolia and Okotec. Jeevan is the son of A S Dasan and Nalini Xavier who are residents of Mysuru. Jeevan was selected in 2014 to pursue a Mobility Master Programme on Energy Technologies in Portugal and Germany funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology under a category named Horizon 2020 Programme. Read also: In its original, undiluted format, a democratically constituted ward committee should truly empower a residents welfare association. But if the entire process is reduced to an eyewash to satisfy a legal requirement, shouldnt the exercise be questioned, scrutinised and exposed for its extreme opacity?The Karnataka High Courts recent ruling, directing the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to set up the committees within a month is almost a repeat of what transpired four years ago. The corporators had then scrambled to constitute the panels, packing them with their own men. In the process, the original intent of the entire process was compromised.Participatory forumsMandated by the Constitutions 74th Amendment (Nagarpalika) Act, 1992, ward committees were envisaged as participatory forums for urban governance. The idea was to bring urban local bodies such as BBMP closer to the citizens and provide a robust platform for people to engage in city planning and development.The committees were expected to boost efficiency of public policy by providing feedback to policy makers. The citizens could also shape policies according to their needs and play a role in developing mechanisms to extract accountability of elected representatives and local officials.Take for instance, the city's mammoth problem of solid waste management. Decentralising this through active, functional ward committees could help tackle the problem much more effectively. This was a key argument put forth by the Environment Support Group (ESG) and Leo Saldanha, as they took the legal route to push for such committees.Ground-up methodSimply put, the issue could not be addressed through a top-down approach. It had to be a ground-up method, by ensuring every ward and its critical functions such as waste management are monitored by its statutorily appointed ward committee, as Saldanha puts it. But for over two decades, the elected representatives had stalled the effort. This resistance to an effective, transparent and accountable urban governance was communicated to the Karnataka High Court. The petitioner recalls, there was a deliberate effort on the part of elected representatives (corporators and MLAs) and the state government, to not enable the functioning of ward committees.Entrenched interestsThe reason was clear: Those in power were wary of a vigilant citizenry adversely affecting their deeply entrenched interests. And this was clearly the case with waste management which had become victim to a collusion between contractors, corporators and embedded bureaucrats.Spurred by the high court ruling, will the Palike ensure that at least this time, the approach to setting up the committees would take the democratic route? Citizen activists feel public-spirited individuals should stand up and articulate their intent to be on the panel, before the ward offices and corporators concerned.But in the immediate context, ward panels set up as a response to a court order will be short-lived or ceremonial, points out Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.He agrees that ward committees are overdue by 25 years. Their formation in Bengaluru is obviously a positive. But what is not so obvious is that for the ward committees to work, we need frontal political leadership as citizen participation in cities is complex and very nascent in India.Background workThe ward committees and political leadership should be designed through a systematic background work. It cannot be done in a hurry.Viswanathan lists out these critical questions for resolution: What will be the role and responsibility of the ward committee? How will it interact with the councillor and result in stronger trust and participation in neighbourhoods? How can the panels be prevented from further paralysing action on the ground?Besides, there are queries linked to the panels' methods to catalyse positive active citizenship rather than negative citizen activism. The merits and demerits of nominations versus elections would also have to be resolved since these would define the democratic approach to the process.Corporators' veto powersThe weaknesses of the past committees have been clearly exposed. The corporators continue to hold powers to veto suggestions made by the committees. They have the final say on how discretionary funds are spent at ward level. No amendments to the ward committee rules are in the pipeline.Yet, all hope is not lost. Awareness of the ward committee, its roles and responsibilities are now part of RWA discussions. There is greater yearning to be part of the process. The next step, as Saldanha says, should be to push for area sabhas, the sub-units of a ward.Ward committees and area sabhas need to function optimally, and with popular support and capacity building. Only then could Bengaluru dare to dream of being a garbage-free city replete with functional public schools, public health centres, safe streets and pavements. The Karnataka High Court's direction to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to set up ward committees (WCs) has come as a victory for citizens, who till now have been subjected to myriad schemes that lack transparency and accountability.However, only a framework for city governance with mere promises to pave the way for separate planning, execution and citizen participation in the decision-making process is not enough, feel residents.DH spoke to some citizen group members and representatives of Resident Welfare Associations (RWA), who expressed their concerns about the efficacy of the WCs once they become functional.Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO of Namma Bengaluru Foundation, is upbeat about the formation of the committees as he feels it is a golden opportunity to implement the 74th Constitutional Amendment and to bring about better governance to fulfil citizens' aspirations at the ward level.However, he feels, the process of implementation should be fair and transparent and members chosen should not be political cronies with vested interests. He believes the committee would offer a platform for people to voice their opinions and bring about change.One big concern is being relegated to being mere puppets in the hands of the veto power-wielding corporators. Corporators might continue to have the final say in dismissing and overruling the decisions of the WCs. Many feel that since the committee is headed by the respective councillor, there are chances of nepotism creeping into the system.Pabbisetty too terms it undemocratic and hopes legislators will amend the Act to remove the anomaly. They instead seek powers that would help in facilitating community participation in municipal planning and want councillors to be more accountable to the members and in turn to voters.Simi Khan, secretary of Salarpuria Cambridge Residency, however, begs to differ. She feels the reservation listed for panel members to the proposed WCs is very well balanced as it ensures that all, including non-RWA members like their association, would get an equal chance to voice their opinion on civic issues.Basavanagudi RWA vice-president B S Manohar says that the formation of the committees has been a long-pending demand which was unfulfilled due to BBMPs neglect. He believes that, Councillors should, however, not bring in their henchmen to render the exercise farcical.Manohar is in favour of all getting equal representation. But he opposes the idea of veto power resting with the councillor as it would dilute the role of the remaining members. The committee, he says, should work like a watchdog panel to check the performance of the ward.Nurturing civic responsibility is key to the formation of the WC, feels Aruna Newton, president of the HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar RWA. She is batting for maximum powers resting with the largest representatives, in this case, the citizens. The collaboration of the government body with representatives from citizens would work towards better governance, she opines.Aruna vehemently opposes reservation being a prerequisite to getting elected to the committee. Equal representation irrespective of caste, class, status should be the aim of forming a heterogeneous group working towards the betterment of an inclusive society, she says.Her take on the issue: Councillors trying to wield power would be a non-issue as he/she would be held accountable for the efficacy of the body and would have to face public ire in case a decision goes awry. This tightrope walk would ensure that the councillor exercises his veto power sensibly.Praveen S, secretary of Indiranagar 2nd Stage RWA, echoes the same sentiment. Once the committees are formed, there should be transparency in their functioning and the minutes of the meet should be recorded and made available for public scrutiny. Lack of data would make it easy for governing bodies to scuttle the most active members who would be part of the panel.RWAs, civic activists and NGOs across the city are expected to collaborate with the BBMP to draft the bye-laws for the functioning of ward committees. The current rules, however, do not specify as to how the WC would be accountable and how they would interact with the government and other citizens, making the whole exercise seem only on paper. It is therefore imperative that the role of WCs be understood as being an instrument of community participation within a broader context of municipal governance. Factories located in and around Bellandur lake are scrambling to avoid being shut down by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) which is racing against time to clean the highly polluted waterbody. The KSPCBs crackdown has forced the factories to either close down or instal sewage treatment plants on their premises on a war footing. On April 19, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered the clean-up of the 919-acre waterbody within a month. But clearly, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which is the custodian of the lake, is unlikely to meet the deadline. It started cleaning the lake on April 24 and has weeded just 10 acres so far. According to BDA executive engineer Veersingh Nayak, it will take at least three more months to fully weed the lake. The BDA has given the contract to Harvins Constructions Pvt Ltd to weed the lake. Three floating machines are weeding about four acres every day. For its part, the KSPCB is cracking down on industries polluting the lake. A KSPCB official said they were carrying out inspection and checking for water quality, presence of sewage treatment plants, disposal mechanism, treatment of waste, its disposal and compliance with the Air (Pollution and Control of Air) Act and the Water Act. Industries that do not comply with the rules despite inspection and warnings will be shut down, the official warned. The board has published a list of 488 industries located in the Bellandur lake catchment area with details on the quality of sewage discharged by them and whether they have installed the STPs. Kerox Chemicals Pvt Ltd, located on Bannerghatta Road, is one of industries identified for closure by the KSPCB. The firm, which manufactures pigment paste, is in the process of installing an STP of 2,000 litres capacity per day. It hopes the STP will be operational within two weeks. Previously, the firm was releasing waste water to the Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP). Similarly, a small-scale garment industry on Begur Road is also in the process of installing a waste water treatment plant, said one of its employees. In contrast, companies such as Vinpla Plating Pvt Ltd located in Bommanahalli have stopped their operations for a while. But Rajagopal, a manager at the firm, said they would reopen soon. We are confident of resuming the operations soon as we are following zero-waste discharge policy and are not letting any waste water into Bellandur lake, he said and blamed large industrial units for polluting the waterbody. The quarrel between a middle-aged couple that led to the wife firing at the husband in their SUV on Friday was over their daughters marriage proposal, police have concluded. The couple M R Sairam (52) and Hamsa (47) had strong disagreements over the marital alliance of their daughter, Vandhana (24). Hamsa had chosen a man for her daughter. The man and his family were scheduled to visit Hamsas house in HSR Layout on Saturday to meet Vandhana. But Sairam, who lives a few blocks away in Haralur, HSR Layout, objected to the proposal. Hamsa, known for her headstrong ways, was not willing to let go of the marital alliance, a senior police officer said. Vandhana lives with her mother and runs a play home in HSR Layout. Hamsa had planned to conduct her daughters engagement and wedding in a lavish manner. Sairam objected again. The couple had a lot of ego issues and disagreed over almost every thing. Chinks appeared in their marriage about five years ago. Police learnt that Sairam had an extramarital affair that led to parting of ways, but the couple decided not to break up the marriage in the interests of their grown-up daughter. They wanted to stay as a couple until Vandhana got married. A few years ago, Hamsa went to the HSR Layout police station and filed a complaint against Sairam. Since it was a family dispute, police summoned Sairam and counselled him before letting him off with a warning. Fridays scuffle started at a restaurant in Chandapura, south Bengaluru, where the couple were having cocktail lunch. The argument continued in the SUV as they drove back to the city. Hamsa was at the wheel. In a statement to the police, Hamsa said she shot at her husband in self-defence as he would have killed her otherwise. She said her husband initiated the fight by assaulting her in the car. She pulled out the loaded gun that she always carried in a holster. Sairam snatched it away but Hamsa was too gritty not to fight back. She snatched it back and fired at him. Divya Gopinath, in-charge superintendent of police, Bengaluru Rural, said: Preliminary investigation shows that a total of six rounds were fired inside the SUV. Our forensic and ballistics teams have secured six cases (cartridges) from the vehicle and the place where it was parked. Three bullets were retrieved from the victims abdomen by doctors at Sparsh Hospital. It would be too early to say what exactly happened inside the SUV. We are waiting for Sairam to recover and give a statement. Hamsa, who also sustained injuries during the fight, has been admitted to a private hospital, but police have not yet arrested her. Dr Sharanu Patil, Medical Director, Sparsh Hospital, said: Sairam suffered bullet injuries but is recovering. He is still on the ventilator and needs to be monitored closely for another 48 hours. The overwhelming majority of former Ukrainian officials who served during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych and whom Interpol refused to put on the international wanted list are in Russia, and thus there are no levers of pressure on them, Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin has said. "Some 90% of those whom Interpol refused to put on the wanted list are in Russia. Irrespective of Interpol's decision, whether there is a red notice or not, Interpol determines for us that if these individuals are in Russia there are no levers of pressure on them," Yenin said on the air of UMN (Ukrainian Media Network). He also noted the sanctions imposed by the Council of the EU in relation to Viktor Yanukovych and his 15 companions are in effect. "That means their entrance to the European Union or a number of other countries, namely Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the United States, etc., is now completely impossible," the official said. He said, according to the Prosecutor General Office's estimates, about $40 billion was stolen during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. "Over 2.5 years they stole about one national budget of Ukraine," the deputy prosecutor said. RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav took orders from jailed don Mohammad Shahabuddin during a communal riot, claimed an audio tape released by a television news channel on Saturday. Lapping up the expose, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to break his eloquent silence and take action against his ally Lalu for indulging in the worst form of criminal-political nexus in the country. Prasad said the RJD patriarch broke the law by shamelessly interacting with a man convicted for murder and facing charges in over 30 heinous crimes. Nitish Kumarji, a crime has been committed. Are you going to launch criminal proceedings against your ally Lalu Prasad? Prasad said at a press conference here. In the tape, the Siwan leader, presently lodged in Tihar jail, is heard complaining about the local superintendent of police to Lalu, asking him to take action against the officer. Lalu was also heard giving directions to an aide to connect him to the SP, Prasad told reporters. A man undergoing life term for reportedly raping his minor daughter has approached the Supreme Court challenging his conviction saying his wife used his 14-year-old daughter to implicate him. A two-judge, bench presided over by Justice A K Sikri, issued a notice to the Chhattisgarh government on the petition of the 35-year-old man against the high court judgement on February 25, 2015. The court asked his counsel Dushyant Parashar to explain the delay of over three years in filing the special leave petition. Parashar said he was appearing as legal aid counsel. Though there is a provision for free legal aid to those who are poor and are willing to take services of empanelled counsel, there is abject lack of awareness among the litigants over it, he said. The counsel submitted that in the instant case, appellant Kumar Sai, a resident of Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh learnt about the legal aid after a fellow convict availed the service and got relief. He also sought a direction to the National Legal Aid Services Authority to streamline the process and create an awareness programme among the litigants. Refraining from issuing the judicial directions to the legal aid authority, the bench agreed to consider the matter. In his special leave petition, Sai contended that the high court ignored the fact that the prosecution story did not match with the medical examination report that was uncertain about sexual assault since there was external and internal injury on the victim. He also questioned the two-day delay in registering the FIR on December 3 when the incident occurred on December 1, 2007. The high courts reasoning that the mother would not use her daughter as an instrument to get rid of her husband, has no sanction of law in as much as every action has to be seen within the facts and circumstances of the case, his petition contended. The high court has upheld the conviction and life term sentence awarded to the petitioner, saying there was no reason to disbelieve the testimony of the victim. Here the victim is the daughter and the appellant is the father. She has no reason to falsely implicate her father. Why would a minor daughter falsely implicate her father in such a case of sexual molestation. She was studying in 7th standard and thus, she must be aware of the far reaching affects of such allegations in her entire life, the high court had said. President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday asked New Delhi's envoys to foreign nations to ensure that India appropriately responds to the new challenges posing the changing world order. I do believe that at this stage, the dynamics of the new world order must be well analysed and understood. As Heads of Missions, you shall have to ensure that India, as a respected and responsible player in world affairs and an emerging economic power, responds to the new challenges appropriately to her best advantage, safeguarding her core interests at all times, Mukherjee said. He was addressing the annual conclave of Indias Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Consul Generals in foreign nations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, addressed them earlier in the day. This year, you have had to address the dramatic changes in the international political and security scenario. The traditional equations of power, hyper-power and global influence have been altered in a manner that few anticipated. There is a new World Order, the President told the heads of overseas missions of India. Mukherjee noted that the reforms and recent initiatives of the government had made Indias economy attractive for investors and its industrial sector viable for prospective partners. He noted that technology had revolutionised the way of sharing knowledge, doing business, consult, and even doing diplomatic works. In some countries, it is being used to create vast capacities for eavesdropping and cyber warfare. You are, no doubt, looking at all of these issues and addressing them comprehensively, he added. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday inaugurated the eighth Heads of Missions Conference. Auto component major Bosch temporarily suspended operations at its Adugodi unit on Saturday in deference to a Karnataka State Pollution Control Board directive. The unit falls in the Bellandur lake catchment area. Notorious for frothing and catching fire, the water body is now being cleaned under the watchful eye of the National Green Tribunal. In a regulatory filing at the Bombay Stock Exchange on Saturday, Bosch said it had decided to suspend operations since the Pollution Control Board had directed all industrial units in the catchment to shut down. 3.93-cr loss a day Bosch said the approximate loss of turnover was Rs 3.93 crore a day if supplies to customers were affected. The company will endeavour to take necessary measures to ensure deliveries... are not affected, it said. Bosch said it had always upheld the highest standards of environmental protection and was confident it was following norms at all its facilities. It said it would consider all options to resume operations at the earliest. Notice was general Lakshman, chairman of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, said he had issued no specific notice to Bosch India. The notice appearing in newspapers was general in nature and Bosch should read it again carefully, he told DH. We have said there are 488 industries located in the Bellandur lake catchment, but not all of them are polluters. Our public notice is only for those polluting the lake, Lakshman said. The board is inspecting all units and would order closure of those polluting the lake, he added. If Bosch India closes down its unit voluntarily, we have no objection. We will inspect the facility, Lakshman said. Bosch had a staff strength of 3,000 at its Adugodi unit near Diary Circle. Half of them have moved to its Bidadi unit over the past two years. The company makes auto components, power tools and home appliances, and also provides industrial services. Bosch has the largest development centre outside Germany in India, and operates through nine companies. Wipro, Indias third largest IT services company, on Saturday registered a formal complaint with the cyber crime cell of Bengaluru police after receiving a bio attack threat email demanding Rs 500 crore in digital currency bitcoin as ransom. The companys reception on Friday morning received an anonymous email and the sender threatened to use the drug Ricin, a natural toxic protein, on all Wipro offices in Bengaluru if the company failed to pay up. The sender of the email identified as ramesh2@protonmail.com, said that the toxin would be spread through food at the cafeteria, toilet seats, toilet paper and all around the campus using drones. The sender threatened that if the ransom was not paid by May 25, he would start sending samples of ricin in envelopes and later launch a full-fledged attack. The sender provided a link for making the payment. In a statement issued to DH, the company confirmed that it had filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening email from an unidentified source. Wipro has augmented security measures at all its office locations. There is no impact on the companys operations. We have no further comments as the investigation is ongoing, stated the company release. Cyber police have registered the case under Section 66 F of the IT Act (cyber terrorism) and investigations are underway. According to the cyber police, the email also claimed that one kg of ricin had already been stored and two grams would be sent in envelopes to one of Wipros offices to confirm that the threat is real. The case has been transferred to the jurisdictional Bellandur police station. Ricin is a natural toxic protein, which is an extract of castor bean from the castor plant. A tablespoon of high quality Ricin can kill an adult within a few hours. According to security analysts, Wipro should go in for Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) protection as it is facing heightened threat. The government amended CISF Act in 1969 to pave way for the para military force deployment in private company units. As per the latest statistics, CISF is deployed in eight private sector units so far in the country, they said. Infosys was the first corporate in India to get CISF security cover in 2009. Zhou Zongwen (3rd from left), Belgian House of Representatives Siegfried Bracke (3rd from right), Antwerp vice-mayor Ludo Van Campenhout (2nd from right) President of the Belgian House of Representatives Siegfried Bracke bestowed an Order of Leopold, the national honorary order of Belgium, upon Zhou Zongwen, the Chairman of Chow Tai Seng Jewelry in recognition of his contribution to the cultural and economic exchanges between China and Belgium, especially to the cooperation between the diamond industries and promotion of diamond culture, on May 3 in Brussels. The annual trade volume of diamonds between China and Belgium has reached $5 billion. The industry insiders who were present at the ceremony were all optimistic about the future potentials of trade between the two countries. Belgian House of Representatives Siegfried Bracke (right) presents the order and certificate to Zhou Zongwen Zhou said that he and Belgian partners had reached consensus on further strengthening the research, development and promotion of diamond products, and planned to introduce Belgian diamond culture, designers and marketing experience to China by holding a designing contest for diamond jewelries globally. He also hopes to introduce the Chinese elements to the world through the contest. The winning designs will be shown around China and be on sale at Chow Tai Seng shops. Zhou Zongwen and his wife Zhou Huazhen at the ceremony In addition, Zhou hopes to expand influence of Chinese enterprises and their corporate cultures in Belgium and Europe by offering sponsorship to cultural and art events. Founded in 1999, Chow Tai Seng is an influential jewelry brand operators in China. Zhou Zongwen addresses the ceremony By Chelsea Harvey and Chris Mooney 4 May 2017 (The Washington Post) As the Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with a large-scale update of its website, its climate change site has been taken down, pending review. But several climate scientists contacted by The Post argue that this is unnecessary. If any errors were present, they could have been fixed with minor editing, said atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in an emailed comment, who also noted that hes never heard of any climate scientist objecting to any information on the website. There was no cause for a wholesale review of the sites materials. The climate change site, which has existed since the 1990s, contained a wealth of information on the scientific causes of global warming, its consequences and ways for communities to mitigate or adapt. An archived version of the site clearly states that humans are largely responsible for recent climate change and also includes data on the sources of greenhouse gas emissions, reports on the observable effects of climate change, fact sheets about its threat to human health and numerous other resources. As of April 27, however, the site redirects to a page claiming that the agency is currently updating our website to reflect EPAs priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, for his part, has publicly stated that he does not agree that human activity is a primary contributor to current climate change. [] However, some scientists are challenging the idea that the climate change site is in need of reviewing or updating at all or at least, that it warranted being taken down during the review process. [E]very administration has the right and indeed responsibility to review, update, and improve the policies and websites of agencies under their purview, so there is nothing inherently wrong with the EPA website being revised, said Matthew Huber, a climate scientist at Purdue University, by email. It does strike me as unusual and irresponsible to take the entire climate change website down at once and not conduct a rolling review and update. This is akin to removing all emergency exit signs from a movie theater while a movie is showing because the upper management has decided they might need to improve their disaster plans. According to Huber, the previous climate site contained valuable information related to the safety of human communities, such as a report aimed at helping citizens protect their health against extreme heat in the future. So the administration has removed a well executed, scientifically valid guide to protecting health information needed right now not just in the distant future, he said. This seems to be a direct abrogation of the EPAs mission to protect human health and the environment. [more] Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn) China does not want to "put on a one-man show" with the Belt and Road Initiative, and it is not true that the initiative is "controlled" by China, Beijing said on Friday. "If the Belt and Road really is controlled by China, and if everyone really has no way to share the benefits, I think they wouldn't be rushing in to participate," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, pointing out that delegates from 110 countries will be coming to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The forum will be held in Beijing on May 14 and 15. Geng made the remarks in response to a question at a daily news conference regarding opinions among some that the initiative, instead of being "win-win", was China's solo play. "These are misunderstandings made totally out of stereotypical thinking," he said. The Belt and Road Initiative, though proposed by China, is a project that needs to be built by all participants, the spokesman told the news conference. He said China sticks to "extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits". China is currently consulting with countries that will attend the forum about an outcome document, the spokesman said, adding that the document will be a result of "extensive consultation" that will draw on the wisdom and consensus of all participants. Geng said China will work with all sides to make the forum a successful one that will further build consensus and lay out plans for implementing the initiative. Cyclists in Tianjin wear masks on Friday, as dust hits the city. [Photo/Xinhua] At least one death is attributed to strong winds, others injured A severe sandstorm sweeping the northern region turned the sky yellow, and caused at least one death in the affected regions. The storm is forecast to persist, and marched south and east on Friday to blanket cities including Shanghai and Jiangsu province. The affected southern regions are expected to see the storm disappear on Sunday, the National Meteorological Center said. In Beijing, a 50-meter section of wall was blown down, killing one person and burying eight vehicles on Friday morning. In addition, a pedestrian was severely injured by a flying brick in Haidian district on Friday morning, Beijing News reported. The wind blew down trees, causing severe traffic jams in the morning. Shanghai has issued a warning that air pollution is forecast to climb to the severe level on Friday night, and that it will persist until Sunday, the municipal environment and weather authorities said. They suggested people take precautions like closing windows, staying indoors and wearing protective masks. In addition, the provinces of Henan, Jiangsu and Hubei have been affected by dust and sand on Friday, and will see it linger until Saturday, the national weather authority said. Wuhan, Hubei province, suspended work on construction sites and demolitions, and the frequency of watering roads was increased to reduce dust generation, the city government said. The ongoing dust and sand storm, the strongest bout this year, has swept over more than 10 provinces and big cities in northwestern and northern regions since Wednesday, including Beijing, the center said. In Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the dust storm has reached alarmingly high levels and lowered the visibility to 300 meters in some areas, according Zhang Bihui, a senior meteorologist at the weather authority. On Thursday, the concentration of PM10the main pollutants in the dusty weathersoared to over 2,000 micrograms per cubic meter, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said, adding that at least seven cities including Beijing saw their air quality indexes reaching the maximum of 500. In Hailar district of Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, the strong sandstorm forced the closure of a section of major expressway and closed schools on Thursday and Friday. The company is expected launch the Nokia 3310, Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 phones by May/June this year Nokia is slated to make a return to the Indian smartphone market later this year and chances are that the company may reveal details on May 8. HMD Global will be hosting an event in New Delhi called "a conversation with Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer, HMD Global" on that day. To recall, HMD Global is the company, which owns the license to manufacture and sell Nokia-branded phones globally. It is expected that the company might announce the availability of Nokia 3( 5890 at flipkart)310, and the Nokia 3,5 and 6 smartphones during that event. According to previous reports, Nokia may start selling smartphones in the UK by June, while the Nokia 3310 is already available in the Germany and Austria for pre-order. The company also released a teaser video yesterday commemorating Star Wars Day as well as its past. The video teaser shared by the company was Star Wars themed, wishing its fans May the 4the be with you and was posted under the title, "Coming to your galaxy soon #StarWarsDay." The video was shared by Nokias twitter handle, where the company reconfirmed the launch timeframe stating, "hi, we will be launching globally in the coming months (May-June). Stay tuned for updates!" It is safe to assume that India will see launch of Nokia devices in the coming months as well. The company has already confirmed that the company plans to sell its phones in India via both online and offline channels and that it is trying to set up its service centres and outlets across 250 Indian cities. Liu Guoqun's father, Liu Wanyong (center), and other family members bid farewell to the helicopter carrying the woman's donated organs from Jiaxing to Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Thursday. It was the first step in a transplant relay. TIAN JIANMING/CHINA DAILY A relay to transport lifesaving human organs on Thursday marked new hope for several seriously ill patients and a new step for China's young but maturing transplantation program. It was the first time a relay involving both a helicopter and a commercial jet had been attempted, and it was all made possible by the generosity of a grieving family who had just lost a young woman in the flower of youth. In a hospital in Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, a 21-year-old woman named Liu Guoqun, who had sustained a mortal head injury in an accident on April 25, was declared brain dead by doctors after efforts to save her failed. Liu's family gathered at her bedside, and her parents struggled with what to do, but finally came to the decision to donate her heart, liver, kidneys and corneas to benefit others. "I believe my daughter's life will continue on through the transplants," her father, Liu Wanyong, told China Central Television. Soon, candidates to receive the organs were found in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, 80 kilometers away, and in Beijing, a distance of 1,220 km. But time was short, and ground transportation was out of the question. A heart, which was the organ needed in Beijing, must be used within five hours. A relay plan was hastily organized. A helicopter rushed all the organs to Xiaoshan International Airport in Hangzhou within 26 minutes on Thursday morning, the CCTV report said. An Air China passenger jet, flight CA 1711 to Beijing, was delayed for 23 minutes and took off as soon as the heart was aboard the plane. The helicopter then whisked the remaining organs to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. It arrived in 12 minutes and the organs were rushed to operating rooms, where doctors and their patients waited. A doctor tends to Liu Guoqun on Wednesday at the No 1 Hospital of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. Mortally injured in an accident, she was declared brain dead. TIAN JIANMING/CHINA DAILY The woman's liver and two kidneys were transplanted, giving three patients a new lease on life. While the heart arrived in Beijing in time, doctors performing tests needed before the transplant found "functional inadequacies" in the organ that ruled out its use, the report said. The patient would have to continue to wait. Two patients will get the woman's corneas, restoring their sight, on Tuesday. "It was a great effort," said Wang Jian'an, the head of Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. "It is China's first helicopter-and-plane relay to transport organs. All departments and organizations gave a green light on transportation." In China, regulations allow organ donations after doctors declare a donor brain dead, but family members must sign documents to permit the donation. Japan, China and South Korea have resolved to boost economic and financial ties and resist protectionist policies advocated by US President Donald Trump in order to derisk Asian economies of the fallout of such polices. Japan and China also today kicked off their first bilateral financial dialogue in two years to discuss risks to Asia's economic outlook, including the fallout of US President Donald Trump's protectionist policies and tension over North Korea, reports said. "We actively exchanged views on economic and financial situations in Japan and China and our cooperation in the financial field," Japanese finance minister Taro Aso told reporters after the meeting, which included senior finance ministry and central bank officials. Ministers and central bank governors, including Japanese finance minister Aso, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda and Chinese vice-minister of finance Yaobin earlier4 met for the Asean+3 conference on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) annual meeting in Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. During their trilateral meeting, Asian giants China, Japan and South Korea also agreed to take a united stand against the protectionism advocated by US President Donald Trump and resist all forms of protectionist policies obstructing free trade. "We agree that trade is one of the most important engines of economic growth and development, which contribute to productivity improvements and job creations," the finance ministers and central bank governors of the three countries said in a joint communique issued after the trilateral meeting Chinese finance minister Xiao Jie, who missed a trilateral meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Friday for an emergency domestic meeting, has flown in for the bilateral dialogue, seeking to dispel speculation his absence had diplomatic implications. Xiao and Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso will discuss issues ranging from North Korea's nuclear and missile programme to the two countries' economic outlook and financial cooperation during the dialogue. Senior finance officials from both countries will also hold a separate round of talks, Japanese finance ministry officials say. Although relations between Japan and China have been strained over territorial disputes and China's increasing foray into the global infrastructure space and the setting up of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the two countries agree on the need to respect free trade, which is crucial to Asia's trade-dependent economies China, which has positioned itself as a supporter of free trade in the wake of Trump's calls to put America's interests first and pull out of multilateral trade agreements, is trying to occupy the space left by the US. Japan, an ally of the United States, has been more accommodative toward Washington's argument that trade must not just be free but fair as well. Trump has, however, distanced himself from the pre-election rhetoric with the G20 developed and major emerging economies took a stronger stand against protectionist policies advocated by US President Donald Trump. Hundreds of people gathered at the coastal Gaeltacht village of Maghery in the early Saturday darkness for the annual Darkness Into Light walk/run. About 600 people took part in Darkness Into Light today in Maghery, the third consecutive year the community has hosted the flagship fundraising and awareness-raising event for Pieta House. Frances Boyle, a member of the organising committee in Maghery, said the crowds began to arrive at the Ionad An Mhachaire about 45 minutes before the start of the 5K walk. At 3 oclock we were kind of looking around us, but all of a sudden, at about half past 3, the place just thronged and the line of cars coming over the road was fantastic - it was fantastic to see them, she said. Young and old came out. She said cyclists came from as far as Annagry and Gaoth Dobhair to take part. It was lovely to see the support people have given to Darkness Into Light, she said. Maghery was one of a number of communities in Donegal, across Ireland and abroad to host Darkness Into Light events this morning. About 150,000 people took part in Darkness Into Light walk/runs across Ireland. In Donegal, Darkness Into Light was also held in Letterkenny, Falcarragh, Arranmore Island, Tory Island, Carrick, Donegal town and Buncrana. Pieta House, the centre for the prevention of suicide and self-harm, is to open a centre in Letterkenny this month; their 24-hour phone line is already available to anyone seeking their services. The money that we raise here today will help keep Pieta Houses lifesaving services free, Jack Brereton, a member of the Maghery organising committee who served as MC at the event, said. All Pieta House services are free and confidential. The vision is to create a world where suicide, self-harm and the stigma of suicide are replaced by hope, self-care and acceptance, Jack said. Pieta House can be reached at any hour of the day by phoning Freecall 1800 247 247, or by texting HELP to 51444. Mount Gilead Baptist Church, 7638 Highway 87, Elba, will hold revival services May 7-10. Services will be held Sunday at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Monday-Wednesday at 7 p.m. Guest speakers include: the Rev. Larry Grimm on Sunday morning; the Rev. Bob Hataway on Sunday night; the Rev. James Hataway on Monday with special music by Glen Farris; the Rev. Richard Collier on Tuesday; and the Rev. Derek Snellgrove on Wednesday. Faith Community Church, 18 Private Road 1510 (Martin Mobile Home Park), in Enterprise will have revival services May 7-10. Hector Ramirez, former member of Faith Community, will be preaching. Everyone invited. The Evangelists/Missionaries Ministry of Daleville Christian Fellowship Worship Center will sponsor a Senior Citizen Luncheon on Thursday, May 18, beginning at 11:30 a.m. All senior members of the community are invited to attend; however, it is necessary to RSVP by calling 334-598-6279, no later than May 11. The worship center is at 1 Martin Luther King Jr. Circle in Daleville. Klondyke Gospel Music Center, located between Newton and Ozark at 3885 Highway 123 S., will host: Zeke Turner of Athens, Georgia, May 12; David Evans & Frank Farris of New Brockton, May 13; Carroll and Beverly Senn of Pinckard, May 20; Sheila Smith Trio of Cottondale, Florida, May 27. Music starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, contact Ron Jeffers, president and concert coordinator, at 334-797-9862. First Community Fellowship Church, 400 E. Crawford St., Dothan, will host a Mother Day Fun Day on Saturday, May 13, starting at 9 a.m. The day will include cook-outs, yard sale, games, water slides, gospel singing, cake walks, and drawing for prizes for mothers. For booth information, call 334-405-0531, 334-796-0313, 334-648-4790, 334-258-6187 or 334-350-8060. The Mothers Ministry of Daleville Christian Fellowship Worship Center will host their Annual Mother Daughter Tea on Saturday, May 13, at 3 p.m. The guest speaker will be Minister Octavia Neal of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Smiths Station. For additional information, call 334-598-6279. The worship center is at 1 Martin Luther King Jr. Circle in Daleville. Cherry Street AME Church, 308 N. Cherry St., Dothan, will host a pre-Mothers Day Gospel Singing on Saturday, May 13, at 6 p.m. Special guest will be Charles Beasley and the Vessels of Clayton. Everyone is invited to attend. Grimes Gospel Lighthouse, 1512 County Road 25, Grimes, will host: Zeke Turner of Athens, Georgia, May 13; local talent, May 20; and Ken Robertson of Panama City, Florida, May 27. Music starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free; love offering will be taken. Call 334-983-4654 or 334-714-4658 for more information. The Wiregrass Youth Choral Society will present their annual Mothers Day Musical Tribute on Sunday, May 14, at 5 p.m. at Park Chapel AME Church, 1053 E. Selma St., Dothan, featuring the Wiregrass Youth Choral Society Chorister with a program entitled Youth Rejoicing in the Lord with Mothers. The program is free and open to the public. Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Dothan will hold the womens event Flourish on May 16 at the church located on Fortner Street. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the event starts at 7 p.m. Flourish is a free, casual, community women's event. The event will have Dothan Ice Cream, live worship, and a Bible message for women. The Dothan Evening Community Lighthouse of Aglow International will meet at Shoney's Restaurant located at 3054 Ross Clark Circle in Dothan on Thursday, May 18, at 5:30 p.m. The guest speaker will be Tammy Hendrix of Hartford. Hendrix has served in various levels of leadership in Aglow International for over 24 years and is the author of the devotional I Choose to Rejoice. The Usher Board of Johns Chapel AME Church, 605 Geneva Highway in Enterprise, will hold a barbecue Boston butt plate sale at the church on Friday, May 19, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Plates will cost $8 each, and they will be available for dining in, carryout or delivery. To purchase tickets or for more information, contact Vivian Johnson at 334-347-9288. Aglow Enterprise Community Lighthouse Meeting will be held Saturday, May 20, at 10 a.m. at Po Folks Restaurant. Guest speaker will be Dr. Ginger Mayer of Headland. For more information, call 334-406-9683. St. Peter African Methodist Episcopal Church, 401 Hollon St., Headland, will host the annual Womens Missionary Society Prayer Breakfast on Saturday, May 20, starting at 9 a.m. Theme is The Power of Prayer. A donation of $5 is requested. For more information, call 334-618-6911. New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 1110 Allen Road, Dothan, will host the 37th annual Alabama Baptist State Nurses Guild Health and Wellness Workshop on Saturday, May 20. Registration and a continental breakfast will begin at 7:30 p.m. The workshop will end at 1:30 p.m. and will include topics on mental health, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS and the faith community, and congregational health ministry. Continuing education credits will be awarded by Medical Advocacy Outreach/Alabama AETC. Call 334-655-1246 for more information. St. Paul Church of God in Christ Womens Department will present Women of the Bible (Part 3) on Sunday, May 21, at 4 p.m. The church is at 711 Oak St. in Ashford. For more information, call Beverly Jackson at 334-899-4996 or 334-618-8658. Rocky Mount Baptist Church, 457 County Road 42, Abbeville, will hold a Womens Day Celebration on Sunday, June 4, at 2:30 p.m. Speaker will be Sister Lori McKay of Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Headland. Bible classes on How to Receive Your Healing from God will begin Tuesday, June 6, at 6:30 p .m. To register and for more information, call 334-405-7465. A Shriners Gospel Music Gala featuring Linda Senn and Darrell Luster will be held June 23 at 7 p.m. at the Troy Fairgrounds in Troy. The event will benefit Shriners Hospitals for Children. Admission is $5 for adults, with children ages 12 and under admitted free. An undertaking the size of the Wiregrass Area Will Graham Celebration relies on volunteers to help bring people into the Kingdom of God. Bob Hickling, a Celebration associate at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said about 500 counselors and supervisors, 120 ushers and 30 merchandise sales volunteers are working to see the lost come to Christ. A lot of people think were here for a revival for the church, but thats kind of a byproduct of what happens, he said. Were really here to reach the lost of the Wiregrass area. The volunteers have a heart to do the same thing and thats why they help us. Will Graham, grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and the oldest son of Franklin Graham, held a launch event in January to unite area churches for the outreach project that culminates this weekend at the Dothan Civic Center. The local event is part of Will Grahams 2017 schedule which includes a Celebration in Indiana and outreaches in Mexico and Canada. Hickling said the association uses training material that has been around for 60 years or longer. Its been tweaked a little bit over the years but its basically the same core material, he said. It trains counselors how to live a victorious Christian life, how to share their faith with others and how to follow up with the new believers to make sure they get plugged in to a good church. Hickling has been with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association almost 20 years. Friday night he was working with the arrangements team as it helped coordinate the Celebration that continues through Sunday. Debi Parnell, director of outreach ministries at Harvest Church and one of the leaders of the arrangements team, said she wants people to come to know the love of Jesus Christ. One of the blessings has been for all the churches in our community to unite together and serve together for this one common cause, reaching people with the gospel of Jesus, she said. Parnell said it has been a privilege to work on the event. We want everyone to know the Lord, she said. We want people to be healed, we want people to be rescued from any burdens that theyre carrying. We want them to know his plan and purpose for their lives. Sandy Uhler is excited about churches working together because were all one body of Christ. She said local leaders have been working with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association since 2012 to bring an event to Dothan. Its been a long process, but many of our community and church leaders reached out to them years ago, so its just been a process of waiting to be chosen to come here, Uhler said. We just believe that the Lord sent them here. Hickling and his wife have been living in Dothan in an RV since Jan. 2. Living here, you get a better feel of whats going on in the community, Hickling said. I learned that this is a great town. The people are awesome, very warm and inviting. He said residents are concerned about the condition of the church and about the lost people. Weve had countless people tell us theyre very grateful that God chose this time for us to come here and do this celebration because they really need it, he said. A three-year jail term for robbing a filling station with a knife, amid growing public concern" at the increasing use of knives to perpetrate crimes, was not unduly harsh, a judge has said. Oliver Kennaway (37), of Bothair Croinn, Saltown, Dundalk, Co Louth, had pleaded guilty at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court to robbery of Castletown Road filling station in the town on 27 july 2013. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment with the final year suspended by Judge Michael O'Shea on January 28, 2016. Kennaway had an appeal against the severity of his prison sentence dismissed last week with the Court of Appeal holding that his three-year jail term, for use of a knife to perpetrate a crime, could be described as lenient. Giving judgment, Mr Justice Alan Mahon said Kennaway entered the filling station with a hoodie pulled over his face carrying a large knife. Two employees were working in the station and Kennaway demanded money from the till before running away with 500 chased by one of the employees. Mr Justice Mahon said Kennaway had a difficult personal background and had 15 previous convictions. He had been conviction free for approximately seven years before this offence. His barrister, Fionnuala O'Sullivan BL, submitted that the sentencing judge erred in holding that there was an element of planning to the robbery in the absence of any evidence and that the sentence imposed was unduly severe. Mr Justice Mahon said the sentencing judge accepted the robbery, carried out in a frightening and intimidating manner, was motivated by Kennaway's chronic drug addiction. He referred to the terrifying and horrific ordeal one shop assistant was subjected to by Kennaway's use of the knife. The fact was that, although not planned for a significant length of time, the filling station was identified as a soft target for a cash robbery and Kennaway attempted to conceal his face and armed himself with a knife. It certainly could not be said to have been an opportunistic robbery, the judge said. Mr Justice Mahon said the sentencing judge did not identify a headline sentence but on the assumption that such a headline was between five and seven years - before mitigation - it was an appropriate sentence within the the judge's discretion. Against a background of understandably growing public concern and alarm at the increasing use of knives to perpetrate a crime a net custodial sentence of three years was not unduly harsh, Mr Justice Mahon said. Indeed, he said, it could be described as lenient. He said the sentencing judge was anxious to give Kennaway the greatest possible chance to rehabilitate himself and it was heartening to hear that Kennaway was working to achieve that in prison successfully passing the leaving cert history paper. Mr Justice Mahon, who sat with Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court must dismiss the appeal. WASHINGTON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday discussed with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov about efforts to reduce the conflict in Syria, the U.S. State Department said. "The Secretary of State spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov today about the efforts to de-escalate the ongoing conflict in Syria," according to a State Department statement. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the statement added. The exchange occurred one day after Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on the creation of four safe zones in war-torn Syria. In another statement on Thursday, the U.S. State Department voiced concerns about Iran's role as a guarantor of the new memorandum to reduce violence in certain areas of Syria. Tencent in contact with Russian authorities following Wechat ban WeChat is available in a vast majority of countries around the world. Tencent says it has around 900-million users worldwide. [File Photo: Xinhua] Tencent says it's in contact with Russian authorities over its ban on the use of messaging apps connected to Wechat. Russia's telecom watchdog announced earlier this week that WeChat is not in compliance with Russia's information laws. At issue is registration. Internet-based companies which have links in Russia are required to register with the government. Tencent says it "had a different understanding" of the issue. Other social media apps, including Blackberry Messenger, Imo and Line, have also run into similar restrictions in Russia. WeChat is available in a vast majority of countries around the world. Tencent says it has around 900-million users worldwide. One of the things people visit at Buffalo Wild Wings are their delectable wings in 17 different sauces and dry rubs. But one of my favorite from them is their sample platter where you can have the taste of almost everything including one of the best pretzel I know in town. This platter serves a sampler of Buffalo Wild Wings appetizers. Just recently I had a Wings and More party with my blogger friends here where we tried out their latest menu. We had their Mozzarella Burger Smokehouse Burger Most Valuable with traditional wings, honey BBQ ribs, and fried pork chop. And those with huge appetite they have Big Ribs and Crispy Pata too! I also enjoyed their refreshing drinks I can talk about their new menu all day but nothing beats you experiencing it yourself. Head on to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings branch they have one at Estancia Mall in Capitol Commons, Glorietta 2, Uptown Mall BGC, S Maison at Conrad Hotel Manila and Vista Mall in Sta.Rosa. Also consider buying their sauces, and making your own wings. Most people own a BBQ grill, but if you dont learn more about types of grills out there. Have your family over for some B Dubs at home! Stay gorgeous everyone! A Chinese naval soldier waves to crowd from a vessel departing for the escort mission in waters off Somalia. [File Photo: Xinhua] A Chinese naval vessel has handed over three suspected pirates to Somali authorities. The pirates were involved in the attempted hijacking in April of a Tuvalu-flagged cargo ship that was rescued by the Chinese navy after the crew sent a distress call. A local pirate leader is said to be among the transferred suspects. Piracy has once-again started becoming an issue off the Horn of Africa over the past couple of months after a nearly 5-year lull. The Chinese navy has been part of an international escort mission in the region since late 2008. What happens when the evidence showing that vouchers do not improve student learning, or fix failing schools, becomes too obvious to ignore? Well, if youre Betsy DeVos, you just flip the rhetoric (i.e., lie). Just as Ms. DeVos and President Donald Trump are poised to dump $20 billion into a federal voucher program, a new study shows that students receiving vouchers in Washington, DC the only federally-funded voucher program in the nation perform significantly worse than their peers in public schools. All while draining roughly $11 million per year from DCs public school budget. The D.C. program serves about 1,100 students, giving them up to $8,452 to attend a private elementary or middle school and up to $12,679 for high school. Participating private schools must be accredited by 2021 but otherwise face few requirements beyond showing that they are in good financial standing and demonstrating compliance with health and safety laws. D.C. students who used vouchers had significantly lower math scores a year after joining the program, on average, than students who applied for a voucher through a citywide lottery but did not receive one. For voucher students in kindergarten through fifth grade, reading scores were also significantly lower. For older voucher students, there was no significant difference in reading scores. For voucher recipients coming from a low-performing public school the population that the voucher program primarily aims to reach attending a private school had no effect on achievement. But for voucher recipients coming from higher-performing public schools, the negative effect was particularly large. The analysis reviewed data for more than 1,700 students who participated in the lotteries from 2012 to 2014. Martin West, a professor of education at Harvard, said the D.C. study adds to an emerging pattern of research showing declines in student achievement among voucher recipients, a departure from an earlier wave of research often on smaller, privately funded scholarship programs that skewed more positive. I think we need to be asking the question: Why is this happening and what should we make of it and should we care? West said. He said weaker scores among voucher recipients may be a result of the fact that public school performance is improving, particularly in the District, where math and reading scores at traditional public and public charter schools have increased quickly over the past decade. This new study is just the latest in a long line of research findings showing that vouchers do not have a positive impact on student learning. As Ive written about previously here, here, here, and here, weve known that vouchers are a very bad, no good, horrible idea if you actually care about children, schools, or learning and a great idea if you fear the tendency of public education to produce critical thinkers, and citizens who might question the status quo. Or if you already send your child to a private or more likely, a religious schooland would like a federal subsidy for doing so. Well, now it appears that even our nations biggest cheerleader for private and religious school vouchers has seen that the bloom is coming off the vouchers rose. But instead of admitting that she was wrong, and that maybe the Secretary of Education for the United States shouldnt be pimping what amounts to a Ponzi scheme to destroy and defraud public education as the central tenet of her administration, Betsy DeVos has simply flipped the switch on her core beliefthat vouchers would somehow provide the silver bullet, the magic wand, the secret sauce, that would quickly and easily fuel the improvement of student learning that has somehow eluded the best efforts of generations of educational experts. The old rationale: Vouchers will rescue children from the tyranny of attending the failing schools in their Zip Code, and unlock the potential of all students. The new rationale: When school choice policies are fully implemented, there should not be differences in achievement among the various types of schools, she said in a statement. Neat twist, that. Im not sure how you look yourself in the mirror after youve devoted your entire life to destroying public schools and simultaneously boosting charter, private, and religious schools as being clearly and obviously the better choice for all children and then just abruptly switch gears to the point of vouchers isnt that they help kids escape the schools we are destroying its just about choicy, choicy choice. Because CHOICE. If anyone needed any proof that Ms. DeVos doesnt care a single whit about childrens learning, or helping the public schools, orreally, anything but profits and redirecting public dollars to private bank accounts, there it is. Choice isnt about helping kids learn. Its just about choice. Lets all hope that Ms. DeVos learns the difference between simple and simplistic. The Congressman from Flint, Michigan, explains why the American Health Care Act isnt really about healthcare at all. By now, youve surely seen it: The beer bash at the White House where House Republicans jubilantly celebrated robbing an estimated 24 million Americans (and counting) of their health insurance after their repeal and replace vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). To Congressman Dan Kildee, that smug, insensitive display says it all. An American billionaire standing in front of a bunch of white men who have government-paid healthcare, ripping healthcare out of the hands of poor people who really need it, he told me. I guess they can say they were trying to be health-conscious because they ordered Bud Light for their party. But health really doesnt have anything to do with it. Theres no ignoring that fact. House Republicans defied the pleas of major medical societies, patient and consumer advocacy organizations, doctors and nurses when they voted to pass the AHCA. They didnt care that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) hadnt scored the latest version of the bill yet, so no one knew how many people will lose health insurance and how much it will cost. They didnt care about tearful constituents pleading with them not to let their loved ones die. They didnt care that repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) and replacing it with the AHCA will throw the insurance marketplace into chaos and is backed by absolutely zero proof of Republican claims that the AHCA will lower costs and give every American health insurance, including those with pre-existing conditions. Those claims are untrue and unsubstantiated, but they dont care. Republicans dont care because the AHCA isnt really about healthcare at all. Its about appeasing the interests of the only group of Americans Republicans care about: the wealthy, including themselves. Thats not really a surprise, but Rep. Kildee confirms what many of us have long suspected, in a conversation we had the day after the House passed the AHCA. The only winners in this legislation are people who make more than $200,000 a year, says Rep. Kildee. Everybody else will help fund a huge tax break for the people at the top, pay more for their health insurance and have less care and coverage than they had before. According to Rep. Kildee, that logic is the only way to make sense of why Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the AHCA, even though most of them didnt think it was very good legislation. They made a political commitment to each other that theyd overturn the signature achievement of Barack Obama they still cant accept Barack Obama or anything associated with him. And in doing so, they gave themselves an opportunity to transfer wealth from poor and working people to the richest people in the country. Thats what their bill does. Its a tax cut for wealthy Americans disguised as a healthcare bill. There are many disastrous aspects of the AHCA, but one of the worst is the $880 billion that will be cut from Medicaid cuts necessary to pay for the massive tax cut being handed to the richest Americans, Rep. Kildee explains. Whats more, no one knows yet exactly where those cuts will happen, because Members of Congress were given a 600-page bill less then one day before the vote. Even some Republican representatives admitted no one had time to read it. Were poring over it, and if our assumptions are correct its a lump sum cut to Medicaid, giving power to states to change how Medicaid is administered, says Rep. Kildee. House Republicans are absolving themselves of responsibilities for the worst things that will happen if this bill becomes law. By putting the hard decisions they refuse to make in the hands of states, they get to pretend they didnt kick people off healthcare, when they did. It is one of the most cynical legislative ploys that I recall in my lifetime. The decision about whether to axe protections for people with pre-existing conditions and the essential health benefits provided by the ACA will be left to the states, along with the decision about Medicaid funding. Whether or not Medicaid expansion is officially withdrawn or just falls prey to deep cuts to the program, people will suffer including those in Flint who became eligible for Medicaid expansion after they were poisoned by toxic levels of lead through careless decisions by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and others. Not only will millions of Americans lose their healthcare coverage, Rep. Kildee says, but everyone will pay more. The only way the Republican promise that premiums will go down will happen is because insurance companies will once again be allowed to offer policies that dont actually cover much. Hospital visits, for example, may no longer be covered. Insurance-supported health coverage thats lost will mean more uncompensated care, Rep. Kildee explains. When care is delivered by a hospital, lets say, and its not paid for, it ends up getting paid for by people who have insurance or Medicare. Sooner or later everyone gets sick, and someone is going to pay for it. In another maneuver to fool Americans into thinking the AHCA is good for them, Republicans also went against their long-standing insistence that a bill needs to be scored by the CBO before it is voted on or even brought to the floor. The revised CBO score is expected the week of May 8, but House Republicans just couldnt wait that long. Rep. Kildee knows why: They wanted to make sure they held this vote before they had the CBO analysis that shows the impact both in terms of people losing coverage and the total cost. As long as Ive been here and watching Congress, Republicans have said the CBO score determines whether a bill even goes to the floor, let alone has an impact on the deficit. It shows just how duplicitous they are. They also made sure this vote took place before these Members went home for recess and faced their constituents. They know if those Republican Members of Congress went home for a week with this bill hanging out there, theyd never get the votes to pass it. They want to send those Members back to their district with the excuse that its too late, that the vote already happened. Its absolutely shameful and anti-democratic, and people need to know that. Rep. Kildee points out that 20 courageous Republicans voted against the AHCA. But the rest of the Republicans who voted for the bill should be held accountable. People need to raise their voices, go to town hall meetings, show up at the offices of the people who voted for this bill, Rep. Kildee says. Turning up the heat will make a difference because this is not over yet. After the bill goes to the Senate, the House will vote on the AHCA again. Although Rep. Kildee says polling isnt the end-all, the majority of Americans want Congress to fix the ACA instead of throwing it out. That should be the message, Rep. Kildee says. Democrats and Republicans need to de-weaponize healthcare, roll up their sleeves and fix the problems we know we can fix and not buy the idea that we can let Republicans get away with a tax cut and call it healthcare. Americans are going to be really angry when they find out what this legislation is actually all about. Read part two of my interview with Congressman Kildee, in which he shares three Democratic proposals for improving the ACA that Republicans have refused to consider. [Photo courtesy of Congressman Kildees office.] Burger King on Wednesday in essence hijacked the voice-activated Google Home speakers in some consumers homes. In a 15-second television ad, the camera zooms in on a young man wearing the company uniform who says, OK Google, what is the Whopper burger? The OK Google trigger phrase for Googles artificial intelligence Assistant activated Google Home speakers situated nearby, prompting them to read Wikipedias description of the Whopper. Burger King apparently intended to prompt the Assistant to deliver the glowing description posted on the page. However, the Internet quickly caught on to the gimmick, and Wikipedias Whopper page was deluged with newly edited versions, many of them decidedly uncomplimentary. Wikipedia soon blocked the editing functionality. Within three hours or so, Google reportedly issued a server-side update to Google Home to stop it from responding to the ad. The ad would still wake up a Google Home device, which would wait for its query to hit Googles servers, but Home no longer would respond to it. However, Google Home would respond to a real person making the same query. The ad apparently was created by David The Agency. Wikipedias Whopper Page Gone Wild Someone with the username Fermachado123 last week changed the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper to list its ingredients, according to reports. The owner of the handle may be Fernando Machado, Burger Kings senior vice president for global brand management, although Burger King apparently hasnt confirmed or denied his involvement. Editing an article on behalf of ones employer or company can create a conflict of interest and violate Wikipedia policies, Wikimedia spokesperson Samantha Lien told the E-Commerce Times. Wikipedia content and entries are determined by a community of volunteer editors. Internet trolls struck minutes after the ad debuted at 12:00 p.m. ET, editing the Wikipedia entry to describe the burger variously as cancer-causing or a chocolate candy, and altering the ingredients list to include such items as toenail clippings, medium-sized child, and rat. Google could, and likely should, require people to customize the command phrase, suggested Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. The idea that a TV ad could generate a mass purchase should scare them more than it does, he told the E-Commerce Times. Following in Alexas Footsteps Im kind of surprised they used Google Home rather than the far more prevalent Amazon Echo, Enderle said. A 6-year-old Dallas girl earlier this year asked the Amazon Echo Dot, which is powered by Alexa, if it could get her a dollhouse. Alexa was happy to oblige, and the child confirmed the order. She apparently also ordered cookies. A US$160 dollhouse and four pounds of cookies showed up at her home days later. Her mom laughed off the mishap and treated it as a reminder to set up parental controls. However, Jim Patton, a news anchor at San Diego TV station CW6, several days later said, I love the little girl saying Alexa order me a dollhouse,' during a newscast. His remark reportedly triggered numerous Echo devices in viewers homes to attempt to order dollhouses. We need more variance and better vocal security and recognition, particularly when we begin looping in security systems and locks, or theyll unintentionally allow bad folks into our homes, Enderle warned. That could lead to a massive potential liability exposure for the related products, services, or companies that supply them. Consumers should be careful what applications they use and whats active when they use them, cautioned Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan. Smart Technology Risks Technologies like Google Home and Alexa have no innate judgment, Jude told the E-Commerce Times. You shouldnt trust them to use judgment on which commands to respond to or what activities to launch. Google and others will need to focus on the applications behind the voice recognition systems, he suggested. Natural language processing doesnt imply any real intelligence behind the interface, Jude explained. As the applications NLP system front ends become more intelligent, the opportunities for compromise decrease. In the Internet of Things environment, where you can have an ecosystem or ecosystems of ecosystems interconnected, the attack vector universe is potentially limitless, noted Laura DiDio, research director for IoT at 451 Research. The risks are everywhere, and what you can do is mitigate risk to an acceptable level, she told the E-Commerce Times but that requires vendors to make secure products. 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The standoff at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has energized activists in Louisiana, who are trying to keep another crude conduit out of wetlands that Louisianans have fought to restore for decades. The 162-mile Bayou Bridge Pipeline is the last of a network of oilfield arteries that includes DAPL. The project would run from southeastern Texas to a Mississippi River terminal in St. James Parish, west of New Orleans, after crossing the Atchafalaya River basina 1.4 million-acre swath of cypress marsh and wetland forest thats a key rest stop for birds moving north and south along the Mississippi Flyway. Its the largest swamp left in North America and its historically the most critical habitat for migratory birds in the entire hemisphere, said Dean Wilson, executive director of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper. The murky waters of the Atchafalaya are teeming with fish, crawfish and crabs, making them a rich source of food for animals and people alike. Wilsons organization is part of a coalition of Louisiana environmentalists seeking to block the pipeline, which includes the Sierra Clubs Delta Chapter. Theyre trying to prevent further injury to a state where the oil industry puts food on many tables, but also has inflicted deep and dramatic losses on the landscape. The Atchafalaya watershed is already crisscrossed with thousands of miles of pipe; one more is one too many, said Darryl Malek-Wiley, a Sierra Club organizer in New Orleans. As an ecosystem, its actually more productive than the Everglades, as far as food value, Malek-Wiley said. Its time to focus in on this and move forward in a positive way to protect the area, rather than to put more pipelines across it, which cause sediment backup and disturb the water flow through the basin. As an offshoot of the Mississippi River, the Atchafalaya is a major part of southern Louisianas flood protection system. In 2011, when rising waters threatened Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers opened spillways that diverted some of that flow through the basin. Its also the only part of coastal Louisiana that gained land area over the past several decades, as a combination of sinking land, sea-level rise and erosion accelerated by industrial canals eats away at the rest of the states shoreline. And its not just the watershed that would be affected. Opponents say the 24-inch-diameter line would cross about 700 bodies of water, from bayous to backyard wells. Theyre lined up against the states powerful oil and gas industry, which employs about 30,000 people and supports tens of thousands more jobs. The areas Republican congressman and the states Democratic governor both support the pipeline. Louisianas Department of Natural Resources approved the project in Apriland no sympathy is expected from the Trump administration, which reversed its predecessors decision to halt the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines across the northern Great Plains. But the pipelines builder, Energy Transfer Partners, still has to get permission from the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Corps of Engineers. Opponents have asked the Department of Natural Resources to reconsider its approval, and argue that the pipeline would piggyback on infrastructure thats already out of compliance with Corps regulations. When you live in places like Louisiana, you always have to be optimistic or you just dont fight, Malek-Wiley said. Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which also built the Dakota Access Pipeline, didnt respond to requests for comment. Supporters say the pipeline will support about 2,500 construction jobs and pump around $750 million into Louisianas economy. They also argue that pipelines are the safest way to move oilfar less risky than carrying it by train, where a derailment could lead to a disastrous explosion and fire. Critics, however, say the industrys safety and environmental record is terrible, citing more than 140 pipeline accidents in 2016, and an explosion in February that killed one worker and injured two others. In the years since the Deepwater Horizon blowout fouled stretches of the Gulf Coast, environmentalists have stepped up their opposition to new exploration and infrastructure. Theyve protested and disrupted the Interior Departments offshore lease sales and are preparing for more protests against Bayou Bridge. Theyre hoping to tap into the experience of people who took part in the Standing Rock protests, said Anne Rolfes, director of the environmental group Louisiana Bucket Brigade. There are ordinary people here who were moved to go all the way up to North Dakota to experience that and they are very committed to doing that here, Rolfes said. People from groups who were very involved up there are helping us figure this out. (Photo: EAPPI / J. Griffin)An Israeli Soldier checks the identification of a Palestinian farmer before allowing him to access olive trees on the other side of the separation barrier in the village of Jayyu in 2009. The World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit has expressed his concern regarding an ongoing hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. His comments came after more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons began a hunger strike on 17 April, demanding improved prison conditions. "The vast majority of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are political prisoners. They include many human rights workers, civil society leaders, and elected politicians," said Tveit. "They are incarcerated in prisons in Israel rather than the Palestinian territories, restricting access by their family members. Some are held for significant periods of time without any trial or the minimum standards of due process through the practice of 'administrative detention,'" said Tveit. He noted that the current hunger strike has been called to demand more family visits and access to telephone communication with prisoners' relatives, and an adequate level of medical and educational services. The hunger strikers are also demanding the cessation of administrative detention and solitary confinement. "I am appealing to the Israeli authorities to receive the demands of the prisoners, and to respond to them on their merits in accordance with international law," said Tveit. The mass incarceration of Palestinians has been a feature of Israel's ongoing military occupation of the Palestinian territories, which in June 2017 reaches its 50th year. "As Christians we must remember that Jesus identified himself with prisoners, that he himself was unjustly accused and imprisoned before being crucified, and that he proclaimed release to the prisoners. "The earliest followers of Jesus often found themselves in prison, and Jesus specifically called for his disciples to care for prisoners. The plight of prisoners is therefore a central concern for the global Body of Christ," Tveit observed. "The WCC calls for each prisoner to receive due process and proper care," Tveit said. "We join calls for humane prison conditions consistent with international law, and for an end to administrative detention without charges or fair trial. We call for the immediate release of all political prisonersin Israel and throughout the world. "And we call for an end to occupation, for the long-obstructed path towards a just peace in the land of Christ's birth to be re-opened." Four Chinese students have reportedly been arrested at three locations in the United States on charges of defrauding the government in relation to TOEFL exams. If found guilty, they could face jail sentences of up to five years. The TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language - is the most widely respected English-language test in the world, recognized by more than 9,000 colleges, universities and agencies in more than 130 countries, including Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the United States. Its a must-have for any overseas students seeking admission to a U.S. university, and is used by the U.S. government in the issuing of F-1 student visas. According to federal prosecutors, 25 years old Wang Yue, a Chinese student in the Hult International Business School in Cambridge, is accused of taking the TOEFL exam for three other defendants in exchange for money. The fraudulently acquired TOEFL scores were reportedly used by Wangs co-defendants for their own college applications, resulting in: Zhang Shikun, 24 years old, admitted to Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. Huang Leyi, 21 years old, admitted to Penn State University in Erie. Cheng Xiaomeng, 21 years old, admitted to Arizona State University in Tempe. The four Chinese nationals are due before a U.S. District Court in Boston on May 18. They could face up to five years in prison, and will be repatriated after their sentence has been served. To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. With the front door to the United States effectively shut, Central Americans turned to a back entrance. This was the sanctuary movement. In the 1980s, it came to be embraced by hundreds of churches and synagogues, as well as by some college campuses and cities, in more than 30 states. Refugees denied political asylum were spirited across the southern border and sheltered in houses of worship like Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Ariz. These were middle-class folks who were fleeing for their lives, the Rev. John M. Fife, Southsides pastor in the 1980s, said of one group of asylum seekers. When it came to smuggling and hiding people, he said, I assumed it was illegal, but I could not claim to be a Christian and not be involved in trying to protect refugees lives. An estimated 2,000 refuge seekers were aided in that latter-day version of the Underground Railroad. Unavoidably, the clergy made itself a foe of the government, which argued that no one was above the law and that the sanctuary movement was, at heart, inspired more by politics than by theological imperatives. Movement members were put on trial. In one celebrated 1980s case, eight of them, including Fife, were convicted of felony conspiracy and other charges. None ended up going to jail, however. Sometimes, Fife said at the time, you cannot love both God and the civil authority. Sometimes you have to make a choice. The issue today for people who share his beliefs is not so much how to bring unauthorized immigrants into the United States as it is how to keep millions already here from being tossed out. Im a Human Right defender. Im from El Salvador and presently in my country were living through a safety crisis where gangs, criminality and corruption are the main troubles. The same thing is happening throughout this region called the Northern Triangle that include Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in Central America. The extremely high levels of violence have forced more and more people each day to flee towards the North to save their lives. Our governments refuse to recognize that there is forced displacement situation and don't want to recognize that violence has changed migration. We know that migration has existed for decades, but presently thousands of people from the Northern Triangle are seeking refuge status or asylum. They already have histories of danger and lives that are at risk. Their reason for coming to the US is not an economic one, but because their lives are in danger and they are seeking protection. For this reason you are seeing an increase in petitions for asylum or refugee status. Im calling for good Christian people to open the doors of their churches as sanctuaries to migrants and refugees with a goal of protection, defense and refuge. We need your solidarity. We need spaces of sanctuary. Now is when we most need to join forces to accompany families so they are not deported or persecuted. So that sanctuaries can be a place where families are sheltered, and cease living with fear of deportation and above all to promote family integration. Michael Ramos is executive director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle thats leading the effort there. He says unlike the 80s, when the churches were helping refugees fleeing Central America, many of the people who need help today already live here and have real fears of deportation. This is a new time for faith communities to step forward intentionally and consciously to say we need to exercise our mission of welcoming these people, including opening up our sacred spaces, Ramos said. For people subject to the dehumanization of detention and deportation and the dreadful separation of families, parents from children, we are charged to embody solidarity through sanctuary and to live out the call of the faith community: alleviate suffering, remove fear and humanize situations of injustice. As an expression of religious freedom, this response is an act of compassion and active accompaniment of hosting individuals and families who seek relief and refuge and are partners in seeking justice. In so doing we are called not just to provide sanctuary but to be sanctuary. We are one community, together, in this liberation movement. Sanctuary, for our faith communities, is the declaration that, in embracing people who are vulnerable to deportation, hope remains alive as it is embodied in action. Sanctuary is a moral expression of faith, a reflection of conscience, a communal welcoming of the immigrant neighbor at our door. In so doing, we honor a higher law. During the 1980s, when civil wars in El Salvador and elsewhere spurred many to flee violence by migrating to the US, the US government granted asylum to few. Granting asylum would have been an acknowledgment that the right-wing governments that the US was propping up with military aid were gross abusers of human rights. In reponse, a sanctuary movement grew up in US churches and solidarity groups to shelter migrants from being shipped back to their war torn countries:Clyde Haberman in, March 5, 2017, Sanctuary movement parallels one that defied Reagan The new call for a sanctuary movement in Trump's USA has taken two forms. One form is the sanctuary city -- a jurisdiction which proclaims that its law enforcement authorities will not provide affirmative assistance to the Department of Homeland Security to enforce immigration laws. Trump's executive order threatening such jurisdictions with a loss of federal funding is currently blocked by federal court order. This is not so much protection for migrants as a declaration that the city will not participate in aiding Trump's mass deportation plans.The second form of a sanctuary movement today is the call for churches to reopen their doors to migrants facing deportation and whose removal might imperil migrants' lives or where deportation will break up loving families.A human rights advocate from El Salvador added her voice to that call this week:Watch a video of these remarks here And so a new sanctuary movement is starting in Seattle and many other cities:Three churches in the Seattle area this week publicly declared their commitment to acting as sanctuary for immigrants: Gethsemane Lutheran, St. Matthew/San Mateo, and Saint Marks Cathedral. A statement from the Church Counil of Greater Seattle declared: Former E. China mayor sentenced to 14 years for graft Yang Luyu, former mayor of Jinan, capital city of eastern China's Shandong Province, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for graft Friday. The sentence was handed down by the Intermediate People's Court of Pingdingshan City in Henan Province. The court also fined Yang 2 million yuan (around 289,900 US dollars) and ordered all his illicit gains to be confiscated. The court found Yang guilty of taking advantage of various posts in Shandong between 2004 and 2016 to assist entities and individuals in company projects, real estate development, land-related procedures and promotions. In return, he accepted money and property worth more than 23 million yuan, personally or through his relatives, the court said. Yang was given relatively lenient treatment as he cooperated with investigators, surrendered his gains, admitted guilt and repented, the court said. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 Trend: The UN adopted four resolutions on unconditional liberation of Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia, said Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs. He made the remarks May 6 in Baku at the panel session of the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, titled Inclusive dialogue in period of polarization. The 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, titled Advancing Intercultural Dialogue New avenues for human security, peace and sustainable development, which started May 4 in Baku, continues its work in Azerbaijans capital. But Armenia has its own approach and there are countries in the UN Security Council which support it, he said. Hasanov added that the patrons of Armenia prevent timely imposing of sanctions against the country. If the UN once shows its will to implement its resolutions, the Azerbaijani lands occupied by Armenia will be liberated. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The settlement of any conflict starts with the rapprochement of the parties positions on some common base, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov told reporters in Baku May 6. Regarding the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts settlement, there is no need to invent this base, it already exists, and consists of the principles and norms of international law and the well-known resolutions of the UN Security Council, he said. These resolutions constitute a set of principles and requirements, including the liberation of the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, as well as ensuring the return of the refugees and IDPs to their home land, etc., he added. Azimov noted that if this base is recognized by Armenia, one can move forward in the conflicts settlement. For further progress, a concrete plan of measures and actions is needed, Azimov said, noting that such plans were drawn up in 1992 and 1993, but their implementation failed because Armenia, which occupied Azerbaijans territories, opposed it. He said that one can often hear from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs that they are discussing issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts settlement with the parties of the conflict and sometimes the co-chairs hint at the necessity to agree upon principles or approaches for the conflicts settlement. He added that a schedule of concerted actions is needed to begin the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. Of course, this should be done under security guarantees, one can also talk about this, because there is accumulated experience, there are tools envisaged by the decisions made at the Budapest Summit of the OSCE in 1994, he said. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. In Indias internal wars, the combatants (and non-combatants) who get killed on both sides are our own people. But compare big-media and official reactions to the Sukma (southern Chhattisgarh) ambush of 24 April 2017, in which 25 jawans of the 74th battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) lost their lives, with their responses to the 13 October 2016 felling of 24 Maoist guerrillas of the Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in Malkangiri (Odisha) by the Greyhounds of Andhra Pradesh. In the former, hysteria and rage clouded better sense in both big-media and official pronouncements, whereas in the latter, exultation and euphoria dominated their utterances. But now that the dust has settled, it is time to pause and ponder about this internal war in which the Indian state and the Maoists have been engaged. In the Malkangiri ambush, the Maoist guerrillas were caught unaware and 24 of them perished; in Sukma, a heavily-armed CRPF unit suffered fatalities because of lapses caused by their prolonged deployment over the last three to five years. The government claims that it is fighting the left-wing extremists to extend the rule of law and constitutional order in the areas of left-extremist influence. But the official refrain is replete with words and phrases like war-like situation, military operations, area domination and road opening party. The police have been hounding lawyers, reporters, and social and political activists who have come to aid and assist the local Adivasis accused of Naxal offence and dumped in Bastars overcrowded jails. The government forces in the Bastar region number around 80,000 whereas the Maoist guerrillas, men and women, are a mere 4,000, outnumbered in the ratio of 1:20. Frankly, what is going on in Bastar is a sub-conventional war, being fought between the forces of the Indian state and the Maoist-led guerrillas, with the former not only fighting the latter, but also targeting civilian Adivasis as well as anyone who comes to their aid. So the reality is that the government is fighting a dirty war against a section of its own people wherein the rules of war do not apply and the rule of law does not prevail. Details added (first version posted on May 5, 17:21) Baku, Azerbaijan, May 5 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni. The level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe was hailed at the meeting. Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni commended Bakus excellent organization of the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, and noted that this event increases Azerbaijans international prestige, contributes to the development of intercultural dialogue and strengthens the countrys role in this regard. Saying she is happy to take part in such an important event, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni pointed out Azerbaijan`s significant role in promotion of intercultural dialogue. She said the forum is indicative of Azerbaijans attaching great importance to intercultural dialogue. The Council of Europe deputy secretary general said Baku Process has already become a globally prestigious event. Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni said the Council of Europe attaches great importance to cooperation with Azerbaijan and wishes to strengthen these ties even further. Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni described Azerbaijan as one of the very important members of the Council of Europe, adding that cooperation with the country is beneficial to the organization. Saying that cooperation with the Council of Europe is beneficial to Azerbaijan too, the countrys President Ilham Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to this relationship. On some issue, we are benefiting from this cooperation and that is why we attach importance to developing these relations, the Azerbaijani president said. We want to continue constructive cooperation with the Council of Europe. President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan is building a democratic, secular, modern state and takes all necessary measures to ensure this. All the freedoms including political freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of media and internet are comprehensively ensured, he said. Azerbaijan is cooperating not only with the Council of Europe but at the same time with European Union, NATO as well as with other organizations at European and international levels, Ilham Aliyev said. The sides stressed the importance of continuing cooperation by ensuring mutual confidence. When Graciela Sanchez saw an architectural rendering of the new home for MujerArtes, the director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center worried it would look like a doctors office. Located on South Colorado Street at El Rinconcito de Esperanza the organizations West Side compound the building is a simple rectangular structure built from compressed earth blocks. It is tentatively scheduled to open this summer. Luckily for Sanchez, the solution was close at hand. Working with project manager Jessica Rocca, the members of the womens clay art collective came forward with ideas to enhance the space inside and out, including a clay relief mural that spans the length of the facade and decorative tile works in each room. This idea of a mural, the original architects and engineers never thought about it, Sanchez said. It was through (Rocca) working with MujerArtes that the women themselves kind of said, Hey, lets do this. Currently the cooperative, which started in 1995, has 13 members. The women work under experienced ceramicists and exhibit and sell their work at events throughout the year. The mural features a sun high up on a corner of the building, rays flowing outward to shine on corn crops and nopales (cactus) studded with fruit. Ears of corn and prickly pears made out of ceramic are set into the wall. An image of Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of the maguey plant and fertility, also in tile, is on one side of the mural, while Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec goddess of rivers, seas, streams, and storms, presides over a water fountain set into an alcove on the other. Later, elements of the mural will be painted with handmade, natural pigments. We are going to use a Mayan lime fresco technique, quiet ancient, quite unique here in San Antonio, said Rocca, a Mexican architect. Inside, the main room, which will serve as the collectives studio, features a pair of trees, also in clay relief. Shaped out of a chocolate colored clay, the trees stand out from the off-white plaster on the walls. The trees are decorated with flowers and leaves in different colors. Here and there, eyes wide and staring look back at the viewer from among the branches. Glass bottles set into the wall let in palm-sized circles of light. When the trees are complete, their roots will spread out to the floor of the room. The mismatched flowers and leaves represent diversity, said Patricia de la Garza, one of the program coordinators. But the root is the same for everybody. And the eyes we are waking to a new reality, like a new point of view about the world. We are watching and learning about something new. Smaller tile works adorn the bathrooms, kitchen and kiln room. For me, its like a big sculpture, like a big piece of art, full of details and full of love and imagination for the future, de la Garza said of the building. We are leaving this for the future. lsilva@express-news.net Details added (first version posted on 11:01) Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 Trend: Azerbaijan always supports religious and ethnic diversity, development of an inclusive society, said Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs. He made the remarks May 6 in Baku at the panel session of the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, titled Inclusive dialogue in polarization period. Complex and contradictory processes are observed at the present stage of the development of international relations, and these processes change the geopolitical picture of the world, Ali Hasanov said. The tendencies of the formation of a multipolar system increase the importance of an inclusive dialogue that has an important impact on the deepening of relations between civilizations and cultures, he added. The observations show that issues related to regional and international security are not only of military and political nature, but at the same time cover socio-economic and intercultural relations, he noted. At the same time, inclusive dialogue is also important for the peoples to live in peace and prosperity, but, unfortunately, today there are approaches that dont allow to objectively assess the dialogues essence, he said. Ali Hasanov added that Azerbaijan, located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, highly assesses the role of inclusive dialogue for ensuring of civilized peaceful coexistence and pursues an active policy in this direction. He noted with regret that the religious, racial and national intolerance, as well as separatism, existing today in the world, lead people becoming refugees and migrants. Azerbaijan, which suffered from Armenias policy of ethnic cleansing and occupation, as a result of which over a million of Azerbaijani citizens became refugees and IDPs, is well aware of difficulties related to this problem, Ali Hasanov said. Therefore, ensuring the return of these refugees and IDPs to their native land should become the main part of the inclusive dialogue, he added. The 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, titled Advancing Intercultural Dialogue New avenues for human security, peace and sustainable development kicked off in Baku on May 4. The forum will last until May 6, and it aims at further promoting and sustaining understanding and dialogue within and between cultures. The forum is organized in cooperation with UNESCO, the UN Alliance of Civilizations, the UN World Tourism Organization (WTO), the Council of Europe, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the North-South Center of the Council of Europe. Its agenda includes topics such as the role of faith, religions, migration, human security, sport, education, art, sustainable development, preventing violent extremism, business in building trust and cooperation among cultures and civilizations. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The OSCE office in Yerevan closed because the Armenian leadership disagreed with the OSCE proposals, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov told reporters in Baku May 6. Azimov added that those proposals were based on Azerbaijan's legitimate discontent. "We called the OSCE for giving certain guarantees that the OSCE Yerevan office must operate only within the borders of Armenia and the office must not operate in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, he said. The OSCE Yerevan Offices activity must not affect the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in any sphere, as well as the work carried out to resolve it, its political, economic, humanitarian and military aspects," he added. Azimov added that OSCE voiced certain proposals on that issue and Armenia did not agree. "Taking into account Azerbaijans discontent, OSCE and other member-countries of the organization decided that in the current situation the OSCE office in Yerevan can not continue its activity," Azimov said. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 Trend: Azerbaijan is committed to the UNESCO principles, Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova said. Bokova made remarks a meeting of the National Commission for UNESCO, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of establishing the relations between Azerbaijan and UNESCO, in Baku May 6. Azerbaijan promotes the goals and objectives of UNESCO at the national and international levels, she said. Azerbaijan is making efforts to realize the goals of sustainable development. Bokova appreciated the cooperation between Azerbaijan and UNESCO over the past 25 years. Bokova also highlighted the role of Azerbaijani First Vice President, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Mehriban Aliyeva in the comprehensive development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and UNESCO. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO Elmar Mammadyarov called the cooperation between Azerbaijan and UNESCO fruitful and mutually beneficial. The minister added that Azerbaijans cooperation with UNESCO reached a qualitatively new level due to Mehriban Aliyevas activity. In this regard, the minister added that two monuments of Azerbaijan's material heritage are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, eight - in the list of intangible heritage and one -in the list of intangible heritage requiring urgent protection. Azerbaijan is an active member of four UNESCO committees, the minister said. Five national committees on various programs of the organization operate in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is one of the donors of UNESCO according to the framework agreement signed between Azerbaijan and UNESCO in 2013, Mammadyarov said. Azerbaijan financed the project on the education of girls in Africa, he added. The minister expressed confidence that effective cooperation will continue in the future. More than 800 exhibitors from over 25 countries including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Germany, France, Italy, Israel and Columbia participated at the SIUF China 2017 that ended recently. With a total turnover of 5.3 billion Chinese Yuan, the international event showed a growth of 12.8 per cent in comparison to last year. The vibrant culture programme encompassed fashion shows, design contests, awards, trends forum and super model contests, and helped showcase the very best of China's lingerie and apparel trends. Coming up with a wide range of fashion shows carried out by Embry Form, Invista, Rui Fashion, Oleno, Muse's Allure, 'JiXiangZhai', the event was highlighted by the "SIUF 2017 Super Model Talent Competition" with 36 super models coming from all over the world. Various topics such as 'New Materials, New Technology and New Trends', 'Transformation Innovation Connection' and 'How E-commerce Can Help Your Business Grow' were discussed to support all industry players in growing business and exploring new market. "It was wonderful to celebrate this milestone of 12 years of SIUF," said Fengwei Zhang, CEO of Shenzhen Shengshi Jiuzhou Exhibition, also known as founder of SIUF. "When we look back on the market changes over the past decade we are encouraged about the challenges ahead for the next decade with value, technology and sustainability at the forefront. We will carry on with our expertise in the intimate apparel industry to build bridges across the whole supply chain." SIUF 2017 was supported by Shenzhen Underwear Association (SUA), Guangdong Province Textile Association, China Knitting Industrial Association, Xinyi Foundation, Taiwan Textile Federation, HKIAIA as well as Gesamtmasche. SIUF 2018 will be held from April 19 to 21 at Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center. (RR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Total UK retail search volumes has grown 7 per cent across all devices in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same quarter a year ago, says a recent report. Retail search volumes on smartphones increased 23 per cent in Q1 2017 and apparel was the most searched for sector by overseas consumers on smartphone devices, reporting a growth of 52 per cent. The Online Retail Monitor- Q1 2017 report by Google and British Retail Consortium (BRC) says that the South West saw the fastest growth in search volumes at 23 per cent compared with the same quarter a year ago, whilst Northern Ireland and Wales both grew by 19 per cent. In contrast London saw a decline of 8 per cent on Q1 2016. Department stores were a popular sector for overseas consumers on smartphone devices, increasing 50 per cent in Q1 2017. The report also reveals that Estonia demonstrated the strongest appetite for UK retailers from the EU, reporting an 84 per cent increase on smartphone devices in the first quarter of 2017. Total UK retail search volumes has grown 7 per cent across all devices in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same quarter a year ago, says a recent report. Retail search volumes on smartphones increased 23 per cent in Q1 2017 and apparel was the most searched for sector by overseas consumers on smartphone devices, reporting a growth of 52 per cent.# "The (growth) points to the significance of retailers tailoring their online offering to suit both traditional browsing and mobile platforms in order to satisfy shoppers. Smartphone-ready sites and quick loading times are essential to holding customers' attention and converting searches into sales," said Helen Dickinson OBE, chief executive, BRC. A closer look at the different areas of the UK shows that online searches from nations and regions beyond the centre are growing at a faster rate than urban hubs such as London, which actually saw a fall. Meanwhile, browsing activity from overseas remains strong, with countries as far flung as Estonia and large markets like Germany seeing particularly strong growth. "Online sales now consistently make up over a fifth of total retail sales at home, while the appetite for UK brands abroad is clear to see. Satisfying this interest from home and abroad, via computer or smartphone, is the key for UK retailers to make the best of their online offering," added Dickinson. "In the first quarter of the year, digital continued to drive growth for our UK retailers. Retail searches steadily grew throughout the quarter post-Christmas, reaching 9 per cent growth in March. Smartphone growth shows no sign of slowing down, with retail searches from mobile devices up 23 per cent year-over-year, 7 percentage points higher than last quarter," said Martijn Bertisen, retail director, Google. Looking overseas, the EU continues to fuel growth in demand for UK brands. In particular, Eastern European nations like Estonia and Romania showed growth of more than 70 per cent year-over-year from smartphones, according to the report. "Closer to home, we saw a slowdown in retail-related searches from Greater London, however there was an increasing appetite from the rest of the country, particularly on mobile. This highlights the importance of thinking local, we have seen up to 40 per cent of searches on Google have local intent, as consumers are more likely to research their purchases online before visiting a store," added Bertisen. (KD) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Baku, Azerbaijan, May 5 By Orkhan Quluzade Trend: Turkey and Azerbaijan have already identified 68 groups of products that will be covered by a preferential trade agreement, to be signed by the two countries, Ahmet Ataker, secretary for trade at the Turkish Embassy in Azerbaijan, told Trend. Most of them are groups of agricultural products, according to him. Ataker said the work on the deal is underway and the agreement is expected to be signed before year-end. The agreement will open a new page in the Azerbaijan-Turkey trade relations, he noted. "Turkeys main goal is to sign a free trade agreement with Azerbaijan," said Ataker. Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci earlier said the preferential trade agreement is expected to be signed at the 6th meeting of the Azerbaijan-Turkey High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, to be held in the first half of 2017. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey amounted to almost $553 million in January-March 2017, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee. The value of textile and garment exports made by Pakistan decreased by 0.89 per cent year-on-year in dollar terms in first nine months of fiscal 2016-17, according to data from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. During July-March 2016-17, Pakistan earned $9.278 billion from textile and apparel exports compared to $9.362 billion in the same period of 2015-16. Category-wise, knitwear exports showed a slight decrease of 0.07 per cent year-on-year to $1.746 billion during the nine-month period, while exports of non-knit readymade garments were up by 5.93 per cent to $1.704 billion. Among textiles, raw cotton exports fetched $38.631 million during the period under review, showing a sharp drop of 48.71 per cent compared to exports of $75.324 million made during the same period of the previous fiscal. Likewise, cotton yarn exports fell by 5.10 per cent to $938.642 million, as against exports of $989.041 million made during the same period in 2015-16. The value of textile and garment exports made by Pakistan decreased by ...per cent year-on-year in dollar terms in first nine months of fiscal 2016-17, according to data from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. During July-March 2016-17, Pakistan earned $... billion from textile and apparel exports compared to $... billion in the same period of 2015-16.# Exports of cotton fabric dropped 6.18 per cent to $1.581 billion during July-March 2016-17, while bedwear exports increased by 5.11 per cent to $1.585 billion, the data showed. On the import side, synthetic fibre imports dropped 6.18 per cent year-on-year to $346.076 million, whereas imports of synthetic and artificial silk increased 3.92 per cent to $468.382 million. Meanwhile, the value of textile machinery imports by Pakistan increased 20.78 per cent year-on-year to $401.117 million during the same period, which shows a return of confidence among the countrys textile entrepreneurs. In fiscal 2015-16, Pakistan's textile and garment exports decreased by 7.42 per cent year-on-year to $12.455 billion. (RKS) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Fijis Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, Deo Saran, has briefed the ACP-EU Council of Ministers on Fijis upcoming presidency for this years UN Climate Change Conference (COP 23) that will take place in Bonn, Germany. Ambassador Saran briefed Fijis preparations at the 105th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers & 42nd ACP-EU Council of Ministers which was convened in Brussels on 2-5 of May 2017. At this event, the Fijian envoy highlighted that Fijis main priority for the presidency is to maintain the momentum and cohesiveness from the last COP conferences held in 2015 in Paris in 2016 in Marrakesh.To keep the momentum, we will need to ensure that the key milestones of the implementation of the Paris Agreement for 2018 are achieved. In this regard it is crucial that this year, we do all the necessary groundwork, and make significant progress on the Rule Book and the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue. We also need to have an enhanced Climate Action Agenda to showcase and demonstrate the progress being made on the ground, Ambassador Saran said.He added that all countries need to maintain the cohesiveness of all the Parties. We are taking an open and inclusive approach and are currently actively engaging with all relevant parties, Non-Sate Actors, civil societies and business communities to hear and exchange their priorities and expectations for COP23.We are well aware that the United States is currently mulling over on their commitment to the Paris Agreement. Our Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, as the incoming president of COP23 has written to President Donald Trump pleading not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and remain committed with the rest of the world. I urge that the European Union and all its member states reinforce our collective plea to ask the United States to remain committed to the Paris Agreement, Ambassador Saran said.In his concluding remarks, he took the opportunity to express Fijis sincere gratitude for the support from the European Union and its member states for reaching out and providing financial and technical assistance to Fiji. He also conveyed the Governments gratitude and appreciation to the German government for being the technical host for COP23 and contributing towards hosting the conference. He reiterated that Fiji, as a small island developing state, welcomes support towards the presidency of COP23.The EU Co-President of the ACP-EU Council, Hon. George Vella, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malta, noted that for the first time the Presidency of COP is being held by a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) and assured that the EU was fully committed to supporting Fiji and ensuring a successful outcome for all Parties.Former Fijian envoy and current President of the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly Ambassador Peter Thomson was also present at this event as a special guest to address the opening of the ACP Council of Ministers. You must be aware of the news that the verdict of Nirbhaya case came out yesterday and the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Delhi High Court to hang the four convicts. A few hours ago, Priyanka Chopra, took to the micro-blogging site and posted an emotional letter about the same and here's what she had written in her post: "Yes, it has taken five long years, but today justice finally prevailed. The flame of this verdict should singe not just the dastardly four (of the other two, one is dead and one accused is a juvenile) but such perpetrators in India as well." "The brutal, barbaric and demoniacal conduct of the convicts shook the conscience if humanity and they don't deserve leniency," said the Supreme Court while reading out the death sentence to the four accused in the Nirbhaya raoe-cum-murder case." "I'm so Proud of the justice system for hearing her voice.. in her dying declaration she appealed that her perpetrators not be spared. Justice - that was what the entire country demanded five years ago and never let the nation forget." "Each voice that joined the battle was strident and clear - the six must be punished. Finally, they will pay. The brutality of such crimes is something I refuse to accept!!," "That, we, as a modern 21st century allow such heinous things to happen to our women never ceases to trouble me. Unfortunately, the past can never be undone. So, we move on and make a promise to ourselves." "That when an entire country is unified in wanting something, action is taken. That awakening, this unified voice to stop such brutal and demoniacal crimes, as our Supreme Court said, is what we must never let go onto mute mode." "You will never be forgotten Nirbhaya," Priyanka concluded the post. NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2017 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against JBS S.A. ("JBS" or the "Company") (OTCQX: JBSAY) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is on behalf of a class consisting of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired the publicly traded American Depositary Receipts ("ADRs") of JBS securities, seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants' violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If you are a shareholder who purchased JBS ADRs securities between June 2, 2015 and March 17, 2017, both dates inclusive, you have until May 22, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased. [Click here to join this class action] JBS processes and sells beef, lamb, pork, and chicken products in Brazil and internationally. The Company is incorporated in the Federative Republic of Brazil and its principal executive offices are in Sao Paulo - SP, Brazil. The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) JBS executives bribed regulators and politicians to subvert food inspections of its plants and overlook unsanitary practices such as processing rotten meat and running plants with traces of salmonella; and (2) as a result, defendants statements about JBS's business, operations, and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable bases at all relevant times. On March 17, 2017, news outlets reported that Brazilian federal police raided the offices of JBS and dozens of other meatpackers following a two-year investigation into alleged bribery of regulators to subvert inspections of their plants and overlook unsanitary practices. Police arrested two JBS employees, as well as 20 public officials. JBS stated in a securities filing that three of its plants and one of its employees were targeted in the probe. On this news, shares of JBS fell $0.71 per share, or over 9.2%, to close at $6.96 per share on March 17, 2017, damaging investors. The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com. SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2017 / Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against INSYS Therapeutics, Inc. ("Insys" or the "Company") (NYSE: INSY) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and docketed under 17-cv-01954, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Insys securities between February 23, 2016 and March 15, 2017 both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants' violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If you are a shareholder who purchased Insys securities during the Class Period, you have until May 16, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased. [Click here to join this class action] Insys, a specialty pharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes supportive care products. The Company markets Subsys, a sublingual fentanyl spray for breakthrough cancer pain in opioid-tolerant cancer patients in the United States. Its lead product candidate is Syndros, an orally administered liquid formulation of dronabinol. The Company is also developing Cannabidiol Oral Solution, a synthetic cannabidiol for childhood catastrophic epilepsy syndromes; and other product candidates, including other dronabinol line extensions and sublingual spray product candidates. The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Insys had overstated its 2015 net revenue; (ii) Insys had misstated its sales allowances for 2016; (iii) accordingly, the Company lacked effective internal controls over financial reporting; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, Insys's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On March 15, 2017, post-market, Insys announced that it would delay the release of its financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2016. Insys advised investors that "[t]he Audit Committee of the Company's Board of Directors has been conducting an independent review of the Company's processes related to estimation of, and increases to, certain sales allowances recorded during 2016, with a potential reduction of 2015 net revenue and pre-tax income not expected to exceed $5 million, as well as extended payment terms offered to certain customers during the third quarter of 2016." On this news, Insys's share price fell $0.49, or 4.64%, to close at $10.06 on March 16, 2017. The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com SOURCE: Pomerantz LLP DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2017 / The residential area surrounding the world-famous Central Park in New York has some of the most skyrocketing property values not just in the Big Apple, but worldwide. In June 2016, with a listing price of $250 million, a property at 220 Central Park South became Manhattan's most expensive condo. Present-day analysts estimate that land bordering or near a park is worth up to 20 percent more than a comparable property on a typical city block. Texas developer Marcus Hiles, the CEO of Western Rim Property Services, discusses the impact of one of the newest open urban spaces that follows the Central Park design trend, Uptown Dallas' Klyde Warren Park. As Americans' conceptions of what cities are for and how they ought to be used changes, so does their urban design. From Atlanta's BeltLine to Philadelphia's Rail Park and Chicago's Bloomingdale Trail, unused railways and abandoned infrastructure are being revitalized in the form of converted trails, parks and promenades. The movement, referred to as landscape urbanism, follows the model of design which traces back to Frederick Law Olmsted, Central Park's famed architect. "Capping," or building green spaces over freeways, has become one of the hallmark innovations spurring from this trend, transforming expansive expressways into vital links among communities. In 2012, Klyde Warren Park capped the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in Dallas, connecting the Uptown and Downtown neighborhoods and allowing pedestrians to walk across the majority of the city, a previously impossible feat. Almost immediately following the commencement ceremony of Klyde Warren Park, the area surrounding the deck park began changing dramatically, recalls Marcus Hiles. Since late 2012, lease rates on adjacent streets have more than doubled, and several new high-rises that will overlook the open space aim to drive prices even higher. In the neighboring Arts District, prices have climbed from $19 to $25 per square foot, and on the north side of the park rates have increased a staggering 64 percent, from $22 to $36 per square foot. At 5.4 acres, the influence of the park is especially impressive when compared to the size of Chicago's Millenium Park (24.5 acres) and New York City's Central Park (843 acres). "I don't think anyone could have predicted the impact," said Phil Puckett, the executive vice president of CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate firm. "Having worked in the downtown and uptown markets for 25 years, I have never seen anything like it. Klyde Warren Park has become the city's epicenter." Marcus Hiles is a renowned Texas real estate developer and the Chairman & CEO of Western Rim Property Services with over two decades of experience creating affordable and sustainable luxury properties. Hiles' communities often utilize a Central Park style design, setting aside a minimum of five acres for open green areas, secluded jogging trails, scenic waterways, and comprehensive play areas. Marcus Hiles - Chairman & CEO of Western Rim Property Services: http://www.MarcusHiles-News.com Marcus Hiles (@marcus_hiles) - Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcus_hiles Marcus Hiles - Dallas / Fort Worth Property Owner: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/marcus-hiles Marcus Hiles - New Luxury Apartments in Frisco, TX - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmsJNbfOh-g Contact Information MarcusHiles-News.com www.MarcusHiles-News.com marcus@marcushiles-news.com SOURCE: Marcus Hiles According to the Complaint, during the Class Period, Walter made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that its subsidiary Ditech had a material weakness in its internal control over operational processes; that the Company lacked effective internal controls over financial reporting; and that as a result of the above, Walter's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On March 14, 2017, the Company filed its Annual Report on Form 10-K with the Securities & Exchange Commission, reporting its financial and operating results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2016. Walter disclosed that "[a]s of December 31, 2016, we identified a material weakness in internal controls over operational processes within the transaction level processing of Ditech Financial default servicing activities." When this information was released, Walter's stock price decreased materially, which harmed investors according to the Complaint. Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Global private equity firm The Riverside Company has hired Dorte Hoppner as Chief Operating Officer, Riverside Europe Fund. Hoppner has served as Chief Executive and Secretary General at Invest Europe (2011-2016) and Managing Director at the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (2007-2011). Most recently she served as Managing Director at German law firm P+P. At Riverside, Hoppner will work with senior transactors to set and track goals in Europe, develop and lead process improvements, manage the budget in Europe and work closely with the firms Global Talent Management team, among many other duties. In addition to her COO Europe duties, Hoppner will focus on supporting investor relations efforts. She will work out of Riversides Munich and London offices. Hoppner will replace Avi Turetsky, who will transition out of the firm over the summer to focus on private equity research. Turetsky has been with Riverside for more than 10 years, and is completing his Ph.D. in Management. His research focuses on the factors that drive outperformance in our industry. FinSMEs 06/05/2017 Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm Xiang He Partners raised $261m for its inaugural fund. Per an SEC filing, 23 investors participated in the offering of Xiang He Fund I, L.P. The final target of the fund has been fixed at $300m. Led by Hesong Tang, a former venture partner at IDG Capital and former vice president at Baidu, Xiang He Partners focuses on the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) markets in China. Mr. Tang led Baidus M&A and investment strategy from 2009-2014, making deals such as 91 wireless, Qunar, iQiyi and PPS. FinSMEs 06/05/2017 Z Factor Limited, a University of Cambridge spin-out engaged in the discovery of new drugs to treat Alpha-1-Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD), completed a 7m Series A funding. The round was led by existing investor Medicxi with participation from Cambridge Enterprise and Cambridge Innovation Capital. Founded by Jim Huntington, Professor of Molecular Haemostasis at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, joined by David Grainger, Partner at Medicxi and Executive Chairman, Z Factor operates as a virtual biotechnology company, with no internal operations, using an established network of out-sourced drug discovery and development providers, including RxCelerate, co-located on the Babraham campus, just south of Cambridge, UK. The company previously raised undisclosed seed funding from Medicxi. The company has already identified dozens of molecules that can correct the folding defect caused by the Z mutation, and shown that some of these drug candidates can increase Alpha-1-antitrypsin levels in an in vivo model of AATD. Z Factor is now working to select the best molecules for use as a drug in human trials and expects to reach the clinic with its lead candidate in 2019. FinSMEs 05/05/2017 Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Elmira Tariverdiyeva Trend: Europe can reduce Russias influence on its energy supply via the Caspian region and its key energy player Azerbaijan, said the article published in the US Foreign Policy Journal. A nation with strong ties to the West and a long and well-established oil and gas industry, Azerbaijan borders the Caspian Sea and therefore has ready access to its vast energy reserves, the article said. In addition, Azerbaijans oil and gas pipelines are essential to Europes energy security. Azerbaijans impact on European energy independence could be huge. Europe and high-production fields of Azerbaijan are connected by three gas pipelines collectively known as the Southern Gas Corridor, the article said. According to the article, the South Caucasus Pipeline transports natural gas from the Shah Deniz field to Azerbaijan and then on to Georgia and Turkey, providing those countries with a significant measure of energy independence. According to the article, the Trans Adriatic Pipelines reach to Europe has plenty of room for scaling up. Its terminus in Italy allows it to connect to other pipelines and modes of transportation. This means that Azerbaijani gas will be able to reach Austria and Hungary. Another connected pipeline can reach Germany and France. It is possible to imagine Caspian Sea gas powering London homes. The Southern Gas Corridor forms the strongest counterpoint to Russias domination of European energy needs. The Shah Deniz Stage 2 field expansion and the Trans Anatolian Pipeline will carry more than enough gas to supply the capital cities of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece and Italy, the article said. Azerbaijan is increasingly seen as an antidote to Europes energy dependence, the article said. Spains charge daffaires to Azerbaijan, Jose Luis Diez Juarez, noted that many European nations get their gas only from Russia, elevating the importance of the Shan Deniz Stage 2 project. The strategic importance of this project is great, he said. Azerbaijan may be much smaller than Russia. But thanks to its abundant energy reserves, consistent strategy and European-facing pipelines, it has become an outsized player in the global gas market and a key to Europes future energy security, the article said. B Jeyamohan, the controversial writer of short stories, novels and screenplays, is co-writing the script for 2.0, Indias most expensive movie ever, piping Baahubali: The Conclusion to the post. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the author of over 250 books in Tamil and Malayalam revealed in a frank and freewheeling chat that his main role was to implement director B Shankars vision of the movie. The other thing I have to do is come up with dialogues for which Shankar provides the feel, Jeyamohan said, strongly hinting that his role while writing for such blockbusters was minimal. It is Shankars baby all the way, he said in chaste Tamil. Shankar has in the past made highly successful Tamil movies like Gentleman, Kadhalan, Indian, Jeans and Shivaji. 2.0, starring Rajinikanth, Amy Jackson and Akshay Kumar, is keenly anticipated by audiences across the country. The sequel to 2010s Enthiran, the science fiction film, is being made and marketed at a whopping cost of Rs 450 crore. It was recently announced that the movie will be released on January 25, 2018. Superstar Rajinikanth will reprise his roles of Dr Vaseegaran and the robot, Chitti. The movie will be produced by Lyca Productions. Akshay Kumar is expected to play the villain, going by the first-look poster. Shankar comes up with the basic one-liner that serves as the template for the story. There is something called designing a movie and he does it the best, said Jeyamohan. He said even popular writers like Sujatha had to bend to Shankars will while writing for Indian (1996). Sujathas genius came across in flashes. But the movie itself was Shankars child, he said. Jeyamohan has previously written dialogues for the national award-winning Naan Kadavul (I Am God; Dir. Bala). He sounded as if he took pride about his work in Tamil cinema. I came up with large swathes of the screenplay for 2.0. Many dialogues are also mine. But in the end, its a Shankar film, he said. During an earlier interview a few months ago, Jayamohan had told me that 2.0 will satisfy the superstars core base in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere. You can expect everything that is usually in a Rajinikanth movie and more, he had said. Jayamohan begged off further questions on 2.0 saying that the rules did not permit him to answer them. The movie will be shot by Nirav Shah and edited by Anthony, both of them first rate technicians in Tamil cinema. Oscar winners AR Rahman and Resul Pookutty have also signed up. Jeyamohan said even commercial directors often tell him that they want to collaborate on a serious film with him. It is very difficult to get into the mood to churn out a script. But I often come up with the screenplay, which usually runs from 90-100 pages, in a month or less. But thats just the first draft, he said. Today, I am among the most sought-after screenplay writers in Tamil. When directors like Vasanthabalan and Bala begin their projects, they seek me out and thats a good thing for me, he declared. I asked him if his fellow writers considered his entry into films as a sort of betrayal to serious literature in Tamil. There would have been writers like the late Sundara Ramaswamy from the previous generation, who would have thought of this as betrayal, had they been alive. But in the post-globalisation scenario, the lines between popular and serious literature have been blurred. I am trying to do movies without compromising too much. I have set certain standards for myself, he asserted. The writer, who began his film career with Kasthuri Maan in 2005, said he had turned to cinema to supplement his income. I was spending 10 hours a day in my job with the telephone department and the income was meager. Writing for the movies provided me the means to do what I liked. Nowadays, I can call myself well-travelled, he said. As a short story writer, Jeyamohan said, he could convey the thoughts of his characters. But screenplays have to be visual. It has to appeal to the eye. So it should be filled with events leading up to the conclusion, he said, adding that this was a testing task. When I first met Jeyamohan in 1997, he was a rising star in Tamil literature and an opinionated intellectual. He used to visit Sundara Ramaswamy, my grandfather, almost everyday. He wore thick glasses and dressed informally. He borrowed my spectacles once because he had broken his own. For the observer who didnt know him well, Jeyamohan could seem cocky and too sure of himself. I used to accompany my grandfather and Jeyamohan on their evening walks many times. The two writers shared a mentor-understudy relationship. Some of the talk, understandably, was alien to me. I knew that Jeyamohan wrote very fast and published nearly everything he wrote. Even after entering the film industry, he wrote at a terrific rate. But many writers hold Jeyamohan guilty of making personal attacks on them and being immature in his interactions with them. In his public interviews and talks, Jeyamohan displays an amazing grip of facts. Film critics familiar with his work told me he had made several movies, which introduced a new sensibility to audiences. Many of Jeyamohans fellow writers consider him a force to reckon with. It was noticed in Kadal (The Sea; Dir. Maniratnam), Naan Kadavul and Sindhu Samaveli that Jeyamohan was taking cinema to a whole new level, a writer told me. Sindhu Samaveli, a little heard of movie, especially was fantastic in the way it captured the psychological background of the lead characters who are involved in a forbidden sexual tangle. It seemed that Jeyamohan was extending the frontiers of Tamil cinema while working well within the confines of its commercial limits. But writers are critical that Jeyamohan often issues sweeping statements and substantiates them only subsequently, often after they have become a full-fledged controversy. I asked him why he was often in the middle of controversies in Tamil literature, especially on social media. I have a creative bend of mind. So when I suggest new ideas, there is a strong reaction. But for a writer, any reaction is good. But, sometimes, people do get hurt emotionally, he said. It was a day of victory for India when the Supreme Court awarded a well-deserved death sentence to the four convicts who brutally raped, mutilated and murdered 23-year-old Jyoti Singh. The landmark verdict, the second of its kind in Indias recent history after the Shakti Mills gangrape case, provided retribution not just to the rape victim but also to her long-suffering parents whose ordeal was unparalleled, to her friend from that fateful night who didnt abandon her in life and after, and to all the selfless activists, lawyers, citizens, and NGOs whove fought hard over the last four years to ensure justice. In legal opinion, this case was declared the rarest of rare. In public opinion it was the most brutal of crimes. In my opinion the criminals deserve the harshest of punishments. The diabolical nature of the rape leaves no doubt in my mind that the convicts deserve nothing less than death for the unending barbarism they unleashed on Jyoti that on that dark, cold December night. The death sentence sends a strong messagethat enough is enoughto rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence. It demonstrates that India can protect its sisters, daughters and mothers in a dignified and fair manner. While we must take a moment to celebrate this historic judgment, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We must not forget that this is just the beginning of a long and arduous journey to bring justice, equality and safety to all the women in our country. Here are ten aspects that we need to examine: 1. What of the juveline? Yes, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta have been given the death penalty. The other accused, Ram Singh, brother of Mukesh Singh, killed himself while in custody. Five of the six criminals have been meted out what they deserved, but what about the sixth rapist, juvenile Mohammed Afroz? He served a paltry three-year sentence in a remand home. He is now staying in a charity house (paid by taxpayers, mind you) for security reasons. The irony is that he inflicted the wounds on Jyoti that most likely led to her death. If he is old enough to commit a crime of such epic proportions, isnt he old enough to be punished for the crime? Why spare him when justice can be complete only when he too is suitably punished? 2. Rectify the legal system India does not suffer from a lack of laws but the implementation of these laws (case in point: the Posco Act). We need to reform the penal code. We need to enable suitable and swift action, like in Mahmood Farooquis case. We need to use fast track courts. We need more effective laws, an increased rate of conviction, and more stringent punishment. Currently, in India, there is only one judge for every one lakh people. This statistic needs to change. Urgently. More so, the investigation agency, prosecuting agency and police need to be separated in every case, while ensuring that their loyalty is only to the law of the land. 3. Utilise the Nirbhaya fund The Rs 3,000-crore Nirbhaya Fund has yet to be put to use. So far, as per media reports, only a part of the fund has been utilised and its implementation is deeply wanting. We need to set up the proposed women police volunteers in every police station, who have been trained to deal sensitively with victims of sexual violence. Helplines and panic buttons in mobile phones need to be installed. So far, only 79 of the proposed One stop centres are operational. Under the scheme, these Sakhi centres are supposed to provide free medical, legal, police and psychiatrist aid to women who are victims of domestic violence, rape, dowry and any other horrific crimes. 4. Swift punishment in other such cases Stricter punishments have to be doled out to rapists involved in horrific cases like Rohtak, Jisha, Bilkis Bano, among many others. The Jyoti Singh case has set a precedent which must be followed through for all rape cases. 5. Change in societal attitude We need to realise that it is not men but gender inequality that is the disease in this country. Rape, trafficking, dowry deaths and domestic violence are the symptoms of this disease. Our culture is such that girls are killed at birth, sweets are distributed only when boys are born, boys are given better food and education, and girls are sold like slaves through arranged marriages. This mindset needs to change urgently and drastically. We need to introduce gender sensitivity in schools. We have to not only teach girls how to be safe but also teach boys to respect women. We need to address male behaviour. We need to unplug the cultural message that makes women the repositories of shame in matters of sexual violence. Affirmative action needs to be taken by mothers and fathers in raising their sons. 6. Take preventative measures All schemes to help women in distress are aimed at what happens after the crime is committed. What about preventing crimes? 7. Amend the anti-rape bill While it is great that, under this bill, the definition of rape has been widened, the age of consent has moved from 16 to 18 years, and culprits are subject to life sentence, this bill is severely lacking. First, it requires proving offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, it gives benefit of doubt to the accused. It also qualifies serious rape as deserving of 20 years imprisonment, and heinous rape as deserving of life. Who quantifies rape? There is nothing like good rape and bad rape. Rape is rape, and should be dealt with strictly, no matter what the severity. 8. Amend juvenile justice act In purview of Point 1, it is time we reduced the age of a juvenile criminal from 18 years to 15 years. If you do the crime, you do the time. That should be the rationale. 9. No more making excuses for men When Mulayam Singh Yadav says boys will be boys, when Abu Azmi says women should be hanged for getting raped, or ML Sharma says there is no place for women in our culture, they should be punished. We cannot have men in the public eye condone rape, indemnify rapists and debase women. We cannot let men trivialise crimes against women. We have to remove this sense of entitlement that men have over womens bodies and lives. 10. Let's not celebrate just yet Let's remember: There are still two more rounds of litigation open to the convicts. One is a review petition and the other is a curative petition, though theres only a slender chance of the death penalty changing with either. As a last recourse, the president has the power to revoke the verdict by granting a mercy petition, which we can only hope given public opinion and his sensible history in this matter he doesn't. Despite these caveats, let's take a moment to reflect on this momentous verdict. For many of us, especially women, I can safely say that we've never been prouder to be Indian. Meghna Pant is the multiple award-winning author of The Trouble With Women (Juggernaut, 2016), Happy Birthday (Random House, 2013) and One & A Half Wife (Westland, 2012). She is a feminist promoting gender equality through her curated talks, events, articles and online chat shows. You can follow her on Twitter @MeghnaPant. The celebratory, self-congratulating noise going around after the Supreme Courts decision on Friday upholding the death sentence to the convicts of the 16 December, 2012 gangrape and murder case leaves one with a sense of dismay. No, it has nothing to do with four people from the underclass facing the noose or the courts not acting in a similar fashion in several such cases where theres no intense public and media pressure. There can be no sympathy for the culprits and from the judicial point of view it is not easy to treat all similar cases as same. But before the celebration dies down, the questions that should be troubling the collective conscience of the nation are these: Has justice been delivered to the victim? Was the hanging of the culprits the singular objective of the nation's fight for her? The answers need to be nuanced. And nuances, one is afraid, have little space when the public lust for revenge overwhelms everything else. Jyoti Singh's case was much more than data in police records. It represented a wider issue: Womens safety, not only in Delhi but all over the country. Close to five years after the unfortunate incident, have we made any progress in the direction of the broader goal? Read the city pages of newspapers. Note the frequency with which the words rape and molestation make it to the headlines. It tells you nothing has really changed on the ground. If anything, things have gotten worse. In her judgment, Justice R Banumathi, part of the three-member bench which heard the case, gets the perspective right: A total of 3, 27, 394 cases of crime against women were reported in 2015, an increase of 43 percent in such crime since 2011 and 110.5 percent over the past decade. She was quoting from the National Crime Records Bureau statistics. Of course, we dont need the bureau to tell us this. Our everyday experiences inform us much better. No matter how much we celebrate, the reality is this: In handing down the death penalty for the culprits in this case and other cases, we are treating the symptom and not the disease. If the provision of the extreme punishment deterred crimes against women, we would not have people committing such acts. If the country was really serious about safety of women, the central point in the matter, it would not stop at a only a harsh legal provision. How does it help the rape victim when the people that violated her go to jail or are hanged? Is it justice enough given all the mental trauma and personal and social consequences she has to endure for the rest of her life? It is difficult to understand how punishment equals justice. In our enthusiasm to seek revenge we tend to conflate the two. An intelligent society would work towards stopping the creation of victims more than ensuring punishment to the perpetrators. Justice Banumathi makes as much clear. Stringent legislation and punishment alone may not be sufficient for fighting increasing crimes against women. In our tradition-bound society, certain attitudinal and change in the mind-set is needed to respect women and to ensure gender justice. Right from childhood years, children ought to be sensitised to respect women... she says in her judgment. After the 2012 gangrape, there was a tremendous public show of sympathy for the victim. However, the respect for women in our society has not increased. Statistics tell the real story. One simple solution: Have more policemen around. Their visibility itself deters crime. Nothing has changed on this front. Curiously, there is no such demand from activists and other individuals hyperventilating on women's safety. It is easy to blame the patriarchal society and our mindset for crimes against women. Knowledgeable members of the civil society and women activists won't stop reminding us of that. The counterpoint: This is how our society has been for centuries. How then can you expect society to change in a jiffy? The solution: Like the learned justice says, taking the message of gender equality and inculcating it deep in our children. The first task in this regard is to sensitise people through all means, including education. One also does not notice much publicity given to laws regarding crimes against women. Why aren't we using the media for this? Policing also has to improve. Immediately. Who is going to demand that? Jyoti Singh would not be very happy with people celebrating the verdict. She deserves better. The Supreme Court, on Saturday, upheld the conviction of four persons who were charged with raping and murdering a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in New Delhi, thereby bringing an end to the legal battle that followed the 2012 Delhi gangrape case. To many including the victim's family, the sentence brings a sense of justice and closure, though it remains to be seen how much longer it will take to be executed. The sentence was in line with the wishes of the victim's family and the decision was applauded in the court room with some lawyers even calling for them to be castrated prior to them being executed. They now have the option of filing a review petition and if they fail a curative petition and if they fail again they can file a mercy petition. If that is rejected, they can have the rejection of their mercy petition reviewed and after exhausting other last minute procedural remedies, if everything from herein onwards goes against them, they will be led to the gallows where a public servant will put a black bag over their heads and hang them by their necks till a government doctor pronounces them dead. Once he does that, the collective conscience of the society gets avenged, a strong deterrent message is sent and justice is done. Or at least that's the simplified version of the rationale behind which India constitutionally retains the death penalty, but manages to cage it within very tight legal bounds. Making it a very rare instance where a death sentence is awarded and an even rarer instance where it is actually carried out. The Constitution of India allows for the death sentence, but the application of the sentence is subject to the doctrine of the "rarest of rare cases", where it is only applied highly selectively. The rarest of the rare doctrine was evolved by the Supreme Court to apply the death penalty in a manner consistent with the fundamental rights when it was challenged in the Bachan Singh Case in the year 1980. Over the years, the court has come to clarify what it means by the rarest of rare cases and has evolved a criteria by which it determines which offences fall within the rarest of rare category. To do this in murder cases, the sentencing court is supposed to take into account factors such as the profile of the victim, the manner of the commission of the crime, the magnitude, the motive and other aggravating factors and then if it finds that the question of the death sentence is foreclosed, it awards it. India has no formal policy on how or when a death sentence is to be awarded so Indian courts abide by this doctrine. But this rarest of rare doctrine, while in theory designed to be even in application, can result in some uneven consequences. A 2016 report by the National Law University Delhi, Death Penalty Project found that 75 percent of the prisoners on India's death row came from "economically vulnerable" backgrounds. The Report though stressed that there was no causal relationship or direct bias against the poor there could be indirect discrimination that could happen to them. In terms of resources, in this case, the convicts had access to two designated senior advocates, appointed as amicus curaie ("friend of the court") to assist the court with the matter. Even in the trial stage, the court had to appoint an amicus curaie for a while to assist it when one of the accused's lawyers missed a few hearings. It actually even became an issue on appeal in the HC that this amicus was appointed. But it wasn't like that in the early stages after the incident in 2012, the Saket Bar Association passed a resolution prohibiting any of it's members from acting for the accused. That trial court brief wasn't one that most lawyers wanted to take at that point of time. In fact, even though the right to counsel or effective legal assistance is something that is recognised as part of the fundamental right to a fair trial, there weren't that many legal aid or NGOs that were willing to come out in public and step up and assist them at the trial stage. While the human rights movement has managed to find a way of defending terrorists, mass murderers and genocidal maniacs look dignified with the modern business class flying, Armani-wearing human rights lawyer, it is yet to find a similar alternative for a local bus driver or labour accused of gangrape and murder with a death sentence on the table. Which means these accused had to rely on pro-bono assistance or government legal aid. In the end, they did get two good lawyers who acted for them, right from the trial court all the way to the Supreme Court. Towards the end of the judgement, the Supreme Court thanks them for their assistance. But this case and in particular one of the key issues on appeal before the Supreme Court, can shed some light on why different socio-economic factors could change and outcome. One of the main issues on appeal before the Supreme Court was whether the trial court had complied with Section 235(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 before passing the sentence. Section 235(2) provides that after conviction, the court is duty-bound to hear the accused on the question of sentence and then pass sentence upon him. The issue raised was that this requirement had not been complied with by the trial court as only the accused's lawyers were heard and they were not heard individually (as in each accused separately) on the question of sentencing, so the judgement of the high court was challenged for failing to remand the matter back to the trial court for sentencing. But the Supreme Court didn't decide that issue, instead in an order dated 3 February, 2017, the court allowed the accused to present evidence in support of mitigating their death sentence. But the thing here is this, the first time they got an individual hearing on the question of sentence was at the Supreme Court and even then they didn't get to be personally heard, they only got to file affidavits that were drawn up after two courts below had convicted them of a death sentence. The death penalty is not the rule, it is the exception. So if the compliance with Section 235(2) on the question of sentence was at the final appellate stage, they were in a position where they had to argue against the death sentence rather then just make a case for a lenient sentence, as would have any other convict in a case where there is compliance. This may sound hyper-technical, but it matters. A trial court hearing for complying with Section 235(2), would allow for a lot more material to be placed on record and would also allow for the person who witnessed the trial to also be the one to pass the sentence. One doubts if persons of means accused of offences would end up in situations where they don't get full hearings on the question of sentence after a conviction. Given most rich criminals have their lawyers on call from the minute the crime is committed let alone having to wait till the chargesheets are filed. The second issue, though is the mitigating factors, that were presented to the court and how the court considered the same. These mitigating factors were that they hailed from poor backgrounds, all of them had dependants and they gave evidence of their capacity to reform. The state countered this argument by saying that the crime had nothing to do with poverty and that the report of the superintendent of the jail showed that their behaviour was not good. He further said that the mitigating factors should be considered in relation to the crime and not just the age and family background of the accused. The court reasons that the aggravating factors concerning the crime, such as how the crime was committed, the attacks on the victim, the attempt to destroy evidence, were so heinous that they outweighed the mitigating factors, therefore, making it the rarest of rare. The court called it a crime that could create a "tsunami" of shock in the minds of the collective. However, the problem with picking an aggravating circumstance over a mitigating one like the accused being a breadwinner or having dependants, is that there have been many cases where the sentence has been life instead of death on very similar facts. But while analysing the mitigating circumstances, it is very easy for us educated elites to quickly say that the fact that a person is a poor person and sole-breadwinner of a family is not enough to mitigate a sentence of death. Given there is a high chance that no person who actually had to ever live a hand-to-mouth existence or rely on a sole breadwinner would probably ever make it as a lawyer in one of India's high court's or let alone become a judge. The judicial system is one system in India where there is an element of socio-economic status that is in-built because of the educational requirements that have to be met to hold office. This means only people who have access to a post-graduate education, finance so they can build a practice will most probably be able to make it as a judge. To them it may be a question of weighing how horrible an act is versus the mitigating factor that a person is poor. But in the eyes of the law, the people who rely on that tiny amounts that are as prisoners wages do not exist and when these men are hanged those wages will stop and what will happen to those families is a question the rarest of the rare doctrine does not address. Which is where the principle argument against the death sentence comes into play, that there is an element of human fallibility that is involved in the process of awarding this sentence and because of the irreversible nature of it, it would make sense not to award it. The second argument flows, from India's unique justification for keeping the death penalty on the books, i.e the fact that the death penalty is awarded for crimes that shock the collective conscience. One that should be equally shocked by poverty as it is by rape but one that is often selective in what it is shocked by. The reason the state prosecutes a person for a major or infamous crime is because a crime is treated not just as an act against an individual but an act against society as a whole. However, when it comes to the question of sentencing someone to death, the sentence is one of individual revenge instead of a solution like reformation (life imprisonment) that will help the society as a whole. There are two guilty parties at play in the 2012 incident, those men involved and a society as a whole that was responsible for such an incident. The sentence of death only goes to serve as revenge against the people involved in the act of committing a crime but doesn't provide any solution for the other people who are equally culpable in allowing for such crimes to happen The Indian Society. For example, while it may not have been justification to go an commit such a crime, it was a collective societal failure that the juvenile who was driving the bus did not have proper facilities for his care. Such as a good and efficient school to go to, a good after school programme and a healthy environment where he wouldn't fall in with the wrong crowd. Society had a responsibility to ensure that would happen, but because of a societal failure, you had a juvenile driving a bus in the middle of the night. It's a societal failure that there were not any government buses plying that evening or there wasn't better policing to ensure that crime was prevented. Though the law treats men and women as equal, women have trouble exercising their freedoms for fear of safety. The fact that society has been unable to create conditions for their free exercise is a societal failure and makes us equally culpable for such crimes. Lastly, the way we view women in India went a long way to making those people commit that crime. Hanging those men is no where going to punish us for being a society that is steeped in patriarchy and one that does not treat women as people let alone equals. Those four men are not an aberration but are the rule in every society that does not treat women as equals. Any one of those men could lawfully force himself upon his wife and should his wife run away from that situation, the law actually has means to deliver that woman back to him so he can continue to force himself upon her. So what will be achieved by hanging those men? Well for starters, we will get a semblance that something rotten has left our midst. But has the rot really left when we are the rot ourselves? Those four men will hang because it serves a very narrow purpose, of making the middle class feel slightly safer against the poorer classes. The sentence does nothing towards the cause of women, making the country safer or even delivering a semblance of justice to anyone in society or the victim. It's a show that the law puts on so that the state can shy away from confronting the real issues, such as the economic and and other externalities that give rise to crime and India's deep-rooted problem with patriarchy Therefore, this author respectfully disagrees with the court on the question of sentence. Death is not an appropriate sentence when it is a crime against women as society is equally culpable for such a crime and here we as a society are not being punished as well. Furthermore, the aim of every good judicial system is not just to have a fair trial but to have one that looks fair in the eyes of the public. After seeing the fact that for a trial of this magnitude the accused were not able to secure good representation early on and even after securing that representation the Bar Council tired to take sou-motto action against their lawyers for a documentary and topped by the fact that they were only able to argue effectively on sentence at the final stage. The trial while it may be fair on all legal and procedural counts doesn't look fair when observed from the outside. A rich man who committed a crime against women would have got a better trial and would have had better lawyers. Examples of Manu Sharma (Jessica Lal) and Sushil Sharma (Tandoor murder) come to mind. So while there may be a grand celebration that these men will now hang, let us not make the mistake of thinking this celebration has anything to do with justice. When the hangman puts the black mask on their faces and pulls that lever, not one woman will be made safer, not one crime avenged and the law of the rarest of rare will not become more fair or equal in it's application. New Delhi: The Arvind Kejriwal government on Saturday sacked Kapil Mishra as the water minister, days after he sided with senior party leader Kumar Vishwas who has been at loggerheads with the party leadership. The party also inducted two new faces Seemapuri MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam and Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gehlot into the Cabinet. A senior official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would "expose" the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam. He said he had met the chief minister earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged scam. "I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The Cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee (the AAP's top decision- making body) was not involved," Mishra told PTI. A senior government official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken after it was found that the minister had submitted several "inflated" bills. Sources in the party said Mishra was sacked because of his poor performance. However, the party had considered him as one of the most vocal and active voices in the government until he sided with Vishwas. A few years before the Godhra incident and the allied communal riots in Gujarat, the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) stitched together a narrative of sexual violence in conflict situations by conceptualising that gender-based and sexual violence is a weapon of war. In Prosecutor v. Tadic (1995), the ICTY set a ground-breaking precedent by including sexual violence as an indictable crime by an international court; and in Prosecutor v. Akayesu (1998), the ICTR recognised sexual violence as a crime against humanity, and made a causal link between the prevalence of sexual violence and the political agenda behind identity-based conflict. Close to two decades later, in May 2017, the Bombay High Court, in the Bilkis Bano case, had an opportunity to break ground with a similar tone in its verdict. However, needless to say, the court refrained from making any such ground-breaking precedents. It dismissed the appeal filed by 11 convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in 2008, after being held guilty of gang-raping Bilkis Bano, who was five months pregnant, and killing seven of her family members in the post-Godhra riots of 2002. Hiten Venegaokar, the counsel of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) stated that the incidents brutality qualified it to be considered a rarest of the rare case and sought death penalty for the accused, thereby, enhancing the sentence of the trial court. He stated that it was a matter of communal violence, pre-planned slaughter of the family members including an infant of the rape victim. This shows that the accused had no regard for law and order and were perverse, he said. However, nowhere in 430-page judgment, does the judiciary examine the role of rape as a strategy and weapon of communal violence and aggression; neither does it set a precedent regarding the states responsibility and duty, during an emergency situation in this case, the Godhra and post-Godhra riots to keep its citizens safe and secure from violence. A report on Women, War and Peace by Unifem states: Men and boys as well as women and girls are the victims of this targeting, but women, much more than men, suffer gender-based violence. Their bodies become a battleground over which opposing forces struggle. Women are raped as a way to humiliate the men they are related to, who are often forced to watch the assault. In societies where ethnicity is inherited through the male line, enemy women are forced to miscarry through violent attacks (...) The Indian judiciary is not afraid to adjudicate rape cases, and though it takes certain liberties during such adjudication, it, in no way, shies away from looking at the crime of rape, in context, and providing best practices and precedents through judicial interpretation. However, in the present case, the Bombay High Court assumes a painstaking, objective role, where it deliberates on the facts, the judgment by the trial court and the evidence, but remains fairly silent on the rape of Bilkis Bano. It does not, in any part of the judgment, examine the consequences of the rape as a part of communal riots, or empathise with the survivor, or even pause to comprehend the effects of sexual violence during an emergency. Most importantly, it does not question the role of the State in the rape of Bilkis, and the thousands of others whose bodies were violated in the name of community and religion while the State could not quell the riots adequately, it did not make the journey of accessing justice any easier for a victim who for 15 years, continued to invoke institutional mechanisms to get justice. The present case has not been considered a rarest of the rare case. Justices VK Tahilramani and Mridula Bhatkar were the two judges of the bench of the Bombay High Court, and they persistently cited several instances to indicate that there is a thin line between an uncommon case from the rarest of the rare. The phrase rarest of the rare case originated in a Supreme Court decision of 1983, Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983), that followed another judgment of the same court, Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), where the constitutional validity of capital punishment was upheld, with an additional caveat stating that death sentences would be accorded only in the rarest of the rare cases. In Machhi Singh, the Supreme Court stated: This involved a case of extraordinary cruelty [...] In deciding on the death sentence, the court put itself in the position of the community, whose collective conscience is so shocked that it will expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards desirability or otherwise of retaining death penalty. The court also went on to list out five elements of a crime that would invoke the rarest of the rare case doctrine the motive; the manner of commission; the magnitude; the anti-social or abhorrent nature of the crime; and the personality of the victim. In State of UP v. Satish (2005), death penalty was upheld as the victim was a six-year-old girl, and the courts rationale was that rape is a heinous, flagitious act in itself becomes abnormal when the victim is a child, and reaches the lowest level of humanity when it is followed by brutal murder. However, in Ramnaresh & Ors. vs. State of Chhatisgarh (2012), where four persons who were guests of the neighbour, raped a woman which led to her death, the Supreme Court held that, it is unfortunate but a hard fact that all these accused have committed a heinous and inhumane crime for satisfaction of their lust but it cannot be held with certainty that this case falls in the rarest of rare cases. Here death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In the present case, however, stated that since there was no repetition of the crimes and the accused were not history-sheeters or hard-core criminals, it would not be given the treatment of a rarest of the rare case. The court also acknowledged that the accused, after the Godhra incident, were boiling with revenge and when they saw a group of Muslims, they pounced upon them, assaulted them and also raped some women. However, there is no sentiment by the vench in the judgment that perceives the rape as a weapon to demean, humiliate and instill fear in women of a different identity group. It looks at the rape of Bilkis Bano and the rape of thousands of women during the post-Godhra riots, as a misfortune of communal disharmony, and in this, it normalises the crime of rape as a result of uncontrolled sexual desire, when in reality, rape is about power and subjection. In fact, in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820, the Security Council iterates: Women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or an ethnic group. Rape has been deemed to be a crime against society by the judiciary, in previous cases. However, there is no state obligation cited in the judgment about taking responsibility about sexual violence committed in emergencies, conflicts, and massacres. It is in the same vein that incidents of rape in caste-based massacres in Laxmanpur Bathe and Khairlanji or large-scale sexual violence in conflict areas such as Manipur, Kunan-Poshpora and Chhattisgarh are routinely ignored by the State. The Bombay High Court judgment does very little for Bilkis Bano, and even less for utilitarian interests by steering away from examining sexual violence, contextually, and refusing to put gender justice at the centre of its verdict. New Delhi: Around 450 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhi's Tughlaqabad area. Most of the students were discharged after a few hours, while four of them were kept under observation in the ICU of two hospitals. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness this morning. According to the police, a call was received at 7:35 am about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. The chemical in the container was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana, it said. The affected students were taken to four hospitals Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo, Batra and ESIC after the leakage was reported around 7.20 am at the customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. "They came with complaints of irritation in eyes, breathlessness and pain in abdomen. All of them were admitted and put on conservative treatment," said officials of Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, where around 250 children, aged between 9 and 15, were admitted. "While majority of them have been discharged, two are admitted in the ICU. They are stable," said Ajaz Mustafa, medical superintendent of the institute. 103 girls and three adults were rushed to Okhla-located ESIC hospital and were discharged. However, two children are still hospitalised in ESIC and are recuperating in the ICU, the doctors treating them said. Apollo hospital authorities said the condition of 42 children and an adult who are admitted there is stable. "Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements was administered on them. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition," Apollo said in a statement. As soon as the children came, the disaster plan in the hospital was activated immediately and a temporary special disaster ward was created in the waiting area, Apollo hospital officials said. "The patients were managed appropriately according to their clinical condition and kept under observation, till required," they added. Around 55 children aged between 10-14 were admitted to Batra hospital in Tughlakabad Institutional area at 8.20 am. Two children, who had come with complaints of breathing difficulty, were admitted in its paediatric ICU. "The condition of all the children, including the two who are admitted in the ICU, is stable. They are currently under observation and are likely to be discharged in three to four hours," said a senior doctor of the hospital. One child was also referred to Safdarjung hospital. As the news broke, Union Health Minister JP Nadda instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from Aiims has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. The Delhi government ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police has registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident," deputy chief minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia said. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. "Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused eye irritation to the girl students in Rani Jhansi school," DCP (Southeast) Romil Baaniya said. Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Opposition Leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta visited the victims at ESI Hospital and enquired about their condition. Hitting out at the Delhi government, Gupta sought a high-level probe into the incident. Gupta said it is "negligence" on the part of school authorities. "At the time of opening the school there were signs of gas leakage. Why didn't the school authorities stop the students from entering the school?," he tweeted. The chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. "V sad. It is a man made disaster as no need for Container Depot to be in centre of Delhi. Shud b imm shifted, accountability fixed for gas leak (sic)," she tweeted. Isnt it odd that a party which has its nominee in the Maharashtra government led by Devendra Fadnavis should organize an agitation demanding the waiver of loans to farmers? And that the same party has an MP as part of the Modi-led NDA? It is another matter that it was done on the platform of a farmers organisation. But Sadabhau Khot, the minister, and Raju Shetti, the MP belonging to the Swabhimani Paksh, are also key figures of the Shetkari Sanghatana which was founded by the late Sharad Joshi. The agitation was organised in Kolhapur and it took time for the two to come together; the party was on the verge of a break-up, each going their separate way. It points to the sheer inability of the Shetkari Sanghatana to influence decisions in the Fadnavis government. The BJP had benefited to some extent by the farmers votes and the organisation the Shetkari Sanghatana brought to the kitty. It suggests that while the peoples cause has to be voiced, the Shetkari Sanghatana prefers the loaves and fishes of office. But stirring up the mud helps with the constituents and on that score the Shetkari Sanghatana is doing nicely. It also makes it evident that after a tiny share in power that was sent their way, the Shetkari Sanghatana is unable to even bleat beyond a point, for Fadnavis does not seem to like the idea of a blanket loan waiver. He is only now studying the UP model. Odd indeed are the ways of politics in India. One can switch sides, and the hosts can not only forgive the past fulminations of the entrant but dish out the reward by a nomination to an election which of late, implies a near good chance of victory. Thus, everybody is happy. And very much happy in power though they occasionally gnash their teeth. The leading party maybe willing to stomach the ways in which the smaller parties makes them look silly but the fact remains that it cannot bend to every wish and whim of these parties. The smaller parties lending support, either as pre-poll allies or post-poll partners, need to keep their constituents alive. So out go the niceties of collective decision making. Shiv Sena is a big contributor, bigger than the Khots and the Shettis, in making a mockery of their own presence in the government. It does not function like a government constituent nor entirely as an opposition. It seems to enjoy this space between the stools even though Uddhav Thackeray keeps issuing the need to be ready for an early mid-term polls. A partys strength is measured in the run up to polls by the desertions. Voters have been accepting these switches. However, this distorts the very idea of anyone speaking of an ideology, for it is the first thing to be discarded. The current behind-the-scenes moves of Narayan Rane, who migrated from Shiv Sena to Congress to find a space in BJP, is one example. There is another quirk of politics as has been evolving, and it is the coalition dharma which, by the very choice of word adds a gravitas of principles to what is essentially survival compulsions. It implies something inherent in it, a given, a requirement, though it is shamelessness and nothing more. This dharma, however, seems to apply largely to the biggest party that needs coalition partners and not the others who joined the bandwagon to assume power as a collective. Manmohan Singh had to wink at the corruption his coalition partners indulged in with abandon and swallow its ignominy. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 6 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Dadebay Amangeldiev has been appointed acting deputy prime minister for industry issues in Turkmenistan, the countrys government said in a message. The corresponding decree was signed by Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Amangeldiev previously served as deputy prime minister supervising transport and energy sphere. It was earlier reported that Batyr Ereshov, the previous deputy prime premier for industry issues in Turkmenistan, passed away. On Saturday, 173 students and 9 teachers were hospitalised after they fell ill due to a gas leak in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area, ANI reported. A total of 173 students&9 teachers admitted to hospital.No student critical, students feeling better,handed over to parents:DCP South East pic.twitter.com/TqREQgrTC8 ANI (@ANI_news) May 6, 2017 According to Delhi DCP (Southeast) Romil Baniya, the students and teachers took ill after inhaling fumes generated from a depot containing chemicals imported from China that were meant for industrial use, ANI reported. According to the police, a call was received around 7:35 am about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near Rani Jhansi School for girls run by the city government. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. The students were admitted to three hospitals. According to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the students are fine. "Students who had complained of irritation in their eyes due to gas leakage, have been admitted to three hospitals. I spoke to doctors who told me that they are fine," Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, said. He said that he has ordered the area district magistrate and SDM to launch a probe into the gas leakage incident at the container depot. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident," the deputy chief minister said. With inputs from PTI I was born and raised in the adjacent districts of Patna and Jehanabad in Magadh region where Muslims are a small minority. They constitute around 7-8 percent of the population, and are mostly concentrated in the towns with sparse rural population. Hence, in rural areas, the existence has been historically more perilous for the Muslims amid the volatile Hindu majority, as Muslim villages have been frequently attacked in the last Century, with the most massive and organised attacks happening in 1917, 1946 and 1989. In this difficult terrain, where the minuscule Muslim population is attacked at worst, or discriminated against at best, my father, Akbar Imam, spent his life as a politician, who struggled to secure Muslim communities by organising them as electoral forces throughout his life, and passed away three years ago continuously struggling towards this goal. In short, the drastic imbalance of forces during any conflict or debate, be it communal or not, has been far too apparent for me since my childhood, and I have been a witness to many of the political realities of a beleaguered minority. After I finished my schooling in 2006, I qualified for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and was admitted to the Computer Science department of IIT Bombay. I spent five fruitful years in the Powai campus, where I met many who are now my closest friends. However, even there I was the sole Muslim in my class. The situation was slightly better in the hostel, where there were three or four Muslim post-graduate students, however, among around 200 undergraduates I was the only Muslim. Partly because of the negligible Muslim presence there, many rumours and prejudices against Muslims were propagated and taken as truth by many ill-informed Hindu students, as there were no Muslims to debunk them. Once in my second year, when I was being interviewed for induction into one of the senior wings, some of the third-year students vetoed my entry as I was a Muslim. I was asked strange questions such as: "What if one of us abuses Muhammad?", "Why dont you guys shave?" etc. However, the issue was resolved by the administration after intervention from some of my batchmates, and I was allotted a random room as the informal interview process was done away with. Similarly, in my third year, there was a ridiculous and month-long attempt by a group of Hindu students to convert me to Hinduism by repeatedly coming to my room for discussions, and forcing Islamophobic literature upon me. These are some highlights of the issues which forced my argumentative self into long hours of debate and polemics against these ill-informed bigots. After my graduation, I spent two years working as a developer for a software firm in Bengaluru. The Muslims are an extreme minority in upper echelons of the corporate world as well, as most of these professionals are extracted from colleges like IITs etc. Hence, my two years in the corporate world were an extension of my life in IIT Bombay, at least as far as my Muslim self is concerned. It is from this background that I entered Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2013 for Masters in Modern History. I was already aware of the reputation of JNU as the fort of secularism and struggles against oppressive forces. On the admission day, I saw large posters on Muslim issues such as witch-hunting, fake encounters etc. by the main Left parties of the campus such as AISA, SFI and DSF etc. These posters and the sloganeering by these parties gave me the impression that the youth of this nation is finally waking up to the miseries of the marginalised people. I was attracted to the Left parties immediately, and joined AISA which is the largest Left party on the campus. I was a member of the party for over two years, was in its executive committee for a year, and also contested the 2015 JNUSU election as their candidate for the councillor post, and finally, left the party after the Najeeb Ahmad incident. In these years, I had the opportunity to observe the internal mechanism of the party, the intellectual limits of many of our comrades, and the hypocrisy of some others. The first dent in my respect for this party was a case of sexual harassment against then JNUSU president and joint secretary in 2013-2014, both of whom were AISA members. The president was later exonerated only through an intervention by executive committee. However, both the president and joint secretary had to resign from their posts, were suspended from the hostel because they were found guilty of slandering against the complainant. The party was involved in this slandering wholesale, and tried its best to defend these two individuals. I was also trying to follow the updates of the case, but my curiosities were generally dismissed by our comrades, and the whole affair was often explained as a sinister plan against the party and as our party was apparently the last hope of the oppressed, we should stop asking questions, and slander against the complainant. Initially, I read the behaviour of these two members as a mere anomaly, something which could not be consistent with the larger progressive politics, and rhetorics of gender equality of the party. However, as time passed, and other cases emerged, it became certain that AISA has a history of sexual harassment cases against its office-bearers and members, and a culture of defaming the complainant and its leaders. In fact, when one looks at the record of the parent parties of both AISA and SFI (CPI-ML, and CPM respectively), the political representation given to women historically has been poorer than other mainstream parties. In the same 2013-2014 session, Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association (Bapsa) was formed against the Left wing appropriation of Dalit voices in the campus. BAPSA claims that both mainstream Left wing organisations are brahmanical and patriarchal in nature, and have checked the emergence of a Dalit leadership. In fact, none of these mainstream parties have produced Dalit leadership, and their highest bodies and positions of power have been monopolised by upper caste Hindu men. The rise of Bapsa in the campus was long overdue, and it helped increase my knowledge on the hypocritical role played by the Indian Left in movements which sought to empower Dalit communities. Bapsa gained in strength over the last two years, and its presidential candidate was the runner-up in the last elections. This was the second major dent in my respect for the party which spoke a progressive tongue. However, as Islamophobia has been a running theme in my life amid an overwhelming Hindu majority, I would be naturally most sensitive to and aware of this problem. Over the four years of my existence in the campus, I spent no less time than I did in IIT debating against people who had practically no knowledge of Islamic faith, figures and practices, yet could abuse these with impunity. Slowly it dawned upon me, that the anti-Islamic zeal of our comrades is not much different from the zeal of ill-informed Hindu students in the IITs, at lest as far as the content of the debates is concerned. Both are based on prejudices and caricaturing of Islamic faith, and mindless exaggeration of incidents and issues of local nature to make them appear as global Islamic issues. The Quran is seen by some comrades as a defected book which leads to terrorism among Muslims. The Muslims are regularly painted as uniquely misogynistic by many comrades. And there is a healthy propagation of anti-Islamic fake news, and fatwas which are hardly ever fatwas. In short, Islamophobia is rampant inside this progressive campus as well. Most of these prejudices against Islam, in my opinion, are prevalent because of three important reasons: 1) Most of the comrades are conditioned to the caste-Hindu narrative against Islam, 2) Most of us are exposed to the liberal media of the English-speaking world, which has pioneered many new ways to hate and misrepresent Islam, and 3) The dogmatic prejudice against religion in general, which derives from their self-identification as Marxist atheists. In short, most of these comrades are prejudiced, ill-equipped and lack scholarly instincts when discussing Islamic faith and practices in general. The result of this prejudiced rhetoric is the alienation of Muslim youth in the campus. For instance, a former VP of JNUSU and an AISA leader once used a sentence abusing Prophet Muhammad as an example to explain to us that such statements do not constitute hate speech. I was amazed at the ignorance of the leading lights of this progressive campus. I was unable to explain to myself that if such statements are not Islamophobic and hate-inducing, then why was I, a 19-year old lonely Muslim, disturbed when one of my bigoted seniors asked me the same question during the interview in that hostel of IIT Bombay. It is extremely important to understand the power dynamics against minorities in a polarised space, only then an informed discussion on hate speech can take place. Another interesting example is a Facebook post by an AISA member who was also a candidate for the post of JNUSU president. He declares an ABVP leader as jaichand because ABVP has been against the interests of academic freedom in JNU. The spirit is right, but the metaphor is wrong. Jaichand is a villain and a traitor only in an anti-Islamic characterisation of Indian history. Jaichand allegedly helped the Muslim Ghauri against the Hindu Prithvi Raj Chauhan and hence was anti-India, even though India as a nation was conceived seven centuries later! Tracing India to 13th century seems a decent thought from an Islamophobic ABVP member, but even an AISA comrade is unaware that he is inadvertently adding fuel to the fire. If there is problem at the basic level of historical understanding in a presidential candidate, one can expect the state of the average comrade. On the account of representation as well, AISA has failed Muslims repeatedly. Year after year, Muslims have been offered token candidature as JNUSU Joint Secretary to register nominal Muslim presence and ensure Muslim votes. SFI is no better. In fact, its parent party, which has ruled West Bengal for three and a half decades has continuously kept Muslims in a state of utter deprivation. The last nail in the coffin was the Najeeb incident, in which after an alleged scuffle, Najeeb was beaten up by a group of students. JNUSU President, and AISA leader Mohit Pandey reached the spot during the violence, and witnessed it, but during the hearing in front of the warden, he failed to report the fact. He declared Najeeb as the offender, silenced his voice, and spoke against him. The warden then asked Najeeb to leave the hostel in six days. Najeeb disappeared the next morning and it has been six months since. Instead of impeaching and punishing the president for silencing, instead of representing Najeebs side, AISA-SFI union decided to take a different line. After the disappearance of Najeeb, they started defending Mohit Pandey and immediately communalised the issue, and declared that a communally charged mob beat Najeeb up, and hence Muslims in this campus should feel insecure. All of this was an exercise of misinformation and fear-mongering in order to hide their own presidents failure, and frighten the Muslims into submission. It is no different from how Congress has been treating the Muslims for a century, let alone BJP which openly speaks against this minority community. This is what forced me out of my politically inactive state, as I severed my ties with the party, and started speaking against AISA-SFI narrative. This is the state of the leading Left party in JNU. Their legitimacy lies in the fact that they are very loud and slogan-friendly. There is no drive to sanitise the minds of the individual cadre, no encouragement of healthy debate and skepticism. Their loud revolutions can be witnessed often in form of juloos from the Ganga dhaba, to the Chandrabhaga hostel. The author is a Computer Science graduate from IIT Bombay, and is currently a research scholar at Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, and lives in the same hostel wing where Najeeb resided. Kathmandu: In Nepal, also the land of gods, they say one part of life is the casino and the other part which is fast booming is the business of stents. New Delhi's decision to cap prices of expensive stents a device used to facilitate blood flow in arteries is now benefitting hospitals in next door Himalayan nation where heart surgeons are offering rich patients the expensive tubes now banned in India. Interestingly, the patients are mostly Indians flying into the Himalayan capital for implants. Like the casinos in Nepal that draw thousands of Indians every year, the new business of stents claim many in dusty Kathmandu is likely to be the new trigger for Indians to book a flight to the land-locked Himalayan nation. What is interesting is the fact that bulk of doctors conducting such stent placements are from India, all using high priced stents normally used to avoid heart surgeries but currently banned in India. "They are coming almost on a regular basis because expensive stents are slowly getting out of the Indian market," said Bhuban Sitaula, a doctor with Nepal's oldest and busiest Bir Hospital in Kathmandu. Indian Medical Association (IMA) rules do not prevent Indian doctors from performing surgeries abroad. For the records, Indian doctors have been routinely flying to Dubai every month to conduct operations. Now, Nepal, claim sources, will be the latest home of this growing breed of doctors who, over the last decade, have been developing medical practices outside India alongside their operations within the country. "Many healthcare chains in India are contemplating opening their centres in Nepal for such operations because of the recent capping of prices," said a top health ministry official in Kathmandu. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the flight of patients and doctors from India could be a reverse medical tourism. "And patients who need post-operative care after the implant can always be in touch with their doctors in India," said the official, adding specialised stents is an untapped market in Nepal, a virtually "grey area" and hospitals are expecting loads of patients from India. Sitaula said he will not have figures to quantify the business but numbers, he claims, will go manifold as the list of those seeking such implants is high in India. Approximately 600,000 cardiac stents are sold across India every year, the unofficial figure is double the official figure. The NPPA capped prices of cardiac stents at Rs 29,600 apiece by up to 85 percent in February, 2017 following complaints from Third World Network it specialises in pharma research that patients paid, in some cases, over 700 times the import price. The move by NPAA has snowballed into a huge controversy with two major multinational medical devices maker withdrawing its stent from the Indian market where arguments remain high both against and for the decision that many claims were prompted by mandarins of the Prime Ministers Office (PMO). Sources in Kathmandu confirm that a number of clinics in the city have started offering the specialised services of stent implants, relying heavily on both patients and physicians from India. And now that the cap is firmly in place, some of the middle-rung medical clinics in Nepal have started upgrading their facilities to offer cardiovascular therapy to patients, so have nondescript hospitals close to the Indo-Nepal border, all hoping to en-cash from what could be a big rush from India. "It was bound to happen. The ban on such stents (in India) is opening up an industry of promise. Unlike gambling at the casinos, there's nothing unethical about it," said Sitaula. Not everyone is happy about it. "I am alarmed. I wonder what is it about these specific stents that both the doctors and the patients have to use such contorted route to get them placed? And Nepal is the ideal location," said Sanjay Nagral of Mumbais Jaslok Hospital, also publisher, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. Expectedly, the ban has triggered a raging debate in the Indian medical fraternity over the departure of the two top MNC medical devices makers, Abbott and Medtronic, both withdrawing their state-of-the-art stents from the Indian market. There are chances a third, Boston Scientific, may follow suit. "We have submitted an application for withdrawal of Resolute Onyx under the provisions of Drug Price Control Order," Medtronic said in a statement. Boston Scientific said while its other drug-eluting stents will be available it will soon discontinue its next generation Synergy and Promous stents. While the NPPA has its arguments in place, those against the cap are now slowly, yet steadily, ganging up to make a presentation through trade bodies like Ficci to none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was not immediately known whether such a presentation was made to the PMO. "There are some mindless allegation without enough insight in this stent business and this is a dangerous trait," says Devlina Chakravarty, CEO and executive director of Artimes Hospitals in Gurgaon. She says while the NPPA move is meant to benefit the masses, it would have worked better for India if the government would have made it mandatory for all to have first and second generation stents with a price capping, yet not removing the option of using newer generation stents. "We are already doing the same for government empanelled patients for many years now. People in this country have a choice to make when deciding what they want to put in their coronary arteries. Some of the high-end stents are easy to negotiate through complex lesions... which will now be difficult to treat with angioplasty," she said in an interview. VT Shah, interventional cardiologist, who practices in several Mumbai hospitals and annually performs over 1,000 coronary artery procedures, wrote in his note to Ficci and other stakeholders that the cap should not result in the lack of availability of new generation stents in the market. He said 40 percent of Indians are covered by various government schemes under which there is a ceiling on the stent prices. "But deliverability and implantation result varies from stent to stent. An older generation stent may not give a good result in a complex blockage as compared to a new generation product. We need good products to tackle complex cases," Shah wrote. The NPPA, it is reliably learnt, is taking on board arguments against the price cap. But it has also told the stakeholders that the decision was based on major outcry on price fluctuations of stents in India. There were many senior cardiologists who were concerned over the rise in the cases of unnecessary implant of stents, arguing if an independent audit of stent implant cases was done in India, over a third of the elective procedures could turn out to be needless. In the US and other Western nations, many hospitals and cardiologists have been forced to pay fine ranging into millions of dollars for unnecessary stents. In some cases, even stent companies paid heavy fines to square up charges of paying kickbacks to doctors. The NPPA, Indias drug pricing watchdog, says it's worrying because there is no regulation of hospitals in India, especially in the private sector where a majority of urban Indians seek healthcare. Data collected by NPPA showed a large number of hospitals in India conducting up to 25,000 angioplasties a year. In those hospitals, it was revealed that several cardiologists are too close to stent makers and suppliers for comfort. In the absence of any monitoring or oversight, patients in India have no protection from unnecessary use of a stent. In fact, the NPAA is pushing the Cardiology Society of India to devise a mechanism to audit themselves to avoid any such malpractices. The NPAA is convinced that hospitals make the highest profit on stents and therefore avoid audits to curb inappropriate use. NPAA data says massive margins were being charged in distribution and supply of stents. By the time it was implanted in a patient, the increase from the original cost was often in the range of 1,000-2,000 percent. And it's not just with the stents. "Whats happening with stents is happening with other medical devices which are overpriced," said Malini Aisola, a campaigner with the All India Drug Action Network which pushed NPAA to cap prices of stents. But NPAA insiders claim the government might just allow expensive stents to stay in the market to checkmate the flight to Nepal. If that happens, it could mean another fight for advocate Birender Sangwan whose 2014 petition in the Delhi High Court seeking price regulation of the life-saving device was probably the biggest trigger for the price cap on stents. "The NPAA has not taken any decision, we will see if that happens. The price cap has helped hundreds of thousands who were fleeced regularly by the hospitals," said Sangwan. The slugfest between the medics and NPAA is not over yet. Physicians, always the last person standing between life and death can also have the last word if they can convince Indias drug pricing watchdog that low-quality stents will eventually force more open heart surgeries. Everyone is desperate to live, and almost all, are medically illiterate. On Friday, the Bengaluru-based IT company Wipro received an anonymous email threat demanding a ransom of Rs 500 crore, according to several media reports. According to a report in The New Indian Express, the blackmailer demanded that the payment be made by 25 May through an online link in Bitcoins, a digital currency. The criminal also warned that failure to meet this demand would result in a toxic drug being spread on the Wipro campus. According to the complaint filed with the cyber crime police, the threatening email was received by the Wipro office in Sarjapura. Police sources said the email sent by the ID Ramesh2@protonmail.com claimed that one kilo of Ricin, a toxic protein extracted from castor bean, had been stored by the blackmailer and added that and two grams would be sent to Wipro's offices in envelopes to confirm that he was not bluffing, the report added. According to a report in Bangalore Mirror, the email threatened: It [Ricin] would be used through food served at your cafeteria, disperse it using a flying drone or even on the toilet seat or the toilet paper with which you wipe your a**e..you get the point (sic)." The email also reportedly links to a report about the death of 22 stray dogs in Kolkata. The sender claimed that he had isolated a high-quality strain of the toxin and had tested it on the dogs. An FIR under Section 66 F of the IT Act has been registered at the cyber crime police station, Bangalore Mirror reported. Scrolling through Audrey Truschke's Twitter timeline is somewhat exhausting. The assistant professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University-Newark has been at the receiving end of a social media backlash ever since her book Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth was published earlier this year. Truschke, however, seems unfazed, and responds to nearly every point that is addressed to her regarding her tome. Truschke studied Sanskrit and majored in Religious Studies at the University of Chicago, before pursuing a PhD at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. Her research focuses on early modern India, especially the Mughal period and cross-cultural interactions therein. Before Aurangzeb, she authored Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (2016). In an email interview with Firstpost, Truschke spoke about the row over her book: Did you expect quite the backlash there's been to Aurangzeb? The response to your remarks in The Hindu in 2015 must have given some indication... I expected a backlash to Aurangzeb. But I didn't write it for my critics, especially those who dismiss the book on the basis of reviews or simply the subject matter. Rather, I wrote Aurangzeb because I thought that there was a hunger among some in India for a more balanced, historically-based view of Aurangzeb. I have been heartened to hear from a number of readers who have substantive questions about my arguments in the book and desire to learn more about one of the most crucial political figures of early modern India. You said in an interview that it was the response to The Hindu piece that had prompted you to start working on Aurangzeb... what particularly was the exchange that convinced you this was a project you needed to engage with? People wrote letters to the editor for days after I gave (the) interview to The Hindu in 2015. I did not even know that one could write letters to the editor regarding an interview. The sustained response to my brief comments on Aurangzeb prompted me to see an opportunity to provide interested readers with a more nuanced, compelling story regarding this crucial king. What are the common themes you've observed in the stories about Aurangzeb that are in popular circulation? The strongest thread in popular stories about Aurangzeb is anti-Muslim sentiments. People repeatedly reduce everything that Aurangzeb did to his piety as they imagine his piety anyway and then condemn him as too Muslim. Such arguments have little to do with Aurangzeb but a great deal to do with current biases against Muslims in India. What's been the hardest myth about Aurangzeb to debunk, for you as a historian? The most difficult point for me to get across is that I am not asking the question of whether Aurangzeb was a good or bad guy. Many of my critics have trouble seeing beyond the dichotomy that he must have been a sinner or a saint. I do not want to judge Aurangzeb by modern standards because that tells us nothing interesting about the emperor or his world. But many people have trouble wrapping their heads about the concept of asking questions about a historical figure other than was he a villain or a hero. Does it ever get to you, responding to the unending stream of criticism on Twitter? I have rather thick skin, which serves me well in dealing with public criticism and hate speech. However, many of my colleagues in the academy do not share my stomach for hostility. The vicious atmosphere on social media drives many scholars away from public engagement, which is to the detriment of everyone, in my view. One of the reviews for Aurangzeb stated, "In fact, one suspects she first decided to humanise, secularise Aurangzeb and then went about finding documents supporting it". Do you find criticisms like that trying, as an academic? I find such criticisms flimsy. This particular argument insinuates a dishonest process of researching and writing on my part but fails to provide any evidence for the claim. As a historian, I am far more interested in substantive arguments. (Among the rebuttals to Aurangzeb), is this blog post that has received some amount of attention. What is your opinion of it? To me, blog posts such as this exemplify the need for historians to continue educating an interested public about what constitutes a compelling historical argument and good-faith use of historical evidence. You've said in a previous interview: "The past is rarely, if ever, only about the past. But when we allow modern interests to constrain and dictate our view of the past, then we are engaging in mythology that, however powerful, is not history." In the post-truth, 'fake news' era, how do you see the role of the academic? Our approach to the past is always preceded by and conditioned by the present. That is as true for me as it is for those who wish to rewrite India's past. The difference is that I remain committed to dispassionate history, meaning an honest attempt to recover the past and understand historical figures and events on their own terms. One challenge going forward, for historians, is to better articulate why the historical project holds value and why it is a mistake to treat the past as a blank canvas upon which we can write present-day concerns. Also read Aurangzeb's tyranny and bigotry cannot be whitewashed: A counter-view When you fall sick, a visit to a doctor should have you sorted out. In fact, with the kind of advancements seen in the field of medicine and its related technology, potentially fatal ailments like cancers and other degenerative diseases are managed much better nowadays, giving hope to scores of patients. Through it all, there is a segment of patients with rare diseases who often have to fend for themselves with no guidance, treatment options or recourse of any sort. The devastation rare diseases cause By the time Shilpi Bhattacharya from Delhi was 24 years old, an unknown ailment had caused her walking to be compromised. No matter where the family went, they were unable to get a diagnosis. Seeking help internationally at Singapore, a misdiagnosis the first time, made way for an accurate diagnosis by a neurologist. By then, Shilpi was almost 30 years old and she was told that she suffers from GNE Myopathy, a genetic muscle disorder that leads to weakness and debilitation of muscles in the hands and legs. It progressively worsens until she will one day not be able to move around or use her limbs. Today, Bhattacharya uses a walking aid and knows there is no treatment or cure for her ailment. She works as a faculty of law at the Jindal Global Law School, Delhi. GNE Myopathy is just one of the 7,000 known rare diseases in the world. "Collectively, these disorders are estimated to affect around 70 million individuals in India," says Meenakshi Bhat, senior consultant and professor in Clinical Genetics, Centre for Human Genetics, Bangalore. "It is estimated that 6-7 percent of the population worldwide is affected by a rare disorder." Prasanna Kumar B Shirol is the founder and director of Organisation for Rare Diseases India (ORDI), an organisation that works extensively for the cause of rare diseases and which has brought about a number of initiatives, to improve the quality of life of rare disease patients. He is also father to Nidhi Shirol who suffers from Pompe Disease that causes a progressive degeneration of muscles. It took around seven years for Nidhi to be diagnosed correctly, but with no cure available, it has been only about managing the ailment. Today, Nidhi is around 18 years old, is paralysed from waist down and is on a ventilator round-the-clock. She needs continuous care and support. She is pursuing her second pre-university course currently. "The world around patients and their families collapse when they get diagnosed with a rare disease," says Prasanna. "There are only around 500 FDA approved drugs worldwide for over 7,000 rare diseases. The situation in India is bad, as none of these are accessible to patients. Most diseases once diagnosed have to be managed only through supportive care. The cost of the treatment varies from lakhs to crores per year depending on the disease. With the absence of suitable healthcare policies and insurance schemes, the scenario is bleak for parents of patients." What can make a difference? Namitha, research director, Centre for Health Ecologies and Technology, says, "If rare diseases had some presence in medical education and curricula, neither Shilpi nor Nidhi would have had a traumatic diagnostic odyssey. Even doctors are not quite aware of such conditions. Moreover, there is a lack of treatment for many of these conditions since research is still on. Medical education is not equipping doctors to deal with this range of rare diseases. Hence the trauma of long diagnostics. Since most disorders do not have a treatment or cure, the least these patients should get is psychosocial support and counselling on how to deal with what life had thrown at them and their families." Currently, rare diseases are getting some attention from the media and the government. The Central government is trying to put together a draft national rare disease policy and this will work well if it includes an orphan drugs act (a specific drug created to deal with a particular rare disease) to incentivise local production of drugs and devices. What is needed now is for the Central and state governments to act and invest in clinical research for treatment and curatives. This can be done based on the number of patients for each group. "We need a comprehensive Rare Disease/Orphan Drug Policy that will address in totality the unique needs of the rare disease community from diagnosis, management and treatment to drug research and development, access and affordability all factors that will help rare disease patients lead a better quality of life," says Naz Haji, SVP and managing director, QuintilesIMS India, an organisation that delivers integrated information and technology solutions in the healthcare sector. "We need a strong clinical research ecosystem to encourage research and development in the country. This includes not just a robust regulatory environment but also more awareness and education among the public at large about the value of clinical research so that patients can make well-informed choices whether to participate or not." Until more attention is given to this sector of healthcare we are going to have more cases like that of Aarya Bhatkar, the son of Shital Bhatkar who was diagnosed at 1.5 years as suffering from Niemann Pick disease, a devastating progressive genetic disorder where the body cannot transport cholesterol and lipids in the cells. This leads to enlarged liver, spleen and jaundice and ultimately fatal liver failure. Fatality can occur in infancy or a little later like in Aarya's case who passed away at the age of seven. Have criminal courts become the new party zone? You might well assume that considering the regularity with which Page Three People arrive there, complete with designer shades and paparazzi mobs. Or bereft of make up and hair colour when their wheedling and deals have come to naught finally and they have to slouch into jail. The terminally glamorous Bhagat sisters, Sheetal and Poonam, continue to keep the tabloids in hyperventilation and no less the serious press. The laws which they have broken with supreme arrogance seem incapable of catching up with Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi. Big Bulls did see the inside of a prison for their illegal killing on the stockmarket. To our greatest salivation, celebrities haven't shied away from real gore. They've bloodied themselves with bodies chopped into pieces, stuffed into suitcases, half burnt and thrown into ravines or found cellophane wrapped and floating in a gutter. Think of the artistic Upadhyays; Hema ended up in a carton, and Chintan as the prime accused. But when we think of the way the rich and famous use every lever of influence to avoid arrest, the immediate and most chilling recall is that of Indrani and Peter Mukerjea. However, think again. This isn't the textbook case. The master class was conducted nearly six decades earlier. On 27 April 1959, when the dashing Parsi Commander Kawas Nanavati pumped three bullets from his .38 Smith and Wesson revolver into the Sindhi playboy businessman, Prem Ahuja, it triggered an outcome yet to be outdone. Never before or since have such heights of power been so unabashedly coopted; never before or since has an accused murderer alchemised into a hero, swooned over and worshipped by frenetic crowds. Never before or since has a case embedded itself so firmly in the national imagination. Yet, its origin was just everyday adultery. That Mrs Sylvia Nanavati was pretty and English added its own layer to that unmatched mille feuille. For the longest time, Nanavati's influential friends managed to keep him out of jail, and in the end he really did get away with murder. By the time the case wound its incredible way through the courts, even the Prime Minister of India had to wade into the roiling waters. The bulwark comprised Parsi lawyers, then the creme de la creme of Bombay's and arguably India's legal fraternity. Nanavati's own paternal uncle, Dhunjishaw, was a senior partner of the storied legal services firm of Mulla and Mulla. But even without ties of blood or community, the firm would still have deployed its top brain SR Vakil to advise the defence team headed by the formidable and flamboyant criminal lawyer, Karl Khandalavala. The Navy was also its client, and had phoned rightaway, asking Mulla and Mulla to ensure that Nanavati be pulled out of police lock up and entrusted to the more manageable naval custody. It didn't stop at a phone wires and string pulling. The Admiral of the Indian navy himself had flown down from Delhi in an official Canberra jet, and arrived at the Sessions court, sirens wailing, to give the Navy's blue-eyed commander a character certificate. This too had never happened before or since. Read an excerpt from In Hot Blood, on Firstpost Nanavati managed to remain in the comparative comfort and easy access of the detention quarters of the INS Kunjali for a year and five months despite the fact that his was an unqualified civil crime, and, more significantly, despite being declared guilty by the Bombay High Court. The warrant of arrest to put Nanavati in jail for life couldn't be served on him because hold your breath the state's Governor had issued an unprecedented order staying the sentence 'till the appeal is disposed of'. The appeal hadn't even been filed because the order had come within four hours of the sentence being passed. But the level of influence had to be much higher for such an 'unusual and unprecedented' directive. It went all the way up to the Defence Minister, VK Krishna Menon, under whom Nanavati had served as naval attache at the Indian High Commission in London. He pompously told The New York Times correspondent Max Lerner that he had brought pressure to bear on the Central government so that 'the stain of turpitude should not destroy the career of a promising young officer. There were rumours of more clandestine undercurrents (the film Rustom turned on one of them), but none have come anywhere near credibility. No less a personage than Pandit Nehru had to take time off from his many preoccupations in 1960 to step in. He had to mollify a Parliament outraged by such an arrogant interference with the judicial process just to favour a man of power and influence. It didn't stop there either. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, presided over by the Chief Justice of India, had to sit to interpret the relevant articles of the Constitution delineating the powers granted to the governor vis-a-vis those assigned to the judiciary. Difficult to believe that the time and energy of such eminences had to be taken over on account of what was not just a murder case, but one stemming from mere adultery. However justice stayed its course, unmoved by the atmospherics, neither by the flex of political, naval and legal muscle, the high decibel campaign of the weekly Blitz, nor the en masse support of the public shouting Nanavati Zindabad! and almost bringing down the courtroom's gallery with the overcrowding. Nanavatis appeal was turned down, and he finally had to go to Bombay's Arthur Road Jail. But the powerful Parsi lobby, Russy Karanjia's Blitz-kreig and his political godfathers in Delhi wrangled an executive pardon within three years. In fact, when it was handed to him, he was already on parole on health grounds, sequestered in a Lonavla bungalow. Soon after, this influential conglomerate helped get him out of the country itself. Kawas, Sylvia and their three traumatised children managed a fast-track immigration to Canada. After this case, in every decade, elite mafias would continue to try to subvert the judicial system, but L'affaire Nanavati still stands above the sordid rest. A class apart every which way. In Hot Blood: The Nanavati Case that Shook India by Bachi Karkaria is available in bookstores and on www.juggernaut.in Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has decided to take the bull by the horns and contest the tricky Panaji seat to enter state legislative Assembly. Parrikar, who took over as Goa chief minister on 14 March, is still a member of Rajya Sabha. According to rules, he has to become a member of the Assembly within six months. While Parrikar had the option of seeking election from a comparatively safer seat, his decision to return to his traditional Panaji constituency that he had won five times in a row since 1994 has taken many by surprise. Once seen as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stronghold, BJP barely managed to retain Panaji seat in February assembly polls by a slender margin with its nominee Sidharth Kuncalienkar winning the seat by 1069 votes by defeating the Congress supported United Goans Party (UGP) chief Atanasio Monserrate. Kuncalienkar was among half a dozen BJP MLAs who had offered to resign from the assembly to facilitate Parrikars entry. Goa will witness by-election for at least two seats. Congress legislator Vishwajit Rane had resigned from the assembly and party on 16 March, the day the Parrikar government proved its majority in the hung assembly. Rane has since joined the BJP and was rewarded with a cabinet berth in Parrikar government as health minister. He will seek re-election from the Valpoi seat that he first won in 2007 as an independent. Initially, it appeared that Parrikar may accept Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabrals offer to resign from the Assembly. The general consensus within the BJP was that Parrikar going back to Panaji was not a risk worth taking. The party left the final decision for Parrikar who opted for Panaji with a valid logic and some manoeuvring. Parrikar did not want to be seen as unsure about his chances. Moreover, contesting Panaji seat was the only way to lift sagging morale of party workers ever since BJP ended up winning just 13 seats in the 40-member Goa assembly. And trust Parrikar for doing some political manipulation. He is understood to have won over Monserrate who has of late changed his tone. While initially, he announced his resolve to contest Panaji seat if it went to bypoll, Monserrate has changed his stance with one of his close aides suggesting that he is not keen on contesting bypolls. This may mean smooth sailing for Parrikar considering Monserrate, popularly known as Babush, is both popular and formidable. He had shifted from the neighbouring Taleigao seat to Panaji to block Parrikars possible return to Goa politics. But the move backfired. While his wife Jennifer won the Taleigao seat as a Congress candidate, Monserrate lost narrowly. BJP circles are abuzz with talks that Jennifer may join the BJP like Rane and Monserrate may ask Santa Cruz MLA Tony Fernandes, whom he had loaned to the Congress party, to resign from the Assembly. Monserrate may in that case contest that seat with BJPs support. Knowing fickle nature of Goas politics, one can expect the unexpected. Parrikar has already silenced some of his bitter critics including Rane, Goa Forward Party mentor Vijai Sardesai and independent Rohan Khaunte by making them all cabinet ministers and giving the portfolios of their choice. One of the reasons BJP decided to send Parrikar, who was serving as defence minister at the centre, back to Goa was to club up majority after the state elected yet another hung assembly. Besides being popular and seen as an honest politician, Parrikar is known for his man-management skills. BJP would like to increase its numbers in the Assembly as much as possible and replace Congress as the single largest party. The Congress party has already announced that it will field its own candidates in bypolls for the Goa Assembly. It has made it clear that if Monserrate intends to take on Parrikar, then he must join the Congress party first. A formal announcement about Parrikars constituency is expected to be made after 9 May when the state assembly meets to pass the GST Bill. Goa assembly bypolls are expected to take place towards August-end or first week of September. BJP does not intend to take any risk in view of the July presidential elections where every vote will count with BJP in with a real chance of having its nominee become President of India for the first time ever. Until then Parrikar will retain his Rajya Sabha membership. In fact, how Goa votes during the presidential election may indicate the shape of things to follow in Goa politics. Agartala: In India, every woman, irrespective of caste, creed and religion should enjoy constitutional rights, but triple talaq often takes away the right of Muslim women, BJP national president Amit Shah said on Saturday. We are against talaq and the party's stand on the issue has already been conveyed to the Supreme Court," he said at a press conference. Shah is on a two-day visit to Marxist-ruled Tripura to strengthen the party base in the state. Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as one of the most popular leaders in the country after Independence, the BJP chief said the party has been "registering emphatic poll victories in many states namely Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttarkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Goa and Manipur." "The poll success of BJP indicates Modi's rising popularity and it will continue in the years to come," he said, adding there was no single allegation of corruption against the BJP-led NDA government during the past three years "while Congress-led UPA regime had witnessed corruption amounting to Rs 12 lakh crore." Praising Modi's new 'Vikas Model' (development model), Shah said the government was committed to ensure development in the country. "Launching of 104 satellites is a landmark success of the BJP-led NDA government in the space arena," he said. On violence in Jammu and Kashmir, Shah said the Supreme Court has already made it clear that there would be no talks unless the violence stops. He also said the Modi government has come up with a new concept to address unemployment in the country. Congress and Left parties had set a practice of giving jobs in the government sector as the only option to reduce unemployment. The Modi government, however, has been pushing for self-employment to create jobs for crores of youths," he added. If you are not confused, you are not paying attention, says one of the best management gurus of the modern era, Tom Peters. True! Tom Peters oft-quoted remark appears even more accurate when you try to make heads or tails of the ongoing intra-party politics of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. You are bound to get confused, even flummoxed. Little wonder then that, in the immediate aftermath of uncle Shivpals announcement regarding the formation of a new secular front on Friday, Firstpost carried its story with a question mark; and rightly so: Samajwadi Party splits? Shivpal Yadav to float new party Samajwadi Secular Morcha to be headed by Mulayam. Observers of UP politics know it for a certainty that Shivpals break-away move means nothing unless Mulayam does two things: First, he chooses to openly throw his weight behind his brother. And second, he deserts his son fully, finally and publicly. So far, none of these things have happened. Nevertheless, Shivpal, who looks bent upon further distancing himself from his nephew, is an angry, old man. In fact, he had given a piece of his mind twenty-four hours before he took the final plunge. Talking to reporters at Etawah on Thursday, he didn't mince words while sounding the warning: Akhilesh had promised to hand over the party to 'Netaji'. (In UP, Netaji means only one thing Mulayam Singh Yadav). Let him live up to his promise and we all shall strengthen the SP. I had also given him three months' time to implement what he had promised. Those who are now trying to teach me lessons on party's constitution should read the Bhagavad Gita. Everyone knows that it is Netaji and Netaji alone who has built this party through his blood and sweat. And let it be clear once and for all that I shall listen to only Netaji. None else. His angry outbursts apart, its significant that Shivpal hasnt resigned from the official Samajwadi Party. Nor does he plan to do so in the near future. And for his part, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in this context, hasnt spoken a word. He neither supports nor opposes Shivpals move. He keeps mum. They all want him to take a position. But he hasn't. And maybe he won't. Nobody knows Mulayams mind for sure. Akhilesh is as much in the dark as Shivpal or, for that matter, Ramgopal. And almost the entire rank and file of the Samajwadi Party is kept on tenterhooks. The Congress is equally confused. Its leaders are seen to be treading extremely cautiously while dealing with the SP leadership. Here is an example as reported by Firstpost on 3 May: As part of her party's efforts to evolve consensus among opposition parties on a common candidate for upcoming presidential election, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday spoke to Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also reached out to Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in connection with the presidential polls. Sensible! At a time when confusion remains worse confounded, its better to keep both father and son in good humour. Sonia talks to Mulayam. And Rahul does business with Akhilesh. Wonderful. Can you now describe the formation of the Samajwadi Secular Morcha by Shivpal as a split in the party? No. The Samajwadi Party is intact, even with the rebellious Shivpal continuing to be a member of its legislative wing and Mulayam remaining neutral. But what will happen in the near future? Perhaps, nothing much. Shivpal may have to eat humble pie once again. On the one hand, the party patriarch would, as usual, deliver a fatherly scolding to his son in public while on the other make his favourite brother see reason in the interest of the party and family unity. Lets not forget that Mulayam happens to be one of the most unpredictable politicians in this country. You may recollect what happened during the fight for party symbol between father and son before the Election Commission earlier this year: Mulayam had conveniently forgotten to back up his claim by staying silent when asked to produce documents that supported his contention. The result: Akhilesh got not only leadership of the party but the symbol as well. Thats Mulayam singh Yadav for you. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Fatih Karimov Trend: Bank Tejarat, a commercial bank in Iran, signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinas leading bank, CDB (China Development Bank) for boosting mutual cooperation, Irans ISNA news agency reported May 6. Under the signed document the Chinese bank will provide a $300 million loan for Bank Tejarat for financing projects of Telecommunication Company of Iran. The China Development Bank is a financial institution led by a cabinet minister level Governor, under the direct jurisdiction of the China State Council. As one of three policy banks of China, it is primarily responsible for raising funding for large infrastructure projects. Last August Iran signed two cooperation documents with the CDB and the Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM) on financing economic and infrastructural projects. The deals cover the projects regarding various sectors, including transportation, power plants, telecommunications and industrial parks as well as oil and gas, healthcare, agriculture and tourism. Shivpal Singh Yadav, Mulayams brother and Akhileshs chacha, has finally announced the formation of a new party Samajwadi Secular Morcha. Samajwadis' entire ideology is built on secularism and they oppose communalism, so I dont understand why the word secular has been placed in the middle. Akhilesh camp has alleged in the past that Shivpal has been conspiring against the family at the behest of Amar Singh and BJP. So the word secular has been used as an assurance that this morcha has to do nothing with BJP and send a positive signal to anchor minority vote segment of Mulayam. The family drama started sometime in October last year, culminating into ascendancy of Akhilesh Yadav as President of Samajwadi Party and sidelining of Mulayam. It has taken a new turn with this announcement. However, this was expected for some time. Akhilesh had promised that he will step down from party president post in three months which he didnt fulfil. He knows giving any leeway to Shivpal camp at this juncture when there is anger or discontent among section of MLAs on account of poor performance in Vidhan Sabha elections could be disastrous. The announcement may be a pressure tactic by Mulayam camp to force Akhilesh to hand him over the Presidency of Samajwadi Party back. I dont think this may work though. Shivpal claims support of Mulayam, I am not doubting he doesnt have his blessings. However, even chacha knows his brother, is a slippery entity. Mulayam is known for not sticking to his words and changing stance on daily basis as evident during family drama. Love for the son may hold him back still and he can still retain the title of ultimate platu of Indian politics. The entire episode stems from Mulayams desire to achieve more in life. He is 77 years old, not that old, from perspective of Indian politics. Manmohan Singh was 79 years old when he assumed Prime Ministerial Office in 2009. Mulayam missed out an opportunity to become PM in 1996, the two Yadavs, spoiled chances of each other, leading to selection of Deve Gowda. Mulayam, a three-term chief minister of UP and former Defence Minister, nurses national ambitions (PM, President, VP). He feels that since he is one of the most popular leaders of UP after VP Singh/Chandrasekhar/Vajpayee, he deserves a chance to be PM like others. It is this national ambition (kuch kar gujarne ki chaah) which is driving this old man. With BJP gaining strength and talks of anti-BJP front being felt as the need of the hour, the wily fox, sees an opportunity. You cant stop him from dreaming. Deve Gowda has given hope to every politician in India that he can become PM. Mulayam through this morcha aspires to bring all socialist/Samajwadis/Janata Parivaar members under an umbrella and emerge leader/convener of the front. Well, a similar effort was initiated before Bihar polls in 2015. Six Janata Parivaar parties SP, JDU, RJD, JDS, INLD, SJP began talks to merge and form a formidable force to get back their past glory. BJP was unstoppable after 2014 and Nitish/Lalu fearing a rout and were rooting for unity. Mulayam was to be named the President of the united Janata Dal (joint entity). This group would have presence in 4 states UP, Bihar, Karnataka and Haryana accounting for 30% of Lok Sabha seats. The group also had planned to bring in other socialists like Naveen Patnaik, Ram Vilas Paswan, Ajit Singh on board later. Due to reasons unknown, Mulayam chickened out at the last minute. SP also formed a fourth front and put up candidates in all seats of Bihar, irking Lalu and Nitish. Will Lalu and Nitish warm up to Mulayams overtures? Will Samadhi Lalu cajole Nitish to revive unity talks and make old war horse Mulayam head? This appears difficult to me. Nitish himself nurses prime ministerial ambitions. Nitish is at the forefront of opposition talks of putting up a joint candidate for presidential elections. There are also talks of making Nitish convener of a grand anti-BJP front. All this means that Mulayams attempt may not bear fruits. The fact that he no longer controls the Samajwadi Party and has lost massive support in UP goes against him. There is a trust deficit factor with him. Lohia the crusader of OBC reservations, the champion of poor and downtrodden, amongst the most vocal anti-Congress voices of independent India, will not be happy at the sorry state of his legacy. His apparent heirs Mulayam and Lalu have failed the samajwad movement and responsible for disappearance of the movement from political landscape of India. The constant hobnobbing with Congress has robbed the movement of its novelty. The samajwad which Lohia preached has had a natural death. The new age samajwadis hunger for power and parivarwad has hastened this process. The ego and personal ambitions have superseded the principles of economic equality, class less society and parity for all. The new morcha is an attempt by Mulayam and Shivpal to fulfil their aspirations and boost their declining career graph. Even politically this may not achieve the desired objectives. By Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON A draft of President Donald Trump's new counterterrorism strategy demands that U.S. allies shoulder more of the burden in combating Islamist militants, while acknowledging that the scourge will never be totally eliminated.The 11-page draft, seen on Friday by Reuters, said the United States should avoid costly, "open-ended" military commitments."We need to intensify operations against global jihadist groups while also reducing the costs of American 'blood and treasure' in pursuit of our counterterrorism goals," states the document, which is expected to be released in coming months."We will seek to avoid costly, large-scale U.S. military interventions to achieve counterterrorism objectives and will increasingly look to partners to share the responsibility for countering terrorist groups," it says.However, it acknowledges that terrorism "cannot be defeated with any sort of finality." A White House spokesman, contacted about the strategy document, did not immediately comment.When published, it will be the first U.S. blueprint in six years outlining how to combat Islamic extremism, a major issue for Trump during the presidential campaign.The strategy, which officials said was still being fine-tuned at the White House, describes the threat from Islamic militant groups in stark tones. It remains to be seen how Trump can square his goal of avoiding military interventions with ongoing conflicts involving U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Rather than scale back U.S. commitments, he has so far largely adhered to former Obama administration plans to intensify military operations against militant groups and granted the Pentagon greater authority to strike them in places like Yemen and Somalia.Trump may soon reverse years of Obama-ordered drawdowns in Afghanistan. His administration is now considering boosting by 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers the 8,400-strong U.S. contingent helping Afghan forces fight a resurgent Taliban, current and former U.S. officials say. The increased pace of U.S. military operations has seen a recent spate of American casualties. The latest came in Somalia, where a Navy SEAL died and two others were wounded in an attack by al Shabaab militants, U.S. officials said on Friday. Since President Barack Obama released the last U.S. counterterrorism strategy in 2011 before the emergence of Islamic State, the threat has "diversified in size, scope and complexity from what we faced just a few years ago," the draft strategy said. In addition to Islamic State, the United States and its allies are endangered by a reconstituted al Qaeda, groups such as the Haqqani network and Hezbollah, as well as from homegrown extremists radicalised online, it said.Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies and who reviewed the document at Reuters' request, said the draft strategy "paints - and I think accurately - a more dire picture" of the threat than the Obama document, which sounded a "triumphalist" tone following al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's death in a 2011 U.S. raid in Pakistan.MISSING PHRASE The draft strategy appears to flow from Trump's "America First" foreign policy calling for foreign aid cuts and more burden-sharing by allies and alliances such as NATO.The version seen by Reuters does not include a signature phrase from Trump's 2016 campaign, "radical Islamic terrorism." Instead, it says that jihadist groups "have merged under a global jihadist ideology that seeks to establish a transnational Islamic caliphate that fosters conflict on a global scale." The draft's first guiding principle is that the United States "will always act to disrupt, prevent and respond to terrorist attacks against our nation, our citizens, our interests overseas and our allies. This includes taking direct and unilateral action, if necessary."The administration would boost U.S. homeland security by working with allies and partners to eliminate terrorist leaders, "ideologues, technical experts, financiers, external operators and battlefield commanders."The draft also calls for denying militants physical and online sanctuaries in which to plan and launch attacks and "degrade their efforts to develop and deploy" chemical and biological weapons.Yet it provides few details on how the United States, which has led global counterterrorism efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, can achieve those goals by passing more of the burden to other countries, many of which lack the requisite military and intelligence capabilities.The draft makes little mention of promoting human rights, development, good governance and other "soft power" tools that Washington has embraced in the past to help foreign governments reduce grievances that feed extremism.By contrast, the Obama counterterrorism strategy made "respecting human rights, fostering good governance, respecting privacy and civil liberties, committing to security and transparency and upholding the rule of law" the foremost of its guiding principles."Soft power has a role to play, but not to the exclusion of kinetics," or military action, said Hoffman. He called the draft "a very sober depiction of the threat and what is needed now and in the immediate future to counter it." (Editing by John Walcott and Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Eric Auchard and Bate Felix | FRANKFURT/PARIS FRANKFURT/PARIS Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online 1-1/2 days before voters choose between the centrist and his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen.Macron, who is seen as the frontrunner in an election billed as the most important in France in decades, extended his lead over Le Pen in polls on Friday. As much as 9 gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine.In a statement, Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked."The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said.An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules that forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, which took effect at midnight on Friday (2200 GMT).The presidential election commission said in statement that it would hold a meeting later on Saturday after Macron's campaign informed it about the hack and publishing of the data.It urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges. Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT). Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting, in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote. RUSSIAN HAND SEEN Former economy minister Macron's campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, but that the perpetrators had failed to compromise any campaign data.The Kremlin has denied it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine. Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters his review indicates that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. He cited similarities with U.S. election hacks that have been previously attributed to that group. APT28 last month registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche, which it likely used send tainted emails to hack into the campaigns computers, Kremez said. Those domains include onedrive-en-marche.fr and mail-en-marche.fr."If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the U.S. presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome," Kremez said.France is the latest nation to see a major election overshadowed by accusations of manipulation through cyber hacking.U.S. intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of parties tied to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to influence the election on behalf of Republican rival Donald Trump. On Friday night as the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, tweeted "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?"Macron spokesman Sylvain Fort, in a response on Twitter, called Philippot's tweet "vile".En Marche! said the documents only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation".Ben Nimmo, a UK-based security researcher with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council think tank, said initial analysis indicated that a group of U.S. far-right online activists were behind early efforts to spread the documents via social media. They were later picked up and promoted by core social media supporters of Le Pen in France, Nimmo said.The leaks emerged on 4chan, a discussion forum popular with far right activists in the United States. An anonymous poster provided links to the documents on Pastebin, saying, "This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people." The hashtag #MacronLeaks was then spread by Jack Posobiec, a pro-Trump activist whose Twitter profile identifies him as Washington D.C. bureau chief of the far-right activist site Rebel TV, according to Nimmo and other analysts tracking the election. Contacted by Reuters, Posobiec said he had simply reposted what he saw on 4chan.You have a hashtag drive that started with the alt-right in the United States that has been picked up by some of Le Pens most dedicated and aggressive followers online, Nimmo told Reuters. Alt-right refers to a loose-knit group of far-right activists known for their advocacy of extremist ideas, rejection of mainstream conservatism and disruptive social media tactics. (Reporting by Eric Auchard in Frankfurt, Michel Rose and Bate Felix in Paris, Jim Finkle in Toronto; Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Sandra Maler/Nick Macfie/Alexander Smith) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Paris: The months of gruelling campaigning have polished her image. The driving ambition has been softened to widen her appeal to French voters. But Marine Le Pen has not lost the gritty, populist edge that speaks to the common man and the passion for her far-right cause as she heads into Sunday's presidential runoff election against centrist Emmanuel Macron. "I'm the candidate of the people," Le Pen said at a heated debate Wednesday night. "I'm the candidate of France as we love it," she added. "I am the candidate of the nation that protects that protects our jobs, that protects the security of our fellow citizens, our borders, protects us against unfair international competition and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism." Le Pen's authoritarian bent and propensity for sarcasm mostly have been hidden under layers of practiced composure. She contends her bold ambition is guided only by her love of "eternal France." "I was never fascinated by power," she said in a recent interview on state-run television. Power, she said, "is a tool ... not an end in itself." If elected, it is the people who will have power, Le Pen said, adding that she would be their proxy. At her final rally Thursday night in a Picardy village, she sought to embody those suffering in France, saying she "was the widow of the farmer who killed himself because he couldn't take it anymore," and the taxi driver losing money to "uberization." The 48-year-old mother of three portrays herself as the guardian of a disabused France, where citizens are losing their culture to an encroaching Islam, their identity to "massive immigration" and their sovereignty to the European Union. As president, she said she plans to open the way to referendums initiated by citizens, to quickly regain control of the country's borders and bring back the French franc, and to create a "battle plan against Islamic terrorism." At rallies or in interviews, Le Pen evokes only victory, saying, "When I am president ..." Her far-right values were forged at home. Born Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen in 1968 in a western Paris suburb, the far-right leader was weaned on family dramas. She is the youngest of three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the firebrand politician who co-founded the National Front party. She says she was "raised on honey and the acid of politics," a reference to her privileged life and the weight of her larger-than-life father and his populism. "To be the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen was not always easy," she said in a recent interview on the BFM TV station. But to be his daughter was to follow in his footsteps, she suggested, calling politics "the virus one has within." The French media relished recounting the divorce of her parents in her teen years. In a reflection of that bitter separation, her mother, Pierrette Lalanne, posed for Playboy in 1987, partly dressed in a maid's costume. The magazine quoted her as saying she was responding to her husband's Playboy interview in which he said she could become a housekeeper if she needed money. For years, Marine Le Pen had no relations with her mother, but today "there is lots of love between Mama and me," she said. Le Pen has led her father's party since 2011, and four years later expelled him when he refused to halt the anti-Semitic provocations that were undermining her bid to make the National Front an acceptable political alternative and hurting her dream of becoming president. The anti-establishment Le Pen used local, regional and European elections to build a party machine to serve her ambitions. The lawyer-turned politician ran unsuccessfully for president in 2012. Two years later, the National Front won 11 towns in municipal elections, and her party performed better than any in France in elections for the European Parliament, where she co-presides over a far-right group. She has been a European lawmaker since 2004. Since 2010, she has served as a regional councilor for northern France, a hardscrabble land where she feels at home. Twice divorced, Marine Le Pen shuns public appearances with her long-time companion, Louis Aliot, a National Front vice president who lives in far-away Perpignan and has said he would not become "first man" if she wins. Le Pen is nothing if not loyal. Old friends from her Parisian law school days members of a radical student group known for violence and anti-Semitism hold key roles in her inner circle and are at the center of an alleged party financing scheme. The case raises questions about Le Pen as she balances radical forces in the party with people she has won over from the mainstream left and right. Le Pen has a soft touch that appeals to voters once too timid to vote for the extreme right but her steely resolve and sharp tongue can be just as cutting as her father's. At Wednesday's debate, Le Pen portrayed Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, as an elitist candidate of the system she rejects. She said his meeting with Angela Merkel was to "seek the benediction" of the German chancellor. "Either way," she said, "France will be led by a woman; either me or Madame Merkel." But there were times in the insult-filled debate that the usually unflappable Le Pen appeared vulnerable. Macron said Le Pen stirred up the hatred and the anger of voters the way her father did, calling her "the high priestess of fear." "That's what sustains you. That's what sustained your father for decades. That's what nourished the extreme right and that is what created you," Macron said. "You are its parasite." Le Pen retorted: "What class!" Paris: Emmanuel Macron, the centrist, pro-Europe candidate has widened his lead on his right-wing, populist rival Marine Le Pen ahead of Sundays presidential vote in France, in what is essentially his election to lose. After Wednesday nights televised debate, in which Le Pen came off looking ill-prepared and insubstantial, Macron was widely declared as the winner. Macron leads the En Marche party, to Le Pens Front National; and both reached the second round following the first round of voting in April. Left-leaning Liberation newspaper described on Friday her crash which featured caricature and logorrhea. Le Monde declared in no uncertain terms on Friday night that Macron was in a strong position. Earlier in the week, one headline had already said, Neither Marine, Nor Le Pen. A swathe of important political leaders from different parties on the left and right including former rivals have already pledged their support to Macron, seeing in him the only possible, sane choice for France and Europe more broadly. Polls have shown him winning the election, taking 60 to 63 percent of the vote. I am quite confident regarding the results of the coming Sunday, said Laurence Parisot, former president of a federation of French private companies and former head of IFOP, a major polling organisation, to a group of foreign journalists. And all indicators seem to be clear about our victory. I am confident he will be voted with more than 60 percent of the vote. The French polls are rather reliable. Responding to a question from Firstpost on the fact that pollsters had got both Brexit and Donald Trumps victory wrong, she said, At polling, we are the best in the world." French polls were indeed accurate in their predictions of the first round. With Macrons wide support base amongst young people and with minority groups, including Muslims and Jews expected to vote for him, given the Front Nationals record of xenophobia, anti-semitism and Islamophobia, a Le Pen victory is being seen as very unlikely. Hopes are being pinned on Macron to usher in drastic change on various fronts; bring down unemployment, usher in reforms and make the European project more meaningful. It is clear that we are not going to put our problems behind overnight, said Parisot. [But] he is a specialist in the economy and has perfect command of macro and micro economic issues, she continued. I am also convinced that his European commitment is profound and sincere to advance Europe and the social and economic reform we badly need. As right wing populism has grown across Europe, as the refugee crisis shows no signs of abating and terror remains an omnipresent threat, the European project has itself come under doubt. As one of the pillars of the EU, the French election will have profound political and economic repercussions across the continent and is being watched closely throughout the region. Macron is for remaining in the European Union, unlike his rival, Le Pen, who has said she believes France should leave the Union and the currency and return to the franc. But popular support for a French withdrawal from the EU is far less than the populist sentiment that won the Brexit referendum last year. People are attached to Europe and the stability, said Jean-Dominique Giuliani, president of the Robert Schuman Foundation, a research and study centre on Europe. They dont want to leave, but they have greater expectations from it. On Thursday afternoon, former American president Barack Obama put out a video message endorsing Macron as he appealed to peoples hopes and not their fears. A member of Macrons team said this could help sway undecided voters still unsure of whether he was too much of a greenhorn for the job. But I dont think it will change the minds of Le Pen voters, aid the associate. Macron, who founded his party En Marche a year ago, was previously a minister for economy in the government of incumbent Francois Holland. He has never, however, held elected office. Still, he has tried to project himself outside the right-left political binary, and has won a swathe of young supporters energised by a fresh face and the positive political disruption he represents. It is a blessing that he exists, said Noelle Lenoir, a former minister for European Affairs. This country is in great danger and Europe is as well. Lenoir and other ministers of foreign affairs and European affairs published a newspaper editorial in Oest France newspaper on Thursday urging voters to choose Macron by painting the differences between their two candidates; one as a forward-looking reformist, another as a nativist bigot. It is because the candidate of the Front National does not incarnate eternal France and jeopardises Europe that we, former ministers of foreign affairs and European affairs, solemnly ask the French to vote for Emmanuel Macron, to refuse a nationalism that wants to build a wall between France and the rest of the world, and to make the best of the greatness of France and of Europe, of France of our heart in a strong and solidary Europe! it said. The big guns are pulling out all the stops until the very end to ensure a Macron victory. A large gathering of leaders from across party lines, including the prime minister of the current government Manuel Valls, gathered in Paris on Friday night to re-emphasise their opposition to Le Pen and to push for a high voter turn-out. The last-minute gathering was especially to urge people not to waste their vote by abstaining or casting a blank vote. He must be elected by all those who believe in France, said Pierre Moscovici, a former French minister and current European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs. Marine Le Pen is a violent, xenophobic, protectionist candidate who would weaken France. This is why we should mobilise until the end to tell everyone it is in their interest to vote. BEIRUT The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces clashed with rebels in the northwestern Syrian province of Hama, shortly after a Russian-led deal to create de-escalation zones took effect on Friday. The Britain-based war monitoring group said the warring sides exchanged shelling and were fighting in a rebel-held village and nearby areas of the Hama countryside. The Russian defence ministry had said the deal would come into force at midnight, with the first and largest zone including Idlib province and adjoining districts of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia. (Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Chris Reese) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. LONDON Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi met Britain's Queen Elizabeth for lunch on Friday at Buckingham Palace.Nobel laureate Suu Kyi - who serves as Myanmar's foreign minister while also being de facto head of its civilian government - later met Prince Charles, heir to the throne, and his wife Camilla. Prince William, Charles's elder son, attended the queen's lunch with Suu Kyi, the palace said. Suu Kyi, who took power in April 2016 as part of a transition from military rule, has denied ethnic cleansing in the Muslim-majority Rakhine region. Attacks on Myanmar border guard posts in October last year by a previously unknown insurgent group ignited the biggest crisis so far for Suu Kyi, with more than 75,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh in the ensuing army crackdown. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Stephen Addison) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Mica Rosenberg and Dan Levine | NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO Legal challenges to President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries heat up again next week when two U.S. appeals courts consider whether it is constitutional.The legal fights may end up at the U.S. Supreme Court perhaps in the fall, many months after Trump first issued an executive order in January saying there was an urgent need to halt some immigration to the United States for 90 days while officials reviewed the visa process. Trump dropped the original travel order after unfavourable legal rulings and replaced it with a more limited ban which is itself now being challenged in appeals courts on two coasts.Arguing that the United States needed to tighten national security measures, Trump's attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office. The fate of the ban is one indication of whether the Republican can carry out his promises to be tough on immigration and national security.Omar Jadwat, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be arguing the case at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on Monday, said the fact that so much time has passed since the ban was issued is proof that there was no pressing national security need for it in the first place.The court fight will give those challenging the order an opportunity to argue that the government never intended for the travel pause to be temporary, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Palo Alto, California whose firm has been closely tracking the ongoing litigation. Now almost 100 days after the original travel ban, the government says the period of 90 days was reset when the administration issued the new order in March.The Department of Homeland Security "is, and will be, continuously examining ways to enhance the screening and vetting process to shut down terrorist and criminal pathways into the United States," agency spokesman David Lapan said. "Some improvements will be classified, others will be public, but the Department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system," he said in an email.Opponents - including states and civil rights groups - say that both the first ban and the revised ban, which also put a halt to all refugee admissions to the country for four months, discriminates against Muslims. The government argues the text of the order does not mention any specific religion and is needed to protect the country against attacks. COURT HEARING The 4th Circuit will decide the fate of a ruling from a Maryland district judge that struck down a section of the revised executive order barring visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. The hearing will take place before 14 full-time judges of the appellate court. Ten of them were appointed by Democrats, and four by Republicans. Then, on March 15, a three-judge panel at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review a decision from a Hawaii judge that halted not just the travel portion of the ban but also the section that barred refugees. The judges who will sit on a panel in Seattle - have been assigned but their identities have not been made public.The 9th Circuit blocked Trump's first ban in February, in a unanimous vote by one Republican-appointed judge and two-Democratic appointees. Trump lashed out at the ruling on Twitter and said he is ready for a fight at the Supreme Court.The nation's highest court is more likely to hear a case if the federal appeals courts reach opposite rulings or if the issue is of great national importance, according to legal experts. But the Supreme Court's session ends in June, and if it take the case it would probably not be heard until after the justices return in October. (Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Alistair Bell) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Fatih Karimov Trend: Iran plans to export kilka (Clupeonella) to Russia during the current fiscal year(started March 20, 2017), Mokhtar Akhoundi, an official with Irans Fisheries Organization, said. The country is already exporting kilka, caught from Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan, Akhoundi said, MANA news agency reported May 6. Over 90 percent of fished kilka is sold at a very low price and used domestically for producing fish powder, he said. Irans Fisheries Organization tries to increase the share of kilka in Iranians food basket, Akhoundi said, adding studies are underway in this regard. Iranian fishermen caught 21,160 tons of kilka from Caspian Sea during the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017), 5 percent more year-on-year, he said. Some 15,050 tons of kilka were fished in Mazandaran province waters (10 percent increase), while fishermen in Gilan province caught about 6,110 tons of kilka (a 6-percent yearly decrease) during the 12-month period, Akhoundi said. Currently, 71 Iranian fishing boats fish kilka along the Caspian Sea coastline, he added. Irans fishery output stood at 460,000 tons in the last fiscal year. About 200,000 Iranians are active in about 70,000 aquaculture and fishing centers. Per capita fish consumption in Iran is 10 kilograms, below the global average of 20 kilograms. Insurance company State Farm says it plans to close its Tulsa operations center in 2019. The Tulsa World Reports that spokesman Justin Tomczak said Thursday that the company will be moving 530 Tulsa-area jobs out of state. The Tulsa operations center has been open since 1989. It handles claims and underwriting functions. The company says employees will have opportunities at other locations, but city officials hope the displaced skilled workers will stay in Tulsa. Tulsa's unemployment rate has begun to decline following a statewide recession brought on by low energy prices. State Farm is closing 11 operations centers across the country that will affect about 4,200 employees. The company says it is trying to be more efficient by concentrating employees in larger locations. ___ Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com For a majority of retired Americans, Social Security provides a financial foundation that allows them to meet their monthly expenses. The average retired worker was bringing home $1,365.35 a month as of the March 2017 snapshot from the Social Security Administration, enough to account for at least half of all monthly income for three out of five seniors currently receiving benefits. Seniors' reliance on Social Security makes the fact that the program is in imminent danger all the more worrisome. According to the Social Security Board of Trustees' 2016 report, Social Security will begin paying out more in benefits than it's generating in revenue by 2020, leading to the complete exhaustion of its more than $2.8 trillion in excess cash by the year 2034. Though America's most important social program won't be insolvent, the current payout structure will need a major overhaul, which could lead to across-the-board payout cuts of up to 21%. Image source: Getty Images. A number of theories on why Social Security is in trouble A lot of you might be wondering how Social Security got into this mess. There have been a number of valid theories proposed over the years. Some blame the baby boomers. The surge in baby births following the end of World War II simply couldn't have been foreseen by Social Security's architects in the mid-1930s. As baby boomers hit retirement age and begin exiting the workforce, there simply won't be enough new workers, or payroll tax revenue generated by these new workers, to sustain the current payout structure. In the span of two decades the worker-to-beneficiary ratio is expected to fall from 2.8-to-1 to 2.1-to-1. Others put the blame on Social Security's exceptionally cautious investment strategy with its spare cash. This excess capital is invested in special issue bonds and, more rarely, certificates of indebtedness. Like any interest-bearing asset, the yields on these special bonds are at the mercy of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. With bonds in essentially a three-decade bull market, and yields having an inverse relationship with bond prices, the yields (and therefore return) on Social Security's spare cash have dwindled. Lengthening life expectancies have also been a common point of blame. Life expectancies have risen by approximately nine years since the mid-1960s, which means retirees have been able to draw benefits from Social Security for longer periods of time. This rapid improvement in life expectancy is also something Social Security's architects never foresaw. Image source: Getty Images. Even the saving habits of Americans can be blamed. A recent study from GoBankingRates found that 69% of Americans had $1,000 or less in their savings accounts, and St. Louis Federal Reserve data from February shows that the personal saving rate in the U.S. is a meager 5.6%. Long story short, poor saving habits have pushed retirees to be exceptionally reliant on Social Security, thus weighing on the program. The rich may be the problem But what if these aren't the real issues at all? What if, instead, the wealthy are to blame for Social Security's projected $11.4 trillion budgetary shortfall? In a working paper published in the National Bureau of Economic Research last month entitled "How the Growing Age Gap in Life Expectancy May Affect Retirement Benefits and Reforms," the 13 contributing researchers examined the impact that wealth inequality may be having on Social Security and came to a shocking conclusion. The researchers examined the mid-career earnings history (ages 41-51) of a group of men in 1980 and 2010 to correlate how long they would live based on their income. In 1980, the bottom 20% of income earners lived to an average of 76.6 years, while the wealthiest 20% lived to be 81.7 years old -- a difference of 5.1 years. Image source: Getty Images. However, by 2010, the bottom 20% had seen their life expectancies fall half a year to 76.1 years, while the top 20% of income-earners gained more than seven years to 88.8 years. In just 30 years the gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor has swelled to 12.7 years. Even though women's income was not examined, the researchers said with confidence that the data would be similar, if not show an even wider gap. Since the wealthy earn more throughout their lifetimes, they'll be entitled to larger monthly payouts during retirement from Social Security than lower-income workers. The rich are also living more than a decade longer at this higher payout, which may be swamping Social Security. The reasons behind this widening life-expectancy gap are highly debatable, but it's likely that the wealthy's access to medical care (since paying for medical care isn't a financial burden for the rich) is playing a key role. Even with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, affording healthcare can still be a struggle for low- and middle-income Americans. Something for Congress to consider The widening income gap, and thus life expectancy gap, is something that Congress may need to give strong consideration to when looking at ways to fix Social Security. Remember, we're down to 17 years before Social Security's excess cash is completely gone. Image source: Getty Images. Solutions haven't been a problem. In fact, Democrats and Republicans have a smorgasbord of Social Security fixes that would absolutely work based on actuarial data. But therein lies the problem. Both parties have workable fixes for Social Security, and neither wants to back down and consider the other party's proposal. Any long-term Social Security fix is probably going to need to meet in the middle and include a core solution from the Democrats and Republicans. Republicans have long favored gradually increasing the full retirement age, or the age at which the Social Security Administration deems a person eligible to receive 100% of their monthly benefit. Increasing the full retirement age would properly reflect growing longevity. At the same time, it's pretty clear from the working paper data that the rich are living longer than ever and reaping those rewards from Social Security (and Medicare, for that matter). Democrats would like the ability to tinker with the maximum taxable earnings aspect of the payroll tax and ensure that the rich pay more into Social Security. Considering this life expectancy gap, a higher tax rate would make sense. With the clock ticking, the time has come for Congress to act. The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after.Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The National Front party of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen complained to election authorities that voters in several regions received torn facsimile ballot papers bearing her name in a pre-election information package. Such packages are sent to all French voters in the run-up to elections, detailing party manifestos and containing mock-up ballot papers for each candidate marked with their names. In Sunday run-off, widely portrayed as France's most important election in decade, Le Pen faces independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, the clear favorite. The two have radically different views of Europe and France's place in the world. "Several citizens received the electoral information and the two ballot papers of the candidates for the presidential election. That of our candidate was systematically torn and that of our opponent, Mr. Macron was intact," David Rachline, Le Pen's campaign director, said in a statement. Rachline named seven administrative districts in which irregularities has been reported. Rachline added that some mayors had written to constituents with voting instructions using official stationary, which was also against the electoral code. "The multiplication of these deeply anti-democratic acts constitutes a serious attack on the functioning of our republic," Rachline said. The electoral commission said in a statement it had asked the interior ministry to ensure the incidents if true should not impact the outcome of the vote. (This version of the story corrects to clarify what election commission said in paragraph) (Reporting by Bate Felix and Yann Le Guernigou; editing by John Stonestreet) Republicans will likely need a political convergence in 2018 to keep retiring Rep. Illena Ros-Lehtinens Miami-centric House seat, among the most liberal in the country. Hillary Clinton won the district last year by more than 20 percentage points, after it was redrawn recently to lean Democrat and which is composed largely of Cubans and other Latinos who increasingly vote Democrat. To hold the seat, the GOP must at least find and support a candidate as moderate as Ros-Lehtinen, the first congressional Republican to support gay marriage and who didnt back Donald Trumps presidential campaign. However, finding a replacement with nearly as much standing among voters in such a heavily Democratic district will be challenge. Ros-Lehtinen also came to the U.S. from Cuba as a child to flee the Castro regime, was the first Cuban-American elected to Congress and the first female to leader the powerful House Foreign Relations Committee. The 64-year-old congresswoman, in announcing her retirement Sunday to the Miami Herald, said its time for her to take a new step after 28 years in Congress. And she disagreed with talk about losing in 2018, after spending more than $3 million last year against a first-time candidate and winning by 10 percentage points, her smallest margin in year. I would not only win in this election, but I would win by a greater percentage, Ros-Lehtinen said. However, Washington Democrats say Ros-Lehtinen saw the handwriting on the wall, amid increasing talk of a wave election next year in which they retake control of the House. It's been clear for years that the Republican Party was out of step with the values of Miami families. And Ileana Ros-Lehtinens retirement announcement is testament to the fact she recognized how wide that gap had grown, said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Cole Leiter. This district was always going to be competitive. Now it is all but guaranteed to be won by a Democrat. Ben Tulchin, pollster for Bernie Sanders 2016 Democratic presidential campaign and president of Tulchin Research, attributed Ros-Lehtinens roughly three decades in Congress to her ground-break political career and deep ties to district voters. But he also thinks the district has a changing population -- which will give Democrats a win in 2018 even with two essentially equal or generic candidates and perhaps spark a wave election. A generic Republican with no name recognition would get wiped out, Tulchin told Fox News on Thursday. You need lots of things to break your way to get a wave election, and this is one of them. He says two key factors in the 2018 race are more non-Cuban Latinos, including Brazilians, who are more moderate, and the second-generation of Cuban immigrants, who are less bitter about Castro and much more sanguine about issues including the easing of economic and travel restrictions with Cuba. Other factors that Democrats think could spark a wave election are Trumps unpopularity among a sizable part of the voting population and House Republicans passing a bill Thursday to replace ObamaCare. House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., disagreed Saturday. I think this might actually gain seats because people didnt like ObamaCare, he told Fox News Fox & Friends. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Stivers, Ohio, called Ros-Lehtinen a force of nature and said, I am confident we will keep this seat red in 2018. Ros-Lehtinens office did not return requests of comments. A sizeable number of Democrats and Republicans have expressed interest in the seat. Nearly a dozen names have been mentioned as possible candidates in Democrats bid to gain 24 seats and control the House -- including Democrat Scott Furman, who narrowly lost last year to Ros-Lehtinen, and Rene Garcia, a Republican state senator and former Ros-Lehtinen intern. Garcias office did not return requests for comments. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 6 By Khalid Kazimov Trend: A senior Iranian official has said that ties between his country and Germany have improved over the past years. Head of the Strategic Research Center of Iran's Expediency Council Ali Akbar Velayati has said the number of recent meetings between the officials of the two countries indicate the expansion of ties, IRNA news agency reported. Speaking at a meeting in Tehran with Secretary of State at the German Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs Markus Ederer, Velayati said that Iran attaches importance for expansion of ties with Germany and the two countries have had relations for a long time. In turn, the German official said that meetings between Iranian and German officials could push forward the implementation Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA aka nuclear deal). Iran and the world powers in 2015 reached the historic deal on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, removing sanctions in exchange for curbing Tehrans nuclear program. Germany was among the main exporters of good to the Islamic Republic over the last Iranian calendar year (starting March 20) as the European nation exported more than $2.17 billion of goods to Iran. Reuters earlier reported that trade between Germany and Iran was worth 2.9 billion euros in 2016, up from 2.4 billion euros in 2015. The Trump administration is moving swiftly on an order by President Trump just days ago to review millions of acres of land under government protection, announcing a list Friday of 27 designated national monuments whose protected status could be curtailed or eliminated. The list was released by the Interior Department, charged by Trump just nine days earlier through an executive order to review the land designated by presidents over the past 20 years, in what Trump has called a massive federal land grab" that "should never have happened." The list is composed of 22 monuments on federal land in 11 mostly Western states, including the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Nevada's Basin and Range, and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine. The other five on the list are marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, including a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 by President George W. Bush and expanded last year by President Barack Obama. Bush, Obama and Bill Clinton were among a host of presidents who protected hundreds of millions of acres under a 1906 law that authorizes the president to declare federal lands and waters as monuments and restrict their use. Trump when signing the executive order criticized the former presidents of abusing the system and vowed to return such authority to citizens and state lawmakers Today, we are giving power back to the states and people where it belongs, he said. Trump accused Obama in particular of exploiting the 1906 Antiquities Act in an "egregious abuse of federal power." In December, shortly before leaving office, Obama infuriated Utah Republicans by creating the Bears Ears National Monument on 1.35 million acres of land that's sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. Republicans in the state asked Trump to take the unusual step of reversing Obama's decision. They said the monument designation will stymie growth by closing the area to new commercial and energy development. The Antiquities Act does not give the president explicit power to undo a designation and no president has ever taken such a step. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah was created by Clinton in 1996. And Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, created last year by Obama. At 87,500 acres, Katahdin is the only one of the 22 monuments under review that is smaller than 100,000 acres, the minimum size designated by the order. The Interior Department said Katahdin will be reviewed under a provision that singles out whether a monument was created or expanded without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders. The land east of Maine's Baxter State Park was bought by Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby, whose foundation donated it to the federal government. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been directed to produce an interim report next month and make a recommendation on Bears Ears, and then issue a final report within 120 days. Zinke, who will visit Bears Ears and Grand Staircase early this coming week, said the department, for the first time, is seeking public comments on national monument designations. Public comment is not required when presidents create monuments under the Antiquities Act. The request for comments "finally gives a voice to local communities and states when it comes to Antiquities Act monument designations," Zinke said in a statement. "There is no predetermined outcome on any monument." The order has already sparked a sharp response from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups that are concerned about any possible changes ending the protections and allowing use of the land for oil or gas drilling. Americas parks and public lands are not in need of corporate restructuring, the Sierra Club said. We should not be asking which parts of our history and heritage we can eliminate, but instead how we can make our outdoors reflect the full American story. Members of a coalition of five Western tribes that pushed for the Bears Ears designation have said they're outraged the administration will review a decision they say was already scrutinized by the Obama administration, including a multi-day visit last year by then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "Once it's designated, it's designated," said Davis Filfred of the Navajo Nation. He's disregarding the Native Americans, the first people of this nation. This is sacred land." The 111-year-old Antiquities Act grants presidents the authority to create national monuments from federal land to protect its historic, cultural and scientific significance, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld such changes. However, Congress has twice limited presidential powers under the act, requiring congressional consent on some future proclamations. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Top elected Democrats are taking their opposition to the ObamaCare overhaul plan passed by House Republican to the extreme -- arguing Americans will die as a result of the changes. Families will go bankrupt. People will die, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted on Thursday after the House passed the measure and moved the issue to the Senate, which Republicans also control. Democrats argue the House GOP changes will in fact make the problematic 2010 health care law worse -- specifically by creating higher costs for customers with preexisting medical conditions and with cuts to Medicaid expansion, resulting in tens of millions of people no longer being able to afford insurance. This isnt football. Its not about scoring points. #AHCA will devastate Americans healthcare. Families will go bankrupt. People will die. Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 4, 2017 House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox & Friends on Saturday that those with preexisting conditions wont lose their coverage or have to pay more. Whatever health care plan you have today, If you have a preexisting condition, you can never be denied coverage, he said. And you can never be charged a dime more, not any more than anybody else in that plan. Thats maintained and cannot be waivered by a state." No House Democrat voted in favor of the measure, which President Trump supports. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., argued Thursday on the House floor before the vote that tens of thousands of Americans will die if this bill passes." That's a fact," he also said. Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who like Warren is considered a top 2016 presidential hopeful, told CNN: "People will die if this becomes the law of the land." Airline information technology company SITA released its annual report on airline baggage handling on Thursday, revealing that fewer than 6 bags per 1,000 passengers were mishandled last year. That's down 12.5 percent year over year. However, the chances that your bags will be misplaced are higher if youre making a connection: SITA reports that 47 percent of delayed bags were in the process of being transferred. Airlines are getting smarter about baggage handling, though, and relying on technology to help them improve. In fact, airlines are now 70 percent less likely to lose our bags than they were 10 years ago. It is frustrating for passengers and airlines when bags go missing but the days of not knowing where your bag is will soon to be a thing of the past, said Ilya Gutlin, SITA president, air travel solutions. We are on the brink of a new era in airline baggage management because the worlds airlines are committing to track baggage throughout its journey. SITA expects airlines will lose even fewer bags in 2017, as they near the June 2018 deadline for the International Air Transport Associations (IATA) baggage tracking Resolution 753. This requires data capture, management and sharing across airlines, airports and ground handlers giving a better view of where each piece of luggage is at every stage, Gutlin said. Qatar Airways became the first airline in the world to comply with the resolution last month, over a year ahead of schedule. The airline lets customers track their checked bags through the Track My Bags feature on its website and mobile app. And Delta Air Lines invested $50 million dollars last year to install an RFID tag baggage-tracking system which keeps tabs on your trunks, duffels and rollers from the check-in desk to the baggage claim. Better baggage handling is not just about keeping passengers happy. Lost luggage cost airlines around the world $2.1 billion in 2016, according to SITA. And airlines want to ensure passengers are confident when checking their bags, because baggage fees are a big boost for profits. In 2016, U.S. airlines collected almost $4.2 billion in baggage fees. The biggest earner was American Airlines, earning just over $1.1 billion in baggage fees. Delta Air Lines came in second with $872 million and United Airlines came in third with $690 million. Spirit Airlines earned the most of all other U.S. airlines, coming in fourth overall with $434 million in baggage fee revenue. With its bags fly free policy, Southwest is still the best value for those who dont want to carry-on. But pack light and keep your luggage within the size limits: The airline earned $43 million in fees for overweight and oversized bags last year. Since theyre earning so much for all our baggage, the least airlines can do is make sure they deliver them on time. A police officer has been shot at a Massachusetts motel and taken to a hospital. The Braintree Fire Department says the officer was shot Friday night at a Motel 6 in the city, just south of Boston. The officer's condition is unknown. Witnesses say they heard three gunshots. Many of the rooms at the two-floor motel have been evacuated. Police say they're dealing with an active situation and can't give out any details. The fire department says the situation at the motel is "still developing." The phone at the motel's front desk has been ringing unanswered. A missing North Carolina 15-year-old girl has been found safe, the Winston-Salem Journal reports. Cassidy Ann Bottoms, of Winston-Salem, was found Friday night in another town, the newspaper reported. She was with a man whom authorities had also been looking for. Chief Deputy Brad Stanley told the paper he didnt know about the circumstances of how Cassidy and the man, Joffey Lee Cutler, 20, were found. An AMBER Alert was canceled earlier Friday for Cassidy. Authorities feared she may have been abducted. She was the subject of a massive search after disappearing Wednesday. Deputies said at the time she may had been kidnapped by two men in their twenties in Winston-Salem, Fox Carolina reported. The Amber Alert identified the alleged abductors as Cutler and Deshawn Dante Townes, 24. Cassidy was last seen getting into a vehicle with the pair Wednesday night. They had pulled up to the girl as she was out walking with her sister, according to local media reports. Cassidy knew the two men. Townes contacted police late Thursday and will not face charges, the station reported. He said he and Cutler parted ways Wednesday night and hadnt the girl since then. The search for Cassidy included the FBI. A man who police say barricaded himself inside a motel room after shooting a Massachussetts officer in the face has been found dead. Officials said the shooter, who has not been identified, was found early Saturday morning after an hours-long standoff at a Motel 6 in Braintree, Fox 25 Boston reported. Braintree police said officers were at the motel late Friday night to check a persons warrant status when the person opened fire, hitting one officer. PROTESTER IN ICONIC DEMONSTRATION PHOTO FOUND DEAD Braintree Police Chief Paul Shastany said at a press conference early Saturday that the officer underwent surgery at a Boston hospital and is expected to survive. Fox 25 reported that the injured officer was able to speak while being transported to a Boston hospital for surgery. Witnesses say they heard at least three gunshots, possibly up to seven or eight. Many rooms at the motel have been evacuated. A nearby train station has been closed. JORDAN EDWARDS: TEXAS OFFICER WHO FACES MURDER CHARGE FREE ON BAIL Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan told Patch that the Motel 6 has been known for past issues. He called the situation frustrating. "We need to do a better job. There has been some history at the site and working with them I think we've taken some steps to upgrade the facility, but this is obviously a step back and we need to do something that is going to be more significant and hopefully more positive moving forward," Sullivan said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 A white Texas police officer is free on bond on a murder charge in the shooting of a black teenager who was inside a car leaving a party. Roy Oliver turned himself in Friday night just hours after an arrest warrant was issued. He was fired from the Balch Springs Police Department in suburban Dallas earlier this week. Oliver shot at a car full of teenagers leaving a party on April 29, killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. The Dallas County Sheriff's Office, which issued the warrant, said in a statement it was based on evidence that suggested Oliver "intended to cause bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death." A sheriff's spokeswoman says the investigation will continue despite the arrest. A man who authorities say barricaded himself in a Massachusetts motel room after shooting a police officer in the face has been found dead. The Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/2qNrlXZ ) reported that Braintree Police Chief Paul Shastany said at a press conference early Saturday that the officer underwent surgery at a Boston hospital and is expected to survive. Police said officers were at the Motel 6 in Braintree, just south of Boston, to check a person's warrant status Friday night when the person opened fire, hitting the officer. Witnesses said they heard at least three gunshots. Many rooms at the motel were evacuated and a nearby train station was closed. Shastany said officers later entered the room and found the suspect dead. Police had no further details later Saturday. ___ Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Prosecutors are dropping charges against two Hispanic teens accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a restroom at a suburban Washington high school, a case cited by the White House as an example of why the president wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy says the rape and sex offense charges were being dropped after a "painstaking investigation" of the girl's claim that the two teens raped her in the bathroom at Rockville High School. Defense attorneys said the sex was consensual. They pointed to text messages in which the girl agreed to a sexual encounter; an explicit video the girl sent one of the teens; and security camera footage, which they said shows the girl running to meet one of the teens and willingly entering the restroom with him. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 A request from Donald Trump's transition team stands out as an early warning about ties between the president-elect's choice for national security adviser, Mike Flynn, and a top Russian official. In late November, the Trump transition team asked national security officials in the Obama White House for the classified CIA profile on Russia's ambassador to the United States. The Obama officials say the Trump team member seemed concerned that Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. The Obama officials tell The Associated Press that they were startled by the request. To them it meant that a member of Trump's own team was suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary. Tehran, Iran, May 3 By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is slated to travel to Afghanistan May 7 heading a high-ranking political delegation. According to Bahram Ghasemi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, the visit comes at the official invitation of Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, ISNA news agency reported May 6. Besides his counterpart, Zarif is scheduled to hold talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, and a number of other senior officials. The grandmother of a 7-year-old boy who was killed in Kansas City, Kansas, in 2015 is pushing for tougher regulations of home schools in the state. Adrian Jones was supposed to be getting schooling at home from the father and stepmother who are now headed for prison for his death. Kansas does little to regulate home schools beyond requiring parents to register them. Grandmother Judy Conway has contacted legislators about his case and tougher rules for home schools. Some legislators want to discuss oversight of home schools. But that's a tough sell because of the GOP-controlled Legislature's wariness of stepping on parental rights or what goes on in homes. Conway said she's determined to make sure vulnerable children who are home schooled have some contact with people outside their homes. Parents seeking to adopt children in Texas could soon be rejected by public or private agencies with religious objections to them being Jewish, Muslim, gay, single, or interfaith couples. That's the potential effect of a bill set for passage Saturday in the state House. Five other states have approved similar laws protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children with gay parents or other households on religious grounds. But Texas' rule extends to state-funded agencies. Only South Dakota's is similar. Republican sponsors say Texas' bill supports the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers. Opponents argue it robs children of stable homes while funding discrimination with taxpayer dollars. It also lets child welfare organizations send LGBT kids to "conversion therapy" while denying them contraception and abortions. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 A California truck driver who brought large quantities of drugs into New Jersey is now headed to prison, while another has admitted his role in a similar plot. The two cases are among the latest to highlight the role that the country's interstate highway system plays in getting drugs from Mexico to urban centers. The trucks stopped on Interstate 78 are often headed to drug houses in New York to be repacked for sale on the street and the truckers return with cash, police say. Oscar Franco, 59, of Chula Vista, received a 10-year state prison sentence Friday. He had 36 kilograms (79 pounds) of heroin in his tractor-trailer when state police stopped the vehicle in Greenwich Township for a routine commercial inspection in August 2016. A trooper found significant irregularities in Franco's logbook and also noticed his travel itinerary included unexplained detours. The trooper eventually found two duffel bags in the truck containing the heroin. New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino said the heroin found in Franco's truck could have sold for more than $10 million on the street once it was cut and packaged. "Every time we put a heroin trafficker like Franco in prison, we cut off a major supply line for this lucrative criminal market and save lives that otherwise would fall victim to his poison," Porrino said. In a separate case, Los Angeles resident Henry Cruz Ventura pleaded guilty Friday to possessing heroin with the intent to distribute. Authorities say 64 kilograms of heroin (141 pounds) and 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of cocaine were found in his truck. Ventura, 40, was arrested in August 2016 after a trooper noticed he was acting suspiciously and also found irregularities with the tractor-trailer and its cargo. Troopers eventually found the drugs in four boxes that were inconsistent with the legitimate cargo listed in the shipping manifest. Ventura faces a 10-year state prison term when he's sentenced June 23. While only a fraction of the more than 2,000 truck stops done by the state police's mobile safe freight unit each year turn up drugs, law enforcement say it's a key part of cutting into the supply side of the state's drug epidemic that claimed more than 1,500 lives in 2015. The unit seized 160 kilograms (352 pounds) of heroin last year, more than six times as the previous four years combined, according to state police data. The unit also confiscated 27 kilograms (59 pounds) of cocaine and 1,054 pounds (478 kilograms) of pot. Police estimate the drugs' total value at more than $21 million. The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said it suffered a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack and document leak that it called a bid to destabilize Sunday's presidential runoff. Fears of hacking, fake news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized until late Friday's admission by Macron's campaign that it had suffered a coordinated online pirate attack had led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. It was unclear who was behind the hack and the leak. U.S. intelligence agencies said they have definitive evidence that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic email accounts, with the aim of benefiting Donald Trump's campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Putin has long denied such claims. On Tuesday, during a tense meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Russian president was forced to, again, deny reports of Russian meddling in international elections. Merkel said she was confident that Germany can weather any disinformation campaign targeting Germany's upcoming election. Asked about the threat during the news conference, she cited two recent incidents of what she described as "gross misinformation." Macrons far-right rival Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, told The Associated Press that she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in the high-stakes vote that could change Europe's direction. A campaign blackout starting minutes after the Macron team announcement means that Le Pen's campaign can't legally comment on the leak. In a statement, Macron's En Marche movement said the hack took place a few weeks ago, and that the leaked documents have been mixed with false documents to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize Sunday's presidential runoff. Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks, and also said that authentic documents were mixed with false documents. The timing of the leak could be seen as either bizarre or inspired. The documents' release just before France enters a roughly two-day-long blackout - during which politicians, journalists and even ordinary citizens are meant to pull back from any public election talk to avoid swaying the vote - means that the leak may have very little impact beyond the overheated world of Twitter and Reddit. On the other hand, the messages' release just before France's political machinery shuts down for the weekend might mean that talk of the leak - regardless of its veracity - will dominate dinner table conversations as French voters make up their minds Saturday. The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election. It's a stark choice: Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform, or Macron's progressive, pro-EU stance. Tensions marred the race right to the end. France's presidential voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot "systematically torn up." Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims. The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics as usual. In an interview with The Associated Press in the final hours of a hostile, topsy-turvy campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, "we changed everything." She claimed an "ideological victory" for her populist, anti-immigrant worldview. "Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born," she told AP in her campaign headquarters. Her party "imposed the overhaul" of French politics and set the tone of the election, she said. The 39-year-old Macron, too, played a key role in upending France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign. Voters liked the idea, and chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote, dumping the traditional left and right parties that have governed modern France. Le Pen said those parties have been "blackballed." Many voters, however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande. Students protested both presidential candidates Friday by blocking high schools and marching through Paris. Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers Friday at the Reims cathedral. She left via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself and diving into a black car. In the AP interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can bring the divided country together if elected. "Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place ... we must re-weave the links among people." She said. Macron would worsen divisions, she claimed. The pro-business Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first-round, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers. Violent protests erupted in Paris earlier this week against both candidates, with several police officers injured. And critics decried the bitter tone of Wednesday night's presidential debate. Le Pen acknowledged to AP that she became angry at the debate but said she was merely channeling the mood of France. Macron acknowledged the French are exasperated by the government's ineffectiveness, but he dismissed Le Pen's vision of an infuriated country. She "speaks for no one. ... Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred," Macron told RTL radio. The Associated Press contributed to this report Spain's defense ministry says a Spanish navy ship has rescued 651 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe. It said the frigate Canarias, participating in a joint EU mission, made the rescue early Saturday morning off the coast of Libya. The ministry says the rescue operation was carried out "in complete darkness" and that the migrants were from several different sub-Saharan countries. Canarias has saved 1,958 migrants in less than three months patrolling the Mediterranean. Hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea in smugglers' boats in hopes of a better life in Europe, but thousands die each year in those treacherous waters. Lawless Libya is one of their prime launching points. The top U.S. military officer General Joseph Dunford and Russias military chief of staff affirmed their commitment to avoid clashes in the crowded airspace over Syria, the Pentagon said Saturday. Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Valery Gerasimov chatted on the phone hours after a new Syria ceasefire plan creating de-escalation zones went into effect with the backing of Russia, Iran and NATO-ally Turkey. The two generals agreed to maintain their commitment to de-conflicting their respective military operations in the war-ravaged country, Dunford spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said in a brief statement. Dunford and Gerazimov also discussed the new ceasefire plan and both also agreed to maintain regular contact, Hicks said. Russia scrapped the 2015 airspace safety agreement after the Pentagon conducted a cruise missile strike in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assads deadly chemical attack in Syria's Idlib province last month. The establishment of de-escalation zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the Astana agreement and the Syrian rebels have not signed on to the deal. The U.S. military has conducted air strikes in the past in one of the proposed 'de-escalation' zones in Idlib, home to a group affiliated with the al-Qaeda terror group. The State Department expressed concern over the new ceasefire agreement because of Iran's involvement. "We continue to have concerns about the Astana agreement, including the involvement of Iran as a so-called 'guarantor'," the State Department said in a statement Thursday. "Iran's activities in Syria have only contributed to the violence, not stopped it." The Associated Press contributed to this report. President Trump could be asked next week to send more troops to Afghanistan as the 16-year war grinds on in a bloody stalemate. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan wants 3,000 more troops and Pentagon officials told Congress this week that the war plan recommendations being sent to Trump are aimed at moving beyond the stalemate with the ISIS-affiliated Taliban insurgency. Afghan soldiers are suffering what Pentagon auditors call "shockingly high" battlefield casualties, and prospects are narrowing for a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. The insurgents may have failed to capture and hold a major city, but they are controlling or influencing ever more territory. "The situation is deteriorating," said Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor and close Afghan war observer. HOW TERRORISTS FREELY ENTER AFGHANISTAN AND MOVE AROUND UNHINDERED This grim picture forms the backdrop for administration deliberations on a way ahead in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are supporting beleaguered Afghans against the Taliban insurgency and stepping up attacks on an extremist group considered an Islamic State affiliate. The three most recent U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were in combat last month against the IS affiliate, which also was the target of a much-publicized U.S. airstrike April 13 using the "mother of all bombs." Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has asked the Pentagon for 3,000 more U.S. and allied troops to bolster support for the Afghan army. But his request took a back seat to a broader administration review of Afghan policy and a push for NATO to contribute more troops. Both of those matters will be discussed at a NATO summit May 25. The U.S. says it has 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, one-quarter of which are for the counterterrorism mission. Biddle told the AP the Taliban have little incentive to negotiate a peace deal and "the battlefield trend is against it." Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Afghan forces aren't capable of securing the country. Unless Trump adopts "a far more decisive approach," security could collapse "either slowly and painfully over years or as a result of some shattering military defeat or critical political power struggle at the top that divides the security forces and the country," he said. Gen. Raymond Thomas, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told senators Thursday that beyond more troops, there could be changes in what the military calls "rules of engagement," laying out when force can be used. The U.S. combat role officially ended in December 2014. Thomas' troops operate separately, targeting al-Qaida and ISIS fighters. He says he has enough troops. Referring to the stalemate, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Thomas, If the present status quo prevails, then there's no end to it. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Turkey's state-run news agency says detention warrants have been issued for 23 judges and prosecutors who have been dismissed from their posts. Anadolu news agency said Saturday the warrants were issued for 17 judges and six prosecutors for "membership in an armed terror organization." They are suspected of being followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who the government says is behind the July 15 coup attempt. Gulen denies involvement in the coup. Two judges were detained while working. The suspects are among the 107 judges and prosecutors dismissed from public service Friday. Since the declaration of a state of emergency last summer, more than 4,200 judges and prosecutors have been dismissed, an estimated 100,000 sacked from other public posts and more than 47,000 people arrested. A State Department official on Friday said that the Russian proposal calling to bar U.S. military aircrafts from flying over designated safe zones cannot limit the U.S.s mission against ISIS in the country in any way. The coalition will continue to strike ISIS targets in Syria, the official told The Wall Street Journal. The campaign to defeat ISIS will continue at the same relentless pace as it is proceeding now. A deal hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held parts of Syria went into effect Saturday. The plan is the latest international attempt to reduce violence in the war-ravaged country, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. The plan, details of which will still be worked out over the next several weeks, went into effect at midnight Friday. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, two areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or "de-escalation zones" will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. In the tangled mess that constitutes Syria's battlefields, there is much that can go wrong with the plan, agreed on in talks Thursday in Kazakhstan. There is no clear mechanism to resolve conflict and violations like most other previous deals struck by backers of the warring sides. A potential complication to implementing the plan is the crowded airspace over Syria. The deal calls for all aircraft to be banned from flying over the safe zones. Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operate in different, sometimes same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flightpaths of U.S.-led coalition warplanes battling Islamic State militants and other radical groups and whether the American air force would abide by a diminished air space. Russia and Iran two of the plan's three sponsors are key allies of President Bashar Assad's government and both are viewed as foreign occupation forces by his opponents. Rebels fighting to topple Assad are enraged by Iran's role in the deal and blame the Shiite power for fueling the sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, now in its seventh year. Turkey, the third sponsor, is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria, drawing the ire of Assad and his government. Yet troops from the three countries are now expected to secure four safe zones. An official with Russia's military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Russian Col.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told reporters on Friday personnel and formations from Russia, Iran and Turkey will operate checkpoints and observation posts. He said "security belts" will be created along the borders of the "de-escalation zones" to prevent incidents and fighting between opposing sides. The checkpoints and observation posts will ensure free movement of unarmed civilians and humanitarian aid and will facilitate economic activities, he said. Rebels have expressed concerns the deal is a prelude to a de facto partitioning of Syria into spheres of influence. Osama Abo Zayd, a spokesman for the Syrian military factions at the Kazakhstan talks, told The Associated Press it was "incomprehensible" for Iran to act as a guarantor of the deal. A cease-fire is unsustainable in the presence of the Iranian-backed militias in Syria, he said. "We can't imagine Iran playing a role of peace," Abo Zayd said. The U.S. sent a senior White House official to the Kazakh capital of Astana, where representatives of Russia, Turkey and Iran signed the deal, but had no role in the deal. The idea of armed monitors is a new element observers deployed in the early years of the Syrian conflict, including U.N. and Arab League observers, were unarmed. But it's difficult to imagine how many boots on the ground would be needed to monitor the yet to be mapped areas or how and where exactly Russian, Iranian and Turkish troops would patrol. "If that happens, we would be looking at a more serious effort than anything in the past," Aron Lund, a Syria expert wrote in an article Friday. Lund said that from the outside, the agreement "does not look like it has great chances of success" and seems to "lack a clear mechanism to resolve conflicting claims and interpretations." Late Friday, a Syrian opposition coalition, the High Negotiations Committee, denounced the deal in a strongly worded statement. The Western, Saudi-backed HNC said the deal lacks legitimacy and seeks to divide the country. The HNC also said the deal was an attempt to give Syrian government troops military victories they could not achieve on the battleground by neutralizing rebel-held areas. It called on the U.S. and other Arab allied countries, to prevent the implementation of the deal. A rebel commander in northern Hama said nearly an hour after the deal went into effect, battles raged with government forces. The area, south of Latamneh, is expected to be part of the deal. Jamil al-Saleh, the commander, said government shelling was intense amid an attempt to advance in the area, scene to fierce battles for weeks. "What deal?" he scoffed. A previous cease-fire agreement signed in Astana on Dec. 30 helped reduce overall violence in Syria for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a cease-fire in Syria have all ended in failure. The "de-escalation zones" will be closed to military aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition, the Russian official who signed the agreement, Alexander Lavrentye, said Friday. Under the plan, Assad's air force and presumably Russian, too would also halt flights over those areas. In rebel-held Idlib, a protest was held Friday against the plan, denounced as a plot to "divide Syria." "Any person or state who enters this land to divide it is the enemy of the Syrian people" activist Abed al-Basset Sarout told the crowd. Some refugees were skeptical. Ahmad Rabah, a Syrian refugee from Homs now in Lebanon, said he did not trust Assad's forces and going back to so-called safe zones would be tantamount to living in a "big prison." The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. "The coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary," said Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway. ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Sunni militant group. Rudskoi also suggested that Syrian government forces, freed up as a result of the safe areas, could be rerouted to fight against IS in the central and eastern part of Syria. Another question left unanswered is how the deal would affect U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Qaida's positions in Syria. U.S. warplanes have frequently struck the al-Qaida affiliate in the northern Idlib province, where the militant group dominates. But under Thursday's deal, the entire province is designated to be one of the four "de-escalation zones." Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that if implemented the deal will allow for the separation of the opposition from IS fighters and those of the al-Qaida affiliate. He did not elaborate. Syria's government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting "terrorism" wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The Associated Press contributed to this report Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed de-escalation in Syria in the light of the results of talks in the Kazakh capital city of Astana, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday after their telephone conversation, TASS reported. "The focus was made on the topic of the Syrian settlement," the ministry said. "In the light of the results of the international meeting on Syria in Astana on May 3-4, the two top diplomats discussed the tasks of deescalating the situation in that country, ensuring sustainability of the ceasefire, building up anti-terror efforts and enlivening external support to the intra-Syrian negotiating process." "The sides also discussed a number of other regional problems and issues of the bilateral agenda. The two top diplomats agreed to continue Russian-US contacts," the ministry noted. New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone. FREDERICKSBURG First Christian Church, 1501 Washington Ave., will hold an 11 a.m. worship service Sunday following all-ages Sunday school at 10 a.m. On Wednesdays the church offers Drive-Thru Prayer and Dial-A-Prayer from 6-7 p.m. The Drive-Thru Prayer is held under the carport in the parking lot. To reach Dial-A-Prayer, call 540/373-7716. 1stchristianchurchfredva.org. Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site), 525 Princess Anne St. The Mens Ministry will host a Health Awareness Day on May 13 at 9 a.m. 540/371-1153. SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY Craigs Baptist Church, 14123 W. Catharpin Road, holds its AWANA program every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The church is accepting early bird applications for vendors and crafters for the Oct. 7 Harvest Festival/Craft Show. 540/854-5284; churchbaptistchurch.org. First New Hope Baptist Church, 4508 Dickerson Road, Partlow, will change to summer hours for Sunday morning worship services beginning Sunday at 10 a.m. Minister Earl Marshall of Union Baptist Church, Beaverdam, will be the guest preacher. Goshen Baptist Church, 9800 Gordon Road, holds meeting on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month for American Heritage Girls or Trail Life. 540/786-7500. Holy Mount Zion Temple Of Deliverance COGIC, 4006-4008 Lafayette Blvd., Fredericksburg, will celebrate Pastor Wayne Creams 15th pastor anniversary along with his 60th birthday and the churchs 10th anniversary in Fredericksburg on Sunday. Dinner will be served at 2:30 p.m. Asst. Superintendent Eddie Pruitte, pastor of Holiness Tabernacle COGIC, Woodbridge, will speak at the 3:30 p.m. service. 571/244-0965 or 540/898-5454. Hope Presbyterian Church, 11121 Leavells Road, will hold its Mission Yard Sale on May 13 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Concessions include hot dogs and chili and a large bake sale. Proceeds benefit mission outreach to Haiti and Kenya and community outreach as well. 540/898-HOPE (4673); hopechurchva.org Piney Branch Baptist Church, 10727 Piney Branch Road, will celebrate its 145th church anniversary on Sunday at 3 p.m. The Rev. Wayne Robinson will be the guest preacher. Dinner will be served immediately after the 11:30 a.m. service. 540/786-7045. St. Judes Catholic Church, 10725 Courthouse Road, will host Christian Music Cafe on May 12 at 7 p.m. Open-mic format to share up to 3 songs. Performer sign-up starts at 6:30. Free beverages and snack. Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. 540/891-7350; music@stjudechurch.us. Sylvannah Baptist Church, 8400 Courthouse Road, will hold an Ordination Service for Minister Marshall H. Fields Jr., today at 11 a.m. Womens Annual Day will be Sunday at 3 p.m. Pastor Rheda Brown of Arm of the Lord Ministries, Fredericksburg, will be the guest speaker. The theme for the day is Buttons and BowsFastened Together in Christ. Attire for the day is pink and silver. A fellowship dinner will follow the morning worship. Tabernacle United Methodist Church, 7310 Old Plank Road, will host a chicken barbecue dinner today from 4-7 p.m. $10 adults, $7 children. Desserts available for purchase. Carry-outs available. Trinity Bible Church, 6331 Campus Drive, holds a midweek Bible study Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the Book of Revelation. The church will also continue to host Sunday evening AWANA ministry from 5-7 p.m. admin@tbc.me. Wallers Baptist Church, 4001 Partlow Road, Partlow, will hold a Community Spring Mission Festival today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a rain date of May 13. Puppet shows, cake walks, face painting, vendors, crafts, plants, antique cars, raffles, yard sale, lunch and baked goods. Live music provided by New Life Mens Ranch Praise Team. Proceeds benefit WBC and community missions. wallersbaptist.com World Harvest Cathedral Church, formerly at 56 Joseph Mills Drive, has moved to a new location at 9241 Courthouse Road. Worship services are from 10 a.m. to noon. 703/312-3091. Zion Hill Baptist Church, 10411 Cooktown Road, will celebrate the 10th Pastoral anniversary of Rev. Dwight D. Hargrove on Sunday at 11:15 a.m. Bishop Ron Willis from Vision Community Church, Fredericksburg, will deliver the message. He will be accompanied by his choir and congregation. Refreshments will be served after the service. 540/972-2778. STAFFORD Berea Baptist Church, 28 Fleet Road. The men will kick off a six-session study on authentic manhood as modeled by Jesus in His 33 years on earth, with a breakfast today at 8 a.m. They will meet the first Saturday of each month from 8-10 a.m. There will be a church business meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday. 540/752-4406; berea-baptist.org. Bethel Baptist Church, 1193 White Oak Road, will host the Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia Spaghetti Dinner/Gospel Sing Fund Raiser for Building Fund on May 20 at 5 p.m. $10 per person, ages 5 and under are free. 540/371-4437. Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church, 135 Chapel Green Road, Fredericksburg. Rally Day will be Sunday at 3 p.m. The Rev. E.L. Smiling and Clever Oaks Baptist Church will be the guests. Hulls Memorial Baptist Church, 420 Enon Road, will hold spring revival, A Time of Refreshing, on Sunday at 10:45 a.m. and Monday through Wednesday at 7 p.m. Dr. Jesse Booth, executive pastor of Zoan Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, is the evangelist. There will be special music, testimonies and sermons to challenge and encourage. 540/471-4124. Mt. Olive Baptist Church, 395 Mt. Olive Road, will observe Choir Day on Sunday at 3 p.m. Various singing groups from the area will minister through song. All are invited. 540/752-4296. Rock Hill Baptist Church, 12 Van Horn Lane, will present Sight & Sound and The Green Dragon Trip on June 9, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. See their newest production Jonah and visit the Green Dragon for shopping and lunch on your own. The cost of the trip is $102 per person and includes bus transportation and admission to the show. Spaces are first come, first served. 540/752-0336; snewton@rockhillbaptistchurch.org. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg, 25 Chalice Circle, will host a book reading and discussion of The Worlds Religions by Husten Smith on Sundays through May 28, from 12:302 p.m. The discussion will be lead by the Rev. Doug McCusker. To register, contact Chris Johns at uuffdre@verizon.net. KING GEORGE COUNTY Antioch Baptist Church, 11102 James Madison Parkway, King George. A weekend of Women and Praise will be held today at 9 a.m. The guest speaker will be Minister Portia A. Sayles of Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site), and a light lunch will be served. Minister Tracy BrownCampbell of Antioch Baptist Church will be the gospel messenger Sunday at 11 a.m. 540/775-2379. St. Stephens Baptist Church, 9142 Comorn Road, will host its annual Mothers Day Celebration services on May 14 at 10 a.m. Bishop Anthony M. Jones will bring forth a Word from the Lord. The Mighty Gospel Melodies of King George, King George Masonic Lodge, 9019 James Madison Parkway, will hold a 17th anniversary celebration today. Doors open at 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Call Joyce at 301/821-1608 for ticket information. CAROLINE First Baptist Church, 9262 Guinea Station Road, Woodford. The Senior Choir will hold a fish fry at 144 Chase St., Bowling Green, today, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Purchase a fish dinner for $8, or a sandwich and drink for $5. All proceeds will benefit the choir. For more information, call 804/633-4233. On May 13, the seventh annual Car, Truck, and Bike Show will be held. Gates will open at 8 a.m. with judging at noon. Registration is $12 in advance and $15 at the gate. Proceeds will benefit the church building fund. For more information, contact 540/891-5691. Jericho Baptist Church, 8435 Jericho Road, Ruther Glen, will celebrate its pastor and first ladys second anniversary Sunday. The Rev. Jack Mangrum of Mt. Zion, Triangle, will preach at the 11 a.m. service. Pastor Dobynes of Shiloh Old Site, Frederickburg, will preach at the 3 p.m. service. Macedonia Baptist Church, 7187 Macedonia Road, Woodford, will hold Pastors Aide Annual Day, Sunday, during the 11 a.m. service. Womens and Missionaries Annual Day will be observed May 21, during the 11 a.m. service. Macedonia women will be wearing white with purple accessories. Visiting missionaries are asked to wear their designated colors. 804/633-6035; Macedonia609@gmail.com Mount Tabor Baptist Church, 21795 Mattaponi Trail, Milford. Deacons, Deaconess and Trustees Day will be Sunday at 3 p.m. The Rev. Duane Fields Sr., pastor of the Oxford Mt. Zion Baptist Church family, will be the guest. Send two representatives from Deacons, Deaconess and Trustees ministries to help celebrate in Jesus name. 804/633-9728. Round Oak Baptist Church, 15025 Pepmeier Hill Road, Woodford. The WMU invites all ladies and girls to dinner tonight at 5 p.m. in Oak Hall. Scott Terry, a former missionary, is guest speaker. roundoakchurch.org. Zion Grove Baptist Church, 9450 Fredericksburg Turnpike, Woodford. The men of Zion Grove Baptist Church will sponsor a Car, Truck and Bike Show on May 27 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration will be held until 1 p.m. for $15. Winners selected at 2 p.m. Trophies awarded for each class. Refreshments will be sold. For more information, call Patrick Williams 540/907-8681. CULPEPER COUNTY Beulah Baptist Church, 9297 Eggbornsville Road, Rixeyville, will celebrate Deaconess Day on Sunday at 3 p.m. The theme is Serving God by Serving Others. The guest preacher will be Minister Loretta Strothers, Swiftford Baptist Church, Madison. Dinner will be served. A Sisterhood Tea/Womens Prayer Breakfast will be held May 13 at 10 a.m. Wear your favorite hat. 540/937-5563; bbc9297@gmail.com. St. Stephens Episcopal Church, 115 N. East St. (parking at 120 N. Commerce St.) The Brotherhood of St. Andrew offers men and boys the discipline of prayer, study and service, to follow Christ and bring others into his kingdom. Newcomers are welcome to join them for breakfast each Tuesday at 7 a.m. A blood drive will be held Tuesday 12:30-5:30 p.m., contact the church for more information. A Centering Prayer Group, an hour of reflection and prayer, will be held each Wednesday at 11 a.m., followed by Healing and Holy Communion service at noon. 540/825-8786; ststephensculpeper.net or ssec@ststephensculpeper.net. Hopewell United Methodist Church, 23557 Germanna Highway, Lignum, will host Community Vacation Bible School June 19-23 from 6:15-8:30 p.m. Dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m. nightly. The theme is Hero CentralDiscover Your Strength in God. WESTMORELAND COUNTY First Baptist Church, 619 Jackson St., Colonial Beach, will hold its 125th anniversary celebration on Sunday. Officers Day will be observed at noon. Dinner will be served at 1:30 p.m. At 3 p.m., the guest preacher will be the Rev. Dr. Eddie Giles, Reed Rock Baptist Church, Amelia, with his choir and congregation. 804/224-7198. REGIONAL Temple of Deliverance, HCG, 5756 Zachary Taylor Highway, Mineral, will host its ninth annual women conference, A Christian Woman as a Pillar in this Changing World, today 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. On May 27 at noon it will hold its Sisters Tea. Trinity Baptist Church, 8803 James Madison Highway, Warrenton, will hold Friend Day on Sunday. Dr. David C. Gibbs Jr., of Mason, Ohio, will be the guest preacher for all services. Nurseries will be provided for all services for children age 3 and under. Free bus transportation will be available from many parts of Fauquier, Culpeper and Prince William counties for the Sunday morning services. Contact the church at 540/347-7640 or visit tbcwarrenton.org for information. Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday blasted Washington Republicans for celebrating the initial passage of a health care overhaul that he said has put peoples lives in jeopardy. People will die if this becomes the law of the land, McAuliffe said in a TV interview on CNN. Adding his voice to the outpouring of Democratic outrage after Thursdays close vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill that would scrap elements of the Affordable Care Act, McAuliffe said the legislation would jeopardize the health coverage of Virginians with pre-existing conditions and low-income people who rely on Medicaid. And these people think its a party? They think this is something fun?, McAuliffe said. There is nothing fun about it. President Donald Trump praised the vote as a major step toward keeping his campaign promise to repeal Obamacare, but the bill has a long way to go before it reaches his desk. Its expected to undergo significant revisions in the U.S. Senate. Still, the version that passed the House, which would limit Medicaid spending and allow states to seek federal waivers that will determine whats required of insurers within their borders, is being hammered by Democrats running to replace McAuliffe in Virginias governors race. Former congressman Tom Perriello went viral this week with a striking health care themed ad showing an ambulance being flattened by a junkyard crusher, a visual Perriello said represents what Republican leaders want to do to affordable health care. The ad, shot in one take with an engineless ambulance, had 46,661 views on YouTube as of Friday morning, more than 10 times the views of Perriellos first TV ad spotlighting his close alliance with former President Barack Obama. Both Perriello and his Democratic primary opponent, Lt. Gov Ralph S. Northam, scheduled campaign events Friday focused on health care. Both men denounced the GOP bills passage during a debate Thursday night in Roanoke. This is the most spineless, unprincipled cruelty that I have ever seen come from a legislative body, Northam said in a statement after the House vote. Republicans have pushed back against the Democratic rhetoric, saying the bill would give consumers more choice and reduce costs. Theyve also pointed to insurance giant Aetnas recent announcement that it was pulling out of Obamacare exchanges in Virginia as evidence that the 2010 law is failing. Death spiral! Trump tweeted Thursday morning with a link to a news story on Aetnas Virginia decision. There is no debate that Obamacare is failing under its own weight, Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, said in a statement, adding that his vote for the bill was about keeping the promise I made to my constituents to work towards lowering health care costs. Ed Gillespie, the Republican front-runner in the Virginia governors race, voiced measured support for the bill, but said he would review it to assess its potential impact on Virginia and watch as the Senate makes changes. The House today took an important first step toward repealing the disastrous Obamacare bill, which Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello want to keep, that has driven up premiums, caused us to lose our choice in doctors, and driven insurers like Aetna out of the Virginia market, Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and political consultant, said in a statement. U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, have said they will not support a bill that would cause some to lose health coverage. As opioid addiction becomes recognized as a public health emergency, community groups will gather on Wednesday to present information about the problem and ways to combat it. Called A Community Effort to Address the Crisis: The Opioid Epidemic, the meeting will be held at the John F. Fick Conference Center on the Mary Washington Hospital campus. The centers entrance is on the back side of the Moss Free Clinic. Addiction to opioidsdrugs that act on the nervous system to relieve painhas been declared a public health emergency nationwide. More than 33,000 people died of opioid overdoses in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which also reports that opioid overdose deaths quadrupled in the United States between 1999 and 2015. In 2016, some 42 people died in Fredericksburg and Stafford and Spotsylvania counties after overdosing on opioids, according to the Virginia Attorney Generals office. So far in Fredericksburg this year, five people have died after overdosing on opioids. There were five opioid-related deaths in the city during the previous two years combined. Those numbers back up a high opioid-death rate for Fredericksburg on a website created by Virginias attorney general. The citys 2015 heroin-death rate was second in the state only to Richmonds. The grim statistics led local officials to schedule an event that takes a look at the crisis and what can be done to stop it. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with light refreshments. A preview of the film, Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict, starts at 5:30 p.m. The FBI and DEA released the documentary to give viewers straight facts from people who have lived with the hard consequences of opioid abuse, states FBI Director James Comey in the films introduction. It tells the story of several young people, good people who had great childhoods, were given everything they wanted, and had everything going for them, Comey said. But they took one wrong turn and they were hooked. After the movie, a town hall session will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by Mary Washington Healthcare and the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board and includes Mental Health America of Fredericksburg, the Rappahannock Area Health Department and the Community Foundation. The session is open to the public, but registration is required by calling Health Link at 540/741-1404 or 800/722-2788. Staff reporter Scott Shenk contributed to this story. Free Freightnet Membership List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours. The Russian militarys center for the reconciliation of conflicting parties in Syria handed out humanitarian aid at seven sites to 1,350 civilians on Friday, TASS reported. "Over the past day the Russian center for the reconciliation of conflicting parties handed out relief supplies at seven sites in Aleppo and Daraa provinces. A total of 4.2 tonnes of foods was distributed among 1,350 civilians," the center said. Also, Russian planes delivered 21 tonnes of UN relief aid to the area of the city of Deir ez-Zor, besieged by the Islamic State (terrorist organization outlawed in Russia). Attempts at cyber wire fraud globally, via emails purporting to be from trusted business associates, surged in the last seven months of 2016, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a warning to businesses, Reuters reported. Fraudsters sought to steal $5.3 billion through schemes known as business email compromise from October 2013 through December, the FBI said in a report released Thursday by its Internet Crime Complaint Center. The figure is up sharply from the FBI's previous report which said thieves attempted to steal $3.1 billion from October 2013 through May 2016, according to a survey of cases from law enforcement agencies around the world. The number of business-email compromise cases, in which cyber criminals request wire transfers in emails that look like they are from senior corporate executives or business suppliers who regularly request payments, almost doubled from May to December of last year, rising to 40,203 from 22,143, the FBI said. The survey does not track how much money was actually lost to criminals. Robert Holmes, who studies business email compromise for security firm Proofpoint Inc (PFPT.O), estimated the incidents collated by the FBI represent just 20 percent of the total, and that total actual losses could be as much as double the figures reported by the FBI. The losses are growing as scammers become more sophisticated, delving deeper into corporate finance departments to find susceptible targets, he said. "This is not a volume play; it's a carefully researched play," he said. The United States is by far the biggest target market, though fraudsters have started to expand in other developed countries, including Australia, Britain, France and Germany, Holmes said. The FBI has said that about one in four U.S. victims respond by wiring money to fraudsters. In some of those cases, authorities have been able to identify the crimes in time to help victims recover the funds from banks before the criminals pulled them out of the system. The U.S. Department of Justice said in March that it had charged a Lithuanian man with orchestrating a fraudulent email scheme that had tricked agents and employees of two U.S.-based internet companies into wiring more than $100 million to overseas bank accounts. Fraudsters have also used spoofed emails to trick corporate workers into releasing sensitive data, including wage and tax reports, according to the advisory. Vice Mayor Rex Richardson and Third District Councilwoman Suzie Price are looking to succeed Robert Garcia as mayor. A 20-year-old Venezuelan protester died on Friday after being shot in the head, authorities said, taking fatalities from a month of anti-government unrest to at least 37 as the opposition geared up for more demonstrations, Reuters reported. Hecder Lugo was hurt during fighting between demonstrators and security forces in Valencia on Thursday that also injured four others, the local opposition Mayor Enzo Scarano said in a series of tweets. The state prosecutor's office, which keeps an official count of deaths since protests began against socialist President Nicolas Maduro in early April, confirmed he died after being shot in a protest. Another 717 people have been injured and 152 are still in jail from the hundreds rounded up in widespread unrest around the volatile South American OPEC nation of 30 million people, according to the office's latest tally. There has been violence and widespread looting this week in Valencia, a once-bustling industrial hub two hours from the capital by road. And in an incident loaded with symbolism, a handful of young men destroyed a statue of late leader Hugo Chavez in the oil-producing Zulia state, according to videos circulating on social media on Friday evening. Footage shows the statue, which depicts Chavez saluting and wearing a sash, being yanked down to cheers in a public plaza before it is bashed into a sidewalk and then the road as onlookers swear at the leftist, who died in 2013 from cancer. "Students destroyed this statue of Chavez. They accuse him, correctly, of destroying their future," opposition lawmaker Carlos Valero said about the incident, which was also reported in local media. Reuters was unable to independently confirm it. Venezuela's opposition, which now enjoys majority support after being in the shadow of the ruling Socialist party since Chavez's 1998 election win, says his successor Maduro has become a dictator and wrecked the economy. Vowing to stay in the streets for as long as necessary, opposition leaders announced nationwide women's marches for Saturday with the biggest planned for the capital Caracas. Opposition lawmakers briefly unfurled a banner on Friday at the National Assembly, where they won a majority in 2015 thanks to voter ire over the recession, saying "Maduro Dictator". The president says they are seeking a violent coup with U.S. support, and is setting up a "constituent assembly" super body to shake up public powers, change the constitution, and possibly replace the existing legislature. "President Maduro has made a big call to national dialogue," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez told diplomats at a meeting on Friday, showing them images of violence and vandalism on the streets caused by youths at the front of protests. "They are not peaceful, the opposition leaders share big responsibility in these acts of extremism and vandalism." UNFCCC preparations : 4,000 delegates expected in Bonn this week Bonn Approximately 4,000 delegates are expected to arrive in Bonn from Monday onwards for the May negotiations of the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose secretariat is the largest of the UN institutions based in Bonn. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken The conference of the subsidiary bodies and at least one other board will run until Thursday, May 18, in the WCCB. Not only is the professional work continuing but the conference is also considered a rehearsal for the world climate summit which will see up to 20,000 participants coming to Bonn. The May negotiations aim to rapidly implement the climate agreement drawn up in Paris 2015. Also, clear regulations and legal assistance mechanisms will be worked out as well as respective budgets of the secretariat. In addition, it is essential to advertise how important prompt action to confront the consequences of climate change is and to counter its further progression. The climate secretariat is hosting the 23rd world climate change summit, Conference of the Parties (COP 23). The small island state of Fiji is holding presidency for the first time this year. Bonn International School : Musical celebration Bonn Music is all around at the Bonn International School today. 77 students from 21 international schools are in Bonn at the moment, getting ready for the AMIS (The Association for Music in International Schools) Middle School Honor Band Festival which will culminate today at 2pm with a public concert in the Elisabeth-Selbert-Gesamtschule (Hindenburgallee). Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken To name but a few songs, the young students will play "Rampage" by Todd Stalter, "Whirlwind" by James Curnow, "The Addison Red Line" by Jeremy Bell, "One Giant Leap" by Erik Morales, "Faith: Memories in Song and Celebration" by Matt Conaway, "Prestissimo" by Karl L. King and "Symphony 4, Movement 4" by Andrew Boysen Jr. The musicians come from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Korea, Nigeria, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The participating students schools include Zurich International School, John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, International School of Brussels, American Community School of Abu Dhabi, American School of Doha and International School of Prague. The aim of this festival is to provide participants with a highly positive learning experience that will enhance their abilities as lifelong musicians says AMIS president James Libbey. The culminating concert at the close of the festival is a musical celebration of the learning that has taken place, but does not replace the important journey that occurs before, during and especially after the rehearsal process. The intent: Students return to their respective schools filled with an experience that they can, in turn, use to further enhance both their school and personal communities. Governor's office in the southern Turkish province of Hatay has denied Saturday reports claiming that the Turkish army would be deployed to Syria's opposition-held province of Idlib, Anadolu reported. "Such statements that were claimed by some Arabic publishing [web] sites and social media accounts saying that the Turkish army will enter the Idlib region are not reflecting the truth," the governor's office stated. It was stressed that such a statement would not be made by the governor's office. The claims of various Arabic media outlets came after the Astana meeting this week where Turkey, Russia and Iran agreed to establish de-escalation zones covering the city of Idlib and certain parts of Latakia, Homs, Aleppo and Hama as well as Damascus, Eastern Ghouta, Daraa and Quneitra. The agreement aims to stop the use of all types of arms, including air power, between the warring parties in the regions. The deal also aims at ensuring emergent and continuous humanitarian aid be sent to the regions. The agreement will remain in place for six months, a period which could be extended automatically if the three guarantor countries agree. According to the accord, checkpoints will ensure the safe flow of humanitarian aid and provide secure passage for civilians. Observation points will monitor the cease-fire in the region. Syria has been locked in civil war since March 2011. According to the UN, around 400,000 people have died in the conflict while half the population has been driven away from their homes. Kayak Kayak is a travel fare aggregator website and also a travel metasearch engine owned by a subsidiary of The Priceline Group. They are made available in 20 different languages and includes 40 international sites. Also Read: 5 Best Location Sharing App That You Can Download on Your Smartphone Along with the search tools, this app also comes with the tools to plan and manage your trip. The price forecast, trips and explore feature lets you decide whether you want to buy it or not, helps you in planning and organizing your travel and also finding a destination within the budget. Make My trip MakeMyTrip comes with exciting features such as lowest airfares, exclusive discounts and also a smooth online booking experience. Both the desktop and mobile sites are designed to be user-friendly making them to complete the booking with just a few clicks. This app always tries to offer the best feature to its customers such as Instant Discounts, Fare Calendar, My Rewards Program, and My Wallet. Trip Advisor TripAdvisor is one more interesting app which helps you while planning for any trip. One can easily go through the millions of reviews, opinions, videos, and photos about anything related to the trip. Also Read: 4 Best apps to solve your bookmarking needs Those details include the places such as bars, restaurants, hotels, airlines, and much more. If you want to travel somewhere nearby, then you can use TripAdvisor's Near Me function which helps you in finding the well-reviewed places near by your location. Airbnb The Airbnb app helps you in finding hotels which provide you with an authentic experience for cheaper prices. They have recently included a new feature by name Trips which provides you with an Experiences to choose from during your stay. So, we can consider Airbnb as an all-in-one travel app which can be used to plan your day, book a car, and do many more things. GoFro GoFro is another interesting app which allows the users to compare the holiday packages offered by all leading travel companies like Thomas Cook, Yatra, MakeMyTrip, and others. Also Read: 5 Best video streaming apps developed just for kids We can treat this app as a one-stop destination for anyone looking for a travel package since they are associated with all leading tour operators. GOFro is also said to be backed by India's #1 Online Travel Company MakeMyTrip. UX Re-designed Coming to the new custom ROM, the UX will get an all new design. Further, the spokesperson said that the update will bring in better animations, themes, and interaction with the device. He also revealed that the notifications tab has also been optimized with the new update. So users can easily customize how the notification appears or what notifications users want to see all from the setting menu. In case of messages, users will also be able to delete the message by just swiping left instead of following several steps. More significantly the new version also brings in the App drawer feature. And the good thing is that users can either choose to use the standard feature on the phone or customize their phone to include an app drawer where all the apps will be stored in. Some of the other features include 90 percent fewer miss touches, call indication, pop-up windows at the bottom and more. Machine Learning, Battery Optimizations Huawei has emphasized that the new EMUI 5.0 version will use machine learning technology. Basically, this feature will learn user's usage habits and at the same time will allocate resources dynamically to provide more CPU and memory to applications that are used on a regular basis. Alternatively, Huawei has said that the new version will deliver better battery performance. The company's spokesperson told us that the power saving system has got an upgrade and that now the phones with this update will have 7 percent increment in battery efficiency. Security So the EMUI 5.0 has also been optimized to deliver a comprehensive security be it in communication, privacy, payments or apps. As for communication, the system detects any malicious acts in real time. For example, malicious links are detected in real time when they appear in messages. Other than that, the company also stated that the new UI also features 'Privacy Space' for storing all media contents as well as apps. These files and apps can further be accessed using a revamped fingerprint access technology. Further, the company has said that they have partnered with Avast to boost the security aspect. Smart Services With the new update, users will also be getting a smart services feature. The company is calling it as the Hiboard smart service platform. Moreover, there is no installation required and these services will be available in Asia-Pacific region. Additionally, the update will bring features like news and apps suggestions and all round search function. Other Features Apart from this the company also made few more announcements like the addition of Indian calendar, SOS or panic button, notepad functions and support for 14 Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Assamese, Nepali, Malayalam, Oriya, Urdu, and Maithili. As for the update, the company has said that Honor 8, Honor 6X, Honor 5C, and Huawei P9 will receive the EMUI 5.0 update in the coming weeks. Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 edge and Note 5 new update released in India News oi -Samden Sherpa If youre a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge or Note 5 owner from India, you should check for this software update from the settings menu on your smartphone. Samsung the popular smartphone brand has now started rolling out a new update for the Galaxy S7, the Galaxy S7 edge and the Galaxy Note 5 in India. The update brings the April security patch and since it is already May it seems the company is little late in bringing the update to its flagship smartphones of 2016. However, along with the security patch, the update is also expected to bring some improvements in performance, device stability, and bug fixes to the smartphones. SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S8 Active leaked by Netflix The company further says the update also brings some new and enhanced features but no details are provided as to what those features are. In any case, updates for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have file sizes of 169.79MB and 176.49MB respectively while the Galaxy Note 5 has a smaller file size at around 14 MB. And as it is an OTA update it might take some time to reach your device. Alternatively, you can also check for this software update manually by going to the settings menu on your smartphone. Samsung Galaxy Note 7R screenshots leak; confirm 3200mAh battery and Android 7.0 Besides, Samsung also says that the download should be carried out using a Wi-Fi connection as downloading via a mobile network may result in additional charges. It is best advised to always keep your device updated if you want to get the best from your device and especially if you want to keep your device secure. Best Mobiles in India OKWU Omicron first impressions : A decent design with a heavy body Reviews oi -Priyanka The smartphone has a 13-megapixel camera with PDAF technology along with fingerprint scanner, which the company claims will unlock the phone in just 0.1 seconds. Homegrown smartphone maker OKWU has finally launched its second phone Omicron at the price of Rs. 10,499 and the phone is available in all leading retail outlets. Now let's talk about OKWU. The company has earlier launched OKWU Pi and is manufacturing and assembling phones in Shenzhen, China. However, the company is also planning to set up their plant in the country. Meanwhile, it is also in talks with Amity University for its research and development unit. We were present at the launch event and tested the handset for a brief time to find out what OKWU has to offer this time. Here's what we think of new device - Omicron. Design and Display On one hand, where other smartphone makers are focusing on providing light phones, OKWU has launched a heavy phone, thanks to its metal body. Well, the look is not that bad but I have seen good looking smartphones in a recent past. For instance, the Coolpad Note 5 lite carrying a price tag of Rs. 8,199. The smartphone comes in three colors - rose gold, gray, and black, and we got the rose gold variant. There is a USB port for charging at the bottom while the 3.5mm audio jack is positioned at the top. The power button and volume rocker are placed on the right side of the smartphone. The smartphone has a 13-megapixel camera with PDAF technology along with fingerprint scanner, which the company claims will unlock the phone in just 0.1 seconds. There is no doubt that smartphone is really heavy to carry but when it comes to the design, the new smartphone doesn't disappoint me. DSAT accepts plea by incumbent telcos against Jio: Report Talking about the display, the smartphone is fitted with a 5.5-inch full HD IPS display with a screen resolution of 19201080 pixels and offers 480 ppi of pixel density. The display is quite responsive, seems decent and colors also look quite vibrant. Camera The smartphone supports a 13-megapixel rear camera along with PDAF and the front one comes up with 5-megapixel selfie camera with LED flash to help you capture images in low-light conditions. The camera also has modes like zero shutter delay, anti-shake, face detection, smile shot auto scene detection and it also has time lapse interval for video. In our brief usage, the rear camera did a decent job, but front camera is not that good. However, we will evaluate the camera performance in detail while reviewing the handset in the coming weeks. Samsung Galaxy Note 7R screenshots leak; confirm 3200mAh battery and Android 7.0 Battery and Connectivity The smartphone is powered by a 3000mAh battery Lithium-ion battery, which is claimed to offer up to 16 hours of talk-time and 3 days of standby time. But somehow I believe that the battery is one of the downsides of this phone as the Chinese smartphones like Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime and Lenovo K6 Power have bigger 4,000mAh battery units that does a far decent job at a low price. However, we will give our final verdict while reviewing the handset. On the connectivity front, this phone offers 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth and comes with dual SIM smartphone along with a USB Type-C port for charging. Moto Z2 Play might have a smaller battery and bigger RAM than Z Play Software/ Hardware It runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 OS. The new smartphone is also offering preloaded apps like Turbo download which will allow users to download large files. In my brief stint with the handset, I did not face any performance issues. Stay tuned for the complete performance test of the smartphone on Gizbot. On the hardware front, OKWU Omicron is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737T processor along with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal memory but it is expandable up to 64GB with the help of a microSD card. Verdict There is no doubt that the OKWU Omicron comes with a decent look. However, there is tough competition with the smartphones from the Chinese brands that offer more specifications and good looks at a low price. We will evaluate the new phone's complete potential to give our final verdict in the comprehensive review in the coming weeks. Best Mobiles in India TDSAT accepts plea by incumbent telcos against Jio: Report News oi -Priyanka Telecom Regulatory Authority had advised the operator to withdraw its new offer in which the company was offering free services for three months as 'complimentary' at Rs. 303. Telecom Tribunal TDSAT has finally accepted the appeals of incumbents telecom players Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular in which both have challenged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) decision to allow Reliance Jio to offer its promotional offers more than 90 days, ET reported. "We've heard both sides on preliminary objections raised on maintainability of the appeals. We're of the view that those and all objections be detailed again," ET quoted Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) chairman Shiva Kirti Singh. The report also says that the TDSAT will now hear the matter on July 25. Adding that the tribunal has also asked both the telecom players to give their arguments in seven days, while four weeks has been given to TRAI and new entrant Reliance Jio. This comes soon after Airtel and Idea have filed a complaint against the telecom regulator for allowing Jio to continue with its free promotional offer beyond the stipulated 90 days. YU Mobiles to come up with a new phone In the recent past, India's largest telecom service provider Airtel has approached TDSAT ones again against Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio for the delay while withdrawing its three months 'Summer Surprise' offer, even after TRAI asked to pull back on April 6. Telecom Regulatory Authority had advised the operator to withdraw its new offer in which the company was offering free services for three months as 'complimentary' at Rs. 303. Meanwhile, TRIA has finally cleared its new plan called 'Dhan Dhana Dhan' The regulator has examined Jio's new 'Dhan Dhana Dhan offer' and found that the new offer is different from the earlier offer. Best Mobiles in India Overall, dont let the bhoot mislead you, nothing bhootiya about this story. Had the makers tried to push the envelope, the idea could have been outstanding for a bhootiya comedy. A television report about North Korea's missile launch is broadcast at the Seoul Railway Station on April 1, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo : Getty Images) The Chinese government has stated that ties with North Korea remain firm, despite the recent critique of China by the North Korean state media, according to an article by Channel News Asia. Advertisement The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) denounced the Chinese media, particularly the official Communist Party mouthpiece the Peoples Daily. KCNA also denounced the Global Times for [raising] lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the U.S. The DPRK will never beg for the maintenance of friendship with China, risking its nuclear program which is as precious as its own life, KCNA stated. In addition, KCNA reminded China of North Koreas role of being a buffer during the Korean War, when tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated. KCNA, which regularly criticizes Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, concluded its commentary by warning of grave consequences once North Koreas patience runs out. China had better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless acts of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK-China relations. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang addressed the critique on Thursday, May 4. He reiterated that Beijing remains a friend to Pyongyang, with the former in a constant state of developing good neighborly and friendly cooperation with North Korea. On the other hand, Geng also stated that China is deeply committed to the whole denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through peaceful means. China and North Korea have established ties since the Korean War, with the former taking the role of the latters partner in trade and main source of aid. But North Koreas recent threats and antics regarding its nuclear capability have strained the relationship. It doesnt help that Kim Jong-un, who has been in power for more than five years, has yet to pay Beijing a visit. Experts point out that KCNAs critique of China is a sign of the deteriorating relationship. Meanwhile, various state-run media in China have urged the government to take harsher actions against North Korea. Military Strikes Target ISIS Terrorists in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, May 5, 2017 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 20 strikes consisting of 81 engagements, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. U.S. Central Command continues to work with partner nations to conduct targeted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of the comprehensive strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 10 strikes consisting of 14 engagements against ISIS targets: -- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed four ISIS wellheads. -- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed five ISIS oil storage tanks and three ISIS oil distillation tanks. -- Near Palmyra, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit. -- Near Raqqah, three strikes destroyed a front-end loader and an ISIS wellhead. -- Near Tabqah, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed two fighting positons and a vehicle. Strikes in Iraq In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 10 strikes consisting of 67 engagements against ISIS targets: -- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed a front-end loader. -- Near Kirkuk, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position. -- Near Mosul, seven strikes engaged seven ISIS tactical units and a sniper team; destroyed nine mortar systems, nine fighting positions, two heavy machine guns, two tactical vehicles, two ISIS-held buildings, an anti-air artillery system, an artillery system, a command-and-control node, a vehicle bomb, an ISIS bridge, a front-end loader, a weapons cache, a rocket system a vehicle bomb factory; damaged 23 ISIS supply routes, three fighting positions; and suppressed six mortar teams. -- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit. Additionally, two strikes were conducted in Syria on May 3 that closed within the last 24 hours: -- Near Shadaddi, Syria, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS-held building. -- Near Tabqah, Syria, a strike destroyed a fighting position. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said. The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said. The task force does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi Forces Pressure ISIS in West Mosul By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, May 5, 2017 Iraqi security forces are ratcheting up the pressure to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria out of western Mosul, Iraq, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, director of Pentagon press operations, told reporters today. "There had been a bit of a slowdown in the progress recently, some due to weather, some due to repositioning," Davis said. "We now have some progress being made from the northwest, up and including the banks of the Tigris River." Making Progress Today marks the 76th day of the operation to liberate western Mosul, he said. "Yesterday, there were 24 square kilometers gained along the forward line of troops primarily in the northwest area, and since the west Mosul offensive started, 550 square kilometers have been retaken in west Mosul alone." Near Mosul, Davis said, "we continue to conduct strikes, engaging ISIS tactical units and a sniper team, destroying mortar systems, fighting positions, heavy machine guns, tactical vehicles, ISIS-held buildings, an anti-air artillery system, a command-and-control node, a [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device], an ISIS bridge, a front-end loader, a weapons cache, a rocket system and a VBIED factory as well as fighting positions. So, the airstrikes in support of this new line of effort is considerable." Tabqah, Syria In Syria, the area in and around the town of Tabqah remains the focus of effort, Davis said. "We're ferrying Syrian Democratic Forces across the river and bringing them in by air, [which] has made considerable progress in first isolating and now liberating Tabqah," he said. As of this morning, he added, more than 80 percent of Tabqa has been cleared. ISIS still controls the Tabqah Dam, "but it's doing so right now hanging on by a thread, in terms of their ability to control," Davis said. "Tabqah and Tabqah dam are two of the final elements required to isolate Raqqa," he said, adding it is very difficult for ISIS fighters get across the Euphrates River, and its bridges in Raqqa have been taken out. "And the SDF now controls [land] up the river banks to Raqqa," he said. As the SDF encircles the dam, coalition forces can continue to monitor the water level and the infrastructure security to prevent ISIS from threatening Syrians throughout the Raqqa valley, he said. "We continue to support our partners' operations to isolate Raqqa and have conducted dozens of successful strikes in the past week against ISIS fighting positions and weapons systems," Davis said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Future warfare requires 'disciplined disobedience,' Army chief says By C. Todd Lopez May 5, 2017 WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- Following every order to the letter is largely understood to be a way of life in the Army. But that may not always be the best course of action. In fact, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Mark A. Milley said he expects Soldiers to know when it's time to disobey an order. "I think we're over-centralized, overly bureaucratic, and overly risk-averse," Milley said while speaking Thursday at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., as part of the Atlantic Council Commanders Series. That overly bureaucratic environment may work in garrison, during peacetime, he said, but it's "the opposite of what we are going to need in any type of warfare -- but in particular, the warfare I envision." VISION OF FUTURE WARFARE During last year's Association of the U.S. Army symposium in October, Milley laid out just exactly what his vision of future warfare would be. He said then he expects conditions "will be extremely austere. Water, chow, ammo, fuel, maintenance and medical support will be all that we should plan for." He also said that Soldiers could expect to be surrounded all the time, so they will always need to be on the move if they hope to stay alive. "In short, learning to be comfortable with being seriously miserable every single minute of every single day will have to become a way of life for an Army on the battlefield that I see coming," he said. Leaders on the battlefield could expect to be out of contact with their own leadership for significant periods of time. Those officers would still need to accomplish their commander's objectives, even when the conditions on the battlefield have changed and they are unable to send word up the chain of command. "We are going to have to empower [and] decentralize leadership to make decisions and achieve battlefield effects in a widely dispersed environment where subordinate leaders, junior leaders ... may not be able to communicate to their higher headquarters, even if they wanted to," Milley said. In that environment, Milley said, the Army will need a cadre of trusted leaders on the battlefield who know when it's time to disobey the original orders they were given and come up with a new plan to achieve the purpose of those orders. MISSION COMMAND "We're the military, so you're supposed to say, 'Obey your orders,'" Miley said. "That's kind of fundamental to being in the military. We want to keep doing that. But a subordinate needs to understand that they have the freedom and they are empowered to disobey a specific order, a specified task, in order to accomplish the purpose. It takes a lot of judgment." Such disobedience cannot be "willy-nilly." Rather, it must be "disciplined disobedience to achieve a higher purpose," Milley said. "If you do that, then you are the guy to get the pat on the back." Milley said that when orders are given, the purpose of those orders must also be provided so that officers know both what they are to accomplish and how they are expected to accomplish it. To illustrate his point, Milley offered the example of an officer who has been ordered to seize "Hill 101" as part of a larger battle plan. "I've said the purpose is to destroy the enemy," Milley said. "And the young officer sees Hill 101, and the enemy is over on Hill 102. What does he do? Does he do what I told him to do, seize Hill 101? Or does he achieve the purpose, destroy the enemy, on Hill 102?" The answer, Milley said, is that the officer disobeys the order to seize the first hill because following that order would not achieve his commander's purpose. Instead, he takes the other hill. "And he shouldn't have to call back and say 'hey boss ... can I go over to 102?' He shouldn't have to do that," Milley said. "They should be empowered and feel they have freedom of maneuver to achieve the purpose." Right now, Milley said, the Army already has doctrine that describes what he envisions for the future: "mission command" doctrine. Part of that doctrine, he said, instructs commanders to tell their subordinates the purpose of what they are doing. "That's important for subordinates to understand the why, the purpose," he said. But the Army, he said, has a hard time practicing what it writes into doctrine. "My point is, what we do in practice is we micromanage and over-specify everything a subordinate has to do, all the time, in regulations, in ALARACT messages, in rules," he said. "That is not an effective way ... to fight. Not an effective way to conduct operations. You will lose battles and wars if you approach warfare like that." "We must trust our subordinates," he added. "You give them the task, you give them the purpose, and then you trust them to execute and achieve your intent, your desired outcome -- your purpose." Getting Soldiers and leaders to do that will require training, he said. And it will require encouraging them to operate that way. "You have to train to it, you have to prepare for it, and you have to live it and do it every day," he said. FUTURE TECHNOLOGY OF WARFARE Milley acknowledged that it's impossible to predict exactly how warfare in the future will play out, but he did say there are some "broad outlines" that can be drawn upon to help with the development of decisions regarding doctrine, organization and equipment. Technology, he believes, will have a huge impact on warfare. "I think we are at the intersection of a variety of technologies that are happening in time and space, all about the same time, that are going to have a fundamental change or result in fundamental change to the character of warfare." One technology of today that has already been around for a while, he noted, are precision-guided munitions. "For a long time, the United States dominated precision-guided munitions," he said. "Now, precision-guided munitions have proliferated throughout the world." Information technology also will have a dramatic effect, he said, citing the iPhone as an example. He said that today, through existing technology, one has access to high-quality imagery, communications, and real-time data on the location of people, equipment and formations, for instance, nearly anywhere on Earth. "I would argue that we are at a point where ... almost anything militarily can be seen," he said. "So when you combine the ability to see ... with precision-guided munitions, that's like going from the smoothbore to the rifle. That's going to rapidly and radically increase lethality on the battlefield." He noted that robotics are now used in the air and sea domains but currently play a limited role on the ground. Over the next decade, however, he expects to see a "rapid introduction of robotic systems in ground warfare." OPTIMIZING FOR URBAN CONFLICT Demographic changes also will affect the character of war, he said. In particular, he pointed to increases in urbanization. According to Milley, social scientists predict that by 2050 about 90 percent of Earth's projected population of more than 8 billion people will likely live in "highly dense, complex urban areas." As a result of that shift, he said, it's probable that armed conflict will occur in those same densely populated areas. "The U.S. Army has been optimized to fight in rural terrain, to fight in the plains of Northern Europe, North America [and] the deserts of the Middle East," he said. Optimizing for urban warfare, he said will require changing not only how Soldiers fight, but how equipment is used, he said. "A tank's barrel can elevate to a certain degree," he said. "In an urban environment, it might need to elevate to almost a 90-degree angle. That has huge implications." Likewise, much consideration must also be devoted to such practical matters as the wingspans of unmanned aerial vehicles, casualty evacuation in densely populated areas, and the ability of current command and control systems to function in the concrete jungles of the future. "The list goes on and on," he said. "There are about maybe 100 or 150 significant implications to that fact of urbanization and the likelihood that armed conflict is going to be more in urban areas than not." Right now, he said, the Army has optimized for non-urban areas. But he said, "we are probably going to have to shift gears significantly over the coming decade or so to optimize the Army, or land forces -- I would argue the Marines as well -- to be able to operate successfully in combat operations in highly dense, complex urban areas." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Northern Edge 17 kicks off in interior Alaska US Marine Corps News By Sgt. Laura Gauna | May 5, 2017 Approximately 6,000 military members gathered together to take on the most challenging scenarios in the Pacific theater during Exercise Northern Edge 17, at the Gulf of Alaska and around central Alaska ranges from May 1-12, 2017. NE17, a biennial Pacific Command contingency exercise, prepares joint U.S. forces to respond to crises in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. It is designed to sharpen participants' tactical combat skills, improve command, control and communication relationships, and to develop interoperable plans and programs across the armed forces. "Exercises like Northern Edge allow us to work together, talk together and fight together and it's important to do so because that's how we are going to deploy. No service can do it on their own," said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stephen D. Driskill, the chief of staff at the Joint Electromagnetic Preparedness for Advanced Combat, U.S. Strategic Command. "We are able to gain different advantages and strengths from all the different services here; to make sure that we, as a department of defense, are able to get the best capabilities possible." Nearly 200 aircraft are participating, to include the F-35B Lightning II, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16C Fighting Falcon, FA-18D Hornet, EA-6B Prowler, KC-135 Stratotanker, and the KC-10 Extender aircraft. "We are constantly trying to decide what our different actors around the region are using and how we can simulate how they use those evolving technologies," said U.S. Air Force Col. David Mineau, the 354th Fighter Wing commander. "We want to provide them with the most challenging scenario that they could face so that when they do our nation's business they come home safely when the crisis is over." Virtual forces also play a large role in the exercise. Operating from simulators in various bases throughout the nation, live, virtual and constructive (LVC) participants aim to enhance the quality of training for service members across Alaska. "We are very proud of what the 354th fighter wing has done to improve our ability to fuse live training, virtual training and constructive training all together into one live-virtual battlespace that provides increased realism and complexity for everyone involved," said Mineau. "It's all about providing more people with more effective and more integrated training than we can do otherwise in just the live domain." Aside from the sheer number of people and aircraft, the terrain also provides unique training advantages. The military training ranges in Alaska are collectively known as the JPARC, or Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex. It includes 65,000 square miles of airspace, nearly 2,500 square miles of land space and 42,000 square nautical miles of surface, subsurface and overlying airspace in the Gulf of Alaska. "Alaska provides a great training opportunity because of the training ranges that are here. We get some world class training that we really can't replicate anywhere else in the United States," said Driskill. "The amount of range and space and the setup and the support capabilities that we have here really all combine together to make the best training opportunity to really prepare ourselves for the type of fight that we may find in a near peer-environment or in different types of environments all around the world." The interoperability aspect of the training makes the exercise a valuable asset to maintaining readiness in the Pacific. "Northern Edge gives us the opportunity to really practice the tactics, techniques and procedures that we would need in order to fight in such a vast Pacific Ocean theater," said Driskill. "Some of the potential adversaries that are in the Pacific realm have some very capable systems. Being able to train against them really provides a high level of training for us make sure we are ready to fight tonight, wherever we need to go." Editors note: During the exercise, III Marine Expeditionary Force Marines with 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company and Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 are serving as part of the joint task force practicing tasks associated with joint operations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Oscar Austin Enters Black Sea Navy News Service Story Number: NNS170505-10 Release Date: 5/5/2017 11:49:00 AM By USS Oscar Austin Public Affairs BOSPHORUS STRAIT (NNS) -- The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin (DDG 79) entered the Black Sea, May 5, in order to conduct maritime security operations and enhance capability and interoperability with allies and partners in the region. The ship's operations in the Black Sea are meant to enhance maritime security and stability, and combined readiness and naval capability with our NATO allies and partners. Quote: "We're building strong relationships here, which are crucial to peace and stability in the region. Our presence here bolsters confidence and reassures allies of our commitment to security in the Black Sea." Cmdr. Janice Smith, commanding officer USS Oscar Austin Quick Facts: Oscar Austin entered the Black Sea to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to the collective defense of our NATO allies and partners in the Black Sea region. All DoD efforts in support of our NATO allies in Eastern Europe fall under Operation Atlantic Resolve. The U.S. Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea consistent with the Montreux Convention and in accordance with international law. Oscar Austin departed its homeport of Norfolk April 17, to conduct maritime security operations in support of U.S. allies and partners and U.S. national security interests in the U.S. 5th and U.S. 6th Fleet areas of operations. U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with joint, allied and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sheikh Qassim's trial persecution of Bahraini Shias: Salman Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 3:30PM Bahrain's senior opposition cleric Sheikh Ali Salman says the prosecution of top Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim amounts to persecution and targeting of the entire Shia community in the country. Salman, the secretary general of the country's now-dissolved al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, made the remarks during a telephone call from prison as he himself has been in jail since 2014, Bahrain's LuaLua TV reported on Friday. On May 3, senior clerics in Bahrain reiterated their support for Sheikh Qassim, and called on all members of the public to reject any court ruling against the distinguished cleric. On June 20, 2016, Bahraini authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim of his nationality. They later dissolved the Islamic Enlightenment Institution, founded by the clergyman, in addition to the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association. The Manama regime has pressed charges of "illegal fund collections, money laundering and helping terrorism" against Sheikh Qassim, who has strongly denied them. International rights groups have slammed the charges as baseless and politically motivated. A trial session had been scheduled for the senior cleric on March 14 but was postponed to May 7 amid fears of a surge in popular outrage. Saudi deploys military reinforcements to Bahrain Two days before the court pronounces its ruling against Sheikh Qassim, Saudi Arabia has deployed military reinforcements to Bahrain apparently to help the Bahraini regime repress potential anti-regime protests. Bahraini sources said on Friday that the reinforcements entered Bahrain via King Fahd Causeway, which connects the two kingdoms. Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the kingdom on February 14, 2011. They are demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and a just system representing all Bahrainis be established. Manama has spared no effort to clamp down on dissent and human rights activists. On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to Bahrain to assist Manama in its crackdown. Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime's crackdown on anti-regime activists. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Fire fight on Afghanistan-Pakistan border kills 15, injures 42 Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 10:0AM Forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan have clashed at the border between the two countries, leaving at least 15 people, including civilians, dead on both sides and 42 Pakistanis wounded. Gunfire erupted between Afghan Border Police and Pakistani Frontier Constabulary at the Wesh-Chaman border crossing on Friday. Pakistani officials said nine Pakistani civilians were killed and there were women and children among the injured. Six people also lost their lives on the Afghan side, officials said. Reports from the Pakistani side claimed government employees were carrying out census operations in the villages of Killi Luqman and Killi Jahangir on the Pakistani side of the border when Afghan troops opened fire on the workers and the troops escorting them. Pakistan's army said the census had been ongoing since March and the Afghan forces had prior warning of their planned presence. However, a spokesman for the police chief in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province accused the Pakistani side of using the census operation as a cover to sneak "militias" through the area. The victims of the shooting were transferred to a hospital in the town of Chaman in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province. Pakistani authorities say terrorists infiltrate from Afghanistan into Pakistan through the border crossings. The border had been closed since mid-February due to an increase in terrorist operation in Pakistan. The Wesh-Chaman border crossing is a major border crossing between the two countries. It leads north from the town of Chaman, in Balochistan, into Wesh in Spin Boldak, in Kandahar Province. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon admits March strike hit a 'mosque complex' in Syria Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 9:55AM Pentagon officials have finally admitted that a March airstrike in northern Syria did in fact hit a mosque, killing dozens of people. An investigation by the US Central Command found that the March 16 airstrike targeted a building that was part of a "mosque complex" in a village west of Aleppo, two defense officials told CNN on Thursday. The Pentagon had initially rejected the notion that a mosque was hit and that there were casualties, despite photos and videos showing the disastrous aftermath of the strike. Officials had insisted that the strike hit a building near the mosque where al-Qaeda militants were holding a meeting. The day after the strike, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said that the US did not "assess there were any civilian casualties." Typically any building used for religious purposes would be on a so-called no-strike list, along with hospitals and schools. However, neither official speaking to CNN would say if the complex had ever been on such a list, or whether it had been removed. The air raid drew strong condemnation from prominent human rights organizations. At least 49 civilians were killed and over 100 people were wounded in the strike. Human Rights Watch said in a report last month that the US military failed to take "necessary precautions" to prevent civilian deaths in the airstrike. The rights group also said that it had found no evidence that militants were inside the building. The HRW report was based on interviews with more than a dozen people with firsthand knowledge of the strike. The rights body also worked with organizations to analyze the imagery of the attack and reconstruct the assault. A US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate. The coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians, while failing to fulfill its declared aim of destroying the Daesh terrorist group. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US deploys F-15 fighter jets to Israel for air drills: Report Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 6:57AM The United States has deployed an unspecified number of F-15 fighter jets to Israel to conduct joint exercises with the Israeli air force in the next two weeks, according to a report. The drills will take place out of the Ovda air base, the home of the Israeli air force's aggressor squadron known as Red Squadron, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday, citing military sources. "An international exercise in cooperation with the American air force will begin in the coming days," the Israeli military spokesman's office said. "The exercise is based on the annual training plan." The Israeli air force has conducted several war games with foreign counterparts in the past. Last month, it joined air forces from Greece, the United Arab Emirates and the US for a training exercise over Greece. Israeli pilots also took part in the Red Flag exercises in Nevada, the US, last year. Israel received three F-35 fighter jets from the US this past weekend - a new generation of stealth planes that critics fear would further enable the regime to carry out airstrikes and spying operations against the Palestinians and neighboring countries. The advanced jets, purchased last year, were put on display in the skies along the Mediterranean coast and across several cities, including Tel Aviv, during an air show held to mark the 69th anniversary of the forcible eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. Israel has bought a total of 50 F-35s from the US manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and has said it would have the first squadron combat-ready before the end of this year. Lockheed describes the plane as "virtually invisible." Although the jet comes with a huge price tag, $110 million apiece, the fleet will be financed out of the US military assistance. The annual $3 billion aid package will rise to $3.8 billion next year, under a 10-year agreement signed by former President Barack Obama shortly before he left the White House. Israel's older fleets of F-15 and F-16 jets, which have been in use since the 1970s, will gradually be decommissioned with the arrival of the new stealth fighter. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Robert Downey Jr. arrives for UK film premiere 'Captain America: Civil War' at Vue Westfield on April 26, 2016 in London, England. (Photo : Getty Images/Ian Gavan) From genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, superhero Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Robert Downey Jr. is ready to add another title to his resume: doctor who can communicate with animals. Downey is set to star in the still-unnamed "Doctor Dolittle" project; however, it was recently reported that the release date of the said movie has been moved to an earlier slot Advertisement According to Deadline, Universal Pictures has moved Downey's "Doctor Dolittle" release date from May 24, 2019 to April 12. The movie would've been up against Disney's "Star Wars: Episode IX," which is opening around the same time. Little is known about the project so far, but it was previously known as "The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle." The movie is based on the "enduring tales imagined by Hugh Lofting." Academy Award-winning director Stephen Gaghan has been tapped to helm the film. Gaghan wrote the latest draft of the screenplay from an earlier draft written by Tom Shepherd. Downey is playing the titular character, which was previously played by Eddie Murphy in "Dr. Doolittle" and "Dr. Doolittle 2." Downey's retelling, however, is said to be more in line with the 1967 "Doctor Dolittle" musical starring Rex Harrison, Screen Rant reported. If such is the case, RDJ is perfect for the role given his experience in comedy and playing charming yet odd characters, such as in the "Sherlock Holmes" movies. Meanwhile, Downey is currently filming "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers 4" back to back. The two-part movie event is said to be one of the most expensive movies ever made. Marvel is reportedly allotting $1 billion for the movies, $400 million of which will go to the salaries of actors, screenwriters, directors, and producers. However, Downey is reportedly expected to be paid $200 million for reprising his role as Iron Man/Tony Stark in both films. "Avengers: Infinity War" will bring back the core Avengers film, and will feature most of the actors in the MCU including Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland and more. Aside from "Avengers" and "Doctor Dolittle," Downey is also expected to work on a third "Sherlock Holmes" movie although no filming date has been confirmed. Pentagon to request thousands more US troops for Afghanistan Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 1:32AM The US military will ask the Donald Trump administration next week to deploy thousands more troops to Afghanistan, a senior official says. US media have reported that the Pentagon will request between 3,000 and 5,000 conventional military personnel, mainly to advise and assist Afghan military and police units in the fight against the Taliban. The Pentagon is also weighing a plan to deploy an unspecified number of Special Operations troops supposedly to escalate ground operations against al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIL) militants. "I expect that these proposals will go to the president within the next week," Theresa Whelan, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, said in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday. Whelan added that the goal is "to move beyond the stalemate and also to recognize that Afghanistan is a very important partner for the United States in a very tricky region." The US currently has around 8,400 soldiers in Afghanistan with about another 5,000 troops from NATO allies. The US-led occupying force officially announced to end its combat operations against the Taliban in the country at the end of 2014, and its current mission is to "train, advise, and assist" Afghan troops. But General Raymond Thomas, commander of the US Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on hursday that the new Trump administration could permit more direct engagement between US forces and the Taliban. "Changes to the rules of engagement are being considered," he said. The United States -- under Republican George W. Bush's presidency -- and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after more than one and-a-half-decade, the foreign troops are still deployed to the country. After becoming the president in 2008, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, vowed to end the Afghan war -- one of the longest conflicts in US history but he failed to keep his promise. Trump, who has spoken against the Afghan war, has dubbed the 2001 invasion and following occupation of Afghanistan as "Obama's war". But now the Trump administration is planning to deploy thousands of more troops to the war-torn country, signaling a policy shift. According to analysts, Afghanistan today is "less secure than any time since the US invasion with one third of the country under Taliban control and a plethora of Takfiri terrorist groups infiltrating the territory." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Afghans Protest After Rally Held For Militant Leader Hekmatyar In Kabul RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan May 05, 2017 Hundreds of Afghans have staged a protest against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, hours after the notorious militant leader held a large rally in Kabul to mark his return to the country under a peace deal with the government. The rally at a stadium and the protest outside Hekmatyar's government-funded residence in western Kabul on May 5 underscored deep divisions over the longtime militant leader, whose Hezb-e Islami group was responsible for some of deadliest violence in the civil war that engulfed Afghanistan in the 1990s. They came a day after Hekmatyar, who recently returned to Afghanistan following more than two decades in self-imposed exile, arrived in Kabul. Holding photographs of people allegedly killed by Hezb-e Islami in the bloody 1992-96 conflict, demonstrators demanded the government put Hekmatyar on trial for crimes they accuse him of committing. There were no reports of violence during the protest. Forces loyal to Hekmatyar, known as the "Butcher of Kabul," have been accused of gross human rights violations during the internecine war, in which the group stands accused of killing thousands of people in the capital. Thousands of Hekmatyar supporters attended the rally at Ghazi Stadium, waving the green flags of his group and shouting "Long Live Islam!" and "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great). Hezb-e Islami signed a peace agreement with President Ashraf Ghani's government in September. Under the deal, Hezb-e Islami have pledged they would lay down their weapons and end their insurgency against the Afghan government throughout the country. The agreement also says that Hezb-e Islami militia fighters who are interested in joining government forces will be "integrated" into the Afghan national security forces. In exchange, Hezb-e Islami prisoners will be released from Afghan jails, among other provisions of the agreement. At the rally, Hekmatyar called for all insurgent groups fighting the government, including the Taliban, to end what he said was a war "imposed" on Afghanistan from outside the country. "In every province, there are mass graves," he said, adding that the continuation of the war will only kill more Afghans. "Our country now needs peace." "Let's bring peace to the country first and tell the foreign forces that Afghans are able to sort out their issues themselves and we want them to leave Afghanistan," he added. "No one has any justification for the presence of foreign troops." He also called on the government to fulfill its promises under the peace deal, including the release of hundreds of Hezb-e Islami fighters in Afghan prisons. A day earlier, Hekmatyar met Ghani at the presidential palace, where a ceremony was held in his honor. During the gathering, Hekmatyar called on his Taliban "brothers" to end their insurgency and offered to mediate talks with the government. The government's peace deal with Hekmatyar has been criticized by many Afghans and by Western rights groups. Critics point to his dismal human rights record and his group's deadly attacks on U.S. and Afghan forces since the U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. Hekmatyar founded Hezb-e Islami in the mid-1970s. The group become one of the main mujahedin factions fighting against Soviet forces following their invasion in 1979, and then one of the most prominent groups in the civil war for control of Kabul after the collapse of the communist government in 1992 in the wake of the Soviet army's withdrawal from Afghanistan three years earlier. Hekmatyar, who had been prime minister in the mujahedin government from 1993-94 and then briefly again in 1996, was one of the chief protagonists of the civil war. Rights groups accuse Hekmatyar of responsibility for the shelling of residential areas of Kabul in the 1990s, as well as forced disappearances and covert jails where torture was commonplace. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-warlord- hekmatyar-addresses-rally-kabul/28469554.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Military Relocates Some European Command Facilities, Troops To Poland May 05, 2017 The U.S. military mission in Europe has said that it relocated a tactical headquarters and 100 troops to Poland from Germany to facilitate the command of U.S. rotational forces recently deployed to the region. Some 6,000 U.S. troops have deployed this year to the region, which is nervous over Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine and has requested a greater allied troop presence. The U.S. Atlantic Resolve mission in Europe said its division-level tactical headquarters relocated on April 29 to the western Polish city of Poznan to command the rotational forces in a region where the United States has not had a significant military presence in the past. The region includes Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The relocation will increase its ability to quickly react, deter, and defend against any threat, the mission said. Based on reporting by AP and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-military-mission- europe-locates-some-command-facilities- troops-poland/28469232.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon Suggests Coalition Air Strikes Will Continue Against IS In Syria Safe Zones RFE/RL May 05, 2017 The Pentagon has suggested it will carry out air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants within Syria's so-called "de-escalation zones," despite Russia's announcement that the areas would be closed to U.S.-led coalition military aircraft. A Pentagon spokesman, Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway, said on May 5 -- just hours before the Russian-backed safe zone plan was to be implemented -- that "the coalition will continue to target [IS militants] wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary." Rankine-Galloway noted that the U.S. government is not party to the safe-zone agreement that was signed by Russia, Turkey, and Iran on May 4 at Syria peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. The Pentagon spokesman also said the United States continues to "effectively de-conflict coalition operations. However, we are not going to discuss the specifics of how we de-conflict operations in the highly congested and complex battlespace in Syria." Russian state-run TASS news agency reported that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had spoken by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about the de-escalation arrangement, but it did not provide details. The safe-zone agreement was due to be implemented in Syria at midnight on May 6. Earlier on May 5, Russia's chief representative at Syria peace talks in Astana said the safe zone areas will be closed to warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition. "In the de-escalation zones, aviation operations -- especially by the forces of the international coalition forces -- are absolutely not envisaged, with or without prior notification. This question is closed," Russian envoy Aleksandr Lavrentyev said. However, Lavrentyev said later on May 5 that U.S.-led coalition aircraft would still be able to operate against IS militants in specific areas. He did not clarify whether that included IS targets inside the designated safe zones. Lavrentyev also has said neither Russian nor Syrian warplanes would fly within the de-escalation zones unless Syrian opposition fighters attack Syrian government forces. But he said they will continue to attack IS militants in areas outside of the safe zones. Meanwhile, Russia's military said on May 5 that it will continue fighting IS extremists and the Al-Qaeda linked affiliate previously known as Al-Nusra, including inside the "de-escalation zones." The Russian announcements have raised concerns among Syria's armed opposition groups, whose members say such declarations have been used in the past by President Bashar al-Assad's government to enable his Russian-backed forces to strike anywhere and claim they are attacking terrorists. The pact was opposed by the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the main Syrian opposition umbrella group backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia. In a statement issued on May 5, the HNC rejected Iran's role as a guarantor of the plan. It also said only the United Nations should be entrusted with talks on the Syrian conflict, and it urged against moves that would "partition the country through vague meanings of what has been called...'de-escalation' zones.'" The HNC also said the safe-zone plan would allow Syrian government forces to achieve military goals that they could not on the battlefield by neutralizing forces in rebel-held territories. Senior Russian military commander Sergei Rudskoi said on May 5 that Russian military officials would meet "with U.S. colleagues in the near future" to discuss Russia's return to full-scale participation in an agreement aimed at direct conflict with each other in Syrian airspace. Russia suspended its participation in the agreement in early April after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a cruise-missile strike against a Syrian air base in response to what Washington said was a chemical attack against civilians by Assad's forces. Separate air strike campaigns by Russia and the United States have caused tension in the past two years. The United States reacted cautiously to the agreement, saying that it "supports any effort that can genuinely de-escalate the violence in Syria" but expressing concern about Iran's role as a cease-fire guarantor and saying Russia must ensure compliance by the Syrian government. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States "supports any effort that can genuinely de-escalate the violence in Syria, ensure unhindered humanitarian access, focus energies on the defeat of ISIS and other terrorists, and create the conditions for a credible political resolution of the conflict." However, the State Department said it continues to have concerns about "the involvement of Iran as a so-called 'guarantor.' Iran's activities in Syria have only contributed to the violence, not stopped it, and Iran's unquestioning support for the Assad regime has perpetuated the misery of ordinary Syrians. "In light of the failures of past agreements, we have reason to be cautious. We expect the regime to stop all attacks on civilians and opposition forces, something they have never done. We expect Russia to ensure...compliance" by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, she said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautiously welcomed the agreement on May 4 but suggested it is important to see results on the ground. Guterres "is encouraged by the agreement...to de-escalate violence in key areas in Syria," his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement on May 4. "It will be crucial to see this agreement actually improve the lives of Syrians," he added. Within safe zones that are being set up, the memorandum signed in Astana by Russia, Turkey, and Iran calls for a cease-fire, a ban on all overflights, rapid deliveries of humanitarian aid to the designated areas, and the return of refugees. The Astana safe-zone plan for Syria calls for setting up four "de-escalation zones" in northern, central, and southern Syria, where Assad's forces are fighting rebels in a war that has killed some 400,000 people since 2011. They would be surrounded by checkpoints manned by opposition and government troops. Foreign troops also could be deployed in observer roles. With reporting by AFP, AP, The New York Times, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/un-chief- guterres-encouraged-syrian-safe-zone-deal- russia-iran-turkey/28469263.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Macedonia's Speaker Seeks Recognition To Install New Government RFE/RL May 05, 2017 Macedonia's parliament speaker has asked the country's president to recognize a majority of Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian members of parliament so they can form a new government. Talat Xhaferi, who took over the speaker's office on May 3, urged President Gjorge Ivanov on May 4 to acknowledge the new majority bloc and allow Social Democratic Union leader Zoran Zaev to form a cabinet. "I expect the president to act according to the constitution," Xhaferi said before heading to Brussels to meet with European Union officials, including Johannes Hahn, the commissioner in charge of EU enlargement. Ivanov, an ally of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party that has ruled Macedonia for years, has 10 days to answer Xhaferi's request. Ivanov has previously refused to give a government mandate to Zaev, contending the coalition's agreement to make Albanian the country's second language threatens national unity and sovereignty. However, after speaking with a U.S. envoy on May 1, he suggested he might relent if Zaev provided reassurances that his coalition would work according to the constitution and uphold national sovereignty. Zaev told reporters in Skopje on May 4 that "I am ready, if necessary, to see Ivanov and offer guarantees that the territorial integrity of Macedonia will be respected." Zaev said that he expected his government to be established by the end of the month, possibly ushering in the end of a long-running political crisis. Inconclusive parliamentary elections in December led to the current impasse. Though the VMRO-DPMNE got the most votes, it was not able to put together a ruling coalition. But when Zaev's Social Democrats put together a majority coalition with ethnic Albanians, who make up about a quarter of the country's 2.1 million population, the VMRO-DPMNE and its nationalist supporters staged protests nearly every night calling for new elections. The coalition's vote last week to install Xhaferi, a former ethnic Albanian guerrilla, as speaker prompted about 100 of the protesters to storm into parliament and assault Zaev and ethnic Albanian lawmakers in a melee that left more than 100 people injured. The EU and United States strongly condemned the violence, moved to recognize Zaev's coalition as the legitimate majority bloc, and called on Ivanov to do the same. Macedonia has been without a functioning government since 2015, when it fell into turmoil over a wiretapping scandal that brought down the VMRO-DPMNE's governing bloc. Efforts to advance toward membership of the EU and NATO have been set back by the impasse. The EU's foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has called the violence in Macedonia "worrying" and "dangerous." At her meeting with Xhaferi on May 4, Mogherini called on all sides to "engage constructively in the political process" and said she was ready to work with Xhaferi and other parties to end the political deadlock. "The EU expects all political parties to engage constructively in the political process, including on government formation, and in the work of the new parliament," Mogherini said. With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-parliament -speaker-xhaferi-seeks-recognition-new- government-president-ivanov/28469161.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bangkok, Beijing Sign Contract on Delivery of First Submarine to Thailand Sputnik News 23:09 05.05.2017 Thailand and China have signed a contract on the delivery of the first of three submarines that Thailand's naval forces plan to purchase from Beijing over the course of the next 11 years, media reported Friday. BANGKOK (Sputnik) According to the Bangkok Post newspaper, the representatives of the Royal Thai Navy and Chinese state enterprise China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co (CSOC) signed the document in Beijing. China introduced no changes to the version of the contract, which was edited by the Thai attorney-general, the daily added. Under the contract, Thailand will buy three Yuan Class S26T submarines worth a total of around 36 billion baht ($1 billion), with 700 million baht ($20.2 million) due to be paid within 45 days. The first submarine is expected to be delivered within six years. China also agreed to provide CM-708 missiles, which can be fired from the submarine over a range of 290 kilometers (180 miles), free of charge. On April 18, Thailand's cabinet of ministers approved, in secrecy, the decision to acquire a 13.5 billion baht ($390 million) submarine from China and two more over the next 11 years. As a result, a large number of activists, politicians and members of society raised concerns over the impact of the submarine purchases on the national economy and defense budget, as the deal may deprive the country of its military budget in case of emergencies, while the expediency of the submarines in general were also questioned. On April 28, local media reported that Thailand's Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) decided to launch a probe into the Royal Thai Navy's plans to purchase three submarines from China due to the strong criticism which came after the deal was struck upon the petition of one of the activists. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Meant for Each Other: Why Russian Ka-52 Are Top Choice for Egypt's Mistral Ships Sputnik News 13:47 05.05.2017 Russia's shipborne Ka-52K Katran combat helicopters are best suited for Egypt's Mistral warships, an official representative of Russia's Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT) told Sputnik on Friday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, Russian Helicopters company CEO Andrei Boginsky said that a decision on the purchase of Russia's Ka-52K combat helicopters by Egypt should be made in May. "Given that Mistral [helicopter carriers], currently at the disposal of Egypt, were at one point intended for delivery to Russia, they are specifically adapted for Ka-52K basing and operating on them, which in turn were also built for the deployment on ships of this type," the official said. The representative added that the Mistral underdeck hangars were designed for the Russian helicopters. The Ka-52K is a naval modification of the Ka-52 Alligator reconnaissance and combat helicopter designed to destroy armored vehicles, perform fire support operations, and conduct patrol and escort missions. In August 2015, Paris and Moscow formally terminated the 1.2-billion-euro ($1.35 billion at the current exchange rate) deal on the construction and delivery of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers, as France had refused to transfer them to Russia over its alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict. Shortly after, French President Francois Hollande confirmed that a deal had been reached with Egypt on the delivery of the two Mistrals. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Egypt's Decision on Buying Russia's Ka-52K Expected in May - Russian Helicopters Sputnik News 12:00 05.05.2017(updated 12:26 05.05.2017) Russian Helicopters company CEO said that a decision on the purchase of Russia's shipborne Ka-52K Katran combat helicopters by Egypt should be reached this month. ARSENYEV (Primorsky Territory, Russia) (Sputnik) A decision on the purchase of Russia's shipborne Ka-52K Katran combat helicopters by Egypt should be reached this month, Russian Helicopters company CEO Andrey Boginsky said Friday. "The bidding procedure is in the final stage and I think we will learn the result of this tender during May," Boginsky told reporters. He said Russia's Rosoboronexport state export-import intermediary would enter into pricing negotiations with Egypt in late May if Russian Helicopters win the tender. The Ka-52K is a naval modification of the Ka-52 Alligator reconnaissance and combat helicopter designed to destroy armored vehicles, perform fire support operations, and conduct patrol and escort missions. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Keep interests of people above all else, UN Security Council urges political actors in DR Congo 5 May 2017 Voicing concern over challenges to the implementation of last year's political agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and deteriorating humanitarian and security situation, the United Nations Security Council has urged all stakeholders to redouble their efforts to resolve the problems faced by the country. The agreement, popularly referred to as the '31 December agreement' represented a significant step towards a peacefully managed transition. However, its implementation has since seen considerable difficulties. "Effective, swift and timely implementation of the agreement is critical to a credible process and the peace and stability of the DRC, as well as in supporting the legitimacy of the transitional institutions, as it represents a viable road map towards the holding of peaceful and democratic elections," said members of the Security Council in a statement late yesterday. Among others, the agreement has stipulated that peaceful, credible, inclusive and timely elections would be organized in DRC no later than December 2017, and would include the participation of all sectors of the society, in particular women. Also in the statement, the members urged for the swift and inclusive establishment of a government of national unity, the Comite National de Suivi de l'Accord, the adoption of a new electoral law and the full implementation of the confidence building measures in chapter V of the 31 December 2016 agreement, some of which are yet to be implemented. They also urged all national political stakeholders to overcome their differences, uphold the interests of their people and ensure that they are guided by the rule of law, restraint and the spirit of compromise and dialogue. In that regard, they called on all political actors, whether in the country or abroad, to desist from any actions that could exacerbate tensions. Further in the statement, the members of Security Council condemned violence and alleged violations and abuses of human rights in the Kasai region as well as the deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in the region, which according to reports, has displaced more than one million people within the country and more than 11,000 across its borders. The members also stressed the need for a swift and full investigation into the killing of the two members of the Group of Experts established pursuant to Security Council resolution 1533 (2004) and underlined the need for full cooperation from the Government. In this context, they further welcomed the Secretary General's establishment of a UN Board of Inquiry to investigate the deaths of the two experts and his commitment that the UN will do everything possible to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Central African Republic: UN cites 'dire' situation for children; amid threats, some aid work suspended 5 May 2017 Four international humanitarian organizations have temporarily suspended activities in northern Central African Republic (CAR) after dozens of attacks on aid workers in the region, the United Nations humanitarian office today said. During the first quarter of the year, 33 incidents targeting humanitarians were recorded across the country, placing CAR "among the high-risk countries for humanitarian aid," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Sixteen of those attacks were in the northern prefecture of Ouham, and were reported since March. The senior UN humanitarian official in the country strongly condemned the attacks, reminding that half of the population about 2.2 million people depends on aid. Provision of basic services has been hampered by decades of instability, the latest following the ouster of President Francois Bozize by the Seleka rebel coalition in March 2013. "Suspending this aid would jeopardize social stability and threaten the fragile resilience of the communities," said the Humanitarian Coordinator, ai, Michel Yao. "This withdrawal constitutes a setback in humanitarian access for the Central African Republic, as it places in the disarray of people who have already repeatedly suffered violence and have experienced successive displacements." The staff from the four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will redeploy to the capital, Bangui, while other aid organization plan to "strictly reduce" their presence and possibly withdraw if the attacks persist, according to OCHA. Aiding children in the 'forgotten crisis' Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) today called for increased support to the more than 1 million children threatened by violence, in what a senior UNICEF official called a "forgotten crisis." The situation for children inside the country is "calamitous as violence and widespread displacement have made children especially vulnerable to health risks, exploitation and abuse," the UN agency reported. "We cannot allow the Central African Republic to become a forgotten crisis," said Christine Muhigana, UNICEF Representative in the Central African Republic. "The reality is that without sufficient support we will not be able to provide the vital services that are needed to keep children healthy, safe and in school." The UN agency is facing a $32.6 million funding gap in its work in the country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. US Special-forces Member Killed in Clash With Somali Militants By Carla Babb, Harun Maruf May 05, 2017 Al-Shabab militants in Somalia killed a member of U.S. special forces Friday and wounded three other members of an American team assisting Somali soldiers, U.S. officials said. The Navy SEAL who died in the operation against al-Shabab was the first American killed in the war-torn country since a deadly battle in 1993 the clash that inspired the movie Black Hawk Down. White House officials said President Donald Trump sent his deepest condolences to the family of the victim, along with his appreciation for the efforts of all men and women in the U.S. military. Small-arms fire killed the Navy SEAL in a small village 65 kilometers west of Mogadishu. A U.S. military official told VOA at least two other Navy SEALs and an interpreter were wounded in the attack in the village of Barire, west of Afgoye. U.S. Africa Command, responsible for all American military operations on the continent, said the U.S. forces came under attack during an advise-and-assist mission alongside members of the Somali National Army. "This was a Somali mission," Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Friday. American forces were "operating in support of" the Somali units, in an attack targeting a compound associated with attacks on nearby facilities used by both U.S. and Somali forces, he added. A senior official in Somalia's Lower Shabelle region said soldiers raided a building that houses Radio Andalus, al-Shabab's official radio station. The attack killed eight al-Shabab fighters, the official said, adding that radio-station equipment reportedly was seized. "We helped bring [the Somali soldiers] in with our aircraft, and we were there maintaining a distance back as they conducted the operation," Davis said at the Pentagon. "That's when our forces came under fire." 'Deepest sympathies' from Trump Al-Shabab said its fighters "foiled" an attack by U.S. troops and killed an unspecified number of "enemy soldiers" Friday. The group's military spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab, told Radio Andalus the militants knew about the attack in advance and were prepared for it. At the White House, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters the president was fully briefed on the action in Somalia by his national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster. "First and foremost [we] want to express our deepest condolences and our deepest appreciation for all of the men and women in the military and the ultimate sacrifice that they paid particularly this soldier and all of the others," Sanders said. "The president has made it certainly a major priority to protect the men and women who protect us. That's one of the reasons he wanted to put so much emphasis on rebuilding the military, and that was a priority for him in the budget. And again, our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to all of the men and women in uniform and, particularly, this family." Details of clash from Somali sources Security sources and officials in the Lower Shabelle region say Friday's attack was led by Somalia's Danab commando team, accompanied by U.S. special forces. The team attacked a target in Dar es Salam village, located between the small towns of Barire and Mubarak, both controlled by al-Shabab, the Somali sources said. The area is said to be mostly farmland with large banana and pawpaw crops. One official told VOA's Somali service that helicopters carried the commandos and special forces from Ballidogle airport, a known base for U.S. trainers working with Somali forces, to a point near Barire, and the soldiers then walked to Dar es Salam village. A Somali ground force from the town of Afgoye supported the raid, which began overnight Friday. U.S.: Militants 'neutralized' Pentagon spokesman Davis said U.S. and Somali forces "quickly neutralized" enemy forces on the ground, and evacuated the wounded aboard helicopters. VOA Somalia reported al-Shabab later sealed off an area around Dar es Salam village, where the firefight took place. The militants claimed they also deployed large numbers of reinforcements. U.S. special forces and Somali commandos have been conducting joint operations for more than a year as part of the U.S. effort to help the Somali government combat al-Shabab. Joint operations have taken place in Lower Shabelle and Lower Juba, two regions where al-Shabab has a large presence, and especially in the strategic agricultural area west of Afgoye where Friday's action took place. The U.S. says military personnel advise and assist Somali security forces, but local officials say U.S. troops also provide helicopters and intelligence gathering. Last month, dozens of American soldiers deployed to Mogadishu for a separate mission to train and equip Somali and AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) forces fighting extremism in Somalia, U.S. military officials told VOA. Somali officials say more than 500 Somalia commandos have been trained by the U.S., and the Somali government has said it wants to increase the number of trained commandos to 4,000. 18 Americans died in 'Black Hawk' disaster 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 the peacekeeping mission, which by late 1993 had expanded to try to restore a government in Somalia. Two American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in October 1993. Rescue squads sent in to try to remove soldiers from the crash sites became pinned down, and a 15-hour battle ensued 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 1994, and the United States also withdrew from the peacekeeping missions in the East African country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Optimistic on Israeli-Palestinian Peace, Without Endorsing Two States By William Gallo May 05, 2017 President Donald Trump may be confident he can help mediate a historic peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. But don't ask him what that deal looks like, because apparently he's not saying. During his meeting this week with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Trump repeatedly expressed hope for an "agreement," a "deal," or more generally an arrangement resulting in "peace" between the two sides. Conspicuously absent from Trump's remarks was any reference to a two-state solution or the notion of a Palestinian state, which the U.S. has long seen as the desired outcome of the Mideast peace negotiations. The omission did not go unrecognized. "He made sure he never mentioned Palestine you noticed that, yes?" Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, told VOA. "I think he's departing in some ways from long-standing American policy on the two-state solution." U.S. officials insist Trump is not opposed to two states; they say he is simply keeping all options open and is allowing the Israelis and Palestinians to decide for themselves what the result of peace talks will be. But Trump's reluctance to even mention the idea of a Palestinian state risks sending mixed messages at a sensitive moment, as the White House tries to restart peace talks, and could further the perception among many Palestinians that the U.S. is not an impartial broker in the dispute. A pattern of wavering It's not the first time the question has been raised. During a meeting in February with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump explicitly said he would consider alternatives to the two-state framework. "I'm looking at two-state and one-state," said Trump, alongside Netanyahu. "I'm very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one." It's not clear what Trump meant by "one-state," since the U.S., Israel, and most Palestinian leaders have long opposed the creation of a single, democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. Although the comment created headlines, U.S. State Department officials deny it reflects a fundamental shift in U.S. policy. "The administration is not casting aside the two-state solution," a State Department spokesperson told VOA. "It still remains a possibility if both parties agree that a two-state solution is their preferred approach, and in such an event the president will strongly support them in moving toward that goal. This is not our choice to make it is theirs to make together." Palestinian support As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned, an independent state based on pre-1967 borders remains the only solution. "Our strategic choice is to bring about peace based on the vision of the two-state," Abbas, who heads the West Bank-based PA, told Trump. Hamas, which controls Gaza, this week also took steps toward accepting a two-state framework, issuing a political document that omitted the group's previous call for Israel's destruction. For Israel's part, Netanyahu first endorsed the principle of a two-state solution in 2009. But he has at times backed away from the idea, such as during the 2015 election, when he said he would never permit a Palestinian state to be established under his watch. Complicating matters, most Israeli cabinet ministers in Netanyahu's right-wing government oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. Trump offering a favor? That could help explain why Trump is unwilling to even say the words "two-state solution" or "Palestinian state," said Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, in an interview with VOA. "At the moment, it's politically difficult for Netanyahu to utter those formulas. So I think Trump is trying to do him a favor by finding other formulas," said Shapiro, now a fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. But if you read between the lines of what Trump is proposing a peace deal achieved through direct talks that both sides can accept and that Arab countries will support a two-state solution is the only option, Shapiro said. Backing up that theory, White House negotiators have privately reassured Palestinian officials of their support for two states, according to various news reports. But as Palestinians prepare next month to mark the 50-year anniversary of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, land Palestinians want for an independent state, few see reasons for optimism about the Trump-led peace process. "Let's just say I'm extremely realistic," said Ashrawi, the Palestinian lawmaker, laughing. "It'll take a lot to convince me that there is a peacemaker now in the White House who knows how to make a deal that is based on international law and justice." VOA's Nike Ching contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Launches South Asia 'Diplomacy' Satellite for Communication Services By Anjana Pasricha May 05, 2017 India launched a "South Asia" satellite on Friday to provide communication services to neighboring countries in a new initiative hailed by leaders of seven South Asian countries as a boost to regional cooperation. The "space diplomacy" by India, which has an advanced space program, aims at building stronger ties in the region where China has been gaining influence. But underlining the tensions between the two most populous countries in the region, India's arch-rival, Pakistan has opted out of the project. Soon after the launch of the $70-million satellite, which is funded by New Delhi, the leaders of the seven countries participating in the project India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Maldives, addressed a video conference that was nationally televised. Calling it the "first of its kind" project, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the satellite would help meet the aspirations of economic progress of one-and-a-half-billion people in the region. "It shows that our collective choices for our citizens will bring us together for cooperation, not conflict, development, not destruction, and prosperity, not poverty, he said." Pointing out that South Asia was the world's least economically integrated region, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said "South Asia has taken a giant step today toward regional cooperation." The leader of the landlocked country, which does not have road access to India, said if cooperation through land is not possible, it is certainly possible through the sky. "We are confident we will integrate," he said. Weighing 2,230 kilograms and containing 12 communication transponders, the satellite was put in orbit by a rocket in Sriharikota in eastern Andhra Pradesh state. It will help provide services such as telecommunications, telemedicine, disaster management and weather forecasting. In a region prone to natural disasters like cyclones, floods and earthquakes, the satellite's greatest benefit is expected to be in the area of disaster management. The biggest beneficiaries will be the two smallest countries Bhutan and Maldives. Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay noted that his tiny Himalayan country, which measures the happiness quotient of its citizens as an indicator of progress, had neither the technical know-how nor the resources to launch their own satellite. He said the satellite will "advance the well being and happiness of our people" as it helps boost an array of services. Pointing out that India wants to use its space program to further its regional goals, Sukh Deo Muni, a South Asia expert at New Delhi's Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses said "India wants to take the lead in integrating the region, and probably join hands on the developmental issues, cooperating with each other." After taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Modi launched what he called a "neighborhood first" approach, partly to counter China, which has expanded its influence in South Asia and pumped in billions of dollars to build infrastructure projects in countries like Sri Lanka. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan at the Observer Research Foundation Others said that for the first time, Modi is giving a strategic dimension to the country's space program. "India is possibly beginning to appreciate the importance of space launches as part of foreign policy tool and diplomatic engagement, something that China has been doing for a long time," he said. Foreign policy experts say Pakistan's decision to opt out of the project is not surprising given the deep political hostilities and suspicions between the two countries. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China's first homegrown plane flies into skies Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 9:20AM China has sent its first homegrown airplane into the skies in what authorities have described as a landmark achievement that has already propelled the country into a new era of aviation. The C919, a twin-engine airliner designed to compete with the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737, took off from Shanghai's Pudong international airport in the early hours of Friday. The jet which has more than 150 seats and a range of 4,075 kilometers is the work of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), a state-run company that was founded in 2008 with the specific mission of producing the country's first commercially viable passenger jet. Several of the plane's key components are imported. They include the landing gear which is imported from Germany, the engines that are built by Franco-American companies and the interior which has been designed by Austrian firms. Previously, Comac had said that 21 customers had placed orders for more than 500 planes by the end of 2016 and that it expected sales to exceed 2,000 in the near future. Friday's maiden flight will be a key milestone for the C919, which has been plagued by delays. Final ground tests only concluded a few weeks ago, much later than the original schedule of a first flight in 2014, and aircraft delivery in 2016, wrote the media. China is expected to beat the US as the world's largest aviation market by 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association. And it's going to be big business for a range of sectors, from tourism to airplane makers as the country's airlines buy more planes and add more routes. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China boosting air force capabilities: Paper Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 6:33AM China's military has been boosting its air force as part of an overall program to strengthen armed forces amid the threat posed by US military presence in the region. Chinese combat exercises are becoming more intense and more realistic, according to a Friday report by the official China Daily. "Commanders and pilots have been given stringent, realistic combat scenarios and are told to try their best to win," the paper said, citing the air force. "Now, freestyle fighting, live-fire strikes, and long-range sea patrols have become regular elements in the training of the air force's fighter jet and bomber units," it added. Integrated operations involving more than one type of aircraft and different air force units are also becoming more common, the paper said. "Thanks to exercises that are much more difficult than before, pilots have substantially enhanced their capabilities," air force pilot Xu Qin said. Beijing, which boasts the world's largest armed forces with 2.3 million personnel, has decided to upgrade its military technology to match international standards. President Xi Jinping outlined in March Beijing's goal to enhance the country's military in the shortest possible time. Xi emphasized that the country needed to have a greater sense of urgency and pursue scientific and technological advancements with greater vigor and determination. Science and technology provide the "key to military upgrading," he said. To increase its military muscle, Beijing has upgraded its armed forces by employing advanced stealth jets, anti-satellite missiles, and submarines. Beijing has also made huge advancements in space technology and plans to build a permanent space base by 2022 at the latest. Chinese officials have underscored Beijing's determination to do whatever is needed to defend its territorial rights in self-ruled Taiwan and in disputed waters in the South and East China seas. The regional military presence of the United States, which always takes sides with China's rival claimants in the disputed waters, has been a source of concern for China's leadership. US President Donald Trump had during his election campaign often bashed China for its policies. But Trump later invited President Xi to his luxurious estate in Florida to hold one-on-one talks on how to further expand business ties. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DPRK says foiling U.S., South Korean attempt to assassinate Kim Jong Un People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 19:36, May 05, 2017 PYONGYANG, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it had foiled an attempt by U.S. and South Korean spy agencies to assassinate the country's top leader Kim Jong Un, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. According to the report, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and South Korea's Intelligence Service (IS) attempted to murder DPRK's Kim last month with bio-chemical and radio-active substances. The Ministry of State Security of the DPRK said in a statement that CIA recruited a DPRK citizen in Russia's Far East in 2014 and trained him to stage the assassination against Kim when he was making public appearances on April 15 during celebrations of the 105th birthday of DPRK founding leader Kim Il Sung. The KCNA said the spy, surnamed Kim and a resident of Pyongyang, was given equipment, money and instruction to carry out the plot. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address CIA 'hatches plot' to assassinate Kim Jong-un: North Korea Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 12:41PM The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and South Korea's intelligence services have "hatched vicious plot" to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un involving "biochemical substances" during public ceremonial events in Pyongyang, according to the country's state media. The North's ministry of state security said in a statement on Friday that the CIA "assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target." The statement called the plot equivalent to "the declaration of a war" by the United States against North Korea. This comes as tensions between Pyongyang and the administration of President Donald Trump escalates over US military build-up on the Korean Peninsula and the North's carrying out nuclear and missile tests. The statement said the CIA and the South Korean intelligence services have "ideologically corrupted and bribed a DPRK citizen surnamed Kim" to murder the North Korean leader. "We will ferret out and mercilessly destroy to the last one the terrorists of the US CIA and the puppet IS [intelligence service] of South Korea," the statement said. "The heinous crime, which was recently uncovered and smashed in the DPRK, is a kind of terrorism against not only the DPRK but the justice and conscience of humankind and an act of mangling the future of humankind," it added. In a surprising move earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said he "would be honored" to meet North Korean leader, a day after Trump praised Kim as "a pretty smart cookie." "'I can tell you this, and a lot of people don't like when I say it, but he was a young man of 26 or 27 when he took over from his father, when his father died. He's dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others," Trump told NBC News on Sunday. Tensions with North Korea have soared in recent weeks. The Trump administration has repeatedly warned "all options are on the table" regarding North Korea. It has repeatedly threatened Kim with a military response to new tests of missiles and nuclear warheads, and sent warships and a nuclear submarine to Korean waters. Trump even ordered two major attacks in Syria and Afghanistan last month, both of them viewed as stern warnings to the North. North Korea, in response, has increased its missile tests and even hinted at a new nuclear test in the coming weeks. It has also warned the US and its regional allies like South Korea and Japan of a strong military response in case of any invasion. Despite sanctions and international pressure, Pyongyang has been attempting to strengthen its military capability to protect itself from the threat posed by the presence of US forces in the region. North Korea says it will not give up on its nuclear deterrence unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward Pyongyang and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea. Thousands of US soldiers are stationed in South Korea and Japan. According to the US military's recent declaration, the United States has 806 deployed ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missile), SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missile), and heavy bombers as well as 1,722 deployed nuclear warheads. The Pentagon is also equipped with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), a highly advanced version of the intercontinental nuclear missile carrying several independent warheads. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address North Korea Accuses US of Plotting Kim Assassination By VOA News May 05, 2017 North Korea on Friday accused the governments of the United States and South Korea of carrying out an unsuccessful assassination attempt against leader Kim Jong Un. State media reports quoted the country's security ministry as saying it would "ferret out and mercilessly destroy" the agents in the U.S. and South Korean spy agencies it accuses of plotting the attack. A cash deal According to the Ministry of State Security, American and South Korean spies coerced a North Korean citizen into carrying out the assassination attempt in return for money and supplied the would-be assassin with satellite equipment to track Kim's movement. The cooperation between spies and the North Korean man, identified only by his surname, Kim, allegedly began in 2014 when agents approached him while he was working in Russia. Upon returning home, the spies allegedly had repeated contact with the man, and last month informed him he would use a biochemical weapon to carry out the assassination. No details revealed The North Korean statement did not provide details about how it allegedly broke up the assassination plot or if anyone else involved was in custody. North Korea regularly lashes out at the U.S. and South Korea, though the allegations lodged Friday were more specific than usual. The CIA declined to comment on the allegations. Earlier this year, Kim's exiled half-brother was assassinated at a Malaysian airport in a similar fashion to that described by the security ministry. The chemical attack, using the VX agent, is largely believed to have been carried out by North Korea, though the country denies involvement. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In Second Iranian Presidential Debate, Conservatives Accuse Rohani Of Failing To Cash In On Nuclear Deal Golnaz Esfandiari May 05, 2017 Iranian President Hassan Rohani came under criticism from his main conservative rivals during a live televised presidential election debate on May 5 -- a debate focusing on politics and culture. Rohani's rivals accused him of failing to improve Iran's economy in the aftermath of Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers, under which Iran significantly limited its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Hard-line conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi said the nuclear deal has failed to translate into improved living standards for the Iranian people. "This deal was like a check that the government has been unable to cash," Raisi said. Raisi also accused Rohani's government of demonstrating weakness during negotiations with world powers. "Saying that if we don't sign the agreement, the other side will take action and attack our nuclear sites [was] a very bad message for the talks," Raisi said. Despite the criticism, Raisi said that he would remain committed to the nuclear deal if he is elected president. Tehran's Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf also said Iranians have not benefited from the nuclear deal. He also accused Rohani's government of relying heavily on foreign investment while ignoring national resources. Qalibaf, who is running for president for the third time, has said he will safeguard the nuclear agreement, if elected. Rohani, who came to power in 2013, defended his record while accusing conservatives of trying to sabotage the nuclear deal and undermine the country's nuclear negotiators. "If the [nuclear deal] is an accepted agreement, then why did you raise billboards in Tehran [that were critical of the deal]? Why did you insult those who were negotiating?" Rohani asked. The Iranian president also criticized the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for conducting provocative missile tests and scrawling anti-Israeli slogans on the missiles before launching them. "We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground [missile] cities to disrupt the nuclear deal," Rohani said. Rohani said his conservative rivals were happy about the election of U.S. President Donald Trump because they thought he would tear up the nuclear deal. Rohani said all the presidential candidates should announce their stances on the nuclear deal and also how they would interact with the world if they are elected. Rohani's vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, who is also a presidential candidate, described the deal as one of Iran's greatest achievements and said that people's lives have indeed improved as a result. Jahangiri is thought to be running to stand by Rohani in the face of attacks by his rivals. He said those who criticized Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the nuclear talks with the United States and other world powers are now taking "souvenir photos" with the deal. Raisi and Qalibaf have vowed to create jobs, if elected. The other conservative candidate, former Minister of Culture Mostafa Mirsalim, was also critical of Rohani during the debate, while moderate former Vice President Mostafa Hashemitaba defended the government. During the first presidential election debate on April 28, Qalibaf accused Rohani of mismanagement and of supporting rich Iranians at the expense of the poor. The third and final debate of the campaign is scheduled for May 12. It will focus on economic issues. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-presidential-debate-rohani -attacked-nuclear-deal/28470499.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address No American troops to stay in Iraq after anti-Daesh fight: Iraqi PM Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 1:23PM Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says US military forces will not stay on in his conflict-stricken Arab country once government forces, backed by volunteer fighters from Popular Mobilization Units, retake swathes of land that are still under the control of Takfiri Daesh terrorists. Abadi, in a statement released on Friday, announced that there are no foreign combat troops on Iraqi soil, but there are military advisers and experts from a number of countries. The statement further dismissed the Associated Press report on talks between Iraq and the United States on maintaining American forces in the country. The US combat mission in Iraq ended in 2010, when former president Barack Obama ordered almost all US troops to withdraw from the Arab state. The Iraqi prime minister added that the Iraqi government has plans and strategies to develop the capabilities of its security forces through training and arming so that they are fully prepared to counter any future security challenges. Baghdad is open to all international expertise in accordance with the requirements of Iraqi national sovereignty, Abadi highlighted. Iraqi forces recapture three villages northwest of Mosul Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces have made territorial gains on the outskirts of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital Baghdad. Commander of Federal Police Forces Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said on Friday that his forces had established control over five square kilometers northwest of Daesh's last urban stronghold, and liberated three villages from the clutches of the extremists. Jawdat added that Federal Police forces also besieged the militant-held al-Haramat region, and four kilometers close to the Fifth Bridge in western Mosul. He noted that 23 Daesh militants were killed in the process. Top Daesh commanders slain in western Mosul Iraqi security forces also launched an operation against Daesh positions in the Zanjili neighborhood of western Mosul, killing a senior militant commander identified as Hassan Jomeh Hassan. Separately, Captain Ali al-Bahadoli of Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said government forces had lobbed a barrage of missiles at an area west of Mosul, killing scores of Daesh militants. Habib Khalid al-Jabbar, an official in charge of the terror group's military affairs, was killed during the operation. Iraqi army soldiers and pro-government fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, have made sweeping gains against the Takfiri elements since launching the operation to retake Mosul. The Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19. The United Nations says nearly half a million civilians have fled fighting since the offensive to retake Mosul started on October 17, 2016. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on April 17 that 493,000 people had been displaced from the city, located some 400 kilometers north of Baghdad. As many as 500,000 civilians are still trapped in the Daesh-controlled neighborhoods of western Mosul. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address At least six Nigerian soldiers have been killed in new military campaign against militants in the country's restive Niger Delta oil hub, security officials said on Friday. The southern swampland has been largely quiet since the start of the year because militants halted attacks against oil pipelines to give the government a chance to conduct peace talks. But in a new confrontation, army and security forces moved on Sunday into the Ajakpa community in Ondo state, a region west of the Niger Delta, to hunt down militants involved in oil theft and kidnapping. At least six soldiers were killed, as was the leader of a gang that had used the area as base to stage operations inside the Delta, military officials told a news conference in the oil town of Yenagoa. The operation has not yet finished. "Following that successful operation, our troops carried out a raid operation to clear remnants of miscreants, militant camps, shrines and hideouts," a military statement said. But the Ijaw Youth Council, representing the biggest ethnic group in the region, said the army had laid siege to the community and harmed civilians. "No one is allowed to come in or go out from the community as the water ways have been blocked by the military," it said in a statement. "Women and children are dying on the hour of starvation and diseases; women are being raped and sexually harassed." The military rejected the allegations as propaganda. A similar operation in a different area had fueled an insurgency before the government managed to calm down tensions by promising more development for the impoverished region, a key demand from residents. Villagers, complaining of poverty, often give militants shelter in the Niger Delta's hard-to-access creeks. The damage from attacks on Nigeria's oil industry has exacerbated a downturn in Africa's largest economy, which slipped into recession in 2016 for the first time in 25 years, largely due to low oil prices. Search Keywords: Short link: From Civil War to Civil Rule: Libya's Army, PM Take Steps Towards National Unity Sputnik News 17:42 05.05.2017(updated 17:49 05.05.2017) Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj of the Government of National Accord of Libya and Commander of the Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar have agreed to create a presidential state council and hold early presidential and parliamentary elections in the country in six months, according to the Arab satellite channel Al-Hadath. The Arab news network Al-Hadath reported that an agreement on holding early presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya in six months had been clinched between the country's Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord Fayez Sarraj and Commander of the Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar. During this week's talks in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, the sides also agreed to establish a presidential state council, which they said "will be far from any ideological movements." The details will be resolved by special working groups which will interact on a permanent basis. In an interview with Sputnik, Libyan MP Abu Bakr Baeera expressed hope that "the Libyan army will eventually agree that the country's government should be a civil body." "The international community insists on this, and the US has more than once said that the Libyan army should also accept it. The sides have yet to agree on some basic provisions that will give the army guarantees of its future," he said. Baeera recalled that "now, the army is facing unfounded verbal attacks which were also in place when the parties were signing a peace agreement in the Moroccan city of Skhirat in late 2015." As for the organizational issues related to the upcoming elections, "first of all, it is necessary to neutralize armed groups in major cities, especially in Tripoli," according to him. "A ceasefire and restoration of security are impossible without a joint agreement of the main political forces, such as the presidential council, the army and the parliament," Baeera said. Meanwhile, Khalid Mahmud, editor-in-chief of the Libyan newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, pointed to Fayez Sarraj's inability to cope with armed groups in Tripoli all by himself, something that Mahmud said "is understandable to everyone in the world except Sarraj." Libya has been in state of a civil war since its longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown in 2011. Since then, political power in the country has been split between two rival governments: the Council of Deputies based in Tobruk and the Tripoli-based General National Congress. Following the signing of an UN-brokered Libyan Political Agreement in December 2015, a Government of National Accord has been established in the county and started its work in late March 2016. However, the parliament based in the city of Tobruk in eastern Libya refuses to recognize the government and the presidential council in Tripoli. The United Arab Emirates are secretly trying to act as an intermediary in the resolution of the Libyan conflict. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan to change Iran border military formation: Iranian official Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 7:36AM Pakistan has agreed to change the formation of its military forces on the border with Iran after Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Islamabad for talks on the recent massacre of Iranian border guards. Ali Awsat Hashemi, the provincial governor of Iran's southeastern Sistan-and-Baluchestan Province, said Thursday that "Pakistan accepted for the first time to dispatch a senior military official to its borders with Iran and create a new military formation there." He was detailing the outcome of a Wednesday visit to Pakistan by Zarif at the head of a high-ranking political, military, law enforcement, and security delegation, including Hashemi, to address the tragedy and hold talks with senior Pakistani officials. As many as 10 guards were killed and two others injured in an ambush near the town of Mirjaveh in Sistan-and-Baluchestan last week. The assailants escaped into Pakistani territory immediately after the attack. The Pakistan-based Jaish ul-Adl terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. Zarif met with Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Qamar Javed Bajwa, chief of the country's Army Staff. Sharif extended his condolences to Iran over the terrorist attack and expressed Islamabad's readiness to fully cooperate with Tehran in the fight against terrorism. The trip, Hashemi said, witnessed six serious business meetings with Pakistani officials, and featured discussions about the governmental and popular capacities in place for freeing hostages and transferring bodies of the Iranians, who have been killed by terrorists over the past 15 years. He said both nations had suffered the most losses at the hands of terrorists, adding, "Based on this common understanding, it was necessary for the shortcomings and problems to be addressed to see what the rise in such harmful [terrorist] acts are rooted in." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In Massive Spending Bill, U.S. Lawmakers Back Several Measures Targeting Russia Mike Eckel May 04, 2017 WASHINGTON -- Congress has authorized a new $100 million effort to counter "Russian influence and aggression" and to support civil society organizations in Europe and Eurasia. U.S. lawmakers on May 4 also backed a measure imposing new restrictions and oversight on Russian diplomats in the United States -- a measure that Moscow had angrily warned Washington against. Both efforts were included in the $1.1 trillion budget to fund the federal government for 2017 that was given final backing by the Senate. It now goes to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature. The $100 million fund is the product of several proposals that have circulated in the House and Senate in recent months as lawmakers looked to push back against Russia's perceived interference in Europe and elsewhere. A growing number of Democrats and Republicans have pointed to the spread of fake news, foreign funding of political parties, outright propaganda, and other covert activities as indications of an aggressive Russian effort to meddle in or subvert governments seen as hostile to Moscow. Election campaigns in France and Germany have been shadowed by suspicions of Russian involvement, as well as last year's presidential election in the United States. The $100 million allocation, called the Countering Russian Influence Fund, is aimed specifically at Europe, earmarked for "civil society groups involved in rule of law, media, cyber, and other programs that strengthen democratic institutions and processes, and counter Russian influence and aggression," according to the legislation. The money will go to "support democracy programs in the Russian Federation, including to promote Internet freedom, and shall also be made available to support the democracy and rule of law strategy" under State Department policies. The legislation also directs the money be made available to so-called Eastern Partnership countries -- a European Union program with the ex-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The funds will help "advance the implementation of Association Agreements and trade agreements with the European Union, and to reduce their vulnerability to external economic and political pressure from the Russian Federation." Also tacked onto the budget legislation passed by the Senate was an intelligence authorization measure that tightens oversight of Russian diplomats in the United States. The section requires the State Department, the FBI, and the Director of National Intelligence to set up a procedure that would essentially obligate Russian diplomats to give the FBI advance warning about travels beyond the embassy and consulates' immediate geographic territory. Last year, when word first emerged that U.S. lawmakers were contemplating such restrictions, Russia's Foreign Ministry complained loudly and threatened retaliation against U.S. diplomats in Russia. The Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, charged at the time that the legislation was part of a "witch hunt" against Russia by outgoing President Barack Obama's administration. Privately, U.S. officials brushed off the threats of retaliation by Moscow, saying the movements of U.S. diplomats in Russia had already been severely curtailed for some time. The intelligence measure also calls for the creation of a new interagency committee to counter what it calls Russian efforts to manipulate foreign opinion. That is a reflection of the growing bipartisan consensus that emerged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, when the intelligence community concluded that Moscow actively meddled in the election campaign in support of Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which originally drafted the measures, is one of several House and Senate panels investigating those Russia efforts. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-spending-bill- government-running-senate-trump/28468643.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin Vows To Discuss Alleged Abuse Of Gay Men In Chechnya With Top Officials RFE/RL May 05, 2017 President Vladimir Putin says he will speak to top law enforcement officials about reports alleging a campaign of abuse targeting gay men in Russia's southern Chechnya region, which he suggested may be nothing more than "rumors." Putin's pledge during a May 5 meeting with Kremlin human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova in Moscow comes amid mounting international pressure over the alleged torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya, first reported last month by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has denied any such campaign has taken place in the mainly Muslim region, and Putin also suggested the allegations may be false. "Of course, I will talk with the prosecutor-general and the interior minister so that they support you on the issue that you have raised here based on well-known information -- or on rumors, you might say -- about what is happening in the North Caucasus with people of nontraditional sexual orientation," Putin told Moskalkova. Since the Novaya Gazeta report in early April, gay men from Chechnya have given personal accounts to RFE/RL and other media of their escape from the abuse they faced in the region in the North Caucasus, which Kadyrov has ruled with an iron hand and with strong Kremlin support for a decade. Rights activists and Western governments have urged the Russian government to investigate the alleged abuses. The United States has said it is "increasingly concerned" about the reports, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue in a May 2 meeting with Putin in Sochi. "We have heard some very negative reports about the treatment of homosexuals in Chechnya, and I asked President Vladimir Putin to use his influence to guarantee minority rights here," she said. With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-vows-to-discuss-alleged-abuse -of-gay-men-chechnya-kadyrov-rights/28470057.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia's Newest Frigate Armed With Kalibrs Beefs Up Mediterranean Battle Group Sputnik News 21:55 05.05.2017(updated 22:01 05.05.2017) The Admiral Essen, an Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate armed with Kalilbr missiles, has entered the Mediterranean Sea to join the Russian Navy's Mediterranean task force mission, Navy spokesman Vyacheslav Trukhachyov confirmed Friday. "Today, the Black Sea Fleet's newest Frigate the Admiral Essen, which is making an inter-fleet passage from the Baltic to the Black Sea Fleet, has passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea," Trukhachyov said. "The warship has joined the Navy's permanent task force in the distant operational area," the officer added. Along with the Admiral Essen, commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet last June, the Russian Mediterranean task force also presently includes the Admiral Grigorovich, the lead ship of the Admiral Grigorovich-class of frigates, Russia's newest. The 4,000 ton ships, manned by 200 sailors and officers, are equipped with advanced sensor, radar and electronic warfare systems. Their armament includes the UKSK vertical launch system, capable of launching Kalibr and Oniks land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles. The ships are also fitted with Shtil-1 naval missile launchers, a naval variant of the Buk SAM system, eight Igla-1E infrared SAM launchers, an RBU-6000 anti-sub rocket launcher, two 533mm torpedo tubes, and a complement of close-in weapons. The frigates carry the trusty Ka-27PL naval helicopter. Admiral Essen is the second Admiral Grigorovich-class ship to be commissioned by the Russian Navy. The Black Sea Fleet is awaiting four more Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, to be delivered over the next few years. The ships are designed for anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare, as well as air defense missions, and are capable of operating both independently and as part of convoys or naval task forces. Last week, the Admiral Grigorovich held firing drills, working out an algorithm for single-ship combat against enemy surface ships, and detecting a mock naval mine, dodging and destroying it by naval artillery fire. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Warplanes Performed Routine Flight Off Alaskan Shore Sputnik News 05:33 05.05.2017 Russian heavy bombers performed a routine flight near Alaska on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Russian bombers and fighter jets spotted near Alaska on Thursday were carrying out a routine flight, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday. "On May 4, 2017, Russian long-haul strategic Tu-95MS bombers and multirole Su-35S fighters performed a routine flight over neutral Pacific waters along the Aleutian Islands," the ministry's press office said in a statement. The ministry stressed Russian long-haul warplanes routinely flew over international waters in the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific and the Black Sea, using bases and outposts. All flights were in line with international rules and did not violate national borders. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) spokesperson Capt. Ashleigh Peck told Sputnik on Thursday the four planes were intercepted off the west coast off Alaska. He described the maneuver as "safe and professional," adding it was not unprecedented. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US advancing sale of precision-guided missiles to Riyadh: Saudi FM Iran Press TV Thu May 4, 2017 11:18PM The US administration has taken measures to advance the sale of warheads and precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia as part of additional military and intelligence assistance to the kingdom's bloody intervention in Yemen. On Thursday, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that the administration of President Donald Trump has taken steps in the congressional notification process for the sale of armor-piercing Penetrator Warheads and precision-guided Paveway missiles to the kingdom. The controversial sale is expected to include over $1 billion worth of the weapons, informed sources said. The Trump administration notified Congress last month that it wanted to sell about $390 million worth of weapons guidance systems to Saudi Arabia. The systems, manufactured by Raytheon Co., are designed to convert "dumb" bombs into precision-guided munitions that are supposed to hit targets more accurately. An announcement of the new weapons sale had been expected last month, but objections from some members of Congress and human rights groups complicated the matter. A group of US senators introduced legislation last month to set new conditions for US military assistance to Riyadh. The US support for the Saudi military campaign in Yemenwhich includes arms sales, aerial refueling and providing intelligencehas long been controversial. Human rights groups have repeatedly accused the Saudis of causing civilian casualties, notably through airstrikes on schools and hospitals. The bombing campaign has claimed the lives of more than 12,000 people, most of them civilians. Amnesty International's researchers have already found unexploded US-made bombs among the ruins of residential buildings in Yemen. Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, put the arms sale on hold in December amid international outrage over the high civilian toll in Yemen. The suspension came after an estimated 140 people were killed the month before when Saudi jets targeted mourners at a funeral in the capital Sana'a. In a report published on April 20, two child advocacy groupsSave the Children and Watchlist on Children in Armed Conflict urged the United Nations to put Saudi Arabia on its list of violators of child rights. The report said the Saudis had blocked aid, creating a situation where the number of severely malnourished children had tripled since the onset of the war. The kingdom launched the offensive in March 2015 to push back the Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate the regime of Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Riyadh. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address De Mistura: Astana talks to produce positive results IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency New York, May 5, IRNA -- UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday that the relentless efforts of Iran, Russia and Turkey during Astana talks are to bear fruits to prevent increase of conflicts in Syria. 'Today in Astana I think we have been able to witness an important promising positive step in the right direction in the process of de-escalation of the conflict,' de Mistura told reporters, according to UN sources. In the meeting it was agreed to prevent intensification of the conflicts and reach an agreement on a ceasefire in four new districts, he said. The exact date of the agreement will be made public after consultation with the UN secretary-general, de Mistura said. UN regards the efforts made by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia and Turkey in the presence of US and Jordan high ranking representatives as a great and outstanding achievement, he said. At this sensitive juncture, adopting immediate and effective strategies to boost relief aids to those living under a very critical situation should be on the agenda, he added. The two-day intra-Syrian talks with delegations from Iran, Russia, and Turkey present in the discussions as guarantors of the talks were held on Wednesday and Thursday in Astana, Kazakhstan. 1430**1771 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian forces retake power company in Dayr al-Zawr Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 6:19PM The Syrian army and its allies have managed to retake the electric power company in the south of the city of Dayr al-Zawr from the Daesh Takfiri terrorists. Lebanon's al-Ahed news website reported on Friday that the advance came as airstrikes targeted the terrorists' movements in the vicinity of the company and several areas, including al-Ma'amel and al-Maqaber. To the west of the country, fierce clashes continued between Syrian troops and Daesh terrorists in the province of Homs. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several air raids hit militants' positions in al-Sukhna city, al-Arak field, the vicinity of the silos area and al-Talila fork in the eastern countryside of Homs. The UK-based monitoring group said casualties were reported on both sides. Meanwhile, Syrian forces targeted the militants' positions in Teir Ma'alah village in the northern countryside of Homs. The government troops also shelled positions in al-Majdal village. Syria has been grappling with militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the conflict until then. Gains against Takfiri groups have increased since Russia, based on a request from Damascus, launched an aerial campaign against the militants across the Arab country on September 30, 2015. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Some 170 killed in fresh militant infighting near Syria's Damascus Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 3:21PM A so-called monitoring group says about 170 people have been killed during a fresh wave of infighting between foreign-sponsored Takfiri groups over the control of an area near the Syrian capital city of Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Friday that clashes between the Saudi-backed Jaysh al-Islam militant group and the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terror outfit in the Eastern Ghouta region have left 156 militants dead since April 28. The group noted that 67 slain militants were from the Jaysh al-Islam while the rest hailed from the Fateh al-Sham and allied Faylaq al-Rahman Takfiri groups. The fighting also killed 13 civilians, including two children, and wounded dozens more. Jaysh al-Islam terrorist group said in a statement that it had ended its operation against Fateh al-Sham after having obtained "most of its goals." SOHR Director Rami Abdel Rahman said the "situation has returned to how it was before," adding that "each side has taken back the areas it lost during the fighting." He said Fateh al-Sham had been weakened by the fighting, and had leaned heavily on Faylaq al-Sham for support during the fierce exchanges of gunfire and heavy shelling. Jaysh al-Islam is the dominant Takfiri group in Eastern Ghouta. One of the group's leaders, Mohammad Alloush, is among the senior negotiators of the so-called opposition group at Syrian peace talks in Geneva. Damascus has long been saying that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are funding and arming anti-Syria terrorist groups, including Takfiri Daesh terrorists. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address A Cairo criminal court ordered on Thursday the release of prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader and businessman Hassan Malek on EGP 20,000 bail pending trial on charges of harming the countrys economy and financing the banned Brotherhood group. The prosecution can appeal to the courts decision to release Malek on bail. Egypt's State Security Prosecution referred Malek to trial in 2015 on charges of collecting foreign currency from the Egyptian market and transferring it outside of the country with the aim of harming the national economy. Malek was arrested at his home in New Cairo's Fifth Settlement in October 2015, and has been in jail since pending investigations. All of Maleks assets have been frozen since September 2014, when the North Cairo Criminal Court upheld a decision by the prosecutor-general to freeze the assets of prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Since the 1990s, Malek has been considered one of the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood businessmen, along with his business partner deputy chairman of the Brotherhood in Egypt Khairat El-Shater, who is serving time in prison on various charges. Maleks commercial and industrial ventures included textile manufacturing, electrical supplies and furniture. The Muslim Brotherhood was designated a terrorist organisation by the Egyptian government in November 2013. Syria safe zones closed for US-led warplanes: Russian envoy Iran Press TV Fri May 5, 2017 5:11AM Russia says the de-escalation zones agreed to be formed in four conflict zones across Syria will be closed for warplanes of the US and its coalition allies. "In terms of their actions in the de-escalation zones then from this moment these zones are closed for their flights," the Kremlin's envoy to peace talks in Kazakhstan Alexander Lavrentyev was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. The Russian diplomat added, "Aviation operations, especially by the international coalition forces, are absolutely not envisioned." He was speaking a day after the fourth round of negotiations between the Damascus government and armed opposition came to an end in the Kazakh capital, Astana. During the talks, Iran, Russia and Turkey, as mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire regime in Syria, brokered a memorandum on the creation of four de-escalation zones in areas where the most intense fighting is taking place between Syrian government troops and different militant groups. Iran and Russia are allies of the Syrian government, while Turkey backs different militant factions. The trio is tasked with observing the implementation of the ceasefire regime, which was agreed last December and helped launch the Astana peace process a month later. The memorandum was adopted based on a Russian proposal to single out four hot spots in violence-hit areas of Syria, including the provinces of Idlib and Homs as well as the eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. Under the plan, Damascus and the militant groups, which are party to the Syria-wide truce, will stop all clashes and the use of any kinds of weapons in the security zones. The measure is meant to facilitate the progress of the diplomatic process as well as aid deliveries to civilians in the troubled areas. Lavrentyev said Thursday that that under the plan Russia could send observers to safe zones. He said third-party monitors could be invited provided Iran and Turkey agreed. Also on Thursday, top Syrian negotiator Bashar al-Ja'afari praised the latest round of Astana talks as an "unprecedented" leap forward in the peace process aimed at finding a political solution to the deadly Syria crisis. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the memorandum. Guterres "welcomes the commitments to ceasing the use of all weapons, particularly aerial assets; to rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access; and to creating conditions for the delivery of medical aid and meeting civilians' basic needs," his spokesman said in a statement released by the UN. The UN chief believes it is "crucial to see this agreement actually improve the lives of Syrians," the statement added, reaffirming the world body's support for a peaceful settlement of the Syria crisis. Earlier in the day, Staffan de Mistura, the UN's Syria envoy, hailed the deal as "an important, promising, positive step in the right direction in the process of de-escalation of the conflict." The Syrian Foreign Ministry also issued a statement in support of the initiative. The fourth round of Astana talks held on Wednesday and Thursday was also attended by US and Jordanian observers. This is while the armed opposition delegation, representing over a dozen militant groups, has so far rejected the memorandum, claiming it poses a threat to Syria's territorial integrity. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Air Forces Stopped Operations in Syria De-escalation Zones From May 1 Sputnik News 16:41 05.05.2017(updated 18:18 05.05.2017) Russia stopped using its Aerospace Forces in de-escalation zones in Syria from midnight May 1 in line with memorandum, chief of the Russian General Staff's Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Friday. "From 00.00 on May 1, the use of the aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces in areas corresponding to the de-escalation zones defined by the memorandum was stopped," Rudskoi said. However, signing of memorandum on creation of de-escalation zones in Syria does not mean end of fight against Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups, Rudskoi added. "I would like to stress that the signing of the memorandum on the establishment of de-escalation zones in the Syrian Arab Republic does not mean the cessation of the fight against the Daesh and Nusra Front terrorists," he said. On May 4, during the fourth round of the Astana talks, all parties agreed to adopt a memorandum on the creation of four safe zones in Syria, which was then signed by the Syrian ceasefire guarantor states: Russia, Iran and Turkey. Syrian government forces with support of Russian combat aircraft will direct their main efforts at offensive near the ancient city of Palmyra and lifting of Deir ez-Zor blockade, Rudskoi told reporters. "The main efforts will be aimed at developing an offensive east of Palmyra and the subsequent de-blocking of the city of Deir ez-Zor, which has been under siege for more than three years, as well as the liberation of the north-eastern territories in the Aleppo province along the Euphrates River," he said at a news briefing. According to Rudskoi, the establishment of de-escalation zones will allow Damascus to free up a significant number of forces to be redeployed in the fight against the Islamic State organization (outlawed in Russia). "The Russian Aerospace Forces will continue to support the Syrian armed forces in effort to destroy Daesh terrorists," Rudskoi added. Syria de-escalation memorandum was coordinated with 27 field commanders of the armed groups, operating in tn four de-escalation zones. Some 42,000 militants are located in those zones for now. Main efforts on de-escalation zones in Syria will be focused on preparation of maps with coodinates of zones, buffer strips, Rudskoi told reporters. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syrian Opposition 'Must Comply' With De-Escalation Zones Deal - Moscow Sputnik News 13:54 05.05.2017(updated 13:56 05.05.2017) The armed Syrian opposition must comply with the latest arrangement on de-escalation zones, Russian Deputy Foreign Minsiter Mikhail Bogdanov said Friday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On May 4, Russia, Turkey and Iran, the Syrian ceasefire guarantor states, adopted a memorandum on four safe zones in the country. "The armed opposition is one of the two Syrian parties in these agreements. Of course they must comply," Bogdanov told reporters. He said that Turkey, as one of three ceasefire guarantors, "assumed responsibility for compliance by the armed opposition with those agreements that were reached in Astana." The civil war in Syria has been lasting for around six years with government troops fighting against numerous opposition factions and terror organizations such as al-Nusra Front and Daesh, outlawed in Russia. "I think the contacts with our US partners will only intensify now, because not only Syria but other problem situations in the Middle East require more cohesion," Bogdanov added. The nationwide Syrian ceasefire regime was introduced on December 30, 2016. Terrorist organizations are not part of the ceasefire. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia: No US Coalition Jets Allowed in Syrian De-Escalation Zones By Daniel Schearf May 05, 2017 Proposed "de-escalation" zones in Syria are expected to go into effect at midnight in Syria (2100 UTC). Russia says they will then be closed to aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition. Alexander Lavrentyev, Russia's envoy to the peace talks in Kazakhstan, said Friday in remarks covered by Russian media that "the operation of aviation in the de-escalation zones, especially of the forces of the international coalition, is absolutely not envisaged, either with notification or without," he said. "This question is closed." Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed to a Moscow-proposed deal Thursday to establish the so-called "de-escalation" zones in Syria to try to end the six-year conflict. Representatives of the three Syria cease-fire guarantor nations signed a memorandum to that effect at the end of the latest round of peace talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. The proposal calls for taking measures to reduce fighting in four designated areas of Syria where rebels not associated with Islamic State terrorists control significant territory. Progress on peace? Despite what appears to be progress after four rounds of talks in Astana, there remains a great deal of skepticism about whether such a deal can be implemented. No details were released on how the three countries, which support different sides in the conflict, would attempt to end the violence. And while the Syrian government voiced its support for the agreement, neither Damascus nor the Syrian rebels signed any deal. Members of the Syrian opposition delegation in Astana walked out of the meeting Thursday shouting their dissatisfaction with Iran being part of the talks. The head of the opposition delegation, Mohammed Alloush, did not attend the second day of talks. The rebel delegation suspended its participation Wednesday over ongoing airstrikes, but members returned to the table for the final day of talks. While Russia and Iran support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey backs the rebels. Turkey - Russia agree on Syria But during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's joint news briefing with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi Wednesday, Erdogan concentrated on condemning terrorism rather than Assad's government. Despite an earlier fallout over Syria, Putin declared a returning to normal cooperation with Turkey and expressed confidence they could set up "de-escalation" zones. But analysts say there is much yet to be negotiated on Syria and remaining differences between Turkey and Russia. The United States and some Arab countries back rebel groups that want to overthrow Assad. The U.S. sent its highest level official yet to observe the talks in Astana - Acting Assistant Secretary of State Stuart Jones. The Kremlin's plan is similar to calls by U.S. President Donald Trump for "safe zones" in Syria, and Putin said Trump seemed to support the idea when the leaders talked Tuesday by phone. More details, concerns and objections are expected to be aired in the coming weeks. Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry said the next round of expanded Syria talks in Geneva is set for late May while the next Russia, Turkey and Iran-brokered Astana meeting is set for mid-July. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address De-Escalation Zones Take Effect In Syria Sputnik News 00:00 06.05.2017(updated 00:23 06.05.2017) Safe zones across Syria have officially gone into effect as of midnight tonight in the country. Diplomatic efforts in Astana, Kazakhstan, between Russian, Turkish and Iranian delegations have resulted in an agreement to enact safe zones in Syria in what observers hope will be a big step toward peace in the war-torn country. Moscow, Ankara and Tehran emerged as the guarantors of the strategy and authorized the memo creating the safe zones. The zones are located in the Idlib province, an area north of the city of Homs, in eastern Ghouta, and in southern Syria, and while they have taken effect, it will be about a month before all details of their establishment are finalized, Russian officials have said. The zones are intended to provide refuge for displaced persons and help in the distribution of humanitarian aid. Syrian government and opposition forces are barred from engaging with each other in the de-escalation zones, a rule to be enforced with checkpoints and security buffers, Sputnik has previously reported. "The work of combat aircraft in zones of de-escalation, especially of the international coalition planes, is not expected at all, with or without notification," said Alexander Lavrentyev, Russia's Special Presidential Representative for Syria. The decision to usher in safe zones was "supported by all principal players," according to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, among them the United Nations, the US administration, Saudi Arabia and other nations. This led him to conclude "there is a certain degree of guarantee that the memorandum will be implemented." Iranian, Israeli, Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministries and intelligence services cooperated during "working sessions" to bring about a de-escalation of violence, Fomin said. "The position of the United States, which welcomed the steps towards reducing the level of violence in Syria, improving the humanitarian situation and creating the environment for resolving the conflict," Fomin said, "has played a positive role." Nevertheless, political analyst Evgeny Kutikov wrote in a recent report that the new policy shouldn't be regarded as a "concession to Washington." One hope is that safe zones will free up more resources for Damascus to fight Daesh, says Sergey Rudskoy, head of Main Operations of the Russian General Staff. "Within the borders of de-escalation zones, military actions between the warring sides stop, including the use of any weapons," and of course, "including airstrikes," Lavrentyev noted. On Thursday, the US State Department announced that it "appreciates" the efforts of Turkey and Russia for brokering the deal. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, a phone call between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson provided a platform for both sides to discuss the situation in Syria and the prospect of establishing peace. "The sides discussed the de-escalation for the situation in that country, stabilizing the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terrorism efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the inter-Syrian negotiation process," the ministry said May 5. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Peace Plan' Lawmaker Stripped Of Ukrainian Citizenship By Presidential Decree Christopher Miller May 05, 2017 KYIV -- Andriy Artemenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker whose plan to resolve the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine reportedly wound up on the desk of then-U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn, has been stripped of his citizenship by presidential decree, the State Migration Service says. The migration service said in a statement on May 5 that President Petro Poroshenko had terminated Artemenko's Ukrainian citizenship over the lawmaker's voluntary acceptance of foreign citizenship. Artemenko had previously acknowledged that he holds Canadian citizenship. Artemenko's "peace plan," which calls for holding a national referendum on leasing Crimea to Russia for a period of 30 to 50 years, made headlines in February when he was quoted in a New York Times report as saying he had given the document to associates of President Donald Trump who then passed it to someone who put it on Flynn's desk. The news caused a scandal in Kyiv, and Artemenko was ejected from the Radical Party as a result. Ukrainian investigators later opened a treason case over his actions. After a Moscow-friendly Ukrainian president fled in the face of protests in February 2014, Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and fomented separatism in eastern Ukraine, where a war between Russia-backed separatists and government forces has killed more than 9,900 people since April 2014. Russia says it will never return Crimea to Ukraine, making the idea of leasing it to Moscow improbable even if it could gain support in Ukraine, where many people would oppose voluntarily granting Russia any form of control over the peninsula. Artemenko's plan never made it to Flynn, who was forced out in February after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States during the election campaign. He is currently under formal investigation by the Pentagon over apparently undisclosed Russian payments. Artemenko did not immediately respond to RFE/RL's request for comment. But when RFE/RL communicated with him via Facebook Messenger on May 2, the lawmaker did not respond directly to questions about what were then rumors of his loss of citizenship. "Fake news destroyed careers and unfortunately kills people!!!! Still waiting official confirmation or denial from president administration on my deputy request. So will see what next..." Artemenko wrote, adding that he was in Washington, D.C. He did not explain what the "deputy request" was. "I have a couple of very important meetings with U.S. and Canada officials and Ukrainean [sic] diaspora," he claimed. Asked if he was still pushing his "peace plan" for Ukraine and trying to meet with Trump administration officials, he wrote, "Exactly." Artemenko did not say whether he would return to Ukraine. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-artmenko-stripped -citizenship-peace-plan/28469976.html Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Dutch English French On May 9th it will be exactly one year since the Orange brand was introduced in Belgium. To celebrate this anniversary, all residential customers of Orange Belgium will be able to enjoy an additional 1 GB of mobile data, free of charge, as part of the Orange Thank You loyalty programme. The objective of introducing the Orange brand in Belgium in May 2016 was to support the company's convergence strategy and the launch of the mobile + Internet + TV offer, henceforth called LOVE. One year after its launch, Orange already has more than 50,000 LOVE customers, which confirms the correctness of its strategy and the effectiveness of its brand. Loyalty rewarded To celebrate its first anniversary, Orange is offering 1 GB of mobile data to all of its residential customers (subscriptions, prepaid and ZEN) to thank them for their loyalty. This gift is offered in the framework of the Orange Thank You loyalty programme. To benefit from it, customers must accept the gift in the Orange app or in the customer zone on www.orange.be/surprise and www.orange.be/verrassing. Orange customers will progressively be informed between May 10th and the end of the month. Cristina Zanchi, Chief Consumer Officer, reacts: "With Orange Thank You, we regularly express our gratitude to our customers for their loyalty. On the occasion of the 1st anniversary of the Orange brand in Belgium we want to offer them 1 GB of mobile data. This is a gift that matches their needs and allows them to benefit from the quality of the Orange network." Orange exclusivity Thanks to its exclusive Orange Thank You program, Orange regularly rewards all its customers for their loyalty with gifts and personalized experiences (cinema tickets, concerts, etc.). So far, over 2 million gifts have been offered. About Orange Belgium Orange Belgium is one of the main telecommunications operators on the Belgian market, with more than 3 million customers, and in Luxembourg, via its subsidiary Orange Communications Luxembourg. As a convergent player, we provide mobile telecommunication, internet and television services to private individuals and innovative mobile and fixed services to companies. Our ultra-high performance mobile network has the 2G, 3G, 4G and 4G+ technologies and forms the object of continuous investments. We are also a "Wholesale" operator and offer access to our infrastructures and services to partners. Orange Belgium is a subsidiary of the Orange Group, one of the main European and African operators of mobile and internet access and one of the world leaders of telecommunication services to companies. Orange Belgium is listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange (OBEL). For more information: corporate.orange.be, www.orange.be or to 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 Investor contact Siddy Jobe - ir@orange.be - +32(0)2 745 80 92 Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Never miss the latest local news again by signing up to our Daily Newsletter A family whose son cannot walk has been loaned a free Wizzybug powered wheelchair to enable him to get around thanks to another family facing the same challenges. The Brett family from Nailsworth received a Wizzybug through a UK loan scheme run by the charity Designability. The charity rely on donations to be able to continue to loan them to children under five free-of-charge. Another family from Kent which already had a Wizzybug for their daughter Mia wanted to support another child to have the same opportunity that their daughter had been given. The company Mias grandfather works for, Miles & Miles Car Hire, decided to fundraise to raise enough to fund a Wizzybug for the loan scheme. Sebastian Brett travelled with his parents from Nailsworth to Bath last month to pick up his brand new powered wheelchair which had been funded by the Wenham family. Sebastian, known as Sebby, has undiagnosed gross motor delay. He can crawl in bunny hop position but is a long way from walking. The Wizzybug will be his only way of moving on his own for quite some time. His mum, Joanna, was overwhelmed at the generosity of the Wenham family. We are so grateful to have the Wizzybug - Sebby absolutely loves it and I want Mias family to know how much joy they have brought to our lives. I'm sure they can relate as they will be experiencing same joy through Mia, she said This is the first time Sebby has had the independence to go where he wants to, and he's so happy about it. All the other kids that walk past comment on how cool it is and ask their parents if they can have one! We've had it a week and he can already control it really well and tells everyone about it. In just a short time it has transformed his ability to enjoy his surroundings. Wizzybugs have been designed for children aged 14 months to 5 years who are living with a disability which affects their ability to walk. Families are able to keep their Wizzybug until their son or daughter outgrows it. Anyone who knows a child who could benefit from a Wizzybug, or if you would like to support children like Mia and Sebby to experience independence, can visit www.wizzybug.org.uk or call 01225 824 103. Egypt's president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is heading to Kuwait on Sunday on an official two-day visit, to meet with Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Gaber Al-Sabah, the prince of Kuwait, State News Agency MENA reported Saturday. The visit aims at enhancing the solid relations between the two countries, as well as co-ordination around different regional and international issues that concern both sides. The two leaders are set to discuss ways to consolidate the bilateral cooperation in different fields and deal with the challenges the Arab nation face, a statement by the Egyptian presidency said Saturday. Earlier in April, Egypt and Kuwait renewed an oil supply deal for three years. According to the contract signed by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), Kuwait would supply Egypt with 1.5 million barrels of petroleum products per year and 2 million barrels of crude oil per month. In January, Kuwait and Egypt signed a legal and judicial cooperation agreement, as well as an agreement on extradiction of sentenced persons. The Arab Gulf country has backed the Egyptian economy with billions of dollars in oil shipments, cash grants and central bank deposits since the ouster of the former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. Following his visit to Kuwait, the Egyptian president is set to head to Bahrain to meet with king Hamad Ben Eissa Al Khalifa, to discuss developing bilateral relations between the two countries and to address all attempts of external intervention. Egypt has carried out several joint military exercises with Bahrain and other Gulf region countries. Search Keywords: Short link: LAKEWOOD, CO, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE MKT:UUUU; TSX:EFR) ("Energy Fuels" or the "Company"), today reported its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017. The Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), and may be viewed on the Electronic Document Gathering and Retrieval System ("EDGAR") at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval ("SEDAR") at www.sedar.com, and on the Company's website at www.energyfuels.com. Unless noted otherwise, all dollar amounts are in US dollars. Financial Highlights: At March 31, 2017, the Company had $23.8 million of working capital, including cash and cash equivalents of $12.2 million and approximately 550,000 pounds of uranium concentrate inventory. 60,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 sales were completed by the Company at an average realized price of $58.28 per pound, pursuant to a long-term contract. O sales were completed by the Company at an average realized price of $58.28 per pound, pursuant to a long-term contract. Uranium production totaled 92,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 during the quarter. O during the quarter. Q1 had lower sales volume due to the timing of contract sales. On April 1, 2017, the Company delivered 200,000 lbs. into long-term sales contracts and over $13 million was collected. $3.8 million of total revenue was realized by the Company. The Company began fulfilling a toll processing contract which is expected to result in $6.50 million of revenue for 2017, of which $0.26 million was realized by the Company during Q1-2017. Stephen P. Antony, Energy Fuels' President and CEO stated: "Energy Fuels continues to enjoy meaningful insulation from price weakness in the uranium spot market. Our contract sales and other sources of revenue enable the Company to maintain a strong working capital position and overall balance sheet. In addition, Energy Fuels is likely to become the largest uranium producer in the U.S. in 2017, based on published company guidance. We are proud to take the position as the largest uranium producer in the U.S., especially during a time when our industry demands high degrees of efficiency." Key Developments: On March 22, 2017, the Company completed all licensing and permitting for the Jane Dough property, which is a part of the Nichols Ranch ISR Project. The Company now has all licenses and permits required to commence production at the Jane Dough property, including approvals from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC"), and the State of Wyoming. The Company is currently producing uranium from Nichols Ranch, which contains 13 wellfields, of which nine are currently in production and four are expected to be developed in the future based on market conditions. The Jane Dough property is expected to accommodate 22 wellfields, which are expected to be developed after all 13 wellfields at the Nichols Ranch property are in production. The Company substantially completed shaft-sinking and underground drilling operations at its Canyon Mine in March 2017. We continue to receive the results from the underground drilling campaign, and samples assayed to date indicate the presence of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization. The Company expects to release an updated resource estimate for the Canyon Project later in 2017. On March 31, 2017, the Company announced that Mark Chalmers had been appointed as the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer effective July 1, 2017, with Stephen Antony continuing as Chief Executive Officer. In addition, two members of the Company's Board of Directors, Mr. Glenn Catchpole and Mr. Ron Hochstein, will not stand for re-election. Mr. Antony continued: "Our operations continued to perform to high standards. We brought a new cost-efficient, in-situ recovery (ISR) wellfield online at Nichols Ranch in March, and head-grade and production volumes are rising. We also prudently finished other key permitting and development activities during Q1-2017. We completed permitting for the Jane Dough wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project. As a result, we now have 26 permitted wellfields and significant ISR resources in front of us at Nichols Ranch that we can place into production in the future. We now have a valuable permitted asset in hand, and that cash requirement has stopped. We also now have substantially finished the production shaft and underground drilling at the Canyon Mine during Q1-2017, where we have encountered large areas of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization. We believe we have significantly increased the size of the uranium resource at the Canyon Mine. This should translate into low overall costs per pound, in-line with the lowest cost conventional uranium mines operating in the world today. Monetizing the copper will further reduce our uranium cost-per-pound. Completion of these milestones has resulted in a reduction in the workforce and a significant reduction in cash outlays at the Canyon Mine during the evaluation time period. Nichols Ranch and the Canyon Mine, along with the fully-permitted Alta Mesa Project now on standby, are ideally positioned to quickly increase the Company's low-cost uranium production in improving markets." Selected Summary Financial Information: $000, except per share data Three months ended March 31, 2017 Three months ended March 31, 2016 Results of Operations: Total revenues $ 3,756 $ 17,996 Gross profit 1,685 5,853 Net loss attributable to the company (10,508) (8,808) Basic and diluted loss per share (0.15) (0.19) $000's As at March 31, 2017 As at December 31, 2016 Financial Position: Working capital $ 23,821 $ 24,023 Property, plant and equipment 36,126 37,582 Mineral properties 92,380 92,625 Total assets 196,455 196,457 Total long-term liabilities 48,940 46,487 Operations and Sales Outlook: The Company plans to extract and/or recover uranium from the following sources in 2017 (each of which is more fully described below): 1) Nichols Ranch ISR Project; and 2) Alternate feed materials and pond returns at the Mill Our planned operations are expected to produce finished uranium in excess of our existing requirements under our sales contracts. Extraction and Recovery Activities - Overview The Company expects to produce 675,000 pounds in the year ending December 31, 2017 of which 92,000 pounds U 3 O 8 were produced in the first three months of the year. We had previously forecasted total production for the year ending December 31, 2017 of 800,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 . The lower production amount is due to expected lower initial recoveries of pond returns of 25,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 , a delay in receipt of certain alternate feed materials of 50,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 , which are now expected to be received in 2018, and lower than expected recoveries at our Nichols Ranch Project. Extraction and Recovery - ISR Uranium Segment We expect to extract and recover approximately 300,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from our Nichols Ranch Project for the year ending December 31, 2017, of which 58,000 pounds were recovered in the first three months of the year. At March 31, 2017, the Nichols Ranch wellfields had nine header houses extracting uranium. The ninth header house began extracting uranium in March 2017. Until such time that improvement in uranium market conditions is observed or suitable sales contracts can be entered into, the Company intends to defer development of further header houses at its Nichols Ranch project. Extraction and Recovery Milling Operations The Company expects to recover approximately 375,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 during the year ending December 31, 2017 at the Mill, including approximately 275,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from dissolved uranium not recovered from previous processing in the mill tailings management system ("Pond Return") and approximately 100,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from alternate feed sources. In the first three months of the year the White Mesa Mill recovered 34,000 pounds of these amounts. In addition, during 2017, the Company expects to earn a fee for processing approximately 1.0 million pounds of U 3 O 8 contained in alternate feed materials at the Mill, returning all finished uranium product to the generator of the feed material. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, the Company began the recovery process and completed processing of 39,000 pounds of this material. Shaft sinking and evaluation of the Canyon Project The Company completed shaft sinking and underground evaluation drilling activities in March 2017 at the Canyon Project. The Company is actively processing and reviewing the drilling results in order to define the mineralization, develop mine plans and evaluate the Mill's ability to recover a salable copper product from the significant copper mineralization the Company has identified. Through evaluation activities completed to date, the Company has identified zones of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization within the deposit. The Company is evaluating the potential for recovering copper at its White Mesa Mill as a value-added byproduct along with the recovery of uranium. The Company plans to issue an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate in the second half of 2017. The timing of the Company's plans to mine and process mineralized materials from the Canyon Project will be based on the results of this additional evaluation work, along with market conditions and available financing. Other operational activities Permitting of the Jane Dough Property, which is adjacent to Nichols Ranch, was completed in March 2017. In January 2017, the Company obtained the necessary permits to mine the open pit and underground resources of its Sheep Mountain Project in Wyoming. The Company is continuing to pursue cost cutting initiatives, including the potential sale or abandonment of certain non-core properties and the sale of excess mining equipment and other assets. Sales of U 3 O 8 and other revenue update and outlook In 2017, the Company expects to complete deliveries of 520,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 under four contracts, including 320,000 pounds under three long-term contracts and 200,000 pounds under a contract where the price is based on the average spot price per pound of uranium for the five weeks prior to the dates of delivery. Of these deliveries, 120,000 pounds represent the final deliveries under one of these contracts. The Company is currently monitoring market conditions for additional sales opportunities. Selective additional spot sales may be made as necessary to generate cash for operations and development activities. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, 60,000 pounds of the above amounts were delivered to a customer under one of the long-term contracts. During the year ending December 31, 2017, the Company expects to earn approximately $6.50 million in toll revenue for processing certain alternate feed materials for a third party of which $0.26 million was earned in the first three months of 2017. The Company also continues to pursue new sources of revenue, including additional alternate feed materials, toll processing of alternate feed materials and other sources of feed for the Mill. A significant focus will be placed on participating in the clean-up of abandoned uranium mines, either on the Navajo Nation or in the Four Corners region. Stephen P. Antony, P.E., President & CEO of Energy Fuels, is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure contained in this news release. About Energy Fuels: Energy Fuels is a leading integrated US-based uranium mining company, supplying U 3 O 8 to major nuclear utilities. Energy Fuels holds three of America's key uranium production centers, the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch Processing Facility in Wyoming, and the Alta Mesa Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the U.S. today and has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. The Nichols Ranch Processing Facility is an ISR production center with a licensed capacity of 2 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. Alta Mesa is an ISR production center currently on care and maintenance. Energy Fuels also has the largest NI 43-101 compliant uranium resource portfolio in the U.S. among producers, and uranium mining projects located in a number of Western U.S. states, including one producing ISR project, mines on standby, and mineral properties in various stages of permitting and development. The Company also produces vanadium as a co-product of its uranium production from certain of its mines on the Colorado Plateau, as market conditions warrant. The Company's common shares are listed on the NYSE MKT under the trading symbol "UUUU", and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "EFR". ADDITIONAL NON-US GAAP FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE MEASURES The Company has included the additional non-US GAAP measure "Gross Profit" in the financial statements and in this news release. Management notes that "Gross Profit" provides useful information to investors as an indication of the Company's principal business activities before consideration of how those activities are financed, sustaining capital expenditures, corporate and exploration and evaluation expenses, finance income and costs, and taxation. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain "Forward Looking Information" and "Forward Looking Statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: production, revenue and sales forecasts; the Company's expectations as to the evaluation and preparation of a revised NI 43-101 Report for the Canyon Project; expectations that drill results at the Canyon Project could result in an expansion of the previously estimated mineral resource and/or identification of a significant copper resource; whether all or a portion of any copper resource at the Canyon Project can be recovered at the White Mesa Mill or elsewhere; expectations relating to mining costs at the Canyon Project and the performance of wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project; scalability, and the Company's ability and readiness to re-start or expand any of its existing projects to respond to any improvements in uranium market conditions; the expectation that the Company will earn a reasonable margin on any of its alternate feed material or other processing activities; the ability of the Company to secure any new sources of alternate feed materials or other processing opportunities at the White Mesa Mill; the ability of the Company to manage its activities and assets conservatively under current market conditions while maintaining its uranium resource base and recovery capabilities; the ability of the Company to enjoy some insulation from spot market weakness; the ability of the Company to enter into suitable sales contracts in the future; expected timelines for the permitting and development of projects; mineral resource estimates; the Company's expectations as to longer term fundamentals in the market and price projections; the Company's expectations as to expenditures and cost reductions; and expectations to become or maintain its position as a leading uranium company in the United States. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" "does not expect", "is expected", "is likely", "budget" "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "have the potential to". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, herein are considered to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements express or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include risks associated with: production, revenue and sales forecasts; the Company's expectations as to the evaluation and preparation of a revised NI 43-101 Report for the Canyon Project; expectations that drill results at the Canyon Project could result in an expansion of the previously estimated mineral resource and/or identification of a significant copper resource; whether all or a portion of any copper resource at the Canyon Project can be recovered at the White Mesa Mill or elsewhere; expectations relating to mining costs at the Canyon Project and the performance of wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project; scalability, and the Company's ability and readiness to re-start or expand any of its existing projects to respond to any improvements in uranium market conditions; the expectation that the Company will earn a reasonable margin on any of its alternate feed material or other processing activities; the ability of the Company to secure any new sources of alternate feed materials or other processing opportunities at the White Mesa Mill; the ability of the Company to manage its activities and assets conservatively under current market conditions while maintaining its uranium resource base and recovery capabilities; the ability of the Company to enjoy some insulation from spot market weakness; the ability of the Company to enter into suitable sales contracts in the future; expected timelines for the permitting and development of projects; mineral resource estimates; the Company's expectations as to longer term fundamentals in the market and price projections; the Company's expectations as to expenditures and cost reductions; and expectations to become or maintain its position as a leading uranium company in the United States; and the other factors described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K dated March 9, 2017, which is available for review on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and on the Company's website at www.energyfuels.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law. SOURCE Energy Fuels Inc. ROUYN-NORANDA, QC, May 5, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - X-Terra Resources Inc. (TSXV: XTT) and (FRANKFURT: XTR) announces that it proposes to issue 400,000 common shares in settlement of a debt in an amount of $100,000 (the "Debt Settlement"). The debt resulted from exploration services provided by an arm's length consultant of X-Terra. The common shares to be issued pursuant to the Debt Settlement will be issued at a deemed price of $0.25 per share and will be subject to a four-month hold period pursuant to applicable securities legislation and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Board of Directors and Management of X-Terra believe that the proposed settlement of debts by the issuance of common shares is in the best interests of X-Terra as it allows it to preserve its cash position. The Debt Settlement is subject to regulatory approval, including that of the TSX Venture Exchange. About X-Terra Resources Inc. X-Terra Resources is a resource company focused on acquiring and exploring precious metals and energy properties in Canada. X-Terra Resources currently has 17,836,123 common shares issued and outstanding. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include, among others, statements regarding the future plans, costs, objectives or performance of X-Terra Resources, or the assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. In this news release, words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "plan", "estimate" and similar words and the negative form thereof are used to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether, or the times at or by which, such future performance will be achieved. No assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking information will transpire or occur, including the development of the Property, or if any of them do so, what benefits X-Terra Resources will derive. Forward-looking information is based on information available at the time and/or management's good-faith belief with respect to future events and are subject to known or unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other unpredictable factors, many of which are beyond X-Terra Resources' control. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions include, but are not limited to, those described under "Financial Instruments" and "Risk and Uncertainties in X?Terra Resources' Annual Report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, a copy of which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. X-Terra Resources does not intend, nor does X-Terra Resources undertake any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking information contained in this news release to reflect subsequent information, events or circumstances or otherwise, except if required by applicable laws. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the release. SOURCE X-Terra Resources Inc. Mahmoud El-Alaily was announced as president of the party by acclamation on Friday, and Ahmed Samer was elected as the secretary-general The independent committee supervising and monitoring the parallel internal elections held by the Sawiris faction of the Free Egyptians Party announced on Saturday the names of 50 candidates who were elected to the partys high committee out of 192 nominees, Arabic Ahram Website reported. Mahmoud El-Alaily was announced as president of the party by acclamation on Friday, and Ahmed Samer was elected as the secretary-general with 479 votes. The elections, which were attended by business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, were held on Friday at the party's old headquarters in downtown Cairo, which is no longer being used by the Essam Khalil faction. The quorum for elections, according to the supervising committee, was met with the attendance of 1,198 out of 4,551 party members, while the total votes numbered 536. The liberal Free Egyptian Party, which was founded by Sawiris after the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time president Hosni Mubarak, holds the largest number of parliamentary seats of any single political party. Discord started to surface within the party last year over what some members viewed as the party leadership toeing the government line. Others, however, believed that Sawiris was overly critical of state authorities. In December 2016, party members headed by current chair Essam Khalil voted to dissolve the partys board of trustees after amendments were made to its bylaws. Soon after, Sawiris was ousted when he failed to show up for questioning over accusations of libel against party members. The board, however, refused to accept the decision, calling it a "coup" and accusing the political bureau of hijacking" the party from its founders. Sawiris has taken the matter to court. On 24 March, Essam Khalil organised internal elections and was re-elected as head by acclamation. Khalil was the only candidate in the election, where 50 board members were also elected out of 83 candidates. During Friday's elections, Sawiris stressed in his speech at the general assembly that he attended the elections because of "the willingness of the Egyptian people to achieve democracy." Sawiris has also warned Essam Khalil and his supporters that they were dealing with an Upper Egyptian who "will not give up on what he is entitled to. Many other political parties founded following the 2011 uprising have been hit by internal differences or mass resignations, including the Constitution Party, founded by Nobel laureate and former vice president Mohamed ElBaradei, and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, whose former head Mohamed Abul Ghar resigned after internal dissension, citing a failure to "heal the rift" within the party. Search Keywords: Short link: (TNS) -- Five San Francisco agencies, including the fire, port and parks departments, could start flying drones under a set of rules that a city committee is expected to approve Friday.The Committee on Information Technologys proposed drone policy focuses on privacy rights, spelling out how how any city agency or employee can use a drone even for seemingly benign flights like search-and-rescue missions or pier inspections.The 15-member committee began studying the issue two years ago after one of the Recreation and Park Departments nine drones was stolen from a city vehicle after just one test flight.The crime alerted privacy-rights advocates to the fact that the department even owned a fleet of camera-toting drones to assess trees, parks and facilities. That fleet was grounded while the city developed an overall drone policy.Departments must have an authorized purpose to collect information using a drone, or use drone-collected information, according to a draft of the policy. The policy advises city departments not to maintain archives of raw, unprocessed drone data once its mission is accomplished, and says that any incidentally collected information that could identify a person or private information must be deleted.We were making sure we are using them in a responsible way, said City Administrator Naomi Kelly, one of the city officials on the committee.Drone-law expert Steven Miller of the Hanson Bridgett law firm said privacy concerns are driving adoption of such public drone policies.Those agencies who desire to use drones without such policies in place have run up against considerable public anxiety over how the government plans to use these drones, Miller said.But he said only time will tell whether a city agency flying a drone might be brought to court for infringing on someones privacy rights. A drone surveying treetops, for example, could snap a photo of someone who isnt doing anything criminal but doesnt want to be seen at that moment, he said.If approved, the San Francisco policy itself doesnt mean the skies over the city will immediately be filled with small unmanned aerial vehicles. Each department will have to draft its own specific policies and reasons for using drones, and the technology committee retains the right to revoke the departments permission to fly.In the last two years, consumer drones have become so popular that the Federal Aviation Administration has issued regulations governing their use. More than 347 police, fire and other public-safety agencies in the U.S. use the same type of consumer drones, according to the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York.In the Bay Area, the Alameda County Sheriffs Office, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, the Fremont Fire Department and the Moraga-Orinda Fire District have active drone programs. But community concerns over potential privacy infringement have so far kept drone programs in Berkeley and San Jose from taking off.In San Francisco, the drone policy covers five departments that sought permission to fly: the Fire Department, the Port of San Francisco, the Recreation and Park Department, the Public Utilities Commission and the Office of the Controller.The Police Department is not included. It didnt even ask, Kelly said. Theyre dealing with body cameras right now.The technology committees policy spells out different specific uses, although all five departments can fly drones after a disaster or in an emergency.The Fire Department, for example, can conduct reconnaissance flights over building fires, fly search-and-rescue missions and use drones to shoot video during training sessions.And if theres a person in the water in distress off Ocean Beach, wouldnt it be nice if you could have a drone drop a life jacket over the person? Kelly asked.The port wants to use drones for marketing photos and videos, as well as inspecting portions of piers that are hard to see from land, she said.Rec and Park applied to use drones for numerous purposes, including construction management, inspecting properties, mapping, marketing and environmental monitoring of flora and fauna, the policy said.The PUC plans to use drones only outside of San Francisco to survey city-owned water and power transmission lines that are in remote areas on the Peninsula, the East Bay and along the Hetch Hetchy watershed, said Mary Ellen Carroll, the PUCs emergency planning and security director.Using drones instead of sending workers into those sometimes hazardous areas would be extremely beneficial, Carroll said. The PUC hopes to begin using drones by the end of this year.Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, was not aware San Francisco was about to publish a drone policy. Speaking generally about such policies, Ozer said cities needed to be fully transparent to citizens about potential surveillance technologies.Drafting a policy is just one part of the process that needs to make sure the right kinds of questions are asked and answered, she said. Whenever youve got a drone used purportedly for one purpose, there needs to be a very thorough conversation about how you are going to make sure its not going to be used for another purpose, especially given the current political climate. Two studies of Internet security released within one day of each other had many similar findings, primarily that the public sector generally fared no better or worse than retail, business and other areas last year but it continues to be a significant target for cyber-espionage and email-based attacks, though not necessarily other common U.S. attacks like identity theft.But there was one glaring difference between the Symantec 2017 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) released on Wednesday, April 26, which covered thoroughly, and Verizon's 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) released the next day: Verizon, which devoted a section of its report to public administration, ranked the public-sector midrange among five types of entities surveyed for data breaches last year. Symantec, which offered rankings by industry at several points in its report, ranked public administration ninth out of 10 industries most affected by data breaches.Verizon report author Marc Spitler echoed its writing, and toldthat many breaches that were reported, contributing to the total number of incidents, could have been "of the non-cyber variety," but potentially amounting to missed paperwork deliveries wherein one employee received the documents of another."We do report on those," Spitler said. "Even though its not necessarily a hacker penetrating, its still something that we report on."Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response and an author of its report, said that in many ways, the public sector may be no different from anyone else, and pointed out Symantec's data set is different because it focuses on breaches that were publicly acknowledged."I think at the end of the day and my concern when we get too caught up in the rankings, we say, Well, I dont have to worry about it, Im only No. 10,'" Haley told. "I think the thing is, you shouldnt feel safer if youre at No. 3 out of 6 or No. 7 out of 10. Recognizing that your industry is in the Top 10 should be a concern, and even if youre not in the Top 10, it should be a concern."Verizon found public administration was the third most prevalent victim of data breaches of various types, accounting for 12 percent of all breaches behind financial organizations with 24 percent and health-care organizations with 15 percent.Its report was based on investigations and intelligence operations done by Verizon using the Vocabulary for Event Recording and Incident Sharing (VERIS) framework, and reports from contributors, compiled from more than 42,000 cybersecurity incidents and nearly 2,000 data breaches across 84 countries.The Symantec report closely documented how victims were hard-hit in 2016 and what types of attacks were popular in 2016, a fractious U.S. election year and a time when zero-day vulnerabilities and sophisticated malware are increasingly set aside for more simplistic solutions.It recorded 1,209 breaches across all sectors last year, down just two from 2015, but down more than 300 from 2014. But Symantec tracked a rise of nearly 68 percent last year in emails sent containing a malicious link or attachment. In earnest numbers, 1 in 131 emails sent last year contained malware, the company reported, up from 1 in 220 in 2015.The Symantec Global Intelligence Network tracks more than 700,000 global adversaries, records events from 98 million sensors worldwide and monitors threat activities in more than 157 countries and territories through its products and services.But officials at both companies warned against reading too much or too little into these and other findings, noting that reports were somewhat informed by the origins of their material and by the time period surveyed; and cautioned that even sectors that ranked low for malware or spam should remain vigilant.In its report, Verizon authors identified 21,239 incidents in the public sector last year and reported all but 239, a little more than 1 percent, failed to rise to the level of a data breach. By contrast, the financial and insurance sector had just 998 incidents but 471, more than 47 percent, resulted in confirmed data disclosure.The report noted that government is required to report up the chain on incidents that would remain unremarked upon in many organizations, but Spitler said readers shouldnt assume the high number of incidents means the public sector doesnt know what it is doing.I dont believe that the higher number with regard to the public sector necessarily means they are doing better or worse than others, Spitler said. The government is very big and the government does a lot of maintenance. And people in various sectors arent necessarily better at not losing things than others.Verizon identified the top three breach patterns within public administration as coming from cyber-espionage, misuse of privilege and miscellaneous errors, comprising 81 percent of all sector breaches.The company also ranked the public sector sixth of eight for industry phishing, accounting for 9.2 percent of attacks.Symantec authors ranked public administration ninth of 10 sectors breached last year by number of incidents, with six breaches; and ninth of 10 sectors breached where identities were stolen, at nearly 1.2 million.That, Haley pointed out, is still a pretty significant number, emphasizing lower-ranked sectors still need to remain vigilant.The company also rated public administration eighth of 11 sectors for email malware, with 1 in 141 emails bearing malware; and fourth of 11 for phishing, with 1 in 2,239 emails containing phishing.Spitler and Haley agreed that simply because of their position, public agencies continue to be the targets of cyber-espionage. Verizon ranked the public sector second out of 13 with 112 incidents behind only the manufacturing sector with 115.But Haley said the larger story for his company was likely the rise in malicious email and the fact that an average of more than 229,000 Web attacks were detected every day last year despite Web attacks having dropped 32 percent. Email security, he said, has been kind of boring, and people may not be updating or patching.I think its really a wake-up call to say, We need to re-evaluate our email security to see if were doing everything we can do.' The landscape changes, the social engineering that people use changes, he said, noting the increased use of business email compromise (BEC) scams, essentially spear-phishing employees by someone who pretends to be their CEO or senior manager.As for origin stories, Symantec identified two distinct sides to cyber crime: what it termed traditional mass-market cyber crime groups, such as those behind ransomware and online banking threats; and organized criminal groups like those responsible for complex financial heists.Within the public sector, Verizon reported a roughly 60/40 split between external and internal threat actors. It ranked misuse by insiders and those with privileged use as high in public agencies, with personal information targeted 71 percent of the time for financial crimes though it found the criminals, more than half the time, are the average end-user absconding with data in the hope of converting it to cash somewhere down the line.Miscellaneous errors, which with cyber-espionage and privilege misuse accounted for more than three-quarters of public-sector crimes, were reported more predominantly by government organizations, Verizon authors wrote. They noted that simple misdelivery of information was the most common mistake, followed by publishing and disposal errors.More problematic, Verizon found, was the period of time public agencies took to discover theyd been breached. In 39 of 66 cases, or nearly 60 percent of the time, their discovery was years in the making. In nine of 66 cases, or nearly 14 percent of the time, discovery took months.Its one [area] where almost everybody needs to improve, Spitler said, noting that issues of employee misuse can be harder to spot than payment card breaches or identity theft.And Haley pointed out a simple fact of life that can have negative consequences for the public sector or any other impacted area.He praised governments for starting to embrace guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other organizations but said if an agency or business in your sector is breached, brace yourself.Once your industry kind of gets labeled an easy target, it really doesnt matter whether it was you or not, or how good your security is youre going to draw flies. Youre going to get attacks, Haley said. A Cairo Criminal Court accepted on Saturday the appeal by prosecution against a court order to release the leading Brotherhood figure Hassan Malek and two others on bail pending investigation on charges of harming the economy, and renewed their detention for 45 days. On Thursday, a criminal court had ordered the release of the well-known businessman Malek and two co-defendants in the case on EGP 20,000 bail pending trial. Egypt's State Security Prosecution had referred Malek to trial in 2015 on charges of collecting foreign currency from the Egyptian market and transferring it outside of the country with the aim of harming the national economy, as well as financing the banned Muslim Brotherhood group. Malek has been in jail since October 2015 pending investigations. All of Maleks assets have been frozen since September 2014, when the North Cairo Criminal Court upheld a decision by the prosecutor-general to freeze the assets of prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Since the 1990s, Malek has been considered one of the most prominent businessmen affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, along with his business partner and former deputy chairman of the group Khairat El-Shater, who is currently serving jail time for various convictions. Maleks commercial and industrial ventures include textile manufacturing, electrical supplies and furniture. The Muslim Brotherhood was designated a terrorist organisation by the Egyptian government in November 2013. Search Keywords: Short link: (TNS) -- A state senator said Thursday he will ask local election authorities to take steps to ensure their election data cannot be hacked.Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Tinley Park, said the move is warranted after the cyber attack last year on state voter registration records that exposed personal information of thousands of Illinois voters."There are some vulnerabilities that I believe still exist at the local officials' level," Hastings said. "We'll pass a resolution urging them to monitor systems and make sure there's no malware or software lurking in the system that makes them vulnerable."Hastings said the FBI thinks attempts will be made by foreign hackers in 2018 and again in 2020 to infiltrate American voter registration systems. Illinois was one of two states the other was Arizona that was the subject of cyber attacks on voter information in 2016.Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray said the county contracts with an outside vendor to manage its voter registration system."We're working through a vendor who has very sophisticated versions of encryption and protection," Gray said. "It's really on their backs, not ours (to comply with Hastings' resolution)."Gray said that the county system does a daily update of voter registration records with the State Board of Elections. He said it "shouldn't be too troublesome, I don't think" for the county to perform additional analysis of security during those updates."I've always felt comfortable in Sangamon County that we have protections in place," Gray said.Hastings said one concern is that local election systems could get infected from malware during times the systems are linked to state election computers.State Board of Elections officials testified before Hastings' subcommittee Thursday that 70,000 to 80,000 names of Illinois voters were accessed during last year's cyber attack. The hackers got driver's license numbers of some voters and also were able to obtain signatures and the last four digits of some Social Security numbers. The voters affected by the attack were notified by the state.The attack was traced to computer equipment in the Netherlands that Hastings said was linked to hacking groups in Russia.State officials said that since the attack, they've increased security of their systems. Egyptian police have killed in a shootout two men suspected of involvement in a recent deadly attack on security forces in Egypt's Nile Delta city of Tanta, the Ministry of Interior said on Saturday In a statement on its official Facebook page, the ministry said that that the two men, who it identified as members of the "armed wing" of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, had been hiding in a farm near Tanta. The ministry said the two men opened fire on security forces as they raided their hideout. Police added that the two men manufactured and transported weapons and explosives for the militant group Lewaa Al-Thawra, which claimed responsibility for the 1 April attack on a police training centre in Tanta that killed one person and injured 16 others. The militant groups Hasm and Lewaa El-Thawra, which were recently designated as terrorist groups, have claimed responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces in Cairo and other governorates. Police have killed suspected militants in similar shootouts during raids on hideouts in the past three years. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's parliament took a step on Thursday to combat fatwas (religious edicts) by radical Islamist clerics, with parliament's religious affairs committee approving a draft law that limits the issuing of fatwas to licensed preachers. According to the five-article law drafted by the committee's secretary-general Omar Hamroush, only clerics and scholars affiliated with Al-Azhar, Dar Al-Ifta, the Complex of Islamic Research and the religious endowments ministry's General Directorate of Fatwas will be the ones licensed to issue fatwas. The draft law's second article, however, states that preachers, imams, and members of the teaching board of Al-Azhar University who give lessons on Islamic issues will be also allowed to continue with their religious teachings, as these will not be listed as "public fatwas." Article three stipulates that the licensed preachers will be the only ones allowed to issue fatwas via mass media outlets such as television and radio channels, while article four states that violators of this stipulation could face a six-month prison sentence and a fine between EGP 5,000 and EGP 10,000. Hamroush, who is an MP from the Nile Delta governorate of Beheira, told Al-Ahram Online that the his draft law is part of ongoing efforts to reform religious discourse in the country. "The draft law aims to tighten the grip on all forms of radical Islamist agendas, particularly in the form of fatwas," said Hamroush. "After the Muslim Brotherhood regime was removed from office in 2013 and their radical and political Islamist television channels were closed, Salafist clerics affiliated with the Salafist Nour Party sought to impose their radical agenda." Hamroush said radical Salafist clerics are mainly responsible for the proliferation of bizarre and controversial fatwas over the past four years. "Take for example the fatwas they have issued against Egyptian Christian Copts, such as banning Muslims from shaking hands with Copts or exchanging congratulations with them on Christian feasts," said Hamroush. "Aren't these radical fatwas responsible for paving the way for militant jihadists to bomb churches, issue threats against Coptic families in North Sinai, and sow the seeds of sectarian tension in Egypt?" Hamroush explained that in accordance with his newly drafted law, religious clerics who seek to issue religious fatwas on mass media channels will be obliged to get a prior license from the above-mentioned institutions. "This will help Al-Azhar the world's foremost authority on Sunni Islam stem the tide of radical Islamist agendas and fatwas, and take a step towards reforming religious discourse," said Hamroush. Fouad Badrawi, a liberal MP who is a member of the religious affairs committee, told Al-Ahram Online that "Hamroush's law is a very important step in ridding Egypt of radical Islam and political Islamist agendas." "This draft law is very important to prevent all agendas that mix religion with politics from gaining any more ground," said Badrawi, adding that "all institutions affiliated with Al-Azhar should join forces to ensure that this law is strictly implemented." Osama El-Abd, chairman of the religious affairs committee and a former head of Al-Azhar University, told reporters on 4 May that MPs and Al-Azhar clerics have approved Hamroush's draft law after they agreed that it does not impose a total ban on clerics issuing religious fatwas. "It just stipulates that religious clerics must first get a license from Al-Azhar and other affiliated religious institutions in order to be allowed to issue fatwas," said El-Abd, adding that "the draft law will have to be approved by parliament in a plenary session." Religious endowments minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa told MPs last week that only Azhar-affiliated clerics will be allowed to deliver "night sermons" during the holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start on 27 May. Gomaa said in a letter to parliament's religious affairs committee that "night prayers and sermons in all of Egypt's mosques during the coming Ramadan will be performed under the tight supervision of Azhar imams and clerics who are licensed by the endowments ministry." Search Keywords: Short link: A Texas police officer who fired into a carful of teens, killing a 15-year-old African American, was charged on Friday with murder, authorities said. The Dallas County Sheriff's office issued an arrest warrant for Roy Oliver of the Balch Springs Police Department in suburban Dallas over the shooting of Jordan Edwards late April 29. Oliver, 37, who is white, also has been fired from his job and remains at large, local media reported. Oliver was one of two police officers who responded to a report of underaged drinking the night the shooting took place, The Dallas Morning News reported. Jordan and four others got into their car to leave the area after gunfire was heard at the time. Oliver fired a rifle into the car, hitting the teen in the head. Evidence suggested the police officer "intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death," The Dallas County Sheriff's Office said in a statement announcing the warrant. Police originally said Oliver acted because the car was backing up aggressively toward him, the paper reported, but the department changed its account after viewing body-cam footage, saying the car was driving away when Edwards was shot. The shooting is the latest prominent killing of an African-American by a white police officer in a string of similar cases that have fueled outrage across the United States and given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Search Keywords: Short link: An explosion in the Philippine capital on Saturday killed two people, police said, the second blast in the area in a week. The blast occurred in Quiapo, one of the older parts of Manila where there are big slums, claiming two lives and injuring four, the capital's police chief, Oscar Albayalde told DZMM radio. Another blast in Quiapo on April 29, which occurred as Southeast Asian leaders were meeting for a summit, injured 14 people. Police said that a pipe bomb caused that blast, and insisted it was not a terrorism incident related to the gathering of political leaders. Police did not immediately give any explanation for Saturday's explosion. Search Keywords: Short link: HIGH POINT When Wolf Blitzer was starting out as a journalist, his editors sent him to cover a United Nations ceremony along the Suez Canal. The CNN anchor told a commencement audience at High Point University on Saturday morning that he labored over the 800-word story and filed it early the next day. His editor, muttering about badly written prose, cut the story to a 50-word paragraph, stripped it of Blitzers byline and sent it out over the Reuters news wire. Thousands of miles from his home in New York, Blitzer considered quitting journalism. But he kept showing up for work, day after day after day, and trying to improve. He beat himself up for weeks until he found a clip of his full story, his byline atop it From Wolf Blitzer from a Swedish newspaper. He had been pranked by his editor, who hadnt actually edited Blizters story into oblivion. (My editor) looked at me and said and Ill never forget this he said, We were testing you. We were testing to see if you really were serious about becoming a journalist, Blitzer said. The experience taught Blitzer several lessons. The most important: Show up, be on time and be ready to work. Life, as you will learn, life is about showing up, day after day, week after week. People notice when you show up, when you put your head down, when you work hard. These days, Blitzer is CNNs lead political anchor and the host of the weekday show The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. In a 22-minute speech Saturday, Blitzer steered clear of politics and drew his biggest cheer from the Class of 2017 when he name-checked Liberty Brewing and Brown Truck Brewery, two off-campus bars apparently popular with the senior class. Blitzer did defend the role of journalism in these divisive times. He said he and his CNN colleagues work to be as fair and unbiased as possible, to report the news without favor, without fear, to give our viewers the facts they need to know to make a truly informed decision even if they dont necessarily like those facts. We take our responsibility as journalists very seriously, and we do it, he said, because we want to make sure people like you are ready to take the mantle and lead our country. HPU awarded about 970 degrees on a chilly day under gray skies. President Nido Qubein estimated attendance at close to 12,000. Most gathered with the graduating class on the lawn in front of Roberts Hall, the universitys oldest building, while others watched on video screens in three warmer campus buildings. At commencement, the university honored two professors with its top annual faculty awards: Shirley Disseler, associate professor of education (teaching service), and Brad Barlow, assistant professor of astrophysics (scholarship and professional achievement). This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate GREENWICH He was a dog lover who kept a little puppy named Dante in his getaway car. He favored hipster wear like Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, body art and Belgian-style beer. He had a courteous side and said please while he allegedly demanded money from a Chase bank teller late last month chatting pleasantly with a woman walking her dog before the hold-up. Now, as his alleged career as a thief and gunman ended in his capture this week, David Emery Byers is earning another round of renown as one of the most unusual criminals ever to get taken down by an FBI tactical team a model known for his bad-boy, handsome looks whose toned physique made him an object of fascination around the nation after his arrest. Though he came to Greenwich for romance a girlfriend in central Greenwich, according to court records it was robbery, larceny and mayhem that kept him occupied while he was in the region. Stealing $12,113 on two separate hold-ups of the same bank in Riverside, and nearly running over a Greenwich cop who tried to stop his vehicle, he evaded three extensive police chases in Greenwich, eastern Pennsylvania and Arizona, according to the criminal complaint filed against him by the FBI, before a camo-clad tactical team caught up with him in a convenience-store parking lot in San Diego early Wednesday. As Greenwich authorities seek to have him extradited back to Connecticut, the 34-year-old model could be trading in his skinny jeans for the lose-fitting tan slacks worn in Connecticut state prisons. He endangered the community, he robbed the community, and apprehending him was very important, said Greenwich Police Capt. Kraig Gray about the capture this week. Byers came east from southern California earlier this spring, in a stolen black Range Rover, reported missing March 28 in San Diego, according to the arrest warrant prepared by Greenwich Police detectives, and released by the FBI. Byers had previously found some success as a fitness model, appearing semi-naked for romance books, and he had a child in the San Diego area. He also had a criminal record burglary, grand theft and numerous driving offenses in California. After coming east he appears to have become more committed to the criminal path. Greenwich police are networking with their counterparts on Long Island, where Byers is being eyed as a suspect in several robberies there beginning April 18. Police believe he stole New York license plates from a car on Long Island sometime in April to put on the Range Rover he was driving, which had California plates. Byers checked into the Hotel Zero Degrees in Stamford on April 21, staying there intermittently through April 28, leaving in the afternoon. According to the criminal complaint, Byers told a hotel manager there he had a girlfriend in Greenwich, and he was making good money in the area. He paid his hotel bill in cash. It was while Byers was staying at the hotel that he began what Greenwich police are calling his one-man crime spree. First up was the LeMans-24 auto shop and Citgo station in Cos Cob, where he showed up on April 24 wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers, with a hand gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans. He left with some $200. The employee who was robbed was badly shaken, according to owner Jean-Louis Lebreton, who reviewed the security tape of the incident. It was a relief he wasnt hurt, he said. The whole thing was over in minutes. Pretty smooth, not excited. He never took the gun out, he just showed it, said Lebreton. Then it was the Chase bank, twice over the next two days. Police spoke with two people near the bank who had seen a white male in dark clothing. Both recalled he was driving a matte-black Range Rover with New York plates. The suspect talked to the woman about her dog and said he had a pooch of his own in the SUV. Then he allegedly robbed the bank, according to the criminal complaint. During his alleged East Coast crime spree, the accused beefcake bandit was anything but undercover. Byers made a point of keeping in shape while staying in the Greenwich area, regularly using the gym at the Edge Fitness Club in Riverside. Employees there recalled him after seeing his photos this week in the news. He was built, definitely. And the tattoo on is neck was pretty distinctive, recalled one Edge staffer this week. He said hi and kept to himself. Its weird, too: Every cop in Greenwich comes to this gym. At the time he was lifting weights there, Byers had an outstanding arrest warrant in California, and he was driving a reportedly stolen car. But the brazen streak went beyond working out in a gym favored by law enforcement. Byers was sending pictures to his Greenwich girlfriend showing a large sum of money separated and stacked by denomination and wrapped in white/blue bands that said $100 on them, according to the criminal complaint. He also communicated with his photographer friend Michael Stokes, sending pictures of him with the New York skyline and talking about how well he was doing, getting a new motorcycle, Stokes recalled this week. His arrest came as total surprise, the Los Angeles photographer said. Id never seen anything to indicate hed do something like this, hes not a violent person. Stokes said Byers was respectful and easy-going, despite his bad-boy persona. Beside being brazen, Byers was more than a bit careless, leading to the cross-country chase that ended up in San Diego earlier this week, according to law enforcement sources. Byers had mechanical work done on the Range Rover, and gave his real name to a tow-truck operator, who later gave it to police. He went to the J House Greenwich Friday afternoon, getting a Shock Top Belgian white beer at the bar there. He made an informal request to find work at the bar, also giving his real name and phone number. Byers was about 100 yards from the Chase bank he allegedly robbed, sipping a beer, perhaps unaware that police presence is always heavy in the area. The hotel is located just across the street from the Greenwich Emergency Medical Service headquarters, and police officers stop by there regularly. Theres always cops on this part of the road, said hotel general manager Ben Webster. He never stayed with us, he walked in that afternoon, sat at the bar and ordered a drink. He gave the bartender his name - his real name - and his phone number. A Greenwich police officer spotted the black Range Rover with New York plates in the J House parking lot Friday and called for back-up, according to court papers. Hotel staffers were stunned by what happened next. As Byers was moving to his Range Rover, police swooped in. Once he was getting into the car, the officers approached. And then the chase began, said front desk manager Anthony DeAza. Byers hurtled toward East Putnam Avenue, and a Greenwich officer had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit, according to the criminal complaint. The Range Rover jumped the curb, flew through a row of bushes and over the sidewalk before landing on the Post Road, with Greenwich police in pursuit. Byers ditched the car on Interstate 95, sprinted over three lanes of rush-hour traffic and darted off into a residential area of Old Greenwich. Police found a white pit-bull puppy in the back of the car, uninjured, and turned it over to the town animal control department. Cops also found a Hugo Boss jacket and a pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars. Byers managed to avoid the pursuit and cross into Stamford. Somehow, in a sequence of events that havent been made clear, he found his way to Port Chester, N.Y., where he stopped in at popular spot Bartaco - and made off with another Range Rover using a ruse to steal a valet ticket at the Saltaire restaurant on the Port Chester waterfront, according to the criminal complaint. He then drove to Pennsylvania, where he successfully made it past a State Police blockade near Easton, Pa. Byers then stole another vehicle in Harrisburg, Pa., according to police, a black Chevrolet pick-up truck. Police in Arizona gave chase to that truck, losing the suspect near a hotel in Yuma City. The Feds caught him as he went to a convenience store in San Diego, using a flash-bang grenade during the apprehension. Byers had been in contact with his Greenwich girlfriend while he was on the run, according to court papers, inquiring about getting his dog back. The fitness model was also getting plenty of attention on social media with a number of Greenwich Facebook users expressing lustful admiration for his chiseled physique and soulful blue eyes. Byers has also gained extensive tabloid fame since his capture. Town police are hoping to bring Byers back to Greenwich as soon as possible to book him on charges of robbery and reckless endangerment, but it may take some time. There are other criminal cases pending against the fitness model in the San Diego area. The first criminal charge to put him before a San Diego city judge this week was unrelated to his alleged Greenwich crimes: He was charged with stealing gym equipment last year. Byers is currently being held in a San Diego jail, due back in a city court May 15. When he comes back to Connecticut, hell be looking at extensive jail time on the robbery charges, as well as numerous other criminal charges likely to be filed. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate With a glut of politicians seeking public financing in the governors race but Connecticut mired in a $2 billion budget hole, the future of the states clean-elections program is in doubt. Even at the height of its popularity and cost. More than $40 million is expected to be disbursed to statewide office and legislative candidates in 2018, based on Republican budget projections. That would shatter the record of $33.4 million handed out in 2014, including $15.8 million spent in the governors race. For the first time in the history of the decade-old Citizens Election Program, GOP lawmakers say, it does not have enough money to sustain itself. Until now, it has relied on proceeds from the sale of abandoned property and unclaimed bottle deposits to cover the cost of the grants. Republicans are calling for the program to be gutted for next year, which could turn the entire campaign financing system upside-down during a pivotal election cycle. We do not have the funds available to be spending on bumper stickers and buttons, said state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, a longtime critic of the program who is co-chairman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. The state Elections Enforcement Commission, the nonpartisan agency in charge of the program, disputed the GOPs math. Commission officials said they did not have estimates for 2018 and declined to comment further. Pay to play Jolted by a pay-to-play scandal that led to the resignation and imprisonment of Gov. John G. Rowland a decade ago, the state created the program to wean candidates off special-interest money and free them from the time required for fundraising. Qualifying candidates must raise $5,000 to $250,000 depending on the office they are seeking in $100 increments or less. Government watchdogs say the program is a national model that should be spared, with some embracing a bill to raise bottle deposits from 5 to 10 cents. Everyone is benefiting from the opportunity to go out and meet with their constituents and not have to worry about taking money from restricted sources like state contractors, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause Connecticut. Im disappointed that every time theres a budget shortfall, they go looking at the Citizens Election Fund. ... Its not enough money to make a difference. While Frantz has never accepted public campaign financing, a growing number of his GOP colleagues have since the programs inception. Nowhere is that about-face more evident than in the governors race. After spending $11 million of his own money in a narrow defeat in 2010, Republican businessman Tom Foley accepted $7.9 million in public funds for the 2014 primary and general election. Then theres Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who voted against the programs creation when he was in the Legislature and is making his third attempt to qualify for public financing for governor. Philosophically, I never have agreed with public financing of political campaigns, but its here to stay and the rules were operating under right now, Boughton said. Boughton has raised about $100,000 toward the $250,000 qualifying threshold in the governors race, which would make him eligible for a $1.4 million primary grant and $6.5 million for the general election if he wins the nomination. If funding is cut, Boughton said, the rules on who can contribute need to be reworked. Itll be impossible to raise any money, Boughton said. Im not saying we go back to the days of the state contractors. Democratic State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, who is exploring a run for governor, defended the program. Connecticuts public financing helps level the political playing field and allows new people and more people to run for office, Lembo said. GOP leaders in the House and Senate support defunding the program, saying limited resources are needed elsewhere. At this point, taxpayer-funded elections isnt where it should be going, said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said the program is becoming insolvent, but he is open to a hybrid funding mechanism. If we keep the CEP grants, were going to have to add $10 million to the pot, Fasano said. Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said the Republicans efforts to gut the program and their refusal to back legislation curbing independent political expenditures undermines the progress made under the program. French overseas territories and French citizens living abroad began voting Saturday in the final round of the French presidential election, facing a choice between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Frances official campaigning period ended Friday night at midnight Paris time, signaling the start of a French media blackout on election coverage. French law bans reporting on either candidate until polls close at 8pm Sunday. Voting started in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Canada at noon Paris time and one hour later in French Guiana, in South America. The 1.3 million French citizens living abroad also began voting Saturday. In metropolitan France, voters will start casting their ballots on Sunday at 8am. Officials have made several changes to voting regulations to adjust to the state of emergency in force in France since attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015. Polls will remain open until 7pm in France Sunday one hour later than during previous presidential elections and until 8pm in some large cities including the capital. Security has been reinforced following an April 20 attack on Pariss famed Champs-Elysees boulevard that killed one police officer. French mayors have faced a challenge finding enough people to count votes Sunday. Vote counters usually come from Frances two major parties, the Socialists and Les Republicains. But with neither party having made it to the final round, some mayors have been forced to hire city officials for the job. Search Keywords: Short link: The American Dream of small-business ownership is alive and well, and the fastest-growing group of people making that dream a reality are immigrants. Though they make up only 13.5 percent of the U.S.. population, immigrant entrepreneurs now account for 27.5 percent of all new entrepreneurs in America. Thats up from 13.3 percent just a decade ago. Not only that, but immigrants are much more likely to become entrepreneurs than native-born Americans, with 0.53 percent rate of entrepreneurship for immigrants against only a 0.29 percent rate for natives. As a franchise business consultant, I hear from lots of these immigrant entrepreneurs who are choosing their path to small-business ownership through franchising. The franchise industry has been on a winning streak for years and 2017 is expected to be one of the strongest yet. The International Franchise Association predicts growth of 5.2 percent in nominal dollars in 2017, accounting for $426 billion. Franchising continues to be popular for budding entrepreneurs who prefer having a proven model of success, established brand equity and support systems in place to help their business grow. For immigrants looking for their piece of the American Dream through small-business ownership, franchises provide even more value. Related: The Immigrant Entrepreneurs Behind Major American Companies (Infographic) Franchising makes complicated circumstances simpler. Macdonald and Linda Vasnani came to the United States in the 1990s as he was launching a shipping business in his home country of Ghana. Having recently attended a Ghanaian festival in Chicago, he saw opportunity to expand his business to Aurora, Illinois, to serve the more than 200,000 Ghanaians residing in the area. However, setting up a business in America had a different set of challenges than what he was used to in Africa. Compliance was a big issue for us, MacDonald said, There were so many things for us to learn about doing business in America and we had to take that all on ourselves. His shipping business still thrives today, but after years of learning the American way, along with dealing with the challenges of owning a business in Africa, the Vasnanis were ready for something less taxing. They decided to purchase a Complete Nutrition franchise that not only had a proven model and support system in place, but could be owned and operated in 1015 hours per week. In Africa, you have to stay on top of everything with your business at all times. I was working constantly, MacDonald said. As a franchisee, I just have to follow the system and rely on the support they have in place to succeed. Related: Here's How to Fix the H-1B Visa Program to Drive Startup Growth Franchising delivers credibility and understanding. Franz Budel spent decades working as an engineer in the United States, so he was plenty familiar with the American way of doing business. However, when he decided to go into business for himself at age 52, he chose the franchising route where he could get a head start with a well-established business process, implement his business knowledge, manual skill set and have a company name that customers trust. He selected Creative Colors International, a mobile franchise that specializes in the repair and reconditioning of leather, vinyl, fabric, plastic and carpeting in the automotive, furniture, commercial and residential markets. In Venezuela, craftsmanship is a traditional means of employment, so I definitely wanted something that identified with my heritage, Budel said. But more than that, I wanted my company to have a brand that people were comfortable with. I think sometimes people can be a bit wary of doing business with immigrant owners and this brand will allow me to overcome this concern. Related: Immigrant-entrepreneurs: America's Greatest Asset Franchising created permanence for a family. Alan and Naila Matheson came to the United States in 2004 from the United Kingdom. After just over a decade in America, they decided they not only wanted to become American citizens, but live the American dream as small-business owners. We love America and I wasnt willing to risk uprooting my family for another international move -- which was always a possibility in my line of work, Alan said. Plus, our kids were getting older and I really wanted something that not only allowed me to establish a base for the family, but give us something that we could all grow together. In 2015, Alan and Naila decided to open a City Wide building maintenance franchise in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The franchise not only offered the family stability, but also gave them a path for business legacy. The only business I would have started up myself would have been a consulting outfit, but that would have involved extensive travel, would have excluded my family and wouldnt have been as easily transferable to my children. Its not just our source of income, its our dinner conversation that we can all enjoy, Alan said. Related: Immigrant Entrepreneurs Flock Franchising Opportunities The 19 Covenants of a Standard Franchise Agreement Why You Should Buy a Franchise Instead of Starting Your Own Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved The Golden King Tutankhamun's human remains and furniture, discovered in his tomb, are the main focus of this year's conference Under the title, "Tutankhamun: Human Remains and Furniture," the third annual conference on the boy king launched today at Ahmed Kamal Pasha Hall at the Ministry of Antiquities premises. The conference is organised by the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) since 2015 in an attempt to further discussion of best methods to restore and preserve Tutankamuns funerary collection and ensure its safe transportation from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to the GEM overlooking the Giza Plateau. It will also discuss state of the art display techniques, to put on show the golden kings collection at new permanent exhibition halls at the GEM. Tarek Tawfik, GEM supervisor general, told Ahram Online that Egyptology professor at the American University in Cairo Fayza Heikal is the head of this year's conference with the participation of 12 scholars from six countries (France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Japan and Denmark). Participants during the three days of the conference will discuss 17 scientific papers on the human remains of the boy king as well as his funerary collection. Tawfik explained that on the first day the kings chair, bed, and his wooden boxes would be the focus of discussion, while the second day would review the experience of the Berlin Museum in Germany and the Louvre Museum in Paris in transporting parts of their collection, along with new techniques used in exhibiting artefacts. The third and final day, asserted Tawfik, would focus on the best techniques to be used to restore the kings funerary collection. Search Keywords: Short link: Photo: Sylvain Gaboury/PMC PBSs beloved food docuseries has a new star: Mission Chinese Foods Danny Bowien. Mind of a Chef announced the news today with a video of Bowien at SoulCycle, of all places. Bowien doesnt hold back if you recall, he opened up to Grub while figuring out what to do with Mission Cantina (which has since closed): Its just a lot about ego and losing your ego. Why am I doing this? Who really cares? Am I making a difference? Am I not making a difference? Its a very small fish, big pond situation, and I feel like our profession is still, as blown up as its getting, its still a very blue-collar profession. Youre cooking for people. Theres no set premiere date for season six yet, but fall seems most likely. Samsung Pay has arrived in Taiwan. The South Korean tech giant has launched a pilot project for the mobile payments service in the country. Participating banks include Citibank, Standard Chartered, Cathay United Bank, E.Sun Bank, Taishin International Bank, Taipei Fubon Bank, and Union Bank of Taiwan. While there's currently no official confirmation on when the official launch will happen, reports citing industry insiders say the date is May 23. So if that's true, the Taiwan launch of the service will happen just a week after the UK launch. The service is expected to launch in France in September. Source | Via Haiti - FLASH TPS : 2 Senators and 8 Members of Congress write to John Kelly Following the recommendation of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in January 2018 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20727-haiti-flash-us-immigration-service-recommends-the-end-of-tps.html pressures are increasing on the Government Trump. In a letter addressed to John F. Kelly, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, who must decide whether to extend the TPS, two Senators Elizabeth Warren, Edward J. Markey and 8 members of the Congress : Michael E. Capuano, Richard E. Neal, James P. McGovern, Stephen F. Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William R. Keating, Joseph P. Kennedy III et Katherine Clark, urge the Secretary to extend the TPS by 18 months. Lettre a John F. Kelly : "[...] [...] Dear Secretary Kelly, We write to urge you to exted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians nationals who have been residing in the United States in light of the extraordinary conditions incessantly affecting Haiti. Despite international efforts, Haiti continues to be a a nation plagued by economic, health and political inslabilit, and it cannot safely assimilate the more than 50,000 Haitian participants of the TPS program. We strongly encourage you to exercise your authority Under Section 224 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1254a) to extend TPS designation before the current expires on July 22, 2017. Haiti has suffered from a devastating earthquake, a cholera epidemi , and a destructive Hurricane Matthew. Its devasted infrastructure cannot possibly accommodate the return of its American Diaspora. The TPS designation was specifically created for foreign states undergoing such difficulties. The 2010 earthquake destroyed 50 healthcare centers aroudd the country, as well as the Ministry of Health building, worsening a heaIthcare system not capable of meeting the population's basic needs even before the seismic event. In March 2017, the United Nations reported a total of 2.1 million people affected by Hurricane Matthew and 1.5 million people still food-insecure in the affected areas. Exacerbed by the recents three years of severe drought, more than 50% of Haiti's food supply continues to be imported, including 10% of the country's main staple. These numbers demonstrate a continued substentantial disruption of living conditions in the country. We know that the United States is not onIy committed to provide aid to our close neighbor but also to ensure stability in the region. We have a responsability to ensure that our actions do not exacerbate this palpable humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Through your authority provided under the law, the United States can continue supporting the recovery efforts in Haiti and underpin the emmergence of a strong partner in the Caribbean. We urge you to review the present conditions and to immediately extend the grant of TPS designation, within applicable regulation, for at least another 18-month period. Sincerely [...]" See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20832-haiti-flash-black-caucus-supports-tps-extension.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20853-haiti-diaspora-tps-position-of-president-jovenel-moise.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20820-haiti-flash-tps-pressures-multiply-on-government-trump.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20779-haiti-flash-tps-16-us-senators-defend-haitians-in-the-usa.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20727-haiti-flash-us-immigration-service-recommends-the-end-of-tps.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20679-haiti-flash-nearly-60-000-haitians-fear-that-trump-will-not-renew-the-tps.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20488-haiti-usa-us-elected-officials-are-asking-to-extend-the-tps-for-haitians.html HL/ SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Duvalier : 3 years after, the silence of justice... More than three years after the decision of the Port-au-Prince Court of Appeal to order further investigations into the crimes against humanity committed under Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime from 1971 to 1986, the victims are still waiting for the result of the investigation and the questioning of the "consorts": the other members of the Duvalier regime. Let's recall that on 20 February 2014, the Port au Prince Court of Appeal issued a judgment restoring the charges of crimes against humanity against Jean-Claude Duvalier and "consorts" https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10576-haiti-justice-bouncing-in-the-case-jean-claude-duvalier.html and appointed a judge rapporteur to conduct a supplement of judicial information and made responsible to hear all the complainants and witnesses mentioned; Summon and audition and all persons named in the indictment of the Public Prosecutor; And identify persons who may be included in the "consorts" heading. Should be noted that the death of Jean Claude Duvalier did not extinguish the prosecution of persons designated by the Public prosecutor or who could be included under the heading "consorts". The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) and the Ecumenical Center for Human Rights (ECHR) recognize that "The death of Jean-Claude Duvalier led to a certain demobilization. But thirty years after the facts, the victims call for the truth to be established and for justice to be done," deploring that "no specific measures have been taken to provide the judge with the necessary means to conduct this complex investigation." These human rights organizations estimate that "The new authorities must allocate all the necessary means to an independent and impartial justice, especially in this emblematic file that is the crimes committed under the regime of Jean Claude Duvalier. The saying "'In Haiti we are continuing the investigation, but never the criminals' should no longer reflect the reality," and calling the authorities to effectively engage in a work around the duty of remembrance, allowing the members of Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime to be finally tried for the crimes committed. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10576-haiti-justice-bouncing-in-the-case-jean-claude-duvalier.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10314-haiti-justice-case-duvalier-a-lack-of-political-will-and-unacceptable-delays.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10116-haiti-justice-the-swiss-fund-of-jc-duvalier-will-be-returned-to-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-8048-haiti-justice-beginning-of-hearings-of-victims-of-the-regime-of-jean-claude-duvalier.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-8017-haiti-politic-jean-claude-duvalier-hospitalized.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7996-haiti-duvalier-everything-that-was-said-at-the-hearing-of-28-february.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7990-haiti-justice-duvalier-a-complex-case-to-judge.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7987-haiti-justice-duvalier-answers-the-questions-of-judge-jean-joseph-lebrun-update-4h10-pm.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7955-haiti-duvalier-amnesty-international-s-concerns.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7934-haiti-justice-hearing-of-jc-duvalier-february-28-voluntarily-or-forcibly.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7562-haiti-politic-diplomatic-passport-issued-to-jean-claude-duvalier.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-4900-haiti-justice-the-appeals-process-against-jean-claude-duvalier-is-launched.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-4845-haiti-justice-judge-carves-recommends-that-duvalier-is-tried-for-embezzlement-of-public-funds.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Confirmation of rising fuel prices Friday, Jude Alix Patrick Salomon, Minister of Economy and Finance confirmed the soon increase in fuel prices at the pump. However, he did not want to mention a date, indicating that this decision will be taken in consultation with the actors concerned. 4 dead and about 3,500 affected families... 4 deaths, about 3,500 affected families and as many damaged houses is the assessment prepared by the Civil Protection following the last torrential rains that fell on the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20861-haiti-politics-emergency-aid-to-the-west-municipalities-affected-by-the-rains.html Tourism : Haiti host the next International Conference of Bars On Friday, Ms Colombe Emilie Jessy Menos, the Minister of Tourism met with Stanley Gaston, the President of the Bar Association of Port-au-Prince and some of its members, about the upcoming holding of the upcoming International Bar Conference (IBC) of Common Legal Traditions, to be held in Haiti from 6 to 9 December. For this event Haiti as host country will host representatives of 120 bars from 42 countries. It remain only 41 Uruguayan soldiers Colonel Wilfredo Paiva informs us that the 3rd Group of Uruguay troops of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah) arrived in Montevideo. "Only 41 Uruguayan soldiers remain in Haiti, which load the ship with heavy equipment, consisting of 90 vehicles, 30 containers, generators, medical equipment..." 4 soldiers will leave on the boat and the other 37 will arrive by plane on June 1 in Uruguay. Business Forum Franco-Haitian On Thursday, the French Ambassador to Haiti Elisabeth Beton Delegue was in Santo Domingo where took place a joint meeting of the Franco-Haiten Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CFHCI) and Chamber of Commerce and Industry Franco-Dominican (CCIFD), which was also attended by the French Ambassador in Santo Domingo. The objective of this meeting was to promote the Business Forum Franco-Haitian, to be held in Port-au-Prince on 24 and 25 June. New Head to Civil Protection On Friday, Jerry Chandle was installed as the new Director at the head of the Directorate of Civil Protection. He replaced Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste. HL/ HaitiLibre Login or sign up to follow actresses, movies & dramas and get specific updates and news Login Sign Up New Ad-free Subscriber Login Email Password Password Username Your E-mail will only be used to retrieve a lost password. Stay logged in Help Published on 2017/05/06 | Source Added episode 10 captures for the Korean drama "Queen of Mystery" (2017) Advertisement Directed by Kim Jin-woo-II, Yoo Yeong-eun-I Written by Lee Seong-min-II Network : KBS With Choi Kang-hee, Kwon Sang-woo, Lee Won-keun, Shin Hyun-bin, Kim Hyun-sook, Jeon Soo-jin,... 16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00 Synopsis "Queen of Mystery" tells the story of a prosecutor's wife who's always dreamed of being a detective. After actually solving a case, she ends up in an unlikely crime-fighting duo with a young police captain. Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/04/05 More Published on 2017/05/06 | Source Added final episode 16 captures for the Korean drama "Radiant Office" (2017) Advertisement Directed by Jeong Ji-in, Park Sang-hoon-III Written by Jeong Hee-hyeon Network : MBC With Go Ah-sung, Ha Seok-jin, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Ho-won, Kim Byung-choon,... 16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00 Synopsis An abrasive marketing director and a female temporary contract worker at the same furniture company. She faces repeat rejection in her job search until despair drives her to attempt suicide. At the hospital, she learns she has a terminal condition, but then, finally succeeds in getting hired. With nothing to lose, she tackles her job and her life with a perspective. Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/03/15 More Published on 2017/05/06 | Source Added the upcoming Korean documentary "Our President"'s page to HanCinema database Advertisement "Our President" (2017) Directed by Lee Chang-jae Synopsis In 2002, the Millennium Democratic Party elects the first presidential candidate by introducing a popular election system. While politicians like Ki Ra-seong have joined the election, Roh Moo-hyun the very last candidate with only 2% approval, throws in his hat. This is the story of a nation and the nation he led. Release date in Korea : 2017/05/25 Gov. Ige Proclaims May 2017 as Hawaii Military Appreciation Month Outstanding Community Service Contributions by Military Service Members Recognized News Release from Office of the Governor, May 5, 2017 HONOLULU Gov. David Ige, in partnership with the Military Affairs Council (MAC) of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii, declared May 2017 as Hawaii Military Appreciation Month. In 1999, Congress designated May as national Military Appreciation Month as an opportunity to acknowledge and recognize the sacrifices and achievements of the members of the nations armed forces. More than 50,000 active duty members of the military are a vital part of our island community. Not only are they protecting our country and contributing to society, the defense industry is also a major economic driver in Hawaii, said Gov. David Ige. Military Appreciation Month is an opportunity for us to say mahalo to the servicemen and women who have answered the call of duty. As a part of the ceremony, seven service members will also be recognized for their outstanding community service contributions. The MAC works with the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) and the six service components in identifying their respective honorees. The seven honorees have spent countless hours of their time in mentoring youth, helping with the homeless through established organizations or creating their own initiatives, and even saving lives. This year, the following individuals were honored for their contributions statewide: U.S. Pacific Command: L2 James Downs U.S. Army: SFC Anastassia Doctor U.S. Marine Corps: GySgt Kraig Andrews U.S. Pacific Fleet: FC2 James Masterson U.S. Air Forces: MSgt Aaron Gufford U.S. Coast Guard Fourteenth District: BM2 Scott Lee Hawaii National Guard: SFC Clayton Perreira We are honored today to recognize these outstanding individuals who devotedly and selflessly serve our nation and our community, said Jeff Remington, MAC secretary. The Military Affairs Council and the state of Hawaii are pleased to continue to partner in bridging Hawaiis defense community and our local community. Gov. Ige encouraged the people of Hawaii to join in in recognizing the commitment, vigilance and sacrifices of all of the members of the armed forces in Hawaii to ensure the freedom, security and prosperity of the nation. # # # About the Hawaii Military Affairs Council: The Hawaii Military Affairs Council (MAC), part of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii, acts on behalf of the state of Hawaii to advocate and liaise with the military. As a major economic generator for the state, the MAC supports efforts that will preserve the militarys role as a strategic headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region. Comprised of business leaders and retired U.S. military personnel, the organization also aims to bridge the military and the community, endorse the needs of Hawaii-based military commands, and attract public-private ventures with the military. Former tanaiste Joan Burton's adviser has denied a comment she made about the Jobstown water charge protesters showed she was "contemptuous" of them. Karen O'Connell admitted she used the words "f***ing dregs" in the back of the car in which she was allegedly falsely imprisoned with Ms Burton. However, she insisted "dregs" was not an insult and only meant the end of the protest. She also denied she "exaggerated" how fearful she was during the water protest. Ms O'Connell was being cross-examined at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court during the trial of Solidarity TD Paul Murphy (34), south Dublin councillors Michael Murphy (53) and Kieran Mahon (39), and four other men, who all deny falsely imprisoning her and former tanaiste Ms Burton. Laughing The pair were stuck in a car at Fortunestown Road, Jobstown, Tallaght, on November 15, 2014, after attending an adult education graduation ceremony. Ms O'Connell admitted to Padraig Dwyer, counsel for one of the accused, Frank Donaghy (71), that she was heard on video laughing in the back of the car but said this was a "human reaction" to a nervous, tense situation. Ms O'Connell insisted she was "panicked", crying and "petrified" during the protest. She also said she saw a distinct difference between Shell to Sea protests, in which vehicles were stopped from entering construction sites, and the Jobstown protest, when she was "held against her will". Ms O'Connell said she had been involved in Shell to Sea protests and supported the peaceful elements of a campaign that involved many different organisations. She said those protests never deprived anybody of their liberty. Mr Dwyer put it to Ms O'Connell that her evidence about being "petrified" in the car was "exaggerated". He played back video clips, which he said portrayed a "relaxed, jovial atmosphere" and one of "boredom". After the first clip, from Ms O'Connell's own phone, he put it to her that a man was seen beginning to record her "in response" to her filming. Calm Footage taken on Ms Burton's phone was then played and Mr Dwyer said the atmosphere in it appeared to be calm. When a suggestion was made about moving the car back, both Ms O'Connell and Ms Burton were heard laughing and Ms Burton said "you must be joking". "This always happens at the end of the protest, the f***ing dregs decide not to finish it," Ms O'Connell was heard saying on the video. This was the point at which it had been agreed that the car would be "slow marched" out of Tallaght. Mr Dwyer said the Labour Party "claims to represent" the unemployed, marginalised and weaker members of society. He asked Ms O'Connell what her definition of "dregs" was. She said she was embarrassed by her language, which had been "awful", and it was near the end of a three-and-a-half-hour ordeal. However, she understood the word "dregs" to mean the end of something, such as the dregs of a drink or a cigarette. "I was very, very fearful and I was very upset at that time," she said. "You were relaxed and rather contemptuous of the people who were slow walking the vehicle," Mr Dwyer said, adding only this could have been her motivation in using the word. "That is your opinion," Ms O'Connell replied. The trial continues on Monday before a jury and Judge Melanie Greally. A family terrorised in their own home during an aggravated burglary have finally won their "freedom" following the conclusion of appeal proceedings. Two of a seven-member gang from Dublin had 20-year prison sentences reduced to 18 years, with four suspended, by the Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday morning, while three other gang members had their appeals against the severity of their sentences dismissed. The remaining two members of the gang who committed the raid at the home of Emma and Mark Corcoran and their young daughters in Co Tipperary, in 2013, did not mount any appeal against their sentences. All seven had pleaded guilty in 2015 at Clonmel Circuit Court to a single count of aggravated burglary at Burnchurch, Killenaule, Co Tipperary, on November 21, 2013. "They're delighted," the Corcoran family's solicitor Kieran Cleary said after the appeal proceedings ended. Ordeal "It's finality. You need finality in crime. You need to know they can't upset you and frighten you again."They're now free. They're free of this terrible ordeal." Mr Cleary said the Corcorans were doing "fine" and paid tribute to their courage and determination to face down the seven men who broke into their house early that morning. A family member told the Herald the Corcoran family had been through so much over the last few years, adding: "It was an awful thing to have happened. "I'm sure they're both very glad this is all over and now they can get on with their lives." During the case, the Circuit Court heard the men entered the house armed with a sawn-off shotgun, a machete and a handgun. They were heard on a 999 call threatening to "kill your f*****g kids", who were aged eight, six and two at the time. They struck Mark Corcoran in the face with the butt of a gun, fracturing his eye socket. Imprisonment Patrick Gatley (29), of Primrose Grove, Darndale, and Dean Byrne (23), of Cabra Park, Dublin 17, were both sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, with four suspended. Those terms were reduced to 18 years each, with four suspended, on appeal. John Joyce (22), of Lentisk Lawn, Donaghmede, was sentenced to 15 years with four suspended and had an appeal against the sentence dismissed. Patrick Joyce (24), of Beaumont Hall, Beaumont Woods, was sentenced for 14 years with the last four suspended and his appeal was also dismissed. Thomas Flynn (22), of Moatview Avenue, Coolock, had his appeal against a 12-year sentence also dismissed. Donal O'Hara, of Glin Park, Coolock, Dublin 17, and Michael McDonagh, of Tara Lawns, Belcamp Lane, Coolock, were both sentenced to 12 years, with seven years suspended, and did not appeal their sentences. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the issue of his leadership and the future of Fine Gael are not up for discussion while he is abroad on trade missions. However, Mr Kenny said he has not changed his mind over any plans to step aside, adding that he has made this point known to his parliamentary party. The Taoiseach said he travelled to Canada to focus on trade and investment - not his intentions to step aside. Umbrage The Fine Gael leader yesterday hit out at media questions about his leadership. "I can't believe actually that you have travelled this distance to ask a question like that," Mr Kenny said during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. However, the Taoiseach was asked again about his intentions to step aside at a press briefing with journalists in Toronto yesterday. Mr Kenny rejected suggestions that he took "umbrage" when he was asked about the issue yesterday. "Well now, for your information, I didn't take umbrage at all," he said. "I came here on a trade and investment mission to meet with the Canadian Prime Minister to discuss the opportunities of Ceta that work both ways. "That's the purpose of my visit, and I don't intend to discuss the question of leadership or the future of the Fine Gael party when I'm on a trade mission or investment mission to Canada." It was pointed out that Mr Kenny has discussed internal party issues on previous overseas visits. "Matters of Fine Gael are internal to Fine Gael," he said. "I'm here officially on a trade and investment mission to Canada. "And I don't propose to discuss anything to do with leadership when I'm on this trade mission." Socks Asked whether he has changed his mind and intends to stay on longer than originally signalled, the Taoiseach said: "No, I've been very clear with my parliamentary party about this." There was much discussion at Thursday's event in Montreal over the choice of Mr Trudeau's odd socks. The prime minister later tweeted, explaining that the socks featured the Star Wars robots R2D2 and CP3O. "May the fourth be with you," he added. Some of the seized drugs Drugs worth 300,000 have been seized following operations by gardai this week. A man in his mid-20s, from the Huntstown area of Blanchardstown, was arrested by detectives during a raid in the town on Thursday. Sources said the suspect was not considered to be a serious criminal. "As a result of confidential information received by gardai from Blanchardstown, a house was searched in Huntstown Court, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, on the evening of May 4," a statement from gardai said. During the course of the search, gardai discovered cannabis resin with an approximate street value of 247,000. Cocaine with a value of 43,000 and ecstasy tablets with an approximate value of 1,150 were also seized. Detained A man was arrested and taken to Blanchardstown Garda Station. He was detained under the provisions of section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking ) Act 1996. In a separate incident earlier in the week, gardai targeting drug dealers in the Crumlin area arrested a 16-year-old and seized almost 10,000 worth of drugs. Officers from the local drug unit, supported by gardai attached to Sundrive Road Garda Station, raided a property in Rutland Grove, Crumlin, at around 8.30pm on Wednesday. The raid was the result of a surveillance operation put in place as part of an investigation into drug dealing in the Crumlin area. After gardai entered the property, they recovered the stash of cannabis. A 16-year-old male, who was in the house at the time the officers raided the property, was arrested and taken to Crumlin Garda Station for questioning. A source said the raid was part of an operation to target street dealers in the area. It also formed part of a garda spotlight on dismantling the operations of younger criminals. "There is particular concern over younger people having access to such a large value of drugs, and pressure has been increased by local gardai to stamp out drug dealing in the Crumlin/Drimnagh area," the source said. Keith Duffy thinks other members of Boyzone and Westlife would love to join the super-group Boyzlife - but he doesn't want them. The Dubliner is one half of the group, which also features Brian McFadden. They have been on a tour of the UK and have no plans to invite any other former members to join them. "I'm sure they would love to join but we haven't invited them," he said. "We don't want them. "Why would you want to split the money three ways instead of two ways? "We just did about 29 dates in the UK. We did Glasgow right down to Brighton. "It's a bit full-on at the moment, but it's all good." Boyzlife has not gone without controversy, with Keith previously hitting out at former Westlife members Kian Egan and Nicky Byrne after he heard they criticised the group. Seriously He said the pair took themselves too seriously and he did not care what they thought about the group. The father-of-two reckons he and Brian will continue to perform together for many years to come. "Boyzlife has been going on for two years now and it's going to keep going," he told the Herald. "By default or by accident, we have fallen into a corporate market and the corporate work that's coming in is fantastic. It's great, we're getting to travel and getting to work together. "Myself and Brian have always been pals. We don't take anything too seriously. "We're doing gigs for cruise lines, for Euro Disney, it's very busy. "We're going to keep going for as long as people want to see us." Keith and Brian have begun writing some new material together, which they hope to record over the coming months. However, Boyzone's 25-year reunion in 2018 is taking top priority for the time being. "We've already written a couple of songs together and we're going to get in and record them over the next couple of months," Keith said. "There's a Boyzone reunion happening next year and Warner Music have signed a deal with us for a new album, which we're going to record in November and December, and then we'll be out in April for an arena tour." Family Keith's former Boyzone bandmate Ronan Keating recently welcomed a new addition to his family. His wife Storm gave birth to their first child together, a boy named Cooper, and Keith revealed he has been introduced to him on Skype. Keith was speaking at the launch of Dolmio's Mealtime Memories initiative, which encourages families to make an effort to have their meals together. A Turkish court on Friday rejected an appeal filed by Wikipedia after Turkey banned access to the website last week. Turkish authorities said the website was "acting with groups conducting a smear campaign against Turkey" after Wikipedia refused to remove a page accusing the country of collaborating with jihadists in Syria. Free speech advocates in Turkey blasted the ban and said Turkey is forbidding access to websites and social media at an increasing rate. They question the move to ban the entire Wikipedia website, in all languages, when Turkey's objections only pertains to two pages on the English-language version. Wes Moore makes history as Maryland's next governor Maryland's 2022 election is history-making with Wes Moore. Only two other Black politicians have ever been elected governor in the U.S. More should be done to lift restrictions on private medical services, Premier Li Keqiang stressed at the State Council executive meeting on May 3. Lots of private investors are looking forward to investing in social sectors, such as medical and elderly care services. But there are too many limits due to administrative approvals. Governments should relax necessary things so it would be easy for social sectors to provide medical services, Premier Li said. According to this years government work report, one of the major tasks in 2017 is to support social sectors in providing medical services, promote innovation in the service industry, and further integrate medical services and elderly care. The Premier talked about his recent community visit in Shandong province and said that thanks to the integration of medical services and elderly care in a community hospital, many elders are happier and feel safer as they can be taken care of and receive treatment at the same time. The increasing aging population in China has surpassed 200 million, which means huge market demand and a gap in the integration of medial services and elderly care. But administrative reforms are still lagging, according to the Premier. For example, some preconditions required by local governments, such as how many beds a medical department should have and how large a ward should be, are too detailed to prevent social sectors from participating in medical services, while high-quality medical resources amass in large public hospitals rarely go down to lower-level medical institutions, he said. To change the current situation and promote medical reform, a series of policies were made at the State Council executive meeting, including streamlining administrative approval for private medical services, convenient industrial and commercial registration of medical service institutions, lifting restrictions on eligible and qualified private medical services, and promoting regional physician registration. The Premier urged inclusive, effective and prudent regulation to improve private medical services, saying that if the main focus is on administrative approval, efforts to enhance regulation will fail. The meeting also decided to crack down on license renting, fake medical advertisements and illegal medical practices. Government departments should have more communication with private medical service companies, doctors and patients to understand their difficulties, so that a new driving force of medical services can be fostered and peoples lives can be improved, according to the Premier. This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. Learn more here Grand Prize Winner: Donna Rickey Blog Winners: A Song for her Enemies by Sherri Stewart: Mary Ann Hake Spies & Sweethearts by Linda Shenton Matchett: Connie Ruggles Sword of Trust by DebbieLynn Costello: Brenda Walters Justice for Julia by Donna Schlachter: Natalya Lakhno Party Prize winners: Sherri Stewarts Winners A Song for her Enemies: Angie Pool Bottle of Dutch Syrup: Carol Koch Alscheff Corrie ten Boom book: Deb Gramie Burgess Linda Shenton Matchetts winners: $5.00 gift card to online retailer or choice (Kobo, B&N, AppleBooks, Amazon): Karen Hadley A Bride for Seamus: Carol Osterhouse Wotring DebbieLynn Costellos winners: Sword of the Matchmaker: Melissa Planas Sword of Forgiveness: Paty Hinojosa Gomez Shattered Memories: Charlene Zall Capodice Sword of the Perfect Bride: Licha Haney Donna Schlachters winner: Leather Journal: Lisa Turley GIVEAWAY RULES Winners must leave their email address and will be notified by email and the winners name will be announced in the days comments. No one under 18 can enter our giveaways. No purchase is necessary. All winners have one week to claim their prize. USA shipping only. Offer void where prohibited. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Actor Sanjay Dutt attended the wrap party of his comeback film Bhoomi along with wife Maanyata and actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Shekhar Suman. The films shoot has been completed after an extensive two-and-a-half month schedule. Aditi, who will portray Sanjays daughter, said she never thought shed get an opportunity to work with the actor. Actor Sanjay Dutt with his wife Manyata Dutt , Aditi Rao Hydari, Filmmaker Bhushan Kumar, Producer Sandeep Singh and Shekhar Suman. (IANS) I never thought that I would ever get an opportunity to work with Sanjay Dutt. Its a beautiful story of a father and daughter. When you do a film like this, you actually live that character for some time. So, it was very special to have Sanjay Dutt around. He is amazing to work with and very funny on set, but at the same time really focused and natural. So, it gets easy to react to him while shooting, said Aditi on the sidelines of the get-together on Friday. The actor also spoke about Agra city, where a major part of the film has been shot. Actor Sanjay Dutt during the location of shooting of film Bhoomi in Mumbai. (IANS) Agra has a positive and beautiful vibe. There is a reason why the film is set in Agra, Aditi said. Shekhar Suman, who will play a friend of Sanjays in the film, said Sanjay is fantastic. He is a directors actor and a very emotional person. He will surprise you all with his performance in this film, the way he had done in films like Vaastav: The Reality and Naam. The audience will love him as he has come back just with a right role, said Shekhar. About his own character in the movie, Shekhar said: I am playing a tourist guide in Taj, and Sanjay has a shoe shop. We both are friends and life is going on, until suddenly something happens which changes everyones life. Bhoomi is directed by Mary Koms Omung Kumar and produced by T series and Legend studios. Follow @htshowbiz for more Sonam Kapoor looks every bit a beautiful bride in her latest phootshoot. The actor, who shot for wedding magazine Khush, posed in several gorgeous lehengas and exquisite jewellery. A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on May 5, 2017 at 7:28pm PDT The lehengas in the above posts are from Sabyasachis Udaipur Collection. Both the dresses have been hand painted and hand crafted in India. Sonam also wore a beautiful blue Payal Singhal dress with fish scale motif on the skirt... A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on May 5, 2017 at 7:30pm PDT ... and another red dress with a heavy jacket by Anamika Khanna. Anamiks A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on May 5, 2017 at 7:31pm PDT Sonam recently accepted the National Film Award for Neerja, which won in the Best Hindi Film category. She is now shooting for PadMan with R Balki and Akshay Kumar. Follow @htshowbiz for more Auto component major Bosch has temporarily ceased operations at its plant at Adugodi, Bengaluru after getting notice from the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB). The company has taken the decision to close the plant after the KSPCB directed closure of all industrial units within the catchment area of Bellandur lake in Bengaluru. Pursuant to the above notice, the company hereby informs the temporary closure of its facilities at Adugodi, Bengaluru with effect from today, Bosch Ltd said in a regulatory filing. The approximate loss of turnover per day is Rs 393 lakh per day, in case supplies to the customers are affected, it said. The company is reviewing directions of KPSCB and will consider all options for suitable relief in order to re- commerce the operations at the earliest, it added. The company will also ensure that deliveries to the customers are not impacted, Bosch said. The affected companies would be able to reopen their plants once the KSPCB inspects the facilities. The company has always upheld highest standards with respect to environment protection and is confident that it has been operating within the prescribed environmental norms at all its facilities, Bosch added. Nearly 40,000 students belonging to Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh will appear for single shift National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Exam (NEET) to get admissions in around 2,500 MBBS seats in these areas. In Punjab, the NEET centres have been placed in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Bathinda while Shimla and Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, and Faridabad, Gurgaon in Haryana Chandigarh on the other hand is a common centre opted by students of these neighbouring states. CBSEs regional officer Joseph Emmanuel said that nearly 18,000 students will sit for NEET in Chandigarh alone. The students have been called in two slots before the exam that starts at 10am on Sunday to manage rush of students. One group of students has been asked to enter examination centres between 7.30 am to 8.30 am and second group from 8.30am to 9.30am in order. Dr Arvind Goyal, a NEET trainer said that the students should attempt all the questions carefully and should not rely on the guess work. Those who have really worked hard for last two years will surely perform well, he added Exam day tips Sleep well at night for at least for 8 hours as last minute studies dont help. Have a good breakfast before the exam since it gives more energy during exams. Follow the dress code rigidly as per the CBSE instructions. NEET has three sections- Biology that comprises 50% of the exam, 25% each of physics and chemistry. Students are advised to attempt biology followed by chemistry and physics for better time management. During exam, keep on assessing your speed after 10-15 questions. Mark your answers on the OMR sheets side by side and dont leave them towards the end. Dont panic if you get difficult questions right in the beginning of the paper; easy ones are sure to follow. Toilet facility in the exam centre is not allowed after 12.30pm. Like many book lovers, I am loath to leave a bookstore without making a purchase. I was recently in one of the best independent stores in the United States, Elliot Bay Books in Seattle, and after several hours of browsing found many fine books but none that I simply had to buy. Then I looked again, and in the religion section I discovered a book that I could feel content leaving the shop with (after paying for it, of course). The book was called Buddhism in a Dark Age: Cambodian Monks under Pol Pot, and its author was a British academic named Ian Harris. Communist regimes the world over have sought to suppress not only rival political parties, but also religious institutions. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Lenin and Stalin worked assiduously to marginalise the Orthodox Church to which a majority of their compatriots owed allegiance. Thousands of priests were murdered, and hundreds of church properties confiscated. However, during the World War II there was a partial reversal of this policy, when the Orthodox Church was asked to contribute to the patriotic cause of defending Mother Russia against the German invaders. After the war ended, however, the attitude of suspicion and hostility took precedence once more. In China, where the Communists came to power in 1949, the approach to religion was even more hostile. Mao Zedong sanctioned the burning and looting of thousands of churches, temples, and mosques. The savagery was particularly extreme in Tibet, where many ancient and beautiful monasteries were razed to the ground. Across China, priests and monks were forcibly disrobed and married off. Priests were even exhibited in cages in churches, to be derided and mocked by Communist leaders and their crazed cadre. These acts of Stalin and Mao were consistent with the Communist desire to monopolise and dictate how citizens thought and acted. The only doctrine that could be preached or followed was that of the Communist party. But even by Communist standards, the conduct of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia was barbaric in the extreme. The majority of this countrys citizens were practicing Buddhists. Within a few months of the Khmer Rouge taking over in 1975, virtually all the monasteries in Cambodia had been shut, abandoned, or destroyed. A party document proudly boasted that 90% to 95% of the monks have disappeared, in the sense that the majority of monks have abandoned religion. Monasteries, which were the pillars for monks, are largely abandoned. The foundation pillars of Buddhism are abandoned [I]n future they will dissolve further. In 1978, the Pol Pot regimes Minister of Culture, Information and Propaganda triumphantly told a visiting Yugoslav journalist that Buddhism is dead and the ground had been cleared for the foundation of a new revolutionary culture. Ian Harris scholarly book documents this suppression of an ancient faith and its traditional representatives. Thus Buddhist monks were forcibly disrobed. Some had worn their robes for 30 or 40 years, and could not imagine life without them. To further humiliate the monks, Communist cadre piled up on the ground the robes the Enemies of the Party had been made to discard, and urinated on them. Monks who refused to disrobe were often executed. After being disrobed, the now former Buddhist monks in Cambodia were put to forced labour. Accustomed to, and trained for, a life of study, contemplation, and preaching, they were made to plough paddy fields and raise animals. Buddhist precepts forbade the slaughtering of animals by monks; and so, simply to spite and torment them, Cambodian Communists ordered monks to kill cows and chickens. Older monks were made to weave baskets or scare birds away from the fields. In some areas, monks were given two choices, each completely foreign to, and violative of, the vows they had taken; namely, to join the army, or to get married. The places that the monks traditionally lived and worshipped in were treated equally harshly. Some pagodas were converted into offices and warehouses; others were razed to the ground. The bricks of the pagodas that the Communists had demolished were reused for houses, bridges, and the like. One former Communist whom Harris interviewed said that the destruction of Buddhist sites and shrines had two basic goals; to provide building materials and to ensure that future generations would never be aware that the Buddhist religion had once flourished in Cambodia. Despite this systematic persecution, many monks continued to practise their faith. They continued, albeit in secret, to meditate, and to pray for the well-being of the communities they had so long served. Many villagers supported them, at great risk to their own lives. Harris documents an extraordinary case of a monk who lay hidden in a coffin, with villagers bringing him food, announcing their arrival by gently knocking on the coffin at night. Stalin and Mao are two of the three greatest mass murderers in modern history (Hitler being the third). However, the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, exceeded even those monsters in the ferocity with which he demolished shrines and tortured and murdered holy men. This was in part a consequence of his own deranged personality; and in part because Buddhism played an even more important role in the society, politics and culture of pre-Communist Cambodia than had Orthodox Christianity in pre-Revolutionary Russia or Buddhism and Daoism in pre-Revolutionary China. The Pol Pot regime fell in 1979, and the regime that replaced it, although also authoritarian in character, was not so opposed to religion per se. These new commissars sought to make Buddhism compatible with Marxism, which meant that monks could once more maintain their spiritual discipline, run or rebuild their temples and shrines, minister to the laity, without however questioning the political order. In subsequent decades, Cambodian Buddhism progressed from virtual extinction to a simulacrum of normality. By the year 2010, the number of monks in robes was roughly equal to that in 1970. Ian Harris book on the destruction of Cambodian Buddhism makes for instructive, albeit extremely chilling, reading. Religious persecution is normally seen as the handiwork of religious people themselves; Protestants persecuting Catholics or vice versa, Muslims persecuting Christians or vice versa. But it appears that atheistic Communists carried out such persecution as comprehensively as anyone else. When it comes to the treatment of rival worldviews, Communists have been as savage and brutal as religious fundamentalists. Reading this fine but depressing book, I was reminded of a witticism dating to the days of the beginning of the Cold War, about the essential difference between capitalism and communism. In capitalism, Man exploits Man. In communism, it is the other way around. Ramachandra Guhas books include Gandhi Before India @Ram_Guha The views expressed are personal SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON JOSHIMATH: President Pranab Mukherjee offered prayers at the Badrinath shrine - one of the Chardham - whose portals were reopened for pilgrims on Saturday. The temple was opened after a six-month winter break in the morning amid chanting of Vedic mantras. With this all the four dhams, Gangotri, Yamunotri (April 28) and Kedarnath (May 3) are now opened for pilgrims. Mukherjee spent nearly an hour at the temple and offered prayers to Lord Badri Vishal. Governor KK Paul, chief minister TS Rawat, tourism minister Satpal Maharaj, Badrinath MLA Mahendra Bhatt and his Srinagar counterpart Dhan Singh were present at the temple. The temples head priest, Raval Ishwari Prasad Namboodari, presented a shawl and a memento of the temple to Mukherjee with at Singh Dwar, the main gate of the temple. The President was also given prashad in a cane basket. Officers said Mukherjee is the fifth President to visit Badrinath. Though a palanquin was arranged for the President to cover the distance of about 1.5 km from the helipad, Mukherjee walked all the way to the temple. More than 15,000 devotees had reached the Badrinath Dham by Friday night. The devotees lined up in the queue nearly 12 hours before the opening of the portals despite the cold at night. They were allowed to enter the temple premises after 10:30 am once the VIP visit was over. The temple was decorated with yellow and saffron flowers. Women from Bamni and Mana villages performed the ritual dance to the tune of folk songs to celebrate the homecoming of Lord Badri Vishal. The 2013 flashflood had almost stopped the inflow of the devotees to Badrinath. It was only after two years that the pilgrimage revived when more than 3.5 lakh devotees visited the shrine. The number of devotees almost doubled in 2016 when 6.25 lakh pilgrims reached Badrinath. Officials of Badri Kedar Temple Committee are expecting more than 10 lakh devotees this year. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal removed Aam Aadmi Party leader Kapil Mishra as the water and tourism minister on Saturday, reshuffling his cabinet after the partys poor performance in municipal elections last month. Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gahlot and Seemapuri MLA Rajendra Gautam have been inducted in the cabinet, taking the total number of ministers to seven. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told news agency ANI: Water management was not up to the mark and Kapil Mishra made a lot of effort but the CM decided to bring in Kailash Gahlot in his place. A senior official said the decision to remove Mishra, who was holding the post since AAP came to power in February 2015, was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired Kejriwal. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would expose the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam on Sunday. He said he had met the CM earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged scam. I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee (the AAPs top decision-making body) was not involved, Mishra told PTI. Mishra tweeted after the announcement that he is the the only minister with no corruption charges, adding that there was no CBI inquiry against him and none of his family members held a post in the government. i am the only minister with no corruption charges. no CBI enquiry against me. Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishraAAP) May 6, 2017 A senior government official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken after it was found that the minister had submitted several inflated bills. Mishra was considered to be one of the most vocal and active voices in the government until he sided with Vishwas. (With PTI inputs) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON At least 200 girls were rushed to a hospital from their school on Saturday morning in Delhis Tughlakabad after a gas leak from a nearby container depot left some of them unconscious and others with nausea and irritation in eyes. Around 100 students were admitted to the Majeedia Hospital and 62 at Batra Hospital, in addition to smaller groups that were sent to other medical facilities, Harshvardhan, the additional DCP of Southeast district said. The students were in their classrooms at the Rani Jhansi school, close to the Tughalakabad container depot from where the chemical leak is suspected to have been originated, when they started showing symptoms. Initial information from officials had suggested that the number of girls affected were around 100. Emergency calls were received by the Fire department around 7.35am. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted hours later, saying that he has asked for a magisterial inquiry into the incident. I spoke to the girls and the doctors, the condition of the students is normal, he said, after visiting the hospitals the schoolkids were taken to. We immediately rushed two fire tenders, one Hazmat (hazardous materials) van along with a breathing set van, and rescue teams to the incident spot. Students and staff members of Rani Jhansi School were evacuated and the entire area was cordoned off, said Atul Garg, chief fire officer, Delhi Fire Services (DFS). Romil Baaniya, deputy commissioner of police (southeast district), said the leak originated in a truck at the customs area. The local police team along with teams of NDRF, fire, and CATS ambulance reached the spots and rescued the schoolgirls who were affected, said Baaniya. Officials from Delhi Police and the National Disaster Response Force were attempting to identify the chemical and how it leaked. It was unclear if the truck was inside the container depot or the driver had begun to drive away with the leak, said a fire official. Lieutenant governor Anil Baijal also visited the hospitals where the children were being treated. The BJP has decided to seek explanation from its three general secretaries of the Delhi unit after a report by an independent observer said that they acted separately and broke away from the partys strategy and protocol during the recent civic elections. The observer, which was appointed by the central leadership to oversee the municipal elections in the national capital, underlined fissures in the state unit. Sources in the party said the report submitted to BJP president Amit Shah says there was no coordination among leaders during election campaign and it was poorly planned. The central observers noted that division in the party peaked in the middle of the election campaign. A few of state office bearers were seen promoting themselves violating all norms, said a party insider. The report also pointed out that the three general secretaries, instead of focusing on partys strategy to ensure well coordinated joint efforts, were apparently working separately. They made sure that they remain on the stage on every occasion and never missed any opportunity to be clicked with senior party leaders. Because of their lack of understanding, wrong photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shahji were used in initial campaign posters, said a source. A party functionary said the senior party leadership is not pleased particularly with three Delhi BJP general secretaries, Kuljeet Singh Chahal, Ravinder Gupta and Rajesh Bhatia, whose photographs are found on party posters nowadays, which has not been a practice in the past. Sources said taking a serious note of series of protocol breaches, the state leadership has decided to seek explanation from three office bearers. Initially, the leadership ignored all these activities thinking it was unintentional. However, at the fag end of the campaign, it became annoying. Hence, the party has decided to ask for explanations, he said. Ignoring senior party leaders, their images were frequently being used in posters, banners, and hoardings. During the Vijay Parv Diwas, held to celebrate partys victory in municipal elections attended by president Amit Shah, their photos were used on posters. Earlier, only their (general secretaries) names were printed with the picture of state president in posters or banners, he said. Sources said it was after the intervention of state unit chief Manoj Tiwari, pictures of his predecessors Vijender Gupta and Satish Upadhyay were placed on the campaign rath. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Supreme Court appreciated Delhi Police for its detailed investigation in the December 16, gang rape. There was only one eyewitness in the case, the victims friend who was present with her inside the bus when the barbaric attack took place. His statement, corroborated by strong scientific and medical evidence, nailed the accused. HT takes a look at the evidence SC discussed to conclude the four deserved no leniency. Victims friend Prosecution: The convicts beat him up with the same iron rod that was inserted in the victims vagina. He and the victim were thrown out of the moving bus. Defence: It said the statement was unreliable. They pointed to inconsistencies in his statement with regard to number of assailants, description of the bus and identity of accused. He was a planted witness, the defence claimed. Court: The evidence of the witness was unimpeachable and found no merit in the defence argument. It said the statement cant be disbelieved simply because there were certain omissions. The evidence of an injured witness is entitled to a greater weight and the testimony of such a witness is considered to be beyond reproach and reliable. Firm, cogent and convincing ground is required to discard the evidence of an injured witness. It is to be kept in mind that the evidentiary value of an injured witness carries great weight. Victims dying declaration Prosecution: Three dying declarations of the victim were recorded, with the last one being in gestures. Police maintained all the three were at the victims instance, consistent and corroborated by medical evidence. Defence: Dying declarations were contrived and should not be considered because they do not inspire confidence. They varied from each other, clearly revealing the inconsistencies. It was involuntary and unreliable. Court: Held insignificant errors and were inconsequential because the prosecution produced cogent evidence to prove its case. The dying declaration recorded on the basis of nods and gestures is not only admissible but also possesses evidentiary value. Use of iron rod Prosecution: Brutal form of rape and the act was inhumane. Iron rod was put in the victims vagina and the accused took out her internal organs. This caused grievous internal injuries, resulting in her death. Defence: Fabricated story only to falsely implicate the accused. Lawyers disputed the use of iron rods claim on the ground that the victim and her friend did not mention about the use of iron rods in their first statements. Court: Discarded the defence argument. Said the victim was rushed to the hospital in a traumatised state with grievous injuries, she was cold and clammy and had lost a lot of blood. A victim who has just suffered a ghastly and extremely frightening incident cannot be expected to immediately come out of the state of shock and state the finest details of the incident. Her subsequent dying declaration, corroborated by medical evidence, proved the accused had used iron rod. DNA profile developed from the blood stains from the rod showed it had the victims blood. The rod was recovered at the instance of the accused Ram Singh who died within few months of the incident while he was lodged in Tihar jail. DNA analysis Prosecution: For the police DNA profiling of the accused was the most crucial evidence to link them with the crime. Samples were lifted from the victims body, the complainant, accused, clothes dumped at the spot, iron rods, ashes of partly burnt clothes and the bus to establish the incident. Defence: Challenged the DNA test and argued it cannot be treated to be accurate. Court: Calling it a strong piece of evidence, the court said DNA analysis had cogently linked each of the accused with the victims as also with the crime scene. DNA profile generated from the blood-stained clothes of the accused and other articles are found consistent with the DNA profile of the victim and DNA profile of prosecution witness (complainant). The odontology report Prosecution: Relied heavily on odontology test, a branch of forensic science in which dental knowledge is applied to assist the criminal justice delivery system. Bite marks lifted from the victims body were compared with the dental models of the suspect to establish their involvement. Defence: Contended the whole thing was stage-managed. Court: Found odontology report credible because of matching of bite marks with the tooth structure of the accused. Said there was no reason to view the same with any suspicion. The analysis showed that at least three bite marks were caused by accused Ram Singh, whereas one bite mark has been identified to have been most likely caused by accused Akshay. Criminal conspiracy Prosecution: All four had executed a conspiracy to gang-rape and then kill the victim. Defence: Denied the charges. Said there was no prior meeting of the accused to hatch the conspiracy. Court: It was established the accused were associated with each other. Police proved the charges of conspiracy. The criminal act done in furtherance of conspiracy is established by the sequence of events and the conduct of the accused. Recovery of the bus and the CCTV footage Prosecution: Provided CCTV footage to prove the bus route. The footage was taken from a hotel in Mahipalpur, which was near the crime spot. Defence: Alleged the police had fabricated the evidence. Court: Held the CCTV footage was not tampered with. There was no reason or justification to doubt the footage. Personal search and statements of disclosure leading to recovery Prosecution: Police relied on the recovery of articles such as clothes and mobile phones at the behest of the accused to link them with the crime. The mobiles of the victim and her friend were also found from their custody. Defence: Challenged the recoveries on the ground the accused were not in custody when the alleged recoveries were made. Argued disclosure statement of the accused cannot be used as evidence against them. Court: Relied on the police theory and said the recovery of articles belonging to the victim and her friend from the accused cannot be discarded. The recovery is founded on the statements of disclosure. No explanation has come on record from the accused persons explaining as to how they had got into possession of the said articles. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Residents of Ravidas camp are used to the cameras and press wahlas thronging the narrow bylanes for reactions. Friday was no different. It was 3 pm and everyone here knew that four of their neighbours had been given death sentence in the December 16 gang rape case. The sound of news bulletins were audible from behind closed doors but no one was coming out to talk. A17-year-old girl, sister of Pawan, one of the convicts, was sitting on the floor, looking at cameras from a crack in her door. She seemed terrified. Why are you all standing here, go away, she screamed and threw a ball of cloth from inside to shoo away reporters. The photographers took advantage of that moment to bag a few clicks. She was trembling, tears running down her cheeks. The TV in her 8X8 room was playing the visuals of her brother along with three other convicts who have been given the death sentence. After a little persuasion and assurance that no one will click her pictures, she agreed to talk. I have not seen my brother in four years. Today I see his photo on TV and they (headlines) are saying that he will be hanged. I always thought it just happens in movies. Will they really kill my brother and he will never come home, she asked, wiping her tears. The houses of the other two Vinay and Mukesh were shut. Vinays sister was watching the news with me. Then all these people (reporters) came and she left as she could not take it. They ask us how we feel about this. What do they want us to say? That we are happy to see out brothers die. We know they will be dead and we cannot do anything about it, she said. Soon her emotion switched to anger. Everyone is allowed to make one mistake. Why cant they keep him alive? Keep him in the jail but do not kill him, she said. The day he dies, I will die too and the court will be responsible for my death. I am not going to live to see my parents suffer. I have seen them run around for the past four years, I cannot see them in this condition anymore, she added. A family member of Akshay said they have nothing to do with him anymore. We have ended our relationship with him; Akshay is no more our family member; we have nothing to do with him, a close family member told IANS over telephone from Lahang Karma village in Aurangabad district. The neighbours around seemed unmoved by the decision. We stopped talking to these people the day we found out about what they had done. We could not believe it earlier but now since the Supreme Court has held them guilty, they must have done it. They deserve it, a woman said. Their immediate neighbours were a little sympathetic. We have seen the boys grow up. We still cant believe that they did this. Their mothers have been in pain since their arrest. What they have done is not justified but the court could have shown some mercy. Keep them in jail, why hang the? she said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON More than 200 girls from Rani Jhansi School were taken to various hospitals after they had a reaction to a gas leak from a nearby container depot on Sunday morning. The children were taken to ESI hospital Okhla, Batra hospital, Majeedia hospital, Safdarjung hospital and Apollo hospital for treatment. According to the hospitals, almost all of the children are stable and have been kept under observation. After the gas leak, the children had irritation and redness in the eye, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and difficulty in breathing. Some children were unconscious when they reached the hospital. The children did not need any specific treatment; we just managed the symptoms and kept them under observation. The gas that had caused the reaction is a compound used for manufacturing fertilisers, said DR HK Mittal from ESI hospital Okhla, which was the first to receive children from Rani Jhansi School. The hospital received 103 children and three adults . Five people with existing heart and kidney conditions were referred to Apollo hospital. The chemical agent involved is likely to be cholo-methyl-pyridine, which is an eye and respiratory irritant, according to All India Institute of Medical Sciences. A multi-speciality team under Dr YK Gupta, head of the department of pharmacology, will visit the site to confirm the agent and monitor the progress of victims. Union health minister, JP Nadda, asked all central government hospitals to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. Central GoI hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident.My prayers are with children &families https://t.co/plLgXY3gJB Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) 6 May 2017 Batra hospital received 55 children with complaints of irritation in the eye, headache and mild breathing difficulties. Two children, who had breathing difficulties and were taken to the paediatric ICU. The condition of all the children is stable, including the ones in ICU. They have been kept under observation and will be discharged in a few hours, said a doctor, on condition of anonymity. Sixteen patients were taken to Safdarjung hospital. While nine children have been discharged, seven others are stable and recuperating. According to Indraprastha Apollo hospital, which received 61 patients, said, There were 61 patients. They were immediately managed by a multi-disciplinary team. Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements were administered. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition. One patient is under observation and another person, though stable has underlying comorbidities for which the team of doctors has recommended treatment, said a person from the hospital. Facts Symptoms experienced by children: Irritation in the eye Nausea and vomiting Dizziness Unconsciousness Mild breathing difficulty What happened? A gas, which is most likely used for manufacturing fertilizer, leaked from a truck at a container depot next door How many affected? More than 475 people in Tughlakabad have been affected What is being done? The children are being given symptomatic treatment and have been kept under observation at four city hospitals SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Seemapuri MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam, one of the two inductees in Delhis chief minister Arvind Kejriwal council of ministers, will be the Aam Aadmi Partys Dalit face in the government. Both lawyers, Gautam and Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gehlot have been with the party since 2014. Gautam told HT that he was informed of the decision by the CM office on Saturday evening and late in the evening Raghav Chadha, national spokesperson, AAP, called him to congratulate on his appointment as minister. Gautam will fill the berth lying vacant ever since the removal of Sandeep Kumar after an alleged sex scandal in August last year. Kumar was then minister of child welfare and social justice. However, Gautam said he had not been told his department yet. Kailash Gehlot is MLA from Najafgarh constituency is also a lawyer. He also joined the AAP around 2014 however have been associated with Arvind Kejriwal for three-four years. Rajendra Pal Gautam, MLA from Seemapuri, a reserved constituency is practicing lawyer and has a chamber in Tis Hazari court. He joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in mid 2014. I got a call from the CM office in the evening and informed about the decision of my appointment as a minister. I have no information of about my portfolio. I will try to give my best. Whatever department I get, I will glorify it. I will meet the partys expectation , he said. Gautam, a practising lawyer, is a law graduate from Delhi University and his chamber is in Tis Hazari courts. He has done a diploma in labour laws and a post-graduate diploma in human resource management. Kailash Gahlot, MLA from Najafgarh, will replace sacked minister Kapil Mishra. Informing about the partys decision, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said Mishra was a non-performer. Gehlot, who hold a masters degree in law, said he had been working with Kejriwal for about four years and joined the party in 2014. He said he first came to know about his appointment as a minister through a news channel and was later informed by the CM office. I was conveyed the decision officially in the evening, he said. Kapil Mishras sacking highlighted the simmering tension between the leadership and Vishwas, which could snowball into a major crisis for the poll-battered AAP. Party insiders said the removal of Mishra was on the expected lines as he had thrown his weight behind senior party leader Kumar Vishwas, who has been at loggerheads with the leadership. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would expose the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam on Sunday. Following the development, Vishwas tweeted, suggesting he is willing to slug it out. I wish to assure the country and volunteers that we will continue to raise voice against corruption within and outside, irrespective of the consequences. Bharat Mata ki Jai, Vishwas, who had attributed reasons other than tampering of EVMs for the partys defeat, tweeted. Reacting to the development, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said the corruption circus of the Kejriwal government stood exposed. It is now established that public money has been looted in the Delhi Jal Board tanker scam by the Arvind Kejriwal government, he alleged. Arvind Kejriwal not only owes an explanation to the citizens of Delhi but it is high time he submits his resignation for being involved in this water tanker corruption racket, he further alleged. More than 200 Ayurveda doctors from across India gathered for the Oja festival at Constitution Club in Central Delhi to provide free consultations and discuss how to make traditional systems can be made a part of your daily routine to manage lifestyle disorders. In cases of infectious diseases and acute problems or emergency cases, there is no doubt about it that allopathy is the best. But, when it comes to lifestyle diseases, ayurveda can actually help in prevention and management, said Dr Abhimanyu Kumar, director of the All India Institute of Ayurveda. MoS @manojsinhabjp says #Ayurveda & #Yoga are ancient traditions of #India which needs to be revived & popularized among people. pic.twitter.com/fTg4zCKeoB All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) 6 May 2017 Is Ayurveda effective? There are three things that Ayurveda focuses on prevention of lifestyle diseases in an at-risk person, maintaining good health in the healthy people and managing the disease in patients with chronic illnesses, said Dr Kumar. There are certain illnesses like diabetes and other metabolic disorders, allergies, infertility, skin disorders, eye, ENT and dental disorders in which Ayurveda can be of great help, he said. We have specific clinics to deal with such illnesses and already have around 1,000 patients visiting our Out-Patient Department daily, said Dr Kumar. Is there research to confirm it works? Yes, there is. There is so much material that we have out there. People do not know about it because till now, no effort has been made to consolidate research. In fact, we are going to start a journal to report case studies from the grassroots level. Right now, these get completely left out, he said. Ayurveda can also improve cancer care. I am not suggesting that ayurveda can cure cancer, no one can say that. But it definitely helps in holistically managing the disease and mitigating the pain, depression and other symptoms that come with it, he said. Growing importance will stop crosspathy People want to go to Ayurveda practitioners, but the problem is that they are not sure whether the doctor is reliable or not. Add to that the fact that several ayurveda doctors prescribe allopathic medicines. Why would someone go to an ayurveda doctor to get allopathic medicines, said Ram N Kumar, one of the organisers of the festival and co-founder of NirogStreet.com. NirogStreet.com helps people find a genuine Ayurvedic doctor near them. When we collaborate with ayurveda doctors, we ensure that they are good in their practice and they prescribe only Ayurvedic medicines. This helps people in finding the right doctor, said Kumar. According to him, several doctors have stopped crosspathy after joining NirogStreet, which promotes Ayurveda as the first call of treatment. Get a free consultation The festival, which was inaugurated on Saturday, offers free consultation for all between 10am and 8pm on Saturday and Sunday. There are around 10 consultation booths where ayurveda doctors from Medanta and AIIMS, among others, will provide consultation to people. Along with consultation, people will also be able to attend public lectures on topics like pain management, role of ayurveda in diabetes treatment, skin diseases and neurological disorders. There will also be yoga sessions. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A law in France which bans featuring extremely thin fashion models has come into effect, the media reported. According to the law that came into effect on May 5, Friday, models will need to provide a doctors certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI) a measure of weight in relation to height, the BBC reported. The health ministry says the aim of the law is to fight eating disorders and inaccessible ideals of beauty. Models walk the ramp at the Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2017 on September 30, 2016, in Paris, France. (Shutterstock/AFP) Digitally altered photos will also have to be labelled and images where a models appearance has been manipulated will need to be marked photographie retouchee (retouched photograph). Employers breaking the law could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($82,000) and up to six months in jail. France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so. Anorexia affects between 30,000 to 40,000 people in France, 90% women, according to health ministry figures. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. Johnson & Johnson has been hit with a multimillion-dollar jury verdict for the fourth time over whether the talc in its iconic baby powder causes ovarian cancer when applied regularly for feminine hygiene. Late Thursday, a St. Louis jury awarded $110.5 million to Lois Slemp, 62, of Wise, Virginia, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. She blames her illness on her use of the companys talcum powder-containing products for more than 40 years. Besides Slemps case, three other jury trials in St. Louis reached similar outcomes last year, awarding the plaintiffs $72 million, $70.1 million and $55 million, for a combined total of $307.6 million. The company says its product is safe, and it plans to appeal the latest verdict, as it has the other three. Johnson & Johnson also has had some legal victories, including in March when a St. Louis jury rejected the claims of a Tennessee woman with ovarian and uterine cancer. Also, two cases in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said the plaintiffs lawyers hadnt presented reliable evidence that talc leads to ovarian cancer. The next baby powder trial is in June in St. Louis, and will be followed by another in July in California. The biggest studies have found no link between talcum powder applied to the genitals and ovarian cancer. But about two dozen smaller studies over three decades have mostly found a modest connection a 20% to 40% increased risk among talc users. (Shutterstock) What do investors think? Investors dont seem worried that J&J is in financial trouble, even though the company faces an estimated 2,000 similar lawsuits. J&J shares fell 62 cents to $123.10 in late-afternoon trading Friday. Johnson & Johnson, the worlds biggest maker of health care products, brings in about $72 billion a year selling prescription drugs, medical devices, diagnostic equipment and consumer products ranging from baby shampoo and Aveeno skin care items to Tylenol pain reliever and Band-Aids. Because of its size and diversified product lines, J&J is sued frequently and investors dont panic when it loses product liability lawsuits, so its stock price rarely drops much after losses. Also, the company clearly intends to keep fighting lawsuits alleging its iconic baby powder isnt safe, rather than settling suits at this point. What is a talc? Talc is a mineral that is mined from deposits around the world, including the US. The softest of minerals, its crushed into a white powder. Its been widely used in cosmetics and other personal care products to absorb moisture since at least 1894, when Johnson & Johnsons Baby Powder was launched. But its mainly used in a variety of other products, including paint and plastics. Does it cause ovarian cancer? Like many questions in science, theres no definitive answer. Finding the cause of cancer is difficult. It would be unethical to do the best kind of study, asking a group of women to use talcum powder on their genitals and wait to see if it causes cancer, while comparing them to a group who didnt use it. While ovarian cancer is often fatal, its relatively rare. It accounts for only about 22,400 of the 1.7 million new cases of cancer expected to be diagnosed in the United States this year.Factors that are known to increase a womens risk of ovarian cancer include age, obesity, use of estrogen therapy after menopause, not having any children, certain genetic mutations and personal or family history of breast or ovarian cancer. What research shows The biggest studies have found no link between talcum powder applied to the genitals and ovarian cancer. But about two dozen smaller studies over three decades have mostly found a modest connection a 20% to 40% increased risk among talc users. However, that doesnt mean talc causes cancer. Several factors make that unlikely, and theres no proof talc, which doesnt interact with chemicals or cells, can travel up the reproductive tract, enter the ovaries and then trigger cancer. One large study published in June 2016 that followed 51,000 sisters of breast cancer patients found genital talc users had a reduced risk of ovarian cancer, 27% lower than in non-users. An analysis of two huge, long-running US studies, the Womens Health Initiative and the Nurses Health Study, showed no increased risk of ovarian cancer in talc users. Watch: Talcum powder link to ovarian cancer explained What experts say If there were a true link, Dr Hal C. Lawrence III says large studies that tracked womens health for years would have verified results of the smaller ones. Lord knows, with the amount of powder thats been applied to babies bottoms, we wouldve seen something, if talc caused cancer, said Lawrence, vice president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The National Cancer Institutes Dr Nicolas Wentzensen says the federal agencys position is that theres not a clear connection. It is very hard to establish causal relationships, he said, adding, A lot of ovarian cancers occur in women who have never used talc, and many women have used talc and not gotten ovarian cancer. Research director Elizabeth Ward of the American Cancer Society says it is unusual to have so much discrepancy between studies. The risk for any individual woman, if there is one, is probably very small, Ward said. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more Action movie star Steven Seagal has been banned from entering Ukraine for being a threat to national security. The Guardian reports that Seagal is the latest in a long list of cultural figures to be banned from Ukraine for having ties to Russia. He will not be allowed into the country for a period of five years, a letter published on the news website Apostrophe says. According to the letter, these bans are issued when a person has committed socially dangerous actions that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraines security. In 2016, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave Seagal a Russian passport with the hopes that a personal relationship will remain and continue. Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with US action star Steven Seagal after presenting a Russian passport to him during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on November 25, 2016. (AFP) Seagal, star of several action film in the 80s and 90s, is an outspoken fan of Putins and the former Soviet Union. According to the Guardian report, he has eaten carrots with Europes last dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, ridden a horse in a suit of armour at the Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan and taken part in a traditional dance while visiting Chechnya strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Follow @htshowbiz for more Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday underlined the partys target to form a government in Tripura and overtake the Left-front before ensuring a Congress-free Northeast. Shah is in Tripura on a two-day visit to prepare the partys victory plan in the assembly election scheduled next year. His tour concludes on Sunday with a parivartan sankalp rally at Kumarghat, about 150km from state capital Agartala. Tripura is the only Left-ruled state among the four states where elections are to be held in 2018. Congress rules Mizoram and leads a coalition government in Meghalaya while Naga Peoples Front, a BJP ally, is in control of Nagaland. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur have BJP governments. Shahs visit, part of his 95-day nationwide tour for expanding the BJPs footprint, began with a 5km roadshow from the airport to the city. The turnout was sizeable for a party that was nowhere on Tripuras political horizon before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP president said conquering Tripura was one of his partys top priorities. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has formed governments in Haryana, Maharashtra and in the Northeast. Our next target in the region is Tripura, he said. Manik Sarkars government has done little besides indulging in corruption, organising political attacks and facilitating infiltration of Bangladeshis in more than two decades of rule, Shah said. The Congress era is coming to an end. I believe people of Tripura are yearning for a change and want BJP as the alternative to communist rule, Shah said. He was non-committal about any alliance but admitted that regional parties have helped BJP gain foothold in the region. State BJP leaders hope Shahs visit will energise the party for breaking the backbone of the otherwise deeply-entrenched Left Front in Tripura. They expect a huge turnout for Shahs Sunday rally. The BJP has seen a jump in membership from 15,000 in 2014 to more than 21 lakh now. The partys state unit chief Biplab Kumar Deb attributed it to Modis popularity besides Shahs last visit to the state in April 2015. In all elections held after 2014, the BJP replaced Congress earlier the main opposition party in the second spot behind the CPI-M or associate Left parties. In the 2013 assembly election, 47 of BJPs 50 candidates had lost even their deposits. Deb said more than 5,000 communist cadres and many from Trinamool Congress joined the BJP after the Manipur assembly election outcome. BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, secretary (Northeast) Ajay Jamwal, the partys Tripura in-charge Sunil Deodhar and minister of state for health Faggan Singh Kulaste are accompanying Shah in his Tripura trip. (with inputs from Kumar Uttam) The Jammu & Kashmir Bank has stopped cash transactions in at least 40 branches in south Kashmirs Pulwama and Shopian districts following a sudden spurt in bank robberies by gunmen in the last few days. A customer can deposit cash in the form of cheques and he can even transfer his money, a J&K Bank official was quoted by a local news agency as saying. In a way, these bank branches will be cashless and will do business in receipt form only, he said, adding that these branches will not be shifted and will function normally. Customers in these areas can do cash transactions at the nearest safe branches. Unidentified gunmen have struck banks, especially J&K Bank, the largest in the state, at least nine times since November 8, looting more than Rs 50 lakh. Police have blamed Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba for the incidents, saying it is a sign of cash-starved militants trying to keep the funds flowing. However, militants have vehemently denied these allegations. Lashkar-e-Taiba spokesman, Dr Abdullah Ghaznavi on Friday evening issued a statement saying it doesnt believe in heist. Robbing banks is not the work of militants. Honesty, truth and serving Kashmiri people is our core trait. This is an Indian agenda to malign us and has been planned in New Delhi, he said. A woman shot at her husband thrice in a car after they had a violent argument on the busy Hosur Road in Bengaluru on Friday afternoon. The victim survived after an emergency surgery in a hospital. Hamsa, 48, shot her husband Sairam, 53, thrice in the abdomen around 5 pm after the latter allegedly punched her while the couple was arguing about their daughters engagement which was scheduled for Saturday, police said. Police said that despite his gunshot injuries Sairam stumbled out of the SUV and managed to get onto a bus. However, an irate Hamsa chased down the bus in the SUV before getting on it to hunt for Sairam. Other passengers on the bus managed to restrain Hamsa before handing her over to the police. Sairam was shot thrice in the abdomen. He was rushed to the Sparsh Hospital in Bommanahalli, said SK Umesh, deputy superintendent of police, Bengaluru Rural. A senior doctor at Sparsh Hospital said Sairam had undergone surgery and was out of danger. Police said the couple who have been married for over two decades, was coming back from Hosur in Tamil Nadu, where they had gone to purchase some items for their daughters engagement. They had also argued when they stopped for lunch and had a few drinks. Based on Hamsas interrogation, police said the couple run a private security firm of which Hamsa is the managing director and Sairam the chief financial officer. Police said Hamsa wanted their daughters engagement to be a lavish event which Sairam opposed. A senior police officer said Hamsa had alleged that Sairam punched her after she reminded him that the company was hers. Enraged by this, Hamsa is said to have pulled out a gun registered in her name, and fired at Sairam. Read more | Indian-origin techie, wife shot dead at home by daughters ex-boyfriend SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON On a dark street near a textile mill in the Bombay of the 80s, two men were loitering with intent. One was a poor mill-hand waiting for his jobber to pay him his months wages. The other man, a little more desperate, was waiting near the gate to jump on him. There was a scuffle; a shirt was torn, a purse snatched, a dagger flashed, and a man dead on the asphalt. The cops when called, sought out eye-witnesses and took their notes, as they waited for their colleague, the photographer. Amol Athnikar, reaching the spot, lifted his boxy camera, the H 16 Reflex, and trained it towards the surrounding scene and then the ground where the blood was drying, to expose in a photograph what would rather stay hidden. Cities are linear by design. And people seem sorted only in appearance. In some shadowy corner, someone is biting their nails, someone needs help, someone is being pushed over the edge this very minute. You never know who is going to pull a trigger, who is going to snap under what pressure, says Athnikar, who retired in 2016 having joined the Mumbai police in the 80s. A quiet pride carried this man of stocky build and searching eyes through that intense decade. In those days the officer had to wait for the photographer to arrive. Now with the smartphone everyone has a camera in his pocket, he says with a shrug. Athnikar shot the momentous Bombay textile mills strike, and the city polices final war on the mob. In the riots following the Babri Masjid demolition [1992-93], he shot 80 corpses a day. It took a toll, he says. The pain in those photographs created a commotion in his head. His senior, Dattaram Kathe, another police photographer, who taught him the ropes, shot Manya Surve, the graduate-turned-gangster (played by John Abraham in a Bollywood film) who made his first foray into crime by planning a bank heist following the plot of a James Hadley Chase novel he had read in jail. Surve died in a police encounter. Kathe shot the crime scene. In this incident what was the crime and who were the criminals Athnikar would rather not say. It was not done on his beat, after all. Faltu dimak nahi laganey ka, (Not going to work my brain over nothing) he says. But there is always an official reality and a photographer, the supporting staff of the police, has to be at hand, to provide evidence as proof. Photo as Evidence Under Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act, the Photograph is a Document and a Photographer is an Expert just as much as a shoemaker is also an expert if he made the shoe found at the scene of crime, explains veteran investigator VM Pandit, formerly with the Central Bureau of Investigation. Because he has shot the crime scene he is called in as witness. A police photographer, after his photograph has been presented in court as evidence of crime, rarely changes the narrative. There is only one side he can take and only one story he can repeat the polices. Delhi police photographer Sanjeev Kumar Singh capturing the door through which a burglar has broken in. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo) Amarpal Palwe, a senior police photographer with the Mumbai police, displaying an old black and white cameras used by the police in the 80s. (Paramita Ghosh / HT Photo) Suppose a murder has happened, but its case comes up after three years, says a photographer. By then, I have shot 300 more corpses, stood before different storeyed buildings, wooden doors, grilled doors, broken windows, exit and entry points of hundreds of houses. So I will repeat whatever the officer briefs me before the court proceedings, wont I? Yes and no. It takes a good judge to pick holes in a police theory. And it also takes a photographer. A police photograph can also inadvertently weaken the prosecutions case.In Punjab, many militant deaths were proven to be cases of fake encounters. The police said they had been ambushed but had it been so, it would have been natural to crouch on the ground and fire back. The bullet can hit the militants stomach or head. But why were the photos of bullet marks found towards the top of a tree? Because there had been no ambush at all, people were taken randomly to forest areas and fired on, says Pandit. In 2003, Amitabh Singh of the Lucknow police shot a picture that killed attempts to prove that the murder of Madhumita, a woman in relationship with minister Amarmani Tripathi, was due to a house break-in. I had shot her body at close range. The stomach was at least six inches up from her navel. The post-mortem showed that she was four months pregnant, says Singh. The photos eventually led to a probe that linked Tripathi with the murder as Madhumita was carrying his child. Singh has shot 1,50,000 corpses till date. Madhumita is one of them. Singh has also not taken leave for 25 years. His marriage survives because Mrs Singh had been prepped before marriage that any plans for vacation would be nipped in the bud. Had he, for any reason, stayed home on the day of the murder, May 9, 2003, Tripathi may not have been serving a life sentence. The dead should at least get justice, says the photographer. VM Pandit, veteran investigator formerly with the CBI at his office in Delhi (Raj K Raj/HT PHOTO) Police and the public If law is the codification of acceptable behaviour, crime is its opposite. Crime is abnormal, but criminals are normal people. And anyone can turn to crime, says Sanket Rathod, a young Mumbai policeman who accompanies us the day a theft has been reported from a juice shop in Bhendi Bazaar. The traffic moves slowly. The area is clotted with cars, scooters and cycles. Horns are honked as if honking is going out of fashion. You are not to ask any questions, Rathod cautions as we enter the juice-shop. It might make the shopkeeper ask him about the progress in investigations he is not in a position to reveal. Rathod captures the crime scene in four shots. He takes a photo of the finger prints that have been detected on the shops safe-box. Job done, he leaves. How is Mumbai doing as a city? Which crimes are more, or less? Murders are down. Just housebreaking every two to three days. Nine lakh was stolen from [photographer] Atul Kasbekars house this March. The case was solved, it was an insiders job. Mumbai otherwise, he says sincerely, is a very peaceful city. A police photographer is not just Ceasars wife who has to be above suspicion. There is a fair deal of watching ones tongue, but once in a while it can run away. Police photographers also wear no peaked cap, or uniform. A certain facelessness goes with the territory. We go on call usually with the fingerprint expert and return to the police station and just file our photos, says Sanjeev Kumar of the Delhi police. We are not executives, says Amarpal Palwe, a senior police photographer with the Mumbai police at our meeting. We have no uniform, we are the support staff. Rathod and he belong to the same police station. Unlike Palwe, who joined as a photographer, Rathod was first a constable. On becoming an assistant police photographer, he deposited his uniform at the police headquarters.A police photographer, of course, has more pressing matters to see to than rue the loss of a uniform. Vijay Raj, a police photographer with Meerut Police working on his pictures on the computer. (Burhaan Kinu / HT Photo) Face-saving and other secrets A police photographer cannot take sides but he has to be abreast of local politics. According to Vijay Raj Singh of the Meerut police, student leader Atul Pradhan has made his mark as a local menace over the past five years. His face has been mostly caught by Singhs camera when the former was either acting tough, sloganeering at the university gate, or storming the police station. Singh even tried to wear a beard pointy and French to escape Pradhans eye and avoid obstacles to his work. Police photography, says special superintendent of police, J Ravinder Goud, also helps to warn and train police officials. Vijay Singh says it is also part of his job to know on which streets to take out his camera. Vijay is a good name for a cop, one ventures to say with Amitabh Bachchan very much on mind. Yes to which Raaz (mystery) has been added, he quips punning on his middle name Raj. (L-R) Brothers Rajesh, Anil and Sanjay Chaddha who run the Indian Art Studio, an establishment from the pre-Independence era in Mumbai run by its the fourth generation. The brothers are evidence photographers who shoot general clients as well. (Pratham Gokhale / HT Photo) Constables walked criminals down the 100-year-old wooden staircase to the Indian Art Studios basement for their side profiles and portraits. The studio is Mumbais oldest surviving studio of portrait photography. (Pratham Gokhale/HT Photo) Much of what passes between police officials and photographers indeed lie in this zone. A prerequisite of this profession is knowing how to keep secrets. That this will be the terms of employment is accepted even by photographers who work with the police but not for them. Some of Mumbais best families have sat for portraits for brothers Anil, Sanjay and Rajesh Chaddha of Indian Art Studio, an establishment from the pre-Independence era run by its fourth generation. And so may have the citys criminals in my father and grandfathers time, says Rajesh. Constables certainly walked criminals down the 100-year-old wooden staircase to their basement for their side profiles. We are not on police payroll, in our photos we also anticipate what the courts might want to see, says Sanjay. In the 90s, the police were monitoring Naxal movements in the city. There was a social gathering which they felt might be attended by them. Father was commissioned to take photos and video from the opposite building. What about their own commissions? An inspector once took me to a site where a huge iron sheet roll had fallen off a crane on a man on the ground and crushed him. My photograph was attached with his report, adds Anil. But what was behind the photo? What had actually happened? Not their job to know, says Sanjay. We dont check with officers if our photos have led to new openings in a case either, says Sanjay. What about basic human curiosity? Maybe we dont have any. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A CRPF jawan, who ranted against Union home minister Rajnath Singh in a Facebook video after the Sukma attack, surrendered before an additional director general (ADG) level officer of the paramilitary force on Saturday following directions of the Delhi high court. Pankaj Mishra , the CRPF jawan who posted the video, had moved the Delhi high court on Thursday to seek protection once he surrenders before chief of the force. Mishra came to the force headquarters on Saturday at 3pm with a lawyer. Since CRPF chief RR Bhatnagar has gone to Maoist hotbeds in Chhattisgarh on his official visit, he was asked to surrender before the ADG-level officer. Now he will be brought before the DG on Monday, said a CRPF spokesperson. Misra was deployed with the CRPFs 221 battalion at Durgapur in West Bengal. He claimed before the HC that he was assaulted by his superiors after the video went viral. The HC directed Misra to give himself up before the CRPF director general. Misra claimed that his relative, Abhay Kumar, was among the 25 CRPF personnel killed in the Maoist attack. A native of Bihars Shahpur in Ara, about 50 km west of Patna, Mishra after uploading the video had told HT that the entire system was bad. There was nobody to listen to us. Mishras video was the latest addition to the growing tribe of security personnel who have ranted against alleged governmental apathy via social media platforms. In January, a video posted by BSF trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav about poor quality of food served to jawans, set the social media afire. Later, a CRPF constable Jeet Singh asked why paramilitary personnel were not being accorded facilities at par with their counterparts in the Army while they were performing similar tasks. In another social media video that surfaced earlier this year, Army lance naik Yagya Pratap Singh alleged harassment by superiors for writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over problems faced by soldiers. Yadav has now been dismissed from the service. The CRPF will also initiates disciplinary proceedings against Mishra for uploading the video. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The latest episode in the long-running conflict between CPI (Maoists) and the Indian security forces claimed 25 CRPF jawans on April 24 in Sukma, Chhattisgarh. And for the first time, a statement from the Maoists made its way to the media in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in Hindi on April 27. Maoist spokesman Vikalp said that they had targeted the CRPF as revenge for the gang rape of tribal women, mutilation of activists bodies and vulgar display of the women soldiers to the media. We have not sold out to MNCs and land-hungry politicians, and are stiffly opposing the mafia, fanatic Hindu vigilantes and police goondas who fleece the tribals and the landless, Vikalp said in his 19-minute statement, the audio of which was sent via WhatsApp to journalists in Khammam and Visakhapatnam. Since the ghastly ambush of October 24, 2016, in which 30 Maoists were killed by commandos, the rebels seemed to have improved their strategy by attacking the CRPF in broad daylight, swiftly and precisely on a road project in Sukma. The massacre is one of the worst in seven years since 2010, when the rebels killed 75 CRPF troopers in the same region. A surprise ambush On April 24, the Maoists timed their attack on the CRPF during lunch when sentries were relaxed and the main force disengaged their arms. After they received the signal from operatives posing as road construction labourers that the food van had arrived, they took positions on both sides of the road in the Burakapal-Chintagufa area, a hot-bed of ultras in Sukma. Unsuspecting, the CRPF considered them labourers under MNREGA. The Maoists waited until almost 80 percent of the troops dispersed for water and food and bolted toward the vans to attack. The surprise worked in our favour. The CRPF never expected us to attack in the afternoon, as normally such ambushes are during wee hours in the morning or late evenings, Azad, a Maoist spokesman of the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) unit whose team was also part of the operations, had told Telugu scribes over phone. The latest attack also silenced talk that the Red Corridor was shrinking and that the Maoists control over the forests was waning. The Chintagufa and Chintalnar areas have been virtual strongholds of the Maoists since 1982-83 where they ran a parallel government after sundown. In the recent massacre, the ultras grabbed whatever weapons, shoes, water cans and ammunition they could find. The corporate mafia was spreading mala fide reports that Maoists cut the private parts of dead jawans. Mondays strike was also against the Centres growing intolerance and the Raman Singh government against tribal and Dalit movements across the country and for creating a fascistatmosphere in Chhattisgarh, said Azad. Internal strife led to attack In a circular after the March 11, 2017, attack on the CRPF (where 12 jawans were killed), the Central Committee (CC) of the CPI (Maoists) had found fault with their militias attacks on the CRPF, police stations and vehicles and VVIPs in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Such attacks will only increase attacks on tribals and hapless women, said the circular. But sources also contend that the commanders of the Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in Telangana and Odisha, and their front organisation convenors, had differed with the CC and were keen on revenge. If these roads and bridges are completed in these districts [roads are being built in eight Chhattisgarh districts] and the security forces get access to the area, then we have to give up our movement and look for new areas for survival, a senior member of the AOB and Jharkhand area militia division told this reporter over phone. The Telangana state police intelligence says that after two attacks in February and March on the CRPF in Bastar and Dantewada, the CC directed the militia and other field operatives to end such attacks on the CRPF. What if they build a good road; we can also use it and destroy it whenever needed. Instead, we should organise tribals to stall the road work and stage protests with workers,the CC had advised. The 80 km Sukma road from Dornapal to Jagargunda is considered a death trap for the CRPF from a hotbed of cattle smuggling to fierce encounters between Naxals and security forces, its the only way to Jagargunda, with the Maoists cutting off the other three access roads. It comes as a major relief in moving supplies and also helps back up forces during operations. Police claim that except for four to five top leaders, including Muppala Lakshman Rao alias Ganapati and Mallojula Venugopal (Kishenjis brother), the old guard had gradually lost control over the militia and special teams since the 1990s, after the formation of the Greyhounds in united AP, which undertook operations against the Naxals. Thirty two-year-old Madvi Hidma, a Khoya tribal well-versed with cyber technology and explosives, and the current chief of the first battalion of the PLGA is suspected to be behind the 2017 Sukma attack (and three other ambushes from February to March). Two years ago, Hidma was 17th in the party hierarchy. As age caught up with several top leaders, along with arrests and deaths of others, Hidma had quickly risen in 2015. He held several positions in PLGA, its cyber team and also counter-intelligence. He was also the personal guard of Ganapati and Kishenji in the past, said a senior police official. Though they discount a split, a churn is definitely underway in the countrys biggest Maoist group. Almost 80 percent of the CC has leaders over 50 years of age and most of the women members are their wives. The young guard has decided to stop road work and also avenge the October 24 attack at Malkangiri where the second-rung leadership [six commanders, including two CC members] was killed,says a Maoist source. During a 2016 cultural drive by CRPF in the DornapalJagargunda belt, the security forces chanced upon tribals who were divided between Telugu and non-Telugu Maoists. Further probe revealed that the Telugu-speaking tribals near Venkatapuram, on the border of Khammam in Andhra, owed allegiance to the old order of PWG (Peoples War Group), now holding top positions in the CPI (M). They resented the Maoists of the local cadre (who speak a dialect which is a mix of Telugu and Hindi) and kept away from them. Similarly, local factions of Maoists in Odisha and Jharkhand are opposed to the Telugu domination within the CC. Odishas top Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda, who was expelled in 2012 by its CC, had hit back at the leadership accusing it of being anti-tribal, anti-minority and anti-people. He was also opposed to the formation of the AOB unit and instead wanted it to be controlled by the Odisha wing. The CC nixed his plan and appointed many Telugu commanders for the AOB when RK (Akkiraju Hargopal) took over the AOB area. Pandas exit had weakened the AOB and opened it up for attacks by Chhattisgarh and Odisha rebels,says a police intelligence official in Andhra Pradesh. Police also blame Panda for the Maoists loss of top leaders in AP during the October 2016 encounter in AOB, where Gajarla Ravi alias Uday and Chalapathi alias Appa Rao were killed. Munna, the son of former PWG secretary RK, was another loss, besides Daya, Venkat Ramana, Bengal Suresh, Ganesh, Latha, Mamata, Budri, Rajesh, Swarna, Madhu and Murali. Police say the encounter dealt a severe blow to the Maoists, who were pushed to the Andhra-Odisha border after being driven out from Narayanpatna and Bandhugaon in neighbouringKoraput. Analysts in the police intelligence and experts on left-wing extremism (LWE) in the Ministry of Home Affairs contend that a new young, urbane and cut-throat order that was well-versed with modern warfare has been gradually taking over since the failure of AP-Maoist talks in 2007, and gaining ground especially since 2010. This order, aged between 30 and 50, also openly differs with the old, which championed organisational expansion rather than fighting. Analysts also say that the Telugu speaking or the ex-PWG cadres were slowly losing control of the militia. Rifts are showing in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Maharashtra, though they retain a semblance of loyalty in AP and Telangana. As the strength of Telugus in the organisation is gradually on the wane due to surrenders, arrests or encounter deaths, the Maoists are looking at a new leadership from mostly the northern states and non-Telangana or AP cadres, says an analyst, who prefers to remain anonymous. But as the Maoists strength is dwindling in the north, the Telugu leadership cannot be written off easily as they hold the weapons and purse, says a senior Maoist analyst and a former IG in the Telangana police. Demonetisation and its effect on Maoists A state-wise breakdown of LWE between 2011 and 2017 shows that both Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh compete when it comes to the number of reported incidents and deaths. In the last six years, 784 deaths and 2,484 incidents of violence have been reported in Chhattisgarh, making it the worst affected state. Interestingly, the number of Maoists surrendering has also gone up significantly. In 2016 alone, 1,142Maoists surrendered the highest in the last five years. In the same year, nearly a month after demonetisation, it was reported that a record number of 564 Maoists surrendered. This was attributed to their inability to conceal old currency notes to pay for medical treatment and food, followed by crackdown of security forces. Sources in the police and Maoist circles contend that demonetisation has also hit the resource base of the ultras to launch their drought raids in 2017. In 2015 and 2016, Maoists conducted nearly 110 drought raids in tribal belts and in the interiors of Mahbubnagar, Karimnagar and Srikakulam in Telangana and Andhra to loot grains from shops and distribute it among poor and tribals. We have seized over Rs 12 crores worth old notes. The Maoists used to get lorries at double the rates for their activities and now they do not have the cash, says a senior police official in Visakhapatnam. Under the surrender-cum-rehabilitation scheme, all LWE-affected states have been providing an immediate grant of Rs 2.5 lakh for high-ranking LWE cadres and Rs 1.5 lakh for mid and lower-level cadres. There is an added incentive if a Naxalite surrenders with arms. Surrendered weapons such as Light Machine Guns, Rocket Propelled Grenades, Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers can fetch Rs 35,000 each while AK 47, AK 56 and AK 74 rifles fetch an additional Rs 25,000. A monthly stipend of Rs 4,000 is also given for 36 months, until they find employment. In Telangana and AP, the surrendered activist is also eligible for health cards, a house, 3-5 acres of land and his bounty is also given to him in an escrow account. Maoist sources say that many cadres had surrendered because they wanted money for necessities. The tribal continues to suffer Since the launch of Operation Green Hunt in November 2009 and the deployment of CRPF in large numbers, life has been difficult in Chhattisgarh. Earlier, if one had to travel by road from Bhadrachalam to Jagdalpur, even in government buses, people faced the scrutiny of the anti-Naxal brigade, Salwa Judum at Cherla, Konta, Errabore and Dornapal. Now, deemed illegal, the Salwa Judum has been replaced by the CRPF. For people in Bastar and Dantewada, the killing of tribals, ultras and security forces is simply routine. People do not travel after sundown in Chhattisgarhs four districts. We are scared of the security forces who ask too many questions and detain us for hours, says Gosim Pandu of Errabore near Konta in Dantewada. The Khoya and Konda Dora tribals are affected the most as they are suspected of carrying essential goods and passing on information to the Maoists, popularly known as annalu (elder brothers in Telugu) in these parts of the Dandakaranya forests. Particularly after the October 24, 2016, massacre in the AOB, the CRPF has tightened security on tribal movements. The Maoist underground network often releases pictures and visuals of CRPF harassment of tribal women and farmers, though the government denies it. What will happen next? A security forces crackdown is perhaps inevitable. Loss to life is a given. With neither side prepared to blink first, the distressed tribal is stuck in the crossfire between the Maoists and the government. (Published in arrangement with GRIST Media) Amid hectic discussions between Opposition parties for fielding a candidate in the upcoming Presidential election, DMK leader M Kanimozhi met Congress president Sonia Gandhi here on Saturday. The DMK leader came to invite Gandhi for a programme in Chennai to celebrate DMK chief M Karunanidhis 94th birthday. Opposition sources said they are expecting DMKs support for the Oppositions candidate in the upcoming Presidential poll. Kanimozhi met me earlier. I have also spoken to MK Stalin. We are hopeful that the DMK will support us, said CPI leader D Raja. Karunanidhis birthday celebration on June 3 is likely to attract many Opposition leaders. The DMK leadership has reached out to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan. Kanimozhi maintained that the function will not have a political agenda, but the gathering of many Opposition leaders is bound to send a message of unity to the NDA camp. I came to invite other leaders from other parties also for the birthday celebrations. I brought a letter from our working president M.K. Stalin to be delivered to her and we discussed about that, Kanimozhi told a news channel. ARA: A man, allegedly under the influence of liquor, pushed down her two-year-old stepdaughter, resulting in her instant death in Bihars Bhojpur district, late Friday night. People in Nawada police station area of Bhojpur headquarters town of Ara, 55 km west of Patna, said Santosh Ram, 30, had returned home in Musahar Toli at about 11pm and pushed her stepdaughter to death. Ram was drunk at the time of the incident, they claimed. Santosh Ram had married victims mother Sanju Devi only two months ago after she abandoned her first husband Munna Ram of Jagdishpur, also in Bhojpur, over some dispute. Nawada police station SHO Neyaj Ahmad said locals had badly thrashed Santosh Ram, who was later arrested. He was undergoing treatment at Ara sadar hospital under police custody, Ahmad added. READ: Bihar man strangles two-year-old crying baby for disturbing him in sleep Ahmad said he would be able to confirm if Santosh Ram was drunk only after getting the medical report. Meanwhile, the body of the victim had been sent to the sadar hospital for post-mortem examination, the SHO added. Bihar became a dry state on April 5, 2016. Under the states prohibition law, consuming, keeping or dealing in liquor is an offence, which attracts imprisonment up to 10 years. BJP chief Amit Shah begins a two-day visit to Tripura, a Left bastion, from Saturday. Over the next two days, Shah will hold a public meeting, interact with prominent local voices and meet party members to discuss and formulate a strategy to challenge the Left in its remaining strongholds. The visit is part of the 95-day plan Shah has put in place to review the BJPs operations in areas where the party is weak. Tripura will be the third state after West Bengal and Kerala where the BJP is targeting the CPI(M). A look at why the party is hopeful about its Left Mukt Bharat plan working in the state: Anti-incumbency: Tripura has been under the rule of CPI(M)-led Left parties for 24 years. The BJP is expecting to benefit from a weariness that sets in with long-running regimes to gain a foothold in the northeast. It is weaning away leaders from other regional parties, such as the Trinamool Congress, to challenge the Left. Lack of development: BJP leaders claim Tripura has remain not developed at a quick enough pace despite a continuous, stable rule. It lags behind in several development parameters, such as health facilities and employment. During his visit, Shah will showcase the performance of Narendra Modi government and other BJP governments in the state. Narendra Modi: The Prime Ministers remains a popular figure, and the BJP is expecting his personal image will help the party expand. It hopes that Modis welfare schemes, such as free LPG cylinders, will impress the electorates. Swelling membership: BJPs membership in the state has grown from a modest 15,000 before the Lok Sabha election in 2014 to over 2 lakh by the end of 2016. This is an increase of 14 times in three years. Election wins: The party is portraying itself as the principal challenge to the CPI(M) after its victories in the recent by-election to the assembly. It also picked up more than 50 seats in the urban local bodies and panchayats, its best performance in the state yet. Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has blamed army-run schools for indoctrination of students in Kashmir Valley and said that these institutions are making children indifferent towards their religion and culture. The charge drew a sharp response from the ruling PDPs alliance partner BJP. Geelani urged parents to avoid these institutions. For petty material gains, we are losing our next generation, Geelani said in a statement on Friday and asked parents to keep a watch and be careful about their childrens future. We should never send our youth to these institutions as we need to see what education these institutions are imparting to our children, he said in the statement. For the betterment of our youngsters, instead do seek admission in other institutions of your choice, run by prominent and well-known organizations, he said. Geelani expressed apprehension over reports of mischievous activities of the Goodwill institutions run by forces and said that a nation pursuing freedom struggle can never make occupiers the custodian of their future generations. They are killing, maiming and blinding us and how obsolete and obscure it is to trust these and handover our future to their custody, Geelani said. A large number of children from civilian areas attend the army-run schools. While most schools remained closed for six months due to unrest in 2016, army schools functioned normally. Geelanis statement drew an expected reaction from Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Dr Nirmal Kumar Singh on Saturday who lashed out at the hardliner for spreading false propaganda against army Goodwill schools in Kashmir of indoctrinating Kashmiri students under the garb of quality education. It is their tendency. They are the same people who burnt government schools. Their own children study in best of the institutions in foreign countries and elite schools like DPS. For the children of poor people for whom our army, police and other security forces have opened schools so that they too can progress and grow, they (separatists) pick holes and find faults, Singh responded to media queries in Jammu on Saturday. The deputy CM who is from the BJP recalled how separatists engineered trouble last year and torched government schools in Kashmir that caused loss of studies to the children for nearly five months. To another query, he said Centre and state government are working in tandem and the situation will definitely be controlled in Kashmir. Gujarat government on Saturday ordered a judicial probe into the custodial death of a tribal man arrested under the newly enacted cow protection law for allegedly slaughtering bovines. Sabarkantha police, under whose custody Kodar Gamar died on Thursday night, however ruled out any foul play in the incident. Gamar, in his 60s, had collapsed after he went to take a bath on Wednesday evening, said a police official, adding the accused had earlier complained of uneasiness. Police said they took him to a local hospital. But as his condition deteriorated, he was shifted to the Khedbrahma civil hospital initially from where he was referred to the Ahmedabad civil hospital. He died there. The CCTV footage of the police station clearly shows that Gamar felt unconscious after taking the bath, the police official said. He said the inquiry was ordered as part of the procedures followed in case of custodial deaths. A case was registered against Kodar Gamar, his son and three others on April 26 at Kheroj police station in Sabarkantha under the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act 2011 for slaughtering cows. Gamar and two others were remanded to police custody on May 2. The arrest of Gamar and two other accused was reportedly the first in Sabarkantha district under the amended Act that came into force in mid-April. The law to protect cattle is the harshest in the country with a provision for life imprisonment as the maximum punishment for those found guilty of slaughtering cows. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a suspected incident of hate crime, a 32-year-old Nadala resident was stabbed to death by unidentified persons outside a grocery store at Modesto city in California, United States, on Friday. The victim, Jagjeet Singh, was a staffer at the commercial establishment. A pall of gloom descended on Nadala on Saturday, after Jagjeets relatives learnt about his death. According to sources, Jagjeet or Jagga had been living with his sister and brother-in-law in Modesto ever since he left for the United States over a year ago. He is survived by his wife, Kuljeet Kaur, and two sons Ishmeet Singh (9) and Dilpreet Singh (7) who reside in Kapurthala. Jagjeet had three siblings two younger sisters and an elder brother settled in France. Jagjeet Singhs family mourning his death at their residence at Nadala in Kapurthala on Saturday. (HT Photo) I was told by Sikander Singh, a co-worker at the store, that Jagjeet has fallen victim to a hate crime, said Kanwarjit Singh Cheema, the victims brother-in-law. Sikander had witnessed Jagjeets stabbing, he added. According to Kanwarjit, a man apparently a US national came to the store around 11.30 pm and asked for a pack of cigarettes. However, Jagjeet refused to hand it over because the customer was unable to produce the mandated identity card for making the purchase. The man then reportedly left the store in a fury, mouthing racist abuses and warning Jagjeet of dire consequences. The entire sequence was captured by a CCTV camera installed in the store premises. Kanwarjit said when Jagjeet went out a few minutes later, he was attacked with a sharp-edged weapon. He succumbed en route to a local hospital. His father, Mohinder Singh, was inconsolable. Jagjeet was a kind-hearted and hardworking person. We will miss him, he said. He went to the US one-and-a-half years ago to support the family. We took loans from relatives to send him there. The family said that though police are investigating the case, the attackers are yet to be arrested. We will decide when to cremate him after receiving his body from the hospital, Mohinder told HT. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON DARBHANGA/ ARA: The rising incidents of out-of-control simians raiding agriculture farms, invading homes and attacking people have created panic in Darbahanga and Madhubani districts of Mithila region in north Bihar and Bhojpur in western part of the state. The situation is very scary. The list of patients visiting government health facilities with monkey bite is increasing every day, said Dr Satish Kumar Sinha, deputy superintendent of sadar hospital at Ara in Bhojpur district, 55km west of Bihar capital Patna. On an average, five to ten patients come to Ara sadar hospital for anti-rabies vaccination, Sinha said, adding that he had to recently spend Rs 60,000 on erecting an iron grille gate at his Mansarovar Colony house on Hospital Road for safety from the rampaging monkeys. Dr Chitraranjan Roy, head of preventive and social medicines at Darbhanga Medical College Hospital, 130 km north of Patna, said the government-owned health facility had been receiving four to five case of monkey bite daily. The figure in the district could be much higher as many patients also visited the sadar hospital and private nursing homes for treatment, he said. A senior forest official at Darbhanga said the department was neither suitably equipped nor had the requisite expertise to contain the monkey menace, a statewide phenomenon. He said a Patna-based team, entrusted by the state environment and forest department recently to trap monkeys at Muzaffarpur in north Bihar, performed very poorly. The entire exercise cost the exchequer Rs 36,000 as the team stayed there for three months and managed to catch only one monkey, the official, not willing to be identified, added. READ:Scientists pitch for a family planning pill to control monkey menace in India In Narpati Nagar panchayat of Madhubani district in Bihars Mithila region, 170 km north of Patna, a farmer said he would have to stop agrarian work for fear of monkeys. They come in hordes, destroy crops and harm our children, said a villager Sanjiv Kumar Singh. My 12-year-old son was badly injured by monkeys and he was referred to AIIMS in New Delhi for advance medication, said Shatrughan Pandit of Narpati Nagar. Haunted by monkeys, villagers of Kanakpur under Narpati Nagar panchayat also wrote to the Madhubani district collector. But nothing happened, said Aghnu Yadav, state unit general secretary of Hind Mazdoor Sabha. Similarly, about 50 villagers of Naruar panchayat of Jhanjarpur block, also in Madhubani district, have decided to call on the subdivisional officer with a signed petition to get rid of the monkey problem. READ: Monkeys again declared vermin in Shimla We have been facing miseries due to the monkey menace for the last five years. Neither can we grow vegetables, nor are we able to save our mango orchards from destruction unleashed by simians, said Ashok Kumar Jha, 55. They are too intimidating to be scared away, he added. At Darbhanga town, also in Mithila , people complained that monkeys come in groups and inflict a lot of damage to our property. Amreshwari Charan Sinha of Mohalla Jurawan Singh saidhis daughter Namrata Sinha, 20, was bitten by a monkey and she had to be administered anti-rabies vaccine, costing nearly Rs 7000. READ: Monkey menace drive IIT-B students up the wall Divisional forest officer (DFO), Darbhanga, Ram Kumar Jha said the department was constrained to take the required measure due to lack of expertise and resources. The state government had made a provision for payment of Rs 500 for each monkey caught, another forest department officer said, adding that there was no taker for the scheme. Responding to letter from Bhojpur DFO Suresh Prasad, a team of trappers from Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park in Patna visited Ara on April 30 and caught 16 monkeys from New Karman Tola locality. Prasad blamed the monkey menace on mindless felling of trees for construction of buildings and roads. Naturally, the monkeys have no option but to move towards urban settlements, he said. Subhash Kumar Singh, a civil court employee, and Pratima Singh, an advocate, the areas haunted by the simians were Nawada, Karman Tola, New Karman Tola, Babu Bazar, New Area Babu Bazar, MP Bag, Maulabag, Madan Ji Ka Hata, Station Road and Gola mohalla. The people of these areas were living in constant fear, they added. Anjana Srivastava of New Area Babu Bazar said the problem was earlier limited to day time only. But now, the monkeys stay in residential areas even in night. The younger ones often damage water pipes by swinging on them, resulting in snapping of supply and causing waterlogging in the town, she said. Nimisha Shandilya of Nawada locality said the people now had an extra expenditure, replacing items damaged by the monkeys. . India has successfully launched the South Asia Communication Satellite, fully funded by it and touted it as an invaluable gift to its South Asian neighbours, which would provide communication and disaster support to the region. Here are five things to know about the launch: 1) Built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), its latest communication satellite GSAT-9 called SAS rode piggyback on the 50-m rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F09) with the indigenous cryogenic powering the Upper Stage. The GSLV-F09 blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh and injected the GSAT-9 into the orbit in a flawless flight. 2) The launch was celebrated jointly through a video conference by PM Narendra Modi, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, Bhutanese PM Thering Tobgay, Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen, Nepalese PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Srisena. Describing the launch as a historic moment, Modi said it opens up new horizons of engagement among the countries of the region. In his speech to Saarc leaders, except Pakistan, Modi said, Our coming together is a sign of our unshakeable resolve to place the needs of our peoples in the forefront. It shows that our collective choices for our citizens will bring us together for: cooperation, not conflict; development, not destruction; and prosperity not poverty. 3) Modis remarks were seen as a veiled message to Pakistan which stayed out of the project as it didnt want any Indian gift. Together we will achieve better governance, banking services and education in remote areas. Linking people with top-end medical services and quick response to natural disaster, Modi added. 4) Ghani described the launch as South Asias giant step towards regional cooperation and said it makes the regions integration a reality. Hailing Modis vision, he said, The gap between talk and action is bridged today. 5) Hasina said it will change the face of South Asia. With the launch, the cooperation among the South Asian nations has expanded from land, water, air to space, she said. Tobgay said it is for the first time in the history that a country is launching a satellite for an entire region. Yameen said Modis sabka saath sabka vikas is an ideal template for the South Asian integration. Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, said his country would benefit immensely from the satellite. Srisena said the development signifies inclusiveness and friendly cooperation. Tension prevails at a village in Bihars Muzaffarpur district, 71 km north of state capital Patna, for the second consecutive day after a Mahadalit woman registered an FIR alleging that she and other women of her family were prevented by some village strongmen from entering a temple. Complainant Usha Devi, 30, of Bishunpur Baghnagari village in Sakra police station area said they were also thrashed for registering their protest on Friday. Confirming the lodging of FIR, police said the injured women were provided first aid at Sakra primary health centre. Muzaffarpur deputy superintendent of police (east) Mutaffique Ahmad said a police team was camping at the village to avert any untoward incident. We have strengthened security arrangements in the village in the view of tension after registration of FIR against four named and three unidentified accused. The FIR was registered on the basis of statement made by Devi, Ahmed said. The DSP said Devi, in her petition, alleged that Srinath Mishra, Aman Kumar, Shiv Kumar Mishra and some other village strongmen stopped them from entering a village temple when she her relatives went there to perform a pre-wedding ritual of her brother-in-law. Devi said when they offered resistance, they were beaten up, the DSP added. However, a villager, on the condition of anonymity, said a cart accompanying Devi and her family was playing bawdy songs on the public address system. The accused asked them to stop playing of songs. This infuriated the male members of Devis family, who got into heated arguments with the accused, he said. Shravan Giri, the priest of the temple where incident allegedly took place, denied any such incident. Some women had come to perform puja. They even handed over to me dakshina (donation) after offering prayers, he added. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can resolve the problems plaguing Kashmir, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday as her government struggled to keep a lid on increasing violence and bitterness in the Valley. Amid speculations of the Centre dismissing her administration and imposing Governors Rule in the state, Mehbooba threw her weight behind Modi and praised the PM for his surprise Christmas visit to Lahore two years ago. The prime minister of our country had been given a very strong mandate by the people. I am saying it again and I may be criticised for it but if there is someone, who could find solution to the problem of Jammu and Kashmir, it is Shri Narendra Modi ji and none else, she told a gathering after inaugurating a flyover in Jammu. If Jammu and Kashmir has to be bailed out of this quagmire of violence and unrest, it is only the PM Modi ji who can help. A series of viral videos showing alleged human rights excesses including a Kashmiri man tied to an army jeep have ratcheted up the temperature in the Valley as hundreds of people have clashed with police. Nearly 100 people died in similar clashes and stone pelting last year following the death of top militant Burhan Wani. Mehbooba met Modi in Delhi last month after the unending cycle of violence, stone-pelting and spike in attacks became a cause of grave concern for the central government. The state government has been criticised for slow response to the growing local anger and many leaders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party have expressed apprehension about a fast-eroding popular base because of the BJP tie-up. But on Saturday, the 57-year-old CM backed Modi and said whatever he decided (on Kashmir), the entire country would support him. And, perhaps it was this courage and conviction of the PM that within an hour he went to Lahore and met Pakistani Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif). His visit was a sign of courage and not weakness, she said. Mehbooba said how Modis predecessor Manmohan Singh, who was PM for 10 years, also may have had a desire to see his birth home in Pakistan. Visiting his home was perhaps an excuse. He, too, probably wanted to resolve issues and remove confrontation with Pakistan so as to bail the state out of unrest and violence. He, however, didnt try, she said. She recalled how her father Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and then PM Atal Behari Vajpayee tried their best to restore peace and normalcy in the state. In those three years Vajpayee Sahib ensured ceasefire on border, there were talks with deputy PM LK Advani ji, talks (with Pakistan) for opening border routes started, militancy was at its minimal in those three years and there was peace on borders. It was not an ordinary feat, she said in an apparent hint to push for talks. Unfortunately Mufti Sahib left us and Vajpayee government is also not there and the situation is back to square one. Thereafter, successive governments in J&K and Centre, be it UPA in Delhi or in J&K, thought that everything was fine and there was no need to do anything. Subsequently, lava (among Kashmiri youth) kept simmering since 2008 and today we are facing its ramifications, she said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In an alarming indicator of how fast oral cancer could be spreading, one out of every three candidates was rejected in the medical tests for recruitment into the army last month for visible symptoms of the disease. Medical officers of Armys Medical Test Board, who conducted the medical test of over 3,350 candidates, claimed they rejected around 1000 candidates for oral cancer symptoms. The 12-day recruitment tests held at Kanpur concluded on April 27. Only 600 out of over 7,000 candidates who came for the recruitment test made the grade. Majority of them appeared to be addicted to gutkha and had oral diseases in their mouth, said a doctor. Oral cancer is spreading fast and a simple four-finger test where opening of mouth to an extent where four fingers can get in easily can help in detecting oral sub mucous fibrosis (OSMF), a kind of oral cancer, said MP Mishra, director, JK Cancer Institute, Kanpur. Mishra said apart from four-finger test, presence of white spot (leukoplakia), red spots (erythroplakia) and brown spots (malinoplakia) are also indicators of oral cancer, a ground enough for rejection in army recruitment. Yes, around a thousand candidates were rejected for mouth cancer symptoms with an advice that they should get themselves checked for early treatment, confirmed Colonel Deepak Sharma, director, Army Recruitment Board, Lucknow. Insisting that the adverse effect of chewing pan masala were visible on the health of youths, Sharma said youths who had some minor physical problems would be re-examined at Army Hospital in Lucknow. Out of 7,000 candidates, 3350 had qualified for running test and of these only 600 were found fully fit for the recruitment. Running tests were followed by medical tests, in which the highest rejection was for oral cancer. Around 700 candidates were rejected for poor eyesight or being colour-blind while 650 other suffered from hydrocele. Around 400 candidates suffered from physical disabilities like bone swelling, excessive sweating, deformed teeth, migraine, palpitation and flat-feet. A few candidates were rejected for getting tattoos on their bodies. As per army recruitment norms, youths who get the tattoo done on their arms or other body parts are supposed to be highly emotional. They are prone to taking decisions without much deliberation and hence considered unfit for army jobs, said a doctor. Clashes broke out on Saturday between protesting students and security forces in Handwara town in north and Pulwama in south Kashmir, the police said. Several students have been injured in the clashes which were on till last reports came in. Dozens of students from the government higher secondary school in Newa area of Pulwama district staged a protest against the alleged high-handedness of security forces, a police official said. He said the students were asked by security forces to disperse but they refused, leading to clashes. The students pelted stones at security forces, who resorted to baton charge and tear gas shelling, the official added. Similar protests took place in Handwara town of Kupwara district where students of the government degree college clashed with security forces, the official said. He said the students indulged in stone pelting, prompting the law enforcing agencies to use force. A police raid on government degree college Pulwama on April 15 had triggered widespread protests by students across Kashmir on April 17. The protests have been going on intermittently since then, prompting authorities to suspend class work in higher educational institutions for over a week last month as a precautionary measure. The students are agitating over the alleged high- handedness of police and are demanding action against the erring personnel for roughing up students. A number of students were arrested during clashes in Srinagar and elsewhere in the valley. Political circles may be abuzz with news of Shivpal Yadav announcing the formation of an all-India secular front but in Lucknow, Mulayam Singh is visibly relaxed and says hes sure the Samajwadi Party will remain one. In an exclusive interview to Hindustan Times, Mulayam said he will soon talk to Shivpal and that he will always stand by his brother. Edited excerpts: Shivpal announced the formation of a secular socialist front under your leadership. Has he taken your blessings for the same? No, I have not met Shivpal for last one week. He is returning from Etawah this evening. He has not spoken to me as yet about it and may have given a statement after talking to some leaders. I will talk to him. Then why did Shivpal announce the formation of a front without discussing it with you? He is hurt. I dont know why my son Akhilesh Yadav doesnt like him. After all he is his uncle and my brother. I will always stand by my brother who has struggled and suffered so much for me and the party. As for the front, he has simply given a statement. I will talk to him, pacify him. You think your party is splitting? No body in the family or party want it to split. What will they get if the party divides and weakens? Some elements, both inside and outside the party, may be conspiring to break SP as it alone can defeat the BJP. We have done it in the past and will do so in the future again. But split in the party seems imminent as differences in the family are only escalating. Which party doesnt face such ups and downs? Otherwise also it is the public and the cadre that decides the future of any political party. And I am confident about their support to me and my party. As for the family, there are no differences, there may be expectations. Are you pained by the developments? Of course I am. I have slogged to raise the party independently. We had formed the government within 11 months of forming the party. But now people who have not struggled or gone to jail occupy positions. Yes, developments pain me but I am sure SP and Yadav family will remain one. Shivpal is talking about bringing together secular and socialist forces on one platform? I have always been of the view that only the weak enter alliances. We might have lost the 2017 elections but remain the strongest opposition party in the state. I disfavoured an alliance with the Congress as I think the SP could have fought the communal forces independently in the 2017 elections. I did not campaign for the party and won all the 11 seats where I held public meetings. But do you think a front is required to checkmate Modis juggernaut? 2019 is still far off. We will devise some strategy but it is a fact that no front without the SP can take on the communal forces in the state and the country. Shivpal wants Akhilesh to return partys presidentship to you? (Laughs) You think positions are in any way important for me? Or does my status in Indian politics depend on positions? I may not be national president of the party but command more respect today. Positions no longer matter to me. What about speculations about Shivpal and Aparna Yadav joining the BJP? (Laughs) Never ever! Shivpal will only do what I want him to do and I will also keep him with me always. Police have recovered a diary and a mobile phone belonging to militants who attacked soldiers returning from a combing operation in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday. The phone and diary yielded reference to three local militants and a number of overground workers who had helped militants in reaching the spot and carry out the attack, Shopian superintendent of police, Tahir Khan told Hindustan Times on Friday. Abbas, Ishfaq Ahmed Thokar and Giyas-ul-Islam are the names we have found. We have also found some other links which establish that these three are behind the attack, Khan said. The ambush by the militants had killed a civilian driver and injured three soldiers. The hunt for the militants is on, police said. Meanwhile, the local media said hundreds of people attended the funeral prayers of the civilian driver Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, who was driving the private vehicle hired by the Army. Sheikh was laid to rest at his ancestral graveyard in Kachdoora, Shopian. Following intelligence inputs about the presence of militants, the cordon and search operation was started in Shopian early Thursday morning. Reports said that as troops were returning after a 12-hour search operation in Shopian and carrying out a reverse sweep of Chowdari Gund and Kellar area of Shopian, militants attacked them. Reverse sweep is a term used by the Army in which they carry out a surprise check of a location after having combed it earlier in the day. The operation, for many Kashmiris, brought back memories of the 1990s when such massive door-to-door searches were common in the Valley. Some locals had alleged vandalism by forces during the search, but police denied it. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Emila Shenga had set out from her home state Sikkim to take the civil service examination in New Delhi, but she never made it. A landslide on the only road that connects her mountainous state to the Bagdogra airport in neighbouring West Bengal put paid to her IAS aspirations. I was a hostage to Sikkims landlocked geography, recounted a distraught Shenga. Thousands of others have silently suffered similarly with Sikkims connectivity to the rest of the country dependant only on a single road passing through West Bengal. But for the first time ever since Sikkim joined the Indian Union as its 22nd state in 1974, an high-altitude airport that is set to go operational by the year-end has raised hopes among its 6,00,000 residents of breaking free of the states physical barriers. A Greenfield airport at Pakyong, about 35km from the state capital Gangtok, promises to provide direct connectivity to the tiny Himayalan state. The new airport is coming up at Pakyong, about 35km from Sikkims capital Gangtok. (Photo: I&PR department, Sikkim) The work for the airport has been completed and it will be inaugurated by the year end, said a senior official of the Airport Authority of India. Built at a cost of 300 crores, the airport at an altitude of 4,700 feet will be among the five highest airports in the country. True to its altitude, the airport has already let hopes of the people to soar. Once the Pakyong airport is inaugurated, it will ensure that Sikkim people do not have to travel 124 km via the choked National Highway 10 to catch a flight. Direct air connectivity will further boost tourism - the mainstay of the states revenue, Sikkims long-time chief minister Pawan Chamling told HT. Connectivity, or the lack of it, often decides between life and death in Sikkim. The state has no rail connection and minus an airport, people have had to rely on NH 10 to reach their destinations outside for everything from specialized treatment to job interviews. Apart from landslides that are frequent, political turmoil in north Bengal over the demand for a separate statehood for Darjeeling has also repeatedly caused disruptions to traffic. A bandh is called in north Bengal and people of Sikkim are trapped, admitted Akshyay Sachdev, the additional director general of police. Stories abound about critically ill patients unable to make it to Bagdogra for being airlifted to other cities for better treatment. Officials are promising to inaugurate the airport at the earliest to ease Sikkims travails. We are waiting for the clearance from the Union civil aviation ministry about the airlines that will operate flights from the Greenfield airport at Pakyong. Once the flight and route for the first flight is decided, the date of inauguration will be finalised, a senior official said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate the much-awaited airport. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON LIVE Razboi in Ucraina, ziua 259: Rusii arunca poduri in aer si par ca au inceput retragerea din Herson / Patrusev s-a intalnit cu Raisi la Teheran / Europa de Est se pregateste pentru noul val de refugiati ucraineni The launching of South Asian Satellite was a dream and a commitment which India has fulfilled, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today, a day after the country crafted history. Touted as Indias priceless gift to its South Asian neighbours, the GSAT-9 launched on Friday will provide communication and help in disaster management in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan. Neighbouring Pakistan refused to be part of the project and didnt acknowledge the launch of GSAT-9 as a regional effort. ..It was a dream and a commitment, which India has adhered to, tweeted Modi who had made a unilateral proposal of India launching such a regional satellite soon after he became the Prime Minister in 2014. The Prime Minister tweeted in response to a message by a follower who congratulated him, saying that his dream had come true. Thank you. It was a dream and a commitment, which India has adhered to. https://t.co/SguCEJSr0s Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 6, 2017 To another tweet, Modi said, Through science, we can transform the lives of the poor and marginalised. The Rs 235 crore satellite has been built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as part of a Rs 450 crore project. The cuboid-shaped 2,230 kg satellite named SAS will enable a full range of services to the neighbours, including in telecommunication, television, direct-to-home, VSATs, tele-education and telemedicine. The South Asian Satellite (SAS) mission life is 12 years. Sri Lanka will deploy nearly 6,000 police officers to provide special security for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other related events during his visit to the country next week to attend the UN Vesak festival, a top police official has said. The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security, according to Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara. Quoting Jayasundara, the Daily News said nearly 6,000 police officers have been deployed to provide security for Modi and for other related events during the Vesak festival. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modis visit on May 12 to take part in the celebrations marking the UN Vesak Day, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha. There will be strict security measures in Colombo and Kandy district. In addition, a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held, he added. On the sidelines of the celebrations, Modi is expected to attend a series of religious and other events including the opening of a new hospital in Dickoya, funded by India. No acts of sabotage can be carried out during the Indian Prime Ministers visit. The Police have been strictly instructed to pay special attention to the matter, Jayasundara was quoted as saying. The official said a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath wielded a broom to launch a cleanliness drive at a Lucknow slum on Saturday to encourage people to keep their cities clean. Accompanied by urban development minister Suresh Khanna and other party functionaries and government officials, the chief minister went about sweeping densely populated Balu Adda area of the capital city. The drive comes two days after a cleanliness survey revealed that most of the cities in the state are among the filthiest in the country. None of the cities, barring Varanasi, from the state found a place in the list of 100 cleanest cities in Swachh Survekshan-2017. Gonda in the state was adjudged the dirtiest in the country. Amid shouting of Jai Sri Ram and Bharat Mata Ki jai, the chief minister kick-started the programme at 7am. Local residents said perhaps it was for the first time any cleanliness drive was conducted in the area. Adityanath and his entourage cleaned about 300-metre stretch of the access road to the slum to create awareness about cleanliness among the masses during the 30-minute-long drive. People often hesitate to clean even their own surroundings. Our todays initiatives aimed at changing this mindset and motivating people to keep their own vicinity clean, urban development minister said, as he removed silts from the drains. Khanna said such drive would be carried out on first Saturdays of every month in various parts of the state. Chief minister also inspected the lone public toilet in the area and asked the municipal staffers to keep it clean after reportedly assuring a pay hike. Yogiji has asked us to keep the toilet clean. After enquiring about our salary which is a meagre Rs 2500, he assured us a hike, said Poonam Kumari, one of the staffers. People of Balu Adda that has some 1000 households, however, said more than cleanliness, they need portable water. The water we get is very dirty and pale yellow in colour. Many a times we have also noticed human waste in the water. We have lodged many complaints with the authorities but to no avail. It would be good if Yogiji ensures supply of clean water, said Mithlesh, a housewife. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Two children died Saturday, a day after they were administered vaccination against Japanese encephalitis (JE) as well as measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) in Bihars Muzaffarpur district, 70km north of Patna. Nine more children were taken ill after the vaccination at Patori village in Aurai police station area, 39 km north east of Muzaffarpur. After initial treatment, they had been referred to Sri Krishna Medical College Hospital (SKMCH), Muzaffarpur, Aurai police station SHO Amarendra Kumar told HT over phone. Kumar said 13 children were administered the vaccination by auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) Pramila Kumari and Anganwadi sevika Parvati Kumari, both trained health workers, around 10 am on Friday. In the evening, 11 of them developed symptoms of vomiting, diarrhoea and fever, he said, adding that Raja Babu, 9 months, and Sonu Kumar, oneand-half-year old, died in the wee hours of Saturday. Anshu Kumar, 1, Deepak Kumar, 9, Rohit Kumar, 2, Punita Kumari, 5 months, Nisha Kumari, 7 months, Kusum, 6 months, Manish, 3 months and Ayush, 1, were undergoing treatment at SKMCH, he added. Aurai primary health centre (PHC) in-charge Dr RN Sharma, who was camping at Patori, said vaccines were sent to various villages from the PHC in ice boxes for immunization. It is a matter of inquiry why children of Patori fell sick after being administered the vaccine. We have received no such complaint from any other village, he added. SKMCH superintendent Dr GK Thakur said the nine sick children brought to the hospital were out of danger. Muzaffarpur district magistrate (DM) Dharmendra Singh told HT that the vaccination drive had been launched in Aurai, Meenapur, Kanti and some other JE-affected blocks as part of the routine immunisation programme. MMR vaccines were also administered as a precautionary measure, he said. The DM quoted SKMCH doctors as saying that fever after immunisation was very common and the children who had been admitted there had been given paracetamol. The doctors had said that the death of two children, who had developed symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, could be due to dehydration as they were not taken to the PHC on time, Singh added. READ: How safe is the new measles vaccine? Singh, who was on way to Patori, said the exact cause of death would be ascertained only after post-mortem examination. A team of experts from Patna were on way to Muzaffarpur to inquire into the matter, the DM added. JE, a disease that spreads through mosquito bites, has been preying on malnourished children with low immunity in Muzaffarpur district since 1994. Its symptoms usually take five to 15 days to develop and include fever, headache, vomiting, confusion, and difficulty moving. More than 1000 children have died in Muzaffarpur since the disease first broke out in an epidemic form. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A top Tibetan body has welcomed the decision of a US Congressional delegation led by top Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to meet the Dalai Lama next week, saying it sends a strong message to China that America cares deeply about Tibet. The high-level delegation will meet the 81-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader in Dharamsala when it visits there from May 9-10. We welcome this initiative by the US Congressional delegation and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Matteo Mecacci, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, said on Friday. The visit sends a strong message to the Tibetan people that Pelosi and the United States Congress care deeply about Tibet, and it also reminds China that as long as the Tibetan issue remains unresolved, the international community will continue to put the spotlight on it, Mecacci said. Pelosi, 77, who is a former speaker of the House of Representatives, will also lead the delegation for its visit to Germany and Belgium with an aim to focus on global economy, bilateral and multilateral relations and human rights. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, will be accompanying Pelosi on the trip, a statement said. Other members of the Congressional delegation are Jim Sensenbrenner, Eliot Engel, Jim McGovern, Betty McCollum Judy Chu and Joyce Beatty. Our bipartisan delegation travels at a vital time in the US relationship with India, Nepal and our NATO partners, Pelosi said. Our delegation looks forward to meetings on how we can strengthen our economic and security relationships, as well as addressing challenges ranging from regional Russian aggression to global human rights, she added. America must continue to be a strong leader on the world stage and our bipartisan delegation travels at a critical time for the US relationship with India, Nepal and our NATO allies, said Congressman McGovern who is co-Chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and has been a leading voice in Congress for strengthening human rights around the world. I am proud to join leader Pelosi on this delegation and look forward to our meetings to discuss ways the US and our allies can work together to strengthen economic relationships and global security, while also doing more to strengthen human rights and address our shared regional interests, he said. Congressman McGovern was instrumental in introducing bipartisan legislation to promote travel by American diplomats, journalists and citizens, including Tibetan- Americans, to Tibet where access is routinely denied by the Chinese authorities. McGovern and his Congressional colleague Randy Hultgren introduced the bill HR 1872, the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act (RAT) of 2017, in the House of Representatives, on April 4. Senators Marco Rubio and Tammy Baldwin also introduced the RAT Act in the Senate on April 4. While Chinese officials and citizens can freely travel to the US, American citizens wishing to visit Tibet do not enjoy a similar access. The premise of the bill is if China continues to deny access to American citizens into Tibet, then Chinese officials with oversight on Tibet should not be allowed to travel to the US. Pelosi had previously led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Dharamsala in 2008, when she was the speaker of the House. Speaking to the media in Washington DC, after their return, Pelosi had said the trip was one that revealed certain truths, to us. I considered the trip constructive, bridge-building, and we want to continue building that bridge through reconciliation and clearer understanding, she had said. A Dalit groom and other members of a baraat procession were beaten up by a few upper caste men for taking out his wedding procession with pomp and celebrations in Bundelkhands Chhatarpur district, nearly 331km from Bhopal. Five baraatis were injured. Police have lodged a case against the four accused and arrested one of them, while three others are absconding. The incident occurred at Dehri village under Orcha Road police station in Chhatarpur around midnight on Friday. Orcha Road police station officer Rameshwar Dayal said on Friday night, Basanta Basor from Scheduled Caste community was to marry Prakash Basor of Maharajpur at Dehri village. The baraat was scheduled to arrive around 11pm. The procession started with groom in a morgadi (jeep with peacock shaped decoration). On the way, the four accused Prithvi Raj Singh Thakur, Arvind Singh Thakur, Akhandh Pratap Singh Thakur and Pinto Viswakarma picked up a fight with the baraat photographer and some other participants. They objected to the way the family was celebrating the wedding, especially with the groom in the morgadi as no other member of the community dares to do so, said Dayal. He said the accused started beating up some members of the baraatis and broke the camera and threatened others. The police waited there till morning till the ceremony was over, he said. Five baraatis, including the photographer, were injured in the incident. The injured were sent to the district hospital for medical examination. The police have lodged a case against the four accused. Prithvi Raj Singh Thakur was arrested 1) I can sleep peacefully tonight, says father of Delhi gang rape victim after SC upholds death penalty for convicts Asha Devi is happy that her daughter will rest in peace finally. And her husband, Badri Nath Singh, will sleep peacefully on Friday night four years, four months and 18 days since an evening in 2012 that wrecked the couples world. Devi and Singh let out sighs and tears when the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the four rapist-murderers of their daughter will hang to death. We waited for this day for four years and I am happy with the verdict. It has restored my faith in the judiciary. It did take long, but we did get justice, the mother said, regaining her composure in the packed courthouse abuzz with people applauding the judgment. Read the story here. 2) Dec 16 gang rape verdict: Bilkis Bano wants death penalty for her rapists too Hours after the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for the four rape accused in the December 16 gang rape case, Bilkis Bano also demanded the same punishment for those who gang-raped her and killed 14 members of the family during the Gujarat riots of 2002. If we have to fight more, we will. We also want to get the same justice, Bano told HT over the phone on Friday. A day earlier, the Bombay high court had refused to hand down the death penalty to three of the 11 people convicted of raping her. Instead, the court upheld the life sentences for all 11 accused persons, besides convicting 5 policemen and two doctors of complicity. Read the story here. 3) Juvenile in 2012 Delhi gang rape case unaware of verdict, now works as a cook Away from the limelight on the verdict in the December 16 gang-rape and murder, the juvenile convicted in the case, who was found guilty of raping and killing the 23-year-old physiotherapist on December 16, 2012 has settled well in his new life. He is cooking at a prominent restaurant. The then minor is now 23 years old. He was always worried about getting lynched and that is why he was sent to the southern part of the country. Now, the verdict has come, focus will again move to him but he is at a place where he might not even see the national news channels. His employer is not aware of his past and even he has left it behind, said a NGO official, who was part of his rehabilitation process. Read the story here. 4) H-1B visa woes: Cognizant to ramp up hiring in US, reduce work permit dependence IT company Cognizant expects to significantly ramp up headcount in the US in a bid to woo the Trump administration that has been critical of outsourcing firms for unfairly taking jobs away from American workers. The US-based firm has over 2.61 lakh employees, with a large number of them based in India. While the company is hiring more locals, it is also consciously reducing its dependence on H-1B visas. Cognizant expects its visa requirements to go down further going forward. Read the story here. 5) Government declares entire Assam as disturbed area under AFSPA for 3 more months The Centre has declared the entire Assam as a disturbed area under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act -- the AFSPA -- for three more months, citing various violent activities by insurgent groups ULFA, NDFB and others. In a gazette notification, the Home Ministry said the entire Assam, besides bordering areas of Meghalaya, have been declared disturbed under the AFSPA for three months with effect from May 3. The ministry said there were 75 incidents of violence in Assam in 2016 in which 33 people, including four security personnel, were killed and 14 others were abducted. Read the story here. 6) Govt mulls passing on some cost of providing security at airports to air travellers The government is mulling an increase in the passenger service fee (PSF) in order to pass on to air travellers a part of the cost of strengthening security at all airports. As of now, air travellers pay Rs 130 as security charge. This is part of the Rs 225 charged as PSF by the airlines while selling the tickets. The security charge has not been increased in the last 15 years. But now, the cost of providing security to airports has gone up manifold. In all likelihood, the amount will go up, a government functionary said. Read the story here. 7) Opinion: Shivpals exit from Samajwadi Party will be good news for Akhilesh and UP An imminent split in the Samajwadi Party, as announced by Shivpal Yadav on Friday, is good news for his nephew and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, for the people, and for the politics in Uttar Pradesh. Unencumbered by the vestiges of the past, Akhilesh can now embark on transforming the SP from a Yadav-Muslim party into a modern political outfit that is in sync with peoples aspirations. Read the story here. 8) NYT article criticising Pakistani army replaced with blank space in local paper An International New York Times opinion piece criticising the powerful Pakistani army was censored by its local publisher Friday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to speak out against the military establishment. The article was censored in the Express Tribune newspaper which partners with The International New York Times the global edition of The New York Times. The online version of the piece by Mohammed Hanif, a high-profile satirist and novelist, was trending on Pakistani social media by Friday afternoon. Read the story here. 9) Chinas One Belt, One Road project causing maritime anxiety, says top US admiral The maritime implications of Chinas One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project are causing a sense of anxiety in the region, said Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet who is in India for consultations with his Indian counterpart and the defence ministry. Uncertainty over the OBOR initiative is being raised in every country I visit, Swift said. Chinese warships are making an OBOR tour of the Pacific Ocean now, he noted, and their actions may give some insight into what Beijing plans. Read the story here. 10) Zurich recommends ban on Quran distribution campaign in public spaces Zurichs public safety office on Friday recommended towns in Switzerlands most populous canton ban a campaign that hands out Korans in public spaces, describing it as a front for incitement of radical activities including jihadist involvement. The recommendation clashed with an assessment by federal intelligence services published three days before which concluded a ban on the campaigns Koran distribution would lead to a strong conflict with the exercise of religious freedom. Read the story here. 11) Trump signs $1 trillion spending bill, keeps government open President Donald Trump signed his first piece of major legislation on Friday, a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the government operating through September. The bill cleared both houses of Congress this week and Trump signed it into law behind closed doors at his home in central New Jersey, well ahead of a midnight Friday deadline for some government operations to begin shutting down. But other budget battles lie ahead as the White House and Congress hammer out a spending plan for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Read the story here. 12) IPL 2017: Kings XI Punjab beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 19 runs, stay alive for playoffs Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) suffered yet another humiliating defeat in the 2017 Indian Premier League (IPL), this time by 19 runs to Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Friday night. Set a meagre target of 139 runs, the misfiring Royal Challengers batting line-up again collapsed to suffer their fourth loss on the trot. Read the story here. Mumbai Indians opener Lendl Simmons scored 66 in 43 balls (5x4, 4x6) while Kieron Pollard stroked his way to an unbeaten 63 in 35 balls (5x4, 4x6) as Mumbai Indians thrashed Delhi Daredevils by 146 runs to clinch their ninth win in IPL 10. It is the biggest margin of victory in IPL, bettering RCBs 144-run win over Gujarat Lions in 2016.(Highlights | Scorecard) Chasing 213, DD were dismissed for 66, their lowest total. The Mumbai bowling was measured and to the field as they ensured Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant, who had starred in the previous match, were dismissed in single digits. READ | Mumbai Indians enter play-offs, qualifying scenarios for other teams For Mumbai, three important stands of 59*, 37, 37 that Pollard featured took them beyond 200. Pollard batted like a senior pro holding the innings together. On days like these, you wonder how Pollard can change gears. Usually he is sent in the slog overs as he can smash the ball literally into parking lots. On Saturday, he showed he has the ability to bat through as well. READ | Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians, highlights Leg-spinner Amit Mishra troubled him early on, bowling really slow and even beating him a couple of times. Pollard, however, waited like a lion in the bushes waiting for the prey to commit the slightest of mistakes. Mishra finally blinked and was hunted by Pollard. Mishra bowled his usual back-spins in order to vary his pace. Pollard blasted one into the third tier. Mishra got defensive and dropped a little short. Pollard had expected it and he rocked back, handing Mishra the same treatment. The leggie finished with 4-0-37-1. But for Pollards treatment, his figures could have been way better. Delhi have been miserable on the field off late. On Saturday, they let off Hardik Pandya who was dropped by Shreyas Iyer in the penultimate over. READ | From MS Dhoni to Suresh Raina, how sportsmanship prevailed over rivalry Hardik made use of the opportunity, hitting Cummins for two sixes and a boundary in the final over. Simmons, who had a forgettable T20 series against Pakistan last month, did well here. He didnt look confident at the start but stayed on the crease and patiently worked his way into form. Once he got used to the pace of Kotla wicket, he used the crease well and improvised a few strokes. He was soon moving back in the crease and playing shots through the point and cover. Simmons reached 1000 runs in IPL and his innings on Saturday showed how much he loves playing here. DD were miserable, losing wickets regularly. Only Karun Nair could cross 20. Spinners Harbhajan Singh and Karn Sharma picked three wickets each. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Kieron Pollard slammed his second fifty of the season as Mumbai Indians defeated Delhi Daredevils by 146 runs to become the first team to qualify for IPL 2017 playoffs. (Highlights) Pollards innings included four sixes and five boundaries. In his knock, he had two vital partnerships of 37 runs each with Lendl Simmons and Rohit Sharma, which took Mumbai Indians to a respectable score. (Scorecard) Usually, Kieron Pollard is sent in the slog overs as he can muscle the ball out of the stadium. But on Saturday, he showed that he can also be relied on for playing a long innings, batting through the overs. One could understand the move when Pollard walked in during the ninth over after the dismissal of Parthiv Patel. Amit Mishra was bowling, Pollard could just stand and deliver. But when he hit his second six off Mishra, it was a leading edge. However, the power in his swing ensured the ball sailed over the long-off fielder. You knew it was Pollards day when that happened. Mishra troubled him early on bowling really slow and even beat him a couple of times, but Pollard waited and waited, for the mistakes. Mishra wavered and was punished by Pollard. After a brown sloth bear was sighted for the first time in Kailadevi forests in Rajasthan, the forest department has decided to install more camera traps to study the animals phenology -- periodic biological phenomena, such as breeding, in relation to climatic conditions. Phenology is the study of periodic animal and plant life cycle events and how these are influenced by variations in climate and habitat factors. Phenology helps in understanding the health of species and ecosystems. In camera traps installed, two bears were seen twice first on January 22, 2017 and then on February 22 at 5.47am; one was brown and other black. A brown sloth bear was not sighted before in Rajasthan; this is the first time it has been seen in Karauli forest area, said YK Sahu, field director of Ranthambore Tiger Project, Sawai Madhopur. Brown sloth bears are seen in the Himalayan region. The difference in colour and snout (projecting nose and mouth) of bears is a subject of study. Asked about the presence of a brown sloth bear in the state, Sahu said, There is no link between the Himalayas and Rajasthan. It is possible that it (the bear sighted) could be a mutation of sloth bear. We will install more camera traps to study its phenology. Wildlife expert Dharmendra Khandal said village wildlife volunteers Hari Mohan and Hari Kesh Gujjar had reported sighting of two bears near Danda Kho in Kailadevi forest area -- one was brown. Later in January and February, the two bears were sighted in camera traps, and again one was brown. Khandal said chief minister Vasundhara Raje, during a meeting of the state wildlife boards standing committee, had mentioned in November 2016 that brown bears had been seen in Dholpur area. On the sighting of a brown sloth bear, Wildlife Institute of Indias senior scientist YV Jhala said, The colour change is interesting. It happens as there are black and white leopards and tigers. Certainly it cannot be brown bear seen in Himalayas, rather what is sighted in Rajasthan is a colour variant of sloth bear. Endangered caracal spotted A caracal, an endangered species, was spotted for the first time on April 17 at Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur district. The caracal -- a medium-sized wild cat native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and India was spotted in a camera trap installed at the park. The animal species is threatened by anthropogenic mortality and habitat loss due to conversion of natural habitat for agricultural land and settlements. Its natural habitat includes semi-deserts, open savannas, shrublands, moist woodlands and montane forests. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The mass layoffs, the first in Meta's 18-year history, follow thousands of job cuts at other major tech companies including Elon Musk-owned Twitter and Microsoft Corp. A Dalit groom has been attacked in Udaipur allegedly by upper caste people for taking out his wedding procession with pomp and celebrations, the second such incident in the state within a week. Two people have been arrested by police in connection with the case. Police said the victim and his family have alleged that the attackers deliberately overflowed a water tank in order to block their road with mud. The incident happened on Thursday when Champalal Meghwals family had taken out a procession in their village Dulavton Ka Gudha. At the same time a function was also organised in another house in the village, said Om Kumar, the circle officer of Girva, Udaipur. Police said the confrontation happened when the procession was passing near the house. Meghwal along with his family members were walking when someone emptied a nearby water tank which muddied the road. A confrontation broke out between the two sides. At least two members from the Rajput community assaulted Meghwal, said Kumar. Police said a case was registered on Friday under relevant sections of the IPC and the SC/ST Act following which two people have been arrested. We have arrested two people Chattar Singh and Narpat Singh, both from the Rajput community. The victims have alleged that they were assaulted because they were from the scheduled caste, said the circle officer. On April 28, Kailash Meghwal, a Dalit groom from Udaipurs Jhalo ka Dhana village, was attacked with beer bottles and dragged along for a distance allegedly by upper caste men for riding a mare. Upper caste people have often opposed Dalits riding mares and celebration during marriage processions, saying the community was not allowed to perform this ritual. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Manju Kanjar, a tribal sex worker from Bundis Ramnagar village, got a new lease of life by tying nuptial knot with her beloved, Devi Shankar at mass wedding ceremony of the Kanjar community on Saturday. Manju, 22, made a new start in along with 21 fellow sex workers, including 19 from her village and two from Swai Madhopurs Chauth ka Barwada, broke free from the Kanjar community-- a denotified tribes people who were earlier listed as criminals-- got married at the mass wedding ceremony. I did not want to continue leading the life of a sex worker as I was in love with Devi Shankar, who helped me take the decision of leaving the profession, said Manju, who has five siblings, including two brothers and three sisters and an aged mother in Ramnagar, about 12 km from the district headquarters. Shankar, whose family is connected the flesh trade, said I thought of our only love and nothing else when I decided to marry Manju. Manjus colleague and resident of the same village, Tejkaran Mehra (20) too tied the knot with her beloved, an upper caste Brahmin, Rajendra Carpenter (22), breaking the caste barriers. Rajendra, who works as a carpenter in the village, said his family was against the marriage but the couple still went ahead and tied the knot. We cared about the families as our love is above any kind of resistance, he said. Most of the couples at the mass wedding were either known to each other previously or were in a relationship. The mass wedding ceremony was organized as a joint initiative of the Bundi district administration and clutch of social organizations. Not just bureaucrats, but government departments and social organisations like the Rotary club, Bundi, Innerwheel Club, Narayan Seva Sansthan and others contributed to raisemore than 7 lakh for the mass wedding ceremony. Kaneez Fatima, an official with the Bundi anti-human trafficking unit who has rescued scores of young girls trafficked into the sex trade, had taken the initiative to hold the mass marriage. During counselling the rescued girls expressed their desire of getting married, following which I took up the issue to the district administration, she said. Bundi district collector Naresh Thakral said the mass wedding was to bring the girls of the Kanjar community who are pushed into prostitution back to the mainstream. Social organizations and district administration have gifted the couple with a bed, metal trunk, sewing machine, clothes, utensils, fan and other household appliances needed to run a family, he said. Apart from the gifts, the couples were given financial assistance, said Savita Krishnaiyya, assistant director of social justice department. As most community members were also involved in illicit liquor trade, a financial assistance ranging between 25,000 and 15000 was to the couples for starting a new trade, she said. For couple of inter-caste marriage, an additional 5 lakh will be awarded. The money will be deposited in a joint fixed deposit bank account of the couples with a lock-in period of eight years, she said. The Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) is neglecting artists of Rajasthan and catering to those from outside the state, said artists from Jaipur at a press conference here on Saturday. The JKK was established to nurture art and artists of the state. Funds for the centre have increased but none of the Rajasthani artists has benefitted. I call it criminal wastage of public money, said Dr Ravi Chaturvedi, an art critic and a professor of mass communication. He claimed that the JKK building, designed by architect Charles Correa, has been altered without consulting experts. Ranvir Singh, national president of Indian Peoples Theatre Association, said the constitution of the JKK has been changed by the new management. The change in the constitution is illegal. The general council, which was earlier supposed to have eight artists, is now ruled mostly by businessmen who have nothing to do with art, he said. JKK director general Pooja Sood said the changes in the building have been made after approval by an architect appointed by Correa. On inclusion of industrialists in the general council, she said, The centre needs to have people who can fund the centre. Singh said the minimum qualification of the director general has been reduced from 30 years of experience in the discipline to 10 years. Artists plan to take a march from JKK to Ravindra Manch to register their protest. After a few seasons of rising acrimony and abuses, here comes a dose of the subtle in Bengal politics. Dekho o deewano tum ye kaam na karo, Ram ka naam badnam na karo this super hit song from the 1971 film starring Dev Anand, Mumtaz and Zeenat Aman is the Trinamool Congress new weapon to take on the BJP upsurge in Bengal. Banners and hoardings with the words Ram ka naam badnam na karo (Dont malign the name of Ram) written in Bengali and Hindi have come up at different places in Kolkata and beyond. The saffron-coloured poster features a picture of Hanuman on top and chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the bottom. The words are written prominently in the middle. This is our way to counter BJP in the intellectual way. BJP is trying to induct some alien culture in West Bengal, which the people of the state never witnessed before. But we want to counter it in a manner that suits the Bengal culture. Ram ka nam badnam na koro, is the beginning and more such innovations will come in the coming days, agriculture minister Purnendu Bose told HT. More such banners will be put up, say Trinamool leaders. Some point out the song has more potent lines that could not be displayed for the sake of brevity. Please recall the next lines, said former minister Madan Mitra, an once-trusted lieutenant of chief minister Mamata Banerjee who is a prominent face of Bhawanipore that is her home turf too. Ram ko samjho, Krishna ko jano, nind se jago, o mastano, (Understand Ram, know Krishna, wake up from your slumber, o vagabond) is what can deliver our message more cogently, he says with a smile. The lyrics penned by Anand Bakshi was put to music by Rahul Dev Burman. Along with Dum Maro Dum, the song became a chart buster. Trinamool leaders in Bengal feel 46 years later the line will become a political super hit too. Ram is at the centre of an intense political tug of war in Bengal with the Sangh parivar organising Ram Navami on an unprecedented scale this year. Hitherto confined to small-scale celebrations, the day was observed with numerous public functions and processions with swords and other weapons in different towns and even in the chief ministers constituency of Bhawanipore in south Kolkata. Trinamool has responded by intellectuals projecting how Lord Ram has never been a prominent religious figure in Bengal. With this banner Trinamool leaders have inaugurated a different chapter of political attack. Who thought of the campaign? Trinamool leaders did not have a ready answer, but they swore on its effectiveness. BJP is indeed giving Lord Ram a bad name. What other way to say it loud and clear than to remind the people of a hit number they used to hum once, remarked urban development minister Firhad Hakim. The BJP has hit back, saying that Bengals ruling party is afraid of them. In fact, there is no Ram here. Some persons have emerged as Ravanas and they are reacting accordingly. But the lyricist has also written Ram ne haskar sabkuch tyage, tu sab dukh se kyun dar ke bhage (Ram has happily given everything up, why do you run away in fear?), said BJP leader Samik Bhattacharya. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday announced that the first phase of Lucknow Metro will start for the public in second half of June this year. Considerable progress has been made on the Lucknow Metro project. The previous government (Samajwadi Party) had dedicated only a half-complete metro rail project in Lucknow. We have received only three trains up to now. We will need one more train. The necessary instructions in this regard have been issued, he said after a meeting with union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu here. The chief minister also said: The work on metro first phase, about 8 km, is nearing completion. The procedure that includes the railway safety commissioners clearance will need about one-and-a-half months. We will be able to complete all these procedures only after mid-June 2017. He also said there was a need to set up metro rail in Kanpur and Varanasi. We have sent the detailed project reports (DPRs) for Kanpur and Varanasi projects. We have also initiated the process of preparing DPR for Meerut, Agra and Allahabad and sought preparation of DPR for Jhansi and Gorakhpur too, he said. About the Swachh Bharat Mission, Yogi said UPs rating, declared on Thursday, was very poor. But this survey was conducted for the period before installation of new government, he said. We will declare 30 cities open defecation free (ODF) before December 2017, the chief minister announced. We had worked out an elaborate plan much before the survey report and decided to make the whole of UP ODF by October 2018. Besides seeking assistance from the union government, we have worked out a separate plan under corporate social responsibility. We will also seek help from different social service organisations. The chief secretary will monitor the scheme at the state level. Urban development minister Suresh Khanna will launch the programme in Lucknow on Saturday. I will launch the scheme in Agra on Sunday, he said. The chief minister said the state government had also worked out a scheme for solid waste management in 10 metropolitan towns of the state. Details of this scheme will be sent to the centre soon. Under Smart City project, 14 cities have been selected, he said, adding, We have sent proposals to the centre for cities selected under the Smart City project. He also said: It is true that the previous government was lax in implementing the Pradhan Mantri Housing Scheme. So far, proposals had been sent only for 11,000 houses. In the past one-and-a-half months, we have made preparations for 1.5 lakh houses. These proposals are being sent to the centre. We have set a target of sending proposals for at least six lakh such houses in next one year. Under the scheme, we will provide two bed rooms with a kitchen. We will provide Rs 2.5 lakh to the beneficiaries. This will include a sum of Rs 1.5 lakh from the centre and Rs 1 lakh from state government. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A high-level NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Aayog delegation led by its vice chairman, Arvind Panagariya, will visit Lucknow on May 10 to hold discussions on various projects aimed at fast-tracking the all-round progress of Uttar Pradesh. The 25-member team will include seven secretaries representing various ministries in the central government and 13 senior officers of the additional secretary rank, besides NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chandra and chief executive officer Amitabh Kant. Siddharth Nath Singh, a cabinet minister and spokesperson of the Uttar Pradesh government, disclosed this at a press conference on Saturday. The high-level delegations visit stems from the joint desire of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath to transform Uttar Pradesh into one of the most industrially developed states in the country with the best social indicators, he said. The delegation will conduct detailed deliberations through presentations with the chief minister and his team on a seven-point agenda concerning agriculture, ease of doing business, health outcomes, nutrition, rural development, water and sanitation, and education. The change of regime in UP has heralded a new era of transformation, development and empowerment of the poor. The state and the central governments are working in tandem to develop Uttar Pradesh to new heights, the minister said. Asked how the chief minister plans to fund welfare schemes when the state coffers as he himself admitted are empty, Singh said the government will make at least Rs 60,000 crore in additional revenue on an annual basis by plugging leaks in the system. Expressing concern over the clash between Thakurs and Dalits in Saharanpur, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Saturday accused the Yogi Adityanath government of saffron appeasement. A man was killed and at least 15 others were injured in clashes at Shabirpur village of Saharanpur on Friday when Dalits objected to a procession taken out by Thakurs to commemorate the birth anniversary of Rajput king Maharana Pratap. This was the second clash in Saharanpur in a fortnight involving Dalits. Mayawati said she was sad and worried over caste clashes in UP. After communal riots, caste violence is now disturbing the state. It indicates that improving law and order is not the BJPs cup of tea, she said. It seems that taking out processions without permission and vitiating the atmosphere through it has become a fashion, Mayawati said. She said due to the saffron appeasement of the BJP government, poor law and order, murder, violence and caste clashes had become the norm. Mayawati asked the BJP government to bridge the gap between its words and deed and improve law and order in public interest. Read more: Saharanpur violence: Police carry out raids, arrest 17 for rioting Police have arrested 17 people on charges of rioting during the birth anniversary celebrations of Rajput king Maharana Pratap in Shabirpur village of Saharanpur in which one person was killed and at least 15 others, including a police officer, were injured. Brother of Shabirpur village head is among the accused who have been arrested. The police have lodged an FIR against 10 identified and over a hundred unidentified people and are carrying out raids to arrest them. SSP, Saharanpur, Subhash Chandra Dubey said the situation was under control and additional force had been deployed in and around the village to maintain law and order. Violence broke out on Friday when members of the Thakur community from Shimlana village took out a procession to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap. When the procession was passing through the predominantly Dalit village of Shabirpur, residents objected to the allegedly raucous celebration, triggering an exchange of heated words. When the Dalits lodged a complaint, the incharge of Badagaon police station asked the members of the Thakur community to stop playing music. The altercation led to a full-blown clash with both the groups pelting each other with bricks and stones. A stone fatally hit a 25-year-old Thakur man Sumit. Enraged over the death, Thakurs from neighbouring villages gathered at Shabirpur and set over two dozen Dalit houses on fire. SSP SC Dubey and district magistrate NP Singh rushed to the spot with heavy force and dispersed the rioters. The police carried out raids on Friday night to arrest rioters from both the sides. Concerned over the acute shortage of doctors, the state government has decided to rope in private doctors, including specialists, to treat patients at government-run district hospitals as well as community and primary health centres across Uttar Pradesh. A detailed proposal in this regard has already been sought from director general (medical and health services), said a senior official. The move is aimed at ensuring proper and timely medicare to the sick at a time when the department is facing a shortage of around 7000 doctors, including around 1800 specialists, in the state. The missive, dated May 2, instructs the DG (medical and health services), UP to submit a well-planned proposal for engaging private doctors for voluntarily devoting time for treating patients at district hospitals as well as PHCs and CHCs immediately. The initiative is personally being led by the state medical and health minister Sidharth Nath Singh, who during his meetings with doctors at Lucknow, Allahabad as well as Varanasi has urged them to devote at least four hours a week to serve patients at district hospitals as well as PHCs and CHCs. Select states like Karnataka have in the past managed to introduce such a system effectively, said an official. Various modalities like the fixed honorarium for these doctors and specialists besides a consultation fee from the government on the basis of the number of patients they attended while on call would all be worked out by the medical and health department and submitted to the state government for approval. In light of acute shortage of doctors, we have decided to engage doctors with private practice on a transparent basis for the benefit of the citizens, health minister had told Hindustan Times. Indian Medical Association will act as our facilitators for the initiative and it would be in coordination with its office-bearers that we plan to work out a duty roster for these doctors who volunteer for the task, he added. Camps to recruit doctors on anvil As per an estimate, the state faces a 41% shortfall of medicos. UP has around 17,000 odd sanctioned posts for doctors and against which only around 10,000 have been appointed, while the remaining seats remain vacant. Out of the 10,000-odd doctors just around 3,700 medicos are specialists while the rest are MBBS doctors. We are planning to hold recruitment camps for doctors all over the state to deal with the shortage and fill vacant posts of medicos. The proposal in this regard is being prepared and would be implemented after getting a go ahead from the state cabinet, said UP medical and health minister Sidharth Nath Singh. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON I. Midnight Special At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world slept, Sunita Yadav awoke to a levitating alien. She watched, petrified, as it hovered a foot above the ground just behind her home. Standing over 4ft tall, with grey skin and big, black eyes, it proceeded from the Yadavs backyard toward their front door before as her son Hitesh remembers it just vanished. In the 15 years since, the humanoid has made numerous other appearances around the Western Command Hospital in Panchkula, some 10 km away from Chandigarh. Its now a mascot. Residents in the area believe its lucky to spot it, says Hitesh, 20, now a tech student living in Gurgaon. In their sketch, the alien looks like a swarthy dwarf. But Hitesh remains convinced that what he saw was an extraterrestrial. And he spends much of his free time trying to prove it. Hitesh runs the free bi-monthly e-zine UFO Magazine India, is developer of the Ufology App and founder of Disclosure Team India, which investigates UFO sightings and encounters in the country. Disclosure has grown to 200 members since it was set up in January 2016, including 22 from the US and UK, he says. The website has a form where people can report their sightings in detail. This form has been filled four times. But our investigators hear many stories from locals on the ground, he stresses. Im currently researching an alien abductee case in Chhattisgarh, Hitesh says. I dont care what people think, because my parents and sister are accepting. But my relatives dont know what I do. If they did, theyd surely call me crazy. Hitesh Yadav, 20, is a tech student at a Gurgaon college. He believes he saw an alien as a child. In his free time, he runs the free e-zine UFO Magazine India. He is also the founder of Disclosure Team India, which investigates UFO sightings and encounters in the country. They currently have four cases under investigation. II. Arrival In the inaugural March issue of UFO Magazine India, columnist Ramkrishan Vaishnav deconstructs the Drake equation proposed by American astrophysicist Frank Drake, a mathematical formula used to estimate the number of detectable extraterrestrials (ETs) in the Milky Way. Im a UFOlogist because Im a scientist. Even the Indian military has reported sightings, says the 27-year-old entrepreneur from Nagaur, Rajasthan. We know little about what lies beyond our own solar system. Why dismiss possibilities altogether? In his teens (and with The X-Files etched in his psyche), Vaishnav signed up to help create 3D maps for NASAs moon missions, analyse asteroid samples for The Planetary Society, and study radio data for the SETI@Home project, the UC Berkeley offshoot of SETI or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. But his turning point was March 2008. Just two months after hed set up TOP (The Other Planet) Research Group to investigate UFO sightings, Vaishnav heard of a sighting in Banswara village, where eight locals reported seeing an unfamiliar craft in the afternoon sky. Six days later, Vaishnav was there. The villagers described the UFO as a hat-shaped object with a bright underlight. We also found an odd-shaped stone that looked like nothing else in the radius we scanned. Image evidence of this encounter is the best youll find in India, he says. Whats really in the sky over your head? Take a look at some of the informed opinions Vaishnav is now founder of ExpeTechnologies and Shakti Innovative Products. He has filed four patents: for a solar satellite plant, non-conventional wireless mobile charging, touchscreen technology, and a next-gen user-interface system. Tech research is his bread and butter, but ufology remains his Danish pastry. Im intrigued by why many sightings are from Rajasthan and West Bengal. And the Kongka Pass in Ladakh, he muses. Its also a remote military base, so you never know. III. Signs On October 26, 2014, at 4.55 am, a man looks out of the window in Thane and sees a horizontal row of red, yellow and green lights that blink but remain stationary for several minutes, then disappear. He records footage on his cellphone. On November 7, 2014, a fast-moving object is captured hovering over Bengaluru, framed against a full moon. It stays there for nearly an hour, then disappears as suddenly as it appeared. These cases are among 60 sightings in 2014 that were assigned to Kumaresan Ramanathan after he joined Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). Ramanathan is a senior technical engineer with a Chennai-based IT firm who blogs as alienseeker on Wordpress. In 2012, he became Indias first certified UFO investigator under MUFON, the largest non-profit investigating UFOs, with 3,000 members worldwide. Pushkar Vaidya is an astrobiologist and founder of the Indian Astrobiology Research Centre in Mumbai, which studies the origin, forms and future of life in the universe. As they say in The X-Files: I wanted to believe, but the tools have been taken away. Pushkar Vaidya MUFON employs scientific methods, not conjecture, says the 36-year-old. You have to renew your membership and purchase manuals every year, then take an exam and score at least 80% to become a qualified investigator. The test is a mix of objective and multiple choice questions, spanning subjects such as how to interact with eyewitnesses and the plan of action if a witness claims to have an encounter. They present hypothetical situations to gauge if youd make for a good investigator, Ramanathan explains. All tests are examined at the MUFON headquarters in Newport Beach, California. If you make the cut, youre given an ID and certificate proclaiming youre licensed. But its not all love and sunshine. Of every 100 cases, about 97 end up being fake optical illusions, doctored images, or everyday objects mistakenly identified as otherwise, he admits. This teaches you discernment. Now an independent ufologist after working with MUFON for two years, Ramanathan will visit Aniketty, near Coimbatore, to study a spurt of unexplained objects reported since 2011. My family always supported me, he replies, when asked what people make of his other job. Some collegians called me Jaadu for devoting so much time to ufology. But who cares about acquaintances? Slideshow: Take a look at some of Indias most iconic UFO sightings? IV. The Fifth Element At 8.28 p.m. on December 15, 1987, six-year-old Kamal Pant stood on the terrace of his Dehradun home and observed a large, red light soaring directly overhead. No, it wasnt a plane, helicopter, or prank, he says, before youve asked the question. Whatever it was stayed there a while and made no sound. The incident would spur the self-professed sky watcher and fan of Star Trek, The X-Files, mythology, and conspiracy theories to scour the internet for all things UFO and ET. Then in 2014, he photographed and filmed what he claims is a mothership taking off from and landing on the moon. From thereon, Pant goes full steam ahead. I even mailed NASA about it, but didnt hear from them. Until a month later, when I got an email from someone in Houston asking me to stay away, he claims. Do you have this email, or a snapshot of it? No. My system got corrupt a day later, and some of my videos vanished. My computer had been tampered with. IT engineer Kumaresan Ramanathan says some of his colleagues called him Jaadu, after the alien in the Hindi film Koi... Mil Gaya, but he doesnt care. On the job with a UFO investigator The first thing to do when you receive a report about a UFO sighting is rule out whats explainable, says Kumaresan Ramanathan, who has served as chief investigator with MUFON (India). Phenomena like strange lights are more explainable than not. These can be caused by anything from crackers to iridium flares caused by moving satellites. Online tools like FlightRadar and Heavens-Above can help determine if there was a passing craft or astronomical occurrence in the area at the time of the sighting. Interviews with eyewitnesses are generally conducted via email or over the phone. Only sightings that are compelling require us to go on site, Ramanathan says. What tools does a UFO investigator use? Hitesh Yadav, who is self-trained, lists a film camera, compass, telescope, tape recorder, electromagnetic field or EMF sensor, Geiger counter (for radiation), scintillation counter (for ionising radiation), and Plaster of Paris to make moulds in case impressions are found! Pant, a computer science lecturer at a private university in Dehradun, is what naysayers would call a tinfoil hatter (conspiracy theorist). He believes NASA and the US are involved in a cover-up, and that alien technology was obtained from the Roswell crash. He also claims to have CE-5 communication with ETs that is, telepathic communication between himself and aliens. My mother and wife have seen everything and know Im not lying, Pant says. Distant relatives call me sanki (madcap), but it doesnt affect me. The 36-year-old father of a toddler, who works with both Disclosure and TOP Research Group, is currently looking into sightings in Ranichauri village, Tehri-Garhwal district. The events are so common, locals call the beings pariyaan (fairies). They also tell their children not to step out after dark lest they be taken away. His colleagues at the university, Pant says, have no qualms with his interests and theories. And even if they did, he wouldnt break into a sweat. Every time I look at the sky, I feel like something, and someone, wants to communicate with me, he shares. No one can take that away from me. V. 2001: A Space Odyssey Pushkar Vaidya likes his coffee cold and his feuds hot. From 2007 to 2015, the astrobiologist was embroiled in a scientific tug of war with astrophysicist and author Jayant Narlikar. The bone of contention: Narlikars hypotheses supporting panspermia the theory that life exists throughout the universe and is distributed through asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. In short: life on earth may have come from external sources. A truce was eventually called when Vaidya founded the Indian Astrobiology Research Centre (IARC) in Mumbai, for which Narlikar now serves as mentor. Im open to the possibility of ET microbial or intelligent life. I just didnt think there was enough evidence, says Vaidya. If anything, panspermia research is one of IARCs focus areas. Every time I look at the sky, I feel like something, and someone, wants to communicate with me. No one can take that away from me, says Dehradun-based computer science lecturer Kamal Pant, 36. Vaidya is no ufologist. The 36-year-old straddles the no-mans land between belief and scepticism. His bond with Arthur C. Clarke, one of the worlds most prolific sci-fi authors, has much to do with it. When I was 16 and studying in Sri Lanka, I wrote In Search of Aliens. Arthur Clarke lived in Colombo and as an ardent fan, I went to his home because I wanted him to pen the foreword to my book, he laughs. He didnt write it, but that kicked off a two-year association. Vaidya credits Clarke for bringing wonderment and adventure to science. Science is now increasingly taking on a tone of finality, especially when it comes to the search for alien life, he feels. But he also throws the gauntlet to ufologists. The UFO phenomenon is real from a research perspective. The problem is how people go about it. If you look at everything as alien, youre better calling yourself a flying saucer investigator, he reasons. A long discussion touches upon everything from cattle mutilations to the Kardashev Scale, which hypothesises that the most intelligent civilisations can harness energies on a galactic even cosmic scale to partake in astral travel. Theres a lot Pushkar Vaidya believes in. What hes waiting for is substantiation. As they say in The X-Files: I wanted to believe, but the tools have been taken away, he smiles. . Want to review the evidence? Heres a reported UFO sighting from Chennai SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON After the public spat between Eman Ahmeds sister and Saifee doctors over her treatment, state health minister Dr Deepak Sawant has called for a standard operating procedure (SOP) for foreign nationals who visit India for treatment. Talking at an event in the city, Sawant urged the Central government to establish an SOP to ensure that things do not turn sour between foreign patients and Indian doctors. Private hospitals bring patients to India for treatment, but when things become bitter between them, it is the doctors who face trouble, said Sawant to the union health minister for health and family welfare, JP Nadda. Eman Ahmed, 36, who at 500kg was considered to be the worlds heaviest woman, was brought to Mumbai on February 11 for weight loss treatment. While she underwent a bariatric surgery on March 7 and lost 333 kilograms over a period of three months, Emans sister turned hostile towards the doctors and hospital staff and called them liars. She alleged that Emans health was deteriorating, however her doctors dismissed her claims and said Eman was doing medically fine. The Bombay high court on Friday temporarily stalled construction along Ghodbunder Road in Thane an arterial road that connects Thane with Borivali as residential colonies along it have been facing water cuts. Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Girish Kulkarni restrained the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) from granting commencement certificates for any new construction along the road. The court also restrained the TMC from issuing occupancy certificates (OC) to buildings were completed recently. This will affect thousands of people who have bought flats in these buildings as they wont be able to move in even without an OC even after they get possession of their flats. We have noticed that construction activity consumes more water than what is required for domestic use, said the court. Most parts of Maharashtra, including Thane, are reeling under water scarcity. In view of this fact, the municipal corporation cannot shirk its responsibility by merely stating that there is enough water available for supply for domestic purposes within the municipal corporation limits. The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Mangesh Shelar, a resident of Runwal Estate at Ghodbunder Road. Shelar approached the high court last year after water supply to various buildings along Ghodbunder Road was cut several times. His counsel, advocate VP Patil, said the abrupt water cuts lasted up to 48 hours and blamed them on poor planning by the TMC and the haphazard way in which the civic body granted permission for new construction along the road. Shelar said in his PIL that between June and December 2015, the sale of flats along Ghodbunder Road increased by 13% from the corresponding period in 2014, and that it seemed like permission for new buildings were being granted without consideration for the drinking-water needs of the people who would be moving in to them. The TMC responded to Shelars PIL by filing an affidavit that said it had secured adequate water for people in its jurisdiction. According to the affidavit, the TMC gets water from four sources: 60 million litres a day (MLD) from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 110 MLD from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, 200 MLD from the Bhatsa reservoir and 110 MLD from TMCs own Stem water distribution company. TMCs counsel, senior advocate Ram Apte, said even as other parts of the state had water shortages, the TMC had enough water to meeting peoples domestic requirements and urged the court not to issue an interim order on new constructions. However, it failed to convince the court. One of Mumbais famous landmarks, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), will soon be renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and Elphinstone Road station will be known as Prabhadevi. The Central government gave its nod on Saturday to the recommendations, which were unanimously passed through a resolution by the Maharashtra Assembly during its winter session in December. The state government, which received a letter from the Union home ministry giving its consent, is now expected to soon issue a notification about the name changes and it would be followed by grand ceremonies to rename the two railway stations. We have received the letters from the Centre, saying it has no objection. My department will issue the notification on Monday followed by grand functions to rename the stations. The Centre will then be intimated about the actual changes, transport minister and Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote told HT. It is the responsibility of the Railways to change the names on boards and that too will be done at the earliest. The Shiv Sena had demanded addition of Maharaj to CST as a mark of respect to the Maratha king. In case of Elphinstone Road named after Lord Elphinstone, the governor of Bombay from 1853 to 1860 Raote had first moved a renaming proposal in 1991. The state wants Elphinstone Road renamed Prabhadevi in honour of the deity. The Sena has also demanded renaming Charni Road station as Girgaum and Grant Road station as Jagannath Shankar Seth Road. The Assembly resolution had recommended adding Maharaj in the name of Chhatrapti Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) too. Sources in Mantralaya said that proposal was sent by general administration department (GAD) to the Union home ministry and hence the Centre will intimate the state about it separately. April 11: A Chandivli resident is cheated of Rs60,000; the criminal uses it to recharge 23 mobile phones. April 21: A man poses as an SBI official to cheat a senior citizen couple of Rs40,000. April 24: A woman says she is calling from a private bank, convinces a Jogeshwari resident to reveal his card details and robs him of Rs10,000. April 27: A criminal who tracked the online shopping details of a businessman used it to rob Rs75,000 from his account. Thats four cases of fraud involving credit and debit cards in one month. In the first four months of this year, 178 such cases were registered. Only 15 of them were solved. The numbers represent a scary trend not only because cases of card fraud have gone up from last year (166 cases were registered in the first four months of 2016), but also because the police solved fewer cases than they did last year (22 cases were solved in January-April 2016) But whats scarier is that there is no record with the Mumbai police of the money recovered in the few cases that were solved. A Right to Information query Hindustan Times filed with the Mumbai Police Headquarters revealed this. HT then took up the issue of this rising crime with the Mumbai police commissioner Datta Padsalgikar. The complaints we received on Twitter are being forwarded to the cyber police station at Bandra Kurla Complex. The cyber criminals switch off their mobile phones after committing the crime. They operate from others states. We are spreading awareness about the issue now, Padsalgikar told HT. Over the last two years, card fraud cases have been steadily rising in Mumbai, but the polices detection rate has remained poor. In 2016, 423 cases were registered and 54 were solved a poor detection percentage of 12. In 2015, 320 cases were registered and 36 were detected, a detection percentage of 11. SBI official cons senior citizen couple A man posed as a State Bank of India official to cheat a senior citizen couple of Rs40,000. The couple, however, was quick to react and froze their accounts before more money could be withdrawn. The police investigating the case said the man who cheated them not only knew the couple had an account with the bank, but also that they had recently lost a credit card and had just got a new one. On April 21, around 11.30am, the complainant, a 71-year-old man got a phone call. The man on the other end told the senior citizen that he was calling from the SBI headquarters. The cyber criminal verified with the complainant if he had lost his card and whether a new one had been issued. He told the complainant he will need a few details to activate the card. The complainant called his wife, who gave him the card details and the one time password. In nine minutes, the couple got two messages that money was being withdrawn from their account. The 71-year-old was quick to respond and called the bank to block the transactions. The criminals third transaction did not go through. A police official said this was the most common way cyber criminals use to con card holders. You do not need to activate a credit or debit card. The bank never asks for such details. If you receive such a phone call, report it to the local police. Attractive offer costs bizman 75k In a case that shows how vulnerable the information we give out online is, a cyber criminal tracked the transactions of an Andheri businessman on a shopping site and used the information to cheat him of Rs75,000. The criminal posed as a telecaller from the shopping website, and got the 45-year-old complainants card details by luring him with an attractive offer on a washing machine. On April 27, around 11.45am, the complainant got a phone call from the criminal, who said he was a salesman from the site. The criminal revealed details of a transaction the complainant made on the website 20 days ago . He said the site had a new offer for him. The complainant gave out his debit card details, and the pin. The criminal used it to make 15 transactions worth Rs 75,000. The complainant got his card blocked and approached the police. By giving out his pin, the complainant made the criminals work very easy. We are finding out how the criminal knew about the shopping done by the complainant earlier, said an officer from the Andheri police station, requesting anonymity. Woman poses as bank official, steals card details, 10k A woman posing as a bank official cheated a Jogeshwari resident of Rs10,000. She got him to reveal his card number and CVV by telling him he had won bonus points for transactions on the card and that the details were needed to transfer the money to him. The 47-year-old victim got a call on April 24 around 5.15 pm. The woman on the phone introduced herself as an official from the head office of ICICI bank. As the complainant has an account with the bank and a credit card, he did not suspect anything was amiss. She took his 16-digit card number, the CVV and the one time password he got on his mobile number. Ten minutes later, he got an SMS from the bank telling him Rs10,000 was debited from his account. The man quickly called the banks helpline and blocked the card. The bank told him that they never call asking for personal details of their customers. The state government will compensate the BMC for losses once the all-India Goods and Services Tax (GST) replaces octroi the tax charged on goods entering the city. A major part of the BMCs finances comes from octroi, and the Shiv Sena, which heads it, said it would support the BJPs new tax regime only if BMC was compensated for this loss. The state has now said it will make up for the losses by paying the BMC the same amount it earned through octroi in 2013-14 (Rs6,755 crore its highest revenue in five years) and hike this amount by 8% every year. The BMC has been apprehensive of losing this revenue after the July 1 rollout of GST, and as a result, the state is still unsure what stand the Sena will take during the special session to pass the State Goods and Services Act on May 20. Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the state has assured the Sena it would safeguard the civic bodys income. All 26 municipal corporations, including BMC, will be compensated based on their best income in the five years preceding 2015-16. The BMCs highest collection from Octroi was in 2013-14, and the first years compensation with a rise of 8% will be Rs7,314 crore. We have spoken to Sena leaders, who wanted it to be 14% as the state gets that much from the Centre as compensation. But the Centres compensation will be only for five years, and states devolution to civic bodies will be lifelong. This will be ratified in the Act we will pass in the special session, Mungantiwar said. The minister clarified the Centre cannot directly compensate the BMC as demanded by the Sena as there is no such provision in the law. Admitting to Senas demand of the compensation in advance, the state has decided to release funds in advance every month. In response to Senas aggressive stand on how the GST will lead to losses for BMC, BJP leaders have pointed out the civic bodys earnings from Octroi in the last two years had dipped. Police have made special arrangements to monitor vehicles on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on May 10 the date of Canadian pop star Justin Biebers concert at DY Patil stadium in Nerul. More than 50,000 people from Mumbai, Pune and other cities in Maharashtra are expected to attend the show. Bieber will perform at the stadium as a part of the Asia leg of his world tour. Huge crowds will come to the city from other parts of the state. Most of them will reach the city via the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. We plan to man the area and ensure the smooth flow of traffic on that day, said Nitin Pawar, deputy commissioner of police, Navi Mumbai traffic department. We have asked the Raigad and Pune police for their cooperation. We may also divert the traffic at some places, another senior officer from the police commissioners office said. Delhi-based company White Fox is managing the event. Almost all senior officers from city zone I and II will be at work on that day. The weekly offs of several officials are likely to be cancelled given the crowds that will enter the city. Riot control police platoons will also be at our disposal, said an officer from the crime branch. A source from the stadium told Hindustan Times that they have arranged for a medical team to provide services in case of emergencies on the day of the concert. A massive operation is underway to remove encroachments from Mumbais protected mangrove forests before the monsoon. On Saturday, after a four-day demolition drive at Cuffe Parade, 1,296 illegal structures were removed from a 7.6- hectare reserved mangrove forest area. Encroachments on 11 other locations spread across 15 hectares Kamaraj Nagar in Kandivli, Chedda Nagar in Chembur, Wadala, Chitta Camp in Trombay, Gorai, Marwe, Vashi, Borivali and Dahisar are expected to be removed from Monday. The drive will be completed on May 31. After the debris are cleared from the site, mangrove saplings will be planted to restore the forests. The idea is to protect the citys coastline, ecosystem and ensure flooding does not take place during this monsoon season. These encroachments have come up with the help of the builder mafia and local politicians, said Makarand Ghodke, assistant conservator of forest, Mumbai Mangrove Conservation Unit. We faced problems from various politicians during the demolition drive between Wednesday and Friday but all shanties have been cleared up. Between 2005 and 2016, illegal shanties, hutments, galas and even commercial structures were built within the mangrove patch in south Mumbai. HT reported had reported on Friday that more than 20 acres (8 ha) of mangrove forests have been destroyed through debris dumping at Charkop, Kandivli, over the past seven years with 3,000 encroachments on mangroves forests, including private land. The destruction of mangrove forests across the state and construction within 50m of mangrove areas was banned by the Bombay High Court in 2005, after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by the NGO Bombay Environment Action Group. Experts said that encroachments have been built by builders with support from politicians. Mumbai lost approximately 3,500 hectares of mangroves over the past decade due to these encroachments eating into our mangrove cover. While the coastal ecosystem has natural restored some of the lost mangrove cover, there is a need for constant vigil to stop this menace, said Arvind Untawale, Arvind Untawale, executive secretary of the Mangrove Society of India. Meanwhile, soon after the Cuffe Parade demolition, local residents filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court (HC) on Saturday evening seeking interim relief as they alleged that prior notice was not given to the residents of the shanties by the state. However, the Bombay HC denied them the interim relief stating that the shanties had illegally encroached on protected mangrove forests. Independent corporator from Colaba, Makrand Narvekar,said that the matter was heard at the court and said that prior notice was given to the shanties almost two years ago. More than 5,000 people are homeless because of this destruction. While it is good that mangroves will be restored the demolition should have been done in a humanitarian way, said Narvekar. Read Mumbai lost 20 acres of mangrove forests to debris in 7 years, made way for encroachers SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A Chandivli resident lost Rs60,000 to a cyber criminal, who then used the money to recharge 23 prepaid mobile numbers using an app. The complainant, a 36-year-old businessman, got three SMSes between 6.52am to 9am on April 11. Three withdrawals, worth Rs60,000 in all, were made from his ICICI bank account, even though his debit was with him. He quickly called the bank and blocked his account. Investigators told him the debit card details were used to recharge mobile numbers. It is either a case of debit card cloning, as the victim had his card with him, or he must have given the details to someone while shopping, a police official told HT. Rap superstar Kanye West, a prolific user of Twitter, has disappeared from social media after months of erratic behaviour. The husband of reality television star Kim Kardashian appeared to have deleted his accounts on Twitter and Instagram, with searches Friday for his handles turning up error messages. The rapper, who had some 27 million followers on Twitter, for years had used the 140-character forum to expound on topics from music to fashion and tirelessly promote himself. In 2015, he showed startling candour by tweeting that he was $53 million in debt and needed funds to spread his beautiful ideas. But West ended a tour early last year after bizarre speeches on stage in which he accused fellow rapper and sometime collaborator Jay Z of trying to kill him, and in an unusual move for an African American celebrity, praised Donald Trump. West re-emerged to meet Trump after the tycoons election as president, but the rapper later deleted pro-Trump tweets and took a quieter approach to social media. His breakdown came after Kardashian was robbed of $9.5 million in jewellery at a Paris luxury residence, followed by tabloid rumors of marital problems. Kardashian remains on social media, on Friday promoting to her 51 million Twitter followers a childrens clothing line she said was partially designed by West. Follow @htshowbiz for more The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) has sent a notice to 119 private schools which had obtained land at concessional rates, seeking details of the number of below poverty line (BPL) students, within 15 days. The land was allotted to schools at concessional rates on certain conditions, including reservation of 10% of the seats for BPL students. As per the norms, BPL students are also given a 50% fee waiver in such schools. The notice is expected to increase scrutiny on private schools, which are already on their toes over the arbitrary fee hike. Schools will submit details about the admissions given to BPL students. The schools got land at 40% of then prevailing circle rates. The 60% concession was available till 2011 and there was an alteration later. The land, after 2011, is auctioned on a reserve price or above. However, reserving 10% of seats for BPL students and 50% fee waiver is still a condition for the schools, said Gyanendra Verma, additional secretary, GDA. Although the authority has served notices, the officials said that they dont have the exact number of seats available in the schools concerned. The officials also added that most of the schools had replied that no BPL student had sought an admission. In such a case, we will forward the replies to the education department officials through the district magistrate, who can inquire and take action for enforcing the condition, Verma said. However, the agitating parents said that the authorities have shown a lax attitude in enforcing conditions for benefitting BPL students. Their (private schools) fee is high and the BPL families are not confident to step into such schools. Some schools teach BPL children on different premises, away from their main complex. This amounts to discrimination. It is time that authorities start taking the issue seriously and enforce conditions, be it the GDAs or the governments, said Neeraj Bhatnagar, a parent. To increase transparency in this process, schools should be directed to display seats available (under the quota) and the students who have been given admissions under it. Officials should also conduct a physical check of such schools, said Sachin Soni, a member of all school parents association. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A 20-year-old engineering student from a renowned IT institute in Noida, allegedly hatched a conspiracy of her own abduction on Friday. The woman, Muskan Agarwal, allegedly planned the kidnapping along with three of her male friends, aged 20-24 years and forced her father to transfer Rs 10 lakh to her account as ransom. However, the plan went awry as the Uttar Pradesh special task force was roped in and the plot was busted. On Friday afternoon, when Muskans father Shiv Agarwal called her up around 2.50pm from Kanpur, he heard the several people entering her room and his daughter shouting for help. She was in her college hostel at that time. The phone was disconnected at the time, but soon he received two SMSes from Muskans mobile phone. The sender had asked for Rs 10 lakh ransom to be transferred to his daughters account immediately. Shiv Agarwal had come to know that his daughter had not gone to college that day and he called her up to ask about her health. He heard her crying for help on the phone and alerted the UP STF. Later, he received an SMS giving him half-an-hour to pay the ransom. Agarwal transferred Rs 10 lakh from his bank in Kanpur to his Muskans account, said RK Mishra, deputy superintendent of police, UP-STF. Meanwhile, the Noida police was also alerted. After the transfer, three transactions took place from womans account at ICICI Bank in Noida and the cops became suspicious after some amount was transferred to Muskans e-wallet account. When the STF teams reached the bank, three transactions had been made from the ATM and two suspects P Anant and Rituraj Singh had left. But, they were spotted in the CCTV footage. The woman, along with her boyfriend Aditya Srivastava, was traced to a park in Pari Chowk. Aditya Srivastava is Agarwals neighbour in Kanpur and had completed his engineering from Noida. Upon questioning, the identification of the other two men, who had withdrawn the money, was also revealed, Mishra added. Both Anant and Singh were nabbed while they were having pizza at Jagat Farm market. During questioning, Muskan revealed that she had lent Rs 4 lakh to another friend who studies in Noida and her father was pressuring her to get the money back. STF sources said that Muskan had also eloped briefly with her boyfriend a month ago and her father had been angry with her. With her studies also not going well, Aggarwal wanted his daughter to return to Kanpur. The woman and her friends allegedly planned the entire conspiracy to cough up money from her father and repay him from the ransom amount. Anant stays at Noida and works as a chef at a high rise. He is a hotel management graduate from an institute in Shimla. Singh, on the other hand, is a third year engineering student from a college in Knowledge Park while his father is a chief engineer in Faridabad. The police said that nearly Rs 30,000 were withdrawn after the womans father transferred amount to her account and some small amounts were also transferred to her e-wallet. A total of nearly Rs 28,500 were also recovered as the police is in the process of filing a complaint case against the four persons under section 182 (false information) of IPC. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As the clock strikes five in the evening, there is a flurry of activity in Hoshiyarpur village of Sector 51 as a group of around seventy children flock to their learning ground where a group of 20 residents teaches them mathematics and science with the help of a projector. The group comprises of students, lawyers, engineers and BPO workers, who have turned the two hours of teaching students into a fun-filled interactive session to promote critical thinking. Aged five to 14, most of these children receive formal education in government schools, while a few of them spend their days at home. The evening classes are a source of enjoyment and fun as they get to play games, learn soft skills and try to speak fluent English. The parents of these children, who work as daily wagers in fields, industries and at construction sites are thankful to the volunteers for educating them. Many parents said that they never allow their children to miss a class and also keep track of their progress reports. The volunteers, on major festivals, also buy dresses for the children. Besides, they provide stationery items for the children, up to class 9, on a monthly basis. In the last two years, the number of children attending these classes has risen from 20 to 70. The volunteers said they are trying to spread the culture of social service in Noida by teaching underprivileged children. We think we can encourage others also to do so (teach underprivileged kids) in their locality or start such an initiative of their own. Everyone has a little time to spare in a day, which they can use to change others lives for the better. If people put their efforts, our education system will prosper, Keshav Datta, a lawyer, who is a part of the programme, said. Datta is 25 years old and is a practising lawyer at the Delhi high court. He had initiated the project in 2015 along with his friends. He said that the number of students attending their classes is increasing every month. These children receive the free education at the educational centre, which they call Vidya Vistar. The volunteers said the efforts will also help them bridge the gap between the poor and the privileged. Volunteers also conduct tests for the students to ensure that they apply what they are being taught. It is also important for us to ensure that the children are learning. We also take care of their extracurricular activities. We want people in other areas also to take steps to teach students, Tapasvini Sahu, a homemaker, said. The children were enthusiastic about the classes. We cannot afford computers or laptops. At the education centre, we have access to these gadgets, with the help of volunteers. It helps us compete and also generates interest in studies, 12-year-old Deepak Yadav said. Every day, we have something new to learn here and our parents never allow us to miss the classes, 12-year-old Raushni Maurya said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Courts in India upheld convictions in two infamous rape cases this week. During the terrible attacks on Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, a mob targeted Bilkis Bano and her family. Bilkis, who was pregnant at that time, was gang-raped. She survived, but witnessed her three-year-old daughter being slaughtered along with 14 others. On May 4, 2017, the Bombay high court upheld sentences of life imprisonment for 11 accused (one died during trial). The court also reversed the acquittal of seven others, including five policemen who were accused of negligence and tampering with evidence. The court rejected the prosecutions plea to convert three life sentences to death, saying though such crime is not justifiable and is shunned, the sentence is not completely inadequate. A day later, the Supreme Court upheld death sentences for four of the six accused convicted for the gangrape of a 23-year-old paramedic in Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died from her injuries 13 days later. One of the accused had allegedly committed suicide in prison, while another, 17 at that time, was prosecuted in juvenile courts. The Supreme Court said the convicted deserved the death penalty for reducing the victim to an object for their gross sadistic pleasures. Indian law requires that the death penalty only be imposed in the rarest of rare cases. In both these cases, the prosecution had argued for capital punishment on the basis that the crimes met the rarest of rare threshold. The death penalty should be abolished because it is an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. However, the ambiguousness in the application of rarest of the rare criteria is a serious concern, as is apparent in the two cases described above, where the convicted acted on the worst form of heinous intent. While all sentences handed down by judges will be subjective to some degree, disparities can be magnified in capital cases. In November 2012, the Supreme Court had ruled that there is little or no uniformity in the application of the rarest of rare standard for capital punishment and suggested a fresh look. In August 2015, Indias Law Commission submitted a report calling for abolition of the death penalty for all but terrorism-related offences and waging war against the state, saying that it was arbitrarily imposed and disproportionately used against socially and economically marginalised people. Bilkis Bano and the family of the December 16 gangrape victim received a measure of justice this week. After the verdict, Bilkis Bano said in a statement: My rights, as a human being, as a citizen, woman, and mother were violated in the most brutal manner, but I have trusted in the democratic institutions of our country. Now, my family and I feel we can begin to lead our lives again, free of fear. During Indias Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council this week, several UN member countries recommended that India revoke the death penalty. It is time that India join the majority of nations that have abolished this cruel punishment. Meenakshi Ganguly is South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are personal. The author tweets @mg2411 (This story has been updated on May 7, 2017) On May 1, Sagar Mondal, an undergraduate student of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata, was found hanging inside a bathroom in his hostel. He was 18. A bright student, Sagar came from an underprivileged scheduled caste family. Sagar had problems. His professors and friends say he struggled with English since he was from a Bengali-medium school. He suffered from depression and exam phobia. Student suicides are becoming increasingly common in India because many find it difficult to cope with failure in examinations and careers. India has one of the worlds highest suicide rates for youth aged 15 to 29, said a 2012 Lancet report, illustrating the need for urgent interventions for this demographic. According to 2015 data (the latest available) of the National Crime Records Bureau, one student commits suicide every hour. In 2015, the number of student suicides stood at 8,934. In the five years leading to 2015, 39,775 students killed themselves. Unfortunately, even the best educational institutions dont have psychiatrists to help students cope with academic and personal pressures. This is because there is a severe shortage of mental health professionals in the country. IISER, however, did have one. Sagar consulted him in April last year. Soon after Sagars death, IISER set up a fact-finding panel under a senior professor. But a different report, a section of professors allege, was sent to the ministry of human resource development. HT has seen both reports and here is what they say: ORIGINAL REPORT: It appears he (Sagar Mandal) was prone to extreme anxiety before exams, and had told his friends that he was worried about losing (his) fellowship in case of failure in any subject. Our investigation has revealed that Sagar had anxiety disorder and had consulted our medical centre. The institute doctor referred him to Dr Pinaki Sarkar, a psychiatrist, who saw Sagar on 14-04-2016. He had also consulted the CMC Vellore in December 2016, but details of the consultation were not made available to the committee. It appears he was prone to extreme anxiety before exams, and had told his friends that he was worried about losing his fellowship in case of failure of any subject. Considering his evidences, the fact-finding committee has come to the conclusion that Sagar ended his life in an unsteady state of mind caused by examination-related anxiety. REPORT TO MHRD The sentence about extreme anxiety and unsteady mind were omitted. Two sentences were added: On scrutiny of his medical records, it was found he did not have any serious/chronic ailments. Sagar ended his life perhaps in a sudden spur of the moment, which has no apparent connection with his usual academic/physical/mental state of affairs. Students say that the atmosphere inside the university is frustrating due to lack of extra-curricular activities. While it is difficult to directly link Sagars suicide with the stifling atmosphere inside the campus, and lack of professional counselling for students, an isolated, walled campus must have a congenial and atmosphere to ensure wellbeing of students. And that is missing from IISER, a professor told HT. (Hindustan Times has sent emails to IISER director RN Mukherjee and the ministry of human resource development, asking them about the two versions of the report on Sagar Mondals death, and what kind of psychiatric help is available for students in the campus. This report will be updated as soon as HT gets their responses). (This story has been updated on May 7, 2017) @kumkumdasgupta SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON PATNA While demanding institution of a criminal case against RJD president Lalu Prasad for interacting with incarcerated mafia don Md Shahabuddin, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday appealed to the Centre to seek a report from the Bihar government regarding the prevailing law and order situation in the state. Reacting to the startling expose made by a TV channel pertaining to Lalus direct telephonic conversation with imprisoned Shahabuddin, Modi asked the Nitish Kumar government to not only register a case against the RJD chief, but also move the Supreme Court for cancellation of his bail. He warned that BJP would launch a statewide agitation if the state government failed to file a criminal case against Lalu, whose party is a major partner of the ruling coalition in the state. Following the expose, a BJP delegation led by Modi submitted a memorandum to Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind urging him to seek a report in this connection from the director general of police. Talking to newsmen here, Modi said during his coming visit to New Delhi, he would meet Union home minister Rajnath Singh and apprise him about the situation. He said the expose vindicated the BJPs stand that the government in Bihar was being run on the diktat of criminals. As a result of the ensuing nexus between criminals and politicians, anti-social elements have a field day in Bihar, he claimed. Accusing Lalu of taking instructions from the don in running the government, the BJP leader claimed that 60% district magistrates of the state were taking orders directly from the RJD chief. Alleging that CM Nitish Kumar, who was dependent on Lalu for remaining in power, had no option but to buckle under the pressure of criminals. Now it is to be seen whether sushasan babu (read Nitish Kumar) acts against the RJD president or surrenders before the criminals, he wondered. Modi said the telephonic conversation between Lalu and the incarcerated don made it amply clear that the RJD president was providing protection to criminals. Now it is beyond doubt that Shahabuddin was running a parallel government in the state, he added. Former Bihar BJP president Mangal Pandey, who was also present at the press conference, said now it was beyond doubt that the Grand Alliance government was being run at the mercy of criminals. From behind the bars, Shahabuddin was influencing transfers and postings of police and administrative officials, said Pandey, who hails from Siwan district. Among other leading BJP leaders, newly appointed secretary of the party Rituraj Sinha was also present at the press meet. OPPN OVERDRIVE BJP appeals to Centre to seek report from Bihar government as the expose vindicated the BJPs stand that the government in Bihar was being run on the diktat of criminals SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A Vigilance Bureau team caught Government Medical College, Amritsar, Principal Dr BS Bal, doing private practice at his house here on Saturday. Acting on a tip-off, the eight-member team, led by DSP (Vigilance) Navjot Singh, sent a decoy as a patient to the principals residence at Medical Enclave and carried out a raid at 8am. The team found eight patients waiting at the clinic. The bureau conducted the raid following an input about Dr Bal doing private practice despite being a government doctor. In a bid to catch him red-handed, we sent the decoy as a patient to his clinic, the DSP said. He said a detailed report will be sent to the Vigilance Bureau head office in Chandigarh after which it will be sent to the medical education department. The department will initiate an inquiry. Dr Bal said the raid was a trap. It is a trap against me. I have been framed. The man came to my home and asked me to treat him. I just did my job. I will meet Amritsar SSP RK Bakshi on Tuesday as he is out of town and present my case. I have informed my department and presented my case, he said. The Vigilance team said that Dr Bal used to refer patients to private labs and used to write prescriptions on a plain paper instead of a letterhead. The Punjab government banned private practice by government doctors in the state in 2013. The Punjab government on Friday told the Punjab and Haryana high court that it was a secular state and would not interfere with the religious beliefs of any sect or individual. Advocate general Atul Nanda, who was arguing for the first time in the Ashutosh Maharaj case, told the division bench of justices Mahesh Grover and Shekher Dhawan: Whether petitioner or respondent, the moment state interferes, it loses the character of a secular state. Nanda said a single-judge bench had empowered the government to determine the mode of cremating the Jalandhar-based sect heads body, even as the decision should have been taken by the court. It is the court that can decide. Neither the government has ability nor mandate in law to decide, said Nanda. The Punjab government, Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (DJJS), and Dalip Kumar Jha, who claims to be Ashutoshs son, had filed an appeal against the single-judge order on the sect heads cremation. Ashutosh was declared clinically dead on January 28, 2014, and since then his mortal remains are lying in a freezer on the dera premises. It was on December 1, 2014, that a single-judge bench had asked the government to perform the last rites within 15 days. The order was subsequently stayed by a division bench. Nanda submitted that the single-judge bench ruled that the son had no locus standi to file petition. He said it was an opportunity for the court to look into the merits of the case and end it there itself. The advocate general submitted that the single-judge bench treated writ proceedings as a civil suit and decided claims and counterclaims of the parties, which was not permissible in law. The government had been seeking adjournments for the past several months and had to face courts ire too. Initially, the government had planned to rope in solicitor general Ranjit Kumar, but later dropped the idea. On Friday, as the cases turn came, Nanda was not present as he was busy in other court and the state pleaded for an adjournment. The court passed over the matter for some time, but as Nanda could not reach by then, it ordered conclusion of arguments and reserved the matter for final order. But in the afternoon, upon Nandas intervention, the case was taken up again. Preservation of bodies not new concept Advocate general Atul Nanda told the high court that In Ramayana there is reference to preservation of Dasharathas body. He also cited several examples stating that bodies of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China were preserved among others. The adjudication before the division bench is in its last leg now, as other parties have completed their arguments. Nanda will continue with his submissions on Monday. With tensions simmering along the Indo-Pak borders after bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by Paksitani forces in the Poonch sector, the Border Security Force (BSF) is maintaining a high vigil along the Punjab border. Surveillance is high at the Attari-Wagah joint check post where thousands of visitors gather every evening for the retreat ceremony. The security inside and around the integrated check post (ICP), where trade takes place between the two nations, has also been heightened. BSF sources have claimed that extra caution is maintained in the Bamiyal sector along Pathankot. Top vigil is being maintained to ensure that no attempt of infiltration or smuggling is made. After the Poonch incident, fresh guidelines have been issued to the troops, said a BSF official. Infamous for smuggling of drugs, things have changed after 60 Pakistani nationals were killed in a blast on the Pakistan side of the visitors gallery. After the incident, a few tourists are allowed near the zero point and CCTV cameras have been installed to keep a check on the movement. There is multi-tier checking of vehicles by the BSF soldiers that reach the border every evening for the ceremony. Meanwhile, tension along the Jammu & Kashmir border has not impacted trade between the two countries in Punjab. Speaking to HT, an ICP official said, Security is high but the trade between two countries is normal. Trucks are coming from Pakistan, carrying mainly gypsum, cement and few other products while India is exporting cotton to Pakistan. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a huge embarrassment to the Aam Aadmi Partys Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, who has been claiming to be popular among non-resident Indians (NRIs), 26 prominent overseas faces of the party have written to its national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal against appointing Mann the Punjab convener. The letter sent by party volunteers from the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand goes on to warn that Manns elevation will be the most regressive and damaging move by the party and will have irreparable consequences. Also read | If AAP makes me Punjab chief, will not run away from task, says Khaira ahead of Kejriwal meet The letter comes ahead of the meeting of party MLAs called by Kejriwal in New Delhi on Monday to discuss the restructuring of the state unit after its loss in the Punjab elections. The group of volunteers, who had earlier written to Kejriwal in March and called for immediate removal of the partys then Punjab affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh and organisational secretary Durgesh Pathak, has said that people overwhelmingly rejected Mann, who was a star campaigner in the assembly polls, and see him as a liability. What they want Bhagwant Mann should focus on his role as MP AAP should first focus on the Gurdaspur bypoll No decision be taken on party structure until senior leader Kanwar Sandhu returns from his personal trip Leader of opposition HS Phoolka, chief whip Sukhpal Khaira, Sandhu, MLA Aman Arora and other party legislators should be involved in all future decisions Decisions relating to Punjab should be taken by the state leadership, not forced from outside Cost us the elections Bhagwant is a narcissist and is less focused on the well-being of his constituency... is in a non-stop campaigning mode for himself and has campaigned consistently against leaders (of the partys Punjab unit) like HS Phoolka). Also, his greed to be the Punjab CM was obvious... which cost us the Punjab elections, the group said. Accusing the Sangrur MP of carving out his own NRI team, they said: His NRI team continuously attacked hard-working ground volunteers with names like sold and traitors. We have been (working for) the AAP day and night, and (it makes no sense) to make a convener who thinks about himself before Punjab and the volunteers. The group also attacked Mann for his drinking habit and said the entire world has seen his videos on social media. Prominent among those who have spoken against the MP are AAPs outreach convener in the US Satbeer Singh Brar; coordinators, Punjab relations, US, Amritpal S Dhillon and Manjinder Sandhu; New York convener Bittu Sidhu; Canadian conveners Surinder Mavi (Toronto), Avtar Sidhu (Calgary) and Gurpartap Singh Kalls (Saskatoon); German convener Davinder Ghaloti and media coordinator in Australia Bhavjit Singh. Others include Faljinder Sing (Italy), Dimpa Singh Virk (Norway), Gagandeep Singh Aujla (Germany), Sukhwinder Singh Gill (Spain) and Khushmeet Sidhu (New Zealand). SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A day after the Punjab government told Punjab and Haryana high court that it cant take over Gian Sagar medical college in Banur, the shifting of its 1500 students seems only option left now. It looks apparent because the college management, both old and new, failed to revive the institute despite many opportunities given by the state government and the high court. The classes in the college are laying suspended since February 1 as faculty and staff, who are on indefinite protest over pending wages, are yet not paid despite managements repeated assurances to clear their dues besides other liabilities amounting to Rs 108 crore. When contacted, new chairman of the college, Varinder Kumar blamed the faculty as they are not ready to accept salaries in phases. However a teacher said, How can they resume classes when they have not paid even a single salary despite managements assurance to clear two salaries ten days ago in the high court. He added that the best solution to the ongoing crisis is for the government to take it over and we are even ready to forfeit our pending dues for last 8 months if that happens, he added The shifting, he said, is extremely difficult and will only invite more complications. As far as government is concerned, a senior official said that for those in government, the shifting seems only viable solution since the management failed to revive the college. Sources however said that the final decision depends on the outcome of the high court orders, which resumes hearing again on Monday. Parents on the other side are restless. How long our children are made to suffer due to the prevailing crisis in the college. We want either the college to run properly or clear decision on our shifting,said Dr UP Singh, a parent from Chandigarh. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Panjab University (PU) is the only university in the country which has a unique status of inter-state corporate body. But for such a long time, the institute of such high standard is gasping for funds to keep itself afloat. Why has such crippling fund crunch come in the varsitys way of function? What is the way forward for the institute to tackle the problem? Why is PU facing financial crisis? After Haryana and Himachal Pradesh withdrew support to PU, a consultative committee of central government fixed the ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and Punjab government for funding the deficit of PU. But later, Punjab government froze the contribution at Rs 20 crore. The central government also followed and put a ceiling at 176 crore in 2014-15. The same is not sufficient to meet the rising expenditure of the varsity. How much grant does PU expect from centre this year? After intervention from Punjab and Haryana high court, the University Grants Commission (UGC) gave Rs 197 crore to PU, which is around Rs 21 crore more than was earmarked for it for 2016-17. In 2017-18, PU, with a deficit of Rs 244 crore, expects Rs 222 crore from UGC. What points do UGC and PU differ on? UGC wants PU to cut down on manpower and bring ratio of teaching to non-teaching staff at 1: 1.1, but the latter says it is not feasible. It got conducted manpower audit whereby the number of teaching posts has been reduced to 1,378 from 1,510. But at present, just 1,089 teachers are employed, which include 749 regular, while the rest are re-employed, contractual or guest faculty. Presently, 2,609 non-teaching staff are working in PU on a regular basis, out of which 474 will retire in the next five years. Also, 545 temporary staff will be dispensed with. So, in five years, the strength will be reduced by 1,019. The UGC wants PU to keep deficit the same, but the varsity says that salaries increase every year. What is the way forward? A time has come when only the central government can rescue PU by increasing its grant to the varsity. PU has submitted before the apex court that the internal revenue of the varsity has been increased from Rs 155 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 256 crore in 2016-17, which is an enhancement of 20% per annum. Also, the varsity says that they have been requesting to increase grant at 10-12% which is lower than the rate of increase in internal income. The varsity has increased the examination and tuition fees over the years to raise funds. Meanwhile, the demand for central status for PU has also been raised for a permanent solution to the problem. A committee has been formed to look into all aspects. What impact has the crisis had on PU? In the last two years, no new teachers were recruited. UGC wants to put a ban on recruitment of even guest faculty. The non-teaching staff will now have to be reduced. The varsity has been barely breathing with grants just trickling. It did not get Rs 20 crore grant under Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for development of infrastructure. Its expansion plans at Sarangpur and setting up of 66kV sub-grid station are also stuck, for which it had demanded Rs 235 crore, but the UGC refused the same. Less teachers and less funding has led to a drop in PU rankings among central universities. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Fall of the malls in Chandigarh and why Elante still stands tall The Rs 700-crore acquisition of North Country Mall by Virtuous Retail South Asia Ltd (VRSA) recently has put the spotlight on the state of malls in the tricity of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. Read more here Amritsar medical college principal caught doing private practice A Vigilance Bureau team caught Government Medical College, Amritsar, principal Dr BS Bal doing private practice at his house here on Saturday. Read more here If AAP makes me Punjab chief, will not run away: Khaira Ahead of a possible shake-up of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, its MLA, Sukhpal Khaira, on Saturday sought a free hand to the state unit chief in restructuring and fixing its own agenda to perform better in the upcoming polls. Read more here Punjabi man murdered in US over cigarettes, family in shock In a suspected incident of hate crime, a 32-year-old Nadala resident was stabbed to death by unidentified persons outside a grocery store at Modesto city in California, United States, on Friday. Read more here Ahead of CMs visit to martyrs village, road repaired for a smooth ride As Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh is all set to visit martyr Paramjit Singhs village Vein Poin in Tarn Taran on Sunday, the district administration was all out to ensure a non-bumpy ride. Read more here 152 WW-1 soldiers from Hoshiarpur village remain unsung heroes The soldiers who fought the war and laid down their lives were immortalised by outsiders when a memorial was installed but for their own people, they remain unsung heroes. Read more here For more stories, visit www.punjab.ht and follow us on Twitter and Facebook Going through the toughest time of their life, the family of martyr naib subedar Paramjit Singh who died in a Pakistani attack in J&K had something to cherish when an IAS-IPS couple drove from Himachal Pradesh to meet them and promise support to his 12-year-old daughter, Khushdeep Kaur. Kullu deputy commissioner Yunus Khan and his IPS wife Anjum Ara, who is posted as superintendent of police, Solan, were given a warm welcome as they entered the martyrs house and spent a few hours with the family on Saturday afternoon. They met all three children Khushdeep, who is a student of Class 7; her twin brother Sahildeep Singh, and elder sister Simardeep Kaur, 15. Even neighbours came and thanked the officers. Terming his gesture very small, Yunus Khan said, Khushdeep is a daughter of a very brave soldier who sacrificed his life for the nation. When my wife and I learnt about it, we decided to come forward and support the family. We will support the education and career of Khushdeep. She is too young to decide what she will become. But whatever she wants to be, a doctor, engineer or even enter the civil services, we will give our best to fulfil the dream. Khushdeep will stay with her family in the village, but we will keep visiting her regularly, he said, We are soon going to decide how to take forward her education. Anjum Ara too said, It is a very small contribution. Our effort is to support a child of a martyr who laid down his life for our country. She also saw the house that Paramjit Singh was constructing for his kids. On what inspired them, Ara said, Being officers, we work in different spheres and for welfare. Thats from where this thought to support the family emerged. Thanking the couple, Khushdeeps mother Paramjit Kaur said, The couple has shown great humanity, and the entire village is thankful to them. My husband always wanted to make Khushdeep an officer, and I can feel that now with the guidance of such educated people my daughter will become an officer. She added, The family is going through immense emotional loss, and such people who are supporting my daughter are actually sharing my pain. We needed this, and others too also must take inspiration from the IAS-IPS couple. Khushdeep Kaur didnt speak much, and only said that she wants to be an officer in future as her father always wanted to see her successful. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In his fight against drugs, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh is now set to change the government strategy for treating and rehabilitating the addicts while making the use of the existing infrastructure. The first step in this direction was taken on Friday with Captain setting up a two-member committee to prepare a comprehensive de-addiction and rehabilitation plan after studying the new model suggested by Dr Kanwar Ajit Singh Sidhu, a US-based drug therapist and consultant, during a presentation. Additional director general of police (ADGP) Harpreet Singh Sidhu, who heads the newly formed special task force (STF) against drugs, came up with the idea to involve the addiction psychiatrist in the ambitious drive. Sidhu, an Indian citizen, has many awards to his credit. The principal secretary, medical education, and his counterpart in the health and family welfare department will develop the new model along with specialists from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh, based on the Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) model suggested by Sidhu. What is OOAT model? The proposed OOAT model focuses on cure through compassion and is designed to prevent relapse. A panel of six psychiatrists will implement the model, with one monitoring 10 centres. Specially trained duty medical officers will be deputed at each de-addiction centre to supervise the five-stage treatment: induction, stabilisation, maintenance, termination and follow-up. The patients will also have to mark biometric attendance. Peer involvement will be integral to the programme. These former addicts will keep motivating the patients, Sidhu told HT, adding that societies such as Narcotics Anonymous and Indian Drug User Forum will assist the authorities in hiring them. Sidhu envisages a separate division to run the programme, which will also involve services of nearly 200 counsellors and other staff. They will be trained by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Dr Sidhu told Captain. Why old system needs to be replaced ? Dr Kanwar Ajit Singh Sidhu said the treatment being provided at various centres in Punjab is primarily based on the abstinence model that focuses on keeping the addicts away from drugs. In 2016, the state government spent around Rs 100 crore on building more de-addiction and rehabilitation centres, but could treat only 8,533 patients. Sidhu said Punjab is getting close to 10-lakh drug users and only 16% of them receive any medical treatment, which showed the model was not effective. Among these, less than 10% have received any regular treatment, he said. Its an old model. Its not cost-effective and most patients cannot afford it. It follows the one-size-fits-all approach and there is no room to personalise the treatment, he said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Amidst speculation over the next President of India, a leading contender, Jharkhand governor Droupadi Murmu has caught the imagination of tribal activists and leaders, including those opposed to the BJPs alleged anti-tribal idea of development. The incumbent President Pranab Mukherjees term will expire on July 25, and at least five contenders are rumoured to be in the race to be his successor even as opposition parties are trying to put up a united candidate. Political experts are of the opinion that Murmus appointment as the President may help the BJP shed its alleged anti-tribal image in eastern India and also give the party an edge over its rivals during the upcoming Odisha elections. Odisha is a priority for the BJP. Murmu is a tribal woman who hails from Odisha. So, appointing her as the President will kill two birds with one stone for the BJP. The party may regain its fast diminishing tribal support in the region and also make a manse in Odisha, said Dr Pankaj Prasun, director of the Centre for Political Research and Analysis (CIPRA), New Delhi. In Jharkhand, the BJP has been facing backlash from tribal outfits over the governments bid to tweak the twin tenancy lawsChottanagpur Tenancy Act and Santhal Pargana Tenancy Actwhich make tribal lands available for non-agricultural development purposes which tribals see as a threat to their existence. The BJP governments domicile policy in the state too has upset tribals. At least nine tribal protesters were killed in police firing last year during agitation against the anti-tribal policies. Salkhan Murmu, a former BJP MP from Odishas Mayurbhanj who has now become its critic because of the partys Modi-fied style of development, welcomed the proposal to have Droupadi Murmu as the President. Tribals in India are facing troubles and frequent human rights violations. We need a President who understands the tribal sentiments, said the 64-year-old tribal rights activist who works in Jharkhand, Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Bihar, states with considerable tribal population. He said Droupadi Murmus nomination as the President will boost the morale of tribals across India and help BJP garner support, but she would come under pressure of BJP governments in the states and the Centre as they were deliberately neglecting the problems of tribals to bring cosmetic development. Droupadi was the district president of BJP in Mayurbhanj (east) during Salkhans tenure as MP. Member of Tribal Advisory Council in Jharkhand, Ratan Tirkey on Thursday posted a picture of Murmu and PM Narendra Modi on Facebook, highlighting her chances of becoming the next president. The reactions on his post, however, criticised the BJP government. Keeping politics aside, it will be a historical move if she is made the President of India. The UPA has been mocking BJP as a party of upper caste Hindus. Nominating a tribal woman as the President will be a strong statement, Tirkey said. However, he agreed that the upcoming Odisha elections and the tribal uproar may be one of the reasons for the BJPs decision, if it goes with Murmu. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON After spending nearly five years of his career on S.S Rajamoulis Baahubali franchise, Prabhas has earned some time for himself and he is well spending it in the US with a gang of friends. The 37-year-old star is currently on a month-long US holiday and is expected to return to India in the first week of June. He will start shooting for his next project Saaho, a multi-lingual action-packed thriller from the second or third week of June. Prabhas in a Baahubali promotional picture. Although it is rumoured that Prabhas will play a cop in his next Telugu outing, it hasnt been confirmed by reliable sources yet. However, what we do know for certain is that the actor will shed some weight, especially all the muscle he beefed up for Baahubali, and will sport a leaner frame for the new movie. He will also reportedly sport a crew cut for his role. To be made as a trilingual on a lavish budget of Rs 150 crore, the film is tipped to be a road thriller and a lot of the story unfolds on the move. The makers are spending a whopping Rs 35 crore for a particular action sequence under the supervision of international stuntman Kenny Bates. Sabu Cyril of Baahubali fame is handling the production design while Madhie, who wowed audiences with his work in Ghazi, will crank the camera. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio have been roped in to compose the music. Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Dulquer Salmaan couldnt have been happier as the actor became a father to a baby girl on Friday. The Ustad Hotel actor welcomed the girl as his little princess and took to Twitter to share the news to his fans. He went on to add that his brain doesnt comprehend what had happened and that they are on the moon. Both the mother and child are healthy and Dulquer has been with them since Friday. Doubly happy !! We are blessed with an angel. Our own little princess. My brain isn't even comprehending all this. Over the moon !! pic.twitter.com/ceaaZsmAeZ dulquer salmaan (@dulQuer) May 5, 2017 Dulquers new Malayalam film, Comrade In America, also released amid Baahubali storm in Kerala on Friday. Contrary to reports that CIA is a political film, its director Amal Neerad in an earlier interview said its actually a coming-of-age romance. In the film, Dulquer will be seen as a Pala-based man with communist leanings. Karthika Muralidharan makes her debut with the movie which also has Siddique, Soubin Shahir and Dileesh in important roles. Loved the town of Pala and it's people ! So much love all around #ComradeInAmerica #CIA pic.twitter.com/H6cLnzuhAU dulquer salmaan (@dulQuer) April 26, 2017 During the release of the films teaser, Dulquer wrote on his Facebook page: At long last, here is the title for my first full length Amal Neerad film! Thank you Amal Etta for the opportunity and for letting me be a part of something so ambitious and grand. Hope you all love everything about the film. The films poster which was released earlier this year had featured Dulquer against the American flag, with heavy communism reference. The film has been predominantly shot in Mexico and the US. Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Sushant Singh Rajput, who recently shot for Vogue Indias special 10th anniversary edition with Kendall Jenner, will soon be seen on hit American reality TV show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The actor revealed to Mid-Day that he has already shot for a part on the show. In fact, I have also shot a segment for an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, he said. Vogue India , May 2017 By @mariotestino With @kendalljenner A post shared by Sushant Singh Rajput (@sushantsinghrajput) on May 2, 2017 at 11:42pm PDT KUWTK revolves around the lives of the Kardashian (Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kris) and Jenner (Kendall, Kylie, Caitlyn) clans. A camera crew follows the family members and chronicles their daily stories as and when things happen to them. Because the show is shot in a reality show format, we are struggling to understand what Sushant will join the show as. The Kardashian-Jenner clan. Sushant and Kendall were shot by famous Peruvian photographer Mario Testino in February for the magazines May edition in Jaipur. The cover was revealed a few days ago. I would have loved to show her (Kendall) around, but couldnt due to security issues. The palace where we stayed was huge and the food was great too, Sushant added. He is currently awaiting the release of his next film Raabta with Kriti Sanon and preparing for Chandamama Door Ke. Follow @htshowbiz for more The British broadcaster announced at an event on May 4 that it has 11 new drama series in the offing. Projects in the works include miniseries based on the literary classics Little Women and The War of the Worlds. Written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott and published in 1868, Little Women tells the story of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy during the American Civil War. After their father heads off to war to serve as a chaplain, the girls learn to get along with life on their own in Concord, Massachusetts, with their mother and the family maid and cook, Hannah. The story of this abolitionist family who, despite losing its fortune, is always willing to help those in need, has been made into big and small screen adaptations on several previous occasions. George Cukors 1933 film starred Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett, and a 1949 version starred Elizabeth Taylor. The most recent adaptation dates from 1994, with Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes and Christian Bale. The BBCs three-part miniseries is due to start filming in July. The cast will be announced soon. The networks The War of the Worlds adaptation is scheduled to start filming in early 2018. The famous sci-fi novel by HG Wells has also been brought to screens several times in the past, including a 2005 movie from Steven Spielberg, in which Tom Cruise saved humankind from a hostile alien invasion. In addition, the BBC has ordered a new version of Rumer Goddens novel Black Narcissus, Stephen Frears (Florence Foster Jenkins) is signed up to help bring John Prestons A Very English Scandal to the small screen, and Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) has penned a miniseries based on Howards End by E M Forster. The broadcaster even has a Netflix collaboration in the pipeline, with Giri/Haji, an eight-part series following Kenzo, a Japanese detective who travels to London in search of his wayward brother. Follow @htshowbiz for more. Modern Family star Ariel Winter says it was tough for her to deal with fame and criticism at a young age. The 19-year-old actor credits the series and her co-stars for helping her get through the tough times, reported Contactmusic. Everyone check me out @theviewabc this morning at 11am ET :) #viewfromdisney A post shared by ARIEL WINTER (@arielwinter) on Mar 7, 2017 at 7:48am PST We were criticised a lot. And I was criticised especially being the youngest girl out of the cast. And it was definitely hard. I see you SmurfLily! And you can see her on big screen in Smurfs: The Lost Village this April! #SmurfsMovie A post shared by ARIEL WINTER (@arielwinter) on Feb 24, 2017 at 11:52am PST The show helped me a lot. I was surrounded by so many great people that were really supportive of me and really, you know, wanted me to thrive. And told me all the time that they believed in me and thought I should be confident and all those things, Winter says. Follow @htshowbiz for more Three Indian-origin scientists known for their expertise in genetics, computers and ecology have been elected fellows of the Royal Society, the worlds oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Headed by Nobel winner Venki Ramakrishnan, the London-based Royal Society on Friday announced the 2017 election of 50 scientists and 10 foreign members for their outstanding contributions to science. Ramakrishnan said: Science is a great triumph of human achievement and has contributed hugely to the prosperity and health of our worldThe new fellows have already contributed much to science and it gives me great pleasure to welcome them into our ranks. The three Indian-origin scientists are Krishna Chatterjee (University of Cambridge), Yadvinder Malhi (University of Oxford) and Subhash Khot (New York University). Chatterjee is distinguished for his discoveries of genetic disorders of thyroid gland formation, regulation of hormone synthesis and hormone action, which have advanced fundamental knowledge of the thyroid axis. The Royal Society said Chatterjee has identified dominant negative inhibition by defective nuclear hormone receptors as a common mechanism in Resistance to Thyroid Hormone and PPARg-mediated insulin resistance. He has shown how deficiency of human selenocysteine-containing proteins causes a multisystem disease, including disordered thyroid hormone metabolism. He seeks to translate such understanding into better diagnosis and therapy of both rare and common thyroid conditions, it said. (Left) Krishna Chatterjee is based at the University of Cambridge, while Subhash Khot works at the New York University. (Courtesy: Royal Society) Khot is a theoretical computer scientist whose original contributions, the society said, are providing critical insight into unresolved problems in the field of computational complexity. He is best known for his prescient definition of the Unique Games problem, and leading the effort to understand its complexity and its pivotal role in the study of efficient approximation of optimization problems; his work has led to breakthroughs in algorithmic design and approximation hardness, and to new exciting interactions between computational complexity, analysis and geometry, it said. Malhi is an ecosystem ecologist who the society said has advanced understanding of the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and how they are responding to the pressures of global change, including climate change, degradation and loss of large animals. This work integrates insights from ecosystem ecology into Earth System science, and has been characterised by a multidisciplinary approach that involves establishing broad networks of field research in tropical forests in some of the most remote and challenging regions of the world, and also application of micrometeorological approaches, global climate datasets, terrestrial ecosystem models and satellite remote sensing. This work has contributed to our understanding of the carbon sink in the terrestrial biosphere, and to how it may be vulnerable to climate warming, the society said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON At least 29 schoolchildren were killed in a bus crash in northern Tanzania on Saturday, along with two teachers and the driver, the schools director said. We lost 29 students and two of our staff, and the driver died too, said Innocent Mushi, director of the Lucky Vincent Primary School in the northern city of Arusha, where the children were pupils. The dead included 12 boys and 17 girls, he said. The accident happened when the bus was descending on a steep hill in rainy conditions, Arusha regional police commander Charles Mkumbo told Reuters by telephone. We are still investigating the incident to determine if it was caused by a mechanical defect or human error on the part of the driver. The students killed in the accident, which occurred at about 9:30am in Karatu district, were standard seven pupils, aged 12 to 13, from the Lucky Vincent primary school on their way to visit another school, Mkumbo said. Police say authorities are trying to recover the bodies trapped in the bus after it struck some trees. President John Magufuli described the accident as a national tragedy in a statement. Tanzania, the second-largest economy in east Africa, has a poor road safety network, but buses remain the main form of public transport between towns. More than 11,000 people were killed in road accidents in Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, according to government data. China is looking to take a stake of up to 85% in a strategically important sea port in Myanmar, according to documents reviewed by Reuters, in a move that could heighten tensions over Chinas growing economic clout in the country. Beijing has been pushing for preferential access to the deep sea port of Kyauk Pyu on the Bay of Bengal, as part of its ambitious One Belt, One Road infrastructure investment plan to deepen its links with economies throughout Asia and beyond. A consortium led by Chinas CITIC Group has proposed taking a 70-85% stake in the $7.3 billion deep sea port, according to negotiating documents seen by Reuters and three people familiar with the talks between the Chinese state-owned conglomerate and Myanmars civilian government. The size of the proposed Chinese stake is substantially larger than the 50/50 joint venture proposed by Myanmar late last year, an offer rejected by CITIC, said two people involved in the talks. Well-placed sources told Reuters last month that China had signalled it was willing to abandon the controversial $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in Myanmar, but would be looking in return for concessions on other strategic opportunities in the Southeast Asian nation including the Bay of Bengal port. Kyauk Pyu is important for China because the port is the entry point for a Chinese oil and gas pipeline which gives it an alternative route for energy imports from the Middle East that avoids the Malacca Straits, a shipping chokepoint .The port is part of two projects, which also include an industrial park, to develop a special economic zone in Myanmars western Rakhine State. CITIC was awarded the lead role in both initiatives in 2015. Beijing-based CITIC, Chinas biggest and oldest financial conglomerate, did not respond to several requests for comment on Friday. Chinas foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment. Negotiations between Myanmar and CITIC, which sources said were set to start next week in the countrys commercial hub Yangon, come amid a Chinese diplomatic push to forge better ties with its resource-rich neighbour. Myanmars leaders have traditionally been wary of domination by China. But the country last month signed an agreement that will see oil pumped through the pipeline from Kyauk Pyu across Myanmar to southwestern China, while leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due to visit Beijing for a summit on One Belt, One Road, President Xi Jinpings signature policy, in mid-May. One of the sources, who declined to be named, said CITIC was in the driving seat on the port project, and that Myanmar was unlikely to ask for a stake of more than 30 percent due to opposition from the Chinese firm. Some people worry that China would have the power to do anything they want and control the project if it owns 85%, said the person, who is familiar with the thinking of policymakers in Myanmar. But Myanmar doesnt have other options, the person added, citing the Myanmar governments financial constraints. The nearly $10 billion Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, which Myanmars government has said would create an economic hub akin to Singapore covering 4,289 acres, is part of Myanmars plan to boost the economy in one of its poorest regions. The economic zone faces opposition from activists and residents who criticised the tender process and said the development would have a negative impact on local people. Hamas said its former chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, was elected overall head of the Palestinian Islamist group on Saturday, succeeding Khaled Meshaal. Haniya, seen as a pragmatist within the movement, is expected to remain in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas since 2007, unlike Meshaal who lives in exile in Doha and has completed the maximum two terms in office. The Hamas Shura Council on Saturday elected Ismail Haniya as head of the movements political bureau, the groups official website announced. He beat contenders Mussa Abu Marzuk and Mohamed Nazzal in a videoconference vote of the ruling councils members in Gaza, the West Bank and outside the Palestinian territories. The 54-year-old with a salt-and-pepper beard takes charge of Hamas as it seeks to ease its international isolation while not marginalising hardliners within the movement. On Monday, it unveiled a new policy document easing its stance on Israel after having long called for its destruction. The document notably accepts the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. It also says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier. The original 1988 charter will not be dropped, just supplemented, in a move some analysts see as a way of maintaining the backing of hardliners. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and the new document is aimed in part at easing its international isolation. Hamas officials said the revised document in no way amounts to recognition of Israel as demanded by the international community. Nevertheless, the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad on Saturday slammed the Hamas policy tweak. As partners with our Hamas brothers in the struggle for liberation, we feel concern over the document, said Islamic Jihads deputy leader, Ziad al-Nakhala. We are opposed to Hamass acceptance of a state within the 1967 borders and we think this is a concession which damages our aims, he said on Islamic Jihads website. Nakhala said the new Hamas policy formally accepting the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 would lead to deadlock and can only produce half-solutions. Founded in the 1980s in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran, a close ally, Islamic Jihad is the second force in the Gaza Strip and focused entirely on the armed struggle. An Indian-origin couple were shot dead by their daughters former boyfriend at their home in San Jose, California. The shooter, who had briefly held the couples younger son as human shield, was killed by police. Naren Prabhu, who was vice president of engineering at Juniper Networks, was found dead by the police at his doorway on Wednesday, with his wife Raynah Sequeira Prabhus body found inside. Their daughter, whose ex-boyfriend killed them, lives in another state. The murder took place at the familys home in an upscale neighbourhood in San Jose, a tech hub. The police were called by the familys adult son, who told them his father had been shot and possibly also his mother. When officers arrived at the home, they saw an adult man deceased in the front doorway suffering from at least one gunshot wound, San Jose police chief Eddie Garcia said. Officers learned from the adult son that his mother and 13-year-old brother, along with the suspect, were still inside the house. A stand-off ensued as the suspect refused to give himself up and at one stage held the familys 13-year-old son as human shield but let him go shortly. The suspect appeared at [a window] at one point and pointed a handgun at officers, Garcia said, according to CBS news. In fear for the lives of fellow officers and victims that still may have been in the house, at least one round was fired by an officer, striking the suspect. Police identified the shooter as Mirza Tatlic, 24, and said he had suffered from mental illness and had struggled to find work. He and Rachel Prabhu had broken up a year ago, and the Prabhus had taken out a restraining order against him. The suspect had been in a dating relationship with the victims adult daughter who was not home, Garcia told reporters. The relationship ended last year. The suspect had a history of domestic violence and there was an active criminal restraining order. The Mercury New, a local media outlet, citing police sources, said Tatlic killed the parents as payback to cause her pain, just as she had caused him pain by breaking up with him. Prabhu had been with Juniper Networks Sunnyvale campus for 14 years, according to reports that cited his LindedIn profile, which appeared to have been taken down since. He first began working for the company in 1998 at its Mountain View campus. Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss an amicable settlement to the Dawn Leaks issue, days after the powerful military rejected the action taken by the civilian government in the matter. On April 29, the Prime Ministers Office removed Tariq Fatemi, special assistant to Sharif, from his post and announced disciplinary action against another official over a report in the Dawn newspaper about differences between the civilian administration and the military on tackling terror groups. Hours later, the army rejected the action taken by the government, saying it was incomplete. This led to speculation about a fresh standoff between the government and the military over Dawn Leaks, as the issue has come to be known. According to reports in the Pakistani media, Bajwa met the premier on Thursday night to discuss Dawn Leaks and find an amicable settlement. The meeting was held in a pleasant atmosphere, Dawn reported quoting TV news channels. Both sides agreed to resolve the matter in an amicable manner and Bajwa discussed at length the armys reservations about the action taken by the government. Sharif reportedly promised the armys reservations would be taken into consideration. There was no official word on the meeting. Sharifs office had taken action on the Dawn Leaks issue in line with the recommendations of a committee that was set up to probe the report in the Dawn newspaper last year. Pakistans political establishment was stunned when the action taken by the Prime Ministers Office was rejected by the military spokesman, Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, through a tweet. On Friday, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan met Sharif to discuss another detailed notification the government is expected to issue regarding action in the Dawn Leaks issue to defuse tension with the military. Sharif also reportedly advised Khan not to issue any strong statements against the military. Reports said Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, the younger brother of the premier, helped defuse the civil-military tensions as he was part of a committee formed by his elder brother to resolve the row over the Dawn Leaks issue. Relative calm prevailed on Saturday in wide parts of war-ravaged Syria despite sporadic violations and clashes after a deal to set up de-escalation zones in mostly opposition-held areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said. There were no immediate reports of casualties after the plan hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran the latest attempt to bring calm to the country kicked in at midnight on Friday. The establishment of safe zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. Details of the plan must still be worked out over the next several weeks. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, and the southern province of Daraa, areas expected to be part of the de-escalation zones, activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or de-escalation zones will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. Syrias government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting terrorism wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The armed opposition delegation to the talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana said in a statement that the truce should include all Syria and not just specific areas. It said some maps of the de-escalation zones that were released are not accurate and will not be accepted because the armed opposition did not negotiate them. Still, opposition activists in southern, central and northern Syria told The Associated Press on Saturday the situation is by far much better than previous days, with no airstrikes reported. Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has slammed calls for a black flag protest during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Sri Lanka, a media report said. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modis visit here to take part in the celebrations marking the UN Vesak Day, the most important in the Buddhist calendar, Colombo Gazette reported. Are they Buddhists? President Sirisena asked with regards to those calling for the protest. Opposition Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa, speaking at the joint opposition May Day rally at Galle Face, said that Modi was to discuss a deal on Trincomalee port which he says must be opposed. They are trying to sell Sri Lanka to India, he said. He also called on joint opposition supporters to take to the streets and push for an early election. Modi is to visit Sri Lanka to participate in the May 12-14 Vesak Day celebrations. He is slated to be the chief guest at the opening ceremony in Colombo. The visit will mark his second visit to the island country. It is the first time the UN Vesak Day is being held in Sri Lanka. A large number of local and foreign delegates are expected to participate. Vesak Day, also known as Wesak or Buddha Day, is a traditional holiday celebrated annually on the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha. It is celebrated by Buddhists and usually falls in May or early June. This years theme is Buddhist teachings for social justice and sustainable world peace. --IANS akanksha/rn Multiple security issues and political uncertainties mark the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a top Chinese scholar has said, adding opinion is divided on the viability of the project both in the short and long term. The CPEC, whose cost has been projected at more than $46 billion, cuts through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), leading to protests from India over the issue of sovereignty. Despite New Delhis concerns, China has pumped billions of dollars into the corridor, making it a flagship and prestige project under President Xi Jinpings ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since he announced it in 2013. But is the CPEC turning into a corridor of uncertainty? China and Pakistan share the belief that economic development can help stabilise Pakistan and improve its domestic security situation. However, China also recognises that the security, political, and cultural risks and uncertainties facing the economic corridor cannot be overlooked, Shi Zhiqin, executive dean of the newly opened One Belt, One Road Strategic Institute in Beijing, wrote in a paper. Terrorism, political infighting and attempts by Pakistani political parties to divide the CPEC cake have already caused substantial delays, Shi wrote in the widely circulated paper titled The Benefits and Risks of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In an interview to Hindustan Times, Shi explained: From the economic point, is it (CPEC) worth it? There is division in China. Some say there is great potential economic benefit and some disagree. This is a long-term project. In the short-term, we cant see much benefit. But in the long-term, maybe it is beneficial. Terrorism is among the multiple problems facing the corridor and there have been many terrorist attacks in Pakistan, he said. In the paper, he noted that Chinese nationals have been attacked or killed in Pakistan. The first of these risks is terrorism, which has long affected Pakistans internal security and stability. Although Pakistan has worked hard to strike at religious extremism and terrorist activities, its problems with terrorism have not substantially improved in recent years...Indeed, there already have been numerous occasions when Chinese engineers working in Pakistan have been attacked or even lost their lives, Shi wrote. In May 2016, for instance, engineers in Karachi were attacked by Sindh separatists. Fortunately, no Chinese personnel were wounded or killed. Then in September, Baloch rebels killed at least two Chinese engineers and injured many others. Moreover, several large-scale terrorist attacks in Balochistan have killed dozens of people, which shows that the security situation in this province where China has key projects is far from ideal, he wrote. Shi also wrote that the Pakistan governments commitment to provide security to the CPEC can work only in the short-term. However, over time, it will become more difficult for Pakistan to guarantee the security of the CPECs growing transportation networks, which will require increasing investments of security personnel and material support. Pakistans volatile domestic politics is another worry, according to Shi. The countrys political system has never been particularly stable. Political power oscillates between military and civilian leaders...On the other hand, Pakistans traditional political culture, which is almost feudal in nature, also continues to play an important role, Shi wrote in the paper, which he co-authored for Tsinghua University with another scholar, Lu Yang. Shi added: Powerful families based in different provinces, such as the Bhuttos and the Sharifs, have typically held political power. Behind the party politics are local interests groups associated with these families. Pakistans political parties and pressure groups, he wrote, have also tried to influence the routes that the CPEC should take. Various parties within Pakistan have disagreed a lot about how CPEC transportation routes should be mapped out. The competing parties are primarily interested in how the cake should be divided, so to speak, he wrote. Shi added that since the initiative was first presented in 2013, the debate over which route the CPEC will follow has caused substantial delays. The construction of the corridor has just begun. It is expected that competition among Pakistans domestic political groups will continue to affect its future implementation, he wrote. China and Pakistan have taken positive measures to help set up the CPEC for success. Nevertheless, Pakistans domestic situation will be decisive. Until the countrys political and security conditions turn a corner, it will be difficult to judge the corridors future prospects. For China, this means neutrality, strategic patience, and caution are needed as the construction of this grand initiative continues. Positives for CPEC from the report * Pakistan is working to improve its overall economy by constructing energy projects and other infrastructure, to create employment opportunities for its populace, and to improve its governance. * The corridor aims to enhance the well-being of people across Pakistan and bring long-term prosperity and stability. * The CPEC will not only serve as a roadway that connects point A to point Bthe initiative is designed to do more and aims to facilitate multisectoral economic cooperation in finance, trade, energy, and industry. * The successful completion of Pakistans 2013 election and the smooth transition of power was the first time in the countrys history that a civilian government was able to serve its full term. This is a sign of improvement for Pakistans democracy. US President Donald Trumps nominee for Army secretary, Mark Green, withdrew his name from consideration for the position, a White House official said on Friday. Green, who is the third Trump nominee for a service secretary position to withdraw, has faced criticism from rights groups and lawmakers over allegations about past comments regarding minorities as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, people. In a statement, Green said false and misleading attacks had driven him to withdraw. Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain, he said. While these false attacks have no bearing on the needs of the Army or my qualifications to serve, I believe it is critical to give the President the ability to move forward with his vision to restore our military to its rightful place in the world. US senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that Greens decision to stand down was good news for all Americans. It was especially good for those who were personally vilified by his disparaging comments directed toward the LGBTQ community, Muslim community, Latino community and more, Schumer said. Green served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment where he made three combat tours to the Middle East. Turkish Airlines on Saturday said it would offer laptops to business-class travellers after Britain and the United States banned large electronic devices from the cabin of flights from certain countries. Washington has barred all electronic devices larger than a mobile phone on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in seven Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, only allowing them to be transported in hold luggage. Britain followed with a similar ban from five countries in the Middle East and north Africa as well as Turkey. But Turkish Airlines said it would offer travellers a solution. The national flag carrier has now started to offer laptops for its business class passengers on US-bound flights as from today, it said in a statement released on Saturday. The airline would also offer the same service for UK-bound business class passengers from May 12. Such passengers would be able to request a laptop from the cabin crew to use in-flight, it said. The laptops would offer top security and protect the users privacy by automatically deleting all personal data after being shut down, it said. Announced in March, the ban drew Turkish fury, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urging Washington and London to withdraw it as soon as possible. Mumbai's Saifee hospital has discharged Eman Ahmed. The world's heaviest woman who had flown in from Egypt to India for her treatment and lost 328 kgs has now moved to UAE for further treatment and special arrangements were made to make her departure smoother. A lighter Eman Ahmed has been discharged by Saifee hospital, Mumbai after losing 328 kgs and now she will be flying off to UAE for the next stage of treatment at Burjeel Hospital. According to Economic Times, special arrangements were made by the hospital and state authorities to make her exit smoother and a green corridor was created from the hospital's gate till the airport. The flight was also fitted with medical equipment. Notably, the 37-year-old-Egyptian national was receiving treatment for severe obesity at the hospital since February under the supervision of bariatric surgeon Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala. She reportedly lost 328 kgs during the treatment but the hospital came under fire after her sister Shaimaa alleged that the doctors were making false claims and were only using her sister for publicity, The Tribune reported. However, the South Mumbai hospital denied her allegations saying that she was doing this to extend the stay of her sister. Dr. Lakdawala also refuted the charges and according to him, Ahmed now weighs 170 kg. He also wrote on his blog that the Burjeel Hospital had assured him that Ahmed will be able to stand and walk on her legs. Clarifying the controversy, he made it clear that Shaimaa wanted Ahmed to stay till she was fit enough to walk but the hospital disagreed as they did not want to put her at risk. This caused some friction and led to all the brouhaha. It may be mentioned here that Eman Ahmed suffered from a rare obesity condition that had restricted her to her house for more than twenty years. It was only after Shaimaa got to know about Dr. Lakdawala that she approached him for her sister's treatment. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Reports were claiming that the World Health Organization is looking forward to partner and collaborate with pharmaceutical companies for the creation and manufacture of affordable medicines for cancer treatment. The said organization saw the need to produce medicines most especially those which are expensive in order to deal effectively with cancer prevention. Like what the latest reports are saying, World Health Organization just announced Thursday that they are looking forward to making this venture and goal happen. Moreover, they understand the plight of those living in the low-and-middle-income countries who, most of the times cannot afford the intended medication. After the announcement, The Washington Times reported that World Health Organization also informed all interested pharmaceutical companies to submit an application form to them. These companies are needed to manufacture two drugs, the trastuzumbab and rituximab. These stated drugs are part of "WHO Essential Medicines List." If these pharmaceutical companies are ready with their proposed biosimilars, the World Health Organization needs to test them if they are safe and effective enough to help treat cancer. Then if these medicines will be accepted as they are found to be effective and safe, the said organization will recommend them. After that, these medicines will be made available and offered by the different agencies of the United Nations. WHO cares about how cancer will be prevented most especially for those in low-income countries which at times can't afford proper and expensive medications. According to Biosimilar News, the above-mentioned medicines, Rituximab and Trastuzumbab are both kinds of biotherapeutic medicines. The former is used for the treatment of leukemia while the latter is for breast cancer. What the WHO needs is a company which can manufacture generic versions of these medicines. Since these medicines are very costly in most countries, the World Health Organization is now seeking the help of pharmaceutical companies to manufacture low-cost but effective drugs. The international organization is extending its service and aid to those countries for the use of the medicines and for better cancer treatment. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. It looks like you've reached a page that doesnt exist (anymore). Please use the navigation or search above to find content on Hospitality Net. Go back to home Last night it was Funk Flex. Todays tears are brought to you by the social media personality and professed hip-hop tastemaker known as YesJulz. Julz got herself cancelled last night when she posted a picture of a controversial T-shirt on Twitter. Soam I allowed to wear this at the festival tomorrow or nah? she wrote. The shirt in question: A crop top that reads Niggas lie a lot. Being a white woman especially one who profits from black culture, Juelz was immediately condemned for joking about wearing a shirt with a racial slur written on it. The tweet was quickly deleted, though not quickly enough to beat the screenshots. Soon after seeing the scandal shed created, Julz attempted to explain her deleted tweet, writing, Guys, I was calling out some1 who suggested I wear this t-shirt he made. I clearly wouldnt wear it. Julz was soon relieved of her hosting duties at two upcoming events in Toronto, the uTOpia Music Fest and the Women Inspiring Passion and Purpose (WIPP) summit. Earlier this afternoon, feeling far more remorseful, Julz decided to broadcast a tearful video apology via Snapchat. A man in the Harris County Jail on a marijuana charge was identified this week as one of two men accused of burglarizing a high-end Galleria watch store in February. Jeffery Dwight Perkins, 43, is accused of stealing more than $190,000 in watches during an early morning break-in Feb. 17 at a store in the Houston Galleria, 5085 Westheimer. Richard Shotwell/INVL Comedian Stephen Colbert's profanity-tinged tirade against President Donald Trump, aired on CBS, will be reviewed by the Federal Communications Commission, said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "We are going to take the facts that we find, and we are going to apply the law as it's been set out by the Supreme Court and we'll take the appropriate action," Pai told radio station WPHT-AM in Philadelphia. CBS could face a fine, he said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Is it better to be lucky than good? Tenaris, which makes piping and steel for oil and gas wells, is perhaps a bit of both - as well as brave. The Argentinian company began building a $1.8 billion oil and gas pipe mill near Houston when oil prices were booming and then opted to press ahead during the bust. Now the anticipated opening of the state-of-the-art plant in September coincides with the resurgence in onshore oil and gas drilling in Oklahoma and Texas, particularly in the Permian Basin. "The timing is perfect even beyond our expectations," Tenaris CEO Paolo Rocca said in an interview during the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston last week. Tenaris is hiring to finish staffing the Bay City mill, which will employ 600. The workforce is smaller than those of older mills because the plant incorporates more automation, using robots to move steel from one station to the next as the seamless piping is manufactured. Tenaris was founded in Italy by Rocca's grandfather and later moved its main operations to Argentina. It's formally headquartered in Luxembourg for tax purposes. But that's not how Rocca describes it in Houston. "In light of the $1.8 billion investment in Texas," he said, " I present it as a Texas company." The 1.2-million-square-foot mill will soon produce 600,000 tons of steel pipe a year. The specialized piping includes drill pipe used for drilling and creating wells; casing pipe that's cemented into place to line the walls of the well and give it structural stability; and tubing pipe inserted into the well through which the oil and gas travels. In 2017, U.S. shale and other onshore fields represent 35 percent of the global demand for such piping, Rocca said. With the oil bust lingering in other parts of the world, the United States is the biggest reason global pipe demand for onshore wells is growing by nearly 40 percent this year. "This is the core of the oil industry for the years to come," he said. Tenaris touts its "Rig Direct" system of supplying pipe to match the exact needs of its customers just when the products are required in the field. That lowers storage, maintenance and inspection costs. The proximity of the mill to Texas oil and gas production allows Tenaris to directly serve the rigs in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale and other fields, cutting out pipe distribution companies that typically act as middlemen. Tenaris was virtually unheard of in Texas until a decade ago when it bought St. Louis-based Maverick Tube Corp. and Houston-based Hydril Co. for a combined $5 billion. In short order, Tenaris grew from about 50 Houston employees to more than 2,000. Tenaris, however, had to cut jobs at its northwestern Houston and Conroe facilities during the oil bust while it was building in Bay City. Rocca acknowledged the decision to push ahead with the new plant as oil prices plunged was a difficult and stressful. Now, "I'm anxious to see it work," he said. Colorado investigators linked a fatal home explosion last month to a faulty gas line connected to an old well owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. The Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District said Tuesday it traced the explosion that killed two men and injured a woman to a natural gas leak from a "cut, abandoned gas flow line" into the house through a French drain and sump pit. The gas line, officials said, had been abandoned but not disconnected from the wellhead and capped. It stopped leaking gas from the well after Anadarko shut in the well last month. The Woodlands-based company said it has shut in 3,000 wells in the region that collectively produced the equivalent of 13,000 barrels of oil a day. Anadarko, which has drilling operations from Texas to the Gulf of Mexico and Africa, said in March it expects to produce up to the equivalent of 655,000 barrels a day in 2017. The destroyed home was in the town of Firestone, about 40 miles north of Denver. It was built some 200 feet from the well, which was drilled by another company more than two decades ago. Anadarko said it would continue working with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The company "will continue to cooperate fully with all ongoing investigations to ensure we fully understand the basis for the fire district's conclusion and that no stone is left unturned prior to any final determinations," Anadarko CEO Al Walker said in a statement. The investigation has buffeted Anadarko's stock value. Share prices fell 5 percent when the company disclosed on April 27 that it was cooperating with the authorities investigating the explosion, and they have fallen further since. The stock was trading about $60 a share before the disclosure but is now down to about $52, a decline of more than 13 percent. Bloomberg News contributed to this report. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Years ago, as Kamal Singh delivered subs to Houston customers, the young entrepreneur eyed the bustling Sonic locations that did far more business than his lone sandwich shop. Less than a decade later, Singh has graduated from dropping off sandwiches to commanding a fleet of carhops. He recently purchased 34 Sonics throughout the city and plans to open another 20 in the coming years. "Sonics are very profitable," he said of the Oklahoma City-based fast-food chain known for serving customers at their cars. "The experience is there, the product is there." Singh, 31, capitalized on Sonic's push to refranchise some of its company-owned locations, a move that has benefited new operators and boosted the company's sales. During the last year, Sonic sold more 100 stores in Texas, Florida and Kansas in cities where its franchised locations had been more successful than the company-owned restaurants. "We felt like these were underperforming markets," senior vice president of development Drew Ritger said. "Our franchisees were doing a much better job of taking care of the guest." The initiative, announced last June, opened a door for ambitious operators like Singh, who acquired his first restaurant, the sub shop, in 2009 after graduating from the University of Houston. He quickly bought more, then expanded his portfolio with other small restaurant chains. He eventually scored a chance to take on big-name brands and now operates 16 KFC and Taco Bell locations in Texas and Louisiana. The challenge of climbing the fast-food ranks made him a more competitive candidate to tap the Sonic chain. During the course of his career, he said, he learned to boost performance at restaurants that had fewer sales and less brand recognition than larger franchises. "The challenges with the smaller brands is that you don't have the support that Sonic can provide," he said. "You don't have the (revenue) or as strong of a marketing campaign." His track record, he said, gave him access to the credit he needed to purchase a substantial share of Sonic's 173 Houston stores. He declined to disclose how much he paid. Sonic expects its refranchising effort to improve sales throughout the chain by turning over operations to franchisees with a deeper understanding of their respective markets. In its most recent quarter, same-store sales dropped 7.3 percent at franchised locations, while company-owned stores saw an 8.9 percent decline. Boosting performance in Houston, Sonic's second-largest market by store count, was of particular importance to the company, Ritger said. "Houston is an extremely competitive market," he said. "There is lots of opportunity to grow the brand, and we wanted to afford ourselves that opportunity." The sale process will also trim overhead costs during a particularly competitive time in the restaurant sector. Within the last year, minimum-wage increases and changes in health care coverage requirements have increased operating expenses and restaurant prices across the country, said industry analyst Bonnie Riggs of NPD Group, making products and service quality all the more important in the fight for customer loyalty. "Restaurants have to be giving consumers a compelling reason to visit their concept," she said. During his career as a restaurant operator, Singh said he learned the value of building relationships with employees and creating a service-oriented culture at each location. "I have the edge in this industry because I understand my people," he said. He plans to build more Sonics in smaller towns in the Houston area, which has been somewhat insulated from a nationwide slowdown in restaurant industry growth. Fast-food and "fast casual" establishments have continued to expand fairly quickly throughout the region, said Jonathan Horowitz, president of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association and CEO of Legacy Restaurants. "I think there is room for those additional locations," he said. "Houston is still growing at such a crazy clip." I've driven hundreds of miles along South Texas from Big Bend to San Antonio on I-90, noting the small towns that have already suffered as a result of stricter border controls. On that long, lonesome highway, you see a preview of the economic devastation a border wall - or pulling out of NAFTA - would cause in Texas. So I called up U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, whose congressional district covers that road along the nation's longest border with Mexico to ask him about who is going to pay for our promised border wall with Mexico. Hurd stands by his earlier statement that the Trump-promised border wall is a "third-century solution to a 21st-century problem." "I still believe that building a wall from sea to sea isn't the most effective way to do border security," Hurd told me. I asked about funding the wall, something that ultimately falls to Congress. The Trump administration managed to secure $20 million in a budgetary move called "reprogramming," to allow the Department of Homeland Security to study potential wall designs. One prototype under study is a 30-foot tall structure, which Hurd says would take someone around four hours to breach. The real wall, however, would cost a lot more than the $20 million in starter funds. While Trump has consistently promised a $10 billion to $12 billion price tag, independent estimates range from $25 billion to $67 billion, with an article in the MIT Tech Review settling on $40 billion. That kind of money can't be gotten through budgetary shuffling known as "reprogramming," but rather requires congressional support. At the end of April, Trump threatened to hold up a 2017 appropriations bill - needed to keep the federal government from an imminent shut-down - if Congress didn't set aside $1.4 billion to begin constructing the wall. The Republican Congress called his bluff, and Trump dropped the wall-funding request for 2017. Maybe it will be back for negotiation in 2018? Trump says it will. "Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall," he tweeted. And then two days later, he said, "Don't let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc." In the meantime, spending billions this way makes no sense to Hurd. As a former undercover CIA officer deployed to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, he'd advocate a smarter combination of technology, human intelligence and cooperation with our Mexican counterparts. "There's 19 criminal organizations that we've identified. Let's improve our intelligence on those groups and stop them before they get to the border. Ultimately, border security is important, and we need to do a better job," Hurd told me. See, that's a reasonable, informed approach. Who would pay for this wall? We already know Trump's repeated claim that Mexico will pay. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox has a colorful way of expressing his country's attitude: "We're not building your (expletive) wall!" he said while dropping the F-bomb on CNN and to every other media outlet on the planet. Unlike statements made by my own president, I believe him. To pay for a wall of any kind, one of two things has to happen: either U.S. taxpayers pay directly for the wall or U.S. consumers pay for it indirectly through higher taxes on imports from Mexico. To do that, of course, we're talking about big changes in the North American Free Trade Agreement, something Trump also wants. Hurd disagrees with that approach as well. "NAFTA is important, end of story. The U.S., Mexico and Canada, we build things together. We should be thinking about how we achieve more of this. There are ways to improve it," he said. "Updating NAFTA could be a model for free trade agreements around the world. We should be talking about how to strengthen NAFTA, not pull out of it." I have tried hard to find serious analysis of the cost of the border wall, serious methods of paying for it and serious economic impacts of the wall. It cannot be done. The subject resists serious thought. It's a deeply unserious promise made by a deeply unserious person. But here's the serious problem for Trump with all his "border wall" talk. When you expose yourself as a bully and a liar on your single most important campaign promise, people remember. Mexico is onto Trump and is calling his bluff. Congress is onto Trump and is calling his bluff. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Any Houstonian who's ever stalled out in a rush-hour gully washer, swatted mosquitoes on a humid summer afternoon or hauled soggy carpet to the curb after a neighborhood flash flood will be forgiven for thinking the supply of water is one thing they needn't worry about. Indeed, throughout the city's first century, the settlers and entrepreneurs who settled here tapped into generous underground stores of water to flood rice fields or run refineries. In 1939, government scientists reassured residents the local water table should be fine even if average pumpage should reach 50 million gallons daily. But the decades kept passing, the city kept growing and the wells kept multiplying. Officials watched the level of the water underground steadily drop as daily pumpage at times exceeded 450 million gallons. Regional aquifers were depleted as millions of people and businesses drilled ever deeper. Subsidence problems were documented, and experts came to recognize the supply could not keep pace with demand. More Information How a water treatment plant works A large submerged pipe sucks up water. A pump sends the water to a tank where it is mixed with chemicals. Water moves onto another tank where more chemicals cause particles to clump. In another tank, water is slowly stirred so clumped sediment sinks. In the next tank, ozone gas is bumbled through water to disinfect it. Water moves through a sand and coal filter the size of four football fields. Water undergoes final disinfection, fluoride and other chemicals are added. Purified water is pumped through a pipe that leads straight to your faucet. By the numbers? The plan to move water 40-plus miles from the Trinity River will mean: 2,500 The number of personnel needed for the project's construction and related work. 108 The diameter, in inches, of the pipe that will carry water 17 miles from the plant. 400 million gallons Water treatment plant daily capacity after expansion, or five times current capacity. See More Collapse Now, after decades of public meetings and engineering consultations, environmental-impact studies and design proposals, a solution is in the works on a massive scale: a $3 billion, three-part chain of infrastructure projects to carry water more than 40 miles westward from the Trinity River and provide a lifeline to the northern region and burgeoning suburbs from Spring to Tomball to Katy. The undertaking involves moving water three miles over a ridge and into a 23-mile canal that will feed Lake Houston. Thanks to a five-fold expansion of the water treatment plant there, the water will be pumped through 17 miles of pipe large enough to drive a car through. The construction and related work should employ about 2,500 people, according to estimates from the city and the builder of the canal. "It's the biggest water project in the country right now," said Michael Bloom, a manager at R.G. Miller Engineers. "It's a world-class project, really visible if you're in the water sphere." An unnoticed asset Other planners say the local project could be the largest water job under way in the world. It is bigger than any other included in a recent report on infrastructure investment authored by the international engineering firm AECOM for the U.S. Treasury. That you probably haven't heard about it is no surprise, said Dave Rexing, a member of the American Water Works Association water utility council and development manager of the water authority serving Las Vegas. Such life-giving endeavors often are under-appreciated, he said, no matter that water "is the basis of life." "The infrastructure has largely become an unnoticed asset," he said. But this project, financed by the state of Texas' water fund, is an attention-grabber. Northwest Harris County pumps billions of gallons from underground each year. As wells have sunk deeper, some hit salty water. Others in nearby Montgomery County stretched for nearly a mile into water that came up hot and smelled like sulfur. Drilling so deep is expensive, but the region currently has no alternate source. "There is a finite ability of the Gulf Coast Aquifer to produce water," said Wayne Klotz, president of the Coastal Water Authority. "Nobody has ever determined what would happen if we pumped it so hard that the water pressure sunk below the aquifer, and nobody wants to find out." The CWA broke ground in March on the canal, dubbed Luce Bayou for the natural waterway beside it, the first of the segments of the system to begin construction. Lake Houston doesn't have enough water to wean the entire region off groundwater, so the canal will import water from the Trinity to boost its capacity. The river, in turn, is fed by Lake Livingston, which the city has owned water rights to since the 1960s. Outflows from Lake Livingston will be increased to send water down the new canal. Moving that much water could have environmental consequences along the way to Galveston Bay, although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said it expects them to be "minimal." Other environmental groups are less confident, although none have organized a strong pushback. "Every time that you change the flow of rivers you're going to have impacts on the bay, but we don't know exactly what those impacts are going to look like," said Paula Paciorek, water resources coordinator for the Galveston Bay Foundation. Studies already initiated still "need to be completed so that we know what we are up against," she said. The chain of projects, should they go forward and wrap up on schedule, will fundamentally shift how this region gets its water within 10 years. "For a couple of decades they've been planning this," said Jeffrey Benjamin, project director for the five-fold expansion of the Northeast Houston Water Purification Plant expansion project. Melissa Phillip/Staff Pumping groundwater Local confidence in its water supply was shaken by the late 1970s, when daily groundwater withdrawals in Harris County and northwest Galveston County exceeded 450 million gallons. Land along Galveston Bay began sinking as the underground water supplies were depleted. "That's when people started thinking they'd have to change," said Mike Turco, general manager of the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, which formed in 1975 to move the region from dependence on water in the ground to water on the surface, like lakes. RELATED: Greater Houston has been sinking for years With rules in place and new pipelines carrying water from Lake Houston, the southernmost section of the district reduced groundwater pumping from nearly 140 million gallons per day in 1976 to less than 20 million in 1990. The middle section fell from 160 million in 1976 to less than 20 million in 2002. But in the northernmost swath, which includes about half of Harris County, groundwater withdrawals peaked at 280 million gallons per day in 2000, before tapering off to about 175 million in 2015. "There's not enough water in the ground," said Al Rendl, president of the North Harris County Regional Water Authority. "All the people, all the businesses, all the factories, all the everything - it needs water." For Rendl, a retired Exxon Mobil executive, the project to pipe billions of gallons of water into his region caps a nearly 20-year effort that has put him in front of hundreds of town hall meetings explaining the need. The initially skeptical crowds, he said, better understand the risks today. Folks first drilled the Chicot Aquifer, the shallowest layer, with wells as deep as 500 feet. But the supply there dwindled, so most large wells for municipal utility districts, ranging from 14 to 20 inches in diameter and pumping up to 1,500 gallons per minute, moved on to the deeper Evangeline Aquifer. Water levels there dropped by 200 feet over 17 years, Rendl said. More recently, wells have tapped the Jasper Aquifer, at around 2,000 feet, even though water there is salty and poor quality. In The Woodlands and in Montgomery County drillers tapped the Catahoula Aquifer, as deep as 4,000 feet, where water comes up hot. When Rendl started with the water authority in 2000, he was charged with implementing the subsidence district's mandates to scale back pumping. The substantial reduction in the region's pumpage happened thanks to other smaller pipe projects from Lake Houston, including the original Northeast Water Purification Plant in 2005. The authority laid almost 100 miles of pipe within a decade, and also levied fees on groundwater withdrawals until by 2010 the region got 30 percent of its water from the lake. It aims to get 80 percent by 2030, even as overall demand for water is expected to grow sharply. "This area is growing at a rate where it definitely needs surface water," said John Seifert, senior project manager at LBG Guyton Associates in Houston, which provides consulting for water well projects, noting that groundwater will always be an essential part of the region's supply. "We've essentially stopped growing rice in this area and started growing houses." Building for the future That explains the size of the projects. The water treatment plant will be the largest such project in the nation, with the 27-acre facility expanding by 90 more acres and increasing its daily capacity to 400 million gallons from 80 million. The 108-inch-diameter pipe to carry that water westward will be the widest ever installed in the city of Houston. Mackrena Ramos, senior associate at LAN, an engineering firm that specializes in water infrastructure and is program manager for 11 of the pipeline's 13 segments, said a major challenge has been clearing the pipeline's course through urbanized areas, acquiring real estate and planning to divert other utility lines. Where possible, work crews will be drilling underneath roadways to build in public rights-of-way without disrupting traffic, she said. That pipeline should be completed by 2021. Another 7.5-mile length will carry water to a proposed pumping station on Texas 249. Another 40 miles of 8-foot-wide pipe will carry water farther west into Fort Bend County. Work on the water treatment plant expansion is set to begin this summer and be completed by 2024. The Texas Water Development Board has pledged about $3.2 billion in low-interest loans from the State Water Implementation Fund of Texas to finance the combined projects. Costs will be split between the city of Houston and five regional water authorities in Harris and Fort Bend counties in an effort to meet long-term needs. Rendl compares the effort to the acquisition in the 1940s of water rights for what would become Lake Houston. The city had a population of around 400,000 and at the time it seemed excessive to claim almost 12,000 acres of water storage space. But, he said, "If it hadn't been for those people who bought the property for Lake Houston, we'd be in big trouble." Rendl guesses Houstonians in the future might say the same about the project getting under way today. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway hit a speed bump in the first quarter as insurance units posted an underwriting loss, overshadowing gains at the company's railroad and energy business. The results aren't likely to dampen the festive mood as shareholders gather Saturday for the company's annual meeting in Omaha, Neb. The event doubles as a showcase for Berkshire's dozens of businesses and a platform for Buffett, 86, to share his investing gospel. Over the past five decades, he's transformed Berkshire from a struggling textile business into a financial powerhouse with insurance, energy, retail, transportation and manufacturing units. With an eye toward value and long-term thinking, his stock picks and acquisitions have helped propel steady increases in the company's earnings. Buffett has said there will be blips in that record, in part because insurance results can be volatile. First-quarter operating profit slipped 4.8 percent to $3.56 billion, the company said Friday in a statement. The result was driven by underwriting losses at Berkshire's namesake reinsurance group and General Re unit, which both incurred costs tied to a cyclone in Australia. Pretax profit fell 34 percent at auto insurer Geico, which sells auto coverage. Despite the occasional setback, insurance has been a significant moneymaker for Berkshire, generating annual underwriting profits for more than a decade. The businesses also provide Buffett with billions of dollars of "float" - or premiums held before paying claims - that he can invest. Hauling Coal Berkshire's largest unit, railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe, added $838 million to net income, 6.9 percent more than in the same period of 2016, according to a regulatory filing. BNSF and its competitors have benefited this year from a rebound in coal volumes after a surge in prices for natural gas, a rival energy source. While he waits for the right opportunity, Buffett's been buying lots of stocks. In February, he said that he'd built Berkshire's holding in Apple Inc. to more than $18 billion. His company also amassed stakes in the four largest U.S. airlines -- American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and United Continental Holdings Inc. Investors are likely to ask Buffett and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charles Munger about those holdings during the all-day, question-and-answer session with the executives on Saturday. For much of his career, Buffett avoided investing in technology companies, and he spent years criticizing airlines as terrible businesses. Other topics on Saturday will probably include the state of the U.S. economy, investment fees, Trump and Wells Fargo & Co. Berkshire is the largest investor in the bank, which has been working to control damage from a phony account scandal. Buffett will probably also be grilled on his investment in International Business Machines Corp., which he pared by about a third this year. Berkshire's net income slumped 27 percent to $4.06 billion in the period. The figure was hurt by a drop in investment gains. In last year's first quarter, Berkshire recorded a one-time gain of almost $2 billion from a deal that involved exchanging Procter & Gamble Co. stock for the consumer company's Duracell battery business. SAN FRANCISCO - Uber is the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry over a program that it used to deceive regulators who were trying to shut down its ride-hailing service. The inquiry concerns Uber's use of a software tool called Greyball, which the company developed in part to aid entrance into new markets where its service was not permitted. The tool allowed Uber to deploy what was essentially a fake version of its app to evade law enforcement agencies that were cracking down on its service. The New York Times reported on Greyball in March, raising questions about the legality of the practice. After the report, Uber said it would prohibit employees from using the software to thwart regulators. The federal inquiry was disclosed in a transportation audit conducted by the city of Portland, Oreg., published last week. In the audit, Portland officials said they had been notified by the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of California about the inquiry. Portland said it was cooperating with the inquiry. Reuters reported Thursday that the inquiry was a criminal investigation. The U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of California generally conducts criminal investigations, and some of the laws that Uber may have broken carry criminal penalties. A federal inquiry often does not result in any charges being filed. Press officers for Uber, the U.S. attorney's office and the city of Portland declined to comment. Uber has been grappling with several scandals. Apart from Greyball, Uber has come under fire for its at times raucous internal culture, sexual harassment claims and the aggressive, no-holds-barred approach to business espoused by Travis Kalanick, Uber's chief executive. The company is in the midst of an internal investigation into its workplace culture, with a report on the findings expected at month's end. Kalanick has said he needs help with his leadership of Uber and is searching for a chief operating officer to join Uber. Uber is also facing a lawsuit filed by Waymo, the self-driving car unit spun out from Google's parent company, Alphabet, in an intellectual property theft case. Waymo has accused Uber of using stolen trade secrets to develop its autonomous vehicles. The judge presiding over the case is expected to make a decision soon on whether Uber must temporarily halt work on its autonomous-vehicle research. Greyball was part of a larger program at Uber known as VTOS - short for Violation of Terms of Service - which was used in the United States and in countries including Brazil, South Korea and France. The program began as early as 2014, and Uber has argued it had legitimate uses, such as concealing the locations of drivers from competitors or would-be attackers. But officials are concerned with the program's use in evading law enforcement personnel. After using a series of techniques to identify and tag officials, Uber would turn to the Greyball tool to show a false version of its app to officers who tried to hail an Uber car using their smartphones. Greyball was approved by Uber's legal team, although some inside the company had qualms about it. When she began to research her grandfather's famous film of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Alexandra Zapruder confronted a family taboo topic. A Dallas businessman and dressmaker, Abraham Zapruder recorded his 26-second film as he stood with other spectators on a street corner waiting for the president's convertible to pass. He somehow managed to keep filming even as the infamous murder unfolded before his viewfinder. But it was decades before his granddaughter began to explore that film's impact - on her grandfather, a Jewish-American who fled pogroms in his native Russia, and on journalistic norms and societal debates over the use of graphically violent images. Alexandra Zapruder will be in Houston on Wednesday to discuss that impact, at "From Camera Lens to Conspiracies: What Zapruder Saw Then to What the World Sees Now," an event hosted by the Houston Chronicle and sponsored by the Houston Public Library. Her quest was complicated: By the time she began her book, her grandfather and her father had both died without telling her much about the topic. "The film rarely came up in conversation in my family, though of course I knew about it and it was always there, in the periphery," she said. "It wasn't really taboo; it just wasn't a defining part of our lives or family identity. To me, being a Zapruder meant a lot of things, but none of them had anything to do with the film." More Information Author appearance Author Alexandra Zapruder and Chronicle reporter Lise Olsen will discuss "From Camera Lens to Conspiracies" at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Houston Chronicle, 4747 Southwest Freeway. Event sponsored by Houston Public Library. Reservations suggested; go to houstonlibrary.org/hplq. See More Collapse Yet Zapruder was able to unlock a series of surprising secrets. Her family name gave her access to key insiders, and her work as a documentary filmmaker gave her razor-sharp research skills. In her book "Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film," Zapruder carefully explores what happened to the film after Kennedy was assassinated. The copyrighted film's disturbing images - including frames that show the president's brains flying through the air - were used at first sparingly and thoughtfully; later they were exploited, bootlegged, seized, stolen and manipulated by a variety of famous and relatively unknown players in journalism, the movie industry and the federal government. In 1963, Zapruder's grandfather faced a media feeding frenzy at his Texas home after word leaked out about the film he'd shot. But he managed to protect the images, first by entrusting copies to the U.S. Secret Service and then by selling the copyright to Life magazine, whose editors used the images sparingly for a decade. That wasn't the end of the Zapruder family's dealings with the film. And the ensuing ethical debates explored in Zapruder's book resonate today. After all, nearly all of us can imagine ourselves in the shoes of Abraham Zapruder as he trained his viewfinder on the convertible carrying Kennedy through Dallas. Back then, his state-of-the-art handheld camera was a rarity. Now, nearly all of us carry a smartphone that can quickly upload potentially viral video to the cloud. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The four police departments in East Montgomery County are banding together to create a special response team to deal with high-risk situations such as warrant service, active shooter scenarios and investigations where suspects are believed to be heavily armed and dangerous. The creation of the special response team for Splendora, Patton Village, Roman Forest and Woodbranch police departments comes just weeks after a routine police investigation in Splendora uncovered an alleged human trafficking ring believed to be operated by a Mexican drug cartel. Erring on the side of caution, Splendora police waited until a larger group of officers from neighboring departments in Roman Forest and Patton Village were assembled before descending on the property. "The special response team will be perfect for these types of scenarios," said Splendora Police Chief Wally Wieghat. "Individually as departments, we are small, but as a collective, we are strong. This special response team will work together, train together and respond together in high-risk scenarios. This will give us an added safety level to respond to situations in any of our cities." With the cities having so much in common, it makes sense to share resources, the chiefs say. "One of the things we share are the criminals. My burglars are their burglars. My meth dealers sell drugs in their cities. Our cities border each other. We share the same problems so we've come together to share the solution," Wieghat said. Montgomery County's SWAT team in Conroe will still be needed for the most dangerous scenarios, the chiefs say. "We'll still be calling in Montgomery County SWAT for our major incidents. This special response team will be used for smaller incidents," said Roman Forest Police Chief Stephen Carlisle. Carlisle explained how the team could have assisted his agency in a recent case where officers were attempting to recover stolen merchandise from a drug dealer known for being heavily armed. Montgomery County SWAT assisted in serving the warrant. His patrol officers likely could have served the warrant without assistance, but why take the risk, he said, when there are better-equipped, better-trained units just a phone call away. Wieghat, Carlisle and Patton Village Police Chief Shannon Sharp say their city governments have been supportive of their plans, which has led to the acquisition of some of the equipment they will need, including heavy armor vests and helmets. "Our city doesn't have a lot of money to throw around but the council was generous and bought two kits with heavy armor for our officers to use," Sharp said. Wieghat said he received a $10,000 donation to his agency from a local citizen. Wieghat and Sharp say they are counting on the grant-writing skills of Carlisle to help the special response team acquire additional items. TRAINING UNDER WAY On Friday, eight officers representing Splendora, Patton Village and Roman Forest PDs wrapped up the next-to-last day of a six-day course, held at Trinity Armory in Cleveland and designed to teach them to work together as a team. The class was hosted by Houston-based AWATT, a company that specializes in advanced weapons and tactics training. During the class, team hopefuls were put through rigorous physical exercises and shooting scenarios with simulation weapons to demonstrate how to protect themselves and avoid being a casualty while responding to a crisis. Several of the trainees reported "being killed" during the drills. The instructors for AWATT all have a background in combat. One is a retired senior chief for the Navy SEALS and another is Army Ranger-qualified. AWATT's founder, Michael Rodriguez, has a background in martial arts, is a reserve police officer and weapons instructor. In 2010, Rodriguez formed the company in the wake of the Sandy Hooks school shooting that left 26 people dead. "I have a special skill set that was worthless before that. Now it's valuable," he said. In addition to training peace officers, AWATT offers a wide range of private classes for individuals and companies. "I feel that if I can save just one life through training, then it's worth it," Rodriguez said. After the class, the instructors will give the chiefs a written review of every team hopeful. Then the chiefs will come up with a list of who they feel is best suited to serve. Their approval of team members must be unanimous. "We had to make sure we had officers in the training who were willing to put themselves up for this. This training is very physical, very demanding. This class might end but it is not the end of their training," Sharp said. "They will still have to go through about 16-18 hours of training every month." The Magnolia City Council last week bid farewell to well-known Councilwoman Anne Sundquist, who stepped down after six years of serving residents. While three council positions were up for election Saturday, the city canceled the election because not one race was contested. Matthew Dantzer will take Sundquist's seat. Incumbents John Bramlett and Rick Carby each will serve another term. "The past six years have been a very busy one for the city," Sundquist said. "We have more than doubled our actual size of the city and have strengthened our infrastructure significantly. Development of planning and zoning has helped to give a direction for preserving the historical portion, protecting property of current residents and a plan for the future." Sundquist said she was happy to be a part of the planning and the growth of the city. "I have also enjoyed working with the various businesses and supporting them as well, because businesses support the citizens who live in the city through their services and also through taxes that result from their existence," she said. "It has been an honor to serve those residents, the businesses and the city employees, especially the Magnolia police officers." Dantzer has been a resident of Magnolia since 2000 after his service was completed in the United States Army. Dantzer is involved in multiple nonprofit organizations and was the founder of Heroes of Montgomery County, which is an 501(c)3 dedicated to supporting the Conroe VFW. Dantzer said he is looking forward to serving the city. "It's a need, and I want to serve the community," said Dantzer, noting he has been involved with the historical society in Magnolia but wants to do more. Growth is one hot button for Dantzer, who said he has visited with city officials about the issue. "It's coming," he said. "The population is coming. We have almost 20,000 new rooftops projected in the Magnolia area. With my background in commercial real estate, how can we help Magnolia stay Magnolia but still keep up with the times." Dantzer said he is honored to take the reins from Sundquist. "She is an amazing woman," he said. Bramlett was elected to the Magnolia City Council in 1983 and served as mayor in 1984. He was re-elected mayor from 1992 to 2001, re-elected to serve on City Council in May 2007 as mayor pro tem and re-elected in May 2009. Carby was appointed Jan. 8, 2013, to serve the unexpired term of resigned council member Chris Schod until May 2013. Carby ran unopposed and was re-elected in May 2015 as well. Magnolia council members serve two-year terms. Positions 4 and 5 will be up for election in 2018. PARIS - It was only the latest plot twist in a long, bitter campaign defined by rancor and uncertainty. The day before France's most momentous presidential election in recent history, authorities were still investigating the "massive and coordinated piracy action" that independent candidate Emmanuel Macron reported just minutes before the campaign's official end Friday night. The data dump, the Macron campaign said, involved thousands of nonincriminating emails and other internal communications - some of which, the campaign insisted, were fake. In a year of populist upheaval, this was the nightmare scenario for many observers, immediately reminiscent of the American election - in which, as U.S. intelligence agencies recently concluded, Russian President Vladimir Putin commissioned an "influence campaign" to benefit Donald Trump. The identity of the hacker remains unconfirmed, but the parallels were clear enough in Paris and Washington: Macron, an independent centrist candidate and staunch defender of the European Union, is facing off against Marine Le Pen, a far-right populist whose party has relied on Russian banks in the past and who favors pivoting France's foreign policy toward the Kremlin. In March, Le Pen met personally with Putin on a visit to Moscow. "Intervening in the last hour of the official campaign, this operation is obviously a democratic destabilization, as has already been seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign," the Macron campaign said, stopping short of assigning blame. The sentiment was echoed across the Atlantic, with Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warning that the hacking, if successful, "would represent yet another dangerous escalation of cyberinterference in a Western nation's democracy." But amid France's government-mandated day of silence that always precedes election day - when candidates are strictly prohibited from campaigning in any way - the impact of the leaks on the election remained to be seen. In the French press, the leaks received comparatively little coverage: In keeping with French campaign law, reporting on the emails' contents could result in criminal charges. On Saturday, France's electoral commission urged journalists and media organizations to heed "the sense of responsibility they must demonstrate, as at stake are the free expression of voters and the sincerity of the election" itself. Ben Nimmo, a research fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, said in an interview that enthusiasm for the leaks was scarcely discernible beyond the far-right, pro-Le Pen online circles that had circulated them in the first place. "It doesn't seem at this stage that there are lots of high-profile non-Le Pen accounts jumping in and spreading the message around," he said of social-media patterns surrounding the leaks. "They have kept their constituency - and they have galvanized their constituency - but they haven't necessarily stepped outside of that constituency." Most French voters interviewed on the streets of the capital the day before the vote shrugged off the hack. The stakes are much too high to be bothered by compromising internal campaign documents, they said. Paul Lotere, a 29-year-old civil servant, said he was most upset that Macron had no chance to respond given the strict campaign curfew. He plans to vote for the former finance and economy minister and said he has no interest in the documents until their veracity is confirmed. "Ah, yes, 'hashtag Macron leaks,'" sneered Alain Chappotteau, a 51-year-old psychologist, repeating the Twitter tagline popularizing the news. "With all the fuss, all the tricks, in this campaign, what's one more? I'm voting for my child's future. This doesn't matter." Although the hacker remained unknown, Nimmo said, the social-media campaign following the Macron data dump originated in the United States, in a well-known network of alt-right Twitter accounts. The #MacronLeaks Twitter storm - notably in English, not French - largely began with the account of Jack Posobiec, a Washington-based correspondent for the alt-right website TheRebel.media, Nimmo said. Posobiec has written that he served, in 2016, as "Special Projects Director of Citizens for Trump, the largest Trump grassroots organization in the US," according to an article Nimmo wrote on the Macron case. From there, Nimmo said, news of the Macron leaks - allegedly containing details of offshore accounts and tax evasion - was retweeted by William Craddick, another alt-right activist known to have spread in December a fake news story about German Chancellor Angela Merkel tolerating Islamic State terrorists to deploy an EU "army" to subdue her country's neighbors. Eventually, Nimmo added, the leaks began to be retweeted by well-known National Front accounts - reaching 47,000 tweets in just three hours. Despite France's strict prohibition on campaigning after the deadline, Florian Philippot, the National Front's deputy leader, tweeted early Saturday morning: "Will #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?" For months now, Le Pen has also received exceedingly positive coverage in Russian state media. Meanwhile, those news outlets have pilloried Macron, accusing him of being secretly gay and of embezzling public funds. To date, most of those rumors seem to have had little effect on French voters. Throughout the election, Macron has frequently said that his campaign has been the target of Russian meddling, though the Kremlin has repeatedly denied those accusations. In a report issued last month, researchers at the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro linked intrusions into the Macron campaign's online network to Russian hackers operating as an arm of Kremlin intelligence. The Tokyo-based firm said it was the same group - known variously as Pawn Storm, APT28 and Fancy Bear - that hacked the Democratic National Committee and officials tied to Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful campaign for president. In the specific case of the leaked documents, a Russian connection was not immediately identified. But according to analysis conducted by Flashpoint Intel, a digital risk firm, "it appears to be linked to the Russian state-sponsored campaign by APT28." Nicolas Vanderbiest, an expert on social-media information dissemination and the author of the well-known blog "Reputatio Lab," said in an interview that there were significant connections in the Twitter storm following the leaks to accounts linked to Sputnik and Russia Today. In a paper published several weeks ago, he studied many of these accounts, some 40 percent of which were involved with spreading the news about the Macron scandal early Saturday, he said. In any case, analysts say, the French government has taken the threat of cybersecurity in the election very seriously. In March, for instance, France's National Cybersecurity Agency said that there was "an extremely high risk" of cyberattacks and hacking of the country's electoral process, which prompted the government to suspend electronic voting this year for French citizens overseas. Alexander Klimburg, an expert on cyberwarfare at The Hague Centre for Security Studies who has been in regular contact with French civil service officers, said he believes the French government is sufficiently prepared for Russian cyberattacks, especially after Russian hackers nearly destroyed a French television network, TV5Monde, almost exactly two years ago. "The sense was, 'If this happens again, we're going to be ready,' " Klimburg said. "I expect there to be a massive escalation in the covert information environment." Polls show Macron, a former investment banker and Socialist finance minister, with a considerable lead over Le Pen, at 63 percent to 37 percent of the vote, according to the latest analysis from the Ipsos firm, released Friday. For many, the hacking and subsequent data dump represented a desperate, last-dash attempt to thwart Macron's considerable lead in the polls - a lead that has actually grown in the final days of the campaign. "It's so obvious, and you can make all the connections so easily," said Vanderbiest. "It's very amateur." PARIS - The French call it "the past that will not pass." This year's election in France has proven that phrase - first coined by prominent French historian Henry Rousso - to be more than prescient. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, France's complicity in the Holocaust and, to a profound degree, its colonial crimes have been defining themes of the most contentious presidential campaign in recent memory. When voters go to the polls Sunday, they will choose between warring interpretations of France's past as much as between different visions for its future. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the two candidates in the final round of the vote, are distinct in many ways. Macron, a former investment banker and the darling of Parisian and academic elites, is a boyish acolyte of cosmopolitan Europe; Le Pen, a hard-line nationalist, is an advocate of economic protectionism and closed borders. But rarely are the two more opposed than when they talk about history, as they have done frequently throughout a long and bitter campaign. For Le Pen - the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a convicted Holocaust denier who repeatedly has dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history" - the past is nothing to be ashamed of. Last month, she remarked on national television that France bore no responsibility for an infamous Paris roundup during the Holocaust, when French authorities arrested some 13,000 Jews, soon deported to their deaths. Approximately 76,000 Jews were deported from France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Most never returned. "If there were those responsible," Le Pen said, "it was those who were in power at the time. This is not France." Versions of Holocaust denial and revisionism have clouded Le Pen's National Front party throughout the 2017 campaign. In early March, a party official in Nice was caught on camera saying that "there weren't mass killings as it's been said." In late April, Jean-Francois Jalkh, Le Pen's appointed deputy of the National Front during the closing days of the campaign, was reported to have said - in an on-the-record interview in 2000 - that the Nazis never used the poison gas Zyklon B to exterminate millions of Jews and others. "From a technical point of view it's impossible," Jalkh allegedly said in that interview, although since then he has claimed he can't remember saying so and sued the Le Monde newspaper for presenting him as a Holocaust denier. Macron, by contrast, has chosen - at significant political risk - to confront head-on other dark chapters of France's past, especially colonialism. Some say the tactic stems from his early days as an assistant to the late French intellectual Paul Ricoeur, whose work often examined the intersections of history and memory. In one of Macron's most controversial decisions on the campaign trial, he went in February to Algeria, which France had annexed for 132 years, and called on the French state to apologize formally for its crimes as a colonial power, especially in the bloody war for Algerian independence between 1954 and 1962. France's history in that war, Macron said in an interview days later, represented "crimes and acts of barbarism" that today deserve to be labeled "crimes against humanity." For months, Le Pen has harped on Macron for those three words, accusing him once again in a televised debate Wednesday of "insulting" the French people. In a high-profile case, her father, in the 2002 presidential campaign, was accused of torture during the Algerian War - charges that the elder Le Pen vehemently disputes. Benjamin Stora, France's preeminent expert on colonial Algerian history and a founding member of Paris's National Museum of the History of Immigration, said in an interview that the outcry over Macron's declaration has highlighted the ways in which, at least in this election, the past remains present. "For many people, colonialism has always been a distant abstraction, a peripheral problem," he said. "But no one today who is honest can see it that way anymore. The question of immigration is a central question in our society and in many ways, the question." So many of the problems in French society today, Stora said, stem from the aftermath of France's colonial history - and the French state's struggles to integrate immigrants from across the once-expansive French empire. "If you don't know the history of Algeria, you cannot understand France in 2017," he said. This year's election has widely been regarded as historic, with both principal candidates representing parties outside the center-left and center-right that have governed the country since 1958. Many even have pondered the degree to which this election represents a departure from the statist model envisioned by Charles de Gaulle, with a president as a powerful executive who embodies the dignity of the nation. For some, however, the prospect of a National Front victory at the presidential level is the opposite of a new development. "When you place them within the framework of the continuity of French history, you cannot find one single new element brought by the Le Pen family and their movement," Zeev Sternhell, a prominent historian of French fascism, said in an interview. "This is classic hard-right nationalism with the usual xenophobia, the hatred of the 'other' and the cult of the people against the elite." That ideology, Sternhell added, has been a constant in French history since 1789, manifesting throughout the 19th century. It appeared, Sternhell said, in episodes such as the "Dreyfus affair," when a Jewish military captain was wrongly accused of treason, and later during the Vichy government in World War II, when a long-dormant far right capitalized on military defeat to take power. A Le Pen victory in 2017, Sternhell said, "would be an anti-Enlightenment and anti-liberal revolution." For Rousso, who recently was detained in the United States during President Trump 's "travel ban," one of the many issues at stake in France's election is the politics of memory - especially complicated in a diverse society that blends a multitude of immigrant experiences. "A principal challenge for the next president of the republic will be to try and find a way to reconcile different memories," he said. "And more importantly, divided memories." In the meantime, he said, the past is here to stay. If you live in the United States, there is a nearly one-in-four chance your tap water is either unsafe to drink or has not been properly monitored for contaminants in accordance with federal law, a new study has found. In 2015, nearly 77 million Americans lived in places where the water systems were in some violation of safety regulations, including the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, according to the report released on Tuesday from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental advocacy group. It's not only that some tap water has high levels of lead, nitrates, arsenic or other pollutants, said Mae Wu, a senior attorney with the council's health program. It is that too often, a lack of reporting means residents cannot be sure whether drinking water is contaminated or not. The issue is not new; tap water safety violations across the United States have been reported again and again and again. More Information In other developments Thousands of Flint, Mich., residents have been warned that they could lose their homes if they don't pay outstanding water bills - even as the city has just begun replacing lead-tainted pipes after a contamination crisis linked to a dozen deaths. Warning letters were mailed to 8,002 residents in April, according to the city, a few weeks after state officials ended a program that was paying the majority of their water bills. The Michigan attorney general has dropped a misdemeanor charge against a Flint official who cooperated in a criminal investigation of the city's lead-contaminated water. Mike Glasgow was running the water plant in 2014 when Flint dropped out of a regional water system and began using untreated water from the Flint River. The water corroded old lead pipes and fixtures, and poisoned the water supply. Glasgow had complained to state regulators that the water plant wasn't ready. He still was accused of failing to perform duties required of a certified water plant operator. From wire reports See More Collapse The new study is an attempt to tell the big-picture story, Wu said, as a backdrop to the piecemeal reports coming out of towns and cities across the country. These include the story of a sinkhole outside Tampa, which opened up in September, leaking contaminated water and endangering a major aquifer; Florida's Department of Environmental Protection took weeks to notify nearby residents. Or Jim Hogg County, Texas _ between Laredo and McAllen _ where thousands of people were exposed to high levels of arsenic in their drinking water for years, according to a report last year from the Environmental Integrity Project. Or Flint, Mich., where sky-high levels of lead in tap water were widely publicized in 2015 - led not by the EPA, but by Flint residents who enlisted allies including Marc Edwards, a scientist at Virginia Tech University. The council's report found that there were around 80,000 reported violations of drinking water safety regulations in 2015. Of those, more than 12,000 were "health-based" violations, or cases that involved actual contamination problems. In addition, the council said, "repercussions for violations were virtually nonexistent. Nearly nine in 10 violations were subject to no formal action." The report, which relied on data collected by the EPA itself, includes a list of 12 states with the most water safety violations based on population; it is topped by Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If we're lucky, a good idea survives on its own merits, despite the slings and arrows of adversity. Such seems to be the case with the idea for a data science institute the University of Texas System proposed for Houston and then jettisoned in the face of opposition from Houston's legislative delegation, Gov. Greg Abbott and the University of Houston. Now, Mayor Sylvester Turner and businessman Tilman Fertitta, the outspoken chairman of the UH System Board of Regents, have agreed to work together to keep the idea alive. "If Houston wants to remain a global leader in energy, aeronautics, health care and education, we also need to be a leader in data science. And the world's premiere data science center needs to be right here in the city of Houston," Turner said in his annual State of the City address last week. Fertitta said the University of Houston would be "excited to sit down and collaborate" with Rice University, Texas Southern University, the Texas A&M University System and UT. The expressions of cooperation, however welcome, don't guarantee that the ambitious UT plan for the 300 acres it purchased near the Texas Medical Center will come to fruition. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that Fertitta and Houston-area lawmakers leaped into a victory dance when UT System Chancellor William McRaven announced that UT would not be pursuing a proposal crafted after a year of study by a task-force of Houstonians. The task force proposed creating a consortium of universities, national laboratories, industry and research institutions that would explore applications and implications involving so-called Big Data. The focus was to be the role of Big Data in three areas that reflect the city's strength - energy, health care and education systems. McRaven, a dynamic former admiral and Navy Seal best known for directing the successful raid resulting in the death of Osama bin Laden, apparently didn't fully appreciate the need to nurture the tender psyches of elected officials and - to be fair - to make sure they were fully informed. He also should have been more forthcoming with UH officials. Perhaps a chastened chancellor will be more effective, particularly with expressions of support in hand from the mayor, Fertitta and the Houston business community. While McRaven is on radio silence right now, his UT regents should provide him with cover. They need to join the mayor and publicly urge the chancellor to get the project back on track. Those regents should urge the governor, who initially opposed the Houston project, to rethink his opposition. State Sens. John Whitmire and Sylvia Garcia and state Rep. Carol Alvarado - UH alums all - need to be more progressive. While we admire Whitmire's doggedness in defending his side, we would strongly urge him to reconsider his insistence, for example, that UT sell the $215 million Houston property and build the institute elsewhere. A vision this expansive needs room for growth. "We cannot let this opportunity slip through our fingers because the initial approach was wrong," said Turner, who's also a UH alumnus. He's right about that. Fortunately, he and Fertitta and many other Houston leaders, notably Houston developer and former Metro chairman David Wolff, recognized a good idea when they saw one. The Houston Ship Channel, the Texas Medical Center, NASA - it happens to be the Houston way. Consider it appropriate that a visit from Down Under had Donald Trump flipping upside-down on health care. "You have better health care than we do, but we will have great health care very soon," Trump told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a black tie gala Thursday evening. The president was remarking on the American Health Care Act (AHCA), or Trumpcare, which the House of Representatives had just passed. And you know what? He's absolutely right. Australia does have better health care than we do. It is a universal health care program called Medicare - it covers everyone and is paid for by income taxes. If you listened to Trump on the campaign trail, you'd think that he's advocating for a similar plan. After all, he promised insurance for everybody. The Trumpcare bill that passed the House does the exact opposite. It cuts health care coverage for millions of Americans and uses the leftover cash to give a trillion-dollar tax cut to the rich. You have to wonder if Trump, as the Aussies like to say, has a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock. Or as conservative columnist George Will wrote last week: "It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump's inability to do either." Perhaps the president simply doesn't know what, exactly, he was celebrating as the White House hosted an impromptu bash for the Republicans who passed Trumpcare. But those representatives - like Houston's Republican delegation of Ted Poe, John Culberson, Kevin Brady, Michael McCaul, Randy Weber, Pete Olson and Brian Babin - knew exactly what they voted for. They voted to slash insurance subsidies for the middle-class and cut Medicaid spending for the poorest among us. They voted to remove lifetime caps for people who get their insurance through work - opening the door to medical bankruptcy that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, had firmly shut in 2010. They voted to remove protections for people with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes, alcohol or drug addiction, mental health issues, pregnancy or even injuries inflicted through domestic violence. They voted for a bill opposed by the American Medical Association, the AARP, the American Cancer Society and the list goes on. They voted without waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to calculate the bill's total cost and policy outcomes, and without holding any public hearings. It would be easy to point out the hypocrisy of a Republican Party that spent the entire Obama administration accusing Democrats of passing their health care bill in a rush - a bill that faced 79 different hearings over one-and-a-half years. But accusations of hypocrisy don't matter in today's politics. Neither do the shouts of shame that protesters hurled at Congress on Thursday. Politics is about power. And even if Trumpcare goes nowhere in the Senate, its passage by the House shows that our representatives used their power to gut basic, life-saving services for the sake of a tax cut. It's as if the middle-class is just another resource to be squeezed and exploited for the profit and pleasure of our nation's wealthiest. We have no illusions about the flaws of Obamacare, but those flaws stem from its reliance on for-profit insurance companies to provide medical coverage for the sick and needy. Health care in the rest of the developed world looks more like Australia - a universal program funded by taxes. So let's play back the tape from Thursday's black tie gala: Maybe Trump is onto something. The silence is deafening. As members of the Texas Legislature debated the so-called 'Sanctuary Cities' bill, none of its backers claimed it to be constitutional. Given the hours of heated discourse in both the House and Senate, this is curious to say the least. The bill, as passed by both the House and Senate, forces local law enforcement to detain and hold those folks the federal government believes have questionable immigration status. There are no warrants involved. No court orders. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just calls or emails and says, "Keep this guy in jail while we check him out." The measure would also allow local law enforcement to demand "papers" from anyone they want. Arizona tried this, got a federal court to give a tentative OK, then withdrew it in a settlement with immigrant rights groups. Jailing people without probable cause clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge in Illinois has already found a similar provision to be unconstitutional. ICE, Judge John Z. Lee ruled, "seeks to detain subjects without a warrant." Seems pretty clear. His ruling is on appeal and does not apply to all states. This is all a matter of public record. Some lawmakers, activists and journalists have noted the questionable constitutionality of the anti-sanctuary measures. During debate in the Senate last week, Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, questioned it, too. Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the measure's sponsor, couldn't bring himself to answer the challenge. "If that be the case, let the courts figure it out," Perry said. Why bother the courts? The people of Texas see this for what it is. Let's read the evidence in the light of the famous Sherlock Holmes story, "Silver Blaze." In the tale, Holmes solves the murder of a horse trainer when he finds that a nearby watchdog did not bark that night, concluding that it must then have been an inside job by someone familiar with said doggy. Why aren't the dogs barking loudly that their anti-sanctuary measures are constitutional? Perhaps it is because they are actually familiar with our Constitution. They know the measure's unconstitutional, so why bark about it? In fact, the Quorum Report, an Austin political newsletter, is reporting that staffers within the Texas Attorney General's office are now quietly passing the word that they cannot defend the measure on constitutional grounds. If conservative lawmakers aren't trying to put a law on the books that will stick, what are they doing? There are a couple of possible answers to this question, and both are unsettling. Lawmakers could simply be pandering to bigoted voters. These lawmakers could then brag at election time that they voted for a draconian, punishing law that targets Latinos. They could even shout about "activist" judges when their law was overturned. That, of course, would be deeply cynical. Surely no respectable lawmaker would do such a thing, right? So, what else could they be up to? It could just be a public relations stunt aimed at intimidating certain citizens. The fear instilled by these new attacks on people with brown skin is real. Young citizens may have a grandmother whose papers aren't in order. These children keep their heads down out of fear of calling attention to their family. Such attention could lead to the deportation of the abuelita Some of us know families in just this circumstance. Voting, of course, means not keeping one's head down. Is it possible this is all just another voter suppression campaign? The federal courts have found six times now that Republican lawmakers intentionally discriminated against minorities in election laws. Are extremist Republicans at it again? Even U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, not known as a champion of civil rights, seems to see through the charade. He told a group of mayors that only political jurisdictions refusing to talk with ICE are violating the law. In other words, what Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP lawmakers call sanctuary cities aren't sanctuary cities at all. And that would make this hateful show all just a doggone shame. Smith is a former Chronicle reporter who is now senior strategist for Progress Texas, a liberal advocacy group. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly confident, saying, 'We will win' Results in the Kansas governor's race remained too close to call as Gov. Laura Kelly clung to a 14,000-vote lead over Attorney General Derek Schmidt. FlowLight provides a signal about a worker's status, switching from green to red when you shouldn't be disturbed by colleages. Having been tested with around 450 employees it appears to work and the majority of users want to continue to use it. When a programmer is 'in the zone' deeply involved in coding a complex algorithm then a trivial interruption can be very costly, both in the time needed to recover your thread or in mistakes that are caused by forgetting what you planned to do. All in all, being disturbed while programming is really bad. Indeed, Mike James goes as far as saying (in On the Unhappiness of Software Developers) being serially interrupted while coding is what makes him most unhappy I should know this as I'm a repeat offender. Making a seemingly innocuous comment to a colleague who is programming, or worse a simple request, is enough to break a train of thought that is difficult to recover. FlowLight, is a desk light that switches between green and red based on keyboard and mouse activity. According to Thomas Fritz, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia who started work on the invention at the University of Zurich: "The light is like displaying your Skype status - it tells your colleagues whether you're busy or open for a chat." The idea for the FlowLight originated at ABB Inc., a multi-national company, where employees were resorting to putting road safety cones on their desk when they were coding and didn't want to be interrupted. Converting this to an automatic signal was important since once someone is focused on a task, stopping to manually turn on a light, close your office door or put a cone on your desk is disruptive to the work and cumbersome. The results of a trial of FlowLight with 449 employees from ABB in twelve countries, including India, Scandinavia, Vietnam, Poland and Argentina are being presented at CHI 2017, an Association for Computing Machinery conference taking place May 6-11 in Denver Colorado. The study, which was of knowledge workers, revealed that FlowLight reduced interruptions of participants by 46% and raised awareness of the potential disruptiness of interruptions. The led to a change in office culture so that people were more respectful of each other's time. Some employees even reported that the lights motivated them to finish their work faster as being green made them feel as though they were slacking. 80% of participants in the trial stated their intention to keep using the FlowLight after the trial period and in fact even more of them (85%) were still using it two months later. One limitation of FlowLight's use with programmers rather than the wider group of employees on which it was tested, who were described as knowledge workers, is that keyboard and mouse activity might be a poor indicator of being hard at work. You can be staring into space trying to come up with an elegant algorithm or poring over a listing (or scrolling slowly down a screen) trying to locate a bug. This has already been recognized by the team and Fritz and his PhD student Manuela Zuger from the University of Zurich, have recently tested a more advanced version of the FlowLight with companies in Vancouver to determine whether it can be improved by using biometric sensors to detect heart rate variability, pupil dilation, eye blinks or even brainwave activity. All of these indicators would probably be relevant to programmers and an earlier study co-authored by Thomas Fritz has already indicated that biometrics can help predict code quality, see Wire Up The Programmer To Avoid Bugs. Whether programmers would want to work laden with biometric sensors is, however, another question and just having the additional ability to manually turn a light from green to red, and vice versa, would probably be sufficient. More Information Reducing Interruptions at Work: A Large-Scale Field Study of FlowLight by Manuela Zuger, Christopher Corley, Andre N. Meyer, Boyang Li, Thomas Fritz, David Shepherd, Vinay Augustine, Patrick Francis, Nicholas Kraft, Will Snipes Related Articles On the Unhappiness of Software Developers Wire Up The Programmer To Avoid Bugs To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. Comments Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info Multiple Fires Set in North Adams School Firefighters prepare to enter the smoky Sullivan School. The cafetorium where the largest fire was set. Seen in February, the room was being used for storage. A firefighter breaks a window to release smoke. Note the four fire extinguishers. It's not known where they came from. Smoke spreads through the parking lot. Firefighters worked in teams inside the building to track down and douse multiple fires. Burnt materials pulled out of the cafetorium. PreviousNext NORTH ADAMS, Mass. Multiple fires were apparently deliberately set throughout Sullivan School on Friday night. "There was more than one fire on more than one level," Fire Director Stephen Meranti said late Friday after firefighter has spent some two hours tracking down the blazes and ventilating the multilevel elementary school. The state fire marshal was called to investigate and state police were also at the scene. Meranti said nothing was being ruled out. However, he was sure it was not electrical the department had been responding to a number of calls related to alarms and wires after heavy rains blew through in the afternoon. Mayor Richard Alcombright, who was at the scene for a time, said he would be awaiting the results of the investigation by the state fire marshal and the city's police force, and will assess the damage. The call came in shortly after 8 p.m. of smoke on the roof of the school, which is tucked away off Kemp Avenue. That was confirmed, according to scanner reports, by a member of the Stamford, Vt., Fire Department. Heavy smoke could be seen through the windows of the lobby. When the doors were opened and the windows in the cafetorium smashed, dark smoke billowed out of the building about 8:30. No flames could be seen from the outside but firefighters found and doused fires as they searched the interior of the vacant building. "It's very manpower intensive, it's not a very big fire but because of the size of the building and trying to search the entire building, and try to extinguish the fires as they went along. it was a pretty involved operation," Meranti said. Firefighters used three thermal imagers one man holding and others on the team following to track down the fires in the smoke-filled building. The four-story masonry building, constructed in the mid-1960s as East School to answer the city's baby boom, has been empty for nearly two years since the opening of Colegrove Park Elementary School. The $51,000-square-foot structure is for sale but has been used for storage by the School Department. The School Department has been securing the building and there has been a number of acts of vandalism in breaking windows. Those are have been boarded up but Meranti said there were a couple of spots on Friday night that someone could have gotten into the building. There were also four fire extinguishers lined up on the left pole of the lobby portico. Those were there when firefighters arrived and Meranti said it is not known who left them. The fire director said some of the materials still inside the school were burning in the fires. The largest was in the cafetorium in the front of the building where stacks of boxed up ceiling tiles were stored by the stage. He said there was a lot of smoke damage in the building and that the department was still forcing smoke for affected areas. A lot of the damage, particularly in the cafetorium, was to the materials being stored there. Once the extent of the situation was realized, all off-duty firefighters were called in and Adams Fire Department covered the city's station. North Adams Ambulance Service provided water and supplies; Clarksburg sent a truck to fill air bottles. "We went through a lot of bottles because there's a lot of areas to cover," Meranti said. He said firefighters would be at the building for the rest of the night. It was not clear when more information would be available. "This is an active investigation," he said. North Adams Authority Reviewing Sales Option for Heritage Park NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The Redevelopment Authority on Friday reviewed an agreement to sell Western Gateway Heritage State Park and the adjacent Sons of Italy property. Thomas Kren's Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum was planned to go into the long Building 4 at Western Gateway Heritage State Park. But since the initial press conference announcing the project nearly 15 months ago, the concept has grown beyond the tight confines of the existing historic park. Officials with for-profit museum looked south to the former Sons property purchased by the Redevelopment Authority several years ago to ensure parking for the park. An update last month laid out the museum plans, which still includes a "museum of time" in Building 4, the current Hoosac Tunnel museum, a distillery and related retail establishments. The park also includes the North Adams Museum of History and Science and Freight Yard Pub; Northern Berkshire Community Television oved out of its location last year. The review of the draft option was taken in executive session and the authority board came into open session after an hour of discussion to vote to adjourn. Mayor Richard Alcombright said the authority "went through the options line by line and made some recommendations to attorney [Michael] MacDonald who will then make some edits and go back to the other folks." MacDonald was retained by the authority last month to negotiate on its behalf. The city solicitor, John Derosa, sits on the board of the North Adams Partnership, a partner in the development of Heritage Park with EMRCA. Alcombright anticipated meeting again on May 11. He earlier said details still need to be ironed out with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Department of Housing and Community Development, both of which have stakes in the 32-year-old park. The property, he said, includes everything from West Main Street south to Apkins scrap yard. Heritage Park was established in the 1985 in a National Register Freight Yard District, preserving buildings that had become rundown as the use of rail was reduced in the decades after World War II. It's one of several parks across the state designed to celebrate the state's heritage, particularly its industrial and manufacturing past. The Heritage Park System was developed under Gov. Michael Dukakis, now a partner along with former Gov. William Weld, in the model railroad museum. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Say Bordeaux and you think of hearty, expressive red wines or sweet Sauternes. A region steeped in history dating back to Eleanor of Aquitaine, you might even think the wines are pricey with nothing new to offer. But in fact the first grape variety planted in Bordeaux, in 1736, was sauvignon blanc. And Fiona Juby, the UKs market consultant for the Bordeaux Wine Council, points out: Its a common misconception that Bordeaux wines are all grand crus and expensive. The vast majority sit in the 6 to 20 bracket, making Bordeaux wines more accessible to the average consumer. The majority of wine being exported is of the more affordable style, offering superb quality and value for money. With so much diversity, Frances largest wine region is increasingly focusing on still, dry white wines, made from sauvignon, semillion, muscadelle and sauvignon gris. The grapes are blended in countless combinations and from a vast range of different terroirs, creating dry whites varying from gluggable to complex. Younger styles are refreshingly crisp and fruit forward, while the premium whites, such as those from Pessac Leognan, see some oak and have a rich mouthfeel and a nutty complexity to complement the fruit. Recommended The Italian sparkling wine better than prosecco Bordeaux also produces impressive rose wines made from merlot and cabernet sauvignon grapes, as well as clairet, one of the regions oldest and often forgotten wines. Clairet is a very light red but enjoyed as a more full-bodied rose. Compared to rose production, maceration times can be up to two or more days instead of a few hours, producing wonderfully aromatic wines with ripe strawberries, raspberries, cranberries and blackcurrants, giving a rich, round and velvety style with low tannins. Back in the 13th century, all reds were actually clairets, and this is where claret, our word for Bordeaux reds, comes from. Less well known in the UK, clairet is definitely worth tracking down. The Dordogne and Garonne rivers divide the vineyards of Bordeaux, and with 6,300 wine growers, its easy to lose your way through the different styles. And with such a strict classification structure, some excellent dry whites made in unexpected appellations, such as medoc or sauternes, are released under the generic Bordeaux appellation, so its a good idea to experiment until you find your favourites. And while the finest vintages of Bordeaux reds are out of most peoples price range, young wine makers such as Charlotte Molinari from Chateau Pont de Brion, in Graves, are making lighter, more modern styles thirst-quenchers, that you would happily enjoy with a plate of charcuterie. Young wine makers are bringing the regions reputation up to date inspiration that can also be seen in sweet Bordeaux wines. Chateau Dauphine-Rondillon, in Loupiac, is making wonderfully elegant, modern styles with refreshing acidity and minerality that dont need to be saved for the cheese course. A glass of its 2007 Cuvee DOr with a starter of salmon tartare, smoked herring or even a bowl of wasabi peas is a great way to begin your evening. So, help Bordeaux in its quest to dust off its intimidating Old World reputation. Try one of these they all stand up well to the newer, trendier wine regions. 2016, Chateau de Rouquette Sauvignon Blanc 7.91 exc VAT per bottle (minimum order is one case) Chateau de Rouquette a blend of 80 per cent sauvignon blanc and a drop of semillon is the best-selling white wine at Bruno Loubets Grain Store restaurant in Kings Cross. The grapes are macerated on their skins for 18 hours on nitrogen to preserve their aromatic potential, giving a clean, crisp and zesty wine. Buy it here 2014, Chateau Pont de Brion, Graves 30.35, The Oak N4 Chateau Pont de Brion, in Graves, has been producing wines for generations. Now Charlotte Molinari, the fifth generation of the family, is leading the way, producing wines passed down from her father as well as creating her own new range. In keeping with family tradition, the Pont de Brion is a blend of two-thirds semillon and one-third sauvignon. Call 020 7684 1294 2016 Chateau Couronneau 10.75, Vintage Roots From the biodynamic estate of Chateau Couronneau, this fresh and lively blend of sauvignon blanc and sauvignon gris has a good balance of citrus and sweet mango against a backdrop of flinty minerality. A long maceration and low-temperature fermentation keeps the flavours intense but never overdone. Buy it here Sainsburys Taste the Difference Bordeaux Rose 7, Sainsburys Predominantly merlot grapes with 20 per cent cabernet sauvignon, Sainsburys Taste the Difference rose is full of fresh strawberry, raspberry and grapefruit on the nose, a touch of juicy sweetness on the palate and a crisp finish. Perfect with nibbles, tapas or simply enjoyed on its own in the sunshine. Surprisingly good. Buy it here 2009, Chateau de la Huste Fronsac 25.50, Le Bon Vin Chateau de la Huste, the 18th-century property in Saillans, Fronsac, has an enchanting beauty that flows into Brigitte Rulliers merlot-based wines. The 40-year-old vines are grown on one of the highest parts of the town, giving the name La Huste (or bump in old French) to the wine. The 2009 is a blend of 90 per cent merlot and 10 per cent cabernet franc, garnet red in the glass and endlessly delicious with freshly crushed raspberry, black cherry, plum and vanilla spice with smooth tannins and refreshing acidity. Wonderful to enjoy now, pair this medium-bodied wine with a hearty beef stew, roast lamb or chicken. Buy it here 2015, Chateau Vignol Clairet 12.99 +VAT, Shawbury Vintners Made from merlot and cabernet sauvignon grapes in the valley of the Entre-deux-Mers, Chateau Vignols 2015 clairet is full-flavoured and low-tannin. It is incredibly food friendly and so very versatile paired with canapes, tapas, main courses and spicy dishes. Bridging the gap between red and rose, the fuller style means it also stands up to red meat dishes where rose can sometimes fall short. Buy it here BBR Good Ordinary White 9.25, Berry Bros & Rudd A great go-to wine, this 100 per cent sauvignon blanc is equally comfortable enjoyed as a midweek tipple or at a smart weekend event. Fresh and crisp on the palate with none of the harsh green vegetal notes that can become tiresome. Very dependable in terms of quality and price, its worth buying a few extra bottles to squirrel away for later. An ideal partner for goats cheese, as well as asparagus. Buy it here 2015, LExuberance du Clos Cantenac Rose 19.95, Private Cellar From Saint-Emilion, better known for its reds, LExuberance du Clos Cantenac is a delicate rose petal pink in the glass. With white stone fruit, succulent wild red berries, caramel and cream notes, each sip feels silky and elegant. Well structured, with a hint of smoky spice and balanced acidity, it works well with food or thirstily quaffed by itself as a sundowner. Buy it here {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter This week Deutsche Bank released its annual "Mapping the world's prices" report, cataloguing the cost of goods and services in a cross section of the world's biggest and most powerful cities around the world. In 2017, for the first time, Deutsche Bank has included a ranking of the quality of life in 47 cities around the world. The ranking is based on eight sub-indexes compiled by crowd-sourced information database Numbeo, which create a broad picture of what it is like to live in different cities. The indexes are: Purchasing Power, Safety, Health Care, Cost of Living, Property Price to Income Ratio, Traffic Commute Time, Pollution, and Climate. Broadly speaking, the cities that rank highly are in the northern hemisphere in developed western economies, although several cities from nations like South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand make the list, with one even at the very top. Check it out below: Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Health Check email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Government is expected to be told to make it considerably easier for gay men to donate blood in a dramatic winding down of the ban implemented amid the 1980s Aids epidemic. An advisory committee is understood to have decided that the current deferral period, in which men cannot give blood within 12 months of having sex with another man, should be reduced to three months. The change is in line with improved testing measures, which can establish whether someone has a blood infection, such as HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C or syphilis, inside three months. Gay rights activists, who want to get rid of the blanket deferral period entirely, have hailed the potential shift in policy as a major step towards a fair and equal system. Ethan Spibey, who founded Freedom to Donate after being turned away when trying to give blood as a thank-you to the donor who saved his grandfathers life, and who was an adviser on the decision, said: There is a consensus that there will be a drastic reduction and its fantastic to hear that. Three months would be a world-leading policy. Eventually we want a blood donation policy that is fair and tailored to each donor, but its all about moving towards that model. Although we get that heterosexual people are statistically less likely to contract a blood infection, we cant say every gay man is a high-risk individual. We need a policy that recognises what is high risk without applying it to entire homogeneous groups. In all credit to the Government, they have realised this is something that needs looking at. The move to reduce the deferral period is supported by a working group of the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO). An official report will be passed to SaBTO in the summer, which will then give its recommendation to the Department of Health in July. Gay and bisexual men were asked to stop giving blood in 1983, in the throes of panic surrounding a surge in HIV infections in the gay community, and a lifetime ban was implemented in 1985. Public Health England statistics estimate that 3,320 of the 6,095 people who were newly infected with HIV in 2015 were gay or bisexual, and 1,373 were in London. The same report said 2,360 men and women probably contracted HIV via heterosexual activity, which, activists say, indicates that high risk and promiscuous sex aggravates infection levels, rather than homosexual activity. Four people are reported to have contracted HIV through blood transfusions since 1985. The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe Show all 15 1 /15 The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 15. Italy Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 14. Macedonia The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 13. Poland Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 12. Liechtenstein The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 11. Lithuania The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 10. Latvia This content is subject to copyright. The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 9. San Marino The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 8. Moldova The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 7. Belarus Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 6. Ukraine Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 5. Monaco The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 4. Turkey Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 3. Armenia The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 2. Russia Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 1. Azerbaijan Getty/AFP The 1980s ban was reduced to a one-year period in England, Wales and Scotland in 2011, and in September 2016 in Northern Ireland. It also applies to people travelling back from high risk countries, people who have sex with prostitutes, people who get tattoos and piercings, and drugs users who inject. Under pressure, the Department of Health announced a review in November 2015, and last June, the SaBTO Donor Selection Working Group held its first meeting. Dr Moira Carter, of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, who is on the working group, said: The deferral period is going to shorten considerably and [by] more than I thought. Its very frustrating for gay men who are monogamous, even in long-term relationships, who are married and have children, to not be able to give blood. What is not acceptable is to make the deferral period longer than the risk period and to do so would be discriminatory. Transplant physician Dr Chas Newstead, chair of the working group, said: The issue is the so-called window period, which is the time in which you could both contract the infection and infect another person before testing negative, and because of this, it means three months is very safe. However Dr Newstead said there was a minor concern that any new blood infection, similar to the Zika and Ebola pandemics, could manifest itself in the gay community first, and take the blood service by surprise. He also said the group was wary that its new recommendation should be simple, and not confuse blood donor workers, and that there was still the non-compliance issue. The 2015 UK Blood Donor Survey of 65,051 people found one per cent lie about their circumstances on their forms. Seventy-four men who have sex with men, out of 22,065, said they had been dishonest to the blood service. The NHS Blood and Transplant Service says it needs 200,000 blood donors every year. Labour MP and shadow minister Cat Smith, who recently raised questions in the Commons about when the review would be completed, said: It seems daft to refuse blood from people where there is no medical evidence to show they are any more high risk. It also seems particularly ridiculous to still have a 12-month deferral period given the screening techniques that we have. A spokesman for LGBT charity Stonewall said: Stonewall continues to push for a fair blood donation system in Britain that screens donors based on risky sexual behaviour and does not discriminate based on sexual orientation. Currently, gay and bi men who have not engaged in high-risk sexual behaviour cannot give blood if theyve had sex with a man in the past year. A system that asks everyone the same questions to accurately assess risk of infection would increase blood stocks and create a safer supply. The Department of Health, in a statement first issued in February, defended the 12-month deferral period. It said: If a person donates blood having very recently acquired an infection they may still be in the window period where the disease cannot be detected by the tests used for screening donated blood. If unidentified, the donation may be transfused, resulting in transmission of infection to one or more patients. Some infections such as hepatitis B have window periods exceeding several weeks, and on a precautionary basis SaBTO recommended 12-month deferral. This period is considered sufficient to allow for the complete clearance of hepatitis B in a recovered individual, and those individuals who do not recover will then be detected by the tests. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The EU has toughened its stance on the fate of three million EU citizens in the UK, demanding even for those with no proof of residency are allowed to stay after Brexit. The lead negotiator for Brussels insisted red tape must not be allowed to stand in the way of EU nationals remaining with full rights. Individuals legally residing in the UK today must remain residents after withdrawal, including in those cases when people have no documents to prove residency, Michel Barnier said. Juncker takes swipe at UK stating 'English is losing importance' The same goes for UK nationals in the 27. No one should be confronted with a mountain of red tape, he told a State of the Union conference in Florence. The demand was made as Theresa May was accused of having put forward no proposals for EU citizens future rights despite wanting the controversy settled next month. Meanwhile, some EU nationals applying for residency have been rejected because they lack travel documents or did not take out comprehensive sickness insurance, when the requirement was barely known. It underlines the complexity of an issue that has the potential to wreck the Brexit negotiations at the outset, after the EU said no exit deal was possible without a solution on citizens. Two clear differences have already emerged: the EUs insistence that citizens must still be allowed to bring in relatives and that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) must enforce any agreement. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative cabinet minister, immediately condemned a free for all which would allow anyone to claim they had been living in the UK without proof. The point about controlled immigration is that you control immigration and that means you need to prove residency, he told The Times. I don't even know why Mr Barnier is talking about this because it is a matter for the UK government. He should shut up and wait for the negotiations. Mr Barnier warned the Conservatives that agreeing to the EUs demand for rights that were directly enforceable by the ECJ would be a red line before trade talks can begin. Post-Brexit, the principle of a single applicable law should continue to apply, he said. We will not discuss our future relationship with the UK until the 27 member states are reassured that all citizens will be treated properly and humanely. Otherwise, there can be no trust when it comes to constructing a new relationship with the UK. Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, said Britain had yet to put forward any proposals of its own, despite insisting the issue was a priority. The row deepened after a stark warning that some EU citizens applying to stay permanently in Britain will be left in limbo for a decade unless the system is streamlined. It will take around 11 years to process millions of expected residency requests from worried EU nationals at the Home Offices current workrate, the Institute for Government (IfG) said. Britain has refused to grant the 3m EU nationals in the UK the right to remain and work after Brexit until the 1.1m British ex-pats in the EU are given the same guarantee. Brexit Secretary David Davis has admitted EU citizens and British ex-pats in the EU are suffering anxiety. A flight of badly-needed NHS staff is feared. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One third of people are prepared to vote tactically at next months general election in order to prevent a hard Brexit, according to an exclusive poll for The Independent. Supporters of such a strategy said the findings showed that tactical voting could deny Theresa May a landslide on 8 June despite the Conservatives triumph in last Thursdays local elections. The survey by ORB found that 46 per cent of people who backed Remain in last years EU referendum would consider voting for someone who was not their first choice in order to stop a hard Brexit. This high figure suggests that the country has not united behind Ms Mays version of Brexit outside the single market and customs union. Election trail round-up: May 6 Some 37 per cent of Remainers would not consider voting tactically. Only 16 per cent of Leave supporters might do so to prevent a hard Brexit, while 64 per cent would not. Overall, 30 per cent of people would consider voting for a different candidate to stop a hard Brexit. They include a majority (51 per cent) of 18-to-24-year-olds a sign that a campaign to mobilise young people could pay dividends. But the over-45s are heavily against the idea. Some 44 per cent of Liberal Democrat and 40 per cent of Labour supporters at the 2015 election might vote tactically to prevent a hard Brexit, ORB found. But only 19 per cent of Tory 2015 supporters might. Overall, 50 per cent say they would not consider doing so. Some anxious Labour candidates who were MPs in the last Parliament now believe that tactical voting, or local pacts with the Greens and Liberal Democrats to ensure a single anti-Tory candidate, offer the best hope of saving their seats following Labours crushing defeat on Thursday. The Tories and Ukip won a projected 43 per cent share of the national vote between them, while Labour and the Lib Dems secured a total of 45 per cent. Despite that, the Tories sweeping gains have put Ms May on course for a huge majority next month. Caroline Lucas, the Greens co-leader, said the local election results were a wake-up call for the progressive left. The party announced that it is standing aside in Oxford West and Abingdon to give the Lib Dems a clear run against the Tories, and has stood down in Labour-held Ealing Central and Acton. Although the Lib Dems will not contest the Brighton Pavilion seat being defended by Ms Lucas, party leader Tim Farron has rejected the Greens call for a nationwide progressive alliance. Jeremy Corbyn has also said Labour will not be supporting such an alliance. UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images There are moves to encourage pro-Europeans to vote tactically. Tony Blair has urged people to vote for candidates prepared to keep an open mind on Brexit. Gina Miller, the businesswoman whose court action forced Ms May to win Parliaments support before starting exit talks, has raised 367,000 through crowdfunding to oppose extreme Brexit in the biggest tactical voting effort in our history. Open Britain, the successor to the Remain campaign which now urges a soft Brexit, has issued a list of 20 key seats where it opposes Brexit-supporting candidates and another 20 where it is backing opponents of hard Brexit. A spokesperson for Open Britain said: This poll shows that there is a real desire to prevent the Prime Minister from having a blank cheque to pursue hard Brexit in the next Parliament. Having absorbed Ukip, many will be very concerned about what this means for the direction of the Government. Recent outbursts by the Prime Minister make leaving with no deal more likely, which would be a disaster for our country. For those who want to campaign against hard Brexit, Open Britain is suggesting seats where their activity could make a critical difference. Neal Lawson, chairman of the democratic left group Compass which has launched a campaign for a progressive alliance, said: The local elections show the progressive vote is split and only mass tactical voting offers any hope of electoral success. This is what worked in 1997 when the Tory vote was squeezed. We have five weeks to fight the Tories, not each other. When Tony Blair won his landslide 20 years ago, Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters voted tactically to end 18 years of Conservative rule. There was also an unofficial pact in which Labour and the Lib Dems made little effort in seats where the other party stood a chance of defeating the Tories. A Lib Dem source said: We would strongly welcome people voting tactically to prevent a hard Brexit, because that means voting Liberal Democrat. We are the only party opposing that hard Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs through the voting lobbies to support the Conservatives disastrous plans. So just as Lib Dem voters know we are the only party fighting to stay in the worlds most lucrative market and to give people a say on the final deal, we need to explain to Labour voters that this time they need to lend us their votes to give them the strong opposition Britain needs. ORB interviewed 2,006 adults across the UK on 3-4 May. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Labour has signalled it would raise income tax on salaries above 80,000, while claiming the Conservatives plan hikes for much lower earners. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell will attempt to outflank the Tories by unveiling what he is calling a personal tax guarantee of no increases for 95 per cent of taxpayers. Labour has already said it would not raise VAT, but will now extend that promise to cover National Insurance contributions and income tax for people earning below 80,000 a year. It is the strongest hint yet that the partys manifesto will contain a pledge to increase the burden on earners above 80,000, whom Mr McDonnell has declared to be rich. It comes as Labour makes an audacious bid to be the party of low taxes by ruling out increasing the National Insurance rate which the Conservatives have refused to do. Speaking in East London on Sunday, Mr McDonnell will say: The choice at this election is very clear on tax, as there is currently only one party which is committing not to raise taxes on middle and low earners and that is the Labour Party. If Labour is elected next month, we will guarantee that for the next five years there will be no tax rises for income taxpayers earning less than 80,000 a year, no hikes in VAT, and no changes in your National Insurance contributions either. Mr McDonnell will accuse Theresa May of choosing to run and hide whenever she is asked if she is planning to increase taxes, if re-elected. The Prime Minister has ruled out a VAT hike, but her manifesto is expected to drop George Osbornes guarantee of no rise in National Insurance contributions. That would free the Conservatives to have another push at weakening the advantages enjoyed by the self-employed, which had to be abandoned in the Budget. The Labour Party is now the party of low taxes for middle and low earners, while the Tories are the party of tax handouts for the super-rich and big corporations, Mr McDonnell will add. The Tories are hoping that the British people can be kept in the dark about what the tax increases they are planning will mean for those on middle and low incomes, who have had to bear the brunt of seven years of austerity. The announcement suggests Labour will, in its manifesto, pledge to restore the 50 per cent top rate of tax scrapped by Mr Osborne, who lowered it to 45p. However, if introduced at earnings above 80,000 it would hit many more people than the original 50p rate, which only kicked in at 150,000. The Liberal Democrats have been by far the boldest on income tax, vowing to slap 1p on all rates currently 20p, 40p and 45p to raise an extra 6bn a year for the NHS and social care. Until now, Labour has concentrated on reversing corporation tax and capital gains tax cuts introduced by the Conservatives, to fund priorities including 10,000 more police officers. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Jeremy Corbyn will not quit as Labours leader, a key ally has insisted, despite the partys local election battering and near-open revolt from some candidates. Ian Lavery, Labours joint campaigns co-ordinator, went further than his leader in admitting Thursday had produced disappointing results, in town hall and mayoral races. Mr Lavery also admitted some voters were rejecting Mr Corbyn in conversations with Labour activists, even as he insisted not all of them have been negative. Local elections: 60-second round-up Recommended Labour voters want Corbyn to quit immediately if he loses election But he sent out a defiant message to the leaders critics, saying: He is the leader of the Labour Party and will continue as the leader of the Labour Party. Mr Lavery also appeared to blame Andy Burnham for the new Greater Manchesters mayor failure to appear at a campaign rally alongside Mr Corbyn last night, but insisted there was no rift between the pair. People were aware that he was arriving at a certain time and Jeremy did exactly what was expected, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. This morning, The Independent revealed that even a majority of Labour supporters want Mr Corbyn to quit immediately if he loses the general election, according to a new poll. Following the local election mauling with the loss of hundreds of council seats, including in Labour strongholds Mr Lavery was asked if Mr Corbyn might go before the general election, on 8 June. But he said: He has been elected by nearly half a million people twice in the last two years. He is the leader of the Labour Party and will continue as the leader of the Labour Party. Mr Lavery acknowledged: A number of people have mentioned Jeremy and Ive got to say that not all of them have been negative. Weve had some positive response on the doorstep. Several hours after Mr Burnham won his contest by a huge margin, Mr Corbyn went to Manchester for a victory rally but the new mayor was notably absent. The leader explained the absence by saying: I have spoken to Andy and he is already working hard on behalf of the people of Greater Manchester region. However, Mr Burnham was reported to be celebrating his triumph at one of Manchester's trendiest restaurants as Mr Corbyn was speaking to supporters. Ive got to dispel this myth that there is a rift between Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn because there simply isnt, Mr Lavery insisted, adding: Theyre quite good friends. After his defeat in the West Midlands mayoral race, Sion Simon warned that traditional Labour voters were losing faith in the party, because of a loss of traditional Labour values. Philip Johnson, who will be standing in the swing seat of Nuneaton in the general election, said Mr Corbyn is putting off voters after he lost his council seat. And Stephen Kinnock, the MP for Aberavon and son of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, said the results showed a pretty disastrous picture. But Mr Lavery said: I think the more that Jeremy gets out there into the community and speaks to people, knocks on peoples doors, holds rallies and speaks to people face to face, the more that people will warm to him. I don't know how he puts up with the fact that he receives this abuse from a certain section of the media. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Tony Blair is more unpopular with voters than Jeremy Corbyn, according to an opinion poll for The Independent. While one in three people (33 per cent) has a favourable opinion of Mr Corbyn, and 60 per cent an unfavourable one, Mr Blairs ratings are even more bleak, at 21 per cent and 72 per cent respectively. The survey of 2,006 adults by ORB found that 60 per cent of people who voted Labour at the 2015 election have a favourable view of Mr Corbyn, and 35 per cent an unfavourable one. Mr Blair is much less popular among them; only 37 per cent have a favourable opinion of him, while 56 per cent do not. Three in 10 people (29 per cent) believe Labour would be in a better position going into next months election with Mr Blair as leader, but almost twice as many (56 per cent) disagree with this statement. Among 2015 Labour voters, 37 per cent believe the party would be better off under Mr Blair in this election hardly a ringing endorsement of Mr Corbyn. But 51 per cent of them disagree. The former prime minister has returned to the political fray to oppose what he calls Theresa Mays Brexit at any cost strategy. He has ruled out returning to Parliament, admitting: I evoke a lot of disagreement and anger. ORB found that a majority of people (52 per cent) have a favourable view of Ms May, and 42 per cent an unfavourable one. She enjoys such ratings among all social classes, suggesting that her attempt to win over Labours traditional working class supporters is working. The Prime Minister is more popular among over-45s than younger voters. More people between the ages of 18 and 44 group have an unfavourable opinion of her than have a favourable one. However, this age gap may not harm her election prospects as people are more likely to vote as they move up the age scale. The Prime Minister is more popular than Nicola Sturgeon across the UK. Only 28 per cent of people have a favourable view of Ms Sturgeon, and 62 per cent an unfavourable one. Scots are split down the middle about the SNP leader; 49 per cent have a favourable opinion and 50 per cent an unfavourable one. But she is more popular north of the border than Ms May, whose ratings are 36 per cent and 64 per cent respectively. Some 13 per cent of people say they have never heard of Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leader. The same proportion has a favourable opinion of him, and 55 per cent an unfavourable one. Only 23 per cent of the public have a favourable view of Tim Farron, and 52 per cent an unfavourable one. Among 2015 Lib Dem voters, 24 per cent have an unfavourable impression of the partys leader. Ms May will face public opposition if, as expected, she ends the triple lock under which the state pension rises each year by at least 2.5 per cent. Some 43 per cent oppose scrapping it, including 69 per cent of over-65s, while one in three people (33 per cent) supports ending it. Labours pledge to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers was overshadowed by confusion over the partys costings. But the policy itself is popular: it is supported by 77 per cent of the public, including 76 per cent of 2015 Tory voters, and opposed by only 11 per cent. The public supports government intervention in the energy market to keep prices low, an idea which Ms May has been accused of stealing from Ed Milibands 2015 manifesto. When told the proposal was Labours, 68 per cent backed the idea and 15 per cent opposed it. When told it was a Tory plan, slightly more people (73 per cent) supported it and 9 per cent opposed it. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Conservatives will win a healthy but not an overwhelming majority in the general election, an analysis of the results found. On June 9, Theresa May will lead a Government with a Commons advantage of 48 on the basis of snatching hundreds of council seats and a string of mayoral victories, it concluded. The margin would make it much easier for the Prime Minister to force through any Brexit deal she succeeds in striking. Currently, she enjoys a working majority of just 17. Recommended Ukip set for general election hammering after ballot box drubbing However, it would fall far short of the huge victories won by Margaret Thatcher a majority of 144, in 1987 in contrast to many other predictions. The difference is explained by researchers concluding the Tories would have won around 38 per cent of the vote, if there had been elections in every part of the country this week. That score is much lower than the current opinion polls, which have put the Conservatives on 46 per cent 17 points ahead of Labour. Professor Michael Thrasher, an analyst for Sky News, said: This does put them below what the national opinion polls are currently saying. He said Ms Mays party would only enjoy a much-bigger majority if it won around 44 per cent of the vote on June 8, the mark achieved by Tony Blair in 1997. Currently, we dont have them anywhere near that kind of figure hence a reduced estimate of what their majority would have been if this had been a general election, Professor Thrasher added. On his projection, the Conservatives will win 349 seats, with Labour on 215, the SNP on 54 and the Liberal Democrats stuck on their current score of just nine. Nevertheless, the projected national share would still be the Conservatives best in any local elections since 2008 while, at 27 per cent, it would be Labours lowest since 2010. And the figures point to Labour going backwards under Jeremy Corbyn, given that the party was on 31 per cent projected national share in last years local elections. Despite notable Tory success in the Scottish council elections, the huge SNP leads in parliamentary seats protect Nicola Sturgeon against losses, the analysis said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Thousands of Mexicans have reacted furiously after the country's public prosecutor blamed the lifestyle of a young women for her murder. Lesby Berlin Osorio, a 22-year-old student, was strangled with a telephone cord at her university campus in Mexico City reportedly after a night out with friends. The part-time dog-walker was found in a phone booth clutching a dog lead. In the hours after her death, the office of the public prosecutor, which will investigate the murder, put out a series of tweets questioning the victims lifestyle. The tweets appeared to place blame for the murder on Ms Osorio's alleged drinking, poor attendance at university and the fact that she had left home and lived with her boyfriend. One tweet said: She was an alcoholic and a bad student. Another said: She had left home and was living with her boyfriend." A third alleged she had been taking drugs with friends". Following the tweets, people from across Mexico vented their anger on Twitter using the hashtag #SiMeMatan which means if they kill me, speculating on how their personal lives could be used against them if they were murdered. Recommended Thousands of Argentines march to condemn violence against women The hashtag had been used more than 50,000 times, with some women suggesting they could be blamed for going outside the house alone, wearing a short skirt or using birth control. A formal complaint about the prosecution office's tweets has reportedly been filed by a human rights watch group. The offending tweets were deleted, apparently on the instructions of Mexicos head of public prosecution, Rodolfo Rios, who said the messages were inappropriate". He said: The behaviour, private life or social status of a victim should never affect an investigation. Mr Rios did not say which of his staff had written the tweets or if any disciplinary action would be taken against the person responsible. The rate of murder and violence against women in Mexico is among the highest in the world, with 44.9 per cent of women reporting they have experienced violence in the home. As of 2014, Mexico had the 16th highest murder rate of women in the world. Official statistics show that seven women were murdered every day in the country in 2013-14. Thousands of men and women in Mexico have also simply disappeared amid vicious drug cartel violence. Mexicos representative to the United Nations Women has said that the violence against women in the country is a pandemic. A protest on the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) campus, where Ms Osorio was murdered, was set to take place on Friday. Ms Osorio's boyfriend, Jose Luis Gonzalez, who worked as a university janitor, has been arrested and is being questioned about the murder, according to local media. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A host of US television networks have refused to run advert celebrating Donald Trumps first 100 days in office was not aired by ABC, CBS, NBC, following CNN's refusal to do so. ABC, CBS and NBC have joined CNN in declining to show the commercial, which features a graphic of the Presidents supposed accomplishments and blames the fake news media for not reporting on it. The faces of news anchors from major networks were superimposed over the the words 'Fake News'. Four journalists were used in the graphic: Andrea Mitchell of NBC, Scott Pelley of CBS, George Stephanopoulos of ABC, Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. A spokesperson for ABC told The Independent:"We rejected the ad because it did not meet our guidelines. We have previously accepted Trump ads and are open to doing so in the future. In a statement, CNN defended the network's decision by stating that mainstream media is not "fake news" and therefore the ad is "false". Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the President and his consultant said in a press release: Apparently, the mainstream media are champions of the First Amendment only when it serves their own political views. "Faced with an ad that doesn't fit their biased narrative, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC have now all chosen to block our ad. This is an unprecedented act of censorship in America that should concern every freedom-loving citizen." Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad The campaign spent $1.5 million (1.16 million) to air the ad, which highlights Neil Gorsuchs appointment to the Supreme Court, proposed tax cuts and the President's executive order in support of the Keystone pipeline. It has run on both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. The Independent has contacted NBC, CNN and CBS for comment. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was warned by senior members of President Trumps transition team about the risks of his contacts with the Russian ambassador weeks before the December call that led to Flynns forced resignation, current and former US officials said. Flynn was told during a late November meeting that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyaks conversations were almost certainly being monitored by US intelligence agencies, officials said, a caution that came a month before Flynn was recorded discussing US sanctions against Russia with Kislyak, suggesting that the Trump administration would reevaluate the issue. Officials were so concerned that Flynn did not fully understand the motives of the Russian ambassador that the head of Trumps national security council transition team asked Obama administration officials for a classified CIA profile of Kislyak, officials said. The document was delivered within days, officials said, but it is not clear that Flynn ever read it. The previously undisclosed sequence reveals the extent to which even some Trump insiders were troubled by the still-forming administrations entanglements with Russia and its enthusiasm for a friendly relationship with the Kremlin. The failed efforts to intervene with Flynn also cast harsh new light on a national security adviser who lasted just 24 days on the job before revelations about his discussions with Kislyak and misleading accounts of them forced him to resign. Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, declined to comment. Providing the Kislyak bio was seen by Obama officials as part of an effort to make sure the new team had a full appreciation of the extent of the threat from Russia, a former US official said. The perceived need to impress this point upon Flynn added to the growing concerns among senior members of the Obama administration, who at the time were still coming to grips with the scale of Russian interference in the 2016 election and were worried that any punitive measures they imposed might be rescinded when Trump was sworn in. The request for the Kislyak document came from Marshall Billingslea, a former senior Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration who led Trumps national security transition team from November until shortly before Trumps inauguration. Billingslea, who declined requests for comment, was nominated this week for a high-level position in the Treasury Department overseeing efforts to disrupt terrorist financing. A former deputy undersecretary of the Navy, Billingslea was among a small group of experienced national security hands on the Trump transition whose entrenched scepticism toward Russia seemed at odds with the pro-Moscow impulses of Flynn and the incoming president, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Trump personnel and decision-making. Others included Samantha Ravich, a deputy national security adviser to Vice President Richard B. Cheney; and Christopher Ford, a former State Department official who now works as a special assistant on counter proliferation issues in the Trump White House. Sergey Kislyak worked hard during the election campaign to reach out to members of the Trump team ( Getty ) Ravich declined to comment. A spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment from Ford. The Trump administration has taken a harsher tone toward Russia in recent weeks after the Syrian government, which is backed by Moscow, used chemical weapons on civilians. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last month accused Russia of being incompetent or complicit in the attack, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a man for whom veracity doesnt translate. But Trump has pointedly refused to employ such language himself and this week renewed his scepticism that Russia was responsible for a hacking and propaganda campaign targeting last years presidential race a position held by the president that is at odds with the unanimous view of US intelligence agencies. Asked during a recent CBS interview whether he believed the allegations of Russian meddling, Trump said, Ill go along with Russia. Couldve been China, couldve been a lot of different groups. The unusual steps taken by transition officials working with Flynn suggest that internal tensions over Russia began almost immediately after Trumps victory in an election that Moscow sought to help him win, according to a declassified report from US intelligence agencies. Billingslea was selected in early November to head the effort to assemble a national security team for Trump in Washington, leading a landing team that was based in offices at the General Services Administration headquarters but also had space in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. The effort was hampered by confusion in the elections aftermath, friction among factions competing for influence with Trump, and communication difficulties created by an arrangement in which the landing team was based in Washington but Flynn and his deputy, K.T. McFarland, spent almost all of their time at Trump Tower in New York. In an attempt to improve coordination, the group scheduled a November meeting in Washington, a session attended by Flynn as well as about a dozen aides and staff members from other departments, officials said. Others also participated by phone. As Flynn went through his upcoming appointments, he mentioned that he was being inundated with requests for meetings from diplomats. Most would have to wait to get access to Trumps designated national security adviser, a position that would give Flynn enormous influence in the White House. Flynn then revealed that hed already scheduled a conversation with Kislyak. Meetings with foreign counterparts are commonplace for incoming national security advisers. But the reference to Kislyak raised eyebrows among officials who had spent much of their careers treating Russia as an adversary and avoiding encounters with Russian officials who might be engaged in espionage. Several also worried that engaging with Kislyak, even if appropriate, had only political downsides for Trump, whose effusive praise of Putin during the campaign had fanned suspicion about his associates ties to Moscow. Billingslea warned Flynn that Kislyak was likely a target of US surveillance and that his communications whether with US persons or superiors in Moscow were undoubtedly being monitored by the FBI and National Security Agency, according to officials familiar with the exchange. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who led the Defence Intelligence Agency, would presumably have been aware of such surveillance. Billingslea then said that he would obtain a copy of the profile of Kislyak, officials said, a document that Billingslea urged Flynn to read if he were going to communicate with the Russian envoy. Flynns reaction was noncommittal, officials said, neither objecting to the feedback nor signaling agreement. Shortly thereafter, during the week of Nov. 28, Billingslea and other transition officials met with lower-level Obama administration officials in the Situation Room at the White House. At the end of the meeting, which covered a range of subjects, Billingslea asked for the CIA profile. Can we get material on Kislyak? one recalled Billingslea asking. Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad Days later, Flynn took part in a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks has confirmed that both Flynn and Jared Kushner, Trumps adviser and son-in-law, took part in that session, which was not publicly disclosed at the time. Its not clear whether the Kislyak profile was shared before that meeting. Flynn continued to communicate with Kislyak, however, exchanging text messages and cell phone calls, culminating in a conversation intercepted by US intelligence agencies just as the Obama administration was announcing election-related sanctions on Russia. The Dec. 29 measures included the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian spies, the closure of two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, and economic sanctions against Russian intelligence services and officials. Kislyak would have been keenly interested in whether the Trump administration, just weeks from taking office, intended to enforce these measures. After denying for weeks that he had discussed the sanctions with Kislyak, Flynn altered his story in early February when told that The Washington Post planned to publish a story saying he had done so, citing multiple sources familiar with the contents of the Kislyak call. Flynn was forced to resign days later and may face other consequences for his dealings with Russia. The FBI has interviewed Flynn about the conversations with Kislyak. Flynn is also under investigation by the Pentagons inspector general over $45,000 he accepted for appearing at a 2015 event in Russia and $530,000 his former consulting firm was paid for work tied to the Turkish government. The CIA bio on Kislyak was placed in a room in the Trump transition offices set up to handle classified material. Officials familiar with the document said that even if Flynn had read it, there was little in it that would have triggered alarms. The file spanned three or four pages, describing Kislyaks diplomatic career, extensive involvement in arms negotiations, and reputation as a determined proponent of Russian interests. It noted that he routinely reported information back to Moscow and that any information he gathered would be shared with Russias intelligence services. But the file did not say Kislyak was a spy. During Flynns fleeting tenure as national security adviser, he had several follow-on conversations with Kislyak, and at one point Flynn proposed a lunch, officials said. The Russian Embassy called repeatedly to collect on that offer, officials said, until Flynn was fired and the calls stopped. Washington Post Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The US is trying to push through a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia ahead of Donald Trumps visit to Riyadh, a report has revealed. The President is set to visit the Vatican, Israel and Saudi Arabia this month, as part of his maiden international trip. Mr Trump's administration is keen to repair the relationship with the regional power following tensions caused by the Obama administrations nuclear deal with Iran. The arms sales contracts are likely to comprise of Lockheed Martin Co program packages with a Terminal Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system worth $1bn (770 million), a C2BMC software system, and a package with satellite capabilities. Provided by BAE Systems PLC, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and an M109 artillery vehicle are also under consideration as part of the deal. In addition, an $11.5bn (8.86bn) package made up of four multi-mission surface combatant ships, which had been approved by the US state department in 2015 but never made it to final contract, will also be revisited. If this deal goes through, it will be the first sale of a small surface warship to a foreign power in decades. Two US officials told Reuters that a US-Saudi working group met on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the details of the trip, including financing for military equipment. Additionally, there will be $1bn (770 million) worth of munitions, including armour-piercing Penetrator Warheads and Paveway laser-guided bombs. These contracts had been suspended by the Obama administration because of Saudi Arabias military campaign in Yemen, which caused the deaths of thousands of civilians. Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad A US official told The Washington Times that the deal which was halted under former president Obama is ready for clearance. All major US weapons sales are subject to congressional review. Human Rights organisation Amnesty International said Donald Trump could be complicit in war crimes, and urged the US president not to approve arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A US police officer has been charged with murder after a black teenager was shot dead in a car in Texas. Roy Oliver fired his rifle at a car full of teenagers leaving a party in Dallas, fatally wounding 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. Police had been called to the address to investigate a complaint of underage drinking and spotted the car leaving. Police claimed the teenagers' car was backing up toward officers "in an aggressive manner", but later said body camera video showed the vehicle actually driving away from the officers. Oliver fired at the car, piercing the front side passenger window and hitting Jordan who was sitting in the front seat, his familys attorneys claim. He was shot in the back of the head as his 16-year-old brother was driving away from the house. Jordan had been in the car with his two brothers and two other teenagers when the incident occurred. It took a few moments for the other passengers to notice that he was slumped over in his seat. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The sheriff's office said an arrest warrant had been issued on Friday based on evidence that suggested Oliver "intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death." The former Balch Springs officer was later released after posting bail at the Parker County Jail in Weatherford, 95 miles west of Dallas. His bond had been set at $300,000 (230,000). The investigation into the shooting "will continue and does not conclude with the arrest," sheriff's spokesperson Melinda Urbina said. Texas police officer Roy Oliver faces a murder charge in the shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards (AP) Records show that Oliver was briefly suspended in 2013 following a complaint about his conduct while serving as a witness in a drink-driving case. Personnel records from the Balch Springs Police Department show Oliver was suspended for 16 hours in December 2013 after the Dallas County District Attorney's Office filed the complaint. Oliver also was ordered to take training courses in anger management and courtroom demeanour and testimony. The records also included periodic evaluations that noted at least one instance when Oliver was reprimanded for being "disrespectful to a civilian on a call." That evaluation called the reprimand an isolated incident and urged Oliver to be mindful of his leadership role in the department. The complaint from the prosecutor's office said the office had a hard time getting Oliver to attend the trial, he was angry he had to be there, he used vulgar language that caused an assistant district attorney to send a female intern out of the room, and he used profanity during his testimony. "In an email from one of the prosecutors he states you were a 'scary person to have in our workroom,"' then-Balch Springs Police Chief Ed Morris wrote in the suspension findings. Oliver joined the Balch Springs department in 2011 after being an officer with the Dalworthington Gardens Police Department for almost a year. A statement from Dalworthington Gardens officials on Wednesday included details of that and previous intermittent employment as a dispatcher and public works employee between 1999 and 2004. He received an award for "meritorious conduct" as a dispatcher and there were no documented complaints or disciplinary action in either his work as a public safety officer or dispatcher, according to the statement. Between his employment as a dispatcher and officer in the Dallas suburb, Oliver was in the US Army, rising to the rank of sergeant while serving two tours in Iraq and earning various commendations. After the Dallas County Attorney's Office complained about Oliver's behavior, Morris suspended the officer for 16 hours, which Oliver completed by forfeiting two sick days. Additional reporting by AP Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It took street artist Iaco Viana one minute to whip out a spray can and daub the surname Doria seven times across wall in Sao Paulo. It took four minutes for a police officer to arrive and take Viana away in handcuffs a swift response to the provocative launch of the citys war on graffiti, led by its new mayor, Joao Doria former host of O Aprendiz, Brazils version of The Apprentice. For this was not just any wall weeks before Doria himself had donned orange overalls and a face mask to help spray grey paint over 15,000sq m of street art along that same stretch of Avenida 23 de Maio. The fate of a number of murals, which were commissioned by the citys previous mayor, has sparked a debate over the world-famous graffiti scene in South Americas biggest city and its place in the cleaner landscape imagined by Dorias Beautiful City programme. The mayor has since conceded that the move to repaint that busy avenue was too hasty. He insists that his fight is not with the citys colourful street art but with a style of aggressive tagging known as pichacao. The angular, runic font has conquered swaths of Sao Paulos landscape as street artists scale buildings and landmarks, undetected, with paint rollers and spray cans in hand, drawing the ire of many who embrace other forms of graffiti. A muralist is an artist and has our respect, Doria has said, highlighting his plans to commission new works of street art. Pichacao is aggression. It is not a social problem. It is mental, criminal. Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Show all 10 1 /10 Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Yes we spray-can: mural depicting a pichador tagger and a graffiti artist nods to the debate about their competing offerings Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti I woz ere: pichadores tag as many locations as they can and deny being connected to gangs Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Picture of doria, grey: Iaco Viana was arrested after spraying the mayors name on a greyed-out segment of Avenida 23 de Maio Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Read the runes: pichacao uses a runic-inspired typography that is applied on an impressive scale Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Outrage: fear of getting caught adds to the adrenaline rush for taggers Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti My space: for most pichadores self-promotion getting their name on to as many surfaces as possible is key Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Fearless: There are estimated to be 5,000 picadores in Sao Paolo alone Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Cover blown: Viana may have been arrest but his daring could inspire others Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Tag sport: the runic-inspired script is also to be found on heavy-metal bands album covers Reuters Sao Paulo clamps down on graffiti Dedication: no day is the same when youre a pichador Reuters Doria says police have caught more than 100 people writing on walls illegally in Sao Paulo since he took office in January. He has established a fine for pichacao of up to 10,000 real (2,500), or 10 times Brazils monthly minimum wage. But practitioners, known as pichadores, say that will do little to dissuade them from climbing high-rises and motorway overpasses to leave their mark. What other artist puts their safety at risk for what they do? says a pichador known as Du. All art involves freedom of expression, but pichao is the expression of freedom. Youre telling the world, Here I am. You cant ignore me. Most pichadores write little more than their street name or the name of their crew, and forgo social commentary in rare instances. Who is Doria? one scrawled in a tag. Pichadores often compete for the highest or most audacious tags, but few would deface anothers work. Although many view the practice as a sign of urban decay, those who take part say pichacao has no ties to gangs in Sao Paulo. Some in the graffiti world question the distinction between other street art and pichacaoa, which has been featured in the Berlin Biennale, at the Cartier Foundation in Paris and at Sao Paulo Fashion Week. Originally inspired by heavy metal album covers of the 1980s, the cryptic calligraphy has won admirers in the global graffiti scene, including photographer Martha Cooper, who has documented the subcultures New York tradition for four decades. Im a big fan of what theyre doing in Sao Paulo. Theyve invented their own alphabet, says Cooper, who was introduced to the old guard pichadores on a recent visit to Brazil. Its not acts of random vandalism at all, she adds. Its a way of making your environment your own. Reuters Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An email has been sent to staff at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing that all their agencys televisions will show Fox News, apparently by order of the Trump administration. Journalist Paul Thacker tweeted a screengrab of the message, but an FDA spokesperson denied there had been any such order. It reads: Please excuse me for sending this out to your entire group via your listserv, but I was alerted by a member in your group and I wanted to let everyone know that the reason for the change from CNN to Fox. The reason for the change is that a decision from the current administration administrative officials has requested that all monitors, under our control, on the White Oak Campus, display Fox News. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I am unable to change any of the monitors to any other news source at this time." Debunked myths and fake news stories Show all 25 1 /25 Debunked myths and fake news stories Debunked myths and fake news stories Nasa releases statement over rumours that asteroid will destroy Earth Nasa has just debunked a recent rumour of a giant asteroid due to crash into the Earth in September. Internet conspiracy theorists have been saying that an asteroid will hit our planet sometime between September 15 and 28, destroying the American continents. Acting in its role as space-news fact-checker, Nasa has issued a statement refuting the lot of it. "Thats the rumor that has gone viral now here are the facts," it said in a press release entitled 'NASA: There is No Asteroid Threatening Earth' Alamy Debunked myths and fake news stories Video of scorned lover who cut ex's belongings in half was actually an advert for a law firm Revenge is a dish best served cold, or viral on YouTube as seemed to be the case for one German ex-husband who uploaded a video of himself using power tools to saw his possessions in half so he could literally give his former wife half of everything owned. The video, titled For Laura, quickly went viral reaching nearly 5.8 million views with the description Thank you for 12 'beautiful' years, Laura! You've really earned half. Although the course of true love never did run smooth, it did seem that the jilted lover was taking revenge to a whole new level with the angst-ridden video. Now, however, all has been explained. The video was not created by a jealous ex, but filmed by a media-savvy legal company looking to expand its customer base Youtube Debunked myths and fake news stories McDonald's claims the 'secret menu' is fake The rebuttal comes following an amusing spoof article, published by the Lucky Peach, seemingly offering a smorgasbord of hidden options for the discerning customer. Among the delights apparently on offer are the Mommie Dearest (five burgers speared through with coat hangers) and the Burmese Python (complete with sock). Other options include the the Derrida a postmodern confection consisting of a raw potato and the remains of a few chips and a partially eaten bun PA Debunked myths and fake news stories Dead shark pictures might be fake Photographs of an enormous Tiger shark fished off the eastern Australian coast have emerged on social media. NSW newspaper The Northern Star claims the four metre catch was made by a local fisherman known only as Matthew. The images first emerged after Byron Bay resident Geoff Brooks posted them to his Facebook timeline. However, Mr Brooks has subsequently admitted he did not take the images but continued to claim that the photographs are real. Social media users have criticised the images, with some claiming they are fake Geoff Brooks, via Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories A fried rat had been served in KFC Facebook went into full "wtfffffffffffff" mode after a man posted a picture of what he claims was a fried rat he had been served in KFC. As news of the supposed Kentucky Fried rat was reported and spread, the incident took a dramatic turn with Dixon sealing it in a bag and freezing it as evidence. KFC has denied it is in the business of plunging rats into boiling hot oil however, and claims the whole thing is a 'hoax'. A DNA test followed, and shows that the nugget, although distinctly rodent-shaped, was just chicken all along. Devorise Dixon/Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories British scientists clone dinosaur An extraordinary story of the worlds first cloned dinosaur got a lot of traction on Twitter and inspired alarmist comparisons to Jurassic Park in March this year. It was also, not unexpectedly, a complete fake, including completely fabricated quotations from 'experts' and a picture that is actually of a very young kangaroo. Debunked myths and fake news stories Mohammed Islam - A boy who 'made $72m' in his lunch break A New York schoolboy who reportedly made $72 million (46 million) by trading stocks during his lunch breaks has admitted making the whole story up. Mohammed Islam, from Queens, originally told the New York Magazine he started dabbling in penny stocks aged just nine and developed a life-long passion for trading that was paying off. But in a later interview with the New York Observer, he said the whole story was fake and he had not made any money at all. Debunked myths and fake news stories Worlds oldest tree has been accidentally chopped down by loggers in Peru Several websites carried the news, seemingly without realising the entire story appears to be a hoax. It first appeared on the World News Daily Report a fake news website carrying articles including Isis launches satellite and Pterodactyl sighting in New Guinea terrorises villagers. Debunked myths and fake news stories Alex from Target has teenage girls swooning Alex from Target went from being a cute, Bieber-esque cashier to an Internet sensation in less than 24 hours with a little help from social media. The internet memes featuring the Texas teenager in his Target uniform flooded Twitter and the hashtag #AlexFromTarget, a reference to his employee tag, began trending as teen girls swooned over the 16-year old. The "cute checkout guy" photograph earned him 500,000 new Twitter followers and landed him an interview with the popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Alex from Target, his full name is actually Alex Laboeuf, said he was overwhelmed and was surprised by his new found fame. But a Los Angeles start-up known as Breakr has claimed responsibility for the Alex from Target phenomenon that has taken the internet by storm - insisting it was part of an intricate marketing experiment. Debunked myths and fake news stories Ryan Gosling adopted a baby A Father's Day Facebook post from "Ryan Gosling" detailing how he adopted an orphaned baby for a year attracted Likes from almost one million users. This was despite it having all the hallmarks of a hoax, including a link for users to "save thousands of children and meet me while doing it" actually redirecting to the purchase page for a Gosling t-shirt. Facebook Debunked myths and fake news stories Macaulay Culkin dead hoax How to reassure the world youre still alive after the internet reports that youre dead? Fake your own murder on Instagram, like Macaulay Culkin. The actor posted the above image via his band Pizza Undergrounds account yesterday, following several false rumours that hed passed away. One particularly misleading story, originally posted on MSNBC.website (not to be confused with the real MSNBC), read: Sources are reporting that Macaulay Culkin, best known for his role as Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, has been found dead at the age of 34. Debunked myths and fake news stories 'Crabzilla' - A fifty-foot crab dwelling somewhere off the English coast A satellite picture of the so-called crab, aptly dubbed Crabzilla, has gone viral after first surfacing on Weird Whitstable, a website for the supernatural curated by illustrator Quinton Winter, which deals in phantoms, mysteries, tall tales, and artefacts. The shadowy figure of a colossal crustacean, apparently spotted in the murky waters of Whistable, in Kent, dwarfs boats and cars on the pier it lurks besides. The invertebrate expert Paul Clark at the Natural History Museum in London has branded the photo a hoax. Photo courtesy of Weird Whitstable http://www.weirdwhitstable.co.uk Debunked myths and fake news stories Ebola 'risen from the dead' zombie story The story of dead Ebola victims rising from the dead, with the first "picture" of one of the zombies that has gone viral, (if it weren't glaringly obvious) is a hoax. The image on the article, while impressive, is in fact doctored picture of a zombie from the film World War Z. It appears to have taken an image of one of the films lab-zombies, and merged it with this picture of a realistic movie sculpture from Schell Studios, which the messageboard 8chan pointed out. Debunked myths and fake news stories 'Nasa Confirms Six Days of Darkness in December 2014' Satirical news site Huzlers.com has been spreading fake story about upcoming six days of darkness, far and wide on the web, taking in numerous Facebook and Twitter users and encouraging them to post about what theyre going to be up to during the six days of darkness. The story on the vaguely official looking website titled Nasa Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014! claims that an incoming solar storm is to blame, causing "dust and space debris to become plentiful and thus block 90% sunlight. This is false. Although solar storms certainly are real phenomena (they occur due to fluctuations in the Suns magnetic field) theyre not like terrestrial storms that can blow up dust and dirt. Reuters Debunked myths and fake news stories Meet Thea, Norway's 12-year-old child bride A Norwegian campaign highlighting the issue of child marriage has gained global attention after a blog seemingly written by a child bride-to-be went viral. The blog, apparently written by 12-year-old girl 'Thea', charts her thoughts and feelings towards her impending marriage to 37-year-old Geir. However, the blog was carefully created by Plan, an international aid organisation working on strengthening the girls rights, to bring home the issue of child brides. Courtesy of Plan Debunked myths and fake news stories Obsessive selfie-taking classified as a mental disorder An article claimed that the American Psychiatric Association (a real body) had classified new mental disorder selfitis as the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of ones self and post them on social media. The origin of the article should have tipped off readers, however - it first appeared on a site whose owners admit that when writing [...] we spice it up with figments of our imagination. Debunked myths and fake news stories Shipwrecked British woman saved by Google Earth The extraordinary story of Gemma Sheridan, a woman from Liverpool saved by Google Earth after seven years stranded on a desert island, whipped up a storm among social media users. Aside from the fairly incredible details involved in the story, a wide range of issues showed it is quite clearly a hoax - including pictures and whole swathes of text borrowed from other (real) reports. Digital Globe via Waffles at Noon Debunked myths and fake news stories Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is dead The Rock became the latest victim of a death hoax this month after rumours circulated that the action star had died while filming a dangerous stunt for the upcoming Fast and Furious 7 on Thursday. The bogus report was created by Global Associated News, a website responsible for some of the most outlandish recent fake celebrity deaths, and went viral on Twitter and Facebook. Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Vaccines can cause autism A serious myth, this, and one which has repeatedly been rejected by scientific studies. The latest of these came earlier this year when a study that examined brain tissue samples donated by children who had died showed autism may actually develop in the womb during pregnancy. One scientist said the findings 'call sharply into questions other popular notions about autism'. Rex Features Debunked myths and fake news stories Homeopathic remedies have medicinal properties Proponents of homeopathy claim that it stimulates the body to heal itself, and is based on the principle of like cures like. But an Australian scientific body became the latest earlier this year to carry out a study showing that it actually works no better than a placebo. That story came after a homeopathic 'remedy' was actually recalled in the US because it contained traces of real medicine. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Chinese child ruined father's passport This picture of a Chinese passport apparently defaced by a four-year-old boy went viral around the world, despite the fact that it seems to clearly be a hoax. The picture was originally posted on Chinese social networking site Weibo by a person claiming to be the father, known as Chen, with a plea for help. But from the uniform thickness of the lines (which actually go off the page to the right) to the covering-up of identifying details, the 'drawing' looks a lot like an adults handiwork on Photoshop or MS Paint Weibo Debunked myths and fake news stories MH370 was caused by aliens/Snowden/the Bermuda Triangle Since the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished on 8 March with 239 people on board, the story has sparked a host of myths and conspiracy theories. While some of these theories as to how the flight could have just disappeared have not been discounted by authorities, others have tended towards the unusual, bizarre and downright ridiculous. One Malaysian politician claimed the Bermuda Triangle must have moved to Vietnam. A 'citizen reporter' said radar picked up a UFO. Another said there was a complicated link to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. None are likely to be true. Reuters Debunked myths and fake news stories Chayson Basinio, 2, snatched from French supermarket Police in France investigated a report in April that a two-year-old boy had been kidnapped in the French town of Moulins. But they later called off their search operation after they discovered he only existed on social media. The 'aunt' who reported the disappearance of 'Chayson Basinio' was arrested for 'reporting an imaginary crime or offence'. AFP/Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Morrissey joined Twitter Morrissey fans rejoiced earlier this week when the verified Twitter account @itsmorrissey posted its first tweet since joining in 2009, saying: 'Hello. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Planet Earth, are you there? One can only hope...' It seems that the Twitter blue tick seal of approval doesnt mean as much as it used to, after Morrissey confirmed in a statement that he does not have an account on the social media site. Getty Images Debunked myths and fake news stories Chinese people ate doves at wedding, sued ugly wives and only sing numbers from takeaway menus In November last year, the western media was bombarded by a host of stories involving Chinese misrepresentations. One involved a Chinese man suing his wife 'because he was ugly' and winning - but was later debunked by an expat magazine in Shanghai. Here, Nyima Pratten writes about how our media depict Chinese people in an unreasonably negative way Getty Images The email was sent to workers at the Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), the branch that regulates medical products. An FDA spokesperson denied people had been ordered to watch Fox News, telling ThinkProgress: "There was no directive or memorandum from the Administration that went out to employees about broadcast news channels displaying on monitors in common areas throughout the FDAs White Oak campus." However an anonymous CBER employee told BuzzFeed News that a lot of staff were very upset about the change. Another FDA staff member went further, expressing fear that having a right wing news source playing in our hallswill drive away some people on the left who are already suspicious about the FDA being a shill for big pharma. Donald Trump has made no secret of his dislike for CNN, referring to the news organisation as fake news on several occasions, and to the media as "the enemy of the people". The administration even went so far as to block the news outlet, along with BBC, LA Times and New York Times from a media briefing earlier this year. On one occasion, the US president wrote a scathing tweet about the media: "The Fake News media is officially out of control. They will do or say anything in order to get attention - never been a time like this!" However, his words about Fox News have been positive, and he recently congratulated the network for its "unbelievable ratings hike". The Independent has contacted the FDA for comment. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Former Trump adviser Carter Page has declined to provide records of his communications with Russians to the Senate intelligence committee, saying that anything of note has already been recorded by former President Barack Obamas administration. Mr Page, who advised President Donald Trump on foreign policy matters during the 2016 campaign, is the subject of investigation by the FBI and congressional committees looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. In a letter sent to the Senate intelligence committee, Mr Page blasted the request for his contacts saying that the US government had already been keeping tabs on him. I suspect the physical reaction of the Clinton/Obama regime perpetrators will be more along the lines of severe vomiting when all the facts are eventually exposed regarding the steps taken by the US Government to influence the 2016 election, Mr Page wrote in response to an April letter he received from the Senate committee. Recommended Donald Trump makes 33 visits to Trump branded properties in 15 weeks Mr Trump and those loyal to him have charged that Mr Obama wiretapped the Trump campaign. Those claims have been denied by the FBI repeatedly. A joint statement from the top senators on the intelligence committee, chairman Richard Burr and ranking member Mark Warner, said that they will continue to investigate Russias influence in the 2016 election whether Mr Page cooperates or not. Three days ago, Carter Page told Fox News he was cooperating with the committees investigation into Russian activities surrounding the 2016 Election, the statement said. Today we have learned that may not be the case. The two senators continued to say that Mr Page had previously indicated to the committee that he wanted to cooperate with the investigation and that doing so would only help to resolve claims that he colluded with Russians. Federal investigators believe that he was knowingly or unknowingly being cultivated as a Russian asset by Russian spies. Mr Page denies all these allegations. The Senate committee had previously indicated that it would take further steps if Mr Page refused to provide the documents they asked. The committee also sent requests for records to Trump advisers Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big - and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you. That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's sister to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors, renewing questions about the Kushner family's business ties to China. Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure what's known as an investor visa. The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to invest in US projects that create jobs and then apply to immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses. But President Donald Trump's vow to crack down on immigration, as well as criticism from members of Congress, has led to questions about the future of a program known here as the " golden visa." The EB-5 has been extremely popular among rich Chinese who are eager to get their families - and their wealth - out of the country, though the fact that some move their money out illegally has made the program unpopular with the Chinese government, too. In the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton on Saturday, Chinese investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case the rules change. "Invest early and you will invest under the old rules," one speaker said. The woman identified as "Jared's sister" was believed to be Nicole Kushner, who is involved in the family business, not Dara Kushner, who generally stays out of the spotlight. But the woman's face was not clearly visible from the back of the ballroom, where reporters were told to remain. Saturday's event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects US companies with Chinese investors. The tag line on a brochure for the event: "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States." Qiaowai is working with Kushner to secure funding for Kushner 1, a real estate project in New Jersey. Promotional materials tout the buildings' proximity to Manhattan and note that the project will create more than 6,000 jobs. "This project has stable funding, creates sufficient jobs and guarantees the safety of investors' money," one description reads. Ivanka Trump is seated with her husband White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, right, during a dinner with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago, 6 April, 2017 (AP) Although there was no visible reference to Trump, the materials noted the Kushner family's "celebrity" status. Wang Yun, a Chinese investor who attended the event, said the Kushner family's ties to Trump, via son-in-law Jared, were a part of the project's appeal - but also a source of concern. "Even though this is the project of the son-in-law's family, of course it is still affiliated," Wang. Wang reasoned that the link to Trump would be a boon if the presidency goes well but could be disastrous if it does not: "We heard that there are rumours that he is the most likely to be impeached president in American history. That's why I doubt this project." Many of the people who attended the event declined to be interviewed, citing privacy concerns, or they were blocked by organisers from speaking to the news media. National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Show all 24 1 /24 National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Joshua Trees in the Mojave Trails, California Encompassing 1.6million acres, this monument includes mountain ranges, sand dunes and ancient settled lava, meaning it is studded with gems and minerals. The Mojave Trails make up 105-miles of Route 66. Kiskamedia-iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Maine This is the Atlantic Oceans first marine national monuments, and covers almost 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England. It was named a national monument in September 2016, shutting off commercial fishermen. The act protects resources and species including whales, deep-sea corals, Kemp's Ridley sea turtles (left), and deep-sea fish. Getty Images National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Bears Ears National Monument, Utah Bear Ears is a 1.3million acre monument characterised by cliffs, plateaus, rock formations, rivers and canyons, and is the site of an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. It was created in December 2016, in what was hailed as a victory by Native American tribes and conservationists but a blow to Republicans who wanted to area open for energy developments. The land is considered sacred to a number of tribes, who visit the area to collect herbs and wood for medicinal and spiritual healing, as well as to perform rituals. Bear Ears is a 1.3million acre monument characterised by cliffs, plateaus, rock formations, rivers and canyons, and is the site of an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. It was created in December 2016, in what was hailed as a victory by Native American tribes and conservationists but a blow to Republicans who wanted to area open for energy developments. The land is considered sacred to a number of tribes, who visit the area to collect herbs and wood for medicinal and spiritual healing, as well as to perform rituals. Getty Images National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Sand to Snow, California Over 240 species of birds and 12 wildlife species that are endangered and threatened live on what the Bureau of Land Management describes as one of the most biodiverse areas of Southern California. Unfolding across 154,000 acres of land, the monument includes thirty miles of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, used for camping, hiking, hunting, horseback riding, and skiing. Flickr/Creative Commons/Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Basin and Range, Nevada This area - which is about twice the size of the city of Los Angeles - gets its name from its typography, which abruptly alternates between mountain chains and flat valleys that are comparable to the moons surface. The monument covers 704,000 and encompasses desert mountains and valleys, as well as Native American rock at and sites. It was designated in 2015 Bureau of Land Management/Creative Commons National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Berryessa Snow Mountain, northern California The monument comprises of 330,780 acres of land, and includes the Cache Creek Wilderness. It was designated as a national monument in in 2015. It is the habitat of animals including bald and golden eagles, black bears, mountain lions, tule elk, black-tailed deer, norther spotted owls, as well as salmon and some of the worlds rarest plants. Native American tribes have lived in the area of 11,000 years. Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Organ Mountains Desert Peaks New Mexicos Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks covers 496,000 acres of land, and includes canyons, mountains and the Chihuahua Desert. It was used to train WWII bomber pilots and crews for NASAs Apollo space program. Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Rio Grande del Norte The Rio Grande del Norte National Monument is made up of rugged plains that are 7,000 above sea level which spread across 242,500 acres of land. The topography includes volcanic cones - including the Ute Mountain which stands at 10,093ft - canyons, and rivers. People have been living in the area since prehistoric times. Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam The monument established in 2009 protects 95,216 square miles water in the Mariana Archipelago, which consists of submerged islands and volcanic sites. Velvetfish /iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Pacific Remote Islands Soldierfish swim off Baker Island, which are part of the Pacific Remote Islands. This collection of islands became the most widespread collection of marine and terrestrial life protected areas on the planet under a single country's jurisdiction when it was designated in 2009. Public Domain National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Papahanaumokuakea, Hawaii Papahanaumokuakea is the worlds largest marine protected area, and is almost double the size of Texas. The remote area stretches 583,000-sq miles, and is home to tuna and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal among others. Public Domain/NOAA National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Upper Missouri River Breaks Designated in 2001, the monument protects badland featuring rock outcroppings, steep bluffs and grassy plains. Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Sonoran Desert The desert has an area of 100,000sq miles and covers parts of Mexico, Arizona, California, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California, and is the habitat of unique plants and animals including the organ pipe cactus. Tonda-iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Carrizo Plain The grassy plain sitting to the northwest of Los Angeles is 50miles long and 15miles wide in some parts. It was designated in 2012 because of its archaeological value. Zeiss4Me/iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Vermilion Cliffs, northern Arizona and southern Utah This monument has an intense red colour thanks to the iron oxide in its deposited silt and dunes. It was designated a monument in 2000. fotoVoyager/iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Ironwood Forest National Monument, Arizona President Clinton declared the Ironwood Forest a monument in 2000. It covers 188,619 acres and is home to endangered animals, plants, as well as the ironwood trees which give it its name. Creative Commons National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Hare Handford Reach, Washington This area is named after the bend in the free-flowing area of the Columbia River. It was designated a monument in 2000. Public Domain National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Canyons of the Ancients Designated a monument in 2000, its 176,056 acres feature archaeologically significant landscapes including the settlement of the Ancient Pueblo people in the 10th century. iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Giant Sequoia In 2000, President Bill Clinton set aside an area around 328,000 of land in central California where giant sequoia trees grow. As he made the designation President Clinton said: "These giant sequoias clearly are the work of the ages. They grow taller than the Statue of Liberty, broader than a bus." pavliha/iStock National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Established as a monument in 2000, the area stretches across over 1million acres of land which has no paved roads or visitor services. It takes its name from the Paiut word meaning tanned elk hide, and features canyons, mountains and buttes. Bureau of Land Management National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah Encompassing almost 2million acres of land, the monument designated in 1996 features platueas, colourful cliffs, and canyons Creative Commons/John Fowler National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump San Gabriel Mountains This monument - established in 2014 - is not on the list of White House monuments under review, but meets Zinkes criteria. It encompasses 246,000 acres of land. Rennett Stowe/Creative Commons National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Rose Atoll marine National Monument The monument, established in 2009, covers 13,400 square miles in the South Pacific Ocean and encompasses a Samoan island. It is the habitat of creatures including rare giant clams and reef sharks. National monuments reviewed by Donald Trump Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada Situated to the northeast of Las Vegas, this monument covers 300,000 of desert land which features rock art, sandstone towers and the habitat of the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise Bureau of Land Management Indeed, though the event was publicly advertised in Beijing, the hosts were exceptionally anxious about the presence of reporters. Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public relations representative asked The Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the "stability" of the event. At one point, organisers grabbed a reporter's phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organisers physically surrounded attendees to stop them from giving interviews. Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a public relations representative, who declined to identify herself, said simply, "This is not the story we want." Washington Post Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} President Donald Trumps hard-fought healthcare victory could backfire, as House Republicans that voted to repeal Obamacare are now vulnerable to backlash from their constituents. The Republicans 217-213 passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) hurts the re-election chances of several representatives who supported the bill, according to the Cook Political Report. The non-partisan election analyst changed its forecast in 20 House districts, deeming each of them more likely than before to be won by a Democrat. The analyst also re-labelled three seats leaning Republican to toss-up. House Republicans' willingness to spend political capital on a proposal that garnered the support of just 17 per cent of the public in a March Quinnipiac poll is consistent with past scenarios that have generated a midterm wave, according to the group. Twenty Republicans voted against the AHCA, which received no support from Democrats. As it became clear during Thursday's vote that the bill was going to pass, Democrats began taunting members of their rival party by singing Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye, the lyrics to a 1969 song by Steam, which is often heard at sporting events. Democrats warned Republicans that they would pay the price in future elections if they followed through with plans to dramatically alter healthcare law. Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad House minority leader, Democrat Nancy Pelosi said the AHCA will provide a great civics lesson for America. Let's face it, as important as we think we are when we're in Congress, most people don't even know who their Congress person is in many places, and now they'll find out, Ms Pelosi said. They'll find out that their Congress person voted to take away their healthcare. Following the vote, the House Democratic campaign arm announced that it would immediately begin launching ads in 30 Republican-held districts, regardless of whether the politicians holding them had voted for the bill. The ads will run on Facebook and Instagram in order to expose what is in this bill and why its a terrible deal for hardworking Americans, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement. This is just the beginning of a robust ad campaign with more to come next week. Mr Trump has emphasised that the Republican bill is a great plan, and says that it will get even better. He has vowed that premiums and deductibles will decrease. Despite passing in the House, the AHCA still faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where several Republicans have said that they will look to write their own proposed law instead of picking up the lower chambers. During the daily White House briefing, deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the Trump administration expects the Senate to make some changes, but we expect the principles and the main pillars of the healthcare bill, as it exists now, to remain the same. She later added that Mr Trump will continue to be hands-on in the process. He was fully engaged on the House side, Ms Sanders said. I expect him to fully engage on the Senate side. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to not be backing a total re-write of the bill. He has assembled a working group to try to find a consensus, and has said that the Senate will wait for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to release its analysis of the AHCA before scheduling a vote. Trumpcare opponents have criticised House leadership for not allowing the CBO to finish analysing how much the AHCA would cost, or how many it would affect, before holding a vote a sign that the leaders were trying to rush the bill through the lower chamber, they said. Meanwhile, Senate health committee chairman Lamar Alexander said in a statement that the Senate will now finish work on our bill, but will take the time to get it right, echoing remarks made by majority whip John Cornyn, who said, We're not under any deadline, so we're going to take our time. Senator John Thune, a member of the leadership team, told reporters that the margin for error is a lot less over here since Republicans have a 52-seat majority and can only lose two votes. That also means that it would take more time to develop a bill, as any senator could potentially thwart a compromise. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The United States Commerce secretary has said that Canadian threats of retaliatory trade actions against the US in response to tariffs on Canadian lumber announced last month are inappropriate. The threats coming from Canadian officials, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said, would not deter America from imposing the tax on Canadian softwood lumbers. We continue to believe that a negotiated settlement is in the best interests of all parties and we are prepared to work toward that end, Mr Ross said in a statement issued by his department, according to Reuters. Recommended Trump and Trudeau clash in phone call over dairy and lumber Canada threatened to increase taxes on thermal coal if they arent able to negotiate a long-term deal with the United States after Americans said that they were planning on increasing the softwood lumber tariffs last mont.h I would like to thank Prime Minister Trudeau for his quick action to look at banning thermal coal exports through British Columbia and his commitment to stand up for B.C. and Canadian forest workers, Christy Clark, the premier of British Columbia, said this week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent her a letter telling her he was considering tariffs. The Canadian government has also said that it is considering levying tariffs on Oregon state lumber products after it said they found existing Oregon business assistance programs that may constitute an illegal subsidy. The USs trade tariff would impose a 20 percent tax on Canadian softwood lumber, affecting about $5 billion in lumber exports from the country. Mr Ross said last month that the tariff would affect 31.5 percent of the US lumber market so its a pretty big deal in terms of the Canadian relationship, he said. US competitors to Canadian softwood providers favour the tariff because they say that the US government effectively offers a subsidy to Canadian firms that American companies are not able to access with existing deals. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Dozens of schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria have reportedly been released. The girls have been kept prisoner for three years since they were snatched from the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014. A government minister, who asked not to be named and is understood to be the father of two of the girls, said 82 had been released, although this number was unconfirmed with other reports putting the number at between 50 and 62. The rise of Boko Haram Show all 20 1 /20 The rise of Boko Haram The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau delivers a message. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the mass killings in the north-east Nigerian town of Baga in a video where he warned the massacre was just the tip of the iceberg. As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the 3 January 2015 attack on the town near Nigeria's border with Cameroon AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People displaced as a result of Boko Haram attacks in the northeast region of Nigeria, are seen near their tents at a faith-based camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Yola, Adamawa State. Boko Haram says it is building an Islamic state that will revive the glory days of northern Nigeria's medieval Muslim empires, but for those in its territory life is a litany of killings, kidnappings, hunger and economic collapse The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nitsch Eberhard Robert, a German citizen abducted and held hostage by suspected Boko Haram militants, is seen as he arrives at the Yaounde Nsimalen International airport after his release in Yaounde, Cameroon on 21 January 2015 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Officials of the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) visit victims of a bomb blast in Gombe at the Specialist Hospital in Gombe. According to local reports at least six people were killed and 11 wounded after a bomb blast in a marketplace in Nigeria's northeastern state of Gombe on 16 January 2015. Islamist militant group Boko Haram has been blamed for a string of recent attacks in the North East of Nigeria The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather at the site of a bomb explosion in a area know to be targeted by the militant group Boko Haram in Kano on 28 November 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram People gather to look at a burnt vehicle following a bomb explosion that rocked the busiest roundabout near the crowded Market in Maiduguri, Borno State on 1 July 2014. A truck exploded in a huge fireball killing at least 15 people in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the city repeatedly hit by Boko Haram Islamists The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram President Goodluck Jonathan visits Nigerian Army soldiers fighting Boko Haram Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Displaced people from Baga listen to Goodluck Jonathan after the Boko Haram killings AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan speaking to troops during a visit to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State; most of the region has been overrun by Boko Haram AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Members of the Nigerian military patrolling in Maiduguri, North East Nigeria, close to the scene of attacks by Boko Haram EPA The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Harams leader, Abubakar Shekau, appears in a video in which he warns Cameroon it faces the same fate as Nigeria AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Nana Shettima, the wife of Borno Governor, Kashim Shettima (C) weeps as she speaks with school girls from the government secondary school Chibok that were kidnapped by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, and later escaped in Chibok The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram South Africans protest in solidarity against the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram and what protesters said was the failure of the Nigerian government and international community to rescue them, during a march to the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Boko Haram militants have seized the town in north-eastern Nigeria that nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from in April 2014 AFP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A soldier stands guard in front of burnt buses after an attack in Abuja. Twin blasts at a bus station packed with morning commuters on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital killed dozens of people, in what appeared to be the latest attack by Boko Haram Islamists, April 2014 The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The aftermath of the attack, when Boko Haram fighters in trucks painted in military colours killed 51 people in Konduga in February 2014 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau (with papers) in a video grab taken in July 2014 AFP/Getty The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Ruins of burnt out houses in the north-eastern settlement of Baga, pictured after Boko Haram attacks in 2013 AP The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram A Boko Haram attack in Nigeria, 2013 AFP/Getty Images The rise of Boko Haram Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau, Boko Harams leader AP Local media reported that communities in Chibok erupted with joy on hearing the news. The kidnap of around 276 young girls caused international outrage, with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls trending on social media and supported by then-First Lady Michelle Obama. More than 50 managed to escape soon after being kidnapped, but 220 of the girls, all snatched from the same school, remained in captivity. Bukky Shonibare, one of the founders of the campaign, said: This is exciting news for us, for the parents and the Chibok community. A very exciting and welcome development. Muhammad Askira, national secretary of Kibaku area development association in Chibok, said the reports had renewed the hope of the people. We, the people of Chibok, have a cause to celebrate. We are yet to see our daughters, but this has renewed our hope that President Buhari is committed to rescuing our [relatives], he told Nigerian website The Cable. Around 20 of the girls were released last October in a deal brokered by the Red Cross, and another five escaped or were rescued, but 195 were still believed to be in captivity prior to the latest release. A Government official said their release was brought about by negotiation and a government statement would follow. The girls are believed to have been freed in exchange for some of Boko Harams commanders held by the government. A military source told Reuters the girls were currently in Banki close to the Cameroon border for medical checks and would be airlifted to Maiduguri, the capital of Borneo state. They were said to be in the custody of the Nigerian army. Nigerian President Muhammed Buhari said last month that his government was in talks to secure the release of the remaining girls. One of the missing girls, Amina Ali, who managed to escape in May 2016, said that six of the girls had died in captivity. Boko Haram have kidnapped thousands of children and adults and is believed to have slaughtered more than 20,000 people and displaced around two million in its bid to create an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria. The countrys army has retaken much of the land lost to Boko Haram, but large parts of the north-east remain under threat from the militants, who have ramped up their suicide bombings and gun attacks in the past few months. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Angela Merkel is angry with Jean-Claude Juncker over the leaking of details of a tense dinner meeting with Theresa May about Brexit, it has been claimed. It emerged the EU Commission president had left Downing Street "10 times more sceptical than I was before" after claims the Prime Minister did not appear to have been fully briefed, and that she had unrealistic expectations about the negotiation of Brexit. The PM was "deluding herself" as to the difficulties of the situation, Mr Juncker is said to have said. Ms May hit back with a speech accusing the EU of trying to influence the result of Britain's general election by maliciously leaking the content of discussions to the media. She said she did not recall the account Mr Juncker had given of the dinner. Recommended EU demands Brexit amnesty for three million European citizens in UK Now Der Spiegel reports the German Chancellor reacted angrily to the leak. Die Welt said Ms Merkel believed the leak was unhelpful. In a phone call following the dinner Mr Juncker is said to have told the Chancellor Ms May was living in "another galaxy". Ms Merkel had previously said of the UK's Brexit stance that "I get the feeling that some people in Britain continue to work under illusions, and that is a waste of time". Donald Tusk, the president of the EU's ruling council, was forced to step in to call for "mutual respect" after Ms May's aggressive speech outside Number 10. UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images Negotiations would become "impossible" if emotions got out of hand between the UK and EU, Mr Tusk said. In her speech, Ms May said: "The events of the last few days have shown that whatever our wishes, and however reasonable the positions of Europes other leaders there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed, who do not want Britain to prosper. "So now more than ever we need to be led by a Prime Minister and a Government that is strong and stable." But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Ms May was "playing party games with Brexit" in the hope of winning an advantage for the Tories in the election. "By winding up the public confrontation with Brussels, the Prime Minister wants to wrap the Conservative Party in the Union Jack and distract attention from her Governments economic failure and run-down of our public services," he said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} France's electoral commission has ordered media not to publish contents of Emmanuel Macron's leaked campaign emails to avoid influencing the election. It warned news outlets in France that journalists could face criminal charges for publishing or republishing the material, under laws that came into effect at midnight forbidding any commentary liable to affect the presidential race. There were fears the hack could swing Sundays final vote, where Mr Macron was expected to comfortably beat far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Le Pen v Macron: The debate in 60 seconds As much as 9GB gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to an anonymous document sharing site under two days before the final vote. While French election rules forbid the media from publishing the emails, they also ban Mr Macron or his team from commenting on or denying any allegations. His En Marche! party said it had been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack on Friday evening, adding that it had given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information. A spokesperson said the communications only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow doubt and misinformation. This operation is obviously an attempt at destabilising democracy, as has already been seen in the US during the last presidential campaign, he added. The ambition of the authors of this leak is obviously to harm the En Marche! movement within hours of the second round of the French presidential election. French Presidential Election Show all 20 1 /20 French Presidential Election French Presidential Election Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election SAA/ French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters French Presidential Election Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP French Presidential Election Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters French Presidential Election Alamy French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA En Marche! previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks despite denials from the Kremlin. Officials said it had been the target of failed attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, identifying a hacking group operating in Ukraine. Vitali Kremez, director of research with US-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters APT 28, a group tied to Russias military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. The collective, also known as Fancy Bear and Sofacy, has been linked to cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee during the US election, the White House, German Parliament, Nato and French media. Last month, APT 28 hackers registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche!, which were used to send corrupted emails to hack into the campaigns computers, Mr Kremez said. If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the US presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome, he added. Far-right American activists are believed to be behind early efforts to spread the documents on social media, before they were picked up by Ms Le Pens supporters in France. The leaks emerged on 4chan, where an anonymous poster provided links to documents on Pastebin with the message: This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people. The hashtag #MacronLeaks was spread by prominent Twitter accounts including that of Jack Posobiec, a pro-Donald Trump activist and employee of the far-right site Rebel TV. The cyber attack came after repeated allegations of Russian interference in elections across Europe and the US, with Mr Macron previously targeting state media including Russia Today and Sputnik for spreading fake news to damage his campaign. The two government-owned news outlets has announced legal action against Mr Macron over his allegations, which came after the politician denied unsubstantiated reports of an alleged offshore bank account. Margarita Simonyan, the editor of both RT and Sputnik, said: We are tired of their lies. We will sue them. Mr Macron has filed a legal complaint over the reports, which were raised by Ms Le Pen during a heated television debate. The Paris prosecutors office said no one was named in the complaint, which has triggered an inquiry into the suspected spread of false stories aimed at influencing the election. Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of interfering in foreign elections including the US and Germany, hitting out at unproven "rumours". We never interfere in other countries politics and we want no one to meddle in ours, the Russian President said during a tense press conference with Angela Merkel. Unfortunately, we have seen the opposite happening for years. We have seen attempts to influence political processes in Russia through the so-called NGOs and directly. Realising the futility of such efforts, it has never occurred to us to interfere." For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A huge leak of emails from Emmanuel Macrons campaign team may have been orchestrated by the same group behind the Democratic National Committee leak, analysts say. Code within a cache of up to 9GB of data and documents posted on an anonymous filesharing website was partly written in Russian, despite apparent efforts to delete metadata. Vitali Kremez, director of research with US-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, said his analysis indicated that APT 28, a group tied to Russias GRU military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. The collective, also known as Fancy Bear and Sofacy, has been linked to cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee during the US election, the White House, German Parliament, Nato and French media. Last month, APT 28 hackers registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of Mr Macrons En Marche! party. Attackers are believed to have used the domains to send corrupted emails to hack into the campaigns computers, Mr Kremez said. If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the US presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome, he added. The leak came just little over a day before Mr Macron faces Marine Le Pen in the second and decisive vote of the French presidential election, where he has enjoyed a comfortable lead in polls. It emerged on 4chan, where an anonymous poster provided links to documents on Pastebin with the message: This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people. Mr Macrons En Marche! party confirmed it had been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack on Friday evening, adding that it had given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information. A spokesperson said the communications only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fakes to sow doubt and misinformation. Far-right American activists are believed to be behind early efforts to spread the documents on social media, before they were picked up by Ms Le Pens supporters in France. The hashtag #MacronLeaks was spread by prominent Twitter accounts including that of Jack Posobiec, a pro-Donald Trump activist and employee of the far-right site Rebel TV. Frances electoral commission warned local media that they could face prosecution for reporting on the content of the leaks, under rules that came into force at midnight to prevent influence on the election. Ben Nimmo, of the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, said the mass document drop appeared to have been deliberately timed just hours before restrictions kicked in. He said that the contents appeared to be 99 per cent boring but that a social media frenzy over alleged censorship distracted from a lack of explosive revelations. The timing is interesting because its really targeted at that purdah period where the campaign cant say anything and the mainstream media cant do much, he told The Independent. Barack Obama backs Emmanuel Macron for French president in video message The fact it was dropped so close to the bell does mean that its very hard for anyone to dissect it, to verify it, to push back on it but youre also limiting its potential spread, so it goes both ways. Mr Nimmo has been monitoring a very vocal and very aggressive social media campaign supporting Ms Le Pen leading up to the election. He said it has been aided by the alt-right in the US and UK, which has been launching its own meme war against the Front National leaders rivals. Because most of the images created being in English rather than French, the impact had so far been limited, Mr Nimmo said, but there are a number of automated bots on Twitter churning out anti-Macron stories and slogans. He said the En Marche! leaks and other conspiracy theories targeting Mr Macron had exposed a real confluence of interest between Russia and the far right in Russia and France. Theyre not necessarily coordinated, but theyre interested in a lot of the same stuff, Mr Nimmo added. The most active accounts tweeting on the leaks support Ms Le Pen anyway, so that wont solve her problem attracting new voters. I have not seen anything yet to suggest that the alt-right will be able to overturn a 20-point deficit in the polls. French Presidential Election Show all 20 1 /20 French Presidential Election French Presidential Election Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election SAA/ French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters French Presidential Election Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP French Presidential Election Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters French Presidential Election Alamy French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA As the #MacronLeaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the Front National, tweeted: Will #MacronLeaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent? French media was attempting to cover the leak without violating election restrictions, with Le Monde publishing a statement saying it would not publish the content before the election. The newspaper said the huge amount of data meant there was not enough time to report on it properly and claimed the dossiers had been published on purpose 48 hours before the election with the clear aim of "disrupting the political process". If these documents contain revelations, Le Monde will of course publish them after having investigated them, respecting our journalistic and ethical rules, and without allowing ourselves to be exploited by the publishing calendar of anonymous actors, it said. The cyber attack came just 10 days after the En Marche! digital chief Mounir Mahjoubi said it had been targeted by Russia-linked hackers but that those hacking attempts had all been thwarted. Officials reported failed attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, identifying a hacking group operating in Ukraine. There have been repeated allegations of Russian interference in elections across Europe and the US, with Mr Macron previously targeting state media for spreading fake news to damage his campaign. Mr Macron has launched a legal complaint over allegations of an offshore bank account, which has triggered an inquiry into the suspected spread of false stories aimed at influencing the election. Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of interference, hitting out at rumours and claiming Russia had itself been the target of meddling. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} After months of trying to move the political needle in favour of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, American far-right activists on Saturday threw their weight behind a hacking attack against her rival, Emmanuel Macron, hoping to cast doubt on an election that is pivotal to France and the wider world. The efforts were the culmination of a months-long campaign against Mr Macron after his candidacy began to gain steam this year, with digital activists in the United States and elsewhere regularly sharing tactics, tips and tricks across the English- and French-speaking parts of the internet. It is unclear whether the leaked documents, which some experts say may be connected to hackers linked to Russia, will affect the outcome of the election Sunday between Ms Le Pen, the far-right candidate from the National Front, and Mr Macron, an independent centrist. But the role of American far-right groups in promoting the breach online highlights their growing resolve to spread extremist messages beyond the United States. Its the anti-globalists trying to go global, said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow of the digital forensics research lab at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, who has studied the far rights recent efforts against Macron and others in France. Theres a feeling of trying to export the revolution. The digital attack, which involved posting campaign documents like emails and accounting records to message boards, occurred late Friday, hours before a legal prohibition on campaign communications went into effect across France. In response, Mr Macrons team said the hackers had included fake information alongside authentic material to sow doubt. Intervening in the final hour of the official campaign, this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilisation, as was seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign, Mr Macrons campaign said in a statement late Friday, minutes before the communications prohibition went into effect. Yet within hours after the hacked documents were made public, the hashtag #MacronLeaks began trending worldwide, aided by far-right activists in the United States who have been trying to sway the French vote in favour of Ms Le Pen. Jack Posobiec, a journalist with the far-right news outlet The Rebel, was the first to use the hashtag with a link to the hacked documents online, which was then shared more widely by WikiLeaks. Mr Posobiec remains the second-most mentioned individual on Twitter in connection with the hashtag behind WikiLeaks, according to a review of the past 100,000 Twitter posts published since late Friday. While there is no evidence that the breach against Macrons campaign was organised by this loosely connected group of far-right campaigners, the US activists have been gathering on sites like 4chan and Discord, which were previously used to coordinate support for Donald Trumps presidential campaign. One popular tactic, experts say, has been Twitter raids, or efforts to hijack trending hashtags and topics on the social media site and inject far-right and anti-Macron propaganda. A week before the second round of the French election, for instance, online activists, many from the United States and other English-speaking countries, flooded Twitter with coordinated anti-Macron memes online satirical photos with often biting captions carrying hashtags like #elysee2017 that were linked to the campaign. That included portraying him as a 21st-century equivalent of Marie Antoinette, the out-of-touch last queen of France, and other memes made allegations of an extramarital affair. They tried to bombard French Twitter with memes favorable to Le Pen, said Padraic Ryan, a project coordinator at Storyful, an online marketing company that tracks social media activity around news events. The campaigns are showing an increasing level of sophistication and coordination. Just days before the last French presidential debate, an anonymous user on 4chan, whose message boards include anti-Semitic, white supremacist and other far-right discussions, posted what were said to be copies of documents showing that Mr Macron had supposedly set up a bank account in the Bahamas to avoid paying taxes. He denied the allegations. Ms Le Pen referred to such an overseas bank account during the vicious debate, leading to a bitter rebuttal by Mr Macrons team and an official investigation into the spread of the rumours. The reports were followed with another accusation, also posted on 4chan, hours before Mr Macrons campaign was subjected to the online leak, that he had bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. There is no evidence that he has such accounts. Despite these increasingly coordinated digital efforts by far-right activists, analysts say, their efforts had not reached the vast majority of the French electorate until the Friday release of the hacked documents. It will most likely take until after the election to review all the leaked documents. Under Frances strict electoral rules, any publication of the material before polling day may lead to charges. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty As the French readied themselves for the election Sunday, discussion on social media both in favour and in opposition of leaking the documents began to swirl, according to a review of Twitter data. Since late Friday, Twitter hashtags related to the leak have topped the trending charts for France, a sign that people are talking about the leak, although most of the discussion has been limited to members of the far-right community who already support Ms Le Pen. Yet in a sign of how the far right outside the country is also trying foment the discussion, many of the Twitter posts about the hacking have originated in the United States, according to Trendsmap, a data analytics tool. About half the social media messages around political hashtags linked to the breach have been written in English, based on a review of Trendsmap data, as activists outside France have helped to spread news of the leak. The top 25 Twitter posts shared with the hashtag #MacronLeaks were written in English, according to Mr Nimmo of the Atlantic Council, with many of the online accounts reposting links set up as bots, or automated accounts controlled by third-party individuals. That has helped to push this leak entirely into the camp of the alt-right, Mr Nimmo said Saturday about the online far-right community in the United States. The origin of the leaks in France is still not known. The French media has been ordered by the electoral commission not to publish their contents. But the growth of digital misinformation and other falsities is likely to only grow amid a season of elections in Europe in which British and German voters will soon head to the polls, said Janis Sarts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, a think tank in Riga, Latvia. Misinformation is increasingly used to achieve political ends, Mr Sarts said. Technology helps to amplify that message through fake news sites and social media. 2017 New York Times News Service For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} France has banned unhealthily thin models as part of a new law targeting unrealistic body images and eating disorders. Models will be required to provide a doctors certificate attesting to their overall health and proving their body mass index (BMI) sits within a healthy range in order to work. The measurement will be compared to the World Health Organisations definitions of underweight to decide whether a model is certified, although a minimum BMI has not been set after protests from modelling agencies. Yves Saint Laurent was ordered to change posters found to be 'degrading' by France's advertising watchdog in March (AFP/Getty Images) France's minister of social affairs and health, Marisol Touraine, said the documents would be valid for two years attesting that their state of health is compatible with their work. Exposing young people to normative and unrealistic images of bodies leads to a sense of self-depreciation and poor self-esteem that can impact health-related behaviour, she added. These two texts aim to act on body image in society to avoid the promotion of inaccessible beauty ideals and to prevent anorexia in young people. The objective is also to protect the health of a sector of the population particularly at risk models. The law was backed by French MPs in 2015, who supported punishing employers who violate the new rules with up to six months imprisonment and a 75,000 fine (64,000). Models under the age of 16 will have their BMI calculated during medical check-ups, by doctors who will check nutrition and growth. The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Show all 20 1 /20 The worlds highest-paid models 2016 The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Gisele Bundchen ($30,500,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Adriana Lima ($10,500,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Karlie Kloss ($10,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Kendall Jenner ($10,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Gigi Hadid ($9,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Rosie Huntington-Whiteley ($9,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Cara Delevingne ($8,500,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Candice Swanepoel ($7,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Liu Wen ($7,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Miranda Kerr ($6,000,000) Getty Images for The Huffington The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Lara Stone ($5,500,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Natalia Vodianova ($5,500,000) AFP/Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Kate Moss ($5,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Alessandra Ambrosio ($5,000,000) Getty Images for Coca-Cola The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Doutzen Kroes ($5,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Joan Smalls ($4,500,000) AFP/Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Lily Aldridge ($4,000,000) Getty Images for Victoria's Secr The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Jasmine Tookes ($4,000,000) Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Taylor Hill ($4,000,000) AFP/Getty Images The worlds highest-paid models 2016 Barbara Palvin ($4,000,000) Getty Images The second law will require photos where a models silhouette has been digitally altered to be marked with the label photographie retouchee from 1 October. Anorexia is believed to affect up to 40,000 people in France, 90 per cent of whom are women, and there have been several controversies over the use of excessively thin models in advertising. The new laws came into effect little over a month after Paris banned sexist and discriminatory adverts in an effort to stop degrading representations of men and women, homophobia and racism. In March, the French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent was ordered to modify two degrading adverts by Frances advertising watchdog. One poster featured a reclining woman in a fur coat and fishnet tights, with her legs spread wide, and the other showed a model in a leotard and stilettos bending over a stool. The adverts caused uproar on social media, where critics said the fact the models were very thin could have a damaging impact on teenage girls. Britain's Advertising Standards Authority previously banned a Saint Laurent ad in 2015 that featured an unhealthily underweight model whose ribcage was showing. Italy, Spain and Israel are among other countries to draw up legislation for models , while there have been similar calls in the UK. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Whatever the result of France's presidential election, the choice will resonate far beyond France's borders, from extremist strongholds in Syria to Hong Kong trading floors and the halls of the UN Security Council. It could be bigger than Brexit the future of Europe is at stake as disenchanted French voters choose between untested centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen in Sunday's presidential runoff. Here are a few reasons why this race matters: Financial markets have watched this election with exceptional attention, jittery over Le Pen's dreams of pulling France out of the European Union and its shared euro currency. The market mood has buoyed in recent days as polls show the chance of a Le Pen victory receding, but the prospect of a "Frexit" would be dire. Far worse than Britain's exit from the European Union, France's departure from either the EU or the euro could spell death for the idea of European economic unity, which emerged from the bloodshed of World War II. France is a founding member of the EU, and its main driver along with former rival Germany. Le Pen has waffled on how exactly she might deal with the EU as French president, but tapped into a widespread misunderstanding of the bloc, blaming it for myriad economic and security woes. She also blames free trade pacts for killing French jobs and wants to renegotiate them, which would cause a financial tangle for the rest of the EU and France's trade partners. A Frexit could herald controls on money transfers, capital flight, a plague of defaults and lawsuits on bonds and contracts. Le Pen's team, however, downplays apocalyptic scenarios, arguing that the euro, now used by 19 countries, is headed for a breakup eventually anyway. Macron countered with a campaign video this week showing British voters regretting their vote to leave the EU, saying they didn't realise what they were getting into and American voters regretting their vote for Trump. Emmanuel Macron attending a campaign rally in Paris, where his rival Marine Le Pen was also attempting to drum up support (Reuters) If Le Pen pulls off a surprise win, that would be a resounding victory for the populist wave reflected by the votes for President Donald Trump and Macron is an unabashed progressive who embraces globalisation and championed startups and Uber-like car services as France's economy minister angering taxi drivers and other workers who feel left behind. He has framed himself as a bulwark against Trump's protectionism and he won an unusually high-profile endorsement this week from former U.S. President Barack Obama. Even if Le Pen loses, however, she has proven that populism is a powerful force in France that could make it hard for Macron to accomplish his goals even if he wins. Many who plan to vote for Macron on Sunday see him as the lesser of two evils as opposed to a saviour. Marine le Pen (AP) France is a nuclear power with a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and tens of thousands of troops scattered around the world. It is also a key U.S. ally in the campaign against the Islamic State group. While its diplomatic strength has faded, Macron could bring new energy to French foreign policy and firebrand Le Pen would be sure to make France's voice heard in world affairs. Macron would likely keep up the French operations against extremists in Iraq and Syria and Africa's Sahel region and keep up pressure on Russia over Ukraine and its actions to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad. Le Pen's legacy: bitter battle for future of the French far right Show all 3 1 /3 Le Pen's legacy: bitter battle for future of the French far right Le Pen's legacy: bitter battle for future of the French far right 506411.bin Le Pen's legacy: bitter battle for future of the French far right 506506.bin REUTERS Le Pen's legacy: bitter battle for future of the French far right 506507.bin Le Pen, on the other hand, firmly backs Assad and has distanced herself from Trump over recent U.S. air strikes targeting Assad's regime. Le Pen also met recently with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and would push for lifting sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. Associated Press For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Turkish citizens living in Germany could be banned from voting in a possible referendum on reintroducing the death penalty as tensions between the two countries continue to rise. Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to reinstate capital punishment during his victorious campaign ahead of last months vote to vastly expand his powers using constitutional amendments. It is politically inconceivable that we would agree to such a vote in Germany on a measure that clearly contradicts our constitution and European values, government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference. "I assume that we would use all legal means to prevent something like this. "If another state wants to hold elections or votes in its consulates here in Germany, then this is subject to German authorisation." Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz, Angela Merkels main challenger in upcoming elections, also supports the move. Erdogan accuses Merkel of Nazi practices: Any country that harms a Turk will "face the consequences" We cannot allow voting in Germany on an instrument that contradicts our values and our constitution, he said. Turkey could use a 1961 convention to instead hold voting in diplomatic premises to reach around 1.5 million expatriate voters living in Germany. It abolished the death penalty in 2004 as part of a drive for EU membership, which has stalled amid concern over human rights abuses and would effectively be finished by the reintroduction of capital punishment. Mr Erdogan has said he would approve its reinstatement if parliament submits a proposal or if the measure is backed in a referendum. The Austrian foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, said his country would also bar Turks from participating in a vote on the issue. Both Austria and Germany were among countries seeing pro-Erdogan rallies cancelled before the constitutional referendum, sparking a row over the Presidents allegations of Nazi practices and tit-for-tat expulsions in the Netherlands. Voting was allowed at diplomatic premises, but that spat further worsened relations between Turkey and European countries alarmed by wide-ranging purges and crackdowns seeing the detention of more than 110,000 people and formal arrest of 47,000 after an attempted coup in July. In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Show all 17 1 /17 In pictures: Turkey coup attempt In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Erdogan attends the funeral service for victims of the thwarted coup in Istanbul at Fatih mosque on July 17, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey Burak Kara/Getty Images In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soldiers involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge with their hands raised in Istanbul on 16 July, 2016 Gokhan Tan/Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A civilian beats a soldier after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 REUTERS/Murad Sezer In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Surrendered Turkish soldiers who were involved in the coup are beaten by a civilian Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Soliders involved in the coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave flags as they capture a Turkish Army vehicle Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt People pose near a tank after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July, 2016 Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt A Turkish military stands guard near the Taksim Square in Istanbul Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Pierre Crom/Twitter In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers secure the area as supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan protest in Istanbul's Taksim square AP In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Murad Sezer/Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish soldiers detain police officers during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish Army armoured personnel carriers in the main streets of Istanbul Getty In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Chaos reigned in Istanbul as tanks drove through the streets EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks to media in the resort town of Marmaris Reuters In pictures: Turkey coup attempt Supporters of President Erdogan celebrate in Ankara following the suppression of the attempted coup Reuters There are concerns the death penalty would be used as the punishment for terror offences, which have been used to convict thousands of soldiers, civil servants and journalists. The Turkish government has accused US-based cleric Fethullah Gulens Hizmet movement for launching the rebellion but the international community is unconvinced, sparking a series of diplomatic clashes. Bruno Kahl, head of Germanys BND foreign intelligence service said that Turkey tried to convince us on a number of different levels. But they havent yet been successful. The Gulen movement admits some of its supporters may have been involved in the failed uprising, which left hundreds dead, but ensuing purges have been seen as a wider crackdown on dissent. A report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found evidence of its involvement was anecdotal and circumstantial, as was the basis of its terrorist designation by the Turkish government. The US has refused to extradite Mr Gulen from his home in Pennsylvania, while Greece is among several nations denying Turkish requests to hand over coup suspects. Ankara appears to be rounding up alleged Gulenists around the world, with two men including an international school headteacher abducted ahead of their expected deportation from Malaysia last week. A man casts his ballot at a polling station in Izmir during the constitutional referendum (Osman Orsal/Reuters) Ms Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term as Chancellor in Septembers election, has urged Europe not to push Turkey away in spite of mounting human rights concerns and accusations of espionage within Germany. The country is now home to at least 450 diplomats, soldiers, judges and other Turkish officials, including their family members, seeking asylum following the attempted coup. Soldiers stationed with Nato in Belgium and an African embassy military attache are among those being considered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), Der Spiegel reported. They are among more than 7,7000 Turks applying for protection in Germany, where last years acceptance rate of 8 per cent is expected to rise significantly after the government updated its guidelines. There are clear indications of the systematic persecution of alleged supporters of the Gulen movement in Turkey, said an assessment by the foreign ministry in Berlin. Meanwhile, the crackdown continued on Friday with the dismissal of 107 judges and prosecutors, 23 of whom are the subject of arrest warrants. Anadolu news agency reported that the 17 judges and six prosecutors were wanted for membership in an armed terror organisation a suspected reference to the Gulen movement. Since the declaration of a state of emergency last summer, more than 4,200 judges and prosecutors have been dismissed. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Stephen Fry is being investigated by Irish police over blasphemy claims more than two years after his outspoken comments about God on RTE's The Meaning of Life went viral. Mr Fry described a hypothetical creator as stupid and an utter maniac for designing a world filled with undue suffering. Asked in 2015 by the programme's host, Gay Byrne, what he would say to God if he arrived at the pearly gates of heaven, the actor and author replied: Id say, bone cancer in children? Whats that about? The committed atheist added: How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault? Its not right, its utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of god would do that? The god who created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish. A Gardai spokeswoman told The Independent: We're not commenting on an ongoing investigation. According to the Irish Independent the comment were originally reported to police in 2015. The complainant is said to have followed up last year, and to have received a phone call from a detective some weeks ago to discuss the case. The paper quoted a source as saying a prosecution was unlikely. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Under Ireland's 2009 Defamation Act, anyone who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to 25,000 (21,200). A spokesman for Mr Fry told the Daily Telegraph there was nothing for us to say while this is under investigation. Tweeting about the story, the British Humanist Association said: What is the world coming to? For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has described Theresa Mays Brexit negotiation tactics as "precisely wrong". Mr Varoufakis, who in 2015 attempted to negotiate a settlement for Greece with the European Union, said the PM's main problems in the talks would stem from bureaucratic practices in Brussels, combined with a "technocracy that is desperately clinging on to its own exorbitant illegitimate power". In an interview with The Times, the politician argues that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will have to make an "example" of Britain, and warns that, no matter how stubbornly Mrs May insists on a deal beneficial to the UK, the EU will not comply. Barnier: Brexit deal won't be quick or painless "She's got it completely wrong," he said. "You can be wrong and you can be precisely wrong. She is precisely wrong. "Britain will have to be made an example of, any recalcitrant government that steps outside the modus vivendi will be crushed. You are going against a combination of a bureaucracy in Brussels and politicians who feel the ground under their feet is increasingly brittle, like Angela Merkel. "The last thing you do is go in there and say: 'I'm triggering Article 50 and I am going to get my way'." Mr Varoufakis' comments follow the reportedly disastrous meeting between the Prime Minister and Mr Juncker. He claimed Mrs May had unrealistic expectations from the negotiations, and left Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than [he] was before. In a speech, the Prime Minister admitted that if talks did not go the UKs way we risk the secure and well-paid jobs we want for our children and our childrens children. She went on to accuse EU politicians of meddling in the UK election and trying to wreck Brexit. Mr Varoufakis said his meetings about Greece's future had been filled with frustration and that his hopes for reaching a compromise were ruined because the EU "loathes democracy". He said there was no way Europe would allow a deal that left Britain in "a better place" "There will be no negotiations, make no mistake," he said. The politician, who held several academic teaching positions for economics all over the world, said Ms May should ask for a Norway-style agreement for five years as an alternative to a hard Brexit in order to give parliament time to iron out the specifics. "The UK can't say no because it is an off-the-shelf agreement," he said. "There is only one person in Europe who matters. Her name is Angela Merkel. If May said she wanted a Norway-style agreement, Merkel would probably say 'thank God', the hot potato would land in the lap of the next chancellor." Norway has access to the EU Single Market without full membership, and Nick Clegg is in support of a similar model. However, as a Norwegian former EU adviser points out, adopting such a stance would come at a democratic cost. What experts have said about Brexit Show all 11 1 /11 What experts have said about Brexit What experts have said about Brexit Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond The Chancellor claims London can still be a world financial hub despite Brexit One of Britains great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum and I will do everything I can to ensure the City of London retains its position as the worlds leading international financial centre. Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Yanis Varoufakis Greece's former finance minister compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can't really leave. The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It's like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones' castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Michael OLeary Ryanair boss says UK will be screwed by EU in Brexit trade deals: I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how the world will want to trade with us. The world will want to screw you that's what happens in trade talks, he said. They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade Getty What experts have said about Brexit Tim Martin JD Wetherspoon's chairman has said claims that the UK would see serious economic consequences from a Brexit vote were "lurid" and wrong: We were told it would be Armageddon from the OECD, from the IMF, David Cameron, the chancellor and President Obama who were predicting locusts in the fields and tidal waves in the North Sea" PA What experts have said about Brexit Mark Carney Governor of Bank of England is 'serene' about Bank of England's Brexit stance: I am absolutely serene about the judgments made both by the MPC and the FPC Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Christine Lagarde IMF chief urges quick Brexit to reduce economic uncertainty: We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Inga Beale Lloyds chief executive says Brexit is a major issue: "Clearly the UK's referendum on its EU membership is a major issue for us to deal with and we are now focusing our attention on having in place the plans that will ensure Lloyd's continues trading across Europe EPA What experts have said about Brexit Colm Kelleher President of US bank Morgan Stanley says City of London will suffer as result of the EU referendum: I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as result of Brexit. The issue is how much What experts have said about Brexit Richard Branson Virgin founder believes we've lost a THIRD of our value because of Brexit and cancelled a deal worth 3,000 jobs: We're not any worse than anybody else, but I suspect we've lost a third of our value which is dreadful for people in the workplace.' He continued: "We were about to do a very big deal, we cancelled that deal, that would have involved 3,000 jobs, and thats happening all over the country" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Barack Obama US President believes Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU: "It is absolutely true that I believed pre-Brexit vote and continue to believe post-Brexit vote that the world benefited enormously from the United Kingdom's participation in the EU. We are fully supportive of a process that is as little disruptive as possible so that people around the world can continue to benefit from economic growth" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Kristin Forbes American economist and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England argues that the economy had been less stormy than many expected following the shock referendum result: For nowthe economy is experiencing some chop, but no tsunami. The adverse winds could quickly pick up and merit a stronger policy response. But recently they have shifted to a more favourable direction Getty Mr Varoufakis pointed out the strength of Germanys influence in the EU. Ms Merkel told an audience at the EUs Brexit summit lasty week that some in Britain still have illusions. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Isis has launched an extremely defensive propaganda effort to defend its slaughter of women and children as it struggles to retain territory, troops and attention. The latest edition of the terrorist groups Rumiyah magazine celebrated bombings that killed at least 45 people marking Palm Sunday at Coptic churches in Egypt. Hundreds of people attended the victims funerals, with Egyptians of all religions uniting to condemn the bloodshed and the government threatening a new crackdown. Jean-Marc Rickli, a research fellow at Kings College London and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said that even for some of Isiss supporters attacks on churches in the Arab world is crossing a red line. Isis is really seeking to justify its actions, not only in the Middle East but also in the West and Asia. Its very defensive, he told The Independent. Theyve got a double challenge as well as Isis is losing position, al-Qaeda is reinforcing theirs especially in Syria. They still have to maintain momentum to attract new candidates but also they have to justify that what theyre doing, which is contrary to what most people would think is right. Opponents of Isis, including rival terrorist groups, have cited its killing of women and children particularly Muslims in indiscriminate terror attacks as proof of their takfir (disbelief). Mourners pray next to coffins of victims of the blast at the Coptic Christian Saint Mark's church in Alexandria during a funeral procession at the Monastery of Marmina in the city of Borg El-Arab (Getty) (Getty Images) Christians are also afforded protection under sharia as protected dhimma, and were required to pay a special tax under caliphates in the Islamic Golden Age. In an interview in Rumiyah, the leader of Isiss faction in Egypt admitted that the prevailing trend in many peoples reactions is that of denunciation, as well as disassociation ... and of offering condolences. But in a lengthy propaganda article, Isis sought to justify its actions by claiming that belligerent Christians in Egypt deserve no protection. It said it was permissible to murder all men and take women, children, the elderly and ill as slaves. With regards to those of the non-combatant women and children from among the belligerent Christians who are killed unintentionally, their blood is waste, the article continued. It claimed that the murder of women and children in indiscriminate terror attacks or bombardment was also allowed, citing Mohameds use of catapults in a medieval city siege. Isis also attempted to justify its own use of children as suicide bombers and child soldiers, having set up military training camps and even a jihadi alphabet app to start indoctrination as early as possible. Parents escaping the groups rule have told of their efforts to resist Isiss bloody curriculum, which includes watching gory propaganda videos and bomb-making, and the group is now targeting mothers specifically with its propaganda. Suspected child suicide bomber stripped of explosives belt in Iraq An article in Rumiyah said righteous offspring will to bring forth from us a generation that will wage jihad, ordering women to live in its territories to painstakingly endeavour to use their children for the terrorist groups benefit. Every woman to whom Allah has granted the blessing of giving birth in the Islamic State should take advantage of this tremendous grace, it said. They [should] grow up with their eyes becoming accustomed to seeing weapons and equipment, including rifles, tactical vests, bullets, grenades, and explosive belts. Isis encouraged women to force their children to watch and read its propaganda to nurture the love of jihad and hatred towards their enemies. The group conceded that mothers may hear criticism from some people but claimed there would be heavenly reward. The propaganda magazine, which is published in many languages, also ordered foreign women to ensure their children learn Arabic correct and free of linguistic errors. Isis has increasingly used child fighters and suicide bombers to defend its waning territory in Syria and Iraq most prolifically in the ongoing battle for Mosul, where thousands of militants have been killed. A lengthy speech by the groups official spokesman, Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir, acknowledged losses and told soldiers not to weaken, while making a fresh pitch for new recruits. After years of sustained condemnation for other terrorist groups, he claimed that Isis has not closed its doors on defectors from elsewhere. In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty There has always been tremendous competition for jihadis, Dr Rickli said. In 2014 you had this constant flow of newcomers in Syria and Iraq and thats no longer the case, and on top of that they are being attacked by the anti-Isis coalition and suffering lots of casualties. Al-Qaeda, which operates in Syria through the Islamist alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has vocally opposed Isis and used the global focus on its former subsidiary to expand its own territory. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden when he was killed in 2011, has criticised Isis for killing and slandering his own jihadis and urged the ones who seek the truth to join al-Qaeda instead. An audio message released earlier this year accused Isis of "madness and lies", more than a decade after he personally wrote to the groups leader opposing his militants indiscriminate suicide bombings, targeting of Shia Muslims and hostage executions. Isis has increasingly turned to terror attacks as a way of gaining momentum and attention as its territory shrinks and issued a new series of detailed guidelines for atrocities in the West. As well as instructions on how to carry out lorry attacks, illustrated with photos including a gay pride parade and Piccadilly Circus, Rumiyah detailed new strategies of attack while praising martyrs including Westminster attacker Khalid Masood. Grim new suggestions for followers included creating a fake job advert, advertising a property for rent or selling second-hand items online as a means of rounding up and slaughtering disbelievers. Dr Rickli said that after the deaths of hundreds of victims in years of international terror attacks, Isis is seeking to grab headlines and maintain the momentum of terror, adding: People are getting used to Isis modus operandi and this decreases the Isis shock factor. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The cigarette kills, so do we, read Isis slogan, which was accompanied by an image showing blood flowing out of a cigarette on a glass ashtray. Smoking is considered a sin under the groups brutal interpretation of sharia law and death was the punishment or flogging was the punishment for anyone who disobeyed. Ahmed Yasir was caught with a cigarette in Tel Kaif, a town sitting on the northern outskirts of Mosul, as jihadis tightened their grip in 2015. Ahmed Yasir was caught with a cigarette by Isis in Tel Kaif, Iraq (Lys Arango/ACF) After finding a packet in his pocket during a search, he was severely lashed and locked up in a basement prison alongside 120 others. Some were fellow smokers, others had drunk alcohol, had a modern hair cut or simply worn trousers deemed too tight. I could not think of anything other than death, Mr Yasir said. If it was not for execution, we thought [we] would be buried by a bomb. On the 11th day, he and fellow inmates were moved to a field at dawn. Recommended Fall of Raqqa and Mosul will not spell the end for Isis They expected to be executed, with Mr Yasir recalling: I thought, it's over. And I began to pray for my family, for my soul. But instead of a bullet to the head he received a broken right hand, was blindfolded and then ordered to walk straight back home. When Isis was finally driven out, the first thing Mr Yasir did was smoke. It's not easy to leave a 32-year-old vice, he added. Girls walking through destroyed buildings in Tel Kaif, near Mosul (All photos Lys Arango/ACF) Part of Tel Kaif was destroyed in Januarys fighting, with homes flattened and those still standing pockmarked with bullet holes and littered with mines. Residents are returning to find no electricity, no drinking water, no work and just one hospital. Action Against Hunger (ACF) is leading efforts to give civilians the means to rebuild their lives, including water, sanitation, food and mental health care to help them overcome the trauma of the past three years. Every day we smelled fear, we smelled death, Hadiya, a 56-year-old woman, told aid workers. Hadiya's three sons died during Isis' occupation of Tel Kaif, north of Mosul (Lys Arango/ACF) Her three sons are all dead, including one who launched himself at a man about to set himself on fire, and two police officers taken away by Isis. These men are murderers of the devil, not men of the Quran, she said. We educate our children in Islam, but also in freedom and dignity. In Tel Kaifs only working health centre, doctors have been sorting through damaged vaccines and equipment and repairing missile damage. ACF is working to refurbish the hospital and install boreholes and pumps taking clean water to thousands, which previously came from a water treatment plant in Mosul which was bombed. Aneta Sarna, the charitys country director for Iraq, said civilians ordered to stay in their homes during fighting had suffered a dire lack of food and fuel. Residents with ACF aid workers in Tel Kaif, north of Mosul (Lys Arango/ACF) Some residents had been diagnosed with malnutrition, she said, with aid agencies bracing for worsening conditions in the shrinking Isis territories in western Mosul. Were preparing for intense fighting in the Old City where all supply routes are already cut off, Ms Sarna said. Were expecting people to come out with some type of malnutrition. The longer we see military operations continuing then the risk of malnutrition is increasing. Food, water, health, medicine the basic needs will be more and more severe. ACF psychological teams are running mental health sessions for traumatised residents, who have witnessed fighting, shelling and atrocities committed by Isis. As villages remain contaminated with unexploded devices planted by militants to slow their enemies advance, the fear continues. In east Mosul, we see a lot of casualties because people just touch something and it explodes, Ms Sarna said. Children wait with ACF aid workers in Tel Kaif, north of Mosul (Lys Arango/ACF) But amid the wreckage, hope is starting to bloom. Dr Dryounis Mahmood Alkhafajee, who stayed in Tel Kaif throughout Isis occupation, believes Iraqis can forge a new future. I want to believe that I will see with my eyes a prosperous country where my friends, Shias, Sunnis and Christians, live in harmony, as we did before the arrival of Isis, he said. Some say that Iraqis will know no other future than war, but I am a dreamer. I'm confident we will get through it together. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Planes are late for all sorts of reasons. On Thursday a colleague and I flew on separate delayed BA flights from Heathrow. Mine, to Palma, left mildly late for reasons which were never explained; hers, to Miami, was delayed by 45 minutes because, passengers were told, an electronic device had to be retrieved from the hold. At a time when passengers flying from six Middle Eastern and North African countries to the UK are instructed to place electronic devices in the hold, this was baffling. Both of us were well short of the three-hour delay in arrival which could qualify for compensation under EU passenger-rights rules. On the same day, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was addressing one aspect of these regulations. The judges ruled that if your flight is late due to a collision between an aircraft and a bird, you can expect no compensation. Their decision surprised some experts. Kevin Clarke, who spends his professional life pursuing claims against airlines as head of the Flight Delay Team at solicitors Bott & Co, told me that morning: There really is no precedent for this and it has taken us very much by surprise today. The judgment itself provides us with absolutely no clues or information. All the significant ECJ verdicts on passengers rights had previously gone against the airlines, obliging them to pay out for technical delays and occasions when the plane has returned after take-off. The prevailing message from the court to the airlines has been: it might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. The airlines will sense that the tide is turning. Random events such as a bird being ingested into a jet engine are already difficult and expensive enough to sort out, thank you, without having to write out hundreds of cheques to travellers. With compensation running as high as 600 (508) per passenger, an errant gull (the most frequent victim) could in theory cost a carrier 250,000. Most of the time, though, bird strikes cause harm only to the unfortunate creature that finds itself in an unequal contest for airspace. I have worked through the flock of bird-strike statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) so you dont have to. The highlights: confirmed bird-strike reports are filed twice daily on average by UK airlines, but only about one in 12 involves damage to the plane. Only one flight in 50,000 is directly affected by a bird strike, though of course there are knock-on delays when a plane is damaged. The propensity for a bird to cause damage depends, understandably, on its size. Second only to gulls in the frequency of collisions is the swallow. Over five years, the CAA recorded 715 of the delicate Hirundo rustica meeting a premature demise after contact with an Airbus or Boeing but only three caused any damage. One swallow doesnt usually make a summer holiday delay. And while no planes were harmed in encounters with meadow pipits over the same timespan, 164 of these poor creatures were lost to the world. The vast majority of bird strikes happen while the aircraft is at a low level, typically shortly after take-off or before landing as was the case with the potentially catastrophic bird strike on US Airways flight 1549 in 2009. The Airbus encountered a flock of Canadian geese while climbing from La Guardia airport in New York, causing an almost complete loss of thrust in both engines according to investigators. Captain Sully Sullenberger successfully ditched the stricken aircraft in the Hudson River, in what became known as the miracle on the Hudson. It was no miracle: the lives of everyone on board were saved by calm professionalism. Twenty-first century air travellers enjoy unparalleled levels of safety and unprecedented value in my view, more than enough compensation for the occasional delay, whatever the cause. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Republicans must be reaching for their blood pressure tablets each time their President utters some new blasphemy against the bedrock philosophies of their party, routinely insisting that his words matter less than the deeds that follow. If its a Monday, he is going to pull out of Nafta, the free-trade treaty with Canada and Mexico. If its a Tuesday, he is not. Right now, it seems that he will not. And so they pray, it will turn out with the cosying of Donald Trump with his counterpart from the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Recently, they had a friendly discussion by phone which ended with Trump inviting him to Washington. The White House said the two men had discussed how Manila is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs. Thats one way of putting it. Since taking power, Duterte has unleashed a bloody war on his own citizenry that has given police and vigilante gangs free reign to terrorise whole neighbourhoods and conduct extrajudicial killings. It is a violent strategy that has already claimed the lives of an estimated 7,000 people. His actions have earned him the nickname Duterte Harry: he is now an international pariah. (By the by, he also once called Trump a bigot and Barack Obama the son of a whore). It didnt help when Trump mused during an interview with Bloomberg that Duterte, elected last year, cant be all that bad because of his political prowess. You know, hes very popular in the Philippines, Trump said. He has a very high approval rating in the Philippines. Duterte: 'Give me a terrorist and I'll eat their liver with salt and vinegar' Perhaps even more preposterous was Trumps suggestion last week that he would be honoured to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the keeper of the worlds last gulag prisons, to discuss his nukes. At a very young age, he was able to assume power, he said of Kim, almost flatteringly. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie. Is this further proof of Trump having the warm and fuzzies for strongmen dictators? Recall his admiring words for Vladimir Putin last year and the welcome he extended last month to the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, on his first visit to Washington since seizing power in a coup four years ago. Then there was his congratulatory call to Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after he won a referendum last month, allowing him further to tighten his grip on power. Who knows what drives Trump, sometimes? We may not be able to guess what hes thinking. We can talk, however, about the damage he is doing to Americas reputation for pursuing though not consistently, its true a foreign policy underpinned by respect for human rights, freedom and democracy. Call it the doctrine of Woodrow Wilson, if you like, or of Franklin Roosevelt, who, after no little hesitation, came to the assistance of the allies against Hitler, or indeed of Ronald Reagan, whose call to Gorbachev to tear down this wall helped propel the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump seems not to care about any of that. We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash, Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator, observed in a Twitter message after hearing Trumps Duterte and Kim musings. Most affronted, though, are those Republicans who believe their party still belongs to Reagan (or, at least, it should). This is a dramatic departure, Senator John McCain told MSNBC, citing Reagan. We are proud Republicans and we stand for human rights. The statements, and the comments, obviously fly in the face of everything that Ive stood for and believed in all my life. The senator, who recently dined with Trump and insists he wants to help him, also warned that praising the likes of Duterte will have consequences. I dont think that the President appreciates the fact that when he says things like that it helps the credibility and the prestige of this really outrageous strongman. You cant praise that kind of behaviour and not raise concerns around the world. Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Show all 11 1 /11 Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch The North Korean leader inspects a missile launch from a safe distance Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Kim Jong-un discusses plans with military leaders Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch A ballistic rocket of the type launched by the DPRK in defiance of UN sanctions Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch UN officials tracked two ballistic missile launches from North Korea on Friday 18 March Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch The Supreme Leader laughed with officials as the missiles were fired Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Kim Jong-un was also pictured observing military exercises Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Tanks fire missiles during military manoeuvres at an undisclosed location Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch The exercises are timed to coincide with military drills by the US and South Korea Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch As well as a tank-driving competition, amphibious craft carried out landing and anti-landing exercises Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch Including paramilitary reserves, the North Korean army is the largest in the world Kim Jong-un inspects military exercises and missile launch The Supreme Leader appeared pleased with the show of force What should worry McCain is that Trump has company in his administration de-emphasising human rights in global relations. It is not NAFTA bluster: there one day, gone the next. Last week saw Rex Tillerson, his Secretary of State, using a pep talk to diplomats in the State Department auditorium to explain precisely why America has been too concerned about propagating American values overseas when it really should be worried first about protecting national interests. Its the foreign policy expression of Trumps over-arching America First proposition. It is really important that all of us understand the difference between policy and values, he lectured. Our values around freedom, human dignity, the way people are treated those are our values. Those are not our policies. In some circumstances, if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably cant achieve our national security goals. No one could argue that America has always put human rights or democratic freedoms at the heart of all its foreign policy actions: the joining of hands by the allies with Stalin against Hitler is perhaps the clearest example of its failure to do so. Churchill famously explained it thus: If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. Sometimes, needs must. Its also true that Americas aversion to tyrants hasnt always worked out so well. Think Saddam. But Washington explicitly de-emphasising the proliferation of its values across the board of foreign policy is a profound and unnerving shift. America is the country most able to punish those who subjugate or terrorise their own populations. If it steps back, bullies worldwide will be emboldened. Moreover, the argument can still be made that Americas national security, as well as its trade and economic interests, are precisely advanced by encouraging others to adopt its values. Divorcing our interests from our values in foreign policy is like trying to plant cut flowers, John Kirby, a former State Department spokesman, noted despairingly. We can only hope that McCain and other Republican leaders, as well as Democrats, do what they can to counter these dangerous new instincts from the White House by using the power that Congress still has hopefully, with the help of the UN and Americas allies to isolate and pressure the likes of Kim and Duterte, not to suck up to them. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Fridays local election results are an unmitigated disaster for the Labour Party. If there was a "Portillo moment" an individual result which, like senior Tory Michael Portillos loss of his seat to Labour in 1997, will come to symbolise a political landslide it was in Glasgow, where the party lost control of the City Council for the first time since 1980. Gordon Browns experienced former pollster Deborah Mattinson recalled running focus groups as recently as 2012, in which even disgruntled voters affirmed that "Glasgow is Labour and Labour is Glasgow." But in this working-class heartland, where the SNP will now dominate the council, it wasnt just nationalists who flourished from Labours collapse. Shettleston, a Glasgow ward with the lowest life expectancy in the country, is now represented by a 20-year-old Conservative councillor. Does this guarantee a Tory landslide in the general election, just a month away? Yes and no. People vote differently in council elections from the way they vote when selecting an MP. As John Curtice has already pointed out, this is a mantra to which the Liberal Democrats will cling as they absorb a weaker than expected performance. The fallout from the Brexit referendum is likely to have a sharper impact in June than it did yesterday. A majority within the Labour Party has broadly opposed Brexit, but that is not true of its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who after an ambivalent relationship with the Stronger In campaign issued a three-line whip for his MPs to vote for Article 50 in the House of Commons. Local elections: 60-second round-up There was no reason for informed Remain voters to punish local Labour councillors many of whom campaigned to stay in the EU. But Lib Dems running against Labour or Conservative MPs who voted for Article 50 are more likely to pick up a few Remain voters, however articulately those beleaguered MPs may defend a decision to abide by the result of a democratic referendum. London MPs who defied Jeremy Corbyn to reflect their constituents majority views like Tulip Siddiq, Karen Buck or Rupa Huq will be hoping against hope to buck the trend. A slim majority of voters, of course, did vote for Britain to leave the European Union and Theresa Mays team will be campaigning to absorb them en masse. Ukip, outflanked by Mays new populism, is missing in action. Mays personal ratings are high, and the Conservative Party has been obsessive about defining this election as a rating on her leadership. If youre sick of hearing the phrase "strong and stable leadership", think how Conservative candidates themselves must feel. Confidential instructions sent out to prospective parliamentary candidates this week read: this election is not about local issues. You are Theresa May's candidate in your area and this election is about who is best to provide strong and stable leadership. To several PPCs who have campaigned long and hard on local issues in their area, such dictats have felt particularly galling. UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images The Tories are nonetheless on course to win any Momentum supporter who argues otherwise is living a fantasy. We havent yet seen the stacks of Tory opposition research into Jeremy Corbyns IRA-dalliances, which will no doubt find their way into the conservative press a week or so before the election. Labour still have advantages when it comes to constituency boundaries, especially in England, and the Tories will struggle to turn their poll lead into seats results from Friday give them only four percentage points more than David Cameron achieved in the last general election. Furthermore, London and several other Labour-dominant metropolitan areas which did not hold local polls are not reflected in that result. But it is an extraordinary achievement to win Tory mayors in the Tees Valley, and the West Midlands, especially given the long local record in the latter area of Labour candidate Sion Simon. If youre a Labour voter, and you hear mutterings from the Tories in the next few weeks about the results in the local elections not being good enough, it doesnt mean you should take heart. It simply means that the Conservatives are carefully managing expectations for the final June result. On recent form, less than a 100 seat majority would be considered by the pundits as a disappointment for Theresa May. No wonder her spinners are carefully briefing now that it might only be a majority of 60. Fry made the comments in an interview broadcast on RTE Police have said they will not comment on a complaint of blasphemy reportedly made against Stephen Fry. A member of the public contacted police after the comedian spoke about God during an interview with RTE in February 2015, the Irish Independent reported. The individual, who wished to remain anonymous, told the news outlet it was their "civic duty" to report the comments which he alleges were in breach of the Defamation Act. He said he had recently been contacted by police after following up the complaint with them late last year. A spokeswoman for the Garda said: "We are not commenting on an ongoing investigation." The footage, which showed Fry quizzed by TV presenter Gay Byrne, went viral after it was aired and has now been seen more than seven million times on YouTube. Asked what he would say if he was confronted by God, Fry replied: "How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. "It's utterly, utterly evil. "Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?" Questioned on how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, he responded: "I would say, 'Bone cancer in children? What's that about?' "Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. "Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of God would do that?" The offence of blasphemy, included in the Defamation Act, is punishable by a fine of 25,000 euro under Irish law. Years of covering farm politics has left me slightly jaded of the types of headlines generated by the IFA event last week - 'Brexit to be biggest threat to farming in history of the State' and the like. Then I read the Teagasc competitiveness report and the subsequent sectoral analysis and this time I think the IFA might be on the money. The competitiveness report doesn't tell us anything different from similar reports by the authors over the last decade. Dairy farmers are by far the most profitable and have the best prospects when pitted against international competition. As a result, they can probably cope with the hit they get in a hard Brexit scenario - projected to be about 20pc by the Teagasc economists. Because dairy farmers average income from 2013-2015 was close to 64,000, a 13,000 fall would be nasty but not fatal. The researchers estimate that this would lower the number of viable dairy farms by 10pc. By viable, Teagasc suggest that a farm should return a minimum agricultural wage plus 5pc on non-land assets. It's hardly a big ask given that is well under 20,000, which is not even half the average industrial wage. While it might be concerning that up to 30pc of Irish dairy farms would be unable to return this to the farmer, it pales in comparison to the vista facing the drystock sector, in particular beef. Teagasc estimate that the hard Brexit scenario being talked about by British Prime Minister Theresa May will reduce cattle farm incomes by 36pc. This is Armageddon stuff. Only 17pc of cattle rearing farms are currently viable. They are almost completely reliant on the subsidies coming from Brussels. While I can appreciate that beef farming is an occupation that many farmers love, I often wonder how long the sector will continue to use their subsidies to build billion euro businesses for the country's beef barons. If I was Larry Goodman or Niall Browne I'd be very worried that Brexit will be the proverbial straw that breaks the bullock's back. The drop in prices will almost halve the number of beef farms that will remain viable. If the Brexit predictions hold true the number of viable cattle rearing operations will slip below 10pc - the rest of the drystock sector, including sheep, are not far behind. Of course, there will be plenty out there that will scoff at all the doomsday scenarios on the basis that Brexit is never going to happen. But it already is. We've seen lots of mushroom businesses go to the wall. Irish exports to Britain are already down. The only reliable figures only go to September last year, but in that time our exports across the water took a 386m hit. I was in Harvey Norman last week and remarked to the sales manager that the carpark looked busy. "We're actually down close to 15pc on the same month last year," he shot back. It's anecdotal stuff but I think people and economies are jittery. Immigration Of course The Donald isn't helping. At a family wedding at the weekend a senior manager in a global food company told me that President Trump's immigration policies have already increased food sector employment costs by 7pc in California (and 80pc in construction). Back on the farm, one sector that could hold up reasonably well in a post Brexit scenario is, surprisingly, the cereal sector. The numbers show that tillage farmers will take a hit just like every other sector - just over 20pc or about 7,000. However, because grain farmers have been operating at world prices for years, throwing open British markets to imports from everywhere else has barely any impact on price. So the percentage of cereal farms that slide into the unviable bracket is similar to dairying at 11pc. Crucially the average cereal farm will be five times more likely to viable than the average cattle rearing farm. So where now for Irish farming? Drystock farmers have defied logic for years by continuing to produce meat even if it means dipping into their Single Farm Payment to do so. But as other sectors are freed from restraints - dairying from quotas, tillage working at world market prices - it's hard not to see a gradual drift of land through conacre and leasing into these sectors. There are some very stark statistics that suggest that there is huge scope for this in an Irish context. Ireland has by far the lowest amount of rental land involved in farming across the whole of the EU. Only 16pc of agricultural area is rented here, in comparison to France at 78pc and Germany 60pc. Closer to home in Britain, the level of rented land being farmed is still almost double the Irish at 29pc. This is less of a hangover from our own historical past, and more a function of various historical scenarios across the rest of the EU in the form of communism, family structures and inheritance laws. Scope for extra land rental is significant because it's one of the most obvious ways for profitable farmers to keep up with international competition. On the basis that we still have a warped attachment to every sodden, rock-ridden acre, there's going to be no wave of land sales on the back of collapsing drystock returns. And given that many still regard planting land with forestry a sign of defeat - no matter how much more profitable it might be - expect more cows and grain to crop up in a field near you soon. By viable, Teagasc suggest that a farm should return a minimum agricultural wage plus 5pc on non-land assets. Aer Lingus could operate alongside parent IAG's new low-cost long-haul carrier Level in the Irish markets, Willie Walsh has told the Irish Independent. And he said IAG along with Ryanair stand to gain from a potential collapse of Alitalia. Level was launched last year, initially on routes from Barcelona to North and South America, partly as a response to newcomers like Norwegian Air International (NAI) which is due to begin flights between Ireland and the US in July 1. Mr Walsh said Norwegian's Irish push is not a concern for IAG's Aer Lingus unit. "I don't think it's a particular worry, Aer Lingus has been doing that for many years," the CEO of IAG said. Eventually, Level could operate alongside Aer Lingus on Irish/US routes he said. "Ireland is a market where Level could grow at some stage," he said. "Aer Lingus and Level could operate beside each other." In Barcelona, IAG had not seen "cannibalisation" by Level of Iberia's business, he said. "Level is making a new market among people who hadn't flown long haul previously, maybe hadn't flown at all," he said. However, in the near term Paris and Rome are seen as more likely candidates to roll out Level initially, he said. Willie Walsh was speaking after IAG - which owns Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Vueling - beat market expectations with its latest financial results. IAG posted record first-quarter profits yesterday, and indicated a more upbeat view on pricing sending shares were up more than 6pc to 608 pence each in early trading, on the back of the news. IAG said it expects quarterly revenue per passenger mile flown to register its first year-on-year increase since 2014 in the current quarter, which unlike 2016 will include the busy Easter period. "We're seeing an improving trend and it's moving faster than we would have expected," Mr Walsh said. The group reported operating profit before exceptionals was up 9.7pc to 170m, even accounting for a 32m currency hit when it translated sterling profits are British Airways into euro. "We're seeing an improving trend and it's moving faster than we would have expected," Mr Walsh said. He said IAG's Vueling as well as rival Ryanair are poised to gain if the latest rescue of struggling Italian carrier Alitalia fails. "It (Alitalia) doesn't deserve to be in existence," Willie Walsh told the Irish Independent. "If Alitalia disappeared it would be a blow to the customers who like it but capacity will be replaced overnight - including by ourselves," he said. Many people will be tempted to take a punt on AIB. The appetite for bank shares is unrelenting in this country, despite the collapse of our banking system and the subsequent taxpayer rescue of them and the bailout of the economy led by the IMF. So, should you sign up in the hope of getting an allocation of AIB shares in the multi-billion euro flotation? The Government has decided to let retail investors get involved. It is damned if it offers shares to small-time investors, and damned if it does not. If retail investors are shut out from the flotation, there will be hell to pay. But the calamity that was the flotation of Eircom (now Eir) in 1999 is still fresh in the minds of ministers. That resulted in 500,000 retail investors losing money as the share price tanked when the technology bubble bust. The bitter recriminations from the Eircom flotation debacle, which became an election issue, have prompted the Government to put in place a strict 10,000 minimum for those who wanted to buy shares when it came to floating Aer Lingus. Restriction The same restriction is now in place for AIB, with the additional requirement that you have to have an account with a registered intermediary. Anyone considering buying a piece of AIB should think hard before signing up. We know to our cost in this country that, as well as rising, bank shares can fall to zero, as they did in the case of Anglo Irish Bank. Take advice before subscribing for shares, and do not borrow to invest. AIB has been turned around, and is now very customer-focused under chief executive Bernard Byrne. It returned to profit in 2014 and has been profitable in 2015 and 2016. The bank made profits before tax of 1.7bn last year. It is paying its first dividend in nine years next week. The bank has 2.6 million customers, making it the largest bank in the State. It has 206 AIB branches, 71 EBS branches and 20 business centres. AIB has the largest share on new mortgages issued, at 36pc. Although its non-performing loans are falling, they are still high at 8.6bn. AIB is very much a play on the Irish economy. It is now essentially a retail and commercial bank, focused on Ireland. In the past it had operations in the US and Poland, and a stockbroking wing. If the Irish economy dips, AIB will suffer. If you have 10,000 and can't decide whether to use it to buy a car or invest in AIB, buy the car. Bank shares are not for the faint-hearted. Ulster Bank prompted surprise when it set aside just 5m in 2015 for the cost of the redress scheme Stock photo: PA Ulster Bank has set aside millions of euro to cover the cost of putting customers back on low-cost trackers and refunding them overcharged interest. The bank made a provision of 206m last year to cover the costs of a mortgage redress scheme for customers who were denied a tracker, according to the bank's latest statutory accounts. The British-owned bank said in the past it had written to 1,885 residential customers who lost good-value trackers, but should not have had them taken off them. These customers have since been restored to a tracker rate, but have yet to get a refund of overcharged interest, and compensation. The bank has stated that it expects to find more tracker-loss cases. Ulster Bank prompted surprise when it set aside just 5m in 2015 for the cost of the redress scheme. The Central Bank has ordered an industry-wide review of tracker mortgages. Some 15 lenders are involved, with expectations that more than 15,000 mortgage holders will get trackers back. The liquidators of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation also said they had identified 50 customers who should have a residential tracker mortgage, but were denied one. Arts Minister Heather Humphreys has vowed to put Ireland in the frame and target lucrative investment from the film and TV industry. She said that the filming of the 'Star Wars' film 'The Force Awakens' on Skellig Michael is an example of the massive economic spin-off potential of the film industry here which has led to people "flocking to the south-west". Expand Close Katheryn Winnick from 'Vikings' / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Katheryn Winnick from 'Vikings' Speaking to the Irish Independent after meeting a cross-section of representatives from the film and media production sectors yesterday, the minister said that she was more determined than ever to "develop Ireland as a centre of excellence in media production". She met with more than 150 of the movers and shakers in the film, television and animation sectors - including film maker Jim Sheridan and award-winning producer Ed Guiney - to "focus on building Ireland's potential as a global leader in film, production, TV and radio drama, documentary and animation". "The very clear message I'm getting is there are 15,000 jobs in the audio visual sector. We need to look at the international market and promote the industry abroad, which is something I'm very keen on," she said. A number of Hollywood blockbusters have "put Ireland on the map" after being filmed on location here. Expand Close Skellig Michael features in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Skellig Michael features in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire They include Steven Spielberg's 1998 war epic 'Saving Private Ryan', starring Tom Hanks, which was filmed on Curracloe Beach in Co Wexford, and has been drawing tourists to the popular spot ever since. The 1951 film 'The Quiet Man', starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, was ironically dismissed by a "snooty studio" executive in the US but took in $3.8m (3.4m) in the first year alone. Mel Gibson's Oscar-winning 'Braveheart' was also filmed on location at Trim Castle, in Co Meath, and the Curragh, in Co Kildare. The internationally successful 'Vikings' is continuing filming in Wicklow. And Ireland's burgeoning animation industry is already gaining international recognition with Cartoon Saloon's 'Song of the Sea' nominated for an Oscar in 2015, along with Brown Bag Films' 'Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty' in 2010. Expand Close Daisy Ridley from 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daisy Ridley from 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Ms Humphreys said that the outcome of the meeting at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham with the likes of the Irish Film Board, RTE, Animation Ireland and Screen Producers Ireland, would form the starting point for ongoing collaborations with the industry. It is hoped that this will in turn see Ireland developed and promoted as a world-leading media production hub. James Hickey, chief executive of the Irish Film Board, said there were huge opportunities for creative talent. He added: "Irish storytelling in film and animation is as important to the lifeblood of Ireland as any of Ireland's other cultural and economic endeavours." Video of the Day Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers (John Moylett) of the Irish New Wave band The Boomtown Rats pose for a portrait in January 1978 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Michael Marks/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) Boomtown Rats pianist John Moylett has claimed that he has been forced to put his house on the line during a royalty battle with Bob Geldof. The pianist, known as Johnnie Fingers, is in a royalty battle with Geldof over hit song I Don't Like Mondays, which he says he co-wrote but wasn't credited for. Mr Moylett claims he contributed to the piano intro and lyrics "Down, down, shoot it all down." He claims that Geldof pressurised him not to demand a song writing credit but promised him a fair share, and is now seeking royalties from the 1979 hit. Expand Close Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers (John Moylett) of the Irish New Wave band The Boomtown Rats pose for a portrait in January 1978 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Michael Marks/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers (John Moylett) of the Irish New Wave band The Boomtown Rats pose for a portrait in January 1978 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Michael Marks/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) Mr Moylett, who lives in Japan, says he has been forced to put his house on the line in the battle, while Mr Geldof demanded "not less than" 885,000 for costs security should Mr Moylett lose the case, reports the Irish Daily Mirror. Mr Moylett has offered 29,000 after borrowing from his family and half of his house, worth 236,000. He would be forced to sell his 50pc stake in the property, potentially leaving the family homeless if he lost the case. At the High Court yesterday after "a diligent investigation" of Mr Moylett's finances, Mr Geldof's lawyers tabled an application to increase this to between 59,000 and 88,000, plus half the house. The musician lives in the house with his wife Yoko, young son and autistic daughter. Romie Tager, representing Mr Moylett, said the use of the house as security could lead to the "eviction of the autistic daughter as part of that process." He also said the value of the claim was "a ballpark figure of more than 590,000, but could be double that." Mr Tager also disproved the claim that Mr Moylett could borrow more money from his family. Video of the Day Costs of the trial, which is due to take place in March 2018, could be up to 1.1m. A Lithuanian national was jailed for five-and-a-half years for his role in a burglary gang that terrorised business owners by using cars as battering rams. Aurimas Petraska (32) was jailed as Judge Tom O'Donnell warned Limerick Circuit Criminal Court that business operators must be protected from the behaviour of such professional burglary gangs. "This is a very serious case," he said. "This was a professional job. This was premeditated and planned down to the last detail and executed with military precision." "These are not victimless crimes," he added, noting business owners faced repair costs, higher insurance premiums and concerns over their personal safety and that of their staff. Judge O'Donnell praised the tenacity of gardai who worked for two years to identify and foil the Eastern European gang who employed military-style techniques in their reign of terror across Cork, Tipperary and Limerick. A Garda team under Detective Inspector Joe Moore co-ordinated with detectives across Munster and even drew on intelligence from Europol, Interpol and Baltic State police forces to track down the gang. The gang used concrete-block laden cars as heavy battering rams to smash their way into pharmacies and boutiques in rural towns. Gang members wore military-style black overalls, had balaclavas, forehead-mounted flash lights and each had a large wristwatch to time the raid. Every robbery was effectively ended once the gang had reached the six-minute mark - thereby evading gardai by leaving the scene well within the average garda robbery response time. The gang only targeted high-value goods, such as Chanel cosmetics, accessories and designer clothing. Each targeted premises was subject to a careful reconnaissance by the gang before the robbery. Petraska, of Church Street, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, pleaded guilty on April 7 to his role in three robberies which netted the gang 150,000. Judge O'Donnell was told Petraska had convictions in his native Lithuania, Norway and the Netherlands. Gardai believe the goods were shipped for sale on the Eastern European black market. The gang operations were only foiled when detectives, supported by armed members of the Regional Support Unit (RSU) stopped a car at Shanagolden, Co Limerick, on June 28, 2016. Admitted Petraska pleaded guilty to a total of five charges, including three of burglary. He admitted his role in robberies of O'Brien's Pharmacy in Cahir, Co Tipperary, on September 10, 2015; Isobel Boutique in Adare, Co Limerick, on June 21, 2016; and O'Connor's Pharmacy in Kinsale, Co Cork, on January 13, 2016. The Lithuanian, who lived in Kaunas, dropped out of college in his native country and moved to Ireland in 2005. He admitted he had helped convert old cars into battering rams for the gang by removing seats and placing heavy concrete blocks into the vehicle. Petraska was paid between 2,000 and 3,000 for each robbery. Judge O'Donnell imposed a seven-year prison sentence but agreed to suspend the final 18 months. Kay Mulcair, centre, of Isobel boutique in Adare with two of her staff Orla Moran and Anne Dowling Photo: Press 22 Boutique owner Kay Mulcair feared she could lose her life's work as a result of the ruthless Eastern European ram-raid gang. The Limerick businesswoman lost an astonishing 240,000 in revenue as a result of the raid Aurimas Petraska (32) helped facilitate in June last year. "I started out over 20 years ago with my first boutique in Rathkeale," Ms Mulcair said. "I built the business up to the point where I now operate three boutiques. "But I work seven days a week to keep the business going. "I have to work really, really hard to make sure the operation is successful. It hasn't been easy in Ireland over the past 10 years." Expand Close Aurimas Petraska at Limerick Circuit Court Photo: Press 22 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Aurimas Petraska at Limerick Circuit Court Photo: Press 22 She operates two K Boutiques in Rathkeale and Adare as well as the Isobel outlet in Adare. Ms Mulcair employs a total of five staff and her businesses are typical of the small-medium family run operations that are the life-blood of rural Irish towns. "The robbery was bad enough, but I think what was even worse was knowing that they had actually been in the shop, checking out the security systems and looking for the kind of things they wanted to steal," she said. She was also left shaken when she learned from gardai that one of those associated with the gang had a Rathkeale address - not far from her own base. "I really didn't know where this raid was going to leave us. This put us under really severe pressure," Ms Mulcair said. "They are stealing to the point where they could actually put someone out of business." Yesterday, Aurimas Petraska (32) was jailed as Judge Tom O'Donnell warned Limerick Circuit Criminal Court that business operators must be protected from the behaviour of such professional burglary gangs. "This is a very serious case," he said. "This was a professional job. This was premeditated and planned down to the last detail and executed with military precision." "These are not victimless crimes," he added, noting business owners faced repair costs, higher insurance premiums and concerns over their personal safety and that of their staff. Judge O'Donnell praised the tenacity of gardai who worked for two years to identify and foil the Eastern European gang who employed military-style techniques in their reign of terror across Cork, Tipperary and Limerick. A Garda team under Detective Inspector Joe Moore co-ordinated with detectives across Munster and even drew on intelligence from Europol, Interpol and Baltic State police forces to track down the gang. The gang used concrete-block laden cars as heavy battering rams to smash their way into pharmacies and boutiques in rural towns. Gang members wore military-style black overalls, had balaclavas, forehead-mounted flash lights and each had a large wristwatch to time the raid. Every robbery was effectively ended once the gang had reached the six-minute mark - thereby evading gardai by leaving the scene well within the average garda robbery response time. The gang only targeted high-value goods, such as Chanel cosmetics, accessories and designer clothing. Each targeted premises was subject to a careful reconnaissance by the gang before the robbery. Petraska, of Church Street, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, pleaded guilty on April 7 to his role in three robberies which netted the gang 150,000. Judge O'Donnell was told Petraska had convictions in his native Lithuania, Norway and the Netherlands. Gardai believe the goods were shipped for sale on the Eastern European black market. The gang operations were only foiled when detectives, supported by armed members of the Regional Support Unit (RSU) stopped a car at Shanagolden, Co Limerick, on June 28, 2016. Admitted Petraska pleaded guilty to a total of five charges, including three of burglary. He admitted his role in robberies of O'Brien's Pharmacy in Cahir, Co Tipperary, on September 10, 2015; Isobel Boutique in Adare, Co Limerick, on June 21, 2016; and O'Connor's Pharmacy in Kinsale, Co Cork, on January 13, 2016. The Lithuanian, who lived in Kaunas, dropped out of college in his native country and moved to Ireland in 2005. He admitted he had helped convert old cars into battering rams for the gang by removing seats and placing heavy concrete blocks into the vehicle. Petraska was paid between 2,000 and 3,000 for each robbery. Judge O'Donnell imposed a seven-year prison sentence but agreed to suspend the final 18 months. Housing Minister Simon Coveney would not support a referendum offering abortion on demand. The minister said he is "uncomfortable" with some of the recommendations made by the Citizens' Assembly. It suggested that the Eighth Amendment should be repealed in favour of a liberal abortion regime that allowed for termination without reason. Recognise "I don't support an approach that effectively facilitates abortion on demand in Ireland," Mr Coveney said. "That is not something I would vote for or support, but I also recognise that the status quo also needs to change." He said there were "very complex" issues involving women in crisis pregnancy and the State "needs to take a new and different approach". But he added that his views "would not be consistent with some of the recommendations the Citizens' Assembly made". The number of public patients enduring the misery of hospital waiting lists has jumped by more than 60,200 since the Government took office a year ago. The alarming upward spiral in waiting lists continued in April with new figures showing 665,618 people now in some form of queue. It comes as the Irish Independent has learned that the Government's much-vaunted pledge to pay for private treatment for thousands of public patients in private hospitals,under a 15m outsourcing initiative, has not yet even started. More than four months into the year, no public patient has yet been treated under the plan in a private hospital. This is despite a promise in January that around 3,000 people facing delays of over 18 months would be out-sourced. It means vital time is being lost in trying to bring some control to the painful delays for patients. Simon Nugent, chief executive of the Private Hospitals Association, said: "Up to the end of April no patient files had been transferred over to private hospitals. "Our hospitals remain on standby to commence work immediately as soon as contracts are signed - hopefully next week." He warned that the progress that was made in relieving some lists is being eroded by the delays. "Private hospitals will start scheduling treatment as soon as patient files are referred to them by the HSE. "They will run theatres 12 hours a day and at weekends to tackle the lists," he said. Asked about the delay, a spokesman for the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which negotiates with private hospitals, said a tendering process had been completed and patients waiting for over 18 months for day-case treatment were being offered appointments. Health Minister Simon Harris announced in January that 3,000 public patients waiting for procedures such as cataract removal would have their treatment paid for in private hospitals in February. But not one patient has yet been treated under the initiative. There were 509,994 public patients on waiting lists in May 2016 when the Government took office. They are on national waiting lists for surgery, an outpatient appointment or endoscopy procedure. But the ranks of these patients have now climbed to 570,237. Another 87,707 patients are now on the previously undocumented waiting lists. They have been given an appointment or have been treated and need more care. It means that 665,618 are in some kind of public queue for care. The April waiting list shows public patients who need to see a specialist are enduring agonising delays. There are 473,516 on these outpatient waiting lists, including 46,629 facing delays of more than 18 months. Another 85,299 patients are in need of surgery, many of them in pain. This compared to 74,986 in this predicament in May last year. The minister said yesterday he would invoke a rarely used legal provision by directing the HSE, through a Section 10 order, to comply with the workforce plan to hire an extra 1,208 nurses this year. The shortage of nurses is contributing to waiting lists and is a factor in theatre closures. Meanwhile, efforts will be stepped up next week to try to defuse the row over the ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to be built on the St Vincent's Hospital campus. Mr Harris is to meet the boards of St Vincent's and Holles Street to try to secure ownership for the State. There has been an outbreak of mumps in the west of Ireland The latest health surveillance figures revealed Ireland recorded 2014 cases of mumps in 2015 a 900pc hike on the 165 cases recorded in 2011. A number of mumps outbreaks have now also hit Irish schools and colleges over recent years. One college, University College Cork (UCC), recorded a mumps outbreak two years ago. Health Service Executive (HSE) analysis of the outbreaks nationwide revealed that more than 60pc of mumps outbreaks involved young men. While mumps can be a mild but irritating infection in the majority of cases, health experts warned that potential complications can include meningitis, deafness as well as orchitis which is the inflammation of the testicles, ovaries and even pancreas. The majority of recorded cases are in people aged from 15 to 24 years. The peak number of cases within this group occurs in those aged from 18 to 20 years. Health Protection and Surveillance Centre (HPSC) figures showed mumps detections have been rising consistently since 2011/2012. A total of 165 cases were recorded in 2011, with 163 in 2012, 223 in 2013, 742 in 2014 and 2014 for 2015. Figures for 2016 have yet to be released. However, it is understood a number of mumps cases have involved people already vaccinated. A number of possible factors have been cited for the increase in detections. These range from the fact vaccines offer protection in only around 88pc of cases, many of those who get the vaccine fail to take the required follow-on booster shots, some people opt not to be vaccinated by the MMR jab and the theory, which is still under examination, that there is an vaccine-resistant strain of mumps now spreading. In the US, the Centre for Disease Control - which has faced a number of major mumps outbreaks - estimate that one vaccine dose is 78pc effective with a second booster shot offering 88pc protection. In New York, a recent mumps outbreak was blamed on an apparently vaccine-resistant mumps strain. However, the HSE urged young people to take advantage of available vaccinations which offer protection to the majority of users. Vaccination with MMR vaccine is the only way to protect (against measles, mumps and rubella). Parents and young adults should make sure you or your children are up to date with their MMR vaccines. If someone has already been in contact with someone who has mumps, the MMR vaccine can help ensure that any dose they get will be in a much milder form. The HSE urged people to go to their GP for MMR vaccination if they have not had two MMR vaccines or if they have a preschool or primary school child who never had MMR vaccine. GP visits are also urged if they have a primary school aged child who missed out on the second dose of MMR vaccine in Junior Infants or if parents are unsure if their child has had the full course of two doses. However, the HSE stressed that the MMR vaccine can require four weeks to become effective. * In the original version of the above article, a HSE spokesperson was quoted as saying that most (of those affected) had not had the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine. This was incorrect, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has stated that only 10% had not had the vaccine in 2015. The statement made by the HSE referred to an outbreak of measles in Ireland in 2016 involving 40 cases occurring in the South, South-East, North-East, East and Mid-West, and not to any increase in the recording of mumps. We are happy to correct the record and have deleted the sentence in question. Half-a-million euro must be raised in the next three months by a Cork-based Buddhist community if the construction of Irelands first ever Tibetan Temple is to be completed on time. Already 1.2million has been spent on preparatory works and basic construction at the site adjacent to the Dzogchen Beara Meditation Retreat Centre in Allihies on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. Weve now built the Temple up to the third floor so the basic concrete and steel structure is in place. Its a year since we effectively turned the sod on the site and the progress has been extraordinary. But if we are to have the building open for March of next year as wed hoped we need to raise another 500,000 by the end of July and thats a major challenge, explained Malcolm MacClancy who is the Director of the Dzogchen Beara Centre. Once the Temple has been constructed another 200,000 will be required for sacred decoration. Its believed the building will attract thousands of visitors each year especially from across Europe. Expand Close Work is underway at the Tibetan Buddhist Temple / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Work is underway at the Tibetan Buddhist Temple This Temple overlooking Bantry Bay will be something of a jewel in Tibetan Buddhism worldwide, MacClancy told the Irish Independent. In June 2008, Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and the spiritual director of Dzogchen Beara, proposed building Irelands first Buddhist Temple. Tibetan master Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche visited the cliff-top centre in May 2009 to advise on the temple design, location and orientation and the site, itself, has been consecrated. Last years census recorded 9,358 Buddhists living in Ireland, an increase of 11pc on the 2011 census findings and a 43pc increase on the 2006 figure. Read More Buddhist leaders in the country believe alternative forms of meditation, including mindfulness which has its origins in the Buddhist faith, have initiated increased interest in Buddhism. The Buddhist Temple in West Cork will be open to all, not just Buddhists and a senior Buddhist cleric, Holiness Sakya Trizin, has agreed to officially consecrate the Temple at a ceremony during the summer of 2019. Last year 7,500 people engaged with meditation, either in daily sessions or on retreats at Dzogchen Beara and that figure is expected to rise this year. * See more on the growth of Buddhism in Ireland in Todays REVIEW Gardai at the scene of a car crash on St Margaret's Road, Finglas Gardai at the scene of a car crash on St Margaret's Road, Finglas Gardai are at the scene of a serious car crash in Finglas North Dublin. Emergency services were called to the scene after a silver Toyota Avensis struck a pedestrian traffic light on St Margaret's road shortly after 5am. The car was later set on fire. Gardai have closed off the road and a forensic examination is expected to take place. Expand Close Gardai at the scene of a car crash on St Margaret's Road, Finglas / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gardai at the scene of a car crash on St Margaret's Road, Finglas A senior source said they do not suspect the car was used in a serious crime. Officers will investigate if the vehicle was stolen prior to the crash. Traffic diversions are currently in place. GARDAI are keeping an open mind about the death of a man on a fishing vessel in Cork. The man, who is understood to be in his 30s and from Eastern Europe, was discovered on a vessel off Bantry in west Cork. Paramedics and Gardai were called to the vessel off Bantry Pier shortly after 10.30pm on Friday evening. It is understood the man was a crew member on the Irish-owned vessel. Despite desperate efforts to stabilise the man's condition, he was pronounced dead at the scene before he could be transferred to Bantry General Hospital (BGH). Gardai immediately commenced a detailed technical and forensic examination to determine the precise circumstances in which the man died. It is understood there were no major trauma injuries to the man and no sign of a struggle or disturbance at the scene. The Office of the State Pathologist has been notified. A full post mortem examination will be conducted by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster to precise cause of the man's death. It remains unclear whether that examination will take place in Bantry or at Cork University Hospital (CUH). Detailed toxicology tests will also be carried out. Gardai stressed that the nature of their investigation will be determined by the findings of the post mortem examination. Detectives are now conducting inquiries to determine the last known movements of the deceased or how he could have sustained his injuries. The man is understood to have been working in the west Cork area for several years. It is understood he was alone on the fishing vessel at the time. A Cabinet split has emerged as Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan refuses to reveal whether Ireland voted to help Saudi Arabia get a seat on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Mr Flanagan has said it would be "very damaging to Ireland's ability to conduct international relations" if he revealed the Government's voting preference. However, sources in the Independent Alliance suggested that it could be damaging for Government relations if he does not reassure the public. The Irish Independent understands that the vote was never discussed at Cabinet - and other ministers were unaware that it was even taking place. But Transport Minister Shane Ross and Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath both intend to raise the issue during the Government meeting next week. Mr Ross said it would be "preferable" if the public knew where the Government stood on the issue. Expand Close Darragh O'Brien Picture: Damien Eagers / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Darragh O'Brien Picture: Damien Eagers Their colleague John Halligan went further, saying there was "no question" in his mind that the rights of women are being violated in countries like Saudi Arabia. "We should not tolerate that," he said. However, a spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Dublin said that "incorrect and untrue information" was being spread. He said the embassy would not confirm whether it had lobbied for an Irish vote. Read More The spokesman told this newspaper its "candidacy for membership of the Commission between 2018 and 2020 comes from the Kingdom's leading role in strengthening the role of women". Saudi Arabia secured 47 votes last month, at least five of which are believed to have come from European countries. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has already made a public apology for supporting the Saudis - but other countries, including Norway and Sweden, are taking a similar non-disclosure approach to Ireland. The UN Commission on the Status of Women is an intergovernmental body "exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women". Amid growing pressure last night, Mr Flanagan told the Dail: "It would be irresponsible to abandon a practice that has been in place for over six decades, observed by all previous governments and that is grounded on protecting and promoting the values of small countries on the world stage." He said all UN member states kept election votes secret in order to maintain diplomatic relationships. Read More "This is not a practice that is specific to Ireland or to elections for the Commission on the Status of Women," he said. Fianna Fail's foreign affairs spokesman Darragh O'Brien said Saudi women "are essentially treated as second class citizens, with their ability to carry out everyday tasks severely limited through a system of male guardianship and discriminatory policies". "The idea that this regime would now contribute to policy discussions on the status of women sends out a very negative signal to those campaigning for equal rights in Saudi Arabia and around the world," he said. The spokesman for the Saudi Embassy rebuffed any criticism, saying its country has taken "great steps in promoting the rights of women, guaranteed by Islamic laws before the existence of international conventions, which aim at empowering women as fundamental and active members of society". "Women in the Kingdom occupy a prominent position in various fields encouraged by government support," he said. 10 questions the minister wont answer 1. Was Ireland lobbied to support Saudi Arabia securing a seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women? 2. Did Ireland vote in favour of Saudi Arabia securing a seat on the Commission? 3. If so, why? 4. If not, who did Ireland vote for? 5. Regardless of how Ireland voted, does the Foreign Affairs Minister believe that Saudi Arabia is a suitable country to be part of an agency that is exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women? 6. Has Ireland sought support from Saudi Arabia for elections to other United Nations bodies, such as the Security Council? 7. When is the last time the minister met with representatives of the Saudi Arabian government in Ireland? 8. What was the purpose of these meetings? 9. At any point was the issue of womens rights raised? 10. At any point was the UN Commission on the Status of Women discussed? Maria Duffy believes in signs. "I look for them; I believe in fate," she explains, as we chat together on a rainy afternoon. And listening to the mother of four from Dublin talk about her rollercoaster year culminating with the publication of her debut novel Any Dream Will Do, you'd have to say she has good reason to. "i was always a scribbler," she continues, as she reflects on her early writing career. "i loved writing essays at school. and later on i was always the one writing the funny poem on the birthday card at work." However, her choice of career in banking rather than pursuing a career in the arts made her think for years that she was not worthy of being a writer. "i didn't use big words; i didn't have a degree in English i just thought, who'd be interested?" Despite this, she did write the first seven or eight chapters of a novel, but then motherhood took over entirely. "i had six pregnancies in six years two were miscarriages. and so i had four children under the age of six. Life became too hectic but i was still eating books. i was a huge fan of people like Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly, Patricia Scanlon." Duffy's life changed one day when she was listening to the Gerry Ryan Show on RTE radio and heard about a show RTE was putting together called Five Women Go Back to Work. "at this stage i had left my job in the bank and i rang up to inquire about it. They sent me for interview, and, speaking of fate, on the day i was to go for my interview my daughter handed me a pair of shoes with the letters VIP written inside them, which was the same name as the production company putting together the show. i really thought it was meant to be." in a funny way it probably was, but not in the way Duffy first thought. "i got down to the last 10, but i didn't make the final cut. i was disappointed obviously, but the whole process had given me a lot of confidence. it was a turning point; i began to think ' i can do this'." "This" was finishing her novel, which she did. "i really got into it in earnest once my youngest child Conor started school. i suddenly had those hours to myself." Not knowing a thing about the publishing process, she stumbled across the inkwell Writers website and got to know founder Vanessa O'loughlin. She encouraged her to attend a 'How to get published' workshop, which she did, and met irish uber- agent Sheila Crowley. after the workshop, Duffy sent her manuscript to an irish publisher who liked it but ultimately decided not to go with publication. "So after that rejection i decided not to send the novel to anyone else. i realised i wasn't ready. i hadn't quite found my voice." What she did do was really hone her craft, writing across all genres, including poetry, short stories and even beginning a new novel. She also began dabbling in social media, especially Twitter. "Even though i was dragged kicking and screaming to it at first, i absolutely loved it. i wasn't trying to be high brow. i enioyed just being me." Duffy also started writing a blog for Hello! magazine called Stars in the Twitterverse. "i interviewed Eamon Holmes, Keith Barry, and, more recently, Carol Voderman. i found i had a knack of getting in touch with celebrities over Twitter." Then, about a year ago, she received a call. "it was Sheila Crowley asking if i wanted to meet for a cuppa. She said she'd been following me on Twitter and that she loved my voice. She reckoned if i could channel it into a novel, it would be a success." Needing no further encouragement, Duffy set about writing the novel Any Dream will Do, which uses Twitter as its backdrop and which Crowley loved. Just a few weeks after sending it out to publishers, Hachette came back with an offer. "i think something clicked with me as i wrote this book. The words spilled out of me." But the question remains how does she manage to combine writing with four children ( Eoin, roisin, Enya and Conor), aged between eight and 14? "Sometimes, when i have a lot to do, i pull an all- nighter. i find it helpful to invest in a pair of pyjamas that look like tracksuit bottoms because then you can do the school run in them!" Once they are in school, she writes between 9.30am and 2.30pm, pulling down the blinds and trying not to get too distracted with housework. "Well i do the basics, i wipe the toilet seats after all i do have two boys!" she laughs. "But my saving grace is that i have a fantastic husband, Paddy. Often he will come home from work and take into a basket of ironing; he's always been great around the house and he's so encouraging of my writing." Duffy has just finished her second novel, and hopes to be writing for a long time to come. "First and foremost i am a mother that will always be the most important thing. But after that, writing is what makes me tick. i feel i've finally found my voice." County Wicklow parents Cian and Yvonne O'Cuanachain had battled for 68 days in the High Court for the State to provide Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) education for their son, Sean, who is autistic. Last week they lost their 2m fight. The courts ruled they had produced insufficient evidence to prove their case, and said they must meet their legal costs. Their's was regarded as a test case, so the verdict spells bad news for thousands of other parents round the country, including Ken and Janice Berry from west Dublin. The Berrys, in common with many parents, believe that ABA is essential for the educational and social development of many autistic children. The ruling also places a new question mark over over the future of their son, Aaron. Irish Autism Action, which supports parents with autistic children, has said that the costs ruling would deter parents from taking legal action to compel the State to meet their children's needs. Ken Berry has two tattoos on the back of his neck. The first reads 'Cathal Sep 06', the second 'Aaron Oct 07'. These are not the birth dates of his two sons, they are the dates each was diagnosed with autism. The tragedy is not just the two diagnoses but the fact both came years later than they should have done, losing valuable time in each case. "But eventually we had the assessment and we could begin getting the help we needed. That is what the tattoos represent," he says. Ken, who runs a family electrical contracting business, lives with his wife Janice and their three children, Cathal, age six, Aaron, five, and Sadhbh, aged three, in Blanchardstown. "Around the age of two, Cathal went into regression," he says. "He had been speaking, he had been saying 'Mammy', 'Daddy', 'Mammy, drink', then suddenly silence, he began to cover his ears as if he couldn't bear sounds," says Janice. Each parent handled the situation in their own way. Ken, who through friends had experience of child autism, felt he knew almost immediately what was happening. Janice could not, or would not, see it. "I was in denial. I kept saying, 'he's fine, Cathal is shy, he's just a bit quiet,'" she says. They learnt the hard way that parents of children with autism have to wait for everything, including assessment, and the waiting list then was two years plus. Cathal was finally assessed at Solas, Ireland's first National Diagnostic and Assessment Centre, Dublin 3, which was opened officially last year by the voluntary organisation Irish Autism Action. The assessment was undertaken by educational psychologist Allan Willis, who works solely with Autism Spectrum Disorders. "We were told that Cathal had mild autism. He could go to mainstream school, and needed six hours of special needs assistance at school, as well as occupational therapy and speech therapy. For me, it was like getting the prescription. It was a great relief, like: 'Thank God, I have the piece of paper; now we can do something, we can get on with it'," says Ken. "I was floored. It was pure misery and I found it very hard," says Janice. As Cathal's parents they followed his assessment to the letter. Cathal is in Junior Infants in a mainstream primary school and has a special needs assistant with him in the classroom for five hours a day. "Cathal is very intelligent. He is doing well at school. If he were not being helped he would be pushed to the bottom of the class, crying. I would be called up to parent teacher meetings all the time," says Janice. The couple has also converted their attic into a classroom. "We work with him at home, using flash cards to help with vocabulary. We went on the Thinking Toys website (www.thinkingtoys.ie) which sells toys for children with special needs. Cathal understands everything, he hugs us, he looks at us, he tries to talk to us. We pay for a private teacher to come to our home four hours a week to give him life skills," says Ken. They have been less successful in meeting his other developmental needs. "We have our diagnosis, but when you get on to the HSE, they say they have to do a further assessment, that he has to go on a waiting list for speech and occupational therapy. We're still waiting." Cathal was reassessed in Solas in December 2007. "He has made a vast improvement. He is now diagnosed as having high-functioning autism. The diagnosis we got from the Solas Centre was spot-on," says Ken. But meanwhile, the unthinkable had happened. A year after Cathal's assessment, their second son, Aaron, was diagnosed with autism, in a more severe form than Cathal's. Aaron has little or no verbal communication, he also needs speech and occupational therapy, but educationally, he will not benefit from mainstream education. Many children with autism do much better in an educational system called Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), and Aaron's diagnosis pointed in this direction. "I mourned Aaron. You mourn the child you will never have," said Ken, as Janice nodded in agreement. ABA, a behaviourist approach to children with autism, was pioneered at the University of California. ABA teaches behaviour modification, speech therapy, social skills training, using short intensive teaching periods, with lots of reinforcement and measurable goals. Such early intervention before the age of five and lasting two years seems to greatly help some children with autism both socially and intellectually. Last September, Aaron qualified for a home tutor for 20 hours a week. "It is just a matter of luck that she has ABA experience, and because of this, Aaron is coming along well. She has Aaron dressing himself, cleaning his teeth -- she works one-to-one. The bad news is that we will lose her in June and we have no guarantee that her replacement will have the ABA experience. As far as we are concerned, this will make a huge difference to Aaron's progress and development," says Janice. The parents talk also about their daughter Sadhbh and their need to give her as normal an upbringing as possible. "Sadhbh runs the house! She has a good relationship with Cathal, no relationship with Aaron and she bosses them both about. She thinks every home has a classroom in the attic and wants to sit in on the learning. Sometimes we allow her up there, and playing with Aaron will help their relationship." They say they can well understand marriages coming a-cropper where there is an autistic child in the family. "It takes its toll on every single aspect of the relationship. We go out once a week, just the two of us, and we are also very lucky with our extended families," says Ken. "We got a lot of informal help from the Irish Autism Action and the Solas Centre; otherwise we would be left in the dark. Cathal is doing fine, but Aaron is the heartbreaking one at the moment. You shouldn't have to go to bed crying most nights because you are so worried about your child. Why do we have to wait so long for everything when time is so vital? "I would say to other parents to be aware. If you suspect something, follow it up -- I was in denial. I told myself 'Cathal is quiet and shy, there's nothing wrong with him'. It's better to find out; it's better to know -- the earlier the better. It won't change the facts anyway. Cathal is doing well. My dream now is that Aaron will get the help he needs in time," says Janice. Ray of hope for families: Solas Assessment Centre One in every 166 children has autism, according to Department of Health figures. However, this covers the whole autism spectrum including children with ADHD and Asperger Syndrome, as well as classic autism. "Nobody knows how many children in Ireland have classic autism because the research has never been done," says Kevin Whelan, CEO of Solas, Ireland's first national diagnostic centre for autism, which opened last year. The Irish word solas means 'light' and the aim of Solas is to bring light and hope to families affected by autism. The Solas promise is that no family will wait longer than three months for assessment. Since its opening, the centre has already assessed 270 children, and given them a service plan. Time is of the essence. "It has been proven worldwide that early accurate diagnosis, coupled with early intensive intervention, increases the child's opportunity for positive development and success. Up until recently, families were waiting 18 months or more to receive a full diagnosis from the HSE, and longer for an assessment of educational and medical needs. This represents very valuable time lost, which can never be regained," says Kevin Whelan. "The Department of Health recently gave a guarantee for children from birth to age five, that once a referral is made, the child will be assessed within six months. There is, as yet, no guarantee for the children over five (of whom there are many) who have not been diagnosed within the autism spectrum. Some of the delay can be due to high staff turnover, which means there may be one vacancy in a multidisciplinary team holding up the whole assessment. Solas has no such problems, and can call in a full multidisciplinary team as needed. "Parents can self-refer, and we are getting people from all over Ireland. Assessment by a multidisciplinary team usually takes two visits, and parents go away with an action plan, including local contacts to help them follow up whatever recommendations we have made," adds Whelan. To date Solas has not received a cent from the state. The centre has been set up by the voluntary parents group Irish Autism Action who lease the property. O2 helped with setting up costs and continue to contribute to running costs. The service costs 450,000 a year to run, made up from O2 contribution, assessment fees from parents who can afford to pay, and fundraising activities. Irish Autism Action raises 250,000 each year themselves, a massive undertaking. A huge plus is the involvement of Keith Duffy of Boyzone, whose daughter, Mia, has autism. "There is no way we could have achieved what we have done without Keith," says Kevin Whelan. "April 2 is World Autism Day. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the state were to mark the day by being willing to recognise the benefits of our service, funding us accordingly so that we could open a similar facility elsewhere in the country?" Solas Centre, Irish Autism Action, St Gabriel's Road, Dollymount, Dublin 3. Call 01-8531572 for further info or go to www.autismireland.ie At first glance, Keith and Lisa Duffy look like any other good-looking, well-off, celebrity couple whom the public have taken to heart and feel they know. These days, we're used to good-looking, well-off celebrities talking about "challenges", personal tragedies and charity work -- in fact, we demand it of them. But it's seldom we come across a couple as unaffected, honest and frank as Keith and Lisa. Talking to Keith Duffy, it's obvious that there's more to him than mere celebrity rhetoric. And when the down-to-earth father-of-two talks about his family life and his utter frustration with the treatment of children with autism in this country, which he describes as a "fucking disgrace", it's then you get an indication that first impressions don't do them justice. Thanks to the debate surrounding the smartness of the Boyzone comeback tour, starting in May, and his stint as a judge/mediator on RTE's You're a Star, Keith Duffy's name has remained in the public domain. However, while the work mightn't be as glamourous, or catch the headlines as often, he's been equally busy with Irish Autism Action (IAA) of late, a charity close to his heart. He started fundraising after his daughter Mia was diagnosed with autism at 18 months -- a disability that affects the normal development of the brain in areas of social interaction and communication. And though he's raised an estimated 4m to date, he's adamant that it's the parents of autistic children who fundraised alongside him who deserve the credit. There's no doubt in his mind that every cent put towards providing early diagnosis and appropriate education for children with autism is not only worth it, but vital. He speaks from personal experience after his family benefited from what he describes as "a miracle" last September when Mia walked through the gates of Rolestown National School, a mainstream school in Swords. He believes her progress was made possible because she got the chance to attend ABACAS in Kilbarrack, North Dublin, a school that uses the Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) method. This is a personalised programme that involves breaking down tasks into small achievable steps, each achievement building on the previous. The Dubliner, who is still sporting a cast on his arm following an accident in the gym, is surprisingly unguarded or shy about talking about his love for his stunning wife of 10 years, Lisa, and his two children, Jay (12) and Mia (8). He smiles as he recalls the day his daughter was born. "When Mia came along, we had a gentleman's family, a little boy and a girl. I thought all we're short now is the gentleman," Keith laughs. But by the time Mia was a year old, they began to suspect something was wrong. "As she got a little older, we thought she might be deaf," he explains. "We couldn't get through to her, we thought she was ignoring us. She developped quirky ways, she wouldn't go outside the house and, if she was outside, her blanket would be over her head all the time. As open as Lisa and I are, we weren't talking and I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't want to face what was wrong." He admits that the day he realised Mia had autism was devastating. "I hadn't cried like that in years, I was like a child; I couldn't catch my breath. "The tears were streaming down my face," he says. "When I got home, I said to Lisa 'Mia is autistic' and she gave me a slap across the jaw. That was her way of having to accept something was wrong. It was a horrible time." Lisa still finds it difficult to talk about that period of their lives without it bringing tears to her eyes. "When Mia was diagnosed, Keith threw himself into fundraising as a way of dealing with it. I went the other way, I retreated and hid away for a while," she explains. "I found the fundraising difficult because, initially, I didn't want to accept it was real." They very rapidly discovered just how difficult it was to get help. Waiting lists for diagnostic reports were anything up to two years. (The IAA, after years of fundraising have since opened their own centre, The Solas Centre, to help families get help and their children assessed.) Mia started in ABACAS at the age of two and a half. "When she went there first, she couldn't speak, had no communication skills, had no affection," Keith reveals. "She was very much in her own world. She'd hide underneath her bed, wouldn't open the hall door. There was no Daddy- or Mammy-daughter relationship. To us, she was lonely." And, of course, her older brother Jay also struggled to understand his little sister. "He used to get quite frustrated at times and would ask why his sister didn't like him or why she wouldn't speak to him and stuff like that," says Keith. "It was difficult trying to explain that she's autistic." But, he says, the one-to-one teaching produced startling results and, at five, she spoke her first words. "She loved watching musicals, like Lady and the Tramp and Annie and, one Sunday afternoon, we were sitting watching the telly and Mia came into the room and sang Tomorrow from Annie. That was the first thing to come out of her mouth," explains the proud father. Lisa says that was a magical day. "We were crying with joy," says Lisa, who reveals that up to that time their house was dotted with Post-It notes with pictures that Mia used to illustrate what she wanted. It's obvious home life is central to Keith and that could well be as a result of his own happy childhood. He was brought up with his two brothers in Donaghmede. Christened Keith Peter Thomas Francis John Duffy, Keith says he was just a typical boy with "muck up to the eyeballs". It was on the party scene in Dublin that Keith bumped into Louis Walsh and 'the boys', better known as Boyzone. It was also during this time he met Lisa, who gave him "the runaround for months". Career success followed, as did the tours and hectic schedules, which he says, put pressure on their relationship. "We've had our ups and downs over the years," he says. "But we've always managed to get through the bullshit and realise why we're together in the first place. We're not this fantasy, happy couple; we do have a very ordinary life." Lisa, too, admits that Keith's being away on tour for long periods was difficult. "Keith would be coming home on a high after playing to maybe 18,000 people," she says. "And I'd be at home with the baby and maybe ask him to do something like stack the dishwasher and he'd look at me as if to say 'I'm back to this'. I'd to explain that this was real life." Today, when not passing verdict on the 'stars' on RTE's talent show, Keith Duffy is launching charity events to raise money for the IAA. At the moment there are 12 schools providing ABA in Ireland teaching 300 children and there are at least another 300 youngsters on the schools' waiting lists. Keith admits he finds it hard to comprehend why the state continues in the public, painful, drawn-out and expensive battles over autistic children and their rights to receive what is deemed "appropriate education". "My daughter is in a mainstream setting and it's more than we ever hoped or dreamed of. But there are parents who are listening to my story who know this form of education is out there and they can't avail of it because there are waiting lists the length of both my arms for every one of these schools," he argues, clearly agitated. He says that he doesn't want to get angry, but he's frustrated with a Board of Education that he claims isn't listening to the people who are best in the situation to advise them, the parents of children with autism. Lisa admits that Keith has a more positive attitude to the situation than she does. "I would be angry," she says. "I'd be angry that a child is losing out on an opportunity to fulfil their potential." But sadly, Keith also thinks that until those making decisions are directly affected, the situation might not change. "It's going to take one of the Board of Education members or one of the High Court judges to have a child or a grandchild with autism before they realise that this system of ABA can help a child with autism. "It's the difference between being institutionalised and holding down a job in the bank," he points out. The next few months are going to be extremely busy for the family. Boyzone are touring, something he admits he's excited about -- he's lost two stone since November getting in shape for his fans. But more importantly, Mia, whom Lisa describes as the "happiest child in the world" will be making her First Communion in May. It's an achievement her parents attribute to getting the appropriate education at the right time, something they want for all autistic children. BTkids joins forces with Keith to present Time to Shine, a family day at The Four Season's, Mother's Day, Sunday, March 2, dedicated to raising much-needed funds for Irish Autism Action. Tickets for Time to Shine cost 1,500 for a table of 10. Available from Kevin Whelan at Irish Autism Action, 044 9331609 or email kevin@autismireland.ie; also available from Tara O'Connor on 086 236 6936. For BTkids Grafton Street, call Alison Lawless on 01-605 6666 ext 6525 or email info@bt2.ie Is that another imagined conversation, Taoiseach? He's got in trouble before for coming up with his own 'alternative facts' about exchanges that never really happened. Now Enda Kenny seems bemused and confused yet again about what he said, this time when he spoke to Crown Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia on a 2014 trade mission. Pressed on whether our country had actually voted to put Saudi Arabia on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Mr Kenny claimed: "We've raised the question of women's rights with the Saudi Arabians and I was there myself on a trade mission a number of years ago." However, a check of the Dail record showed Mr Kenny told the opposition at the time the issue of women's rights was not expressly raised. In a bid to clear up the muddle yesterday, Mr Kenny then offered a new version: "I went to Saudi Arabia on a trade mission in 2014, and as part of that, at my own initiative, I raised the question of human rights with the Saudi authorities, which obviously includes women's rights " At the time, January 2014 to be precise, Mr Kenny told the Irish Independent on that trip: "I congratulated the crown prince, his royal highness, on the fact that Saudi Arabia has been invited to the human rights council of the United Nations and served there in the last number of years. I congratulated the Saudis on its leadership in terms of moderation here in the Gulf region and its desire for peace in light of a lot of complex issues." Rather than condemning the Saudis' lamentable record on human rights and women's rights, our leader congratulated them. Quite the embarrassing difference. Still we are unclear about how Ireland voted. The diplomatic silence suggests we backed the Saudis. AIB share offering doesn't gloss over a lost decade Anyone who has suffered catastrophic financial losses as a result of owning bank shares or, indeed, because of the reckless activity of the banking system during the Celtic Tiger era will be justifiably cynical about the new release of AIB shares back on to the market. The State-owned bank will gradually become a public company again after having to be rescued by the taxpayer. Nonetheless, it is important for society that there are functioning banks. The State owning a bank is not an ideal scenario by any means. The ordinary citizen has seen little enough benefit as the Government has been unable, or unwilling, to direct policy on mortgage rates, charging and the handling of arrears. All we are really left with from the folly is a lost decade of ruined lives and debt that will take generations to repay. The sale of the AIB shares is a positive development as it indicates the bank is healthy enough to stand on its own two feet again. However, caveat emptor buyer beware. The Irish property market is very volatile. AIB still is a bet on the property market. It is a mortgage lender. The future of the market is out of the banks control. But there will hardly be any shortage of willing shareholders wanting to take up the latest offering. A lot of people wont be able to afford the minimum 10,000 to buy in and will simply be left with a sour taste from the experience of the banks bailout. On Thursday night I headed for the Marshes where the launch of the O'Fiaich College PLC exhibition was taking place. The work included various pieces from the students studying Art & Design, Photography, Graphic Design and Creative Media and a huge crowd had turned up to see Anthony Haughey from DIT officially open exhibition which ran for the entire of the bank holiday weekend. I wasn't too long there when I met up with Pol and Deidre O'Cathain from Navan who were there with daughter Aine and Michael Donnelly from Tudor Grove who were there to support daughter Grace who is involved in portfolio preparation for NCAD and her ceramics on show were quite exceptional. She was also there with her uncle and godfather Paddy Donnelly who wanted to congratulate her on her work. I got a word with Grace who told me the course runs primarily from September to February and then it's down to work experience for the rest of the term and she had thoroughly enjoyed it. Checking out all the work were Toby Twybill from Castle Road and Tallon McGinn from Aghameen Park who were suitably impressed with what they had seen, Toby having already completed the course and Tallon is hoping to gain access to it next year. After this I met up with Iollan Kelleher from St. Marys Road and Manus Haughey from Hackballscross who were getting stuck into h'orderves when I met them. Manus told me his dad had officially opening the exhibition and he was also with his mum Patricia Lamb and they were impressed with the pieces on show. Not too far away I then got talking to my old mate Eugene Kirk from Knockbridge who was there with his delightful wife Ciara and son Oisin who told me that his daughter Ordhnaith had just completed the photography course under the direction of our own Ken Finegan BA (Hons). AIPF, ARPS who was with his wife Aine. They thought her work was exceptional and were delighted to be there for opening. Making my way through the crowds I then got talking to Ellie Smith from Avondale Park, Tara McNally from Barton Park, Sheila Walsh from Dunmahon, Gemma and Shirley McKenny from Ardee. The ladies told me that Tara and Sheila had completed the Graphic Design course and had their hearts set on going to college in Dun Laoghaire next year. Shirley said that she had completed the course twice and was there to led moral support to the girls. Next I met up with Mel Duffy from Darver, David and Siobhan Duffy from Medebawn who were there to support Evan who is also preparing his portfolio for NCAD in September. Making my way through the crowds I then came across a very proud Ronan and Kathleen Byrne from Hackballscross who were with son Ciaran who was exhibiting two pieces on the night. Ciaran is part of the National Learning Network and had really enjoyed the course, but wasn't that pushed on the opening night though! After this I headed over for a chat with Derek Caroyl and Aoife Ward from Ardee who were there to see Kayleigh's photographic pieces. They said she wants to continue her studies in the DkIT doing humanities and is very concerned with animal conservation, but they were extremely impressed with her work on show. Not too long later I then got talking to Thomas Wakely from Carrickmacross, Faruq Akigbesote from Navan, Caolan Cassidy from Carrickmacross and Evan Duffy from Medebawn who had completed the Graphic Design course and had his sights set on NCAD. Not too long later I met up with Patricia McAteer from Omeath who was there to support Briege McKeown-Clarke from Pearse Park who had completed the photography course and had absolutely loved it. After this I caught up with Anne Carr from Kingswood who was there to support Caitlin Kenneway from Kingswood and wanted to wish her all the best with her future endeavours. Not too long later I had the pleasure of meeting up with mother and daughter Sabina and Shannon Clarke from Pearse Park who were there to support Sabina's mum Briege Clarke from Lis Na Ri who had successfully completed the photography course focusing on her project based on St. Brigids Shrine in Faughart. She was also there with her friends Carina Drumm from Ravensdale and Sabina Gorham from Dromiskin. Sabrina (the younger!) told me that her mum Briege and Sabina (the other one) have been mates since they were kids, went to college together studying science, afterwards Sabina worked in Harp Lager and Briege worked in the DkIT until their retirement, unknown to each other they both signed up for the photography course and were more than surprised when they met up again on the first day. And before you ask, Sabina (the younger!) is named after (the other one), now that shows real friendship! Finally, on the night I met up with Ayshe Kelleher from Bishops Court who told me she completed the photography course and is now studying for a BA (Hons) in Belfast and was just down to check out what the latest batch of students were getting up to. The health benefits of group singing has been scientifically proven to lower stress, relieve anxiety, and elevate endorphins so it's not surprising that many people enjoy singing in a choir. These benefits are particularly important for older people, with the additional bonus that it can provide those living on their own with the opportunity to socialise with others. It also helps them to improve their mental and physical health, through the physical demands of singing as well as the mental stimulation of remembering songs. The Dundalk Active Retirement Choir was founded in 2010 and meets for rehearsals every Thursday afternoon in the Pastoral Centre, The Magnet, where they mix singing with tea and chat. The idea for the choir came from Christobel Clifford, from Oliver Plunkett Park. 'I was at an Active Retirement AGM down the country and there was a beautiful choir there to entertain us one night. I came back home with the intention of a starting a choir and that was the start of it.' Having sung with the St Nicholas Church Choir for thirty years, Christobel invited choir director Deirdre Morgan if she would be willing to get involved. 'She agreed to be our director as well and she loves it,' says Chrisobel. It's an all female choir with members ranging in age from 75 to 86 or 87 years, says Christobel. 'We love it, we all enjoy singing. Some of our members would have been in choirs or musical societies and they all just love music like I do.' 'We sing carols and hymns but we also do Irish songs, old time songs for sing-a-longs and some light classical music.' The choir visits local nursing homes and last year sang in Tesco Extra Store where they held a bucket collection for funds. They will be performing there on the afternoon of Saturday May 20 as part of the Bealtaine Festival and have put together a collection of Irish songs, in both English and Irish. One of the highlights for the choir so far was when they got the opportunity to sing in Kilmainham Jail last year. 'We were on a tour of the jail last March for the 1916 centenary celebrations and after going around the jail, we got a few minutes to sing,' recalls Christobel. 'We had rehearsed the song 'Grace' about Grace Plunkett and got to sing it in the yard where her husband Joseph Mary Plunkett was executed the morning after their marriage. It was a wonderful experience.' At 84 years of age, Christobel has no intention of giving up a hobby which brings her so much pleasure. 'Some days I don't feel it (age) and other days I do.' 'A captive audience' of people on a night out enjoying themselves are the target for beggars that take up positions close to pubs in Dundalk town centre, the recent meeting of Dundalk's Joint Policing Committee (JPC) has been told. The issue of 'aggressive begging' was raised by Cllr. Maeve Yore who asked Superintendent Gerard Curley about begging in the town centre and what Gardai had been doing to stop it. The meeting was reminded that Chief Superintendent Sean Ward had revealed at the start of this year that officers would issue ASBOs against those who are causing an obstruction or being aggressive towards members of the public. Cllr. Yore said that while Gardai on patrol during the daytime had made inroads with the problem, she said the issue of begging after 6pm needed to be tackled, particularly on Park Street. She alleged there are 'professional beggars' working in Dundalk. Her comments about aggressive begging were echoed by Cllr. Conor Keelan who said he too had been asked to raise concerns about it 'in the greater Dundalk area' and while some progress has been made, 'concerns remain about individuals outside the post office, the Bank of Ireland and McEvoys'. Cllr. Keelan said: 'There is a night-time presence in Park Street and they gain a captive audience of people out enjoying themselves'. Supt. Curley said he would look into the matter of begging at night-time. Cllr. Edel Corrigan said Gardai can only take action against those who are 'aggressively begging' and these people should not be confused with those who are 'genuinely in that situation'. Cllr. Yore also raised concerns about cars and vans parking at the Square. She said 'they shouldn't be there' and asked the superintendent about it and also about the relatively new phenomenon of takeaway delivery drivers parking on the footpath at the Square at night-time in order to take deliveries from a nearby premises. Superintendent Curley said he would look into this matter also. The bill for defending Dundalk and Blackrock from flooding caused by winter storms and rising sea levels tops 40million according to Office of Public Works recommendations. The Flood Risk Management Plans, say that over 1,400 properties in Dundalk and Blackrock are at risk unless some 18km of flood defences are put in place. In the north of the county, a further 21.6million investment for flood barriers is needed to protect 496 properties currently at risk in Carlingford and Greenore. And in Drogheda, it's estimated that 16.8million is needed to protect 908 properties from both coastal and river flooding. Flood defences are also needed in Annagassan, Ardee, Termonfeckin, and Baltray, leaving the total bill for the county at 85million. These towns and villages are among some 300 at risk centres where works are needed to prevent damage to homes and businesses if a major flood event arises, while taking into account increased rainfall and rising sea levels projected to occur as climate change takes hold. The investment needed in Dundalk and Blackrock is one of the highest in the country after the cities of Limerick, Cork and Dublin. The plans have been drawn up through the National Catchment-based Flood Risk Assessment and Management (CFRAM) programme, and are the outcomes of years of detailed engineering analysis and extensive public consultation, including public meetings in Dundalk, Carlingford, Drogheda, and Ardee. Local councillors have for years been calling for increased investment in flood protection following devastating floods in 1981, 2002 and 2014 which saw extensive flooding in Dundalk, Blackrock and the Cooley peninsula. Louth, like the rest of Ireland, is at risk of more extreme weather events and increased levels of rainfall as average global temperatures continue to soar, as well as rising sea levels. A woman, who claims she is 18 years of age, is causing concern for a judge who cannot sentence her for a theft charge and failing to give gardai identification - because she does not exist on any records in the State. The woman , who was arrested in Dundalk last Wednesday, for stealing two eyebrow pencils worth 10.29 from Penneys, initially told gardai her name is 'Rosie Peterson' with a date of birth in January 1999. The mystery woman claimed she came to the State from Saudi Arabia but as gardai could not establish her identity as there is no record of her having entered the country and no record of her existing in Ireland, Judge John Coughlan said he was left with no option but to remand her in custody in Dundalk last week, to give gardai more time to establish her identity and she appeared before Drogheda District Court last Friday. She then gave gardai a different name 'Sarah Imarogbe' with a date of birth in March, 1999. Barrister Ronan O'Carroll said at last Friday's court sitting his instructions are that she was initially living in Holland and came to Ireland from there but that no documents exist for her. He said the defendant, of No Fixed Abode in Dundalk, wanted to plead guilty to the two offences. However, Judge Coughlan said he could not deal with the case as 'we don't know who she is.' 'The problem is she has no documents, no passport, we don't know who she is,' said Judge Coughlan, adding 'her story has changed' as to where she came from. She is the author of her own misfortune. We don't know how she got into the country and we don't know her proper name,' he added. 'I can't deal with it as I can't sentence someone whom we don't know the identity of and we don't know if she has any previous convictions. I can't keep her in custody indefinitely'. Inspector Brendan Cadden told the judge he arranged for an immigration officer to be at Drogheda Garda Station last Friday afternoon to speak with the defendant and to ascertain the defendant's real identity while Mr O'Carroll said the defendant consents to be remanded in custody to appear again before Drogheda District Court tomorrow (Tuesday). The pleas from the parents of a disabled young woman who was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda nearly two weeks ago seem to have fallen on deaf ears, despite the story being featured on the front of the Argus last week. On Tuesday last, the Argus revealed how a woman, aged in her twenties, with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour was taken to the hospital after she became distressed while out shopping with her parents, who are aged in their sixties. The woman's parents initially contacted neighbours to come to help them, and the decision was taken to bring the young woman to Drumcar. But the parents were told that Drumcar did not have the capacity to look after her properly and she was brought by ambulance to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital instead. The support group - The Parents and Friends of the Intellectually Disabled - said on Friday the young woman remains in the Lourdes, despite the fact both her family and her medical carers know this is not the proper place for her. Since her admission, her parents, along with members of the support group, have made numerous attempts to secure a proper residential place for the woman, but to no avail. The Argus understands that a potentially suitable placement has been found for the woman, but funding for it has not been forthcoming from the HSE. Chairperson of the Dundalk group, Mary Darcy, said the parents remain 'beside themselves with worry' about their daughter. And Ms Darcy highlighted another case where a woman in her eighties recently had a stroke, leaving her unable to care for her daughter, who has Down Syndrome and who is aged in her fifties. At present, she is being cared for by other family members, who are also very concerned about the long-term care the pensioner needs following her stroke. Ms Darcy said: 'There are a number of these crises going on in this area, but many people don't speak out about it. It is shocking and sad to see people being treated like this when they have struggled all their lives to care for their children'. A local writer has been selected to participate in a new cross-border creative writing project called XBorders. Tamara O'Connell, a journalist living in Castlebellingham, is one of 18 emerging writers chosen from across Ireland for the exciting project. Tamara said: 'I'm delighted to have been picked. We will be working with experts in the field of borders and security to help inform and inspire our writing'. She will be working with cultural theorist Dr Declan Long and security experts Mark Maguire and Eileen Murphy over the next four months. Tamara will learn about contemporary art practice of the 'Post-Troubles' period from art critic, lecturer and former Turner Prize judge Dr Declan Long. International borders will be explored with anthropologist and border security expert Dr Mark Maguire whose research focuses on international migration, biometric security, counter-terrorism and border control. Eileen Murphy, a researcher with the Centre for Innovation Human Systems, School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, will examine the future of biometric border technologies and policies. XBorders is being run by the Irish Writers Centre (IWC) in Dublin and aims to bring emerging writers together to explore and write about borders through fiction or non-fiction. IWC has welcomed many award-winning writers through its doors, including Nobel, Costa, Man Booker and IMPAC winners. 'Participants have to attend three seminars in Belfast, Derry and Dublin. I'm really looking forward to the whole process. It's going to be a really interesting experience', said Tamara. 'It's a very topical theme as there has been a lot of public discourse about borders, particularly in relation to immigration'. According to IWC Director Valerie Bistany, Ireland as an island has a long and complex relationship with borders which has been the subject of much great Irish writing. 'Writing is a powerful cultural force and we wanted to bring writers together to explore the idea of our national borders, both literal and metaphorical', said Valerie. 'Whether it be migration, the Troubles, Brexit or interpersonal boundaries, borders are one of the biggest cultural and social issues at the moment - we wanted to help writers to tap into this rich mine of ideas to address this in their writing'. The participants will also work with writer Maria McManus and Blackstaff Press Managing Editor Patsy Horton. At the end of the process, the writers will produce feature length pieces which will be published on a number of platforms including In/Print journal, an arts journal published by the Dublin School of Creative Arts at Dublin Institute of Technology. The XBorders seminars are open to the public. The first one of the series with Dr Declan Long is taking place on Saturday, May 6 at 1pm at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast. Tickets are free and can be booked on Irishwriterscentre.ie. The Irish Writers Centre is the national resource centre for Irish literature. The IWC supports and promotes writers at all stages of their development, and runs a diverse programme of writing courses and workshops led by established writers across a range of forms and genres. Last year marked the Centre's 25th anniversary which was celebrated through significant projects including A Poet's Rising. Former Anglo Irish Chairman Sean FitzPatrick told gardai that he had no reason to hide the full extent of his loans from the bank, his trial heard last Friday. It is the prosecution's case that multi-million euro loans taken out by Mr FitzPatrick (68) and his family were 'artificially reduced' for a period of two weeks around the bank's financial end of year statement by short term loans from other sources, including Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS). On day 115 of the country's longest running criminal trial, prosecuting counsel told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court their case was complete. Defence Counsel, Bernard Condon told the court then that the defence had some applications to make and these would take some time. The jury was asked to return on May 11. Earlier, the court heard that after his arrest by investigating gardai, Mr FitzPatrick told them that there was no financial benefit to him, his family or Anglo Irish Bank in the annual refinancing of some of his loans. He said he never came up with the suggestion that the refinancing should be done. He said it was done by someone else and he just signed it off. 'I never went and spoke to anyone in INBS. I never came up with the suggestion that should be done. Every year someone in the accounts department did it and it was done, done, done and I just signed it,' he told gardai. He denied that he was seeking to conceal the extent of his loans from the bank's board, shareholders or auditors. 'This was not being done behind closed doors. It was not being done secretly. 'There was no secrecy about the loan process. No prohibition on anyone being told about it,' he told Detective Sergeant Brian Mahon, during interviews at Bray Garda Station. He said around 40 staff in the bank knew. Asked if he was trying to conceal his loans from the auditors, he said that the bank's loans figures were returned every quarter to the Central Bank. Asked if the refinancing was 'a deliberate attempt to mislead the auditors about the true extent of your loans', Mr FitzPatrick replied: 'Why would I want to do that? Where was the benefit for me? Where was I making money? 'All of the loans up to 2008 were performing, approved by the credit committee, where was the benefit for me in refinancing?' He told Sergeant Mahon that the media would have been at the back of his mind as he was concerned there would not be a misleading picture. He said he didn't believe loans he had taken out as part of investment partnerships he was involved with had to be disclosed in Anglo's figures as he was only liable for a part of those loans. He said the refinancing was done for the first four or five years to ensure 'a misleading picture was not put out'. 'If there was no refinancing, the bank would have included the entire partnership loans and the question was which was more misleading?,' he told gardai. He said that it was suggested by the bank in 1995 that this was the route he should take to more accurately reflect the level of real borrowing by him. He said he didn't know who came up with the solution. 'There was no financial benefit to me, my family or the bank,' he added. Asked about the temporary transfer of monies from his own deposit accounts he said he had no recollection of he or his wife giving instructions for that to happen. Gardai asked him how it could have happened without instruction he replied: 'Exactly. How did it happen?' He said he didn't know if any other directors, non executive directors or Anglo senior management know about the full extent of your borrowings. Mr FitzPatrick of Whitshed Road, Greystones, has pleaded not guilty to 27 offences under the 1990 Companies Act. These include 22 charges of making a misleading, false or deceptive statement to auditors and five charges of furnishing false information in the years 2002 to 2007. Lidl Ireland held a public meeting in Shankill last week to tell people about their plans for the Shankill Shopping Centre. There was a large turnout at the information evening at Shanganagh Park House, where representatives of Lidl shared their design proposals with the community. There were drawings, sketches and architects to answer questions. They told people that they will plan to apply for permission for a store on the site, demolishing the centre there and building a new two-storey structure. The undercroft of the new building will be their car park. The development will include two other separate groups of buildings, including a medical centre, cafe and creche. The main supermarket will be glass and steel, and stone clad on one side. They expect that the store could open in 2019. A pharmacy currently operating at the shopping centre will remain, with a new larger unit close to the medical centre. Those at the meeting heard that the existing building is 'from another time' and not suitable for Lidl's needs. Lidl purchased the centre last October from the company Bilaro, linked to Lithuanian retailer Nerijus Numavicius. Bilaro paid 6 million for the site and had done a complete re-fit before deciding to sell the centre, which has been closed since 2007. Prior to that, in 2007, Select Retail Holdings bought the bulk of the units. Its closure and failure to redevelop was a big blow to residents of the town, while more than 100 people lost their jobs in Supervalu and smaller shops on-site. However the group was put into receivership and sold to Musgraves. While construction will be starting on the marina boardwalk during the summer, it will remain closed to the public until construction works for all seven blocks of apartments have been completed. Last week's meeting of Greystones Municipal District heard that this is for health and safety reasons. The public park will be completed once all excavation works have been completed for the undercrofts of the apartments. Cllr Grainne McLoughlin suggested inviting the developers back to a meeting with a plan for the park and boardwalk and what it will look like. The meeting heard that officials don't yet know how long it will take to complete the apartments. Members heard that the cliff walk will be relocated through the site to facilitate the construction of the apartments and boardwalk. The temporary route will go through Marina Village, down by Sweeney's and Beach Road. Engineer Ruairi O'Hanlon said that the long-term cliff walk path could go either way. Cllr Derek Mitchell welcomed what he called 'substantial progress'. 'They are going to start, and hopefully finish, the apartments and boardwalk,' he said. Cllr Mitchell added that work on a first floor restaurant on the pier has started. He said it will have 360 degree views and it is expected to open next year. The ground floor will be the harbourmaster's office. A series of concerts are to take place in May, bringing music to communities of older people in County Louth during Bealtaine Festival 2017, programmed by CreateLouth, the Arts Service of Louth County Council. "Musical Memoires" brings professional musicians from the concert stage into local care settings, hospitals ,nursing homes and senior citizens clubs, so that everyone can access professional live music regardless of their circumstances and in comfortable and familiar surroundings. Building on previous engagements with theatre companies and musical ensembles, the series of concerts will both stimulate and revive memories of past musical experiences. The Musical Memories Ensemble, featuring Grainne Hope, Cello, Dunleer man Brendan McCreanor, Uilleann Pipes, and Liam Merriman, Voice/Guitar, will bring a programme of popular classics and old-time favourites into six settings throughout Louth in May. Concerts will take place in Carlingford Nursing Home, St. Gerard's Senior Citizens Club, Dundalk, St. Oliver's Hospital, Dundalk, The Birches Alzheimer's Centre, Dundalk, Ardee Daycare Centre, and Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda. Brian Harten, County Arts Officer explains - "Music has the capacity to inspire creativity. Music also has the ability to prompt recollections and reminiscences of days gone by. Both of these properties of music are in evidence in "Musical Memories", as some of Ireland's finest musicians will perform for a wide cross section of older people in Louth". Popular RTE series 'You Should Really See a Doctor' will be in Drogheda during the Maritime Festival to shoot scenes for the next series of the medical show. The television medical diagnosis show is looking for local participants to take part in the series when it comes to town for the Maritime Festival on Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th. Dr Pixie McKenna and Dr Phil Kieran will be on tour around the country this summer, from Donegal to Cork, Kerry to Dublin, visiting events with their pop-up clinic to offer on the spot free consultations and health checks. The two doctors will once again be examining the symptoms and ailments affecting both adults and children around the country - from lumps and bumps to aches and pains, skin problems to sleep issues, they will tackle them all. The producers of the show have revealed that as well as the mobile clinic which will accept walk in patients on the day, advance appointments are also available when the clinic visits Drogheda in June. Independent Pictures are interested in hearing from people who want answers to their health issues. If you are suffering with health complaints from stomach problems, to sleep issues to skin problems the programme makers want to hear from you. Fill out the application form at http://www.rte.ie/tv/audienceparticipation/youshouldreallyseeadoctor.html You can also fill out an application form on behalf of a family member or friend by filling out the relevant section. For more information call 01 7088195 or email doctor@indiepics.ie A film written, produced and acted in by local woman Emily Taaffe was warmly received when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York last week. 'Little Bird' stars Imelda Staunton and the WWII story is inspired by the disappearance of Emily's great aunt during the war. Her great grandmother had a sister who left Ireland during the 1940s to join the women's branch of the RAF and was never heard of again. The family later learned that she had gone to Egypt where she met and married her husband and went on to have two sons on their return to England. The truth was only discovered when one of the woman's sons turned up on her aunt's doorstep. Emily, who grew up in Tullyallen and attended the Sacred Heart Secondary School, has been based in London for the past 12 years after graduating from Trinity and LAMDA. She has since starred in a number of high profile roles on both stage and screen including War and Peace, Ripper Street and Call the Midwife. 'Little Bird' was made with an 80% female cast and capital for the ten minute short was raised through crowd funding website Kickstarter. She originally thought her great aunt had joined the Women's Royal Naval Services (WRENS) and the inspiration for the story behind Little Bird came from reading the histories of the women involved who came from all different walks of life. Despite a major investment in a new water main at the North Quay, residents of the Newfoundwell Road area, including College Rise and Harmony Heights are experiencing issues with their supply. Many say that the water supply has not improved since the project was completed and it can be hard to even have a shower at weekends due to the low water pressure. There are also problems with washing machines cutting out many say the supply is either 'weak' or 'moderate' and that the supply can vary on a daily basis. Many are also unaware of a facility for Irish Water to carry out a free pressure and flow test on your water supply. Local councillor Pio Smith conducted a survey of households in the area to discover if the new water main had made any impact on the lives of people in the area. 'Irish Water intend to carry out major works in Drogheda over the coming months and I would like to inform them of the current water pressure status in Newfoundwell,' he stated. Some people say the pressure is so bad it could take 24 hours for their talk to refill. One person said they get up in the middle of the night to turn on their washing machine as the water pressure is so poor. Gardai discovered a brothel being run in a town centre apartment after visiting the flat when concerns were raised about a child staying there, Drogheda District Court has heard. The court heard that on May 23rd 2015 gardai were concerned about a child at an apartment in town. They visited the apartment and on entering the premises believed it was being used as a brothel. They spoke to Profira Pantazi (48) with addresses at Apartment 22, New Street, Scotch Hall, Drogheda and 401 Cornmarket Row, High Street Limerick, who admitted she was leasing the flat and it was being used for prostitution. At last Tuesday's sitting of Drogheda District Court, Pantazi (48) pleaded guilty to allowing a premises be used as a brothel for the purpose of habitual prostitution on May 23rd, 2015. The solicitor for the defence told the court the child in questions was not the defendants. She said Pantazi is a 48-year-old Romanian national who has two grown up children both in their 20s. The solicitor said her client was not involved in any of these activities herself, is not currently working and is in receipt of 120 a week social welfare. Judge John Coughlan sentenced the defendant to four months in custody and imposed a 50 fine. He fixed recognisance at 300. Road work headaches show no sign of abating as Executive Engineer Joanne Kehoe reported to the Enniscorthy district council members of construction that is expected to commence later this year. Surfacing works have already commenced on the N11 between Scarawalsh and Ferns and are expected to be completed within 10 weeks. A traffic light system is in place with delays expected during peak hours. Works on the R702 between Duffry Gate and the M11 site on the Milehouse Road at Monart are expected to commence in late May with most of it being conducted as night work. Elsewhere, the design is currently being undertaken for the resurfacing of the N11 south of Oylegate with works hopefully being carried out later on in the year. Cllr Keith Doyle requested that the road outside St Aidan's School and the Presentation Centre be resurfaced in the next couple of years as it is starting to wear away from all the works carried out on the new school. Doran's Bridge, Clone Road is notorious for speeding and Cllr Barbara-Ann Murphy asked Ms Kehoe maybe for speeding signs to be placed along there, plus if the Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) are doing anything about the N80 in Bunclody. 'I will pass that on and ask TII to do an assessment on Doran's Bridge. Plus we are hoping to get some funding this year to conduct works on the N80 in Bunclody where it is needed,' said Ms Kehoe. A delegation of world leaders in sustainable energy will visit County Wexford on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of locating Ireland's first Passive House Training Centre near Enniscorthy. The delegation, headed by Scott Foster of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, will arrive in Ireland today (Tuesday) and after a courtesy call on Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Government Buildings will travel to Wexford on Wednesday morning for a briefing seminar before an invited audience in County Hall. Wexford County Council's Chief Executive, Mr Tom Enright and Director of Services for the Enniscorthy area, Mr John Carley, will receive the delegation at County Hall and after a lunch, hosted by the County Council, Mr Tomas O'Leary of the Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Resource Agency, will give an overview of the International Training Centre proposed for Enniscorthy. The delegation, in addition to Mr Foster, includes Dr David Riley, Professor of Architectural Engineering, Penn State University; Dr. Somayeh Asadi, the Hartz Family Career Development Assistant Professor, Department of Architectural Engineering, Penn State University; Ms Lisa Shulock, Co-Director, Penn State at the Navy Yard and Robert Cavey, Partner, Praxis, Washington DC, will travel to Enniscorthy on Wednesday afternoon to view the site of the proposed international training centre at Killagoley where plans are at an advanced stage for a new Technological Park. The delegation will also visit Ireland's first affordable certified Passive House and Nearly Zero Energy Building social housing project at The Moyne which has been constructed by Michael Bennett and Sons, Building Contractors, for Wexford County Council. Wexford County Council is the first Local Authority in Ireland to embrace the nZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Buildings) concept and it is as a result of this initiative that the county has been earmarked for Ireland's first Passive House Training Centre. Enniscorthy Town Manager, Ms Liz Hore, together with Enniscorthy Municipal Authority Chairman, Councillor Oliver Walsh, will host a reception for the visiting party in Enniscorthy Castle on Wednesday evening before the delegation attend a dinner in their honour in the Riverside Park Hotel on Wednesday night. Wexford County Council are delighted to host the Global High Performance Buildings Framework International Education and Research delegation and sees it as a wonderful opportunity to have world leaders in the field of sustainable energy travel to Wexford to explore the opportunities of building an international training centre in Enniscorthy. The delegation visit follows on from the very successful nZEB Housing Conference which took place in Enniscorthy in March and which was addressed by Minister for Housing, Mr Simon Coveney T.D. Minister of State, Mr Paul Kehoe has been instrumental in bringing the delegation to Wexford and he is using the powers of his office in pushing the case for the building of the training centre in Enniscorthy. With a site for the proposed development now secured and with funding for the project understood to be already in place, the hope is that the proposed training centre will be up and running before Ireland introduces nZEB building compliance as mandatory from 2018 for all public buildings and from 2020 for all other types of buildings. Social housing applicants in Enniscorthy are expected to drop by over 80% in the next two years, according to Padraig O'Gorman of Wexford County Council's housing section. Wexford's Social Housing Supply Programme 2017-2019 was introduced last week to the Enniscorthy council members by Mr O'Gorman. The recent schemes launched by Minister Simon Coveney, Buy & Renew and Repair & Lease, for Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness will help contribute to the three-year programme. 'The current number of applicants seeking housing supports from Wexford County Council as of March 31, 2017 is 3,268, with 759 in the Enniscorthy Municipal District,' said Mr O'Gorman. The Housing Supply Programme projects that by 2019 2,787 housing units will be delivered by Wexford County Council with 618 units for the Enniscorthy district, which is an 81 per cent decrease over the three years. The Buy and Renew Scheme will support the purchase and renewal of housing units in need of remediation and make them available for social housing use. The focus will be on older stock, tackling dereliction and improving streets in urban areas/towns. Wexford County Council will commence a process to identify suitable properties for the scheme in the County. 'The Buy and Renew scheme will see available three units in 2017 and then five units in 2018 and 2019. The location of these housing units has still yet to be decided as we need to find suitable properties,' said Mr O'Gorman. Owners of houses or apartments, which require repair to bring properties up to the required housing standard for private rented properties can contact Wexford County Council for details of the Repair and Lease Scheme which was recently launched. Mr O'Gorman said the plan for the scheme in the Enniscorthy District is to have three units in 2017 and then another five for 2018 and 2019. 'We have kept the number down as we are not too sure how either of the schemes will turn out but it is step forward to reducing the people on the housing list in Enniscorthy,' said Mr O'Gorman. Cllr Keith Doyle asked if property owners have to show if they are not capable of funding for the repairs themselves. Mr O'Gorman said: 'Owners will complete an Expression of Interest Form and based on certain criteria Wexford County Council will provide a loan for repair work following which the property will be available for social housing for a minimum period of 10 years. The property owner does not need to show that they cannot afford it as this scheme is all about getting more houses onto the list.' Lease payments will be adjusted to off-set the cost of repair work until it has been repaid. Works required to meet the standards and the recoupment of the works cost through the lease payment will be agreed between the owners and the local authority. 'Private owners themselves will get best value out of the Repair and Lease scheme. It is going very well in Waterford and Carlow and I believe it can go well here too,' said Mr O'Gorman. The Dublin Airport Central site has been put forward as one of the possible sites to become the new home of the EMA (European Medicines Agency). The major new office development at Dublin Airport is vying with a Docklands site to become the home of European Medicines Agency if the Government wins its bid to bring the agency to Ireland. Minister for Health, Simon Harris launched Dublin's bid for the re-location of the EMA (European Medicines Agency) last Friday at a meeting in Brussels on the eve of the European Council at the weekend. The Government is putting forward two possible sites for the relocation of the agency, one of which is right here in Fingal at the 'Dublin Airport Central' site where a huge four office-block development is to be built. The EMA is headquartered in London but in the wake of the Brexit decision, it is on the move and Ireland and now Fingal, could be its new home. Making the argument for relocating the agency in Dublin, Minister Harris said in Brussels: 'We have identified a number of possible office solutions, two of which are detailed in our brochure, one in the North Docklands adjacent to the city centre and the second in a vibrant new commercial district at Dublin Airport. These are world class office solutions that can accommodate all EMA requirements and will be available to the EMA by 2019.' Former Minister for Health, Senator James Reilly told the Seanad recently told the Seanad that the airport development would make an 'ideal home; for the European Medicines Agency. The move would bring 800 to 900 jobs to Fingal. Senator Reilly who said: 'With all its facilities and connectivity in Ireland, Europe, USA and Worldwide, this is an ideal business hub for an international agency with the added advantage of being located in fair Fingal.' He added: 'The EMA will relocate from the UK to an EU member state. Many other countries are pitching for the agency, which has a budget of 287 million for 2017. I believe that a relocation to Ireland and Fingal in particular makes perfect sense.' F-4E fighter jet crash in August caused by engine nozzle defect: Air Force The crash of a South Korean F-4E fighter jet in August was caused by an engine nozzle problem, the Air Force said Wednesday. It announced the outcome of its probe into the cause... Darkness into Light is Pieta House's annual fundraising and awareness event that will take place Saturday, May 6, at 4.15 a.m. around County Wexford. The event helps to promote suicide prevention and to tackle the stigma that leads people to the doors of Pieta House centres. The charity provides a free, therapeutic approach to people who are in suicidal distress. Over 16,000 people are expected to take part this year with Wexford Town and New Ross joining in on the national event for the first time with Enniscorthy and Courtown. Participants in Wexford Town will meet at St Joseph's Community Centre, towards White Mill Road, by Woodie's, onto Clonard Road, continuing on Summerhill Road, going by St Aidan's SuperValu and back to St Joseph's Community Centre. Courtown will meet at Flanagan's Wharf 30 minutes prior to starting time, go along the R742, Red Row Road, by Pirates Cove and back to the start at Flanagan's Wharf. Everyone for the New Ross walk will meet at The Apex, Bosheen with Enniscorthy all meeting in the Shamrocks GAA Club. For more information visit www.pieta.ie What happens in France this Sunday will likely steer Europe's direction far into the future as a win for Emanuel Macron and a rejection of Marine Le Pen's racist, anti-EU Front National will, hopefully, put an end to the notion that Europe is sliding, irreversibly, to the far right. Since Britain voted to leave the EU and Donald Trump was elected President in the United States, the overriding narrative in much of the global media has been that of an unstoppable right wing that is threatening the future of democracy across the western world. The liberal prophets of doom - who conveniently ignore the fact that supporters of parties on the far right and left are exercising their democratic rights - continue to promote this notion despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Last December in Austria, far right presidential candidate Norbert Hofer was roundly defeated by Green Party centrist economist Alexander Van der Bellen after a re-run of the election which had been declared null and void due to voting irregularities. The first vote had Hofer and Van der Bellen neck and neck but in the re-run six months later, the nominally Independent Green beat his far right rival by well over six per cent. Then last March - despite weeks of media stories warning that famously liberal Holland was about to elect far right candidate Geert Wilders as its next prime minister - Wilders' party was comfortably beaten by another centrist, Mark Rutte. According to opinion polls, Marine Le Pen is closing the gap on her own centrist rival, Mr Macron, but it would still appear that a majority of French voters are set to say no to the politics of fear and xenophobia. Obviously the outcome is still uncertain - and as we saw with Trump and Brexit a surprise is still possible - but as the race enters its closing days it looks as though another country will confound the doomsayers' narrative. All this suggests that the prevailing theory of global politics being irreconcilably divided along right and left lines is mistaken. We live in a divided world - there's no denying that - but it seems there is still much more that unites us. As has been shown in Austria, Holland and in all likelihood France, the moderate centre is the true global majority, a fact supported by polls and votes across the world. Rather than backing extremist parties, most voters are actually backing centrist policies and candidates and increasingly Brexit and the Trump victory look like aberrations. What is needed now is a concerted effort to bring the disenfranchised and disillusioned who have been wooed by extremists - be they political or religious and on the far right or left - back into the fold. To do this we need reason and discussion not insults and scaremongering. Rather than dismissing those on the other side of the political divide we need to listen to their arguments and find a way to compromise. After all, isn't that what democracy is all about? Fine Gael Michael D'Arcy has encouraged small and medium enterprises in Wexford to engage in a Government consultation on crowdfunding, launched by Minister Michael Noonan. Michael D'Arcy T.D. said: 'The consultation is seeking views on crowdfunding in order to understand how best to facilitate the development of crowdfunding in Ireland for the benefit of the economy, while also ensuring adequate protection for small investors and consumers. 'The objective is to seek the views of interested parties regarding whether or not a regulatory regime would be appropriate for the crowdfunding sector, particularly given the potential requirements and costs it could impose on the sector. 'Crowdfunding can be a valuable source of funding for SMEs, either as a complement, or as an alternative, to traditional bank finance. 'Ensuring that the development of this exciting and innovative form of finance is facilitated for the benefit of the economy, while also ensuring adequate protection for consumers providing funds through crowdfunding platforms is of critical importance." 'This consultation will inform our thinking and will assist in the consideration of whether a regulatory regime would be appropriate for crowdfunding, given that there is no dedicated harmonised regulation for crowdfunding and the existing European financial services legislation was not designed with crowdfunding in mind. 'The public consultation was launched last week and is accessible on the Department of Finance website. 'The consultation will run for six weeks and the closing date is June 2nd. I encourage SMEs and all other interested stakeholders in Wexford to have their say.' Crowdfunding is a means by which finance can be raised from a large number of individuals or institutional investors through online platforms and can be used to fund businesses, projects or personal loans. Crowdfunding is technology based, innovative and continually evolving market-based finance that could help stimulate funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as personal lending. This method also provides consumers and small investors with access to investment opportunities that offer a higher rate of return, at a higher risk, than is generally available from traditional credit institutions. The closing date for submissions is June 2. On Saturday, May 20 the North Wexford Youth Orchestra will give a recital in Gorey Library. This wonderful youth orchestra will be ably conducted by Teresa Doyle Lectures, films and workshops are just some of events taking place at Gorey Library in May. There are two events taking place tonight, Tuesday. At 7 p.m. Bernadette Lacey will introduce 'Symphony of the Soil' a beautifully filmed documentary about the precious nature of soil, how it is made, how essential it is for the ecosystem we live in and how it is being slowly but surely degraded and denatured by human activity. She will also discuss how we can change this by changing our practices in relation to our soil. Meanwhile between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Anna Danilova will lead a discussion on the classic Russian play, The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol. The evening will include viewing some abstracts of the film based on Roddy Doyle's adaptation of this hilarious comedy. ON Thursday, May 4, at 7 p.m. there will be the first of a series of workshop on embracing dyslexia. These workshops will run fortnightly until June 15 and aim to set the groundwork for an adult peer network. In this short series participants will explore how we can, together, embrace dyslexia. Also on May 4 the North Wexford Historical Society will host a lecture on the Last Letters from the Congo. The lecture will be given by Siobhan Pierce, education officer for the Archaeology and Natural History branches of the National Museum of Ireland. Siobhan will speak about artefacts that originally belonged to soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo. She will discuss how these objects illustrate the challenges faced by the Irish battalions during the mission. This talk will focus particularly on the last letter written by Sgt Hugh Gaynor who was killed in ambush near Niemba in November 1960. There will be a film screening of the documentary Racing Extinction on Saturday, May 6, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The documentary focuses on the illegal trade in endangered species and how that impacts on the whole ecosystem. Fintan Duggan will run a dementia workshop on Tuesday, May 16, at 7 p.m. This workshop will be of benefit to families who have members with Alzheimer's or dementia or others seeking to find out more. The workshop will cover all aspects of the disease from causes, symptoms, and diagnosis to dealing with the everyday challenges of dementia and reducing the risk of getting Dementia. On Saturday, May 20, at 3 p.m. the North Wexford Youth Orchestra will give a recital in Gorey Library. This wonderful youth orchestra will be ably conducted by Teresa Doyle. There will also be individual performances by some of Teresa's music students. Three exhibitions will take place in the library during the month of May. The first by the Tom Byrne Art Group, a small group of people with disabilities living in the local area, will run from May 8 for one week. They will be exhibiting their art work from May 8 for one week. There will be a charity art exhibition in the library for a week starting on May 15. A group of local artists have produced a collection of paintings which will be exhibited in the foyer. and any sale proceeds will be donated to Barnardos. The final exhibition, the Polska Eire Festival Exhibition will run in the foyer from May 22 until June 24. The exhibition will celebrate all aspects of Polish culture. The official opening of the festival is on May 26 at 6 p.m. A 15-year old Gorey teenager who suffered brain damage at birth has settled his High Court action for 7million. Dean Nolan, who will be sitting his Junior Cert in June, had sued over the circumstances of his birth at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH),Dublin. Liability had been admitted in the case last week. Dean, of Ardmore View, Gorey, Co Wexford through his mother, Kelly Campbell, sued the NMH and the HSE over the circumstances of his birth on February 1, 2002. It was claimed Ms Campbell was admitted to the NMH and was induced. It was alleged that in the course of labour, cardiotocography (CTG) readings revealed numerous and complex decelerations in the heart rate of the baby. After five hours in the labour ward, oxytocin was commenced and later increased. Dean was delivered requiring resuscitation and later intubation and ventilation. It was further claimed there was an alleged failure to treat Ms Campbell and the her baby with all necessary skill, care, diligence and expertise. There was also an alleged failure to ensure the delivery of the baby in an expedient manner particularly in the light of the CTG readings. Christopher Meehan SC for Dean, told the court that the case was unusual in that the boy does not have any physical deficits but had deficits of a neuro cognitive nature. Experts on both sides agreed the boy did not have cerebral palsy, he said. Counsel said Dean's parents Derek Nolan and Kelly Campbell had made superhuman efforts in their care for their son. The family since had two other children and Ms Campbell, who had been a supermarket assistant manager, had to give up her job to look after her son. Counsel said Dean will need help for the rest of his life and it was clear the neurological deficit will impact on his life. Mr Justice Kevin Cross said while Dean did not have physical problems,the settlement will provide care for him for the rest of his life. He wished Dean and his family well for the future. There was huge sorrow in Craanford and in the farming community on Friday following the death of Tom Nolan. 76-year-old Tom from Clonamona, Craanford, died in the early hours of Friday morning following an accident on his farm involving livestock on Thursday evening. Tom was moving cattle with two of his sons when the accident occurred. He was rushed to Wexford General Hospital after the accident but died in the early hours of Friday morning surrounded by his family. Tom who was very well known in North Wexford was a highly respected farmer and his livestock were very much sought after at marts in the area. Described as a 'complete gentleman' Tom was a model farmer and worked his farm largely by himself taking great pride in completing each and every task with precision and diligence. He was an excellent neighbour always willing to give a hand out when asked and everyone only had good things to say about him. One of his long standing friends described Tom as 'the best farmer in Ireland' with a great interest, expertise and knowledge about livestock. He had a great way with animals and his stock thrived and when he was going to a mart people were keen to buy his animals knowing that they were in excellent condition. A dedicated family man Tom was devoted to his wife Mary and their four children and in later years their six grandchildren. He took great pride in their achievements and was always ready to listen or offer advice. Tom loved the outdoors and his appearance didn't reflect his 76 years and he was extremely active up until his untimely death. A quiet easy-going man Tom had an easy way about him and never fell out with anyone with everyone speaking very highly of him. He was very inoffensive and enjoyed going to local GAA matches in the area. Tom had a great work ethic and was up with the lark every day to work the farm and look after his stock. A man of quiet faith he attended mass every weekend in St Patrick's Church in Monaseed. His remains were brought to St Patrick's Church, Monaseed on Friday evening with funeral Mass taking place on Saturday followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery. Tom is survived by his heartbroken wife Mary, sons Pat, Tom and Charlie, daughter Liz, sisters Catherine, Mary and Elizabeth. daughters-in-law Nicola and Karen, Charlie's partner Andi, grandchildren Ella, Mia, Tess, Isabelle, Tom and Sean, brothers-in-law, nephews, nieces, extended family, relatives and friends. Coastguard Wendy Auld on duty at the Shine A Light Festival at Hook Head Around 2,000 people descended on Hook Lighthouse for this year's Shine A Light maritime festival, which highlighted the importance of safety along our coastline. Children enrolled in Pirate School where Captain Hook and Pirate Pat taught them how to be hardy pirates and to speak like a pirate. On Sunday Claoimh re-enactment group - wearing chain mail and bearing weapons - taught people about medieval weaponry. In a poignant moment, the Rescue 117 helicopter crew and the Dunmore East RNLI team combined for a coordinated rescue demonstration remembering their four crew mates who lost their lives in the Rescue 116 helicopter crash. Hook Residents Association raised money for the stone wall project through a barbecue and a second hand book stall, while children learned of the importance of safety near the coast and at sea form Coastguard members. New Ross is hosting its first Darkness into Light event, as the dawn breaks, on Saturday morning. Darkness Into Light is the flagship annual fundraising and awareness event for Pieta House, an Irish charity which offers free counselling to those suffering from suicidal ideation, people who have been bereaved by suicide and people who are engaging in self-harm. In 2016, 130,000 people participated in the charity walks, helping to promote suicide prevention and to tackle the stigma. The event takes place at 4.15 a.m. from the Apex Leisure centre in the Bosheen. Registration is still open online at dil.pieta.ie and there are t-shirt collections for those who have registered. Geraldine Tobin of the Darkness into Light New Ross organising committee said: 'We would ask everyone to arrive 30 minutes before the event and to allow time for parking and to bring a torch for health and safety reasons. There may be some noise for a short time at the start of the event, around 4 a.m. We apologise in advance for this and hope you will understand and bear with us. Please follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DILNEWROSS or email dilnewross@gmail.com, or text or phone us at 086 1614413 for further information.' Claire Knifton, who is running the Mindful Movement classes in Keash Community Hall With the hustle and bustle of everyday life meaning people are less likely to take a breather, the whole area of mindfulness is something that's being spoken a lot lately. Claire Knifton is the woman behind a new dance class being held in the Community Hall every Friday evening in Keash. Titled Mindful Movement, the classes are aimed at encouraging people to look after their mental health and wellbeing in a fun environment. Claire told the Sligo Champion that it's important people look after their mental health. She said: "I'm a dance facilitator and I'm just starting these classes on Friday evenings. "I'm originally from the UK but moved to Ireland 17 years and I'm now here in Culfadda. "The Mindful Movement classes are based around being fun and relaxing. "There are no steps to learn and people don't need to be dancers to do them. "It's more about getting out of your head and listening to your body." She said the reaction so far has been good with lots of enquiries about the classes, "I've been getting quite a few enquiries and I think people like to stay in their comfort zone, they are more familiar with the likes of line dancing or jiving but these classes work differently to those. "We dance to different types of music from world, classical and popular music. "Some of the movements are very simple and it's about making people more aware of their body, say for example when we're walking we're only using parts of the body and there's parts we forget to use. "A lot of it is to do with breathing exercises too, opening the chest up to breathe more freely." The classes run on Fridays for an hour from 6.45pm and Claire, who worked as a counsellor for many year, also runs classes in the Sligo Pilates, Stephen St, on Saturday mornings and in Carrk-on-Shannon. It was one of the most shocking murders ever in the West of Ireland. An 83-year-old shopkeeper, Eddie Fitzmaurice, who lived alone was brutally set upon over the Bank Holiday week-end of May 1998. He was tied up and gagged and left to die over a five day period. Nineteen years on it remains a mystery over who committed the murder despite numerous appeals, the most recent to mark the 19th anniversary of Eddie's death this week. There have been several arrests but Gardai have been unable to make the vital breakthrough. Details of the Garda probe into the death of the widower were revealed in the fifth report issued by the Morris Tribunal. The report outlined how on May 6th 1998, the body of Mr. Fitzmaurice was found in an upstairs room of his house at Bellaghy. "As the Tribunal understands it, from the testimony of Detective Superintendent John O'Mahony, the context of this suspicious death was to leave the Gardai with very few clues as to the perpetrator or perpetrators of the crime that led to his death. "The murder scene appears to have yielded very little in terms of clues as to identity. If there were fingerprints, then the identification of a definite suspect may at some stage yield a match," said Mr. Justice Morris. The report noted that there were no signs of a break-in to the deceased's house. When Mr Fitzmaurice was found his hands and feet were tied. The post mortem showed he had suffered bruising to his face and that his larynx had been fractured. "This possibly indicates an attempt at either strangulation or at control through gripping him around the neck. His eventual death was due to hypothermia. This, of course, occurred due to the fact that he was tied up, disabled, and therefore unable to seek aid or food or water," said Mr Justice Morris. There were no eyewitnesses to the event. The deceased was last sighted on Friday, May 1st in his shop when two women came in and bought some items of clothing. Forensics also yielded very little in forensic examination. "Every avenue, I suppose, was open to us and we have to look at every avenue of inquiry. We looked at suspects from all over the country. A number of suspects were nominated either through information or through intelligence. "We also looked at previous similar type crimes that were committed both in this jurisdiction and indeed in Northern Ireland and we looked at suspects in relation to those crimes," said Det Supt O'Mahony. He revealed there were sixty-seven groups of suspects nominated as of the 19th of May 1998 for the crime. "We had looked at people who had previously been convicted or charged, with similar type crimes." He said this figure had risen to over 200 suspects. Gardai have issued a fresh appeal for information in the cold case murder of Eddie Fitzmaurice who was killed 19 years ago this week. "Somebody out there definitely knows something," a senior Garda source in Charlestown said in relation to the unsolved murder of the 83 year-old bachelor at his home in Bellaghy on May 6th 1998. "This murder case is very much ongoing. We would be hopeful that somebody out there can help. Anything small can point us in the right direction. That could be a huge help to us," they told this newspaper. "With the advent of modern technology, forensic science has come on enormously," they said. As the 19th anniversary of his death approaches, they're making a fresh appeal for information from the public. They believe a guilty conscience may be key to solving this murder, similar to the recent charging of 34-year-old Anthony Lambe with the murder of Irene White in Dundalk over 11 years ago. Eddie Fitzmaurice lived and died alone in the saddest of circumstances -beaten up, tied up, gagged and left to die of his injuries. It's believed Mr Fitzmaurice was attacked by intruders sometime after 8pm on Friday 1 May and the early hours of Saturday morning. He ran a drapers and footwear shop below his living quarters. Acting District Officer at Claremorris Inspector Tom Calvey made an appeal to the public and believes someone has information that could lead to a breakthrough in the case. "Eddie was last seen in his shop at 8.30pm on Friday 1st May 1998. "Gardai are anxious to speak to anyone who was in the vicinity and who for one reason or another believed they could not have come forward at the time, to come forward now, no matter how insignificant it may seem," he said. Anyone with information is asked to contact the confidential Garda line on 1800 666 111 or Claremorris Garda Station on 094-9372080. The shop was since knocked and apartments rebuilt at that location. Eddie still has nieces and nephews in the UK. L-R: Fiona Quilter, Miriam Morrison and Avril Winters who are all part of the North West Lyme Group and suffer from Lyme Disease Lack of awareness of Lyme disease in Ireland means the illness is under reported and often goes untreated. Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by bacteria and transmitted by Ticks. The most common sign of infection is an expanding area of redness or what's commonly known as a 'bulls-eye rash' The disease can lay dormant in your body and attacks when your immune system is weakened. Treatment is available in Ireland, but consists of a six week course of antibiotics, which may not always be enough. Lyme disease causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, joint pain, headaches, heart-palpitations and if untreated with anti-biotics it can result in a range of symptoms similar to chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, bells-palsy or multiple-sclerosis. 48-year-old Fiona Quilter from Sligo contracted Lyme disease more than 8 years ago and is an advocate and member of the North West Lyme Group. Fiona's GP send blood tests to Germany where clinics specialise in treating patients with Lyme Disease. Within three days she was diagnosed with the bacterial disease. Blood tests carried out in Ireland often do not test for Lyme, and therefore the treatment available across Europe is far more extensive. Doctors can treat it early once a rash appears after a bite, they can provide antibiotics that will stop it. Many who are suffering with the illness for years are forced to travel to Germany and Czech Republic for intravenous antibiotics, vitamins, light therapy, oxygen therapy and other treatments. "We want doctors in this country to recognise that this is an illness. It is not all in our heads. "We should be treated as citizens in this county and not have to go abroad for help," said Fiona. Avril Winters from Leitrim has been battling the illness for more than 10 years and believes the disease has changed her entire life for the worst. What began as an exciting holiday to Morocco in 2007 ended up changing her life after receiving a tick bite. "I got the bull-rash on my leg where the bite was and I remember thinking, 'I hope I don't have this forever.' "Patients are learning to treat themselves in Ireland because some doctors won't listen. You get forgotten about if you don't look sick. "It can get depressing. It feels like I'm not being heard and I'm left to rot. "I've had doctors treat me for depression when I knew it wasn't mental, it was how I was physically feeling," said Avril. Miriam Morrison received a tick bite in Union Wood in 2015 but it wasn't until 2016 that she was diagnosed. She said the illness has affected every aspect of her life. She was even bed-bound due to pain and weakness in her legs. In March 2014, Barry Cryan started feeling unwell and thought he was coming down with the common flu. His GP carried out routine tests, including one for Lyme Disease which all came back normal. Frustrated with the outcome and not feeling any better, Barry struggled with the disease for more than two years and found his memory was beginning to deteriorate. It wasn't until he found Fiona's story on Lyme disease in the Sligo Champion that he became aware of the his options. "I had bloods send to Germany and they showed that there was something badly wrong, in fact my immune system was compared with that which you would expect to see in a patient with HIV," said Barry. After an extensive few weeks of treatment in the Czech Republic more than 12 months ago, Barry is starting to feel 'normal' again. He believes that Lyme disease is rapidly increasing in Ireland - within a one mile radius of his home in Monasteraden more than four people suffer from the disease. "The test for Lyme Disease in Ireland is not accurate outside of a very small window when you get a tick bite, most doctors don't recognise that. "Just because you can't find anything wrong it doesn't mean there's nothing wrong, it just means you're probably looking in the wrong place! Only for I came across Fiona I would still be searching for answers!" A National protest will take place tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12.00pm at Leinster House in Dublin to raise awareness surrounding better diagnosis of Lyme disease in Ireland. A brand new dedicated cookery school opened last weekend in the St Georges Terrace Restaurant in Carrick on Shannon. Owners Siobhan Smyth from Dromard Sligo and Dave Fitzgibbon said: "We are delighted to have this exciting new addition to our business. We have a very loyal customer base after just 18 months in business and we look forward to welcoming them and lots of new foodies to the area. "Cooking has never been so fashionable. Cookery programmes dominate our screens and food bloggers abound on social media. Young couples and newly-weds, were brought up in a generation of working mothers, and many, even in rural areas did not get the chance to learn the basic cooking skills at the kitchen table that so many of the kids of the 80s and 90s did. Combine this with the focus on good quality Irish food produce, the need for healthy eating and the increase in home entertaining and an entire cookery school industry is born." Dave Fitzgibbon added: "The cookery school is located in the site of the original kitchen of the old Victorian house. All classes will be given by myself. This is a cookery school where you will learn by cooking yourself not by demonstration. We want the classes to be fun yet informative. Siobhan added: "My parents had The Fiddlers Elbow Pub for almost thirty years, so I come from a background in the hospitality industry. This is a new departure for the area and will serve to help tourism too." Tests provided for Lyume disease in this country are often inadequate, according to Dr John Lambert, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. "The Lyme test is often negative, but patients can still have Lyme. A positive test is helpful to say that the infection is there, but a negative test does not rule it out. Doctors do not seem to understand this basic principle. "There are other infections similar to Lyme and other strains of the Lyme bacteria that are not picked up, so patients will get sick following a tick bite, the Lyme test is negative, and they are told 'there is nothing wrong' when indeed the wrong tests were done. "Doctors debate whether Lyme can cause chronic infection, and argue over whether to treat with antibiotics for longer periods of time. Many are told just to treat for two to four weeks and no longer. But there is good evidence that it requires longer courses of treatment if the infection has gone chronic, or has been in the system for a long period of time. "It is a poorly understood disease and there is a lack of awareness and a lack of studies to see how much Lyme we actually have in Ireland. No one really knows. I think Lyme is on the increase, but also patients are more vocal now and raising the awareness and not settling for a 'no' answer. Patients are going out of the country to get 'alternative' Lyme tests done, which are more sensitive than the antibody tests done here. "Irish patients travel all over the world so they may be picking up the infections from tick bites here (Donegal, Sligo, Galway, Kerry, Wicklow) or they may be bringing them back from the USA, Lanzarote and so forth." Sligo MEP Marian Harkin has voiced concerns that the Government's lack of investment in the Western Development Commission as exposed in a damning letter from its current Chairman is indicative of a plan to either subsume the WDC into another body or do away with it altogether. Former Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McGuinness last week asked the Minister for Rural Affairs Mayo TD Michael Ring not to re-appoint him as Chair in protest at the lack of a "credible" Government plan to halt rural decline. "It gives you some idea of the frustration he must feel. It shows what's going on and not going on," said MEP Harkin. "The foot dragging over capital expenditure is being used as an excuse not to ensure the WDC continues to operate," she told The Sligo Champion. "Maybe there's a plan somewhere to subsume the WDC into some other body or get rid of it altogether. "An organisation cannot continue to operate without resources. "I was there when John Bruton announced the WDC in the late 1990s. The money that came, was never anything like what was promised on the day," she said. "We felt that finally we had in place an organisation that would make a real difference but the level of funding never materialised," said the Independent MEP. Marian dismissed the 20million fund for rural Ireland this year as "piece meal stuff" in comparison to the 100million already spent on the National Maternity Hospital. "The WDC needs the ear of a Government Minister with authority, who doesn't have to answer to five senior Ministers. Who will not just listen but act. It's about influence. "Until we have a senior Ministry to look after regional development we have nothing. Window dressing is a waste of money and achieves nothing." Four County Wicklow festivals are set to receive over 13,000 in funding from Failte Ireland. The festivals - Enduro World Series, Hell and Back, Groove Festival and Bray Jazz Festival - have been allocated the funding under the 2017 Regional Festivals and Participative Events Programme, which is aimed at supporting domestic festivals and participative events which drive domestic tourism and help to improve the visitor experience by animating destinations in Ireland. The announcement has been welcomed by Minister of State Andrew Doyle, who said that funding would help to boost tourist numbers and footfall to local businesses. 'These four events continue to grow every year and appeal to a wide audience,' said the Minister, who added that the nature of the festivals chosen by the programme 'really add to the character of the area and are great for generating community spirit.' A South Wicklow drama director is celebrating after his latest stage show qualified for the prestigious All-Ireland Drama Finals. Kieran Tyrrell from Carnew and now living in Tinahely directs 'Agnes of God', presented by Bunclody-Kilmyshall Drama Group, the only group in Wexford to qualify this year. A seasoned director, Kieran has previously scooped awards for Best Director in Wexford and Carnew and Best Wexford Director in New Ross. The group itself has also won a variety of audience and magic moment in theatre awards. Kieran has many years of involvement in drama to his credit, and joined Kilrush Drama Group in 1993 appearing in their production that year of Factory Girls. He later played a number of roles with Tinahely Drama Group, including The Chastitute, One Last White Horse and The Cavalcaders. In 2010 Kieran wrote a full length play entitled Dwyer's , which he also directed, and it was performed at a number of venues to popular acclaim. In 2013 he featured in the Kilrush production of Our Town on the festival circuit. That same year, he wrote his second play The Beatitudes and this play was staged by Kilrush Drama Group as their entry in the All Ireland one-act festival circuit. This is the third consecutive year that Kieran is directing the Bunclody group's play for entry on the festival circuit. He made an outstanding debut as our director in 2015 with Stolen Child winning several Best Director Awards. He was also one of three nominees that year for the Best Director Award at The All-Ireland Finals in Athlone. Last year with Moonshine he also won a number of Best Director Awards on the circuit. The play won three festivals and qualified for Athlone. The group will compete against eight other finalists in Athlone in the nine nights from May 4 - 12. Throughout the week RTE Radio One cover the finals and review each performance daily. The Abbey theatre also select one group to perform their play in the National Theatre on the Peacock stage. The real drama will be on the awards night on May 13 when the category and overall winners are announced. Support for the Martin family, Rathnew has come from as far away from Italy this week as a group if Italian mothers heard their story and wanted to do something to help. Tinahely resident Barbara Melchiori Black recently visited her native Italy and while there, she shared the story of three year old Cathal and one year old Conor, son of Lynda and Les Martin who suffer with the life limiting condition late-infantile Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) caused by a rare genetic disorder. They are currently part of the way through a clinical medical trial in Milan in the hope of saving the life of Conor, who is still young enough to accept treatment if possible. Barbara had a flyer for a fundraising race being organised by her neighbour Gillian Murphy with her in Italy, and on hearing the Martin family story, her sister and a group of mothers called Gli Amici de Ilaria were keen to make a donation. The generous sum of 550 was collected and sent home to Co Wicklow with Barbara, and was presented to event organiser Gillian at the weekend. Gillian couldn't believe the goodwill and generosity shown and extended thanks to Barbara and the Italian sponsors. The fundraising event will take place in Avondale Forest Park on Sunday, May 7. It is a chip and timed 5k event and registration will start at 2.30 p.m. with the race starting at 4 p.m. Registration costs 15 per adult and 40 for a family of two adults and two children. To register see www.popupraces.ie or come along on the day. For further information contact Gillian 0861782153 or gillm20@hotmail.com TV presenter Zoe Ball says she is "devastated" following the death of her partner Billy Yates at the age of 40. Her spokesman said: "Zoe is devastated and requests that during this difficult time the media respect her privacy as well as the privacy of her friends and family." Mr Yates, a cameraman for the BBC's 'Antiques Roadshow', was found dead at his south London home on Thursday evening. 'Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two' host Ball posted a picture of a flower on her Instagram page earlier yesterday, along with the caption: "My sweet love X." A BBC spokesperson confirmed Kate Thornton will be stepping in to present Ball's weekly BBC Radio 2 programme this afternoon at 3pm. Ball (46) is believed to have been in a relationship with Yates for several months. She announced her separation from husband of 18 years Norman Cook, known as DJ Fatboy Slim, in September last year. Ball retweeted a post by the Samaritans on Thursday evening but her representative said she would not be commenting on his death. The tweet read: "If it really doesn't feel like the force is with you today, we're here and ready to listen #TalkToUs #MayTheFourthBeWithYou." A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed the circumstances surrounding the death were "not being treated as suspicious". The force said in a statement: "Police were called to a residential address in Putney, south London at 18.40 on Thursday 4 May, to reports of a man found deceased. "Officers attended alongside staff from the London Ambulance Service, and a man believed to be aged 40 was pronounced dead at the scene. The circumstances are not being treated as suspicious, and the coroner has been informed." A new law in Italy could allow citizens to legally kill unarmed burglars who break into their homes at night as part of "legitimate defence". Current legislation stipulates that people must have reasonable grounds to fear for their life to avoid a murder charge, but amendments would extend protections to include any burglary at night, or a robbery attempt involving threats or violence. Cases would still be considered on an individual basis and with regard to "proportionality" by Italian judges, amid concern that automatic exceptions could be exploited. David Ermini, a centre-left member of the Italian parliament, warned of the possibility of pre-meditated murders within families "masked by legitimate defence," citing the Oscar Pistorius case. "The state must balance the rule of law between the right of citizens to self defence when the state cannot intervene promptly, and granting anyone a licence to kill a human being with impunity simply because they committed or attempted a burglary," he said in a proposal filed to parliament. The Chamber of Deputies voted in favour of the legislation by 225 votes in favour and 166 against on Thursday, but it must be approved by the upper house before coming into effect. The bill has been going through parliament for two years but became the focus of fresh attention when a restaurant owner killed a burglar in March. Right-wing politicians were outraged when the businessman, who shot the intruder in the back around 100m outside his property, was investigated for manslaughter. Members of Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia party appealed for funds to pay the restaurateur's legal bills and the populist Northern League backed legal changes to give the automatic right to self defence. The two parties and the Brothers of Italy voted against the bill on the grounds that it did not go far enough to protect home and business owners, with Northern League politicians carrying banners reading "defence is always legitimate" in parliament. Party leader Matteo Salvini cried out "shame!" as the legislation was approved and was removed from the parliamentary chamber for violating its rules. The proposed law widens protections under a previous law from 2006 to assaults committed in reaction to any break-in at night or an attempt accompanied by threats, violence or deception. Protections were expanded in the UK in 2013, allowing residents to use "disproportionate force" to defend themselves after national debate over the arrest of burglary victims who had injured or killed intruders. "If the tragic situation arises where there is a death I think even then the householder should know that the law is on their side," said Chris Grayling, who was Justice Secretary at the time. "The presumption should be that they are a victim of crime and not a perpetrator of crime." Guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service states that the provision does not give householders free rein to use disproportionate force in every case they are confronted by an intruder and that each case will be decided in court. A "significant amount of data" has been leaked on social networks following a hacking attack allegedly suffered by French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, investigators said. The cyber attack came just 36 hours before France votes in the crucial run-off, contested by centrist Mr Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. France's election campaign commission said leaked data apparently came from Mr Macron's "information systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers". In a statement released after a morning meeting, the watchdog said the leaked data had been "fraudulently" obtained and that fake news has probably been mingled with it. The commission urged French media and citizens "not to relay" the leaked documents "in order not to alter the sincerity of the vote". French electoral laws impose a blackout over Saturday and most of Sunday on any campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election. Meanwhile, voting for France's next president started in some overseas territories. The first French territory to vote was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near Newfoundland, where polling stations opened in the morning. Early voting in other French overseas territories and French embassies abroad will begin later. The 44-hour legal blackout on campaigning began on Friday at midnight and is due to last until Sunday at 8pm, when the last polling stations close on the mainland and the first pollsters' projections and official partial results are expected. Fears of hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout France's high-stakes, closely-watched campaign - and boiled over on Friday night as Mr Macron's team said it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated" hack. His political movement said the unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts - as well as fake decoy documents - online. The perpetrators remain unknown. While the hack is shaking up an already-remarkable campaign, it's unclear whether the document dump would dent Mr Macron's large poll lead over Ms Le Pen going into the vote. After ditching France's traditional left-right parties in a first-round election, voters are now choosing between Mr Macron's business-friendly, pro-European vision and Ms Le Pen's protectionist, closed-borders view which resonates with workers left behind by globalisation. The future of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global populism. The leak began just before the blackout descended at midnight, in theatrical timing befitting the dramatic campaign. Florian Philippot, the number two in Ms Le Pen's anti-immigration National Front party, asked in a tweet: "Will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried?" A warning was issued by the US and UK governments More Chibok schoolgirls have been released three years after their abduction by Boko Haram extremists, though the exact number is not immediately known, Nigerian officials said. Nearly 200 of the schoolgirls had remained captive before this release. Many of the girls seized from their boarding school were forced into marriages with fighters and became pregnant. Nigeria's government in October announced the first negotiated release of 21 of the schoolgirls. At the time, it said another group of 83 girls would be released "very soon". The government has denied a ransom was paid and that it freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. Extremists from the group, meanwhile, are actively planning to kidnap western foreign workers in north-east Nigeria, according to the US and UK governments. The extremists are said to be targeting foreigners in the Bama area of Borno state, close to the Cameroon border. The Nigeria-based Boko Haram has been pushed out of strongholds by military efforts but continues to control parts of the country's north-east. AP Johnson & Johnson on Thursday was ordered by a Missouri jury to pay over $110m (100m) to a Virginia woman who says she developed ovarian cancer after decades of using of its talc-based products for feminine hygiene. The verdict in state court in St. Louis was the largest so far to arise out of about 2,400 lawsuits accusing J&J of not adequately warning consumers about the cancer risks of talc-based products including its well-known Johnson's Baby Powder. Many of those lawsuits are pending in St. Louis, where the J&J has faced four prior trials, three of which resulted in 179m verdicts against J&J and a talc supplier. Thursday's verdict came in a lawsuit against J&J and talc supplier Imerys Talc by Lois Slemp, a resident of Virginia who is currently undergoing chemotherapy after her ovarian cancer initially diagnosed in 2012 returned and spread to her liver. Slemp claimed she developed cancer after four decades of using talc-containing products produced by J&J, including J&J's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower Powder. The jury awarded 5m in compensatory damages and said J&J was 99 percent at fault while Imerys was just 1 percent. It awarded punitive damages of 95m against J&J and 45,000 against Imerys. Reuters watched the verdict through Courtroom View Network, which broadcast it online. "Once again we've shown that these companies ignored the scientific evidence and continue to deny their responsibilities to the women of America," Ted Meadows, a lawyer for Slemp and other plaintiffs, said in a statement. J&J in a statement said it sympathized with women impacted by ovarian cancer but planned to appeal. "We are preparing for additional trials this year and we continue to defend the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder," J&J said. The verdict came after J&J secured its first trial win in the Missouri litigation, when a jury in March sided with the company in a lawsuit by a Tennessee woman who said she developed cancer after using Baby Powder. That verdict broke a three-trial winning streak by plaintiffs that began with a verdict in February 2016 in which a jury awarded 65m to the family of a woman who died from ovarian cancer. In May 2016, another jury awarded 50m to a woman who said J&J's talc-powder products caused her to develop cancer. A third jury hit J&J and Imerys with a 63m verdict in October. A US Navy Seal killed in a military operation in Somalia - the first American to die in the country since 1993 - has been identified. Senior chief special warfare operator Kyle Milliken was killed during an operation against the extremist group al Shabab on Thursday. The 38-year-old, of Falmouth, Maine, died after US special operations troops came under fire after American aircraft delivered Somali forces to the target area, said the Pentagon. The US said last month it was sending dozens of regular troops to Somalia in the largest such deployment there in about two decades. In recent years, it has sent a small number of special operations forces and counter terrorism advisers to Somalia and conducted a number of air strikes. AP Andleeb Abbas It is a referendum. It is the ultimate ultimatum. It is the decider. It is do or die. These are some of the slogans Pre-Lahore showdown of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). The hype built was impressive. The result a disappointment. From claiming an all-time great gathering of people at Minar-e-Pakistan to the rather sparse show, PDM is now lost for words, strategy and moves. They have wasted the last ten days insisting that there were many more people but the media failed to show them. In doing so they have actually reinforced the image that the rally being a flop. The biggest of the show has to have meticulous planning and execution. Lahore after all, was, and is supposed to be a city where the strongest PML-N support lies. With 9 out 13 seats won by PMLN in the 2018 elections and almost 20 in the provincial assembly it was a sweep. This made maths simple. To fill the big ground a few thousand people from each constituency plus the JUI-F activists would be enough to overflow the ground. Unfortunately, almost 70% of the ground was empty. This dismissal by the Lahoris stunned PDM and they were fumbling for excuses and groping for the next plan. An immediate long-march would have been a disaster and thus all they announced was that they will meet at the beginning of February to decide when to meet again to decide on when to meet again. This anti-climatic pause in the movement is due to the following reasons: 1. Miscalculated Zeal- The pre-Lahore rally in Multan misled PDM. The rather poor handling of the government in not allowing the rally at Qasim Bagh stadium and putting all types of barriers gave a boost to the Multan rally. The media covered every move of the government for days and made some people heroes without the song. This made PDM confident that the government is going to repeat it in Lahore and add to their narrative of government being afraid of the public support of the parties. Maryam Nawaz did rallies in the main constituencies of Lahore and drew good crowds. Such response added to the PDM estimates of a historical turnout. Both were miscalculated. Government wiser on Multans mishandling gave a free hand to PDM. The road rallies by Maryam Nawaz were misleading as road stopovers are local events where area people gather on street for a short while without having to leave their localities. That is why despite a good hype the greater Iqbal Park looked deserted especially when Nawaz Sharif was speaking. 2. A meaningful Call to Action- The art of sustaining a movement is to motivate people to come for some greater purpose or some worthwhile call to action. The Lahore jalsa was the moment of truth. Not only was the attendance of the people disappointing, the speeches of the main speakers lacked lustre with nothing new to stimulate the crowd. The personal venom of PML-N and PPP against being asked to explain their wealth and the anti-Punjabi rhetoric of Achakzai made the stage look like a Hyde Park vent out corner. The fact that they had to convene a meeting after the rally to make another announcement of the next steps put a bad light on the oppositions ability to sustain momentum. 3. Too many Leaders-Another problem that PDM is facing is the plurality of leaders. Every party has their own leader and agenda. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is the PDM head whose agenda is not necessarily fully subscribed by all parties. Inter-party and Intra-party troubles have started brewing. The maulanas own stalwarts like Hafiz Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Sheerani have moved away. PPP is quietly distancing from JUI-F. Bilawal did not come on the Mardan rally and the Maulana has declined to come to Larkana rally on 27th December. PML-N is already facing the heat of Maryams speeches and displeasure on Lahore performance. Both Pervez Malik and Ayaz Sadiq have refused to be Lahores President. This has created distance between the leaders themselves and inter PDM that may increase with passage of time. The government has played smart. They did not interfere with the Lahore rally and thus deprived the opposition of the chance to blame them for the thin turnout. They have also given signals of calling an early Senate election to create rift in the opposition regarding resignations. With the bye-elections also coming in February the PDM may announce further postponement of the movement as indicated by Rana Sanaullah. These are all signs of a disoriented group of people who are struggling to stay relevant to the electoral process yet castigate the stated interference in it. For the government the challenge has never been the opposition from the other parties but the opposition from their own supporters. The government has been struggling with the expectation management of people. The euphoria of expectations of a quick turnaround in the fortunes of the country was built on years of promises made by the government. These promises were made on the basis of the mismanagement and corruption of the previous regimes. What they are finding out is that the roots of bad governance are deep and wide. Unlike political opponents the bureaucracy etc. cannot be removed that easily. That is why wheat, sugar and gas shortages occurred and are taking time to correct. For the government, the real challenge for 2021 will be when the debt relief periods are over. The next 2 years of the government have to focus on timeline based targets that create jobs, housing and social welfare services like health and education. That will be the best way of making the opposition irrelevant and managing the expectations of the people. (The writer can be reached at [email protected] The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the newspaper) Actor Arfi Lamba, who has appeared in films like "Slumdog Millionaire", "Fugly" and "Singh Is Bliing", will travel to Munich for the premiere of his first German film "Poison". Directed by Daniel Harrich, the film will release on May 15 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. "I am leaving for Munich in the coming week. I am super excited for it. This is my first German film and I learnt German language for the film. In fact, I dubbed for the film in December (2016)," Arfi said in a statement. "The story of the film is about how international companies are using third world countries for their own benefit," he added. Besides him, the film also features German actor Heiner Lauterbach. 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No worries for refund as the money remains in investor's account." www.indiainfoline.com is part of the IIFL Group, a leading financial services player and a diversified NBFC. The site provides comprehensive and real time information on Indian corporates, sectors, financial markets and economy. On the site we feature industry and political leaders, entrepreneurs, and trend setters. The research, personal finance and market tutorial sections are widely followed by students, academia, corporates and investors among others. Did you also pay somewhere between Rs 500 to Rs 1000 to watch Baahubali: The Conclusion? Youll be shocked to know that in Kolkata some people watched the movie for just Rs.30! ytimg.com From people waiting for hours in queues as long as three kilometres, to advance bookings shattering records on BookMyShow, we have seen it all in the last week with release of the much-anticipated Baahubali 2. While at some places the tickets for Baahubali 2 were sold at a four-digit price, and people, including the Karnataka CM spent over Rs.1000 to watch the magnum opus, there were others, the lucky ones, who bought the tickets for just Rs 30 at Kolkatas Nandan Cinema. 3.bp.blogspot.com Until recently, the cheapest tickets for Baahubali 2 were sold for Rs.130, but Nandan Cinema has apparently set a new record. The ticket prices there ranged between Rs.30 to Rs.70. (Also Read: Noticed The Uncanny Resemblance Between Baahubali & The Lion King? The Internet Did) 1.bp.blogspot.com Before you start to judge the theatre by ticket prices, let us tell you that Nandan Cinema at Kolkata is considered as one of the sophisticated cinemas and high-end theatres of the country. It is a government-sponsored theatre, which was inaugurated by former Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in 1985. The logo for the theatre was designed by renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray. ytimg.com The theatre was renovated in 2011, and post that, it is considered to be one of the finest cinemas in the country. Are you also one of those who watched Baahubali: The Conclusion for Rs 30? Let us know in the comments section below. (Also read: Rajamouli Hints That Baahubali 3 Might Be On The Cards & We Are Beaming With Happiness) Priyanka Chopra is taking over the world, quite literally. After riding high on success in Bollywood, the actress tried her luck in the west with Quantico. Our 'desi girl' has impressed one and all in Hollywood too. So much so, that in no time she bagged her debut film, Dwayne Johnson starrer Baywatch, which is all set to release this month. Apart from this, she has been producing regional films in India too. Whenever the diva gets time, she tries to hop between the countries to strike a balance between her work commitments and family life. Recently, she made headlines for her Ralph Lauren trench coat that she sported at the Met Gala 2017, and post that, the UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador flew to Zimbabwe to promote UNICEF's initiative to end violence against children. (Also read: UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador PC Bonds With Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse In Zimbabwe) Priyanka met the survivors of child sexual abuse, and she shared a heart-warming video in which she can be seen bonding with them. Here is the video: The video shows Priyanka posing alongside the kids for a picture, when a few of them begin to stroke her hair. To which, the actress quips, Very fascinating my hair is, thank you. It's nice - it's different from ours, one of them says. Yeah, but mine is too straight. Yours is so nice and pretty and curly, she replies. No, yours is beautiful, ours is kinky. By the way, it's different beautiful. You guys have beautiful hair. It's really pretty, don't let anybody tell you it's not. "So glad you told her that her hair is pretty. Being different is beautiful, too," comments one person on the video. The video shows that Priyanka has her heart in the right place. Assam Police have rescued some 75 dogs which were being illegally smuggled to neighbouring Nagaland, where dog meat is a delicacy. The pick-up van which was used to smuggle the animals was spotted by locals in Assams Samaguri town late on Thursday evening, after which they alerted the police. The police team which intercepted the pick-up van also arrested four men who were smuggling the dogs. The animals were kept with their mouths taped, heaped on top of each other. By the time they were rescued, 22 of the dogs had already collapsed due to suffocation. "Unfortunately, 22 out of the 75 dogs have collapsed. They were kept in really pathetic condition. We have sent the remaining dogs to our shelter home," People For Animal (PFA) Asam Chairperson Sangeeta Goswami said. Out of the surviving canines, seven were reportedly critical. "Some of them are so weak that they can't walk properly. Our veterinarians are working on them," she added. The four men have reportedly told the police that they lured the dogs, mostly strays, with biscuits containing something intoxicating. Their mouths were tied to make sure that they don't bark or make noise. "The four have admitted that they were taking the canines to Dimapur to sell them to dog meat market there," a police officer said. Though exact figures are hard to come by, dog meat sellers in Nagaland are said to be paying at least R500 for a live animal. The meat is sold for anything between Rs 800 to Rs 1000 a kilo in the markets. HSI/ File The consumption of dog meat in Nagaland has always been controversial. Many animal rights groups have called for a ban and strict punishments for the meat trade. Under the current laws, cruelty to animals attracts nominal fines ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 50. Last year the Nagaland government had proposed the banning the use of dog meat as food in the state. But despite the ban, dog meat continues to be sold in the markets openly. The Assam government is reviewing whether the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) could be withdrawn from some areas before making recommendations to the Centre. This move may have repercussions in J&K and Manipur where the Act has been a major subject of dispute between the state governments and the Centre. bccl/representational image Declaring the entire Assam as a "disturbed area", the Centre had imposed the Act on November 27, 1990, at the height of militancy spearheaded by Ulfa. The Act enables the armed forces to exercise special powers while combating militancy. Dispur will now present its proposal to review continuation of the Act at a meeting of the strategic group of the Unified Command structure in the state headed by the Army next week. bccl/representational image Additional director general of police (special branch) Pallab Bhattacharya said, "AFSPA has been in force in the state for 26 years. At the last meeting with MHA, the issue was raised. There are demands from various quarters to lift this Act. We are taking a relook ...if it (the Act) can be withdrawn from some areas." He added, "The areas have to be identified after discussions. There is a large deployment of Army in the state and if it has to be withdrawn from some areas, the state government would then have to be empowered to make alternative security deployment in those areas. Then, instead of this Act, the IPC will be exercised in those areas to take action." bccl/representational image Though the Act is in force in the entire state, the Army has been gradually withdrawn from some districts as the situation improved. In these districts, the Army has been replaced with central paramilitary organisations (CPO). At the moment, the CPO districts in the state are Jorhat, Majuli, Kamrup (Metro), Karimganj, Hailkandi and Lakhimpur where the Army has no operational role to play. bccl/representational image Apart from the state, the Act is in force in Nagaland, Manipur (except the Imphal municipal area), Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts of Arunachal, a 20-km belt in Meghalaya bordering Assam and J&K. The Act, which was also imposed in Punjab during its troubled days, was withdrawn fully in 1997. The Act, which was imposed in Tripura in 1997, was withdrawn in 2015. Over 300 students were hospitalised on Saturday after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. The incident happened in Pul Pehladpur in Delhis Tughlaqabad on Saturday morning. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness. Read more 1. Haryana Court Sentences Woman To Seven Years Imprisonment For False Gangrape Complaint A court in Rohtak, Haryana has sentenced a 28-year-old woman who filed a false gang rape case against eight people, including her husband. The court found Meenakshi, a resident of Rohtak guilty under IPC sections 195 and 211 for giving false evidence to procure a conviction. In 2010 she had filed a complaint alleging that she was gang raped by a local resident and his two brother-in-laws after they gave her lift in their car. In her complaint, Meenakshi had alleged that she was forcibly married to her rapist and repeatedly raped by him and his brother-in-laws after marriage. Read more 2. UP CM Yogi Adityanath Sweeps Lucknow Streets To Improve State's Terrible Cleanliness Record Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath along with his cabinet colleagues took part in the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan on Saturday. CM Adityanath swept the road in Lucknows Balu Adda Malin Basti, a move which is aimed at improving the state's terrible record in the clean cities. Adityanath has ordered officials to ensure that waste from drains was cleaned before the arrival of the rainy season and asked Councillors to make sure their wards are cleaned every day and results must be evident in 15 days. Read more 3. Hizbul Mujahideen Video Shows Brutal Torture Of Kashmiri Youths For Being 'Police Informers' Terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen has posted a video which shows two Kashmiri youths being beaten up for allegedly being police informers. The seven-minute video opens with a logo and a message from Hizbul. The video shows two young men confined in a dark room, being confronted by Hizbul men. Read more 4. Mining Will Continue In Ganga As Supreme Court Stays Ban On Extraction Activities The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday stayed an order of the Nainital high court (HC) delivered in December last year, which prohibited any type of mining in the river Ganga in Uttarakhand. Welcoming the stay order, state government officials said that the apex court's decision will give a boost to developmental activities in the state as raw material (stones picked up from river bed) would now be available for construction work. Read more 5. Assam Cops Rescue 75 Dogs Being Smuggled To Nagaland For Meat Assam Police have rescued some 75 dogs which were being illegally smuggled to neighbouring Nagaland, where dog meat is a delicacy. The pick-up van which was used to smuggle the animals was spotted by locals in Assams Samaguri town late on Thursday evening, after which they alerted the police. The police team which intercepted the pick-up van also arrested four men who were smuggling the dogs. Read more India has beaten world leader China in the sales of two-wheeler vehicles. In 2016 a total of 17.7 million two-wheelers were sold in India, making the country the biggest two-wheeler market in the world. BCCL In the same time period China, the second largest market registered sales of 16.8 million two-wheelers. According to the figures by industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) scooter sales alone accounted for over 5 million of those figures, while commuter motorcycles in the 100-110cc segment accounted for nearly 6.5 million unit sales in India in 2016. BCCL India's two-wheeler market has been increasing over the last four years. While it sold 13 million two-wheelers in 2011-12, it rose to 16 million in 2014-15 with 17 million in 2016-17. BCCL In contrast, the Chinese market has seen a drop in the recent years. In 2010, China's domestic motorcycle sales reached over 27 million and then decreased gradually over the next four consecutive years. Over 300 students were hospitalised on Saturday after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. ap The incident happened in Pul Pehladpur in Delhis Tughlaqabad on Saturday morning. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness. ap "Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements were administered to them. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition," the hospital said in a statement. ap Most of the students were discharged after initial treatment, while a few are still kept under observation. The chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. ap Following the gas leak, the school has been evacuated. According to the Delhi Fire Service, the leak emanated from drums inside a truck parked in the depot. ap The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police have registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said he has ordered the area district magistrate and SDM to launch a probe into the incident. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident," he said. Sisodia, who also holds education portfolio, said that he spoke to doctors who told him that all the students were doing fine and were under observation. With more than 7,500 kilometers of coastline, India has a marine ecology to boast about. Maharashtra alone has a coastline 720 km-long coastline with tourists flocking regularly to its beaches.The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is an important part of around any coastline of India, and is present to protect the ecological balance as well as prevention of pollution and encroachment near the seas. However, it has recently been reported that the government of Maharashtra has asked the Central government to ease out the norms around the CRZ. This is being done so that development projects can be set up around villages that do not fall under the ecologically sensitive zones across the entire stretch of the coast. BCCL One of the plausible reasons for the cancellation or a major relaxation in norms is because the Shivaji Maharaj statue built off the coast of Mumbai. The project which is worth a whopping Rs 3,600 crore, is one of the most anticipated projects by the state. There is also the much-debated and the immensely publicised announcement of the coastal road which costs about Rs14,000 crores, development of which is being opposed by environmental activists. The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority has now asked for suggestions and objections on draft Coastal Zone Management Plans (CZMPs) of Mumbai, Raigad and Ratnagiri Districts. Why this could be dangerous The government has surveyed more than 2000 villages covering 17,000 kms of area, scanning the areas that have immense potential to become zones of development. While the state government has assured that the environmental concerns will be paid full attention to, it is still doubtful if the environment will be fully protected against the hazards this will bring. It has been reported that the proposal to cancel the CRZ has been passed in the Cabinet, and is aimed to improve the tourism in the state. This norm relaxation will affect the entire Konkan coast involving districts of Mumbai, Raigad, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri. BCCL The coast of Mumbai already has a thriving ecology in the dense mangroves that protect the city against the sea. With the encroachment of builders, this has led to an aggressive tiff between activists, politicians and businessmen who see all empty spaces as a potential business area. The city gets flooded every year but is protected by the mangroves to a great extent, even against the Arabian sea. Civil society is concerned Dolphy Dsouza, Spokesperson of Save Our Lands (SOUL), an organisation that fights for environmental issues said that there is already enough damage to the mangroves which were once lush around this city and relaxation of CRZ norms will degrade the marine ecology in the entire belt. This is a backdoor for builders and lobbyists to break laws and establish their businesses in places that are environmentally sensitive. This is the opening of a Pandoras box that is going to damage an already sinking city. Despite our rational arguments, the government will wake up only when disaster strikes, Dsouza said. Represeantational image of part Proposed Coastal Road along Mumbai: BCCL What is CRZ? The Coastal Regulation Zone is the land up to 500m from the High Tide Line (HTL) a 100m stage along banks water bodies that are concerned with tidal fluctuations. The CRZ is divided into four parts with different permissible developments according to the rules of these zones. BCCL As per the provisions of the CRZ Notification, 2011 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the government of any state is entrusted with the responsibility of preparation of Coastal Zone Management Plans of the coastal areas of the State through agencies authorised by the MoEF&CC. Concerned people believe measure that affects the environment of the state should be deal with very serious. They are hoping that the leaders will consult experts and make a sustainable policy. France has finally been able to implement the law which bans featuring extremely thin fashion models. The ban was announced earlier, however, the law in this regard came into effect this week. reuters/representational image According to the law that came into effect on Friday, models will need to provide a doctor's certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI) - a measure of weight in relation to height, the BBC reported. reuters/representational image The Health Ministry says the aim of the law is to fight eating disorders and inaccessible ideals of beauty. reuters/representational image Digitally altered photos will also have to be labelled and images, where a model's appearance has been manipulated, will need to be marked "photographie retouchee" (retouched photograph). According to the new law, the employers who are found breaking the law could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($82,000) and up to six months in jail. reuters/representational image France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models - Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so. Anorexia affects between 30,000 to 40,000 people in France, 90 per cent women, according to health ministry figures. President Donald Trump seems to share an excellent rapport with the Saudi royals. On the heels of his visit to the Arab kingdom, one man named his new born after POTUS' daughter Ivanka Trump. Salem Al-Ayashi Al-Anzi, from northern city of Arar has admired Trump's leadership ever since he took office. According to a Washington Post report, the baby's father was inspired by that fact that Trump avenged the death of innocent children in the chemical weapon attack by firing 70 missiles at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Reports state that photo of the Saudi baby named 'Abu-Ivanka' with her birth certificate went viral on Whatsapp. After the name was registered with the Health Ministry at the Women and Children, Al-Anzi faced criticism from a few who said that the name goes against their cultural values. Photo courtesy:Arab News According to Arab News, he got a confirmation from officials that there were no religious or moral prohibitions in Arabic or Saudi culture to pick a name. Impressed by Al-Anzi's bold decision, his friends pitched in for the baby shower and also showered him with gifts. Saudi journalist Moteeran Al-Nams, told Arab News that Al-Anzi took it up as a challenge to name his baby Ivanka and that "in our culture, we dont step back from a challenge. Okinoshima, an island off the coast of southern Kyushu in Japan, is the only island in world which bars the entry of women. A Unesco advisory body has recommended adding Japan's island of Okinoshima, a men-only ancient religious site in Fukuoka prefecture, to its World Heritage list, cultural authorities announced on Saturday. iromegane/representational image The advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), notified Japan of its decision late Friday night, The Japan Times quoted the authorities as saying. iromegane/representational image It is likely to be endorsed at a meeting of the Unesco World Heritage Committee in Krakow, Poland, in July. If approved as recommended, the island, which is part of the prefecture's Munakata region, will be the 17th set of Japanese cultural assets to be granted World Heritage status. Including natural heritage items and sites, the addition will see the total number of Japanese assets on the list rise to 21. iromegane/representational image Okinoshima still follows strict taboos from ancient times, including the controversial ban on women from entering the island, reports The Japan Times. Men setting foot on the island are first required to strip all clothes and perform a cleansing ritual. It was also the site of numerous rituals involving prayers for the safety of ships and successful exchanges with the people of the Korean Peninsula and China between the fourth and ninth centuries. Wikipedia/representational image Some 80,000 artefact brought as gifts from overseas have been uncovered on the island, including gold rings from the Korean Peninsula and glass cup fragments believed to have come from Persia. These items have all been designated as national treasures. The "Greek program" briefly emerged on French presidential candidate trail a day before French citizens head to the ballot boxes, with one of two contenders, centrist Emmanuel Macron, expressing support for what he called "coordinated" restructuring of the Greek debt and even promising to "lead such an effort". Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict. The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were actively planning to seize foreign workers in the Bama local government area of Borno state. Both said in travel advice that the affected area was along the Banki-Kumshe axis, which is near the border with Cameroon. The US embassy in Abuja said in a message to its nationals that the report was credible. Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of women and children, including more than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno town of Chibok in 2014, which brought the conflict to world attention. At least 20,000 people have been killed since 2009. But abductions of foreigners have been rare. There was a spate of kidnappings of foreign workers in the wider north from 2011 to 2013, claimed by a Boko Haram splinter group, Ansaru, which was more ideologically aligned to Al-Qaeda. The leader of Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, has been charged with the abduction and murder of foreign workers, among them an Italian, a Briton, a German, Greek, Lebanese and Syrians. Most were engineers or construction workers. International aid workers now account for the majority of foreign nationals in northeast Nigeria. Most are based in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Lake Chad region require urgent food aid as a result of the conflict, which has made more than 2.6 million people homeless and ravaged farmland. AFP visited Banki with other international media two weeks ago. Humanitarian agencies operating in the town include the World Food Programme, International Organization for Migration and other UN bodies. Banki was liberated from Boko Haram in September 2015 and is currently home to some 32,000 displaced people in a sprawling, overcrowded camp. The surrounding area still suffers from frequent Boko Haram attacks on military convoys, as well as suicide bombings. Fighters loyal to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who were pushed out of their camps in the Sambisa Forest area last December, are believed to be responsible. The kidnap warning and the threat to humanitarian operations underline the fragility of security in northeast Nigeria, despite claims from the government and military that Boko Haram is a spent force. Source: ( Punch Newspaper ) President Buhari has been given two weeks ultimatum by a civil rights movement, identified as Concerned Nigerians the group has asked the president to conduct a media chat to address the nation on the state of his health and other national issues. Should the President fail to speak out, the organisation threatened to shut down the country and commence a series of nationwide peaceful processions and call for his resignation from office. The position of CN, was contained in a six-paragraph statement released on Saturday and entitled: We will shut down Nigeria if Buhari does not conduct a media chat in two weeks, signed by its Convener, Deji Adeyanju and Secretary, Dr. John Danfulani. The CN said that for several weeks, the health of the President had been the source of speculation, as he had neither appeared in public nor attend several official functions, including Federal Executive Cabinet meetings. The statement reads: The handling of the situation relating to President Buharis health has led to a lot of political uncertainty in the country. This economic uncertainty has, in turn, led to a lot of economic uncertainty as major economic stakeholders and players are unable to make short, middle and long-term economic decisions. Furthermore, the uncertainty about President Buharis health is stoking ethnic and religious tensions. Only recently a user of the social networking site Facebook threatened to kill 200 innocent Nigerians if President Buhari dies. This threat may not be unconnected with rumours making rounds in the northern parts of the country that President Buhari was poisoned. To this end, we call on President Buhari to, as a matter of urgency, publicly address the nation on the state of his health and other national issues. Such an address will go a long way in assuaging the socio-economic and political tensions. If President Buhari fails or refuses to address the nation within 14 days of this statement, we will commence a series of nationwide peaceful processions calling on President Buhari to resign from office. The processions will also call on the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly to set up a committee to assess his health in line with Section 144 of the Constitution if he fails or refuses to do so. While we recognise that illnesses can afflict anyone, particularly someone of President Buharis age, an occupant of the Office of the President has to be more forthcoming with information regarding his health. It is an obligation that the President bears to conduct himself in a manner that does not affect the peace, order and good governance of the country. While wishing President Buhari a speedy recovery from the illnesses that plague him, CN, however, believed that he can no longer recover in a manner that plagues the entire country. Following lingering health issues and revelations that President Muhammadu Buhari might succumb to sickness, a Nigerian pastor has revealed there is light at the end of the tunnel. A clergyman, Obinna Omerie, has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari will successfully pilot the affairs of the country till 2019 in good health. Omerie, the founder of Grace and Great Kings Christian Ministry, Egbu, Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo, made the declaration while addressing journalists in Owerri on Saturday. God revealed to me as His prophet that Buhari will complete his tenure in 2019, he said. He said that those expressing concern over President Buharis health are spiritually blindfolded and speaking from revelations backed by satanic sources. The man of God also said that the economic recession in the country was divinely motivated, saying Nigerias economy will emerge stronger at the end of the recession. For children of God this economy is not so much felt now. The situation is fast opening prosperity doors for some cities like Owerri, Port Harcourt, Lagos, and Calabar, because things are positively changing in these cities now. The clergyman derided those predicting that the 2019 elections would not be peaceful, noting that those saying the election will be bloody are wrong. For me, the Lord has not shown me any blood, the election will be peaceful as usual irrespective of all the doomsday prophecies from some altars and pulpits. Omerie asserted that Nigeria is a nation loved and blessed by God. He said no evil would befall the nation before, during and after the next general elections in 2019. He noted that pockets of crisis recorded across the country, according to him, were caused by evil men challenging the supremacy of God. On the impact of fake prophecy, the man of God observed that the activities of fake religious ministers had created some discords and crises in many families. He, therefore, appealed to the government and church leaders to evolve means of curtailing the activities of doomsday clerics. Omeire, popularly called `Authority, noted that people who seek solutions to their problems sometimes play into the hands of fake pastors by carelessly disclosing their problems during counselling, which such fake take advantage of. People meeting men of God should stop giving `expo to these ministers; allow God to reveal things worrying you to the man of God, that is the way God works, he said. About 200 persons will be rendered homeless as the Oyo State Government has ordered the demolition of about 200 illegal structures at Ojoo round- about area of Ibadan as it announced that 24 rivers would be dredged as part of its effort to curb flooding in the state. According to the state Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Isaac Ishola, ordered the removal while monitoring the weekly environmental sanitation within the state capital. He said the state government would not allow any person or group of persons to jeopardise its efforts in ensuring a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We have received several letters from Ojoo Police Station that the said illegal market is a security threat, said the commissioner. The commissioner also said during his visit to Ikere Gorge Dam, beside Iseyin, that there was an ongoing sensitisation campaign to ensure total compliance with environmental sanitation rules and regulations in the state. The government noted that the World Bank would assist in the dredging of the 24 rivers and that the exercise had already been approved. Ishola said that the visit to the dam was to ascertain the level at which waste water is being discharged in order not to cause overflowing of other dams which could lead to flooding. The 2011 flooding was as a result of overflow of Eleyele dam reservoir. Therefore, we will visit every dam in the state as part of measures put in place by government to mitigate re-occurrence of the disaster, Ishola said. He called on the people of the state to help the government in its efforts to fight against disaster as the years rainy season begins, urging them to desist from dumping refuse into drainages when it rains and stop erecting kiosks on culverts to allow free flow of water. Ishola commended the Federal Governments effort for putting in place the necessary machinery for the effective use of the Ikere Dam, pledging that there would be synergy between the state and the FG. A 55 year old pastor was arrested by the Oyo State Police Command yesterday paraded over unlawful possession of a human head, buffalo horn, as well as gunpowder and charms. The pastor, said to be the founder of Cherubim and Seraphim Church, Idapomimo Zion, Alagbado, Lagos, was arrested by security operatives during a stop and search operation, at about 10:30 pm on May 4 on his way to another branch of the church at Imini in Afijo Council of Oyo State. However, Isaiah had an explanation: he wanted to use the human skull as fortification to ward off armed robbers from the land on which a branch of his church is being constructed. In an interview Prophet Isaiah a.k.a Agbojesu, said: There was a demolition at Pakoto, Sango, Ogun State, where I reside, and it was there I found the human skull. Unfortunately, armed robbers have been disturbing us at my church branch in Oyo State, so I wanted to use the skull to make some spiritual fortification so that armed robbers would stop disturbing us there. The charmed soap found with me is to get favour and mercy. I also intended to bury the horn found with me along with the human skull for the fortification, because it is a large expanse of land. I know human skull may be used for other things but what I intended to use it for was to ward off armed robbers by making the site unattractive for them. All I would do was to mix some herbs with the skull, make some incantations and instruct the skull to ward off armed robbers from that particular area. Although I am now a prophet, my father used to be a herbalist. That was how I learnt how to prepare some spiritual potions. But I know that Christianity does not support charms and diabolism. I started my church in 1980. Apart from praying for my church members, I also help them prepare charms that will make people be at ease with them. I used to have about 26 church members, but the prophet who I employed to assist me took the members with him to establish his own church. I sincerely apologise and seek forgiveness from God, the government and the people. Source: (Tribune ) A Customs officer serving in Akwa Ibom State was critically injured on Thursday after he was knocked down on a highway by a man who allegedly tried to evade duties check, PremiumTimes reports. The man was later identified as Nsikanabasi Ese, a pastor, and founder of Kairos Rhema Embassy, Uyo, was driving in an SUV along Eket-Ikot Abasi-Port Harcourt Highway, when he was reportedly flagged down by Customs officers at a checkpoint around 10.30 a.m. He (the pastor) slowed down the vehicle, so we naturally thought he was pulling over, the injured officer, Daneke Emmanuel, told journalists at Immanuel Hospital, Eket, where he was receiving medical attention. He pulled over the brown colour Toyota Highlander at a short distance along the highway when he noticed that a Customs vehicle was about giving chase. The officer said, He flung open the car door, walked away from the car and then suddenly slumped on the ground as though he was in great pains. As we were about to find out what was wrong with him, another occupant of the car jumped onto the steering and ran away with the car. The police Intelligence Response Team says it has arrested four suspected kidnappers in Osun and Ondo State. Abba Kyari, Assistant Commissioner of Police and the Commander of the team, confirmed the arrest. According to him, the suspects are Teslim Ibitoye, 38, Sunday David, 35, Akin Nureni, 40, and Akeem Ibitoye. Kyari said on April 25, police officers traced one of the kidnappers, Akin Nureni. He said: The suspects confessed to several kidnappings in Osun and Ondo State, including the recent blocking of one Mrs Basirat Ahmed while driving on a road at Dada Estate, Osogbo on April 11 and kidnapping her 8yr old daughter, Taiwo Ahmed. They took the little girl to their hideout and demanded for N10m ransom from the parents, who eventually paid to get their daughter back. A pistol with seven live and four expended ammunition, two single barrel short guns with 16 live and nine expended cartridges, facial mask, victims jewelry and charms were recovered in the suspects hideout. Two of the suspects, Teslim Ibitoye and Sunday David, are receiving treatment at a hospital following bullets wounds they got during gun battle with the police. He said the police had been making serious efforts to arrest the remaining kidnappers. University of Ibadan has been known to rank top 5 among the universities in Nigeria, and it still is. A recent report has placed it as the best university in Nigeria, being the 8th best University in Africa. Though we can do better; this is commendable. There have been an aged-long rivalry among universities in Nigeria as per which is really the best in terms of facilities, quality of teaching and quality of students. It seems this debate wont end soon as many students have been advancing different reasons they think their school is the best. If you think you have the best reasons why your school is the best in Nigeria, TECNO Mobile is kick-starting a Campus based activity known as Camon CX Campus Challenge. Students across Nigeria Universities are required to take a selfie in their favorite spots on campus and post online using the hashtag #CXCampus #Unilag if you are a student of university of Lagos or #CXCampus #Uniben if you are a student of University of Benin. 5 Lucky winners will smile home with the new Camon CX. The Camon CX is bundled with 16MP front camera with Dual LED flash and same 16MP Camera at the back with Quad-LED flash for capturing clearer selfie and brighter pictures even in the darkest of environment. Rules and Regulation for Camon CX Campus Challenge 1: Take a selfie in your favourite spot in your campus. 2: Facebook To submit your entry On Facebook, click on the Camon CX Campus challenge Post on Facebook, and submit your entry as a comment. [The Camon CX Campus post will be pinned]. Like and share the Facebook post for your entry to be valid. 3: Instagram & Twitter Post your challenge on Instagram or Twitter, using the hashtag #CXCampus #UNILAG (if youre a student of University of Lagos) or #CXCampus #Uniben (if youre a student of University of Benin), follow @tecnomobileng, and state the reasons your school is the best in Nigeria. 4: Invite your Family and Friends to like, comment and share your picture online. 5: Our pool of judges will select the 5 best winners with the most Creative and Intelligent reasons, from the universities nationwide. 6: The 5 lucky Winners will be decorated as TECNO Youth Ambassadors and awarded a brand new Camon CX. 7: The CX Campus Challenge will run from 8th May to 31st May, 2017. 8: Terms and Conditions Apply Cable Is In A Correction Within Uptrend Wavetraders - 8 minutes ago Cable made five waves up from the 1.0353 lows, which suggest that bottom is in place from Elliott wave perspective, but more upside can be seen after a corrective pullback. The EIA Recession The PRICE Futures Group - 12 minutes ago Oil prices gave up their gains yesterday after the Energy Information Administration [EIA] seemed to suggest that the US might be heading into a recession. In the EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook they said,... RIPPLE BOTTOM .35? ONE44 Analytics - 1 hour ago When we use just the Fibonacci retracements with the ONE44 rules and guidelines you can see on the chart how every attempt to rally has been stopped by key retracements. ^XRPUSD : 0.373429 (-7.09%) Inflation strikes disrupt trains, flights in Greece, Belgium AP - 1 hour ago Thousands of protesters have marched through the streets of Athens and the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki as workers walked off the job for a 24-hour general strike against price hikes $SPX : 3,816.09 (-0.31%) $DOWI : 32,964.52 (-0.59%) $IUXX : 11,003.45 (-0.51%) Morning Weakness for Cotton Market Barchart - Wed Nov 9, 7:26AM CST So far the morning trade has cotton prices working 50 to 100 points in the red. The rally faded momentum on Tuesday with a tighter range on a mixed mostly lower close. Dec futures ended the day with another... CTZ22 : 87.93 (+0.29%) CTH23 : 85.59 (-0.17%) CTK23 : 84.61 (-0.27%) Midweek Cattle Market gets USDA Data Barchart - Wed Nov 9, 7:26AM CST Live cattle futures stayed in a relatively tighter range on Tuesday and closed UNCH in the Dec contract. The other nearbys went home 15 to 30 cents weaker. Feeder cattle were mixed on the board on Tuesday.... LEZ22 : 152.225 (-0.54%) LEG23 : 154.400 (-0.24%) LEJ23 : 157.825 (-0.27%) GFX22 : 177.825 (-0.25%) GFF23 : 179.650 (-0.14%) Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see winners and finalists Infosys, the Indian IT multinational, won the award for Asia in-house tax team of the year, with Nissan, the Japanese carmaker, winning the equivalent award for transfer pricing. Annie Pan, Asia tax director of the RELX Group, the digital information publisher, was named as Asia in-house tax director the year. Ken Dwijugiasteadi, director general of tax in Indonesia won the award for Asia Tax Commissioner of the Year in recognition of his attempts to modernise and reform the tax system there, including the implementation of the much-heralded amnesty, which, it is estimated, raised close to $100 billion. Among the firms, KPMG led the way with 13 awards, including a repeat of its 2016 success as Asia Tax Firm of the Year. It was closely followed by Deloitte with 12. The other big four firms, EY and PwC, came next with eight each. The other firms to win more than one award were Baker McKenzie with four, and Grant Thornton, Kim & Chang, TP Solutions and Shearn Delamore & Co who all won two each. The individual awards for practitioners went to: Khoon Ming Ho of KPMG (Asia Tax Practice Leader of the Year); Shannon Smit of TP Solutions (Asia Transfer Pricing Practice Leader of the Year); and Anand Raj (Asia Tax Disputes & Litigation Practice Leader of the Year). The awards were held for the sixth time at the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore on May 4. Companies, firms and individuals had to the opportunity between November and February to make submissions to be considered for the awards. These were then thoroughly researched, with input from tax practitioners and their clients, and shortlists were selected by International Tax Review. Read about who was nominated here. ITR Asia Tax Awards 2017 FINALISTS (winners in bold) COUNTRY AWARDS Australia Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte DLA Piper Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills KPMG Australia Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte Grant Thornton KPMG Quantera Global Transfer Pricing Solutions Australia Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte Herbert Smith Freehills & Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills KPMG Cambodia Tax Firm of the Year Bun & Associates Deloitte DFDL Sciaroni & Associates VDB Loi Cambodia Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Deloitte DFDL Sciaroni & Associates China Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte DLA Piper EY Jun He King & Wood Mallesons KPMG PwC Zhong Lun China Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte DLA Piper EY KPMG PwC Quantera Global China Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie EY KPMG PwC Hong Kong Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte DLA Piper KPMG PwC Hong Kong Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year EY KPMG PwC Hong Kong Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Clifford Chance Deloitte DLA Piper KPMG PwC India Tax Firm of the Year Advaita Legal Cyril Amarchand & Mangaldas Deloitte Dhruva Advisors EY KPMG Majmudar & Partners Nangia & Co Nishith Desai & Associates PwC India Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC India Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year BMR Advisors Deloitte Dhruva Advisors EY KPMG Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan PwC Indonesia Tax Firm of the Year Deloitte EY Hadiputranto Hadinoto & Partners KPMG PwC Indonesia Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Indonesia Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Deloitte EY Hadiputranto Hadinoto & Partners KPMG PwC Japan Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie DLA Piper KPMG Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu Withers Japan Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Japan Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie DLA Piper Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu Nishimura & Asahi Malaysia Tax Firm of the Year Deloitte EY PwC Wong & Partners Malaysia Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY PwC Malaysia Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Deloitte KPMG Lee Hishammuddin Allen & Gledhill PwC Shearn Delamore & Co Wong & Partners Myanmar Tax Firm of the Year DFDL KPMG Tilleke & Gibbins VDB Loi Myanmar Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year VDB Loi New Zealand Tax Firm of the Year Bell Gully Chapman Tripp Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Russell McVeagh New Zealand Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Bell Gully Deloitte EY KPMG PwC New Zealand Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Bell Gully Chapman Tripp Deloitte KPMG Russell McVeagh Pakistan Tax Firm of the Year Grant Thornton HaidermotaBNR RIAA Barker Gillette Pakistan Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Grant Thornton HaidermotaBNR RIAA Barker Gillette Philippines Tax Firm of the Year Deloitte Isla Lipana & Co (PwC) Quisumbing Torres Reyes Tacandong & Co RG Manabat & Co (KPMG) Salvador Llanillo & Bernardo SyCip Gorres Velayo & Co (EY) SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan Philippines Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte Isla Lipana & Co (PwC) Quantera Global RG Manabat & Co (KPMG) SyCip Gorres Velayo & Co (EY) Philippines Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year BDB Law Deloitte Quisumbing Torres RG Manabat & Co (KPMG) Salvador Llanillo & Bernardo, Taxand Philippines SyCip Gorres Velayo & Co (EY) Singapore Tax Firm of the Year Allen & Gledhill Baker McKenzie.Wong & Leow Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Withers KhattarWong WongPartnership Singapore Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie.Wong & Leow Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Quantera Global Transfer Pricing Solutions Asia Singapore Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie.Wong & Leow Deloitte KPMG Rajah & Tann Withers KhattarWong South Korea Tax Firm of the Year Deloitte EY Kim & Chang Lee & Ko PwC Yoon & Yang Yulchon South Korea Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY Kim & Chang KPMG PwC Yoon & Yang Yulchon South Korea Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Bae Kim & Lee Kim & Chang Lee & Ko Yoon & Yang Yulchon Sri Lanka Tax Firm of the Year FJ&G De Saram KPMG Nithya Partners Sri Lanka Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year KPMG Taiwan Tax Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG Lee and Li PwC Taiwan Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY Grant Thornton KPMG PwC Taiwan Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Thailand Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte KPMG SCL Tax Consultants Tilleke & Giobbins Thailand Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte KPMG Quantera Global Thailand Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year KPMG LawAlliance SCL Tax Consultants Vietnam Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte KPMG Vietnam Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Quantera Global Vietnam Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte KPMG PwC REGIONAL AWARDS Asia Indirect Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Asia Tax Transactions Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Cyril Amarchand & Mangaldas Deloitte EY Jun He Kim & Chang KPMG Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu PwC Yulchon Asia Tax Policy Firm of the Year Dhruva Advisors EY KPMG Yoon & Yang Asia Tax Compliance & Reporting Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG Asia Tax Technology Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG Thomson Reuters Wolters Kluwer Asia Tax Innovator of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG Global Executive Mobility Tax Team of the Year in Asia Deloitte EY KPMG US Corporate Tax Team of the Year EY KPMG China Withholding Tax Team of the Year Deloitte EY Lee & Ko Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu PwC International Tax Law Firm of the Year in Asia Baker McKenzie DFDL DLA Piper Withers Best Newcomer of the Year Advaita Legal SCL Tax Consultants Transfer Pricing Solutions Asia VDB Loi (Indonesia) Asia Tax Disputes & Litigation Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Asia Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year Deloitte EY KPMG PwC Asia Tax Firm of the Year Baker McKenzie Deloitte EY Kim & Chang KPMG PwC INDIVIDUAL AWARDS Asia Tax Commissioner of the Year Ken Dwijugiasteadi, Director General of Tax, Ministry of Finance, Indonesia Asia Tax Disputes & Litigation Practice Leader of the Year Ahdianto, GNV Consulting Services Sujit Ghosh, Advaita Legal Oh-Young Jeon, Yoon & Yang Yuko Miyazaki, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu Nguyen Huong Giang, PwC Anand Raj, Shearn Delamore & Co Vikna Rajah, Rajah & Tann Steven Sieker, Baker McKenzie Angela Wood, KPMG Asia Transfer Pricing Practice Leader of the Year Kyung Geun Lee, Yulchon Amit Maheshwari, Ashok Maheshwary & Associates Rahul Mitra, KPMG Shannon Smit, Transfer Pricing Solutions Geoffrey Soh, KPMG Shanwu Yuan, Baker McKenzie Ay Tjhing Phan, PwC Michael Tabart, Deloitte Asia Tax Practice Leader of the Year Khoon Ming Ho, KPMG Dinesh Kanabar, Dhruva Advisors Dong Soo Kim, Yulchon Shinya Matsumiya, Deloitte Chung-Sim Siew Moon, EY Eric Roose, Withers Manish Shah, SKP Group John Walker, Baker McKenzie Asia In-house Tax Director of the Year Annie Pan, RELX Group IN-HOUSE AWARDS Asia In-house Tax Team of the Year GE China Infosys PT Freeport Indonesia Yum! China Holdings Asia In-house Transfer Pricing Team of the Year Infosys Nissan Samsung Prosegue la guerra tra Donald Trump e gli organi di informazione. Dopo la Cnn tocca alla Nbc che ha diffuso la notizia, poi smentita, di un richiesta rivolta dal presidente Usa ai vertici militari lo scorso luglio: decuplicare larsenale nucleare americano. Lex tycoon interviene sulla questione con un tweet al vetriolo: Fake @NBCNews ha inventato la storia che io voglio decuplicare larsenale nucleare degli Usa. Pura fiction, inventata per sminuire. NBC=CNN!, ha scritto. Poi va oltre in un secondo tweet: Con tutte le Fake News che escono da Nbc e dagli altri network, a che punto sara appropriato mettere in discussione la loro licenza? Negativo per il Paese!. Resta pero largomento del giorno, almeno per il presidente, che non si sottrae alle domande dei giornalisti a margine dellincontro con il premier canadese Justin Trudeau alla Casa Bianca: decuplicare larsenale nucleare degli Usa? Non e necessario, so qual e la nostra capacita. Io lo voglio al top delle sue possibilita, ha detto il presidente, ribadendo che le indiscrezioni diffuse dal network sono inesatte, che non hanno fonti, prima di menzionare i generali e il capo del Pentagono James Mattis, quasi a sostegno della sua versione. Fino a concludere puntando ancora una volta il dito dritto contro i media: E disgustoso che possano scrivere cio che vogliono. Trump poi si spinge oltre, sino a chiedersi se non sia il caso di mettere in discussione le licenze di trasmissione per i network. La richiesta ai vertici militari, secondo la tv Usa, sarebbe avvenuta durante lo stesso incontro alla fine del quale il segretario di Stato, Rex Tillerson, rivolgendosi ad alcuni dei partecipanti, avrebbe definito Trump un deficiente (A moron). Circostanza questultima che il segretario di Stato non ha direttamente smentito, ma che lo ha indotto nei giorni scorsi ad indire una rara conferenza stampa nella quale ha ribadito il suo impegno al fianco del presidente Trump come il primo giorno. 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. While we eagerly wait for the iOS 10.3.1 jailbreak, we have some good news for users who have jailbroken their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch using Yalu jailbreak, you may be aware that the jailbreak app expires every 7 days, after which you have to re-sign it using Cydia Impactor on your computer. It can be a bit of a hassle to sign the Yalu jailbreak using your computer every time it expires, especially when you dont have a computer nearby. Well, you no longer have to worry about this anymore with a new Cydia package known as Extender Installer. Extender Installer is an amazing tweak that automatically re-signs the Yalu 10.2 jailbreak as soon as it expires, without requiring you to do it manually. This is a great time saver as you no longer have to use your computer every time you want to re-sign the Yalu jailbreak. This tweak does it automatically without requiring you to do anything from your side. Extender Installer is based on Sauriks legacy tweak called Cydia Extender, but improves upon it to provide a better signing solution. Heres how to install and get started with Extender Installer. How to Re-Sign iOS 10.2 Jailbreak Automatically with Extender Installer Step 1: Open Cydia and go to the Sources tab. Step 2: Tap on Edit > Add, and then add the following repository: repo.incendo.ws. Step 3: Once added, search for Extender Installer and install it. Step 4: After your device resprings, go to the Home screen and open the Extender app. Step 5: Go to the More tab and make sure that youre signed in with your Apple ID. If not, tap on the Sign In button and enter your Apple ID and password (although the information is sent to Apple only, we recommend that you use a burner Apple ID). Step 6: Next up, youll find an option in the More tab that says Re-sign Application When. This allows you to specify when apps should be signed automatically. Thats all you have to do to set up Extender Installer and have it re-sign the Yalu jailbreak automatically along with other apps that you sideload. From the Installed tab, you can view all the apps that have been sideloaded onto your device as well as the last time you signed it. Whenever the Yalu jailbreak or a sideloaded app is re-signed automatically by Extender Installer, youll get a notification. You currently cannot jailbreak iOS 10.3.1, iOS 10.3 and iOS 10.2.1 using Yalu Jailbreak. But Pangu team has demoed the iOS 10.3.1 jailbreak at a tech conference in China, so were hopeful they will release Pangu Jailbreak for iOS 10.3.1 soon. If you face any issues, let us know in the comments below. Iraq will go with the consensus reached by OPEC when the oil exporter group meets in Vienna next month to discuss extending production cuts, the country's oil minister said on Thursday. "Now we're going on the 25th of May to OPEC and we're definitely going to be in line with OPEC's final decision and collective decisions," Jabar al-Luaibi told a conference in Paris. Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was in full compliance with the OPEC-led supply pact reached last year and has achieved about 97 percent of its output reduction target, Luaibi said. "Iraq is fully committed and Iraq is in full compliance with OPEC members," Luaibi said. He added that the OPEC-led cuts were gradually leading to a long-awaited rebalancing of the oil market. OPEC, Russia and other producers originally agreed to cut production by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for six months from Jan. 1 to support the market and to bring a supply glut into check. The producers are expected to prolong the pact for a further six months when they meet in May. Luaibi said the OPEC decision to cut did not mean countries should stop developing their oil industries. Earlier this month, Luaibi said Iraq planned to raise its oil output capacity to 5 million bpd before the end of the year. | Soruce: Reuters | Update - 8.05pm: Anastacia Ianova has been found safe and well. Earlier: Gardai are seeking the public's assistance in tracing the whereabouts of a missing teenager in Dublin. Fifteen-year-old Anastacia Ianova was last seen on April 30 in Marina View, Gasyard Lane, Malahide. She is described as being 5 foot 9 inches in height, of slight build, with long blond hair and green eyes. She has piercings in her nose and lip and when last seen Ana was wearing blue jeans and a black jacket. Anyone with information is asked to contact Gardai at Malahide garda station on 01-6664600, the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any garda station. By David Raleigh An ice-cream van driver who sold cocaine as well as ice-lollies to customers, has been jailed for four years with the final two years suspended. Paul Collopy used his ice cream van as a cover for a major drugs distribution business, Limerick Circuit Court heard. Collopy, (41), of Glenbrook, Bloodmill Road, Ballysimon, Limerick, started out in life earning money delivering coal from a horse and cart, the court heard. He pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to possessing cocaine for sale or supply. Collopy dropped a spoon and a weighing scales on the ground, outside his home, when gardai swooped on the property on November 25, 2014. At the time, he was attempting to conceal a lunchbox, which contained cocaine, between the engine and bonnet of his van, the court heard. Detective Garda David McGrath, Limerick Garda Divisional Drugs Unit, said Collopy was selling ice-cream from a fleet of vans in public parks and sporting venues around the city. "He was effectively caught red handed," the detective said. Gardai discovered over 6,000 of cocaine under the hood of the van, and inside "a money bag", which was located near a window where ice-creams and ice pops were sold to members of the public. The money bag also included two "tick lists" containing the names of customers, "who owed money for drugs". A drugs invoice found in the van showed 45,000 of cocaine had been sold. Gardai also recovered 5,000 cash in Collopy's house. Collopy, whose family have no criminal connections, had amassed 70 previous convictions. He was jailed for five years in December 2007 of selling 17,000 of cocaine. Three years after his release in 2011, he was caught by gardai in Ennis with 28,000 of heroin for which he received a four-year sentence, after the final two years of a six-year term was imposed. Det Garda McGrath described Collopy as a "chronic cocaine and crack cocaine addict". "My own opinion and the opinion of the divisional drugs squad would be that he is a drugs wholesaler rather than a street dealer," the detective told the court previously. "He would be giving the drugs to others to break down for street dealing," he added. The court heard Collopy, a father of three, was "selling drugs to break even". "He had a 200 a day drug habit." State prosecutor John O'Sullivan said Collopy had come from "a good family with no criminal connections". Outlining an insight into Collopy's troubled life, Mr O'Sullivan said: "He started sniffing glue aged ten. He started using other drugs in his teens." "He was working from the age of twelve drawing coal on a horse and cart, and later in his own pick-up truck," he added. The court heard Collopy was now drug-free, and had achieved music and cookery certificates while in prison on remand awaiting sentence. Today's sentence is to run consecutively to the four-year sentence imposed at Ennis Circuit Court last June. A US service member has been killed in Somalia during an operation against the extremist group al Shabab in the first US combat death in the country in more than two decades. It comes as the United States steps up its fight against the al Qaida-linked organisation in a country that remains largely chaos. The military says two other US personnel were wounded. "We do not believe there has been a case where a US service member has been killed in combat action in Somalia since the incident there in 1993," US Africa Command spokesman Patrick Barnes said. The United States pulled out of Somalia after that incident in which two helicopters were shot down in the capital, Mogadishu, and bodies of Americans were dragged through the streets. A Somali intelligence official said US forces killed at least six people during the raid on a building housing the al Shabab group's Andalus radio station. The official says the dead in the attack on a farm included al-Shabab journalists. In a statement, the US Africa Command said the service member was killed on Thursday during an operation near Barii, about 40m (64km) west of Mogadishu. It said US forces had been conducting an advise-and-assist mission with Somalia's military. Al Shabab, via its Shahada News Agency, said "an air landing operation by US special forces was thwarted in Lower Shabelle province and a number of their soldiers were killed and wounded", SITE Intelligence Group reported. Both the United States and Somalia have declared new efforts against al Shabab. US president Donald Trump has approved expanded military operations, including more aggressive air strikes and considering parts of southern Somalia areas of active hostilities. A Somali intelligence official confirmed the US military operation, saying US forces in helicopters raided an al Shabab hideout near the Somali capital and engaged with fighters. The official said the helicopters dropped soldiers near Dare Salaam village in an attempt to capture or kill extremists in the area. The official said the fighters mounted a stiff resistance against the soldiers. Somalia's new Somali-American president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, last month declared a new offensive against al Shabab, which is based in Somalia but has claimed responsibility for major attacks elsewhere in East Africa. Also last month, the US military announced it was sending dozens of regular troops to Somalia in the largest such deployment to the country in roughly two decades. The US in recent years has sent a small number of special operations forces and counter-terror advisers to Somalia and has carried out a number of air strikes, including drone strikes, against al Shabab. The extremist group, which was chased out of Mogadishu years ago but continues to carry out deadly attacks there, has vowed to step up the violence in response to the moves by Mr Trump and Mr Mohamed. AP Chief executive Tony Smurfit yesterday said the group is effectively on the acquisition trail again after using last year to bed in 186m worth of deals carried out in 2015. He said the pipeline of possible deals is increasing, but the 1bn figure represents the groups current spending capacity rather than its definite spending target. He was speaking after the groups agm which saw directors Gary McGann and Thomas Brodin retire from the board and the publication of its first quarter results. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) received 2,174 appeals last year compared to 1,386 in 2015 a 57% increase that saw the tribunal left with 554 more appeals on hand than at the start of 2016. Pakistani nationals represented the highest proportion of applications received by the tribunal last year, followed by nationals of Nigeria, Albania, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Barry Magee, chairperson of IPAT, made the appeal for more staff in the 2016 annual report for the Refugee Appeals Tribunal a body replaced earlier year by the IPAT. In an accompanying letter to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, Mr Magee said: In 2016, the tribunal substantially increased the number of decisions issued by 82% to 1,163. However due to the increase of appeals received, the tribunal ended the year with 554 more appeals on hand. The number of staff provided by your department to the tribunal last year increased slightly by 3.2 full-time equivalent persons. As I stated in last years report, a substantial increase in staffing number [sic] will be required in order for the number of decisions issued to substantially increase. I am satisfied that the number of decisions issued last year represents the maximum capacity of the tribunal at current staffing levels, he wrote. The report states that the tribunal has 31.5 full-time equivalent staff. Staffing levels in the tribunal were reduced in recent years in line with the level of appeals being dealt with, the report noted. The continuing substantial increase in appeals received in 2016 (up 57%) will require a corresponding increase in support staff to enable the tribunal to deal with such appeals in an efficient manner. The tribunal saw a 57% increase in the number of hearings scheduled last year compared to 2015, an 82% rise in decisions issued and completed appeals rose by half. Its overall costs, including salaries, travel, office expenses and legal costs, came to 4,849,914 last year. The report states that the tribunal incurred legal costs of 2,696,339 last year, a 47% increase on 2015 costs but lower than the peak of 4,523,622 incurred in 2009. The 2016 figure is in respect of 75 cases and reflect the year in which the costs were paid. It also does not include the States legal costs in these cases. The tribunal had 35 members last year, who completed an induction process and conducted appeal hearings. A total of 383,921 in fees were paid to these members in respect of the 1,146 decisions they completed in 2016. Mark Byrne BL received the most fees in 2016. He was paid 53,113 in respect of issuing 184 decisions, according to the report. No new appointments to the tribunal were made in 2016, but the report states that the number of appeals scheduled for hearing increased last year due to the capacity of members appointed in 2015 being able to undertake a greater number of appeals. It is the tribunals experience that it can take up to six months for a newly appointed member to be fully trained and in a position to deal with a significant number of appeals, according to the report. But the Corcoran family from Co Tipperary had to hear that two of the seven-member gang pictured right who turned their lives upside down were having their 20-year sentences reduced by two years each after their cases were concluded at the Court of Criminal Appeal. Mark and Emma Corcoran still live with both the physical and psychological scars from the terrifying night of November 21, 2013, when the gang came from Dublin to ransack their home, demanding access to a safe that did not exist. However, the couple, who lost their small gym equipment rental business after the attack, expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the appeal hearing, saying it allowed them to move on with their lives for the first time in three and a half years. Theyre delighted, their solicitor Kieran Cleary said after the appeal proceedings ended. Its finality. You need finality in crime. You need to know they cant upset you and frighten you again. Theyre now free for the first time. Theyre free of this terrible ordeal. Mr Cleary said the Corcorans, who still live in the same home outside the village of Killenaule, were doing fine and he paid tribute to their courage and their determination to overcome their trauma. Solicitor Kieran Cleary speaking to the media at Clonmel Circuit Court in October 2015 as Emma Corcoran and Mark Corcoran (wearing blue tie) look on. The original trial in 2015 heard that the men entered the house armed with a sawn-off shotgun, a machete and a handgun. They were heard on a 999 call threatening to kill your fucking kids, who were aged eight, six, and two at the time, and also struck Mr Corcoran on the face with the butt of a gun, fracturing his eyesocket. They left him bound and bleeding on the ground and dragged his wife through the house by her hair while their eldest daughter screamed that her daddy was dead and her little sisters cried hysterically. Two of the gang were given sentences of 20 years each, with the final four years suspended now reduced to 18 years, still with four suspended. Three other men who received sentences of 15, 14, and 12 years, had their appeals dismissed. Two others who were sentenced to 12 years each with seven years suspended did not appeal. The attack on the family shocked the country. The gang, who were all in their 20s, had 315 prior convictions between them, and laughed and blew kisses as they were led to prison after their original trial. It happened at a time of deep fear in rural areas over a spate of crimes by travelling gangs from Dublin who deliberately targeted isolated homes in communities where Garda numbers had been decimated. A second court case yesterday highlighted how gangs remained undeterred by the public outcry and political pledges of action. A member of an Eastern Europe gang who ram-raided shops in rural Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, stealing hundreds of thousands of euro worth of stock between 2014 and 2015 was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail for his part in the crimes. Seamus Boland, chief executive of Irish Rural Link, said small business owners in the provinces still remained very vulnerable. Security is always on your mind and the cost of protecting your business is a big added burden, he said. Its not like you have the comfort of being located in a business park or a shopping centre in an urban area where there are shared security arrangements and CCTV youre very much on your own. A recent study commissioned by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association found that two thirds of farmers reported being a victim of crime. Mr Boland said protecting valuable equipment was a major concern as was the safety of staff who may be working alone or with just one other colleague. Weve almost moved beyond the point of asking for rural Garda stations to be retained because the reality is, even if its kept open, the nearest one could be 30 miles away and unmanned half the time, said Mr Boland. We need to look at a different kind of policing with greater use of the Community Alert and Neighbourhood Watch schemes and greater linkage of those with the Garda resources available. Aurimas Petraska, a native of Lithuania, who lived in Newcastle West, Co Limerick, for a period, was paid 2,000 for his part in the raids. The gang used cars reinforced with concrete and iron fittings to ram in the front of businesses. Petraska had previous convictions for robberies in the Netherlands and Norway, and travelled regularly between Ireland and Lithuania. The military-style operation of the gang, which led to a multi-international agency investigation involving other European police forces, was commented on by Judge Tom ODonnell when passing sentence at Limerick Circuit Court. These were highly sophisticated burglaries, carried out with military precision, and the items taken, which included expensive perfumes and high-end fashions, were taken to order, said the judge. This is a very serious case, a professional job planned to the last detail and executed with military precision. Thousands of hours of Garda time were spent going through CCTV and mobile phones and the gardai are to be commended for their painstaking investigation. In one raid, fashion wear with a retail value of 240,000 was stolen from a boutique in Adare. The property was found by gardai in a logistics company warehouse in Dublin, ready to be shipped to Lithuania. Such was their precision, the gang rammed into OConnors Pharmacy in Kinsale, Co Cork, cleared Chanel perfumes worth 50,000 and sped off, all within the space of six minutes. They wore dark military-type dress with balaclavas, and night lights attached to headbands. A Volvo which had been bought cheaply was altered and fitted with concrete and iron supports for ramming buildings. Petraska, aged 32, pleaded guilty to his part in the series of robberies. Detective Garda Michael Brosnan, Kinsale, said a high degree of efficiency and professionalism was apparent in the raids. n When the gang targeted OBriens Pharmacy in Cahir, Co Tipperary, on September 10, 2015, more than 20,000 worth of Chanel perfumes was stolen after the front of the premises was rammed, causing 27,000 damage. In his victim impact statement, the pharmacy owner said he now lives in constant worry. n In the six-minute raid in October 2014 on OConnors Pharmacy in Kinsale they made off with Chanel perfumes worth 50,000 and caused 10,000 worth of damage. Kieran OConnor said the business had been operating in Kinsale for 20 years and up to the time of the raid, took safety for granted. Now, he said, they look at the world through a different prism. Huge security measures taken included the erection of anti-ram bars at the front of the premises, which detracted from the aesthetic appearance of the building. He said he also had to take a new look at his personal safety and the safety of the staff. Insurance cover had increased substantially. n Kay Mulcaire of Isobels boutique in Adare said the retail value of the property taken from her shop was 240,000 and the insurance would not pay out as the alarm was off on the night of the robbery. She is struggling to keep the business going due to the loss and is in fear every time she opens and closes the shop. Judge ODonnell said as well as the financial loss, the victim impact statements clearly showed the huge personal effect the crimes had on the owners of the businesses and those working there. Hospital management announced last September that it was hoped to have a helipad operational on the campus by this December. But it has emerged that preliminary design works are still in development and talks are still ongoing between the helipad design team and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). Fine Gael Councillor John Buttimer said he was extremely disappointed with the pace of progress. Its backwards this is going, he said. We have been told in recent years that this project is a priority, then that funding was approved, and that a design team has been appointed. But no explanation for the delay has been given. Its a joke at this stage. His comments came after he asked HSE management for an update on the project at this weeks meeting of the HSE Southern Regional Forum. In his reply, Dr Gerard OCallaghan, the chief operations officer of the South/South West Hospital Group, said a full design team, including a specialist aviation consultant, has been appointed to design the landing pad. A preliminary design, specific to the hospital setting, is in development and has included consultation with the local statutory authorities, he said. This consultation has allowed the design to progress to the point of engagement with the IAA. Discussions are currently ongoing with the IAA. But Mr Buttimer said: We need to go beyond talks and engagement. We need firm dates for procurement and delivery of the helipad. The hospitals original helipad was decommissioned more than 13 years ago for the construction of its emergency department. Since then, medevacs of critically-ill patients to CUH have landed at either Cork Airport or on Bishopstown GAA club fields, close to the hospital, from where patients are transported to the hospital by ambulance. Following a detailed site evaluation process, aviation consultants selected a site in the north-eastern corner of the hospital campus, which is currently in use as a staff car park. It is understood the site complies with strict clinical requirements and aviation regulations and is suitable to accommodate the Coast Guards S-92 search-and- rescue helicopters, and the Irish Air Corps Augusta Westland 139 and Eurocopter 135 aircraft. To this day, he remains blessed among women so said Martina Harkin-Kelly, president of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) in a tribute to their outgoing general secretary who steps down later this year. Attending his 35th and last annual delegate conference in Co Wexford yesterday, Mr Doran was treated to a series of video clips down through the years, from a young, dark-haired and passionate trade union leader to an older, greyer, but no less passionate advocate for the rights of nurses and midwives. Deputy general secretary Dave Hughes led the tributes, highlighting Mr Dorans achievement in doubling the size of union membership from 20,000 when he took charge of what was then the Irish Nurses Organisation to 40,000 today. Calling Mr Doan a master of timing, planning, brinkmanship, and delivery with a razor-sharp sense of style. Ms Harkin-Kelly said he had an innate ability to read the political landscape. Mr Doran, who joined the union in 1983 as a student officer and became general secretary in 1998, said that his proudest moment as a member was when we actually stopped something from happening referring to the INMO decision to walk out of the Croke Park talks, whereupon other unions followed suit and the threat of cuts to non-core pay allowances was withdrawn. His worst moment was when he told nurses they would have to take a pay cut and work longer hours in the wake of the financial crisis. He also recalled the time when, for once ruffled, he effectively told the country to shut up as he was harried on his way into talks in 1999 during a nine-day nurses strike. By the time I got into the building, the headlines were Doran tells the country to shut up, he said. Mr Doran also spoke about the two women in his life that he was blessed to have his wife of 36 years, Patricia, and his colleague, Michaela Ruane. The INMO has been my life, he added, to cheers, tears and a standing ovation. Picture: A file photo of Thomas Flynn, Moatview Avenue, Coolock, who was jailed 12 years in 2015 for his part in the raid on the home of Emma and Mark Corcoran in Co Tipperary in 2013. Flynn was one of seven men involved; five of them appealed the severity of their sentences yesterday. Picture: Liam Burke/Press 22 They had been among seven men who had pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at the home of the Corcoran family in south Tipperary on November 21, 2013. They had travelled from Dublin in convoy in order to commit the burglary at the Corcoran home, a bungalow in a cul de sac, in a rural area outside Killenaule. The couple had three girls, aged 8, 6, and 2. Mark Corcoran, who woke to see a man brandishing a machete, said the raid had completely turned his life upside down and a happy family home, with good memories, will forever be tainted by what happened that night Jail sentences ranging from 12 to 20 years were handed down at Clonmel Circuit Criminal Court in 2015. Five of the seven men yesterday brought appeals against the severity of their sentences in the three-judge Court of Appeal. They were: Patrick Gately, aged 29, with an address at Primrose Grove, Darndale; Dean Byrne, aged 23, of Cabra Park, Dublin 17; John Joyce, aged 22, of Lentisk Lawn, Donaghmede; Patrick Joyce, aged 24, of Beaumont Hall, Beaumont Woods; and Thomas Flynn, aged 22, of Moatview Ave, Coolock. Sentences of 20 years imprisonment with the final four suspended were handed down to Gately and Byrne; John Joyce was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment with the final four suspended; Patrick Joyce was sentenced to 14 years with the final four suspended; and Flynn received a 12-year sentence, consecutive to a sentence already being served. Gately and Byrne yesterday had their 20-year tariffs reduced to 18, with the final four years suspended, due to the excessive divergence between their sentences and the terms of their co-accused. The three other men failed in their appeals. In judgment yesterday, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the court was in no doubt the sentencing judge was correct in concluding the case fell into the most serious category of aggravated burglary and the Court of Appeal was surprised that submissions to the contrary were advanced by some of the mens lawyers. Mr Justice Birmingham said the sentencing judge was correct to deal with all seven accused in three groups. Michael McDonagh and Donal OHara had the greatest claim for leniency. They did not bring appeals against their sentences. Byrne and Gately merited the most severe sentences and Flynn, along with the two Joyces, made up the middle group. The sentence imposed on Flynn had to be consecutive to a firearms sentence he was serving and the Court of Appeal saw no basis for interfering with the sentence. Mr Justice Birmingham said the sentences on the Joyces were appropriate having regard to the gravity of the offence. He said the sentencing judge saw fit to differentiate between them due to John Joyce being the driver and supplier of a VW Passat involved, having a more extensive prior record. Mr Justice Birmingham said there were a number of factors why Byrne and Gately should have received the most severe sentences being the occupants of the stolen family jeep involved in outrageous driving; having extensive prior records; and guilty pleas entered only on the date of trial. The Court of Appeal, however, had a concern about the divergence in the sentences. Gatelys and Byrnes net sentences of 16 years were more than three times the sentence of those who received the lightest terms and six years longer than Patrick Joyce; five years longer than John Joyce; and seven years longer than Flynn. Significant as the reasons were for differentiating, Mr Justice Birmingham said the court concluded the divergence was excessive and required intervention. Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice John Hedigan, reduced both sentences from 20 years to 18, with the final four suspended. Giving the background to the case, Mr Justice Birmingham said Mark Corcoran had been sleeping in a secluded room at the rear of the house as he had an early start the next morning and did not want to disturb the rest of the household. He was awakened by a man in a black balaclava, brandishing a machete. Emma and Mark Corcoran: Raiders threatened to cut off Marks feet and to put a screwdriver up Emmas nose. Another taller man appeared to have a handgun, with which he struck Mr Corcoran in the face, causing him to bleed extensively. They were shouting where is the safe, where is the money?. Mr Justice Birmingham said there was, in fact, no safe on the premises but the raiders refused to accept that. As they were told there was no money or safe, they became increasingly agitated. Mr Corcoran was led into another room where he noticed a third man, also wearing a balaclava, and with a sawn-off shotgun. He suffered significant injuries and in particular nasal injuries which required four surgeries. He had been pinned to the ground and his hands were tied behind his back with cable ties. One raider knelt on his back between his shoulder blades, even though he was already restrained. A threat was made to Mr Corcoran that his feet would be cut off and, given the presence of the machete, this threat was taken very seriously. The two eldest daughters, who had a clear view of what was going on, became very distressed and were screaming. The youngest was in a cot and could hear the threats that were made. Emma Corcoran saw the assault on her husband and she was dragged through the house by her hair. She was threatened that a screwdriver would be put up her nose and threats were made to her that the raiders would shoot or kill the children. A sum of 1,300 was handed over and a substantial quantity of jewellery was taken, including jewellery Emma Corcoran had inherited from her late mother, such as an engagement ring worth 3,500, which was of considerable sentimental value. While some of the jewellery was subsequently recovered, following an anonymous tip-off in August 2015 to go to a particular place, the engagement ring has never been recovered. While the incident was in progress Emma Corcoran, with great presence of mind, managed to make two separate 999 calls. As a result, gardai were dispatched to the scene. The raiders left in two vehicles, including the familys car. Five of the accused were brought to a stop by the Organised Crime Unit while Gately and Byrne were stopped at Newlands Cross. At one stage the raiders sought a key to the family car, which was taken and later encountered by gardai in Portlaoise. They chased that vehicle. In order to evade gardai, the vehicle was driven through the village of Ballybrittas at 200km/hr. Byrne was asked during Garda interviews if he could picture the kids. He responded: I dont give a fuck about kids. If theyre not mine I dont give a fuck. I didnt do it. David OReilly, aged 49, of Kingscourt, Co Cavan, stepped off the Luas at Abbey St and collapsed, on October 29, 2015. Dublin Coroners Court heard evidence from passenger Joanne Murray who saw the man eating a chocolate bar before a commotion erupted around him on the tram. She said a number of people alighted the tram with the man when it stopped at Abbey St but he collapsed on the ground. The provision, contained in the 2010 Health Act, allows the minister of the day to issue a direction with which the HSE must comply. It is the second time in just over a week that legal force has been applied to compel the HSE into action. Last week, a HSE official was asked in the High Court to swear to abide by the terms of a settlement in the case of Grace, a woman awarded a 6.3m HSE-funded package in compensation for appalling mistreatment while in State care. Mr Harris told delegates attending the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) annual conference in Wexford that his commitment to implementing the workforce agreement, hammered out at the Workplace Relations Commissions (WRC) was absolute. I have heard loud and clear from your union that we are only going to succeed if we attach the kind of priority to recruitment and retention that has never been seen before and that is exactly what we are doing, Mr Harris said. These are not just soothing political words. My statement of commitment is matched by an unprecedented direction to the HSE. The Section 10 direction will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and will be lodged with the WRC. It will require the HSE to report to the minister on progress as part of the 2017 National Service Plan. The HSE will also have to provide reports in June, September and December on recruitment. The reports will be shared with the INMO and lodged with the WRC. Mr Harris said there were two parts to section 10, one of which allowed the minister to write to the HSE seeking information and a second part where he could direct them to implement a policy. Long-standing civil servants will tell you its used very, very rarely, he said. The workforce plan also delegates responsibility for recruitment of nurses and midwives to directors of nursing and this was confirmed in a HSE circular yesterday afternoon, the minister said. He also said the HSE would be writing to all graduating nurses and midwives offering them full-time contracts. Responding to the ministers speech, INMO president Martina Harkin-Kelly said the organisation viewed the legislative underpinning of the nursing and midwifery workforce plan as critical and the first step in moving towards staffing levels which are determined by nurses and midwives using evidence-based practice. She said it would also be respected without question by health employers and future health ministers ... and indeed the Houses of the Oireachtas. On the nurses demands for pay parity with allied health professionals, the minister said the pay issue was for a separate process and that the Public Service Pay Commission would provide an evidence-based and an informed document to have the discussion on. As fundraising events take place around the world today for the Pieta House Darkness Into Light event, it emerged that at least eight Irish priests have taken their own lives over the past 10 years. Fears are growing that there is a rising sense of despair amongst ageing members of the priesthood, due to their ever-increasing workload, coupled with a growing sense of isolation and loneliness, attendees at a recent Dublin-based meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) were told. Fr Roy Donovan, a spokesman for the ACP, said concerns over the wellbeing of members of the priesthood had been raised at each of the three regional meetings of the 1,000-strong clerical group. And the Caherconlish, Co Limerick-based cleric said he believes that many more elderly churchmen are suffering in silence, not knowing where they can turn to for help. At the moment, were examining all the issues that were raised at the three local meetings, and the issue of depression amongst members of the clergy was certainly one of the main areas of concern, he said. We know that some priests with mental health issues have found support by attending Grow groups, but I think there are a lot of priests out there who either wont or dont know where to get help. So the hope is that therell be more regional ACP meetings, which should help us address the problem better by reaching out to more priests. Speaking at the Dublin-based ACP meeting, Fr Brendan Hoban one of the groups founders said more attention needed to be given to the wellbeing of priests. He blamed the rise in levels of clustering which is the process of amalgamating parishes into larger units for increasing stress levels amongst members of the priesthood. Fr Hoban has previously highlighted how the vocations crisis is forcing priests to carry on working beyond their retirement age because not enough ordained clerics are coming through the seminaries to replace them. At the ACPs AGM last November, he said these men had come from a time of full churches and live-in housekeepers and now found themselves alone and vulnerable. These priests are what Id describe as the lost tribe, he said. Theyve no longer any quality of life and they need our attention because many are in a desperate situation. Weve noticed theres a high level of depression amongst the clergy, and there are some who must be wondering if theyll just be left to die alone in their homes. Meanwhile, suicide prevention group Pieta Houses Darkness Into Light campaign takes place in 150 venues, across four continents, today. Last year, the global event raised 3.5m. There has been widespread international criticism of the vote to give the Arab state a seat on the commission, given its poor record in gender equality. The Department of Foreign Affairs refuses to state how Ireland voted and it is understood it was not discussed at cabinet prior to the vote. Mr Ross yesterday said he will be demanding that Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan say whether Ireland was one of the countries that voted in favour of Saudi Arabias admission to the commission, despite its extremely poor human rights record. I think were going to ask him to tell us how Ireland voted. I think its not unreasonable to ask, the idea that this could be carried out behind closed doors is an unacceptable convention. I think what we ought to do is ask whos in charge, how we voted, and why we voted that way, Mr Ross said. Were going to make it absolutely clear that we expect transparency, thats why the Independent Alliance is in power. If he wont answer, well push it further and keep asking and asking until we get a satisfactory answer. It comes as Taoiseach Enda Kenny contradicted himself by stating that he raised womens rights during a visit to Saudi Arabia. However, after his 2014 trade mission, he told the Dail that the general issue of human rights had been bought up, but womens rights, specifically, was not. Mr Kenny yesterday moved to clarify this by stating: What I raised with the Saudi authorities, as part of a trade and investment delegation, was the question of human rights, and womens rights issues as a specific matter have been followed through by Minister Flanagan at Foreign Affairs Council meetings. A spokesman for the Taoiseach said the Governments concern for womens rights is without question and has been demonstrated on many occasions. Ireland is currently a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Our strong reputation in promoting gender equality is reflected in the fact that in March, Ireland assumed the chair of the commission. This provides an opportunity for Ireland to take a leading role in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women, generally, he said. What Enda Kenny said and didnt say to the Saudis What the Taoiseach said on Thursday in Montreal: Ive raised the question of women [sic] rights with the Saudi Arabians when I was there myself a number of years ago on a trade mission. This is an issue that concerns us greatly. Its always been a long-standing convention not to indicate the nature of the vote, but I expect that the incoming ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason will do a superb job with pursuing the issue of womens right, in particular, when she takes up her duty as Irelands ambassador to the United Nations later this summer. What Mr Kenny said yesterday in Toronto: Reporter: Can you clarify just when you raised the issue of womens rights? Enda Kenny: I went to Saudi Arabia on a trade and investment mission in 2014 and, as part of that while on that mission, I raised the issue of human rights with the Saudi Arabian authorities, which obviously includes womens rights, and thats been followed through at the council meetings, where Minister for Foreign Affairs Minister Flanagan has raised, specifically, the issue of womens rights and that will continue to be Irelands position and that will move through with the appointment of a new [Irish] ambassador [Geraldine Byrne Nason] to the United Nations later this year and Im quite sure she will diligently follow that through, as well, in the context of the human rights, which I raised with the authorities, and womens rights issues would be part of that. Reporter: So, not expressly raised? EK: No, but I think I said that in the Dail at the time that the question of womens rights as a specific issue wasnt raised, but the question of human rights was. Reporter: Were you mistaken yesterday when you said it was womens rights that you raised? EK: What I raised with the Saudi Arabian authorities as part of the trade and investment issue was the question of human rights and womens rights issues as a specific matter have been followed through by Minister Flanagan at foreign affairs council meetings. However, the minister accepted that there is a mismatch between housing demand and supply. He was critical of people who did not acknowledge reforms introduced by Government, especially those wanting everything done yesterday. Reports yesterday suggested as many as 20,000 potential home buyers have local approval from banks, for mortgages amounting to almost 2bn in total. However, just 10,000 homes are on the market. This situation, and repeated warnings of spiralling house prices, has led to claims that the country is in the grip of a fresh property bubble, less than a decade after the devastating economic crash. However, Mr Coveney told reporters: Were not in the middle of a property bubble. He insisted: What we have is a severe shortage of supply. The problem here is we dont have enough supply to meet that demand, and the way to address that isnt to prevent young people, or not so young people, to get mortgage approval, its to increase supply, which is what Ive been focusing on doing. It is working, and people are seeing more planning applications, more commencements, more completions, but it is going to take some time for supply to ramp up to where it needs to be, he said. Mr Coveney referred to a mismatch between demand and supply and repeated a list of new policies he has introduced in a bid to quell the linked difficulties of house prices, supply, and rental market. However, stressing the interventions will take some time to affect the market, he said the reality is you simply cant build a house overnight and criticised people for wanting reforms done yesterday. Of course there is a mismatch between demand and supply; there is in the rental market as well, which is why we intervened in the rental market, so I have intervened in the property market in multiple ways. There are multiple things happening here, but people want it done yesterday and you simply cant build a house overnight, he said. During the lead-up to the last property crisis, the then Fianna Fail-led government repeatedly insisted there was no property bubble. Despite saying he is concerned about house price rises, Mr Coveney yesterday attempted to calm concerns by saying they remain 30% below boomtime levels. His campaign team believe negative spinning from fellow contender Leo Varadkar, the Social Protection Minister, has helped boost their support. The Housing Minister is also keen to tweak the partnership government deal with Fianna Fail if he is made Taoiseach. His team believe electing Mr Coveney would keep the coalition going for a least another 18 months, could boost Fine Gaels election hopes outside Dublin, and that Mr Coveney has more experience and achievements than his main opponent. The disclosures by sources inside his campaign team now have effectively fired the starting gun on the contest to succeed Enda Kenny. One senior member in Mr Coveneys camp told the Irish Examiner: A few months ago it was Leos to lose, it is now 50/50 and the momentum is with Simon. The Coveney camp say tracking conversations and pledges from the Fine Gael electorate means they now believe the Corkman is in a position to become the next leader of the country. Voting in the Fine Gael electoral college system is made up by 65% of the 73 parliamentarians including TDs, senators, and MEPs, 25% for the 20,000 ordinary party members, and 10% for the 232 party councillors. Fine Gael figures believe Mr Kenny will make his intentions known within two weeks. Mr Coveneys campaign team have now calculated which parliamentarians, councillors, and members are on his side and believe that when the contest begins that he will get more support than Mr Varadkar. His supporters point to his experience, credentials, and work in Government. This includes how he managed the current coalition talks with the Independent Alliance, the rent caps, the fight on water charges with Fianna Fail, and the housing crisis. Supporters are dispelling claims Fine Gael must have a leader from Dublin and note 23 of 26 seats lost in 2016 were outside the capital. The gains in the next election are likely to be outside Dublin. He is well-placed to oversee those, said a senior campaign source. Coveney supporters also claim the country does not want an election and there would be less of a chance of a snap vote with a Coveney win. In particular, Mr Coveneys leadership strategists claim that negative spinning from Mr Varadkars camp is now playing into their favour. Strategists point to recently leaked constituency reviews and Mr Varadkars apparent swipe this week at Mr Coveneys on when Mr Kenny would go. This is counter-productive and playing into Simons side. It smacks of... desperation, said the source. However, sources in Mr Varadkars camp denied any claims last night, saying it was Mr Coveneys team that was engaged in negative briefing. Were increasingly confident. A lot more people have come on board. This is conjecture on their part about it [the race]. Meanwhile, Fine Gael HQ is putting final touches to the election contest. Under provisional plans, nominations for candidates would be made within three days of Mr Kennys announcement. A candidate will need the support of eight parliamentarians. Four hustings are planned, including in Cork and Dublin, between days 10 and 18. The contest would last 21 days, towards the end of which councillors and members would vote in 28 locations. Only then will the parliamentarians cast their deciding votes. Denise Byrne, 38, of Colthurst Rise, Lucan, Co Dublin, told the Circuit Civil Court in Dublin her life had been seriously affected following a 600 course of laser treatments carried out on her at the therapy companys clinic at 13 Main Street, Dundrum, Dublin. Barney Quirke, counsel for Ms Byrne, told the court there had been little or no response to his clients complaints by Havana Therapy. They had not replied to a significant number of letters sent on Ms Byrnes behalf. Ms Byrne told the court she had paid Havana 600 for six sessions of laser treatment to remove hairs from her legs and bikini line. Following the fourth session, her legs and thighs began to burn and when she reported this to Havana, she was told they could provide her with a cream. She told Mr Justice Raymond Groarke that she had started the treatments in August 2014 for the permanent removal of hair from her bikini area and legs. It was the fourth session she attended that had gone wrong. Following the treatment, my legs and thighs turned red and started to pain me and burn. I became aware of marks on my legs and thighs. When I went to my doctor she told me I had suffered first and second degree burns and prescribed cream to rub on them, she said. Ms Byrne told Mr Quirke that she had a lot of pain and discomfort for over a month after the treatment as the burns gradually scabbed and healed. Her doctor had noted scarring in multiple areas of her thighs and legs. She told the court she suffered loss of pigment and had been unable to wear certain items of clothing such as a swimsuit or shorts as the scarring was then still visible. Her doctor had told her the marks should clear up within six months but she still noticed them changing colour when she would lie down in the sun to get a tan. Ms Byrne said that she had been in a relationship which had broken up prior to her treatment and she had been feeling low at the time. She had not been in a relationship since. Dr Grace Conroy said, in a medical report, Ms Byrne had told her at a review in November last year that her areas of hypopigmentation on her thighs had resolved a year after the original incident. Mr Quirke said his instructing solicitor Elizabeth Howard had been led to believe that the company had gone into liquidation. But when Ms Howard had made a phone call yesterday morning to the Dundrum clinic, she had been told Havana was open and able to offer appointments for treatments. No representative of the company appeared in court and a firm of solicitors which appeared for them was allowed to come off record for Havana before Ms Byrnes case was heard. Ms Byrne had sued Havana Therapy Limited, which has its registered offices at Unit 14, No 4, 3rd Floor, Walkinstown Roundabout, Dublin 12. She told Judge Groarke that the marks are not visible now but if she was sunbathing they would be visible. He awarded her damages of 15,000 and costs against Havana, and also made an order against them to pay Ms Byrne special damages of 848 which includes 600 she paid for the treatments and which had not been refunded and also for creams and medication she had to use. Ms Byrne said after the court case that she was happy with the award. God and religion are all over the news these days, through healthcare, education, and even the hullabaloo over whether or not the man above should give a blessing to the business of the Dail. There is another area in which religion in the broadest sense impinges on public life and that is through our courts. I swear by almighty God, that the evidence I give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So said he, with his hand on the Holy Bible, and he all set to spew out lies. Who is he? Or she? Take your pick. Enter a courtroom anywhere up and down the country and you are likely to come across somebody who fits the bill. Ask any solicitor, barrister, or court reporter. They will tell you that, yes, it is a frequent occurrence to observe somebody blatantly telling lies in a witness box, despite risking the fires of hell and the damnation certain to accompany betrayal of ones sworn word on the Bible. Over the years, a number of personal injury cases have arisen in which suspected fraud was at work. All of these required witnesses to swear to tell the truth, while possibly lying through their teeth. There are also though the petty lies, the ones that dont hinge on a major criminal matter but may reflect badly on the character of a witness. For many, lying in this manner is water off a ducks back. Covering courts and tribunals over more years than I care to remember, it is obvious. When put in a difficult situation, many, if not most, people are likely to tell lies rather than face up to even a small embarrassment hidden in a truth. Such is the frequency of this occurrence that when somebody admits t o a truth not in his or her interests it is notable. None of this is a surprise in todays world, but one thing that remains somewhat inexplicable is the role given to the bible as an instrument of alleged truth telling. Anybody who steps forward to give evidence in a court is confronted with the Bible, on which the witness is invited to swear. The same applies to the selection of juries. Impanelled members are automatically handed the Bible on which to place their hand while swearing to serve faithfully. In years gone by, there was a presumption that everybody in the country was a Christian and, most likely, a Catholic. Ireland has changed. We are now a multi-cultural society, with people of many religions, and none. Observing the selection of a jury in a recent case, it was notable that a number of the panel were not Caucasian. Yet the Bible was put before everybody on the presumption that the old order still pertained in this country. It is open to any person to decline the Bible and offer to affirm without recourse to the holy book. However, the witness or jury member is not offered a choice but instead presented with the Bible by default. He or she who is in any way versed in these matters can voice a preference for affirming. But everybody else is presumed to be OK with the use of the definitive Christian tome. Affirming is still more exception than rule, though not as infrequent. A few years back, a veteran lawyer told me that he takes far more seriously a witness who goes to the trouble of affirming, as such an individual has obviously given thought to their evidence and the seriousness attached to it. There was a time when the Bible served the purpose for which it is now ostensibly still in use. Religion did form an important role in the lives of the vast majority of people, and not just in this country. The Bible held major significance. It genuinely had the power to cause pause for thought in anybody who would be minded to abuse it after swearing on its pages. Damnation and the fires of hell were accepted as being the lot of knaves who would sacrifice their souls in order to undermine the laws of the land. Dantes inferno pervaded many a witnesss imagination as they pondered on whether or not to play Russian roulette with eternity. Most played safe, while transgressors sacrificed the peace of the just. The Catholic Church recognised the importance of the Bible as a weapon of the truth by classifying a lie under oath as a sin that could only be absolved by a bishop. Since Vatican II, that has been watered down. Besides, apart from unforeseen circumstances, why would somebody knowingly insult the Bible and then go and seek absolution for doing so? Those days are long gone. Today, for many witnesses, they might as well be swearing on a book of lotto tickets as on the greatest story ever told. After all, the lotto has its own purchase in todays world on those seeking eternal happiness. One question that cries out for an answer is why those who do retain great fidelity to the holy book are not outraged at this gross abuse. Its one thing for the state to go along with a tradition. The legal world retains a modicum of pomp and circumstance, even if there have been some modifications in recent years. In such a milieu, there remains a certain cachet in using the holy book as an instrument in the courtroom. Along with the black gowns, it offers continuity with a past when the administration of law was bathed in a mythical glow. Therein the Bible has its own uses. But why do the hierarchies of the various Christian religions not kick up over this gross abuse? Instead of the Bible being used as a prod to tell the truth, it is now effectively a thinly veiled cover for those disposed to lie. At the very least, all who come before the court should be given a straight up choice rather than be presented with the Bible as first option. In other areas of life at the moment there is a growing call for religion to be removed from the business of state. Its presence in education and healthcare are both legacies of a past. Last weeks Dail motion about a prayer to start the day is in a similar vein. The prayer, as it is, has been used since the foundation of the State, beseeching God help the parliamentarians in their efforts to properly represent the interests of the people. Results would suggest that there has been little return of substance from that prayer. But the courts are a different manner. Anybody who takes their religion seriously should surely be moving to arrest the use of the sacred text of the Bible as a cover to tell lies. Its time to move on. It isnt often CIOs can make like the pros and draft players for their IT team but in early 2015 thats exactly the scenario Tony Bender found himself in after he agreed to help Edgewell Personal Care peel off its Energizer brand as a separate company. Bender recalls meeting with Mike Aufdembrink, who Energizer hired as its CIO in December 2014, so they could fill out each of their IT teams. Early in the year we sat down and had what was akin to a draft, Bender recalls. It was, OK, I want this person and if you get this person, I want this person. We had to divide the team up and make an offer to each person. Edgewell Personal Care Tony Bender, CIO of Edgewell Personal Care. What made it strange was that the offers were just that offers. Bender and Aufdemnbrink designed roles for each of their desired employees roughly 100 for each company and filled in boxes in their respective organizational charts. Then they made their job offers with the clear implication that they could take it or leave the available positions. Heres an opportunity, we hope you like it, says Bender, recalling the conversations. But the offers werent negotiable. We did have some people who chose to leave its hard to avoid. The secret to spin-offs isnt so secret Such decisions are inherent in corporate spin-off in which speed and efficiency are critical. Once a corporate board signs off on such a separation the clock starts ticking and the deadline creeps closer, with faulty decisions requiring rapid course corrections. Bender had 15 months to create IT departments and select staff for two complex businesses with penetration in as many as 50 global markets: Edgewell, which features brands such as Schick, Playtex and Hawaiian Tropic, and Energizer, a leading battery brand. Bender first designed the operating budgets and organizational models for both Edgewell and Energizers IT departments, handing Energizer off to Aufdembrink to run. Then he began working his way through 100 IT projects, including the onerous task of detangling 400 global applications for each business. Because the businesses used several of the same IT services, Bender cloned anything from SharePoint instances to data center infrastructure, including servers and networks so that both companies could use them. He also copied three SAP ERP applications and shuttered some SAP, QAD and Epicor packages for each entity. Its customary for CIOs to seek synergies in such complex splits. Enticed by reduced license and support costs, Bender purchased several SAP applications. He chose SAPs Hybris ecommerce application and SAP cloud applications, including SuccessFactors for human resource management, Ariba for procurement and spending analytics, and Concur for travel and expense management. Cloud-based solutions were preferable because we could stand them up faster and implement them accordingly, Bender says. While Bender acknowledges the predominance of SAP in his portfolio he insists that hes not wed to the vendor; rather, hes picked the best solution for each business need. You have to look in terms of adding value to the business, Bender says. Where it makes sense we lean into SAP and weve had success with that. Courage to bet on other vendors SAP didnt suit every business line. For example, Bender heard loud and clear from finance leaders in both entities that they wanted to use Oracles Demantra software for trade promotion management and Hyperion financial management and planning. Bender also outsourced payroll to Xerox and ADP, integrating both into SuccessFactors. Were going to work to drive business value wherever that is and not push one technology over another in order to drive the agenda through the IT lens only, Bender says. It can be tough serving business customers jockeying for their preferred IT products and brands. The upshot is that as cross-functional coordination ramps up during spinoffs, IT commands more attention and respect than ever. That gave Benders team the clout to press the business units on making technology decisions so IT could implement them on time. Because we were all marching to a deadline our voice was louder, Bender says. We created a lot of attention in working with these other functions to have them make decisions so that we could keep the project on schedule, Bender says. Bender completed his work early in the summer of 2015 and the spin-off went live on July 1, with Edgewell worth about $2.4 billion and Energizer clocking in at $1.9 billion in revenues. The corporate divorce joined the likes of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, R.R. Donnelley and other large organizations that split to get leaner and meaner in recent years. The secret to Benders success included operating with a speed over elegance mindset, selecting new solutions and decoupling others to satisfy business requirements to meet the deadline. Once you make an announcement you are at the mercy of the date, Bender says. So its keep it simple and dont look for major process transformation. As for the people who were offered jobs on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, Bender says he was happy with those who joined their respective companies. It actually went remarkably smoothly. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. Furniture exec gains 10 percent salary hike Hooker Furniture Corp. reported Friday that Paul Toms Jr., its chairman and chief executive, received a 10.1 percent increase in salary to $407,500 for fiscal 2017. Toms also received $186,750 in incentive pay, up $1,750, and total compensation of $1.36 million, up 26.2 percent. For the full year, net income rose 56.2 percent to $25.3 million. George Revington, named as chief operating officer in 2016, received $396,923 in salary, $180,000 in incentive pay and $826,263 in total compensation. Michael Delgatti Jr., president of the legacy Hooker Furniture division, received $300,000 in salary, unchanged from 2016, $101,250 in incentive pay and total compensation of $587,721, down 5.4 percent. Paul Huckfeldt, chief financial officer, received a 13.8 percent raise in salary to $244,023, $84,375 in incentive pay and total compensation of $586,936, up 21 percent. Richard Craver Federal judge sets April trial date for Rhame A federal judge Monday set April 10 for the beginning of a trial in a federal government complaint against four defendants, one with a link to BB&T Corp.s headquarters in Winston-Salem. Tyson Ty Rhame and three other investors were indicted Feb. 10, 2016, by a federal grand jury in Georgia. They are accused of leading an international money laundering scheme. The decision referred the case to Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas for pretrial proceedings and motions. Rhame is co-owner with Ray Gee in BB&T Financial Center. Gee and Rhame paid $60 million for the building in December 2014, nearly $26 million more than its tax value. The BB&T building is listed as a potential forfeiture target for the U.S. government if Rhame is convicted. Rhame is the founder of Sterling Currency Group LLC of Atlanta, which had been listed among the nations largest sellers of Iraqs currency, the dinar. The other defendants are James Shaw, a co-owner of Sterling; chief operating officer Frank Bell; and Terrence Keller, an alleged paid promoter of Sterling. Rhame, Shaw, Bell and Keller are each charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, as well as several counts of mail fraud and wire fraud. Rhame and Shaw are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and 12 counts of money laundering. According to the indictment, at least $19.9 million was laundered through 24 accounts. Richard Craver Hanes Mall owner sells Okla. outlet center CBL & Associates Properties Inc., owner and operator of Hanes Mall, said this week it has sold the Outlet Shoppes at Oklahoma City for $130 million. The sale was conducted with joint venture partner Horizon Group Properties. About $70.1 million in loans secured by the property were retired concurrent with the close. CBLs share of net equity proceeds, after retirement of secured loans and closing costs, was $38 million. Net proceeds were used to reduce outstanding balances on the Companys lines of credit. CBL, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., owns, holds interests in or manages 125 properties, including 82 regional malls/open-air centers in 27 states. Other Triad area malls owned by CBL are Alamance Crossing in Burlington and Friendly Center in Greensboro. Richard Craver Q: I know there have been many outstanding leaders in the history of Christianity. Would you write about some of them? Answer: Yes. Good idea. One of the more influential leaders was Augustine of Hippo in north Africa (354-430 AD) His main writings were The City of God and Confessions. Although he was influential, I find many of his teachings objectionable. He is noted for outlining the conditions of a just war: It should be defensive, never offensive. It must be declared by a recognized government. There should never be an excessive use of violence. The end must justify the means. There should be a reasonable expectation of victory. As regular readers of this column are probably aware, I do not feel Christians should participate in war. Augustine also wrote about Original Sin. He said that God created humans free, able to sin and able not to sin. However, when Adam and Eve chose to sin, they alienated themselves from God and forfeited their freedom. Their nature was corrupted so that they were not able not to sin. That corruption, he contended, was passed on to their posterity, so that all people born in a natural way (that excluded the virgin-born Jesus) inherited the effects of that Original Sin and are, by nature, totally depraved. Only through Christ can one be restored to the original state of freedom. Augustine was opposed by an Irish monk named Pelagius who argued that the sin of Adam and Eve affected only them, not their posterity, and we are by nature free, as were Adam and Eve. Augustine retorted that if that were true and we do not sin by necessity, then we do not need the sacrifice of Christ. The Church sided with Augustine and condemned the teaching of Pelagius. This is why Christianity has historically had such a pessimistic view of human nature. Augustine is also noted for his doctrine of Predestination and his efforts to understand the Trinity. He did terrible damage by insisting that our sinful nature is inherited from our parents through the act of procreation. Even a married couple engaging in sexual relations are manifesting lust and during such relations, the Holy Spirit leaves the room. He gave Christians a very guilt-ridden and unhealthy sense of human sexuality. I will plan to write more about outstanding Christian leaders who influenced the Church. In the case of Augustine, it should be noted that he had a tremendous influence on the Protestant Reformers, especially Martin Luther and John Calvin. Luthers belief in the total depravity of human nature can be traced directly to Augustine. Clearly Calvin was influenced by Augustine when he emphasized the doctrine of predestination. Predestination and human free will appear to be contradictory. I believe they are, but many argue that Augustine believed in free will. He taught that we freely do what we will. The problem is that our wills are corrupted and depraved, so we freely and happily sin in accord with our corrupt wills. But, of course, if we must act in accord with some determined human nature, we are not truly free. I would argue that we do not act in accord with a predetermined nature, but we determine our nature by the free choices we make. We do not do what we are; we are what we do. This may sound like a minor theological difference, but it is important in our description of human nature and our belief in free will. It seems to me that to explain the decisions we make as issuing from a determined nature is to deny human responsibility. If humans are bound to sin because of their corrupt nature, they cannot be held responsible. We see this reflected when we explain our behavior by saying: After all, Im only human. I do not think I am naive. It is impossible to observe the world and the things that go on without recognizing human sin. But I do believe the best antidote for such behavior is not in saying we are naturally evil but in stressing human responsibility and possibility. And finally, I cannot accept the idea that we all inherited a sinful nature from some imagined first parents. I do not sin because Adam and Eve sinned, I must take full responsibility for my own actions. This weeks event: Winston-Salem City Councilmen Dan Besse and Derwin Montgomery join others in releasing a joint statement welcoming all to the city. John Harrison: 5. This issue seems to be dissolving into semantics. It is not enough to make shallow proclamations that neither specify nor require action. In the final analysis, it is what people do to demonstrate their common humanity rather than what they say that will decide whether we are a welcoming city or not. Pat Blankenship: Everyone knows that Democrat Dan Besses welcoming city ploy Is just a code for Sanctuary City. I give this an 8 because it exposes, for public viewing, the inconsistencies in the various positions taken by liberal city council members Linda Hill: 7. It is very hard for me to say this, but I have an unpleasant visceral reaction to Besse's declaration. My unease comes from talking with my friends who were once strangers to our land. They came from Cuba and followed the legal path to gaining en-trance to America. The key word is legal. My friends came in fear also, but they learned English, their parents worked, they assimilated into American life and became citizens. They also never asked for, nor received, any government assistance. The path was not an easy one, but they did it. We have immigration laws, but sadly they are being broken every day. Communities are struggling to feed, clothe, house and educate their children, and adding illegal aliens to the mix only puts a bigger strain on them. By declaring Winston-Salem a welcoming city, I believe we would be opening the door for more illegal aliens. I don't pretend to have an answer for how to control illegal immigration, but I feel that, like HB2, the backlash would be a bitter pill to swallow if we encourage those who chose to break our laws to settle here. David McMahon: 10. Our national anthem proclaims that our nation is The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. Kudos to all who show the courage to stand up for what we say we believe and to push back against those who would sup-press the true American Spirit. Charles E. Wilson: 10. Its the right thing to do. Derrick G. Hinson Sr.: 3 The resolution is a zero but the attempt rates a three as part of a continued effort to sound blanket proclamations from a handful of miscreants. "Who are these couple of councilmen to speak for a city of thousands? What gives them this right? To whom is the welcome expressed to? People who violate laws to come here? People who are looking for the social welfare net that urban counties offer? " Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, the South and the US of A have long been welcoming places for people to live. Local churches and charities can provide shelter and a foundation to begin anew. People who want to work here, raise a family here, retire here, bring something to the table here are welcome. Legal immigrants are welcome. Well-vetted refugees may be welcomed. The Left's perspective on such issues remain suspect. Jim Monroe: 10. This should be apple pie and motherhood, but, unfortunately, we're making a big deal out of the philosophy under which this country was founded. We think that we've formed an exclusive club named the United States of America and have decided to cut off membership. We still need anyone in this country who is willing to work and anyone that is willing to think. If the belief is that we don't need additional hardworking citizens, I'm sure we could all come up with a list of current residents we'd like to send back to their ancestral home in exchange for additional immigrants. Tony Gagliardi: 1. Winston-Salem has always welcomed folks from all over the world. The document that Besse is attempting to place in motion is one that is welcoming folks no matter if they are in the country legally or not. This from a man, and, now, several people who have sworn an oath to protect the state and federal constitutions. Well if they cannot keep their word then I have no use for them at all. Suzanne Carroll: 10. This is one case where words speak louder than actions. While not an official resolution, the statement assures immigrants, refugees and other groups that Winston-Salem respects, values and welcomes them to our fine city. Anne Wilson: What began as a kind and innocent gesture, a natural expression of our Compassionate City status giving a warm welcome to refugees, immigrants and others, quickly turned ugly, misunderstood and politically controversial. What a shame the original resolution was thwarted for fear of retaliation from the N.C. General Assembly. My husband and I attended Mondays gathering at City Hall, and we are proud to have signed the welcoming statement, hoping those seeking a community of acceptance will know they are welcome in Winston-Salem. Hayes McNeill: While Ive got no quarrel with the welcoming statement -- representing as it does the tradition of a nation whose greatest strength has arisen from diverse immigrants (few of whom were legal) -- I am surprised and disappointed by the truculence of some of its opponents. Disagreement is one thing; hatred is quite another. Virginia Underhill: Rather than accept consequences and threats proposed by bullying politicians, this brave group has reasserted a policy that has long been in effect in our fair city -- acceptance and welcome to all newcomers no matter their background. There are too many groups and individuals to list but sadly, welcome seems to have become a four-letter word to the frightened and prejudiced. Our legislature tried to sway opinion through unfair laws that our governor succeeded in lessening and repealing in some cases through his diplomatic skills. Now, thanks to Winston-Salem citizens led by two council members and joined by other concerned citizens, we can at least become a notable caring community again. This stand rates a 10. The truth is out there, and Raymond Szymanski is searching for it. Szymanski is the author of Fifty Shades of Greys, a book about his search for evidence of alien encounters. He will be speaking this afternoon at a panel for the Mutual UFO Network of North Carolina at the Courtyard Winston-Salem at Hanes Mall. The book, published last year, examines several prominent cases in UFO lore, including the belief that Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was once used to store evidence of extraterrestrials. I worked 38 years and nine months at Wright-Patterson, said Szymanski, a retired engineer who worked with computer software for weapons systems among other duties at the base, having started there in 1973. He may not have seen definitive proof of aliens during his time there, but he saw and heard enough to spark a lasting interest in the subject. Several years ago, even before he retired, he began researching various UFO sightings and alleged abduction cases, traveling to sites, interviewing witnesses, and doing first-person field research. Ive come up with, I think, some compelling theories based on what Ive found, he said. Lakita Adams, the state director of MUFON-NC, said that she appreciates Szymanskis approach to his investigations. This is a subject filled with speculation and disinformation, she said. As an investigator who pursues evidence and data, I appreciate Rays approach of following the facts. His books title is a tongue-in-cheek play on Fifty Shades of Grey for the uninitiated, greys are a commonly reported type of aliens (think bald heads, grey skin and spindly bodies). Its an accounting of my quest for the truth about extraterrestrial visitation, Szymanski said, but I wanted to write it in a manner that might be more open to people. So he added a vein of humor, both to the title and to the book overall, sharing misadventures he had along the way during his research as well as more serious findings. He speaks about twice a month to groups of UFO enthusiasts, having recently finished a five-city tour. He is about to take a break from tours and interviews to work on two more books. One will focus on the stories people have shared with him at his appearances, and the other which he describes my third and final; I think a trilogy will be good has more of his field research. Szymanski says he believes he has solved the mystery of Hangar 18, but he is saving that revelation for another day. It took a couple of years and divine intervention, he said, but I believe Ive nailed it. JURIST Guest Columnist Ricardo Arredondo, a professor at University of Buenos Aires, responds to David Cranes commentary article in respect to the international law on the use of force A few days ago Prof. Crane wrote a very interesting article about the international law on the use of force, particularly regarding in situations where mass atrocities are being committed. The article drew particular attention of JURISTs readers and this is the reason why I would like to share some thoughts about Prof. Cranes article with your readership. Let me start by those topics on which I share my colleagues point of views: a) most of us support the view that international law is a core element of international relations and it should be strengthened rather weakened by international actors. There is also a wide agreement on much of the content of this law, including the objectives and purposes of the UN, whose primary task to maintain international peace and security; b) although, the UN Charter aims to prevent and resolve disputes by peaceful means, it also envisages the possibility of using force; c) the lack of response from the international community to these mass atrocities, prompted a reaction the UN and other international actors and the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) came out in 2001 and was endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2005. Since then, the UN Secretary General (UNSG) issued eight reports on the subject, where it clarified some of the matters in this highly contested principle. Basically, since its first report it stated that the R2P principle encompasses three different dimensions: (1) the responsibility to prevent; (2) the responsibility to react; and (3) the responsibility to rebuild. The UNSG emphasized the importance and challenges of ensuring timely and decisive responses to the four core crimes covered by the principle. Therefore, one can (and I did in my book and several papers) wish that force will be used in a timely and decisive manner so to prevent or put to an end mass atrocities occurring all over the world. However, when it comes to the US reaction in Syria I beg to differ with Prof. Crane and I do so as a matter of principle and practice. As a matter of principle, it must be recalled that R2P maintains that the States have an obligation erga omnes to take all measures in their power to prevent or put an end to serious and massive human rights violations as soon as possible. This a collective international responsibility, exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort, in the event of genocide and other large-scale killing, ethnic cleansing, and serious violations of international humanitarian law which sovereign governments had proved powerless or unwilling to prevent. This is so because the necessity of a timely and decisive response is clearly the most controversial aspect of R2P as it opens the possibility of the use of force within the framework of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In the case of the US Missile Strike on Syria there has not been a UNSC authorization, therefore this use of force, technically, can be labeled, as Russia did, an act of aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law. In practical terms, I dont believe that the decision by the Trump administration to launch a missile strike on Syrian military targets in response to the regimes chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun is a good one. As it has been said On the one hand, any feeling person would welcome the Syrian regime being constrained from future chemical weapons use against its own people. On the other hand, it is unclear the missile strike will achieve that outcome and could invite unintended consequences that risk US reputation, blood, and treasure. Maybe it is true that rogue States only understand powerful answers. Anyway, I dont share the view that brutal force should be dealt with more use of force and, in any case, that decision should come from the only competent body that can authorize the use of force: the UNSC. Ricardo Arredondo is a diplomat and Professor of International Law. He has been an Argentine diplomat for 25 years and he has been teaching International Law for almost 30 years. He has a global background since he worked in government and academia in a career that has spanned research, policy and operational work in different countries and organizations. He is currently Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General of the Argentine Republic in Los Angeles. Prior to this role he served at the Argentine Embassies in the UK and Spain and in the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has taught at the Law Schools of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Tucuman (Argentina) and Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain) and published on a wide array of topics in international law and diplomacy. Suggested citation: Ricardo Arredondo, A response to The Fist in a Velvet Glove-Hardened Humanitarianism, JURIST Forum, May. 05, 2017, http://jurist.org/forum/2017/05/Ricardo-Arredondo-a-response-to-the-fist-in-a-velvet-glove-hardened-humanitarianism.php This article was prepared for publication by Yuxin Jiang, a Senior Editor for JURIST Commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org The US Department of State [official website] issued a press release [text] Friday expressing concern over the prolonged pretrial detention of five Cambodian activists. Four members of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) [official website], along with one former member, have been held by Cambodian authorities for over a year, without receiving a trial. The defenders were detained in May 2016 over allegations that they assisted a woman accused of making false claims while under pressure from the Anti-Corruption Unit. The US joins the UN and the EU [statements] in calling on the Cambodian government to immediately release all five activists. The US cited harm being done to the families of those detained. The US echoed the views [text, PDF] expressed by UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention [official website], which found these detentions to be arbitrary in 2016. The charges are alleged [AP report] to be politically motivated. The lack of transparency in the Cambodian legislature and contention between political parties have caused international concern. In January UN expressed concern [JURIST report] regarding the intimidation of opposition politicians and peaceful protesters in Cambodia. The prime minister of Cambodia filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in August alleging defamation against an opposition leader and opposition party leader. In November 2015 the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, warned [JURIST report] that the increasing polarization of the political parties in Cambodia is reaching a breaking point. In October 2015 the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern [JURIST report] over the organized attack on opposition politicians in Cambodia. To activate the text-to-speech service, please first agree to the privacy policy below. Taipei, May 6 (CNA) Taiwan urged China on Saturday to step up the education of its fishermen and stop them from trespassing into Taiwanese waters, after two Chinese fishermen were injured while trying to resist inspection by Taiwan Coast Guard officials near the Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait. Police cruisers are parked outside the terminal at Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va after a fatal plane crash, Friday, May 5, 2017. A cargo plane contracted by UPS went off the runway and over a hillside at the West Virginia airport Friday morning, an airport official said. (AP Photo/Ben Queen) We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. The Webb County Sheriff's Office is honoring several members of their department for going above and beyond the call of duty. On Friday morning, Sheriff Martin Cuellar recognized county jail correctional officers and employees as part of National Correctional Officers Week. The department says this celebration helps thank their hard work in providing a safe environment in the Webb County Jail. Department Chief Federico Garza says they are excited to recognize their staff for a job well done: "This is the opportunity that we have not only to thank our officers, but thank the families - as they actually help us provide the officers and help us do the job that we do." Several correctional officers also received special awards during the ceremony. At least 25 million children around the world lack basic reading, writing and math skills. But a global program is helping to change this. It's called Pencils of Promise, and it is a non-profit organization building schools and increasing educational opportunities in the developing world. Local student Hugo Campos is helping the organization by trying to raise funds locally: "Imagine if you were in that situation, where you didn't even know what a school was, you're raising cattle and animals and stuff like that. For all we know, the person who has cure for cancer is out there. They have potential. They just don't have access to education and funding." If you'd information on how you can help, you can contact: Hugo Campos Email: Phone Number: 956-334-4853 After months and months of preparation, local students are kicking off STAAR Testing with a celebration. Centeno Elementary teachers and administrators showed students that they too were up to facing new challenges. The motivational fun-fest began with a dance off featuring teachers and administrators. However, administrators had an interesting way of rewarding the top reading challenge students. "We have a duct tape challenge - our administrators and myself, the librarian," says Analine Johnson. "We are going to be duct taped to the wall. This year, we motivated and encouraged our students to read as much as they could - accelerated reader. Our four top classes got to tape us to the wall." STAAR Testing continues next week through May 8 - 10 for both school districts. By Jonathan Stempel OMAHA, Neb., May 6 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday faulted Wells Fargo & Co's previous management for failing to take action immediately upon learning that its employees were signing up customers for accounts they did not want. Speaking at Berkshire's annual meeting, where Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger are fielding five hours of questions from shareholders, journalists and analysts, Buffett said Wells Fargo gave employees too much autonomy to engage in "cross-selling" multiple products to meet sales goals. He said this "incentivized the wrong type of behavior," and that former Chief Executive John Stumpf, who lost his job over the scandal, was too slow to fix the problem. "If there's a major problem, the CEO will get wind of it. At that moment, that's the key to everything. The CEO has to act," Buffett said. "The main problem was they didn't act." Berkshire owns about 10 percent of Wells Fargo's stock. Buffett likened the situation to Salomon Brothers Inc, where in 1991 he was installed as chairman to clean up the mess left when the former chief executive failed to tell regulators that a trader was submitting fake bids at Treasury auctions. Buffett discussed Wells Fargo in response to a question about whether Berkshire's decentralized structure could prompt a recurrence. But he said Berkshire welcomes being alerted to misbehavior via an internal "hotline" that gets 4,000 calls a year. "As we sit here, somebody is doing something wrong at Berkshire," he said. "But when it gets to some sales practice that was talking place at Wells Fargo, you can see the type of damage it can do." Buffett also admitted he was wrong to think International Business Machines Corp "would do better" six years ago, when he started amassing an 81 million share stake. He disclosed this week that Berkshire has sold about one-third of the IBM stake, even as it bulks up its holdings in Apple Inc , which Buffett said he thinks of more as a "consumer" company that a technology company. Buffett started the meeting by noting that Berkshire reported far fewer investment gains in the first quarter, which proved a drag on quarterly results. But he said Berkshire now has a slight preference for trying to take tax losses, which could have less value if lawmakers in Washington reduce the 35 percent corporate tax rate. The annual meeting is the main event of a weekend of events that Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists." Buffett and Munger started taking questions after the traditional shareholder movie, and after Buffett roamed a nearby exhibit hall featuring products from Berkshire companies. He was joined at the traditional newspaper tossing contest by friends including Microsoft Corp co-founder and Berkshire director Bill Gates and Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Many hundreds of shareholders started lining up outside the CenturyLink Center, including several who said they got there nearly five hours before doors opened at about 6:45 a.m. "Every year it seems I have to come earlier," said Chris Tesari, a retired businessman from Pacific Palisades, California who said he arrived at 3:20 a.m. for his 21st meeting. "It's a pilgrimage." (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski) (Adds comments on airlines, IBM, other matters) By Jonathan Stempel OMAHA, Neb., May 6 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday faulted Wells Fargo & Co's previous management for failing to take action immediately upon learning that its employees were signing up customers for bogus accounts, causing a national scandal. Buffett spoke at the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Inc , which he chairs, and where he and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger are fielding five hours of questions from shareholders, journalists and analysts. Buffett said Wells Fargo gave employees too much autonomy to engage in "cross-selling" multiple products to meet sales goals. He said this "incentivized the wrong type of behavior," and that former Chief Executive John Stumpf, who lost his job over the scandal, was too slow to fix the problem. "If there's a major problem, the CEO will get wind of it. At that moment, that's the key to everything. The CEO has to act," Buffett said. "The main problem was they didn't act." Berkshire owns about 10 percent of Wells Fargo's stock, and Buffett's support of current management was a key factor in ensuring that the bank's entire board won re-election last month. Buffett likened the situation to Salomon Brothers Inc, where in 1991 he was installed as chairman to clean up a mess left when the former chief executive failed to tell regulators that a trader was submitting fake bids at Treasury auctions. Asked whether Berkshire's decentralized structure could lead to a similar scandal, Buffett said Berkshire welcomes being alerted to misbehavior via an internal "hotline" that gets 4,000 calls a year. "As we sit here, somebody is doing something wrong at Berkshire," and the Wells Fargo situation highlights the "damage" that can result from inaction. AIRLINES, IBM Buffett also discussed Berkshire's foray into the airline sector, where it is a top investor in American Airlines Group Inc , Delta Air Lines Inc , Southwest Airlines Co and United Continental Holdings Inc to be successful. He had long disdained the industry, which had gone through many bankruptcies, but said he is confident it will not resort to "suicidally competitive" strategies that could spell doom. "It is no cinch that the industry will have some more pricing sensibility in the next 10 years than they had in the last 100 years, but the conditions have improved." Munger added: "You've got to remember railroads were a terrible business for decades and decades and decades, and then they got good." Berkshire bought the BNSF railroad in 2010. Buffett also admitted he was wrong to think International Business Machines Corp "would do better" six years ago, when he started amassing an 81 million share stake. He disclosed this week that Berkshire has sold about one-third of the IBM stake, even as it bulks up its holdings in Apple Inc , which Buffett said he thinks of more as a "consumer" company that a technology company. Buffett also addressed the question of driverless vehicles, saying they could pose a threat to Berkshire-owned car insurer Geico, and to BNSF if it spread to trucks. TAX LOSSES Buffett started the meeting by noting that Berkshire reported far fewer investment gains in the first quarter, which proved a drag on first-quarter results. But he said Berkshire now has a slight preference for trying to take tax losses, which could have less value if lawmakers in Washington reduce the 35 percent corporate tax rate. The annual meeting, expected to draw more than last year's estimated 37,000 shareholders, is the main event of a weekend of events that Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists." Buffett and Munger started taking questions after the traditional shareholder movie, and after Buffett had roamed a nearby exhibit hall featuring products from Berkshire companies. He was joined at the traditional newspaper tossing contest by friends including Microsoft Corp co-founder and Berkshire director Bill Gates and Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Many hundreds of shareholders started lining up outside the CenturyLink Center, including several who said they got there nearly five hours before doors opened at about 6:45 a.m. "Every year it seems I have to come earlier," said Chris Tesari, a retired businessman from Pacific Palisades, California who said he arrived at 3:20 a.m. for his 21st meeting. "It's a pilgrimage." <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HIGHLIGHTS-Comments by Berkshire's Warren Buffett, the 'Oracle of Omaha' FACTBOX-Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett at a glance GRAPHIC-Berkshire vs. S&P 500 UPDATE 2-Insurance dampens Berkshire results before annual meeting ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski) (Adds Buffett quotes on succession plans; addresses criticism about lack of disclosure) By Jonathan Stempel OMAHA, Neb., May 6 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Saturday faulted Wells Fargo & Co for failing to stop employees from signing up customers for bogus accounts even after learning it was happening, causing a national scandal. Buffett was speaking at the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Inc , the conglomerate he has run since 1965. Wells Fargo, whose largest shareholder is Berkshire with a 10 percent stake worth $27 billion, gave employees too much autonomy to engage in "cross-selling" multiple products to meet sales goals, Buffett said. This "incentivized the wrong type of behavior," and former Chief Executive John Stumpf, who lost his job over the scandal, was too slow to fix the problem, Buffett said. "If there's a major problem, the CEO will get wind of it. At that moment, that's the key to everything. The CEO has to act," Buffett said. "The main problem was they didn't act." Still, Buffett's support of current management and board was key to ensuring the reelection of the entire board last month. Buffett, 86, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 93, were fielding five hours of questions from shareholders, journalists and analysts about Berkshire, its investments, their successors, the economy, and other matters. Buffett likened the Wells Fargo situation to Salomon Brothers Inc, where in 1991 he was installed as chairman to clean up a mess after the former chief executive failed to tell regulators a trader was submitting fake bids at Treasury auctions. Asked whether Berkshire's decentralized structure could lead to a similar scandal - Berkshire subsidiaries employ some 367,000 people but just 25 work in the main office - Buffett said Berkshire welcomes being alerted to misbehavior via an internal "hotline" that gets 4,000 calls a year. "As we sit here, somebody is doing something wrong at Berkshire," and the Wells Fargo situation shows the potential "damage" from inaction. SUCCESSION, AIRLINES, IBM Buffett also addressed questions about his successor as chief executive, including whether plans had changed because he praised fewer managers than usual in his February shareholder letter. He said it may have been harder to single people out because "we have never had more good managers." But he also said it would be a "terrible mistake" if capital allocation were not the "main talent" of his successor. Buffett did lavish much praise on top insurance executive Ajit Jain, who some investors believe could be that successor. "Nobody could possibly replace Ajit. You can't come close," but even if he were promoted Berkshire would still have "the world's best property-casualty operation," Buffett said. Buffett defended Berkshire's foray into airlines, where it is a top investor in American Airlines Group Inc , Delta Air Lines Inc , Southwest Airlines Co and United Continental Holdings Inc . [nL1N1I80A6] He had long disdained the industry, which had gone through many bankruptcies, but said he is confident it will not resort to "suicidally competitive" strategies that could spell doom. "It is no cinch that the industry will have some more pricing sensibility in the next 10 years than they had in the last 100 years, but the conditions have improved," he said. Munger added: "You've got to remember railroads were a terrible business for decades and decades and decades, and then they got good." Berkshire bought the BNSF railroad in 2010. Buffett also admitted he was wrong to think International Business Machines Corp "would do better" when he started amassing 81 million shares six years go. Berkshire recently sold about one-third of those shares even as it built a huge stake in Apple Inc , which Buffett said is more as a "consumer" company that a technology company. Buffett also addressed the question of driverless vehicles, saying they could pose a threat to Berkshire-owned car insurer Geico, and to BNSF if it spread to trucks. He also addressed criticism that Berkshire discloses too little about its businesses, including aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts Corp, which it bought last year for $32.1 billion. "We want you to understand what you own," he said, and "there are just a million things that are of minor importance" at Berkshire, whose market value is about $411 billion. TAX LOSSES Buffett started the meeting by noting that Berkshire reported far fewer investment gains in the first quarter, which dragged on first-quarter results. [nL1N1I71R0] But he said Berkshire now has a slight preference for trying to take tax losses, which could have less value if lawmakers in Washington reduce the 35 percent corporate tax rate. The annual meeting, expected to draw more than last year's estimated 37,000 shareholders, is the main event of a weekend of events that Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists." Buffett and Munger took questions after the traditional shareholder movie, and after Buffett had roamed a nearby exhibit hall featuring products from Berkshire companies. He was joined at the traditional newspaper tossing contest by friends including Microsoft Corp co-founder and Berkshire director Bill Gates, and Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Hundreds of shareholders lined up early outside downtown Omaha's CenturyLink Center for the meeting. Several said they got there nearly five hours before doors opened around 6:45 a.m. "Every year it seems I have to come earlier," said Chris Tesari, a retired businessman from Pacific Palisades, California who said he arrived at 3:20 a.m. for his 21st meeting. "It's a pilgrimage." <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HIGHLIGHTS-Comments by Berkshire's Warren Buffett, the 'Oracle of Omaha' [NL1N1I80A6] FACTBOX-Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett at a glance [nL1N1I41SB] GRAPHIC-Berkshire vs. S&P 500 http://tmsnrt.rs/2pIrVbZ UPDATE 2-Insurance dampens Berkshire results before annual meeting [nL1N1I71R0] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski) (Adds comments on succession plans, 3G, share buybacks, dividends, acquisitions) By Jonathan Stempel OMAHA, Neb., May 6 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc , on Saturday faulted Wells Fargo & Co for failing to stop employees from signing up customers for bogus accounts even after learning it was happening, causing a scandal. Wells Fargo, whose largest shareholder is Berkshire with a 10-percent stake worth roughly $27 billion, gave employees too much autonomy to engage in "cross-selling" multiple products to meet sales goals, Buffett said. This "incentivized the wrong type of behavior," and former Chief Executive John Stumpf, who lost his job over the scandal, was too slow to fix the problem, Buffett said. Wells Fargo was among many discussed at Berkshire's annual meeting in Omaha, where Buffett, 86, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 93, fielded dozens of questions from shareholders, journalists and analysts. "If there's a major problem, the CEO will get wind of it. At that moment, that's the key to everything. The CEO has to act," Buffett said. "The main problem was they didn't act when they learned about it." Still, Buffett's support of current management and board was key to ensuring the reelection of the entire board last month. Wells Fargo spokesman Mark Folk said "we agree" with Buffett's comments, and have taken "decisive actions" to fix the problems and "make things right for customers." Buffett likened the situation to Salomon Brothers Inc, where in 1991 he was installed as chairman to clean up a mess after the former chief executive failed to tell regulators a trader was submitting fake bids at Treasury auctions. Asked whether Berkshire's decentralized structure could lead to a similar scandal, Buffett said "as we sit here, somebody is doing something wrong at Berkshire," whose units employ 367,000 people. But he said Berkshire has an internal "hotline" to flag possible misbehavior, and which gets 4,000 calls a year. SUCCESSION, DIVIDENDS The meeting also included discussions about Berkshire's succession plans, its controversial partnership with Brazilian firm 3G Capital, and whether it will start paying dividends or make a monster acquisition. Buffett has said Berkshire could have a new chief executive within 24 hours if he died or could not continue, and that nothing had changed just because he praised fewer managers than usual in his February shareholder letter. He said it may have been harder to single people out because "we have never had more good managers." But he also said it would be a "terrible mistake" if capital allocation were not the "main talent" of his successor. Buffett did lavish much praise on top insurance executive Ajit Jain, who some investors believe could be that successor, saying "nobody could possibly replace Ajit. You can't come close." On 3G, with which Berkshire controls Kraft Heinz Co and tried to merge it with Unilever NV , Buffett acknowledged a dislike for the cost-cutting for which the Brazilian firm is known. But, he said, "it is absolutely essential to America that we become more productive, and 3G was "very good at making a business productive with fewer people." Buffett also raised the possibility Berkshire could pay its first dividend since 1967, if "reasonably soon, even while I'm around," the company had too much cash it could not reasonably deploy. "It could be repurchases, it could be dividends," he said. Berkshire ended March with more than $96 billion of cash and cash-like instruments, and Munger said it could do a "$150 billion" acquisition now if it wanted. AIRLINES, IBM Buffett defended Berkshire's foray into airlines, where it is a top investor in American Airlines Group Inc , Delta Air Lines Inc , Southwest Airlines Co and United Continental Holdings Inc . [nL1N1I80A6] He had long disdained the industry, which had gone through many bankruptcies, but said he is confident it will not resort to "suicidally competitive" pricing strategies that could spell doom. Munger added: "You've got to remember railroads were a terrible business for decades and decades and decades, and then they got good." Berkshire bought the BNSF railroad in 2010. Buffett also admitted he was wrong to think International Business Machines Corp "would do better" when he started amassing 81 million shares six years ago. Berkshire recently sold about one-third of those shares even as it built a huge stake in Apple Inc , which Buffett said is more as a "consumer" company that a technology company. He also addressed criticism that Berkshire discloses too little about businesses such as aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts Corp, which it bought last year for $32.1 billion. "We want you to understand what you own," he said, and "there are just a million things that are of minor importance" at Berkshire, whose market value is about $411 billion. Buffett also noted that Berkshire reported far fewer investment gains in the first quarter, which dragged on results, but said the company now has a slight preference for taking tax losses, which could lose value if Washington lawmakers reduce the 35 percent corporate tax rate. [nL1N1I71R0] The annual meeting, expected to draw more than last year's estimated 37,000 shareholders, is the main event of a weekend of events that Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists." Buffett and Munger took questions after the traditional shareholder movie, and after Buffett had roamed a nearby exhibit hall featuring products from Berkshire companies. He was joined at the traditional newspaper tossing contest by friends including Microsoft Corp co-founder and Berkshire director Bill Gates, and Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Hundreds of shareholders lined up early outside downtown Omaha's CenturyLink Center for the meeting. Several said they got there nearly five hours before doors opened around 6:45 a.m. "Every year it seems I have to come earlier," said Chris Tesari, a retired businessman from Pacific Palisades, California who said he arrived at 3:20 a.m. for his 21st meeting. "It's a pilgrimage." <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HIGHLIGHTS-Comments by Berkshire's Warren Buffett, the 'Oracle of Omaha' [NL1N1I80A6] FACTBOX-Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett at a glance [nL1N1I41SB] GRAPHIC-Berkshire vs. S&P 500 http://tmsnrt.rs/2pIrVbZ UPDATE 2-Insurance dampens Berkshire results before annual meeting [nL1N1I71R0] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Nick Zieminski) The Guardian reports: Theresa Mays Conservatives gained more than 550 council seats and swept to shock victories in mayoralty contests in the West Midlands and Tees Valley in results that placed her party on track to secure a thumping majority in the general election. The prime minister insisted she was not taking anything for granted but the Tories enjoyed a stunning day that was matched by a dramatic decline for Jeremy Corbyns Labour party, which lost more than 300 seats. The results forced Labour to hand over control of a series of English councils including Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Northumberland, while in Scotland the party lost its grip on Glasgow for the first time in 40 years. By Mehmet Fatih Oztarsu The Journalists Association of Korea (JAK) organized a media forum, the World Journalists Conference, to promote world peace in early April and provided good opportunities to show Korea's economic and urban progress to the world journalists. The government establishes new cities in empty areas of the country and gets benefits economically as well as by inviting foreign investors. So, the Korean government is following the concept of smart cities. A smart city is an urban development concept to integrate information and communication technology in a secure fashion to manage the assets of the city. So South Korea is developing urban services with this concept. For that, we can give three major examples _ Sejong, Incheon and Gwangmyeong. These cities are close to the capital, Seoul. Their importance arises around economic and technologic benefits. JAK organized fruitful trips to Incheon and Gwangmyeong. I previously visited Sejong with Asia Journalist Association (AJA) members and would like to start with this. Sejong is South Korea's de facto administrative capital city. It is located between three major cities of Daejeon, Cheonan and Cheongju. The capital Seoul is in a cleft stick because of its large population. In short, this administrative city was established to reduce the influence and dominance of Seoul on governance and economics. By 2012, the city was under construction and now it is ready to host new residents, aiming for a population of 200.000 people. The government plans to move more than 36 government ministries and agencies to this city. Sejong is also connected to major railroads and Cheongju International Airport. Another example is Incheon. Today 3 million people are living in Incheon, which uses its natural advantages as an important port and forming the country's second largest metropolitan area. The Incheon Free Economic Zone played a key role in the development of Incheon, which was designated as Korea's first free economic zone. It made Korea an economic attraction in the Far East. Incheon stands as an important element of the industrialization of the country. It hosts giant companies and serves as an ideal city for living in. Gwangmyeong is a city in Gyeonggi Province. It is home to the world's largest IKEA store at 59,000 square meters and a large Costco complex. Mayor Yang Ki-dae hosted the world journalists and showed the hospitality of Korean culture. He is a successful mayor and realized big achievements. Along with his successes in urban planning, transportation stands as an important point. He asked, "Have you ever heard about the Eurasian Transcontinental Railroad?" Actually, I didn't expect that he would share his very interesting dream for the future. Currently, South Korea is trying to stabilize regional peace and we are aware of the nuclear threat from the North. But he is positively thinking and planning for a peaceful future for the region. He talked about his dream: "My dream starts with KTX Gwangmyeong Station which I hope to be the departure station for the Eurasian Transcontinental Railroad, that will go through North Korea, China, and Russia and reach as far as Siberia and Europe. And these, in turn, would create a much higher possibility for North Korea to open its way for the railroad." I should say that I haven't seen this kind of idealist politician in recent years. His motivation source is coming from the belief in global peace. He also said: "You need to follow with passion to achieve something and follow it with all of your heart. This spirit that emphasized the importance of the scene of real life, will be a driving force for me to carry on and achieve our ambitious but worthy dream of the Eurasia Transcontinental Railroad, which might sound a bit too ambitious at first. South Korean smart cities are governed by smart people. These people will make the world a better place. I totally support these significant aims and appreciate Yang and others. Mehmet Fatih Oztarsu is a Turkish journalist in Seoul. Write to oztarsu@gmail.com. By Donald Kirk TOKYO The shadows of war lengthen over Japanese society in thrall to Article 9 of a "peace constitution" foisted under the "occupation" led by the victorious World War II Pacific commander, General Douglas MacArthur. Much as the "rightist" Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might want to do away with it, Article 9 still bans Japan's euphemistically named "self-defense forces" from waging war. Or, to be precise, under Article 9 "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." Abe would like dearly to revise or rescind Article 9, but he just cannot get away with it despite shrill anti-Japanese invective from North Korea and concerns about the rising power of China as seen in challenges to the Senkaku Islands, known to the Chinese as Diaoyutai. Japanese coast guard vessels, not naval or "Maritime Self-Defense Force" ships, rigorously fend off intruding Chinese "fishing boats" besieging the uninhabited islands, much closer to Taiwan than to either mainland China or the southernmost Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa, and Japanese "air self-defense force" planes warn away Chinese aircraft. The minuet, however, risks turning into warfare with every confrontation in the narrow space between Japan and China or, more immediately, between Japan and the Korean peninsula. Now the pride of the "maritime self-defense force," a 19,500-ton helicopter carrier named the Izumo, is about to protect a U.S. Navy supply ship on its way to the flotilla -- or "armada," as President Trump called it -- led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson. Practically speaking, North Korean rhetoric to the contrary, there's virtually no chance of North Korean submarines endangering these vessels. If gunfire did break out, however, the Izumo would be there in a departure from the restraint of Article 9. In fact, no Japanese warship has previously sailed off in defense of foreign interests. The rationale is Japanese ships should fight for Japan's allies as they would for Japan. If that seems like a stretch, so is a large standing military that's limited to consuming one percent of Japan's gross domestic product a seemingly small figure that's actually huge considering Japan's GDP this year is coming to about $4.84 trillion. That's way behind the projected U.S. GDP of $19.42 trillion or China at $11.8 trillion but ranks third ahead of Germany at $3.42 trillion and means Japan still boasts one of the world's strongest armed forces. Outside of Japan's conservative establishment, Japanese have mixed feelings about where they're going militarily. A poll conducted by Kyodo, the Japanese news agency, shows the Japanese split nearly evenly over revising the constitution so their troops can operate as full-fledged allies of the U.S. Slightly more than half of those polled don't want to revise Article 9. Three fourths of them credit adoption of the constitution 70 years ago with keeping Japan out of war. The Izumo represents more than its role with U.S. warships. It's 249 meters long but called a "destroyer" a euphemism for its purpose as a carrier big enough for a dozen or so helicopters on its deck. In case of war, the Izumo could be converted into a small jet aircraft carrier not nearly as big as China's newly launched Shandong, 50,000 tons and 315 meters long, but a sign of Japan's eagerness to buttress defenses while rightists talk darkly of "the changing security environment" created by North Korea and China. One reason Japanese are disposed to work with Americans on defense is they have no good friends in the region. At U.S. urging, Japanese and South Korean warships may cooperate in exercises, but historical differences go too deep to imagine an alliance. The Japanese are not going to agree the rocks they call Takeshima belong to Korea, which clings tenaciously to Dokdo as a symbol of defiance of the centuries of Japanese depredations. Nor are the Japanese on great terms with Russia despite Abe's recent meeting with President Vladimir Putin. "Why did Abe fly to Moscow to talk to Putin when North Korea is making trouble," a Japanese friend asked me. The two may agree North Korea should not test nukes, but who thinks the Russians will cede those small "northern islands" seized from Japan in the last week of World War II? In the Great Game for the region, Japan's real fear is isolation. Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been covering tensions in Northeast Asia for decades. He's at kirkdon4343@gmail.com. By Kim Ji-myung It is not clear if Chinese leader Xi said that the Korean Peninsula "actually used to be a part of China." What's clear is that it was quoted by President Trump in an interview, and not a verbatim account of Xi's explanation about Korea. And that the two spoke through interpreters. The White House did not make a clarification after this story belatedly went viral in Korea. Often Western media find the cause of widespread outrage among Koreans either in the undiplomatic expression of statements or in the Koreans themselves, who are particularly sensitive to external conditions amid heightened tensions between North and South Korea. As the native Korean fact-checker of the Washing Post confirmed, "Korea has been long intertwined culturally and historically with China but was not under direct and official territorial control by China, despite repeated Chinese invasions." Xi may have referred to the tributary system between China and its surrounding countries including Korea, which has long functioned as a peace-keeping arrangement. Korea gained protection from China while it paid "tribute," or gifts in exchange for securing its independent position. Professor Park Tae-gyun of Seoul National University pointed out that there is a serious communication gap or misunderstanding in Korea's diplomatic relations. And it comes from the Korean side's "wishful thinking." Prof. Park can cite numerous examples of failed communication because of these one-sided and ungrounded optimistic expectations. Sometimes it comes from paucity of professional understanding of diplomatic languages. The fatal and famous example was the phrase of the Korea-US treaty of 1882 that the United States would provide "good offices" to help Korea if she is under foreign threat. To check original phrase, the Koreans believed America would abide by this promise, and stand firm to protect Korea from Japanese annexation. Another example of steadfast wishful thinking of the Korean people is that the United States will side with Korea if faced with a conflict with Japan, because Japan is a criminal country that had committed aggression and inhumane mass killings in neighboring countries. In retrospect, Koreans around the end of Joseon Kingdom (1392-1897) and during the Korean Empire (1897-1910) remained totally excluded from the negotiation tables, where the national and territorial destiny was determined. There had been true friends of Korea who genuinely tried to help in this long process of losing a kingdom to fall to a colony of imperialist Japan. And yet, we cannot deny that Korean leaders in general lacked information about the outside world. And for that handful of enlightened intellectuals, the challenge was too big to save the country from the voracious big powers surrounding the peninsula. History records that Korea lost her diplomatic sovereignty in 1905 before officially being annexed by Japan in 1910. But already in August 1904, Japan began controlling the domestic matters of Korea via so-called Japanese and foreign advisors. In June 1905, Syngman Rhee was a student at George Washington University in the States. He tried to raise his voice on behalf of the Korean people about how Japan was moving to colonize Korea, which would never be conducive to the peace of East Asia. In July 1905 just before the Portsmouth conference was held, Rhee could get a recommendation of Governor-General of the Philippines, William Howard Taft, written to President Theodor Roosevelt. Taft seemed to be highly sympathetic to the Koreans. History tells us that a secret agreement had been made between the U.S. and Japan to connive Japan's control of Korea in exchange for America's occupation of the Philippines, which was later materialized as the Taft-Katsura secret agreement. Young Syngman Rhee had a brief meeting with President Roosevelt and produced the memorandum. But he was asked to have the document accepted officially via the Korean Legation in Washington D.C. Minister Kim Yun-jeong of the Korean Legation, who was expected to handle the document on Korea's behalf, refused to accept it, saying he got no instruction about that from Korea. Rhee wrote in his diary that all official channels both Korean and American had already been occupied by the enemies. He confessed that "we Koreans were naive and foolish" to put too much hope on friendly gestures of diplomatic phrases. Is Korea again standing alone like a handicapped child without knowing what's going on, exactly as it was a century ago? Kim Ji-myung is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com. By Oh Young-jin Let's calm ourselves down. It's exasperating to hear Trump demand South Korea pay $1 billion for a missile interceptor owned and operated by the U.S. After all, the two allies cut a deal by which Korea provided land for a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, while the U.S. paid for the rest hardware and maintenance. It's tempting to shout back at Trump and tell him that we don't want it so he can take it back. But here are some sobering questions. Can we defend ourselves without U.S. forces? The South excels the North in the size of economy many times and is more than double it in terms of population. So the answer to this question is yes, we can. But if so, what extra cost would we have to pay for their absence? Billions of dollars would be needed to make up for the U.S. Forces Korea with its 28,000 American troops stationed here. They serve as a tripwire to bring in bigger and more powerful reinforcements the so-called extended deterrence (nuclear umbrella) included from the U.S. in the event of a war. The tab for this is uncountable because it has worked as the bedrock for Korea's sense of security for decades. Would you be willing to pay that extra cost? The bulk of the budget for welfare, infrastructure and other key state affairs would have to be diverted to cover our own defense spending. This means bigger tax bills for fewer services. Then, the security void that would be created by the U.S. withdrawal would have foreign investors rethink their plans involving Korea. THAAD can turn this chain of hypotheses into reality. The much feared April crisis has passed. What played a key role in preventing the North from conducting a sixth test critical to perfecting its nuclear program or in obviously scaring Pyongyang from being more audacious in launching inter-continental ballistic missiles? It tried twice previously but failed both times. The United States applied pressure on Beijing to dissuade Pyongyang from playing naughty. Trump has cajoled and coerced Chinese President Xi Jinping into betraying its blood-sealed ally since their April summit in Trump's Mar-a-lago resort in Florida. Xi and his country look as if they are behaving like a well-trained bear at every instruction given by their master, Trump. It's only imaginable what deal the two have made outside Trump's pleasantries of the highest order or for goodies such as forgetting about hundreds of billions of dollars in China's annual trade surplus from trading with the U.S. What has caught China and the North off guard is the dispatch of the aircraft carrier, Carl Vinson, to the seas off the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers in operation, including the Carl Vinson and Ronald Reagan stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. China has just launched its first indigenous aircraft carrier yet to be named. The Americans are all nuclear-powered and "cats-and-traps" for aircraft takeoff and landing, while the Chinese carrier is diesel-powered with a ski jump. In other words, the difference is comparable to that between Neanderthal and homo sapiens. That may have contributed to Trump's persuasive power that worked magic on Xi and gave a rude wakeup call to Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. Now, it is important to think of how Trumpian arithmetic works. Trump is a "successful" businessman and showbiz celebrity. Therefore, he shuns money-losing businesses and sticks to the "beneficiary-pays" principle. This characteristic reflects his demand for Korea's THAAD payment as he sees the U.S. as a benefactor and Korea as a beneficiary so it is natural for Seoul to pay. Then, his pomposity as a TV personality also factors in as shown by his catchphrases such as, "Make America Great Again," "Buy American and Hire American" and "America First." This means he feels under a constant obligation to show his loyalty to the American people and explains why he adopts the new simple rule of friends and foes friends are who benefit his country and foes are those who don't, forgoing the complicated traditional interactive standard of alliances. That is why he can embrace China one day but ditch it the next. Already, it is been made obvious when considering what Trump has done with his beloved Russia or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By doing so, Trump can keep everybody (allies and enemies alike) on their toes, making them guess what he will do next. How can Korea deal with the Trumpian America? On a more immediate basis, that question can pertain to the next president who will be elected May 9. He shouldn't provoke Trump or rather should be provoked by him. If he pays attention to every move Trump makes and over-analyze it, the chance is that he plays into Trump's hands. Regarding his call for THAAD payment, we may suppress our urge to tell Trump "no deal." Rather, our new president can stroke Trump's ego and communicate in a language a businessman can understand. For instance, he can tell Trump that Korea will pay by prorating the use of the system every year for the next 30 years so the yearly payment will turn into an infinitesimal amount. Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie5@gmail.com. In a recent fan meeting event by Lee Dong Wook, the actor expressed how it felt kissing "Goblin" co-star Yoo In Na. Apparently, the actor stated it was not romantic at all! As reported by Koreaboo, Lee Dong Wook was in Hong Kong on Wednesday, May 3, for his "For My Dear" fan meeting event. During the event, the "Goblin" actor watched notable scenes from the drama alongside his fans. One notable scene that was showed during the event was Lee Dong Wook's kissing scene with "Goblin" co-star Yoo In Na. The scene was the first time Lee Dong Wook and Yo In Na's character kissed. Lee Dong Wook then revealed that the scene was filmed in the first week of January. The scene was also shot during the first hours of the morning. Lee Dong Wook also added how it was cold and raining that day and that they have been filming for 24 hours already! Lee Dong Wook has nothing in his mind but to finish the filming and go home to sleep. Because of the casts' close relationship, however, Lee Dong Wook was able to feel comfortable around Yoo In Na. Lee Dong Wook and Yoo In Na eventually finished filming the scene. All Kpop also reported that Lee Dong Wook and the rest of "Goblin" cast have a group chat. The cast even cheered for Lee Dong Wook inside the group chat and wished him well for his flight towards Hong Kong. Lee Dong Wook also revealed that the cast was planning on going out together, sort of like a mini reunion, if they have time. Ultimately, Lee Dong Wook stated that the group chat was created for them to still keep in touch. Lee Dong Wook's next leg of his "For My Dear" fan meeting tour will be in Indonesia and Thailand. Lee Dong Wook is expected to visit more Asian countries to meet his most loyal fans. PRESS RELEASE Russian-Proposed De-escalation Plan To Save Syria Gets Under Way May 5, 2017 (EIRNS)Turkey, Russia and Iran signed a memorandum at the end of Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana yesterday, backing Russias proposal to create four "de-escalation" zones in Syria. Implementation is to begin at 00:00 local time on May 6, Russian defense officials reported today. The de-escalation zones will be in rebel-held territory in the northwestern province of Idlib, in parts of Homs province in the center, in the south, and in the opposition enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. The aim is to put an immediate end to the violence and provide the conditions for the safe, voluntary return of refugees as well as the immediate delivery of relief supplies and medical aid, the document said. Col.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of Russias military general staff emphasized to reporters today that the agreement will allow the Syrian military to concentrate its war on Daesh and al-Nusra. Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, will go on the offensive now near Palmyra, Deir ez-Zor, and the north-eastern territories in the Aleppo province along the Euphrates River. "Personnel and formations of Russia, Turkey and Iran" will man the checkpoints and observation posts, and manage the new safe zones, according to Rudskoi. He added, without further specification that "by mutual agreement of the guarantor countries, the forces of other parties can be enlisted" in enforcing these areas. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Alexander Fomin named Jordan as one of a number of countries already working with Russia in this effort. The Syrian government and rebel delegations are not signatories, but Syrian state news agency SANA reported that Damascus supports the Russian plan. The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee terrorist front predictably denounced it. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres "is encouraged by the agreement," UN spokesman Stephanie Dujarric reported. The plan was coordinated with 27 field commanders of armed groups operating in the four de-escalation zones, involving some 42,000 militants, according to Sputnik. Lt. Gen. Fomin gave reporters an idea of the work that went into reaching this agreement, whose aim, in his words, is to "practically put an end to the civil war in Syria." He cited President Putins many discussions of the political solution with the leadership of Turkey, the U.S. and Iran; Defense Minister Sergei Shoigus working meetings with the defense ministers of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Israel; "constant contacts" via intelligence agencies and foreign ministries; and "much work" with the Syrian leadership and leaders of armed opposition groups to convince them of the necessity of taking these steps. "The position of the United States, which welcomed the steps to reduce violence in Syria, improve the humanitarian situation and create conditions for a political settlement of the conflict, positively influenced the creation of de-escalation zones," Fomin noted. PRESS RELEASE China Daily Features Zepp-LaRouche Call for Trump to Join BRI Forum May 5, 2017 (EIRNS)"Trump Encouraged to Attend Belt-Road Forum," China Daily reported today, citing Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the benefits to world peace of the U.S. President doing so. "The best would be if President Trump would attend the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in person," Zepp-LaRouche told China Daily USA New York reporter Wang Linyan, in an interview published today. "The second best would be a second personal summit between him and President Xi Jinping immediately afterwards in China." Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the multiple benefits that would be generated by the United States joining the "gigantic dynamic" developing around "the biggest" infrastructure program in history. "Only if the U.S. joins the initiative is there a way to overcome geopolitics, which was the cause of two world wars in the 20th century. Once the institutional forces in the US recognize that it is more in the interest of American industry, jobs and society in general than to be outside of the initiative, a potential Thucydides trap or a war over hot spots can be avoided," she said. She elaborated on how the resulting economic benefits would "help to rejuvenate the American economy," while the two nations could participate in joint ventures around the world. Rushing to throw cold water on such a bold move by President Trump was none other than the dean of the Wharton School, a notorioU.S. outpost of British intelligence and imperial neoliberal economics ensconced at the University of Pennsylvania. American companies may participate, "investment liberalization" talks go ahead, etc., etc., Dean Geoffrey Garrett told China Daily; but President Trump joining the Belt and Road initiative: oh no. Airline passengers won a victory this week when a U.S. appeals court agreed that a carrier can be held responsible for reimbursing bag fees to a passenger whose luggage arrived late. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower courts dismissal of the case by Hayley Hickcox-Huffman, who sued US Airways in 2010 over a $15 bag fee she paid on a flight from Colorado to California. US Airways has since merged with American Airlines. Her bag was delayed by a day, and Hickcox-Huffman filed a suit, arguing that the carrier failed in its promise to deliver her bag in a timely manner. The airline argued against refunding the fee for several reasons, including that the carrier does not spell out in its ticket contract a remedy for the delay of delivering the luggage. Advertisement Hickcox-Huffman filed the suit as a class-action claim, which would allow other US Airways passengers whose bags were delayed or lost to collect their fees. But a lower court has yet to certify the class-action status of the suit. The decision by the 9th Circuit clears the way for Hickcox-Huffman to continue her pursuit of the lawsuit. A spokesman for American Airlines said it is reviewing the court decision and considering the carriers options. An attorney for Hickcox-Huffman said the decision by the 9th Circuit represents a victor for travelers. This case was filed right when airlines began to shove those baggage fees down everyones throats, attorney Justin Karczag said. This case represents the consumer fighting back. hugo.martin@latimes.com To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter. The forced removal of Dr. David Dao from a United Airlines flight in Chicago last month and the graphic video of the incident have prompted a series of promises to improve airline passenger service. Southwest Airlines promised to do away with overbooking. United Airlines vowed to never remove a paying passengers from a seat, except in cases of safety or security. Delta Air Lines has given its gate officials the green light to spend up to $10,000 to entice passengers to voluntarily give up a seat on an overbooked flight. In the latest change following the Dao incident, Chicago aviation officials said during testimony before a U.S. Senate committee Thursday, that neither Chicago police nor aviation security officers will board a plane to deal with a customer service dispute. Advertisement In the Dao case, three aviation security officers dragged him from his seat after he refused to give it up to make room for United crew members. The three officers and a supervisor were placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation. During testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committees subcommittee on aviation operations, safety, and security, Chicago Department of Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans said that a passenger at one of our airports was injured in this way is deeply saddening and personally offensive. Evans said the aviation security officers involved in the fracas are primarily trained to check the identification of people entering secure areas of the airports. But the union representing the security officers shot back, saying the employees are trained as law enforcement officers with full police powers and are now being treated as scapegoats. United Airlines, the Chicago Department of Aviation, and elected officials need to take a hard look at the mismanagement that surrounded the incident rather than resorting to shifting the blame onto the 300 men and women who serve and protect the traveling public every day, SEIU Local 73 trustees Dian Palmer and Denise Poloyac said in a statement. hugo.martin@latimes.com Twitter: @hugomartin ALSO United says itll pay bumped passengers up to $10,000 and reveals nine other policy changes Get off or pay for another seat. United customers share their bad experiences An airplane video, an unhappy family: How confusing rules put Delta in the hot seat Simplified forms, flattened color, irregular perspective stylistically, landscape paintings and genre scenes by Jessie Homer French might be termed naive. French, 77, has been working for more than 40 years but is untrained. Yet, sophistication describes the nine earnest paintings in her enchanting debut exhibition at Various Small Fires. French paints what she knows or wants to know rather than recording what she sees. Mostly, this selection of modest easel paintings, made between 1988 and 2014, is a rumination on mortality. Road Kill (Again) shows the quiet, softly brushed corpse of a white-tail deer lying in the weeds, tiny trickles of crimson blood running from its nose and a hind leg. From one canvas edge to the other, lacy patterns of green nature wrap the animals body in a delicate embrace. A life cut short by unexpected catastrophe is reverenced. Jessie Homer French, Pender Island Cemetery, 2014, oil on canvas. (Maxwell Benson / Various Small Fires) (Maxwell Benson /) Two pictures show cemeteries, one in the lush bloom of spring and the other blanketed beneath a deep layer of snow. Both landscapes feature a wide strip of brown across the bottom cutaways of the earth, where the bodies of men, women and children are laid out in caskets. Neither cemetery scene is morbid. The juxtaposition of death with spring lushness italicizes the ordinariness of life cycles. The wintry scene features an ominous wolf, slightly oversize in scale, but the dead have nothing to fear. Menace lends a sense of indifferent security to the bodies below. The artist doesnt let herself off the hook either. In a dark woodland picture with a blazing campfire built from a pile of discarded paintings, even her own work faces extinction. A scene of failure and loss, it is nonetheless also a picture of light and warmth. French, who works in La Quinta, has not exhibited her paintings much. (A selection of her needlework quilts was at Pasadenas Armory Center for the Arts last year.) Happily, the gallery plans a larger show for the future. Various Small Fires, 812 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. Through May 27; closed Sundays and Mondays. (310) 426-8040, www.vsf.la christopher.knight@latimes.com Twitter: @KnightLAT ALSO The exhibition that has art fans in a fury: Carl Andre at MOCA A groundbreaking show to confront the gender bias in art: 'Women of Abstract Expressionism' 100 missing women: Drawings at African American museum tell a powerful story of loss Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign hacked Time to Kill Putin.. Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been the victim of a "massive and coordinated hacking operation," after files purporting to be from the campaign were posted online via social media, his campaign said Friday.Campaign officials said the perpetrators of the hack -- revealed just two days before the election -- had mixed fake documents with authentic ones "in order to create confusion and misinformation."About 14.5 gigabytes of emails, personal and business documents were posted, a CNN look at the data shows. Links to the 70,000-plus files were posted on pastebin, a text-sharing site, just before 2 p.m. ET Friday.The statement said that by happening near the end of the campaign, the operation is clearly meant to undermine democracy, just like during the recent presidential campaign in the United States. US intelligence officials have said the Russians meddled in the November elections, and Congress is investigating the allegations. Russia has denied any interference.Macron, if successful in Sunday's final vote, would become the youngest president in the history of France and the nation's youngest leader since Napoleon.His political organization, En Marche!, called the attack the latest in a series of cyber intrusions."The files that are circulated were obtained several weeks ago following the hacking of personal and professional mail boxes," En Marche! said, according to a CNN translation.Hackers targeted Macron's campaign using methods similar to the suspected Russian hacks in the US targeting the Democratic National Committee last year, according to a report issued in April by cybersecurity researchers. Clinton's rival, Donald Trump, won the election after information from Clinton's campaign was released just before the vote.Macron, a 39-year-old independent centrist has led a remarkable campaign, defying the traditional mainstream parties courtesy of his En Marche! movement. For many, however, the campaign has become less about backing Macron, and instead voting against his far-right National Front rival, Marine Le Pen.Macron has been endorsed by President Francois Hollande, Republican candidate Francois Fillon and the Socialist Party's Benoit Hamon, but he is not universally liked.'The least worst option': A divided France braces for voteOften seen as the "elite," Macron's viewed as being part of the establishment and out of touch with the public.A former economy minister who made his millions as an investment banker, Macron has been attacked from both the left and the right for his perceived arrogance.Two polls released Friday suggest he still holds a 20-point lead.Russia has said it has no preferred candidate in the French election. But it has good reasons to support Le Pen over Macron.Le Pen's anti-Europe and anti-NATO stance are perfectly aligned with Russian interests, and she has consistently called for closer ties with President Vladimir Putin.Le Pen has also expressed a desire to roll back European Union sanctions levied on Russia in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, which she has described as "unfair and silly."It is a stance which contrasts markedly with Macron, a pro-EU, pro-integration candidate who has said he would keep sanctions on Russia in place, if not add to them.The Russian online sphere of trolls (EagleCrack) and hackers are going to continue to try and sway democratic elections into their favor under the thug ex-KGB Putin.Might be time to weed out the chaff in a few countries, starting with the leaders.. The National Endowment for the Arts is breathing a sigh of relief this week. After President Trump threatened to eliminate the federal agency, Congress approved a spending bill that not only funds the NEA for another year, but increased its $148 million annual budget by nearly $2 million. Lost in much of the acrimonious debate over whether the NEA should live or die is the organizations support for cultural programs that cater to military veterans, active duty service members and their families. Theres the theater program geared to military families in North Carolina, art-making classes for veterans in Salt Lake City and Shakespeare productions staffed by veterans in Los Angeles not to mention a beloved childrens theater program based in Missoula, Mont., that organizes productions at far-flung U.S. military installations around the world. These are just a few of the programs the NEA has helped fund. In fiscal year 2016 alone, the NEA made 25 grants totaling $499,000 to support cultural projects that in some way involve veterans or active military. For comparison, an estimated $627,000 through 32 grants was given to programs geared to individuals with disabilities and another roughly $202,000 through 15 grants was given to programs for seniors. These are small amounts when compared with the $124 million that the NEA gave out in fiscal year 2016 through nearly 2,500 awards, including direct grants, partnerships and individual awards. But they are not without an important effect. At the Cape Fear Regional Theatre in Fayetteville, N.C., which lies adjacent to the U.S. Army base of Fort Bragg, a $15,000 grant from the NEA in 2016 helped the theater fund the creation of Downrange: Voices From the Homefront by Mike Wiley, a play that examined the struggles faced by military families. In Salt Lake City, a $10,000 NEA grant for the community arts group Art Access in 2015 helped that organization fund art-making classes and a playwriting workshop for veterans led by a nationally recognized playwright. And in Southern California, the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles this year received a $10,000 grant for a pop-culture-inflected version of Macbeth that will employ military veterans as paid crew. Despite the last-minute reprieve for 2017s NEA budget, many government observers say that the agency is not out of the woods for next years budget. Long before the election of Donald Trump, small-government conservatives have sought to cut back the NEA, describing it as welfare for artists. In 1981, Ronald Reagan attempted to dismantle the NEA. In the years since, the agency has endured regular threats of de-funding from Congress over how the agency makes grants and who gets its money. If the NEA were to be slashed, organizations such as the Shakespeare Center would either have to seek funding elsewhere, cut back their offerings or, in some cases, simply shut down. "A ray of hope": Ben Donenberg, Executive Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Center of LA, talks about why funding from the National Endowment for the Arts is so important to organizations like his. We had students in class who could not get through their script without weeping as they were reading it out loud. There was some catharsis there. George Sumner, Army veteran That, says Ariel Bell, an Army veteran who served in Bosnia and works on productions for the Shakespeare Center, would create a vacuum for veterans seeking a creative outlet or to accomplish the more difficult task of re-acclimating to civilian life. That whole thing, when you get out [of the military] and you try to get into civilian society, its difficult, she says. Doing things like this, its an opportunity to create a community thats outside of the military but still with people who understand you. ... We are a special sorority-fraternity. To have that in a place of art, in a place of enjoyment, she adds, its so important. Bell worked in communications when she was in the Army. When she landed at the Shakespeare Center in 2012 she had studied film but hadnt yet mapped out a professional path. Founder and Executive Artistic Director Ben Donenberg asked her if shed be willing to run audio for a production of As You Like It, figuring itd be a good fit. It was. Bell is still involved in Center productions, including the upcoming Macbeth. She also now works in production at the Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge doing everything from wardrobe to lighting to audio. The Shakespeare Centers program, which is focused on providing employment and job skills to vets, also covers tuition for some veteran workers to take technical theater courses at Santa Monica College . Donenberg, who served on the National Council on the Arts for half a dozen years (a body that helps advise the NEA chairman on grant-making and programs), has long been focused on issues of veterans in the arts. Cutting NEA support, he says, would mean less jobs for veterans, especially chronically unemployed veterans. Plain and simple. It really curbs the ability to engage with the veteran community. Localized programs like the one at the Shakespeare Center arent the only veterans initiatives funded by the NEA. Through a program called Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network, the agency helps fund art therapy at 11 clinical sites across the U.S. for veterans and special needs military patients often those who have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries or psychological conditions. A blind veteran adds glaze to a pot he created in a ceramics sculpture workshop at Art Access in Salt Lake City. (Art Access) (Art Access) Patients make art, write stories and create music as a way of dealing with trauma. The total budget for the program in fiscal year 2016 was $2.3 million. It is expected to grow to $2.6 million in fiscal year 2017. Supporting veterans in their home community or a successful transition after they have completed their assignment especially for those who have been injured as a result of their service is not just the responsibility of the Department of Defense, states NEA public affairs director Jessamyn Sarmiento via e-mail. It is a duty shared by all of us. Lesley Currier, managing director at the Marin Shakespeare Company in San Rafael, in the Bay Area, concurs. In 2016, her organization received a $10,000 NEA grant to conduct theater workshops for incarcerated veterans at San Quentin State Prison. In collaboration with the group Veterans Healing Veterans From the Inside Out, she led a group of more than a dozen inmate veterans who collectively wrote and staged a play titled Freedom Isnt Free. Children of active-duty personnel star in a production of The Jungle Book organized by Missoula Childrens Theatre at Wiesbaden Army Base in Germany. (Missoula Childrens Theatre) (Missoula Childrens Theatre) In many respects, she says, these artistic enterprises can serve as a way for veterans to come to terms with their experiences. One of the things that many of the men feel pretty strongly about is that there needs to be the same kind of training when you come out, that trains you how to be a civilian again, she says, that that could have helped them not get into trouble. There were men in the group who told stories in public that they had kept inside of them for decades, she says. Then they got the courage to share their stories in front of an audience. They lifted a huge psychic weight off their shoulders. Other cultural programs are about giving veterans a voice. Around the country, community arts organizations, with funding from the NEA, lead playwriting workshops and memoir-writing classes that allow veterans to cultivate and share their stories in a society where they are a stark minority. (According to a 2014 Veterans Administration estimate, just 7.3% of Americans have served in the military at some point in their lives.) The cover of the Iowa Review, Vol. 45, featuring winners of the 2014 Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans. (Iowa Review) (Iowa Review) The Iowa Review, a literary magazine published three times a year by the University of Iowa , is an invaluable platform for poets and writers of fiction. Since 2012, it has organized the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans, an important literary prize. The initial award was funded by Sharlets family. (He was a writer and Vietnam vet.) But two grants from the NEA a nearly $15,000 prize in 2014 and a $10,000 award in 2016 helped the magazine expand the number of awards it gives. We were able to have runners-up, have them get a cash prize, have them get published, says managing editor Lynne Nugent. And we wanted to do it so that veterans didnt have to pay submission fees. The grants have also helped cover small honorariums for the contests judges, which have included the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler (who served in the Army during Vietnam) and Anthony Swofford, a Gulf War veteran who is the author of Jarhead. Hugh Martin, a poet who served in Iraq in the Army National Guard , won the first ever Sharlet Memorial Award five years ago. (One of his winning entries, titled Foot Patrol, begins: The blue bruise under his eye / is like the skin of a cold plum. Blood / dries beneath his nose / as we listen to the eucalyptus / scratch the violet sky / in the dusk wind.) Martin has received other prestigious awards since such as the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University . Though the Iowa Reviews prize money is modest (first place is $1,000), the magazine provides an unparalleled platform. It is widely read in the world of letters, including by literary agents in search of new voices. We were extremely fortunate to have gotten the NEA grants that we got, says Nugent. Weve leveraged them into more support from other funders. Its an endorsement of the quality of the program that it can lead to it becoming more institutionalized. Which raises an important point about the role the NEA plays at small cultural nonprofits. The grants can help organizations with razor-thin budgets innovate new programs and attract other donors. It begins a seed of something that grows and it makes more opportunity, says Bryan Conger, interim artistic director at North Carolinas Cape Fear Regional Theatre, where an NEA grant allowed the theater to create and stage Downrange and engage the local military community. And it lends credibility to a project, adds his colleague Beth Desloges, the theaters managing director. If we hadnt received the money from the NEA, we would have never received money from the Veterans & Theatre Institute, which supports veterans in theater through a grant-making program. A scene from Downrange, inspired by the lives of military families at Fort Bragg, at the Cape Fear Regional Theatre in Fayetteville, N.C. (Raul Rubiera Photography) (Raul Rubiera Photography) We feel that having the NEA fund us, thats a gold star or blue ribbon stamp of approval. It shows that what we do is high quality. Naomi Lichtenberg, Missoula Children's Theatre The imprimatur that an NEA grant can bring can be essential to arts organizations. We feel that having the NEA fund us, thats a gold star or blue ribbon stamp of approval, says Naomi Lichtenberg, who does grant writing for the Missoula Childrens Theatre in Montana, which organizes theater programs for children on U.S. military bases around the world. It shows that what we do is high quality. It makes a difference. Thats important to bear in mind, she adds. They have expert panels that evaluate the work that we do. The NEA is not just handing out money. The theater has received about half a dozen NEA grants since 2010 to support its work (which also includes helping kids stage theater productions in small, rural communities). We are, fortunately, not fully dependent on the NEA to keep our doors open, says Teri Elander, the theaters public relations director, but had nonetheless braced for cuts. Whats important to us is what can happen over time, says Elander. The state art agencies, they receive money from the NEA, and the trickle-down could be significant over time. This is an issue of concern to every other organization contacted for this story. NEA funding trickles through organizations that we get funding from, like the state funding organization, says Elise Butterfield, the programs director at Art Access in Utah. So its not just the one-time funding thing. If they dont get funding, we dont get funding. George Sumner did two tours of duty as an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam and recently took a playwriting workshop with award-winning dramatist Julie Jensen at Art Access. In that workshop which cost him a nominal $10 he put together a one-act play titled At the Wall that tells the story of two veterans arguing over the purpose of the Vietnam War as they stand before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Last month it was performed by professional actors as part of a free staged reading at the Salt Lake Acting Company. The experience of working with Jensen and producing the play was transformative, says Sumner. We had students in class who could not get through their script without weeping as they were reading it out loud, he recalls. There was some catharsis there. Thats a good thing to give someone, he adds. If its a veteran, its money well spent. Grants and the NEA In fiscal year 2016, the National Endowment for the Arts made 2,500 awards (direct grants, partnerships and individual awards) that totaled $124 million. Here is how some of that money was spent: 25 grants totaling $499,000 for projects that support veterans and active military . totaling for projects that support and . 32 grants totaling $627,000 for projects that support individuals with disabilities . totaling for projects that support . 15 grants totaling $202,000 for projects that support seniors. Shakespeare Center founder and executive artistic director Ben Donenberg, right, and Ariel Bell, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Bosnia and now works at the Valley Performing Arts Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) FOR THE RECORD May 8, 8:10 a.m.: An earlier version of this story reported that the Utah-based Art Access used its NEA grant to fund art-making and playwrighting classes. It employed the grant for art-making and memoir writing classes, as well as an exhibition of veterans art. Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter carolina.miranda@latimes.com @cmonstah ALSO What L.A. would look like without the NEA How would the death of the NEA affect your community? California can cite 162 ways The NEA works. Why does Trump want to destroy it? If Trump thinks artists are a problem now, just wait: Why history tells us the fight ain't over Caitlyn Jenner memoirs version of life with Kris Jenner creates a new rift in the family (Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images) As Caitlyn Jenners just-published memoir The Secrets of My Life pulls back the curtain on her gender transition and her life among the Kardashians, not everybody is taking it well. Especially not Kris Jenner. Details about the Olympian-turned-reality-stars decision to transition in 2015 from Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner and confirmation that she had her final gender reassignment surgery are all in the book, but some dishy material about the Kardashian matriarch is reverberating with fans and upsetting the reigning first family of reality TV. The memoir, co-written by Buzz Bissinger, who penned the Vanity Fair article that introduced Caitlyn Jenner to the masses, has some kind words for the momager, including admiration for Kris connections, her business acumen and her ability to perfectly apply lip liner without a mirror. However, Caitlyn also said in the book that she told Kris about her gender issues before they got married and said Kris knew that for 4 years before they met, Caitlyn had been on hormones. Additionally, Caitlyn wrote that she told Kris about her gender problems before they would make love. I told her there had been a woman inside me all my life, she wrote. The couple announced their split in 2013 and finalized their divorce in 2014. During their decades-long union, Caitlyn cross-dressed in front of her ex but was asked by Kris to do it only while traveling, so that their children wouldnt get wind of it. It was something Caitlyn grew to resent, she said, and she would steal her wifes gowns and purses to wear while traveling. (Their differing takes on their marital woes have been a topic of discussion for years.) In a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris fumed with anger about passages in The Secrets of My Life that claimed she knew Caitlyn was transgender before they wed. None of it makes sense,Kris said to daughters Khloe and Kim Kardashian. I read it and basically the only nice thing she had to say was that I was great socially at a party one time. ... Everything she says is all made up. Why does everything have to be that Kris is such a bitch? She added: Ive never been so angry and disappointed in somebody in my whole life. In response, the Olympic gold medalist said on Good Morning America that the book is extraordinarily honest. It is my perspective, and obviously when you do a book like that, there are different opinions. I have a lot of friends that know the truth and know what Ive been through and know the whole situation, Caitlyn said. She told Andy Cohen that in the wake of publishing, Kris said she didnt want to talk to Caitlyn ever again. (Caitlyn also elaborated on her claims that she was a punching bag on the show and a revelation that Kris had been in charge of her finances.) Honestly, I never had a low point [while doing the show], actually, until the other day when Kris said some of that stuff. It was the first time I was really upset, she said. I had some of the best conversations with my children on that show. ... It forces you to deal with issues. ... It forces you to sit down with your kids and deal with a lot of things. Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenners second-born child with the late Robert Kardashian, shared her thoughts on the feud on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in an episode that aired Thursday. My heart breaks for my mom, you know, because I feel like shes been through so much and [Caitlyn is] promoting this book and shes saying all these things, Kardashian said. I just dont think its necessary and I just feel like its unfair. Things arent truthful. Kardashian said Caitlyn was dishonest with certain things about Kris in the book. I feel like its taken [Caitlyn] a really long time to be honest with herself, so I dont expect her to be honest about my mom now. But its just so hurtful, she said. I wish her all the success in the world, but not at our expense. Kardashian said she and husband Kanye West have been avid supporters of Caitlyn Jenners transition and wanted to remain respectful of her, but thought there was no need to bash the family. She said she was hurt by her stepfather, whos dad to her half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and hasnt spoken to Caitlyn in a few weeks. Kendall and Kylie, thats their dad and I think my moms been so respectful for so long and always wanting Caitlyn around and always wanting to have a great relationship with Caitlyn, Kardashian said. But that doesnt appear to be the case for the rest of the Kardashian brood. Ill always love her. That was my stepdad for so many years. She taught me about character and so much growing up and I just feel like I dont respect the character that shes showing now. Kim Kardashians younger sister, Khloe Kardashian, is also taking it a little tough, Caitlyn said at a book signing, according to RadarOnline. Everyone on the Jenner side is fine. All this stuff tends to work itself out! Someone call Ryan Murphy, because this needs to be turned into a Feud series, stat. ------------ FOR THE RECORD April 27, 3:31 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner finalized their divorce in 2013. They divorced in 2014. ------------ Know whats really helpful? When your daughter gives you driving tips. Dad, traffic always slows near La Brea, she warns me while were driving the 10. Ten years ago I taught her how to drive, and now she is teaching me. How fortunate am I to have access to that kind of knowledge and experience? Advertisement My palms are sweaty from the way you drive, she says with a sigh. Its been a truly wonderful week. Summer arrived on a 3:15 flight, blew in from the east on one of those notorious Santa Ana winds that give the power companies fits, barreling across the Cajon Pass, nearly trampling a truck. The hot, howling gusts grew so fierce on a Friday night that something snapped, or surged, or blew a gasket. An oak branch shorted a pair of power lines maybe, or a transformer bulged with extra juice. Maybe a giant squirrel fell from a tree and onto a very hot guitar string. Whatever the cause, it sent a jolt of electricity through our cul-de-sac, knocking out all the overpriced yet unreliable refrigerators and some of the microwaves. Know that new electric dryer Posh just bought, the French one that doubles as a bread maker? Dead. Wont budge. Cest fini. Posh says that our homeowners insurance will cover the blown appliances, but Im sure theres a $15,000 deductible, not to mention the back-and-forth with the company rep. Posh also says we can file a claim with the power company for the corn dogs and the cranberries that went bad. I ask you: Can you ever put a price on a bag of 6-month-old frozen burritos? As I told the daughter, I could get mad at life, but I wont. Because thats just what life wants. Thats really mature of you, Dad, she says. Well, it comes and it goes, I confess. The main TV blew too, or perhaps it was only the cable box (we hope.) The under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen wont light, and a couple of the porch lights seem skunked. Gotta say, makes me wish I hadnt blown all the yard sale proceeds on beer and oysters with my pal, Miller. Made sense at the time. We cleared $71.62 on the yard sale, most of it in dimes, which we immediately reinvested in the always unstable fresh seafood market and a couple of icy lagers. Though not official, summer has settled into Southern California like a fist to the gut. I hate the heat. We toasted the arrival of summer, Miller and I. Though not official, summer has settled into Southern California like a fist to the gut. I hate the heat. In L.A., summer means death. Already, the foothills are turning to toast. Soon, the grass will crunch when you walk on it and your car seats will feel like grilled cheese. By June, the oversized California sun will begin killing everything it kisses. Obviously, I hate relentless heat, even as I somehow settle into cities that lure it: Miami, New Orleans, Los Angeles. Me, a man with Viking bloodlines who sweats during snowstorms. It speaks to the nonsensical nature of my career. The whole situation is curious and a little maddening. Like taking driving tips from your daughter. Or like teaching Spanish to the Siberian husky, when she doesnt even fully understand French. The other day I read her the owners manual for the new French clothes dryer, the one that doesnt work anymore. The puppy loves the French language the lyricism, the cadences, the wine. Yet, she doesnt understand a single word. While I read, the husky watched me with her Alpine blue eyes, like a certain first lady. The pup also has freckles dotting her nose. I dont know how smart or dumb she is, captivated as I am by her beauty. Like so many people of enormous good looks, she might be a fluff, a confection, an empty vessel of dubious character. Do I look like the sort of idiot who cares? All I know is the new pup loves French appliance poetry, and she loves me. And if there is anyone less suited to a blistering summer, it is this overdressed Siberian, from a wilderness that never thaws. Well get through this mean season together, I assure her. Besides, I say, there are many reasons to rejoice. After all, the windstorm didnt knock out the central air, nor the Wi-Fi, nor the old beer fridge in the garage, the outdated but reliable one, the only constant in an unsteady life. Posh just made whipped cream with which to smother a large mound of fresh strawberries so we have that. Best of all, I tell the dog, my daughter is patiently working with me on my driving. So, dont get mad at life, I tell the puppy. Because thats exactly what life wants. Chris.Erskine@latimes.com Twitter: @erskinetimes MORE MIDDLE AGES: How to hold a productive yard sale The key to his mothers heart Posh and the hummingbird both soar He wanted the honeymoon suite. He got chemo bay No. 8 For the launch of Kreiss 2.0, Loren Kreiss sat in front of his computer in his West Hollywood condominium late one night and cobbled together a basic website. He had no store or products. All he had was the company name and a phone number. The phone started ringing at 9 the next morning, he said. There were people who had been Googling us, looking for a sofa. Angelenos who were here in the 1980s will be familiar with the Kreiss name. The furniture brand, which had a 6,000-square-foot store on Melrose Avenue from 1980 to 2012, is widely regarded as the originator of the California casual look -- large, comfortable couches, sleek wooden tables, a sea of neutral shades. It was an aesthetic that the company -- originally founded by Loren Kreiss great-grandfather, Murray Kreiss, in 1939 as an importer of Japanese tchotchkes -- came to symbolize. Advertisement Ronald and Nancy Reagan shopped at Kreiss. Magic Johnson and Bruce Springsteen outfitted their homes with its collections. In its heyday, the brand had 24 stand-alone stores and 16 shop-in-shops worldwide. With Loren Kreiss father, Michael, and grandfather, Norman, at the helm, the Kreiss name, and the look it perpetuated, had spread to Mexico, Canada and Dubai. It was about purposely letting the personality of the home come through, Loren Kreiss said. Natural materials, varied textures, generously proportioned items, and things that are not aggressively designed. There has always been a market for that. The Aria buffet, made out of solid alder wood, is on display inside Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) That market, however, struggled through the 2008 economic recession. Eventually, stores were shuttered and employees laid off. In 2011, Michael and Norman Kreiss died within six weeks of one another. The business closed its doors. But Loren, who had been working for the family business, knew he wanted to resurrect it. I had ambitious plans, he said. I remembered that when I was young and asked in school what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was always to take over the family business. In 2014 Loren Kreiss acquired the rights to the name and elected to restart the brand out of his home. 1 / 9 A 100% shellstone slab coffee table, left, and a transitional/contemporary larger scale sofa, right, both part of the Libra collection, are on display at Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 9 WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA-DECEMBER 1, 2016: A Mambo coffee table with a hand painted finish is on display inside Kreiss Furniture on La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times) (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 9 WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA-DECEMBER 1, 2016: The Aria buffet, made out of solid alder wood, is on display inside Kreiss Furniture on La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times) (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 9 Loren Kreiss, CEO and creative director of Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood, in his store. He is sitting on a mambo swivel chair made out of rift walnut that is part of the Azul collection. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 9 A customer tries out a sectional with Kreiss signature chenille fabric that is part of the Panama collection on display at Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 9 Detail of a 100% shellstone slab coffee table that is part of the Libra collection, on display at Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 9 Customer Tiffany Nelson of Newport Beach looks at an Azul buffet made out of solid alder wood, on display at Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 9 A hand-carved Koi Hollywood buffet is on display at Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 9 Loren Kreiss, CEO and creative director of Kreiss Furniture in West Hollywood, inside his store. He is sitting on a transitional/contemporary larger scale sofa that is part of the Libra collection. In foreground is a 100% solid shellstone slab coffee table. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) I thought, What do I have to lose?, he said. We moved out the living room furniture, and wrote orders sitting on the floor. As orders came in, he returned to his longtime furniture makers around the country and began shipping custom-made couches, beds and coffee tables to his customers. He took on design commissions and scored projects outfitting five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. This was a company that once had 75 employees and now, here I was, doing everything. A Mambo coffee table with a hand-painted finish is on display inside Kreiss Furniture. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) A year ago, he opened a 7,000-square-foot store on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood that is, like the original location, an ode to effortlessly chic West Coast style: the U-shaped couches and sectionals, which can run up to 14 feet long, are predominantly in shades of ivory, eggshell and cream. Accents are in hand-finished leather, walnut and limestone. We do every category -- rugs, accessories, mirrors, lamps, an outdoor collection. Well even sell the art. It all helps make Kreiss a frequent source for designers seeking that signature Californian style. I like the focus on natural materials -- the light woods, linen, cotton, said Dina Marciano, founder of Dina Marciano Design in Laguna Beach. The collection is elegant but also practical. Ive used it on a few of my residential projects that are close to the beach, and the aesthetic works very well. As breezy as the stylistics might be, its still a premium line: Sofas start at $7,500 and the U-shape sections go up to $25,000. Queen beds and dining tables are around the $6,500 mark. If I trace it back, the big thing for us is we made design accessible, said Kreiss. People could come into the Kreiss store without a decorator. They didnt have to go into the Pacific Design Center. We were known for our look, plus accessibility. I want to continue that legacy. La Cienega Design Quarter Design buffs will be making their annual pilgrimage to the La Cienega Design Quarter next week, where the theme will be Legends: Your True Colors, a three-day event. Some 53 of the areas design showrooms and boutiques including Kreiss throw open their doors to the public for talks, panel discussions, trunk shows and cocktail parties. Other participants include Remains Lighting, Design Within Reach and Kelly Wearstler. When: May 9-11. (Most public events take place May 10 and 11.) Cost: $75 per person ticket includes access to most of the events, as well as parking and a shuttle service. Info: Registration and information, including a map of the participating stores, at lcdqla.com Good morning. Im Paul Thornton, The Times letters editor, and it is Saturday, May 6, 2017, the day after what wasnt a celebration of Mexicos independence day. Lets take a look back at the week in Opinion. President Trump promised Americans and especially his supporters universal healthcare coverage that would be better and cheaper than what we have under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare). What passed out of the House on Thursday (and faces, at best, an uncertain future in the Senate ) provided neither less expensive healthcare nor anything close to universal coverage, despite what the celebrations at the White House and Capitol Hill might lead you to believe. On The Times op-ed page, political scientist Scott Lemieux sums up the Republicans American Health Care Act thus: In short, Donald Trumps promise to cover more Americans more cheaply while protecting Medicaid was a grotesque lie. Lemieux explains: Precisely because the bill is terrible, voting to pass it will be a political disaster for the Republican Party. The first version of the bill was massively unpopular, and this version wont do much better. There simply isnt any public constituency for passing a huge cut to federal healthcare spending, causing millions to lose insurance, and giving the money to the rich. Pelosi was right that the public would like Obamacare more when they found out what was in it, because most of its components were individually popular even when the bill was not. The same isnt true of Trumpcare virtually everything in it is unpopular. It will almost certainly cost some blue-state Republican House members their seats in 2018, and it wont help Trumps bad approval ratings either. Its unlikely that this slapdash and morally monstrous bill will be able to pass the Senate, even in modified form. Unlikely but not impossible. Perversely, the political hit Republicans will take for going on the record in favor of Trumpcare might make it more likely to pass the Senate. For wavering Republicans, putting the partys House majority at serious risk and not even getting anything out of it would be the worst-case scenario. Trumpcare would quite simply be a humanitarian nightmare, resulting in untold avoidable death and suffering for no good reason. At least its now obvious though it should have been obvious long ago that Trump is not a compassionate populist and that Ryan is not a policy wonk. The fact that Republicans plan to hold a party to celebrate this great victory should make great fodder for midterm election attack ads. >> Click here to read more No, the GOP repeal-and-replace bill will not protect people with pre-existing conditions. The Times Editorial Board notes another way in which the American Health Care Act is unacceptable: According to one estimate, those surcharges could range from $4,000 per year for asthmatics to $17,000 for women seeking maternity coverage to $143,000 for those with a history of metastatic cancer. L.A. Times California, home of the Official Resistance, played a big part in passing the GOPs healthcare bill. It behooves voters in our state to remember the House Republicans from California who voted in favor of Trumpcare (in fact, all of them did). Sacramento Bee Donald Trump is upset with Amanda Knox. He vocally supported her while she was on trial in a murder case in Italy, she voted for Hillary Clinton, and he thinks she owed him her vote. She calls this kind of reasoning undemocratic and dangerous and says that while she owes Trump her gratitude, she owes her country civic engagement, careful consideration of issues that affect my fellow citizens, and support for policies that deserve support, even if it makes the president very upset. L.A. Times Liberals say The Handmaids Tale is timely. That says a lot about liberals. Charlotte Allen dismisses the idea that a Bible-misquoting president like Donald Trump will usher in the dystopian theocracy of Margaret Atwoods 1985 novel. But liberals are right about living in a dystopia, Allen says and its one of their own making. L.A. Times Go ahead and blame UC Berkeley. Everyone else does. Joe Mathews pens a Dear Berkeley letter on behalf of all of California: You our most distinguished public university and all the people, institutions, and neighborhoods surrounding it do far more than research and educate. You serve the vital social purpose of being a convenient punching bag for angry people of all manner of ideological preoccupations. Zocalo Public Square Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.com The first response arrived in February, from Cal State Bakersfield. Its a good feeling when you open a letter and it says, Congratulations, says Noe Martinon. It was the first of many. Next, Martinon got accepted to Cal State Fullerton, and that was followed by great news from UC Irvine. Not only did he make the cut, but he was invited into the schools honors program. Advertisement Noe Martinon, 18, does his homework between two sets of bunk beds in a space that is both bedroom and living room for him and his family. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Martinon, 18, is a senior at Santee Education Complex, south of the Santa Monica freeway and downtown L.A. This is a neighborhood of people who pay rent, do the citys essential uncelebrated work and pray their children rise above the many barriers that are part of the landscape. Martinons parents went only as far as sixth grade in Mexico. Victor Martinon is a janitor at a real estate company, Irma Palma is a seamstress in a clothing factory. The family in Apartment 3 For 17 years, the family, including Noes 19-year-old sister, Giselle, has lived in a studio apartment. To reach it, you pass through a common courtyard with a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Inside Apartment 3, two sets of bunk beds stand in a space that is both bedroom and living room for parents, son and daughter. On a table between the beds is a television, but the TV is often dark because the same table is the desk where Noe and his sister, a community college student, do their homework, sometimes deep into the night. While the others sleep just a few feet from him, Noe says, his mother often stays awake until hes done. He thinks about the hours of sleep she has sacrificed in a show of support. It gave me more motivation, says Noe. Senior Noe Martinon, 18, center, discusses a project with fellow students in an AP Psychology. Martinon scored a perfect five on the AP Spanish test. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Noes work in middle school was nothing special. He wanted to go to Orthopaedic Medical Magnet School, like his sister, who wants to be a nurse. But he didnt get in. He settled on Santee, one of the Partnership schools begun by former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. One requirement is that parents become personally engaged and attend workshops on how to best support their childrens education. Noes parents were happy to comply. His father began pushing years ago, when Noe and Giselle were tykes, requiring them to read for at least 30 minutes every day. In the morning, Noe said, his father wakes up, goes across the street and buys two newspapers, and they read together at breakfast. A real bright kid On a recent evening at their home, Noes parents told me they wanted their son to pick a college that was both a good school and a good fit for him. If the school happened to be close to home, great. But their first priority was that he groom himself for a bright future. Noe wants to study government and economics and maybe become a teacher or principal. Wherever he goes to college, he said, I would come back to Los Angeles and try to give something back and help my parents. In his sophomore and junior years at Santee, Noes work at school drew notice from teachers. They encouraged him to take Advanced Placement classes calculus, literature, government, politics, psychology and he hung out with like-minded kids. His buddy Oscar Castillo said they thought of themselves as nerds or geeks, in a good way, and set high goals for themselves. I think he rubbed off on me, Castillo said of Noe. Castillo, like his pal, was accepted to UC Irvine. Connecticut College wanted Martinon, as did Williams, Hamilton, Whitman, Grinnell, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and on and on -- 17 in total. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Ive been in education 20 years, and I dont think Ive met a kid with his academic strengths when it comes to math, to writing, to world languages, said Principal Martin Gomez. Hes just a real bright kid. Noes Advanced Placement literature teacher, Joe Zeccola, said his joke about Noe was that the student didnt need the teacher. His fluency with language is that of a graduate student, said Zeccola, who showed me an essay Noe wrote on Shakespeares Henry VIII, with a closing rumination on the character Cardinal Wolsey. Shakespeare teaches us that we cannot allow pride to run amok within us because it can corrupt us and everything that is lost will be impossible to recover, wrote Noe, who told me that typically, once hes done with a draft, he spends two or three hours polishing it. Humility defines Noe, according to Jerry Olague, his Advanced Placement Spanish teacher last year. In class discussions on differences in the cultures of Latin countries, Noe modestly nurtured classmates, Olague said, displaying skills that could make him a great teacher one day. I started telling him he was capable of scoring a perfect 5 on the AP Spanish test, said Olague. Noe Martinon, 18, left, walks through the campus of Santee Education Complex in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Noe had doubts, but no lack of inspiration. Last year, of the 163,000 students in the world who took the test, only 108 got perfect scores. Noe was one of them. And the college possibilities opened wide, thanks in part to the nonprofit One Voice, which counsels low-income scholars and helps with the application and placement process. The acceptance letters flow Between February and the end of March, Noes mailbag was filled with acceptance letters and offers of grants paying up to 90% of his education from elite schools big and small. Connecticut College wanted him, as did Williams, Hamilton, Whitman, Grinnell, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and on and on. Of the 20 schools he applied to, 17 accepted him. He got into two Ivy League schools, Cornell and Dartmouth, and the latter flew him to the campus two weeks ago for a visit that was Noes first trip to the East Coast. At various times, Noe was close to choosing UCLA, then Dartmouth, then Pomona. He was nervous, excited, anxious. He agonized over the advantages and disadvantages of each, of being close to home, of being a continent away. A young man of modest means, he was awed and maybe a bit overwhelmed by his wealth of options. In the end, he liked the prestige of Dartmouth and the feel of Pomona, a first-rate school close to home, and he liked that Pomona students can take classes at the other four colleges in the Claremont consortium. But last Saturday, with a decision deadline just two days away, UC Berkeley was back in the mix. He woke up Sunday without an answer. His sister, friends and parents offered counsel. The last thing my sister said was, I know that when you make the choice, youre going to make the right one, said Noe. Making his choice On Sunday afternoon, the suspense ended. In a moment of clarity, Noe knew which school was the best fit, and he didnt hesitate. He grabbed his computer, went online, and committed. To Pomona College. His proud parents congratulated him. His sister high-fived him. Thats our version of a hug, said Noe, who was relieved, but too busy with whats left of high school to do much celebrating. I feel good, he said Thursday on the Santee campus, with graduation fast approaching and a new adventure about to begin. And after Pomona, Noe said, there will be graduate school. Hed love to go to Stanford. To read the article in Spanish, click here Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez MORE FROM STEVE LOPEZ LAXs new private terminal for the rich and famous makes flying easier, but at a steep price As L.A. riots raged, she was shot before she was even born. Now 25, she embodies survival and resolve Care to learn Spanish? Dodger broadcast legend Jaime Jarrin teaches almost nightly, and the course is free As President Trump continues to vow to come down hard on illegal immigration, supporters of immigrants find themselves at odds over how much to fight for those whose criminal history is fodder for advocates of harsher and broader crackdowns. L.A. County became an early flashpoint in the debate after officials in response to fears of mass deportations unveiled a $10-million fund to hire lawyers to defend local immigrants without legal status. Some activists believe that not only should the L.A. Justice Fund help all immigrants but that no one should be deported not even those convicted of violent crimes. Advertisement That position puts them at odds with others including Democratic politicians in California and many immigrants themselves who support deporting those convicted of violent and more grave crimes, which was a long-standing policy embraced by President Obama. Those others want to focus their efforts on preventing deportations of people who simply came to the country for a better life. I dont think theres a member of Congress Republican or Democrat who believes that if somebody commits an egregious crime, that they shouldnt be deported, said Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles), the son of Mexican immigrants. Public safety is a very important issue to all of us. L.A. Councilman Gil Cedillo, a key figure in the successful push to allow immigrants who are in the country illegally to get drivers licenses in California, said there are people who should lose the privilege of remaining in the U.S. I dont want one person taken away from their family, he said. But thats different from narco-traffickers or people who are engaged in sex trafficking. And I dont know how you would try to defend that. Cedillo argues that the Justice Fund doesnt deny anyone their due process rights. Rather, he said that because it cant subsidize the cost of legal representation for all immigrants facing deportation, leaders decided not to extend it to those who engage in universally heinous acts. For activists like Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, deportation even of convicted criminals ends up sowing chaos in places with weaker criminal justice systems such as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. And that, he said, causes more people there, including victims of crime, to flee those countries. Ive been in El Salvador and in Honduras when the planes land with deportees, Alvarado said. Its becoming the penal colony of the United States where criminal dumping is acceptable. Pinatas of President Trump get a free ride while marchers make their way up Hill Street during the May Day march in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Its a position with far more currency among activists than many of the immigrants they advocate for something evident during the May Day rally Monday that saw thousands of people march to downtown L.A. While many people carried signs demanding no more deportations, immigrants interviewed expressed reluctance to be lumped in with those convicted of serious crimes. Sitting on a grassy knoll outside City Hall, Rosa Alvarez, 66, said she had no problem with immigrants in the country illegally being deported if they had extensive or serious criminal histories. Get rid of the bad ones, I say. Deport the criminals and leave the rest of us alone, the ones who are working and dont do anything, Alvarez said. Nearby, Christian Hernandez, 25, and his mother, Lydia Hernandez, 57, said they came to the march as a way to challenge Trumps anti-immigrant rhetoric. Christian, a beneficiary of the Obama administrations immigration relief program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, said he and his mother have been in the U.S. since 1998 and have no criminal records. He said immigrants who commit violent crimes make people like him look bad and should be removed. But like many immigrants and activists, Christian Hernandez said Trump has stirred racism by broadly painting immigrants in the darkest tones. The minute he decided to say were all criminals and rapists, it was like a bucket of cold water being thrown at you, he said. For some activists, though, simply getting rid of the bad ones is more complicated than it sounds. They point out that the Trump administration has already broadened the definition of criminal and also highlight cases of immigrants being detained and deported after minor infractions or after being caught up in raids targeting others. Though crime in the U.S. is much lower than it was a generation ago when there were far fewer immigrants in the country illegally Trump has successfully rallied many supporters by focusing on immigrants who have committed violent crimes. Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, believes all deportations should be suspended until the immigration system is reformed. Were deporting people without a single penny to their name into abject poverty or homelessness, many of them back to places they havent known, she said. These people are products of our society. Jorge Gutierrez of the L.A.-based LGBTQ group Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, said there will likely be more pronounced disagreements over which immigrants to defend if the Trump administration hires thousands more Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and becomes more aggressive over whom it targets. He hasnt put the whole infrastructure together, Gutierrez said of Trump. So once he does, its going to create more deportations. And in all of that, this narrative, the tension, is going to become more visible among who is pushing to protect a few and who is pushing to protect everybody. Executive Director Angelica Salas addresses a news conference held by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles about ICE sweeps. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) For many conservatives, there is no debate: Everyone in the country illegally should eventually be deported, they say. David Ray, communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said deportations should be prioritized with criminals at the top of the list. FAIR keeps a running list of serious crimes committed by people who lack legal status. The principal of American fairness is based on the fact that nobody is above the law, Ray said. If we fail to enforce the immigration laws, then people stop respecting them. Early in his presidential campaign, Trump called for the deportation of all 11 million immigrants estimated to be in the country illegally. But he has also expressed sympathy for DACA recipients, often called Dreamers. While polls have shown that most Americans are against mass deportations, a 2016 CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 55% of Trumps strongest supporters whites without college degrees think everyone lacking legal status should be removed. Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. said he understands the ethical point that groups like the National Day Laborer Organizing Network are making. But he said removing people who commit violent or property crimes is whats best for everyone in the U.S. Part of the deal when you come to this country is youre going to abide by serious laws, he said. There needs to be serious punishment for breaking that beyond just serving time in prison. Marchers carry letters spelling out Immigration reform now while marching down Broadway during the May Day march in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The Trump administrations immigration guidelines significantly broaden the definition of who is considered a criminal, making nearly all immigrants in the U.S. illegally susceptible to deportation. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new office to help people victimized by criminal aliens. According to a Homeland Security report from 2013, there were 1.9 million removable criminal aliens, a figure that includes immigrants here illegally, those with temporary visas and legal permanent residents. The number of immigrants with criminal records who are here illegally is unclear, though the Migration Policy Institute calculated in 2015 that it was about 820,000. The think tank estimated 690,000 of those people had felony or serious misdemeanor convictions. California state Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a sanctuary state bill that would expand policies prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies from using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes. After changes to the bill, federal immigration officials would be notified when felons who have violent or serious convictions are released, and a recent amendment to the bill would require the state parole board or the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to give ICE a 60-day advance notice of the release date of inmates who have been convicted of a serious or violent felony, or those who are serving time for a nonviolent crime but have a prior conviction for violent or serious crimes. Alvarado, of the day laborer network, said he knows that deportations will continue and that his belief that criminals should not be automatically removed is hardly shared by most immigrants. But hes undeterred. As an immigrant, I love this city as much as I love the village where I come from, he said. Its racist to think that its not OK for rapists and murderers to do their actions here, but its OK to do them in El Salvador and Guatemala. Nowrasteh, of the Cato Institute, said those that hold the most hard-line positions on either side of the debate over deportations are likely to be disappointed in the end. I dont think well ever get to a point where aliens who commit serious crimes will be allowed to stay, he said, nor will we see a day where the government rounds up 12 million people and ships them out of here. Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report. andrea.castillo@latimes.com @andreamcastillo ALSO O.C. sheriff wants to expand immigration detention In a California farm town, the border is just a line that must be crossed every day Feds say they didnt deport Dreamer, but acknowledge error on his DACA status Conrad Hilton, the younger brother of socialite Paris Hilton, was arrested in Los Angeles early Saturday morning on suspicion of stealing an automobile and violating a restraining order, authorities said. Hilton, 23, was arrested after police were called to a home in the 2300 block of Jupiter Drive in the Hollywood Hills at 4:50 a.m., said LAPD Officer Jenny Houser. When officers arrived on the scene, Hilton was inside a Bentley Continental belonging to the father of the restraining order victim, authorities said. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown in lieu of $60,000 bail, said LAPD Officer Mike Lopez. Advertisement Hilton, the namesake great-grandson of the late hotel magnate, has a lengthy history of run-ins with authorities. Last June, he was arrested on the same block on Jupiter Drive on suspicion of violating a restraining order obtained by his ex-girlfriend. Officers found him inside his ex-girlfriends home. Also last year, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail for admitting to using pot, cocaine and synthetic marijuana. The month before, he turned himself in to Riverside County authorities in connection with an Aug. 23, 2014, incident in which authorities say he led an officer on a high-speed pursuit before crashing his black BMW in Cathedral City. He was also placed on probation last year after pleading guilty to attacking several flight attendants aboard a British Airways flight from London to Los Angeles in 2014. andrea.castillo@latimes.com @andreamcastillo UPDATES: 2:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the alleged crime and Conrad Hilton being suspected of auto theft. This article was originally posted at 10:55 a.m. Police in Maryland have exhumed the body of a Catholic priest who died in 2001 as part of the investigation into the unsolved slaying nearly 50 years ago of a Baltimore nun. Baltimore County announced this week that they had opened the grave of of A. Joseph Maskell to compare his DNA with crime scene evidence in the cold case of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, whose body was found in Lansdowne, Md., in 1970. Maskells body was exhumed Feb. 28 at Holy Family Cemetery in Randallstown and returned to its grave the same day, county police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said. Advertisement Cesniks case is the subject of the upcoming Netflix documentary The Keepers, a seven-part series premiering May 19. The documentary explores the theory that the 26-year-old Cesnik was killed because she knew of sexual abuse committed by Maskell. Abuse allegations emerged in the 1990s against Maskell, who had worked as a chaplain and guidance counselor at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore. The Archdiocese of Baltimore has reached settlements with at least a dozen people who said Maskell abused them. One of the women who came forward in the 1990s with allegations of abuse by the priest has implicated him in the nuns death. Maskell, who was removed from the ministry in 1994, denied allegations of abuse and also denied knowledge of Cesniks death. Armacost said there was little physical evidence remaining in the decades-old case, but detectives felt very strongly that in the interest of leaving no stone unturned, it was necessary to exhume Maskells body and compare his DNA to the evidence that is remaining. It will take up to six more weeks to get results from the DNA testing, Armacost said. She declined to specify what evidence remains from the crime scene. There has long been speculation about whether Maskell might be connected to Cesniks death. Attorney Joanne Suder, who has represented Maskells alleged victims, said at least one client told her they confided in Cesnik about abuse, and that the nun said she would tell higher-ups. I think if the various law enforcement agencies had done a proper job in the 70s, that could have avoided the necessity to do [an exhumation] in 2017, Suder said. Archdiocese of Baltimore spokesman Sean Caine said the exhumation was total news to us. We support it, especially if it helps lead them to a definitive conclusion about what happened, Caine said. The archdiocese has been completely open and transparent with everything that we know, he added. After Maskell was removed from the ministry, he went to Ireland, Caine said. Church officials here learned of his whereabouts in the summer of 1996, when the archdiocese received an inquiry from an Irish bishop asking whether Maskell was in good standing. Maskell was living in Wexford, Ireland. Archdiocese officials sent letters to Maskell instructing him not to perform any priestly duties and asking him to return to Baltimore, Caine said. In 1998, the archdiocese learned that Maskell had returned to the United States and was living at Stella Maris, a Catholic nursing facility in Timonium, Md. Since the 1990s, police have gathered the DNA of about six other people as part of the investigation into Cesniks death, Armacost said. They also have identified another suspect who is still living, she said. She did not offer details. Cesnik taught at Archbishop Keough High School and then Western High School, and lived with another nun in southwest Baltimore. She went missing in November 1969 after going to a bank to cash a paycheck and then to a shopping center, where she bought buns at a bakery. Her body was found in January 1970 in a field off. She had suffered blunt force trauma to her head. Knezevich writes for the Baltimore Sun. ALSO Former top Justice Dept. official Sally Yates to testify about Michael Flynn and Russia Puerto Rico to close 184 public schools amid economic crisis Concerns over terrorism lead TSA to issue warning to trucking companies Three teen girls working as escorts sought for murder of Mississauga man A man who stumbled into a Hamilton gas station covered in blood may have been in the company of three teenaged escorts before he was fatally injured.Police are now looking for the three 17-year-old girls.On Apr. 28 at about 2:30 a.m., Hayder Qasim-Rushdi of Mississauga pulled into a Pioneer Gas station on Upper Centennial Parkway, covered in blood from a stab wound to the neck he had sustained earlier.He was able to make contact with a passerby and dial 911.He was taken to hospital for treatment but died of his injuries on Apr. 30. A knife believed to be the murder weapon has been recovered.Qasim-Rushdi was not known to police, according to authorities. His vehicle is undergoing forensic analysis.On Tuesday, police searched a home on Hamilton Mountain. As a result of the evidence gleaned from the search, along with interviews, warrants were issued for the arrest of the three teens.Acting Det. Sgt. Dave Oleniuk said the suspects contact with the victim was based on this type of relationship.The Youth Criminal Justice Act prohibits police from naming them but police say they believe the teens are still working as escorts.Police say they have reached out to family members of the three suspects, as well as police in London and the GTA.As they are engaged in a high-risk lifestyle, their safety is also a concern, Oleniuk said in a news release.Anyone with information is asked to call Oleniuk at 905-546-3829. A top Obama administration Justice Department official will testify to Congress for the first time Monday about the most explosive contacts to emerge so far between President Trumps former top aides and senior Russian officials, the focus of several investigations on Capitol Hill. Sally Yates, deputy attorney general under President Obama, is expected to disclose details to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel about her warnings to White House officials in January that Trumps national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was fired 18 days after Yates went to the White House, and only after news stories revealed the existence of a transcript of Flynns telephone conversation with Kislyak, which was recorded as part of routine U.S. intelligence monitoring of foreign officials communications. Advertisement Yates, a former U.S. attorney who became deputy attorney general in 2015, took over the Justice Department as acting attorney general after Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20 while he prepared his own team. She was fired 10 days later after she announced that under her leadership, the Justice Department would not defend Trumps executive order seeking to bar travel to the U.S. from select Muslim-majority nations. Yates attorney did not return messages Friday seeking comment about her upcoming testimony. James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence during the Obama administration, is also scheduled to testify at the same hearing. Lawmakers from both parties are likely to press Yates for details about her warnings to the White House that Flynns misrepresentations to Pence, and to the public, about his conversations with Kislyak left him vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. The FBI director, James B. Comey, recently told a judiciary subcommittee that Yates had spoken to him about her concerns that Gen. Flynn had been compromised. Flynn and Kislyak exchanged phone calls and text messages during the White House transition, and were in touch on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration levied a range of sanctions against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 election. After leaks revealed those contacts, Flynn and other Trump administration officials, including Pence, denied that Flynn and Kislyak had discussed easing the sanctions. Doing so might violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law prohibiting private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Those denials unraveled in mid-February after news stories revealed the existence of a transcript of Flynns conversations with Kislyak, and Flynn was forced to resign. Yates was supposed to testify last month to the House Intelligence Committee, but the appearance was canceled by Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman. Nunes later recused himself from the panels Russia inquiry after the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating whether the Tulare Republican had wrongly disclosed classified information amid his claims that U.S. surveillance under Obama had deliberately targeted Trumps aides. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a parallel investigation, sent a letter to several members of Trumps former campaign team last month seeking details of their contacts and financial ties with Russian authorities. In addition to Flynn, those who received the letters are Roger Stone, an informal advisor to Trump; Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman; and Carter Page, an energy trader and former foreign policy advisor to the campaign. The FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation last July after learning of Pages business relationships in Russia and his ties to officials in President Vladimir Putins government in Moscow. The FBI inquiry has expanded to determine whether any of Trumps current or former aides improperly coordinated with Russian intelligence services to interfere with the 2016 campaign. In a letter dated April 28, the Senate committee asked Page to supply a list of all meetings between you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests from 2015 to 2017, according to a copy of the letter that Page provided to the Los Angeles Times. It asked him to provide the list and any notes he took at those meetings by Tuesday. The letter also asked Page to provide details of any meetings with Russians by other Trump associates, and their financial and real estate holdings in Russia. It set a deadline of May 19 for that information. In a return letter, Page denounced the committee request as a witch hunt. He demanded that the Senate panel give him all U.S. government documents it possessed, including classified material, about his Russian investments, meetings and other connections before he would provide any documents in return. On Friday, Sen. Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.), the committee chairman, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the panels ranking member, warned Page against backing away from his promise to cooperate in the investigation, although they stopped short of threatening specific action. If Page fails to meet the deadlines, the Committee will consider its next steps at that time, the two leaders said in a statement. ALSO McManus: Is the GOP getting serious about the Russia investigation? President Trump has backed off many of his provocative foreign policy promises Lawmakers say Flynn did not disclose lobbying and payments from Turkey and Russia As Los Angeles residents reflected on their riot-ravaged streetscape 25 years ago, a group of civic leaders geared up a ballot campaign to remake the Police Department. For a year, L.A. voters had watched replays of the sickening video images of officers beating unarmed motorist Rodney King. They had read about the group of civic leaders and thinkers who came to be known as the Christopher Commission, and its recommended reforms. They respected the commission, recognized the serious and exhaustive nature of its work, and saw the wisdom of its proposals. When it came time to vote in June 1992, Angelenos gave a resounding yes to Charter Amendment F, and in so doing, rebalanced the mix of professional and civilian oversight of the LAPD. Thats something for Los Angeles to keep in mind today, as voters wonder whether to bother with a seemingly obscure May 16 ballot measure that would sweep away a key part of the commissions reforms with no similar civic review, expertise or recommendations. Yes, voters should bother. They should say no to the insidious and deceptive Charter Amendment C, which clothes itself in the righteous language of civilian oversight but would actually undermine effective discipline of wayward police officers. Advertisement The subject matter seems trivial but is important: Should police officers accused by their superiors of misconduct continue to take their appeals to a Board of Rights staffed by two command officers and one civilian hearing officer, or should they be able, at their discretion, to choose a panel of only civilians? This question lies at the heart of a decades-long quest by the police officers union to win laxer judgment for challenged misconduct, such as improper shootings or falsified reports. The Christopher Commission called for, and voters approved, discipline panels with a single civilian and two sworn officers. The police union intently resisted civilian participation at first, but saw that its worries had been misplaced almost immediately after the reconstituted Boards of Rights began its work in 1995. Civilians were far softer on accused officers than were sworn Board of Rights members. A 1999 LAPD analysis detailed stunning examples of minority reports by civilian hearing officers who were sheepish about tough discipline. In one case in which the chief wanted to fire an officer who drew his weapon during a drunken spat at a fast-food restaurant, the civilian hearing officer voted against firing. When another officer was found guilty of exposing himself and masturbating in public an offense that easily could have required him to register as a sex offender the civilian member voted to not to fire him. Fortunately, the police command officers on these Boards of Rights upheld the firings. Liking the civilians go-easy approach, though, the union has long lobbied unsuccessfully for boards made up of all civilian members. Two city commissions studying charter reform and a high-octane commission of attorneys and civic leaders that examined the LAPD in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal rejected the idea in 1999 and 2000. With the LAPD under a federal consent decree in 2005, the court-appointed monitor complained that Boards of Rights already were too lax and that the police chief should mete out punishment against wayward officers without board interference. There was no expert panel that studied or recommended the measure on the May 16 ballot. Only the police union sought it, and it prevailed on Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council to put it on the ballot. This measure unlike some of the well-considered changes recommended by independent experts over the years isnt reform. It is a sop to the union. Voters should say no to the police unions bid to sway the discipline process. They should say no to Charter Amendment C. Some voters in districts around the city also have council or school board measures on their ballots. Our recommendations: Council District 1: GIL CEDILLO. The Times rescinded its endorsement of community activist Joe Bray-Ali after he admitted participating in racist, insensitive and offensive online conversations. That leaves incumbent Gil Cedillo, who has been an unimpressive councilman so far. Council District 7: MONICA RODRIGUEZ. Rodriguezs has worked for mayors, council members and the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education; shes practically done it all in local government. Her experience and her tenacity are needed in a district that has been underserved by past leaders. Los Angeles Unified Board of Education District 4: NICK MELVOIN. A former teacher and reform advocate, Melvoin is more willing to confront the districts serious financial problems and bring new ideas to the board than incumbent Steve Zimmer. District 6: KELLY GONEZ. Charter school teacher Gonez is well-versed in both classroom realities and big-picture policies. Shed bring a collaborative presence to the board. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: The most important thing about Oded Ravivis op-ed article is that it refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. This reference is the key to why there will never be peace in Palestine while the right-wing Likud and religious parties rule Israel. (Why opening the White House doors to Mahmoud Abbas is a losing proposition for Mideast peace, Opinion, May 3) Judea and Samaria are Old Testament names for the area now generally called the West Bank. The Old Testament says they were given by God to the Israeli people. For persons who believe in the truth of this Old Testament writing, it is sacrilege to give up Judea and Samaria as part of a peace deal. This is the reason why then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli in 1995. Ravini refers to the Israeli city of Efrat, but Efrat is not an Israeli city. Under international law, it is one of the many illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Under the 1947 United Nations partition that created Israel, the West Bank belongs to the Palestinian people, and until it is returned to them in peace negotiations, there will be no peace. Advertisement Terrence R. Dunn, Bakersfield Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: Congress has thrown working-class people under the bus this week to the cheers of wealthy interests. (The GOPs big lie: Healthcare bill protects people with preexisting conditions, May 4) The version of Trumpcare (formally titled the American Health Care Act) that just passed the House offers an estimated $600 billion in tax cuts to wealthy individuals and insurance companies by making healthcare coverage newly unaffordable to millions of low- and middle-income Americans. The rush to pass the bill before Congress own budget office calculated the impact suggests that the spin about the bill does not match what is really inside. To add insult to injury, Congress just passed and sent to the president a bill that makes it hard or impossible to implement Californias Secure Choice program to promote IRA-like savings by workers in firms that do not offer retirement benefits. This savings plan for mostly low-income workers would help increase their incomes during retirement, but it was opposed by Wall Street firms that feared it might crimp their profits. Advertisement In these two actions, and many others, the health and well-being of a large number of Americans are being sacrificed for the benefit of those with wealth and power. I dont think this is what most had in mind when they cast their votes last year. Steven P. Wallace, Culver City The writer is professor and chairman of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. .. To the editor: I am not a public person when it comes to my illness. However, extreme times demand extreme measures. I inherited biochemical depression from both sides of my family. I live a very productive, happy life because of hard fought-for healthcare and, finally, the correct medicine. Before the Affordable Care Act, this cost me nearly $200,000 in premiums, care and medication. Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act is often called, literally saved my life. I have not for one moment been resentful of the fact that I have this illness. I have, however, been desperately resentful of the American health insurance industry, which makes its billions on the backs of chronically ill Americans. In voting to repeal Obamacare, what do House Republicans have to be proud of? This was done for their own egos. May each Republican who voted to repeal the law go down in defeat in 2018. Janet Kinosian, Santa Ana .. To the editor: When I looked at Fridays headlines, I saw meanness and greed everywhere. Mostly white males who feed at the most opulent trough of government fat are celebrating depriving those who are less fortunate. They seek to deny health benefits to regular Americans, and for what? So the rich can get richer. Everything they do is for the rich. Take away public lands so private individuals and business can buy them. Deny women basic rights that allow them to have control over their lives. Deny citizens the freedom to decide for themselves how they want to treat hard-working immigrants. Deny everyone the right to a safe environment that preserves our Earth for future generations. Luke Chapter 12 says that to whom much is given, much will be required. All I see is men who have been given much doing everything they can to get even more. Its shameful. Phil Beauchamp, Chino Hills Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Sen. Kamala Harris says she hasnt considered running for president By Phil Willon U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Despite swirling speculation, Californias U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said shes not giving any consideration to running for president in 2020. Harris was appearing at the annual Code Conference hosted by the tech news site Recode in Rancho Palos Verdes on Wednesday night when site co-founder Kara Swisher asked if she had eyes on the White House. Im not giving that any consideration. Ive got to stay focused, said Harris, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate in November after serving as Californias attorney general. After she won the seat vacated by former Sen. Barbara Boxer, Harris quickly gained a reputation as a potential presidential candidate in 2020. Harris took questions from Swisher alongside Laurene Powell Jobs, a philanthropist and the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Though she brushed off the presidential rumors, Harris urged Democrats to try harder to make convincing arguments on issues such as climate change instead of just criticizing those who disagree with them. She told the audience at the posh Terranea Resort where the conference is being held that it would be a mistake to dismiss the concerns of Americans who supported Trump in the November election. She said the issues that concern them good jobs and the future of their families are the concerns of all working-class Americans. There is a healthy number of people in our country who are feeling displaced, rightly, Harris said. I think we have to deal with that. Still, Harris dished out plenty of jabs at the Trump administration. She criticized Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions for resuscitating the war on drugs and told him to leave Grandmas medical marijuana alone. Harris also criticized the Trump administrations more hard-line immigration policies, and said she was concerned about allegations of collusion between Trumps campaign and the Russian government. These are serious times. These are not issues we can just sit around with a glass of Chardonnay debating and philosophizing about, Harris said. The decisions that are being made right now are impacting real human beings. Watch the entire interview: Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump wouldnt release his tax returns, so lawmakers move to make it mandatory for Californias primary By John Myers (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Legislation to require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to gain a spot on Californias presidential primary ballot won passage in the state Senate on Wednesday, but only after a tense debate that largely centered on President Trump. Senate Bill 149 was approved on a strict party-line vote, 27-13. The bill now moves to the state Assembly, and was one of the last bills debated during a marathon session at the state Capitol to consider bills before a Friday deadline for action. The bill would require presidential candidates to file copies of their income tax returns with state elections officials for the five most recent taxable years. Failure to do so would mean their name wouldnt appear on Californias presidential primary ballot. The legislation was introduced in December, in the wake of Trumps refusal to disclose his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. The president has continued to reject calls for the information. Hes shaping international policy which could enrich himself, and the American public has no way to know, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said of Trump during Wednesday nights floor debate. This legislation will help make transparency great again. Republicans denounced the bill as another in a long line of efforts by Democrats in the Legislature to lash out at the election of Trump and the defeat of Hillary Clinton. I get it that some people hate Trump, state Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) said. Weve got to move ahead. Weve got to get over it. Tensions flared after Anderson tried to amend the bill on the floor first, to require statewide and legislative candidates to also release their tax returns, and then to require a birth certificate from candidates who want access to the states primary ballot. Both were rejected by Democrats. A legislative analysis of SB 149 said some legal scholars believe the plan, which would be the first of its kind in the nation, would pass muster with the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, the analysis concluded that it would probably be challenged in court if signed into law. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Senate moves forward with bill that would overhaul Los Angeles County MTA By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) proposed to revamp the Los Angeles County MTA. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The state Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would expand and reshape the agency that oversees mass transit in Los Angeles County. Opponents of the measure include Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the city and county of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The bill by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) was sent to the Assembly for consideration after squeaking by with a 22-11 vote in the Senate. The measure would expand the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board from 12 to 15 members. It would also reduce the number of county supervisors on the board from five to two, remove the appointment of two public members and increase Los Angeles City Council member appointments by the mayor from two to five. This will allow for proportional and fair representation, Mendoza told his colleagues, adding that the board currently is made up of haves and have-nots fighting to get their share. Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) opposed the measure because he said he saw it as Sacramento meddling in local policymaking. But Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Palmdale) supported SB 268. Too much power is concentrated in too few people, he said of the current board. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Single-payer healthcare is popular with Californians unless it raises their taxes By John Myers (Rich Pedoncelli / Associated Press) Almost two of every three Californians in a new statewide poll said they like the idea of a single-payer, government healthcare system, but far fewer support the idea if it includes a tax increase. The poll released Wednesday night by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 65% of adults surveyed support the creation of a single-payer state healthcare program to cover all of the states residents, and 56% of likely voters approved of the idea. Opinion was sharply divided between Democrats (75% support) and Republicans (66% oppose) who were surveyed. The single-payer proposal under consideration in the state Capitol, Senate Bill 562, assumes at least $50 billion in new taxes to fund the healthcare system. Asked about taxes, support drops to 42% of the adults surveyed and 43% of likely voters. While a majority of Democrats in the PPIC poll continued to support the idea if it means more taxes, support drops substantially among unaffiliated independent voters. The state Senate is expected to consider the single-payer bill before the end of the week. A legislative analysis put the estimated total cost of a new healthcare system that covers all Californians at $400 billion, while an analysis released on Wednesday by supporters provided a $331-billion estimate. The pending legislation by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) does not identify what taxes would be raised but makes the enactment of the plan contingent on a full funding proposal. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Knowingly exposing others to HIV should no longer be a felony, state Senate says By Patrick McGreevy The Senate voted to no longer make it a felony for HIV-positive people to donate blood or semen without telling the blood bank they are infected. ( (Toby Talbot / Associated Press)) The state Senate on Wednesday voted to no longer make it a felony for someone infected with HIV to knowingly expose others to the disease by having unprotected sex without telling his or her partner about the infection. The crime would be downgraded to a misdemeanor, and the bill would also apply to people who donate blood or semen without telling the blood or semen bank that they have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, or have tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the precursor to AIDS. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, was introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who said it is unfair to make HIV/AIDS the only communicable disease given such harsh treatment by prosecutors. These laws are irrational and discriminatory, Wiener told the Senate, adding that the current felony status is creating an incentive not to be tested, because if you dont know your status you cant be guilty of a felony. The measure was widely opposed by Republican lawmakers including Sen. Joel Anderson of San Diego. If you intentionally transmit something that is fundamentally life-threatening to the victim, you should be charged and go to jail, he said. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta) said, My friends, its not a gay issue. Its a public health issue. We shouldnt allow someone to play Russian roulette with other peoples lives. Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a physician, voted for the bill and argued that it undermines public health to imprison those with HIV under the current law. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Hillary Clinton: I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win By Seema Mehta Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that she has no plans to run for office again, but she plans to remain involved in civic life, particularly helping the Democrats efforts to regain control of the House in 2018. Im not going anywhere, Clinton said at the annual Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes. I have a big stake in what happens in this country. I am very unbowed and unbroken about what happened because I dont want it to happen to anybody else. I dont want it to happen to the values and the institutions I care about in America. And I think were at a really pivotal point, she said. And therefore Im going to keep writing and keep talking and keep supporting people who are on the front lines of the resistance. The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said she woke up on election day expecting to win. Clinton told the gathering that she was responsible for every decision the campaign made, though she did not believe they caused her surprise loss. She attributed that to several things, including alleged Russian interference in the election and weaponizing stolen information and fake news. She also pointed a finger at the Democrats for falling behind the GOP in using technology and data to target voters, the media for covering her e-mail controversy like it was Pearl Harbor, misogyny and the high expectations many had for her candidacy. I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win, she said, adding that she always expected the race to be close. Trump responded on Twitter, saying that Clinton still refused to accept that she lost because she was a terrible candidate. Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2017 Clinton, who has increasingly jabbed President Trump, including at last weeks commencement address at Wellesley College, blasted his reported plan to pull out of the Paris climate accord as really stupid because of the economic implications. She described his personality as impulsive and reactive. And she joked about his peculiar overnight tweet about constant negative press covfefe, saying she thought it was a hidden message to the Russians to laughter from the audience. Going forward, Clinton said that she believes that it was realistic for Democrats to retake the House in 2018, notably by focusing on Republican congressional districts she won including seven in California. She sounded less optimistic about the Senate. Updated at 6:06 p.m.: This post was updated to add President Trumps response to Clintons remarks. This post was first published at 5:41 p.m. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California lawmakers take aim again at establishing statewide rules for drones By Jazmine Ulloa A state senator from Santa Barbara is taking another shot at establishing statewide regulations for the use of drones after the budding industry thwarted her efforts to pass similar legislation last year. Senate Bill 347, introduced by Democratic Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, would limit disruptive drone use near private property and prohibit the weaponization and reckless operation of the unmanned aerial vehicles. It also would require pilots to obtain insurance and to license, register and mark the aircrafts per federal regulations. The bill moved out of the Senate on Wednesday with a 26-13 vote. It heads to the Assembly for consideration. Speaking on the Senate floor, Jackson urged support for what she called comprehensive drone legislation, saying California needs common-sense rules that provide certainty for everyone and keep the public safe. Washington is not going to be acting on this issue very soon, she said, citing a federal appeals court decision that this month found the Federal Aviation Administration doesnt have the authority to regulate the use of drones by hobbyists. Debate has raged in recent years over just where federal authority begins and ends. And Jacksons attempts at drone legislation last year were blocked amid opposition from lobbyists who argued against creating a patchwork of laws that varied by state. Under Jacksons new proposal, violations would be punishable by a fine of up to $250 or a misdemeanor, and the California Department of Transportation would be tasked with developing liability insurance requirements. It has the support of the California State Assn. of Counties, the League of California Cities and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Assn, but it once again faces tough industry opposition. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print School districts would be prohibited from shaming students whose parents havent paid for school lunches By Patrick McGreevy Students eat lunch at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles. (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times) Students whose parents have not kept their school lunch bills current would no longer go through shaming that includes marking their hand so they cannot be served, under legislation approved Wednesday by the state Senate. The measure by Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) would require school districts to ensure that any student whose parent has unpaid school meal fees is not treated differently, or delayed or denied a nutritiously adequate meal. Hertzberg introduced the legislation after hearing of school districts taking lunch trays from students whose accounts were not current and throwing the food in the trash, embarrassing the students in front of their friends. No more shaming, Herzberg told his colleagues. Dont visit the failures of the parents on their kids. The measure passed on a 39-0 vote and was sent to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Emilio Huerta, undaunted by 2016 loss, is back to challenge Rep. David Valadao By Sarah D. Wire (Sarah D. Wire / Los Angeles Times) Bakersfield lawyer Emilio Huerta came more than 13 percentage points short of winning Californias 21st Congressional District seat in 2016, but he plans to try again in 2018. Huerta, 59, blames his loss to Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) on inexperience and a rash of negative ads at the end of the campaign. We learned a lot in the last campaign. As a first-time candidate there was certainly a lot to learn and I think we did a good job, Huerta said Wednesday. The son of labor icon Dolores Huerta, he has worked for the United Farm Workers union which his mother co-founded throughout the Central Valley district. Huerta said Valadaos vote for the Republican healthcare plan shows hes ignoring Valley residents needs because it would end the expansion of the MediCal program, which many of the districts residents use for healthcare. Its going to be a pretty significant issue, he said. He is the first Democrat to announce a bid for the seat. Democrats are heartened by the fact that, while Valadao won the seat with 56.74% of the vote, the district has continued to trend Democratic in voter registration and chose Hillary Clinton for president with 54.72% of the vote. That tells me that there were die-hard Democrats, committed Democrats that vote, Democrats that were not convinced that my campaign should be supported and I think a lot of that has to do with me being a first-time candidate, Huerta said. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made the seat a target for 2018. The majority-Latino district includes parts of Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats say Trump is going backwards if he pulls out of Paris climate pact By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown warned Wednesday that a decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from a 2015 global climate change agreement could be tragic, and vowed to keep Californias ambitious efforts in place and on track. Here we are, in 2017, going backwards, Brown said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. It cannot stand, its not right and California will do everything it can to not only stay the course, but to build more support in other states, in other provinces, in other countries. The governor also criticized efforts to the president to dismantle climate change initiatives launched by former President Barack Obama. Trump is going against science. Hes going against reality, the governor said. We cant stand by and give aid and comfort to that. News that the president had either made the decision to pull the country out of the Paris Accord on climate change or was on the verge of doing so drew swift condemnation from California leaders. Brown and other top lawmakers attended the talks in late 2015 that resulted in the international agreement, and insisted on Wednesday that it would not hurt the states own efforts to sharply curtail greenhouse gas emissions. As with so many other matters, from human rights to healthcare, the Trump administration has continued to surrender our nations longstanding role as a global leader, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said. Others pointed out that a decision to remove the United States from the agreement would leave it in rare company among other nations. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that such a decision by Trump would be more than just dumb + destructive. Brown, who leaves Friday for a weeklong visit to China to encourage more climate-change cooperation, predicted any decision to step away would suggest the countrys priorities arent clear. It sends a very muddled message, the governor said during an interview in his state Capitol office. Is the message [that] we like dirty cars and gas guzzlers? And were going to have a coal future? That cant happen. And Brown again suggested that Californias experience on the issue offers a road map for others. If we want to retain and enhance manufacturing, we have to do what California is doing, in clean energy and clean technology, he said. Thats the future of jobs, the future of sustainability. And we better get on board. And California will be right there with the best of them. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print This Orange County congressmans immigration town hall turned chaotic and led to three arrests By Sarah D. Wire The majority of calls into Rep. Lou Correas Orange County congressional office are about immigration worries and what the Trump administrations enforcement policies mean for Correas many Latino constituents. Theres a lot of fear in my district, he said. So the freshman Democrat has held seven town halls, all focused on immigration and explaining immigrants rights. Theyve been peaceful, with representatives from groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the Mexican Consulate invited to help Correa answer questions. But as the crowd of about 100 people gathered at Santa Anas Delhi Center on Tuesday evening, Correa knew this time would be different. We had some people there, probably a dozen of them, that immediately had signs that were not complimentary to yours truly, he said. Two women arguing about immigration issues had already gotten into an altercation outside the town hall. They were cited for assault and battery, and barred by police from going inside. Correa told the crowd inside he would give a short presentation about immigration policy coming out of Washington and then have a question-and-answer session. About a dozen people were having none of it. Some of the most tense moments came when Correa started talking about green card holders who served in the U.S. military and have since been deported. Maam, Im trying to be courteous here, he said as a woman kept speaking over him. As soon as I started speaking, it became very clear they were not going to let me speak, Correa said Wednesday. They just got louder and louder. Video of the town hall posted on social media shows people in the crowd yelling Americans first and Illegals have no rights. Correa repeatedly asks them to let him speak. Are you guys going to cooperate, or am I going to have to ask you to leave? he said. About 15 minutes in, as some in the crowd continued to shout and their attention turned to berating a group of counter-protesters, Correa declared the meeting over. A handful of people circled around Correa as he tried to leave, yelling Shame, shame and You guys all want welfare. One womans voice can be heard repeatedly yelling Coward! Police emptied the room amid chants of USA. The crowd streamed into the parking lot, where confrontations quickly started between supporters of President Trump and others who appeared to be focused on Native American rights. Videos posted on social media show men shouting at one another, their faces so close their noses are practically touching. Police officers kept trying to separate the groups. (Warning: The video below includes language that some readers might find offensive.) Santa Ana Police Department spokesman Anthony Bertagna said a man struck a Trump supporter on the head with a pole bearing an anti-fascism flag. He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Bertagna said. The man was brought to police headquarters, and a group of about 10 people followed along to protest, he said. Shortly after, the town hall peacefully resumed in a different room with a much smaller crowd, Correa said. Several California members of Congress have held similar immigration-specific town halls or workshops in the last few months as questions swirl about changes to federal immigration policies and enforcement. The purpose of the town halls is to let people know how to follow the law, let them know their legal rights and responsibilities, Correa said. Protesters have characterized it as teaching people who are in the country illegally how to avoid deportation and get federal benefits. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California plan for 100% renewable energy by 2045 clears key hurdle By Liam Dillon California will receive all of its power from renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, by 2045 under legislation that passed the state Senate on Wednesday. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) touted his bill, Senate Bill 100, as the most ambitious program in the world. Clean energy is the future, De Leon said. SB 100 ensures that California leads into the future. The measure would also speed up the states goal of reaching 50% renewable energy, changing the deadline from 2030 to 2026. SB 100 passed over objections from Republican senators. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Temecula) criticized the measure as government getting ahead of technological capacity. What if we cant make that mandate that were putting into law today? Stone said. What its going to do is drive up electricity bills for our businesses. De Leons bill now moves to the Assembly. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print A new proposal on Californias cap-and-trade program emerges as vote is delayed By Chris Megerian Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced), left. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A coalition of business-friendly Democrats is detailing their own ideas for cap and trade, a centerpiece of Californias fight against global warming, the latest bid in a crowded field of efforts to extend the program. Cap and trade requires polluting companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions, and lawmakers have been considering a push from Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the program beyond 2020. The new plan would force the program to sunset in 2025, earlier than previous proposals from other lawmakers. It would also direct revenue from the program toward improving air quality and helping agricultural and trucking companies lower their emissions by replacing aging equipment. The plan is also aimed at keeping costs down for industries regulated by cap and trade, allowing them to support green projects known as offsets instead of reducing their own emissions. California must continue to lead the world by implementing a strong climate policy that ensures both a healthy environment for future Californians and growth in all sectors of our economy, Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) said in a statement. The pro-business Democrats plan is the fourth such effort announced by various factions within the states ruling Democratic Party this year with two others emerging from the Assembly and one from the Senate. The plans offer varying degrees of changes to the existing program, either to prioritize pollution reductions in disadvantaged communities or eliminate offsets. Republican lawmakers also have said they want to be part of the cap-and-trade debate. Brown has pushed for a two-thirds supermajority vote of the Legislature to extend the program by the state budget deadline next month. But Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said at a Wednesday news conference that that wasnt going to happen. Cap-and-trade is a very complex issue, De Leon said. Its very arcane. We want to make sure we get it right. De Leon said he hoped for a deal by the end of the year. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Senate fails to back bill to delay the Aliso Canyon reopening, but lawmaker will try again Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California state Senate advances bill to ban smoking and use of e-cigarettes in government housing By Patrick McGreevy Californians would no longer be able to use tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, in public housing and within 25 of those buildings under a measure approved Tuesday by the state Assembly. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) said the measure builds on a smoking ban approved last year for federal public housing projects by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition to applying the smoking ban to state housing, expansion to include e-cigarettes makes sure the law cover new technology in tobacco use. The bill takes effect by July 30, 2018. Wood said tobacco-related diseases cost taxpayers significant funds each year. This bill will save money but will more importantly save lives, Wood told his colleagues before the vote. The measure is opposed by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which worries it will lead to more evictions. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californians would not be able to buy more than one rifle a month under bill approved by state senators By Patrick McGreevy Terry McGuire, owner of Get Loaded in Grand Terrace, shows a customer a Cobalt Kinetics BAMF rifle about a week after the 2015 shooting rampage in nearby San Bernardino. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times) Californians would be prohibited from buying more than one firearm in any 30-day period under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate to reduce straw purchasing and circumvention of gun laws. California already bars people from buying more than one handgun a month. The bill by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) expands the limit to also cover long guns, including rifles and shotguns. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, seeks to address concerns that some people buy large quantities of guns and then sell them on the underground market to criminals and others not eligible to own guns. There is no need or reason why a person would need to purchase more than one gun a month, Portantino said during the floor debate. Republicans, including Jeff Stone of Murrieta, opposed the legislation. This is yet another example of the government trying to infringe on the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, Stone said. Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Chico) said he has seen no proof that past gun-control measures approved by the state have made the state safer. Its more of the same that will not decrease violent crime, Nielsen said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California state senators want to stop the public from smoking at California beaches and parks By Patrick McGreevy Californians would be barred from smoking or using electronic cigarettes in state parks and at beaches under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Concord) said his bill would address the health problems caused by smoking but also the harm done to the environment by discarded cigarette butts and the fire danger posed by the practice. Cigarette butts contain more than 150 toxic chemicals and although small in size, have a huge negative impact on the environment and the animals that live in them, Glazer told his colleagues. A legislative analysis said the bill does not address the concerns raised by Gov. Jerry Brown when he vetoed a similar bill last year. The veto message read, in part, The complete prohibition in all parks and beaches is too broad. A more measured and less punitive approach might be warranted. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement School day wouldnt begin before 8:30 a.m. in California under bill that clears the state Senate By John Myers (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) California teenagers wouldnt be required to start their school day before 8:30 am under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. The legislation by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) would not fully take effect until 2020, and sparked a lively floor debate over the science on the sleep patterns of middle and high school students, and whether they simply need to go to bed earlier. I expect this would only dispose them to stay up later, said state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Another Republican lawmaker, Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield), said students need to learn what its like in the workforce. Job preparation is what schooling is all about, Fuller said. Unless youre a musician or someone who works nights, you probably did not start in the later morning. Opponents also said the later start time could affect collective bargaining agreements with teachers and other school employees. Supporters, however, pointed to a recommendation for later start times from the American Academy of Pediatrics. A University of Minnesota study linked school start times to sleep deprivation and the rate of car crashes among teenage drivers. The morning sleep time is the most valuable for student health, said Portantino. Their test scores go up, their attendance goes up, their graduation rates go up. The bill would allow rural school districts to obtain a waiver if they couldnt make the change. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) ended the debate with a simple request of the senators on behalf of teenage students. "Lets just let them sleep in a little bit, he said with a smile. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print More transparency proposed for prescription drug price increases under bill passed by California Senate By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), shown speaking in March, won Senate approval Tuesday on a bill that would require more transparency on drug prices. (Melanie Mason / Los Angeles Times) Alarmed by skyrocketing prices for some prescription drugs, the California Senate on Tuesday approved a measure aimed at increasing pressure to hold down costs to consumers by requiring more public reporting of price hikes. The lawmakers approved a bill that would require drug manufacturers to notify health plans and state purchasers such as the prison department of increases in the wholesale cost of drugs in writing at least 90 days before the new costs were to take effect. The measure also requires that health plans and insurers notify state regulators of pricing information for the most costly drugs. Were not saying that they cant raise the price. Were just saying notify us, Hernandez said during the floor debate. And if [the price] goes up a significant amount, we should be able to question why. The measure passed by a 26-10 vote with some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Gaines of El Dorado Hills, opposed. Gaines said the pharmaceutical industrys pricing of drugs helps it pay for development of new medications. It funds their research, Gaines said during the debate. The measure next goes to the Assembly, where a similar bill last year failed to win passage. Hernandez said more opponents are talking to him this year about possible compromises, although the bill is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Hernandez said the bill is needed, adding that current regulations allow pharmaceutical companies to reap obscene profits at the expense of the entire healthcare system. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Senate advances bill to make pot use in cars an infraction By Patrick McGreevy San Bruno police officers stop cars at a DUI checkpoint. State officials are proposing to make it an infraction to use marijuana in motor vehicles. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Just months after state voters legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the state Senate on Tuesday voted to prohibit its use in automobiles because of concerns over drugged driving. A bill by Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) makes it an infraction for drivers and passengers to use marijuana in motor vehicles. Stiffer penalties already exist for motorists found to be driving while impaired by drugs. California voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in November although the state does not plan to begin issuing licenses for its legal sale until January. In Washington state, which previously legalized pot, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that the number of drivers who had recently used marijuana before fatal accidents doubled from 2013 to 2014, Hill told his colleagues. Washington serves as an eye-opening case study for what other states may experience with road safety after legalizing the drug, Hill told his colleagues before the unanimous vote to approve the measure and send it to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California lawmakers want to give parents at smaller companies 12 weeks of protected family leave By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California lawmakers are once again seeking to expand the states paid family leave program to smaller businesses after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar measure last year. SB 63, authored by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), on Tuesday moved out of the state Senate with a 25-13 vote. It now heads to the Assembly for consideration. The legislation, a priority bill for the California Legislative Womens Caucus, would allow parents at companies with 20 to 49 employees to take 12 weeks of leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child without fear of losing their jobs. Under the current state law, only workers at businesses with 50 or more workers can take advantage of program. On the Senate floor Tuesday, the debate on the issue echoed that of last year. Republican lawmakers argued the bill would kill jobs and hurt small businesses already struggling in California. Those in favor argued progressive family leave policies attracted a strong and healthy workforce. Jackson said her bill would impact only 6.3% of California companies, while helping 16% of its workforce, a population of 2.7 million residents across the state. With so many women in the workforce than ever before, and with so many struggling, two-income families, this is a critical moment in time, she said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Kimberly Ellis files formal challenge over result of state Democratic Party chairperson election By Seema Mehta (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) The candidate who narrowly lost the race to be the next leader of the California Democratic Party on Tuesday filed a formal challenge of the election result. Kimberly Ellis campaign, which was already in the process of reviewing the ballots cast during the state partys convention two weekends ago, said they were filing the challenge to meet a requirement in the party bylaws that such an action must be taken within seven days of the contested act. Our review process is ongoing. Its critical that all formal processes outlined by the CDPs bylaws are followed at this time so that there can be no concern about raising issues in the manner prescribed by our party, said Hilary Crosby, immediate past controller for the state party and an Ellis supporter. Ellis campaign said challenges were also being filed in races for a vice chair, secretary and multiple regional directors. Chris Masami Myers, state party executive director, acknowledged receiving the challenges and said in a statement that they would be reviewed in accordance with the standard practices described in the bylaws. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members who were appointed during former Chairman John Burtons tenure, will review the evidence and take oral or written testimony before issuing a ruling in mid- to late June. The state party chair race was the most heated and contentious. Longtime party leader Eric Bauman entered the race with advantages, but Ellis made the contest competitive. In the election, held this month at the state party convention in Sacramento, Bauman beat Ellis by just over 60 votes. But amid allegations levied by her supporters of ballot-box stuffing and ripped-up ballots, she refused to concede the race. Her campaign has been reviewing individual ballots for a week. Bauman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Updated at 4:57 p.m.: This post was updated to add additional information about how the review will be conducted. Updated at 3:35 p.m.: This post was updated to add a comment from a state party official. This post was originally published at 2:37 p.m. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Darrell Issa gets on his office roof to take a picture of protesters. A mild hubbub ensues By Sarah D. Wire Yes, this is really @DarrellIssa on the roof of his district office building. Too afraid to come speak with assembled constituents below. pic.twitter.com/wCYRjO8Ev8 Mike Levin (@MikeLevinCA) May 30, 2017 It began when one of Rep. Darrell Issas 2018 opponents, Mike Levin, posted an image on Twitter, saying the Vista congressman was hiding on his office roof from hundreds of protesters on the street below. The photo of Issa standing on the roof ricocheted around Twitter, with many comparing it to a scene from the popular television show The Office, and left-leaning media outlets quickly publishing headlines like Darrell Issa Appears to Flee to Building Roof to Avoid Protesters. Like most things, what happened at Issas office appears to have been a bit more nuanced. Issa soon tweeted that he had spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic!. Multiple images, including one from Levins account and from Issas account, show the congressman on the street with protesters. Spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic! pic.twitter.com/K2CFdenOIj Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 30, 2017 I just received an unprompted call from @DarrellIssa who said he tried, unsuccessfully to speak with protesters outside his district office. Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 .@DarrellIssa said the protesters wouldnt' speak with him, so he went up to the roof and took pictures. Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 The protests occur weekly outside Issas Vista district office, and the congressman has come out to speak with the group at least twice since President Trumps inauguration. Issa narrowly won reelection in 2016 over a novice opponent, and Democrats are targeting his seat in 2018. Issas staff said he tried to speak with all the protesters using their sound system, but was rebuffed. Rally organizer Ellen Montanari said she decided not to hand over the protesters microphone so Issa could take questions from the crowd because he refused to shake her hand before the protest began. He refused to do that, and he said, Step away, you are a protester. And I said I am a constituent, Montanari said. She said he also made disparaging remarks about the protesters and the signs they carry. Issas spokesman, Calvin Moore, said Montanari cant simultaneously organize people to stand outside our office with Where is Darrell? signs and feign outrage how he wont answer her questions and then deny him the ability to answer his constituents questions, he said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print State Senate Democrats pass bills designed to protect against Trumps possible changes Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rep. Adam Schiff says alleged Russian meddling in election was an effort to destroy American democracy By Seema Mehta U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, left, discusses Russias threat to liberal democracies around the world at discussion discussion hosted by Erwin Chemerinsky at UCI. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said Tuesday that the alleged Russian meddling in last years presidential election was about far more than favoring one candidate over another. He said it was an effort to undermine the foundation of American democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian regime in Moscow. Now if you look at this as just a one-off intervention, you might be inclined to dismiss the greater significance of it, or if you listen to the president, you might be inclined to dismiss this as simply efforts to relitigate a lost election, Schiff told several hundred people at UC Irvine. But the significance is really far greater. Quite separate and apart from the desire of the Russians to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton was a more fundamental objective, and that was really to tear down at our democracy. Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating allegations of Russian intervention in the presidential election, including the leaking of hacked Democratic emails and contacts between Trump associates and Russians. Trump has declared the investigation the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history on Twitter. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the former chairman of the committee, recently told hundreds of Republicans at a fundraiser that the investigation is about nothing more than Democrats trying to justify Clintons loss. Nunes stepped down from his position after allegations arose that he mishandled classified information. Schiff said Russian President Vladimir Putin would have reasons for wanting to see Clinton fail and Trump succeed he believed that the CIA and Clinton were secretly behind mass demonstrations in Russia in 2011, and because Trumps positions on issues such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were more favorable to Russia than Clintons. But Schiff argued the larger point was sowing discord in the U.S., so Putin could argue that American democracy is no better than his government. Talk of rigged elections and surveillance, questioning the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the press as Trump has done boost Putins message, Schiff said. And the efforts are not limited to the United States, he added, pointing to allegations that the Russians made an effort to interfere in Frances recent election. The reality is there is new ideological struggle. Its not communism versus capitalism anymore. It is authoritarian versus democracy, he said. This is the broader challenge we are facing. Schiff also warned that there is no way to prevent Russian cyber-spying and that future attempts to interfere with American elections will only be more sophisticated, so voters must be educated. One of the most important conclusions the intelligence agencies have reached is the Russians will do this again, he said. The only real defense is to inoculate ourselves, to educate ourselves about what the Russians have done, why they are doing [it and] what they may do in the future and somehow we have to develop a consensus regardless of which party it helps and which party it hurts that we will reject it. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Rep. Devin Nunes: Democrats are using Russia investigation to justify Clintons loss By Sarah D. Wire (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA) House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told hundreds of local Republicans at a recent private fundraiser that congressional investigations into Russias interference in the 2016 election are about Democrats trying to justify Hillary Clintons loss. The Democrats dont want an investigation on Russia. They want an independent commission. Why do they want an independent commission? Because they want to continue the narrative that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are best friends, and thats the reason that he won, because Hillary Clinton would have never lost on her own; it had to be someone elses fault, Nunes told Republicans the day after he stepped away from leading the House investigation. His remarks were recorded on video and provided to The Times. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias embattled tax board would lose power over staff and funding under lawmakers plan By John Myers Following months of accusations about mistakes and improper use of power by its elected members, the state Board of Equalization could lose substantial power and gain an independent overseer under legislation introduced in the state Assembly. The bill by Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) would shift much of the power over staff and spending authority away from the independent tax board and create a new inspector general to watch over its actions. What were trying to do is make sure that the reform is transparent, Ridley-Thomas said. Thats what I think the moment demands. The plan, introduced as an amended bill just before the Memorial Day holiday, comes in the wake of audits alleging the tax agency made multimillion dollar miscalculations on revenue allocations and that some of its elected members improperly used staff members who were supposed to be focused on tax collection. Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown called the situation a mess and in April asked for an investigation by the state Department of Justice. Four members of the Board of Equalization are directly elected by voters. The fifth, state Controller Betty Yee, serves in an ex officio capacity. The Assembly bill would transfer significant staff decisions to the agencys executive director and would require the Board of Equalizations members to have their operations funded in detailed line items included in the state budget. It would also create an inspector general office and would require the boards members to disclose all ex parte communications with those seeking action by the agency. I think that these issues can be addressed if we keep them in the sunlight, said Ridley-Thomas. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print New advertising campaign targets lawmakers over votes for climate change policies By Chris Megerian A coalition of California businesses launched a new advertising campaign on Saturday to pressure lawmakers against enacting tighter policies on climate change and air pollution. The campaign includes online videos and television advertising that warn of higher costs for business and residents. It arrives as Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are debating whether to extend the cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, and how restrictive the system should be. The first lawmaker being targeted is Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova), accusing him of allowing unelected state employees to raise hidden taxes on gasoline and electricity because he voted last year for a tougher target to reduce emissions by 2030. Other lawmakers could face similar advertisements. Were locked, loaded and ready to go statewide, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which is funding the campaign through an advocacy group called Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy. The roundtable represents the states largest corporations, including oil refineries and manufacturers who have been critical of climate policies. A dollar figure was not disclosed for the advertising campaign, which will represent a balancing act for the roundtable. It supports the cap-and-trade program as an alternative to more restrictive regulations, but it opposes some of the current proposals to extend it. One measure would tie the program to air quality, targeting a wider range of pollutants than just greenhouse gases, and another would make it function more like a tax and charge higher prices for emission permits. Were at a tipping point here, Lapsley said. We need to get this information out into the public in order to try and create balanced policies. Although polls show broad support for fighting global warming in California, concerns about higher costs for constituents could be influential with some lawmakers who recently passed legislation to raise gas taxes to fund road repairs. Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) is facing a recall campaign over his vote. Nonpartisan legislative analysts have said cap and trade could boost the price of gasoline by 24 cents to 73 cents by 2030. Environmentalists have said its inaccurate to tie any single policy to fluctuations in gas prices. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Politics Podcast: The debate among Democrats didnt end at their convention By John Myers The official gathering of California Democrats lasted only three days, but the lingering debate and simmering tensions could keep going well into next years elections. On this weeks California Politics Podcast episode, we look back at the line in the sand drawn at last weeks California Democratic Party convention by some of the partys most passionate progressive activists -- including the blunt speech delivered by an influential labor union leader last weekend. We also discuss big new developments this week on the topic that energized those Democratic activists: a single-payer healthcare system for California. On Monday, a fiscal analysis put a large price tag on legislation to enact that sweeping healthcare change. Im joined this week by Times staff writer Melanie Mason. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California lawmakers quietly refuse to stop unlimited cash flowing from political parties to their campaigns By John Myers (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) An ambitious effort to close a widely used loophole that allows large donations from political parties to be funneled into California races was rejected on Friday. The bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) would have made political party money donated to statewide and legislative candidates subject to the same contribution limits as individuals. Under the language of a voter-approved initiative, Proposition 34, money from political parties is exempt from those existing limits. Its a money-laundering scheme that has completely duped voters, Levine said last fall when he first promised to introduce the bill. The proposal was quietly killed, without a formal vote, by the Assembly Appropriations Committee during its biannual session to act on bills placed on the so-called suspense file due to their estimated costs. Committee staff estimated that Levines AB 1234 would have six-figure costs both for enforcement and for placing the issue before voters in 2018. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Veteran Democratic operative criticizes Kimberly Ellis for refusing to concede party chair race By Seema Mehta Supporters of Kimberly Ellis make signs, refusing to accept her loss to Eric Bauman for the California Democratic chair post. (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Veteran Democratic operative Bob Mulholland slammed infighting among California Democrats, and urged Kimberly Ellis, who came up short in a nasty party chair election, to work to unify the party. I and others did not understand some of your supporters attacks on those of us who have spent decades or years building the Democrats in California as the most successful political Party in the country, he wrote in an open letter to Ellis on Thursday. He sent the email in the aftermath of the partys rancorous convention last weekend that featured a bitter leadership battle between Ellis, a favorite of newer members including the backers of Bernie Sanders failed presidential bid, and longtime party leader Eric Bauman. After Bauman was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin of just over 60 votes, Ellis refused to concede and demanded an audit of the vote as some of her backers floated rumors of ballot-box stuffing and discarded ballots. Ellis demurred when asked about Mulhollands scathing letter. While our review continues, we are refraining from making any statement that might cause further division, Ellis said. If we hope to truly unify this party, it will require patience by all. Officials with the Ellis campaign have been reviewing ballots this week. A spokesman said they had looked at about two-thirds by the end of Friday and hope to be done by the middle of next week. Joe Macaluso, Ellis strategist, declined to discuss the results and said her team needed to review additional documentation beyond the ballots. Were trying to stay true to our process and not release anything, but were in it, he said. Its an extensive process. Mulholland argued in his public letter that the convention should have showcased the partys message, not intraparty spats. Our annual Conventions should take care of internal business (Platforms, election of Officers, Resolutions, etc.), but more importantly a communication to voters, especially moderate Democrats and Independents about their concerns and issues, Mulholland wrote. If such busy people had a minute to read some news about our Convention, they saw Democrats yelling and arguing about ballots being stuffed, sounding like a Trump event. This Convention failed them. Mulholland listed the partys successes in the state, including Democrats lopsided voter registration edge, its nearly three-decade record of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, its election of female senators since 1992 and its hold of every statewide office, supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature and nearly three-quarters of the congressional delegation. Over the last 29 years, thats a [1.000] batting record, he wrote. Mulholland called on Ellis to hold a news conference with Bauman once she is satisfied with her audit of the vote. Then, he wrote, lets move on. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California lawmakers block proposals meant to make it easier to track and report hate crimes By Jazmine Ulloa Graffiti mars the steeple on the Greater Holy Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Compton in January. Cases of vandalism make up close to one-third of reported hate crimes, according to a new report. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) California lawmakers Friday stalled measures meant to help report and track hate crimes across the state, proposals filed amid a wave of incidents reported after the 2016 presidential election. The state Assembly Appropriations Committee shelved bills that would have created new hate-crime reporting requirements for police and a hotline under the attorney generals office for victims wishing to report an attack. Of those bills, a proposal filed by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) initially sought to develop a state government database with the names of felons convicted of hate crimes related to race, religion and sexual orientation. That proposal was amended to instead require every law enforcement agency to forward a summary of a reported hate crime, upon conclusion of an investigation, to the human relations commission within its jurisdiction. But a committee analysis found it could cost the state more than $150,000 to help agencies redact personal information from their records. The committee also shut down bills that would have required police to update policies to address hate crimes and include a checkbox on the front pages of reports that would prominently provide an option to indicate whether a crime was bias-related. Local law enforcement officials have reported a recent rise in reported hate crime incidents. Existing state laws require local and state law enforcement officials to compile hate crime information. California jurisdictions reported a 10.4% statewide increase in those incidents last year. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Here were the top six moments from last nights L.A. congressional race debate By Christine Mai-Duc Robert Lee Ahn, left, and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred in a debate Thursday night ahead of the runoff for the 34th Congressional District seat. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times) Attorney Robert Lee Ahn and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred Thursday night at the first and only debate in the runoff race for the 34th Congressional District seat. The candidates, both Democrats, offered little in the way of policy differences. Both agreed President Trump has racist tendencies, that keeping the Affordable Care Act is a top priority, and that they would fight to protect immigrants rights. Ahn came out swinging, repeatedly calling Gomez an insider whos sponsored by special interests, while Gomez pointed to his work supporting progressive policies in the Legislature and endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. Here are the top six exchanges: The numbers problem: Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side. Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side. Gomez fact-checks Ahns name-check: Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me. Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me. Getting more personal: In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream. In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream. Ahn on the attack: Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents. Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents. A litmus test: Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo. Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo. Gomez gets skewered on gas tax: As part of his argument that he has fought for the little guy, Ahn expressed outrage that Californias gas taxes will increase July 1, saying theres nothing progressive about the gas tax hike Gomez voted for. We already paid 38 cents per gallon. Where is that money going? Ahn said, echoing a line many legislative Republicans have used. Sacramento politicians, this is what they do, they take our money and they spend it and theres no accountability. Gomez responded by saying public safety was at stake and that fixing roads was the responsible thing to do. If you missed it, you can watch the entire thing here. The election is set for June 6. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rob Reiner, Hollywood bigwigs and Netflix co-founder team up to give Villaraigosas campaign a major cash boost By Seema Mehta (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Hollywood heavyweights are set to host a major fundraiser for Antonio Villaraigosas gubernatorial campaign on June 15, ensuring an infusion of large contributions shortly before a key fundraising deadline. Donors are being asked to contribute up to $29,200 to attend a summer reception at the home of media executive Peter Chernin and his wife Megan, the site of a celebrity-studded fundraiser for President Obama in 2013. Co-hosts include Paramount Pictures chief Jim Gianopulos, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, video game honcho Robert Kotick, comedian George Lopez, Sony chief Michael Lynton, NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer, producer Rob Reiner, super-agent Rick Rosen, producer Orly Adelson, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos, former White House decorator Michael Smith and attorney Michael Tuchin. Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, entered the governors race in November. Through the end of 2016, he raised $2.7 million, a respectable haul in a short time period when Democratic donors were reeling from the presidential election and distracted by the holidays. But his fundraising lags behind that of his top rivals, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang. So political observers will be scrutinizing his next financial disclosure report, which will cover the first six months of 2017. The fundraiser occurs 15 days before the fundraising period closes on June 30. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print A delay on cap-and-trade vote would be a victory for Donald Trump, Gov. Jerry Browns office says By Chris Megerian (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Despite hesitance and resistance from state lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown is refusing to budge from his goal of reaching a deal next month to extend Californias cap-and-trade program. The latest tug-of-war on the issue came this week in an email exchange circulated among Capitol staff members and advocates working on climate change policies. Kip Lipper, an environmental advisor for Senate leadership, wrote in a Thursday email that there were no plans to take up a cap and trade reauthorization bill anytime soon. Echoing concerns that have percolated among lawmakers, Lipper said senators were gas tax weary about the possibility of another difficult vote after deciding to raise gas taxes to pay for road repairs earlier this year. The cap-and-trade program, which is a cornerstone of Californias fight against global warming, requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions and could boost the price of gasoline. With votes hard to come by, Lipper wrote, the issue should not be rushed. Camille Wagner, Browns legislative secretary, responded on Friday saying there was no reason to delay. Weve all been meeting for months on this issue, she wrote. We know the areas of agreement and disagreement now is the time to work through those. She added that NOTHING is more important than getting a deal as soon as possible. This is not a time for retreat or a time to give aid and comfort to Donald Trump by undermining a pillar of Californias bold program to arrest climate change, Wagner wrote. If Californias Cap and Trade falls because we fail to act, climate denial wins. Brown had already faced resistance to his push to reach a deal on cap and trade in June, when the state budget is due. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) previously said we dont have to extend it this year. The disagreement over the timeline for reaching a deal is only one of the disputes surrounding cap and trade. Assembly leaders have raised the possibility of pushing legislation with only a majority vote, an idea the governors office rejected. Brown wants a two-thirds vote to insulate cap and trade from legal challenges. There are also varied ideas about how the program should function in the future. Assembly legislation would modify cap and trade so it also targets local pollution, rather than just greenhouse gases. Senate legislation would make the program function more like a carbon tax. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement The effort to make tampons tax free in California has been delayed until 2018 By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Legislation to eliminate California sales taxes on the purchase of tampons was delayed Friday by the Assemblys fiscal committee until 2018, a blow to advocates who say the tax is an unfair burden on low-income women and families. The delay imposed on AB 9 is the second setback this month for efforts to eliminate taxes on products for women and children. A separate bill that included a tax-free provision for diapers was killed in a legislative committee on May 8. The bill that was held back on Friday, written by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), would have excluded tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products from sales taxes. A legislative committee analysis estimated the proposal would reduce state general fund revenues by $10.5 million a year. Dozens of other bills with a cost to state government were killed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, while AB 9 was instead reclassified as a two-year bill, meaning it is eligible to be heard again in the second year of the legislative session. Gov. Jerry Brown last year rejected a similar measure that sought to make tampons tax-free, writing in his veto message that tax breaks are the same as new spending they both cost the general fund money. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Outside money spills into L.A. congressional race as election day nears By Christine Mai-Duc Spending by outside groups hoping to influence Los Angeles congressional race is picking up, with less than two weeks to go before the runoff for the 34th Congressional District. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez and attorney Robert Lee Ahn, both Democrats, are competing to fill the former seat of Xavier Becerra in the June 6 election. Becerra stepped down months ago to become the states attorney general. Spending separate from the candidates campaigns is reaching into the six-figure range, with most of the outside money going to support Gomez, the heavy favorite of establishment Democrats. One group funded primarily by an Ahn donor, Citizens for a Better Government, has spent $40,264 on data, printing and postage for mailers, and $8,000 on treasury services to support Ahns bid. The Latino Victory Fund, which has endorsed Gomez, recently spent $29,640 on direct mail and $30,000 on phone banking and voter canvassing for the candidate. Billboard company Outfront Media LLC has spent $1,973 on billboards for him. Also backing Gomez is a group called Middle Class Values PAC. The group spent $19,653 on mailers supporting Gomez despite not having reported receiving any major contributions so far this year. The groups biggest donors last year were a handful of Nevada casino owners and developers, but most of that money appears to have been spent on Democrats running for Congress in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Outside spending in the 34th Congressional District race has been dwarfed by candidate spending. As of March 31, Gomez had spent $446,455 and Ahn had dropped about $767,315 on his run. New campaign finance figures from both candidates are due at midnight Friday. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Gov. Jerry Browns budget team drops its hotly debated plans to redefine the states spending limit By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) With questions mounting about the legal justification for omitting some $22 billion in expenses from Californias long-standing spending cap, Gov. Jerry Browns administration dropped the plan Thursday while promising to work on the issue again later this year. Browns advisors told the Assembly Budget Committee that this could include some changes in state law to clarify the rules surrounding whats known as the Gann limit, a cap on state spending growth imposed by voters in 1979. The cap has rarely come into play in state budgeting in recent years, as it was loosened by a subsequent ballot measure in 1990. The governors administration said it continues to worry about how the law interacts with other mandates related to school funding. School financing has changed significantly since the limit was first established in 1979, said H.D. Palmer, Browns budget spokesman. Because of that, we continue to believe we need statutory clarifications related to these school funding changes. Legislative analysts warned lawmakers in April that the governor may have been overestimating how much room for spending was left under the cap, a dispute that continued for weeks while lawmakers began drafting plans for formal budget negotiations next month. Earlier this week, state senators again raised concerns about the complex estimates used to determine how much spending the Gann law would allow in the budget year that begins July 1. And they provided an analysis by the Legislatures lawyers that suggested Browns proposal could be unconstitutional. The spending limit is enforced over two fiscal years, which means Brown and lawmakers have time to reconcile different estimates. But absent changes similar to those advocated by the governor, a portion of future tax revenues would have to be split between schools and rebates to taxpayers. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California Senate, Assembly advance their own plans on how to spend tobacco tax revenue By Melanie Mason (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Perhaps the biggest budget skirmish that remains unsolved this year is how California should spend revenue from the tobacco tax voters approved last fall. Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put that money to expand overall spending on Medi-Cal, which provides subsidized healthcare for the poor. But the some of initiatives backers, namely doctor and dental groups, have cried foul, arguing that money is meant to go to increasing payments for providers. Now, the Senate and Assembly are weighing in. In plans approved in their respective budget committees this week, both houses stray from Browns proposal to put the money toward general Medi-Cal costs and lay out their own ideas on how to divvy up the revenue. But while both houses reject Browns approach, there are key differences between their proposals. Most significantly, the Assembly would allocate all $1.1 billion in projected tax revenue in the next budget year. The Senate, meanwhile, would spend just under $350 million next year, gradually ramping up spending to $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2020-21. Both houses also would increase provider payments, but in different ways. The Assembly would put around $857 million toward once-yearly incentive payments to physicians and dentists that would be tied to their Medi-Cal and Denti-Cal caseloads. The Senate proposed putting $150 million next year to physician rate increases that would be targeted for those working in high-need areas and specialties. That number would increase in successive years, topping out at $700 million by 2020. The Senate also would put $130 million toward higher rates for dentists. The California Medical Assn., which has been pushing for higher reimbursement rates, praised both houses for including the higher rates, but group spokeswoman Joanne Adams noted that the current Legislature cannot tie the hands of a future governor or Legislature, indicating a preference toward the Assembly approach. Each house would allocate $50 million for reimbursement rates for family planning providers, a priority of Planned Parenthood. And both houses put money toward expanding Medi-Cal to cover young adults up to age 26 who are in the country illegally. The proposal builds on Californias policy of making children without legal status younger than 19 eligible for Medi-Cal, which went into effect last year. Anthony Wright, of the advocacy group Health Access, noted that by expanding coverage for those up to age 26, it would align with Obamacares policy of letting children stay on their parents health insurance until that age. This is a concrete and tangible way to show we are actually taking steps forward in expanding coverage, Wright said. The Brown administration estimates that around 130,000 people would be eligible for Medi-Cal under such a proposal, and such an expansion would cost the state just under $230 million. The Senate proposal would put around $63 million toward that expansion in the upcoming budget year and around $85 million in subsequent years. The Assembly would put $54 million toward the plan. The Brown administration did not take a position on the Medi-Cal expansion proposal, but H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Browns Department of Finance, noted that the Senate was using higher revenue projections than Browns plan, which allows legislators to propose more funding. Palmer said the administration was sticking with its original proposal to use tobacco tax dollars for general Medi-Cal spending. The budgets proposal for Prop. 56 will provide increased funding for healthcare programs and services in a way thats consistent with the measure that voters approved last fall, Palmer said. ------------ FOR THE RECORD May 25, 2017, 4:58 p.m.: A previous version of this article reported that both houses were using higher revenue projections than Gov. Browns budget proposal. The Senate is using higher projections; the Assembly is using the same estimates as the Brown administration. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California chief justice says she stands by her decision to speak out against Trumps immigration actions By Jazmine Ulloa California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Thursday said she stands by her position that courthouses should be areas where immigration arrests should not occur. Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who rose through the judicial ranks as an appointee of Republican governors, drew national attention in March after she blasted the federal governments expanded immigration actions, among which she said included stalking immigrants at courthouses. Speaking at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon on Thursday, she said the Supreme Court chambers fielded an outpouring of calls and letters after her comments. Some were profane and angry, from residents living outside the state. Others came from supporters. At Sac Press Club luncheon, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye said she fielded lots of anger, support after courthouse enforcement remarks. pic.twitter.com/6OBrZOfI45 Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) May 25, 2017 Many said that as a judge, she should not wade into politics. U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly admonished her in a letter, spurring California state leaders to respond in defense of state policies. On Thursday, Cantil-Sakauye stood by her decision to denounce the actions, saying, If I couldnt speak out as chief justice, I dont know who could. Courthouses in California have numerous programs to encourage people to come forward and ask questions, seek services and mediate issues, Cantil-Sakauye said. If we have a segment [of the population] that is afraid to come, then we are looking at no access to justice, [and] potentially public safety issues, which is antithetical to what the justice system exists for, she said. To me, it is a safe zone, and I ask that courthouses be placed on par with school districts and hospitals and churches. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rep. Darrell Issa says the federal employee insurance program should be expanded to all Americans By Sarah D. Wire Though it wasnt included in the House Republicans healthcare bill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) still believes Americans should have access to the same insurance plans federal employees pick from, and hes hoping the Senate will embrace the idea. In a letter Thursday, Issa asked the Senate Health Care Working Group to consider opening the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to more, or all, Americans. Its a national insurance idea thats persisted since the program began in 1960, and a proposal Issa has pitched before. The program allows more than 8 million current and retired federal employees across the country to shop among hundreds of health insurance plans and then apply their employer contribution to whatever plan they choose. Private insurance companies have pulled out of several state insurance marketplaces, where people whose employers dont offer insurance can purchase insurance using a federal subsidy. That leaves people with fewer health insurance choices, a common complaint cited by Republicans as a reason to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Its choice. If the government can maximize choice to you and then subsidize where appropriate based on need, then weve met the two bases for government involvement, Issa said. Issa voted for the American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to roll back much of Obamacare that passed May 4 without Democratic support, but he stresses that he did so just to keep momentum. One of the reasons I voted for this in the House was to keep the process alive so we could do reform, Issa said. Leveraging business models that work is the goal that somebody like me wants to do. Find out what works and invest in it, find out what doesnt work and fix it or abandon it. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office said the bill as passed by the House would cause 23 million fewer people to have health insurance by 2026. The budget office, which Congress relies on to analyze the complex legislation, projected that many additional consumers would see skimpier health coverage and higher deductibles. The Senate has essentially said it will write its own version of the bill. Issas letter to his Senate colleagues also urges members to protect people with preexisting conditions, safeguard coverage for people with mental illnesses and protect people near retirement age from a spike in their premiums. Theres still more to be done. This bill is going to be about compromise, and a down payment on change, Issa said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Senate President Kevin de Leon is busy raising campaign funds but for what office? By Phil Willon Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) stirred up speculation about a possible run for governor or U.S. Senate when he released a slickly produced video just before the California Democratic Partys convention last weekend, but he has remained coy about his future political plans. That doesnt mean he isnt padding his campaign war chest, though. De Leon has two fundraisers lined up in Los Angeles in June, presumably for his 2018 campaign for California lieutenant governor. The question is whether De Leon actually will run for lieutenant governor. In the past, he has said he hasnt made a decision. He has also given his supporters the go-ahead to endorse state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), a longtime political ally, in the race. De Leons campaign account for lieutenant governor had $1.7 million in the bank at the end of last year. He raised close to a half-million this year, according to state political financial disclosure reports. The first fundraiser in June is being hosted by veteran Hollywood executive Peter Guber and his wife, Tara, in Bel Air on June 8, with suggested contributions ranging from $500 to $2,500. The second is in late June at the Palm in Los Angeles. The fundraiser is hosted by Craig Darian, CEO of the Occidental Entertainment Group, and his wife, Kimberly, as well as Albert Sweet, the founder of the company. The suggested donations are the same as for the earlier fundraiser. De Leon made history in 2014 when he was selected by his colleagues as the first Latino to lead the California Senate. The tenure has been marked by significant action on climate change, immigration and gun control. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Volkswagens clean car plan falls short in low-income neighborhoods, California regulators say By Chris Megerian (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press) State regulators have asked Volkswagen to revise its plan to invest in zero emission technology in California, a victory for critics who said the automaker wasnt doing enough in disadvantaged communities. The investment plan, which will total $800 million over 10 years, is part of Volkswagens obligation under a multi-billion settlement for evading pollution rules. California, which is struggling to get enough zero emission vehicles on the road to meet its goals, is eager to move forward, wrote Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey in a Wednesday letter to Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary. However, Corey wrote, we need more information on how the company will meet its target of spending 35% of its investment in disadvantaged communities, a target set by state regulators in hopes of broadening the adoption of electric vehicles. Corey also asked Electrify America to consider supporting hydrogen fueling stations, rather than just electric chargers. Once the company submits an updated version of its plan, state regulators will consider whether to approve it. Electrify America said it is reviewing the letter. Dean Florez, a member of the Air Resources Board, said the original investment plan had significant holes and included no real investment in disadvantaged communities. He praised the decision to request revisions and said the board should hold VWs feet to the fire. This story has been updated with additional comments. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Lawmakers scrap effort to make it easier to pass local transportation taxes By John Myers An effort to boost the chances of local ballot measures raising taxes for transportation needs was quietly killed Thursday in the state Capitol. The proposal, which would have ultimately required changing the California Constitution through a statewide vote, was in response to the high hurdle set decades ago for local taxes earmarked for specific projects. Those kinds of taxes in cities and counties require two-thirds of the vote. The constitutional amendment by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would have lowered the vote threshold to 55% of ballots cast for any transportation proposal. Wiener argued the long list of local transportation projects lacking funds wont completely be erased by the $52-billion transportation plan signed into law last month. And he pointed specifically to examples like a transportation tax plan in the Bay Area last year that garnered 62% of the vote still slightly shy of the two-thirds mandate. While the effort can be brought back before lawmakers adjourn the current session in the summer of 2018, Thursdays action represented a major setback for transportation groups and labor unions that supported it. The measure was opposed by business and anti-tax advocates. Wiener said he intends to re-introduce the measure in the coming weeks. We must improve and expand transportation throughout our state, which has suffered from decades of underfunding, he said in a written statement. Update 1:29 p.m. This story was modified with additional information regarding constitutional amendments and the legislative process. Update 4:10 p.m. This story was updated with comment from Sen. Wiener. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Sex offenders will not be banned without exception from school grounds after state bill is shelved By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Connie M. Leyva, right. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The state Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday shelved a bill that would have banned all registered sex offenders from school campuses without exception. Senate Bill 26 by Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) would have made it a misdemeanor for a registered sex offender to enter any school building or grounds without lawful business. State laws keep registered sex offenders from living near schools. But those who have not been convicted of having sex with a minor under age 16 can visit or volunteer with groups or organizations that work with children if they give proper notice, and are granted permission. They cannot work directly with children. The committee advanced another bill by Leyva that would extend benefits under the Safe at Home initiative to former victims of forced prostitution or labor. Senate Bill 597, introduced with Secretary of State Alex Padilla, passed with a unanimous 7-0 vote. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Measure to help California students refinance private loans is shelved By Melanie Mason State Treasurer John Chiang, a candidate for governor, is behind a new effort to help people with student debt refinance their loans. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A measure to help Californians saddled with student debt refinance their student loans was shelved in a key fiscal committee on Thursday. The measure by state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) was touted as a way for the state to coax private lenders to offer more favorable interest. The proposal would have carried a $25-million price tag. We will continue to push for sensible solutions to the student loan crisis that provide real relief to the millions of Californians saddled with too much debt, Allen said in a statement. State Treasurer John Chiang, a 2018 gubernatorial candidate, had championed the bill, SB 674, as a way to try to get [Californians] out of debt as quickly as possible. College graduation is supposed to be synonymous with opportunity and prosperity and not a detour into a modern-day debtors prison, Chiang said in a statement. Although I am disappointed SB 674 will not be moving forward, I will continue to use my position as the states banker to invest in Californias young people and its future with innovative solutions that will make it more financially feasible to obtain a higher education, he added. 3:58 p.m.: This article was updated to add comments from Sen. Benjamin Allen and Treasurer John Chiang. This article was originally published at 11:17 a.m. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Where bills go to die: Lawmakers begin clearing the suspense file with hundreds of measures in limbo By John Myers (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) From a sales tax exemption on tampons to healthcare rules and marijuana regulation, a massive stack of proposed laws faces a major deadline Friday morning at the state Capitol. To survive, they must clear whats known as the suspense file -- the place where bills that would cost taxpayers money are held in legislative limbo. By law, bills with a fiscal impact must be sent to the floor of the Assembly and Senate by the close of business on Friday. That means its decision time for more than 800 pieces of legislation. The Senates fiscal committee will decide the fate of bills on Thursday; the Assembly will do so on Friday. Bills are generally sent to the suspense file if their projected cost to the state is $150,000 or more. The procedural move was widely used during Californias deficit years as a way for lawmakers to weigh the pros and cons of proposals in light of limited resources. But government watchdog groups have long pointed out that the clearing of the suspense file ends up hiding some of the legislative sausage-making from public view. Thats because bills that dont clear Fridays hurdle are essentially killed without a recorded vote. And neither chamber offers any explanation for why those bills were killed. Decisions on the fate of the suspense file are made in private, hours or days before the public hearing. In the Assembly, the appropriations committee chairperson will simply tell the public that a decision has been made to hold the bill. In the Senate committee, killed legislation wont even be mentioned during Thursdays hearing. That means that no one will know for sure whether a bill is really killed because of its price tag or its politics. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Formal apology sought after U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters was cut off during state convention speech By Jazmine Ulloa (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) In my 20 years as a Democratic Party leader, I have never experienced such the type of behavior as I did at the Sacramento Convention hall on Saturday evening. Darren Parker, longtime chairman of the African American Caucus The California Democratic Party African American Caucus is asking the state party for a formal apology to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and its members for what it called disrespect by a private subcontractor at its weekend state convention. Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat known for her comments on President Trump, had been speaking at a caucus meeting during the event Saturday night when the sound to her microphone was cut off. SEE THE VIDEO OF WATERS SPEECH> Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California sees a rebound in cap-and-trade auction, bolstering key climate change program By Chris Megerian (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) State regulators announced strong results from Californias cap-and-trade program on Wednesday, spurring analysts and supporters to say the system remains solid despite questions about its political future. The program requires oil refineries, food processors, power plants and other facilities to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly all of the permits offered by the state in its latest auction were purchased, generating an estimated $500 million in revenue. Thats a shift from other recent auctions, where most of the permits went unsold, reducing revenue that state leaders have counted on for Boy Scouts: Top leaders didnt call Trump to praise speech as the president said By Associated Press The Boy Scouts denied Wednesday that the head of the youth organization called President Donald Trump to praise his recent politically aggressive speech to its national jamboree. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Wednesday, I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. Politico published the transcript of the interview. We are unaware of any such call, the Boy Scouts responded in a statement. It specified that neither of the organizations two top leaders President Randall Stephenson and Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh had placed such a call. The White House had no immediate response to the Boy Scouts denial. Surbaugh apologized last week to members of the scouting community who were offended by the political rhetoric in Trumps July 24 speech in West Virginia. Other U.S. presidents have delivered nonpolitical speeches at past jamborees. To the dismay of many parents and former scouts, Trump promoted his political agenda and derided his rivals, inducing some of the scouts in attendance to boo at the mention of former President Obama. I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree, Surbaugh said. That was never our intent. Surbaugh noted that every sitting president since 1937 has been invited to visit the jamboree. Stephenson told the Associated Press two days after the speech that Boy Scout leaders anticipated Trump would spark controversy with politically tinged remarks, yet felt obliged to invite him out of respect for his office. Hoping to minimize friction, the Boy Scouts issued guidelines to adult staff members for how the audience should react to the speech. Any type of political chanting was specifically discouraged. Stephenson, who did not attend Trumps speech, said the guidance wasnt followed impeccably. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Mayor of London again calls on Trump to cancel state visit By Christina Boyle (AFP/Getty Images) The mayor of London has reiterated his calls for President Trumps state visit to Britain to be canceled in the wake of the citys terrorist incident, saying his policies go against everything we stand for. The war of words between the two leaders intensified further Monday evening after Trump criticized Mayor Sadiq Khans response to the London Bridge terrorist attack in two tweets, and the mayor said Trump should not be welcomed in the capital. Since Saturday Ive been working with the police, with the emergency services, with the government and others to deal with the horrific attack on Saturday, Khan said Monday evening. I just havent got the time to deal with tweets from Donald Trump. But when pressed on whether he thinks a state visit for later this year should go ahead as planned, Khan was unequivocal. My position remains the same. I dont think we should be rolling out the carpet to the president of the United States in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for, Khan told Channel 4 news. When you have a special relationship, it is no different to when you have a close mate: You stand with them in times of adversity, but you call them out when theyre wrong. And there are many things about which Donald Trump is wrong. Trump initially criticized Khan hours after the London attack posting on Twitter: At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is no reason to be alarmed! Khans office soon pointed out that the president had, in fact, misquoted Khan, who actually said that Londoners should not be alarmed by the increased armed police presence on the streets. Trump took to Twitter again on Monday to slam the London mayor once more. Pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. MSM [Mainstream media] is working hard to sell it! the president wrote. This is not the first time Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital city, has called for Trumps state visit to be banned. He previously branded Trumps policies on immigration and proposed travel ban on people entering the U.S. from predominantly Muslim countries cruel. An online government petition calling for the invitation to be withdrawn also gathered more than 1.8 million votes. The visit was first announced during Prime Minister Theresa Mays trip to Washington, where she became the first foreign leader to meet the newly-inaugurated president. State visits are personal invites from the British monarch and involve a significant amount of pomp and ceremony, and usually a state banquet. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print He helped bring down President Nixon. He thinks President Trump is even worse. By Mark Z. Barabak (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) John Dean is a connoisseur of coverups, a savant of scandal, so he can more than imagine what its like inside the Trump White House right now. Its a nightmare, he said, presiding in a high-backed leather wing chair off the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Not just for those in the headlines political strategist Steve Bannon, jack-of-many-duties Jared Kushner but for their unsung assistants and secretaries as well. They dont know what their jeopardy is. They dont know what theyre looking at. They dont know if theyre a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. They dont know whether to hire lawyers or not, how theyre going to pay for them if they do, Dean said in a crisp law-counsel cadence. Its an unpleasant place. Dean was a central figure in Watergate, the 1970s political scandal against which all others are measured, serving at the tender age of 32 as President Nixons White House attorney. In that capacity Dean worked to thwart investigators after the clumsy break-in at Democratic Party headquarters, then flipped and helped sink Nixon by revealing the presidents involvement in the coverup. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Two decades ago, Washington state Republicans repealed and replaced a healthcare overhaul there. It didnt end well By Noam N. Levey Republicans in the state of Washington didnt wait long in the spring of 1995 to fulfill their pledge to roll back a sweeping law expanding health coverage in the state. Coming off historic electoral gains, the GOP legislators scrapped much of the law while pledging to make health insurance affordable and to free state residents from onerous government mandates. It didnt work out that way: The repeal left the states insurance market in shambles, sent premiums skyrocketing and drove health insurers from the state. It took nearly five years to repair the damage. Two decades later, the ill-fated experiment, largely relegated to academic journals, offers a caution to lawmakers at the national level as Republicans in the U.S. Senate race to write a bill to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act. Its much easier to break something, said Pam MacEwan, who led a Washington state commission charged with implementing the law in the mid-1990s and now oversees the state insurance market there. Its more difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And thats when people get hurt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office echoed that warning last week, when it concluded that the healthcare bill passed by the House last month would destabilize insurance markets in a sixth of the country and nearly double the number of people without health insurance over the next decade. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Companies accelerate hiring, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs, ADP says By Jim Puzzanghera A now hiring sign is seen in Baton Rouge, La., on May 5. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Companies accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs in a sign the labor market remains healthy and the economy is strengthening after a weak winter. The private-sector job creation figures reported Thursday by payroll firm Automatic Data Processing far exceeded analyst expectations and was well above the downwardly revised 174,000 net new positions added in April. Job growth is rip-roaring, declared Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing its report. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print All jokes aside, Trumps covfefe tweet sparks questions too By Brian Bennett President Trump sparked a global kerfuffle over covfefe with his bizarrely truncated tweet just minutes into Wednesday, spawning countless jokes across Twitter but also more serious questions for which the White House gave no answers. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, during an unusually short 11-minute briefing in which he insisted he not be on camera, declined to give any explanation for Trumps tweet posted just after midnight. Nor would he translate what the president was trying to say in the garbled message that broke off midsentence. But Spicer told reporters that the public should not be concerned that the president sent what the questioner called somewhat of an incoherent tweet. The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant, Spicer said. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Biden launches new PAC, keeping the 2020 door open By David Lauter (Steven Senne / Associated Press) Former Vice President Joe Biden is launching a new political action committee, a platform that will allow him to provide help to favored candidates and, inevitably, boost speculation about a possible run for the Democratic nomination in 2020. The organization, which Biden is calling American Possibilities, will be staffed by a former top political aide to the vice president, Greg Schultz, who is also a veteran of President Obamas reelection campaign. The PAC will allow Biden to raise money that he can use to travel the country, contribute to candidates in governors races this year and congressional and state races in 2018 and generally do the sorts of things that aspiring politicians do to keep their names in the headlines. All that cant help but nurture questions about whether Biden, 74, will try yet again to attain the office he first started running for in 1987. In public appearances, which have taken him to electorally important states, and interviews since the 2016 election, Biden has been sharply critical of the Trump administration, but has also pointed to flaws in his own party. In one interview, he pointed to a bit of elitism thats crept in to the partys approach to working-class voters. At the same time, he has given carefully ambiguous answers when asked about his plans. At a conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, he responded to the question about a presidential run by saying: Could I? Yes. Would I? Probably not. In the announcement for the new group, Biden said that the negativity, the pettiness, the small-mindedness of our politics drives me crazy. Its not who we are. Its time for big dreams and American possibilities, he said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement U.S., regions foreign ministers debate Venezuela By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The United States and foreign ministers from across the hemisphere met in Washington on Wednesday to attempt to force Venezuelas leftist government and its angry opposition into talks. Hunger and violence have pushed Venezuela to the brink of humanitarian disaster, diplomats say. But Wednesdays meeting of the Organization of American States faced unlikely prospects for success: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not trust the organization and has said his nation will withdraw its membership. Some OAS nations, including several U.S. allies in the Caribbean, have criticized the regional bodys efforts as intervention promoted by Washington. But U.S. officials are hoping the sheer weight of the crisis will unite the region to put pressure on Venezuela. Theres more and more concern about what were seeing, and so more and more countries have gotten over their reluctance to question or go against the wishes of the Venezuelan government, a senior State Department official said in a briefing for reporters. Its really hard to stand by and do nothing in the face of the kinds of institutional steps weve seen in Venezuela, and the increasing humanitarian suffering, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with frequent administration practice. Although the OAS periodically brings its members foreign ministers together, this is the first time a meeting has been convened to deal with a single topic, U.S. officials said. At the conclusion of Wednesdays session, diplomats said they had discussed two resolutions. One, promoted by Caribbean nations, called on Venezuela to reconsider withdrawing from the OAS. A second more pointed resolution authored by the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Panama and Peru urged the Maduro administration not to go ahead with a constituent assembly that would rewrite the Venezuelan constitution. Many fear it would dissolve the few democratic institutions that remain and favor the ruling Socialist Party. Separately, the Venezuela opposition, emboldened by a string of increasingly massive street demonstrations, sharply criticized Wall Street for extending what it called a lifeline to the Maduro government. At issue is the purchase by Goldman Sachs of Venezuelan government bonds for a reported $865 million, a major discount for paper originally worth $2.8 billion. Goldman Sachs confirmed the purchase of the bonds, issued in 2014 by the state oil company PDVSA, after it was reported in the Wall Street Journal. We are invested in PDVSA bonds because, like many in the asset management industry, we believe the situation in the country must improve over time, Goldman said in a statement. The firm added that it made the purchase through a secondary dealer to avoid direct interaction with the Venezuelan government. That distinction meant nothing to the Venezuelan opposition, which accused Goldman of making a buck off the suffering of the Venezuelan people. The Trump administration previously has targeted the Maduro government, slapping economic sanctions on its vice president and pro-Maduro Supreme Court justices. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former FBI director spoke with new special counsel and is cleared to testify before Senate panel By Joseph Tanfani The special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign has cleared former FBI Director James Comey to testify before a congressional committee about his contacts with President Trump, according to an associate close to Comey. Comey met with Robert S. Mueller III, whom the Justice Department appointed on May 17 to investigate any Russian ties to the Trump campaign, and Mueller said he had no problems with Comeys testifying, the associate said. Trump abruptly fired Comey as head of the FBI on May 9. The president later said in an interview on NBC News that he was concerned about the FBI investigation into what he called the Russia thing. Comey reportedly wrote internal memos after his meetings with Trump. In one, he wrote that the president had requested he ease up on the FBI probe of Michael Flynn, who served as Trumps national security advisor until he was ousted in February for lying about his contacts with Russian officials. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced on May 19 that Comey had agreed to testify after the Memorial Day holiday. The hearing has not been scheduled. The FBI separately declined a request from the House Oversight Committee to turn over Comeys memos. The bureau said it would need to consult with Mueller before making any decisions. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman, said in response that he would not push the matter. The focus of the committees investigation is the independence of the FBI and the events leading to Comeys firing, he wrote. In a separate development, a senior Justice Department lawyer with experience in complex financial fraud investigations has agreed to join Muellers investigation. Andrew Weissman has led the fraud section at Justice, where he oversaw probes into corporate wrongdoing at Volkswagen and Takata. Weissman also is a veteran of the FBI. Weissman is the highest-ranking Justice Department official to join the special counsel office being set up a few blocks from the main Justice building in downtown Washington. Mueller also hired two colleagues from the WilmerHale law firm, where he worked, and brought on a former Justice Department spokesman, Peter Carr, to handle media inquiries. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Analysis: In President Trumps wake, divisions mark both Democratic and Republican parties By Cathleen Decker Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez address a crowd at the California party convention in May. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Six months after President Trump breached long-standing political boundaries to win the White House, the nations major political parties still muddle in his wake. On the sun-swept lawn of the Hotel del Coronado two weeks ago, national Republican leaders sipped cocktails and listened to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, one of the partys brightest lights in the most populous state, praise a brand of moderate Republicanism that looks nothing like the versions coming out of Washington either the populism of the president or the more orthodox conservatism of congressional leaders. A week later, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez talked in a Sacramento interview of the remarkably constructive debate underway in his party, characterizing its divisions as largely in the past. Within hours, he and other party leaders were booed as they welcomed delegates to a state convention that would be filled with persistent internal warfare on healthcare and other issues. No political party is immune to disagreement; indeed the path to power often relies on combustible ideological diversity. But Democrats and Republicans alike seem particularly adrift and quarrelsome these days. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump preparing to pull U.S. from Paris climate accord, amid last-minute lobbying By Evan Halper President Trump hasnt made a final decision on whether the U.S. will quit the Paris Accord on climate change, but White House officials indicated Wednesday that he was headed in that direction, setting off a worldwide reaction. A flurry of leaks, counter-leaks and public statements thrust back into the spotlight a decision that has been agonized and untidy even by the standards of a White House known for internal drama. Wednesday morning, when officials told some news organizations that Trump had settled on pulling out of the climate agreement, seemingly everyone in the world jumped in to try to influence or spin his decision, from the Chinese government to the coal industry to the state of California. That offered a foretaste of the reaction Trump likely will receive if he does follow through on his vow to pull the United States out of the 195-nation pact, which President Obama hailed in 2015 as one of his major achievements. Other nations have swiftly moved to take over the leadership role on climate that the United States would be abandoning. Some states have followed suit, promising they would break with Washington to work with other countries in their efforts to contain global warming. During Trumps recent overseas trip, U.S. allies warned him that Americas broader diplomatic influence would be undercut if the administration gave up its seat at the climate negotiating table. All the public lobbying on Wednesday moved Trump to weigh in himself. He knocked down reports that he had decided to withdraw with a tweet announcing that he was still making up his mind. The mixed messages coming out of the White House left open the possibility that the original news reports reflected the views of officials who were aiming to steer the final outcome by presenting withdrawal as a done deal. Trumps schedule for the day includes meetings with advisors hoping to talk him into staying in the agreement, at least to some extent. If Trump does withdraw the U.S. fully from the Paris pact, scientists warn it will be a tremendous setback to the worldwide effort to contain temperatures from rising an average of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The consequences for the United States would extend beyond global warming. It will be a very big deal all over the world, said Todd Stern, the lead U.S. climate negotiator during the Obama administration. There will be consequential blowback with respect to our diplomatic position across the board. UPDATES 9:27 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with staff reporting and additional details. 6:23 a.m.: This post was updated with Trumps tweet. 6:04 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with additional details. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement U.S. Supreme Court makes it harder to sue police for barging into homes By David Savage The U.S. Supreme Court made it harder to sue police for barging into a home and provoking a shooting, setting aside a $4-million verdict against two Los Angeles County deputies on Tuesday. The money was awarded to a homeless couple who were startled and then shot when the two sheriffs deputies entered the shack where they were sleeping. The unanimous ruling rejected the so-called provocation rule that some lower courts have used. Under that rule, police can be sued for violating a victims constitutional rights against unreasonable searches if they provoked a confrontation that resulted in violence. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump lashes out at Germany over NATO spending and trade after Merkel questions the U.S. commitment to its allies By Brian Bennett (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump took aim at German trade practices and defense spending Tuesday following pointed criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel that Germany may not be able to rely on its allies. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change, Trump wrote in a tweet. Last week, White House spokespeople had denied that Trump criticized German trade practices after the German newspaper Der Spiegel quoted him as having done so. Trump unsettled Merkel and other allies during the recent NATO summit when, during his remarks, he did not mention the central commitment members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization make to defend each other. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017 Trumps policy toward climate change is another point of contention with many European countries. Trump promised during the election to tear up the landmark Paris climate accord. Merkel said the conversation with the U.S. on climate change last week during the G-7 meetings in Sicily, which followed the NATO summit, was extremely difficult. During a campaign speech in Munich on Sunday, Merkel said Germany must rethink how much it can rely on its allies. The era in which we could rely completely on others is gone, at least partially, Merkel said. I have experienced that over the last several days. In a 2014 meeting, NATO defense ministers agreed that each state would move toward a goal of raising military spending to 2% of its annual economic output by the year 2024. German defense spending is below that goal. The U.S. trade deficit with Germany shrank to $65 billion in 2016 from $75 billion the year before. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Consumers spend at fastest pace in four months in a sign of spring economic rebound By Jim Puzzanghera (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Americans ratcheted up their spending in April at the fastest pace in four months, in a sign the economy has rebounded this spring after a lackluster winter. The new data also could help push Federal Reserve officials to hike a key interest rate again when they meet in two weeks. Personal consumption expenditures increased 0.4% in April, up from 0.3% the previous month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Americans had more money to spend, with personal incomes also rising 0.4% twice the pace of growth in March. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print White House communications director Michael Dubke resigns By Associated Press White House Communications Director Mike Dubke listens as a reporter asks a question during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on April 20. (Shawn Thew / EPA) White House communications director Michael Dubke has resigned. Kellyanne Conway, White House counselor, told The Associated Press that Dubke handed in his resignation before President Donald Trump left for his international trip earlier this month. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Conway said Dubke made very clear that he would see through the presidents international trip, and come to work every day and work hard even through that trip because there was much to do here back at the White House. Dubke issued a statement Tuesday morning: It has been my great honor to serve President Trump and this administration. It has also been my distinct pleasure to work side-by-side, day-by-day with the staff of the communications and press departments. A Republican consultant, Dubke joined the White House team in February after campaign aide Jason Miller Trumps original choice for communications director withdrew from consideration. Dubke founded Crossroads Media, a GOP firm that specializes in political advertising. -- 6:03 a.m.: Updated with Dubkes statement Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Should Jared Kushner keep his security clearance? Adam Schiff isnt sure By Laura King The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), says hes not sure that President Trumps son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, should retain his security clearance. The California Democrat, who has been a sharp critic of Trump, also said in an interview aired Sunday that national security advisor H.R. McMaster, a highly respected military officer, had been tarnished by his association with the White House. Schiffs comments, on ABCs This Week, came amid growing questions about Kushners contacts with Russian officials before Trump took office. Trump has denounced the latest round of news reports, saying that some of them could be based on fabricated sources. Top Trump aides, including John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, pushed back Sunday against the suggestion that there was anything untoward about establishing back channel communications with the Russians during the presidential transition. Schiff said he regretted that McMaster had done so as well, saying he believed the White House used the solid reputations of people like him to back up dubious actions. Sadly, I think this is an administration that takes in people with good credibility and chews them out and spits out their credibility at the same time, said Schiff, who acknowledged that what McMaster said about back channel communications was true in the abstract. I think anyone within the Trump orbit is at risk of being used, he said. Kelly, in separate talk-show appearances on Sunday, said there was nothing untoward about an incoming administration establishing communications with a foreign power in order to lay the groundwork for better relations. Schiff declined to discuss the substance of the allegations regarding Kushners contact with Russian officials during the transition and whether Kushner had been forthcoming about them, but said enough questions had been raised that his access to top-secret intelligence should be scrutinized. I think we need to get to the bottom of these allegations, Schiff said. But I do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful, whether he was candid. If not, then theres no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance. Schiff was also critical of continuing involvement in aspects of the Russia probe by fellow Californian Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who stepped aside from the probe earlier this year after the House Ethics Committee began investigating whether he had improperly revealed classified information. Nunes remains involved in decision-making about the issuance of subpoenas, Schiff said, adding: I dont think that he should, given that he has stepped aside or recused himself. The committee is investigating Russian entanglements by figures in Trumps circle, including fired national security advisor Michael Flynn, who has been the target of multiple subpoenas. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump still wide open on climate change, Pentagon chief says By Laura King With President Trump set to make a decision this week about whether the U.S. should remain part of the landmark Paris climate accord, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Trump remains wide open on the issue. During a visit to Europe that ended Saturday, Trump dismayed European allies by refusing to commit to remaining in the 2015 accord during talks with European Union officials in Brussels and at the Group of Seven gathering in Sicily. The president said in a tweet that he will make a decision this week. Mattis, who was present at some of the Brussels talks, said that Trump is still making up his mind, and that he has been inquisitive about other leaders opinions. The president was open he was curious about why others were in the position they were in, his counterparts in other nations, the Defense secretary said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS Face the Nation. And Im quite certain the president is wide open on this issue as he takes in the pros and cons of that accord. During his European trip, Trump met privately at the Vatican with Pope Francis, who presented him with a copy of his papal encyclical on environment and climate change. French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Trump in Brussels, also said he had pressed the issue with the U.S. president, though the White House did not mention that appeal in a summary of their meeting. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Homeland Security secretary defends Jared Kushner, blasts Manchester intelligence leaks By Laura King There is nothing inherently wrong with an incoming presidential administration establishing back channel communications with a foreign power such as Russia, Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly said Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Kelly was asked about reports by the Washington Post and other outlets that President Trumps son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, sought to set up secret lines of communication with Russian officials prior to Trump being sworn in. The retired general did not confirm the reports, but said the principle of establishing secretive contacts during a presidential transition doesnt bother me and is a legitimate means of building relationships. I think that any channel of communication, back or otherwise, with a country like Russia is a good thing, he said. Kelly did not address a central element of the reports that Kushner discussed the possibility of using Russian communications channels from a Russia diplomatic outpost to shield from U.S. intelligence surveillance whatever discussions Trump transition officials wanted to have with Moscow. The FBI, a special counsel and multiple congressional committees are probing Russian interference in the presidential campaign and whether the Trump camp colluded in it. The U.S. intelligence community says Russian cyberattacks were meant to boost Trump and harm his opponent, Hillary Clinton. In a separate interview on NBCs Meet the Press, Kelly defended the integrity of Kushner, whose involvement in communications with Russia has brought the investigation closer to Trump personally than has previous scrutiny of others in his campaign circle or the White House. Calling Kushner a great guy, a decent guy, the Homeland Security secretary said the presidents son-in-laws No. 1 interest, really, is the nation. Also in the NBC interview, Kelly excoriated intelligence leaks in the wake of last weeks deadly bombing in Manchester, England. British officials including Prime Minister Theresa May were angered by disclosures about details of the investigation, including the release of the dead attackers name and detailed photos from the bomb scene that were published by the New York Times. Several outlets cited unnamed U.S. officials as the source of the information including the bombers identity. The Times did not say how it obtained the photos. Britain routinely shares intelligence with close allies like the United States with the expectation that it will be kept confidential. Kelly said that failing to keep such secrets could seriously damage intelligence-sharing arrangements with other nations. I believe when you leak the kind of information that seems to be routinely leaked - high, high level of classification I think its darn close to treason, Kelly said. It is not clear what level of classification, if any, the information about the British investigation would have had. Trump himself, who recently caused controversy when he passed sensitive intelligence on Islamic State to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and discussed the location of U.S. nuclear submarines with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has denounced the Manchester leaks and vowed to track down the source or sources. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print In tweets, Trump says stories based on White House leaks are fabricated By Laura King President Trump is back and tweeting. In a Sunday morning series of posts on Twitter, the president repeated his denunciations of the fake media, celebrated the Republican victory in a Montana special election and declared his overseas trip a success. Trump returned to the White House late Saturday after a swing through the Middle East and Europe, the first foreign trip of his presidency. During it, he tweeted only sparingly. While Trump was away, controversy continued to swirl around his White House, with media reports focusing on son-in-law Jared Kushners role in Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. The GOP healthcare plan and Trumps budget also came under withering scrutiny during the presidents absence. In Sundays tweets, Trump said cascading leaks from within his administration were in fact fabricated lies by news organizations based on sources that did not exist. One tweet was corrected to fix the spelling of exist. It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2017 Trump also complained that the special congressional election in Montana, called to fill the seat vacated when Ryan Zinke became his Interior secretary, was such a big deal to Dems & Fake News until the Republican won. The V was poorly covered, he said, referring to the Republican victory. The victory by Republican candidate Greg Gianforte received extensive coverage. It was widely expected, given Montanas significant Republican edge, but made more suspenseful on the eve of the election when Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault for an incident in which he struck a reporter who had asked him a question. The president received mixed reviews for his inaugural overseas venture. He was praised by some for his outreach to Sunni Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, but continued his administrations practice of making no public criticism of serious human rights violations. In Europe, he rattled allies by declining to explicitly endorse the NATO alliances bedrock common defense pledge or pledge to adhere to the Paris climate accord. Whatever the commentary surrounding the trip, Trump counted it a success. Hard work but big results, he wrote. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trumps international trip underscored what America First looks like on the world stage By Michael Memoli Donald Trump made no secret during the presidential campaign of his disdain for Americas trading partners, his skepticism of longtime alliances and his eagerness to refocus U.S. foreign policy on the single-minded pursuit of American security. That was the largely the president the world got as Trump made his way through the Middle East and Western Europe over the last nine days, Trumps first foreign trip may have produced memorable, and at time cringe-inducing, images of the new president, whether grasping a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia or shoving the prime minister of Montenegro at a NATO meeting in Brussels. But perhaps most profoundly, the trip underscored what America First, as Trump has branded his governing philosophy, looks like on the world stage. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump says hell decide on Paris climate deal next week By Associated Press Seven wealthy democracies ended their summit Saturday in Italy without unanimous agreement on climate change, as the Trump administration plans to take more time to say whether the U.S. is going to remain in the Paris accord on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The other six nations in the Group of Seven agreed to stick with their commitment to implement the 2015 Paris deal that aims to slow down global warming. The final G-7 statement, issued after two days of talks in the seaside town of Taormina, said the U.S. is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics. Trump tweeted he would decide his stance on the Paris agreement next week. The announcement on the final day of the U.S. presidents first international trip comes after he declined to commit to staying in the sweeping climate deal, resisting intense international pressure from his peers at the summit. I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2017 Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who chaired the meeting, said the other six wont change our position on climate change one millimeter. The U.S. hasnt decided yet. I hope they decide in the right way. Gentiloni said climate was not a minor point and that he hoped the United States would decide soon and well because the Paris accords need the contribution of the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron also chimed in on the climate issue, praising Trumps capacity to listen. Macron said he told Trump it is indispensable for the reputation of the United States and the interest of the Americans themselves that the United States remain committed to the Paris climate agreement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more downbeat, calling the G-7 climate talks very unsatisfactory. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Everyones a winner! Or what to take away from that special congressional race in Montana By Mark Z. Barabak Republicans were celebrating Friday, and relieved, and it was easy to see why: The party hung on to Montanas sole congressional seat even though its candidate faced a freshly lodged criminal charge for physically assaulting a reporter on election eve. Though they fell short in yet another special election Greg Gianforte won handily, 50% to 44% Democrats also found reason to be pleased: Their candidate, flawed as he was, continued a pattern of polling better than might be expected over-performing, to use the political parlance, and that could hold future promise. Its possible, as elections analyst Nathan Gonzales put it, to lose and still have momentum. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print In commencement address, Hillary Clinton remembers fallout from Nixon, makes subtle jab at President Trump By Kurtis Lee Hillary Clinton delivers the commencement address at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., on Friday. (Josh Reynolds / Associated Press) Hillary Clinton delivered a subtle dig at President Trump on Friday, offering some parallels between his presidency and that of former President Nixon. While delivering a commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, a private womens liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Clinton, without naming Trump, recalled how many young people in the 1970s reacted to Nixons reelection and later battles with the Justice Department. We were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice, she said, pausing to note she was referring to Nixon. Actually, Nixon was not impeached, though many in Congress, including members of his own party, called for it. Clinton said Nixons resignation came after he fired the person heading the investigation into him at the Department of Justice. In 1973, Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire a special prosecutor who was looking into taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office as part of the Watergate investigation. A year later, in August 1974, Nixon resigned. Some political observers mostly Democrats -- have compared Trumps recent firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, who was overseeing an investigation of possible collusion between Russians and Trumps campaign, to Nixons actions. Last week, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) called for Trump to be impeached. Clinton, who has made few public appearances since Trump defeated her in last years presidential election, also assailed the Republicans new budget proposal. She called the budget, which proposes cuts to education and Medicaid, an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us the youngest, the oldest, the poorest and hard-working people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent, middle-class life. In a statement, the Republican National Committee said Clinton was lashing out after her election loss. Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969 and last delivered a commencement address at the school in 1992. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement At G-7 Summit, a day of clarification for the White House By Michael A. Memoli (Sean Gallup / Getty Images) As President Trump met with leaders of the worlds leading economies here Friday within miles of an active volcano, the White House was working to ease a pair of diplomatic eruptions. Trump was due to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in this coastal Sicilian resort town, amid tensions between their countries, longtime allies, following leaks to U.S. media outlets involving Britains investigation of the Manchester terrorist bombing. Separately, a top White House adviser partially confirmed reports that Trump had said Germany is very bad during Thursdays NATO meetings in Brussels, but clarified that the president was referring only to German trade policies. Trump said, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, acknowledged that Trump made the remark but added that the president doesnt have a problem with Germany. He said his dad is from Germany. He said I dont have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade, Cohn said. Press access to the G-7 meetings has been extremely limited, though the surrounding setting has produced abundant compelling visuals. Editorial press access extremely limited for G7 meetings. But man, pretty pictures & good times for Taormina Chamber of Commerce (via AP) pic.twitter.com/WT2EdKrwJ5 Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 26, 2017 Trump tweeted that he expected to spend the day focused on economic growth, terrorism and security. The summit, and Trumps eight-day inaugural foreign trip, ends Saturday. Other allies here were likely to press Trump on another issue: climate change, specifically whether Trump will carry out his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate deal. Trump was hoping to better understand the European position, Cohn said. White House officials have said the president will make a decision once he is back in the United States. He knows that in the U.S. theres very strong opinions on both sides but he also knows that Paris has important meaning to many of the European leaders. And he wants to clearly hear what the European leaders have to say, Cohn said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print As Trump wavers over Paris climate accord, European leaders give him an earful By Evan Halper Mining operation near Grevenbroich, Germany. (Martin Meissner / Associated Press) With President Trump balking on his vow to shred the Obama-negotiated Paris agreement on climate change, the last place the pacts staunch opponents wanted to see the president is where he will be this weekend meeting other world leaders unanimous in their warnings that withdrawal from the accord would seriously damage Americas economy and world stature. Trump has repeatedly delayed fulfilling his campaign pledge to move against the agreement. The longer the White House deliberates over Paris, the more Trump seems to be searching for a face-saving excuse to walk back his previous position. The White House indecision over the climate accord which has the support of every nation except Syria and Nicaragua reflects a deeply divided worldview in a Trump inner circle now packed with establishment Republicans. The issue also presents yet another policy reckoning for Trump. On the campaign trail, he vowed to strike blows against the existing world order. But on the Paris agreement, as on other matters, he is finding that political backup for such pledges can fade quickly when the moves lack robust support from major U.S. companies or majority voting blocs. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Overcoming assault charge, Republican Greg Gianforte wins Montana congressional seat By Mark Z. Barabak Republican Greg Gianforte overcame a last-minute assault charge to win Montanas special congressional election Thursday, keeping its lone House seat in GOP hands and dealing Democrats a setback in their bid to gain a red-state toehold ahead of the 2018 midterm election. Gianforte, 56, a wealthy businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor in November, had long been the front-runner against Democrat Rob Quist, a professional bluegrass musician making his first run for public office. With more than 90% of the votes counted, Gianforte was holding a healthy lead with just over 50% support. Appearing at an exuberant victory rally in Bozeman, the congressman-elect hushed the crowd and apologized to the reporter with whom he tangled on election eve, reversing his campaigns initial assertion that the journalist was to blame. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement FBI investigating Kushner meetings, report says; House leader seeks more Comey documents By Associated Press (Andrew Harrer / Getty Images) The chairman of the House Oversight Committee asked the FBI on Thursday to turn over more documents about former FBI Director James B. Comeys interactions with the White House and Justice Department, including materials dating back nearly four years to the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that the FBI is investigating meetings that President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had in December with Russian officials. The FBI and the Oversight Committee as well as several other congressional panels are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump fired Comey on May 9 amid questions about the FBIs investigation, which is now being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a former FBI director. Kushner, a key White House advisor, had meetings late last year with Russias ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov. The Post story cited anonymous people familiar with the investigation, who said the FBI investigation does not mean that Kushner is suspected of a crime. Kushners attorney, Jamie Gorelick, released a statement saying: Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry. Earlier Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants records of Comeys contacts with the White House and Justice Department dating to September 2013, when Comey was sworn in as FBI director under President Obama. In a letter to McCabe, Chaffetz said he is seeking to review Comeys memos and other written materials so he can better understand Comeys communications with the White House and attorney generals office. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Banks want higher debit-card swipe fees, but an effort to allow them has crumbled By Jim Puzzanghera Banks had hoped Congress would let them charge merchants higher fees to process debit card purchases, but an effort to allow that has crumbled a victory for retailers and, possibly, shoppers who might have had to shoulder those costs. In the latest chapter of a long-running fight, a repeal of federal limits on so-called swipe fees no longer will be part of a House financial regulation bill, said the legislations author, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he decided to strip the provision from the bill because many lawmakers are balking at removing the limits. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Appeals court rules against Trump travel ban By David Lauter A federal appeals court has ruled against President Trumps travel ban, upholding a nationwide injunction barring the administration from enforcing the executive order. The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump on the travel issue and, like several previous court rulings, the outcome rested heavily on his own words. Trumps order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim countries speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in his ruling. Read the 4th Circuits decision to uphold the block on Trumps travel ban The 10-3 ruling included numerous citations to campaign statements in which Trump called for a ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States. The plaintiffs who have challenged the travel order have argued that it is a disguised version of the Muslim ban that he called for during the campaign. Trumps statements provide direct, specific evidence of what motivated both EO-1 and EO-2, the court said, referring to ther first and second versions of the travel order: President Trumps desire to exclude Muslims from the United States. The 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., is one of two appeals courts that have recently heard arguments on the travel ban. A similar case is pending before the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Obama, in Berlin with Merkel, says world cant hide behind a wall By Erik Kirschbaum Hours before German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew to Brussels to meet with President Trump and other NATO heads of state, she rekindled an old acquaintance with Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama. About 70,000 people packed an avenue by Berlins landmark Brandenburg Gate on Thursday to hear the two leaders speak, with cheers and chants of Barack, Barack! breaking out when the former president took the stage. Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama spoke of the need for universal healthcare and a nuanced approach to immigration in response to security threats. This is a new world we live in we cant isolate ourselves, the former president declared, with Merkel looking on. We cant hide behind a wall. Obama spoke of this weeks deadly bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, saying leaders had to find ways to balance security fears and fundamental rights. One of the biggest challenges is how do you protect your country and your citizens from the kinds of things that we just saw in Manchester, he said. And how do you do it in a way that is consistent with your values and your ideals? Making his first European speech since his presidential term ended, Obama told the crowd he had spent the last four months trying to catch up with my sleep and devoting more time to his family. Im very proud of the work I did as president, he said to more cheers, adding that he considered healthcare reform a signature achievement. Republicans are now in the midst of trying to dismantle his Affordable Care Act. My hope was to get 100% of people healthcare, he said. We didnt quite achieve that, but we were able to get 20 million people healthcare who didnt have it before. Obamas speech was not timed to coincide with Trumps first visit to Europe as president, aides said. The invitation was extended before Trumps trip to Brussels the fourth leg on multi-stop tour was scheduled. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Macron says he pressed Trump on climate accord By Catherine Stupp French President Emmanuel Macron, who met President Trump for the first time on Thursday, said he urged the U.S. leader to respect the Paris climate accord. The White House, however, did not mention the issue in its readout on Trumps working lunch in Brussels with the newly elected French president. Macron told reporters as he headed into the meeting that climate change would be one of the issues he raised, along with concerns about terrorism and the economy. Afterward, at a news conference, the French president said that in his talk with Trump, he reiterated the importance of the landmark climate accord. No hasty decision on this subject should be taken by the U.S., Macron said. Our collective responsibility is to make sure this commitment remains a global commitment. Referring to the agreement, he added: Its one of a kind. In its readout, the White House said Trump urged Macron to meet NATO commitments on French defense spending and help ensure that the alliance is focused on counter-terrorism. It also said the two leaders talked about the importance of defeating Islamic State and other vital issues. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to reject 2nd Amendment claim by men who lost gun rights over nonviolent crimes By David Savage President Trump speaks at an NRA event in Atlanta in April. ( Scott Olson / Getty Images) Trump administration lawyers are urging the Supreme Court to reject a 2nd Amendment claim that would restore the right to own a gun for two Pennsylvania men who were convicted more than 20 years ago of nonviolent crimes. The case of Sessions vs. Binderup puts the new administration in a potentially awkward spot, considering President Trumps repeated assurances during the campaign that he would protect gun ownership rights under the 2nd Amendment. But the Justice Department under Trump has embraced the same position in this case that was adopted under President Obama: to defend strict enforcement of a long-standing federal law that bars convicted criminals from ever owning a gun, even when their crimes did not involve violence. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former Sen. Joe Lieberman withdraws from FBI director search By Associated Press (AFP/Getty Images) Former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut has withdrawn his name from consideration for the role of FBI director. Lieberman interviewed last week with President Trump, who publicly identified him as a leading candidate. But in a letter sent to the White House, Lieberman says hes pulling out. He says he wants to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, given Trumps hiring of one of Liebermans law partners to represent him in the investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The White House declined to comment. Several other people interviewed for the job have also withdrawn from consideration. Trump fired former FBI Director James B. Comey earlier this month. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print At NATO celebration, Trump tells allies to spend more on defense By Michael A. Memoli (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump used his first NATO meeting to rebuke member nations who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliances defense spending target, saying American taxpayers unfairly are left to pick up the slack. Speaking at dedication ceremonies for NATOs new headquarters, Trump noted that the defense budgets of 23 of the 28 members dont meet a target equal to 2% of each respective nations economic output, while the United States has spent more on defense in eight years than the other 27 combined. Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years, he said. We have to make up for the many years lost. By his scolding, Trump was directly delivering to NATO allies the criticism that was a staple of his nationalist campaign for president. But his lecture came at an event intended to be celebratory, showcasing unity and resolve for the nearly 70-year-old alliance: the dedication of its shining, glass-enclosed new headquarters in Belgiums capital. The ceremony also was meant to call attention to the fact that the only time NATO has invoked its collective defense agreement was on behalf of the United States, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Trump stood beside a section of wrenched steel from the downed World Trade Center Towers, a relic NATO calls the Article V artifact, to signify that post-9/11 invocation of the NATO charters article holding that an attack on any one member would be considered an attack on all. Speaking to reporters before the president arrived, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance had a long way to go to meet its goals. But its much better than it was just two years ago, he said. The reality is that when we decrease defense spending when tensions are going down, as we did after the end of the Cold War, we have to be able to increase defense spending when tensions are going up. And now we see that tensions are going up. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Watch: Trump lectures NATO leaders on defense spending By L.A. Times staff As NATO leaders looked on, President Trump told NATO members that they must finally contribute their fair share of defense payments. President Trump lectured members of the NATO alliance on Thursday, urging them to pay their fair share on defense. As NATO leaders looked on during a ceremony at the alliances new headquarters, Trump said that member nations must finally contribute their fair share and meet their obligations. The president has been urging NATO leaders to live up to a 2011 decision to increase spending on defense to 2% of GDP by 2024. Trump said 23 of the 28 member nations are not paying what they should and that the situation is not fair to the people of the United States. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print President Trump promises to review Manchester investigation leaks after anger from Britain By Noah Bierman Trying to head off a diplomatic rift with Britain, President Trump on Thursday issued a statement promising a complete review of possible intelligence leaks related to this weeks deadly terrorist attack at a Manchester concert. Some British officials have suggested that U.S. officials are leaking sensitive information to American media outlets about the investigation into the attack. The New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing, which upset British officials. Whether the photographs were provided by U.S. officials or came from some other source is not publicly known. Trump avoided questions earlier Thursday about the possible leaks. His statement came just before he was set to address NATO at its new headquarters in a speech considered pivotal to his first trip abroad as president. British Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to confront Trump over the issue when they meet later in the day. May told reporters as she entered the NATO gathering that she would make clear to Trump that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. We have a special relationship with the USA. Its our deepest defense and security partnership that we have, she said. Of course that partnership is built on trust, and part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently, and I will be making clear to President Trump today that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. In his statement, Trump said that the alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. These leaks have been going on for a long time, and my Administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security. The statement continued with a promise to request the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Trump also reiterated said there is no relationship we cherish more than the special relationship between the two countries. Separate leaks within his own administration and related to investigations of his campaign ties to Russia have also been a source of anger to Trump. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Montanas congressional election: that assault charge, the Trump factor, and why is it on a weird day (Thursday)? By Mark Z. Barabak Its election day in Montana after a wild 24 hours, with voters deciding who will fill the House seat vacated when Republican Ryan Zinke left to head the Interior Department under President Trump. The contest Thursday has drawn nationwide attention and an extraordinary amount of money and that was before the GOP front-runner was accused of attacking a national political reporter. The events have turned the contest into one of the strangest in memory. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump ignores questions about intelligence sharing ahead of NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Peter Dejoing / Associated Press) President Trump refused to answer questions Thursday about concerns among key allies on intelligence sharing with the United States, just as he prepares to join many of them here to inaugurate the new NATO headquarters. During a brief photo opportunity at his first meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Frances newly elected president, Trump for a second time remained silent as a reporter asked about a potential breakdown in the U.S.-United Kingdom intelligence-sharing relationship. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to press Trump on the issue when they meet later Thursday, after the New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing. The acting U.S. ambassador to Britain told the BBC that the leaks were deeply distressing. Speaking to reporters at the site of a NATO leaders meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also deflected questions about whether the incident has led him to reevaluate his nations intelligence-sharing arrangements. We will continue to work with all our allies to keep Canadians and all citizens around the world safe, he said. Ahead of a working lunch with Macron, Trump said terrorism was at the top of the agenda, while also offering his congratulations to the 39-year-old for his tremendous victory. All over the world, theyre talking about it, he said. In addition to terrorism and the economy, Macron said he planned to discuss climate change and energy. His nation hosted the climate summit that produced the agreement under which countries pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, of which the Trump administration is considering dropping out. Trump also ignored a question about whether former national security advisor Michael Flynn should cooperate with the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has no news conference scheduled with reporters for the entirety of his eight-day foreign trip, which ends Saturday. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump visits European Union headquarters; EU leaders cite some differences By Catherine Stupp Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said Thursday that differences remain between the Trump administration and the European Union on Russia, energy and trade. I am not 100 percent sure that we can say today that we have a common opinion about Russia, Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who is sometimes called the other Donald, said after a meeting with President Trump at EU headquarters. Tusk added that while some issues remain open, like climate and trade, the leaders agreed first and foremost on the need to combat terrorism. EU officials were skeptical in advance of Trumps visit. Their concerns were driven in part by the U.S. leaders positive stance on Britains vote last year to leave the bloc. Trump at the time called it a great idea. However, he has since spoken of the importance of European unity. European officials are also concerned that the Trump administration might withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming, and turn away from trade arrangements with the EU. Trumps visit to Brussels marked the fourth leg of his first overseas trip. Before heading into the talks with Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, he spoke enthusiastically about his earlier stops in Saudi Arabia and at the Vatican. His ceremonial welcome last week in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Trump told the European officials, was beyond anything anyones seen. The Saudis staged elaborate festivities including a traditional sword dance. And the president called his private encounter with Pope Francis on Wednesday very impressive. The president and the pontiff met privately for half an hour, and Francis presented Trump with gifts including a copy of a papal encyclical on climate change. The pope was terrific, Trump said. After the visit to the EUs sprawling new headquarters, Trump headed to a luncheon with the newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron. The two men were meeting for the first time. During the French presidential campaign, Trump had praised Macrons far-right opponent Marine Le Pen for her tough positions on immigration and borders, but he had stopped short of endorsing her. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Manchester attack makes terrorism the focus of Trumps NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images) The deadly suicide bombing in Britain and threats of more attacks thrust counter-terrorism to the top of President Trumps agenda for talks with NATO leaders here on Thursday, buttressing his bid to enlist the alliance he had called obsolete to join the fight against Islamic State. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, anticipating the alliance meetings, told reporters flying with the president to Brussels from Rome, where Trump met Pope Francis earlier Wednesday, that Mondays attack in Britain is going to strengthen the resolve in this fight against terrorism. Tillerson stopped short of predicting that NATO would agree to formally join the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but said it would be a really important step if the alliance did so. The attack, which killed 22 people at a pop concert and was said to be the work of a 22-year-old British man whose family is from Libya, also figured in Trumps brief meeting with the pope at the Vatican. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Analysis says 23 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 under GOP healthcare bill By Noam N. Levey (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) An analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Republican healthcare bill that passed the House earlier this month would nearly double the number of Americans without health insurance over the next decade. The report likely will complicate Republican efforts to get the controversial bill through the Senate. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement By throwing Americas lot in with Sunni Arabs, does Trump miss opportunities with Iran? By Tracy Wilkinson On his first official trip to the Middle East, President Trump has resoundingly thrown Americas lot in with Sunni Arab states and cast Shiite Iran as a global pariah, even as Iranians reelected a president who has offered to work with the West. During his two days in Riyadh, Trumps full-throated support for the autocratic monarchies in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, as well as his fierce denunciation of Iran, allowed him to claim an historic new coalition of interests. In the next two days, in Jerusalem, he doubled down and argued that Israel and the Arabs should join forces against Iran and along the way, resolve Israels conflict with Palestinians in a grand bargain that has eluded diplomats for decades. But as he departed for Rome on Tuesday, Trump had little to show beyond lofty rhetoric, symbolic visits and a shower of flattery from kings, potentates and a prime minister. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Fed officials appear ready for another interest rate hike and are considering how to reduce assets By Jim Puzzanghera Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen (Michael Dwyer / Associated Press) Most Federal Reserve monetary policymakers indicated they were ready for another small interest rate hike -- perhaps as soon as next month -- if economic data strengthened as expected following a weak winter, according to an account released Wednesday of their most recent meeting. Fed officials also considered a plan to start reducing the $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage securities and other assets the central bank has purchased since 2008 in an attempt to stimulate the economy. The plan, which they said likely would begin later this year, would involve slowly allowing some of the maturing securities to be cashed in instead of reinvesting the money in new securities, the meeting minutes showed. The goal would be to avoid roiling financial markets and causing interest rates to jump. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print So whats with the president and Melania Trump holding, or not holding, hands? By Tom Kington First Lady Melania Trump does not say much in public, but her actions seemed to speak louder than words or at least sent tongues wagging when she appeared to rebuff the presidents proffered hand as the couple descended from their plane in Rome late Tuesday. As President Trump looked to take her hand on the steps of Air Force One, Melania Trump quickly moved it out of reach, raising it to her head to adjust her hair. That made for two such episodes in two days. She had appeared to brush Trumps hand away at the airport in Tel Aviv during the previous stop in the presidents foreign tour. Video of that scene, often accompanied by snarky commentary, quickly went viral. Compare that to Melania Trumps positively hands-on visit on Wednesday to a Rome childrens hospital, Bambino Gesu, following the couples visit with Pope Francis. After praying to a statue of the Madonna at the entrance to the hospital, the Catholic first lady smiled cheerfully and chatted to children, posing for selfies and providing a very happy, maternal presence, according to one onlooker. Great visiting you! Stay strong and positive! Much love, Melania Trump, she wrote in the visitors book. Staff at the hospital said Melania Trump had been buoyed by her meeting with Pope Francis, and further proof came when photos emerged of the Trumps quick visit to the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. As the president and first lady stood together to admire Michelangelos 16th century fresco, the Last Judgment, they held hands. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print House Intelligence Committee will subpoena Michael Flynn, Schiff says By Sarah D. Wire The House Intelligence Committee is preparing to issue subpoenas to President Trumps former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, according to the committees ranking Democrat, following the lead of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said the House subpoenas will be designed to maximize our chance of getting the information we need for the committees investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. I think we need to use whatever compulsory [processes] necessary to get the information that he possesses, Schiff said. Earlier this week, Flynns lawyers said he would refuse separate Senate subpoenas for any records about his former business dealings with Russia, citing his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. The Senate committee then issued separate subpoenas to two of Flynns businesses, which the panel said were not entitled to 5th Amendment protections. A federal grand jury in Virginia also has issued subpoenas regarding Flynns business dealings with Turkey and Russia, and the newly appointed special counsel investigating the Russia matter, Robert Mueller III, is expected to focus on Flynns role as well. Given the criminal investigations, Schiff said the House panel is highly unlikely to grant Flynns earlier request, through his lawyers, for immunity in exchange for his testimony. He said the panel would need more information about what Flynn would say and whether the testimony would be truthful. It also would need to ensure that granting immunity wouldnt affect the special counsels ongoing investigation, he said. Thats not somthinge I think we would entertain until far later, if at all, said Schiff, a former prosecutor. Certainly count me as very skeptical that we would get to that point. Trump forced Flynn to resign as national security advisor in February after news accounts revealed Flynn had misled White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Russian officials. Schiff spoke to reporters at a breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Watch live: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testifies on Trumps budget Follow live coverage from Times education reporter Joy Resmovits: Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Israel acknowledges pinpoint change needed after Trump intelligence disclosure By Joshua Mitnick After a week of silence, Israel publicly acknowledged for the first time, though in oblique terms, that it was the source of sensitive intelligence that President Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week in a White House meeting. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israels army radio on Wednesday that Israeli officials had carried out an internal pinpoint correction after discussing and reviewing the episode. Lieberman did not elaborate, and declined to confirm or deny whether Trumps remarks had endangered an agent of Israel. But he said his government considered the matter resolved. Everything that needed to be clarified with the friends in the U.S. was done, he said. All of the conclusions we had to draw it was all done. The Israeli defense ministers comments came the day after Trump wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank. When word of Trumps disclosure to Lavrov emerged in U.S. news reports last week, the defense minister and other Israeli leaders confined themselves to expressing public confidence in the two countries intelligence cooperation. Israel did not comment more directly, presumably to avoid embarrassing the U.S. president just before his visit. But Trump himself mentioned the controversy anyway, in an awkward on-camera moment during the trip. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu biting his lip alongside, Trump volunteered to reporters being hustled out of a news appearance: Just so you know, I never mentioned the word or name Israel. Never mentioned it during the conversation. News reports, however, had not said the president mentioned Israel in connection with the intelligence, only that the specificity of his remarks to Lavrov would in all likelihood have allowed the Russians to determine the source. The White House at first denied Trumps disclosure to Lavrov had occurred as reported, but then the president himself tweeted about it, saying he had the right to share information as he deemed fit. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump calls meeting with Pope Francis an honor By Michael A. Memoli "A very great honor," Trump says to the pope when they began their meeting in the pope's private study pic.twitter.com/NGsbsahAyT Carol Lee (@carolelee) May 24, 2017 President Trump held a half-hour private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, declaring it a great honor despite their past public dissension. The unconventional Republican and the first Jesuit pontiff made for an unlikely pair in the Vaticans Apostolic Palace, where Catholic leaders have presided or centuries and American presidents have come or decades. Francis was silent as the two sat across one another at the popes wooden desk to begin the audience at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. Exactly a half-hour later, the ringing of a bell signified the end of the private encounter. For the White House, the Vatican stop caps a tour through key sites of the worlds three major religions, following stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, designed to promote tolerance and a united approach to terrorism. When you put it all together, youre really showing that this problem of radical extremism is one of the great problems of our time, a senior Trump aide told reporters Tuesday en route from Israel to Rome, briefing anonymously as is common White House practice. By putting everybody together you can really build a coalition and show that its not a Muslim problem, its not a Jewish problem, its not a Catholic problem, its not a Christian problem, it really is a world problem. In an exchange of gifts after their private meeting, Francis offered the president a medal by a Roman artist of an olive, a symbol of peace. We can use peace, Trump responded. Where Trumps and Francis interests may align on peace and combating terrorism, they disagree sharply on issues like immigration and poverty. Like Trump, the Argentine pope has shown a predilection for unscripted comments that have shaken the staid Vatican bureaucracy, as when he criticized candidate Trumps proposed stricter immigration policies including a border wall as not Christian. Trump fired back, calling the popes remarks disgraceful. Any animosity was not apparent Wednesday, as a meeting between Francis and a larger U.S. delegation ended. Thank you. I wont forget what you said, Trump said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Proposed budget would deeply cut State Department and its programs By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The State Department leadership voiced support for President Trumps proposed budget, which would impose deep cuts on spending for diplomacy and foreign aid, but critics vowed to fight to restore the funds in Congress. In a statement, the department said the presidents $37.6-billion request for it and for the U.S. Agency for International Development would support a leaner, more efficient government in line with Trumps America first mantra. If approved by Congress, that would represent a reduction of roughly 30% from the current fiscal year. Nongovernmental agencies that receive State Department support to carry out humanitarian and other work around the globe expressed deep alarm. The State Department statement said its new priorities would include efforts to counter terrorism, support Israel, promote border security and battle transnational crime and the spread of infectious diseases. The statement makes no mention of women-empowerment programs or efforts to fight climate change, issues that rose to prominence under the Obama administration. The proposed budget would allow the United States to remain engaged in the United Nations, but officials would seek a more fair distribution of the funding burden, the statement said. And it would eliminate direct funding for quasi- and non-governmental organizations that serve niche missions. The American Jewish World Service, which fights poverty all over the world through 450 local organizations, said much of its work would be jeopardized. At a time when poverty, human rights abuses, famines and conflicts are wreaking havoc globally, said the groups president, Robert Bank, the United States must not abdicate its long bipartisan tradition of providing development assistance and diplomatic support to the most vulnerable people around the world. Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based development and advocacy organization that works in 40 countries, said gutting development programs was short-sighted and absolutely shameful and could put millions of lives at risk. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called the budget cruel and mean-spirited and said it would force the United States to abandon our global role as a champion for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. If President Trump thinks the United States can shrink into a defensive crouch without long-term repercussions, hes sorely mistaken, Engel said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Sessions first proposed budget: A crackdown on immigration and violent crime By Joseph Tanfani Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) In the first budget proposal under President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department is seeking hundreds of millions in new funding to pay for an immigration crackdown on the border and a surge in resources to fight violent crime. Like the Department of Homeland Security budget, which includes billions for expanded immigration detention, more border agents and technology to catch those crossing the border illegally, the Justice Department budget is a reflection of the new get-tough policies promised by Sessions. The budget asks for another 300 federal prosecutors 230 to focus on violent criminals and gangs, and another 70 to concentrate on filing criminal charges on those crossing the border illegally. The shift in the spending priorities are in line with other policy changes ordered by Sessions, including a renewed focus on seeking stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drugs and other crimes. The $27.7-billion budget seeks 450 new attorneys and support workers for the immigration courts, which are now clogged with a backlog of 560,000 cases. There would also be another $50 million for increased immigration detention, plus 40 new U.S. marshal jobs to help take care of the expected increase in immigrants heading to federal court. With Trumps immigration initiatives tied up in federal court, the budget seeks another 15 lawyers to handle that litigation, plus 12 more to help handle property acquisition needed for Trumps promised Southwestern border wall. Violent-crime enforcement would get another $198 million, with the largest amount, $70 million, going toward setting up more anti-violence and gang task forces. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod J. Rosenstein said more resources are needed because of what he called an alarming increase in the rates of murder and other violent crimes. The department is also asking for another $40 million for more drug enforcement to combat the opioid epidemic, which he said is spreading havoc throughout the United States. Sessions new policies should lead to an increase in prison population, so the budget contains funding to fully open a new supermax prison in Thomson, Ill., with room for 1,500 to 2,000 inmates. The department also wants to put more resources behind the FBIs efforts to counter cyber attacks and to figure out ways around encryption technology, along with another 50 agents to counter foreign intelligence and threats from homegrown terrorists. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Economists say Trumps budget proposal doesnt add up By Don Lee President Trumps inaugural budget proposal claims to eliminate the nations deficit in 10 years, thanks largely to faster economic growth that it projects will come from the presidents sweeping tax cuts. Never mind the overly optimistic projections on economic growth. Or that Trumps tax overhaul has not happened yet. Even allowing for both, economists say Trumps budget still does not add up. The administration is counting on generating $2.1 trillion in additional revenue over 10 years from better economic growth. But Trumps budget proposal leaves out the cost, or the revenue lost, from the massive tax cuts. In other words, the economic gains that the administration has said it would use to pay for tax reform is apparently also being counted on to pay for deficit reduction. Some people call that double-counting. You cant use the same money twice, said Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that advocates keeping government budgets under control. Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and top economic advisor to President Obama, called it an elementary but egregious accounting error. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the proposal did not necessarily mean there was an outright omission or a double-counting. Its possible that the administration is looking for such strong economic growth to drive significantly extra revenue from payroll taxes, he said, or it could be that Trump officials were using different base lines from which they were drawing their results. But on the face of it, he said, the budget and tax-plan numbers dont seem to match. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that Trumps plan to cut corporate and individual taxes would cost the federal government about $5.5 trillion over 10 years, adding more than $6 trillion to the national debt. Details of Trumps tax overhaul, however, are still being developed, and its possible that the administration is assuming a revenue-neutral tax plan although experts say big tax cuts never pay for themselves. On Tuesday, Mick Mulvaney, Trumps budget chief, did not provide a direct answer or explanation to questions about double-counting. Instead, he told reporters that you have to make assumptions about a budget. He went on to say that one of the assumptions that was not made was to take into account the uncollected taxes every year, which he said amounted to $486 billion last year. And we dont assume an additional penny of that being closed as part of our tax reform, said Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Of the 3% annual economic growth assumption, Mulvaney responded that the Obama administration in its first couple of years had based its budget on growth of 4.5%. In fact, Obamas first budget proposal as president, in May 2009, assumed economic growth of between 4% and 4.6% for the budget years 2011 to 2013. Since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009, the U.S. economy has been growing on average about 2% a year, and the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve and most private economists see the economy advancing at about 2% annually over the next 10 years. Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chair and director of the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton, said its true that the Obama administrations growth assumptions proved too optimistic. But she noted that those projections were not unreasonable for that time and period in the economic cycle. Then, there was greater potential for growth with unemployment high and many more people than today available for work. Today, the economy is nearing its eighth year of expansion, and the jobless rate is 4.4%, at or near full employment. With the aging of baby boomers, labor force growth slowing, and lackluster productivity gains, economists see the current moderate growth persisting for the foreseeable future. This has been a very long period of growth and were at the high end already, Rivlin said. If we are so lucky to have continuous, steady growth, its not likely to be at 3% or 4% or 5%. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Who wins and who loses in Trumps budget The White House Office of Management and Budget sent Congress the presidents inaugural budget today, projecting spending and revenues over the next 10 years. The fiscal package, which include a partial skinny budget from March, reflects President Trumps priorities for the nation, but lawmakers are sure to reject many of the deep cuts in domestic and foreign affairs programs. The departments of State, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education and Housing, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, are the biggest losers. The winners are the Pentagon and Homeland Security programs. Even with the increases in defense spending and large tax cuts, the administration projects that economic growth spurred by tax cuts will erase annual deficits by 2027. Take a look at some of the numbers released today. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement What that Montana special congressional race will and wont tell us about Trump and his political problems By Mark Z. Barabak Democrat Rob Quist is a quintessential cowboy who doesnt seem to relish campaigning in Montanas special congressional election. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) On Thursday, the political world will eagerly look to Montana and a closely fought congressional race for the latest test of Democratic strength and Republican resilience in the turbulent age of Trump. The major candidates and outside groups have sunk more than $8 million into the contest, a huge sum in a state where $250,000 pays for a robust week of television advertising. But for all that money and all the outside interest, the election will turn less on national trends than circumstances close to home: on the personalities and histories of the main contestants, their different campaign styles and, perhaps most of all, on who is regarded as the more authentic Montanan. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Terrorist attack in England has conservative media focused on safety of allies By Kurtis Lee (Dave Thompson/Getty images ) Its a sight witnessed all too often: an explosion, screams, people sprinting to safety. Late Monday night, this was the scene at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, after a man with possible ties to Islamic State militants set off a suicide bomb, killing 22 people and, once again, setting in motion a global discourse on how to fight terrorism. President Trump, while visiting Bethlehem, said the attack was committed by evil losers in life. Throughout the campaign and early in his presidency, Trump has said defeating the Islamic State is a top priority. (He reiterated that point in a speech Sunday in Saudi Arabia, urging Muslim leaders to plot their own course in combating terrorism.) In recent months, with attacks in Berlin, Paris and London, conservative media have questioned the safety of Europe and warned that the United States could face similar attacks. With the latest attack, some on the right are again homing in on the safety of our allies. Here are some of todays headlines: 2017 has seen a terror attack attempted in Europe every nine days (Breitbart) The attack in Manchester blankets the home page of the right-wing website. Europe has indeed been the location of high-profile attacks this year. In Paris last month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on the Champs-Elysees in which a man fired an automatic weapon, killing a police officer. And in March, a man plowed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, near the British Parliament in London, and then fatally stabbed a police officer. In all, four people were killed and dozens injured in what police called a terrorist attack. The Breitbart piece is an analysis of different terrorist attacks attempted and carried out in Europe since January. Attacks and attempted attacks have taken place in Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Germany, on average every nine days, the piece says. Pences message of civility and open debate lost on those who most needed to hear it (Weekly Standard) The debate over free speech on colleges campuses continues. In recent months, conservative speakers have canceled speeches on college campuses in the face of anticipated protests. And others, who have opted to speak, have faced vocal backlash. On Sunday, as Vice President Mike Pence began to address students at the University of Notre Dame commencement, several dozen stood and walked out of the ceremony. In his speech, Pence talked about civility and open debate, and this piece argues that the m A 25-year veteran in healthcare administration recently joined the team at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank as its new chief executive. Kelly Linden, 52, started her lead position at the hospital on Monday with the goal of getting to know the community, understand its needs and find the best way to provide services. This is a great organization, which has done incredible work for the community, she said. The things that we have in flight today are exciting. They are enhancements to the already incredible services. And so, for me, it is exciting to take us to an even more advanced state than we are today. Linden, a Pasadena resident, has spent the last four years at St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, which is now a part of the Providence St. Joseph Health group that was formed last year, and served as its executive vice president and chief operating officer. Before that, she spent 15 years at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, where she was chief operating officer. Linden said she fell in love working in the healthcare field because she likes its challenges and cares about offering the best services. In particular, in not-for-profit healthcare, we are providing care for the community in a way that is truly seeking out what the community needs, how they need to have that care provided and doing it in a way with compassion, she said. She added that St. Joseph has been one of those hospitals at the forefront of bringing some of the best healthcare needs to Burbank and surrounding communities. Linden said though she has been in her new position for only a few days, she is beginning to learn more about services the hospital provides and the areas where it can improve. Even with the possible shake-up in national healthcare services, Linden said that St. Joseph will still be committed to meeting all the needs of the community. While healthcare remains challenging and may be challenging in the future, its our responsibility to find ways to partner and come together and better serve those communities, she said. Well see how that all comes about in the near term, but our mission remains the same. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio A North Hollywood family got a brief scare last month after an 8-year-old girl was bitten by a baby rattlesnake in the Burbank Hills. Kathryn Campa was visiting her brother in the 3000 block of Trudi Lane on the night of April 23 when, sometime around 9 p.m., she heard her daughter Brooklyn screaming something had bitten her foot. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and there was a baby rattlesnake right there coiled next to my car, Kathryn Campa said. I see the baby rattlesnake and think right away, oh my gosh, they give too much venom because they cant control it. She said the family rushed Brooklyn to an emergency room, and she was then transferred to another hospital with a pediatric intensive-care unit, where she could be monitored overnight. Hospital staff eventually concluded that the bite Brooklyn received was dry, meaning the snake didnt release its venom, and that she wasnt in any further danger. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, snakes are beginning to awaken from their hibernation as the weather starts to warm up. Snakes are not restricted to wilderness areas and can venture into residential neighborhoods. Snakes bites are most prevalent between April and October, according to the department. In the event someone is bitten by a potentially poisonous snake, the department said people should seek immediate medical attention and remove any clothing or jewelry near the bite site that may constrict swelling. The department also said its not advisable to use a tourniquet, ice the wound or attempt to suck out the venom. Campa said her daughter has since fully recovered from the bite, but there have been some lingering effects. She had a nightmare the other night, she said. Her first rattlesnake nightmare, a snake was chasing her. andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc Community members, city officials, family and friends packed into the Costa Mesa City Council chambers Friday for a ceremony honoring the promotion of seven fire department staffers. Justin Horner, Gary Lilly and Chuck Torres were promoted to captains. Danial Bangle, Travis Johnson and Kevin Reddy were promoted to engineers, and Corey Brean was officially pinned as a firefighter. During the ceremony, the wife or family member of an employee placed a pin on the employees uniform, signifying the individuals promotion to the next rank. The ceremony is a longstanding tradition within the department. Originally, the event was held at individual firehouses, but two years ago, department leaders decided they wanted to open the ceremony to the community, said Fire Chief Dan Stefano. Its really to share a very special moment in the career of each of these individuals with the entire community, he said. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @HannahFryTCN Fountain Valley Police Chief Dan Llorens, who has served with the department for nearly 30 years and led it since 2011, announced he will retire June 1. In a letter to Interim City Manager John Sibley on April 24, Llorens said he accepted a position with the Los Angeles World Airports as assistant police chief, which will have him overseeing the day-to-day work of officers at LAX and Van Nuys Airport. Youve got to respect a man whose spent nearly 30 years in one city, Sibley said of Llorens. Hes going to be missed and his legacy is going to be a hard one for the next chief to follow. Capt. Kevin Childe, a 26-year department veteran, will act as interim chief. Childe will serve until the City Council appoints a new chief. Llorens wrote in his letter how he was underemployed when he left the Marines 30 years ago. He owes the city, staff, council and residents an enormous debt, he wrote. Having failed to convince three other police departments it was in their best interests to hire me, somehow Fountain Valley did, Llorens wrote. I hope by some measures my labors since that time has helped repay this debt. Llorens began his career at the department in 1988 while studying at the Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center, where he was elected class president and received awards for marksmanship and leadership. He steadily moved up the ranks, and on Nov. 17, 2011, he became the citys fifth police chief. He replaced Paul Sorrell, who retired after leading the department for about eight years. Llorens could not be reached for additional comment Friday. Councilman Mark McCurdy applauded Llorens during Tuesdays City Council meeting for his kindness and approachable nature. He said Llorens was easy to work with. I think he set a standard that I hope other chiefs look [to] and they try to follow his example, McCurdy said. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @HannahFryTCN A 405 Freeway overpass has sparked conflict in a Huntington Beach neighborhood, with some residents saying it attracts crimes like vandalism and illegal campsites. But the city, the Orange County Transportation Authority and the Ocean View School District contend the overpass provides a much needed pathway to campus for children who attend the nearby Vista View Middle School. The overpass, built decades ago, spans the freeway along Heil Avenue. It will be taken down and rebuilt as part of the 405 Widening Project, a $1.9-billion effort to improve traffic on the often congested freeway. Jennifer Cary, who lives next to the overpass on Landau Lane, said it is a visual blight in the neighborhood and attracts nuisance crimes. Cary said she also doesnt like that homeless people and teens suspected of smoking marijuana gather under the alcoves of the overpass. As part of a preliminary schedule that is subject to change, construction of the new overpass is expected to start between 2019 and 2020, OCTA spokesman Joel Zlotnik said. He said the project will cost about $4 million. Cary said she formed a petition to prevent rebuilding the road and about 60 residents of her neighborhood have signed on. A copy of the petition was unavailable. Cary also said she sent the petition to the city and the OCTA but officials from both said they hadnt received a copy as of Thursday. A few neighborhood residents confirmed that they signed a paper petition. We dont want it, said petition signer Jim Moore, also expressing concern about the presence of homeless people and trash. Resident Eric Oee said he signed the petition because the overpass attracts unwanted skateboarders. But the city of Huntington Beach and Ocean View School District think the overpass needs to be reconstructed so kids from the freeways southwest side can cross on their way to Vista View. The city of Westminster, with homes on the southwest portion, also supports the reconstruction. After reviewing the public notification process followed and the need for pedestrian connectivity between the neighborhoods to include assisting the youth to have safe access to schools, the city is supportive of the rebuilding of the pedestrian overcrossing, said Huntington Beach Asst. City Manager Ken Domer. In a letter sent to Cary, Domer said the rebuilt overpass will improve upon the current one, eliminating the alcoves and other hiding spots that she says attract some of the nuisance issues. The letter also says eradicating the overpass would cause a longer walk to school for children attending Vista View. It would increase from a half mile to 1.6 miles, adding more than 20 minutes to the walk. The school district also confirmed that children regularly use the overpass so they support it, the letter says. This isnt an issue of cost, this is about providing a way for Ocean View School District students to get to school without going more than a mile out of their way, Zlotnik said. Several people have voiced support for the overpass on the Nextdoor.com community website. One user said the walkway has been used by his family and they enjoy it not only for its convenience but also for its uniqueness and now nostalgia. Its good for kids to walk, its healthy for them, not to mention healthy for our environment and the congestion of our roadways, another said. I walked to school on this pedestrian walkway and use it still. Im happy to see things updated, but not eliminated. benjamin.brazil@latimes.com Twitter:@benbrazilpilot Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens is seeking permission from the Board of Supervisors to expand the number of federal immigration detainees who can be held in county jails. The move would offset more than half the capacity the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lost when actions by Santa Ana officials prompted the federal agency to cancel its city jail contract. The expansion will allow the Sheriff to accommodate a larger ICE bed capacity for detainees when needed, according to a report by Hutchens staff. If approved by supervisors Tuesday, the Sheriffs Department would be allowed to hold an additional 120 immigration detainees at a time, increasing the maximum capacity for ICE detainees in the countys jails from 838 to 958. The Santa Ana City Council voted in December to reduce the ICE bed capacity for the city jail from 200 detainees to 128, before phasing out the ICE contract entirely. ICE responded in February by canceling its Santa Ana contract. As the City Council tries to fill an $11 million hole in the budget from losing the contract, city officials are now looking at converting part of the mostly-empty jail into a mental health center. The Sheriffs Department expansion would bring the county an extra $5 million per year without a need for additional staff at this time, according to the sheriffs staff report. ICE pays the county $118 a day for each immigration detainee held in county jails, and the expansion would increase county income from the contract from the current $22 million to $27 million, according to the sheriffs department. The sheriffs request comes as President Trumps administration has stepped up efforts to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally, particularly those accused of crimes. Trumps expansion of deportations is expected to require additional space to detain those arrested by ICE. Hutchens says her deputies do not, and will not, enforce immigration laws in local communities. But she has publicly supported an expanded role for county jails in holding federal immigration detainees, saying fewer criminals would be released into communities. Among other steps, she has spoken out against a state bill that would limit local law enforcement from helping federal officials enforce immigration laws, saying the sheriffs department would take a major budget hit from losing the ICE contract. Hutchens also traveled to Washington in February to meet with the president and top Trump Administration officials, and offered additional help to the administration to hold unauthorized immigrants. Among the Trump Administration officials Hutchens offered extra assistance in detaining undocumented immigrants is U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who has advocated expanded deportations. Hutchens spoke with Sessions over the phone, according to the Orange County Register. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice, which Sessions oversees, is investigating whether Hutchens department has a pattern of civil rights violations connected to misuse of jailhouse informants and alleged withholding of key records from courts. The federal investigation of the jailhouse snitch scandal was announced in December before Trump became president, and soon after a state appeals court found Hutchens department repeatedly violated detainees civil rights through an illegal informants program. Hutchens went to Washington in her role as president of the Major County Sheriffs of America, an association of elected sheriffs who collectively serve over 100 million people. Just before her trip, Hutchens staff confirmed they had dropped their request for nearly $130,000 in compensation from Trumps campaign for law enforcement services at a rally he held in Costa Mesa last April. During her trip,Trump gave a speech on Feb. 8 in which he thanked Hutchens for her leadership, said shes had great service, and called her legendary. At the end of February, Sessions announced his department will pull back from civil rights investigations into local law enforcement, saying such efforts have made communities less safe. Its unknown if that decision will affect the investigation of the Sheriffs Department and O.C. District Attorneys Office. But in March, after U.S. U.S. Atty. Gen. Eileen Decker and 45 other U.S. attorneys were asked to resign by Trump, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Central District of California office in Los Angeles said it would not affect the investigation. The investigation is continuing, said spokesman Thom Mrozek in a brief email statement. The departure of the U.S. Attorney will not affect the investigation. The Board of Supervisors meeting starts at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana, with public comments heard at the beginning. This story was reported by Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, as part of a publishing agreement with TimesOC. Nick Gerda covers county government and Santa Ana for Voice of OC. Contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org. Esther Levine, a former bank loan officer who has lived in Glendale since the 1930s, turned 100 years old on Wednesday according to her daughter Harriet Chase. Originally, Levine owned and managed a combination childrens dress shop and toy store in Burbank, but she had to close it. She then joined Bank of America and initially worked as a teller. At age 88, she retired after a 20-year career in banking. However, she decided to return to the financial industry, performing a range of tasks. After retiring for a second time, she volunteered at Glendale Adventist Medical Center as an ambassador in the emergency room. She has volunteered with a variety of philanthropic organizations, including taking on the role of president of Bnai Brith Women as well as serving as a member of the Optimist Club and a group at City of Hope, in which she served as treasurer. She now lives in Scholl Canyon Estates, where her favorite activities are bingo, Memory Magic and penny rummy. Levine has two children, six grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren. mark.kellam@latimes.com Twitter: @lamarkkellam Not long following the city of Glendales week commemorating the Armenian Genocide, the City Council moved to support a resolution asking the U.S. House of Representatives to recognize and reaffirm the atrocity. The combined resolution and motion by the council will show support for Rep. Adam Schiffs House Resolution 220 from March 22, the congressmans latest bipartisan attempt toward Armenian Genocide recognition. HR 220 asks the House to commemorate and condemn past genocides including the one committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians as a way to bolster the nations stance on preventing modern-day genocides. Join the conversation on Facebook This resolution has removed some of the language on Turkey, and references the Ottoman Empire, and includes a broader range of genocides, said Christine Powers, a program supervisor with the city. This is to appeal to representatives in other parts of the country who may not be attuned to the history of Armenians and the Armenian Genocide. This is not Schiffs first resolution aimed at Armenian Genocide recognition and affirmation to the House, but the Glendale City Council has supported several of them in the past, including resolutions in 2005, 2007 and 2011, according to city documents. The council will also send a letter signed by all current members to show support for HR 220. Council members will also send a five-signature letter directly to President Trump that urges him to recognize and reaffirm the Armenian Genocide. The United States government has not officially acknowledged the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide in over 30 years. The last president to describe the events as a genocide was Ronald Reagan in 1981. Turkey, an American ally in a sensitive region, strongly disputes the term genocide, and the U.S. has been reluctant to anger its leadership. The Glendale move comes from a letter sent to the city by Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Hilda Solis about actions being considered by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Barger made a motion Tuesday to the board to consider supporting HR 220. Weve just been through our week of remembrance with some very important events that occurred during the week, and I think its time for us to stand up and speak about the genocide as well and to reinforce what the supervisors are doing, said Councilwoman Paula Devine. Along with the letters, the council will adopt an official city position that supports legislation and administration action that recognizes and reaffirms the Armenian Genocide by the United States Government. jeff.landa@latimes.com Twitter: @JeffLanda MORE CIVIC NEWS & POLITICS Proposal to build next to Alex Theatre gets early Glendale City Council approval Glendale swears in council members and elects new mayor Reimagined Glendale Central Library celebrates its grand reopening Michelle Price told first- and second-grade students at El Morro Elementary School on Friday that they dont have to like all reptiles. Take snakes as an example. People either really like them or they really dont, said Price, owner and operator of Science On The Go, Inc., a company focused on educational presentations to schools throughout Orange County. Its OK. You dont have to like everything on the planet, but you have to understand the role it plays. Snakes eat rats, mice and rodents, which carry disease. Snakes were but one of the reptiles she spoke about during a presentation inside the Laguna Beach campus multipurpose room. Students sat in rows on the floor as they listened to Price, who discussed behaviors and characteristics of several reptiles, including tortoises, turtles, alligators, crocodiles and lizards. She used visual aids both living and non-living. A California kingsnake sat on bark chips inside a clear container, bobbing its head as Price spoke. She walked back and forth on the stage, grabbing an enlarged photo or, in one case, a taxidermy alligator head to enhance the instruction. Price, a credentialed teacher, brings a litany of visual aids to each school, which she displays on rows of tables. At one point, she reached into a container and grabbed a bearded dragon lizard named Bob, which elicited some oohs from students as Price held it close to her while patting its back. When they are grumpy, they will puff themselves up to look bigger, Price said. The underside of their throat will turn black if the animal is stressed or sees a potential rival. Price also spoke about Komodo dragons hunting style. They ascribe to a death-by-saliva method. Komodo dragons have an excess of bacteria in their mouths, Price said. When the lizard strikes its prey, causing an open wound, the dragon will hold on long enough for the bacteria to seep in and slowly kill the animal. After the presentation, students took turns walking by the animals to get closer looks. Students get a closer look of replica tortoises and turtles during a presentation on reptiles Friday at El Morro Elementary School. (Don Leach / Daily Pilot) Friday marked the fifth time Price visited El Morro this school year. The schools PTA raised money to cover her speaking costs. The reptiles are Prices pets. Price has a rotating list of topics that include magnetism, fossils and amphibians. She modifies certain vocabulary terms depending on the age level of students. I never claim to be a school science program, Price said. This is a supplement to what the teachers are doing. I want kids to be aware, respectful and care. First-grade teacher Kathi LeVan liked how Price emphasized animals purposes. I liked what [Price] said that you dont have to like snakes, but understand their role, LeVan said. bryce.alderton@latimes.com Twitter: @AldertonBryce Roma Mistry went to Seattle with her son, Dilan, for two days in mid-April to visit the campus and captured this spring scene. Though Dilan, 18, decided not to attend the college known as UW or U-Dub, the two spent time appreciating the blossoms and architecture of the university. It has plum and cherry trees on the city campus. The Rancho Palos Verdes resident took the photo with an iPhone 6s. Advertisement This photo is featured in Your Scene in the L.A. Times Sunday Travel section. To submit a photo, send unaltered original files to yourscene-travel@latimes.com or post them on Instagram with the hashtag #yourscenelat. Photographers agree that The Times may reproduce photos in any format. ALSO $20 concert tickets for such Vegas shows as Train and Queen go on sale Tuesday Realign your chakras and salute a new day at the Sunrise Springs Spa Knotts new Sol Spin thrill ride has a lot of promise, but does it deliver? travel@latimes.com @latimestravel A group of 41 men, including actor Jimmy Stewart, in the foreground wearing the solid black tie, takes the oath to enter the Army. Stewart was the first top-ranked Hollywood star to enter military service during the United States mobilization before World War ll. Before joining the Army, Stewart had won the 1941 Best Actor Academy award for the movie The Philadelphia Story. Stewarts induction into the U.S. Army -- as reported the next day in the L.A. Times -- was a media event: Advertisement It was just plain Private James Maitland Stewart around 10 a.m. yesterday for Hollywoods most eligible bachelor and $1500-a-week screen star Jimmy reported along with 18 other less well-known young men at 7:15 a.m. at the intersection of Santa Monica and Westwood Blvds When he stepped from the automobile he was greeted by P.H. Brown, chief clerk of Draft Board No. 245. After he received his draft papers he hopped aboard a streetcar which transported the group to the Subway Terminal station on Hill St. From the terminal to the induction station at 106 W. Third St. the group marched. Men and women lined the streets. The women waved their hankerchiefs and called Good-by Jimmy. He waved back and smiled As he entered the induction station newspapermen, photographers and newsreel cameramen were on hand to record the scenes. Portable lights were hung up and news cameramen directed the star who would probably earn $100,000 a picture as a result of his Academy award. Upstairs he filled out questionnaires. Bulbs snapped. One of them popped showering the room with glass, but no one was injured. Declared mentally and physically fit by Army doctors, Stewart stepped in line with 41 other young men and sworn into the military by Col. John A. Robenson, Southern California district recruiting officer. I, James Maitland Stewart, do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America and will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies whomsover. I will obey orders of the President of the United States and of the officers appointed over me according to the Articles of War. So help me God. After induction, Pvt. Stewart was made squad leader of the group and sent off to Ft. MacArthur to begin training. During World War II, Stewart rose to rank of colonel and flew 20 bomber missions over Germany. Mar. 22, 1941: Actor Jimmy Stewart standing at Westwood train depot at 7:15 a.m. with fans saying good-by. (Gordon Wallace / Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA) After the war, Stewart stayed in the military, rising the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force reserve. The photo of Stewart taking the oath was published on the front page of the L.A. Times accompanying the above-quoted story. The photographer is unknown. These other four photos were taken by Gordon Wallace, Los Angeles Times staff photographer, so he may have also taken the oath image. Most of the men inducted with Stewart were draftees. But the actor had volunteered. When Stewart had earlier been drafted, he was underweight and failed the physical. After working with an MGM studios trainer, Stewart gained the needed weight and retook the physical. He passed and according to a March 14, 1941, Los Angeles Times story, Stewart joined as a volunteer-selectee. This post was originally published on March 24, 2011. Mar. 22, 1941. Actor Jimmy Stewart talking to fellow Army inductees on Red Car train. (Gordon Wallace / Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA) Mar. 22, 1941: Actor Jimmy Stewart getting eye exam, left, back to camera, with media documenting the event. (Gordon Wallace / Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA) Mar. 22, 1941: Actor Jimmy Stewart being finger printed for induction into the United States Army. (Gordon Wallace / Los Angeles Times Archive/UCLA) See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here French voters will choose their next president Sunday after a final campaign that has been scrappy, ill-tempered and overshadowed in the home stretch by a hacking attack. Just before a Friday midnight deadline that requires candidates to stop campaigning, front-runner Emmanuel Macron was hit with the leak of thousands of campaign documents some reportedly fake in what his team called a massive and coordinated attempt to upset the election. Frances government cybersecurity agency said Saturday that it will investigate the attack, according to a government official who said it appeared to be a very serious breach. Advertisement The timing of the leak meant Macron was unable to respond Saturday, with polls scheduled to open at 8 a.m. Sunday. During the so-called election pause, candidates are banned from making any statement or comment until voting closes at 8 p.m. Sunday evening. Just before the deadline, Macrons En Marche! (Onward!) movement issued a statement saying fake papers had been mixed in with tens of thousands of genuine campaign documents including internal emails and financial data, to spread doubt and disinformation. It described the leak as a real attempt to disrupt the French presidential election and said it would be taking all steps to find out who was behind the unusual operation. Macrons team did not designate a culprit but has blamed Moscow-backed groups for repeated hacking attempts during the campaign. Russia has made no secret of its support for Macrons rival, the far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen. French media pointed out that the White House and experts blamed a Russian-linked group for hacking the email account of John Podesta, Democrat Hillary Clintons campaign manager, during the U.S. presidential campaign. Coming in the final hours of this campaign, this operation clearly amounts to democratic destabilization as was seen in the United States, an En Marche! spokesman said. Le Monde newspaper said the leaked documents were spread quickly by Le Pen supporters. Just minutes before the midnight deadline, National Front Vice President Florian Philippot, a close advisor to Le Pen, wrote on Facebook: With MacronLeaks are we learning something investigative journalists have deliberately hushed up? There was no word from the White House or the U.S. intelligence community on the hacking. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Saturday that the hacking in France was of grave concern. While we are still awaiting confirmation from French officials that there are indeed forgeries being dumped along with authentic stolen documents, this would represent yet another dangerous escalation of cyber interference in a Western nations democracy, Schiff said in a released statement. I worried about the Russians dumping forged documents among the real, or worse still, adding fake paragraphs into real emails. Schiff added: Imagine the impact on an election if hackers inserted false information into a real email that suggested illegality by a candidate, and then published the document. If this was done close to an election, there would be no opportunity to disprove the forgery and who would believe the victim even if they could? In France with Macrons campaign, that nightmare scenario may be playing out, with hackers reportedly mixing fake documents in with the real and then dumping them. On Saturday morning, the French electoral commission warned all media they faced criminal prosecution if they published or republished the leaked documents, posted as #MacronLeaks on social media websites. Macron declared he was taking legal action against unknown persons on Thursday after Le Pen made a remark at the end of a bruising second-round debate that she hoped we wouldnt learn that he had an offshore account with a bank in the Bahamas. She was referring to documents on the Internet claiming Macron had a bank account in the Cayman Islands. Nicolas Vanderbiest, a Belgian expert on fake news, said the false information had originated in Russia. It is impossible to say what consequences the final hacking attack has had because opinion polls are also banned during the electioneering pause. On Friday, the last opinion poll by Ipsos showed Macron winning 63% of votes and Le Pen 37%. Imagine the impact on an election if hackers inserted false information into a real email that suggested illegality by a candidate... U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence The most bitterly contested and turbulent election campaign in France in decades ended ominously for Le Pen, who was booed on a visit to the 800-year-old cathedral in the city of Reims in northern France, which saw the crowning of 25 French kings in the Middle Ages. Le Pens populist anti-Europe, anti-globalization, anti-immigration program saw support for Frances far right rise to record levels, and led to the traditional left and right parties the Socialists and the Republicans being thrown out of the race in the first-round vote two weeks ago. The margin between Le Pen and Macron widened after the head-to-head televised debate Wednesday evening throughout which Le Pen was relentlessly aggressive toward her rival. At one point Macron snapped that she was avoiding talking about her program. You had two minutes to say why the French should vote for you and all you did was [insult me], Macron told her. At her last major rally in Ennemain, a remote village in post-industrial northern France that is part of the National Front heartland, Le Pen on Thursday told locals that she had been combative on behalf of the ordinary people, but some judged her debate performance a mistake. She shouldnt have been so aggressive. She should have stuck to talking about what she is going to do, said Florent Guilloy, 34, a local boilermaker. But I will still vote for Marine. I have read the candidates programs and I agree with her. Macron just represents the rich, and they dont want anything to do with us. Sylvain Crepon, a French political analyst and member of the Radical Politics Observatory at the Paris-based Jean-Jaures think tank, said Le Pens campaign had slipped up badly by not showing presidential stature. Shes spent a lot of time saying why she wants to do things, but not how. Its the FNs biggest fault, Crepon said. If Macron, 39, triumphs today he will become Frances youngest president after a meteoric rise from virtual obscurity. Just three years ago, few outside the Elysee Palace, where he was an advisor to outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande, would have heard of him. When Hollande named him the new finance minister in August 2014, French media ran articles headlined: Who is Emmanuel Macron? He has never held an elected post. He resigned in August 2016 to form his En Marche! movement and run for president. Macron, a former investment banker with Rothschilds, is economically liberal, socially progressive, pro-Europe and internationally minded. If elected, he will face his first challenge in the two-round legislative election on June 11 and 14, in which he needs enough seats to form a majority in the French Parliaments lower house, the National Assembly. So far En Marche!, which is a movement and not a political party, has 14 candidates to stand in the legislative elections. It has promised to field candidates in all 577 parliamentary constituencies, and is insisting that at least half are women and that half come from civil society or are local authority representatives. Macron will need a majority in the National Assembly if he is to push through his promised economic and social reforms. Pascal Perrineau, head of the respected Sciences Po universitys political research unit, Cevipof, said Macron could take nothing for granted. Normally in France, the legislative elections follow the result of the presidential. Up until now, they have ratified either a left- or a right-wing president with a left- or right-wing government, but right now there is no right and no left. If there are 577 small elections with independent or small-horse candidates, it will be passionate for us as observers, but it will be a [political] mess, Perrineau said. Mona Krewel, assistant professor of government at Cornell University, and an expert on elections and campaigning in Europe, said Macron will need more than a victory in Sundays vote to govern effectively. The story does not end on Sunday, Krewel said. The parliamentary elections about one month later will have a huge impact on the future of the country as well as the future of the newly elected French president. Having his own majority in the National Assembly will be crucial for Macrons ambitious economic reform plans, which cannot be realized if France will have to face another paralyzing period of divided government cohabitation, she said. Willsher is a special correspondent. ALSO Frances Macron and Le Pen slug it out in no-holds-barred debate before Sundays presidential election Obama endorses Macron in French presidential race: He appeals to peoples hopes and not their fears Macron vs. Le Pen: The French presidential candidates in their own words UPDATES: 3:35 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the two candidates and the election in general. This article was originally published at 10:45 a.m. Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, said Saturday that it had chosen Ismail Haniyeh, a charismatic grassroots politician, as its new political chief, the latest move in an effort to refresh the militant Islamist groups leadership and manifesto. Haniyeh, seen as a relative moderate with close ties to Hamas military wing, will move from Gaza City to Hamas headquarters in Doha, Qatar, to take over from Khaled Meshaal, who has been responsible for the organizations foreign relations and financing for the last 12 years. The announcement caps several months of voting among Hamas far-flung members in Gaza, the West Bank, Israeli jails and abroad to select a replacement for Meshaal, who sought to step down. Advertisement It comes a few days after Hamas unveiled a revised charter that eased its position on Israel and distanced itself from Islamist groups in the region in what was seen as a bid to reverse years of growing isolation in the region. Hamas, classified as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Israel, has been buffeted by upheavals across the Arab world, which resulted in bruised relations and reduced support from governments in Iran, Syria and Egypt. While Haniyeh is expected to continue Meshaals program of emphasizing improved relations with Arab countries around the region and reaching out to Western countries, his ascent to the organizations top position is seen as rebalancing influence within Hamas toward its Gaza leadership and its Qassam Brigades military wing, and away from its foreign political bureau. This election shifts the center of gravity in the movement to Gaza, said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Authority spokesman and a vice president of Birzeit University. This is probably an indication of the increase of the power of the inside particularly the military wing. Haniyeh, 54, led Hamas to its 2006 victory in a Palestinian parliamentary election and served as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. He remained the organizations political leader in Gaza following its takeover of the territory a decade ago from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah party as well as through years of blockade and war with Israel. Haniyeh was radicalized by the situation in Gaza. Bjorn Brenner, a researcher on Palestinian politics at the Swedish Defense University Earlier this year, Hamas selected Yahya Sinwar, a hard-line military leader, to replace Haniyeh as the top leader in Gaza a move that many feared could help spark a new round of fighting with Israel. Haniyeh, who served as an assistant to Hamas founding spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and whose home is in a Gaza City refugee camp, is consistently ranked by Palestinian opinion polls as one of the most popular politicians. Under its new leadership, the movement must continue and intensify its efforts to strengthen internal Palestinian relations strengthen the steadfastness of our people, and mobilize Arab, Islamic and international powers to stand by the Palestinian people, said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum in a statement announcing Haniyehs selection. Last week, Hamas unveiled a series of additions to its charter that expressed support for establishing a provisional Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip seen as a tacit acceptance of Israel. The new manifesto emphasized that Hamas is first and foremost a Palestinian movement an effort to distance itself from Egypts Muslim Brotherhood and improve ties with the government in Cairo. It also sought to distance the organization from the anti-Semitic language of its original charter. A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the revised charter as an effort to fool the world. Despite Haniyehs reputation as an affable leader who helped push Hamas to compete in elections that were expected to moderate the organization, the years of conflict with Israel and estrangement from Fatah have hardened the newly elected political leader and made him more inclined to go along with the military wing, said one analyst. Haniyeh was radicalized by the situation in Gaza, said Bjorn Brenner, a researcher on Palestinian politics at the Swedish Defense University and the author of a book on Hamas. He was one of the leaders who believed that participating in the political system would make the international community open their arms, strengthen the Palestinians, and force Israel to deal with Hamas. It didnt go like that. Special correspondents Abualouf reported from Gaza City and Mitnick from Tel Aviv @joshmitnick May 5, 2017, 5:11pm ET Feds investigate Nissan Murano over brake failure reports Complaints allege that an ABS engagement can cause the brake pedal to lose pressure. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation into the 2009 Nissan Murano after receiving complaints of brake failures. The agency has identified at least 58 reports claiming the brake pedal lost pressure, potentially causing increased stopping distances. The cause of the problem is suspected to be the ABS hydraulic control unit (HCU), which controls hydraulic pressures to the individual brake assemblies. Many of the reports suggest an ABS engagement, such as braking on a low-friction surface or uneven surface, causes the pedal to lose pressure or go "to the floor," requiring increased force and extending stopping distances. "In some cases drivers allege they are unable to stop within their desired distance resulting in the vehicle going past a stop sign or red light," the NHTSA says. "One report ... alleges a crash and 3 injuries when the driver apparently took an evasive maneuver due to the brake pedal losing pressure." Reports indicate a higher failure rate for older higher-mileage vehicles, suggesting an aging HCU may be to blame. The agency is now reviewing the scope, frequency and safety-related consequences of the alleged defect to determine if a recall is warranted. May 6, 2017, 3:54am ET Spied: 2018 Renault Megane RS The next RS will get over 300 horsepower. A low-resolution spy shot has given us our best look yet at the next generation of the Renault Megane RS The Paris-based car maker dropped the two-door version of the Megane in a bid to cut costs, so the Renault Sport model will exclusively be offered as a four-door hatchback for the first time in its history. It will continue to feature an aggressive-looking body kit characterized by a deep front bumper with a F1-inspired blade, flared fenders, and side skirts. May 6, 2017, 4:19am ET Jaguar - Land Rover boss defends diesel Ralf Speth stresses it\'s important to continue investing in diesel technology. The diesel engine has been on lawmakers' hit list since news of Volkswagen's far-reaching emissions cover-up fiasco made headlines in 2015. Many companies have vowed to phase out diesel-powered cars, but Jaguar - Land Rover (JLR) remains firmly committed to the technology, even in the United States. Company boss Ralf Speth recently explained JLR's position. "The latest diesel technology is really such a step in emissions, performance, particulates; it's better for the environment when compared to [an equivalent] petrol. Diesel has to - needs to - have a future," he told British magazine Autocar. Jaguar is one of the numerous companies investing in electric technology. The company is working on turning the I-Pace concept into a production model before the end of the decade. Speth believes electrification is the future, but he warns the shift away from the internal combustion engine won't happen overnight. It will be a gradual process, and diesel technology is the best way to lower emissions until electric cars become more mainstream. Additionally, Speth doesn't agree with decision-makers on both sides of the pond who have worked overtime to make the diesel engine public enemy number one. He says the technology's bad reputation is unjustified, and he clearly blames Volkswagen for it. "This kind of manipulation software is not acceptable," he said, referring to the so-called illegal defeat device discovered in Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche engines. "Unfortunately, the whole automotive industry suffers, not just Volkswagen. Nobody believes the automotive industry anymore. They see us as offenders and not giving the right information," he added. Note: 2017 Land Rover Discovery pictured. Photo by Byron Hurd. Kildare, by virtue of being beside Dublin, is inevitably going to have a certain degree of residential accomodation which can be described as a commuter belt. But recently its been described as more of a doughnut than a belt, and its being blamed on bad regional planning. In short, it means that fewer and fewer people are living in, or close to the city centre, and more and more people are being sent out to the suburbs and beyond, into the neighbouring county. This can lead to problems for all concerned. It reduces the vibrancy in both the city, which is denuded of people living there, and in the doughnut (thats us) which has a glut of people living here with less of a connection to the area than if they were also working here. Turning the county into a giant dormitory reduces the standard of life in the county - not least because it pushes up the price of housing in Kildare. Increased demand makes life difficult for the locals, as weve seen. Another major problem is that it puts huge pressure on transport infrastructure, whether thats public transport such as buses, trains and the Luas, or private cars that require constant investment in good roads. The employers and business group IBEC are very concerned. They believe the doughnut effect is a major threat to competitiveness in the whole Mid East region, which they identify as being Kildare, Dublin and Wicklow and is the most commercially significant in the country. In the past few weeks, IBEC published their submission to the National Planning Framework (a successor for the National Spatial Strategy). Their aspiration for the Mid East region is that it will be a prosperous city region with diverse economic activity and a world class infrastructure, providing a vibrant and sustainable environment where future generations can live and work. However they say that a lack of available affordable and accessible housing in the wider region is a key issue for employers and an obstacle to new business growth. Without sustainable housing solutions, the ability to grow business is compromised, they say (which is as close business people come to being concerned with society than merely the bottom line) - and they call for affordable and quality housing to buy or rent. As regards the Doughnut effect, they point out that rising rental costs and property prices are forcing people to commute from the Dublin commuter belt to the city centre on a daily basis. Record numbers are using the M50 with gridlock common at peak times. There are concerns regarding the doughnut effect that suburban and outer locations can have on the centre, they point out. Dublin has reached levels that have outgrown its infrastructure capacity. Traffic congestion will result in jobs and growth being lost. Increased investment in the transport network is required to keep pace with the growing number of people commuting to the city every day. The problem is one of a failure of planning. In fact, according to the latest census figures, there are now more people living in the three counties of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow than there is in Dublin City - and its only set to grow in the coming years. Catherine Murphy, TD, in a submission on behalf of the Social Democrats to the National Planning Framework points out the population of the city centre grew by only 13% between 1996 and 2016, whereas the populations of the Fingal, South Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow county councils grew by 43%, 22%, 39%, 44% and 28% respectively. Dep Murphy believes that pushing people out of the city created new demands on public services and resulted in a less sustainable approach to development. City facilities were also under-used. The Social Democrats believe that work needs to be done to bring people back into the city centre - because the current doughnut doesnt work for anyone. IBEC wants to see investment in housing, public transport such as an underground DART and completion of a rail connection from the airport to the city centre, and by 2040, an outer orbital road. They also believe, generally, that what they call densification is needed - simply that a greater number of people per kilometre live in the city, and to that end, they wish to see restrictions on the building heights in the city centre relaxed. They want a concerted effort to make sure the city does not expand beyond the M50 and that congestion reduction measures be implemented. It is, of course, easy to see that easing the doughnut effect will require allowing people to live nearer the city centre. Whats not so clear is the political willingness to tackle and fund whats needed. In the middle of an election campaign, Liberal Democrats dont have time to read books. But keep an eye out for reviews, and extracts, of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, by Douglas Murray, which was published on May 4th by Bloomsbury. The Sunday Times gave us a full-page extract last weekend, indicating the Murdoch presss approval of its author and his arguments. His opening sentence states that Europe is committing suicide: from loss of will, decline of Christian values (he calls it existential civilizational tiredness), lost commitment to reproduce enough children, and above all from the mass immigration of Muslims who reject European civilization. When you are debating with intelligent Brexiteers, its useful to understand where their ideas and assumptions come from. Murray is one of their leading thinkers and controversialists: a self-declared neo-conservative (author of Neo-Conservatism: why we need it, 2005), a scholarship boy at Eton 25 years ago who started to write for publication while still an Oxford student, founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion (briefly cut off from links with the Conservative Party leadership for its anti-Muslim stance), associate director of the Henry Jackson Society (an organization with close links to right-wing Washington think-tanks), and associate editor of The Spectator. He ranks with Daniel Hannan, whose How we invented Freedom and why it matters has been a bible for Brexiteers, in his influence on thinking Eurosceptic Conservatives. Murray is perhaps the most complex of the Europhobe intellectuals: a gay who justifiably attacks Islamic homophobia (and worked with Pim Fortyn), an avowed atheist who decries the replacement of Christian values by human rights in European culture, who writes about European rather than Anglo-Saxon values but disputes Samuel Huntingtons thesis that there is a fundamental clash between Western civilization and its rivals, on the grounds that the only alternative to Western civilization is barbarism. Like a younger Christopher Hitchens, he argues passionately for whatever line he supports, without too detailed attention to historical evidence. He sees the nation state as the bedrock of civilized society, and asserts that it has been the foundation for Europes constitutional order and liberal rights since 1648 (tell that to the Poles, Czechs, Greeks or Irish). He sees Islam as a fundamental threat to a coherent Christian culture, ignoring the bitterness of the Protestant-Catholic conflicts over several centuries. He sees European values as fixed, and threatened by mass immigration, when a brief examination of the Europe of 50-80 years ago shows how liberal values have gained rather than lost ground. The underlying image that most Eurosceptic Conservatives will retain from his arguments , ignoring the details, is that Europe is in decline, in contrast to the vigorous Anglo-Saxon and English-speaking world. There are, of course, difficulties with this assertion. Its certainly the case that Europes share of world population is falling; but thats the result of the population explosion in Africa and Asia, not of European hopelessness. Its also the case that Europes share of the global economy is shrinking but thats the result of the growth of Asian economies, not of any absolute European decline. And theres a fundamental contradiction between the argument that Europe has passed its own death sentence through opening its frontiers to Muslim immigrants (Murray quotes Stefan Sweig on this, although he was writing in the 1930s) and that Britain needs to escape from the bullying grip of the German-dominated continent. There is, of course, an underlying resentment of Germany in the Eurosceptic narrative. Murray sees Germany as spineless in accepting Muslim refugees. The Telegraph, Boris Johnson, and other contributors to The Spectator, see Germany as a country that Britain defeated in two world wars but which has usurped the economic and political leadership of the continent. The Germans think that Brexit Britain owes the EU, but the IOU is all theirs, the Telegraph asserted this week, channelling Margaret Thatchers view that they owe us for liberating them from Nazism and teaching them democracy. When Mrs. Merkel suggests that British ministers live on a different galaxy from their continental counterparts, she is right. The narrative of history, identity and values promulgated by right-wing thinkers and think-tanks, and shared (though often not fully understood) by Conservative Eurosceptics is a long way from how Liberal Democrats see the world, European and wider values. Their adulation of the USA as freer than European democratic states, without their constrictions of higher taxation, welfare, health provision and market regulation, is a caricature. Bear this in mind when you find yourself debating Conservative opponents on panels over the next few weeks. You will need to challenge not only their assertions about current choices, but also their underlying assumptions. * William Wallace has fought five parliamentary elections in Manchester and West Yorkshire. He is a former president of the Yorkshire regional Liberal Democrats. ENGLAND VOTE SHARE VS. 2013 Tories UP 13% UKIP DOWN 14% LibDems UP 2% Labour DOWN 3% https://t.co/htCvSBTOGQ pic.twitter.com/EuJnakWYuB Westmonster (@WestmonsterUK) May 5, 2017 UKIP is dead in the water. Their voters have swung to a Tory party committed to Brexit with no final consultation and the opening new grammar schools, both signature policies of UKIP: their task is done. Meanwhile, we Lib Dems are bigger than weve ever been; and yet in spite of a 2% swing to us, we are not making the gains we deserve. Both Labour and the Tories have sticky voters who arent coming over to us: if Corbyn was as much of a dead weight as people say, I would expect a bigger swing from Labour; and Tory voters seem optimistic the consequences of Brexit can be weathered in a safe pair of government hands. We need to learn from UKIP. To be victims of our own success would be a great pleasure. As most people see it, we are victims of our own stupidity; the one totem policy people associated with us got dropped. The ins-and-outs of policy do not matter to the man on the street. The strides we made in government, of which we are rightly proud, simply arent important. Where we won the battle but lost the war UKIP has managed to bring two ludicrous policies from the fringe into the mainstream without any significant representation in Parliament. UKIP did not fight Europhilia on the virtues or vices of the European Arrest Warrant or regional investment; it fought on the basis of un-elected Eurocrats and arcane bureaucracy limiting the choices of the British people and its government. Emotive, simple subjects anyone can understand as a point of principle: Britain should say who it lets in and send home anyone it doesnt want. Likewise, we Lib Dems should be fighting for local politicians to control local services. This is a point of principle: local decisions should not be made by politicians in London, who not only arent connected to the area but often arent even voted for by a majority within that area. Local people should control as much of their own money as possible: that means proper representation at multiple levels of the state. We can complain about issues of the day like NHS waiting times, grammar schools and education funding but these promote our opponents world view: that the moral aspect of public policy is exclusively utilitarian. No: to us, these matters are the consequences of a corrupt, immoral system. I advocate a break with Lib Dem campaigns of the past: it is no good to prepare for government. Look where government got us. We have to pull other parties into a debate we set the moral tenor of, as UKIP did to Labour and the Tories. Unlike UKIP we are not going to pull the rug from under ourselves. We must promote reform by appealing to simple moral binaries and local identities: we can only prepare for a government we are prepared to be in. * Toby MacDonnell is a Lib Dem member. He is a graduate in history from Sussex university reading Keynes and Baudrillard in preparation for postgraduate studies. Worried About Money This Holiday Season? Heres What Psychologists Want You to Know The most wonderful time of the year can be expensive. And in the midst of mounting global uncertainties and rising inflation, that can indeed be a challenge. A COUNTY councillor says that planners should take advantage of the existing Cork to Dublin motorway in the construction of the proposed M20 from Limerick to Cork. Planners are being urged to explore the possibility of creating a new route for the road taking advantage of the existing M8. According to Gerald Mitchell, FG, the fact that you have a third of the motorway with a toll on it will save an awful lot of expense in terms of the final cost of the project. The savings, Cllr Mitchell said could be as much as 350m. Its a link off the Tipperary road which would probably be bypassing four villages, Caherconlish, Hospital, Knocklong and Ballylanders and you are straight onto the Cork/Dublin motorway at Mitchelstown. You are straight down to the tunnel and onto the airport, said Cllr Mitchell of the proposed route. With the volume of traffic through Hospital at the moment, at peak times you can hardly cross the road to the various businesses, he said, saying that there could be links to the villages from the motorway. Last week the Leader reported how Sinn Fein councillor Seamus Browne called for a united front by councillors to ensure that the selected, direct route for the proposed M20 motorway from Limerick to Cork remains unchanged. We need Limerick politicians of all parties to insist on the direct route connection through Charleville and Mallow which will allow for much greater connectivity with the west of the county, he said. Plans for the M20 Limerick-Cork motorway were shelved in 2010 due to lack of money for the 1bn project but the 105km route selected followed roughly the line of the existing Limerick Cork road. But there was disappointment in Limerick when it wasnt included in the governments Infrastructure and Capital Investment Plan. However, earlier this year, 1m was allocated to revisit the plans, reigniting hope that it could be included in the governments plan when the mid-term review takes place this September. Meanwhile, both Limerick and Cork Chambers of Commerce have commissioned consultants in a bid to make a watertight business case for a direct Limerick to Cork route which they say is vital for the creation of a dynamic and formidable Atlantic corridor. That report is due next month and will be presented to the government. But fears have now emerged that revisiting the plans, and financial considerations, could also reopen the route selection. However, according to Cllr Mitchell who hails from Hospital it is well worth a feasibility report and an expert report. We will accept whatever it is. We only do this once so we should do it right. You could link it up to the Northern Distributor Route and it would be linking up to the technological park and the Eastlink Business Park and Troy Studios in Castletroy, added Cllr Mitchell. THE environmental regulator has ordered Irish Cement to fully review its processes after dust found on locals cars contained material from its Mungret plant. In a statement the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , Limerick City and County Council and the HSE have confirmed a formal compliance investigation has been sought into the control of dust at the factory. As part of this investigation, the company is conducting a detailed inspection of the material and product handling infrastructure and processes over the entire site to identify and possible defects, the statement said, adding that Irish Cement must conclude the review in a month and provide regular reports to the EPA. However, residents say this does not go far enough. For the most part, Irish Cement is being allowed to investigate itself, Limerick Against Pollution (Lap) said in a statement, We dont think its appropriate for the EPA to abdicate responsibility here, and to simply wait for Irish Cement to provide an explanation. It is a low level of censure and no independent verification of what actually happened. At this stage, the EPA should be sending someone in to inspect and verify the operations at the plant. This Wednesday, windows belonging to residents in the neighbouring estates in Mungret were being cleaned by operatives paid by Irish Cement. They also cleaned residents cars which have been cloaked in dust. There has also been criticism of the company this week for stopping short of admitting liability for recent blow-outs. In a short comment, released following the EPA/HSE statement, Irish Cement only noted the regulators finding, which it said attribut[ed] responsibility to Irish Cement for recent dust emissions in the vicinity of the Mungret factory. The company apologised for inconvenience caused to neighbours. Local Fianna Fail councillor James Collins has predicted that if Irish Cement is given the green light to proceed with its 10m plans to burn tyres and solid recovered waste in Mungret, the EPA itself will have to be called into question. If youre looking at an application to vary the environmental processes, the first thing you should look at is their competency and track record, and the incidents over the last couple of weeks show Irish Cement is not managing its current facility in an acceptable manner, he said, "This also gives us grave concerns as to how the facility will be managed when they are burning tyres, plastics and other waste products which may lead to toxic emissions. Cllr Daniel Butler predicted: This will have serious consequences for Irish Cement when they go to renew their licence to the EPA. In a response to a press query, Irish Cement stated this Wednesday: In line with its industrial emissions licence, Irish Cement will continue to engage with the EPA and adhere to the strict reporting and regulatory standards that are required. The company is also proactively engaged with local residents to rectify any inconvenience caused by recent dust emissions. CORBALLY residents will find out shortly if they are on a priority list for funding for defences to prevent flooding in their homes. Residents of the Corbally Road, the Mill Road and the surrounding areas on the banks of the Shannon live in fear every time there is heavy rainfall, that the river could burst its banks and destroy their homes, says Cllr Frankie Daly. The council could not provide a firm answer when local councillor Frankie Daly who lives in the area asked when funding for defences would become available. Cllr Daly who is looking for a new flood embankment and flood walls in Corbally immediately said there is a sense of nausea in the area over the fact nothing has yet been done. In response to his notice of motion, Kieran Lehane, the manager in the metropolitan district, said: It is not known at present when the flood relief scheme for the city can be advanced. He explained how the Office of Public Works is preparing a priority list for funding for all flood relief schemes, and this will be released shortly. If the funding becomes available for the Limerick schemes, the council will then be in a position to consider the overall Corbally area, he added. For 73-year-old Timmy Hourigan, who lives at the Corbally Road, money cannot come sooner enough. And in the meantime, he wants the council to put in earth and grass to stop the floods coming in. I dont think that would cost too much, he said, Id like to see Gooses Corner blocked off, and go up the Corbally Road. Im not saying put a wall up the whole way, but put a couple of lorry loads of earth and grass over it to stop the floods coming in and getting to the houses. Mr Hourigan said the last time there was flooding a pet dog drowned. Next time, it could be a human being, he warned. We cannot get flood insurance. So the only thing we can do is prevent the flooding as best we can. Cllr Daly said: Anytime there is a flood, Timmy has to have his family take his furniture upstairs up a height. You can see how it affects him. He is in fear his house could flood at any time. So we need to act now: there is an urgency around this. Mr Hourigan joked: If Donald Trump wants to build a wall, he can build it here along the banks of Corbally! UP to 15,000 people have taken part in Darkness into Light events across Limerick during the early hours of this morning. Walks took place in Limerick city, Kilmallock, Newcastle West and for the first time this year, Murroe, with all of the proceeds going to suicide prevention charity Pieta House. In the city, more than 10,000 people gathered at Thomond Park from 3.30am onwards with the walk beginning at 4.15am. The route saw participants most of whom were wearing yellow t-shirts walk along the quays and over both Sarsfield Bridge and Shannon Bridge before returning to Thomond Park. The walk kicks off in the middle of the night and ends as day break to symbolise the journey from the darkness of depression to the light of wellness. Some of the thousands of yellow clad #DIL2017 walkers in #Limerick walk on Sarsfield Bridge. @DILLimerick pic.twitter.com/s7o3Nj1Rim Nick Rabbitts (@Nick468official) May 6, 2017 We get unbelievable support from the people of Limerick. They always come out in their thousands to support this event. It is just overwhelming and unbelievable. Its just getting bigger and bigger. Every year is always emotional for so many people, said Kieran OBrien, national events manager for Pieta House. Now in its seventh year in Limerick, it is estimated around 130,000 was raised for Pieta House, which has a centre in Mungret. All the money raised locally will remain in the area. Candle-light messages of hope were placed along the route which was marshalled by gardai and a team of volunteers including members of Corbett Suicide Prevention Patrol and Limerick Marine Search and Rescue. Men, women and children, many of whom have been directly affected by suicide, from all parts of Limerick took part in the symbolic walk with most finishing before 5.30am. Taking part in the walk, nurse Sheena Connolly, from Monaleen, said: I work in intensive care at the regional so [suicide] is something youd come in contact with every day. The impact it has on the families is devastating, and you just have to try and support them as best they can. It is so inspiring to see such a big turnout, but also so sad and poignant. As well as in Co Limerick, two other walks took place locally this morning: in Shannon Town, Co Clare, and at Ballina/Killaloe Stay with limerickleader.ie or follow the Limerick Leader on Twitter or like us on Facebook. Photos by Katrina Lat This week, The Maine gave a stellar performance at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on Tuesday night. After celebrating ten years as a band, the Arizona rockers released their sixth full-length album on April 7th. Lovely Little Lonely talks about the trials and tribulations of youth transitioning into adulthood. The new record come as a sweet start to an exciting new era as the band sets off on a new tour with fellow rockers, Beach Weather and The Mowglis. To the tune of Lovely, the members of The Maine make their way to the stage which was decorated as a starry night. The band opened their set with Black Butterflies and Deja Vu from Lovely Little Lonely followed by Am I Pretty? one of the singles from American Candy .The sold-out crowd gave the band a warm welcome and sang along with frontman, John OCallaghan whose raspy voice sounded so sweet. There was only one rule for the evening, good vibes only. The night was not about making anyone feel uncomfortable. Lets get weird, no excuses proclaims OCallaghan. Lets saddle up the horse and ride into the sunset together. And thats what we did for the entire night. It amazes me how strong The Maines on-stage chemistry is after all this time. These guys have put on a great show every time Ive seen them. Their quirky onstage personas made the night more memorable. In addition to performing songs from Lovely Little Lonely, they included fan favourites from Cant Stop Wont Stop, The Way We Talk, Pioneer, Forever Halloween, and Imaginary Numbers which definitely made long-time fans pleased. The highlight of the evening was when OCallaghan helped a fan confessed his feelings to his friend and soon-to-be bae, Michaela. Not only did the band and crowd cheer him on, but John got him to take the lead in Girls Do What They Want. He might not have a career in music, but he won a place in Michaelas heart as she rewarded him with a kiss. The Maine closed the night with Another Night on Mars, which is always a good ending number. OCallaghan reminded fans to take care of each other, take care of you as were all family in this fandom. Seeing The Maine is truly an experience. If you missed out on their show at the Phoenix, be sure to check them out when they return to Toronto next fall. Scandic is the largest hotel company in the Nordic region with 14,400 team members and a network of close to 230 hotels with about 44,000 hotel rooms in operation and under development. Its loyalty program; Scandic Friends, the largest loyalty program in the Nordic hotel industry, is celebrating its two millionth member, Ragnhild Fryd Johnsen from Bergen. When she arrived at Scandic Sjlyst in Oslo, she was surprised by the staff and became the first guest to receive a lifetime Top floor by invitation the highest membership level with selected benefits. The Scandic Friends program was launched nine years ago. It quickly became the largest loyalty program in the Nordic hotel industry and has been developing continually since then. Service is our passion and through our loyalty program we can give our most frequent guests better offers and more personal service every day. Next year is our tenth anniversary and well take another step when we launch a new program with new benefits, increased flexibility and seamless digital interaction. Its great that weve got Ragnhild Fryd Johnsen and our other two million members onboard, says Frank Fiskers, President & CEO of Scandic Hotels. Ragnhild Fryd Johnsen was welcomed with champagne and flowers when she checked into Scandic Sjlyst. This feels great! I just started a new job that involves a lot of travel, so the timing is perfect. And naturally, I hope to stay at Scandic outside of work as well Im looking forward to all of the great benefits and delicious breakfasts ahead, says Ragnhild Fryd Johnsen. Scandic Friends now has two million members representing 36 nationalities. The program is based on the number of hotel nights spent at Scandic and is divided into four levels. All Scandic Friends members are offered newspapers, points they can use towards reward nights, invitations to VIP events, discounts in Scandics restaurants and hotel shops and special discounts during weekends and holidays. In addition, they can take advantage of tailored offers such as tickets to concerts. During June, the celebration will continue together with Scandic team members, Scandic Friends members and customers at Scandics hotels. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Texas craft breweries that aspire to grow beyond a state-limited size would be forced to sell and buy back their own beer before they could offer it in their own taproom under a bill the Texas House could vote on as early as Saturday. Update: The Texas House voted overwhelmingly in favor of this bill on Saturday. The matter now goes to the Senate. Supporters of the measure also fought back efforts to amend the legislation that would have given craft brewers the right to sell some beer on site that consumers could take home with them. The measure has been blasted as "anti-competitive," "anti-beer" and a potential job killer by an unlikely coalition that includes Anheuser-Busch InBev and the state's 200-plus craft brewers, which often find themselves at odds with the global giant. The Texas Association of Manufacturers and the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation also oppose the measure. OPINION: Prohibiting tap rooms will crush craft beer Explore Houston's beer scene Ready to tap in? Get the most of Houston's breweries and beer bars with our interactive map. Created by Data Journalist Rachael Gleason | Houston Chronicle Even a prominent local bar owner who penned a Chronicle op-ed in favor of the bill in its original form has reversed course due to changes that he decried as a "money grab" by Texas distributors, who already exert near-total control over how beer gets from producers to bars, restaurants and stores. "There's absolutely no interest for the state of Texas," Saint Arnold Brewing founder Brock Wagner said of the measure. "It's 100 percent to line the pockets of distributors." The head of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild called it "simply a tax." "No goods or services are being attached," guild executive director Charles Vallhonrat said. "It's just a tax. That's a slippery slope we don't want to go down." The guild collected more than 7,500 signatures on a petition opposing the bill in less than a day, Vallhonrat said. FIRST LOOK: King's BierHaus to open May 8 in the Heights Uniting the public and these disparate groups is House Bill 3287, which would alter portions of the state's beer laws that went into effect four years ago to allow smaller craft breweries to sell up to 5,000 barrels of beer a year directly to consumers from on-site taprooms. It restricted such sales to breweries that produce no more than 225,000 barrels annually. After the 2013 law was passed, the number of craft breweries exploded and Texas now ranks No. 8 nationally in size. Many in the industry cite the law change in making the industry stronger. Josh Hare of Hops & Grain Brewing Co. in Austin testified before a House committee last month that 35 percent of his sales currently are made in the taproom. But another thing happened in those intervening years: at least three Texas craft breweries, including Houston's Karbach Brewing, were acquired by larger competitors seeking to extend their reach into the craft segment. Another large craft brewer, Oskar Blues of Colorado, opened an Austin facility to tap into the Texas market. HB 3287 would affect those breweries immediately by redefining the production limit to include all beer made by a brewery's owner. For example, Karbach makes less than 100,000 barrels annually but parent company AB-InBev produces many millions of barrels a year. Under this bill, that total production number would count against Karbach. At least three other Texas breweries would be similarly affected. HOUSTON CONNECTION: Houston artist tapped to create Astros design for Budweiser beer can Ken Goodman, who co-founded Karbach and helped guide its sale last fall, lashed out at the proposal in a Chronicle op-ed piece. During last month's committee hearing, he told the bill's author, state Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, it felt like a "punch" to learn about the proposal. He said the bill would put scores of jobs at risk. A post-hearing revision grandfathered in Karbach and the other larger breweries. But that change was accompanied by new language requiring those larger players to first sell their beer to a distributor, then buy it back. Depending on how the sales contracts are set up, some breweries conceivably would be forced to pay for their product before they've even collected the money for selling it to a distributor. Furthermore, the bill would extend the taproom provision to all breweries that grow to or at some point are taken over by a company that collectively exceeds 175,000 barrels in annual production. Wagner, Hare and the other craft brewers say the net effect would be to diminish the value of their companies by discouraging investors and making it harder to grow. Those that reach the new, lower production threshold would then find their profits crimped significantly by the wholesalers' cut. Goldman, the bill sponsor, has said the intent of the 2013 legislation was to help the smaller brewers early on and not to carve out an exemption for the larger players. A spokeswoman for the representative was not available for comment Friday evening. Keith Strama, counsel for the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, made a similar argument during the committee hearing. He called the earlier legislation a "seed system" to help small brewers and vigorously defended the three-tier system as a way to stop giant beer companies from taking monopolistic control. He said the beer industry traditionally has seen that trend. Strama did not return calls about the revised HB 3287. Wagner countered that the new version of the bill includes a large exception to the three-tier system, by allowing distributors to sell directly to brewers. Goodman, of Karbach, reiterated his opposition to the current proposal in a statement on Friday. "This bill would put Karbach's restaurant and biergarten at risk, an operation that provides 100 good local jobs," the statement read. "In addition, the neighborhood revitalization we have spearheaded would cease, Houston would lose a popular tourist attraction, and the Texas craft beer industry would be crippled." And Kevin Floyd, owner of the Hay Merchant craft beer bar and a frequent critic of AB-InBev, on Friday took back his earlier support of the bill, which he first saw as a way to protect small craft brewers from those that sell to "foreign-owned mega brewers." One of Northern Californias most enduring crime mysteries was declared solved Friday when a survivalist with a history of violence was accused of gunning down a young engaged couple in August 2004 as they lay in sleeping bags on a beach in Jenner. For more than a dozen years, Sonoma County sheriffs investigators searched for suspects across the state and well beyond, combing beaches and gun records, scrutinizing coastal drifters and serial killers. But in the end they pointed to a familiar face, 38-year-old Shaun Michael Gallon of Forestville, whose trips in and out of county jail were so frequent that he was long considered a person of interest in the double homicide. The break in the case arrived March 24, tragically, when Gallon allegedly killed his younger brother in Forestville, shooting him multiple times. After his swift arrest, investigators said, he confessed enough to tie him to the cold-case killings of Lindsay Cutshall, 22, of Fresno, Ohio, and her 26-year-old fiance, Jason Allen of Zeeland, Mich. Gallon, who was 25 at the time, shot the pair with a .45-caliber Marlin rifle at close range as they slept on secluded Fish Head Beach near the mouth of the Russian River, said Sheriff Steve Freitas. The couple had been working that summer at a Christian youth camp along the American River in El Dorado County, and had gone on a three-day sightseeing trip up the coast that would have taken them through Forestville. Investigators said Cutshall and Allen didnt know Gallon, though its unclear whether they might have had an interaction with him hours before their deaths. We believe this is a random crime and there is no connection between them, said Freitas, whose office plans to turn the case over to county prosecutors next week and ask for murder charges to be filed. He did not discuss a possible motive in the beach killings, nor in the shooting of Gallons brother. On that day, the mother of the two men called for help, saying 36-year-old Shamus Gallon had been shot with a rifle at the home where the family lived on the 9800 block of River Road. The family had moved to the home from Guerneville after the brothers father killed himself in 2013. The mother reported that Shaun Gallon had left the house with the rifle and driven away in his minivan, officials said. Shaun Gallon was apprehended that day, accused of a slate of charges including murder and booked into Sonoma County Jail, where he remained Friday without bail. It wasnt Gallons first serious brush with the law. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for shooting an arrow at a man in Guerneville, just west of Forestville, on Jan. 27, 2009. Gallon, described by investigators in that case as a survivalist, served a three-year sentence spending some of his time at San Quentin State Prison after wounding James McNeil of Monte Rio. McNeil was sitting in a parked convertible on Mill Street when an arrow came through the soft top of the car and grazed his head. After deputies determined the arrow had been shot from the balcony of a nearby home, a SWAT team went inside, but Gallon had fled. He surrendered a little more than a month later, after taking to the dense woods of west Sonoma County. County court records reveal that Gallon amassed a long and varied rap sheet, with convictions in his 20s for resisting arrest, weapons possession, theft, drunken driving and hunting abalone without proper paperwork. The Sonoma County public defenders office, which is representing Gallon, declined to comment Friday. On his Facebook page, Gallon posted about world conflict, weapons, martial arts, protests and conspiracy theories. On Feb. 27, he posed in camouflage with a homemade spear, writing, Check out this nice spear I made. No one appeared to be home Friday at the Forestville house where Gallon had lived, which sits on stilts on an isolated stretch of River Road in the shadows of towering redwoods. Around noon, a team of sheriffs deputies ordered a reporter off the property and put up crime-scene tape, but didnt say what they were looking for. At Gallons former residence in Guerneville, an apartment above a thrift store, neighbors said Friday that they remembered two men living there with their mother. But the family didnt interact much beyond casual greetings, and Gallon seemed pretty quiet, they said. Id see him wandering in town, said Andrea Hill, 35, who used to live next door to the family and now resides in their apartment and runs the shop downstairs. While she didnt often engage with Gallon, she said he had a strange manner about him his looks, his reclusiveness. You could kind of feel something heavy here when I moved in, she said. Though Gallon was a person of interest in the early investigation of the Jenner case, he could never be definitively linked to it, Freitas said. But he said that after Gallon allegedly killed his brother, he made statements that indicated he had information on the (Jenner) killing that no other person could have known besides the killer. We have located evidence corroborating his statements, Freitas said. We are confident we have Jason and Lindsays killer. The sheriff said the rifle used in the killing of Shamus Gallon had not been used in the Jenner homicides. After Freitas spoke at a news conference in Santa Rosa, the parents of the slain couple released a statement saying they were extremely pleased that our childrens murderer is in custody where he belongs. We praise the Lord for his capture. When we at times wondered whether this day would ever come, the detectives in particular wouldnt allow us to lose hope, they said. We want to thank our Lord and savior Jesus Christ for sustaining us and our families throughout this journey. We know we have miles to go before this case is closed. The two were killed sometime after nightfall on Aug. 14, 2004, and before sunrise Aug. 16, officials said. Their bodies were found in their sleeping bags Aug. 18. Both were shot in the head. Cutshall and Allen were killed just weeks before they were to return to the Midwest to get married. Detectives on the case have pursued a number of possible motives in the killings from sexual assault to murder-suicide, all of which were ruled out. A timeline of the couples last days was established based on sightings of the two victims and photographs from their camera. Police said that on Aug. 13, 2004, Cutshall and Allen left the Christian youth camp, Rock-N-Water in Coloma (El Dorado County), where they were working as river guides for the summer. They visited San Francisco the next day, where photos showed them on the Golden Gate Bridge and on Alcatraz. Then they headed north for the Sonoma coast. I think theres a lot of joy and happiness that its been resolved, Freitas said. This shocked the community of Jenner and Sonoma County. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Though stationed thousands of miles away, a couple in Hawaii proved they have reached the expert level of Texas parenting with their baby's photo shoot recently. Christina and Javier Sustaita got their son Thomas acclimated with the world and most importantly the Texas way of life at the end of March by snapping a viral photo of the little one asleep on a stack of tamales and cuddling a bottle of Big Red. RELATED: Texas husband's hilarious 'dudeoir' photo shoot is apparently what women really want The new mom said her husband's grandma was visiting when the shoot's theme was conceived because she makes "the best" tamales "like all Texas grandmas." Christina said one of grandma's pearls of wisdom to the new parents was to swaddle Thomas "like a little tamale." Suddenly the amateur photographer knew what Thomas' birth announcements would look like. "I kept saying 'this would be so awesome' and she just looked at me like I was crazy," Christina said. She set the scene for the impromptu photo shoot by adding a bottle of Big Red she was drinking and using a Texas flag as a backdrop. "I took the first picture and couldn't stop laughing at how awesome it turned out," Christina said. "Our baby was literally laying on top of the stack of grandma's tamales." RELATED: Couple shoots engagement photos at Whataburger - photos get love on Facebook Unbeknownst to tiny Thomas, he was about to snooze his way into internet fame. His mom said she "immediately" wanted to share with friends back home. Soon, popular social media accounts like the Texas Humor Twitter and Big Red's Facebook posted the picture and Texans ate it up. "Parenting: you're doing it right," Texas Humor tweeted. Big Red said you're "never too small to enjoy Big Flavor," on Facebook. Thousands of people agreed. "It was fun to see everyone's reactions to it," Christina said. "I couldn't believe how many people actually shared the post on their Instagrams as well, so that was really awesome." mmendoza@mysa.com Twitter: @MaddySkye On this date in ... 1917: Albany police were searching for a butcher known as John McDonald, who allegedly abandoned the meat market of Nigro & Viggiano at 652 Central Ave. on Saturday morning with several customers still in the store, and took nearly $200 from the cash register. One of the shop's partners returned from making deliveries to find some customers who had remained more than 30 minutes after McDonald's flight, saying he took off his apron, put on his street clothes and said he'd be right back. Only in the shop's employ for five weeks, it was soon discovered that McDonald's story about living on Madison Avenue and having a wife confined to St. Peter's Hospital proved false. 1967: Records were broken at the fifth annual Junior High Track and Field meet at Bleecker Stadium in Albany: Shaker won the 12- and 13-year-old division, as Dyrel Collins accounted for one of the new marks with a 4'10" high jump victory, Bruce Elliott of Livingston went 34-7 in the triple jump and Hackett's Lee Sheldon ran the 60-yard dash in 7-5 to account for the other records. 1992: State University of New York Chancellor D. Bruce Johnstone, who quietly awarded an honorary degree to Turkish President Turgut Ozal, took a five-day trip to Turkey in 1990 at the expense of Ozal's government. "I'm shocked," said Peter Baltis, chairman of the Justice for Cyprus Committee in New York state, which denounced Turkey's continued occupation of Cyprus. Johnstone denied the degree was in exchange for his trip, but said the trip "certainly contributed to my interest in the nation of Turkey." Johnstone said he awarded the honorary degree to Ozal because "Turkey is an important ally of the United States and has been for many, many years." Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/ If the U.S. withdraws from the Paris climate accord -- an option gaining favor among top White House advisers -- Charming Betsy may be partly to blame. Or, more specifically, the Charming Betsy doctrine. That's a legal principle stemming from a 213-year-old case involving a schooner of the same name. It says that federal policies should be interpreted, when possible, so they don't conflict with international laws. The doctrine has emerged as a major point of contention in White House debates over continued membership in the international climate pact. At issue is whether staying in the accord could legally oblige President Donald Trump to preserve carbon-cutting policies that he is moving to jettison. The White House counsel's office warned Trump administration officials in a meeting Thursday and in a separate memo that if the U.S. stays in the global accord, it could arm environmentalists with legal ammunition for lawsuits challenging the president's domestic regulatory rollbacks. Those concerns were amplified in a meeting of White House staff and administration lawyers on Monday, as officials also expressed skepticism about whether the U.S. has the ability under the agreement to dial back its pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions. The debates were detailed by three people familiar with the meetings who asked not to be identified describing internal discussions. Even though concerns with remaining in the Paris accord have dominated the two most recent White House meetings on the subject, the final decision rests with Trump, who has shown himself to be unpredictable in carrying out past campaign vows. While running for president, Trump promised the U.S. would leave the deal, taking aim at the cornerstone of former President Barack Obama's efforts to combat climate change. Under Obama, the U.S. played a leading role driving the global accord, which culminated with the support of nearly 200 countries in December 2015. The U.S. pledged to cut its carbon emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Trump promised during a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania to make a " big decision" on the Paris accord over the next two weeks. He derided the agreement as a "one-sided" deal that threatens U.S. economic output and will spur the closing of factories and plants nationwide. "We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore, because, from now on, it's going to be America first," Trump told the crowd in Harrisburg. Top administration officials have been divided over whether the president should make good on his campaign pledge and get out. A State Department memo circulated last week asserts the Paris agreement imposes few obligations on the U.S. Meanwhile, under questioning from White House chief strategist Steve Bannon at Thursday's meeting of top aides on the issue, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said remaining in the agreement could imperil his effort to undo Obama's Clean Power Plan, the people familiar with the session said. Supporters of the deal, including environmentalists, a handful of coal companies and some oil producers, warn that U.S. exports, including natural gas and clean energy technology, could face economic sanctions if the country abandons the pact. It "would be a disaster for the United States because it would provoke international blowback, harm our global leadership role, and threaten the health and safety of all families in this country," Sierra Club Global Climate Policy Director John Coequyt said in an email. Mike McKenna, a Republican energy consultant pushing for an exit, argues there's just too much legal risk to stay in. "With the exception of those State Department lawyers who abetted in the original unwise decision to sign onto the Paris agreement, the lawyers all seem to agree that the right answer is to exit the agreement swiftly, decisively and cleanly," McKenna said. The alternative is "U.N. bureaucrats and fellow travelers having a say in how Americans produce and consume energy." But supporters say the U.S. has wide latitude to rewrite a scaled-back pledge or ignore its existing commitment altogether. To lure international support for the agreement, negotiators built flexibility in the deal, encouraging countries to make highly tailored, individual pledges known as "nationally determined commitments," rather than agree to a universal greenhouse gas target. The agreement does not bind the U.S. or constrain domestic regulatory moves, former climate negotiator Susan Biniaz and Daniel Bodansky, an expert in international environmental agreements, argue in a memo produced for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a non-profit focused on fighting climate change. Although the pact includes language saying parties "shall pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving" their carbon-cutting promises, that provision doesn't mandate particular measures, the pair wrote. "The Paris agreement has no bearing on whether domestic law allows the president to scrap the Clean Power Plan," they said. Sierra Club lawyers came to a similar conclusion, in a May 1 memo to Coequyt asserting it "would be extremely difficult to prevail" in lawsuits seeking to block the administration from weakening the U.S. pledge or leaving the deal altogether. In litigation challenging regulatory rollbacks the question will be whether the administration is properly exercising its domestic regulatory authority, he wrote. The Charming Betsy doctrine generally says courts should interpret domestic law, when possible, to be consistent with international law. The canon stems from the 1804 case Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, in which the Supreme Court grappled with what to do about a flour-laden trading vessel ensnared in a dispute between the U.S. and France. The schooner had sailed from Baltimore and was sold to a former U.S. citizen turned Dane living in St. Thomas. After the vessel was captured by a French privateer, it was seized under instructions from the U.S. president for violating a trade law barring commercial dealings between the U.S. and France (or its dependents). But Chief Justice John Marshall concluded that the trade restrictions did not apply to the Charming Betsy's Danish captain, since that would run afoul of international norms. "An act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if any other possible construction remains," Marshall wrote. More than two centuries later, those words still hang over domestic disputes that collide with international practices. Critics of the Paris accord say the principle poses risks that U.S. judges will weigh rollbacks of climate regulations against that global agreement. But Biniaz and Bodansky say that doctrine doesn't apply here, since the Paris agreement is not binding and doesn't actually require member countries to achieve their carbon-cutting pledges. Because the U.S. would not violate international law by scaling back its pledge or rescinding the Clean Power Plan, they say, "the Charming Betsy doctrine would be inapplicable." Administration officials mulling how much flexibility the U.S. has to walk back its pledge have also fixated on a provision in the agreement asserting that any member country "may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhance its level of ambition." Climate negotiators in Paris specifically weighed whether to use harsher language, such as saying member countries "shall" boost their contributions over time or explicitly prohibiting backpedaling. But they decided against those approaches in part out of fear that would encourage less ambitious contributions from the start. It's looking more and more like old Jefferson Davis might get one last fight. Not that anyone expects a second Civil War. But scenes around New Orleans's last few Confederate statues have taken on a certain battlefield air since April - when Mayor Mitch Landrieu ordered one dismantled under police sniper cover, and promised the other monuments to a "lost cause" would soon fall too. Sympathizers of that lost cause have risen up in response. "A man points at a machine gun held by a statue supporter" was how the New Orleans Times-Picayune captioned a photo from a protective vigil around the monument to Davis, who was president of the Confederacy, on Monday. The man was holding a high-powered rifle, actually. Not that Gen. Robert E. Lee - whose nearby statue is also slated for removal on an unknown date - would have turned the weapon down at Gettysburg. "The Battle of New Orleans," they call it - the statues' defenders and detractors alike. And it may all come to a head Sunday, as plans for rival demonstrations provoke pleas of "reinforcements" from across the country. "The Trump people are really coming in en masse," said David Duke, a former KKK leader in Louisiana who many years ago defended a memorial to white supremacists that New Orleans had ripped out last month. "Also other patriotic groups: Sons of Confederate Veterans, League of the South," Duke said. "The white people in this country realize there's a war against our heritage." Duke, who lives outside New Orleans, said he had no plans to meet statue foes himself on Sunday, when he thinks they plan to march on the Lee statue. "I don't want to give them a rallying point," he said. (Others expect a leftist attack on Davis, and still others worry the city will try to topple another monument over the weekend.) Duke is mostly just chronicling the conflict on his Twitter feed. And on his webcast, where he describes opponents of the statues as "our Jewish overlords and their multicultural stooges." And also black people, Duke said on the phone. Of course, the former Klansman does not speak for everyone who would defend a monument to a Confederacy that once defended slavery. On of the vigil-goers, for example, is black and calls himself "Black Rebel" - a "country boy from Oklahoma who's not afraid to speak his mind." The Washington Post's Cleve R. Wootson Jr. wrote about an 81-year-old vigil regular who said he wanted to honor the sacrifices of his ancestors without endorsing everything they fought for. And yet others seem to be in the fight mainly for the sake of a fight, which began years ago as a city council dispute over the place of Rebel monuments in a modern city, and has lately become a clash between Confederate empathizers and so-called antifascists. "Antifa is planning on marching with about 100 or so memebers to the Jefferson Davis Monument to harrass and attack the monument protectors there," reads a Facebook call that has so far garnered about 50 pledges to meet the antifascists in response on Sunday. One is Tim Gionet, a former BuzzFeed employee-turned-ultra- popular tweeter: "I will be heading to New Orleans tomorrow to defend our patriots from Antifa scum. Please keep me in your prayers." "Be safe and do nothing to provoke," a fan told him. "Take a few out for me," said another. Duke, for his part, expected no violence. "People may join hands and arms and protect the monument in great numbers," he said. Whoever shows up can expect a large police presence, as there's been at many vigils to date. "We ask that any public demonstrations remain peaceful and respectful," the mayor's spokesperson wrote to The Washington Post. "Lawlessness and destruction of property is not tolerated in the City of New Orleans." The defense of New Orleans's statues is by now a wide and sprawling thing. It's unclear how many will show up beneath the feet of Jefferson Davis on Sunday, or what they'll do. But the Rebel president is already presiding over more contention than he has in a long, long time. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When Director Mike Murray discusses the Delta College Planetariums mission, his excitement is as contagious as it is palpable. I love getting people excited about science and astronomy. Its exciting; you never know whats going to get discovered, he said, mentioning the gravitational waves discovered last year and the most recent images from the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn. Sometimes I like to think of this (planetarium) as much an inspirational device as an educational one, said Murray, who is trained as a research astronomer but found his calling in science communications. We have the ability to excite peoples curiosity and interest to want to learn more ... We take the latest research discoveries and results, and were here to turn it into programs to make it fun and interesting for the public and for the schools. Astronomy in particular is fascinating for all ages, in part because it touches on most other aspects of science and theres always something new being discovered on a grand scale, Murray said. It also is a connection to something so much larger than ourselves. It opens up a lot of the grand questions, the timeless questions, the philosophical questions. On Saturday, May 13, the Delta College Planetarium will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a family-friendly day of education, fun and inspiration. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and includes crafts, mini-shows every 20 minutes, presentations from Dr. Slime, solar observation (weather permitting) and an astrophotography exhibit by Dr. Axel Mellinger of Central Michigan University. Delta Colleges new STEM Explorer mobile science laboratory will also be on display in the parking lot. The event will conclude with the premiere of a new feature presentation: Eclipse: The Sun Revealed at 3:30 p.m. Though most of the days activities are free of charge, tickets must be purchased for the final show. The cost is $7 for adults and $5 for children, Delta students, seniors and military personnel. For the week prior to the event, some downtown Bay City businesses will be offering discounts or special themed products. The Delta College Planetarium opened in 1997, the result of an $8.75 million NASA Challenger Grant four years prior. Since then, about 450,000 people have attended its special events and school programs. In those two decades, the planetarium has seen several upgrades, improving along with digital technology. When the planetarium first opened, it relied on slide projectors. You couldnt be nearly as three-dimensional and immersive, Murray said. You were limited by whatever you could adapt or create in-house. With the digital revolution, however, that is no longer the case. There are major production companies all over the world stumbling over themselves to produce content, because its a great new venue. Its a lot of fun to see, Murray said. Now, because of the digital revolution, we have 40 shows in the library. Theyre not just star theaters, Murray said of modern planetariums. They can create anything in a three-dimensional digital environment. That means youre not fixed to the surface of the earth looking at the constellations. You can take three-dimensional voyages into the galaxy to see how stars would change, but then you can also create virtual environments. Its not all astronomy: The theater has been involved with Hells Half Mile Film and Music Festival and shows vary from Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon to The Enchanted Reef, an animated feature. The planetarium has a few shows running at a time, and they change about every month or two. Digistar 5, a modern full-dome digital animation system, allows visitors to be immersed in the show: the screen resolution is eight times higher than standard high definition and graphics are shown at 60 frames per second, according to Digistar manufacturer Evans & Sutherland. Two projectors bring images to the 50-foot diameter dome more than 3,900 square feet of screen. A typical IMAX screen, for comparison, is 3,744 square feet. Were not a movie place in the round, Murray clarified. We also create a lot of our own custom content. Some shows focus specifically on what can be seen in the Michigan night sky, and each show concludes with about 15 minutes of the latest news in astronomy. The planetarium offers more than dome shows. As a Delta satellite campus, students can take a variety of classes, not only astronomy or science courses. The Sunset Astronomical Society meets there, civic groups and organizations can rent the multipurpose room, and the staff is constantly experimenting to see what resonates with the community. We do host some special talks about observing and stargazing, but if its clear we take people up on the observation deck and set up telescopes, Murray said. For example, Sunset Astronomical Society meetings, which are open to the public, are the second Friday of each month at 7 p.m. and include a presentation. People drive from an hour and a half away to come here, said Laura Wade of Caro, a member of the club for 15 years. Wade said the presentations cover history and notable figures in the science, new discoveries, and of course astronomy itself. You come away with a sense of awe from how amazing the universe is, Wade said. Its all connected: were composed of the same things as stars. Wade said she thinks planetariums are an ideal way to get children interested in science. As a child, my parents took me to the Flint planetarium, and thats all it took, she said. ... I think it was tremendous foresight on the part of both Delta College and Bay City to build this (planetarium). It serves a big area. Sunset Astronomical Society began in 1975, and the planetarium has provided it with regular meeting space and access to its shows and amenities. Though Wade described herself as an amateur astronomer, she said some professionals have come from the club. The organization also hosts star parties for the public to observe the nighttime sky through telescopes. By bringing so many tens of thousands to Bay City over the years, the planetarium has also benefitted downtown. We know that its been part of downtowns revitalization, said Candace Bales, executive director of the Bay City Downtown Management Board and Development Authority. It was a great way to bring people back into the core city again. The planetariums unique architecture a red-orange cone representing a rocket exhaust nozzle in the colors of the suns gasses with black wings and round windows was contested when it was built 20 years ago. Though its design was carefully planned to reflect outer space and exploration, some members of the community felt it did not fit it with downtowns surrounding buildings. Now, however, the planetarium is an icon of Bay City, featured in several murals around town. Across Center Avenue, the Mill End Lofts red signage and Downtown Bay City logo painted on the intersection reflect similar colors. It just makes it whole, looking down Water Street. The planetarium is a key part of that, Bales said. Theres a chemistry to (the downtown) that the planetarium just enhances. Bales, who has lived in Bay City for 14 years, said she remembers visiting the planetarium as a child and is thankful for the fun, educational opportunities the facility provides for the community. Downtowns come back to life. Those are the kinds of things that make it happen: the memories you make, the things you learn, the ways you connect, she said. Its a very good thing. From Bay City to infinity and beyond, Murray said the staff at the Delta College Planetarium plans to continue its mission of education and inspiration with shows, exhibits and outreach. Staff hope to add more to the lobby, continue to participate in outreach events and make science interesting and relatable. We get to communicate the process of how science works, and it really is such a fascinating human process, Murray said. It is not just gathering a bunch of dry data and statistics. Its a very creative enterprise. The Latvian airline airBaltic on May 4, 2017, launched a direct route linking Riga and Geneva. The route offers convenient travel options for travellers from Switzerland and Baltic States. airBaltic flies from Geneva to Riga 3 times weekly. Passengers will board a Boeing 737 aircraft for a flight that lasts 2 hours and 50 minutes. One-way ticket prices start at 69 EUR including airport fees and transaction costs. Wolfgang Reuss, SVP of Network Management of airBaltic: Geneva is a popular destination for business and leisure. With improved connections between Riga and Geneva, travelers have new, convenient travel options between the two cities and beyond. Route Flight frequency Start date Price*, Basic Price*, Premium Price*, Business Riga Geneva (Switzerland) 3 flights weekly May 4, 2017 69 EUR 159 EUR 539 EUR *Lowest fare (one way), including taxes, fees and service charges, on www.airBaltic.com, subject to availability A man is in custody after firing at least 15 shots at officers Friday night at a North Side apartment complex. Sgt. Ryan Edwards of the San Antonio Police Department said the man, 38, called police at about 9 p.m. to the 11800 block of West Avenue saying someone was breaking into his vehicle. As travel industry marked the first-ever California Tourism Month, Visit California revealed a story on the economic power of California tourism. The magic and whimsy of California and the unmatched destinations and the many experiences it offers allure millions of visitors from around the world who inject billions into the economy. By fueling a desire for the California experience around the world, Visit Californias global marketing campaigns inspire millions of people to visit the Golden State. A new economic report shows the latest impact of California tourism and travel, which is the states second largest export industry because the Golden State experience is a product we sell to visitors from other states and nations. Traveler spending in 2016 injected a record $126 billion into the Golden States economy. Tourism in California generated $10.3 billion in tax revenue and supported 1.1 million jobs last year, further solidifying tourisms role as a key economic driver for the Golden State. The report also reveals that 2016 marks the seventh consecutive year of growth for the Golden States travel and tourism industry. California traveler spending grew 3.2 percent, out-indexing the nation by nearly a percentage point. The report using data on the statewide and local economic impacts of tourism in California from 1992 to 2016 shows that in the past 25 years, travelers in California have spent nearly $2.16 trillion, created more than 410,000 jobs, and generated more than $165.3 billion in local and state tax revenues. This report shows that tourism is a powerhouse that generates community benefits and economic value for all Californians, said Visit California President and CEO Caroline Beteta. California Tourism Month provides an opportunity to celebrate tourism as an important pillar of our economy, and highlight an effective and dynamic industry that remains a vital asset in all regions of the state. If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option. Geekologie has shut down. Thank you to everybody. Now go be happy. Youve got to spend money to make money the old adage says and if thats the case then it might as well be someone elses money you spend, right? That at least seems to be the philosophy of Wall Street analysts covering Apple, who are now salivating at the idea that the company will benefit from a tax holiday and be able to repatriate $220 billion. Citi sets odds on Apples M&A target. Citi is a very big company that pays people a lot of money to analyze stocks for investors to help them make smart decisions. Or, thats what this Citi marketing material says, anyway. In reality, apparently, they pay people to write Apple acquisition porn. The Macalope doesnt know why they do that since what Citi analyst Jim Suva thinks Apple will do has about as much chance of happening as randy, good-looking pizza delivery people showing up on your doorstep does but they do. Suvas odds seem pretty unlikely. The Citi handicapping puts 40% odds on a Netflix buyout [spit take] Great. There goes another monitor. The Macalope finally had to switch to having his MacBook drive a monitor because he was going through too many MacBooks by spitting coffee, water, gin or flames of indignation at what his job forces him to read onto them. Ideally Apples upcoming monitors will at least be splash resistant like the Apple Watch Series 1 if not water-resistant up to a depth of 50 meters like the Series 2. Really, though, its 2017. If your monitor isnt water-resistant up to a depth of 50 meters then shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders. The Macalope doesnt know this for a fact but he presumes someone announced such a monitor at CES this year. Giving money back to the shareholders, though, brings up what Apple actually might do with its cash windfall. As Neil Cybart notes, Apple is not likely to acquire Netflix, Disney, Tesla or the worlds biggest party sub, all but one of which Suva included odds for (frankly, the Macalope thinks the party sub has a better chance). If Apple brings back foreign cash due to U.S. tax reform, share buyback will be the most likely use of that cash. Which is a kind of ironic twist to Michael Dells famous quote about the company. Apple is giving money back to the shareholders just because it was incredibly successful, not because its shutting down. Looked at another way, Apple is saying the more valuable use of its money is buying itself, not some other company. The fact that Wall Street analysts dont see that is pretty much par for the course. Ask Geotripper Is there something about geology that you are curious about? Do you have questions about the scientific aspects of political controversies? I can try to provide a scientist's perspective. Your questions and possible answers could be a springboard to a blog discussion, or they can be private. Anonymity is always assumed. Contact Geotripper at hayesg (at) mjc.edu. Following the invalidation of its patents for Strattera (atomoxetine) and Zyprexa (olanzapine), Eli Lilly and Company submitted claims to international arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On March 1, 2017, the Tribunal issued its final award dismissing Eli Lilly's claims. Eli Lilly's patents were invalidated on the basis of the so-called "promise of the patent" doctrine; namely, that the claims of the patent failed to deliver utility promised by statements in the specification. Eli Lilly argued that Canadian courts had dramatically changed the application of the utility requirement through a series of cases that adopted the promise doctrine and that the retroactive application of this doctrine to Eli Lilly's patents resulted in a breach of Canada's obligations under NAFTA. The Tribunal, however, found that Canada's utility requirement underwent incremental and evolutionary changes between the grant of the patents and their subsequent invalidation. Moreover, it found that the promise standard has a "strong foundation" in earlier jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada. Further, the Tribunal found that the doctrine was neither arbitrary nor discriminatory. In summary, the government of Canada was not found to have violated its obligations under NAFTA. The NAFTA decision further supports the application of the heightened utility requirement that may arise under Canadian law through application of the promise doctrine. Those interested in the issue, however, eagerly await a decision from the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of AstraZeneca Canada Inc v Apotex Inc. In that case, which was heard in November 2016, the promise doctrine was directly before the Supreme Court. A decision, which may bring some clarity on the issue, is expected soon. Neil Padgett Smart & Biggar/ Fetherstonhaugh 55 Metcalfe Street Suite 900 PO Box 2999 Station D Ottawa ON K1P 5Y6 Tel: 613 232 2486 Fax: 613 232 8440 ottawa@smart-biggar.ca www.smart-biggar.ca Mumbai : Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which operates a weekly flight between Mumbai and Karachi, will suspend its service from May 11. The national flag carrier of Pakistan operates the flight on Thursday. "Pakistan International Airlines, in a communication to authorities concerned, has said that its Karachi-Mumbai flight will not be open for sale (bookings) from May 11," a company associated with the flight operation told PTI here. However, the PIA communication did not specify the reason for suspension of its flight service, a company official said. "Apart from the current situation (prevailing tension between India-Pakistan), the suspension of the service might be due to commercial reasons as well," the official said. The airline did not operate its service yesterday as well, he said. However, the Pakistan airline had informed the relevant authorities about the non-operation of service on May 4 in a communication last month, the official said. PTI click to go to homepage Faith Hill,Tim McGraw Faith Hill, left, and Tim McGraw perform "Speak To A Girl" at the 52nd annual Academy of Country Music Awards at the T-Mobile Arena on April 2, 2017, in Las Vegas. (AP file photo) The Soul2Soul Tour touched down at Mohegan Sun Arena on Friday night with country stars Tm McGraw and Faith Hill sharing the spotlight over the course of a two hour performance in front of a sold out house. It was the first of a two-night stand at the casino for the husband and wife team of Hill and McGraw who first debuted this combined concert concept in 2000, and reprised it in 2006, the latter run earning kudos at the time as one of the top-selling country tours in history. It remains to be seen whether or not the latest installment will be setting any records but it should go on the list of must-see shows for country fans. If nothing else, the show served as a reminder that while Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert may have tried on the tiara as the reigning Queen of Country music, Faith Hill has never really abdicated the throne. The pair opened the show together singing "I Knew You Were There (For Me)," and moved with urgency through songs like "Felt Good On My Lips" and "The Lucky One," with Hill backing up McGraw and vice versa. They offered melody-styled versions of "I Like It, I Love It," and "The Way You Love Me," before McGraw gave the stage over to Hill to work with a polished 10-piece band through a mini-set of her own. She bounded about the stage during songs "Free" and her mega crossover hit "This Kiss," went from delicate ("Breathe") to disheveled "Wild One," and tore up a cover of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." Her highlight was "Stronger" as she planted herself center stage as is she was bracing for gale-force winds and gave a gospel-blues reading of the song. McGraw's own turn was a bit more polished as he rolled out hits like "One of Those Nights," "Real Good Man," and his latest ballad "Humble and Kind." It was the duets that owned the night however, and when Hill returned the pair scored with "Speak to a Girl." McGraw surprised his wife with slide show of family photos (which she apparently hadn't seen before) as they started to sing "It's Your Love." What was supposed to be a duet turned into a solo as Hill became too emotional to contribute to the set-closing song. The encore featured Hill walking through the crowd while singing "Mississippi Girl," and McGraw following her with his own walk while singing "Something Like That." The couple closed the show seated and sharing both a microphone and a wedding vow intimacy while singing "I Need You." ENP TITANIC 1 Karen Kamuda, right, and her late husband, Edward, on the deck of a 775-foot replica of the Titanic built for the 1997 James Cameron film "Titanic." ( Merle W. Wallace | 20th Century Fox / Paramount Pictures photo) The lifejacket worn by Titanic survivor Madeleine Astor, widow of John Jacob Astor IV. SPRINGFIELD -- Artifacts from the Titanic Historical Society Museum in Indian Orchard will be featured in an upcoming exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. A lifejacket worn by the young widow of one of the richest men in the world and a railing section from the doomed White Star liner, which sank on April 15, 1912, will be featured in the Reagan Library exhibit. The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage, killing 1,517. Titanic society president Karen B. Kamuda, widow of the society's co-founder, Edward S. Kamuda of Ludlow, will attend the May 25 preview at the Reagan Library. (The exhibit runs May 27 through Jan. 7, 2018.) "It is a thrill and honor for me as president and our historian, Don Lynch, representing the Titanic Historical Society and part of its collection to be at the prestigious 'Titanic at the Ronald Reagan Library' exhibit," Karen Kamuda said. "Ed Kamuda's dream to preserve Titanic's history that began so modestly in Indian Orchard in the 1950s when so few had any interest, would be very happy. " She added, "Yes, I am excited to be going, I wish Ed was joining me. I know he is smiling down with his 'thumbs up.'" The 105-year-old lifejacket worn by survivor Madeleine Talmage Force Astor is one of the most prized treasures in the society's impressive collection. Madeleine Astor, then 18, was the second wife of John Jacob Astor IV, 47, and five months pregnant with his child at the time of the disaster. He saw her safely board a lifeboat, but he died in the sinking and his body was recovered at sea a week later. Rescued by the Cunard liner Carpathia, Madeleine Astor had her lifejacket removed by Gottlieb Rencher, a senior attendant-in-charge under the ship's surgeon. Rencher, later a chiropractor and physiotherapist, displayed the jacket in his New York office for many years. In 1978, some 28 years after Rencher's death, his son Jules donated the lifejacket to the Titanic Historical Society. The Reagan Library exhibit draws items from several collections. Other items include: The Great American Foundation ran with the roses Saturday afternoon to bring a taste of Kentucky flair to downtown Boston. The annual Derby Party is a ticketed event that raises money for several Massachusetts-based charities. Attendees sport traditional hats and country club attire at Society on High for a day of drinking, music and a watch party of the Kentucky Derby. The crowd in attendance on Saturday participated in a silent auction and style contest, with awards offered to the best-dressed man and woman. Co-founder Scott Haavisto says his foundation emphasizes supporting local charities. Proceeds from Saturday's event will be donated to a number of local and statewide charities, he said. In the past, the Great American Foundation has focused on financing educational development charities, though Haavisto says his team has expanded to help organizations serving a wide variety of causes. Some of those organizations include the Family Service of Greater Boston, the Arrendando Foundation, the David Ortiz Children Fund, the foundation of former Patriots player Joe Adruzzi, and others. BRAINTREE A Braintree police officer is in surgery at a local hospital after he was shot in the face earlier Friday evening. The Boston Globe reported that Braintree police said the officer was Motel 6 to check the warrant status of a person registered in the motel. The suspect opened fire on the officers, wounding one. The suspect then barricaded himself in the room. WHDH-TV is confirming that the Braintree Police Chief said the officer was shot in the face, but his injuries are through to be non-life-threatening. News reports from various outlets indicated there is a heavy police presence near the motel, including SWAT and special operations teams. News outlets report a heavy police presence, including Massachusetts State Police and contingents from surrounding cities and towns. The suspect remained in the room at 11 p.m. This is a breaking story and MassLive.com will post more details as they become available. Police lights (ASSOCIATED PRESS) After neighbors complained to police about a suspected drug dealing in their neighborhood, police in Peabody launched an investigation that led to an arrest Friday morning. The suspect, a 31-year-old Peabody man, faces three charges, including trafficking in heroin. Police arrested Claire Rolbi Marte-Saint, 31, just before 11:30 a.m. on Friday after witnessing a drug sale in the Dooling Circle area in Peabody. A police report said officers watched Marte-Saint sell drugs near Dooling Circle before stopping his car and taking him into custody. The suspect lives on Keys Drive in Peabody, according to police, not near Dooling Circle where they found him allegedly trafficking in heroin. Marte-Saint was reportedly carrying cash and 25 individual "twist packages" of a white powdery substance that police believe to be heroin. The suspect faces charges for giving a fake name to police, as well as conspiracy to violate drug laws. Marte-Saint will be arraigned in Peabody District Court on Monday, May 8 at 9 a.m. Peabody Police Chief Thomas Griffin attributed the arrest to assistance of neighborhood residents, as well as the work of his police force and the help of Mass. State Police. Your "little nonprofit that could" proudly shared the stage with Ken Burns and David McCullough on Wednesday night as we awarded the first Ken Burns American Heritage Prize https://www.americanprairie.org/sites/default/files/News%20and%20Blog/American-Prairie-Reserve_honors_Ken-Burns_David-McCullough.pdf . It was a night to remember, and hopefully will bring awareness of our cause to more and more people. After all "Almost nothing of consequence is ever accomplished alone," Mr. McCullough told attendees. "It must be a joint effort. America is a joint effort." Hear, hear! And if youre not already part of this joint effort but would like to be, check out http://www.americanprairie.org/help-us-grow. #MakeHistory #SaveAnEcosystem Its not hard to imagine Missoulians flocking to a sunny spot on the roof of the historic Florence Building downtown, sipping a beverage and enjoying 360-degree views of the Clark Fork River and all the surrounding mountains. All its going to take is an entrepreneur or two with ambition. The owners of the building are looking for someone with means and experience to start a rooftop bar/restaurant above the seventh floor, and theyre listening to proposals. DAVID ERICKSON [email protected] Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_28d1a5e0-6eda-50a2-9a21-ddcf5e63acf7.html Several times this past week, I had the experience of synchronicity. For whatever the reason, people were operating on the same wave length, thinking of the same concepts, and then their thoughts and paths intersected. But tonight I had an even more delightful reminder of how small the world truly is and how connected we all are. On Wednesday I was a visitor at the high school in Sidney, Montana. For those of you not from Montana, Sidney is a small town literally as far as you can go in eastern Montana before you enter North Dakota. Yesterday morning I woke up there and began a long journey (on a very small plane) which, after stops along the way, has placed me tonight in Marin County just outside of San Francisco. On my own for dinner, I followed a friends recommendation and wandered into town for some sushi. I was seated at the bar at the same time as a Japanese couple and we struck up a conversation. I mentioned that I was from Missoula and, after some confusion that I was from Missouri, the mans eyes lit up. Still speaking with a heavy accent, he said "I went to high school in Sidney, Montana!" We were both stunned as I told him I flew in from Sidney last evening and had been in the high school there on Wednesday. My accidental dinner companion had moved to Sidney from Japan in the 1960s and lived there for two years. His father worked with the National Guard. He eventually moved to California and spent his career in technology in a city an hour or so from here (where he still lives.) We ate together with his wife. He told me about the traditional way of eating sushi in his native Japan (I had much to learn) as his wife observed that he was "old fashioned." It was lovely. As we were finishing our last bites (I had mirrored his orders) he paused and looked at me. "Pardon me for saying this," he began, "but I just want you to know that I always felt welcomed in Montana," and then we parted. Perhaps random chance explains what drew me to Sidney en route to California, drew my dinner companion and his wife to this town away from where he lives, drew us both to the same restaurant at the same time and seated us together. Perhaps. But for me this story is a reminder that we are far more intertwined and the world is far smaller than we allow ourselves to believe. Moreover, how we treat each other and those who are "different" can create positive or negative ripples of energy across time, and someday, whether by random chance or some other force, they will again intersect. Over fifty years ago in a small town, people treated a stranger, someone who was different, with dignity and respect. That positive energy came into my own life tonight. By sharing this story, I want to pass it along to yours. By John J. Mudd https://www.facebook.com/john.j.mudd.5?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf If your dream has long been to start and manage your own business, there is no time like the present to get started. The cost of entry is at an all-time low, working from home through an Internet website seen globally, turning a hobby or an invention into an online business. But dont be misled into thinking that long-term business success is assured and low risk. Martin Zwilling Full Story: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2017/05/7-strategies-for-low-entry-cost.html Alemtuzumab improves long-term clinical and radiological outcomes in black patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, according to data presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Boston, MA. Share on Pinterest A clinical trial has found that alemtuzumab improved outcomes for black patients with RRMS. The new findings were seen in a small cohort of patients enrolled in phase III studies comparing alemtuzumab with subcutaneous interferon beta-1a (SC IFNB-1a), all of whom had relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and were either treatment-naive at enrolment or had responded inadequately to prior therapy. Importantly, the results in black patients were on a par with those previously reported in the overall study population, said principal investigator Dr. Annette Okai, from the Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Center of Dallas in Texas. Black patients typically have more severe MS than white patients, characterized by more rapid disability accumulation, greater MRI lesion volumes, increased risk for secondary progression, accelerated retinal nerve fiber layer and ganglion cell/inner plexiform layer thinning, and the potential for a poorer response to disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). Limited published data are available on response to DMTs among black patients. Subjects received two 12-milligram courses of alemtuzumab (baseline: 5 days; month 12: 3 days), or SC IFNB-1a (44 micrograms three times weekly for 2 years) in the core studies, and as-needed alemtuzumab for relapse or MRI activity or another DMT per investigator discretion in the extension study. Advertisement Researchers discovered the protective molecule by chance as they sequenced the DNA of toxins in the venom of the Darling Downs funnel web spider (Hadronyche infensa) that lives in Queensland and New South Wales.Venom from three spiders was gathered for the study after scientists trapped and "milked exhaustively" three spiders on Orchid beach.The molecule, called Hi1a, stood out because it looked like two copies of another brain cell-protecting chemical stitched together. It was so intriguing that scientists decided to synthesise the compound and test its powers. "It proved to be even more potent," said Glenn King at the University of Queensland's centre for pain research.In a series of studies on rats, King showed that. The compound works by blocking what are called ion channels in cells, specifically those that respond to the onset of acidic conditions in the brain.Reporting in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, King describes how. But the compound was still effective eight hours after stroke, reducing the amount of brain damage by about 65% when compared with untreated animals.Rats that had the compound recovered far better than those that went without. "The untreated rats performed very badly after stroke. Their neurological and motor performance were terrible," said King. But treatment with Hi1a "almost restored these functions to normal," he added.Approximately six million people a year die from stroke, making it the second largest cause of death worldwide after heart attacks. Strokes occur when blood flow to the brain is interrupted and the brain is starved of oxygen. About 85% of strokes are caused by blockages in blood vessels in the brain, with the rest due to bleeds when vessels rupture.When a stroke happens, the oxygen level in the brain drops. This forces the brain to burn its primary fuel, glucose, very differently. Instead of oxidising glucose for energy, the brain switches to a process called anaerobic glycolysis. The reaction releases energy to keep the brain working, but it also produces acid, which can cause brain cells to die.The researchers hope to start human trials of the compound in the next two years, but have more experiments to perform first. These will test whether the molecule works in all cases of stroke and is safe to use when blood vessels rupture in the brain, rather than become blocked.In the latest study, the compound was infused directly into the brain, but the scientists have found since that nasal deliver works too. If trials show that the compound works, it could potentially transform the treatment of stroke patients. There are no drugs on the market that can protect the brain from stroke injuries.The best hospitals can offer are infusions of clot-busting drugs if a clot is to blame, or a surgical procedure called endovascular thrombectomy, which physically pulls the clot from the brain. Before doctors can administer clot-busting drugs, they must confirm with a brain scan that the stroke was caused by a blockage. This is because the treatment thins the blood and could make matters worse if the stroke was caused by a haemorrhage.. "The drug could be given in the ambulance to most stroke patients before hospital arrival, maximising the number of neurons that can be saved," said King. "This should diminish the mortality from stroke and provide much better outcomes for those that survive as more brain function will be retained."Kate Holmes at the Stroke Association, said it was unknown whether Hi1a could be an effective treatment in humans. "We welcome any treatment that has the potential to reduce the damage caused by stroke, particularly if this can benefit people who are unable to arrive at hospital quickly. Current treatments must be given in half this time period and it is too early for us to know if this research can offer an alternative for stroke patients," she said.Source: Medindia The first ad campaign saw Bollywood (and wannabe Hollywood) star Deepika Padukone enter an elevator with a waiter already in it. The lift stops functioning midway, it gets really hot, the waiter offers her a drink a Coca Cola. They feel better, she plays some music and they both start dancing in the elevator until a team comes to rescue her. Also, she faced flak for this ad. Cut to Coca Colas campaign numero dos! Diljit Dosanjhthe current heartthrob of the nation and every Punjabi boys' current source of inspiration on 'How To Win A Girl 101'. He enters an elevator, this time with a waitress already present in there. The elevator starts and then malfunctions and comes to a halt midway. It gets really hot and Dosanjh removes his jacket. The dutiful waitress offers him a bottle of Coca Cola to help him cool down in the lift. He plays Punjabi music and they start dancing. Theyre having a ball until the rescue team interrupts their party of two. One of the rescue team members puts their hand out for Dosanjh to take it, while theres a woman in the lift with him. But, no the courtesy and chivalry is offered to a male film star because, well, hes a film star with crazy fan following. Never mind that there is a woman in the lift. YouTube Its not about sexism, or feminism, honestly. Its about basic courtesy which the ad-makers clearly seemed to lack because, lets not forget, everyone gets star-struck and cross-eyed when its a Bollywood film star and starts treating that celebrity as their top priority. But, hey, this is just an ad and youre all probably going to miss the point of it, anyway! For every soul in Iraq it's not just a moment of great pride; it is also a moment to rejoice and see a brighter side; a little glimmer of hope in the darkness. That's what Shaima Qasim Abdul Rahman stands for. It's been a while since Iraq chose a beautiful woman to represent them internationally and so, after 1972, for the first time, the country now has a Miss Iraq in Shaima Qasim Abdul Rahman. The young woman who hails from the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, was first crowned in 2015, when she was all of 20. A graduate in business administration, today, Rahman is all set to represent Iraq on a global level, as Miss Iraq. YouTube I want to prove that the Iraqi woman has her own existence in society, she has her rights like men, she said in an interview to NBC News, right after the Miss Universe Pageant. Women in Iraq enjoyed a positive history we had the first female minister in the fifties last century. Many women positively influenced the political, social, scientific and artistic history and life of Iraq. Due to political regimes and wars of the last few decades, women's role decreased. We hope we can increase positive participation by women at all levels now. NBC News Rahman had even received threats from ISIS militants demanding that she may join their ranks or be kidnapped, instead. She also mentioned her desire to visit India which she describes as a land of wisdom, and to meet our very own Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Kudos to your endeavours. We're waiting for you to visit, Shaima Qasim Abdul Rahman. We'd like to be graced by your beauty, too! Sometime, during the late 1970s, Robert Leopold Spitzer, a well known psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City coined the term Dysthymia as a replacement term that better described a depressive personality. Persistent mild depression is a chronic depressive disorder that is less acute and severe than major depressive disorder. The World Health Organisation defines dysthymia as a persistent, or chronic form of mild depression; the symptoms of which are similar to a major depressive disorder, but, tend to be less intense and last longer. Thinkstock As a disorder, it is one of the more difficult ones to be diagnosed because the symptoms and characteristics are so subtle, that youd not even know to be sure if there really is a deeper problem, or if youre just like this. People who suffer from such a disorder tend to be good at hiding their symptoms in front of others which makes it a challenge to understand and recognize such a person. Dysthymia tends to always be accompanied by some other kind of disorderphysical, or psychological. This makes it all the more difficult to address because of the level of complexity in the mind of the affected person. The symptoms for dysthymia usually tend to overlap and imitate the disorder that masks it. Its called comorbidity. A report published by Harvard University in February 2005, titled, Harvard Health Publications noted, At least three-quarters of patients with dysthymia also have a chronic physical illness or another psychiatric disorder such as one of the anxiety disorders, cyclothymia, drug addiction, or alcoholism. Experts usually advise one to look for signs of major depression, panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, alcohol and substance misuse and personality disorder. Thinkstock Thats the science, psychology and the Wikipedia synopsis of it all. Heres the real deal though. You may not even know it. You might not have even known there was a name for what youve been feeling for the past few years now. It keeps on happening; keeps on coming back, year after year. Just when you think its a phase that is over, it comes back one fine day. It can be triggered, just like most psychological problems. But it persists. Thats why its called persistent. Its like having a heavy brick placed on top of your chest and little bricks tied to your ankles and one placed over your head. Its like having a blurry vision, whether or not you wear spectacles. Its like having a heavy head without the headaches and the hangovers. Your energy is at an all time low as is your own self esteem. You probably think you need a break but, the thought of that ends as soon as it begins. You lack the will. You dont feel like it. You dont feel like blending in, making an effort, talking, communicating. Youre not necessarily thinking and yet, your head is heavier than the world on Atlas shoulder. You feel constantly burdened and bogged down. You sigh deeply; but, its not relief. Its despair. Everything feels like a task. And this happens for days, months and years without end. Youre clueless about it most times; brushing it off more often than not. You dont want to deal with it, or anything, for that matter. Whats the point when its all going to come crashing down, anyway, right? Youd rather just be left alone; even when you know you probably shouldnt be. Pexels Its been three good years of all of the above, over and over again. Until one fine day, it gets worse, death becomes a recurring word that you seem to use only too casually. You know you probably would never harm yourselfyou see, you love your life too muchbut, theres always this nagging thought at the back of your head. What if you do? A dysthymic personality is prone to suicidal behavior even if it may not be as pronounced. Dysthymia doesnt have any evidential biological causes. It could stem for any reason, or no reason at all, at any point of time in your life. Stress, social isolation, and lack of social support are factors that can contribute to the onset of dysthymia. Notwithstanding that, the same Harvard report observed that The rate of depression in the families of people with dysthymia is as high as fifty percent for the early-onset form of the disorder. You may not necessarily know someone in your family who suffers, or did so. Then again, its not something that is easy to diagnose. Pexels In 2009, Sansone, R. A. MD; Sansone, L. A. MD listed the most common co-occuring conditions which included major depression75%, anxiety disorders 50%, personality disorders40%, somatoform disorders45% and substance abuse50%. If you, or someone you know might be experiencing the following things, chances aremore often than notthere is something more to it than just a phase. According to a report published in 2009, by American Psychiatric AssociationDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IVyou need to watch out for the following symptoms: 1. During a majority of days for two years or more, the adult patient reports depressed mood, or appears depressed to others for most of the day. 2. When depressed, the patient has two or more of: 3. decreased or increased appetite 4. decreased or increased sleep (insomnia or hypersomnia) 5. Fatigue or low energy 6. Reduced self-esteem 7. Decreased concentration or problems making decisions 8. Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism During this two-year period, the above symptoms are never absent longer than two consecutive months. The symptoms may cause significant problems or distress in social, work, academic, or other major areas of life functioning. Lindsey James, director of Visit Mason City, was recognized April 7 for her work on the Main Street Iowa Conference, held in August at The Music Man Square. She received the award at MSI's Award Celebration in Des Moines. James also received the Leadership Award at Main Street Mason City's monthly board meeting. WHITTEMORE | St. Michael's Catholic Church in Wittemore will be hosting its third annual Spirit 5K Run/Walk on May 27. Registration begins at 8 a.m. outside the Parish Center with the event starting at 9 a.m. This event is open to people of all ages. The funds that are raised from this year event will go towards the renovation of the New Chapel. Anyone interested in participating can complete a registration from by May 10 to secure a shirt order. Forms are available at local Whittemore businesses, banks, library, and St. Michaels Parish Center Office. For more information, call Sandy Long at 515-884-2618. MASON CITY | Two North Iowa graduating seniors have earned the Globe Gazette's Partners in Education Money to Learn scholarships to NIACC. Thomas Bauer, Riceville High School, and Megan Jones, West Fork High School, will each receive $500. Both are required to enroll full-time at North Iowa Area Community College to receive the scholarships. Awards were based on required essays themed, "Why I think it is important to further my education." Bauer said in his application he is planning a career in the building and trades field, specifically HVAC. "Furthering my education is a privilege, as some high school graduates do not have the means or opportunity to further their education, and I plan to use this privilege in a positive manner by earning my degree," Bauer wrote. Receiving his two-year degree will be a "great personal accomplishment and achievement of a long-term goal I set for myself may years ago," he said. "I am excited for what my future holds, and my immediate future includes furthering my education at NIACC and experiencing all that comes with earning a college degree," Bauer said. Jones said in her application she plans to pursue a career in pediatric nursing. "Furthering my education is very important to me because I never stop learning," she wrote. "The world is constantly changing, so there are always opportunities for expanding my knowledge." As a nurse, Jones says her responsibility is to learn how to treat illnesses and how to use medical equipment. She said having a college degree will help her gain confidence in herself, which she can then pass on to others. CASS CITY Next week, Cass City Elementary School will celebrate Bike to School Day with thousands of other schools throughout the nation. Cass City is one of a handful of schools in the area to participate on Wednesday. HURON COUNTY Theres no doubt that the wind energy debate has wounded Huron County. Its created a lot of division within our community: division on the planning commission, division on the board of commissioners, division with families, division between neighbors, said Steve Allen, county corporate counsel, recently at the Huron County Planning Commission meeting. Robert Gaffke of Bloomfield Township commented at the meeting that the people of Huron County value the rural setting that the county offers. The most recent master plan survey said repeatedly that people wanted to live in a rural setting in a quiet and peaceful area, Gaffke said. The May 2, 2017, election results show residents still value a quiet, peaceful rural setting to live in. And I think that will hold true now and far into the future, he added. Regarding a peaceful farming community, Allen said, That seems to be more history than present. (There are) a lot of wounds to heal. The recent vote turning down two proposed wind parks, Allen said, Gave us a pretty good indicator as to what the citizens of the county want or feel at this time. By a 2 to 1 margin, county-zoned voters rejected a proposed wind park by DTE in the Filion area (1,110 yes to 1,923 no). NextEra Energy Resources LLC proposed a park in Sherman and Sigel townships, which was turned down 1,120 yes to 1,934 no. Self-zoned Sand Beach Township, which was also part of NextEras proposed development, voted in support of sound restrictions in the townships wind ordinance that would deter wind development, with 84 percent voting for the restrictions. Lincoln Township voted to become self zoned as well, 174 yes to 124 no. In August, Sherman Township voters will head to the polls over whether that township should become self-zoned. Gaffke advised the planning commission to take note of the peoples will. I hope as we move forward with the countys master plan that we keep that in mind, no matter who rolls into town with a bag of money that people still want to live in a quiet, peaceful rural area first and foremost, Gaffke said. We werent the vocal minority by a long shot. Sami Khoury, chair of the Huron County Board of Commissioners, told the Tribune that people who live in cities and villages were upset that they had no voice in the election, which was open to county-zoned townships only. Hopefully time heals the wounds, and we can move forward with other projects. Huron County has done its part with wind energy. DECKERVILLE Communities across the country will be celebrating National Hospital Week, and Deckerville Community Hospital is sharing information about its dedicated team and healthcare facility. National Hospital Week, May 7-13, is a nationwide campaign in which thousands of hospitals from across the country celebrate the healthcare professionals and the services provided that keep our communities healthy. What began in 1921 as the idea of a magazine editor who wanted to educate the public about the work of hospitals, National Hospital Week has become the nations largest healthcare celebration. This is a celebration of hospitals and those who work each day to ensure a healthy community, said hospital CEO Angela McConnachie. Deckerville Community Hospital is a wonderful facility with an amazing staff and wonderful volunteers. Deckerville Community Hospital continues to adapt to new technologies and treatment options as well as adding specialties to provide the healthcare needs of our community. Many people in our community are simply not aware of the vast amount of services available to them, but with a newly-redesigned website in process, Deckerville Community Hospital hopes to change that. It is important for members of our community to know that we are equipped to care for them with state-of-the-art equipment and expert specialty services right here in Deckerville, McConnachie said. We have equal capabilities of diagnosing and treating patients as other hospitals located miles way. The only difference is were right here and committed to the overall health of our community. Each department and service offered at Deckerville Community Hospital demonstrates what has become the signature trademark of local healthcare. The combined positive energy amongst the medical, office and support teams truly contribute to the kind of care and service that the community has come to expect from Deckerville Community Hospital. Recent projects at the hospital have helped the facility improve the overall experience for patients and guests. The Healthcare Services Clinic has undergone renovations, which will create a modern and soothing environment to visitors and those who are checking in. Watch for an open house announcement coming soon. Equipment upgrades and enhancements also continue. Recently, the hospitals OR department has upgraded its surgical lighting system. This new system will feature state-of-the-art surgical lighting in the operating room. BAD AXE The renewable energy debate in Huron County is not over. Wind turbine issues have settled down as a result of recent referendums where the majority of voters said no to new wind energy developments. Cue solar. Members of the public will be able to air concerns about solar energy development in the county next week at a special meeting of the Huron County Planning Commission. A hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Huron County District Court, Room 105 of the county building. The Huron County Board of Commissioners had sent the planners a resolution recommending a moratorium on solar development for review. The planners decided to hold a public hearing on the issue. Comment on the year-long moratorium is due back to the county board by May 23. The planners will make a recommendation to the board of commissioners following the hearing. Cypress Creek Renewables of Arizona has been courting local landowners to sign leases allowing commercial solar farms, which reportedly can be worth $800 an acre and thats more than can be made farming. The moratorium would be for one year, or until the commercial solar energy system regulations are adopted in the countys Zoning Ordinance, whichever occurs first. Officials are hoping to prevent zoning issues that came up with wind turbine construction from affecting solar development. For those unable to attend the hearing, written comments will be accepted by mail at the Huron County Building & Zoning Department, 250 E. Huron Ave., Room 102, Bad Axe, MI, 48413, or by fax to 989-269-3362. MASON CITY | Trinity Lutheran Church will celebrate its Norwegian heritage by observing Syttende Mai with a Lutefisk and Meatball Dinner on May 19. Syttende Mai (or the 17th of May) marks Norways declaration of independence and is a celebration of the 1814 signing of Norways constitution and independence from Sweden. This day is also called Constitution Day and National Day and is a great spring festival in Norway, according to a news release from Trinity. Dinner will be served in the Fellowship Hall at 5:30 p.m. Seating is limited. Tickets are on sale at Trinitys office or by calling 641-423-0536. The cost is $18. Tickets must be purchased prior to the event. Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go. Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune... A partisan fight broke out in the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Friday over whether the new health care bill proposal to replace Obamacare would help or hurt vets. The Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Phil Roe of Tennessee, vehemently said the proposed bill, called the American Health Care Act, wouldn't hurt veterans. Democrats just as vehemently said it would. The issue is tax credits and how they do or don't apply to veterans under Obamacare, which Republicans want to repeal and replace. As it stands now, veterans who are currently enrolled in VA health care are deemed to meet minimum coverage requirements under Obamacare, meaning they are not eligible for tax credits. However, veterans who are not enrolled in VA health care, even if they are eligible but have chosen not to enroll, are eligible for the tax credits to purchase coverage. Roe insisted that the health care bill narrowly passed by the House on Thursday without any support from Democrats would not affect tax credits for veterans not currently enrolled in VA health care. Democratic legislators said it would because language on the tax credits was left out of the proposed legislation passed by the House. Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the proposed bill could deny tax credits to any individual who is "eligible" for other health care programs, such as VA health care or Tricare. "This provision potentially denies seven million veterans access to health care, because though technically eligible, they are not currently enrolled in VA health care," he said in a statement. Walz charged that Republicans "have recklessly forged ahead despite the consequences" and warnings from veterans service organizations. Rep. Julia Brownley of California, the ranking Democrat on the Health Subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said, "While I am deeply concerned about many aspects of this bill, the rush to put politics ahead of people, and the impact it could have on our veterans as a consequence, is simply shameful." Roe accused the Democrats of "fear mongering" to drum up opposition to the bill passed by the House. He said language on the tax credits was not needed in the proposed bill since it is an Internal Revenue Service regulation. "The American Health Care Act protects veterans' health care -- any claims to the contrary are false," he said. Putting language on tax credits into the proposed bill would have been in violation of the Senate's reconciliation rules, and so "that language had to be removed." Roe said, "Nothing in this bill would change the existing regulation, and veterans' access to tax credits will not be affected by the American Health Care Act." The Paralyzed Veterans of America urged rejection of the American Health Care Act. "We are very concerned about the conflicting information circulating about this legislation and the adverse impact it could have on our members and millions of other people with disabilities," the PVA said in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. U.S. Army's senior leadership has ended an agreement with Orbital ATK Inc. that spanned two decades over the XM25 25mm airburst weapon, a move that could put the troubled weapon system's future into jeopardy. The service's XM25 Counter-Defilade Target Engagement System is a semi-automatic, shoulder-fired weapon that fires 25mm high-explosive, air-bursting ammunition. Nicknamed "the Punisher" and designed by Orbital ATK and Heckler & Koch, XM25 has long been the Army's attempt to field a "leap-ahead" weapon designed to give infantry units a decisive edge against enemies hiding behind cover. The XM25 has stirred excitement in the infantry community, but the complex system has also been plagued by program delays that have made it a target of Pentagon auditors. The latest trouble for the program came when the Army canceled its contract with Orbital ATK just one month ago. "On April 5, 2017, the Army terminated the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) contract with the prime contractor (Orbital-ATK) after it failed to deliver the 20 weapons as specified by the terms of the contract," an Army spokesman told Military.com in a May 5 email. "Despite extensive negotiation efforts, the contractor failed to provide an acceptable alternate resolution to the Government." The announcement follows reports that Orbital ATK filed a lawsuit in February against Heckler & Koch in the Minnesota U.S. District Court seeking damages in excess of $27 million, according to a report by Reuters. In the complaint, Orbital said it was seeking damages for breach of contract over the XM25 semi-automatic weapon system, which Orbital and Heckler & Koch started developing more than 20 years ago. Orbital said in the filing that Heckler & Koch had failed to deliver 20 additional prototypes of the XM25 weapon systems, as contracted, and that its failure to do so meant the Army had raised the possibility of terminating its contract with Orbital, Reuters reported. Heckler & Koch has rejected all claims in the suit, according to the news agency. Military.com reached out to both Orbital ATK and Heckler & Koch for comment but did not receive a response by press time. It's unclear what the future is for XM25, but Army weapons officials appeared unsure of its status this week at the National Defense Industrial Association's 2017 Armaments Systems Forum. Following a presentation from the Army's Project Manager Soldier Weapons, an audience member asked why the XM25 did not appear on any of the briefing slides covering the Army's near-term, mid-term and far-term small arms programs. Lt. Col. Steven Power, who runs Product Manager Individual Weapons, said, "The XM25 is still managed by my office" and then gave a long pause before adding, "I can't speak right now about the status of that program." Power said, "I have been informed that it is not really my place to provide information ahead of other stakeholders." Col. Brian Stehle, head of Program Manager Soldier Weapons, said, "There is a requirement within the Army to have an air-burst, direct-fire capability within our formation. The Army is reassessing the actual requirement itself, and we are pursuing material solutions." The service has considered taking the XM25's fire-control system and joining it to a weapon that shoots a 40mm air-burst grenade, a technology Army ammunition experts are developing, according to service sources who are not cleared to speak to the press. The XM25 is an offshoot of the Objective Individual Combat Weapon program the Army began in the mid-1990s to increase the effectiveness of soldier firepower. It features a target acquisition/fire control system that allows soldiers to identify a target, determine the range, and program the ammunition to explode above or near targets out to 600 meters. But the stand-alone weapon has suffered from a barrage of criticism from both auditors as well as from military units. In September 2016, the Defense Department's Inspector General's Office released a follow-on report to a March 2014 audit and concluded Army officials "could have managed the schedule, affordability, and quantity requirements of the XM25 program more effectively." The service has repeatedly delayed the weapon's initial production decision and failed to justify a basis of issue plan, the document states. "Specifically, Army officials removed procurement funding from the XM25 budget, which extended the engineering and manufacturing development phase by 2 years," it states. "Additionally, Army officials contributed to the initial production decision delay by placing a hold on the XM25 capability production document." But while the IG said the service's decision to extend the development effort and XM25 research caused costs to climb between February 2013 and March 2016, it failed to specify actual dollar amounts. Indeed, the report was heavily redacted, with blacked-out figures for not only cost increases but also quantities, including how many XM25s the Army intends to field as part of its basis of issue plan. Problems with the program started Feb. 2, 2013, when the XM25 malfunctioned during its second round of operational testing in Afghanistan, inflicting minor injuries on a soldier. The Army halted the operational testing when the XM25 experienced a double feed and an unintentional primer ignition of one of the 25mm high-explosive rounds, Army officials said at the time. The warhead did not detonate because of safety mechanisms on the weapon. The service removed all prototypes from theater to determine the problem's cause. The XM25 had completed one 14-month battlefield assessment and was in the early stages of a second assessment when the double feed and primer ignition occurred during a live-fire training exercise. According to PM Individual Weapon officials, the XM25 has not had any similar malfunctions since changes were incorporated into the weapon and ammunition, the audit states. In March 2013, elements of the 75th Ranger Regiment refused to take the XM25 with them for a raid on a fortified enemy compound in Afghanistan, sources familiar with the incident said. After an initial assessment, Ranger units found the 14-pound XM25 too heavy and cumbersome for the battlefield. They were also concerned that the limited basic load of 25mm rounds was not enough to justify taking an M4A1 carbine out of the mission, sources said. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. Related Video: The XM-25: Army's Future Weapon A State Department official on Friday said that the Russian proposal to bar U.S. military aircraft from flying over designated safe zones cannot "limit" the U.S. mission against ISIS in the country in any way. "The coalition will continue to strike ISIS targets in Syria," the official told The Wall Street Journal. "The campaign to defeat ISIS will continue at the same relentless pace as it is proceeding now." A deal hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held parts of Syria went into effect on Saturday. The plan is the latest international attempt to reduce violence in the war-ravaged country, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. The plan's details will still be worked out over the next several weeks. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, two areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or "de-escalation zones" will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. In the tangled mess that constitutes Syria's battlefields, there is much that can go wrong with the plan, agreed on in talks Thursday in Kazakhstan. There is no clear mechanism to resolve conflict and violations-- like most other previous deals struck by backers of the warring sides. A potential complication to implementing the plan is the crowded airspace over Syria. The deal calls for all aircraft to be banned from flying over the safe zones. Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operate in different, sometimes same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flight paths of U.S.-led coalition warplanes battling Islamic State militants and other radical groups -- and whether American air forces would abide by a diminished air space. Russia and Iran -- two of the plan's three sponsors -- are key allies of President Bashar Assad's government and both are viewed as foreign occupation forces by his opponents. Rebels fighting to topple Assad are enraged by Iran's role in the deal and blame the Shiite power for fueling the sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, now in its seventh year. Turkey, the third sponsor, is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria, drawing the ire of Assad and his government. Yet troops from the three countries are now expected to secure four safe zones. An official with Russia's military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Russian Col.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told reporters on Friday that personnel and formations from Russia, Iran and Turkey will operate checkpoints and observation posts. He said "security belts" will be created along the borders of the "de-escalation zones" to prevent incidents and fighting between opposing sides. The checkpoints and observation posts will ensure free movement of unarmed civilians and humanitarian aid and will facilitate economic activities, he said. Rebels have expressed concerns the deal is a prelude to a de facto partitioning of Syria into spheres of influence. Osama Abo Zayd, a spokesman for the Syrian military factions at the Kazakhstan talks, told The Associated Press it was "incomprehensible" for Iran to act as a guarantor of the deal. A cease-fire is unsustainable in the presence of the Iranian-backed militias in Syria, he said. "We can't imagine Iran playing a role of peace," Abo Zayd said. The U.S. sent a senior White House official to the Kazakh capital of Astana, where representatives of Russia, Turkey and Iran signed the deal, but had no role in the deal. The idea of armed monitors is a new element -- observers deployed in the early years of the Syrian conflict, including U.N. and Arab League observers, were unarmed. "If that happens, we would be looking at a more serious effort than anything in the past," Aron Lund, a Syria expert wrote in an article Friday. Lund said that from the outside, the agreement "does not look like it has great chances of success" and seems to "lack a clear mechanism to resolve conflicting claims and interpretations." Late Friday, a Syrian opposition coalition, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), denounced the deal in a strongly worded statement. The Western, Saudi-backed organization said the deal lacks legitimacy and seeks to divide the country. The HNC also said the deal was an attempt to give Syrian government troops military victories they could not achieve on the battleground by neutralizing rebel-held areas. It called on the U.S. and other Arab allied countries, to prevent the implementation of the deal. A rebel commander in northern Hama said nearly an hour after the deal went into effect, battles raged with government forces. The area, south of Latamneh, is expected to be part of the deal. Jamil al-Saleh, the commander, said government shelling was intense amid an attempt to advance in the area, scene to fierce battles for weeks. "What deal?" he scoffed. A previous cease-fire agreement signed in Astana on Dec. 30 helped reduce overall violence in Syria for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a cease-fire in Syria have all ended in failure. The "de-escalation zones" will be closed to military aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition, the Russian official who signed the agreement, Alexander Lavrentye, said Friday. Under the plan, Assad's air force -- and presumably Russia's, too -- would also halt flights over those areas. In rebel-held Idlib, a protest was held Friday against the plan, denounced as a plot to "divide Syria." "Any person or state who enters this land to divide it is the enemy of the Syrian people" activist Abed al-Basset Sarout told the crowd. Some refugees were skeptical. Ahmad Rabah, a Syrian refugee from Homs now in Lebanon, said he did not trust Assad's forces and going back to so-called safe zones would be tantamount to living in a "big prison." The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. "The coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary," said Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway. ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Sunni militant group. Rudskoi also suggested that Syrian government forces, freed up as a result of the safe areas, could be rerouted to fight against IS in the central and eastern part of Syria. Another question left unanswered is how the deal would affect U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Qaida's positions in Syria. U.S. warplanes have frequently struck the al-Qaida affiliate in the northern Idlib province, where the militant group dominates. But under Thursday's deal, the entire province is designated to be one of the four "de-escalation zones." Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that if implemented the deal will allow for the separation of the opposition from IS fighters and those of the al-Qaida affiliate. He did not elaborate. Syria's government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting "terrorism" wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Related Video: How to Enforce a No-Fly Zone Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad should soon depart to serve as U.S. ambassador to China. Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will assume his duties. For months Reynolds and fellow Republicans have signaled her intent to appoint a replacement lieutenant governor following the transition. Recently Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, has questioned the legality of this move and ignited a political controversy. Miller examined gubernatorial succession and appointment at the request of independent State Sen. David Johnson. He determined the lieutenant governor, despite assuming the governors office, lacks the constitutional authority to appoint a replacement. (Although) the lieutenant governor becomes governor, Miller said, there is no power to appoint a successor because the two offices are essentially merging and thus there is no vacancy to be filled. Branstad blasted the opinion as politically motivated and said it defies common sense. After a quick review of the Iowa Constitution, my non-expert opinion is that both Miller and Branstad are correct. During Branstads second stint as governor, he and Reynolds have worked shoulder-to-shoulder on key issues. Strong partnership between the two has been emphasized. Agree or disagree with the duos agenda, fair-minded observers must admit this has left Reynolds well prepared to step into the top spot without missing a beat. Should an unplanned succession occur during Reynolds tenure, she -- as well as all Iowans -- would benefit from an equally close relationship leading to another seamless transition. Common sense would dictate Reynolds should be given the opportunity to choose the person with whom she will work so closely. Unfortunately, sometimes common sense and the law are entirely unrelated. Article IV, sections 17 and 19 of the Iowa Constitution deal with gubernatorial succession. Section 17 stipulates that if the governor vacates the office its powers shall devolve upon the Lieutenant Governor. Section 19 continues that should the lieutenant governor vacate the President pro tempore of the Senate SHALL (emphasis added) act as Governor until the vacancy is filled. Similar language names the Speaker of the House as next in line. A strict reading would preclude the possibility of the lieutenant governor disrupting this designated succession plan via appointment. Republicans cite a 2009 law, passed with bipartisan support and signed by then-Gov. Chet Culver, stipulating that an appointment by the governor to fill a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor shall be for the balance of the unexpired term. Democrat Michael Mauro, who served as Secretary of State at the time, has condemned Millers opinion and joins Republicans in calling the 2009 change common sense. But heres where common sense collides with legal niceties. The 2009 law is part of the Iowa code, but the gubernatorial succession plan is enshrined in the Iowa Constitution. You cant add to it by statute, Miller explained. In other words, the Iowa Constitution trumps the Iowa code, and common sense. State leaders did the right thing in 2009, but they seemingly did it the wrong way. Attorney General opinions lack the force of law. Reynolds says she intends to move forward with a lieutenant governor appointment as originally planned. While this move would be legally questionable, it would almost certainly stand unless challenged in court. Such a challenge would likely be protracted and costly. Were it to prove successful, the role of de facto lieutenant governor would fall to Senate President Jack Whitver, a Republican from Ankeny who would then be diverted from his current legislative responsibilities. So Iowa would lose the benefit of having a full-time lieutenant governor, while neither party would gain a significant political advantage. In the long term, the best remedy would be to amend the Iowa Constitution to clarify this situation. Short term, the common-sense approach would be to allow Reynolds her appointment unchallenged. In the current partisan climate, however, this seems unlikely. As is the case with the law, politics and common sense are too often entirely unrelated. blueberry kickoff.JPG The end of year celebration of Blueberry Ambassadors is 11 a.m. Friday, May 19, 2017. It includes a pizza party and awards ceremony to thank these volunteers for all they have done. (Courtesy of "I'm Concerned About the Blueberries"i) GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan -- One moment at a time. One smile. One act of kindness. One Blueberry Ambassador. One by one, they made a difference all through Genesee County. One cookie and one cupcake, one helping hand and one heartfelt gesture at a time, they made their world a little bit nicer place. And, it ends up--they often said they made themselves a bit better in the process. "I'm Concerned About the Blueberries" remains a one-of-a-kind program designed by Flint businessman and philanthropist Phil Shaltz, owner of Shaltz Automation, a downtown investor and co-founder of the Flint Diaper Bank. It is a massive volunteer mobilization effort, community service, and youth engagement program. Open to fourth through 12th-grade students in Genesee County, every volunteer Blueberry Ambassador pledges to perform three random acts of kindness and write about their "Blueberry Moments" for publication on MLive -- with the hope of inspiring others to also make a positive impact on the community. It started in 2014 with a pilot program of 100 students and grew to 375 the next year. Then, 1,000 students. This year, an estimated 1,300 students signed on to the effort. "I don't know the words or the picture that I can paint to adequately express how proud I am of them. It's beyond pride. It's enthusiasm. It's all of those words," Shaltz said. "We're changing their DNA to make them feel safe and confident to do something nice for someone. Telling them is one thing. Exciting them to act is something completely different." This year included a special test expansion into a third grade class to determine if the program should be expanded to include even younger students. Shaltz, who reads every one of the thousands of Blueberry Moments submitted every year, said it's difficult to even begin to describe what Blueberry Ambassadors did this year. They racked leaves, bought coffee, fed homeless, donated clothes, read books to a favorite uncle who never quite recovered after a medical issue. They stood up to bullies and offered friendship. Sometimes they just said thank you to those who they realized don't hear that often enough--bus drivers, custodians, teachers, even mom and dad. "Over and over again, the kids tell us how good it made them feel to do something for someone else. That's what we really want here. We want them to make a difference--and to realize they want to make a difference again and again," Shaltz said. Every Blueberry Ambassador receives three Blueberry Cards as well as Blueberry T-shirts and wristbands. All the submitted Blueberry Moments are published on MLive. See them here. The program is funded entirely by Shaltz and his wife Ardele. It is done in partnership with Genesee Education Foundation and with the support of countless teachers, counselors, principals and parents. The year of effort is capped off with a end-of-year celebration. It's a pizza party for all the Blueberry Ambassadors and those who want to celebrate their work (RSVP here) and an awards program. The winner of the People's Choice Award -- selected through your votes in an online poll (voting starts Sunday, May 7, 2017) -- is announced. The Founder's Award for the single best Blueberry Moment, Inspirational Leader Award for a special adult mentor as well as a Blueberry Champion from every school district also is awarded then. Donations are made to the schools by the Shaltzes to honor the winning Blueberry Ambassadors' achievements. The program also awards more than $17,000 in scholarship dollars to the University of Michigan-Flint--sponsored by the Shaltzes, UM-Flint, and Huntington Bank. Sankari Main.JPG (Courtesy of "I'm Concerned About the Blueberries"i) This is it! The last official group of Blueberry Moments to publish before our contest starts on Sunday. Check MLive for the link to vote for the school with your favorite Blueberry Moments. The People's Choice Award winner will receive a $1,000 donation. Vote once an hour until voting closes at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, May 16, 20167. As you would expect, our Blueberry Ambassadors were busy doing good in their community. From buying special treats for friends, to reaching out to new people to make sure everyone had a friend, our Blueberry Ambassadors wrap up the year on a high note. This installment features Hana Sankari's group from Genesee Academy, Megan Hardy's group from Grand Blanc Brendel Elementary, Robin Ballard's group from Grand Blanc Myers Elementary, Shawn Compton's group from Montrose Cater Elementary, Megan Vicari's group from Carman-Ainsworth Rankin Elementary, Gina Desimone's group from Bendle High School, Chris Garza's group from Montrose Carter Elementary, Elizabeth Buckhold's group from Bentley Middle School, and Shelley Thompson's group from Swartz Creek Dieck Elementary. Being a Blueberry Ambassador means students are obligated to do at least three random acts of kindness -- to look for three ways to go out of their way to positively impact someone or the community. The actual number of good deeds is immeasurable actually much higher than that because each Blueberry Ambassador also asks those they help to pay it forward. Through a partnership with MLive, the students' stories are published online. Below is an excerpt of just some of the Blueberry Moments. Check out all the teams' good work at http://topics.mlive.com/tag/flint-blueberries/. To find out more about "I'm Concerned About the Blueberries," email BlueberryAmbassador@gmail.com. Genesee Academy, coordinator Hana Sankari Bayan Tarakji One day my school had a bake sale. I always kept extra money in my backpack just in case. I didn't want to buy anything though. But my friend really wanted a cupcake and she had no money. I decided I would give her $2 for that cupcake she wanted. I was glad I helped a friend in need of a cupcake. A few days later I gave that friend a Blueberry Card so she could spread the kindness. Rama Alawwa Not too long ago, we had two people from Hurley come visit us. They talked about their job and the kids from the hospital. The two representatives were really nice and seemed to really enjoy their job. As a gift, we collected things that kids could play with at the hospital. This made me feel very happy. Marwah Abdelhay Blueberry Moment 10394 I go to a Muslim Islamic school, so I learn about my language and religion in my school. A lot of people that are Muslims go to public schools and they don't learn about their language or religion in a public school. So that's what Saturday school is for. It's a school day on Saturday to help people to learn about their Islamic religion. I go there sometimes and help out with all ages. I help the teachers teach the kids. I help in reading and writing. I'm like an assistant teacher, which is really nice. It a great experience and helps me when I grow up. Grand Blanc Brendel Elementary, coordinator Megan Hardy Jenna Chamberlin At recess, I played with two girls I have never really thought to play with before. I knew them from classes and they seemed really nice. I got to do monkey bars and fun obstacle courses on the equipment and had a really awesome time. We played again and I hoped we could invite some of my friends to play too. I decided to do this random act of kindness because the girls were playing alone without anyone and I watched them and I felt really bad and something was telling me to go play with them because it would make them happy. The two girls reacted by saying they had a lot of fun. They also smiled and laughed. I could really tell they were happy. Doing this made me feel really awesome inside because I could tell they were really enjoying it. I was also really happy that I made a decision to play with someone I never had played with before. Jaclyn Garvey Blueberry Moment 26288 I saw a girl sitting by herself at lunch so I left my table and went over and sat by her and we had a great conversation and became great friends. Me and her sit by each other and play games and have a bunch of fun. I wanted to make her happy and give her a new friend. She felt a lot better that she had someone to sit by and to talk to and she just felt happy. It made me feel like I had a new friend and I should have been friends with her before. Matthew Lavoie The random act of kindness that I did, with the help of some other Blueberries is my school, was I made Mrs. Goetz, our principal, a big card and another card that the whole school signed. I decided to do this because I wanted to thank her for what she does. She was happy and even went on the announcements and thanked us. It made me feel good because I made someone's day. Grand Blanc Myers Elementary, coordinator Robin Ballard See all these Myers Elementary students' Blueberry Moments Addison Hines Today my friend was trying out for a play and I was there too. When she didn't get the part, she wanted I said, "Good try at least there's always next year." She was really glad I said she did a good job and there's always next year. I felt really happy that I made another person happy from my actions. Alina Ike On March 23, at 8:20, am I was heading onto the bus with my bus driver, Mrs. Touhy not knowing I had cookies to give her. The cookies I made with my mom. My mom purposely told me to be in the back of the line so she could take pictures. I did this not to be famous or anything but to be a role model for others, like Rosa Parks is for me. So, as I was in line going onto the bus the line started to get smaller. My heart started beating but I kept moving forward. Eventually, I got on the bus. I gave the cookies to her and said, "These are for you." Her eyes lit up and she said excitedly, "Oh my gosh! Thank you!" "You're so welcome," I said back. I then ran back to my seat so happy that I did that. I knew that she was having a rough time with all of the kids on the bus so this is why I made these cookies for someone so special and that could start with any of you. Savanna Sirles Blueberry Moment 8023 It started with a knock on the door. Who was knocking on the door at 8 o'clock in the morning? Then, our friend came in and her and my grandma got ready to go clean trailers so that people could move in. I offered to help, but then Melissa came up stairs and said that we were going to the park later. I could go to the park or go help my grandma and friend. I chose to go help and afterward our friend said that she was happy I came and helped which made me happy to help. Montrose Carter Elementary, coordinator Shawn Compton Addison Crimi I hung kindness signs around the school. I felt proud doing this. When I am in the Blueberry Ambassadors, it's fun and it makes me feel good. Mya My family and I went out to dinner and I saw a man eating by himself. I wanted to do a great thing, so I asked to pay for his dinner. I felt really great after that. Alaina Last year, I was wondering about homeless and less fortunate kids during Christmas time. Do they get any gifts? I wrote a letter to my principal and she made me a part of Santa's Workshop Toy Drive which is basically a toy drive for the less fortunate. Kids and adults can donate. So, they receive the toys, wash them, and then put them in a store called Santa's Workshop. This is where the less fortunate parents could buy the toys for their kids. This year, we got four large boxes full of toys in three weeks! But, the coolest part was that we helped for a really good cause. Carman-Ainsworth Rankin Elementary, coordinator Megan Vicari Micah Blueberry Moment 7291 On Saturday I went to a store and donated clothes and toys because the clothes were too small and we didn't use the toys anymore. I felt happy that I could help someone else. Noah Blueberry Moment 7273 I participated in the Fenton Moose Polar Plunge. I raised $400, and I jumped in an ice water lake. I did it all for my Uncle Eddie and all people with disabilities. I won the youngest plunger award. That is my big blueberry moment! Aleena Blueberry Moment 7289 When we were headed to the store, I saw an elderly man who couldn't go down the curb. There were a whole bunch of cars, so I pushed the button on the pole so he could cross. He said thank you. Bendle High School, coordinator Gina Desimone Coreena Forstner Blueberry Moment 7212 Bad things sometimes occur and we have no control over them. Like many cases, when it is bad, it is very bad. Three months ago, I was grateful to have met a nice family whose house had recently burned down to nothing. These incidents happen so frequently, not many people, let alone strangers think to bat an eye at a family in need if they are not your own personal family. The night I received the news I brainstormed ideas of what I could do. My mother and I had been emptying out our closets, discarding old clothes and shoes that didn't fit. The following week I donated two full bags of clothing and shoes including baby clothes donated from my brother's closet. Such severe, tragic events have never happened in my immediate family, I was grateful and beyond thankful to be able to help another family. Angel Woodruff Blueberry Moment 7242 I was sitting at Speedway on a freezing old day and there was a homeless man just hanging around outside. I was heading in to get a coffee and decide he needed a warm-up. He was so thankful for the coffee. It also warmed my heart. Desiree Hess Blueberry Moment 7203 My most recent deed was cleaning up my neighbor's yard that was filled with litter from the recent wind storm. I got gloves and a bag and went to town. I then left a Blueberry card on their door with a very clean yard. This just goes to show that it isn't always people we help, sometimes it's the environment. Montrose Carter Elementary, coordinator Chris Garza Casey Railling My mom inspires me to do kind things for others. As a Blueberry Ambassador, I do kind things like washing apples for the Michigan Apple Bite, so everyone could try a Michigan apple. We also made wooden trains for the Montrose Santa Clause so he can give them to the less fortunate. Another thing we did was make bags for the new kids in case they were nervous and we put school supplies and goodies into the bags to introduce them to the school. I didn't just feel good, I felt great after all that I did! Bentley Middle School, coordinator Elizabeth Buckhold Sarah Marshall Blueberry Moment 7436 I went to my mom's work to help her in her classroom. I did it because she works with special needs kids that are a handful to work with all day. So, I thought her classroom could use some help. My mom though it was nice to have some help in her room and the teacher in her room liked it as well. Now, I know how hard it is to work in her room and that I need to be especially nice to her after work. David Booth All winter long, I thought hard of where I would want to help out at. I thought the soup kitchen, but then realized that they do get a lot of help there, already. Then, I thought about all of the people that help me out throughout the year. There are my neighbors, Mike and Pat. They are an older couple that are retired and are always trying to pay someone to help around their house. When I asked them, they were shocked because I didn't even ask to be paid. I then asked them if there is ever anything else besides the small tasks, to let me know. Without them asking, I started picking up sticks for them in their yard that had fallen from a big wind storm. There is an older lady that lives next to Mike and Pat and she kind of reminds me of my grandma. I began to help out in her yard too. By the time I was done, I had helped out four neighbors. I also noticed I had started to get to know each of them. I have a very hard time getting out and talking to people because I am very shy. This Blueberry Ambassador program has got me out of my shell and get to know my neighborhood so much better. I know that I will be helping out my neighbors on a regular basis now. My principal and Mrs. Brockman are both people who have also helped me to come out of my shell. If it was not for the many people who have helped me, I would not be in the place that I am and would not get to see as many things in life. Swartz Creek Dieck Elementary, coordinator Shelley Thompson Lily decided to start an organization called "Helping Hearts." It is to benefit the kids at Hurley who are sick. She got the idea and then approached her principal and asked if she could ask for donations from the kids at school. She then called Hurley Hospital and asked what types of things the patients would like and can use. She designed a flyer to be sent home with all of the kids and spoke with the different classrooms. She has collected books, stuffed animals, blankets, puzzles and games. We will be dropping the items collected this week. Her goal is to make this an ongoing project. Americans under 65 years old who qualify for government paid health care may not vote much. And they certainly can't afford to hire a lobbying firm. But they are the ones likely to be most affected by changes to how health care is paid for and delivered at the state and national level. It's an unsettling idea denying someone health care because they cannot afford it but one that will come more and more to the forefront in state and federal budget battles. At the federal level, the Republican Congress and President Donald Trump are negotiating ways to "repeal" and "replace" Obamacare with a plan that inevitably must reduce spending and coverage for those on government-paid health care for the poor. Millions of people who were given health care just a few years ago under Medicaid expansion will likely lose some of it or be forced to pay more for it. At best, states will be allowed to reduce coverage for things like mental health and other mandated services in the government programs. Trump also has threatened to withhold federal funding for the Medicaid programs as a way to get minority party Democrats in Congress to help pass a repeal and replace bill. So far, the Democrats have ignored the threat. The federal actions will trickle down to the states, as much of the cost of state Medicaid expansion comes from the federal government. If the federal government stops funding Medicaid to the states, Minnesota's budget surplus of about $1.6 billion would be wiped out in one year. Few may realize that under federal law, a person cannot be turned away from an emergency room or necessary medical care just because they have no insurance. But studies have shown that most of these folks don't go to the doctor if they don't have insurance, and their condition worsens and gets more costly. The thought was that if we provide them preventive care, we ultimately save in the long run. Studies have borne that out. But if we really want to move forward with these strategies to reduce health care spending, we should be ready to own up to the idea that we're telling our people that health care is only a right to those who can afford it. This editorial appeared in the April 28 edition of the The Free Press of Mankato (Minnesota). SALINE, MI - Ally Hennessey helped raise more than $4,500 last summer for childhood cancer research. Now, the community is rallying around Ally to raise money for her own cancer treatment. The 8-year-old is a third grader at Saline's Woodland Meadows Elementary School. She likes playing on her iPad, enjoys Christian music and is an Uno champion, said her mother, Shannon Hennessey. Since 2011, Ally has battled a brain tumor that affects her eyesight. She's endured numerous types of chemotherapy - more than children with the same type of cancer typically have to undergo, her mother said. "There aren't a lot of options left, because she's done so many things," Shannon Hennessey said. Ally had brain surgery in 2013 and was able to stop chemotherapy from August 2014 to January 2016. But then her brain tumor started growing again, and Ally is now undergoing more chemotherapy at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. "She doesn't have a memory of life before chemo because she was only 3 when she started chemo. She has actually asked us before, 'Mom and Dad, when you were little and had chemo,' and it's like ugh," Shannon Hennessey said. "For all that she's been through, she's just so bubbly and so happy. It's amazing because I think most people wouldn't be." Shannon and her husband Ed Hennessey are looking for other treatment options that may prove more effective for Ally, but they need financial support to pursue those options. The couple also has an older daughter, Lily, 11. "The hope is to raise money so that if there's some new innovative trial anywhere in the country, we have the funds to take her there," Shannon Hennessey said. Karen Derksen, whose son goes to school with Ally, has several fundraising events planned in the upcoming months to benefit the Hennessey family. "It's so sad to have any child go through this," Derksen said. "They have such a nice, sweet, humble family. I'd really like to make a difference so that we can raise the money, so that if this trial becomes available they can say yes and hopefully get the treatment that will save her vision and even better save her life." Last summer, Ally participated in a fundraiser for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which funds childhood cancer research. Derksen is planning three lemonade stand fundraisers this summer to benefit Ally's family. The lemonade stands will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on May 27, June 3 and June 10 at Saline Middle School, 7190 N. Maple Road. A donation buys a cup of lemonade, and there will be "Ally's Pals" bracelets on sale for $2 and T-shirts for $10 to $15. Ally's classmates will volunteer at the lemonade stand. "She's a sweet, lovable little girl," Derksen said. "I always make cupcakes for the kids. ... So I told her we're going to do this lemonade stand and raise some money, and she said, 'Ms. Derksen, are you going to have cupcakes there?'" Shannon said it's been overwhelming to see the Saline community step up to help their family. "We are just in awe of how supportive Saline has been to Ally and our family," she said. "Ed and I would give our right arms if we could save her on our own, so we are really, really just beyond grateful." Those who can't make it to the lemonade stand fundraisers can donate through the YouCaring page, purchase T-shirts online until June 15 or participate in upcoming restaurant fundraisers. On May 21, Buffalo Wild Wings, 3150 Boardwalk Drive, Ann Arbor, will donate to the Hennessey family 20 percent of bills paid by anyone who shows an for dine-in or carry-out orders. On June 14, Mancino's Pizza and Grinders, 1323 E. Michigan Ave., Saline, will donate 20 percent of all dine-in and take-out orders placed between 4 to 9 p.m. to the Hennessey family. "I know anything will make a difference and potentially make this (clinical trial) something they can afford," Derksen said. "It's been kind of exciting to think maybe we can raise enough to really do something for this child." ANN ARBOR, MI - A neighborhood in southwest Ann Arbor is getting a new bridge this year after years of pleading with the city. The City Council voted 10-1 this week to replace the long-debated pedestrian bridge that's missing over Malletts Creek between Delaware Drive and Morehead Court in the Lansdowne neighborhood. It's going to cost the city more than $300,000, which some council members said they aren't happy about, but they're going along with it anyway because they believe the city previously made commitments to do so. The city closed the city-owned crossing over the flowing creek nearly a decade ago due to safety concerns related to structural deficiencies, and then removed it entirely, leaving the neighborhood without a bridge the last several years. In terms of getting around, the missing bridge has been only a slight inconvenience for most, as it's still possible to use Seventh Street to complete the trip between Delaware Drive and Morehead Court. But neighbors say the small bridge was enjoyed by many people, offering scenic views of the creek and wildlife, serving as a location for wedding photos and other portrait shoots, and providing enhanced connectivity in the neighborhood. And the fact that sidewalk approaches on either side have led to barricades in recent years has been an eyesore and is dangerous, neighbors argue, saying children sometimes still try to cross on the rocks and concrete. Rows of homes back up to the creek on both sides, and the spot where the bridge is missing is accessible by sidewalk approaches that cut between homes. The location of a bridge that once crossed over Malletts Creek in the Lansdowne neighborhood in Ann Arbor is marked here. City officials at multiple times over the last several years signaled intentions to replace the bridge after the adjacent homeowners association, known as Lans Basin Inc., took responsibility for repairing the weirs that served as a foundation for the old bridge. But after the neighbors did their part, which they claim cost about $100,000, the City Council last year tried to backtrack. The council had voted 7-4 in favor of a $450,000 earmark for the project in May 2015, with Mayor Christopher Taylor and three of his allies - Julie Grand, Kirk Westphal and Chuck Warpehoski - opposed. The makeup of the City Council changed in the 2015 election. With two new allies in Zachary Ackerman and Chip Smith, Taylor and most of his allies voted against funding a new bridge in April 2016, once again balking at the cost. By a 6-5 vote, the council voted down a $37,549 contract for the engineering design work. The six against moving forward with the project at the time were Taylor, Smith, Ackerman, Grand, Westphal and Warpehoski. Some of them noted the Lansdowne bridge project ranked low on the city's list of capital priorities, though others argued it was unfair and flawed for the city to use a scoring system that compared the benefits of maintenance and replacement of existing city infrastructure against brand-new capital projects such as a new train station and a light rail system that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Council members in favor of the bridge argued the city had an obligation to the neighborhood and they believed the city staff's estimate would prove to be high and the actual bridge would end up costing less than $450,000. After some continued debate, the council reconsidered the issue in May 2016 and agreed to set aside $288,000 for a new bridge if one could be designed and built for that amount. Council members previously opposed said they reviewed past commitments the city made to neighbors and that changed their thinking. At this week's meeting, Westphal, D-2nd Ward, was the only one who voted against the project, which is not going to come in under $288,000 as council hoped. The council voted 10-1 to approve a $292,500 design-build contract with Grand Haven-based Anlaan Corp., plus a $30,000 contingency for potential increases to the contract to be approved at the city administrator's discretion. The city also plans to spend another $15,000 for contract administration and $2,000 for testing. City Engineer Nick Hutchinson told council members in a memo there is about $263,000 remaining from the money the council previously budgeted, so the city will be drawing another $76,500 from its general fund cash reserves. Council Member Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward, has led the fight on council for the bridge in recent years and proposed the funding for it two years ago. "We've been here again and again and we've discussed this bridge at length," Eaton told his colleagues before the vote Monday night, May 1. "We made an informal commitment to this neighborhood that we were going to replace this bridge once they fixed their weirs, and they've done that, and so we have to decide whether we're going to be overly technical and say, 'Well, it wasn't a written promise, or it wasn't a contractual promise,' and decide whether we're just going to act in good faith on the commitments that we make." Eaton argued it's important that city residents believe they can trust the city when the city makes commitments. "I'm pleased that this matter is coming back considerably less expensive than was originally estimated," he said. "It still seems pretty expensive to me, but I'm not a bridge builder so I don't know. I'm happy that we have found a way to save money compared to what the estimated cost of this bridge was. I would encourage my colleagues to once again approve this." The City Council previously approved a $120,000 allocation in September 2011 for the design of a new bridge. The resolution co-sponsored by former 4th Ward reps Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall also directed city staff to include capital funds for the bridge construction in the 2012-13 budget. City records indicate the project was delayed to accommodate the need to restore weirs owned by the homeowners association and that was done as of 2015 when Eaton, who replaced Higgins on council, began pushing the project once again. Krapohl, who replaced Teall on council, also has voiced support for the project and did so again this week. "As Council Member Eaton said, there was an implied promise back in 2010 when the original bridge was torn down that, if the weirs were repaired by the Lans Basin association, the bridge would be replaced by the city," Krapohl said, arguing it's important for the city to keep its promises. Westphal, speaking against the project, said he believes all 11 council members in Ann Arbor serve because they like helping people, and nothing would please him more than to be able to approve every budget request, but he still argues the project is a low priority and shouldn't be funded at this time. Westphal, Ackerman and Grand suggested transferring ownership of the bridge to the homeowners association so it wouldn't be an issue for the city in the future. Grand, D-3rd Ward, said it was "incredibly painful" for her to support spending more than $300,000 replacing the neighborhood bridge. "To saddle future councils as we were saddled with this project, I don't think would be fair," she said. Grand said she was torn about approving the contract, as she agreed there are other priorities the city could be funding, such as installing speed radar signs around the city to help slow traffic and improve pedestrian safety. "I do want to honor our promises," she said of following through on replacing the bridge. "But I do so with a lot of feelings of conflict." Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, agreed the city made a promise to the neighborhood to replace the bridge if the neighbors funded weir repairs. But he also said the city has capital plans that lay out priorities for spending taxpayer dollars, and those dollars were supposed to be spent on other projects ahead of this one. "To put it into perspective of what $370,000 means to our general fund, it's the salary of a police officer for three years -- to either enforce traffic or walk a beat downtown," Ackerman said. "It's nine RRFBs (flashing crosswalk signals) to keep students safe walking to school. It is nearly funding two full years of the street lighting asked for in the capital improvements plan. "And while this comes from a different fund, it's important to note that it's also the cost of crack sealant for our roadways for an entire year -- 38 miles worth of crack sealant. These are real infrastructure dollars that are going to a very specific use at a time when the city as a whole and the residents, young and old, have a lot of competing needs. This is a hard decision." Council Member Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Ward, said she appreciated Ackerman's examples of things the city could be spending money on and she said she hopes the council will be allocating funds to those priorities in the next annual budget awaiting approval this month. She said there is a lot of discretionary spending in the city's budget that could be redirected to do a better job taking care of basic needs. "I supported completing this pedestrian bridge a year ago and I will again tonight," she said. "The primary consideration for me all along has been that the city made a commitment to this neighborhood and we need to follow through on that." Lumm said the neighbors have waited a long time for the city to make good on its promise and it's time to do that. The project timeline shows site survey and soils investigation work is expected to happen this month, followed by a public meeting and design review from June into July, prefabrication of the bridge starting by August, construction of abutments starting in late September, and installation of the bridge and new approaches in October, with some of the final restoration work occurring in November. The bridge is expected to span about 60 feet and will be a minimum of five feet wide. There is a long list of requirements and project specifications the contractor must follow that are contained in a 40-page city document that includes the professional services agreement and attached exhibits. A hydraulics stormwater analysis is required for the project and will be performed in accordance with the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner's Office and city engineering department standards. The agreement also stipulates the bridge will be above the 100-year floodplain level and the approaching sidewalks must be designed and reconstructed in accordance with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Access to the site is very limited due to close proximity of homes, city officials note, and the land is almost entirely private, with only a 12-foot-wide public pedestrian walkway strip providing for access to the bridge and path. Construction efforts are expected to require temporary easements on private property, as well as removal of fencing and decorative planting. When the Lansdowne neighborhood was built in the 1960s and '70s, city officials say, the developer put three weirs across Malletts Creek. A simple wooden bridge was built on one of the weirs to allow residents to walk between Morehead Court and Delaware Drive and the city maintained the bridge until it was removed in 2010 due to safety concerns associated with the weir upon which it sat. The three weirs remain under the ownership of the Lans Basin association. Craig Hupy, the city's public services administrator, said the bridge itself was in reasonable condition when it was taken down. He said it was only taken down because the weir that it was on was falling apart. If there had been some economical way to take the bridge apart and put it back up piece by piece, Hupy said, the city would have done that. Given that the last bridge lasted for decades, Hupy said he doesn't have any overlying fear that the city is going to have huge amounts of maintenance with regard to the new bridge, which will not be connected to the weirs. According to a staff memo to council, the bridge will be located on a strip of land that is part of the public right-of- way and the bridge will be owned and maintained by the city, though the city will not perform snow removal on it. The city's staff notes there are several other examples of pedestrian bridges the city owns and maintains, including some over Malletts Creek adjacent to South Main Street and Ann Arbor-Saline Road, and a number of pedestrian bridges within parks over the Huron River. As far as different ownership arrangements for the Lansdowne bridge, the city's staff says that would require substantial additional legal work. Westphal tried unsuccessfully to push for postponement of the vote on the bridge Monday night so that an ownership transfer could be explored. The city's staff indicated construction might not be completed this year if it was postponed, and it could increase costs if the contractor had to come back again next spring. Eaton argued against transferring ownership of the bridge to homeowners adjacent to the creek, saying the bridge benefits more than just the neighbors there and it wouldn't be a true public amenity if they controlled it. "The amount of support that we saw demonstrated from people who don't belong to the homeowners association should impress upon us that this is more like a parkland," Eaton said, arguing against delaying the project anymore. "We should recognize that if we don't vote to replace the bridge, then we're going to have considerable costs to secure this property because it is really a hazard for young kids and teenagers," he said. "And so there is considerable cost in failing to build this bridge, so I would argue against the postponement." As the council voted 10-1 to go forward with replacing the bridge, Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, said there's a lesson to be learned here. "We need to be cautious in the promises we make," he said. YPSILANTI, MI - An 18-year-old Eastern Michigan University student was shot and killed early Saturday, May 6 in Ohio. In a statement, the university said sophomore Jayquon Tillman of Cleveland died at a large party at a home in Franklin Township, near Kent State University in Akron. A 20-year-old Columbus woman was shot and wounded at the party, according to EMU. "It is with the deepest of sympathy that we mourn the death of Jayquon Tillman," said EMU President James Smith in a statement. "Our heartfelt thoughts go out to his family and friends at this time of grief and sorrow. We stand by to offer whatever support the University can provide to all of those who cared for him and loved him." Tillman was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, the Kings of Color Student organization, and the Washtenaw County My Brothers Keeper Young Brother's Leadership Council. We the EMU Chapter of NAACP are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a fellow Eagle Jayquon Tillman . His... Posted by Naacp Emu on Saturday, May 6, 2017 We lost a young, ambitious, intelligent brother last night...Life is so incredibly short people...My prayers go out to... Posted by Kappa Alpha Psi Delta Nu Chapter on Saturday, May 6, 2017 EMU Counseling and Psychological Services is offering counseling to students seeking support. Students can receive after-hours phone support in the evenings and weekends at 734-487-1118, and students can make an appointment to talk to a counselor during business hours at 734-487-1118. The Portage County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident. Anyone with information should call the Portage County Sheriff's Office at 330-296-5100. BAY CITY, MI -- A repeat customer of the criminal justice system is going to be imprisoned for up to a decade for burglarizing a house and making off with guns, knives, and hunting equipment. Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill on Monday, April 24, sentenced 29-year-old Brandon S. Strange to 34 months to 10 years in prison, with credit for 267 days already served. The judge gave Strange a concurrent term of one year in jail as well. The judge also ordered Strange to pay $10,611.86 in restitution and $258 in court fines and costs. Strange in March pleaded guilty to single counts of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny and possessing less than 25 grams of a controlled substance. In exchange, the prosecution dismissed charges of first-degree home invasion, receiving and concealing stolen firearms, larceny in a building, larceny of a firearm, and felony firearm. Strange's cousin and codefendant, 34-year-old Justin M. Roque, in November pleaded guilty to breaking and entering and a count of receiving and concealing stolen firearms. On Jan. 9, he was sentenced to three years' probation. Background Strange and Roque's case stems from an incident that happened the morning of July 31, when Bay County Sheriff's deputies responded to a breaking-and-entering complaint in the 3200 block of State Street Road. The victim, a 53-year-old man, told police he was last at home about 3 p.m. the previous day and had returned to find his house broken into. The missing items included several handguns, rifles, ammunition, kitchen knives, a cutting block, trail cameras, power drills, a crossbow, a compound bow, hunting clothes, a flat screen TV, collectible coins, wine, laptops, and jewelry, court records show. The man said he believed Strange, his neighbor, was responsible, as he'd recently been on parole for property crimes. While deputies were at the scene, they saw Strange drive by in a silver Ford Explorer. They determined Strange's driver's license was suspended and they removed him from the Ford, court records show. On searching Strange, deputies found cocaine and a pipe on him. In his wallet, he had $563 as well as some collectible coins, court records show. Strange's parents told deputies he lived with them, adding that their 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun was missing from a closet. They gave deputies consent to search their home, with deputies finding a purse containing more collectible coins. Strange's girlfriend, who also lives at the residence, told deputies the purse was hers, but she hadn't used it in months and she didn't know where the coins came from, court records show. "It wouldn't surprise me if Brandon stole it," the woman told deputies. "Have you seen his rap sheet? Stealing is like second nature to him." The woman also said Strange's cousin, Roque, had been over the night before, court records show. Strange denied any wrongdoing to deputies. He said he found a bag containing the coins in his driveway while leaving that morning and took it, court records show. In the course of their investigation, deputies went to Roque's address in Bay City and encountered him there. Roque told them he'd heard of Strange's arrest and denied being his accomplice. He allowed police to search his residence and they did not find any stolen property, court records show. Police also went to the home of Roque's younger brother, Alexander Roque. In the house's basement, police found and confiscated a compound bow case with the complainant's name on it, the compound bow itself, a laptop, a tote box of hunting supplies, rifles, power tools, trail cameras, and a backpack with jewelry and another camera in it, court records show. Deputies arrested Alexander Roque on outstanding warrants. En route to the jail, Alexander Roque told deputies his brother had contacted him earlier to say he put some items in his basement, but not to worry about it as he would take care of them. Alexander Roque told his brother he wanted nothing to do with the situation and told him to remove the items from his house, court records show. In police's presence, Alexander Roque called Justin Roque to get him to implicate himself in the crimes. "Alexander told Justin that he was going to put the items to the curb but Justin told him not to in case the police were watching," police wrote in their reports, contained in court records. "During the conversation Justin asked Alexander to wipe down the items to get Justin's fingerprints off of them. Justin then advised he would be on his way to get the items and planned to throw them in the woods behind the residence." Police returned to Justin Roque's home and arrested him. They also executed a search warrant on his home and discovered a Ruger rifle and ammunition they'd missed in their previous search. Alex Roque was not charged in connection with the burglary. Strange in July 2009 was sentenced to 18 months to six years in prison after pleading guilty to larceny in a building in Saginaw County. After serving some time, Strange in November 2011 was sentenced to two to 10 years after pleading guilty to receiving and concealing $1,000 to $20,000 in stolen property in Bay County. The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged Strange on Feb. 27, 2015. NEW ORLEANS, May 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until May 15, 2017 to file lead plaintiff applications in securities class action lawsuits against Walter Investment Management Corporation (NYSE:WAC), if they purchased the Companys securities between February 29, 2016 and March 13, 2017, inclusive (the Class Period). These actions are pending in the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida. What You May Do If you purchased securities of Walter Investment and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com). If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by May 15, 2017. About the Lawsuit Walter Investment and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On March 14, 2017, Walter Investment disclosed that [a]s of December 31, 2016, we identified a material weakness in internal controls over operational processes within the transaction level processing of its subsidiary Ditech Financial[s] default servicing activities. On this news, the price of Walter Investments shares plummeted by over 38%. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The Board of Directors of the Company at their meeting held from 11:45 am to 2:30 pm today, inter alia, took the following decisions: i.Took on record and duly approved the Audited Financial Results for the financial year ended 31st March, 2017 which are enclosed along with the Auditors' Report thereon, as Annexure 1. In terms of second proviso to regulation 33(3)(d) of SEBI (Listing Obligation & Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, we confirm that the Auditors have given an Unmodified Opinion on the Annual Audited Financial Results of the Company for the financial year ended 31st March 2017. ii.Appointed Dr. Ferzaan Engineer (DIN: 00025758) and Mr. Mark Simon (DIN: 07807378) as Additional Independent Directors of the Company to hold office up to the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the Company. Brief profiles of the new Directors are enclosed as Annexure 2. iii.Approved the issue & allotment up of warrants at a price of ` 330 each, aggregating up to Rs. 500 Cr, each warrant being convertible into fully paid up equity shares of face value Re.1 each of the Company i.e. at premium of Rs.329 per share, to the following entities on Preferential Basis, subject to receipt of necessary approvals including that of the shareholders at an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting to be convened on Friday, 2nd June 2017: Name of Proposed AllotteesCIN of Proposed Allottees Virtuous Finance Private Limited U65990MH1989PTC053686 Virtuous Share Investments Private Limited U67120MH1995PTC087613 Family Investment Private Limited U67120MH1989PTC053569 Quality Investments Private LimitedU67120MH1989PTC053568 Viditi Investment Private LimitedU67120MH1989PTC053096 Lakshdeep Investments & Finance Private LimitedU67120MH1993PTC072685 This is for your information and record.Source : BSE Citing the need for longer terms, the government has appointed Sunil Mehta and Dinabandhu Mohapatra as chief executive officers of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Bank of India (BOI), respectively, the Economic Times reported on Saturday. Mehta, who is currently executive director at Corporation Bank, will take Usha Ananthasubramanians place, while Mohapatra will replace Melwyn Rego. As a result, Ananthasubramanian has been asked to head Allahabad Bank while Rego will be appointed CEO of Syndicate Bank. The government wanted to give a longer term to the new incumbents at the two large banks with a view to fast track the loan resolution process, the report quoted a Finance Ministry official as saying. These two banks are leaders in various consortium loans; that is why we need long tenures, the official said. The two new appointments are a part of a series of changes being made by the government in the top brass of public sector banks. Besides Mehta and Mohapatra, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister has appointed current executive director (ED) at Oriental Bank of Commerce Rajkiran Rai G as CEO of Union Bank of India for a period of 3 years. The official said that this was extendable up to 2022 after a review of his performance. The ACC also appointed Bank of India ED RA Sankara Narayanan as CEO of Vijaya Bank and elevated R Subramaniakumar from ED of Indian Overseas Bank to its CEO. Microsoft is holding an event this month, the company announced tonight, at which it says it will "show the world what's next." The event will take place in Shanghai on May 23rd, but Microsoft didn't specify either the precise location of the event or exactly what it will be showing. The company did tell The Verge to expect new hardware, however. There are some additional clues to that new hardware to be gleaned from social media. Panos Panay Microsoft's vice president of devices and the creator of the Surface tweeted the announcement alongside the hashtag "#Surface." The tag, and Panay's planned attendance in Shanghai, could mean that Microsoft is ready to show off the Surface Pro 5. IT-giant Wipro received an anonymous email threat demanding Rs 500 crore worth currency in bitcoins as ransom, failing which a lethal drug would be spread on their Bengaluru campus, the New Indian Express reported. As per the report, Wipro, which registered a complaint with cyber-crime cell of the police, received the email on Friday morning. The anonymous sender also threatened to use the drug if they failed to pay. Bitcoin is a digital encrypted currency. The email sent by the individual, according to police sources, claimed that one kg of Ricin has already been stored and two grams would be sent in envelopes to one of Wipros offices to assure that the threat is not a fake. Ricin in a natural toxic protein which is an extract of castor bean from the castor plant. A table spoon of high quality Ricin can kill an adult within a few hours. In a statement, Wipro said confirmed that they have filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source. Wipro has augmented security measures at all its office locations. There is no impact on the company's operations. We have no further comments as the investigation is ongoing, the statement said. Cyber police have registered the case under Section 66 F of the IT Act (cyber terrorism) and investigations are underway. Eighty five school students were hospitalised today after they complained of irritation in eyes due to gas leakage from a container depot near their school in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. According to police, a call was received at around 7:35 AM about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near Rani Jhansi School for girls run by the city government. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. "Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused eye irritation to the girl students in Rani Jhansi school," DCP(Southeast) Romil Baaniya said. The students were admitted to three hospitals. Police said that the source of leakage is yet to be ascertained. According to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the students are fine. "85 girl students, who had complained of irritation in their eyes due to gas leakage, have been admitted to three hospitals. I spoke to doctors who told me that they are normal," Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, said. He said that he has ordered the area district magistrate and SDM to launch a probe into the gas leakage incident at the container depot. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident," the deputy chief minister said. Delhi High Court Justice (retd) Leila Seth, the first woman Chief Justice of a state high court in the country and mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, has died. She was 86 and passed away last night at her residence in Noida. "She died of cardiac seizure last night, at about 10:28 PM. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here," her son Shantum Seth told PTI. "About three weeks ago, she had fallen down and fractured her hip. She had undergone a surgery at Apollo Hospital and was discharged a week ago. We called the PCR, the ambulance but it was too late," he said. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman to have topped the London Bar exam, first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). Seth was also one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted in 2012 to recommend amendments to the Criminal Law so as to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women, post the gruesome December 16 gangrape in Delhi. The eminent jurist, the mother of "A Suitable Boy" writer, was herself an author and her autobiography 'On Balance' was a bestseller. Seth had also authored 'Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India', published in 2014, which talked of several critical issues that she had engaged with in a legal career spanning over 50 years. Representative image live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More It was yet another action-packed week for the automotive industry. From Mahindra & Mahindra pulling itself out of the electric car market in the UK, to the car and SUV making behemoth Maruti Suzuki crossing Rs 2 lakh crore market cap, here are the top motown stories of this week: *Mahindra pulls the plug on electric cars in UK Mahindra & Mahindra, the countrys sole manufacturer of electric cars, decided to exit the UK electric car market following abysmal demand. The setback comes just a year after the Mumbai-headquartered company entered the UK market with the mini car e2o. The company blamed Brexit for unsustainable business environment that forced it to cease operations. Reports also said that the company will cancel all pending orders as well as buy back cars from customers for the same price they initially paid for them. *Toyota Innova Touring Sport launched Toyota further strengthened the Innova brand with the launch of the Touring Sport priced at Rs 17.79 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). Available only with a seven seat option, it has an all-black leather upholstery and comes with touch screen-infotainment system, auto climate control, LED projector headlamps and cruise control. The car gets a gauge cluster with red lighting, leather-wrapped steering wheel, seats and console box. At the heart of it all, there is no change as the vehicle continues to be powered by the same set of engines as the standard car, a 2.7-litre petrol, 2.4-litre diesel and a 2.8-litre diesel. *Honda overtakes Bajaj on bikes Scooter market leader Honda has gone ahead of motorcycle specialist Bajaj Auto to claim the second spot in domestic sales of motorcycles. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) clocked sales of 183,266 units in April as against 161,930 units sold by Bajaj Auto during the same month. Bajaj Auto, the makers of Pulsar and Avenger, witnessed a drop of 19 percent in sales last month from 200,433 units sold in the same month last year. HMSI recorded a growth of 22 percent last month over 150,711 units sold in the same month last year. In the previous financial year, HMSIs most popular model, Activa, became the largest-selling two-wheeler brand in India as it went past Heros decade-long bestseller, Splendor. *Maruti enters the Rs 2 lakh crore club Riding high on the success of almost all its recently launched models car market leader Maruti Suzuki crossed Rs 2 lakh crore in market capitalization. The Delhi-headquartered makers of popular models like Alto, Swift and Baleno retained its position of being the most valuable automotive company in India in terms of market cap. It surpassed Tata Motor (which owns Jaguar Land Rover) two years ago. Maruti Suzuki reportedly pipped several well-known global automotive majors such as Renault and Hyundai to join an elite club. The recent success of premium models like Brezza, Baleno and Ignis pushed the company to hit new highs despite challenging market conditions. *Swift overtakes Alto to become largest selling model Maruti Suzukis old warhorse Swift dethroned the Alto to become the largest selling model for the company last month. Swift clocked sales of 23,802 units as against 22,549 units sold by Alto in the same month. Maruti essentially filled the production gap created with the exit of the old Dzire as the new one is due for launch later this month. Interestingly, an all-new Swift is around the corner as well and slated for commercial launch later this year. India International Exchange, a subsidiary of BSE, today witnessed a trading volume of more than USD 100 million in a single day. India International Exchange or India INX offers trading in various segments, including in gold, silver and copper futures. "Trading volume crossed USD 100 million today for the first time in a single trading day," India INX said in a statement. India INX is the first international exchange to become operational at the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) at the Gift City in Gujarat. Although the rival bourse NSE too has got the licence, it is yet to kickstart operations. The exchange went live on January 16 and recorded a trading volume worth USD 4,30,520 on the first day of trade. India INX has been one of the most advanced technology platforms with a turnaround time of 4 micro seconds. It operates 22 hours, six days a week, to allow global investors and NRIs to trade from anywhere. The passenger service fee (PSF) charged on fight tickets is likely to go up marginally as the government is planning an increase in security and facilitation charges. The government after a high-level meeting of Union ministers Kiren Rijiju (MoS, home) and Jayant Sinha (MoS, civil aviation), and national security adviser Ajit Doval asked the civil aviation ministry to find out ways to recover the cost of security arrangements at airports. The home ministry has also been told to find out what will be the total annual cost of providing security at 143 functional airports in the country, a government functionary said. The reports from the two ministries are expected to come within two months, following which a decision will be taken to increase passenger service fee. Each air passenger in India has to pay Rs130 as security charge, part of the Rs225 charged as passenger service fee by airlines on flight tickets. The security charge of Rs130 has not been increased in 15 years. Now, since the cost of providing security at airports has gone up manifold, the amount in all likelihood will go up, the functionary said. Currently, there is no unanimity on who will foot the Rs800 crore bill raised by the home ministry for providing CISF security at airports across the country. While the civil aviation ministry argued that since security is a sovereign function, the money should come from the consolidated fund of the Government of India. The finance ministry, however, is said to have suggested that the burden should be passed on to the air travellers. The home ministry disagreed with the finance ministrys suggestion, contending it would lead to hike in air fares. Out of the 98 functional airports in the country, 59 are under the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) cover. Among them, 26 airports, including those in New Delhi and Mumbai, are in the hyper-sensitive category. Of these hyper-sensitive airports, 18 are under the CISF cover, while six like Srinagar and Imphal are being guarded by the CRPF, the state police or other paramilitary forces. Under the sensitive category, there are 56 airports out of which only 37 are under the CISF cover. The list of airports has gone up to 143 with the inclusion of 45 small airports after the launch of regional connectivity scheme, named Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN). Udan is considered to be Prime Minister Narendra Modis pet project as he wants to ensure that more people fly even from small cities. The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting will be held on 6 May, reports Morningstar Analysts. Jeremy Glaser, the market editor for Morningstar, asks Gregg Warren what he expects will be discussed on Saturday. Greg is a senior stock analyst who covers Berkshire for Morningstar. He'll also be on a panel of analysts asking questions of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger at the meeting. What do you expect to be dominating the conversation? This year, we're going to see 3G pop its head up again. It's been a topic in past years and sort of revolves around Berkshire's relationship with 3G Capital. Back in 2013, it really kind of popped up when they bankrolled the purchase of Heinz with 3G Capital. In 2015 it rose again when they were bankrolling the Tim Hortons combination with Burger King as well as the acquisition, or I should say the merger of Kraft with Heinz. The failed attempt on Kraft Heinz's as a part to buy Unilever earlier this year is going to be a big topic of conversation. It's going to not only raise questions about that relationship and what Berkshire gets from it and what Berkshire shareholders should expect from it longer term, but I think it also sort of begs questions about Kraft Heinz. Have they sort of reached a pinnacle on how much margin improvement they can bring out of the business and do they need additional acquisitions to keep that story going? Apart from Well Fargo what are people going to talk about? Yeah. Wells Fargo is sort of Buffett's favourite holding, and he has been petitioning the Fed for almost a year now to allow Berkshire to maintain more than a 10% stake. It gets more difficult once they get past that 10% threshold. They sort of have to act in a very passive manner. We get the sense that there may have been additional restrictions that are going to be put on Berkshire if they maintain that stake above that level. Earlier this month Berkshire walked away from that pursuit of that sort of dispensation from the Fed. They've agreed to sell down the stake below 10%. The question longer term is, does this mean that Wells Fargo is going to be a perpetually declining stake within Berkshire's portfolio? Because as Wells Fargo buys back stock every year, they are going to have to adjust down their portfolio or look to see whether or not they have to adjust down their holdings to get below that threshold. Serious questions about the size of Berkshire's portfolio. Yeah. I think, Apple--and even if you go back a few years to sort of IBM--I think they've raised some serious questions about the size of Berkshire's portfolio and whether or not they're somewhat handicapped now where they can only buy the largest of the large caps. Because if you think about it, for a company like Apple, they bought a $7 billion stake. That seems enormous. But Apple's market cap is $700 billion-plus. So, it really only amounted to about 1% of the company's outstanding shares. So, it's not as likely to, say, move the shares overall than if they were to try to take a $7 billion in a much smaller firm. So, I think that this raises some questions about the challenges that the investment portfolio has and more so what Todd and Ted are going to have longer term as they look to sort of populate the portfolio with meaningful enough positions to be impactful but at the same time also tapping into companies that may be able to grow at a faster rate than say your mega-caps. Buffett getting into airlines The airlines kind of caught us off guard a little bit. Buffett's never been a big fan and suddenly they were piling into four different airlines within the past six months. And it just seems counterintuitive. I know that there's talk about the consolidation of the industry. They are a little bit more rational now. But it begs sort of the question is, are there comparisons here--and I know a lot of investors are worried sort of voice these--but when they bought BNSF nearly a decade ago, they went out and bought a handful of railroads beforehand before they finally bought up all of the BNSF. So, there is some hope here that they buy one of the airlines on some investors' parts. My big concern with the airlines is that they are really sort of pegged to commodity prices, to oil prices, fuel prices overall. With your standard railroad, not only do they have sort of the track right away sort of empowering a wide economic moat, there's few of the railroad domestically and even within North America when you count the Canadian railroads. But from a pricing perspective, they have contracts in place that will move up and down the charges relative to where fuel prices go. Airlines, fuel prices go up, you can only raise ticket prices if everybody else raises ticket prices and vice versa. When oil prices fall significantly, if you wait too long, your competitors are going to undercut you by dropping prices on tickets overall. It's very, very sort of competitive in that realm. So, we're kind of curious to see if questions get asked along those lines. (Disclaimer: The article appeared on Morningstar India. The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.) Education Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu. Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu. Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events: International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu. EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu. Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets June Homecoming: Participant $18 per person; Sustainer $25 per person; Benefactor $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events: SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available for information call 610-275-1960 Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above) SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m. Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. 4 p.m. computers are available during those hours. Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863. Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376. Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com. The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes: Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020. CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313. The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events: Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m. Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m. Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30. Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301. For Kids & Families The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443. Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950. Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required. The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950. Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus. Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage. Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun. Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train. Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world! Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class. Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org. Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583. Community Events at the Ambler Y: -YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register. Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org. Health Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot. The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information. Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245. Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net. Spring Aquatic Programs UDHS Pool: -Summer is just around the corner Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required. Shallow Water Aerobics Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR. Adult Swim Instructions Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR -Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21. -Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m. -Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons. -Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates. Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994. SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com. Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org. Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs: FITNESS CLASSES Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month. Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30 9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly. SUPPORT GROUPS Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000. Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30 7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047. New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m. 12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30 4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931. Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325. Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes. Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com. Librarytalk Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744 www.upperdublinlibrary.org APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS: Storytimes: Please register in the library. o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m. o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m. o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6. APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS: North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS: NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org. One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register contact info above. Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744. o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register. Meetings: Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m. Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m. Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org. For children and teens at Blue Bell: * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m. * May 14 Despicable Me * June 11 Alpha and Omega * Special Events * April watch for date of spring/Easter events * April 14 at 4:30 p.m. Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children. * April 14 at 7 p.m. Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided. * April 16 at 1 p.m. Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King. * April 16 at 1:30 p.m. Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes? * April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button. * April 30 through May 3 Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults. * May sign up for Science in the Summer * June sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children * June sign up for Summer Reading, all ages For adults at Blue Bell: * Daytime Book Discussion Group fourth Tuesday, Jan April at 1:30 p.m. * April 26 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Night-time Book Discussion Group third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. o April 19 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked? *Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs * Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class. * Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class. * Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m. * Giant Book Sale, April 29 May 3 o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults! o Held during library hours. o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m. o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join. * Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series o May 11 at 1 p.m. Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society * Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room. * Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read. * Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome. * Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome. *Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older. * Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours * Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours * Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday! Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library. * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * For adults: * Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn. * Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net * Special Events: * April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. * April 19 at 7 p.m. Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m. * April 21 at 7 p.m. Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades. *May 2 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. *May 10 Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *May 12 at 1:30p.m. Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. *May 17 Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *June 13 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. Meetings and Lectures The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833. The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313. Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200. The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/. LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings. Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org. Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org) -Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them. The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter. For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps. Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin. Special Events The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County. The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065. Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members. Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex. The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com. The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348. The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org. Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163. The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu. The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com. The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net. Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages. 13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries. Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family. The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler. JPRN Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike. Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies. Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately. Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways. Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table. Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374 Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall: -Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store. Music and Theater The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html. Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free. The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org Religious News The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276. Reunions St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net. Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572. Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779. Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411. Support New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149. PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931. The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296. Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656. Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group every other Wednesday, 7 8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information. CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7 8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich, Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity May 06, 2017 Elections In France Many readers here will likely be more versed in the intrigues of the elections in France than I am. It seems clear so far the the synthetic Rothschild candidate will win this round. But what will be the long-term outcome in the epic fight of globalists versus nationalists - in France, in Europe and elsewhere? Posted by b on May 6, 2017 at 7:46 UTC | Permalink Comments next page A Connelly Springs man will be serving an active prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to multiple crimes. James Dean Farr, 36, was sentenced to at least eight years after pleading guilty to possession of firearm by a felon, habitual misdemeanor assault, soliciting gang activity and admission of his status as a habitual felon, according to a press release from the District Attorneys Office. Farr entered his guilty plea to the charges during Burke County Superior Court on Thursday and was sentenced to a prison term of 8 to 11 years by Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin from Burke County, according to the release. Farrs sentence was enhanced by his status as a habitual felon, which includes prior felony convictions for forgery in Lincoln County, breaking/entering a motor vehicle and possession of firearm by felon in Burke County. He was previously convicted of simple assault in Burke County in November 2010 and October 2007. Farr and two co-defendants assaulted the victim at a Burke County home, resulting in the victim being hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the attack, the release said. The victim was punched in the face, had his head rammed into a wooden post and was stomped while lying on the ground. He later was wrapped in a comforter and taken outside where seven men, including Farr, made claims to being part of the Aryan Brotherhood, the release said. The investigation showed that Farr was using the assault to initiate one of the co-defendants into the Aryan Brotherhood gang. He and the other co-defendant have been validated as gang members, the release said. The co-defendants have pending court dates, according to the release. Detective Daniel Strauss with the Burke County Sheriffs Office and Trooper Greg Gentieu with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol investigated the case. Assistant District Attorney Michelle Lippert handled prosecution for the State. Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investors point of view. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive. To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research. Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process. A sword-wielding man in Times Square was arrested by police early Saturday morning after he allegedly threatened a number of tourists, according to the NYPD. Cops say that Ronald Pearson, a 51-year-old Brooklyn resident who lives on New Lots Avenue, was taken into custody around 1:30 a.m. this morning, after witnesses called cops to report that he was allegedly threatening passersby with a 3-foot-long sword near 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. According to the cops, when three officers responded to the scene, Pearson allegedly continued to swing the sword in a menacing manner in their direction. However, he was taken into custody without further incident, and no one was hurt during the encounter. After police arrested Pearson, they say they found another sword and, as well as a spear, on his person. Pearson was charged with menacing, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing. We are collating signatures to petition ... MERIDEN Sledgehammers swung and shards of brick flew Friday morning at a ceremony formally commencing the demolition of 11 Crown St., which served as the headquarters of the Record-Journal newspaper for over a century. While reminiscing about the buildings history in the heart of downtown, officials also looked hopefully toward the sites future. Thousands of employees have worked out of this building and produced over 45,000 editions of our local newspaper, said Eliot White, publisher and president of the Record-Journal. Its with no regrets, a little sadness and great optimism for the future that we say goodbye to 11 Crown St. It has served us well. We wish great success to the Michaels Organization on this project and to the city of Meriden. The city purchased the building, constructed in 1905, from the Record-Journal in May 2014 for $495,000. The newspaper moved operations in 2016 to 500 S. Broad St. The city has selected the Michaels Organization to replace the building with an 81-unit mixed income development with apartments and townhouses. City and state officials donned red hats as they entered a section of the building for the demolition ceremony. The building has been sealed off as it undergoes remediation. Mayor Kevin Scarpati thanked Record-Journal publishers Eliot and Liz White for continued dedication to the city while also expressing excitement for the sites next chapter. We knew this would be a great source for development in our citys future, Scarpati said. This is just another step in a bright, positive future for the city of Meriden. Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty emphasized the importance of the papers contributions to the civic life of the city. This is a real celebration today. Its a celebration of local journalism, of robust fourth estate American journalism. To the White family, thank you for your dedication to American journalism and American democracy, for staying in Meriden and ensuring that we have an informed electorate, Esty said. As much as we have affection for this old building, its going to be repurposed for a better use. Officials gathered around a brick pillar in the center of the room to ceremoniously begin demolition. Wielding a sledgehammer, Esty took the first swing at the pillar, sending a few shards of brick flying. Scarpati took the second hit, followed by members of the White family. After the ceremony, as officials cleared out of the building for the last time, Liz White grabbed a piece of brick from the floor to keep as a memento. ltauss@record-journal.com 203-317-2231 Twitter: @LeighTaussRJ Police are looking for a person accused of slapping a woman at a Brooklyn subway station in March. And the suspect was allegedly peeing on the platform before the assault. The incident took place around 10:30 a.m. on March 25. A 27-year-old was walking on the northbound platform of the Metropolitan Avenue and Lorimer Street G train station when, police said, "she observed the individual urinating behind a garbage can." As she walked away, "the individual ran up behind her and slapped her on the buttocks," police said. The suspect, who fled towards the G train, is described as being about 18 years old and was last seen wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans and white Adidas sneakers. A photograph of the suspect was released. Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS or for Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Two men were killed Saturday during an early-morning drive-by on a Houston home where the resident returned fire and hit occupants of the vehicle. More than 40 bullets were exchanged around 2:40 a.m. in the 400 block of Glenburnie on the city's northside. According to police, shots were fired from a burgundy sedan with three occupants rolling past the one-story brick house. A resident shot back and hit all of the individuals in the vehicle. The car crashed a short distance from the house, and the fleeing occupants continued exchanging shots with the resident. ARRESTED: Felon charged with possession of a weapon One suspected shooter died at the scene and another was pronounced dead at the hospital. A third was taken to Ben Taub in stable condition. The fourth was detained by police. The resident was not struck by gunfire, but was taken into custody for questioning. Police later said the case would be sent to a grand jury. Authorities did not immediately release names of anyone involved and said it was not immediately clear what sparked the outburst of violence. According to KTRK, arson investigators were called to the same address on Friday about someone attempting to set the home on fire. The next-day shooting is believed to related the previous incident. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate (Editor's Note: Julie Silva is a member of the 29th Humble Police Department Citizen Police Academy.) Jennifer Kelsey lives in Atascocita and is taking criminal justice classes at Lone Star College. Renae Williams has retired to Kingwood and loves crime stories, volunteering and anything that takes up her time and is free. Carrie Shirley is an Humble resident who wants to feel closer to the people she considers heroes after her daughter nearly drowned in October 2014. Humble's most recent Citizen Police Academy brought together members of the community of all ages and all walks of life to learn more about the men and women in uniform over a 12-week course. Sgt. Rich Peters led the class of more than 20 residents, who all underwent an FBI background check, through topics ranging from dealing with crime victims to patrol to shooting firearms. Humble PD hosts the class twice a year. The most recent was the 29th, and class members took on the moniker "Primetime 29." Shirley was voted class president and was set to give a speech at the graduation ceremony May 9. Every week, the group met in a classroom setting and learned from Humble PD employees who work in forensics, reconstruct accidents and train to respond to active shooter situations. However, many in the class agreed it was three field trips taken outside the classroom that most impacted them. On three occasions, the group met to analyze mock crime scenes, shoot firearms and act out various scenarios, the latter of which included interacting with volunteer actors while outfitted with a plastic gun and a gun belt. "It really gave me an extra respect for police officers, especially the last day when we did all the scenarios, and we did traffic stops and all of that," Williams said. "Talk about having to have your mind in 24-hour mode." The trip to the shooting range was Kelsey's first chance to shoot a gun. Class members were able to shoot revolvers, 9 mm pistols and assault rifles. It was an adrenaline rush, she said. The class fueled Kelsey's desire to work in law enforcement. It's been Kelsey's dream to become a detective, but now she's thinking about working with the K-9 division, and a course taught by Officer Twyla Kimberlin about reconstructing accidents also caught Kelsey's attention. "The biggest thing I took away from the course was that you see police officers in a completely different light when you learn why they do what they do in all situations," Kelsey said. "They risk their lives every day for us and people still look down on them the most of first responders. They do so much more than I ever thought, and I truly believe every person should take this course." Shirley came away from the class fired up to volunteer and support her community. She credits the quick reaction time of first responders for saving her daughter's life, and she said the officers and the people who go through the class are the kind of people Shirley wants in her circle of friends. In one of the scenarios acted out in the last class, Shirley was pretend "shot." "And then I was super paranoid and was too aggressive the rest of it," Shirley said. "I do understand why they're such jerks most of the time. You see people on the worst days of their life. Those guys, they saw me on the worst day of my life, and they're still my friends." Fellow class member Mariana Pena also plans to keep up with volunteer work. Now retired, she joined the class after reading a book called the "Happiness Project." She was looking for an outlet where she could use her skills. The class was much more than she bargained for, and she received too much information to absorb it all. "It's nothing like what I expected," Pena said. "I know the Humble Police Department has an open door policy, but this class, I felt like they gave me the golden key to go in. I feel very connected because now I really understand. "They probably don't get paid very well for the risk that they take for us, for the citizens." The next Citizens Police Academy is scheduled for mid-August. For more information, visit http://www.humblepolice.com/citizens-police-academy.html. The Federal Communications Commission is scrutinizing Stephen Colbert's vulgar joke about President Donald Trump on "The Late Show" this week, according to chairman Ajit Pai, and will consider a possible fine. "I have had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints - and we've gotten a number of them - we are going to take the facts that we find, and we are going to apply the law as it's been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts, and we'll take the appropriate action," Pai said Thursday on Philadelphia radio station WPHT-AM. On his late-night comedy show on CBS Monday, Colbert said of the president: "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--- holster" Colbert responded to criticism (#FireColbert trended on Twitter) Wednesday night with a qualified apology. "I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be," Colbert said, reflecting on a joke that some viewers considered homophobic. "I'm not going to repeat the phrase. But I just want to say, for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love in their own way, is to me an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But that." At the same time, Colbert doubled down on his general approach to ripping the president in his comedy. "Folks, if you saw my monologue Monday, you know that I was a little upset with Donald Trump for insulting a friend of mine," Colbert said. "So, at the end of that monologue, I had a few choice insults for the president in return. I don't regret that. I believe he can take care of himself. I have jokes; he has the launch codes. So, it's a fair fight." Because his show airs late at night, Colbert has more freedom than people who appear on television earlier in the day. But he could still be penalized for using obscene language. According to the FCC, "for content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a 'patently offensive' way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Whether the FCC comes down on Colbert or not, he might consider the company he keeps by descending into quips about oral sex. After Infowars founder Alex Jones said in March that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., "looks like the archetypal c---sucker," Jones's ex-wife tried to submit the remark as evidence in a child custody trial. When Fox News' Jesse Watters said of Ivanka Trump last week that he "really liked how she was speaking into that microphone," he took an abrupt "vacation" while the outrage died down. Colbert's liberal viewers might take a moment to reflect, too. "Our motto," Michelle Obama said in her address to the Democratic National Convention last year, "is when they go low, we go high." Yeah, about that: The threat of a violent protest prevented conservative commentator and best-selling author Ann Coulter from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley last week. Liberal readers of the New York Times are flooding the newspaper's public editor with complaints about the recent hiring of conservative columnist Bret Stephens - a conservative who didn't even support Trump during the election, by the way. The new chair of the Democratic National Committee, Thomas Perez, can't seem to stop cussing in public. And every couple of hours, an automated Twitter account created by a Chicago software developer tweets the name, hometown, occupation and employer of an individual who donated to Trump's campaign. "It is very clearly doxxing and harassing small-dollar donors," Brianna Wu, a Democratic congressional candidate in Massachusetts, told me last week. "There's a real sense - that we have to get past on the left - that every person who voted for Trump is evil," she added. That "real sense" appears to foster a mentality (among some) in which Trump and his supporters deserve whatever venom his detractors feel like spewing. Colbert's comedy is often laced with anti-Trump commentary; it's usually clever, and it has propelled him to the top of the late-night ratings. But by hitting below the belt Monday, he rushed the bro-ternity of Jones and Watters and became the latest liberal to ignore Obama's "go high" mantra. Already home to the Jimmy Dean Museum, Museum of the Llano Estacado and National Roller Coaster Museum, later this year a fourth museum is due to open the Contemporary Art Museum Plainview . . . CAMP for short. The grand opening of BIG ART in small town is tentatively set for Nov. 10, at the New West: Contemporary Art Museum Plainview at the northwest corner of Sixth and Beech streets. Currently the attractive brick structure on the east side of Central Fire Station serves as warehouse for Ramsower Furniture. Initially the museum will occupy the front third of the building, but could expand as needs warrant. We will soon have a soft opening, explains Kelly Alison, a talented contemporary artist who has returned to her hometown from Houston to be closer to her parents, Rex and Ethel Ramsower. Alison says she and her husband Preston consider this a permanent relocation. We brought the two cats with us so its pretty much a done deal, she jokes. This is now our home. Alison has already been project manager for two major shows in Houston, which gives her confidence for shepherding the launch of a new art museum. She put together a large board to help. Luckily in ran into Blair Willson who told me about the work hes doing with the Plainview Downtown Restoration group, she noted. That coincided with her father mentioning the possibility of selling the downtown warehouse. Its really an exceptional building and Blair helped me realize that we needed to try to do something else with it. Willson encouraged Alison to seek funding from the Sybil B. Harrington Endowment for the Arts, which is affiliated with the Community Foundation of West Texas. Thanks to that support, the project is quickly moving forward. As its website explains, the museum will serve as a unifying anchor for the diversified community and will contribute to the recent cultural revitalization of downtown and Main Street. The museum is starting out as a private collection and works on loan, but will soon transition into an artists led non-profit organization. It will provide regular programming, including four major exhibitions of contemporary art, summer workshops and space for artistic experimentation for artists from Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. The museum will be a destination for local artists, art organizations, schools, community members and visiting collaborators, she explains. Her board includes Jeff Wheeler, B.C. Gilbert, Kathryn Stirling, Kelley Jon Whitfill, Blair Willson, Heather May, Justin May, Josiah Herrera, Debbe Herrera, Chloe Rizzo, Chad Hilliday and Michael Collins, and its website is http://www.contemporaryartmuseumplainview.org. Ive sent invitations to 24 artists and 12 have already answered yes. They are exciting about coming, and we plan to spend a night at Caprock Canyons which is so interesting since they have repopulated it with buffalo, Alison explains. Lubbock and Amarillo already are exceptionally strong in the regional art scene, and Plainview is well situated to take advantage of that strength, Alison observed. She has her own show scheduled for the Malouf Abraham Family Art Gallery at Wayland. I see this as becoming part of the West Texas Triangle, which already includes five museums, she said. Alison hopes that once it is established, the Contemporary Art Museum Plainview will become part of that popular circuit. Photo by via Mayor's Flickr We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Montgomery man who crashed into and killed a family of four while high on prescription medication in 2015 probably will spend the rest of his life in prison, a judge announced Friday. Judge Kathleen Hamilton, of the 359th state District Court, sentenced 69-year-old Ronald Cooper to 80 years in prison for causing the fatal wreck that took the lives of Roland Sedlmeier, 49, Melinda Sedlmeier, 42, Harley Sedlmeier, 6, and Sofie Sedlmeier, 4, who were on their way home from church on Texas 105 West at the time of the crash. Two teenagers riding in another vehicle also were injured in the Sept. 20, 2015, wreck. A 12-person jury on Wednesday found Cooper guilty of four second-degree felony intoxication manslaughter charges and two second-degree felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges. Cooper, high on prescription Oxycodone and Valium, struck the back of the Sedlmeiers' car while they were both heading west on Texas 105 near Marina Drive by Lake Conroe. The Sedlmeiers careened into oncoming traffic in the eastbound lanes, crashing into a Jeep occupied by the two teenagers. All four Sedlmeiers were pronounced dead on scene. "It's a victory," Roland Sedlmeier's brother-in-law Charlie Lumpkin said. "But it's hollow. If we won and they came back, it would be an ultimate victory. But this isn't an ultimate victory. This is a decision that Mr. Cooper's being held responsible for his actions that day. It doesn't bring them back. I wish it did, but it doesn't. " Lumpkin delivered a scathing victim-impact statement following Cooper's sentencing, in which he condemned Cooper for being disrespectful toward the family and the trial process since the crash. Cooper, on multiple occasions, fell asleep during the trial and even laughed at the thought of being sentenced minutes after he was convicted. In a phone call Cooper made from jail that was played in court, he talked with a woman about how the Sedlmeiers' car was not adequate to protect the family because the family was too poor. "That was a knife in the heart," Lumpkin said. "It compounded the lack of remorse we saw physically with Mr. Cooper during the trial. To hear that on tape was something I never expected." Cooper's family members, upset at the maximum sentence thrown down by the court, offered words of sorrow to the relatives of the Sedlmeiers following the sentencing. "On behalf of our entire family, we are remorseful," said Angela Hofmann, Cooper's daughter-in-law. "We are sorry for the loss of their family. We'll miss our dad, but he'll still be with us. A good family was lost and gone forever, and we're sorry for that." Melinda Sedlmeier's sister, Evie Zamundio, and Hofmann embraced each other in a heartfelt moment of redemption as families spilled out of the courtroom Thursday morning. Montgomery County District Attorney's Office Chief Vehicular Crimes Prosecutor Andrew James and Chief Prosecutor Tyler Dunman tried the case, which lasted almost two weeks. The two prosecutors started building their case hours after the crash. The case was especially tough for Dunman, who went to the same church as the teenagers who were injured in the crash. He had just left church himself that day before getting a call about the wreck. When he pulled up, Dunman recognized the bright-blue Jeep as it rested on its side. He was even more distraught to learn of the Sedlmeiers' death. "In 2015, I had a 4-year-old girl at home," Dunman said. "My daughters are the same age as these (Sedlmeier) kids. You can't help but think this could have been your family. You're talking about a Sunday afternoon after church. It could be anyone. That's why this crime is so dangerous." Conroe Police Chief Philip Dupuis commended his investigators, who put in hour after hour investigating the crash. "It gives us closure to a good job," Dupuis said. "We did the right things and got the right results." While Cooper's case is resolved in the trial phase, there's still more business to take care of related to the crash: The criminal charges against the doctor who allegedly ran The Woodlands-based pill mill that supplied Cooper with the prescriptions. Montgomery County grand jurors indicted Rezik Saqer, 62, on the first-degree felony engaging in organized criminal activity charge Nov. 22, more than a year after the fatal crash. Saqer faces up to life in prison for the first-degree felony charge. And although the allegation Saqer engaged in organized criminal activity is moving forward, he still has to answer for a slew of other felony charges already filed against him. Dunman said Saqer is expected to go to trial sometime in 2018. Business Here's how this free app turned amateurs into UAE's top professional stock market traders Going into business without first having some basic knowledge of how the market works and the tools at our disposal increases your risk of getting into trouble. Simulators provide learning platforms for people who want to start learning how to invest. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate San Antonio officials called on Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday to put down his signing pen and veto Senate Bill 4, the so-called sanctuary cities bill that passed the Legislature this week and is on its way to the governors desk. SB 4 would give law enforcement officers the authority to ask people they have detained about their immigration status, and subject their bosses to misdemeanor charges and potential jail time if they dont comply with federal agency requests to hold individuals who might be deportable. Abbott listed this issue as one of his top priorities this session. His office didnt return requests for comment Friday. Standing outside the Bexar County courthouse, county commissioners, San Antonio City Council members, local legislators and top brass at the San Antonio Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriffs Office repeated the same message: the bill wont improve safety or reduce violent crime, they said, and could lessen trust between police and immigrant communities and lead to potential racial profiling. State Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, said he will write to Abbott asking him to reconsider his support for the bill based on both his heart and his legal mind. Menendez said the bill doesnt do what it intends to do, and instead could erode the trust of local law enforcement. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said the bills requirements would increase costs to the county and divert law enforcement efforts from addressing violent crime to enforcing federal law. Whats going to happen? he asked, predicting no officer would ask someone like him, an Anglo guy in a nice two-piece suit, for his papers but instead would direct questions about immigration status to the person with brown skin. Wolff released a letter he sent Abbott requesting a meeting to discuss SB 4. Wolff said requiring the county to detain undocumented immigrants would be fiscally unsustainable and put a financial burden on local taxpayers. The Department of Justice has neglected to reimburse Bexar County $22.3 million for complying with federal detainer requests since FY 2004-2005. This is a $22.3 million subsidy from local taxpayers to the federal government, he wrote. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said U.S. citizens make up the majority of the 4,000-plus inmates housed in the Bexar County Jail at any given time as well as the more than 27,000 people in the county with active warrants. frahman@express-news.net San Antonio voters today will cast ballots for a mayor and city council members. They will also decide the fate of an $850 million city bond proposal and $450 million bond for Alamo Colleges. There are six different propositions in the city bond proposal, including $445.3 million for streets and $139 million for drainage improvements. A separate $450 million Alamo Colleges bond proposal would provide funding for building renovation and construction of new facilities. Voters in several public school districts will also elect new trustees and decide on separate bond issues. Early Saturday morning, hundreds of poll workers will staff 287 locations across the county. Polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. To cast a ballot, voters must vote within their precinct. Visit the Bexar County Elections site to check voter registration status and polling location. If a location has changed, signage showing the new address will be posted. Mayor Ivy Taylor faces 13 challengers, with District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Democratic Party chairman Manuel Medina as the other frontrunners. At least four new people are expected to join the city council this year. So far, more than 68,000 people voted early. Elections administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said its her own personal goal to have 118,000 people vote this election. Last month, Callanen said there were 1,025,632 registered voters in Bexar County. Typically, spring elections attract about 25,000 to 40,000 voters on Election Day, but this year the larger number of candidates and the county-wide ballot issues such as the Alamo Colleges bond proposal could bring more people to the polls, she said. We have to see where this falls, Callanen said. To vote Saturday, people can show one of seven accepted forms of identification, which include a drivers license, an election identification certificate, a handgun license or a passport. After Texas voter ID law was found to violate a section of the Voting Rights Act, voters can provide other identification such as a voter registration card, an original birth certificate, a current utility bill, original bank statement or paycheck, if the voter couldnt get one of the preferred methods in time to vote. However, the person also will have to sign a declaration that he or she faced an undue burden in getting one of the accepted forms. Callanen asked voters to call the elections office at 210-335-VOTE to report any issues on Election Day. While weekday elections typically follow a pattern, with the morning and evening hours busiest as people stop by on their way to and from work, turnout for Saturday elections are harder to predict, she said. frahman@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate UPDATE: 3:30 p.m. With four more hours of voting left to go on Election Day, officials reported that 25,305 people have cast ballots at nearly every polling site in Bexar County. At this pace, roughly 38,000 people could wind up voting today -- about 10,000 fewer than the optimistic prediction of Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen, who was hoping to see 49,000 voters cast ballots Saturday. Callanen had been elated by the record turnout during early voting of nearly 69,000 people, and thought the good times might continue on Election Day. But at this point Callanen said she'd be happy just to get those 38,000 voters. That would still bring the total turnout to about 107,000 voters, which would exceed almost every other past May election in Bexar County. "I think it's doable," she said. The highest overall turnout was in 2005 when mayoral candidates Julian Castro and Phil Hardberger drew 115,194 voters nearly 18 percent of the county's registered voters. At Huebner Elementary, the busiest polling place in the county Saturday, 237 people had cast ballots as of 1:30 p.m. Compared to quieter polling sites, Huebner Elementary felt downright festive. Campaign workers held signs and waved as voters drove into the parking lot. Brothers Scott and John Hicks, who both cast ballots at the school, said they're not disappointed by the sluggish turnout on Election Day. "I don't necessarily want more people to vote," Scott Hicks said. "If you're not paying attention, I don't think you should vote, you know?" "Even if you have fewer voters, whether you agree with them or not, at least they know what they're voting for," his brother added. Voting ends at 7 p.m. Saturday. Anyone standing in line at closing time will still be able to cast a ballot. ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES SAN ANTONIO Don't get Jim Boyle started on the candidates running for office he doesn't like most of them. But on a sunny morning on Election Day, Boyle showed up at his polling site at Maverick Library on the city's Northwest Side to dutifully cast his ballot, just like he does for every election. "It's my obligation," said Boyle, an Air Force veteran who believes far more people should be voting in San Antonio. "There's too much apathy in this city." Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said Election Day is off to a sluggish start, with just 5,200 people casting ballots at nearly all polling sites as of 9:45 a.m. to decide the fate of city council candidates in San Antonio and other municipalities, school district trustees, and more than a billion dollars in bond proposals. Callanen had been hoping for a stronger turnout after a record number of nearly 69,000 early voters cast ballots for the May 6 election. But it could be that more and more people are opting for the convenience of early voting and simply not showing up on Election Day. "It's got to pick up a whole lot," said Callanen, who had optimistically predicted that 49,000 people could vote Saturday. If Callanen's prediction came true, that would bring the voter turnout during early voting and Election Day to 118,000 voters, which would break a record for a May general election in Bexar County. The county's highest overall turnout was in 2005 when mayoral candidates Julian Castro and Phil Hardberger drew 115,194 voters nearly 18 percent of registered voters to the polls during early voting and on Election Day. That race led to a runoff, which Hardberger won, that was decided by nearly 130,000 voters. On Saturday morning, Boyle and other voters began trickling into the polling site at Maverick Library, located at 8700 Mystic Park near Bandera Road, just after doors opened at 7 a.m. "I'm an early riser," joked Martha Trevino, who said she votes in every election and wishes more people would do the same. "I think it's just a shame because it's so important," she said. Voters from two precincts cast ballots at the library. One of them is Precinct 2084, which had the highest turnout in San Antonio's 2015 mayoral election with 690 voters, or 22 percent of registered voters in the precinct. But even if voter turnout reaches six-figures territory as Callanen hopes, that still means most of Bexar County's 1 million registered voters won't be participating in the election. In the past two decades, nine out of 10 percent registered voters in Bexar County didn't bother to cast ballots in May elections, according to figures published by the Bexar County Elections Department. The average voter turnout since 1997 was 10 percent. A frequent complaint among would-be voters is that their vote doesn't count. But some local races that affect the city's future have been decided by razor-thin margins. In May 2009, when a little-known candidate named Ivy Taylor first ran for City Council in District 2 on the city's East Side, she came in second place against opponent Byron Miller in the general election and then faced him in a June 13 runoff. It was a close race -- 54 voters made the difference. With 1,638 votes in the runoff, Taylor beat Miller's tally of 1,584 votes. Today, Taylor is mayor of San Antonio, running for re-election. jtedesco@express-news.net San Antonio police say a man is dead after crashing into a tree on the South Side Saturday morning. According to SAPD an unidentified 24-years-old male was traveling at a high rate of speed near the corner Packard Street and Brunswick Boulevard about 12:50 a.m., Saturday when he slammed into a tree after losing control of his vehicle. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate AUSTIN A bill on the legality of knives in Texas was postponed from debate and a vote in the House on Friday after concerns were expressed over the timing, just days after a University of Texas student stabbed multiple classmates on campus, killing one and injuring three others. The Texas House will likely vote on the bill next week, which would remove knives from the list of illegal weapons in state law. The bill's author, Rep. John Frullo, told the Austin American-Statesman on Thursday that he would not delay consideration of the bill, but by Friday morning, that had changed. "In light of just everything going on right now," Frullo said. "Now is not the right time for this to come before this body." FACT CHECK: Rumors of gun-wielding student helping subdue UT attacker debunked The Travis County delegation, part of which represents Austin, asked Speaker Joe Straus and Frullo to delay consideration of the bill. Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said she told Straus, "This was not the time to be debating this legislation." Before the decision was made to postpone the bill, House lawmakers voted on a memorial resolution Friday morning in honor of UT student Harrison Brown the victim who died in Monday's knife attack on the UT-Austin campus. The resolution was authored and introduced to the House by Rep. Drew Springer, a Muenster Republican who is also a joint author on the knife bill. Brown's family are Springer's constituents in the city of Graham. Springer had hoped the House could separate their feelings on the UT stabbing and the bill that would remove a section of state law that defines "illegal knives" as those with a blade longer than 5 and a half inches, Bowie Knives, daggers, swords, spears or a "hand instrument designed to cut or stab another by being thrown." "I know it puts a dark cloud over the bill ... " Springer said. "We've just got to see if the body can separate the two today and have a discussion on it and figure out if it's the right thing to do to go forward." AFTER THE RAMPAGE: Affidavit reveals what suspected UT killer told police House Bill 1935, authored by Frullo, Springer and a handful of bipartisan lawmakers, would also remove knives from the list of weapons that is illegal to sell those younger than 18, and gives public schools the option to expel students who bring a knife on campus or to a school-sponsored event. According to an analysis of the bill, those in favor of the bill say "properly enforcing certain prohibitions against illegal knives has become difficult because of confusion among citizens, law enforcement and the courts over what constitutes an illegal knife." In Texas, it is legal to openly carry pistols, rifles or other long guns in public. Texans can also carry concealed handguns on public college campuses. KENDREX WHITE: Here's what we know about UT-Austin stabbing suspect But state law still prohibits Texans from carrying several types of knives, including the popular Bowie Knife. The Texas Legislature attempted similar legislation last session but failed. In a statement Friday, UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves asked lawmakers to consider how university students and staff would feel about the law. As written, the bill does not address carrying knives on university campuses. "I think allowing knives on campus is a bad idea," Fenves said. "As events this week showed, this is a very real issue for our campus. I urge legislators considering this law to talk with members of our community and see how they feel about it." Sixteen. Fifty three. 1987. 2017. Four important numbers in the world of Rotary. On a cold Thursday evening in February of 1905, a young attorney in Chicago walked with a friend to the office of a third friend. He had an idea, and he was eager to share it with his two friends. By evening's end a plan was set in motion that would literally change the world. Paul Harris, Silvester Schiele and Gus Loehr had just created 'Rotary One", The Rotary Club of Chicago. Within two years the club did its first Community Service project, the first public toilets (called "comfort stations" ) in downtown Chicago. By 1908 a second Rotary Club was formed in San Francisco. By 1909 there were 7 clubs; by 1911, 31 clubs. With this growth came more projects, more fellowship, and the beginning of a movement for good in the world that has remained unmatched. But there was one thing missing - women. In 1905 the majority of women did not work outside the home, and those who did were not considered "business women". That all began to change during World War II when women stepped into the working world in unprecedented numbers to fill every job imaginable when men went off to the war. The world for and of women would forever be changed. For 72 years, the rules stood. There would be no women in Rotary. As more women began reaching higher positions within their professions, gaining more recognition and respect, more and more clubs began efforts to admit women to Rotary. Many motions were made, but all failed. Then in 1977, three women were asked by male members to join The Rotary Club of Duarte in California. When Rotary International discovered this, the club was ordered to remove the women from their roster. The club refused and their charter was revoked. This was a tiny club but they would not back down and not only continued to meet weekly, now calling themselves the "Ex-Rotary Club of Duarte", but they filed a law suit against RI that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And they won, in a 7 to 0 ruling! The action reverberated around the world, earning the club of ten members the name they still hold today - "The Mouse That Roared". The response to the Supreme Court decision was overwhelming and immediate. Ten brave men and women changed the world of Rotary and on May 4th of 1987 those three women were officially recognized as Rotarians. One of them, Sylvia Whitlock, became the first female president of a Rotary Club. The RC of Duarte, of course. Today, there are more than 200,000 women in Rotary, making up 16% of Rotary's 1.2 global members. In the USA, women make up 53% of the membership rosters of our American Clubs, and are the fasting growing demographic in Rotary, regardless of age or ethnicity. Now in 2017 we celebrate 30 years of women in Rotary. I have looked back on this timeline many times over the years. It always saddens me - that is not the Rotary I know; the battle was not Rotary's finest hour. But we must also remember how different the world was in 1905 and realize how far we have come. We have accomplished so much in 30 years, working side by side with our male members, our friends and partners in service. If you would like to hear more about "Women in Rotary", Past District Governor Doris Lockey will be the guest speaker at The Rotary Club of Conroe's luncheon this Tuesday at noon at The First Baptist Church in downtown Conroe. Doris was the 5th female governor of our district for Rotary year 2015/16, and the second from Montgomery County, following PDG Rose Austin from The East Montgomery County RC who held the position in 2010/11. Two very dynamic women, representing the best of what we have to offer our communities and the world of Rotary. It's a Beautiful Thing! To learn more about Rotary, or to submit information for the column, contact Kris via email KRISRCLC@aol.com, or text 713 825-0141. Also see the Rotary District 5910 website at www.rotary5910.org. Because the California National Guard couldnt be mobilized in time, Ann Coulter had to withdraw from giving a speech at Berkeley. If you take it seriously, thats the import of UC Berkeleys decision to do everything it could to keep the conservative provocateur from speaking on campus over safety concerns. If somebody brings weapons, theres no way to block off the site or to screen them, the chancellor of the university said of Coulters plan to go ahead and speak at an open-air forum after the school canceled a scheduled talk. The administrator made it sound as if Coulter would have been about as safe at Berkeley as she would have been addressing a meeting of the international criminal gang MS-13 and he might have been right. We have entered a new, much less metaphorical phase of the campus-speech wars. Were beyond hissing or disinviting. Were no longer talking about the hecklers veto but the masked-thugs-who-will-burn-trash-cans-and-assault-you-and-your-entourage veto. Coulter is a rhetorical bomb thrower, which is an entirely different thing from being a real bomb thrower. Coulter has never tried to shout down a speaker she doesnt like. She hasnt thrown rocks at cops. She isnt an arsonist. She offers up provocations that she gamely defends in almost any setting with arguments that people are free to accept, or reject, or attempt to correct. In other words, in the Berkeley context, shes the liberal. She believes in the efficacy of reason and in the free exchanges of ideas. Her enemies do not. Indeed, the budding fascism that progressives feared in the Trump years is upon us, although not in the form they expected. It is represented by the black-clad shock troops of the anti-fa movement who are violent, intolerant and easily could be mistaken for the street fighters of the extreme right in 1930s Europe. That they call themselves anti-fascist speaks to a colossal lack of self-awareness. It is incumbent on all responsible progressives to reject this movement, and just as important the broader effort to suppress controversial speech. This is why former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Deans comments about hate speech not being protected by the First Amendment were so alarming. In Deans defense, he had no idea what he was talking about, but he was effectively making himself the respectable voice of the rock throwers. Deans view was that Berkeley is within its rights to make the decision that it puts their campus in danger if they have her there. This justification, advanced by the school itself, is profoundly wrongheaded. It is an inherently discriminatory standard, since the Berkeley College Republicans arent given to smashing windows and throwing things when an extreme lefty shows up on campus, which is a near-daily occurrence. It would deny Coulter something she has a right to do (speak her mind on the campus of a public university) in reaction to agitators doing things they dont have a right to do (destroy property, among other acts of mayhem). It would suppress an intellectual threat, i.e., a dissenting viewpoint, and reward a physical threat. This is perverse. For now there is a consensus in favor of free speech in the country that is especially entrenched in the judiciary. The anti-fa and other agitators arent going to change that anytime soon. But they could effectively make it too burdensome for certain speakers to show up on campus, and over time more Democrats like Dean could rationalize this fact by arguing that so-called hate speech doesnt deserve First Amendment protection. So, it isnt enough for schools like UC Berkeley to say that they value free speech, yet do nothing to punish disrupters and throw up their hands at the task of providing security for controversial speakers. If everyone else gets safe space at UC Berkeley, Coulter deserves one. If the anti-fa are willing to attack free speech through illegal force, the authorities should be willing to defend it by lawful force. Heck, if necessary, call out the National Guard. comments.lowry@nationalreview.com The evidence in his first 100 days by word, deed, and policy couldnt be clearer. Our president does not care for people of color. No? Lets look at the evidence. It is voluminous. Immediately after his hallucinatory inauguration, President Donald Trump loudly reaffirmed the need to keep Mexicans out of the United States, and that a beautiful wall would be erected quickly to bar Mexicos riffraff from entering our nation. And Mexico would pay for the wall, a hot air balloon that has progressively become deflated going from Mexico will definitely pay for the wall, to well, we will impose taxes that will result in Mexico really paying for the wall, to OK, work with me on this Congress will provide the money to build the wall until Mexico pays for it. This occurs despite much evidence suggesting that the wall will not stop undocumented immigration. A week after his inauguration, Trump decreed a travel ban affecting seven Muslim countries, which caught many people off guard and generated massive havoc for travelers worldwide. Soon afterward, a federal judge in Washington state overturned the travel ban. Trump responded with Muslim Ban Lite. He did minor tweaks, excluding Iraq from the travel ban. Shortly, two federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland ruled against the second travel ban. Trump issued an executive order in late January that reaffirmed that the wall would go up and expanded the categories of people who could be deported. The order also called for a significant increase in Border Patrol agents and immigration officers. The edict also mandated an expansion of detention centers, a worrisome measure. Private detention centers, the largest run by CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) and GEO Group, are sure to make massive profits once the Trump mass deportation machine goes into effect. As of early March, the stock value of CoreCivic had risen by 120 percent since the November election, and that of GEO increased by 80 percent. This is a significant change from September when private detention centers were at risk of losing their contracts with the government. The Department of Justice had decided to phase out private prisons because of declining prisoner polulations and major concerns about safety, security and medical care. While the massive deportations have not yet materialized, there is intense fear in the immigrant community. Thats because even people without criminal records are potential deportees. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have threatened communities and counties with the loss of federal funds if they designate themselves as sanctuary cities, places that provide safe space for unauthorized immigrants particularly those entities that do not fully cooperate with immigration officials on detainer requests. A federal judge in San Francisco recently ruled against Trump on this as well. Dreamers undocumented immigrants brought here as children are also unsure about their security. Trump has suggested that he likes them and will not put them at risk, but there is plenty of cause in Trumps record to worry. Haitian immigrants who were granted special immigration status following the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti in 2010 also face uncertainty as Trump has yet to renew their status. If he does not do so by July 22, approximately 50,000 Haitians risk deportation. While mass incarceration has disproportionately snared people of color over the past four decades, recent criminal justice reform represented a ray of hope. But Trump and Sessions now seek to undo these measures. Never mind that the crime rate is about 42 percent below that in 1997. After the swearing-in of Sessions as attorney general, Trump reeled off three executive orders concerning crime and public safety. Sessions has also called for an end to monitoring troubled police departments, believing that the Department of Justice should not take on that role. All these efforts will put people of color at greater risk of being racially profiled, disproportionately arrested and sentenced, and having their civil rights violated. People of color and, more broadly, the poor were targeted in Trumps unsuccessful effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Trump had an embarrassing setback in not being able to eliminate Obamacare. Yet he is not giving up. He and congressional allies continue to try to dismantle Obamacare piecemeal, now concentrating on cost-share subsidies. He tried to swap $1 of such subsidies for every $1 that Democrats pony up for the border wall. Despite the problems that plague Obamacare, it continues to be a lifeline for many people who otherwise could not afford health insurance. According to data from the American Community Survey, between 2010 (when Obamacare was signed but before it went into effect) and 2015, 26.7 million more Americans had insurance; the majority of them were white. The number of poor Americans with health care insurance rose by nearly 4.3 million during this five-year period, again with poor whites being the largest group (39 percent) of new beneficiaries. Many of these poor whites rallied behind Trump and helped put him in the White House. Obviously, Trump does not have their best interests in mind. Trump has surrounded himself with few people of color. His Cabinet is the least diverse since that of Ronald Reagan. Nearly four-fifths of Trumps 33 Cabinet members are white men. Only four are persons of color (two Asians, one African-American and one Latino) and merely five are women (two of whom are doing double duty as a female and a person of color). Throughout his campaign, Trump used hateful racist rhetoric against people of color. He embraced alt-right and white nationalist groups, and selected a prominent member of these groups Stephen Bannon to serve as his chief strategist. It is not surprising that in his first 100 days as president marked on April 29 Trump has shown that he is not a friend of people of color. His policies and priorities are intended to firmly put people of color in their place, including through deportations and by not allowing others to enter our country. This is what he envisioned in his quest to make America great again. In the process, however, Trump has alienated and insulted so many groups including people of color, the poor, women, immigrants, Muslims, the GLBTQ community and others that he has roused the American spirit of protest. He has politicized many good people who realize they cannot accept Trump as normal and that he must be vigorously challenged. This has the real possibility of making Trump either a one-term president or bringing about his impeachment over the numerous questionable and unethical actions that continue to pile up. Rogelio Saenz is dean of the College of Public Policy and holds the Mark G. Yudof Endowed Chair at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is co-author of Latinos in the United States: Diversity and Change. Re: Right prescription for health care, Ken Horn, Another View, April 25: Kudos to Ken Horn for his spot-on recommendations for meaningful health care reform. Unfortunately, things will never change until the profit motive is no longer a factor in basic health care. Dont hold your breath. Lobbyists have made sure it wont happen because Congress is too indebted to the special interests to change things for the better until we, the voters, make it clear to them that we wont take no for an answer anymore. Wallace Kent Great rebuttal My thanks to Ken Horn (Right prescription for health care, Another View, April 25) for his excellent rebuttal to the venomous column about the Affordable Care Act (Blame Freedom Caucus for failure of Ryans health plan? No, thank it, Alan M. Preston, Opinion, April 16). I, too, was irate. And I appreciate his thoughtful and conclusive response. By the way, I appreciate, as well, the Express-News coverage of different viewpoints, even when I (obviously) dont agree with one of them. Ruth Stewart Unaffordable care Re: The good of ACA, Your Turn, April 24: The letter writer hit the nail right on the head. Thank you; beautiful job. Its so sad and so hard to believe that so many of our citizens believe people making the miserably low wages in our state can afford health insurance through normal channels and the copays associated with it, or that they pay out-of-pocket for visits to the doctor. For heavens sake, they cant even afford decent meals. Frank Bent, Schertz Church and state Re: Mayors truncated broken answer takes on new life, Gilbert Garcia, April 27: Perhaps Mayor Ivy Taylor should run for the clergy. Since she started serving as mayor of San Antonio, she has marginalized about half the population with her blatant Christian remarks and actions. It is perfectly OK for her to be devout about her Christian religion, or for anyone to practice any religion, but dont try to push it on the rest of us. The Constitution prohibits the government from entangling itself in religion. We have separation of church and state, but, not, it appears, in San Antonio. Taylor has participated in breakfast with the clergy in her official capacity. She has also recited prayers during the National Day of Prayer (for Christians) in front of the courthouse. She never misses an opportunity to tout her Christianity while serving as mayor. What about representing the rest of us Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and, of course, nonbelievers (atheists, agnostics). Where is our representation, or dont we count? Sally Chizek Political pandering Re: Mayors truncated broken answer takes on new life, Gilbert Garcia, April 27: In response to a mayoral forum question from a Christian nonprofit member, Mayor Ivy Taylor stated that the deepest cause of generational poverty stems from people not being in a relationship with their creator. She tried to walk away from that comment by offering the truly valid, widely accepted causes of such poverty: educational and socioeconomic disadvantage. Her creator comment has drawn sharp criticism, which she thinks unfair. Here is a novel idea for a politician: Maybe she should stop pandering to her different audiences, and say what she really believes. Until then, I for one, consider her a bit disingenuous. Rick Rodriguez Its about values Its interesting to read the different takes on Mayor Ivy Taylors words at the April 3 forum. When I read what she said, I thought, This is a person I want for a mayor. Shes not blaming the poor for being poor. Shes blaming the bad choices some make because they dont have the values that are taught either by parents or the church. I like to know my mayor has these values, so we can trust her to make thoughtful decisions for the city. Lillian Howalt Political diagnosis How can a country remain united when every little group that comes along wants its rights at the top of the list and is suddenly the most important group in America? I suppose this is more political correctness. This does nothing more than tear this country apart. Im no doctor, but this country has a bad case of the tail wagging the dog. Michael B. White A new low Re: Farewell to undisputed king of cable commentators, Ruben Navarrette, Other Views, April 27: I usually do not read Navarrettes columns as he is always the drummer walking back when the rest of us are going forward. But his column praising Bill OReilly hit a new low. If he has daughters, then he should ask himself if his hero sexually harassing them would cause such a favorable write-up. Fox News does not fire employees, nor do advertisers pull ads without solid reasons. A serial sex harasser does not deserve this papers favor. Sandra Scott, Schertz A liberal plot Getting rid of Bill OReilly was just the first step in the Democrats plan to destroy Fox News. Carol Fleming Lord of the swamp Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp. Ha, ha! He is now becoming the swamp by virtue of his new tax plan proposal. When we go to war with North Korea, we wont remember any of this. Lawrence Kohler Alamo debacle The new plan to restore the Alamo compound is ill-conceived. There are not enough negative adjectives to describe this debacle. There is nothing broken about the present area. Why would we fix it, except for the complaints of a few disgruntled tourists? Millions of dollars would be wasted. Some of the money should be used to stabilize the chapel building. George Farias Any public health officials who put the Zika virus into the same category as old threats like Ebola are claiming victory too soon. The virus is still out there, and with spring rains and warmer weather, its potential harm has returned. Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to county judges and mayors across Texas reminding them not to ignore Zika. Is is spread by Aedes mosquitoes that are active in the daytime. Texas has those mosquitoes, particularly along the Gulf Coast. The virus can cause pregnant women to give birth to babies with shrunken heads. We all like going to the cinema and being amazed by filmmakers from Hollywood or Europe. In addition to well-known blockbusters, there are also... PROPHET Walter Magaya last Sunday launched a business manual to help people during and after Covid-19. The book is titled Understanding The Market. Prophet Magaya said the book is meant to give hope and ideas on an angle to take for success during and after the pandemic that has taken many lives across the globe. He said the launch came at a time when the church was still under Covid-19 restrictions, a situation he said is conducive for spreading the gospel to various nations. Covid-19 measures affected me, my family, the ministry as well as our country but I thank God for giving me an opportunity to stay home, refocus and have time to listen from God, said Prophet Magaya. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ knew when to speak and when to keep quiet and Covid-19 gave the whole world an opportunity to know his existence and allow hardened hearts to allow the power of the Holy Spirit to take over. The book is saturated with the message revealed to me by God and has ideas that if applied in earnest will change many peoples lives during and after Covid-19. Business people have been left devoid of hope and many are struggling to take off due to negative effects of Covid-19 and Understanding The Market has answers and solutions for one to succeed. I have been ministering to nations through online and books and I want to thank God for saving many lives from death. I would like to encourage people in various nations to adhere to World Health Organisation directives on curbing the spread of Covid-19 as well as restrictive measures set by each country in an effort to curb the spread of the pandemic, said Prophet Magaya. Prophet Magaya has penned books titled Seven Things Africa Must Change, Heart of Maintaining, Leadership, Marriage, and The Source. HMetro Breaking News via Email An elderly lady in Cashel has had to put up with foul sewerage water flowing into a manhole in her backyard from ten other houses in her street due to recent flooding, a meeting of Cashel Tipperary Municipal District heard. Cllr Tom Wood (Ind) called on Irish Water and the Local Wastewater Department to finally solve the ongoing sewerage problems in Dominic Street and Burkes Lane. Cllr Wood said residents of the former local authority houses in the street have been suffering severely because of a backup in the sewerage system. He complimented the water department staff who still retain local knowledge, but the problems have been going on for many many years. There are a number of established businesses in that area. Theres a huge demand for proper piping. "The system that is there is incapable of taking out the water from those businesses. Local people there know the situation, and I have been there regularly. Cllr Michael Fitzgerald complained of a smell in Cashel that was absolutely horrendous. He had contacted Director of Services and former Cashel Town Manager Sean Keating in the Co. Council. I would be afraid that a manhole has been laid down at the back of a house in Dominic Street. After heavy rain there, problems arise. It was most distressing over Easter. Most of the people in Dominic Street have been there all their lives. Its not a pleasant experience. Cllr Fitzgerald thanked the water staff who got the problem solved as soon as possible. I cannot understand why a manhole is needed in there. It should be on the public road. Having it in the yard of an elderly woman is not appropriate, and theres a need to review the sewerage system. Theres huge work being done on the (Cashel) Palace, on Mikey Ryans pub. Its a bigger issue. I just hope it wont cause bigger problems in the future. Senior Engineer Aidan Finn said Irish Water owns the pipes. Problems with pipes under the grounds of the Cashel Palace are being reviewed as part of the Palaces refurbishment. I believe that will resolve the issue", he said. The Cashel Palace development will improve the throughput in that area. Id be confident that problems in that area will be reduced going forward, said Mr Finn. (Natural News) French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was accused recently of tax evasion. Macron denied the allegations. Now, new documents prove he lied about almost everything. (Article by Carter Brown, republished from TheGatewayPundit) Two days ago, an Anon on /pol/ (the 4Chan thread notorious for unmasking Antifa, among other things) uploaded proof of Macrons tax evasion. Document 1 shows the Macron La Provicence LLC operating agreement. (See the full document here.) Document 2. This document shows that the banking associate Brian Hydes is located in the Cayman Islands. THE FIRST IMAGE FROM 4CHAN: Macron is hiding income/assets in the Cayman Islands. THE SECOND IMAGE FROM 4CHAN: The details of Macrons financial dealings are coming soon. A couple days later and the meme magic exploded this into the mainstream in France where it became the main article on Le Monde. /pol/ Verification of Macron Cayman Bank Accounthttps://t.co/AneQmuHsmZ pic.twitter.com/11sZjqgbU4 Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 5, 2017 Initially, there was a snafu regarding the images of the documents with people claiming they were photoshopped (because of some compression artifacts), and this was due to the fact that the source who leaked the documents was not a technical guy and he simply turned the images into a .pdf, which wrecked the images. The media continues to repeat the the line Macron uttered: I dont have an account in the Bahamas, and hes right! He has an account in the Cayman Islands. NOTE: Macron denied that he was concealing assets, hiding offshore accounts or inheritances from French authorities, even as his opponent Francois Fillion became mired in similar allegations. The media keeps repeating Macrons I dont have an account in the Bahamas line over and over again. But the documents says Caymans Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 5, 2017 Further document analysis can be found at GotNews. After /pol/ located the SwiftNet logs that go back months, Macrons web of corruption was decoded. Not only did /pol/ find out where his accounts were, but the extent of money he has hidden from the French government a massive amount. /pol/ is working to contact the Banker where Macron hid his assets, hoping to convince him to reveal more information. Getting closer. pic.twitter.com/sY2jtwTIFf Levi Smith (@LeviSmithUSA) May 5, 2017 more: LETS TALK ABOUT FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN ELECTIONS https://t.co/MIcsUoeJBG Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 5, 2017 stil more: Auditor Calls for Macron Warrant After Examining Tax Fraud Docs #MacronGatehttps://t.co/BY9MeurLB0 Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 4, 2017 French journalists are in full panic mode, defending poor quality scans as photoshop. Desperate to try to save the elections. #MacronGate https://t.co/ydGZWhRJDc Brian Bojan Dordevic (@briandordevic) May 4, 2017 Read more at TheGatewayPundit Saturday, May 06, 2017 by: Frances Bloomfield Tags: BuzzFeed , Why I left BuzzFeed , YouTube This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) Over the course of several months, a spate of Why I Left BuzzFeed YouTube videos have hit the internet. Former employees of the million-dollar Internet media company have cited a number of reasons for their departures in prerecorded confessionals that have since received millions of views. As reported by Variety.com, an assortment of recurring themes can be spotted while watching the videos. According to ex-staffers, the BuzzFeed higher-ups imposed policies that they didnt agree with, such as the guidelines that prohibited them from working on outside projects. These included channels outside of work and the ex-staffers personal video projects. Others, like comedy-duo Allison Raskin and Gaby Dunn, have cited their lack of ownership and creative control over their work for BuzzFeed as a determining factor for their resignation. The pressures put upon their shoulders to churn out videos that focused on quantity over quality didnt help either, claimed ex-producer Kenny Moffitt. Additionally, the content creators were not allowed to engage directly and formally engage with fans, such as by replying to comments, which former video producer Safiya Nygaard spoke out against. There were also those who didnt leave of their own volition. In June of last year, BuzzFeed let go of video content creators Jenny Lorenzo and Brittany Ashley for allegedly breaching their exclusive contracts with the company. The actor-writer-producer pair had small roles on Gente-Fied, a web series produced by America Ferrera. This led to their termination and to BuzzFeed Motion Pictures president Ze Frank issuing a company-wide memo emphasizing the companys expectations of its creators and their BuzzFeed-only content. BuzzFeed: Strict content curators and unapologetic fabricators The drama surrounding BuzzFeed is fresh, but this isnt the companys first brush with controversy. During March of this year, a Wikileaks document from Vault 7 revealed that BuzzFeed had published false information about tech giant Apple. The company alleged that Apple patched the vulnerabilities mentioned in the Wikileaks dump of CIA cyber tools when they hadnt. The statement was labeled fake news in the document. Earlier in January, BuzzFeed turned their focus to then-presidential elect Donald J. Trump. In the story, they took their fake news even further by saying they had a 35-page dossier that comprised of serious but unsubstantiated claims revolving Trump. (Related: BuzzFeeds shameless, fact-less Trump report takes fake news to a whole new level) In response to the story, NBC news host Chuck Todd chastised BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith. I know this was not your intent. Ive known you a long time, but you just published fake news. You made a knowing decision to put out an untruth, Todd said during a segment of his MSNBC show, Meet the Press Daily. The host then asked if BuzzFeeds decision to put the spotlight on the dossier hurt the medias integrity: There was a line. When does the line become yelling fire in a theater? Transparency can turn into a crutch, can turn into laziness. President Trump himself denied the contents of the dossier and criticized BuzzFeed during a press conference. Apart from calling the website a failing pile of garbage, he also remarked: I think its a disgrace that information that was false and fake and never happened got released to publicI think theyre going to suffer the consequences. They already are. Stay aware of what misinformation the mainstream media is attempting to pass as truth by visiting Propaganda.news. Sources include: Variety.com Digg.com NewsTarget.com TheHill.com (Natural News) In a bizarre chain of events, a five-year old boy narrowly missed being killed by a common schoolhouse implement. According to the FoxNews.com, the young boy was running with a pencil in his hand when he tripped and fell right on top of the pencil, which impaled him in the chest. His parents immediately rushed him to the Lianjiang Peoples Hospital, near the familys home in South Chinas Guangdong Provice. The doctors at the state-run medical facility rejected the young boys case due to the severity of his injury. They advised the parents to have him transferred to the Central Peoples hospital of Zhanjiang in Guangzhou. He was rushed to surgery upon arrival, and doctors were able to extricate the pencil without incident. As of April 28, the boy, whose name has not been disclosed, has been recovering from his injury while under observation. In a statement to AsiaWire.news, Head of the department of Cardiothoracic Surgery Dr. Dai Ming said that the pencil tip pierced the young boys superior vena cava. This vein is the larger of two venous trunks that return deoxygenated blood from the body to the right atrium of the heart. The doctor noted that, if the pencil had been thrust forward by just 0.2in, then it would have punctured the artery and caused fatal internal bleeding. Dr. Dai Ming also praised the young boys parents for not pulling out the pencil from their sons chest and seeking medical assistance instead. Had they removed the pencil themselves, then excessive bleeding would have occurred and most likely cause the boy to die from blood loss. The Guangxi Minzu Hospital in Nanning witnessed a similar case in February. A three-year old girl nicknamed Xiao Hua was admitted for emergency treatment for a pencil that had pierced her throat. Xiao Hua arrived at the hospital with the pencil lodged in her neck but fully conscious. The parents claim that their daughter was drawing at her desk one evening when she accidentally flipped the table and caused the sharp end of the pencil to pierce her neck. Surgeons safely removed the pencil, which had not ruptured any major arteries. Dr. Ban Zhangfeng, Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist at the hospital, commended the young girls parents for keeping the pencil in place as they carried her to the medical facility. The girls parents acted correctly, Dr. Ban Zhangfeng said. (Related: Every Parent Should Know Basic First Aid) Pencil-related accidents among children are not a recent phenomenon, however. In 2012, a two-year old girl in Peasedown St John, Somerset had part of her skull removed to take out the pencil that speared her eye socket and became deeply embedded in her brain. An identical occurrence transpired in 2013 in New Boston, New Hampshire. A 19-month old toddler fell off a reclining chair and onto a pencil that entered her eye and remained fixed inside her brain. In 2009, a one-and-a-half-year old boy in Meridian, Idaho, was brought to St. Lukes Children Hospital after an accident in the playground resulted in a swing jamming a pencil into the back of his neck. All of the children survived their harrowing accidents. You can read up on more unusual news by visiting Unexplained.news. Sources include: FoxNews.com AsiaWire.news 1 AsiaWire.news 2 DailyMail.co.uk HuffingtonPost.com Today.com Saturday, May 06, 2017 by: Frances Bloomfield Tags: Child abuse , crime , Oklahoma This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) Last April, an Oklahoma woman was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for running what prosecutors called a house of horrors. Geneva S. Robinson, a 51-year old resident of Oklahoma, pleaded guilty to five charges of child abuse. Her 33-year old boyfriend and co-defendant, Joshua Granger, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for helping Robinson severely abuse her granddaughter. For several months in 2014, the little girl, whose name has been withheld, and her three other siblings lived with Robinson after their parents divorced. Prosecutors stated that Robinson had been assaulting her granddaughter for more than year, reported Yahoo.com. The scope of Robinsons abuse included beating her granddaughter with a rolling pin, hitting her in the face, burning the little girl with cigarettes, and cutting her hair while she slept. The prosecutors also said that Robinson would often assume the persona of Nelda the Witch, during which Granger dressed up as a demon named Coogro. While she was being sentenced, prosecutors showed the court footage of Robinson as Nelda tormenting her granddaughter. In the cellphone video allegedly taken by one of Robinsons adult children, Robinson could be seen dressed in black, her hands painted green, and wearing a wig and what appeared to be a mask. According to NewsOK.com, Granger could be heard saying: Grandmas sick because of you. You go with the witch. The little girl cried out: I promise, witch. I promise. Robinson then said: You lie, you lie, you lie, little girl. In response, her granddaughter said: I promise, witch. I wont do mean to Grandma. I wont hit Grandma. I wont be mean. Give me a fork and a knife, Robinson responded. The prosecutors stated that this phrase is related to a lie Robinson told the little girl about witches eating bad children. Throughout the video, Robinson can be seen roughly handling the little girl, at one point grabbing the front of her shirt. Robinson was also seen dragging her granddaughter across the floor. What she did was horrific and what she did will forever impact this child and her siblings, Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Merydith Easter said during sentencing. She deserves the same amount of mercy that she showed this child, and thats none. Before she announced her verdict, Oklahoma County District Judge Michele McElwee held up two photos of the victim. One photo showed the victim at five years of age, with a big smile, a head full of hair, and sparkling eyes. The second photo was of the bruised and blistered victim with a buzz cut and a despondent expression. Judge McElwee then told Robinson: You know what died? Those sparkling eyes from an innocent girl. According to People.com, the police first learned of the abuse after receiving a call from workers at the Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman. Okla. The workers reported that Robinson attempted to have her granddaughter committed, saying she couldnt control the girl.As revealed in court documents, doctors who looked at the granddaughter noticed that there were bruises and burns all over her malnourished body. Cuts and abrasions marked her ankles, giving the impression that she had been shackled. (Related: Texas CPS underreported 655 children killed under its care) Prosecutors mentioned that Robinsons adult children had also been abused by Nelda, including the childs father. He said that he no longer believed Robinson was doing the Nelda thing and assumed Robinson was getting help for her issues. It is currently unknown who has custody of the child. More news about similar cases can be found by visiting Violence.news. Sources Include: Yahoo.com NewsOK.com People.com Saturday, May 06, 2017 by: News Editors Tags: America , obamacare , trumpcare This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) Get out your shovels, you will soon be burying the elderly much earlier than we should be. Save wisely while you can, because of Trumpcare, America, most of your will never see an inheritance. Pray that you will stay healthy. Why? Because very soon, many of you will be without healthcare and will see that we have returned to the days of George W. Bush and having tens of millions without healthcare which will put many millions in danger of dying because they do not have proper medical treatment. (Article by David Hodges republished from TheCommonSenseShow.com) I would like nothing better than to say that President Trump rediscovered his resolve to serve the American people and he delivered a healthcare bill that will put America on a par with our counterpart nations. America, you have just entered the danger zone because of healthcare. Trumpcare Is Worse Than Obamacare Unfortunately, Trumpcare is not only bad for average Americans, in many ways, it is worse than Obamacare. I got to look at the numbers thanks to an Arizona state legislator who wants to remain anonymous. This person was angry, shocked and dismayed, as we all should be. Lets take a look at the problems associated with healthcare and then analyze our new plan in terms of the soon-to-be-threats. High costs for treatment that are escalating out of control Escalating pharmaceutical costs America is the only nation that does not allow its citizens to shop for prescription drug overseas. Treatment exclusions form a national average of at least a 10% denial of care for health insurance policy holders. Part B Medicare prescription costs are escalating to the point where senior citizens, forced to be on Medicare, can no longer afford to pay for many of their required prescription costs. This is a life-threatening event for many of the elderly and it serves to destroy their financial base forcing them to move in with their children and for many, they leave an inheritance. The increased cost for senior citizen medications essentially performs euthanasia on many of the elderly because they are cut off from treatment based on their age (65 or and over). This is what the NHS does in the UK where they essentially kill the elderly based on denial of service because of age. For example, under NHS, anyone under the age of 55 cannot get dialysis, unless they are part of the super rich. Today, CEOs of healthcare corporations, the managed care companies and Big Pharma are raping the American people. They are making billions while Americans are prematurely dying. America spends 10 times more for healthcare than the next 10 countries combined. Yet, we only have the 51st longest lifespan according to a recent CIA Factbook. We are behind Cuba in healthcare and longevity. This is slow-burn genocide. The following paragraphs address Trumps healthcare promises and what he delivered in relation to the six principles listed above. The Lie of Healthcare for All Repeatedly, on the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump pledged that his plan for health care would assure that every American had healthcare coverage. For example on the campaign trail, he said that he was promising to take care of everyone. That was a lie. Seven million Americans will lose healthcare from their employer. Many organizations including IBT, are saying that Trumpcare takes healthcare away from 24 million American citizens, but does not touch programs designed for free health care for immigrants. Trumpcare Makes the Rich, Richer As if they do not make enough money, the managed care companies and the pharmaceuticals will $600 billion in tax breaks. The middle class and poor Americans get no tax breaks. An obscene total savings of $275 billion in tax cuts goes to the richest 2%. People making a million dollars per year will receive a $50,000 tax break each year from repeal of the ACAs taxes on the rich. As a result of this loss of tax revenue due to the tax cuts for the wealthy, an estimated 15 million American low-income children and senior citizens will lose their medicaid coverage leading to more financial devastation among these group, not to mention being at risk for premature death. Meanwhile, the managed care companies will receive $145 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years. Some sources, who have analyzed Trumpcare, state that the 400 richest families will receive a tax cut of $7 million per year due to the generous Trumpcare policies. Americans Left Defenseless Against Healthcare Increases For Medicare and Medicaid participants, insurance companies could increase the elderlys health care by a whopping $13,000 per year. This is a life-threatening event! Additionally, there are no protections from prescription increases of any amount. Can you say euthanasia for the elderly? Meanwhile, the prescription companies are going to realize $25 billion in tax cuts on a yearly basis. Trumpcare slashes coverage for low to moderate-income households so insurers, drug companies, and wealthy Americans can get huge tax cuts Republicans who support Donald Trumps health care plan would vote for what Democrats have slammed as a package of tax breaks for the wealthy. One of the new tax breaks in the GOPs bill to repeal Obamacare which will benefit Republican lawmakers and top officials in the Trump administration, an International Business Times review has found. Trumpcare implemented a Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT), which slapped a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for the wealthiest Americans. The tax covers couples making over $250,000 a year and single people making over $200,000 a year, so not many people end up paying it: only 3.4 million out of 147 million tax returns filed in 2014 paid the tax, or 2.3 percent of all filers, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice. Graft and Corruption for Politicians In Relation to Trumpcare Forget what I say, lets look at what IBT is reporting the following disturbing news: This is all distressing beyond words. Unquestionably, this is a slow-burn genocide against tens of million supporters. Stay tuned America, it is time for some good ole civil disobedience. Any thoughts or ideas on this? Please leave a comment. HERE IS A BRIEF VIDEO SUMMATION HEALTH CARE, TO SHARE WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY: Read more at: TheCommonSenseShow.com (Natural News) Avocado fans of America: Rejoice! The beloved green fruit may soon be growing year-round in The Golden State. Thanks to the efforts of subtropical horticulturist Dr. Mary Lu Arpaia, the Central Valley is poised to become the harvesting grounds of Californias avocados. The state is already Americas biggest avocado producer, with farmers maintaining orchards along the coast and in the southern section. However, the growing season for avocados in California is from February to September only, and reaches its peak during the summer. Compared to Mexicothe biggest supplier of avocados to the United States in the last yearwhich cultivates the fruit all year long, the growing season for Californian avocados is very brief. Arpaia and her colleagues have been working to change that and has finally succeeded after more than 20 years of research. According to NPR.org, Californias agricultural powerhouse is none other than the Central Valley. Anything that grows in this massive expanse of flat land will have to endure intervals of blistering heat and freezing winters. Only the hardiest and most robust plants could successfully thrive in the Central Valley, and Arpaia believes that she may have found three avocado varieties that fit the bill. One of them is the GEM avocado, a descendant of the more common Hass variety. Arpaia and her colleague Eric Focht have recommended GEM avocados to growers because it possesses qualities that will allow it flourish the Central Valley. GEM avocado trees can be planted near one another, produce a high yield of fruits, and they dont grow very tall. Furthermore, Westfalia Fruit Estates, the South African company growing the GEM variety, has said that GEM avocados received better eating quality scores on taste tests. The second type of avocado has been nicknamed lunchbox due to its small size. The third type has yet to be named, but Arpaia has spoken glowingly of the fruit which she claims just falls out of the skin. Shes also remarked that it makes wonderful guacamole, and I found with a non-replicated test in my refrigerator the fruit doesnt brown. The lunchbox and unnamed varieties should be widely available within one or two years, Arpaia has said. Moreover, Arpaia has also stated that she would like certain avocado varieties to be link to different times of the year. I want our avocado varieties to be in season for more than one week. I want it where you can say its Julyits time to pick this variety. Others have taken notice of Arpaias research. Tim Spann, Research Program Director of the California Avocado, told NPR.org that the presence of distinct avocado varieties during certain times of the year could boost the California avocado market. We have those premium supermarket chains that want California fruit. So if we can develop other varieties that will expand our season to a year-round or nearly year-round position, that would be fantastic, Spann said, before adding that the new varieties could also encourage the avocado industry to rethink its priorities. According to Spann, the outbreak of pests harming avocado trees caused the industry to pull funding from avocado research and focus on the pests instead. Now, however, things have changed for everyone involved in avocados. Arpaias research could not have arrived any sooner. As reported by the NationalPost.com, avocado prices have reached an all-time high. Just last year Americans consumed over two billion pounds of avocados. The increasing demand has also demanded an increase in price, with a 10-kilogram box of Hass avocados from Michoacan, Mexico commanding $27.89 in April of this year. (Related: Love avocado? Dont miss out on the natural antioxidants and fiber hidden in the seed) Stay up to date on whats going on in the food industry by visiting FoodSupply.news. Sources include: NPR.org NationalPost.com After 200 years, a wolf pack is once again roaming wild in Denmark. There had been no verified wild wolf sighting in Denmark since 1812 until a male wolf (grey wolf) was spotted in the Jutland peninsula north of Germany in 2012. Wolves are known to roam in groups, so the scientists in Denmark started to look for more members of the pack. Since 2012, they have spotted a total of five different wolves in the County, one of which is a she-wolf. According to Copenhagen Post, DNA from two feces samples confirmed that a she-wolf has indeed settled in the West of Jutland. In addition, a footage also showed the she-wolf roaming together with another wolf, implying that the she-wolf has found her mate. This could mean that by now, wolf cubs are also in the area or that wolf cubs will be in the area anytime soon. "We expect that they will have cubs this year or the next," Peter Sunde, a senior researchers at the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University said in a statement. "Even if this pair doesn't have cubs, we must assume that new females will come. It's expected that more wolf pairs will establish themselves in Jutland within the next five years." As translated by BBC, Berlingske newspaper reported that the she-wolf originally came from Germany before traveling more than 500 kilometers to the Denmark territory. The scientists estimate that there are atleast 40 wolves in Denmark at present. However, they are not disclosing their exact location as people might panic. Since the wolf sighting in 2012, there have been many reports claiming that a number of sheep and deer in Jutland have been attacked by wolves, prompting Danish famers to be worried about their livelihood and safety. However, Sunde asserted that as long as people do not disturb the wolves, both the human population and wolf pack can live in harmony. Speaking to The Guardian he explained, "There is a tradition in Denmark of reaching compromises and reaching solutions. Technically, we can relatively easily manage the wolf population but the challenge is the psychology of humans. There are so many feelings and opinions about wolves in Denmark, as everywhere. The wolf debate is very much value-driven rather than related to concrete problems." As per IUCN, originally, the grey wolf was the world's most widely distributed mammal. It has become extinct in much of the world and their present distribution is more limited now. Their population has been reduced by about one-third, primarily because of poisoning and deliberate persecution due to depredation on livestock. A team of researchers from Russia has identified a new butterfly species endemic in northern Israel and the neighboring territories of Syria and Lebanon. The new species, described in a paper published in the journal Comparative Cytogenetics, was spotted by the researchers hovering right over the slopes of Mount Hermon ski resort in northern Israel. Some experts in the field previously mistook the new butterfly species to a more common species due to the similarities of their outside appearance. "Thousands of people had observed and many had even photographed this beautifully coloured butterfly, yet no one recognized it as a separate species," said Vladimir Lukhtanov, entomologist and evolutionary biologist at the Zoological Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia and lead investigator of the study, in a press release. "The lepidopterists (experts in butterflies and moths) had been sure that the Hermon samples belonged to the common species called Persian fritillary (Melitaea persea), because of their similar appearance, but nobody made the effort to study their internal anatomy and DNA". Dubbed as Acentria's fritillary (Melitaea acentria), the new butterfly species have genitalia that appeared to be different from those of the typical Persian fritillary. Using an array of modern and traditional research techniques, the researchers sequenced the DNA of fritillary samples taken from Mount Hermon. They observed that the DNA of Acentria's fritillary had a unique molecular signature that is very different from the DNA of any other fritillary. The researchers believe that Acentria's fritillary can only be found in northern Israel, Syria and Lebanon. They also noted that it is highly probable that the new butterfly species could be one of the handfuls of butterfly species that have arisen from the hybridization between two other butterfly species in the past. Lukhtanov, together with his students, began studying Acentria's fritillary in 2012. The Acentria's fritillary is the first new butterfly species discovered and described from the territory of Israel in 109 years. Iceland is known to develop technologies in order to harness clean energy from the Earth or geothermal energy since the 1970s. Now, the country has wittingly named a rig called "Thor" that's designed to drill into the heart of a volcano to access clean energy. The experiment, tagged as the Iceland Drilling Project, aims to produce about 10 times more energy compared to conventional energy sources today such as oil and gas. The clean energy will come from the heat stored in the heart of the volcano. Iceland is a volcano-rich island known to produce geothermal and hydrothermal energy. The country is also working with Britain to study the possibility of building an IceLink Cable to power British homes. "The [possibility of increasing geothermal energy supply in Iceland] would most certainly be a boost to the proposed plan as there were worries on the effect on local prices with increased exports," Wayne Bryan, an analyst at the British Alfa Energy consultancy, said in an interview with Reuters. The Iceland Drilling Project started in August of 2016 and was completed earlier this year. They dug up a total depth of 4,659 meters into the heart of a volcano. The magma or hot liquids from the heart of the volcano is believed to be at 427 degrees Celcius. The access to clean energy will allow Iceland to harvest power from the magma's heat. The steam from the magma has extreme pressure and is capable of turning a turbine in order to generate clean energy. Iceland expects that this new process would generate more energy compared to previous technologies due to the depth of the drilling, which will allow engineers to access extremely hot core in the form of a "supercritical" fluid that's neither gas nor liquid. "We expect to get five to 10 times more power from the well than a conventional well today," Albert Albertsson, an engineer at the Icelandic energy company HS Orka, said in a statement. The project is also expected to supply more energy to residents around Iceland like in the capital, Reykjavik. The new drilling system will allow the harvest and distribution of more clean energy at a much lesser cost. Today, scientists and engineers involved in the "Thor" drill project still have two years to analyze the feasibility of the experiment. A San Diego woman, critically wounded in a recent shark attack, is awake and able to answer questions with a nod of her head, according to one physician who is treating her. On April 29, Leeanne Ericson was airlifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla after being attacked by a shark in the waters off San Onofre State Beach, near Camp Pendleton, in San Diego's North County. Ericsons family linked arms as they listened to the medical update from Gail Tominaga, M.D., a trauma surgeon who was there when Ericson was rushed to the hospital. The surgeon said Ericson is still on a breathing tube but can respond to questions by nodding or shaking her head. San Onofre State Beach reopens at 9 am today. Surfers are already in the water. #nbc7 pic.twitter.com/kMD4WXKenl Gaby Rodriguez (@GabyR_news) May 3, 2017 The young mother suffered significant injury to her right buttocks and upper right leg and significant blood loss, Tominaga said. Shes doing very well considering her critical condition, she said. Ericson has had two surgeries to clean up the wounds and to control bleeding. Further surgery will be needed to improve nerve and muscle use in the leg, Tominaga said. She will have a long recovery but she is doing remarkably well considering her injuries, Tominaga said. The fact that Ericson was young and healthy before the attack has helped her in her recovery, the surgeon said. The shark attack took place at San Onofre State Beach, located off Interstate 5 at Basilone Road, about 3 miles south of San Clemente, California, and 58 miles north of downtown San Diego. The beach was closed to the public for several days following the shark attack, but reopened Wednesday. According to authorities, Ericson was camping with her boyfriend when the couple decided to go in the water on the evening of April 29. Ericson swam while her boyfriend surfed next to her at a well-known spot at the beach. The victims mother, Christine McKnerney-Leidle, said the couple saw a seal in the water and Ericsons boyfriend turned to swim out to a wave. Just then, Ericson disappeared from the waters surface. [[420867353,C]] The woman was attacked by a shark approximately 10 feet in length who ripped through the back of Ericsons leg, tearing out all the muscle from her knee to her hip. The shark just missed the victims major arteries, McKnerney-Leidle said on Facebook. As Ericson was dragged into the water, her lungs filled with foam and debris. She was airlifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla just before 6:30 p.m. Ericson survived the shark attack, but her road to a full recovery will be painful and lengthy. Doctors are now starting the process of reconstructing the victims leg. Shes not going to have a normal lower extremity but we are doing everything we can to make it as normal as possible, Tominaga said. The surgeon also credited those who rushed to help Ericson. They included Camp Pendleton Fire Department, California State Parks, Camp Pendleton Military Police and Mercy Air. Ericson works for a local credit union, Pacific Marine Credit Union. The company has opened an account to collect donations to help the victim in her recovery. Donations can be made at any Pacific Marine Credit Union branch, or by mail. Checks can be made payable to: Support Leeanne C/O Pacific Marine Credit Union 1278 Rocky Point Drive Oceanside, CA 92056 A GoFundMe page has also been set up for Ericson. Last year, there were an estimated 59 shark attacks across the U.S., according to data collected by scientists at the University of Florida. [[420895374,C]] Relative calm prevailed Saturday in wide parts of war-ravaged Syria despite sporadic violations and clashes after a deal to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said. There were no immediate reports of casualties after the plan hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran the latest attempt to bring calm to the country kicked in at midnight Friday. The establishment of safe zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. Details of of the plan must still be worked out over the next several weeks. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, and the southern province of Daraa, areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or "de-escalation zones" will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. In the tangled mess that constitutes Syria's battlefields, there is much that can go wrong with the plan, agreed on in talks Thursday in Kazakhstan. Syria's government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting "terrorism" wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The armed opposition delegation to the talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana said in a statement released early Saturday that the truce should include all Syria and not just specific areas. It said some maps of the "de-escalation zones" that were released are not accurate and will not be accepted because the armed opposition did not negotiate them. Still, opposition activists in southern, central and northern Syria told The Associated Press on Saturday the situation is by far much better than previous days, with no airstrikes reported. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media reported there was "relative clam" Saturday morning in the "de-escalation zones" nine hours after the deal went into effect. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has activists around the country, said the government's helicopter gunships dropped three barrel bombs on the rebel-held Latamneh area in central Syria where fighting was reported between rebels and troops. It added that government forces shelled rebel-held neighborhoods of the capital Damascus. "Despite some violations the situation is much calmer than before," said opposition activist Mohammed al-Homsi, speaking via Skype from northern Syria. Ahmad al-Masalmeh, who is based in the southern province of Daraa that borders Jordan, said there were six breaches in the province when government forces shelled opposition-held areas. Al-Homsi, al-Masalmeh and opposition activist Osama Abu Zeid said government warplanes have not carried out any airstrikes on rebel-held areas since Wednesday, a day before the deal to set up the zones was signed in Kazakhstan. Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft sometimes operate in the same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flightpaths of coalition warplanes battling Islamic State group militants and other radical groups and whether the American air force would abide by a diminished air space. The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. Russia and Iran two of the plan's three sponsors are key allies of President Bashar Assad's government and both are viewed as foreign occupation forces by his opponents. Rebels fighting to topple Assad are enraged by Iran's role in the deal and blame the Shiite power for fueling the sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, now in its seventh year. Turkey, the third sponsor, is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria, drawing the ire of Assad and his government. Yet troops from the three countries are now expected to secure four safe zones. An official with Russia's military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Russian Col.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told reporters on Friday that personnel from Russia, Iran and Turkey will operate checkpoints and observation posts. But it's difficult to imagine how many boots on the ground would be needed to monitor the yet to be mapped areas or how and where exactly Russian, Iranian and Turkish troops would patrol. A previous cease-fire agreement that went into effect on Dec. 30 helped reduce overall violence in Syria for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a cease-fire in Syria have all ended in failure. Berry reported from Moscow. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut, Jim Heintz in Moscow and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report. A Navy SEAL from Falmouth, Maine, has been killed in Somalia, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kyle Milliken, 38, was killed during an operation against al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida-linked organization, in a remote area approximately 40 miles west of Mogadishu. He was assigned to an East Coast based special warfare unit. Milliken is the first U.S. combat death in Somalia since the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" incident. "We do not believe there has been a case where a U.S. service member has been killed in combat action in Somalia since the incident there in 1993," U.S. Africa Command spokesman Patrick Barnes said Friday. The United States pulled out of Somalia after that incident in which two helicopters were shot down in the capital, Mogadishu, and bodies of Americans were dragged through the streets. In a statement, the U.S. Africa Command said Millilken was killed Thursday during the operation near Barii. The Pentagon said two other service members were wounded. The U.S. special operations troops came under fire after U.S. aircraft delivered Somali forces to the target area, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, told reporters. He said the U.S. troops were "a distance back" from the compound which had been "associated with some attacks on facilities that we use and that our Somali partners use nearby." Davis said the U.S. has been working with the Somali National Army to counter al-Shabab since 2013 with the goal of "degrading this al-Qaida affiliate's ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and the United States." Rep. Chellie Pingree released a statement saying "our hearts are heavy" with the loss of Milliken. "Those who knew Senior Chief Kyle Milliken remember him as an amazing athlete who could do flips on skis and run for miles. He graduated from Cheverus High School as one of their top track stars. After his college graduation, he felt the call to serve and enlisted as a U.S. Navy SEAL. For many years, he operated with the elite Seal Team 6. We will forever be grateful for Senior Chief Millikens selfless service to our nation and his commitment to a cause bigger than himself. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Milliken family and those who knew Senior Chief Millken from his early days in Falmouth. May we never forget his extraordinary bravery and incredible sacrifice," Pingree said. Maine Governor Paul LePage also issued a statement addressing Milliken's death. "On behalf of all Mainers, to the family and loved ones of Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kyle Milliken, there are no words that may provide comfort during this difficult time, but know he is a man we are forever indebted for his service, sacrifice and protection of the freedoms we hold dear. The First Lady and I send our deepest condolences to his family and our prayers are with you," said LePage. Two state lawmakers said Friday that Illinois' budget crisis and Gov. Bruce Rauner share in the blame for the death of 1-year-old Semaj Crosby. State Reps. LaShawn Ford and Mary Flowers, both Democrats representing Chicago, said that investigating DCFS for its role is not enough and predicted that without a budget compromise, more children will fall through the cracks. The state's budget crisis has forced cuts at social service agencies that once were available to families in crisis. As the two lawmakers see it, Rauner needs to find a budget solution, while a spokesman for the governor said the lawmakers are politicizing a horrible tragedy. "It's the governor's responsibility," said Ford. "It's his department and if the governor really cared as much about the children as he cares about selling the Thompson CenterDCFS would get the help that it needs. Flowers echoed Ford in placing the blame of Semaj's death on Rauner. "This is on the governors watch, he said vote for me, and Ill make these changes, but he didnt tell us that he would create havoc in poor peoples lives, Flowers said. Thats not the change that people voted for." DCFS had been in the Crosby home hours before the toddler went missing, and less than two days before she was found dead under a couch inside her family's Joliet home. Pictures taken show she was living in deplorable conditions and the home was full of cockroaches and garbage. "DCFS workers for the most part are very hard workers, Flowers said. Theyre overworked, underpaidtheyre required to do a lot with little. The legislators, joined Friday by an attorney with the Cook County Public Guardian, said they want an investigation of DCFS, adding that Semaj's death is proof of what happens when the state fails to reach a budget compromise. "Children and their families rely on other services, mental health services, community mental health services, substance abuse services, child care," said Danielle Gomez, supervising attorney at the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian. "When those systems arent there to help families children suffer. The governors office refuted the accusations. "This has nothing to do with the budget, and its sad that anyone would try to politicize this horrible tragedy. Like everyone across the state, the governor wants answers on how such a horrific tragedy could happen," a spokesperson for Rauner said Friday. "The Will County Sheriff, DCFS and other agencies are actively investigating and we are anxiously awaiting their findings. Something like this should never happen and we need to find out exactly why it did. As an administration, we will remain committed to do anything and everything possible to protect the children of Illinois and improve the Department of Children and Family Services." The body of Sgt. Joshua P. Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Illinois, returned home after the Army Ranger was killed in Afghanistan last month. The Pentagon identified Rodgers, along with another Army Ranger killed during a raid on an Islamic State compound in Afghanistan last month. Sgt. Cameron H. Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio, was also killed in the incident according to the Pentagon. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the U.S. military is investigating to see if they were accidentally killed by ground fire from Afghan commandoes or other American forces. He said it does not appear deliberate. According to Davis, the head of the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, Abdul Haseeb Logari, was the target of the Wednesday raid. He said officials suspect that Logari, the emir of what's called the Islamic State Khorasan group, was among several key leaders killed, but haven't confirmed that. Logari was in charge of the Afghanistan affiliate's command and control and it's connections with the broader Islamic State group and it's leaders. About 35 other enemy fighters were killed and one other Army Ranger received a minor head wound during the battle, but was able to stay with the assault force. "This was a dangerous mission and we knew this going in," Davis told Pentagon reporters. "This was the leader of ISIS in Afghanistan. We knew that he was going to be well protected and that they were going to fight very hard to prevent him from being captured or killed. And that is indeed what happened." About 50 Army Rangers and 40 Afghan commandos were dropped off by helicopter around 10:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, for the raid in Nangarhar Province's, Mohmand Valley. They were on the ground for about four-and-a-half hours. "Within minutes of the insertion the combined force came under intense fire from multiple directions. It was during these initial moments of the raid that the two Rangers were mortally wounded," Davis said. He added that the U.S. and Afghan troops were being fired on from prepared positions on all sides, and that the compound was heavily fortified and contained a network of tunnels. Davis said manned and unmanned aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, were used to support the raid and provide airstrikes to defend the force on the ground and evacuate the wounded. The military headquarters in Kabul said in a statement that the U.S. and Afghan forces were able to accomplish the mission without civilian casualties, including women and children in the compound. The operation took place in the Achin area, roughly one mile from where the military dropped a massive, non-nuclear bomb called the "mother of all bombs" on an ISIS target in Afghanistan two weeks ago, the weapon's first-ever use in combat. The bombing came just days after a U.S. Army special forces soldier was killed in the region. The bomb is the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S., and it killed several dozen militants. Asked whether the friendly fire came from Afghan troops, Davis said, "we were there in a partnered raid with Afghan forces and some of the initial indications led us to believe that that's a possibility." He said it could have been either Afghans or U.S. forces, and a formal investigation is underway. The families of Army Sgts. Joshua Rodgers from Illinois, and Cameron Thomas from Ohio have been told it was possible they died from friendly fire. The U.S. has been battling the Islamic State group in Afghanistan for months and estimates that the group now includes about some 800 to 1,000 fighters there. A fired Balch Springs police officer has been released on bond after he surrendered to authorities Friday to face a murder warrant in the shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. Roy Oliver posted a $300,000 bond after he was booked at the Parker County Jail in Weatherford, about 95 miles west of Dallas. A fired Balch Springs police officer has been released on bond after he surrendered to authorities Friday to face a murder warrant in the shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. "I was elated," said Edwards family attorney, Jasmin Crockett. "We've seen this play out so many times in so many cities across America. So in less than a week, we have an officer that got fired, we have an officer that has an arrest warrant." Lee Merritt, another attorney for the Edwards family, said the family has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Oliver, the Balch Springs Police Department and the city of Balch Springs. On Saturday, Jordan Edwards mother Shaunkeyia Stephens released a statement. "I was driving home. It was on the radio," said Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber, explaining how he heard the news. "This is a horrific tragedy we know that the Edwards family is grieving. We're in a lot of pain over here, too." The chief said he didn't get a heads-up on the arrest warrant because he asked for an independent, transparent investigation, and that's how it's supposed to work. The shooting occurred around 11 p.m. last Saturday as officers responded to a 911 call reporting intoxicated teens walking around in the 12300 block of Baron Drive. Balch Springs police originally said the vehicle in which Edwards was riding backed up toward officers "in an aggressive manner." But Chief Haber said Monday that police video shows the vehicle was instead "moving forward as the officers approached." Haber wouldn't release the police video or describe it in detail other than to acknowledge he erred in describing the encounter, but he said he was troubled by what he saw. "It did not meet our core values. We have a certain set of values, and it did not meet our values," Haber added. Oliver was later fired from the police department. Investigators say evidence suggests Oliver "intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death of an individual," according to the warrant. "If there's something to learn, let's learn it, but let's not learn it as individuals," Haber said. "Let's learn as a group and push that message out together." The Dallas County Sheriff's Office said Friday that its investigation into Edwards' death will continue. [[421540193, C]] President Donald Trump has backed off threats to eliminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, at least for now. Trump is still promising dramatic changes to the agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico. South Texas is bracing for any potential shifts in policy. Laredo is home to the busiest inland port for commercial entry in the United States, according to the Laredo Field Offices of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Drive along Interstate 35 in Laredo and you will find yourself surrounded by semi-trailers on the so-called "NAFTA Highway." Inside the international bridge crossing, CBP agents screen cargo truck drivers coming into Laredo. Agents use technology to scour the trucks and their shipments for illegal products and drugs. NBC 5 was allowed to document the agency's latest seizure in mid-April. At first glance, one shipment appeared to be cardboard headed into Texas. Each cardboard pallet was carefully packaged. But something was hiding inside. "They're dismantling the pallets," said Albert Flores, deputy port director. As agents removed several layers of each pallet, they discovered carefully cut-out squares containing white plastic-wrapped bundles. In total, agents seized 36 bundles. "It's pretty impressive, of course, it's teamwork all around," said Flores. An even closer inspection involving agents peeling back several layers of the packaging revealed what CBP agents already knew and we could smell: marijuana. "You're looking at 10 kilos, 9-10 kilos per package," said Flores. The seizure totaled more than 700 pounds of pot, considered a small seizure compared other others made here. The agency reports a 35-percent increase in methamphetamine seized in the fiscal year ending in September 2016. "We can't obviously check every single one of them, but we can surely try our best to identify the high-risk ones and then obviously use our different technologies and resources to conduct inspections," said Flores. This discovery is credited to the layered enforcement and screening at the bridge with more commercial cargo than any other inland port in the country: the World Trade Bridge in Laredo. An estimated 7,200 cargo trucks come into the U.S. through Laredo every day. Drivers spend several hours maneuvering through different checkpoints in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Laredo. There are tall, yellow towers that screen for radiological materials and dirty bombs. "For every single truck coming through, they're getting screen for any of those materials," said Flores. A second checkpoint includes K9 officers and agents checking each driver's documentation and cargo. Many trucks are deemed high risk depending on the cargo and the driver's demeanor. They are sent to be X-rayed. Meanwhile, licensed Mexican drivers who are allowed to make long-haul trips into the U.S. with their cargo stand and wait outside the main exit gate. These men have gone through customs and await their driving partners to be cleared to leave. Uncertainty lingers in the hot, humid South Texas air. "It's going to get really bad for us because of what this president is doing," said driver Luis Alvarado. Alvarado and other drivers worry about potential changes coming to NAFTA and a pilot program, that for the past couple of years, has allowed some Mexican drivers and trucks to deliver cargo to destinations deep into the U.S. instead of unloading at the border. "Brooklyn, Manhattan," Alvarado said, firing off a few cities where he has delivered cargo. Inside the checkpoint, his partner was flagged and sent to be X-rayed. State commercial inspectors randomly select some trucks to receive a closer inspection, all around and underneath. Alvarado's partner is cleared to leave after approximately three hours. Alvarado carefully walks between semis leaving customs and hops in with his partner. "We're going to Morgantown, North Carolina," said the young man in the driver's seat. They are delivering car parts made in Mexico to North Carolina. He says if there are big changes to NAFTA, "it's going to affect everybody. It's going to affect all the big companies." Customs and Border Protection reports an increase in cargo traffic over the past eight years. Bradd Skinner, assistant director for trade in the Laredo Field Offices, overseas eight ports of entry from Del Rio to Brownsville. Skinner says most of the drivers coming through the World Trade Bridge are not Mexican long-haulers, but rather truckers who unload their cargo at the border and return to Mexico. "That's actually a pretty small percentage of the cross-border flow of goods that are out there," he said. When it comes to changes to NAFTA, Skinner his office will implement whatever new policy that comes along. "We're the boots on the ground, so whatever the final decision is we're the ones that have to make it happen," said Skinner. "I know shippers that I've talked to, they're already thinking of the 'what-if' scenarios if there were to be major changes." As Alvarado and his traveling partner settle in for the long haul, they hope this won't be their last in the United States. "I hope things work out for the good of all drivers, Mexican and American," said Alvarado. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Transportation regarding the pilot program. "We are watching the issue, but we do not know any new information about what might happen," said Norita Taylor, director of public relations. To south Texas landowners in danger of losing property to President Donald Trumps wall between Mexico and the United States, Jose Palomino has this advice: Get a good lawyer. He did not a decade ago when President George W. Bush was erecting barriers along the border. Where his house in San Benito in Cameron County once had a nice view of trees and grass, it now looks out on a high fence, about 20 feet tall, on a piece of property the federal government condemned, he said. "It's like a big prison cell," he said. Before work begins on Trump's wall, the Texas Civil Rights Project is gearing up for the fight by getting in touch with every landowner along the border in south Texas to offer help. This time the organization wants to make sure that they are represented by lawyers. "Even if they are in favor of the wall, we'll represent them," said Efren C. Olivares, the project's racial and economic justice director. Landowners do not have to take the first price offered to them, and if the landowner and the government cannot agree on compensation, the landowner can request a jury trial. There are more than 1,000 property owners on the Texas-Mexico border, Olivares said. Imagine adding dozens or potentially hundreds of new lawsuits to the federal courts, he said. "Just by the sheer volume of cases that the government will need to bring, it's going to slow the process such that perhaps the political winds will change and maybe there's no funding for it after the mid-term elections or maybe there's a new president," he said. Even if the federal government does eventually take the land through eminent domain -- and the government can take possession before lawsuits are settled -- lawyers can win property owners a better price. "As a rule, I would say government tends to under-compensate landowners and it's a concerted effort to do so," said Jim Burling, a vice president of litigation for the Pacific Legal Foundation, founded by members of former President Ronald Reagan's senior staff to litigate for property rights, limited government and free enterprise. Because of the terrain, a wall cannot run entirely along the Mexico border, and property will be cut into portions, he said. What about land still in the United States but on the wrong side of the wall? Those kinds of questions will prompt even more lawsuits, he predicted. "It seems to be an imperative of governments everywhere, Democratic administrations, Republican administrations, state government, local government, they all want to acquire property for the public good and pay the least amount possible for it," he said. Now the Constitution says just compensation must be paid, and that means compensation that should just, not just as little as you can get way with." Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of 700 miles of a physical barrier along the border and resulted in pedestrian fences 18 feet high and other small fences intended to block vehicles. Of the more than 300 eminent cases brought in south Texas over those fences, 90 are still pending, Olivares said. The cases, which NPR documented in February, were given to one judge in Brownsville. Last week, as Trump's 100th day in office neared, his proposed wall stalled when the president backed off demanding funding in a federal spending bill needed to avert a government shutdown. But he insisted that the controversial project, embraced enthusiastically by his supporters while unpopular with many along the border, would go forward. "Don't let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL," Trump tweeted last month as it emerged that he was no longer insisting that money be included in the bill. "It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc." The cost of a wall the length of the border between 18 and 30 feet tall, two feet and extending six feet below the ground would reach billions. Trump has said $10 billion or less, the Department of Homeland Security gave an estimate of as much as $21.6 billion and a technology magazine from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MIT Technology Review, projected an higher price, from $27 billion to $40 billion for a 1,000-mile wall. Trump had proposed spending more than $2.6 billion to begin designing and constructing the wall, buy new security technology, hire additional Border Patrol agents and build detention facilities for undocumented immigrants. And in a sign of potential court battles to come, Trump wants money to hire 20 lawyers to obtain property on which to build the wall, much of it owned privately and subject to condemnation by the federal government. A poll released in April by the non-partisan Texas Lyceum, found that 27 percent of Texans ranked immigration or border security as the most important issue facing the state. But 61 percent opposed building a wall along the border and 58 percent disapproved of how Trump was handling the issue. In the past, Texas politicians have been strong proponents of property rights, and critical of the use of eminent domain. State Attorney General Ken Paxton, for example, sued the federal government under former President Barack Obama last year in a case involving contested land along the Red River. "Washington, D.C., needs to hear loud and clear that Texas will not stand for the federal government's infringement upon Texas land and the property rights of the people who live here," Paxton said then, according to the Dallas Morning News. But now Paxton and others are in favor of using eminent domain for the border wall. "It's a public purpose providing safety to people not only along the border, but to the entire nation, he told the newspaper in an interview. Many other Texans, regardless of political leanings, are less enthusiastic. Olivares said the Texas Civil Rights Project opposed the wall as a symbol of hatred and a terrible waste of taxpayers' money. Palomino said he has seen people coming over the border fence in place now. "What's the sense of having a wall?" he asked. The South Texans' Property Rights Association is not against structure in strategic places if property owners are compensated well, said its executive director and a landowner, Susan Kibbe. But the association opposes a wall along the length of the Texas border for numerous reasons, among them the time it would take to build, the diminished trade that would result with Mexico, the country's third largest trading partner, and the money needed to construct it, which could otherwise go to Customs and Border Patrol, technology and equipment, detention facilities, the criminal justice system and programs to address the reasons people are fleeing Central America. "Where it makes sense, then we're not opposed to it," Kibbe said. "It's just an all-out fence from Brownsville to El Paso that we just don't think that makes good sense." How much of the border would be walled is unclear. The Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Bloomberg News on Thursday that a wall was unlikely in some places. A concrete wall would make sense in the southern Rio Grande Valley, while a large see-through fence would be appropriate elsewhere. And some terrain would be too rough, he said, citing the Big Bend National Park. "A physical barrier, as much as we can get in the right places, makes all the sense in the world," he said. Not to Palomino, a 48-year-old welder who said his house has lost value. "You've got to wake up to that wall behind you every day," he said. "It would be nice if they would just tear it all the way down to the ground." Florida Keys Sheriff's Office is reporting multiple fatalities following an accident on Card Sound Road near Alabama Jacks, a popular restaurant near the Florida Keys. According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials, two people were killed and one person was airlifted to the hospital. That person's condition is currently unknown. Officials say that two cars were involved in the crash and one car was submerged in the water. Dive teams responded to recover the victims. As a result of the accident, Card Sound Road is shut down in both directions. This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is made available. A deadly crash early Saturday morning has shutdown southbound lanes along Interstate 75 between Stirling Road and Sheridan Street. Florida Highway Patrol officials say two people were killed and three others were transported to Memorial Hospital Miramar. One of the people killed in the crash was Salvador Diaz, 20. The other person killed has not yet been identified. The three others who suffered minor injuries were identified as Ricardo Hernandez, Juan Almazan and Andrew Rios. At around 3 a.m., two vehicles traveling southbound on I-75 north of Sheridan Street collided, according to FHP. Authorities say the driver of one vehicle was ejected and struck by oncoming traffic. The stretch of I-75 is expected to remain closed as authorities continue to investigate the crash. Venezuelans living in South Florida collected medical supplies Saturday to send back to their native country, which is in the throngs of a humanitarian and economic crisis. Dozens of Venezuelans stopped by El Arepazo Original in Doral on Saturday to do their part. "We're being oppressed and repressed, everything negative that is dictatorship has done to our country. so we're just here to tell them that they're not alone," Desiree Rostami. "That way here to support them." Everything collected will go to the Green Cross- a group that provides treatment and care for protesters injured in Venezuela. "They're behind the front lines," Yvette Figueroa said. "They're there to pick up the students and give them the first medical assistance to prevent them from dying." Tear gas has wafted in the streets of Caracas as clashes have grown violent between protesters and the government militia backed by President Nicolas Maduro. "Our students who are high school kids are basically asking for democracy and liberty," Figueroa said. "They walk the streets with a flag and a backpack and they're getting shot at. They're getting killed. Our future is being killed." Many have called for the release of political prisoners, like Leopoldo Lopez. Venezuelans who came out to contribute say they feel the pain of the country they were forced to leave behind. "We are not in Venezuela, we are here in the United States thank god but we need to help," Gloria Mora. "We are far away but we are not absent." These Venezuelans living in South Florida say this collection of first aid kits and medicine is one way the can help with the dire situation abroad. The organizers will be sending these items by air on Monday. "Even though we had to come here and were immigrants in the U.S., we're still at heart with them," Rostami said. NBC 4 New York and Telemundo 47 are teaming up with the four-time Super Bowl champion New York Giants for the fifth annual FREE family-friendly Health & Fitness Expo, presented by Quest Diagnostics. One of the largest and open-to-the-public health events, the Health & Fitness Expo is being held Saturday, May 6 and Sunday, May 7 at MetLife Stadium from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Want to meet your favorite personalities from NBC 4 and Telemundo 47? See the appearances schedule below. Free parking will be available at MetLife Stadium. Public transit is also an option. What to Know Jacqueline Dicks, 41, was shot in the head not far from her Brooklyn home Monday night; she had just wrapped up her MTA conductor shift The mother of six was still wearing her uniform when she was found dead on the street; her boyfriend, Zire King was wanted for murder King was found dead at a home in Hackensack on Friday; police had questioned and released him before suspecting he was Dicks' killer The boyfriend suspected of shooting and killing an MTA worker as she was headed home from a shift earlier this week was found dead after a standoff at a house in New Jersey, police said. A SWAT team found the body of 44-year-old Zire King in the closet of a home on First Street in Hackensack on Friday afternoon, according to police. Authorities had questioned King at the start of their investigation into the death of his girlfriend, 41-year-old Jacqueline Dicks, but released him. Detectives later obtained video from the crime scene area that showed King talking to Dicks on the street Monday night shortly before she was shot, then heading to his car after, police said. Cops obtained a search warrant for King's car and found a handgun in the trunk, police said. Authorities believe that is the weapon that killed Dicks. Dicks' bag and phone were also allegedly found in the vehicle. Police said King was living with Dicks at her East New York home, but that he had not returned home since he was questioned. Authorities had been searching for him ever since. The investigation took detectives to First Street in Hackensack on Friday, where a woman at the home said King was barricaded in a bedroom closet on the second floor and possibly armed, police said. The Bergen County Regional SWAT team was called and a perimeter was set up around the home. Negotiators tried to make contact with King around 5:45 p.m., but were not able to. About an hour later, the SWAT team deployed gas and entered the home, where they found King dead in the upstairs closet. Its unclear how King died or if he had a weapon. The Bergen County medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine the cause of his death. Dicks was shot in the head Monday night on Elton Street; she had just wrapped up a shift on the N line and investigators said King was driving her home after picking her up from the Astoria-Ditmas Boulevard station. King told police he dropped Dicks off near her home and was going to the store when he heard a single gunshot, police sources said late Tuesday. He told police he was blinded by headlights and couldn't see clearly but thought there may have been three people involved, the sources said. Several witnesses also supported the three-people story, but Boyce said Wednesday that theory just wasn't true. He said only one person was responsible. Dicks was pronounced dead at the scene. She was still wearing her MTA uniform. She had been a conductor with New York City Transit since June. Boyce said King was living with Dicks for at least three years. The couple has a 4-month-old child. Police did not elaborate on a possible motive for the shooting. What to Know Five people were hurt when a light rail train crashed into a fire truck in Jersey City The train derailed and the fire truck was sent 30 feet from the site of the crash NJ Transit is reviewing video of the crash with investigators Five people were injured when a Hudson-Bergen Light Rail train crashed into a fire truck and derailed in Jersey City on Friday evening, fire officials said. Four firefighters and the train's operator suffered minor injuries in the collision near Washington Boulevard and Sixth Street, officials said. The seven to ten passengers aboard the train were not injured. Jersey City firefighters were rushing to Newport Centre for a call about a possible death at the mall, but as their truck was crossing the intersection shortly after 7:45 p.m. the Hoboken-bound train crashed into it. "We were literally just sitting here and all of the sudden I hear fire trucks," Rose Interiano said. "And then all I hear is a bang." The force of the crash smashed the windshield of the light rail train and caused it to derail. The fire truck ended up about 30 feet away from the intersection, a large dent in its side. Images show injured firefighters being led away from the scene of the accident. "We saw one guy walking away," one man said. "He had blood dripping down his face." Maarten Kossen The firefighters and the train operator were taken to an area hospital. Jersey City Fire Chief Steven McGill said he talked with the operator. "Got to the intersection, didn't see anything, heard a loud bang and that's all he remembers," McGill said. NJ Transit has video from the train and will review it with an investigation team from the Jersey City Police Department, McGill said. Officials said the light rail trains typically go about 5 mph through intersections. Police said an investigation into the initial call, about a possible death at Newport Centre, was still under investigation Friday night. Police say they've charged a New York City man in connection with the hit-and-run death of a tow truck driver in Westchester last winter. Troopers announced Thursday that they arrested 51-year-old Anthony Mangano, of Queens, and charged him with leaving the scene of a fatal motor vehicle accident. Police say Mangano was driving the vehicle that struck 32-year-old Salvatore Brescia as he was loading a disabled minivan onto his flatbed tow truck on Interstate 95 in Harrison on the morning of Dec. 29. Brescia died at a hospital in Connecticut. Police say investigators used pieces of broken plastic from one of the hit-and-run vehicle's side-view mirrors to track down Mangano, a substitute driver for a Queens trucking delivery company. He's free on bail. It couldn't be determined if he has a lawyer. A U.S. service member has been killed in Somalia during an operation against the extremist group al-Shabab the first U.S. combat death there in more than two decades as the United States steps up its fight against the al-Qaida-linked organization in a country that remains largely chaos. "We do not believe there has been a case where a U.S. service member has been killed in combat action in Somalia since the incident there in 1993," U.S. Africa Command spokesman Patrick Barnes said Friday. The United States pulled out of Somalia after that incident in which two helicopters were shot down in the capital, Mogadishu, and bodies of Americans were dragged through the streets. In a statement, the U.S. Africa Command said the service member was killed Thursday during the operation near Barii, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. The Pentagon said two other service members were wounded. The U.S. special operations troops came under fire after U.S. aircraft delivered Somali forces to the target area, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, told reporters. He said the U.S. troops were "a distance back" from the compound which had been "associated with some attacks on facilities that we use and that our Somali partners use nearby." Davis said the U.S. has been working with the Somali National Army to counter al-Shabab since 2013 with the goal of "degrading this al-Qaida affiliate's ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and the United States." A Somali intelligence official said U.S. forces killed at least six people during the raid on a building housing the al-Shabab extremist group's Andalus radio station at a farm near Dare Salaam village. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the dead included al-Shabab journalists. Al-Shabab via its Shahada News Agency said "an air landing operation by U.S. special forces was thwarted in Lower Shabelle province and a number of their soldiers were killed and wounded," the SITE Intelligence Group reported. Both the United States and Somalia in recent weeks have declared new efforts against al-Shabab. President Donald Trump has approved expanded military operations against the extremist group, including more aggressive airstrikes and considering parts of southern Somalia areas of active hostilities. Somalia's new Somali-American president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, last month declared a new offensive against al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia but has claimed responsibility for major attacks elsewhere in East Africa. Also last month, the U.S. military announced it was sending dozens of regular troops to Somalia in the largest such deployment to the country in roughly two decades. The U.S. Africa Command said the deployment was for logistics training of Somalia's army. The U.S. in recent years has sent a small number of special operations forces and counter-terror advisers to Somalia and has carried out a number of airstrikes, including drone strikes, against al-Shabab. The extremist group, which was chased out of Mogadishu years ago but continues to carry out deadly attacks there, has vowed to step up the violence in response to the moves by Trump and Mohamed. It continues to control rural areas in parts of the country. Aid groups have raised concerns about the new military efforts, saying civilians could be at risk as hundreds of thousands are displaced by a drought that threatens roughly half the country's population of 12 million. Pressure is growing on Somalia's military to assume full responsibility for the country's security as the 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, AMISOM, that has been supporting the fragile central government plans to leave by the end of 2020. The U.S. military has acknowledged the problem. The AU force will begin withdrawing in 2018, and head of the U.S. Africa Command, Commander General Thomas Waldhauser, has said that if it leaves before Somalia's security forces are capable, "large portions of Somalia are at risk of returning to al-Shabab control or potentially allowing ISIS to gain a stronger foothold." Fighters linked to the Islamic State group are a relatively new and growing challenge in the north of the country, which has seen a quarter-century of chaos since dictator Siad Barre fell in 1991. "The wider context, and hence why the U.S. may be being more aggressive vs. al-Shabab now, is to try and engineer a timely and successful exit strategy for AMISOM, which means degrading al-Shabab and bolstering the Somali security forces," Paul Williams, an associate professor at George Washington University and author on peacekeeping operations in Africa, said in an email. ___ Associated Press writers Lolita Baldor and Robert Burns in Washington and Justin Lynch in Nairobi, Kenya contributed. The rector of a church-owned retirement home for Roman Catholic priests has admitted embezzling a half-million dollars to pay for casino visits, high-end dinners and Philadelphia Pops concerts. Monsignor William A. Dombrow pleaded guilty Thursday to four federal wire fraud counts for skimming money over nine years from a Villa St. Joseph account he controlled. The Philadelphia Archdiocese runs the facility in Darby to house aging priests and treat those accused of sexual abuse. Federal prosecutors say much of the stolen money came from insurance payments for priests who died and parishioners' estates. [[238427591, C]] Lawyer Coley Reynolds says the 77-year-old priest agreed to cooperate as soon as he was confronted. He faces about three years in prison under federal guidelines when he is sentenced in August. A 9-year-old girl whose disappearance Friday night from the Strawberry Mansion section of the city led to an hourslong dragnet by city police was found safe Saturday afternoon. Zakiyah Seward was last seen playing in a park behind Ethel Allen School near 33rd and Lehigh Avenue around 8 p.m. Friday but never returned to her home, which is about a block away on the 2600 block of North Douglas Street. A 9-year-old girl who went missing Friday night was found safe Saturday. NBC10 was there for the emotional reunion between the girl and her uncle. Surveillance footage from a nearby corner store showed the little girl entering the store, along with two other children, then running out. Zakiyah was seen running a different way than her two friends in the video, which has a time stamp of 7:50 p.m., only a short time before her family called to report her missing. Provided Dozens of officers and cadets went door-to-door in the neighborhood and others searched a section of Fairmount Park a few blocks away. Shortly after noon Saturday, a police source said she was found in a house unharmed. It remains unclear why she was at the house on Lehigh Avenue where she was found. NBC10 was there Saturday during the emotional reunion between Zakiyah and her family. The girl's uncle embraced her while in tears. He also thanked the officers who helped find her. "I ain't like the police until today," he said. "I thank them so much. My niece is home!" Police say the girl went missing due to a miscommunication regarding a sleepover. They don't believe there was anything criminal or suspicious that occurred. A crisis response team will be on-hand at Torrey Pines High School (TPHS) in San Diego's North County Monday to offer support to students, parents and staff in the aftermath of the officer-involved shooting that left a 15-year-old student dead in the campus' parking lot. San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) Superintendent Eric Dill sent an email to parents following the deadly incident at the campus Saturday morning. Just before 3:30 a.m., a 15-year-old TPHS student had called the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) to request a welfare check on a minor -- himself -- at the parking lot at the entrance of the high school. The teen spoke in the third person, SDPD Acting Homicide Capt. Mike Holden said, telling police someone should check on a minor in the parking lot. When officers arrived at the parking lot and got out their patrol car, the teenager allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at the officers. The officers fired their weapons at the teen, fatally striking him several times. The student was rushed to a local hospital where he died a short time later. In his email to parents, Dill confirmed the teen was a student at TPHS. He said the incident has shaken the school district. "The details of the situation are still unfolding, but whatever they are, this event is very traumatic for our students, staff, families, and community," the superintendent's email read. "A crisis response team will be on the TPHS campus on Monday to support students, staff, and parents as needed." He continued: "I know this is difficult, but we ask that you please refrain from conjecture or spreading rumors. This is a difficult time for the family and we need to let them mourn. Again, if you need to talk to someone about this or just need a place to go to mourn and process this tragedy, counseling services will be available at all of our schools on Monday for anyone who feels they need it." Dill said the SDUHSD will do everything possible to maintain their daily routine while supporting faculty, students, and parents during this event. The superintendent said police have not yet released the name of the teenager. Tracy Francisco-Dominice holds up sign w her phone number offering kids help & support after teen shot & killed near Torrey Pines HS #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/gxDnVvfvIc Liberty Zabala (@LibertyNBC7SD) May 6, 2017 Our hearts go out to the student, his family and his friends, he added. Although school was not in session Saturday, many students filed in hours after the officer-involved shooting because the campus was serving as an SAT testing center. Parents who live in the neighborhood told NBC 7 the incident is tragic and scary, and hits far too close to home. Tracy Francisco-Dominice's son attends TPHS. She said she cried when she heard another student was killed by police officers. Holding a homemade sign, Francisco-Dominice stood outside the school Saturday morning. The sign read "TEEN HELP," and included her phone number as a way of offering her support to students and the community. "It's important to help these kids, and really, help everyone, who's feeling such desperation," she told NBC 7. A donor has helped increase the reward given by the San Diego Animal Advocates (SDAA) to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for torturing two huskies in Oceanside. Last week, Lt. Adam Knowland with the Oceanside Police Department (OPD) confirmed that the OPD received a report of someone pouring acid on dogs in the area. The animals were doused with acid and one dog had acid poured down its throat and an eye gouged out after the perpetrator(s) broke into the home where the dogs were kept, said Jane Cartmill, President of SDAA, in a written news release. SDAA says this was the third attack on the huskies, who had previously been poisoned and doused with acid while in an outdoor yard on prior occasions. The family was forced to move from their home on Carino Way in Oceanside for the safety of their animals and themselves. According to the San Diego Humane Society (SDHS), where the dogs have received treatment for their injuries, the huskies are expected to survive. SDHS says that the dog with the injured eye has had surgery, while the other still cannot eat and is being fed intravenously. The huskies are now back with their family to continue their recovery, SDHS said. A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family. The Oceanside Police Department has also set up a tip line at (760) 435-4730 for anyone with information regarding the case. Check back for updates on this developing story. Officers shot and killed a teenager in the parking lot of his high school in San Diego Saturday morning after the teen called police to check on him and then allegedly pulled out a BB gun and pointed it at the officers. According to San Diego Police Department (SDPD) Acting Homicide Capt. Mike Holden, the 15-year-old boy called police asking officers to conduct a welfare check on a minor -- himself -- near Torrey Pines High School (TPHS) in Carmel Valley just before 3:30 a.m. "[In] our preliminary investigation, we believe that the subject that was shot is the person who actually called to check the welfare [of the minor]. We believe that he actually called and spoke about himself in the third person," Holden explained. "It was a very general 'check the welfare' call." "It was a phone call that 'there's a male juvenile in front of the school, it appears someone should check on him,'" Holden added. The SDPD said the caller stated that the juvenile had no weapons. Two officers -- including an officer specifically trained to deal with juveniles -- were the first to arrive at the parking lot at the front entrance of the school. There, they spotted the teenager standing in the lot. Holden said that as the officers got out of their patrol car, the teenager pulled a gun out of his waistband "and pointed it directly at one of the officers." Both officers drew their service weapons while repeatedly ordering the teenager to drop his weapon. Holden said the teen refused to drop the weapon and, instead, "continued to point the handgun at the one officer and then began walking towards the same officer." The person shot by police at Torrey Pines High School is a 15 year old boy. He was pronounced dead at the hospital pic.twitter.com/6IVTIy7Gtj Ramon Galindo (@RamonGalindoNBC) May 6, 2017 Again, the officers told the teen to drop his weapon. Holden said the officers feared for their safety and fired their guns at the teen, striking him "a number of times." The teen was critically wounded and taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla where he died a short time later. The officers, a 28-year veteran and 4-year veteran of the police department, were not hurt. Investigators have now determined that the weapon held by the teen was a semi-automatic BB air pistol, Holden said in a press release Saturday afternoon. The BB gun was recovered by police at the scene. The investigation is ongoing. Per protocol, SDPD's Homicide Unit investigates any and all officer-involved shootings in San Diego County. Holden said the teenager killed by police lived in the neighborhood. His family has been notified of his death, police said. His name will not be released by police, since he's a minor. Torrey Pines High School is part of the San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD). Just before 11 a.m., SDUHSD Superintendent Eric Dill sent an email to parents alerting them of the incident and confirming the teen killed by police was a student at Torrey Pines High School. #BreakingNews Police shooting this morning in the parking lot it Torrey Pines High School pic.twitter.com/ZVfjZrp8nP Ramon Galindo (@RamonGalindoNBC) May 6, 2017 Dill's email read, in part: "I am saddened to report that the 15-year-old boy who was killed was a student at our school. Law enforcement has not released the name of the young man, but our hearts go out to the student, his family, and his friends. The details of the situation are still unfolding, but whatever they are, this event is very traumatic for our students, staff, families, and community." Dill said a crisis response team will be at TPHS on Monday to help provide support for students, staff and parents as needed. If you need to talk to someone about this or just need a place to go to mourn and process this tragedy, counseling services will be available at all of our schools on Monday for anyone who feels they need it, Dill added. He said the SDUHSD believes in communicating openly with our school community about incidents that occur on or near our school campuses. Holden said the officers involved in the teenager's shooting were wearing department-issued body-worn cameras, so footage of the shooting exists. Those videos were impounded as evidence in the investigation. Just one day earlier, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis held a news conference to release videos of three prior shootings in San Diego involving local police officers and deputies. The DAs office is responsible for determining whether a crime was committed in officer or deputy-involved shootings in San Diego County. Video from an officer's body camera may be part of the investigation. Dumanis said the DA's office was releasing the videos Friday in those prior incidents per the protocol reached with law enforcement agencies. She has held similar news conferences in the past to reveal new details about other law enforcement-involved shootings in San Diego. It is unclear, at this point, if and when the body camera video of the shooting of this teenager at TPHS will be released. TPHS is located at 3710 Del Mar Heights Rd. and serves students in grades nine through 12. As the morning unfolded, investigators remained at the school gathering evidence. Although school was not in session, many students began filing onto campus hours after the shooting to take their SATs. One mother, who did not want to go on camera, told NBC 7 it is unsettling to know a 15-year-old was shot and killed in the campus parking lot. Another mother picking up her son after he took the SATs at the high school on Saturday said that her family lives in the neighborhood, so the deadly shooting of the teen hits very close to home. The mother wondered why officers had to fatally wound the teen and why they didnt use some other less lethal weapon. The mother also said the school district should have moved the testing center to a different school. As news of the shooting reached TPHS students, the shock of what transpired in their school parking lot set in. "Everyone's in shock and everyone's surprised," TPHA junior Hayder Alamar told NBC 7. "Right when I woke up I got a lot of text messages from my friends saying 'Did you hear about the shooting at the school?' And at first I didn't believe it." "I'm really scared if it's someone I know or a friend or a classmate or anything,"the student added. New Jersey cops attending the funeral of a murdered Delaware state trooper received an unusually heartfelt greeting when checking in to their hotel. Delaware State Police Cpl. Stephen Ballard was gunned down in a convenience store parking lot April 26. His memorial service is Friday, and thousands of law enforcement from around the country descended on Delaware to pay respects. That included a contingent from the New Jersey State Police, who received a special welcome from their Wilmington hotel. "While we are very happy to have you stay with us, we do wish it was under better circumstances," the hotel's staff wrote in the letter. "You protect and serve your communities every day and as such, it is our honor and privilege to serve you during this time." The state police posted a copy of the letter on Twitter along with the hashtag #class. Two doctors who were engaged to be married were found dead with their throats slashed inside a South Boston luxury condominium Friday night and a suspect in the slaying was shot multiple times after exchanging gunfire with police officers. Boston police found Dr. Lina Bolanos, 38, and Dr. Richard Field, 49, dead in their 11th-floor apartment after officers were called to the Macallen Building Friday night for a report of a man with a gun. While responding to the call, Bampumim Teixeira, 30, of Chelsea, fired on the officers when they confronted him at the door of the penthouse condo and police fired back. Police say Teixeira was shot and hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The officers weren't hurt. Charges against Teixeira are pending and he will be arraigned on Monday, according to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office. He had previously been convicted of two larcenies, both involving passing notes demanding money at the same bank. No weapons were used in these previous incidents. Authorities believe that the victims and the suspect knew each other. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary released a statement addressing the death of Bolanos, who worked there as a doctor. The hospital's CEO John Fernandez said "[she] was an outstanding pediatric anesthesiologist and a wonderful colleague, in the prime of both her career and life." Additionally, North Shore Pain Management released a statement about Field, who worked at the practice. "Dr. Field was a guiding vision ... and was instrumental in the creation of this practice," read the statement. "He was a valued member of the medical community and a tremendous advocate for his patients." Field also worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Multiple charges are expected against Teixeira, according to police. Police in Massachusetts say no one was seriously hurt when a police vehicle crashed into another car, flipping it onto a sidewalk. Two Springfield police officers and three people from the other car were taken to a hospital Thursday to be checked out. Springfield police Sgt. John Delaney says the officers were responding to an unrelated call at the time of the crash. He says they were driving through an intersection with their lights on. No one has been charged or cited for the crash. The department's traffic unit is investigating. For the first time since he was viciously attacked by a group of teenagers, a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, business owner is speaking out about the terrifying ordeal. Sean Sullivan was closing up shop at the Clipper Tavern early Sunday morning, when he saw some kids messing around with the rubble of the State Street Saloon. Thats when things took an unexpected turn. I was just amazed that he got aggressive so quick, Sullivan said. With a concussion and bleeding on his brain, Sullivan has been resting in a dark room, battling migraines for the last week. Friday, he finally felt well enough to talk about the brutal attack that put him in this position. I saw some individuals messing with barricades around remains of State Street Saloon, Sullivan recalled. I just spoke up for them to knock it off. Sullivan says one of the teens charged him. I didnt realize he had a weapon until it was yelled out, knife Sullivan said. Thats about all he can remember. He ended up unconscious on the sidewalk. Police arrested three of the four teenagers minutes later. It was just nonsense what they were doing, there was no reason for them to be there, he said. Sullivan and Jeff Goss opened the Clipper Tavern just days before the State Street Saloon was destroyed by fire on April 10. As a lifelong Portsmouth resident, Goss explains why Sullivans actions mean so much to this city. To those kids it might be a pile of rubble, but to thousands of others, thats a lot of memories and a lot of history in that building, Goss said. He wasnt going to let a few 16 and 17-year-old kids take that away. Sullivan says the brutal attack has actually brought out the best in his neighbors. The supports been overwhelming from across the country, from people I dont know, he said. If anything, its reinforced how special it is to live here. Sullivan is hoping to be back to work sometime next week. A man wanted for introducing the potentially lethal drug Carfentanil to the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire, was arrested Friday following a national manhunt. Preston Thorpe, 24, of Manchester, was arrested around 1 p.m. at a Best Western Hotel on South Willow Street after an anonymous caller provided police with information about his location. He was taken into custody without incident. Thorpe is charged with possession of the controlled drug Carfentanil based on an arrest warrant issued earlier this week. He is also charged with a parole violation. He is expected to appear in court in Manchester on Monday. A nationwide extraditable arrest warrant charging Thorpe with possession of Carfentanil was issued this week after a raid by federal and local police on Tuesday found his apartment cleaned out. Authorities were in full hazmat gear, prepared to encounter Carfentanil. The drug is an elephant tranquilizer so powerful that it can cause an overdose just by contact with human skin. The powerful synthetic drug has already been linked to more than 30 overdoses and three deaths in New Hampshire. A University of New Hampshire student died in a motorcycle crash on Thursday morning. Steven Batakis, 21, was killed when he lost control and was thrown from his 1994 Suzuki motorcycle on Route 108 in Durham at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, according to Seacoastonline.com. He was then hit by a Jeep that was headed in the opposite direction. A third vehicle also collided with the motorcycle. UNH Dean of Students Ted Kirkpatrick said the university was "deeply saddened" to learn of Batakis's death and extended its "deepest sympathies" to his family and friends. Batakis was a junior studying environmental and resource economics in the school's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. The accident remains under investigation. By Reuters YOKOHAMA: Japan will provide USD 40 million to the Asian Development Bank to promote high-level technology as part of efforts to boost quality infrastructure in Asia, Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Saturday. "Japan has been promoting quality infrastructure in Asia in close collaboration with the bank," Aso told the ADB's annual gathering in Yokohama. "Enhancing quality of infrastructure in terms of lifecycle cost and environmental and social considerations is important." The money will be provided over a two-year period to a newly created fund of the ADB, he said. Aso's remarks came as China's increasing presence in infrastructure finance has alarmed some Japanese policymakers, who worry that Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) may overshadow the Japan-U.S.-led ADB. The AIIB is viewed by some as a challenger to both the Western-dominated World Bank and the ADB, which is primarily funded by Japan and the United States. Partly to differentiate itself, the ADB has broadened its activities beyond infrastructure such as financing of steps for poverty reduction, healthcare and education. ADB President Takehiko Nakao told the annual gathering that investment in infrastructure would remain a priority. "Asia will need $1.7 trillion per year in investments in power, transport, telecommunications and water through 2030," he said on Saturday. On Thursday, Nakao said the ADB would cooperate with China's development finance and infrastructure plans under its "One Belt, One Road" initiative, shrugging off the view Japan and China are competing for influence through development finance. YOKOHAMA: Japan will provide USD 40 million to the Asian Development Bank to promote high-level technology as part of efforts to boost quality infrastructure in Asia, Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Saturday. "Japan has been promoting quality infrastructure in Asia in close collaboration with the bank," Aso told the ADB's annual gathering in Yokohama. "Enhancing quality of infrastructure in terms of lifecycle cost and environmental and social considerations is important." The money will be provided over a two-year period to a newly created fund of the ADB, he said. Aso's remarks came as China's increasing presence in infrastructure finance has alarmed some Japanese policymakers, who worry that Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) may overshadow the Japan-U.S.-led ADB. The AIIB is viewed by some as a challenger to both the Western-dominated World Bank and the ADB, which is primarily funded by Japan and the United States. Partly to differentiate itself, the ADB has broadened its activities beyond infrastructure such as financing of steps for poverty reduction, healthcare and education. ADB President Takehiko Nakao told the annual gathering that investment in infrastructure would remain a priority. "Asia will need $1.7 trillion per year in investments in power, transport, telecommunications and water through 2030," he said on Saturday. On Thursday, Nakao said the ADB would cooperate with China's development finance and infrastructure plans under its "One Belt, One Road" initiative, shrugging off the view Japan and China are competing for influence through development finance. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In a major lapse more than 475 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after leakage of a chemical substance which mixed into the air from a nearby plant in Tughlakhabad area. The incident was reported around seven in the morning when few students complained about irritation in the eye and stomach ache. Delhi police have registered a case under IPC section 278, 284, 336,337 and environment protection act. The container has been shifted to Sonipat where agencies are examining it. According to the police, soon cops will call depot officials for investigation. Out of the total number of kids admitted, 406 have been discharged so far. As per the fire department officials, Methyl Bromide- the odourless and colourless chemical was the cause of irritation in the eyes of students. Soon the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team and Delhi police reached the spot. Union Hleath Minister J.P Nadda directed a team of specialists from AIIMS to conduct a study on the impact of the leak and assist the Delhi government in every way. IN PICS: Over 200 students hospitalised in Delhi after container gas leak "Central government hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. My prayers are with children and families," Nadda said in a tweet. According to the police Chemical leaked at custom area of Tughlakabad depot which caused itchiness in eyes. Students of Rani Jhansi Sarvodya Kanya Vidyalaya later admitted to the hospital. Local police, NDRF, Fire department rushed to the spot,. Police investigating the gas leak. (Shekhar Yadav| EPS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and education minister Manish Sisodia met the students admitted and enquired about their health. I met the students here most of the students are being discharged now. Doctors have informed that there is nothing to worry as the chemical does not have a lasting effect. Government has ordered an enquiry under the district magistrate to take strict action against the people who are responsible for this said Kejriwal. According to the authorities- 31 students were admitted in Batra, 61 in ESI, 29 in Jamia Hamdard, 12 in Safdarjung and five in Apollo hospitals. Later almost 150 more students were admitted in different hospitals, the Police official said. Also Read: Delhi gas leak: Sisodia, Nadda assure proper care to victims NEW DELHI: In a major lapse more than 475 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after leakage of a chemical substance which mixed into the air from a nearby plant in Tughlakhabad area. The incident was reported around seven in the morning when few students complained about irritation in the eye and stomach ache. Delhi police have registered a case under IPC section 278, 284, 336,337 and environment protection act. The container has been shifted to Sonipat where agencies are examining it. According to the police, soon cops will call depot officials for investigation. Out of the total number of kids admitted, 406 have been discharged so far. As per the fire department officials, Methyl Bromide- the odourless and colourless chemical was the cause of irritation in the eyes of students. Soon the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team and Delhi police reached the spot. Union Hleath Minister J.P Nadda directed a team of specialists from AIIMS to conduct a study on the impact of the leak and assist the Delhi government in every way. IN PICS: Over 200 students hospitalised in Delhi after container gas leak "Central government hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. My prayers are with children and families," Nadda said in a tweet. According to the police Chemical leaked at custom area of Tughlakabad depot which caused itchiness in eyes. Students of Rani Jhansi Sarvodya Kanya Vidyalaya later admitted to the hospital. Local police, NDRF, Fire department rushed to the spot,. Police investigating the gas leak. (Shekhar Yadav| EPS)Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and education minister Manish Sisodia met the students admitted and enquired about their health. I met the students here most of the students are being discharged now. Doctors have informed that there is nothing to worry as the chemical does not have a lasting effect. Government has ordered an enquiry under the district magistrate to take strict action against the people who are responsible for this said Kejriwal. According to the authorities- 31 students were admitted in Batra, 61 in ESI, 29 in Jamia Hamdard, 12 in Safdarjung and five in Apollo hospitals. Later almost 150 more students were admitted in different hospitals, the Police official said. Also Read: Delhi gas leak: Sisodia, Nadda assure proper care to victims K Krishnachand By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: City is playing host to several filmmakers, producers and technical experts from across the globe, who are here to take part in various film festivals and other functions. Latest among the arrivals is Fred C Y Wang aka Fred Wang Cheung-Yue, a Hong-Kong based film equipment supplier and the founder of Salon Films(HK) Limited. He is a familiar face in Hollywood. He has been working with major Hollywood film and television companies over the last three decades. Unlike other banners in the film industry, Freds company Salon Films deals with supplying logistics, technical assistance and equipment to filmmakers and studios including the Hollywoods Paramount Pictures. Under Salon Films, he had given assistance to various Hollywood commercial blockbusters including Mission Impossible - III, Rush Hour- I and II and Oscar winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. TPuram Express had a tete-e-tete with him when he arrived here to inaugurate the two-day Animation Masters summit - 2017 organised by Toonz media group at Technopark on Friday. For Fred, India occupies a very special place in his heart. He also loves the country because of its tradition in making films of various genre. I have been associating with India for the past three decades on business as well as on friendship level. India has a great talent pool of graphic designers who can go on to be biggies in animation architecture. The country has also produced several computer geniuses who have become global leaders and of course, it has a very large movie industry, he says. Fred also talked in detail about the animation sector which is fast turning into a booming industry across the world. He said future of the animation industry lies in India and the country will become a key player. Fred also wanted families to nurture kids by turning them towards animation right from a tender age. Young kids aged 3 to 5 should start learning animation. If they click and take it up then the country will have a treasure trove of talents. Animation should be made a part of academics in the school curriculum. In fact, India should follow American style in handling school education by making the syllabus more interesting and practical, Fred adds. He also took time to praise India about its well-crafted tradition and culture. India can overtake the whole world through its philosophical tradition. Fred hopes to associate with India soon in terms of country-wide distribution channel system which will provide uninterrupted internet connectivity. The country should revamp the current distribution system and I will love to work with India in this regard, Fred said. Fred has been a director of Salon since 1969 and he has worked with various major Hollywood film and television companies in setting up projects in Asia. Since 1985, he has been involved with various investment groups in Asia. He is also the honorary vice president of China Film Foundation, director of the board of Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited and committee member of Hong Kong-France Business Partnership. Fred graduated from Whittier College, California. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: City is playing host to several filmmakers, producers and technical experts from across the globe, who are here to take part in various film festivals and other functions. Latest among the arrivals is Fred C Y Wang aka Fred Wang Cheung-Yue, a Hong-Kong based film equipment supplier and the founder of Salon Films(HK) Limited. He is a familiar face in Hollywood. He has been working with major Hollywood film and television companies over the last three decades. Unlike other banners in the film industry, Freds company Salon Films deals with supplying logistics, technical assistance and equipment to filmmakers and studios including the Hollywoods Paramount Pictures. Under Salon Films, he had given assistance to various Hollywood commercial blockbusters including Mission Impossible - III, Rush Hour- I and II and Oscar winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. TPuram Express had a tete-e-tete with him when he arrived here to inaugurate the two-day Animation Masters summit - 2017 organised by Toonz media group at Technopark on Friday. For Fred, India occupies a very special place in his heart. He also loves the country because of its tradition in making films of various genre. I have been associating with India for the past three decades on business as well as on friendship level. India has a great talent pool of graphic designers who can go on to be biggies in animation architecture. The country has also produced several computer geniuses who have become global leaders and of course, it has a very large movie industry, he says. Fred also talked in detail about the animation sector which is fast turning into a booming industry across the world. He said future of the animation industry lies in India and the country will become a key player. Fred also wanted families to nurture kids by turning them towards animation right from a tender age. Young kids aged 3 to 5 should start learning animation. If they click and take it up then the country will have a treasure trove of talents. Animation should be made a part of academics in the school curriculum. In fact, India should follow American style in handling school education by making the syllabus more interesting and practical, Fred adds. He also took time to praise India about its well-crafted tradition and culture. India can overtake the whole world through its philosophical tradition. Fred hopes to associate with India soon in terms of country-wide distribution channel system which will provide uninterrupted internet connectivity. The country should revamp the current distribution system and I will love to work with India in this regard, Fred said. Fred has been a director of Salon since 1969 and he has worked with various major Hollywood film and television companies in setting up projects in Asia. Since 1985, he has been involved with various investment groups in Asia. He is also the honorary vice president of China Film Foundation, director of the board of Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited and committee member of Hong Kong-France Business Partnership. Fred graduated from Whittier College, California. Sharmila Chand By Dowdiness is out. Sensible chic is in. Prime Minister Narendra Modis sartorial sense reflects changing times at the workplacetrendy waistcoats worn with immaculate kurtas and impeccably cut Nehru jackets with dashing pocket squares at formal functions have ejected the worn out notion that dressing responsibly is to dress boringly. And flights will no longer be fanciful for those wearing rubber slippers. Last week Modi said, I want to see people who wear Hawai chappal (flip flops) in a hawai jahaaz (airplane). Not to be outdone, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathseen only in orange robesgave a dressing down to his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and other ministers for suggesting school uniforms in government schools be changed to the colour saffron. Yogi also ordered staff to dress formally when coming to work. When John F Kennedy broke with tradition to wear a two-button suit for the first time on TV, the message that went out was that youth is power. Disgraced tycoon Vijay Mallyas flamboyant white suits and Boeing-sized ear studs were ridiculed in the corporate world, but Mark Zuckerbergs pullover and slacks do not belie the billionaires business acumen either. What is worn to work in these days of startups and work-from-home culture has an impact on career advancement and self-confidence. Dressing at work was simpler before. Top management preferred business suits in dark colours paired with a sober tie to the office or power lunches. The middle management wore suits too, which didnt attract too much attention. Factotums wore ties and shirts in pastel colours. What the rest had on didnt matter. Women wore saris. With power dressing as the rule today, Brooks Brothers suits signal globalisation. Women are slipping into pinstripe jackets, dark skirts and pants with the same confidence in the boardroom as at cocktail parties in a classic Cartier dress or an Abu Jaani-Sandeep Khosla sari. Ties make the big difference now, with bolder colours and patterns signalling work fashion. Earlier the memo was authority, now it is confidence with style. In IT companies, casual is the new formal, as different skill sets are brought together to create a new office environment. Creating the right impression Early on in my career I didnt pay too much attention to what I wore and how, says Nirupa Shankar, Director, Brigade Hospitality Services Ltd. At 22, I was eager to shine at work. Nothing else mattered. I was confident my quality of work would speak for itself. However, as I rose in the ranks, I had to create a positive perception, especially with clients and potential business partners. Creating a good first impression was about dressing smart and being well groomed. When he started out, Paritosh Ladhani, Executive Director, Brindavan Agro Industries Ltd & Radisson Blu Agra, thought a jacket was not necessary to give a capable, smart look. At 21, he would dress in a casual attire while making presentations to his leadership team. I realised that despite my weighty arguments, I was not able to convince people. They judged me on my clothes. I realised if Im not serious about what I wear, how will I be serious about my responsibilities, he says. However, he does not think being dressed immaculately guarantees success. But he is sure it will have better impact. It is like having a fit body, he says. I would pay more attention to a well-dressed CEO with similar knowledge and expertise to one not so well turned out. While no direct linkage to attire and productivity has been established, confidence the right clothes bring to attitude, approach and outlook plays a part in success. It translates into a better career graph, reiterates Kiran Yadav, Director, Human Resources, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Co. Ltd. Clothes are Brand Statements The right clothes add seriousness to the executives profile. Sonica Malhotra, Joint Managing Director, MBD Group, agrees. Im very aggressive about my professional deliveries, and the way I dress speaks that language, she says. HR experts believe confidence affects productivity. We send out non-verbal cues to existing and potential clients as well as colleagues, on the basis of which they form an image of us. It underscores how appearance influences opinion and decisions, says Kiran. Appropriate attire is branding by another name. As a leader, how you dress reflects your brand, says Amruda Nair, Joint Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aiana Hotels and Resorts. She likes to wear jackets with Indian motifs and embroidery since she believes Aiana is an Indian-inspired hotel brand that promotes local textiles and crafts. If I can be my hotels brand ambassador, it works the best for me, she adds. A study by Dr Karen Pine, professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and fashion psychologist points out, When we put on an item of clothing, it is common for the wearer to adopt the characteristics associated with that garment. Clothes Define Your Attitude The key is to wear right kind of clothes, neither shabby nor overdone. Fashion designer Archana Kochhar couldnt agree more. When I dress casual and laidback, it reflects my mood thensluggish and unproductive. I like to dress up and create my own style statement everyday when I come to work. Being from the fashion industry, its expected of you to look your best at work, especially while dealing with clients or attending an event. Right Attire Doesnt Mean Expensive Attire Ladhani clarifies that dressing well does not mean expensive. It is a misconception that a thousand dollar suit makes an executive appear productive, efficient and reliable, or spending thousands on a suit that makes you look rich and successful. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy by Thomas J Stanley and William D Danko states that most American millionaires have never spent more than $300 on a suit. Proper Dressing Means Higher Confidence Levels Nirupa takes a more holistic view of dressing for workplace. She refers to studies, which show that being well groomed and well dressed has an impact on confidence levels. Im not sure it necessarily equates with an improvement in productivity, but it does help in creating a good impression and sending out the message that one is on top of things, she says. One study is Enclothed Cognition by Adam Galinsky and Hajo Adam, professors at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the US. They found subjects wearing a scientists or a doctors white coat performed better during the Stroop Test, which asks participants to say the colour of a word on a flash card, instead of the word itself. The professors concluded the group in lab coats performed better on conflicting flash cards, such as when blue is spelt in red lettersthe reason being lab coats are typically associated with care and attention, hence the wearers made only half as many errors as their peers. Dress According to The Occasion It is no secret that the tech sector and startups work in a very different environmentwearing a suit doesnt fit. But they too get into formals if the occasion demands it. James Caan CBE, CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw private equity firm and founder of the James Caan Foundation, narrates his experience, Last week I was in San Francisco at the Facebook campus, which employs 10,000 people. Not one person wore a suit. But occasion matters. Yesterday I was watching the news on Snapchat going public. The founders were at the stock exchange in suits and ties. Their working environment is casual, but its interesting to see that they dressed for the occasion to create the right impression. Startup founders concur that smart casuals at the workplace is an expected norm. With startups offering quirky HR policies, casuals ease the manner of functioning. Ashwani Rathore, CEO and founder of startup SpiderG says, When there are no compulsions to adopt a formal dress code at work, employees feel stress free. But its not that startups dont follow dress codes at all. Whenever we meet investors and partners, the senior management is always well turned out. At Qtrove.com, comfortable clothing is encouraged. As long as employees are happy and comfortable at work, there is less attrition and a better work culture, says Prashanth Agarajan, co-founder of Qtrove.com. There is a flip side to the cool young lot floating around in casuals in office. Girls are forever scanning new hairdos, trendy piercings and fashionable footwear. Purists ask if being in a formal dress code is pressure, isnt searching for the latest trends pressure too? Looking boring is as stressful as the need to constantly update style, they say. To some extent yes, says Madhavi from an advertising company. Sometimes girls look as if they are going to walk the ramp. From large feather laced earrings, tattoos to sleek chappals, its a race to stay contemporary. In such situations, the sari comes to the rescue of government officials. I love to wear cotton mix saris to work since they need no thought or maintenance, says Divya, who has been working at North Block for the past six years in a senior capacity. She believes a sari brings instant respect. The younger lot who find it cumbersome have resorted to palazzos with long kurtas. Its a relief to junk three-piece salwar suits. In our setup, western outfits are not the done thing and casuals, of course not, quips Divya. Dress Code Is Also A Bonding Tool Do not underestimate the dress codes importance as a bonding tool, says Anupam Chakrabarty, Managing Director, Lindstrom India. He refers to the book The Psychology of the Physical Environment in Offices and Factories while pointing out that the absence of a dress code excludes people from the team, breaking the cohesive nature of an inclusive workplace. The days I didnt wear my red T- shirt, I felt incomplete and out of place, Vishal recalls his days of working at Nirulas. It is obvious success at work depends much on how you dress to send out the right message. The X-factor is individuality. That little statement to differentiate the well-clad executive with style from the well-clad executives. But be carefultoo much of individuality could make your superiors and competitors insecure. Dressing well is an art, dressing right at the work place is another word for success. Men Your dressing style tells a story Outdated style: Rigid, not in sync with the present Bright outfits: Trendsetter, friendly, dynamic Bright outfits: Trendsetter, friendly, dynamic Ill-fitting clothes: Careless, thoughtless Classic black, grey and blue: Sophisticated, elegant and well-groomed Abstract prints: Bold, extrovert, individualistic Floral Prints: Sunny, extrovert Comfort casuals: Not ambitious, casual about career growth Crew neck vs V-neck: Crew neck lovers are logical, practical with no-nonsense approach. V-neck lovers are passionate, chilled out and follow their natural instincts. women Crisp cotton sarees: Perfectionist, timeless grace, consistent Georgette & silk sarees: Adaptable to change, in sync with changing times Well-tailored power suit: Competent, means business Red dress/red lipstick: Confident Pastels & subtle make-up: Cautious, unassuming Pallazos: Trendy, amiable Fusion clothing: Inclined to experiment Dressing Guidelines for the Workplace Some essential points to help in dressing for office Spectacles should neither be too tight nor too loose, otherwise youll be fiddling with them Wet hair is a strict no-no Let your bag reflect your personality. Classic bags are the best. Keep zipped for neatness. Strong perfume or cologne is a big no Shoes should be polished and worn with coordinated socks Your watch reflects your personality Rich colours portray authority, dark colours convey a stronger impression than light ones Neon and flashy clothes are distracting Dont let accessories take away the focus away from you; keep jewellery simple A smile gives a happy impression and disarms tricky situations Decoding Your Dressing Style BANKING Saris for senior management and ethnic wear for younger lot Corporates Ethnic to formal western wear Media: Smart casuals and semi-formalsjeans, cargos, collared T-shirts or half-sleeved shirts with Chinese collars and slim fits Women bosses Sari or Western formals Male CEOs Sharp suits with well-coordinated ties Workplace make-up Concealers, eye liners, bronzers and long-stay 9 to 5 lipsticks Big hit with younger working women The three-piece salwar-kameez replaced by lycra churidars and palazzos worn with kurtas of varying lengths Smart-casual footwear Sporty sandals, sleek chappals, suede brogues in bright colours and trendy sneakers have replaced the staid black or brown leather shoes Telling the time Smartwatch Milestones In Power Dressing 1910s: Suffragette suit replaced hobble skirt 1914: Chanel shaped the modern woman 1932: Pairing pants with womens suits by French designer Marcel Rochas 1940s: Rein of the Pachucas signifying female emancipation 1966: Bow tie takes over evening gowns. Enter Yves Saint Laurent with Le Smoking, the first tuxedo for women. 1970s: Dawn of the ubiquitous pant suit from The Male Stables 1980s: Power dressing at its feminine best with Giorgio Armani 1990s: Suits passe. Donna Karan hits style scene with softer, prettier look. 2010s: Death of the power suit. Write your own script, be your own designer in the age of anything goes. 2016 onwards: Fashionable, trendy. Its all about personal styling and identity. Power dressing means comfortable and timeless. Be yourself. Dowdiness is out. Sensible chic is in. Prime Minister Narendra Modis sartorial sense reflects changing times at the workplacetrendy waistcoats worn with immaculate kurtas and impeccably cut Nehru jackets with dashing pocket squares at formal functions have ejected the worn out notion that dressing responsibly is to dress boringly. And flights will no longer be fanciful for those wearing rubber slippers. Last week Modi said, I want to see people who wear Hawai chappal (flip flops) in a hawai jahaaz (airplane). Not to be outdone, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathseen only in orange robesgave a dressing down to his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and other ministers for suggesting school uniforms in government schools be changed to the colour saffron. Yogi also ordered staff to dress formally when coming to work. When John F Kennedy broke with tradition to wear a two-button suit for the first time on TV, the message that went out was that youth is power. Disgraced tycoon Vijay Mallyas flamboyant white suits and Boeing-sized ear studs were ridiculed in the corporate world, but Mark Zuckerbergs pullover and slacks do not belie the billionaires business acumen either. What is worn to work in these days of startups and work-from-home culture has an impact on career advancement and self-confidence. Dressing at work was simpler before. Top management preferred business suits in dark colours paired with a sober tie to the office or power lunches. The middle management wore suits too, which didnt attract too much attention. Factotums wore ties and shirts in pastel colours. What the rest had on didnt matter. Women wore saris. With power dressing as the rule today, Brooks Brothers suits signal globalisation. Women are slipping into pinstripe jackets, dark skirts and pants with the same confidence in the boardroom as at cocktail parties in a classic Cartier dress or an Abu Jaani-Sandeep Khosla sari. Ties make the big difference now, with bolder colours and patterns signalling work fashion. Earlier the memo was authority, now it is confidence with style. In IT companies, casual is the new formal, as different skill sets are brought together to create a new office environment. Creating the right impression Early on in my career I didnt pay too much attention to what I wore and how, says Nirupa Shankar, Director, Brigade Hospitality Services Ltd. At 22, I was eager to shine at work. Nothing else mattered. I was confident my quality of work would speak for itself. However, as I rose in the ranks, I had to create a positive perception, especially with clients and potential business partners. Creating a good first impression was about dressing smart and being well groomed. When he started out, Paritosh Ladhani, Executive Director, Brindavan Agro Industries Ltd & Radisson Blu Agra, thought a jacket was not necessary to give a capable, smart look. At 21, he would dress in a casual attire while making presentations to his leadership team. I realised that despite my weighty arguments, I was not able to convince people. They judged me on my clothes. I realised if Im not serious about what I wear, how will I be serious about my responsibilities, he says. However, he does not think being dressed immaculately guarantees success. But he is sure it will have better impact. It is like having a fit body, he says. I would pay more attention to a well-dressed CEO with similar knowledge and expertise to one not so well turned out. While no direct linkage to attire and productivity has been established, confidence the right clothes bring to attitude, approach and outlook plays a part in success. It translates into a better career graph, reiterates Kiran Yadav, Director, Human Resources, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Co. Ltd. Clothes are Brand Statements The right clothes add seriousness to the executives profile. Sonica Malhotra, Joint Managing Director, MBD Group, agrees. Im very aggressive about my professional deliveries, and the way I dress speaks that language, she says. HR experts believe confidence affects productivity. We send out non-verbal cues to existing and potential clients as well as colleagues, on the basis of which they form an image of us. It underscores how appearance influences opinion and decisions, says Kiran. Appropriate attire is branding by another name. As a leader, how you dress reflects your brand, says Amruda Nair, Joint Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aiana Hotels and Resorts. She likes to wear jackets with Indian motifs and embroidery since she believes Aiana is an Indian-inspired hotel brand that promotes local textiles and crafts. If I can be my hotels brand ambassador, it works the best for me, she adds. A study by Dr Karen Pine, professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and fashion psychologist points out, When we put on an item of clothing, it is common for the wearer to adopt the characteristics associated with that garment. Clothes Define Your Attitude The key is to wear right kind of clothes, neither shabby nor overdone. Fashion designer Archana Kochhar couldnt agree more. When I dress casual and laidback, it reflects my mood thensluggish and unproductive. I like to dress up and create my own style statement everyday when I come to work. Being from the fashion industry, its expected of you to look your best at work, especially while dealing with clients or attending an event. Right Attire Doesnt Mean Expensive Attire Ladhani clarifies that dressing well does not mean expensive. It is a misconception that a thousand dollar suit makes an executive appear productive, efficient and reliable, or spending thousands on a suit that makes you look rich and successful. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy by Thomas J Stanley and William D Danko states that most American millionaires have never spent more than $300 on a suit. Proper Dressing Means Higher Confidence Levels Nirupa takes a more holistic view of dressing for workplace. She refers to studies, which show that being well groomed and well dressed has an impact on confidence levels. Im not sure it necessarily equates with an improvement in productivity, but it does help in creating a good impression and sending out the message that one is on top of things, she says. One study is Enclothed Cognition by Adam Galinsky and Hajo Adam, professors at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the US. They found subjects wearing a scientists or a doctors white coat performed better during the Stroop Test, which asks participants to say the colour of a word on a flash card, instead of the word itself. The professors concluded the group in lab coats performed better on conflicting flash cards, such as when blue is spelt in red lettersthe reason being lab coats are typically associated with care and attention, hence the wearers made only half as many errors as their peers. Dress According to The Occasion It is no secret that the tech sector and startups work in a very different environmentwearing a suit doesnt fit. But they too get into formals if the occasion demands it. James Caan CBE, CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw private equity firm and founder of the James Caan Foundation, narrates his experience, Last week I was in San Francisco at the Facebook campus, which employs 10,000 people. Not one person wore a suit. But occasion matters. Yesterday I was watching the news on Snapchat going public. The founders were at the stock exchange in suits and ties. Their working environment is casual, but its interesting to see that they dressed for the occasion to create the right impression. Startup founders concur that smart casuals at the workplace is an expected norm. With startups offering quirky HR policies, casuals ease the manner of functioning. Ashwani Rathore, CEO and founder of startup SpiderG says, When there are no compulsions to adopt a formal dress code at work, employees feel stress free. But its not that startups dont follow dress codes at all. Whenever we meet investors and partners, the senior management is always well turned out. At Qtrove.com, comfortable clothing is encouraged. As long as employees are happy and comfortable at work, there is less attrition and a better work culture, says Prashanth Agarajan, co-founder of Qtrove.com. There is a flip side to the cool young lot floating around in casuals in office. Girls are forever scanning new hairdos, trendy piercings and fashionable footwear. Purists ask if being in a formal dress code is pressure, isnt searching for the latest trends pressure too? Looking boring is as stressful as the need to constantly update style, they say. To some extent yes, says Madhavi from an advertising company. Sometimes girls look as if they are going to walk the ramp. From large feather laced earrings, tattoos to sleek chappals, its a race to stay contemporary. In such situations, the sari comes to the rescue of government officials. I love to wear cotton mix saris to work since they need no thought or maintenance, says Divya, who has been working at North Block for the past six years in a senior capacity. She believes a sari brings instant respect. The younger lot who find it cumbersome have resorted to palazzos with long kurtas. Its a relief to junk three-piece salwar suits. In our setup, western outfits are not the done thing and casuals, of course not, quips Divya. Dress Code Is Also A Bonding Tool Do not underestimate the dress codes importance as a bonding tool, says Anupam Chakrabarty, Managing Director, Lindstrom India. He refers to the book The Psychology of the Physical Environment in Offices and Factories while pointing out that the absence of a dress code excludes people from the team, breaking the cohesive nature of an inclusive workplace. The days I didnt wear my red T- shirt, I felt incomplete and out of place, Vishal recalls his days of working at Nirulas. It is obvious success at work depends much on how you dress to send out the right message. The X-factor is individuality. That little statement to differentiate the well-clad executive with style from the well-clad executives. But be carefultoo much of individuality could make your superiors and competitors insecure. Dressing well is an art, dressing right at the work place is another word for success. Men Your dressing style tells a story Outdated style: Rigid, not in sync with the present Bright outfits: Trendsetter, friendly, dynamic Bright outfits: Trendsetter, friendly, dynamic Ill-fitting clothes: Careless, thoughtless Classic black, grey and blue: Sophisticated, elegant and well-groomed Abstract prints: Bold, extrovert, individualistic Floral Prints: Sunny, extrovert Comfort casuals: Not ambitious, casual about career growth Crew neck vs V-neck: Crew neck lovers are logical, practical with no-nonsense approach. V-neck lovers are passionate, chilled out and follow their natural instincts. women Crisp cotton sarees: Perfectionist, timeless grace, consistent Georgette & silk sarees: Adaptable to change, in sync with changing times Well-tailored power suit: Competent, means business Red dress/red lipstick: Confident Pastels & subtle make-up: Cautious, unassuming Pallazos: Trendy, amiable Fusion clothing: Inclined to experiment Dressing Guidelines for the Workplace Some essential points to help in dressing for office Spectacles should neither be too tight nor too loose, otherwise youll be fiddling with them Wet hair is a strict no-no Let your bag reflect your personality. Classic bags are the best. Keep zipped for neatness. Strong perfume or cologne is a big no Shoes should be polished and worn with coordinated socks Your watch reflects your personality Rich colours portray authority, dark colours convey a stronger impression than light ones Neon and flashy clothes are distracting Dont let accessories take away the focus away from you; keep jewellery simple A smile gives a happy impression and disarms tricky situations Decoding Your Dressing Style BANKING Saris for senior management and ethnic wear for younger lot Corporates Ethnic to formal western wear Media: Smart casuals and semi-formalsjeans, cargos, collared T-shirts or half-sleeved shirts with Chinese collars and slim fits Women bosses Sari or Western formals Male CEOs Sharp suits with well-coordinated ties Workplace make-up Concealers, eye liners, bronzers and long-stay 9 to 5 lipsticks Big hit with younger working women The three-piece salwar-kameez replaced by lycra churidars and palazzos worn with kurtas of varying lengths Smart-casual footwear Sporty sandals, sleek chappals, suede brogues in bright colours and trendy sneakers have replaced the staid black or brown leather shoes Telling the time Smartwatch Milestones In Power Dressing 1910s: Suffragette suit replaced hobble skirt 1914: Chanel shaped the modern woman 1932: Pairing pants with womens suits by French designer Marcel Rochas 1940s: Rein of the Pachucas signifying female emancipation 1966: Bow tie takes over evening gowns. Enter Yves Saint Laurent with Le Smoking, the first tuxedo for women. 1970s: Dawn of the ubiquitous pant suit from The Male Stables 1980s: Power dressing at its feminine best with Giorgio Armani 1990s: Suits passe. Donna Karan hits style scene with softer, prettier look. 2010s: Death of the power suit. Write your own script, be your own designer in the age of anything goes. 2016 onwards: Fashionable, trendy. Its all about personal styling and identity. Power dressing means comfortable and timeless. Be yourself. Women of faith are given far less credit than they are due. This past week, St. Pauls United Methodist Church celebrated the 23 years of service that Rev. Marianne Niesen has shared with Helena, she will retire June 30th. She is the first female pastor to serve St. Pauls. Rev. Niesen began her career as a Franciscan Nun. Through her ministry, she discerned a call to preach and teach, both of which she could not fulfill in the church of her birth. Her Franciscan sisters supported her financially by sending her to graduate school and then Rev. Niesen bravely stepped into a new tradition who embraced her God given gifts. This brave step of faith would send her outside her own tradition and give us an example of the faithful leaps women are called to take more often than men. Women leaders have given me spiritual direction over and over. I would not be a pastor without faithful women guiding me back to religion as an institution capable of cultivating spiritual and God given gifts in people. According to a 2014 Pew research study American women are more likely than men to say that religion is very important (60 percent vs. 47 percent). American women are more likely to pray (64 percent vs. 47 percent) and to attend a religious service (40 percent vs. 32 percent). Clearly, women understand the need for spiritual guidance and support needed by our churches and communities of faith, and they seem to understand it better than men. The past two religion articles I have written both highlighted the depth to which I am concerned about the entrenchment formed by deepening ideologies in our nation. Each day we see this division continue to play out in our national media. We saw it develop rifts in our own Montana legislative session again this year. The statistic I continue to highlight comes from another Pew Research Center study comparing political views from 1994 and 2014. Twenty-three years ago, Democratic and Republican officials were more similar in their voting. In 1994, 16 percent of Democrats and 17 percent of Republicans viewed their opponents unfavorably. Those numbers more than doubled 20 years later to 38 and 43 percent, respectively. More concerning is that the research added a new category in 2014 to reveal that 27 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans now view their opponents as a threat to the national well-being. I firmly believe our faith communities are going to play a vital role in demonstrating and developing ways to fill in our entrenchment and redeem us from divisiveness. It is only in a religious community that we are asked to set aside our differences so we can come together and learn from God. In my own tradition, Jesus invites us to learn the way in which we will live in grace with one another. In the Christian scriptures, within the Gospel of John is the story of the Samaritan woman. This woman who had been cast aside by so many men, is the first person outside Jesus own faith that he calls to be a disciple. Not only that, but he calls her to go and speak with a people that the Jews of Jesus day were not supposed to agree with on anything, the Samaritans. Samaritans and Jews disagreed on even which temple God was actually located in, but Jesus calls her anyway because he knows the truth. The truth is that nothing can separate us from what God calls us to be, and from the Christian tradition, it is clear God calls us to be a people that love our neighbor and love God, the rest of Christianity is just a footnote to this the greatest commandment. Women will play a vital role in the redemptive work of healing our society. They are the ones most well versed in overcoming boundaries and barriers. Women understand the need to step beyond the faith of our birth into new understandings in the service of God. They understand the words of Martin Luther King Jr. who said, But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men. We need to give women of faith the credit they deserve. Women are the ones holding our communities of faith together and I pray we listen to women as we follow God in the redemptive work needed in our nation. If we listen, God might be able to bring about miracles in the hearts of men. Tyler Amundson is a pastor at St. Paul's United Methodist Church and serves the Helena area United Methodist congregations. His primary area of ministry is working to reach young adults, and to assist the congregations in serving their community. Tyler is a native of Helena and is thankful to be serving under the Big Sky. By Express News Service BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh (MP) government on Friday turned down Guna additional district magistrate (ADM) Niyaz Khans request to stay a month at Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai, where gangster Abu Salem is lodged, for his upcoming fiction novel 'Love Demands Blood.' According to key sources in the general administration department (GAD) of the MP government in Bhopal, Khans written request on March 28 was turned down. Sources close to Niyaz Khan told the New Indian Express that the administrative official will decide his future course of action after receiving the GAD rejection. After studying why it was rejected, Khan is likely to write to the State chief secretary. On March 28, Khan had written to the State's GAD via the Guna district collector for a month's leave and stay at the Taloja Central Jail to do research work for his fiction novel 'Love Demands Blood,' which is inspired by Abu Salem and film actor Monica Bedis love story. Meanwhile, Khan's request to the State government invited the ire of the saffron brigade on Friday as a delegation of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) went to the Guna collector's office and submitted a memorandum addressed to the President of India and the MP Governor. In the memorandum signed by Guna VHP secretary Pramod Bhargava, the saffron group termed the request wrong as Salem is accused in several cases, including the 1993 Mumbai blasts.VHP activists demanded that a probe be conducted to ascertain why the administrative official even thought of writing a book on Abu Salem. "If he was so eager to pen a book, he could have penned a book inspired by legendary personalities, who attained martyrdom for the country," read the memorandum.The VHP memorandum added that if Khan is allowed permission to stay in jail with Salem, then in the future he could even seek permission to go to Pakistan write a book inspired by the love life of most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim and former Bollywood actor Mandakini. Meanwhile, a VHP leader, Suresh Sharma, wrote on social media that it would have been better if the ADM would have spent a month with families of those soldiers who attained martyrdom fighting for the country on the border. The officer who has been part of the MP government for the last 20 years had written that to complete his thriller, he needed to stay in the same jail where as Salem. He also needed to closely research on key points, including whether Abu Salem repents his alleged crimes, does he still treasure his relationship with Monica Bedi and among others. "I've already completed around 80% of my novel which is not at all Salem's biography, but an action packed crime thriller inspired by the love life of the gangster and Monica Bedi," Niyaz Khan had earlier said. Since 2011, Khan has penned four books, The Ocean of Bliss, Confessions at Black Grave, Untold Secrets of My Ashram and Destiny in Drugs. Ejaz Kaiser By Express News Service RAIPUR: Chief minister Raman Singh on Friday emphasised on the need to win the locals confidence and form a district-level unified operation command in Maoist-affected districts of Chhattisgarh, at the State secretariat here. Reviewing the anti-Maoist strategy during the State-Level Unified Command Meeting convened by him, Singh said that the district level meeting should be held at regular intervals to analyse and revise strategies to counter left-wing extremism. The meeting will jointly be supervised and evaluated by the respective superintendent of police and senior officers of the deployed central paramilitary forces. A joint training centre should also be set up for the troops of the central and State forces at Sukma and Bijapur, he suggested at the meeting attended by top officials from the State police and paramilitary forces. Sukma and Bijapur are among the seven worst Maoist-affected districts in south Bastar. A group of 50-60 jawans of the central and State forces could be trained for 3-5 days to enable better coordination at the village level. Senior officers should be posted at places where the security personnel are deployed, he suggested. In an attempt to alleviate the trust-deficit with the local tribal population, Raman Singh felt the greater need to infuse a sense of security among the villagers. He directed them to implement social welfare development schemes soon, with priorities on education, health, drinking water facilities, telecom network, roads and electricity. The discussion on area domination by the forces came up with a suggestion to enhance its expansion and impact. Sixteen of Chattisgarhs 21 districts have Maoist presence. After the meeting, Chhattisgarh director general of police A N Upadhaya said that all agencies engaged in anti-Maoist operations shared their concerns. The operations will continue as usual but most of the exercises are going to be joint, he said. RAIPUR: Chief minister Raman Singh on Friday emphasised on the need to win the locals confidence and form a district-level unified operation command in Maoist-affected districts of Chhattisgarh, at the State secretariat here. Reviewing the anti-Maoist strategy during the State-Level Unified Command Meeting convened by him, Singh said that the district level meeting should be held at regular intervals to analyse and revise strategies to counter left-wing extremism. The meeting will jointly be supervised and evaluated by the respective superintendent of police and senior officers of the deployed central paramilitary forces. A joint training centre should also be set up for the troops of the central and State forces at Sukma and Bijapur, he suggested at the meeting attended by top officials from the State police and paramilitary forces. Sukma and Bijapur are among the seven worst Maoist-affected districts in south Bastar. A group of 50-60 jawans of the central and State forces could be trained for 3-5 days to enable better coordination at the village level. Senior officers should be posted at places where the security personnel are deployed, he suggested. In an attempt to alleviate the trust-deficit with the local tribal population, Raman Singh felt the greater need to infuse a sense of security among the villagers. He directed them to implement social welfare development schemes soon, with priorities on education, health, drinking water facilities, telecom network, roads and electricity. The discussion on area domination by the forces came up with a suggestion to enhance its expansion and impact. Sixteen of Chattisgarhs 21 districts have Maoist presence. After the meeting, Chhattisgarh director general of police A N Upadhaya said that all agencies engaged in anti-Maoist operations shared their concerns. The operations will continue as usual but most of the exercises are going to be joint, he said. Anand ST Das By Express News Service PATNA: Bihars ruling alliance experienced tremors on Saturday after a tape of a conversation purportedly between RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and jailed don-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin surfaced, exposing what many say is a criminal government nexus. The audio tape, which was aired by a newly launched English TV news channel, has Shahabuddin, a former RJD MP and dreaded criminal currently in Delhis Tihar jail, speaking with Lalu Yadav from Bhagalpur jail on April 15, 2016, and asking him to remove then Siwan SP, Saurabh Kumar Sah. Khatam hai bhai aap ka yeh SP. (This SP posted by your government is useless, brother!) Remove them all Theyll start a riot, Shahabuddin, a four-term MP from Siwan who has been been convicted in five criminal cases and is undergoing a life term, is heard telling Yadav. This call, which Shahabuddin allegedly made through a mobile phone from the jail in violation of rules, was during Ram Navami celebrations and heavy police deployment in Siwan, the dons hometown. After listening to him, Lalu Yadav is heard asking someone near him to bring the Siwan SP on line to talk with him. The main Opposition BJP immediately lapped up the revelation and demanded that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar initiate action against his ally Lalu Yadav by lodging a criminal case against him and seeking cancellation of his bail in a fodder scam case in which he was convicted in 2013. A delegation of senior BJP leaders led by former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi met Governor Ramnath Kovind and handed him a charter of demands in this regard. While both Kumar and Lalu Yadav remained tight-lipped throughout the day, JD(U) spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar said despite the tape, whose authenticity he did not dispute, the rule of law was intact in Bihar. Everyone can see that the SP of Siwan at the time of this phone call still remains the SP of Siwan. The Nitish Kumar-led government did not remove him. The rule of law is of paramount importance for this government, he said. Kumar sought a report from DGP P K Thakur on the authenticity of the tape and its contents, said sources. Lalu Yadav, whose RJD is the biggest constituent of the three-party alliance government Kumar leads, was reportedly shaken by the tapes emergence and did not step out of his residence throughout the day. Congress, the third and smallest constituent of Bihars ruling alliance, was ill at ease by the revelations. Congress spokesperson and MLA Ashok Ram said the tapes authenticity must be verified first. RJDs national spokesperson Manoj Jha also echoed the view and tweeted: Areca nut journalism set by @republic. Channel's reporter took my reaction bt preferred nt 2 air becoz it wud have upset their scheme." Despite the uproar, RJD refused to take action against Shahabuddin, who was nominated by Lalu Yadav as the partys vice-president last year though he was convicted and in jail at the time. Annoyed by media questions, former RJD MP Jagadanand Singh said: Unko nahin nikalenge (We will not expel him from the party.) This is what I am telling the entire nation and the media." It is high time Nitish Kumar took action against Lalu Yadav to put an end to this criminal government nexus, said senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, hinting that the saffron party would use the issue against Bihars grand alliance government. PATNA: Bihars ruling alliance experienced tremors on Saturday after a tape of a conversation purportedly between RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and jailed don-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin surfaced, exposing what many say is a criminal government nexus. The audio tape, which was aired by a newly launched English TV news channel, has Shahabuddin, a former RJD MP and dreaded criminal currently in Delhis Tihar jail, speaking with Lalu Yadav from Bhagalpur jail on April 15, 2016, and asking him to remove then Siwan SP, Saurabh Kumar Sah. Khatam hai bhai aap ka yeh SP. (This SP posted by your government is useless, brother!) Remove them all Theyll start a riot, Shahabuddin, a four-term MP from Siwan who has been been convicted in five criminal cases and is undergoing a life term, is heard telling Yadav. This call, which Shahabuddin allegedly made through a mobile phone from the jail in violation of rules, was during Ram Navami celebrations and heavy police deployment in Siwan, the dons hometown. After listening to him, Lalu Yadav is heard asking someone near him to bring the Siwan SP on line to talk with him. The main Opposition BJP immediately lapped up the revelation and demanded that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar initiate action against his ally Lalu Yadav by lodging a criminal case against him and seeking cancellation of his bail in a fodder scam case in which he was convicted in 2013. A delegation of senior BJP leaders led by former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi met Governor Ramnath Kovind and handed him a charter of demands in this regard. While both Kumar and Lalu Yadav remained tight-lipped throughout the day, JD(U) spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar said despite the tape, whose authenticity he did not dispute, the rule of law was intact in Bihar. Everyone can see that the SP of Siwan at the time of this phone call still remains the SP of Siwan. The Nitish Kumar-led government did not remove him. The rule of law is of paramount importance for this government, he said. Kumar sought a report from DGP P K Thakur on the authenticity of the tape and its contents, said sources. Lalu Yadav, whose RJD is the biggest constituent of the three-party alliance government Kumar leads, was reportedly shaken by the tapes emergence and did not step out of his residence throughout the day. Congress, the third and smallest constituent of Bihars ruling alliance, was ill at ease by the revelations. Congress spokesperson and MLA Ashok Ram said the tapes authenticity must be verified first. RJDs national spokesperson Manoj Jha also echoed the view and tweeted: Areca nut journalism set by @republic. Channel's reporter took my reaction bt preferred nt 2 air becoz it wud have upset their scheme." Despite the uproar, RJD refused to take action against Shahabuddin, who was nominated by Lalu Yadav as the partys vice-president last year though he was convicted and in jail at the time. Annoyed by media questions, former RJD MP Jagadanand Singh said: Unko nahin nikalenge (We will not expel him from the party.) This is what I am telling the entire nation and the media." It is high time Nitish Kumar took action against Lalu Yadav to put an end to this criminal government nexus, said senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, hinting that the saffron party would use the issue against Bihars grand alliance government. By ANI NEW DELHI: Retorting to the reports of banned Pakistani and Saudi Arabia TV channels being illegally aired in Kashmiri homes and indulging in anti-India propaganda, the Congress Party on Saturday urged the Centre to take cognizance of the situation and stop the telecast of such provocative content. Congress leader P.L. Punia demanded that the Union Government should take action stringent against the guilty. Situation in Jammu and Kashmir is very vulnerable and fragile and in such conditions airing of such channel is dangerous. I believe that the central government is aware of this fact and should soon should take necessary steps in the regard and stop these channels from being aired in Jammu and Kashmir and the guilty should be prosecuted, Punia told ANI. Treading similar paths, Communist Party of India (CPI) condemned the report and urged foreign media to not meddle in internal affairs of India. I strongly condemn this. Foreign media should not meddle in our affairs and should not take anti-India position like this. It s highly objectionable and we strongly disapprove the airing of such anti-India versions in Jammu and Kashmir which is in great turmoil, CPI leader D.Raja told ANI. Reports of over 50 Saudi and Pakistani channels, including Zakir Naik's banned Peace TV+ preaching Salafist Islam, and others indulging in anti-India propaganda are running without necessary clearances via private cable networks in Kashmir have come up. Besides Naik's Peace TV Urdu and English channels, private operators air Saudi and Pakistani channels like Saudi Sunnah, Saudi Quran, Al Arabia, Paigham, Hidayat, Noor, Madani, Sehar, Karbala, Hadi, Sehar, Ary QTV , Bethat, Ahlibat, Message, Falak, Geo News, Ary News, Dawn News, and many others, which cannot be accessed through satellite television service providers. None of these channels is permitted to air in the rest of the country by the I&B ministry. NEW DELHI: Retorting to the reports of banned Pakistani and Saudi Arabia TV channels being illegally aired in Kashmiri homes and indulging in anti-India propaganda, the Congress Party on Saturday urged the Centre to take cognizance of the situation and stop the telecast of such provocative content. Congress leader P.L. Punia demanded that the Union Government should take action stringent against the guilty. Situation in Jammu and Kashmir is very vulnerable and fragile and in such conditions airing of such channel is dangerous. I believe that the central government is aware of this fact and should soon should take necessary steps in the regard and stop these channels from being aired in Jammu and Kashmir and the guilty should be prosecuted, Punia told ANI. Treading similar paths, Communist Party of India (CPI) condemned the report and urged foreign media to not meddle in internal affairs of India. I strongly condemn this. Foreign media should not meddle in our affairs and should not take anti-India position like this. It s highly objectionable and we strongly disapprove the airing of such anti-India versions in Jammu and Kashmir which is in great turmoil, CPI leader D.Raja told ANI. Reports of over 50 Saudi and Pakistani channels, including Zakir Naik's banned Peace TV+ preaching Salafist Islam, and others indulging in anti-India propaganda are running without necessary clearances via private cable networks in Kashmir have come up. Besides Naik's Peace TV Urdu and English channels, private operators air Saudi and Pakistani channels like Saudi Sunnah, Saudi Quran, Al Arabia, Paigham, Hidayat, Noor, Madani, Sehar, Karbala, Hadi, Sehar, Ary QTV , Bethat, Ahlibat, Message, Falak, Geo News, Ary News, Dawn News, and many others, which cannot be accessed through satellite television service providers. None of these channels is permitted to air in the rest of the country by the I&B ministry. Ejaz Kaiser By Express News Service RAIPUR: Deputy Jailer Varsha Dongre posted at Raipur Central Jail was suspended for indiscipline on Saturday. In a Facebook post, she had alleged that the State police resort to "third-degree torture and atrocities" on young tribal girls at police stations. The Chhattisgarh government, irked over the remarks, has sought an inquiry against Dongre and the allegations she has levelled on Facebook. The post in Hindi, which she deleted after raking up a controversy, further asserted that the Maoist menace will continue as long as the corporate and capitalist system is being enforced in Bastar and the local tribals are pushed out of their lands. Varsha Dongre failed to respond to the notice, which she claimed of having not received. Her allegations shocked many and she also revealed that tribal villages were burnt, women tortured and raped in Maoist-affected areas. She uploaded her post a week after the deadly Maoist attack at Burkapal in Sukma in which 25 CRPF jawans were killed. Varsha Dongre was asked to explain why and on what basis she had written the controversial contents on her Facebook post. We have the acknowledgement of notice being received by her. Instead of responding she left the jail premises without permission. A day later she sent a mail of being away on a two-day leave. She was asked to join duty immediately as she had proceeded on leave without any approval and present her case before the investigation team. But she didnt comply and was subsequently suspended on grounds of indiscipline, K K Gupta, DIG (Jail) who was inquiring into Dongres post told the New Indian Express. The officer further added that she wrote personal remarks despite clear guidelines framed for government officials to desist from making such comments without any ground. Varsha Dongre had also created difficulties for the State government when she filed a petition in the High Court against the alleged corruption and irregularities in the examinations conducted by the Chhattisgarh public service commission in 2007. RAIPUR: Deputy Jailer Varsha Dongre posted at Raipur Central Jail was suspended for indiscipline on Saturday. In a Facebook post, she had alleged that the State police resort to "third-degree torture and atrocities" on young tribal girls at police stations. The Chhattisgarh government, irked over the remarks, has sought an inquiry against Dongre and the allegations she has levelled on Facebook. The post in Hindi, which she deleted after raking up a controversy, further asserted that the Maoist menace will continue as long as the corporate and capitalist system is being enforced in Bastar and the local tribals are pushed out of their lands. Varsha Dongre failed to respond to the notice, which she claimed of having not received. Her allegations shocked many and she also revealed that tribal villages were burnt, women tortured and raped in Maoist-affected areas. She uploaded her post a week after the deadly Maoist attack at Burkapal in Sukma in which 25 CRPF jawans were killed. Varsha Dongre was asked to explain why and on what basis she had written the controversial contents on her Facebook post. We have the acknowledgement of notice being received by her. Instead of responding she left the jail premises without permission. A day later she sent a mail of being away on a two-day leave. She was asked to join duty immediately as she had proceeded on leave without any approval and present her case before the investigation team. But she didnt comply and was subsequently suspended on grounds of indiscipline, K K Gupta, DIG (Jail) who was inquiring into Dongres post told the New Indian Express. The officer further added that she wrote personal remarks despite clear guidelines framed for government officials to desist from making such comments without any ground. Varsha Dongre had also created difficulties for the State government when she filed a petition in the High Court against the alleged corruption and irregularities in the examinations conducted by the Chhattisgarh public service commission in 2007. By Express News Service MUMBAI: BJP MLA Dr Vijaykumar Gavit from Nandurbar in North Maharashtra has been indicted in a scam involving siphoning off funds of the tribal welfare department and corporations under the department between 2004 and 2009. A public interest litigation (PIL) pending before the Bombay High Court had demanded a high-level inquiry into the alleged scam of Rs 6,000 crore, and action under the criminal procedure code against Gavit, who was then with the NCP and was tribal welfare minister in the erstwhile UPA government in the State. As per the directives of the High Court, the State government had appointed a five-member committee under Justice (Retd.) MG Gaikwad on April 15, 2014. In its over 3,000 page report submitted to the Court recently, the committee is said to have indicted Vijaykumar Gavit along with at least 50 officials of the Maharashtra government. The tribal welfare department under Gavit implemented welfare schemes in an inappropriate manner. Contractors, instead of State government or tribal welfare officers prepared several of the departments schemes. This caused heavy losses to the State exchequer, the committee has found. In several cases the tendering process was not followed, while in many others the selection of beneficiaries was not carried out with due diligence, the committee reported. The petition pending before the High Court had also accused Babanrao Pachpute, former NCP State president and Gavits successor who is now with BJP, former minister of State Rajendra Gavit (Congress) and Vijaykumar Gavits brother Sharad Gavit. However, no evidence has been found against the three, the committee said and has blamed Gavit for alleged irregularities in purchase, transportation, and supply of oil pumps for tribal farms. The executive committee of the then tribal development corporation chaired by Gavit, has been indicted in contract allocations for transportation and fitting of oil pumps. Meanwhile, the Congress has said that the State government had received this report about four months ago and questioned why no action has been taken against Vijaykumar Gavit. "The UP government had taken action against Gavit. He was removed from the post after the allegations were levelled against him, and the inquiry too had been ordered by the UPA. The BJP that had demanded Gavit's resignation back them now appears to be shielding him," said MPCC spokesperson Sachin Sawant. MUMBAI: BJP MLA Dr Vijaykumar Gavit from Nandurbar in North Maharashtra has been indicted in a scam involving siphoning off funds of the tribal welfare department and corporations under the department between 2004 and 2009. A public interest litigation (PIL) pending before the Bombay High Court had demanded a high-level inquiry into the alleged scam of Rs 6,000 crore, and action under the criminal procedure code against Gavit, who was then with the NCP and was tribal welfare minister in the erstwhile UPA government in the State. As per the directives of the High Court, the State government had appointed a five-member committee under Justice (Retd.) MG Gaikwad on April 15, 2014. In its over 3,000 page report submitted to the Court recently, the committee is said to have indicted Vijaykumar Gavit along with at least 50 officials of the Maharashtra government. The tribal welfare department under Gavit implemented welfare schemes in an inappropriate manner. Contractors, instead of State government or tribal welfare officers prepared several of the departments schemes. This caused heavy losses to the State exchequer, the committee has found. In several cases the tendering process was not followed, while in many others the selection of beneficiaries was not carried out with due diligence, the committee reported. The petition pending before the High Court had also accused Babanrao Pachpute, former NCP State president and Gavits successor who is now with BJP, former minister of State Rajendra Gavit (Congress) and Vijaykumar Gavits brother Sharad Gavit. However, no evidence has been found against the three, the committee said and has blamed Gavit for alleged irregularities in purchase, transportation, and supply of oil pumps for tribal farms. The executive committee of the then tribal development corporation chaired by Gavit, has been indicted in contract allocations for transportation and fitting of oil pumps. Meanwhile, the Congress has said that the State government had received this report about four months ago and questioned why no action has been taken against Vijaykumar Gavit. "The UP government had taken action against Gavit. He was removed from the post after the allegations were levelled against him, and the inquiry too had been ordered by the UPA. The BJP that had demanded Gavit's resignation back them now appears to be shielding him," said MPCC spokesperson Sachin Sawant. By PTI NEW DELHI: Justice (retd) Leila Seth, the first woman chief justice of a state high court in the country and mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, has died. She was 86 and passed away last night at her residence in Noida. "She died of cardiac seizure last night, at about 10:28 PM. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here," her son Shantum Seth told PTI. "About three weeks ago, she had fallen down and fractured her hip. She had undergone a surgery at Apollo Hospital and was discharged a week ago. We called the PCR, the ambulance but it was too late," he said. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman to have topped the London Bar exam, first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). Also Read: Vice President, PM Modi condole Leila Seth's demise Seth was also one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted in 2012 to recommend amendments to the Criminal Law so as to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women, post the gruesome December 16 gangrape in Delhi. The eminent jurist, the mother of "A Suitable Boy" writer, was herself an author and her autobiography 'On Balance' was a bestseller. Seth had also authored 'Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India', published in 2014, which talked of several critical issues that she had engaged with in a legal career spanning over 50 years. NEW DELHI: Justice (retd) Leila Seth, the first woman chief justice of a state high court in the country and mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, has died. She was 86 and passed away last night at her residence in Noida. "She died of cardiac seizure last night, at about 10:28 PM. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here," her son Shantum Seth told PTI. "About three weeks ago, she had fallen down and fractured her hip. She had undergone a surgery at Apollo Hospital and was discharged a week ago. We called the PCR, the ambulance but it was too late," he said. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman to have topped the London Bar exam, first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). Also Read: Vice President, PM Modi condole Leila Seth's demise Seth was also one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted in 2012 to recommend amendments to the Criminal Law so as to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women, post the gruesome December 16 gangrape in Delhi. The eminent jurist, the mother of "A Suitable Boy" writer, was herself an author and her autobiography 'On Balance' was a bestseller. Seth had also authored 'Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India', published in 2014, which talked of several critical issues that she had engaged with in a legal career spanning over 50 years. Aishik Chanda By Express News Service KOLKATA: The Verdict of capital punishment to the Nirbhaya gangrape accused have brought renewed hopes to Kamduni village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, where the abduction, gangrape and murder of a 20-year-old girl in 2013 caused massive public outrage that earned it the name 'Bengal's Nirbhaya'. Some 9 men abducted a college student, who was given the pseudonym 'Aparajita', on her way back from college after writing an exam on June 7, 2013, afternoon. She was taken to a local factory where the accused gangraped her. The accused brutally assaulted her in a gory manner, slit her throat and disposed her body near a local waterbody. The village burst into protests and handed over the accused to the police. Nirbhaya's mother had called up the victim's mother and asked her to stay together and give moral support to each other. Due to the ferocity and the 'rarest of rare' nature of the crime, three of the nine accused were awarded capital punishment while the others were given life sentence by the district court, against which the defense prosecutor had appealed in the Calcutta High Court claiming that the CID investigation was biased. Now, Kamduni hopes that Calcutta High Court will uphold the local court's verdict after the Nirbhaya verdict. "Our parents still don't sleep well. They still wait for our sister to return and ask how she did in the exam. They need to take sleeping pills. They might get some relief if the accused are given capital punishment," a brother of the victim said. The family of daily-wage earners has taken a big hit for the expenses of getting justice. "We had to borrow a lot of money to run around to the Calcutta High Court. Only if the lower court's verdict is upheld then will we get justice. But justice is costing a lot. We don't know how long we can pull off like this," he added. However, locals of Kamduni don't want the girl's death to go in vain. "The Nirbhaya verdict has given us renewed hope. We would not let money be a factor for injustice. We would fight on till justice is delivered. After Nirbhaya, I hope the next justice is ours," said the face of Kamduni protests, housewife Tumpa Kayal. KOLKATA: The Verdict of capital punishment to the Nirbhaya gangrape accused have brought renewed hopes to Kamduni village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, where the abduction, gangrape and murder of a 20-year-old girl in 2013 caused massive public outrage that earned it the name 'Bengal's Nirbhaya'. Some 9 men abducted a college student, who was given the pseudonym 'Aparajita', on her way back from college after writing an exam on June 7, 2013, afternoon. She was taken to a local factory where the accused gangraped her. The accused brutally assaulted her in a gory manner, slit her throat and disposed her body near a local waterbody. The village burst into protests and handed over the accused to the police. Nirbhaya's mother had called up the victim's mother and asked her to stay together and give moral support to each other. Due to the ferocity and the 'rarest of rare' nature of the crime, three of the nine accused were awarded capital punishment while the others were given life sentence by the district court, against which the defense prosecutor had appealed in the Calcutta High Court claiming that the CID investigation was biased. Now, Kamduni hopes that Calcutta High Court will uphold the local court's verdict after the Nirbhaya verdict. "Our parents still don't sleep well. They still wait for our sister to return and ask how she did in the exam. They need to take sleeping pills. They might get some relief if the accused are given capital punishment," a brother of the victim said. The family of daily-wage earners has taken a big hit for the expenses of getting justice. "We had to borrow a lot of money to run around to the Calcutta High Court. Only if the lower court's verdict is upheld then will we get justice. But justice is costing a lot. We don't know how long we can pull off like this," he added. However, locals of Kamduni don't want the girl's death to go in vain. "The Nirbhaya verdict has given us renewed hope. We would not let money be a factor for injustice. We would fight on till justice is delivered. After Nirbhaya, I hope the next justice is ours," said the face of Kamduni protests, housewife Tumpa Kayal. Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGARl: With Kashmir on edge over civilian killings and students continuing anti-government protests, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday asserted that if anybody can solve the Kashmir issue, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the whole country would support his decision. If anybody can solve the Kashmir issue it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mehbooba said while addressing a gathering of people after inaugurating a flyover in Jammu, winter capital of the State. She said only PM Modi can help people of Jammu and Kashmir in these troubling circumstances and take them out of morass. He (PM) has got a strong mandate and whatever decision he takes, people of the country will support it. Mehbooba during her meeting with Prime Minister recently in national capital had pitched for talks with separatists and stone pelters. However, the central government has made it clear that there wont be any talks with separatists and stone pelters. Mehboobas party PDP has virtually lost its support base in south Kashmir after over five months of unrest last year. There is considerable anger against Mehbooba and her party in Valley for civilian killings by security forces during the unrest and her alliance with the saffron party. She now totally banks on PM Modis support for regaining her support base in the Valley. The J&K CM praised PMs courage of taking the risk of visiting Pakistan on December 25, 2015. The PM Modi took the decision and visited Pakistan and met his counterpart. It is the sign of strength and courage and not the sign of weakness, she said. Indirectly referring to ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mehbooba said the former PM also wished to visit Pakistan but did not dare to do so. He (the former PM) also would have tried to end the confrontation between the two countries and bring J&K out of this unfortunate situation, but he had no courage to do that, she said. Mehbooba said the situation in Kashmir is not good and blamed the previous Congress-led UPA government in the centre for the prevailing anger and alienation among people in Kashmir. The situation in Kashmir is tense especially after killing of eight civilians in security forces firing on protesters during by-polls to Srinagar parliamentary seat on April 9. The tension further escalated after security forces conducted a raid on a college in south Kashmirs Pulwama district on April 15. Since then Kashmir has been witnessing nearly daily student protests. Even today students staged massive protests in Handwara area of border district of Kuwpara. The students clashed with the security personnel and in retaliatory action by cops, over 40 students were injured. The UPA government did not continue the reconciliation policy started by previous NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajapayee in Jammu and Kashmir during her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's rule from 2002-2005, Mehbooba said. According to her, Vajpayee and her father tried to resolve the Kashmir but unfortunately no efforts were made by UPA-I and UPA II governments in centre. The UPA governments at the centre and the state government did not carry forward the dialogue process presuming that everything is peaceful in the State and nothing needs to be done, she said. On recent incident of cow vigilantes attacking a nomad family in Reasi district of Jammu province in which five people were injured, Mehbooba said nobody would be allowed to disturb the peaceful atmosphere and mischief mongers would be dealt with sternly. Whosoever takes law in own hands would be dealt with appropriately and cautioned people against nefarious designs of some negative elements who want to derail the developmental process in the province by creating an atmosphere of hate, she added. SRINAGARl: With Kashmir on edge over civilian killings and students continuing anti-government protests, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday asserted that if anybody can solve the Kashmir issue, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the whole country would support his decision. If anybody can solve the Kashmir issue it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mehbooba said while addressing a gathering of people after inaugurating a flyover in Jammu, winter capital of the State. She said only PM Modi can help people of Jammu and Kashmir in these troubling circumstances and take them out of morass. He (PM) has got a strong mandate and whatever decision he takes, people of the country will support it. Mehbooba during her meeting with Prime Minister recently in national capital had pitched for talks with separatists and stone pelters. However, the central government has made it clear that there wont be any talks with separatists and stone pelters. Mehboobas party PDP has virtually lost its support base in south Kashmir after over five months of unrest last year. There is considerable anger against Mehbooba and her party in Valley for civilian killings by security forces during the unrest and her alliance with the saffron party. She now totally banks on PM Modis support for regaining her support base in the Valley. The J&K CM praised PMs courage of taking the risk of visiting Pakistan on December 25, 2015. The PM Modi took the decision and visited Pakistan and met his counterpart. It is the sign of strength and courage and not the sign of weakness, she said. Indirectly referring to ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mehbooba said the former PM also wished to visit Pakistan but did not dare to do so. He (the former PM) also would have tried to end the confrontation between the two countries and bring J&K out of this unfortunate situation, but he had no courage to do that, she said. Mehbooba said the situation in Kashmir is not good and blamed the previous Congress-led UPA government in the centre for the prevailing anger and alienation among people in Kashmir. The situation in Kashmir is tense especially after killing of eight civilians in security forces firing on protesters during by-polls to Srinagar parliamentary seat on April 9. The tension further escalated after security forces conducted a raid on a college in south Kashmirs Pulwama district on April 15. Since then Kashmir has been witnessing nearly daily student protests. Even today students staged massive protests in Handwara area of border district of Kuwpara. The students clashed with the security personnel and in retaliatory action by cops, over 40 students were injured. The UPA government did not continue the reconciliation policy started by previous NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajapayee in Jammu and Kashmir during her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's rule from 2002-2005, Mehbooba said. According to her, Vajpayee and her father tried to resolve the Kashmir but unfortunately no efforts were made by UPA-I and UPA II governments in centre. The UPA governments at the centre and the state government did not carry forward the dialogue process presuming that everything is peaceful in the State and nothing needs to be done, she said. On recent incident of cow vigilantes attacking a nomad family in Reasi district of Jammu province in which five people were injured, Mehbooba said nobody would be allowed to disturb the peaceful atmosphere and mischief mongers would be dealt with sternly. Whosoever takes law in own hands would be dealt with appropriately and cautioned people against nefarious designs of some negative elements who want to derail the developmental process in the province by creating an atmosphere of hate, she added. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Taxing agricultural income has been a political taboo since Independence, but economist Bibek Debroys suggestion to the NITI Aayog is not without basis. Contrary to popular perception agricultural income is already being taxed in several states, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. In many of these cases, the tax is only on a certain kind of agricultural income, but it is taxed. In fact, several other states like UP and Rajasthan tried to implement a tax on agriculture but found that it did not result in any great increase in revenue, and so discontinued it. An agricultural income tax was an issue even in British India, and a committee was set up in 1925 to study whether it was feasible. In Independent India, the issue has been debated off and on since 1953-54. The K.N. Raj Committee report of 1972-73, called Taxation of Agricultural Wealth and Income, dealt with implementation issues. Agricultural income is exempt from tax only by default. It is not included under total income for tax purposes. The central government cannot impose a tax on agricultural income under an exemption clause mentioned under Section 10 (1) of the Income Tax Act of India. "My critics don't know that as recently as in 2002 there was a Kelkar Task Force report which estimated that if you use the existing threshold, 95 per cent of farmers would be below the tax threshold," Debroy said. Undeterred by the row stoked by his comments, Debroy is sticking to his guns that agricultural income should be taxed and says that the onus for this must be on the state governments. "I said that agricultural income should be taxed above a threshold. I also said it's a state subject and it's up to the states to do it. That was my position then and that is my position now," Debroy said. The economists remarks on April 25 raised the hackles of political parties including MPs of the ruling BJP who said such economists were not in touch with reality and did not know the problems of farmers. The very next day, finance minister Arun Jaitley stepped in to douse the fires by clarifying that the central government had no plans to impose any tax on agricultural income as it did not have the constitutional authority to do so. "The Finance Minister also said it is a state subject and the centre has no plans to tax agricultural income. How is it a contradiction to what I have said," Debroy wondered. He added that even Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian's remarks were in line with his statement. Subramanian restoked the debate when he said that nothing prevented state governments from taxing agriculture income as the constitutional restriction was only on the central government. A week after Debroy first made the remarks, NITI Aayog said in a statement that his suggestion to tax agricultural income was neither the view of the Aayog, nor it was part of the Draft Action Agenda document conceived by the planning body. A route to tax evasion While agricultural income is not taxable by the Income-Tax Department, it still has to be declared. IT returns show that 307 individuals declared an agricultural income of more than Rs 1 crore during fiscal 2014-15. Debroy said one company which earned a profit of Rs 215 crore and yet claimed exemption worth hundreds of crores as its income was from agricultural sources. "Now how is it reasonable to say that they should not pay taxes," he asks. Several irregularities have been declared in the use of the exemption clause in the Income Tax Act. In the assessment year 2014-15, the top 10 claimants for tax exemption of agricultural income included nine corporate companies. The other was a state government department. In 2014 Tax Administration Reform Commission report said, Agricultural income of non-agriculturists is being increasingly used as a conduit to avoid tax and for laundering funds, resulting in leakage to the tune of crores in revenue annually. FAQ When was income tax introduced? Income tax was first introduced in1886 under colonial rule. At that time agriculture was excluded from the tax computation because there were other levies in force on farmers. Who collected these levies? Agricultural levies were collected by the crown in the 19thcentury but in 1935 land revenue, and therefore agricultural income taxes, were was transferred to the provinces, which became states when India attained Independence. When we adopted the Constitution, agriculture was kept in the concurrent list, which allows states to make laws on the subject. Therefore states have always had the right to tax agriculture. How many people pay income tax in India? Only 39 million Indians out of a population of 1.2 billion pay income tax. That's no more than 6 per cent of the population. How many claim IT exemption for agricultural income? More than 400,000 taxpayers claimed exemption for agricultural income in the assessment year 2014-15. Which company claimed the highest exemption? Corporate seed company Kaveri Seeds reported a profit of 215 crore and sought exemption on Rs 186.63 crore. Which multinational company claimed IT exemption for farm income? Monsanto India, claimed Rs 94.40 crore as exemption from income tax. Can a corporate company claim IT exemption for farm income? The exemption clause in the Income Tax Act allows exemption to any entity, individual or corporate company, on income earned from agricultural land. Agro-companies are allowed tax relief under the same clause. Doesn't the government know about this? It does. In 2014, the Tax Administration Reform Commission said "farm income is exempt from taxation in spite of large agricultural holdings and a large number of rich farmers, who earn more than salaried employees in the cities, get away with paying no tax at all in view of the governments lack of will to consider an agricultural tax." If states can tax farm incomes, why don't they? The did and some six states still have laws that enable them to do so. Uttar Pradesh introduced agricultural income tax in 1948, and repealed it in 1957. Five other states did similar flip flops because farm income tax was difficult to administer and yielded little revenue to the state. Further farm taxes were oppressive under the British and popular unrest over farm levies fuelled the freedom movement. The antipathy to taxing farm incomes, even of rich farmers carried over into free India. Why is farm income taxation politically sensitive? In independent India, much of the political leadership in the first five decades came from the landowning classes. So it follows that lawmakers would not act against their own interests. Are even commercial plantations exempt from income tax? No, in many states plantations are taxed. But there are great variations from state to state and commodity to Assam taxes on tea-cultivation income but not coffee. Coffee pLantations in Kerala are taxed at 50% while Tamil Nadu does not. So if Bibek Debroy's proposal is accepted, how can the Centre step in? States will have to pass a resolution under Article 252 of the Constitution authorising the Centre to impose tax on agricultural income. The taxes collected by the Centre can be transferred to the states, said the 2014 tax administration reform report. If a tax is indeed imposed on farm income, how much is it likely to be? The tax reforms committee proposed a tax-free limit of Rs 5 lakh on agricultural income. Farmers with incomes around Rs 50 lakh could be taxed, it said. NEW DELHI: Taxing agricultural income has been a political taboo since Independence, but economist Bibek Debroys suggestion to the NITI Aayog is not without basis. Contrary to popular perception agricultural income is already being taxed in several states, including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. In many of these cases, the tax is only on a certain kind of agricultural income, but it is taxed. In fact, several other states like UP and Rajasthan tried to implement a tax on agriculture but found that it did not result in any great increase in revenue, and so discontinued it. An agricultural income tax was an issue even in British India, and a committee was set up in 1925 to study whether it was feasible. In Independent India, the issue has been debated off and on since 1953-54. The K.N. Raj Committee report of 1972-73, called Taxation of Agricultural Wealth and Income, dealt with implementation issues. Agricultural income is exempt from tax only by default. It is not included under total income for tax purposes. The central government cannot impose a tax on agricultural income under an exemption clause mentioned under Section 10 (1) of the Income Tax Act of India. "My critics don't know that as recently as in 2002 there was a Kelkar Task Force report which estimated that if you use the existing threshold, 95 per cent of farmers would be below the tax threshold," Debroy said. Undeterred by the row stoked by his comments, Debroy is sticking to his guns that agricultural income should be taxed and says that the onus for this must be on the state governments. "I said that agricultural income should be taxed above a threshold. I also said it's a state subject and it's up to the states to do it. That was my position then and that is my position now," Debroy said. The economists remarks on April 25 raised the hackles of political parties including MPs of the ruling BJP who said such economists were not in touch with reality and did not know the problems of farmers. The very next day, finance minister Arun Jaitley stepped in to douse the fires by clarifying that the central government had no plans to impose any tax on agricultural income as it did not have the constitutional authority to do so. "The Finance Minister also said it is a state subject and the centre has no plans to tax agricultural income. How is it a contradiction to what I have said," Debroy wondered. He added that even Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian's remarks were in line with his statement. Subramanian restoked the debate when he said that nothing prevented state governments from taxing agriculture income as the constitutional restriction was only on the central government. A week after Debroy first made the remarks, NITI Aayog said in a statement that his suggestion to tax agricultural income was neither the view of the Aayog, nor it was part of the Draft Action Agenda document conceived by the planning body. A route to tax evasion While agricultural income is not taxable by the Income-Tax Department, it still has to be declared. IT returns show that 307 individuals declared an agricultural income of more than Rs 1 crore during fiscal 2014-15. Debroy said one company which earned a profit of Rs 215 crore and yet claimed exemption worth hundreds of crores as its income was from agricultural sources. "Now how is it reasonable to say that they should not pay taxes," he asks. Several irregularities have been declared in the use of the exemption clause in the Income Tax Act. In the assessment year 2014-15, the top 10 claimants for tax exemption of agricultural income included nine corporate companies. The other was a state government department. In 2014 Tax Administration Reform Commission report said, Agricultural income of non-agriculturists is being increasingly used as a conduit to avoid tax and for laundering funds, resulting in leakage to the tune of crores in revenue annually. FAQ When was income tax introduced? Income tax was first introduced in1886 under colonial rule. At that time agriculture was excluded from the tax computation because there were other levies in force on farmers. Who collected these levies? Agricultural levies were collected by the crown in the 19thcentury but in 1935 land revenue, and therefore agricultural income taxes, were was transferred to the provinces, which became states when India attained Independence. When we adopted the Constitution, agriculture was kept in the concurrent list, which allows states to make laws on the subject. Therefore states have always had the right to tax agriculture. How many people pay income tax in India? Only 39 million Indians out of a population of 1.2 billion pay income tax. That's no more than 6 per cent of the population. How many claim IT exemption for agricultural income? More than 400,000 taxpayers claimed exemption for agricultural income in the assessment year 2014-15. Which company claimed the highest exemption? Corporate seed company Kaveri Seeds reported a profit of 215 crore and sought exemption on Rs 186.63 crore. Which multinational company claimed IT exemption for farm income? Monsanto India, claimed Rs 94.40 crore as exemption from income tax. Can a corporate company claim IT exemption for farm income? The exemption clause in the Income Tax Act allows exemption to any entity, individual or corporate company, on income earned from agricultural land. Agro-companies are allowed tax relief under the same clause. Doesn't the government know about this? It does. In 2014, the Tax Administration Reform Commission said "farm income is exempt from taxation in spite of large agricultural holdings and a large number of rich farmers, who earn more than salaried employees in the cities, get away with paying no tax at all in view of the governments lack of will to consider an agricultural tax." If states can tax farm incomes, why don't they? The did and some six states still have laws that enable them to do so. Uttar Pradesh introduced agricultural income tax in 1948, and repealed it in 1957. Five other states did similar flip flops because farm income tax was difficult to administer and yielded little revenue to the state. Further farm taxes were oppressive under the British and popular unrest over farm levies fuelled the freedom movement. The antipathy to taxing farm incomes, even of rich farmers carried over into free India. Why is farm income taxation politically sensitive? In independent India, much of the political leadership in the first five decades came from the landowning classes. So it follows that lawmakers would not act against their own interests. Are even commercial plantations exempt from income tax? No, in many states plantations are taxed. But there are great variations from state to state and commodity to Assam taxes on tea-cultivation income but not coffee. Coffee pLantations in Kerala are taxed at 50% while Tamil Nadu does not. So if Bibek Debroy's proposal is accepted, how can the Centre step in? States will have to pass a resolution under Article 252 of the Constitution authorising the Centre to impose tax on agricultural income. The taxes collected by the Centre can be transferred to the states, said the 2014 tax administration reform report. If a tax is indeed imposed on farm income, how much is it likely to be? The tax reforms committee proposed a tax-free limit of Rs 5 lakh on agricultural income. Farmers with incomes around Rs 50 lakh could be taxed, it said. Manoj Chhabra By Attending a conference on radicalisation in Gods own country recently, one was struck by both the concern as well as confusion about its rapid spread in certain sections of society in India, especially in Kerala. Whats confounding most people is the fact that an educationally and economically advanced state is the worst affected. The debates were intense and the presentations scholarly. Despite diverse opinions, there was a near consensus on two things: One, radicalisation is a complex phenomenon which needs to be analysed dispassionately. Second, relying only on the police to handle the issue is not going to work. Understanding radicalisation is perhaps the bigger challenge. It is an incredibly complex phenomenon but previous research (Eidelson, 2003) shows that its psychological roots can be traced to feelings of perceived superiority, injustice, vulnerability, distrust and helplessness in individuals as well as communities. Consequently a narrative or world view of victimhood emerges which is the key precursor of radicalisation. Normally narratives emerge slowly and have complex socio-cultural, economic and historical antecedents, but in some cases states have actively fostered such narratives leading to highly radicalised societiesPakistan is a prime example. Now questions may be raised as to how this relates to the Indian situation? The straight answer is that it is relevant because we share the same civilisation and cultural heritage and our societies were broadly similar till about the 1980s when the seeds of radicalisation were sown in Pakistan. Perhaps we can learn from our neighbours mistakes and avoid reinventing the wheel. The Pakistan case (or as some would say, basket case) study can be broken down in phases- the first phase lasts till about late 1970s when the society although conservative, was fairly tolerant. Growing up in the border regions of Punjab in the 1970s one was able to have a window into that society through their TV programs. They were quite liberal, modern and popular with the Indian audience. All that changed soon after General Zia-ul-Haq took over in 1977 and started a state-sponsored radicalisation for political objectives of jihad in Afghanistan. Initially such elements were used against external targets in Afghanistan and Kashmir but now all institutions and the society itself have become radicalised. The long term effects of what has been described succinctly as drip-drip radicalisation by Pakistani author and analyst Farahnaz Ispahani are much more insidious and debilitating for society. Consider the following facts: The countrys average annual GDP growth rate from 2001-2016 is just 4.36 per cent as against a robust 7.30 per cent for India. Earlier, it was roughly the same. But this is nothing compared to the socio-political costs paid. The society has become extremely intolerant and violent. Take for instance blasphemy cases: While only seven such cases were reported till 1977, the number surged to over 5,000 cases from 19772014 ever since the imposition of stricter Islamic laws made blasphemy punishable mandatorily by death. Whats worse is that mobs have lynched over 90 people just on mere accusations during 19842016 while only two such instances happened from 194784. It is well known that blasphemy cases are used as tools to terrorise minority Christian or Hindu communities to grab their lands or settle personal scores. A new low was recorded recently when a mob of university students (not the usual ragtag crowd) not just brutally lynched a fellow student on mere rumours of blasphemy, but also gleefully took selfies with the mutilated corpse. Further, more than 60,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terror-related violence since 2001. The state legitimacy has been weakened to such an extent that religious fanatics openly defy the authorities and eulogise the killers. Though there is some belated recognition of the perils, the state is still fairly complicit. What does it mean for India? So far the manifestations of such radicalisation and violence are sporadic. However a similar narrative is prevalent in certain sections. The Eidelson framework also implies that poverty and lack of education are often constraints on mobilisation from mere radicalisation to overt violence. This explains why most cases involve relatively empowered sections. Its also important to remember that this generic framework is equally applicable to explain extremism in other communities too. One can see the same propensity to choose facts selectively to fit the narrative. But the most important lesson beyond Islamic radicalisation is about the eroding legitimacy of state institutions of which the police force is one. A seminal study by Tankebe (2009) points out that support for vigilante violence increases where legitimacy of state institutions is weak. The regularity with which various mobs defy the law, be it khap panchayats, protests on movies, books, art and even road accidents, show that in this respect the difference between India and Pakistan is just a matter of degrees. The horrific violence by cow vigilantes is perhaps our equivalent of blasphemy mobs. For the police, dealing with radicalised minds is hard enough without the baggage of weakened legitimacy. The bottom line is that there is no silver bullet to change the narrative. Measures against terrorists and the radicalised are necessary but not sufficient. The role of police is vital to counter terror but relatively minor in changing the narrative. To be successful, the counter- narrative has to emerge largely from within the community; if outsiders force the issue, it often leads to resistance. However the final lesson is also about the power of the state to drive a narrative. The Pakistani state actively promoted the narrative of hate and it is now reaping the harvest. There are many lessons for us to learn, if we really want to. Manoj Chhabra Additional Director General, Odisha and PhD scholar, IIT Delhi Email: mkchhabra10@gmail.com Attending a conference on radicalisation in Gods own country recently, one was struck by both the concern as well as confusion about its rapid spread in certain sections of society in India, especially in Kerala. Whats confounding most people is the fact that an educationally and economically advanced state is the worst affected. The debates were intense and the presentations scholarly. Despite diverse opinions, there was a near consensus on two things: One, radicalisation is a complex phenomenon which needs to be analysed dispassionately. Second, relying only on the police to handle the issue is not going to work. Understanding radicalisation is perhaps the bigger challenge. It is an incredibly complex phenomenon but previous research (Eidelson, 2003) shows that its psychological roots can be traced to feelings of perceived superiority, injustice, vulnerability, distrust and helplessness in individuals as well as communities. Consequently a narrative or world view of victimhood emerges which is the key precursor of radicalisation. Normally narratives emerge slowly and have complex socio-cultural, economic and historical antecedents, but in some cases states have actively fostered such narratives leading to highly radicalised societiesPakistan is a prime example. Now questions may be raised as to how this relates to the Indian situation? The straight answer is that it is relevant because we share the same civilisation and cultural heritage and our societies were broadly similar till about the 1980s when the seeds of radicalisation were sown in Pakistan. Perhaps we can learn from our neighbours mistakes and avoid reinventing the wheel. The Pakistan case (or as some would say, basket case) study can be broken down in phases- the first phase lasts till about late 1970s when the society although conservative, was fairly tolerant. Growing up in the border regions of Punjab in the 1970s one was able to have a window into that society through their TV programs. They were quite liberal, modern and popular with the Indian audience. All that changed soon after General Zia-ul-Haq took over in 1977 and started a state-sponsored radicalisation for political objectives of jihad in Afghanistan. Initially such elements were used against external targets in Afghanistan and Kashmir but now all institutions and the society itself have become radicalised. The long term effects of what has been described succinctly as drip-drip radicalisation by Pakistani author and analyst Farahnaz Ispahani are much more insidious and debilitating for society. Consider the following facts: The countrys average annual GDP growth rate from 2001-2016 is just 4.36 per cent as against a robust 7.30 per cent for India. Earlier, it was roughly the same. But this is nothing compared to the socio-political costs paid. The society has become extremely intolerant and violent. Take for instance blasphemy cases: While only seven such cases were reported till 1977, the number surged to over 5,000 cases from 19772014 ever since the imposition of stricter Islamic laws made blasphemy punishable mandatorily by death. Whats worse is that mobs have lynched over 90 people just on mere accusations during 19842016 while only two such instances happened from 194784. It is well known that blasphemy cases are used as tools to terrorise minority Christian or Hindu communities to grab their lands or settle personal scores. A new low was recorded recently when a mob of university students (not the usual ragtag crowd) not just brutally lynched a fellow student on mere rumours of blasphemy, but also gleefully took selfies with the mutilated corpse. Further, more than 60,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terror-related violence since 2001. The state legitimacy has been weakened to such an extent that religious fanatics openly defy the authorities and eulogise the killers. Though there is some belated recognition of the perils, the state is still fairly complicit. What does it mean for India? So far the manifestations of such radicalisation and violence are sporadic. However a similar narrative is prevalent in certain sections. The Eidelson framework also implies that poverty and lack of education are often constraints on mobilisation from mere radicalisation to overt violence. This explains why most cases involve relatively empowered sections. Its also important to remember that this generic framework is equally applicable to explain extremism in other communities too. One can see the same propensity to choose facts selectively to fit the narrative. But the most important lesson beyond Islamic radicalisation is about the eroding legitimacy of state institutions of which the police force is one. A seminal study by Tankebe (2009) points out that support for vigilante violence increases where legitimacy of state institutions is weak. The regularity with which various mobs defy the law, be it khap panchayats, protests on movies, books, art and even road accidents, show that in this respect the difference between India and Pakistan is just a matter of degrees. The horrific violence by cow vigilantes is perhaps our equivalent of blasphemy mobs. For the police, dealing with radicalised minds is hard enough without the baggage of weakened legitimacy. The bottom line is that there is no silver bullet to change the narrative. Measures against terrorists and the radicalised are necessary but not sufficient. The role of police is vital to counter terror but relatively minor in changing the narrative. To be successful, the counter- narrative has to emerge largely from within the community; if outsiders force the issue, it often leads to resistance. However the final lesson is also about the power of the state to drive a narrative. The Pakistani state actively promoted the narrative of hate and it is now reaping the harvest. There are many lessons for us to learn, if we really want to. Manoj Chhabra Additional Director General, Odisha and PhD scholar, IIT Delhi Email: mkchhabra10@gmail.com By Express News Service BELAGAVI: The thickly populated New Gandhinagar locality in Belagavi woke up to police raids on Saturday as Malmaruti police picked up seven Bangladeshi nationals, including a woman for staying here illegally. They are being interrogated by police. The police said that the arrests were conducted based on the information of one Mohammadali Shaouddin Bepari, who was arrested in Pune. Police said the others were planning to reach Dubai from Pune and were in touch with Bepari for duplicate passports. The police picked up Azam Baig, Hafisulha Islam, Haqib, Abdulniharali Gaji, Anvar Sadar, Rohan and Anjumulla Baig, who are said to have lived in rented houses in New Gandhinagar for the last four years. The police are now looking for Abdul Sheik who created the duplicate passports for the illegal immigrants. Several members of BJP had earlier requested the police to search and round up illegal Bangladeshi immigrants residing in Belagavi and surrounding areas. There have been several instances where duplicate ration cards were found. Some of the arrested had confessed about increased numbers of Bangladeshis residing in Indian cities in large numbers, but such suggestions were ignored. The local politicians who help such illegal act must be punished too, said a member from the city BJP unit in Belagavi. BELAGAVI: The thickly populated New Gandhinagar locality in Belagavi woke up to police raids on Saturday as Malmaruti police picked up seven Bangladeshi nationals, including a woman for staying here illegally. They are being interrogated by police. The police said that the arrests were conducted based on the information of one Mohammadali Shaouddin Bepari, who was arrested in Pune. Police said the others were planning to reach Dubai from Pune and were in touch with Bepari for duplicate passports. The police picked up Azam Baig, Hafisulha Islam, Haqib, Abdulniharali Gaji, Anvar Sadar, Rohan and Anjumulla Baig, who are said to have lived in rented houses in New Gandhinagar for the last four years. The police are now looking for Abdul Sheik who created the duplicate passports for the illegal immigrants. Several members of BJP had earlier requested the police to search and round up illegal Bangladeshi immigrants residing in Belagavi and surrounding areas. There have been several instances where duplicate ration cards were found. Some of the arrested had confessed about increased numbers of Bangladeshis residing in Indian cities in large numbers, but such suggestions were ignored. The local politicians who help such illegal act must be punished too, said a member from the city BJP unit in Belagavi. TPURAM/NEW DELHI: After delaying the inevitable for a fortnight, the state government on Friday reinstated T P Senkumar as the state police chief in accordance with the Supreme Court verdict on April 24. Though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan signed the government order in this regard, it will be issued on Saturday. I have not received the order yet. I will take charge after getting the order, Senkumar told Express. He is likely to take charge on Saturday itself. DGP Loknath Behera, the current state police chief, will be given full charge as Director, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau - a post he was holding after the government asked former VACB chief Jacob Thomas to go on leave. The government perforce has to reinstate Senkumar after the SC came down heavily on the Pinarayi regime while dismissing its clarification petition. The government submitted the petition last Wednesday seeking clarification in the appointments of Loknath Behera, Jacob Thomas and N Shanker Reddy as these three officers were posted through the same order that removed Senkumar from the post of state police chief on June 1, 2016. The SC will consider the contempt of court petition filed by Senkumar against the government on Tuesday. The SC on Monday will consider the review petition filed by the government. SC blow The SC sought response of the Kerala Chief Secretary on a contempt plea filed by Senkumar. A bench comprising Justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta issued notice to Chief Secretary Nalini Netto and fixed May 9 for hearing. The court also imposed `25,000 on the Kerala government as court expenses. The state government had filed a separate clarification plea on the Supeme Courts April 24 judgement reinstating Senkumar. Dushyant Dave, appearing for Senkumar, told the bench the government has mocked the SC judgment. Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Kerala Government, told the court the process to reinstate Senkumar was going on and the government had filed a review petition. That is not an argument. We will see the review petition when it will come up for hearing. We are dismissing it (the plea) with costs. We are permitting them to withdraw it with a cost of `25,000, the court said. The Supreme Court bench said it had not gone into the allegations of malafide raised by Senkumar but the state confirmed the same by filing such an application. TPURAM/NEW DELHI: After delaying the inevitable for a fortnight, the state government on Friday reinstated T P Senkumar as the state police chief in accordance with the Supreme Court verdict on April 24. Though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan signed the government order in this regard, it will be issued on Saturday. I have not received the order yet. I will take charge after getting the order, Senkumar told Express. He is likely to take charge on Saturday itself. DGP Loknath Behera, the current state police chief, will be given full charge as Director, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau - a post he was holding after the government asked former VACB chief Jacob Thomas to go on leave. The government perforce has to reinstate Senkumar after the SC came down heavily on the Pinarayi regime while dismissing its clarification petition. The government submitted the petition last Wednesday seeking clarification in the appointments of Loknath Behera, Jacob Thomas and N Shanker Reddy as these three officers were posted through the same order that removed Senkumar from the post of state police chief on June 1, 2016. The SC will consider the contempt of court petition filed by Senkumar against the government on Tuesday. The SC on Monday will consider the review petition filed by the government. SC blow The SC sought response of the Kerala Chief Secretary on a contempt plea filed by Senkumar. A bench comprising Justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta issued notice to Chief Secretary Nalini Netto and fixed May 9 for hearing. The court also imposed `25,000 on the Kerala government as court expenses. The state government had filed a separate clarification plea on the Supeme Courts April 24 judgement reinstating Senkumar. Dushyant Dave, appearing for Senkumar, told the bench the government has mocked the SC judgment. Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Kerala Government, told the court the process to reinstate Senkumar was going on and the government had filed a review petition. That is not an argument. We will see the review petition when it will come up for hearing. We are dismissing it (the plea) with costs. We are permitting them to withdraw it with a cost of `25,000, the court said. The Supreme Court bench said it had not gone into the allegations of malafide raised by Senkumar but the state confirmed the same by filing such an application. By Express News Service KOCHI: Substandard therapy centres for children with neurological disorders are turning to be hell for children with different abilities. The torture is likely to end with the Kerala High Court on Friday intervening in the matter on a petition filed by Together We Can, a forum of parents of children with neurological disorders, professionals in rehabilitation. There had been incidents where children suffered serious injuries allegedly during therapy, said volunteers of Together We Can. The Kerala High Court has sought the view of the state government on the petition seeking a directive to the government to establish therapy centres for children with autism and other neurological disorders. Petitioners Seema Lal and two others, members of Together We Can, also sought a directive to monitor all illegal practices of private therapy centres and standardisation of assessment procedures to diagnose children with autism. It is alleged in the petition no action had been taken against illegal therapy centres despite reports of children being injured. Cases of negligence and apathy are rampant as there is no body to regulate functioning of such therapy centres. Absence of regulation of therapy practices causes serious damage to children with neurological disabilities. Though several representations were submitted before the state government, no steps were taken to monitor therapy centres, the petition stated. In the Facebook page of Together We Can, the traumatic experience of a parent whose autistic child fractured a hand allegedly at the therapy centre is described. The petition before the High Court says parents are not permitted to be present during the therapy session. If parents are allowed inside the therapy centres, a lot of unethical practices can be checked. According to the petitioners, there had been several instances where the child does not show any progress despite years of therapy and for which huge amount of time, money and energy are spent by the parents. KOCHI: Substandard therapy centres for children with neurological disorders are turning to be hell for children with different abilities. The torture is likely to end with the Kerala High Court on Friday intervening in the matter on a petition filed by Together We Can, a forum of parents of children with neurological disorders, professionals in rehabilitation. There had been incidents where children suffered serious injuries allegedly during therapy, said volunteers of Together We Can. The Kerala High Court has sought the view of the state government on the petition seeking a directive to the government to establish therapy centres for children with autism and other neurological disorders. Petitioners Seema Lal and two others, members of Together We Can, also sought a directive to monitor all illegal practices of private therapy centres and standardisation of assessment procedures to diagnose children with autism. It is alleged in the petition no action had been taken against illegal therapy centres despite reports of children being injured. Cases of negligence and apathy are rampant as there is no body to regulate functioning of such therapy centres. Absence of regulation of therapy practices causes serious damage to children with neurological disabilities. Though several representations were submitted before the state government, no steps were taken to monitor therapy centres, the petition stated. In the Facebook page of Together We Can, the traumatic experience of a parent whose autistic child fractured a hand allegedly at the therapy centre is described. The petition before the High Court says parents are not permitted to be present during the therapy session. If parents are allowed inside the therapy centres, a lot of unethical practices can be checked. According to the petitioners, there had been several instances where the child does not show any progress despite years of therapy and for which huge amount of time, money and energy are spent by the parents. Toby Antony By Express News Service KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team probing the case against suspected IS members from Kerala has stumbled upon a WhatsApp group operating from Afghanistan communicating with certain people in Kasargod. NIA, which was in Kasargod last week, interrogated persons who were members of the group last day. According to NIA officers, the WhatsApp group was started by Kasargod native Abdul Rashid who led 21 persons to Afghanistan. We have examined a few witnesses at Kasargod and extracted messages as part of the investigation into the IS case being probed by our team. Abdul Rashid started the group using the mobile number taken from Afghanistan and added his acquaintances in Kerala. His family members have identified the Afghan number used by him, an NIA officer said. Also Read: Facebook turns hunting ground for ISIS to procure young blood However, NIA suspects the group may have been formed to radicalise and invite more people to IS. The group used to speak about the lives of those who migrated from Kerala to Afghanistan. It might be part of Dawah work assigned by the people handling them in Afghanistan. It is possible the group was formed to seek clarification about the conditions and virtues of life in IS after reports of US MOAB attack at IS held territory in Afghanistan, the officer said. However, NIA is not registering a case in this matter as it has decided to include it as part of the investigation in the case registered against the 14 persons from Kasargod who migrated to Afghanistan. KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team probing the case against suspected IS members from Kerala has stumbled upon a WhatsApp group operating from Afghanistan communicating with certain people in Kasargod. NIA, which was in Kasargod last week, interrogated persons who were members of the group last day. According to NIA officers, the WhatsApp group was started by Kasargod native Abdul Rashid who led 21 persons to Afghanistan. We have examined a few witnesses at Kasargod and extracted messages as part of the investigation into the IS case being probed by our team. Abdul Rashid started the group using the mobile number taken from Afghanistan and added his acquaintances in Kerala. His family members have identified the Afghan number used by him, an NIA officer said. Also Read: Facebook turns hunting ground for ISIS to procure young blood However, NIA suspects the group may have been formed to radicalise and invite more people to IS. The group used to speak about the lives of those who migrated from Kerala to Afghanistan. It might be part of Dawah work assigned by the people handling them in Afghanistan. It is possible the group was formed to seek clarification about the conditions and virtues of life in IS after reports of US MOAB attack at IS held territory in Afghanistan, the officer said. However, NIA is not registering a case in this matter as it has decided to include it as part of the investigation in the case registered against the 14 persons from Kasargod who migrated to Afghanistan. Sinduja Jane By Express News Service CHENNAI: Prodded by the Madras High Courts veiled warning of action under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), a section of doctors announced withdrawal of protest after holding discussions with the Health Minister and senior officials. However, there are several other associations part of the protest, of whom some said the protests would continue while others said a decision would be taken during a meeting on Saturday. We hope to get justice and so have temporarily withdrawn our protest all over the State, said Dr P Balakrishnan, State general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association, after the meeting with State authorities, which went on for over two hours at the Secretariat on Friday evening. Dr G R Ravindranath from the Doctors Association for Social Equality added that they had not staged any protest but only conducted rallies, human chain and seminars on reservation. So we will continue to do it, added Ravindranath, who is a part of the Joint Action Committee. However, the main players in the protest such as Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association and Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association have not yet taken a call on withdrawing the protest. If the court verdict does not come in our favour, the State government should promulgate a special ordinance to save 50 per cent reservation for government doctors. Till then, we will continue our protest, said Dr A Ramalingam, State organising secretary, Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association. According to the association, after the Medical Council of India has given the right to the State government to notify remote areas, the authorities here should declare all primary health centres, taluk, non-taluk, district headquarters hospitals and Medical College Hospitals in Sivaganga, Tiruvarur and Tiruvannamalai districts as remote areas. With this, over 60 per cent doctors will benefit, said Ramalingam. We have always made sure that treatment for patients is not denied or even delayed. We took part in the strike only after finishing our shifts. We will continue our protest, as we always did, by conducting dharna and human chain, he added, refusing to back down despite the HC warning. The influential Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association, that has a member base of over 3,000, said a decision would be taken at the general body meeting on Saturday. The association has been protesting at the Directorate of Medical Services (DMS) campus for the past 18 days. Till now we have not withdrawn the protest. The decision on whether to continue or withdraw the protest will be taken during the general body meeting, said Dr G Anusya, State Womens Wing secretary. Meanwhile, the Medical Students of Tamil Nadu Association (MESTA) has indicated they will continue the protest in a democratic way, in a manner which will not affect the welfare of patients or general public. An emergency general body meeting of MESTA resolved to draw public attention to their cause by doing ward sensitisation programme after signing the attendance on Saturday. The agitating doctors have assured the authorities they would not stay away from work en masse on Saturday, said senior officials who held two-hour long discussion with them this evening. We instructed them to ensure that the strike will not affect treatment of patients or cause any inconvenience to the public. We hope they will withdraw the strike. They have social responsibility, and they are aware of it, said health minister C Vijaya Basker. The doctors have assured they will not take mass casual leave on Saturday. Elective surgeries will not affected, added health secretary J Radhakrishnan. The Director of Medical Education, Director of Public Health were part of the team that held talks with docs associations. CHENNAI: Prodded by the Madras High Courts veiled warning of action under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), a section of doctors announced withdrawal of protest after holding discussions with the Health Minister and senior officials. However, there are several other associations part of the protest, of whom some said the protests would continue while others said a decision would be taken during a meeting on Saturday. We hope to get justice and so have temporarily withdrawn our protest all over the State, said Dr P Balakrishnan, State general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors Association, after the meeting with State authorities, which went on for over two hours at the Secretariat on Friday evening. Dr G R Ravindranath from the Doctors Association for Social Equality added that they had not staged any protest but only conducted rallies, human chain and seminars on reservation. So we will continue to do it, added Ravindranath, who is a part of the Joint Action Committee. However, the main players in the protest such as Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association and Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association have not yet taken a call on withdrawing the protest. If the court verdict does not come in our favour, the State government should promulgate a special ordinance to save 50 per cent reservation for government doctors. Till then, we will continue our protest, said Dr A Ramalingam, State organising secretary, Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association. According to the association, after the Medical Council of India has given the right to the State government to notify remote areas, the authorities here should declare all primary health centres, taluk, non-taluk, district headquarters hospitals and Medical College Hospitals in Sivaganga, Tiruvarur and Tiruvannamalai districts as remote areas. With this, over 60 per cent doctors will benefit, said Ramalingam. We have always made sure that treatment for patients is not denied or even delayed. We took part in the strike only after finishing our shifts. We will continue our protest, as we always did, by conducting dharna and human chain, he added, refusing to back down despite the HC warning. The influential Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association, that has a member base of over 3,000, said a decision would be taken at the general body meeting on Saturday. The association has been protesting at the Directorate of Medical Services (DMS) campus for the past 18 days. Till now we have not withdrawn the protest. The decision on whether to continue or withdraw the protest will be taken during the general body meeting, said Dr G Anusya, State Womens Wing secretary. Meanwhile, the Medical Students of Tamil Nadu Association (MESTA) has indicated they will continue the protest in a democratic way, in a manner which will not affect the welfare of patients or general public. An emergency general body meeting of MESTA resolved to draw public attention to their cause by doing ward sensitisation programme after signing the attendance on Saturday. The agitating doctors have assured the authorities they would not stay away from work en masse on Saturday, said senior officials who held two-hour long discussion with them this evening. We instructed them to ensure that the strike will not affect treatment of patients or cause any inconvenience to the public. We hope they will withdraw the strike. They have social responsibility, and they are aware of it, said health minister C Vijaya Basker. The doctors have assured they will not take mass casual leave on Saturday. Elective surgeries will not affected, added health secretary J Radhakrishnan. The Director of Medical Education, Director of Public Health were part of the team that held talks with docs associations. By Express News Service CHENNAI: Former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Friday said there was a fair chance of the Assembly elections taking place in Tamil Nadu even before the local body elections. The rebel AIADMK leader was addressing a packed gathering in Kottivakam along Old Mahabalipuram Road as part of his statewide contact programme to meet the cadre and people, which he launched on Friday. OPS paying floral tributes to Jayalalithaa at Kottivakkam on Friday | D SAMPATHKUMAR Kottivakkam is part of Kancheepuram constituency. Beginning programmes from this constituency is considered lucky among Dravidian leaders since DMK founder C N Annadurai won his first legislative election from the temple town. Panneerselvam said his team was ready to face both the Assembly and local body elections, whichever came first.He promised that only party cadre who were ready to work for the welfare of the society, would be offered election tickets. He said he was confident that people would choose them to carry forward the legacy of former Chief Ministers J Jayalalithaa and MGR. During his 30-minute speech, he reiterated both his demands Sasikala and her family members should be booted out of the AIADMK and a CBI probe initiated into Jayalalithaas death and also hit out at DMK president M Karunanidhi for hindering the AIADMKs growth. People are not ready to buy arguments by ministers in the other faction now as Sasikala and her nephew continue to hold key posts in the party till date, he added. Other key leaders of the rebel faction, including E Madhusudhanan and C Ponnaiyan, who spoke before Panneerselvam, raised questions over the governments silence on the mysterious deaths in connection with the Kodanad case. CHENNAI: Former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Friday said there was a fair chance of the Assembly elections taking place in Tamil Nadu even before the local body elections. The rebel AIADMK leader was addressing a packed gathering in Kottivakam along Old Mahabalipuram Road as part of his statewide contact programme to meet the cadre and people, which he launched on Friday. OPS paying floral tributes to Jayalalithaa at Kottivakkam on Friday | D SAMPATHKUMAR Kottivakkam is part of Kancheepuram constituency. Beginning programmes from this constituency is considered lucky among Dravidian leaders since DMK founder C N Annadurai won his first legislative election from the temple town. Panneerselvam said his team was ready to face both the Assembly and local body elections, whichever came first.He promised that only party cadre who were ready to work for the welfare of the society, would be offered election tickets. He said he was confident that people would choose them to carry forward the legacy of former Chief Ministers J Jayalalithaa and MGR. During his 30-minute speech, he reiterated both his demands Sasikala and her family members should be booted out of the AIADMK and a CBI probe initiated into Jayalalithaas death and also hit out at DMK president M Karunanidhi for hindering the AIADMKs growth. People are not ready to buy arguments by ministers in the other faction now as Sasikala and her nephew continue to hold key posts in the party till date, he added. Other key leaders of the rebel faction, including E Madhusudhanan and C Ponnaiyan, who spoke before Panneerselvam, raised questions over the governments silence on the mysterious deaths in connection with the Kodanad case. Ashmita Gupta By Express News Service CHENNAI: Anna Universitys decision to go ahead with the convocation even before choosing a Vice-Chancellor has left faculty members and students fuming. It is only an indication that these academic certificates will have little value in the institutions abroad if they do not carry the signature of the V-C, they point out. University authorities seeking a date from the Chancellor, Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, to conduct the convocation ceremony has triggered furious opposition from within. In the absence of the Vice-Chancellor, the degree certificates would bear the signature of the higher education secretary, which, experts say, would spell trouble in future, especially in foreign countries. If they are not signed by the Vice-Chancellor, students might face problem. The universities in India might accept the certificates, but the foreign universities would refuse to do so, said S Chandramohan, professor in the Electrical and Electronics Engineering department. As per the amendment in 2011, in the absence of a Vice Chancellor, a senior most professor can officiate in that capacity, including signing certificates, he said. For the record, it has been over 10 months since the prestigious institution is without a head. Agreeing with him, another professor requesting anonymity added: Even if they issue the certificates now with higher education secretarys signature, they will have to reissue them later. The official should not sign especially the PhD certificates; otherwise students will be in big trouble when they head abroad for further studies, he said. The confusion that is persisting over this has already hit the students. A scholar who has finished his Ph.D pointed out that the convocation should have been conducted last November-December. When we last enquired, officials from administration said the convocation dates will be known only after the new V-C was appointed. Without Vice-Chancellors signature, I do not know whether the certificate will be valid. I am not sure if higher education secretarys signature will be accepted, he said. The reported move to proceed with the convocation has angered the faculty unions, who have warned of consequences. There will be protests if there is a convocation. It has never happened in the history of the university where convocation is conducted without a Vice-Chancellor, said I Arul Aram, president of the Anna University Teachers Association (AUTA). CHENNAI: Anna Universitys decision to go ahead with the convocation even before choosing a Vice-Chancellor has left faculty members and students fuming. It is only an indication that these academic certificates will have little value in the institutions abroad if they do not carry the signature of the V-C, they point out. University authorities seeking a date from the Chancellor, Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, to conduct the convocation ceremony has triggered furious opposition from within. In the absence of the Vice-Chancellor, the degree certificates would bear the signature of the higher education secretary, which, experts say, would spell trouble in future, especially in foreign countries. If they are not signed by the Vice-Chancellor, students might face problem. The universities in India might accept the certificates, but the foreign universities would refuse to do so, said S Chandramohan, professor in the Electrical and Electronics Engineering department. As per the amendment in 2011, in the absence of a Vice Chancellor, a senior most professor can officiate in that capacity, including signing certificates, he said. For the record, it has been over 10 months since the prestigious institution is without a head. Agreeing with him, another professor requesting anonymity added: Even if they issue the certificates now with higher education secretarys signature, they will have to reissue them later. The official should not sign especially the PhD certificates; otherwise students will be in big trouble when they head abroad for further studies, he said. The confusion that is persisting over this has already hit the students. A scholar who has finished his Ph.D pointed out that the convocation should have been conducted last November-December. When we last enquired, officials from administration said the convocation dates will be known only after the new V-C was appointed. Without Vice-Chancellors signature, I do not know whether the certificate will be valid. I am not sure if higher education secretarys signature will be accepted, he said. The reported move to proceed with the convocation has angered the faculty unions, who have warned of consequences. There will be protests if there is a convocation. It has never happened in the history of the university where convocation is conducted without a Vice-Chancellor, said I Arul Aram, president of the Anna University Teachers Association (AUTA). LAME DEER Sen. Steve Daines called Friday on law enforcement to better respond to cases involving murdered and missing Native American women. As part of an awareness march here Friday, Daines walked alongside Melinda Harris, mother of Billings West High School graduate 21-year-old Hanna Harris, who was killed in 2013. Melinda Harris reported her daughter missing when she didn't come home after celebrating on July 4, 2013. Bureau of Indian Affairs investigators notified the FBI about the case four days later, and Harris' body was found the next day. Her body was too decomposed for a cause of death to be determined, according to court records. The people involved in her death were arrested nearly a year later, in March 2014. At the time Hanna Harris disappeared, she had a 10-month old son who was still nursing. "She was a very responsible mom, and suddenly she's not home," Daines said. "So Mama knew something was wrong, and unfortunately the system was very slow in responding and following up and pursuing this case." The march was organized in part to mark a U.S. Senate resolution to honor Hanna Harris and commemorate the lives of all missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. The resolution became law May 3, and Daines brought copies of the resolution for the Harris family and the Northern Cheyenne tribe. Hanna Harris wasn't the first member of Melinda Harris' family to be killed. Melinda Harris' aunt, 32-year-old Rosella Wooden Thigh, was killed on May 5, 2008. Some of the signs hoisted during the march called for people to remember Wooden Thigh. Wooden Thigh's death was recorded in the Montana Domestic Fatality Review Board's 2009 report. The report also included a recommendation for tribal governments to regularly report federal crimes, particularly violent crimes, to the Montana U.S. Attorneys Office for follow-up and tracking with the appropriate investigative agencies. Tribal members and tribal government officials "perceived inattention" when it came to the investigation and prosecution of crimes in Indian Country, the report said. Pauline High Wolf said she still does not see law enforcement trying hard enough to solve cases involving the deaths of Native women. High Wolf's daughter, 26-year-old Allison High Wolf, died in February 2015. Her remains were found after a fire in her room at the Rodeway Inn in Hardin. Allison High Wolf had four daughters, the youngest of whom, 5-year-old Aiyana High Wolf, walked with Pauline High Wolf in the march. Pauline High Wolf believes the circumstances of her daughter's death are suspicious and that the Big Horn County Sheriff's office has not done enough to investigate the case. The distrust over whether there are proper investigations by federal agencies into violent felony crime came to a head after the death of Roylynn Rides Horse, 28, who was beaten, set on fire and left in a field on the Crow Reservation on April 17, 2016. At the time, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., contacted the Department of the Interior over the perceived lack of response to inquires about public safety threats on Montana's Indian reservations. Interior Department rules governing the BIA prohibit that agency's law enforcement from releasing information. Daines is working on getting a new Montana U.S. Attorney, and said he plans to work with that person, along with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, on this topic. There is something fundamentally wrong when officials can't immediately engage the public and bring awareness after someone is murdered or goes missing, Daines said. The tribes need more law enforcement and better information sharing, he said. Northern Cheyenne Tribal Chairman L. Jace Killsback called on Zinke to help the tribe build its own law enforcement agency. The tribal council voted unanimously this week to fire the Northern Cheyenne BIA chief of police. Killsback wants members of the tribe policing the reservation. RI Election Day Coverage Recap: Election Results and more In the Nov. 8 election Rhode Islanders cast their vote for governor, Congressman, and ballot issues. Here's everything you need to know. Lung cancer patients who are treated with radiotherapy can develop an inflammation of the lung tissue called pneumonitis; this can limit the dose of radiation they can receive and severe forms of pneumonitis if left untreated, can be fatal. Now researchers have found that it is possible to adapt radiation treatment so that it targets the tumor much more precisely. "This has resulted in a significant decrease in the incidence of radiation pneumonitis in patients with advanced lung cancer, while still slowing and controlling the growth of the cancer," Dr Azza Khalil, a clinical oncologist at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, told the ESTRO 36 conference today (Saturday). "Previously, the radiation therapist would set up the patient on the radiotherapy machines using the bone structures in the chest and skin tattoos to mark the area to be treated. We have already shown that during the course of radiotherapy the anatomical structure can differ and the cancer change position inside the chest," explained Dr. Khalil. "For this study, the radiation therapists used a daily 3D image of the tumor to adjust the patient's position under the radiotherapy machine, and if they discovered any change during the course of radiotherapy, doctors and physicists were able to adapt the radiation treatment. This meant they could target the tumor area more accurately, leaving smaller margins so that less healthy tissue was irradiated." Dr. Khalil and her colleagues analyzed data from 108 patients with locally advanced lung cancer (cancer that had started to spread from where it started to nearby tissue or lymph nodes) who had received adaptive radiation treatment (ART) with smaller margins after April 2013. They matched them with a control group of 102 patients who had been treated prior to April 2013 without the adaptive strategy, using the older method for planning the treatment, which involved leaving larger margins. They followed the patients for a median average of 20 months (ranging from two to 56 months). "We found that the incidence of radiation pneumonitis that was serious enough to require treatment (grade 2 and above) decreased significantly from 50% of patients in the group treated without adaptive radiation treatment to 33% in the group that did receive adaptive radiation treatment," said Dr Khalil. "However, there was no difference between the two groups in the rates of recurrence of cancer or the failure of the radiotherapy to control tumor growth." Thirty-two percent of patients treated with ART had a recurrence of cancer at the site of the original tumor compared to 36% of patients in the non-ART group. Failure to control tumor growth (loco-regional failure) occurred in 45% of the ART group and 48% of the non-ART group. The researchers have not followed the patients for long enough to assess the rates of overall survival between the two groups. However, the average amount of time that patients lived without their disease progressing was similar between the two groups: 16 months for the ART group and 19 months for the non-ART group. Dr Khalil said: "These are important findings for this group of patients who have limited treatment options. Adaptive radiation treatment has resulted in fewer and less pronounced pulmonary symptoms and other side effects, which makes a significant difference to the patients' quality of life." Adaptive radiation treatment has been introduced into routine clinical practice in Dr Khalil's department and she believes her findings are applicable to clinics elsewhere. She and her colleagues are continuing their research into ART. "The outcome of patients with locally advanced lung cancer is compromised by a high rate of local failure where cancer comes back in the same area we have treated. As we reduced the tumor margin using this adaptive strategy, we are testing whether we would be able now to increase the treatment doses to the tumor without affecting the incidence of the radiation pneumonitis, and hence have a better outcome," she concluded. The incidence of radiation pneumonitis that produces some symptoms in lung cancer patients varies between 25-50% depending on the study. Severe radiation pneumonitis (grade 3 and above) varies between 10-20%. Untreated severe pneumonitis can be fatal. In a previous study, Dr. Khalid and her colleagues found that overall survival time was shorter in patients who developed severe pneumonitis. President of ESTRO, Professor Yolande Lievens, head of the department of radiation oncology at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, said: "This study shows significant reductions in radiation pneumonitis when adaptive radiation treatment is used to target the tumour more precisely, and it is a good example of how we are working constantly to refine and improve radiation therapy so that patients can be treated effectively with fewer side effects. These are impressive decreases in toxicity and we look forward to seeing whether overall survival for patients treated in this way is as good as or better than for patients not treated with ART." Studies have found that one in six pregnant women have been abused by a partner beaten, stabbed, shot, or even murdered. New research shows the risks to these women may be especially profound: Pregnant women are twice as likely to be a victim of an assault-related trauma (including suicide) and die from their injuries than an accident-related trauma like car accidents or falls, compared to women who are not pregnant, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings come from a Pennsylvania statewide analysis of hospital trauma cases occurring over a decade, and will be presented Sunday at the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists' (ACOG) Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting in San Diego (poster 36G). "Trauma from assaults or accidents complicates 1 in 12 pregnancies and is the leading non-obstetric cause of death among pregnant women. Not only is it associated with complications for the baby, but management of traumatic injuries in pregnant patients has its unique challenges, given the physiologic changes of pregnancy and restrictions doctors may face when treating pregnant patients," said the study's lead author Neha Deshpande, MD, a clinical resident of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Despite the severity of the issue, little is known about how trauma actually impacts pregnant women since accidental and incidental causes of death are excluded in many statewide and national maternal mortality reviews. The striking results of our study suggest that widespread screening for violence and trauma during pregnancy may provide an opportunity to identify women at risk for death during pregnancy." Previous research on the topic has shown that violence is common in pregnancy even in relationships where previously there were no incidents but the new study is the first large statewide analysis highlighting the effect of violent trauma on maternal mortality. For their analysis, the researchers used data from the Pennsylvania Trauma Outcomes Study database, a comprehensive and validated registry which includes records of admissions to all accredited trauma centers in the state. The analysis focused on admissions from 2005 through 2015, and included nearly 45,000 cases of trauma among victims who were defined as women of childbearing age (14-49). The researchers found that pregnant trauma victims, on average, suffered less severe injuries than their non-pregnant counterparts. However, despite less severe injuries, pregnant women were nearly twice as likely to be dead when they arrived at the hospital, or die in the hospital. In particular, assault-related trauma was about three times more deadly than accident-related trauma. In addition, after suffering a violent assault, pregnant women were 4.4 times more likely to be transferred to another facility for obstetric services and support. "Since the typical definition of maternal deaths includes only those directly caused or impacted by pregnancy, it does not include accidental or incidental causes of death, making it difficult to accurately gauge the burden of trauma-related deaths on maternal mortality," said senior author Corrina M. Oxford, an assistant professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "However, evidence presented in our study suggests this is a pervasive issue that requires further attention to ensure these women, and their babies, are being properly cared for." Results also showed that nearly 1 in 5 pregnant women reported a psychiatric illness or arrived at the hospital following a suicide attempt. Minority and uninsured women were also significantly more likely to experience assault. The authors say the findings point to an opportunity for intervention to safeguard pregnant women, and they recommend universal screening of pregnant women at obstetric clinics for assault and mental illness, similar to screenings for postpartum depression. New research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) has found that secondhand smoke tends to have somewhat different effects on men and women. The research, conducted in a Pennsylvania Amish community where virtually no women smoke, found that women who were exposed to secondhand smoke had a greater risk for cardiovascular disease, while men exposed to secondhand smoke tended to have a higher body mass index (BMI). The authors of the study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, say previous research on the effects of secondhand smoke, and smoking in general, have been difficult to interpret due to variables in the socioeconomic status and educational level of participants. To reduce these variables, the researchers studied members of the old order Amish (OOA), a community in Lancaster County, Pa. UM SOM research teams have conducted research in this community since 1995 through the UM SOM's Amish Research Program. "The way the Amish live makes them uniquely suited for this kind of study," says lead investigator Robert M. Reed, MD, UM SOM associate professor of medicine and a pulmonary and critical care specialist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. "They live a lifestyle now that's very similar to the lifestyle their ancestors lived many generations ago. They have a lot of physical activity, don't drive, and the different Amish families live more similar lifestyles than do non-Amish populations." Also unique, cigars and pipes represent the predominant forms of tobacco smoked by the Amish. Reed says these smoking products produce more noxious secondhand smoke than cigarettes. Smoking in the group as a whole is fairly modest 34 percent of men in the study said they had ever smoked. Just two women in the group reported ever smoking. The researchers employed a novel method to track exposure to secondhand smoke. "We first asked people their own personal smoking habits, and then, because we know exactly how all the Amish are related to each other, we were able to look at the family tree and extrapolate who had been exposed," explains Reed. "We knew if Mr. X says he smoked, we can extrapolate from that that his family was exposed." According to Reed, this approach has never been taken before in studies of smoking and it avoids a problem that can affect this type of research, called recall bias. "Sometimes people with poor health are more inclined to think harder about past exposures, which lead to misleading results. Our study avoids that possibility," Reed says. The researchers examined cross-sectional data on 3,568 Amish who participated in three community surveys of cardiovascular health between 2001 and 2015. Data included tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure from family members included in the study. Additionally, the researchers took blood samples, measured lung function and assessed vascular health. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today Smoking, which was limited to just men, was associated with lower lung function, higher BMI, lower HDL cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), higher heart rate and poorer vascular health. The impact of secondhand smoke exposure was more intense in people with more smokers in their families, including spouses, parents and siblings. Secondhand smoke was associated with higher BMI and with higher fasting glucose in men, suggesting a diabetes risk, but not in women. Reduced HDL cholesterol was seen only in women exposed to secondhand smoke; in men only, secondhand smoke was associated with a lower heart rate. "The study confirms that even a small amount of secondhand smoke is harmful; it confirms prior findings and extends them by adding to the degree of certainty we have in the harmful associations we are seeing," says Reed. He adds that the findings suggest the possibility of a significant role for mechanisms less clearly established in secondhand smoking, but recognized in association with active smoking, such as HDL and BMI. "The real strength of this study is that this is a big population with very low exposure, yet we see very striking results for direct exposure," says the study's senior author, Braxton D. Mitchell, PhD, MPH, professor of medicine, epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and vice chair for research in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Nutrition in the Department of Medicine. "I would not have expected to see such dramatic effects with these low exposures." E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., vice president of medical affairs at the University of Maryland and dean of the School of Medicine, says, "This study suggests new avenues of research to understand more about the underlying mechanisms behind secondhand smoke. The fact that small amounts of exposure caused significant impact among Amish non-smokers, a population in which smoking is already at low levels, should be of concern to populations where smoking is much more prevalent." Tobacco smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, responsible for an estimated 480,320 deaths annually, including 41,280 deaths attributable to lung cancer and coronary heart disease related to secondhand smoke exposure, according to a 2014 report from the Office of the Surgeon General. Source: http://news.medschool.umaryland.edu/?z=108&a=3564 Shanghai: China's home-grown C919 passenger jet completed its long-delayed maiden flight on Friday, a major first step for Beijing as it looks to raise its profile in the global aviation market and boost high-tech manufacturing at home. Under overcast skies, the white, green and blue aircraft, with "C919" emblazoned on its tail, touched down at Shanghai's international airport after an 80-minute flight to cheers from thousands of dignitaries, aviation workers and enthusiasts. The jet is a symbol of China's ambitions to muscle into a global jet market estimated to be worth $2 trillion over the next two decades, as well as of Beijing's broader "Made in China 2025" plan to spur home-made products, from medicines to robots. "Seeing the C919 take off into the sky made me quite emotional. This is a moment we have waited to see for a very long time," Wang Mingfeng, 42, who witnessed the maiden flight at the Shanghai airport, said. "I believe that in the not too distant future, we will be neck-and-neck with Boeing and Airbus." At the moment, though, Boeing and Airbus remain far ahead in terms of sales, technical know-how and order books. And the C919, whose test flight was pushed back at least twice since 2014 due to production issues, may need years of tests to get certified in China, as well as in the United States and Europe. On Friday, the C919 flew north over the Yangtze River delta, carried out manoeuvres and then returned south along the coast before landing, according to aircraft tracker Flightradar24. State media said the plane flew at around 3,000 metres and at speeds of 290-300 kilometres (180-186 miles) per hour. The crew of five pilots and engineers, all wearing orange jump suits and aviators, were applauded as they disembarked. The plane, which can carry 158-168 passengers, had no passenger seats installed for the maiden flight. A letter from China's ministerial cabinet, read out after the plane landed, said the successful flight marked a "major breakthrough" and milestone for China's passenger jet industry. The industry ministry said in a statement the flight went smoothly and that all the systems functioned properly. The C919, made by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), relies on overseas technology from firms including General Electric, France's Safran, Honeywell International Inc and United Technologies Corp subsidiary UTC Aerospace Systems. China Eastern Airlines is the launch customer for the plane, which COMAC says has 570 orders from 23 customers. HARDSHIP, STRUGGLE Conceived in 2008, China wants the C919 to eventually take market share from Boeing and Airbus in the lucrative narrow-body market which accounts for more than 50 percent of the aircraft in service worldwide. For a TIMELINE on the C919, click "Every year we spend billions on buying planes," a COMAC promotional video showed President Xi Jinping saying during a site visit. He added China should become more self-reliant. However, the jet likely faces a lengthy journey from first flight to commercial usage. China's first home-made jet, the regional ARJ-21, received its type certification in December 2014, six years after its first flight and more than 12 years after it was conceived. It made its maiden passenger flight in June last year. Then there is also the daunting task of selling the jet in a global market dominated by Boeing and Airbus. "Aviation is a complex market and you need experience over a long time. Boeing has 100 years, Airbus has over 40 years," said Sinolink Securities analyst Si Jingzhe, adding COMAC still lagged far behind in terms of supply chain know-how. China is aware the path won't be easy. On a media visit on Thursday to COMAC's C919 assembly plant less than 10 kilometres from the airport, large red banners could be seen in giant hangars calling for long-term "hardship", "dedication" and "struggle" to meet the firm's goals. China is pushing for recognition globally of its certification by European and US regulators as without their certification, it would only be able to sell the jet to a handful of countries that accept its certification standards. But Beijing is already looking beyond the C919, with plans to develop a wide-body long-haul jet with Russia. In November COMAC and its partner United Aircraft Corp said they have started the hunt to find suppliers. New Delhi: Strict action will be taken against those found guilty in the gas leakage incident that led to the hospitalisation of around 450 girl students in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area on Saturday, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said most of the girls, who were hospitalised after they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness, were discharged, adding that a few of them were kept under observation. "The Delhi government has asked the district magistrate to investigate the matter and find out how the gas was leaked at the depot. "We have asked the DM to take strict action against those found guilty of negligence," Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the students at one of the hospitals. Sisodia said a team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was carrying out a study on the medical impact of the gas leakage incident. Earlier in the day, around 450 girl students of two schools run by the city administration -- Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School -- had to be hospitalised after toxic fumes spread due to a chemical leakage at a container depot located near the schools. Union Health Minister JP Nadda has instructed all the Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from the AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. The Delhi government also issued a show cause notice to the authorities of Tughlaqabad depot. ): Four people, including one policemen, were killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district on Saturday, police said.The incident took place at Kulgam's Mir Bazar area when the terrorists attacked a police party, sources said. The policemen retaliated and there was an exchange of fire.The police party had proceeded to Mir Bazar area on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway to clear traffic after a road accident in the area when the attack occurred, said a police officer in Srinagar.Seven people, including five policemen, were killed on Monday when terrorists attacked a bank van carrying cash in Kulgam, police said.The Army operation against militants in Kashmir's Kulgam district was called off in the midnight on Thursday after clashes broke out between security personnel and locals. Security forces had launched a cordon-and-search operation in Khudwani area of Kulgam district after information about presence of three to four militants there, an Army official had said. New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, taking suo moto cognizance of reports that said a man was forced to carry his teenage son's body on his shoulders after being denied ambulance service by a hospital in Etawah district. The commission has sought a detailed report from the state's chief secretary within four weeks, providing information on the ambulance services offered by the government-run hospital, PTI reported. In a video, which went viral recently, 45-year-old labourer Udayveer alleged that doctors at the Etawah government hospital did not treat his son Pushpendra and turned him away. He was forced to carry the body of his 15-year-old son over his shoulder after he was allegedly denied help by doctors at the hospital on May 1. The NHRC said according to the report, "the doctors at the hospital neither offered the ambulance service to the father of a deceased boy nor informed him about the facility to take his son's body back home." "As a result, he carried the body of his son, on his shoulders. Reportedly, the doctors spared a few minutes to see the 15-year-old patient and told his father to take him away as there was no life in his body," it said in a statement. PTI said the Commission has observed that the content of the media report is "painful and indicative of insensitive and negligent attitude" of the doctors at the hospital where most of the visitors are from poor families. The incident amounts to the violation of human rights. The NHRC has also observed that the Chief Medical Officer of Etawah district, Rajeev Yadav, has reportedly admitted that the "fault was on their side" and he has assured that strict action shall be taken against the guilty. "He has further added that the boy was brought dead to the hospital when the doctors were busy with a bus accident case and they could not ask from the father of the deceased, whether he needed a transport," the NHRC said. The Commission in his report has sought the number of ambulance vehicles available in the hospital and the number of drivers available in the hospital. It has also sought to know whether information on the availability of ambulance service for carrying a patient or a body has been put at a conspicuous place, and details of the formalities required to be fulfilled for availing the service, the NHRC added. (With PTI inputs) The students of Rani Jhansi Kanya Sarvodaya Vidyalaya and Government Girls Senior Secondary School were rushed to hospital after they complained of irritation in the eyes. The chemical in the container was imported from China. "It was in liquid form and vaporised when it came in contact with the air," an NDRF officer said. The Delhi government has issued a show cause notice to the authorities of the Tughlakabad depot. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said strict action would be taken against those found guilty. "We have asked the DM to take strict action, he said. At least 450 students of two government-run girls schools in southeast Delhis Tughlakabad area were rushed to hospital after a gas leak at a nearby container depot on Saturday morning. The Delhi Police filed an FIR against unknown persons and launched an investigation.Barring three, who are still under observation in the Intensive Care Units of two hospitals, the rest have been discharged.According to the police, a call was received at 7:35 am about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlakabad depot, which is located near the schools. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot.The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said a truck carrying 80 cans of chloromethyl pyridine had left the Tuglaqabad Depot on its way to Sonepat. "After coming out of depot the driver parked the truck on the roadside near the Railway Colony in Tuglaqabad to have tea. During this halt, some chemical spilled on the side of the road," it said."Tughlaqabad area is safe now. All containers have been emptied and washed," NDRF Director General R K Pachnanda was quoted as saying by PTI.The students were taken to four hospitals -- the Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo, Batra and ESIC. One student was referred to Safdarjung Hospital.The southeast district administration issued a show cause notice to the Customs Department and the Container Corporation Of India Ltd (CONCOR), the custodian of the depot."We will take strict action in the matter as hazardous chemicals were stored in the depot," B S Jaglan, district magistrate (southeast), said.A CONCOR spokesperson said it was a cause of concern and they were looking into the leakage.Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said a team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was carrying out a study on the medical impact of the fumes.Earlier, Union Health Minister JP Nadda had instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency.(With PTI inputs) Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday sought to know from the Maharashtra government if over 600 acres of land in Nagpur was allotted to Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurveda at a throwaway price and on what grounds "concession", if any, was given to the company. A division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni was hearing a petition filed by Congress Mumbai chief Sanjay Nirupam alleging irregularities in the allotment of land to the company for setting up a food park in the Multi-Modal International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN), Nagpur. The bench directed the state government to file an affidavit in response to the petition within six weeks. The court said the affidavit shall contain all papers and details pertaining to the land allotment. "We want to only know on what grounds concession, if any, was given to the company. We want to know if land was given at a throwaway price," Chief Justice Chellur said. "We want to know if any farmers' land was taken and allotted to the company," the court said, adding the affidavit shall also include the proposal submitted by the company to the government. Nirupam in his petition alleged that Maharashtra government favoured Patanjali and flouted all tender norms to allot the land to yoga guru Ramdev company's It claimed that the allotted land is part of a reserved forest area. The petition also claimed that the land was allotted at a concessional rate causing heavy monetary loss to the public exchequer. Nirupam has alleged that while the current market value of the said land is at least Rs 100 crore per acre, Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurveda received it at a throwaway price of Rs 25 lakh per acre. The plea sought an inquiry into the land allotment and urged the court to restrain Patanjali Ayurveda from using the land, pending a final order from the court. "I divorced my husband as revenge on the family for the atrocities we had to endure. It was also because my brother-in-law divorced my sister," she said. A woman in Uttar Pradesh has 'divorced' her husband through verbal talaq in the presence of police and media, saying she was taking the step to free herself of dowry harassment.Amreen Bano uttered 'talaq' thrice at the Inspector General of Police's office on Wednesday, asserting that if men could divorce their wives by saying 'talaq' thrice, women could do the same.Amreen said the triple talaq was her revenge against her in-laws who allegedly harassed her and her younger sister for dowry.She said she and her sister Farheen were married to Sabir and his brother Shakir, respectively, on March 28, 2012. Since their marriage, their husbands and in-laws allegedly harassed the two sisters for dowry.Last September, Shakir gave triple talaq to Farheen."As we raised our voices against the atrocities, my sister was divorced by her husband," Amreen said.Amreen had lodged a complaint in March against her husband, brother-in-law and four others. As no action was taken by the police, she reached the IG's office on Wednesday, demanding that her husband and in-laws be punished.Amreen said the Modi government was working for the welfare of women on the 'triple talaq' issue. All women should support the government on this, she added.However, chief Qazi of Meerut, Jenur Rashideen, said there was no provision for women to divorce their husbands in Islam. He added that a woman has to give an application at a Shariat panchayat for divorce.The panchayat will first try to resolve the issues between the couple. If it fails, it can get the woman a divorce from her husband, he said.Meerut zone IG Ajay Anand said Amreen met him with her complaint against her in-laws. He said he has asked the police station concerned to act on the complaint.(With PTI inputs) Noida: Oscar winning composer A.R.Rahman, who has stepped into direction with Virtual Reality (VR) multisensory episodic film Le Musk, launched the Indian prelude of the movie here on Friday. He finds filmmaking a tough job. "Filmmaking is a very tough job. It takes two years to direct a film and I didn't have that much time. I love music and love making it. Doing 'Le Musk' didn't seem like that much exhausting as I made it quickly. It was a 13-day schedule and I didn't have to spend two years behind it," Rahman said at the launch here at PVR ECX, Mall of India. "Virtual Reality gives you a real experience. It feels like 70 per cent you are at the place that you are watching," he added. Shot in Rome, Le Musk, featuring foreign actors like Nora Arnezeder, Guy Burnett and Marian Zohrabyan, follows the journey of an orphaned heiress and part time musician, Juliet, who grows up to be a diva on a mission. "In the year 2015, somebody gave me a VR and asked me to use it. At first I was hesitant and then after three months I thought of trying it. Then I started using it for six hours a day. Some of the content was incredible and some was insensitive," Rahman said. "Then one day my wife told me why don't you make a story on perfumes. That's how it started. Then I thought where to shoot it. After Croatia, London and Paris, finally we decided to shoot it in Rome," he added. Besides directing, Rahman has also written the script and given music to the film. Speaking on the occasion, Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Ltd, said: "It was Rahman, who got us on the path of launching VR in India. It was 18 months back when we met him. This technology is here to stay." Rahman said after "Le Musk", he has already started planning for his second film. "The next one is even more exciting. It's based on Indian culture and it will explore the various dance forms here," Rahman said. Before India, Rahman launched the prelude of the film in Las Vegas on April 24. Doubly happy !! We are blessed with an angel. Our own little princess. My brain isn't even comprehending all this. Over the moon !! pic.twitter.com/ceaaZsmAeZ dulquer salmaan (@dulQuer) May 5, 2017 It's a good day for actor Mammootty's family as his son Dulquer Salmaan and Amal Sufiya welcome their first child. Moreover, the news comes in on the same day as the release of his film Comrade In America.Dulquer took to Instagram and posted a photograph of a medical document that mentioned the birth of a baby girl. The actor soon took to social media sites and expressed his joy over the arrival their little bundle of joy.In an emotional post, the actor wrote, "Today is unforgettable in more ways than one. My life just changed forever. We've been blessed with a drop of heaven. At long last my biggest dream came true. I got my princess. Amu got a mini version of herself."He also thanked fans for their unconditional love and support. "For all the immense love all of you shower upon us. For all the undying support you give us. For always rooting for us to do our best. Every release, every event, every news of ours lives you all share in our joy. In return I can only return our happiness, joy and gratitude," he wrote.Even though the actor kept his message on Twitter brief, it's clear that he's happ both with the addition of a new member in their family and the release of his film. "Doubly happy !! We are blessed with an angel. Our own little princess. My brain isn't even comprehending all this. Over the moon !!," he wrote.The actor will next be seen in Bejoy Nambiar's Solo, Nag Ashwin's Mahanati and Lal Jose's Oru Bhayanakara Kamukan. The Indian film fraternity is often expected to voice their opinions on various matters - both political and social. Sometimes they mince words, sometimes they come out blatantly. The recent Supreme Court's verdict on the Nirbhaya rape case may have ignited a debate across the country but Bollywood has come out in support of the verdict. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentences of all four convicts involved in the heinous 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case.While many Bollywood celebrities took to Twitter and hailed the decision, it was Priyanka Chopra's letter that caught the fancy of many. The actress took to Twitter and shared an emotional post on Friday night after the verdict was announced."Yes, it has taken five long years, but today justice finally prevailed. The flame of this verdict should singe not just the dastardly four (of the other two, one is dead and one accused is a juvenile) but such perpetrators in India as well," she wrote."I'm so proud of the justice system for hearing her voice.. in her dying declaration she appealed that her perpetrators not be spared," she added.She further highlighted that the entire national got together to make sure that justice is served and stressed that the "brutality of such crimes is something I refuse to accept.""Justice that is what an entire country demanded five years ago and never let the nation forget. Each voice that joined the battle was strident and clear the six must be punished. Finally, they will pay," the post read.She expressed her concerns over the fact that even in 21st century, how can the society allow such heinous things to happen to women and said that it never ceases to trouble her. She urged the citizens of the country to never let the "brutal and demonical crimes" go on to mute mode."Unfortunately, the past can never be undone. So, we move on and make a promise to ourselves. That when an entire country is unified in wanting something, action is taken. This awakening, this unified voice to stop such brutal and demonical crimes, as our supreme court said, is what we must never let go onto mute mode."You will never be forgotten, Nirbhaya," she concluded.The likes of Rishi Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Dia Mirza and Ranvir Shorey also took to Twitter and hailed the Supreme Court's decision. DECATUR One of Rylee O'Dear's favorite things about her Girl Scout Troop 3200 is that the group includes girls of all different ages, from Daisies in kindergarten through Ambassadors in high school. I like how I can do things with my friends and learn new things, said Rylee, 11, who's been a member since she was in first grade. Friday was Girl Scout Day at the Capitol, when Girl Scouts from all over the state gather to hear speakers and see the workings of Springfield up close. About 3,000 Girl Scouts attended this year, including troops from Girl Scouts of Central Illinois. They learn about females in leadership and how they can pursue their own dreams, said Melinda Potter, leader of Rylee's troop. We walked in the parade with all 3,000 girls, and it's kind of cool to see that many girls in one location, and all up and down the road on the hill to the Capitol, more and more girls. It's a humbling experience. Barbara Farley, president of Illinois College, was a featured speaker this year, Potter said, and in addition to visiting and touring the Capitol, the girls planned to attend the Girl Expo at the Prairie Capital Convention Center, with booths on everything from scuba diving to Girl Scout camps. It's a really great experience, Potter said. We see girls wearing uniforms from other areas, and the girls compare badges, and they start talking amongst themselves, and it's just an amazing thing to watch. The Girl Scouts' legislative agenda, which is part of the day, too, includes promoting economic opportunities for girls by increasing their involvement in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) activities, strengthening their financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills. The Scouts also encourage healthy living by increasing access to outdoor activities; preventing bullying and relational aggression and promoting healthy relationships; fostering global citizenship and a global voice for girls; supporting a strong nonprofit community that encourages the Girl Scout experience. Attorney General Lisa Madigan feels strongly enough about the event to write letters to schools urging that girls be excused from class to attend. I appreciate that teachers have precious little time to teach our children, Madigan wrote. However, I also know that not everything can be learned in the classroom. Getting out of school was a perk, said Morgan Potter, 12, daughter of Melinda Potter, who has attended three times now. But there's more to it than that. You learn a bunch of stuff, she said. You really need to work to be a leader. It's different every time we come here. I really feel like (Girl Scouts) helps boost up a girl's confidence, said Baileigh Foster, 12. It helps you to overall really feel you can do a lot of cool and interesting things and interact with other girls across your state. Touring the Capitol, she said, was one of her favorite activities because she was able to hear a lot of back stories that possibly the general public doesn't hear. Parent Emily Richard accompanied her daughter, and was a Scout herself. Things have changed for the better since she was a girl, she said. They're learning about empowering girls and teaching them they can do anything they want to do, she said. I just remember going to camp and having fun with that and the field trips we would go on. Her daughter is going to sleep-away camp for the first time this summer and is excited about that, she added. Troop co-leader Mary Williams, who has been a leader for five years, likes that the speakers are mostly former Girl Scouts, too, who give the youngsters a good example. The girls get to meet legislators and talk to them, and that, too, is important, Madigan said in her letter. I enjoy working with the Girl Scouts to teach young women about civic responsibility and how to make a difference in the world, Madigan wrote. "He (PM) has a strong mandate. Whatever decision he takes, the country will support him," said Mufti, whose party is running a government in coalition with the BJP. "They tried their best to bring out Kashmir out of this unfortunate situation. He was successful to a large extent in shortest of period," Mehbooba said. "There was pent-up lava. It started to come out when the youths were out on the streets in 2008 and then 2009 and 2010. This lava has now spread to the streets and we are forced to face this situation," she said. : Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can resolve the Kashmir problem as he has a strong mandate, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Saturday, appealing him to extricate the Valley from the current turmoil.The PDP-BJP government, led by Mehbooba Mufti, is dealing with an ever-spiralling violence in the state. Mehbooba said the situation was the result of pent-up anger due to failure of the UPA government to continue with the policy started by the previous NDA government in Jammu and Kashmir during her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's rule, the PTI reported."I say today with authority and I will be criticised for it also.If anyone can find a solution to Jammu and Kashmir problem, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi."If anyone can take us out of the sticky spot, it is Prime Minister Modi. The nation will support whatever he decides...it is may earnest appeal...," she said. The CM was addressing a gathering after inaugurating a flyover.Hailing the Prime Minister's decision to visit Lahore on December 25, 2015, she said that it was a sign of strength not weakness."He has the mandate of the people. This is his biggest power. He went to Lahore and met the PM of that country. This is not a sign of weakness but an indication of strength and power," she said.She took a dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he did not have the courage to visit Pakistan. "Before him (Modi), a Prime Minister had also desired to go to Pakistan for over ten years. He wanted to see his home there," she said, with naming Singh."He also would have tried to end the confrontation between the two countries, and bring J&K out of this unfortunate situation, but he had no courage to do that."She gave credit to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former chief minister Mufti Sayeed for starting the "chapter of peace" in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002."There was ceasefire (along Indo-Pak border) during Vajpayee's rule. There were talks with L K Advani (in Kashmir). There was beginning of the process of opening (cross-LoC) roads."The Chief Minister said militancy declined during that period and there was peace on the borders."These were not small developments. But unfortunately Mufti was out of the government and Vajpayee ji left, and the process came to grinding halt,"the PDP leader lamented.She alleged that the UPA regime at the Centre and the state government did not carry forward the process thinking "everything is peaceful and there is no need to do anything further".The CM said while her government is trying to improve the situation in Kashmir, there are some forces which do not want it."Mufti sahib, who had seen a dream, shook hands with the Prime Minister of our country Narendra Modi, who has got the mandate of the people," she said. As the chief minister was speaking, former Minister and senior Congress leader Gulchain Singh Charak interrupted her speech and demanded setting up of two civil secretariat in Jammu and Srinagar capital cities.Charak, who later walked out of the hall in protest, was heckled by some workers after conclusion of the function.(with inputs from PTI) Kolkata: Taking the battle to Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday said the CM should ask for a CBI probe into the chit fund scam. Why should Centre call for a CBI probe every time. Eradication of corruption should be a collective responsibility. Poor people lost their hard-earned money in the ponzi scam. On moral grounds, Manik ji should demand a CBI probe and punish those involved in it, Shah said. Asserting that Tripura has potential to become a model state, the BJP president said it has also seen corruption in the last 25 years. The law and order situation has collapsed. Women are not safe here. It is unfortunate that over 65% people in Tripura are Below Poverty Line (BPL). More than 25% people do not have access to safe drinking water, Shah said. He promised that if the BJP wins the elections in Tripura, the new government will implement recommendations of Seventh Pay Commission for state government employees. On forging alliance with non-Left parties, Shah said, We have not yet decided on it. We are concentrating more on strengthening our party base in Tripura. The BJP chief said people across the world have rejected the Communists. Also, there is no existence of Congress. We are confident that we will form the government in Tripura, he added. Regarding Triple Talaq, Shah said, Our stand is clear. We dont want to see the suffering of Muslim women due to triple talaq. This system must stop. Yeh Uchit Nahi Hain (this is not right). Shah, who is on a two-day visit to Tripura, will address a public meet in Kumarghat on Sunday. Many Trinamool Congress and Congress leaders are expected to join BJP at the event. The metamorphosis is palpable and its pervasive, especially in a country where political mobilisations have generally been cobbled around caste and religion fault-lines. Or economic disparities in a few cases. Electoral politics notwithstanding, even the reaction towards women-related issues in the civil society has seen a perceptible shift. Perhaps the proximity of the event unfolding before the Delhi media carried the widespread indignation at the turn of events to every household in the era of live television. Earlier this week, the Raghubar Das-led Jharkhand government reviewed the land revenue policy of the state. In a meeting attended by key administrative heads of various departments, it was decided in principle that any property registered in the name of a female family member shall henceforth invite a token stamp duty of just Re 1.The new policy, which will be sanctioned by the state cabinet next week, would cost the exchequer close to Rs 250 crore in revenue loss annually. But then, its a political decision which the ruling party calculates will reap rich electoral dividends.The move by the state government in many ways is indicative of the changing paradigm in the Indian polity wherein women are increasingly being considered an independent political constituency.In a highly patriarchal society, this is no mean achievement seven decades after India attained freedom and the Constituent Assembly enshrined universal adult franchise on its citizens.Women as a constituency over and above caste affiliations perhaps were tangibly evident for the first time in 2010 Bihar assembly polls. It was an election where women showed a distinct predilection for Nitish Kumar who was seen to have improved law and order situation in the state during his tenure. Narendra Modi, as the chief minister of Gujarat, similarly understood and worked towards channelising the female constituency to his party's advantage.The spontaneous public outrage on the streets of Delhi following the ghastly gang rape of a young girl in the winter of 2012 led to massive protests for days together. A month ahead of the Republic Day parade, from India Gate to Raisina Hills protesters fought a pitched battle with the police.Perhaps it was the sedimentary effect of the Anna Hazare movement. Perhaps those were the heady days when oligarchies were crumbling the world over and social media was the new tool of political mobilisation from Tahrir Square to Jantar Mantar.But then, when was the last time India protested and condemned violence against women in this manner and with such outrage?The political class, in general, has been quick to grasp and respond to the altering realities of the nation's polity. In government, Akhilesh Yadav launched a scheme to provide sanitary napkins to adolescent girls in government and aided schools. Similarly, there is also a political intent behind banning liquor in Bihar. Don't be surprised if Nitish Kumar makes prohibition his calling card if he were to be UPA's PM candidate in the future. It's a policy issue which concerns nearly half of the total electorate. Modi government's Ujjwala Yojana providing LPG connections to poor families targets the same constituency.If 2014 was about youth, says a senior BJP leader, 2019 general elections would be about women. The country is going through a phase where you should have a president whose secular credentials are impeccable. The president is the custodian of our constitution, he said on the sidelines of a programme. "We will have our political differences (with TMC) and we will fight it politically. But today the issue is presidential election and this is our proposal, if you agree with this then it is good. Yesterday I met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on this issue." Attacking the saffron party, he said, "The BJP is trying to project Hindutva as a role model of development. During campaign for 2014 Lok Sabha election, it was trying to project Gujarat model of development which was nothing but the manifestation of Godhra riots in 2002. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday hinted that his party is not averse to supporting the TMC and other opposition parties in order to elect the next president whose "secular credentials" should be impeccable.He also lashed out at the Narendra Modi government for trying to project "Hindutva as the role model of development".Yechury further said, "So we want a person to be the president who believes in secular supervision and not a communal supervision. So for this we are talking to other parties." Yechury said.Asked if his party is ready to stand with TMC on the issue, the CPI(M) leader said, "See this is not a political alignment or any alliance. Many parties will be coming together. If you are coming together on this issue then it is good.He emphasised the need to make collective efforts to have an acceptable, common candidate for the top post who can undertake "secular supervision" as it is essential at this juncture.When asked whether he will hold talks with the TMC, Yechury said, "It is not about holding talks. This issue is in our agenda, we want this kind of a candidate. First let all of us have a commonality on candidate, then only consultations can start.""The BJP wanted to send out a subtle message that we have taught Muslims a lesson. They did this again in UP assembly polls where they didn't field a single Muslim candidate."Actually they want to send out a message of development which is minus Muslims. This is their Hindutava model of development," he said.Yechury also mocked the TMC and the BJP saying they are having a "carrot and a stick" relationship."Whenever the TMC raises voice against the BJP, two of their leaders are arrested in corruption cases and the TMC becomes quiet. They stage walk out during voting in the Rajya Sabha, and in turn helps the BJP. The BJP also pays back by going slow on CBI cases against TMC leaders," he said. Bihar's industry minister and JD (U) leader Jai Kumar Singh said he will not tolerate anyone who tries to malign the image of Nitish Kumar. Government will take action after the audio clip is investigated, he said. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushil Kumar Modi has hit out at Lalu Yadav after an audio clip of the latter's alleged conversation with jailed mafia don Mohammad Shahabuddin was aired by a private TV channel on Saturday.Modi said Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo has been promoting and patronising criminals as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has turned a blind eye to the illegal activities of his alliance partner.In the audio clip run by Republic TV, Shahabuddin is heard asking Yadav to remove Siwan superintendent of police Saurabh Kumar Shah. Khatam hai bhai aap ka SP remove them all theyll start a riot. (Your SP is useless remove all of them they will start a riot)"Nitish Kumars party has reacted cautiously. Bihar government will investigate purported conversation between Lalu and Shahabuddin aired by a media house. But lets be clear that our government did not transfer the superintendent of police whose name is taken in the audio and it proves that our government never compromised on law and order, said Neeraj Kumar, spokesperson of JD (U).Shahabuddin, four-time MP from Siwan, is lodged in Delhis Tihar Jail after his bail was cancelled by the Supreme Court earlier this year. He is facing many criminal cases in Bihar and continues to be on RJDs executive council.RJD, on the other hand, has defended Shahabuddin. Senior RJD leader Jagadanand Singh said his party will not expel Shahabuddin. He is one of our leaders and there is no question pf showing him the doors. But if he talked to Lalu Ji from jail, then it was wrong. Nothing more should be construed from the audio clip, he said.On the other hand, daring Nitish Kumar to break the alliance with Lalu Yadavs party, Sushil Kumar Modi said, Lalu must quit public life. A security guard stationed outside the house provided details of middlemen who could broker a deal to hold marriage ceremonies at the prime property. He told this reporter that air-conditioned rooms for the bride and the groom could be booked inside the bungalow for a premium. They enjoy privileges and perks that a common man can only dream of. But that doesnt seem to be enough for ministers in Bihar, who have been caught renting out their official bungalows for a quick buck.An investigation by CNN-News18s sister channel ETV Bihar has found that some ministers in the Nitish Kumar-led government have been renting out their official bungalows for private functions, including marriage parties for a huge sum of money.The cost of space for a day exceeds Rs 2.5 lakh. Other facilities are available for a charge, said an event manager at the sprawling bungalow of the states minority affairs minister Abdul Ghafoor, who is an MLA from Lalu Yadavs Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Tents pitched for a private ceremony dot the premises now.There was a similar scene at the official bungalow of Bihars art and culture minister Shivchandra Ram, who is also an MLA from RJD.When asked, the minister dismissed the charges as 'baseless accusations. We are political people. I help out my colleagues if they dont get venues for marriages. Please check if the security guard you are referring to is employed by me, said Shivchandra Ram.There is an empty field behind my house. When people need it for marriages, I let them use it. I dont take money from anybody, he said. Ask (BJP leader) Sushil Modi how his leaders have rented out government properties.Hitting back, former deputy CM Sushil Modi questioned if Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would act now. Marriages take place there every day. Even Nitish Kumar knows about it and he has attended several functions there. His government is doing nothing as the building construction department is run by the RJD Will Nitish Kumar act now?The BJP leader said the CM must sack the two ministers and the BJP will sit on a dharna on May 14 over the issue.Even JDU (U) MLA Narendra Singhs bungalow was being used for commercial purpose.Watch Operation Bungalow here: Kolkata: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modis intention to oppose Triple Talaq. If he can say so many things about Triple Talaq then why he is quiet on widows of Vrindavan. Varanasi is his own constituency, why he quiet on this issue, said Yechury during the birth anniversary celebration of Karl Marx at Pramod Dasgupta Bhavan in Kolkata. I would like to ask why he is showing sympathy towards Muslim women and not on those widows who are there in Vrindavan. What is his stand on Womens Reservation Bill despite having majority in Lok Sabha? he questioned. Recently, PM Modi sought equal rights for Muslim women. I believe that the reformers from the community will protect women from ill-effects of triple talaq. I am sure that reformers from the Muslim community will come forward and put an end to triple talaq," he had said. On Presidential election, Yechury said, Opposition parties must field a candidate with impeccable secular credentials and commitment to constitutional principles for the presidential elections in July. Recently, Yechury met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and discussed the issue. JDU leader Nitish Kumar also met her and spoke in favour of fielding a secular candidate. Both the leaders requested Sonia to take the lead in consulting more leaders of Opposition parties on the issue. On Kashmir unrest he said, Centre is delaying implementation of measures suggested by an all-party delegation to restore normalcy in Kashmir. Ruling party is using Kashmir for polarization. Centre must ensure normalcy in the state. Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine. "The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said. Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting, in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote. The French presidential election campaign is not the first to be overshadowed by accusations of manipulation via computer hacking and cyber-attacks. Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online 1-1/2 days before voters choose between the centrist and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen.Macron, who extended his lead in the polls over Le Pen on Friday, is seen as the frontrunner in an election billed as the most important in France in decades.In a statement, Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked.An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules that forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight on Friday (2200 GMT).The French presidential election commission said in statement that it would hold a meeting later on Saturday after Macron's campaign informed it about the hack and publishing of the data.It urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publishing it could lead to criminal charges.Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close on Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).Former economy minister Macron's team has complained in the past about attempts to hack its emails during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data.In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine.In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said that the documents released online showed only the normal functionings of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation"."The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk," it added.US intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Hillary Clinton's Democratic campaign to influence the election on behalf of Donald Trump, her Republican rival who went on to win the US presidency.On Friday night as the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, asked on Twitter; "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?"Macron spokesman Sylvain Fort, in a response on Twitter, called Philippot's tweet "vile". London: Rajgauri Pawar, a 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in United Kingdom, who secured two points higher than geniuses Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in the British Mensa IQ test, has been invited to join the coveted society as a member. Pawar appeared in the British Mensa IQ Test in Manchester last month, and scored 162, the highest possible IQ for someone under the age of 18, PTI reported. The girl has been invited to join the coveted Mensa IQ test with the highest possible score. Pawar, a resident of Cheshire county, is among the one per cent of those who sit in the Mensa test and achieve the maximum mark, with the genius benchmark set at 140. She secured 162, two points higher than Einstein and Hawking. Pawar is one of only 20,000 people to achieve the score worldwide, Mensa said. I was a little nervous before the test but it was fine and Im really pleased to have done so well, Pawar was quoted as saying by PTI. This wouldnt have been possible without the efforts of her teachers and the support which my daughter enjoys every day at school, Pawar's father Dr Surajkumar Pawar said. She studies at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, which also expressed pride at her achievement. Everybody is delighted. She is a very well-liked student and we all expect great things from her, said Andrew Barry, her maths teacher. (With PTI inputs) We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground (missile) cities to disrupt the JCPOA (nuclear deal)," he said during the debate, which comes ahead of the May 19 election. All six candidates in the presidential election support the nuclear deal since it had the tacit backing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Rouhani has accused his conservative opponents of trying to derail it during negotiations. Iran's armed forces warned President Hassan Rouhani against discussing the country's defence programme after he criticised the anti-Israel slogans written on the side of ballistic missiles, local media reported on Saturday.During an election debate on Friday, Rouhani took the rare step of criticising the elite Revolutionary Guards for the provocative messages they wrote on ballistic missiles before testing them.Armed Forces spokesman General Masoud Jazayeri responded that the missile programme had "no connection" to the nuclear deal."We again stress and recommend the presidential candidates to avoid controversial entries into important and sensitive military and defence issues of the country and giving false information to people," said Jazayeri, according to the website of state broadcaster IRIB."The existence of underground missile sites are an important deterrent factor against the sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the nation," Jazayeri added.Iran says its ballistic missile tests are part of its legitimate defence programme and are not a violation of the 2015 deal, under which it agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to certain sanctions.But Washington has used them as a pretext for fresh sanctions, saying the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future."Tell people clearly, what will you do regarding (the nuclear deal)? You were all against it," he said during the televised debate."When (US President Donald) Trump took office you were celebrating because he said he would tear up the deal. Today people should know whether sanctions and confrontation are coming back or not," he added. Gaza City: The radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad has rejected Hamas's new policy of easing its stand on Israel and accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state limited to the 1967 borders. "As partners with our Hamas brothers in the struggle for liberation, we feel concern over the document" which the main Islamist movement that rules Gaza adopted on Monday, said Islamic Jihad's deputy leader, Ziad al-Nakhala. "We are opposed to Hamas's acceptance of a state within the 1967 borders and we think this is a concession which damages our aims," he said on Islamic Jihad's website. Nakhala said the new Hamas policy formally accepting the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War would "lead to deadlock and can only produce half-solutions". Hamas has eased its stance on the Jewish state after having called for decades for its destruction, as the movement seeks to improve its international standing. Founded in 1979 in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran, a close ally and source of its ideology, Islamic Jihad is the second force in the Gaza Strip and focused entirely on the armed struggle. Islamabad: Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy here over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said on Saturday. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. "India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation. Meanwhile in New Delhi, sources said Bambawale is in India. Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. The legal fights may end up at the US Supreme Court perhaps in the fall, many months after Trump first issued an executive order in January saying there was an urgent need to halt some immigration to the United States for 90 days while officials reviewed the visa process. Now almost 100 days after the original travel ban, the government says the period of 90 days was reset when the administration issued the new order in March. The hearing will take place before 14 full-time judges of the appellate court. Ten of them were appointed by Democrats, and four by Republicans. Legal challenges to President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries heat up again next week when two US appeals courts consider whether it is constitutional.Trump dropped the original travel order after unfavourable legal rulings and replaced it with a more limited ban which is itself now being challenged in appeals courts on two coasts.Arguing that the United States needed to tighten national security measures, Trump's attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office. The fate of the ban is one indication of whether the Republican can carry out his promises to be tough on immigration and national security.Omar Jadwat, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be arguing the case at the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on Monday, said the fact that so much time has passed since the ban was issued is proof that there was no pressing national security need for it in the first place.The court fight will give those challenging the order an opportunity to argue that the government never intended for the travel pause to be temporary, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Palo Alto, California whose firm has been closely tracking the ongoing litigation.The Department of Homeland Security "is, and will be, continuously examining ways to enhance the screening and vetting process to shut down terrorist and criminal pathways into the United States," agency spokesman David Lapan said. "Some improvements will be classified, others will be public, but the Department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system," he said in an email.Opponents - including states and civil rights groups - say that both the first ban and the revised ban, which also put a halt to all refugee admissions to the country for four months, discriminates against Muslims.The government argues the text of the order does not mention any specific religion and is needed to protect the country against attacks.The 4th Circuit will decide the fate of a ruling from a Maryland district judge that struck down a section of the revised executive order barring visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia.Then, on March 15, a three-judge panel at the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals will review a decision from a Hawaii judge that halted not just the travel portion of the ban but also the section that barred refugees. The judges who will sit on a panel in Seattle - have been assigned but their identities have not been made public.The 9th Circuit blocked Trump's first ban in February, in a unanimous vote by one Republican-appointed judge and two-Democratic appointees. Trump lashed out at the ruling on Twitter and said he is ready for a fight at the Supreme Court.The nation's highest court is more likely to hear a case if the federal appeals courts reach opposite rulings or if the issue is of great national importance, according to legal experts.But the Supreme Court's session ends in June, and if it take the case it would probably not be heard until after the justices return in October. Blackmans delight Their concert, The Blackman Legacy, at Kaiso Blues Cafe on April 28 was living proof that the children have learned well. The concert was by far the best held at that venue since its inception two years ago. It featured big brother OC who together with his band performed a rock version of his fathers Who God Bless. The performance sent the sold-out crowd wild and OC received sustained applause. Each member of the family performed a Shorty I song along with several of their own compositions. The evening began with Eldon who did an acoustic performance on guitar with his brother Sean on congas. His choice was You Push the Creator Out and he had the audience singing along with him. Next up was Nehilet who performed with her all-female band and they chose Sweet Music; they were joined by a horn section. OC followed with his performance making way for Abbi. With her two daughters on stage, Abbi was different, she performed a song her father wrote for her 20-plus years ago House of Calypso. She also pulled one out of her mothers favourite collection. The Cafes audience erupted as Abbi started the Willie Nelson composition, Crazy, made popular by Patsy Cline in 1961. Abbi put a twist to the lyrics and the performance was awesome. SOCA/Jamoo creator Ras Shorty I and his wife Claudette must have been smiling to see their had work in their children was paying great dividends. Their concert, The Blackman Legacy, at Kaiso Blues Cafe on April 28 was living proof that the children have learned well. The concert was by far the best held at that venue since its inception two years ago. It featured big brother OC who together with his band performed a rock version of his fathers Who God Bless. The performance sent the sold-out crowd wild and OC received sustained applause. Each member of the family performed a Shorty I song along with several of their own compositions. The evening began with Eldon who did an acoustic performance on guitar with his brother Sean on congas. His choice was You Push the Creator Out and he had the audience singing along with him. Next up was Nehilet who performed with her all-female band and they chose Sweet Music; they were joined by a horn section. OC followed with his performance making way for Abbi. With her two daughters on stage, Abbi was different, she performed a song her father wrote for her 20-plus years ago House of Calypso. She also pulled one out of her mothers favourite collection. The Cafes audience erupted as Abbi started the Willie Nelson composition, Crazy, made popular by Patsy Cline in 1961. Abbi put a twist to the lyrics and the performance was awesome.An intermission was forced on the show as police officers stopped the proceedings as the neighbours complained about the noise. After an agreement forged by soca star Machel Montano the show continued. New singing sensation Nailah Blackman started off, was followed by Marge and then Isaac Blackman who all performed to the delight of the patrons who stood their ground. The show ended with the siblings all on stage singing the classicWatch out My Children. Machel Montano and extempo artiste Abebele were asked to join the Blackman clan on stage to complete an evening of great music. You would think someone who spent more than 14 years as business editor would have little problem piecing together a business-related column. Sure, I've written a monthly From the Editor column for the Business Journal for nearly a decade, but this is the big time. A column for the Herald & Review. I'm thinking newspaper readers want a little more than a cheesy picture of myself and a few paragraphs on that issue's theme. Oh, the pressure. But I'm up for the challenge As I begin this adventure, let me share a little about myself. I was born in Decatur, graduated from Niantic-Harristown High School and got my bachelor's degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. I grew up surrounded by a loving mom and dad and creating great memories with a neighborhood of friends. Many weekends were spent running around downtown Decatur with my cousin, checking out the latest top record list at Montgomery Ward and eating lunch at Taco Amigo. Cruising Eldo played a role in meeting my wife. I decided in the fourth grade that I wanted to be a reporter. The class I was in for three school years put great emphasis on themed field trips and interviewing people. The highlight for me each year was a trip to Springfield where we interviewed the first lady, met with the governor and filed stories based on the media group we represented. I got an email a few weeks back from my former teacher, Jeff Deremiah, telling me the 46-year run of grade school press conferences has come to an end. School restructuring made the class size too large to manage such an event. I'm sorry to see it go away, but there are few school programs that can claim that kind of run. That experience set my career path and I have no idea what I would have grown up to be if this newspaper thing hadn't worked out. The thing I like about my job is meeting people and sharing their stories with readers. And sometimes I get to do things others wish they could if they had the time. I started my professional career as a reporter for the Effingham Daily News and went on to compete with my former co-workers after the Herald & Review recruited me for its newly created Effingham Bureau chief position. That was 25 years ago. I loved Effingham, but opportunities presented themselves in the Decatur office that I couldn't pass up. Coming home, being close to my family and friends, was a good thing. I've held several titles over the years, the longest of which being business editor. It was a promotion driven more by my desire to actually see my two great kids grow up I had been night editor, which means I worked a lot of nights than any real knowledge of business in the traditional sense. My focus was less on numbers (I still need a cheat sheet to figure percentages) and more about making connections for the reader. Why should you care that the heavy rains closed a portion of the Mississippi River or the fate of the oil sands in Canada? It's because both have a huge impact on two of our major employers Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Caterpillar Inc. For me, every story is a business story. If it involves money, it is a business story. If it involves education (people working to train future workers), it is a business story. If it involves food (people growing stuff that people will turn into stuff that people will buy), it is a business story. I think you get the point. My goal for this column is to help you connect with the local business community to celebrate its achievements and to understand its challenges. As I noted earlier, all stories are business stories, so there is no limit on what I can write about. I welcome your suggestions for story topics. One quick warning. It's very likely that I will toss in a few plugs now and then for how much I love relaxing on Lake Decatur. I can't help it. That's my story. What's yours? FIX THIS MESS This is the call of 11 of this countrys leading senior lawyers as well as the Law Association, to Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) on the appointment of former Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar as a high court judge, her subsequent resignation two weeks later and her apparent reappointment to the magistracy. Eleven members of the inner bar - Senior Counsel Martin Daly, Sophia Chote, Claude Denbow, Alvin Fitzpatrick, former attorneys general John Jeremie and Anand Ramlogan, Gilbert Peterson, Pamela Elder, Seenath Jairam, Avory Sinanan and Israel Khan - yesterday said they were extremely alarmed by events surrounding Ayers-Caesars appointment. Our alarm is heightened by the obvious and considerable distress and anxiety being experienced by persons with matters left unfinished at the time of her appointment to the High Court, the 11 Senior Counsel noted. The Law Association, meanwhile, has hinted at possible legal action arising out of the bungling of Ayers-Caesars appointment to the High Court. Ayers-Caesars resignation came days after irate prisoners rioted at the magistrates court in Port-of-Spain after they were told their matters some of which were part heard before the former chief magistrate - had to be adjourned until further instructions were given on how to proceed following Ayers-Caesars elevation. APPOINTED, RESIGNED Just two weeks into her appointment as a judge, Ayers-Caesar resigned, admitting she failed to inform the JLSC about part-heard matters, reported to be 50, still on her magistratescourt docket. In a simultaneous statement, the Judiciary indicated the JLSC had met and agreed to restore Ayers-Caesar to the magisterial bench. But in their statement, the 11 silks stressed it would be unwise for Ayers-Caesar to resume duties as a magistrate. We believe that before any solution can be proffered, there are several unanswered questions must be dealt with expeditiously. We are firmly of the view that it would be imprudent and unwise for Mrs Ayers-Caesar to resume duties as a Magistrate until such time. We have brought concerns, the Senior Counsel said, on a lack of essential information to the attention to the President of the Law Association in the full expectation that the Association will take all necessary steps to vigorously pursue obtaining said information. In the event the Law Association does not pursue the quest for this information from the relevant parties, this concerned group of Senior Counsel will reconvene to treat with the matter as appropriate, the 11 silks noted. REAL DANGER In a separate statement yesterday, president of the Law Association Douglas Mendes SC, said Ayers-Caesars elevation created a real danger that a significant number of her partheard matters would have to be heard all over again. The burden which that would have imposed on an already over-burdened magistracy, the further delays which would have been caused and the expense and prejudice which would have been visited upon defendants, threatens to bring the administration of justice into disrepute, Mendes said. He said that while noting the right and courageous decision of Ayers-Caesar to resign her judgeship and make herself available to complete her cases in the lower court, there is doubt as to if she could lawfully continue the trials she left behind, even with the consent of the accused person. There is no doubting that once lawfully re-appointed she would be empowered at the very least to start her partheard matters over from the beginning, Mendes said. Lawyers have indicated some of the matters before the former chief magistrate were as much as five years old, with accused persons being held without bail for that length of time as they have been charged with capital offences, namely murder. There is precedent pointing both ways. The Law Association expresses no opinion on the strength or otherwise of either viewpoint. That is a matter which will eventually be resolved in court and it is best not to further rehearse the legal arguments in the public arena, Mendes said. He did, however, express concern that there appeared not to have an established mechanism to ensure that, before elevation, a magistrate would complete all part-heard matters which could not properly be passed on to another magistrate. We consider that to be a serious flaw in the system and would urge the Judicial and Legal Service Commission to take immediate steps to preclude a similar occurrence in the future, Mendes recommended. He also acknowledged receipt of a petition calling for a special general meeting of the association to debate a resolution calling for Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the members of the JLSC to resign. This meeting is expected to be held on or before June 5, Mendes said. 61 NAMES ON PETITION Yesterday, over 61 signatures were obtained from lawyers for the special general meeting. The petition also calls for the passage of a vote of no confidence in the CJ and the JLSC. It has also been asked that the meeting be opened to the media. Archie, as CJ, is chairman of the JLSC which also comprises of retired Justices Roger Hamel- Smith and Humphrey Stollmeyer and former Public Service Commission chairman Dr Marjorie Thorpe. The petition noted that the actions of the CJ and the JLSC have seriously undermined and diminished public confidence in the administration of justice in TT in a manner that may be irreparable. Serious questions arise as to whether the JLSC has the power to reinstate Mrs Ayers-Caesar, she, having resigned her post of Chief Magistrate, by implication when taking up her appointment and assuming duties as High Court judge, the attorneys petition noted. To date, no statement has been forthcoming from the JLSC despite many calls for the Chief Justice and the other members of the Commission to resign. The JLSC has a duty to the public and in the execution of its constitutional mandate to explain to the public the circumstances in which these appointments and reappointments have been made and they have failed in this duty, the document noted. Health Ministry receives loan to fight non-communicable diseases Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, at the launch of the National Strategic Plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable disease, said the money was acquired through a loan from the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB). The launch was held at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre on Wednesday. Saying the population was too sedentary, Deyalsingh said, People must not wake up in the morning, take their sugar and hypertension pill and then sit down for the rest of the day. We have to get the country moving. A significant part is going to be bringing outdoor gym equipment to be used by the population and placed in strategic areas. A significant part of the loan is going to be used for retraining and re-equipping our primary health response. He continued, We want to take our population away from secondary hospitals and tertiary hospitals and put them back into their community settings. Deyalsingh said everything the ministry will be doing from now on has to be rebranded with the theme, Healthy Me, Healthy You, Healthy TT. He said the ministry is working on a national physical activity plan targeting the elderly and children, and considering a television show on healthy cooking alternatives for families. IDBs chief operations officer Carina Cockburn said 80 percent of deaths in this country are attributed to non-communicable diseases and more than 50 percent of the population aged 15 to 64 are overweight or obese. Rates in school children aged 5 to 18 years increased from 11 percent in 1999 to 23 percent in 2009 - a 109 percent increase, Cockburn said. Over the same 10-year period, obesity in children increased by 400 percent from 2.4 percent to 12.5 percent. Similarly, since 1980, the prevalence of diabetes in TT has increased by 350 percent from four percent to current estimates of 14.5 percent. She continued, It is not only the quantum of these figures that is alarming but the rapid increase in the prevalence of these issues among the population. Cockburn said the IDB is very excited about the potential benefits of this health project. As we and our colleagues in the Ministry of Health are aware, if we really want to address non-communicable diseases in a meaningful way, it cannot be business as usual. It will take the combined efforts of many stakeholders to be successful. We will have to continue to be bold and innovative, think outside of the box and move swiftly in our execution in order to realise our objectives. Fate of the Senate Is Being Decided: 4 Big Races Still Too Close to Call New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Cloudy early with peeks of sunshine expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 82F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 66F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Nineteen-year-old Maria Pia Pedala was in a coma from liver failure in Sicily, Italy, on Sept. 29, 1994, when a 7-year-old American boy was shot dead while on vacation with his family in the country. Though Italy had one of the lowest rates of organ donation in western Europe at the time, Nicholas Green's parents opted to donate his organs. It was a life-saving decision for Pedala and six others, including 15-year-old Andrea Mongiardo, who received Nicholas' heart. But it had an effect on many more. Nicholas' parents campaigned hard for organ donation in the years that followed, showing good could come out of tragedy, reports the BBC. Their efforts, says Reg Green, had a "quite astonishing effect which we couldn't possibly have foreseen." In a little over a decade, Italy's organ donation rate more than tripled. Though the country adopted an opt-out rather than an opt-in system for organ donation in 1999, officials also credit the "Nicholas Effect." As Green notes, other countries use opt-in systems but "no other country has tripled organ donation." Green, 88, continues to raise awareness about organ donation to this day, traveling to Italy twice a year. During his most recent visit, he met with Pedala, who has since given birth to a son named Nicholas. He was unable to meet Mongiardo, who died earlier this year of respiratory failure related to chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma, Green writes at the Los Angeles Times. But Green knows that at 37, he had a heart of "pure gold." (Read more organ donation stories.) An engineering student at Saint Louis University did too well on a class assignment to build a toy gun, creating a model so realistic that it prompted a campus-wide lockdown and hunt for a possible shooting suspect, the AP reports. The private, Catholic university in Missouri warned all students to shelter in place for hours Wednesday afternoon and evacuated a residence hall after reports of a man with a gun on campus and shots fired. Police and university officials eventually tracked the source of the scare to a toy gun. Students in the Aerospace and Mechanical "Engineering Manufacturing Procedures" class had been assigned to build a toy rubber band gun. "At least one student created a very realistic toy gun and openly carried it into his residence hall," the university said in a statement. It is asking all of the students to bring the toy guns in closed containers to a university office Thursday, where they will be destroyed. "This is the first time toy guns have been made in this class, and it will be the last," the university said. It is too early to say if anyone will be disciplined over the incident, a university spokesperson said. (Read more toy guns stories.) Terrance's addiction cost him his family, job, and home. But it wasn't a need for drugs, or alcohol, or gambling that landed the Colorado accountant in a psychiatric hospital and high-security prison; it was an addiction to BMWs, Jalopnik reports in an unbelievable piece on the incredible lure of German engineering. Terrance, whose last name is withheld in the piece, wasn't obsessed with just any BMWs, but the 2002 models of the 1960s and 1970s, which he calls "perfectly designed and engineered." In 2013, Terrance owned "exactly 50" BMWs. His wife and kids knew about eight of them. The rest were stored at a friend's salvage yard, in his work's parking lot, and elsewhere around the state. He also had storage units full of BMW parts. BMWs aren't cheap50 of them even less soand Terrance needed to fund his addiction. To do so, he says he embezzled $320,000 from his employers by giving himself extra paychecks. His bosses say it was more than $400,000. Eventually, his work found out about the stolen money and his wife found out about the secret cars. The repercussions to his lies were swift: Terrance's wife filed for divorce, his kids stopped speaking to him, he became suicidal, and he eventually found himself in prison. He blames BMW culture. BMW enthusiasts are frequently programmed into an attitude that all other makes and models are inferior," Terrance says. Read the full piece here to find out what Terrance is driving as he tries to rebuild his life. (Read more Longform stories.) The FCC is now investigating the joke that launched a wave of #FireColbert tweets and think-pieces this week. The Hill reports FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says they've received "a number" of complaints about a joke told by Stephen Colbert on The Late Show this week. During an angry monologue Monday in which Colbert insulted President Trump as payback for Trump insulting a journalist, Colbert concluded with: "The only thing your mouth is good at is being Vladimir Putin's c--- holster." Following the backlash, Colbert said he didn't regret the joke but may have reconsidered the wording. Now Pai says the FCC will determine if Colbert's joke meets the Supreme Court definition of "obscene," in which case it will "take the appropriate action"most likely a fine. The official definition of obscene, as quoted by Slate: It must appeal to an average persons prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The Daily Beast reports the FCC announced its investigation a day after Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto asked Pai about doing exactly that. Cavuto wondered if there was some way the FCC could "regulate or at least police offensive comment," noting "a lot of people" want Colbert fired. (Read more Stephen Colbert stories.) A white Texas police officer has been charged with murder in the shooting of a black teenager for which the officer was fired, according to an arrest warrant issued Friday. The warrant for Roy Oliver, a former officer in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs, was issued by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office for the April 29 shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, the AP reports. In a statement it released announcing the warrant, the sheriff's office cited evidence that suggested Oliver "intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death." Oliver fired a rifle at a car of teenagers leaving a party, striking and killing Edwards. The warrant states that any peace officer may arrest Oliver, and that Oliver could also turn himself in to authorities. Meanwhile, a sheriff's spokesperson says the investigation into the shooting continues. Edwards and his two brothers and two other teenagers were driving away from an unruly house party in Balch Springs late Saturday night when Oliver opened fire on their vehicle with a rifle. The bullets shattered the front passenger-side window and struck Edwards. Oliver was fired Tuesday for violating department policies. It took a few moments for Edwards' 16-year-old brother, who was driving, and other passengers to notice that he was slumped over in his seat. (Read more police shooting stories.) Roy Oliver, the former Texas police officer who fatally shot 15-year-old Jordan Edwards last Saturday night, turned himself in hours after an arrest warrant was issued Friday. Oliver, who was fired from the force in the Dallas suburb of of Balch Springs on Tuesday, was freed Friday night after posting $300,000 bail at the Parker County Jail, the AP reports. According to the arrest warrant, the officer, who is charged with murder, fired a rifle into a car full of teenagers leaving a rowdy party. The teenager's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer, the city, and the Balch Spring Police Department. Their lawyers say they are glad to see swift action taken against a white officer who shot a black youth. "I was elated," Edwards family attorney Jasmin Crockett tells NBC 5. "We've seen this play out so many times in so many cities across America. So in less than a week, we have an officer that got fired, we have an officer that has an arrest warrant." Oliver, an Iraq vet who had been with the Balch Springs force since 2011, was involved in another gun incident just two weeks before the Edwards shooting, reports the Dallas Morning News. Monique Arrendondo, 26, says the officer, in plain clothes and off-duty, drew his gun and demanded ID after his truck was rear-ended. "As soon as I put my gear into park, he was already out of his truck, and he was at my window," she says. "He pulled out his gun on me." (Read more Jordan Edwards stories.) "YOU'RE RICH," Aaron Hernandez told fiancee Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez in one of his three suicide notesbut the manner of his death means that the only ones with a guaranteed payday are the lawyers. According to a court filing Friday that included the suicide note, Hernandez told a fellow inmate that someone who dies in prison with an open appeal is considered innocent, Deadspin reports. His family is seeking to have his murder conviction vacated. If this happens, the New England Patriots may have to pay millions of dollars to Hernandez's estate, and this has raised suspicions that the former player may have killed himself to make sure Jenkins and their daughter would be "set for life," according to TMZ. State prosecutors are using the letter to argue against vacating Hernandez's conviction, saying it would "reward the defendant's conscious, deliberate, and voluntary act," CNN reports. They also argue that by killing himself, Hernandez technically completed his life sentence. In the letter, Hernandez also described his death as "the Almightys plan" and urged his fiancee to "tell my story fully," the Boston Globe reports. A lawyer for the Hernandez family called the release of the letter unnecessary, accusing prosecutors of "punishing and torturing the Hernandez family" in their time of grief. (A police report released Thursday describes the bloody scene in Hernandez's prison cell.) United Airlines is issuing yet another apology after what was supposed to be a seven-and-a-half hour flight turned into a 28-hour ordeal for one unlucky passenger. WABC reports Lucie Bahetoukilae, who was flying home to France from New Jersey, went to the gate stamped on her Newark-to-Charles de Gaulle boarding pass, had it scanned by a United employee, and got on the plane. There was someone already in her seat, but a flight attendant looked at her boarding pass and had her sit somewhere else. Bahetoukilae got off the plane to find herself in San Francisco, having traveled 3,000 miles in the wrong direction. Apparently, United had switched gates for the flight at the last minute. The announcement wasn't made in French, and Bahetoukilae, who doesn't speak any English, didn't get an email from United about it. After an 11-hour layover at the airport in San Francisco, Bahetoukilae was finally on her way home, arriving in France after 28 hours of traveling. United says it's at fault for putting her on the wrong flight and calls the incident a "horrible failure." United gave Bahetoukilae a voucher for a free flight. Bahetoukilae's daughter says they don't want a refund or anything from United; they just want the airline's employees to pay better attention, especially given all the security concerns around air travel. (Read more United Airlines stories.) The Department of Defense has identified the Navy SEAL killed Thursday in Somalia as 38-year-old Kyle Milliken, a senior chief special warfare operator from Maine, CBS News reports. According to NBC News, Milliken joined the Navy in 2002 and was a member of SEAL Team Six. He earned four Bronze Stars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The commander of Naval Special Warfare Command says Milliken "embodied the warrior spirit and toughness infused in our very best Navy SEALs." Milliken's family remembers the former high-school track star as a "devoted father and son ... and a wonderful husband," the Portland Press Herald reports. Milliken was one of the Navy SEALs advising Somali troops during Thursday's raid targeting a leader of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group. The team got into a firefight with al-Shabab fighters outside a village 40 miles west of Mogadishu. Two other Americans were wounded in the fighting. Milliken is the first American battlefield casualty in Somalia since the infamous "Black Hawk Down" mission in 1993 that resulted in the deaths of 18 US service members in Mogadishu. The al-Shabab fighters were "neutralized" and the Somali government declared Thursday's mission a victory, though it's unclear if the mission's target was among the fighters killed. (Read more Navy SEALs stories.) Today, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan visited the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia and congratulated the staff on the occasion of Europe Day. During his visit President Sargsyan held a meeting with Piotr Switalski, Ambassador, Head of EU Delegation to Armenia; the interlocutors discussed the EU-Armenia relations and cooperation. As the official launching event of the Europe Day celebrations in Armenia, the EU Delegation is organizing a classical concert with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra with the participation of "Children of Armenia" choir and art schools' pupils from all the regions of Armenia. #Europe4Peace Concert will take place at 17:00 on Saturday 6 May at the A. Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan. Prior to the concert, pupils created topical paintings depicting the EU Member States capitals, landscapes or anything that they associated with Europe and peace. Final selected paintings from all the 98 art schools have been selected by a non official jury composed of the EU Delegation, Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra and art experts from Armenia. These paintings will be screened during the concert as well as will be exhibited at the lobby area of the A. Khachaturian concert hall. The exhibition will continue for three days. The authors of the selected paintings are invited to attend the concert, as well as to receive their certificates and symbolic gifts from the EU Delegation. Pupils from different musical schools of Yerevan are invited to the concert. EUROPE DAY Europe Day, held on 9 May every year, celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical 'Schuman declaration'. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French Foreign Minister, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe's nations unthinkable. His vision was to create a European institution that would pool and manage coal and steel production. A treaty creating such a body was signed just under a year later. Schuman's proposal is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn't afraid of ghosts, but spooky thuds still keep him awake at night when he stays at the governor's mansion in Albany, the AP reports. The Democrat told a Long Island crowd Thursday that during legislative sessions he spends evenings unsettled by unexplained noises in the 161-year-old mansion near the Capitol building. "Now, I don't believe in ghosts and I'm a big tough Italian guy, but I'll tell you: It gets creepy in that house, and there're a lot of noises that go on, and you are very alone," Cuomo said. The governor, who spends most of his time at his family home in Westchester, has mentioned apparitions in the reputedly haunted mansion before. Former Gov. David Paterson, who spent some time in the mansion before Cuomo took office, said he also believes the house is haunted. Paterson told the New York Post that one evening, staff told him the sound of a vase smashing was caused by the spirit of the building's original groundskeeper. Paterson said his 5-year-old nephew also told him he could feel an invisible hand guiding him up the mansion's stairs. "Governor Cuomo should be relieved," Paterson said. "It's a friendly ghost, like Casper." The only known death in the mansion was in 1909, when the Rev. David C. Hughes, the father of Gov. Charles Hughes, died from a "stroke of apoplexy," according to state archives. (Read more ghosts stories.) Russia has banned Chinese instant messaging app WeChat Moscow : Russia has banned Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, saying its operator failed to register with the appropriate authorities. Vadim Ampelonsky, spokesman of Russian telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor, said on Friday: "WeChat did not provide the contact information necessary for registration with authorities", Xinhua news agency reported. WeChat is the most popular messenger app in China and is widely used by Chinese nationals living overseas. It is owned by China's IT giant Tencent. Tencent's spokesman Zhang Jun in response said the company is in contact with Russian authorites regarding the issue. Earlier on Tuesday, Roskomnadzor also blocked Messenger, Line and Vchat but did not provide details. South Korea, US planning to kill Kim Jong-Un: North Korea Washington : North Korea on Friday accused the US and South Korea of attempting to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-un with a "bio-chemical substance". In a report, North Korean state news agency KCNA said a "terrorist group" conspired with the CIA and South Korea's Intelligence Service (IS) to "commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership". The report claimed a North Korean citizen was involved in the plot, using "biochemical substances, including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance" to target Kim. It also claimed the plot was "recently uncovered and smashed", and accused members of the CIA and IS of working with the North Korean citizen to provide money and weapons to carry out "state-sponsored terrorism", CNN reported. A statement by the North Korean Ministry of State Security said that Pyongyang would find and "mercilessly destroy" the terrorists. The ministry claimed that the North Korean man had been "corrupted and bribed" by South Korean intelligence services while he was working in Russia. It listed several alleged payments made to him, amounting in total to nearly $300,000, according to the report. A similar charge was laid against Pyongyang by Seoul in February following the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, allegedly at the hands of North Korean agents. The half-brother of Kim Jong-un was poisoned with the VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur airport and died en route to a hospital. North Korea repeatedly denied any involvement in Kim's death. Sorry! This content is not available in your region Author: Tigran Martirosyan Along with the Manazkert, Vardo, Moush and Sassoun counties, the kaza (county) of Bulanik formed the Moush sandjak (prefecture) of the vilayet (province) of Bitlis and was one of the most densely Armenian-populated counties, not only in the Bitlis province, but in all of the Armenian Highlands in the decades before the genocide; this view is substantiated by several contemporaries. Bense, an Armenian ethnographer and native of Bulanik, reported that before the 1877 1878 Russo-Turkish War, the population of Bulanik was overwhelmingly Armenian and that in the 1890s a few Muslim groups included Kurds, as well as emerging refugees from the Caucasus, among them Circassians and Turks. Vladimir Philippov, a Russian General Staff colonel, observed that in the 1880s, the plain of Bulanik was an area of compact settlement of Armenians in Asiatic Turkey. Henry Lynch, an Irish geographer, noted that in the 1890s in the province of Bitlis, Armenians comprised a majority in the Moush and Bulanik counties and that their impressive population in Bulanik was due in part because they held the countys vast fertile plains, thus making it one of the principal seats of the Armenian peasantry. Vladimir Mayewski, another Russian General Staff colonel, indicated that in the 1890s, the heartland of Bulanik was one of the few areas in Asiatic Turkey that was most heavily populated by Armenians. Several Armenian sources were used for this study. One primary source is the household count prepared by the Moush Prelacy from 1899, which was republished in A-Dos (Hovhannes Ter-Martirosian) brochure in 1912. Another primary source is the household-and-population count prepared by the secretary of the Prelacy, Nazaret Martirosian, published in a statistical table in 1916 in the periodical Van-Tosp. The data from A-Dos brochure were initially supplied by Nazaret Martirosian, who later, between 1913 and 1915, updated the data. Four other relevant sources are the last of a three-volume travel guide published in 1885 by ethnographer Manuel Mirakhorian, the article Bulanik written by Atrpet (Sargis Mubayeajian) and published in 1915 in the periodical Mshak, the book about the sufferings of Armenian clergymen written in 1921 by Teodik (Teotoros Lapcinciyan), and the census data drawn up by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1913 1914. The census data can be found in two sources: Kevorkian and Paboudjians account on Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, as well as Kevorkians complete history of the genocide. In 2012, the National Archives of Armenia published a landmark record of the collection of documents, in which a number of witness accounts contain important demographic data. Dictionary of Place Names of Armenia and Adjacent Territories by eminent authors Tadevos Hakobyan, Stepan Melik-Bakhshyan and Hovhannes Barseghyan, supplied additional data. Index Anatolicus, an online database of Armenian place names in Turkey created by Sevan Nishanyan, helped identify the locations of the Bulanik villages. It is at once apparent that Armenian sources are more detailed and offer more plausible figures than Ottoman sources, which have been often accused of decreasing Armenian population numbers. In 1880, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nerses Varzhapetian, initiated a census of Bulanik, Manazkert and Moush, which revealed that the population of Armenians was at 225,000 and the population of Muslims at 55,000. Once these numbers were revealed, local Ottoman authorities in Moush pressured municipal council member Karapet Efendi Potikian to lean on other members to compel them to decrease the Armenian figure to 95,000 and inflate the Muslim one to 105,000. Ottoman sources containing statistical data on the Armenian population of Bulanik are government annuals for the state and provinces, called salnames. For instance, the 1871 salname for the vilayet of Erzrum states there were 3,835 Armenian and 1,341 Muslim men in the county. The 1872 salname states there were 4,025 Armenian and 1,441 Muslim men. Yet another, from 1873 lists 4,361 Armenian and 3,892 Muslim men living in 2,049 total households. The 1892 salname for the vilayet of Bitlis stands out in that it offers concrete evidence that Armenians were the majority in Bulanik: of 25,456 inhabitants, 8,567 were Muslim, while 16,889 were Armenian; thus, Armenians constituted 66.3% or two-thirds of the total population of the county. Ottoman government censuses also contain statistics on the Armenian population in the region. A census carried out by the Patriarchate prior to World War I produced a figure of 25,053 for the Armenian population in Bulanik; the Ottoman census placed the number of the Armenian population at 14,662. Significantly, according to Karo Sassounis count, the number of Armenians of Bulanik and Manazkert who found refuge in Russian Transcaucasia in July 1915 was estimated to be 34,000. [20] Using solely the pre-WWI Patriarchate figures of 25,053 for Bulanik and 11,931 for Manazkert, the number of Armenians in both counties would be a total of 36,984. On the other hand, if only using Ottoman data for both counties (14,662 and 4,438 for Bulanik and Manazkert, respectively) the number of Armenians would be a total of 19,100. Another Ottoman source indicated that in 1915, the number of Bulanik Armenians who were to be forcibly deported, or as Turkish sources put it, relocated and distanced, was recorded in their registries at 14,309. Interestingly, an Armenian accusatory report published in 1918 in Aleppo put the number of survivors from Bulanik and Manazkert at about 25,000. Although a report signed by a group of genocide survivors carries less strength than a census or a count, the figure for the two counties contained in it is still 1.3 times larger than the Ottoman figure of 19,100, while the Armenian figure of 25,053 for Bulanik alone is 1.7 times larger than the Ottoman figure of 14,309 for the same county. Given that most Armenians of Bulanik and Manazkert escaped massacres thanks to the advance of the Russian troops into the region in May of 1915, it can be said that the Patriarchate figure seems to be fairly accurately reported. Armenian sources, however, are not entirely flawless; the numerical discrepancy with respect to households and inhabitants in Bulanik is immediately arresting. This discrepancy is due not only to crude statistical techniques for collecting data at the time, but also to harsh realities on the ground that resulted in frequent undercounting of the Armenian population. In some instances, Kurds would forcibly take over Armenian villages, drive all or part of the Armenian inhabitants out prior to a census operation, or would ban entry to seized villages to Armenian census-takers, as it happened to Bishop Garegin Srvandztiants in the late-1870s. In other instances, Armenian villagers would minimize their household numbers in fear of increased taxation at time when Kurdish chieftains already imposed unbearable incremental taxes on them. Numerical discrepancy notwithstanding, Nazaret Martirosians data stand out as the most comprehensive of all sources exploring Armenian population in the region. It should also be noted that, perhaps paradoxically, Armenian sources omit many of the Armenian-inhabited localities in Bulanik. Household counts pose another hurdle for researchers. Most Armenian villagers in Bulanik were of kin to each other, godchildren, or in-laws. Families of married sons, branching and multiplying, transformed into kinsfolk, often changing their original surnames in the process. However, they would customarily maintain close family ties with the next of kin and considered themselves members of household. It is, therefore, hard, if not impossible, to estimate with any degree of accuracy, the average number of household members. Bishop Vahan Ter-Minassian (Partizaktsi), a commissioner at the Patriarchate in the 1860s and 1870s, suggested that the average number of members per household in rural areas should be put at eight, and in urban areas between five and six. Thus, the average number of members per household in Armenian-populated provinces, in his opinion, should be seven. [23] By analogy to Partizaktsi, Mayewski put the average population per household at eight and the number of households per village at twenty for the Bitlis province. Reporting about 8,600 Armenians living in 770 households in Lower Bulanik villages, Atrpet evidently put the average population per household at eleven. Because Bulanik was a rural area, in this study, eight will be used as an average number of members per household. There is a discrepancy among sources regarding the number of Armenian-inhabited villages in Bulanik. Authors of Msho ashkhar (The Land of Moush), an editorial published in the periodical Luma in the 1890s, suggested that in the late-1870s there were 43 total villages in the county. For the years 1871, 1872 and 1873 this figure matches up to the total for villages in Ottoman salnames placed at 43, 42 and 46, respectively. A-Do put the number at more than 60, of which 29 (elsewhere in the brochure, 28) were Armenian-inhabited. Philippov reported in the early-1880s that Armenian villages totaled twenty and were quite populous. Mirakhorian identified 26 Armenian villages each having on average about 100 Armenian households. Vital Cuinet, a French geographer, reported in 1891 that with its 135 total localities, Bulanik was second only to the kaza of Moush, which, in his estimation, had 194 localities. Bense reported in the late-1890s that the countys population comprised of Armenians and Kurds, and a few Circassians, all of whom lived in 52 villages. [28] Hakobyan et al. counted 63 villages in the early-1900s, of which 29 (a figure they apparently borrowed from A-Do) were Armenian-inhabited. Martirosian tabulated 28 Armenian villages, wrongly adding Malakhdran, a locality in the kaza of Moush, to the list, which brings the number down to 27. The Patriarchate listed 30 Armenian villages prior to World War I. Atrpet reported 40 Armenian villages in Bulanik prior to the genocide in 1915, wrongly including twelve localities of adjacent counties in the list, which brings the number down to 28. Of all the figures, Philippov clearly underreported the number of villages containing Armenians, while Cuinet over-reported the total number of villages. One primary source that offered a household count by village for Bulanik is Mayewskis demographic study of the vilayets of Van and Bitlis, which covered household counts from either 1890 to 1897 or 1899. As noted by Vahakn Dadrian, in 1894, colonel Mayewski was appointed Russian vice-consul of Van and, following the 1894 1896 Hamidian massacres of the Armenians, he compiled a statistical pamphlet, which was published in 1904. When the Ottoman military obtained a copy of this report, they had it translated into Ottoman Turkish. Referring to the translators annotation, Justin McCarthy stated that Russian General Staff major general, Mayewski, studied the provinces of Van and Bitlis while on a diplomatic appointment. However, recent reports suggest that colonel Mayewski was a Russian General Staff intelligence officer and that it was not until 1916 that he rose to the rank of major general. An even greater controversy surrounds a different brochure, allegedly written by Mayewski in 1916, in which the author places the onus for the Hamidian massacres on the Armenian revolutionaries. Devoting effort to examining the Turkish and French translations, Dadrian denounced them as possible forgeries by World War I Turkish military intelligence. Researchers have long debated the controversy that surrounds Mayewskis statistics in that for someone who, as McCarthy put it, properly studied, travelled and saw nearly every corner of the provinces of Van and Bitlis, he appears to have borrowed figures from Ottoman salnamesthe only difference being that by multiplying Armenian households by eight, the author increased the number of the Armenian population by about 40 percent. For instance, when Mayewskis figure of 23,326 for Armenian households in the province of Bitlis [36] is multiplied by eight, the resulting total of 186,608 is substantially similar to the 1912 Patriarchate census figure of 180,000 for the same province, not counting the Sghert (Siirt) sandjak. [37] Conversely, the 1914 Ottoman government census placed the Armenian population of the province at 119,132, suggesting that Turkish census-takers either misreported Armenian households or put the population per household at four, which is highly improbable. The Ottoman figure gets even flimsier when compared to the figure for the province of Bitlis contained in a Russian imperial foreign ministry report. According to this report, in 1910, in two of the four sandjaks alone, namely, Moush and Gench (Genc), there were 94,000 Armenians. In the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, Bulanik was conquered by Tartar-Mongol and Turkmen tribes. Under the terms of the Turko-Persian treaties of 1555 and 1639, the county was included in the Ottoman Empire. In the early seventeenth century, Shah Abbas I deported thousands of Bulanik Armenians to Persia. A century later, the Bulanik villages were ravaged during a series of renewed Ottoman-Persian wars. During the 1828 1829 Russo-Turkish war, hundreds of Bulanik Armenians, fearing an outbreak of Kurdish violence, followed the Russian retreat and settled in eastern Armenia. Almost completely deserted, the Bulanik villages were repopulated by Armenian settlers from the neighboring counties. A number of former residents of Khlat (Akhlat), Khizan, Mokats (Moks) and Arjesh moved to the villages in the eastern part of Upper Bulanik, while groups of former residents of Bsherik, Sassoun, Khout, Motkan and Taron resettled in the villages in the western part of Upper Bulanik and in almost all the villages of Lower Bulanik. Read more New Delhi: After Infosys, now technology giant Wipro has received a threat letter demanding Rs 500 Crore in bitcoins as ransom. An anonymous sender demanded that payment should be made through a specific link before May 25 or else threatened to spread dangerous Ricin, a toxic protein in the campus. The email was sent by the id, Ramesh2@protonmail.com, claimed that one kg of Ricin has already been stored and two grams would be sent in envelopes to one of Wipros offices to assure that the threat is not a fake, a leading daily quoted Police sources as saying. Meanwhile, Wipro has stepped up security following the threat. Confirming the news, Wipro said, "We confirm that a complaint has been filed with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source. Wipro has augmented security measures at all its office locations. There is no impact on the company's operations. We have no further comments as the investigation is ongoing." Also Read: Anonymous parcel containing anthrax powder arrives at Infosys in Chennai, demands Rs 500 crore On April 7, a suspicious parcel containing white powder, proclaiming it to be Anthrax was delivered at Sholinganallur office of Infosys. The letter with no name arrived with powder sprinkled on it, demanding a ransom of 500 crores from the company. New Delhi: NEET or the National Eligibility Test 2017 is scheduled for May 7 Sunday. The examination will be conducted in 103 cities of the country. This year a lot of cheating cases happened, and so keeping in view those incidents, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has geared up to avoid such cheating cases. The CBSE board has issued various dos and donts for the exam. Girls are not allowed to wear high heels to the examination centre. Candidates are given instructions to come to the centre in a proper dress code. About NEET NEET is an examination conducted for admissions to MBBS/BDS courses in medical/dental colleges that are run with the approval Medical Council of India/Dental Council of India under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Guidelines issued to men are: Male students are not allowed to wear kurta pyjama or shoes to the exam centre. In case they do not follow this instruction, they wont be allowed to enter the examination hall. The proper dress code for male students includes a light-colored jeans, trousers and half-sleeved shirts, with sandals or slippers Guidelines for women: Female students are not allowed to wear big buttons, brooches or high-heeled shoes to the examination centre. In addition following items are prohibited: Candidates are not allowed to carry writing implements or erasers to the exam centre. CBSE in a official notification has mentioned that pens will be provided to the candidates in the examination hall itself The instructions have been followed at the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and JEE-Advanced as well. The Director of NEET told, "Even the Union Public Service Commission and Railway Board have adopted similar protocols for their exams," said Sanyam Bhardwaj, Director, NEET. Over 11 lakh candidates have registered for NEET 2017. "All the clocks at exam centres will be synced with the CBSE website's time. Though the aspirants cannot carry watches into the halls, they need to follow the CBSE timings," according to TOI report. New Delhi: In a historic judgement, Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death penalty to four convicts in 2012 Nirabhay gang rape case. From the six accused, the main culprit Ram Singh had committed suicide in his jail cell days after the arrest, whereas another accused who was juvenile at the time of the crime was given a sentence of three years and released thereafter. The juvenile culprit in the brutal Nirbhaya gang rape case was released after serving his sentence on December 20, 2015, and is now reportedly working at a restaurant somewhere in South India. According to report in a Hindi daily, the underage culprit was always scared of death after release, thus the officer in charge of his 'after care' relocated him to one of the southern states. Read | Nirbhaya gang rape shocked collective conscience of humanity, scientific evidence sealed fate of convicts: SC His location, identity and the past have all been kept hidden by officers in charge of his safety, a report in Navbharat Times said. Even his employer is not aware of his true identity and past, the reported quoted officer in charge. The juvenile was released from jail amid a lot of public rage, as people found it unfair that he got away with a mere three years of the sentence, even as he was credited to some of the most heinous acts done to Nirbhaya. "When he was released, there were many people trying to find him and kill him. This instigated police to relocate him and protect his identity," the report said. After release, the juvenile was kept with an NGO and was later employed with a famous restaurant chain in South India. In the immediate aftermath of the shocking gang rape case, the public had collectively demanded death penalty for all six culprits in the crime, including for the juvenile. Several public groups and NGOs had requested government to ammend the law to make it possible for him to be tried as adult. But he was tried as a juvenile as he was few months shy of age 18 at the time of the crime. Read | Supreme Court verdict on Dec 16, 2012 Delhi gang-rape case: Nirbhaya rapists to hang, here is who said what For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Gas leak in Delhi's Tughlaqabad area on Saturday led to the hospitalization of around 450 girl students from Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School run by the city administration. "A team of AIIMS doctors has visited Tughlakabad depot, Delhi gas incident spot. Checked victims and confirmed all are out of danger," Said The girl students were taken ill after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhis Tughlaqabad area. While most of the students were discharged few hours after receiving treatment, four of themwere kept under observation in the ICU of two hospitals. The students were rushed to nearby hospitals when they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness. A call was received at 7:35 AM about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools, police said. The chemical in the container was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana, it said. The affected students were taken to four hospitalsHamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo, Batra and ESICafter the leakage was reported around 7.20 AM at the customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. They came with complaints of irritation in eyes, breathlessness and pain in abdomen. All of them were admitted and put on conservative treatment, said officials of Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, where around 250 children, aged between 9 and 15, were admitted. While majority of them have been discharged, two are admitted in the ICU. They are stable, said Dr Ajaz Mustafa, medical superintendent of the institute. 103 girls and three adults were rushed to Okhla-located ESIC hospital and were discharged. However, two children are still hospitalised in ESIC and are recuperating in the ICU, the doctors treating them said. Apollo hospital authorities said the condition of 42 children and an adult who are admitted there is stable. Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements was administered on them. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition, Apollo said in a statement. As soon as the children came, the disaster plan in the hospital was activated immediately and a temporary special disaster ward was created in the waiting area, Apollo hospital officials said. ALSO READ | Gas leak in Tughlakabad: 450 students receive medical care at 4 hospitals; Police registers FIR The patients were managed appropriately according to their clinical condition and kept under observation, till required, they added. Around 55 children aged between 10-14 were admitted to Batra hospital in Tughlakabad Institutional area at 8.20 AM. Two children, who had come with complaints of breathing difficulty, were admitted in its paediatric ICU. The condition of all the children, including the two who are admitted in the ICU, is stable. They are currently under observation and are likely to be discharged in three to four hours, said a senior doctor of the hospital. One child was also referred to Safdarjung hospital. As the news broke, Union Health Minister J P Nadda instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. The Delhi government ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police has registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia said. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused eye irritation to the girl students in Rani Jhansi school, DCP (Southeast) Romil Baaniya said. ALSO READ | Kanpur: Gas leak causes explosion in cold storage; death toll rises to five Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Opposition Leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta visited the victims at ESI Hospital and enquired about their condition. Hitting out at the Delhi government, Gupta sought a high-level probe into the incident. Gupta said it is negligence on the part of school authorities. At the time of opening the school there were signs of gas leakage. Why didnt the school authorities stop the students from entering the school?, he tweeted. The chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. V sad. It is a man made disaster as no need for Container Depot to be in centre of Delhi. Shud b imm shifted, accountability fixed for gas leak (sic), she tweeted. Govt forms team of docs, hospitals on alert ALSO READ | 5 Rourkela Steel Plant workers admitted to hospital after suspected gas leak Union Health Minister J P Nadda has directed Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help victims of a gas leak in southeast Delhis Tughlakabad area and also constituted a five-member team of doctors to take stock of the situation. Central GoI hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. My prayers are with children & families, Nadda tweeted. The team of doctors is headed by Dr Y K Gupta, head of department of pharmacology at AIIMS in New Delhi. The other doctors include Dr V Aggarwal, assistant professor at R P Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, Dr Sharda Peshin, senior scientist at National Poison Information Centre, department of Pharmacology, Dr Karan Madan, associate professor department of pulmonary medicine and disorders and Dr Pankaj Jorwal, assistant professor, department of medicine. Meanwhile, the Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Later in the day, Delhis deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted Have spoken to the Union Health Minister, he has created a team of doctors under AIIMS to ensure relevant care in case of any emergency. Most of the nearly 450 girl students admitted in various city hospitals for breathlessness and irritation in the eye have been discharged, except four who have been kept in the ICU for observation. (With inputs from PTI) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Another suspected incident of hate crime surfaced when the 32-year-old, Jagjeet Singh, a Nadala resident was stabbed to death by unidentified persons outside a grocery store at Modesto city in California, United States, on Friday. The victim was a staffer at the commercial establishment. According to sources, Jagjeet or Jagga had been living with his sister and brother-in-law in Modesto ever since he left for the United States over a year ago. He is survived by his wife, Kuljeet Kaur, and two sons Ishmeet Singh (9) and Dilpreet Singh (7) who reside in Kapurthala. Jagjeet had three siblings two younger sisters and an elder brother settled in France. Read more: US Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi raises concerns over hate crime incidents with minority I was told by Sikander Singh, a co-worker at the store, that Jagjeet has fallen victim to a hate crime, said Kanwarjit Singh Cheema, the victims brother-in-law. Sikander had witnessed Jagjeets stabbing, he added. According to Kanwarjit, a man apparently a US national came to the store around 11.30 pm and asked for a pack of cigarettes. However, Jagjeet refused to hand it over because the customer was unable to produce the mandated identity card for making the purchase. The man then reportedly left the store in a fury, mouthing racist abuses and warning Jagjeet of dire consequences. The entire sequence was captured by a CCTV camera installed in the store premises. Kanwarjit said when Jagjeet went out a few minutes later, he was attacked with a sharp-edged weapon. He succumbed en route to a local hospital. Read more: Take decisive steps to end bigotry hate crimes in US, says Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi His father, Mohinder Singh, was inconsolable. Jagjeet was a kind-hearted and hardworking person. We will miss him, he said. He went to the US one-and-a-half years ago to support the family. We took loans from relatives to send him there. According to the family said that though police are investigating the case, the attackers are yet to be arrested. We will decide when to cremate him after receiving his body from the hospital, Mohinder told the Hindustan Times. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi/Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that PM Narendra Modi is Kashmir's only hope to resolve the dispute once and for all. Speaking at the inauguration of a much-awaited flyover in Jammu, the chief minister said, "If anyone can take us out of this quagmire then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has the mandate. Whatever he will decide the nation will support him." "The previous prime minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. PM Modi's visit to Lahore is proof of his abilities," Mufti added. J&K CM said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. "Now after 2008, for the first time, people have started expressing passion in the matter," CM said. Reacting to the statement of Congress leader GS Charak on a lack of development in Jammu, the chief minister said that a tense situation in Kashmir also affects Jammu as well. "Jammu has many tourist destinations and we are trying to develop them," Mufti added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Two policemen and two civilian were killed when suspected militants attacked a police party in Mir Bazaar area in J-K's Anantnag district on Saturday. According to reports the gunmen opened fire at police who were clearing traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. As per news agency ANI, three more policemen sustained injuries in the attack. The attack came hours after the government suspended cash transactions at nearly 40 branches in the sensitive areas of Pulwama and Shopian districts in South Kashmir. J&K:Two policemen and two civilians killed, three cops injured in terrorist attack in Mir Bazaar (Kulgam): Visuals from the site pic.twitter.com/GiXtjkCfkb ANI (@ANI_news) May 6, 2017 The step was taken following an advisory issued by security agencies asking the banks operating in the two districts to stop cash deliveries at the branches located in these areas as they apprehend more such attacks. Also Read | Jammu and Kashmir: Students clash with security forces in Handwara, Pulwama The advisory by the security agencies comes in the wake of a spurt in attacks on banks in south Kashmir. On May 1, militants attacked a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank and shot dead five policemen and two bank security guards in Damhal Hanji Pora area of Kulgam district in south Kashmir. The militants fled after the attack. A combing operation was launched immediately to track them down, the police said. (With inputs from agencies) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday took the broom in his own hands to clean up the streets of Lucknow's Balu Adda Malin Basti. In an effort to give fresh impetus to PM Modi's Swachhta Abhiyaan or cleanliness drive, CM Yogi Adityanath visited the Balu Adda Malin Basti along with his cabinet ministers on Saturday morning and cleaned the streets. The central government on Thursday announced results of the Swachh Survekshan-2017 and several districts of Uttar Pradesh performed very poorly in it. Read | PM Modis Varanasi ranks 32 in Swachh Survey 2017, here is full list of rankings Prime Minister Narendra Modis home constituency, Varanasi, was ranked at no 32 with Indore being the cleanest city of India and Gonda the dirtiest. Apart from Varanasi, UP CM Yogi Adityanaths home turf Gorakhpur also performed poorly and ranked 314 in the list. The survey was carried out by the Quality Council of India, which had deployed 421 assessors for on the spot assessment of 17,500 locations in 434 cities and towns. Read | Yogi Adityanath: 'We have to work a lot for development of UP' For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The doors to sacred Dham Badrinath were thrown open on Saturday and President Pranab Mukherjee was first amongst the visitors. President Mukherjee left for Badrinath from Dehradun in a chopper at around 7:30 AM and visited the shrine at around 8:45 AM. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid obeisance at Kedarnath on May 3. Presidents visit Over 500 security personnel have been deployed around the temple for Presidents visit. On Friday, deputy inspector general of police (Garhwal Range) Pushpak Jyoti and Garhwal commissioner Vinod Sharma visited Badrinath in Chamoli district to review the security arrangement. Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the presidential visit to the temple, the last of the four Char Dham shrines in the Himalayas to be opened this year. LIVE Updates: Uttarakhand: President Pranab Mukherjee, CM Trivendra Singh Rawat & Governor Krishna Kant Paul arrive at Badrinath Temple. pic.twitter.com/0Bv1JeKfJW ANI (@ANI_news) May 6, 2017 Badrinath temple in Uttarakhand is an important pilgrim site for Hindus all around the world. It is part of the chota Char Dham yatra which is an important pilgrimage for Hindus. Char Dham Yatra 2017 is expected to draw huge crowds like every previous year. It is believed that devotees who take this pilgrimage are absolved of their sins. The four pilgrim centres open after a 6-month winter break during the months of April/May. Every year, thousands of devotees wait with bated breath to welcome the deities amidst blowing of conch shells and playing of drums. This year, Gangotri and Yamunotri were already thrown open on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya, while doors to Kedarnath were opened on Wednesday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a visit. And finally, Badrinath will start welcoming devotees from Saturday, after the visit of President Pranab Mukherjee. Badrinath Dham temple will remain functional until September 30, 2017 the day of Vijaya Dashami before closing again for the winter season. Uttarakhand: Badrinath Temple open for public; President Mukherjee to offer prayers here later today. pic.twitter.com/02rucQL3Te ANI (@ANI_news) May 6, 2017 PM Modis Kedarnath Yatra On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid obeisance at Kedarnath as the portals of the eighth-century shrine in Garhwal Himalayas were thrown open to devotees after their closure for winters. With the visit, Modi became the first prime minister to visit the famed temple in 28 years after former prime minister VP Singh had paid a visit to the temple in 1989. Modi is also the first prime minister to visit the famed temple on the very first day of its opening after the winter break. The temple doors were opened at 8.50 am and the Prime Minister arrived just about half an hour later sporting a brown overcoat and dark glasses to offer prayers and perform a rudrabhishek (ritual bath of the Shiva lingam) in the sanctum sanctorum of the centuries old shrine. He did a parikrama of the Nandi statue outside the temple before walking through the crowds to make for the convoy that was to take him back to the helipad. People in the state feel the visit by the Prime Minister and the President to Kedarnath and Badrinath will boost tourist arrivals at the two temples by sending the message of a safe chardham yatra to people outside the state. You may also like: Char Dham Yatra begins from Monday For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: There is good news for all Samsung smartphone lovers, the much awaited 8 edition of the smartphones Samsung galaxy S8 and S8+ are now available for sale at all Vodafone outlets in Fiji. It follows its grand launch in the grand pacific hotel in Suva by the partners Samsung and Vodafone Fiji. The crowds cheered and exclaimed excitedly as the sheets were pulled to uncover the high-end niche smartphone. Todd Selwyn, Head of Mobile Product for Samsung in the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, said, This device is setting records for Samsung sales around the globe, and we are expecting Fijians to have a similar positive response to the launch. We truly believe this is the best phone available in the world today, and were really excited to be able to bring this kind of innovative technology to market in Fiji. Also Read: Apple eyes India even as global sales dip We know Fijians love the Samsung Galaxy brand, and the new Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will continue this strong tradition for us. We work hard to ensure our devices are built for the Pacific with localised software and engineering support for the Fiji market. Vodafone Fiji chief marketing officer Rajnesh Prasad said more than 100 people had pre-ordered the devices and around 80 had received their phones yesterday. The new S8 and S8+ has a better battery life compared to the previous models. I had the privilege of testing out one of the devices and the battery even on radar lasts for more than three days. For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: A much-anticipated executive order on religious liberties will be signed by US President Donald Trump. As a result of this it will be easier for churches and religious groups to take part in politics without risk of losing their tax-exempt status. It is one of the election promises that Trump could not accomplish in the first 100 days of his administration. However, the executive order would not make any changes in the existing laws, but for a relaxed enforcement of it, a senior White House official told reporters in a late-night briefing. "All laws still apply. Anything that would currently be illegal under current law would still be illegal, we're not changing the law," a senior White House official said on the eve of Trump signing the executive order in the presence of a group of religious leaders. The executive order on promoting free speech and religious liberty declares that it is the policy of the Trump administration to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty. "It directs the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to exercise maximum enforcement discretion to alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits religious leaders from speaking about politics and candidates from the pulpit," the official said. Trump frequently complained about the 1954 law known as the Johnson amendment during his campaign for the presidency, bolstering his support among religious conservatives who contend it violates free speech and religious freedom rights. Under current law, churches are free to promote political candidates but must forgo such activity to obtain tax-exempt status. "The executive order also provides regulatory relief for religious objectors to Obamacare's burdensome preventive services mandate, a position supported by the Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby," said the senior White House official. The White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, however, refused to entertain questions on the executive order. "Tomorrow is National Day of Prayer. There will be a proclamation the President will sign. We're looking forward to having religious leaders from a multitude of backgrounds come to the White House and celebrate this day with us," he said. The New York Times said that move is likely to be hailed by some faith leaders who have long complained about ominous but rarely enforced threats from the IRS that they could lose their tax-exempt status, costing them millions of dollars in fines. "They said such actions unfairly stifle their voices," the daily reported. However there Democratic Senators Ron Wyden, Bill Nelson and Bob Casey opposed the Trump administration's move. Trump trumps against Obamacare as US House passes bill to replace universal health care plan Also Read: "Proposals to weaken the prohibition on political campaign activity by charities will effectively lead to the elimination of our nation s campaign finance laws," the three Senators said in a letter to the Republican leadership For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Islamabad: An International New York Times opinion piece criticising the powerful Pakistani army was censored by its local publisher on Saturday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to speak out against the military establishment. The online version of the piece by Mohammed Hanif, a high-profile satirist and novelist whose critiques of Pakistani society regularly appear in the New York Times, was trending on Pakistani social media by this afternoon. In the article, entitled Pakistans Triangle of Hate, he savaged the military for parading a former Pakistani Taliban spokesman before television cameras to claim that the militants are bankrolled by Islamabads arch-nemesis India. With his appearance, the Pakistani Army seemed to be sending this message: You can kill thousands of Pakistanis, but if you later testify that you hate India as much as we do, everything will be forgiven, Hanif wrote. Do we really need to enlist our childrens killers in our campaign against India? A note on the blank page clarified the decision to censor the article was taken in Pakistan, and the newspaper had no role in its removal. While we understand that our publishing partners are sometimes faced with local pressures, we regret and condemn any censorship of our journalism, a spokeswoman for the New York Times told AFP on Friday. The former Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, is the man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in Swat Valley in 2012. ALSO READ | Pakistan Armys active role led killing and mutilation of Indian soldiers: Jaitley He also spoke for the group in claiming responsibility for Pakistans deadliest ever extremist attack, in which gunmen stormed a school in northwestern Peshawar and killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Last month the army announced that Ehsan had given himself up to the military, but gave no details on the circumstances or timing of his surrender. It later released a video of Ehsan stating the militants were given financial and logistical assistance by the intelligence agencies of India and Afghanistana claim often made by the army. Hanifs words echoed the feelings of many in Pakistan repulsed by the publicity surrounding Ehsanthough others have rejoiced at the accusations against India. ALSO READ | Pakistan army mutilates 2 Indian jawans in 'barbaric' act: Who said what? Fridays censorship was the second day in a row that the Express Tribune had blanked out a piece in the Times. On Thursday, it removed a piece on an anti-gay crackdown in Chechnya entitled Chechnyas anti-gay pogrom. In 2016, it censored a Times image of a man in China giving his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. Later that year it blocked an article in the paper entitled Sex Talk for Muslim Women. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. EXPOSED: Frances Macron said to have offshore accounts, failed to pay TAXES Frances Left-leaning presidential contender, Emmanuel Macron, was accused in recent weeks of being a tax cheat, allegations that he has consistently denied. But now, based on new evidence, it seems he wasnt being honest. As reported by The Gateway Pundit, new documents published online by an anonymous source at Anon on /pol/ (the 4Chan threat that also recently unmasked the real fascist organization Antifa, among other revelations) has now uploaded alleged proof that Macron has been evading the French tax collectors. Now, new documents prove he lied about almost everything, The Gateway Pundit reported. The documents published online show Macrons involvement with a company called La Provicence LLC, with his signature affixed to an operating agreement. A banking associate, Brian Hydes, is located in the Cayman Islands, home to many offshore accounts that principles would rather not be discovered. (RELATED: Witch Hunt: Le Pens Chief Of Staff, Bodyguard Detained By Police) The first image from 4Chan appears to show that Macron is hiding income/assets in the Cayman Islands, said The Gateway Pundit. A second image promises that more details about Macrons financial dealings are on the way. Meanwhile, Macron is in a very high-profile race against Marine Le Pen, a Right-leaning populist candidate whom many see as Frances female version of President Donald J. Trump. Recent polling has Macron up by as much as 24 percent, but these revelations may damage his ability to be elected. The press, which has been largely friendly to the Left-wing Macron, is continuing to repeat his denial that he has no accounts in the Bahamas, refuting earlier charges. Hes right apparently the accounts are in the Caymans. Not only did /pol/ find out where his accounts were, but the extent of money he has hidden from the French government a massive amount, The Gateway Pundit reported. More information and document analysis is located at GotNews.com, which purports that the documents posted online are genuine. J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel. Sources: GotNews.com TheGatewayPundit.com Corruption.news Submit a correction >> This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Just two days after a Republican health care bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal promised a crowd of over 100 at Western Connecticut State University that he will ensure it does not pass the Senate. It isnt going to happen, he told the cheering crowd at Ives Concert Hall at the beginning of a Saturday town hall. You can count on me to fight this proposal. Blumenthal, a Democrat, called the American Health Care Act, which passed the House Thursday by a 217-213 vote, an anti-health-care bill. He told the residents that the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, does not need to be rewritten and that he would work across the aisle to fix it before accepting any new bill. During almost two hours of questions and answers that followed his opening remarks, concerns about health care accounted for about a quarter of the questions. Other residents asked Blumenthal about immigration, climate change, the electoral system and the partisan divide in politics. But on almost all issues the residents, hailing from across the Danbury area, asked Blumenthal for tools that they, and lawmakers, could use to fight for the issues they care about in a Republican-majority government. I feel like were up against this brick wall of Republicans, said one Danbury woman. Blumenthal urged the crowd to mobilize by contacting lawmakers and companies, joining political action groups and beginning to work towards the 2018 congressional elections. Your energy, your involvement and your engagement is more important than ever, he said, adding that this was his sixth town hall in the state. I can tell you that spirit is alive and well in Connecticut. The town hall also fell on the heels of Blumenthals efforts to temper President Donald Trumps crackdown on immigration. Blumenthal was among a group of senators who recently backed a bill to prevent immigration enforcement at sensitive locations, such as schools and hospitals. He said Saturday that he has also been involved in helping immigrants get their citizenship or helping those that face deportation stay in the country. One resident who came to the microphone at the town hall was a Ugandan man who said Blumenthal was at his naturalization ceremony when he became a citizen last year. The senator told the crowd the stories of Valent Kolami of Prospect and Luis Barrios of Derby, who are both facing deportation. Blumenthal met with Barrios Friday morning, two days after he was granted a 30-day stay in the country. They are simply two faces in a massive number of people who will be deported under new policies of this administration, Blumenthal said. Im going to fight for new policies and fight for stays for all of these individuals, as I did for Luis. Danbury has been the scene of rallies and protests over Trumps increased illegal immigration enforcement, including a march of 150 people in downtown Danbury on Monday calling for better treatment for immigrants. Blumenthal concluded the event by explaining that victims of crime in the Danbury immigrant community and across the country are scared to come forward under the presidents new policies. Danbury is a community very close to my heart because it is so diverse, he said. There is enormous apprehension on part of the immigrant community, both documented and undocumented. Before the crowd left he told residents hed stay behind to answer questions one-on-one and encouraged them to stay involved. Continue the fight, Blumenthal said. I can promise you Im going to continue the fight. aquinn@newstimes.com You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NEW MILFORD At this point last year, one group of 16 high school students spent more time wandering the halls or meeting with nurses and guidance counselors than actually learning in a classroom. They were here physically, but not reaping the benefit academically, and didnt have the credits to show for it, Principal Greg Shugrue said. But with Effective School Solutions, a new program aimed at helping students with social, emotional and behavioral problems, teachers and administrators have seen a drastic turnaround. The students attendance has improved, and so have their GPAs, from an average of 1.87 to an average 2.35 in the first two marking periods this year. ESS is run by a private education company that provides clinical services for students recommended by their parents or by staff members who interact with them regularly. New Milfords program serves up to 18 students 16 are now taking part and Shugrue is pleased with the results so far. Its not a magic bullet, he said. It takes a lot of hard work. But the ones that should be celebrated are the kids; theyre the ones opening up, talking and pushing through the system. The program started in New Jersey in 2009 and is now offered in eight districts in Connecticut, including Greenwich, Fairfield and Weston. We want to see (the students) social and emotional health improve, said Paul Cancro, the regional ESS director. We want them to enjoy their school environment and their New Milford community. Once a day, ESS students gather in a conference room just off the main entrance to the high school. There is no sign that marks the room as part of the program, but black couches and chairs fill the space instead of typical classroom desks. Large pictures of flowers line the wall and positive messages are handwritten on a white board an idea suggested by one of the students. The students are split into two groups, with each group meeting 45 minutes a day. The sessions are devoted to discussions about challenges they face as well as structured learning time to focus on academics. Students meet one-on-one with the ESS clinicians at scheduled times each day and at other times if needed. Debbie Leone, the schools ESS program coordinator, said students tend to visit the clinicians less frequently once they become more comfortable in their mainstream classes. The clinicians speak with the students parents at least twice a month, in person and on the phone, and all the parents meet once a month. These interactions have helped parents encourage their kids to stay in class instead of, say, asking to be picked up from school in the middle the day, Leone said. The monthly meetings serve as a support group, where parents can learn they are not alone in dealing with a childs behavior problems and hear how other parents have overcome similar challenges. Theyve said to us that its nice to not feel alone, Leone said. It gives them hope. Leone said the districts ESS program works with outpatient therapists and medical providers. Laura Olson, the districts director of special services and pupil personnel, said the program has helped change the approach to students from reactive to preventive. It reduces the need to send students out of the district to get help and lessens the risk of their dropping out. Were trying to keep our students in their home school and community, Shugrue said. They are part of our community and we want them here. Students earn points and progress at their own pace through three levels of achievement by passing classes, avoiding disciplinary action and being respectful. A student must be nominated by someone who has worked with him or her to graduate from the program. A teacher or administrator who knows the student well comes in during the last phase of the program to talk about the students progress and the challenges he or she overcame. Students dont always see the growth, Leone said. They dont always give themselves credit and they have to remember how far theyve come. Of New Milfords 16 students, Cancro expects eight to 10 students will return next year and the rest will graduate from the program. ESS keeps statistics on attendance, GPA and disciplinary actions as benchmarks to measure the programs success at various schools. In New Milford, absenteeism and behavior problems were not significant issues with the students now in ESS, but their anxieties often led them to spend much of the school day visiting with counselors or the school nurse. Now, teachers report that ESS students are attending class and participating more. Some of the stuff we do is not seen in the numbers, but we see the difference, Leone said. Weve had little successes, too. One student said they would never talk to a teacher or stay after, and they do that now. Like any new program, ESS was viewed with some skepticism at first by some staff members and by students in the program. But that wariness disappeared as the program progressed and the clinicians gained the students trust. Leone said teachers were excited to hear that ESS clinicians would be returning next year. Administrators find that students who buy into the program are having the most success, and Leone said the students hold each other accountable and suggest ways to improve. Shugrue said the program does not just help the ESS kids, but other students as well, because it frees up social workers, school psychiatrists and other professionals to work with others. Many credit the success so far to the support from all facets of the school community, including teachers, parents, administrators, guidance counselors and the Board of Education. Even as the school system faces a possible $755,000 cut to its initial budget proposal, Olson said, the $225,000 program was seen as too valuable to eliminate. It wasnt even a question about whether it would continue next year, she said. Shugrue said the program has been a team effort. Its all hands on deck, Shugrue said. People are buying into it because they see the results in the students. NORWALK Students across all 17 of Connecticuts state colleges and universities are now formally allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity as well as use a preferred rather than legal name on all non-legal school documents and records. The changes come as the Connecticut Board of Regents adopted two separate policies in April addressing issues that transgender or gender nonconforming people on campuses across the country say they have been forced to deal with for years. Our focus is and always will be on developing successful, engaged students and to do that we must continue to provide a learning environment that encourages personal growth for everyone, said Mark Ojakian, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities president, in a statement. Transgender students are part of the CSCU community and we want to make sure they feel valued and empowered to pursue their education. The new bathroom and locker room policy came in response to an executive order issued by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in February after President Donald Trump rolled back Obama-era federal guidelines that protected transgender students in public schools. It also follows a 2011 state law that prohibited public institutions from discriminating based on gender expression or identity. The state college and university system has remained in compliance with that law since, according to its communications director, Maribel La Luz, but this policy formally recognizes that its restrooms and locker rooms are public accommodations and therefore prohibits controlling or otherwise limiting people who are transgender or gender nonconforming access to those spaces. Requiring a transgender or gender nonconforming person to use a separate, non-integrated space, potentially identifies that person as well as potentially marginalizes a person, the new policy states. Such treatment fails to recognize that restroom and locker room facilities on the campuses as public accommodations and that denial of access may result in the deprivation of an equal educational or employment environment. Locally, at Norwalk Community College, the policy wont change things at all, said Cheryl DeVonish, chief diversity officer for the school. DeVonish said Norwalk Community College already maintains a policy that allows students to use facilities that correspond with their gender identity. She called the new policy simply a reaffirmation of what the school has been doing. The move to adopt a preferred first name policy came after the Board of Regents Student Advisory Committee requested earlier this year for the governing body to address the issue. The new policy allows students to use their preferred name on all non-legal documents, including course rosters, student ID cards, email addresses and awards. Preferred names will still be excluded from legal documents, such as diplomas and transcripts. DeVonish said Norwalk Community College also has a system in place that allows professors to identify students in the classroom according to their preferred name. In the new policy, the Board of Regents has directed representatives of each college and university to establish the appropriate forms, procedures and timelines to facilitate students requests to use a preferred name. It also directed representatives to prepare similar materials needed for students requests to change their legal name. Such a request though, according to the policy, requires the student to present an original or certified copy of a court order to change their legal name. In regards to any pushback the school may face due to these policies, DeVonish said so far she hasnt heard of any. If anything she said, students have a lot of questions and are interested in learning more. Crystal Nyante, a 20-year-old sophomore at the school, didnt take issue with the new policy. I think anyone who is transgender should be able to use the bathroom of their choice, Nyante said. She acknowledged that doing so may make others feel uncomfortable, and that may be an issue, but seemed undeterred by it personally. Juan Ramirez, a 19-year-old freshman at the school, agreed. Every single person is different, Ramirez said, and has different beliefs. Ramirez seemed to believe it wasnt up to others to make decisions for a person in regards to their own identity. KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz TORONTO, May 6, 2017 /CNW/ - A final settlement has been approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in the class action Cannon v. ParkLane Financial Group Limited et al. regarding the ParkLane Funds for Canada Gift Program, which operated from 2005 2009. The settlement is a negotiated resolution of disputed claims, the court has not made any finding of liability against any of the Defendants in respect of any of the allegations raised in the class action and the Defendants do not admit any wrongdoing or liability in connection with the class action. Under the terms of the settlement, ParkLane Financial Group Limited, Trafalgar Associates Limited, Trafalgar Trading Limited and Estera Services (Bermuda) Limited as the Trustee of the Bermuda Longtail Trust have paid $17,500,000 plus interest of $164,931.50, and the action against them, as well as all cross-claims, counterclaims and third party claims have been dismissed, bringing the class action to an end. This is the second settlement in this class action. In 2013, several Defendants settled with the class, paying a little over $28 million. The funds from that settlement were distributed to the class in 2014. A notice of the settlement including an explanation of how to make a claim will be sent to the last known address for each class member by mail and email (where known). The notice of settlement and other related documents regarding the settlement are available at www.parklaneclassaction.com. SOURCE Phillips Gill LLP For further information: Margaret L. Waddell, [email protected] HALIFAX, May 6, 2017 /CNW/ - Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) is encouraging Atlantic Canadians, especially those in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to prepare for heavy rains and potential flash flooding due to arrive this weekend. "We are already seeing how this rain storm is affecting parts of Ontario and Quebec," said Amanda Dean, Vice-President, Atlantic, IBC. "Heavy rain and flash floods can have a huge impact on families and communities. In addition with the already swollen rivers in New Brunswick, there is a need for everyone to be on alert. That's why we want to help make sure that Atlantic Canadians are prepared and ready when bad weather strikes." Overland flood insurance has become available across Canada in recent years. When severe weather occurs, it is important for consumers to understand their insurance policies and to know what is covered. If damage occurs, consumers should contact their insurance representatives. IBC is also here to help policyholders if they have any insurance-related questions. Help protect your home from water damage: Store valuable items in upper floors of your home, away from the basement. Have large appliances, furnaces, hot water heaters and electrical panels raised up on wood or cement blocks. If you're unable to do so, consider anchoring these items and protecting them with a floodwall or shield. Anchor fuel tanks to the floor. A fuel tank can tip over or float in a flood, causing fuel to spill or catch fire. Make sure vents and fill-line openings are above flood levels. For propane tanks, contact the propane company on best storage methods. If flooding is imminent, shut off electricity to areas of the home that may be affected. Use sand bags or install flood shields or built-up barriers for basement windows and doors. Create an emergency preparedness plan with your family. Assemble an emergency supply kit. Prepare a detailed home inventory. Pay attention to local authorities and monitor weather developments regularly. Avoid roads covered by water If you have a claim, this is how to start the claims process: When safe to do so, assess and document damage. Call your insurance representative and/or company to report damage or losses. Be as detailed as possible when providing information. If you need help getting in touch with your insurer, contact IBC's Consumer Information Centre at 1-844-2ASK-IBC (1-844-227-5422). About Insurance Bureau of Canada Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) is the national industry association representing Canada's private home, auto and business insurers. Its member companies make up 90% of the property and casualty (P&C) insurance market in Canada. For more than 50 years, IBC has worked with governments across the country to help make affordable home, auto and business insurance available for all Canadians. IBC supports the vision of consumers and governments trusting, valuing and supporting the private P&C insurance industry. It champions key issues and helps educate consumers on how best to protect their homes, cars, businesses and properties. P&C insurance touches the lives of nearly every Canadian and plays a critical role in keeping businesses safe and the Canadian economy strong. It employs more than 120,000 Canadians, pays $9 billion in taxes and has a total premium base of $49 billion. For media releases and more information, visit IBC's Media Centre at www.ibc.ca. Follow IBC on Twitter @InsuranceBureau and @IBC_Atlantic or like us on Facebook. If you have a question about home, auto or business insurance, contact IBC's Consumer Information Centre at 18442ask-IBC. IBC will have personnel available all weekend for interviews if needed. If you require more information, IBC spokespeople are available to discuss the details in this media release. SOURCE Insurance Bureau of Canada For further information: To schedule an interview, please contact: Andrew McGrath, Manager, Media Relations, 416-362-2031 ext. 4312 (office), 416-550-9062 (after hours), [email protected] Related Links http://www.ibc.ca LAKEWOOD, CO, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE MKT:UUUU; TSX:EFR) ("Energy Fuels" or the "Company"), today reported its financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017. The Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), and may be viewed on the Electronic Document Gathering and Retrieval System ("EDGAR") at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval ("SEDAR") at www.sedar.com, and on the Company's website at www.energyfuels.com. Unless noted otherwise, all dollar amounts are in US dollars. Financial Highlights: At March 31, 2017 , the Company had $23.8 million of working capital, including cash and cash equivalents of $12.2 million and approximately 550,000 pounds of uranium concentrate inventory. , the Company had of working capital, including cash and cash equivalents of and approximately 550,000 pounds of uranium concentrate inventory. 60,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 sales were completed by the Company at an average realized price of $58.28 per pound, pursuant to a long-term contract. O sales were completed by the Company at an average realized price of per pound, pursuant to a long-term contract. Uranium production totaled 92,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 during the quarter. O during the quarter. Q1 had lower sales volume due to the timing of contract sales. On April 1, 2017 , the Company delivered 200,000 lbs. into long-term sales contracts and over $13 million was collected. , the Company delivered 200,000 lbs. into long-term sales contracts and over was collected. $3.8 million of total revenue was realized by the Company. The Company began fulfilling a toll processing contract which is expected to result in $6.50 million of revenue for 2017, of which $0.26 million was realized by the Company during Q1-2017. Stephen P. Antony, Energy Fuels' President and CEO stated: "Energy Fuels continues to enjoy meaningful insulation from price weakness in the uranium spot market. Our contract sales and other sources of revenue enable the Company to maintain a strong working capital position and overall balance sheet. In addition, Energy Fuels is likely to become the largest uranium producer in the U.S. in 2017, based on published company guidance. We are proud to take the position as the largest uranium producer in the U.S., especially during a time when our industry demands high degrees of efficiency." Key Developments: On March 22, 2017, the Company completed all licensing and permitting for the Jane Dough property, which is a part of the Nichols Ranch ISR Project. The Company now has all licenses and permits required to commence production at the Jane Dough property, including approvals from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC"), and the State of Wyoming. The Company is currently producing uranium from Nichols Ranch, which contains 13 wellfields, of which nine are currently in production and four are expected to be developed in the future based on market conditions. The Jane Dough property is expected to accommodate 22 wellfields, which are expected to be developed after all 13 wellfields at the Nichols Ranch property are in production. The Company substantially completed shaft-sinking and underground drilling operations at its Canyon Mine in March 2017. We continue to receive the results from the underground drilling campaign, and samples assayed to date indicate the presence of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization. The Company expects to release an updated resource estimate for the Canyon Project later in 2017. On March 31, 2017, the Company announced that Mark Chalmers had been appointed as the Company's President and Chief Operating Officer effective July 1, 2017, with Stephen Antony continuing as Chief Executive Officer. In addition, two members of the Company's Board of Directors, Mr. Glenn Catchpole and Mr. Ron Hochstein, will not stand for re-election. Mr. Antony continued: "Our operations continued to perform to high standards. We brought a new cost-efficient, in-situ recovery (ISR) wellfield online at Nichols Ranch in March, and head-grade and production volumes are rising. We also prudently finished other key permitting and development activities during Q1-2017. We completed permitting for the Jane Dough wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project. As a result, we now have 26 permitted wellfields and significant ISR resources in front of us at Nichols Ranch that we can place into production in the future. We now have a valuable permitted asset in hand, and that cash requirement has stopped. We also now have substantially finished the production shaft and underground drilling at the Canyon Mine during Q1-2017, where we have encountered large areas of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization. We believe we have significantly increased the size of the uranium resource at the Canyon Mine. This should translate into low overall costs per pound, in-line with the lowest cost conventional uranium mines operating in the world today. Monetizing the copper will further reduce our uranium cost-per-pound. Completion of these milestones has resulted in a reduction in the workforce and a significant reduction in cash outlays at the Canyon Mine during the evaluation time period. Nichols Ranch and the Canyon Mine, along with the fully-permitted Alta Mesa Project now on standby, are ideally positioned to quickly increase the Company's low-cost uranium production in improving markets." Selected Summary Financial Information: $000, except per share data Three months ended March 31, 2017 Three months ended March 31, 2016 Results of Operations: Total revenues $ 3,756 $ 17,996 Gross profit 1,685 5,853 Net loss attributable to the company (10,508) (8,808) Basic and diluted loss per share (0.15) (0.19) $000's As at March 31, 2017 As at December 31, 2016 Financial Position: Working capital $ 23,821 $ 24,023 Property, plant and equipment 36,126 37,582 Mineral properties 92,380 92,625 Total assets 196,455 196,457 Total long-term liabilities 48,940 46,487 Operations and Sales Outlook: The Company plans to extract and/or recover uranium from the following sources in 2017 (each of which is more fully described below): 1) Nichols Ranch ISR Project; and 2) Alternate feed materials and pond returns at the Mill Our planned operations are expected to produce finished uranium in excess of our existing requirements under our sales contracts. Extraction and Recovery Activities - Overview The Company expects to produce 675,000 pounds in the year ending December 31, 2017 of which 92,000 pounds U 3 O 8 were produced in the first three months of the year. We had previously forecasted total production for the year ending December 31, 2017 of 800,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 . The lower production amount is due to expected lower initial recoveries of pond returns of 25,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 , a delay in receipt of certain alternate feed materials of 50,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 , which are now expected to be received in 2018, and lower than expected recoveries at our Nichols Ranch Project. Extraction and Recovery - ISR Uranium Segment We expect to extract and recover approximately 300,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from our Nichols Ranch Project for the year ending December 31, 2017, of which 58,000 pounds were recovered in the first three months of the year. At March 31, 2017, the Nichols Ranch wellfields had nine header houses extracting uranium. The ninth header house began extracting uranium in March 2017. Until such time that improvement in uranium market conditions is observed or suitable sales contracts can be entered into, the Company intends to defer development of further header houses at its Nichols Ranch project. Extraction and Recovery Milling Operations The Company expects to recover approximately 375,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 during the year ending December 31, 2017 at the Mill, including approximately 275,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from dissolved uranium not recovered from previous processing in the mill tailings management system ("Pond Return") and approximately 100,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 from alternate feed sources. In the first three months of the year the White Mesa Mill recovered 34,000 pounds of these amounts. In addition, during 2017, the Company expects to earn a fee for processing approximately 1.0 million pounds of U 3 O 8 contained in alternate feed materials at the Mill, returning all finished uranium product to the generator of the feed material. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, the Company began the recovery process and completed processing of 39,000 pounds of this material. Shaft sinking and evaluation of the Canyon Project The Company completed shaft sinking and underground evaluation drilling activities in March 2017 at the Canyon Project. The Company is actively processing and reviewing the drilling results in order to define the mineralization, develop mine plans and evaluate the Mill's ability to recover a salable copper product from the significant copper mineralization the Company has identified. Through evaluation activities completed to date, the Company has identified zones of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization within the deposit. The Company is evaluating the potential for recovering copper at its White Mesa Mill as a value-added byproduct along with the recovery of uranium. The Company plans to issue an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate in the second half of 2017. The timing of the Company's plans to mine and process mineralized materials from the Canyon Project will be based on the results of this additional evaluation work, along with market conditions and available financing. Other operational activities Permitting of the Jane Dough Property, which is adjacent to Nichols Ranch, was completed in March 2017. In January 2017, the Company obtained the necessary permits to mine the open pit and underground resources of its Sheep Mountain Project in Wyoming. The Company is continuing to pursue cost cutting initiatives, including the potential sale or abandonment of certain non-core properties and the sale of excess mining equipment and other assets. Sales of U 3 O 8 and other revenue update and outlook In 2017, the Company expects to complete deliveries of 520,000 pounds of U 3 O 8 under four contracts, including 320,000 pounds under three long-term contracts and 200,000 pounds under a contract where the price is based on the average spot price per pound of uranium for the five weeks prior to the dates of delivery. Of these deliveries, 120,000 pounds represent the final deliveries under one of these contracts. The Company is currently monitoring market conditions for additional sales opportunities. Selective additional spot sales may be made as necessary to generate cash for operations and development activities. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, 60,000 pounds of the above amounts were delivered to a customer under one of the long-term contracts. During the year ending December 31, 2017, the Company expects to earn approximately $6.50 million in toll revenue for processing certain alternate feed materials for a third party of which $0.26 million was earned in the first three months of 2017. The Company also continues to pursue new sources of revenue, including additional alternate feed materials, toll processing of alternate feed materials and other sources of feed for the Mill. A significant focus will be placed on participating in the clean-up of abandoned uranium mines, either on the Navajo Nation or in the Four Corners region. Stephen P. Antony, P.E., President & CEO of Energy Fuels, is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure contained in this news release. About Energy Fuels: Energy Fuels is a leading integrated US-based uranium mining company, supplying U 3 O 8 to major nuclear utilities. Energy Fuels holds three of America's key uranium production centers, the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch Processing Facility in Wyoming, and the Alta Mesa Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the U.S. today and has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. The Nichols Ranch Processing Facility is an ISR production center with a licensed capacity of 2 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. Alta Mesa is an ISR production center currently on care and maintenance. Energy Fuels also has the largest NI 43-101 compliant uranium resource portfolio in the U.S. among producers, and uranium mining projects located in a number of Western U.S. states, including one producing ISR project, mines on standby, and mineral properties in various stages of permitting and development. The Company also produces vanadium as a co-product of its uranium production from certain of its mines on the Colorado Plateau, as market conditions warrant. The Company's common shares are listed on the NYSE MKT under the trading symbol "UUUU", and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "EFR". ADDITIONAL NON-US GAAP FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE MEASURES The Company has included the additional non-US GAAP measure "Gross Profit" in the financial statements and in this news release. Management notes that "Gross Profit" provides useful information to investors as an indication of the Company's principal business activities before consideration of how those activities are financed, sustaining capital expenditures, corporate and exploration and evaluation expenses, finance income and costs, and taxation. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain "Forward Looking Information" and "Forward Looking Statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: production, revenue and sales forecasts; the Company's expectations as to the evaluation and preparation of a revised NI 43-101 Report for the Canyon Project; expectations that drill results at the Canyon Project could result in an expansion of the previously estimated mineral resource and/or identification of a significant copper resource; whether all or a portion of any copper resource at the Canyon Project can be recovered at the White Mesa Mill or elsewhere; expectations relating to mining costs at the Canyon Project and the performance of wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project; scalability, and the Company's ability and readiness to re-start or expand any of its existing projects to respond to any improvements in uranium market conditions; the expectation that the Company will earn a reasonable margin on any of its alternate feed material or other processing activities; the ability of the Company to secure any new sources of alternate feed materials or other processing opportunities at the White Mesa Mill; the ability of the Company to manage its activities and assets conservatively under current market conditions while maintaining its uranium resource base and recovery capabilities; the ability of the Company to enjoy some insulation from spot market weakness; the ability of the Company to enter into suitable sales contracts in the future; expected timelines for the permitting and development of projects; mineral resource estimates; the Company's expectations as to longer term fundamentals in the market and price projections; the Company's expectations as to expenditures and cost reductions; and expectations to become or maintain its position as a leading uranium company in the United States. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" "does not expect", "is expected", "is likely", "budget" "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "have the potential to". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, herein are considered to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements express or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include risks associated with: production, revenue and sales forecasts; the Company's expectations as to the evaluation and preparation of a revised NI 43-101 Report for the Canyon Project; expectations that drill results at the Canyon Project could result in an expansion of the previously estimated mineral resource and/or identification of a significant copper resource; whether all or a portion of any copper resource at the Canyon Project can be recovered at the White Mesa Mill or elsewhere; expectations relating to mining costs at the Canyon Project and the performance of wellfields at the Nichols Ranch Project; scalability, and the Company's ability and readiness to re-start or expand any of its existing projects to respond to any improvements in uranium market conditions; the expectation that the Company will earn a reasonable margin on any of its alternate feed material or other processing activities; the ability of the Company to secure any new sources of alternate feed materials or other processing opportunities at the White Mesa Mill; the ability of the Company to manage its activities and assets conservatively under current market conditions while maintaining its uranium resource base and recovery capabilities; the ability of the Company to enjoy some insulation from spot market weakness; the ability of the Company to enter into suitable sales contracts in the future; expected timelines for the permitting and development of projects; mineral resource estimates; the Company's expectations as to longer term fundamentals in the market and price projections; the Company's expectations as to expenditures and cost reductions; and expectations to become or maintain its position as a leading uranium company in the United States; and the other factors described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K dated March 9, 2017, which is available for review on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and on the Company's website at www.energyfuels.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law. SOURCE Energy Fuels Inc. For further information: Investor Inquiries: Energy Fuels Inc., Curtis Moore, VP - Marketing and Corporate Development, (303) 974-2140 or Toll free: (888) 864-2125, [email protected], www.energyfuels.com Related Links http://www.energyfuels.com VANCOUVER, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (the "Company") - (TSX: ITH) (NYSE-MKT: THM) today announced that it has filed its unaudited first quarter Financial Statements and associated Management Discussion and Analysis and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three-month period ended March 31, 2017. As of March 31, 2017, the Company had working capital of $6.0 million. The Company believes the current working capital will be sufficient for it to complete its anticipated 2017 work plan at the Livengood Gold Project and satisfy its currently anticipated general and administrative costs through the 2017 fiscal year. Shareholders can obtain copies of the Company's unaudited first quarter Financial Statements and associated Management Discussion and Analysis and Form 10-Q on SEDAR at: www.sedar.com, EDGAR at www.sec.gov and on the Company's website at: www.ithmines.com. The Company will also provide hard copies of these documents, free of charge, to shareholders who request a copy directly from the Company. About International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. controls 100% of the Livengood Gold Project located along the paved Elliott Highway, 70 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. On behalf of International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. (signed) Karl L. Hanneman Chief Executive Officer Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including statements with respect to the mine plan, economic analysis (including CAPEX and OPEX) and production and design details described in the Pre-Feasibility Study; the potential to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; additional optimization and exploration efforts and the results thereof; the ability of the Company to satisfy the derivative liability and the consequences of any failure to do so; the ability of the Company to potentially include refined and updated results in a subsequent full feasibility study; the ability of the Company to advance environmental baseline work in support of future permitting; the ability of the Company to advance the Livengood Project either as projected or at all; the potential for the Company to make a construction decision, whether when warranted by market conditions or at all; the potential for market conditions to be such that they warrant the making of a production decision; the potential development of any mine at the Livengood Project; business and financing plans and business trends are forward-looking statements. Information concerning mineral reserve/resource estimates and the economic analysis thereof contained in the Pre-Feasibility Study also may be deemed to be forward-looking statements in that it reflects a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered, and the results of mining it, if a mineral deposit were developed and mined. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, proposed, planned, potential and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the inability of the Company to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital (including, as required, to satisfy the derivative liability) or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Annual Information Form filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), and other information released by the Company and filed with the appropriate regulatory agencies. All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com and its United States public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sec.gov, and readers are urged to review these materials, including the latest technical report filed with respect to the Company's Livengood property. This news release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States. SOURCE International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. For further information: Richard Solie, Jr., Manager - Investor Relations, E-mail: [email protected], Direct line: 907-328-2825, Toll-Free: 1-855-428-2825 Related Links http://www.ithmines.com Veterans Affairs Canada and the Mental Health Commission of Canada partner to provide Mental Health First Aid courses for the Veteran community. OTTAWA, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Veterans, like other Canadians, can experience feelings of sadness, anger, frustration and low self-esteem. In particular, Veterans and families living with operational stress injuries, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, can benefit from extra supports. That is why Veterans Affairs Canada has partnered with the Mental Health Commission of Canada to strategically invest in tools that can help Veterans, their families and support networks. Through a partnership between Veterans Affairs Canada and the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) course, adapted specifically to the needs of Veterans, is available free of charge to the Veteran community. Based on the principles of physical first aid, this two-day session helps participants learn how to recognize a mental health problem and how to respond appropriately to a mental health crisis until the crisis is resolved or professional help can be obtained. Now being offered at various locations across Canada, the Veteran community will have access to an important tool tailored to address their unique realities. To find out more or for details on upcoming training sessions, visit Mental Health First Aid. Quotes "We all talk about ending the stigma associated with mental illness. One of the most effective ways of doing that is educating people. Veterans face unique challenges and this program has been tailored to train family and caregivers on how to help. I am proud that my Department is partnering with the Mental Health Commission of Canada in an effort to help those who struggle." The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence "Now, more than ever we are in the position to equip the Veteran community with lifesaving tools and training. The interest for these courses is exceeding demand. Participants tell us they are able to share experiences in a safe and supportive environment. Veterans and their families have expressed gratitude for having concrete tools and resources to manage their mental health more effectively. The MHCC is tremendously proud to be able to work with Veterans Affairs Canada to help Veterans in need." Louise Bradley, President and CEO, Mental Health Commission of Canada "When I took your Mental Health First Aid course for the Veteran community I was utterly amazed. I recognized so much and I feel so very lucky to have taken it. Your course will save lives." 2017 Veteran community MHFA course participant Quick Facts Mental Health First Aid was developed in Australia by Betty Kitchener and Anthony Jorm in 2001. Since then it has spread to over 20 countries. by and Anthony Jorm in 2001. Since then it has spread to over 20 countries. MHFA Veteran Community was piloted in early 2016 with great success. Participants report the training is informative and practical, with real-world applications. Since June 2016 , over 300 people from across Canada have been certified in MHFA Veteran Community training. , over 300 people from across have been certified in MHFA Veteran Community training. As of March 31 , twenty-one courses have been held from British Columbia to Newfoundland . , twenty-one courses have been held from to . Veterans Affairs Canada has a well-established national network of around 4,000 mental health professionals who deliver mental health services to Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other operational stress injuries (OSI). Veterans Affairs Canada funds a network of 11 OSI clinics across the country (10 outpatient and 1 inpatient). Associated Links Mental Health Commission of Canada SOURCE Veterans Affairs Canada For further information: Sarah McMaster, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs, 613-996-4649; Media Relations, Veterans Affairs Canada, 613-992-7468, [email protected]; Helene Cote, Senior Communications Advisor, Public Affairs, Mental Health Commission of Canada, Office: 613.683.3952, Mobile: 613.857.0840, [email protected] Related Links www.veterans.gc.ca Five new initiatives seek to improve prevention, screening and surveillance OTTAWA, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can result in a baby being born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which includes a range of physical, mental or behavioural difficulties that last a lifetime. No amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. Today, the Honourable Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, announced $3.6 million in federal funding for five projects aimed at preventing and screening for alcohol use in pregnancy. Project leads will work with medical and allied health professionals, social service providers and researchers to equip frontline care providers with the tools, information and best practices they need to help screen, counsel and treat women at risk of using alcohol during pregnancy. The funding will also improve surveillance of FASD in Canada to better identify individuals and population groups most in need of support, help direct future prevention and diagnostic services, and improve care for those living with FASD. There is no single solution to prevent FASD and that is why the Government of Canada is investing in education, prevention and screening, as well as partnering with internationally recognized experts, to help reduce the incidence of FASD. Quick Facts FASD is the leading known cause of preventable developmental disability in Canada . . While the disorder is present from birth, people are often not diagnosed with FASD until later in life when symptoms related to learning challenges and social problems emerge. A number of conditions, such as hearing loss, visual impairment and conduct disorder, have been found to occur more frequently among individuals with FASD than in the general population. While the exact prevalence of FASD in Canada is not known, the Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that one in every 100 Canadians is affected. Quotes "The use of alcohol during pregnancy during pregnancy can have devastating consequences. The funding announced today is an important step toward fostering a national conversation about FASD, and action in a wide range of settings, by a variety of health care providers." The Honourable Jane Philpott, P.C., M.P. Minister of Health "Alcohol is not harmless. It is a mind-altering drug and there are health risks associated with drinking, especially during pregnancy." Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Associated Links Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Canada New Project Funding The Chief Public Health Officer's Report on the State of Public Health in Canada, 2015: Alcohol Consumption in Canada SOURCE Public Health Agency of Canada For further information: Andrew MacKendrick, Office of Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, 613-957-0200 ; Media Relations: Public Health Agency of Canada, 613-957-2983 OTTAWA, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Health Canada is committed to protecting the health and safety of Canadians, including those who use cannabis for medical purposes. On February 7, 2017, following three recalls of medical cannabis related to the use of unauthorized pesticides, Health Canada announced that it would begin a series of unannounced inspections, including random testing of cannabis products from licensed producers to ensure that only registered pesticides are used during the production of cannabis for medical purposes. The aim of these measures is to provide added assurance to Canadians that they are receiving safe, quality-controlled cannabis products. As part of a first series of unannounced inspections of seven licensed producers in March, Health Canada collected samples of plant leaves, dried cannabis and cannabis oil (if produced), as well as samples of any products suspected to contain pesticides the inspectors found on site. On May 1 and 4, Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency completed laboratory testing of plant leaves from the seven inspected sites. Five of the seven sites (RedeCan, 7Acres, Tweed, Tilray and Broken Coast) showed no sign of contamination in the leaves that were tested. Of the remaining sites, both leaf samples at Hydropothecary tested positive for myclobutanil at low level concentrations of between 0.012 and 0.023 parts per million (ppm), and one leaf sample from plants at Peace Naturals tested positive for piperonyl butoxide at a low level concentration of 0.78 ppm. Myclobutanil is a pesticide that is not authorized for use in cannabis cultivation, while piperonyl butoxide is a synergist that is a substance that is combined with pesticides to increase their effectiveness. Piperonyl butoxide is considered an active ingredient in pesticides, and is not contained in any of the 17 pesticides authorized for use in cannabis cultivation. Testing of dried cannabis and cannabis oil samples taken from the seven licensed producers is ongoing; results are not yet available. When it announced random testing, Health Canada was clear that it would not hesitate to take additional measures if warranted based on evidence. Today, Health Canada is announcing that it will require all licensed producers to conduct mandatory testing of all cannabis products destined for sale for the presence of unauthorized pesticides. Licensed producers already test cannabis products for microbial and chemical contaminants (such as mould, heavy metals, and bacterial and fungal contamination) as required by the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. In addition, Health Canada will continue to carry out random testing of product samples collected during its regular and unannounced inspections of licensed producers to help ensure the safety of Canada's medical cannabis supply. Hydropothecary and Peace Naturals are working to determine through additional testing by independent laboratories which product lots may be affected, will communicate directly with clients who may have received affected product, and have indicated they will undertake voluntary recalls as necessary. Health Canada will keep the general public informed by publishing information in the recalls and safety alerts database. These companies are also undertaking an investigation and will implement any necessary corrective measures, which will be reviewed by Health Canada. The Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations are clear: only the 17 pesticides listed under the Pesticides Act (PCPA) for use on cannabis crops may be used at any point in cannabis production. There are no exceptions to these requirements, and no situations in which using a pesticide that is not authorized under the PCPA for cannabis cultivation would be acceptable. In the coming weeks, Health Canada will provide guidance to licensed producers on how to implement mandatory testing, including reporting of test results to Health Canada. This requirement for mandatory testing for the presence of unauthorized pesticides will help ensure that Canadians can continue to have confidence in obtaining safe, quality-controlled medical cannabis from licensed producers. Associated Links Statement from Health Canada on the Testing of Cannabis for Medical Purposes for Unauthorized Pest Control Products SOURCE Health Canada For further information: Contacts: Media Relations, Health Canada, 613-957-2983; Public Inquiries: (613) 957-2991, 1-866 225-0709 OTTAWA, May 5, 2017 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, made the following statement about flooding in Quebec: "I have spoken with my provincial counterpart, Public Safety Minister Martin Coiteux, regarding the flooding situation. On behalf of the Government, the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, and I have accepted his formal request for federal assistance to help citizens in need. The Government Operations Centre has dedicated staff working to coordinate the federal response to the situation in Quebec. Officials are working closely with federal and Quebec partners on planning the details this assistance, including support from Canadian Armed Forces. Citizens can rest assured that help will be provided as soon as possible. I strongly encourage impacted residents to follow the directions and advice of their municipal law enforcement and first responders. On behalf of all Canadians, I would like to thank all of the first responders working tirelessly to keep everyone safe. The Government of Canada, through the Government Operations Centre, continues to monitor and assess the national flooding situation carefully as it continues to evolve." Follow Public Safety Canada (@Safety_Canada) on Twitter. For more information, please visit the website www.publicsafety.gc.ca. SOURCE Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada For further information: Scott Bardsley, Office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 613-998-5681; Media Relations, Public Safety Canada, (613) 991-0657 Related Links www.publicsafety.gc.ca At least six Nigerian soldiers have been killed in new military campaign against militants in the countrys restive Niger Delta oil hub, security officials said on Friday.The southern swampland has been largely quiet since the start of the year because militants halted attacks against oil pipelines to give the government a chance to conduct peace talks.But in a new confrontation, army and security forces moved on Sunday into the Ajakpa community in Ondo state, a region west of the Niger Delta, to hunt down militants involved in oil theft and kidnapping.At least six soldiers were killed, as was the leader of a gang that had used the area as base to stage operations inside the Delta, military officials told a news conference in the oil town of Yenagoa. The operation has not yet finished.Following that successful operation, our troops carried out a raid operation to clear remnants of miscreants, militant camps, shrines and hideouts, a military statement said.But the Ijaw Youth Council, representing the biggest ethnic group in the region, said the army had laid siege to the community and harmed civilians.No one is allowed to come in or go out from the community as the water ways have been blocked by the military, it said in a statement. Women and children are dying on the hour of starvation and diseases; women are being raped and sexually harassed.The military rejected the allegations as propaganda, reports Reuters.A similar operation in a different area had fuelled an insurgency before the government managed to calm down tensions by promising more development for the impoverished region, a key demand from residents.Villagers, complaining of poverty, often give militants shelter in the Niger Deltas hard-to-access creeks.The damage from attacks on Nigerias oil industry has exacerbated a downturn in Africas largest economy, which slipped into recession in 2016 for the first time in 25 years, largely due to low oil prices. Wife of President, Hajiya Aisha Muhammadu Buhari is to visit Khadijah Bashir, an eight months old rape victim today.Little Khadijah was raped by husband of her mother's friend while she was 6-month old.Khadijah is currently receiving medical treatment at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) in Kano state.Aisha Buhari would visit little Khadijah at AKTH shortly after she witnessed graduation of over 3000 women who undergone skills acquisition training under her pet programme of women empowerment. Many Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released. Many Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released.I can confirm they have been released, said a senior government minister, who asked not to be identified, adding that an official statement would be released later. A military and a civilian militia source in Banki, near the border with Cameroon, said at least 80 girls were brought to the town late afternoon on Saturday.The girls are now lodged in the military barracks and will be flown to (the Borno state capital) Maiduguri tomorrow (Sunday), said the military source. The civilian militia member gave an identical account.Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose two daughters were among those kidnapped, said he was told of the release by the Bring Back Our Girls pressure group and an official in Maiduguri.He added: This is good news to us. We have been waiting for this day.We hope the remaining girls will soon be released. Bring Back Our Girls said it was awaiting an official statement but added: Our hopes and expectations are high as we look forward to this news being true and confirmed.Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok on the evening of April 14, 2014 and kidnapped 276 girls. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the hours that followed but the remaining 219 were held by the group.Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed in a video message that they had converted to Islam. The audacious kidnapping brought the insurgency to world attention, triggering global outrage that galvanised support from the former US first lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood stars.Twenty-one girls were released in October last year after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss government.Three others were also found.At the time of the release of the 21, President Muhammadu Buharis spokesman Garba Shehu said the government was hoping to secure the release of 83 others being held by a different Boko Haram faction.Last month he said in a radio interview that there were ongoing negotiations involving some foreign entities to release the 195 girls believed still held.He told BBC Hausa the ICRC and Swiss government have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations. Other countries were also involved, he added, without elaborating. An article written by Reno Omokri. Please read on. That Lai Mohammed has reduced himself from minister for information to minister for... An article written by Reno Omokri. Please read on. That Lai Mohammed has reduced himself from minister for information to minister for explaining why President Muhammadu Buhari does not attend to official duties is now obvious! Instead of busying himself generating ideas for the betterment of Nigeria, he is more concerned with generating excuses for Buhari's failure! Why has Lai done this to himself? Why has he turned himself into the Southern end of a bull? And when CNN's Richard Quest gave him an opportunity to redeem himself by asking him the leading question 'which country makes the best jollof rice', Lai Mohammed proved how irredeemable he is by saying, and I quote "I want to say Senegal". Really! Senegal. Is Lai Mohammed now the minister of information for Senegal? And to make matters worse, Lai tried to spin the storm that came after his disappointing response by claiming that he misunderstood Mr. Quest's question. If Lai can misunderstand such a simple question, then it falls into question his capability for the job he holds. Perhaps when you have a jollofless Lai as information minister and French graduate as agriculture minister, even jollof rice runs away to Senegal! Is this sycophancy taken too far? This is the same Lai Mohammed that said Fulani herdsmen come from Mauritius, a country that is in the Indian Ocean and shares no land border with Africa. The same Lai Mohammed that told us in January that President Muhammadu Buhari is perfectly healthy. I hear that even satan is praying for Lai to go to heaven because he fears he will lose his seat if he comes to hell! And Lai does not seem to realize the extent of damage he has done to Nigeria's image. If I were the Senegalese government, I feature Lai's answer to Richard Quest question as a publicity advertisement for the Senegalese tourism industry on CNN and other global media. It almost seems that since Muhammadu Buhari became our President it is not only foreign investors that are divesting from Nigeria. Even jollof rice has divested to Senegal. In fact, as Jollof rice has divested, we must not forget that the minister of agriculture had announced plans to import grass from Brazil so Herdsmen will be comfortable. You see, even grass had divested from Nigeria to Brazil! But on second thoughts, perhaps we owe Lai an apology. He is right after all. Jollof RICE originates from Senegal. It is jollof LIES that originates from Nigeria through Lai Mohammed. In fact, I want to play a game called Name Your Favorite Jollof LIE that Lai has cooked. I will start. My favorite is the lie that one masquerade can create 1000 jobs. What is yours? Send me an email of yours to reno@renoomokri.org or tweet it at me using the hashtag #NameYourFavoriteJollofLIE! But on a more serious note, Lai's most recent misadventure should prompt the federal government to do some introspection because incidences like this are too commonplace with this administration that one may be forgiven if he thought we were being governed by people who do not know much about Nigeria. For instance we have a President who told the Telegraph of U.K. that Nigerians are "criminals", a lying information minister who thinks Nigerian jollof rice originates from Senegal, a French graduate agriculture minister who wants to import grass for Fulani Herdsmen while Nigerians have no food, a minister of finance that wants to tax Nigerians who own homes in London, a minister of internal affairs who thinks the job of uniformed military officers is to shine his shoe in public, a pot bellied minister of transport whose only major achievement is commissioning what the previous administration built, and a Science and Technology minister whose publicly stated ambition is to produce pencils in two years time-in fact maybe the whole government should just go to Senegal along with our jollof rice! And God keeps giving Lai Mohammed opportunities to redeem himself and his government and he keeps failing to live up to his title as chief image maker for the government. 48 hours after Anthony Joshua TKO'ed Wladimir Klitschko to become the undisputed heavy weight champion of the world on April 29, 2017, the Nigerian government had not congratulated him. It was not until Senator Ben Murray-Bruce tweeted about it that he congratulated the champion pugilist. I hope Lai does not think Anthony is from SENEGAL!! You never know with this Buhari administration! And this dereliction of duty from Lai Mohammed is more telling when you consider that Nigerians do not really know what is happening with their government. Whether true or false, we hear about a cabal governing. Executive Council of the Federation meetings either do not hold or where they hold little to nothing is done because the President is not there. It is either Lai tells us that the President is resting on doctors orders or that he is working from home. Being that the President's office is 5 minutes from his home (I have walked it myself) one begins to wonder what Lai Meshe when he says that President Muhammadu Buhari worked from home. And Lai's comments betrays the disconnect in this government. Lai tells us that the President needs to rest on doctors orders, yet the minister of transport, Rotimi Amaechi, only this week said the President was fit enough to govern and re contest in 2019. Speaking as a guest on Channel Television's Hard Copy , Mr. Amaechi's exact words were: "The president is fit enough to govern and if he makes the decision to run again, if he does, I don't think there is anything wrong in supporting him." So who should we believe between Amaechi and Lai? And then the minister of communications, Adebayo Shittu, joined the fray by saying: " We would urge him to seek re-election because it is only once in a while that you get a father figure for a nation to move forward and attain greatness. He is unlike former President Goodluck Jonathan, who never, with due respect, symbolised anything for the country ." Barrister Adebayo Shittu says Muhammadu Buhari is like a father to Nigerians and Goodluck Jonathan was not. How sad that we forget history so soon! Between 'the dog and baboon will be soaked in blood' and 'my ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian', who sounds like a father? Instead of Buhari's minister to pray for his health they are prodding him on to seek reelection in 2019. Learn from Abacha and Yar'adua. Do not tempt God! I just thank God that there are men who fear God like Chief Bisi Akande in the APC. While Amaechi, Kachikwu, Shittu and Oyegun are playing God, Akande this week released a statement that he "wept" because of the state of Buhari's health. What did Jesus say in Mark 8:36 ? "what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" The enemies of Buhari are those who are encouraging him to cling to power instead of clinging to his health! If I were President Muhammadu Buhari, I will sack Amaechi and Shittu for pressuring me over 2019 at a time I should focus on my health. Except the aim is to kill me. It is taken that every sane man intends the reasonable consequence of his actions. What is the reasonable consequence of pressuring a man who is too sick to work full time or attend mosque to start contemplating the rigors of a re-election campaign? The reasonable consequence will befall Buhari's enemies, not Buhari. Amaechi, Shittu and Oyegun are Buhari's biggest enemies! In all these, what I find alarming is the silence of both Tunde Bakare and Father Mbaka. Pastor Tunde Bakare and Reverend Father Ejike mbaka, who knew you guys could be so silent. You used to be so talkative!!! Sometimes it seems as if God made Muhammadu Buhari to be President purposely to expose the hypocrisy of some people. These guys were so narky under the previous administration but now it seems the cat has got their tongue. What a pity. But there is a silver lining. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is a man who has won my heart for his conduct and carriage in office. President Buhari could not have made a better choice! Just take in the comment he made while addressing "The Platform" at Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos. On May Day 2017, Professor Osinbajo said "and by the way, we all know that Nigerian jollof rice is the best!". And in just one sentence, Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo exposed Lai Mohammed for the liar he is. This is why I even though I pray for President Muhammadu Buhari, I am quite satisfied that Nigeria is safe in the hands of Osinbajo. Osinbajo understands what it is to lead a nation. After Lai embarrassed Nigeria over jollof rice, President Buhari kept mute, but Osinbajo has redeemed Nigeria's image. God bless Professor Yemi Osinbajo! Reno's Nuggets Noah built the Ark when it was sunny. You cant prepare for adversity during adversity. You prepare for it during prosperity. While you are building your ark, haters will laugh at you. Don't waste anger on haters. When they annoy you, use the anger as energy to achieve more. It will annoy them more than your anger. And always remember that the world won't understand you if you try to explain yourself with words. Your only explanation they will understand is your success #RenosNuggets Suspected militants who have held Ogun riverine communities hostage for months have attacked the marine police base in Iwopin community ... Suspected militants who have held Ogun riverine communities hostage for months have attacked the marine police base in Iwopin community in Ogun Waterside local government area, killing one policeman.The victims was identified as Segun Akinola, a sergeant.The heavily armed militants stormed the base on Thursday night, and shot two other policemen, witnesses say. The attackers left with a police gun boat.A police official who escaped the attack said they could not fight back as they were ill-equipped.The militants were armed to the teeth. They arrived the Marine Base and started shooting. They killed a Marine police man who was on duty; one Sergeant Segun Akinola, he said.Two other policemen were shot and they were rushed to the hospital. It is sad that the marine base which is one of the oldest in the country is not equipped. That is why the militants can attack successfully. The militants went away with a police speed gun boat in the base.The attack came two weeks after militants attacked a businessman and killed three vigilante members in the community.The chairman of the Ogun Waterside local government area, Femi Onanuga, expressed sadness over the repeated attacks.These attacks are reoccurring almost every week and it is sad that we are losing civilians and policemen. People are fleeing from Ogun Waterside local government. We are appealing to the government to urgently come to our rescue, he said.The spokesperson for the Ogun State police command, Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed the killing. He said he was going to the scene to have a first-hand information.A source revealed that the militants had sent a letter to the community two weeks ago to inform the police that they would be attacking. Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Enugu state has warned that Ndigbo will not seat aloof to watch the deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, humiliated for unsubstantiated reason.The apex Igbo body said its warning is coming on the heels of the alarm raised by Ekweremadu that the federal government through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is planning to rope him in a phantom allegation.Chairman of Enugu state chapter of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Alex Ogbonnia said in statement, said that even though the EFCC has denied such plot, the group have reasons to believe that such plot is feasible going by the sequence of events that has taken place since June 2015.Ogbonnia said: The denial by the EFCC notwithstanding, we wish to warn, in the strongest terms possible, that the Enugu State Chapter of Ohanaeze Ndigbo will not sit idly by and watch our son being maligned; oppressed or ridiculed by the Presidency or the EFCC.We are not unmindful of the fact that this plot gained currency with Senator Ekweremadus role in perfecting the bail conditions of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPoB, who was granted bail recently with stringent conditions.For the avoidance of doubt, Senator Ekweremadu did what he was supposed to do in the circumstance as a firm believer in the rule of law and justice.Ogbonnia alleged that the Presidency has made several moves to pull Senator Ekweremadu down and remove him from office especially after his emergence as the Deputy Senate President in the 8thSenate.Soon after his election as the Deputy Senate President, the Presidency accused him of forgery and eventually arraigned him before a judge in Abuja on trumped up charges of forgery.The Deputy Senate President was eventually discharged and acquitted of all the charges. Soon after this, hired assassins breached the convoy of the Senator with intent to assassinate him.Though this matter was officially reported to the security agencies as well as the Presidency, the matter was swept under the carpet. Till date, neither has any arrest been made in connection with the assassination attempt nor any official statement been issued by the government.It is in view of the foregoing events that we take seriously the recent revelation by an impeccable source on this grand plot by the presidency and the EFCC to plant exhibits in the residence of the revered Senator with intent of framing him up and bringing him to national and international disrepute. The Bishop of Owo Diocese, Methodist Church Nigeria, Revd. Solomon Adegbite, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the killing of innocent Christians in the country.He also urged all government officials at the state and local government levels to steer clear of religious matter by ensuring that no religion is imposed over another.The clergyman stated this at the 29th Diocesan Synod of the church held at Methodist Church Nigeria, Epinmi-Akoko, in Akoko South-East Local Government Area of Ondo State.The bishop insisted that until people stopped their ungodly behaviours, the situation of the country might not improve.He identified the current economic hardship as the major reason why some people attempted suicide recently, saying Nigerians needed to have positive change of hearts and pray to God for better days to comeThe various governments need to engage transparent technocrats to manage the economy of the country in order to bring succour to the poor Nigerians, Adegbite stated.On the incessant attacks by suspected herdsmen, the bishop decried the killings and destructions of farmlands in many parts of the country and urged the Federal Government and security agencies to curtail the activities of the assailants.Adegbite, while calling for an egalitarian society where every Nigerian will feel equal, opined that public offices should be shared equally among various tribes in the country. President of the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN, Reverend Samson Ayokunle, has said that until peace returns to Southern Kaduna, Ni... President of the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN, Reverend Samson Ayokunle, has said that until peace returns to Southern Kaduna, Nigeria as a nation will not know peace. Over 500 people have been killed in the crisis that started some years ago. Speaking when he paid a visit to the people of Kafanchan in Southern Kaduna on Thursday, Ayokunle called on the Federal government to immediately find a way to resolve the crisis rocking the region as well as in other parts of the country. A pro-democracy and good governance group, Concerned Nigerians, has threatened to shut down the country in peaceful protest if President ... A pro-democracy and good governance group, Concerned Nigerians, has threatened to shut down the country in peaceful protest if President Muhammadu Buhari fails to conduct a media chat in two weeks to let Nigerians know the true state of his health.In a statement signed and made available to newsmen by both its Convener, Prince Deji Adeyanju and the Secretary, Dr. John Danfulani, it said the secret handling of President Buharis health by those it called a cabal has placed the country in uncertain state economically. The group also threatened to call for Buharis resignation should he fail to address the nation.For several weeks, the health of President Muhammadu Buhari has been the source of speculation. He has not appeared in public for several weeks and has failed to attend several official functions including Federal Executive Cabinet meetings. The handling of the situation relating to President Buharis health has led to a lot of political uncertainty in the country.This economic uncertainty has in turn led to a lot of economic uncertainty as major economic stakeholders and players are unable to make short, middle and long term economic decisions. Furthermore, the uncertainty about President Buharis health is stoking ethnic and religious tensions. Only recently a user of the social networking site Facebook threatened to kill 200 innocent Nigerians if President Buhari dies.This threat may not be unconnected with rumours making rounds in the northern parts of the country that President Buhari was poisoned.To this end, we call on President Buhari to, as a matter of urgency, publicly address the nation on the state of his health and other national issues. Such an address will go a long way in assuaging the socio-economic and political tensions. If President Buhari fails or refuses to address the nation within 14 days of this statement, we will commence a series of nationwide peaceful processions calling on President Buhari to resign from office.The processions will also call on the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly to set up a committee to assess his health in line with Section 144 of the Constitution if he fails or refuses to do so. While we recognise that illnesses can afflict anyone, particularly someone of President Buharis age, an occupant of the Office of the President has to be more forthcoming with information regarding his health.It is an obligation that the President bears to conduct himself in a manner that does not affect the peace, order and good governance of the country.In all this, we wish President Buhari a speedy recovery from the illnesses that plague him. However, we believe that he can no longer recover in a manner that plagues the entire country. WINSLOW TWP. -- Students from Buena Regional High School celebrated their 2017 prom on Friday night as they arrived in style at Villa Winslow Manor in Winslow Township. Jasdip Dhillon was named prom king and Selena Gonzalez was crowned prom queen. NJ Advance Media was there to capture images of some of the students as they arrived for the celebration. Check back at nj.com/southjerseyproms for other local high school prom coverage from schools in South Jersey. And be sure to check out our complete prom coverage at nj.com/prom. BUY THESE PHOTOS Are you one of the people pictured at this prom? Want to buy the photo and keep it forever? When viewing the images on a desktop computer, look for a link in the photo caption to purchase the picture. You'll have the ability to order prints in a variety of sizes, or products like magnets, keychains, coffee mugs and more. SHARE YOUR PROM PHOTOS ON SOCIAL MEDIA Let's see your prom photos. Post your pictures on Twitter and Instagram with #njprom. We'll retweet and repost our favorites on Twitter @njdotcom and Instagram @njdotcompix. Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @photogthawk. Find NJ.com on Facebook. HACKENSACK -- A man who barricaded himself at a city home Friday afternoon fatally shot himself hours after a SWAT team was called to the scene, according to a published report. The heavily armed officers assembled at First Street and Stanley Place and were still negotiating with the person hours after the incident began Friday afternoon. The New York Daily News identified the man as Zire King, who was wanted in the slaying of Jacqueline Dicks, a conductor with the MTA and mother of six who was shot Monday night. The barricaded suspect died Friday night from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, NorthJersey.com reported. Hackensack police declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office could not be reached. Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook. CAMDEN -- Right before sentencing Timothy Donnelly to 18 years in prison for fatally shooting a woman who was pet sitting at his mother's house, a Camden Superior Court judge gave him a chance to address the court. It was the moment he could have apologized, but Donnelly, 49, told the judge he had nothing to say. While he remained silent and expressionless in court, his family members did not. They tearfully apologized for him, offering condolences to the family of Kathleen Korbel, 54, whom he shot while attempting to burglarize his mother's house in Gloucester Township when she was on vacation. "I was Timothy Donnelly's stepdaughter. From my family to Kathleen's family, I want to say how terribly sorry we are," Nicole Hoffman, 27, said through tears in the courtroom, several feet from where Donnelly sat in shackles. "If you told me 10 years ago we'd be standing here, I never would have believed it," she said. "The drugs overtook his life. This was senseless... She was an innocent woman who didn't deserve this." Judge Frederick Schuck sentenced Donnelly to 18 years in prison, at least 15 of which must be served, followed by five years probation. It was the recommended sentence in a plea deal that let Donnelly plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter, instead of murder. Assistant Prosecutor Peter Crawford said in court that Donnelly had planned to burglarize his mother's home on Mayflower Drive, but was surprised when Korbel was in the house. He shot her in the head before stealing his mother's jewelry, prescription painkillers and other items, according to authorities. Crawford told Schuck that the state worked out a plea deal because if the case went to trial, they had only circumstantial evidence and no witnesses. Before the hearing, Korbel's family described her as a sweet, loving woman who was devoted to her family and thrilled to have a newborn grandson. Sharing sympathy It is unusual for the family of a defendant to address the court at sentencing other than to ask for leniency. But what happened outside the courtroom Friday was even more unusual. After listening to Korbel's family excoriate Donnelly in court for taking "Kathy" from them, Donnelly's loved ones embraced them in the hallway and again offered their condolences. That included Donnelly's ex-wife, Kimberly Donnelly, and Hoffman, as well as Donnelly's mother, Maureen Donnelly, and her partner, Maureen Triggian. "Our lives were destroyed and so were theirs," Kimberly Donnelly said. "I hope they can heal from this." Donnelly had no criminal arrests on his record, and his former wife and stepdaughter said he became hooked on drugs about a year before the shooting. They were completely in the dark about his drug use, they said, until it got much worse about a month before he shot Korbel. "Love blinds you," Kimberly Donnelly said. She divorced him after his arrest. Crawford previously said in court that Timothy Donnelly, formerly of Elk Township, went to a Delaware hospital and then a mental health facility in Pennsylvania in the days after Korbel's death, but it's not clear if he was seeking treatment. 'The torment and heartache' Kathleen Korbel, of Washington Township, grew up in Gloucester County and studied business before marrying and having two children. A spinal injury left her unable to work and in constant pain, her family said, but she continued to help anyone who needed it and found work as a pet sitter. "She grew up to be a beautiful person, a great mother," said her mother, Geraldine Foster of Woodbury. "She was always so helpful to me. At the end of her life we were very close." She loved the Jersey Shore and spending time with her kids, nieces and nephews and her grandson. "She was the sweetest human being on the planet," Jerrianne Smart, of Glassboro, said of her late aunt. "She treated us, all her nieces and nephews, as if we were her own -- and there are 17 of us." Korbel's brother, sister, mother and daughter spoke during Donnelly's sentencing hearing. "At the young age of 23, you made me motherless," Korbel's daughter, Kristyn Reiger, told Donnelly through her tears. She lamented that her mother only got 7 months with her beloved grandson before her death, and never got to know the grandchildren that have come since. Reiger thanked the prosecutor's office staff for their efforts, but said that 18 years is too light of a sentence for a "coward" who continues to show no remorse for his actions. "Timothy Donnelly, you will never know the torment and heartache that you've caused me," said Korbel's mother, Geraldine Foster. "I cry every day because I miss her so much. I wear her ashes around my neck to be closer to her." In a voice that grew higher as her grief overwhelmed her, Foster told Donnelly that she has been trying, unsuccessfully, to forgive him for what he did. Patricia Vowals drove from Florida to read a letter to the man who killed her sister, whom she said was more like a twin. She also said she hoped to forgive Donnelly someday. "Over 3 1/2 years have passed and I still wake up every day with, in my mind, 'Why her?'" Vowals said. Quay Foster, Kathleen Korbel's brother, said in court that his late sister taught him how to drive. When he was even younger, she would bring him fiddler crabs to play with at the beach. "I just want you to know, I forgive you. A lot of people in this room don't," he said to Donnelly. "You simply made a bad choice, a really bad choice. I feel as much for your family... I feel for you." He said he plans to write to Donnelly in prison in the hopes of getting more answers. "Why, why, why couldn't you have made a better choice?" he said. After Korbel's family members spoke, Donnelly's mother walked to the front of the courtroom with her partner and said that the person who killed Korbel was an addict, and not the person she knew. "I hope that he realizes how wrong he was, but I also hope he realizes he's my son and I love him," she said. "I'm not sure I forgive him, but I love him and I miss him now. And I'm going to miss him for the next 18 years." As the judge prepared to formally sentence Donnelly, Geraldine Foster clutched the necklace holding her daughter's ashes to her lips and kissed it. "We're almost there, Kathy," she said. "We're almost there." Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. stephen-colbert-fcc-trump.jpg Comedian Stephen Colbert, host of 'The Late Show,' at the Republican National Convention in July. He recently addressed jokes he made about President Trump on the show, including one line some criticized as being lewd or homophobic, but while Colbert said he may have used different words, he did not regret his comments. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images) Complaints about Stephen Colbert's recent roasting of the president on "The Late Show" will be examined by the Federal Communications Commission. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told Philadelphia's Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the complaints centered on Colbert's use of an explicit line concerning President Trump and Vladimir Putin. "I have had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints, and we've gotten a number of them, we are going to take the facts that we find and we are going to apply the law as it's been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts and we'll take the appropriate action," Pai said. If "The Late Show" were to be slapped with a violation, it would likely be a fine, he said. Colbert uttered many a joke about Trump on Monday's "Late Show," but it was the Trump-Putin line that had some on Twitter deploying the hashtag #FireColbert and calling CBS to ask for his ouster. "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's **** holster," Colbert had said (see video below), addressing the president. Some saw the use of such lewd language as homophobic, while others who defended Colbert pointed to Trump's own use of such language and inflammatory insults. While buzz about Pai's comments had social media churning on Friday, CNN was quick to point out that "the FCC is doing exactly what it always does." Pai himself echoed that notion when he said "... we'll follow the standard operating procedures, as we always do." Those procedures, CNN points out, include ones that are meant to shield children from "indecent material" before 10 p.m. But "The Late Show" comes on after 11 p.m. (and in any case, the explicit word was bleeped). The exception is anything that qualifies as "obscene." That designation does not have to apply to any specific time. Colbert, a resident of Montclair, addressed the commotion earlier in the week. "So at the end of that monologue I had a few choice insults for the president in return," Colbert said on Wednesday's show, speaking of his defense of CBS host John Dickerson (Trump had referred to his show, "Face the Nation," as "Deface the Nation" during a recent White House interview). "I don't regret that," Colbert continued. "He, I believe, can take care of himself," he said of Trump. "I have jokes, he has the launch codes. So, it's a fair fight." Yet Colbert said he would "change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be." Seeming to address the homophobia charge, he said, "anyone who expresses their love for another person, in their own way, is to me, an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But that." Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. In 2015, Katherine Goble Johnson received the National Medal of Freedom from President Obama. In 2016, the work of Johnson and her NASA colleagues was chronicled in the book "Hidden Figures: The Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race," by Margot Lee Shetterly. The book told the story of how as a research mathematician and "human computer," Johnson became one of the first African-American women to work at NASA, calculating crucial trajectories for space missions at a time when segregation dictated separate bathrooms. And this year, "Hidden Figures," the film adaptation of the book, was lauded with an Academy Award nomination. Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson in 'Hidden Figures.' (Hopper Stone) On Friday night, Liberty Science Center honored the NASA trailblazer with a Genius Award. Johnson, 98, was not able to travel from her Virginia home to attend the Jersey City gala. But her oldest daughter, Joylette Gobel Hylick, who lives in Mount Laurel, was there to accept the honor. "I just wish my mother were 40 years younger, because you wouldn't have been able to get her out of here," said a tearful Hylick, a retired engineer who also worked at NASA for a year and a half. She said her mother, played by Taraji P. Henson in "Hidden Figures," would have loved the center's focus on children. The Jersey City science museum's Genius Awards are a feature of the annual confluence of money, science, business, tech, philanthropy and talent that is the Liberty Science Center Genius Gala. Paul Hoffman, CEO of Liberty Science Center, said the event raised $2.7 million to benefit exhibits and programs. Tickets for the annual fundraiser, where well-heeled guests posed for photos with a man in an elaborate Transformer costume, started at $1,250 and ran up to $100,000 per table. NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson with 'Hidden Figures' actresses Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer at the Oscars in February. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Johnson's calculations sent Alan Shepard into history as the first American to travel to space. She also served as John Glenn's trusted human check on the early computer flight calculation that made him the first American to orbit Earth. "She's always been attracted to kids and curious kids," Hylick told NJ Advance Media before the gala. "One of my greatest regrets is that she is unable to meet these young people and inspire them personally." Hylick repeated her mother's constant refrain for the audience: "What did you learn today?" "We never had an environment where math or its counterparts were spoken of fearfully and in a negative light," Hylick said of her childhood (in college, she majored in math). "I think that happens to some kids." John Urschel, the famed young Renaissance man -- he's both an MIT mathematician and an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens -- introduced Johnson's award alongside David Blaine, Liberty Science Center's magician-in-residence. (At least year's gala, Urschel squared off against chess champion Fabiano Caruana.) In a video interview played at the gala, Johnson said she didn't feel the effects of segregation at NASA because she was so focused on her work. "They needed what she could give and they had to forget who she was," Hylick said. "She never called herself a genius or even thought so," she continued. The last year has been quite an adjustment for Johnson and her family -- suddenly thrust into the spotlight after spending decades as a little-celebrated part of space exploration. At the Oscars, Johnson got a standing ovation when she made an appearance in a wheelchair alongside the cast of the film. And at the NASA Langley Research Center, a new wing was named after the mathematician. "Mom was a normal, extraordinary person," Hylick said. In addition to celebrating science greats, the Genius Gala, now in its sixth year, presented an opportunity for Hoffman, the CEO, to crow about the museum's boosted profile. He said the museum has drawn 224,000 more visitors over the last four years and he provided an update on LSC's SciTech Scity, a planned "mini-city" of scientists and students that will be home to a coding academy and a K-12 school focused on science, technology, engineering and math. Hoffman said 14 acres of land donated by Jersey City had been transferred for the $275 million complex, first announced in 2015, and Mayor Steven Fulop cheered the project. Another of the Genius Award winners was not woman or man, but machine. The dog-like SpotMini robot from Boston Dynamics climbed the stairs to the stage to receive the honor, where Hoffman handed the smart machine his phone, asking it to take a selfie of him and presenter Helen Louise Maroulis, who in 2016 became the first American woman to win a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the Olympics (she currently lives in Jersey City). The mission was a success. "Unfortunately Liberty Science Center didn't exist when I was a kid," said Jersey native and Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert, the human behind the robot. More oohs and ahhs were to be had as staff from Carlo's Bakery of Hoboken, home to Buddy Valastro and TLC's "Cake Boss," presented a special light-up, moving robot cake (to be featured on his show) in honor of Raibert and the SpotMini. An employee struggled as he tried to cut into the back of the hulking metallic confection, but yes, it was edible. Food in motion seemed to be another theme for the evening, as brothers Nicholas and Michael Testa, 12 and 10, sent twirling rounds of pizza dough aloft. Known as the "Pizza Boys," the pair are known for going viral with videos of their pizza-tossing skills at Carmine's Pizza Factory, their father's Jersey City shop. Another of the evening's honorees, the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, known for being on the money with his tech predictions -- he was the principal inventor of the first charge-coupled device flatbed scanner and first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, among other technologies -- carried on about biology, evolution, artificial intelligence and connecting our neocortices to the cloud. He disagreed with an audience vote about whether or not all cancers would be cured within 15 years. They said no; he said yes. After all, the future should contain promise, he said: "This institution is inspiring hundreds of thousands of children who will grow up and create genius inventions of the future." Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. Comedian Chris Gethard has an unconventional disclaimer at the beginning of his HBO special "Career Suicide": "I see a shrink. We're good." That's because "Career Suicide" isn't hyperbole. Gethard, the West Orange-raised comedian known for his cult comedy TV series "The Chris Gethard Show," built the special around his real-life and lifelong struggle with anxiety and depression and his own suicide attempt at 21. Comedy gold. Gethard's depression is now managed by a finely-tuned drug cocktail and Skype sessions with his boundary-challenged therapist Barb, whose often terrible but somehow effective advice punctuates the show, which, by the way, is actually very funny: "I just thought everybody in fifth grade had an internal monologue like the guy from 'Taxi Driver.'" I am hesitant to quote further from the special, which was filmed during its off-Broadway run last year, because it is constructed so thoughtfully and fearlessly, with what seems like throwaway details resurfacing later in sometimes devastating, sometimes heartening ways. Let's just say that the show touches on love, loneliness, fear, hope, Jersey housewives, the Smiths and appalling prescription drug side effects. Two words: beefy hemorrhoids. (Unlike Netflix's recent "13 Reasons Why," Gethard's special cannot be accused of glamorizing suicide.) "Career Suicide" is steeped in Gethard's North Jersey, and that's deliberate, he says, because he wants to break down the stigma around mental illness that may exist outside the big cities. As he says plaintively in the special, "sometimes people just break." "I'm based out of New York City, it's very artsy, and everybody is in therapy here," he says in an interview with NJ.com. "But I'm not from there. I'm from New Jersey, which I think is just a bit of a tougher place. It's a bit grittier. There's a bit of a chip on the shoulder that we all have. I wanted to make sure I got really specific, especially if someone wanted to write me off as some artsy guy from New York." Gethard, 36, grew up West Orange, a nerdy kid who idolized Andy Kaufman and "Saturday Night Live," and started doing stand-up in New York City while studying at Rutgers University. He joined New York's legendary Upright Citizens Brigade, and appeared in "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation" and even starred in the short-lived Comedy Central sitcom "Big Lake." But he was plagued by depression, and only after his suicide attempt in 2001 -- he deliberately let his car plow into a pickup on Valley Road in Clifton -- did he open up to his parents, who found him help. "My great regret is I didn't talk to them sooner," he says. "It would be really cool if kids saw this show. It would be even cooler if parents saw it and started that conversation." Gethard only started talking more openly about his depression in 2012, when a fan left him an anonymous message on his Tumblr page about suicide. Gethard wrote an open letter about his own struggles, and it went viral. He started slipping bits of this darker material into his own stand-up, and for three years he painstakingly worked on the show that would become "Career Suicide." "You can't mess around," he says. "You can't improvise. You can't keep it loose." Did performing the show night after night ever get to be too much? "All the time" he says. "I would say the first 10 times that I did the show, I got offstage, I was shaking. I got offstage and I was crying. I don't want all these people to know all this stuff about me, and then someone would wait for me after the show and tell me something that was very motivating." His therapist has seen the show, and approves. His mom saw it twice. He apologized to her afterward: " 'You had to deal with it when it was not a comedy show at all. This was not a joke. I'm so sorry.' She said it was very hard to see. After the first time, she just quietly said, 'We got through it, and you're using it to help people.' That made me cry." "Career Suicide" may be the ultimate proof that comedy is tragedy plus time, and Gethard does have mixed emotions about minting his biggest success from his most desperate moments. "That's a kind of a weird feeling," he says. "There's probably something to said for someone who is a better strategist for their career. Really, I don't think strategically. I think emotionally. Am I going to be the depression guy forever? I might be. I might be, and I have to be okay with that." "Career Suicide" airs Saturday at 10 p.m. on HBO. "The Chris Gethard Show" just got picked up for a third season by truTV, which will air the 16 hour-long episodes live from New York. A premiere date has not been set yet. He also hosts the podcast "Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People." Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy or like her on Facebook. NEWARK -- A Newark man was arrested outside the Newark PATH station Friday morning after he stole a woman's cell phone and led police on a brief chase, authorities said Saturday. Jonathan Villarreal, 26, was taken to East Orange General Hospital for evaluation after the 9 a.m. incident that involved a chase across railroad tracks and through three parking lots, according to Joseph Pentangelo, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department. He was charged with robbery, resisting arrest, bail jumping, interference with transportation, criminal mischief and theft of service, Pentangelo said. Port Authority police officers were first alerted to the situation when they heard a woman scream and saw her chasing a man on the eastbound train platform, Pentangelo. The woman, a 31-year-old Union resident, told the officers that the man had stolen her phone, he said. The officers chased Villarreal, who ran to the end of the platform and leaped onto the track area, where he dashed across tracks 3, 4 and 5 with police still behind him, Pentangelo said. Villarreal then jumped down into the Dock Bridge parking lot where he landed on top of and damaged an unmarked NJ Transit police vehicle, Pentangelo said. Still running, Villarreal passed under an Amtrak employee parking lot and into an Edison Parkfast parking lot, where police apprehended him, Pentangelo said. Authorities recovered the woman's cell phone and returned it to her, he said. While in custody, Villarreal resisted police and tried to bite officers, Pentangelo said. An investigation by Port Authority police showed Villarreal, who had active warrants from Elizabeth and Linden, had jumped the turnstile to get to the platform. MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook. UPDATE: Nathan Fluitt was found not guilty on 17 counts. NEWARK -- Police seized a loaded gun, various drugs and arrested three men on robbery charges in Newark, authorities said Saturday. A man and a woman flagged down a patrol car late Thursday and reported they were just robbed by two gunmen as they walked near Chestnut and Oliver streets in the city's Ironbound-area, Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said. Officers also learned that assailants fitting the same description committed another holdup minutes later at Chestnut and Adams streets. In both robberies, the suspects fled in a Ford Expedition SUV. Police later spotted the SUV and arrested three men inside without incident, authorities said. The trio -- Abdullah Stewart, 19, Tyrese Harris, 18, and Nathan Fluitt, 45, all from Newark -- were charged with robbery, conspiracy and drug offenses. Officers also reported they found a .9mm handgun that was stolen from South Orlando, Florida, in the vehicle along with 14 zip-lock baggies of marijuana, 13 vials of crack cocaine and 15 glassine envelopes of heroin. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK -- A judge on Friday sentenced a man who fatally shot someone in front of a Belleville strip club to 20 years in prison after he apologized to about a dozen members of the victim's family. Yanafi Mojica, 33, turned to the relatives of Michael Williams II and said he was sorry "for what went down" in the early morning hours of Oct. 8, 2015. "If I could rewind time and go back, I would definitely change it," Mojica, of Elizabeth, said in state Superior Court in Essex County. Under the sentence imposed by Judge Michael L. Ravin, Mojica must serve 85 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. He will receive credit for 561 days he spent in Essex County jail. Mojica pled guilty Feb. 23 to aggravated manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Williams, 28, outside Wet Gentlemen's Club. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to recommend a 20-year sentence. Mojica admitted to shooting Williams, of Newark, in the back while he ran away after getting into an argument with Mojica and two other men, prosecutors said. He was originally accused of murder and weapons offenses, but authorities dropped those charges. Before Ravin sentenced Mojica, he read several letters from Mojica's family members requesting leniency and stating Mojica had unaddressed mental health issues stemming from his father's death when he was a child. His lawyer, James Lisa, told Ravin that Mojica's abuse of drugs and alcohol had caused the shooting, and he asked for a shorter sentence than the 20 recommended years. Williams' mother, Debbie Williams, told the court she did not believe Mojica's claims of remorse. She said her son had a 7-year-old daughter, and she asked Ravin to impose the longest possible sentence. "That's who Mr. Mojica is, a coward, because he shot my son in the back," Debbie Williams said. Assistant Prosecutor Adam Wells told Ravin that Mojica was likely to be violent toward someone else in the future if he were not imprisoned. "This was a killing by this defendant that, I submit, he still has not taken full responsibility for," Wells said. Ravin sided with Wells and noted Mojica's two prior drug convictions and one eluding conviction. He said Mojica has failed to stay out of the legal system for any length of time and is at risk of committing another crime. Nathaniel Garcia, 23, of Elizabeth, who also had been charged in connection with Williams' killing, was sentenced to three years of probation on a charge of hindering apprehension. A third man, Armand Padron, 30, also of Elizabeth, is scheduled to be sentenced Monday on a charge of hindering apprehension. Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook. By James Kratch | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com EAST RUTHERFORD It will be a two-for-one weekend of the Giants mailbag. We got a lot of great questions this week, so there will be two mailbags - one on Saturday, one on Sunday. The mailbags will also come with clear themes as well. On Saturday, this mailbag will largely focus on left tackle Ereck Flowers and the Giants' offensive line - where things stand, who is in the mix, who the Giants may be able to add, et cetera. Sunday's mailbag will feature plenty of discussion about first-round draft Evan Engram and how he fits into the Giants' offense. Here we go with Saturday's edition ... Don't Edit Do you think the NYG will sign Ryan Clady to compete with/beat out Flowers at LT?The NYG should add Scot Mccloughan to their front office. hnbc (@hnbc1) May 5, 2017 Don't Edit Let's start with Clady. The ex-Jet is definitely a player that could fit the Giants if they were so inclined. He's a proven left tackle with Pro Bowl pedigree. The issue is, those days may be long gone. Clady will turn 31 in September, and he's missed 30 combined games since 2013, including the entire 2015 season and 14 games in 2013 (his last full season, 2014, was one of his four Pro Bowl years). Clady is also coming off surgery, and had a Pro Football Focus grade worse than Ereck Flowers in nine games (eight starts) last year with the Jets before going on injured reserve with a torn rotator cuff. The Giants could bring him in to push Flowers and provide depth, but thats about all they could ask for. His injury history precludes much else. The Giants do not seem all that interested in adding a player who could take Flowers left tackle job away from him, though. Even if Clady was signed and won the job, it may be just a matter of time before he suffered another injury and the Giants have to turn back to Flowers. Theres also the obvious reality that other teams can offer Clady more money and a confirmed job in the starting lineup. Thats why Clady, for now, does not seem to be on the forefront. As for McCloughan: The ex-Redskins general manager is undoubtedly one of the best talent evaluators in the NFL, as long as his personal life is in order. I dont see how or why he would come to the Giants. The front office is pretty packed as it is general manager Jerry Reese, Vice President of Player Evaluation Marc Ross, Senior Vice President of Player Evaluation Chris Mara, head coach Ben McAdoo there is not really any room for another cook in the kitchen. Don't Edit A trade for Thomas or staley still possible? Vin_man19 (@Vin_man19) May 4, 2017 Don't Edit No. To start, the Browns arent trading Joe Thomas and the 49ers arent trading Joe Staley. Both teams have invested in free agency, are trying to compete and either just added a quarterback or will be in the market soon. Dumping Pro Bowl-caliber left tackles does not help any on-field cause. Moreover, the cost to trade for either Staley or Thomas would be extremely high if either player were to be made available in a trade. The Giants would have to shed or restructure several salaries in order to fit Thomas under the salary cap, and they would have to surrender significant assets (i.e. multiple draft picks, including a first-rounder) to get Staley given the fact the Niners would be eating a nice chunk of dead money against their cap (the Giants would also face a cap crunch with Staley, albeit not as big as Thomas would bring). When the Niners called the Giants during the draft about trading back (as reported by The MMQB), it wouldnt have hurt for the Giants to propose giving up No. 23 and their third-round pick for Staley and the Niners fourth-round pick. It wouldnt have gone anywhere, though. Nor will the pipe dreams of the Giants somehow landing either of these left tackles in a trade. Don't Edit Don't Edit How are we going to be at able to rebuild the line with such limited options free agent wise? Joe Cameron (@realJoeCameron) May 4, 2017 Put your GM on. How would you fix the OL. Please be specific. JR doesn't get it. He think getting Ellison to help ER is gonna fix ol. MJ (@MJ916) May 4, 2017 Don't Edit I would have signed Andrew Whitworth away from the Bengals as soon as possible once free agency opened. That was the only serious play available to the Giants that would have given them a significant upgrade. They didnt take it. In hindsight, the Giants probably had their valid reasons. Whitworth did get a lot of money for a 36-year-old from the Rams, although the deal is not as exorbitant as it looks. Signing Whitworth, a perennial Pro Bowler, after placing the franchise tag on defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul would have been a challenge as well. Given the fact defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins left anyway though, the Giants probably could have found a way to make it work if they were willing to shed another veteran salary or two. Once Whitworth was gone, the rest of the free agent tackle market was overpriced. The draft class was then not much to write home about, especially after the Broncos took Utah's Garett Bolles at No. 20. The Giants have made their bed and stuck with Flowers. Now they have to hope their faith is rewarded. Don't Edit Don't Edit If Flowers struggles in beginning of season what is plan B? Pugh? steven D (@stevenljc) May 5, 2017 Don't Edit There may not be a true Plan B barring injury. The Giants seem pretty convinced Flowers is going to make big strides in his third season. They dont have much else they can put at left tackle after him on the roster. Left guard Justin Pugh is likely the top candidate to step in if need be, but that weakens the spot held by arguably the best lineman on the roster (it also jerks Pugh around again). Maybe D.J. Fluker gets put there in a pinch? This whole season feels like it's being predicated in large part on Flowers making a leap. The Giants have to hope it happens. Otherwise, they may be stuck. Don't Edit Don't Edit Are you still allowed a camp roster exemption for a foreign player? You used to. Do the Giants have one? The Champ (@TheChamp1156) May 4, 2017 Don't Edit No, the NFL did away with all foreign player exemptions a while back. They are still on paper in the collective bargaining agreement, but no longer in effect. Don't Edit Giants 2017 rookie numbers revealed Davis Webb will wear ... Don't Edit UDFA with the best shot of making the team? Ariel Kirshenbaum (@metsmavs910) May 4, 2017 Don't Edit It's very early, but defensive tackle Jarron Jones and offensive tackle Chad Wheeler stand out. Both would have been drafted if not for off-field questions, and they are at positions that aren't terribly strong when it comes to depth. Cornerbacks Nigel Tribune and DeShaun Amos are also considerations - not so much because of their on-field accomplishments in college, but because the Giants are pretty thin at corner after their big three. Linebacker Calvin Munson doesn't make my list for now because it's tough to see him and Mark Herzlich both having a place on the 53-man roster. At this point, someone has to beat Herzlich out for it to be believed possible. Don't Edit Don't Edit If the Giants franchise were a tree, what tree would it be? Travis Dalessandro (@travisld8) May 4, 2017 Don't Edit If the Giants were a tree, they'd be an American Larch. It's a forest tree found in swamps in New York state, according to this Cornell webpage. In other words, a tree from New York that plays in a swamp (the Meadowlands). Don't Edit Don't Edit TALK IS CHEAP: Analyzing the Giants draft picks Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Soundcloud or iHeartRadio. Don't Edit Don't Edit Don't Edit James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook. Don't Edit NJ Advance Media for NJ.com file photo JERSEY CITY - A Jersey City fire truck appears to have crashed into the Hudson Bergen Light Rail train in the collision in which four firefighters were injured yesterday. It appears at this time that the truck struck the train and not vice versa, NJ Transit spokeswoman Lisa Torbic said today of the crash at 7:15 p.m. at Sixth Street near Washington Blvd. She noted, however, that the investigation is ongoing. The three firefighters and the fire captain on the truck, as well as the train's conductor, were taken to the Jersey City Medical Center. The injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said yesterday. The fire captain had to be extracted from the truck, Morrill said of the collision near the Newport Centre Mall. Light rail service was disrupted due to the collision which caused the train to derail. No additional information was available today from Torbic or Morrill. Madison startup SmartUQ has finalized a $1.9 million investment from individual investors around the state or with Wisconsin ties. SmartUQ, founded in early 2014, uses mathematics to predict how manufactured products will perform, based on data from simulations. Peter Qian, founder, CEO and chief scientist, said "very high-level analytics" are used to test prototypes and to assess manufacturing and operational support. "We can significantly reduce the cost and time for producing a product with minimum uncertainty and risk," Qian said. The company has its headquarters in Madison and more than 15 employees here, with additional employees in sales and marketing working remotely. Qian declined to give SmartUQ's address or to provide a total employee count. He said SmartUQ is working with some multi-national companies and has plans to expand to Europe, Asia, and beyond. "We want to be the marketing leader doing engineering analytics," Qian said. He said the company has raised $4.5 million since its inception. The new funding will be used to add staff. "We want to grow globally, (in) every corner of the world," Qian said. Experience in public office or the need for change. Voters in District 9 are being asked at Tuesdays election to judge what they value more when it comes to who will represent them on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. A Madison man who prosecutors said paid $30 and offered a promise to kill was convicted Friday of conspiracy to kill a Madison police officer who was to testify at his trial. A jury of eight women and four men deliberated for nearly four hours before finding Alijouwon Watkins, 21, guilty on all but two of the 11 counts against him, including conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide. That conviction alone carries a sentence of up to 60 years of combined prison and extended supervision when Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds sentences Watkins in about two months. Prosecutors said Watkins plotted in the Dane County Jail to hire someone to kill Madison police Officer Elisabeth Misener, one of the officers who tried to arrest Watkins after a domestic incident in 2015 involving Watkins then-girlfriend. Misener was to testify at Watkins trial in the domestic violence case, set for June 2016. The trial was postponed after Watkins was accused in the murder-for-hire scheme. In addition to the homicide conspiracy, Watkins was convicted of felony intimidation of a witness and solicitation of perjury. The jury also found Watkins guilty of misdemeanor battery, disorderly conduct, criminal damage to property, felony intimidation of a victim, escape and resisting an officer while causing substantial bodily harm all related to the June 2015 domestic incident and attempted arrest. That incident began when Watkins got angry at his girlfriend because she wouldnt let him use her car. In closing arguments Friday, Watkins lawyer, David Stegall, said that the prosecutions key witness, Damian James, was a serial liar. James told police that he was contacted in the jail on Watkins behalf to help him line up a hit man to kill Misener. Stegall said James created the plot himself, and only sought to better his own fortunes by appearing to help police. James testified Wednesday that he received notes in the jail about helping Watkins because word had gotten out that James was connected to organized crime and gangs, and had been a Marine sniper. James testified that he lied about his criminal connections and being a Marine but said that everyone in jail has a story. In the end, Watkins paid $30 from his jail account that was to go to a hit man, whose phone number James had provided to Watkins. He also pledged to work as a hit man to pay his debt. The number instead was for a federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent. James had gone to police after he said he was approached about the plot and was outfitted by ATF agents with a tiny recorder sewn into his jail uniform. Stegall urged the jury not to believe anything that James said because of his constant lies. Do not buy into the story, because the story is not supported by facts, Stegall said. But Assistant District Attorney Colette Sampson said the jail recordings taken by James were enough corroboration of his statements to convict Watkins. In 2015, and again when Watkins tried to hire a hit man to derail his domestic abuse trial, Sampson said, Watkins was trying to avoid responsibility for his actions, and she urged the jury not to let that happen. DES MOINES Gov. Terry Branstad signed three bills Friday dealing with abortion, voter identification and medical malpractice, capping a remarkable legislative session in which Republican lawmakers pushed through a host of conservative measures. The Republican governor signed the bills at consecutive ceremonies at the Capitol after previously signing a measure dealing with issues ranging from public worker bargaining rules to gun owner rights. Branstad hasnt vetoed any bill approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and now is left primarily with budget measures. This is a banner day, Branstad said. I wouldnt say this is the biggest day, but its certainly one of the most significant ones in terms of the public policy. The abortion restriction prohibits the procedure in most cases after 20 weeks of pregnancy and requires a 72-hour waiting period before any abortion. Branstad called it a significant stride for the anti-abortion movement. Republican lawmakers hugged each other in celebration as the law went into immediate effect. This year was really a banner year for the pro-life movement, Branstad said. History was made this session. Soon after Branstad signed the measure, the Iowa Supreme Court issued an injunction on enforcement of the waiting period for women who already had abortions scheduled. When asked earlier about efforts to block to law, Branstad noted that similar abortion restrictions have been upheld in other states. Planned Parenthood and ACLU of Iowa applauded the temporary injunction, which followed a decision Thursday by a lower court judge who denied a request by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa to block elements of the abortion restriction before Branstad signed the measure. The state will have an opportunity to respond to the temporary injunction on Monday. The court will then decide whether to extend the short-term injunction. Planned Parenthood noted the courts action Friday allowed 44 women with scheduled abortions to proceed with their appointments. Suzanna de Baca, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said in a statement that the law had caused confusion for patients. She said one woman had driven seven hours to her appointment Friday and then was told she couldnt have the procedure that day. She said women were angry and upset at the intrusion into their lives. Ben Hammes, a spokesman for Branstad, said the state believes the 72-hour wait period will ultimately be implemented. He called the courts injunction part of the process, adding that the governor expects the stay will soon be lifted. The voter identification bill signed by Branstad will require voters to show ID at the polls, a measure that Secretary of State Paul Pate said will be in effect for the 2018 Iowa gubernatorial election thanks to a soft rollout of the law. The law, which be fully implemented in 2019, also allows 17-year-olds to participate in primary elections if theyll be 18 by the general election and reduces Iowas early voting period. Opponents have said the identification requirement and reduction of early voting days from 40 days to 29 will suppress voter participation. Republicans said its necessary to protect against voter fraud, while acknowledging the problem is rare. Pate said about 5 percent of Iowans will receive free identification cards, noting that most people have acceptable ID, including drivers licenses, passports and veteran ID cards. The real work begins now because we have to spend a lot of time educating and making sure the public is aware of what the real facts are now, Pate said. In signing the medical malpractice bill into law, Branstad said the move would add predictability to the medical field and attract more professionals to Iowa. The law restricts some payouts to patients who win such lawsuits, though juries can override the cap in some instances. Its been long overdue and will make us more competitive, Branstad said. This was just a small part in the significant and diverse accomplishments of the 2017 session. In addition to Fridays bill signaling, Branstad signaled he will sign a bill into law that legalizes the sale of most fireworks in Iowa. Branstad announced hed sign the bill Tuesday despite arguments from opponents that expanding fireworks sales would lead to more injuries and property damage. Supporters responded that residents already bought fireworks in neighboring states and that people were overstating potentials dangers. After being signed by Branstad, the law will legalize most consumer-grade fireworks, including bottle rockets, firecrackers and roman candles. The explosives could be sold from June 1 through July 8 and from Dec. 10 through Jan. 3 in permanent structures or tents. Cities could prohibit use of fireworks but not outlaw their sale. The Legislative Services Agency estimates the law will generate $1.5 million in sales tax revenue for the 2018 fiscal year. Nebraskas laws for firework sales are more limited. Sales are only allowed June 24 to July 5 and Dec. 28 to Jan. 1. Local ordinances can be stricter. Omaha, for example, doesnt allow winter fireworks sales. Nonpareil Assistant Managing Editor Scott Stewart contributed to this report. The Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office deputy injured in Mondays shooting by an escaped jail inmate has been discharged from the hospital. Deputy Pat Morgan, 59, has been discharged from the Nebraska Medical Center, according to hospital staff. Jerry Brittain, 30, of Council Bluffs, has also been discharged. Police say 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty shot both men and Deputy Mark Burbridge during an escape from the Pottawattamie County Jail. Burbridge died Monday. Correa-Carmenaty remains at the Douglas County Jail while awaiting extradition to Iowa. The suspect will be housed at the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City after he is returned to the state. He faces a slew of charges, including first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and kidnapping. Woodbury County Sheriff Dave Drew said Correa-Carmenaty will be held at his jail in Sioux City and that his officers will use great caution in handling him. On Monday, Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced to 45 years imprisonment in connection to the death of Anthony Walker when he managed to grab one of the two deputies guns while being transferred the Pottawattamie County jail. A private visitation for Burbridge will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. today at Hoy-Kilnoski Funeral Home, 1221 North 16th St. The service is open to members of law enforcement, full-time firefighters, county corrections staff, county communications center employees and courthouse employees, according to the Sheriffs Office. Attendees are asked to bring their respective badges or identification to show employment. A public visitation will be held from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday at the funeral home. Community members are welcome to attend. Burbridges funeral is planned at 10 a.m. on Monday at the Mid-America Center. The facility will open at 8:30 a.m. for public seating. Members of the public are asked to enter the center through the West Entry doors. The Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office and County Courthouse will be closed on Monday. The Associated Press and Alia Conley of the BH News Service contributed to this report. IOWA CITY A powerful Iowa regulator used her government email to conduct private business for her personal law practice and claimed sick leave on a day when she attended a clients court hearing, which are both apparent violations of state rules. Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the open records law reveal that Iowa Utilities Board chairwoman Geri Huser used her state account this year to send messages to employees of her law firm, violating state email rules and jeopardizing confidential legal information. They also show she claimed paid sick leave Feb. 6, even though she participated in a court hearing for a legal client that afternoon. In addition, documents obtained by the AP show the board hired an intern who worked the previous seven years as an assistant at Husers private law firm. The AP disclosed in March that Huser has operated a busy estate law practice while holding a $128,900-per year state job that has power over utilities, their customers and energy policy. Her practice is unprecedented for the many attorneys who have served on the board, including new member Dick Lozier, who recently said he was leaving his firm. Husers firm has been awarded $182,000 in fees for cases shes handled during her two-year tenure as chairwoman, despite a law requiring the three board members to devote their whole time to state business. After a delay prompted by the APs findings, the Iowa Senate voted 44-4 last month to confirm Huser for a second two-year term as chairwoman. Huser told senators that she was working full time and has appropriately used flexible scheduling and vacation time to meet any weekday obligations. Gov. Terry Branstad also came to his appointees defense, praising Husers leadership and noting that prior members have driven taxis or farmed on the side. But records show Huser has struggled to keep the two jobs separate, with her state calendar also listing her legal appointments. Huser sent six messages in February and March from her state account to employees of Skinner Law Office, including assigning lists of legal tasks to complete. Board spokesman Don Tormey said Huser was using new software on her private computer to save and send attachments, and it defaulted to her state account without her knowledge when she sent them. He said the practice stopped when it was discovered around March 20. The state employee handbook says email must be for state government-related activities and not for personal business and that information transmitted through state computers belongs to the government. Board general counsel David Lynch rejected the APs request for the messages and attachments Huser sent to her firm, claiming they dont belong to the board and contain privileged and confidential information. The messages were discovered during a search of Husers email by state information technology employees. Depending on their content, they may indicate a violation of the rules of professional conduct for Iowa attorneys, which require lawyers to keep sensitive client information confidential and take precautions to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of it. Iowa rules say sick leave is only intended for reasons such as illness and medical appointments. Records show Huser appeared for a Feb. 6 afternoon hearing in Nevada, Iowa, where she represented the brother of an incapacitated man who was seeking to become his siblings temporary guardian. On her timesheet, Huser claimed eight hours of sick leave. Records show that Huser missed all or part of at least 65 days due to vacation or sick leave in her first 22 months as chairwoman about 15 percent of normal workdays. That doesnt count a half-dozen more in which she attended court hearings but didnt claim leave. Timesheets show Huser often puts in extra time on nights or weekends to make up for days that are cut short. Huser didnt respond to an interview request and her state-issued cellphone rang unanswered Thursday. Tormey didnt respond to questions about Husers sick leave. On Friday, the AP reported the Iowa Utilities Board hired 24-year-old Cameron Wright in 2015 as a legal intern. Hes worked since then at an hourly wage of $17.60 while seeking his law degree at Drake University. Wrights resume shows that he worked at Husers family-owned Skinner Law Office from 2008 through 2015 as a clerk. Wright was chosen over 20 other applicants for the internship, although the board said only Wright and one other were qualified and available. The board said Huser wasnt involved in the interview process, and Lynch extended the offer to Wright. DES MOINES (AP) An Iowa businessman twice convicted of ordering the 2004 murder of a friend who had an affair with his wife was granted a third trial Friday by a divided Iowa Supreme Court. Vernon Huser, who had been serving a life sentence, should have been able to admit potentially powerful testimony suggesting a different motive in Lance Morningstars killing, the court ruled 4-3. The decision overturned Husers first-degree murder conviction and means the 70-year-old will likely soon be free again on bond pending a new trial. Prosecutors argued that Huser was enraged after learning that Morningstar, a family friend, had been having an affair with his wife in 2003. Huser and his wife, who had built a large trash hauling business called Ankeny Sanitation, got a divorce the next year. Prosecutors contend that Huser directed another man, a drinking buddy and former sex offender named Louis Woolheater, to kill Morningstar for revenge. Morningstar, a county road worker, vanished in September 2004. His body was found in a wooded area near Woolheaters home in Altoona months later. Investigators believe that Woolheater, who was convicted separately and is serving life in prison, shot and killed Morningstar and disposed of the body. Huser has maintained his innocence, noting that investigators turned up no evidence that he paid Woolheater. He argued that Morningstar, an alleged bookie who lived with a troubled son, could have had other enemies with motive to kill him. Huser was first convicted in 2010. The Iowa Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 2012, ruling that the most compelling statements alleging that Huser directed Woolheater to kill Morningstar came from people who had spoken to Woolheater and were inadmissible hearsay. Jurors convicted Huser again after a 2013 retrial, and hes been serving his sentence at the Anamosa State Penitentiary. The courts majority concluded Friday that Husers second trial also was tainted this time by evidence that was not admitted. Justice Brent Appel wrote that a judge erred when he barred testimony from a girlfriend who claims Woolheater told her that he and two other men had to take care of Morningstar because he had information that could send Woolheater back to prison. The girlfriend, Michelle Zwank, claimed Woolheater said one of the men made one hell of a shot that killed Morningstar. Zwank was a key witness, testifying that she drove with Woolheater to Morningstars house on the day Morningstar vanished and loaded what appeared to be a body into her truck. The judge ruled that allowing her to testify that Woolheater had an independent motive to want Morningstar dead would have opened the door to the hearsay testimony about Husers alleged motive that had already been ruled inadmissible. Appel said Zwanks testimony should have been admitted on its own. It would have given Huser a powerful argument, namely that Woolheater acted to save his own skin rather than at the direction or encouragement of Huser, Appel wrote. Dissenting Justice Edward Mansfield said Husers conviction should stand. He said its illogical to allow Huser to introduce the one Woolheater statement that might have suggested Woolheater acted out of a personal motive while prohibiting the state from introducing the four Woolheater statements that suggested Woolheater was acting at the behest of the defendant. LINCOLN, Neb. The Legislature passed a bill Wednesday giving Omaha and other Nebraska river towns a new tool for developing their riverfront areas. Legislative Bill 97, introduced by State Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue, Nebraska, allows cities to create riverfront development districts, which would be similar to business development districts. New entities, called riverfront development authorities, could coordinate and facilitate development efforts within a designated area extending up to a half-mile from the rivers edge. The authorities could issue bonds and fund projects with occupation taxes on businesses or special assessments on property in the riverfront district. The measure passed on a 43-0 vote. It now goes to Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has until Tuesday to decide whether to sign it into law. Whether Omaha would take advantage of the bill remains to be seen. Cassie Paben, Mayor Jean Stotherts deputy chief of staff for economic development, testified against the bill at a public hearing. She raised several technical concerns about the measure. City officials testified in a neutral capacity last year, when then-Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha introduced a similar bill. Mello now is running against Stothert. Omaha is set to vote on its next mayor in an election Tuesday. Crawford said 52 Nebraska communities could potentially use the mechanism so its application would not necessarily be limited to Missouri River communities. At the hearing, officials from Norfolk, Nebraska, expressed interest in using it to redevelop areas along the North Fork of the Elkhorn River. Officials from Omaha and Council Bluffs have been working together on visioning for Omahas riverfront. Nonpareil Assistant Managing Editor Scott Stewart contributed to this report. A Council Bluffs woman arrested Thursday is accused of doctor shopping to obtain several prescriptions for painkillers at the same time,. Brandy Kermoade, 40, faces a charge of prohibited acts for seeking a false prescription, which is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison if she is convicted. According to the police report, authorities were contacted by an Omaha dentist and a Council Bluffs pharmacist, both of whom suspected Kermoade was a doctor shopper. Police described doctor shopping as a patient obtaining care from several medical providers at the same time, while not trying to coordinate care, with the goal of getting more medication in this case, painkillers than necessary. Police reviewed pharmacy records and spoke with a medical provider who told them Kermoade was obtaining drugs from another provider. An Omaha doctor told police he had prescribed Kermoade painkillers after she complained of abdominal pain on Jan. 20. An Omaha dentist told police he prescribed Kermoade painkillers on Jan. 23 for an abrasion to her mouth. The dentist told police he would not have given the prescription to the woman if he had known she had already been prescribed painkillers by another doctor. (The doctor) stated that he felt that Kermoade deceived him by not disclosing that she was prescribed Percocet by another doctor days earlier, police said. The dentist added he was convinced Kermoades wound in her mouth was likely self-inflicted for the purpose of getting painkillers. This is the third time in four years Kermoade has been accused of fraud to get painkillers in this fashion, officers said. Kermoade is currently being held at the Pottawattamie County Jail on $20,000 bond. Her preliminary hearing is set for May 15. TREYNOR - A young girl with blood on her face screams wildly as she sees her friend lying on the ground, not moving. Rescue squads and fire trucks with sirens blazing arrive on the scene and use the Jaws of Life to free passengers from the two-vehicle crash. A medical helicopter arrives, ready to take the seriously injured to a hospital, while a young male driver is taken away in handcuffs for drunken driving. This scene a simulation to show the possible dangers of drunken and distracted driving played out Friday afternoon for the students at Treynor High School. The purpose was to make the kids aware of the dangers of distracted driving and intoxicated driving and how they can effect everyone, said Dan Roberts, Treynors assistant fire chief. Besides the victims, such accidents bring suffering to their families and friends, as well as law enforcement and rescue personnel especially in smaller communities where everyone may know each other, he said. It takes an emotional toll on everyone, said Roberts, who also serves as an arson investigator for the Council Bluffs Fire Department. The simulated accident was sponsored by various organizations, including the Treynor Keep Kids AliveDrive 25 group, the Treynor Junior Optimist Club, Treynor Fire & Rescue and the Iowa State Patrol. A fatal car and pedestrian accident in Treynor in November 2015 prompted a local effort to prevent such tragedies from happening again. The student victims were volunteer actors who put on gory-looking makeup and torn clothing to make the scene more realistic. The students, after a watching a film about distracted driving indoors, came outside to the parking lot to view the demonstration. It began with the student actors inside two beat-up, old vehicles one of them with a shattered windshield as if they had collided head-on. Suddenly, one of young girls screams uncontrollably as she sees the lifeless body of her friend on the pavement. Then one of the male drivers yells, I cant move my legs. Somebody call 911, a passenger cries out. Personnel from the State Patrol and the fire and rescue department, who were involved in the demonstration, soon arrive, as does a medical helicopter. The Jaws of Life are needed to remove backseat passengers. Meanwhile, the two male drivers begin arguing with each other on who was at fault. One of them fails a drunken driving test and is taken away to jail. The climax comes when the coroners office arrives and places a sheet over a dead passenger and takes her away. Later, the student actors discussed their thoughts to the student body. This is a good learning experience, said senior Bailey Andersen. Junior Brock Livengood said he learned a valuable lesson from the demonstration. Drinking and driving thats dumb to do that, he said. Months after Brandy Buscher stocked the shelves of a tucked-away food pantry inside North Platte High School, she stood in front of a new washer and dryer set Friday. Buscher and members of Leadership Lincoln County, the North Platte Area Chamber of Commerce and Chamber Hostesses had two words to exchange with each other: Thank you. Buscher opened up the food pantry for NPHS students in January. Here, students recommended by staff members and assessed for need receive a backpack. They fill the backpack with food and other necessities, and in the hallways, they blend in. As student services coordinator, Buscher makes sure kids who are homeless and live in poverty get to school. Shes learned that providing a bus pass isnt enough for a kid who has bills to pay. Shes learned that students miss school because they dont have clean clothes its embarrassing. A washer and dryer is a luxury for many, and a laundromat takes time and money. In coming years, Buscher had hoped to add a washer and dryer to NPHS. Later that month, Buscher told her story to Leadership Lincoln County on the groups education tour. The group encourages its teams to take on a service project. One team couldnt shake Buschers story. So, team members set out to raise funds for the washer and dryer set. Through shared Facebook posts and word-of-mouth, they raised the necessary funds in weeks. They also presented a check of nearly $1,100 to Buscher. The amount of the donations exceeded the cost of the washer and dryer. The washer and dryer will find its discreet home after summer renovations. Buscher called Fridays donation, as well as others throughout this year, overwhelming. Buscher hasnt had to purchase food for the pantry once, she said. Whenever it starts to get low, a donation arrives. Funds have expanded what she can do for students, adding items like fingernail polish to the pantry. Which is kind of nice when your world is upside down, she said. Premier Rental Purchase sold the washer and dryer set at cost, and Mr. Appliance donated two years of maintenance. Buscher repeated the phrase over and over: Thank you. Those in attendance, including delivery men who stayed to hear Buschers updates, asked how many students she serves. To audible gasps, Buscher explained that last year about 40 students were considered homeless. At the time that included foster care students. Currently, about eight students use the pantry. Buscher explained that some students have been kicked out of their home or have left, and some couch-surf. Theyre still considered homeless, and many struggle. Community members asked if the pantry will be available to students after school gets out. Ive told all of them, Buscher said, I work all summer. Then, it was the attendees who looked to Buscher. Thank you, they said. A man charged with motor vehicle homicide is one of four defendants listed in a wrongful-death lawsuit that stems from a wreck last July on Interstate 80 west of Brule. Kathrynn Pals and Gordon Engel are suing Tony Weekly Jr., Bohren Logistics, Interstate Highway Construction Inc. and D.P. Sawyer Inc. for the wrongful death of Pals son Jamison Pals and Engels daughter Kathryne Pals, along with the couples three children, Violet, Ezra and Calvin, all of St. Paul, Minnesota. According to the lawsuit, because of an ongoing construction project between mile markers 106 and 115 on I-80, both eastbound and westbound traffic was using the eastbound lanes of the interstate on July 31. The lawsuit states that this caused traffic to slow down or stop frequently. According to an accident report, Tony Weekly Jr., a Florida truck driver, was westbound when he entered the construction zone. The accident report states that authorities believed Weekly was inattentive and distracted by an outside influence, and failed to slow down or stop despite several vehicles in front of him that had either stopped or were coming to a stop. The semitrailer truck was going more than 50 mph when it collided with the minivan the Pals family was in near mile marker 113, causing a chain reaction, according to the accident report. The minivan struck a compact utility vehicle, which struck another minivan. The third and fourth cars came to rest in the median, while the Pals van and Weeklys semi stopped in the roadway and burst into flames, according to the report. The young parents and their children became trapped in their van, having survived the initial accident. They could not escape, the lawsuit states. All five died in the van from smoke inhalation and experienced pain and suffering including fear and apprehension of impending death. The lawsuit claims that Weeklys negligent inattentiveness was a contributing factor to the deaths of the Pals family. A sixth victim, Terry Sullivan of Denver, Colorado, died later at a hospital. Sullivan was driving the second minivan. In October, Weekly pleaded not guilty to six felony counts of motor vehicle homicide and one misdemeanor reckless driving charge. When the wreck occurred, Weekly was driving for Indiana-based trucking company Bohren Logistics. According to the lawsuit, a reasonable and ordinarily prudent employer would not have hired Weekly after learning of his driving record. The lawsuit alleges that court records indicate Weekly had been charged or convicted with a number of driving violations including failure to obey a traffic control device, careless driving and driving with a suspended or revoked license. The lawsuit also alleges that Weekly had been involved in no fewer than seven wrecks, including two that occurred in 2007 while Weekly was driving a semi on public roadways. The lawsuit states that Bohrens negligent decision to allow Weekly to drive for them proximately and directly caused the Pals family pain and suffering. Bohren Logistics and Weekly are being represented by Terry Waite of North Platte in the civil case. Waite called the wreck a terrible tragedy, and said on behalf of both defendants that their hearts go out to the Pals family and friends. Waite said he understands that the wreck has been devastating for the family and noted that it has been difficult for Weekly, who is a father and grandfather, as well. The final defendants in the lawsuit are Interstate Highway Construction Inc. and D.P. Sawyer Inc. The lawsuit states that Interstate Highway Construction Inc. was the general contractor for the Big Springs-Brule project. D.P. Sawyer Inc. was a subcontractor. The lawsuit alleges that there was no sign warning drivers that they might need to stop. The lawsuit claims that this wreck wasnt the only one: Data show that no reported rear-end or motor vehicle transport wrecks had occurred for nearly a year prior to the start of the project. Since road work began in March 2015, there have been at least 18 wrecks in the area, the suit says. The lawsuit alleges that the wreck might not have happened if warning signs had been in place. It also states that the companies should have changed traffic control procedures once they observed that traffic was frequently stopping and that wrecks had been occurring. Court documents do not list attorneys for IHC or D.P. Sawyer, and neither company returned requests for comment. The attorneys representing Engel and Pals have filed a motion asking that the trial take place in Omaha, because of cheaper flights, more hotel options and a desire to avoid traveling the same interstate that the family was killed on. Waite has argued that it should occur in North Platte, because its closer to where the wreck occurred and would require less travel for some of the witnesses. The attorneys representing the Pals family did not return requests for comment. This State Journal editorial ran on May 4, 1966: It was encouraging to see the Legislature vote overwhelmingly to sustain Gov. Warren Knowles veto of the bill to reserve all 80 parking spaces around the inside of the Capitol Square for legislators. Had the governor signed the bill or not given such good arguments for the lawmakers to change their minds, it would have been a blow against Downtown Madison. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature by big margins: 21 to 10 in the Senate, and 61 to 38 in the Assembly. But the vote was reversed in the Senate Tuesday, with 23 senators recorded to sustain the governors veto and eight against. Gov. Knowles has taken an active interest in the development of the Capitol Square area and has urged city-state cooperation in planning a healthier future for Downtown. His action in revoking parking privileges for non-legislators on the Capitol grounds helped convince the legislators their parking bill should be rejected. CROWN POINT Just as the papillon is sometimes called the butterfly dog, since papillon means butterfly in French, the tiny dog named Sawyer who visited Crown Point High School last week flitted about, cuddling with students. The charming, silky white-haired, 8-pound papillon was affectionate, patient and proud as he performed small tricks for the teens. Sawyer and his owner, Lynette Crafton, members of Therapy Dogs International, were among several dogs and their handlers who visited the school April 28 to give students "dog therapy" before taking critical and high-stress Advancement Placement tests this week. The visit was made possible because of a presentation from members of the high school's student council regarding the benefits of students having dogs to pet before taking upcoming exams. From the tiny papillon to bigger German shepherds and golden retrievers, eight self-assured dogs wandered around the school's wellness room, giving students an opportunity to come down and pet them during a break from class. Crown Point High School junior Anne Brigham, who is a member of student council, and sponsor Colleen Fano, said they wanted to help kids de-stress before taking AP and final exams and bring a new experience to students. "We received numerous positive comments and enthusiastic feedback. It was a success. Our students enjoyed it, and the room was full all day. Our student council worked with Jan Koulets from Therapy Dogs International to make this happen," Fano said. Crown Point Assistant Principal Russell Marcinek said having the therapy dogs visit the high school was a student-driven idea. He said May is a busy month, and the school administers more than 1,700 advanced placement exams. "Not only were our students able to come to the wellness room to see and pet the dogs, they learned about the role these dogs play in serving others. It was a nice experience and event for CPHS, he said. Calming presence According to its website, Therapy Dogs International is a volunteer organization dedicated to regulating, testing and registering therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers for the purpose of visiting nursing homes, hospitals and other institutions. Established in New Jersey in 1976, there are more than 24,750 dog/handler teams registered with TDI in all 50 states and Canada. Crown Point High School senior Brandon Gargano said he visited the dogs, which came in hourly, three different times. "There were several different dogs, and I'm a big fan of dogs even though I don't have any pets at home," he said. "It's nice to be able to come down here and see all the different dogs that are so willing to meet people and play with them. It makes me calm down especially with these AP tests we've got to take. I've got two tests; there are some people who have six." Sophomore Jessica Bao said she hasn't been able to study as much as she'd like for an AP psychology test because of a sport and two other tough classes she's taking. "It's making me a little stressed out. Having these dogs and being able to get out of class and look at them and play with them has been really nice," Bao said. "I love dogs. Just being able to look at a dog makes me happy and seeing the dog happy affects me in a positive way." Sophomore Grace Walker and her sister, freshman Samantha Walker, both said the dogs were a great way to de-stress. Teens and dogs Crafton said to belong to Therapy Dogs International, all the dogs must be tested by a certified TDI evaluator. A dog must be a minimum of 1 year old and have a sound temperament. "I work with TDI, and I visit local hospitals and nursing homes," Crafton said. "I have three papillons. I have another therapy dog, and he's more low-key and quiet than Sawyer is. I take him to hospitals. I take Sawyer to nursing homes because of his temperament. My other dog is pretty shy. "Working with teenagers and dogs is my passion." Crafton jokingly asked the teens who got passes from class just to play with the puppies and who really are stressed out. The answer was about half and half. Crafton said seeing the teens smile and enjoy the experience was reward enough to participate in the program. "When I'm at the hospitals, and the patients say how interacting with the dog made them feel so much better, I get goose bumps on my arms," she said. Amid rough conditions for retail in general and supermarkets in particular, the century-old Strack & Van Til parent company Central Grocers is winding down its distribution operations over the next two months and will lay off nearly 550 workers. The Joliet-based company announced it is filing for bankruptcy and looking to sell 22 Strack & Van Til stores and its 934,490-square-foot distribution center in Joliet through an auction in bankruptcy court. Central Grocers reported it owes more than $16 million in debt to its 20 largest creditors, including $3 million to Kellogg, $2.3 million to Kraft Foods, $1.9 million to Nestle USA, and $1.3 million to Tyson Foods, according to its bankruptcy filing. Strack & Van Til stores will remain open. Our stores are open, and we are as focused as ever on supporting our customers and providing the legendary service that we are known for," Strack and Van Til Chief Executive Officer Jeff Strack said. "As we move through this process, our priorities, values and commitments to our customers and our communities will not change. We thank our loyal customers for their continued support, and we thank our employees for their hard work and dedication. Saying Central Grocers hadn't been paying its bills, creditors such as Coca Cola and General Mills had filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition earlier this week trying to liquidate the Joliet-based company a $2 billion cooperative which has been in business for 100 years. Central Grocers, which supplies 400 independent grocery stores across the Chicago area, responded by filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which would let it sell off its assets before going out of business instead of being stripped apart by a court-appointed liquidator. The impact will be far-reaching and extend beyond the Region's largest locally owned grocery chain, which once operated as many as 38 stores under the Strack & Van Til, Ultra Foods and Town and Country brands across Northwest Indiana and the greater Chicago metro. Central Grocers distributes the Centrella brand products, meat, produce and other grocery items to many local independent grocers, including Save More Foods in Gary, Central Market in Lake Station, Reliable Supermarket in Hammond, Walt's Food Centers in Dyer and the south suburbs and Treasure Island in Chicago. Its dissolution may mean the end of the Centrella Brand, a store brand of supermarket staples like ketchup, mayo, beef stew, green beans, canned peas and bottled water. The wholesaler is looking to sell remaining Strack & Van Til stores to an interested buyer of its choosing to avoid a low bid. The grocery chain expects to sell off the 22 remaining Strack & Van Til stores, its distribution center in Joliet and other assets through a court-supervised auction process under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In light of the increasingly difficult environment for independent supermarkets and retailers, we have been working tirelessly to achieve an outcome that is in the best interests of our stakeholders," Central Grocers President and Chief Executive Officer Ken Nemeth said. "We are using this court-supervised sale process to provide us the time and flexibility to conduct an orderly sale of the Strack & Van Til stores, while we work to sell the warehouse in Joliet and wind down our wholesale distribution operations. Conditions have been rough for the retail sector, which has announced more than 3,100 store closings nationwide so far this year as e-commerce continues to sap market share from brick-and-mortar shops, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates more than 90,000 retail jobs have vanished since the fall. It's been particularly tough for grocery stores, low-margin businesses that have been struggling with the worst price depreciation in decades and intense competition. Michigan City-based Al's Supermarket has closed locations in South Haven and LaPorte over the last two years. Indianapolis-based Marsh announced Friday it was closing nine more locations, just weeks after it said it would close 10 of its grocery stores. Even tony, high-end Whole Foods has been struggling and activist investors have clamored for it to find a buyer to take it over. Amid industrywide pressures, Central Grocers faced competition from the much larger co-op Associated Wholesale Grocers, which has a warehouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and has been making an increased push into the Chicago area market. The Joliet-based co-op, which allowed mom-and-pop grocers to pool their resources and negotiate lower prices by buying in greater volume, is sending employees a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or WARN notice saying it expects 549 layoffs in Joliet. It said in the letter that no buyer had stepped forward to operate the central warehouse as a distribution facility so there was no expectation that any jobs would be retained. "This is anticipated to be a permanent shutdown of the entire plant; no bumping rights will exist," Nemeth wrote in the letter to employees. Warehouse workers and truck drivers are expected to lose their jobs between June 26 and July 10. Central Grocers expects to completely wind down operations in the next six to eight weeks. It owns 80 percent of its largest customer Strack & Van Til, which it acquired in the 1990s, according to the bankruptcy filing. Andrew Raab and Jeff Strack each own 10 percent of the grocery chain, which started in 1959 and is widely considered the Region's grocery chain. CALUMET CITY Change has come to the Calumet City Elementary School District 155 School Board following the swearing in recently of the four individuals who won four-year terms in the April election. Tonya Davis and Kathryne Stern are newcomers, while Janet Oberman won election following her appointment by the board in 2015 to fill the seat of a member who had resigned. Those three took the oath on Tuesday along with longtime board member Stanley Long. Seven individuals had run for the four seats, including former board members Teresa Kic and Robert Oberman, who were presented with plaques in appreciation of their service. Once the new board was seated, it held an election of officers in which no changes were made. Long will continue to serve as board president with Nick Valle as vice president and Barbara Crull as secretary. Long said he wants to maintain what he called high safety standards in the district and also said he would like to see student scores increase. "But that's very, very difficult when you have people coming from other districts and coming here," Long said, referring to a transient population. Stern's determination paid off as she won election on her fourth attempt. "I just wanted to get in and see what I could do to help improve on some of the academics and some of the issues going on with the school," Stern said. "Bring the school and the teachers and the parents closer together." She is a retired bakery supervisor with grandchildren who currently attend school in the district. Davis won election on her first attempt. She is a nurse and has one child in the district and one who graduated from it. Davis said she wants a science, technology, engineering and math program started and that she was moved to run after seeing a report on the district by CBS Channel 2 investigative reporter Pam Zekman. "She told us where our tax dollars were going to and how they were being spent, or misappropriated," Davis said. District 155 consists of Woodrow Wilson Elementary, Wentworth Intermediate and Wentworth Junior High School. LAPORTE COUNTY The Westville Correctional Center inmate who was reported missing Friday afternoon remains at large, according to authorities. Orville Morris, 35, of Marengo, was reportedly at the prison during a 10 a.m. inmate count Friday at the facility, but was unaccounted for by 3:15 p.m. during an emergency count of inmates, a Westville spokesman said in a news release. The facility remains on lockdown with no activities or visitation. Emergency squads from Westville and Indiana State Prison, as well as Department of Correction's Special Emergency Response Team and K-9 units, were still searching the facility grounds as of Saturday morning, according to a release sent out by Department of Correction staff. The Office of Intelligence and Information has been working with multiple state, local and federal agencies, gathering and sharing information from the community regarding possible leads, the release stated. County and state police agencies in Indiana and surrounding states have been notified, and local and state law enforcement are providing armed security assistance around the facility perimeter, according to the release. "We are grateful for the response and assistance we are receiving, Westville Correctional Center Superintendent Mark Sevier said in Saturday's release. "It enables us to maintain our secure operations while on lockdown status, while doing a diligent search of the grounds and buildings at the same time." It is unclear how Morris seemingly escaped without a trace. Between the time Morris was last seen and when he was discovered missing, three semi-tractor trailers exited the prison grounds Friday, according to a Westville spokesman. The trailers were padlocked shut and headed toward Niles, Michigan. The Niles Police Department was notified to intercept them, but Morris who had been assigned to work in the pallet shop that day where the trailers had been was not found inside. There was no breach found in the electric fence surrounding the facility, a spokesman said. Morris is described as white, about 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 210 pounds. He had a projected release date of Jan. 30, 2019, and had been incarcerated since July 19, 2014. He is currently serving a three-year sentence for robbery, a level 5 felony, and was to start serving an additional three-year sentence for felony burglary on Aug. 1. He finished serving a 450-day sentence for felony theft/receiving stolen property out of Washington County Circuit Court on Feb. 28 2015, according to an Indiana Department of Correction spokesman. Anyone with information should notify Indiana State Police Lowell Post at 219-696-6242. This story is developing. Check back later for updates. LAPORTE COUNTY It's still unclear how an inmate seemingly escaped without a trace Friday from the Westville Correctional Center. Orville Morris, 35, of Marengo, was reportedly at the prison during a 10 a.m. inmate count at the facility, but was unaccounted for by 3:15 p.m. Friday during an emergency count of inmates, a Westville spokesman said in a news release issued at about 9 p.m. Friday. Between the time Morris was last seen and when he was discovered to be missing, three semi-tractor trailers exited the prison grounds, according to the spokesman. The trailers were padlocked shut and headed toward Niles, Michigan. The Niles Police Department was notified to intercept them, but Morris who had been assigned to work in the pallet shop that day where the trailers had been was not found inside. Having had no luck finding Morris in the trailers, authorities continued Friday night searching dozens of buildings on the prison grounds. There was no breach found in the electric fence surrounding the facility, a spokesman said. Morris was described as white, about 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 210 pounds. He had a projected release date of Jan. 30, 2019, and had been incarcerated since July 19, 2014. He is currently serving a three-year sentence for robbery, a level 5 felony, and was to start serving an additional three-year sentence for felony burglary on Aug. 1, 2017. He finished serving a 450-day sentence for felony theft/receiving stolen property out of Washington County Circuit Court on Feb. 28 2015, according to an Indiana Department of Correction spokesman. Earlier, the LaPorte County Sheriff's Department said they were investigating a report of a possible escaped inmate. Administrators at the mid-security prison later confirmed an inmate was missing. The Westville Police Department, LaPorte County Sheriff Department and the Indiana State police are assisting. Anyone with information should notify Indiana State Police Lowell Post at 219-696-6242. This story is developing. Check back later for updates. LAKE STATION Lake Station's emergency medical service contract with Prompt Ambulance is coming to an end and the city needs to have a new provider ready to serve the community by June, Mayor Christopher Anderson said. Anderson said the municipality has received proposals from Superior Ambulance Service and Kurtz Ambulance Service. City leaders continue to review those proposals, and the issue could go before the council for a decision during its meeting Thursday, Anderson said. In other business, Fire Chief Chuck Fazekas announced his department has received authorization to start a cadet program. The initiative will involve the department working with high school students to teach them about fire service and get them involved in community programs. Fazekas said applications for the program will be distributed to schools, and interviews with applicants will occur in May. After school lets out for the summer, the Fire Department will begin working with the cadets, he said. The Fire Department is staffed by volunteers, and Lake Station, like many communities throughout the country, has seen its volunteer firefighters numbers decrease over the years. Fazekas hopes the cadet program will help participants decide if they want to become firefighters and potentially attract more volunteers to the department. Anderson also announced Jerry Baldazo was recently promoted as Lake Stations assistant police chief. Baldazo has served on the Police Department for 15 years. He said he's "very excited" to serve in the new role and work with Police Chief David Johnson to do "what's right for the Police Department and the citizens." CHESTERTON The Port Drive-In Family Restaurant has reopened under new ownership after more than 60 years in the same family. But customers can still expect to find their favorites on the menu, including the restaurant's classic frosty mug of root beer, and its chili and coleslaw, said Valparaiso resident Zig Skrzypczak, who, with his wife, Iris, purchased the drive-in at 419 N. Calumet Road. "I don't want to change anything," he said, at least not until customers make their wishes known. The retro-style restaurant, which has been a part of the Chesterton community for nearly 67 years and stands out as one of the few remaining drive-ins in the Region, reopened April 18, Skrzypczak said. Skrzypczak said he purchased the business at the end of March after a couple of decades working grocery retail jobs. "My wife and I are foodies," he said. Skrzypczak was joined at the restaurant this past week by former owner Beth Gassoway, who was helping him learn the ropes. "Part of what we sold was our experience and what we have gleaned being here all these years," she said. Gassoway said she called on past employees to help with the reopening. "Every one of them wanted to come back," she said. "It's a family atmosphere, not just for visitors but employees as well." Gassoway said socializing with others was one of her favorite parts of running the restaurant for 43 years and is among the things she will miss. "I don't think it hit me quite yet," she said of her retirement. Skrzypczak said he is excited about stepping in and picking up where the Gassoways left off. There is a multigenerational element at the restaurant, and he intends to bring his own children into that fold by putting them to work alongside him. Business has already been good these first few weeks. "Everyone knows the Port," Skrzypczak said. The Port Drive-In is open 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and closed Mondays, he said. It will remain open an hour later beginning shortly after Memorial Day. A pest control salesman turned into a highway hero in Brooklyn. NY1's Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report. A tractor trailer engulfed in flames after slamming into the median on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near Hamilton Avenue. Pedestrians on nearby streets stop and spot the driver of the big rig still inside his cab. Richard Taylor didn't need much prompting when this accident happened on April 21. He jumped out of his car and headed for the burning truck. "I thought the driver was ejected from the vehicle, so I got out first and was kind of cautious and wanted to make sure he wasn't ejected because I was going to the truck, but I wanted to make sure there was somebody in there first," Taylor said. "When I heard,' Get him out, get him out,' I knew there was movement, and that's when I ran in." Taylor climbed up and pulled the driver to safety. The driver was conscious but immobile, unable to move his legs. "The door was ajar a little bit. It was kind of opened up. So I just yanked it open and he was there with his arms out and I just pulled him out. I knew I had to get out of there fast," Taylor said. "He couldn't stand at all. His legs were like, they just dropped. He had no control over his legs." Taylor says he remembers the victim giving his name as Dean from Brick, New Jersey. When first responders arrived, the 32-year-old hero simply drove away to his job at Liberty Pest Control in Bensonhurst, where he matter-of-factly recounted what had happened. He thought that was the end of it, but then videos of his heroics went viral. Co-workers realized what a big deal Taylor's rescue was and contacted NY1. "He happened to be out in the right place, right time," said co-worker John Raimonda. "It's one of those kinds of things. Not only right place, right time, but the right guy." "I would like to think that everybody would do something like that," said co-worker Ian Burstzy. "I'd like to know that I would, but until you're faced with that situation, you never know, and he really stepped up to the plate." But even with the attention, Taylor is a humble hero. "God put me in that spot to help somebody, and I did it," he said. The ex-boyfriend of an MTA conductor who was fatally shot while she walked home earlier this week killed himself in New Jersey on Friday night, according to police. The Hackensack police department said a SWAT team found Zire King, 43, dead inside a Hackensack home. Police said they were engaged in a five-hour standoff with King, who had barricaded himself inside 388 1st Street before he took his life. Authorities had been searching for King, who they believe shot 41-year-old Jacqueline Dicks in the head in East New York on Monday night. Police say they found surveillance video of King and Dicks talking before the shooting. King initially told police that he saw a group of men walk up to his girlfriend, but investigators had said the evidence points back to King. Investigators said King and Dicks lived together with a 4-month-old child. They believe the shooting was a domestic incident. The New York Transit museum says people with autism are among its most frequent visitors returning again and again to see the exhibits. The museum developed a special program for children with the disorder, and now its experts are sharing what they have learned. NY1's Michael Herzenberg has the story. The New York Transit Museum hosted representatives of cultural institutions from places like Singapore, Utah and St. Louis, to learn more about its successful "Subway Sleuths" program. Now in its sixth year, the after-school program is designed specifically for children on the autism spectrum as a means to develop social skills. Students solve transit mysteries using games like hide and seek with clues and walkie-talkies. "It's all about taking turns and communicating but we layer it all around the transportation which is something they love," said Deputy Museum Director Regina Asborno. "You have a track and you have a train and you have a schedule and times and places and it's visual and you could see it and you can experience it and it's knowable it's not a lot of change and that's very calming and very comforting," said autism specialist Susan Brennan. The museum says it hopes its efforts can inspire similar programs at other institutions. Editor's Note: This story joined others in the 2017 Progress special section. Copies are available at the office of the Opelika-Auburn News. For years leading up to and during her career as an educator, Shannon Pignato told herself time and time again that she would only stick to elementary educationno chance shed end up in secondary. Twenty-three years in education later, Pignato is rounding out her third year as Auburn High Schools principal and 17th year since she took a position at a middle school. Now Ive done it all, Pignato said, adding that she doesnt see another career for herself outside of AHSs principal. I hope I get to be the principal at Auburn High School for a while, and Ive got a lot of years left. Beginnings of a career Pignato had her career path decided by eight grade - she would become a special education teacher. I had a family friend who had a child born with a severe disability, and I babysat him, Pignato remembered. From then on I knew without a doubt I would be teaching in the special ed area. Never even had my goals set on anything in administration; that kind of happened by accident. Pignato reached her goals and started her career as a special education teacher and administrator in south Florida with a brief six-month stint as a stay-at-home mom before coming to Auburn in 2005. She took her first administration position in 2000 as an eighth grade assistant principal, but had an influence on other teachers long before. I was working with the behavior plans in a really difficult school in south Florida, and someone asked me when I got my leadership degree, Pignato said. I said, I dont even know what youre talking about. As a special education teacher, Pignato prepared behavior plans for other teachers. Though she was not sure she was ready to leave the classroom, she recognized the difference she could make in a leadership role. Making a lasting impact has been Pignatos driving force since the beginning and still her favorite part of being in education. The impact and influence we have on lives, whether its each others as adults or the students that were providing services to here, its just a really exciting place to be, Pignato said. After enduring four hurricanes in one year and looking for a better quality of life for her husband and two children, Pignato and her family moved their lives to Auburn months after visiting for a wedding. Coming to Auburn Pignato began her Auburn career 12 years ago as an assistant principal at Dean Road Elementary School where she stayed for six years. She spent three years at Auburn Junior High School before landing at AHS. During her first year at Dean Road, Pignato kept wondering, Is this real? The school was completely different than those she worked at in south Florida. Really, there should be a requirement that you have to work somewhere else before you work in Auburn City, Pignato said. You cant really appreciate what we have and the resources were given and the quality of education youre receiving if you havent worked somewhere else. The parental support that we get here, Ive never seen anything like it. Disciplinary referrals were much less consistent than what she encountered in Florida with the same age-level students. Each year at Dean Road she had only eight or 10 referrals. I felt like I grew as a leader because I was able to get back to the reason I went into the work to begin with, Pignato. A new high school As her leadership skills developed and she continued her education, Pignato eventually began her time at AHS, which have been three unique years for her. Since the beginning Pignato knew the new high school was coming, and much of her work has been preparing for it to open. While thats kind of taken away, I think, from my job as a leader on this campus because Ive been pretty busy with the planning of that building, I wouldnt want to do it any other way because what were about to move into and what this community is about to experience with the new buildingto be a part of that, I dont know how often a community will build a new high school, Pignato said. Though teachers will have to adjust to teaching in a more collaborative space, Pignato is looking forward to the connection the format of the new high school will bring. Even though its a bigger campus that will hold more students, its much more consolidated in a sense that everythings going to happen in a closer proximity, Pignato said. To be able to see different activities and projects going on at any time of the day is going to be neat in a more confined space. Leading through change Though Pignato has carried over the last few years, Damian Sinclair, AHS assistant principal, said Pignato has led well throughout. She is still wearing many hats, being the principal, being a mother, Sinclair said. But taking on this endeavor with this many kids in this awesome school system, it takes a special person, and she is doing it like I dont think anyone else could. Both Sinclair and Assistant Principal Caroline Raville, who worked with Pignato first as a teacher at Dean Road, noted the trust Pignato has instilled in them since day one. As a teacher I always appreciated that she had a lot of trust in us, Raville said. If she thought you were working for the kids and were doing the best you could for the kidsI always joked around that if she told me 'No' then I must really have a terrible idea because I dont know that I ever heard that word from her. She believed in the teachers. As assistant principals, sometimes you feel afraid to make decisions - we dont have that problem at Auburn High School, Sinclair said. Were able to make decisions and know that were going to be supported by our leader. Highlights of her career Though many see Pignato at staff meetings or presenting to the school board, Raville said she often sees Pignatos softer side when interacting with students on a daily basis. Theres a mushy center in there, Raville joked of Pignatos strong, leader disposition. She feels very deeply for the kids, and their individual stories can really break her openEven though shes not in the classroom anymore, thats still there. Pignato noted the new high school and increasing diversity as some of her favorite parts about working in Auburn City Schools. But the moments that keep her up at night involve individual students. When I was at the junior high school and even at Dean Road, weve always talked about our dropout numbers, Pignato said. Its always been a percentage, but I told (Superintendent Karen DeLano) the one thing that keeps me up at night as a high school principal is those percentages now have faces and names attached to them that Ive gotten to know. There have been a few weve been able to, with really creative scheduling and chances, get to walk across the stage, Pignato continued. Thats a pretty exciting feeling that were not losing them all in that percentage; weve been able to help a few get through. The Importance of Contributed Content in Tech PR Mon., Nov. 7, 2022 Contributed content is often the most effective venue for tech PR pros who want to raise awareness of their clients brand and communicate their best and most important ideas. But not all contributed content is created equally. UPDATE: Roy Oliver the Police Officer who Shot & Killed Jordan Edwards is Free on Bail Dimas Sanfiorenzo Dimas Sanfiorenzo is the Managing Editor for Okayplayer. He specializes UPDATE: Roy Oliver, the ex-Balch Spring, Texas police officer who fatally shot 15-year old teenager Jordan Edwards, posted bond last night after being arrested on a murder charge. He posted bond at around 10 pm. See the original story below: Roy Oliver, the ex-Balch Spring, Texas police officer who fatally shot 15-year old teenager Jordan Edwards, has been arrested for murder. Oliver, who was fired from the force on Tuesday, turned himself in at the Parker County Jail. His Bond was set at $300,000. Jordan Edwards, who was a freshman in high school, was leaving a party with friends when he was shot in the head through the passenger side window of the vehicle by Oliver. The Dallas County Medical Examiners office has ruled Edwards death as a homicide, When the incident first happened, Oliver said the vehicle Edwards was in was aggressively backing up toward him and his fellow officers. However, this was soon disproven when the police body cam video showed the vehicle driving away as Oliver fired his gun. If Oliver is convicted he could face life in prison. H/T: Dallas News Agricultural News Secretary Sonny Talks Trade, Ethanol and Soil Health on Iowa Cattle Farm On Friday, US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue visited Iowa and gave remarks to a crowd of Iowa farmers and others connected to agriculture- our colleagues from the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network covered the event and what follows is their story and the audio of the Perdue speech. Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley introduce Secretary Perdue and then Perdue's comments. "Hello from Nevada where top officials gathered to welcome the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to Iowa. Sonny Perdue toured the feedlot of Couser Cattle Company owned by Bill and Nancy Couser. Perdue was duly impressed by the facilities and quality of care given to the animals. He suggested the critics of animal agriculture should see how these steers and heifers were handled. "If the children of America were vaccinated and fed this well, this would be a better place," said a smiling jean and boot clad Secretary as he addressed a crowd that numbered well over three hundred. "The Secretary gave a fifteen-minute off the cuff speech outlining his commitment to trade, efficiency in the workplace and the Trump Administration's goals for reducing regulation on farmers and businesses across America. "There was no announcement regarding the status of Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey as deputy USDA Secretary under Perdue. Northey did not speak on stage and Perdue did not make any reference to him during the tour or presentation. Reporters who spoke to Northey were told that he was still waiting for the Trump Administration to make a phone call to him.?" (The picture above is of Secretary Perdue at the Couser Cattle Company- courtesy of USDA) Listen to Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue peak at the Couser Cattle Company in Iowa on May 5th WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady NSI Top Agricultural News Agricultural News LeeAnna McNally Talks Water in Latest Oklahoma Farm Bureau Lincoln to Local In the latest Lincoln to Local Video produced by the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Hannah Nemecek talks with Oklahoma Farm Bureau's LeeAnna McNally about the latest going ons within the Oklahoma State Legislature. McNally says Farm Bureau has wrapped up a series of Legislative Dinners- and she says there are several things on the minds of members- including concerns about finding a budget solution, the debt Oklahoma's government currently faces and why water is not being discussed more at the Capitol. She explains Farm Bureau members believe developing Oklahoma water could help solve the state's budget problems. Click on the PLAY button in the video box below to hear Nemechek and McNally in this week's Lincoln to Local. And to learn more about the policy positions of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, click here for their OkAgPolicy website. WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady NSI Top Agricultural News Rise and shine from your Berkshire bed, flip on the Berkshire electricity in the house you bought through Berkshire, pull up your Berkshire undies and sweatsuit, fire up the SUV you found at a Berkshire dealership and, if youre one of more than 360,000 people in every state and in 28 other countries, head to your Berkshire job. From axles to zippers, annuities to zero-coupon bonds, Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s 400-plus businesses touch Americans in thousands of ways each day. Thats beyond the 35,000-plus shareholders expected to gather Saturday at the CenturyLink Center to hear their leader, Warren Buffett, and his longtime partner, Charlie Munger. As multicompany, multi-industry conglomerates were coming into and then going out of style in the American free enterprise system, Buffett and Munger gathered companies in dozens of different industries under the umbrella of Berkshire. Over the past half-century the duo, 86 and 93 years old, respectively, built their model based on giving managers maximum freedom to operate, generating gobs of cash for growth and rewarding accomplishment. Berkshires investors responded by setting the companys market value at more than $400 billion, fifth largest in the country. Thats contrary to conventional practice, said Harvard Business School historian Geoffrey Jones: Assembling a huge collection of unrelated businesses is out of fashion these days, even though it was once the accepted road to corporate success On the surface, Jones said, its implausible that a set of unrelated businesses could grow more profitably inside a larger corporate structure than they could separately. Focusing on doing one thing well, without corporate overhead or distracting concerns, seems like the best course. But in most cases the big U.S. conglomerates were, in fact, well-managed by their corporate overseers, he said. Typically the biggies were assembled by charismatic leaders, such as Charles Bluhdorn at Gulf + Western or Harold Geneen at ITT, larger-than-life figures, like they had some sort of magical touch, Jones said. Where you had these iconic people as leaders, the markets would seem to forgive their structure, he said. Buffett was the classic example of that diversification and implausibility, because he had this iconic status and seemed to be able to build value. In the 1980s, just when Berkshire was hitting its stride, other conglomerates began to fade. One big reason, Jones said: Investment funds arose on the financial scene and complained that it was hard to know what was going on within the complex conglomerates. Fund managers didnt want to take a CEOs word about a companys progress. Investment funds became more and more skeptical about these types of businesses, Jones said. They wanted greater clarity on what was going on. And if they wanted diverse portfolios, they wanted to do the diversifying, not have these sort of people investing all over the place. Berkshire plans to have a future different from ITT and Gulf + Western. Both were dismantled after their dominant CEOs died, although there are other conglomerates besides Berkshire active today for example, Koch Industries and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Jones said decentralized management is a good idea for a diverse company like Berkshire. Unilever in Europe follows that model with success, including the ability to enter emerging markets successfully, he said. When the managers are closer down to the customers and local government, usually they take better positions. Theories of business structure make conglomerates like Berkshire surprising, said Michael Thomas, an assistant professor at Creighton Universitys Heider College of Business. Why would it be that one holding group could have a whole bunch of different things? Thomas asked. Why not specialize in one thing and do it well? A groundbreaking 1937 article by Pulitzer Prize-winning British economist Ronald Coase explained that firms become larger if they can reduce costs and hire people to produce what they need internally rather than contracting for goods and services. Firms continue to grow as long as they gain cost advantages and the managers make good decisions, Coase wrote. Thats called economy of scale, such as Berkshires low-cost insurance revenue being available for acquisitions or investments to help the overall company grow. Coase argued that eventually, management makes mistakes, competitors become more efficient and overhead costs arise, preventing the company from growing indefinitely. Its unlikely he envisioned conglomerates as large as Berkshire. To keep growing, Thomas said, a firm like Berkshire has to be good at managing people and allocating resources with the goal of letting the individual businesses strive to be the best at their own products and services. In most cases, he said, economies of scale only go so far if a centralized corporation tries to run everything. The surprising thing is that the management of Berkshire can work at such a large scale without messing it up, Thomas said. Not only can they do it, but they can do it persistently. Companies like Berkshire also can develop economy of scope, he said, by acquiring a wide range of businesses that excel in their individual spheres. That spreads out the economic risk that might come with concentrating on a few industries. In any case, Thomas said, managing human capital is important to Berkshire because of the decentralized organization. Berkshire needs able people to run the separate businesses because the corporate office cant. The idea of getting the right people isnt restricted to Berkshire, he said. High-tech companies in Silicon Valley sometimes acquire businesses not because of their products or ideas but because of the team of people. Another potential advantage for Berkshire is building a name that gives individual companies an advantage, Thomas said. Once largely absent from consumers view, the Berkshire brand has become more apparent in recent years through the companys real estate network, energy company and auto dealers. Evidence of growing brand awareness: Berkshire-owned businesses retain their individual names but now carry a secondary tag line: A Berkshire Hathaway Company. The Omaha World-Herald is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Anand Sharma calls Centre's Kashmir policy a 'disaster' India pti-PTI New Delhi, May 6: The government's policy on Jammu and Kashmir is a "disaster" and it lacks a roadmap to engage with Pakistan, Congress leader Anand Sharma said on Saturday, targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sharma drew comparisons between the present NDA government and the previous UPA regime over the issue, saying Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh had handled the issue better, using "wisdom" to ensure "near-normalcy" in the state. The Congress leader's fresh attack on the prime minister came after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said that only Modi can resolve the Kashmir issue as he has a strong mandate and appealed to him to pull the valley out of morass. "Modi's policy on Jammu and Kashmir has been a failure and disaster. He has no roadmap in engaging with Pakistan," Sharma said. Recalling how Singh was "insulted" by Modi and the BJP "even when there was one incident" of violence in the state, Sharma lauded the former prime minister for handling the issue, engaging with "wisdom". "As a result, there was near-normalcy in the valley. Singh's tenure saw a record arrival of tourists...today, there is no tourism," he noted. Sharma further claimed that "more" Indian soldiers have been killed during the NDA government's tenure than of UPA. The Congress leader also sought to know what assurances NSA Ajit Doval had received from his Pakistan counterpart during their December 2015 meeting in Bangkok which made Modi visit Lahore in the same month later. "And if the prime minister is not willing to share, then he has answers to give," Sharma said. PTI UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case Clash between Thakurs and Dalits in UP, 1 killed and 25 houses torched India oi-Gulam Rabbani By Gulam Rabbani Saharanpur, May 6: A clash broke out between the Thakur and Dalit communities in Shabbirpur village of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. In the clash, a 35-year-old man was killed and more than 25 houses were set afire. The clash broke out over a dispute on Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap's procession. UP: 1 dead, 25 houses torched, vehicles vandalized after clashes broke out between two communities in Saharanpur (05/05/2017) pic.twitter.com/7N1UDmZPil ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 6, 2017 According to the reports, it was the latest clash in the three-month-old dispute between the two communities after the installation of Ambedkar statue in Shabbirpur village. While the village is dominated by Dalits, neighbouring village Simlana is dominated by Thakurs. According to police, the injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where one person identified as Sumit Rajput of Rassolpur village succumbed to injuries on the way. They said that all the 25 houses that were torched are of Shabbirpur village. Jitender Kumar Shahi, DIG of Saharanpur said that Sumit had gone to Simlana village to take part in a function to garland the statue of Maharana Pratap. He added that the post-mortem report says that they were no injuries on his body but he died due to suffocation. Based on complaints by Thakurs, the local police registered four separate FIRs against the Dalits on various charges that include murder and attempt to murder. Reports said that no one was arrested so far. Another top police official said that the tension arose in Shabbirpurafter Thakurs moved towards Simlana in procession with loud music to attend the function. He added that the function was organised without prior permission. Unable to bear loud music, village head Shiv Kumar objected and had called the police station to complain about the same. By the time the police reached the spot, there was a minor clash between the two communities. The police dispersed the clash and convinced the Thakurs not to proceed with the procession. However, 300 Thakurs reached Shabbirpur with sticks and sharp weapons and attacked the Dalits and during this police were also attacked. Later police confirmed that more 20, 000 Thakurs reached Dalit's village and torched 25 houses. However, heavy security was deployed along with fire tenders and the clash was dispersed after hours. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 11:19 [IST] Delhi: Around 175 students, 9 teachers hospitalized after gas leak near school India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, May 6: In a shocking incident, around 175 students and nine teachers of a school in the national capital were admitted to four different hospitals after gas leak was reported near the school on Saturday. "Around 173 children have been admitted to four hospitals for treatment. No one is serious. Situation normal now. Nine teachers have been also admitted in different hospitals. Many children were also handed over to parents," Romil Baniya, DCP South East, told reporters. The students of Rani Jhansi School in Tughlakabad were attending their classes when the incident took place, say media reports. Rest of the students were also evacuated from the building. "Delhi: More than 50 students of Rani Jhansi School in Tughlakabad admitted to three nearby hospitals due to gas leak near the school," reported ANI. The students were admitted to hospitals after they complained of irritation in eyes and throat due to gas leak, said school authorities. The gas leak was suspected to have taken place from a container near the school building. Officials of the Delhi Fire Services were alerted about the gas leak at around 7:35 am on Saturday, say reports. Officials of the fire department said while the source of the leak is unclear, seven teams were sent to the spot to control the leak. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia is likely to visit the children in the hospital soon. "I have asked the DM(District Magistrate) to investigate...Doctors have also said there is no problem," he said. OneIndia News Doval's muscle policy: If it worked in Punjab, it would in Kashmir also India oi-Prabhpreet By Prabhpreet Unlike Indian prime ministers of the past, Narendra Modi, appointed a former spy and not a career diplomat, Ajit Doval, as the head of the country's national security infrastructure. And the decision has already shown a marked difference. And the difference comes in the form of the new policy on Pakistan and Kashmir, being result oriented rather than that of process. Soldiers and those from the security establishment, by training and temperament, have a different approach to solving issues concerned with threats to the country, both internal and external. They are taught by experience that wars and battles, of any kind and size, inherently bring with them losses, both human and financial. Making them more patient with such losses suffered in the process of achieving targets. Doval, is no exception to this, as he has been a part of many Intelligence Bureau operations in different parts of the country, throughout his career, eventually rising up the ranks to head the organisation. And now, as the Kashmir and Pakistan policy of the Narendra Modi led government has seen a change from those of its predecessors, the role that Doval must have played in such a decision is not too difficult to imagine. Such a change occurred after initial attempts by the prime minister to make peace with his Pakistani counter-part in were rebuffed by its army through the attacks on an air force base in Pathankot. It is following such events that India's policy has shifted. Till now the problem was being dealt with on two different fronts. First front comprising of dealing with Pakistan's action at the border and the terrorists that are sent across the border, and, the second of dealing with the separatists leaders in Kashmir and violent protestors who help bring the state to a standstill at will. Now under the new thinking, they have been connected in the way they will be dealt with. The change is clear and similar to what was done in Punjab during the 1980's. It is to isolate Kashmir from the turbulence of India's relationship with its neighbour, by using considerable force both in Kashmir and at the border, and cutting off Pakistan's influence in the valley. The attempt is to weed out trouble within the territory of India and eventually just having to deal with Pakistan at the border and not within. Hopefully to reach a point where Kashmir can be treated like any other state in the country and efforts to bring development and lasting peace can be brought in without depending on the countries relations with Pakistan. The change is from the aim of achieving normalisation of the relationship with Pakistan, to normalisation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. And the government wants to do it through not just negotiations but mainly by using force as it feels all other methods just hide the problem and post pone a crisis rather solve the central issue. An example of how this is being done can be seen by the application of what is being called as the 'Doval Doctrine.' The government has chosen to take a tough stand in Kashmir and towards protestors in the valley. No negotiations to take place till there is peace except of some back channel talks which is the norm in any complicated issue, seems to be the rule of the day. The Indian army too seems to be playing a tougher role in the state. And with respect to muscle power being used in terms of Pakistan, it was used in what is now being called 'Surgical Strikes' on terror camps inside Pakistan's territory by the Indian army in September last year. And further such actions can be expected given the recent killing and mutilations of two Indian soldiers. Under such a policy results might take some time to show and it might cost more in the short run, but if successful it will not cost nearly as much if the battle in Kashmir continues, even if intermittently, into the future with no end in sight. In Kashmir, like Punjab But surprisingly this is not the first time in India that such a strong policy is being implemented in a state. Doval, who played an active part in security operations during the turbulent times in Punjab when terrorism flourished under the disguise of separatism, seems to have learnt lessons from what he saw. The policy change now trying to be implemented in Kashmir is quite similar to what was done in Punjab. It may not be so exactly in the steps taken for execution of the plan, but clearly is in terms of what process has been chosen for the valley. The situation in Punjab during those times was similar to present day Kashmir in some very important ways. Both are states with a common border with Pakistan, and have suffered from violence, of terrorists and that in retaliation from the Indian establishment. Like Kashmir, the terrorists in Punjab too were backed by the Pakistani establishment and supported with cash, weaponry, escape routes etc., and both had separatist tendencies, which found support among the general masses. But in around a decade's time, the problem in Punjab was significantly reduced and finally rooted out. And there is no doubt that it was done with an iron hand, through the police and the army under the Armed Forces (Special Forces) Act, which is now surrounded in controversy in Kashmir. The state was isolated from Pakistan and also treated in isolation as compared to the rest of the country with unprecedented use of state machinery. Eventually making the support from Pakistan of little use for the extremist forces, while the army dealt with the neighbor at the border and not within India. This did not come easily. A lot of lives were lost, a prime minister killed, and there existed a widespread suspicion between citizens towards each other based on religion of the other. And yet none of the issues that hampered the state exist at any serious level today. Challenges different than in Punjab Despite similarities, Punjab of then and Kashmir of today have visible differences as well, which could hamper the application of a similar policy. Firstly, the nature and situation at the border that Punjab shares with Pakistan is quite different from that of Jammu and Kashmir. The terrains, the porous nature due to it, make it far more difficult to contain Pakistan and its official and unofficial agents. Secondly, the times have changed from then, when video reporting was in its nascent stage and social media did not exist, which have now drastically increased the power of the world's influence and the role public pressure plays. And lastly, though Pakistan had supported the calls of Sikh extremists for secession from the Indian union, the history and standing of the country on Kashmir is much more blatant and so too would be the position that the other countries of the world would take on it, than that on Punjab. Three camps would form in such a case, those supporting India, another Pakistan and the third of those who remain neutral. Such a situation would be precarious and would depend what side powers like US, Russia and China take. As in todays world no one can afford a full-fledged war between two nuclear powers. A situation that may arise if an approach similar to Punjab is taken now. These points are going to make a process to apply a Punjab like policy extremely hard, and, will require certain amount to tweaking to it. The drawbacks of such an approach The first, can be seen through reports of the time from Punjab, and the court cases fought since, which have made it clear that human rights were violated, innocent lives lost and that many who survived never got even a semblance of normalcy back in their lives. This was a big cost of what was done and many rightly feel that none of it should have ever happened. But the reality is whenever force is used for a task like this, such repercussions do occur. And whether such an action was, and is, right or not, should it have been done differently or not, was the cost too high or not, are questions for each person to decide on. The other major drawback is the criticism in the media, both national and international, that such a tough approach invites, which can alienate the public, and end up with the government losing control of the narrative. This results in serious damage to the efficacy of the policy as certain decisions that should be taken objectively end up being taken under pressure which have the capability of causing serious damage. But what cannot be debated today is the result that such an approach can bring, which is seen in the form of a total absence of the terror of violence, from state or non-state actors, from the lives of ordinary citizens in Punjab. And this is what seems to have made up the minds of Modi and his go-to-man on Kashmir, Doval, on the issue of which policy to follow in the state. Whether it succeeds or not is anyone's guess but it does look like even if it does fail, it will not be for a lack of trying. OneIndia News First woman judge of Delhi HC, Leila Seth passes away India oi-Gulam Rabbani By Gulam Rabbani New Delhi, May 6: New Delhi, May 6: The first woman judge of Delhi high court (retd)Justice Leila Seth on Saturday passed away in her home in Noida, reports said. She was 86. Seth was an Indian Administrative Service Officer and had topped the London bar exams in 1958. Seth, the mother of author Vikram Seth had practiced Law in Patna high court for ten years and later handled a number of tax matters, civil and criminal case, matrimonial suits and writ petitions. Seth became the first woman to judge of Delhi high court in 1978 and later in 1991, she was appointed as chief justice of Himachal Pradesh high court. Seth was responsible for the amendments to the Hindu Succession Act which gave equal rights to daughters in joint family properties. Apart from handling the judge post, Seth in 2003 wrote an autobiography 'On Balance' which explains about her early years, her Law course and the family life among other things. In 2010, Seth wrote another book called 'We, The Children of India' for the young readers. "Saddened by the passing of Justice Leila Seth. She was a champion of human rights. My condolences to her family," said West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee in a tweet. Writer and historian Ramachandra Guha tweeted "Justice Leila Seth was a remarkable human being, an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace, and courage." Guha tweeted. OneIndia News Gujarat: Judicial probe ordered into custodial death of tribal arrested for cow slaughter India oi-Anusha The Gujarat government on Saturday ordered a judicial probe into the custodial death of a tribal man. Kodar Gamar who was arrested under the state's new cow protection law for allegedly slaughtering bovines died while in police custody on Thursday. The Sabarkantha police, under whose custody Gamar died maintained that he collapsed suddenly after a bath on Wednesday and died in the hospital on Thursday. The 60-year-old tribal man was arrested for slaughtering cows. The local police claim that he had complained of uneasiness earlier in the day and collapsed on Wednesday evening. The entire episode, the police claim was recorded by the police station's CCTV cameras. Police said that they took the accused to a local hospital but his condition deteriorated. He was then shifted to the Khedbrahma civil hospital and from there was referred to the Ahmedabad civil hospital. Gamar breathed his last there. Following outrage over his death, the Gujarat government ordered a judicial probe OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 16:28 [IST] Kashmirs web of terror: A businessman who became centric to terror funding ISI pumped in millions and separatists diverted 40 per cent of it to fund childrens lifestyle Liberal friends of Separatists may create trouble in rest of India: Intelligence Hypocrite' separatists using Kashmiri children to further their agenda: BJP India oi-Vikas By Vikas Taking a strong exception to Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani's statement on army's goodwill schools, the BJP on Saturday said separatists were 'using the innocent Kashmiri children as cannon fodder'. Geelani had said that schools run by the army were making 'children indifferent towards their religion and specific culture'. He had urged parents in the valley to not send their pupils to the army goodwill schools. Reacting to this, BJP's Sambit Patra told news agency ANI that separatists send their children to best of schools while discourage other Kashmiris from doing so. "Why can't they think for their betterment and help them towards growth?" he asked. Echoing similar sentiments, Minister of State in PMO Jitendra Singh asked why separatists do not tell their children to leave studies. "Kashmiri youth should ask, if this jihad is so important then why doesn't he ask his own children to leave studies," Singh told media persons. The Army has opened several schools across the valley, especially in the rural regions, to improve standard of education. A large number of local students are enrolled in these schools. Geelani said parents need to be watchful and careful about the future of their children. "We should never send our youth to these institutions as we need to see what education these institutions are imparting to our children," he reportedly said. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 16:37 [IST] Indian Army detains 12-year-old intruder near LoC India oi-Gulam Rabbani By Gulam Rabbani Rajouri, May 6: The Indian Army on Friday evening detained a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan occupied Kashmir in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. According to reports, the intruder, identified as Ashfaq Ali Chauhan is believed to be the son of a retired Baluch Regiment soldier Hussain Malik. The resident of Dunger Pel village under Tehsil Samani of Bhimber district in PoK, Ashfaq was found moving suspiciously near Line of Control. The boy immediately surrendered before the Army. It is believed that the boy was sent by the terrorist in connivance with the Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC. The boy was shifted to the police station for further investigation. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 11:01 [IST] FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K In J&K, 14,000 dropouts find their way back to schools J&K: Terrorist attack leaves 4 dead India oi-Vikas By Vikas Two policemen and two civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam region on Saturday. Three policemen were also injured in the attack in Mir Bazaar area. Even on Thursday, a gun battle had broken out between the security forces and the militants in Kulgam. The Indian Armed forces began a major operation in Kashmir on Thursday to snuff out terrorists. The operation comprising nearly 3,000 security personnel was undertaken after videos of terrorists moving around freely in the Shopian district surfaced. Around 30 villages were under the radar of the security forces where the terrorists are said to be holed up. The operation is a coordinated one with the help of inputs from the Intelligence Bureau. IB officials have reported the presence of 160 terrorists in the Valley of which several have infiltrated from Pakistan. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 22:41 [IST] Jansena Sadhus training people in stone pelting India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar A group of sadhus-Jansena- held a training session for men and women in Kanpur to take on stone pelters in restive Kashmir. A group of sadhus is training people to face stone pelters in Kashmir who hurl stones at security forces during protest. Chetan Mahapuri, Jansena Head, said 'Training people to teach a lesson to stone pelters who harm India's unity.' A group of 1000 people will leave for Jammu and Kashmir on May 7. Training ppl to teach a lesson to stone pelters who harm India's unity; 1000s of us will leave for J&K on May7: Chetan Mahapuri,Jansena Head pic.twitter.com/KkKXgcLvWJ ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 6, 2017 In a video showing the training session, people are seen pelting stones at the effigies put up at a river bank in Kanpur while shouted 'Vande Mataram' and 'Pakistan murdabaad'. #WATCH Jansena, a group of sadhus in Kanpur, is training men & women to take on stone pelters in Kashmir; they'll leave for J&K on May 7. pic.twitter.com/anzrjOaRQv ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 6, 2017 Stone pelting must end in Kashmir: Supreme Court It may be recalled that even Supreme Court has said if there was no violence, no stone throwing and students return to classes it will ask the government not to use pellet guns in Kashmir. While hearing a petition by the J&K Bar Association the apex court asked the petitioners to come up with 'positive suggestions' to end the violence in Kashmir. Stone pelting incidents: Of the total 2,690 incidents of stone pelting in the valley in 2016, North Kashmir accounted for the highest number of 1,248 incidents followed by 875 incidents in South Kashmir and 567 in Central Kashmir, according to official data of state home department. According to data of Crime Branch of state police, J&K has witnessed as many as 3,404 cases of rioting in 2016 as compared to 1,157 such cases in 2015, an increase of 2,247. (With agency inputs) "Jet Airways harassed my mother," alleges former SC advocate India oi-Anusha A former Supreme Court advocate has accused Jet Airways personnel of harassing his mother. Kawaljit Singh Bhatia took to facebook to post about the incident. In a Facebook post he has alleged that his elderly mother was harassed following which she fainted in the Delhi airport and sustained injuries. The incident is said to have taken place on May 3 but the post was put out on Friday. In his post, the advocate has claimed that on May 3 at around 10 AM he received a call from his mother who claimed that Jet Airways officials were not allowing her to board the flight. Delay in arrival was given as the cause. "For a flight scheduled to take off at 10.50, 10.00 am is within time limits prescribed on the ticket. Moreover, since web check in was done, if at all she was late, she should have received a call from Jet Airways, because Terminal 3 of Delhi Airport is an announcement free airport and airlines have to call the passengers who are late. However, no call from Jet Airways was received which shows that she reached the airport within time," he said in the post. Recounting the entire episode, Bhatia said that his mother was harassed for Rs 5,500 on the 'pretext' of extra baggage. "The bags (1 luggage bag and 1 hand bag) were lying scattered on the airport floor. My mom was told to either pay up the amount immediately or to forget about boarding the flight. (So the issue was not about being late but about forcing money out of a hapless senior citizen-passenger, who was an easy victim/ target because she was travelling alone). I asked my mom to pay the amount, so that she can travel and does not face any harassment. The amount of 5,500/- was paid to the Jet Airways and no receipt was issued at that time," the post said. Following this, the advocate claimed that he received a phone call informing him of his mother fainting inside teh aorport and sustaining injuries. He accused Jet airways of harassing a senior citizen to such an extent that she fainted. He has raised a complaint regarding the incident. According to reports, the airline has taken up the matter for internal review and assured a thorough probe. OneIndia News Kapil Mishra sacked as Delhi water minister India pti-PTI New Delhi, May 6: The Arvind Kejriwal government on Saturday sacked Kapil Mishra as the water minister, days after he sided with senior party leader Kumar Vishwas who has been at loggerheads with the party leadership. The party also inducted two new faces -- Seemapuri MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam and Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gehlot -- into the Cabinet. A senior official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would "expose" the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam on Sunday. He said he had met the chief minister earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged scam. "I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The Cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee was not involved," Mishra told PTI. A senior government official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken after it was found that the minister had submitted several "inflated" bills. Sources in the party said Mishra was sacked because of his poor performance. However, the party had considered him as one of the most vocal and active voices in the government until he sided with Vishwas. PTI Karnataka BJP meet: Yeddyurappa snubs Eshwarappa, 'Santosh' posters taken down India oi-Anusha All is not well in the Karnataka BJP and the leaders giving each other the cold shoulder is only worsening the situation. BJP is holding its state executive meet in Mysuru. The two-day event will see leaders of the BJP from the state and centre come together and chalk out a plan to strengthen the organisation. While leaders are lecturing workers about the need for unity, unity is something that is lacking between Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa and B L Santosh. Yeddyurappa snubbed K S Eshwarappa at the inaugural event on Saturday. Even as Ananth Kumar stood to welcome Eshwarappa on stage, a defiant Yeddyurappa refused to even look him in the eye even as Eshwarappa wished him. Throughout the event, both leaders gave each other a cold shoulder. It may be noted that neither Eshwarappa nor any of his supporters have been included in the list of speakers for the two-day event. In a clear indication that Yeddyurappa was not okay with Eshwarappa and his coterie, none of his followers has been allowed to lead any of the events. Meanwhile, BJP workers removed posters highlighting pictures and names of B L Santosh from around the venue. Posters displaying one-liners with 'santosha' a play of words to highlight BL Santosh were taken down. Yeddyurappa's supporters clearly did not want any poster or banner highlighting the RSS man who BSY claimed to be the brain behind the rebellion. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 12:14 [IST] Should Kashmir be given to Pakistan: Row erupts after this question appears in MP civil service exam Kashmir cable operators beam 100 anti-India Pak, Saudi channels and centre monitors India oi-Vicky By Vicky There are at least 50 channels which propagate hate against India which are being beamed directly into the home of Kashmir. Channels from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia which includes Peace TV run by Dr Zakir Naik are available easily in Kashmir which is facing a crisis. There are around 5,000 cable operators in the Valley. Most of the people subscribe to these channels through these private players. Ironically these channels continue to be relayed despite the Information and Broadcasting Ministry issuing a clear ban on the same. Some of the channels that are being beamed are Karbala, Ary QTV, Saudi Sunnah, Saudi Quran, Al Arabia, Paigham, Hidayat, Noor, Madani, Sehar, Hadi, Sehar, , Bethat, Ahlibat, Message, Falak, Geo News, Ary News and Dawn News. All these channels are banned by the I&B ministry. However no action has been initiated against the cable operators in Kashmir who continue to provide the service. The Kashmir war is being fought on propaganda. Clerics, Pakistanis and many within the country propagate and get people out on the streets to attack the Indian Armed personnel. These channels run anti-India programmes all day long and this has only fuelled tensions further. While the Pakistani channels put out anti-India programmes, the ones from Saudi preach Wahhabism. The concept of the Sharia law and why it should be implemented are part of the programmes that are broadcast by these channels. The Pakistani channels on the other hand refer to terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Hizbul Mujahideen as organisations fighting for freedom. The terrorists are referred to as freedom fighters and martyrs. Does the law apply? While the government of India has clearly banned these channels, the cable operators in Kashmir cite the Ranbir Penal Code. It is a separate law for the people of Kashmir. Under this the ban imposed by the government of India cannot be made applicable, the cable operators argue. They further state that all these channels are free to air. It is being aired for nearly two decades now. The ban by the ministry is not applicable as they are governed under the Ranbir Penal Code, the cable operators argue. The centre on the other hand says that it is monitoring the situation. The centre says that it has directed the state authorities to take action against those cable operators who are beaming these channels. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 11:12 [IST] Kerala government reinstates TP Senkumar as DGP after SC rap India oi-Anusha The Kerala government reinstated IPS officer T P Senkumar as the chief of police in the state following a supreme court order. The apex court had rapped the Kerala government and slapped it with a contempt notice for delaying reinstatement of the IPS officer. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is said to have signed files to reinstate Senkumar as Kerala top cop on Friday but official orders were passed only on Saturday. Current Director General of Police Loknath Behera has been transferred and posted as Director, Vigilance and Anti-corruption Bureau. T P Senkumar had moved the top court after the Kerala government removed him from the top cop post. The Supreme Court had ordered for his reinstatement. The Kerala government had, however, filed a review petition in the case seeking clarification. The apex court on Friday had dismissed Kerala government's petition and held that no clarification was required. It even slapped the Kerala government with a contempt notice after Senkumar filed a contempt petition accusing the Kerala government of not following Supreme Court directions. Rs 25,000 was imposed on Kerala government as costs by the Apex court. A day after it invited the wrath of the Supreme Court, the Kerala government has reinstated the IPS officer. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 16:45 [IST] Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage Kolkata Bars asked to keep spare drivers to drive drunken customers India oi-PTI Kolkata, May 6: Bar-owners in the metropolis will now have to keep breath analysers ready and a pool of spare drivers to drive drunken customers back home. The directive was given by the city police during a meeting at Lalbazar police headquarter with about 30 major bars/restaurants/clubs who frequently sought permission for late closing of their premises (for serving liquor) beyond midnight. Additional Commissioner of Police(I) Vineet Goyal told PTI, "In order to assist the police in preventing/ curbing the menace of drunk driving and road-safety, these establishments were directed to keep breath-analyzers in their premises and get potential drunk drivers tested before they leave the premise." "They were asked to keep a pool of spare drivers to drive the customers, found unsuitable for driving as per permissible limits, back home," he said. The police also asked bar-owners to take assistance of cab aggregators like Ola, Uber etc for putting an organised structure in place. "Those establishments were given 15 days time to implement the directive. Late-closing permissions may not be accorded in the event of non-compliance of the directive. The process will gradually be extended to the remaining bars/ clubs/ restaurants serving liquor," Goyal said. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 17:54 [IST] KPCC President race heats up: Karnataka in-charge K C Venugopal to visit Bengaluru India oi-Anusha The newly appointed in-charge general secretary of the Congress, K C Venugopal will arrive in Bengaluru on Monday. The senior leader of the Congress in his maiden visit to Bengaluru after being appointed the in-charge general secretary will spend three days holding talks with leaders. The change in leadership of the state Congress is likely after his return to Delhi. K C Venugopal is expected to meet district secretaries, office bearers and key leaders from across the state during his three-day visit. Venugopal who met Rahul Gandhi earlier this week has been assigned the task of understanding ground realities and the mood of party workers. The biggest task that has been cut out for K C Venugopal immediately is to propose a name for the state Congress president's post. While the bypoll win from Gundlupet and Nanjangud brought some sense of peace within the Congress, workers continue to be disappointed over leadership. Despite the calm that is prevailing in the Congress, the leadership crisis is very real and ongoing. While the likes of D K Shivakumar, S R Patil, M B Patil and current president Dr G Parameshwara are in the race for the post, K C Venugopal is to suggest one final name to the high command. Leaders and their supporters are already making a beeline to meet the newly appointed in-charge general secretary to push for names of their preference. So much so, that some leaders have planned to fly to Delhi with Venugopal on his return or meet with him soon after he completes his Bengaluru visit. Senior leaders of the Congress in Karnataka have been asked to suggest names and pros and cons of appointing them. With assembly elections less than a year away, the Congress is looking to appoint a leader who will be accepted en masse and is in a position to consolidate not just party workers but votes as well. While caste is a major component in selecting the party president, mass appeal is another. During his three-day visit to Karnataka, K C Venugopal is expected to give the high command a ground report. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 15:32 [IST] Lesson from Nirbhaya case: Teach children to respect women India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, May 6: The Supreme Court's verdict of upholding death penalty to all the four accused in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case has come as a relief to many who have been asking for stringent punishment to all the perpetrators of such a heinous crime. However, one of the three SC judges, while pronouncing the verdict stressed on the need of inculcating values like "to respect women" among children (especially male children) to bring behavioural changes in our society to tackle rise in crime against women. Supreme Court Justice R Banumathi observed on Friday, and said that in order to secure social order and security, issues concerning crimes against women need to be tackled on priority basis. "Right from childhood years' children ought to be sensitised to respect women. A child should be taught to respect women in society in the same way as he is taught to respect men. Gender equality should be made a part of the school curriculum. The school teachers and parents should be trained, not only to conduct regular personality building and skill enhancing exercise, but also to keep a watch on the actual behavioural pattern of the children so as to make them gender sensitised. "The educational institutions, government institutions, the employers and all concerned must take steps to create awareness with regard to gender sensitisation and to respect women. Sensitisation of the public on gender justice through TV, media and press should be welcomed," she said in the judgement. Justice Banumathi said stringent legislation and punishments alone may not be sufficient for fighting increasing crimes against women, and said that in our tradition bound society, certain attitudinal changes and change in mind-set is needed to respect women and to ensure gender justice. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 7:29 [IST] Mizoram Govt forms committee to review 1986 peace accord India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar The Mizoram Government on Saturday formed committee to review 1986 peace accord between Centre and erstwhile underground Mizo National Front. The Mizo National Front-led terror campaign came to an end in the Northeast Indian State of Mizoram in 1986. The MNF transformed itself into a regional political party subsequent to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of India on June 30, 1986. It also formed the government, winning in the State Legislative Assembly elections, following the formal declaration of Mizoram as a State in 1987. Since then, no State-based terrorist outfit has risen to an extent that would disrupt the overall peaceful environment prevailing in the State. MNF emerged from the Mizo National Famine Front, which was formed by Pu Laldenga to protest against the inaction of the Indian central government towards the famine situation in the Mizo areas of the Assam state in 1959. The MoU was signed by Pu Laldenga on behalf of Mizo National Front. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 19:16 [IST] At monsoon's fag end, why is there so much rain in Delhi-NCR now? Monsoon arrives in first week of June, South India to have normal rainfall India oi-Vicky By Vicky After beating the summer, there is a good chance that South India will witness a normal monsoon. Monsoon will arrive on time in the first week of June and will gradually spread across the rest of the country. The monsoon will make its fall in Kerala. There are high chances that South India will witness a normal monsoon or even have excessive rainfall till September. Senior meteorologist Kanti Prasad while speaking at a seminar organised by the Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) Pvt Ltd. he said that hile there could be rain deficit in October post monsoon, November could see ample rainfall again. There is a distinct possibility of a monsoon deficit with moderately negative side of normal due to El Nino he said while going by the forecast projected by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). He also said that at the same time the Indian Ocean Diode, warming of the Indian Ocean surface temperature is also showing an upward trend which could effectively nullify the El Nino factor as it had happened recently in 1997 and 2006. This indicates that the monsoon arrival would be on time in the first week of June in Kerala before it gradually spreads to the rest of the country, he explained. He further explained that the Climate Forecast System model outputs does show that large parts of North India may experience moderate deficiency. He said that the North West in particular could experience moderate deficiency in overall precipitation even as most of Southern Peninsula are expected to receive normal rainfall. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 6:22 [IST] Who is Gopal Krishna Gandhi? Gandhi is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the governor of West Bengal between 2004 and 2009. It may be recalled that after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, he had written an open letter. Born April 22 1946, he is an Indian civil servant and a diplomat. As a former member of the Indian Administrative Service he has also served as the secretary to the President of India. He was also high commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka. Other candidates opposition may pick While the name of Gandhi is right up in the opposition's list, there are other names too which are doing the rounds. The opposition has also been discussing the names of NCP chief Sharad Pawar and senior JD-U leader Sharad Yadav. The opposition leaders have had held several rounds of meetings. Congress president, Sonia Gandhi has been leading these meetings. Sources say that a final decision on which candidate to float for the next presidential elections would be taken in the last week of May. Draupadi Murmu is BJP's pick If Draupadi Murmu is appointed the President, then she would be the first tribal to hold the coveted post. She is currently the Governor of Jharkhand. Her career in politics spans over 2 decades. She will be the first tribal to be the President of India. She is the daughter of late Biranchi Narayan Tudu. Hailing from Odisha, she was also a former minister in the government there. Neutral parties in high demand With the opposition coming together to field a candidate, there is hectic activity to rope in the neutral parties. Leaders of the opposition have decided to rope in the Biju Janata Dal, DMK and also the YSR Congress party. None of these parties have indicated which way they would vote in the July 2017 presidential elections. The DMK has been looking to get the entire opposition under one roof and celebrate the birthday of its leader, M Karunanidhi in June. NHRC issues notice to UP over man forced to carry son's body India oi-PTI New Delhi, May 6: The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government after a labourer had to carry his teenage son's body on his shoulders as he was allegedly denied an ambulance by a hospital in Etawah district. The NHRC said it has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports and issued the notice to the state's chief secretary. The Commission has observed that the content of the media report are 'painful and indicative of insensitive and negligent attitude' of the doctors at the hospital where most of the visitors are from poor families. The commission has sought a detailed report from the chief secretary within four weeks, including information on ambulance services offered by the government-run hospital. In a video which went viral recently on social and electronic media, 45-year-old labourer Udayveer alleged that doctors at the Etawah government hospital did not treat his son Pushpendra and turned him away. He was forced to carry the body of his 15-year-old son on his shoulder after he was allegedly denied help by doctors at the hospital on May 1. Citing the report, the NHRC said "the doctors at the hospital neither offered the ambulance service to the father of a deceased boy nor informed him about the facility to take his son's body back home." "As a result, he carried the body of his son, on his shoulders. Reportedly, the doctors spared a few minutes to see the 15-year-old patient and told his father to take him away as there was no life in his body," it said in a statement. The incident amounts to violation of human rights, it said. The NHRC has also observed that the Chief Medical Officer of Etawah district, Rajeev Yadav, has reportedly admitted that the 'fault was on their side' and he has assured that strict action shall be taken against the guilty. "He has further added that the boy was brought dead to the hospital when the doctors were busy with a bus accident case and they could not ask from the father of the deceased, whether he needed a transport," the NHRC said. The Commission has sought information on the number of ambulance vehicles and drivers available in the hospital. It has also sought to know whether information on the availability of ambulance service for carrying a patient or a body has been put at a conspicuous place, and details of the formalities required to be fulfilled for availing the service, the NHRC added. The country was shocked to see images of Dana Majhi carrying his wife's body slung over his shoulder for 10 km to reach his village in Odisha's Kalahandi district after being denied help from the hospital authorities. Since the incident in August, similar cases have come to light. PTI No Communists in the world, no Congress in India: Amit Shah India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar There are no Communists left in the world said BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday in Agartala, the capital city of the Communist Party of India (Marxists) ruled state Tripura. Amit Shah is on a two-day visit to Agartala as a part of BJP's 'Vistar Yatra'. It is a 95-day all-India tour during which he will strategies on ways to win the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Communist duniya mein khatam ho chuke hain, Congress desh mein khatam ho chuki hai aur yahan hamara muqaabla unse hai: Amit Shah in Tripura pic.twitter.com/vBAumLf606 ANI (@ANI_news) May 6, 2017 In his address, Shah told media 'There are communists left in the world, Congress has been decimated in the country'. 'Our fight here [Tripura] is against Congress and Communists', he added. Shah blamed the state government for allowing Bangladeshi immigrants for vote bank politics and attacking party workers. He warned that if communists think that they can stop BJP by violent means, it's just a dream. Around two lakh members have joined BJP in Tripura, he further said. In Tripura, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar is in power since March 1998. He is known as the poorest CM in the country. Shah has recently visited TMC ruled West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir, where BJP is in coalition with PDP. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 15:46 [IST] Now Andhra government bans blue beacons India oi-Gulam Rabbani By Gulam Rabbani Vijayawada, May 6: After Centre's decision to ban the use of beacons lights on officials vehicles from May 1, the Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday issued an order to ban the use of blue beacons and hooters on officials vehicles. According to the reports, the order stated that only emergency and disaster management vehicles are allowed to use the beacons and hooters. AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu-led government had issued the order to all the officials in this regard. Earlier in April, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after the Cabinet Meeting had said that from May 1, no person in the country will be able to put a red light on their vehicles. The Centre had, earlier in April, banned the use of red beacons for politicians, saying it promotes a VIP culture. The highest leadership positions in the country, including that of President, Vice-President, and Prime Minister, will not be using the red beacons anymore. Earlier in the same month, the apex court too had asked all the state government to put a limit for VIPs who are allowed to use beacons. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 15:52 [IST] 'Is this the respect for women?': Mallikarjun Kharge asks PM Modi over release of Bilkis case convict Now, Bilkis Bano wants death penalty for her rapists too India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Ahmedabad, May 5: A day after the Supreme Court upheld death penalty for the four accused in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, Bilkis Bano, who was gangraped during the 2002 Gujarat riots, wants death penalty for her rapists too. "I am very happy to hear that the SC has upheld death sentence of the Delhi gangrape accused," she said. "I have complete faith in the judiciary and I am hopeful the SC will also give death sentence to the accused in my case....No woman should have to go through this ordeal (of rape)." Her husband, Yakub Rasool, said, "While we are very happy that the Bombay High Court has upheld conviction of the accused, we will appeal in the SC to seek death penalty. We will soon meet our lawyer and decide about the appeal." The Bombay High Court on Thursday ruled that no death sentence will be given to three out of 11 people convicted of raping Bilkis, 19-year-old pregnant woman, and murdering 14 of her family members in the aftermath of the Godhra riots in 2002. A mob had attacked Bilkis' family at Randhikpur village near Ahmedabad during the post-Godhra riots on March 3, 2002. Terming it as 'rarest of rare' case, the Central Bureau of Investigation had sought death penalty for three of the 11 convicts on the ground that they were the main perpetrators of the crime. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 8:09 [IST] Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how Only Prime Minister Modi can resolve the Kashmir crisis: Mehbooba Mufti India oi-Chennabasaveshwar By Chennabasaveshwar Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said only Prime Minister Modi can resolve the Kashmir crisis and the state would support his decision. Mehbooba Mufti hailed PM Modi's Lahore visit as a 'sign of strength' while saying that former PM Manmohan Singh wanted to visit Pakistan but couldn't muster courage. In 2015, PM Modi had paid a surprise visit to Pakistan -the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years. The last visit to Pakistan by an Indian prime minister was in 2004 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Mufti said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation, but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. The bilateral relation between India and Pakistan has reached a new low after the mutilation of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani forces in Poonch sector in Kashmir. Opposition parties have questioned PM Modi's silence over the issue. Last month, Mufti met Prime Minister Modi at his residence in New Delhi and briefed him about the security situation in the Valley. After the meeting, she told reporters that it was important to resume the dialogue process initiated by former Prime Minister Vajpayee. Development works in Jammu About the development work in the state, she said the ongoing strife in Kashmir affects the development of Jammu. 'Kashmir situation not good, it affects Jammu also.' Jammu has many tourist destinations and trying to develop them, said, Mufti on Congress leader GS Charak's statement that no developmental work done in Jammu. Mehbooba Mufti was speaking at the inaugural Function of Bikram Chowk Fly Over at GCW Gandhi Nagar Auditorium in Jammu. OneIndia News Was Nirbhaya's juvenile rapist radicalised: Authorities thought so India oi-Vicky By Vicky When the juvenile who raped and murdered Nirbhaya was taken to reformative home where he spent three years, he had turned extremely religious. He grew a beard and began offering namaz five times a day. It was during the last year of his stay he shared the room with an accused in the high court blast. On Friday, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence awarded to four persons in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case. The authorities began worrying that the juvenile who was the most brutal of all the accused in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case may have been radicalised. He was immediately shifted out of the room. During his stay at the home, he took up cooking. He would say that he liked to cook. After his release from jail, he was taken away to a place in south India. The authorities feared that he may be lynched and hence he be taken away to an entirely different region. He first worked at a road side eatery and then was given a job at a hotel. The owner of the hotel in South India does not know about him. The authorities have done everything possible to keep his identity a secret. It is a very sensitive case and there is a lot of anger particularly against this juvenile. If word spreads out there is no doubt he would be lynched irrespective of the place he is in. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 7:51 [IST] IT czar Azim Premji to retire as executive chairman of Wipro Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala steps down due to family commitments; search on for new successor Wipro receives threat e-mail, sender demands ransom India oi-Vikas By Vikas IT giant Wipro has received a threat e-mail in which the sender has threatened to spread biological toxin, Ricin, in its campus if the ransom is not paid. The anonymous sender has demanded a ransom of Rs 500 crore worth currency in bitcoins- digital currency by May 25. Wipro has lodged a complaint with the police after which a case of cyber terrorism was registered. The email was sent from the id Ramesh2@protonmail.com on Friday. The e-mail has been sent to several senior officials of the company. It also mantions an online link where the payment should be made. In a statement, Wipro said there has been no impact on company's operation because of the threat. "Have filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source... Have augmented security measures at all our office locations. There is no impact on the company's operations," it said. Ricin in a natural toxic protein which is an extract of castor bean. It is found in byproducts of castor oil production but can be used as biological weapon. The sender of the threat mail has claimed that he has isolated sufficient quantity of high-quality, beta strain of Ricin and had tested it on dogs in Kolkata. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 17:33 [IST] Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how Days after attack, Imran Khan's party to resume long march on Nov 10 India rejects medical visas to Pakistanis for 2 months International oi-IANS By Ians English Islamabad, May 6: India has not issued visas for two months to Pakistani patients who travel to the country for treatment, a media report said on Saturday. According to Geo News, the decision has affected thousands of Pakistanis suffering from liver, kidney and heart diseases. "India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official said. According to the official, Pakistan has summoned Indian envoy to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the latest move. Tensions are running high between India and Pakistan following the death sentence awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav, said to be an Indian spy, for sponsoring terrorism and waging war against Islamabad. IANS For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 15:23 [IST] Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how Indian envoy Bambawale summoned over non-issuance of medical visas International pti-PTI Islamabad, May 6: Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said on Saturday. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. "India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation. Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. PTI US: Indian-origin couple murdered by daughter's ex-lover International oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Washington, May 6: Months after Indian-origin techie, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, was shot dead in Kansas, United States, reports say an Indian-origin couple was murdered in the nation on Friday. According to PTI, the couple was killed in an apparent revenge attack by their daughter's ex-lover. The alleged accused was later shot dead in a standoff with police, added reports. Mirza Tatlic, 24, shot dead Naren Prabhu, a Silicon Valley tech executive, and his wife at their home in San Jose, CBS San Francisco reported. Prabhu's daughter, who lives in another state, was not there at her parents' house when the shocking episode took place. "The suspect had been in a relationship with the victims daughter who was not home," San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia said. "The relationship had ended last year. The suspect had a history of domestic violence and there was an active criminal restraining order," Garcia added. The incident had been reported by Prabhu's 20-year-old son. "When officers arrived at the home on Laura Valle Lane they saw an adult man deceased in the front doorway suffering from at least one gunshot wound. Officers learnt from the son that his mother and 13-year-old brother along with the suspect were still inside the house," police said. A standoff quickly developed with the suspect and a SWAT team was called in. "As officers were setting up contain and arrest teams, the suspect released the 13-year-old boy," Garcia said, adding that the suspect refused to surrender. Officers then went into the house and found the two victims and the dead suspect, Garcia added. Indians in the US have been the targets of a string of attacks in the last few months. Last month, an Indian-American man was killed and his wife was critically injured in a hit-and-run accident in Indiana. In March, a woman from Andhra Pradesh was found dead along with her child at her house in New Jersey. There were multiple stab wounds on her dead body. In February, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an engineer was shot dead in an alleged racist attack by a navy veteran at a bar in Kansas. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, May 6, 2017, 13:14 [IST] 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. Wibbitz Top Stories 17 Dec 2021 More Than 100 Marines Are Discharged, for Refusing COVID Vaccine. More Than 100 Marines Are Discharged, for Refusing.. Rumble 11 Jan 2022 On this episode of Garbage Pail Skids; We discuss the loss of breakfast icons like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben; How most Latinos.. Gothamist 20 Jul 2022 An employee prepares a syringe of monkeypox vaccine. The vaccine will now be available to at-risk populations in New.. Reuters Studio 03 Mar 2020 Eleonore Laloux has battled all her life to be treated like others. Now the 34-year-old is waging a new campaign: to become one of.. Stroud Life 03 Nov 2022 PC Sarah Crawford was able to revive the boy, whose skin had turned purple, by performing CPR on him SPRINGFIELD - In a 32 to 19 vote , the Illinois Senate passed a measure Friday that would ban from the Illinois general election ballot any candidate for President or Vice-President of the United States that has not released his or her tax returns for the most recent five years. The target of the bill is President Donald Trump, bill sponsor Democrat Senator Daniel Biss wrote after the bill's passage Friday. "My bill requiring Trump to release his tax returns in order to be on the ballot in IL 2020 just passed the Senate," Biss tweeted. Biss, who recently announced his campaign for governor of Illinois in 2018, tweeted to supporters his legislative effort was part of the anti-Trump "resistance." "Ive said we can do things right now to #resist," Biss wrote. "This is a big one." SB 982 now moves to the Democrat-controlled Illinois House for consideration. News24 28 Mar 2022 French President Emmanuel Macron hit the campaign trail on Monday and immediately took aim at his far-right rival Eric Zemmour as.. Sky News 02 Nov 2022 Five lions broke out of their enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, prompting it to issue a "code one" emergency alert, and forcing.. Non-Volatile Dual In-Line Memory Module Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020 www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/non-volatile-dual-in-line-memory-module-market www.psmarketresearch.com/industry-report/semiconductor-and-electronics www.psmarketresearch.com he global non-volatile dual in-line memory module market is growing due to increasing demand from data center and enterprise storage applications, and improved input/output (I/O) performance, low latency and data retention capabilities of the memory module. Several groups are also formed in some countries to increase the adoption of non-volatile memory module among the end users. The developments in non-volatile dual in-line memory module standards and increasing end use application base are two of the factors, providing ample growth opportunities for the non-volatile dual in-line memory module market. The fast growing information technology sectors in Asia-Pacific and Europe are also supporting the growth of the market. However, their high cost and storage density issues are restraining the growth of the market.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:North America leads the global market, due to heavy research and development activities carried out in the non-volatile memory technologies in the region. The Asia-Pacific non-volatile dual in-line memory module market is expected to grow with the highest rate, due to high demand of non-volatile dual in-line memory module from enterprise storage applications in the region.Among all the applications, the enterprise servers and storage segment leads the global market, and is also expected to maintain its dominance during the coming years. The dominance of the application is due to increased adoption of the non-volatile dual in-line memory module in the enterprise servers and storage devices, so as to optimize regular access to the complicated information sets of big data. Among all the end users, data centers and enterprise storage segment leads the global market, and is also expected to maintain its dominance during the coming years. The dominance is due to increasing need for ensuring data reliability, performance, and endurance in data center and storage applications, in order to minimize the downtime costs and improve input-output performance.Browse For Related Research :One of the major advantages of non-volatile dual in-line memory module is that if the system crashes or experiences unexpected shut down, the data in the module will not get affected. Additionally, the module is used for increasing data security, application performance, efficiency, and system recovery, after unexpected system crash. The modules are majorly used in large scale computing environments, such as mission control applications, workstations, and big organizations.The non-volatile dual in-line memory module is integrated into the main memory of the computing platform, to perform workload at dynamic random access memory speeds. The integration makes a persistent memory module with very low latency and high speed. When a system crashes or power supply is cut, the non-volatile dual in-line memory module enables data retention in the computer. The module is basically used for enhancing endurance and reliability of solid state drives, system crash recovery time, and data security.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekExecutive Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb: IVD Market in Europe 2016-2020 - Market to grow at a CAGR of 4.78% during Forecast Period http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=715937 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=715937 http://www.researchmoz.us/ivd-market-in-europe-2016-2020-report.html http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Albany, NY, May 06, 2017: IVD tests help diagnose, monitor, and assess medical conditions, diseases, and infections in a controlled environment. These tests help in early diagnosis of diseases by enhancing control on test procedures and provide accurate results, leading to quality treatment and shorter hospital stays. They are also minimally invasive and help in lowering treatment costs. Manufacturers develop reagents, analytical instruments such as automated analyzers, and accessory products including software to measure the quality and parameters of samples.The IVD market in Europe to grow at a CAGR of 4.78% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the IVD market in Europe for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of IVD consumables and instruments in EU27 countries.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Germany- France- UK- Italy- Spain- Benelux- NordicGet a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Technavio's report, IVD Market in Europe 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors- Abbott Laboratories- Beckman Coulter, Inc- Becton, Dickinson and Company- F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd- Siemens Healthcare GmbH- Thermo Fisher Scientific IncOther prominent vendors- Abaxis- A. Menarini Diagnostics- Acon Laboratories- Bio-Rad Laboratories- Cepheid- Chembio Diagnostic Systems- Clarity Diagnostics- DiagCor- Helena Laboratories- Hologic- i-Sens- Landwind MedicalEnquiry at:Key questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse more details at:ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at: Online Lingerie Market in APAC 2016-2020 - Global Market to grow at a CAGR of 27.81% during Forecast period http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=715933 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=715933 http://www.researchmoz.us/online-lingerie-market-in-apac-2016-2020-report.html http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Albany, NY, May 06, 2017: The term lingerie originated from the French word 'linge' for linen. In French, the term is used for both male and female undergarments, whereas in English it refers solely to women's innerwear. Lingerie is made of fabrics like nylon, satin, silk, polyester, and lace. The evolving fashion landscape and the rising need for comfort have resulted in increased demand for lingerie across the region. The opening of online lingerie stores has improved the growth prospects of the lingerie industry, as they offer a wide range of international and private labels through one platform.The online lingerie market in APAC to grow at a CAGR of 27.81% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the online lingerie market in APAC for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers revenue generated from the online retail sales of the following lingerie products:- Bras- Daywear- Loungewear- Panties- Shapewear- SleepwearGet a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Technavio's report, Online Lingerie Market in APAC 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors- Baci Lingerie- Hanesbrands- Jockey- L Brands- PVHOther prominent vendors- Chantelle- Etam- Golden Lady- Lindex- Triumph- Wacoal- WolfordMarket driver- Growth of e-commerce industry- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- Difficulty in choosing product- For a full, detailed list, view our reportEnquiry at:Key questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse more details at:ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at: Partnerships, Licensing, Investments and M&A Deals and Trends in Pharmaceuticals - Q4 2016 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1064551 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz GlobalData's Partnerships, Licensing, Investments and M&A Deals and Trends in Pharmaceuticals - Q4 2016, report is an essential source of data and trend analysis on partnerships, licensing, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and financings in the pharmaceuticals industry. The report provides detailed information on partnership and licensing transactions, M&As, equity/debt offerings, private equity, and venture financing registered in the pharmaceuticals industry in Q4 2016. The report portrays detailed comparative data on the number of deals and their value in the last five quarters, subdivided by deal types, various therapy areas, and geographies. Additionally, the report provides information on the top financial advisory firms in the pharmaceuticals industry.Data presented in this report is derived from GlobalDatas proprietary in-house Pharmaceuticals eTrack deals database and primary and secondary research.The pharmaceutical and healthcare industry reported a decrease in the number of deals and deal values in Q4 2016 with 986 deals worth USD81.7 billion, as compared 1,194 worth USD85.9 billion in Q4 2015. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the number of deals and deal values decreased in Q4 2016, when compared to 1,009 deals worth USD112.6 billion in Q3 2016. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industry reported a decrease in upfront payments in licensing agreements with USD1 billion in Q4 2016, as compared USD1.6 billion in Q4 2015. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the upfront payments reported an increase in Q4 2016, when compared to USD589.2m in Q3 2016. Deals in oncology therapeutics market registered an increase with 339 deals in Q4 2016, compared to 330 deals in Q3 2016. North America registered a decrease in the number of deals with 630 deals in Q4 2016, compared to 690 deals in Q3 2016.Scope- Analysis of the market trends for the pharmaceutical industry in the global arena.- Review of deal trends in the cardiovascular, central nervous system, dermatology, ear nose throat disorders, gastrointestinal, genito urinary system and sex hormones, hematological disorders, hormonal disorders, immunology, infectious disease, male health, metabolic disorders, mouth and dental disorders, musculoskeletal, oncology, ophthalmology, respiratory, toxicology, and women's health segments.- Analysis of partnerships, licensing, M&As, equity/debt offerings, private equity, and venture financing deals in the pharmaceutical industry.- Analysis of therapy areas which are very active in terms of venture capital financing, partnerships, licensing agreements, equity/debt offerings, and M&As.- Analysis of deals based on different payment modes, including upfront and milestone payments, primarily in partnerships and licensing agreements in the pharmaceutical industry.- Analysis of partnership and licensing deals based on clinical stage of development of products.- Summary of the pharmaceutical deals globally in the five quarters.- Information on the top deals happened in the pharmaceutical industry.- Geographies covered include - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South & Central America, and the Middle East & Africa.- League tables of financial advisors in M&As and equity/debt offerings. This includes key advisors such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:Reasons to buy- Enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.- Find out the major deal performing segments for investments in your industry.- Evaluate the types of companies which are entering into partnership or licensing agreements; divesting and acquiring assets.- Identify companies that are aggressively looking to raise capital in the market- Evaluate niche therapy areas that are receiving majority of the upfront and milestone payments in the pharmaceutical industry.- Identify the key venture capitalists, who are financing the pharmaceutical and biotech companies.- Evaluate the clinical development stages where majority of the partnerships and licensing agreements are happening.- Do deals with an understanding of how competitors are financed, and the mergers and partnerships that have shaped the pharmaceutical industry.- Identify growth segments and opportunities in each region within the industry.- Look for key financial advisors where you are planning to raise capital from the market or for acquisitions within the industry.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Life Insurance in Poland, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1057709 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz Timetrics 'Life Insurance in Poland Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides a detailed outlook by product category for the Polish life insurance segment, and a comparison of the Polish insurance industry with its regional counterparts.It provides key performance indicators such as written premium, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, total assets, total investment income and retentions during the review period (2011-2015) and forecast period (2015-2020).The report also analyzes distribution channels operating in the segment, gives a comprehensive overview of the Polish economy and demographics, and provides detailed information on the competitive landscape in the country.The report brings together Timetrics research, modeling and analysis expertise, giving insurers access to information on segment dynamics and competitive advantages, and profiles of insurers operating in the country. The report also includes details of insurance regulations, and recent changes in the regulatory structure.SummaryTimetrics 'Life Insurance in Poland, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides in-depth market analysis, information and insights into the Polish life insurance segment, including:An overview of the Polish life insurance segmentThe Polish life insurance segments growth prospects by categoryA comprehensive overview of the Polish economy and demographicsA comparison of the Polish life insurance segment with its regional counterpartsThe various distribution channels in the Polish life insurance segmentDetails of the competitive landscape in the life insurance segment in PolandDetails of regulatory policy applicable to the Polish insurance industryScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the life insurance segment in Poland:It provides historical values for the Polish life insurance segment for the reports 2011-2015 review period, and projected figures for the 2015-2020 forecast period.It offers a detailed analysis of the key categories in the Polish life insurance segment, and market forecasts to 2020.It provides a comparison of the Polish life insurance segment with its regional counterpartsIt analyzes the various distribution channels for life insurance products in Poland.It profiles the top life insurance companies in Poland and outlines the key regulations affecting them.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:Reasons To BuyMake strategic business decisions using in-depth historic and forecast market data related to the Polish life insurance segment, and each category within it.Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities in the Polish life insurance segment.Assess the competitive dynamics in the life insurance segment.Identify growth opportunities and market dynamics in key product categories.Gain insights into key regulations governing the Polish insurance industry, and their impact on companies and the industry's future.Key HighlightsOn March 17, 2016, the European Commission (EC) stated that there was uncertainty regarding the renewal of the Insurance Block Exemption Regulation (Regulation 267/2010) (IBER), which is due to expire on March 31, 2017.Solvency II came into force in Poland on January 1, 2016. It is based on three pillars: risk-based quantitative requirements, governance and supervision, and disclosure and transparency.The Polish Financial Supervisory Authority (PFSA) issued Recommendation U for bancassurance, effective from April 1, 2015.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Reinsurance in Egypt, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1049133 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz Timetrics 'Reinsurance in Egypt Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides detailed analysis of the market trends, drivers and challenges in the Egyptian reinsurance segment.It provides values for key performance indicators such as written premium, reinsurance ceded and reinsurance accepted during the review period (20112015) and forecast period (20152020).The report also analyses information pertaining to the competitive landscape in the country, gives a comprehensive overview of the Egyptian economy and demographics, and provides detailed analysis of natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industry.The report brings together Timetrics research, modeling and analysis expertise to enable reinsurers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages, and access profiles of reinsurers operating in the country.SummaryTimetrics 'Reinsurance in Egypt Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides in-depth market analysis, information and insights into the Egyptian reinsurance segment, including:An outlook of the Egyptian reinsurance segmentA comprehensive overview of the Egyptian economy and demographicsDetailed analysis of natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industryThe competitive landscape in the Egyptian reinsurance segmentScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the reinsurance segment in Egypt:It provides historical values for the Egyptian reinsurance segment for the reports 20112015 review period, and projected figures for the 20152020 forecast period.It offers a detailed analysis of the key categories in the Egyptian reinsurance segment, and market forecasts to 2020.It provides a detailed analysis of the reinsurance ceded from various direct insurance segments in Egypt, and the reinsurance segment's growth prospects.It analyzes various natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industryDownload Sample Copy of This Report at:Reasons To BuyMake strategic business decisions using in-depth historic and forecast market data related to the Egyptian reinsurance segment, and each category within it.Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities in the Egyptian reinsurance segment.Identify growth opportunities and market dynamics in key product categories.Gain insights into key regulations governing the Egyptian insurance industry, and their impact on companies and the industry's future.Key HighlightsIn December 2016, Misr Insurance Holding reinitiated the process to create the reinsurance company and proposed to invite investors by reducing the initial paid up capital from EGP1.4 billion (US$200.0 million) to EGP409.8 million (US$50.0 million).According to new regulations under Resolution No. 122 of 2014, insurers operating in Egypt are only permitted to place reinsurance business with reinsurers approved by and registered with the EFSA.Egyptian insurers are required to cede 5.0% of treaty reinsurance programs to African Re.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Photonic IC Market to Reach US$1.3 bn by 2022 due to Increasing Adoption in Aerospace and Healthcare Industries http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/photonic-integrated-circuit.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=997 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com A new Transparency Market Research report states that the global photonic integrated circuit (photonic IC) market stood at US$0.19 bn in 2013 and is anticipated to touch US$1.3 bn by 2022, by rising at a whopping CAGR of 25.30% CAGR between 2015 and 2022. The title of the report is Photonic IC Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2015 - 2022.Photonic integrated circuits (IC) are devices over which a number of optical devices are integrated and the technology that drives these devices is known as integrated optics. PICs are normally fabricated with a wafer-scale technology over nonlinear crystal materials such as lithium niobate or substrates of silica and silicon. Photonic IC technology is utilized for transferring high amounts of data at extremely high speeds. Hence, photonic IC-based products are majorly deployed within the optical fiber communications field.Browse Market Research Report @The increasing demand for high data transmission capacity and speed, particularly in data center applications, has resulted in an increased development of the global photonic IC market. In addition, the increasing benefits associated with photonic ICs in terms of size, cost, power consumption, and efficiency are also predicted to the increase their adoption in a number of end-use verticals including telecommunications, healthcare, industrial, defense, aerospace, and data communication. However, the rising issues related to the packaging and design of photonic ICs are impeding the growth of the overall market.On the basis of integration type, the report segments the global photonic IC market into hybrid integration, monolithic integration, and module integration. Amongst these, hybrid integration led the market in 2013 on the basis of revenue and is predicted to maintain its superiority all through the forecast horizon. On the other hand, monolithic integration is poised to exhibit the highest CAGR of 25.50% between 2015 and 2022. This is owing to its ability of integrating both large-scale and medium-scale photonic ICs.By raw material, the report segments the market into indium phosphide, gallium arsenide, lithium niobate, silicon, silicon-on-insulator, and others such as silica-on-silicon, silicon dioxide (SiO2), and silicon nitride (Si3Ni4). Of these, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and indium phosphide (InP) are amongst the most demanded raw materials in the market and constituted a collective share of 60.9% in the market in 2013. By component, the report segments the photonic IC market into lasers, detectors, modulators, optical amplifiers, attenuators, and multiplexers/de-multiplexers.By application, the report segments the market into optical communication, optical signal processing, sensing, and biophotonics. Optical communications are further segmented into fttx and access networks, microwave/RF photonics, long-haul and transport networks, and optical datacom. The segment of sensing is further segmented into structural engineering, chemical sensors, transport and aerospace, and energy and utilities. Optical signal processing is further categorized into optical metrology, optical instrumentation, quantum optics, and quantum computing, while biophotonics is further segmented into medical instrumentation, photonic lab-on-a-chip, analytics and diagnostics, optical biosensors. Amongst these, the segment of optical communications led the market in 2013 and held a share of 58.6% in the market; it is predicted to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast horizon.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Geographically, the report segments the market into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World in including the Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Of these, the North America photonic IC market held the largest share of 39.0% in 2013 and is predicted to maintain its superiority all through the forecast horizon. On the other hand, Asia Pacific is poised to experience the highest growth rate and will expand at a 26.5% CAGR from 2015 to 2022.As per the report, the key players in the market are Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd (China), Infinera Corporation (the U.S.), JDS Uniphase Corporation (the U.S.), Alcatel-Lucent S.A. (France), Intel Corporation (the U.S.), NeoPhotonics Corporation (the U.S.), and Avago Technologies Ltd. (Singapore), among others.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Nanosensors Market to Show Dramatic 80.7% CAGR from 2015-2021 due to High Demand from Homeland Security and Military Industries http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/nanosensors-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3699 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Nanosensors are defined as any surgical, biological or chemical points that are used to convey information about nanoparticles to macroscopic world. These are mainly used in biomedical and healthcare sector and also help in manufacturing other nanoproducts such as nanorobots and nanoscale. Nanosensors have revolutionized the semiconductor industry and are meant to evaluate and understand nanosystems.By product type, the global market for nanosensors has been segmented into: optical nanosensors, electrochemical nanosensors and electromagnetic nanosensors. By application, the global market for nanosensors has been segmented into: automotive and aerospace, homeland defense and military, biomedical and healthcare among others. The others segment includes energy monitoring, industrial control and robotics among others.Browse Market Research Report @In 2014, by product type, electrochemical nanosensors accounted for the largest market share globally. Increase in investments in research and development of carbon nanotube (CNT) used in nanosensors are the opportunities in the growth of CNT based electrochemical nanosensors. The application of nanosensors in biomedical and healthcare sector held the largest market share in 2014 and is expected to remain the market leader throughout the forecast period. Early detection and diagnosis of diseases followed by rapid response rate is one of the important factors driving the global biomedical and healthcare nanosensors market.Growing demand of nanosensors in homeland security and military is one of the important factors driving the global nanosensors market. With huge amount of investments being made in research and development activities and the advent of advanced new generation nanosensors equipments which helps in detection of toxic gases such as anthrax is also expected to have a positive impact on the nano sensors market. In military and homeland security, nano sensors are also used for detection of biotoxins and radiations. Thus, nanotechnology has enabled the manufacturers to develop advanced warfield gear such as self repairing tents and lighter vehicles which in turn is driving the global nanosensors market. In addition,cost effective manufacturing due to compactness of nanosensors is also having a positive impact on nanosensors market globally.Nanofabricated sensors aims at reducing plant production costs as these are mounted on wireless packages that eliminate cabling and wiring costs. This in turn is driving the global nanosensors market. Difficulty in mass production of nanosensors is restraining the growth of global nanosensors market. However, growth in emerging markets of Asia Pacific region, focus on food management industry and nanosensors applications in robotics and in the Internet of Things (IoT) are some of the major opportunities for the global nanosensors market. Introduction of Wireless sensor networks (WSN) in terms of sensing capabilities are the opportunities for the market to grow during the forecast period.North America held the largest market for the nanosensors market in terms revenue in 2014 and is projected to stay as the market leader over the forecast period. Technological innovations followed by continuous investments in research and development by key nanosensor manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Honeywell International Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc among others to meet the changing consumer preferences are the main factors driving the North America nanosensors market. Europe is the second largest market for nanosensors in terms of revenue. France is the largest market for nanosensors in Europe. Technological innovations in signal processing and microelectronic technologies are the main factors driving the Europe nanosensors market.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @This report also provides an understanding of revenue (USD million) of nanosensors market. The study also provides forecast from 2015-2021 and highlights current and future market trends.By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America. This report helps distributors, suppliers and manufacturers to formulate strategies based on understanding of the trends in this market.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: ST LOUIS - A freelance contributor that began writing a column for the Post-Dispatch last November was suspended by the newspaper last week after she wrote a column on guns that her editor complained did not mention her past affiliation with the National Rifle Association (NRA). Project 21 Co-Chairman Stacy Washington, a black conservative, was recently suspended by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after writing a column defending gun ownership. While she has worked with the NRA on media programs and projects in the past, she says she was never paid for her services and the opinions in the column were her own. Washington's support of gun ownership has never been a secret. In her first column for the newspaper, she wrote: "With my father on active [military] duty, guns were always a part of life, so I considered the Second Amendment second in importance only to the religious protections afforded to us in the Constitution." Before becoming a columnist, the Post-Dispatch reported on her work with the NRA. She also said the column in question - "Guns and the Media" - was reviewed by the newspaper's staff before publication. That column criticized other Missouri newspapers that recently featured commentaries speculating that gun owners favored guns over child safety and asked readers to compare the NRA to the ISIS terrorism network. In her column, she wrote: "Gun ownership in America is a right that is enshrined in the Constitution, and owning a gun has no bearing on whether people love their children." Commenting on leaving the Post-Dispatch, Washington said: "It's never been a secret that I support the Second Amendment and the National Rifle Association. To effectively be suspended by a newspaper for that seems beyond comprehension. But that's what I believe happened to me." "Last week, my final column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch - "Guns and the Media" - discussed two anti-gun opinion columns in other Missouri papers," Washington said. "I think these commentaries were allowed to falsely accuse gun owners of prioritizing guns over child safety and tried to make the NRA and ISIS morally equivalent. I suggested such radical allegations were allowed to be published without challenge due to an editorial bias against guns." Washington said that her column was submitted, accepted, edited and approved by the staff of the Post-Dispatch. She was surprised when she was notified of a suspension that readers were told was due to her 'active promotional activities and professional association with the National Rifle Association, [which] represented an unacceptable conflict of interest.' "I am not, nor have I ever been, an employee of the NRA," she said. "I was not compensated for my participation in an NRA documentary that was released last year nor was I paid for any appearances on NRA-affiliated media over the years. Some of this work was even previously reported on by the Post-Dispatch. There was never any attempt at deception." Washington said she has decided to terminate her relationship with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "When I began writing for the paper, it was with the belief that I would be able to present my opinions from a conservative perspective without interference," she said. "This has not been the case, and it makes any future relationship with the newspaper untenable." Washington says she stands by what she wrote. "I believe that, even in a commentary, it is irresponsible and proves an inherent bias when newspapers permit the comparison of NRA members to Islamic State terrorists and imply that gun-owning Americans cherish their firearms more than the safety of their children," she said. Reinsurance in Egypt, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1049133 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz Timetrics 'Reinsurance in Egypt Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides detailed analysis of the market trends, drivers and challenges in the Egyptian reinsurance segment.It provides values for key performance indicators such as written premium, reinsurance ceded and reinsurance accepted during the review period (20112015) and forecast period (20152020).The report also analyses information pertaining to the competitive landscape in the country, gives a comprehensive overview of the Egyptian economy and demographics, and provides detailed analysis of natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industry.The report brings together Timetrics research, modeling and analysis expertise to enable reinsurers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages, and access profiles of reinsurers operating in the country.SummaryTimetrics 'Reinsurance in Egypt Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides in-depth market analysis, information and insights into the Egyptian reinsurance segment, including:An outlook of the Egyptian reinsurance segmentA comprehensive overview of the Egyptian economy and demographicsDetailed analysis of natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industryThe competitive landscape in the Egyptian reinsurance segmentDownload Sample Copy of This Report at:ScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the reinsurance segment in Egypt:It provides historical values for the Egyptian reinsurance segment for the reports 20112015 review period, and projected figures for the 20152020 forecast period.It offers a detailed analysis of the key categories in the Egyptian reinsurance segment, and market forecasts to 2020.It provides a detailed analysis of the reinsurance ceded from various direct insurance segments in Egypt, and the reinsurance segment's growth prospects.It analyzes various natural and man-made hazards and their impact on the Egyptian insurance industryReasons To BuyMake strategic business decisions using in-depth historic and forecast market data related to the Egyptian reinsurance segment, and each category within it.Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities in the Egyptian reinsurance segment.Identify growth opportunities and market dynamics in key product categories.Gain insights into key regulations governing the Egyptian insurance industry, and their impact on companies and the industry's future.Key HighlightsIn December 2016, Misr Insurance Holding reinitiated the process to create the reinsurance company and proposed to invite investors by reducing the initial paid up capital from EGP1.4 billion (US$200.0 million) to EGP409.8 million (US$50.0 million).According to new regulations under Resolution No. 122 of 2014, insurers operating in Egypt are only permitted to place reinsurance business with reinsurers approved by and registered with the EFSA.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Multiplexed Diagnostics Market: Upcoming Demand and Growth Analysis Multiplexed Diagnostics Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/multiplexed-diagnostics-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=4815 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ This report on the global multiplexed diagnostics market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Rise in private and public funding for genomics and personalized medicine, rising demand for advanced diagnostic technology for accurate diagnosis of life-threatening diseases, and favorable regulatory scenario for new product launch are boosting the growth of the global multiplexed diagnostics market. Multiple Application of multiplexed diagnostics technology, and increasing prevalence of cancer and infectious diseases are some of the factors expected to drive the growth of global multiplexed diagnostics market during the forecast period.The multiplexed diagnostics market report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the global market with respect to the segments based on technology, application, end-user, and geography. A detailed qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Additionally, the section comprises porters five forces analysis to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of geography and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global multiplexed diagnostics market.This 194 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Multiplexed Diagnostics Market. Browse through 24 data tables and 75 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:Based on technology type, the market has been segmented into Very high density multiplexed assays, High density multiplexed assays, Medium density multiplexed assays, Low density multiplexed assays, and Next generation sequencing assays. High density multiplexed assays and medium density multiplexed assays are projected to be lucrative segments of the multiplexed diagnostics market, due to increasing demand in academic research institutes and pharmaceutical companies. These segments are expected to grow at a highest CAGR rate during forecast period. The market segments have been analyzed based on cost-effectiveness of the technology, prevalence of the diseases, and growing demand for the diagnostic tools. The market size and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Based on Application type, the Global multiplexed diagnostics market has been segmented into Infectious disease diagnostic, oncology, autoimmune diseases, cardiac diseases, allergies & others which include pregnancy & fertility testing. The market segments have been extensively analyzed based on increase in demand for the disease diagnostic and use in research activities, availability of the technology, and cost efficiency of each technology. Different types of end-users are present in the multiplexed diagnostics market. The end-users are Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, clinical research organizations, and diagnostic laboratories. Under the end-user segment, the academic research institutes segment accounted for the largest share of the Global multiplexed diagnostics market in 2015 & is expected to dominate the market by 2024.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Multiplexed Diagnostics Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Geographically, the global Multiplexed Diagnostics Market has been categorized into five major regions and the key countries in the respective region: North America (U.S. and Canada), Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, Australia & New Zealand, and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Rest of Middle East & Africa).The report also profiles major players in the Global multiplexed diagnostics market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Agilent Technologies, BioMerieux SA, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Illumina, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Hologic, Inc., Luminex Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., and Abbott Laboratories.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Improved Security is Key Feature Egging Banks and Vendors Towards Smart Cards http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/smart-card.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=844 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Smart cards are IC-based cards that accumulate and retrieve information using various computer systems. Smart cards consist of central processing units and memory units. Smart cards primarily act as a cost-effective way to store, manage, and maintain credentials for their users. This makes these products highly convenient for different applications. In addition, the portability of smart cards enables their extensive adoption across different applications. Currently, smart cards are widely used across sectors such as telecommunications, BFSI, and government. Due to the numerous advantages they offer, smart cards are increasingly used in the healthcare, government IDs (e-passports), and retail sectors. Thus, strong ongoing adoption of smart cards across different sectors is estimated to substantially spur the markets growth in the coming years.Browse Market Research Report @The research study titled Smart Cards Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016 - 2023 provides in-depth analysis of the market and related sub-segments. The report strategically focuses on market segments including different types of smart cards and components. In addition, this report provides market insights and forecasts of the size and growth of each segment across each of the geographic regions. The report includes detailed analysis of prevalent market trends and profiles of key players. In order to provide better understanding of competition in the market, the report offers ecosystem analysis and competitive landscape. The study on the global smart cards market has been conducted with the objective of providing thorough coverage of the underlying technological and socio-economic factors driving the market.The smart cards market is expected to see consistent growth in the coming years due to the increasing demand for secure and reliable payment transactions across the retail and BFSI sectors. Moreover, cost-saving schemes for merchants from payments brands such as Visa, MasterCard, and Europay is driving the smart card technology innovations. The decreasing prices of subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and tariff rates are increasing the number of mobile subscribers, and thus further contributing to the growth of the smart cards market. However, factors such as price pressures and technological challenges along with the cost of migrating to smartcard compatible readers affect the adoption of smartcards. Conversely, technological advancements, falling prices, and the introduction of high-end SIMs offer potential opportunities for the growth of the smart cards market.This report studies the current scenario as well as the future market potential for smart cards globally. The market for smart cards has been segmented based on three major parameters: card type, components, and geography. The major types of smart cards used are contact smart cards, contactless smart cards, hybrid smart cards, and dual-interface smart cards. On the basis of components, the smart cards market is segmented into microcontroller-based smart cards and memory-based smart cards. The demand for microcontroller-based smart cards is significantly high owing to the wide adoption of such cards for contactless and dual-interface smart cards. The market size and forecast, in terms of revenue and volume (US$ Mn & Mn units), for each of these segments has been provided for the period from 2013 to 2023, considering 2013 and 2014 as the base years. For 2015, report provides actual data for the first half and estimate for the second half. Also, the report provides market size and forecast in terms of volume (Mn Units) for various segments for the above mentioned period. The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each segment of the market for the forecast period 2016 to 2023.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Geographically, the market for global smart cards has been segmented into four regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The report also provides a competitive landscape, wherein the market share analysis of leading players in the global smart cards market for the year 2014, in terms of value percentage, has been discussed. The report concludes with the company profiles section, which provides an overview of the major companies operating in the market including strategies deployed by them to gain competitive advantage, annual revenue generated by them in the past two years, and key developments in the market. The companies profiled in this report include the American Express Company, Atos SE, NXP Semiconductors NV, Infineon Technologies AG, Gemalto NV, INSIDE Secure, Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) GmbH, and Texas Instruments, Inc.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Medical Sensors Market will rise to US$ 2,476.8 Million by 2024 Medical Sensors Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/medical-sensors-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=407 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Medical sensors is a device that measures physical property of body and responds by converting it into an electrical or optical signal. These sensors play an important role in the chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular, and respiratory to measure the physical property by converting it into an electrical signal. Medical sensors market report analyzes the market in a view of different types of medical sensors i.e. pressure sensors, temperature sensors, image sensors, accelerometers, biosensors, flow sensors, SQUID sensors and others. The report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes a market snapshot that provides market dynamics of various segments and sub-segments that are included in the report in a precise manner. Moreover, executive summary comprises waterfall diagram, which reflects the market size of various segments in descending order.This 197 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Medical Sensors Market. Browse through 12 data tables and 25 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:A detailed qualitative analysis of the factors responsible for driving and restraining the growth of the global medical sensors market and future opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. This section of the report also provides market attractiveness analysis, epidemiology study, porters five forces analysis, supply and value chain analysis, average selling price analysis, regulatory framework and company market share analysis operating in the medical sensors market.Based on products, the global medical sensors market has been segmented into pressure sensors, temperature sensors, image sensors, accelerometers, biosensors, flow sensors, SQUID sensors and other sensors (chemical, level and force). The market for these types of sensors has been extensively analyzed. The market size and forecast in terms of US$ million for each products has been provided for the period from 2013 to 2023. The report on the medical sensors market also provides compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each of the market segments mentioned above for the forecast period from 2015 to 2023, considering 2014 as the base year.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Medical Sensors Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Geographically, the medical sensors market has been categorized into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Rest of the World (RoW). In addition, Asia Pacific is categorized as China and Rest of APAC and Latin America is further segmented as Brazil and Rest of LATAM. The market size and forecast for each of these regions have been provided for the period from 2013 to 2023 along with CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2013 to 2023. The research study also incorporates competitive scenario of major players in these regions.A list of recommendations has been provided for new entrants to help establish a strong presence and for existing market players to increase their market shares. The medical sensors market report concludes with the profiles of major players in the medical sensors market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report Honeywell International, Measurement Specialties, Danaher Corporation, and NXP Semiconductors.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Advanced Wound Care Management Market Research Report by Key Players Analysis Advanced Wound Care Management Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/advanced-wound-care-management-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=16139 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ The market for wound care is growing phenomenally, due to growing advancement is treating complex wounds. Advanced wound care market is anticipated to grow in forecasted period, as the products has been a promising solution for faster recovery and wound healing. These products offer superior solution than traditional products by offering desired outcome and effectiveness in healing wounds. The increasing incidences of chronic wound has aggravated the need for the products that offers faster and efficient wound healing. Thus, majority of hospitals have shifted their preferences towards the advanced wound care products. It helps to decrease the average length of stay in hospitals through early recovery from wounds. This assists to decrease the length of hospital stay in order to reduce surgical costs. Thus the rising need and demand for advanced products that increases therapeutic outcome drives the advanced wound care market.This 262 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Advanced Wound Care Management market. Browse through 36 data tables and 96 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:The report is a combination of primary and secondary research. Primary research formed the bulk of our research efforts, with information collected from telephonic interviews and interactions via e-mail. Secondary research involved study of company websites, annual reports, press releases, stock analysis presentations, and various national and international databases. The report provides market size in terms of US$ Mn for each segment for the period from 2014 to 2024, considering the macro and micro-environmental factors. Growth rates for each segment within the global advanced wound care market have been determined after a thorough analysis of past trends, demographics, future trends, technological developments, vaccination expenditure, and regulatory requirements.The market overview section of the report includes qualitative analysis of the overall advanced wound care market including the determining factors and market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities, along with white space analysis. In addition, market attractiveness analysis by geography, technique, product type, type of wounds, end-user, and competitive landscape by key players have been provided which explain the intensity of competition in the market considering different geographies. The competitive scenario between market players has been evaluated through market share analysis. These factors would help the market players take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and increase their shares in the global market.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Advanced Wound Care Management market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:The driving factors for advanced wound care market are mainly increasing demand for faster recovery, decrease in healthcare cost by decreasing average length of stay in hospital, rising population falling for trauma, etc. Advanced wound care market is anticipated to grow in forecasted period, as the products has been a promising solution for faster recovery and wound healing. These products offer superior solution than traditional products by offering desired outcome and effectiveness in healing wounds. The increasing incidences of chronic wound has aggravated the need for the products that offers faster and efficient wound healing. Thus, majority of hospitals have shifted their preferences towards the advanced wound care products. It helps to decrease the average length of stay in hospitals through early recovery from wounds. This assists to decrease the length of hospital stay in order to reduce surgical costs. Thus the rising need and demand for advanced products that increases therapeutic outcome drives the advanced wound care market.Geographically, the global advanced wound care market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The applications of advanced wound care are rapidly growing in North America due to increasing direct and indirect investments by the U.S. Government and private companies in wound care. Increasing investments and penetration by key market players in Asia Pacific are likely to drive the advance wound care market during the forecast period.Major players in the advanced wound care management market are 3M, Acelity L.P. Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, BSN medical GmbH, Coloplast A/S, ConvaTec Inc., Medline Industries, Inc., Medtronic, Molnlycke Health Care, Organogenesis, Inc., and Smith & Nephew plc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: White Biotechnology Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 White Biotechnology Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/white-biotechnology-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2317 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ This report on the white biotechnology market studies the current as well as future prospects of the market globally. Environment concerns related to emission of greenhouse gases and dependence on non-renewable resources are the major challenges in the developed and developing nations.This research report provides a detailed analysis of the white biotechnology market and helps understand the various driving factors for the growth of the market. The market overview section analyzes market dynamics and trends such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of the market. Porters Five Forces Analysis has been covered in terms of bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threat of new entrants and substitutes, and competitive rivalry in the global white biotechnology market. Value chain analysis and other market dynamics factors such as market attractiveness analysis have also been explained in order to deliver a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario of the global casting and splinting (supplies and equipment) market.This 166 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the White Biotechnology Market. Browse through () data tables and () figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:The white biotechnology market has been segmented based on product, application, feedstock, and region. Based on product, the market has been segmented into biochemical, biofuel, biomaterial, and bioproduct. In terms of application, the market has been categorized into food & feed, pharmaceuticals, pulp & paper, textile, energy, and others. Based on feedstock, the market has been segmented into grains & starch crops, agricultural residues, food waste, forestry material, animal by-product, energy crops, and urban & suburban waste.The executive summary provides detailed insights about the report and the market in general. This elaborate executive summary provides a glimpse into the present scenario of the global white biotechnology market, which includes a market snapshot that provides overall information of various segments and sub-segments. The executive summary also provides overall information and data analysis of the global white biotechnology market with respect to market segments based on product, application, feedstock, and geographic regions. The market for white biotechnology has been extensively analyzed based on usefulness, effectiveness, sales revenue, and geographic presence. The market size and forecast in terms of US$ Bn for each product type, application, and feedstock has been provided for the period from 2016 to 2024. This report on the white biotechnology market also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the White Biotechnology Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Geographically, the white biotechnology market has been segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The market size and forecast for each of these regions have been provided for the period from 2016 to 2024, along with CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. The research study also incorporates the competitive scenario in these regions.A list of recommendations has been provided for new entrants as well as existing players to help establish a strong presence in the market and increase market share. The report also profiles major players in the white biotechnology market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Archer Daniels Midland Company, BASF SE, Cargill, Inc., DuPont, Corbion, DSM, Novozymes, and Lesaffre.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Personal Accident and Health Insurance in Poland, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1057711 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz Timetrics 'Personal Accident and Health Insurance in Poland Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides a detailed outlook by product category for the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment, and a comparison of the Polish insurance industry with its regional counterparts.It provides key performance indicators such as written premium, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio, total assets, total investment income and retentions during the review period (2011-2015) and forecast period (2015-2020).The report also analyzes distribution channels operating in the segment, gives a comprehensive overview of the Polish economy and demographics, and provides detailed information on the competitive landscape in the country.The report brings together Timetrics research, modeling and analysis expertise, giving insurers access to information on segment dynamics and competitive advantages, and profiles of insurers operating in the country. The report also includes details of insurance regulations, and recent changes in the regulatory structure.SummaryTimetrics 'Personal Accident and Health Insurance in Poland, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2020' report provides in-depth market analysis, information and insights into the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment, including:An overview of the Polish personal accident and health insurance segmentThe Polish personal accident and health insurance segments growth prospects by categoryA comprehensive overview of the Polish economy and demographicsA comparison of the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment with its regional counterpartsThe various distribution channels in the Polish personal accident and health insurance segmentDetails of the competitive landscape in the personal accident and health insurance segment in PolandDetails of regulatory policy applicable to the Polish insurance industryScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the personal accident and health insurance segment in Poland:It provides historical values for the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment for the reports 2011-2015 review period, and projected figures for the 2015-2020 forecast period.It offers a detailed analysis of the key categories in the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment, and market forecasts to 2020.It provides a comparison of the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment with its regional counterpartsIt provides an overview of the various distribution channels for personal accident and health insurance products in Poland.It profiles the top personal accident and health insurance companies in Poland, and outlines the key regulations affecting them.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:Reasons To BuyMake strategic business decisions using in-depth historic and forecast market data related to the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment, and each category within it.Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities in the Polish personal accident and health insurance segment.Assess the competitive dynamics in the personal accident and health insurance segment.Identify growth opportunities and market dynamics in key product categories.Gain insights into key regulations governing the Polish insurance industry, and their impact on companies and the industry's future.Key HighlightsOn March 17, 2016, the European Commission (EC) stated that there was uncertainty regarding the renewal of the Insurance Block Exemption Regulation (Regulation 267/2010), which is due to expire on March 31, 2017.Solvency II came into force in Poland on January 1, 2016. It is based on three pillars: risk-based quantitative requirements, governance and supervision, and disclosure and transparency.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Micro Guide Catheters Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 Micro Guide Catheters Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/micro-guide-catheters-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=11966 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Micro Guide Catheters are used to treat difficult invasive lesion in hospitals, specialty clinics and ambulatory surgery centers etc. Micro guide catheters are designed with hydrophilic coating tip. The selection of micro guide catheter depends on the severity of lesion, location of lesion in human body. Micro guide catheters are available in different coating and different tip shape. The report on micro guide catheters market, analyzes the current and future prospects of the market. Micro guide catheters are used for treatment such as chronic total occlusion, brain aneurysm and other life style disease. The report consists of an executive summary that provides information about the products, its segments along with a market snapshot and comparative analysis by geography, in terms of revenue %, for 2015.A detailed overview of market dynamics, including the drivers, restraints, and opportunities of this market, along with porters analysis, value chain analysis, of the global market, has been provided in this report. Market revenue analysis for all the above mentioned segments has been provided for the forecast period of 2016-2024, considering 2015 as the base year, and 2014 as the historical year, along with compound annual growth rate (CAGR %), for the forecast period of 2016-2024. Market share estimations were based on in-depth analysis and study of products, and their features etc.This 165 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Micro Guide Catheters Market. Browse through 24 data tables and 62 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:The research methodology is a combination of primary and secondary research. Primary research includes information collected via e-mails, and telephonic interviews of key opinion leaders (KOL), and forms the bulk of our research. Secondary research includes information collected from various sources, by study of company websites, annual reports, stock analysis presentations, press releases, and various national and international databases.This report provides in-depth analysis of the micro guide catheters market. The stakeholders for this report include companies involved in the manufacturing of micro guide catheters. Executive summary section is included snapshot on stakeholders in this report, which summarizes the market size, trends and competition in different regions. Market players and Market share analysis is analyzed to signify percentage share of the major players operating in this market. Furthermore, the report includes market attractiveness analysis by geography that depicts the most attractive and significant region in the global market in 2015.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Micro Guide Catheters Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Based on product type, the market has been segmented into over-the-wire micro guide catheter and flow directed micro guide catheter. Over-the-wire catheter is growing at a considerable CAGR from 2016 to 2014 due to it several advantages and application. Based on indication, the micro guide catheters are segmented into cardiovascular diseases, neurovascular diseases and others. The cardiovascular segment is expected to grow at a highest CAGR between 2016 and 2024. Based on end users, the market is segmented as hospitals, specialty clinics, and ambulatory surgery centers.Based on geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The regions are further segmented into major countries which include, U.S., Canada, Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Spain, rest of Europe, China, Japan, India, Australia, Rest of Asia Pacific, Brazil, Mexico, Rest of Latin America, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Rest of Middle East & Africa. The report also comprises list of major players in the market, their SWOT analysis, market share of these players in the Micro guide catheters Diagnostic market, key business strategies, product portfolios, and recent developments.Key market players profiled in this report include, Cardinal Health, Asahi Intecc Co., Ltd, Cook Medical, Boston Scientific Corporation, Penumbra, Inc., Merit Medical Systems, Inc., Terumo Europe NV, Medtronic Plc, Integer Holdings Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V. among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Global Recruitment Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021) http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1025506 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz Recruitment is defined as a process of searching employees for an organization. The process involved in this includes conducting job analysis, sourcing the talent, and screening of talents. The recruitment/staffing market is bifurcated into two segments; general and professional recruitment, both of which can be further classified into temporary and permanent staffing.Demographic trends largely affect the staffing market that grows as the labor force supply increases. A change in demographic transition can become a factor in dampening economic expansion and GDP growth, which in turn would cause a decline in the global recruitment market. The global recruitment market will be driven by factors such as intensifying involvement of social media and online job platforms, growth prospects in emerging economies, rising industrial production, and increased volume of mergers and acquisitions in the industry.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:Staffing/recruiting sales are highly correlated with gross domestic product (GDP). As GDP expands, so does recruiting market. So, the market is trending with budding new business environment, rise in foreign born workers, rising staffing index, VMS & MSO usage, and high demand for skilled and professional workers. However, the market growth will be hindered by decline in labor force participation, ageing workforce, and skill shortage.The report offers an in-depth analysis of the global recruitment market. It also covers the regional aspect of the market. The report profiles Adecco SA, Randstad Holding NV, Manpower Group and Recruit Group.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Global Remittance Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2015-2020) http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1001570 http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketresearchreports-biz The remittance industry contributes to the economic growth of the countries participating in the practice as well as to the livelihood of the individuals involved. The remittance system is comprised of the Remittance Service Providers (RSP), Remittance Corridors, the Remittance Network and the Money transfer system. Remittance Services are divided primarily on the basis of ways a network of access points is created and linked. There are broadly four categories: unilateral services, franchised services, negotiated services and open services.The key factors driving the growth of remittance market are increasing international migration, growing urbanization, accelerating economic growth and rising employment opportunities. A noteworthy trend of this industry is cost by sending and receiving method, unstable remittance cost, increased access to financial services, changing technology landscape for payments, more convenience and lesser costs, advancement in technology, and maturing of immigrant communities. However, the expansion of the market is hindered by de-risking is threatening the industry and access points establishment.Download Sample Copy of This Report at:The report Global Remittance Market provides an in-depth analysis of the global remittance market, along with a study of top remittance receiving and contributing countries. The report also includes detailed description of regional markets. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the industry are being presented in this report. The industry comprises few large players such as MoneyGram International Inc., Western Union Company and Euronet Worldwide Inc. All these companies have been profiled in the present report highlighting their key financials and business strategies for growth.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn: Global Strain Gages Market Analysis by Manufacturers, Types and Applications, Forecast to 2022 https://goo.gl/T0n4pr https://goo.gl/nuH0mk https://goo.gl/IMRXbS Global Strain Gages Market 2017 report spread across 117 pages gives Market Segment Analysis by Key Manufacturers, Countries, Types and Applications. Strain gages are devices whose resistance changes under the application of force or strain. They can be used for measurement of force, strain, stress, pressure, displacement, acceleration etc.Complete report is available atScope of the Report:This report focuses on the Global Strain Gages market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers: VPG, HBM, Zemic, Yiling, HYCSYQ, NMB, KYOWA, LCT, Omega, TML, BCM, Piezo-Metrics, HualanhaiMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers: North America (USA, Canada and Mexico); Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy); Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia); South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.); Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers: Stress Analysis Type, Transducer Type, Other (for Special Applications)Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into: Electrical Equipment, Civil Engineering, Building Construction, Chemicals and Medicine, OtherRequest for discount atThere are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Strain Gages market.Chapter 1 to describe Strain Gages Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2 to analyze the top manufacturers of Strain Gages, with sales, revenue, and price of Strain Gages, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3 to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4 to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Strain Gages, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11 to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Order copy of report atChapter 12 Strain Gages market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15 to describe Strain Gages sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.ReportsnReports.com is your single source for all market research needs. Our database includes 500,000+ market research reports from over 95 leading global publishers & in-depth market research studies of over 5000 micro markets.Ritesh Tiwari,+ 1 888 391 5441sales@reportsandreports.com Testing and Analysis Services Market to grow 5.6% CAGR from 2015 to 2023 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/testing-analysis-services-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=7643 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Testing and analysis services market is engaged in the provision of testing and analysis services (and related services) for industries including oil and gas, mineral and mining, food and beverage, and chemical and other commodities. The purpose of these services is to help increase manufacturing efficiency, help local producers meet global standards, manage risk and improve the quality, safety and compliance of a company and their products or services. Future trends and development in the testing and analysis services industry depends upon technological advancement and regulatory scenario globally. For instance, the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed in 2011, has been considered as the most comprehensive food safety legislation in the U.S. The passage of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938 has completely changed food and beverage standards. The legislation has obelized domestic and foreign laboratories to adopt appropriate testing and analysis methodologies, and must conduct all regulatory food testing as new Food Safety Modernization Act.Read Report -The report explores vast scope of global testing and analysis services market and draws upon the market analysis through four broad perspectives: sample type, analysis type, industry participants, and geography. Following the brief economic slowdown in 2009, the testing services market has accelerated due to mandatory government requirements regarding the products such as quality assurance, safety, and product characterization. Furthermore, expansion of testing services into end markets such as food safety and oil and gas analysis has been a major driver of organic growth for several companies. Increasing trend of outsourcing of testing services is also propelling the market growth owing to its innate benefits such as cost effectiveness and quality services. According to Laboratory Services Outsourcing Survey, 2012, 93% of participant organizations have outsourced some form of laboratory services.The critical need for testing services is expected to increase in the next few years especially in pharmaceutical, medical devices, and food and beverages industry owing to new legislations regarding safety and compliance. The need would further augment with growing manufacturing sector in the developing world such as India, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, and Indonesia. The testing and analysis services market is highly fragmented with large number of small companies, propagating intense competition by offering services at low cost. The effect of competition is clearly visible in the industry, and even major players are no exception to this. This has resulted in higher customer acquisition cost which affected profitability and put small laboratories on the risk of shutdown. However, none of the large companies reported organic revenue decline in any year since 2000, although some segments are cyclical. In addition, acquisition has been one of the core strategies for all major global players and mid-sized companies. For instance, SGS has completed 32 deals since 2010 and Bureau Veritas has acquired 50 businesses in the past five years.Major players operating in the testing and analysis service market include Bureau Veritas , SGS S.A., Intertek Group plc, ALS Global, Eurofins, Exova, TUV Rheinland, Acuren, Maxxam, Koninklijke Philips N.V., TUV SUD, Applus, and LECO Corporation.Inquire for a Sample Copy of Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Breast Cancer Therapeutics Market to Focus on Developing Companion Diagnostics Models http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/breast-cancer-therapeutics-pipeline-analysis-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=5678 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The increasing risk of breast cancer amongst women due to early onset of menopause, growing pool of geriatric women, and lifestyle changes are some of the factors driving the breast cancer therapeutics market. The changes in delayed childbearing, reproductive patterns, reduced breast feeding, excessive intake of oral contraceptive pills, and other estrogen modifying drug therapies are also contributing to the increasing risks of breast cancer amongst women.The growing problem of obesity is also considered to be a major factor contributing towards rising cases of breast cancer. The fat tissues are known to be major producers of estrogen amongst postmenopausal women. Thus, excess fat and the high prevalence of obesity is indirectly driving the global breast cancer therapeutics market.Read Report -The growth of domestic pharmaceutical companies that are making investments to meet the unmet demands of patients by manufacturing generic drugs as several patented drugs reach their patient expiration date are expected to boost the market. Furthermore, this market is also expected to find opportunity in developing companion diagnostic models that are customized for specific patients in accordance with the molecular characteristics of their malignancy.However, the entry of local drug manufacturers has intensified the competition in the breast cancer therapeutics market. These manufacturers are offering generic versions of breast cancer drugs, which is severely impacting the market for branded drugs. The exorbitant cost of surgeries, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy also makes it unaffordable for a large number of patients, especially in the developing regions, where healthcare infrastructure is poor. All of these factors are expected to hamper the growth of the breast cancer therapeutics market in the foreseeable future.Currently, North America holds a sizeable share in the global breast cancer therapeutics market due to supportive insurance schemes. In the coming years, this regional segment will acquire a 36.2% share of the overall market revenue. The significant drug segment in the market will be HER2 inhibitors in the forecast period as patents near expiration dates, giving entry to generic drugs. Thus, this drug segment will expand at a CAGR of 6.2% between 2015 and 2023. Given these positive developments, the opportunity in the overall market is also expected to rise to US$16.21 bn by 2023 from US$7.17 bn in 2014, enabling the market to exhibit a CAGR of 8.4% between 2015 and 2023.Inquire for a Sample copy of Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Wearable Fitness Technology Market - Worldwide Business Analysis, Trends, Prediction 2025 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/wearable-fitness-technology-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=23444 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Wearable fitness technology concerns any kind of electronic product that have been designed to be worn by the person so that it can keep a track of its footsteps, heartbeat so that one can keep himself fit and fine and also give a real time information about the health of the overall body. The global Wearable Fitness Technology market is anticipated to witness a robust growth rate during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025 owing to the rise in disposable income in the developing economies that have led to the awareness about fitness among the common peopleThe global Wearable Fitness Technology market is expected to witness a progressive growth in the coming years due to the increasing consumer preferences regarding Wearable Fitness Technology. This wearable fitness help the consumer to track their footsteps and also display the notification of smartphone. In addition the growing awareness of chronic diseases and obesity have led to the adoption of such wearable devices so that it can give real time information about the overall health of the body. These wearables can provide information like, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, calorie intake and also other information that is required by the body for day to day activities.However, the high initial cost and the limited battery life of the wearable devices is predicted to inhibit its adoption rate to some extent in the coming eight years. In spite of this challenges the increasing demand for connected devices have accelerated the growth of this market.Browse The Report :For the purpose of providing detailed research report, the global Wearable Fitness Technology market is segmented on the basis of product type, component, technology, end use and geography. On the basis of product type the market is segmented into wrist wear, body wear, neck wear, eye wear and others. Among the different product types of wearable technology available in the market, the wrist wear is expected to grow at a higher rate owing to its facilities to track the footsteps, heartbeats and manage smartphone notification as compared to the other product types. On the other hand, based on component, the market has been classified into display, processor, memory chip, power management components, sensors and others. The display holds the largest market share compared to the other components due to the fact that day by day display technology is evolving like haptic touch/tactile, active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED), organic light emitting diode(OLED). Thus it is one of the most expensive part of wearable device On the basis of technology the market has been classified into display technology, computing technology, positioning technology, sensor technologies and others.Wearable fitness technology also finds its application across various end user segments including healthcare, consumer electronics, defense, fitness and wellness and others. Among various end user segment, fitness and wellness is expected to witness the growth rate at a highest CAGR during the forecast period. Attributes such growing concern of obesity and other chronic diseases have led to the adoption of Wearable Fitness Technology in the fitness and wellnessMake an Inquiry :Geographically, the global Wearable Fitness Technology market has been further divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. North America is expected to hold the largest share of the wearable fitness technology market among the different regions in 2016. The Wearable Fitness Technology market of North America is majorly driven by the U.S owing to increasing awareness about fitness. On the flip side, the Asia Pacific Wearable Fitness Technology market is expected to witness a high growth rate during the forecast period owing to the rise in disposable incomes in the developing countries.Some of the key vendors operating in the global Wearable Fitness Technology market includes Adidas (Germany), Apple, Inc. (The U.S.), Fitbit, Inc. (U.S.), Google, Inc. (The U.S.), LG Electronics Inc. (South Korea), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd (South Korea), Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd (China) and many more.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Global Cardiovascular Monitoring and Diagnostic Devices Market is Expected to Expand at a High Single-Digit CAGR from 2016 to 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/crdiovascular-monitoring-diagnostic-devices.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2385 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Being the leading cause of death and witnessing a high rise in prevalence, the class of ailments that come under the purview of cardiovascular diseases is witnessing increased focus from healthcare, research, and government bodies alike. A large number of companies are venturing into the market with an innovative range of products for diagnosing and treating a variety of cardiovascular diseases. Research and development activities are being granted increasingly more funds and governments bodies are implementing various health schemes aimed at reducing the prevalence and improving awareness about cardiovascular diseases.Browse Market Research Report @Transparency Market Research states that the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market held an opportunity of US$1.8 bn in 2015. The market is expected to expand at a 6.4% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024, and rise to a valuation of US$3.1 bn by 2024.Electrocardiogram (ECG) Systems Lead on Account of Cost Effectiveness and High EfficiencyThe product segment of ECG systems presently holds the largest share in the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market. The widespread presence and high preference for ECG systems in developed and developing regions alike are key to the segments leading market position. ECG systems are expected to remain the key contributor to the markets overall revenues over 206 and 2024 as well, expanding at a 6.3% CAGR in the global market.However, the segment of implantable loop recorders is expected to witness the fastest expansion, a 7.1% CAGR from 2016 to 2024. The segment is projected to benefit from the rising awareness about the use of these devices in diagnosing syncope. As several cases of the disease remain undiagnosed when other conventional diagnostic methods are used, implantable loop recorders are gaining an increased level of adoption across medical diagnostic centers globally. The valuation of the segment is expected to reach US$152.7 mn by 2024.The segment of Holter monitors also holds immense growth promise owing to the rising prevalence of conditions such as arrhythmia and conduction block. The segment was valued at US$416.1 mn in 2015 and is expected to expand at a high single-digit CAGR from 2016 to 2024.North America to Continue Taking Largest Share of Pie but Emerging Economies Hold More PromiseNorth America accounted for the largest share of the overall revenues of the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market in 2015. The region is expected to remain the largest market over the period between 2016 and 2024 as well. Factors such as favorable reimbursement policies, high awareness about available diagnosis and treatment methods among patients and physicians, favorable reimbursement policies, and efficient healthcare infrastructure are factors that will help North America remain at the forefront of the global market. Europe, the second largest contributor to the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market in 2015, will also remain a lucrative owing to large scale healthcare infrastructure development activities and rising prevalence of cardiovascular disease.For more information on this report, fill the form @However, developing regions such as Latin America and Asia Pacific will present the most promising growth opportunities for the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market over the period between 2016 and 2024. The presence of vast untapped growth prospects, rising healthcare expenditure, and increasing awareness about the efficiency of available techniques and devices in effectively curing several cardiovascular conditions will remain key to the overall growth of the market.Several research studies also state that the risk of cardiovascular diseases is substantially high in mid- and low-income economies. This substantiates the fact that a large variety of cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices will be consumed in Asia Pacific and Latin America in the next few years. The market for these devices will expand at a 7.5% in Asia Pacific and a 7.3% CAGR in Latin America over the period between 2016 and 2024.In the highly dynamic global market for cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market, the top two vendors, GE Healthcare and Philips Healthcare accounted for a more than 55% of the global market in 2015. Other key vendors in the market are Spacelabs Healthcare, St. Jude Medical, Inc., and Siemens Healthcare.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: UV Transilluminators Market - Worldwide Business Analysis, Growth, Trends, Estimate 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/uv-transilluminators-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=23447 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Ultraviolet transilluminators provide gleaming illumination of transparent materials which are placed on the area which needs to be filtered. Some of the key characteristics of the Ultraviolet transilluminators are providing sparkling back illumination on transparent material. The ultraviolet transiliminator is uniquely designed with focus in ultraviolet uniformity and intensity. Further, this ultraviolet transiliminator is designed to detect dyed double stranded nucleic acids. The ultraviolet transilluminators has high sensitivity and are capable of detecting double stranded nucleic acids which are labeled with fluorescent dyes such as acridine orange and ethidium bromide. Further, single stranded nucleic acids could also be detected with lesser excitation 302 nm ultraviolet wavelength which is more sensitive to nucleic acid visualization. Ultraviolet transilluminators finds application in molecular biology labs for studying RNA (or DNA) which are separated by electrophoresis with a help of an agarose gel.Browse The Report :Immediately after the electrophoresis takes place, the agarose gel is stained with fluorescent dye which helps in binding the nucleic acid. This stained gel is then exposed to UVB light source which provides the DNA / dye fluoresces to become visible. Researchers take up these processes whenever there is a need for taking a sample. This techniques applied by researchers for purifying DNA segment, PCR products, quantifying DNA and verifying integrity after the extraction is completed. Thus the above mentioned applications are expected to drive the ultraviolet transilluminators over the next few years. A key factor which is restraining the ultraviolet transilluminators market is the high cost of the device and thus it is not feasible for small scale industry to implement this device. Further application of ultraviolet transilluminators in the microscopy is a key opportunity for the ultraviolet transilluminators market in the near future. Ultraviolet transilluminators are still not widely used in the microscopy sector. This untapped sector is a key opportunity for the ultraviolet transilluminators market over the near future.The Ultraviolet transilluminators by application has been segmented into microscopy, medicine, dentistry and others. The medicine segment is further sub segmented into hydrocele, pneumothorax (collapsed lungs) and hydrocephalus. The medicine segment led the ultraviolet transilluminators market in 2016 and is expected to grow at a stable rate over the next few years.Geographically the ultraviolet transilluminators market could be broadly segmented into North America, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. North America led the ultraviolet transilluminators market globally and is expected to be the largest contributor in the market over the next few years. Growth in demand for latest digital ultraviolet transilluminators in North America as digital ultraviolet transilluminators are more safer and easier to operate, these are some of the factors driving the ultraviolet transilluminators market in North America. Europe is expected to follow North America in the ultraviolet transilluminators market over the next few years. Further, growth in demand for personalized medicine in North America is expected to drive the demand for ultraviolet transilluminators. High rate of investment in research and development for innovation and development of a wide range of technology, product and services is expected to drive the demand for ultraviolet transilluminators in this region. Further, the ultraviolet transilluminators market in Asia Pacific is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years. There is significant concentration of investment made especially from the government sector in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector. Further entry of new players in the region is expected to drive the ultraviolet transilluminators market over the next few years.Make an Inquiry :Some of the key players operating in the ultraviolet transilluminators market include Bio Imaging Systems (NeveYamin, Israel), Cleaver Scientific Ltd. (United Kingdom), Maestrogen (Taiwan), FOTODYNE Incorporated (Hong Kong, Japan), VWR International LLC (Pennsylvania, U.S.), Spectronics Corporation (New York, U.S), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (Massachusetts, U.S.) and UVP LLC (California, U.S.) among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: NAND Flash Memory Market - Worldwide Business Analysis, Growth, Trends, Estimate 2025 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/nand-flash-memory-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=23624 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com NAND Flash technology delivers a cost-effective solution for applications demanding solid-state storage and high density. NAND Flash design together with NOR Flash construction dominates the market for non-volatile Flash. Thus, NAND Flash's various characteristics which includes low power, scalable design, cost effective and high-density, make it an ideal choice to fuel the demand of new multimedia products which are entering the global market. In addition, current memory designs are moving to NAND Flash to take various advantage that includes lower cost and higher density for high performance applications.In recent trends, a number of applications have been catered by NAND flash memory. Additionally, NAND flash memory have been developed and commercialized recently for various memory application which includes mobile phones, solid state drives, MP3/PMP players, Flash memory cards and USB Flash drives. Therefore, the NAND Flash Memory market is predicted to witness a steady growth during the projection period from 2017 to 2025. However, more advanced NAND devices and higher density devices may have additional features and different parameters have added extra benefit for consumer storage, audio, and video products among others. This in turn is fuelling the demand of NAND Flash Memory market during the forecast period.Browse The Report :Global NAND Flash Memory market has been segmented on the basis of product type, end use industry and geography. On the basis of product type, global NAND Flash Memory market has been segmented into smartphone & tablets, laptop & PC's and camera among others. Across the globe new technology embedded product has been growing at a high rate and as the existing technology do not have the competency of handling massive data accurately. Therefore, various smart devices manufacturers are now focusing on installation of NAND flash memory in electronics devices to increase the operation efficiency of the product. This is expected to increase the demand of NAND Flash Memory Market in coming years.In addition, global NAND Flash Memory market is classified on the basis of end use industry into consumer electronics, industrial, automotive and healthcare among others. This NAND flash memory devices has superior speed and also relatively cheaper than other available options in the global memory market. Therefore, the new technological advancement of NAND flash memory has been adopted by various major manufacturing company for consumer electronics product in order to fulfill the demand of larger storage space. This is anticipated to increase the demand of NAND Flash Memory Market in coming years. At this present time, NAND flash memory is one of the major popular, flexible and reliable nonvolatile memories to store software code and constant data values.Additionally, the rising demand of storage solution across various applications of consumer electronics and enterprise storage sectors is growing significantly which is driving the growth of the NAND Flash Memory market during the forecast period. On the flip side, expensive initial prices of NAND flash memory is restraining the growth of global NAND flash memory market.Geographically, global NAND Flash Memory market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle- East and Africa (MEA), Latin America. In 2016, Asia Pacific held the largest share of the NAND Flash Memory market due to the high technological adoption of memory devices in consumer electronics and enterprise storage sectors among other industries in this region. North America is estimated to be the second largest market for NAND Flash memory market currently, followed by Europe. Furthermore, in Asia Pacific region owing to industrially developing economies in China, South Korea and India is enhancing the demand for Global NAND Flash Memory market. Furthermore, global memory devices manufacturers are now adopting various strategy of joint ventures and collaboration to extend their business and market share in global NAND Flash Memory market.The key players operational in the global NAND Flash Memory market includesSamsung (South Korea), Toshiba (Japan), SanDisk (The U.S), Micron Technology (The U.S), Hynix (South Korea), Intel (The U.S), Numonyx (Switzerland), Spansion (The U.S), Powerchip Technology Corporation (Taiwan) and Renesas Electronic (Japan) among others.Make an Enquiry :The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Situational Awareness System Market - Worldwide Business Analysis, Trends, Prediction 2025 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=23525 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/situational-awareness-system-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Situational awareness is about the ability of identifying, processing and comprehending the critical elements of information and further analyzing them with different systems that are the surveillance awareness systems (SAS). It involves being aware of different environmental situations by collection and interpretation of information that helps many organizations in taking informed decisions with timely actions. These systems are used across different areas such as traffic control and defense that needs continuous monitoring of different events making it even more crucial for timely action. SAS provides security along with risk analysis, threat identification, strategy planning and decide on the future course of action. The global market for situational awareness system has been segmented on the basis of components, product type, end use industry and geography. On the basis of component this market has been globally segmented into sensors, gyroscopes, global positioning systems and network providers among others. The various product type that has been considered under the scope of this report includes alarm systems, radio frequency identification, radars, sonar systems and control systems among others. Defense, aviation, automotive, industrial, cybersecurity and homeland security formed the major end use industries based on which the global market has been segmented.Global situational awareness system market on the basis of geography has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.The high demand for security and surveillance systems for timely detection of problems has been a major driver that has positively impacted this market globally. Use of situational awareness systems is increasing as a result of growing concern about improvement in security and public safety. Moreover, the command and control systems helps in monitoring threat identification along with assessment of risks that has further acted as another major driver for the market. Along with this, use of SAS also helps in strategic planning further leading to the development of future course of action. The rise in organized crime and terrorism has led to more focus being given to the need for security systems globally further having a positive impact on this market.Make an Enquiry :Post consideration of all these factors that positively impacts this market, there are also certain restraints that poses limitations over the market growth. The costs associated with implementation of situational awareness systems is quite high that may pose as a major challenge for this market. Furthermore, the infrastructure limitations also restraints the growth of this market globally. With all these drivers and restraints, it is the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) technology along with rise in application of sensors that is likely to provide huge growth opportunities in the coming years.Geographically, it is North America that forms one of the major regions contributing to the overall growth of this market followed by Europe. Growing demand for advanced security and surveillance systems, smart devices along with rise of cyber threats has been some major drivers that has pushed the demand for situational awareness system in this region. Other than these regions, Asia Pacific forms another major region contributing to the overall growth along with being one of the fastest growing regions globally. China and Japan form some of the leading countries contributing to the growth in Asia Pacific region. Rise in demand for internet based services along with growing adoption of smart appliances has been some major factors that has contributed to the growth of this market.Browse The Report :Some of the key players that are operating in the global situational awareness system market include Honeywell International Inc. (The U.S.), Denso Corporation (Japan), Qualcomm Inc. (The U.S.), General Electric (The U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (The U.S.), Lockheed Martin Corporation (), BAE Systems (The U.K.) and Rockwell Collins Inc. (The U.S.) among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Western Blotting Market: Global Analysis & 2023 Forecast Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/western-blotting-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=6877 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Western blotting is a technique that is specifically used for protein analysis. The western blotting technique initiates with separation of molecules using gel electrophoresis. At the end of electrophoresis the separated molecules are transferred to a second matrix which commonly includes polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) or nitrocellulose membrane. Then, to prevent any nonspecific binding of antibodies to the surface of the membrane it is blocked with a specific mechanism. As a probe was combined with an enzyme-labeled antibody an appropriate substrate is then added to the enzyme which together produces detectable product such as chromogenic precipitate on the membrane for colorimetric detection. There are two types of western blotting procedures direct and in direct detection methods. The various advantages associate with direct method are rapid effect due to presence of one antibody, and primary antibodies. The disadvantages of direct detection method consist of reduced immunoreactivity of primary antibody labeled primary antibody, expensive, low flexibility in choice of primary antibody label and minimal signal amplification. Moreover, indirect detection method has advantages such as secondary antibody amplifying signal, variety of labeled secondary antibodies, and primary antibody immunoreactivity remain unaffected by labeling. The various disorders related with indirect detection are non-specific staining produced by secondary antibodies and a time consuming process due to presence of additional steps.Browse through this Western Blotting Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:The western blotting market can be segmented on the basis of type of instrument such as manual, semi-automated and automated instruments. The consumables that are used in western blotting are also part of this market; western blotting kits, western blotting reagents and others. The western blotting reagents can be further sub-segmented as fluorescent reagents, chemifluorescent reagents, radioisotopic, reagents, chemiluminescent reagents, and chromogenic reagents. The other western blotting consumables are western blotting membranes, blotting papers and molecular weight markers. The western blotting market can be also segmented on the basis of its applications such as biomedical research, agriculture, disease diagnosis, and biochemical research. The diseases that are mainly diagnosed with the help of western blotting technique are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), LYME disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV).North America was observed to be the largest market for western blotting market. High awareness, escalating prevalence of diseases and introduction of advanced diagnostic technologies are the major factors driving the growth of this market. In 2010, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 1,148,200 persons aged 13 years and above were diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States, including 207,600 (18.1%) persons whose infections had not been diagnosed. Europe was observed to be the second largest market and one of the leading research destinations for diagnostics and treatment for BSE and HIV diseases. According to UNAIDS estimates, around 2.3 million people were diagnosed with HIV in the European region at the end of 2010. Estimated adult HIV prevalence varies from 0.2% in parts of Central Europe to 1% in parts of Eastern Europe. Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World were observed to be the most potential markets for western blotting market. These regions are developing their infrastructure and medical emergency processes which increase the demand for disease diagnostics techniques. The future growth in these geographical regions is expected due to increase in the diagnosed patients especially from the emerging economies such as India, Brazil, China, and other countries.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Western Blotting Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Some of the key players operating in this market are Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Advansta Inc., Proteinsimple, Inc., Li-Cor Biosciences, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, GE Healthcare, Perkinelmer, Inc., Merck Millipore, Roche Applied Science, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. and others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Her2 Antibodies Market Will be Chiefly Driven by the Rising Prevalence of Breast Cancer http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/her2-antibodies-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=7301 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Global Her2 Antibodies Market: OverviewHuman epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2) refers to an oncogene whose over-expression or amplification is commonly associated with the development of an aggressive type of breast cancer. Patients having the over-expression of Her2 receptors are diagnosed with the help of tests such as Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH) and Immunohistochemistry (IHC).Browse through this Her2 Antibodies Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the () market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The American Cancer Society states that around 15-30% of breast cancer cases over-express the Her2 gene. Her2 antibodies are reported to mediate the regression of tumor by interrupting oncogenic signals and/or inducing Fc receptor-mediated cytotoxicity. The field of Her2 antibodies has witnessed a significant rise in attention over the past few years owing to the effectiveness of Her2 antibody-based drugs and rising prevalence of breast cancer.Global Her2 Antibodies Market: Drivers and OpportunitiesThe global market for Her2 antibodies will be chiefly driven by the rising prevalence of breast cancer and an encouraging scenario of funding and regulatory support from cancer associations across the globe. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 252,710 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2017. About 63,410 new cases of non-invasive and earliest forms of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the country this year. Number of deaths resulting from breast cancer will reach 40,610, estimates the organization.The numbers are equally alarming across other regional markets and the situation calls for effective interventions for the treatment of the disease. Efforts directed towards this cause in the form of research and development will have a significant impact on the overall development of the global Her2 antibodies market in the next few years.Global Her2 Antibodies Market: Geographical OverviewFrom a geographical standpoint, the report covers the market for Her2 antibodies for regional markets such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. Of these, the North America market presently domiantes the global Her2 antibodies market owing to the high prevalence of breast cancer. The high disposable incomes and favorable reimbursement policies make Her2 antibody treatment affordable for patients in the region, which is also a key factor to have driven the market for Her2 antibodies over the past few years.Over the reports forecast period as well, North America will remain a lucrative regional market for Her2 antibodies, with factors such as the rapid pace of introduction of novel drug candidates and biosimilars boosting growth. Europe will also remain a key contributor of revenue to the global Her2 antibodies market, chiefly owing to favorable medical insurance policies and high disposable incomes of the population. The market for Her2 antibodies in regions such as Asia Pacific will be driven chiefly due to regulatory support and the increased adoption of chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer.Global Her2 Antibodies Market: Competitive DynamicsThe key Her2 antibodies available in the global market for the treatment of breast cancer include lapatinib (Tykerb), tratuzumab (Herceptin), Pertuzumab (Perjeta), Everolimus (Afinitor), and Ado-trastuzumab emtansine (TDM-1, Kadcyla). Of these, tratuzumab (Herceptin) is presently the most widely prescribed Her2 antibody drug for breast cancer. The expiry of this drugs patent in the European market in July 2014 led to the introduction of biosimilars. Roche will continue to own the patent for the drug in the U.S. until 2019. The company plans to launch new drugs in the Her2 antibody category - Pertuzumab (Perjeta) and Ado-trastuzumab emtansine (TDM-1, Kadcyla).Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Her2 Antibodies Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:The high demand for effective methods of treating breast cancer has opened vast growth opportunities for companies operating in the field of Her2 antibodies. The ever-expanding window of opportunity in the field has compelled many pharmaceutical companies to invest their funds and research efforts towards the development of effective drugs based on Her2 antibodies. Some of the leading players operating in the field are Epirus Biopharmaceuticals, Hospira, Inc., Genentech Inc., Biocon Limited, Avesthagen Pharma, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, and Celltrion, Inc.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Speedy Rate of Diabetes Patients is Expected to Boost the Growth of CIS Insulin Market During the Forecast Period http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/cis-insulin-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=8182 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Insulin is one of the most important peptide hormone produced by beta cells in the pancreas. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood to skeletal muscles and fat tissue and by causing fat to be stored rather than used for energy. Insufficient production of insulin leads to accumulation of sugar in blood cells which causes diabetes. The global market for CIS insulin is expected to boost due to driving factors such as growing number of diabetes cases worldwide, changing lifestyle and eating habits resulting in health disorders such as obesity and other metabolic diseases would fuel the market growth. Diabetic patient need supply of external insulin. According to International Diabetes Federation (IDF), 382 million people were diagnosed with diabetes worldwide as of 2013, and the number is expected to reach 550 million by 2030. This speedy rate of diabetes patients is expected to boost the growth of CIS insulin market during the forecast period. Deeper market penetration of insulin products due to extensive development in the insulin products and commercialization has also assisted insulin market to grow. Furthermore, introduction of manufacturer favoring regulations has encouraged multinational companies to enter into insulin production, which has considerably helped the market growth.Browse through this CIS Insulin Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:The CIS insulin market is segmented on the basis of product type, by application, by source and by geography. On the basis of product type, CIS insulin market is further segmented into rapid acting, long acting, short acting, intermediate acting and premixed. Long acting insulin accounted for the largest share in the CIS insulin market. The rapid acting insulin market is anticipated to have the highest growth rate in the near future. By application, the CIS insulin market is sub-segmented into type I Diabetes and Type II Diabetes. Type II Diabetes dominates the CIS insulin market, accounting for approximately 90% share. The availability of a wide variety of products in the Type II Diabetes segment and its high prevalence rate complements the growth of Type II Diabetes. Based on source, the CIS insulin market is classified into Analogs and Human Recombinant. The analog source segment, due to its high efficacy level holds the largest share in the CIS insulin market. The introduction highly efficient products such as ultra-fast analog and ultra-long acting analog booths market growth of analog source segment.Geographically, North America accounted for the largest CIS insulin market in the world followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The high prevalence rate of diabetes and metabolic diseases such as obesity acts as the major driver for the CIS insulin market. Additionally, continuous research and development in this field for efficient products would act as an assisting factor for market growth. Europe was the second largest market due to extensive government initiatives for the production and the regulating price, acting as the factor for the market growth. Asia-Pacific is observed to be an emerging market for CIS insulin market, due to majority of pharmaceutical companies choosing Asia-Pacific as the manufacturing destination. Moreover, rising population in countries such as China, India and others would result in the market growth for CIS insulin market. South American countries such as Brazil and Mexico are the regions that have significant potential for growth due to developing medical infrastructure, high disposable income and rise in population.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the CIS Insulin Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Some of the major players in the CIS insulin market include Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Novartis AG, Pfizer, Inc and others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Non-Invasive Cancer Diagnostics Market is Expected to Witness Highest Growth by 2023 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/noninvasive-cancer-diagnostics-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=8197 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Non-invasive diagnosis is a procedure of identifying a disease without or with minimal incision of the body. These methods involve different techniques such as identifying genetic structure, biomarkers, changes in molecular biology, along with imaging technologies. Cancer is a disease related to genetic alteration of the cells and therefore causing uncontrolled growth and forming tumor like structure. Imaging is the preferred method of cancer detection but cannot have genetic access; on the other hand biopsies which have genetic access are complicated and difficult to perform repetitively during the course of cancer diagnosis and therapy. Therefore newer techniques developed in lines with non invasive diagnosis such as molecular diagnosis, serum based immunoassays and chemical tests to identify chemical components in the body especially from blood and urine. All these procedures are performed either with non-surgical or minimal surgical procedures; therefore these non-invasive cancer diagnostic techniques are becoming more and more popular among healthcare practitioners.Browse through this Non-Invasive Cancer Diagnostics Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:According to WHO and World Cancer Report, by 2020, new cancer cases will be around 15 million annually, of which breast, ovarian and GI cancer are expected to be most commonly occurring types. Cancer is the disease condition which has highest prevalence rate all over the world and causes considerable amount of burden on economies. Therefore early and accurate detection of cancer along with monitoring its growth at later stages is very critical. Though invasive types of cancer diagnoses are accurate in early stages, the same procedures cannot be used for monitoring growth of cancer at different stages since surgeries are required for these types of diagnoses. The non-invasive cancer diagnosis has growth potential all across the world; however developed countries such as USA, UK, Japan, Canada and some emerging economies such as India, China, Brazil and Russia are observed to experience highest growth in demand for non-invasive cancer diagnostic.Non-invasive cancer diagnostics market can be segmented by various categories such as by region, by techniques and according to different types of oncological conditions. Geographically Non invasive cancer diagnostic market is segmented in four regions mainly North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. Out of all these four geographies, the contribution from North America is highest followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. Higher awareness among healthcare fraternity, availability of advanced diagnostic technologies in North America and European countries may help sustain the growth of non-invasive cancer diagnostics in these regions. On the other hand increasing incidences and prevalence of cancer and rising awareness in Asia-Pacific countries have created demand for non-invasive cancer diagnostic market sizably. On the basis of techniques for non invasive cancer diagnosis, market can be segmented in molecular biology, serum immunoassay and clinical component identification in blood and serum. As different types of cancer causes different molecular, biological and chemical changes in body therefore this market can be divided according to cancer types such as blood cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, skin cancer and others.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Non-Invasive Cancer Diagnostics Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:There are many companies operating in non invasive cancer diagnostic in market out of them Roche Diagnostics, Quidel, Immunicon Corporation, Compugen, DiagnoCure, Abbott Molecular, GE Healthcare, Precision Therapeutics, Affymetrix Inc, , Digene Corporation are the major contributor in this market. Introduction of various advanced technologies such as Cologuard by Exact Sciences will pave the way for the future of this market. In March 2014, the U.S. FDA approved the product for non-invasive testing of colorectal cancer which is one of the most frequently occurring types of cancer observed in recent years.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Water Trading Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 | Research Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/water-trading-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2529 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The research report on the global water trading market offers accurate and detailed answers to questions raised by current market statistics. The report incorporates a complete study of the water trading market with respect to its various drivers and restraints. It also discusses the role of leading countries in water trading projects such as Australia, Chile, the U.S., and the U.K. Market trends are fully explored, providing reliable predictions for the near and distant future. An explanation of the industrys overall growth rate is put forth using various market growth maps and overall developments in technology.Browse Market Research Report @Porters Five Force Analysis provides a thorough coverage of the top players in the global water trading market, while a SWOT analysis brings out its prominent aspects. An investigative value chain assessment and a unique examination of the micro and macro factors of the market provide the reader a useful perspective and valuable insights regarding player sustainability.OverviewThe research report on the global water trading market reveals all aspects connected to the developments in it. Water trading refers to the voluntary transfer of a prescribed amount of water between the buyer and the seller. This is done so that the waters purchaser can satisfy his end demand. Water trading provides a unique and responsive solution to the various verticals of end users in the global water trading market, which essentially refers to everyone who needs water. It is thus an answer for all the various types of users, urban as well as agricultural. It provides equivalent prices and water allocations with respect to the demand. According to Forbes, the global water trading market currently contains numerous projects that have so far conducted a total of more than 100 transactions in water trading, amounting to more than US$10 trillion. Some of the most prominent projects in the global water trading market include Payments for Watershed Services, Water Quality Trading, Herediam, Dar es Salaam, and Saltillo. Branches of the global water trading market include ground water mitigation and flow restoration projects.The primary growth factor for the global water trading market is the increasingly high demand for clean water around the world. A growing population needs larger volumes of water to sustain itself and its economic development. This has put increasing amounts of pressure on the global water trading market to form a supply chain that can be equal to the demand. One of the biggest disadvantages brought forth by water trading is the restriction and closure of public access to clean and healthy water in multiple locations.The major restraining factor in the global water trading market is the high infrastructure cost, which includes water transportation from seller to buyer. Other issues faced by the market include water rights, legal hassles, and social and political boundaries.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Companies mentionedThe key companies described in the research report include Severn Trent, Murray Irrigation, Calgon Carbon, Aqua America, Integra Water Services, and Ameron.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Solar Chimney Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 | Research Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/solar-chimney-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2508 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Global Solar Chimney Market: OverviewCurrently, the global market for solar chimneys is in a budding phase and is exhibit high prospects of future growth. The infrastructural advancements in emerging countries and the upswing in the demand for technologically advanced and automated systems is likely to drive this market significantly in the near future.Browse Market Research Report @Solar chimneys, commonly known as thermal chimneys, are the systems that provide ventilation using the solar energy. These chimneys function on the basis of three essential parts, namely, glass roof collector, wind turbines, and chimney. The air is passed through the glass roof, which then heats up the water existing in the tubes. This water, which gets heated up in the day time, eliminates heat at night, completing the function of solar chimneys.The increasing depletion of fossil non-renewable sources has shifted the focus of investors towards exploring renewable sources for energy generation. With the sun being the most prominent resource of renewable energy in the world, solar energy offers lucrative cost benefits in comparison to other renewable energy. As a result, consumers are highly attracted towards the products that function on solar energy, among which, solar chimneys are prominent ones. Although these chimneys run on a recently developed technique, their future is teeming with productive opportunities.This research study attempts to present a complete and an unbiased overview of the global market for solar chimneys on the basis of its past and existing performance. The key driving factors, restraints, significant trends, opportunities, challenges, and future prospects of this market have also been studied thoroughly in this research report.Global Solar Chimney Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe increasing implementation of strict regulations and norms by several governments for environmental protection is influencing the demand for solar chimneys greatly and is expected to continue doing so over the next few years.On the other hand, the poor efficiency level of these chimneys may limit their adoption to some extent in the near future. However, the swift industrialization in emerging economies and the rising awareness level of consumers about the advantages of solar chimneys, such as robust construction, cost efficiency, and the nominal need for maintenance are likely to create lucrative growth opportunities for this market in the coming years.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Global Solar Chimney Market: Geographical AnalysisThe global market for solar chimneys stretches across North America, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. North America has emerged as the key contributor to this market and is closely followed by Europe. Supported by the rising trend of green energy, North America is likely to retain its position as the global leader over the forthcoming years. However, Asia Pacific is projected to present most attractive opportunities for markets growth in the near future on account of the rising urbanization and the increasing initiatives by the governments to encourage the usage of renewable energy.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Dry Storage Casks Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 | Research Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/snf-dry-storage-casks.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2437 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com A surge of shutdowns may be observed in the future for most of the ageing nuclear reactors in the world. These reactors which have supplied power to millions of homes in the past have always faced hurdles in terms of public acceptance. With most nuclear plant owners unwilling to dish out extra millions for renovation of their old plants, gradual shutdowns are imminent. With the Fukishima disaster in Japan involving an old boiling water reactor built in the 70s, the public sentiment towards the old nuclear plants is likely to deteriorate. The major issue closely linked with decommissioning these old nuclear power plants is the efficient and safe disposal of nuclear waste. Decommissioning costs of nuclear plants are extremely high, going up to nearly a billion dollars for larger plants. Efficient storage of nuclear waste will occupy a majority portion of these costs. Radioactive half life of wastes ranges up to 16 million years while they remain hazardous for much longer. Storage of such nuclear spent fuel (NSF) will ultimately spark the demand for dry storage casks.Browse Market Research Report @Dry storage casks are generally the most viable method of storing high level nuclear waste which has been cooled down to manageable levels. Cooling of spent fuel requires over a year and sometimes nearly 8 years bringing down to manageable temperatures. Concrete or steel are the major materials used for making these casks, which are able to withstand the harshest of temperature and weather conditions without damage. Not only do inert gases surround and insulate the spent fuel rods in these containers, concrete layers are also present to provide additional radiation shielding to waste handling personnel.These NSF dry storage casks should be transportable as well, a feature which is incorporated into them during manufacturing. With a majority of the old nuclear power reactors going for decommissioning, thus approaching their wet pool storage limit for NSF, dry cask demand is likely to increase significantly in the future.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@The market for these NSF dry cask storages is likely to be driven by certain countries. Japan with its decision to decommission existing nuclear reactors and move towards a renewable oriented generation mix can be a potential market. While other countries have not decided yet to walk on Japans path, long lasting effects of the Fukishima disaster are imminent. Decommissioning of old reactors might be the general public and regulatory sentiment in many countries, to be replaced by newer and more efficient power plants. A major requirement of such dry storage casks may be observed from the North American region, with both the U.S. and Canada deciding to shut down and replace a number of their old reactors.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Oil and Gas Accumulator Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 | Research Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/oil-gas-accumulators.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2420 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Global Oil and Gas Accumulators Market: OverviewAccumulators are the energy storage devices that accumulate the potential energy. These devices find their applications in leakage compensation, shock or pulsation dampening, energy conservation, thermal expansion, and noise reduction. The commonly available types of these devices are spring type, piston type, and diaphragms. These devices are used for both offshore and onshore oil and gas applications. Owing to the efficiency offered by them, the market for oil and gas accumulators is likely to witness a tremendous growth in the near future.Browse Market Research Report @The research report is an outcome of an in-depth analysis of the various important parameters of the global oil and gas accumulators market including its dynamics and region-wise outlook. The data presented in the report has been derived from various paid and unpaid sources including white papers, press releases, journals, presentations, and directories. The report offers both qualitative and quantitative insights into the competitive landscape of the market. It meticulously studies the business strategies and latest developments of the key players in the market. It performs SWOT analysis that reveals the prospective growth trajectory of each prominent player in the market. There is a separate section of recommendations for both new and existing players in the global oil and gas accumulators market.Global Oil and Gas Accumulators Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising operational hazards during drilling and extraction activities is leading to the upsurge in the demand for equipment that ensures protection and safety of both machinery and labor. This is translating into the greater global demand for oil and gas accumulators. Accumulators form an important part of blowout preventers (BOPs). Stringent regulations set up by several governments worldwide are promoting the demand for BOPs, thereby driving the market. Moreover, the growing offshore drilling activities are augmenting the market. On the flip side, volatile prices of oil and gas are negatively impacting the upstream expenditure and drilling activities, which in turn is hampering the growth of the global oil and gas accumulators market.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Global Oil and Gas Accumulators Market: Geographical SegmentationThe key regions covered in terms of geography are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America is expected to hold a large share in the market during the forecast period. The booming oil and gas industries in the U.S. and Canada is triggering the uptake of oil and gas accumulators in the region. Moreover, the increasing drilling activities in the offshore areas of Gulf of Mexico are propelling the growth of the region.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Tight Oil Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/tight-oil-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2393 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Global Tight Oil Market: OverviewTight oil, popularly known as shale oil, has been providing stiff competition to crude oil and natural gas of late. This has roiled the global oil markets, with OPEC countries exponentially upping production of crude to address the challenge. This has resulted in a steep drop in global crude oil prices. As per the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the tight oil production is likely to more than double from 2015 to 2040 to reach a value of 10.36 mn barrels per day in 2040 from 4.98 mn barrels per day in 2015.Browse Market Research Report @To study the global market for tight oil, a report by Transparency Market Research segments it on the basis of applications, technology, location of tight oil reserves, and the tight oil producing countries.Tight oil is extracted by the hydraulic fracturing of sedimentary rocks. The process entails mixing liquid, usually water, with chemicals and sand which is then injected applying high pressure into the well. The high pressure breaks the non-permeable sedimentary rocks resulting in the outflow of the tight oil. Like crude oil, tight oil is refined to act as fuels and various chemicals. The main products include methane, heavy fuel oil, diesel, light fuel oil gasoline, naphtha, and tar, among others.Global Tight Oil Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe TMR report furnishes a granular analysis of the drivers and restraints in the global market for tight oil. It finds that the growing number of applications, rising energy demand, and concerns about energy security are some of the primary factors filliping the global tight oil market. Yet another major growth driver in the market is the progress in exploration and production techniques that have resulted in reduced costs. The application of more effective hydraulic fracturing techniques and the use of multiwell-pad drilling, coupled with modifications in well completion designs, are expected to up the amount of oil extracted from a single well.Factors countering the growth in the global tight oil market is the dearth of take-up of modern technology in emerging countries due to high capital requirements. Negative impact on the environment is also crimping the growth in the market.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Global Tight Oil Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the global tight oil market can be segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Most of the tight oil reserves in North America are present in the U.S., followed by Mexico and Canada. In Europe, Russia dominates and in Asia Pacific, China leads, with Pakistan, Indonesia, and Australia trailing it. In the Middle East and Africa, Libya and Argentina produce a sizeable proportion of tight oil. Venezuela follows them.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Copper Mining Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 | Research Report http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/copper-mining-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2375 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Copper is one of the essential metals required for developing industrial economy. Globally, the copper mining industry is one of the leading markets of the metal mining market. Most of the available copper is distributed over large areas, mixed with mineralized materials and rocks. Copper ores undergo through different separation stages and processes to produce pure copper. Major copper mining nations such as Chile and Peru are investing large amounts to boost mining productivity levels. The productivity levels of copper have to be increased in the next few years to meet the global demand arising majorly from industrial economies such as China. However, the increasing complexity and project cost associated with copper mining is one of the major factors preventing major companies from increasing their production levels. The market for copper mining is anticipated to increase at a considerable rate owing to increasing investments in construction projects which is a major consumer of copper industry.Browse Market Research Report @Escalating demand of copper from industrial economies such as China and India is the major factor driving investment in the copper mining market. Currently, China is the largest consumer of industrial metals and represents a major share of the global copper consumption. Many nations in Asia Pacific are transforming into major industrial economies which would bolster the demand for copper in these nations. Countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam are also prospective nations for the growth of this market. Massive infrastructure developments planned in Asia, South America and Africa are also anticipated to drive investments in the copper mining industry. Copper is also utilized in the development of telecommunication and power infrastructure. However, increasing operating costs in the copper mining industry is one of the major restraints hindering further investment in this sector.The market for copper mining can be segmented into two major categories depending upon the mining technique employed in extraction. On the basis of mining methods used the market can be into categorized as underground mining and, open pit mining. Open pit copper mining is the predominant method used for extraction due to flexible operation techniques, optimized production levels, and relatively low investment costs. The market can also be segmented in on the basis of end-user industries. The major end-user segments in this market are equipment manufacturers, building and construction industry, infrastructure, and transportation industry. The equipment manufacturers are the major consumers in this market.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Currently, South America is the major market for copper mining industry. Chile is the leading producer of copper in this region and some of the worlds largest copper mines are located in this country. Asia Pacific also holds a significant position in the copper mining industry and the region also accounts for a significant share of global copper consumption. China accounts for a considerable share of world copper reserves and is also one of the leading copper importing nations.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Surface Mining Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/surface-mining-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2373 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com With the ever rising demand for the minerals and metals, the need for surface mining is increasing and has lead to a direct positive effect on the surface mining market. According to EIA the world coal consumption is increasing at the rate of 1.3% per year, which is extracted mostly from the surface and the underground activities. As per the report of Hartman and Mutmansky (2002), in USA the surface mining contributes about 85% of all mineral exploitation (metallic ore 98%, non metallic ore 97% and coal 61%). Beside coal, the demand for other minerals and metals such as gold, chromium, nickel and iron ore is also rising, hence we can think of the overall positive impact on the surface mining market.Browse Market Research Report @The surface mining market can be segmented on the basis of methodology, minerals extracted, and the geographical locations of the surface mining regions and companies. According to the technology involved, the surface mining can be classified as strip mining, mountain removal mining and open pit mining. Strip mining is applied when the mineral deposits and the surface of the ground are near to each other. Mountain removal mining is a kind of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit ridge of a mountain. Open cast or the open pit mining is the method of removal of ores and minerals from a pit. Open cast mines that produce dimension stones and the building materials are called quarries. According to the mineral extracted mining can be divided as the metallic ore mining, non metallic ore mining and the coal mining. Metallic ore mining involves extraction of zinc, gold, silver, copper, lead and others. Non metallic ore mining involves extraction of lime, salt, phosphates and others.Regional segmentation can be done on the basis of the location of surface mining companies and the major mining regions of the world. Major surface mining companies are located in the United States and Canada (North America), United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and Denmark (European region), China, India, Australia and Indonesia (Asia Pacific region), South Africa and Nigeria (Middle East and Africa) and Brazil in RoW (rest of World). The U.S nonmetallic mineral and quarrying industry includes around 3300 companies. Major regions where surface mining is done are the United States, Canada, Mexico, South Africa Kazakhstan, Peru, Ukraine, India, China, Indonesia, Angola, Chile, Brazil and Australia. According to a media release about 75% of the world gold mining companies are headquartered in Canada.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@Increasing demands for metallic and non metallic minerals, abundance of reserves that can be exploited using surface mining, less capital requirement as compared to underground and marine mining and increasing energy consumption are the factors that are driving the surface mining market. Stringent environmental regulations and difficulties related to land acquisition can act as the restraint in the surface mining market. With the advancements in mining technologies, growing concerns among countries regarding energy security and increasing energy demand, the opportunities for the surface mining market are expected to be high.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Photovoltaics Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/photovoltaics-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=469 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The efforts made by various governments and organizations to fuel the increasing energy demand with the more environment friendly renewable energy is proving to be a boom for photovoltaics market. Owning to such efforts the photovoltaics market is expected to grow during the forecast period. Energy demand is increasing rapidly and the oil reserves are depleting. To meet this demand government is investing in renewable source of energy. Renewable energy also reduces burden from the non-renewable source of energy such as coal, oil and natural gas. In terms of global installations, photovoltaic is the third most important source of renewable energy after hydro and wind power.Browse Market Research Report @Photovoltaic convert solar energy into electricity (direct current). The sunlight is converted into electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. A photon of light excites an electron into a higher state of energy, allowing them to act as a charge carrier for an electric circuit. This is known as the photovoltaic effect. In a photovoltaic system, solar panels are used which consists of a number of solar cells. As the conversion of sunlight into electricity occurs without any environmental emission, the power generated from photovoltaics is considered as clean energy.Solar cells are packed tightly behind a glass sheet to protect them from the environment. Cells are internally connected together to form a photovoltaic module. The number of cells that are interconnected depends upon the type of application. Solar panels can be installed on the ground or on the roof. Solar panels are equipped with solar tracker. Solar tracker moves the solar panels and maximizes the time they face the sun. Thus, increase the efficiency of the solar panel. The efficiency is improved by approximately 20% in winters and 50% in summers by using solar tracker.On the basis of technology, the photovoltaics market can be segmented into multicrystalline solar cells, thin film solar cells, monocrystalline silicon technology, polycrystalline thin film and others. The photovoltaics market can be segmented on the basis of applications into power stations, telecommunication & signaling, spacecraft application, rural electrification and others (transport, solar roadways, etc). Asia Pacific is expected to be the market leader in photovoltaics market. In Asia Pacific, majority of contributions for photovoltaics is from china followed by Japan. In European countries, Germany is expected to be the market leader in the photovoltaics market followed by Italy.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@High installation cost is a restrain for the photovoltaics market. But the research and development has resulted in improved technology and efficiencies. This has helped in reducing the quantity of material being used in solar cells that ultimately reduces the initial cost. Moreover, governments of various countries have launched various schemes to promote the installation of various facilities which produces energy using non renewable sources of energy. Incentives or grant is provided to the companies producing renewable energy. This has further boosted the photovoltaics market. Shifting focus towards renewable energy will provide more opportunity to the photovoltaics market during the forecast period across the world.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Lubricating Oil Market - Global Industry Analysis 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/lubricating-oil-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=474 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Global Lubricating Oils Market: OverviewLubricating oils are essential in any use of machinery that leads to friction between mechanical parts. The industrial sector and the automotive sector are the two key consumers of lubricating oils and employ them in a variety of applications such as industrial gearboxes, internal combustion engines, turbines, and others. Lubricating oils perform the important role of curbing the temperature of the machinery during operation, but the long-term importance of lubricating oils goes beyond the maintenance of the machinery itself. Emissions resulting from industrial activities or engines are worsened by wear and tear, necessitating the use of lubricating oils in todays environment-conscious age.Browse Market Research Report @By end use, the report studies the demand for lubricating oils into transportation, automotive, construction, and industrial machinery. Of these, the automotive industry held a dominant share in the global lubricating oil market and is likely to remain a key contributor to the market in the coming years. By product type, the global lubricating oils market is bifurcated into synthetic and mineral lubricating oils.The report provides a comprehensive look at the performance of the global lubricating oils market in the recent past and presents reliable forecasts regarding the markets likely trajectory in the coming years. The performance of each market segment is analyzed carefully in the report, which helps provide readers with a clear granular view of the market. The key regional segments of the global lubricating oil market and the leading players operating in it are also examined in detail in the report.Global Lubricating Oils Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe prime driver for the global lubricating oils market is the rapid growth of the global automotive industry. The automotive industry has made the most of the rising disposable income of consumers in developing economies to expand rapidly in countries such as China, India, Brazil, and South Korea. This is likely to remain a key driver for the lubricating oils market, as the demand for cars as well as commercial vehicles in emerging economies is likely to rise unabated in the coming years.The rapid industrialization observed in developing economies is another key driver for the global lubricating oils market. The manufacturing sector, in particular, has experienced sustained growth at a brisk rate in China and India, which are likely to remain leading manufacturing hubs in the coming years.Get PDF Report Brochure for more Info@The consistent technological progress in the automotive industry has also ensured steady demand from the lubricating oils market in the coming years. In addition, the involvement of leading automotive players has also led to an influx of investment in the lubricating oils industry, which has helped drive innovation. The development of low-viscosity lubricants to fit modern machinery is a key opportunity for players operating in the global lubricating oils market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: A veteran of four tours of duty in the Middle East, Jacob McGreevey relishes a good fight. When the longtime Marine became convinced his former lender had illegally foreclosed on his Vancouver home, he didn't hesitate. He looked up Sean Riddell, his former commanding officer now practicing law in Portland, and asked if he was ready to take on one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the country. What neither McGreevey nor Riddell anticipated was that PHH Mortgage wasn't going to be their only adversary. Five months after the U.S. Department of Justice announced a major initiative to crackdown on financial institutions taking advantage of active-duty service members, the agency intervened in McGreevey's case. But it didn't come in on the side of the Marine. It went with the lender. "The country that sent you to war is now choosing a corporation's interest over yours," Riddell told McGreevey. The story shines a light on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, an obscure and often overlooked federal law intended to protect members of the military from foreclosure and other collections efforts while they're on active duty. McGreevey acknowledges he fell behind on his monthly payments but insists the law should have precluded PHH Mortgage from seizing his home in August 2010, just months after his third deployment. "Soldiers don't make a lot of money," said Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, who pushed the state to get involved. "They have extremely important and dangerous jobs. You don't want them in combat situations worrying about whether some mortgage company is going to steal their house out from under their family." McGreevey's fight raises questions about the Trump administration's Department of Justice and its sudden interest in the New Jersey-based lender. Twelve days before the agency sided with PHH in the Marine's case, it had filed an amicus brief supporting the lender in a lawsuit against the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau had fined the lender more than $100 million for engaging in an insurance kickback scheme. PHH Mortgage declined interview requests but issued a statement: "We take our commitment to helping all distressed homeowners very seriously and work closely with our customers to identify potential home retention options whenever possible, as we did with Mr. McGreevey." The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment. John Odom, an attorney in Shreveport, Louisiana, and a national expert on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, said he was astounded by the federal government's actions. "If the DOJ in the Trump era is now intervening in these cases on behalf of the financial services industry, that's troubling. That's really troubling," he said. A Marine's story McGreevey was still a teenager in 2000, a newly minted graduate of Columbia River High School in Vancouver, when he went through boot camp. His first active-duty assignment came in 2003 when he was deployed to the front lines of the invasion of Iraq. He served mainly in combat support roles, spending part of his years in the desert scanning the roads for the telltale signs of improvised explosive devices. It was his job to actually poke at the suspected bomb with a prod, to determine whether it was the real thing. "I never got blown up," he said. "I had friends who did." The Marine Corps called him back to Iraq and Afghanistan for three more tours. He was in Fallujah in Iraq's "bloody triangle" during the surge. In all, he spent about four years in the Middle East. In between deployments, McGreevey would return to Vancouver, where he managed to buy a house on Northeast 24th Court. But the years overseas took a toll. He says he made a fateful mistake: trusting someone else to make the mortgage payment. He returned from his third tour in June 2010, just in time to watch PHH Mortgage repossess his house. Knowing next to nothing about the consumer protections afforded him as a member of the military, McGreevey didn't contest it. The foreclosure became final on Sept. 10. McGreevey's final deployment ended in 2012. He had advanced from private to staff sergeant. Though diagnosed 80 percent disabled with post-traumatic stress syndrome, hearing loss and a back injury, he set about reinventing himself for civilian life. He earned a business degree from Portland State University and got a job at a bank. He learned about consumer protection laws, including the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Congress passed the first version of the law in 1918 during World War I, reasoning that American soldiers should focus on staying alive and winning the war rather than about financial issues back home. "There were millions of young American men who left the farm and factory to serve in that war, all of them with some entanglements from their civilian life," Odom said. The law prohibits banks and other creditors from foreclosing, garnishing, evicting or repossessing assets from service members while they are on active duty or within 12 months of leaving the service. It is the creditor's obligation to determine whether the debtor is protected by the law. "I didn't know my rights," McGreevey said. "I figured a foreclosure is a foreclosure." But by spring 2016, McGreevey was convinced he'd been wronged. He reached out to Riddell, who filed the lawsuit in federal court in Western Washington a month later. How long is too long? Riddell, a hard-nosed prosecutor turned civil lawyer, named as defendants PHH Mortgage and Northwest Trustee Services, a firm based in Bellevue, Washington, that actually implemented the foreclosure. Riddell claimed the facts were simple: PHH Mortgage foreclosed on McGreevey's house two months after his third tour, within the 12-month window of his active duty. Thus, he contended, he was clearly protected by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the foreclosure was illegal. The defendants didn't focus on the central issue of whether their foreclosure violated federal law and waged a more technical argument: PHH Mortgage and Northwest Trustee claimed McGreevey waited too long to file his complaint. The Relief Act has no statute of limitations. But most courts have elected to apply a time limit on filing a complaint based on the statute of limitations in the most closely analogous state law. This gray area gave the two companies the opening they needed, and they argued that, under Washington state law, McGreevey had four years from the date of the foreclosure to file his lawsuit. Riddell argued for six years. A federal judge in Seattle accepted the four-year limit. Even removing the 15 months McGreevey served in 2011-12 from the computation, more than four years had passed between the foreclosure and filing of the suit. McGreevey was undeterred. He directed Riddell to appeal. "I was not in the mindset to quit," he said. "We still had a fight and I felt we had a strong case." Enter the U.S. Department of Justice Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch put the financial services industry on notice last November: The department intended to crackdown on banks and other firms taking advantage of veterans. The Obama-era Justice Department had already scored some big wins in enforcing the Relief Act. It extracted enormous settlements from Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citibank, among others, for violating veterans' protections. Now it was adding additional firepower to the cause with new attorneys from the Justice Department and the military's Judge Advocate General's Corps. "We are always seeking new ways to support those who have sacrificed so much in service of our nation," Lynch said. Her words rang hollow with McGreevey and Riddell on March 29 when the U.S. Justice Department intervened in their case and effectively sided with PHH Mortgage and Northwest Trustee. The federal lawyers said they were not taking a position on the merits of McGreevey's complaint. Rather, they echoed defendants' arguments that the four-year statute of limitations should apply and McGreevey's case be dismissed. Perhaps there is a compelling reason for the Justice Department to want more clarity on the statute of limitations, enough so that it justified letting McGreevey's foreclosure stand. But if so, the department refused to explain. Justice Department officials declined to comment for this report. Justice officials also denied The Oregonian/OregonLive's Freedom of Information Act request for all communications between the department and PHH Mortgage, citing the ongoing litigation. It's plain that the Justice Department is undergoing big changes since the election of Donald Trump. Lynch is gone, replaced by Trump's pick, Jeff Sessions. Early indications are that Sessions wants to focus on violent crime, immigration enforcement and perhaps drug crimes. If the McGreevey case is any indication, it appears the Trump administration's Department of Justice will be less adversarial to business, even if it means crossing another federal agency. Just ask the country's chief consumer financial watchdog. Twelve days before it sided with PHH Mortgage over McGreevey, the Justice Department intervened in an ongoing dispute between the New Jersey lender and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau contended that PHH for more than a decade had been operating a mortgage insurance kickback scheme that cost its borrowers hundreds of millions of dollars. The case got particularly controversial in 2015, when bureau Director Richard Cordray unilaterally increased the fine against PHH Mortgage from $6 million to $109 million. A court froze the penalty after the lender appealed. The Justice Department sided with PHH Mortgage in March. McGreevey is not without allies. In early May, the Oregon Department of Justice sought to intervene in his appeal on his behalf. Given the uncertainty about the statute of limitations, the state urged the appeals court justices to "give the benefit of any ambiguity or doubt to the veteran who left his home to serve four tours of duty in Iraq." Avakian asked the state to get involved, even though McGreevey lives in Vancouver. He pointed out that the case is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose decisions hold sway in Oregon as well as Washington. Plus, there are more than 23,000 veterans of the Middle-East conflict in Oregon, many of whom could be affected by the Appeals Court ruling. After losing in the lower court, McGreevey said that he never thought seriously about giving up. He wanted to fight on, and Riddell said he was all in. "I'm not going to tell a four-tour combat veteran that he needs to take another one for the good of the order," Riddell said. -- Jeff Manning 503-294-7606, jmanning@oregonian.com 6-162_mailers.jpg.jpeg Mailers for the Yes and No campaigns on Measure 6-162 in Coos County The Jordan Cove Energy Project has generated one of the most expensive and divisive ballot measure campaigns ever on the southern Oregon coast. Backers of the proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal in Coos Bay have poured an unprecedented amount of money into an effort to torpedo a ballot measure that threatens the project. The $359,000 donated so far to the "no" campaign is the most ever for a ballot measure in the county about $9 for each of its 41,613 registered voters. The May 16 election will mark the latest chapter in a 12-year fight that has pitted neighbor against neighbor, jobs versus the environment, and property rights against property taxes in the south coast county and a broad swath of Southern Oregon. The stakes are high for Jordan Cove and its parent company, Calgary-based Veresen Inc., which have donated all but $1,000 of the money gathered to fight the measure. The ballot measure doesn't mention the project specifically. But it takes direct aim at the export terminal and 231-mile feeder pipeline that the company has spent more than a decade and several hundred million dollars to launch so far without success. The project is designed to take natural gas from Canada and Colorado, pipe it onto the North Spit of Coos Bay, super-chill it into a liquid, and load it aboard tankers for shipment to customers in Asia. It's expected to be at least a $7.5 billion construction project, with thousands of construction jobs and 150 permanent jobs at the terminal. Federal regulators denied the company a license last year, but Veresen has since reapplied and hopes a fossil-fuel friendly Trump administration will greenlight the project. In the meantime, the company hopes to stave off any local efforts that get in the way. "Our financial interest in this is to make sure that this unconstitutional measure does not see the light of day," said Jordan Cove spokesman Michael Hinrichs. "It's so broadly impactful, it would be bad for Coos County whether its Jordan Cove or something else." The "no" campaign's war chest dwarfs the $12,000 that backers have cobbled together to promote the measure, which goes by the somewhat cumbersome title, The Coos County Right to Sustainable Energy Future Ordinance. Mary Geddry, a Coquille activist who is the chief petitioner, calls it a local bill of rights modeled on those that have been passed in other communities around the country on issues such as anti-GMO crop measures or fracking. The Coos County measure enumerates a number of community rights, including self-government and a "sustainable energy future." But its main thrust would be to prohibit the development of "non-sustainable energy systems" and ban the bulk transportation of fossil fuels in the county. Certain fossil fuels would escape the ban, including those used on-site for power and heating by residential, commercial and industrial users, as well as those used to refuel vehicles. "The real question is not whether our initiative is constitutional," said Geddry. "It's why is it constitutional for a Canadian company exporting Canadian gas to come in and use eminent domain against us, or buy our election?" Wim DeVriend, a retired restaurant owner in Coos Bay and chronicler of the city's long history of failed economic development projects, says he doesn't agree with everything in the ballot measure, or even most of it. But he's been convinced to vote for it because Veresen, in his opinion, is a corporate bully. "This has become the longest public torture session in history," he said. "Jordan Cove/Veresen has been messing with us for 13 years. First the import terminal, then the export terminal, and I wish they were terminal." County commissioners have lined up against the measure. They say it's overreaching, poorly written and almost certainly unconstitutional. "Whether you're for Jordan Cove or against it, this ballot measure doesn't do what they're saying it does," said Commissioner Bob Main. Among other things, he says, the language could block the use of federal hydropower in the county and prohibit the shipment of fuel to neighboring Curry County. "Even if this passed, I'm not going to spend taxpayer dollars defending something that's indefensible," he said. "The people promoting it can spend their own money defending it." Business leaders and other politicians call it a job killer. "It's a matter of saying we're not open for business," said Coos Bay Mayor Joe Benetti, who also sits on the Save Coos Job Committee that Veresen is funding to fight the measure. "I think Jordan Cove could be enormously beneficial to the community and be done in an environmentally responsible fashion. I understand people's concerns with the project, but this is not the way to go after it." Even some of the staunchest opponents of Jordan Cove don't support the measure. Jody McCaffree, a local activist, said she's struggled with the ballot measure language, which opposes large scale hydro and wind power unless its locally or municipally owned. She says the country can't just make up its own rules, and needs the federal and state bodies to make the decision on Jordan Cove. She worries the measure, if defeated, could be perceived as a local referendum on the project. "I think it will be seen as a yes or no on Jordan Cove when the language is not about that at all," said McCaffree, who has spent the last decade fighting the terminal proposal. "It's about all kinds of other things." Jordan Cove is spending heavily to win. Since February, it has donated $331,000 in cash and made another $28,655 of in-kind donations to Save Coos Jobs Committee. In turn, the committee has spent more than $300,000 with three Portland-based firms that provide canvassing and direct marketing, creative communications and media buying. The result is a barrage of television, radio and newspaper advertising, mailers, as well as door-to-door canvassing. "Measure 6-162 is sponsored by radical...environmental...extremists, to give rights to ecosystems at the expense of local jobs and services" Jessica Engleke, president of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, says in an ad running on local television. It's a message that harkens to the 1980s, which saw the listing of the northern spotted owl, the collapse of timber harvests and a deep recession that is still part of the area's psyche. The "yes" campaign, by contrast, has spent $2,145 on ads in The World, Coos Bay's newspaper, and $510 in the South Coast Shopper. One of those ads features Larry and Sylvia Mangan, 30-year residents and longtime public servants in Coos County. They were largely oblivious to the project until a month and a half ago, when they learned that the pipeline route would be running through their North Bend property, 400 feet from their home, before diving into the Haynes Inlet. They agreed to appear in the mailer, but now they're offended by opposition campaign. "Someone came up to me in the gym and said I didn't know you were a radical left-wing environmentalist," Larry Mangan said. "I went and saw the ad and it really hurt us. It's outlandish. We're supporting this because Jordan Cove is trying to take our property." Mangan thinks Jordan Cove's message, and its overwhelming spending, may backfire. "It's sticking out like a sore thumb down here, he said. "People are astounded with how much money they're spending. People in rural areas don't like to be told what to do by big money." - Ted Sickinger 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger ElliQ Advancements in artificial intelligence have given rise to a number of in-home virtual assistants. ElliQ represents a new role for these technologies: proactively recommending ways in which humans could be living better lives, from getting more exercise to watching informational videos. (Screenshot/intuitionrobotics.com) For a tiny tabletop robot, ElliQ has a lot of opinions. When the weather is nice, it suggests a walk. When it's time to take medication, the device is ready with a reminder. Haven't spoken to relatives in awhile? It thinks a call is in order. Israel-based Intuition Robotics is developing the virtual assistant specifically for the elderly, a population shown to be more vulnerable to social isolation and physical inactivity. The founders expect that frequent engagement with a robot that makes positive lifestyle suggestions will promote physical and mental wellness, Chief Executive Dor Skuler said. "Think of it as a fully autonomous agent," Skuler said. "You tell it what your goals are, and it tries to measure how you're doing on those goals and suggests activities accordingly to help you meet those goals." Advancements in artificial intelligence have given rise to in-home virtual assistants, devices that listen and respond as we can command them to turn off the lights, purchase items online or order restaurant takeout. Amazon Echo and Google Home, two popular systems, can now be found in millions of homes. ElliQ (pronounced L-E-Q) represents a new role for these technologies: proactively recommending ways in which humans could be living better lives, from getting more exercise to watching informational videos. Humans may not yet be taking direct orders from their technology, but a relationship may be emerging in which smart devices wield even greater influence over our decisions. "If we're focusing just on virtual assistance, I think so far the interaction has been very much human-initiated," said William Mark, president of information and computing sciences at SRI International. "I put it that way because if we broaden the perspective, of course there are lots of examples of machines telling us what to do." Indeed, machines prod humans all day. Your alarm rings to keep you from sleeping through a morning meeting. Your car beeps when you've started the engine but haven't clipped your seat belt. Your Netflix account suggests movies to watch based on your viewing history. Virtual assistant robots are different in that they have a broader view of our daily lives and are designed to help us accomplish tasks. They can already learn when we typically wake up and go to sleep, what we watch on television and what we purchase online. As the devices become capable of doing even more, they will store and analyze that information, too. The key is that we invite those technologies to nag us and that we have control over them. We set the alarm clock ourselves, and have the power to hit snooze. "We have a whole set of words for talking about this in English: persuade, hint, advocate, encourage," Mark said. "There's all kinds of things that have a wide variety of implications and very different feelings that are generated by it." ElliQ monitors the user's movements and learns their patterns to ensure its suggestions are well-timed, Skuler said. The user might prefer to take walks in the morning rather than after lunch or value quiet time in the evening over listening to music. Currently, ElliQ is programmed with seven goals that the user can choose among, such as learning something new each day, being more physically active or communicating with family more often. The company sets one of the goals for you: developing a "positive affinity" for the robot. "Meaning we don't annoy you to the point you unplug us," Skuler said. Developing machines that can persuade people to act in a certain way is both a technological and psychological challenge, Mark said. Even humans struggle to know when advice will be well received and deliver it in a way that actually motivates the recipient. "The system has to hit it just right in terms of giving you the information you need at just the right time without annoying you," Mark said. "You want to think that virtual assistance cares about you or has your best interest at heart," he added. That may seem like a tall order considering the robot does not, in fact, have a heart. But it's common for people to develop bonds, irrational as they might seem, with technology and other personal inanimate objects. It's why we give names to our cars or yell at our malfunctioning computer, for example. Virtual assistant systems can take many cues from the way humans engage one another, said Justine Cassell, director emerita of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. In her research, Cassell programs robots to replicate common features of human conversations that help people to establish trust. For example, the machine might divulge information about itself before asking the human for information - creating a sense of equality and transparency in the process. The technology got a trial run at a meeting of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year. Attendees had conversations with the system, which then recommended conference sessions they would enjoy or fellow attendees they should meet. In most cases, the attendees accepted the recommendations, Cassell said. "It's not empty chit chat," she said of the conversations between humans and machines. "On the contrary, it greases the wheels of task interaction by making people comfortable, making them trust the system, and making them disclose information that allows the system to do a good job." Of course, as virtual assistants gain greater influence, it's easy to conjure up dystopian scenarios in which technology starts to actually exert authority. It's one thing for a system to suggest you go for a walk after watching television for hours and another for a system to power off the TV until you've complied. "The machines that we interact with need to be designed to keep sight of allowing people to maintain that very important sense of autonomy, that they are in control of their existence," Cassell said. The Washington Post Laila horizontal.jpg Four-year-old Laila Sloan has blossomed in the care of her uncle and aunt, the only stable and loving parent figures she has ever known. But Oregon child welfare workers say its best for her to be removed from their care and adopted by her little brothers non-relative foster parents in Klamath Falls. (courtesy of Angela Sloan) Oregon's top child welfare official has ordered a 4-year-old girl be taken from her Kentucky home -- and the aunt and uncle she calls Mommy and Daddy -- to be adopted by a foster family in Klamath County. The state issued its ruling in order to unite the girl with a toddler brother she has never met. The wrenching case involving Laila Sloan pits two of the most basic tenets of child welfare, enshrined in Oregon law, against one another: Children, whenever possible, should be with their siblings. And children should be kept, whenever possible, with their parents or caregivers with whom they have formed strong, loving bonds. The state's handling of those competing tenets has brought two families to a crossroads with lifelong consequences. Should Laila's brother have gone to live with her in Kentucky, where she has spent the last 20 months bonding with her aunt and uncle? Should Laila be brought back to Oregon to join the foster parents who have looked after her brother since his birth 17 months ago? Or should the courts separate the siblings into different families forever? Child welfare officials say the best decision is to have Laila join her little brother in Oregon. Laila's attorney concurs. James and Angela Sloan pose for a picture with their niece and foster daughter Laila Sloan. They have raised her since age 2, after James Sloan's brother was declared an unfit parent. They are distraught Oregon has ordered them to relinquish her. "I couldn't be any closer to a child even if I had given birth to her. She is my daughter," Angela Sloan says. "And I think she feels the same way toward me. I am the only mother figure she has ever known." But that decision has left Laila's aunt and uncle, Angela and James Sloan, devastated by the prospect of losing her. Laila has lived with them in Kentucky since age 2, after she was taken from her neglectful and emotionally abusive parents. The Sloans say the decision will traumatize the blue-eyed preschooler who speaks with a light Kentucky accent by tearing her from the only stable, loving home she has known. They have filed a court action to try to keep her with them. Backed by a court order, however, Oregon child welfare officials have arranged for Laila to fly to Medford on Thursday, the Sloans say. She will live with her brother and the Klamath Falls couple raising him while the courts decide if they or the Sloans will be Laila's parents. Laila doesn't know about any of this. "I think she will be terrified and wondering, 'Why am I not with my mom and dad?'" Angela Sloan said Friday. "I wish I could protect her. I love her more than anything in this world." Citing privacy issues, the state has kept the basis of its decision a secret even from the Sloans. That adds to their frustration, the Sloans say, because they don't know why the state is taking Laila away and feel that much more helpless to stop it. James Sloan says the once-fearful girl has thrived with them. She likes her Head Start classes. She plays outside, he said, and loves riding her scooter. Angela Sloan works as an emergency dispatcher for the state police, and her husband supervises dispatch operations for the county. They work opposite shifts so Laila can be with them as much as possible. "This has been the most horrible nightmare," says Brenda Haskins, Laila's grandmother, who lives in Klamath Falls. "She will be devastated, devastated to be taken from Jamie and Angel," the names James and Angela are called by family and friends. "And why? So she can be with a little brother she doesn't even know?" Barefoot and hungry Laila Sloan was born in Washington, to a 28-year-old mother with petty criminal convictions mostly for drug and alcohol offenses, and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Justin Sloan, at times a meth user, according to court records and Haskins, who is Justin Sloan's mother. They were raising a 2-year-old boy from the mother's previous relationship. When Laila was 1 , the family moved back to Klamath Falls, where Justin Sloan's sister and mother still lived. The family quickly got on child welfare workers' radar, and social service agencies tried to help, Haskins said. But child welfare records show life was unsafe for Laila and her big brother: Justin Sloan would spend the rent money on drugs. He beat the children's mother in front of them. The family at times lived out of a car. The mother got caught up in her own needs and ignored the children's. About six months into their time in Klamath Falls, the couple dropped off the children at Haskins' home with no particular plans for when they'd pick them up, Haskins said. It was November, but the children weren't wearing shoes, socks or coats and they acted, Haskins said, as if they were extremely hungry. She called child welfare to report her own son as an unfit parent. The children were placed in foster care. Klamath County caseworkers sought a more permanent foster care placement, preferably with relatives. Laila was 2 and her brother was 4. Justin Sloan's sister fostered them for months, with help from Haskins, but it wasn't a perfect fit. James and Angela Sloan, meanwhile, were eager to welcome both children into their home. The couple were unable to have children of their own. Laila Sloan, then 2, shown with her grandma, Brenda Haskins, a week before she moved to live with her paternal uncle and aunt. It took time, however, to get all the paperwork finished, under an official interstate agreement that required Kentucky child welfare workers to carefully document the Sloans' fitness to care for the children and to assess the safety of their home. It was August 2015 before Laila and her brother moved to Kentucky. Everyone involved, from caseworkers to Laila's father, thought it would be forever. "When they sent them out here, it truly was the happiest day of my life," James Sloan said. "In my eyes, that was my family. I was in a position where I could take care of them. I can't really explain it more than that. It was the greatest feeling, it was a blessing." A new life, a new brother Both children had attachment issues, anxiety and other challenges due to being exposed to domestic violence, neglect and other harm for the first years of their lives, confidential juvenile court documents obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive show. Records note the Sloans were conscientious about getting the children to their appointments with therapists, psychiatrists, doctors and dentists. The older half-brother was a particular challenge, showing violent outbursts and sometimes harming his sister. The Sloans sought help from child specialists in Kentucky and in Oregon to help the boy, whom they and others described as sweet tempered despite extreme emotional and mental health challenges. Three months after the children arrived, their mother gave birth to another child, a baby boy, back in Klamath Falls. He was born with meth in his system, confidential court records say. The newborn went straight into the welcoming arms of a childless married couple in Klamath Falls, foster parents who'd been recommended by members of the Sloan family. In Kentucky, raising the older boy remained a challenge. About six months after the children moved in with the Sloans, a Kentucky psychotherapist recommended that the boy be put on stronger medication. She told the Sloans the boy would need to be hospitalized for observation and treatment while his medications were adjusted, according to the couple. Richard Garbutt, a well-regarded Klamath Falls attorney who represents all three children, said in an interview this is the pivotal time that raised serious questions about the couple's fitness as parents. Garbutt said James Sloan spit tobacco juice in the boy's face and that both Sloans treated the boy badly. He told The Oregonian/OregonLive all people from Eastern Kentucky are "related to each other." He said the Sloans wanted the boy locked up in a psychiatric ward and out of their lives. Nothing in records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive, however, shows anything like that. Kentucky officials who certified the Sloans to care for Laila and her brother were Laila Sloan is a bright, happy child despite the two years of neglect and emotional abuse she faced at the start of her life, according to her grandma, Brenda Haskins. Haskins says it would be a travesty for the girl to be taken from the aunt and uncle who have given her love and stability. asked to check again last July on the Sloans' suitability as parents. The officials there noted no concerns and issued approval for the Sloans to adopt. Teachers, neighbors, coworkers and counselors all wrote letters championing the Sloans as ideal adoptive parents for Laila. Diana Bettles, an attorney representing the couple, said she hasn't seen any evidence to show that the Sloans are anything but fit parents. She got involved in the case only late last year and said she is not sure what Garbutt based his conclusions on. Officials at the Oregon Department of Human Services, which oversees child welfare, said no one at the agency is permitted to discuss the case due to confidentiality and privacy issues as well as pending litigation. The Sloans say they hospitalized Laila's older brother on doctors' recommendations. During his two-week stay in the children's unit of a Louisville psychiatric hospital, they called multiple times a day to check on him and made the 2 hour drive to visit, they say. At the end of that stay, the physician who treated the boy, then 5, commended the Sloans for their devotion. "Jamie and Angela Sloan have been extremely supportive and active in (the boy's) treatment," Dr. Sunil Chhibber wrote in the hospital discharge summary. But Chhibber said the boy could no longer live with them, medical records show. "We do not recommend that he return to a home with his sister who appears to be a target for his behaviors or with any other younger children," Chhibber wrote. The boy needed a structured, therapeutic setting, Chhibber concluded. The Sloans said they asked that he be placed in a therapeutic setting near them. But Oregon officials had already made arrangements for him to be flown straight from the hospital back to Oregon, the Sloans said. When they found out, they bought expensive next-day airline tickets and flew to Oregon to see him and bring him his things. Klamath caseworkers placed the boy in a series of specialized foster homes, but most of those placements were short-lived, according to child welfare records provided by Haskins, the children's grandmother. The boy then went to a group home, records show, and later a Eugene-area residential center for children with extreme mental health problems. He remains there today. The Sloans say they love him and would take him back in a heartbeat. The six months he lived with them was longer than any subsequent foster home placement that Oregon caseworkers arranged. But mental health experts still say the boy, now 6, should not live in a home with a younger child or in any family setting. Gaining independence, but not a little brother Laila missed her older brother, the Sloans say. But she continued to thrive, improving with help from therapists, Head Start teachers and others in the Kentucky child welfare system. Laila had been extremely clingy, refusing to leave the presence of her uncle or aunt. But therapy helped her gain independence, and she cried less when dropped off at preschool. She even occasionally spent the night with her new "granny," Angela Sloan's mother, James Sloan said. The Sloans and Haskins wondered why Laila's baby brother wasn't being relocated to be with his sister in Kentucky. Oregon rules say a child should be placed with relative caregivers, rather than non-relatives, if they are willing and qualified. And Oregon rules call for reuniting siblings whenever possible. Skype visits between Laila, then 3, and her months-old brother did nothing to truly connect them. Haskins said officials in Klamath Falls told her the delay was primarily to give the baby's biological parents a real shot at connecting with him and potentially getting him back. But records show the birth parents had not gotten their act together. Neither showed up to see the baby. Justin Sloan was sometimes in jail. No one gave serious thought to reuniting the baby with them, records show. Citing confidentiality rules, Oregon officials won't explain why they put off sending the young boy to live with his sister, aunt and uncle. The official summary of a May 2016 review of the case shows that the Department of Human Services fully intended to have the Sloans adopt Laila and to place her younger brother with them for eventual adoption. Haskins, who was present during the review, was provided a copy of the record and shared it with The Oregonian/OregonLive. The record refers to James and Angela Sloan by name as "adoptive parents for Laila." It also notes that, while the foster parents caring for the then 4-month-old brother "would like to be considered as a permanent" set of caregivers for the baby, an interstate agreement with Kentucky was "in progress" to enable Oregon to place the boy with his aunt, uncle and sister. The volunteer citizen board that conducted that May review was largely content with how the children's cases were proceeding, but saw two problems needing immediate attention. The older brother needed his educational needs evaluated and met, they wrote. And the three children, all represented by Garbutt, needed "separate attorneys due to the apparent conflict of interest." That never happened. The review board's field manager said assigning lawyers is the role of the court. Klamath County Circuit Judge Marci Adkisson said Klamath Defender Services, a nonprofit legal aid office, handles lawyer assignments. Garbutt said he helped create the nonprofit and works for it. He did not return calls Thursday or Friday to answer questions about why the children did not receive separate attorneys. Looking forward to adopting their girl Laila Sloan rides a camel at the Knoxville Zoo with the man she calls "Daddy," her uncle James Sloan. Sloan and his wife fully expected that Oregon officials' assurances they would be able to adopt the niece they have raised since age 2 were true. Back in Kentucky, Laila grew closer to the people she calls Mommy and Daddy and more comfortable in her community. James and Angela Sloan knew an adoption decision was pending and looked forward to Laila officially becoming their daughter. They had no clue that her younger brother's long stay with the Klamath Falls couple could jeopardize Laila's future. Oregon has rules that govern how child welfare workers should deliberate when deciding whether to place a child such as Laila with a sibling: They should look at her current and lifelong needs, her emotional ties to her brother, and her ability to maintain lifetime ties to relatives. They also take into account what would give her continuity, familiarity, stability and permanency. Reuniting siblings is important, the rules say, but doing so should not override a child's best interests. In November, the Sloans' world was turned upside down. They received a written notice that Oregon officials had decided against letting them adopt Laila. She would instead be adopted by the foster family caring for her toddler brother. The Sloans were stunned. Soon after, they learned of allegations that James Sloan had spit tobacco juice at Laila's older brother and that he had supposedly told Garbutt the couple didn't want the older boy. The Sloans were incredulous. Those were outright fabrications, they said. The allegations so surprised and upset them, they said, they hired Bettles, the Klamath Falls lawyer who now represents them. Laila Sloan loves playing outside, going on picnics, riding her scooter, playing Candy Lland and Shoots and Ladders, and being with the aunt and uncle she calls Mommy and Daddy. They are trying to gain the resolve to explain why she will be sent to live with a brother and caregivers she has never met. With her help, they appealed Oregon's placement decision. The recommendation was ultimately up to Lena Alhusseini, Oregon's director of child welfare, who'd been in that position for about three months. She convened a second hearing by a second placement committee, made up mostly of child welfare workers not directly tied to the case. Neither the Sloans nor their lawyer were allowed to be present, as is standard practice. But they provided the committee the report from the licensed clinical social worker who observed and interviewed them and Laila on multiple occasions before writing that "it would be extremely detrimental to remove Laila from the home of James and Angela. For all intents and purposes, they are her parents and she is their daughter." The hearing was conducted in secret. The Sloans only know the ultimate decision: "I have carefully considered the recommendations and am selecting the Oregon family" to adopt both Laila and her little brother "as being in their long-term best interest," Alhusseini wrote. "It is clear that you care about (the little brother) and Laila," she wrote. "Our agency values children maintaining ties with relatives when such connections are consistent with children's needs for safety, permanency and well-being." She suggested a mediator might be able to help them maintain ties to Laila. But the girl, now nearly 4 , would have to leave Kentucky. After The Oregonian/OregonLive pressed for Alhusseini to explain her decision, the Department of Human Services said in a statement it followed its own rules and relied in part on the potential adoptive parents' "knowledge, skills and abilities to meet the current and lifelong safety, permanency and well-being needs" of the children. The statement also said that the Sloans could challenge the ruling in court, which they are doing. In the couple's court filing, they say the state broke its own rules by failing to place the youngest sibling with his relatives. They cite the state's policy of giving preference to relative placements and the study showing Laila's strong attachment to James and Angela Sloan as reasons Laila should be adopted by them. In their response, state officials question the accuracy of the Sloans' assertions. They deny, for instance, that they ever told the Sloans that they were going to be able to adopt Laila and her little brother or that they told the placement committee the Sloans didn't want the older half-brother. They said there was "substantial evidence" to support the decision to allow the Klamath Falls couple to adopt Laila and her little brother. Marion County Circuit Judge Mary Mertens James could hear the case as early as this summer. In the meantime, Angela and James Sloan are trying muster the strength to tell their little girl why she has to go away. -- Betsy Hammond 22539544-mmmain.jpg Two men involved in a butane-related explosion in Astoria last fall were arraigned in Clatsop County Court Friday on felony assault charges, including one that comes with a mandatory 70 month sentence. ( Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian) Two men involved in a butane-related explosion in Astoria last fall were arraigned Friday in Clatsop County Court on felony assault charges, including one that comes with a mandatory 70-month sentence upon conviction. William "Chris" West, 41, and Jason Oei, 44,, were each indicted in April by a Clatsop County grand jury on second- and third-degree assault and four counts of recklessly endangering another person. Second-degree assault is a crime on the state's Measure 11 mandatory sentencing list. Clatsop County District Attorney Joshua Marquis said the case was not "a drug prosecution." "This is not a case about marijuana," said Marquis, an outspoken opponent of the 2014 ballot measure that legalized recreational marijuana. "It's a case of an industrial explosion that should not have happened." Jason Oei West and Oei were making butane hash oil for their business, Higher Level Concentrates, when the space filled with the flammable gas and exploded. At the time of the blast, the company was on a state-approved list to process marijuana for the medical market. A construction worker, Jacob Magley, 34, was working in the building when the blast occurred. He spent a month in a Portland burn unit recovering from his injuries. Magley has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging unsafe workplace violations. He claims that Oei consumed cannabis oil in a technique called "dabbing" while West handled butane, a highly volatile gas. Magley alleges Oei's dabbing caused the explosion, which rocked the building on Oct. 19. West, too, was injured in the blast. Calls to attorneys for both men weren't immediately returned Friday. West and Oei pleaded not guilty in court. William "Chris" West They had submitted an application to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission for recreational marijuana processor and production licenses, but a spokesman said the applications have been "inactivated" due to a lack of activity. Oregon OSHA last month fined their business $5,300 for a series of workplace safety violations. The business was cited for failing to ventilate the building, failing to have an adequate electrical system and failing to obtain city permits. OSHA records show employees used an "open loop" system to manufacture hash oil. Those systems are considered extremely dangerous because butane can quickly fill a space and a spark from something as ordinary as a pilot light can ignite a fireball. According to the state's report, fire officials found between 200 to 300 punctured canisters of butane at the scene of the blast. The Legislature this year created a new statute that applies to hash oil blasts. The crime, arson incident to manufacture of a cannabinoid extract, is a felony. The statute does not apply to the Astoria blast, which took place last year. -- Noelle Crombie 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie 1rain.JPG (Ken Goe/Staff) What do the journalists who report on weather mean by saying such things as "April just felt like the worst" (May 2), when fourth-generation Oregonians such as me felt that April felt just as it should and has not felt like for the past several years of burning up daffodils, burning up lilacs, and burning up rhododendrons before they have even fully bloomed. Who are these journalists and how long have they lived here? April is supposed to be a very rainy month, as is May, and, to a lesser extent, June. It is only when we get to July 4 that true Oregonians expect spring rains to cease and summer to begin. Interestingly enough just next to the "April just felt like the worst" article was one about Detroit Lake making a comeback. Despite what the journalist suggested as an "abnormal rainy winter," and longterm Oregonians regard as more normal, the level at Detroit Lake got to full capacity. To these journalists, I have a suggestion to make: If you cannot deal with the wetness and rain in Western Oregon, move to whatever warmer, drier, climate serves your needs. Stop reporting rain in Western Oregon as some horrible thing to endure. It is definitely what we Oregonians want to have happen here to keep Western Oregon green and gorgeous! Sally Palmer, Beaverton Donald Trump, Paul Ryan President Donald Trump celebrates with Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, at the White House after the House pushed through a health care bill on Thursday. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo) Barry Bennett The most important feature of the health care bill the House of Representatives just passed is that it is not a health care bill. And not just because it is likely to cause as many as 24 million people to lose health insurance. Or that it is really a tax cut bill, as it cuts taxes on wealthy Americans by $300 billion through eliminating taxes on high incomes that funded health insurance for poorer people. It is because Republicans do not understand -- or choose not to understand -- what health insurance is. According to Republicans, the benefit of the bill is that it will reduce health insurance premiums for healthy Americans. Their attitude is best reflected in the statement former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh tweeted in response to Jimmy Kimmel, who noted that his infant son, born with a serious heart defect, would probably not be able to get health care under the Republican bill: "Sorry Jimmy Kimmel. Your sad story doesn't obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else's health care." Actually, somebody else will pay for Joe Walsh's health care, at least if he gets really sick. That's how insurance works. If you need serious medical care, your premiums won't be enough to cover it. The insurance company can pay for it because it collects premiums from healthier people who don't cost as much. By definition insurance means that someone else pays for your losses. Insurance is the pooling of risk and costs. It's no different with home-owners insurance. If your house burns down, the cost of rebuilding it will be paid by people whose houses don't burn down. If you had to pay for it yourself, that would mean you didn't have insurance. Joe Walsh may be paying for his own health insurance, but insurance is only a means of getting health care; and someone else is paying for that. The truth is that Republicans don't want the government to help people get health care. And that's only partly because they want to give rich people tax breaks. They also believe that people who can't afford health insurance don't deserve it. As Rep. Robert Pittenger of North Carolina said, "people who lead good lives . . . who've done things the right way . . . are seeing their costs skyrocketing." If you're poor, it's because you haven't lived a proper life. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 500 words or less to commentary@oregonlive.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. Pittenger's and Walsh's statements are admissions that the purpose of the bill is not to provide insurance but to take it away. Walsh added that "My money was earned by me and should be kept by my family and I. It's not compassion to forcibly take the money I make & give it to someone else." This is another sacred Republican principle: We all earned our money completely on our own, and most taxes are examples of the government taking our money and unfairly giving it to someone else. Of course this is untrue. We all depend on a vast infrastructure and innumerable other people to earn anything; without state and society we would all be impoverished. It is only fair that we help some of those other people get basic health care. Barry Bennett taught ethics and social responsibility in various graduate business programs, including University of Portland and Marylhurst University. He lives in Southeast Portland. Portland May Day Rally 2017 Police declared the May Day rally a riot as protesters set fires in downtown Portland. (Dave Killen/Staff) Bill Currier On Monday, protesters all over the world marched on behalf of world socialism, communism, and a bunch of other causes popular with the political left. In Portland, they rioted. To be fair, many protesters did not riot, but the ones who did showed that they rule the streets of Portland. The rioters were clad in black with scarves covering their faces, burning things, breaking windows, damaging property, and terrorizing afternoon commuters just trying to get home. In other words, it was a Parade for Rioters. Meanwhile, two days earlier on Saturday, April 29th, the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade and Carnival was canceled, courtesy of the threats issued by the same despicable thugs that rioted on Monday. The canceled parade catered to families and children who wanted to enjoy cherished annual traditions of the Rose Festival. Obviously, this children's parade didn't receive the material support and security assurances that the protesters on Monday enjoyed. Did the cancellation of Saturday's parade help embolden the rioters to riot on Monday? Seems like it. The rioters certainly got the message that crime pays in Portland's "Rioters Sanctuary" -- so why not riot some more? The stated goal of these groups is to label anyone that they object to as being "fascist" and to "shut them down." They boast about "how much power" they have, that "the police cannot stop" them, they openly threaten to "endanger future parades," and add that their threats are "non-negotiable." They are indeed "anti-free speech" groups and live up to the very definition of "fascist" themselves. It's time to face it: First and foremost, Portland has a "riot" problem, not a Trump problem or a Republican problem. The strategy of appeasing rioters at the expense of the law-abiding citizens and business owners has entirely failed, and the people have had enough of it. Violent protests aren't protests. They are riots. It is now time for the "Riot Games" to end. Local authorities must do more than catch and release these rioters. As a start, they must charge, prosecute, convict and incarcerate them. But just putting these rioters in jail isn't enough. Share your opinion Submit your essay of 500 words or less to commentary@oregonlive.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification. It is time for public officials to "shut down" these groups and put them out of business in Oregon and elsewhere. Law enforcement at all levels of government should immediately investigate the organized, coordinated activities of these groups that clearly conspired to perpetrate criminal mischief, wanton destruction and violent intimidation upon our state and its citizens. They should examine if the actions of these groups to abridge the free speech and assembly rights of others should be subject to federal civil rights charges, along with applicable "hate crime" and domestic terrorism charges. If our state and local leaders can't bring themselves to do this, and particularly if their political sympathies or fears are preventing them from doing so, then Portland and Oregon have a much bigger problem to solve. Which is it gonna be: Family-friendly parades or Parades for Rioters? Bill Currier is the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party. By Rich Lowry Donald Trump is trying to do for Andrew Jackson what Lin-Manuel Miranda did for Alexander Hamilton. Trump, like Miranda, is out to restore the reputation of a great American figure once threatened with removal from U.S. currency. Trump doesn't have the cultural pull of the writer and star of "Hamilton," yet his salvage job might influence Republicans, to the party's peril. The Jacksonian tradition in America has, until recently, been neglected, and Trump is firmly within it. If it deserves to be part of the tapestry of the Republican coalition, the GOP should nonetheless curb its enthusiasm. It already has a perfectly acceptable -- nay, altogether superior -- 19th-century champion in Abraham Lincoln. Not only was Lincoln a founding figure in the party and on the right side of slavery, he is an unsurpassed exemplar of the GOP's core values of personal responsibility and striving. Jackson, for all his flaws, belongs in the American pantheon. Trump's comment the other day about Jackson perhaps preventing the Civil War occasioned much obloquy, but he was right about his stalwart unionism. In the midst of the nullification crisis with South Carolina in the 1830s, Jackson told a South Carolina congressman that "if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find." There's a reason Lincoln reviewed Jackson's proclamation against nullification when composing his first inaugural address. There are other similarities. In a speech praising Jackson back in March at the Hermitage, Trump talked of Jackson's rise from backwoods obscurity; Lincoln traced the same path. Trump noted Jackson's regard for common workers; Lincoln felt the same way. Trump celebrated how Jackson challenged the powerful; Lincoln targeted the Southern planter class. So, why wasn't Lincoln himself a Jacksonian? This would have been the easy choice, given how Jacksonian Democrats dominated the areas where Lincoln made his first forays into elected politics. He instead became a Whig -- and then a Republican -- largely as a cultural choice. The Whigs disdained Jackson as representing "the passions." He was a slave owner, gambler and duelist, and therefore, according to the Whigs, lacked the cardinal virtue of self-control. The Whigs believed deeply in self-discipline, lawfulness and reason. And this is the rub. This Whig ethic passed into the DNA of the Republican Party, but risks getting lost in a newly Jacksonian GOP. First, in defending Trump's various wanderings, the party could begin to argue that words and proprieties don't matter. This would be a turning away from Lincoln. A brutal insult artist early in his career, he got more serious. His famous speeches are models of precision, logic and historical knowledge. Certainly, this is how we should want our leaders to speak and think. Second, there is the factor of new Trump voters. In the 19th century, the different cultural emphases of Democrats and Whigs tracked their different constituencies. The Democrats were the party of subsistence farmers, and the Whigs the party of people most integrated in the commercial economy. Not coincidentally, the Democrats believed in the natural goodness of the people, while the Whigs preached constant striving. With Trump having won over a white working class that is, among other challenges, beset by social dysfunction, the temptation for Republicans will be to forget their message of personal responsibility -- to emphasize what has allegedly been done to working-class voters rather than what they can do to help themselves. Democrats have long wanted ownership of Lincoln, and now the GOP's hold on the Great Emancipator is getting cross-pressured by a Republican president. If a swap of Andrew Jackson for Abraham Lincoln is on offer, the Democrats -- already dumping their once signature Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners -- would be foolish not to take it. The Party of Lincoln should, despite Trump's enthusiasm, keep Old Hickory at a healthy arm's length. Rich Lowry can be reached at comments.lowry@nationalreview.com (c) 2017, King Features Syndicate marcusmumfordphoto.jpg Attorney Marcus Mumford, of Utah, was given what's called pro hac vice admission to practice and represent Ammon Bundy in federal court in Oregon during a five-week trial last fall. Now, Oregon's chief U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman is moving to revoke Mumford's authority to practice in federal court anywhere in Oregon, citing his behavior during the Bundy trial. Mumford had until Thursday to respond in writing, but Mumford has asked for more time. (The Oregonian) Ammon Bundy's lawyer Marcus Mumford called a judge's push to revoke his ability to practice law in federal court in Oregon a "serious and stigmatizing" sanction and unwarranted. The Utah-based lawyer has asked U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman for more time to respond. Mumford also wants a full transcript of last fall's refuge occupation trial to challenge what Mosman called Mumford's repeated failures or refusals to observe court rulings, highlighted in about 545 pages of excerpts from the trial transcript. Mumford was supposed to file his response to Mosman by Thursday, but instead filed an 11-page memo asking for at least 45 more days, noting the gravity of Mosman's action and that it could significantly undermine his career. He argued that many of the challenges he raised during Bundy's trial resulted from U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown's rulings that limited the scope of his questions in response to objections raised by prosecutors. "In these matters, I do not necessarily intend to argue in each instance that I was right and the court was wrong,'' Mumford wrote. "As Judge Brown pointed out, there were several instances over the course of the trial where we likely just misunderstood each other.'' Mumford represented Bundy, one of seven defendants who were on trial in Portland last September for taking over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. A jury acquitted all of them of conspiracy, weapons and other charges. Mosman in mid-April took the rare move of seeking to revoke Mumford's ability to practice in any federal court in the District of Oregon, citing repeated instances of Mumford yelling at Brown, inappropriate commentary on a witness in the presence of a jury and his arguing for Bundy's release from jail after the acquittal "without a good-faith basis to believe that the pre-existing custody order'' from Nevada wasn't still in effect. At the end of the trial, U.S. marshals tackled Mumford and stunned him with a Taser gun when he repeatedly questioned why Bundy should remain in jail. Mumford was taken into custody and released, charged with failing to follow a federal officer's orders and court signs not to prohibit a federal officer's official work. Bundy is now in custody in Nevada, awaiting trial there on federal charges stemming from the 2014 armed standoff with federal land officers near his father Cliven Bundy's ranch in Bunkerville. On March 15, a judge specially assigned from Washington dismissed the charges against Mumford. About one month later came Mosman's move to revoke Mumford's ability to practice again in an Oregon federal courthouse. Mosman filed 25 exhibits with his order, mostly transcripts from Bundy's trial in support. Mumford said he obtained some preliminary transcripts during the course of the five-week Oregon trial but he never obtained a full transcript. He said Bundy was unable to pay for a full transcript. "Because the government has kept Mr. Bundy in custody continually since his acquittal, he has not been able to make any further payments toward my outstanding invoice," Mumford added in a footnote. Mumford said Mosman's order came without warning while he was on spring break with his seven children. "There should be no mistake that I think the Court is gravely mistaken to even issue its (order to show cause),'' Mumford wrote. "Nevertheless, I take this matter seriously." If Mosman does revoke Mumford's ability to practice in any Oregon federal court, the judge will disclose the sanction to any state bar under which Mumford currently practices law, and Mumford will be required to disclose such a sanction when applying to practice in any federal court in the future. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonian The letters came in droves. Oregonians wrote to the governor, editors of local newspapers, the Department of Justice. After the attack, many said, they no longer trusted their neighbors. They wanted them out. Return & Remembrance: A Pilgrimage to the Portland Assembly Center Saturday, May 6, 2017, 2-4 p.m. at Portland Expo Center, Exhibit Hall A (2060 N. Marine Drive) Free and open to the public, free parking RSVP to Oregon Nikkei Endowment at 503-224-1458 or info@oregonnikkei.org "Blood is thicker than water," one wrote. "Their religion, customs, racial characteristics can never harmoniously blend into our civilization. We do not and never did love them as ourselves nor did they nor will they ever love us better than their own people." Another used offensive language common to the time: "I do not believe we should have any Japanese in this country. I do not believe there is such a thing as an 'American Japanese.' He might be born here, but I don't think he is any more of an American than I would be a 'Jap' if I had happened to be born in Japan." These letters, collected by historian Anne Galisky in the exhibit "Architecture of Internment," were among those sent to Oregon Gov. Charles Sprague after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The exhibit will be on display this weekend at the Portland Expo Center, part of a pilgrimage event marking the 75th anniversary of the day Japanese Americans from Oregon and southwest Washington were forced from their homes and relocated to the center. The center, which was used to hold livestock in the 1940s, was repurposed into haphazard living quarters. At its peak, it held close to 3,700 people. They were held there for four months, until they were sent to federal internment camps. The pilgrimage, hosted by the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, is meant to ensure that the injustices Japanese Americans endured is not forgotten, said Lynn Fuchigami, the Nikkei Endowment executive director. "With every story and memory shared, we hope there will be a commitment and resolve to stand against fear and prejudice," she said in an email. The state will also issue an official apology for "failing to defend the civil and human rights of its citizens and legal residents in 1942" in a proclamation by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. The proclamation, signed by Brown on Tuesday, is the first time the state has officially apologized for Japanese American incarceration. The proclamation will designate May 6, 2017, "Return and Remembrance Day." The city of Portland also officially apologized for its role in the incarceration for the first time in a proclamation signed by Mayor Ted Wheeler on March 28. Those official apologies, Fuchigami said, are important for formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans to hear. "We hope somehow it's healing for them to know what they endured will never be forgotten," she said. *** Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, then-Oregon Gov. Charles Sprague advocated for calm. But many Oregonians disagreed and voiced it loudly. In the "Architecture of Internment" exhibit, Galisky collected the letters Oregon residents, groups and businesses sent to the governor advocating for the removal of their Japanese American neighbors. Galisky and her team -- Roland Wu, Rebecca Shine and Bryan Potter -- spent the past year putting the exhibit together. But Galisky first found the letters buried in Sprague's file in the state archives when she was studying history at Portland State University 15 years ago. They've stayed in her mind ever since, she said. "I was so surprised and dismayed," she said. "Every letter was shocking." In one, an American Legion chapter in Klamath Falls advocated for the removal of Japanese Americans. The letter writers admitted that their ancestors, too, were immigrants once. But, they wrote, their forefathers "were members of the white race and through their efforts and sacrifices our nation has been born and left as our heritage for protection, and protect it we will." Swayed perhaps in part by the letters and a primary election that was upcoming Sprague changed his position on Japanese Americans. In February 1942, he wrote to the U.S. Attorney General advocating for "internment." The term is widely misused today, as it refers to a wartime process applied to nationals from enemy countries, not U.S. citizens. Two-thirds of the camps' occupants were American citizens. In order to understand how the incarceration camps came to be, Galisky said, people have to understand how many Oregonians advocated Japanese American incarceration to their elected leaders. The camps were not something that just happened, she said, but something that Oregonians are responsible for creating. "The more history can be made personal to everyone, the easier it is to grasp this happened to real people and was done by real people," Galisky said. Galisky hopes that exhibit will make people think about the effect of their words, particularly now as tensions over immigration are high nationwide. What would have happened, she said, if people on the West Coast had spoken against the forced removal of their Japanese American neighbors? Maybe history would have been different, she said. It's important now, she said, to remember that. "History is made by people," she said. "And we are making it right now." Samantha Matsumoto 503-294-4001; @SMatsumoto55 Presidential Scholars 2017 Nikhil Murthy, left, and Katherine LeBlanc were named Oregon's 2017 Presidential Scholars. (Courtesy of Nikhil Murthy and Erin LeBlanc) Katherine LeBlanc, a senior at Lincoln High School, and Nikhil Murthy, a senior at The Catlin Gabel School, were named Friday the 2017 Presidential Scholars for Oregon. LeBlanc is an aspiring neuroscientist and a neuroscience intern at OHSU and the VA Medical Center. She will attend Stanford University next fall and plans to study biology and psychology. She said Hanisi Accetta at Lincoln High School was her most influential teacher. Murthy is interested in artificial intelligence, robotics and entrepreneurship. He is an incoming freshman at MIT and plans to study computer science. Dr. Jeff Crosby, his biology teacher at Catlin Gabel, was his most influential teacher. One young man and one young woman from each state are selected annually to become Presidential Scholars. Scholars were selected based on their academic success, artistic excellence, essays, school evaluations and transcripts, as well as community service and leadership. Murthy presented research on robotics and artificial intelligence at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference in 2016, his second time presenting at the conference. He qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair as a freshman, sophomore and junior. In 2014, he was awarded a second place Chemistry Grand Award at the fair. He has played violin since age 4 and plays both western violin and Indian Carnatic violin. He was in the Portland Youth Philharmonic orchestra as a freshman and sophomore. LeBlanc has researched neuroscience at OHSU and the VA Medical Center for the past two summers, and plans to again this summer, her mother Erin LeBlanc said. LeBlanc spoke at TedxYouth Portland about addiction and the brain in fall 2016. She is a co-captain of Lincoln High School's speech and debate team and the president for the student-led a capella group Vivace. In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos congratulated the scholars. "Today's Presidential Scholars are tomorrow's leaders, and I am confident they will continue to be shining examples as they enter the next phase of their academic careers," DeVos said. LeBlanc, Murthy and the other scholars will be honored at a White House ceremony in June. Samantha Matsumoto 503-294-4001; @SMatsumoto55 WASHINGTON The Interior Department on Friday identified 27 national monuments, mostly in Western states, that it is reviewing for possible changes to the protections created by Republican and Democratic presidents over the past two decades. President Donald Trump ordered the review last month, saying protections imposed by his three immediate predecessors amounted to "a massive federal land grab" that "should never have happened." A list released Friday includes 22 monuments on federal land in 11, mostly Western states, including Cascade-Siskiyou in southern Oregon, which was not included in the original list of monuments up for review. Craters of the Moon in Idaho, Hanford Reach in Washington, Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah and Giant Sequoia in California were also on Friday's list. The announcement follows a 48,000-acre expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou monument by President Barack Obama in January. Ranchers and those in the timber industry have spoken out against the expansion, which they say could hurt the area's economy. The review announced Friday also targets five marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 by President George W. Bush and expanded last year by President Barack Obama. Bush, Obama and former President Bill Clinton were among a host of presidents who protected hundreds of millions of acres under a 1906 law that authorizes the president to declare federal lands and waters as monuments and restrict their use. Trump said the protections imposed by his predecessors "unilaterally put millions of acres of land and water under strict federal control, eliminating the ability of the people who actually live in those states to decide how best to use that land." The land-controls have "gotten worse and worse and worse, and now we're going to free it up, which is what should have happened in the first place," Trump said at a signing ceremony marking the executive order. Trump accused Obama in particular of exploiting the 1906 Antiquities Act in an "egregious abuse of federal power," adding that he was giving power "back to the states and to the people, where it belongs." In December, shortly before leaving office, Obama infuriated Utah Republicans by creating the Bears Ears National Monument on more than 1 million acres of land that's sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. Republicans in the state asked Trump to take the unusual step of reversing Obama's decision. They said the monument designation will stymie growth by closing the area to new commercial and energy development. The Antiquities Act does not give the president explicit power to undo a designation and no president has ever taken such a step. Trump's order also targets the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, created by Clinton in 1996, and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, created last year by Obama. At 87,500 acres, Katahdin is the only one of the 22 monuments under review that is smaller than 100,000 acres, the minimum size designated by the order. The Interior Department said Katahdin will be reviewed under a provision that singles out whether a monument was created or expanded without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders. The land east of Maine's Baxter State Park was bought by Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby, whose foundation donated it to the federal government. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has been directed to produce an interim report next month and make a recommendation on Bears Ears, and then issue a final report within 120 days. Zinke is traveling to Utah on Sunday and will visit Bears Ears and Grand Staircase. Members of a coalition of five Western tribes that pushed for the Bears Ears designation have said they're outraged the Trump administration will review a decision they say was already carefully vetted by the Obama administration, including a multi-day visit last year by then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "Once it's designated, it's designated," said Davis Filfred of the Navajo Nation. Trump "should just honor our past leaders and those who were before him. He's disregarding the Native Americans, the first people of this nation. This is sacred land." -- The Associated Press and staff A Grant High School history teacher's three-page written opinion about "rape culture" distributed this week among students and staff has prompted outrage inside and outside the Northeast Portland school. It isn't clear what prompted teacher David Lickey to write the document widely shared on Facebook -- that says, "I find assertions of rape culture dubious," and "The very wording of 'rape culture' seems to me a bit hysterical." The document, dated May 2, is addressed to "esteemed students and Mr. Leeman," and begins with Lickey recounting that he had "interrupted your lesson and the train of your discussion in a way that was disruptive, for that I apologize." The document goes on to say: "'Rape culture' is a theoretical construct that is ill defined. What exactly is 'rape culture'? I don't see it in my life or the lives of any of the men and women I have known. I have never met a person who believes rape is anything other than a heinous crime." Lickey concludes by writing, "These are a few of my thoughts on the subject. As you can tell, I'm uncomfortable with theories of rape culture. I don't think there are in these thoughts anything even remotely chauvinistic or misogynistic, quite the opposite. If you disagree, I'd love to hear your thoughts." This browser does not support inline PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF On Friday night, Grant High Principal Carol Campbell sent a message to families. The document, Campbell wrote, "included some statements that run counter to the way we approach this important subject. The perspective of the teacher does not reflect nor support our approach to educating students on sexual assault. A strong contradictory argument should be accompanied by counter arguments from credible sources. "In this case, the document was shared with many students and staff with very little context. We apologize for any harm or negative impact. We are working with students and some staff members to organize listening sessions and opportunities for adults and students to get support. It is our primary goal to ensure Grant is a safe place for all." Lisa Frack, president of the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women, said in an email that the document's contents were "shocking but unfortunately not surprising." "Too many men continue to explain to women what we do and don't experience in our daily lives," Frack said. "We actually know what we experience in our daily lives all by ourselves." In 2013, Lickey was the adviser for Grant's Constitution Team which won the school's first national "We the People" competition. Lickey has a wiki page that describes the three Grant history classes he teaches. On Saturday, a man who answered the phone number listed on the page said, "He's not available. Thank you." --Allan Brettman 503-294-5900 @allanbrettman Sitting in the courtyard at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, Nico Santos gets a little nostalgic thinking back on his days as a Centennial High School student who caught the acting bug. His first role in a high school play? A Nazi in "The Sound of Music," Santos recalls. But it's all been uphill from there. Santos, who was born in the Philippines and moved to Gresham when he was 16, is now a member of the cast of "Superstore," the charming NBC comedy that's been renewed for a third season. Even though viewers may know Santos for his "Superstore" role as Mateo, Santos' background is as a standup comedian. Which is why he's in Portland this weekend, performing at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival. After studying at Southern Oregon University, then spending a few seasons working in the costume department at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Santos moved to San Francisco. He established himself as a popular standup comedian, and then moved to Los Angeles, where he shifted into acting. As Mateo, the ambitious employee of the big box retailer on "Superstore," Santos is part of the show's refreshingly diverse cast. Like Santos, Mateo is gay, and Filipino. One of the best elements of "Superstore," Santos says, is that it features multi-dimensional characters, and actors of various backgrounds and ethnicities. Producers weren't trying to check boxes on a diversity list, Santos says. Instead, "they just hired the funniest people." The Bridgetown Comedy Festival is also a feast of diversity, Santos says, in that it includes all sorts of comedy, in a variety of venues. "There's something for everybody," Santos says. Santos is busy this weekend, with Bridgetown appearances scheduled for Friday, May 5 ("Picture This!" at the Paris Theatre); Saturday, May 6 ("That's My Bay!" at Bunk Bar, and "Guy Branum's Gay Bash" at the Paris Theatre); and Sunday, May 7 ("Minority Retort" at Bossanova Ballroom.) After that, Santos is looking forward to beginning work on Season 3 of "Superstore," which begins in July. To hear more about Santos' praise for the Centennial High School arts program, his mother's dream that Santos will marry a doctor, and why appearing at Bridgetown was an opportunity for him not only to perform but to catch up with old friends. watch our complete interview, above. -- Kristi Turnquist kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist Sarah Meldrum Bachelor of Science with Honours (Information Science) Although she could have studied anywhere in New Zealand, Information Science honours student Sarah Meldrum chose Otago for its reputation and the great lifestyle Dunedin offers.Im loving the whole Otago experience although Im often busy studying, there are so many opportunities to meet new people and experience new things.Sarah says she initially considered a variety of subjects for her major, and Otagos flexible study options meant she could explore them all before deciding to focus on Information Science.When I was thinking about university study, science and commerce both really appealed Im so pleased I settled on Information Science because it offers the best of both worlds, combining business and technology in the one degree.The staff and lecturers are so helpful and are always willing to answer questions, which makes study more enjoyable when you have a good relationship with your teachers, it makes it easier to learn. In addition to enjoying studying the subject, Sarah can see how relevant Information Science is to potential career paths. Ive learnt so much about the role information and information systems play in the constantly changing digital age. This knowledge will allow me to work in corporate organisations, bringing people and business together with new technologies in innovative ways. Charlotte Verstappen Bachelor of Science with Honours (Anatomy) When Charlotte Verstappen moved to Otago from rural Waikato she was looking to get out of her comfort zone and find some independence. She was also looking for a clear study path. At first I wasnt sure which direction I wanted to go in, so I took the first year Health Science course to keep my options open. Over the year, I developed a real interest in the science behind the human body, and how all the components fit together and interact to make a functioning being. I was also fascinated by the concept that the body can adapt over the course of a lifetime, and how the changes in muscle, tendon and bone are able to reflect different aspects of an individuals life. So I chose to study anatomy, while also including biological anthropology papers. Charlotte enjoyed being able to build her degree, picking subjects that she was specifically interested in. This meant that I was able to include arts papers as part of my degree, which was a completely different style of learning and I really enjoyed that. Charlotte now uses the knowledge she gained through her degree in her work as a tissue bank technician at the University of Auckland, where she liaises with surgical patients who have consented for their tissues or biopsies to be donated. The medical terminology and understanding of human anatomy has allowed me to interact with clinicians, and has given me a good grasp of what we are trying to achieve through tissue banking. I feel like Im making an important contribution to future medical research. MSU Extension of Midland County and cooperating parent educators sponsor the Parents Corner. Send submissions to Midland County MSU Extension Educator, Lisa Treiber, 220 W. Ellsworth St., Midland, MI 48640 Aviation Pancake Breakfast Midlands Jack Barstow Airport will host a Pancake Breakfast from 7 to 11 a.m. Saturday, May 6. he public is invited to enjoy a complete breakfast, including pancakes, eggs cooked to order, sausage, beverages and homemade doughnuts all you can eat. Walk the flight line and view the airplanes flying in from around the state. Activities will be held for children. EAA Chapter 1093 at the Barstow Airport sponsors the breakfast. Cost is $7 for adults and $3 for children. Funds raised go toward aviation programs for the local youth. Spring Wildflower Walk Woodland wildflowers appear on the forest floor at Chippewa Nature Center heralding the return of spring. On Sunday, May 7, from 2 to 3 p.m., join in on a walk through the Beech Maple Woods or the Meadow Mouse Trail to see if you can find Dutchmans breeches, Trout Lily, Bloodroot, Spring Beauty and many others. Meet Interpretive Naturalist Jeanne Henderson at the Visitor Center to start your walk. Full Moon Stroll Chippewa Nature Center will host a Full Moon Stroll from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 10. The Flower Moon acknowledges the abundance of wildflowers in bloom and will guide the way for walkers to look for nocturnal life. Watch the moon rise after sunset. Bring a flashlight. Meet Interpretive Naturalist Jeanne Henderson at the Visitor Center. Families in Nature: Birds on the Move Venture out to Chippewa Nature Center for the monthly Families in Nature program series on Saturday, May 13, from 1 to 2 p.m. Join CNCs naturalists for this outdoor program to explore birds on the move. Participants will play games to understand the struggles of migration as well as go on a hike to look for these mobile critters and those busy birds already preparing to nest. Free Airplane Rides for Kids Free Young Eagle Flights offered to 8 to 17 years old, with a signed permission slip by a legal guardian. Flights are scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, May 13. Pilots will explain the aircraft, describe the flight and then they will fly with the youth. The EAA Chapter 1093 Young Eagles program is a way of welcoming young people to the exhilaration and freedom of flight. The program is sponsored by the EAA Aviation Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, dedicated to providing motivational aviation experience for the younger generation. This is a free event at the Midland Barstow Airport, 2800 E. Airport Road, Midland. For more information, call (989) 835-3231. NEMCSA Head Start Preschool Programs NEMCSA Head Start is a free preschool program for qualifying families with children ages 3 to 4. Head Start also serves children with special needs and/or disabilities. Head Start is a member of the Midland County Regional Preschool Partnership. Complete a preschool interest form online at www.michiganpreschool.org NEMCSA Head Start offers full day and half-day preschool classrooms that run four days a week. Classroom locations in the Midland and Sanford areas include sites at Longview Early Childhood Center, First Baptist Church, Grace Bible Church and Sanford Early Childhood Center. Contact Katie Estelle at (989) 832-0968 or Kelly Scoles at (989) 832-7520 to schedule an application appointment. The Midland County Health and Human Services Council recently heard a presentation from members of Hunger Connections, a collaborative to understand and reduce barriers for the hungry in Midland County. Ann Fillmore, executive director of United Way, shared that United Way has partnered with 30 local non-profits with the goal of fostering new ideas in which to collaborate to leverage resources, ensuring non-duplication of services. In collaboration with Saginaw Valley State University, a comprehensive survey was conducted and the results assisted in illustrating our communitys food security needs and determining how our community can improve access. The results of the survey show that food security, the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food, is an ongoing struggle for our neighbors in Midland County. One in three households in Midland County are struggling to meet basic needs, forcing them to make the difficult decision between paying bills and purchasing food for their family. Many of these families, adults and seniors fall in the ALICE population, which is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. ALICE households have an annual income that is higher than the U.S. poverty level, but their total annual earnings arent high enough to meet the basic cost of living for the county they live in. Combined, the number of households in poverty and ALICE equals the total population struggling to afford basic needs. This represents 34 percent of households in Midland County. Sandy Warner, manager of the referral-based Emergency Food Pantry Network (eight pantries in Midland County) shared the realities of those who are food insecure in Midland County. Food security is an issue for 59.2 percent of ALICE households in Midland County. Since these households dont qualify for government assistance programs, they often have to make the difficult decision of paying for housing, utilities and transportation over purchasing enough food for their families. These families, adults and seniors dont always ask for help with food insecurity. In fact, up to 30 percent of those in need are not using resources that are available to them. There are several solutions that the collective group is working on. Awareness is key to reaching people who are not using available resources. An awareness campaign was recently launched centered on the simple message: Dont go without. In this campaign, United Way of Midland County and 211 Northeast Michigan will continue to provide information on the issue of food security and encourage those in need to call 211. The solution to access is simple: call 211 and a helpful team will guide callers to the resources that can help. In addition to community awareness, other projects of the collaborative include The Bridge Grocery Store and fresh fruit and vegetable mobile carts. Jackie Maxwell of Messiah shared that The Bridge, a discount food market, serves those that need a little help putting food on the table and make less than $51,000 annually. This is not a food pantry, it is a means of stretching your food dollars. The Bridge is a response to food insecurity. As a new ministry, this food center (with 900 members) focuses on providing the opportunity for people to purchase healthy foods at wholesale prices. The food center is open to the public and is located at 1539 Washington St. Shannon Lijewski, United Way director of community impact, discussed the plans for the fresh produce mobile food cart, a collaborative project that is in the conceptual stages, which will be a means to provide healthy foods on a weekly basis to designated locations. There will also be an educational component to this. To learn more about the issue of food security in Midland County and the Hunger Connections collaborative working to provide resources for families, seniors and adults, call 211 or visit www.unitedwaymidland.org. Results from the 2016 Food Security Survey can be found at unitedwaymidland.org/our-impact/food-security. Ann Fillmore is the executive director of United Way of Midland County and a member of the Midland County Health & Human Services Council. The HHSC promotes excellence in the delivery of health and human services through the collective efforts of 27 key community leaders with a shared vision for solving community challenges. BLOOMINGTON A judge ruled Friday that the Illinois State Police crime lab has 14 days to conduct additional DNA tests on evidence that lawyers for Donald Whalen claim could identify new suspects who may have been involved in the 1991 murder of his father. Whalen is serving 60 years in the death of William Whalen. The victim was killed during a fight at the Twenty Grand Tap, a bar he owned in downtown Bloomington. For more than a year, the state police and the defense have been at odds over whether an initial database search using forensic data developed by defense expert Karl Reich complied with a McLean Court order for forensic testing. Reich testified Friday that the search, which returned no DNA profiles similar to those contained in his report, did not follow his instructions. The state has argued that Reich's development of a DNA profile from multiple samples collected on three knives found at the crime scene is not a scientifically sound practice. Testing of what the state considers an unconventional profile could put the crime lab at risk for loss of accreditation, according to arguments by Illinois Assistant Attorney General Joshua Ratz. The court order that the tests be performed within 14 days and the results disclosed within 30 days followed a ruling by Judge Scott Drazewski that state crime lab workers should not be held in indirect contempt for refusing to do the keyboard search. Concerns that the crime lab could be sanctioned were taken seriously by the state, said the judge, adding that no evidence has been produced to back up those fears. In his testimony, Reich said the initial testing "does not comply with the spirit or thought of the court order." The goal of the court order allowing him to develop the profile was to provide the crime lab with data for "an expansive search for an alternative assailant." Reich explained that Whalen's DNA was not included in the newly developed profile because earlier DNA testing on the knives by a private lab excluded Whalen as a possible contributor to the genetic sample collected from the murder weapons. The disagreement between the state and the defense may be based on a lack of understanding of Reich's report, said the judge, quoting an often-repeated line from the movie "Cool Hand Luke:" "What we've got here is failure to communicate." "That's exactly what we've got here," said Drazewski. The test sought by the defense requires a state forensic scientist to enter data from Reich's report into a computer program that will determine if one or more similar profiles exist. If the programs make such a determination, the information will be given to the defense and state for further investigation. Defense attorney Elliot Slosar, who is an attorney with The Exoneration Project, argued that follow-up DNA testing has resulted in exonerations in other murder cases. The additional testing "holds the potential that a keyboard search could show who killed Mr. Whalen's father. It could lead to someone who committed murder more than two decades ago and has been free and eluded prosecution," Slosar said after the hearing. Ratz's request to stay the court order mandating testing while the state pursues an appeal was denied by Drazewski based on his ruling that such a delay applies to civil and not criminal proceedings. A June 29 hearing is scheduled to review the status of the case. BLOOMINGTON The groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the McLean County jail scheduled for Friday has been rescheduled for 9 a.m. Monday. The McLean County Board postponed the ceremony to allow people to pay their respects at the Central Illinois Regional Airport Friday morning for the arrival of the plane carrying the remains of Sgt. Josh Rodgers, an Army Ranger killed in action in Afghanistan last week. In a statement from the county, officials said "we want nothing to detract from our community's show of support for Sgt. Rodgers." The public is invited to Monday's ceremony to mark the start of construction of the $39 million expansion to the jail. The event will be held at the construction site just east of the Law and Justice Center. BLOOMINGTON A vein of patriotism ran strong through the Twin Cities on Saturday. Large crowds honored Army Sgt. Josh Rodgers along an eight-mile funeral procession that stretched from Eastview Christian Church in Normal to Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington. Rodgers, a 2013 Normal Community High School graduate, was killed in action in Afghanistan in April. Flags of every size lined ditches. The stars and stripes hung from many front porches and fluttered from windows of cars. Krista McBeath of Bloomington and her daughter Jillian, 4, sat in the grass outside Cross Pointe Church of God in Normal. The duo practiced waving flags and pinwheels before the procession began. I want to teach my daughter about the freedoms we have and who protects them, said McBeath. I hope the Rodgers family feels a tremendous outpouring of love and support. I hope it brings them peace knowing people of Bloomington-Normal greatly appreciate the sacrifice their son made. Hundreds gathered on the sidewalk along Airport Road in Bloomington, where a long row of flags whipped in the wind. The crowd was silent as the long line of cars passed. People saluted, held hands over their hearts or lifted flags as car passengers wiped tears at the sight. Keagan Theobald, 8, and her sister Emmy Theobald, 6, waved handmade paper flags. After we made the flags, our mom told us what happened and I thought it would be good to wave them today, said Emmy. I hope it makes the (Rodgers) family feel glad, said Keagan. Their mother, Deanna Theobald of Bloomington, grew emotional as she spoke of the conversation she recently had with her daughters regarding freedom and sacrifice. Its important to talk to my kids about these things, said Theobald. Its so sad that this happens, but because of people fighting for our freedom, were free to live normal lives. Brett Keltz of Bloomington stood with his son Robert, a junior at Bloomington Junior High School. Brett Keltz recently returned home after serving in the Navy for 30 years. He said he appreciates the recent wave of patriotism in Bloomington-Normal. Nothing will ever make this passing easier for the family, but at least they know theyll always have the support of the community, said Brett Keltz. Robert Keltz said he understands the grief of losing a family member and wanted to offer support to the Rodgers family. I know it might not help much, but I hope while theyre dealing with this loss, our support helps a little bit, said Robert Keltz. Multiple veterans, including Army Sgt. Luis Sandoval of Bloomington, wore their uniforms. I hope the family knows veterans serving in the past, present and future will support him and his family long after he is put to rest, said Sandoval. At Evergreen Cemetery, 220 full-size flags lined the path to Rodgers' grave. Cemetery manager Tina Crow said the flags go up every year on Memorial Day to honor deceased veterans. The flags were raised early this year in Rodgers' name. "It's a bittersweet feeling," said Crow. "It's good to see everyone in our community has come together to honor Josh Rodgers." In our rush to cut funding for services provided by Medicaid, we must be careful not to cut funding for long-term care for citizens with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Funding for these important services is neither charity nor income redistribution. Rather, it operates like insurance, which we all need. In exchange for a portion of the state and federal taxes we all pay, we transfer to the government a substantial portion of the financial cost we will incur if we have a child with a severe I/DD. These costs are enormous and the insurance deductibles and co-pays are huge. Never the less, we pay the "premiums" and transfer the financial risk, because the likelihood of this happening is the same for all families, regardless of income, education or political affiliations. Only the wealthiest families can afford this cost without help. Hence, it is in everyones self-interest to be sure these programs are adequately funded. Unfortunately, Illinois has a long history of underfunding I/DD services. Because the federal government reimburses Illinois for 50 percent of what Illinois actually spends, Illinois does not recover all of the funds our citizens send to Washington for I/DD services. Illinois must begin to adequately fund long-term care for our citizens with I/DD, first, because it is the right thing to do; second, it could have been me rather than you who needs services now; and third, in the future it could be someone you care about who needs this help. Merlin Lehman, Bloomington As the people slept, allowing in the cool filter of the day's sunlight to shine through the windows of the world, Kanye West disappeared from social media. @KimKardashian tell him get back on twitter Brian Sporman (@BrianSporman) May 5, 2017 On the same day his kid's line launched, Kanye deleted his Instagram and Twitter accounts. His 27 million Twitter followers were left wondering why. His withdrawal from social media may be tied to recent news about his wife Kim being robbed at gunpoint while attending Paris fashion week. Kanye's mental health has reportedly taken a hit. He even stopped his Saint Pablo tour last year to better take care of himself. Who knows when Yeezy will return to us. We just hope it's sooner rather than later. Header photo via Carl Timpone/BFA.com Helicopter parents have been making the headline as the said parenting style can potentially do more harm than good. Studies suggest that helicopter parents tend to raise unemployable children due to their persistence to do everything for their child. Several studies have already explained that helicopter parenting can be harmful to the children's growth as they are always pampered. Doing everything for the children out of love may seem ideal, but it restricts the children's capacity to learn and grow on their own, as explained by Parents. Helicopter parents mostly mean well but some fail to recognize that their over-devotion for their children as a disadvantage. Experts note that balance and learning to let go when the time comes are the most important things to good parenting. Hovering over the child's daily activities and tasks can highly affect their independence, which can have a long-term impact on their personalities. People raised by helicopter parents would often find it difficult to land a job, and stick to it, according to Huffington Post. Helicopter parents would tend to fix everything for their kids, up to a point where they would intervene to personal conflicts. By doing so, the children are not given a chance to develop their social skills and may find it hard to resolve issues with their colleagues in the future. Most millennials were raised by helicopter parents, thus, they grew up to be more depressed, The Washington Post reported. The majority of the young adults struggle to cope with their daily lives as they were highly comfortable during their childhood. Depression rates among millennials continually soar, especially for those in college. A 2012 study done by the American College Counseling Association explain that 44 percent of college students experience symptoms of depression, and the numbers continually increase as the years go by. Back in April 2015 Patently Apple posted a report titled "European Regulators Sticking their Nose into Apple's Streaming Music Business before it even gets off the Ground." In August 2015 we posted a follow-up report titled "The EU Commission ends one Apple Music Probe while considering another." In that report we noted that "The European Commission failed to find evidence of collusion among the major music labels and Apple to quash free music streaming services such as those offered by Spotify." Even with that finding, the EU appeared to be continually fishing for anything it could get on Apple that would allow them to open a new probe in an effort to punish U.S. tech companies and give European companies an edge. So the EU Commission asked Spotify and other music streaming services for information pertaining to Apple's mobile App Store. Regulators were seeking information on the restrictions Apple places on apps offered through the store. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission similarly was exploring whether Apple's treatment of rival streaming music apps in the App Store violate antitrust laws. We covered that story back in July 2015 (one and two). On March 29, 2017 we posted a report titled "New Analytical Report on Streaming Music Shows that Apple Music has taken the Lead in Unique Users by a Long Shot." Considering that Spotiy is considering an IPO later in 2017, this wasn't good news for them. So what's Spotifiy's next move? We learn from a new Financial Times times report that "Spotify and a host of European internet businesses have called on Brussels to crack down on what they see as troubling practices by the likes of Apple and Google. Big internet platforms 'can and do abuse their privileged position,' according to a letter signed by the chief executives of Spotify, music streaming rival Deezer and German start-up investor Rocket Internet among others. Although the letter to the European Commission does not cite the Silicon Valley giants by name, it complains that some mobile operating systems, app stores and search engines have evolved from 'gateways' into 'gatekeepers' effectively hindering rivals from competing with their own services. Apple and Google together control well over 90 per cent of mobile operating systems. The letter comes in the midst of a debate inside the commission around overhauling digital policy, with new proposals due later this year aimed at addressing allegedly unfair contractual clauses enforced by big platforms." In other words, the EU needed to have old grievances against Apple and Google revived so that they could justify their new digital policies that will no doubt come crashing down against Apple and Google in Europe. Even though their probes cleared Apple, they will now ensure to frame the argument according to their new rules to give European companies an edge. It appears that the EU Commission is drunk with power. Jean-Claude Junker, the president of the EU Commission recently made it clear that Europe is growing twice as fast as the U.S. and that English is "losing importance in Europe." So with their new found power is it any wonder that they wanted to start a war with the U.S. on the technology front by striking at Apple first to set a precedent? But that was just the beginning, the Financial Times report added that the EU Commission's new Digital Policy "Options being considered by the EU's executive arm range from sector-specific codes of conduct, to an independent dispute settlement body that would settle rows between big platforms and their often smaller business customers. In the letter, the chief executives write that this mismatch requires 'specific rules guiding the interactions between platforms and their business users.' Normally, a company abusing its dominant market position would be covered by competition law. But such cases take too long and cost too much for smaller internet companies, hence the need for extra regulation, they argue. Common complaints from the companies include not being able to access customer data when they sign up through an app store, as well as big companies promoting their own services over third parties'. Within the European Commission, there is a debate over how to approach the topic, with some calling for a cautious, narrow approach, while others are demanding that Brussels do more to rein in the likes of Google and Apple. Officials are also wary about being perceived as anti-American." Perceived? The EU is clearly anti-American on so many fronts, so this is nothing new. It's clear that the EU Commission is out to force U.S. companies to abide by rules that favor European companies. Instead of a European company creating an OS for Europeans, they'll do the easier thing, force U.S. companies to bow to the world's ever growing economic power, Europe. We'll see how this plays out once the EU makes their new digital policies known later this year. In the end, Spotify couldn't get US Authorities to break Apple as they wanted, so the EU Commission will now come to their rescue. What a joke. The reality is that the EU Commission knew that their new digital policies that are in the works are going to hurt Apple and Google and they needed a front argument to justify their moves. Spotify just happens to conveniently give them the excuse they need to hit U.S. tech companies. Stay tuned. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. Prominent Iranian Political Activist Faezeh Hashemi Barred From Speaking at Rouhani Campaign Event 05/06/17 Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran Speeches by reformist politicians and supporters of incumbent president Hassan Rouhani have been cancelled ahead of the May 19, 2017 presidential election, including two by former member of Parliament Faezeh Hashemi. Faezeh Hashemi Hashemi, an outspoken political activist and the daughter of the late former President Akbar Hashemi Rafasanjani, was prevented from speaking at the opening of Rouhani's campaign office in Arak, 148 miles south of Tehran, on April 30. Local security authorities told her she was not allowed to speak due to a prior conviction. After the ceremony was over, she grabbed the microphone and gave a brief talk. "The first thing I said was that the ban was illegal and based on false presumptions," said Hashemi after event. Hashemi was also prevented from speaking at Rouhani's campaign office in the southern port of Bandar Abbas on May 2. "(My opponents) are being narrow-minded. They do all sorts of things themselves, but they won't follow the law when it comes to their opponents," she said. "This ban is illegal. If you want to run the elections correctly, you must put a stop to these actions." Hashemi, who represented Tehran as an MP from 1996 to 2000, continued: "Opponents want to stop speeches by politicians who can make an impact because they are worried about the masses. But their actions always have the reverse effect." "A lot of people showed up at the event in Arak and if I had given a speech, I would not have gotten as much attention as what the ban generated," she said. "Now the news has spread and people are paying attention," she added. Reporting on the opening of Rouhani's campaign office in Arak, the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) quoted Hashemi speaking about her influential father, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in January 2017. "(Rafsanjani's) message was that the people should participate in the elections more than ever," she said. "Greater participation will result in a stronger victory and empower Rouhani to serve the people with greater authority." Hashemi, the former publisher of Iran's first women's newspaper, Zan (banned in 1999), was imprisoned for six months in 2012 for "propaganda against the state" and barred from political and media activities for five years for engaging in peaceful political activism. In March 2017, she was given a six-month prison sentence for "spreading falsehoods," "disturbing public opinion" and "propaganda against the state." A final ruling is pending upon appeal. A speech by current Vice President of Legal Affairs Majid Ansari on May 2 was also cancelled, according to Sajjad Dehghan, president of the pro-reform students' union at the Islamic Azad University in Kerman. "If we had gone ahead with the program there was going to be mayhem with opponents going on a rampage," Dehghan told ISNA. "As a student organization, our hands are truly tied, so we had to cancel Hojatoleslam Ansari's speech out of respect for him and his (clerical) garb." In Second Iranian Presidential Debate, Conservatives Accuse Rohani Of Failing To Cash In On Nuclear Deal 05/06/17 By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL The six approved candidates in Iran's presidential election came together in Tehran on May 5 for the second of three live debates on state TV. Source: Shakheh Sabz daily Iranian President Hassan Rohani came under criticism from his main conservative rivals during a live televised presidential election debate on May 5 -- a debate focusing on politics and culture. Rohani's rivals accused him of failing to improve Iran's economy in the aftermath of Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers, under which Iran significantly limited its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Hard-line conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi said the nuclear deal has failed to translate into improved living standards for the Iranian people. "This deal was like a check that the government has been unable to cash," Raisi said. Raisi also accused Rohani's government of demonstrating weakness during negotiations with world powers. "Saying that if we don't sign the agreement, the other side will take action and attack our nuclear sites [was] a very bad message for the talks," Raisi said. Despite the criticism, Raisi said that he would remain committed to the nuclear deal if he is elected president. Tehran's Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf also said Iranians have not benefited from the nuclear deal. He also accused Rohani's government of relying heavily on foreign investment while ignoring national resources. Qalibaf, who is running for president for the third time, has said he will safeguard the nuclear agreement, if elected. Source: Siasat Rooz daily Rohani, who came to power in 2013, defended his record while accusing conservatives of trying to sabotage the nuclear deal and undermine the country's nuclear negotiators. "If the [nuclear deal] is an accepted agreement, then why did you raise billboards in Tehran [that were critical of the deal]? Why did you insult those who were negotiating?" Rohani asked. The Iranian president also criticized the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for conducting provocative missile tests and scrawling anti-Israeli slogans on the missiles before launching them. "We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground [missile] cities to disrupt the nuclear deal," Rohani said. Rohani said his conservative rivals were happy about the election of U.S. President Donald Trump because they thought he would tear up the nuclear deal. Rohani said all the presidential candidates should announce their stances on the nuclear deal and also how they would interact with the world if they are elected. Rohani's vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, who is also a presidential candidate, described the deal as one of Iran's greatest achievements and said that people's lives have indeed improved as a result. Jahangiri is thought to be running to stand by Rohani in the face of attacks by his rivals. He said those who criticized Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the nuclear talks with the United States and other world powers are now taking "souvenir photos" with the deal. Raisi and Qalibaf have vowed to create jobs, if elected. The other conservative candidate, former Minister of Culture Mostafa Mirsalim, was also critical of Rohani during the debate, while moderate former Vice President Mostafa Hashemitaba defended the government. During the first presidential election debate on April 28, Qalibaf accused Rohani of mismanagement and of supporting rich Iranians at the expense of the poor. The third and final debate of the campaign is scheduled for May 12. It will focus on economic issues. US Congress mulls crackdown on Iranian airlines 05/06/17 Source: Press TV A new legislation is circulating through US Senate that would require the government to crack down on an Iranian airline company, American media reports say. Mahan Air is the target of the measure which would require the Trump administration to provide Congress with a list of all airports where the commercial carrier has landed, the report said. Mahan Air Those airports as well as all planes flying into the United States from anywhere used by Mahan Air would be subject to scrutiny and crackdown, it added. "The move is being viewed as just the first move by Congress against Mahan and other Iranian airline carriers," the pro-Israeli website Washington Free Beacon reported. Mahan Air is under US sanctions as of Oct. 2011, with the US government saying the company's assets were "blockable". It comes at a time when national flag carrier IranAir is in the process of hammering down multi-billion dollar deals with Boeing and other major plane builders. US lawmakers have repeatedly tried to scuttle the deals, but those efforts have gained momentum under the administration of President Donald Trump who has signaled a harsher approach than his predecessor toward Iran. Last year, the US House voted to block financing for the aircraft sales to Iran and Republican lawmakers called on Trump to intervene. Trump has ordered a review of a nuclear accord which the US reached with Iran along with France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia in 2015. During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly called the deal a "disaster," vowing to tear it up and "double and triple up sanctions." While the US president has not gone ahead with that threat, he has presided over new sanctions being imposed on the Islamic Republic in breach of the nuclear agreement. Boeing's plan to sell commercial aircraft to Iran was part of the US compromise which led to the nuclear agreement but it has been bedeviled by numerous subversive measures. Under the agreement, Boeing must supply IranAir some 80 passenger jets but US congressional moves to block it have cast a shadow over the fate of the deal. Last week, Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg tried to dispel doubts, saying the company was making "steady progress" to finalize terms of the sale to IranAir and expected to deliver the initial planes next year. Boeing's European rival Airbus has already delivered three planes in a $19 billion sale struck last year. The aircraft deals are one of the few tangible fruits of the nuclear accord, which required that all economic sanctions be lifted against the Islamic Republic. However, the elusive rewards of the nuclear accord coupled with banking difficulties have rankled many Iranians and put the government under pressure. Iran has been unable to secure financing for the purchases because most Western banks are refraining from trading with the country over fears of coming under punitive American measures. Iran's Deputy Roads and Urban Development Minister Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan was quoted as saying Friday that Britain's export credit arm, UK Export Finance (UKEF), had tentatively offered financing support for at least some Airbus jets. The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is advising the countrys banks to guard against vulnerability to cyber attacks. The growing threat of cyber attacks has never been more pressing. Recent instances of payment fraud demonstrate the necessity for industry-wide collaboration to fight against threats, the central banks Second Deputy Governor, Mr Johnson Asiamah said. He was addressing bankers at a workshop organised in collaboration with SWIFT, the global financial transaction messaging network, on the companys Customer Security Programme (CSP). The CSP incorporates five strategic initiatives which are improved information sharing, enhanced SWIFT-related tools for customers, enhanced guidelines and audited frameworks, support for increased transactional pattern detection and support by third party providers. The one-day workshop was aimed at educating SWIFTs community of its obligation to meet mandatory security requirements and the associated qualification process at a time hackers are targeting banks. Threat Mr Asiamah observed that an attack on a financial institution could lead to financial liquidity problems for a specific institution, and in turn destabilise it. The fact that money had been stolen from it and it had lost its financial stability could, in turn, destabilise the entire financial sector and in extreme cases, result in socio-economic chaos in the entire country. Almost a year after one of the worlds most sophisticated cyber robberies took place in Bangladesh, where hackers went into the countrys central bank and sent instructions through SWIFT to steal $81 million, the case has not been to be solved. Using the messaging network for cross-border payments, the cyber fraudsters transferred funds from the banks account with the New York Federal Reserve to private accounts in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. According to The Economist, much of the stolen funds is yet to be retrieved; the masterminds are yet to be identified, but probe into the robbery by the Bangladesh authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (BNI) revealed the strikingly sophisticated and international nature of the crime. With that attack in mind, the BoG Deputy Governor said every financial institution was responsible for reviewing its cyber defences, with an integrated view of all organisational systems and processes, in particular, information communication technology (ICT). Basic principles Mr Asiamah said the central bank was committed to facilitating the development of comprehensive basic principles of cyber defence to ensure the flexibility required, given the accelerated pace of change in the cyber world. At all time, the BoG acknowledges that each bank has its own risk evaluation profile and that each would have to make the required adjustments to its business profile and unique operation characteristics. However, the security of the industry as a whole is a shared responsibility, he said. He said the launch of the CSP would help improve information sharing throughout the industry and the introduction of standards that the industry could work with. The Chief Executive of SWIFT for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Mr Leo Punt, told the Daily Graphic that the reason for the CSP was because of the evolving threat to cyber security. We want to make sure that we establish security controls in protecting our customers and creating a level of transparency among banks connected to SWIFT. He described the Bangladesh attack as a watershed event for SWIFT and the financial community and exposed the level of sophistication that cyber criminals had been adopting in order to carry out attacks. Sealing the gap Mr Punt advised banks to look carefully at the control frameworks that have been defined and make sure that the gaps in their processes and procedures were sealed, while implementing the control tools the CSP offered. The control tools, he said, included multi-step authentication to protect their systems, non-reliance on only passwords but also on systems that provided additional layers of protection. Source: Daily Graphic 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 Image: Google Maps Bengaluru, May 6 (IBNS): Law enforcers have arrested a Bengaluru based businessman's wife after she allegedly open fired at her husband at a busy junction near Electronics City on Friday evening, reports said. The victim, identified as M R Sairam, is battling for his life, a report in The Hindu read. Police have said that the woman shot her husband while he was getting out of the car he was driving. Further reports revealed that the gun used had a valid licence. "She is in custody, but is refusing to cooperate with the investigation. She is not answering our questions. We dont know what they were arguing over," a police officer was quoted as saying by the newspaper. An attempt to murder charge has been levied on the lady. The Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood on Friday May 5, 2017 announced that she will retire in the next four weeks with a promise to fight for Prisoners Rights in her new life after 47 years of public service. Ultimate News Kojo Ansah reported that, Ghanas first lady chief justice promised to use all legitimate means available to her after retirement to fight for prisoners rights in the country. She said this when she addressed Prison officers, state attorneys, lawyers and judicial service workers after a Justice For All sitting at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison. The Danish Ambassador and the Director of Public Prosecutions were also in the prisons as the CJ witnessed her last Justice For All Programme before she leaves office next month. In 2015, Joy FMs Seth Kwame Boateng made a documentary, which tells the stories of shock, pain and sheer neglect of possibly innocent people spending productive hours behind bars. In response to the documentary, the Chief Justice reactivated the Justice for All Programme which was initiated by the Attorney General and the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) and aimed at ensuring that hearing is given every citizen, irrespective of ones social, economic and political background. The Justice for all programme is a special in-prison court sitting for remand prisoners, prisoners whose trials are unreasonably delayed. The programme constitutes a key component of the rule of law, access to justice and the sustained promotion and protection of the human rights of prisoners both remand prisoners and convicted prisoners and of course their handlers, that is officials of the Prisons Service, and by extension the families of these persons that I have identified. Through the initiative, hundreds of prisoners have been freed from jail and saved the government purse. Source: Ultimatefmonline 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 The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has advised traders especially those who sell their wares at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, never again to fall for the deceit of the honey-tongued governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). According to the partys Communications Director, Solomon Nkansah, the NPP while in position demonized the NDC and the ex AMA boss, Okoe Vanderpuije for decongesting the area and deceived the traders into voting for the NPP during the December 2016 elections, only to come to power to evict them. The Accra Metropolitan Assembly, in collaboration with the police, on Thursday morning embarked on an exercise to ward off hawkers who took over the pavements at the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange. Unauthorized structures and settlements around the Kwame Nkrumah interchange at Circle were also demolished. The affected traders are upset because they were not given earlier notification about the exercise. Scores of hawkers, illegal settlers invaded the pavement since the New Patriotic Party(NPP) took over the reins of power, but the AMA officials say the Interchange needed to be free and organised and as a result embarked on the decongestion exercise. Some of the traders have vowed to vote out the NPP in the 2020 election for deceiving them. But speaking on Kasapa News, the NDC Communications Director, Solomon Nkansah urged the traders to learn not to accept promises made to them in the futire which are only meant to win elections. When former President John Mahama ensured the completion of the Interchange there were no people hawking there at the time. The traders started hawking there after the election when they claimed their party has come to power. We all recall how ex AMA boss, Okoe Vanderpuije was demonized for sacking traders from the area and was accused of denying people of their daily bread. Then opposition NPP told the traders no such treatment will be meted out to them which made the traders vote for the NPP. Now the party is in power but today the same thing is happening to the traders under President Akufo Addos rule. We should be wary of the campaign promises given just to win elections. This must be a lesson to the traders and Ghanaians in general. The NPP has been exposed for deceiving Ghanaians. Solomon Nkansah urged President Akufo Addo and the NPP to publicly apologize to the traders for the deception. Source: kasapafmonline.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 Heavy rainfall caused severe flooding at the Asafo market and disrupted business activities. The deluge brought to the fore the urgent need for the city authorities to move to clear the waterways and drains. The market women had pretty tough time struggling to save their wares. Maame Ataa, one of the traders told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), that the inundation was unprecedented. She has been operating from the market for some time now and this was her first time of seeing the place get so flooded. It was simply terrifying and she expressed the fear that things could get worse, if the city authorities failed to act. Another trader, Mr. William Amoah, said the attitude of some of the traders also contributed to what happened. They have been recklessly duping waste into open drains running across the place and so this was not unexpected, he added. It is a wake-up call to everybody to do the right thing to prevent imminent disaster. Source: GNA 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 Government and Domestic consumers in the Upper East Region owe the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) outstanding debts to the tune of GHC 5million. The government debt constitutes water consumed by various government agencies including; the Municipal and District Assemblies and educational institutions since 2013. Mr Eric Kampim, Upper East Regional, Commercial Manager of the GWCL disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Bolgatanga. He said even though water delivery services continued to be made flexible, unlike other services, which were pre-paid, the routine of water delivery before payment by users each month constantly remained abused because some consumers were adamant and delayed in the payment of their bills. The Commercial Manager said the Municipalitys source of treated drinking water was from the Vea dam and added that the GWCL worked hard to ensure improved delivery of water to the people of the Bolgatanga Municipality and beyond. He said water was important in all aspects of life and indicated that it was crucial for domestic users to pay their water bills on time to receive the service. He said even though various departments and agencies were supposed to pay for water, less efforts were made to settle their bills since 2014. He said if consumers paid their bills promptly, it would enable the company to provide uninterrupted good services, and advised the general public to respond fast to paying bills whenever they were served, to avoid disconnections. Meanwhile, visits to some government agencies and departments in the Municipality revealed that most washrooms of these departments were without water thereby leaving washrooms with unpleasant smell while some of the departments had resorted to buying water to keep their places in order. Other agencies and departments have abandoned their washrooms. Source: GNA 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 Ghana, in collaboration with Switzerland, on Friday launched a Remittance Grant Facility (RGF) of 2.6 million dollars to provide financial assistance to companies to develop innovative remittance products and services at a relatively low cost. The project is planned to support companies to develop affordable and accessible products and services that extend the scope of remittances to the rural areas as well as benefit Ghanaians in the Diaspora. It also aims to fund projects that facilitate development of remittance-backed financial products such as deposits and savings accounts, insurance and forms of investment in order to increase financial inclusion. The Government of Switzerland, through its State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), whose development cooperation programme focuses on promoting Ghanas inclusive and resilient economic development, is providing the 2.6 million dollars for the pilot phase of the project. Ghana is providing counterpart support through the Ministry of Finance. Various market research studies on remittances are to be conducted to inform and shape successful implementation of the grant with the overall goal of enhancing the impact of transfer payments on economic growth and poverty reduction. Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, who inaugurated the project, said the scheme was projected to address operational constraints associated with remittance flow channels into the country and to encourage innovative product and service development. He said the intervention would help deepen and widen the scope of remittance flows countrywide and encourage the entry of new actors. It is also seen as a move that would increase the use of formal remittance service delivery channels and cut down cost. Mr Roland Fischer, the Charge dAffaires at the Embassy of Switzerland, said: While we at SECO consider it not the role of the Government or a development partner to directly establish remittance channels and provide services, the RGF aims at crowding in the private sector to come up with innovative solutions. Eligible organisations such as banks, non-financial institutions, money transfer operators, mobile network operators and other commercial entities that have the capability and are licensed will be given grants to develop products and services on remittances to meet the objectives of the scheme, he said. The Facility will function as a Challenge Fund, a competitive financing facility to fund innovative ideas. The first round of the facility will co-fund successful applicants by issuing grants of between 20,000 and 250,000 dollars based on the scope of proposed activities and the likely contribution of the project to the RGFs objectives. The funding window will be live from May 5, 2017 and will remain open for applications up to May 26. To apply, companies must visit www.rgfghana.org to download the application form.Guidance notes and information on eligibility criteria can also be found on the website. KPMG International Development Advisory Services is the Fund Manager of the Remittance Grant Facility and is in charge of setting up the RGF. It has the responsibility for the day-to-day management and monitoring of project implementation. Other collaborating institutions are the Bank of Ghana and Oxford Policy Management. The project ends in 2020 with the option for a potential second phase to end in 2024. Source: GNA 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 There is growing public anger over the poor services being rendered by the country's telecommunication companies (telcos). The poor services, characterised by call drops, call breaks, network congestion, Internet interruptions and disappearing data, have compelled some users to subscribe to more than one network. Although the complaints are nothing new, what has aggravated public anger is the fact that in the past, penalties imposed by the National Communications Authority (NCA) on the companies did not seem to have any impact on quality of service. Fruitless Between November 2011 and 2015, the NCA fined the operators more than GH2 million for various offences that affect service quality. While industry players maintain that challenges confronting the telecom industry, including the breaking of cables by contractors, stealing of cables, frequent power outages and high fees charged by landowners, account for the problems, that excuse does not appear to sit well with mobile phone users, as they call for stiffer punishment for telecom operators who flout the regulations. In November 2013, the NCA banned MTN, then with 11.7 million subscribers, from selling new SIM cards because of call drops and deteriorating services. Although telecom sector regulators lifted the ban a month later, it was a warning to operators to improve their performance. NCA ultimatum But the situation still remains and perhaps the NCA is not amused, as it has met the operators and given them an ultimatum. At a meeting with the mobile operators in April 2017, the NCA was reported to have directed the mobile operators to provide the regulator with a strategy as to how they intended to address quality of service (QoS) issues, particularly within Accra-Tema. At the said meeting, the acting NCA Chief Executive, Mr Joe Anokye, reportedly told the telcos to fix the challenges, including call drops, poor quality of voice and slow Internet services. Both the NCA and the mobile network operators (MNOs) have a shared responsibility to address these issues and ensure that consumers are satisfied with the level of service they receive from their respective providers, he was quoted as saying. Engineers of the telcos are reported to have informed the authority of the challenges they faced in delivering the expected QoS and cited site acquisition, especially in the high-end residential areas, as one of the main challenges. However, Mr Anokye encouraged the operators to find solutions to the problems, as consumer satisfaction was key and required a good faith effort. When number portability system came into effect in July 2012, the expectation of many subscribers was that their freedom of choice in moving from one network to another, without losing their numbers, would redefine competition and improve services. The new service was expected to impose cutting-edge responsibility on the operators who would now ensure that the quality of their service was good enough to retain the confidence of their subscribers. Telecom Chamber Efforts to get the Ghana Telecom Chamber and the NCA to speak to the issues did not yield results, but in the past the chamber had insisted that the factors leading to the challenges, such as call drops and call set-up time across networks, were a function of the social and economic environment. According to the chamber, cable cuts, thefts and bottlenecks in rolling out telecommunication infrastructure all contributed to the poor service. The view within the chamber is also that critical sites planned to provide capacity and coverage in identified areas have not been built due to acquisition and community agitation problems. The immediate past Chief Executive of the chamber, Mr Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, had in the past said it was only when telecom infrastructure was built that quality of service would improve in communities because it was the infrastructure that carried the service. Customers lament Until that is done, there will continue to be lamentations from subscribers. One of them, Emmanuel Amo Mensah, said: "Vodafone took my credits (data bundle). I called them to complain, thinking they might resolve the problem, but they didn't mind me, as if I'm nothing." "Airtel data services are very poor at Weija Mandela. I bought a GH5-data package and could not browse for a second," Adolf Milne-Dekowski, another subscriber, complained. The situation of poor services by the telcos is not limited to only Accra and Tema. Bolgatanga From Bolgatanga, Alhandu Abdul-Hamid reports that mobile network subscribers in Bolgatanga have resorted to bundling their call credits to prevent them from being ripped off by the network providers A banker with the Bolgatanga branch of the Bank of Africa, Mr Mohammed Mubarak, who subscribes to both MTN and Vodafone, said although the networks were good, they were not predictable and could misbehave at any time. He said the networks were mostly bad during weekends, leading to call drops and cuts "but you realise that you are being charged for those calls". To forestall being ripped off, Mr Mubarak indicated that he took advantage of the promotional packages of MTN and Vodafone by bundling his call credits for the month, which was very cheap. He said those bundles also gave him the opportunity to use his data to access the Internet where he could upload and download a lot of materials. Sunyani Some residents of the Sunyani municipality have raised issues about the poor services being rendered them by the telecommunication companies, report Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah & Biiya Mukusah Ali. A mobile money service provider, Cecilia Kruwaa, accused Vodafone and tiGo of sometimes deducting airtime from her accounts, even when she received calls from other people. She also accused MTN of deducting some units from her accounts even when messages sent were not delivered. She also complained about high charges, saying that without bundle, the unit or the airtime runs faster than rainstorm. A-30-year old contractor at Kotokrom, Mr Felix Zaglaa, who uses Airtel, tiGo, MTN and Vodafone, singled out Airtel and accused the rest of rendering poor services. A taxi driver, Mr Alex Kofi Adjei, popularly known as Empty, was much particular about the high charges of fees by the telcos. Mr Adjei, who said he brought GH10 Airtel scratch card last week, declared that he had since not been able to load it onto his account, despite repeated trials. KUMASI Some mobile phone users in the Kumasi metropolis have welcomed the competition among service providers in their bid to increase their subscriber base. While many are of the view that the competition has helped in the improvement of services, others say some of the service providers are taking subscribers for a ride. Meanwhile, many of the subscribers who spoke to the Daily Graphic complained about poor connectivity, especially when they are out of the cities, and high service charges, writes Kwadwo Baffoe Donkor from Kumasi. Mr Richard Bonsu, who uses four different lines, for instance, complained about high data charges by almost all the networks. He was mainly concerned about call drops. I work at Asafo, which is almost at the centre of Kumasi, and if you experience call drops there anytime you want to make calls, one wonders the kind of service the networks are providing, he lamented. Another subscriber, Adwoa Agyemang, said she got connected to one particular network only where she resided, which was outside the metropolis. Kofi Twumasi, a businessman, was of the view that the telcos had turned themselves into a cartel and were fleecing their customers. He said he used three different networks and said there was no difference among them when it came to poor services, especially, when it came call drops, difficulty in the usage of date and high cost. He described the NCA as an accomplice which, instead of seeking the interest of ordinary customers, had folded its arms. Cape Coast From Cape Coast, Timothy Gobah reports that Mr Wisdom Apedo, a teacher at the Ghana National College, Cape Coast, said the performance of MTN and Vodafone, the two leading companies, left much to be desired. He said on data bundle, for instance, when a page was being loaded, it took a very long time to load. Besides, the voice call was nothing to write home about. Source: Daily Graphic 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 The Criminal Division of the Accra High Court has fixed May 16, 2017 to empanel jurors who will determine the fate of the alleged killers of the former Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North, Mr J. B. Danquah-Adu. The court, presided over by Mr Justice L.L. Mensah, a Court of Appeal judge sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, also fixed May 22, 23 and 24, 2017 as the other days for the hearing of the case. Ms Sefakor Batsa, a Chief State Attorney represented the state, while Mr Kassim Muniru stood in for Mr Augustine Obour, the lead counsel for the two accused persons, Daniel Asiedu and Vincent Bosso. The committal The Accra Central District Court on March 14, 2017 committed Asiedu and Bosso to stand trial at the High Court. At the committal hearing, the District Court, presided over by Mr Stephen Owusu, held that there was the need for Asiedu and Bosso to stand trial to answer the charges levelled against them. On Asiedu, the court held that there were so many inconsistencies in the statements that he gave to the police and what he had narrated to the court. Asiedu has been indicted on three counts of murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery, while Bosso is facing a charge of conspiracy to commit robbery. Facts The facts, as presented by the prosecution, were that on February 8, 2016, Asiedu and Bosso decided to embark on a robbery operation at Shiashie, a suburb of East Legon where the MP resided. Asiedu selected the MPs house but Bosso disagreed and decided to abandon the robbery operation. About 11:40 p.m., the MP arrived home and went to bed in a room located on the first floor of his house. About 1 a.m. that same night, Asiedu, armed with a catapult, a cutter and a sharp knife, went to the legislators house. He entered the house by scaling the wall on the blind side of a security man who was fast asleep. On entering the house, Asiedu climbed onto a porch on the top floor with a ladder and entered the MPs bedroom through a window. While Asiedu was searching the room, the MP woke up and held him. There ensued a struggle, during which Asiedu stabbed the MP in the right chest above the breast. In the ensuing struggle, Asiedu also sustained various injuries in his palm and chest. The legislator fell by his bed, bleeding profusely after which Asiedu stabbed him several times on the right chest and neck. On realising that the MP was dying, Asiedu left the room and took with him three iPhones. Meanwhile, the struggle between the MP and Asiedu drew the attention of the security man in the house who alerted others in the neighbourhood. Asiedu, however, managed to descend from the top of the house. He jumped over the electric fencing on the walls of the house into an adjoining house and escaped. Asiedu then took the phones to a phone repairer to decode them but the repairer saw bloodstains and the pictures of the MP on the phones and alerted the police. Source: Daily Graphic 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 The Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Gifty Twum Ampofo, has stated that the government will soon pay caterers of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) for the next academic year (2017/2018), having cleared all arrears of GH149 million owed them. The deputy minister said the move was to ensure the effectiveness of the programme. Mrs Ampofo said this in an interview with the Daily Graphic after she opened the congress of the 36th Multiple District (MD) 403 Convention of the Lions Club International (LCI) in Accra last Thursday. Participants The congress was attended by delegates from 28 African countries from West and Central Africa to take stock of their activities, network and share experiences about new ways of doing things. School Feeding Programme Giving details of the GSFP, Mrs Ampofo said the social intervention would be expanded when budgetary allocation was made. She added that although the programme was meant for the rural poor, the ministry intended to extend it to the urban poor as well. "Since it is a social intervention programme, the ministry intends to collaborate with others, including the Lions Club, to better the lives of the people in the country," she mentioned. Volunteerism The Lions Clubs International President, Chancellor Bob Corlew, said the LCI had embarked on a lot of projects within the health sector which had positively improved upon the lives of the people across Africa. The Chairman of the Council of Governors, Mr Alphonse Achkar, said the LCI was celebrating 100 years of service and volunteerism in the world and that projects undertaken in Ghana included building an Eye-Care Centre at the Tema General Hospital and the Eye Care and Training Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, which had contributions from Moorfields of the United Kingdom and the government of Ghana. Source: Daily Graphic 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 Former Presidential Staffer, Adu Asare has lambasted State Protocol for the recent official gaffe that saw the Ghana flag turned upside down during the state visit of the Gambian President, Adama Barrow, to the Flagstaff House. The gaffe was apparent at the Flagstaff House when the President Nana Akufo-Addo sat for a photo with the visiting President. The national flag which is red, gold and green was pictured upside down in what obviously appears to be an oversight on the part of the protocol office. Meanwhile, the Gambia's national flag was correctly represented with its traditional red, blue and green separated by white stripes. President Nana Addo on Tuesday arrived in the Togolese capital, Lome, to a rousing welcome from residents at the commencement of his 3-day visit to the country. The President together with his entourage, during his visit, also met with the Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbe to discuss some bilateral issues. It appears there was another official gaffe which also saw the Ghana Flag being positioned upside down. Addressing the issue on Peace FM's Kokrokoo, Hon. Adu Asare expressed worry over the faux pas and questioned the work of the State Protocol Department. According to him, the State Protocol Department seems to be shirking its responsibility adding that the continuous gaffe regarding the Ghana Flag is embarrassing the country. Have we so soon forgotten about what makes us a State? he asked, wondering how the Presidential protocol could have allowed such a blatant oversight to occur. He cautioned the Government of Ghana to take keen note of the Ghana Flag which showcases the image and integrity of the country. Two times in a space of one week is something unacceptable. Somebody should be up and doing. Were talking about Ghana here. Its not partisan issue were talking about here. Sometimes, people try to push such issues into the political arenaI think we should elevate that discussion to a point where State Protocol Department will be put to work, the former Presidential Staffer stated. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says one of the highlights of his presidency is to work with Burkina Faso to begin the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. He said his commitment to the international railway project was evidenced by the fact that right at the beginning of his government, he established a special Ministry of Railways Development in Ghana. He was speaking at a state dinner organised in his honour by President Roch Marc Christian Kabore of Burkina Faso as part of his two-day visit to Burkina Faso. I would be very disappointed if the two sides are unable to find a solution to how we can get the Accra-Ouagadougou railway going, President Akufo-Addo said. The President was in Ouagadougou last Thursday for a two-day official visit to Burkina Faso as part of a tour of that country, with his agenda being to develop the initiatives that will bring prosperity to our people. It would be, for me, perhaps, the highlight of my presidency if, indeed, I was able, together with you (President Kabore), to launch the beginning of the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. Prior to the issuing of the communique, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore decorated President Akufo-Addo with the highest national award of Burkina Faso, the Grand Croix de lOrdre National. President Akufo-Addo stated that the other concern of the government was about the control of the water resources in Ghana and Burkina Faso, adding that those were matters that he and his Burkinabe counterpart would have to address. The President made reference to the yearly opening of the Bagre Dam spillway, which caused flooding in the three regions of the north, usually resulting in the destruction of lives, farmlands, livestock, and property. For that reason, the President said, his delegation included the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Mr Kofi Adda, the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Samuel Atta Akyea, and the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, so that with their Burkinabe counterparts, they could find a solution to that phenomenon by channelling the water spilled from the dam into productive ventures for the mutual benefit of the two countries. Africa must stand together President Akufo-Addo said the new crop of African leaders had come into office at a critical time in the lives of the Africans, where old alliances were having to be reshaped, implying that Africa had to look for new sources and new areas of committing resources to the development of the continent. The most important thing is to recognise the need for us to stand on our own two feet and resolve African problems with African resources and African personnel. We cannot and will not accept that other people can come and develop the continent of Africa for us. It will not happen, and the sooner all of us work together and recognise the necessity of collaborating on a platform that will lead to the prosperity of our peoples, the better, he added. Touching on the fight against terrorism, President Akufo-Addo assured President Kabore that in Nana Akufo-Addo and in his government, the people of Burkina Faso have a strong and steadfast friend. He expressed the appreciation of the peoples of West Africa for the sacrifices the Burkinabe people, who are in the frontline of the fight against terrorism, are making to guarantee the peace and security not just of their own country, but the region as a whole. To that end, he reiterated Ghanas commitment to stand beside you in that fight and want you to know that whatever, within our modest means, we can do to promote the success of that struggle, you can count on us. With relations between the peoples of Ghana and Burkina Faso dating back to several centuries, President Akufo-Addo stressed that even though there has been a change in direction and leadership in Ghana, our fundamental commitment to a close and sustain relationship with the people of the Republic of Burkina Faso remains unchanged. Ghana continues to be by your side and continues to seek a relationship of intimacy and friendship. Communique Meanwhile, Ghana and Burkina Faso have pledged to work towards strengthening the ties of co-operation that exist between them. In a joint communique issued at the end of the two-day official visit to Burkina Faso by President Akufo-Addo, the two leaders resolved that the two countries reinforce their co-operation in the areas of railway transport, road transport, agriculture, water, security, trade, works and housing and energy. To realise an increase in the movement of goods and persons,and the corresponding economic and commercial benefits along the rail corridor of Ghana and Burkina Faso, both sides reaffirmed the crucial need to rapidly establish the railway interconnection project. To that end, the two countries agreed to reactivate the Joint Expert Committee to examine the various feasibility studies already undertaken, and define the modalities and conditions of the selection of a technical and financial partner for the project. Agriculture On agriculture, the two leaders agreed to put measures in place to stop the illegal movement of agro-chemicals from Ghana into Burkina Faso. They also agreed to formalise government-to-government trade in cereals from Ghana and vegetables from Burkina Faso. With the annual opening of the spillways of the Bagre dam destroying lives, farmlands, livestock and property in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo and President Kabore also agreed to extend cooperation in the utilisation of the excess water from the dam for irrigation purposes in the two countries. The decision to reactivate the Joint Technical Committee on Integrated Water Resource Management (JTC-IWRM) to oversee and manage the annual spillage, so as to reduce the perennial flooding downstream was also taken. Exchange of information Touching on the issues of security, the two leaders agreed that a framework to exchange and share information in tackling terrorism, violent robberies and organised crime be established. The activities of trans-humans from Burkina Faso into Ghana were identified as a security concern, and in that regard, both countries decided to hold frequent consultations to address this issue. To efficiently address the issue of illegal activities at the borders, notably corruption and racketeering, both sides agreed to hold regular meetings in order to put an end to these practices, the communique said. They further agreed to collaborate, with the support of ECOWAS, to establish a joint border post to facilitate trade and free movement of their peoples, goods and services. Free trade The two leaders also decided to work together in support of the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) under the auspices of the Africa Union (AU). The Ghanaian government also agreed to collaborate and learn from the best practices of the Burkinabe Bank for Housing to enable the reactivation of the Bank for Housing and Construction in Ghana. In the area of energy, Ghana and Burkina Faso decided to cooperate further to ensure the completion of the Ouagadougou-Bolgatanga Power Interconnection Supply project, to enable the importation of 85 megawatts into Burkina Faso by the close of 2017. Both sides also commended the completion of the Bolgatanga Bingo Pipeline Project. Source: Daily Graphic 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 Srinagar, May 6 (IBNS) : Police have stopped cash transactions in at least 40 branches in Pulwama and Shopian of South Kashmir following a sudden spurt in bank robberies by suspected militants in the last few days. A customer can deposit cash in the form of cheques and he can even transfer his money, a JK Bank official has been quoted by the local media. Customer can neither deposit nor withdraw the cash. In a way, these bank branches will be cashless and will do business in receipt form only, the bank official added. The Bank official refuted the reports that some ATMs have been shifted to safer places in South Kashmir. Unidentified gunmen, suspected to be militants, have struck banks, especially J&K Bank, the largest in the state, at least nine times since November 8, looting more than Rs 50 lakh. Police have blamed Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba for the incidents, saying it is a sign of cash-starved militants trying to keep the funds flowing. However, militant organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have said that they dont believe in bank robberies and blamed New Delhi for maligning their image. (Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri) The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Thursday, May 4, 2017, arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of the Republic of Burkina Faso, to begin his 2-day tour of that country, with his agenda being to develop the initiatives that will bring prosperity to our people. At a State Dinner held in his honour, and in responding to the remarks made by His Excellency Roch Marc Christian Kabore, President of the Republic of Burkina Faso, President Akufo-Addo indicated that the most important of these initiatives are the regional projects in the area of infrastructure, and especially transportation. According to President Akufo-Addo, it would be, for me, perhaps, the highlight of my presidency if, indeed, I was able, together with you (President Kabore), to launch the beginning of the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. His commitment to this project, he told the Burkinabe leader, is evidenced by the fact that right at the beginning of my government, I decided to establish a special Ministry for Railways Development in Ghana. In fact, the Minister himself is here to give testimony to the seriousness with which we look at this project. I would be very disappointed if the two sides are unable to find a solution to how we can get the Accra-Ouagadougou railway going. By the same measure, President Akufo-Addo stated that the concern we have in Ghana, that you know about, is about the control of the water resources of our two countries, adding that these are matters that we are going to be able to address. The President was referring to the yearly opening of the Bagre Dam spillway, which causes flooding in the 3 Northern Regions of Ghana, resulting in the destruction of lives, farmlands, livestock, and property. It is for this reason that the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Kofi Adda, MP; the Minister for Works and Housing, Hon. Atta Akyea, MP, and the Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, accompanied President Akufo-Addo on his visit to Burkina Faso to find lasting solutions, with their Burkinabe counterparts, to this phenomenon, by channeling the water spilled from the dam into productive ventures for the mutual benefit of the two countries. Africa must stand together President Akufo-Addo noted that the new crop of African leaders have come into office at a critical time in the lives of the African peoples, where old alliances are having to be reshaped, and, therefore, implying that Africa has to look for new sources and new areas of committing the development of the continent. The most important thing is to recognize the need for us to stand on our own two feet and resolve African problems with African resources and African personnel. We cannot and will not accept that other people can come and develop the continent of Africa for us. It will not happen, and the sooner all of us work together and recognize the necessity of collaborating on a platform that will lead to the prosperity of our peoples, the better, he added. Touching on the fight against terrorism, President Akufo-Addo assured President Kabore that in Nana Akufo-Addo and in his government, the people of Burkina Faso have a strong and steadfast friend. He expressed the appreciation of the peoples of West Africa for the sacrifices the Burkinabe people, who are in the frontline of the fight against terrorism, are making to guarantee the peace and security not just of their own country, but the region as a whole. To this end, he reiterated Ghanas commitment to standing beside you in that fight and want you to know that whatever, within our modest means, we can do to promote the success of that struggle, you can count on us. With relations between the peoples of Ghana and Burkina Faso dating back to several centuries, President Akufo-Addo stressed that even though there has been a change in direction and leadership in Ghana, our fundamental commitment to a close and sustaining relationship with the people of the Republic of Burkina Faso remains unchanged. Ghana continues to be by your side and continues to seek a relationship of intimacy and friendship. 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 Former President John Mahama is offending Ghanaians when he suggests they were only swayed by the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) overly ambitious agenda for change, according to a Deputy Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah. In an Eyewitness News interview, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah asserted that, Ghanaians were well aware of the change they desired, when they decided to vote out the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Mr. Mahama, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Durban, South Africa on Thursday, said he was honest with Ghanaians about the state of the economy in the run-up to the 2016 elections, but Ghanaians were instead drawn to Nana Akufo-Addos rosy promises of heavenly economic prosperity which had no economic basis. The former President also spoke of what he called an incumbency disadvantage as he reflected on the reasons for his defeat. But Mr. Oppong Nkrumah rubbished the former Presidents assessment, noting that the NDC had the most resources at its disposal. When a government is in power, everybody knows in the world over that you have what we call incumbency advantage. That advantage is borne out of the fact that you are in charge of resources for you to deliver on what the people want. People also vote on what they feel and your advantage comes from your ability to be present and deliver for people to be feeling what you are doing in their pockets and in their lives. People vote on what they feel and what they see and not because of exactly what you tell them, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah retorted. He further held that, Ghanaians were discerning and well aware of their economic situation which ultimately influenced them leading up to the election. People dont need to be told whether their conditions are better off or not. People dont need to be told what government is doing for them. People see it, people feel it so when the people see it and feel it and make a choice, and you suggest that these people were deceived and didnt know what government was doing for them because there wasnt clarity of communication channels to communicate to them, I think that in itself was evidence that the then president wasnt able to deliver on what the people want. Mr. Oppong Nkrumah also explained that, the promises the NPP made were anchored on key indicators that were available in a budget statement, like the annual growth rate, the annual debt numbers and the annual deficit. We looked at those figures, the same numbers that the former administration was looking at, and it was based on those same numbers that we said; we can do X, Y, Z. Our promises were not put out there without recourse to what the situation was, we knew because those numbers were available to everybody. When it comes to visions, you cannot say this vision is honest or this vision is dishonest. A vision is a balance between audacity and ability, the minister noted. Source: citifmonline.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 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. 18 members of a Pennsylvania State University fraternity are facing charges, including involuntary manslaughter, after the death of 19-year-old engineering major Timothy Piazza, who suffered fatal injuries during a hazing ritual. The charges were handed down on Friday following a months-long investigation. Eight brothers stand accused of involuntary manslaughter, and others face counts of aggravated assault, hazing and furnishing alcohol to minors. Police allege that, while attending an initiation event on February 2, Piazza fell head-first down a flight of 15 basement steps while intoxicated, and was then carried upstairs and placed on a couch, with nobody calling for help until 12 hours later. A harrowing grand jury report released on Friday gives further details of the incident, with a doctor calculating that Piazza had a life-threatening amount of alcohol in his system at the time of the fall, a concentration of between 0.28 and 0.36 percent. Security footage showed him staggering towards the basement door at around 10.45pm, and later showed four brothers carrying his limp body to a couch, pouring liquid on him and slapping him. Medical investigators say he suffered from multiple traumatic brain injuries, a fractured skull and a ruptured spleen, resulting in a large amount of blood in his abdominal cavity. Later security footage shows a fraternity brother being tackled and landing on top of Piazza, and a backpack full of textbooks being placed on him. He is also seen rolling off the couch at one point, and being slammed back on by three brothers. It is alleged that at some point during the night, Piazza rose from the couch and stumbled to the basement again. He was discovered there the next morning, pale and cold to the touch. According to the grand jury report, searches made on a brothers phone included falling asleep after a head injury and cold extremities in drunk person. A member of the frat called 911 at around 10.48am, but Piazza later died in hospital. It is also alleged that a number of brothers used a group chat app to discuss how they would cover up what had happened. Speaking at a news conference after the charges were handed down, Piazzas father Jim Piazza said: Ive said this before: This didnt have to happen. This is the result of a feeling of entitlement, flagrant disobedience of the law and disregard for moral values that was then exacerbated by egregious acts of self-preservation. Again, this did not have to happen. The fraternity in question has been shut down by the university. The website My Central New Jersey has published the full grand jury report and list of charges. Source: NBC News / My Central New Jersey. Photo: Supplied. Security footage obtained by Channel 9 appears to show accused drug mule Cassandra Sainsbury during her arrest at Bogota Airport in Colombia. Sainsbury was arrested last Sunday while trying to leave Colombia for London, after 5.8kg of cocaine was found in her checked luggage. She is currently being held in El Buen Pastor prison, and a local judge has quashed hopes that she might be able to serve her jail time, if convicted, in Australia. The CCTV footage shows Sainsbury approaching the customs official with her passport, and then being led out of the customs hall and into a secure area. By this time the cocaine in her luggage had been discovered, apparently thanks to a tip-off from international drug agencies. After another couple of trips back and forth, shes finally led out of the airport with her hands covered by a jumper in front of her. The 22-year-old is reported to be having a tough time in prison, according to her lawyer, who says she is permanently crying. Well keep you updated on this story as it continues. Source and image: Channel 9. We would formally like to thank the town of Shepparton for blowing our little minds with what might be one of the most game-changing audio-visual experiences that has ever come our way. The below music video, credited to Matt Macgill and friends, is an entry in the annual #ShepProud film-making contest, which is open to young people from the Greater Shepparton area and is meant to highlight the great stuff about living there. Great stuff like fake cows, real cows, fake real cows and yknow, other things of that nature, all of which can be found in the fruit bowl capital. Go ahead and enjoy these three minutes of straight lyrical fire: Thanks to reader Rhianna for the tip. Source: Greater Shepparton City Council. PEDESTRIAN.TVs partnered with AirAsia to help you dodge the chillier months by heading O/S. Get around their Winter Escape deals (e.g. flights to Kuala Lumpur starting from $129*) HERE + stay updated with AirAsias offers HERE. Need a break? Buddy, you and me both. To really eat up everything you need in a holiday though like deviating from your comfort zone (and the human potatoes within it) its going to come at a cost. Sorry about it. Were not asking you to throw away your life savings or anything. Youll only need a bit of moolah to get you out of the country and, of course, some annual leave because a weekends just not going to cut it. You can get to the below o/s hotspots (and back home, of course) for under $500, which is achievable and therefore all-round neat. Obvi youre going to need extra dollars (or Baht, Rupiah and Pesos) for things like food, accommodation, transport and just general existence but its up to you to figure out how much AL youve got and budget accordingly, innit. KUALA LUMPUR Photo: Flickr / Jorge Lascar. Referred to by the cool kids as KL, this Malaysian must-do is still relatively underrated and we have no idea why. You can hit up their labyrinth of spooky caves, get lost in culture, cop breathtaking views on the skyline at sunset and hop around the sights of Malaysias capital. Oh theres also a glass-windowed sky box you can visit, which is only mildly terrifying. Flights are departing from Gold Coast, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, starting from $129* until May 7 (hurry), for travel dates between May 4, 2017 and August 31, 2017. The tickets are one-way and exclude extras like baggage and seat selection, which is to be expected with these kind of deals tbh. Read more info HERE or go right ahead and book HERE. PHUKET Photo: Flickr / Mike Behnken. While youve probably been there already (maybe you even drank out of a bucket; I did), we recommend hauling ass back over there and seeing all the things you missed out on when you were strapped for time. This is the opp youve been waiting for. Consider a 2-hour ferry from Phuket to the stunning Phi Phi Islands full of limestome cliffs, viking caves, white-sand beaches and snorkelling opps. This is the luxe yet chill vaycay you need and deserve. You can get flights to Phuket (stopping over in KL) from Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast from $199* HERE. BANGKOK Photo: Weerakarn Satitniramai / Getty. Thailands capital city offers cultural experiences in spades. Manoeuvre your way trough the true hustle and bustle by picking up plenty of street food, with everything from Pad Thai to pancakes. Can I highly recommend Bangkoks Chinatown aka Yaowarat, which is where youll find the cream of the crop. You can get flights to Bangkok (stopping over in KL) from Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast from $199* HERE. AUCKLAND Photo: Facebook / Jessica Ward Photography. Australias neighbouring country has so much to offer, including landscapes, adventuring, Lord of The Rings sets and ridiculous amounts of sheep. Even though its only some-2,000kms away from Aus, its got plenty of experiences that you just cant achieve here. I reckon you can always cop a trip from Australia to NZ for under $500 should you book in advance (its only a three hour flight, after all), but theres a hella cheap flight HERE going from Gold Coast to Auckland for $129*. Gotta book by the end of the weekend though, bro. Alright, now go on and sod off. We dont need you here. But overseas holidays? They need you, baby. *terms and conditions apply. Visit AirAsia.com.au for details. Photo: Facebook / Jessica Ward Photography. "No parent should have to go through this." "This didn't have to happen." Those were the words Jim Piazza repeated several times during Friday's news conference when charges ranging from manslaughter to furnishing alcohol to minors were announced against 18 Beta Thea Pi fraternity members and the fraternity itself in connection with the February fraternity house death of his 19-year-old son Timothy. The Penn State sophomore, from Lebanon, N.J., was drunk when he fell several times on Feb. 2 and no medical aid was sought by fraternity members until 12 hours later. He died two days later at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. "This is a result of feeling of entitlement, flagrant disobedience of the law, disregard for moral values that was then exacerbated by egregious acts of self-preservation," Jim Piazza said with his wife Evelyn, who appeared numb, clinging to his side. "Again this did not have to happen. No parent should have to deal with this." Piazza described his son, a Penn State sophomore who was pledging the fraternity, as an "incredible young man, exceptional student" as well as an "awesome son, brother, boyfriend and friend." His brother also attends Penn State. "We're going to miss him terribly. He wanted nothing more than to make people laugh and just be a good friend," his grief stricken father said. "Many of the people he touched in his life in his high school days and college days that visited with us over the past three months told us that he may have been the nicest person they have ever met." Emotionally broken, Piazza asked people to respect the family's privacy as they mourn the loss of their son whose smile, he said, they will only ever see in photos from now on. But they also don't plan to let the tragedy that led to their son's death be in vain. "We are committed to making meaningful and impactful changes to Greek life to the extent that there will be ongoing Greek life at Penn State and ultimately throughout the country in honor of our son, and are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that no other parent will have to go through the pain and grief that we are currently experiencing." Parks Miller said the grand jury will be following up with recommendations about steps Penn State should consider taking to prevent further tragedies like this before the start of the 2017-18 academic year. President Donald Trump owes Harrisburg more than $42,000 for his visit a week ago to the state capital, but city officials aren't confident they'll receive it. Harrisburg hasn't been reimbursed for any of the 2016 campaign stops or Trump's recent visit to the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center on April 29. READ MORE: "Campaign visits and rallies are a positive opportunity to spotlight communities and engage voters, but they put enormous pressures on already-strapped resources for public safety and traffic control," Mayor Eric Papenfuse said. "Campaigns need to factor these costs into their fundraising and reimburse municipalities for their overtime expenses in a timely manner." That message is also directed to Hillary Clinton's campaign events at Broad Street Market and the Zembo Shrine. It can take years for political campaigns to pay bills for overtime security and public works costs, and other Pennsylvania communities are also still waiting for payments. But it's even harder for Harrisburg, which is still in financial recovery. The city is billing the Trump campaign $42,450.51 for expenses associated with his April 29 rally at the Farm Show Complex. That amount includes tallies above and beyond normal operating costs. Here's how it breaks down: Fire and EMS: $14,387.73 Police: $12,297.78 Public works/traffic: $15,765 "What you have to do is pretty extraordinary," Papenfuse said. "We had to block nearly every intersection along Cameron Street and lead the motorcade from the airport." The cost for Trump's recent visit is considerably more than the $8,400 billed for Clinton's visit to Broad Street Market. The city didn't immediately have the numbers for her visit to Zembo Shrine. The costs were higher for Trump's recent rally because a visit by a sitting president requires extensive planning and resources, according to city officials. "This was different because we had to shut down the city," Papenfuse said. Trump also spent at least $18,812.50 to use the New Holland Arena at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center at 2300 N. Cameron St., according to a contract between Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and the state Department of Agriculture. Harrisburg is invoicing Trump's campaign, which coordinated the event. The mayor said he doesn't believe the city sent an invoice for Trump's first visit to the Farm Show on April 21, 2016, because the Pennsylvania State Police handled nearly all of it. In addition to what is owed to Harrisburg, dozens of other municipalities and law enforcement agencies across the country are waiting on hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Clinton, Sanders and Trump campaigns. The list includes three in Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, University of Pittsburgh security and the Upper Providence Township Police Department. The Clinton campaign in January received a final notice from Philadelphia police. Philly billed her campaign $2,678 for security at a rally on April 25 at City Hall. City officials first sent an invoice. Without a response, they sent a debt collection letter. Without a response to that, they sent a final collection letter. Overall, Sanders owed more than $449,000 for security across the country, and Clinton owed about $25,000, according to an analysis from the Center for Public Integrity. Both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns acknowledge in their federal campaign filings that they owe cities the money. Upper Providence police Chief Mark Toomey told the Center for Public Integrity that the department had to pursue collection from the Sanders campaign on a $25,620 invoice for security at a primary campaign event in April. "They said (the bill) was exorbitant and too high, and that they didn't ask for the manpower," Toomey said to the Center for Public Integrity. "What if I said, 'Look, you're on your own, have fun,' and a fight breaks out, or something terrible happens? I'm the one who gets skewered - the negatives are endless." The Sanders campaign gave the Upper Providence department $2,250 as a settlement, and Toomey told the center he decided against taking Sanders to court. "Who wants to get bogged down in that?" he said in the Center for Public Integrity report. "My goal is to make sure the candidate gets in and out - regardless of money or who they are - safely." It wasn't clear in the report how much is owed to the University of Pittsburgh or which candidate owes it. Trump owed $204,000 across the country as of January, the report found. But, as president, his campaign and the White House have continued to rack up security costs for his trips and those of his family. For example, when Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner took a ski trip last month to Whistler - a resort town north of Vancouver, Canada - it cost the Secret Service $67,000. The president's trips to Mar-a-Lago are estimated to cost $1 million, and millions more are spent on his trips to New York and New Jersey. Aiming to add some relief, Trump on Friday signed into law the omnibus spending bill, in which Congress earmarked $61 million to reimburse local governments in New Jersey, New York, Northern Virginia and South Florida. Pennsylvania isn't on the list, but Harrisburg is billing the campaign, not the White House. Staff writer Christine Vendel contributed to this report. Guwahati, May 6 (IBNS) : Security forces have apprehended two hardcore militants belonging to NSCN (K) from Arunachal Pradesh's Khonsa area , officials said on Saturday. Kohima based Defence PRO Colonel Chiranjeet Konwer said that, the Khonsa Battalion of the Assam Rifles under DAO DIVISION carried out a major operation at Kunsa area in south Arunachal Pradesh on Friday and apprehended the militants, as the Self Styled Lt Wanphai Wangsa and self Styled Cpl Kekho Homku of NSCN (K). "These militants were terrorizing people to extort money and were involved in various nefarious activities," the Defence PRO said. Security personnel have recovered one 9mm and a 7.65 mm pistol along with ammunition in possession from them. "During interrogation they revealed that they were tasked to carry out extortion and plan sabotage activities against the security forces," Col Konwer said. "They also revealed the details of death and cremation of two Manipuri cadres who were injured in Counter ambush on December 3 last year at Nginu.," he said. This is the second apprehension of a senior cadre in last 30 days by the Khonsa battalion. Previously Self styled Lt Kijen Rongshang was nabbed by the battalion on April 8 last in Laju. Security personnel have been carrying out aggressive operations in the South Arunachal Pradesh, which is believed to have caused a major setback to the extortion network and activities of these banned organisations. (Reporting by Hemant Kumar Nath) Eighteen Penn State students face criminal charges in the death of Timothy Piazza, who was found unresponsive after a alcohol-fueled fraternity "pledge night," but a Centre County grand jury didn't stop there. "The Penn State Greek Community nurtured an environment so permissive of excessive drinking and hazing that it emboldened its members to repeatedly act with reckless disregard to human life," the grand jury presentment made public Friday reads. Full coverage of the case Piazza's death shone a light on a culture of binge drinking that has come to be expected, and sometimes celebrated, at Penn State and other colleges. Since that February night, Beta Theta Pi was permanently banned from Penn State as the university implemented stricter rules governing fraternities and sororities. In addition to its critique of Greek life more generally, the investigating grand jury castigated the school's Interfraternity Council. "Timothy Piazza died as a direct result of the extremely reckless conduct of members of the Beta Fraternity who operated within the permissive atmosphere fostered by the Pennsylvania State University Interfraternity Council," the presentment reads. On Friday, after the charges and presentment were made public by District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller, the IFC issued a statement voting to improve standards for its fraternity community members. "We are committed to addressing the critical issues in our fraternity community head on," the statement reads. "We have formed stakeholder working groups tasked with developing increased community standards and enhancing student safety. The best way to shift culture is for students, alumni and the university to work together." While the IFC stated that its thoughts were with Piazza's family, it did not identify specific areas of focus or proposed solutions. Its president did not respond to a request for comment. Several other members directed PennLive to the written statement, declining further comment. Amanda Saper, president of Penn State's Panhellenic Council, issued this written statement: "Tim's death and the events that surround it were both tragic and shocking. Although for the entirety of this investigation I have not been notified of any sorority being present, this provides a call to action, not just to the fraternity community, but to all of us at Penn State." The group's task is "to be an advocate for change and an active partner with the university to create policies and a culture that truly puts safety first," Saper continued. Penn State President Eric Barron read a prepared statement Friday indicating how seriously he took the hazing incident. "You violate the rules, you're history," he said. Barron's words echo the frustration he shared last month in an open letter to the Greek community on his official university blog. He was spurred to write that letter after nine of the school's 82 Greek organizations violated during Parent's Weekend, the one social event the groups were allowed to have during the spring semester. One fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, violated almost every rule the university tried to impose, the president wrote. "If new rules can just be ignored, or behavior just goes underground, and if there is no willingness to recognize the adverse impact of excessive drinking, hazing, and sexual assault, then is there any hope?" Barron wrote, in the Apr. 10 letter. The university present ended his letter with a prediction of what would happen if the open disregard for rules regarding excessive drinking and hazing continued. "I predict that we will see many empty houses and then the end of Greek life at Penn State." This post was updated at 7:22 p.m., Friday with additional information on the charges facing the eight Penn State students who are scheduled for arraignment next week. BELLEFONTE - Ten of the 18 Penn State students charged in connection with the Feb. 4 fraternity house death of sophomore engineering student Timothy Piazza appeared for arraignment Friday here in Centre County court. All were later released on bail. The students/defendants, most accompanied by one or both parents and all represented by private lawyers, came to court dressed in shirts, ties and suit coats. To a person, they were impassive, betraying no outward fear or anxiety at the process ahead that, if it results in criminal convictions, could result in jail terms for many. Nor did they offer any comments in their own defense. There will be time for that later, of course. Friday's arraignment, as the very first step in the judicial process, is simply where defendants are asked if they understand the charges against them, are assured of legal representation if they need it, and get bail conditions. In this case, County Judge Thomas Kistler ordered, at prosecutors' request, that defendants stay away from alcohol, use no non-prescription drugs, and stay within either Pennsylvania or their home state, unless travelling back and forth for court. District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller noted that the no-cash bail permitted Friday was a recognition that all the defendants had agreed to voluntarily surrender, and not a commentary on the seriousness of the case. Kistler also noted any additional travel would have to be expressly approved by the court, and the first exceptions were granted almost immediately. Beta Theta Pi Chapter President Brendan Young, for example, was given approval to be in Delaware for a planned summer job. Another defendant. Parker Yochim, was granted the same permission for summer work in New York City. Vacations with families, Kistler said, will be looked at separately after the parties' have had a chance to share their itineraries with the district attorney. It was not immediately clear if any of those charged Friday were scheduled to graduate this week during Penn State's commencement ceremonies, but if they were, that won't happen now. University spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Penn State was placing a "graduation hold" on any student named in the presentment who was scheduled to graduate, while internal student disciplinary proceedings begin. Eight of those arraigned Friday were charged with involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault - prosecutors said all were either directly involved in fraternity leadership or participated in actions that led to Piazza's injuries. They were: Young, 21, of Malvern, the chapter president of Penn State's Beta house. Among other things, Young is accused to trying to orchestrate a cover-up after Piazza's removal to the hospital. Daniel Casey, 19, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., the chapter's pledge master, who shared responsibility for bringing the new members into the fold. He also helped plan the drinking gauntlets the pledges were put through the night of Piazza's fatal fall. Jonah Neuman, 19, of Nashville, Tenn., a fraternity brother who participated in the gauntlet and was also singled out in the presentment as later forcefully over-ruling another brother's suggestion that Piazza be taken to the hospital. Nicholas Kubera, 19, of Downingtown, another participant in the alcohol-fueled gauntlet where the pledges were forced to drink beer, wine and vodka excessively and at a very fast rate. Luke Visser, 19, of Encinitas, Calif. He admitted to running a beer pong station during the pledge night activities, where he said all 14 pledges were required to drink. Visser, later in the report, was also identified as likely the first person to have noticed Piazza's fall down steps leading into the frat's basement party rooms. Michael Bonatucci, 19, of Woodstock, Ga. A Beta brother who served pledges with alcohol during the gauntlet. Gary Dibileo II, 21, of Scranton. A Beta brother who ran one of the drinking stations in the gauntlet. Joseph Sala, 19, of Erie. An assistant pledge master who also participated in the gauntlet. The most serious of the counts, aggravated assault graded as a first-degree felony, carries a maximum prison term of 10 to 20 years. The involuntary manslaughter counts, a first-degree misdemeanor, carries a maximum punishment of 2.5 to 5 years. All of the above were also arraigned Friday on charges of reckless endangerment, hazing, and furnishing alcohol to minors. Two more Beta members were arraigned Friday on the latter group of charges only. They were: Craig Heimer, 21, of Port Matilda, Pa., who testified to purchasing most of the alcohol for the bid acceptance night. The total tab, according to collected receipts, $1,179.30. Yochim, 19, of Waterford, Pa. The remaining eight defendants are expected to be arraigned at some point next week. Facing the same charges as Heimer and Yochim are: Michael A.Schiavone, 21, of Yardley. Schiavone was the fraternity's social chairman this spring. Schiavone is the officer identified in the report as collecting funds from brothers for alcohol purchases, and writing up the list for Heimer, and going with Heimer to pick up the beer and wine for the pledge night. Lars Kenyon, 19, of Barrington, R.I. Facing single counts of tampering with evidence, along with Young and Casey, are: Ed Gilmartin, the Beta vice president, testified to efforts to deleting messages about the Piazza incident from a "GroupMe" application that certain fraternity members used. He also texted Casey, in the hours after Piazza was taken to the hospital, to "make sure the pledges keep quiet about last night and this situation." "They know," Casey replied. Braxton Becker, 20, of Niskayuna, N.Y. Becker is accused of directing Beta members to delete evidence on cell phones and social media formats. Lucas Rockwell, 20, of Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C. Rockwell is charged with trying to help re-dress Piazza prior to EMS crew's arrival, so he "looked better" to outsiders. Ryan Foster, 21, of Bedford, Mass. Foster is charged with participating in the clean-up of evidence prior to police arrival. Ryan McCann, 21, of Pittsburgh. McCann is accused of helping with the effort to try to dress Piazza prior to EMS crews' arrival. Facing a single count of reckless endangerment is: Joseph Ems, 20, of Philadelphia. Ems's stem from a moment captured on video which Ems allegedly punched Piazza - who is passed out on a couch - in the stomach with his right hand. The blow, a pathologist testified to the grand jury, could have exacerbated the severity of a lacerated spleen injury Piazza had suffered during his initial fall. Any criminal prosecution of state Sen. Scott Wagner stemming from his altercation with a campaign tracker would be referred to the Attorney General's Office, the York County district attorney has said. "In my opinion, it is an absolutely clear conflict of interest," DA Tom Kearney told the York Daily Record. "Neither I nor my office can prosecute if I have a conflict of interest." Kearney cited his 35-year personal relationship with Wagner, a York County Republican who's in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign. If he makes it through next year's primary, he would challenge Gov. Tom Wolf in 2018. According to the YDR report, Kearney said he would refer the matter to the AG's office if criminal charges were filed. On Tuesday, a campaign tracker working for the liberal Super PAC American Bridge filmed Wagner at a campaign event at The Country Club of York. The video showed Wagner approach the tracker and seize his camera. American Bridge publicly threatened to press charges against Wagner if he didn't return "our stolen property (SD card)." As of Friday, Wagner did not appear in the statewide common pleas docket database. Spokespeople for AG's office and American Bridge did not respond to requests for comment Friday evening. Wagner has said his actions were justified because the tracker was trespassing on private property. "This is dirty politics. People are just sick of this," he told PennLive Wednesday. "This is exactly what the Democrats love and they want to twist it. People are tired of this." We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Army soldiers patrol near Trocadero plaza with the Eiffel Tower in the background in Paris, France, Saturday, May 6, 2017. Voting for France's next president starts in overseas territories and French embassies abroad, as a blackout on campaigning descends so that voters can reflect on whether to entrust their country's future to independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) Thank you! You've reported this item as a violation of our terms of use. This content was contributed by a user of the site. If you believe this content may be in violation of the terms of use, you may report it. Floodwaters touch the bottom of a crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror of a car abandoned on a residential street in Gatineau, Que., as rising river levels and heavy rains continue to cause flooding, on Saturday, May 6, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS) : More than 300 girl students of a Delhi school were hospitalised after they fell sick following a gas leak from a container in a nearby aea on Saturday morning, media reports said. The incident took place when classes were on in the Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Tughalakabad area. Some students fell unconscious and some complained of irritation in the eyes and throat due to the gas leak reportedly from nearby container depot. The entire school was vacated while those who fell sick were taken to different hospitals. Most of them were later released and declared out of danger. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted hours later, saying that he has asked for a magisterial inquiry into the incident. I spoke to the girls and the doctors, the condition of the students is normal, he said, after visiting the hospitals the schoolkids were taken to." Officials from Delhi Police and the National Disaster Response Force were attempting to identify the chemical and how it leaked. New East Jordan trail to be named for Don and EIleen Klein environment Srinagar, May 6 (IBNS) : Clashes broke out between students and police after the students started pelting stones at the police outside a government higher secondary school in Handwara town in north Kashmir on Saturday, media reports said. The reports also said that several students were injured in the clashes. Students from a government higher secondary school in Newa area of Pulwama district staged a protest against the alleged high-handedness of security forces. When they refused to clear the area, police lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the crowd. The students pelted stones at security forces, who lathicharged the crowd and fire tear gas canisters. US midterm polls: Tight race in Senate with Democrats' projected Pennsylvania win, Republicans lead in House | Kashmir: Soldier dies in 'accidental fire' in Poonch | Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra resumes from Maharashtra's Biloli | Congress' dig at Modi govt over 'lotus' symbol in G-20 logo | Justice DY Chandrachud takes oath as 50th CJI Guwahati, May 6 (IBNS): Security forces had gunned down a hardcore militant belonging to NSCN (K) in Arunachal Pradeshas Longding district on Saturday, officials said. Based on intelligence input, a troop of Assam Rifles had launched operation at Wakka village on Saturday morning where a Naga militant group was hiding. While the troops reached the remote area, the militant group started firing and bullets were exchanged for half an hour. Kohima based Defence PRO Colonel Chiranjeet Konwer said that, a militant was killed during gun battle and other militants of the group had managed to flee from the area. Security personnel had recovered a 7.62mm pistol with 10 rounds live ammunition and ammunition of AK-47 from the slain militant who is yet to be identified. Security personnel launched massive operation in the remote bordering area with Myanmar and Nagaland to nab the fled militants. Earlier, Assam Rifles had apprehended two NSCN (K) militants from the area on May 5. The nab militants were identified as self styled Lt Wanphai and Corporal Kekho Homku and security forces had recovered one 9mm pistol, a 7.65mm pistol and ammunition in possession from them. The Defence PRO said that, there was also an exchange of fire between security forces and NSCN (K) militants at Wakka village on May 3. In last 30 days there have been apprehensions of a number of prominent senior cadres of NSCN (K) and this elimination is going to further deliver a strong blow to the banned organisation. (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) Creative Commons/Wikipedia New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Justice Leila Seth, a legal luminary and writer who was the first woman judge of the Delhi high court and was elevated to the position of a chief justice in Himachal Pradesh, died on Friday night, said her family sources. Mother of novelist Vikram Seth, she was 86. She passed away at her Noida residence. Seth was also a member of the Justice JS Verma committee that was set up to re-examine Indian rape laws after the Dec 2012 Nirbhaya rape and death case in Delhi. While in her autobiography On Balance she spoke courageously about corruption and many important issues, she also dwelt on her personal life, marriage, bringing up three children and even her acceptance of the sexual orientation of her celebrated son Vikram Seth. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday condoled the passing away of Justice Leila Seth. "Saddened by the passing away of Justice Leila Seth. Her remarkable contribution to the legal field will be remembered. My condolences," the Prime Minister said. Leila Seth was born in October 1930 in Lucknow and was the first woman to top the London Bar exam in 1958. She joined the bar in 1959. In the same year she also graduated as an IAS officer. In an interview she once said she had to face many gender issues as a woman law practioner. "There were many gender issues, first of all nobody wanted me to join the profession cause they thought it was a male preserve, and later on when I started practicing I wouldnt get much work, because people said that I am a woman and I would not be able to handle it," she had said in a newspaper interview. Leila Seth's autobiography "On Balance" was published by Penguin India in 2003. In the book she spoke about her straying into law while in England with her husband Prem, and later practising in Patna, Calcutta and Delhi; and her happy marriage of over fifty years. She raised three children, the famous writer Vikram Seth, peace activist Shantum and film-maker Aradhana. Condoling her death, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted: "Saddened at the passing of Justice Leila Seth. She was a champion of human rights. My condolences to her family." Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, tweeted: "Passing away of Justice Leila Seth ji is a personal loss. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family." Guwahati, May 6 (IBNS) : Few more Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers are likely to be grilled by the sleuths of Dibrugarh police in connection with the cash-for-job scam in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) after the investigating team has collected vital evidence in the scam. The Dibrugarh police, which investigating the cash-for-job scam had already arrested three ACS officers in the connection with the scam. On Saturday, a three-member investigating team of Dibrugarh police had interrogated three arrested ACS officers in front of APSCs former chairman Rakesh Paul and his associate members Samedur Rahman, Basanta Doley and Pabitra Koibwarta, who are presently lodged in jail All were interrogated at Guwahati central jail following directive by the special court. A top police official said that, during the interrogation process, the investigating team had collected vital evidence and came out few new names who involved in the scam. We have listed few names including several officials for interrogation, the top police official said. Earlier, APSCs former chairman Rakesh Paul, who is presently lodged in jail was felt ill during interrogation by the Dibrugarh police and immediately rushed to Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH). Later, doctors had discharged Paul after checkup. Police has arrested 11 persons including three ACS officers in connection with the cash-for-job scam so far. On May 3, Police had arrested three Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers namely Bhaskarjyoti Dev Sharma, Bhaskar Dutta and Amit Sharma in connection with cash-for-job in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC). (Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Trumps son in laws sister Nicole Kushner gave a presentation in China explaining how wealthy investors could immigrate to the US by investing $500,000 in a Kushner real estate project in New Jersey. The Washington Post reported, Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure whats known as an investor visaSaturdays event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors. The tagline on a brochure for the event: Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States. The Kushners are selling their connection to the President Of The United States as a way to make money while allowing wealthy Chinese people to immigrate to the United States. This is the exact opposite of the America First policy that Trump is talking about it. Apparently, Trumps tough stance on immigration doesnt apply to investors in his in-laws projects. When experts warn about the many layers of conflicts of interest that come with the Trumps, this is exactly what they are referring to. Much of the focus on conflicts of interest have rightly centered around the president and his immediate family, but the influence selling and profiteering off the presidency are deeper than the Trump last name. The Trumps and their entire family are profiting off of the presidency. One of the reasons why it is vital for Democrats to win control of the House or Senate is because investigations need to be done into these activities. The only way that the Trump family crime wave will stop is if voters put an end to Republican control of Congress at the ballot box. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print The French press is showing the corporate US media how it should be done, as they have imposed a voluntary blackout on the Russian Macron campaign email hack until after the election. Via Google translate, this is the statement from the French newspaper Le Monde on the MacronLeaks emails: Whatever the origin of the piracy, the publication of these documents two days before the second round, in the reserve period which forbids the candidates and their supporters to express themselves, is clearly aimed at disrupting the current electoral process. Le Monde will not publish the contents of any of these documents until the second round. Firstly, because the volume of pirated documents fifteen gigabytes of files makes their analysis, cross-checks and checks that are necessary in any journalistic work, impossible to conduct within this time. Also, and most importantly, because these files were knowingly published 48 hours before the vote, with the obvious purpose of damaging the sincerity of the ballot, at a time when the main interested parties have the legal prohibition to answer any accusations. If these documents contain revelations, Le Monde, of course, will publish them after having investigated, in accordance with our journalistic and ethical rules, without being instrumentalized by the calendar of publication of anonymous actors. If the US media would have displayed the same level of professionalism and journalistic responsibility after the Clinton email hack, the US election might have turned out differently. Obviously, the MacronLeaks were released so close to the second round of voting with the intention of influencing the outcome of the election for Marine Le Pen. The French media blackout on the Macron hack is real, and it is a roadmap for how the media can help to short circuit Russian acts of sabotage in Western elections. Trump is president because Putin figured out how to exploit the laziness of cable news and their emphasis on profit over getting a story right. The American press can learn a lot from how their French colleagues have responded to the hack. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print A week ago the Georgia runoff election between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel looked to become the most expensive race on record. Politico reported today that prediction has come true: it is now officially the most expensive race in U.S. history. Candidates and outside groups have aired or reserved more than $29.7 million worth of TV ads in the race to replace HHS Secretary Tom Price in Congress, which will break a five-year-old record for House spending. The runoff election has been called a real test of narrative by former GOP Rep. Tom Davis and it is certainly a test of the Democratic response to Donald Trumps administration just a little more than 100 Days into it. Davis is also no doubt right that neither side can afford to lose. Yet one side or the other will come June 20. Now that a federal court has overturned an absurd Georgia law requiring a 90-day registration cutoff, voters in GA 06 have until May 21 to register. This is obviously a huge benefit to Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is registering more than 100 voters each day. Ossoffs momentum is real. He has not only gained the support of Bernie Sanders but he outperformed his opponent in the first poll following the special election and gained Republican support as well. Donald Trumps stands to lose a valuable seat in the House and an Ossoff victory could very easily become just the first domino to fall on the way to the 2018 midterms that could finally give Democrats control of the House of Representatives. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print (Reuters) Planned Parenthood, the U.S. medical services provider that could lose federal funding under the Republican-controlled House of Representatives healthcare overhaul bill, said it would hold dozens of demonstrations outside the local offices of members of Congress across the country on Friday and Saturday. The protests will target some of the 217 Republican representatives who voted to pass legislation on Thursday that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the healthcare law passed in 2010 under former President Barack Obama. Were standing together as women, people of color, immigrants, and as people of faith, and were fighting back to make sure that every single politician in America knows that we will not stand for defunding Planned Parenthood, Kelly Robinson, the national organizing director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. The bill still needs approval by the U.S. Senate. President Donald Trump, a Republican, praised the bills passage in the House but acknowledged that some of its provisions may change before it becomes law. A part of the Republicans proposed American Health Care Act would prevent Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed for any of its services, including cancer screening and pre-natal care, through the Medicaid program for the poor. About 60 percent of the patients who use Planned Parenthoods 600 or so clinics are on Medicaid or other federal public health programs. Republican congressional offices from coast to coast were targeted on Friday, with protests planned at the offices of Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen in Morristown, New Jersey, Kevin Yoderice in Shawnee Mission, Kansas, and Darrell Issa in Vista, California, among others. Many Republicans oppose any funding for Planned Parenthood, citing religious grounds, because its services include abortions, although it receives no federal funding or reimbursement for abortions, as stipulated by federal law. The Family Research Council, a Christian advocacy group, and other conservative policy groups praised the House bill as a tool to help limit access to abortions. Planned Parenthood says the bill would harm 2.5 million people who rely on it for basic health services. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Dan Grebler) Charleston, SC (29403) Today Overcast. High 69F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies with periods of light rain late. Low 64F. Winds NE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%. We've got some rain to get through but then the forecast calls for a beautiful weekend. Instead of spending it inside why not check out the first weekend of the Holiday Festival of Lights, listen to opera at the College of Charleston, soak up Charleston's LGBTQ culture or enjoy some classic Read moreMy Charleston Weekend: Opera, Oldies and Opulence Russell Laffitte, a former top executive for Palmetto State Bank, faces trial this week in Charleston's U.S. District Court. He stands accused of helping Alex Murdaugh defraud his former law clients, while using money from his family's bank to prop up the disbarred attorney's shaky finances. Read moreEx-Murdaugh banker Russell Laffitte faces federal witnesses at 2nd day of fraud trial Kapil Mishra Official Twitter Handle New Delhi, May 6 (IBNS): Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi government on Saturday removed Kapil Mishra as the tourism and water minister. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told media that: "Kapil Mishra worked hard but water management was not up to the mark. There were complaints about water not reaching people." Kailash Gahlot, who represents the Najafgarh Assembly constituency, will take over Mishra's portfolio now. Mishra said he had met Kejriwal earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged tanker scam. He also took it to Twitter and posted: "Massive expose on tanker scam tomorrow." "Today shared explosive details with @ArvindKejriwal . tomorrow with public," he wrote. "I am the only minister with no corruption charges. No CBI enquiry against me," he tweeted. Reacting to his removal from the post, he told media: "I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The Cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee (the AAP's top decision- making body) was not involved." When members of Charleston's Board of Architectural Review-Large meet Wednesday afternoon, they again will review plans for an 8-story building at 295 Calhoun St. what will be one of the largest and most prominent buildings at one of downtown's most important gateways. They should stand fi Read moreEditorial: Protect integrity of BAR, Charleston's unique character Three area banks West Bank, Home Federal Savings Bank and Merchants Banks rolled out first-quarter results in April that signal a solid start for 2017. West Bank West Bank, a West Des Moines, Iowa institution that built and opened a $7 million Rochester complex in 2016, reported a record first-quarter income of $6.1 million, the latest in a long string of record performances. That's up from $5.7 million for the first quarter of 2016. The record income cleared the way to the bank to pay out its highest ever quarterly dividend of $0.18 payable on May 24. "We have had eleven consecutive record quarters for each respective quarters," said West Bank President and CEO Dave Nelson in April's earning report. ADVERTISEMENT Nelson points to its growth in Rochester as a major driver of its recent success. West Bank opened its first branch here in 2013. Despite being a 122-year-old Iowa bank, West Bank has deep roots in Rochester. Nelson was the president of Wells-Fargo Rochester for many years, before he took the reins of West Bank in 2010. He has recruited many of his former co-workers to staff West Bank's Rochester location. "We have rounded out the staffing of our prominent new bank building in Rochester with a team of six seasoned bankers who are all well-known in the market," wrote Rochester Market President Mike Zinser. "West Bank has differentiated itself in the Rochester, and we are encouraged by the community's enthusiasm for how we do business. We believe this bodes well for our continued growth." Home Federal Savings Bank Home Federal Savings Bank is starting out 2017 slightly behind where it started 2016. Rochester-based HMN Financial, Home Federal's parent holding company, reported its first quarter earnings in late April. Its net income for the quarter was $1.2 million, down from $1.8 million for first-quarter 2016. Diluted earnings per share was also down to $0.25, compared to $0.38 at the start of 2016. "We continue to be encouraged by the growth in our loan portfolio as well as the increase in the gains realized on the sale of single family loans," said Home Federal Savings Bank President and CEO Bradley Krehbiel in the report. "We intend to continue to focus our efforts on improving the bank's core operating results by prudently growing the asset size of the bank while maintaining the credit quality of our loan portfolio." Net interest income was up by $100,000 to $6.3 million compared to $6.2 million in 2016. ADVERTISEMENT "Interest income increased between the periods primarily because of an increase in the average interest-earning assets and a change in the composition of the average interest-earning assets held, which resulted in a 15 basis point increase in the average yields earned between the periods," according to the report. "While the average interest-earning assets increased $44.4 million between the periods, the average interest-earning assets held in higher yielding loans increased $83.3 million and the amount of average interest-earning assets held in lower yielding cash and investments decreased $38.9 million between the periods." Home Federal has 12 full-service offices in Minnesota, including four in Rochester; one full-service office in Marshalltown, Iowa; and three loan origination offices in Wisconsin and Minnesota. HMN reported 200 full-time employees in 2016, up from 185 the previous year. Merchants Bank Winona-based Merchants Bank started 2016 off with a net income of $2.09 million for the first quarter, which is behind 2016's record pace. Merchants Financial Group, Inc., the bank's corporate parent, issued its report in late April. Merchants President and CEO Gregory Evans said net income is slightly behind MFGI's plan for the first quarter and last year's record numbers. The earnings were impacted by an additional $1.1 million in loan loss reserve put aside "against possible future loan stress." "This precautionary action is prudent and consistent with conservative banking principles that have served us so well over the years. The loans for which we added the reserves remain active, and we believe that over time the outcomes will be positive," stated Evans in the report. He also noted that MFGI stock is trading "at or near record prices." At the end of the first quarter, stock was trading at $59.50 per share, up from $45.01 a year ago and $54.40 at the end of 2016. ADVERTISEMENT "My expectation and the expectation of the MFGI Board is that we will continue to build on the success model we have put in place," stated Evans. MFGI has 21 Merchants Bank locations, including Minnesota locations in Winona, Rochester, St. Charles, Goodview, Rushford, Lanesboro, Caledonia, La Crescent, Spring Grove, Cannon Falls, Red Wing, Hampton, and the southern Twin Cities metropolitan suburbs of Apple Valley, Cottage Grove, Hastings, Lakeville and Rosemount. It also owns Twin Cities-based Merchants Bank Equipment Finance, a division of Merchants Bank N.A. EYOTA This week, work began on a new, 9,800-square-foot building for Our Savior's Lutheran Church, a development that underscores how both the church and the community are growing, leaders say. "We need it," said the Rev. Jon Vollrath, pastor of the church that draws a hundred worshippers weekly. "We actually have a pretty full Sunday school, and we've seen new members, especially this last year. And Eyota's growing." In addition to a roomier church, the new facility, located at 770 Roberts Ave., will offer amenities and features not available at the current site, including a parking lot and handicapped-accessible bathrooms. Vollrath said one of the drawbacks of the current site, 222 Fourth St. SW, is all the parking is on the street. And "when you have two services and Sunday school in between, it's not very appealing to have cars going by at 20, 25 mph when you have a young family and you're trying to load them up and get them to the church," he said. The new, $1.2 million church, when it's completed about November or December, will offer 40 percent more space than the current site. That extra space not only will be able to accommodate new members but expanded programming, Vollrath said. Our Savior's Lutheran Church offers a tutoring program to children. And if the congregation decided to start a preschool program, that would be a possibility as well. ADVERTISEMENT "It's not something that's been discussed or decided upon for a long time, but it would be a possibility," Vollrath said. The church also could be the beneficiary of a growing city, as its new location is in one of Eyota's newer neighborhoods where growth in businesses and homes is expected, said Eyota Mayor Tyrel Clark. The 2,040-person city has seen a pickup in housing construction since emerging from a period of relative inactivity during the recession, Clark said. Last year, there were four townhomes and two to three homes built. And a half dozen more homes are expected to be built in Eyota or Dover this year, he said. The mayor has had conversations with a developer about building a new apartment complex in Eyota, though nothing is concrete so far. "We're seeing growth, and we're seeing new citizens and more citizens," Clark said, "but it's not Byron and Kasson." Another development is that a lot of existing homes have been turning over as younger families move into Eyota, Clark said. "If you have a house in Eyota and you want to sell, there's a good chance you will have it sold in the next two weeks because there's a lot of young families that want to come into town, but they don't want to pay for a new home," Clark said. Vollrath, who has been pastor of Our Savior's Lutheran Church for a dozen years, said there is excitement among the congregation about the new church. At nearly every step of the project's development, members voted from 90 to 100 percent in favor of moving forward. ADVERTISEMENT "You can't reach higher consensus," Vollrath said. "We want to be a church serving the community, and the visibility and the access we have with the new site provides for that," Vollrath said. It wasn't long into our exploration of Grand Teton National Park that I was going on a bear hunt. I'd met a fellow professional photographer early that morning when my husband and I planted ourselves at Jackson Lake to watch and photograph the sunrise; the snow-capped mountain range reflected off the water and shifted color in dramatic fashion. Mark was a seasoned and extremely patient wildlife photographer. Black bear sightings were reportedly not uncommon near our mutual accommodations at Signal Mountain Lodge, and it was en route back for breakfast when we spotted one rummaging off the side of the road. It is advised to stay at least 100 yards away from the bears including grizzly that inhabit the vast Wyoming park. But soon passersby had gathered and a few were taking unnecessary chances. Fortunately, the bear was focused on gathering food under logs and in the trees and seemed to pay no mind to his audience. I stayed within feet of the car door, just in case. About the writer: Elizabeth Nida Obert is a Post Bulletin senior staff photographer. ADVERTISEMENT Getting there: Flights into Jackson Hole Airport are convenient but expensive. We flew Delta into Salt Lake City, Utah, and drove a rental vehicle. Where you stayed: Signal Mountain Lodge in the park. Our cabin was cozy, affordable, clean, conveniently located and included a fireplace. Where to eat: Peaks at Signal Mountain Lodge, which is conveniently located in the park. Restaurants are also available at Jackson Lake Lodge and and Jenny Lake Lodge. Otherwise, pack your lunch and select your picnic view! Side trips: Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park, both conveniently located within miles of Grand Teton National Park. Your travel tip: If you like to hike, pack your bear spray. Grizzly and black bear sightings are not uncommon. More information: www.nps.gov/grte . Srinagar, May 6 (IBNS): Two policemen and two civilians were killed when police party came under heavy firing of suspect terrorists in Kulgam district in Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday evening. According to reports, terrorists attacked police vehicle in Mir Bazaar area of Kulgam district in South Kashmir resulting in the death of two policemen and two civilians including a non local labourer. During exchange of fire, three other policemen were also injured. They later shifted to a hospital for treatment in a critical condition. Taking advantage of darkness, the terrorist fled from the scene after the attack. A combing operation was launched immediately to track them down, the police said. This comes after Pakistani forces killed and mutilated two Indian soldiers in J&K's Udhampur along the Line of Control. (Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri) The gunman in a 2015 shooting inside a Rochester home was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years in prison, the fourth and final suspect to be convicted in the case. Vondale Lamar Kincaide, 39, pleaded guilty March 20 to first-degree aggravated assault; in exchange for the plea, additional felony counts of first-degree aggravated robbery, first-degree burglary with a dangerous weapon, second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and possessing a firearm as a felon convicted of a crime of violence were all dismissed. He was sentenced by Olmsted County District Court Judge Jeffrey Thompson to 135 months in prison, with credit for 452 days already served. The sentencing comes eight days after Kincaide was arrested in Austin, accused of using the butt of a shotgun to break out a window of an occupied vehicle. He's been charged in that case with one count each of being a violent felon in possession of a firearm and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, both felonies, and one count of misdemeanor fourth-degree damage to property. ADVERTISEMENT Kincaide had been released from custody while awaiting sentencing on the home invasion after posting $50,000 conditional bond in October. He's due back in Mower County District Court on Thursday for the most recent assault. The July 22, 2015, shooting occurred less than 24 hours after Kincaide got out of prison. That morning, he'd been released from Minnesota Correctional Facility-Lino Lakes; later that day, he attended a barbecue at a home in North Minneapolis. There, he met up with several people, including brothers Dion and Walter Abrams. The three came to Rochester, where they visited the Abrams' brother, Antonio White, who was an acquaintance of the man who was shot inside the home. White knew the victim was growing marijuana in his home, and the suspects "hatched a plan to rob him," Capt. John Sherwin said the day after the shooting. About 6 p.m., Kincaide who by then had obtained a gun burst into the home at 3811 14th Ave. NW, where he confronted the victim in the stairwell of the split-level house. Kincaide demanded drugs, Sherwin said, and ordered the victim to bring his fiancee and three young children downstairs, too. Kincaide told investigators that when the victim refused and became agitated, he "was afraid of what the victim would do. He didn't want to kill him, but he knew he had to calm (the victim) down, so he shot him in the leg," Sherwin said. ADVERTISEMENT The woman and their children fled and called police. White was the driver of the get-away car. In March 2016, an Olmsted County jury convicted Dion Abrams of one count each of aid/abet first-degree aggravated robbery, aid/abet first-degree assault, aid/abet first-degree burglary, aid/abet second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Abrams was sentenced in May 2016 to 195 months for the first-degree assault charge, to run concurrently with an 87-month term for the burglary charge and a 60-month term for the firearms charge. He was given credit for 281 days served. Both of his brothers accepted plea deals. White was sentenced in March 2016 to 93 months in prison, with credit for 159 days served. Walter Abrams was also sentenced in March 2016 to 75 months in prison, with credit for 121 days served. Originally from the remote southwestern region of Gambella in Ethiopia, Peter Ojullu fled the country after 400 members of his tribe were massacred in December 2003. According to Human Rights Watch, the deaths were followed by military attacks on villages that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and left several dozen more villagers dead. Ojullu, who is in his early 30s, recalls the majority of the deaths were of young males in his tribe, putting him in the crosshairs. He fled in 2004, first to a refugee camp in Sudan and then to another camp in Kenya, where he lived for 11 years. It was at the camp in Kenya where he started his family, marrying and eventually having three children a son and two daughters. However, when his youngest daughter was 6 months old, Ojullu's wife died in the camp they had called home for nearly a decade. By that time, he already had sought approval to come to the United States. After a five-year wait, he received permission in 2014 to begin the two-year process to be relocated. While his father remained in Ethiopia, his mother was helping him raise his children in the refugee camp. That connection would be severed with his move to America. ADVERTISEMENT "There was no way to let her be part of the opportunity," he said, noting Catholic Charities tried, but the process of adding her to his small family was too difficult. Later, following two extensive interviews in Nairobi, Kenya, he said he was given the chance to return to the refugee camp and start over to include a sister, but the process was daunting, and he opted to face his new challenge alone. He said he doubts his sister or mother will return to their home country. "Even now, life is not good in Ethiopia," he said. As he makes a life for his children in Rochester, Ojullu is just starting to put some of the financial cost of relocating behind him. As a refugee, he is responsible for the cost of flying his family from Kenya to America. In April, he was able to pay the first $30 of the $4,117 fee. He's also looking toward his personal future. He has reconnected with a woman he met in the refugee camp, and she plans to move to Minnesota next month. "Maybe next year, we are going to do a wedding," he said. Challenges weren't new to Peter Ojullu when he arrived in Rochester as a single father with three young children. He had already escaped a massacre of 400 members of his tribe, survived more than a decade in refugee camps and faced the death of his wife six months after their youngest child was born. So when Catholic Charities found him a home in Rochester last year, he was eager for the challenge of finding a job in a foreign land and providing for his children, who range from 3 to 7 years old. Through Catholic Charities, Ojullu had a furnished apartment with three months of rent covered, and he was connected to Rochester's Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association, which has been helping refugees find jobs since 1984. Ahmed Osman, IMAA's employment program manager, said Ojullu's situation was unique. As a single father with young children, he needed to find more than a job. He needed child care and flexible transportation just to look for work. Without it, his grant from Catholic Charities would run out, and he'd be left struggling within an unfamiliar system. ADVERTISEMENT A connection It was early in his transition that Ojullu said he felt the need to go to church, something he had done when possible in the refugee camps. So, he asked a fellow refugee living in his apartment building, Ojwak Okoth, to take him to a church he found online, the nearby Calvary Evangelical Free Church . That decision would set him on a new path. Ojullu and Okoth met Sharon and Dick Bjerkaas on that first visit, and the couple said they felt a need to help the young families after getting to know them. "I guess we saw them on more than one occasion," Sharon Bjerkaas recalled. Those visits turned into opportunities to connect and offer support. With the Bjerkaas' help, the church established a refugee care ministry, which has helped recruit volunteers to take Ojullu back and forth from work. Other church members donated warm clothing as the family faced its first winter. "Others in the church have really grabbed a hold of being able to help," said Dick Bjerkaas, a former banker who has helped Ojullu establish a budget and make sure he files needed paperwork, such as his claim for a renter's tax credit. One family, Chris and Caroline Church, has been providing steady child care, and another family helped Ojullu learn to drive. Once he had a driver's license in hand, church members even found him a donated car. ADVERTISEMENT Miracle results Warda Hussein, an IMAA caseworker, said the results have been something she and her coworkers haven't seen. "It is something that is a miracle for him," she said, the church's effort helped build connections. Sharon Bjerkaas, who leads her church's new refugee support ministry, said the connections have gone both ways and been felt throughout the church. "The big thing is the relationships and friendship," she said, noting church help doesn't stop with Ojullu's family. Okoth, who joined Ojullu on his first visit to Calvary, is working to become a civil engineer, and the Bjerkaases said a member of the congregation has offered to mentor him. "It's the relationships that are key, beyond giving clothes and furniture," Sharon Bjerkaas said. Ojullu agrees, saying the congregation has provided him with "many sisters and brothers in the United States." ADVERTISEMENT "What the church has done for me, I would take all day talking about," he said. "Even your mother or brother would not do that." As Marisa Ann Bella prepped for sex reassignment surgery 10 weeks ago, she gave her Mayo Clinic surgeons very explicit and morbid directions. Mayo's first patient to ever undergo gender reassignment surgery told Jorys Martinez-Jorge and Oscar Manrique that they should finish the work, even if she flatlined on the operating table and was unable to be revived. After decades of waiting, the Rochester native was that determined to live or be buried as a woman. Fortunately, the final step in Bella's transition went smoothly and she's now comfortable living in her own post-surgery body. "It's indescribable," said Bella, who still lives in Rochester. "Before I would get sick to my stomach and literally throw up when I saw myself without clothes on and that was most of my adult and teen life. To see myself now, it's like night and day. This is the way it's supposed to be." Despite that new outlook on life, it's been a bumpy ride to put it lightly. And many hurdles remain. ADVERTISEMENT Family challenges After 18 years of marriage, Marisa who then went by Michael came out to her family in 2010. It prompted an immediate divorce. When extended family also found out, they responded in a similar fashion. That fallout prompted Marisa to consider suicide, going so far as taking a loaded gun to the banks of the Mississippi River. She says thinking of her twin daughters Gabriella and Isabella prevented her from pulling the trigger. Many in the transgender community struggle with suicide, with some studies suggesting 41 percent have attempted it. But even their love was complicated. Marisa was immediately supported by Gabriella and they moved to Andover after the divorce. Isabella had reservations about Marisa's decision, basically cutting off communication for two years while opting to live with her biological mother in Florida. Isabella's boyfriend and most of her classmates were unaware of those family issues until just this year. "It changed our dynamic," Gabriella said. "I was more like if that's what you want to do, that's what you do. As a teenager, you yourself are trying to find your own identity. I think having Marisa kind of go through that same puberty-like change with us almost helped." "My mother decided to show lots of hostility and regret and the family was very hostile. Marisa's family was not really accepting right away, and it separated the family because we were on different pages." Time has healed some wounds, but not others. While Isabella has learned to become more comfortable and supportive around Marisa, the ex-wife has not. The twins have rented their own apartment in Florida since turning 18 in December, striking out on their own under the unusual circumstances. ADVERTISEMENT While Marisa and Isabella are now on speaking terms, the daughter avoids using mom or dad. Instead, it's just Marisa. "Even to this day, she's still more accepting than I am," Isabella said of her sister. "She's more (open) to the modern ideas, and I tend to be more traditional. I was a lot more religious than she was growing up, but she'll sit there and talk to Marisa about certain things that I don't. "She understands for me it's a lot harder to accept, but if it makes (Marisa) happy, I'm going to support it." Kicked out of U, accepted at Mayo Marisa's initial transition care was handled by the University of Minnesota. It didn't quite go as planned. She enrolled in hormone therapy while pursuing other medical options at the U's Center for Sexual Health , but felt there were gaps in her care. Specifically, she was seeking counseling and other support for her ongoing issues with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other related mental health concerns. When Marisa complained about her therapist, she was eventually dropped from the U's Transgender Health Services program; Marisa claims she was deemed "too high maintenance." As fate would have it, this occurred at virtually the same time Mayo opened its new specialty clinic in Rochester. Marisa was quickly enrolled and continued her transition while working with a voice therapist, having facial and breast surgeries and otherwise preparing to become Mayo's first patient to undergo vaginoplasty surgery. ADVERTISEMENT "She was always anticipating when we were going to be able to offer this," said Dr. Todd Nippoldt, director of Mayo's Transgender and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic. "I remember from the start her saying 'I'll be your first patient' because it was very important to confirm her identity and live authentically." With virtually no fanfare, the surgery was finally conducted Feb. 24. While the general public wouldn't notice anything different about Marisa, Mayo endocrinologist Caroline Davidge-Pitts says the transformation is obvious. "Her whole face has changed," Davidge-Pitts said. "She just looks so happy." That's the goal for every patient Mayo sees, according to Sharonne Hayes, M.D., medical director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. "The Transgender and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic is another example of what sets Mayo Clinic apart a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to care that meets all of the needs of each individual patient," Hayes said. "The specialty care clinic's patients work with their doctors, nurses, and the entire health care team to develop the right care plan, so that they can be their true selves." A complicated past As if the struggles with gender identity and family complications were enough, there's another demon lurking in Marisa's past. As a member of the Boy Scouts of America during the 1970s, Marisa was one of many youths in Southeast Minnesota who were sexually assaulted by troop leader Richard Hokanson . According to a lawsuit filed in 2013 by Marisa and others under the Child Victims Act, the new Minnesota law eliminating the civil statute of limitations for children who were sexually abused, she was abused between the ages of 11 and 17. The lawsuit alleged that the abuse was reported at age 13, but was allowed to continue for four more years. Marisa, as Keller, was the only victim to speak publicly about the abuse. The lawsuit made headlines across the region, in part, because of who it named: Hokanson, the troop leader; St. Pius X Catholic Church, which sponsored the troop; the Boy Scouts of America; and Gamehaven Council, a branch of the Scouts in southeastern Minnesota. Marisa who filed the lawsuit under her birth name, Michael Keller eventually settled the lawsuit out of court in 2014. The terms of the settlement are confidential. She formally requested to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church on Feb. 28, 2014, almost exactly two years before undergoing gender confirmation surgery at Mayo. She's currently on disability from that surgery, but hopes to return to her career in the airline industry within a year. "This is not the church of Jesus Christ, but a group of perverted old men who hid like cowards behind secrecy and shame," Keller wrote through his attorney to Bishop John Quinn. "The Catholic Church never apologized or offered to help with the healing process." After four years of planning and preparation, Mayo Clinic now offers sex reassignment surgery in Rochester to help transgender patients complete their transition. Mayo's first so-called "bottom surgery" was conducted Feb. 24 at Methodist Hospital, helping 1980 Rochester Lourdes graduate Michael John Keller complete the long-awaited transition to Marisa Ann Bella. Two others have since undergone the procedure, but Bella was one of the first patients to enroll at Mayo's Transgender and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic when it opened in January 2015 under the leadership of Dr. Todd Nippoldt. The historic surgery is believed to be one of the first in Minnesota history if not the first as Mayo joins a select group of health care facilities in the United States offering the high-level procedure. An exact number is unclear, but Mayo officials believe it's around 20 most of which are so busy their waiting lists stretch into 2020. The nearly six-hour procedure technically called a vaginoplasty was flawless and the first night after surgery was spent recovering in the presidential suite at the Hilton Doubletree, a free upgrade given to celebrate her transition. Bella's 5 a.m. walk back to Mayo through the empty skyway system allowed her to enjoy the overnight blizzard before plows disturbed its pristine look. "This is like God saying fresh start for my new life," said Bella, who lives in Rochester but is currently in Florida for her twin daughters' high school graduation. "It was pretty amazing." ADVERTISEMENT Specialized health care needs has exploded in recent years as recent estimates suggests there are 1.4 million people in the U.S. who identify as transgender. While that remains less than 1 percent of the overall population, it's twice the previous estimate and highlights a growing niche that Mayo hopes to serve. However, it's remains a tricky field to navigate, filled with political potholes, confusing pronouns and discrimination by even friends and family. For example, Bella is now divorced, unemployed and rarely communicates with any family members except for her daughters. Mayo's planning process Nippoldt, an endocrinologist, began exploring the possibility of starting a specialty clinic at Mayo in 2013 to address "inequalities" in health care for the LGBTQ community. He quickly discovered "transgender patients did not have a whole lot of access to good health care" after visiting six facilities who did offer sex reassignment surgery, largely due to lack of medical training. That fact is highlighted simply by examining the backgrounds and credentials of the two plastic surgeons currently performing Mayo's gender confirmation surgery. Jorys Martinez-Jorge, of the Dominican Republic, joined Mayo in 2011 after working around the globe. He was joined in late 2016 by Oscar Manrique, a Columbian who had spent the last year honing his surgical craft in Taiwan and Thailand. For Bella's surgery, they also flew in renowned Canadian surgeon Dr. Pierre Brassard , who has performed thousands of gender confirmation surgeries and has a two-year waiting list at his own practice. Mayo's team had previously visited his practice for observation. As Bella went through the preliminary steps at Mayo breast augmentation, voice and hormonal therapy, and facial feminization the 54-year-old parent routinely told staff she was ready and willing to be their first patient to undergo what's called gender confirmation surgery. After significant training and consultation with experts from around the globe, Mayo finally granted that wish just before Christmas, scheduling the surgery for two months later. "I'm not going to lie, it was very stressful especially the part where we were doing the vaginal canal," Martinez-Jorge said. ADVERTISEMENT A multi-disciplinary approach Manrique is well versed in gender confirmation surgeries, but he says Mayo's care is unique. Nippoldt calls it a multi-disciplinary approach that offers transgender patients help with both physical and mental health, which can be even more critical; studies suggest that 41 percent of transgender people have tried to commit suicide , a figure that's 10 times higher than the general public. Mayo also follows the standards of care called WPATH designed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health . Practically speaking, that means a patient can't just pop in for gender confirmation surgery and then disappear, as can be the case elsewhere. Caroline Davidge-Pitts, a South African endocrinologist who works with Nippoldt, points to multiple studies that show gender confirmation surgery typically results in reduced depression and improved quality of life, among other benefits. Two months removed from Bella's surgery, that much is already obvious. "One of the big things with transgender women is passing (as a woman) when they're dressing," said Gabriella, Bella's 18-year-old daughter. "When she walks out the door now, she's happy. She has increased dignity, she looks better and she feels better. It's been a complete change." "I never said I'm a beauty queen I'm just me," Bella said. "But as long as they got that thing off me and fix that birth defect, I'd be happy." A soft opening? While Bella lauds Mayo's staff and surgeons, she's also leveled criticism at Mayo's administration and Mayo Clinic President and CEO John Noseworthy specifically after her lengthy personal thank you prompted an unsigned form letter from Mayo's office of engagement. (A Mayo Clinic spokesman said Monday that Noseworthy mailed a personal response to Bella on April 28; but Bella, who has been traveling, hasn't received it yet. Noseworthy's letter was sent again, electronically, to Bella on Monday.) ADVERTISEMENT Bella gave Mayo permission to promote her transition story similar to the face transplant surgery a few weeks ago, which received international attention. Given the interest and need for additional transgender health care options around the globe, she says it's "sad" that didn't happened. "They didn't say they were embarrassed or ashamed, but that's kind of how it felt," Bella said. Mayo's personnel offers a few explanations, largely revolving around staffing concerns and not wanting to raise public expectations while still ramping up on the clinical side. They've specifically shunned public promotion to avoid that, even after Bella's historic surgery. Nippoldt's specialty clinic offered just half a day of service per week when it opened, but he's now preparing to shuffle the schedules of Manrique and Martinez-Jorge so their days in the operating room match up more frequently, creating more availability for gender confirmation surgeries. It remains a balancing act, as they also perform more typical surgeries. Additionally, Nippoldt and his staff want to track the outcomes of its first few patients before getting inundated with requests for care. However, word-of-mouth marketing means that's already happening, illustrated by a recent transgender patient from Texas visiting the 18th floor of the Mayo Building. "We used to discuss cases on a once-a-month basis, but the last time we met, we had 20 cases already," Nippoldt said. "We're going to have to add a date to get those discussions done." Nippoldt tentatively plans to begin marketing within a few months. Manrique stands by Mayo's decision to slow play the initial promotion, thinking it will mean better results in the long run. "We want to transform this into a center of excellence," Manrique said. "Going from Point A to Point B, it takes time. We have all these resources that we're very happy to have, but it takes time to offer a really excellent practice. "Hopefully in the next several months we get up to a level that we want in terms of volume." When Dick and Sharon Bjerkaas became part of Peter Ojullu's new life in Rochester, they knew they could have an impact. They have seen how help can benefit families. Their daughter, Kristine Bjerkaas Friesen, works with the Minnesota Department of Human Services' refugee resettlement program. But, just knowing wasn't enough. "It takes getting to know someone," Sharon Bjerkaas said, noting the personal connection helps people understand the needs of newcomers. That knowledge, she added, opens new opportunities for helping. Even before that, Dick Bjerkaas said there needs to be opportunity. ADVERTISEMENT "They made the effort to come to our church so we could meet them," he said of Ojullu's family. His wife acknowledged the reversal of that also is important. It took members of the congregation to reach out and greet the family. New connections Ponloeu Chim, associate director of Rochester's Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association, said she's hoping to create more opportunities to connect through a new IMAA match program. Starting Tuesday, IMAA staff members will be working with a handful of local volunteers with the aim of matching them to one of seven refugee families. At this point, she doesn't have enough volunteers to help all the families, but she hopes to add to the numbers. The program is similar to one IMAA operated in its early years, but Chim said it faded away by the time she started working for the organization in 1998. "I like the idea of people helping people hand to hand with anything they need in daily life," she said. Supporting independence ADVERTISEMENT Caroline Church, who has been providing child care for Ojullu, said personal connection has been a key part of how she has helped the family. She seeks to go beyond simply providing a basic service and works to help Ojullu understand ways to gain independence in an unfamiliar culture. Ojullu qualifies for child care assistance, and Church said it was important for him to understand what that means. "We very purposely went through the systems in place," she said, noting Ojullu comes from a paperless society, so navigating government requirements can be daunting. While she simply could have volunteered to care for Ojullu's children, she wanted him to understand the process for obtaining needed support. As a result, Church is moderately compensated for the cost of picking up Ojullu's children and providing daily care. More importantly, she said, Ojullu has a better understanding of how to navigate needed systems, whether it's finding future child care or signing his children up for a Headstart program and kindergarten, which will occur later this year. "There's a lot to work through, and there's not one person to walk with them for an extended period of time," she said. Filling gaps Kristina Hammell, of Catholic Charities, said the local organization understands that lack and has been striving to fill gaps. As a refugee resettlement agency, Catholic Charities is responsible for ensuring refugees in its care have a furnished place to live. Grants are provided based on family size, which typically covers about three month's rent, while furnishings and household goods are donated by community groups and individuals. While church groups of all faiths have been part of the process for years, Hammell noted some have pulled back, but that appears to be changing. ADVERTISEMENT "We kind of revamped our model to bring groups into the picture," she said, noting volunteers can carry assistance beyond what Catholic Charities provides. "I like to think we are the foundation builders," she said. "We don't build the entire house, but we start with a strong foundation." Chim said that's where IMAA's new program can pick up, and it's not an entirely new idea. The Minnesota Council of Churches has been using churches as co-sponsors since the mid-'80s to support their refugee resettlement program in the Twin Cities. "There's been some ups and downs in church involvement," Ben Walen, division director of refugee services said of the council's program, but he noted interest has increased in recent months. Growing response Pointing to last year's election, Walen said churches have been stepping up to ask how they can help. Chim and Hammell said they've seen the same thing in Rochester. "The government nowadays is tougher and tougher for immigrants," Chim said, noting congregations have asked how they can help. While new challenges may exist, IMAA caseworker Neema Bagabo said some of the related stress can be overcome with the personal touch. An immigrant from Congo herself, she said simply finding someone to help parents sort through mail and school-related paperwork can have a large impact. Additionally, she said other benefits come from seemingly simple acts. "The most important thing is to find someone who will smile with you and share with you," she said. Ojullu said that is exactly what he found with congregation members at Calvary Evangelical Free Church. He said they have offered help, but they also have become much more. "I feel like they are including me," he said. Building relationships Another group that has included Ojullu is the English as a Second Language class taught by Dale and Sandy Larsen in Trinity Presbyterian Church. While the program is available to all international residents in Rochester, Dale Larsen said it's been about building relationships, much like the church's 4-year-old monthly International Family Night. "Largely, we've approached it as building relationships," he said, noting the monthly night of food and games often is attended by as many church members as international residents. "We've had a lot of good, close family relationships between the families and people at the church," he said, noting that can bridge differing faiths, as well as cultures. Hammell said the same is being seen in the local Catholic Charities organization. While it carries the name of a specific denomination, she said all faiths are encouraged to become engaged. "I am so impressed with Rochester as a whole," she said. "When tragedy strikes or moments of fear happen, I really see an increase of people reaching out to me, saying 'I want to show I support refugees.'" Warda Hussein, an IMAA caseworker, said Peter Ojullu's ongoing success is a testament to what can happen when local residents reach out. "It started with a friendship between two families," she said. ---- HOW TO GET INVOLVED: Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association The new IMAA match program will start working with volunteers Tuesday to provide orientation for its new match program. Volunteers will be offered guidance related to cultural differences, among other things. They then will be matched with a family. The first visit between the volunteer and family will be with a case worker, who will help set up schedules and outline specific needs. Ponloeu Chim, IMAA's associate director, said more volunteers will be needed to meet the needs of seven refugee families the organization is helping. Anyone wishing to become a volunteer can contact her at 507-289-5960 or by email at ponloeu.chim@imaa.net. Catholic Charities, Diocese of Winona Kristina Hammell, director of refugee resettlement in Rochester for Catholic Charities, said the organization also is looking for individuals and groups to volunteer. Those wanting to help, regardless of faith background, can contact her at 507-287-2047 or by email at khammell@ccwinona.org. Church rallies behind widowed father with three children A 12-year flight from home WINONA If you want to enjoy "Mackey, El Pinguino Macaroni," you'd better be able to speak Spanish. Or at least ask one of the kindergarten students at Winona's Madison Elementary School to tell you what the story is about. The students got to hear the story Thursday when its author and illustrator, Winona State University freshman Anna Rogahn, read it in their class. The students in WSU Professor Mary Hudgens Henderson's intermediate Spanish classes all wrote children's books for the kindergarten, first-grade and second-grade Spanish Language Immersion Program students at Madison. "I was kind of happy we got to read them to the class," said Rogahn, who is taking the class to fulfill her language requirement. Rogahn said that while she had fun writing the book about a macaroni penguin (a type of crested penguin) and his friends, she felt her classmate's book, "Vamos a Bailar" ("Let's Dance" in English) was better suited to the smaller children since it got them up and moving. ADVERTISEMENT Ana Belshaw, the WSU student who wrote the dance book, included pictures from her days on a dance team in high school to illustrate the book. "They did amazing work," said Leticia Bocanegra, a SLIP kindergarten teacher at Madison. "The kids are engaged with the books. They are excited to have the (WSU students) here to read to them." Hudgens Henderson said the university is very interested in what goes on in the SLIP program in the Winona public schools. The university offers a bilingual/bicultural education minor, she said, and is the only public university in Minnesota that does so. Consequently, getting WSU students into SLIP classrooms is a benefit to those college students. The SLIP classrooms benefit as well, she said, since finding books written in Spanish -- not merely translated from English -- can be hard. "For a lot of Spanish programs, it can be hard to find resources in Spanish," Hudgens Henderson said. And for popular children's books, if the kids have read them in English, it impacts the assessment of how they are understanding the Spanish. "You just can't buy books off Amazon." Hudgens Henderson said the assignment was to write and illustrate either a fiction or nonfiction book suitable for children in the immersion program's age group. The results included a book about otters with watercolor illustrations, a fiction story about a blob that visits a farm and takes on physical traits of the animals it meets There are 30 intermediate Spanish students in her classes, she said, which meant 30 books for the SLIP classrooms. "I was really impressed with the effort," the professor said. "What we're doing this week in finals week is having the students reading their books aloud to kids. Then we'll be leaving the books for the kids to read." The program is similar to a project that students did at her previous university, she said. "I hope we can do this next semester also." Bocanegra said adding these original Spanish books is a big benefit for her students. She reads to the class at least once most days, and they go to the library weekly to pick out one Spanish and one English book. "It's amazing to have new books in our collection," she said. ST. PAUL Minnesotans would have to be at least 21 years old to buy a pack of cigarettes under a bill proposed by a Rochester lawmaker. Republican Sen. Carla Nelson introduced a bill Thursday that would boost Minnesota's smoking age from 18 to 21. Nelson said the vast majority of smokers began using tobacco before age 21. She said her bill would help prevent young people from getting addicted to tobacco. "Keeping cigarettes out of the hands of kids under 21 will save lives, save the devastation of smoking on those lives and, of course, cut costs as well," Nelson said. The bill's introduction comes two days after the Edina City Council voted to raise the city's smoking age to 21. With a little over two weeks left in the legislative session, Nelson said her focus will be on getting her bill passed next year. Critics say the measure infringes on adults' rights to use a legal product. ADVERTISEMENT "Last time I checked, you're an adult at 18. And I think that's the point when people should have the authority to make their own decisions and the responsibility that goes with it," said Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa. Nelson's bill would make it illegal to sell tobacco products and electronic cigarettes to people under the age of 21. Two states California and Hawaii have already raised the smoking age to 21. More than 220 cities and counties have also passed similar measures. Nelson's bill has the backing of a wide range of health organizations who are part of the Minnesotans for a Smoke-Free Generation coalition. They include the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota Medical Association and the American Lung Association just to name a few. Dr. Taylor Hays, medical director of Mayo Clinic's Nicotine Dependence Center, said he believes raising the state's smoking age would help prevent more young people from getting addicted to tobacco. He said anywhere from three-quarters to 90 percent of smokers start using tobacco before the age of 21. He said it is much less likely that if someone starts smoking after age 21 that they will become addicted. "This is one of those things that most people agree on: Youth shouldn't smoke. This is a way to keep that from happening," Hays said. The smoking rate has been declining and is about 14 percent in Minnesota. Still, Hays said an estimated 40 million U.S. adults smoke and smoking remains the number one cause of preventable death. He said estimated 500,000 to 600,000 people die each year from smoking-related deaths. Nelson said she is optimistic that she can get the bill passed next year. She said she plans to work hard in the lead up to the next legislative session building support for the proposal. As for critics of the measure who say it goes too far, she said her bill simply treats tobacco the same way alcohol is treated. She added, "This is the next step in preventing years and years of addiction." Kolkata, May 6 (IBNS): The death toll from swine flu in West Bengal has risen to three as a 56-year-old man from Kolkata reportedly died of H1N1 influenza at a city hospital on Friday. According to reports, Arup Halder, a resident of city's Ekbalpore area, was tested positive for swine flu (H1N1) few days ago and he died at the privately-run Woodland Hospital in south Kolkata's Alipore area on Friday night. Earlier last week, a 28-year-old woman and a minor girl from West Bengal's Nadia district died of swine flu in two private hospitals in Kolkata. "We are looking into the matter and all privately-run hospitals in Kolkata and West Bengal have been directed to inform the government about swine flu cases," a senior official of state's health department told IBNS. (Reporting by Deepayan Sinha) MAPLE HILL, Minn. Bruce Kerfoot will never forget standing on his dock on Gunflint Lake, just south of the Canadian border, watching the fire rage on the opposite shore. "My mouth was wide open," he said. "With flames a couple hundred feet high, moving at about 25 to 30 miles an hour, and a 30,000-foot smoke plume that you could see from International Falls. The sound of it was like a roaring locomotive." Kerfoot called it the "devil's fire" because winds kept pushing it in new directions. It circled around the lake to within a mile of the Gunflint Lodge, the resort his family had run for more than 80 years. He was told he had two hours to evacuate. "I reached up and took down mother's 'Old Town' canvas canoe, and strapped that on the top of our truck, and took her picture off the wall," he said, pausing. "That one got to you. That's your roots of a couple generations. And I wasn't sure we were going to have anything left to come back to." Kerfoot was lucky. His lodge was spared. Others weren't so fortunate. ADVERTISEMENT Campfire blew out of control The Ham Lake Fire began May 5, 2007, with a seemingly innocent campfire. It quickly blew out of control, fanned by erratic winds and fueled by tinder dry conditions. It took 1,000 firefighters from around the country a week to finally corral it. By that time 133 structures had burned, including one outfitting company and 61 homes and residences, most at the far end of the Gunflint Trail on Sea Gull and Saganaga lakes. "When we drove down the roads, it was like a war zone," remembered Dan Baumann, assistant chief of the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department. It was his job to check on cabins after the area had been evacuated, put out spot fires, and triage cabins that were still standing. By the time he reached them, many had already been engulfed in flames. He remembers the glow in the night sky, and what sounded like constant firecrackers going off propane tanks exploding in the blaze. Some homes escaped the fire unscathed. After the blowdown of 1999, when severe winds knocked over millions of trees in the Boundary Waters, more than 100 homeowners along the Gunflint Trail installed sprinkler systems because of the increased fire danger. Michael Valentini installed one of those systems at his home at the end of the trail. When he returned after the fire burned through, he drove up his driveway, "and my hill was black," he recalled. "All I saw was my sign that had 'Valentini' on it." ADVERTISEMENT But then he crested the hill, "and everything was green." His house was untouched. "You wouldn't know there was a fire if you couldn't hear it and smell it." Only one home with an operating sprinkler system was destroyed in the fire. FEMA awarded a $3 million grant to Cook County after the fire to install more sprinkler systems. Valentini estimates about 700 homeowners in the county have installed them. Forest officials stress that sprinklers are not foolproof. They say it's most important for homeowners to clear brush and trees away to create a defensible space for firefighters. But since the Ham Lake Fire officials say residents are much more cautious about fire, and prepared for the next blaze. "Our fire department grew as a result of the fire," Valentini said. "That was a real plus." In fact, Valentini was one of the first new members to volunteer. The department now boasts more than 30 members. Local homeowners contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to build two new fire halls. "It absolutely glued this community together," said Nancy Seaton, who along with her husband David runs Hungry Jack Outfitters. "Our closest neighbor is several miles away, but I feel closer here than I ever did living in any city. " ADVERTISEMENT Seaton helped organize a tree planting called the Gunflint Green Up the year after the fire. The response was overwhelming. Volunteers planted 75,000 trees the first year alone. Those pines are now several feet tall. Aspens and jack pines have also sprouted since the fire. And bumper blueberry crops have lured new tourists up the trail. 'Like a moonscape' But the landscape still shows scars. Huge granite outcroppings long hidden by trees are now visible all around. Blackened stumps stick out from among the young trees. Those scars are largely invisible in the summer. And despite the devastation, almost every cabin owner chose to rebuild. "There is a love for being up here," explained Michael Valentini. "This is their mecca. This is where they want to be. There's a lot of emotional investment in it." That was certainly true for Jan Siverston. An artist who owns galleries in Grand Marais, Minn., and Duluth, she lost the cabin on Seagull Lake she had owned for 20 years. "It was eerie. Like a moonscape," she said, when she was first allowed in to see what was left. "The cabin was just a pile of rubble." Siverston misses the coziness of the tall jack pines that used to snuggle around her old cabin. But she never considered not rebuilding. So, she built a new place, taller this time, to enjoy the incredible view of the lake, and watch a new forest grow up around her. "I was kind of in awe of the change that had occurred in such a short time," she said. Now the forest continues "changing dramatically every year." Young neon-green jack pines are sprouting all around her new cabin, a sign of the new life that a wildfire yields. Wildfires cause jack pine cones to burst open, spreading their seeds to create a new generation of trees. "Wildfire is a very natural part of the ecosystem," said Patty Johnson, fire management officer for the Superior National Forest. "People love living here because it's beautiful because it regenerated from fire at one time. It's going to keep having fire. It's meant to burn." At Dartblog, Joe Asch has posted the email sent by Loren Berry Professor of Economics Alan Gustman to his faculty colleagues along with additional material of interest. In the message Professor Gustman protests the selection by President Phil Hanlon of Bruce Duthu as Dean of Faculty. Professor Gustman calls out Duthu for his support of the anti-Israel BDS movement. Frontpage has posted the message here. Below is Professor Gustmans message, posted here with his kind permission: Dear Colleagues: As you know, Dartmouth has appointed N. Bruce Duthu as its new Dean of the Faculty. What you may not know is that Professor Duthu is an active advocate of the BDS movement, a movement that proposes boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israeli academic institutions. As the Treasurer of the Council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), Professor Duthu coauthored a statement in support of the boycott of Israeli academic institutions as follows: The NAISA Council encourages NAISA members to boycott Israeli academic institutions because they are imbricated with the Israeli state and we wish to place pressure on that state to change its policies. The document our presumptive Dean coauthored can be found at http://www.naisa.org/ (scroll down to NAISA Council Declaration of Support for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions). In advocating the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, BDS is anti-Semitic. The chant of the BDS movement, from the river to the sea, is anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and profoundly anti- Jewish. It refers to sweeping the Jews out of Israel. Where else do we find movements advocating action against the academic institutions in any country but Israel, including many truly bad actors in the world? BDS is singling out Israel the one country in the world that has a majority Jewish population. Indeed, this movement has become a cover for many anti-Semites who like nothing better than to once again be free to exercise their prejudices. It also is important to understand, especially when evaluating the significance of appointing a BDS advocate as the Dean of the Faculty, that BDS is not just a statement of beliefs or a philosophical movement: it is a statement of action. Given my concerns about this matter I wrote letters to President Hanlon, to Professor Duthu, and individually to members of Dartmouths Board of Trustees. President Hanlon responded that he would never accept anti-Semitism at Dartmouth and reminded me of a letter he circulated to the Dartmouth campus against any boycott advocated by the BDS movement. Professor Duthu also states that he is not anti-Semitic and would not permit anti-Semitic acts at Dartmouth. Some of his friends, including those from the Jewish Studies Program, also argue that he is not anti-Semitic. In personal correspondence he cites a portion of the resolution as a defense of his position: The NAISA statement, which you can find on the organizations website, explicitly champions and defends intellectual and academic freedom with a recognition that collaboration with individuals and organizations in Israel/Palestine can make an important contribution to the cause of justice.' Note that this statement does not support academic freedom in general. It supports Professor Duthus notion of justice. No member of the Board of Trustees responded to my email. I have no reason to believe that Professor Duthu is anti-Semitic. His friends and colleagues do not consider him to be anti-Semitic, and are sincere in their opinions. What is relevant here is that he is supporting a movement that is substantially anti-Semitic, and that he has taken a position with regard to the BDS movement that is in opposition to the position and responsibilities he will have as Dean of the Faculty. Most importantly, he has not publicly renounced his public NAISI statement on the BDS movement. It is not appropriate to appoint an advocate of BDS to the position of Dean of Faculty, thereby providing the BDS movement with a foothold at the highest levels of our administration. Professor Duthus public advocacy of BDS and his responsibilities as Dean of the Faculty are in direct conflict. As Dean Professor Duthu will be exercising decisions about faculty hiring, tenure, and the academic priorities of Dartmouth, including interactions between Dartmouth faculty, Israeli academics and Israeli academic institutions. These issues are particularly important in light of the unpleasant anti-Semitic history at Dartmouth. That history was discussed in the Chronicle of Higher Education by James O. Freedman, Dartmouths President from 1987 to 1998 (Ghosts of the Past: Anti-Semitism at Elite Colleges, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 1, 2000). Freedmans article also refers to a 1992 Dartmouth honors thesis by Alexandra Shepard detailing more virulent anti-Semitism at Dartmouth in earlier years. Of particular note there is Earnest Hopkins, who was President of Dartmouth for nearly three decades, and was a strong advocate of caps on Jewish enrollments. David T. McLaughlin, Dartmouth President from 1981 to 1987, noted in an oral history that anti-Semitism hampered the presidency of his predecessor John Kemeny, a Jewish born president of Dartmouth who served from 1970 to 1981. McLaughlin also indicated that anti-Semitism interfered with the appointment of a Jewish member of the Board of Trustees as Chairman of the Board. A central issue is the failure of the President, the Board and even some in the Jewish Studies program at Dartmouth to appreciate the broader symbolism of appointing an active BDS advocate to the leadership of the Faculty of an Ivy League Institution. The responses are along the lines of: he is a nice guy, and I wouldnt permit (the President) or he would not really act to implement the BDS program. Its nice to have faith that you know a person so well he would never implement what he advocates. That mistake has been made throughout history. If there is anyone who cannot afford to once again take a persons word that he doesnt mean what he says, it is any Jewish person with a memory. In view of Dartmouths anti-Semitic history and Professor Duthus endorsement of the anti-Semitic BDS document, Dartmouth must not simply appoint Duthu to the position of Dean of the Faculty and ignore the implications of that appointment. Professor Duthu should either publicly disavow the full ramifications of the BDS positions he has publicly endorsed, or resign his position as Dean and return to his faculty position where expression of these views is sanctioned as academic freedom, but is not representative of Dartmouth College or its faculty. He cannot, without contradiction, 1) assure council signers of the NAISA document and holders of their position of his support for action to boycott Israeli academic institutions, and at the same time 2) administer his job as Dean of the Faculty, while assuring Dartmouth that he will not take such action. Given its history, Dartmouth cannot turn a blind eye to this contradiction. These issues must be directly and publicly addressed by the Dean, the President and by the Board. Papering over hypocrisy and prejudice is no way to run an Ivy League College administration. To be sure, the progress of anti-Semitism on campus is not just a Dartmouth problem although appointing an active BDS advocate to Dean of the Faculty represents a unique failure to deal with anti-Semitism on campus. BDS is making inroads into many college campuses. It is time for faculty, students, administrators and Boards to clearly and vocally oppose this anti-Semitic movement, rather than sitting quietly and allowing this cancer to spread. Alan Gustman Lorenz Berry Professor of Economics Dartmouth College UPDATE: Professor Gustman forwards a link to Stephen Smiths Jewish Journal column Dartmouth deans academic boycott hasnt been forgottenand shouldnt be taken lightly. The Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial board wrote on Tuesday: Trump administration continues to threaten a free press. Did I miss the news about President Trump vowing to shut down CNN or the New York Times? Of course, that didnt happen. So what is the editorial board talking about? [A]t a campaign-rally style event on Saturday, Trump used the bully pulpit to try to bully the news media, which he said included some very dishonest people. So what? A free press is not a press that is immune from criticism. On the contrary, disagreement is the corollary of freedom. And we all know that the press has monolithically opposed President Trump, accusing him of dishonesty and worse. As the editorial board did in its very next sentence: But it was actually Trump who lied about the failing New York Times subscriptions have surged since the election claiming the paper apologized because its campaign forecasts were so bad. In fact, no apology was issued. Is the New York Times failing? That is a matter of opinion, and the fact that subscriptions have surged since the election doesnt answer the question. The Times has conducted one layoff after another, as declining revenues have forced personnel cuts. And this chart shows the New York Times share price from 2001 to the present: Is the Times failing? As I said, that is a matter of opinion, but it violates all norms of journalism for the editorial board to say that Trump lied in expressing that judgment. Did the Times apologize for its coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign? That, too, is a judgment call. The papers publisher and editor sent a letter to its readers on November 13, 2016, that can be read as a mea culpa. That is how the New York Post saw it. (The publishers letter to subscribers was part apology and part defense of its campaign coverage, but the key takeaway was a pledge to do better.) The Strib editorial board continues: The administration ratcheted up the rhetoric with an even more chilling message the next day, when Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC that the White House had looked at potential changes to libel laws, echoing Trumps irresponsible campaign pledge to open up laws to make it easier to sue news media organizations. The editorial refers to the 1964 Supreme Court case of New York Times vs. Sullivan, under which (along with succeeding cases) the Supreme Court has established a regime that is probably more tolerant of reporters who publish falsehoods than any other country in the world. Does the Strib think that freedom of the press dates only from 1964? And is New York Times vs. Sullivan somehow above criticism? The Strib editorialists probably have never been lied about in a newspaper, but that is an experience that Donald Trump and his family have gone through many times. Just a few weeks ago, Melania Trump settled a lawsuit which she brought against the Daily Mail in London. The Daily Mail reported a false rumor that Mrs. Trump was a prostitute early in her career as a model. The lawsuit was resolved with a cash payment by the Daily Mail and an apology: We accept that these allegations about Mrs. Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them, a lawyer for the British newspaper told a judge, Andrew Nicol, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. We apologize to Mrs. Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs. Trumps two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs. Note that Mrs. Trump brought her case in the United Kingdom. If an American newspaper had published the same lie about her, in all probability New York Times vs. Sullivan would have prevented her from obtaining either damages or an apology. President Trump can perhaps be forgiven for considering this a sub-optimal legal arrangement. And does the Star Tribune think that England, with its stricter libel laws, doesnt have a free press? In any event, so what if President Trump disagrees with the current state of defamation law? Disagreeing with a Supreme Court decision doesnt make you an enemy of free speech. Unless, of course, you disagree with the Citizens United case, which means that you want the government to be able to ban books and movies that criticize politicians. (Citizens United held that it was unconstitutional for the government to ban the showing of a movie that criticized Hillary Clinton.) Overturning Citizens United really would deal a body blow to free speech, but because that is a position favored by the Democratic Partyand in particular by Barack Obamait doesnt bother the Star Tribunes editorial board. The editorial continues: In the introduction to its annual World Press Freedom Index report, Reporters Without Borders wrote that this years index reflects a world in which attacks on the media have become commonplace, and strongmen are on the rise. We have reached the age of post-truth, propaganda, and suppression of freedoms especially in democracies. The U.S. should be a beacon of media freedom, but the country ranked a pathetic 43rd in the index, just below the African country Burkina Faso. If you didnt know better, you might infer that the U.S.s pathetic rank of 43rd in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index was Donald Trumps fault. So, how did the U.S. rank in the halcyon days of the Obama administration? In 2014, we ranked 46th. In 2015, we ranked 49th, three slots below Burkina Faso. I guess the Strib should congratulate President Trump on our improving press freedom rating. Mostly, though, this is all silliness. The dominant liberal press has been bashing Republicans for as long as any of us can remember, and we finally have a Republican president who is willing to hit back at partisan journalists. What the press wants is not to be freeit is as free as anyone can imaginebut rather to be above criticism. To be able to throw punches without ever taking any. This is the Stribs vision: Americans, regardless of party, should reject Trumps destructive attacks on journalists and instead unite behind freedom of the press. That is completely wrong-headed. We give reporters the freedom to criticize government officials, and government officials (like the rest of us) have the reciprocal freedom to criticize journalists. Freedom of the press does not mean that reporters enjoy a unique immunity from disagreement. What we have today is a free-for-all, which is exactly what the Founders envisaged. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post argues that Sen. Tom Cotton is walking a tightrope when it comes to Obamacare. Sullivan says that Cotton finds himself in this precarious position because he campaigned against Obamacare but Arkansas is filled with constituents who have benefited from Obamacare. Sullivan adds that Cotton and other Republicans in his position must also worry about President Trumps willingness to lash out at unruly GOP lawmakers. Sullivans article is flawed in important respects. First, he makes too much of Sen. Cottons town hall meeting, during which the Senator came under intense criticism from angry participants. There is little reason to think that participants in that event provide an ideologically representative picture of Cottons constituency. Second, Sullivan draws odd inferences about Cottons motives. For example, he writes: Cotton urged caution in the pace at which [the House bill] was proceeding, but he did not advocate restraint in shredding some directives in the ACA. In effect, it was a simultaneous nod to conservatives on policy and centrists on timing. Sullivan wants to make it appear that Cotton is trying to stay on the good side of conservatives and moderates. Hence, the tightrope analogy. But concern over the fact that the House was moving too quickly should not be construed as nod to centrists or an attempt to have things both ways. Knowing how important the issue is and aware that Republicans will be held responsible for its resolution, Cotton simply wants to take the time needed to get Obamacare replacement legislation right. Theres nothing non-conservative about that. Sullivan also overlooks the fact that House conservatives, and most conservatives in general, did not like the bill that was pending before the House when Cotton called for taking the time to get things right. Thus, there was no tension between Cottons conservatism and his opposition to rushing to pass that bill. Third, and this may not be Sullivans fault, the headline of his story is off-key. Cotton served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He knows what real cross fire is. The dispute over Obamacare replacement legislation aint it. To be sure, the question of how best to replace Obamacare is a vexing issue for House and Senate Republicans. It makes many in both chambers uncomfortable, and Tom Cotton may well among them. But Cotton is not the poster-child for conflicted Republicans. Sullivan presents no evidence that the Senator is seriously conflicted at all over Obamacare. The fact that Cotton wants to proceed deliberately isnt evidence of internal conflict over fundamental questions. It just shows he wants to take the time needed to get the specifics right. Finally, Cotton would be near the bottom of a list of Republican Senators whose reelection prospects might be jeopardized due to the Obamacare replacement controversy, however it turns out. A boisterous town hall meeting shouldnt obscure that reality. Sullivan strongly implies that Toms ambition goes beyond the Senate. If so, thats all the more incentive to get Obamacare replacement right. But getting it right doesnt mean walking a tightrope between centrists and conservatives. Sullivan is wrong to suggest that this is what Tom is doing. Sullivans reports contains one piece of good news. Tom Cotton is a member of a health-care working group of Senate Republicans thats trying to figure out how to proceed now that the House has passed its replacement legislation. I expect he will be a voice of conservatism and a voice of reason. The two are not incompatible, whatever folks at the Washington Post may think. Przepraszamy! Ogoszenie na stanowisku: Technical consultant with Spanish - experience not required (m/f) wygaso z dniem 2017-05-09 Ta propozycja bya zozona przez Cpl Jobs Mozliwe przyczyny wygasniecia oferty to: propozycja zozona przez pracodawce zostaa wycofana z naszych zasobow zleceniodawca zakonczy proces rekrutacji uzyskujac odpowiednia ilosc pracownikow ogoszeniodawca zmodyfikowa tresc zlecenia i jest ono dostepne pod innym adresem url dostawca tresci usuna ogoszenie z bazy danych niewasciwy adres WWW ogoszenia Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w branzy Inne / Pozostae, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Inne / Pozostae Jezeli poszukujesz pracy na stanowisku Technical consultant with Spanish - experience not required (m/f), zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Technical consultant with Spanish - experience not required (m/f) Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w miescie: Poznan, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Poznan Pamietaj, ze mozesz takze rozpoczac poszukiwanie pracy od strony gownej, kliknij tutaj. Inne oferty, ktore mogy byc w kregu Twoich zainteresowan: The State Security Service, SSS, has arrested the managing director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah, on allegation of economic sabotage. The SSS says Mr. Ubah was detained on Friday in connection to missing petroleum products. The arrest was sequel to UBAHs engagement in acts of economic sabotage which include stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the SSS said in a statement Saturday. So far, it has been established that the products stolen amount to over Eleven Billion Naira (N11bn). There is no doubt that UBAHs acts have the capacity to negatively impact on national economy. The fuel products, belonging to NNPC Retail, which was stored in the Capital Oils storage facilities in Lagos under a throughput arrangement, went missing under controversial circumstances. In March, the Capital Oil and Gas boss reportedly visited the SSS office in Abuja, where he was held for days. The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, had said the corporation was committed to using all measures to fully recover the full value of the missing products. Last month, four top NNPC officials were retired over the scandal. Although Capital Oil disputes the figure given by the NNPC, the company has not come up with what the correct figure should be. The company says it has called for a reconciliation of debts owed the NNPC for products supplied since 2015. In its statement, signed by Tony Opuiyo, the SSS said Mr. Ubah had further engaged in other activities inimical to national security and public order. In furtherance of his gimmicks to undermine the government and people of Nigeria, he has incited members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a critical player in the downstream sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry, to refuse/stop the lifting of products, the statement said. This is part of his plans to curry their sentiments and cause them to embark on strike and also stage protests in his favour with the ulterior motive of arm-twisting the NNPC to abandon the cause of recovering the stolen products. The implications of this on law and order is, in fact, a common knowledge. It is consequent upon this that the Service arrested and will prosecute him forthwith. Share this: Twitter Facebook President Muhammadu Buharis directive that the Nigerian Maritime University, Delta State, be opened for activities before the end of the year is in line with the demands championed by major stakeholders in the Niger Delta region of the country, the presidency has said. The directive comes a day after the Nigeria Senate passed a bill to give legal backing to the school, three years after its foundation was laid by the former president Goodluck Jonathan. The decision to open the new university followed recent engagements Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had with Niger Delta leaders on behalf of the federal government. The presidency, Thursday, described the development as a clear effort to further the Niger Delta New Vision policy of the Buhari administration. A statement issued by Laolu Akande, the spokesperson of the vice president, said a five-man inter-agency Committee to be headed by the Minister of Education, will see to the implementation of the presidents directive. Other members of the committee will be picked from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, National Universities Commission, NUC, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, and the Office of the Deputy Governor of Delta State. The Committee is to finalize the ongoing processes towards the opening of the Nigeria Maritime University in the 2017/2018 Academic Session. The Committee will work collaboratively with the current Principal Officers and the Governing Council of the institution, Mr. Akande said in the statement. Mr. Akande said that the federal government was at the final stage of developing technical criteria for the issuance of operating licenses for the establishment of modular refineries in the Niger Delta, in addition to having a roadmap that would address the development challenges in the region. A roadmap for addressing regional development challenges is being developed by an inter-agency working group comprising of Ministry of Niger Delta, Niger Delta Development Commission, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Petroleum Resources and Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. This group is working in partnership with experts seconded by Pan-Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, and key resource persons financed by a bi-lateral international development partner. The roadmap will be based on the framework of the 16-point agenda developed by PANDEF. The statement added that A strategy for community-based participation in pipeline protection and policing is underway and will be validated with series of engagement processes, collaboratively with PANDEF, oil communities and other communities in the region that play host to the vast network of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. Meanwhile, Mr. Osinbajo is scheduled to visit Cross River and Ondo States to conclude the fact-finding tour to the Niger Delta, the statement said. Share this: Twitter Facebook Several Chibok school girls who were abducted by the insurgent group, Boko Haram, have been released. Nearly 300 girls were abducted from their dormitories in 2014 as they prepared to write their final exams. Twenty one of them were earlier released last October after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. Two other girls were found separately, in addition to those who escaped on the night of their abduction, bringing to over 50 those who regained freedom. It is not immediately clear how many girls were released this time, but Sahara Reporters said 80 were released, and were at Banki town in Borno State awaiting airlift. The Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, who took part in previous talks to free the girls, told PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday that he was aware that about 85 per cent negotiations had been completed last night. Although I did not participate in the negotiations, but, I am fully in the know of what was going on, Mr. Sani said. The Senator had earlier on Saturday tweeted Chibok girls shall be free Insha Allah. Share this: Twitter Facebook Mumbai, May 6 (IBNS): Celebrity bodyguard, who is known to be Salman Khanas most trusted aide for over 20 years, Shera will be in charge of none other than Canadian popstar Justin Bieberas personal security. The minute the Grammy winner sets foot in India, Shera will take over his Indian security entourage till May 10th for his Purpose Concert at DY Patil Stadium. Shera states, It is an honor to be associated with a name like Justin Bieber. I was specially called in after my profile was screened and vetted by the international agents. In the past I have handled international artists of the likes of Micheal Jackson, Will Smith, Jackie Chan, Paris Hilton, Shaggy, Peter Andre, Diana King, Whitfield, UB40, Slash, Keanu reaves, U2. I am very impressed with how full proof and detailed the security guidelines have been. This will be one of my most challenging assignments till date and I will ensure Justin Bieber has no complaints whatsoever. Samantha Tzovolos from the international artist agency states , I have met Shera here in Mumbai a few days ago and he is exceptional at what he does. His presence of mind is commendable. The minute we met I knew he was the perfect choice for an artist like Bieber. Shera real name Gurmeet Singh Jolly has been with Khan through the best of times and the worst of times. In a sign of his loyalty, Khan opted to use the badge and uniform of Sheras own firm, Tiger Security, in Bodyguard. White Fox India will be bringing the 23-year-old Canadian megastars Purpose World Tour to Indias DY Patil Stadium, Mumbai on May 10. Biebers latest jaunt is in support of his fourth album, the critically acclaimed Purpose, wherein he experimented with more exploratory electronic sounds. Apart from India, the Asia leg of the tour comprises Tel Aviv in Israel and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Touring in support of his fourth studio album Purpose which debuted at #1 in over 100 countries and has sold over 8 million copies worldwide, Bieber is without a doubt one of the most successful pop stars in the world today with a recent world tour imbibing sold out dates across countries. Concert goers can book tickets at www.bookmyshow.com for the hotly anticipated event. Justice Maruf Adegbola of an Oyo State High Court in Ibadan, on Friday sentenced one Gafar Asimiyu to seven years in prison for raping a 12- year- old girl. Mr. Adegbola said evidence before him showed that the accused was guilty of the charge of rape preferred against him. The medical report from Adeoyo Hospital indicated that there was forceful penetration in the private part of the victim, he said. He also said the statement of the accused did not contradict that of the victim, adding that instead, it helped to strengthen the case against him. The judge further said the testimony of the accused in the court was an after taught. The earlier statement made by the accused with the investigating police officer indicated that the accused had sexual intercourse with the victim without her consent. The prosecution was able to prove the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt. Mr. Adegbola said though Section 259 of the Criminal Code of Oyo State provides a life sentence for offenders; he sentenced Asimiyu to seven years imprisonment. Based on the plea made by counsel to the accused, the court hereby sentences Asimiyu to seven years imprisonment. The judge said that the sentence should start from May 5. The prosecutor, Olayiwola Oloso, had told the court that the accused committed the crime on February 18, 2013 in Yemetu area of Ibadan. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Friday expressed worry that attacks by Boko Haram have continued to slow down its operation in northeast Nigeria where it plans to spend $4 million this year. The UN body said it had secured donations from its development partners and planned to spend the money on humanitarian activities in the region. Boko Haram insurgency has affected about 4.5 million people especially women and children. UNDPs regional coordinator and head of Maiduguri Sub-Office, Joerg Kuehnel, told journalists in Maiduguri that most areas targeted were inaccessible and unsecured because Boko Haram insurgents were still using them as hideouts. He mentioned some of the challenges to include the understanding of the scope of the crisis in the Lake Chad Basin, problem of poverty of the populace affected by the insurgency, delay in recognizing what really the Boko Haram crisis was on time and security challenges as most communities were inaccessible. Mr. Kuehnel also pointed out that the issue of coordination of the humanitarian partners under the United Nations for the various intervention programs has been a great challenge to the UNDP. He however noted that some progress had been made on the part of governments agreeing to collaborate with humanitarian partners. We are on the ground in three most affected states; Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa, said Mr. Kuehnel. With the establishment of our Sub in Maiduguri, we have scaled up our work to build upon successes and pilot interventions from 2016, including immediate livelihood support, infrastructure reconstruction and rehabilitation, and de-radicalization and prevention of violent extremism. We have designed and rolled out an Integrated Community Stabilization Program, which is aimed at helping both internally displaced people and host communities to better withstand the crisis and to pave the way towards a peaceful, sustainable future. The head of UNDP Sub Office added that, In partnership with the Governments of Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), we are piloting the integrated program in two Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Borno State where plans are underway to expand to Yobe and Adamawa States. Lessons from these pilot interventions will inform the scaling up of the integrated program to 50 communities in five LGAs, targeting more than 1,000,000 direct and indirect beneficiaries, he said. He said the UNDP is working for strong partnerships that are critical to implement an integrated approach and to ensure the gap is bridged between the humanitarian efforts, recovery, and our longer term development. As part of the UNDP achievements in the north east, he said, there was provision for unconditional cash grants to over 80,000 most vulnerable persons, reconstruction of 11 schools, clinics and government buildings and provision of cash-for-work to 4,000 skilled and unskilled community workers. Supporting over 3,400 farmers (20% women) with agricultural inputs, farm implements and cash to restart farming activities. Supporting 3,200 small business owners with grants, equipment or training for diversification and new skills, he said. Share this: Twitter Facebook Officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) say the agency has foiled attempts by two women to unlawfully export narcotic drugs to New York, United States and Medina, Saudi Arabia. The suspects allegedly ingested 108 wraps of substances that tested positive for heroin and cocaine during the outward screening of passengers at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos. The suspects blamed their involvement in drug trafficking on financial hardship, the NDLEA said in a statement on Saturday. The anti-narcotics agency said its preliminary investigation revealed that this was the first time a 60 year old woman would ingest 83 wraps of narcotics. In addition, the second suspect was going to Saudi Arabia where drug trafficking attracts capital punishment. Her timely arrest at the Lagos airport by the Nigerian anti-narcotics officers have saved her from the ordeals of painful and ignoble death in a foreign country, the agency added. Ahmadu Garba, the NDLEA commander at the Lagos airport, gave the names of the suspected drug traffickers as Adebayo Ebunoluwa Mercy, 60, found to have ingested 83 wraps of heroin weighing 1.105kg on her way to the United States and Amodu Ayisat Grace, 59, that ingested 25 wraps of cocaine weighing 275 grammes on her way to Saudi Arabia. Adebayo Ebunoluwa Mercy was arrested while boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight to New York while Amodu Ayisat Grace was caught trying to board an Ethiopian airline flight on her way to Medina, Saudi Arabia. The cases are under investigation, said Mr. Garba. One of the suspects, Mrs. Adebayo, who sells provision at Ikorodu, Lagos, said her involvement in drug trafficking was an afterthought. I am a divorcee selling provision for survival, Mrs. Adebayo, who hails from Kogi State, said. Things became rough and tough for me when I lost my capital due to family problems. It has been my dream to travel to the United States in search of greener pastures. My intention when I got my visa last year was to go and work to take care of my needs without being a burden to anyone. Everything changed suddenly when I met an old friend at a party. They took care of my travel expenses and gave me $3,000 with a promise to assist me secure a job in the United States. It was few hours to my journey that they brought the drugs for me to swallow. They said that it was my contribution for the kindness and money spent on my trip but it turned out to be my biggest mistake. In her statement to NDLEA investigators, Mrs. Amodu said as a muslim she was glad to travel to Saudi Arabia but her journey terminated at the NDLEA office. I was happy when they offered to sponsor my trip to Saudi Arabia but I never knew it will end in my detention, said the Lagos-born trader. I sell fufu (staple food from cassava) to take care of my four children as a widow and this has been very challenging. They enticed me with a visit to Saudi Arabia and a handsome reward and I fell for trick. I only swallowed 25 wraps of the drug. Unfortunately I could not get to Saudi Arabia because of my arrest. Muhammad Abdallah, the NDLEA Chairman, said it is shocking and shameful for grandmothers to be involved in drug trafficking. This move by drug cartels to recruit grandmothers as mules is very disturbing, shocking and shameful, he said. The moral emptiness exhibited by the suspects must be condemned by all. A situation where grandmothers have become a bad influence on their children and grandchildren is highly regrettable. Share this: Twitter Facebook The first private university in Cross River State Arthur Jarvis University was on Saturday inaugurated with the matriculation of 100 students, the News Agency of Nigeria reported. The university, located at Akpabuyo Local Government Area, has two faculties Basic and Applied Sciences and Social Management Sciences. The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, who performed the inauguration ceremony, said investment in education was the surest way to achieving success and breakthroughs in any nation. As I officially declare open the commencement of this university today, I wish to commend the proprietor for nursing the idea to invest in education, she said. Mrs. Oyo-Ita, who commended the proprietor, Arthur-Jarvis Archibong, for establishing the institution, expressed the hope that it would boost socio-economic and educational activities in the area and the state. The institutions Vice-Chancellor, Julian Osuji, said the vision of the university was to groom students to be ambassadors of the university and the country, promising to inculcate moral discipline and academic excellence in the students. Bassey Asuquo, the chairman, Board of Trustees of the university, said the university took off with 10 departments in two faculties and 15 programmes. Mr. Asuquo, a professor and former vice-chancellor of the University of Calabar, said the management would work assiduously to ensure that the institution complemented the efforts of the state government to change the status of the state as one of the educationally disadvantaged states. The Obong of Calabar, Ekpo Okon Abasi-Otu, called on well-meaning people to emulate the proprietor of the university by investing in the state. One of the pioneer students, Paul Okon, expressed satisfaction with the standard of facilities and infrastructure provided in the university, saying it would create a conducive environment for both students and staff. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook Three years after her 15-year-old daughter, Hajara, and over 270 others were kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Borno State, Yanana Bukar, still hopes for her daughters return. At a point, I actually did not know what to do with the absence of my dear daughter should I mourn her as a dead person or should I continue to grief over her as a lost child whom I hope would someday return to me, Mrs. Bukar said in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES. She said many of the parents of the other girls are in a similar state as hers; and that she had given up hope of ever seeing her daughter. Having your precious daughter in some unknown jungle coupled with the news being told about how wicked and bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgents are, does not help one to have normal blood pressure. Sometimes, I had even given up on Hajara my daughter because we hear the news of how Boko Haram kill people at will. Hajara and the other 275 girls were in the dormitory at the Government Secondary School in Chibok on April 14, 2014 when the school was attacked by Boko Haram terrorists and the girls kidnapped. Efforts by government and the Nigerian military to free any of the girls were unsuccessful until at least two years after their kidnap. However, 57 of the girls managed to escape on their own while two were found by locals in the remote areas close to the Sambisa forest. Twenty-one others were released by their abductors following negotiations with the Muhammadu Buhari administration after over two years in captivity. About 19 of the parents of the abducted girls have died as a result of trauma, while the rest have been living in grief, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. Mrs. Bukar said her hope was rekindled with the release of 21 of the Chibok schoolgirls on October 13, last year. My daughters name is Hajara Isa, she said in a somber voice. We are still looking up to God for his kindness. If our girls are still alive, He should help us see that they come out safely just the way the 21 others were released. Mrs. Bukar, a mother of four, said she was informed by the 21 released girls who visited Chibok last Christmas that her daughter was alive and sent her greetings. When the freed girls were brought to Chibok to celebrate Christmas, we were able to interact with them and they informed me that my daughter is well, and that she sent her greeting and asked that I should also continue to pray for her. I dont know how true this sweet news could be, but it gladdened my heart because it comes from some of her peers. I will not give up hope on her. The God that answered the prayers of other parents will surely answer my own and those of others yet to be freed as well. ANOTHER MOTHER GRIEFS Another mother of one of the girls, who chose not to mention her name for her personal safety within the community, said she was not happy that community leaders in Chibok castigated those who had publicly lamented their situation. The woman said she wondered why they kept hearing reports that thousands of women and children were being rescued by troops, and yet none of the remaining 195 girls were found even after the fall of Sambisa forest. I am not going to mention my name in this interview because the last time we went to speak to the media, our community leaders singled us out for reprimand and all sort of threats, she told PREMIUM TIMES. But I am not scared of speaking my mind on this matter. We are tired of hearing stories and empty promises. What exactly is the problem with our government? We have waited patiently as days run into weeks; weeks to months, and it is three years today. All we get is cold promises. Is it not the same jungle from which the 21 girls were released? Is it not in the same bush that the two other girls were found? So, why is it difficult for the security forces to get our remaining girls rescued once and for all? We thought the rescued girls should have by now given the troops all the needed information about where the Boko Haram have been hiding them so that they could go in there and rescue them. We, the parents of the girls have met recently to discuss the plight of our abducted daughters, and we had concluded that it is high time we began to speak with our own voices. We have agreed that we are going to mobilise resources either through the sale of our farm produce, or by selling firewood or by any other means of our livelihood so that we can travel down to Abuja to meet President Buhari and present our cries to him. We are tired of all the politics and empty promises, she said. The middle-aged woman spoke to this newspaper on Thursday, the day her eldest daughter, the immediate senior to Aisha, got married. She said though the wedding day of her daughter would have been a happy day for her, it turned out with mixed feelings because of her missing daughter. My first daughter is getting married today, she said. But her younger sister, Aisha is not here to stand by her side as we had long planned. It is really sad for me. She said her missing daughter was 15 years old at the time she was abducted in April 2014. If she is alive and as I was told by the 21 girls that were recently released, then she should be in her 18th year by now, she said. They told me that some of the girls were married off, but my daughter had not been married at the time they were leaving, she added. The federal government has confirmed that it is in negotiations with Boko Haram to free the remaining Chibok girls. On Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari reiterated his administrations commitment to do everything possible to free the girls. Like I have repeatedly said, the Federal Government is willing to bend over backwards to secure the release of the remaining Chibok girls, he said. 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. TIMELINE ON CHIBOK GIRLS ABDUCTION April 14, 2014: Armed Boko Haram insurgents abducted the Chibok schoolgirls from their dormitory at a time they were writing their final year exams. About 57 of the girls managed to escape at different times while on transit with their abductors. April 16, 2014: The military announced that soldiers had rescued over 100 of the girls; a claim the military had to quickly recant after the school principal, Asabe Kwambura, as well as many of the parents of the abducted girls, refuted it. April 18, 2014: The Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, offered a N50 million reward for any information that could lead to release of the abducted girls. But no credible information was received to help rescue the girls. April 21, 2014: The governor defied security warnings to visit Chibok where he was informed by members of a local search party who took it upon themselves to go after the girls and their abductors that they had to give up on the mission following a warning that advancing further into Sambisa forest could cost them their lives. May 12, 2014: Boko Haram released the first video of the abducted girls, a development which confirmed that the girls were actually in the custody of the Abubakar Shekau-led terror group. Mr. Shekau in the video threatened to marry the girls off or use them as part of his war booty. May 16, 2014: Former President Goodluck Jonathan canceled a planned trip to Chibok where he was scheduled to meet the missing girls parents. The cancellation of the trip stirred anger in the town as parents accused Mr. Jonathan of insensitivity to the plight of their kids who had spent 31 days in captivity at that time. May 18, 2014: A chance to rescue the girls by local hunters was missed when the Borno State government refused to give approval to the local hunters to invade Sambisa forest on the ground that other than their charms and amulets, they lacked the sophistication to confront the armed Boko Haram gunmen. May 19, 2014: The federal government sent a delegation led by Ibrahim Sabo, a retired Brigadier-General of the Nigerian Army, on a fact-finding mission, amongst other things, to find out why the Borno State government kept the school in Chibok opened when others were closed at that time. The committee did not visit Chibok. May 20, 2014: The Borno State government set up a N150 million special funds for the rehabilitation of the 57 escapees Chibok girls. October 16, 2014: The former Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, an Air Vice-Marshal, announced that the federal government had reached a ceasefire deal with leaders of Boko Haram and that the 216 girls in captivity would soon be released. But Boko Haram leaders quickly denied that claim. November 2, 2014: Boko Haram leader, Mr. Shekau, released a video during which he declared that all the 216 girls in his custody had been converted to Islam and married off. He also denied ever negotiating with the federal government concerning the girls. March 24, 2015: A woman who escaped from Boko Haram captivity revealed that some of the Chibok girls were being held somewhere near Gwoza and that two of the girls had been killed during a military air strike on one of the terrorists locations. May 29, 2015: President Muhammadu Buhari, in his inaugural speech, promised to end Boko Haram insurgency and rescue the Chibok schoolgirls within six months. August 29, 2015: President Buhari met 90 of the parents of the abducted Chibok girls during which he restated the promise to rescue the girls. November 30, 2015: President Buhari dashed the hopes of many Nigerians when he told the world during his maiden media chat that there was no credible information on the whereabouts of the Chibok girls. February 5, 2016: Nigerias former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, declared that the 219 missing Chibok girls may never be found. May 18, 2016: One of the abducted Chibok girls, Amina Ali Nkeki, was found with her baby and a man she identified as her husband. October 13, 2016: Boko Haram released 21 Chibok girls following a negotiation deal. January 5, 2017: Another Chibok girl, Rakiya Abubakar, was found with her baby, which brings to 23 the number of the abducted girls to have regained freedom to date. Share this: Twitter Facebook Suspected militants who have held Ogun riverine communities hostage for months have attacked the marine police base in Iwopin community in Ogun Waterside local government area, killing one policeman. The victims was identified as Segun Akinola, a sergeant. The heavily armed militants stormed the base on Thursday night, and shot two other policemen, witnesses say. The attackers left with a police gun boat. A police official who escaped the attack said they could not fight back as they were ill-equipped. The militants were armed to the teeth. They arrived the Marine Base and started shooting. They killed a Marine police man who was on duty; one Sergeant Segun Akinola, he said. Two other policemen were shot and they were rushed to the hospital. It is sad that the marine base which is one of the oldest in the country is not equipped. That is why the militants can attack successfully. The militants went away with a police speed gun boat in the base. The attack came two weeks after militants attacked a businessman and killed three vigilante members in the community. The chairman of the Ogun Waterside local government area, Femi Onanuga, expressed sadness over the repeated attacks. These attacks are reoccurring almost every week and it is sad that we are losing civilians and policemen. People are fleeing from Ogun Waterside local government. We are appealing to the government to urgently come to our rescue, he said. The spokesperson for the Ogun State police command, Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed the killing. He said he was going to the scene to have a first-hand information. A source told PREMIUM TIMES that the militants had sent a letter to the community two weeks ago to inform the police that they would be attacking. Share this: Twitter Facebook Nigerias Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, on Saturday in Lagos called for the prosecution of those he described as detractors in the fight against corruption in the country. Mr. Soyinka made the call at the opening of his Vision of the Child Art Exhibition, 2017 edition, at Freedom Park, Lagos with the theme: Enhance the Heritage; Advance the Future, in celebrating Lagos at 50. He said most times, the anti-corruption agency was sent on the wrong track or wild goose chase, resulting to no prosecution. When we talk about corruption, is it not time we legislate against detractors, who deliberately create distraction. Say for instance, the money just found in Lagos. One governor claimed that the money belongs to his state government, claiming a proceed from the sale of some turbines and so on. It is a criminal act of distraction. He knew very well that he was lying, that the money was not his, but belongs to someone else. The governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, had claimed that the money found in an Ikoyi apartment belonged to his state. He claimed the money was stashed by his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi. Obviously, acting in the interest of those accused of corruption, that to me is connivance and collaboration with corrupt people, Mr. Soyinka said. I think such people should be criminalised by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Mr. Soyinka, who commended the art works of the children, expressed the hope that with children exposing the corruption acts of the adults Nigeria would be in for better days. Speaking , the acting chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, said the commissions operation was not limited to investigation and prosecution of offenders, but also to enlightening the public on the dangers of corruption. Mr. Magu said the painting exhibition was one way to educate and enlighten people about corruption, stressing that the paintings exposed some ways in which adults were involved in corrupt practices. My views of the Nigerian child, from across the plains, the hills, the forests and the swamps of Nigeria are those of innocence and boundless creativity. However, like most of the older generation, many of our youths seem also to be trapped in cocoons of corruption, which have built around them. However, Professor Soyinkas Vision of the Child project and the sheer breadth and depth of these paintings by these youngsters, demonstrate very well that our children have an acute awareness of what is going on around them and are breaking free of the shackles of corruption. They also show the determination of the younger generation for their voices to be heard. The uncomfortable questions they are asking us are; how and why did we allow this beautiful country to be turned into the cesspit of corruption? These paintings speak to all strata of our society and to every flank of the war against corruption and the common message I see running through all of them is: we will never give up on the ideals of a just and equitable society. The vision I see so eloquently expressed in these wonderful pieces of art is that of the irrepressible Nigerian spirit, refusing to be put down and reaching out for the Nigeria of our collective dreams: the Nigeria where our commonwealth is used for our common good and not looted by a few greedy, self-centred lot. I can confirm to you that corruption is already fighting back. But, even though massive resources have been deployed to fight back at EFCC, we draw strength and encouragement to carry on from the likes of these children and Prof Wole Soyinka. We draw the courage to soldier on from millions of ordinary Nigerians whose desires are for equity and social justice, he said. Mr. Magu said the EFCC was not personal in the discharge of its mandate, saying its personnel only fear God, with the guiding principles by the Rule of Law and the overriding interest of the country. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that 38 students selected from different schools, participated in literary and painting works at the exhibition. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook The national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), John Oyegun, says a major focus of the party is to return the South-East to mainstream of national politics. Mr. Oyegun spoke at the APC awareness rally and formal reception of former Gov. Sullivan Chime in Abodu ward, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State on Saturday. The chairman described the entrance of Mr. Chime into APC as the height of that bid. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr. Chime, who was governor of the state for eight years under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), officially registered with the APC at the rally. Mr. Oyegun described the former governor as a great and valuable acquisition. He said the South-East was special to the party but regretted that the people had for long been prevented from identifying with the APC. He said Nigerians knew the people of the area as the most intelligent, enterprising as well as the greatest nation builders. The time has come for you to reap from the fruits of your labour. From the time we won the election in 2015 our greatest target has been to ensure that the South-East returns to national politics and the arrival of Chime is the climax. I have for a long time admired him though we were in different political parties. He is a man of vision who changed Enugu and it is something to celebrate to have him in our party, he said. Mr. Oyegun said the entrance of the former governor into the party would open up a new vista for the zone, adding that the time has come for the people of the area to reap from their contributions. With Chime on board great things are going to start happening to your people because he is an acquisition of calibre, he said. Mr. Oyegun said it was good that Mr. Chime had decided to join hands in repairing the ills the PDP inflicted on the nation over the years. He said every section of the country was important to actualise this task, adding I grew up to know Nigeria to be balanced on the tripod. Mr. Chime said he was humbled by the crowd that gathered to welcome him into the APC. I thank God I have finally left that wreckage that was once upon a time a great party. Go home and tell our people that what used to be our party is gone. There seems to be no other option as the only place to be if you want to be politically active is the APC, Mr. Chime said. Mr. Chime appealed to residents of the state to identify with the APC to attract good governance as that was the only functional party in the country. He said he did not join the party because of any position but to give the people federal presence and make sure they get what rightfully belong to them. NAN reports that other dignitaries that attended the event included Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, a former minister,Emeka Wogu, and other members of the APC national working committee. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has confirmed the death of two persons in an accident in Abuja on Saturday. Sunday Oghenekaro, the FRSC Sector Commander in FCT, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the incident occurred on the Gwarimpa bypass at 7 a.m., involving two Toyota Camry cars. According to him, three persons, comprising of two males and a female, were victims of the accident. He said a male and the only female died on the spot, while the other male was critically injured. The cause of the accident was speed, because if you look at the impact, one of the vehicles almost torn into shreds. Our rescue team arrived in the scene about 10 minutes after the accident and was able to evacuate the bodies to Kubwa General Hospital. The injured victim was, however, taken to the Federal Medical Centre in Jabi District, he said. A witness had earlier told NAN that one of the dead was a police officer with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, but the FRSC sector commander could not immediately confirm that. Mr. Oghenekaro listed the items recovered at the scene to include one AK-47 rifle, mobile phones and an undisclosed amount of cash.(NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook For the second time in two weeks, the Lagos State government has denied that its officials were involved in the demolition of a market in the state. Goods worth millions of naira were lost after government officials, accompanied by armed police officers, arrived the Sabo market on Itoikin road in Ikorodu on Thursday night to begin demolition of the property. The traders said they were served a notice of demolition two weeks ago. But Steve Ayorinde, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, said on Friday that the demolition was carried out by unscrupulous and desperate developers suspected to be acting in connivance with certain local government officials. According to Mr. Ayorinde, the state government did not demolish the market and would not demolish any market or property in the state without following due process. The State Governments preliminary investigation revealed that the market was demolished by some private developers, in connivance with some local government officers and a certain uniformed personnel who acted beyond their brief, the commissioner said in a statement. He explained that government had observed a pattern which engages uniformed personnel to carry out spurious orders without any proper notice being served to deny market women of the means of their livelihood. Mr. Ayorinde said the state government would no longer tolerate such brazen act of illegality. The commissioner said to forestall similar occurrence, the government would henceforth beam its searchlight on the excesses of developers, local government officials and their cohorts in order to protect the interest of hard working traders. The current administration in the state is committed to the socio-economic empowerment of the people and has formulated policies and taken measures that would guarantee their economic well-being. It would therefore not fold its arms and watch desperate individuals or groups deny hard working people in the state their means of livelihood, Mr. Ayorinde said. The statement reiterated the commitment of the government to protect the right of every citizen and warned against further acts of connivance between developers and their cohorts. Similar demolitions, same denial Mr. Ayorindes statement came exactly two weeks after a similar denial over the demolition of the retail market in the Berger area of the state. Wasiu Anifowose, the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, while denying the states responsibility for the demolition said the government does not embark on demolitions without organizing a stakeholders meeting with the affected people, as well as giving them adequate notice. Our story is that some of the market women came to my office yesterday saying that their market was being demolished, and after finding out from relevant agencies because I have not given any directive on demolition and having confirmed that our agencies were not involved, I told the market people that the demolition never came from us, Mr. Anifowose had said in a statement on April 21. In November last year, the state government also denied involvement in the demolition of Otodogbame, a waterfront community in Lekki. Responding to the development, Taofeek Gani, the Peoples Democratic Party spokesperson in the state, said the government should identify those who participated in the demolitions and prosecute them. It calls to question, we need to know whether we are on auto-pilot now in Lagos State where we cannot identify who is governing, said Mr. Gani. Because if such exercise continues and the state government represented by the governor indeed is denying knowledge, it means we do not have an active government in place. It is not only in this arrangement of demolitions, so many other things are happening in the state and the government is always quick to come and deny. Let them not allow Lagosians to become anarchic because once it is confirmed that the government will want to put up an alibi whenever an injury is inflicted on them, they will turn to anarchy. Share this: Twitter Facebook New York, May 6(Just Earth News): The United Nations population agency on Friday urged governments and development partners to expand midwifery programmes and promote an environment where midwives can effectively serve the needs of women and their families. Midwives save lives, support and promote healthy families, and empower women and couples to choose whether, when and how often to have children, said Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) on the occasion of International Day of the Midwife. They also help avert sexually transmitted infections and prevent disabilities like obstetric fistula, mother-to-child transmission of HIV and female genital mutilation, he added. Each year, more than 300,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth. The UN also estimates that some three million babies do not survive the first month of life, and another 2.5 million are stillborn. Most of them could have been saved by the care of well-trained midwives within the framework of strong health systems, Dr. Osotimehin said. This year's theme for the Day 'Midwives, Mothers and Families: Partners for Life!' underscores the important roles that these women and girls have in preventing maternal and newborn deaths and empowering women to make informed, healthy choices. These are critical aspects of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which seek to alleviate poverty and assist the planet, by the 2030 deadline. Also on Friday, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated the importance of midwives washing their hands and maintaining hygienic standards. Handwashing and lack of water and sanitation is a fundamental constraint to quality of care, says Fran McConville, midwifery adviser, WHO. As midwives we must work in partnership to improve access to water, sanitation and electricity for all women and babies everywhere. Worldwide, 30,000 women and 400,000 babies die every year from infections, such as puerperal sepsis, often caused by lack of water, sanitation and poor hand-washing practices. Photo: Nicolas Axelrod/Ruom for UNFPA Source: www.justearthnews.com Ahead of the 2018 governorship election in Osun, Gov. Rauf Aregbesola has said that he has not endorsed anyone to succeed him. The governor made the declaration during an all night interactive radio programme tagged: Ogbeni Till Daybreak on Saturday in Osogbo. Mr. Aregbesola said it was not true that effort to choose his successor was threatening his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. He said APC in the state was as solid, strong and effective as any party could be. There is no aspect of our partys organisation and management that have suffered in any form in respect of who will be my successor. We are united, connected and working so well for the progress of the party. We are the most cohesive political party in the state, he said. The governor said no opposition party in the state could withstand APC in 2018 governorship election. If the only opposition party we have in the state is disorganised, dismembered, then where is the fear for 2018 election? the governor asked. On the speculation that the governor was planning to contest for Lagos West Senatorial election in 2019, Mr. Aregbesola said there was no such dream yet. The APC Chairman in the State, Gboyega Famodun, whom the governor also asked to speak on 2018 election in the state, said the party had not chosen anyone as its candidate. There is no governorship aspirant in the party as far as I know. The insubordination of few members of the party does not mean that the party is being threatened ahead of 2018 governorship election. We have a very strong structure in the state, he said. Mr. Famodun said there was no timetable yet from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the 2018 election in the state. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook In a recent interview, President Duda said that one of the aims of the visit is to promote Poland's bid to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Speaking to TVP Info public news channel, the president said that the primary goal of his visit was economic promotion. "This is an extremely important issue", he said, noting that Poland's leading tractor maker Ursus was active on the Ethiopian market. "We want to strengthen Ursus' presence in Ethiopia", he added. The promotion of Poland's bid for UN Security Council non-permanent membership in 2018-2019 is another important task, the president said, noting that Addis Ababa hosted the seat of the African Union as well as the seat of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. President Duda announced that he was planning to meet with officials from both institutions. "We want to win African countries' support for Poland in a vote that will take place in June, so the goals of this visit, political and economic, are very important", president Duda said. Andrzej Duda's visit to Ethiopia and the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa will run until May 9. (PAP) When Gov. Chris Christie came to Atlantic City for the official groundbreaking for the Gateway project, he talked about all the partnerships that had brought the $220 million project to fruition. Next to him was a sign listing those partnerships, including Stockton University, South Jersey Gas, the Atlantic County Improvement Authority and the Atlantic City Development Corp. Less than a decade ago, such public/private partnerships were not allowed, leading the states nine public colleges to borrow almost $4 billion to meet their construction needs, from new classrooms to student housing. Those costs were passed on to students as facilities fees, costing as much as $1,000 per year. Today, private developers are picking up more of the cost and more of the responsibility. The result can be more complicated and may sometimes be more expensive. But college officials say they couldnt do it any other way. There are more benefits than drawbacks, said Stockton University President Harvey Kesselman of the Gateway project. It is more complex. But we cant bond anymore. Now we have more partners invested in its success. And in the end, its ours. A 2009 state law allowed public colleges to enter into public/private partnerships for projects built on college-owned land. To date, 10 projects are in the pipeline, five of them completed. Seven are primarily student housing, the largest and first being The Heights, a $211 million project at Montclair State University that has almost 2,000 beds, a dining facility and other amenities. In 2012, voters approved the $750 million Building Our Future Bond Act to fund higher-education projects. Combined with other grants and matching funds, the bond has generated about $1.5 billion in public and private college construction of more than 100 projects statewide, according to state Higher Education data. Rowan University has taken advantage of both programs, building Holly Point Commons housing in a public/private partnership and academic buildings with the bond funds. Student housing is considered a good risk for private financing because it meets a demonstrated need. Partnering with colleges guarantees tenants. We had a master plan that called for housing but no financial strategy to do it, said Donald Moore, Senior vice president for facilities and operations at Rowan University. Public/private partnerships were an opportunity to move rapidly without using university funds. He said developers are interested in their bottom line, but the college is interested in keeping housing affordable, so compromises are reached. Building on college-owned land saves money. They want the next project, and they wont get that pricing themselves out of the market, Moore said of developers. The increase in construction projects, and an improving economy, have raised prices. Stockton revised the plans for its academic buildings in Galloway Township when bids came in high. In February, the board of trustees approved increasing the cost of the Atlantic City campus project by $15 million to $178 million due to increased costs, most of it for the student housing. We open bids every day, and Im not liking what we see, Antonio Calcado, executive vice president for strategic planning and operations and chief operating officer at Rutgers, said of the cost of materials. It is a mighty struggle, but its the price of a good economy. Theres a lot of work out there now. Calcado said the decision to build on their own or with a private partner is made on a case-by-case basis. Private companies can sometimes access government grants and tax credits not available to nonprofit colleges. Rutgers has worked with the New Brunswick Development Corporation, which is operated by the same people running the Atlantic City DevCo. Good partners will save you money because they know how to run these projects, Calcado said. If they want the next job, they have to give you a good product. He said the general contractors profit margin and developer fees are generally spelled out in the budgets at two or three percent of the project cost. The developers fees for the Gateway project, about $5.77 million, represent about 3.2 percent of the cost. At the Gateway ceremony, Christie said the new projects are expanding access and giving more New Jersey students the chance to stay in the state. The partnership option, he said, gives college boards flexibility. Maybe it can be more expensive, he said. But you have to balance the cost with not being able to do it at all. Paris, May 6 (IBNS): Ahead of Sunday's Presidential polls in France, Emmanuel Macron, the front runner for Elysee Palace, received a setback as he complained of a 'massive, coordinated email hack', reports said. In an official statement, Macron's En Marche movement said that an anonymous user released nine gigabytes of data online, which were a mixture of real and fake documents. "The leaked files were obtained several weeks ago by hacking personal and professional email accounts of several officials of the movement," the En Marche statement read. In Sunday's election, Macron, the Centrist candidate will face far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Washington, May 6 (IBNS) : An Indian origin couple was shot dead in the US in an apparent revenge attack by their daughteras ex-boyfriend who was eventually shot dead in a standoff with police. According to reports in the local media, Mirza Tatlic, 24, had relationship with Rachel Prabhu, the couple's daughter. But it ended last year. Tatlic, who appeared to be driven by revenge, fatally shot Rachel's father Naren Prabhu, a Silicon Valley tech executive, in the doorway of his San Jose, California, home, before he killed his ex's mother inside. "When officers arrived at the home they saw an adult man deceased in the front doorway suffering from at least one gunshot wound," media quoted San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia as saying. "Officers learned from the adult son that his mother and 13-year-old brother, along with the suspect, were still inside the house. In addition, [he] thought his mom had been shot." A standoff quickly developed with the suspect -- who was later identified as Mirza Tatlic -- and a SWAT team, which was called to assist at the scene. Neighbors were ordered to shelter in place. As Tatlic, holed up in the house, did not pay heed to police to surrender and once peeped out of a window with a hand gun, one of the officers shot him. Officers then went into the house and found the two deceased victims and the dead suspect, Garcia said. Rachel lives in another state and was not home at the time of the shooting, which began around 9pm on Wednesday. KELLER, Texas, May 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 20 million online recipes, it's no surprise that at home cooks spend more time searching for the right recipe than actually making it. This is where the leader in cooking, America's Test Kitchen (ATK) and the data driven marketing agency, Tasseologic, partnered up to serve the right recipes to at home cooks. Through this partnership, ATK has launched a powerful prospect and customer nurturing program that is rooted in behavioral data insights and gives cooks what they need: recipes and guidance based upon their culinary level, type of cooking and recipe preferences. In just six months, ATK has enjoyed off the charts results: 10% increase in average revenue, forecasted and on target 4:1 ROI and most importantly, retention of the member base. "Tasseologic surpassed our expectations with the expertise each team member provided" says David Nussbaum, Chairman and CEO of America's Test Kitchen. "Together we were able to develop and launch a CRM program from end-to-end. Tasseologic just turned the keys over to us. We were left with a clear roadmap on how to continue to drive success, demonstrating that Tasseologic was a true partner and not just a vendor." Dr. Urvashi Pitre, President of Tasseologic, says that, "We are so proud of the work we did for this incredible brand and the results we were able to drive for them. It was a true partnership." Tasseologic, a global CRM and data strategy company, is known for smart, quick-hit CRM strategies grounded in predictive analytics to drive positive ROI. Cutting across all consumer touch points, and activating all the levers available to national and global brands, Tasseologic helps clients use consumer insight, and accelerate in-market tactics. This small, but powerful data-driven CRM agency has received international recognition in the past 12 months with a Silver Cannes and a Silver Effie, two golds and a silver at the APAC Marketing Loyalty and Engagement Awards, as well as a Gold Appie for their insightful, results-driven CRM work. ____________________________________ About Tasseologic May 3, 2017 (Dallas, Texas) Tasseologic is a data-driven marketing strategy company. Based out of Dallas but with team members across the globe, Tasseologic transforms client data into actionable marketing strategies with proven analytics and ROI informed ideas. Tasseologic partners with brands and creative agencies across all categories to build CRM programs that drive profit and influence consumer actions. For more information about Tasseologic, visit www.tasseologic.com. About America's Test Kitchen May 3, 2017 (Brookline, Massachusetts) America's Test Kitchen is a 2,500-square-foot kitchen located just outside Boston. It is the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines and is the workday destination of more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of products that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to our public television shows, America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen. Media Contact: Rebecca Donohue Phone: (917) 312-0004 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Tasseologic Related Links http://tasseologic.com "We had high hopes for these incredible firearms, and our collectors did not let us down," said RIAC President Kevin Hogan. "It's such a huge honor to be entrusted with the possessions of an American legend, but we also had a lot of fun with it and everyone here did as well. Half an hour before Elvis' items sold, there wasn't a seat to be had in our auction hall. It was absolutely electric with anticipation." Remaining days of the auction will feature thousands of additional items, some expected to sell at even loftier prices, as well as a large collection of machine guns. The auction will continue through May 7 and bids may still be placed with the auction house on remaining items at their website www.rockislandauction.com About Rock Island Auction Company Rock Island Auction Company is the world's #1 auction company for firearms, bladed weapons and militaria. Founded in 1993 by its current CEO Patrick Hogan, RIAC continues to lead the industry with record sales numbers and their extensive and beautiful marketing efforts. Their 86,000 square foot facility hosts 8 auctions each year. They actively seek consignments, be it a single weapon or a collection of hundreds, a thousand dollar item or one million. For more information, please visit www.rockislandauction.com or call 1-800-238-8022. SOURCE Rock Island Auction Company Related Links http://www.rockislandauction.com KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, May 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Forex, commodities and cryptocurrency trading platform Evolve Markets has announced the launch of its contest offering a 1 BTC prize (equivalent to over $1500), to the 5000th person signing up on the platform. The contest is part of Evolve Markets' celebration as it closes in on yet another milestone. As a part of the ongoing Evolve Markets Bitcoin giveaway contest, the person enabling the platform to reach the milestone of having 5000 registered users will get a handsome reward. The platform recently achieved another impressive milestone after the total deposits on Evolve Markets crossed 6000 BTC. Formally known as one of the most trusted forex and stock trading platforms, Evolve Markets more recently extended support to cryptocurrency trading. The platform has already gained the cryptocurrency and trading community's appreciation as a new-age trading platform with increased privacy and security. Even though it deals only with Bitcoin-denominated accounts, the platform offers a sense of familiarity to the trading community with its ready MetaTrader4 integration. MetaTrader4 is one of the widely-used trading platforms, quite familiar with seasoned traders. The platform is available for the web, desktop, and mobile users. The MetaTrader4 mobile application can be found on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Winner of the '5000th User' contest will have the 1 BTC prize deposited in their respective Evolve Markets' account. The prize can be either withdrawn or used to trade on the platform itself, following adequate confirmations on the Bitcoin Network. The 5000th User Bitcoin giveaway contest is available only to new users. To qualify for the prize, one has to open an account on Evolve Markets and meet the minimum deposit requirement. The platform has a very simple, easy-to-use registration process, that will immediately qualify them for the contest. In order to avoid foul play, ensuring that only genuine users get a shot at the 1 BTC prize, Evolve Markets has set up a security feature that disqualifies anyone attempting to operate multiple accounts, based on their IP addresses. Evolve Markets had seen a recent uptake in user-base since the inclusion of cryptocurrency trading feature on its platform. Through the contest, Evolve Markets also expresses its gratitude to the users, traders, cryptocurrency community members and others. About Evolve Markets Evolve Markets is a privately-owned IBC in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The trading platform specializes only in Bitcoin-denominated accounts and adopts a Straight Through Processing (STP) execution model. The tradable financial assets supported on the platform include forex, commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies. Learn more about Evolve Markets at https://evolve.markets Register on Evolve Markets https://clients.evolve.markets/join/ Learn more about Evolve Markets affiliate program at https://evolve.markets/about/partners/ Media Contact Contact Name: Peter Spyro, Contact Email: [email protected] Company: Evolve Markets LTD Location: Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Evolve Markets is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest. Related Links Bitcoin PR Buzz Evolve Markets SOURCE Evolve Markets WASHINGTON, May 4, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Green America's Green Business Network is urging the Trump Administration to keep the United States in the Paris Climate Agreement. This historic agreement includes commitments from countries worldwide that are responsible for 97 percent of emissions, and would result in an estimated reduction of temperature increases from seven to five degrees Fahrenheit worldwide. These temperature reductions will help avert some of the worst impacts of climate change, and reduce impacts on the American economy and its people. The Paris Climate Agreement is also producing strong benefits for the US economy and businesses right now. An analysis by Environmental Entrepreneurs found that there currently are more than 2.5 million Americans working in clean energy and energy efficiency jobs in all 50 states, including over 400,000 people in the clean energy sector alone. Meeting the commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement will expand the number of high-paying clean energy and energy efficiency jobs nationwide, many of which are with small businesses. It will support local economies in all states. In addition, it will reduce climate impacts that are particularly costly to a wide range of small businesses that are least able to afford disruptions in their supply chains or in the communities they serve. "Staying in the Paris Agreement should be common sense from any perspective," says Green America Executive Co-Director for Business, Investing and Policy Fran Teplitz. "The Agreement is already spurring the development of clean energy and energy efficiency jobs across the U.S., and will position the United States, and small businesses nationwide, to be leaders in the rapidly growing clean energy economy." "The Paris Climate Agreement is essential to protecting America's economy," says Green America Executive Co-Director for Consumer and Corporate Engagement Todd Larsen. "If we don't take concrete steps towards reducing our emissions, as outlined in the Agreement, small businesses from farmers, to tourism, to importers are going to experience sizable hits to their bottom line. Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, and we can't afford to put them at risk, especially when we have the solutions to climate change available to us, and those clean energy solutions actually cost less and produce more jobs than dirty energy." ABOUT GREEN AMERICA Green America is the nation's leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides economic strategies and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today's social and environmental problems. www.GreenAmerica.org SOURCE Green America Related Links http://www.GreenAmerica.org WASHINGTON, May 4, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a historic victory for prostate cancer research, the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) has received its first increase in funding in over a decade. Prostate cancer advocates saw a major advancement today as the Senate passed the 2017 Defense Appropriations Bill, which includes $90 million for the Department of Defense's (DoD) PCRP. The President is expected to sign the bill this week. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) spearheaded the effort to support PCRP funding, securing signatures from more than 100 House and Senate members on letters to the appropriations committee. The news comes as a result of the hard work of thousands of ZERO advocates who fought tirelessly on behalf of prostate cancer patients and survivors nationwide and those whom the disease may impact in the future. "The funding increase means many new prostate cancer research projects this year focused on new treatments, and improving diagnosis methods," Jamie Bearse, CEO of ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer, said. "The men and families fighting prostate cancer that storm Capitol Hill each year are an inspiration, and their efforts save the lives of countless others while curbing pain and suffering." The Department of Defense's medical research programs are an epicenter for groundbreaking research in many medical fields, including prostate cancer. In choosing which promising ideas to fund, the DoD program hosts patients as part of a peer-review model. Specifically, the PCRP has awarded grants that have led to three new treatments for the disease in recent years and a genetic diagnosis profile to determine aggressive disease. This increase in funding brings us one step closer to much-needed research that will improve the treatment of prostate cancer and one day end suffering from the disease once and for all. In addition to the $10 million increase for the PCRP, the bill provides billions in research funding to combat cancer and other diseases. This funding includes increases for the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, as well as new funding for the 21st Century Cures, specifically to support the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative. The bill also maintains funding for the Centers for Disease Control's Cancer Control programs, including specific funding for prostate cancer prevention and early detection. ZERO leads the way with a coalition of partners to increase and protect this critical funding. In March, more than 120 advocates from across the country attended the ZERO Prostate Cancer Summit and met with elected officials about increasing prostate cancer research for the 2018 fiscal year budget. Advocates are continuing to stay active in their communities and online through ZERO's #CountMeIn campaign, an effort to keep the momentum going for research funding and other key issues, such as patient access to care. SOURCE ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer Related Links http://www.zerocancer.org TSX Symbol: HNL CALGARY, May 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Horizon North Logistics Inc. (the "Corporation") today announced the final director election results from its 2017 annual and special meeting of shareholders held on May 4, 2017. A ballot was conducted with respect to the election of the directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders. According to the proxies received and ballots cast, the following directors were elected to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed, unless such office is earlier vacated in accordance with the by-laws of the Corporation: Nominee # Votes For % Votes For # Votes Withheld % Votes Withheld Richard T. Ballantyne 73,672,942 99.86 105,424 0.14 Bradley P. D. Fedora 73,624,464 99.79 153,902 0.21 Mary Garden 73,356,090 99.43 422,276 0.57 Rod W. Graham 73,448,951 99.55 329,415 0.45 Kevin D. Nabholz 73,693,574 99.89 84,792 0.11 Russell A. Newmark 68,680,051 93.09 5,098,315 6.91 Ann I. Rooney 73,401,531 99.49 376,835 0.51 Dale E. Tremblay 68,764,284 93.20 5,014,082 6.80 About Horizon North Horizon North is a publicly listed corporation (TSX: HNL.TO) providing a full range of industrial, commercial, and residential products and services. Our Industrial division supplies workforce accommodations, camp management services, access solutions, maintenance and utilities. Our Modular Construction division integrates modern design concepts and technology with state of the art, off-site manufacturing processes; producing high quality building solutions for commercial and residential offerings including offices, hotels, and retail buildings, as well as distinctive single detached dwellings and multi-family residential structures. As a result of our diverse product and service offerings, Horizon North is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of our customers in numerous sectors, anywhere in Canada. Corporate Information Additional information related to Horizon North, including the Corporation's annual information form, press releases, financial statements and MD&A are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com SOURCE Horizon North Logistics Inc. Related Links www.horizonnorth.ca JOHANNESBURG, May 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientist Geoffrey Siwo has been named a 2017 Quartz Africa Innovator for his work in mapping the way cancer spreads and how cancer cells originate within the body. This is the 3rd annual list of Quartz Africa Innovators. The latest list includes more than 30 Africans from 18 different countries. Siwo told Quartz Africa editors that, "Understanding cancer will also equip us with an understanding of many areas of biology, and therefore ways of developing diagnostics and treatments for diseases beyond cancer." He joined IBM's Research lab in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015. Siwo is currently leading the data driven healthcare research at the lab which in addition to cancer, is also focused on tracking the spread of tuberculous and anti-malarial drug resistance. He will be presenting some of his latest research at the Turing Talks in Scotland on 13 June. Siwo earned a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2014 for developing computational models for understanding malaria drug resistance. He performed his post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania (Perelman School of Medicine) and Dartmouth College (Geisel School of Medicine). Follow him @gsiwo Contact: Christopher Sciacca IBM Research +41 44 72 48 443 [email protected] SOURCE IBM Related Links http://www.ibm.com WASHINGTON, May 5, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An IEEE-USA delegation from Texas traveled to Washington, D.C. to express the importance of research and development activities to the nation's economic growth, competitiveness and national security. The IEEE-USA TX delegation which included the current president of IEEE-USA Karen Pederson, president-elect Sandra Robinson, and current chair of the R&D policy committee Brendan Godfrey, joined with more than 150 scientists, engineers and business leaders who made visits on Capitol Hill as part of the Twentieth "Congressional Visits Day", an annual event by the Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group on April 25 and 26. The visit came only a week before Congress released the FY17 spending bill which includes funding levels for key federal science agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense Office of Science and Technology, the National Institutes of Health and NASA. All of which received increased funding above the FY16 level. While visiting congressional offices, the IEEE-USA TX delegation discussed the importance of the nation's broad portfolio of federal investments in science, engineering and technology to promoting our country's prosperity and innovation. Most importantly, they provided a constituent perspective on the local and national impact of these programs and their significance to the Austin, Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas. Moreover, they spoke about the IEEE-USA legislative priorities that include taking active measures to strengthen America's K-12 STEM education programs and improving America's patenting and copyright system to keep it accessible to entrepreneurs and small businesses in the U.S. More than 50 percent of all industrial innovation and growth in the United States since World War II can be attributed to advances pioneered through scientific research, with publicly funded R&D constituting the vital foundation for today's scientific and technological progress. Achievements from federally funded science, engineering and technology include global environmental monitoring, lasers, liquid crystal displays, the Internet, among many other scientific and technical advances. The federal government supports a unique research and education enterprise that fuels the American economy. This enterprise provides the underpinning of high-technology industries and expands the frontiers of knowledge in every field of science. Much of this research is carried out at academic institutions in Texas including The University of Texas system, Texas A&M, Rice University and The University of Houston and many other institutions across the country, ensuring knowledge transfer to future generations of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicians and teachers. Additionally, technology transfer from academic research adds billions of dollars to the economy each year and supports tens of thousands of jobs. Supporting the innovative scientific enterprise of the United States has consistently enjoyed bipartisan support. CVD was a valuable opportunity for the IEEE-USA delegation to reiterate the paramount importance of our lawmakers continuing their support for federally funded fundamental research despite tight fiscal constraints and the current tumultuous political climate. "It's demonstrably true that the United States owes a great deal of its remarkable economic success, to its people's audacious spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as basic scientific research which stood as a key enabler for the American industrial might and its lead in technological innovation." said Mina J Hanna, a member of the delegation. He added "I am very pleased to see Congress making science a priority in the FY17 appropriations bill and I look forward for a similar prioritization in the FY18 bill." During the visit, U.S. Senators Cory Gardner (CO) and Gary Peters (MI) were awarded the George E. Brown Award for outstanding leadership in support of Federal R&D. They were recognized for their outstanding efforts to advance and promote science, engineering and technology on Capitol Hill. The Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group is an information network comprising professional, scientific and engineering societies, institutions of higher learning, and trade associations. The sponsors represent more than one million researchers and professions in science and engineering. The Work Group is concerned about the future vitality of the U.S. science, mathematics, and engineering enterprise. Media Contact: Mina J Hanna Phone: 713.906.7295 Email: [email protected] SOURCE IEEE-USA New York, May 7 (Just Earth News): Strongly condemning the attack against the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) on 3 May, the Security Council has called on all parties to immediately adhere to the permanent ceasefire called for in an August 2015 peace agreement. Between 11pm and midnight on 3 May, the Mission's temporary operating base in Leer town in the former Unity State came under small-arms attack from the direction of the nearby Government-held town. According to the Mission, peacekeepers' quick defensive action secured the safety of all of the internally displaced people who had sought UN protection adjacent to the base. The members of the Security Council recalled that individuals who, directly or indirectly, engage in attacks against United Nations missions, international security presence, or other peacekeeping operations, or humanitarian personnel, may be designated for targeted sanctions, said a statement issued overnight by the 15-member body. Further in the statement, the Council members expressed appreciation for the actions taken by UNMISS peacekeepers to repel the 3 May attack, further condemned the continued violence committed by all parties, including the ongoing military offensives, and called for removal of all obstacles to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. Earlier this week, the UN human rights chief urged the Government of South Sudan to halt any further military offensives towards Aburoc in the Upper Nile region. Despite the August 2015 peace agreement, South Sudan slipped back into conflict due to renewed clashes between rival forces the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and the SPLA in Opposition backing former First Vice-President Riek Machar. Violence has caused a spike in the number of displaced people. Photo: UNMISS Source: www.justearthnews.com ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jeppesen, a Boeing Company and a leader in aviation navigation and operational efficiency solutions, and ForeFlight, the innovative provider of mobile and web aviation applications, today announced that the companies have entered into in a long-term strategic alliance to combine their industry-leading capabilities and worldwide content. Together, Jeppesen and ForeFlight will build on their common heritage of delivering superior data and software to pilots and flight operations around the globe. "We are thrilled to bring together Jeppesen's world-class aeronautical data with the unmatched advanced technology of ForeFlight," said Ken Sain, chief operating officer, Jeppesen. "This will create a new benchmark for delivering navigation, flight information and operational solutions with greater regularity and speed for every aviation segment, from recreational pilots to the world's largest airlines." "This strategic alliance will enable ForeFlight and Jeppesen together to bring advances in capability to customers globally that neither company could accomplish on its own," said Tyson Weihs, co-founder and chief executive officer, ForeFlight. "Both companies share common values and purpose delivering next generation power and productivity to pilots with superior customer service." "We're excited to bring Jeppesen charts and data to ForeFlight Mobile customers. The combination makes ForeFlight Mobile the premier all-in-one mobile solution for planning, briefing, filing, flying, and logging flights across personal and business aviation. Over the years, many customers have requested Jeppesen charts and data in ForeFlight Mobile, and we're so pleased that we can now meet that need," said Weihs. The alliance focuses initially in two areas. First, beginning this summer, all ForeFlight subscribers will see Jeppesen global navigational, terrain and obstacle data in ForeFlight Mobile. ForeFlight subscribers on individual plans will be able to link their Jeppesen license in ForeFlight Mobile and purchase standard worldwide Jeppesen charts for use inside the app through a simple e-commerce experience on foreflight.com. General aviation pilots will be able to choose between Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck and ForeFlight Mobile as their preferred cockpit solution. Subscribers to ForeFlight Business Plans will purchase chart coverages through Jeppesen and then link them to their ForeFlight subscription for use inside the ForeFlight Mobile app. The alliance's second area of focus serves users of Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro, the leading EFB solution for airlines and large-scale operators. Jeppesen and ForeFlight will work together on a next-generation release of FliteDeck Pro for both iOS and Windows that will deliver a combination of the familiar capabilities in FliteDeck Pro and significant features and functionality from ForeFlight Mobile. The solution will respect the heritage of FliteDeck Pro, while also embracing capabilities from ForeFlight Mobile that many professional pilots already have experience using. Jeppesen and ForeFlight are working together closely with FliteDeck Pro customers in advance of bringing this to market to ensure the training impact is minimized. FliteDeck Pro customers will continue to receive application and content updates from Jeppesen. This alliance builds upon Jeppesen's major new release of Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro, which is being deployed worldwide. FliteDeck Pro 3.0 for iOS and 9.0 for Windows includes three major features, SmartNotes which revolutionizes pilot access to charting information relevant to the flight plan, Tailored Enroute Data for customers to add their own company-specific content, and integrated high-resolution Airport Moving Map content for nearly 1,000 airports worldwide. To view more information on combined Jeppesen and ForeFlight products, please see www.foreflight.com/jeppesen and www.jeppesen.com/foreflight. About Jeppesen For more than 80 years, Jeppesen has made it possible for pilots and their passengers to safely and efficiently reach their destinations. Today, this pioneering spirit continues as Jeppesen delivers transformative information and optimization solutions to improve the efficiency of air operations around the globe. Jeppesen is a Boeing subsidiary and part of the Digital Aviation business unit within Boeing Commercial Aviation Services. Boeing offers the industry's largest portfolio of support and services solutions, providing customers a competitive advantage by solving real operational problems, enabling better decisions, maximizing efficiency and improving environmental performance intelligent information solutions across the entire aviation ecosystem. About ForeFlight ForeFlight was founded in 2007 by aviation entrepreneurs who set out to build elegant, high-performing flight planning and flight bag apps for pilots. ForeFlight Mobile, the company's flagship product, is used by individual pilots and professional flight crews all over the world to efficiently gather weather and destination information, route plan and file, access and manage electronic charts and maps, organize flight publications, reference as an enroute navigation aid, and manage iPad deployments. ForeFlight serves pilots in all segments of aviation, including personal, business, commercial, and military. In addition, the company's Fanatical Pilot Support Team delivers amazingly fast and friendly customer service. Learn more at foreflight.com. SOURCE Jeppesen Related Links http://www.jeppesen.com COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "Alexa, tell Safelite I cracked my windshield." With the new Safelite AutoGlass Alexa skill, beginning the process to get your auto glass fixed is as easy as small talk. As smart home devices become more prevalent, the largest vehicle glass specialist in the U.S. is ahead of the industry curve with its new voice-driven application. VoiceLabs forecasts 24.5 million "voice-first devices" such as Amazon's Echo will ship in 2017. With Safelite's Alexa skill, Alexa-enabled device users can say things like: "Alexa, ask Safelite where is my nearest location," "Alexa, tell Safelite I cracked my windshield," "Alexa, tell Safelite get a quote," or "Alexa, ask Safelite what services do you have?" If the person wishes to schedule an appointment with Safelite AutoGlass, they can receive a text message directing them to Safelite's website for easy scheduling. "At Safelite AutoGlass, we focus on creating a memorable customer experience, taking the hassle out of vehicle glass service," explained Safelite AutoGlass Vice President of Digital & Customer Innovation Bruce Millard. "Home voice assistants are ideal for task-related commands such as this. Our Alexa skill is just one more way we can be easily accessible to customers when and where they need us." And, you may wonder, does Alexa sing Safelite's famous jingle? You know it! Just tell Alexa: "Alexa, ask Safelite to play the jingle." About Safelite AutoGlass With more than 7,800 MobileGlassShops and stores in all 50 states, Safelite AutoGlass is the nation's largest provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services. Last year, 6 million customers chose Safelite AutoGlass for its 24/7 national contact centers, advanced online scheduling, superior repair and replacement systems, and the industry's only nationwide lifetime guarantee. Safelite AutoGlass is a member of the Safelite Group family of brands, which together, make a difference in the lives of 10 million customers annually. This leading service organization, founded in 1947, is reaching record-growth thanks to its People Powered, Customer Driven strategy. The Columbus, Ohio-based company employs nearly 14,000 people across the United States. SOURCE Safelite AutoGlass Related Links http://www.safelite.com WASHINGTON, May 6, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NetJets safety workers and their supporters are picketing and distributing handbills this weekend, May 5 through May 7, as part of an effort to publicize a six-year long labor dispute with the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A and BRK.B) owned private jet company. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 284 represent mechanics, maintenance controllers, aircraft fuelers, aircraft cleaners and stock clerks working for the company. "These workers are not asking for anything unreasonable," said Chris Moore, Chairman of the Teamsters Aviation Mechanics Coalition. "They want industry-standard pay and an aircraft maintenance system that relies on skilled NetJets workers rather than third-party vendors. That's good for the business and for their customers." At the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Neb., handbills distributed by workers noted that Berkshire Hathaway Energy Chairman and CEO Greg Abel took home nearly $50 million in compensation for two years of work in 2015 and 2016. The handbills went on to state that with Abel's compensation, NetJets should be able to pay the skilled mechanic that fixes his private jet an industry-standard wage and the worker that cleans it no less than $15.00 an hourthe minimum wage in some cities. At the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, workers carried picket signs protesting the lack of pay increases and high levels of subcontracting. As an expression of support and solidarity for their co-workers, the pilot union, NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP), donated the picket signs. "NetJets managers are telling workers on the shop floor that the company needs to hire more mechanics and that the union's wage proposals aren't a problem," said Mark Vandak, President of Teamsters Local 284. "At the negotiating table, their stories change. That's why these negotiations are dragging on and hurting the families of our membership." Negotiations resume May 17 in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters. Contact: Chris Moore, (832) 721-1763 SOURCE Teamsters Local 284 (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/508702/The_Forum_for_Promoting_Peace.jpg ) In a press conference organized by the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, based in Abu Dhabi, following the three-day visit of the caravan to the city, caravan members highlighted their views and plans to apply the outcome of the visit via initiatives in their own states. The press conference was attended by Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies; Dr. Mohammed Matar Al Kaabi, Secretary General of the Forum for Peace and Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Vice President of the Forum, and President of Zaytuna College, USA. Attendees commended the efforts of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, chaired by His Excellency Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, as a role model for instilling peace, tolerance, and the values of co-existence. Dr. Mohammed Matar Al Kaabi, Secretary General of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, reaffirmed the warm welcome extended by the UAE leadership to the American peace caravan, commending its efforts in activating the historical Marrakesh Declaration. Al Kaabi highlighted the strong emphasis on tolerance and co-existence the UAE has presented since its establishment, making it a true example of co-existence amongst diverse cultures and ethnicities, who live in peace and harmony on its land. Concluding the event, Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah thanked God in his Greatness for this valuable opportunity to build peace and dialogue among brave peace makers, dedicated to love, fraternity, and tolerance. H.E stated that the blessed steps for an Alliance of Virtue first started in Abu Dhabi, but it is an imperative that it reaches the corners of our Earth. Bin Bayyah reflected on the establishment of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies in Abu Dhabi, indicating the great support it is receiving from this country, it's leadership and people. Divya Nagpal Account executive Four PO Box 77782 Office 405A Rotana Office Building Khalifa Park Abu Dhabi, UAE MOBILE: +971-55-521-7370 MAIN: +971-2-447-2774 FAX: +971-2-447-2074 TWITTER: @fourcommsgulf http://www.fourcommunications.com SOURCE The Forum for Promoting Peace "This gift will be transformational for the Huntsman School, and I am grateful for the direct benefits it will provide for our students," said USU President Noelle Cockett. "It represents a tremendous expansion of opportunities for students through direct scholarships and enhanced program offerings." The new support will bolster the Huntsman Scholar Program, renowned for bringing together outstanding students with leading educators for a rigorous, one-of-a-kind undergraduate business education program. This integrated curricular and co-curricular experience across four years is focused on academic discipline and mentoring to provide a solid understanding of financial markets and the nature of business enterprise. Huntsman Scholars will also benefit from international travels to experience foreign markets. The Center for Growth and Opportunity at USU will advance scientific understanding of the interaction between individuals, business and government to develop solutions to important problems through economic research and student engagement. Activities conducted through the center will include scholarly research, conferences, seminars, workshops, visiting speakers and student career exploration. The center will also fund scholarships and fellowships. Huntsman School Dean Douglas D. Anderson said the Huntsman and Charles Koch Foundation gifts will enable the school to provide rigorous curricular and meaningful extracurricular opportunities to a larger number of undergraduate and graduate students. "Jon Huntsman challenged us 10 years ago, when he made his initial gift to Utah State, to produce students who can compete with the best and brightest anywhere in the world," Anderson said. "We have been on quite a journey since then, and I am so thrilled that he and his friend Charles Koch believe in what we have done and in what we can become." Combined, these newly announced endeavors will create meaningful learning experiences for nearly 500 students a year through scholarships, opportunities to explore new ideas, and through interaction with esteemed faculty, alumni and business professionals. "I've been observing Utah State University for the past 50 years, and this is the finest college in America," said Jon M. Huntsman, Sr. "I didn't go to school there, but I recognize it as the institution where I would go today if I had to select the best university. So when the opportunity arose to partner with my good friend Charles Koch to benefit future generations of students at Utah State, we immediately took it." Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Foundation, echoed Huntsman's sentiments. "We're excited about the university's vision to support the students and world-class faculty at Utah State University, and it's an honor to join Jon Huntsman and his family on this innovative project," Hooks said. ABOUT THE HUNTSMAN FOUNDATION Huntsman Foundation was founded in 1988 by Jon M. Huntsman. Its mission is to eradicate cancer, assist the underserved and advance educational opportunities for predominantly rural Americans. Thus far, the foundation has assisted over 800 organizations and provided several thousand scholarships. ABOUT THE CHARLES KOCH FOUNDATION Since its founding in 1980, the Charles Koch Foundation has supported research and educational programs focused on advancing an understanding of how free societies improve well-being. This includes support at over 300 universities and colleges and other organizations around the country. ABOUT UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY As Utah's land-grant university and one of only two research universities in the state, Utah State University provides research, public service and education to Utah, the nation and the world. USU is building upon its research capacity with focused areas of expertise in water, aerospace, agriculture, life sciences, business, education and engineering. SOURCE Utah State University Related Links http://www.usu.edu "The tourism sector is one of the major drivers of Connecticut's economy," Governor Malloy said. "The industry creates jobs, generates tax revenues and contributes to our high quality of life in Connecticut. It's an honor to recognize some of the key people involved in making tourism such a vital contributor to our state's economy." The recipients of the 2017 Connecticut Governor's Tourism Awards are: Tourism Legacy Leader: Virginia Kozlowski , Executive Director, Visit New Haven, Connecticut Lodging Association, REX Development Virginia Kozlowski , a 25-year-veteran of the hospitality industry, has dedicated her career to promoting tourism and business in Connecticut . Kozlowski has served in a variety of leadership roles, from restaurant controller and hotel general manager to president of the New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau and executive director of the Connecticut Lodging Association. During her career, she has cultivated relationships with countless businesses, associations, key stakeholders, legislators and other groups, building a reputation as a true consensus builder and valued resource. In doing so, Kozlowski has helped advance the goals of the entire Connecticut tourism industry and made Connecticut a more desirable destination. , a 25-year-veteran of the hospitality industry, has dedicated her career to promoting tourism and business in . Kozlowski has served in a variety of leadership roles, from restaurant controller and hotel general manager to president of the New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau and executive director of the Connecticut Lodging Association. During her career, she has cultivated relationships with countless businesses, associations, key stakeholders, legislators and other groups, building a reputation as a true consensus builder and valued resource. In doing so, Kozlowski has helped advance the goals of the entire tourism industry and made a more desirable destination. Leader of the Year: Jeff Andersen , Director, Florence Griswold Museum Under Jeff Andersen's leadership, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme was transformed from a hidden-secret historical site to one of the state's premier cultural institutions and one of the nation's preeminent centers for American Impressionism. As a steadfast advocate for the arts, Andersen worked diligently to transform the historic boardinghouse, grounds, facilities and collections, creating a world-class visitor experience for artists, enthusiasts, students and others. In 2016, the museum acquired the last remaining parcel of the original Griswold estate, restoring the historic site to completion for the first time since it was divided in 1937. Andersen will retire in 2018 after 40 years of dedicated leadership. Under leadership, the Florence Griswold Museum in was transformed from a hidden-secret historical site to one of the state's premier cultural institutions and one of the nation's preeminent centers for American Impressionism. As a steadfast advocate for the arts, Andersen worked diligently to transform the historic boardinghouse, grounds, facilities and collections, creating a world-class visitor experience for artists, enthusiasts, students and others. In 2016, the museum acquired the last remaining parcel of the original estate, restoring the historic site to completion for the first time since it was divided in 1937. Andersen will retire in 2018 after 40 years of dedicated leadership. Partner of the Year: Connecticut Art Trail Over the past two decades, the dedicated members of the Connecticut Art Trail have worked tirelessly to promote Connecticut's rich cultural history and drive visitation to the state. Led by president, Carey Weber , the Connecticut Art Trail has grown to include 18 world-class museums and historic sites that collaboratively market their offerings to support tourism, culture, art and education. The Connecticut Art Trail unveiled a new Art Passport this spring, which replaces the Art Pass. The Art Passport offers additional benefits, discounts, gifts, and a grand prize drawing for anyone who visits all 18 member museums in one year. Over the past two decades, the dedicated members of the Connecticut Art Trail have worked tirelessly to promote rich cultural history and drive visitation to the state. Led by president, , the Connecticut Art Trail has grown to include 18 world-class museums and historic sites that collaboratively market their offerings to support tourism, culture, art and education. The Connecticut Art Trail unveiled a new Art Passport this spring, which replaces the Art Pass. The Art Passport offers additional benefits, discounts, gifts, and a grand prize drawing for anyone who visits all 18 member museums in one year. Volunteers of the Year: Durham Fair Volunteers What started as a small event in 1916 has grown to be the largest agricultural fair in Connecticut , drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the state and beyond. Fueling this growth has been hundreds of volunteers farmers, business professionals, government officials, emergency responders, medical professionals, families, students and teachers who have committed their time and passion to making the event a success year after year. The 100-percent volunteer-led event, which invests many of its profits back into the community, stands as a testament to the cooperative spirit in Durham and the surrounding communities. Accepting the award on behalf of all these volunteers was Daniel Miramant , who has served as president of the Durham Agricultural Fair Association since 2013. What started as a small event in 1916 has grown to be the largest agricultural fair in , drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the state and beyond. Fueling this growth has been hundreds of volunteers farmers, business professionals, government officials, emergency responders, medical professionals, families, students and teachers who have committed their time and passion to making the event a success year after year. The 100-percent volunteer-led event, which invests many of its profits back into the community, stands as a testament to the cooperative spirit in and the surrounding communities. Accepting the award on behalf of all these volunteers was , who has served as president of the Durham Agricultural Fair Association since 2013. Rising Star: Ben Paletsky , CEO, South Farms Ben Paletsky is the driving force behind South Farms in Morris , one of New England's premier destination-farm venues. Over the past four years, Paletsky expanded the homestead, which now features "The White Barn" and "The Morris Marketplace," drawing thousands of guests to the area every year for weddings, festivals, and other community events. Paletsky, who is an active member of the business community in Morris and Litchfield County , is also attracting a portfolio of complimentary entrepreneurial businesses to co-locate on the property, including the state's largest commercial hops-growing operation. More than 400 attendees from tourism-related businesses, associations and municipalities across the state joined the Governor in congratulating the winners. Throughout the day, attendees also heard from leading tourism industry experts, including keynote speaker Doug Lansky, and participated in business-building workshops and networking sessions. Other conference highlights included a presentation of the results of last year's Connecticut still revolutionary tourism marketing campaign. Central to the campaign was the state's official tourism website, www.CTvisit.com, which relaunched in April 2016. The completely redesigned website attracted 4.2 million visits last year, a 64 percent increase over 2015, and generated 2.2 million referrals for industry partners listed on the site. The state also reported significant increases in social media engagement and public relations activity. "The conference is a unique opportunity for the industry to gather, learn and celebrate those individuals and organizations who have dedicated extra time and energy to helping tourism in Connecticut grow and thrive," said Randy Fiveash, director of the Connecticut Office of Tourism. "We look forward to working with each and every partner in the state to make 2017 an even greater success." SOURCE Connecticut Office of Tourism Related Links http://www.ctvisit.com Because all mothers deserve the very best, Martino will curate a special culinary surprise menu that will enthrall all five senses and will leave moms with special memories and mementos they can cherish forever. Kaori by Walter Martino has achieved the merger of haute cuisine gastronomy and the most breakthrough technology with an unprecedented staging of a 360-degree, cinematic attraction that will be customized just for mothers. "This will not just be dinner out, but one that will be a lasting memory for the whole family," says Martino. Kaori by Walter Martino showcases International Fusion Cuisine, mixing his favorite dishes from the world's two favorite culinary experiences, Japanese and Italian Cuisine. The Mother's Day menu will highlight different cooking techniques and flavors from around the world. Walter Martino will welcome mothers as his special guests with a complimentary glass of freshly chilled Piper Heidsieck Champagne, the official champagne for the Oscars. He will then escort his special mothers to his exclusive Chef's table, while he begins to rouse all of her five senses with a four-course surprise dinner not offered on the restaurant menu. The Chef's surprise menu is curated exclusively for Mother's Day, and will showcase some of his world-renowned signature specials. Walter Martino will personally guide mothers and guests through each course, all while experiencing a 360-degree cinematic show dished up especially for Mother's Day. The delicious meal will be accompanied by wine paired by their sommelier. The experience will continue with a surprise dessert and bouquet of roses, all at $85 per guest. This offer is for parties of two or more, but can accommodate up to 24 guests. To reserve for Mother's Day, call 786-805-6006 or email [email protected]. The menu is exclusive for Mother's Day with two seatings at 6:00 and 8:00PM. For more information please visit www.kaoribywm.com/reservations. Media Contact: DEBORAH J. SCARPA DJS3 LLC [email protected] WWW.DJS3LLC.COM 305.586.4022 SOURCE Walter Martino Related Links http://kaoribywm.com NEW YORK, May 4, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What: WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation (WCD) hosts its annual Global Institute and Visionary Awards Dinner, bringing together more than 200 top women board chairs, board committee chairs, CEOs, and other directors from all over the world. Twitter: @WomenCorpDirs, #WCDboards When: Pre-Institute Family Business Governance Institute May 9 Global Institute Daytime sessions May 10-11 Visionary Awards Dinner evening of May 10 Where: New York City Theme: "The New Era of Deglobalization: Navigating the Unpredictable" Why: Globalization is being increasingly challenged and even resisted around the world. What does this mean for global markets, talent, and capital flows? How are boards guiding their companies amid uncertainty about the very future of globalization? The WCD Global Institute covers these themes, as well as issues around corporate culture and "tone at the top" where many companies have seen their failures covered widely across traditional and social media. The program also features an in-depth discussion with Alaska Air President and CEO Bradley Tilden and director Marion Blakey (President & CEO, Rolls Royce North America, Inc.), as well as directors and C-suite officers from GE, AT&T, News Corp., The Coca-Cola Company, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays PLC, Intel Capital, Tata Communications, and other top global organizations. Additionally, the Institute will present the new WCD Thought Leadership Commission report, "The Visionary Board at Work: Developing a Culture of Leadership." Created in conjunction with Pearl Meyer, WCD's fourth annual TLC report provides a guide for aligning organizational culture and leadership development with a company's business strategy. In a special pre-Institute day of programming, WCD is hosting its Family Business Governance Institute, designed for women CEOs, directors, and shareholders of family businesses with revenues >$100 million. The Visionary Awards will honor Alaska Air, Ecolab, Duchossois Group, and Isabelle Marcoux, chair of the board of Transcontinental, Inc. Media credentials To apply for media credentials to cover this event, please contact Suzanne Oaks Brownstein or Trang Mar of Temin and Company at 212-588-8788 or [email protected]. About the WCD Foundation Global Institute The WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation (WCD) 2017 Global Institute is an unprecedented opportunity for global board directors to share corporate governance and business strategies and to build partnerships with a purpose, in a private, invitation-only setting. The Institute is a high-powered idea forum exploring compelling issues on the minds of today's board directors and their companies. Sponsors of WCD, the Global Institute, and the Visionary Awards include: KPMG (Global Institute Lead Sponsor and Global Lead Sponsor); Spencer Stuart (Global Executive Sponsor); Vinson & Elkins (Global Strategic Sponsor); The Coca-Cola Company (Global Institute Leader Sponsor); JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Global Institute Benefactor and Supporting Sponsor); Pearl Meyer (Global Institute Host Sponsor and Strategic Sponsor); Latham & Watkins (Global Institute Host Sponsor and Strategic Sponsor); Henri Bendel (Global Institute Sip and Shop Host Sponsor); Sullivan & Cromwell (Global Institute Host); IFC (Global Institute Supporter); Marriott (Global Institute Supporter); Marsh & McLennan (Global Institute Supporter); The Center for Audit Quality (Global Institute Supporter); and Equilar (Global Institute Sponsor). Additional speakers at the Institute include: Anu Aiyengar ( United States ), Head of Mergers & Acquisitions ( North America ) Investment Banking, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; WCD member ( ), Head of Mergers & Acquisitions ( ) Investment Banking, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; WCD member Vinod Kumar ( India ), Managing Director and Group CEO, Tata Communications ; Director, Human Capital Leadership Group ( ), Managing Director and Group CEO, ; Director, Human Capital Leadership Group Julianne Canavaggio ( Panama ), Head of Central America & Caribbean , Lazard; Director, Conservatorio and Inversiones Malemar; WCD member ( ), Head of & , Lazard; Director, Conservatorio and Inversiones Malemar; WCD member Trina Van Pelt ( United States ), Vice President, Intel Capital; Managing Director of Internet of Things (IoT) and Autonomous Driving Groups ( ), Vice President, Intel Capital; Managing Director of Internet of Things (IoT) and Autonomous Driving Groups Marina Brogi ( Italy ), Director of Luxottica Group and Salini Impregilo; Full Professor of International Banking and Capital Markets, Sapienza University; WCD Family Business Co-Chair, WCD chapter chair, and Advisory Board member ( ), Director of Luxottica Group and Salini Impregilo; Full Professor of International Banking and Capital Markets, Sapienza University; WCD Family Business Co-Chair, WCD chapter chair, and Advisory Board member Laurie Ann Goldman ( United States ), Director, ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. and Francesca's Holding Corporation; WCD member ( ), Director, ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. and Francesca's Holding Corporation; WCD member Joyce M. Roche ( United States ), Director, AT&T, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., Macy's, Inc., and Tupperware Brands Corporation; WCD member ( ), Director, AT&T, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., Macy's, Inc., and Tupperware Brands Corporation; WCD member Aliza Knox ( Singapore ), COO Unlockd; Non-Executive Director, Scentre Group, Singapore Post; Advisor, ANZ Bank Board Tech Subcommittee; WCD member ( ), COO Unlockd; Non-Executive Director, Scentre Group, Singapore Post; Advisor, ANZ Bank Board Tech Subcommittee; WCD member Phyllis Campbell ( United States ), Chairman, Pacific Northwest, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Lead Director, Alaska Air Group; WCD member, WCD Advisory Board member and Asia Pacific chair ( ), Chairman, Pacific Northwest, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; Lead Director, Alaska Air Group; WCD member, WCD Advisory Board member and chair Jan Babiak ( United States ), Director, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. and Bank of Montreal ; WCD chapter chair ( ), Director, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. and Bank of ; WCD chapter chair Eunice Nyala ( Kenya ), CEO, Etiquette Xllent Co.; Business Advisor, Goldman Sachs 10K Women Program; Board Member, Kenya Association of Women Business Owners; WCD Kenya Chapter, Member Sponsorship Committee; WCD member SOURCE WomenCorporateDirectors Education and Development Foundation, Inc. Related Links https://www.womencorporatedirectors.org/ New York, May 6(Just Earth News): Raising alarm over moves to impeach the Chief Justice of Nepal a who has been instrumental in a number of high-profile and politically sensitive decisions a the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, warned on Friday that such actions suggest a concerted attempt by the Government to undermine the independence of the judiciary. According to a news release issued by the High Commissioner's Office (OHCHR), the impeachment motion was filed days after the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Sushila Karki, revoked the Government's appointment of a new Inspector General of Police, ruling that the Government had violated existing processes and regulations. I urge the Nepal authorities to respect the independence of the judiciary, to withdraw what appears to be a politically motivated impeachment motion and to commit to the processes of transitional justice and accountability, said the top UN human rights official, underscoring their importance to overcome the tragic legacy of the decade-long internal armed conflict in the South Asian nation. On 30 April, two ruling parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), filed the motion, alleging that the Chief Justice had encroached on the prerogatives of the executive branch, noted the OHCHR news release, adding that the move suggested a fundamental misunderstanding on the role of an independent judiciary. Also in the news release, High Commissioner Zeid stressed that recent Supreme Court rulings have been critical in advancing human rights in the country and ensuring redress for victims of crime and serious human rights violations. Some of these cases included overturning a presidential pardon recommended for Bal Krishna Dhungel, a leader of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) who had been convicted of murder, and a Government decision to withdraw criminal charges against individuals accused of serious crimes during Nepal's civil war. Noting that the attempt to remove the Chief Justice also gave rise to serious concerns about the Nepalese Government's commitment to transitional justice and the rule of law, High Commissioner Zeid added: The failure to address impunity raises serious questions about Nepal's [] obligations under international human rights law and the motion to impeach Chief Justice Karki undermines its commitment to strengthen democratic institutions and transitional justice. Following the filing of the impeachment motion, Chief Justice Karki has been suspended from her post until the impeachment proceedings are concluded. A committee will now be established to investigate the allegations, after which Members of Parliament will vote on whether to impeach her. The process is unlikely to be concluded before the Chief Justice reaches the mandatory retirement age on 7 June, meaning she will not be able to participate in a number of politically sensitive cases that she had announced the Supreme Court would consider in the near future. However according to most recent reports, acting on a litigation challenging the impeachment motion against Karki, the Supreme Court of Nepal issued an interim stay on the motion and relieved her suspension. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre Source: www.justearthnews.com If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Washington, May 3 : Hillary Clinton has said she takes responsibility for her loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential race, but blamed Russian interference and the timing of a letter from FBI Director James Comey as factors depriving her of an otherwise expected victory. "If the election had been on October 27, I would be your President," she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women International event in New York on Tuesday. "I take absolute personal responsibility. I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot. I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had," Clinton said. She added that she was "on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off." Clinton was referring to the decision by Comey to disclose -- 11 days before election day -- that the FBI was reviewing newly-discovered emails in relation to the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while at the helm of the Department of State. Just days later, Comey concluded the emails were mostly personal or duplicates of what the government had already examined prior to clearing Clinton of any criminal charges. Responding on Clinton's comments, Trump in a series of late night tweets on Tuesday, both revisited his 2016 victory and seemingly slammed the judgement of his own FBI director. "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phoney Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign," Trump wrote in a series of messages. Comey will appear before a Senate committee Wednesday, where he'll face questions on Russian interference in the US election and why he decided to announce that the FBI was looking again at Clinton's emails just days before the election. Hours before Trump tweeted, Clinton welcomed the President's ire after Amanpour predicted that the Twitter-focused President would respond to his former opponent. "Fine. Better than the interfering in foreign affairs," Clinton said of the prospect Trump would tweet about her. She came back to Russian President Vladimir Putin's role in the 2016 election and how he was able to tilt the scale in favour of Trump and against her. Clinton also hung part of her 2016 loss on misogyny. "Yes, I do think it played a role. I think other things did as well," she said. The former Secretary of State also pledged to "publicly request" that the Trump administration "not end our efforts making women's rights and opportunities" central to US policy. And on North Korea, Clinton cautioned Trump against giving too much away by saying he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un under the right circumstances. "I don't believe that we alone are able to really put the pressure on this North Korean regime that needs to be placed," she said. Patna, May 4 : RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Thursday demanded that three of the four Shankaracharyas should be from the Dalit and OBC communities instead of Brahmins holding all four positions. "Dalits and OBCs should be made Shankaracharyas," Lalu Prasad told the media here. He said there should be reservations in "mutts" (monasteries) of the Shankaracharyas too. "The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) should explain their stand on it. Dalits and OBCs should be appointed Shankaracharya at three of the four mutts." The former Bihar Chief Minister raised the issue at the three-day training programme for party leaders and workers at Rajgir in Nalanda district, RJD leader Bhai Virender said. The Rashtriya Janata Dal has been training hundreds of its lower lung leaders and workers ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. New Delhi, May 5 : The Congress on Friday said that justice has finally been done in the Nirbhaya gang rape case with the Supreme Court upholding the death sentence of all four convicts. It also urged the central government to address other sexual crimes against women that have been rising. Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Nirbhaya case will remain an example and a deterrent to all sexual predators that justice for victims of sexual exploitation will always be delivered, come what may. "Justice has finally been done in Nirbhaya case," Surjewala said. He said the verdict will be a "reminder to the society and lawmakers to work towards building a safe environment for the country's women". Surjewala, however, noted that "at least six women in the national capital undergo the trauma of rape everyday and the National Crime Records Bureau had in a 2015 report brought out that there had been a 22 percent spurt in rapes against women". "All this is worrisome. We hope that the government will take note and take deterrent action," Surjewala said. Party leader Kapil Sibal also welcomed the verdict but said that Delhi was "number one" in attack, rape and harassment of women. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence on all four convicts in the brutal Nirbhaya gang rape here of 2012 that led to her death and caused nationwide outrage. The four were convicted for raping and assaulting the 23-year-old paramedical student inside a moving bus on December 16, 2012 which led to her death 13 days later in a Singapore hospital. Rome, May 5 : European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker took a swipe at Britain by stating that "English is losing importance in Europe" amid an ongoing Brexit row. Juncker made the comments at a conference in Florence, Italy, on Thursday as he prepared to give a speech, which he said would be better given in French instead. He said: "Slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe and also because France has an election". He also accused Britain of "abandoning" the EU amid tensions with the UK government over looming Brexit negotiations, The Telegraph reported. "We will negotiate fairly with our British friends, but let's not forget that it is not the EU that is abandoning the UK -- it is the UK that's abandoning the EU, and that makes a difference." Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, on Thursday warned British Prime Minister Theresa May and Juncker that Brexit negotiations could become "impossible" if they become "emotional". However despite the call for calm, Juncker told the conference that Brexit is a "tragedy". On Wednesday, May launched a blistering attack on the EU for trying to interfere in the election and "run us over" in Brexit talks. Tusk warned that Brexit negotiations risk becoming "impossible" as he called for "discretion, moderation and mutual respect". New Delhi, May 5 : The Indian Navy needs to expand its footprint to be a stabilising force in the Indian Ocean Region, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba said during a four-day-long Naval Commanders Conference that concluded on Friday. The Navy Chief addressed the Commanders on issues pertaining to operational readiness, capability enhancement, maintenance, op logistics, infrastructure development and human resource management, an official statement said. The Navy Chief emphasised on the "need for continued efforts towards modernisation, indigenisation and expanding the Navy's operational footprint so as to be a stabilising force in Indian Ocean Region." On the first day of the conference, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar interacted with the Naval Commanders on the geo-political developments with key focus on the Indian Ocean Region and outlined key imperatives pertaining to Indian foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives, the Indian Navy said. India has been concerned over China's growing aggression in the Indian Ocean Region. Army Chief General Bipin Rawat and Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa also interacted with the Naval commanders, and shared their views on the current security situation and the way ahead to enhance Tri-Service synergy and jointmanship, the statement said. The Naval Commanders' Conference started on Tuesday. Top-level leadership of the Navy reviewed major operational, training and administrative activities undertaken in the last six months. The Commanders also reviewed the security measures and mechanisms for coastal defence, infrastructure, force development and logistics support management and the Indian Navy's readiness to deploy over the entire range of missions in the maritime domain, the statement added. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley addressed the commanders on the first day of the conference and urged the Commanders to be prepared at all times emphasising that preparedness would be the best deterrent. In his closing address, the Navy Chief also exhorted the Commanders to pay "focussed attention" to address all challenges with the singular aim to be combat ready at all times. He also emphasised the importance of quality maintenance and efficient Operational Logistics towards ensuring combat effectiveness. Mumbai, May 5 : Actress Manisha Koirala says that artistes are always open to experimenting with roles. The "Bombay" actress, who fought cancer, is set to make her comeback with the upcoming film "Dear Maya". During the launch of the film's trailer on Thursday here, she said: "An artiste is always up for an experiment and looks forward to do new things. I really liked the script of the film and once the opportunity came my way, I grabbed it with both hands." The actress is playing a spinster with a wrinkled face in the film. "To get the correct look of the character, we had to work hard and it used to take long hours. But once we got the look, it became easier to follow the character as well," said Manisha. Talking about her comeback, she said: "It felt great. I loved being in front of the camera. As an artiste there is always hunger in me to deliver better performance or at least match up to my previous work." Pakistani VJ Madiha Imam is also making her Bollywood debut with this film. She is playing a 16-year-old school girl. Sharing her experience of working with younger actors, Manisha said: "It was a nice experience working with younger artiste because actors of today's generation are very hardworking, focused, disciplined and talented. In fact, I learnt a few lessons from them. When I see them doing good work then I also feel motivated to do better work." "Dear Maya", written and directed by Sunaina Bhatnagar, is scheduled to release on June 2. Shillong, May 5 : Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa on Friday reviewed the security scenario in the northeast with commanders from the Eastern Air Command. Dhanoa, who arrived here on Thursday, inaugurated the Commanders' Conference here in Meghalaya. The conference is hosted by Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Air Command Air Marshal Anil Khosla. "The Chief of the Air Staff updated the commanders on the security scenario with special reference to the implications in the northeastern region," an IAF official said. At the conference, Khosla exhorted all Field Commanders to put in efforts to upgrade the combat potential of the eastern zone. The Air Chief subsequently left for a day long visit to Air Force station Chabua before returning to Delhi on Friday. Toronto, May 6 (IBNS): The Indian Consulate in Toronto is expecting a turnout of at least 10,000 people at the International Yoga Day celebrations here on June 25, Indian Consul General Dinesh Bhatia has said. The International Yoga Day Celebrations, which will be organised by IYDC, a Canadian not-for-profit organisation in June, was launched during an interactive session at the Consulate General of India, on Thursday. While announcing the International Yoga celebrations that would take place on June 25 at Mississauga, Bhatia said that they expect around 10,000 people to participate in it. He said Yoga guru Baba Ramdev and rajyog meditation expert Sister Shivani of Brahma Kumaris would guide the participants. The programme will be televised globally through broadcast and social media with an aim to reach an audience across North America and India. International Yoga Day aims to raise awareness of the many benefits of practicing yoga. Yoga is not just about exercise; it is a way to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature, Bhatia said. Satish Thakkar, chair of the board of directors and organizing committee of IYDC, said: Yoga brings peace, harmony, positivity and this message should be spread not only in GTA which encompasses city of Toronto and the neighboring cities -- but to the whole of Canada." IYDC was founded in 2015 to advocate the practice of yoga in Canada. The draft resolution establishing the International Day of Yoga (IYD) was proposed by India at the United Nations and was endorsed by a record 177 member states. The proposal was first introduced by then Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi in his address during the opening of the 69th session of the General Assembly. While Ramdev will be leading the yoga practice in the morning, Sister Shivani would lead a Raj Yoga meditation session in the evening. Thakkar claimed that the 2017 IYDC would be one of the largest celebrations not only in Canada but in the whole of North America. Sister Shivani, who sent her message via an audio clip, said: When I, the self is Connected with the highest, I can come to control. I is like a discharged battery. For it to be charged, I has to be connected to the power house, which is meditation." (Reporting by Asha Bajaj) New Delhi, May 5 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave on a three-day official visit to Japan on Saturday to participate in the annual meeting of Board of Governors of Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the spring meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Jaitley will attend the meeting of Board of Governors' of ADB in Yokohama and the Investors' Round Table Session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (Cii) and Kotak Bank in Tokyo. Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), is in Japan to attend the ADB meet that commenced from May 4. On May 7, Jaitley will take part in the ADB Governors' Plenary and thereafter will meet Taro Aso, Japan's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. Later, he will participate in the Governors' luncheon and will also meet Takehiko Nakao, the ADB President. On May 8, Jaitley will be at the Investors' Round Table Session organised by Cii and Kotak Bank in Tokyo. He will also participate in the Spring Meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) where he will deliver the keynote address. On May 8, Jaitley will meet Tomomi Inada, the Japan's Defence Minister, before departing for India. Brussels, May 6 : The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk are to meet the US President in Brussels in May, a spokesperson said. Juncker and Tusk will meet and greet Donald Trump prior to the NATO summit scheduled for May 25, announced European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva on Friday. Trump's visit to the European Union's capital will take place during his first international diplomatic tour since he took office in January, Xinhua news agency reported. Before heading to Europe, however, Trump is scheduled to touch down for a visit to Saudi Arabia. It marks a break in tradition, as US presidents have always tended to choose either Canada or Mexico as their first port of call. After Saudi Arabia, Trump is due to travel on to Jerusalem where he is expected to meet with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas, according to a White House press note. On May 24, Pope Francis is to welcome Trump at the Vatican. Once Trump has met Tusk and Junker and attended the NATO summit in Brussels, he is due to fly back to Italy in order to attend the G7 Heads of State and Government Summit in Sicily, slated for May 26-27. Los Angeles, May 6 : Reality TV personality Kim Kardashian West and husband and rapper Kanye West went through a lot of marital problems over the year, but according to a source they have managed to keep things as normal as possible for their children. "The kids are so young that they didn't really feel like anything was too different. Both Kanye and Kim have done all they can to shield the kids from this all. There was no fighting in front of the children, North, 3, and Saint, 1," a source told people.com. Talking about the couple's relationship status, the insider said: "The two have been able to process things and move past them, and are very ready for what's next and not be so focused on the mess that was last year. They're in a much better place." Cairo, May 6 : The IS has called on Muslims in Egypt to avoid Christian sites and police, army and government facilities, as well as places frequented by foreigners of Western countries, as the terror organisation considers them legitimate targets. In an interview in Islamic State's al-Naba weekly newspaper, an unidentified leader of the organisation's branch in Egypt said the group could target these places at any time, Efe news reported. At least 45 people were killed and dozens wounded on April 9, when two suicide bombers detonated themselves at churches in the cities of Alexandria and Tanta. "We do not accept that one of you is hurt in the operations against these apostates," said the anonymous terror leader addressing Muslims. However, he admitted that "a large portion" of the Egyptian population is against the extremists and therefore urged Egyptians to repent of this attitude, which he considered "apostasy." Egypt's President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi declared a state of emergency throughout the country following the April 9 attacks and deployed army forces around public places and churches. Moscow, May 6 : Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the Syrian settlement during a phone conversation, media reports said. The diplomats on Friday exchanged views on the tasks of de-escalating tensions, giving stability to the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terror efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the intra-Syrian negotiation process, said a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Lavrov and Tillerson also touched upon regional and bilateral issues and agreed on further Russia-US contacts, Xinhua news agency reported. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the statement added. Friday's conversation came three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to intensify the dialogue between Lavrov and Tillerson on the search for options that help consolidate the truce among conflicting factions within Syria. In a latest move toward a political settlement of the chronic civil war, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on Thursday in the Kazakh capital of Astana on the creation of four de-escalation zones in Syria. Also on Friday, the Russian General Staff said that Russia has stopped operations of its military aircraft since May 1 in regions where the de-escalation zones will be officially established on Saturday. Jammu, May 6 : The Indian Army has apprehended a minor Pakistani boy in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowshera sector of the LoC, whom they suspect might have been sent across to probe infiltration routes, an officer said on Saturday. "A patrol of the Indian Army along the LoC apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) late on Friday evening. He had crossed the Line of Control in Rajouri district," Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta told IANS. The boy, Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, was identified as the son of a retired Baluch Regiment soldier Hussain Malik. They are residents of Dunger Pel village in Bhimber district in PoK, Mehta said. Ashfaq Ali Chauhan was found moving suspiciously near the LoC. On being challenged by the patrol, the boy immediately surrendered, he added. "It is suspected that the boy was sent by the terrorists in connivance with Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC," the Defence spokesman said. The minor intruder has been handed over to the police by the Army for further investigations, the spokesman added. New Delhi : As in 2004, Sonia Gandhi is again trying to stitch together an alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The objective is to field an opposition candidate for the presidential poll where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is short of a majority in the 1.1 million strong electoral college -- although by no more than two per cent of the votes. However, if the opposition fields a widely acceptable candidate and is able to lure a few of the BJP's allies like the generally disgruntled Shiv Sena to its side, then the "secular" front will be able to score a morale-boosting victory. It may be recalled that the Shiv Sena had voted against the BJP in the last two presidential elections when it supported the Congress's Marathi nominee Pratibha Patil in 2007 against the saffron stalwart Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, and the Congress' Pranab Mukherjee in 2012 against the former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma. Notwithstanding the Congress president's initiative in reaching out to virtually everyone in the non-BJP camp, it will be unrealistic, however, to expect the kind of success which she had as a unifier in 2004 because there are significant differences between then and now. In 2004, she was able to bring over to her side several of the BJP's allies like Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Farooq Abdullah's National Conference because Atal Behari Vajpayee's 24-party alliance was unravelling in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Indeed, Vajpayee later said that he would not have lost but for the riots. The scene is different this time. For one, unlike Vajpayee at the end of his reign, Narendra Modi is currently much more securely placed. For another, the Congress is now weaker than ever before. In 2004, it was poised to climb higher which it did five years later when it won more than 200 Lok Sabha seats while the BJP was described as a "kati patang" by a former minister in Vajpayee's cabinet, Arun Shourie. Now, the sarcasm of being a floating kite applies to the Congress as its Lok Sabha tally has fallen to its lowest ever point while the BJP is soaring high. Moreover, the fact that Sonia is having to play a proactive role despite her indifferent health shows that Rahul Gandhi, who has long been expected to replace her as the party president, has failed to fulfil the Congress's expectations of becoming an acclaimed leader with ideas and energy. Instead, the crown prince remains something of a part-timer in politics. Sonia, too, has lost some of the lustre which she had a decade ago because her missteps during the Congress's stint in power such as stalling the economic reforms in favour of populism are widely believed to have led the party to its doom. It is not only that former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram subsequently admitted that the Manmohan Singh government made the mistake of taking the "foot off the accelerator of reforms", the reason for this politically fatal error could be seen in the observation of Aruna Roy, a member of the Left-leaning National Advisory Council headed by Sonia, that the government was placing too much emphasis on growth instead of on welfare measures. It was easy for Modi, therefore, to take over the growth agenda. Given this background of failure, it will be difficult for Sonia to promise a new dawn in the company of losers like Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and M.K. Stalin of the DMK. Besides, it is difficult to see how disparate groups like Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, Omar Abdullah's National Conference and Sitaram Yechury's CPI-M will be able to act like a coherent political formation. Needless to say, there is nothing to bind these parties in terms of ideology except their dislike of the BJP. It will be instructive to recall how an attempt to constitute a Janata "parivar" comprising the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal-United, the Janata Dal-Secular and the Indian National Lok Dal fell apart even before it could be formed. True, a mahagathbandhan or a grand alliance made up of the RJD, the Janata Dal-United and the Congress, among others, proved to be an electoral success in Bihar in 2015. But a similar attempt came a cropper in Uttar Pradesh this year, showing that such opportunistic combinations are not easy to put together. Even if, for argument's sake, Sonia's attempt to set up a gathbandhan does succeed, who will be its leader? The Congress president herself can be ruled out because of her health and the "foreign origin" stigma while none of the others, whether Sharad Pawar or Mulayam Singh, is a person who can match Modi's popularity. The innate distrust between these parties is also likely to come in the way of proposing an agreed name for the President's post. It will not be too far off the mark to suggest, therefore, that the opposition parties are chasing a mirage. (Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com) Paris, May 6 : A law in France which bans featuring extremely thin fashion models has come into effect, the media reported. According to the law that came into effect on Friday, models will need to provide a doctor's certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI) - a measure of weight in relation to height, the BBC reported. The Health Ministry says the aim of the law is to fight eating disorders and inaccessible ideals of beauty. Digitally altered photos will also have to be labelled and images where a model's appearance has been manipulated will need to be marked "photographie retouchee" (retouched photograph). Employers breaking the law could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($82,000) and up to six months in jail. France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models - Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so. Anorexia affects between 30,000 to 40,000 people in France, 90 per cent women, according to health ministry figures. Moscow, May 6 : Russia has banned Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, saying its operator failed to register with the appropriate authorities. Vadim Ampelonsky, spokesman of Russian telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor, said on Friday: "WeChat did not provide the contact information necessary for registration with authorities", Xinhua news agency reported. WeChat is the most popular messenger app in China and is widely used by Chinese nationals living overseas. It is owned by China's IT giant Tencent. Tencent's spokesman Zhang Jun in response said the company is in contact with Russian authorites regarding the issue. Earlier on Tuesday, Roskomnadzor also blocked Messenger, Line and Vchat but did not provide details. Islamabad, May 6 : The firing by Afghan military in Balochistan has ended after the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of Pakistan and Afghanistan held talks over hotline, during which Kabul "admitted its mistake" in identifying the boundary line in the area, media reported on Saturday. The Pakistan DGMO asked his Afghan counterpart to direct his troops to defuse the situation, Dawn news reported. "Afghan director general, military operations, acknowledged that border is in between villages and not at the ditch," Dawn quoted an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement as saying. During the talk, Pakistan DGMO General Sahir Shamshad Mirza reminded Afghan DGMO that the border line ran through the villages, dividing them between the two countries, and Pakistani security forces and civilians were well within their own territory. "Afghan DGMO agreed to take up the matter and issue necessary orders accordingly," the ISPR said adding: "The exchange of fire ended." Afghanistan's envoy here Omar Zakhilwal said: "Cessation of fire and resolving (the matter) through talks had been agreed upon." At least nine people were killed and dozens injured when Afghan border forces fired at a Pakistani census team in Balochistan on Friday. Kabul, May 6 : Taliban militants overran Qala-e-Zal district in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said. The district in Kunduz province collapsed to the group after two days of heavy clashes between the militants and security forces, Tolo News quoted a provincial official as saying. However, there were no reports of casualties in the clashes, he said. Qala-e-Zal Governor Mahbubullah Sayede on Friday said Taliban militants attacked Aqtepa and that heavy clashes were on in the area. Accra, May 6 : Despite very low trade between India and Mauritania, New Delhi has approved letters of credit worth $65.68 million for a solar-diesel hybrid rural electrification project in the north African country, the Embassy of Mali, which is also accredited to the country, has said. The aid, which is in line with India's policy of assisting African countries, has also another two lines of credit -- $15 million for developing agro-industries and $6.8 million to support a drinking water project. "Both projects are progressing satisfactorily. The savings from the total project cost are proposed to be used for acquisition of harvesters and agricultural machinery by the government of Mauritania," the embassy said. Mauritania is one of the few African countries to develop full-blown trade with India. Statistics show that from a very low figure of $32.24 million in 2009-2010, it rose to $102.30 million in 2014-2015 but dropped to $76.90 million in 2015-2016. Total exports from India were $30.62 million with imports of $1.60 million. These figures improved in 2014-2015 when exports from India rose to $58.94 million whilst imports from Mauritania increased to $43.36 million. "There is tremendous potential for growth, especially when Mauritania is a resource-rich country with extractive natural resources, including oil that awaits exploration and exploitation," the embassy said, adding: "The Mauritanian government has, on numerous occasions, conveyed its eagerness to increase bilateral economic cooperation with India. The Mauritanian government wants to improve trade relationship with India in ports development, oil exploration, mining, power, agricultural, pharmaceuticals, engineering and educational sectors, the embassy. "The government of Mauritania has recently embarked on a programme for the large scale integrated development of Nouadhibou Free Zone for development of Nouadhibou Bay and is offering huge incentives," it said. It said Mauritania can also make immense use of India's expertise in various sectors. In the area of education, the country has been allocated 15 slots for the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme to enable Mauritanians train in India. (Francis Kokutse can be contacted at fkokutse@ians.in) Rio De Janeiro, May 6 : Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was involved in the Petrobras' corruption scheme that is under investigation, a former senior executive of the company has said. Renato Duque, who used to be a senior executive of the state-owned oil giant, testified in a Brizilian court on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported. He confessed that not only did the ex-President know about the scheme, he also took part in it and even played a leading role. In his testimony, Duque said he had met Lula three times between 2012 and 2014, when he was no longer the President and Duque had stepped down from his position at Petrobras. "In these meetings, it became very clear that he (Lula) was fully aware of everything and was in command," Duque told the court. Lula's defence team denied all the accusations and said there was no evidence that the former President had engaged in any form of irregularities, including the Petrobras' corruption scheme. "Since they did not manage to produce any proof of the slandering accusations against the former President, even after two years of probe and privacy breach, the only option left for the accusers was to fabricate testimonies," said Lula's lawyers in an official statement. The former President is accused of taking bribes including a luxury apartment in Sao Paulo. The investigators said his wife Marisa Leticia Lula da Silva was also involved. Brazil is gripped by the Petrobras' corruption scheme and has launched an extensive investigation into graft, known as Operation Car Wash. The action came after former executives of oil giant Petrobras has laid bare the long-running scheme to inflate public works contracts so both the company and government officials could pocket millions in public funds. More than 80 government officials have been placed under investigation for being involved in the Petrobras scheme. Srinagar, May 6 : Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi can "alone pull Kashmir out" of the present quagmire. "Hamein daldal se agar koi bahar nikal sakta hai to, woh Modi hain (If anyone can pull us out of this quicksand, it is Modi)," Mehbooba told reporters here. "Whatever decision he (Modi) will take, the nation would support him," she said. Mufti while referring to Modi's Pakistan visit last year, praised his "strength" and said: "It was him who visited Pakistan during heightened tensions between the two countries". The Kashmir valley is in the throes of a students uprising that started on April 15 after security forces entered a college in Pulwama and roughed up students there. Militant attacks on security personnel, political activities and bank robberies in south Kashmir areas are posing a serious challenge to both the security forces and the government as large areas are believed to be heavily infested by militants. Tokyo, May 6 : Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao on Saturday called for further investment in infrastructure and high-level technology to boost economic growth in the Asia Pacific region. Speaking at the 50th annual meeting of the regional development bank in Yokohama, Japan, Nakao said investment in infrastructure, particularly projects that incorporate advanced technologies, would be the bank's priority in the upcoming years, Efe news reported. "Enhancing the quality of infrastructure is important in realising sustainable economic growth," the president said, adding that Asia will need $1.7 trillion each year for investments in the power, transport, telecommunications and water sector until 2030. "This is more than double our previous estimate, reflecting additional investments needed to support continued growth and address climate change," he added. The ADB will also establish a fund for high-level technology projects, aiming to promote the use of advanced and clean technologies to tackle challenges in developing member countries. "Many developing member countries find it challenging to introduce high-level technologies in their countries due to lack of resources and limited institutional experience," Nakao said, adding that Japan will contribute $40 million over the next two years. "I am optimistic about continued robust growth in Asia. There is strong demand, notably consumption by a growing middle class and increasing investment in infrastructure," the bank chief said. About 5,000 delegates including government officials, academics and business leaders, among others, were expected to attend the summit, which runs between May 4 and May 7. The bank, headquartered in Manila, was established in 1966 to promote economic growth and regional integration, and includes 67 members, of which 47 are from the Asia Pacific region. Kolkata, May 6 : Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's suggestion on conducting simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday wondered how this could happen. "How can this be possible? Because you need so much of security forces. Even the assembly elections are held in phases. How can it be conducted simultaneously," she asked responding to a query on the issue. While addressing the Niti Aayog Governing Council's meeting last month, Modi said for long, India had suffered from economic and political mismanagement. The Prime Minister also called for carrying forward the debate and discussions on holding simultaneous elections. Kumar also said the Election Commission should clear the doubts being raised on Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). "Earlier when EVMs were not there, something called booth capturing used to happen. Then EVMs came, we thought it would be fool-proof. I am sure the Election Commission will come out with something better," she said. "Doubts (on EVMs) should be cleared," she added. Washington, May 6 : A police officer in Texas who shot and killed a 15-year-old African-American teenager last week has been charged with murder, the media reported. Roy Oliver, a patrol officer in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs, has not been arrested, but a judge on Friday signed a murder warrant and his bond has been set at $300,000, The Washington Post quoted the Dallas Morning News as saying. Oliver, who had been with the department since July 2011, is accused of opening fire on a car full of teenagers leaving a party on April 29, killing Jordan Edwards. If convicted of murder, Oliver could face life in prison. "The warrant was issued due to evidence that suggested Oliver intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death of an individual," Melinda Urbina, a public information officer with the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, said in a statement. "The investigation into the death of Jordan Edwards will continue and does not conclude with the arrest of Roy Oliver," the statement added. Oliver was fired by the Balch Springs Police Department on Tuesday, three days after he responded to a call about intoxicated teens at a house party, reports The Washington Post. Police said that as officers dispersed the party they heard gunshots outside. Then, when officers went outside to investigate, they saw a car backing out of a parking spot. As they approached the vehicle, it began to drive away. Oliver opened fire, striking Jordan, who was in the passenger seat. Jordan is the youngest of the 333 people shot and killed by police so far in 2017, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings. At least 10 people shot and killed by police this year were under 18. Madrid, May 6 : Spain's Rafael Nadal has said he was approaching next week's Madrid Open, which he has won on four occasions, with the same ambition as always. The 30-year-old Nadal, who is enjoying a resurgence in 2017, is seeking to win the Monte-Carlo Masters, Barcelona Open and the Madrid Open in the same year for the second time in his career, the first time being in 2005, reports Efe. "I've come here with the same hopes as always and to give my all. Playing at home is very special, and Madrid is one of the places in the world where the fans have shown me the most affection and have helped me win difficult matches," he said on Friday. The Kia Motors global brand ambassador made his remarks in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcon, where the South Korean automaker on Friday inaugurated its largest dealership in Europe. The fifth-ranked Nadal said he had been unfairly criticised for his patchy results in recent years, when it had seemed his career might be in irreversible decline. "It's totally logical that people talk and give their opinion. But they also have to analyse things, especially those who write for a living," the 14-time Grand Slam champion said, noting that his ranking had never dipped below No. 10 even in the depths of his struggles in mid-2015. "It's true that last year I wasn't playing as well as this year, but it's the same as always. The key is to have that desire to keep going, to do what motivates you, and the main thing is to be healthy. Because if you're not, it's impossible." The fourth-seeded Nadal will kick off his Madrid campaign against the winner of a first-round match pitting Italy's Fabio Fognini against Portugal's Joao Sousa. Looming as a potential third-round opponent is 21-year-old rising Australian star Nick Kyrgios, the No. 16 seed, while if Nadal can navigate his draw he could face Canada's Milos Raonic, a big server who could pose problems in the fast conditions of a city 667 meters (2,188 feet) above sea level, and then Serbian defending champion and No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. "The draw is quite tough, but it helps that since January I've been doing things well," he said, referring to his runner-up finishes at three hard-court events - the Australian Open, Acapulco and Miami - and his titles at the Monte-Carlo Masters and Barcelona Open. If he can come out on top next week in the Spanish capital, it would be his first time winning those three tournaments -- all key tune-up events for the French Open -- in the same year on clay. When he won the 2005 Madrid tournament, it was an indoor hard-court event played in October. Colombo, May 6 : Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has slammed calls for a black flag protest during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Sri Lanka, a media report said. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modi's visit here to take part in the celebrations marking the UN 'Vesak Day', the most important in the Buddhist calendar, Colombo Gazette reported. "Are they Buddhists?" President Sirisena asked with regards to those calling for the protest. Opposition Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa, speaking at the joint opposition May Day rally at Galle Face, said that Modi was to discuss a deal on Trincomalee port which he says must be opposed. "They are trying to sell Sri Lanka to India," he said. He also called on joint opposition supporters to take to the streets and push for an early election. Modi is to visit Sri Lanka to participate in the May 12-14 Vesak Day celebrations. He is slated to be the chief guest at the opening ceremony in Colombo. The visit will mark his second visit to the island country. It is the first time the UN Vesak Day is being held in Sri Lanka. A large number of local and foreign delegates are expected to participate. Vesak Day, also known as Wesak or Buddha Day, is a traditional holiday celebrated annually on the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha. It is celebrated by Buddhists and usually falls in May or early June. This year's theme is 'Buddhist teachings for social justice and sustainable world peace.' Kolkata, May 6 : The West Bengal Heritage Commission will embark upon restoration of three heritage buildings in the state, including the house of Alexander Duff, the first overseas missionary of the Church of Scotland to India, an official said on Saturday. Mahishadal Rangibashan Rajbari, Dr Graham Home's Church in Kalimpong in north Bengal and the house of Alexander Duff on Nimtala Ghat Street here will be restored with "Rs 17 crore provided by the Ministry of Culture". "Detailed project reports were sent to the ministry regarding the buildings. We have had discussions with state Public Works Department (PWD) to execute the plan. These buildings are in a dilapidated condition," Umapada Chatterjee, secretary of the state heritage commission, told IANS. Alexander Duff arrived in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1830 and played a crucial role in higher education, actively supported by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of Brahmo Sabha. He established the Scottish Church College in 1830 (which was then known as the General Assembly's Institution) with an idea to link western education with Christian mission and the eventual progress of the people. John Anderson Graham, a Church of Scotland missionary, who settled in Kalimpong, founded the Dr. Graham's Homes -- a refuge for poor and needy Anglo-Indian children. Mahishadal Rangibashan Rajbari, the grand estate in East Midnapore, has its roots in the estate bought by Janardan Upadhyay (Garg) of Uttar Pradesh in the 16th century. There are two palaces in the Mahishadal Raj estate. The old palace was built around 1840 and the new one in 1937. Lucknow, May 6 : A total of 135 NRI Hindus drawn from over 10 countries called on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday after a visit to Ayodhya, where they had a darshan of Ram Lalla and met senior members of the sant fraternity. Anand Goyal, one of the members who met the Chief Minister, told IANS that the meeting with Yogi was "inspiring" and that they were treated to a tasty vegetarian lunch by the hosts. "Yogi Adityanath told us that he was very happy to meet all of us and was indeed happy that despite being in foreign land, we were so interested in Hinduism and had come all the way to Ayodhya to have a darshan of Ram Lalla," one of the delegates said. Yogi also told the visiting delegation that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country was taking a new turn and that his vision of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" was the guiding principle of the state government as well. With a vegetarian spread of pineapple raita, matar paneer, malai kofta and different types of roti's and juicy gulab jaamuns, the NRI Hindus from countries like Hong Kong, China, Bangkok, Singapore and Macau appeared bowled over by the warmth and hospitality shown in the Uttar Pradesh leg of their India trip. Earlier, they met Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah, international President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Raghav Reddy and other senior leaders of the BJP soon after their arrival in the union capital two days back, VHP's national spokesman Vinod Bansal informed. Mumbai, May 6 : Actor Pankaj Tripathi, whose role as a Maths professor in "Nil Battey Sannata" was very much appreciated, says the Hindi film industry doesn't know how to market films. His film "Newton" with actor Rajkummar Rao was honoured with an award at the Berlin Film Festival and Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Festival. The actor is very happy with the success of getting the film to the International Film Festivals but he has no hope when it comes to the film going to the Academy Awards. Talking about the possibility of Oscars for "Newton", he told IANS: "I don't think it is possible, because it happens in America. Americans know how to market their own products and same holds true for Europeans. Take Cannes, Berlin or any American film festival and see how they have made their status in the world." "I do not think our International Film Festival of India which happens in Goa is discussed in the US or Europe, just like American and European film festivals, because we don't know how to cherish or market our stuff," he added. The actor thinks that the hold of a filmmaker should be strong enough for the Oscars. "If you want Oscar then you need to have a very strong back up. It is my very personal opinion that if any Hollywood studio is involved as a producer in a film then obviously there is a strong lobbying involved. Apart from having a good content, the producer or a studio involved in the project also matters a lot," said Tripathi. Pankaj also says that it is a struggle for independent filmmakers in India. "Our commercial filmmaker's target is to complete the cinema at their earliest and earn twice or three times. whereas the independent filmmaker's struggle is to get a release in 200 to 300 screens on any Friday," he said. In spite of the rat race in the world of commercial cinema, he is happy with the response that independent cinema is getting. "I am happy that Indian audience is evolving day by day. This generation is enjoying and appreciating films like 'Nil Battey Sannata', 'Newton' and 'Ankhon Dekhi'. These movies are being watched and creating their own space in the market and it's a good sign," said Tripathi who is also known for his role as Sultan in "Gangs of Wasseypur". Newton starring Rajkummar Rao and Anjali Patel is a political black comedy and revolves around a clerk placed on election duty in a conflict-ridden area of Chhattisgarh. The film is produced by Manish Mundra of Drishyam Films and directed by Amit Masurkar. Tripathi will next be seen in upcoming Bollywood films 'Bareilly ki Barfi", "Munna Michael", "Fukrey 2" and "Julie 2". Bhubaneswar, May 6 : Nine Odisha ministers on Saturday tendered their resignation paving the way for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to reshuffle the cabinet. Sanjay Dasburma, Pranab Prakash Das, Arun Sahoo, Pradeep Panigrahi, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Lal Bihari Himirika, Sudam Marndi, Jogendra Behera and Debi Prasad Mishra have put in their papers. Finance Minister Pradip Amat is likely to resign from his post on Saturday. He is tipped to become the Speaker in place of Niranjan Pujari, who had resigned from his post on Friday and is likely to be accommodated in the ministy. Meanwhile, Patnaik expressed hope that the ministerial reshuffle will attribute towards the growth and development of people of Odisha besides strengthening the party. "I am grateful to a number of ministers who have resigned voluntarily to work for the party. All of us in the party are very grateful to them," he said. He said the revamp would help the ruling Biju Janata Dal serve the people better. Patnaik may go in for a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday morning before leaving for New Delhi to attend the meeting on the Maoist threat convened by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on May 8. New Delhi, May 6 : The BJP on Saturday attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after a tape of an alleged conversation between RJD chief Lalu Yadav and jailed don-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin was aired by a news channel. Reacting to the conversation, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad described it as the worst form of "criminal-political nexus" in the country. "Shahabuddin represents the worst form of criminal-political nexus in the country," Prasad said at a press conference here. "A convicted notorious criminal like Shahabuddin is running the administration and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad is assisting him in that," the BJP leader pointed out expressing his concern. Daring the Bihar Chief Minister to act against his alliance partner, Prasad said: "I want to ask Nitish Kumar on behalf of the BJP -- will he institute criminal proceedings against Lalu?" The Union Law Minister's remarks came after a new English news channel Republic TV on Saturday morning aired an audio clip of Shahabuddin and the RJD chief's alleged conversation. Shahabuddin is also a former RJD MP from Siwan, his hometown, and former legislator from Siwan assembly constituency. In the audio clip, the don-turned-politician was heard saying that "your SP (Superintendent of Police) is of no use" and Lalu was heard taking instructions from Shahabuddin over riots. Prasad also said that it was a clear textbook case of "gross constitutional impropriety". "Nitishji, we want to know what you are going to say as the seniormost leader of your alliance has been found speaking to a notorious criminal over phone from jail, which is a crime?" the BJP leader said. Firing a salvo at the opposition parties, Prasad said: "I also want to ask the political parties and leaders of the so-called secular brigade -- will you people make a deal with the criminals to fight against BJP?" Shahabuddin, who is currently lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail, is serving a life sentence after being convicted in over 10 cases. He was shifted to Tihar in February this year following a Supreme Court order. After coming out of jail in September last year, Shahabuddin had termed Lalu Prasad his leader and called Nitish Kumar as the "Chief Minister of circumstance". Srinagar, May 6 : Around two dozen students were injured on Saturday in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara town following clashes with security personnel after a Pakistani flag was hoisted on a college building. Students of the Handwara Degree College marched towards the market square after hoisting the Pakistani flag, police said. Police used tear smoke shells to disperse the students. "Students had resorted to intense stone pelting after they were prevented from carrying out the march in Handwara town", police said. Reports said around two dozen students were injured in the clashes including seven girls. One girl with a head injury was being treated in a hospital. Meanwhile, after the clashes between agitated students and security forces during the last two days, classes in Sopore Degree College and higher secondary schools were suspended on Saturday. Yokohama, May 6 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday urged the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to set up a regional hub for South Asia in New Delhi so that the majority of proposals could be processed speedily. Addressing the ADB Board of Governors here, Jaitley said there was need to look at processes and procedures for which more could be done to keep pace with the aspirations of the people. "For instance, time required to approve a proposal as well as the time lag between approval and disbursement of loans can be further reduced. I am sure you all would agree that speed is what will keep ADB ahead of others. In this context, I would strongly urge the bank to set up a regional hub in New Delhi for South Asia region so that a majority of the proposals could be processed there speedily," Jaitley said. The Finance Minister, who is India's Governor on the ADB Board, is here to attend the annual meeting of the Board of Governors on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. He said such hubs could be established in other regions too. "Many countries in the region have very good systems for social and environmental safeguards with a robust legal and regulatory framework." For quite some time, he said, India has been requesting ADB to adopt Country Systems in this regard and noted that the bank has recently adopted this in the case of Power Grid Corporation of India. "While I wholeheartedly welcome this move, let me stress that we need to adopt Country Systems quickly rather than being contented with adoption of Agency System. This will help reduce delays in the run-up to project approvals to a great extent," he said. Jaitley said that with the merger of Asian Development Fund (ADF) and Ordinary Capital Resources (OCR) with effect from January 1, 2017, ADB's envelope of available resources has grown bigger and more resources could be made available for Regional Cooperation and Integration (RCI) initiative of the bank. "I am happy to say that as part of RCI initiative, last month, the vision document of South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC), was launched in New Delhi in the presence of Finance Ministers of the region," he said. "I hope the new vision document 'Strategy 2030', which the bank is preparing, would include the measures that I and other esteemed colleagues have suggested during these deliberations." Referring to the ADB's avowed objective of eliminating poverty from the Asia-Pacific region, the Minister said that in addition to sectors like energy, urban development and transportation, there was need to focus more on affordable renewable energy. "In the area of urban development, especially in the sector of drinking water and sanitation, the major challenges remain in the realm of user charges and financial sustainability of urban bodies." The bank needs to promote models that will focus on these challenges, he added. "In almost all the developing member countries, a vast majority of the rural populace depends on agriculture and other allied activities. There is a need for greater focus on climate resilient agriculture, better farm production technologies, improved value chain management and creation of better marketing infrastructure for the farm produce," Jaitley said. ADB also needs to focus more on social infrastructure like health and education, he added. "I am happy to say that, to a large extent, the bank has kept its processes and procedures upto date with the demands of the time," the Finance Minister noted. Jaitley is on a three-day official visit to Japan. He will also participate in the spring meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF). He will also attend the Investors' Round Table Session organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Kotak Bank in Tokyo. Tehran, May 6 : Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit Kabul on Sunday at the invitation of his Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani. Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Bahram Qasemi, announced here on Saturday that Zarif is scheduled to meet Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, reported IRNA. Different aspects of Tehran-Kabul relations and ways to promote the current level of bilateral ties as well as the latest international and regional developments are among the issues to be discussed during Zarif's visit to Kabul, Qasemi said. Zarif also visited Pakistan on May 3, during which he met top officials over a terrorist attack near the Pakistan-Iran border last month, in which 10 Iranian border guards were killed. New Delhi, May 6 : Amid talk of opposition unity ahead of the Presidential elections, DMK leader Kanimozhi on Saturday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi here and invited her for her father and DMK chief M. Karunanidhi's 94th birthday celebrations in Chennai. Karunanidhi's birthday on June 3 may witness a litany of leaders from opposition parties, including Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader D. Raja, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attending the function. She ruled out the function having any "political agenda", but maintained that if opposition parties come together then it will emerge as a "stronger voice". "I came to invite other leaders from other parties also for the birthday celebrations. I brought a letter from our working president M.K. Stalin to be delivered to her and we discussed about that," Kanimozhi told NewsX. "Definitely this is a meeting of a lot of leaders. But, this is not bringing anything else together. It is just to bring people together with good wishes for my father's birthday." "People are talking to each other about the President's election. but this is not an agenda in this function," she said when asked if the function was meant to be a platform to showcase opposition unity. Asked if the opposition candidate will be able to make the cut in the election, Kanimozhi said: "I don't know. I don't think there has been any decision which has been reached. So let us wait. It's a little to early to answer these questions." "There are some important issues like in Tamil Nadu where we are opposing the NEET examinations. If the opposition comes together it will be a stronger voice on particular issues. But, where it is going to go, is a little too early to comment about it," said Kanimozhi to a question if the opposition unity is necessary. She also said that invitations have been extended to those who were closely associated with Karunanidhi. "People who have been associated with him and who had long association with him have been invited, those who know him personally," she said. Noida, May 6 : Justice Leila Seth, the first woman judge of Delhi High Court who played a major role in making of the tough anti-rape law five years ago, died here on Friday night. She was 86. "Justice Leila Seth passed away on Friday night around 10.30 p.m. after suffering a cardio respiratory attack," a family member told IANS on Saturday. She is survived by her husband, two sons, including well-known writer Vikram Seth, and a daughter. Born in 1930 in Lucknow, she was also selected for the IAS in 1959, but in pursuit of a legal career, joined the London Bar. She began her law practice in 1959 in Patna as one of only two women lawyers practising in the high court there. She practised law there for about ten years and handled a number of tax matters, civil and criminal cases, matrimonial suits and writ petitions. In 1978, Justice Seth became the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and in 1991, she was appointed the first woman Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court. Prime Minister Narendra Modi mourned her demise, saying her remarkable contribution to the legal field will be remembered. "Saddened by the passing away of Justice Leila Seth. Her remarkable contribution to the legal field will be remembered," he said. Vice President Hamid Ansari, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, among others, expressed grief over her death. Apart of a committee along with former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma, set up to suggest amendments to the criminal law to deal with heinous crimes like rape after the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya case, Justice Seth also served on various enquiry commissions, one of which was responsible for studying the effects of the popular television serial, "Shaktiman", on children. She was a member of the Law Commission of India from 1997 to 2000 and was also responsible for recommending the amendments to the Hindu Succession Act which gave equal rights to daughters in joint family property. Justice Seth was part of an enquiry into the death of businessman 'Biscuit Baron' Rajan Pillai, who was found dead in police custody in Delhi in mid 90s. An author of calibre too, she wrote her autobiography "On Balance" in 2003 in which she talks about her early years, taking up law, and her family life among other things. Justice Seth wrote another book in 2010 "We, The Children of India" for young readers. In 2014, she wrote "Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India", in which she discusses several critical issues she has dealt with in her expansive legal career. Justice Seth was always been vocal about the issues of human rights, gender and the rights of the marginalised, including prisoners, children, the LGBT community, and advocated Uniform Civil Code for Muslims to better secure the rights of Muslim women. She had expressed displeasure on Supreme Court judgment in December 2013 that had struck down the Delhi High Court judgment decriminalising consensual sex among adult homosexuals. "The right that makes us human is the right to love. To criminalise the expression of that right is profoundly cruel and inhumane," Justice Seth had said. New York, May 6 : Cloud major Oracle has voiced support for US communications regulatory agency Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to roll back its net neutrality rules. Oracle wrote a letter to the FCC and played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company", hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle", that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality", a report in The Hill said on Saturday. "The stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015 - for just one aspect of the internet ecosystem - threw out both the technological consensus and the certainty needed for jobs and investment," the letter said. Other companies -- like AT&T and Verizon -- that support Pai's plan have made an argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure. Pai has proposed to undo the rules, which subjected broadband companies to tougher regulation from the FCC. According to Oracle, Pai's plan to remove broadband providers from the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction "will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs internet service providers while enhancing the consumer experience and driving investment." Telecom companies, which have long opposed the rules, are urging Pai to roll them back, the report said. Paris, May 6 : A computer hacking of emails from the campaign of leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron cast a cloud over Sunday's run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen, but the French poll body has urged citizens not to let it distort the sincerity of the ballot. Late on Friday, Macron's En Marche movement said in a statement that it had been the victim of a major hacking operation that saw thousands of emails and other internal communications dumped into the public domain. The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones "in order to create confusion and misinformation". The data leak came as polls predicted Macron was headed for a comfortable victory over Le Pen in Sunday's election. According to reports, surveys showed his lead widening to 62 per cent from 38. The French Election Commission on Saturday began an investigation into the hacking and urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges. "On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot," the election commission said in a statement. As much as nine gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called Emleaks to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine. Macron was unable to respond to the attack because of a ban on electioneering in the run up to the opening of polling stations at 8 a.m (local time) on Sunday, the Guardian reported. Five new opinion polls published on Friday suggested that Macron would win the election with a share of 62-63 per cent, comfortably defeating the Front National candidate Le Pen. Macron got an added boost with former US President Barack Obama on Thursday endorsing the 39-year old centrist. "I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don't have to run for office again," said Obama in a video statement. "But the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about," he added. "The success of France matters to the entire world," continued the 44th U.S. president, who commended Macron, a former investment banker who espouses socially liberal values and center-right economic views, for standing up for "liberal values" and putting forward a "vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world." The French Interior Ministry said that over 50,000 security personnel will be deployed for the second and final round of the presidential election on Sunday in order to ensure maximum security. Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) said the release of thousands of emails, accounting documents and other files was an attempt at "democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the US". The En Marche! statement said the data consisted of "diverse documents, such as emails, accounting documents and contracts" hacked several weeks ago from the personal and professional accounts of some of the movement's staffers. It said "many false documents" had been added to genuine stolen documents on social media "in order to sow doubt and disinformation" as part of an operation "clearly intended to harm the movement". The authentic documents were all lawful, however, and "reflected the normal functioning of an election campaign", the statement said. Their publication "does not alarm us as to the prospect of any questions being raised about their legality". The WikiLeaks website posted a Twitter link to the cache of documents, saying it "contains many tens of thousands (of) emails, photos, attachments up to April 24, 2017". It indicated it was not responsible for the leak itself. Macron, if successful in Sunday's final vote, would become the youngest President in the history of France and the nation's youngest leader since Napoleon. Voters will be making a decision on France's future direction and on its place at the heart of the European Union. If they opt for liberal Macron, they will be backing a candidate who seeks EU reform as well as deeper European integration, in the form of a eurozone budget and eurozone finance ministers. If instead they choose far-right Marine Le Pen she promises quite the opposite. She wants a Europe of nations to replace the EU. For many, however, the campaign has become less about backing Macron and instead about voting against Le Pen, the National Front candidate. According to experts, Macron has led a remarkable campaign, defying the traditional mainstream parties courtesy of his En Marche movement. Macron has been endorsed by President Francois Hollande, Republican candidate Francois Fillon and the Socialist Party's Benoit Hamon. Macron said on Friday he had decided who would be his Prime Minister if he wins Sunday's vote, but would reveal his government after he takes office. Macron's team has previously blamed Russian interests for repeated attempts to hack its systems during the campaign, saying that it had been the target of unsuccessful attempts to steal email credentials since January. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any involvement and said: "These, like other similar accusations, are based on nothing and are pure slander." Russian officials said they have no preferred candidate in the French vote. The outcome of Sunday's runoff will be clear the same day. The results will be officially proclaimed by France's constitutional council on May 11, BBC reported. May 14 marks the end of outgoing President Hollande's term, and is the latest possible date for the inauguration and official transfer of power to his successor. France is the latest nation to see a major election overshadowed by accusations of manipulation through cyber hacking. Thiruvananthapuram, May 06 : Communist party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has shot down speculation that the party was mulling a political alliance with the K M Mani-led Kerala Congress (M) [KC(M)]. Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Mr. Balakrishnan categorically stated that the CPI(M) had no intention to have a truck with the KC(M). He again termed as a local issue the party throwing its weight behind the KC(M) candidate in the district panchayath elections in Kottayam, saying that it was the CPI(M) district unit that took the decision to lend support to the KC(M) candidate. What the CPI(M) did in Kottayam was to exploit the schism within the opposition ranks, he added. This need not be interpreted as a prelude to an invite to the KC(M) to join the LDF or as a move to expand the left coalition, the CPI(M) leader clarified. The CPI(M) would pounce on every available opportunity to dismantle the Congress-led UDF coalition, Mr. Balakrishnan asserted, adding that the defeat in the panchayath president poll had riven the UDF asunder in a stronghold of theirs like Kottayam. The CPI(M) helped elect the KC(M) candidate as president in Kottayam district panchayath by defeating the Congress candidate earlier this week, triggering rumours that the incident was a prelude to the KC(M) moving to the LDF fold. The Congress party cried foul over the development since the party was ruling the local body in alliance with the KC(M). An agreement was in place between the KC(M) and the Congress that the latters candidate would be president for half the 5 year term. The KC(M) violated this agreement by teaming up with the CPI(M) to defeat the Congress candidate. New Delhi, May 6 : In a sudden move, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday divested Kapil Mishra of his Water and Tourism and Culture portfolios, and is to induct AAP legislators Rajendra Pal Gautam and Kailash Gehlot in the cabinet. Gehlot, MLA from Najafgarh, and Gautam, MLA from Seema Puri, will be the two new faces to join the cabinet, a government source told IANS. "Since the situation of water supply was found not to be good during the municipal elections, and several MLAs also spoke about the same problem in their constituencies, so Kapil Mishra was removed from the post," the source added. "Gehlot has been brought in for outer Delhi's representation while Gautam was awarded the post for SC representation in the cabinet," the source added. Kejriwal conveyed his mind about the reshuffle when he retweeted a tweet from one his followers. "Big breaking from Delhi government, Kapil Mishra out of Kejriwal cabinet. Kailash Gehlot and Rajendra Gautam will be New Ministers," journalist Vikrant Yadav said in a tweet. Kejriwal immediately retweeted the post giving clear indications that the changes in his ministerial team were afoot. Mishra however told reporters that he received "no official communication yet" He also said that he had told the Chief Minister that he would not a delay in tanker scam report and would submit names of those who are involved in the delay to the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Later, in a tweet, he wondered if his ouster was linked to the exposure on the tanker scam which he was scheduled to make on Sunday. Mishra also took a jibe at Kejriwal and his ministerial colleagues like Satyendar Jain, saying that he did not favour any of his relatives or daughter. "I am the only minister with no corruption charges. No CBI enquiry against me. I did not favour any daughter or any relative. I exposed Shiela's (Dixit) corruption," Mishra said in a tweet. Jain, who holds the Health portfolio, was accused of nepotism charges in the appointments of his daughter Soumya Jain and Nikunj Agarwal, a relative of Kejriwal's wife, to government posts. Mishra also denied the speculation that he would join another party. "It (AAP) is my party. I will go nowhere and stay here (AAP)," Mishra said in another tweet. Lucknow, May 6 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Saturday expressed concern at the "rising caste and communal tension" in the state and blamed the ruling BJP's "communal agenda" as the reason behind frequent tension in the state. "There is no law and order in the state and people are now seeing the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," she said in a statement. She added that the fact that processions were being taken out without the requisite permission of the district authorities and efforts were being made to fan caste and communal tension were indicators that the Yogi Adityanath government in the state was rolling out its agenda of communalism. She also slammed the state government for making "tall promises and hollow announcements by its ministers while no work is taking place on the ground". The Dalit leader accused the government of failing to control criminals in the state. Lagos, May 7 : At least 82 of the more than 200 Chibok girls that were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 in Nigeria's northeastern Borno State have been released, a government source said. The source told Xinhua news agency late Saturday that the girls were released following a negotiations between the extremist group and the Nigerian government. "Yes, 82 girls are freed and they are due to fly to Abuja from Banki town in Borno State," Xinhua news agency quoted the source as saying. The release came barely a month after President Muhammadu Buhari said his administration has engaged local and international intermediaries in reaching out to Boko Haram for the release of the Chibok school girls in captivity. He said the government was in constant touch through negotiations and local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted people. He appealed to the parents and all Nigerians not to lose hope on the return of the remaining schoolgirls. More than 200 schools girls were seized by armed men who stormed their dormitories on the night of April 14, 2014, at the Girls Secondary School in Chibok. Some had managed to escape while others remained unaccounted for. Boko Haram has been blamed for the deaths of more than 20,000 people and displacing of 2.3 million others in Nigeria since their insurgency started in 2009. "Hairspray" at the Grand Theatre runs May 11 to June 3. Salt Lake Community Colleges Grand Theatre will host a production of Hairspray to close out its 2016-17 season. The musical will run May 11 to June 3. The 1950s are over and change is in the air. Hairspray, winner of eight Tony Awards including Best Musical, is a family-friendly show piled bouffant-high with laughter, romance and deliriously tuneful songs. Its 1962 in Baltimore, and the loveable, plus-size teen Tracy Turnblad has only one desire: to dance on the popular Corny Collins Show. When her dream comes true, Tracy is transformed from social outcast to sudden star. Tracy uses her newfound power to dethrone the reigning Teen Queen, win the affections of heartthrob Link Larkin and racially integrate a TV network, all without denting her do. Thomas Meehan and Mark ODonnell wrote the original book Hairspray. Marc Shaiman wrote the music and also the lyrics, along with Scott Wittman. The Grand Theatre production is under the direction of Jim Christian, with Ken Plain as musical director, Dee Dee Darby-Duffin as assistant musical director and Jessica Merrill as choreographer. Tickets are $8-$22 and are available at http://www.grandtheatrecompany.com. The landmark Grand Theatre is a 1,100-seat venue located at Salt Lake Community Colleges historic South City Campus, home of the innovative and state-of-the-industry Center for Arts and Media at 1575 South State Street in Salt Lake City. The theatre dates back to the 1930s when it was part of South High School, which SLCC purchased in 1989, a year after the school closed. The Grand Theatre began offering productions that year and has since with great care and expense retained its Depression-era charm and attraction while also incorporating the latest technology in lighting and sound. For the past three years it has been an official screening venue for the annual Sundance Film Festival. Every season the Grand is host to award-winning theatre and dance productions and concerts that attract arts enthusiasts from all along the Wasatch Front. Recent shifts in the industry have caused practice owners to face new challenges, but EarQ is ready for these challenges with innovative programs and evolved strategies From April 26-28, EarQ and Signia held an exclusive VIP training experience for EarQ members at the Signia Headquarters in Piscataway, New Jersey. This three-day event was designed to help practice owners learn how to position the value of their services, innovate their strategies, and communicate their purpose in an ever-evolving industry. For more than 15 years, EarQ has been invested in the independent practice due to the specialized patient care they provide. Today, the EarQ network expands to 1,400 independent provider locations across the country, and the company partners with five of the worlds leading hearing aid manufacturers, one of them being Signia. Recent shifts in the industry have caused practice owners to face new challenges, but EarQ is ready for these challenges with innovative programs and evolved strategies, says Clifford Carey, Vice President of Communications at EarQ. Our VIP events are one part of a bigger picture to keep the independent practice ahead. During the three days of training, practice owners learned about how they can utilize EarQs programs to differentiate their practices and connect with more patients. Industry-expert, Ron Gleitman, EarQs new vice president of sales and practice development, spoke about the EarQ private label, and how it helps to protect members from a number of industry concerns, including online hearing aid sales. Members also learned more about Signias new Bluetooth streaming optionssomething that is growing in importance as consumers become more tech-savvy. Additional EarQ VIP events are scheduled throughout the year. A full schedule from EarQ is available upon request. About EarQ: A prestigious nationwide network of independent hearing healthcare providers, EarQ utilizes innovative business and marketing practices as well as national public awareness efforts to advocate for excellence in the industry and patient care. Through its 1,400 hearing healthcare provider locations nationwide, EarQ helps provide greater access to quality hearing healthcare services and products. Pink Jeep Tours, the most trusted tour company in the American Southwest, is proud to announce their new affiliate program. Launched in January 2017, the program has already allowed Pink Jeep Tours to share its growing success with enrolled publishers. Pink Jeep Tours affiliate program allows its publishers to use approved Pink Jeep Tours banners, images, and links on their own websites. Clicking on these assets will take visitors to the Pink Jeep Tours website. Web traffic coming from affiliate partner sites is monitored, and any tours booked and taken from those sites will earn a commission for the publisher. Commission starts at 6% for completed tours with a 21-day referral window. Pink Jeep Tours also allows publishers to use non brand search engine marketing to promote Pink Jeep-related content. The company uses Commission Junction, the #1 affiliate network, to enroll and manage its publishers. Enrollment is very straightforward and the process can be started right from the Pink Jeep website (https://www.pinkjeeptours.com/affiliate-program/). With year-round, highly rated tours that appeal to all ages and groups, the affiliate program has already proven to be a great success for both Pink Jeep Tours and its publishers. Were pleased with the performance of the affiliate program and see it as an excellent channel for incremental growth, said Tim Miller, CEO of Pink Jeep Tours. Its part of our mission to bring the beauty and excitement of the American Southwest to life. For more information about the Pink Jeep Tours affiliate program, visit the web page listed above. ABOUT PINK ADVENTURE GROUP Founded in 1960 and based in Sedona, Arizona, Pink Adventure Group provides unique, unforgettable tour experiences to Sedona, Las Vegas, and the Grand Canyon, for visitors from around the world. With a fleet of over 150 cutting edge vehicles, it remains the only tour company with guide trainers certified by the National Association for Interpretation on its staff, and the only tour company to use the Smith System of Driving by all guides. I think that sometimes we define the crime genre too narrowly, says bestselling novelist Don Winslow, whose latest, The Force (Morrow, June), is a morally complex narrative that peers into the soul of contemporary America by exploring the life of one very corrupt cop. I mean, we talk about Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett, and Chester Himes, and all of these truly great people, but I think we also need to look at Dickens. For the past few decades, Winslow has produced an important and varied body of work in crime fiction. In his early cult classic detective novels, such as Edgar finalist A Cool Breeze on the Underground (St. Martins, 1991), his breakout book The Death and Life of Bobby Z (Knopf, 2001), and the baroque, exhaustively researched drug war epics The Power of the Dog (Knopf, 2005) and The Cartel (Knopf, 2015), Winslow has consistently followed his own muse. Oliver Stones 2012 film adaptation of Winslows Savages (Simon & Schuster, 2010) raised the authors profile, and The Force is currently being developed as a motion picture with James Mangold slated to direct. Several other Hollywood projects are in development, including The Winter of Frankie Machine (Knopf, 2006) and The Cartel (with Ridley Scott as director). In The Force, NYPD Det. Sgt. Denny Malone, the leader of an elite squad assigned to a crime-ridden precinct in uptown Manhattan, is the undisputed King of Manhattan North. His teams mission is to combat drugs, gangs, and guns, and theyve been given the freedom to dodge the rules and use unorthodox methods so long as they produce the desired results. Malone has gradually slipped over the edge, however, first by taking small payoffs and accepting favors, and ultimately by committing murder and seizing millions in drugs and money. As the novel unfolds, Malone finds himself under federal investigation and facing prison time unless he helps to indict certain high-profile figures. Meanwhile, recent police shootings of unarmed black men have brought racial tensions to a boiling point in New York City and across the country. Malones personal life has become complicated as well: his African-American girlfriend, Claudette, struggles with a heroin habit, opening a window for the detective to see firsthand the ravages of the drug hes spent his career fighting. An unflinching look at modern-day policing, corruption, racism, and addiction, The Force is the book Winslow says hes always wanted to write. I was very influenced by films and books like Serpico, The French Connection, and Prince of the City. They were some of the reasons I became a crime writer. I wanted to write about the current situation with police and inner-city communities. I wanted to write about these shootings. I wanted to write about systemic corruption. I wanted to look at the racial situation and say something about the current state of racism. During the course of researching The Force, Winslow spoke with hundreds of cops and gained an invaluable perspective on their world. Cops will talk to you about clean money and dirty money, he says. For most of police history, money from gambling, prostitution, and that kind of thing was clean, but money from drugs was considered dirty. More recently those lines have blurred a bit. But still, Id tell you that most cops would never take drug moneythey consider it dirtybut others dont feel that way. Drug money is a problem because theres so fucking much of it. Because The Force is set in contemporary New York City, 9/11 casts a long shadow. As Winslow explains, the rebuilding of the city, both literally and figuratively, produced unintended consequences, including a partial resurrection of the mob: What happened, in short, was that the NYPDand Im not being critical hereshifted so much of its focus from the mob to terrorism. When it did that, it took off some of its relentless pressure, and the mob started to make a recovery. The reader soon learns that Malones corruption, while profound, is fairly minor compared to that of the real players up at the top of the food chain. As one character says in the book, Organized crime only wishes it could be as organized as Congress. At the heart of Winslows The Power of the Dog and The Cartel is a blistering critique of the United States governments disastrous war on drugs. It is a theme that he returns to again in The Force, depicting the far-reaching consequences of the failed policy. I keep hammering away on that, you know, that the war on drugs has had so many destructive effects, and its had an extremely destructive effect on police forces, he says. Its made them into occupying armies in the inner city, and its raised the ceiling for corruption. Winslow, who lives in Southern California, argues in the novel that the unspoken goal imposed upon police in many inner cities is to contain crime, to keep it confined to poor minority areas and away from the more affluent, whiter neighborhoods. Sometimes I think its easyfrom our suburbs or whateverto condemn cops, and some of them deserve condemnation, no question about it, he says. And I think that we have, as a society, racial attitudes and preconceptions, and out-and-out racism at times, and then were surprised when that becomes reflected in police departments. Those preconceptions and attitudes are ours. Asked whether he thinks the current political climate has helped to bring these attitudes back out of the woodwork, Winslow replies, I think that maybe these thoughts have been validated again. Fellow novelists, such as Lee Child, have remarked upon the almost mythic quality of Winslows novels. Well, my earliest influence was ShakespeareI read Shakespeare incessantly as a kid, Winslow says. Listen, when Im thinking about starting a book I often go back to Aeschylus and Euripides and those guys. Without being pretentious, I think sometimes I do bring some of those more classical allusions to our genre. Asked whether he feels sympathetic toward his protagonist, Denny Malone, Winslow is quick to respond: Very much so. I think that he is a basically decent human being, and in classical literature the hero is a good person with a tragic flaw. Thats the definition of a tragic hero, whether its Achilles or Macbeth or whoever. I think Denny had that tragic flaw, and he slipped into that culture, that corruption. I think we need to rethink all of it, Winslow says. I think we need to rethink our ideas about what policing is and should be, I think we need to rethink our ideas about the criminal justice system as a whole, including the hysterically named corrections system. I mean, whats being corrected? Look, none of its working. Just ask yourself, whats the easiest place in the country to buy drugs? The answer is in prison. Patrick Millikin is a freelance writer in Phoenix, Ariz. Last Weeks Most Popular Reviews And the five most-read reviews on publishersweekly.com last week were... Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts Manhattan Beach Forest Dark Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama The Leavers From the Newsletters Tip Sheet Andy Boyle, author of Adulthood for Beginners: All the Life Secrets Nobody Bothered to Tell You, shares 10 tips for graduates, including, If something sucks, you dont have to keep doing it. Childrens Bookshelf How bestselling authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass ended up working together on Bob, their forthcoming collaboration about friendship. BookLife Report What writers need to know about envy. PW Preview for Librarians Librarians: want a sneak peek at each weeks starred reviews? Sign up and well send you highlights of the following weeks stars every Friday. Sign up for these and other great, free newsletters. Podcasts Week Ahead PW senior writer Andrew Albanese talks about his visit to the ALAs National Library Legislative Day in Washington, D.C., and breaks down an unusual lawsuit filed against Elsevier. More to Come Legendary comics writer Marv Wolfman talks about creating Cyborg (soon to be seen in the Justice League movie), working with Stan Lee, and other highlights from his long career in the comics biz. Blogs ShelfTalker With the Netflix adaptation of Jay Ashers 13 Reasons Why powering the book onto bestseller lists, one bookstore used its new prominence as the catalyst for a community discussion about teen suicide. PW Radio Yvette Johnson discusses her new book, The Song and the Silence: A Story about Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright. Reynolds Gets Seven Figures at S&S Coretta Scott King Awardwinner Jason Reynolds closed a seven-figure, four-book deal at Simon & Schuster. The North American rights agreement for the books, all currently untitled, was negotiated by Pippin Properties Elena Giovinazzo with Caitlyn Dlouhy, who acquired the works for her eponymous childrens imprint at S&S. Reynolds (Long Way Down) has won a number of awards for his YA and middle grade novels; in addition to multiple Coretta Scott King awards, he has a Walter Dean Myers Award and was a finalist for a National Book Award. Other Press Takes Gift In a world rights deal, Evan Fallenberg sold his third novel, The Parting Gift, to Judith Gurewich at Other Press. Fallenberg (Light Fell), whos won a few literary honors, including the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Literature, was represented by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic. Guinsler said The Parting Gift is a one-sided epistolary novel in which the unnamed letter writer tells a story of jealousy, obsession and terrible revenge meted out over the course of a recent stay in a seaside village in Israel. The novel is slated for September 2018. Morrison Gets Air with Abrams Maggie Lehrman at Abrams/Amulet took world English rights to Laurie Morrisons solo debut, Up for Air. (Morrisons novel Every Shiny Thing, which she cowrote with Cordelia Jensen, will be published by Abrams/Amulet in spring 2018.) Up for Air, scheduled for spring 2019, was sold by Sara Crowe at Pippin Properties; its about a 13-year-old girl who is a middling student but a star in the pool. The novels heroine, Crowe explained, is thrilled when she gets called up to the high school summer team and attracts the attention of an older boy. However, when she finds herself alienated from her closest friends, she has to figure out what her true strengths are and where she really fits. Finkel Nabs Taxonomy Abramss Erica Finkel took world English rights to Rachael Allens YA novel, A Taxonomy of Love. Upstart Crows Susan Hawk negotiated the deal while she was still at the Bent Agency; she said the title was pitched as One Day meets Ill Give You the Sun. It follows a boy with Tourettes syndrome who has a crush on his next-door neighbor, a girl who just happens to be dating his older brother. According to Hawk, the book is told through snapshots spanning seventh grade to the summer after senior year, as he tries to classify their changing relationship. Abrams has the book scheduled for a spring 2018 release. Graleys Glitch Goes to Graphix After a five-house auction, David Saylor and Cassandra Pelham at Scholastics Graphix imprint won world English rights to Sarah Graleys middle grade novel, Glitch. Steven Salpeter at Curtis Brown Ltd., who represented Graley, said the book is about a girl who can enter the world of her new video game, where she fights to take down an evil villain who is a threat to both her virtual and real worlds. The book, which will be simultaneously published in the U.K. by Scholastic UK, is Graleys middle grade debut. Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of Abrams/Amulet's Maggie Lehrman. And, due to agent error, the title of Laurie Morrison's book was incorrect; the book is called Up for Air, not Up in the Air. The novel is also scheduled for spring 2019, not spring 2018. Weighing the Options The #1 book in the country, with 103K hardcover copies sold, is Option B, by Lean In author and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Adam Grant, a Wharton School professor and the author of Originals. In 2015, Sandberg wrote a famously viral Facebook post one month after the death of her husband, in which she credited Grant with teaching her about resilience; their book is subtitled Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. First-week print unit sales for Option B, the biggest debut this year so far, beat those of either of the authors top-selling solo projects. (See all of this week's bestselling books.) A Tale Well Sold Hulus adaptation of The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood premiered April 26, catapulting the 1998 trade paperback edition, which had already been selling well this year, to the #7 position in the country overall, with double the print-unit sales of the previous week. The TV tie-in edition, which just missed our Trade Paperback list in its first week on sale, enjoyed a 137% increase in print-unit sales in its second week, landing at #8 on that list. Sometimes the Bad Guys Win Debuting at #6 in Childrens Frontlist Fiction, The Furball Strikes Back is the third Bad Guys chapter book from Australian author-illustrator Aaron Blabey, in which Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, and other notorious characters seek to rehabilitate their reputations. The series appears to be building an audience, with increasingly strong debut-week sales. New & Notable Anything Is Possible Elizabeth Strout #4 Hardcover Fiction Strout, who won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, revisits characters from 2016s My Name Is Lucy Barton in a powerful, sometimes shocking, often emotionally wrenching novel, per our starred review. Beartown Fredrik Backman #6 Hardcover Fiction The latest offering from the popular author (A Man Called Ove and others) veers close to the saccharine, our review said, but readers may be too spellbound to notice. The Operator Robert ONeill #3 Hardcover Nonfiction The highly decorated Navy SEAL, who, in the words of the subtitle, fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, recounts his childhood and military career. The Secrets of My Life Caitlyn Jenner #8 Hardcover Nonfiction The athlete and reality TV stars uneven tell-all autobiography, our review said, wont win over her critics, though her fans will appreciate this candid look into her life. Top 10 Overall Rank Title Author Imprint Units 1 Option B Sandberg/Grant Knopf 102,815 2 Golden Prey John Sandford Putnam 36,037 3 Make Your Bed William H. McRaven Grand Central 30,610 4 Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher Razorbill 30,430 5 The Fix David Baldacci Grand Central 25,583 6 Oh, the Places Youll Go! Dr. Seuss Random House 23,385 7 The Handmaids Tale Margaret Atwood Anchor 20,961 8 The Operator Robert ONeill Scribner 20,640 9 Everything, Everything Nicola Yoon Ember 19,120 10 The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware Scout 18,850 All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted. Indian Army apprehended a 12-year-old boy in Jammu and Kashmir after he crossed the Line of Control late Friday evening. By Ashwini Kumar: A 12-year-old boy was apprehended along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district. The boy entered Rajouri's Nowshera sector from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) Friday night and was detained by an Indian Army patrol unit. "A patrol of the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan- occupied Kashmir (PoK) who had crossed over to this side of LoC late last evening in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district", defence spokesman was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. advertisement The boy has been identified as Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, son of a retired soldier of Pakistan Army's Baluch Regiment, Hussain Malik. Malik is a resident of the Dunger Pel village in Bhimber district in PoK. Ashfaq was found moving suspiciously near the Line of Control and surrendered immediately on being challenged by the Indian Army patrol. According to a statement released by officials, the boy is believed to have been sent over by terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC. "In gross violation of human rights, the terrorists along with Pakistan Army have no compunction in using innocent children to probe through dangerous minefileds in a heavily militarised zone on the Line of Control to ascertain safe passage for the terrorists attempting to infiltrate," the statement said. "Such inhuman and ruthless acts show the desperation among the terrorists to stoop to low levels of unethical behaviour," the statement added. The boy has been handed over to Jammu and Kashmir Police for further investigation. (Story has been updated with a quote from a defence spokesperson) ALSO READ | Is Jammu and Kashmir India's most troubled state? It may also be the most pampered one ALSO READ | Jammu and Kashmir: Infiltration bid foiled in Kupwara's Keran sector, 4 terrorists killed ALSO WATCH | PoK boy apprehended by army from Nowshera area of Jammu and Kashmir --- ENDS --- CAMBRIDGE -- An Iowa City man allegedly found with more than 100 grams of cocaine in October unsuccessfully argued in Henry County Circuit Court on Friday that the search of his vehicle by police was illegal. Speaking on behalf of Frederick W. Rumble, 41, attorney Leah Patton, of Davenport, asked Judge Jeffrey O'Connor to suppress the evidence because the one gram of cannabis found on Mr. Rumble was only a civil violation and did not merit a search of the vehicle he was in. On Oct. 14, Mr. Rumble was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Timothy Sweeney on Interstate 80 going 74 miles per hour in a 70 mph zone. Troopers said they detected the scent of cannabis; a search found one gram of cannabis on Mr. Rumble in what appeared to be a plastic ziplocked cigar wrapper and 95 grams of crack cocaine and seven grams of powder cocaine in the vehicle. Mr. Rumble was charged with Class X felony possession with intent to deliver cocaine and Class 1 possession of cocaine. He remained in custody Friday on $200,000 bond. Citing a Massachusetts Supreme Court case from 2015, Ms. Patton said that possession of less than 10 grams of cannabis is just a civil law violation and, for a search, officers needed a criminal amount of marijuana. How is the officer supposed to know if it's a criminal amount or not a criminal amount if he's going on based on an odor? asked Judge O'Connor. You've described an obliteration of any search based on odor. Assistant Henry County State's Attorney Stephanie Barrick said a drug-detecting dog cannot indicate to a trooper how much narcotics is in a vehicle. She noted Master Sgt. Sweeney is coordinator for officer training on cannabis and his assisting officer that day, Sgt. Steve Ent, trains troopers working with K-9 dogs on drug detection. Judge O'Connor expressed skepticism the small amount of marijuana found on Mr. Rumble was what officers smelled. But he said he was confident they had smelled cannabis. I'm finding the smell of what turned out to be lingering raw cannabis was sufficient to establish probable cause," he said. He (an arresting officer) can't know the quantity in there," Judge O'Connor said. "It's a preposterous position." A pre-trial hearing was set for May 17. MILAN Nature's Treatment of Illinois wants people to know the options for medical cannabis available in Rock Island County. The facility at 973 Tech Drive, Milan, hosted an open forum this week to help people register for a medical cannabis card, learn about available resources and discover the various ways to use cannabis medically. About 20 people also heard about legal issues and how to avoid a strong high. "Local hospitals have a huge hold on what their doctors can and can't do," said Devon Gamboe, of Nature's Treatment. "And most doctors aren't 'arms wide open' because then they would have 60 people at their door the next day." Illinois lists 40 qualifying conditions for medical marijuana, including multiple sclerosis, cancer, Parkinson's and post traumatic stress disorder. Some potential patients said it's difficult to get a doctor to sign off on the form stating they have a qualifying condition, even though the doctor isn't actually prescribing cannabis. Mr. Gamboe estimates Nature's Treatment currently serves about 360 patients, most living within an hour of the Quad-Cities. The average customer spends about $160, he said, with the typical price per dose about $3. "We've seen a good percentage of our patients go off opiates and scream to us that they have their life back," he said with a smile. "It's controlling all symptoms with one plan, rather than multiple pills for multiple symptoms." Susan Brooks said she is considering if medical cannabis is a good option for her. "I don't want to be on pain pills," she said, explaining her problems began with a 1999 car accident in. "The pain gets worse as I get older, but I still need to find a doctor." Microdosing and edibles may be options for people who don't like the idea of getting a high or smoking medical cannabis, said Shannon Ballegeer of Nature's Treatment. Microdosing involves starting with small amounts 5 to 10 milligrams before working up to a dose and strain that eases a person's symptoms without creating a strong high. Edible products, she said, offer an option for people who do not want to smoke cannabis and are seeking a longer-lasting effect. "We have tons of products to choose from," Ms. Ballegeer said. "There's really no strain that works for everybody. It's a lot of trial and error." For more details on Nature's Treatment, visit ntillinois.com. On May 28, Republicans and Democrats compromised - to continue the status quo! The Congressional short-term funding bill, which avoids a government "shut-down," calls for $1.07 trillion in government spending. All those Americans who have wished for "compromise" and "more of the same," got what they wanted. Those Americans who voted for President Trump's platform -- to "drain the swamp" -- have been "given the bird" and told Mr. Trump's election counts for nothing. The bill provides no funding for President Trump's wall along the Mexican border. It continues to provide federal funds to sanctuary cities. It continues subsidies for both Obamacare and Planned Parenthood. The Americans who voted for President Trump should be furious. Republicans, and others who voted for President Trump, gave the Republicans a 54 to 46 majority in the Senate, a 238 to 193 majority in the House, and the presidency. The president needs 50 supporters in the Senate (plus the VP) and 216 in the House. Americans who elected Trump, elected Republican congressmen to support him; not to side with Democrats. So what are the Republican hacks in the House and Senate doing? Undermining the president's agenda. With these dolts in office, who needs a Democratic opposition? How many times during the last eight years did the Republican Congress vote to defund Obamacare, only to have former president Barack Obama veto their bill? Now that they have majorities in both Houses, plus a Republican president who would approve their Obamacare de-funding, they lack the guts to pass a simple de-funding bill. Why not dust off a de-funding bill that Obama vetoed and send it to President Trump? What grows clearer daily, is that feckless Republicans in the House and Senate who refuse to support the President's agenda, need to be sent packing - even at the risk of seeing their seats go to the Democrats. To borrow a phrase from Mrs. Clinton, if every (Republican in name only) RINO was replaced by a Democrat, "What difference would it make?" Do we really need Republican "denizens of the swamp" obstructing the president? Aren't the Democrats doing that job well enough? The RINOs give every appearance of fearing that if they vote to repeal Obamacare, all those on Obamacare -- most of whom wouldn't vote for a Republican if the Republican was their mother -- will vote against them. But if a repeal is bad, why did they vote for it during the Obama years? Political theater? If so, they deserve to be relegated to the scrap heap of history. As I watch this Republican theater of the absurd unfold, I feel as if I am watching a comic opera -- as if Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe is being staged in the halls of Congress, rather than Parliament. Did Private Willis not nail it?" "When in that house M.P.'s divide, If they've a brain or cerebellum, too. They've got to leave that brain outside, And vote just as their leaders, tell 'em to. But then the prospect of a lot of dull M.P.'s in close proximity All thinking for themselves, is what No man can face with equanimity." Trump won the election despite the opposition of the Democrats and many "establishment" Republicans. If the "establishment Republicans" think their party will prosper scuttling the Trump agenda, and doing nothing, they are nuts. If Trump abdicates leadership of the Republican Party to the Republican "denizens of the swamp," he will lose the support of the people who elected him. If he wants to see his agenda made law, he can't "lead from behind." Trump was elected by conservatives -- not liberals, not progressives, not RINOs. His base will support him only so long as he fairly and vigorously fights for what he promised during his campaign. He only has one choice, "drain the swamp" or be sucked into it. If he has to encourage primary fights to get the RINOs aboard, then so be it. The president's "friends" are not in Washington, D.C. They are in the states that gave him his 304 electoral votes. Republican Congressmen have a choice: support Trump's agenda, or lose your majorities. G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now! Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK The UK's research system relies on international researchers. More than a quarter of researchers in UK universities are from other countries, and more than a third of PhD students are from outside the UK. As Britain prepares to leave the European Union, it is crucial to understand how and why researchers move between countries. In early 2017, RAND Europe was commissioned by the Royal Society to conduct a literature review and a survey asking more than 1,200 UK academics about their mobility decisions. One stark finding was the pressure to be mobile to be successful in academiaan issue that has been discussed in the literature, but where empirical evidence has been limited. Our survey showed that most researchers, 79 per cent overall, reported feeling an expectation to be internationally mobile. Career development was the most commonly cited reason for international researchers to move to the UK and for UK researchers to move overseas. Previous studies have shown that mobile researchers do perform better academicallyin terms of the number and quality of research publications, and in terms of their networks. However, it is not clear whether mobility causes this stronger performance. Researchers who move between countries could become more productive because they gain access to new skills, knowledge and networks. On the other hand, researchers who move between countries could be more ambitious and career-focused, and therefore more likely to move to advance their careers. The survey also supported existing evidence that the potential career benefits from international mobility may come at a personal cost. People who chose not to move often did so for family and personal reasons, for example, difficulties with finding employment for a long-term partner. These findings suggest that academic culture may be at odds with personal and family lifeand these conflicting demands may limit the range of people who can progress in academia. Given this tension, despite the association of good academic outcomes with international mobility, there is definitely room for reflection in the research community about how mobility is regarded in funding and promotion decisions. The benefits of international mobility for the UK are clearer. UK institutions and science benefit from access to global research talent and hosting many international researchers. EU nationals make up a large proportion of non-UK nationals working in the UK, who often come to the UK as a prestigious place to develop their career and networks (similar to the stint in the US that many UK researchers undertake). The UK has also disproportionately benefited from EU research funding schemes, such as European Research Council grants and Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions. In the context of the UK's decision to leave the EU, these findings take on additional importance. Although the survey was not focused on Brexit, it did emerge as an area of concern for researchers. Respondents used the additional comments at the end of the survey to express such concerns from a professional and personal perspective. Professionally, international researchers based in the UK expressed uncertainty about the future of research and their profession post-Brexit and doubts about their financial security in the long term. Personally, international researchers reported feeling unwelcome in the UK through the perceived increase in xenophobia and the uncertainty around the rights of EU nationals to remain in the UK. These doubts could prompt some UK-based researchers to return home or follow partners abroad, and discourage other researchers from moving to the UK. However, not all respondents expected the vote to leave the EU to be detrimental to the UK research system. Some cited Switzerland as a prime example of a country where international researchers live and work, despite it not being part of the EU. Both our survey and the literature show that the UK hosts a large number of researchers from outside the EU. Furthermore, our survey data suggest that obtaining a visa does not pose a significant barrier to mobility. If the UK wants to maintain its place as a host for some of the best researchers from around the world, it should seek to remain an attractive destination in terms of the calibre and variety of its researchpeople usually move to advance their career, work with expert colleagues, and pursue interesting research topics. However, the UK should also think about how to best address some of the practical barriers identifiedsuch as finding decent accommodations and maintaining living standards. These are likely to be the deciding factors that determine whether the UK remains an enticing destination for the best and brightestwhether inside or outside the EU. Susan Guthrie is a research leader and Catie Lichten is an analyst, both at RAND Europe. They were involved in the study on international researcher mobility in the UK and beyond, which was commissioned by the Royal Society. This commentary originally appeared on Times Higher Education on May 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. Nia Sharma is seen sharing a lip lock with co-star Isha Sharma in the latest episode of her on-going web series Twisted. By India Today Web Desk: Jamai Raja actress Nia Sharma has been creating a lot of waves on the internet with her bold avatar. Currently, Nia is seen in Vikram Bhatt's erotic web series Twisted, where she plays the role of a supermodel, who's one of the prime suspects in a murder case. Nia Sharma and Isha Sharma sharing a kiss in a still from Vikram Bhatt's original web series Twisted. Picture courtesy: Youtube advertisement After creating waves with her hot Maldives pics, Nia is now grabbing eyeballs by sharing a lip lock with female co-star Isha Sharma, who plays Nia's friend Zara in the series. Her relationship with Zara (played by Isha Sharma) has come as one of the biggest shockers, as until now, she was shown to be in a relationship with business tycoon Ranbir Raichand (played by Namit Khanna). Post their lip lock, the duo are seen making out on the bed and the episode ends with the shocking twist. Also read: Jamai Raja actress Nia Sharma will be seen on this show next The web series revolves around the murder case of Naina Raichand, who's wife of industrialist Ranbir Raichand. Both Ranbir and Alia (Nia Sharma) are suspected of killing Naina, as they are in an extra-marital affair. CID doesn't want to take any chances, so they have bugged houses of both the suspects and they eventually get to know that Naina is in a relationship with her friend Zara, which has made the case all the more complicated. The show has taken an interesting turn with this twist and we just can't wait for the next episode. Watch the video here: --- ENDS --- Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Property details: This parcel of land is in Taney County, near Branson, Missouri. Branson, Missouri is one of America's top vacation destinations and hosts over seven million people each year! With over 100 shows, 200 lodging facilities and 400 restaurants, there is something for everyone in the family to enjoy! This lot is in the subdivision of Lake Taneycomo Woods, on beautiful Lake Taneycomo."Lake Taneycomo is one of the best, if not the very best, of all trout streams in the U.S."- Harold D. Eastman in "Trout... Price: $ 520 Seller State of Residence: Missouri State/Province: Missouri Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Location: 656**, Forsyth, Missouri You will be redirected to eBay Nearby Residential , We're sorry, this article is not currently available The actress was on the show to promote her upcoming film Meri Pyaari Bindu. By Indo-Asian News Service: Actress Parineeti Chopra, who promoted her forthcoming film Meri Pyaari Bindu on Nach Baliye 8, says she has been a fan of the celebrity dance reality show since childhood. "I have been a fan of Nach Baliye since childhood. I'm thrilled to see all the beautiful couples perform so well. And it is much appreciated that they manage their work along with rehearsals. They are all so talented," Parineeti said in a statement. advertisement Also read: Nach Baliye 8: Mona Lisa and Vikrant Singh Rajpoot OUT of the show Parineeti shakes a leg with Sonakshi, Ayushmann and Terrence on the show. Photo: Yogen Shah Parineeti was joined by her Meri Pyaari Bindu co-star Ayushmann Khurrana on the show, which features Sonakshi Sinha, Terence Lewis and Mohit Suri as judges. The episode, featuring Parineeti and Ayushmann, will be aired on Star Plus on Saturday. --- ENDS --- Ataturk and Nehru, two liberal secular modernisers, are in peril of being disowned by their successors, says Sunanda K-Datta Ray. Narendra Modi cannot but sympathise with the dilemma Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in India last week, faces. It was evident when Erdogan was jailed in 1998 for 'for inciting religious hatred' and 'threatening the Kemalist nature of Turkey, especially (its) secularity.' Kemal Ataturk was the founder of modern Turkey, the man who banished religion with the fez and sought to recreate his country in Europe's liberal image. Jawaharlal Nehru is his closest South Asian counterpart. 'History is bunk,' said Henry Ford. 'Cecil B DeMille rather against his will, was persuaded to leave Moses out of the Wars of the Roses,' someone else sang. But the burden of the past is sometimes inescapable. Sometimes it is selectively eulogised. No doubt welcoming speeches will make complimentary references to the Khilafat movement and Gandhi's regressive and opportunistic pact with the Ali brothers to save the caliphate. There won't be any references, however, to a scholar's recent discovery of a telegram authenticating that the Ottoman Turks did in fact butcher up to 1.5 million Armenians at the start of World War I. Not that it will make any difference to anyone here. India has never been strong on the human rights of other communities. Nor does India have a sense of history. As Kunwar Natwar Singh once said, India's sense is for eternity. In Nicosia last month I met the woman owner of an antiquarian bookshop whose face lit up when she learnt I was from Calcutta. "You see, I'm Armenian..." she began, and didn't have to say more. The Armenians have gone, but the memory survives, kept alive by names like Armenian Street here and Armanitala across the Padma in Dhaka. Rumer Godden's novel The Dark Horse pays tribute to the genius of Calcutta. Her 'Mr Leventine' was probably based on the great J C Galstaun, former owner of what is known as 'Nizam Palace' and Queen's Mansions and reputedly the only private person under whose roof the future King Edward VIII spent a night on his Indian tour. Today, there are probably fewer than a hundred Armenians left in India. Yet, the community claims a lineage that reaches back to Alexander the Great. A 17th century Armenian tombstone is Calcutta's oldest Christian monument. The Armenians provided one of the city's three rugby teams when I was a boy, most players being students of the Armenian College to which the Shah of Iran sent both students and money. All Saints Day, November 1, when Armenian boys at my school visited their family graves in candlelit procession, was always a memorable occasion. Armenians, like the Baghdadi Jews and the Chinese, belong to history as well as eternity. The two cannot always be separated. No doubt the Ottoman emperors were convinced they personified eternity. So did the Mughals or, as Deep K Datta-Ray calls them in his The Making of Indian Diplomacy: A Critique of Eurocentrism, the 'Indo-Mughals'. The book shows that despite linkages that are much older than the Khilafat movement, Ataturk and Nehru, India and Turkey haven't always been friends. In fact, whether or not Hindutva calls him 'Great,' Akbar 'went so far as to contemplate an anti-Ottoman alliance with the Portuguese, and dispatched an abortive diplomatic mission in 1582 to realise that goal.' Before being dumped on the rubbish heap of history, both dynasties left lessons for eternity. The Ottomans set an example of enlightened tolerance by sending ships to rescue Jews after Granada, Spain's last Moorish kingdom, fell. Turkey's commerce and arts flourished as a result. The Indo-Mughals, too, remind us in an age of narrow identity politics that this country has always favoured an ecumenical vision. They fell out with the Ottomans precisely because Indian Muslims deviated from Islamic orthodoxy. To quote The Making of Indian Diplomacy, the estrangement 'began when several women of (Akbar's) household and their companions departed for the Haj in 1575... Having been exposed to new climes, the Mughals were already behaving in ways that were considered by West Asian Muslims as contrary to the Sharia. Such blasphemous manners caused great consternation amongst the West Asians (and)... the Ottomans swiftly ordered the Indo-Mughals to be returned home.' The outraged Akbar stopped sending money... ties with the Sharif of Mecca, 'who had acted upon the Sultan's orders to expel the Indo-Mughals' were suspended. Akbar even had the sultan's envoy 'put in chains and banished to Lahore.' Ataturk and Nehru were heirs to that legacy: Two liberal secular modernisers in peril of being disowned by their successors. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Hyderabad House, April 30. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo DON'T MISS reading the features in the RELATED LINKS BELOW... The photo showing Angela Merkel's hair blurred out on Saudi state TV was actually a doctored one, created by a "sarcastic" Facebook page "for fun". By India Today Web Desk: How far is too far? That is a fair question that may come to one's mind when looking at the doctored viral picture of Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel. So, here's what happened. Merkel told the world that she won't cover her head during her trip to Saudi Arabia. It became a big news. advertisement Soon, a new picture popped up on social media. It showed Merkel standing next to King Salman with her hair blurred out. Speculation had it that the picture had appeared on Saudi Arabian state television. A copy of the picture was tweeted by "independent Lebanese self-described geopolitical commentator" Sarah Abdullah, which went on to be retweeted more than 20,000 times. "Not a joke," Abdallah wrote in her tweet. "The UN's newest member of the Women Rights Commission censored the German chancellor's hair when she appeared today on Saudi TV." More news articles came up. People from everywhere joined in on social media to express their anger and disgust against the sexist stance. Not a joke: The UN's newest member of the Women Rights Commission censored the German chancellor's hair when she appeared today on Saudi TV. pic.twitter.com/0QwDEArL5l- Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) May 4, 2017 BUT THEN, THE PICTURE TURNED OUT TO BE FAKE! A bit of research showed that the photo was actually a doctored one, created by a Facebook page called "Khase News." When they originally shared this image of Merkel's with her hair blurred out, the caption read, "Just for fun". They even clarified in the comment section that they were a "satirical page", and that the post was a joke, meant "just for fun". Speaking to iNews, a spokesperson for Khase News said that the post was nothing but a sarcastic dig. "The photo is criticising the fact that in Saudi it is forbidden for a woman to show her hair," said the spokesperson. "Yet when a powerful like Merkel comes, [the regime] does nothing about it." "Saudi Arabia is one the most oppressive regimes in the world and in the Middle East," they said. EVEN THE ORIGINAL PHOTO DIDN'T COME FROM SAUDI TV Reports have it that the original photo of Merkel standing next to King Salman did not come from Saudi state television either. The photo, along with a bunch of others, had come from the Saudi Royal Court. WAS MERKEL'S HAIR BLURRED ON SAUDI TV? advertisement No, not on this state-run television channel called Al Ekhbariya, which played Merkel's visit without blurring her hair. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VIRAL TWEET? It wasn't taken down. And it is still being retweeted. In response, Abdallah admitted on the thread that the picture was fake, but she added that "what isn't fake is the hypocrisy of electing Saudi Arabia to the Women's Rights Commission." This image has been confirmed as fake. However, what isn't fake is the hypocrisy of electing Saudi Arabia to the Women's Rights Commission!- Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) May 4, 2017 HOW DID PEOPLE REACT? People who pointed out that the picture was a fake one wasn't very happy with Abdallah's tweet How Islamophobia is spread via fake news. This is a classic example. This tweet has over 5000 RTs pic.twitter.com/lQSKHDlFyZ- Ninda Power (@brumbyOz) May 4, 2017 @sahouraxo Maybe delete it then? The RTs and likes won't help your brand, will cost you future earnings.- Rick Softball ?? (@RickPaulas) May 4, 2017 @sahouraxo Saudi's hypocrisy is well known, but I think you should take down a viral tweet that is fake rather than spread incorrect information please- Timothy E Kaldas (@tekaldas) May 4, 2017 advertisement --- ENDS --- In the wake of terrorists targeting banks in south Kashmir, cash transactions at nearly 40 branches in sensitive areas of Pulwama and Shopian districts in South Kashmir have been stopped. The step has been taken following an advisory issued by security agencies asking the banks operating in the two districts to stop cash deliveries at the branches located in these areas as they apprehend more such attacks. The cash transactions have been stopped at the branches belonging to the Jammu and Kashmir Bank and Ellaquai Dehati Bank, which were targeted by terrorists recently. A senior official of Jammu and Kashmir Bank said all other banking operations including ATM services would continue in these areas. "We were told that the security agencies have inputs about more such attacks, so we had to stop cash transactions at these branches designated by the security agencies as sensitive," he said. Other banking operations, including cashless transactions and ATM services, will continue to take place. Also, people in these areas can undertake cash transactions at other designated branches in the nearby areas, he said. The official said the move to stop cash transactions was temporary till effective measures are put in place to ensure safety and security of bank employees and assets. "We have discussed various measures for the safety and security of our employees as well as the cash. "We are putting those measures in place in the coming few days and once they are in place, cash transactions at these bank branches will be resumed," he said. Various measures like providing additional armed security guards at these branches and having bullet-proof cash-vans have been discussed, the official said. The advisory by the security agencies comes in the wake of a spurt in attacks on banks in south Kashmir. On May 1, militants attacked a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank and shot dead five policemen and two bank security guards in Damhal Hanji Pora area of Kulgam district in south Kashmir. Meanwhile, a special state-level bankers committee meeting was held here yesterday in which the issue was discussed. Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, who presided over the meeting, said there was a need to devise special security measures to deal with this kind of situation. "Surveillance is good but it cannot substitute physical security on ground," he said. The meeting unanimously called for revisiting the standard operating procedures for augmenting and upgrading physical security as well as ensuring safety of public life and property. The meeting was also attended by state Chief Secretary B B Vyas, Principal Secretary (Home) R K Goel and Director General of Police S P Vaid. Image: Security forces stand outside the cash van, which was looted by the terrorists. Photograph: Umar Ganie/Rediff.com The Chinese envoy recommends an early harvest on the border issue while maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas, reports Ajai Shukla. China's ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, has spelt out a four-step road map to implement a "long-term vision for China-India relations", that would reduce tensions at a time when Beijing has reacted strongly to the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking in New Delhi on Friday, Luo recommended Beijing and New Delhi "start negotiation on a China-India treaty of good neighbourliness and friendly cooperation." He highlighted how well the 1993 treaty for peace and tranquillity on the Sino-India Border had worked, but did not elaborate what exactly the new treaty would entail. He also recommended striving for "an early harvest on the border issue while maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas," aligning Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative with Indias Act East Policy, and restarting talks on a China-India Free Trade Agreement. In a startling suggestion, the Chinese government has never made publicly before, to break the logjam on border negotiations, the envoy suggested that the two sides agree to demarcate the Sino-Indian border in Sikkim. Until 2003, Beijing had not even recognised Sikkim as a part of India. The northeastern state was assimilated into India in 1974, angering China. Taking note of Indias objection to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which passes through Jammu and Kashmirs Gilgit-Baltistan area, which Pakistan currently controls, Luo proposed changing the name of the infrastructure corridor to accommodate New Delhis concerns. If Indian friends find the name of the CPEC improper, I personally think we could change it into the China-Pakistan-India Economic Corridor or South Asian Economic Corridor, said the envoy. Dismissing Indian apprehensions that China always puts Pakistan first, Luo said Beijing had changed its position on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute to accommodate Indian concerns. "(On Kashmir), we supported the relevant UN resolutions before 1990s. Then we supported a settlement through bilateral negotiation in line with the Simla Agreement. This is an example of China accommodating Indias concerns," he said. Former Indian foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal, points out that the mention of the Simla Agreement was significant, with Pakistan currently trying to walk away from the bilateral format and raising the Kashmir issue in the United Nations. The Simla Agreement stipulates that New Delhi and Islamabad would resolve all outstanding disputes bilaterally. Answering a question about why Beijing had reacted with unusual anger to the Dalai Lamas recent visit to Tawang, in Arunachal Pradesh -- which he had visited earlier in 2009 -- Luo stated: Both sides understand each others positions on so-called Arunachal Pradesh. But, for the first time since 1957, an Indian president met the Dalai Lama. President Pranab Mukherjee had received the Dalai Lama in December at Rashtrapati Bhawan, when the Tibetan Buddhist leader was invited to a childrens summit. Thirty years earlier, President R Venkatraman had received the Dalai Lama. And 31 years before that, in 1956, President Radhakrishnan had met the young Dalai Lama who was visiting India for a World Buddhist Conference. That was two years before the Dalai Lama became a Chinese bugbear when he fled from Lhasa, crossed into India near Tawang and was granted refuge by New Delhi. In the opinion of many analysts, this was a key cause for the 1962 war. The Chinese envoy was speaking at the United Services Institution, a military-linked think tank. In a little eatery somewhere in the south, a young man wields a ladle. He learnt how to cook during his stay in an observation home in Delhi. He is the fifth person who was involved in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in December 2016. He was a juvenile then, and served time in a remand home. He has turned over a new leaf. He has also taken up a new name, said an official from an NGO entrusted with his aftercare. Often portrayed as the most brutal face of that fateful nights violence, he is said to be oblivious of the latest developments in the case, one which numbed an entire nation and brought the young to the streets. We had to send him far away from the national capital so that people could not trace him, so that he could start a new life, the official said, adding that he was working as a cook somewhere in the southern coast. His employer does not know his actual name, and is not aware of his past. We have been shifting him from one place to another so that he doesnt come into anybodys notice, the NGO official, who did not wish to be named, said. The official, who was present during the proceedings at the Juvenile Justice Board that tried him, held the media responsible for projecting a bestial image of the then teenager without any basis. It is true that the juvenile has been found to be involved in the present case, but there is no evidence on record to show that he was the most brutal or that he had caused the maximum damage, a Juvenile Justice Board report had reportedly observed in 2013. Enakshi Ganguly, who runs the HAQ Centre for Child Rights, which counsels juvenile offenders on the invitation of courts and juvenile justice boards, said even the Investigating Officer in the case had recorded that there was no evidence to suggest the convict was the most brutal and vicious in the assault. The NGO official said he landed up by mere chance in the moving bus in which the woman was raped. Actually he had worked for Ram Singh (a convict who allegedly committed suicide in his cell in 2013) for some time and the latter owed him Rs 8,000. And the boy was consistently asking for his money back. That fateful night he had gone there to collect his money and became a part of the crime, he said. Weighed down by poverty, the juvenile had come to Delhi from his village in Uttar Pradesh after fleeing home as a small boy. At least 25-30 special units across India has been formed by the CBDT to implement its next action-plan against benami properties in India By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is all set with its special units to implement its next action-plan against benami properties in India. These special units are formed only to investigate and take action against all those individuals and entities related to undisclosed domestic and foreign properties. Sources within I-T department said that at least 25-30 special units in 16 regional/zonal offices, across India has been formed. advertisement Each unit will have four - five members, including 3-4 IT officers, one deputy commissioner and one additional commissioner. "Each unit would be headed by the additional commissioner. He would be reporting to the respective Director General (DG) in that city, who would be in coordination with CBDT chairperson on real time basis", the source said. It is less known, but the entire operation and the action details would be shared with Revenue Secretary (RS) and Prime Minister Office (PMO) too. In the first week of this month, after review meeting with IT officials, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked taxmen to take required steps against owners of benami properties. Few days back, a detailed notification on the formation of special units was circulated within the department. "It would take few more weeks. Required infrastructure, training and other facilities would be provided to these special officers. Hence, action would begin by the first week of June", the source said. As per the CBDT press release, till mid-February, the IT department had identified 235 benami properties. The main focus would be benami properties that include flats, apartments, bungalows, plots, bank accounts, jewelleries etc. In the public interest, the department had informed through advertisements in newspapers, warning that benami properties would get attached and confiscated with (optional) rigorous imprisonment of up to seven years. Post-demonetisation, the central government had already enacted the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, with a fine which may extend to 25 per cent of the market value of the benami property. Also Read Why experts believe Modi's crackdown on 'benami' properties will clean up real estate sector Modi's Mann Ki Baat: Law against benami properties to be implemented soon --- ENDS --- From 2-7 to sectional champs, Monrovia has one question: 'Why not us?' Data from Bengaluru police shows a massive spike in the number of molestation cases that have been reported in the last decade. At the same time, the conviction rate in the city, grappling with judicial delays, has stagnated at less than 1 per cent. By Indo-Asian News Service: In a decade to 2016, the incidents of molestation (under Section 354) reported in Bengaluru increased more than four-fold, statistics compiled by the city's Commissioner of Police show. Yet, according to our analysis of police data, of the 4,241 complaints filed between 2006 and 2016, the conviction rate was 0.37 per cent (16 cases). The number of complaints under under Section 354 (assault to outrage the modesty of a woman) rose from 150 in 2006 to 776 in 2016. Experts say this could be because of an increase in the number of incidents as well as greater willingness on the part of women to register complaints. advertisement This data project could serve as a template for how police in India's burgeoning cities can make sense of their crime data in public interest. Section 354 includes sexual harassment (354A), use of criminal force with intent to disrobe (354B), voyeurism (354C) and stalking (354D). The data obtained from the Bengaluru commissionerate group these offences under "molestation". MOLESTATION CASES SHOCK NATION Bengaluru entered 2017 with reports of mass molestation of women in the city's bustling MG Road and Brigade Road areas despite deployment of thousands of police personnel. The reports came as a shock to residents and for people across the country who believed the city to be safe for women. Kavya S., 24, was on her way to work when a stranger attacked her in public. "It was around 8:30 am in broad daylight, I was walking to work in Kormangala when a stranger grabbed me and tried to kiss me in front of dozens of people! No one came to my help but when I screamed and kicked him, they yelled at me and asked me to leave him," she recounted. Kavya immediately filed a complaint with the local police under Section 354, but did not pursue the case once she shifted her residence. "Police officials were very cooperative," she recalled, "but I couldn't follow up on the case as I had to shift my house and job." Cases such as Kavya's are increasingly common, although Bengaluru police say they are working to improve the law and order situation for women. "We have identified areas that are hotspots for crimes against women and launched 51 Pink Hoysalas (mobile units) that are dedicated to women. We have also launched an app called 'Suraksha' last week (April second week). Anyone can inform us if they are in danger and we would reach the spot in 10 minutes," S. Ravi, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), told IndiaSpend. JUSTICE DELAYED Bengaluru's criminal justice system is marred by delays, as with the rest of India's. Of the 4,241 molestation cases reported, 2,248 (53 per cent) are pending trial, according to data from the Bengaluru City Police Commissionerate. Among the cases tried, there have been 523 acquittals (12 per cent) and 16 convictions (0.37 per cent) -- even as the police consider 97 per cent of cases to be "true" after investigation. A decade earlier, the figure for "true" cases was 84 per cent, indicating more open-mindedness in dealing with women's complaints as well as better effort on the police's part to investigate. advertisement However, lawyers and activists believe the large proportion of acquittals is due to shoddy investigation. "In most crime against women cases, especially the molestation cases, the accused get acquitted or the cases are kept pending for years," Pramila Nesargi, a noted lawyer and a well-known women's rights activist, said. "The main reason for all these is the reluctance of police in getting proper evidence." Bengaluru's conviction rate for molestation is indicative of the larger problem nationwide. "Few women who survive sexual assault have a pathway to justice and recovery from their horror," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy, in a statement. The government needs to think from women's perspective, Rani Shetty, coordinator of Vanitha Sahayavani, a government agency that provides rescue and support services for women in distress, and operates from the office of the Commissioner of Police, told IndiaSpend. "I have met many victims of molestation whose cases have been pending for years. The legal system needs to be strong, there should be fast-track judgment for any cases related to women," she said. advertisement As per law, the police have to file a chargesheet within 90 days of a crime being reported. "[I]n most cases, they fail to do so, and this in turn affects the court proceedings," Ugrappa V.S., a member of the Karnataka Legislative Council and chairperson of the expert committee to prevent crimes against women and children, told IndiaSpend. THE DANGER OF DELAYS Judicial delays, which make it easy for the accused to get bail, can be extremely dangerous for victims of sexual assault. In one case, a Grade IX student was molested by her 25-year-old neighbour. Her family filed a Section 354 case at the Peenya police station and the accused was arrested immediately. On his release on bail within four months, he kidnapped the girl and raped her. He is back in jail now. "What happened to me shouldn't happen to any girl. He has to be punished," the girl told IndiaSpend. "If the police had taken strict action on his first crime, they could have prevented the second incident. Now he is in jail but he might do the same thing when he comes out," her father said. advertisement The city's burgeoning population, with a massive influx of immigrants, could be one of the factors behind molestation cases such as the one that took place on New Year's eve, former Lokayukta Justice (Retd) N. Santosh Hegde said speaking at a private college in the city in March 2017. The 2011 census had pegged Bangalore city's population at 84.4 lakh. By 2016, it had risen to more than 1.15 crore. "They come alone. They stay alone. And the manly desire is always there," he said at the discussion about immigrants, adding that the benefit of anonymity in an overcrowded city apparently emboldens them to pursue their pervert desires. He also cited a lack of morals as one of the reasons. By Elizabeth Mani for IndiaSpend.org ALSO READ | Bengaluru mass molestation issue been blown out of proportion, says Karnataka energy minister ALSO READ | Only 1 in 100 sexual assaults in Karnataka ends in conviction ALSO WATCH | Bengaluru shocker: Women partygoers assaulted, groped by unruly men on New Year's Eve --- ENDS --- When the girl was returning home, a young man caught the girl and kissed her twice on her cheek. Panchayat asked the youth to pay Rs 20,000 as compensation to the girl, which she has refused to accept. By India Today Web Desk: A young man was fined Rs 20,000 by a panchayat in Bihar. When the village court learnt the man had kissed a girl twice, he was slapped with the fine. The incident took place at Ibrahimpur village under Bakhari police station in Begusarai earlier this week. According to a media report, the girl was going back home from somewhere when the young man identified as Mohammad Irshad caught her and kissed her twice on her cheek. advertisement After the kiss, which was without her consent, the girl reported the matter to her parents. The parents took the matter to the panchayat and the village court was convened. The panchayat heard both the sides, and ultimately decided that the young man would have to pay the girl a compensation of Rs 20,000 as punishment. SOCIAL STIGMA When the verdict was passed, the young man's family hurriedly agreed to pay the fine, but the girl refused to take compensation. The girl instead remained adamant on marrying Mohammad Irshad to dodge the "social stigma". "He [the accused] has earned me much disrepute in the society and he will have to marry me," Gulf quoted the girl. "The boy will be free after paying the fine but who will marry me? The fine is just not acceptable to me." The young man has refused to marry the girl after which the girl's family registered a case of molestation against the youth. "We are aware of the incident and investigating the case. Suitable action will be taken after the investigation is over," a local official, Sunil Kumar told local media on Friday. Read More: Watch: Bihar liquor ban: Nitish Kumar leads longest human chain in support of prohibition, creates world record --- ENDS --- PULASKI The father of Noah Thomas is suing his former landlords and the maker of a septic tank lid, arguing theyre responsible for the dangerous environment that led to his 5-year-olds drowning in 2015. Meanwhile, Ashley White, the boys mother, is gearing up for a legal fight of her own as she appeals her criminal conviction for child abuse and neglect on the day Noah died. Noah went missing in March 2015, kicking off a four-day search that ended when his body was found inside a septic tank just 10 feet from his home where he was last seen alive. Paul Thomas filed the $5.3 million wrongful death civil suit on behalf of Noahs estate, claiming that he had stood on top of the buried septic tank the day he went missing. The Tuf-Tite brand lid, which covers an access hole for tank maintenance, was not securely attached. The lawsuit claims the lid rotated or swung open, causing Noah to fall inside. The suit claims the lid then continued to rotate and returned to its previous position, leaving no outward indication of Noahs whereabouts. The lawsuit lists Tuf-Tite, an Illinois-based septic tank accessory manufacturer, as well as property owners Gary and Sharon Meadows as defendants. The death has already been the subject of significant litigation, as both Paul Thomas and White have been found guilty of child neglect and abuse for leaving Noah and his infant sister unattended on two separate occasions on the day of the boys death. The first instance occurred when White drove Paul Thomas to work that morning. The children were safe when she returned. The second was when White took a nap after returning home. Prosecutors in Whites case presented evidence that it was while she slept that Noah wandered outside of the familys Dublin home and fell into the septic tank. White was eventually sentenced to serve one year and 11 months for abuse and neglect, while Paul Thomas was sentenced to 15 months. Both have since been released from custody, though White continues to appeal her conviction. A significant portion of Whites trial focused on the septic tank lid, which the mother testified she had seen Noah stand on top of in the past. She said she never thought it posed a danger. I wish I would have walked over there that day and touched it and knew it moved, White said with tear-filled eyes in court last year. The Tuf-Tite lid is a round piece of black plastic, about two feet in diameter, according to evidence photos. It sat flush with the ground on top of an opening to the tank. The lid wasnt attached with hinges and was designed to detach completely when removed. Photos show the words danger and do not enter embossed on top of the lid. There are also arrows labeled safety screw pointing to holes that were supposed to be used to fasten the cover down. All but one of those holes were empty when Noah was found inside the tank, and the one screw remaining wasnt attached to anything, according to testimony during Whites trial. The 2-pound cover easily popped off when a sheriffs deputy lightly kicked it, according to testimony. No other screws were found . Gary Meadows, the familys landlord, testified at Whites trial that he had not applied for a permit for repairs in 2014. If he had, a health department representative testified during Whites trial, the tank would have been inspected. That inspection never happened, according to testimony. According to Paul Thomas wrongful death complaint, Tuf-Tite sold a product that was defective and inherently dangerous. The complaint argues that the company should have known the safety screws were prone to becoming loose and that the device was not designed with any other locking mechanism . The suit claims Gary Meadows, meanwhile, is believed to be the last person to remove the septic tank lid, and therefore had the duty of safely replacing it. Gary and Sharon Meadows, Tuf-Tite and attorneys representing Paul Thomas could not immediately be reached for comment. The legal fallout from Noahs death also continues for White, who last year appealed her conviction. In February after White had finished serving her sentence the Virginia Court of Appeals agreed to consider Whites case. In March, her attorney submitted the formal appeal and last month, the Virginia Attorney Generals office, which will represent the prosecution in the appeal stage, filed a response arguing there was enough evidence to convict White, said Pulaski County Commonwealths Attorney Mike Fleenor. Before Walter Gaines III shot and killed his girlfriend Shaquenda Walker and her mother, police say a photo had circulated on social media of Walker with a gun to her head. These are signals, Richmond Police Sgt. Carol Adams said of domestic violence. These are not even red flags, they are explosions. The Feb. 16 deaths of Walker, 24, and her mother, Deborah Walker, 55, were the first two domestic killings in Richmond this year. Since then, the city has had two more, according to police, including the most recent slaying of Alejandra P. Estrada, 29, whose boyfriend Armando Ayala Guido, 30, told a 911 dispatcher that he strangled her in their apartment. But none of the four women slain in these incidents was assessed by a program that police created early last year to screen victims of domestic violence who are at high risk of being killed and connect them directly with services provided at the YWCA, a partner in the program. Police said theyd never had prior contact in terms of domestic issues with the women, or the men who killed them. The police-YWCA program, called the Lethality Assessment Protocol, was created last March in hopes of decreasing the homicide rate. Its too early to tell whether the protocol is having the desired effect, police and YWCA officials said. But during the first four months of last year, Richmond had seven domestic-related homicides compared with the four so far this year. It ended 2016 with just nine. While only accounting for a small portion of the 21 total homicides in Richmond this year, and nine of last years 61, one out of every three homicides nationwide is related to domestic violence, according to Linda Tissiere, CEO of the Richmond YWCA. Tissiere said the Greater Richmond Regional Hotline, which is operated by the YWCA, received 515 calls from police last year. Those are calls that we probably would not have received if police hadnt made contact. When police respond to a domestic-related call, they fill out a questionnaire, and if the victim measures in high danger, police call the hotline and then pass the call along to the victim. Out of those 515 contacts, 51 percent chose to connect with YWCA resources Tissiere said thats anything from placement in a shelter to crisis counseling. Its not so much the call volume, but the number of people who have received service, that to us is the measure of success, Tissiere said. Were reaching more people. The YWCA is now working to implement the protocol with Virginia Commonwealth University police. Tissiere couldnt estimate how many of the 253 remaining people potentially called back later, but at least an initial connection was made, she said. Previously, police left pamphlets with numbers to several different agencies with victims they came in contact with. The YWCA was but one of those numbers, said Lt. Don Davenport, a detective with the police departments Major Crimes unit. This made it a mandate that we are placing the phone call. Whether the victim speaks to the hotline representative or uses the services provided by the YWCA is another matter. Seeking help is a choice that the person has to make, Tissiere said. It is by no means mandatory. Davenport said the department has responded to about 988 domestic incidents since the program began on March 1, 2016. Of those, 466 were marked as high danger, meaning there is the potential for future violence or death, Davenport explained. Those cases are flagged within the police system as well as referred to the YWCA. Another 358 were non-high danger. About 164 people refused the survey or refused to speak to a hotline representative, or an error occurred with the screening. Neither Tissiere nor Davenport said they were surprised to find out that none of the four women killed this year had been assessed or had contact with police. Tissiere called domestic violence a silent epidemic that goes largely unreported. It doesnt mean that that was the first incident of violence, Tissiere said. It takes a survivor on average seven times to leave an abusive relationship, she said. Adams heads the Richmond Police Departments community care unit, which just received a federal grant to host a domestic violence forum in July at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, located just behind the Mosby Court-area apartment where Shaquenda Walkers children were found 24 hours after their mother and grandmother were shot to death. Shes also founder of the Carol Adams Foundation, which provides emergency assistance to women and children who are victims of domestic violence. Adams experienced violence within her own home. When she was 17, her father shot and killed her mother. The four Richmond deaths, as well as the 17 other homicides so far this year, should be a wake-up call, she said. Weve had children killed and women killed. Its a call to action. Were only in the (fifth) month of the year. Adams said the focus should be on prevention, rather than intervention. We have to stop waiting on intervention, she said. Citizens need to know that domestic violence is your business you could be saving a life. Adams said education is key, including teaching children what a healthy relationship looks like and letting friends and family know what to look for in terms of signs of abuse, which arent necessarily physical. Domestic violence is a community issue, she said, and everyone has to be part of the solution. If violence is learned in the household, its going to spill into the streets. As part of its expansion plans, the Bharatiya Janata Party will organise blood donation and blood testing camps at all block and district levels in Uttar Pradesh on August 14. The party then plans to prepare a detailed 'blood directory.' By Indo-Asian News Service: Blood is certainly thicker than everything else. But now, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looks to expand its footprint in Uttar Pradesh, especially in places where it is weak, the party is set to use blood as an important instrument to consolidate political loyalties. And so, as part of its expansion plans in the state, where it just romped home to power with a landslide, the party now intends to hold blood donation and blood testing camps at all block and district levels on August 14, on the eve of the country's 70th Independence Day. After this, a detailed 'blood directory' will be printed and kept available at the block level to give information of the availability of donors of different blood groups during medical and other emergencies. advertisement Confirming the move, state BJP General Secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak told IANS that a list of donors owing allegiance to the party would be made available at all government hospitals, primary and community health centres. Since stocking such a large number of blood donors - 100 units per block - was not possible, this will be an "on call" list for all future emergencies and need of blood, he added. BJP'S MEGA EXPANSION PLANS The blood listing drive is part of an expansion plan that the BJP is set to soon roll out. Party president Amit Shah has asked office-bearers to select dedicated full-timers on an honorary basis who will give their time and energy to take the BJP flag to places it has either no presence or poor infiltration. One-hundred-and-sixteen such "full timers" have been identified by the state unit for one year's service and 16 persons have been selected who would go to other states to spread the message of the BJP in the birth centenary year of its ideologue, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. "The idea is to ensure that after coming to power, the organisational structure keeps moving and is not rusted in the post-poll glory period," a senior minister told IANS. The party has also set a target of 20,000 such "expansion ambassadors" who will give a fortnight to the party every year. As many as 18,000 names have already been picked from the applications received by the party headquarters in Lucknow. From May 10 to 25, senior office bearers will spend a fortnight in such untouched sectors. QUEST FOR ABSOLUTE POWER The party has also prepared a list of 35-40 "key areas" of society which need to be tapped in its quest for further, complete and absolute power and reach. These include temples and monasteries, journalists, advocates, teachers, doctors, chartered accountants, NGOs and trade unions. A listing of such groups is under way and senior party leaders, from time to time, have been asked to interact with these groups for feedback on the functioning of both the state government of Yogi Adityanath and the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Other efforts to woo more supporters for the BJP include "jan kalyan sammelans" (public welfare conventions), wherein beneficiaries of various government schemes will be called between July 5 and 10; tree plantation at every booth between July 1 and 15; symposiums on the party ideology between July 26 and 31; and debates on "hot topics" like triple talaaq will be held by its minority frontal organisation. Amit Shah himself has allocated 95 days over the next one year to visit such places where the party is weak. advertisement Meetings of the district executive committee are being held for three days from Friday to take stock of the directives from the high command and an action plan made to roll out the new projects, a senior leader said. The saffron camp's quest for more power seems unquenchable for now. By Mohit Dubey WATCH: Exclusive - Opposition should stop 'bayanbaazi' and start working, says Amit Shah ALSO READ: Did PMO decide UP's CM before election results? Yogi Adityanath reveals how he was chosen Yogi Adityanath at Panchayat Aaj Tak: Everyone will feel safe in Uttar Pradesh in 100 days Opposition should stop bayanbaazi and start working, BJP will get a huge mandate in 2019: Amit Shah to India Today --- ENDS --- Forty-three people have been indicted for allegedly being part of a cigarette trafficking network that resold an estimated $30 million of Virginia cigarettes on the black market, Henrico County police said Friday. The network used falsified documents to create 29 fictitious businesses in the Richmond area, which allowed them to make large bulk purchases of tax-exempt cigarettes so they could be resold out of state for a substantial profit, police said. Investigators said traffickers in the network would go to big-box stores to buy cigarettes before sending them up to northern localities such as New York City, where high taxes make illicit smokes a relative bargain. Henrico Police Chief Humberto Cardounel said cigarette traffickers operate a cash-based business that exchanges thousands of dollars and leads to other related crimes, such as fraud, thefts, robberies, shootings and assaults. Cigarette trafficking is not just about the cigarettes, Cardounel said. Its about the associated crime it brings to our community. About 600,000 cartons of cigarettes, worth more than $30 million, were purchased in Virginia, according to Henrico police. They were bought mostly in Henrico and other parts of the Richmond area to be resold on the black market, police said. The value of those cigarettes almost doubles in some of our northeastern states, said Mike Palkovics, Henricos deputy chief of investigative operations. The investigation started in 2016 amid complaints from citizens and business owners about suspicious activity, police said. A total of 743 indictments were brought against the 43 defendants. The charges accuse them of cigarette trafficking, embezzlement and fraudulent purchase of cigarettes, said Shannon Taylor, Henrico commonwealths attorney. What is incredible about this current investigation and prosecution is the volume and the number of individuals who are going to be involved, Taylor said. Most of the suspects are originally from the northwest African country of Mauritania, and some are from Morocco, Egypt and Iraq, said Henrico police detective Robert Matson. Some of the proceeds from the network went to buy high-end vehicles, but its unclear what much of the money was used for, Matson said. Just a week before Fridays news conference at the Henrico County Public Safety Training Building, Gov. Terry McAuliffe held a signing ceremony in the same building for a new state law that aims to crack down on cigarette traffickers. That law creates a system where people who want to purchase cigarettes for resale have to get a special certificate from the Virginia Department of Taxation, a provision that will go into effect in January. The law also creates various requirements regarding who can get that certificate. Purchasers have to wait at least 30 days before obtaining a certificate and, during that time, state officials conduct a background check on the potential cigarettes purchaser. The aim is to ensure that only legitimate businesses can get certificates needed to buy cigarettes in bulk from big-box stores. More than 20 agencies contributed to the investigation, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the FBI; the Internal Revenue Service; and the U.S. Department of State. In addition to Henrico, law enforcement authorities in Richmond, Chesterfield, Hanover and Colonial Heights took part in the investigation as did the Virginia State Police. Nineteen of the suspects have been arrested, but the rest remain at large, police said. Most of the defendants have been living in Henrico, Matson said. The county is no stranger to cigarette trafficking cases. Prosecutors say that in a case thats not related to the one announced Friday, a Henrico couple led a trafficking operation that moved massive quantities of cigarettes purchased in Virginia up north. President Pranab Mukherjee offered prayers at the Badrinath temple in Uttarakhand. His visit comes a couple of days after Prime Minister Naredra Modi visited the famous shrine to offer his obeisance. By India Today Web Desk: President Pranab Mukherjee today offered prayers at Badrinath, the last of the Char Dham shrines to be opened this year. Elaborate security arrangements were made for the President's visit. On May 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers at Kedarnath. Every year, the Char Dham open in April/May after 6-month winter break, attracting thousands of devotees. advertisement This year Gangotri and Yamunotri were opened on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya, while the doors to Kedarnath were opened on Wednesday. And Badrinath was opened for devotees early today morning and will remain functional till Vijayadasmi on September 30, 2017 --- ENDS --- Business News Crews Battling Fire At Virginia Beach Business | RobinsPost News & Noticias It happened around 5:25 p.m. on Barten Court, according to the Virginia Beach Fire Department. When crews got to the scene, they found flames coming from the front door and foyer of a two-story home. Read More When crews arrived the house was fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters worked for over an hour to put the fire out. The fire was marked under control at 2:19 a.m., after it severely damaged both ... Read More Gerald Einhorn owns Geralds Ice Cream Bar in the Hilltop Shopping Center in Virginia Beach. He said he is getting ... Crittenden suggests small business owners offer flexible schedules which ... Read More After a nationwide search to find Virginia Beachs next fire chief, the city found its man in-house. Kenneth Pravetz, who has served in Virginia Beach for ... Read More VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) A Virginia Beach Fire Department employee is accused of possessing and distributing more than 100 images of child pornography over the instant messaging app Kik. Read More the community and business owners. But multiple managers also said many people came out this weekend, which gives them hope to bounce back. On Sunday, the Virginia Beach Oceanfront didnt seem ... Read More KANAWHA COUNTY, WV (WOWK)-Crews are on the scene of a large brush fire in the Sissonville area ... For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOWK 13 News. Read More UPDATE: According to Fairfax Fire and Rescue ... The situation is currently stable and crews are waiting for the presiding gas company to shut off the gas. Virginia state trooper injured in ... Read More Photo courtesy Stihl Inc. Virginia Beach-based chainsaw and outdoor power equipment manufacturer ... Stihl Inc. President and CEO Terry Horan said in a statement. Hirsch has a business administration ... Read More Virginia Beach is No. 8 among top cities for military members transitioning to civilian life and No. 5 for retired veterans, according to a Navy Federal Credit Union survey. Read More VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. Just a few weeks before Election ... then you would be a cheerleader for bringing in businesses where their specialties are groceries. When you live it every day, then ... Read More Virginia is often ranked as a top, if not the top, state for business. With so much potential unfolding, it makes perfect sense to want to set up a limited liability company (LLC) in the state. Read More Business News Ohio 98 Year Old Starts Consulting Business | RobinsPost News & Noticias If you want to start ... business happening here, said Roger Riddle, founder of Roger Riddle Consulting Limited. Ohio lost a big chunk of its manufacturing economy over the years, so this ... Read More Whether youre in between jobs or looking to make a change, learning how to start a consulting business is the first step to making great use of your skills. In return, you can create a ... Read More The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, fresh off the state's big wins that include Intel's $20 billion investment in Licking County and Honda's $3.5 billion battery plant in Fayette County, has laid out an ... Read More The tightly-contested Senate race in Ohio has cast renewed light on a 10-year-old's alleged rape and subsequent ... Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital. Read More On a Sunday in May, 70-year-old pastor Joe Mlaker presided ... But just two weeks later, he decided to start an interior painting business. He began taking on work in July and generated more ... Read More Fall is in full swing and the city of progress is celebrating. Patrons in the mall say they witnessed an argument in the food court, which could have possibly led to the shooting. Reigning Miss ... Read More COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) A trial date has been set for a man who has been accused of impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl. Gerson Fuentes, 27, faces two charges of raping a minor under 13 after ... Read More (WTRF) An Ohio woman pleaded guilty in U.S. District ... along with her significant other, 37-year-old Robert Gemienhardt. He pleaded guilty to related offenses on Sept. 30 and awaits sentencing. Read More KNOX TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WKBN) Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating a one vehicle crash that killed an 11-year-old in Knox Township Sunday night. The crash happened just before 9 p.m. on ... Read More The situation surrounding Ohio ... year. "I suspect the winning suppliers will make so much more money because of how scared everyone else is," Brakey said. "So I expect this SSO increase to be a ... Read More COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) A 19-year-old Miami University student is running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, campaigning on bipartisanship and an end to extremism. Thanks for ... Read More CINCINNATI, Ohio A 3-year-old boy was killed Sunday after he was shot by a gun that had been left out,, leading to the arrest of the boys father. WLWT Channel 5 reports a police report does ... Read More Economy News Winston Ma On China S Mobile Economy | RobinsPost News & Noticias China's new growth goals require a change for attracting foreign investors, official says Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC ... Read More China has retained its strict zero-COVID policy despite ... The Washington Post or Bloomberg News. Rather, we focus on discussions related to local stories by our own staff. You can read more about ... Read More Chinese premier Xi Jinping might have cemented his power in China, but dreams of dominating the global economy could soon come to a screeching halt. Over the last half century the Chinese economy ... Read More Chinas economic growth accelerated in the latest ... For the first nine months of the year, growth was 3% over a year earlier. A news conference to announce the figures last week during a ... Read More Kate Linebaugh: On Sunday, China's top leaders ... weaken the private economy is wrong." But one prominent business leader spoke out against the government's actions. Jack Ma, the co-founder ... Read More When Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago, China had just overtaken Japan to become the worlds second largest economy. It has grown at a phenomenal pace since then. With an average annual ... Read More The delay in announcing routine growth data this week was only the latest example of how hard it has become to peer into Chinas economy ... was quickly undercut by news of the delayed release ... Read More China has essentially reached the peak of its growth period, much of it fueled by debt. The result is theyll have difficulty unless he wants to reform the economy and he has no plans to do ... Read More China said its economy grew 3.9 percent in ... higher priority than maintaining robust growth. That could be bad news for an economy that has already been dragged down by official policies such ... Read More Health News As Rainy Season Starts Un Health Agency Warns Of Cholera Outbreak In Drought Hit Somalia | RobinsPost News & Noticias "Unfortunately, we anticipated this would be a rough influenza season," said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, deputy public health officer for the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency ... Read More United Nations ... to avoid the health and economic fallout of non-communicable diseases," Andrea Feigl, CEO and founder of the Health Finance Institute, told CBS News. "Physical activity ... Read More Malawi is asking the UN for more cholera ... rainy season, which typically starts in November, could make matters worse. A health ministry spokesman told local newspaper The Nation yesterday the ... Read More Pervasive drought after a fifth consecutive failed rainy season has ... "Today in Somalia, every single minute of every single day, a child is admitted to a health facility for treatment of ... Read More The World Food Program warned Friday it is only a matter of time before Somalia is hit with a full-blown famine and people start dying in droves. The United Nations food agency said it has been ... Read More The outbreak in the economically devastated country, which has left at least five dead, is the first since 1993. Health officials ... on Wednesday, the UN agency and partners that include UNICEF ... Read More Since 2020, the rainy season has ... affected by the drought, and the UN estimates that around 200,000 are at severe risk of famine. When people speak of the crisis facing Somalia today ... Read More Recent localized heavy rainfall has helped alleviate drought in ... Kahoolawe as wet season began this month across Hawaii, the National Weather Service said. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER ... Read More Addis Ababa: The UN Office ... a measles outbreak. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) recently indicated that the latest cholera outbreak is drought ... Read More Geneva The World Food Program warned Friday it is only a matter of time before Somalia is hit with a full-blown famine and people start dying in droves. The United Nations food agency said it ... Read More The flu and similar viruses are notably higher in Georgia, New York City, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Washington D.C., the agency said. Usually flu season ... 55. Health News // 3 days ... Read More Politics News California Politics Updates Every Single House Republican From California Voted For Obamacare Repeal | RobinsPost News & Noticias With five days until Election Day, President Biden is campaigning in New Mexico and California. Election officials are warning of widening efforts to intimidate voters. Read More Fossil of one of the last dinosaurs thought to have walked the Earth before being wiped out by the impact of an asteroid has been found in a mine in Morocco. By India Today Web Desk: Look what we have found - fossil belonging to one of the last dinosaurs which trod Earth before they went extinct. The fossil of one of the last dinosaurs believed to have walked the Earth before being smashed and wiped out by the furious impact of a giant asteroid has been found in a phosphate mine in northern Morocco, North Africa. advertisement DISCOVERY OF THE FOSSIL The incredible discovery has helped researchers understand life of dinosaurs in Africa at the end of the Cretaceuous period (a time when the first flowering plants appeared and at the end of which dinosaurs died out), 66 million years ago according to a study of the fossil conducted by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath in the UK. "It's an incredibly rare find - almost like winning the lottery. But the phosphate mines are so rich, it's like buying a million lottery tickets, so we actually have a chance to find rare dinosaurs like this one," RT quoted lead researcher Dr Nick Longrich. The fossil - a jaw bone fragment - was discovered in phosphate mines at Sidi Chennane in the Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco, and was identified as belonging to one of the 'abelisaur' group. Behold the name of this Mr Dino - called Chenanisaurus barbaricus, the newly discovered dinosaur stood on two legs and had short and thick arms. Chenanisaurus barbaricus bore a resemblance to the tyrannosaurus rex or better known as T rex, and other tyrannosaurs. A moving and walking model of Tyrannosaurs Rex is seen during a press preview of the new exhibit It was one of the largest abelisaurids, and one of the youngest known African dinosaurs, according to the study. Scientists concluded that the species, like tyrannosaurs, too was a predator. The team analysed the teeth from the fossil and further determined that they were worn from biting into bone. REMARKABLE FIND The latest fossil find is remarkable as in Morocco, no other dinosaur fossils from this time period have been spotted. "It may even be the first dinosaur named from the end-Cretaceous in Africa. It's also one of the last dinosaurs in Africa before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs," RT quoted Longrich. "It's an exciting find because it shows just how different the fauna was in the Southern hemisphere at this time." The fossil find is remarkable as no other dinosaur fossils from this time period in Morocco have been spotted. advertisement "It may even be the first dinosaur named from the end-Cretaceous in Africa. It's also one of the last dinosaurs in Africa before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs," Longrich said. "It's an exciting find because it shows just how different the fauna was in the Southern hemisphere at this time." Read More Mummified remains of 99-million-year-old dinosaur bird wings found encased in amber Watch: Deadly python swallows man, police cuts open snake's stomach to retrieve his body --- ENDS --- Elections News Algeria Ruling Coalition Wins Legislative Elections | RobinsPost News & Noticias A total of 18 persons are contesting for the post of PA member from Parsa-1 A for the election. The ruling coalition's candidate Ansari said he was confident about securing a win this time around ... Read More A party formed only six months ahead of the legislative ... But the impressive win fell short of a majority that would have ended the era of unstable coalition politics in the country. Read More Stay with Local 5 throughout election night to see results for statewide races, including the races for state auditor, secretary of agriculture and more. Read More While Congress and NCP leaders, without offering precise figures, claimed that the Gram Panchayat elections ... the coalition tally to 299. Maharashtra Leader of the Opposition in the ... Read More Now Matekane must find a coalition ... ruling All Basotho Convention which did not win a single seat of the 80 directly elected but did get eight proportional representation seats. In the last ... Read More For the purposes of this table, House refers to a states lower legislative chamber. *The Alaska state House is controlled by a coalition ... divided government this election cycle. Read More The Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has won all six seats that were contested in national assembly by-elections over the weekend, stunning Prime Minister ... Read More which helps explain why union-backed candidates win about 70 percent of competitive school board races. One way to blunt that edge is by putting hot-button issues at the center of elections ... Read More We've got the data for it: tens of thousands of interviews in our CBS News polling over the year where people have expressed themselves and how they see politics. Here's what we learned from it ... Read More Wade and President Bidens string of summer legislative wins could be waning ... "After the Dobbs ruling, the Kansas referendum and several special election victories, the focus had shifted ... Read More We have not decided who will be prime minister because the prime minister candidate is only relevant if we win, Mahathir told a news ... in the ruling coalition. The Election Commission ... Read More Some Republicans, who are expected to retain their control of the state legislature, are looking to transfer at least parts of election oversight to the secretary of state if Loudenbeck wins and ... Read More Elections News Early Local Elections Voting For Security Forces Says Commission | RobinsPost News & Noticias US midterm election will be held on Nov. 8, but early voting is already underway and candidates are making their closing arguments. Follow CNN for the latest election news and updates. Read More Ahead of Tuesdays Midterm Elections, GOP and Democrat candidates make the final stops on the campaign trail to pitch to voters. Read More Even in a county where Trump won more than 70% of the 2020 vote, local election deniers have mounted a campaign to access voting machines and slash the elections director's pay. Read More Republican officials and candidates in at least three battleground states are pushing to disqualify thousands of mail ballots after urging their own supporters to vote on Election Day, in what critics ... Read More The Nov. 8 general election is one week away. Follow our live coverage to get the latest news on the 2022 midterm elections. Read More Dominion faces the most intense opposition because the company has featured prominently in right-wing theories alleging its equipment flipped votes from Trump to Biden in 2020. In all, Dominion has ... Read More A senior official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the agency is aware of a handful of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that briefly impacted a ... Read More From election equipment to ballot counting and storage, Texas elections officials follow a long list of laws and procedures to ensure free and fair elections. They are also working increasingly long ... Read More Four Phoenix City Council seats and Peoria mayor are among the local contests in the Nov. 8 election. Here's a rundown of city and town races. Read More Attorney called ruling from conservative justice our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by 6 January follow all the latest news ... Read More Nonsensical claims about systemic vote-rigging have overshadowed a more useful and long-running debate about legitimate issues with U.S. voting systems, tech experts say. Read More Potus News Us Threatens War With Russia As Trump To Park Warships Near North Korea | RobinsPost News & Noticias Donald Trump warned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict could morph into World War III and that the United States should be urging for peace between the two countries. What Happened ... Read More Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. How serious are those threats? Is the United States prepared to respond in the face of a nuclear attack? And what role do China and ... Read More The Ukraine war has boosted the Russia-North ... military forces," a veiled reference to the United States and NATO. Both Russia and North Korea view the U.S. as their mortal adversary, with ... Read More Former US president Donald Trump called for an immediate and "peaceful end" to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war which started following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February. Speaking at a "Save ... Read More WASHINGTON (AP) - A majority of U.S. adults expect America's relations with foreign adversaries like Russia and North Korea to grow ... Crucially, the United States own sharply divided domestic ... Read More has actually declared it is part of the war. The U.S. has provided US$17.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But it can be difficult to ... Read More The Russian military has had to rely on Iran and North Korea for military gear amid the sanctions, Yellen noted. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says Russia's war against Ukraine has weakened its ... Read More Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, addressed President Emmanuel Macron's recent suggestion that France would not act in kind if Russia ... the ongoing war in Ukraine. Read More Former US president ... Mr Trump said the Biden administration should be pushing Russia and Ukraine to sue for peace warning the conflict could be heading toward World War III, according ... Read More Potus News Trump And Putin Discuss Syria And North Korea | RobinsPost News & Noticias The U.S. and South Korea are jointly warning North Korea that use of any kind of nuclear weapon against Seoul or other regional allies would result in the end of ... Read More Travel News Washington State Travel Alerts | RobinsPost News & Noticias KING 5 has activated First Alert for this weather event, which could affect lives, property or travel in the Pacific Northwest region. Read More A serious injury is involved, the State Road 80 westbound lanes are blocked and traffic is heavily congested in the area. Please avoid if possible or approach with caution. 7:38 A.M. Traffic ... Read More A 52-year-old Western Washington man died and two others were taken to the hospital after a two-vehicle crash Tuesday morning 9 miles south of Chewelah. Read More Heading into the general election Tuesday, Lincoln and Ferry counties have indicated no interest in reinstalling the device. Read More "Don't wait until the last minute: Travel insurance is intended to protect travelers against sudden and unforeseen events," the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking in Washington ... Read More Oregon State Police found 83 pounds of suspected cocaine and a firearm during a traffic stop on I-5 after being alerted by a drug detection K9. Read More Oregon State Police found 83 pounds of suspected cocaine and a firearm during a traffic stop on I-5 after being alerted by a drug detection K9. Read More backing up traffic for commuters in the Tacoma area. Washington State Department of Transportation Peter Talbot covers crime and breaking news in Pierce County. He started with The News Tribune in ... Read More The instant traffic ... news" in the lock screen summary, although some publishers share breaking news without explicitly using the term in the alert. Publishers such as Metro, Washington Post ... Read More Through this deal, you can fly from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood ... How to book: Directly through Plays website. Travel dates: Oct. 1 through Dec. 10; dates vary by destination. Read More Travel News The Bay Area Is The Largest Contributor To California S Travel Industry | RobinsPost News & Noticias Commute times in the San Francisco Bay Area have ... new U.S. Census data shows. San Franciscans who commute to work had an average of 6.4 minutes shaved off their daily travel time in 2021 ... Read More The report found that the Golden State is about to pass Germany to become the fourth largest economy in the world. However, some economists say that's both good and bad news. "California is not ... Read More Youve been reading for years that companies are fleeing California, putting the Golden States economy in peril. However, new analysis suggests that Californias financial ... Read More The area is about 40 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco. The earthquake was the largest the Bay Area had experienced ... shaking started through Californias earthquake early warning ... Read More a city in the Bay Area is one of the safest in the nation. Fremont, California was ranked the 17th safest city according to the study with a safety score of 79.98. Fremont came in 10th place when ... Read More A 5.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Californias Bay ... in the area to be ready for more earthquakes and called the shake notable. The tremor was the largest in the Bay Area since ... Read More Some HMOs serve Bay Area members but do not have local offices. Information was obtained from the California Department of Managed Health Care, organization representatives and websites. Read More Homes in the Bay ... s tech industry to cash out a piece of their sizable investment portfolios and buy a home. Year over year, San Mateo County saw the largest price drop of any core Bay Area ... Read More On April 24, 25 CRPF personnel, belonging to 74th battalion, were killed in a Maoist ambush while patrolling in Burkapal area of the Sukma district By Press Trust of India: As many as 19 Naxalites, nine of them allegedly involved in the deadly attack on CRPF personnel last week, were on Saturday arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, police said. Of the nine Naxalites who were allegedly involved in the Burkapal attack, six were rounded up from Chintagufa police station area while three others from Chintalnar police station limits, Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla said. advertisement Around a dozen suspects were rounded up?during joint search operations by the Central Reserve Police Force, the CoBRA and the district force in Chintalnar, Chintagufa and Burkapal areas of Sukma for questioning, he said. "During interrogation, nine of them admitted to their involvement in the attack following which they were arrested today," he said. Those arrested were identified as Sodhi Linga (30), Sodhi Muda (45), Podiam Joga (38), Madkam Bheema (18), Rava Aayta (20) and Madkam Somdu (34) from Chintagufa, Vetti Malla (26), Muchaki Nanda (39) and Madvi Kosa (40) from Chintalnar, the ASP said, adding they all were active as members of Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisaan Mazdoor Sangthan (DAKMS)- a frontal wing of the Maoists. In a separate action, 10 janmilitia members of the Maoists were on Saturday arrested from Kukanar police station area by a composite squad of the CRPF, the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and the district force, he said. The 10 were allegedly involved in torching two trucks and opening fire at a police patrolling party in Kukanar area between Jagdalapur and Sukma on National Highway 30 on February 26, he said. All the nineteen ultras were produced before a court in Dantewada district which sent them in judicial remand, the officer added. On April 24, 25 CRPF personnel, belonging to 74th battalion, were killed in a Maoist ambush while patrolling in Burkapal area of the Sukma district. Also Read: Sukma Maoist attack: Two Naxal commanders were killed by CRPF jawans Sukma attack: 25 CRPF jawans killed, worst Naxal attack in years Also Watch: CRPF nabs 4 Maoists involved in Sukma attack that killed 25 jawans --- ENDS --- Travel News Azerbaijan And Me A Week Travel Log In Azerbaijan Part 3 | RobinsPost News & Noticias It also happens to be one of Azerbaijan's hiking hot spots, with numerous routes snaking off into the Greater Caucasus Mountains. That's why CNN Travel ventured ... mountain part of Azerbaijan's ... Read More A TRAVEL expert has revealed the two days of the week you should always fly on to ... as it avoids the "rush hour" of travellers during the main part of the day. Not only are early flights less ... Read More A travel expert has shared the best days of the week to fly if you want to get a bargain price and avoid chaos at the airport. The world of plane ticket pricing is a wild and confusing one ... Read More Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced Wednesday he would travel ... Azerbaijan have fought two wars for control of Nagorno-Karabakh over the past three decades. The second war, a six ... Read More That cumulative repository would not be able to be mined by anyone else but if a company said I am good at making use of this on your behalf would give me ... PART 1: Can Self-Sovereign Identity ... Read More In the heart of northeastern Azerbaijan, a cluster of centuries-old stone dwellings cling to a hilltop surrounded by some of the South Caucasus country's highest mountains. Steeped in history and ... Read More It also happens to be one of Azerbaijans hiking hot spots, with numerous routes snaking off into the Greater Caucasus Mountains. Thats why CNN Travel ... high-mountain part of Azerbaijan ... Read More Travel News Budget Travel Current Avenue To Cuba Is A Cruise | RobinsPost News & Noticias We know COVID-19 is continuing to impact your travel plans. Should you travel now, be sure to familiarize yourself with the CDC's latest guidance on domestic and international travel as well as local ... Read More The country already welcomes a large amount of tourism from other parts of the world, and even before the news, American interest in traveling to Cuba ... Travel, which offers small ship cruise ... Read More What should us budget-conscious travelers do? Throw up our hands and party like Argentines? Know how travel prices have been changing Its easy to talk about travel inflation like its s ... Read More Four Seasons became the latest ... cruise lines] figure things out," he said. "My job is to assure my clients' desires are exceeded, not frustrated." Steve Orens, president of Plaza Travel ... Read More Other cheap travel destinations ... can retire on a budget or which tech stock to invest in, youll find the answers on GOBankingRates. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on the ... Read More Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings told investors this month that it expects direct consumer sales to surpass bookings from travel advisors ... has led to the current environment, Tolkin said, but ... Read More You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Cruise ship emergencies are a rare occurrence, although they do still happen, which is why safety is paramount onboard. Despite this, a former cruise ... Read More Editor's Note Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel's weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and ... Read More "Before you travel, consider getting travel insurance to cover yourself in case delays, accidents, or illness occur on your trip. Your current medical insurance may not cover care in another country. Read More Travel News Washington State Travel Alerts | RobinsPost News & Noticias KING 5 has activated First Alert for this weather event, which could affect lives, property or travel in the Pacific Northwest region. Read More A serious injury is involved, the State Road 80 westbound lanes are blocked and traffic is heavily congested in the area. Please avoid if possible or approach with caution. 7:38 A.M. Traffic ... Read More A 52-year-old Western Washington man died and two others were taken to the hospital after a two-vehicle crash Tuesday morning 9 miles south of Chewelah. Read More Heading into the general election Tuesday, Lincoln and Ferry counties have indicated no interest in reinstalling the device. Read More Russian-speaking hackers picked a new target to overwhelm: airport websites and the travel sector. The hacking collective Killnet that flooded state government websites with traffic last week took ... Read More "Don't wait until the last minute: Travel insurance is intended to protect travelers against sudden and unforeseen events," the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking in Washington ... Read More Oregon State Police found 83 pounds of suspected cocaine and a firearm during a traffic stop on I-5 after being alerted by a drug detection K9. Read More Oregon State Police found 83 pounds of suspected cocaine and a firearm during a traffic stop on I-5 after being alerted by a drug detection K9. Read More The instant traffic ... news" in the lock screen summary, although some publishers share breaking news without explicitly using the term in the alert. Publishers such as Metro, Washington Post ... Read More Through this deal, you can fly from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood ... How to book: Directly through Plays website. Travel dates: Oct. 1 through Dec. 10; dates vary by destination. Read More Travel News Travel Exploring The Galapagos Islands And Ecuador S Capital Quito | RobinsPost News & Noticias Most tourists get to Galapagos via a flight to the capital city of Quito or take a cruise. If you decide to visit the Galapagos Islands, you must take a tour around Quito; its a fantastic ... Read More The Galapagos islands ... capital of Quito, I was a guest of Casa Gangotena, a beautifully refurbished mansion with 31 rooms overlooking Plaza San Francisco. Its the perfect place to explore ... Read More If you have extra time, Galapagos Islands Snorkeling & Diving is worthwhile ... Travelers visit this isolated strip of Santa Cruz Island's southern coastline for some quality face time with ... Read More In a world where unique has ceased to mean much, the word remains worthwhile when applied to the Galapagos Islands there ... jumping on a bike. Times Travel has partnered with Tourhub ... Read More This article contains links from which we may earn revenue. These links are signposted with an asterisk. More information here. Ecuador is one of the most geographically diverse countries on the ... Read More Quito has spaces and activities that invite visitors to learn about biodiversity and promote the conservation of the areas natural heritage ... The capital of Ecuador offers places, traditions ... Read More On embarking, Marvi had also requested that for simplicity, we keep our clocks on Quito time, one hour ahead of Galapagos, where we'd spent our first day exploring the city's fascinating historic ... Read More Thats significant ... off Ecuador, millions of years ago. And there they stayed, evolving to raise chicks up to three times a year on rocky islands hot enough to fry an egg. Galapagos penguins ... Read More After depleting the seas closer to home, Chinas deep-water fishing fleet ... hundreds of ships have gathered near the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador, where they are resupplied ... Read More Its an ideal place for the whole family to admire the largest exhibition of live reptiles and amphibians in Ecuador. The Maquipucuna Reserve Quito is ... on offer in the Capital of the Middle ... Read More New research shows that a cold equatorial ocean current -- which provides a buffer for the Galapagos Islands against ... stronger for decades. It's encouraging news, and another reason to ... Read More Us News North Korea Condemns Us Test Launch Of Icbm | RobinsPost News & Noticias The US condemned what it said was the test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by North Korea on Thursday, as Pyongyang continued a barrage of weapons tests to protest allied military ... Read More North Korea continued to launch missiles on Thursday, drawing condemnation from the U.S. and others. The Japanese government issued evacuation orders because of an ICBM launch. Read More The US has strongly condemned North Korea's test of an Intercontinental ballistic missile.National Security Counc ... Read More North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile is "illegal and destabilizing," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday. Read More North Korea fired at least six missiles into the sea on Thursday, including an intercontinental ballistic missile that triggered evacuation warnings and halted trains in northern Japan, adding to a ... Read More North Korea's suspected launch of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) failed on Thursday morning, according to a South Korean government source, as Pyongyang intensified its ... Read More The United States urged all nations to enforce sanctions on North Korea, saying it violated UN Security Council resolutions with a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Read More VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS COMMENDS US ... ICBM tests," Klinck told Fox News. "If they repeat that cycle, that is an escalation and a provocation." BIDEN ADMIN CONDEMNS NORTH KOREA MISSILE ... Read More The United States will ... called the launch reckless. The firing, which followed a recent series of launches by North Korea, is a reckless act and I strongly condemn it, Kishida ... Read More Washington: The US condemned what it said was the test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by North Korea on Thursday ... the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unidentified ... Read More Us News North Korea Accuses Us South Korea Of Assassination Attempt | RobinsPost News & Noticias The US and South Korea jointly warned North Korea yesterday that use of any kind of nuclear weapon against Seoul or other regional allies would result in the end of Kim Jong Uns regime, as Pyongyang ... Read More South Korea said it scrambled warplanes in response to 180 North Korean military flights near the countries' shared border on Friday, and Pyongyang again demanded that the United States and South ... Read More North Korea on Tuesday warned the United States of a powerful response should joint military exercises with South Korea continue. North Koreas foreign ministry said in a ... Read More The U.S. and South Korea jointly warned North Korea on Thursday that use of any kind of nuclear weapon against Seoul or other regional allies would result in the end of Kim Jong ... Read More Earlier, North Koreas state news ... drills by South Korean and US forces. The launches, part of the Norths record-breaking run of weapons tests this year, were seen as an attempt by leader ... Read More A senior leader from Imran Khans party said the former prime minister accused of Shehbaz Sharif of being behind the assassination attempt against him, as Khans supporters went out across Pakistan in ... Read More Officials from the United States and its Asian allies Japan and South ... North Korea's new nuclear policy is creating a serious tension on the Korean Peninsula, Cho told a joint news ... Read More The U.S. and South Korean militaries conducted a joint river-crossing drill Wednesday, the latest exercise in a large-scale operation designed to counter North ... name in news delivered first ... Read More The North Korean launches, part of its record-breaking run of weapons tests this year, were seen as an attempt ... strengthen South Koreas defense in partnership with the United States and ... Read More Washington and its allies believe North Korea ... South Korean First Vice-Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong told a news conference in Tokyo. Mr Cho was speaking alongside his Japanese and US ... Read More Pakistani police on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into a failed assassination attempt on former prime minister Imran Khan and said just one shooter was involved. Read More Us News Pakistan S Ambassador Meets Us National Security Adviser | RobinsPost News & Noticias Pakistan summoned the US ambassador to the country ... As far as the question of the safety and security of Pakistans nuclear assets are concerned, we meet all each and every ... Read More Pakistans foreign minister says that the US ambassador to the country has ... with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Moreover, last month ... Read More Pakistans foreign minister summoned the US ambassador ... they meet each and every international standard in accordance with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] as far as security ... Read More US officials have also acknowledged Pakistans desire to maintain its close ... that has existed over decades, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in Washington when ... Read More US Ambassador ... that Pakistan's nuclear assets "meet each and every international standard in accordance with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as far as security and safety is ... Read More The Iraqi Foreign Minister had announced last Tuesday in the meeting of Iraqi parliament members that a delegation from that country headed by the National Security Advisor would travel to Iran and ... Read More Rejecting Biden's comments, Bilawal said Pakistan was following the global standards. "As far as the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear assets are concerned, we meet all, each and every ... Read More As far as the question of the safety and security of Pakistans nuclear assets are concerned, we meet ... the U.S. ambassador would negatively affect relations with the United States, and ... Read More KARACHI: Pakistan's foreign minister said on Saturday (Oct 15) he had summoned the US ambassador ... the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear assets are concerned, we meet all each ... Read More Us News Us Russia Discuss Efforts To De Escalate Conflict In Syria | RobinsPost News & Noticias Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and the United States. U.S. and Russian forces operate in close proximity in northern Syria, and maintain a deconfliction channel to avoid inadvertent conflict between ... Read More While Russia has no intention of striking us with nuclear weapons ... making him more likely to overreact rather than de-escalate the conflict. He believes he cannot afford to lose, as Russia ... Read More Russia's Shoigu Warns of 'Uncontrolled Escalation' in Ukraine Conflict (Reuters) - Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told his French counterpart in a telephone call on Sunday that the ... Read More Top officials from 30 countries are scheduled to meet next week with senior US sanctions and intelligence ... continues to escalate its efforts to strangle Russias military industrial complex. Read More The U.S. says it sees no indication Russia is preparing to ... bomb would be a justification for an escalation in the conflict, a U.S. official told ABC News. Over the weekend, in an unprecedented ... Read More LONDON British Chief of Defence Staff Tony Radakin rejected Russias allegations that Ukraine is planning actions to escalate the conflict in ... and to facilitate de-escalation, the ... Read More India stands ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalation. India has consistently maintained since the beginning of the conflict ... that Russia is trying to destroy us ... Read More Russias defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, makes calls with UK, US, French and Turkish counterparts ... was planning to escalate the conflict. The defence secretary refuted these claims ... Read More Letter signed by 30 leftwing representatives from puts pressure on US ... escalation, we believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged ... Read More Two key trading partners of Russia renewed calls ... would offer support for efforts to calm the fighting. India is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including ... Read More India today said it is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and is ready to support de-escalation efforts ... Ukraine's army said Russia has launched 84 cruise missiles ... Read More Us News International Swimmers Cross Us Mexico Border Via Pacific Ocean To Support Migrants | RobinsPost News & Noticias U.S. Border Patrol agents launched pepper balls at a group of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande in El Paso ... Read More The border wall snaking along the US-Mexican border was built to keep migrants out -- but conservationists ... activists from the United States and Mexico have joined forces to try to protect ... Read More Venezuelan migrants hoping to enter the United States from Mexico on Friday protested ... country while deporting all those who cross the southern border illegally. In Matamoros, a Mexican city ... Read More At least nine migrants drowned and dozens of others were rescued after attempting to cross the Rio Grande river from Mexico into the United States, officials said Saturday. US Customs and Border ... Read More REUTERS Its unclear how US officials arrived at the number of 24,000 Venezuelan migrants who will be allowed entry via air travel. Mexico ... attempt to cross the southern border of the United ... Read More US border authorities ... back to Mexico. Administration officials have cited that as reason for a recent drop in border crossings by Venezuelan migrants. For more CNN news and newsletters create ... Read More Hundreds of Venezuelan Migrants ... to the U.S.-Mexico border where hundreds of others are stranded following a deal to expel Venezuelan migrants crossing into the United States. Read More "They lied to us ... in Mexico. Despite the new increased use of Title 42, illegal crossings do not appear to be slowing down, with Fox News border team seeing more than 500 migrants cross ... Read More Homeland Security said Venezuelans who cross the border ... told us nothing, but we thought everything was normal when we realized were on the (international) bridge to be returned to Mexico ... Read More "The news hit us like ... Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports, while Mexico agreed to take back Venezuelans who come to the U.S. over land. Venezuelans who walk or swim across the border will ... Read More TAPACHULA, Mexico: Hundreds of migrants set off from Mexico's southern border early on Friday (Oct 14) on a northward journey to the US-Mexico border ... acquire permits to cross the country. Read More US border authorities encountered more than 2 million migrants ... cross at least once before in the last 12 months. Last week, the administration also began to expel Venezuelans back to Mexico. Read More Us News Us Uk Say Boko Haram Wants To Kidnap Foreigners In Nigeria | RobinsPost News & Noticias US and UK Warn of Possible Attack in Nigeria's Capital LAGOS (Reuters) - The United States and Britain on Sunday warned of a possible terrorist attack in Nigeria's federal capital Abuja ... Read More Security forces in Niger have killed five suspected members of the jihadist group Boko Haram in an operation to rescue eight people recently abducted in the town of Maldjori, one of whom was killed ... Read More It is a sight Ya Lewa Aji says she can never forget: a baby strapped to her mother's back, shot dead while the mother lay lifeless on the floor. Now, after nearly a decade living in refugee camps, Aji ... Read More Its framing of the case, however, failed to offer a nuanced picture of realities in Nigeria. The violence of Boko Haram in the ... may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More Somewhere in a Boko Haram stronghold ... It is no exaggeration to say that life has been sucked out of northern Nigeria by the enemies of the country who want their flawed and faltering theocracy ... Read More Defence secretary Michael Fallon says British force will increase from 125 to 300 to provide training and act in advisory role The UK is to more than double its deployment of British forces to ... Read More She argues that is is "only through a robust engagement with the tragedy of terrorism in northern Nigeria ... as Boko Haram also murdered boys and men, while kidnapping girls and women. Read More These Boko Haram ... kidnapped and continues to detain the IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in solitary confinement with other IPOB members unjustly. The Government of Nigeria is telling us ... Read More The State Department has ordered the families of U.S. embassy staffers in the Nigerian capital to leave due to heightened fears of a terrorist attack. Read More In 2009 a once quiet local Salafi group called Boko Haram became increasingly violent in north-east Nigeria and border ... who may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More Traffic passes through intersecting roads in Nigeria's capital Abuja, File. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde LAGOS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The United States and Britain on Sunday warned of a possible terrorist ... Read More In 2009, a once quiet local Salafi group called Boko Haram became increasingly violent in northeast Nigeria and border ... who may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More A five-storey building collapsed in West Delhi's Inderpuri area injuring at least five people. The area has been cordoned off and relief and rescue teams have arrived at the spot. By India Today Web Desk: A 5-storey building collapsed in West Delhi's Inderpuri area today morning injuring at least five people. Photos of the site show the tilted building resting dangerously on an another building inside a narrow lane. The owner of the collapsed building has been arrested. Relief and rescue teams are on the spot. The area has been cordoned off to prevent more damage. advertisement It appears that the building collapsed due to low grade construction material. More details awaited. ALSO READ: 67 killed, 130 injured in Delhi building collapse Kanpur: Under-construction building collapses in Jajmau, 7 killed --- ENDS --- Us News Us Most Advanced Warplanes Roar Over Wisconsin In Exercise | RobinsPost News & Noticias Ford, the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier is now on its first ... The carrier and its strike group will exercise with eight other nations. "We already know all of this stuff works, and ... Read More The ship is the first of the Ford-class aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered hangars-and-runways that serve as the centerpiece of the US Navys fleets ... with the most recent of that class ... Read More A new poll reveals that Americans lack confidence in the current state of democracy in the United States, just weeks before ... Blitzer is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics and ... Read More While tensions are high between the United States and Russia over ... aircraft in the area -- which is close to the country's far eastern border -- are relatively frequent. wd/bgs The Barron's ... Read More Senators make appeal to EPA after series of Guardian articles revealed that communities of color often face high lead levels US legislators ... the city with the most lead pipes in the nation. Read More Thanks to extensive conservation work and recently discovered populations, Georgias state reptile is no longer a candidate for protection in the bulk of its range: Florida, south Georgia, most ... Read More The third-largest maintenance workers union opposed the deal, saying concerns over paid time off remained unaddressed The USs third-largest railroad union rejected a deal with employers ... Read More Us News Us Uk Say Boko Haram Wants To Kidnap Foreigners In Nigeria | RobinsPost News & Noticias US and UK Warn of Possible Attack in Nigeria's Capital LAGOS (Reuters) - The United States and Britain on Sunday warned of a possible terrorist attack in Nigeria's federal capital Abuja ... Read More Security forces in Niger have killed five suspected members of the jihadist group Boko Haram in an operation to rescue eight people recently abducted in the town of Maldjori, one of whom was killed ... Read More It is a sight Ya Lewa Aji says she can never forget: a baby strapped to her mother's back, shot dead while the mother lay lifeless on the floor. Now, after nearly a decade living in refugee camps, Aji ... Read More Its framing of the case, however, failed to offer a nuanced picture of realities in Nigeria. The violence of Boko Haram in the ... may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More Somewhere in a Boko Haram stronghold ... It is no exaggeration to say that life has been sucked out of northern Nigeria by the enemies of the country who want their flawed and faltering theocracy ... Read More The US and the UK have issued a stark warning over the risk of terror attacks in Nigeria, with the US embassy in Abuja telling people to avoid all non-essential ... Read More Defence secretary Michael Fallon says British force will increase from 125 to 300 to provide training and act in advisory role The UK is to more than double its deployment of British forces to ... Read More She argues that is is "only through a robust engagement with the tragedy of terrorism in northern Nigeria ... as Boko Haram also murdered boys and men, while kidnapping girls and women. Read More These Boko Haram ... kidnapped and continues to detain the IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in solitary confinement with other IPOB members unjustly. The Government of Nigeria is telling us ... Read More In 2009 a once quiet local Salafi group called Boko Haram became increasingly violent in north-east Nigeria and border ... who may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More Traffic passes through intersecting roads in Nigeria's capital Abuja, File. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde LAGOS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The United States and Britain on Sunday warned of a possible terrorist ... Read More In 2009, a once quiet local Salafi group called Boko Haram became increasingly violent in northeast Nigeria and border ... who may not be telling us exactly what we want to hear. Read More Us News Pentagon The Us Will Continue Its Flights In Syria Including Over Security Zones Established By Russia | RobinsPost News & Noticias Air attacks have struck eastern Syria along the Iraqi border, hitting Iran-backed fighters and inflicting casualties, a Syrian war monitor, Iranian state television and Iraqi paramilitary officers ... Read More Russia has drawn down forces in Syria, including removing ... On Wednesday Defense Minister Benny Gantz stressed that while Israel will continue its support for Ukraine over the invasion ... Read More A new U.S. defense strategy says China remains the greatest security challenge for the United States despite Russias ongoing war in Ukraine. It says the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S ... Read More (MENAFN) In response to NATO's ongoing "Steadfast Noon" nuclear drills, the Pentagon has revealed that Russia officially notified United States authorities of its plan to undertake yearly ... Read More Special envoy of the Iranian President for Afghanistan says that the US and its allies are the cause of instability in the region. Read More WASHINGTON Defense Secretary ... security problems with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP [The US] condemns Russia strikes on civilian and ... Read More The US has already committed eight NASAMS to Ukraine including the two being accelerated, according to Pentagon ... continue the war. Later on Monday the top US spy chief said Russia has been ... Read More The agency will, however, continue its policy of reviewing cases if new evidence emerges, he added. The Pentagons new action ... civilian deaths in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Read More This is Defense & National Security ... to ensure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself and liberate territory that Russia has captured during the war, noting its counteroffensives that ... Read More China remains the greatest security challenge for the U.S. despite Russias war in Ukraine, and the threat from Beijing will determine how the U.S. military is equipped and shaped for the future, ... Read More Us News Sahara Us Renews Support For Autonomy Under Morocco S Sovereignty | RobinsPost News & Noticias The U.N. Security Council called for a revival of U.N-led negotiations on the disputed Western Sahara in a resolution adopted Thursday that expressed deep concern The vote was 13-0 with Russia and ... Read More Rabat controls nearly 80 percent of the region and is pushing for autonomy under ... US president Donald Trump recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the kingdom's ... Read More A photo on news site le360 appears to show Ivanka Trump sitting on a beach in the city of Dakhla. Under President Trump, the US ... support for Morocco's autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara. Read More Belgium has described as a good basis Moroccos autonomy plan, presented in 2007, for a solution accepted by the parties regarding the resolution of the Sahara issue. This statement ... Read More "For us working ... the U.S. is on the right course, but 91% of Republicans and 71% of Independents disagreed. "Honestly, nothings going well," Mike, from New Jersey, told Fox News. Read More Please contact us in case of abuse ... one likening womens premarital sexual behavior to prostitution. Between 2003 and 2004 the total fertility rate in Morocco was 2.5. The fertility ... Read More Today, on National Coming Out Day, the National Football League announced its renewed support of The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for ... Read More Its deeply distressing to read that more than one in 20 tap water tests performed in Chicago were at or above US government limits and one third had more lead than is permitted in bottled ... Read More Not a single type of plastic packaging in the US meets the definition of recyclable used by the Ellen MacArthur Foundations new plastic ... industry should support an ambitious Global Plastics ... Read More U.S. News & World Report known for its healthcare rankings, including those that compare hospitals and physicians has formulated a way to measure hospitals' health equity. And it may ... Read More Rabat controls nearly 80 percent of the region and is pushing for autonomy under ... US president Donald Trump recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the kingdom's ... Read More Rajkumar, Jeet and Badri came first to the rescue of bleeding and ailing Nirbhaya and her friend during a cold December night in Delhi. By Chayyanika Nigam: It was Rajkumar Singh who, along with his two colleagues, came first to the rescue of bleeding and ailing Nirbhaya and her friend during a cold December night in Delhi. Rajkumar, Jeet and Badri arranged a white bedsheet to cover the duo before offering Nirbhaya-who was brutally gangraped by six men-his jacket. After the 'rarest of the rare' gang-rape and murder in the city, Delhi was termed as the rape Capital and on Friday, former Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who led a team that probed the 2012 Delhi gang-rape, said his forces solved the case within 72 hours, despite the lack of initial leads. He said, "I am extremely delighted and I feel proud of the fact that our investigation has been vindicated." advertisement The former deputy commissioner of Police (south district), Chhaya Sharma had set up teams, immediately after the incident, with her best officers to probe the case. On Friday, she said, Thanks to our team work. Finding that bus was the biggest challenge. The victims had only described the bus as, 'White colour, red seat cover and yellow curtains'." Former head of the Special Investigation Team, Rajender Singh played a major role in collecting crucial evidences. He said, "The toughest job was to covert the brutality of the incident into evidence, so that even the court has to consider it as the rarest of the rare case." ALSO READ | Nirbhaya gangrape verdict: Justice delayed, not denied, say parents ALSO READ | No one can do a Nirbhaya now, they'll remember this verdict: Asha Devi on death penalty to rapists --- ENDS --- Justice R Banumathi said stringent legislation and punishments alone may not be sufficient for fighting increasing crimes against women but the mindset has to change. By Harish V Nair: With woman's security issue at the core of the Nirbhaya debate, Justice R Banumathi, the sole woman judge of the Supreme Court and who happened to be part of the bench, which heard the case, said stringent legislation and punishments alone may not be sufficient for fighting increasing crimes against women but the mindset has to change. advertisement "In our tradition-bound society, certain attitudinal change and change in the mindset is needed to respect women and to ensure gender justice. Right from childhood years, children ought to be sensitised to respect women. A child should be taught to respect women in the society in the same way as he is taught to respect men," Justice Banumathi said in a judgment separate from the joint one penned by Justices Dipak Misra and Ashok Bhushan. If at all there is a case warranting death sentence, it is the December 16, 2012 gangrape-cum-murder case which shocked the collective conscience of the society, she said. The judge said if the dreadfulness of the men who raped and inserted iron rod in the victim's private parts, does not fall in the 'rarest of rare category', then one may wonder what else will. The present case clearly comes within the category of 'rarest of rare case' where the question of any other punishment is unquestionably foreclosed. 'SUCH CRIMES CANNOT BE LOOKED WITH MAGNANIMITY' "Justice demands that the courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that it reflects public abhorrence of the crime. Crimes like the one before us cannot be looked with magnanimity. Factors like young age of the accused and poor background cannot be said to be mitigating circumstances," the judge said. She further said that post-crime remorse and good conduct of the accused, their background and family circumstances, age, absence of criminal antecedents and their good conduct in prison cannot be taken as mitigating circumstances to take the case out of the category of 'rarest of rare cases'. The circumstances stated by the accused in their affidavits are too slender to be treated as mitigating circumstances, she said. Justice Banumathi also observed that the victim, who died at a hospital in Singapore, must have been pushed to deep emotional crisis. Rape deeply affects the entire psychology of a woman and humiliates her, apart from leaving her in a trauma. The testimony of the rape victim must be appreciated in the background of the entire case and the trauma which she had undergone, the judge said. advertisement Justice Banumathi noted that the cruel manner in which the convicts committed the crime and threw the victims naked on a cold winter night shocks the collective conscience of the society. Human lust was allowed to take such a demonic form. The accused may not be hardened criminals; but the cruel manner in which the gang-rape was committed in the moving bus; iron rods were inserted in the private parts of the victim; and the coldness with which both the victims were thrown naked in cold winter night of December, shocks the collective conscience of the society, the judge said. ALSO READ | Nirbhaya gang rape case: All you need to know about the 4 convicts ALSO READ | Brutal, barbaric, diabolic: What Supreme Court judges said while upholding death penalty in Nirbhaya gangrape case ALSO WATCH | Nirbhaya gangrape case: This is what happened inside the Supreme Court today --- ENDS --- A total of 13 unexploded bombs from the 1940s were found at a construction site in the northwestern city. Defusing operations will start in the Sunday morning, but they can last well into the night. Evacuations started on Friday and Saturday. City authorities have announced restrictions on movement for security purposes. Museums, cinemas and swimming pools have drafted special, mostly free, programs for those evacuated. The actual situation is a part of the history. On October 9, 1943, some 261,000 bombs were dropped on the city. Old bombs are becoming more dangerous as time goes by due to material fatigue. On Christmas Day last year, 54,000 people in the southern German city of Augsburg were similarly evacuated from their homes. Three members of a bomb disposal squad were killed in the north-central German city of Gottingen during an operation to defuse a bomb in 2010. Around 475 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after inhaling poisonous gas at a container depot in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. By Press Trust of India: Around 475 girl students were hospitalised on Saturday after inhaling poisonous fumes that spread due to chemical leak at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhi's Tughlaqabad area. Most students were discharged after a few hours, while four of them were kept under observation in the ICU of two hospitals. The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, run by the city administration, were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness in the morning on Saturday. advertisement According to the police, a call was received at 7:35 am (IST) about some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. The chemical in the container was imported from China and was to be taken to Sonepat in Haryana, it said. WHERE ALL WERE AFFECTED STUDENTS HOSPITALISED The affected students were taken to four hospitals - Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo, Batra and ESIC - after the leakage was reported around 7.20 AM (IST) at the Customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, which is located near the schools. "They came with complaints of irritation in eyes, breathlessness and pain in the abdomen. All of them were admitted and put on conservative treatment", said officials of Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, where around 250 children, aged between 9 and 15, were admitted. "While a majority of them have been discharged, two are admitted in the ICU. They are stable", said Dr Ajaz Mustafa, medical superintendent of the institute. A total of 103 girls and three adults were rushed to the Okhla-located ESIC hospital and were discharged. However, two children are still hospitalised in ESIC and are recuperating in the ICU, the doctors treating them said. THOSE ADMITTED AT APOLLO STABLE Apollo hospital authorities said the condition of 42 children and an adult, who were admitted there, was stable. "Therapeutic interventions as per clinical requirements was administered on them. Currently, all patients are in a stable condition," Apollo said in a statement. As soon as the children came, the disaster plan in the hospital was activated immediately and a temporary special disaster ward was created in the waiting area, Apollo hospital officials said. "The patients were managed appropriately according to their clinical condition and kept under observation, till required", they added. Around 55 children aged between 10-14 were admitted to Batra hospital in the Tughlakabad Institutional area at 8.20 am. Two children, who had come with complaints of breathing difficulty, were admitted in its paediatric ICU. "The condition of all the children, including the two who are admitted in the ICU, is stable. They are currently under observation and are likely to be discharged in three to four hours," said a senior doctor of the hospital. advertisement One child was also referred to Safdarjung hospital. BE READY TO HELP: NADDA TO CENTRE-RUN HOSPITALS As the news broke, Union Health Minister J P Nadda instructed all Centre-run hospitals to be ready to help the victims. A team of doctors from AIIMS has been put on stand-by to cater to any emergency. The Delhi government ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Police has registered an FIR in the matter under various sections of the IPC and the Environment (Protection) Act. "There was an exam in the school which we have cancelled following the incident", Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia said. Following the incident, teams of police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as well as CATS ambulance reached the spot. "Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused eye irritation to the girl students in Rani Jhansi school", DCP (Southeast) Romil Baaniya said. LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR VISITS VICTIMS IN HOSPITAL Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Opposition Leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta visited the victims at ESI Hospital and enquired about their condition. advertisement Hitting out at the Delhi government, Gupta sought a high-level probe into the incident. Gupta said it is "negligence" on the part of the school authorities. "At the time of opening the school, there were signs of gas leakage. Why didn't the school authorities stop students from entering the school?", he tweeted. Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. "It's very sad. It is a man-made disaster as there is no need for a container depot to be in centre of Delhi. It should be immediately shifted, accountability fixed for gas leak (sic)", she tweeted. Also read | 30 students hospitalised after gas leak from tanker parked near a school in Pul Prahladpur, New Delhi Also read | Delhi gas leak: Over 300 school students receive treatment, FIR registered WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Yoshita Singh United Nations, May 6 (PTI) The tens of thousands of members of Myanmars Rohingya community who fled persecution in north of the country and sought refuge in Bangladesh, remain highly vulnerable and risk being "re-victimised even in exile", a senior UN refugee protection official has warned. According to Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates, as of February, some 74,000 Rohingya members were living in camps and makeshift sites in Bangladesh, many in need of adequate shelter before the rainy season starts. advertisement "Without proper support, they also face risks such as child labour, gender-based violence and trafficking," said Shinji Kubo, UNHCR Representative in Bangladesh, in a statement issued by the Office. While Rohingya displacement has persisted for decades, it made headlines last October when attacks on border posts in Myanmar?s northern Rakhine province triggered a security clearance operation that drove an estimated 43,000 civilians into neighbouring Bangladesh by the year?s end. In a report issued in February into the violence, the UN human rights wing (OHCHR) had documented mass gang-rape, killings, including that of babies and children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by Myanmar?s security forces. The latest findings released by UNHCR in its new report on mixed movements in south-east Asia indicate that more than 168,000 Rohingya members could have fled Myanmar in the last five years. The total number of Rohingya refugees in the region and those internally displaced is estimated at 420,000 and 120,000 respectively. Prior to the recent violence, Malaysia was the preferred destination for many Rohingya. Between 2012 and 2015, an estimated 112,500 of them risked their lives on smuggler?s boats in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea in the hope of reaching Malaysia, with hopes of finding work in the informal sector. Those who made this difficult sea journey ranged from individuals fleeing the 2012 inter-communal violence in Rakhine to those who grew increasingly desperate amid restrictions back home on their freedom of movement and access to services and livelihoods. However, after regional Governments increased action against maritime smuggling networks in 2015, the route has been disrupted, with no confirmed boat arrivals in Malaysia last year. Furthermore, among those who tried to reach Malaysia overland in 2016, more than 100 ? about half of them Rohingya ? were reportedly arrested in Myanmar and Thailand. The UNHCR report also explores other routes taken by the Rohingya, including to India via Bangladesh. It notes a steady but slowing stream of arrivals since 2012 numbering at least 13,000 people. advertisement "Looking at the declining arrival numbers in India, it is safe to assume that this overland route has not replaced the maritime one," said Keane Shum of UNHCR?s Regional Mixed Movements Monitoring Unit. ?Compared to those who went to Malaysia by sea, the Rohingya in India travelled in larger family units and chose the route as it was cheaper and safer.? In addition to analysing displacement patterns, the report also looked at the situation of Rohingya women and girls in Malaysia, India and Indonesia, using a snapshot of some 85 women and girls. The findings revealed that majority among them were married young (at 16 or 17) and gave birth at an average age of 18. Almost a third of them reported facing domestic violence and many said that while they would like to earn their own income, only a few were doing so despite having skills. Those in India appeared to be more literate and educated, and were more likely to have chosen their own husbands. In contrast, those in Malaysia were more likely to have married someone chosen by their families or by brokers or agents. On its part, the UN agency has been working with host countries on temporary stay and protection of Rohingya refugees, including supporting them to access basic services and legal work to help them become more self-reliant until longer-term solutions are found as well as advocating with the Myanmar authorities for the full resumption of humanitarian access to vulnerable people in northern Rakhine state. advertisement "We stand ready to support Government efforts to promote co-existence and address issues related to citizenship," UNHCR said. PTI YAS PMS --- ENDS --- Dario Franchitti, who won the Indy 500 at the fifth attempt in 2007 and then in 2010 and 2012 while taking the IndyCar title four times, said learning how to race at close quarters on anti-clockwise ovals was the biggest challenge. By Reuters: The Indianapolis 500 is the tightest of tightropes but Fernando Alonso will take the dangers in his stride when he makes his debut this month, according to three-times winner Dario Franchitti. The retired Scot warned the double Formula One world champion to expect the unexpected and approach the race with subtlety and mental discipline. Speaking to reporters at the McLaren factory, Franchitti saw the risk of serious injury as less of a concern for the 35-year-old Spaniard who has started 276 grands prix and is no stranger to accidents. advertisement "He's a racing driver," Franchitti said when asked how big a gamble Alonso was taking in missing Formula One's showcase Monaco Grand Prix to race at speeds in excess of 370kph around a walled circuit. "The margin for error is tiny but for somebody like Fernando, he's going to see that as a challenge. And it will definitely heighten his senses." McLaren Technology Group executive director Zak Brown said his driver had already had two big crashes with McLaren in Formula One. The American was confident, however, that his prize asset was not taking excessive risks at a circuit that has seen dozens of fatalities since 1911 but none over the Indy 500 weekend since Scott Brayton in 1996. "I think the Indianapolis Speedway has been a very safe place for a couple of decades now... Fernando is extremely prepared, the car is exceptional, he's going to have a good amount of testing," said Brown. "We're very comfortable with our decision, as is Fernando." Franchitti, who won the Indy 500 at the fifth attempt in 2007 and then in 2010 and 2012 while taking the IndyCar title four times, said learning how to race at close quarters on anti-clockwise ovals was the biggest challenge. He warned that The Brickyard, with often fickle weather, had a habit of choosing its own winners and no driver could afford to lose concentration for even a fraction of a second. "If you are having a smooth day, something is going to come out of left field," he said. Franchitti said two thirds of the field could hope to win on pace alone and there should be no misapprehensions about the challenge. "This is going to be tough. Talent-wise, can he do it? Absolutely. "It's the experience (that will make the difference). If it comes down to that caution, with 20-25 laps to go and everybody pits and they all come out on new tyres, that's when all bets are off. "At the start of the race everybody is a little nice to each other... as business picks up towards the end, that goes away in a hurry. I think that will come as a shock." --- ENDS --- advertisement By SA Commercial Prop News South African food retailers are pushing to enforce exclusivity, prompting JSE-listed mall owners to call on the competition commission to intervene. Pick n Pay, it seems, intends to aggressively step up efforts to stop Massmart from expanding its food offering in Game stores across SA, prompting JSE-listed mall owners to call on the competition commission to intervene. According to a report by Financial Mail, Pick n Pay has issued letters of demand to the owners of at least 20 shopping centres around SA, including a number of listed property heavyweights. It insists that the malls enforce exclusivity clauses to stop Game from operating its Foodco business. Pick n Pay is not the first grocery retailer to use exclusivity clauses to take on Massmart. In October last year, Shoprite was granted an interim interdict prohibiting Game from selling certain food products at Hyprop Investments CapeGate Mall in Cape Town. Pick n Pay entered the fray earlier this year, instituting similar legal action against Game stores at both CapeGate and Liberty Groups Midlands Mall in Pietermaritzburg. Massmart took the matter to the competition commission, but the commission ruled in January that it was unable to find sufficient evidence to show that exclusivity clauses meet the tests set out in the Competition Act for demonstrating anticompetitive effects. In a response, Pick n Pay argues that the commissions ruling supports their right to seek to enforce the provisions set out in lease agreements which they believe are being breached. Exclusive lease arrangements have long been a feature of the SA retail market. They are freely entered into by landlords and prospective anchor tenants. The landlord secures an anchor as a means of attracting other, quality businesses to the development while the tenant derives some security in terms of likely trade to justify their investment in the centre, says Pick n Pay head of corporate affairs and strategy David North But the SA Reit Association, which represent the JSEs R250bn listed property sector, believes the practice should be abolished. Dov Green, chairman of the associations legal committee, says the recent push by food retailers to enforce exclusivity clauses is to the detriment of SA consumers. Retailers are unwilling to surrender this hold over their competition and are now taking aggressive advantage of exclusivity clauses in their fight for market share. Green says the commission should reconsider exclusivity clauses so that a definitive decision can be made about whether they are anticompetitive or not. Massmarts views are similar. Group corporate affairs executive Brian Leroni says: Instead of competing squarely with new entrants in the battle to win consumers, Pick n Pay has, in effect, chosen to limit the scope for its customers to shop around. Justin Balkin, competition director at law firm ENS, who is acting for Massmart, says exclusive leases have not been declared safe from a competition law perspective. The commission remains concerned about the potential dampening effects of exclusive leases on competition. We are confident that evidence provided to the commission by Massmart will prove the anticompetitive harm of the exclusivity clauses employed by grocery retailers to hamper the roll-out of Massmarts fresh food strategy. Having the highest levels of addictiveness, drug furanyl fentanyl can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin and is extremely toxic in the smallest quantities. By India Today Web Desk: Police in the US have issued an urgent public alert after many reported deaths from a very potent drug called furanyl fentanyl. The drug is so powerfully potent that it can kill anyone who touches it. The drug is an opioid which produces morphine-like effects. The opioid furanyl fentanyl is a version of a powerful synthetic painkiller, fentanyl. advertisement The opiod furanyl fentanyl can cause a fatal overdose just by being absorbed through skin. Furanyl fentanyl has already caused 19 deaths in the state of Georgia in the US over the last year, reported RT. The drug was placed on the Schedule I list of controlled substances last year. Schedule I is reserved for drugs with the highest levels of addictiveness. It was put on the Schedule I after being associated with 128 deaths across five US states in 2015 and 2016. "U-47700 and furanyl fentanyl are both Schedule I drugs and used in the same manner as heroin. Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical treatment use in the United States. The drugs are distributed in either powder or tablet form," RT quoted Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). "Because furanyl fentanyl and U-47700 are lethal at very low doses, law enforcement and the public should use caution when handling these drugs. They can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin and are extremely toxic in the smallest quantities." GBI Crime Lab chemist Dineen Kilcrease added: "Oxycodone to touch it is still going to be very safe. To touch furanyl fentanyl could absolutely be fatal, just through the skin." Read More: 63 per cent rise in drug seizures; this is the drug India is getting 'high' on From drugs inside snakes to people in suitcases: When smuggling attempts go beyond bizarre Cuss study: Swearing aloud may be good for you as it makes you stronger --- ENDS --- Your talents are a gift from God and what you do with it is your gift back to God. Twenty five year old Lino Feo from Sauano, Fagaloa may be unemployed but it doesnt mean hes not making use of his time. This young man is known as a sculptor, a carver in his village and he does traditional carvings for a living. I have carved for many people and Im not boasting or anything, but I know my talent pays me a whole lot more than I deserve, probably more than any company that I will work for. I dont know if anyone remembers, but one of my biggest jobs was making the traditional dance tools for the L.D.S. Church College performance for Independence in 2016. It was a big job, good money and it helped us a lot. Lino is a father of three children and they are all in school, two attend Vaitele Primary and one attends Anoamaa. I wouldnt say its easy work because its something that requires you to not lose your focus when youre doing it; it requires a lot of energy and a whole lot of love. It takes me about two weeks to get a huge order ready, thats if I work everyday. When asked by Village Voice if he can ever imagine himself working somewhere else, he said Honestly, I dont think so. This is my talent and I know a few of us here in Samoa are good at carving so its best to show it to the world because a lot of our people still treasure whatever is left of our traditions and customs. There are people in Samoa and all over the world that love the work we do and what we can provide for them. I am thankful to God that I have this ability because it helps me make a living. BEIRUT (AP) A deal hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held parts of Syria went into effect in the early hours of Saturday. The plan is the latest international attempt to reduce violence in the war-ravaged country, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. The plan, details of which will still be worked out over the next several weeks, went into effect at midnight Friday. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, two areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or "de-escalation zones" will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. In the tangled mess that constitutes Syria's battlefields, there is much that can go wrong with the plan, agreed on in talks Thursday in Kazakhstan. There is no clear mechanism to resolve conflict and violations like most other previous deals struck by backers of the warring sides. A potential complication to implementing the plan is the crowded airspace over Syria. The deal calls for all aircraft to be banned from flying over the safe zones. Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft operate in different, sometimes same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flightpaths of U.S.-led coalition warplanes battling Islamic State militants and other radical groups and whether the American air force would abide by a diminished air space. Russia and Iran two of the plan's three sponsors are key allies of President Bashar Assad's government and both are viewed as foreign occupation forces by his opponents. Rebels fighting to topple Assad are enraged by Iran's role in the deal and blame the Shiite power for fueling the sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, now in its seventh year. Turkey, the third sponsor, is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria, drawing the ire of Assad and his government. Yet troops from the three countries are now expected to secure four safe zones. An official with Russia's military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Russian Col.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told reporters on Friday personnel and formations from Russia, Iran and Turkey will operate checkpoints and observation posts. He said "security belts" will be created along the borders of the "de-escalation zones" to prevent incidents and fighting between opposing sides. The checkpoints and observation posts will ensure free movement of unarmed civilians and humanitarian aid and will facilitate economic activities, he said. Rebels have expressed concerns the deal is a prelude to a de facto partitioning of Syria into spheres of influence. Osama Abo Zayd, a spokesman for the Syrian military factions at the Kazakhstan talks, told The Associated Press it was "incomprehensible" for Iran to act as a guarantor of the deal. A cease-fire is unsustainable in the presence of the Iranian-backed militias in Syria, he said. "We can't imagine Iran playing a role of peace," Abo Zayd said. The U.S. sent a senior White House official to the Kazakh capital of Astana, where representatives of Russia, Turkey and Iran signed the deal, but had no role in the deal. The idea of armed monitors is a new element observers deployed in the early years of the Syrian conflict, including U.N. and Arab League observers, were unarmed. But it's difficult to imagine how many boots on the ground would be needed to monitor the yet to be mapped areas or how and where exactly Russian, Iranian and Turkish troops would patrol. "If that happens, we would be looking at a more serious effort than anything in the past," Aron Lund, a Syria expert wrote in an article Friday. Lund said that from the outside, the agreement "does not look like it has great chances of success" and seems to "lack a clear mechanism to resolve conflicting claims and interpretations." Late Friday, a Syrian opposition coalition, the High Negotiations Committee, denounced the deal in a strongly worded statement. The Western, Saudi-backed HNC said the deal lacks legitimacy and seeks to divide the country. The HNC also said the deal was an attempt to give Syrian government troops military victories they could not achieve on the battleground by neutralizing rebel-held areas. It called on the U.S. and other Arab allied countries, to prevent the implementation of the deal. A rebel commander in northern Hama said nearly an hour after the deal went into effect, battles raged with government forces. The area, south of Latamneh, is expected to be part of the deal. Jamil al-Saleh, the commander, said government shelling was intense amid an attempt to advance in the area, scene to fierce battles for weeks. "What deal?" he scoffed. A previous cease-fire agreement signed in Astana on Dec. 30 helped reduce overall violence in Syria for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a cease-fire in Syria have all ended in failure. The "de-escalation zones" will be closed to military aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition, the Russian official who signed the agreement, Alexander Lavrentye, said Friday. Under the plan, Assad's air force and presumably Russian, too would also halt flights over those areas. In rebel-held Idlib, a protest was held Friday against the plan, denounced as a plot to "divide Syria." "Any person or state who enters this land to divide it is the enemy of the Syrian people" activist Abed al-Basset Sarout told the crowd. Some refugees were skeptical. Ahmad Rabah, a Syrian refugee from Homs now in Lebanon, said he did not trust Assad's forces and going back to so-called safe zones would be tantamount to living in a "big prison." The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. "The coalition will continue to target ISIS wherever they operate to ensure they have no sanctuary," said Pentagon spokesman Marine Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway. ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Sunni militant group. Rudskoi also suggested that Syrian government forces, freed up as a result of the safe areas, could be rerouted to fight against IS in the central and eastern part of Syria. Another question left unanswered is how the deal would affect U.S. airstrikes targeting al-Qaida's positions in Syria. U.S. warplanes have frequently struck the al-Qaida affiliate in the northern Idlib province, where the militant group dominates. But under Thursday's deal, the entire province is designated to be one of the four "de-escalation zones." Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that if implemented the deal will allow for the separation of the opposition from IS fighters and those of the al-Qaida affiliate. He did not elaborate. Syria's government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting "terrorism" wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. Its a never-ending road. Or is it a never-ending punishment, were not sure. Still, over the last 30 years or so, weve been publishing the Samoa Observer starting as a weekly, and now that weve been a daily for the last 26 years or so, we are still persecuted by our government for doing the only thing we know how; and that is telling the truth and nothing but the truth, the only way we know how. In other words, without fear or favor, so help me God! And in doing so weve been hounded and frowned upon, and what was our crime? For trying to remain just the way we are until the end of time comes around. Oh yes, weve been physically attacked, torched to the ground, and now that the Gestapo Police, armed with their search warrants are breathing down our necks, lets hope theyll just give up, and walk quietly away. On 18 April 2017, two Police Officers arrived at the office of the Samoa Observer, armed with a search warrant. Signed by the Registrar of the District Court and Police Constable, Kurisi Kurisi, the warrant said: Police are currently investigating a harassment utilizing means of electronic communication case against the Samoa Observer, Vaitele. The warrant went on to say: We request information on the Article named Stop this madness the paper published on Wednesday 29 March 2017. And it then demanded that the name of the articles author and contacts be handed over. As it turned out though, the article in question was an online comment that did not include the authors name, and instead only the initials M.R. were given. And as if that was not confusing enough, the online comment was in response to another front-page article titled Church stigmata row deepens, that had been published previously on 26 March 2017, and right away the discussion shot out of control. It did when the claims that the woman in the article, Toa Patrick, was carrying Jesus Christs suffering and that, apparently, was when the Police stepped in. That was when the search warrant came. And yet by that time we had not been informed that it was possible wed committed crimes or suspected to have committed crimes - for which we would be charged accordingly. All we knew was that one day officers armed with a search warrant turned up, and explained they were tracking down those who were making defamatory statements against Toa Patrick and her family. They also said they were targeting the Samoa Observer as one of the culprits. Later when we were shown the documents, we found that the search warrant was dated 18/04/17, it was lodged by the Ministry of Police for approval by a Supreme, or District Court Judge/Registrar. We were also shown the affidavit by a constable Kurisi Kurisi, which alleged that police were investigating a harassment utilizing means of electronic communication case at the Samoa Observer, Vaitele. The document further requested all information on an article entitled Stop this madness published in the paper on Wednesday 29/03/17, and that the information being sought included name, village, date of birth, any contact numbers and date of publication. In addition, the search warrant permitted all constables of Samoa, within one month from the date of the warrant to: i) enter and search the Samoa Observer building, vehicle premises with such assistance as necessary and if necessary to use such force for making entry whether by breaking open doors windows or otherwise; ii) to break open and search any box or receptacle for items referred to in 5 above for seizure. In addition, the search warrant and application spelled out that the law relied on is s.83 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1972. However, according to our research, this law has been repealed, and it is now replaced by the Criminal Procedure Act 2016. And that to me, simply means the law relied upon, is wrong, and therefore the search warrant should have never been approved in the first place. Which follows that since the search warrant was the legal tool that would allow them to search the Samoa Observer premises was indeed a dud - and if the law is to remain the pillar of truth as it should always be then we suggest that they be shown the way out, with no questions asked. And as for the newspapers role as the watchdog of its government in the publics interest, the idea that the Police are allowed to periodically issue search warrants against crusading newspapers, is a demoralizing impediment that serves only to retard the thrill of striving still for press freedom and the publics right to know. The point is that when a search warrant is issued without any legal basis, and yet in the full knowledge that no crime has been committed, such a move is an abuse of process which undermines the newspapers right to do what it does best which is helping to promote freedom of speech, and just as important if not more so, is the freedom to communicate, and the freedom to assimilate. Now finally, lets discuss briefly the report that Toa Patricks father, Reverend Opapo Soanai Oeti, the former Reverend of the E.F.K.S, has lodged a complaint against the Samoa Observer in relation to the article titled, Stop this madness. What weve been told is that the search warrant weve been talking about back there, had actually been triggered by another search warrant, launched by Mr. Oeti. And as that search warrant was still in effect, itd apparently triggered a Police hunt for an online blogger known as, Ole Palemia. So who is Ole Palemia? Well, as we all know, the words Ole Palemia when they are translated into English - read The Prime Minister. And according to the Police, this little scuffle has somehow triggered a Police hunt for an online blogger known as, Ole Palemia. And so, for those who are visiting this country so that they do not know what the words Ole Palemia mean, were happy to tell you. They mean The Prime Minister. And why the Police is hunting that online blogger, known as the The Prime Minister? Well, we honestly dont know. And so, perhaps you should ask the Police; they should know. Indeed, they should know that as a member of the Fourth Estate, the newspapers freedom to report without fear or favor, is protected. And yes, they should know its hard to fathom that in this day and age, a search warrant is allowed to be issued against a media outlet, without firstly ascertaining that the application had been properly made in the first place. They should know. Have a peaceful Sunday Samoa, God bless! Two contractor labourers have died while several others have been injured in a major accident at the Indian Iron & Steel Company in Kolkata. By Indrajit Kundu: Two contractor labourers have died while several others have been injured in a major accident at the Indian Iron & Steel Company (IISCO) steel plant in Asansol. The accident took place early on Saturday morning at IISCO's Burnpur unit, which is one of the largest such facility in the country. According to statement issued by IISCO, the accident happened due to "splashing of molten steel out of a ladle that was being placed on the turret of a Caster in Steel Melting Shop". Two of the injured labourers died on the spot while four others have sustained serious injuries. They have been rushed to a private hospital in Durgapur and are said to be critical. The two deceased have been identified as Shahnawaj Seikh (28) and Ashis Sikka (30). advertisement Labour union leaders at the plant alleged lack of safety mechanism for contractual workers at the plant. "Such incident has taken place earlier too but management has not done anything for safety of the labourers. We shall demand compensation for the deceased family," alleged Harjit Singh, General Secretary INTTUC unit at the plant. Soon after the incident, officials from SAIL and trade union leaders visited the site. "A high-level enquiry committee has been constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident," IISCO authorities stated in their official response. IISCO, which is a subsidiary of the Steel Authority of Indian Limited (SAIL) is one of India's oldest steel plants with an annual production capacity of 2.5 million tonnes crude steel. (With inputs from Anil Giri) Also Read Delhi: Over 300 students receive treatment after gas leak in Tughlakabad, situation now under control Also Watch India Today expose on illegal fireworks factory: How Diwali spells disaster for these villagers --- ENDS --- 02 May 2017 Papalii John Taimalelagi Chief Executive Officer Ministry of Justice & Courts Administration MULINUU Dear Sir 1. In our Sunday, 23 April. 2017 edition, we ran the story of a search warrant being issued by the Deputy Registrar against the Samoa Observer. We have decided to write directly to you to convey our concerns about this especially its illegality. 2. Whist I was in Auckland with my wife, we were informed that Police had turned up to our Apia office asking for "Robert". Robert of course could not fathom if he had done something wrong. The Police officers however informed they had a search warrant to search Samoa Observer premises relating to information on a story the paper ran. Caught by surprise and not wanting to tick off the officers, a very nervous Robert informed them that the Apia office did not store anything but for them to contact our newspaper Editor, Mataafa Keni Lesa at the Vaitele office as we were overseas. 3. Armed with the search warrant, the officers confronted Mataafa about searching our premises at Vaitele. 4. Up to this point, even to this date, we as owners of the paper are in the dark as to why this search warrant was issued in the first place. Also we were never once informed at any stage of any possible crimes committed or suspected to have been committed by us, or the paper. 5. From the documents, which we took the liberty to make copies, it shows that an application for a search warrant dated 18/04/17 was lodged by the Ministry of Police for approval by a Supreme or District Court Judge/ Registrar. There is an affidavit by a constable Kurisi Kurisi which alleges that police were "investigating a harassment utilizing means of electronic communication case at the Samoa Observer, Vaitele." It further requested all information on an article entitled "Stop this madness" published in the paper on Wednesday 29/03/17. Information requested included, "name, village, date of birth, any contact numbers and date of publication". 6. The search warrant permitted all constables of Samoa, within one month from the date of the warrant to: i) enter and search the Samoa Observer building, vehicle premises with such assistance as necessary and if necessary to use such force for making entry whether by breaking open doors windows or otherwise; ii) to break open and search any box or receptacle for items referred to in 5 above for seizure. 7. According to the search warrant and application, the law relied on is s.83 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1972. 8. But according to our research, this law or Act has been repealed. It is now replaced by a Criminal Procedure Act 2016. 9. I am no lawyer, but the fact Police and similarly the Deputy Registrar who signed the approval of the warrant relied on this doomed law, immediately rang alarm bells in my head. 10. For me, this means the law relied upon is wrong and the search warrant should have never been approved by the Deputy Registrar in the first place. 11. Which brings me to my second point. The allegation made by Police against Samoa Observer was in my view of a serious nature. It calls into question legal issues that a Deputy Registrar who is not a lawyer cannot possibly have the proper legal training to understand. My question is, shouldn't it have been more fitting that a Judge of either the Supreme or District Court be given this search warrant application to determine? Perhaps if this was done, any Judge would have immediately noted the repealed law relied on and throw out the search warrant. 12. Another issue that a Judge would have immediately pick up on is what is the crime Samoa Observer is suspected to have committed? I mean this was the first question that came to my mind. Isn't a search warrant usually associated with a crime being committed? So what is Samoa Observer's crime to prompt Police to apply for a search warrant and Deputy Registrar approving it. 13. But then again what is a Deputy registrar doing determining such important issues? We made some inquiries as to his role and informed he was recently appointed as an ACEO for criminal and civil division of MJCA. So is he still a Deputy Registrar? 14. We also did some further research and noted the new Criminal Procedure Act 2016 now provides for search warrants under section 33. It says, "a Judge or Registrar" may issue a search and seize warrant or restraining order in the prescribed form..." It then goes on to list the situations in which a search warrant can be issued. At section 33 (4) it clearly says that "in this section "Registrar" does not include a Deputy Registrar". 15. This means that even if the application for a warrant was brought under the new law, the Deputy Registrar could not sign or approve the search warrant. This means he has abused his position and in my view he should be disciplined/dealt with accordingly. Equally the Ministry of Police should answer for their neglect and the harm it has done to us as a result of their illegal actions. 16. This brings to the fore the even more crucial concept of freedom of press. The issuing of the search warrant without any legal basis in the full knowledge there is no crime committed is an abuse of process and undermines the right of the newspaper to freedom of press/speech and its obligation to protecting its sources. Such neglect and abuse exposes the government to civil suit and who ends up paying? The people. Our people. Us the taxpayers. 17. As the Fourth Estate, it is prudent that the newspaper as a form of media and its freedom of press, be protected. It is hard to fathom that in this day and age, a search warrant can be allowed to be issued against a media outlet without firstly ascertaining that the application was properly made in the first place. 19. I sincerely hope I will not live to see the day this will happen again. 20. Given the Ministries involved in this matter, I have therefore copied accordingly for their information, the Commissioner of Police, Fuiavailii Egon Keil, Afioga Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi as the Minister of Police Services, Afioga CJ Patu Falefatu Maka Sapolu as the head of Samoas judiciary, Afioga Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu as Minister of M.J.C.A., and Afioga Lemalu Hermann Retzlaff, Attorney General. Ma lou faaaloalo tele, Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa, Chief Editor Samoa Observer, Vaitele. cc: Fuiavailii Egon Keil, Police Commissioner Hon. Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, PM & Minister of Ministry of Police Services Afioga CJ Patu F M Sapolu - CJ & head of Samoa Judiciary Hon. Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu, Minister of MJCA Afioga Lemalu Hermann Retzlaff, Attorney General. Men in particular may be more vulnerable to HIV exposure than women, due to their lower age of first sexual intercourse, and higher rates of having first intercourse before the age of 15, both of which are risk factors for H.I.V. This is according to the Ministry of Healths sixth annual report to UNAIDS. Obtained by the Samoa Observer, this report is evidence of Samoas commitment to the global response to HIV, AIDS, and Sexual Transmitted Infections. The report says, the first case of HIV recorded in Samoa was in 1990. Since that time, the recorded prevalence of the virus has remained low in prevalence (0.005%) with no new cases being captured between 2012-2015". However, testing rates are low with around only 4 to 5% of the population being tested each year according to quarterly surveillance reports (see Table 2). Other STIs, particularly Chlamydia, are high in prevalence (26%) with low testing rates. The report points out that most of those tests come from routine antenatal blood panels in mothers having their first antenatal care visit. Voluntary testing, and testing in males are low. For these reasons, the full impact of HIV/AIDS on Samoa remains relatively unknown, the report said. The report pointed out that a quarter of the documented HIV cases are mother to child transmissions, which suggests that HIV may be more prevalent than what current surveillance systems are detecting. All documented living cases are currently receiving ARV treatment, which is free at all health sector partners of the Ministry of Health. According to the Health report as of 2016 there were 24 cumulative cases of HIV in Samoa and 11 of these cases are currently living. All are recorded as adhering to ARV regimens. The primary mode of transmission of HIV in Samoa is heterosexual sex. Results from the 2008 Second Generation Surveillance Survey reveal that HIV in Samoa occurs at a rate of 10.4 cases per 100,000 with a male to female ratio of Surveillance data is currently gathered from hospital records on Upolu and Savaii, Private provider offices, health clinics, Immigration, various NGOs, Samoa Family Health Association, and from blood donors. However funding and staffing shortages at all of these organizations has limited the amount and frequency of data that can be collected for HIV and other STIs. Regarding HIV prevention and knowledge of HIV and AIDS, the Demographic Health Survey 2014 found that condom use (of male condoms) is low, although higher in males. Though increasing, the percent of individuals that have comprehensive knowledge of HIV and AIDS transmission/prevention is still low. Regarding the acceptance of persons living with HIV or AIDS only 2.6% of women and 3.3% of men express acceptance of PLWHA on all 4 indicators. This has remained roughly the same since 2009. This illustrates the stigma that is still associated with HIV and AIDS and previous programming, has not been effectively addressed. Though Samoa has a low prevalence of HIV and good case management of the identified cases of PLWHIV, there are multiple findings that suggest HIV in particular could potentially be a bigger problem for Samoa. In 2015 there was a low testing rate of 4.6% of the population being tested in hospitals and clinics. Of women who have given birth in the past two years, only 23.9% have received HIV counselling in prenatal care visits, and only 4.1% percent received counselling, testing, and testing results, suggesting high risk for mother-to-child infections, said the Healths report. The Samoa Hotel Association (S.H.A.) first ever Hotels Night Market proved to be a hit with locals and tourists alike on Friday 5th May at the S.T.A. Cultural Fale. Avid foodies were treated to a wide selection of delicious dishes by S.H.A. Member hotels; Amoa Resort Savaii, Bayview Resort, Moanalisa Hotels Palusami Restaurant, Tanoa Tusitala Hotel and the Taumeasina Island Resort. Samoa Beverage Company was also on board to provide the crowds with their refreshing range of beverages. Amoa Resort Savaii General Manager Elisabeth Siaosi commended the S.H.A. for organizing the event; "It was a wonderful experience to bring our famous Mongolian B.B.Q. to the people of Apia and our team had a lot of fun showing everyone what Amoa Resort Savaii is all about. Our Mongolian B.B.Q. is not a traditional Samoan style of Samoan cooking however all our diners were able to sample some of Savaiis freshest ingredients including Palmalau from Satupateia & organic lamb from Lalolamalava. We also sold homemade Coconut & Manioka Slice and Misiluki Cream Pie which was very popular + organic Savaii niu! We hope to support more events like this and thank you to the S.H.A. organizing team for giving us the platform alongside with Bayview Resort hotel cuisine from Savaii". Aside from raising awareness and promoting what the local hotels have to offer; the S.H.A. Hotel Night Market is one of many initiatives that the association have created in the hopes to raise funds to implement their Marketing and Events plans whereby main objectives are to increase activities, increase destination appeal and increase occupancy rates. Attendees were also treated to a special performance from the World Hip Hop and Australias Got Talent finalists the Academy of Brothers' as well as serenaded throughout the evening by the famous Sinalei Reef Resort String Band. S.H.A. wishes to thank their partners Samoa Tourism Authority, Savaii Samoa Tourism Association, Aga Reef Resort, Jetz Rentz, Orator Hotel Le Tatau Spa and the Ministry of Police. Congratulations to the Grand Prize Winner Kevin Hartin of Asaga Savaii who won 2 nights stay at the Aga Reef Resort, 2 day car rental from Jetz Rentz and a spa voucher for 2 from the Le Tatau Spa Orator Hotel. Look out for the next Hotels Night Market in June! The Editor of the Samoa Observer has been chosen as one of the Fellows to attend the 4th United Nations Global Road Safety Week in Sydney, Australia. Mataafa Keni Lesa left yesterday to join editors and senior writers from Australia, China, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and other Asian countries for the three-day programme. The programme starts at the Sydney Opera House today with a meeting with Australias Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester. This will be followed by the launch of the United Nations Safety Week at the same location. The programme, organised by the World Health Organisation (W.H.O), is to build the capacity journalists from the participating countries. It is part of an overall effort to address the fact that road traffic injuries kill more people aged 15-49 years in the Western Pacific Region than any other single cause. Public and decision maker awareness of the magnitude of road traffic injuries and that they are highly preventable is a key component of saving lives on our roads. This is a role to which media and journalists can provide a unique perspective and input with the power of their pen To help improve media coverage and advocacy of this global public health crisis, the George Institute for Global Health and the Western Pacific Regional Office of the World Health Organization (W.H.O) is hosting a capacity development programme for journalists from low and middle income countries from the Western Pacific Region. Participants will join all activities of the Regional Launch of the 4th United Nations Road Safety Week, hosted by the Australian Government on 7 May 2017 followed by an immersion into Australias Safe Systems approach to road safety and its engagement with the media to achieve road safety outcomes. The programme consists of theory based training as well as practical site visits to various road safety stakeholders. The training component will focus on improving and enhancing media stories on road safety proposed as part of their applications, including the use of data to demonstrate how road safety affects communities on many levels, digital tools to find data from various sources and how to engage audiences using visualizations such as interactive graphics and social media. SAMOA OBSERVER REPORTER IN CHINA A Samoa Observer Reporter, Deidre Tautua - Fanene, also left the country last night. She is on her way to China to take part in the annual study programme hosted and funded by the Guangdong provincial government for Pacific island countries from 8-26 May 2017. Mrs. Fanene is joining four other young Samoans from the public sector who are taking part in the programme.] Although far from home, yesterday (Friday) was a day of celebration for Samoan doctor, Ulai Tapasafo Fidow, who became the first locally-trained doctor from the 2002 pioneering group of Oceania University of Medicine (O.U.M.) to receive a Masters in medicine. With his newly attained Masters of Medicine in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G), Dr. Ulai gives all glory and praise to God and hopes that this leap forward, will inspire his fellow locally trained doctors to reach new heights. The brief celebration took place at the School of Nursing Auditorium, Tamavua, Fiji, in the presence of the Fiji National University (F.N.U.) staff, family and friends, as well as the Permanent Secretary of Fiji's Ministry of Health, Mr. Philip Davies. Dr. Ulai was also selected by the school's staff to give the vote of thanks on behalf of all the graduates. "First of all I feel humbled," Dr. Ulai said in an interview with the Samoa Observer. "I feel humbled by the fact that I have been blessed with such a supportive family, friends and colleagues at work." "I am also feeling blessed by the almighty that this has finally come to an end after five years of studying." Dr. Ulai continued on to give a heartfelt thanks to those who showed him support throughout his studies. "First and foremost is God," he began. "Second is my family, especially my wife Rosaina; she has really sacrificed a lot for me in getting my degree." "She even sacrificed her career with the United Nations so that I may pursue and complete this; so I dedicate this achievement to her and my two lovely children Fiataupou and Eteuati." "I would also like to dedicate this to the rest of my family; first and foremost my uncle (Lavea) Iosefa Maiava in Fiji. I guess he's one of the people I aspire to become in the future." "Of course I haven't forgotten the love and support of the rest of my family." Dr. Ulai continued on to give special thanks to his parents, Mulitalo Howard Fidow and Perelini Fidow; his grandmother Fiataupou and Olive for all their prayers and divine intervention; members of the E.F.K.S. church as well as the Samoa Medical Association which will be celebrating their 70th anniversary at the end of the month. But even with all the love and support coming in from Samoa, Dr. Ulai admits that the journey was far from easy, and nothing was harder than being away from those he loves, his family. "There were a lot of sacrifices," he began. "Sacrifices in the sense that you leave your loved ones. I had to come for my diploma on my own so I had to readjust to the living on my own kind of life here in Fiji back in 2012 when I started." "I would also like to recognize the sacrifice of my colleagues, especially my O&G team; doctors, nurses and midwives as well as those in the administration who have also supported me along the way." And with this milestone, Dr. Ulai proves that with the right attitude, anything is possible. "I hope I can inspire the locally-trained doctors at the Faculty of Medicine over at N.U.S and O.U.M," he said. "I hope that as more graduate, they will pursue Post Graduate qualifications and Specialist training. This is all to help better the healthcare of the people in Samoa." "I just cant stress enough, the importance of perseverance and believing in yourself; believing in your family and especially believing that you can do anything." "That's what I always try to share in any opportunity that I am given towards my family, colleagues or friends. You can be whatever you want if you really work hard and believe in yourself." But where to from here for Dr. Ulai? "There have been a few hints about working towards a PhD. so it looks like that will be the next target," he said with a grin. "We will leave it to God." Most of us have heard of the massive Macchu Picchu Incan citadels in Peru and the humongous mysterious stone heads looking out on the shores of Rapa Nui. Now, we have the ginormous star fields, in the hidden forestry of Savaii. This week, a research team from the Centre of Samoan Studies presented their findings during their archaeological survey of the inland areas of the villages of Vaitoomuli, and Faala in Savaii. The project is called The Documentation of Samoan Archaeological and Built Heritage Places and Associated Oral Traditions (A.F.C.P) funded by the U.S. Embassy. The team consisted of five National University of Samoa lecturers, and 14 students. The team also featured archaeologist Gregory Jackmond, who last surveyed the land in the 1970s. Mr. Jackmond mapped an extensive antic net settlement of over 200 hectares inland of Vailoa village, in original on the Nelson family owned Plantation. However, the team found large platforms as well as giant walls and walkways that suggest that there were far more people living inland than previously suggested and therefore a greater number in population size. During the presentation Mr. Jackmond said that it was a long held belief that prehistoric Samoans lived mainly on the coast. In 1840, the populations in Samoa was estimated between 30-50,000 people. Before taht the populations was estimated to be anywhere from 50-100,000 people. No one expected it to anywhere over 100,000. In 1840, 96% of the population and 86% of the villages were along the coast. First in early 1900s there was 1940-50s and settlement patterns wasnt really done by very many archaeologist. However, their survey of the land proved a large group of Samoans occupied inland areas as they found many large platforms that could be used for living quarters and other large man made structures. They also employed technology to help them survey the land better with the help of drones. Detailed aerial images from the MNRE and Skyeye proved instrumental in helping the research. With the aerial photos, it was easy to pick up light vegetation and made it easier for us to do our searches, Mr. Jackmond said. The students also engaged with the local pulenuu and elders of the villages to assist them with their research and collect and record oral histories that they shared. After 4 full days, in the field, the team had logged 673 GPS way points, taken over 750 photographs and recorded 233 prehistoric features, they confirmed tahth inland areas were once sites of dense prehistoric settlement. The results of the survey challenge several long held assumptions about early Samoan population records and settlement patterns, and this presentation will discuss adaptive community engagement strategies in archaeology and national cultural heritage management efforts in modern day Samoa. Phase 2 of this project will kick off in June. This weeks question is inspired by the Trump administrations tax reform proposal that included deductibility of state and local taxes. QUESTION: Should state and local taxes no longer be deductible on federal income tax returns, as the Trump administration proposes? Phil Blair Phil Blair, Manpower YES: To balance the playing field until all states either do have fairly equal state income taxes or all do not then for fairness and consistency they should continue to be deductible. Kelly Cunningham Kelly Cunningham, National University System NO: Eliminating tax breaks or deductions allowing workers to keep more of their hard-earned money is not a subsidy in any true sense. Such deductions are simply a means of being fleeced less intensely than otherwise. If a robber commits highway robbery, and the victim persuades the robber to allow him to keep something for bus fare, this is scarcely a subsidy or allowance to ones own earnings, particularly in an already high-tax state like California. David Ely David Ely, San Diego State University YES: The federal tax code is overly complex and the task of filing returns is an unnecessary burden on taxpayers. Eliminating a wide range of deductions, in exchange for lower rates and a higher standard deduction, could make filing returns simpler without raising taxes for middle-income households. However, California taxpayers should insist that the adjusted tax rates and standard deduction in any adopted plan be sufficient to offset the loss of the state/local tax deduction. Gina Champion-Cain Gina Champion-Cain, American National Investments NO: Not if unaccompanied by a reciprocal tax reduction. High state tax states, like California, are subsidized by low state tax states. Removing the deduction would end this inequity but be considered as a massive federal tax increase. Additionally, income taxed by the state would then be taxed again federally, a classic example of double taxation. Tax law is intertwined across seemingly unrelated regulations and cannot be viewed without broad context. Alan Gin Alan Gin, University of San Diego NO: Eliminating the deductibility would increase the federal tax burden on states like California and on regions like San Diego. Because California has a relatively high state income tax, its deductibility eases the burden on the states residents. Eliminating the deductibility would raise the Federal tax burden on Californians. The same is true if the deduction for local property taxes is eliminated. Residents of regions with high property values like San Diego would be hurt more than lower priced areas. James Hamilton James Hamilton, UC San Diego YES: Taxes have become way too complicated. We supposedly get to deduct state taxes and other items. But then when you go through the various worksheet and alternative minimum tax calculations you find those deductions partly taken away. Deductibility of state taxes primarily benefits higher-income taxpayers and can be viewed as a form of subsidy. Rather than add various gimmicks to try to benefit one group or another, a simpler, cleaner tax code would be better. Gary London Gary London, London Moeder Advisors NO: If deductibility is eliminated, there will follow a movement to reduce state taxes, because the tax burden would likely be claimed as too heavy for California residents. That would normally be a good thing. Trouble is, California needs a lot of things including improvements in education, infrastructure (like roads, dams and schools), better medical and social programs to help alleviate the homeless problem, just to name a few. Norm Miller Norm Miller, University of San Diego NO: My answer would be Yes only if we go to a flatter and simpler tax system with no deductions for anything. But right now California income tax rates go to 13.3 percent, the highest in the United States. Not allowing deductions for this hits California residents harder than states like Texas or Nevada. When we bring in property taxes as a percentage of income, California would still be hit pretty hard for newer residents. Jamie Moraga Jamie Moraga, IntelliSolutions Not participating this week. Austin Neudecker Austin Neudecker, Rev NO: The tax code should be simplified, however. Eliminating state and local tax deductions from federal taxes would effectively hinder the ability of local government to raise the money needed to run. Power would further consolidate to the federal level and we may risk losing our "laboratories of democracy," where states have the freedom and means to experiment with policies and compete to attract businesses and individuals. Focus on reducing targeted, special-interest deductions and loopholes. Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates NO: There will need to be compromise on this issue as there is a huge disparity between California and the rest of the nation. President Donald Trumps goals are to simplify the tax code, provide tax relief to the middle-class and lower the business tax rates. Repealing the Obamacare tax, offering businesses to bring overseas dollars back on a one-time basis, eliminating the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax are all worthy goals. Lynn Reaser Lynn Reaser, Point Loma Nazarene University YES: Although California, as a high-tax state, would be hurt, the deduction is hardly defensible on equity or economic grounds. The deduction means that residents of other states without a similar tax advantage are subsidizing those states with the deduction. Individuals in those states with the deduction are ostensibly already receiving benefits of the services financed by their higher state and local taxes. Additionally, the deduction favors high-income households, who typically itemize their expenses and for whom the deduction is more valuable. John Sarkisian, SKLZ YES: As part of a complete overall of the tax code I would support eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes. If the administration is only proposing rate reductions and does not overhaul the tax code to a simple low tax structure then leave the exemption in place. The current complexity of the code makes it nearly impossible for the average person or small business to prepare their tax returns and pay a fair tax. Chris Van Gorder Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health NO: The problem with tax reform based on picking and choosing different deductibles is someone we don't want to hurt will get hurt. I've always been in favor of a flat tax on everyone based on income. The more you make, the more you pay; thats not unfair to anyone. But I don't believe anyone should be taxed twice on the same income. States should permit federal tax deductions and the federal government should deduct state taxes paid. Have an idea for an EconoMeter question? Email roger.showley@sduniontribune.com Follow on Twitter: @rogershowley UPDATES: 4:13 p.m.: Updated with Lynn Reasers answer. Oceanside High School student Nixia Rodriguez tightened a rubber tourniquet around the arm of classmate Leonor Gonzalez on Wednesday, took a deep breath, and slid a needle into her classmates vein, preparing to draw blood. The exercise was part of the schools Health Academy, a program that trains students in hands-on medical procedures to prepare them for potential careers in healthcare. I was scared, Gonzalez said of her first attempt at a blood draw. It was kind of stressing because I didnt know if I would do it right. But after I got the needle in I was able to calm down. Advertisement Students in the Health Academy learn phlebotomy, injections and CPR, along with math, history and English. They get the opportunity to ride along on calls with the Oceanside Fire Department, practice procedures such as injections and blood draws on each other, and can apply for internships with area hospitals that introduce them to potential careers. Rubbing her arm after a shot of saline solution, Kyanna Bess, 18, said she originally aimed to become a forensic pathologist. That changed after she enrolled in the academy and completed a six-week internship at Scripps La Jolla, where she observed procedures ranging from triage to heart surgery. Bess now hopes to enter medical school to become a surgeon and will attend UC Santa Barbara next year, where she plans to study neuroscience and molecular biology. My dream has always been to make an impact on the community, she said. If I save one persons life it will affect their whole family, (as well as) the community. Surgeons, theyre heroes. And thats what I want to be. The academy started with a state grant in 2000, said instructor and coordinator Debbie Foley. That funding allowed the school to develop a curriculum, and purchase costly equipment such as patient simulators that allow trainees to monitor heart rate, blood pressure and other vital signs on a high-tech mannequin. Students who enroll in the three-year program begin in 10th grade, with a curriculum focused on health sciences. Their work include hands-on classes in kinesiology, medial terminology, medical assisting and first responder procedures. They also take specialized academic courses that fold health topics into traditional disciplines. For instance, Foley said, juniors recently studied ethics, science and non-fiction literature when they read The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, the story of an African-American woman whose cervical cancer cells were used without her knowledge to create the first human cell line in the 1950s. Students also do a class project on blood donation in which they learn the history of blood transfusions in battlefield medicine, visit the San Diego Blood Bank and plan campus blood drives. Its easy to tie health into every subject, Foley said. This year the the program earned the designation of 2017 Distinguished Academy from the state Department of Education, and competed with 409 similar programs to become one of 14 to earn the title. Its graduates have gone on to become nurses, paramedics, physical therapists, research scientists and veterinarians, Foley said. Bess and others from the current class also aspire to become physicians. Jason Flores, 17, plans to enlist in the Navy after graduation, and then attend college and medical school to become a pediatric oncologist. His goal, he said, was inspired by watching neighbors struggle to pay for life-saving medication for their daughter. You shouldnt have to decide whether you can afford to save your kids life, he said. Ive always loved kids and I have a nurturing side. So I want to do what I can to help them. deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan More North County cities are bowing to demands that they start electing council members by district, instead of a citywide vote, or face a lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act. Escondido, San Marcos and Vista have already made the switch, or agreed to do so, and Oceanside took the first step in that direction Wednesday despite an outcry from dozens of residents who said they didnt want the change. Several council members said they felt the same way, but had little choice. No city that has been sued over the 2001 state law has won in court. Advertisement Palmdale was forced to pay $4.5 million to the plaintiffs attorneys, not counting the citys own legal fees, after fighting a similar lawsuit in 2015. The Voting Rights Act was designed to increase opportunities for Latinos and other minorities to elect representatives of their choice. The law specifies a number of factors for creating districts including equal populations, contiguous borders and common interests. Race should be a factor but cannot be the predominant criterion, the law states. Before the law was passed there were only 27 cities in California with district elections, and now there are more than 60. In 2016, 21 cities in the state held district elections for the first time. Its been coming for years, said Oceanside Councilman Jerry Kern, before the City Councils 3-2 vote Wednesday. Im going to support this, even though I dont want it. Im going to protect the assets of the city. The Carlsbad City Council is set to meet Tuesday and discuss moving to district elections. Like most of the cities making the change, Carlsbad recently received a letter from Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, demanding the city switch to district elections to comply with the states Voting Rights Act. Shenkman says traditional at-large elections violate the law because they allow the dilution of minorities votes. In Oceanside, Mayor Jim Wood and Councilman Jack Feller voted against acquiescing to Shenkmans demand. Feller and residents like Patti Siegmann of the nonprofit Oceanside Citizens Coalition said they think the city could be the first to take their case to court and win. This is a shakedown by attorneys, and we are not going to surrender, ever, said Siegmann, who called the shift to election districts a race-based voting scheme. Wood said hed like to see the issue decided by a city election. City officials warned Oceanside has a limited time to respond before a lawsuit is filed. Feller said hes disgusted that this is being forced on us. Im not going to go along to get along, he said. This is wrong, as far as Im concerned. A handful of residents at Wednesdays meeting spoke in favor of the change. It is the most democratic form of government, said Madison Shockley, a church pastor. Running for office in a district election is less expensive than running a citywide campaign, and it gives more people access to elected office, he said. The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project is asking cities to comply with the law, he said. It does not divide the city. Lisa Hamilton encouraged her fellow residents to participate in upcoming public meetings that will help create the boundaries of the new districts. Get with the program, Hamilton said. Its not what I like, but its the direction were going. Most of the nearly three dozen speakers Wednesday opposed the change. Some said it would lessen the power of their vote by limiting them to one council member, instead of the four that they elect now. Oceanside would continue to elect its mayor at large. Oceanside is the most racially diverse city in North County, a fact often attributed to its proximity to Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. The city has had several minority members on the City Council over the years. Councilwoman Esther Sanchez, a Latina born in the citys Eastside neighborhood, received the most votes of all candidates when she was re-elected last year to her fifth term. Other Hispanics on the council in recent memory include Rocky Chavez and Lucy Chavez, no relation. Another Eastside resident, Terry Johnson, became the citys first black councilman in 1992. He was re-elected in 1996, then was elected mayor in 2000 making him the first black mayor in San Diego County. However, in 2004 Johnson lost his re-election bid to Wood, who remains the Oceanside mayor. Johnson has not held elected office since. A history like that shows Oceanside is not in the sights of the state Voting Rights Act, Siegmann said. Still, supporters of election district say that with Oceansides strong Hispanic population 35 percent according to the 2010 census it should have twice as many Hispanics on its City Council. Vistas City Council, after receiving a letter from Shenkman, agreed to the change in March, launching a process that, if completed, would lead to district elections in 2020. San Marcos divided into council districts 2016, and Escondido did it almost four years ago. Carlsbad City Attorney Celia Brewer has recommended the council approve a resolution Tuesday to begin the transition from at-large to district elections, the same step Oceanside last week. Carlsbad has not had a Latino candidate since Ron Alvarez lost the election for council in 2006, Shenkman said last week, though the citys population is 13.3 percent Latino. Popular community activist Ofelia Escobedo ran unsuccessfully in 2002 and 2004. Weve seen this many places, where there is an organized effort (by Latinos to seek election) and it fails, and out of frustration no one else runs, Shenkman said. Shenkman also has successfully challenged California school districts, hospital districts and other jurisdictions. philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @phildiehl In the summer of 1896, Gustav Mahler had reason to believe that his turbulent life was finally under control. His Second Symphony had been well-received, and he had nearly finished his Third. When his colleague Bruno Walter went to visit Mahlers composing hideaway in the Austrian Alps near Salzburg, Mahler hurried him along. Oh, you dont need to look at all that, he said, as Walter surveyed the beauty around him lake, forests, hills I have composed all this already. If any piece of music comes close to containing the whole of nature in organized sound, Mahlers Third Symphony is it. In the first of three performances by the San Diego Symphony on Friday evening in Copley Symphony Hall at the Jacobs Music Center repeated Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Music Director Jahja Ling displayed magisterial control of its enormous six-movement conception, colored by an emotional palette that climbs from death-haunted despair to joyfully optimistic choral outbursts. Many extra players are required the French horn section doubles from four to eight, for example. And the players must focus total concentration on very difficult music, often in exposed solo passages, over a time span that would accommodate several regular symphonic works. Additional musical resources included the women of the San Diego Master Chorale, the St. Pauls Cathedral Choristers, as well as Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford. Advertisement Those eight French horns lifted their bells to announce the first movements theme with goosebump-inducing majesty, and in perfect tune, an achievement that marked their playing all evening long. In the movements second half, Ling found a rhythmic groove that energized both him and the players. The spell was momentarily broken during the long pause after the first movement by patrons who seemed to think they were at a sporting event, but the noise-makers began to get the idea about halfway through the evening. In the fourth movement, where Mahler sets a portion of Nietzches Also Sprach Zarathustra, Mumford poured out a feast of radiant, dark-hued sound. Lings tempo, however, was so slow that the poems text lost its shape, and its connection to the rest of the work was fragmented. The womens and childrens voices, chiming like bells from positions above the auditorium and on each side of the stage on the floor, took the music from earth-bound worries to heavenly bliss as Mahler moved toward the last movement, a long declaration of loves power to unite humans with the divine. Taken at so slow a tempo that the audience began to audibly fidget and cough, the playing was nevertheless a testament to Lings extraordinary success in building an ensemble of first-class instrumentalists. From concertmaster Jeff Thayers shimmering solos through outstanding work by English horn Andrea Overturf, clarinetist Sheryl Renk, oboist Sarah Skuster, flutist Rose Lombardo and trumpet/posthorn soloist Micah Wilkinson, as well as outstanding work from trombonist Kyle Covington, the instrumental playing was, in a word, superb. If some tempo choices dilute this great works impact, these performances nonetheless offer a rare opportunity to hear a landmark masterpiece played to a world-class standard, and make a fitting capstone to Lings outstanding record of Mahler performances with the San Diego Symphony. San Diego Symphony: Mahler Symphony No. 3 When: Repeats at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Where: Jacobs Music Centers Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B St., downtown. Tickets: $20-$85 Phone: (619) 235-0804 Online: sandiegosymphony.org Overton is a freelance writer. On April 25, India's service chiefs released a 62-page document that addressed the range of security threats facing the country. With an insurgency in the Kashmir Valley and attacks by Maoists in Central India, as well as the strategic challenge posed by China and Pakistan, the release of the doctrine could not have been better timed. The Joint Doctrine for the Armed Forces released by Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Sunil Lanba, on April 26, lists out the threats to national security and the tri-services approach to meeting them-by constantly improving coordination and synergising operational capabilities of each service for a force multiplier effect across the spectrum of conflict. 'Surgical strikes' are held out as a possible response to terror provocations. The document released by Admiral Lanba is an update of a 2007 paper on joint doctrine which was never made public, and perhaps for good reason - the new document has been pilloried by military analysts. Bharat Karnad, a research professor at the Centre for Policy Research, called it an 'unsophisticated, college sophomore-level paper'. Admiral Arun Prakash, former navy chief and chairman, COSC, termed the joint document 'anodyne, farcical and premature'. "There is no jointness to speak of on the ground, so to produce a doctrine is meaningless. Every service is doing its own thing," he says. "The joint doctrine is difficult reading, not only because of its confused (and confusing) definitions, terms and concepts, but because of its jargon and lack of thinking," says Anit Mukherjee, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution India Centre. advertisement The purpose of such a doctrine is to not only guide the joint services operations of India's armed forces, but also to convey its intent, challenges and threats to a country's strategic partners and adversaries. It is on this count that it falls short of the mark. This is possibly because the doctrine, in the works for nearly four years, was developed in the absence of a clearly defined national security strategy. The US, for example, has a national security strategy, from which flows a national military strategy. This outlines the strategic aims of its military. The US's joint doctrine is derived from these military strategic aims. The writers of India's joint doctrine have done what writers of previous, service-specific doctrines have done in the absence of a national strategy-deduced them from the Indian Constitution. The lack of national strategic objectives to guide the military is not the only cause for concern. The doctrine also comes at a time when none of the key reforms that would actually push 'jointness' has been implemented. Jointness is essentially the ability of the army, air force and the navy to operate in a team-like, mutually reinforcing manner. These reforms, first suggested by a Group of Ministers appointed after the Kargil War in 2000, envisaged a radical overhaul of the national security system and a reorganisation of the MoD, a process not carried out since Independence. The most crucial problem, however, is that a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is yet to be appointed, 16 years after this post was recommended by a GoM in 2001. Worse, the few steps taken towards jointness soon after the Kargil Review Committee report was published are slowly being rolled back. For instance, the navy last year reclaimed the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) headquarters in Port Blair. The ANC, with its modest mix of tri-services assets-helicopters, naval patrol craft and an army infantry brigade-was meant to be a crucible for the armed forces' experiment at jointmanship. It was a functional tri-services command that would replicate joint operations on ground. It was created in 2002, and its command was to be rotated between three-star officers from the army, navy and air force. The primary objective of the exercise was to give the top brass a feel of a tri-services command. The ANC will now continue as a navy-driven command. The services have also decided that even the three newly proposed commands-for cyber, space and special forces operations-will always be headed by a navy, air force and army officer respectively, thereby perpetuating a trend of service-dominated commands and sounding the death knell for jointmanship. Last year, China carried out its biggest military reorganisation since 1949. The Central Military Commission, under President Xi Jinping, was expanded to 15 joint functional departments. The PLA reorganised all its ground, air and naval assets into five peacetime 'joint theatre commands', which were staffed with personnel from all its services to realise their synergies. The Lanzhou and Chengdu military regions, facing India, were replaced with a single Western Military Region, with integrated air and ground assets. India has a total of seven separate commands-four army and three air force-facing the disputed boundary with China. advertisement It came as no surprise that this reform was driven by the political executive, chiefly President Xi. Worldwide, all instances of jointmanship have been driven in such a manner. The US Congress pushed through the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which codified a joint doctrine. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, heads integrated theatre commands. The Act paved the way for a single Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff acting as military adviser with integrated theatre commanders under a four-star Admiral or General reporting to the President and Secretary of defence. The Act ensured jointness in the US armed forces and enhanced planning through inter-service coordination and prioritising of military budgets. In the case of India's joint doctrine, the absence of Union defence minister Arun Jaitley at the April 26 launch underlined perhaps the biggest flaw in the present services joint doctrine: the lack of political oversight. advertisement JOINT EFFORT A majority of P5 countries have integrated their armed forces. The post of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), has been the fundamental force driving jointness in four of the five P5 countries (see box: Joint Effort). The Modi government is believed to be considering the appointment of India's first CDS, a four-star chief who will be a single-point advisor for the government. As the head of the tri-services headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), the CDS will spur jointmanship in training and prioritise equipment acquisitions. This post is one that the armed forces have awaited for more than a decade-and-a-half. It has been the subject of at least three committees in the past 17 years. The Arun Singh committee on defence management first recommended the creation of a CDS post in 2001, a proposal that was immediately accepted by the then ruling NDA-1. Unfortunately, the government was unable to implement it. The Naresh Chandra committee, set up by the UPA in 2012, recommended a permanent chairman, chiefs of staff, instead. But even that post was not created. The CDS was re-recommended as recently as December 2016 by the Lt. General D.B. Shekatkar committee, appointed by former defence minister Manohar Parrikar. The report called for a CDS to be the link between the armed forces and the government, and also recommended the setting up of three to four joint commands which would include elements of two or more armed forces. advertisement In the absence of any political oversight, the three services continue to train, operate and procure weapon systems independently. This has had deleterious consequences for joint operations. For instance, when India briefly contemplated air strikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, it discovered that the maps used by the air force and the army used different grids, vastly complicating the exercise. It is for reasons like this that jointmanship is important. The US overhauled its military's command and control structure to overcome interoperability issues like the army ground forces being unable to communicate with navy ships due to incompatible radios. This is still a problem for the Indian armed forces-the IAF, navy and army use different communication systems. The published doctrine analyses jointness, observing how military integration is mandated by resource constraints, and makes possible 'centralised planning' and appropriate allocation of resources to obtain 'the right mix of forces at the right time and place' and a high-level of 'cross-domain synergy'. "But after saying all this about the urgent need for integrating the military," says Karnad, "and realising that they had gone out on a limb, the document quickly backtracks, reiterating on the very next page that all the preceding material notwithstanding, 'it does not imply physical integration' of the three armed services." "We cannot change organisations overnight," says Lt. General Vinod Bhatia, director, Centre for Joint Warfare Studies. "These have evolved suited to Indian conditions. This new one is a first step towards integration of the three services. From this, the armed forces will evolve their joint warfighting capability." However, in the absence of political oversight, what the country gets is 'joint and coordinated operations', a euphemism for the three services continuing to guard their respective turf. In his seminal 2016 paper, 'Fighting Separately-Jointness and Civil Military Relations', Anit Mukherjee recounts why this model of 'joint and coordinated operations' is deeply flawed and how it undermined the combat effectiveness of India's only expeditionary counterinsurgency campaign, the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) deployed in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990. At the apex level, the three service chiefs enjoyed a good rapport and established a tri-services overall forces headquarters, HQ OFC, before operations began. This was headed by Lt. General Depinder Singh, who commanded three service component commanders. However, within a fortnight, the naval and air force component commanders sent their juniors to act as liaison officers-an arrangement that continued for the duration of the mission. Even though the service chiefs wanted a type of joint theatre command with senior component commanders, their formation commanders resisted this idea and instead preferred the older model of liaison officer to 'coordinate operations'. Faced with this opposition from within their own services, the naval and air force chiefs backed down. This, Mukherjee points out, is what happens when the armed forces organise themselves in the absence of civilian oversight. The joint doctrine published on April 26 lays out how the services will manage the impossible task of fighting jointly yet separately-a joint operations committee under the COSC will plan and conduct operations. Joint organisations at the service command HQs, advance HQ (air force), maritime air operations Centre (air force), will conduct joint operations at the functional level. Interfaces for joint operations at the tactical level are the tactical air centres, ground liaison sections and the maritime element of the air force. The problem with this approach, as described in a critique of the US military pre-Goldwater Reforms, is what a 2016 Congressional Research Service paper of 2016 calls 'dual hatting'. 'More often than not,' it says, 'the interests of the individual militaries the chiefs belonged to were prioritised over those of the joint force.' The status quo continues. --- ENDS --- Graham Nash is almost sputtering. It is near the end of an in-depth interview and the English-born, naturalized American rock legend has reaffirmed his position as one of pops most charmingly loquacious singer-songwriters. His voice dances as he discusses his often absorbing autobiography, Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life (Crown). Suddenly, the co-founder of The Hollies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is so taken aback by a question that he sounds incredulous. The query that reduces him to a near-sputter is: How did the hippie idealism of the 1960s, and its fabled peace-and-love ethos, go wrong? It didnt go wrong, at all! an uncharacteristically indignant Nash replies. The hippie idealism, to me, is that love is better than hate, that peace is better than war, that wed better take care of each other, and that if you see somebody less fortunate than you try and treat them the way you would want them to treat you. Those hippie ideals havent gone anywhere. After pausing to reflect, he acknowledges those ideals have lost much of their cachet in an era when shallow celebrities are lauded simply for being celebrities. Theyve been replaced by Justin Biebers monkey and Kim Kardashians ass, lamented Nash, who performs sold-out concerts here Nov. 4 and 5 at the Belly Up. But those (hippie) ideals are still important, and getting more important by the day. The moment corporations completely take over the world, were (finished)... This burst of passion is quintessential Nash. He is as outspoken and committed to his beliefs now as when Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed at Woodstock in both 1969 and minus Young 1994. His zest for life, and for pushing himself to excel, are both unabated. Crosby, Stills & Nash at Woodstock "My basic philosophy is that, if I'm OK and my wife and friends are OK, the rest is a game, and how do you want to play it," Nash said, speaking from a recent Crosby, Stills & Nash tour stop in England. "And I want to play it the best way I can. I want to be the best at everything I do. Am I going to make it? Of course not. But no one can tell me I didn't try." Nash is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (first with Crosby, Stills & Nash, then with The Hollies, who scored their first hit single in England in 1963). He has played the fame game better, and longer, than most. And his disdain for the current state of affairs is palpable, even over the phone from Europe. "You know, there's so much serious stuff going on in the world," Nash said. "And we have been trained by the media to be much more interested in the size of Kim Kardashians ass and Justin Bieber's (expletive) monkey than some of the terrible things in the world. Those things will do us in if we don't take care of them, particularly climate-change and how we're mistreating the earth." His decades-long devotion to environmental causes, from saving the whales to championing clean energy, is amply reflected in "Wild Tales." He put the book together over a four-month period, although Nash admits that he didn't write it, technically speaking. "I just recorded myself talking, for days," he explained. "My friend, Bob Spitz, typed it all up and sent me the manuscript. I put it in order and checked the dates. Bob said he did not want his name on the book, because all he did was type my words." 'Something magical happened' Nash was in Los Angeles on a 1968 concert tour with The Hollies in 1968 when Mama Cass of the Mamas & The Papas introduced him to Stephen Stills and David Crosby, who had achieved rock stardom, respectively, as member of the bands Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds. Stills and Crosby sang the ballad "You Don't Have to Cry" for Nash. He asked them to sing it again and listened intently. On the third run-through, he added his high tenor to the mix and a folk-rock super group was born. "Something magical had happened, and we all knew it," Nash writes in his book. "When you sing with two or three people and you get it right when the whole thing becomes greater than the parts everything kind of lifts a couple of feet off the ground. ... It was there, complete, a minute into our relationship." Also there were some of the seeds that would make being a member of CSN an alternately heady and tumultuous affair. Crosby gave Nash his first joint to smoke. "Little did I know at the time that Crosby had the best dope in Hollywood," writes Nash, who also notes: "Little did I know that Crosby had a Ph.D in acting out." It shouldn't surprise fans that some of the choicest tidbits in Nash's book are related to music. For example, before Neil Young came on board, both Steve Winwood and Al Kooper declined invitations to join Crosby, Stills & Nash. The Beatles-owned Apple Records turned down CSN when the fledgling trio was first seeking an album contract. After Nash moved to Los Angeles in 1968, Crosby lent him a little dough just to tide you over, in the form of a check for $80,000. When Nash and his then-girlfriend, Joni Mitchell, had an argument in a hotel room in Sweden early 1970, she poured a bowl of cornflakes and milk over his head. "I was stunned to say nothing of being pissed," he writes in his book. "Then I put Joni over my knee and I spanked her. Needless to say, it was one of the more interesting moments in our relationship." Nash makes several references to San Diego in "Wild Tales." Among them are a 1970 horse-riding injury sustained here by Stills and a 3,000 mile sailing trip Nash embarked on with Crosby the same year. Their oceanic adventure took them and their crew from Florida to California, via the Panama Canal. Crosby, an expert sailor, steered his boat, the Mayan, without a scratch the entire way, until arriving in San Diego harbor. "As we prepared to tie up to the dock," Nash writes, "another boat full of blind-drunk newspaper people with hookers on board rammed in to the Mayan and ripped out the bowsprit... It's a good thing our guns were stowed out of Croz's reach..." By turns eye-popping, touching, witty and self-absorbed, Nashs 360-page self-portrait is brutally candid and never boring. In it, he vividly recalls growing up very poor in England, during and after World War II, then finding salvation though music and photography. (Some of his celebrated photos, including shots of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, will be shown Nov. 8-10 at Art San Diego 2013 in Balboa Park.) Nashs salvation led to fame and fortune beyond his dreams. He and his band mates wrote classic songs, including Nash's "Our House" and "Marrakesh Express," that became an intrinsic part of the soundtrack for a generation. Sex, drugs and rock n roll became an everyday reality for him and his musical compadres, and he makes no bones about it. Any regrets? Only two Regarding the creation of Crosby, Stills & Nashs classic 1969 debut album, he writes: We smoked a joint and snorted a line (of cocaine) before every (recording) session a CSN ritual. Regarding longtime musical partner David Crosby, who in 1981 checked himself out of a Scripps Drug & Alcohol Treatment Program here after only a few hours, Nash writes: Often I would knock on his hotel door, which he kept propped open with a security jamb, and hed be getting (oral sex from two women), all while he was talking and doing business on the phone and rolling joints and smoking and having a drink. Regarding his own drug use, prior to his decision to stop using cocaine, Nash writes: Id done my share, taken enormous amounts. There is a Polaroid picture I have of a rock of cocaine that was bigger than the eight ball sitting next to it in the shot and (bassist Tim Drummond) and I finished it in three days. So Ive been there, Ive been out of it at times, but I could walk away from it. Drug abuse was nearly fatal for Crosby and Stephen Stills, as Nash notes in sobering detail in his book. Asked how he now regards drugs, he responded: I dont condone anybody taking any drugs, at all. But they worked for me. Marijuana, without question, opened up my mind to whole other possibilities of existence. And LSD taught me about what was going on. But how did the ever-fit and trim Nash emerge virtually unscathed, when his band mates almost died from drugs? I want to get the job done, he said, speaking in a suitably matter-of-fact voice. And theres a certain survival instinct driven deep in my soul. When I was born, World War II had three years to go. You didnt know if your house would be there tomorrow, or if your friend would be alive. Theres a prevalent attitude in England: Take a deep breath, have a sip of tea, and everything will be better tomorrow. With David and Stephen, the most important part of our relationship is the music. It doesnt matter what (else) goes on, I want to get the job done. Asked if he had any regrets, Nash cited only two. "When my mother died and when my father died," he said. "I was in Copenhagen with the Hollies when my father died and I tried to get back to England. But there were no flights at night and I had to rent a small plane to fly to Manchester, and I didn't make it. I missed my father's death by 2 hours. And I was in a (recording) studio in Los Angeles when my mother passed away. "As for the rest, I don't regret any of it. I've had an incredible life. I'm still creating on many levels painting, sculpting, photography and, obviously, songwriting. People might say: 'Would CSN have made better music if we were straight?' And there is no answer to that question. It was what it was. We could have made more music. But I don't know if we would have made better music if we were straight." The clashes between the members of CSN (and CSNY) are the stuff of rock legend, as Nash's book repeatedly attests. Some were fueled by drugs, others by legitimate creative differences or swelled egos. Following a 1970 concert in Chicago, Nash, Crosby and Young fired drummer Dallas Taylor because Young was put off by Taylor's frequently intrusive drum fills. CNY then cancelled the rest of their tour on the spot, incurring a financial loss for CSNY that Nash estimates at $7 million. He, Crosby and Young left Chicago "on the first plane out," Nash writes, leaving the musically showboating Stills behind. "We didn't even tell Stephen, who had wandered off by himself," Nash writes. "He came back for the show and there was no (expletive) show! We were completely pissed at him, and he wasn't in any kind of state to hear that. What can you do with someone who's blasted out of his skull? You can't start discussing details with him. Meanwhile, we weren't relating to each other on a rational level. There was too much head-butting and (one-upmanship), too many strong individuals insisting they were right." 'Palm trees and California blondes' Creative tension has helped produce some of rock's greatest albums, including the debuts by CSN and CSNY. It has also caused some bands to implode, including (at various times) CSN and CSNY. So, is creative tension conducive to creating great art? Nash, a man, who speaks with great certainty about much in his life, isn't sure. "I don't know," he said. "There was a lot of tension going on, especially when we were making (CSNY's debut album) 'Deja Vu.' It was very different than the first CSN record, which was sunnier and more palm trees and California blondes. When we made 'Crosby, Stils & Nash,' I was in love with Joni, Stephen was in love with Judy (Collins) and David was in love with Christine (Hinton). "Fifteen months later, I wasn't with Joan, Stephen wasn't with Judy and Christine had been killed (in a car accident). So we were already depressed. If you add to that the amount of cocaine we were taking, and the fact we were richer, 'Deja Vu' was a much different album. "But, yeah, (regarding) the tension between the band, I don't have a brother; David and Stephen are the closest things I have to brothers. I see it in my children. My two sons argue, not all the time, but they disagree. Is it more advantageous (creatively) to be more confrontational? I don't know. With four strong individuals, four fine young musicians and songwriters, of course, tensions will be a part of the picture. But is it necessary for (creating) great music? I don't know. The Hollies didn't have tension and we made some good records." That they did, including the Nash-penned "Carrie Anne," which was inspired by his attraction to Marianne Fathfull, who was then Mick Jagger's girlfriend. ("I had a great relationship with Marianne; she was an incredibly desirable woman when she was 18 in that Catholic school girl outfit she wore," Nash said. "Unfortunately, I never got to make love to Marianne.") But The Hollies had no life-threatening drug problems to overcome. Not so, CSN. Nash's book chronicles, in wrenching detail, Crosby's long, soul-sapping descent into drug addiction. Recalling an abortive 1979 recording session, Nash writes: "He was freebasing without compunction, not even hiding it discreetly. (Although I didn't know at the time that he was also chipping with heroin, which shocks me, even to this day.)" Soon thereafter, Nash penned the songs "Wasted on the Way" and "Into the Darkness," but to no avail. Crosby's descent grew ever more hellish. His singing was so impaired, Nash writes, that Art Garfunkel and The Eagles' Timothy B. Schmit covertly recorded the vocal parts to two then-new CSN songs, to make up for Crosby's ragged singing. Executives at CSN's record company were none the wiser. A 1980 intervention for Crosby failed, Nash writes. On a subsequent concert tour, keyboardist Mike Finnigan sang some of Crosby's vocal parts "off in the shadows" of the stage. "It actually got so bad," Nash writes, "we had to build a room adjacent to the stage so Croz could wander off and freebase between songs. Often, David walked offstage, threw up from the drugs, and was literally dragged back to sing." Later, Nash writes: "Of course, I was equally to blame. I didn't do anything to intervene or defuse the situation. The CSN tour was an enabler for David and so was I. Absolutely. I enabled David because I wanted him to be able to make music. I tried to confront him, to prohibit the drugs. He'd say, 'Want me to sing tonight? Want me to be there, man awake?' So to appease a junkie, you say nothing while he is getting stoned and happy. And I have to take a certain amount of responsibility. I wanted the music. The music was always the most important thing for me." Crosby's drug travails became even more gruesome, a point Nash doesn't hold back from graphically describing. Only after serving time in a Texas prison, where he kicked his habit cold turkey, did Crosby finally get clean and sober. Uncensored When it comes to Crosby, his best friend for decades, Nash seems to have left nothing out of "Wild Tales." Were there any incidents Nash decided not to share in the book? "My major concerns were my wife, Susan, and Crosby, particularly David," Nash replied. "Everybody wants to hear the (details) about Joni (Mitchell) and the role she played my life, since we lived together. So I wanted to know how Susan was processing that information (in the book), and she was totally fine. Of course, I didn't meet Susan until 6 years after Joni and I were finished. "But I was mainly concerned with the way I described my life with David and his spiral into cocaine madness. It really affected me, not only on a personal level, but a musical and spiritual level. There was one story in my book, the only one, that legal department (of the publishers) wanted me to make sure was true. And that was about David selling his Mercedes to his drug dealer and the dealer dying, and David stealing the car back. I wrote David, and he said: 'Hey, that's exactly what happened and I re-sold the car.' "David is a man; he admits what happened. He knows he went crazy there, he knows how it affected me. He admitted it, and said: 'Don't change a word. It's all true'." Would Nash have changed any part of the book if Crosby had asked him? "Only if it wasn't true and I'd remembered it wrong," Nash said. "That's why I closed the book with (the line): "This is how I remember it,' because we all have our truths. The truth is that Stephen, to this day thinks the first time we (CSN) sang together was in (Mama) Cass kitchen, and it's just not true. We all choose to believe what we think. "But had David asked me to change (the book) I probably would have, because it was pretty brutal. But he's here in the next room and he's read the book, and he found it to be a very interesting read. I wanted the book to be in my voice. I wanted it to be clear. And I wanted it to be like I was talking to you in my kitchen, not a big, highfalutin', brilliant thing, but me talking to you. And I did." For his pending Belly Up performance, Nash will be accompanied by Crosby's son, James Raymond on keyboards and former Lone Justice/Bruce Springsteen guitarist Shayne Fontaine. As for the rest of this year and the year ahead, Nash's schedule is already full. "I'm doing the final mixes for a 40-song, 3-CD CSNY box set of our 1974 tour that will be out in early March," he said. "David and Stephen and I were honored in May to play with Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center (big band), which orchestrated 12 of our songs. We got to sing with them at Lincoln Center and that was a thrill. I obviously made sure we were recording that on multi-track and that we had 16 video cameras. As soon as I finish the CSN box set, I'll start working on that. Then there's some photography shows planned, and a painting show for me. And we're joining Neil (Young) at (this weekend's) Bridge School Benefit (concert), so maybe Neil will want to do something (next year), too... "I'm a person who focuses on getting the job done. If we're going to make a new album, let's make it the best we can. Why not? We only have so much time in our lives." Maybe its a photo from your family trip to Disneyland, circa 1971. The one where you are rocking a suede headband and a Donny Osmond T-shirt. Or that Beta tape of your 21st birthday party, the one whose contents will be revealed on a need-to-know basis. Or your battered cassette copy of the one album Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded as a duo, which is now selling for $100 on Amazon. These and other treasures can be saved from the technology graveyard thanks to the Memory Lab at the La Jolla-Riford Library, where patrons can use a host of gadgets to turn their various tapes, photos and discs to digital formats. What do libraries do? We provide access to information and access to things that are hard to get, and it appealed to us to think we could help members of the public preserve their important personal information that is in danger of being lost, said La Jolla-Riford branch manager Shaun Briley. These are the most important objects and artifacts for a lot of people. Its their history. Advertisement And memories are just the beginning. From Rosetta Stone language lessons to child-development toys and Wi-Fi hotspots, the collection of items, programs and services you can check out from the city of San Diego libraries goes way beyond books. If you can dream it, the library can probably provide it. Here is a guide to the treasure-trove you can unlock with just your library card. The Memory Lab Launched on April 1, the Memory Lab became an instant hit with patrons, who booked up all of the available April appointments within 24 hours of its opening. Inside the lab, a volunteer can help you convert VHS or Beta tapes, audio cassettes, floppy discs, photos, photo negatives or slides to a digital format. You can take your newly digitized materials home on a thumb drive or the data can be stored on the cloud. People will gasp when they see one of their old photos come to life from a format they thought was lost forever, said Briley, who was inspired by the Memory Lab that opened last year at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. Technology has changed with frightening regularity for the last 20 or 30 years, so a lot of people who are coming to us have been through at least one (format) change before. The hope with digital is that it is a format that should last and last. (The Memory Lab at the La Jolla-Riford Library is free and available Sunday through Friday by prior appointment only. Call (858) 552-1657 to reserve a time.) Rosetta Stone language lessons You have probably seen the Rosetta Stone ads and mall kiosks, where the promise of foreign language fluency seems exotic and easy. In the real world, three-month Rosetta Stone subscriptions start at $64, with the fees going up from there. With your San Diego library card, you can get those same classes for free, and you can keep plugging away no matter how long it takes for you to master the fine art of Farsi. The librarys Rosetta Stone program offers online courses in 30 languages, including Spanish, Swedish and Swahili. There are also two English courses, one for British English and one for the American version. If you dont have an online library account already, you will need a current library card to set one up. Once you have enrolled in your Rosetta Stone course, you can log in remotely and expand your language horizons from pretty much anywhere. People are so surprised to find out how far weve moved beyond books, said Robyn Gage-Norquist, supervising librarian for support services. They are really surprised by how many of our services can be accessed from home or from wherever they are. (You can find the Rosetta Stone courses on the librarys website. Click on the eCollection tab, the Articles & Databases link, then the Education and Language tab.) Gale Courses Speaking of expanded horizons, the librarys eCollection also includes the skill-building, career-improving, passion-stoking offerings of the Gale Courses. Through the Gale Courses, you can take online classes in everything from Microsoft Word 2007 and Introduction to PowerPoint 2013 to medical coding, fiction writing, project management and beginning guitar-playing. The instructor-led courses generally run for six weeks with 12 assignments and interactive discussion areas, and there are no limits to the number of courses you can take. The library also offers an online high school diploma and career certification programs, along with SAT and GRE tests. Check out the Services tab on the library website for more information. (You can find the Gale Courses on the librarys website. Click on the eCollection tab, the Articles & Databases link, then the Education and Language tab.) Bug kits, hotspots and more Whats that creepy-crawly thing in your kitchen? Check out a free LifeScanner bug collection kit from any of the citys 36 branch libraries, pack your insect interloper in a tube and return your kit to the library. It is then mailed to the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics in Canada for DNA sequencing. From there, you and your bug will become part of the Catalog of Life@ the San Diego Public Library, an ambitious program to catalog San Diegos vast assortment of insect life. There is more learning where that came from. At the North Park Library, patrons can check out First 5 Backpacks filled with educational toys. The Teen Lab at the Valencia Park/Malcolm X Library has a Wi-Fi hotspot lending program where teens can check out a hotspot to use outside the library for a period of three months. And on the third Saturday of the month from 2 to 4 p.m., the Central Library offers Bike Kitchen Walk-Up Service, where bike owners can get access to the librarys shop-grade bicycle tools and repair assistance from local professionals. And if you are in the mood to dabble, check out the May 20 How-To Festival, where seven branch libraries will offer free lessons in such diverting topics as How to develop your intuition, How to dance the Electric Slide and How to make sweet potato pie. For a guide to all library activities, go to the librarys website and click on the Programs & Events tab. Its a good read. I want people to think about the library as, This is a place where I can go and there are no limits to what I can learn, said library director Misty Jones. I want people to think of us first when they are looking for something cool to do on the weekend or something cool to do at night. I want people to pay attention to what were doing because were on to something. Twitter: @karla_peterson karla.peterson@sduniontribune.com San Diego has a huge Portuguese community and many of these families trace their roots to the Azores, a lush volcanic archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. Heres a chance to spend a week in the homeland at a five-star resort on Sao Miguel, the largest of the nine major Azores Islands. The deal from Azores Getaways starts at $1,349, and includes round-trip air from San Diego. (Price is per person, based on double occupancy, and is valid for select departures September through December.) Youll fly Jet Blue from San Diego to Boston, then fly to Sao Miguel aboard Azores Airlines (aka SATA). Youll stay at the luxe Pedras do Mar Resort & Spa. The deal includes airport/hotel transfers and daily breakfast. Learn more at https://azoresgetaways.com/en. The Class of 17 has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Now its your turn. Frontier Airlines is launching nonstop San Diego/Cleveland service on May 22. When we checked late last month, round-trip fares through June were available for less than $300. The rockin news is that several downtown hotels are teaming on packages with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. One example: For just $279, couples get two nights at downtowns Drury Plaza Hotel, plus a hot breakfast buffet each morning, free parking (an $18 value), and two general admission tickets to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (a $47 value). Check out this and other deals at reservations.rockhall.com/site/welcome/6618/rock-and-roll-hall-fame-preferred-hotels. The Orlando is a family owned boutique hotel on funky West Third Street in Los Angeles. Its steps from an array of cool things to do in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Guests can check out legendary landmarks along the Sunset Strip, catch a show being taped at CBS Studios, or simply relax poolside. Rates at The Orlando typically start at around $375 a night, but through June, the hotel is offering a deal exclusive to Union-Tribune Travel Deals readers. Pay just $209 a night for a standard king room. The deal includes free parking (a $39 value) and even includes taxes. Theres no resort fee, and Wi-Fi is free. Check out the hotel and book at www.theorlando.com using the code SANDIEGO. Advertisement Five Solmar hotels in Cabo San Lucas are offering deep discounts exclusively for Union-Tribune Travel Deals readers. Depending on dates and hotels booked, readers can get as much as 60 percent off regular rates. Stay for as little as $57 a night at Quinta del Sol. Or upgrade to a suite at the Grand Solmar Lands End, starting at $343 a night (about half off regular rates). Be forewarned that room taxes and fees will add anywhere from 19 to 29 percent to your tab. Book by the end of May for travel through Dec. 22. Check out options and book online at promotions.solmar.com/sandiegotribune/. Heres another suite deal from the Rosarito Beach Hotel. For $129 a night, stay Sundays through Thursdays in a fully equipped one-bedroom condo in the resorts Pacifico Tower. The deal includes breakfast for two in the resorts Azteca restaurant. Theres no resort fee, but parking costs $3.50 per night. The Breakfast Is Ready package is available through June 29. Check out the resort at www.RosaritoBeachHotel.com, but book by phone at (800) 343-8582. May is National Military Appreciation Month, and several travel destinations have taken note: Californias Great America amusement park is offering free admission through May 29 to any member of the armed services, active or veteran. Plus, each military guest can bring up to six additional guests at a discounted rate of $30 per person (a $10 discount). Learn more: www.cagreatamerica.com/play/events/military-appreciation-days. All during May, SLS Las Vegas is offering a 50 percent discount for active and retired military at seven restaurants within its Vegas casino/resort complex; the discount applies to the entire tab. Year-round, SLS offers a 25 percent restaurant discount and a 20 percent discount on hotel rooms for military and first responders. Learn more: www.slslasvegas.com/military-savings. Go to www.military.com/discounts/travel to link to other hotels, attractions, airlines, cruise lines and transportation companies that offer military discounts. To celebrate Canadas 150th anniversary, Parks Canada is offering free admission this year to all national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas operated by Parks Canada. The freebie is valid from coast to coast: Visit everywhere from Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on the West Coast of Vancouver Island to Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic Site on North Americas easternmost point of land. Order your Discovery Pass online. Learn more at www.pc.gc.ca/en/voyage-travel/admission. DaRosa is a freelance travel writer. Prices quoted are subject to change. Restrictions and blackout dates may apply, and all deals are subject to availability. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) The immigration agents surrounded the small home on a quiet street in East Los Angeles. One trained his rifle on the back door. Another knocked loudly out front, shouting for the people inside to open up. Someone else barked the commands in Spanish. Their target was a 47-year-old Mexican man who they suspected had crossed into the United States illegally and later done time for felony assault and battery. The team surrounds a Montebello home where a 47-year-old Mexican national lives with his family in El Monte, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Left: Immigration and Customs Enforcement fugitive operations team assistant director Jorge Field confers with team members in Downey, Calif. Right: The team surrounds a Montebello home where a 47-year-old Mexican national lives with his family in El Monte, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) The mans wife came to the door after a few minutes with her own demands: Did the agents have a warrant? Told that they didnt, she refused to allow the agents in the house and said her husband would not speak with them. Thwarted, at least for that day, the agents departed. As they walked to their SUVs, a neighbor stood in the street recording them on his phone. As that recent stalemate suggests, President Trumps calls for a dramatic increase in deportations has brought changes for ICE agents on the ground. A determined push by immigrant groups has led to more encounters with people aware of their rights. And, after receiving relatively little attention for years, agents acknowledge the atmosphere and politics of the job has become more fraught as they work under increased scrutiny from politicians and activists. Thats just the climate that were in, said Dave Marin, director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE in Los Angeles, because this issue has brought up such heated concerns on both sides. But while arrests by ICE are up 35% nationwide since Trump took office, they remain relatively flat in Southern California. Arrests of immigrants without criminal pasts have remained low in the L.A. region as well, as agents do little, if anything, differently from what they were under the previous administration, Marin said. The charged dynamics were evident when The Times accompanied a team of ICE agents as they carried out a series of early-morning arrests late last month. I go to work! You guys have no heart. Hours before dawn, agents gathered in a shopping mall parking lot in Compton. A supervisor handed out paperwork with photos, immigration history and criminal rap sheets of the six men slated for arrest. Two of the targeted men were arrested without incident in traffic stops shortly after leaving their homes to begin the drive to work one as a tree trimmer, the other a chimney repairman. A third man hid inside his apartment when agents knocked, but was nabbed when he walked out to the street an hour later. Next on the list was Sergio Rodriguez, who sneaked into the U.S. from Mexico in the early 1980s and managed to became a legal resident a few years later. For years, he worked and raised five children with his wife without attracting the attention of immigration officers; but a conviction in 2014 on a felony charge of making criminal threats and a few earlier burglary and theft convictions had made him eligible for deportation. Rodriguez stepped out from his small, dilapidated house in El Monte, east of downtown Los Angeles, shortly after 7:30 a.m. to begin the short walk to his job at a nearby meat market. Agents had been secretly watching him make the same walk at the same time for days and now were waiting for him. One agent slipped out of an unmarked SUV and followed behind, while a few others positioned themselves up ahead. Why are you doing this? What did I do? Rodriguez shouted repeatedly in English and Spanish as the agents intercepted him, cuffed his hands and, after a quick pat down, put him in the back of a car. I go to work! You guys have no heart. You have no heart! The agents presence did not go unnoticed. Seeing a live television report about the arrest, the mayor of El Monte called his police chief demanding answers. The chief, in turn, called Jorge Field, ICEs assistant field office director for the L.A. region. Field has grown accustomed to such calls. Elected officials in immigrant communities, where anger and fear has been stoked by frequent and often inaccurate reports spread on social media of ICE sweeps, have grown particularly sensitive to the agencys presence on their streets. Field took the call while driving to make the next arrest and calmly explained Rodriguezs criminal past to the police chief. An aide to Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) emailed at the same time, demanding to know, Are you in El Monte? Marin said he spends a considerable amount of his time meeting with local politicians, police and church officials in an effort to tamp down claims of ICE running amok in L.A. It has, at times, been a hard message to sell in the current climate. As one of my bosses put it, Fifty percent of the country is mad at us 100% of the time, he said. Half the country wants us to do more, and the other half wants us to do less. After Trump dramatically broadened ICE agents authority, essentially giving them clearance to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, immigrant rights groups have pushed to educate immigrants on their rights in particular to deny ICE agents permission to enter their homes. The effort has had a noticeable effect on arrest operations, Marin said, as agents increasingly have been stymied, as they were by the the Mexican mans wife, who did not try to hide the fact that her husband was inside the house. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of several immigrant advocacy groups that ramped up Know Your Rights campaigns in the wake of Trumps election, estimates it has reached 25,000 people through various outreach programs over the past three months, the groups spokesman said. Top: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take green card holder Sergio Rodriguez into custody outside his El Monte home in El Monte, Calif. Bottom left: Agents take Mexican national Santiago Mondragon into custody on a Downey street while he was on his way to work. Bottom right: Agents take handcuffs off of green card holder Sergio Rodriguez inside the ICE staging facility Los Angeles, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) I knew this day would come Agents arrested four of the targeted men on the recent morning. Along with the man whose wife refused to cooperate, a sixth person was not found. The men were brought to a federal building downtown. They were frisked and fingerprinted in a brightly lit hallway and then led into a room where agents seated at computer terminals booked the men into custody. Afterward, they were put into large, spare holding cells with old televisions mounted to the ceilings. The telephone numbers for many countries embassies or consulates were posted on the wall above pay phones. Juan Vega, 23, whose criminal history includes a 2014 gun possession conviction, seemed despondent and shell shocked as he sat on a bench with his head in his hands. Brought to the country by his mother when he was 4, he said he had no idea what he would do if he was returned to Mexico. He cried thinking about his 6-year-old son. If deported, he said, he wouldnt return to the U.S. I just want to get this over with, he said. Left: ICE agent Jorge Field outside the Montebello home of a suspects home. Right: Juan Vega, 23, is lead into the ICE downtown staging facility in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Nearby sat Rodriguez, the meat market worker picked up in El Monte. In my head, I knew this day would come, he said in Spanish. This president that we have now has a lot of people scared. Anything you do, the police will arrest you and deport you. Like Vega, he worried about what would happen to his family. Who would take care of his wife, who has lung cancer? How will he see his adult children and grandchildren? He said he wanted to send a message to others. Dont make mistakes like I made, he said. Its very sad. As of last week, Rodriguez, Vega and one of the other men arrested were being held in an detention facility as they waited for a hearing before an immigration judge. The fourth man, whom a judge had already ordered deported, was removed from the country within days of his arrest. Top: Sergio Rodriguez, left, sits with others on a bench as they await processing the ICE downtown staging facility in Los Angeles. Bottom left: Juan Vega, 23, right, sits on a bench as agents unlock a door to take him inside for processing. Bottom right: ICE agents take fingerprints while processing apprehended immigration fugitives. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Targeting serious criminals ICEs Los Angeles office covers a vast region that stretches from San Luis Obispo to San Clemente and from the coast to the Nevada border. There are nine teams of agents like the one that made the recent arrests, and at least one of them is active each day. Other agents are assigned to arrest people as they are released from local jails. In counties where the sheriff allows it, including Los Angeles, Marin posts agents inside the jails to identify inmates in the country illegally. When deciding whom to target for arrest, Marin said his agents have kept their focus on serious criminals, as they were instructed to do in the final years of the Obama administration. (Obama made criminals the priority for deportation late in 2014 following years of tough immigration policies that earned him the nickname the Deporter in Chief from critics.) Each of the men whom agents pursued on the recent morning had been convicted of at least one felony. Along with Vega, Rodriguez and the man whose wife blocked agents, one man had been caught driving drunk three times and convicted of burglary, while another served time in jail for drug sales after being deported four times. The reason for staying the course, Marin said, is rooted in the realities of California, where court decisions and state laws have left all of the states 58 county sheriffs unwilling and unable to fully cooperate with ICEs requests to detain and hand over criminals thought to be in the country illegally. Instead, Marin said, his agents are often forced to track down people after they are released from custody. Marin added that his agents are stretched thin as it is. Were already doing everything we can with what we have, he said. Arrests soar in other cities, but not L.A. In the three months after Trump took office, agents in the L.A. field office made 2,273 arrests marking little change from the 2,166 arrests during the same period last year and a decline from the 2,719 arrests in 2015, according to ICE figures. Ninety percent of the people arrested this year had criminal records, the highest percentage among all ICE offices in the U.S., the numbers show. The L.A. figures differ starkly from those in Atlanta, Dallas and elsewhere, where the number of people without criminal records arrested by ICE jumped dramatically in the months since Trump took office. In Atlanta, for example, non-criminal arrests rose more than five fold over last year and accounted for a third of all ICE arrests. While the number of non-criminals arrested in the L.A. region remains low, Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrants rights for the ACLU of California, noted it had more than doubled over last year to 224 people. To the extent that Marin is continuing to follow the priorities set out by the Obama administration and is exercising restraint in immigration enforcement, thats a good thing, she said. But I am concerned about the increase in arrests, especially of people who have never been convicted of any crime. It is too soon to tell what will happen. joel.rubin@latimes.com For more news on federal courts in Southern California, follow me on Twitter: @joelrubin ALSO Here's why some immigrant activists say not even criminals should be deported Texas' new ban on 'sanctuary cities' could put police in jail if they fail to enforce immigration holds Congressional bill seeks to prohibit immigration officers from identifying themselves as 'police' Two San Diego police officers shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who pointed a BB air pistol at one of them as he stood in front of Torrey Pines High School early Saturday, police said. Authorities are declining to name the boy because he was a juvenile. The teen was a freshman at the school and lived in the neighborhood. Police received a 911 call at 3:27 a.m. asking for a welfare check on a juvenile at the school in Carmel Valley, said police homicide Lt. Mike Holden. The caller said there was a kid in front of the school who someone should probably check on and that the person was not armed, the lieutenant said. Advertisement Police believe the caller was the boy himself, Holden said. The two officers arrived at the school on Del Mar Heights Road about the same time and saw the teen. As they got out of their patrol cars to speak with him, he pulled a handgun that was concealed in his waistband and pointed it at one of the officers, Holden said. Both officers drew their weapons and told him to drop the gun, but he continued to point the gun and walk toward one officer, Holden said. The teen ignored additional commands and, fearing for their safety, both fired, the lieutenant said. The teen was struck several times. The officers immediately began life-saving measures, and the teen was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where he was pronounced dead, Holden said. The teens gun remained at the scene to be processed as evidence. Police later determined that the gun was a semi-automatic BB air pistol, Holden said. Both officers had activated their body-worn cameras at some point, so investigators will be able to review the incident, Holden said. The shooting occurred in the front parking lot, near a turnaround area. It was not known how the boy got to the school, although police said he didnt appear to have driven there. The details of the situation are still unfolding, but whatever they are, this event is very traumatic for our students, staff, families, and community, Eric Dill, superintendent for the San Dieguito Union High School District, said in a letter posted on the districts website. The teens name was not released in the letter. I know this is difficult, but we ask that you please refrain from conjecture or spreading rumors, Dill said. This is a difficult time for the family and we need to let them mourn. He said a crisis response team will be at school Monday for students and faculty as needed. As a community, we have a shared responsibility to care for one another, Dill said. Please rest assured that we will do everything possible to maintain our daily routine while supporting each other as we deal with this sad event. The shooting occurred just hours before an unknown number of students arrived at the school to take SATs, tests used for college admissions. Dill told the Union-Tribune that police redirected students arriving for the tests to a rear entrance. Students also were informed about what had happened and were given the opportunity to opt out and take the test another day, but Dill said he had not heard of any students who had. Torrey Pines Principal Rob Coppo is expected to write a letter that will be sent to families and staff members. I know hes quite saddened by this, Dill said about Coppo. He has been in touch with the family, and his focus is on supporting the school. Dill said the family had told Coppo that they wanted privacy. He also said he had not heard of any note or other message the student had left behind to indicate why the incident occurred. The names of the officers involved are expected to be released in the next few days, according to department protocol. The officers have been on the force for 28 years and four years, respectively. One of the officers is on the departments Juvenile Services Team, Holden said. They were not injured. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com Davis and Littlefield write for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Staff writer Gary Warth contributed to this report UPDATES: 4:05 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from Supt. Eric Dill and additional writing. This article was originally published at 9:50 a.m. As Great Britains Prince Philip, 95, was announcing his retirement from the public spotlight, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, was quietly visiting San Diego. The second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip was with a small delegation from the Northern Ireland Science Park in Belfast attending high-tech briefings at UC San Diego and dining at the home of university Chancellor Pradeep Khosla Wednesday evening. Their visit was organized by Associate Vice Chancellor Mary Walshok, who also serves on the Northern Ireland Science Park advisory board. Advertisement An innovation economy expert and dean of University Extension, Walshok spent time with Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace about 18 months ago while he was hosting his bi-annual entrepreneurship event called PitchAtPalace. HRH Prince Andrew checks out virtual reality during his visit to the UCSD Qualcomm Institute on campus. (Alex Matthews / Qualcomm Institute) On Wednesday, the entourage attended cybersecurity and data analytics briefings by scientists and entrepreneurs, met with leaders of startup booster CONNECT and immersed themselves in the gee-whiz technology of UCSDs Qualcomm Institute. While there, Prince Andrew gamely glimpsed the future through a pair of virtual reality goggles. His hosts even scheduled an afternoon break for tea and scones, of course. A 1968 photo of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, age 8, with his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. (AFP/Getty Images) Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs, and his wife, Joan, as were among the small group dining with Chancellor Khosla, as were the heads of Northern Irelands research-oriented Queens University and the University of Ulster. Dinner guest Timothy Wollaeger, a San Diego serial entrepreneur and investor, found himself seated next to Paddy Nixon, president of the University of Ulster. He quipped that he never would have imagined that one day he would be dining with a member of Britains royal family, much less with President Nixon! Its Taboo: The Black Eyed Peas rapper known as Taboo says that when people see him these days, their usual greeting is: Holy s--t, whats up with your hair? Jaime Luis Gomez has traded his long, straight Kim Kardashian-style locks for a blood-red Mohawk. The transition was due, in part, to his chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed in 2014 with stage 2 cancer and, in part, to his going on the warpath against the disease. Taboo confesses that for six years he ignored his lower back pain (triggered unknowingly by the advancing cancer) until he fell off a stage and injured his tailbone. Now the U.S.-born rapper, of Mexican and Native American descent, is on a mission to raise cancer IQs especially among Native Americans and encourage them to recognize and react early to tell-tale symptoms. I believe in using my platform and using my voice to help others, said Taboo. His song, The Fight, played in the background as he took the stage at a national brainstorming session of health leaders in San Diego on May 3. I wrote that when I was undergoing chemotherapy, he confided. Today, Taboo, 41, is a global ambassador for the American Cancer Society. The Fight has become its anthem, and its sale proceeds are going to the anti-cancer organization. The musicians doctor, David Agus, co-chair of the conference, introduced him to the audience. Hats off to you for actually saving my life, Taboo said, referring to Agus call for immediate aggressive treatment. I went into shock. I went into confusion. I had no idea where this was going to take me, Taboo explained. He also went into action: The next day I had surgery. Not only did Taboo triumph over medical odds, so did another member of his family. As he and his wife were exploring alternative ways to expand their family following the musicians testicular cancer surgery, she became pregnant, giving birth to a baby girl. Reality check: Thinking of hiking in one of our national parks this summer? You may want to first walk to Warwicks book store in La Jolla Sunday between noon and 2 p.m. to chat with Johan Otter of Escondido. He and his teenage daughter were viciously attacked by a grizzly bear after they rounded a bend in a trail in Glacier National Park in 2005. Luckily, hikers came upon them after the near-fatal attack, summoned medics and kept them alive until the injured hikers could be evacuated. Otter recently published his account of their ordeal, A Grizzly Tale: A Father and Daughter Survival Story. Despite their trauma and painful recovery, he and his daughter, who subsequently decided to become an ER doctor, returned to hike in the park two years later. To avoid another surprise encounter in bear country, these days Johan says he makes plenty of noise and always carries a canister of bear repellent. diane.bell@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1518 Twitter: @dianebellSD Facebook: dianebell.news Of the many questions swirling after last weeks deadly shooting at a University City apartment complex, theres at least one that may never be answered to anyones satisfaction. What was in the gunmans mind when he opened fire? Its a question that has legal implications, as well as moral ones. Did the shooter, who police have said was distraught over a break up with a girlfriend, shoot seven people at a poolside birthday party merely because they were nearby? Advertisement Or was he motivated by racial bias? Many witnesses and survivors of the shooting have said they believe the incident was a hate crime, despite early statements by San Diego police officials to the contrary. They note that the gunman 49-year-old Peter Selis targeted mostly people of color. Of the seven victims, including 35-year-old Monique Clark, who died of her injuries, the majority were black or Latino. One of the victims was white, as was Selis. It seems like that could be a strong indicator that race was a substantial motivating factor in the crime, which is the language that appears in state law, but lawyers who handle hate crime prosecutions say it might not be enough to convince a jury. It stands to reason, then, that it may not be enough to convince investigators. The mere difference (between) the race of the offender and the victim in and of itself, absent of any other objective bias indicators isnt likely to result in a conviction, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. Experts said hate crimes are the only criminal cases in which prosecutors are required to prove a perpetrators motive in court. In a case like the shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments, prosecutors would probably need more evidence to determine Selis was motivated by race. Three police officers shot and killed Selis on April 30, the day of the poolside shooting, so there will be no trial where lawyers would argue the possible motives. A day after the incident, Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said there was zero information indicating the crime was racially motivated. But many witnesses questioned how the chief could make that conclusion so early, given the investigation was expected to continue for several weeks. I believe the group that he was going after was targeted, thats what I believe, said Mychael Gary, who was at the party when the gunman opened fire. According to the FBI, a hate crime is a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offenders bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity. Hate speech alone is not necessarily a crime. People say demeaning things to each other all the time, that alone may not make (an offense) a hate crime, said Oscar Garcia, a deputy district attorney in San Diego County. He noted cases involving assaults or other criminal acts in which demeaning words were spoken but there was evidence of another, non-bias-related motive. Garcia said lawyers and investigators typically look at the surrounding circumstances of an incident to determine whether bias was a substantial factor. That might include statements the suspect made before committing the criminal act or membership in a racist organization. He said there have been cases in which words alone resulted in hate crime convictions because there was no evidence of a non-bias motive for the attack. Every case is different, Garcia said. One change in the facts could make all the difference. The International Association of Chiefs of Police offers several tips to members of law enforcement about how to identify and prevent hate crimes. It lists a number of bias indicators to consider when evaluating a persons motives. They include: perceptions of the victims and witnesses about the crime, the perpetrators comments, gestures or written statements that reflect bias, and any differences between perpetrator and victim, whether actual or perceived by the perpetrator. In some cases, the evidence is clear. The 1998 killing of James Byrd Jr. has been described in news reports as the most notorious race crime of the post-Civil Rights era. Byrd, a 49-year-old black man, was kidnapped by three white men who chained him by the ankles and dragged him behind a pickup for more than three miles down a road near Jasper, Texas. The killers, at least two of whom were white supremacists, were all convicted of capital murder. Also in 1998, two men abducted 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, who was gay, tied him to a fence post outside Laramie, Wyo., beat him severely and left him alone in the cold. Shepard died of his injuries days later. Both cases led to legislation in 2009 that extended federal protections to victims of hate crimes. Levin from Cal State San Bernardino said most hate crimes are not prosecuted under hate crime statutes. Often, prosecutors charge only the underlying offense, like vandalism, assault or murder, possibly because the evidence is lacking or they believe they can get a conviction without it. But San Diego, he said, has traditionally had a very strong response to hate crime. A total of 84 hate crime events were reported in 2016 by law enforcement agencies across the region, according to a report released last month by the San Diego Association of Governments. That was a 15 percent increase from the previous year. Compared to five years earlier, the number of hate crime events in 2016 was down 17 percent. In the University City case, San Diegans will likely have to wait for police to conclude their investigation to find out how the shooting rampage will be classified. dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @danalittlefield UPDATES: May 7, 12:02 p.m.: This article was updated to clarify the comments from Deputy District Attorney Oscar Garcia. He explained that demeaning words said during a dispute do not necessarily make the case a hate crime if theres evidence of another motive. The article was originally published May 6 at 6 a.m. The man who oversaw construction of nearly all of San Diego Countys freeway system has died. Jacob Dekema died last month in his sleep from natural causes at an assisted living facility in La Jolla, and his family announced the passing this week. He was 101. Known affectionately as Mr. Caltrans, he designed the regions intricate network of highways and connectors, an accomplishment often cited as helping to inspire the nations interstate-highway system. Advertisement Mr. Dekema headed up Caltrans District 11 from 1955 to 1980. During that time, he ushered in 95 percent of the freeway miles that exist today in San Diego, Imperial and eastern Riverside counties. He was an iconic figure in the San Diego region, and much of San Diegos transportation history bears his fingerprints, said Laurie Berman, the current district director for Caltrans in San Diego. He was a one-of-a-kind. Tens of millions of federal transportation dollars went to California during Mr. Dekemas tenure. After the money dried up, he often lamented what he saw as an unfinished system, never forgetting a list of freeways he would have liked to see extended, such as highways 76, 125 and 78. The civil engineer, who lived in the La Jolla neighborhood of Bird Rock, is remembered fondly by family and those who worked for him. They characterized him as even-keeled and compassionate. He was really positive and always wanting my brother and me to do our best, said his daughter, Pamela Dekema. He was really considerate, always thinking about peoples feelings. During his quarter-century as head of Caltrans in greater San Diego, Mr. Dekema endured critics who said he constructed too many freeways, along with those who said he didnt complete enough. Pamela Dekema remembered a news photo showing an occasion when her father was hanged in effigy by community members affected by a highway project. I think he had a remarkable attitude considering what he must have faced, she said. I didnt perceiving him as being stressed when he came home. He was a very patient person. As opposed to engineers who designed highly viable highways as aesthetic achievements, Mr. Dekema was known for attempting to lace his transportation system into the regions network of canyons in an attempt to limit negative impacts on communities and skylines. He was the kind of the person who brought out the best in the people around him. Morale was very high under his leadership, said Milton Costello, who worked for Caltrans as a transportation engineer from 1950 to 1993. Mr. Dekema was born to Dutch parents on the island of Java in Indonesia. His father worked for several steamship companies, and the family lived in many locations around the world including Amsterdam, Vancouver and San Francisco before settling in Los Angeles. He graduated with a bachelors degree in civil engineering with top honors from the University of Southern California in 1937. He then worked for Caltrans before serving in the Navy during World War II. He finished his military tour in 1946 after meeting Shirley Parker, who would become his wife. He then went back to work for the transportation agency, where he logged a 42-year career overall. After holding several different positions around the state, Mr. Dekema, now about 40 years old, moved to San Diego to become head of the local division. In the Caltrans circle, hes revered as a legend, said Gary Gallegos, a former Caltrans district director and currently executive director of the San Diego Association of Governments. Hes the father of the freeway system we have in San Diego today. When Mr. Dekema took over control of Caltrans local division in 1955, the region had 25 miles of freeway. He oversaw the addition of more than 485 miles. Mr. Dekema was a truly great leader and insisted that all Caltrans engineers share his enthusiasms to complete the freeway projects on time and under budget, said Ray Ruggles, who worked as a transportation engineer for Caltrans from 1961 to 2001. In 1982, Interstate 805 was named the Jacob Dekema Freeway. In honor of his 100th birthday, the California Transportation Foundation started the Dekema Scholarship for high school and college students aspiring to careers in transportation planning. Besides his daughter, Mr. Dekema is survived by his wife; son, Douglas Dekema; a granddaughter; and two great-grandchildren. His family plans to hold a memorial service on July 9 at 2 p.m. in the lower lounge of the Casa de Manana assisted-living center. Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com An ongoing hepatitis A outbreak moving through the regions homeless population has killed three San Diego County residents and has hospitalized 66 people, according to a new public health report released Friday afternoon. The county health and human services agency advises anyone who has close contact with the homeless and/or illicit drug users to get vaccinated to prevent infection which can cause severe, and sometimes fatal, liver inflammation. Dr. Wilma Wooten, the countys public health officer, said that investigators have not yet been able to tell exactly how the virus is moving from person to person. Hepatitis A is known to be transmitted orally, through shared food, drink or drugs, when an infected person fails to wash his or her hands after using the bathroom. Advertisement So far, no common food, drink or drug has been linked to the outbreak, and Wooten said it has been difficult to track down the source because most of those who have been infected are homeless. By the time we get the report, in many cases, theyve left the hospital. They have no zipcode, so we often dont know where to find them, Wooten said. The homeless population has been a very tough nut to crack. She added that the county has been working with local health providers to make notification of new cases more immediate so that public health nurses can conduct an interview before patients are discharged. The hepatitis A vaccine was introduced in 1995 and since then has been on the regular childhood vaccination schedule. However, anyone who is age 23 or older was born before the vaccine existed and would not have been routinely immunized. Those who have traveled to Africa and Asia often the exception. Vaccination is routinely recommended before traveling to those regions. Wooten said the county has conducted several mass hepatitis A vaccination clinics with the help of organizations in San Diego that serve the homeless. Because new infections continue to pop up, she said the county is putting together small public health teams that will be dispatched into the community over the next two weeks. Were just trying to go where people are to vaccinate them. Were utilizing measures we havent used before, Wooten said. Seven of the 80 cases confirmed by the county since it started tracking elevated hepatitis A levels in November, 2016, have occurred in local detention facilities. Most of those, Wooten said, were previously homeless, though there have been a few secondary cases where an inmate got infected by a newly-arrived arrestee. Exposures occurred at the following facilities: George F. Bailey Detention Facility northeast of Otay Mesa. Exposures occurred: Mar. 22 to Apr. 4 in area 2A or medical cell 103; from Apr. 7 to Apr. 19 in Area 3C; from Apr. 11 to Apr. 24 in Area 1A; from Apr. 6 to Apr. 18 in areas 4A, 6A and 2A; from Apr. 14 to Apr. 21 in area 1A. in area 2A or medical cell 103; from in Area 3C; from in Area 1A; from in areas 4A, 6A and 2A; from in area 1A. San Diego Central Jail from Mar. 22 to Apr. 1 in area 5A. in area 5A. Vista Detention Facility from Apr. 9 to Apr. 17 in areas E3, E6 or medical cell 4. There is no treatment for a hepatitis A infection. However, if those exposed to the virus are treated with immunoglobulin antibodies within two weeks of exposure, the antibody infusion can help the body fight off infection 85 percent of the time. From three to seven weeks after exposure anyone who has been exposed should watch for symptoms which can include fever, malaise, loss of appetite, diarrhea, nausea, abdominal discomfort, dark-colored urine and jaundice. Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1850 Twitter: @paulsisson The young mother started getting advice early on from friends in the close-knit Somali immigrant community here. Dont let your children get the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella it causes autism, they said. Suaado Salah listened. And this spring, her 3-year-old boy and 18-month-old girl contracted measles in Minnesotas largest outbreak of the highly infectious and potentially deadly disease in nearly three decades. Her daughter, who had a rash, high fever and cough, was hospitalized for four nights and needed intravenous fluids and oxygen. I thought: Im in America. I thought Im in a safe place and my kids will never get sick in that disease, said Salah, 26, who has lived in Minnesota for more than a decade. Growing up in Somalia, shed had measles as a child. A sister died of the disease at age 3. Advertisement Salah no longer believes that the MMR vaccine triggers autism, a discredited theory that spread rapidly through the local Somali community, fanned by meetings organized by anti-vaccine groups. The activists repeatedly invited Andrew Wakefield, the founder of the modern anti-vaccine movement, to talk to worried parents. Immunization rates plummeted, and last month the first cases of measles appeared. Soon there was a full-blown outbreak, one of the starkest consequences of an intensifying anti-vaccine movement in the United States and around the world that has gained traction in part by targeting specific communities. Its remarkable to come in and talk to a population thats vulnerable and marginalized and who doesnt necessarily have the capacity for advocacy for themselves, and to take advantage of that, said Siman Nuurali, a Somali American clinician who coordinates the care of medically complex patients at Childrens Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. Its abhorrent. Although extensive research has disproved any relationship between vaccines and autism, the fear has become entrenched in the community. I dont know if we will be able to dig out on our own, Nuurali said. Anti-vaccine activists defend their position and their role, saying they merely provided information to parents. The Somalis had decided themselves that they were particularly concerned, Wakefield said last week. I was responding to that. He maintained that he bears no fault for what is happening within the community. I dont feel responsible at all, he said. Andrew Wakefield talks to reporters outside the General Medical Council in London in 2010. (Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images) MMR vaccination rates among U.S.-born children of Somali descent used to be higher than among other children in Minnesota. But the rates plummeted from 92 percent in 2004 to 42 percent in 2014, state health department data shows, well below the threshold of 92 to 94 percent needed to protect a community against measles. Wakefield, a British activist who now lives in Texas, visited Minneapolis at least three times in 2010 and 2011 to meet privately with Somali parents of autistic children, according to local anti-vaccine activists. Wakefields prominence stems from a 1998 study he authored that claimed to show a link between the vaccine and autism. The study was later identified as fraudulent and was retracted by the medical journal that published it, and his medical license was revoked. The current outbreak was identified in early April. As of Friday, there were 44 cases, all but two occurring in people who were not vaccinated and all but one in children 10 or younger. Nearly all have been from the Somali American community in Hennepin County. A fourth of the patients have been hospitalized. Because of the dangerously low vaccination rates and the diseases extreme infectiousness, more cases are expected in the weeks ahead. Measles, which remains endemic in many parts of the world, was eliminated in the United States at the start of this century. It reappeared several years ago as more people many wealthier, more educated and white began refusing to vaccinate their children or delaying those shots. The ramifications already have been significant. A 2014-2015 measles outbreak infected 147 people in seven states and spread to Mexico and Canada. In California, high school students were sent home because of infected classmates. One patient who was unknowingly infectious visited a hospital and exposed dozens of pregnant women and babies, including those in the neonatal intensive care unit. Another adult patient was hospitalized and on a breathing machine for three weeks. Federal guidelines typically recommend that children get the first vaccine dose at 12 to 15 months of age and the second when they are 4 to 6 years old. The combination is 97 percent effective in preventing the viral disease, which can cause pneumonia, brain swelling, deafness and, in rare instances, death. State health officials are now recommending doses for babies as young as 6 months if there is concern for ongoing measles exposure. Minnesotas Somali community is the largest in the country. The roots of the outbreak there date to 2008, when parents raised concerns that their children were disproportionately affected by autism spectrum disorder. A limited survey by the state health department the following year found an unexpectedly high number of Somali children in a preschool autism program. But a University of Minnesota study found that Somali children were about as likely as white children to be identified with autism, although they were more likely to have intellectual disabilities. Around that time, health-care providers began receiving reports of parents refusing the MMR vaccine. As parents sought to learn more about the disorder, they came across websites of anti-vaccine groups. And activists from those groups started showing up at community health meetings and distributing pamphlets, recalled Lynn Bahta, a longtime state health department nurse who has worked with Somali nurses to counter MMR vaccine resistance within the community. At one 2011 gathering featuring Wakefield, Bahta recalled, an armed guard barred her, other public health officials and reporters from attending. Fear of autism runs so deep in the Somali community that parents whose children have recently come down with measles insist that measles is preferable to risking autism. One father, who did not want his family identified to protect its privacy, sat helplessly by his daughters bed at Childrens Minnesota hospital last week as she struggled to breathe during coughing fits. The 23-month-old was on an IV for fluids and had repeatedly pulled out the oxygen tube in her nose. Her older brother, almost 4, endured a milder bout. Neither had received the MMR vaccine. The children now have antibodies to protect against measles, but they still need the vaccine to prevent mumps and rubella. Their father, who is 33 and studying mechanical engineering while working as a mechanic, wants to wait. His worry: autism. A colleague has a son who is mute. I would hold off until shes 3 . . . or until she fluently starts talking, he said. His wife no longer harbors doubts, however. As soon as both children are well, she said, they are going to get the shot. The pervasive mistrust was evident Sunday night during a meeting, sponsored by several anti-vaccine groups, that drew a mostly Somali crowd of 90 to a Somali-owned restaurant here. Patti Carroll, a member of the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota, described its goal as giving parents more information, including about their right to refuse to vaccinate. People have been bullied big-time by doctors and public health officials, she said. The presentation by anti-vaccine activist Mark Blaxill drew cheers and applause. Blaxill, a Boston businessman whose adult daughter has autism, played down the threat of measles and played up local autism rates. When you hear people from the state public health department saying there is no risk, that [vaccines] are safe, this is the sort of thing that should cause you to be skeptical, Blaxill said. Two pediatricians in the audience stepped up to a microphone to denounce the claims. I am very concerned, especially in the midst of a measles outbreak, to have folks come into a community impacted by this disease and start talking about links between MMR and autism, said Andrew Kiragu, interim chief of pediatrics at Hennepin Medical Center in Minneapolis. This is a travesty. He and the other doctors were interrupted by boos and yelling. For Gods sake, I want to know if vaccines are safe! Sahra Osman shouted. She has a nearly adult son who received an autism diagnosis when he was 3. My people are suffering! Were not ignorant. I read a lot. I know a lot. I educate myself. . . . You dont know what you are talking about.While scores of studies from around the world have shown conclusively that vaccines do not cause autism, that is often not a satisfactory answer for Somali American parents. They say that if science can explain that vaccines do not cause autism, science should be able to say what does. But researchers dont really know. A growing body of evidence suggests that brain differences associated with autism may be found early in infancy well before children receive most vaccines. Other studies have found that alterations in brain-cell development related to autism may occur before birth. There are some genetic risk factors for autism, and advanced parental age has been associated with the condition. Meanwhile, the ongoing spread of the anti-vaccine message is making it harder to control the burgeoning number of measles cases. The groups continue advising parents, in the middle of their crisis, on how to opt out of vaccines, said pediatric nurse practitioner Patsy Stinchfield, an infection-control expert leading the outbreak response at Childrens Minnesota. That message is exactly the opposite of what clinicians and public health officials are urging, which is to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Staffers at her hospital have been working round-the-clock to vaccinate hundreds of people who may have been exposed; an MMR dose given within 72 hours of exposure can prevent measles. When their two sick children are well, Suaado Salah and her husband, Tahlil Wehlie, plan to talk to friends and acquaintances to spread the word that the anti-vaccine groups are wrong and that all youngsters should get immunized. Because when the kids get sick, its going to affect everybody. Its not going to affect only the family who have the sick kid, she said. They make sick for everybody. Thats when you wake up and say, Okay, what happened? But she understands the apprehension that fed the outbreak. With a parent whose child has autism, she said, its something that youre looking for an answer for how it happened and what happened to your kid. Sun writes for The Washington Post. An Indian-origin couple in the United States was killed by their daughter's ex-boyfriend in an act of revenge. By Rohini Swamy: A couple hailing from Mangaluru in Karnataka were shot dead by their daughter's former boyfriend in San Jose on Wednesday night. Naren Prabhu worked at Juniper Networks as senior manager had been living in the US with his wife Raynah and daughter Rachel On the night of May 3rd, Mirza Tatlic, who is allegedly Rachel's ex-boyfriend barged into their house Laura Ville and shot them dead. advertisement "The suspect had been in a dating relationship with the victims adult daughter who was not home," San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia said. "The relationship ended last year. The suspect had a history of domestic violence and there was an active criminal restraining order.. The incident had been reported by the 20-year-old son of Prabhu. "When officers arrived at the home on Laura Valle Lane they saw an adult man deceased in the front doorway suffering from at least one gunshot wound. Officers learnt from the adult son that his mother and 13-year-old brother along with the suspect were still inside the house," police said. A standoff quickly developed with the suspect and a SWAT team was called in. "As officers were setting up contain and arrest teams, the suspect released the 13-year-old boy," Garcia said, adding that the suspect refused to surrender. Officers then went into the house and found the two deceased victims and the dead suspect, Garcia said. (With inputs from PTI) Also See: Romantic Us: Couple turns photographers on their wedding day Also read: Indian couple's custody battle in US --- ENDS --- Many House Republicans who gambled to pass a healthcare plan must now turn to a new challenge: survival. The two largest purges of House members since the early 1940s have followed efforts to remake the nations healthcare system: in 1994, when Democrats lost 52 seats after the collapse of the Clinton administrations healthcare plan, and in 2010, when the party lost 63 seats after the narrow passage of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Those precedents have fed Democratic hopes that efforts to repeal President Obamas healthcare plan could have a positive side effect for them: control of the House in 2018. Advertisement Significant uncertainty remains. Democrats would have to gain almost two dozen seats to take back the House. Voters wont cast their ballots for 18 months, a span of time in which other issues could rise in importance. And at least some Republicans believe that experts who failed to predict President Trumps victory last November are failing to understand voter attitudes toward Congress and healthcare today. But right now, both sides are planning for a midterm election in which the highly contentious and historically emotional issue of healthcare is likely to remain a focus. The fact that the Senate isnt likely to begin debate on its own plan until June, and the two Republican-led chambers will then have try to forge a compromise, means the issue will remain in the headlines for weeks, perhaps months. Theres very little Congress can do that people take more personally than monkeying around with healthcare. Parke Skelton, political strategist Studies of the impact of the 2010 Obamacare vote showed that Democrats from vulnerable districts paid a significant price, George Washington University political scientist Sara Binder said. (The 1994 healthcare plan was killed without a vote.) They were far more likely to lose their seat, even once we factored in everything else that would have affected them in those places, she said of 2010s spurned incumbents. Theres an analogy here, she said. It was a risky vote for many Republicans. Despite the risks, however, Binder and others said that internal party politics made Thursdays vote imperative for the GOP. Its hard inside the Beltway to get a good appreciation for how popular Obamacare repeal remains for Republican voters, Binder said. Republican leaders clearly think they owe their base this vote. In the end, that argument was the one that persuaded many wavering Republicans to vote for the bill: After the party had promised for seven years to repeal Obamacare, it simply couldnt turn its back on the voters who had accepted that promise and elected them. (A Pew Research poll taken in February showed that almost 9 in 10 Republican voters opposed Obamacare.) Theres a danger any time politicians change what is perceived as a government mandate, said Harmeet Dhillon, one of two Republican National Committee members from California and a former vice chair of the state GOP. For Republicans, there was also a danger in doing nothing. But that doesnt change the fact that voting for the bill also carried huge risk. Already, nonpartisan election handicappers are saying that Thursdays vote put Republicans in competitive congressional districts, including several in California, at greater jeopardy. Seven California Republicans serve in House districts won last November by Hillary Clinton and considered competitive in 2018; all voted for the GOP healthcare plan. David Wasserman, who analyzes Houses races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said in a report Friday that the post-vote landscape is consistent with past scenarios that have generated a midterm wave against the party in power. Not only did dozens of Republicans in marginal districts just hitch their names to an unpopular piece of legislation, Democrats just received another valuable candidate recruitment tool, he said. In fact, Democrats arent so much recruiting candidates as they are overwhelmed by a deluge of eager newcomers, including doctors and veterans in traditionally red seats who have no political record for the GOP to attack almost a mirror image of 2010. Between presidential elections, independent voters generally lose interest. That means midterm races typically become a battle between party regulars. The party out of power in this case Democrats, who with the loss of the White House in November have no power base in Washington historically benefits from increased intensity among its disgruntled voters. That certainly has been true leading to the 2018 elections. Already, Democrats have used as motivation President Trump and his early moves on issues including immigration, his budget plan that would gut many domestic programs, and healthcare. Special elections in Kansas and Georgia earlier in the spring have suggested that Republican voters, meanwhile, have been less enthusiastic in the early months of the Trump administration. The question of whether the healthcare vote has immediate political consequences will be tested in upcoming elections prompted by the departures of Republican incumbents for roles in the Trump administration. In Montana, where voters will decide May 25 on a replacement for Ryan Zinke, the former at-large congressman who is now Interior secretary, Democrat Rob Quist immediately sought to use the healthcare measure against Republican Greg Gianforte. Quist said the bill would kick thousands of hardworking Montanans off of their health insurance and raise premiums by hundreds of dollars a month in addition to lessening protections for those with preexisting conditions. No real Montanan would vote for it, he said, castigating his opponent as standing with the special-interest authors of this bill. Gianforte has supported repealing Obamacare but said Friday he would not have voted on the House measure until congressional budget officials had determined its impact. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic nominee in the tossup Georgia House runoff on June 20, also used the vote to extend his credibility as an independent voice a key need in a district that has long been held by Republicans. The measure that passed the House, he said, puts Georgians lives at risk. Congress should put aside partisan politics and work to make affordable insurance and quality care available to all Americans, he said. Once the special elections wrap up, both parties will turn their attention to 2018. At this early point, Democratic strategists say they are thrilled about the potential benefit of the House vote. The Democratic congressional campaign committee will start airing drive-time radio ads Monday on multiple stations in the Los Angeles market. The ads are aimed at five Republicans representing competitive southern California districts. What happened today is devastating for Darrell Issas reelection bid, Parke Skelton, a strategist for Mike Levin, one of the two Democrats challenging the Vista congressman, said Thursday night. Levin previewed the argument that many Democrats will make against Republican incumbents: He voted to have a massive tax reduction for the wealthiest among us, like him, rather than preserve access to affordable healthcare. (Issa, whose November victory came by the smallest margin of any House race, said that his constituents needed relief from the Obama plan.) While much will happen between now and election day 2018, Skelton said he is confident healthcare will remain top of mind for voters. Theres very little Congress can do that people take more personally than monkeying around with healthcare, he said. Republicans are hopeful that by that time voters will begin to see benefits either to their health insurance or through the tax cuts that were included in the healthcare measure, assuming those survive the Senate remake. It is way early in the cycle, said Republican pollster Ed Goeas when asked for a prediction. Republican fortunes will rise if voters focus next year is not on the vote but on seeing some real differences in their lives, he said. cathleen.decker@latimes.com @cathleendecker During his campaign and the early months of his presidency, Donald Trump pledged to crack down on unauthorized immigration, called immigrants from Mexico criminals, vowed to ditch a free-trade agreement, and build a massive wall along the border. Mexico isnt taking Trumps stern tweets and attempts to turn political promises into policies lightly. It is no secret that the change of administrations in the United States represents a particular challenge for Mexico, Consul General Of Mexico Marcela Celorio told the Chicano Federations annual luncheon on Friday. Advertisement But she cautioned that Mexico wont be bossed around, she said. Be aware, this is not the Mexico from the 18th century you are dealing with. Within this context, our consular activity has increased in order to provide information in countless forums, giving all kinds of resources, advice, and orientation to the members of our community, Celorio said. The Trump administration has taken steps to build an extended wall along the U.S.-Mexcio border, pledged to overhaul or scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement, and expanded deportations of unauthorized immigrants all policies that have an impact on Mexico. Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, said the White House has a fickle and sometimes hostile style of diplomacy that has strained the nations relationship with Mexico. The president seems to want to make enemies out of allies, Vargas said in an interview at the luncheon. With the new style and priorities out of Washington, Mexicos network of consular offices has increased its effort to protect nationals living in the U.S., and they are defending longstanding international agreements. They have provided Mexican nationals with information about their rights while in the United States, and emphasized that they need to comply with local laws as well. I agree, that to any violation of the law, there must be consequences, Celorio said. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance that all sanctions must be applied after due process and effective remedies, are exhausted. But she added that the unique circumstances of each case need to be considered alongside the technicalities of law for justice to be served. Consulates are encouraging Mexican nationals who are eligible for U.S. citizenship apply for it, while urging Americans who can receive Mexican citizenship to do likewise. In March the consulate in San Diego said it will participate in a program across the United States to help Mexican immigrants be more aware of their rights, and is also assisting Mexicans who are repatriating. But much of relationship between Mexico and the United States will remain the same, regardless of the new presidents tone and policies, Celorio said. Even those who saw the arrival of the new administration practically as a breaking point, as a final blow for our country, the fact is, reality imposes itself. No matter how hard we try to change it through policies or legislation, it wont be possible, she said. While disagreements will ultimately be resolved, the current sour relationship could have some serious consequences, Vargas said. Our intelligence agencies work hand-in-hand, Vargas said. The things that we do with Mexico with counter-terrorism, all of this gets thrown into jeopardy. Despite the turbulence between Washington and Mexico City, Celorio was quick to praise local California governments, San Diego Unified School District, and civic organizations for working with Mexican partners and to help citizens on both sides of the border. Asked about the temperature of U.S.-Mexico relations, she responded: I can say that locally, its fabulous. The District Attorneys Office announced Friday it had completed a review of five officer-involved shootings in San Diego County, all of them non-fatal, and determined the officers actions were justified in each case. No criminal charges will be filed against the officers or deputies involved, said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis at an afternoon news conference. She released video clips from surveillance and body-worn cameras associated with some of the incidents and said they showed images from the moments leading up to the shootings, and the moments immediately afterward. Advertisement Two of the incidents had no video. As is common in these scenarios, every one of the individuals involved in the shootings being discussed today was impaired by drugs, alcohol or both at the same time, Dumanis said. The shootings occurred in 2015, 2016 and early this year. In the most recent case, San Diego police officers Shane Franken and Michael Wagner wounded Ferdinand Gangano Alarcio, then 48, in Linda Vista on Jan. 24. According to investigators, Alarcio had a dispute with two men who believed he owned them money for drugs. Some witnesses told police they saw a man, later identified as Alarcio, fire a gun at the men. When police arrived at the scene, Alarcio pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at them before running away and starting to climb a fence into a day care center nearby. Both officers fired at Alarcio, who was hit in the hand and dropped his gun. On Jan. 6, El Cajon officers went to check on a reported disturbance at Second Street and Oakdale Avenue about 9 p.m. and found a man in the street, holding a knife. He was later identified as Danny Martin Baldwin, then 56. Authorities said he refused to drop the blade, and when they shot him with a Taser, he ripped the barbs out. Another officer drove up, got out of his car and shot him. Non-fatal shooting of Danny Martin Baldwin by El Cajon Police on January 1, 2017. Dumanis said Baldwin made several 911 calls before the incident, saying he wanted his girlfriend brought to him and that he was planning to take himself out in front of her. On July 7, 2016, sheriffs deputies shot Jose Armando Garcia, then 47, in Fallbrook. They went to the Huffstatler Street home where a man reportedly was suicidal about 9:30 a.m. Authorities said Garcia walked in and out of his house several times and refused to cooperate with deputies. His wife and daughter got out of the house safely. When he came out of the house about 2:30 p.m., he fired several rounds from a handgun and was wounded by deputies. On March 27, 2016, sheriffs Deputy Jason Phillips wounded Alejandro Blanco, then 32, in Vista. Four off-duty deputies witnessed some kind of fight in front of a 7-Eleven store on East Vista Way. One man in a parked car put it in reverse and hit two of the deputies, who fell to the ground, investigators said. He then pulled forward and stuck a third deputy. Non-fatal shooting of Alejandro Blanco on March 27, 2016 by a San Diego Sheriffs deputy. The driver then accelerated toward Phillips, the second deputy, who stood up after he had been knocked to the ground. Phillips ended up on the hood of the car and opened fire, hitting Blanco twice. On March 10, 2015, four officers on the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force shot James Griggs-Fritz, then 25, in Alpine. They were trying to serve a felony arrest warrant on Griggs-Fritz at the Alpine Oaks condominium complex on Arnold Way about 9 a.m. Authorities said Griggs-Fitz got into an SUV, and when officers pulled their van up to block him, he rocked the SUV back and forth and ignored orders to shut off the engine. The officers feared he was going to crush them and fired out of fear for their safety, sheriffs homicide investigators said. Two San Diego police officers shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at one of them as he stood in front of Torrey Pines High School early Saturday, police said. Police officials are declining to name the boy because he was a juvenile. The teen was a freshman at the Carmel Valley school and lived in the neighborhood. Police received a 911 call at 3:27 a.m. asking for a welfare check, said police homicide Lt. Mike Holden. The caller said there was a kid in front of the school who someone should probably check on and stated the person was not armed, the lieutenant said. Advertisement Police believe the caller was the boy himself, Holden said. The two officers arrived at the school on Del Mar Heights Road about the same time and saw the teen. As they got out of their patrol cars to speak with him, he pulled a handgun that was concealed in his waistband and pointed it at one of the officers, Holden said. Both officers drew their weapons and told the boy to drop the gun, but he continued to point the gun and walk toward the one officer, Holden said. The teen ignored additional commands, and the officers, fearing for their safety, both fired, the lieutenant said. The teen was struck several times. The officers immediately began life-saving measures, and the boy was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where he died, Holden said. The boys gun remained at the scene to be processed as evidence. Police later determined that the gun was a semi-automatic BB air pistol, Holden said. Both officers had activated their body-worn cameras at some point and there is video of the incident for investigators to review, Holden said. The shooting occurred in the front parking lot, near a turnaround area. It was not known how the student got to the school, although police said he didnt appear to have driven himself there. According to police radio traffic, a dispatcher asked two officers to check the welfare of someone at the school. The person was described as a white male, 15, of medium build, wearing a gray shirt and black pants. Officers said they were there about a minute later. There was no more radio traffic about the call for six or seven minutes. Then, a dispatcher acknowledged shots fired and asked if any officers were injured. One officer answered negative but said paramedics are needed now. He said he and another officer were doing CPR. Another two or three minutes passed and an officer noted that CPR was still in progress. Other officers were asked to check around the grounds of the high school, apparently for anyone who may have been involved with the teen or any witnesses. The details of the situation are still unfolding, but whatever they are, this event is very traumatic for our students, staff, families, and community, Eric Dill, superintendent for the San Dieguito Union High School District, said in a letter posted on the districts website. The teens name was not released in the letter. I know this is difficult, but we ask that you please refrain from conjecture or spreading rumors. This is a difficult time for the family and we need to let them mourn. He said a crisis response team will be at school Monday for students and faculty as needed. As a community, we have a shared responsibility to care for one another. Please rest assured that we will do everything possible to maintain our daily routine while supporting each other as we deal with this sad event, Dill said. Amanda Chen, a 17-year-old senior, showed up outside the campus by late morning, not long before the remaining investigators and evidence technicians packed up their equipment and left the parking lot. She said news of the shooting was shocking. I feel like those types of incidents, you always hear about them in the news but you never feel like its going to happen here in Carmel Valley where traditionally theres not a lot of crime, she said. Theres never been, like, really big issues with the police ever. So I think its just really surprising, and honestly Im so shocked that it happened somewhere so close to home, especially in the parking lot of my school. Amanda, who is editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, the Falconer, said she didnt know the identity of the boy, but hoped that in light of this incident students might try harder to empathize with one another and to listen to what other people are going through. Tracy Francisco Dominice, a life coach and parent of a Torrey Pines student, held a sign on the edge of campus that read: TEEN HELP. She offered her own phone number to young people in need of emotional support. We just need to help our children so they dont get to this point, she said. The shooting occurred just hours before an unknown number of students arrived at the school to take SATs, tests used for college admissions. Dill told the Union-Tribune that police redirected students arriving for the tests to a rear entrance. Students also were informed about what had happened and were given the opportunity to opt out and take the test another day, but Dill said he had not heard of any students who had. Torrey Pines Principal Rob Coppo sent a tweet Saturday that read: A very sad day for our school. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family. #wearetp. He was expected to write a letter that will be sent to families and staff members. I know hes quite saddened by this, Dill said about Coppo. He has been in touch with the family, and his focus is on supporting the school. Dill said the family had told Coppo that they wanted privacy. He also said he had not heard of any note or other message the student had left behind that would give an indication of why the incident occurred. A small memorial of flowers and notes began to grow at the scene by Saturday afternoon. The names of the officers involved are expected to be released in the next few days, per department protocol. The officers have been on the force for 28 years and four years. One of the officers is on the departments Juvenile Services Team, Holden said. They were not injured. Staff writers Gary Warth and Pauline Repard contributed to this report. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis UPDATES: 5:28 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. The article was originally published at 7:35 a.m. Oceanside police are investigating the heartbreaking abuse of a familys two dogs, apparently by someone who has been tormenting the family for months. According to family friend Eddie Mendoza, the two huskies named Estrella and Cocayo have been fed marijuana, doused with acid and most recently, one of them had its eye gouged out in a series of incidents that have been going on since December. Its like something out of a horror story, said Mendoza of Encinitas who started a GoFundMe page for the victims. Advertisement The latest attack, in which one of the animals was also forced to drink acid or some other type of poisonous liquid, happened Friday while the family was away for a short time. The crowd-source funding page includes a gruesome photo of one of the dogs with blood dripping from its face. Mendoza said whoever attacked the canine ripped its eye from the socket. He said there was blood all over the apartment and also claw marks on the floor where it appeared the dogs, who were attacked inside the home, were trying to get away. It was just like a massacre, Mendoza said. Oceanside police Lt. Val Saadat said the department is gathering all the information and putting a timeline of the crimes together. Its heartbreaking that someone could be so cruel, said Saadat who has seen the photos of the dogs injuries. She said the family has been absolutely traumatized. Mendoza said that the attacker has also slashed the unnamed familys car tires. We have an idea of who it is, Mendoza said. The animals are under veterinary care at the Humane Society and are expected to survive. The dog with the injured eye has had surgery, while the other still cannot eat and is being fed intravenously, Mendoza said. The family moved out of their home on Carino Way the very same day as the last attack, Mendoza said. Saadat said there have been no eyewitnesses to the abuse but that they have received several calls about a possible suspect. It appears that prior residents of that same home have had problems as well, Saadat said. Mendoza said a lawyer who had lived in the same condo had his tires slashed and a woman once found someone digging in her backyard. The Oceanside Police Department has set up a tip line at (760) 435-4730 for anyone with information. There is also a $5,000 reward being offered by San Diego Animal Advocates for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible. Its just like having the neighbor from hell, Mendoza said. Its your worst nightmare. 619-293-1710 debbi.baker@sduniontribune.com twitter.com/Debbi_Baker San Diego-Tijuana is a $230 billion economic engine with over 5 million residents and nearly 2 million employees. We are 40 percent of the entire U.S. and Mexico border population and the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, with approximately 120,000 passenger vehicles, 63,000 pedestrians and 6,000 trucks crossing back and forth every single day. We are a constellation of powerful industries in a productive cross-border partnership. In Tijuana, we showcase the worlds largest medical device cluster and Mexicos top aerospace, electronics and defense clusters, many of which have administration and operations facilities on the U.S. side of the border. There are nearly 600 export manufacturing plants and 50 contract manufacturing options meeting world-class quality standards within a 15-mile radius south of the San Ysidro port of entry; $42 billion worth of goods are imported and exported at Otay Mesa each year. San Diegos biotechnology and pharmaceutical, biomedical, software and communications clusters are significant contributors to a $52 billion innovation economy that accounts for over 400,000 jobs 30 percent of the citys employment. Advertisement Tijuana adds close to $20 billion to San Diegos production each year. The value of trade between San Diego and Mexico consistently exceeds $4 billion per year. Commercial exchange between Tijuana and San Diego is valued at $2.1 million daily. Our relationship transcends financial transactions. There are numerous examples of collaboration and exchange involving medicine, medical tourism, the arts, the environment, epidemiology and security. Our communities understand the competitive advantage we have when we act as one region, and critical to this advantage is a smooth flow of people, vehicles and cargo across our shared border. Although we know our prosperity is significantly tied to our border flows, border wait times have not improved. They can be upward of three hours for general and Ready Lane travelers and more than two hours for cargo. Lines from the U.S. to Mexico at peak afternoon times can be one hour long. Our borders traffic congestion and delays cost the San Diego County and the Baja California economies an estimated $6 billion annually in gross output, according to the San Diego Association of Governments Economic Impacts of Wait Times at the San Diego-Baja California Border. Over 51,000 jobs are lost because of the reduction in output. Wait times cost our region close to 3 percent of our GDP or $1,200 per person per year! From a purely commercial perspective, our borders are Americas cash registers. All exports and imports must pass through them. No place else in the U.S., however, could make their customers wait in line every day for two hours and stay in business. To many in this corner of Mexicos Northwest and the U.S. Southwest who understand the power of our binational trade and commerce, this lost productivity is just unacceptable. Our hemispheres busiest border crossing is dumb and slow when what is needed is a smart border. As a result, San Diego and Tijuana business and academic leaders formed an organization to focus on this problem. We call it our Smart Border Coalition. The first principle in a Smart Border is that security and commerce are not mutually exclusive. A Smart Border should be able to increase both of these, not offset one at the expense of the other. Malin Burnham, our founder and one of the areas staunchest promoters of the binational region, believes Homeland Securitys objectives are heavily oriented toward safeguarding the nation, not trade or expedited crossings. There is a structural flaw in how the border is managed. He argues that the Department of State and the Department of Commerce should be a part of the policy conversation. The second principle is innovation the practical use of technology and re-engineered procedures to create, improve and complement our ports of entry. Our region has been an innovation hub for more than 30 years with world class companies such as Qualcomm, Cubic, SAIC, Illumina, Sempra Energy, Medtronic, ScaleMatrix, and CareFusion leading the way. Our innovation economy is almost one quarter of our countys GDP and provided close to 150,000 jobs in 2015, a historic high. UC San Diego has been the common thread for a great deal of the breakthrough research and applications that have made their way to millions of businesses and consumers. We must imagine what the border would look like if we made better use of locally generated technologies to create a frictionless, more efficient border infrastructure. Border infrastructure Our region has a track record of Smart Border solutions. These have been the result of our binational stakeholders dynamism and persistence. SENTRI, the trusted traveler fast pass for pedestrians and vehicles crossing the border, was invented here in the 1990s by San Diego Dialogue, a diverse group of binational professionals and UCSD academics. This program now represents almost 37 percent of all northbound crossings at our two ports. In addition, Customs and Border Protection and Aduanas have started programs for joint screening of agricultural goods at the Otay Mesa port of entry to avoid cargo having to stop at customs in both countries when crossing the border. Otay Mesa East II Port of Entry, the Model Port of the 21st Century, will soon combine modern and practical facilities on both sides of the border with innovations such as reversible lanes and segmented tolling. The San Ysidro port of entry is nearing the end of a $750 million reconstruction effort that will boast 62 northbound vehicle primary inspection booths. For its part last year, Mexican customs opened its most modern trade facility in the entire country at the Otay Mesa port of entry in Tijuana. CBX, the recently built cross-border pedestrian terminal and bridge that takes air travelers from the United States to the Tijuana airport in literally 10 minutes over an 800-foot walkway, had nearly 2 million passengers last year. Baja Rail, a Baja California company, recently rehabilitated the Mexican portion of the old Spreckels railway and will soon do the same with the U.S. segment, giving our export manufacturing industry a new alternative for freight movement to the East Coast of the United States. Border innovation Though building more of a wall in our region would not change much for decades, we have lived with a wall that is up to two successive fences along a good portion of the San Diego-Tijuana border reductions in wait times would spur commerce and trade, adding billions to our economies. It is critical that we continue to leverage our thriving binational ties to go beyond what we have accomplished so far. Better processes, smarter systems, and more advanced technologies are required to make our border region more efficient. We must lead the way for improved traveler processing times by increasing the numbers of Customs and Border Protection and Mexican Aduana and immigration officers and by re-engineering processes once pedestrians and vehicles arrive at the booths. We must launch effective marketing and education campaigns so that crossers bring proper documentation and choose correct lanes upon arrival at the border. We must provide reliable online mapping that can suggest the most efficient border routes and appropriate lanes. We must also collaborate to unclutter vehicle and truck access points to the border, expand joint inspections, increase membership in trusted traveler programs such as SENTRI and C-TPAT, formally launch pre-clearance initiatives for shipments long before they reach the border, and share importer and exporter load data through a single window. There is no one better to work on creating a frictionless border than the people who live here. Border landers knowledge and experiences of what actually works for states, cities and communities on the border should drive the national debate about what secure and smart borders ought to look like in national policy terms. In the 2014 Smart Border Coalition-sponsored paper From Border Barriers to Bi-National Promise, The Creative Class Group and thought leaders Richard Florida and Mary Walshok wrote, Whether the topic is trade and manufacturing, medicine, the arts, the environment, epidemiology or even national security, a less paranoid, more collaborative, and more technologically sophisticated system of border management would pay enormous dividends, advancing new models of cross-border socio-economic equity. Notwithstanding our challenges, San Diego-Tijuana is a prime example of how the competitiveness brought on by NAFTA 23 years ago can be put into action and enhanced. Now that the spotlight is on U.S.-Mexico relations, the Smart Border Coalition calls on the San Diego-Tijuana region to seize the moment to define what the Smart Border must look like. Doing so will not only help us become safer and more prosperous, but it will also set an example of collaboration for dozens of other communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. Williams and Larroque are co-chairs of the Smart Border Coalition board of directors. Bersin served in several key posts in the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama Administration, including acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. De La Fuente is executive director and a board member of the Smart Border Coalition. Remember when offshoring was in the headlines? Just about every day, you could read about another American company closing facilities, laying off American workers, and moving operations to a distant country with low wages and even lower regulatory standards. As a U.S.-based provider of hardware repair and technical services to Fortune 500 manufacturers, I can assure you that offshoring is still very much a reality. Every day, we fight to compete with offshore service providers based in Mexico, Asia and Europe. Many of these companies are large multinationals who are structured to take advantage of disparities in wages, regulatory burdens and taxes. Yes, taxes. You didnt read about it during offshorings heyday, but todays tax code is just as responsible for driving jobs overseas as are the low wages. Our tax code actively encourages companies to move their IP, operations, jobs and headquarters overseas by imposing one of the worlds highest business tax rates on U.S. companies, regardless of where they earn their income. Advertisement Worse, when U.S. companies compete here on our own shores, the tax code imposes whats known as the Made in America tax, by taxing products and services performed here in the U.S. at higher rates than those imported from overseas. The net result is that companies like NCE Group need to overcome wage, regulatory and tax hurdles to win over customers and bring these IT jobs back to the United States. Thats the bad news. The good news is that help is on the way. The tax reform package called the House Blueprint and championed by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady,R-Texas, would effectively end the Made in America tax and turn our tax code into a job creator overnight. How does it do it? First, the plan would repeal the dinosaur of a corporate income tax. Second, it would install something called a cash flow tax with a low, 20 percent tax rate coupled with full expensing. For smaller companies like ours, expensing is a critical reform that allows us to write off the cost of new equipment immediately. Lower rates and full expensing mean the cost of investing in the U.S. will go down. That means more investment, more jobs, and higher wages. At the heart of the House Blueprint is a plan to impose the same tax on imports as we charge domestic companies when they make something here. This provision is called a border adjustment and it works by exempting exports from the U.S. from the tax, while making sure that all imports pay the tax. Every country we compete with has border-adjusted taxes, and I can say from experience that it helps those companies keep their costs low and keep their jobs out of the U.S. With the border adjustment in the House Blueprint, the U.S. would simply be responding in kind. No more worldwide system. No more excessive tax rates. No more inversions and profit shifting. The bottom line is this: Can the blueprint help U.S. companies successfully recreate their domestic value chains back here? I think the answer is an emphatic yes, and thats why NCE Group has endorsed the House Blueprint and is calling on its customers and suppliers to do the same. U.S. companies face enough competition without having to do battle with the tax code too. With the White House announcing their core principles on comprehensive tax reform, its encouraging that their language aligned with the fundamental goals laid out in the House Blueprint. It is now up to Congress and the White House to come together and fill in the blanks on how we will get meaningful reform that helps Americas businesses and taxpayers. The House Blueprint is a bold plan to reduce taxes on U.S. businesses of all sizes while ensuring a level playing field for imports and domestic production. Its a new bold idea thats worth using as the road map for success. Paisley works for NCE Computer Group, a Southern California-based IT services and solutions company. Indian-origin girl Rajgauri scored 162 in Mensa IQ test which is the highest possible IQ for someone under the age of 18. Her score is two points higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. By India Today Web Desk: A 12-year-old Indian-origin girl from Cheshire county, England, has scored an amazing 162 in the British Mensa IQ test. British Mensa IQ test is open to anyone who can demonstrate an IQ in the top two per cent of the population, measured by a recognised or approved IQ testing process. Twelve-year-old Rajgauri Pawar secured two points higher than scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in the British Mensa IQ test. She has been invited to join the coveted society -- High IQ Society -- as a member. advertisement "I am just feeling on top of the world and can't explain in words. It's an honour for me to represent India on foreign soil and achieve such a feat," the 12-year-old told The Indian Express via email. Rajgauri appeared in the British Mensa IQ Test in Manchester last month, and scored 162, the highest possible IQ for someone under the age of 18. According to an NDTV report, Rajgauri is among the one per cent of those people who sit in the Mensa test and achieve the maximum mark, with the benchmark set at 140, which is considered as 'genius'. She is one of only 20,000 people to achieve the score all around the world, Mensa said. "I was a little nervous before the test but it was fine and I'm really pleased to have done so well," NDTV quoted Rajgauri. Rajgauri's father, Dr Surajkumar Pawar, is a research scientist at the University of Manchester. Dr Pawar hails from Baramati in Pune district, and was exhilarated after he came to know about his daughter's recent achievement. "My daughter with a top one per cent score leads the tally, making her one of the youngest to achieve such a feat," Indian Express quoted Dr Surajkumar Pawar. RAJGAURI AND MENSA IQ TEST Stating that swimming, netball and chess were among her favourite activities, she said, "I would like to pursue medicine in the future and am also inclined towards topics including Physics, Astronomy and Environment." "I was preparing for entrance exams to secondary schools. I secured admission at Altrincham Girls Grammar School, which is one of the coveted institutions in the UK, and my parents suggested that I attempt the British Mensa IQ test. Anyone above the age of 10.5 years can take the test. As it was something different and was like a competition across all age groups, it sounded interesting and worth focusing on," Indian Express quoted. "Hence, it was challenging. The test was kind of a mixed bag, easy at the beginning and got tough at the end. The key difficulty was completing the test in time. So you are basically judged based on your skill set to manage time and the correctness of your answers." advertisement Also read: Chinese scientists build world's first quantum computing machine Child genius: Ananya Verma, 4, who got direct admission to class 9, comes from a family of prodigies Engineering student proposes Rahul Gandhi's name in Guinness Book of World Records for losing 27 elections Also watch: Breakthrough: Einstein's gravitational waves detected --- ENDS --- Among the San Diego City Councils many competing priorities is one you wont find in Mayor Kevin Faulconers budget for the fiscal year that starts in July: a national search for a new police chief. For the record: This editorial initially incorrectly attributed a quote to Councilman Chris Cate instead of Councilman Chris Ward. It was Ward who used the word irresponsible. The Union-Tribune regrets the error. Chief Shelley Zimmerman has to retire in just 10 months because of the delayed retirement pension program shes enrolled in. This is no surprise. Faulconer knew it when, as mayor-elect in 2014, he nominated her. And this is no small thing. San Diego has had just 34 police chiefs since 1889. No. 35 will have a big department to run and big shoes to fill. Advertisement Zimmerman, a 34-year SDPD veteran, has steered clear of the controversies of her predecessor, William Lansdowne, whose department was plagued by 17 cases of officer misconduct in five years. Yet asked about that recent history, Faulconer said a year ago that he planned to look inside and outside to find the best man or woman to be Zimmermans eventual replacement. With time ticking, the mayors office chose not to include a line item for a national search in the fiscal 2018 budget proposal he released last month. This week, a mayoral staffer told a council committee there is $50,000 of citywide funding available for any search but that the Mayors Office is still evaluating our options. Whether thats even enough is unclear. Councilman Chris Ward called the omission irresponsible and council Budget Committee Chairwoman Barbara Bry called a nationwide search crucial because, simply, it is a best practice. This is one of the most important positions in our city, Bry said. And we have to get this right. Spending plans highlight priorities. This one must list a search for the best candidate. Tick tock. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion A Ramona property manager and his company have pleaded guilty to wire fraud in concealing bids to a homeowners association involving improvements and asbestos removal. Robert Walsh, 38, and his firm, Cornerstone Management Professionals Inc., will be sentenced July 7 in U.S. District Court in San Diego. Restitution of $247,413 will be paid to the Park Point Loma Homeowners Association as part of the sentence, according to court records. The maximum sentence for Walsh is 20 years in federal prison and the firm could be fined $500,000. However, it is expected that paying restitution will be the focus of sentencing. Walsh is the sole owner of the firm, which was incorporated in 2012 and is in San Diego. He remains free on $25,000 bond. The guilty pleas acknowledge the company and Walsh concealed the lowest bids of improvement projects to make it appear that Cornerstones bids were the lowest available. The company pleaded guilty to a wire fraud that involved a false email sent on April 28, 2015, that no asbestos was in the clubhouse of the association. This induced a contractor to conclude the demolition project did not need to hire an asbestos abatement firm. The public health dangers of asbestos exposure are well known, said Jay Green, a special agent for the EPA. Ellen Ochoa, former astronaut and current director of NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, will be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 19. A graduate of Grossmont High School, Ochoa has flown in space four times, logging nearly 1,000 hours in orbit. She was the first Hispanic woman to go to space. Ochoa, 58, and Michael Foale, a veteran of six Space Shuttle missions and extended missions on both Mir and the International Space Station, will be inducted at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Advertisement They will join an elite group of space explorers previously honored, including the Mercury Seven (Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton), Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride. According to NASA, 93 American astronauts have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. To be honored, astronauts must meet certain criteria to be selected by a committee of former NASA officials, flight directors, historians, journalists and other Hall of Fame astronauts. Im honored to be recognized among generations of astronauts who were at the forefront of exploring our universe for the benefit of humankind, Ochoa said. I hope to continue to inspire our nations youth to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math so they, too, may reach for the stars. Ochoa earned a bachelors degree in physics from San Diego State University and a masters degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford. She joined NASA in 1988 as a research engineer at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. She then went to the Johnson Space Center in 1990 after being selected as an astronaut candidate. After completing astronaut training in 1991, she served on a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. There, in 1993, she was part of conducting atmospheric studies to better understand the effect of solar activity on the Earths climate and environment. As a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center, Ochoa investigated optical systems for use in information processing. She is a co-inventor on three patents and author of several technical papers. Five schools have been named for her: Ellen Ochoa Learning Center in Cudahy, Calif. Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School in Los Angeles Ellen Ochoa Prep Academy in Pico Rivera, Calif. Ellen Ochoa STEM Academy at Ben Milam Elementary in Grand Prairie, Texas Ellen Ochoa Middle School in Pasco, Wash. She has been recognized with NASAs highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. She also earned the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award for senior executives in the federal government. Ochoa, who is married to attorney Coe Miles and has two sons, is one of three Grossmont High graduates who have become U.S. astronauts. She joins William Anders of Apollo 8 (class of 1951) and Frederick W. Sturckow (class of 1978). Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears. Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. Whats more, these jobs arent just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they arent just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers. Advertisement Theyre being obliterated by technology. Year after year, the software that runs computers and an array of other machines and devices becomes more sophisticated and powerful and capable of doing more efficiently tasks that humans have always done. For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines; an Associated Press analysis finds that the future has arrived. --- EDITORS NOTE: First in a three-part series on the loss of middle-class jobs in the wake of the Great Recession, and the role of technology. --- The jobs that are going away arent coming back, says Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of Race Against the Machine. `'I have never seen a period where computers demonstrated as many skills and abilities as they have over the past seven years. The global economy is being reshaped by machines that generate and analyze vast amounts of data; by devices such as smartphones and tablet computers that let people work just about anywhere, even when theyre on the move; by smarter, nimbler robots; and by services that let businesses rent computing power when they need it, instead of installing expensive equipment and hiring IT staffs to run it. Whole employment categories, from secretaries to travel agents, are starting to disappear. Theres no sector of the economy thats going to get a pass, says Martin Ford, who runs a software company and wrote The Lights in the Tunnel, a book predicting widespread job losses. Its everywhere. The numbers startle even labor economists. In the United States, half the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended in June 2009 are in midpay industries. Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries, 29 percent in industries that pay well. In the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency, the numbers are even worse. Almost 4.3 million low-pay jobs have been gained since mid-2009, but the loss of midpay jobs has never stopped. A total of 7.6 million disappeared from January 2008 through last June. Experts warn that this hollowing out of the middle-class workforce is far from over. They predict the loss of millions more jobs as technology becomes even more sophisticated and reaches deeper into our lives. Maarten Goos, an economist at the University of Leuven in Belgium, says Europe could double its middle-class job losses. Some occupations are beneficiaries of the march of technology, such as software engineers and app designers for smartphones and tablet computers. Overall, though, technology is eliminating far more jobs than it is creating. To understand the impact technology is having on middle-class jobs in developed countries, the AP analyzed employment data from 20 countries; tracked changes in hiring by industry, pay and task; compared job losses and gains during recessions and expansions over the past four decades; and interviewed economists, technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, entrepreneurs and people in the labor force who ranged from CEOs to the unemployed. The APs key findings: -For more than three decades, technology has reduced the number of jobs in manufacturing. Robots and other machines controlled by computer programs work faster and make fewer mistakes than humans. Now, that same efficiency is being unleashed in the service economy, which employs more than two-thirds of the workforce in developed countries. Technology is eliminating jobs in office buildings, retail establishments and other businesses consumers deal with every day. -Technology is being adopted by every kind of organization that employs people. Its replacing workers in large corporations and small businesses, established companies and start-ups. Its being used by schools, colleges and universities; hospitals and other medical facilities; nonprofit organizations and the military. -The most vulnerable workers are doing repetitive tasks that programmers can write software for - an accountant checking a list of numbers, an office manager filing forms, a paralegal reviewing documents for key words to help in a case. As software becomes even more sophisticated, victims are expected to include those who juggle tasks, such as supervisors and managers - workers who thought they were protected by a college degree. -Thanks to technology, companies in the Standard & Poors 500 stock index reported one-third more profit the past year than they earned the year before the Great Recession. Theyve also expanded their businesses, but total employment, at 21.1 million, has declined by a half-million. -Start-ups account for much of the job growth in developed economies, but software is allowing entrepreneurs to launch businesses with a third fewer employees than in the 1990s. There is less need for administrative support and back-office jobs that handle accounting, payroll and benefits. -Its becoming a self-serve world. Instead of relying on someone else in the workplace or our personal lives, we use technology to do tasks ourselves. Some find this frustrating; others like the feeling of control. Either way, this trend will only grow as software permeates our lives. -Technology is replacing workers in developed countries regardless of their politics, policies and laws. Union rules and labor laws may slow the dismissal of employees, but no country is attempting to prohibit organizations from using technology that allows them to operate more efficiently - and with fewer employees. Some analysts reject the idea that technology has been a big job killer. They note that the collapse of the housing market in the U.S., Ireland, Spain and other countries and the ensuing global recession wiped out millions of middle-class construction and factory jobs. In their view, governments could bring many of the jobs back if they would put aside worries about their heavy debts and spend more. Others note that jobs continue to be lost to China, India and other countries in the developing world. But to the extent technology has played a role, it raises the specter of high unemployment even after economic growth accelerates. Some economists say millions of middle-class workers must be retrained to do other jobs if they hope to get work again. Others are more hopeful. They note that technological change over the centuries eventually has created more jobs than it destroyed, though the wait can be long and painful. A common refrain: The developed world may face years of high middle-class unemployment, social discord, divisive politics, falling living standards and dashed hopes. --- In the U.S., the economic recovery that started in June 2009 has been called the third straight jobless recovery. But thats a misnomer. The jobs came back after the first two. Most recessions since World War II were followed by a surge in new jobs as consumers started spending again and companies hired to meet the new demand. In the months after recessions ended in 1991 and 2001, there was no familiar snap-back, but all the jobs had returned in less than three years. But 42 months after the Great Recession ended, the U.S. has gained only 3.5 million, or 47 percent, of the 7.5 million jobs that were lost. The 17 countries that use the euro had 3.5 million fewer jobs last June than in December 2007. This has truly been a jobless recovery, and the lack of midpay jobs is almost entirely to blame. Fifty percent of the U.S. jobs lost were in midpay industries, but Moodys Analytics, a research firm, says just 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained are in that category. After the four previous recessions, at least 30 percent of jobs created - and as many as 46 percent - were in midpay industries. Other studies that group jobs differently show a similar drop in middle-class work. Some of the most startling studies have focused on midskill, midpay jobs that require tasks that follow well-defined procedures and are repeated throughout the day. Think travel agents, salespeople in stores, office assistants and back-office workers like benefits managers and payroll clerks, as well as machine operators and other factory jobs. An August 2012 paper by economists Henry Siu of the University of British Columbia and Nir Jaimovich of Duke University found these kinds of jobs comprise fewer than half of all jobs, yet accounted for nine of 10 of all losses in the Great Recession. And they have kept disappearing in the economic recovery. Webb Wheel Products makes parts for truck brakes, which involves plenty of repetitive work. Its newest employee is the Doosan V550M, and its a marvel. It can spin a 130-pound brake drum like a childs top, smooth its metal surface, then drill holes - all without missing a beat. And it doesnt take vacations or complain about anything, says Dwayne Ricketts, president of the Cullman, Ala., company. Thanks to computerized machines, Webb Wheel hasnt added a factory worker in three years, though its making 300,000 more drums annually, a 25 percent increase. Everyone is waiting for the unemployment rate to drop, but I dont know if it will much, Ricketts says. Companies in the recession learned to be more efficient, and theyre not going to go back. In Europe, companies couldnt go back even if they wanted to. The 17 countries that use the euro slipped into another recession 14 months ago, in November 2011. The current unemployment rate is a record 11.8 percent. European companies had been using technology to replace midpay workers for years, and now that has accelerated. The recessions have amplified the trend, says Goos, the Belgian economist. New jobs are being created, but not the middle-pay ones. In Canada, a 2011 study by economists at the University of British Columbia and York University in Toronto found a similar pattern of middle-class losses, though they were working with older data. In the 15 years through 2006, the share of total jobs held by many midpay, midskill occupations shrank. The share held by foremen fell 37 percent, workers in administrative and senior clerical roles fell 18 percent and those in sales and service fell 12 percent. In Japan, a 2009 report from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo documented a substantial drop in midpay, midskill jobs in the five years through 2005, and linked it to technology. Developing economies have been spared the technological onslaught - for now. Countries like Brazil and China are still growing middle-class jobs because theyre shifting from export-driven to consumer-based economies. But even they are beginning to use more machines in manufacturing. The cheap labor they relied on to make goods from apparel to electronics is no longer so cheap as their living standards rise. One example is Sunbird Engineering, a Hong Kong firm that makes mirror frames for heavy trucks at a factory in southern China. Salaries at its plant in Dongguan have nearly tripled from $80 a month in 2005 to $225 today. Automation is the obvious next step, CEO Bill Pike says. Sunbird is installing robotic arms that drill screws into a mirror assembly, work now done by hand. The machinery will allow the company to eliminate two positions on a 13-person assembly line. Pike hopes that additional automation will allow the company to reduce another five or six jobs from the line. By automating, we can outlive the labor cost increases inevitable in China, Pike says. Those who automate in China will win the battle of increased costs. Foxconn Technology Group, which assembles iPhones at factories in China, unveiled plans in 2011 to install one million robots over three years. A recent headline in the China Daily newspaper: Chinese robot wars set to erupt. --- Candidates for U.S. president last year never tired of telling Americans how jobs were being shipped overseas. China, with its vast army of cheaper labor and low-value currency, was easy to blame. But most jobs cut in the U.S. and Europe werent moved. No one got them. They vanished. And the villain in this story - a clever software engineer working in Silicon Valley or the high-tech hub around Heidelberg, Germany - isnt so easy to hate. It doesnt have political appeal to say the reason we have a problem is were so successful in technology, says Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. Theres no enemy there. Unless you count family and friends and the person staring at you in the mirror. The uncomfortable truth is technology is killing jobs with the help of ordinary consumers by enabling them to quickly do tasks that workers used to do full time, for salaries. Use a self-checkout lane at the supermarket or drugstore? A worker behind a cash register used to do that. Buy clothes without visiting a store? Youve taken work from a salesman. Click accept in an email invitation to attend a meeting? Youve pushed an office assistant closer to unemployment. Book your vacation using an online program? Youve helped lay off a travel agent. Perhaps at American Express Co., which announced this month that it plans to cut 5,400 jobs, mainly in its travel business, as more of its customers shift to online portals to plan trips. Software is picking out worrisome blots in medical scans, running trains without conductors, driving cars without drivers, spotting profits in stocks trades in milliseconds, analyzing Twitter traffic to tell where to sell certain snacks, sifting through documents for evidence in court cases, recording power usage beamed from digital utility meters at millions of homes, and sorting returned library books. Technology gives rise to cheaper products and cool services, says David Autor, an economist at MIT, one of the first to document techs role in cutting jobs. But if you lose your job, that is slim compensation. Even the most commonplace technologies - take, say, email - are making it tough for workers to get jobs, including ones with MBAs, like Roshanne Redmond, a former project manager at a commercial real estate developer. I used to get on the phone, talk to a secretary and coordinate calendars, Redmond says. Now, things are done by computer. Technology is used by companies to run leaner and smarter in good times and bad, but never more than in bad. In a recession, sales fall and companies cut jobs to save money. Then they turn to technology to do tasks people used to do. And thats when it hits them: They realize they dont have to re-hire the humans when business improves, or at least not as many. The Hackett Group, a consultant on back-office jobs, estimates 2 million of them in finance, human resources, information technology and procurement have disappeared in the U.S. and Europe since the Great Recession. It pins the blame for more than half of the losses on technology. These are jobs that used to fill cubicles at almost every company - clerks paying bills and ordering supplies, benefits managers filing health-care forms and IT experts helping with computer crashes. The effect of (technology) on white-collar jobs is huge, but its not obvious, says MITs McAfee. Companies dont put out a press release saying were not hiring again because of machines. --- What hope is there for the future? Historically, new companies and new industries have been the incubator of new jobs. Start-up companies no more than five years old are big sources of new jobs in developed economies. In the U.S., they accounted for 99 percent of new private sector jobs in 2005, according to a study by the University of Marylands John Haltiwanger and two other economists. But even these companies are hiring fewer people. The average new business employed 4.7 workers when it opened its doors in 2011, down from 7.6 in the 1990s, according to a Labor Department study released last March. Technology is probably to blame, wrote the reports authors, Eleanor Choi and James Spletzer. Entrepreneurs no longer need people to do clerical and administrative tasks to help them get their businesses off the ground. In the old days - say, 10 years ago - youd need an assistant pretty early to coordinate everything - or youd pay a huge opportunity cost for the entrepreneur or the president to set up a meeting, says Jeff Connally, CEO of CMIT Solutions, a technology consultancy to small businesses. Now technology means you can look at your calendar and everybody elses calendar and - bing! - youve set up a meeting. So no assistant gets hired. Entrepreneur Andrew Schrage started the financial advice website Money Crashers in 2009 with a partner and one freelance writer. The bare-bones start-up was only possible, Schrage says, because of technology that allowed the company to get online help with accounting and payroll and other support functions without hiring staff. Had I not had access to cloud computing and outsourcing, I estimate that I would have needed 5-10 employees to begin this venture, Schrage says. I doubt I would have been able to launch my business. Technological innovations have been throwing people out of jobs for centuries. But they eventually created more work, and greater wealth, than they destroyed. Ford, the author and software engineer, thinks there is reason to believe that this time will be different. He sees virtually no end to the inroads of computers into the workplace. Eventually, he says, software will threaten the livelihoods of doctors, lawyers and other highly skilled professionals. Many economists are encouraged by history and think the gains eventually will outweigh the losses. But even they have doubts. Whats different this time is that digital technologies show up in every corner of the economy, says McAfee, a self-described digital optimist. `'Your tablet (computer) is just two or three years old, and its already taken over our lives. Peter Lindert, an economist at the University of California, Davis, says the computer is more destructive than innovations in the Industrial Revolution because the pace at which it is upending industries makes it hard for people to adapt. Occupations that provided middle-class lifestyles for generations can disappear in a few years. Utility meter readers are just one example. As power companies began installing so-called smart readers outside homes, the number of meter readers in the U.S. plunged from 56,000 in 2001 to 36,000 in 2010, according to the Labor Department. In 10 years? That number is expected to be zero. --- NEXT: Practically human: Can smart machines do your job? --- AP researcher Judith Ausuebel contributed to this story from New York. Paul Wiseman reported from Washington. You can reach the writers on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/BernardFCondon and https://www.twitter.com/PaulWisemanAP . RIVERSIDE ---- A decorated 20-year Marine Corps veteran whoskimmed nearly $1.7 million from federal contracts tied toshipments of first-aid kits and other equipment to Iraq wassentenced Monday to six years in federal prison. Capt. Eric Schmidt, 40, told U.S. District Judge VirginiaPhillips that he could not explain why he defrauded the governmentand cheated his brothers in arms of gear they needed in thefield. Schmidt pleaded guilty last May to conspiracy to commit wirefraud and filing a false income return. He could have received upto 20 years behind bars, but Phillips considered his militaryrecord and diagnosis as a vet suffering from post-traumatic stressdisorder in handing down the sentence that federal prosecutorsrecommended. Advertisement The Camp Pendleton Marine, who remains free on bond, has apending hearing before a military disciplinary panel and is slatedto begin serving his sentence April 11. According to federal prosecutors, the fraud occurred in 2008while Schmidt was a military contracting representative working inthe Iraqi First Program, the goal of which was to increase theparticipation of Iraqi companies in Pentagon contracts for thebenefit of the countrys post-Saddam economy. Schmidt used his position to steer business to the Al-MethwadCo., with whose executives he had a relationship, according to theU.S. Attorneys Office. The captains wife, Janet Schmidt, was a co-conspirator in herhusbands scheme. Her company, Jenna International Inc., locatedvendors to procure the goods the Al-Methwad Co. wanted to satisfyPentagon contracts, according to Eric Schmidts sentencingmemorandum. The document states that Jenna purchased fewer unitsthan the contract called for, or goods of lesser quality than thecontract called for. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, deficient shipmentswould be sent to Iraq, where Eric Schmidt signed off on them,certifying everything was in order. Al-Methwad was then paid infull by the U.S. government, and the defendants kept whatever moneywas left over from the fraudulent procurements. Phillips delineated two examples of the defendants crimes thatshe found particularly offensive: arranging for a smaller number offirst-aid kits to be delivered to units serving in Iraq, and asmaller number of explosives detection devices to be delivered. On paper, the required number were shipped. But that wasnt thecase, the judge noted. The net effect was that the troops in Iraq had fewer first-aidkits and fewer detection devices than they needed and were supposedto get and the government paid for, Phillips said. That reallydeserves focus here, that somebody who was deployed many times inIraq and other war zones would participate in a scheme in whichfellow troops dont receive their equipment. Janet Schmidt pleaded guilty last March to filing a false taxreturn. Shes slated to be sentenced March 7 and could face threeyears in prison, though federal prosecutors are expected torecommend a much lower term. The Schmidts, now separated, have a daughter. The couple were charged about a year ago following a months-longinvestigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, theInternal Revenue Service and the Special Inspector General for IraqReconstruction. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, the defendants siphonedaway an estimated $1.69 million from contracts and falsely reportedtheir joint 2008 earnings, shorting the government by about$458,000. Eric Schmidts attorney, Janet Sherman, argued for a prison termof five years or less, highlighting the defendants virtuallyunblemished career until 2008 and his psychological problemsstemming from PTSD. Schmidt, she said, had been a Marine sniper, diver andparachutist, serving in Operation Desert Storm, Somalia and severalcombat tours of duty in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Heleft boot camp a private at age 19 and worked his way up throughthe ranks. This is a multi-decorated hero, Sherman said. Until thishappened, he was a perfect Marine. She said he snapped during his last deployment, which a doctordescribed in a letter to the court as one too many. The defendanthas been undergoing treatment for alcoholism, as well as therapyfor psychological illness. Its extremely difficult for me to explain why it happened,"Schmidt told Phillips. Im sorry for what Ive done to my countryand my brothers in arms. Phillips said a six-year prison term was well below what thedefendant could have received and ordered him to pay fullrestitution to the Department of Defense and the IRS. Federal agents seized the Schmidts two homes ---- one inMurrieta and another in Big Bear ---- as well as theirMercedes-Benz sedan and BMW M3 coupe. A policemen and two civilians have been killed in the terror attack on a police patrol party in Anantnag's Mirbazar area. Three policemen were also injured in the attack. By Ashraf Wani: Four people, including a policemen and two civilians, have been killed in a terror strike on a police patrol party in Mirbazar area of south Kashmir's Anantnag district. The fourth person killed is yet to be identified. Three policemen have also been injured in the attack. The area has been cordoned off after the militants managed to escape following the ambush. advertisement According to a report published in Greater Kashmir , the gunmen attacked the cops when they were clearing traffic on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. More details are awaited. Also read: Kanpur-based religious organisation training sadhus in stone pelting to take on Kashmir protesters Also read: PM Modi alone can help resolve Kashmir unrest, says CM Mehbooba Mufti Watch the video: PoK boy apprehended by army from Nowshera area of Jammu and Kashmir --- ENDS --- A former advocate at the Supreme Court, Kawaljit Singh Bhatia, in a Facebook post the after he dropped his mother at the airport, he received a call saying that the officials didn't allow her to board as she was late. By India Today Web Desk: In a shocking case, a senior citizen's family has alleged that the woman was harrased by Jet Airways officials at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on May 3, causing her to have a blackout. A former advocate at the Supreme Court, Kawaljit Singh Bhatia, in a Facebook post the after he dropped his mother at the airport, he received a call saying that the officials didn't allow her to board as she was late. Here is what followed next: advertisement Jet Airways, however denied the charges and has now issued an official statement saying,"Jet Airways reaffirms its Guest First philosophy which is founded on principles of service excellence. The airline staff demonstrated the very same principles of concern while accepting the senior guest for boarding, despite the guest reporting late at the check-in counter. Subsequently, the guest proceeded for the boarding gate by herself, where she lost consciousness. She was then taken to the airport medical desk for first aid where investigations revealed her to be a diabetic with low haemoglobin. The above facts can be corroborated via CCTV footage available with the airport authorities, a copy of which has also been submitted to law enforcement authorities. Jet Airways strongly denies the allegations made in the social post which do not reflect the airline's service etiquette, standards and the exact nature of developments that transpired on the day." Also read This airline is giving you 24 per cent off on flight bookings just for today Watch video Former Supreme Court advocate's mother 'harassed' by Jet Airways officials at Delhi airport --- ENDS --- Riverside, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/04/2017 -- The word "bankruptcy" may sound frightening, but for many Riverside residents, it has become a word of hope. This is because filing for bankruptcy is now a popular legal strategy for stopping foreclosure and getting out of debt. Riverside bankruptcy attorneys explain exactly how filing bankruptcy is helping Riverside residents. "The type of bankruptcy someone files depends on their circumstances," said bankruptcy attorney Lauren Rode: "Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies are the most common for at-risk homeowners." Indeed, they are common. Last year in Riverside County alone, there were about 8,065 chapter 7 and 1,962 chapter 13 bankruptcies filed. So why exactly are so many people filing bankruptcy? Benefits of Bankruptcy When someone files for bankruptcy, they are asking to catch up once they have fallen behind on mortgage and car payments, as well as legally discharge debts they simply cannot pay. "Filing for bankruptcy enables someone to save their home and car, and also eliminate unsecured debts like credit cards, medical bills, and personal loan obligations." California bankruptcy attorney, Rode explained: "Bankruptcy can also help to remove second and third mortgages, as well as IRS back-taxes". It also helps by protecting consumers from creditor harassment, by mail, phone, or lawsuit. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy vs. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy In order to protect bankruptcy law from being abused, the state has specific criteria for who can file each chapter. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a white flag, in which the debtor is asking for forgiveness on all unsecured debts. Conversely, a chapter 13 bankruptcy means that the debtor wishes to pay off secured loans such as home loans or car loans, but needs a new payment plan. In chapter 13 bankruptcy, the person's property and assets are protected; such as savings accounts, home equity, and personal belongings. Chapter 7 offers a much more comprehensive elimination of debts, but does not protect assets the same way as Chapter 13. In order to determine who qualifies for bankruptcy, the court looks into a person's income. "They use something called the 'mean test,'" Bankruptcy lawyer Rode explained: "This combines their earned income, plus any additional income. If a debtor's income is above the state median of $54,586, they may not qualify for chapter 7 bankruptcy in California, but usually they can file chapter 13." How to File, And What to Expect Bankruptcy is a complex legal process, and most people start by hiring a Riverside bankruptcy lawyer if they live in Riverside, California. Next they must gather all necessary paperwork, including pay stubs and tax returns. Debtors are required to complete a credit counseling classes before they file. After that, paperwork is filed and a hearing is held at the Riverside Bankruptcy courts. Once the actual filling is complete it must be reviewed by the court to pave the way for debt elimination and repayment. Afterwards, in a Chapter 13, the person must follow the payment plan. This plan usually lasts 3 years if a filer's income is below the state median, and 5 years if it is above. At the end of the repayment period, the filing party is free of any remaining balance on dischargeable loans. Average Fees and Costs Fees vary, but as of 2015 the cost of court filings for bankruptcy in Riverside County was $335 for chapter 7, and $310 for chapter 13. Attorney fees for Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcies usually range from $750-4500, depending on the chapter and complexity of the case. Free Case Evaluation Anyone who lives in the state of California can call the Riverside bankruptcy attorneys at Consumer Action Law Group for a free consultation at 818-254-8413. Their attorneys will take the time to review any situation on the first call, and recommend a smart course of action. About Consumer Action Law Group Consumer Action Law Group is a law firm located in Los Angeles, California. Their bankruptcy lawyers have successfully stopped hundreds of foreclosures for Stockton, California residents. Individuals who live in Stockton, California can call Consumer Action Law Group for free stop foreclosure advice. Bankruptcy Attorneys at Consumer Action Law Group have stopped foreclosures for homeowners within 5 minutes. For a free meeting with a lawyer today, Call Consumer Action Law Group directly at 818-254-8413. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/04/2017 -- According to the present European market situation, the Italy telecommunications market is booming due to the growth in the mobile data sector. Also, related sectors like mobile services, fixed services and pay-tv rely heavily on this industry for their own growth. Market Research Hub (MRH) has recently added a new study to address the sector's analysis for gaining deeper insight. This report is titled as ''Italy: Competition Set to Intensify Following Wind Tre Launch and Iliad's Market Entry on Horizon'', which explores the possibilities within the Italy telecommunications market, service providers and key opportunities using a simple format to help clients create profitable growth plans, for the promising forecast period from 2016 to 2021. Request Free Sample Report: http://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1037718 According to this informative report, the global data in Italy telecommunication expects its revenue to reach a value of $33.2 billion, growing at a CAGR of 0.8% over the forecast period of 2016-2021. In 2016, Italy acquired the fourth largest place in the telecommunications sector of Western Europe, along with huge revenues. The report initially begins with the executive summary, along with the products application, classifications, and definitions. Future investors can hence learn about the growth of the market and the competitor overview analysis from this study. Later on, in this section, the economic, demographic and political context are also introspected for the reader's benefit. The study also executes a careful evaluation of the regulatory environment of the sector. In the next section, the report focuses on the regional context of the business in detail. It also analyzes the overall competitive landscape to allow new entrepreneurs understand this business better. The assessment also evaluates the leading manufacturers in this industry, to help clients get accustomed to this sector. The research study later offers information related to the many product segments from this field. Some of the prime segments evaluated are mobile services, fixed services, and the pay-tv. Besides this, the report helps buyers identify the many opportunities in this market. Browse Full Report with TOC -http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/italy-competition-set-to-intensify-following-wind-tre-launch-and-iliads-market-entry-on-horizon-report.html Finally, this research study identifies the segments that will perform the best in this sector. The report also predicts that the mobile data sector will be making almost 38.9% of overall service revenue by 2021, which is higher than 33.4% noted in 2016. The report provides the market growth assessment and growth forecasts to help clients become up-to-date. The study also describes the key drivers and assumptions, along with ongoing and upcoming trends. These parameters are studied in terms of Italy's mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets. The study's broad perspective along with comprehensive and instrumental details will help vendors succeed in this challenging sector. Check Other Related Reports - Telecommunication Services Top 5 Emerging Markets Industry Guide-2017 -http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/telecommunication-services-top-5-emerging-markets-industry-guide-2017-report.html Australia - Telecoms Industry - Statistics and Forecasts -http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/australia-telecoms-industry-statistics-and-forecasts-report.html About Market Research Hub Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRH's expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps. MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients. Contact Us 90 State Street, Albany, NY 12207, United States Toll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada) Tel: +1-518-621-2074 Email: press@marketresearchhub.com Website: http://www.marketresearchhub.com/ Following analysis on the basin in Falkland islands, a team of scientists concluded the basin exhibited traits of a large ancient meteorite impact. The impact crater is among one of the world's largest impact crater. The basin is located in the Falkland Plateau in the northwest of West Falkland islands. The basin is a huge a 250 kilometers (150 miles) diameter, and scientists from U.S., Argentina, and Paraguay found convincing geophysical evidence of the large ancient meteorite impact on the basin. Scientists that investigate the basin and its relation to the ancient meteorite impact were led by Max C.L. Rocca from the Argentinas Planetary Society. Other team members are Michael Rampino, a professor in Department of Biology at the New York University, and geologist Jaime Baez Presser from Paraguay, according to the press release from New York University. "If the Falklands basin is really an impact crater, and it has some of the most telling features," Rampino said regarding the evidence of ancient meteorite impact. "Then it is one of the largest known. The team conducted analysis on the seismic-reflection profiles, and in gravity and magnetic surveys. Based on the result of the analysis, its shows a consistent evidence of an ancient meteorite impact, which predicted to be from 250 million years ago. This could indicate the basin is related to the mass extinction during the Permian period during the last period of Paleozoic Era. The other geophysical evidence of an ancient meteorite impact was the sediments in the basin. The basin was buried completely by sediments from more recent eras, a clear indication that the basin was formed long before its surroundings. Furthermore, there is no topographic expression found on the present sea floor. The report has been published in the Terra Nova journal. Although the younger sediment indicated the evidence of an ancient meteorite impact, but the scientists need to confirm their finding. They have taken the sample from the site for further analysis. Watch the report of the finding below: Eman Ahmed, known as the 'world's heaviest woman' has been flown to Abu Dhabi, UAE for further treatment. She was having a weight of 500 kg being the heaviest woman of the world. Till now, she was confined to Saifee Hospital located in Mumbai, India. According to Economic Times, the 37 years old 'world's heaviest woman' lost 328 kg weight before she was flown to UAE for further treatment. She has discharged around 12:40 PM IST from the Mumbai-based hospital. She was admitted to the hospital in the month of February for a treatment of severe obesity. The 'world's heaviest woman' flies to Abu Dhabi, UAE in a special airbus, which is fitted with medical equipment. The EgyptAir cargo airbus 300, took off from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai at 7:41 PM IST. For transporting Eman to the airport terminal, a special green corridor was also created with medical facilities to take her from the hospital. Tribune India reported that 'world's heaviest woman's' sister Shaimaa alleged the Indian doctors in the hospital weeks ago for making false claims regarding the amount of weight loss. In an online video last month, Shaimaa made allegations that she was not receiving proper treatment at the private hospital in Mumbai and Eman did not lose as much weight as it was claimed by the hospital. However, the hospital authority strongly denied the allegation. Dr. Muffi Lakdawala, who was treating the world's heaviest woman, told the media that Shaimaa wanted an extension for her sister's stay in the hospital until the time she is able to walk again. The orthopedic specialists in the hospital already informed Shaimaa that Eman Ahmed would never walk again. Eman, the 'world's heaviest woman', a resident of Alexandria in Egypt, had not ventured out of her home for over two decades because of her stout condition taken after by a stroke that left her paralyzed on one side a year prior. It was Shaimaa, who learned about Dr. Lakdawala and his aptitude in bariatric surgeries and moved toward him for help early this year. Eman went through bariatric surgery in the month of March which helped her reducing two-thirds of her stomach and reducing her food intake. Samsung recently confirmed that it is going to launch the Galaxy Note 8 soon. The Galaxy Note 8 is the successor of the fire-prone Note 7. Avid supporters of Samsung claim that using the brand name "Galaxy Note" is a bad idea for the company. A lot of people still remember the issue with the Galaxy Note 7, and it might affect the sales of its successor. According to a BGR report, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 might be available in stores by the second half of the year. The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to have the same design as the Galaxy S8. But the Note 8 might feature a bigger infinity display, and it will also come with an S Pen. Samsung needs to add more impressive features in the Galaxy Note 8 to convince buyers that it is a better choice than the Galaxy S8. Report claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 might also feature a dual-lens camera just like what Apple's iPhone 7 is using. Fans can also expect that the company might have found a way to integrate the fingerprint sensor under the screen of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. It would be so annoying if its fingerprint sensor would be located on the back. According to Value Walk, Samsung Galaxy Note 8's S Pen stylus slot will be located at the bottom of the device. The new and improved S Pen stylus can read more than 4,096 different levels of pressure. The rumored 4K resolution display might also be available on the upcoming phone. Samsung has been associated with screen technology over the past few years. The South Korean multinational conglomerate also became the largest seller of television sets worldwide. It would take just a few tweaks to make the 4K resolution display available for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. The company might also improve the Bixby AI assistant for the Note 8. This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. That is why fans are very eager to see the upcoming iPhone 8. The Apple smartphone is expected to be released in September 2017. Recent reports claim that the iPhone 8 might sport a wireless charging feature and it might also get a major design overhaul. Fans should not get too excited with the iPhone 8. As per Daily Star, Apple and the telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm are currently locked in a controversy over licensing payments. Report claims that Qualcomm is looking for a way to ban the unconfirmed iPhone 8. The ban would also affect all iPhones all over the United States. The ban would cost billions of loss for Apple. The ban would affect existing iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Qualcomm wants to acquire import bans on all iPhones entering the United States. This means that there is a huge possibility that the flagship phone iPhone 8 might fail to make it through the United States retailers this September. But fans should not worry because it is not confirmed yet. Because the iPhone 8 is one of the most anticipated devices to arrive this year, people see new leaks, rumors and concept designs almost every day. According to Yahoo, a new leak shows that the iPhone 8 would feature a vertical dual-lens camera. It would also have no touch ID home button. Apple might also put an efficient battery for the iPhone 8 and it would also be water-resistant just like the iPhone 7. If the concept design is true, fans would be glad because the rumored back fingerprint sensor would not be there. Apple must have found a way to integrate its fingerprint sensor under the display screen of the device. The iPhone 8 might also sport an iris scanner to improve the device's security. The iPhone 8 screen will be a 5.8-inch OLED display but with a taller aspect ratio. By Press Trust of India: Photo: PTI5_6_2017_000098B By Kunal Dutt New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) Leila Seth died the way she lived -- in the service of people. The first woman chief justice of a high court in India and author Vikram Seths mother, donated her organs before her death, her family said. Seth was 86. "She died of a cardiac seizure last night, at 10:28 PM. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here," her younger son Shantum Seth told PTI. advertisement Her family said there would be no funeral as she had pledged to donate her organs. "My mother has donated her eyes and other organs for transplant or medical research purposes. So we will not have a funeral," Shantum said. On May 28, there would be a prayer meeting in her honour, he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled her death, tweeting that her "remarkable contribution" to the field of law would be remembered. Vice President Hamid Ansari said she "blazed a trail for women". The eminent jurist, much admired in the field of law and in other professions, championed sharper legislation for women. Seth was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh). She started her legal practice at the Patna High Court, where she spent 10 years from till 1969 before moving to Delhi. Her husband, Premo Seth, worked in the private sector. In an interview to PTI in April last year, she had spoken about her experiences at court in the early days of her career and her fondness for Patna. "We were very few women as the legal field was all dominated by men. Feisty barrister Dharamshila Lal was my contemporary, in fact my senior, who was known to jangle her bangles at judges in the courtroom, if they didnt pay attention," she had said. On her days in Patna, she said, "It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to White Pillars bungalow, our old home. And, like he did in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga." advertisement Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she "lived with the courage of her convictions" and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. "We had just got together last month to celebrate Shantums 60th birthday," Tehmina said, adding that his elder brother, the author of "A Suitable Boy", had messaged her about the death. "He is devastated," she said. Shantum said that about three weeks ago, his mother had fallen down and fractured her hip. "She had undergone surgery at the Apollo Hospital and was discharged a week ago," he said. Last night, the family called for an ambulance and PCR when she collapsed in her NOIDA residence. "But it was too late," he said. The eminent jurist was also an author and her autobiography On Balance was a bestseller. Seth had also authored Talking of Justice: Peoples Rights in Modern India, published in 2014, which looked at critical issues that she had engaged with in a legal career spanning over 50 years. PTI KND BDS --- ENDS --- Several tech enthusiasts are curious what Microsoft's next move is after launching the Surface Laptop at the recently held New York City event. Some rumors claim that Microsoft might be launching a smartphone that would still bear the "Surface" brand. But there is still no official announcement made by the company about its target release date. It seems like Microsoft is not done holding its events for this month. According to The Verge, Microsoft will be holding another event on May 23, 2017. The event will take place in Shanghai. But Microsoft did not specify the exact location of the event and what it will be all about. Fans are hoping that Microsoft will finally release its Surface Phone at the event. The Microsoft Surface Phone is probably one of the most anticipated devices to arrive. Fans have been expecting it since 2016. Several rumors and speculations are already circulating about the Microsoft Surface Phone. Some rumors claim that Microsoft might add a Fusion Camera that can create Hololens and 3D models. The Microsoft Surface Phone also has a lot of leaks and concept designs spreading online. But nobody knows what the actual phone might look like. As per Trusted Reviews, one thing is for sure. The next smartphone that Microsoft will launch will not look like a regular phone that people see nowadays. People have seen how Microsoft made a classy and elegant-looking laptop. That is why fans have set their expectations high for Microsoft's Surface Phone. Recent reports claim that the Surface Phone would run a 64-bit Windows 10 operating system. The device could also function as a mini-PC Microsoft already tried to turn its Windows Phones into semi-desktop computers with its Continuum project. That is why fans are also expecting that the upcoming Surface Phone can run some desktop applications. As for now, Microsoft has not commented on any of the rumors and speculations online. The product name of the next Microsoft mobile is also uncertain at the moment. The company would choose either "Windows" or "Surface." After the success of Google Pixel smartphone, expectations from the second generation Pixel phone, possibly dubbed as Google Pixel 2, in terms of specs and features have increased manifolds. In fact, people are expecting that the upcoming Pixel smartphone will give tough competition to the current best Android smartphone, the Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Apple's highly awaited 10th anniversary special iPhone 8. According to The Christian Post, Google might roll out three Pixel 2 variants this year. Although the search giant has not officially confirmed whether or not it will release three variants, Slash Gear recently uncovered code commits from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) that prove that Pixel 2 is already in the making. Google Pixel 2 appeared with the codename Walleye, Pixel 2 XL with the codename Muskie and the third highly rumored Pixel 2 XXL variant as Taimen. It is to be noted that the codenames for Google Pixel and Pixel XL were Sailfish and Marlin, respectively, both named after fish names. Interestingly, the codenames Walleye, Muskie and Taimen are also named after fish. In fact, a senior software engineer at Google, David Zeuthen, has also mentioned about a real device in another set of Android Code Commit. He noted that he "Finally got around to manually testing this on a walleye device." Talking about Google Pixel 2, it is expected that the handset will get top of the line specs and features including the Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 835 processor, same as rival Samsung Galaxy S8. Google Pixel users complained about the handset being less water-resistant as compared to its competitors. It is expected that the next generation Pixel phone will come with hefty dust and water resistance features. As far as Google Pixel 2 pricing is concerned, it is highly likely that a smartphone with top-notch specs will not come as cheap. Google is expected to announce some details about the Google Pixel 2 smartphone at its Google I/O developer conference that will start on May 17, Wednesday. Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that humans need to colonize another planet in 100 years or face the risk of extinction. He had previously theorized that mankind has around 1,000 years left before becoming extinct. Now the timeline appears to have shortened, as per Hawking. The Chicago Tribune reported that the professor will present his predictions that humans have only 100 years to colonize another planet in a new BBC documentary called Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth. The program is scheduled to be aired later this year. According to the physicist, life on Earth is going to become increasingly precarious with population growth, endemics, climate change and overdue asteroid strikes. Hawking has issued several warnings about the future of humanity over the past few years. In fact, at the start of 2016, he had listed out dangers that could be a threat to the survival of humanity such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetically engineered viruses, global warming and nuclear war. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," Hawking told the BBC News in an interview during that time. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." The physicist had also added that humans will not be able to develop self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years. Therefore, mankind had to be very careful during this period. Incidentally, the BBC program will see Stephen Hawking discuss the evolving science and technology that will be play a significant part for humanity to develop a plan to colonize another planet. The physicist will talk on various topics, from human hibernation and biology to rocket technology and astronomy, on the show. FLORENCE, S.C. On a warm afternoon under mostly sunny skies, the cremated remains of three American veterans found their final resting place in Florence National Cemetery. A crowd of about 50 people paid tribute Friday to Michael Carter, U.S. Navy, Robert Dunn, U.S. Army, and Ronald Stewart, U.S. Navy. Florence Veterans Honor Guard members delivered the cremains to the ceremony while members of several motorcycle clubs stood in a semicircle holding American flags that fluttered in the afternoon breeze. After a memorial service, their remains were interred in the cemetery columbarium. The remains were contained in urns donated by the Greenville Woodworkers Guild and each supported a folded American flag. Kent Kendall, associate pastor for Florence Baptist Temple, delivered a brief eulogy while honor guard member performed a flag-folding ceremony. The ceremony and interment were arranged through the Missing in America Project, which arranges services for veterans whom no one claims. As the speakers said at the memorial, those who attend the services individuals in attendance become the family of those veterans. Larry Truax, an Army veteran, has been involved in South Carolinas Missing in Action Project since 2011. Truax served in the Army from 1964 to 1967 in Europe. He said he was part of Veterans Recovery Program in upstate New York. It they worked the same way as the Missing in Action Project. Most of the cremains we deal with are homeless vets, Truax said. We try to see where they lived previously from the city where they were found. As words were spoken by Kendall, there was a flag line where people held flags in remembrance of the veterans. The honor guard meticulously made 13 folds in the American flag. Each fold has a reason, and the first three are for a symbol of life, a symbol of eternal life and a symbol of honor for the veterans who gave a portion of their life defending the country. The Patriot Guard Riders also attended. They are motorcycle riders who make it their mission to ride to funerals and memorials of this nature. On Friday they were a part of the flag line. We do this in remembrance, Truax said. We should always remember the service of all ethnic groups. They sacrificed their live so we could have freedom. A Kanpur-based group of priests is imparting stone pelting training to take on Kashmiri protesters. The head of the group - Jan Sena - says 1000s of group members would be reaching Kashmir soon to help the security forces tackle stone pelters. By India Today Web Desk: A Kanpur-based religious organisation - Jan Sena - is training priests and locals in stone pelting to take on protesters in strife torn Kashmir. Jan Sena is planning to send a team of over 1000 priests to Kashmir to assist the security forces counter stone pelters in the region. "We are training people to teach a lesson to stone pelters who harm India's unity. 1000s of us will leave for Kashmir on May 7," said Chaitanya Mahapuri, Jansena head. advertisement MUST READ - FROM INDIA TODAY MAGAZINE - Anger etched in stone Mahapuri said he had sought permission from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow his group to move to Kashmir to 'boost morale of the jawans and help them in tackling the stone pelters but failed to get a positive response. The head of the group said it will be carrying a truck loaded with stones with them to 'teach Kashmiri extremists a lesson in their own language.' A training video of the group shows dozens of people, gathered at a riverbank in Kanpur, practicing to hit some effigies put up few yards away while shouting slogans like 'vande mataram, inquilab zindabad and Pakistan murdabad.' #WATCH Jansena, a group of sadhus in Kanpur, is training men & women to take on stone pelters in Kashmir; they'll leave for J&K on May 7. pic.twitter.com/anzrjOaRQv- ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 6, 2017 KASHMIR ON EDGE The Kashmir Valley has been on the edge since killing of Hizbul Mujahideen poster boy Burhan Wani in an encounter in July, 2016. Stone pelting incidents have become a daily phenomenon in the Valley. Scores of people have been killed and thousands injured, including police, paramilitary and army personnel in stone pelting incidents. India has presented numerous evidence of Pakistan's involvement in inciting trouble in the region. Pakistani agencies are backing Kashmiri separatists to foment trouble in the state, a claim vehemently denied by Islamabad. WATCH: Operation Stone Pelters: Kashmir's scariest admissions caught on camera ALSO READ: Can Mehbooba Mufti stem the rot in PDP, buffeted by insurgency and dissent? Stone pelters on hire in Kashmir: India Today nails Valley's insidious villains Jammu and Kashmir: Cops turn mentors for stone pelters --- ENDS --- Fairview, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed's official residence at the far end of Srinagar's Gupkar Road, with its freshly painted and varnished facades and neatly manicured lawns, has never looked better. But in stark contrast to the headier times, when the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed led his People's Democratic Party to power in partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party two years ago, there's a discernible despondency to the place. It also reflects in Mehbooba's grudging smile as she greets visitors to her home. Thirteen tumultuous months since she reluctantly agreed to succeed her father on April 4, 2016, J&K's first and only woman chief minister has her back to the wall. This amid civil unrest that simply refuses to ebb, an increasingly obdurate central government that has rejected any possible dialogue with the separatists, murmurs of rebellion in the party and rapidly shrinking support in the PDP's hitherto unchallenged bastion of South Kashmir. Close to 90 civilians were killed in the unremitting violence that consumed the Valley last year as ferocious street protests were met with brutal response after the young militant icon Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter on July 8. Over 15,000, including police, paramilitary and army personnel, were injured. Scores of youngsters, including innocent bystanders like young schoolgirl Insha Malik, were blinded by pellets raining from pump-action shotguns deployed to quell the protests. advertisement The brief pause in the violence through the winter freeze now threatens to spiral into yet another cycle of unending strife. The Lok Sabha byelection in Srinagar on April 9 left eight civilians dead. At least 300, including several evidently unprepared paramilitary personnel who trucked in just an evening earlier to conduct the election, were seriously injured. A second pending byelection in Anantnag, necessitated after Mehbooba's election to the state assembly last June, was initially deferred to May 25 and ultimately cancelled by the Election Commission. Stone-pelting protesters battle security forces at Srinagar's Lal Chowk on April 24. But it's far from over. "Kashmir is a tinderbox that no longer needs the killing of another Burhan Wani to set things ablaze," says a senior security official in Srinagar. Police action at Pulwama's Government Degree College on April 15 to arrest 'miscreants' for pelting stones on an army vehicle sparked off spontaneous protests across the Valley. In Srinagar, young girl students, many in school uniforms, joined in the stone-pelting for the first time (see box: Anger Etched in Stone). With trouble erupting at the unlikeliest of spots, like the angry stone-pelting and shrill sloganeering for 'azadi' and 'Burhan' during a procession of schoolgirls in Navakadal (Downtown Srinagar), security personnel remain on a constant nervous edge. "The magnitude of the violence may be a tad lower than in 2016, but the alienation amid Kashmir's youth is near-complete," says Srinagar-based journalist and commentator Shujaat Bukhari. The Hurriyat separatists who had hitherto orchestrated almost every radical manoeuvre in the Valley, he says, "are no longer in control. In fact, they don't seem to have a clue". But it is not just street protests Mehbooba has to contend with. Kashmir is witnessing a significant upsurge in militant strikes, almost in tandem with the spreading unrest. On April 24, three armed Hizbul Mujahideen militants waylaid PDP's Pulwama district president Abdul Gani Dar and shot him dead pointblank. Earlier in the same week, militants in Shopian targeted National Conference leader Imtiyaz Ahmad Khan. And significantly upping the ante on May 1, three Hizbul fighters, led by Umar Majid, gunned down five police constables and two private security guards accompanying a Jammu and Kashmir Bank cash van outside Pombai village in Kulgam district. Since the PDP-BJP coalition assumed office in March 2015, 457 people, including 48 civilians, 134 security force personnel and 275 militants, have been killed in the state. And that's not counting the more than hundred lives lost in the ongoing civil unrest. advertisement Back in Srinagar, Peerzada Abbas Amin has been with the PDP since 2003 and is currently stationed at the party's heavily guarded headquarters on General Post Office Road. "For the first time in so many years, I fear going back to visit my family in Anantnag," he says, echoing the fears of most lower and mid-rung PDP workers in the Valley. Mehbooba, too, privately acknowledges the problem where "naturally fearful party workers are no longer living in their villages to escape becoming targets". But a big part of the problem, according to PDP workers like Amin, is the CM's failure to involve the party in the bits and pieces of governance and development that have been achieved amid the strife. "Workers have been kept aloof," Amin laments. He points to Laadli and Aasra, two social welfare schemes rolled out for girl children and poor families, as also the amnesty scheme for young stone-pelters, where no attempt was made to involve the PDP workers on the ground. "We have been rendered irrelevant. Why would anyone listen to us?" he asks. Equally disillusioned, a junior party functionary who played a significant part in the party's historic 2014 Lok Sabha victory trouncing former CM Farooq Abdullah, says the PDP's defeat in the April 9 byelection is certain indication of the party's plummeting support base in the Valley. Whenever they will eventually be held, the byelection in Anantnag, he predicts, "will spell even more trouble for the PDP" in its South Kashmir bastion, where the party's strong voter base has shrunk perceptibly. A senior J&K Police official familiar with the oscillating electoral trends in Kashmir agrees. "The PDP's defeat in Srinagar is a strong message to the party's leadership," he says, pointing out that even in segments like Kangan, which suffered no violence or killing through the 2016 unrest, the voter turnout was less than a third of that in 2014. advertisement Long before Mehbooba and her colleagues even took note, a 2016 security dossier communicated to the Union ministry for home affairs in Delhi just weeks before the Burhan Wani encounter on July 8 had spoken of the spreading alienation amid PDP voters. "The youth on the fringes who were attracted to the PDP (soft separatist line and anti-BJP narrative) during the elections are feeling 'betrayed'. This includes a large number from the Jamaat and separatist camps, who are pushing apprehensions that the BJP/RSS would 'destroy' their Muslim and Kashmiri identity. These elements are constantly on the search for 'triggers' to bring people on to the roads," said the dossier. The assessment couldn't have been closer to the truth in the Kashmiri hinterland. advertisement Besides her disenchanted workers, Mehbooba also faces trouble from senior colleagues, such as party veteran Muzaffar Baig. A former deputy chief minister in the Mufti's first government, Baig has said that the PDP has lost significant political ground in coalition with the BJP. He's even suggesting that Mehbooba should consider pulling the plug and "go back to the people and try earning their trust again". The oldest of Mufti Sayeed's four children and his anointed political heir, Mehbooba contested her first election as a Congress nominee from Bijbehara in 1996 when few were willing to represent the party after six years under President's rule. By 1999, when the Mufti decided to part ways with the Congress, she was right beside him, taking the lead in building a whole new party from scratch. Working in concert, the Mufti crafted his Kashmir-centric strategy in Srinagar, while Mehbooba tirelessly articulated it on the ground to emerge as the face of the PDP. In 2002, the party won 16 seats and the chief ministership for the Mufti in a three-year swap arrangement with the Congress. In 2008, Mehbooba pushed up her seat tally to 21 and spent the next six years relentlessly taking on the NC-Congress alliance. The die had been cast by early 2014 when PDP swept all the three Lok Sabha seats in the Valley. Seven months later, with 28 seats, the party resumed office in alliance with the BJP. When she took over as CM on April 4, 2016, Mehbooba faced a daunting set of challenges. Besides balancing acts between Srinagar and Delhi, Kashmir and Jammu and her predominantly Muslim PDP and the Hindu nationalist BJP, she was also confronted with delivering governance-something she had absolutely no experience of. This showed almost immediately in the vacillation she displayed on virtually everything, from the initial administrative overhaul in early 2016 to more mundane issues like the reopening of schools after Burhan Wani's killing. Mehbooba, some say, is stifled by her own overreliance on a coterie of advisors-key bureaucrats and politicians, including Sartaj Madani, her maternal uncle and PDP general secretary, public works minister Naeem Akhtar, former MLA Peerzada Mansoor Hussain, her recently appointed chief secretary Bharat Bhushan Vyas and Amitabh Mattoo, a reputed academician and long-time confidant of Mufti Sayeed. PDP cadres are questioning the wisdom of allying with the BJP more than ever today. Mufti Sayeed's dream of bridging the yawning political and religious rift between Srinagar and Jammu has clearly been a non-starter. The two regions and the people have grown even more distant. Barring the brief window of opportunity back in 2016, when some members of the all-party delegation, led by home minister Rajnath Singh, unsuccessfully attempted to engage with the Hurriyat separatists, the promised "sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders"-the mainstay of the mutually agreed Agenda of the Alliance between the PDP and BJP-is clearly no longer on the table. Responding to a petition by the J&K High Court Bar Association on April 28, attorney general of India Mukul Rohatgi made Delhi's position on dialogue with the separatists amply clear. The Centre, he told the court, has "no plan to hold any talks with the separatists and those who are not loyal to India". And if there was any doubt about what Delhi was now saying, the BJP's Ram Madhav, who drafted the governance agenda with the PDP, lauded the move. The former RSS man, who is now a general secretary in the BJP, spelled out Delhi's new mantra for Srinagar: "Tackle militants and their sponsors with utmost toughness. Handle misguided youths coming onto the streets with stones in hand with deftness so that violence is firmly put down, but care is taken to prevent loss of life." Interestingly, despite the changed stance in resuming talks with Kashmiri separatists and the consequent alarm this has provoked amid the PDP's rank and file, both Madhav and the BJP's J&K in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna have stated that the alliance was in no danger of falling apart. Mehbooba, however, chose to be more cautious: "The alliance is as firm as the Agenda of Alliance," she told India Today. Mehbooba, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on April 24 to press him to initiate the dialogue process, is not giving up so easily. Admitting that there needs to be a semblance of normalcy before any manner of talks can move forward, the chief minister told party leaders in Srinagar that "dialogue was the only way forward and out of the abyss Kashmir currently finds itself in". She suggested picking up from the earlier interlocutors' report and the five working group reports and the Agenda of Alliance, insisting it should not be impossible to find "ten things that can be done? without compromising national interests". But before Mehbooba can possibly cajole Delhi into reconsidering a dialogue on Kashmir, she faces the challenges of effectively tackling the new homegrown militancy, re-engaging with dejected youth, and amid all this, restarting the stalled governance and developmental initiatives. Waheed-ur-Rehman Para, the PDP's youth wing chief, however, insists that the engagement will have to be multi-pronged and must be led by an "emotional outreach" by the prime minister himself. Dealing with militants is not the problem, says Para. "The real challenge is to engage with an entire generation of young Kashmiris who are being recruited into violence." With an estimated 60 per cent of the Valley's residents, including some 2 million students, below 38 years, it's a very tall order. The alienation of the kashmiri youth, says a state police officer who's been spending an extraordinary amount of time talking to young stone-throwers, particularly first-time offenders detained in police stations, is being pushed by a foreboding and fear engendered by events in the rest of the country. Right from the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, repeated incidents of cow vigilantism, the thrashing of Kashmiri students in Rajasthan, to fringe right-wing Hindu groups threatening to raise self-styled armies against youth throwing stones at security personnel, it's all adding to the growing sense of insecurity in the Valley, says the officer. It is also contributing to a further radicalisation of the Kashmiri youth, who have already been imbibing jihadist propaganda on the internet and from sermons within the estimated 3,000 new Wahhabi mosques that have sprung up in the Valley over the last 15 years. Para admits that much of the political space ceded because of the PDP's inability to take things forward on the Agenda of the Alliance is invariably being occupied by separatists and militants. This, he says, is particularly true in South Kashmir-Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian-where the PDP had almost no opposition from other mainstream parties like the National Conference or the Congress. There's also the task of reviving and taking forward stalled development in the Valley. With her focus completely centred on dealing with the unrelenting law and order challenges, Mehbooba and her government have lost almost a whole year. During this time, everything, from the resurfacing and construction of the road network, the construction of flyovers to decongest Srinagar, to the long overdue dredging of the Jhelum watercourse to prevent future floods has been put on the backburner. And while Mehbooba's administration dithered, Delhi has been equally laggard in releasing funds to the state. At an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Rajnath Singh in Delhi on April 27, it was revealed that only Rs 19,000 crore, less than a fourth of PM Modi's Rs 80,000 crore special package for J&K, has been released. Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief Shakeel Qalander says many victims of the massive September 2014 deluge are yet to get the promised compensation. "Not a penny was released to business enterprises that not only suffered huge losses but were also forced to remain shut for several months," he says. "What Delhi's got to understand is that in Kashmir, dialogue is not the means to an end. Dialogue is an end in itself. It critically conveys (to people) that someone is listening to them," says an old Kashmir hand whose three-decade-long policing career coincided with the rise of militancy in the early 1990s. Like Mehbooba, he points to the huge success of former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee's post-2002 engagement with both the Hurriyat separatists and Pakistan: "Militancy continued in small measure, but the street was peaceful." Para says that even in more recent times, the overtures made by the group of MPs led by CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury last summer, and the continuing efforts by former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, have raised a lot of hope. "Such gestures make a huge difference," he says. And contrary to what the leadership in Delhi and Jammu appears to be thinking, the BJP's spokesperson in Kashmir, Khalid Jehangir, too, advocates dialogue. He, however, is not in favour of any specific engagement with the separatists, "which has repeatedly proved itself to be a futile exercise". Jehangir instead suggests that PM Modi convene a roundtable meeting for all sections of Kashmiris. He predicts, "The Hurriyat leaders, who are unlikely to join just like they refused to meet Dr Manmohan Singh in 2006, will once and for all times expose themselves." For the moment, though, Delhi is evidently not thinking dialogue. Security sources say "the plan is to put a lot more boots on the ground". While hoping that will significantly help in curbing the recent spurt in militant violence, the larger motive, sources say, is to effectively dominate the hinterland to deter the stone-pelting protesters. As a senior BJP minister in Mehbooba's cabinet said, "It is time Delhi stops all appeasement and gives people in Kashmir a real sense of what it is like to live life in a 'disturbed' area." But the Centre's policy shift on Kashmir, security officials say, is also in part driven by revelations that Pakistan was keeping things on the boil by "actively staging the civil unrest". Officials say there are fewer than 250 militants in J&K, of which 214 are identified in police records; 60 per cent of them are local youngsters, nearly all belonging to the Hizbul Mujahideen and essentially active in South Kashmir. There's evidence to suggest that the militants are acting in tandem with a huge contingent of over 3,000 overground workers who help orchestrate the actions of the cohort of alienated youths. "And much of this is being coordinated from across the Line of Control," say state police officials, who recently discovered that administrators in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir were controlling some 60 WhatsApp groups with an average membership of 250 youth from the Valley. Discounting for memberships across different groups, there were over 5,000 highly motivated youngsters spread across South Kashmir but always in touch with each other. "It is all highly organised," says a police officer. Besides all that confronts her, Mehbooba must also live with the invariable comparisons with her late father. Even though credited with almost single-handedly establishing the PDP since its inception in 1999, most view Mehbooba as "brash" and a relative greenhorn in matters of governing J&K or dealing with the Centre. "Mufti Sayeed was a far shrewder politician with the ability to absorb and process what people said to him without reacting," says a senior police officer who served on the CM's security detail during the PDP's initial 2002-2006 tenure. Mehbooba, he says, "tends to involve herself in trivial matters, play favourites, and remains generally fearful of trusting aides". Her big strength is the ability to connect with the people, but confined as she is to the chief minister's office, she may be on the verge of losing even that. The octogenarian moderate Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Bhat, a class fellow and colleague of Mufti Sayeed, is more generous. "It's an unfair comparison," he says. "Mehbooba has inherited a dispute that has passed on through generations since 1947." Her father, Bhat says, was never confronted with anything of this magnitude. She may be different from her father, but Mehbooba Mufti is intent on doing what she believes Mufti Sayeed would have done at a juncture like this. "He wasn't the sort of person to give up easily. He risked everything for the chance of bringing Jammu and Kashmir closer and wouldn't give up till he was certain it was the end," she told visitors to Fairview on April 30. There's a little story the chief minister likes narrating about the sheer anguish then PM Rajiv Gandhi expressed to her father in 1990 when not a single Kashmiri came to meet him in Srinagar. Throughout the night he was in the city, all he heard were angry anti-India slogans. Back in Delhi the following morning, Rajiv said to her father: "Mufti ji kya Kashmir hamein waapas mil sakta hai dobara (Can we get Kashmir back)?" Mehbooba is confident Kashmir is firmly with India: "My point is that Kashmir hamare paas hai, aur zameen bhi hamare paas hai, but we must not bring ourselves to a place where we start asking: 'are we losing Kashmir?'," the chief minister told india today at her residence in Srinagar on April 30. So despite the BJP's evident reluctance on addressing promises made in the 16-page Agenda of the Alliance released in March 2015 as the raison detre of the otherwise adversarial alliance, Mehbooba tells party colleagues that she will keep trying. She believes the Yashwant Sinha committee is a good starting point. The CM is convinced that the efforts of the former finance minister, who has already gained some credibility amid the Valley's residents, would be the best way ahead once a semblance of normalcy is achieved. She has conveyed this to Delhi, saying her party and government are "willing to play the role of facilitators and do all the groundwork needed to facilitate dialogue". People, Mehbooba believes, are losing hope, not just in the Indian government but equally in her own party. Little progress on the Kashmir question was achieved through 10 years under the UPA. The present dispensation, she tells party leaders, will be committing the same mistake if it lets things slide much further. --- ENDS --- A clash broke out between students protesting outside Handwara College and Jammu and Kashmir police today morning. By Ashraf Wani: Several students suffered injuries after clashing with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara, a town located in the Kupwara district, today morning. The students clashed with Jammu and Kashmir police during a protest that they were observing outside the Handwara College. The students are believed to have pelted stones on the policemen, prompting the latter to retaliate by firing tear gas shells. advertisement Several students were injured as a result of the police action. There was no initial information about whether any policemen were hurt in the incident. The situation remains tense in Handwara, which, among other Kashmiri towns, saw student protests just last month. According to local media reports, college students in Kashmir clashed with police over alleged high-handedness on April 17. Kashmir has seen continuing unrest, especially since several civilians were killed in clashes with security forces on the day of Srinagar's Parliamentary by-poll. The situation has even prompted the Election Commission of India to cancel the Anantnag by-poll, which was originally scheduled for April 12 and then postponed to May 25. ALSO READ | 12-year-old boy from PoK apprehended along LoC in Jammu and Kashmir ALSO WATCH | I'm not even a stone-pelter, says Kashmiri man tied to jeep --- ENDS --- Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening: Saturday Travel ban: Remembering the 135th Anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act and standing in opposition to President Trumps proposed travel ban. A rally will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Portsmouth Square, 733 Kearny St., San Francisco. Contact Chinese for Affirmative Action: (415) 274-6750. May Day assessment: A report on the impact of May Day protests, hosted by the Peace and Freedom Party. The discussion is from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Starry Plough Pub, 3101 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information, contact (510) 332-3865 or cuyleruyle@mac.com. Sanctuary cities: A panel hosted by the Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area on how unions, religious groups and schools can defend immigrants. Doors open at 1 p.m., and the panel talk begins at 2 p.m. New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk St. in San Francisco. For information, call (415) 864-1278 or email bafsp@earthlink.com. Health care film: Now Is the Time: Healthcare for Everybody will be screened from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Contra Costa Central Labor Council, 1333 Pine St., Suite E in Martinez. The event is free. Sunday Ethics: A conversation on how to Live Ethically in an Unethical World and cope with the current political climate. The free event is from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at Grace Cathedral, Gresham Hall, 1100 California St. in San Francisco. For information: www.gracecathedral.org/events/thomas-plante-living-ethically-in-an-unethical-world. Police forum: A presentation on the lawfulness of police shootings, led by attorney Christopher Boscia. The event is from 11 a.m to 12:15 p.m. at the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley, 1180 Coleman Ave. in San Jose. For information: www.meetup.com/humanistcommunity/events/239404521. Health care film: Now Is the Time: Healthcare for Everybody will be shown, followed by a health care discussion on proposals for a single-payer system in California. The event is from 2 to 4 p.m. at the San Lorenzo Library, 395 Paseo Grande. For information, contact aruchlis@gmail.com. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont, at 2 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center of Santa Clara High School, 3000 Benton St. in Santa Clara. Tuesday Town halls: Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County), hosts two town halls: at 9 a.m. at the McBride Senior Center, 91 Town Square Place in Vacaville; and at 1:30 p.m. at the Fairfield Senior Center, 1200 Civic Center Drive in Fairfield. Thursday Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, at 3 p.m. at the Alameda Free Library, 1550 Oak St. in Alameda. Nuclear weapons: A talk by former Defense Secretary William Perry on how to end the threat of nuclear weapons. The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso Ave. in Atherton. For information: http://bit.ly/2pJIL8D. The vast majority of San Franciscos 2,200 police officers will retire without ever firing a gun on duty. But the officer who killed a man this week as he allegedly stabbed a Subway sandwich worker was the same officer who wounded a man in the citys only other police shooting this year, said the public defenders office. The back-to-back shootings by the same officer, Kenneth Cha, are rare, but experts on police use of force advised caution in scrutinizing the officers actions. The mere fact that an officer is involved in two deadly force situations doesnt in itself prove anything, said Eugene ODonnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and a former New York police officer. There is no predictability of when an officer is going to have to fire their gun. You can have one improper shooting and one totally proper shooting. You want to keep your objectivity when you analyze it. Though police officials have not identified the officer who shot 26-year-old Nicholas Flusche as he allegedly stabbed a Subway employee Wednesday on Market Street, the public defenders office said it was Cha, who wounded Sean Moore during a Jan. 6 encounter outside his Ocean View home. The public defenders office is representing Moore, who faces criminal charges. The office and community activists have criticized the earlier shooting, saying the officers body camera footage showed Cha and Officer Colin Patino unnecessarily escalating a tense situation with Moore, who, according to his family, has a history of schizophrenia. But police officials say Cha fired to defend himself and his partner from Moore, and they released photos showing the officers had been bloodied by Moore. I feel like with Seans case, Kenneth Cha overreacted, said Deputy Public Defender Brian Pearlman. But in the Subway store shooting, he said, I have no idea. He might have had to save someones life, and that is the right thing to do. He continued, Even if it is a justified shooting that he will be cleared on, just doing that so quickly after being back on the street again is definitely concerning. It could just be bad luck, but its hard to make a judgment without knowing the facts of the other case. Since 2000, only three other San Francisco officers appear to have been involved in more than one shooting, according to records released by the Police Department. Most recently, Officer Nathan Chew, who was cleared of criminal charges and civil liability in the 2014 fatal shooting of Alejandro Alex Nieto on Bernal Hill, fatally shot 26-year-old Nicolas McWherter last year after McWherter shot and seriously wounded Officer Kevin Downs. Ed Obayashi, an attorney and Plumas County sheriffs deputy who is an instructor at the Alameda County Regional Training Center on use-of-force investigations, said no national database tracks officers who have used deadly force in the line of duty. Therefore, there are no statistics for how often officers are involved in multiple incidents. But repeat incidents are extremely rare, he said. Its extremely rare because, contrary to popular belief, the overall majority of cops never fire their weapon during their career, Obayashi said. Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, whose office plans to represent Moore in a potential lawsuit, said he handled a case in the 1990s involving an Oakland police officer who shot a 16-year-old high school student and then killed a homeless woman less than six months later. The thinking was that he wasnt emotionally suited for the work and he wasnt suited to be in Oakland in many ways, Burris said. I havent seen anything like that recently, and I hope that means (police departments) are exercising some restraint and are assessing the situation better and are appreciating the repercussions that flow from it. I do believe many officers are affected by the use of deadly force, whether they were right or wrong at the time. They are affected emotionally and I think and hope that that is cause for reflection. For a variety of reasons, some officers never return to street duty after a shooting, but most do. San Francisco police Sgt. John Crudo of the internal affairs unit told The Chronicle last year that after a shooting, officers are placed on paid administrative leave for a minimum of 10 days. During that time, they meet with peer counselors and mental health counselors and receive a replacement gun. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. The officers must prove themselves at the gun range as well as with a use-of-force simulator, which puts officers in a number of scenarios that require them to choose what to do and which weapon to use, if any. A return-to-duty panel consisting of the officers supervisors as well as homicide and internal affairs investigators convene within five business days to discuss the facts of the shooting and decide whether to recommend to the chief that the officer be allowed to return to regular duty. Pearlman said that after the Moore shooting, he was concerned with the amount of experience Cha and Patino had. Both had spent less than a year on the street with no training supervisor, and neither had been through the departments crisis-intervention training. But studying an officers actions to determine if red flags exist should never be limited to shootings, law enforcement experts said. They said police departments must study other factors such as any complaints filed against officers or whether their uses of force follow a concerning pattern. While department officials should try to learn from each shooting, ODonnell said, they also need to be wary of making officers fearful to use force when necessary. You dont want to create an environment in which somebody is being stabbed and the police dont want to shoot, ODonnell said. Thats a real issue, too. Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo Lyn Muldrow has been coding for a decade with big dreams of making it in Bay Area tech. She uprooted herself and her two young children from Baltimore last year to pursue her ambition. But theres just one problem. Muldrow, 32, has Web development and coding skills, a sunny personality but no computer science degree. That, she said, made it hard for her to get noticed by tech companies here. An April study by online recruiting company HiringSolved looked at 10,000 public profiles for tech employees hired or promoted in the past 14 months. The top three schools: UC Berkeley, Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon. It was a tough time proving and selling myself as someone who had the skills, because they were looking for someone with traditional backgrounds, said Muldrow. Instead, she worked about two years teaching and writing code at nonprofits before she landed her big job at LinkedIn under its Reach apprenticeship program. She is one of 29 recruits in the six-month paid program. All came to tech from different career paths; Muldrows peers include an optometrist and a dancer. In LinkedIns San Francisco office, Muldrow is mentored by an employee and works on the user interface for its Sales Navigator product. At the end of the program, they may be offered jobs at the company. But already, Muldrows feeling at home. I feel like I can be myself here. In previous positions, I always felt a little different from what the industry looked like, said Muldrow, an African American lesbian. There were times I was treated like I did not know what I was doing and I always believed that at the end of the day, my skills would prove that I deserve to be where I am. LinkedIn said that only 5 percent of Bay Area tech workers come from nontraditional backgrounds, according to its public database of profiles. With stiff competition to hire talent, tech companies are looking outward to recruit people who have coding skills, with or without the formal credential of a computer-science degree. We have been limiting ourselves by only looking at talent from a very specific pool, said Mohak Shroff, a vice president of product engineering at LinkedIn and head of the Reach program. He said the program did not look at applicants resumes or where they came from. Reach picked candidates who displayed talent in coding, ability to learn new skills, commitment to work and growth potential during interviews. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Show More Show Less Pinterest started a similar apprenticeship program last year. The benefits of diverse perspectives is that when it comes to problem solving and innovation, those with the same type of education can all get stumped on a problem, said Candice Morgan, Pinterests head of diversity. Having someone with a different background allows them to solve problems with economics or design, like our apprentices do, and that is a real advantage. These programs are also seen as a chance to inject more diversity into a workforce that is primarily white or Asian and male. Nearly 18,000 people graduated from 91 coding boot camps and academies in the U.S. last year, according to Course Report, a website that tracks coding camps. Patrick San Juan, a 32-year-old economics major who switched from a career in nonprofits, graduated from Free Code Camp, an online academy, in 2015 and has yet to find a stable job in tech. The Daly City resident has developed stock trackers and clock apps. He has applied to 300 companies and received calls from six. The only job he has been able to get was in Dublin, Ireland as an unpaid intern. That position turned into a paid contract that ended in April. I think theres a stigma for some companies in some job applications; they dont want boot camp graduates, said San Juan, who drives for Uber to get by while he looks for a job. Sean Smith, a 27-year-old anthropology and biochemistry major, was hired as a software engineer for a cybersecurity startup after five months and nearly 200 job applications. He broke into the industry last year after months of training for software job interviews, networking, rejiggering his resume and adding more projects to his portfolio. Free Code Camp founder Quincy Larson, who says only 5,000 of the 750,000 people worldwide who have taken his courses have found a job in tech, said tech companies would rather go with the safe option than risk a nontraditional talent who might be a wild card. LinkedIns Shroff says that mentality needs to change. Id much rather sit with someone who can learn and collaborate than someone who just went to a top-tier school, he said. A school is a proxy for safe. Hiring from the same pool will also hurt companies if they want to serve customers of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, said Ellen Pao, the Kapor Center for Social Impacts chief diversity and inclusion officer. All startups are trying to hire the best, which is the hardest challenge, she said. If youre only looking at a few schools, you are not going to scale. You also need to look outside the traditional schools. Look where I can build the best company possible. Nicholas Cheng is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ncheng@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nichocheng An audio tape released by a television news channel purportedly contained conversation between RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Mohammad Shahabuddin, who is currently serving life term in Tihar jail. By India Today Web Desk: Hours after Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi claimed that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad's son Tej Pratap Yadav was allotted a petrol pump in Patna illegally, a news channel today released an audio tape of a telephone conversation between the former CM and mafia don -turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin. Shahabuddin, who is serving a life term in Delhi's Tihar jail, is heard giving instructions to Lalu Prasad in the audio tape, the authenticity of which can not be confirmed by India Today. advertisement "Lalu must quit public life," said BJP's Sushil Modi, who earlier accused Lalu's minister son of acquiring the a petrol pump in Patna through fraudulent means. Modi claimed that Bihar Health Minister Tej Pratap was allotted a petrol pump of Bharat Petroleum on New Bypass Road, near Beur in Patna, in 2011 after fake documents were furnished in connivance with an official of the oil company. "Tej Pratap did not have 43 dismil of land on New Bypass Road in 2011 when he had appeared for an interview before the petrol pump," he said. However, A K Infosystem Pvt Ltd on January 9, 2012, gave 136 dismil of land on lease at the same place for opening a petrol pump to Tej Pratap's younger brother and Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, Modi said adding that as per the lease deed Tejashwi cannot "sub-let" the said land. The application for petrol pump was made by Tej Pratap but the land was allotted to Tejashwi, he said. "How can Tej Pratap be allotted a petrol pump when he had neither land nor the lease of the land in his name? The matter must be probed thoroughly. I will also request the Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to get the matter probed," the senior BJP leader said. HALF BAKED INFORMATION: RJD Reacting sharply to Modi's allegation, the RJD described the allegation as "half-baked" information that would expose him (Modi) in the future. "A desperate Sushil Modiji is trying to invent illegality into matters which stand miles away. The land is on lease to Bharat Petroleum," RJD's national spokesman Manoj Jha said. "He must realise that a little and half baked knowledge shall only expose him further as happened in case of his so-called soil scam allegation at zoo. And the referred pump is not even operational," Jha added. (With PTI inputs) ALSO READ: Bihar: Lalu and sons face heat over an alleged Rs 90 lakh soil scam Lalu Prasad Yadav counters charges on benami property, says Sushil Modi is a ghotalebaaz How Lalu Yadav's son Tejashwi got this posh Delhi property? advertisement Bihar: Tej Pratap turns 'halwai' for Saraswati Puja, picture goes viral Murdered Bihar journalist's wife says she's being threatened by Shahabuddin Lalu Prasad Yadav burns Sushil Kumar Modi with a single tweet ALSO WATCH: Apex court issues notice against Lalu's son Tej pratap and Shahabuddin over Rajdeo Nandan case --- ENDS --- Republican plans to eliminate the state and local tax deduction as part of federal tax reform has put Californias GOP legislators in a tight spot. This deduction disproportionately helps high-tax states, especially California, which has the nations highest maximum state income tax rate of 13.3 percent. Republicans who toe the party line risk alienating constituents. California will be the biggest problem state for Republicans if they want to do this particular reform, said Alan Cole, an economist with the Tax Foundation, an independent think tank. Today, people who itemize deductions on their federal return can write off state income or sales tax, along with property taxes. President Trumps one-page tax proposal, issued last month, would wipe out this deduction. So would the Republican tax-reform blueprint put out by House Speaker Paul Ryan last summer. (All tax bills originate in the House.) Both plans would compensate for the loss of itemized deductions (except charitable donations and mortgage interest) by doubling the standard deduction. Only 30 percent of federal tax filers itemize, but almost all who do deduct state and local taxes. In terms of forgone revenues, its the largest itemized deduction and one of the biggest tax breaks of any kind. The deduction disproportionately benefits high-income taxpayers, with more than 88 percent of tax savings flowing to those with more than $100,000 in income, the Tax Foundation said in a report. It also favors states with high tax rates, and high property values. In 2014, California and New York together received nearly one-third of the deductions total value nationwide, the foundation said. The average deduction in California about $17,000 in 2014 trailed the average in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. But because California is so large, it claimed almost 20 percent of the nationwide tax savings. Ranked by size of average deduction, four Bay Area counties made the countrys top 10. I contacted all 14 of Californias Republican representatives, including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy from Bakersfield, to see whether they favor killing this deduction. (None are from the Bay Area.) Only four responded. Devin Nunes of Tulare, who sits on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, supports getting rid of the deduction for state and local taxes, and pairing it with doubling of the standard deduction and additional child-focused tax relief, a spokesman said in an email. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove (Sacramento County) declined to comment, but his staff pointed me to an interview he did on KGO radio in which he said eliminating the deduction would result in double taxation. Youre taxed on the same income by both the federal government and the state government and the local government. That wont do at all and I think thats going to be one of the pieces of the proposal thats going to be modified over time. In emails, Mimi Walters of Irvine and Jeff Denham of Turlock (Stanislaus County) wouldnt state a position. Walters said she will consider any tax reform proposal that eases the burden on individuals and businesses and Denham said he wants reforms that create a fairer, flatter tax code that individuals can easily understand. Republicans from wealthier districts are in the toughest spot. That includes Walters, Ken Calvert from Corona (Riverside County), Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa (Orange), Darrell Issa of Vista (San Diego), Duncan Hunter of Alpine (San Diego) and Steve Knight of Lancaster (Los Angeles), Cole said. Republicans representing inland areas could also come under pressure. Although their constituents deduct less tax than those in Californias coastal districts, compared to rural residents in other states, they deduct a lot. In 2014, the average state and local tax deduction in California ranged from $1,330 in Imperial County to $16,956 in Marin. In Missouri, it ranged from $392 in Worth County to $4,593 in St. Louis County, according to a Tax Foundation map. Although losing the state and local tax deduction would hit high-income people the hardest, other parts of the Trump and Ryan plans would help them. This includes cutting the top marginal rate, getting rid of the 3.8 percent Medicare surcharge on investment income over a certain amount, repealing the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax and slashing the tax rate on all businesses to 15 percent. These are all very big tax cuts. To balance that out, you have to get rid of things they benefit from on the deduction side, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. People subject to the alternative minimum tax cant use the state and local tax deduction, so killing them both could be a wash for them. Eliminating the deduction would not leave people who dont claim it unharmed. Thats because the deduction indirectly subsidizes state and local governments by decreasing the net cost of nonfederal taxes to those who pay them. For example, a $100 increase in state income taxes costs a taxpayer in the 35 percent federal income tax bracket just $65, the Tax Policy Center said in a report. This subsidy encourages state and local governments to levy higher taxes and, presumably, provide more services than they otherwise would. If the deduction dies, State and local government would have pressure to downsize. There would be pressure to collect less and do less at the local level. Everyone who benefits from those services would feel the pain, Williams said. I also asked the Bay Areas nine House members, all Democrats, what they think of Republican plans to kill the deduction. All seven who responded including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Jackie Speier of Hillsborough and Eric Swalwell of Dublin said they oppose it. In a place with a high cost of living, it would be devastating for working-class, middle-class families not to deduct it on their taxes, said Ro Khanna of Fremont. Even though it primarily benefits people making more than $100,000 a year, a lot of what people consider high income is not high income in a high-cost state, said Palo Altos Anna Eshoo. Mark DeSaulnier of Concord called Trumps proposal a juvenile, potential retaliation because California and New York did not vote for him. If it was a good idea, it should be fleshed out, have the (Congressional Budget Office) look at it. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said, You would think my Republican colleagues (would oppose cutting the deduction), given that our constituents benefit from that. But he noted that last week, every single Republican from California voted in favor of a House health care bill that would drastically scale back federal funding for Medicaid, even though some live in districts with the highest number of Medicaid individuals, Thompson said. They threw their Medicaid population under the bus for the benefit of the party. Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender Its a coastal thing Residents of these 10 counties claimed the largest average state and local tax deduction in 2014. County Average deduction New York, N.Y. $24,898 Marin $16,956 San Mateo $15,405 Westchester, N.Y. $14,784 Fairfield, Conn. $14,262 Santa Clara $12,562 San Francisco $12,116 Nassau, N.Y. $11,624 Morris, N.J. $11,440 Somerset, N.J. $11,267 Over the years, choreographer Alonzo King has ranged far and wide in his choice of collaborators, but one of the most fascinating of the bunch made his debut with Lines classical ballet at its spring season opening Thursday, May 4, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. He is poet and language detective Bob Holman, and his contribution to Kings new company piece, Figures of Speech, is substantial. Accompanying most of the 19 sections of the work is an excerpt from almost extinct languages, textured with music by Alexander MacSween and Philip Perkins. It all sounds a wee bit exploitative, but the score has inspired some of Kings finest choreography in a while. From Yujin Kims entrance, with a video tracing her progress, to the outstanding finale, Kings creative control rarely loses focus. In the midst of a protest-laden tour through California in June, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump took to Twitter to suggest that his fans were ready to do battle with raucous hecklers if necessary. My supporters are far tougher if they want to be, Trump tweeted after protesters clashed with the Republicans followers outside rallies in Orange County and San Jose. But fortunately they are not hostile. Since then, Trump appears to have come even closer to sanctioning a physical response to protesters at his rallies even after taking office in January. In a court case arising out of a different campaign incident last year, Trump is arguing that people who attend his rallies have no right to protest or express disagreement with him and can be forcibly removed if they try. Trumps lawyers took that position in a recent federal court filing in answer to a lawsuit by three protesters who were attacked at a March 2016 campaign rally in Louisville, Ky., after Trump, then seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said, Get em out of here. The same arguments, if accepted by the courts, would apply to the campaign-style rallies Trump has held since taking office. Unlike presidential appearances before the general public, those rallies are financed by his 2020 re-election fund, and thus arguably subject to greater restrictions on those who attend them. At an April 29 rally in Harrisburg, Pa., when protesters waved Russian flags at the president, he again called out, Get em out of here, and security guards dragged the protesters away. Protesters have their own First Amendment right to express dissenting views, but they have no right to do so as part of the campaign rally of the political candidates they oppose, private lawyers for Trumps campaign said in the April 20 filing in U.S. District Court in Louisville. While denying that Trump had encouraged violence, the lawyers said he had a First Amendment right to exclude the (protesters) from his campaign rally, and it is a bedrock principle of law that the right to exclude another ... includes the right to use reasonable force. Some legal commentators saw the two sides of free speech rights on a different scale. They may have the right to say attendance is by invitation only, and the right to exclude people who dont have an invitation, said Rory Little, a law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco. But they cant tell people they dont have a right to protest. Protesters can be ordered to leave, and be physically removed if they refuse, but they cant be assaulted, Little said. He said the distinction, in disputed cases, would be left up to a jury. Jesse Choper, a UC Berkeley law professor and, like Little, a former Supreme Court law clerk, said he saw little difference between a presidents official appearances and campaign rallies. If he wants to have a private talk, he ought to have it in his office, Choper said. He said protesters cant be allowed to censor the speaker by drowning Trump out with shouts, but they should at least be allowed to hold up signs or Russian flags as long as they cant be converted to weapons. Daniel Farber, another Berkeley law professor, said he was leery about the willingness by Trumps lawyers to condone the use of force against protesters. The state has an interest in preventing violent acts and requiring people to use legal channels, Farber said. An abortion protest might violate the rights of a clinic, but that doesnt mean the clinic people have the right to beat them up. The suit was filed by three people who said they went to the March 2016 rally to protest peacefully. One of them, according to news reports, held a sign showing Trumps head on a pigs body. They said they were shoved and punched by Trump supporters after the candidate told the audience to get em out of here. As they were being attacked, the plaintiffs said, Trump called out, Dont hurt em. If I say, Go get em, I get in trouble with the press. The three sued two rally-goers for assault and sued Trump and his campaign for incitement. In refusing to dismiss the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled March 31 that there was evidence Trumps Get em out exhortation was directed to his supporters not to security guards, as his lawyers said and that he was advocating the use of force. The lawyers broadened their argument in their latest filing, dated April 20, describing issues they plan to appeal to a higher court. Trump never advocated violence, they said citing his Dont hurt em plea and it was actually the protesters who interfered with the candidates right to communicate with his chosen audience. Mr. Trump was not inciting a riot but was rather exercising a core First Amendment freedom when he said, Get em out of here and Dont hurt em, his attorneys said. At most, they said, he was advocating the use of reasonable force, and cant be held responsible if the crowd reacted with unlawful violence. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko Critics of Gov. Jerry Browns $52 billion road repair program question whether money raised by higher gas taxes and vehicle fees could be siphoned off to fill gaps in the states general fund. In the immortal words of the former mayor of Carmel, Thats not going to happen, said state Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer, quoting Clint Eastwood. According to Palmer, the state Constitution bars tapping current gas taxes and vehicle registration fees for general-fund uses. The new fees in Browns program will be similarly restricted under a constitutional amendment headed for the June 2018 ballot, Palmer said. So whats to keep the state, which will start collecting the new fees in January, from diverting funds ahead of the June vote? The governors veto pen, said Palmer. Of course, all that could be moot if Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), has his way. He has just announced a petition drive for a November 2018 ballot initiative to repeal the governors transportation package. Ben Margot/Associated Press Once he gets the green light on the language from the attorney general, Allen and his allies will have 215 days to collect 365,880 signatures of registered voters. He says hes absolutely confident hell get there, given the response hes gotten out the gate. We already pay among the highest tax rates in the nation, Allen tells us, and the new gas tax will only increase what California already pays. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross The tape of an alleged conversation between the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and don-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin has put Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar under pressure with BJP asking several questions. By India Today Web Desk: Amid reports of strain in RJD-JDU grand alliance of Bihar an audio tape surfaced today giving the Opposition parties led by the BJP another rallying point to target Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The release of an audio tape of an alleged conversation between Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and jailed don-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin by a private TV channel has got the political cauldron boiling in Bihar. advertisement While the opposition has trained its guns on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the leaders of the state's ruling grand alliance -- comprising the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), RJD and the Congress -- are avoiding making any comments at this stage. ADVANTAGE BJP Reacting to the conversation in the tape, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad described it as the worst form of "criminal-political nexus" in the country. "Shahabuddin represents the worst form of criminal-political nexus in the country," Prasad told a press conference in New Delhi. "A convicted notorious criminal like Shahabuddin is running the administration and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad is assisting him in that," the BJP leader pointed out expressing his concern. NITISH ON TARGET Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of the state Sushil Modi tweeted: "Republic (TV channel)...has exposed how Lalu is taking instructions from dreaded criminal Shahabuddin. Will Nitish act?" "Shahabuddin is still the member of RJD National Executive. Where is the Q (question) of suspending or expelling Shahabuddin?" he wrote in the next tweet. In yet another tweet, Sushil Modi alleged that Abdul Ghafoor, a minister in the Nitish government, went to Siwan jail to meet Shahabuddin and another minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui met his parents. Asking why the state government was silent over it, he also urged the central government to intervene in the matter. MANJHI DEMANDS CENTRE'S INTERVENTION Former Chief Minister and Hindustani Awami Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi said: "The audio clip has made it very clear that the state government is running under the shadow of criminals. The Centre must intervene in the matter." Manjhi also demanded the resignation of Nitish Kumar. Meanwhile, senior JD-U leader and former state minister Shyam Rajak said that he would comment on the audio tape content only after verifying its genuineness. "It won't be prudent for me to make any comment now." WHAT IS THE MATTER? A new English news channel, Republic, TV today aired an audio clip of Shahabuddin and the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's alleged conversation, wherein the don-turned-politician was heard saying that "your SP (Superintendent of Police) is of no use". advertisement Lalu was also heard taking instructions from Shahabuddin over riots. The police force should not have been deployed in Siwan on Ram Navami day, Shahabuddin said. Shahabuddin is also a former RJD MP from Siwan, his hometown, and former legislator from Jiradei assembly constituency. He also represented Siwan parliamentary constituency in the Lok Sabha. (With IANS inputs) ALSO READ | Lalu Prasad took orders from jailed don Mohammad Shahabuddin, claims report Jamshedpur triple murder of 1989: When Shahabuddin was 'hired' to kill 3 Congress leaders ALSO WATCH | Apex court issues notice against Lalu's son Tej pratap and Shahabuddin over Rajdeo Nandan case --- ENDS --- A man who crashed two cars in three days in Santa Rosa this week had been working as an Uber driver since early April, although his account has been suspended since the first of the two wrecks, the ride-hailing company confirmed Friday. The man, 26-year-old Jeffrey Dallas Pearson, crashed into Village Pets & Supplies on Monday and then totaled three parked cars and damaged two more when he crashed into them on Wednesday night, according to police. Thomas Currys first week as a federal banking regulator was his worst. Soon after taking over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which polices some of the nations largest banks, Curry learned that JPMorgan Chase was racking up billions of dollars in losses on a risky derivatives trade in London. The 2012 episode, known as the London Whale, exposed huge gaps in federal oversight of big banks. A few months after that, a Senate report cited the agencys systemic failures that allowed a money-laundering scheme at HSBC to fester and worsen. Five years and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines later for JPMorgan, HSBC and others Curry is known for overhauling the agency and its approach to bank regulation. But on Friday, he was gone. The Trump administration removed Curry from his role last week, nearly a month after his term expired, alarming Democratic lawmakers who fear a return to the days when the agency was more of a cheerleader than a watchdog. The lawmakers, noting that President Trump has vowed to dismantle Obama-era financial rules, raised concerns about the administrations choice to replace Curry. The Treasury Department announced that Keith Noreika, a longtime banking lawyer, would serve as acting comptroller until the president nominates a new one. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, called it disturbing that the president is rushing to replace Curry with an acting appointee who has clear conflicts of interest. Whoever his formal successor might be Joseph Otting, a former top executive at OneWest is reportedly under consideration Currys departure signals the near-conclusion of Obama-era bank regulation, a period known for big fines and long rules, as well as lingering concerns about the culture of an industry that has faced its share of scandals. Currys departure follows the exit of Daniel Tarullo, the Federal Reserve official who led efforts to strengthen financial regulation. Curry spoke to the New York Times this week about his tenure and the challenges that lie ahead for banking regulators in the Trump administration. Below are excerpts from the interview. Q: What did the London Whale episode do to shape your approach at the agency? A: At the time, I think my head was spinning. But I really actually think it was a good thing. It caused us to look at how could we be better and I think that was probably the defining reason that people my management team here and the staff bought into the need to get an external review of how we supervise, to actually examine how well we examine. That kind of got to be the road map to trying to make this a really stellar, what I hope and think is, a stellar bank supervisory agency. To my knowledge, no other regulator globally has ever done that. Q: You also removed some of the old-guard people at the agency who had a more deregulatory approach. And you installed people like Paul Nash, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as top aides. A: You need to have a shared vision. Like I said, the good part about having the London Whale and HSBC was you couldnt argue that there wasnt a problem that we needed to confront as an agency. I think people feel pretty good about the agency today and where were headed. Q: Theres the Volcker Rule and rules requiring banks to hold greater capital, but what was the idea behind your lesser-known heightened standards for bank executives and boards? A: You need the rules capital and liquidity requirements are essential. But what we provide is the ability to assess the risk management structures at institutions and corporate governance. What we did with heightened standards is basically said, The bigger you are, the more we expect of you. Q: You once saide that the relationship between your agency and the banks was akin to a priest-penitent relationship. Have the banks gotten any better at confessing their sins? A: Ideally, we want the bank to find these things first. The industry is getting much better at that. Nobody is perfect yet. Q: You also pushed for a culture change in your own agency, and yet you released a damning report last month in which the agency acknowledged that its oversight of Wells Fargo during the whole fake account scheme was untimely and ineffective. A: I think weve made great progress. To be a strong organization requires you to take a look at yourself and your actions. To learn from it. That really was why I thought it was important to do the lessons learned review and also painful as it may be to our pride to do it publicly. Again, I dont see any other agencies taking a problem by the horns, acknowledging it and then doing something about correcting it. Q: Are you worried about your successor unwinding the new regulatory approach? A: I dont think anyone wants to repeat the mistakes of the past. You need a sound rule book, and then you need highly trained professionals, dedicated supervisors to make an assessment of how well (the banks) are adhering to that framework. I think you can play around on the edges, but as long as you have those key elements in place you have a good system. Q: How much of a surprise was it when you got the call from the Trump administration? A: My term ended in early April. I offered to stay on as long as the administration wanted me. I live in Boston and I have a rented apartment here. I told people I went month-to-month on my apartment and I was month-to-month on the comptrollers job. Q: Any advice for the next guy? A: You really have to be prepared for the next downturn. You cant stop banks from making mistakes on individual loans. Its not our job. But it is our job to make sure that the banks are safe and sound and the system itself is stable. Ben Protess is a New York Times writer. BEIJING China is compiling a free online encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia, but it will likely give only Beijings official version of sensitive historical events, and the public wont be able to write or edit it. Instead, scholars and experts hand-picked by Beijing say only they will be able to make entries the latest example of the Chinese governments efforts to control information available on the Internet. The scholars say truth is their guiding light, and their editing and review process is a rigorous one. If there is a difference of opinion, a committee should figure it out, said Zhang Baichun, chief editor of the history of science and technology section. Of course, science does not come from democratic votes, to convince others you will have to present the most convincing proof, he said. The effort to compile 300,000 entries that span science, literature, politics and history is being led by the ruling Communist Partys central propaganda department, which guides public opinion through instructions to Chinas media, Internet companies and publishing industry as well as overseeing the education sector. They have instructed the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, known for its offline Chinese Encyclopedia, to produce it. The ruling party has struggled to manage public opinion in the Internet age, when citizens can comment on news and topics of outrage and post photos of protests on social media at least until such messages are scrubbed away or rendered unsearchable by censors. China also regularly blocks overseas sites including Facebook and Twitter, and has periodically blocked Wikipedias English and Chinese versions. Currently, the Chinese Wikipedia is inaccessible in the mainland. Jiang Lijun, senior editor at the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, said they plan to have entries on political leaders, the history of the Communist Party, and subjects including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the European Union. The online Chinese Encyclopedia will focus primarily on entries that are less likely to change as opposed to recent events, and with academic value, while also trying to strike a balance between that, being timely and what people are searching for, she said. She declined to comment on how events that are politically sensitive in China, like the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, would be treated. Qiao Mu, an independent media analyst in Beijing, said the Chinese Encyclopedia would be quite different from Wikipedia because of the need to toe the line on political taboos. If its not blocked in China, the publisher must accept censorship, either self-censorship or censored by authorities, he said. He said the encyclopedia would likely present a single, official version of sensitive historical events, and exclude items like the Tiananmen crackdown and the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group, which never exist on the Internet. The publishing house behind the Chinese Encyclopedia is paying 20,000 scholars and experts from universities and research institutes to write entries and it is slated to go online next year. Jiang said initially the encyclopedia will just be in Chinese, but they are also doing research to see how viable an English version would be. Jiang said they met with a team from San Franciscos Wikipedia to learn from their experience. Wikipedia is edited and maintained by hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world, and has more than 40 million articles encompassing nearly 300 languages. More than 900,000 entries are in Chinese, compared with more than 5 million in English. There is Chinese content on Wikipedia too, but sometimes it is not as accurate as it could be, said Jiang. Jiang said that as Wikipedias content is generated by users, they can create more entries faster. But we try to eliminate self-promotion and inaccuracy as much as possible. Zhang, the professor of history of science and technology, said the online version will make it easier to reach more people, particularly young readers. To create the history of science and technology entries, Zhang said professors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Natural Sciences first hold meetings with veterans and young experts in their fields to form a committee. The committee will then find the most authoritative person on the topic to write the draft, including sometimes foreign experts, said Zhang, who is director of the institute. The draft is reviewed by a section chief editor and then the committee. If there is a difference of opinion, all deputy and chief editors should participate in the discussion and figure it out together, Zhang said. We will reason things out with the author until we reach an agreement, or change the author. Louise Watt is an Associated Press writer. Number of the day $900,000 Thats how much the government paid hackers to break into the locked iPhone of a gunman in the San Bernardino shootings, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein. An FBI spokeswoman declined to respond Friday to the comments from the California senator, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees the FBI. News organizations have sued to try to get the FBI to release the identity of its vendor and the amount paid. YouTube adds original series YouTube plans to produce a half-dozen original series that will be available for free, a big expansion of its programming and efforts to attract advertisers. Comedian Kevin Hart, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and the comedy duo Rhett & Link are producing unscripted shows that debut this year. The company will fund more than 40 original shows and movies in the next year, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the plans. Tesla downplays Model 3 Tesla is deliberately telling the public that one of its most anticipated vehicles isnt actually that great. Why? Because people keep mistakenly thinking that the Model 3 will outperform the older but more luxurious Model S, according to the company. But the Model 3 was always meant to be a stripped-down, cheaper version. CEO Elon Musk said some people thought the 3 was a version number, similar to the way the iPhone 7 is considered better than an iPhone 6 or 5. Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle We dont know how quickly machines will displace peoples jobs, or how many theyll take, but we know its happening not just to factory workers but also to money managers, dermatologists and retail workers. The logical response seems to be to educate people differently, so theyre prepared to work alongside the robots or do the jobs that machines cant. But how to do that, and whether training can outpace automation, are open questions. Pew Research Center and Elon University surveyed 1,408 people who work in technology and education to find out if they think new schooling will emerge in the next decade to successfully train workers for the future. Two-thirds said yes; the rest said no. Following are questions about whats next for workers, and answers based on the survey responses. Q: How do we educate people for an automated world? A: People still need to learn skills, the respondents said, but they will do that continuously over their careers. In school, the most important thing they can learn is how to learn. At universities, people learn how to approach new things, ask questions and find answers, deal with new situations, wrote Uta Russmann, a professor of communications at the FHWien University of Applied Sciences in Vienna. All this is needed to adjust to ongoing changes in work life. Special skills for a particular job will be learned on the job. Schools will also need to teach traits that machines cant yet easily replicate, like creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, adaptability and collaboration. The problem, many respondents said, is that these are not necessarily easy to teach. Many of the skills that will be needed are more like personality characteristics, like curiosity, or social skills that require enculturation to take hold, wrote Stowe Boyd, managing director of Another Voice, which provides research on the new economy. Q: Can we change education fast enough to outpace the machines? A: About two-thirds of the respondents thought it could be done in the next decade; the rest thought that education reform takes too much time, money and political will, and that automation is moving too quickly. I have complete faith in the ability to identify job gaps and develop educational tools to address those gaps, wrote Danah Boyd, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and founder of Data and Society, a research institute. I have zero confidence in us having the political will to address the socioeconomic factors that are underpinning skill training. Andrew Walls, managing vice president at Gartner, wrote, Barring a neuroscience advance that enables us to embed knowledge and skills directly into brain tissue and muscle formation, there will be no quantum leap in our ability to up-skill people. Q: Will college degrees still be important? A: College is more valuable than ever, research shows. The jobs that are still relatively safe from automation require higher education, as well as interpersonal skills fostered by living with other students. Human bodies in close proximity to other human bodies stimulate real compassion, empathy, vulnerability and social-emotional intelligence, said Frank Elavsky, data and policy analyst at Acumen, a policy research firm. But many survey respondents said a degree was not enough or not always the best choice, especially given its price tag. Many of them expect more emphasis on certificates or badges, earned from online courses or workshops, even for college graduates. One potential future, said David Karger, a professor of computer science at MIT, would be for faculty at top universities to teach online and for mid-tier universities to consist entirely of a cadre of teaching assistants who provide support for the students. Employers will also place more value on on-the-job learning, many respondents said, such as apprenticeships or on-demand trainings at workplaces. Portfolios of work are becoming more important than resumes. Resumes simply are too two-dimensional to properly communicate someones skill set, wrote Meryl Krieger, a career specialist at Indiana University. Three-dimensional materials in essence, job reels that demonstrate expertise will be the ultimate demonstration of an individual workers skills. Q: What can workers do now to prepare? A: Consider it part of your job description to keep learning, many respondents said learn new skills on the job, take classes, teach yourself new things. Focus on learning how to do tasks that still need humans, said Judith Donath of Harvards Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society: teaching and caregiving; building and repairing; and researching and evaluating. The problem is that not everyone is cut out for independent learning, which takes a lot of drive and discipline. People who are suited for it tend to come from privileged backgrounds, with a good education and supportive parents, said Beth Corzo-Duchardt, a media historian at Muhlenberg College. The fact that a high degree of self-direction may be required in the new workforce means that existing structures of inequality will be replicated in the future, she said. Q: Even if we do all these things, will there be enough jobs? A: Jonathan Grudin, a principal researcher at Microsoft, said he was optimistic about the future of work as long as people learned technological skills: People will create the jobs of the future, not simply train for them, and technology is already central. But the third of respondents who were pessimistic about the future of education reform said it wont matter if there are no jobs to train for. The jobs of the future are likely to be performed by robots, said Nathaniel Borenstein, chief scientist at Mimecast, an email company. The question isnt how to train people for nonexistent jobs. Its how to share the wealth in a world where we dont need most people to work. Claire Cain Miller is a New York Times writer. A federal appeals court on Friday upheld most of a Bay Area businessmans economic espionage convictions for selling DuPont technology to China for the production of a valuable white pigment. Walter Liew, 59, of Orinda was convicted in 2014 of 10 felony charges of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice and tampering with a witness and evidence, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and a $28 million fine. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the obstruction and witness-tampering convictions Friday, but said the other convictions were supported by evidence that the information Liew disclosed was technology that was not generally known or readily available to the public. The ruling could reduce Liews sentence by five years, his term for the overturned convictions. But the court also ruled that prosecutors had improperly failed to provide Liews lawyers with notes of FBI interviews with co-defendant Tim Spitler, a Liew consultant and former DuPont engineer who committed suicide in 2012, shortly before he was scheduled to plead guilty to conspiracy. The court told the trial judge in the case to decide whether the withheld evidence could have affected Liews remaining convictions. He was arrested after his indictment in 2011 and has spent more than five years in custody. The pigment, titanium dioxide, is extracted from ore and used in products that range from paint and plastics to the filling in Oreo cookies. DuPont, the worlds largest producer of the substance, led in the development of a chloride manufacturing process for titanium dioxide in the 1940s and moved production to its spinoff chemical company, Chemours, in 2015. China, which was producing the pigment with a different and more expensive method, balked at paying DuPonts $75 million licensing fee in the 1990s, the court said. Instead, prosecutors said, Chinese government factories signed contracts with Liews companies in 2004 and 2009 for $26 million to develop chloride-technology production plants. Liew, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Christina Liew, formed their company, later renamed USA Performance Technologies, in the early 1990s and hired Spitler and Robert Maegerle, two former DuPont engineers with experience in titanium dioxide production. Prosecutors said the engineers provided confidential DuPont documents and other information that allowed Lieu to export DuPonts technology to China. Defense lawyers argued that the engineers worked independently, using their experience and technology DuPont unveiled when it built a plant for Sherwin-Williams in 1967. An Oakland federal jury found that the technology had been stolen and convicted both Liew and Maegerle, who was sentenced to 2 years in prison for economic espionage. Christina Liew pleaded guilty to evidence-tampering and was placed on probation. In Fridays ruling, the court said the jury reasonably concluded that Walter Liew had sold technology to a foreign government that DuPont had sought to keep confidential and was not used in the 1967 plant. The evidence supported a verdict that DuPont took reasonable measures to protect its technology, and that such technology was not readily ascertainable by or generally known to the public, Judge John Owens said in the 3-0 decision. Defense lawyer Dennis Riordan questioned the courts assessment of the information DuPont released in building the Sherwin-Williams plant. He said it included the same type of technology that Liew was convicted of illegally disclosing. The holding that information can be sold to a competitor whos free to publish it on WikiLeaks or sell it to another competitor, yet can still remain a trade secret, appears to work a fundamental change in the law of trade secrets, Riordan said. He said Liew would consider a further appeal. The court said Liew was wrongly convicted of obstructing justice for declaring in a civil suit by DuPont that he had never misappropriated any information from the company a routine denial that does not constitute obstruction, Owens said. He said Liews advice to another employee that he shouldnt testify about DuPont was the same type of advice that many lawyers would give, and did not amount to witness tampering. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko The Justice Department is probing allegations that Uber used phony software to thwart city officials looking at whether the ride-hailing company was following local regulations. The city of Portland, Ore., said in an April audit report that it was notified of the federal inquiry by the U.S. attorneys office in San Francisco. Portland says it is cooperating. Uber and the U.S. attorneys office both declined to comment. Reuters and other news outlets have reported that the investigation is a criminal probe now before a grand jury. Ubers software nicknamed Greyball identified regulators who posed as riders while trying to collect evidence that Ubers service was breaking taxi laws. The San Francisco company allegedly served up a fake version of its app to make it appear to undercover regulators that a car was coming, only to have the ride canceled. Portland officials began investigating Uber after the New York Times disclosed the existence of Greyball in March. The city of Portland was notified by the United States Attorney of the Northern District of California that Uber is the subject of a federal inquiry, the audit report stated. In the audit report, the Portland Bureau of Transportation found that Uber tagged 17 rider accounts with Greyball, 16 of which were government officials. Uber used the software to intentionally evade city transportation officers between Dec. 5 and 19, 2014, the report said. The company pulled out of Portland on Dec. 21, 2014, but returned late in April of 2015. After that, the audit found no evidence that Uber used Greyball, the report stated. Finding no evidence of the use of Greyball or similar software tools after April 2015 does not prove definitively that such tools were not used. It is inherently difficult to prove a negative, the report said. Uber said in an April 21 letter to the city that its own investigation indicated that Greyball was used exceedingly sparingly in Portland. The company said it removed all Greyball tags in Portland back in April 2015 and has not used them since. Uber has acknowledged it used Greyball to counter regulators working with the companys opponents to entrap its drivers. It was part of a broader program called VTOS, shorthand for violations of terms of service, that Uber says it developed to protect its service. This program denies ride requests to fraudulent users who are violating our terms of service whether thats people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret stings meant to entrap drivers, Uber said. Less than a week after Greyball was exposed, Uber said it stopped using the software. The companys cat-and-mouse game with regulators is just one example of Ubers aggressive tactics in its battle with the heavily regulated taxi industry. Uber has built a rapidly growing company valued by its investors at more than $60 billion but one that is nevertheless frequently accused of bending the rules. FRESNO Plant scientist Douglas Shaw spent his career toiling in the fields in California to grow the perfect strawberry, one that was plump and bright red yet remained sweet even after the long trip to grocery stores across the country. When the professor retired from UC Davis and set up his own strawberry-breeding business, though, he found himself in a legal jam. In a case set for trial in federal court this month, the university is suing Shaw and his scientific partner, saying they stole the schools intellectual property by taking some of the fruits of their research with them. The two scientists claim in a $45 million lawsuit of their own that the university has unfairly kept some of their work locked in a freezer and is depriving the world of a better strawberry. Some farmers in the state are worried the battle is going to stymie research and cause them to lose their competitive edge. Last year, California produced 1.6 million tons of strawberries valued at roughly $2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It doesnt do anybody any good for the university to keep these strawberry plants in a box, said Rick McKnight, an attorney for the two former professors. This is hurting the California strawberry industry in a major way. Shaw is a giant in the strawberry world, heading the universitys lucrative breeding program for more than two decades alongside fellow plant biologist Kirk Larson. The two men developed 24 new varieties, allowing growers to double the amount of strawberries produced while retaining the fruits succulence. They created strawberries that were more pest- and disease-resistant, more durable during long-distance travel, or capable of growing during the shorter days of spring and fall. The partners say their work netted the university $100 million in royalties. How much they themselves made at UC Davis is unclear, but they say they contributed more than $9 million of their own royalties toward the universitys breeding program. They retired from the university in 2014 because, they say, the school was winding down the program. Working in partnership with growers and nurseries, they started California Berry Cultivars in Watsonville to develop new strawberry varieties. The university accuses the researchers of patent infringement and violating an oath they signed not to enrich themselves by taking or acquiring plants, seeds and other biological material and continuing their research using descendants of plants they developed at UC Davis. The scientists say they own the intellectual property, and accuse the university of locking up some of their plants and destroying hundreds of others, wiping out years of research. A federal judge recently scolded both the researchers and the university for their behavior and said that each side can expect to be held financially liable at trial. University spokeswoman Dana Topousis said in a statement that the schools strawberry breeding program remains in full swing. Scott Smith is an Associated Press writer. Seth rose through the ranks to become country's first woman chief justice of a high court, and broke many a glass ceiling in the process while earning respect and admiration, both in the courtroom and outside. By Press Trust of India: In an illustrious legal career spanning over 50 years, Leila Seth donned multiple hats including that of a judge, an author and a loving mother, all with equal aplomb. She started her career in 1959 in Patna High Court as a young London-trained barrister, and spent 10 years there, seeking a foothold in a field dominated by men. advertisement But, Seth rose through the ranks to become country's first woman chief justice of a high court, and broke many a glass ceiling in the process while earning respect and admiration, both in the courtroom and outside. She was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, and her younger son Shantum Seth was born there while she was studying after her marriage. The British press had hailed her triumph, describing Seth as: Mother in Law. "Yes, they called me Mother in Law, with a clever wordplay to refer to my role as a mother and my legal career, which was just to begin. I and my husband, still recall that cheeky caption," she had told PTI in an interview in April last year. A legal luminary, she leaves a huge void behind. But even in her death, her life will inspire others, as her organs were donated, as per her wish, for transplant or medical research purposes. Vice President Hamid Ansari expressing deep grief, said Seth "blazed a trail" for women in the legal field and will be long remembered for her commitment to protecting human rights in India. Seth also held the distinction of being the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a high court (Himachal Pradesh), an achievement that still inspires many women to take up legal career. Her death last night has triggered a wave of grief and nostalgia, with noted historian and author Ram Guha extolling her as a "remarkable human being, an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace, and courage." In the April interview, Seth, the mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, had also talked about her fondness for Patna, the place where she lived for 10 years, having a "very special" place in her heart. "It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to White Pillars bungalow, our old home. And, like he used to do in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga," she had said. advertisement Even in her autobiography On Balance, she dedicated a special section for her Patna days and the White Pillars bungalow, the residence of the general manager of the Bata Factory in Patnas Digha area. Her husband Premo Seth worked for the shoe-making major. Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she "lived with the courage of her convictions" and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. While her elder son Vikram made a name for himself as a writer, the eminent jurist was no less an author with a bestseller - On Balance to her credit. The author of "A Suitable Boy" in fact wrote a foreward for her mother in the book. Seth, who was born in October 1930 in Lucknow, also championed women and gender rights. She was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. advertisement A trail blazer in the legal field and endowed with a compassionate heart, she will be remembered for raising the bar of excellence to a new height. Also read | Leila Seth, first woman judge of Delhi High Court, dies --- ENDS --- In 1910, a new speed record was set for walking between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the man doing it was carrying a letter on behalf of The San Francisco Chronicle. A photo in the San Francisco Chronicle archives helped us track down the story of a 21-year-old Dutch man named Godfrey Road who was declared the Chronicle globetrotter after venturing 496 miles to L.A., traveling a total of 190 hours and 40 minutes in less than eight days. ROCKVILLE, Md. Prosecutors are dropping charges against two Latino teens accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a restroom at a suburban Washington high school, a case cited by the White House as an example of why the president wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Montgomery County States Attorney John McCarthy said the rape and sex offense charges were being dropped after a painstaking investigation of the girls report that the two teens raped her in the restroom at Rockville High School. Defense attorneys said the sex was consensual. They pointed to text messages in which the girl agreed to a sexual encounter; an explicit video the girl sent one of the teens; and security camera footage, which they said shows the girl running to meet one of the teens and willingly entering the restroom with him. McCarthy said Friday at a news conference that the girl was interviewed multiple times and the investigation revealed a lack of corroboration and substantial inconsistencies. While dropping the rape charges, prosecutors brought child pornography charges against the two male teens. McCarthy said 18-year-old Henry Sanchez will be charged with possession of child pornography, which carries a potential sentence of up to five years. Lawyers for the 17-year-old said he would face charges of distributing and possessing child pornography. The Associated Press does not typically identify juveniles charged with crimes and is not naming the 17-year-old now that he is charged as a juvenile. Defense lawyer Maria Mena said the pornography charges stem from the video the 14-year-old girl sent to the 17-year-old, which he then shared with Sanchez. She called it egregious that her client was being charged, while the girl who made the video and sent it to him is not being charged. The purpose of the child pornography statute, she said, is to deter adults from engaging in predatory conduct against kids, not to criminalize sexting between two minors. After the initial charges were filed in March, White House spokesman Sean Spicer, in response to a reporters question, called the allegations shocking and disturbing, saying, Part of the reason that the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this. The county school system later became the subject of anti-immigration rallies and counterprotests. By Matthew Barakat is an Associated Press writer. WASHINGTON An Obama administration Justice Department official will testify to Congress on Monday about the most explosive contacts to emerge so far between President Trumps former top aides and senior Russian officials. Sally Yates, deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama, is expected to disclose details to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel about her warnings to White House officials in January that Trumps national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was fired 18 days after Yates went to the White House, and only after news stories revealed the existence of a transcript of Flynns telephone conversation with Kislyak, which was recorded as part of routine U.S. intelligence monitoring of foreign officials communications. Yates, a former U.S. attorney who became deputy attorney general in 2015, took over the Justice Department as acting attorney general after Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20 while he prepared his own team. She was fired 10 days later after she announced that under her leadership, the Justice Department would not defend Trumps executive order seeking to bar travel to the U.S. from select Muslim-majority nations. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence during the Obama administration, is also scheduled to testify at the same hearing. Lawmakers from both parties are likely to press Yates for details about her warnings to the White House that Flynns misrepresentations to Pence, and to the public, about his conversations with Kislyak left him vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. FBI Director James Comey recently told a judiciary subcommittee that Yates had spoken to him about her concerns that Gen. Flynn had been compromised. Flynn and Kislyak exchanged phone calls and text messages during the White House transition, and were in touch on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration levied a range of sanctions against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 election. After leaks revealed those contacts, Flynn and other Trump administration officials, including Pence, denied that Flynn and Kislyak had discussed easing the sanctions. Doing so might violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law prohibiting private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Those denials unraveled in mid-February after news stories revealed the existence of a transcript of Flynns conversations with Kislyak, and Flynn was forced to resign. Yates was supposed to testify last month to the House Intelligence Committee, but the appearance was canceled by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, the chairman. Nunes later recused himself from the panels Russia inquiry after the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating whether he had wrongly disclosed classified information as he claimed that U.S. surveillance under Obama had deliberately targeted Trumps aides. David S. Cloud is a Tribune Co. writer. Warren Buffett, who controls the largest stake in Wells Fargo & Co., said the San Francisco bank mishandled the fake-account scandal by failing to act promptly to fix abuses that tarnished the lenders reputation and made it harder to attract customers. They were totally wrong on that, Buffett said Saturday in Omaha, Neb., at the annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The main problem was they didnt act when they learned about it. Wells Fargo shares are little changed from their 2014 closing price, while rivals Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have each advanced more than 30 percent in that span. The scandal has spurred millions of dollars in fines and legal costs and dented Wells Fargos standing as one of the countrys best run banks. In October, Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf resigned after being hauled in front of Congress to testify on why the lender opened accounts without customers permission. To repair the damage, the company bolstered internal controls, abandoned sales and bonus targets that were linked to the abuses, and promoted Tim Sloan to be CEO. The bank also eliminated or clawed back about $180 million in pay, much of it from Stumpf and former community bank head Carrie Tolstedt. Buffett said Saturday that flawed compensation systems such as the arrangement that rewarded Wells Fargo employees for meeting aggressive sales goals are a periodic problem for companies, and can promote the wrong behavior. It was bad enough having a bad system, Buffett said, building on his prior remarks about the bank. But they didnt act. Six months ago, Buffett called Stumpf a very decent man who made a hell of a mistake by being too slow to respond to the banks problems. Still, the billionaire voted to re-elect the banks slate of directors last month. Buffett controls about 500 million shares of Wells Fargo, primarily through Berkshire. The stake was valued at more than $25 billion as of Fridays close, making it one of his top holdings. The first question he faced at the annual meeting was about the bank. The billionaire also said Saturday that the lender should have acted when employees called internal hotlines to complain about colleagues wrongdoing. Some former workers claim they were fired for flagging misconduct related to opening accounts without customers knowledge and other sales abuses. Buffett said it was a a huge, huge, huge error for the company to ignore complaints or send them back down to somebody down below rather than elevate them. He contrasted that with Berkshires hotline, which he said is the main source of information for me about anything thats being done wrong at a subsidiary. A Wells Fargo board report into the banks sales practices concluded after a limited review that there wasnt documentary evidence suggesting purposeful retaliation against workers who raised concerns. Sloan, the banks CEO, has said most calls to what the bank calls the EthicsLine were handled properly and promised to fix cases where they werent. Noah Buhayar, Laura J. Keller and Jordyn Holman are Bloomberg News writers. By Press Trust of India: Photo: PTI5_6_2017_000098B By Kunal Dutt New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) In an illustrious legal career spanning over 50 years, Leila Seth donned multiple hats including that of a judge, an author and a loving mother, all with equal aplomb. She started her career in 1959 in Patna High Court as a young London-trained barrister, and spent 10 years there, seeking a foothold in a field dominated by men. advertisement But, Seth rose through the ranks to become countrys first woman chief justice of a high court, and broke many a glass ceiling in the process while earning respect and admiration, both in the courtroom and outside. She was the first woman from India to have topped the London Bar exam, and her younger son Shantum Seth was born there while she was studying after her marriage. The British press had hailed her triumph, describing Seth as: Mother in Law. "Yes, they called me Mother in Law, with a clever wordplay to refer to my role as a mother and my legal career, which was just to begin. I and my husband, still recall that cheeky caption," she had told PTI in an interview in April last year. A legal luminary, she leaves a huge void behind. But even in her death, her life will inspire others, as her organs were donated, as per her wish, for transplant or medical research purposes. Vice President Hamid Ansari expressing deep grief, said Seth "blazed a trail" for women in the legal field and will be long remembered for her commitment to protecting human rights in India. Seth also held the distinction of being the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a high court (Himachal Pradesh), an achievement that still inspires many women to take up legal career. Her death last night has triggered a wave of grief and nostalgia, with noted historian and author Ram Guha extolling her as a "remarkable human being, an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace, and courage." In the April interview, Seth, the mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, had also talked about her fondness for Patna, the place where she lived for 10 years, having a "very special" place in her heart. "It is always a homecoming for us in Patna. When Vikram and I had gone there for a literature festival, he insisted that we went to White Pillars bungalow, our old home. And, like he used to do in his childhood days, he rushed up to the terrace to get a view of the Ganga," she had said. advertisement Even in her autobiography On Balance, she dedicated a special section for her Patna days and the White Pillars bungalow, the residence of the general manager of the Bata Factory in Patnas Digha area. Her husband Premo Seth worked for the shoe-making major. Close family friend Tehmina Punwani said, she "lived with the courage of her convictions" and set an example by her high standard of exemplary living. While her elder son Vikram made a name for himself as a writer, the eminent jurist was no less an author with a bestseller - On Balance to her credit. The author of "A Suitable Boy" in fact wrote a foreward for her mother in the book. Seth also championed for women and gender rights. She was one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted after the December 16 2012 gangrape in Delhi for recommending legal amendments for quicker trials and enhanced punishments for criminals accused of committing sexual assaults against women. advertisement A trail blazer in the legal field and endowed with a compassionate heart, she will be remembered for raising the bar of excellence to a new height. PTI KND KIS --- ENDS --- Justice (retired) Leila Seth, mother of noted author Vikram Seth and first woman judge of Delhi High Court, has passed away. By India Today Web Desk: Justice (retired) Leila Seth, mother of noted author Vikram Seth and first woman judge of Delhi High Court, has passed away. She was 86. According to reports, she died at her residence in Noida. Leila Seth was also India's first woman High Court chief justice. A crusader against injustices done to women, Seth was part of the anti-rape law committee along with former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma. The committee was set up to suggest amendments to the criminal law to deal with such grave offences in the light of the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya case. advertisement JUSTICE SETH DIED ON FRIDAY NIGHT: FAMILY MEMBER According to a family member, Justice Leila Seth is learnt to have passed away on Friday night around 10.30 pm after suffering a cardio respiratory attack. Seth served as the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Leila is survived by her husband and two sons, including celebrated author Vikram Seth and a daughter. Justice Seth was also a part of many enquiry commissions, one of which studied the impact of the TV serial "Shaktiman" on children. Well-known historian Ramachandra Guha tweeted his condolence at her demise. Justice Leila Seth was a remarkable human being, an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace, and courage.- Ramachandra Guha (@Ram_Guha) May 6, 2017 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also paid her respects. Saddened at the passing of Justice Leila Seth. She was a champion of human rights. My condolences to her family- Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) May 6, 2017 Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, too, tweeted a condolence message. "Saddened to know about the passing away of Justice Leila Seth. Her progressive views on justice and gender issues will always encourage us," he wrote. (WITH INPUTS FROM IANS) ALSO READ | Nirbhaya gangrape case: 3 options that 4 rapists may use to delay hanging WATCH VIDEO | Nirbhaya gangrape verdict: Supreme Court upholds death sentence for all 4 convicts --- ENDS --- The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today addressing the press said that PM Modi can alone pull Kashmir out of its grave mess. By India Today Web Desk: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi can alone pull Kashmir out of the present mess. Unrest has gripped the Kashmir valley once again since violent clashes erupted between security forces and college students on April 15 following an earlier conflict at a Pulwama college. "Hamein daldal se agar koi bahar nikal sakta hai to, woh Modi hain (If anyone can pull us out of this quicksand, it is Modi)," the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief said. advertisement "Whatever decision he (Modi) will take, the nation would support him," Mufti added. Lauding Prime Minister's imitative and visiting Pakistan last year, the PDP Chief added, "It was him who visited Pakistan during heightened tensions between the two countries". MUFTI ON MANMOHAN She took a dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying he did not have the courage to visit Pakistan. "Before him (Modi), a Prime Minister had also desired to go to Pakistan for over ten years. He wanted to see his home there," she said, with naming Singh. "He also would have tried to end the confrontation between the two countries, and bring J&K out of this unfortunate situation, but he had no courage to do that." PEACE CHAPTER The CM said while her government is trying to improve the situation in Kashmir, there are some forces which do not want it. She also gave credit to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former chief minister Mufti Sayeed for starting the "chapter of peace" in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002. But attacked the UPA regime at the Centre for not being able to carry forward the process thinking of "everything is peaceful and there is no need to do anything further". With inputs from agencies Watch the video: Students clash with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara Also read: Kashmir: Students injured after clashing with police near Handwara College Also read: Kashmir: After massive search operation, people think of worst years of 1990s --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Srinagar, May 5 (PTI) The opposition National Conference (NC) today termed yesterdays massive anti-militancy operation in south Kashmir as "the first clear indication of an unofficial military rule" being invoked in the Valley, saying it is an alarming sign of the deteriorating situation in the state. The door-to-door cordon and siege operation conducted across various villages in Shopian was the first clear indication of an unofficial military rule being invoked in the valley and the return of such operations after nearly 15 years was another low for the PDP-led government in the state, the partys state spokesperson Junaid Azim Mattu said here. advertisement Mattu said the unprecedented siege by nearly 30,000 security forces, paramilitary and police personnel in about two dozen villages in Shopian district is an alarming sign of the gravity of the progressively deteriorating situation in the Valley. Such operations that were witnessed extensively during the early years of armed turmoil in the state, especially during the rule of (PDP founder) late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the Union home minister, brings back grim memories of mass intimidation and persecution under the fig-leaf of anti- militancy measures, he said. He condemned the extensive and unacceptable damage inflicted on hundreds of residential houses in Shopian and the blanket harassment of civilians. PTI SSB MIJ SMN --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: post: CPI(M) Thiruvananthapuram, May 6 (PTI) There is a need to field a candidate with impeccable secular credentials for the presidential elections in July considering the "situation prevailing in the country", CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said today. His remarks came at a time when "like-minded" opposition parties are mulling over fielding a common candidate for the presidential polls. advertisement The Marxist party has already agreed to the idea of fielding a consensual candidate. "Do you want communal supervision or secular supervision of the Constitution? We want secular supervision," he said, replying to a query by media persons. Opposition leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, have held a series of meetings over the issue recently. Gandhi has been at the forefront of efforts for forging opposition unity on fielding a joint presidential candidate. Pranab Mukherjee, a Congress veteran who was elected as president in 2012, will demit office in July. PTI UD BN GVS --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 5 (PTI) Nepal today briefed India on its upcoming elections and ongoing efforts of the government to take all stakeholders on board in the process of implementation of its constitution. During a meeting with Nepals Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj conveyed good wishes to his government and the people of Nepal in their national efforts to achieve peace, stability and socio- economic transformation. advertisement "(The) Foreign Minister of Nepal spoke about the elections in Nepal and the ongoing efforts of his government to take all stakeholders on board in the constitution implementation process," the external affairs ministry said. Mahat thanked India for extending logistical assistance for local bodies elections, it said. The two ministers discussed recent developments in Indo-Nepal relations, particularly recent high-level bilateral exchanges and implementation of all ongoing bilateral economic and developmental cooperation projects. "Both the ministers reiterated their commitment to further strengthen and deepen age-old, close and friendly ties in diverse sectors of mutual interest," the ministry added. Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised all possible assistance to Nepal in the conduct of its first polls to local bodies in 20 years during a call from his Nepalese counterpart Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. The polls are scheduled to start on May 14. PTI PYK SMN --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan Kathmandu, May 5 (PTI) Nepals Supreme Court today ordered the reinstatement of the countrys first woman Chief Justice Sushila Karki and directed Parliament to put on hold the impeachment motion filed against her as the tussle between the legislature and the judiciary took a dramatic turn. Just hours after the Supreme Courts interim order, Chief Justice Karki resumed the office this evening. advertisement A single member bench of Justice Cholendra Shamsher Rana issued the order stating that the impeachment move was against the spirit of Nepals Constitution. His order came in response to a writ petition against the motion to impeach Karki. Advocates Kanchan Krishna Neupane and Sunil Ranjan Singha had moved the apex court a day after the impeachment motion was registered at the Parliament Secretariat on April 30. Nepals first woman Chief Justice Karki was suspended after an impeachment motion against her was registered in Parliament by two major ruling parties that accused her of "interfering" with the executive and issuing "prejudiced" verdicts. As a fallout of the impeachment motion registered by the lawmakers of the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi had resigned over his dissatisfaction with the move. Also, Nepals Rastriya Prajatantra Party had quit the Prachanda-led government, a day after withdrawing its support to it over the impeachment motion against Karki. PTI ASK AKJ ASK --- ENDS --- The convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case have three more legal options available before them after the Supreme Court held the death sentence confirmed by the Delhi High Court. Nirbhaya gangrape case: The four convicts were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. By Prabhash K Dutta: More than four years after Nirbhaya was gangraped and brutalized, leading to her death, four of the six accused were pronounced guilty by the Supreme Court yesterday (read full judgment). One accused Ram Singh committed suicide in Tihar jail. The other accused turned out to be a juvenile when he was involved in the crime. He was tried by the juvenile justice board. advertisement The juvenile was sent to a remand home. An NGO is trying to rehabilitate him. The then juvenile accused is now reported to be working as a cook somewhere in the coastal region of southern India. The judicial process in the Nirbhaya gangrape case has gone through all the three tiers of judiciary - fast track trial court, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. At every stage the four convicts were found guilty and awarded death penalty. But, the convicts still have some options left. They are likely to avail all the options to delay hanging. REVIEW PETITION Article 137 of the Constitution provides for review of the verdict pronounced by the Supreme Court. The filing of review petition is governed by the Supreme Court Rules. Supreme Court lawyer Atul Kumar said, "A review petition should be filed within 30 days of the pronouncement of judgment by the Supreme Court." According to the Supreme Court Rules, a review petition, in a criminal proceeding like Nirbhaya gangrape case, can only be entertained on the ground of an error apparent on the face of the record, Atul Kumar added. The chances of the success of review petition are very low as it generally goes to the same judge, if not retired, or the bench, which heard the case previously. Secondly, the judges first examine the merit of the review petition in their chamber only. "There is no open court hearing, so there is no chance of oral arguments by the counsel during the examination of the review petition," Atul Kumar said. If the judge finds something substantial in the review petition that the matter could be listed for hearing in the open court. In the Nirbhaya gangrape case, the counsels of the convicts have said that they will file a review petition. They will have to go through the same procedure. CURATIVE PETITION Unlike a review petition, there is no mention of a curative petition in the Constitution. It is at the judiciary's creation. Before 2002, there was no such thing as curative petition in the legal lexicon of Indian judiciary. A curative petition can only be filed after the Supreme Court has dismissed the review petition against the final conviction. advertisement "The apex court created the system of curative petition to ensure that there was no miscarriage of justice. But, some use this tool to delay final settlement of the judicial process," said Atul Kumar while pointing out the inherent judicial dilemma. Like review petition, a curative petition is also usually first decided in the chamber of the judges. On specific request, the judges may allow open court hearing. The Supreme Court has laid down detailed procedure for filing a curative petition. The court can hear a curative petition only if the petitioner establishes that the final conviction violates the principle of natural justice. The convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case will have to get their curative petition certified by a senior advocate pointing out substantial grounds for admitting the same by the Supreme Court, Atul Kumar said. The certified curative petition will then by circulated first to the three senior-most judges (not necessarily the Chief Justice of India), and then the judges, who passed the final judgment of conviction. If the majority of the judges agree that the curative petition has merit in it, the same can be listed for hearing in the court preferably by the same bench, which disposed off the case last time. advertisement The Supreme Court has also made it clear that a curative petition must be viewed with circumspection and should be a tool which is rare than regular in use. In the 15 years since the system was created, only two curative petitions have been successful. However, the low success rate is unlikely to deter the Nirbhaya case convicts from availing this option. MERCY PETITION When the doors of judiciary are shut on a convict, he can pray for mercy from the President of India. Under Article 72 of the Constitution, the President can commute a death sentence. In exercising his power to grant mercy, the President has to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers. Under the existing rules, the Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal agency and according to its opinion the President decides the matter. The convicts of the Nirbhaya gangrape case can file a mercy plea from Tihar jail through their lawyer, families or prison officials. They can send written petition or email their plea to the Home Ministry or the President's Secretariat. advertisement "Now, even the decision of the President on the mercy petition can be challenged in the Supreme Court on the ground or inordinate delay," Atul Kumar said. There is no fixed time frame within which the President is bound to decide on the mercy plea. This has resulted in the past a huge pile of such petitions at the President's office. But, President Pranab Mukherjee has set a record in this regard. His desk was reported to be clean in the month of January this year. President Mukherjee has cleared as many as 32 mercy pleas, some of them pending since 2000, when KR Narayanan was the President. Of 32 mercy pleas, Mukherjee rejected 28 or little less than 90 per cent of the petitions were rejected. The rapists of Nirbhaya may still move the office of the President seeking mercy for what the Supreme Court described as 'brutal, barbaric and diabolic' crime. ALSO READ | Brutal, barbaric, diabolic: What Supreme Court judges said while upholding death penalty in Nirbhaya gangrape case Nirbhaya gangrape verdict: Justice delayed, not denied, say parents ALSO WATCH | Nirbhaya gangrape case: This is what happened inside the Supreme Court today --- ENDS --- GAZA CITY The Hamas Islamic militant movement that controls the Gaza Strip announced Saturday it had chosen its former Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as the groups new political chief. Haniyeh succeeds Hamas longtime exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, and the move comes shortly after Gazas rulers introduced a new, seemingly more pragmatic political program aimed at ending the groups international isolation. Hamas is trying to rebrand itself as an Islamic national liberation movement, rather than a branch of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed by Egypt. It has also dropped explicit language calling for Israels destruction, though it retains the goal of eventually liberating all of historic Palestine, which includes what is now Israel. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the group hoped Haniyehs election would see opening to the region. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, after securing an overwhelming victory in legislative elections the previous year and ending 40 years of political domination by its rival Fatah party. Hamas captured the coastal strip by violently overthrowing forces loyal to the Fatah movement, led by Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, along with Egypt, has been enforcing a crippling border blockade against them since then. Though it has softened some of its rhetoric, Hamas new platform clung to the hard-line positions that led to its isolation. The group reaffirmed it will not recognize Israel, renounce violence or recognize previous interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals the Wests long-standing conditions for dealing with Hamas. Over the years, Hamas has carried out shootings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel. Since 2008, Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza have fought three cross-border wars. Abbas has been an outspoken opponent of violence, saying it undercuts Palestinian interests. Repeated reconciliation efforts between the Palestinian factions have failed. Hamas has sharply criticized Abbas political program, which rests on setting up a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. Haniyeh, 54, was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza. He was the private secretary of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin. For the past four years he has served as Mashaals deputy. Fares Akram is an Associated Press writer. The four convicts - Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta - were held guilty of rape and murder in a case that sparked nationwide revulsion. Nirbhaya's parents expressed satisfaction that their daughter has finally got justice. They vowed to now help other rape victims awaiting justice. (Photo: Parveen Negi) By Harish V Nair: The courtroom burst into applause as the Supreme Court on Friday upheld capital punishment for four in the Nirbhaya rape and murder, which shook the conscience of the nation. On hearing the verdict, her mother, Asha Devi, broke down and said, "I'm happy my daughter got justice. Now, I will live for others who suffered like her." In the landmark judgment, the SC observed that the victim was treated in a "devilish manner", which was "humanly inconceivable", as it dismissed the fervent pleas for leniency made by defence lawyers. advertisement The convicts - 28-year-old Mukesh Singh, 24-year-old Vinay Sharma, 31-year-old Akshay Thakur, and 22-year-old Pawan Gupta - were held guilty of raping and murdering the 23-year-old medical student in a case that sparked nationwide revulsion and legal reforms. A trial court in 2013 ruled that the men should be hanged to death and the Delhi High Court upheld the sentence. The four then approached the SC. The brutality of the crime against the woman, who was named "Nirbhaya" - meaning fearless - because of laws against naming rape victims, provoked intense anger and weeks of protests across Indian cities and also hit international headlines. "If ever a case called for hanging, this was it," said the bench of justices Dipak Misra, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, describing the crime as a "story of a different world". The court referred to the dying declaration of the young woman and said the "brutal and demonic" offence had been proved beyond doubt. The execution of the punishment, if it happens, may take a while as the convicts now have the option of filing a review before the apex court, a curative petition and finally a clemency or mercy petition before the President. On December 16, 2012, the victim and a companion were attacked by six men aboard a moving bus in south Delhi. The woman, who was brutalised with an iron rod and had her intestines pulled out, died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later. One of the men, Ram Singh, was found hanging in his cell in Delhi's Tihar Jail in March 2013, while a convicted juvenile was released in December 2015 after spending three years in a reform home. The judges said special public prosecutor Sidharth Luthra, who appeared for the Delhi Police, succeeded in establishing beyond reasonable doubt that each of the four accused were guilty. Seated in the visitors' gallery of the jam-packed courtroom no. 2 of the Supreme Court, a tearyeyed Asha Devi hugged her husband Badrinath Singh the moment the bench uttered, "We are confirming the death sentence". What followed was a loud round of applause, quite unseen in an Indian courtroom. The outpouring of emotion signalled the culmination of the couple's four-and-a-half-year-old court battle to secure justice for their child. advertisement "If she was living she would have turned 28 on May 10. So, in a way, today's verdict is a gift for her," Asha Devi told the media in a choked voice outside the courtroom. The judges said dying declarations, statements of 85 prosecution witnesses including that of the victim's boyfriend who was the sole eyewitness, DNA, forensic and electronic evidence established the role of each of the men. The apex court said the "aggravating circumstances against the convicts far outweighed the "mitigating circumstances" like poor family background, young age of the accused (all between 22 and 31) , good conduct in prison, marital status, small kids, etc. cited by senior lawyers Sanjay Hegde and Raju Ramachandran, appointed as legal aid for them by the court. Justice Misra said the nature and manner of the crime devastated social trust and it fell in "rarest of rare" category, warranting death. ALSO READ | Nirbhaya gangrape case: Supreme Court decides the 4 convicts will hang ALSO READ | Nirbhaya gangrape verdict: Justice delayed, not denied, say parents ALSO WATCH | Gallows for Nirbhaya rapists: Death sentence a deterrent for rapes? --- ENDS --- advertisement MOSUL, Iraq Aliyah Hussein and the 25 family members sheltering with her in Mosuls western Mahatta neighborhood survive by picking wild greens growing in a park near their home. Hussein mixes the vegetables with small amounts of rice and tomato paste to make a thin soup that is often her familys only meal. Her cousin Zuhair Abdul Karim said even with the wild greens, the food ran out on a recent day. I swear to God, we are hungry. (The Islamic State group) made us hungry. They didnt leave anything for us, they even stole our food, Hussein said. Her home sits just a few hundred yards from the front line in the battle for western Mosul. As Iraqi forces continue to make slow progress in the fight against Islamic State in the city, clawing back territory house by house and block by block, food supplies are running dangerously low for civilians trapped inside militant-held territory and those inside recently retaken neighborhoods. Although Hussein has technically been liberated, her neighborhood is still too dangerous for most humanitarian groups to reach. In the past week she said she received only one box of food consisting of rice, oil and tomato paste, barely enough to feed her entire family even for a single day. The women didnt have lunch. Only the children and men have eaten, Abdul Karim said, explaining that he and his family are now living meal to meal. We dont know if well have dinner. Some families walk several miles to markets that have sprung up in neighborhoods that have been under Iraqi military control longer. But prices there are high. Most families have exhausted their savings and work is almost non-existent in Mosul, a city now ripped apart by war. The humanitarian world needs to realize that there is a huge gap between people who are in the safe zone and people who are actually trapped in the no mans land, said Alto Labetubun with Norwegian People Aid, one of the few groups operating in neighborhoods close to the front line. Some 300,000 to 500,000 people remain beyond anyones reach, trapped in militant-held Mosul neighborhoods, according to the United Nations. Most are estimated to be in Mosuls old city, where the final battles of the operation are expected to play out. If the fighting there lasts many more weeks, the U.N. warns the consequences for civilians will be catastrophic. By Bram Janssen is an Associated Press writer. 1 Deadly crash: At least 35 people were killed, most of them children, after a school bus crashed in northern Tanzania, police said Saturday. The bus had been carrying students from a school in Arusha, Region Police Commander Charles Mkumbo said. It skidded off the road near the Mlera river and plunged into a ravine. The dead included 32 students, two teachers and the bus driver. President John Magufuli sent a message with his condolences to families of the victims. Africa has the worlds highest per capita rate of road deaths, though it has roughly just 2 percent of the worlds vehicles, the World Bank has reported. 2 Refugees rescued: A Spanish navy ship rescued 651 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe early Saturday, authorities said. Spains defense ministry said the frigate Canarias, participating in a joint European Union mission, made the rescue off the coast of Libya. The ministry said the operation was carried out in complete darkness and that the refugees were from several different sub-Saharan countries. Canarias has saved 1,958 migrants in less than three months patrolling the Mediterranean. 3 Detained activists: The United States has joined the European Union and U.N. human rights agencies in expressing concern over the extended pretrial detention of five Cambodian human rights activists held for more than a year. The five current or former staff members of the group ADHOC the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association are being held for allegedly bribing a woman to change testimony that was damaging to then-deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha, who was accused of acting illegally in connection with an alleged extramarital affair. The related cases are generally seen as part of a campaign by Prime Minister Hun Sens government to weaken its political opponents, especially ahead of local elections this June. A statement released Friday by the U.S. State Department urged Cambodia to meet its obligations under international human rights statutes. 4 Climber dies: An 85-year-old man from Nepal died Saturday while attempting to scale Mount Everest to regain his title as the oldest person to climb the worlds highest peak, officials said. Min Bahadur Sherchan died at the Everest base camp. The cause of death was not immediately clear, said Dinesh Bhattarai of Nepals Tourism Department. Sherchan, a grandfather of 17 and great-grandfather to six, first scaled Everest in May 2008 when he was 76 at the time becoming the oldest climber to reach the top. His record was broken in 2013 by 80-year-old Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura. Before leaving for the mountain last month, Sherchan said that once he had completed the climb, he intended to travel to conflict areas to spread a message of peace. 5 Poland protest: Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw on Saturday to protest the policies of the populist ruling party under Jaroslaw Kaczynski, describing them as attacks on the countrys democracy. Speakers at the March of Freedom said the government under the conservative Law and Justice party has eroded the independence of Polands courts and other institutions to such an extent that the country would not be accepted into the European Union or NATO today if it didnt already belong. The event was organized by the opposition Civic Platform party, but other opposition parties and the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, a civic organization, also took part. 6 Egypt violence: The decapitated bodies of a father and his two sons recently kidnapped by Islamic militants were found Saturday lying in the street in the northern Sinai town of Rafah, according to security officials and witnesses the latest grotesque act of brutality in the countrys long-running insurgency. They said the mother of the two siblings was killed last week by militants from the Islamic State group when they raided the family home and kidnapped the three men they suspect of being collaborators. The Islamic State is spearheading an insurgency in northern Sinai, where there has recently been an increase in the abduction and killing of suspected informants. The brutal killings are meant to serve as a deterrent to would-be collaborators. Chronicle News Services BEIRUT Violence left at least four opposition fighters dead and a child wounded in central and southern Syria on Saturday despite relative calm prevailing across the war-ravaged country after a deal to set up de-escalation zones in mostly opposition-held areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said. The casualties were the first after the implementation of the agreement hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran the latest attempt to bring calm to the country commenced at midnight Friday. The establishment of safe zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not a party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. Details of the plan must still be worked out over the next several weeks. There were reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, and the southern province of Daraa, areas expected to be part of the zones, activists said. It is not clear how the cease-fire or de-escalation zones will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. In the tangled mess that constitutes Syrias battlefields, there is much that can go wrong with the plan agreed on in talks Thursday in Kazakhstan. Syrias government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting terrorism wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The armed opposition delegation to the talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana said in a statement released Saturday that the truce should include all Syria and not just specific areas. It said some maps of the de-escalation zones that were released are not accurate and will not be accepted because the armed opposition did not negotiate them. Still, opposition activists in southern, central and northern Syria told the Associated Press that the situation was more clam Saturday than previous days, with little shelling and air strikes reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces shelled rebel-held neighborhoods of the capital Damascus. Bassem Mroue is an Associated Press writer. "The poor thing is languishing without a human touch," the doctor's wife says of the piano in her parlor. "It's like a piece of dead wood without being played." Spoken in the first act of In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), an incredible production up now at the Santa Fe Playhouse, with those words Mrs. Givings tells her husband's patient Mrs. Daldry all that is wrong with her homeand, as we come to find, all that is wrong with everyone around them. The premise of the play is, on a shallow level, quite amusing: It's the 1880s, and doctors have begun to treat "hysterical" women with electric vibrators. Yes, that kind of vibrator. "We need to release the pressure on her nerves," says the initially affable Dr. Givings (played by Marty Madden) of frigid Mrs. Daldry (Mairi Chanel). There is an excess buildup of liquid/fluid/juices (whichever word makes you most uncomfortable) in her womb, the doctor says, and the only way to expel it is with a paroxysm. In this context, of course, that means an orgasm. A daily orgasm. Perhaps multiple per day, in fact, and often in quick succession. It's science, you see. In the Givings home, "in the next room" is a euphemism for being in the operating theater, and the operating theater is a euphemism for the room in which Dr. Givings, with the aid of his matronly assistant Annie (a charming and multifaceted Jennifer Graves, who only impresses us more with each scene), administers the treatmentsideally with the electric device, but occasionally "manually," if the power goes out. When Mrs. Daldry first enters the Givings home, she is sallow and seems full of dread. A la The Yellow Wallpaper, she is being driven insane by "ghosts" in the green curtains in her home. She cannot have a child. Light bothers her. Mr. Daldry (John Widell) and Dr. Givings both agree that she is suffering from a clear case of hysteria. In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play These people have, like, so many orgasms. (Lynn Roylance) Chanel, as Mrs. Daldry, is positively inconsolable at show's open. She is uneasy and unsure, doubtful of Dr. Givings' chances of success and hesitant to try. But he lulls her back on his operating table and it isn't long before she's convulsing in something she soon decides is pleasure. After, Chanel's expression is expertly transformedshe looks downright "refreshed," a word that gets used so often here it eventually loses meaning. "Many of the patients complain about being drowsy after the treatment," Dr. Givings tells Mrs. Daldry amiably as she sits up again. Not to worry. In addition to the evolution and popularity of Dr. Givings' treatments, his bubbly, talkative, awkward and ultimately incredibly anxious wife, played by lovable Isabel Madley, struggles with the need for a wet nurse for her newborn. As it happens, the Daldrys offer the services of their housekeeper Elizabeth (Andrea Fofanah), an African-American woman who could have, given the time period, been born a slave. Elizabeth has recently lost a baby to cholera. Earnest conversations about virtue and breastfeeding and milk production ensue, all while cries from endless orgasms come from the next room. It puts into strange contrast the Victorian hidden-ankle modesty and the objectification of a woman's breast as an employable thing, not to mention an underlying voracious sexuality as Mrs. Givings learns more about her husband's practice and a hapless, doddering Mr. Daldry misses every last social cue. In the second act we meet Leo, a young painter freshly back from Italy and newly broken-hearted. He, too, is in a fit of hysteria and he, too, is treated with a vibrator. Hamilton Turner plays Leo uncomfortably well. The guy is so at ease, but such a tool. He pontificates about art and Italian women, and tries amorously to get the (married) women milling around the Givings household to sit for a painting. Turns out Leo is also really into ass play, and while there's nothing wrong with that, the "treatment" seems to have the opposite effect on himhe just becomes more insufferable as the play goes on. We were particularly struck by just how much these actors made us care about the characters. In no way would we dream of leaving early and risk not knowing what happens to the relationships as they bend and twist around each other. Madley, as a petulant Mrs. Givings, isn't annoying even when she does annoying things (like babble about "having extra children, just in case" around Elizabeth, who just lost a child)her immature, frothy energy is somehow endearing and forgivable and we do nothing but root for her as she tries to convince her husband that she, too, is worth "treating" in the way he treats the whole neighborhood, it seems. As Dr. Givings, Madden really comes into his own in the second act. The first-act doctor is "a man of science," as he often repeats while he emotionlessly fondles his patients. Once they reach climax, he simply leaves to wash his hands. But as he evolves, pushed along by Mrs. Givings, Madden expertly shows a seismic shift, right when we were about to give up on the character. Dr. Givings, in describing his childhood interest in electricity, says that he watched the lights of static dance on the family pet. "Stop stroking the cat! You'll start a fire!" his mother would yell. But, he adds: "I kept stroking the cat." (The audience chuckled. Stroke the pussy, push the boundaries, stress the limits of human decency. Go ahead, do it.) The cacophony of orgasms and sexual tension and piano-playing and scandalous cheek-touching build and build and build, both well-written by playwright Sarah Ruhl and fantastically directed here by Monique Lacoste. When the clenched fists are almost too tight to bear, when you've held your breath for an entire scene, when you can't bear not knowing this will end, suddenly, there is an intense, unexpectedly poignant releaseand man, is it good. In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays May 4-20;2 pm Sundays May 7-21. $15-$30.Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E De Vargas St.,988-4262, santafeplayhouse.org Santa Fe Reporter By Press Trust of India: Media From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, May 6 (PTI) Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy here over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said today. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. advertisement ?India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation. Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. PTI SH PMS AKJ PMS --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: media (Eds: Updating with more inputs) From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, May 6 (PTI) Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy here over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said today. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. advertisement "India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation. Meanwhile in New Delhi, sources said Bambawale is in India. Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. PTI SH PMS AKJ UZM --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, May 5 (PTI) Top Democratic leader Nany Pelosi is leading a bipartisan Congressional delegation to India and Nepal focusing on strengthening bilateral economic and security relations, her office has said. The delegation will also visit Germany and Belgium with an aim to focus on global economy, bilateral and multilateral relations and human rights. advertisement Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the US House of Representative, will be accompanying Pelosi on the trip, a statement said yesterday. "Our bipartisan delegation travels at a vital time in the US relationship with India, Nepal and our NATO partners," said Pelosi, who is also former Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "Our delegation looks forward to meetings on how we can strengthen our economic and security relationships, as well as addressing challenges ranging from regional Russian aggression to global human rights," Pelosi said in a statement, without giving the details of the trip. Other members of the Congressional delegation are Jim Sensenbrenner, Eliot Engel, Jim McGovern, Betty McCollum Judy Chu and Joyce Beatty. PTI LKJ MRJ AKJ MRJ --- ENDS --- By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree Internal police reports obtained by The Canberra Times reveal serious concerns about an ACT-based employee who was arrested for stalking. The reports, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, described the male employee's stalking behaviour and subsequent conviction as "reprehensible". Police were asked to provide documents relating to "AFP employees based in the ACT who currently hold criminal convictions", suggesting the man may have kept his job despite the conviction. A spokesman for ACT Policing would not comment on whether he was still employed. The documents, dating back to July 2015, included a redacted report by the AFP's professional standards unit. While spring, the end of school studies, formals and Schoolies usually mark the most exciting points on a year 12 student's calendar, Elise Kellett has another highlight planned. The Dickson College student will travel to Britain in July to attend the London International Youth Science Forum, a prestigious conference attracting about 500 16 to 21-year-olds from 75 countries. Dickson College year 12 student Elise Kellett will travel to Britain for the London International Youth Science Forum in July. Credit:Stephen Jeffery During the two-week event, Elise will attend lectures and demonstrations from leading scientists and visit laboratories, research centres and other areas of scientific excellence. She was selected to represent Australia after she took part in January's National Youth Science Forum, but was initially surprised to hear the news. Canberra's Catholic education body will hold a public meeting on Monday night to respond to the funding cuts proposed by Malcolm Turnbull's coalition government. Under the funding proposal, a patchwork of 27 agreements made throughout Australia will be rolled into a single, needs-based model, meaning all non-government schools will be brought into line with the school resourcing standard within 10 years rather than the projected 150 years. Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced a needs-based funding model. Credit:ABC As a result, all Canberra Catholic schools will face a 10-year funding freeze, expected to leave them with less funding in 2027 than received in 2017. There are nine ACT private schools currently funded above the school resourcing standard that may also face cuts. Catholic Education Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn director Ross Fox said they had invited the capital's schools and parents to attend, as well as Mr Turnbull, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and local politicians. The importance of Sunday's French presidential election has been felt from the Seine to the Molonglo. French citizens living in Canberra will be among the first to cast their ballots in the final round of voting in an election that will determine whether centrist Emmanuel Macron or far-right Marine Le Pen becomes their country's next leader. ANU student and French citizen Marie Heloury will cast her vote in the presidential runoff election on Sunday. Credit:Rohan Thomson The European nation's election has secured extra attention outside the Francosphere this year due to neither major party candidate making it through to the final two-person election. For Australian National University student and French voter Marie Heloury, the election marked an important point in France's history. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr says potential changes to GST funding in the federal budget could have a "dramatic effect" on the territory's own budget. Mr Barr's comments come just days after Treasurer Scott Morrison ordered a review into how GST revenue is split among the states, after pressure from the Western Australian Liberals. Andrew Barr said funding for health and education would be key priorities for the territory in this year's federal budget. Credit:Rohan Thomson "The ACT government is hoping to see the federal government keep true to their word on GST funding," he said. "Any change to the draft GST relativities released earlier this year could have a dramatic effect on the ACT budget." By Press Trust of India: From Joyeeta Dey Yokohama (Japan), May 6 (PTI) Upset over not getting a rating upgrade, India has lashed out at global rating agencies saying they are far detached from ground realities and must introspect as the reforms initiated certainly warranted an upgrade. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said India was being denied an upgrade even as growth and fundamentals improve. advertisement In past too, India has questioned the methodology used by global rating agencies saying the nation compares favourably with other emerging countries on metrics such as default risk. In particular, it points to S&P Global Ratings keeping China at AA- despite rising debt and slowing growth while India has been kept at one step above junk. Moodys and Fitch too give similar rating citing Asias widest fiscal deficit as a drag on the nations sovereign rating. "So far as government is concerned, it will continue to take measures which are good for the country, which are good for the economy. The government will continue to take structural reform measures, step up public investment, do what is good for the economy, for our growth, for our employment generation," Das told Indian media here. India, he said, has shown excellent growth over the last few years. "The kind of number and quality of reforms which India has experienced in last two-three years is unparallelled. It is only in India that you see this kind of reforms are happening," he said. Das said with all these changes, India has continued to maintain 7 per cent plus GDP growth rate, while the ease of doing business has improved considerably. Even after this "if the rating agencies do not give an upgrade to India, if they do not give any weightage to it, I think they are probably far detached from ground realities. So, it is really for them to introspect," he said. Earlier this week, Fitch cited weak fiscal position to keep Indias sovereign rating unchanged at BBB-, the lowest investment grade with stable outlook assigned to the country more than a decade ago. While India is targeting a fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent this year, it will bring it down to 3 per cent next year. Chinas reported debt surged to 264 per cent of its GDP at the end of 2016, from 193 per cent in 2009. advertisement In contrast, Indias debt fell to 66 per cent of its GDP from 72 per cent. PTI JD MKJ --- ENDS --- Josh Turk was 14 years old and going through a tough time when he was introduced to a new Canberra support organisation. More than a decade later Mr Turk is giving back through the same organisation, helping a young boy through similar things he went through. Josh Turk is Menslink's first mentee turned mentor. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos Menslink is celebrating 15 years of operation in the Canberra community. CEO Martin Fisk has been with the organisation for the past six years, and he continues to build it up as a vital support service for young men in the community. "The main purpose of Menslink is to help young guys that might be struggling with the tough times that present themselves through their adolescence or young adult life, and get them through those tough times with the least amount of harm to themselves and those around them," Mr Fisk said. Children are the least fit and the fattest they have ever been, but it would take one "relatively small adjustment" to eradicate the problem. A report authored by Canberrans is set to be shot to global prominence when it is tabled in Nairobi as part of a UN conference on urban habitats. James and Lewis Gunn playing in the Arboretum playground. Credit:Jay Cronan According to the findings of the Shaping Spaces for Gen Z report, which was the result of a forum at the University of Canberra in March, there is one priority action, with two further proposals also "worthy of implementation". The report was prepared in collaboration with the UC and Urban Synergies Group. Weston Creek residents were weary after the 15 kilometre march but still standing strong against the ACT government's proposed public housing development in Chapman. The Darwinia Park Action Group handed over a petition with nearly 900 signatures to Liberal MLA Jeremy Hanson on Saturday, protesting against the proposed development on the corner of Darwinia Terrace and Kathner Street. Weary protesters arrive at the ACT Legislative Assembly. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos The petition's gravitas was enough to force a parliamentary committee to reconsider the location and resident Dr Chris Braddick said he was confident his community's green spaces would be spared. "It's been a mammoth effort but I feel if the government doesn't listen to us, then they're disenfranchising a significant proportion of the Weston Creek community," he said. An interactive map in which women show where they felt most and least safe in the ACT has revealed concerns about several areas in the Woden town centre. The district's bus interchange, central car parks and connecting footpaths to nearby residential suburbs were among those areas detailed during a Women's Centre for Health Matters presentation at a Woden Valley Community Council meeting last week. A screenshot of the Women's Centre for Health Matters map. The centre's deputy chief executive, Emma Davidson, will visit other community council meetings in the coming weeks and months to discuss issues the map's responses had raised in their areas. She said poor lighting, little foot traffic and the presence of rubbish or graffiti were recurring concerns in areas where women felt unsafe across the territory. The motives of those pushing for greater democracy are also suspect. At a recent such meeting, 57 minutes of the one hour available was taken up by presenters, leaving only three minutes for citizens' views! Democracy? Worse still, at this meeting one of the original Indigenous groups who owned this part of the country was not even acknowledged. We need to work towards true democracy if we are to achieve real success as a nation. Audrey Guy, Ngunnawal Hard row to hoe I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney, left school at 15, worked for six years, then studied full-time one year at Sydney Technical College to matriculate (with minuscule fees), then four years at UNSW, with no fees and a generous scholarship, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer via the Menzies/Holt Liberal governments. I graduated with no debt. This was even before the Whitlam Labor government made university education free. In today's much richer, but far meaner, tax-reducing, negative-gearing Australia, would a 21-year-old with a similar background have any hope of following such a path? Keith Pantlin, Downer Help for grieving On behalf of the ACT Youth Bereavement Network, we would like to clarify some elements of the article titled "Young people support group faces an uncertain future" (Canberra Times, April 30, p6). We have been very grateful for the grant that was provided by the ACT Community Services Directorate, which supported the group in its initial phase. While we would, of course, be grateful for ongoing external funding, the grant provided by the directorate was advertised as, and always understood to be, a one-off occurrence. We commend the directorate for the ongoing support it provides to Canberra's young people, and would recommend that other young people take advantage of the opportunities and services it provides. If you, or someone you know, would like to access the network's support services, please contact enquiry@canberragriefcentre .com.au, or feel free to join us from 5-6.30pm at A. Baker cafe, New Acton, on the third Thursday of the month. This free service is available to young people aged 16 to 30 who have lost a parent or parent-figure. Louise Blessington and Mandy Cox, ACT Youth Bereavement Group co-ordinators English necessity In response to Margaret McBride (Letters, April 30), I believe certain professions, i.e., lawyers, dentists and doctors, should be "a competent speaker of English". As an example, I once had a consultation with a member, born overseas, of one of the listed professions and in a 15-minute session I understood only two words clearly without having to ask for one or more repeats of the message the person was trying to convey. Ken McPhan, Spence Smoke spooked The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has given big tobacco the thumbs down on their opposition to plain packaging. Now it is the time of the ACT government to change the Residential Tenancy Act and agreement to be universally non-smoking. Despite a "have your say" on residential lease laws the ACT government has been timid to act and has done a big nothing. Was our ACT government waiting for the outcome of the WTO dispute with big tobacco before making all new tenancy leases default to non-smoking. A default in tenancy leases would send a clear message to renters that they can expect to pay more in rent if they ask landlords to change the lease to smoking. With the highest rate of smoking in Tuggeranong, smoke-free residential tenancies will in time clear the suburb of all that passive smoking, reported by Doug Dingwell article on Health Tracker of May 2. Etienne Hingee, Warramanga Man of no plan Chief Minister Andrew Barr reveals public housing past as he shuts down critics. Well, Mr Barr, many of us have lived in public housing as well, and have had to put up with less than desirables. However, I have yet to see a plan from your government toaddress our public and social housing deficiencies. How many people are on the public housing waiting list, and how many are without housing at all? Where is the planning, the consultation? Having been involved with the community councils for a number of years, I have seen little of late showing any bold plans, or any real engagement on the matter, let alone how you will pay for it all. Matt Golding It is generally thought that when healthcare and education are strong political issues, Labor will benefit electorally at the polls. By contrast, the Coalition usually scores when the primary issues are the economy, national security or, apparently, the imminent invasion of boat people. Labor was seen as much stronger on schools. Turnbull's sudden turnaround to embrace Gonski does not represent a Coalition conversion on the system of school funding. It is plainly focused at the political rather than the policy problem: neutralising education (or at least school education) as a high point of difference between Labor and Liberal. Most expect that Tuesday's budget will try to do something similar with Medicare and healthcare. That this involves dumping previous party positions, philosophies or intentions is neither here nor there; Turnbull is simply acting as Abbott did in 2013 because to do otherwise may cost him votes. That there is no election due for two years invites a raised eyebrow about whether Turnbull has secret plans. Most likely, the poll he is thinking about is Newspoll, and the contest he is thinking about involves his leadership, not (at this stage) his party's re-election. Labor seemed wrong-footed by this ruthless pragmatism, and has looked hard to "prove" that Turnbull's Gonski 2.0 is a lesser proposition, involving less money than Labor's plan. It might be better to focus on questioning Coalition sincerity or trustworthiness on the issue, since Turnbull's "agility" on the subject did not seem to involve much in the way of consultation with backbenchers, the party's councils or any great process of debate. That there is no election due for two years invites a raised eyebrow about whether Turnbull has secret plans. Turnbull was clever to get David Gonski on-board to lead a further review of principles, to accentuate the appearance of his scheme's being exactly what Gonski had recommended in the first place, and to sow further confusion about the baselines against which one could measure whether more or less money was being pledged. Turnbull's new policy has some critics, including one group that the Coalition normally has nailed down: those in charge of systemic Catholic schools. These did particularly well under Gonski 1.0, in part because of sweeteners offered by Bill Shorten, but their demographics are against them, and the rate of growth of extra funding over the next decade is at about two-thirds of state schools and independent schools. Big rich independent schools, including high-fee well-resourced independent Catholic colleges not in the Catholic systemic system, will get lower growth, or less than they now receive. But there are many independent schools that, like systemic Catholic schools, do not charge high fees, and whose total income, including money from fees, the Commonwealth and the state, is lower or not much different from nearby state schools. Non-government schools do not, on average, have enrolments of children with disabilities, Indigenous backgrounds, non-English speaking parents and so on at rates equivalent to government schools. And, in some rural areas, some non-government schools have consciously pitched themselves to capture "white drift", by which the middle class of the community (including children of the Indigenous middle class) attend local Catholic (or sometimes Protestant) schools, leaving hollowed-out government schools largely occupied by children of parents largely dependent on welfare. These concentrations of social, cultural and education problems are not, usually, schools that can easily address their problems with some supplementation by government on Gonski grounds, even with the best teachers and programs. They have vicious cycles of poor teacher morale, community alienation, and difficulties in attracting and retaining good teachers, good students and good community champions. Even parents who "want to do the right thing" often end up deciding that they cannot imperil or gamble with their child's future at schools losing students, facing truancy and discipline problems and having difficulties in engaging with parents. That the Catholic schools have inverted an old history when they were the poor and under-resourced schools, operating purely on their own resources does not seem to trouble church authorities much. Nor the question about which school Jesus would have attended. A good many Canberra non-government schools, including systemic Catholic ones, face reduced federal funding over time, or rates of growth of federal funding well below those in state schools. No doubt the Commonwealth will make some transition deals. Just as, no doubt, there will be deals to appease the loudest Catholic archbishops pretending that Catholic schools (once, on average, the poorest for resources) are being discriminated against. There will be appeasement, but it is interesting to note a certain exasperation and initial firmness from a Coalition that has, since about 1963 at least, pandered to the church hierarchy, particularly over education. The reputation of the Catholic church is not what it was, even five years ago. The moral authority of the archbishops, and the esteem in which stewards of private schools are held, has taken a battering, thanks to their handling of sexual abuse. A good many people, even some of those predisposed to "choice", to the supposed superior discipline of the private system, or to the idea of an education that integrates religious and secular instruction, would not mind seeing the stewards get their comeuppance. That Canberra schools seem to suffer does not reflect vengeance from Barnaby Joyce or Fiona for our sin of being the national capital. It reflects the fact that Canberra is a very bourgeois environment, with high average levels of income, education and socio-economic status. Of course it has its pockets of poverty (even if non-government schools have been picking up less than their share of it). But educational outcomes are very good. This is as much because of the backgrounds and demands of parents as because of the quality of its teachers and the supplementations, where appropriate, via Gonski. Reduced grants going to some schools reflect a judgment that the resources at that school put its students in at least the same position as students everywhere else in Australia. Those who want more and they are entitled to want higher standards must pay for it from their own resources, not at the expense of government grants to schoolchildren elsewhere. They can also, of course, make common cause with all parents of schoolchildren everywhere, that the total pie of resources available for education be expanded, so that all the potential quality of all schools improves. So how can we all Australians lose from all this unanimity? It's simple, really. It is right, proper and just that public funds available for schools be distributed equitably, with special attention given to those who are disadvantaged. This should make some difference to educational outcomes. But only some. Study after study has shown that making a real difference in educational outcomes at the top, the middle and the bottom of the heap comes from the quality of the teaching, not the quantity of the resources or staff available. Better-resourced schools can do things that help good teaching, including smaller classes, more personalised teaching, better pastoral care and so on. But no one has ever established any direct relationship between inputs and outcomes, and there are many cases where very well-resourced schools, with superior SES levels, perform worse than less-resourced schools with better teachers and better leaders. That the political parties have carried out a reasonably intelligent, if excessively ideological, argument about balancing the need for attention to teacher quality and the need for attention to equitable resourcing all the while tending to increase resources over time has helped to keep both ends in view. The quality and quantity arguments are, of course, not contradictory. But the Gonski recommendations, however worthy, have little to say about raising standards, or how that is to be done. Or about what is to be done with the resources made available. Loading The same day that US President Donald Trump hosted the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New York aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, a political meeting of a different sort took place farther north. I am talking, of course, about the sit-down on Thursday between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland. And though you might think it was what Melania Trump wore to the black-tie dinner on the Intrepid that should have made sartorial waves, in fact, it was Trudeau's outfit in Montreal that got everyone talking. Justin Trudeau, right, with his Irish counterpart Enda Kenny in Montreal on Thursday. Credit:AP Specifically, his socks. Specifically, his mismatched Star Wars socks, one in blue and gray with R2D2 and the other in gold and black depicting C3PO. They were impossible to miss set against his dark suit, white shirt, and red tie. Trudeau seems to understand as well as any of his peers that what you wear is a political tool. The Australian health system is failing people struggling with obesity, a conference of physicians will hear this week. Research shows just 1 in 60 overweight or obese children are offered help in weight management from their doctor and "highly effective" bariatric surgery isn't easily accessible to those who need it most, says childhood obesity expert Professor Louise Baur from the University of Sydney and The Children's Hospital at Westmead. Obesity in adults will reach 35 per cent by 2025. Credit:Steve Cassell In an appeal to her colleagues at The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) 2017 Conference in Adelaide this week, the pediatrician will argue that medical professionals need to be more "mindful" when they next encounter a severe weight problem. "People with obesity quite commonly go to their doctor for a variety of reasons but they're treated for that main issue and often the underlying health issue to do with obesity isn't really addressed during the consultation," she said. The Queensland government is investigating a reported deliberate dumping of toxic firefighting foam by a business on the Gold Coast. On Friday, the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection received a tip-off that a Stapylton business, which refurbishes fire extinguishers, had dumped wastewater containing dangerous PFAS chemicals into a stormwater drain. Gold Coast fishers have been warned to consider fishing elsewhere after a reported toxic foam dumping at Stapylton. Credit:Leigh Henningham Environment officers arrived at the site just after midday, warning the business operator and taking water samples to determine whether any firefighting foam chemicals were released from the premises. As a precaution, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries warned fishers and advised them to consider fishing elsewhere for the time being. A Queensland family has been torn apart, after two young brothers were killed and another was left in a serious condition in hospital after a shocking crash near Dubbo in the early hours of Saturday. The crash, on the Newell Highway, about 12 kilometres north of Dubbo, happened about 3.30am when a 4WD and a B-double truck collided. The B-double truck rests in scrub next to the Newell Highway. Credit:Webcam Video A couple was travelling with their three children in the four-wheel drive when the collision occurred. Two boys, a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old, were found dead at the scene. A third child, a four-year-old boy with internal injuries, was flown to Westmead Children's Hospital in a serious condition. The parents of the boys suffered minor injuries, including shock, and were taken to Dubbo Base Hospital. They were released about midday on Saturday. BSP supremo Mayawati blamed the ruling BJP government's "saffron appeasement" policy for the law and order situation in the state a day after one person was killed and 15 injured in clashes in Saharanpur. By India Today Web Desk: A day after one person was killed and at least 15 others injured in caste violence in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur, BSP supremo Mayawati blamed the ruling BJP government's "saffron appeasement" policy for the law and order situation in the state. The BSP chief demanded that stern action be taken against those involved in the clashes. advertisement "Murder, violence and playing with the law and order situation has become a common sight in the name of saffron appeasement of the BJP government. People are feeling scared and terrorised because of this", Mayawati said in a party statement a day after the violence in Saharanpur. Expressing concern over the incident, she asked the government to take immediate and concerted steps to restore peace and order. "If the government does not act promptly, people will lose faith in the government machinery", the BSP chief said. SHUN SAFFRON APPEASEMENT: MAYAWATI TO BJP GOVERNMENT Mayawati asked the Adityanath government to shun saffron appeasement and do justice to the people of the state by following what they say. "It has become a kind of fashion to set new traditions by taking out processions without permission and create violence. The BJP government has totally failed to rein in such elements", she said. "After communal incidents, casteist clashes have rocked the state. This shows that the BJP is incapable of providing better law and order and controlling crime in the state, Mayawati added. The violence in Saharanpur broke out following a dispute over loud music being played during a procession being taken out by 20-25 youths belonging to the upper caste Thakur community. These youths were on their way to take part in a function to garland a statue of Rajput warrior king Maharana Pratap. Dalit locals objected to the loud music in the procession that was taken out from Shabbirpur village to Simlana village, leading to the clashes. (WITH INPUTS FROM PTI) Also read | 1 killed, houses torched as Thakurs, Dalits clash in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur Also read | Yogi Adityanath strikes at VIP security but keeps Z+ cover to Akhilesh, Mulayam, Mayawati Also read | Saharanpur violence over Ambedkar rally: 2 FIRs against BJP MP Raghav Lakhanpal ALSO WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- "I think these measures demonstrate that we have been listened to and taken seriously," said Sandy*, the mother of Amy*, who was allegedly raped by three men in the Geelong suburb of St Albans Park in 2015. The new initiatives, which will be announced by the Andrews government on Sunday, follow a Fairfax Media campaign in March to raise awareness of the issue of insufficient support and protection for alleged victims navigating their way through the justice system. The mother of a girl allegedly raped in Geelong two years ago has welcomed the introduction of several new measures to help victims of violent crime including $28.5 million in funding and an increase in support services. Brothers Kevin Andrew Wild, Allan Mark Wild and Brodie Mark Wild were charged with multiple counts of rape and related offences, and committed to stand trial. They pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial was discontinued and charges dropped when Amy, now 16, decided she was too distressed to undergo what she was told would be a "brutal" cross-examination in court. A discontinuance of prosecution does not amount to an acquittal. "When we told Amy [about the changes], she was just beaming," said Sandy. "She felt if some of these measures had been in place previously, the outcome in her case might have been different. "She hopes that this will mean that other victims, particularly children, will see that there is some protection for them and some help, and that they are not alone and that more girls and women will report their assaults and see the process through to the end." Premier Daniel Andrews and Attorney-General Martin Pakula visited the family in the days following The Age's stories. "Nothing we can do can ease her pain or change what occurred to her," Mr Andrews said at the time. "But if we can, through the brave telling of her story and some reform, make things just that little bit easier in the future then that's government at its best." As part of this year's Victorian state budget, released last week, Labor is promising $28.5 million to boost the number of frontline staff and support services for victims, witnesses and vulnerable children. The measures nominate victims of carjackings, home invasions, family violence and sexual offences as a focus. BEIJING - The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big - and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you. That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's sister to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors, renewing questions about the Kushner family's business ties to China. Jared Kushner is married to Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka. In a presentation Saturday in Beijing, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project. Credit:Emily Rauhala Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure what's known as an investor visa. The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to invest in US projects that create jobs and then apply to immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses. As a businessman, he courted Chinese firms, most notably Anbang Insurance Group, the Chinese financial firm linked to members of the country's ruling Communist Party. In March, Kushner Cos. said it ended talks with Anbang for an investment in its headquarters at 666 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. The potential deal had raised eyebrows because of its favourable terms for the Kushners, who are seeking help with the troubled property. Even as Kushner seeks to keep a distance from the family business in his new role, his persistent ties to the company have come under scrutiny. He remains the beneficiary of a series of trusts that own his stakes in Kushner Cos. properties and other investments, worth as much as $600 million ($A809m), and probably more. Since his move into politics, he has divested his stakes in dozens of other entities used to hold the investments, although he has held on to the vast majority. Kushner's government ethics disclosure form shows he was a manager at or president of six entities associated with the Jersey City project until January. He divested his stake in one of them, K One Journal Square LLC, in January. It is unclear what happened with the other entities, or precisely how he shed his stake. He has divested his stake in other properties by selling to a trust that benefits his family members. The filing does not disclose the precise ownership interest of the building held by his siblings and parents. His relatives' embrace of the EB-5 program may also pose complications for Kushner. The program has been labelled "U.S. citizenship for sale," and it has come under scrutiny after a series of fraud and abuse scandals. Watchdogs have noted the program's lax safeguards against illicit sources of money. Seoul: In a region already tense over nuclear threats, North Korea accused the South Korean and US intelligence agencies Friday of plotting to assassinate its leader, Kim Jong Un, and it warned of an unspecified counterattack. The North Korean government said it had recently uncovered a "hideous terrorists' group" that the South Koreans and the CIA had sent into the country on a secret mission to kill Kim with biochemical agents. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Credit:AP A statement carried by the country's official news agency, KCNA, said that South Korea's National Intelligence Service had hired a North Korean logger working in the Russian Far East in 2014 to attack Kim. The existence of such a plot is impossible to verify. The National Intelligence Service dismissed the accusations as groundless. MARIGOT Association Trait d Union and the Gendarmerie signed an agreement on Friday to help victims of crimes and domestic violence. The association which was formed a year ago will have offices at the Gendarmerie substation in Marigot and French Quarter where they will meet with victims bimonthly. The association will provide free legal and medical advice to victims of crimes. They will also assist the victims to sue for damages and also refer victims for physiological help. At the signing ceremony on Friday were Commandant of the Gendarmerie Sebastien Manzoni, President of Trait dUnion, Jean-Marie Thevenet, lawyer Helene Bordas, and Secretary and adviser Serge Genovese. Consultations for victims will alternate between the two Gendarmerie stations, in Marigot on the first of every month, and on the 15th of the month in French Quarter. Victims are guaranteed complete confidentiality. The first consultation for victims will be on May 15, 2017, in French Quarter. Consultations will also be held in Grand Case on Monday and Wednesday mornings, at the homeless shelter Le Manteau in Marigot, and at the Louis-Constant Fleming Hospital. GREAT BAY (DCOMM) Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that the removal of bollards on Front and Back Street will commence on Sunday, May 7 up until and including Tuesday, May 9. The removal of the bollards will be carried out between 7.00am and 4.00pm. There will be a temporary road closure in the area where the bollard is being removed. Once the bollard has been removed, the road will be re-opened. Motorized traffic will be allowed on Monday and Tuesday in the morning for the drop-off of school children and in the afternoon for pick-up. The works will be carried out by personnel from Ministry VROMI. Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause. By Press Trust of India: Modis visit Colombo, May 6 (PTI) Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena invoked Lord Buddhas principles to convince the joint opposition to drop their plan to show black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit here next week. "Are they Buddhists?" Sirisena asked with regards to those calling for the protest during Modis visit on May 12 to Sri Lanka, a Buddhist-majority nation. advertisement The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modis visit to take part in the celebrations marking the UN Vesak Day, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha, the Colombo Gazette said. Sirisena said everyone must understand that strengthening the Indo-Lanka ties established since introduction of Buddhism in Lanka, does not mean that Lanka is bowing down to India. The president asserted that he will not sign any deal with any country which is detrimental to Sri Lanka. He said that he came into power not to hand over a part of the country to another country or to annul the privileges and rights of the citizens by signing unfavorable agreements with other countries. Joint opposition Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa had said Modi was to discuss a deal with the government during his visit. Weerawansa said India and Sri Lanka are discussing a deal on Trincomalee which he says must be opposed, the report said. The Sri Lankan government had earlier said that it will go ahead with plans to sign a deal with India to jointly operate a strategic oil facility in the eastern port district of Trincomalee despite opposition from other parties. Weerawansa urged all those who oppose the deal to raise black flags in protest of Modis visit. "They are trying to sell Sri Lanka to India," he said. He also called on joint opposition supporters to take to the streets and push for an early election. Former president Mahinda had described the proposed deal as a "betrayal" of Sri Lankas national asset. Modi is due to visit Sri Lanka on May 12 to attend the UN Vesak Day celebration in Colombo. On the sidelines of the celebrations, he is expected to attend a series of religious and other events including the opening of a new hospital in Dickoya, funded by India. According to a report in a local media, nearly 6,000 police officers have been deployed to provide security for Prime Minister Modi and for other related events during his visit to the country. advertisement The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security. "No acts of sabotage can be carried out during the Indian Prime Ministers visit. The Police have been strictly instructed to pay special attention to the matter," Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara was quoted as saying. PTI AJR ZH AKJ ZH --- ENDS --- Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. THE BIGGEST STORIES ACROSS TAUNTON IN YOUR INBOX Assault, murder, holding a woman hostage in her own home and raids against Somerset businesses. It's been another busy week for the courts which have been handing out justice to to those who have broken the law and must pay for their crimes. Here are some of the biggest cases before the courts this week. Dad jailed for killing baby son A father has been jailed for life after he assaulted and murdered his three-month old son. Robert Hinz was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison and was told he would serve a minimum of 21 years before he would be considered for parole. The 34-year-old of Carysfort Road, Bournemouth, was found guilty on March 28 of the murder of baby Julian Hinz following a 12-day trial at Winchester Crown Court. He was also convicted of two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of causing grievous bodily harm without intent. Sex offender had only just been released Next up is the case of a 27-year-old who committed his fourth sexual assault just days after being released from prison. He was warned to expect a 'substantial' prison when he appeared before a judge on Friday. Mitchell Rudge had targeted a 16-year-old girl who had been studying at Bridgwater Library on December 15 last year, showing her pornographic material on his phone and telling her: I want to do that to you. Man threatened ex with taser This is the face of the 42-year-old man who attacked his former partner in her own home, tying her up and threatening her with a taser after their relationship broke down. Hosam Khamis was jailed by Judge David Evans at Taunton Crown Court on Tuesday (May 2) for the horrific display of aggression. It was on September 21 last year that Khamis made the trip from Newquay, where he had been living, to Shepton to visit the woman. When she opened the door to him, he bound her wrists with zip-ties and forced her back inside with a taser, telling her the attack was revenge for "wasting years of his life". Once inside the house, he gagged her with a shirt and cling-film and threatened to kill her, remaining at the house for several hours. London gang raided family firm A London gang caused so much damage when they raided a Somerset business it was forced to close for several days. Miles Tools and Machinery Centre on Pen Mill Trading Estate was already reeling from roadworks taking place nearby when burglars smashed their way in. A court was told 50,000 worth of equipment was taken from the family-run store on February 23 last year. This week, one member of the gang was jailed for his part on the raid. Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Never miss Somerset's latest and breaking news again by signing up to our Daily Newsletter The funeral service for Preston School teacher Jeff Stone will take place on Wednesday, May 17 at 11.30am at St Johns Church in Yeovil. A wake will be held at The Yeovil Court Hotel on West Coker Road. The teacher, who taught at Preston School for almost 50 years, passed away on Tuesday, May 2, and people have been paying tributes on social media since the news broke. The school has now informed parents the school will close early on the day of the funeral to allow anyone who wants to pay their respects to attend the service. As you can imagine, having worked at the school for 49 years, a large proportion of the current staff would like to attend the funeral and pay their respects Principal Gregg Morrison wrote in a letter to the parents. As a mark of respect to Jeff and his family, and to allow colleagues to do this the Chair of Governors and I have taken the decision to end the school day at 10.30am to allow staff to attend the funeral. At 10.29am there will be a school-wide minutes silence so that the whole school community can pay its respects to a much-loved teacher and colleague. The service will be followed by a private family service at Yeovil Crematorium, but everyone is invited to attend the wake and continue to celebrate Jeff Stones life. Breakdown of Indiana Statehouse races across South Bend area The 2022 election is a midterm election. Voters will come out to to vote in various Indiana statehouse races Nov. 8 from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. NASA officials wished Mars a happy new year on Twitter Friday (May 5), using the milestone as an opportunity to review exactly how the Red Planet's years work and how they differ from Earth's. The space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, tweeted an image of a party-hat-wearing Curiosity rover watching fireworks explode in the Martian sky. An hour later, JPL tweeted a link to a new video explainer about the Red Planet year. See more Mars is farther from the sun than Earth is and therefore takes considerably longer to complete one orbit: A Red Planet year lasts about 687 Earth days, compared to the 365-day year we're used to. Scientists decided years ago, somewhat arbitrarily, that Mars years begin on the spring equinox in the planet's northern hemisphere. And now spring has sprung. Here on Earth, we're used to seasons of equal length. But that's not the case on Mars, because the Red Planet's more eccentric path around the sun leads to varying orbital speeds. On Mars, spring and summer last 194 and 178 Earth days, respectively, whereas winter lasts 154 days and fall just 142 days, NASA officials said. The car-size Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August 2012, kicking off a surface mission that was initially pegged to last a single Martian year. But Curiosity continues to roll along and is now exploring the foothills of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Red Planet's sky. Residents of the city of Mars, Pennsylvania, celebrate the Martian New Year with a two-day science, technology, engineering and math festival, NASA officials said in a statement. The current festival lasts until Saturday (May 6). The next opportunity for Pennsylvania Martians to celebrate in this way won't come until March 23, 2019. After that, Mars New Year revelers will have to wait until Feb. 7, 2021. Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. By Press Trust of India: Colombo, May 6 (PTI) Sri Lanka will deploy nearly 6,000 police officers to provide special security for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other related events during his visit to the country next week to attend the UN Vesak festival, a top police official has said. The deployment includes ordinary police officers, the Special Task Force (STF) and the officers who have specialised knowledge in VVIP security, according to Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara. advertisement Quoting Jayasundara, the Daily News said nearly 6,000 police officers have been deployed to provide security for Modi and for other related events during the Vesak festival. The joint opposition has called for a black flag protest during Modis visit on May 12 to take part in the celebrations marking the UN Vesak Day, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha. "There will be strict security measures in Colombo and Kandy district. In addition, a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held," he added. On the sidelines of the celebrations, Modi is expected to attend a series of religious and other events including the opening of a new hospital in Dickoya, funded by India. "No acts of sabotage can be carried out during the Indian Prime Ministers visit. The Police have been strictly instructed to pay special attention to the matter," Jayasundara was quoted as saying. The official said a special security plan has been adopted covering the key Buddhist temples across the country where Vesak events will be held. PTI ZH AKJ ZH --- ENDS --- A giant meteor impact on Earth nearly 2 billion years ago triggered more explosive and long-lived volcanic eruptions than previously thought, a new study finds. This finding sheds light on how meteor bombardment may have dramatically shaped the evolution of the early Earth, researchers in the new study said. Meteor strikes have left giant craters all over Earth. For instance, the cosmic impact that scientists think ended the age of dinosaurs about 66 million years ago left behind a crater more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) wide near the town of Chicxulub (CHEEK-sheh-loob) in Mexico. [In Photos: The Impact Craters of North America] Gargantuan craters are seen pockmarking the rest of the solar system as well. Recent studies of such impact craters on the moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars suggested that meteor strikes could trigger volcanic activity. However, over the course of millions of years, geological activity has eradicated the vast majority of ancient impact craters on Earth. This has limited research into whether meteor strikes could also set off volcanism on Earth, said study senior author Balz Kamber, a geochemist in Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, and his colleagues. To see what effects giant impacts might have had on the surface of the Earth, the researchers analyzed one of the oldest meteor craters on the planet, the 1.85-billion-year-old Sudbury basin in Canada. It's also the second-largest and best-preserved crater on Earth, measuring about 93 to 161 miles (150 to 260 km) in diameter. A 2015 study estimated that the crater may have been created by a comet about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide. From 2013 to 2014, the scientists in the new study collected samples from the 0.93-mile-thick (1.5 km) layer of rock that filled the Sudbury crater. Although the crater is easy for researchers to get to, "there are lots and lots of blackflies in the spring, and later mosquitoes, and in the summer, there are a lot of blueberries, and so a lot of black bears," Kamber said. The scientists examined 139 samples from 15 locations in the crater. Their analysis suggested that this material not only consisted of rock that had melted from the heat of the impact, but was also peppered with tiny fragments of volcanic rock. The researchers noted that these volcanic rocks often had very distinctive angular shapes resembling crab claws. These shapes form when gas bubbles expand in molten rock that then catastrophically explodes, a feature of violent eruptions involving water, such as those seen under glaciers in Iceland, the researchers explained. They said these angular Sudbury volcanic rocks likely arose when seawater flooded the crater floor, either gradually or suddenly. In addition, the scientists found that the composition of these volcanic-rock fragments varied in nature, with some originating from molten crust and others from "a deeper magma source," Kamber said. These findings suggested that the volcanic activity that created these rocks changed over time and was therefore prolonged, he said. How long might this meteor-triggered volcanism have lasted? "I think 1 million years would have been an upper limit," Kamber said. "Hundreds of thousands of years is a more reasonable estimate." These findings shed light on how meteors could have influenced the evolution of early Earth, Kamber said. "About 3.8 billion to 4 billion years ago, we know the inner solar system experienced heavy bombardment from impactors," Kamber said. The oldest rocks on the planet coincide with the last peak of this bombardment, suggesting that "the older rocks on Earth were somehow destroyed by this bombardment," he said. "The bombardment alone would not have done sufficient damage to have caused the comprehensive loss of primordial rocks on Earth, but if that bombardment also triggered additional eruptions, that could have buried the primordial rocks and plowed them back into the mantle." The scientists said they are now investigating whether the deep magma they detected in the crater came from the deep crust or from the mantle layer just beneath Earth's crust. They detailed their findings April 22 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Original article on Live Science. "Seasonal Changes in Carbon Dioxide" was the winning entry in the "Professional" category for a data visualization contest hosted by the journal Science. "Wow us with your best data!" That was the challenge issued by the journal Science for its second annual data-visualization competition, called Data Stories. And today (May 4), Science announced the four winning entries. A judging panel chose standouts in three categories: student, professional and corporate entity. An online poll conducted from April 17-23 picked one People's Choice winner. The contest, open for entries from Feb. 13 to April 14, accepted short videos no longer than 90 seconds in length, looking for submissions that used imaginative animation and storytelling methods to visually communicate stories crafted from scientific data. Entries were judged on "creativity, complexity and clarity," a contest representative told Live Science in an email. [See Video of the Data Visualization Winners] In the Student Entry category, the winner was "Wait ... How Many People Died?" by Kate Bredbenner, a doctoral candidate studying HIV in the Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics at Rockefeller University in New York. Bredbenner also produces and stars in a YouTube series called SimpleBiologist, in which she draws on whiteboards to explain scientific research. She used this technique for her contest entry, which explored the challenge of grasping the meaning behind large numbers, particularly when they represent death tolls. "This video was made to provide visuals for big numbers, which is something that I frequently have to do as a science communicator. It also shows the magnitude of the death tolls in early American history compared to today," Bredbenner said in a statement. Top prize for the Professional Entry category went to "Seasonal Changes in Carbon Dioxide," submitted by Gregory Shirah, a producer of Earth-science-related visualizations for the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In Shirah's video, a colorful 3D visualization of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows how the greenhouse gas behaves in the Northern Hemisphere from season to season, and how the gas is influenced by changing weather patterns and airflow over land features. For the Corporate Entry category, the top prize was awarded to "Ecological Footprint of Countries: Deficit or Reserve?" submitted by Ronna Kelly, director of marketing and communications for Global Footprint Network, a research organization dedicated to shaping sustainability practices around the world. The video showcases visualizations created by the open-data platform Ecological Footprint Explorer and explores "consumption and availability of renewable natural resources for more than 200 countries and regions," according to the video's YouTube description. And the People's Choice award went to "Listening to Landscapes" by Sam Hooper, a doctoral candidate with the Kennedy Geospatial Lab at Oregon State University. Hooper turned to animated satellite data to illustrate the dynamic nature of Earth's surface as it gradually shifts over time. "It's often difficult to think of a landscape existing in any other form than how we presently see it," Hooper said in a statement. "Landscapes, however, are constantly changing," he added. All of the video submissions for the 2017 Data Stories competition are available to view on the Science website. Original article on Live Science. Brussels, may 5, 2017 (SPS) -The European Union (EU) hailed Wednesday in Brussels the adoption of a UN Resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso), and reiterated support to the efforts of the Secretary General of the Organization to reach a fair solution that ensures self-determination of the Sahrawi people. The European Union welcomed the adoption by the United Nations Security Council of a resolution on the renewal of the Minurso mandate until 30 April 2018, said an EU spokesperson. On Friday, fifteen members of the Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution 2351 (2017) extending the Minurso mandate until 30 April 2018. The Security Council members reaffirmed their support to the resumption of peace negotiations for the conflict in Western Sahara. In the interest of stability and security in the region, the EU reiterates support to the UN Secretary Generals efforts for a fair, sustainable and mutually acceptable political solution that ensures the self-determination of the Sahrawi people as part of compatible arrangements with the principles and targets of the Charter of the United Nations, she stated. The EU encourages both parties (Morocco and the Polisario Front) to seize the opportunity provided by this decision and the withdrawal of military forces in Guerguerat area to work for sustainable peace. Besides, the EU called all parties to comply with the ceasefire terms. The UN resolution also backs the initiative of its Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is expected to present a report in the next 30 days to resume peace talks. It also called on both parties to show political willingness and work in an appropriate atmosphere for dialogue to resume negotiations. (SPS) 062/090/700 Australia Western Sahara Association POLISARIO Front May 04, 2017 The Saharawi people and their representative organizations, including the democratically elected SADR government, have long protested the illegal mining and export of high quality phosphate rock from an area of Western Sahara which has been under armed occupation by Morocco since 1975. The trade has continued despite the commitment of the United Nations in 1991 to ensure for the people of Western Sahara a self-determination process, something otherwise achieved throughout Africa. Bir Lehlu, Western Sahara (4 May 2017). The government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (the SADR) and the Saharawi national liberation movement, the Polisario Front, announced that they have secured through legal means in South Africa the interception and detention of a shipment of phosphate mineral rock exported from Western Sahara which had been destined for a New Zealand importer. The cargo, at an estimated 54,000 tonnes and worth just over $5 million (US), is a commodity used in the manufacture of agricultural fertilizer. It had been loaded aboard the Marshall Islands flagged bulk carrier NM Cherry Blossom on the coast of occupied Western Sahara last month. Saharawi authorities initiated legal proceedings in South Africa when it became clear that the ship would call into Port Elizabeth to reprovision during a month-long journey. The ship remains at Port Elizabeth. The Saharawi people and their representative organizations, including the democratically elected SADR government, have long protested the illegal mining and export of high quality phosphate rock from an area of Western Sahara which has been under armed occupation by Morocco since 1975. The trade has continued despite the commitment of the United Nations in 1991 to ensure for the people of Western Sahara a self-determination process, something otherwise achieved throughout Africa. A handful of companies worldwide remain involved in the trade, including two in New Zealand. Emhamed Khadad, a member of the Polisario leadership, remarked that the mining and export of what is a non-renewable resource from a place under occupation where the UN has tried to pursue the peaceful assurance of a basic right to the Saharawi people is wrong on many levels. It is a violation of well-settled principles of international law. It is morally indefensible. And its bad business, in that the few companies involved face reputational risks, and as we have seen in several European countries investor withdrawal. Saharawi authorities have attempted to engage the companies involved, and did so in New Zealand along with the government because of that countrys historical support for self-determination in East Timor (Timor-Leste) and Western Sahara. In September 2015 and September 2016 position statements about Western Sahara, the Fertilizer Association of New Zealand a representative agency of both New Zealand companies involved claimed the purchasing of the phosphate rock had a legal basis. Despite this, the companies have never responded to Saharawi requests for dialogue, and would not disclose a purported legal opinion justifying the purchasing of the commodity. Khadad went on to note: This is a non-renewable resource, one which needs to stay in the ground until the Saharawi people are given what is the basic commitment of the international community to choose their future. The seizure of the cargo under court order comes after Saharawi authorities successfully concluded a case against the European Union for extending a free trade agreement with Morocco into Western Sahara. In that case, the Court of Justice of the European Union noted in its December 2016 decision that Morocco did not have governing competency or any territorial claim to Western Sahara. The territory, the Court found, is to be treated as a separate entity from Morocco and the consent of its people (the Saharawi people and not more recent settlers) required for development and export of resources. The interdiction of this shipment is a further use of peaceful means to apply the law, for Saharawi people denied the most basic of rights in a nearly decolonized world, and who must endure a brutal occupation with widely documented human rights violations, remarked Khadad. We have tried to patiently engage with the companies involved, and with some we have prevailed. The New Zealand companies are responsible for a substantial share of the trade. It was right to pursue legal action to vindicate a clear legal right to this commodity, and important our people relied on a well-regarded justice system in an African country to do that. (SPS) 062/090 https://www.pambazuka.org/human-security/western-sahara-seizure-cargo-phosphate-rock-destined-new-zealand Asturias, 05 May 2017 (SPS) - The General Assembly of the Principality of Asturias urged Friday European, Spanish and Asturias companies to cease activities that may favor the perpetuation of the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the exploitation of its natural resources, in a resolution adopted during its plenary session. According to the resolution adopted, Asturias Parliament expressed its "concern" about the exploitation of the natural resources of Western Sahara by European companies, which "contradicts international and European laws." The General Assembly recalled the "illegality" of any commercial activity in Western Sahara without the consent of the Saharawi people. Therefore, it calls for compliance with the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 21 December 2016 in which "established that the association and liberalization agreements between Morocco and the European Union do not apply to the territory of Western Sahara ". Finally, the Asturias Parliament also calls for a self-determination referendum to end the conflict in Western Sahara. (SPS) 062/090/TRA Shaheed El-Hafed (Refugee Camps), May 6, 2017 (SPS) - Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelino Medina Gonzalez will Sunday undertake an official visit to the Sahrawi Republic, according to sources of the Cuba Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister will begin his visit in the Saharawi Refugee Camps on Sunday and Monday, where he meets with the Saharawi authorities, including the President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali. He will also visit Cuban aid workers in the medical and education sectors, who offer their solidarity to the Saharawi people. (SPS) 062/090/TRA The teachers said the administration has not reassigned residential facility to 150 first and second year students after they took part in protests against the move. Students claimed they were denied renewal of hostel accommodation for the next academic year for taking part in protests against the college going autonomous. By Arpan Rai: The faculty at St. Stephen's college has threatened to tender mass resignation to protest against the administration's decision to "punish" students for voicing concerns against the college taking the autonomous route. The teachers said the administration has not reassigned residential facility to 150 first and second year students after they took part in protests against the move. The teachers said their accommodation was taken during the examination month, which has forced them to hunt for a house rather than study. advertisement The college faculty said they will conduct a Staff Council meeting to deliberate over mass resignation in the coming week. "It's not just mass faculty resignations that the college administration and governing body should expect in the coming week but also stern reaction from societies in St. Stephens if the authorities do not consult staff and students on the issue of granting autonomy," said Nandita Narain, Delhi University Teacher's Association president and a professor of mathematics at St. Stephen's college. According to the students, they were asked questions regarding their thoughts on the autonomy during the residence interview, a mandatory exercise before the grant of a spot on hostels. They claimed the residence list - released on Thursday - did not feature names of several students who had been granted spots in the hostel earlier on merit STUDENTS FACING UNFAIR ACTION This has not only left the students worried but also anguished. A student requesting anonymity fearing action from college authorities said, "Administration's decision has left even students with a neutral take on the issue angered. They are facing unfair action for something they did not even participate in." Students who questioned removal from the residence list were told by dean of residence Revd Monodeep Daniel, "The Heavens were not kind to you." "We were also told that discipline was the primary criterion in the interview and the administration will grant residence to whomever it likes," said another student. In order to protest the move, 360 students out of 400 resident scholars boycotted dinner on Thursday. Calls made to the college principal J Verghese, dean of residence and associate dean of residence were not answered. ALSO READ | Bye-Bye DU: St Stephen's to go autonomous soon; students demand say in decision ALSO READ | Faculty resignations pour in over St Stephen's autonomy row --- ENDS --- Political theorist Benjamin Barber, who died April 24, wrote about the importance of education as a public good. Education not only speaks to the public, it is the means by which a public is forged. As he noted, education transforms individuals into responsible community members, first in their classrooms and ultimately in our democracy. Local school districts are also the basic units of democratic government. Michigan professor Marina Whitman recently noted that the essence of a public good is that it is non-excludable; i.e. all can partake, and non-rivalrous; i.e. giving one person the good does not diminish its availability to another. Some school reforms strengthen education as a public good; such as school finance reform, which seeks to ensure that all children have adequate educational resources. Unfortunately, the reforms pushed in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations attack education as a public good. For example, choice charters and vouchers is a favorite policy of all three administrations. Choice operates on the excludable premise of saving a few. In operation, choice makes education rivalrous. As a New York appellate court observed, diverting funds from public schools to charters benefit a select few at the expense of the common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated. The experience in Americas major cities reveals choices damaging results. At a recent NAACP hearing, New Orleans residents spoke of an all-charter system rife with fraud and mismanagement. The schools are highly segregated with poor children and children of color relegated to schools with limited resources, inexperienced teachers and long commutes. Michigans policy of unfettered charter expansion, together with a money-follows-the-child school funding system decimated Detroits public schools, along with other poor districts, and has left schools across that state intensely segregated. Chicagos choice policies disenfranchised mostly communities of color, shuttering neighborhood schools to open charters with a history of excluding ELL students and students with disabilities and with expulsions at 10 times the rate of Chicagos public schools. Recent research from Roosevelt University reveals that Chicagos policies toward charters are a major factor causing the fiscal crisis in Chicagos public schools. Chicagos mayor Rahm Emmanuel claimed to close neighborhood schools, in predominately poor and African-American communities, to right-size the district. However, he then proceeded to open a slew of charter schools in neighborhoods with declining enrollment, demonstrating that he had no interest in right-sizing. The public school district, responsible for charter facilities, saw its debt burden increase markedly. A third of Chicagos charters alone carried a debt burden of more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The charter strain, coupled with Chicagos existing $6 billion debt, forced public schools to cut special education teachers, advanced courses, the arts, increased overcrowding and left schools without funds for basic supplies, such as toilet paper. A new study in California similarly showed that its charter policy operates without regard to the health of the public school system. California has spent billions on charters without considering the quality of charters or the impact on host districts. The report, prepared by the organization, In the Public Interest, noted that to be eligible for school construction, a public school district must demonstrate the need for seats. However, charters have no such requirement. As a result, California has spent more than a billion dollars opening schools in areas with no need, and often opening schools that perform worse than public schools. Connecticuts policies regarding charters also fail to consider the impact on children in and out of charter schools. State officials turn a blind eye to segregation, exclusion and astronomical suspensions in charters. They ignore restrictions on over-saturating districts and directives to consider local opposition. Across this country, public money is diverted from public schools to charters with no consideration of need, quality or the impact on the majority of public school students. The result is invariably the creation of exclusive schools, out of the reach of voter oversight, at the expense of public schools that serve everyone. Charter advocates claimed charters would be superior without the constraints faced by local districts. However, after more than 20 years, charters are no better than public schools. Moreover, they leave public schools without resources to serve the most vulnerable and communities disenfranchised by unelected school boards. As Barber predicted, What begins as an assault on bureaucratic rigidity becomes an assault on government and all things public ... (destroying) a peoples right to govern themselves publicly ... (and) to establish the conditions for the development of public citizens. Reforms that gut public education attack democracy. Wendy Lecker is a columnist for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is senior attorney at the Education Law Center. A speakeasy bar dedicated to Chinese spirits and liqueurs is opening on Greek Street on May 8, offering Londoners the chance to drink spirits, wine and beers not usually available in Europe. The Tea Room, below steamed bun cafe Bun House, is launching with a 21-long menu built around Chinese ingredients. The owners and founders, Z He and Alex Peffly, talked the Standard through the concept during an exclusive first look, which can be seen in the video above. Recreating underground bars from 1960's Hong Kong and taking influence from old-school opium dens, the bar will pour out Chinese spirits, liqueurs and wines, and flavour cocktails using imported herbs, spices, fruit and vegetables. Syrups, juices and bitters will be made in house. The cocktail list includes the likes of a rice wine and aged tangerine mix, made with a base of 30-year-old Baijiu (Chinas national drink, a white spirit made from grain) and something called a Daikon & Bak Choi, made of a bak choi cold infusion Moutai (a distilled liquor) with Cheongsaam green tea liqueur and home-made daikon liqueur. The definition of Chinese is being used somewhat liberally Taiwanese whisky Kavalan passes muster under the controversial One China Policy but the theme is stuck to across the menu, with eight craft beers shipped from independent Hong Kong breweries. Many items on the menu have never been sold in a London bar before. Matching the drinks, the Tea Room will lay on sharing plates of Cantonese cuisine. Tea Room is open from 5pm 12.30pm Sunday to Wednesday, and 5pm late, Thursday to Sunday, bun.house Z oe Ball is to take a break from her Saturday afternoon Radio 2 shows following the death of her boyfriend Billy Yates. Mr Yates, 40, a cameraman for the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, was found dead at his home in Putney, south London, on Thursday evening. Ms Ball will be replaced by Kate Thornton for the Zoe Ball show at 3pm on Saturday, while Suzi Perry will stand in on May 13, the BBC said. The DJ and television presenter says she is "devastated" and has made a plea for privacy. Her spokesman said: "Zoe is devastated and requests that during this difficult time the media respect her privacy as well as the privacy of her friends and family." Hours before Mr Yates was found dead, Ms Ball had retweeted a message from The Samaritans which said: "If it really doesn't feel like the force is with you today, we're here and ready to listen". The Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two host posted a picture of a flower on her Instagram page on Friday, along with the caption: "My sweet love X." Ms Ball, 46, is believed to have been in a relationship with Mr Yates for several months. She announced her separation from husband of 18 years Norman Cook, known as DJ Fatboy Slim, in September last year. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said on Friday: "Police were called at 6.40pm on Thursday May 4 to a residential address in Putney, South London following reports of a man found deceased. "Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended. "A man believed to be aged 40 was pronounced dead at the scene. "The death is not being treated as suspicious." P olice have launched a manhunt after a woman was followed and shoved to the ground in a terrifying attempted sex assault in north London. The victim, a woman in her 30s, was grabbed by the shoulders and pushed onto the floor in the broad daylight street attack in Barnet last Thursday. She kicked out at her attacker as she lay on the ground on her hands and knees while the suspect exposed himself to her. The woman eventually managed to scramble away and the attacker fled from the scene on York Way in Whetstone. Police are now investigating the attempted sexual assault, which happened at around 11.50pm on Thursday. They are hoping to track down a number of cars which passed the attack as it was happening and sounded their car horns in a bid to ward off the attacker. Police want to hear from drivers who are thought to have passed the scene. / Andy Hepburn/PA Wire Detectives said they are eager to hear from these drivers and other members of the public who were in the area at the time. Following the attack the suspect fled towards Oakleigh Road North. He is described as a black man in his late teens or early 20s. He was dressed in black Nike trains, black tracksuit bottoms and a black jogging-style top. Anyone with information is asked to call Barnet CID on 0208 733 4525 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. A man has been arrested over the murder of a young woman stabbed to death at a house in east London. Karolina Chiwluk was fatally knifed at an address in Mile End just before 11pm on Thursday. She had been at a house in Dora Street when a fight broke out, Scotland Yard said. A woman, aged 42, and a man, 24, who also lived at the house, stepped in to protect the 20-year-old victim but were also injured. Stab victim: Karolina Chwiluk / Facebook Miss Chwiluk, who is yet to be formally identified, was pronounced dead at the scene. She is among 10 people stabbed to death in the capital in just under two weeks. Police launched a search for Grzesiek Kosiec, 23, following the incident. He was arrested on Saturday afternoon on suspicion of murder and is currently being held at an east London police station. Anyone with any information can contact the incident room on 020 8345 3734, or police via 101 or by tweeting @MetCC. To give information anonymously call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org. G enerous donors have pledged thousands of pounds to help a 90-year-old woman allegedly knifed in the neck in a horror attack in west London. The victim was left fighting for life in hospital after being stabbed at a house in Lilac Road, West Drayton, on Thursday. She was rushed to hospital, where she remains in a critical but stable condition, with wounds to her neck and serious head injuries, police said. Joanne Killick, 32, of West Drayton, decided to set up a crowdfunding page as news of the stabbing "broke her heart". Joanne Killick started the fundraiser when she heard about the attack / Facebook So far more than 1,300 of a 2,000 target has been raised in a bid to restore the pensioner's faith in the community. She said: It broke my heart. All the roads were taped off by police and then I found out it was a 90-year-old woman. No-one ever deserves that, they should never be treated like that was why I started it. Its amazing and Im just really overwhelmed and obviously the community is really supportive. Weve been getting loads of lovely messages. Almost 100 people have donated to the cause and a nearby pub has set up a postbox for neighbours to send their messages of support to the victim's hospital bed. Ms Killick said that she has been told that the elderly woman is showing signs of recovery. She added: I havent got any nans or granddads left as mine are dead. You just have to bubble wrap grandparents these days. Im obviously going to give her the money to see whether she can pay for extra security, basically anything that makes her happy. [The family] are really overwhelmed with the response. Obviously theyre devastated. Carer Abosede Adeyinka, 52, of Hayman Crescent, in Hayes, has been charged with attempted murder. She will appear at the Old Bailey on May 30. A man has been arrested after a teenage girl was raped outside a west London shopping centre. The 17-year-old was forced towards the entrance of West 12 shopping centre in Shepherds Bush before the terrifying attack. Earlier this week police put out a public appeal to help trace a man pictured in CCTV camera footage. On Saturday detectives announced a man has been arrested in connection with the attack. The suspect was questioned at a London police station and has been released on bail. According to police, the alleged rape happened on October 27 last year. The victim and her friend were shopping in Westfield when they were approached by two men who they spent some time with and lured them into a false sense of security, police said. The friends were split up and later that night the 17-year-old girl was attacked. Police are still asking anyone with any information to come forward and contact police on 020 8733 5009 or via 101. Alternatively, they can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit the www.crimestoppers-uk.org website. A 23-year-old man has been stabbed to death in the street in west London, becoming the second person to die from knife crime in the capital in less than 12 hours. Police rushed to Waterloo Road, Uxbridge, shortly after 1am on Saturday to reports of a man found in the street with stab wounds. He was taken to a west London hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later, Scotland Yard said. The victim, from Hayes, west London, died less than 12 hours after a man, aged in his 30s, was fatally knifed during a fight in a barber's shop in Harlesden on Friday afternoon. Murder scene: A man was found stabbed in Waterloo Road, Uxbridge / Google maps He is the tenth person to die from knife crime in London in less than two weeks. Police have urged witnesses to the attack to come forward. Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Packer said: "A young man has lost his life and I am appealing to the public to give us all the help they can. "In particular I would ask anyone who was in the vicinity of Waterloo Road from midnight to early in the morning to call us. "If you saw or heard anything please do not hesitate; your information could be vital." The victims next of kin have been informed but formal identification is yet to take place, a Met Police spokesman said. He added: No arrests have been made and enquiries continue. Seun Mcmillan, 23, died on Tuesday night after he was stabbed in Barnet. Stab victim: Seun McMillan While police launched a manhunt in Mile End after Karolina Chwiluk was knifed to death inside a house on Thursday - bringing the total knife-crime related deaths up to 10 in just 11 days. The Met has responded by launching an 80-strong task force to be deployed to trouble spots to curb flare-ups of violence and is understood to have increased stop and search in knife crime hotspots. Murder investigation: Karolina Chwiluk / Facebook In a week long operation officers and police cadets are carrying out test purchases of knives in stores and promoting amnesty bins for knives around London. Police carrying out weapon sweeps on Operation Sceptre patrols have already uncovered an array of knives hidden by gangs. Any witnesses, or anyone with any information about the incident in Uxbridge, can contact the incident room on 020 8345 3865, or police via 101 or by tweeting @MetCC. To give information anonymously call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org. R ival groups of protesters have clashed in Croydon. Two separate rallies are taking place on the streets of East Croydon today with an anti-immigration march and also a counter-protest welcoming immigrants to London. Hundreds of demonstrators were met with a heavy police presence as officers lined the road and kettled the two separate groups away from each other in a bid to avoid violence. Protesters were seen pushing and shoving into police as they chanted and yelled slogans. Protesters: Outside Lunar House, the Home Office HQ. / Jenn Selby Fascist group the South East Alliance organised the initial rally outside Lunar House asylum centre, which is the Home Offices HQ for UK Visas and Immigration. Around 40 members of the alliance marched through East Croydon today, holding signs reading: Say no to sharia and immigration ruined our NHS and social housing. A line of police moving through Croydon. / Jenn Selby But a counter-rally, organised by United Against Fascism and PCS, was arranged in response and saw hundreds of people descend to the streets to defend immigration. Around 400 people gathered in George Street for the anti-fascist rally, with people holding signs reading: Refugees welcome here. The anti-fascist protest outside Lunar House. / Jenn Selby According to people at the scene, a large line of police kept the anti-immigration protesters away from the pro-immigration group although the two can see and hear each other chanting. One passer-by said anti-fascist protesters played grime artist Stormzys hit track Shut up at the anti-immigration campaigners. The fierce protests come after the brutal attack on Kurdish-Iranian boy Reker Ahmed who was left fighting for his life in hospital after a suspected hate attack. The 17-year-old, who lived in south-east London, was chased and badly beaten while at a bus stop in Croydon on March 31. A train surfer was hit by a train in south London after "leaping between carriages before slipping onto tracks", shocked passengers said. Emergency services rushed to Brixton after reports that a man had been hit by a train just after 2pm on Saturday. Shaken travellers described the moment the train came screeching to a halt and claimed the man had run off down the tracks. Edward Lawrence, 22, said: As we were approaching Brixton the train horn went for up to 10 seconds, the driver slammed on the brakes and the train came to a screeching halt. Emergency response: Crews rushed to Brixton / Edward Lawrence What seems to have happened is an individual has gone under the train. He crawled under the train then after the train had travelled over him he stood up, dusted himself off and ran off down the tracks The conductor said someone had jumped out on the train, gone under, picked himself up and run off. Travel chaos: Trains were held up between Brixton and Blackfriars / Mark Sharon The broadcast journalist said other passengers had described the man as in his early 20s and wearing a ripped jumper. Another witness wrote on Facebook: A guy jumped from top of one train over to ours and slipped. Went under our train... survived. Picked himself up and ran off...But now ambulance and air ambulance here at Brixton station and we cannot get off as stuck in between stations. Dramatic images posted on social media showed British Transport Police and paramedics descend on tracks close to trendy street food establishment Pop Brixton. BTP confirmed they had been made aware of an incident in the Brixton area. P rince Harry paid an emotionally-charged visit to terminally ill six-year-old Ollie Carroll at Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital. The royal was reunited with little Ollie, who suffers from Batten disease meaning he cannot speak or walk, after first meeting him at an awards ceremony last year. Harry spent an hour talking and playing with Ollie and sister Amelia, from Poynton in Cheshire, during the youngster's hospital treatment before receiving a heartwarming embrace from the Prince. A photograph posted on the family's Facebook page shows Harry with Ollie in his lap, and the royal appears to look down at the child as he holds his head with his hand. Harry first met Ollie met last October at the WellChild awards, where Ollie was receiving the Inspirational Child award. The prince delighted Ollie Carroll by making faces as they were introduced at the WellChild awards / PA His mother Lucy described Ollie's meeting with Harry at the awards ceremony - when he used all his strength to stand up to hug the prince - as "truly magical", and said she believed "a bond was made" between the pair in that moment. Writing on the Facebook page Ollie's Army Battling Against Battens, she said: "A few weeks after the awards we received the amazing news that Ollie and Amelia had been granted access to compassionate use of a pioneering treatment for CNL2 Batten Disease. "We finally had some hope! We sat down and wrote a letter to Prince Harry, explaining our joy in yet was still the most heartbreaking time. Prince Harry and Ollie Carroll during the visit to Great Ormond Street Hospital. / PA "We thanked him for giving our son the strength to stand when we thought this was no longer possible. "On Tuesday whilst at Great Ormond Street Hospital getting treatment, Ollie and Amelia got a very special personal visit from Prince Harry. "For an hour Prince Harry sat with us talking and playing with our children, laughing and making memories. Prince Harry with Ollie's sister, Amelia. / PA "The very thing our children want the most in life, to be happy and having fun. We feel so much pride knowing that Ollie and Amelia are touching the life's of the people they meet, with their love and their strength. "The love, the support and the laughter within that treatment room on Tuesday will stay with us forever. "From the bottom of our hearts we thank Prince Harry for his support, his time and his kindness towards our family and our journey with Batten Disease. Warm embrace: Prince Harry was hugged by little Ollie / PA "It was truly incredible to watch him with our children and to have the opportunity to talk with him about our journey with Battens." Just last month, Ollie met Ed Sheeran backstage ahead of a concert in Manchester. The pop star performed with a red band promoting Ollie's Army around his wrist, which the family created to raise awareness of the disease and fund research. Additional reporting by Press Association. A kebab shop owner has been hit with a 24,000 fine after mouse droppings were found on rotting salad at a north-west London takeaway. Food health inspectors discovered droppings on rotting tomatoes and cucumbers at Mamas Kitchen, in Northolt, during a surprise inspection. Overflowing bins and mouldy food strewn over the kitchen floor sparked a huge infestation of vermin, Harrow Council said. Owner Kalpana Ashokumar, from Harrow, admitted seven food hygiene breaches at Willesden Magistrates Court on April 25. Horrifying discovery: Mouse droppings were found on rotten tomatoes / Harrow Council She was fined 24,905 and banned from running food businesses. Councillor Graham Henson described the discovery as the stuff of kitchen nightmares and claimed someone could have ended up in hospital if they had eaten food from the restaurant. He said: This is the stuff of kitchen nightmares someone could have ended up in hospital. This huge fine is totally deserved. Despite all our efforts to help Mrs Ashokumar, she failed to bring her business up to scratch. I want to be completely clear when we find businesses in a disgusting state, we will make them pay. Mamas Kitchen, which has a food hygiene rating of one, will be monitored by inspectors and will face closure unless improvements are made, the council said. The takeaway has been contacted for a comment. Taj Hotels' Michelin-star chefs, Sriram Aylur and Srijith Gopinathan come together to curate magic with an inspired tasting menu. A bowl layered with curd rice, tempered with curry leaf granola, citrus oil and topped with cauliflowers and pickling spices sound exotic? How about a spice pot with potatoes, English peas, mint and tamarind? While the former is a fresh take on traditional curd rice, the latter, of Indian chaat. Lending a twist to these Indian dishes are Michelin-star chefs Sriram Aylur (53) of Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences London, and Srijith Gopinathan (39) of Taj Campton Place restaurant at the eponymous hotel in San Francisco. In a rare collaboration, the duo create a degustation menu that is progressive, local, yet Indian at heart. While Aylur blends his expertise in south Indian coastal food, Gopinathan adds his version of California-inspired Indian cuisine. The twin pop-ups were held at The Chambers, The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai and at Varq, Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi recently. In conversation with Spice, the duo discussed their innovative menu, the future of Indian cuisine and, of course, life after the Michelin star. advertisement 1. Both of you have a different take on Indian cuisine served at your restaurants; South-west coastal Indian cuisine and California-inspired Indian cuisine. How different are these from each other? Sriram Aylur (SA) The dishes served at Quilon are inspired by the coastal cuisine of Kerala, Goa and Karnataka. They reflect progressive food by way of experimenting with different ingredients but stay connected to their Indian roots. At London, we get the freshest ingredients from around the world and so get a chance to experiment. Our menu offers a mix of traditional and familiar dishes like the Mangalorean chicken, Malabar lamb biryani and avial along with contemporary and progressive ones like the seafood moilee and baked black cod. In fact Quilon is the only south Indian restaurant in the world with a Michelin star to its name. Srijith Gopinathan (SG) The Cal-Indian cuisine we serve is a happy marriage of European-Californian ingredients with Indian cooking techniques and spices. Ingredients such as scallops, quail and lobster are cooked with coconut curry or with jaggery. Unlike London, here I get to source all the ingredients from within a 100-mile radius since California has the best produce in the world. I combine peak-season ingredients with Indian spices that enhance a dish, but never overwhelm. In 2016, we became the first Indian restaurant in the world to be awarded two Michelin stars, after being awarded the first Michelin star in 2010 and winning it continuously six times in a row. 2. How did you maintain your signature touch for this menu despite two different cooking sensibilities involved? SA & SG Our collaboration is not to be mistaken for a fusion menu, but one that carries influences of both places (London and San Francisco) but remained true to Indian cuisine. We did not divide the dishes among ourselves and cook separately but added our touch to each dish to showcase a perfect synthesis. The four-course menu comprised dishes like jumbo shrimp raita salad, turmeric whey scallop, moilee cream, mango chilli salsa, slow cooked quail with black pepper crust, a baked black cod with spiced palm jaggery glaze, or California morels, pea tendril 'saag' served with a quail confit 'naan bao.' The dessert comprising rhubarb, shrikhand crystals, and pulled golden papadi, had the texture of frozen crystal balls yet the flavours reminded you of Indian shrikhand. advertisement Each course was paired with an exclusive selection of wines. For instance, the main course comprising baby lamb shank slow cooked with spices and herbs for the non vegetarian diners as well as the stuffed courgette flower with bell weather farm ricotta, ghee crumble and tofu and cottage cheese chop pistachio sauce for the vegetarian counterparts were both paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon, Cannonball, 2013 (California, USA) wine. Baked black cod, spiced palm jaggery glaze; scallop, moilee cream, mango chilli salsa; jumbo shrimp raita salad, turmeric whey. Photo: Yasir Iqbal 3. How have things changed after the Michelin star rating? SA Earlier, people could not comprehend an Indian restaurant without the usual naan, chicken tikka and dal makhani. Explaining coastal cuisine and its simplicity and spices was painful. However, the Michelin star changed it all. Even though it was unexpected and came as a surprise initially, the exemplary stress on service, food and innovation has helped sustain its star rating till date. advertisement SG The perception of Indian food is changing and slowly, people are beginning to understand that it is not just about spices but has an extensive range to offer. While much has been done and written about as far as Japanese cuisine is concerned, Indian, like Peruvian cuisine, is beginning to get noticed and be measured against international cuisine. Quick bites Childhood favourite: SA: A well-made sambar, especially the one prepared by my father. SG: Rice and Kerala fish curry Most versatile Indian spice: SA: Black pepper SG: Green cardamom and black pepper Most underrated Indian dish:SA: Kerala fish curry. It's simple yet has a variety of flavours and is universal. SG: Appams. It's such a versatile dish that can be served with apple sauce for breakfast or served with a stew as a main course dish too. Must-haves in a kitchen garden: SA: Tulsi, curry leaves and coriander SG: Cilantro and curry leaf Kitchen gadget you can't do without: SA: A good knife SG: A sharp knife Indian chefs you are proud of: SA: Chef Srijith Gopinathan of Taj Campton Place San Francisco and chef Ashfer Biju at The Pierre, A Taj Hotel, New York. advertisement SG: Chef Sriram Aylur of Quilon, London, and Gaggan Anand of Gaggan, Bangkok. --- ENDS --- J eremy Corbyn has said the General Election still represents a great opportunity for the Labour Party, despite a disastrous set of local election ballots. The local elections this week saw the party shed 320 councillors and lose control of strongholds including Glasgow. Mr Corbyn acknowledged that Labour faces "a challenge on a historic scale" to win the June 8 General Election. But he insisted that the gap separating Labour from the Conservatives is "not as great as the pundits are saying", as he urged supporters to campaign hard to win over millions of voters who he said were still "sceptical and undecided, not sure which way to turn". The Labour leader promised that if he wins power on June 8, there will be "a reckoning" with big businesses and bankers who he accused of crashing the economy, stripping industrial assets and ripping off workers and consumers. Mr Corbyn told supporters in Leicester that the General Election was "a great opportunity ... to create a society in which people are no longer held back by a system that is rigged for the rich. A chance to rebuild Britain for the many, not the few". Acknowledging that Friday's results were "disappointing", he told activists: "We know this is no small task - it is a challenge on a historic scale. But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, can't afford not to seize our moment. "We have five weeks to win the General Election so we can fundamentally transform Britain for the many, not the few." Mr Corbyn turned his sights on tax cheats and rip-off businesses as he told supporters: "When Labour wins there will be a reckoning for those who thought they could get away with asset stripping our industry, crashing our economy through their greed and ripping off workers and consumers. "It makes me angry. It makes me really angry. And I know it makes the people of Britain angry too. "Today, I say to tax cheats, the rip-off bosses, the greedy bankers: 'Enough is enough. The people of Britain are taking our money back."' The June 8 election could be "a great and proud moment in our national story", he told supporters. "Don't wake on up on June 9 to see celebrations from the tax cheats, the press barons, the greedy bankers, Philip Green, the Southern Rail directors and crooked bankers that take our wealth, who have got away with it because the party they own, the Conservative Party, has won," he said. "We have five weeks to ruin their party. We have five weeks to have a chance to take our money back. We have five weeks to win so we can transform Britain for the many, not the few." Mr Corbyn won cheers from supporters as he repeated his challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May to face him in a televised leadership debate. And he challenged her central election claim that she offers voters strong leadership, arguing that he had shown strength in his campaigns against the Iraq war and privatisation and for better public services and a fairer society. "Strength is holding on to what you believe in," said Mr Corbyn. "Standing up for the many against the few means a struggle against the odds. "Looking out for the few is easy; winning for the many is hard. "I have a message for Theresa May: If you feel the need to go on about what a great leader you are, then show it by debating with me in this election campaign. We are for the many, you're for the few." Additional reporting by Press Association T he Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry are to play in a series of polo charity matches this summer. They hope their appearances will help raise funds and awareness for the charities they support as patrons. The royal brothers have taken part in polo fixtures in support of their charities since 2007. They have continued each year since, raising over 10 million for charitable causes to date. Throughout the summer William and Harry will raise funds for charities including, CentrePoint, Child Bereavement UK, English Schools Swimming Association, Fields in Trust, Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund, The Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund. Others causes to benefit include Irish Guards Appeal, Map Action, Mountain Rescue England and Wales, The Royal Marsden, RFU Injured Players Foundation, Sentebale, Skillforce, Tusk, Walking With the Wounded WellChild and Welsh Rugby Charitable Trust. I slamist militants Boko Haram have freed at least 80 Chibok schoolgirls three years after their abduction, Nigerian officials said. Nearly 200 of the schoolgirls had remained captive before the group were released. Many of the girls seized from their boarding school were forced into marriages with fighters and became pregnant. Nigeria's government in October announced the first negotiated release of 21 of the schoolgirls. At the time, it said another group of 83 girls would be released "very soon". The government has denied a ransom was paid and that it freed some detained Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. Extremists from the group, meanwhile, are actively planning to kidnap western foreign workers in north-east Nigeria, according to the US and UK governments. T he US and South Korea have been accused of plotting together to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. On Friday North Korea accused the two nations of a failed assassination attempt using biochemical weapons. In a statement broadcast on state media, North Koreas Ministry of State Security issued a threat that it will ferret out and mercilessly destroy the terrorists, meaning the CIA and South Korean intelligence agencies. The government claimed that the two nations spies had ideologically corrupted and bribed a North Korean citizen in June 2014 in a plot to attack Kim Jong-un during a public appearance. Smiling: A picture of the North Korean leader released by the country's state media. / AFP/Getty Images The alleged weapon was a radioactive or nano poisonous substance, North Korea said. But the statement on state TV did not disclose how the plot was foiled. The CIA declined to comment and South Koreas intelligence service did not answer repeated calls, the Associated Press reported. The North Korean ministry demanded that the US and South Korea apologise and execute their agents involved. The allegation comes as tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been rising amid concerns North Korea is preparing another nuclear test. Earlier this year Kim Jong-uns exiled half-brother was assassinated at an airport in Malaysia using a chemical agent. North Korea denied involvement. Additional reporting by Associated Press. The students killed in the accident, which occurred at about 9:30 am in Karatu district, were standard seven pupils, aged 12 to 13. Residents attempt to rescue survivors at the scene of an accident that killed schoolchildren, teachers and a minibus driver at the Rhota village along the Arusha-Karatu highway in Tanzania's northern tourist region of Arusha, May 6, 2017. REUTERS/Emmanuel By Reuters: Thirty-two school children, two teachers and a minibus driver where killed in Tanzania when their vehicle plunged into a roadside ravine in the northern tourist region of Arusha on Saturday, a senior police official said. "The accident happened when the bus was descending on a steep hill in rainy conditions," Arusha regional police commander Charles Mkumbo told Reuters by telephone. advertisement "We are still investigating the incident to determine if it was caused by a mechanical defect or human error on the part of the driver." The students killed in the accident, which occurred at about 9:30 am in Karatu district, were standard seven pupils, aged 12 to 13, from the Lucky Vincent primary school on their way to visit another school, Mkumbo said. President John Magufuli described the accident as a "national tragedy" in a statement. Tanzania, the second-largest economy in east Africa, has a poor road safety network, but buses remain the main form of public transport between towns. More than 11,000 people were killed in road accidents in Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, according to government data. Also Read: Vizag: School bus crashes into a children's park, 1 dead, 4 injured Srinagar: 2 CRPF jawans dead, 8 injured in bus accident Also Watch: Vizag: Woman burnt alive as car catches fire due to heat --- ENDS --- Nicholas Brady is a 2011 Gering High School graduate. He's attending the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, pursuing a degree in music education. Brady, a talented saxophone player, returned to Gering recently to put on a two-day clinic for Gering band students. While he was in Gering, he also performed with the high school jazz band during the annual All Jazz Concert at the Gering High School auditorium. Brady's brother, Alex, is a senior at Gering High School and also played the saxophone in the All Jazz Concert. Q: Talk about Gering's All Jazz Concert. Did you like how everything sounded? BRADY: "They sounded really good. They really wanted to play well in front of the audience. It was a big difference compared to when we had our rehearsal. I'm really impressed with that. It's a great group of kids." Q: How much fun did you have performing with the students? BRADY: "It was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun with the clinic, playing for the kids. That was a neat experience." Q: How did it work out that you came back to Gering to put on the clinic and perform with the students? BRADY: "[Gering director of bands Randy Raines] contacted me months prior to this. He wanted someone to come in and do a clinic. He needed someone with a little experience in jazz and someone with a little experience in performing in the professional realm. Not to say that I was the best candidate, but he wanted people that were from the school to come down and play. He got in contact with me this last summer. He's been planning this for quite some time. I said, 'OK, just give me a time and a date, and I'll come down and help.' It turned out really well." Q: Talk to me about what you're doing now. BRADY: "I'm currently living in Lincoln. I've switched my major from performance to music education. I'll be adding a couple years to my undergraduate degree, but thankfully, it will lead me to something a little more prosperous. As a performance major, I love the performing aspect and it's something that I hold near and dear to my heart. I love playing with bands and groups. But I do think that having a teaching opportunity at a school, and helping students know what to expect in the performance realm, would be great." Q: What bands were you part of in high school? BRADY: "I was part of the high school band, the concert band, the jazz band and for a brief while because we had so many saxophones in our section we had a bit of a saxophone ensemble group. It was sort of experimental. Mr. Raines brought in a couple pieces. One that I remember fondly was when he brought in a saxophone arrangement for Bohemian Rhapsody. It was pretty interesting, but the arrangement was pretty fun to play." Q: When was it that you really started to get interested in playing music, and what instrument did you start off playing? BRADY: "It was actually the saxophone. When I was going into high school, I really didn't have much of a direction in music-related stuff. I was involved, but I really didn't put any effort, I guess you could say, toward taking music seriously. I think back then I was looking into majoring in meteorology. I ended up taking a semester of courses at UNK, but I realized then that I kind of wanted to change directions with what I wanted to do because I didn't think meteorology was my thing. So, I went to WNCC for a little while, and I kind of experimented a little bit. I got to play in the ensembles to pay for my tuition while I was going to school at WNCC. It was a really nice opportunity that [music instructor] Dr. Nathaniel Johnson gave to me. I auditioned for the groups, and he brought me in as a full-time music student, and it paid full tuition for my classes. Then all of the sudden, I'm going to lessons with him. In the middle of one of the lessons, I was like, 'What does it take to be a music major?' He was like, 'Well, you've got to change your major first.' It was just one step, but I went into it 100 percent. I changed my major and started focusing a little more on music." Q: So when was the first time that you played an instrument? BRADY: "It was in fifth grade, I believe. But even before that I believe in third grade I took piano lessons for about a year and ended up quitting because I got bored with it." Q: Did you start playing the saxophone in fifth grade? BRADY: "Yes, that is when I started playing the saxophone. It was alto sax. I switched from alto to tenor my freshman year. It was basically the same saxophone; it was just a different voice range." Q: How close are you to earning your music education degree at UNL? BRADY: "I'm actually very close. But with some changes that I've done with my major, going from music performance to music education, there are other classes that I need to take care of. That's the thing about the music program up there. Much of the time, you have to fall in line with a particular plan, especially if you're looking to go into student teaching. So that's what I'm having to go through at the moment." Q: When do expect to graduate? BRADY: "With the plan that they have for me, which is about a three-year plan starting now, I'll be getting my undergrad degree in music education around 2020." Q: Then after that, do you plan to be a high school music teacher somewhere? BRADY: "Yes, and then if there's time on the side, I could even teach private lessons. ... Along with that, Mr. Raines has inspired me to want to get a good jazz band in the program, if there's not already one there. With some school programs, much of the time the jazz band can kind of be placed on the back burner. It's kind of a side project that either the teacher has in mind or it's something that maybe the teacher has been considering but hasn't put forth the effort to do it because of time." Q: Would you like to someday work in Gering? BRADY: "It is one of my hopes to get back to this area. I would like to teach closer to home; that would be nice. But, of course, things could change over time. But, yes, I would like to come back here to teach. I like this area." Q: Now here's a more serious question. Who's better at playing you or your younger brother? BRADY: "Oh, that's a good question. [laughs] The stuff that my brother was playing [during the All Jazz Concert], I was really impressed. He probably kicked me under the water in some instances. He does a great job. I've really been impressed with his progress. I wish him the best as he goes into college." SCOTTSBLUFF Statistics on housing needs for Scotts Bluff, Morrill and Kimball Counties were formally presented to members of the Western Nebraska Economic Development (WNED) as the group takes up the ongoing challenge to provide more housing their communities. The group had earlier commissioned the Lincoln-based community planning firm of Hanna:Keelan to conduct the study, which was presented to at the May 4 meeting. Lonnie Dickson, community and regional planner, said that over the next five years, the three counties will need about 777 additional housing units, 521 for ownership and 256 for rental. With an overall population growth of about 1.45 percent, that target demand reaches 828 units. The study went into great detail on the needs of various demographic and economic groups, family size, and what costs of housing are most needed. Dickson told WNED members the Hanna:Keelan plan emphasizes the need for sufficient new and rehabilitation housing that will keep the vacancy rate at a healthy six to eight percent in order to attract new labor to the region. Were not looking at just municipal housing development, Dickson said. Were also considering the potential for housing to be developed in rural areas and planned residential subdivisions. He added that larger cities like Scottsbluff, Gering and Kimball can also take advantage of potential downtown housing on second floors of businesses. For the smaller communities, he recommended they focus on purchase/rehab/resale or re-rent options. No matter what community we looked at, workforce housing was an overriding theme, Dickson said. The only way companies can expand is if theres sufficient housing for its employees. He added that without land, no housing is possible. But in outlying areas, theres sometimes no infrastructure, so the cost of installing water, sewer, streets and electricity will make housing costs that much more expensive. When our parents and grandparents were growing up, they didnt mind buying a house that needs a lot of care and upgrades, Dickson said. Todays new families want that American dream house right away. That costs more than they can afford. Dickson said the best way to build and rehab more homes is for communities to form partnerships with banks, contractors, developers and major industries to make housing a priority. The study recommends that WNED form a separate housing arm that would actively pursue those partnerships and keep them active. Scottsbluff City Manager Nathan Johnson said theyre starting to incorporate some of the studys suggestions into city policy. The city council just introduced an ordinance to change the economic development plan to provide for more moderately priced workforce housing, he said. WNED Board Chair Michelle Coolidge, who is also mayor of Bayard, said the group is having a conversation on how to address housing needs differently than the way theyve been done before. In Bayard, were looking at clearing lots near downtown that already have infrastructure in place, she said. Were cleaning them up and looking at taking ownership. She added that if someone builds on city lots to their housing specifications, the land will be donated to the builder. Before adjourning, Coolidge recommended members take the completed housing study to their city councils and discuss how they can get involved. Vijaya Rahatkar, chairperson of Maharashtra State Women's Commission and BJP Mahila Morcha national president, said that first time women have come out in large numbers to speak against the practice. By Mustafa Shaikh: Maharashtra State Women Commission on Saturday arranged a consultation on 'triple talaq' in Mumbai where victims deserted by their husbands highlighted their plights and demanded law against oral and triple talaq. On the same day, Jammat-e- Islami Hind kept a women's conference in favour of Shariah Law and protection of Muslim Personal Law. Both the meetings were attended by Muslim women in large numbers, at consultation programme women were heard crying about the atrocities done by misusing Shariah Law, on the other hand speeches and plays were organised to follow Shariah Law and keep it intact. advertisement Vijaya Rahatkar, chairperson of Maharashtra State Women's Commission and BJP Mahila Morcha national president, said that first time women have come out in large numbers to speak against the practice. "We are looking at the social and economic conditions of these women for whom life has changed a lot after divorce. They find it difficult to raise their children find a job and a house. Till now, around one lakh women all over the country and 11,500 women in the state of Maharashtra have signed a petition to abolish oral and triple talaq. We have 150 cases of victims claiming to have been a victim of this process where they were left by their husbands at once," said Rahatkar. One of the victims said that she received divorce through courier. "I had converted to Islam at the age of 16 to marry. It's been five years since divorce, my husband has not looked back and cared to ask about his daughter and son. I have been in dilemma as to which religion should I follow. It's high time that we fight this issue with a smile rather than sitting and crying." A victim's father said that future of women is not secure under Shariah Law. "My 21-year-old daughter was left by her husband three months ago. All she does is threatens to commit suicide and write letters to government heads. My question is whether future of Muslim women is secure under Shariah Law. If I divorce my wife today where will she go?" he questioned. Arguments were also made against triple talaq in the gathering Jamaat-e- Islami Hind saying that precautions should be taken while divorcing. "We have started campaigns for awareness all over the country because we are realising that people are misusing these laws. We asked people to stop using triple talaq and it should be given just once at a time. Because many a time, divorce is given out of danger and people regret, so necessary precautions should be taken," said Dr. Salim Khan, member advisory council, Jammat-e- Islami Hind, Maharashtra. advertisement Dr Farida Akhtar, Member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said,"Awareness is being created about rights and duties of men and women. Men are being informed that triple talaq is not your right. It's always said that one talaq should be given at a time. At the same time, there are other issues the government and media should focus on. We have surveyed thousands of homes and not a single case of triple talaq is found. People are being misguided in the name of Uniform Civil Code." Also read: Muslim group in UP bans triple talaq at one go Meerut woman gives triple talaq to her abusive husband --- ENDS --- SCOTTSBLUFF Each day, Randy Wallerich walks eight to 12 miles on his route, delivering mail to boxes affixed to houses, his bag hanging off his shoulders. Once a year, he and every other postal employee take a day to collect non-perishable goods from customers, to be delivered to local food banks. According to NACL, nearly 49 million Americans, or 1 in 6, are unsure where their next meal is coming from. This includes 13 million children as well as about 5 million seniors over age 60, many of whom live on fixed incomes and often are too embarrassed to ask for help. On Saturday, May 13, residents can help alleviate the uncertainty of a next meal with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NACL) annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive. This year celebrates the 25th year letter carriers have hosted the food drive and is Wallerichs 11th in the Panhandle. He spent a year and a half in Memphis, Tennessee, where he also participated in the program, which sees everyone associated with the postal service volunteering their time to collecting non-perishable food items left by residents near their mailbox. It is the nations largest one-day food collection event. Every person, from rural carriers to city carriers are enlisted to help, he said. I participated my first year as a custodian at the post office. Retired postal worker Kirby Meyers helped last year, Wallerich said. He was my main helper, Wallerich said. Wallerich has recruited at least one Boy Scouts Troop from Gering that will help collect the items. Wallerich said he and his wife understand barely making above minimum wage. They also understand the importance of helping out your local community in whatever way you can. Weve been without, he said. We know what its like. For Wallerich, its all about trying to help your fellow man and providing service to your community. I like doing things for the community I live in, he said. Its all about teamwork and if it wasnt for the men and women at the post office, this wouldnt be possible. Although Wallerich helps organize the day, he said it wouldnt be possible without the help of retirees, management and everyone else at the post office who takes the time to give back. They all understand the community, he said. Its one day a year and the fun thing is to be outdoors. Carriers collect non-perishable food donations left by mailboxes and in post offices and deliver them to local community food banks, pantries and shelters. Nearly 1,500 National Association of Letter Carriers branches in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands are involved. Last year, carriers collected one ton of food to be used in our area. Wallerich hopes to gather more. To donate, place a box or can of non-perishable food next to your mailbox before your letter carrier delivers mail on Saturday, May 13. The carrier will do the rest. Food is sorted, and delivered to several local food pantries, where it will be available for needy families. I have some people who would prefer to give money, he said. Just make your check out to NACL. Wallerich is trying to make sure everyone knows about the event after posters that are usually seen hanging in local businesses leading up to the day arent there. This year, the check we sent to get the posters was lost in the mail, he said. He laughs as he continues his route. He knows its funny, but thats really what happened, he said. Wallerich believes it is important for everyone who can participate to do so. Hes happy to collect whatever people can give. This is where we live, he said. This is where we should give. SCOTTSBLUFF A Scottsbluff woman has been charged with felony child abuse after leaving her 11-year-old son in the care of his grandmother. Police say the mother knew the grandmother suffered from mental instability. Last month, police arrested the grandmother, Donna Castro, of Scottsbluff, with felony child abuse after they had responded to Castros home. The boy told police that his grandmother had choked him, had hidden knives in her purse and described him as being possessed. The woman is described in court documents as talking to God and saying she was Queen Elizabeth. On Tuesday, prosecutors also charged the mother of the boy, Sophia Jimenez, 32, of Scottsbluff. In an arrest affidavit, police said the boy had been living with his grandmother for a couple of days when the April 19 incident occurred and that he did not know where his mother was. Police had contact with Jimenez after her son was able to contact her via social media. The woman told police Castro suffered from bipolar and schizophrenia and she believed the woman had stopped taking her medication. Police urged her to call the Department of Health and Human Services, but the woman refused. A police officer says in the arrest affidavit that they had multiple contacts with Castro due to concerns about her mental health and on one of those occasions, in October 2016, the reporting party had been Jimenez. The arrest affidavit says that a case worker had attempted to make contact with Jimenez about her sons care needs, but the woman had refused and that family members opined that the woman should have known better than to leave the child in Castros care because of her mental instability. A warrant was issued for Jimenezs arrest and she appeared in Scotts Bluff County Court on Friday. She is being held on a $20,000 bond. GERING It was a week late, but fourth graders at Northfield Elementary School in Gering finally got to celebrate Arbor Day by planting some trees in Northfield Park. Students had planned to plant on April 28, Nebraskas official Arbor Day. However, a late spring snowstorm forced a weeks postponement until May 5. It was a perfect day for tree planting as Amy Seiler, western Nebraskas community forestry specialist with the Nebraska Forest Service, met the students to talk about the importance of trees in the environment. Fourth grade is when students study Nebraska history, so Seiler shared with about 42 students about the life and times of J. Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day. Traveling west from Michigan, Morton saw fewer and fewer trees the farther west he traveled. By the time got to Nebraska, there were none. From Nebraska City, he set out to teach the importance of trees. It was a big success. The first celebration of Arbor Day in Nebraska was April 10, 1872, when an estimated one million trees were planted that single day Some of the reasons for planting trees are different today, Seiler said. We want habitat for wildlife and shade for us. She pointed out that most holidays celebrate some historic event. But Arbor Day celebrates planting trees today for future generations to enjoy. The people who planted these trees in Northfield Park knew they would never get to enjoy the shade youre enjoying right now, Seiler told the students. They knew they wanted something better for you than what they had. Before the students scattered onto the hills of Northfield Park, Gering Mayor Tony Kaufman read a proclamation to commemorate Arbor Day and explained what the city does to keep its trees healthy. To qualify as a Tree City, we have to spend at least two dollars per person every year on or parks and tree system, he said. We blow the doors off that number. So were recognizing this special day. Northfield fourth grade teacher Allison Wagner said the tree planting gives the students hands-on experience while they learn Nebraska history. She said she hopes the students remember the importance of trees in the future and continue to plant them. This is one of my most favorite things I do each year, Seiler said. The kids have to problem-solve for themselves. They have to find the best place to plant and work together as a team. Plus it lets the kids get their hands dirty and be outside. Thats an important part of education. Senator Steve Erdman of Bayard took to the floor of the Nebraska Legislature Wednesday evening, May 3, making a valiant effort to point out the overzealous revenue forecast the state is looking at for the next two years. Erdman had spent the previous weekend pouring over hundreds of pages of the budget and questioned his fellow senators to try and explain how the forecasting board could call for a five percent increase in revenues each year for the next two years when we will see only a possible one percent this year. Erdmans question was spot on. Since expenditures reflected the exaggerated forecast, he warned that budgets should be based on recent history, not some 30-year average, saying these are not average times, especially in the agricultural industry. In fact, he at one point, offered up a friendly wager between himself and Senator Ernie Chambers on whether the forecast would be over or under the estimates. Then Erdman made a forecast of his own, saying it was a high possibility that a special session would be called in the fall to address what he predicts will be another $200 million shortfall. Erdman said to mark this day down, May 3, 2017, at 9:15 p.m. that he was making this prediction. He also said that when he is notified a special session must be called, he may not come back for it, again saying (now a minute later) at 9:16 on May 3, he made this call. Now, not for a minute do I think Erdman would not attend a special session if needed. In fact, I think he may the first one there, prepared to do what he accused other senators of not having the courage to do, and that is to make additional cuts to the spending side of the state government. The senator is right. He pointed out two separate instances in recent history where the states revenue actually declined over the previous year, and could easily happen again. He warned of spending money that was just a guess as to if the state will actually achieve a five percent revenue growth each year. Folks, we all know the ag economy is not good right now. We all know Ag is our number one industry. We all know, if you have lived in Nebraska for any length of time that Ag is cyclical with good times and with bad times. Senator Erdman knows that as well and was trying his best to convince his peers that prudence is in order. Caution is necessary. And, making sure the Legislature is fiscally responsible for every single dollar stained by the toils of hard working Nebraskans is spent wisely, and is the reason he sought the job. Now, we do ask a lot of our state government, but at what point are we asking more than we are willing to pay for, or more than we can afford. I think that is the question Erdman was seeking answers for. He simply wanted to base the budget on this years revenues, plus some additional negotiated wages and healthcare costs, and to provide services up to that level, the level we could afford. Erdmans amendment failed, 19 in favor, 10 opposed, and get this; 19 present and not voting, with one senator absent. Not only was Erdman correct in saying the body lacked the courage to make necessary cuts, it appears that 19 of them lacked the courage to vote, or better yet, to go on record that they would or would not be in favor of fiscally sound and conservative approaches to spending in a time when we all know it is necessary. Thank you, Senator Erdman, for your efforts. (Take in a Husker game when you are back in Lincoln for the fall special session.) How is Nebraskas economy doing? Let me know at greg.awtry@starherald.com. Over 300 students were affected after gas leaked from a container truck that was parked near a school in Tughalakabad, Delhi. By Ram Kinkar Singh, Ilma Hasan, Puneet Kumar Sharma: Over 310 students from a government school in Tughalakabad area were administered treatment today morning after gas leaked from a container truck nearby. Leakage of Chloromethyl Pyridine, a chemical used in insecticides and pesticides was reported from near Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Railway Colony, Tughalakabad. News agency ANI reported that Delhi Police has registered an First Information Report in the matter. advertisement Classes were underway when the incident occurred. According to the chief fire officer, students on the first floor have been affected the most as they were more exposed to the gas. "Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot caused irritation in eye to the female students studying at Rani Jhansi school, Tughlakabad. Local police, NDRF, fire, CATS ambulance teams reached the spot. students shifted to nearby hospitals. They are reportedly normal," the area's DCP said. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has spoken to few students and will be visiting the children in hospital. "I have asked the DM (District Magistrate) to investigate...Doctors have also said there is no problem," he tweeted. NDRF officials were called to control the situation and affected students were admitted in Batra Hospital, ESI Hospital, Majidiya Hospital and Apollo Hospital. District Magistrate BS Jaglan visited the location to take stock of the incident. Also read The hissing under your cylinder isn't a gas leak, but a snake --- ENDS --- Blog Archive Apr 2010 (22) May 2010 (25) Jun 2010 (8) Jul 2010 (12) Aug 2010 (18) Sep 2010 (19) Oct 2010 (29) Nov 2010 (30) Dec 2010 (18) Jan 2011 (13) Feb 2011 (21) Mar 2011 (23) Apr 2011 (19) May 2011 (31) Jun 2011 (36) Jul 2011 (46) Aug 2011 (26) Sep 2011 (12) Oct 2011 (15) Nov 2011 (17) Dec 2011 (7) Jan 2012 (18) Feb 2012 (4) Mar 2012 (12) Apr 2012 (18) May 2012 (10) Jun 2012 (21) Jul 2012 (8) Aug 2012 (15) Sep 2012 (7) Oct 2012 (17) Nov 2012 (20) Dec 2012 (10) Jan 2013 (58) Feb 2013 (59) Mar 2013 (60) Apr 2013 (98) May 2013 (134) Jun 2013 (204) Jul 2013 (293) Aug 2013 (351) Sep 2013 (363) Oct 2013 (347) Nov 2013 (374) Dec 2013 (440) Jan 2014 (544) Feb 2014 (475) Mar 2014 (525) Apr 2014 (527) May 2014 (470) Jun 2014 (408) Jul 2014 (472) Aug 2014 (522) Sep 2014 (441) Oct 2014 (471) Nov 2014 (496) Dec 2014 (535) Jan 2015 (535) Feb 2015 (520) Mar 2015 (579) Apr 2015 (657) May 2015 (679) Jun 2015 (673) Jul 2015 (728) Aug 2015 (803) Sep 2015 (923) Oct 2015 (921) Nov 2015 (801) Dec 2015 (791) Jan 2016 (782) Feb 2016 (835) Mar 2016 (929) Apr 2016 (864) May 2016 (946) Jun 2016 (1044) Jul 2016 (882) Aug 2016 (1035) Sep 2016 (966) Oct 2016 (918) Nov 2016 (854) Dec 2016 (885) Jan 2017 (879) Feb 2017 (777) Mar 2017 (896) Apr 2017 (872) May 2017 (850) Jun 2017 (851) Jul 2017 (971) Aug 2017 (1040) Sep 2017 (998) Oct 2017 (1144) Nov 2017 (1046) Dec 2017 (838) Jan 2018 (873) Feb 2018 (769) Mar 2018 (885) Apr 2018 (808) May 2018 (827) Jun 2018 (820) Jul 2018 (840) Aug 2018 (854) Sep 2018 (844) Oct 2018 (851) Nov 2018 (870) Dec 2018 (912) Jan 2019 (919) Feb 2019 (827) Mar 2019 (957) Apr 2019 (913) May 2019 (1007) Jun 2019 (934) Jul 2019 (949) Aug 2019 (936) Sep 2019 (910) Oct 2019 (920) Nov 2019 (874) Dec 2019 (908) Jan 2020 (941) Feb 2020 (848) Mar 2020 (898) Apr 2020 (848) May 2020 (822) Jun 2020 (787) Jul 2020 (819) Aug 2020 (858) Sep 2020 (841) Oct 2020 (873) Nov 2020 (811) Dec 2020 (780) Jan 2021 (765) Feb 2021 (716) Mar 2021 (819) Apr 2021 (805) May 2021 (815) Jun 2021 (824) Jul 2021 (830) Aug 2021 (832) Sep 2021 (791) Oct 2021 (754) Nov 2021 (683) Dec 2021 (693) Jan 2022 (694) Feb 2022 (654) Mar 2022 (740) Apr 2022 (745) May 2022 (748) Jun 2022 (701) Jul 2022 (704) Aug 2022 (702) Sep 2022 (699) Oct 2022 (737) Nov 2022 (204) Ebony magazine is cutting nearly a third of its staff and consolidating editorial operations with sister publication Jet in Los Angeles a major shake-up for the venerable Chicago-based chronicler of the African-American experience. A monthly lifestyle magazine that has called Chicago home since it was launched in 1945, Ebony is laying off about 10 of 35 employees, including editor-in-chief Kyra Kyles. Tracey Ferguson, who became the Los Angeles-based editor of Jet in February, will be responsible for both magazines going forward. "There was a significant consolidation of the editorial staff as well as some of the digital staff," Michael Gibson, co-founder and chairman of Ebony owner CVG Group, said Friday. Ebony Media will retain a downsized Chicago office after the magazine pulls up stakes for the West Coast, Gibson said. Linda Johnson Rice, newly renamed Ebony Media CEO, will remain in her role and will be based in Chicago. Johnson Publishing, the family-owned business that founded Ebony and Jet, sold both publications to Texas-based private equity firm CVG Group in May 2016 for an undisclosed price. Since then, Ebony has struggled to find its footing under the new owners, plagued by everything from delayed subscription deliveries to unpaid freelance writers. While new issues of Ebony have continued to hit newsstands, subscribers haven't received copies of the magazine since the November issue, Gibson said, a problem he attributed to a change in printers in December. "The old printer was committed to finishing up the December-January subscription (issue) and sending those out. At some point, the old printer backed off of that commitment," Gibson said. Copies of Ebony through the April-May issue have reached newsstands. Gibson said the new printer, Wisconsin-based Quad/Graphics, will print the December-January issue for Ebony's 1.2 million subscribers, who he said will receive all back issues within 60 to 90 days. In April, freelance writers for Ebony, who contribute a large amount of the magazine's content, took to social media to complain that they hadn't been paid for months. Gibson said Friday that the magazine is "100 percent committed to getting those people paid." Ferguson, who previously served as editor-in-chief for Jones Magazine, a fashion and beauty magazine for women of color, opened the Los Angeles office for Ebony Media when she took the helm of Jet in February. Formerly a weekly digest, Jet became a digital-only publication in 2014 but is set to return to print on a quarterly basis this year. The magazine targets an urban millennial audience. Founded by John Johnson, Ebony has been the centerpiece of a Chicago publishing dynasty for more than 70 years. Gibson said there are no plans to change the format of Ebony, which has documented and shaped African-American culture throughout its history, coming of age as it reported from the front lines of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s in powerful photos and prose. Its recent history has been somewhat rockier as the publisher struggled to adapt to the evolving digital media landscape. In 2010, Desiree Rogers, the former social secretary for President Barack Obama, became CEO of Johnson Publishing and made a number of moves to shore up the company's finances. Those included taking on a minority partner in 2011 and taking the money-losing weekly digest Jet out of print circulation. Johnson Publishing put its entire photo archive up for sale in January 2015, hoping to raise $40 million. The historic collection spans seven decades of African-American history, chronicling everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Sammy Davis Jr. The collection remained with Johnson Publishing after the sale of the magazines. The exit of Ebony is not the first time the editorial staff of an iconic Chicago magazine has fled for the West Coast. In December 2011, Playboy magazine, which was founded by Hugh Hefner in his Chicago apartment and grew into a global cultural icon, announced it was leaving for Los Angeles after more than a half-century as a Chicago-based institution. At the time, Playboy executives said the editorial, art and photo departments would relocate to Los Angeles but that no final decision had been made about other departments. By April 2012, Playboy's Chicago office was closed for good. A man who ran a stolen property ring in the St. Louis area was sentenced to 14 years in prison Thursday. Jason J. Parmeley, 43, formerly from O'Fallon, Mo., pleaded guilty in federal court in Benton, Ill., in December since some of the crimes took place in the federal Southern District of Illinois. Parmeley pleaded guilty to organizing the ring, which used stolen credit card account numbers to buy appliances, tools, construction equipment and computers through online retailers. He then dispatched drivers to pick up the items and sell them for profit. The money was wire transferred to Parmeley, who was living in Mexico. He was deported in August 2015 and has been in federal custody since. Fifteen people were indicted last year in the scheme, which prosecutors say exceeded $4 million in losses. Those cohorts were accused of transporting, receiving or selling the merchandise, then sending the money to Parmeley under fake names. Six of the defendants have been sentenced, ranging from one to three years. Six others received probation and two more are set to be sentenced in June. Parmeley will also serve a consecutive 28-month sentence for bank fraud in Alabama that he also admitted to in December. He was ordered to pay restitution to a bank in Alabama, as well as $456,000 to victims of the stolen property ring. In his complaint, Baig stated that at about 8:40 pm some seven policemen, only two of them in uniform, entered his house by breaking the main door. My mother, two sisters enquired the cops why they entered the house without permission, he said. The women were then abused by some the cops. When Baig's brother tried to interfere he was slapped by one of the policemen. They even warned Baig's mother that he would be arrested. Hearing the screams of his mother and sisters, Baig, who was in the other room, rushed in to protect his family. "When I asked them why they have entered my house without any search warrant, one the men replied - tu commissioner hoga kahin ka, police kahin bhi ghus sakti and kisi ko bhi utha sakti hai, Baig said. "None of the men were having proper badge. They didn't show me any identity card despite me asking for it repeatedly," the official said in his complaint. The incharge of the concerned police station has now come out with a clarification that it was case of mistaken identity. The SHO said that there was a warrant against someone with the same name as Baig's and that the cops entered his house by mistake. Senior officials in the Income Tax department have refused to accept the SHO's version as Baig has been living at his parental house for the last 17 years. A name plate outside his house clearly mentions his name and designation. The University of Missouri-Columbia is expecting at least a 14-percent decline in incoming freshmen this fall, resulting in its smallest class in nearly two decades. Administrators project that about 4,000 freshmen will enroll in August. Thats down by about 700 students from 2016 and significantly lower than in 2015, when more than 6,000 enrolled. The shrinking numbers have been tied at least partly to the protests on campus in 2015 that followed reports of racism on and near campus. The school issued a news release Friday afternoon that mentions the enrollment decline only indirectly. A class of this size gives us the ability to think carefully about our long-term enrollment planning, said Garnett Stokes, interim chancellor, in a prepared statement. As part of our planning process, we will be determining the optimum freshman class size for Fall 2018 and future years. This will help us develop and create strong and renewable resources, targeting our students best interests as we educate the future leaders of our state and nation. The news release focuses on the universitys success in retaining students, with 94 percent re-enrolling. The school also said it is maintaining high academic quality, with incoming freshmen posting an average ACT score of 25.5. Last week, curators of the University of Missouri four-campus system were alerted to a $9 million expected decline in tuition revenue at Mizzou. At the time, enrollment estimates were not available. The financial strain is on top of state budget reductions from Jefferson City. EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the years for which previous freshman enrollment is noted and the year the protests took place. BALTIMORE National officials rolled out this month a new van that will enable detectives to test-fire weapons and rapidly analyze bullets and shell casings recovered at crime scenes rather than sending them to labs and waiting days for results. The first stop for the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network van is Baltimore, where the number of homicides so far this year is the second-highest the city has ever recorded. The mobile ballistics van launched by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives functions as a forensic lab, and also has a trailer on the back where detectives can test-fire the weapons. Analysis that used to take days will now take hours, according to Daniel Board, special agent in charge of the bureaus Baltimore Field Division. That means agents, detectives and officers can more quickly identify repeat offenders, and build cases to put them behind bars. Instead of an offender being arrested for a firearm and being released before we can ever figure out what else that firearm or that person has done, well have that lead in hand before they have the opportunity to make bond, Board said. Baltimore has struggled to get its homicide rate under control since the bloodshed began to skyrocket in the spring of 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray, 25, in police custody and the civil unrest it prompted. That year, Baltimore saw 344 homicides, and last year the city recorded 318. In the first four months of this year, the city had 108 homicides more than any other year except for 1993, when 110 people were killed in the same time span. However, the citys population now is significantly smaller than it was then, making the rate of killing higher. This challenge is bigger than all of us and we needed the federal assistance, said Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh. The van, she said, will allow for comprehensive collection, an entree of ballistic evidence, timely turnaround and investigative follow up and prosecution, linking otherwise unassociated crimes, giving investigators a better chance to identify and arrest shooters before they reoffend. The van will spend about a month in Baltimore before moving on to Chicago, where last years murder rate was the deadliest in nearly two decades. So far this year it has recorded 183 murders, compared with 182 for the same time period last year. After American action movie star Steven Seagal received Russian citizenship last year, Ukraine has banned him entry into its territory for five years. Russia has backed separatists in a simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine. By Indo-Asian News Service: Ukraine has banned American action movie star Steven Seagal as a threat to national security, after the actor received Russian citizenship. The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe. The service's press secretary later confirmed the ban to other media, the Guardian reported. advertisement Such a decision is made when a person has "committed socially dangerous actions... that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine's security", the letter said. RUSSIAN CITIZENSHIP FOR SEAGAL The move comes after the actor received citizenship in Russia, which has backed separatists in a simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin handed Seagal a Russian passport and told him he hoped their "personal relationship will remain and continue" during a meeting in the Kremlin last year, the Guardian reported. After the ban, Seagal is the latest of several cultural figures to be blacklisted, including French actor Gerard Depardieu. Ukraine previously banned Russia's entry to the Eurovision song contest that its capital Kiev is hosting next week. ALSO READ | Former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov shot in Ukraine ALSO READ | Trump discusses Ukraine conflict, Afghanistan with German Chancellor Angela Merkel ALSO WATCH | Ukraine murder: 2 Indian students brutally killed, 1 severely injured --- ENDS --- Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reportedly assured Chief of the Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa in a meeting convened on Thursday night to have a revised notification over Dawn Leaks probe report issued. Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa called on the premier at Prime Minister House to deliberate over Dawn Leaks probe report, according to the sources. Also Read: Tariq Fatemi denies all allegations in relation to Dawn Leaks Reportedly, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was paid a visit to by Minister for the Interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Friday after his meeting with General Bajwa last night. The premier instructed the federal minister regarding the revised notification that is to be issued. Also Read: Prime Minister Nawaz, Nisar discuss Dawn Leaks recommendations The Prime Minister assured General Bajwa to address reservations of Pakistan Army over Dawn Leaks probe.The meeting took place last night in Prime Minister House. Also Read: PTI, JI, AML demand issuance of Dawn Leaks report Last week, the military rejected the federal governments notification on Dawn leaks inquiry, stating that it is incomplete and not in line with the recommendations made by the inquiry board. Also Read: Dawn leaks: Tariq Fatemi, Tehsin made scapegoats to save Maryam Nawaz: Aitzaz Ahsan "Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected," Director General, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor tweeted. Also Read: Dawn leaks issue: PM summons Ch Nisar, Ishaq Dar to Lahore The tweet came minutes after the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) government released a notification stating that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had approved the recommendations of the Dawn Leak inquiry committee. As per notification, the premier removed Tariq Fatemi as Advisor on Foreign Affairs and ordered action against Principal Information Officer Tehsin Rao. Pakistan ambassador to the United States, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, called on the US National Security Adviser (NSA) Lt. Gen. McMaster on Thursday afternoon at the White House. Aizaz Chaudhry and Lt. Gen. McMaster discussed bilateral relations in the wake of NSAs recent visit to Pakistan. Peace in Afghanistan and broader regional stability also came under discussion during the meeting. He also informed Lt. Gen. McMaster that his visit to Pakistan was useful for both sides to better understand each others perspective on issues of mutual interest. Aizaz Chaudhry further said that peace in Afghanistan was a high priority for Pakistan especially to consolidate the gains made in our enduring fight against terrorism. Read more: Eight civilians martyred, 26 injured in cross-border Afghan firing in Chaman He also briefed Lt. Gen. McMaster about prospects of economic engagement between the two countries and the investment opportunities emerging in Pakistan after the economic turnaround. This environment, Ambassador noted, is ideal for investment by the foreign companies including the US in energy and infrastructure development. Noting Pakistans sacrifices in the war against terrorism, Lt. Gen. McMaster underscored the need for continued cooperation for a stable and prosperous region. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday visited the new Islamabad International Airport here near Fateh Jang to observe the latest development and inaugurate the Metro bus link to the location. The Prime Minister spoke to media after laying the foundation stone of the Metro bus services new route. The project will be completed with the airport, which emphasises on the steady progress of other related developments, he said. In addition, Sharif said that quality will not be compromised on for this project, explaining that once it is complete, we will build roads that will benefit farmers and pave way for schools and colleges. The project, under the management of National Highway Authority, cost almost Rs. 18 billion and comprises four interchanges and fourteen stopovers, according to Radio Pakistan. It will effectively link the new Islamabad Airport to Peshawar Morr, will be over 25 kilometres long, and feature nine bus stations, 11 underpasses, and 12 bridges. With regard to the terminal at the new airport, 95 percent of the construction is already over. It can house 4,500 passengers at a time and will sport fifteen, state-of-the-art docking stations, alongside an air traffic control based on international standards. The President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain expressed satisfaction on the improved law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunwa on Saturday. He reportedly said that the province would now attract foreign and domestic investment owing to the better safety and security arrangements. President Mamnoon Hussain attended the Made in KPK exhibition in the capital. He praised businessmen and traders belonging to the province for their valuable effort in giving positive message to the world. He told KP was for domestic and foreign investments. While praising the security forces, he expressed content and hoped for further improvements in the province. Following the failed plot of spying pigeon which made India laughing stock across world, the neighbouring country has come up with another bizarre claim. According to Indian media, the Indian army has detained a 12-year-old Pakistani boy over charges of espionage. The boy, who belongs to Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), was arrested across LoC on Indian side in Rajouri district. A patrol of the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from the Pakistani side of Kashmir who had crossed over to this side of LoC late last evening in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district, an Indian defence spokesperson said. India these days is is trying to erase embarrassment which has stemmed from detention of in-service naval commander and RAW agent Kulbhusahn Jadhav from Pakistans Balochistan province. Jadhav has been awarded death penalty after he confessed to carrying out subversive activities aimed at sabotaging CPEC and destabilizing Balochistan. He has also confessed to terror activities in Karachi. In June last year, amid the tense ties between India and Pakistan, three Pakistani minor boys, who were apprehended after accidentally crossing over to the Indian side in Ajnala town in Amritsar district, were handed back by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF). The three teenagers were on their way to meet their relative on a motorcycle, when they crossed over to India and were caught by the guards on patrol duty. Uttar Pradesh sugarcane farmers are yet to receive their dues for the crops of last season. By Anand Patel: Even after a bumper sugarcane crop last season, the farmers in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat who are getting ready for this year's sowing are waiting for their dues of the past year. As per the data available with Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the outstanding on May 1 in Uttar Pradesh stands at Rs 4,135 crore. Out of which, the Bajaj Group owes Rs 2,285 crore while the Modi Group owes Rs 462 crore. advertisement Figures suggest that state sugar mills are yet to pay Rs 88.69 crores for 2015-2016 and Rs 40.11 crores for 2014-15. Villagers say that impending payment for the sugarcane crop has impacted their lifestyle severely. Distressed farmers are also sending letters to Prime Minister Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, seeking permission to die. With an ailing mother, two unmarried brothers and a debt of Rs 3.5 lakh, Dhir Singh, a sugarcane farmer from Bawal village in Uttar Pradesh sent a similar letter to Modi and Yogi. As many as 18 other farmers like him have followed suit and sent letters to the state chief. Uttar Pradesh produces 30 per cent of country's sugar and owes 50-60 per cent of the total cane dues. NO MARRIAGE PROPOSALS As many as 900 boys in the Bawal village are struggling to find match for themselves as no one wants to wed their daughter to farmers, who are yet to be paid for last season. Ram Sewak, a resident of Bawal said, "People take loans or sell land to fund wedding expenses but since we are yet to get payment for last year, nobody wants to wed their daughter here. Even those farmers with 10 bighas of land are finding it difficult to find a bride." 37-year-old Rajinder holds a small piece of land but to his dismay is still unmarried. "Non-payment from the sugar mills over the years has worsened our financial condition, we haven't got a penny for the last three seasons." A village elder added," We are Jats but our financial condition is such that all the pride is gone, some boys have married off to non Jat girls." IS POLICY CHANGE THE CULPRIT? Abinash Verma, Director General of ISMA told India Today, "Much of this problem has its genesis in the frequent sugar policy changes by the state government and the sharp increase in the State Advised Price(SAP) of sugarcane during Mayawati government." advertisement "The mills incurred huge loses as the price of sugar didn't match the increase in SAP of sugarcane by the state governments over and above the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) fixed by the Center," he added. "The mills will need government intervention to pay off their dues to ensure relief for the farmer,' Verma said. Uttar Pradesh has seen a series of farmer suicides in the sugarcane belt in recent months. Also read: Bihar ministers rent out official bungalows for marriages for Rs 3 lakh per day Also read: 45,000 people to attend Justin Bieber concert in Mumbai: Police Watch video: UP: Sugarcane farmers seek permission to commit suicide from PM Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath --- ENDS --- Over 717 people have been injured, 152 are still in jail from the hundreds rounded up in widespread unrest against socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Opposition supporters clash with riot police while rallying against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, May 4 (Pic: Reuters) By Reuters: A 20-year-old Venezuelan protester died on Friday after being shot in the head, authorities said, taking fatalities from a month of anti-government unrest to at least 37 as the opposition geared up for more demonstrations. Hecder Lugo was hurt during fighting between demonstrators and security forces in Valencia on Thursday that also injured four others, the local opposition Mayor Enzo Scarano said in a series of tweets. advertisement The state prosecutor's office, which keeps an official count of deaths since protests began against socialist President Nicolas Maduro in early April, confirmed he died after being shot in a protest. Another 717 people have been injured and 152 are still in jail from the hundreds rounded up in widespread unrest around the volatile South American OPEC nation of 30 million people, according to the office's latest tally. There has been violence and widespread looting this week in Valencia, a once-bustling industrial hub two hours from the capital by road. And in an incident loaded with symbolism, a handful of young men destroyed a statue of late leader Hugo Chavez in the oil-producing Zulia state, according to videos circulating on social media on Friday evening. Footage shows the statue, which depicts Chavez saluting and wearing a sash, being yanked down to cheers in a public plaza before it is bashed into a sidewalk and then the road as onlookers swear at the leftist, who died in 2013 from cancer. "Students destroyed this statue of Chavez. They accuse him, correctly, of destroying their future," opposition lawmaker Carlos Valero said about the incident, which was also reported in local media. Reuters was unable to independently confirm it. Venezuela's opposition, which now enjoys majority support after being in the shadow of the ruling Socialist party since Chavez's 1998 election win, says his successor Maduro has become a dictator and wrecked the economy. Vowing to stay in the streets for as long as necessary, opposition leaders announced nationwide women's marches for Saturday with the biggest planned for the capital Caracas. Opposition lawmakers briefly unfurled a banner on Friday at the National Assembly, where they won a majority in 2015 thanks to voter ire over the recession, saying "Maduro Dictator". The president says they are seeking a violent coup with U.S. support, and is setting up a "constituent assembly" super body to shake up public powers, change the constitution, and possibly replace the existing legislature. "President Maduro has made a big call to national dialogue," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez told diplomats at a meeting on Friday, showing them images of violence and vandalism on the streets caused by youths at the front of protests. "They are not peaceful, the opposition leaders share big responsibility in these acts of extremism and vandalism." advertisement FATALITIES ON BOTH SIDES Opposition protests have often started peacefully but degenerated into violence when security forces block marchers and masked youths fight them with stones, Molotov cocktails and fireworks shot from pipes turned into homemade mortars. Fatalities have included supporters of both sides, bystanders and members of the security forces. Gunshot wounds have been the most common cause of deaths. The opposition is boycotting Maduro's constituent assembly process, saying it is a ploy to keep him in power by setting up a body with mechanisms to ensure a government majority. Having failed to trigger a referendum on his rule last year, the opposition is calling for delayed state gubernatorial elections to be held as soon as possible, and for the next presidential election slated for 2018 to be brought forward. Polls show the ruling Socialists would badly lose any conventional vote due to four years of economic crisis that has led to debilitating food and medicine shortages. While Maduro says opposition ranks include armed hoodlums, activists accuse the security forces of using excessive force including firing teargas canisters directly at people and allowing pro-government gangs to terrorize demonstrators. advertisement Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Friday that 85 members of the military in Caracas had been arrested for opposition "repression," adding that their relatives had asked him to publicize the detentions. "Cousin, it's enough!" Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino's cousin, Ernesto Padrino, wrote to him in an open letter. He was following in the footsteps of the state human rights ombudsman's son who surprised the country by publishing a video begging his father to "end the injustice." "Eighty percent of Venezuelans want elections as a way out of our nation's grave economic and political crisis," wrote Ernesto Padrino on Facebook. "Sooner or later, the Venezuelan people will make you pay." Also Read Watch: Tank-like armoured truck set on fire, runs over protesters in Venezuela Venezuela opposition cries foul after court takeover of Congress --- ENDS --- ABB to collaborate with Sri Lankan universities to train engineers View(s): ABB, a global leader in electrification products, is partnering three leading Sri Lankan universities to train the next genertion of post graduate and PhD students in the field of electrical engineering At a recent event, ABB Sri Lanka formalized an engagement with the Universities of Moratuwa, Ruhuna and Peradeniya for software capacity building that will develop the next generation of electrical engineers for the island, the company said in a media release The programme will train more than 50 postgraduate students at these leading universities, using a high-end power system analysis tool for applications across the power value chain. We are happy to partner with Sri Lankan universities to provide bridge training from campus to the corporate world. At a time when Sri Lanka has embarked on an ambitious journey in building its power infrastructure, this program will support the development of future-ready power engineers, said Abhijit Dey, Managing Director, ABB Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has recently set out its energy charter in the National Energy Policy formulated by a specialized taskforce. The policy will be effective for five years and will be reviewed after two years in a mid-term review. The policy entails reducing the countrys dependence on fossil fuels to below 50 per cent of the primary energy supply and renders efficiency by halving the specific energy use for all end users by 2030. Prof. Wickramarachchi, Head of Electrical Engineering Department, University of Moratuwa said the partnership will help students access knowledge on the latest digital tools and understand specific aspects of the energy value chain through practical case studies, using simulation modules. This is of great significance as Sri Lanka is revising its outlook to the energy sector with new technologies, he added. ABB has been present in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s and actively involved in various projects for energy development, access and reliability with next level technologies. It has also been working with Sri Lankan industries on various solutions for energy efficiency. With a 125-year history of innovation, ABB says it is writing the future of industrial digitalization and driving the energy and Fourth Industrial Revolutions. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 132,000 employees. Colombo Port City will take 30 years to complete By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s): The Colombo Port City project is set to take nearly a lifetime to complete with a 30-year period given for its full completion for which marketing is getting underway at the moment to attract investors to the prime property. The CHEC Port City Colombo Chief Sales and Marketing Director Liang Thow Ming said on the sidelines of a media briefing that the entire port city project would take 30 years to complete inclusive of buildings. The media briefing was held to announce the launch of the projects upgraded website colomboportcity.lk. Currently, the company is working on reclamation work and infrastructure development at the site at a cost of US$1.4 billion, he said. The estimated cost of the construction of the buildings would be US$13 billion and in this respect, the total investment on the Phase I of the project would be US$$15 billion. Mr. Ming noted that they were currently involved in marketing the project and speaking to potential investors. Two of the main criteria the Chinese owners were looking at are a solid track record in developing properties and their financial capability. He noted that there is a general interest by investors in the market and looking at attracting investors from West Asia, India, South East Asia and the West. Asked whether Chinese firms would be investing in the project, Mr. Ming explained that they wanted to market the project as an international island. We want to balance it by showing that its international. He said adding that this was not a pre-condition but an initiative taken on their own. Potential investors would also be given the property on a 99-year lease for the purpose of constructing office, retail shopping, residential places and hotels with certain requirements placed like the tower height. Unveiling their Master Plan the project has been divided into five areas namely: financial district on 40 hectares (H) with the ability to accommodate an 11,000 population; a marina on 15 H for 5,000 people; Central Park on 35 H for 10,000 people; an international island on 85 H for 23,000 population; and an island on 95 H for 26,000. The website launched on Thursday gives updates on reclamation progress taken with drones and is primarily meant to provide information to the public previously not available, the company stated. As part of their marketing plan, the company is also using the services of consultancy agencies to reach out to investors in addition to having one-on-one meetings by the company as well. Long-delayed Kantale sugar factory revival gets underway By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s): The long-delayed Kantale sugar factory revival will soon get underway following the release of the 500-acre land to the foreign investor, a senior official said. The land was handed over to the Board of Investment (BOI) to proceed with the project, Dr. I.H.K. Mahanama, Secretary of the Lands Ministry, told the Business Times this week adding that the ministry will sell the discarded machinery and scrap metal within six months in accordance with the instructions issued by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM). The valuation report of the Chief Valuer on the sugar factory has been submitted to the Attorney General and the ministry has received his consent to go ahead with the project handing over the land to the investor through BOI, he disclosed. The BOI will have to sign a supplementary agreement with MG Sugars Lanka Pvt Ltd to revive the defunct Kantale Sugar Factory, he said. It was nearly two years ago, in July 2015 that the BOI inked an agreement with MG Sugars Lanka Pvt Ltd to revive the Factory. The company, a partnership between Bangalore-based Shri Prabulingeshwar Sugars Chemicals Ltd and Singapores SLI Development Pte Ltd, had agreed to invest US$100 million inclusive of a Swiss Bank guarantee of $10 million. The company had then conducted a $2 million feasibility study on the project through a German Company Bosh. It planned to process 500,000 metric tons of sugarcane within 18 months after re-launching the factory providing benefits for 25,000 farmer families in the area. The total number of direct employment generation would be around 1,220. BOI Chairman Upul Jayasuriya told reporters in Colombo last month that the investor was keen to begin the project soon after factory and the 500-acre land is handed over by the government. Shri Prabulingeshwar Sugars and Chemicals Ltd, Bangalore, an experienced group of companies engaged in sugar cane cultivation, sugar manufacturing, co-generation of power plants and dairy industry will be the technical partner for the project. The 30-year lease agreement has to be signed with the investor and the project would run on Built, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis in the basis of shareholding of 51 per cent held by the Government of Sri Lanka and 49 per cent by the foreign investor. The new investment agreement will be to revive and restructure Kantale Sugar factory to process 4000 TCD of sugar cane and manufacture 72,000 MT sugar per year, generation of electricity and dairy products, as per the approval granted by the Cabinet of Ministers. This sugar factory was constructed in 1957 by the government of Czechoslovakia as a grant offered to the country during the tenure of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and it was opened in 1960. It had been smoothly functioning as a profit earning venture until 1986. Thereafter it ceased to be an income earning enterprise and various attempts were made to identify a suitable investor. Industry sources said it would be highly beneficial to restart Kantale Sugar Factory which was inactive over a long period of time as an accelerated development process. This would also address loss of direct and indirect job opportunities in the area as well as losses to the local economy due to non-operation of the sugar factory, they added. Maldives airline suspends flights View(s): MEGA Maldives, the troubled Maldivian private airline which once claimed to carry 10 per cent of all tourist traffic into the Maldives, has suddenly suspended operations catching the market by surprise. In a May 2 announcement, the loss-making airline said it was temporarily suspending all flights immediately as part of restructuring and recapitalisation efforts but that the companys other management and administrative functions will continue as before. Officials from other airlines said they were fielding queries from operators for seats for Chinese clientele who were otherwise to fly on MEGA Maldives. The airline launched weekly flights to Colombo last year. Aviation officials said the airline, largely dependent on the Chinese market, has been badly hit by falling arrivals. Last year, the airline which began operations in 2010, shed staff and cut the number of aircraft to three from five, blaming it on the volatile Chinese market. Strong competition from Maldivian, the countrys national airline, which is flying the same routes as MEGA MALDIVES, also increased losses for the latter. Vowing to re-start, its founder/CEO George Weinmann said in the announcement that, we will look forward to returning to flying very soon with a renewed fleet that can service established, under-served and emerging markets.But other officials said it was unlikely that the airline would resume operations. Mobitel plans to break away from SL Telecom View(s): Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lankas national mobile service provider, will operate as an independent entity exiting from Sri Lanka Telecom after functioning as its subsidiary for more than 14 years. The company will be listed in the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) this year with the aim of broad-basing the ownership of Mobitel which is a fully owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom, official sources disclosed. Details of the listing and other steps are yet to be finalised. This decision of the future of Mobitel was conveyed to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) recently. The government will exit partially or fully from non-strategic investment in Mobitel and several other institutions including Lanka Hospitals, Hotel Developers PLC (Colombo Hilton), Hyatt Residencies, Waters Edge and Grand Oriental Hotel. The governments policy in state owned enterprises will be driven by the strategic placement of its investments in relation to the economy, a note submitted to the CCEM revealed. According to the note, such action will allow the government to raise at least US$1 billion to settle the existing uneconomical, questionable and high cost debt that the present government inherited from the previous regime. When contacted over the phone for further clarification, Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Harin Fernando told the Business Times, that the government has decided to tackle over-capacity in Sri Lankas telecommunication industry while making Mobitel a strong operator by broad-basing the ownership. The government has decided to separate Mobitel from SLT as it is keen to streamline its portfolio of investments, he said. The overcrowded mobile phone industry remains the key medium-term risk to telecom operators in the country, he said, adding that Mobitel would be allowed to operate independently. This company, a subsidiary of SLT is managed by a separate administration even at present and operates on its own, he pointed out emphasising that the proposal to allow it to run as an independent entity after listing in the CSE was also included in the 2016 budget. Mobitel accounted for over 45 per cent of SLT Group revenues and it is the highest income earner among SLTs eight subsidiaries. Mobitel, which started operations in 1993, became a wholly owned subsidiary of SLT in October 2O02. The company is currently in the midst of expanding its network of base stations to 5300 nationwide, from the present level of 3500, an endeavour that will see its coverage expand to 100 per cent of the population. -(Bandula) President urged not to extend retiring Dep. Governors View(s): A Central Bank union has urged President Maithripala Sirisena not to provide extensions to two retiring deputy governors and immediately appoint a senior official who has been picked to replace one. The banks Executive Officers Union, representing over 500 senior staff including deputy governors, in a May 3 letter called for a policy where all officers are retired, without an extension, when reaching 60 years. As reported in the Sunday Times last week, the dispute arose over alleged attempts to extend the services of Deputy Governor S. Lankatillake who retired on April 30 and Senior Deputy Governor P. Samarasiri who is due to retire on August 18. Both are said to be close to former Governor Arjuna Mahendran. The banks Monetary Board on April 4, in view of Mr. Lankatillakes impending retirement, interviewed six senior officers (all assistant governors) to pick a new deputy governor. Soon after that, the MB sent their selection to the Finance Minister for approval. The ministry is yet to respond. Meanwhile in an internal circular, it was announced that nine departments managed by Mr. Lankatillake will be handled temporarily by Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy until the vacant position is filled. SriLankan to resume flights to Australia View(s): SriLankan Airlines is set to resume direct flights to Australia which has been suspended since July 2001. The loss-making carrier in search of a partner to take over its operations is currently working on commencing operations this year to Australia, airline officials said confirming an Australian media report. Australian media quoted an airline spokesperson as saying it would be looking at operating four flights per week onboard its A330 jet fitted with lie-flat business class seats for the long haul trip of 11 hours. This is expected to be the only direct route from Australia to Sri Lanka with most other flights operating via Singapore. A Popean caution and the counter-terror comedy of errors View(s): In one respect, there may be a smidgen of truth in former President Mahinda Rajapaksas bitter lament in the immediate wake of his election defeat in 2015. Continuation of sordid political bargains He complained that he was set on the wrong path at the urging of certain prominent political figures close to him who craftily crossed to the Maithripala Sirisena faction when they realized that his Government was doomed. In particular, he blamed the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) for the disastrous alienation of Sri Lankas Muslim community following the Aluthgama riots and other calculated measures aimed at dispossessing Sri Lankas minority Tamil and Muslim communities. In part, this was a convenient washing of hands. The elevation of the militant Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and the protection it got from the reach of the law despite virulent hate speech was due to the singular chauvinism and chicanery of his Presidency, powered by powerful sources closer at home, despite frequent denials of the President brother and former Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Notwithstanding that fact, the pressure exerted by others outside the immediate Rajapaksa family cabal in that sordid bargaining for power was also undeniable. And it is the continuation of that mindset on the part of those persons influential in the coalition Government which explains why it is committing the very same mistakes as its Rajapaksa predecessor, now roaring for a comeback. A preposterous tango on the CTA The twin issues of garbage and counter-terror provide good examples. Perceptive political observers will notice exactly who in President Maithripala Sirisenas Cabinet is insisting on the Government using a heavy hand in dealing with people rightfully protesting regarding the dumping of Colombos garbage on their lands. So too, the shouting from the rooftops that former Army Commander and Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka should be vested with overall authority to handle trade union protestors, released for maximum irony just a few days before May Day. This led to the merciless lampooning of the President no less, with one depiction showing him casting off his civilian clothes and marching towards a military uniform. The point is that, irrespective from where these asinine ideas originate, they rest on the shoulders of the Head of State, attracting wrath from all quarters. A similar dynamic prevails in regard to the Governments preposterous tango with the European Union (EU) regarding a proposed Counter-Terror Act to replace the decades old Prevention of Terrorism Act(PTA). As observed last week, the stealthy smuggling in of once discarded offences of espionage et al in the CTA draft approved by the Cabinet masked in deceptive language gives rise to misgivings that this was to mislead careless readers. The Cabinet approval came just before the European Parliament rejected a motion called to defeat the pending approval of restoration of the EU GSP Plus trade facility. Several contradictions in law and the sheer arbitrariness of the draft were examined last week. The insistence is on terrorising any person writing or talking in a way that harms unity, irrespective of the fact that this draws absolutely no logic from the law and unacceptably chills freedoms of expression. Here too, the insistence can be sourced to the very same points of nationalistic influence that once prominently featured on the Rajapaksa stage. A pattern of woeful blunders And the damning culpability of the EU in this regard is undeniable. Indeed the blunders were simple. First, it put a weak Government buffeted by wickedly nationalistic forces including from within its own ranks, into an impossible position. This was to formulate controversial legislation on counter-terror which would balance the security of the State and individual rights even though a child could have assessed the fact that the environment was scarcely conducive to such an exercise. And the apparent collusion of in-country representatives of the EU in clearing the CTA sans tough vetting of its contents for compliance to international human rights standards and indeed, Sri Lankas own judicial precedents on protection of civil liberties was unforgivable. Second and unpleasantly so, civil society pressure on governance reform had been weakening from 2015 itself. Very early on, it was warned in these column spaces that a sanguine belief in the Sectoral Oversight Committee to correct a deeply flawed CTA was naive. Now, we see the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) helplessly wringing its hands and bewailing that consensus reached within that Committee had not been reflected in the Cabinet approved CTA. But its culpability in watching meekly as the pro-governance impetus stumbled and staggered with each and every compromise arrived at is clear. For the same regressive elements in the old Rajapaksa regime were undermining the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe combo from day one itself. Crucially important factors were bypassed in sunshiny equations of Colombos EU office dazzled by yahapalanaya rhetoric. Warning signals issued by visiting UN Special Rapporters on Torture and the Independence of the Judiciary were disregarded. The bedazzlement was such that the fundamental condition of a consultatively public process in finalizing the draft CTA was not insisted on. Classic example of ill-informed interventions Added to this is the enormous culpability of the UN. Its performance is a lesson on how not to intervene in highly sensitive processes absent a proper understanding of local complexities. Seemingly it was on the insistence of certain UN agencies that the draft on counter terror by the Law Commission of Sri Lanka was deemed insufficient for the purpose and discarded. This led to hawks in the establishment capturing the process with the end result being this draft CTA, now to be foisted on the people for their manifest sins. Indeed, the whole sorry process illustrates exactly how adherence to international treaties should not be negotiated between international agencies and a Government. Well intentioned interventionists rushing in where angels fear to tread, as the satirist Alexander Pope couched it in his inimitable style centuries ago, can make matters worse, not better. Let this be categorically asserted. If enacted in its present form, the CTA raises grave possibilities of abuse under regimes-to-be or (even) under this Government if it wraps the garb of anti-democratic defensiveness around it. But this is not a reality that UN experts or the EU will need to confront at any point. Instead its impact will be directly on people unfortunate enough to live here. The draft CTA came about through a comedy of errors even as Sri Lankans who will potentially be most affected, watched fascinated, furious and powerless. Certainly that mistake must be corrected at least now before it results in irreversible harm. The Wipro officials have lodged the complaint and an FIR under Section 66 F of the IT Act has been registered at the cyber crime police station. By Rohini Swamy: IT major Wipro has filed a complaint with the Bengaluru Police after they received an anonymous email on Friday that there would be an attack on their offices if Rs 500 crore is not paid in bitcoins. The email also mentioned a specific portal where the currency needed to be deposited. The money was asked to be deposited in 29 days from the day the email was sent. advertisement Wipro has filed a case under the cyber terrorism laws. "Wipro confirms that it has filed a complaint with the local law enforcement authorities after receiving a threatening letter from an unidentified source. Wipro has augmented security measures at all its office locations. There is no impact on the company's operations. We have no further comments as the investigation is ongoing," the IT major said in a statement. The Bengaluru Additional Commissioner (crime) S Ravi too confirmed that the IT giant had filed a complaint. The sender of the email had threatened to use ricin, which is known to have fatal error facts if ingested, inhaled or injected. In the vicious email, the sender mentioned that he had isolated 1 kg of high-quality ricin and would be sending 2 grams in envelopes to one of Wipro's offices in the city in the coming days to prove that he was not to be taken lightly. The email was sent from the id Ramesh2@protonmail.com.The Wipro officials have lodged the complaint and an FIR under Section 66 F of the IT Act has been registered at the cyber crime police station. Also read: Wipro sacks around 600 employees post performance appraisal Wipro unveils new logo Watch video: Wipro Bengaluru office receives anonymous email threatening attack, asking for Rs 500 crore in bitcoins --- ENDS --- New post: Def. Sec. surprised View(s): Defence Secretary Engineer Karunasena Hettiaratchchi must have raised his eye brows the other day when he opened a letter that had arrived addressed to him from P.B. Abeykoon, Secretary to the President. It conveyed the news that he has been named as Sri Lankas next Ambassador to Germany. His personal details, known in diplomatic parlance as agrement, had even been forwarded by the Foreign Ministry in Colombo to their counterparts in Berlin. Other than that, no one had spoken to him personally about his new assignment. Upon acceptance, Hettiaratchchi, a classmate of President Maithripala Sirisena, will be officially named Sri Lankas new envoy. The move comes amidst reports of the Defence Secretary being embroiled in a string of controversies. Before assuming office as Defence Secretary, he was Chairman of the Water Board. Upon acceptance, Hettiaratchchi, a classmate of President Maithripala Sirisena, will be officially named Sri Lankas new envoy. The move comes amidst reports of the Defence Secretary being embroiled in a string of controversies. Before assuming office as Defence Secretary, he was Chairman of the Water Board. If accepted by the German Government, Engineer Hettiaratchchi will succeed Karunatilleke Amunugama. The latter whose three year term ended in August last year nine months back, was asked to continue in office until a replacement was announced. During that period, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs first nominated Ranjith Uyangoda, a senior career diplomat and then changed its mind even after his agreement was accepted by Berlin and nominated Saroja Sirisena, a career officer with over twenty years experience and now serving in Mumbai. President Sirisena had not given his consent to the latter appointment causing a disruption in succession to head our mission in Berlin. In the meantime, Uyangoda was made a Secretary of a ministry. That in itself is an indictment on the Governments handling of diplomatic postings. Other than finding foreign postings to those who were being relieved of other positions or naming political nominees, they have not been able to come up with any names of qualified professionals while several senior career officers were hard done by intrigue within the Foreign Ministry. This is in marked contrast to the election pledge that they would introduce professionalism in the Foreign Service an election pledge that was repeated ad nauseum. Some Sri Lanka head of mission appointments have turned out to be hilarious if it was not so tragic. One ambassador, a trader from Polonnaruwa was recalled after he made a fool of himself in a South Asian capital. Another has been appointed to a West Asian capital because a topmost Government leader claimed former President Mahinda Rajapaksas comrades would have to be separated from him. That was why he had named the one-time Rajapaksa confidante to the post and added that it would then be easy to deal a political blow to the former President when they are taken to the Government side. He was obviously unaware he was making more enemies within his own ranks by such action. Set to succeed Hettiaratchchi as Defence Secretary is Kapila Waidyaratne, presently Additional Solicitor General in the Attorney Generals Department. He has already given his consent to President Sirisena to serve in this capacity, according to sources close to the presidency. An upright public servant, he is due to retire in June. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also named Buddhi Athauda, son of former LSSP MP and UPFA Minister Athauda Seneviratne as the Ambassador designate to France. His personal details have already been forwarded to the French Foreign Ministry for approval. He succeeds Ambassador Tilak Ranaviraja whose three year term ends in August this year. Government sources said yesterday that among the other appointments in the pipeline are to have Sri Lankas Ambassador in Korea Manisha Gunasekera cross-posted to the UN in Geneva unless current Ministry spokesperson Mahishini Collonne is to be sent there, as incumbent Ambassador Ravinath Aryasinha will likely be assigned to the Presidential Secretariat. Ambassador in Brussels (EU), Rodney Perera and in Vienna Priyanee Wijesekera are likely to get extensions, while the post of Consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has been offered to a member of the family of A.H.M. Ashraff, the late leader of the Muslim Congress (SLMC), in a bid to unite the family with the current leadership of the SLMC following estrangement in recent times. Hakeem on Musali meeting City Planning and Water Supply Minister Rauff Hakeem has responded to the report headlined Wild Scenes at Hakeems meeting in these columns last week. He writes: Following Gazette notification No. 2011/34 issued by the President, which designated four defined areas north of Wilpattu Sanctuary as conserved forests, it was necessary for me as the Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and a Cabinet Minister to make an assessment of how it would impact the settlement of IDPs who were returning to their original homesteads. At a meeting attended by the Secretary to the President, officials of the Ministry of Environment, the Conservator General of Forests and the Director General, Wildlife, it was agreed to send a team of officials to the Musali Divisional Secretariat to discuss the grievances of the IDP returnees. Senior officials of the Forest Department, the Wildlife Department, the Armed Forces, the Police, and former Vanni MPs, Unais Farook, Muthalif Bawa Farook, Deputy Minister Faisal Cassim and many other officials attended this meeting at the Musali DS office. Hence, the claim in the published news item that no official turned up except myself is not consistent with the facts and what transpired at the event.Prof. S.H. Hasbullah, former Professor in Geography of the Peradeniya University who has made a pioneering study of the issues involved and Dr. Nawfel, another senior lecturer of the Geography Department from the University of Peradeniya, were also present to explain and elucidate on the effects and implications of the gazette notification. There was a free and friendly exchange of views and contrary to the news report, was wholly devoid of any party politics.However, a group led by Mr.M.H.M Nawavi, representative of the All Ceylon Makkal Katchi, turned up at the meeting and demanded to know why the Secretary to the President did not turn up as promised. This group arrived much later and clearly intended to disrupt the proceedings. Inevitably, it resulted in some heated exchanges between this group and other participants. The Divisional Secretary very sternly asked Mr.Nawavi and his group of disruptors to leave the premises and ensured their removal. Jamis Banda adds: The invitees had been assured that officials from the Presidential Secretariat will be present to discuss the issue. However, they were not present at the meeting where the Gazette notification issued by the President himself was to be discussed. Minister Hakeem also admits that the meeting was interrupted by those protesting. Lycamobile boss Allirajah in tax trouble again The Sri Lanka-born owner of the London-based giant telecommunication provider Lycamobile is again in the news over tax payments in Britain. Owner Subaskaran Allirajah was in the news last year too over a delay in filing of company accounts and was warned that he would be struck off the companies register and action taken if the matter was not settled in the extra time given to Lycamobile to meet the legal requirements. A financial donor to the Conservative Party, Mr. Allirajahs dispute with Her Majestys Revenue and Customs Department is expected to prove a political embarrassment to the Conservatives fighting a general election next month. Lycamobiles contribution to Tory party funds made news last year too when Mr. Allirajah was embroiled in a dispute with the Company House over the non-submission of accounts in time. In the last years of the Rajapaksa presidency Mr. Allirajah was cultivating the SriLankan Airlines management to win the sole rights for a General Sales Agreement (GSA) with the airline in the hope of cornering the SriLankan Airlines travel market in Britain According to reports circulating in Britain in the past few years, Sri Lankan politicians and officials visiting London were lavishly entertained. Mr. Allirajah was said to have tried to negotiate a GSA with the new management of the national carrier through political contacts including ministers.Last month, the Guardian newspaper which has little love for the Conservative Party carried a major story in its business section about the latest problems involving Lycamobile. Dayasiris comments make Sajith go red Mey ee-ye niyama wedak wuna or a fine thing happened yesterday, declared Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera talking to Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) colleagues this week. This was minutes ahead of a news conference they were to address. Mama kabinet eka iwara wela enakota mamai, Kabir Hashimui, Malikui, api thun dena kayyiak gahagena innakota Sajith awa. (When the Cabinet meeting ended last Tuesday and he together with ministerial colleagues Kabir Hashim and Malik Samarawickrema were chatting when Sajith Premadasa came by.) Mang Sajith ta kiuwwa umba ara karapu kathawa awurudu dekakata kalin kala nam, api yanne nehe ne UNP eken kiyala, (I told Sajith I would not have left the UNP if he made his (May Day) speech two years ago.) Others broke into laughter. In his speech, Premadasa praised UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Magen ahuwa mokadda kiyala? Mang kiuwwa umba ara kiuwwe divi himiyen rakinawa, nayakathumawa rakinna oney, api araksha karaganna oney, nayakathwaye thiyaganna oney kiyala. Mun kiuwwa umba awurudu dekakata kalin oka kiuwwa nam api yanne nehe ne kiyala. (Sajith asked me what it was all about. I told him he had said we must protect the leader and help him keep the leadership. I said if he had made that speech two years ago, I would not have left the party. Aruge muna rathuwelayanna giya or his (Premadasas) face turned red as he walked away. There is an interesting postscript. Those words in Sinhala were all recorded. The microphone had been made active long before the news conference began. High taxes and leasing rules drive motor vehicles down There was a dip of 26.2 percent in the registration of new vehicles last year, according to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles (RMV). This was in comparison to 2015 when 668,907 vehicles in all categories were registered. This number dropped to 493,328 last year. Motor cars registered last year, RMV statistics reveal, dropped to 45,172 from 105,628 in 2015. It was a 57.23 percent decrease. Threewheeler scooter registrations also saw a sharp drop with 56,945 registered last year as compared to 129,547 in 2015 or a 56 percent drop. Motorcycle registrations went down from 370,889 in 2015 to 340,129 last year a, 8.29 percent drop. The decline is attributed to hike in taxes on imports and the ceiling imposed on lease facilities to buy vehicles, the statistics reveal. Dudley Sirisena gave Rs. 60 m for polls campaign Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne made an interesting revelation when he addressed the United National Party (UNP) May Day rally last Monday. He said there was no money during the presidential election campaign in late 2014 when Maithripala Sirisena contested. He said they succeeded in getting President Sirisenas brother, Dudley, a leading rice miller from Polonnaruwa, to raise a bank overdraft of Rs 60 million. That was spent for the campaign. Playing pandu with the press View(s): Overawed by the May Day public display of support for their political opponents and even for their partners in government and perhaps exhausted by their own efforts to convince the people that promises made two years ago have not been forgotten, our ruling elite seem to have forgotten one important event. May 3rd was World Press Freedom Day which is commemorated in most parts of the world where even a semblance of freedom still exists and media practitioners can still get away with their limbs intact and their rights not entirely suppressed by despicable despots, officious bureaucrats and nepotistic appointees with little or no knowledge of the basic principles of good governance. Usually presidents, prime ministers and ministers in charge of media would issue statements on World Press Freedom Day extolling their own virtues in safeguarding media freedom, how they have battled to preserve it or revive it after years of suppression and have stopped the physical and mental harassment of journalists. But this year even those platitudinous words from political pulpits were absent. At the time of writing this column on Thursday night (London time) I checked the official websites of the president and prime minister who tend to move onto centre stage whenever there is a major national or international event that calls for a paragraph or two celebrating or commemorating it. After all, this government has often celebrated with words the great media victories it has won for us, extirpating the vicious maltreatment that went before. Alas! I found none. There are, of course, the naive and the ignorant which would discourage the media from delving too deep into their websites in case we discover their idiosyncrasies and lack of clarity. Despite such attempts at bureaucratic and diplomatic obfuscation we searched even the website of the Minister of Parliamentary Reforms and Mass Media, who, as the minister in charge should have recognised the importance of the world event and issued a statement on behalf of the country if the president and prime minister were too exhausted after participating in Labour Day activities though our May Day has little to do with workers, unlike when there was a strong left movement. Today workers serve one purpose filling the sites of the rallies to which they are often transported at the expense of political parties. Curiously enough even that usually loquacious secretary to the ministry seems to have taken a vow of silence which some might say is not a bad thing after all given some earlier encounters. Finally I managed to uncover a statement made by the Deputy Minister of Mass Media Karunarathna Paranawithana. However this record of government achievements in safeguarding journalists and their rights was not made in Sri Lanka but in the Indonesian capital Jakarta where a conference was held in connection with Press Freedom Day. Some might even say that the government is trying to distance itself from its earlier commitment to media freedom by talking of its achievements in safeguarding that freedom by selling these tales abroad instead of at home. Admittedly, it is more difficult to do so at home where the perennial platitudes are accepted with as much alacrity as the garbage that has been accumulating over the years at Meethotamulla. The government will seek high standards in media in Sri Lanka through the establishment of an independent media commission said Parliamentary Reforms and Mass Media Deputy Minister Karu Paranawithana addressing world press freedom day conference in Jakarta on May 3. The Government is also committed to the cause of journalist safety and all efforts will be taken to end impunity, Mr. Paranawithana said addressing the panel on Journalists Safety and Tackling Impunity. We are slowly but gradually moving towards ensuring full media freedom in Sri Lanka, he added, reported the ministry website. For the edification of those participants who are not fully acquainted with government media policy and related issues it would surely have been beneficial all round if the deputy minister had spelled out what this independent media commission is all about. How does this commission work and how is the government going to seek to raise high standards in the media. Is this independent commission going to be truly independent or is it going to turn out to be another stalking horse that will stamp its hooves on criticism and dissent? That is the crucial question here. Not what the government claims the commission is but what it will be in practice another body to oversee the media under a more innocuous title. The government was successful in implementing RTI laws in Sri Lanka and the same inclusive procedures will be adopted in bringing in laws on media regulation, the Deputy Minister reportedly said. Admittedly, the RTI law was a progressive measure and one should be thankful for seeing it through. But this rosy picture is already beginning to fade as it is being challenged. Last Sunday, this newspaper carried two items a news report by Namini Wijedasa and a column by the papers Legal Affairs commentator that exposed the surreptitious means by which the government has managed to smuggle into the Counter Terrorism Act (CTA) offences such as the one relating to confidential information by simply tampering with words in the earlier draft, intended it would seem to convince the European Union to approve GSP Plus status for Sri Lanka. But, as Namini Wijedasa points out, this undermines the much-touted Right to Information Act. Wijedasa wrote: Confidential information has a broad definition under the CTA policy framework. It includes: Any information not in the public domain, the dissemination of which is likely to have an adverse effect on national or public security. Questions now arise on the position of the CTA against the Right to Information Act, also enacted by this Government, which denotes that public security is not a ground to restrict information. The RTI Act only permits information to be withheld on the grounds of national security, defence of the State or territorial integrity. This means that the proposed CTA now contradicts the RTI Act. It would also prevail over the RTI Act because the draft CTA states that once enacted it will have priority over past laws, she wrote. Legal Affairs columnist Kishali Pinto Jayawardene provides a more detailed analysis of how the government has tried to sneak in dangerous definitions of offences under the Counter Terrorism Act which it pretended to drop because of earlier objections. Space does not permit me to quote at length Ms. Pinto Jayawardenes column but it must be read in full to understand how the government is trying to hoodwink the country and the European Union by showing a more benign face when in fact it is subtracting from the progressive legislation it has already enacted. This contagion of deception, lies and hostility to journalistic freedom and independence is now spreading beyond Sri Lankas shores where even diplomatic missions seem to believe that they should deny journalists access to information and contact, thus trampling on the right of the media to seek information under the RTI law. Last month, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies held a two-day conference in London, co-sponsored by the Asian Affairs Magazine, on the theme The Commonwealth and Challenges to Media Freedom. A paper by Kishali Pinto Jayawardene was presented on the increasing concern in Sri Lanka, particularly regarding the faltering progress in enacting a Right to Information law and the impact of a recently proposed counter-terror law on freedom of expression. As a founder-member of the Commonwealth one would expect Sri Lanka to be represented at diplomatic level, not only because it is a subject of concern to the Sri Lankan government which has expressed on numerous occasions its commitment to media freedom and the safety of journalists, but because of the presentation on Sri Lanka which was an embarrassing expose. This conference attracted many experts from diverse fields but all interested in media freedom. Much could have been learnt on the importance of the medias role even in promoting trade, which today is a priority area for the government. For those who are unaware of the Commonwealths Latimer House Principles it would have been an opportunity to add to their storehouse of knowledge, which seems to have plenty of vacant space these days. But then there must be a will to participate and a desire to learn how to deal with the media and how to use it as an important adjunct to the democratic process, not shun it because of ill-advice or ignorance, as the conference so patently conveyed. Today the Sunday Punch presents the Vesak Trilogy: The Birth, the Enlightenment and the Great Passing Away of Gautama the Buddha. The second part of the trilogy, Night Siddhartha became Buddha and the third part The Night Buddha Attained Nirvana appeared on May 3rd 2015 and last year on May 22nd 2016 respectively in the Sunday Punch. This year even as Lanka begins to commemorate the thrice blessed day of Vesak which falls this Wednesday, the Sunday Punch presents the final installment: the first part of the trilogy, the Birth of Siddhartha; and the many events both of happiness and sorrow surrounding his advent. Night Siddhartha became Buddha Over two thousand five hundred years ago in the far off plains of Northern India, a royal prince of the realm renounces his worldly life and embarks upon an unknown path in an unknown quest to find an unknown treasure that would reveal why all life dances on a razor blade, why all life weep, why all life decay and why all life die. He knows the answer lies not in ornate halls, in coffers within guarded walls or hidden in the humblest hamlets or submerged in povertys sewers. Sorrow shadows the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the healthy and the sick alike and all beings born are subject to this iron law from which no perceivable end, no way out appears to exist. But he knows there must be, there has to be the path to deliverance; and he determines to find it. And he knows it lies in the way of the abode less ascetic. His search for the truth, free from the clangs of domestic chains, free from the trappings of power, free from frivolous mundane pains and free for the soul to flower takes six long arduous years which brings him to the brink of death when he realises that extreme penance like extreme pleasure will not enable him to transcend karmas iron clasp and free mankind from sorrows grasp and that the path lay in the middle way. It is a full moon day in the month of Vaisakha. It is his thirty fifth birthday. Soon the evening gives way to night. He is seated under the sacred tree of wisdom, the Peepal tree under which he had sat all day determined never to rise until he had gained the ultimate. As moonlit beams stream through leaves to shed a warm glow, a breeze blows and brings a drizzle of flowers from surrounding trees. And then a gentle rain softly falls. He notices it and wonders why it is not falling on him. He looks over his head and sees the hood of a giant cobra shielding him from the rain, protecting him from the elements. The lotus is about to blossom and he sits poised in meditation on the threshold of discovery. The hours pass but for Siddhartha time stands still. He is absorbed with his surroundings With every breath he takes he takes in the subtle rustle of the wind, the soothing ripple of the stream, the sweet smell of the earth until nature becomes one with him. He enters the First Watch. From the depths of his consciousness he feels a deep stirring. The demons within him rise. They appear incarnate before his eyes, the living creatures of lifes torments. And then the storm breaks. The assault begins in earnest. From all sides the demons strike but his aura exudes a powerful shield. Then Mara, the God of the Underworld makes his entrance in a chariot drawn by his ghouls. In sonorous voice he warns Siddhartha, Turn back. None can threaten my kingdom built on mans insatiable greed. Mara unleashes his forces. The demons multiply and attack but fail to penetrate the armour of his concentration. Finally Mara retreats. And Siddhartha realises Mara was his own creation; the overlord of his consciousness. He enters the Second watch. With Mara defeated his consort Maya rises to challenge Siddhartha. Maya of a thousand dances, Maya the great deceiver, Maya, the bewitching seductress. She takes up the gauntlet. This is her forte. She sends in the dancing girls. Maras demons now transform into beautiful damsels, their pouting breasts tightly clasped, the full round hips swirl in motion as they advance to break his concentration. He sees them taking shape, becoming more and more beautiful as they near. The music of the past rings in his ears. He feels their hands caressing his body, enticing him with their seductive allures but they fail to move him. His mind remains unshaken. He defeats Maya and her girls. He now enters the state of Samadhi. He enters into another dimension. The dimension of space. Time and space converge; the past, present and future merge into a single entity. And he sees his past births flashing before his eyes. He enters the second state and sees how all life repeats the cycle of rebirth. Born only to perish and in death to be reborn again. He enters the third state. And he dwells on the obstacles that prevent man from realising the way out of this cycle of woe. The five hindrances namely lust, anger, languor, restlessness and doubt that springs from a lack of understanding of the nature of the world. And he dwells on seven factors to realise clear vision: mindfulness, true inquiry, energy, relaxation, concentration, equanimity and joy to transcend the melancholy and gloom of the mind. Then with joy he enters the fourth state: Higher consciousness. He begins to meditate on the law of cause and effect and realises that whatever being or thing, if it has within the nature of arising, it also has within its own seed, the nature of its own cessation. The answer lay not in an external power but within the core of oneself. Absorbed thus in the nature of things his body starts to emit colours. Blue from his mind, yellow from his flesh, red from his blood and orange from his nerves and bones. There he sits under the Bodhi, rapt in meditation, in serene calmness, radiating from within a whole spectrum of colours with a giant cobra standing guard. Mara he had defeated. Maya he had vanquished but enlightenment still eludes him. One more barrier remains, the greatest obstacle of all had to be overcome. And then there dawns perception. The final chain he has to shed is his own ignorance, his own ego. It is ignorance that lay at the core of all suffering. Ignorance, the root of all ills. As the heavens resound with delight, as the Gods bow in reverence, and as the earth wraps in enchantment, Siddhartha attains the supreme state of tranquility; the quintessence of bliss. He gains Enlightenment. And as twenty seven others have done before him, he becomes a Buddha. Night the Buddha attained Nirvana: The last days of a long samsaric journey Night was falling. And even as the morning star must meet its evening doom, even as all life must end in death, what was true for all beings on earth was inevitably coming true for the mortal frame of Gautama the Buddha. The house, karmic action had erected birth after birth throughout the samsaric journey, now stood poised to fall and would not be built again And as his disciples peered into the gloom of the dying light on that full moon night of Vesak, they could scare forbear to brood in dread what luminosity now lay left to illumine the gathering dark in a world bereft of a Buddha. They had known it was coming three months earlier when the Buddha had chosen to announce it publicly at Capala Ceitya near Vesali, though the Enlightened One had known of its approach much earlier. With his two chief disciples Venerable Sariputta and Moggalana predeceasing him as had his son Venerable Rahula and wife Yasodhara, the Buddha, now in his eightieth year, had described himself as a worn out cart. It was time, he decided, to leave Rajagaha where he was then residing; and embark on his last journey restating what he had preached for forty five years. The final destination was not to be the great cities of Savatthi or Benares but the little known hamlet of Kusinara. The journey is long and arduous. Travelling with his closest disciple the Venerable Ananda, it takes him through Ambalattikka and Nalanda to Pataligama. From there he proceeds to Kotigama and then to Nanda. He passes from village to village, from town to town sojourning briefly at each place to expound the essence of his Dhamma to the communities of Bhikkhus; and reaches Vesali where he retires with his retinue to the Mango Grove of Ambapali, the beautiful courtesan. Knowing Ambapali to be a potential Arahant, he preaches the Dhamma and edifies her on the path to enlightenment. Its the onset of the rainy season; and the Buddha decides to spend his retreat his forty fifth and last in the village of Beluva in Vesali. He tells his closest disciple, Come, Ananda, let us proceed to Beluva, and they proceed thither. But with the rains, come the pains. It comes in sharp, short shocks, pointed arrows from the illness which has taken hold. Tormented by these relentless pangs of deadly pains, and with his body wracked by the severe disease and made weak, he realises the end is fast approaching. But there is still some work of noble note to be done before he can bid final farewell. It will not be fitting if he came to his final passing away without addressing his disciples and clearing the last vestiges of doubt they may have. And so he resolves to suppress his illness by his superhuman strength of will and resolves to maintain his life course and live on. Thus is the illness flayed and he makes an astounding recovery. Then the Blessed One takes his bowl and proceeds to Vesali for his alms. On his return, he tells Ananda, Come Ananda, take a mat and let us spend the day at the Capala Ceitya. They reach the shrine of Capala and sit down. And then the Buddha tells Ananda, Whosoever, Ananda, has brought to perfection the four constituents of psychic power could, if he so desired, remain throughout a world-period or until the end of it. The Tathagata, Ananda, has done so. Therefore the Tathagata could, if he so desired, remain throughout a world-period or until the end of it. But Anandas mind is dominated at that moment by Mara. He does not beseech the Buddha to remain for the lasting good of the world, but remains silent. The message is lost on him. The Buddha repeats it for the second time. But Ananda remains silent. The repeats it for the third and final time but still Ananda stays silent. The significance of the moment eludes him. The opportunity to invite the Buddha to remain on earth for an eon for the lasting good of all mankind flies. Then once Ananda had gone, Mara approaches the Buddha. He says, The time has come for the Parinibbana of the Lord. But the Buddha answers, Do not trouble yourself. Three months hence the Tathagata will utterly pass away. Thus here at Capala Ceitya the Buddha renounces his will to live. When Ananda returns, the Buddha tells him of his decision. Ananda recalls what the Buddha had told him earlier and realises his folly of having remained silent. He now beseeches the Buddha to remain, but the Buddha cuts him short and says, Enough, Ananda, do not entreat the Tathagata, for the time is past, For if you had done so earlier, Ananda, twice the Tathagata might have declined, but the third time he would have consented.. Thereafter he asks Ananda to summon all the Bhikkhus in the surrounding area of Vesali and, after impressing upon them the truths he had preached, namely, the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four constituents of psychic power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the Noble Eightfold Path, he publicly announces that three months hence the Tathagata will utterly pass away. He then leaves Vesali and proceeds on his journey to Kusinara, passing through Bhandagama, Hatthigama, Ambagama, Jambugama and Bhoganagara giving counsel to the Bhikkhus at every place until he reaches Pava. Here he is served his last meal and then falls violently ill with dysentery. The pains come and, though extremely weak and severely ill, he determines to walk the final lap of his journey to Kusinara, six miles away. Owing to his illness the Buddha is compelled to sit and rest in 25 places. At one such spot, a traveller sees the serenity of the Buddha and, so moved by the sight, gifts the Buddha a golden robe. As Ananda adorns the Buddha with it, the dazzling robe of burnished gold loses its splendor for the Buddha complexion becomes exceedingly radiant. Noticing Anandas astonishment at this transformation, the Buddha tells him: Ananda, on two occasions the Tathagatas skin becomes clear and extremely radiant. One is on the night the Tathagata attains Buddhahood. The other is on the night the Tathagata passes away and attains Nirvana. He then pronounces he would pass away on the third watch of the night on that day. The Buddha arrives in Kusinara and heads to the Sala Grove of the Mallas. There between twin Sala trees he lies down on the couch Ananda has prepared for him. He lies on his right side with his head to the north, with one leg resting on the other. Though in pain, he remains with perfect composure, mindful and self possessed. Soon the Gods descend on the Sal Grove to express their grief, so great in number that not a spot is there that could be pricked with the tip of a hair that is not filled with powerful deities, lamenting too soon has the Blessed One come to his Parinibbana, too soon will the Eye of the World vanish from sight. He then proceeds to explain to Ananda variant salient points of the Dhamma, then addresses the Bhikkhus and asks them to question him as to any doubts they may have on the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. But all remain silent harbouring no doubt or perplexity. He makes his final exhortation that if anyone thinks they have no master any longer and wonder who their master shall be, they should not ponder over such thoughts. He says: The Dhamma and the Discipline which I have proclaimed and made known shall be your Master, when I am gone. Then the Tathagata states his last words: All compounded things are subject to change and decay. Strive on with diligence, and enters the first ecstasy. Then rising from the first, he enters the second ecstasy, then the third and fourth. Rising from the fourth ecstasy, he enters the sphere of infinite space, then infinite consciousness then nothingness, the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. Then rising from that sphere, he attains the cessation of perception and feeling. Seeing this, Ananda believes the Buddha had passed away and begins to grieve but is told by the Venerable Anuruddha, that the Buddha has entered the state of cessation of perception and feeling and that he has not passed away. Then the Buddha rises from the state of cessation of perception and feeling and enters the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, then, in reverse order, enters nothingness, then infinite consciousness, infinite space, then the fourth ecstasy, the third, the second and then the first. The he rises from the first ecstasy, the second, the third and then the fourth. And finally rising from the fourth ecstasy, the Buddha immediately passes away in the third watch of the night; and attains that indescribable state of permanent bliss, the supreme state of Nirvana. Winding up parliamentary life View(s): My dear Geetha, I thought I must write to you when I heard the courts had declared that your election to Parliament was null and void because you also happen to be a citizen of Switzerland. This must have come as a shock to you because you had been protesting your innocence ever since you entered Parliament. Pardon me, Geetha, but we all knew that you could not be an MP if you were a dual citizen, ever since Maithri and the Green Man passed that amendment to the Constitution. So, it is a little puzzling as to why you chose to contest the elections without getting rid of your Swiss citizenship properly. We do admire you as an actress, Geetha, but I dont quite like this idea of actors and actresses or any other celebrities, for that matter entering Parliament on the strength of their popularity in a different field. In fact, what we have seen in the recent past is that they are as bad as the rest of them. When it comes to actors and actresses taking to politics, we know that Ronald Reagan became the President of the United States and closer to home, MGR and Jayalalithaa used their fame as celluloid idols to good effect to lead Tamil Nadu. However, here in Sri Lanka we have not been that fortunate. The biggest name in our cinema, Gamini, took to politics but didnt make much of an impact and only made it to the Deputy Speakers post. Though he was responsible for Saagarayak Meda which criticised the Queen Bee, ultimately he took up a Governors post under her daughter, Satellite. Gaminis namesake, Malani, also made a foray into politics, when Mahinda maama appointed her to Parliament recently. She too didnt achieve much, even resigning midway into her term. Many say she would have been better off had she stuck to what she knew best instead of being tainted by politics. Then we had Vijaya, who probably had the best chance of making it big as a politician because he not only had the charisma, he also had the right family connections. Unfortunately that was not to be. He was silenced by an assassin and it was Satellite who went on to reach the highest office in the country. We have now almost forgotten that the other leading man of Vijayas era, Ravi was also a politician and was in Parliament, appointed in the National List by the Greens. He later changed his loyalties to Mahinda maama. Starlets like Paba did the same and the less said about them, the better it is. Then we now have Ranjan whose hobby it is to go around cursing government officials during his spare time. Yet, he seems more politician than actor because he was able to expose that Padeniya chaps strike by day, channel by night tactics but it is still too early to say how long he will last. Geetha, you too arent able to break that movie stars curse because you have now been given marching orders. You are appealing to the highest courts in the land, so good luck with that. However, I think your mistake was not having dual citizenship but supporting the wrong man at the wrong time. I think you must take a leaf out of the books of people like SB and Dayasiri. SB was with Satellite first, then with the Greens and then with Mahinda maama even when he was running against Maithri. Now he is back with Maithri and those allegations about houses in Hanguranketha have gone away! Dayasiri too was with the Greens and was in Sajiths camp. He learnt his lesson when they challenged the Green Man and lost. So, despite openly accusing Maithri of not having a backbone during election rallies for Mahinda maama, he now bends in two to worship Maithri and become a minister! Lets face it, Geetha, politics is a bit more difficult than looking at a camera and reading from a script. Why, there was that embarrassing moment when you said that 20 million people attended the paada yaathra last year. By that count, you must think last weeks crowd at Galle Face was 200 million! Anyway, Geetha, I think the story about you being kicked out of Parliament made headlines last week not merely because of you but also because so many others would be affected. Isnt it a fact that both Basil malli and Gota malli are also citizens of Uncle Sam so, now they too cannot stand for election? Geetha, we do wish you well in the months to come. However, most people would like to remember you as a brilliant actress who gave memorable performances in films such as Siribo Aiya Karummakkarayo and Paalama Yata rather than as yet another artiste going behind politicians! Yours truly, Punchi Putha PS: The movies you acted in could well describe the predicament that you are in now. All this drama around your seat in Parliament seems like a Colamba Sanniya to us and it must be like Ahasin Polawata for you but those with Mahinda maama must be saying Onna maamey kella penapi! Let the Buddhas message radiate from Lanka! View(s): More than two millennia ago, India gave to Sri Lanka its greatest gift the gift of the Dhamma. The Doctrine of the Middle Path pronounced first by Indias greatest son, Gautama the Buddha at a Deer Park in Saranath and brought to this island by the son of the great Emperor Asoka. It changed the lives of the islands inhabitants for ever more, and this nation was to henceforth be known as the Dhammadvipa, the land of the Dhamma. As time went by, Buddhism faded away from where it had originated. Foreign invaders burnt and destroyed ancient seats of learning like Nalanda and it took a British army engineer, Sir Alexander Cunningham to excavate the lost Buddhist civilisation in India marked by Asokan pillars and a Sri Lankan, Anagarika Dharmapala, at the latter part of the 19th century to revive Buddhism in the land of its birth. Forming the Maha Bodhi Society of Bodh Gaya in 1891, Dharmapala galvanised Buddhists around the world, when half the world was colonised, to regain the sites associated with the life of the Buddha. Today, thousands of pilgrims visit the Holy Land of India and the Indian Government honoured the Sri Lankan by issuing a postage stamp to commemorate his 150th birth anniversary three years ago. The visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sri Lanka next week to participate in the celebrations to mark the United Nations International Day of Vesak is therefore significant, and for more reasons than one. Though heading a strong Hindutva Government, Modi himself has made an extra effort to reach out to Buddhists in India. He represents the constituency of Varanasi, which has a large Muslim and Hindu population; it is where the River Ganges flows and is in close proximity to Saranath. Despite his partys pro-Hindu posturing, Premier Modi is at pains to shed his reputation of yesteryear as a religious zealot and rather, portray himself as a moderate national leader, showing as he does, like the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, a great deal of affinity towards Buddhism. Regrettably, his visit to Sri Lanka is being shrouded in some veils of controversy. Some political elements are preparing for a protest campaign, just as much as some Hindu extremists in India are protesting his visit for a Buddhist celebration. Premier Modi seems to be treading the Middle Path. The controversy within this country is not entirely without reason. Indias foreign policy during the days of Indira Gandhis stewardship was one of unleashing the Panikkar Doctrine (which advocated Sri Lanka being an autonomous unit within the Indian federation) and Indian expansionism back in the 1970s. This saw India change its policy of pancha seela to direct intervention, changing the dynamics of regional politics. India midwifed the birth of Bangladesh, nurtured terrorist groups in Sri Lanka and undermined parliaments in Nepal, eventually earning the wrath of all its neighbours. As far as Sri Lanka was concerned, all the goodwill of centuries through the Buddhist links to India was blown away, as New Delhi at the time pursued its hegemonic foreign policy. The internal compulsions of coalition politics forced India to bend backwards to keep the southern state of Tamil Nadu content and allow the states politicians to dictate Indias Sri Lanka policy at the expense of good bilateral relations with its closest, oldest and dearest southern sovereign state. Eventually, Ms. Gandhis son Rajiv was murdered on Tamil Nadu soil by the very group Indiras India used to destabilise Sri Lanka. What you sow, you shall reap.One cannot, however, live in the past, as they say and countries too must move on. Former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, the one who in recent times was responsible for United Nations General Assembly Resolution 54/15 that paved the way for the UNs recognition of the Day of Vesak having got several non-Buddhist countries like Spain, the Philippines, Ukraine, India, Pakistan and the Maldives etc., to support the resolution, referred to relations with India as being of irreversible excellence. The current leaders of both India and Sri Lanka seem keen to move forward, and re-establish those age-old bonds lost by Indias adventurist past where clearly Sri Lanka was the aggrieved party. That is a tall task for these leaders. It is not easy for the majority of Sri Lankans not to be suspicious of India, especially when Sri Lankas own northern politicians keep running to India for help on a regular basis and the former Government believes India had a role to play in its ouster in 2015. The visits of Premier Modi and the newly democratic Nepals lady President, Bidhya Devi Bandani, must herald a new beginning of cooperation and partnership for the South Asian region. The regional grouping, SAARC has not had the desired impact on the livelihoods of the peoples of the eight countries that make up the association up until now. As for the UN Day of Vesak celebrations, this is the first time Sri Lanka is hosting the event despite it being its former Foreign Minister who spearheaded the resolution. One can only hope these celebrations will not be limited to celebrations alone. The intellectual discourses that are to be part of these celebrations must lead to substantial follow-up action. In the past few weeks, we have pointed out the need for Sri Lanka to look towards the states of Western India for closer links, both in the Sinhala language and Buddhism as well as in strengthening economic links. Sri Lanka is greatly respected in the Buddhist world for having preserved the sublime teachings of the Buddha in its purest form, despite centuries of foreign colonial rule. The countrys noble sons gave their lives to safeguard this heritage. It is the bounden duty of the State to protect and foster Buddhism, both in Sri Lanka and overseas, for which it must have designated schools to train Dhammadutha (missionary) monks to articulate the Dhamma in foreign languages. Equally, it is the duty of the senior head monks of all the different Sects to bring about greater discipline among some sections of the Sangha (Order of Monks). There has to be greater emphasis on Pirivena (monastic) education and less on monks attending regular universities and participating in unruly street demonstrations; many of them leaving the monkhood after obtaining their degrees leaving behind a bad name for the Sangha. Let next weeks International Vesak celebrations be homage to the Buddha and his message of the Middle Path, non-violence, compassion and loving kindness to all beings, including animals. Fashion Revolution Week : Remembering the lives behind the brands Text and pictures by Joshua Surendraraj The Mirror Magazine caught up with Lonali Rodrigo and her team as they got young minds questioning the origin of their clothing labels View(s): View(s): The collapse of Rana Plaza in Dhaka, which claimed more than a 1000 lives and injured another 2,500 in 2013, is still to this day considered as one of the worlds worst industrial accidents. Since then questions have been raised as to where peoples clothes were made as half the clothing brands under whose labels clothing was being put together in Dhaka failed to take responsibility at the time. Since then Fashion Revolution Week is a global movement, which began asking this question. The programme coincides with the Rana Plaza collapse. It is based on the simple belief of using the power of fashion to change the world. Together the campaign calls for a fairer, safer, cleaner, more transparent fashion industry. The week is used to encourage people to ask different brands Who made my clothes? and demand transparency in the fashion industry. In keeping with this campaign we met Lonali Rodrigo at the Colombo Racecourse as she and her team undertook to create awareness on the issue in their own way. Weve been getting people to wear their clothes inside out, she tells us, adding that this was a part of the movements plan to raise awareness that week in keeping with the global campaign. Even if people didnt wear their clothes on the wrong side, Lonali and the team, asks them to check their shirt labels, which are on the back. Some would walk up to them and when asked where they thought their t-shirt was from, theyd promptly say UK or U.S.A. But when asked to check, theyd discover it was not. We wanted them to know what the brands were. Were getting people to hashtag the brands and ask questions from them. Answering them is the responsibility of the brands and the retailers, Lonali says. She goes on to add that this is a good platform for everybody to ask questions. Were getting people to really look at their labels and think where its really made and then ask questions and post it on social media. Lonali tells us its actually interesting to see how people havent checked their labels and how they feel after they tell them about the cause. We should responsibly wear something and weve gotten people to start thinking that way, which is the best kind of feedback. The movement does not believe that transparency alone could represent the bigger systemic change they would like to see in the fashion industry. However transparency helps shine a light on issues, so that they could better understand how to change. This is the reason for their slogan #whomademyclothes? during Fashion Revolution Week. They maintain that some brands would not answer the question. However they urge the public to keep asking, till they get to the factory where the garment was manufactured or even to the name of the person who made it.Our power is in persistence. The more people who keep asking #whomademyclothes, the more brands will listen. The Bicycle Ride View(s): When I was a primary grader in a girls school Down South, my father taught in its boys school on the opposite side of the road. He hired a car to take me home from school regularly, but he himself rode a bicycle. It was not that I did not appreciate the comfort of travelling home in a car, but I secretely nursed a longing to ride on the back of my fathers bicycle. Every afternoon, he came out of his school to hand me over into the car, but it seemed to me that the world was my fathers oyster when he rode through the busy streets. One noon, he was at hand at usual to place me in the car. Mute with emotion, a struggled against getting in with all my might, much to the astonishment of the other girls. No amount of cajoling or coaxing could get me to sit in the car. Finally my father gave up trying and resigned himself to the fact that I craved for a ride on his bicycle. The experience was sheer elation. As I rode through the open spaces of the vast bustling city, vistas seemed to open up before me. My bobbed hair danced in the wind. My short skirt billowed. I had never felt such liberation before. I sat as cheery as a monkey, gobbling up the passing scenes and uncaring of the dust clouds springing up on either side, focussing only on the immense freedom the ride accorded. Half way home, we stopped at my uncles shop for a chat, and I had the joy of devouring an ice palam. She didnt want to come in the car, my father told my mother on arriving home. She cant do that everyday. Next afternoon, I was forced to get into the car. My father was taking no chnaces with me again. She cant resist the sight of a bicycle. Its like pushing a duck to water, the girls teased. But I did not mind. I had had my little fling and had relished it to the hilt. Other chances might crop up in the future. For the time being, I was content to wait. K Liyanage This story captures succintly the gender roles of a country in a light-hearted and vibrant way.Please send in your Flash Fiction contributions to Flash Fiction, Madhubashini Dissanayake-Ratnayake, C/o The Sunday Times, No. 8, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 2 N.B. Work sent to this page may be edited. They all sang their hearts out, for a worthy cause By Joshua Surendraraj View(s): View(s): They came together, several musical artistes, with one goal in mind to raise funds to cover the outstanding payments of renovating the Sacred Heart Convent chapel in Galle. Pulse of the Heartians, the fundraiser for the chapel was organised by the Sisters of Charity, Galle with the assistance of past pupils and took place at the BMICH on Saturday, April 22. Bathiya and Santhush (BnS), Billy Fernando with 2forty2, Voice Print, Umaria and Hector Dias all took the stage to sing for the cause. Built in 1914, the chapel a centre of worship for staff, students of the convent and other devotees stood tall for 120 years, but was found to be in need of repair. The magnificent stained glass windows, which were a unique feature of the chapel, needed to be preserved. Their prayers were soon answered by the Vatican, which donated Rs. 2 million through the papal fund, in USA. The renovation commenced last year, but their budget shot up to Rs. 7.9 million as roof repairs were also found to be needed. The restoration went ahead while past students worked hard behind the scenes and the thanksgiving Holy Eucharist was celebrated in the restored chapel on November 24, 2016. Funds though are still being raised and this was the reason for this show. It was the vocals of the talented male ensemble, Voice Print, which greeted us, as we walked into a crowded BMICH hall. I will be still and know you are God, they sang. Their performance wasnt limited to worship songs, as we soon found out, with their acappella versions of Happy, Atha Ran Wiman Thulin and Why do fools fall in love. The group has made a name for themselves in the industry, as an acappella group. But for the first time, they performed a few tracks, backed by a band. I want it that waya Backstreet boys cover was first on their list. Billy Fernando and his band, 2forty2 comprising Bonjo Fernando, Nigel Fernando, Johan Ranmuthugala and Sithara Fonseka were up next, delivering their originals and a few Sri Lankan classics. The audience was also introduced to Billys cover version of the classic Chandra me raepayaawa, which he performed alongside a talented Nushika Fernando. They soon had the crowd snapping their fingers to the rhythm. The groovy, reggae and funky set was energetic and uplifting. Nushika, left many in awe, with a powerful but controlled rendition of Beyonces Halo. As the show progressed, the audience were treated to stunning performances by Hector Dias, Umaria and of course the highly anticipated BnS who singing favourites such Mal Pen Podak, Hitha Nambara Thaleta and Hini Peththata had the crowd singing along. Music has the power to unite, the power to raise awareness and build up society. This was just what Pulse of the Heartians achieved. It built a bridge of friendship and brought so many hearts together for a worthy cause. CEB powerless, bends national grid backwards to deliver By Sandun Jayawardana While failed monsoons, prevailing drought, continuing heatwave wreak havoc, technical breakdowns add insult to injury View(s): View(s): Failure of successive monsoons, the prevailing heatwave and a series of technical breakdowns are causing a severe strain on the National Grid (NG), as the country prepares to mark Vesak on a grand scale. According to the Power & Renewable Energy Ministry, daytime electricity demand soared by 18.4%, while nighttime peak demand, from 7 pm-10 pm., also climbed by 10% in the past few weeks, due to the heatwave. This is mainly attributed to the increased use of air-conditioner units and fans, according to officials. A senior Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) engineer told the Sunday Times that the NG experienced a peak electricity demand of 2,455 Megawatts (MW) on April 24. This is themaximum peak electricity demand recorded in CEB history, he added, noting that, normally, peak hour demand is between 1,800-2,200 MW. Meanwhile, the maximum daily usage of electricity units ever recorded was also reported on the same day, with 45 million units used. The normal rate is 38-42 million units. While demand has soared, hydropower, which makes up 40%-50% of the countrys energy requirement, has been hard-hit by the drought. Two successive monsoons have failed since last year, while two inter-monsoonal seasons also failed to bring the expected rains. As a result, water levels in catchment reservoirs have reduced at an alarming rate. The hydropower capacity is now hovering around 31%, the lowest in decades. As such, only about 10% of electricity is currently generated through hydropower, while power generation is mostly with coal and oil. The situation is unlikely to change for sometime, with significant rain- southwest monsoon- expected towards the end of this month, said Meteorology Dept Director General- Lalith Chandrapala. There hasnt been any significant rainfall in catchment areas since the brief spell of heavy rain earlier this year. That, however, was not enough to keep water levels from dropping. We are facing a very serious situation, Mr. Chandrapala acknowledged. The good news, however, is that, we expect the upcoming monsoon to be a normal one, which should bring an adequate amount of rainfall to most reservoir areas. The countrys electricity woes have been compounded by several other incidents. One 270 MW generator, known as Unit I, at the Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant in Norochcholai, has suffered another breakdown. It had only been reconnected to the NG on April 24, following a near week-long breakdown earlier. Unit I, however, malfunctioned again due to a failure in its boiler tubes. Experts from the Chinese company which built the plant, are now in the country, conducting tests to determine what went wrong and how best to repair the generator, said CEB Media Spokesman Sulakshana Jayawardena. We cant be certain when Unit I will be repaired and reconnected to the NG, he added. In the midst of the drought, the 900 MW Lakvijaya coal power plant is key, to provide uninterrupted electricity to the country. While the loss of one generator will not compel the CEB to impose islandwide power-cuts, it will be extremely difficult to manage if another is knocked out. Given that, the plant has now broken down some 38 times in total, authorities admit they are nervous. Additionally, one 130 MW generator of the 300 MW West-Coast Power Plant, which is an Independent Power Producer (IPP) connected to the NG, is also offline due to a technical fault. CEB sources said the entire plant is scheduled to be shut down this weekend for repairs. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Meethotamulla garbage dump on April 14, caused heavy damage to a major transmission tower, knocking out two 132 kilovolt transmission lines from Kolonnawa to Kelaniya, which had CEB engineers scrambling to prevent a catastrophic system failure. According to CEB sources, the incident forced them to use more water from the Laxapana hydropower complex, than they had originally intended, to overcome the system imbalance caused by the loss of the transmission lines. Repairs to the tower, though, are due to be completed by last evening. As such, officials believe the lines could be made operational again from today (7). Given the urgency of the power situation, the Govt, last week, made it compulsory for factories having their own generators, and registered with the CEB, to activate them from May 2-6. About 250 such factories are currently registered with the CEB and authorities say the privately owned generators have a combined capacity of about 500 MW. As an incentive, the CEB will pay Rs 36 per unit of electricity generated through self generators, during peak hours. Power & Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya told the Sunday Times that, while only 40 MW had been added to the NG from these generators on May 2, it had spiked to 100 MW on May 3. We expect this to pick up further as the week progresses, he said, adding, If we can add at least 300 MW to the NG from these factories, we can consider it a success. In the backdrop of the Ministrys warning that the national grid was under strain, concerns have been expressed whether it could affect the coming Vesak week celebrations. While Vesak Full Moon Poya Day will fall on Wednesday (10), the United Nations Vesak Day celebration will be held in Colombo and Kandy from May 12-14. Foreign dignitaries expected to attend include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nepali President Bidhya Devi Bhandari. Minister Siyambalapitiya said, However, the Govt did not foresee a power crisis during Vesak, as electricity demand during the week is expected to be low. Many offices and factories will be closed. While there will be an additional demand due to the heatwave, it will not be difficult for us to manage. The Minister though, lamented the lack of public support towards energy conservation this time. He stressed that, saving more energy would help provide both uninterrupted power and prevent electricity bills increasing, given that, the power crisis meant increased purchase of electricity at great cost, from diesel power plants. Deputy Minister Ajith P. Perera too, expressed confidence in an improved situation next week. With Wednesday (10) and Thursday (11) being Vesak holidays, Mr Perera said they had been informed that many factories and even some offices would close on Friday, with employees given the day off. So, we are looking at a 5-day-long weekend for quite a few places, he observed. The worst is behind us. We managed to maintain an uninterrupted power supply through the most difficult period from February through April, he said. Furthermore, the CEB managed to get through it by purchasing only 60 MW of emergency power, he added. While the Ministers expressed confidence, a CEB official, speaking on grounds of anonymity, cautioned that, it would still be difficult for them to meet the demand just before Vesak (May 8 and 9) due to the prevailing situation. He too, urged the public to be mindful of electricity usage. GMOA, other unions will meet next week to decide on further TU action View(s): The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) and several other trade unions will meet next week to decide on further trade union action similar to Fridays strike that crippled state hospitals and railway services. Spokesman Dr. Samantha Ananda told the Sunday Times the GMOA leadership would hold a general meeting with 107 branch representatives on Tuesday. After they arrive at a decision, the GMOA will meet with other union leaders. However, he said, if they decide to resort to further trade union action, it would be after the Vesak week. Dr. Ananda claimed in time to come more trade unions would join the protests. Meanwhile, Ceylon Teachers Union president Joseph Stalin said their decision would be based on the GMOA decision while All Ceylon Railway Union Chairman S.P Vithanage said they were holding a series of meetings to decide on future action. Petroleum Joint Union Alliance Convenor D.J. Rajakaruna said they extended their support on Friday and would continue to do so in the future but would not resort to strike as it would incur losses to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. Hambantota deal: More major changes, 70-year lease on offer View(s): The number of years that the Hambantota port is to be leased out to China Merchant Port Holdings Co Ltd (CMPort) could be brought down 70, instead of 99, authoritative sources said. A draft of the heavily-negotiated concession agreement was shared with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) this week. The shareholding ratio could also be changed from 80:20 to 60:40, with sixty percent of shares allocated to CMPort and forty percent to SLPA, the sources said. And it is likely that a further twenty percent of CMPorts shareholding will be up for sale to a Sri Lankan company within a specified time period. But negotiations are still ongoing, an official source said, adding that meetings were taking place every few days. The latest incarnation of the draft agreement was once again presented to Cabinet this week but ministers wanted it to be finalised before any decision could be taken. It was initially proposed to let the Chinese company have Hambantota port on two 99-year leases. This was heavily objected to by Ports Minister Arjuna Ranatunga and SLPA officials, resulting in the lease being cut to one 99-year term. This could be further reduced. CMPort was also originally expected to hold 80 percent of shares against SLPAs 20. This, too, could be amended following several rounds of negotiations. Shareholding is not much of an issue to CMPort, the official source earlier said. They have maintained that if they get more than 51 percent they are satisfied. However, the money that the Government earns from the deal at the outset will be reduced. But we are not keen to go down from the US$1.1 billion that CMPort has pledged. The same applies to the reduction in the lease period, he said. If that happens, CMPort may want other considerations. It is still under discussion whether 80 years could be opted for with opportunity to renew the lease after that, he added. Special Projects Minister Sarath Amunugama has now instructed the SLPA to report to him with its comments before Tuesday, May 9, the date on which he is due to present the agreement to Cabinet for approval. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will travel to Beijing on May 13 for Chinas One Belt, One Road summit. He is likely to bring up the Hambantota port agreement with officials there. However, no date has yet been announced for the signing of the agreement. CMPort also operates the Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT) at the Colombo Port. Its recently-released 2016 annual report cites Sri Lanka as one of its biggest success stories for the year. In 2016, total container throughput handled by the Groups overseas operations increased by 5.7% year-on-year to 16.96 million TEUs, among which container throughput handled by CICT in Sri Lanka hit a record high to more than 2 million TEUs and rose significantly by 29.1% year-on-year, it said. The annual report also points out that CICT is currently the only terminal which can receive and unload from ultra-large vessels at the Port of Colombo with a designed annual throughput capacity of 2.4 million TEUs. It was ranked first in terms of the growth of container throughput in 2014 among 30 big ports in the world, it says. The company also says that, in terms of expansion of the overseas ports network, the Group will leverage on strategic investment opportunities offered by the Belt and Road initiative. This includes solidifying the ports layout in Asia, improving ports network in Africa, expanding the footprint in Europe and acquiring new exposure in Americas. Meanwhile, Hambantota port remains in a state of high alert after protesters earlier this year hindered a vessel from leaving. The security level at the port is designated at Level 2, an SLPA source said. This means the navy is still in charge, unlike at the port of Colombo where security level is at Level 1 or normal. According to International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code), Level 2 denotes to heightened risk where all routine and cargo operations are carried out with an increase in security measures on ships and in the port. Shiranthis three nights in Paris cost the country Rs. 25 mn, charges Mangala View(s): Former first Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksas three night stay in Paris, in 2014, cost state coffers over Rs 25 million, Parliament was told this week. Ms. Rajapaksa had stayed with a relative at a super luxury hotel, King George V, during her visit. The cost included the amount incurred for hiring vehicles as well as a visit to Lourdes in South West France, Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera told Parliament. The cost of a single room is around 20,000 euros (Over three million rupees) at this hotel. We could ask schoolchildren to calculate and see how much 20,000 euros is in Sri Lankan rupees. We can ask them how many halls and playgrounds could be built for them with that money, the Minister added. He said that even Queen Elizabeth had refused to stay in that hotel as the rates were too high. He said that one of Ms. Rajapaksas relatives named Daisy had accompanied the First Lady on the trip. According to the Foreign Ministry, the mini bar in the room had been filled thrice on the first night of their stay. The minister also lambasted the former regime saying it had used Sri Lankan missions overseas as safe houses to shelter those who had been involved in murders, abductions and had violated human rights. Such persons were rewarded by being given appointments in embassies. Our missions had become safehouses, he charged The minister made these claims during the debate under the Diplomatic Privileges Act. Shortcomings in national carriers engineering unit European agency gives six month deadline View(s): View(s): The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has put SriLankan Airlines on notice after finding shortcomings in its engineering division. If the airline fails to rectify these within six months, it risks losing the EASA certification which allows it to do maintenance checks for other airlines. The deficiencies were found when EASA conducted an audit of SriLankans engineering division. Among other things, they have identified shortfalls in the management structure. Changes that had been agreed to three years ago by the airline were yet to be implemented. There were issues such as the lack of a door on a hangar and the use of an outdated computer system. The procedural manuals also needed updating. Some of these things, such as the door, have been ordered but they are expensive and takes time to come, a company source said. The airline will also put out a Request for Proposals for the long overdue computer system. They (EASA) have given us six months, under close scrutiny, the source confirmed. In the past, SriLankan has done maintenance checks for IndiGO Airlines and, to a lesser degree, for Saudi Arabias Flynas airline, Turkish Airlines and Maldivian. Meanwhile, Civil Aviation Director General H.M.C Nimalsiri has written to SriLankan and EASA for information about audit. He said the airline had not informed the regulator of the latest developments. Upon inquiring, he found that SriLankan had been given time to take corrective action. EASA will also conduct more frequent audits in future to ensure compliance with its standards. The recent action by EASA does not immediately disqualify SriLankan from continuing with maintenance checks. EASA is working closely with Sri Lankan management to ensure that Sri Lankan maintenance organisation stays in compliance with EASA requirements, Dominique Fouda, the agencys head of communications told the Sunday Times. Any news or change regarding the approval status will be published immediately on our website. Top contender flies away; SriLankan Airlines rescue bid grounded By Namini Wijedasa PM calls emergency meeting tomorrow to explore options View(s): View(s): The Government is in a quandary over debt-ridden SriLankan Airlines after Texas Pacific Group (TPG), the only credible contender for a public-private-partnership (PPP), said it was not interested. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has now summoned three ministers for a meeting at 10am tomorrow. The struggling national carrier faces a particularly difficult year in 2018 with rising fuel costs and interest on debt hitting US$ 55 million. Employee salaries are also set to rise as collective bargaining agreements with eight unions are up for renewal. Development Strategies Minister Malik Samarawickrama, Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim and Special Projects Minsiter Sarath Amunugama are expected to explore with the Prime Minister what options the Government has to reduce the burden of running the airline. They are looking to Emirates again, as well as Air Asia and Qatar Airways, an authoritative source said. Emirates President Tim Clark was roped in for discussions during a recent private visit but had said his company was no longer interested in investing in a stake in SriLankan. He had offered to send a proposal for a possible management deal but has still not delivered. Minister Samarawickrama has also met him several times in Dubai. Private equity investment firm TPG was one of three shortlisted bidders for a 49-percent stake in SriLankan Airlines. The others were Super Group Partners and Peace Air. While TPG was found to be the contender with the best proposal, it backed out of the race after conducting a due diligence. TPG saw it would need a lot of resources to turn the company around, an authoritative source said. The returns and the anticipated timeline were not attractive enough for them to invest the money. They had a three to five year time line. It would have taken much longer. TPG has promised SriLankan Airlines a report on its findings. The Government had hoped to offload the airline to an investor who would help reduce its involvement, particularly financially. With the PPP option failing, however, the administration is now taking the route of direct discussions, State Enterprises Deputy Minister Eran Wickramaratne said. Some international operators have been identified. We will try and see if theres a fit between them and us, in terms of their strategy and what SriLankan can do, Minister Wickramaratne explained. Markets have changed globally from twenty years ago. Aviation is a highly competitive industry and airlines are losing money. Generally speaking, there is very little money on the table in terms of investment dollars, he said. We have to look at models outside of that. It can be management or alignment of strategy. We cannot look at traditional options. It had been necessary to go through an open and transparent PPP process, however, to avoid allegations of foul play. But no significant airline showed an interest in the proposal. The Governments objective now was to get SriLankans losses down and get it past break-even, the Deputy Minister said. And that is not a situation of simply getting your internal management right and youll be okay, he maintained. SriLankan announced its initial 2016/2017 results this week. Based on draft unaudited accounts, the company said its total operational revenue increased to Rs 136.68 billion from Rs 129.48 billion. However, difficult market conditions resulted in the airline recording an unaudited net group loss (before finance and one-off charges) of Rs 6.49 billion (USD15.12 million) for the year. This is an increase from the loss of Rs 2.90 billion (USD 3.15 million) recorded in the prior year but a significant improvement from the deficit that had been budgeted for the year, the airline said in a statement. Where we must vaccinate View(s): By Zulfiqar A. Bhutta and Naveen Thacker KARACHI/GANDHIDHAM-GUJARAT With measles outbreaks currently spreading across Europe and the Midwestern United States, and meningitis infecting US college students, health experts are doing something they never thought theyd have to do in early 2017: reminding people in developed countries that vaccines save lives. Perhaps vaccines are a victim of their own success: they work so well in protecting people against certain illnesses that many in the West have forgotten how devastating preventable diseases can be. With the recent outbreaks in the US and Europe, parents are being reminded that foregoing vaccinations for their children is a deadly gambit. Sadly, in many other parts of the world, particularly South Asia, parents need no reminding that immunisation saves lives. What they need is access to vaccines. Preventable disease outbreaks, rare as they are in Western countries, are all too frequent occurrences in a region that is home to the worlds largest number of unvaccinated children. In the early 1980s, one of us almost lost our baby son to bacterial meningitis, because no vaccine was available in Pakistan at the time. The boy made a full recovery, but only because of an early diagnosis and care at a premier hospital, which is out of reach for many parents in Pakistan. The boys siblings were later vaccinated, too, but only after stocks of the vaccine were secured in the US and hand-carried back to Pakistan. Fortunately, going to such lengths is largely unnecessary today. On average, 90% of children in South Asia now receive vaccines for preventable illnesses such as tetanus, influenza, diphtheria, and pertussis, and the number of infants protected against Hepatitis B has increased by nearly 60% in the last decade. Moreover, six countries in the region were declared polio-free in 2014, following extensive vaccination campaigns. Only those living in marginalised and remote areas remain unvaccinated for polio, typically owing to local hesitancy and refusals. Collectively, these remarkable figures amount to a public health miracle. But too many children are still suffering needlessly. The just-concluded World Immunisation Week (April 24-30) should spur us to redouble our efforts to vaccinate the millions of children in South Asia who remain unprotected from preventable illnesses. Globally, more than 11 children under the age of five die every minute, many of them in South Asia, from preventable diseases. Despite the regions progress, one in four children remain unprotected against diseases like measles and hepatitis, and the figures are even higher for major killers such as pneumonia and meningitis. As a result, the mortality rate for children in South Asia today is almost twice as high as it was in the US 50 years ago. We have the tools to address these shortcomings and ensure that no child dies unnecessarily from an illness that vaccination could have prevented. To succeed, however, several obstacles must be overcome. First, we must resolve systemic weaknesses in the regions underdeveloped health systems, by improving training for health workers, ensuring proper storage and transportation of vaccines, and developing effective ways to deliver them. These improvements, together with more effective information sharing in the medical profession, are critical for better planning and accountability as well. Second, we must actively confront the growing anti-vaccine lobby, which threatens to undo the gains made in recent years. These groups spread falsehoods about vaccine safety that can lead parents to leave their children unprotected. Foregoing vaccinations not only puts the health of individual children at risk; it also raises the likelihood of outbreaks that jeopardise the health of entire communities. Finally, we must continue to encourage countries in the region to increase vaccine coverage rates, in particular with newer vaccines proven to protect against pneumonia and diarrhea, the two leading infectious killers of children. Positive steps are already being taken to realise these goals. In Pakistan, for example, officials in Punjab province, hoping to protect one million children from a common form of diarrhea, recently introduced the rotavirus vaccine. Next door, India has vaccinated close to four million children since launching an initiative to expand the rotavirus vaccines coverage in ten states, and plans to reach 13 million children by the last quarter of 2017. There is still much to do in both countries. In India, 13 million children annually are not reached with the rotavirus initiative; in Pakistan, five million children annually are not vaccinated. But, with help from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, more vaccines are being brought to the worlds poorest communities through funding, training, and delivery. Health officials everywhere can learn from and replicate the gains made in these two countries. We are at a pivotal moment in the global vaccination drive. As pediatric professionals who have dedicated our lives to protecting children from preventable diseases, we believe it is within the worlds capacity to end this needless suffering. Vaccines are a proven tool for improving childrens health and development. Ensuring that children have access to them is an achievable public health goal behind which parents and pediatricians everywhere should unite. (Zulfiqar A. Bhutta is Founding Director of Aga Khan Universitys Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health in Karachi, Pakistan, Co-Director of SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, in Toronto, Canada, and President of the International Pediatric Association. Naveen Thacker is President of the Asia Pacific Pediatric Association and Coordinator of the International Pediatric Association, based in Gandhidham-Gujarat, India.) Courtesy : Project Syndicate, 2017. Exclusive to the Sunday Times. www.project-syndicate.org A legacy both religious and cultural By Kumudini Hettiarachchi For an enriching experience spend time at the Vidyodaya Pirivena, a haven amidst the bustling city View(s): View(s): Fame it has achieved as a seat of learning nearly 150 years ago, spreading the gentle and all encompassing message of metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy) and upekkha (equanimity) of Lord Buddha. Even now, about 250 samaneras, small and big, in their saffron-robes gather after regular school for lessons on the dhamma at the Vidyodaya Pirivena in Maligakanda amidst the hustle and bustle of Maradana. While millions of Buddhists clad in white will throng temples bearing trays of lotuses or light little clay lamps and joss-sticks on the thrice-blessed day of Vesak to pay homage to the Buddha or string up colourful kudus from the eaves of their homes, within the serenity of the Vidyodaya Pirivena lies enfolded a most revered relic. The largest fragment believed to be from Lord Buddhas dane welandu paatraya or his very begging bowl is enshrined in the pirivenas Dathu Mandiraya (Relic Chamber). It is not only this relic, an exposition of which is held every six years, that should beckon the devout Buddhists to gather in their numbers but also the full legacy, both religious and cultural, of the Vidyodaya Pirivena now under the guidance of Chief Priest Balangoda Sobitha Na Himi. For, this was the hub from which the Buddhist revivalist movement blossomed in the 19th century under the inspirational guidance of the erudite Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera (1827-1911) who was also a fiery orator. His name is inextricably linked to the famous Panadurawadaya, the religious debate between Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries in Panadura in 1873 while then Ceylon was under the yoke of the colonizers. Not only was he founder of the Vidyodaya Pirivena, when missionaries were establishing schools across the country, he was also appointed Chief Priest of the holy mountain of Sri Pada in 1864. The Bowl Relic was the largest of 13 fragments excavated in the late 1800s from Sopara near Mumbai, India, says the pirivenas spokesperson Gayan Chanuka Vidanapathirana, adding that as eminent Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera was not only well-known for his scholarship but also much respected, this relic was presented to him as also numerous others. And it is not just Buddhist relics that have been gifted to him, for preserved in the museum of the Dathu Mandiraya just beyond the Bowl Relic is a tome-like Bible along with its case. The beautiful Bible had been a gift by none other than Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India from January 22, 1901 to 1910. On Tuesday, shoe-wear cast off, unperturbed by the noon-day heat in the green and still haven that is the Vidyodaya Pirivena with only muted sounds of the city indicating that this is Colombo, we go back in time, more than 2,500 years, to be enriched once again by the life of one of the greatest philosophers of this world who pointed people in the direction of the Middle Path. The most prized possession the Bowl Relic lies within three caskets (karandu) the inner-most of crystal, then silver and outer-most of wood in the Dathu Mandiraya accessed by two wooden staircases, the ground floor of which had been the Spartan avasaya (abode) of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera. The most number of Buddhist relics, coming in second only to the hallowed Ruwanveliseya in Anuradhapura, is enshrined in the Maha Stupa or Chaithya of the Vidyodaya Pirivena, says Gayan, adding, Ganan karanna beri pramanayak nidan karala thiyena. The pinnacle placed in 1906 is unique, according to him, for there was no protective lightning conductor nor were chuda manikya enshrined but a swarnalepa Buddha prathimavak in a cone-shape. All these had been donated to the Vidyodaya Pirivena due to the fame of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera both locally and internationally and is attributed by Gayan to his silvath kama, gunawath kama and ugath kama. While Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera had read the Tripitaka (the sacred scriptures of Buddhism) 36 times, he had also mastered nine languages including English and was thus able to exchange views and engage in debates with the colonizers. Many including members of the royal families of Thailand, Cambodia and Burma had arrived in delegation to pay homage to him, while numerous Buddhist relics had been gifted to him from India and Pakistan. Among the treasured sepia-toned photographs preserved in the museum are those documenting a visit by Mahatma Gandhi to the Vidyodaya Pirivena and the letter authorizing Sir Henry Steele Olcott to promote the Sasana and establish Buddhist schools such as Ananda College, a stones throw from the Vidyodaya Pirivena, with the first signatory being Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera. It was also this scholar-monk from among a handful who paved the way for greats such as Anagarika Dharmapala and Bramacharya Walisinghe Harischandra to take up the quest of spreading the teachings of Lord Buddha far and wide and reviving Buddhism. As we linger awhile under the rustling leaves of the bodhiya, all pointers are that the bodhiya too is old, easily spanning a hundred years, with the bo-maluwa taking the unique shape of a crown. Ensconced between the bodhiya and the Dathu Mandiraya earlier known as the Poth Ge is the Sri Sumangala Dharma Shalawa with direct access through a sky-walk to the Dathu Mandiraya. While the samaneras in little groups take up their books in the Dharma Shalawa, an upward glance at the wooden roof brings into focus beautiful paintings in the Kandyan style. The masterpiece here is the Dharmasanaya (the seat from which the monk preaches bana), intricately carved of ebony and donated to the Vidyodaya Pirivena back in 1930. Meanwhile, the museum portraying a large painting of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera by Richard Henriques in 1899, is home to the basic knick-knacks used by this monk in his frugal life such as brass pots, a bronze water kettle, a wooden plate, a pair of spectacles and walking staff, a plump ink-pen and much more including panhinda (writing stylo) used for ola leaves and also ola booklets and moth-eaten, yellowed and frayed letters, testimony to the monks sphere of influence. In the premises of the Vidyodaya Pirivena, within a small commemorative tomb taking the shape of a stupa, lie the ashes of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera. As we depart, the thought uppermost on our minds is why, oh why do we need to venture on pilgrimages far out of Colombo, when right in the citys heart at Maligakanda, on our door-step, lies the eye of the cyclone of life that is the Vidyodaya Pirivena. Here we can meditate, listen to bana, observe sil and re-integrate enriched and re-invigorated, into the rat-race of modern-day living. The Budu Ge, a work of art The Budu Ge with the reclining, standing and Samadhi Buddha statues is the sparkling gem in the crown of the Vidyodaya Pirivena. Old murals on the walls and the roof depicting the Jathaka stories, encapsulate through brush and paint, the life of Lord Buddha, from birth to enlightenment to attainment of nirvana, while sculptures of lions, makara thorang and leaders enhance the scenes. The artwork is by well-known Buddhist revivalist painter M. Sarlis. Even the panels of the wooden door leading to the inner sanctum exhibit colourful paintings as well as a wonder of yore the art of fixing iron-hinges which link the doors to the stone (kalu-gal) arch. Rebel monks endeavour for social justice By Randima Attygalle Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Thera credited with initiating the Buddhist Cultural Centre in Nedimala and the Sambuddhathwa Jayanthi Mandiraya has taken on an ambitious project, the setting up of an International Bhikkuni Training Centre View(s): View(s): I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done, said Lord Buddha. Personifying these words is the most recent spiritual labour of Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Thera the International Bhikkhuni Training Centre in Kananwila. Affiliated to the Dekanduwala Dhamma Training and Meditation Centre for Bhikkhunis in Kananwila which was initiated by the Venerable Thera in 1993, the International Bhikkhuni Training Centre still under construction is tucked away in the lush green environs of the Dekanduwala Dhamma Training and Meditation Centre compound. At a time when local Bhikkhunis who have received upasampada are denied legally sanctioned means of identity for reasons best known to bureaucracy, the ambitious move by this rebel in robes is a reminder of Lord Buddhas liberal thinking of opening equal paths of Dhamma to both men and women. The ultimate objective of the International Bhikkhuni Training Centre as Ven. Wimalajothi Thera explains, is to mould a generation of bhikkhunis conversant in the Dhamma who can become competent global ambassadors.The siwuwanakpirisa or four-fold group Lord Buddha preached of, comprises Bhikkhu-Bhikkhuni, Upasaka-Upasika which is a clear manifestation of gender equality Buddhism seeks to champion, although narrow political and other agendas have denied our upasampada-attained bhikkhunis of their basic rights of an identification, says Ven. Wimalajothi Thera who aspires to broaden the horizons of bhikkhunis- both local and foreign through the upcoming International Buddhist Faculty which is to be completed by the end of this year. The much travelled prelate who is credited with initiating the Buddhist Cultural Centre in Nedimala was also involved in setting up the Sambuddhathwa Jayanthi Mandiraya, today a one-stop shop for many a need of Buddhists- both local and foreign. His latest endeavour of an International Buddhist Faculty aspires to impart not only knowledge of the Dhamma but also Buddhist Counselling, Management of Temples and language and communication skills. The facility will be also be open to dasa sil mathas who are yet to be ordained. The chief prelate who laments the loss of piriven-based education for the Buddhist clergy in the country, hopes to fill the lacuna through this ambitious move. Our leading piriven were transformed into universities which are not conducive to producing monks of character, he observes. The Faculty which will be served by qualified teaching staff is to be completed with a library, auditorium and hostel facilities for bhikkhunis and dasa sil mathas. Mainnaluwe Dharmashanthi Bhikkuni, the present Chief Bhikkhuni of the Dhamma Training and Meditation Centre who will be steering the initiative as the Head of the Faculty, notes that what the International Training Centre aspires is to produce fully-fledged bhikkunis who could become mentors not only for the clergy but also for the laymen, especially women. A trained counsellor, Dharmashanthi Bhikkhuni has been heading the Dekanduwala Dhamma Training and Meditation Centre for the past 13 years touching the lives of both the clergy and the lay people. Many women have sought her wise counsel over the years, among them abused women, abandoned wives and some who were on the brink of suicide. Bhikkhunis should be catalysts of social reform, observes Dharmashanthi Bhikkhuni who urges responsible authorities in the country to recognize this and become pro-active stakeholders. On the contrary we do not even have a proof of identity as a bhikkhuni, says the veteran bhikkhuni whose expertise is sought even by overseas novice bhikkhunis to receive upasampada. The two Indonesian bhikkhunis- Siriwattano and Samantha who were ordained at the Dekanduwala Dhamma Training and Meditation Centre a few years ago are regular visitors. We find the tranquil environment here an oasis for meditation, says Bhikkhuni Samantha, adding that the upcoming International Buddhist Faculty in the same compound will fulfil a regional spiritual need as well. Bhikkhuni Muditha from Taiwan who initially arrived here as a teacher of Chinese language, came under the wings of Dharmashanth Bhikkhuni, who she reveres as her guru of Pali. The bhikkhuni community is very strong in Taiwan where it plays a very proactive role in the lives of the lay people says Bhikkhuni. The funding of the International Bhikkhuni Training Centre both locally and regionally is a daunting task, says Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Thera. The centre does not depend on any state grant and will be fully funded by a group of like-minded individuals which is no easy task, he says adding that public support will be most welcome in this challenging endeavour, reminding once more of Lord Buddhas words: thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared This Vesak celebration will be like no other By Rajitha Weerakoon As Sri Lanka prepares to host the UN Day of Vesak, Ven. Daranagama Kusala Dhamma Thera recalls the efforts of late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to make this day a reality and the events planned View(s): View(s): Vesak which marks the Birth, Enlightenment and the Parinirvana of the Buddha, is commemorated as no other religious event in Sri Lanka. This year, which is the 2561st year after the Passing Away of the Buddha, Sri Lanka hosts the United Nations Day of Vesak thus taking Vesak commemoration to a global dimension. Elaborate preparations are being made at the Sri Sambodhi Vihara, R. G. Senanayake Mawatha (formerly Gregorys Road) Colombo 7 where Chief Incumbent Ven. Daranagama Kusala Dhamma Thera is using all available resources to make the event a meaningful and spectacular Vesak commemoration. Identifying the late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar as the architect of the United Nations Day of Vesak, the Thera recalled that it was Mr.Kadirgamar who convinced the United Nations to accept Vesak Day as a day of Buddhist Observance. He told them that Buddhas compassion and understanding were needed for the service of humanity and in this age, His Teachings could provide the world of today with much needed guidance. The late Foreign Ministers proposal was based on a recommendation made at the World Buddhist Conference held in Colombo in 1998. He sought and obtained the support of other Buddhist and friendly nations and presented the proposal to the United Nations General Assembly when he succeeded in convincing them of the relevance of Vesak. At its 54th session in 1999, the UN General Assembly formally acknowledged the significance of Vesak and that Buddhism, one of the oldest world religions, had contributed to the spirituality of humanity for over two and a half millennia. Vesak since then was commemorated at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and other UN offices. Although Mr. Kadirgamar was its architect, the commemoration of United Nations Day of Vesak was given eleven times to Thailand and twice to Vietnam. Complying with the request made by the Minister of Buddhist Affairs Wijedasa Rajapakse at the last United Nations Day of Vesak in Thailand, it was agreed that Sri Lanka hosts the event this year. Ven. Kusala Dhamma Thera who was a close associate of the late Foreign Minister explained that it was Mr. Kadirgamar who wanted it named as United Nations Day of Vesak. And he wanted it as a Day of Vesak Observance and not as a holiday. The UN as a result, every year, marks Vesak by holding a Buddhist programme. Last year, it was the erudite American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, ordained in Sri Lanka, who was invited to give the Message of the Doctrine to the world at the UN. Ven. Kusala Dhamma Thera said that although the first World Buddhist Conference was held in Sri Lanka in 1998, Thailand was made its headquarters and the World Buddhist Conference continued to be held there. Lakshman Kadirgamar, took it upon himself to announce to the world that Sri Lanka had been a country which practised Theravada Buddhism for over 2500 years and it is still Theravada Buddhism which is the original form of Buddhism that exists here. Sri Lanka besides is continued to be identified as the foremost country in Theravada Buddhism. Even Dalai Lama had acknowledged this fact. The Ven. Thera as a tribute to the late Minister for the invaluable service he rendered to Buddhism, will set up a Buddhist library with books written in English at the Sanghabodhi Viharaya on United Nations Day of Vesak. The highpoint of the United Nations Day of Vesak will be the symposium at the BMICH from May 12-13 which will be attended by over 750 delegates from over 100 countries including learned Buddhist prelates, religious leaders and over 850 local visitors. The opening ceremony on May 12 will be attended by foreign dignitaries such as the Indian Premier Narendra Modi and Nepali President Bidhya Devi Bhadari among others. President Maitripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be among them. The closing ceremony on May 14 will be held in Kandy when the Mahanuwara Declaration will be inked in the precincts of the Dalada Maligawa. A special exposition of the Sacred Tooth Relic will be held for the dignitaries. In a world divided by race, ethnicity, religion, caste et al which has led to chaos and the world in crisis, the theme of the symposium Buddhist Teachings for Social Justice and Sustainable World Peace could not have been more appropriate. Says Venerable Kusala Dhamma Thera that the Buddhist view of equality of humanity is relevant today as it was 2600 years ago when the Buddha expounded that irrespective of caste, class or ethnicity, all people were equal. It is not birth that defines a person but his conduct towards fellow humans. The symposium will have four sub themes Social and Natural Justice from a Buddhist Perspective, Inter-religious Understanding of a Common future for human kind, Buddhist Forum for Economics, Promotion of Cultural Tourism and International Buddhist Media Network. Venerable Theros fervent hope is that the deliberations made during these sessions will be taken back by the participants to their countries and these would help find solutions to world peace. The commemoration of United Nations Day of Vesak will also showcase Sri Lankas history and development of Buddhism, prominent cultural scenarios and milestones. Towards this end, thousand stalls down R.G. Senanayake Mawatha had been given over to leading Buddhist organisations and Buddhsit schools to undertake this task. Starting from Mahinda Thera who introduced the Buddhist Doctrine to Sri Lanka these stalls will depict the roles played by Lankan Monarchs who patronised Buddhism, landmark events during Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods to date and of Buddhist leaders, local and foreign which include Anagarika Dharmapala, Walisinghe Harischandra, Gunapala Malalasekere, Sir D.B. Jayatilleke and Tibetan monk S. Mahinda Thero among them. The tenth anniversary of The Buddhist the non-profit, 24 hour, exclusively Buddhist TV channel coincides with the United Nations Vesak Day and its founder Venerable Kusala Dhamma Thera has lined up several events to mark the anniversary. The Mahanayake of the Asgiriya Chapter is scheduled to declare open a new studio in The Buddhist channel. A pooja will be conducted to 5,13,000 Buddha statues which will be placed in the Sri Sambodhi Vihara. 1008 bhikkhus will be given alms with 28 vegetable dishes. Its merit will be bestowed on late Buddhist leaders. A Vesak perahera is will commence from the Sambhodi Vihara on May 13 and parade through R.G. Senanayake Mawatha to the Nelum Pokuna roundabout ending at Musaeus College. This years state Vesak Festival will be held at Wattarama Raja Maha Vihara in Kegalle while some of the other highlights of the UN Day of Vesak consist of a Replica of the Sakyan Kingdom to come up in Piliyandala, a Vesak zone at Diyawanna and a cultural show with the participation of several countries at Nelum Pokuna Theatre. These are besides the varied forms of Vesak art we see year in year out in homes all across Sri Lanka. Washington meditation centre to honour Ven Madihe Mahanayaka Thera View(s): This years Vesak will be of special significance to the Washington Buddhist Vihara which is opening a new meditation retreat centre. Named the Lion of Wisdom (Pannasiha) Meditation Centre, it has been erected in memory of the founder of the Washington Vihara, Most Ven. Madihe Pannasiha Mahanayaka Thera. The Vihara the first Theravada Buddhist temple in USA was set up in the mid-1960s. The brain-child of Maharagama Dhammasiri Nayaka Thera, the chief prelate of the Vihara will be the abbot of the meditation centre with Bhante Yogavacara Rahula as the director and the chief meditation master. Along with the present meditation master at the Vihara, Bhante M. Pannawansa, meditation courses of one to ten days duration will be offered. The Vihara had been conducting meditation classes regularly but with the increasing interest, the need to have a quiet, spacious place where devotees can conveniently follow a course was felt. The centre stands on the top of a small hill offering beautiful views from two sides. Built on a plot of land extending over three acres, two of the three levels in the building have been allocated for male and female meditators. More kutis are being planned in the years to come. Ven. Dhammasiri once told me that tension and stress in their lives have led Americans to look towards Buddhist meditation as a form of relaxation. With only a few holidays, the life of an American revolves round work. Their stress levels are high. So they try to get away at least for an hour or two on Sundays to follow our meditation classes, he said. While at one stage they were more interested in Buddhist philosophy, the accent is now on meditation, he added. Ven Dhammasiri has been at the Vihara for 30 years. Having observed his skills in planning and organising activities as well as his ability in administrative work, he was handpicked by Madihe Mahanayaka Thera to function as the secretary of the Washington Buddhist Vihara Society which is an incorporated body. A year later he succeeded Ven. Dr. Henepola Gunaratana as president and continues in that capacity to date. - D. C. R. Mahinda expresses solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers View(s): Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was among hundreds of people who went to the Palestinian embassy in Colombo to sign the book of solidarity as a mark of their support for the hunger-strike campaign of more than 1,800 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Mr. Rajapaksa was a onetime patron of the Sri Lanka-Palestine Solidarity Movement. The Palestinian Embassy opened the support-and-solidarity book on May 3. The book was kept open till Friday noon at the embassy premises on Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7 for well-wishers and supporters of peace and global justice to express their solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. The hunger strike led by Palestinian freedom fighter Marwan Barghouthi began on April 17. The prisoners are demanding an end to the Israeli practice of detention without trial, for more contact with relatives, better access to medical treatment, and freedom for child prisoners and those suffering from illnesses. SLPI marks Press Freedom Day with panel discussion View(s): The Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) and the Free Media Movement jointly organised a panel discussion to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3. The day, proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following a UNESCO recommendation, is marked to defend media freedom worldwide. The theme chosen for the SLPI-FMM discussion was Media Freedom, Social Responsibility and Regulation with the focus being Sri Lanka. Media professionals, academics and government representatives took part at the discussions. The panel comprised Daily Express Editor Hana Ibrahim, National Media Institute Director Jagath Liyanarachchi, Sri Jayawardanapura University Senior Lecturer M.J.R. David and Derana tv News Director Shehan Baranage, and and Free Media Movement convener Seetha Ranjanee. While its too sooon to speculate about the potential impat of myrtle rust on the honey industry, Comvita CEO Scott Coulter confirms the Paengaroa-based manuka specialist is gathering information about the situatiuon. Myrtle rust is an airborne fungus that could affect iconic New Zealand plants including pohutukawa, manuka, rata, kanuka, swamp maire, ramarama, and commercially-grown species like eucalyptus, feijoa and guava. Severe infestations can kill affected plants and have long-term impacts on the regeneration of young plants and seedlings. The disease was been found at a Kerikeri orchard on Tuesday. It is not known how this disease will affect New Zealand species. Overseas its impacts have varied widely from country to country and plant species to species. We understand that when myrtle rust arrived in Australia in 2010 there were concerns about the impact it might have on honey production. However, to date there seems to have been no effect, says Scott. Our joint venture partner Australian honey company Capilano has not been impacted by myrtle rust. There is no evidence of myrtle rust on the on the leptospermum trees that the bees harvest nectar from and the trees are in good health, adds Capilano CEO Dr Ben McKee. I havent seen any affected trees since myrtle rust was found in Australia. Comvita is well placed with the Manuka plant breeding programme to assess tolerance to the disease across the broad genetic pool which they have within their programme. The disease is already widespread in Australia and Tasmania and as the spores are microscopic they can be easily spread over large distances by wind. It had been expected to eventually arrive in New Zealand, Conservation Minister Maggie Barry said. With no known method for controlling the disease in the wild, early monitoring is a key part of the Governments planned response. Even eradication would likely be short-lived, with the ongoing risk of reinfection from Australia. The Kerikeri discovery follows news last month that Department of Conservation staff had spotted myrtle rust on pohutukawa trees on Raoul Island. At the time, director of the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge Dr Andrea Byrom said the Kermadecs discovery marked "a significant and very sad milestone in a long history of impacts of invasive pathogens, pests and weeds on New Zealands unique flora and fauna". Melanie Mark-Shadbolt from Te Turi Whakamataki - the Maori Biosecurity Network says while the severity myrtle rust in New Zealand was unknown, it was likely to infect native plants in the myrtle family. Based on what has happened in other countries, the impact on plant health could be devastating. The Ministry for Primary Industries warns anyone who discovers myrtle rust to PLEASE NOT TOUCH IT, but take a photo, note its location and notify the MPI immediately by calling 0800 809 966. UPDATED 12.15PM: A young girl who has severe asthma and bronchiectasis has successfully trekked to the summit of Mauao in Mount Maunganui today. Taurangas Chloe Crump, 4, took on the challenge of climbing to the top of the maunga in an effort to raise money and awareness for the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand. The pint-sized pocket rocket was joined on her journey up Mauo by a team of supporters that includes family and friends, plus teachers from her preschool Ark Early Childhood Centre and the Beach Kidz Preschool Beach Programme. The trek to the top of the maunga was the finale of a challenge set for Chloe and her family by the Beach Kidz Preschool Beach Programme which has seen them undertake a range of activities like swimming, yoga, rock hunting over the past 100 days. Its been exciting watching Chole over these last 100 days. To be honest Im really proud of the way shes undertaken all of the challenges, she taken them all in her stride which is really cool, her mother Rachel Crump told SunLive on Friday. Along with raising awareness for ARFNZ, Chole is also attempting to raise money in order to bring a musical show called Sailor the Puffer Fish which educates children about asthma to the Ark Early Childhood Centre. Bringing the show to the centre means Chloe and her friends can learn about asthma in a fun and entertaining way. Our goal is raise $300 to bring the show and its presenter Chis Lam Sam to Ark Early Childhood Centre. People can also show their support for Chloe and the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ by making a donation via her Everyday Hero fundraising website at: https://give.everydayhero.com/nz/active-lungs-for-chloe-the-100-day-challenge Taurangas Chloe Crump, 4, who has severe asthma and bronchiectasis, before she embarked on her challenge to trek to the top of Mauao in Mount Maunganui. Photos: Tracy Hardy. From left: Chloe with her friends Penelope Irvine, 5, Chloe Evans, 6, and Amelia Valentine, 3. Go Team Chloe! A man charged over the theft of a vehicle which had a child inside is appearing in the Rotorua district Court today. A spokesperson says Rotorua Police arrested and charged the 30-year-old man in connection with the theft of the vehicle, as well as a robbery in Rotorua Central Mall, on Friday. On April 18, a woman was forced to the ground and robbed in front of her children after withdrawing cash from an ATM in the Rotorua Central Mall. [Then] on April 24, a car with a two-year-old child inside was stolen from outside a dairy on the corner of Pererika Street and Old Taupo Road. The car was later found by police with the child still in the vehicle, safe and well. The man has been charged with robbery in connection with the first incident, and with unlawfully taking a motor vehicle and abandonment of a child under six in relation to the second incident. The man has been held in police custody prior to his appearance in the Rotorua District Court today. The Ministry for Primary Industries latest stock assessments show most of New Zealands commercial fisheries are performing well and continue to be well managed. The Status of New Zealands Fisheries report for 2016 which was released this week also shows a record percentage of the tonnage, and value of landings of scientifically evaluated stocks have no sustainability issues. Ninety seven percent of scientifically evaluated landings were from stocks above or well above sustainable levels, says Seafood New Zealand chief executive Tim Pankhurst. The figures show that New Zealand continues to be a world leader in fisheries management. The information from the stocks report is gathered through a series of Fisheries Assessment Working Group meetings that are open to the public. During the meetings, MPI evaluated presentations that combine scientific research with catch and effort reports, data from the on-board observer programme, and other information used to produce fish stock assessments. The main conclusion from these results is that by far the majority of New Zealands fisheries are performing well, the report states. Recent stock assessments also highlight how sensible and sustainable management can have lasting benefits for our fisheries, says Tim. From 2001-2007 there were substantial reductions in hoki quotas. Due to this sensible management, both east and west hoki stocks have increased annually over the past eight years and are now the highest they have been this century. To download the MPIs Status of New Zealands Fisheries report for 2016, visit fs.fish.govt.nz Pharmac, the government agency that decides which pharmaceuticals to publicly fund in New Zealand, is set to receive an extra $60 million over four years. Health Minister Jonathan Coleman says the investment will provide more New Zealanders with access to new medicines. This funding boost in Budget 2017 will provide Pharmac with an extra $20 million in the 2017/2018 year, he says. On top of the governments extra $20 million next year, a further $11 million will be injected into Pharmacs annual budget by DHBs. Pharmacs budget for 2017/18 will be a record $870 million this means the government has increased Pharmacs budget by $220 million since 2008. In the last two years over 109,000 New Zealanders have benefited from 62 new and widened access subsidised medicines. Around 3.5 million New Zealanders receive a funded medicine each year 100,000 more than in 2013/14. Around 820,000 New Zealanders have benefited from 414 new and widened access medicines since 2007/2008. At any one time, Pharmac has a list of proposals for new medicines and medical devices which medical experts have recommended as a priority for any funds that become available through savings or budget increases. Pharmac works within a fixed budget and looks for the best health gains for the greatest number of New Zealanders, says Jonathan. The governments extra investment builds on the $124 million over four years committed in Budget 2016. It gives Pharmac more options on new medicines it can fund. Its up to Pharmac to make these decisions, however. Skaneateles, N.Y. -- Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. has broken ground on a large expansion that it says will add 109 jobs, including 35 from Sweden, to the medical equipment maker's Welch Allyn campus in Skaneateles. About 300 people, including New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, attended a groundbreaking ceremony Friday at the plant off State Street Road, 20 miles southwest of Syracuse. "We're adding a little over 100,000 square feet of office, warehousing and (research and development) facilities, with over 100 jobs coming here," said Hill-Rom President and CEO John Greisch. "About half are research and development and engineering related jobs and the other half are support functions for our Welch Allyn business and other parts of our company around the world." He said 35 of the new jobs will be the result of the company transferring research and development work to Welch Allyn from Sweden. The company expects to hire locally for most of the new positions, he said. About 200 people attended a job fair the company held at the plant April 25, he said. Hill-Rom employs 900 people in Skaneateles. "This is one of our fastest growing businesses within the Hill-Rom portfolio of businesses, and it's an exciting day for us and an exciting opportunity to continue to build upon over 100 years of success that Welch Allyn has had," Greisch said. Chicago-based Hill-Rom bought Welch Allyn from the Allyn family for $2.05 billion in September 2015. Welch Allyn was founded in Skaneateles in 1915. The state has agreed to give the company a $6 million grant and $6 million in state income tax credits to assist with the expansion. The state aid is conditioned on the company creating at least 109 new jobs while maintaining its existing 900 jobs in Skaneateles. Hochul said the state aid demonstrates Gov. Andrew Cuomo's commitment to keeping Welch Allyn in Skaneateles. She said she approached Greisch in the summer of 2015 to urge him to expand in Skaneateles and to offer the state's help in doing so. She said state officials were worried when they first learned of the pending sale of Welch Allyn to Hill-Rom that jobs would be lost in Skaneateles and moved quickly to head off such a possibility. "That's why I was dispatched by the governor to have conversations with the CEO of Hill-Rom even before the acquisition was completed," she said. Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148 This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? Becoming a student of the University of Cambridge, I think most would agree, brings with it an awareness of tradition; it is impossible to study here and not see the path forged by students who have come before us. With over 800 years of history, Cambridge has seen many great students, and it would be easy to assume that their achievements are remembered, cherished and applauded. Yet, while a quick internet search of famous Cambridge alumni will turn up many notable former students, it seems that the memories of the achievements of certain alumni have not always been given the prominence they deserve. When asked to name a past student, perhaps the likes of John Milton, Charles Darwin or Rosalind Franklin come to mind. But could you name the first black man and woman to study here? Perhaps the specificity of this question seems an unfair challenge to your knowledge of Cambridge alumni; it is entirely understandable for a current student not to recall the name of every notable past student. Yet, it is important that the particularly incredible journeys of such trailblazing students not be forgotten when the legacy of their achievements remain so powerfully inspiring. This is central to the work of the Black Cantabs Research Society, which aims to create a fuller and more comprehensive history which recognises and includes the achievements of its minorities, as the President Nafisa Waziri told me. By researching the stories of the numerous and talented black alumni, Waziri explained, the society hopes to draw attention to the rich and diverse histories of the pioneering black scholars of the university. This endeavour is not, however, as simple as it would appear. Although having found great support for the aims of the project from archivists and colleges, the President of the society discussed with me the difficulties of their research much of which involves trawling through matriculation photographs to identify Black Cantabs, using this as a starting point to learn names, subjects, and whatever other information records can provide. The Black Cantabs Research Society is not alone in their efforts to bring greater attention to the histories and legacies of BME students. With the great number of talented alumni, it would be impossible to explore every story in the detail they deserve. However, this will be the first article of a series which hopes to celebrate the achievements of just a handful of the inspiring, diverse students who have travelled and often overcome significant challenges to study at Cambridge. Michael Franzese was once caporegime of the Columbo family, or New York mafia, making millions of dollars a week from gasoline bootlegging and other crimes. Now reformed, married, and a devout Christian, he tours university campuses to denounce gang violence and organised crime, speaking out about his own experiences as a former 'made man'. Being part of a Mafia-esque gang is romanticised and glamorised to a degree that I never realised when I was part of that life, he tells me. Its amazing how intrigued people are by it. All the media and the movies are not really an accurate portrayal. I certainly dont glamorise it. Be that as it may, I cant help but be impressed by Franzeses cool manner as he tells me I have regrets. You cant do what I did and not have regrets. I ask him if any in particular stand out. Unfortunately at times that life is a violent life. I lost a very dear friend who was like a brother to me and I regret that I couldnt save him. Theres still times when I get pulled back in to my old ways he continues. When I became a person of faith I didnt get a lobotomy. I dont forget who I was and old habits die hard. You dont become perfect when you become Christian: its a constant battle. Having slowly undergone a transformation of lifestyle and belief, Franzese does now have a new ideology, however. You have to make a clean break: surround yourself with the right people. I tell a lot of young people: in our life today, you are who you hang out with. In the United States we have a tremendous problem with our youth and gangs; I spent a lot of time in prison with young people coming into the system. Ive got seven kids of my own and I feel a responsibility towards them because theyre our future. Adults created the environment that these kids are growing up in, and we have a responsibility to try and save them. Theres severe consequences to the mistakes we make in our lives and some of them are very difficult to overcome. If we can prevent that happening to young people, then we are obligated to do that. But what brought Franzese, who was once number eighteen in Fortune Magazines list of Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses, to his new way of life and what had it been like before? We had a very idealistic view of what we were doing. We were almost indoctrinated into thinking that we were doing was the right thing. We were kind of anti-government in a way because we didnt believe they were honest. We thought they were corrupt and they became our enemy in a lot of ways. But I saw the evil in my life. I always call the mob life evil; I always call the gang life evil, and not because the guys were evil I was one of them. I dont know any member of any family that hasnt been totally devastated, I mean destroyed, including me. My wife and children, my mother, father, brothers, sisters: our family was destroyed. And it was all because of my involvement and my Dads involvement with that life. Any lifestyle that hurts people is evil. Franzese is now touring the UK to demote this lifestyle. Ill be meeting with parliament tomorrow, helping with the gang and youth violence issue in the United Kingdom. Ive been asked by parliament to come because they heard me speak here a couple of weeks ago, he tells me. Its little wonder that parliament or the Cambridge Union, for that matter were keen to invite Franzese to speak about his experiences and new philosophy. A gripping, if glamourised, history and cool and collected way of talking makes Franzese a compelling speaker, and someone who is clearly dedicated to spreading a message of forgiveness and peace. Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. Apple stunned the wider development community on Monday with an emailed announcement that it has decided to slash commissions for App Store affiliates from 7 percent to 2.5 percent, starting May 1. The cuts apply to all apps and in-app content, Apple said. However, they do not apply to commissions for movies, music, books and TV, which will remain at 7 percent. The company will continue to pay commissions on Apple Music memberships as well. Apple directed affiliates to read the Commissions and Payments page on its Affiliates Resources site for more information on the new policy. Big Cut, Short Notice Both the extent of the cuts and the brief notice provided they go into effect next week are surprising, and have given rise to speculation that the policy change may be part of a larger shift in Apples recent revenue picture. It is interesting that theyve kept the 7 percent intact for higher-value digital content, said John Jackson, research vice president at IDC. The connection is not terribly clear, but presumably Apple wants to drive more revenue from subscriptions and higher-value content in general, so this may be a move to bias affiliate-driven traffic in those directions, he told the E-Commerce Times. Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller last year revealed plans to shift toward a new subscription model for developers. The plan centered around changing the 70/30 revenue share model to favor developers who attracted subscribers. If a customer remained a subscriber for a year, Apple would slash its 30 percent share to 15 percent, thus boosting the developers take. Its been rumored that Apple plans to announce the share model change this June at its 28th annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple did not respond to our request to comment for this story. Digital Content Push During Apples fiscal first quarter conference call, executives noted the shift toward services as the core piece of the companys growth. They also noted that the App Store was shattering records. Year-over-year revenue growth was up 43 percent, and revenue more than doubled that of Google Play during the 2016 calendar year, said Apple CFO Luca Maestri. As disappointed as affiliates will be with the news, the move makes sense from Apples perspective, said Karol Severin, an analyst at Midia Research. Apple is managing incentives for affiliates based on what it wants to push, he told the E-Commerce Times. The affiliate programs initial purpose was to get the App Store off the ground, Severin said, but now it is Apples best-performing content play. Developers will not feel any direct impact from the new policy, which does seem driven by the shift toward a subscription model, suggested Jack Kent, director of operators and mobile media at IHS. The move will have a much bigger impact on third-party review sites and aggregators that have used the referral program to drive incremental sales, he told the E-Commerce Times. In the early days of the App Store, these sites would have helped drive traffic, but now the market is more mature, and so these will have less of an impact on the overall app market. I dont know about you but I cant seem to get out of my head the image of that poor Asian doctor who, seemingly unconscious, was dragged off that United flight. The fact that the airline did that to a 69-year-old doctor just so it could save money moving employees around is nearly as unbelievable as the initialtone-deaf response from Uniteds CEO, who blamed the passenger. (It was only after a tremendous backlash that the CEO offered an actual apology.) While the United debacle was going on, I happened to be reviewing Qualcomms counterclaim against Apple, and holy crap. It alleges that Apple crippled the modems in some iPhones to cover up its use of cheap parts, and that it aggressively acted to prevent anyone, particularly Qualcomm, from pointing it out. I have the view that if you pay for a thing, you should get that thing and Apple customers, according to Qualcomm, are getting screwed. Given how we depend on our phones, my guess is that if this is true, it wont end well for Apple. Ill share some thoughts on customer abuse and then close with my product of the week: the Netgear Arlo Security Camera system (again). Customer Abuse I often wonder if top executives and boards have some weird undiagnosed disease that causes them, from time to time, to do something so incredibly stupid you have to wonder if someone snuck up on a bunch of them and hit them with a stupid stick. I recall having a discussion with an IBM exec I reported to back in the early 1990s about the companys practice of intentionally creating buggy products and then charging customers to fix the problems it had created. I asked why we were doing something that seemed insane, only to be told, effectively, that since the customer had no choice, IBM could do what it wanted to them and they would pay whatever IBM charged. It was like selling air. It remains one of the most idiotic responses Ive ever heard, and shortly after I left the firm that entire executive team was canned. (Apparently the newly hired CEO, Louis Gerstner, agreed with my assessment.) Microsoft had a group of executives who covered up that Office 98 wasnt backward-compatible, and a different group covered up the issues with Windows Vista that should have prevented its release. Those issues created massive problems with customers, and most of the folks responsible lost their jobs as a result. To hit aggressive price points with lithium-ion batteries in the early 2000s, Sony covered up that they hadnt updated their lines to prevent metal contamination. The batteries became contaminated and caught fire, forcing massive recalls and pretty much wiping out Sonys lithium-ion battery business. Those batteries could have resulted in an impressive number of deaths had one of them gone up next to a better fuel source on a plane. The lithium-ion coverup followed Sonys institution of a program to put rootkits on PCs in an attempt to combat piracy, which opened those PCs to hacking and put customers at risk. The backlash over that helped wipe out Sonys Walkman business and opened the door to the iPod. Takata covered up that their airbags were not aging well and actually could kill drivers when they deployed. It apparently did not do anything to address the problem, which eventually was discovered and resulted in the biggest automotive recall in history. It still might put the company out of business. It appears that Samsung cut short quality testing to get the Galaxy Note7 out quickly only to find out it was catching fire. In an effort to address that problem quickly, it guessed wrong about the cause, and replacement phones caught fire too. To recover some of the costs associated with its massive recall, Samsung decided to sell refurbished Galaxy Note7s, and I doubt thatll end well. I think Samsung has a death wish. It really seems like an epidemic of stupid at times Uniteds Disastrous Decision There were two paths that United could have taken to move employees to another location without causing an uproar. One was to increase the voucher amount offered to passengers to a point where it was cheaper to charter a plane to move the employees, or simply to have in place what many non-airline companies use, a fleet of smaller planes for employees use. What is particularly scary about the method that United chose is that it didnt factor in why people werent taking a US$1,000 voucher to change flights. Its method for choosing which passengers to bump only focuses on connections, so those who were ending up at the destination airport were prioritized for bumping. What if someones job depended on getting to a location on time? What if someone had a dying relative, a wedding or funeral to attend? What if someone were a doctor who needed to get to a critical patent? None of those possibilities was been taken into account, and the poor guy who was beaten up was in fact a doctor. Uniteds decision has cost it millions in brand damage, and because the passenger looked as though he might have been Chinese, China is treating this like a racial attack on its people, which could result in sanctions. I bet that before this is over, Congress might put a law on the books addressing it. Id name it The United CEO Is An Idiot Law. (By the way, PRWeekwants its award back. Suddenly this is an Oscar 2017-like event.) It may even cost the CEO his job all because it didnt have a better way to move employees around, which is kind of sadly ironic given it is in the transportation business. At the end of that last linked article, the author asks why it took so long for United even to understand this was a problem. It was because, in the minds of its executives, customers had stopped being people and had become an exploitable resource instead. That attitude generally is considered a company and career killer. Apples Secret War on Customers Between Apple and Samsung, Im not sure which has the stronger tendency for suicidal policies. Apple clearly has a problem, because it is a firm that is valued largely for its innovation, and that is one word that largely has been used in the past tense since Tim Cook took over for Steve Jobs. While the iPhone has done well particularly this last quarter, thanks to Samsungs suicidal moves nothing else has risen to diversify Apples revenue or offset a trend of increasing margin pressure. As a result, Apple has moved to a strategy of aggressively cutting costs. That sets a foundation for the kind of problem that I mentioned earlier in this column. You see, Apple customers effectively are locked in to Apple services which would be OK, as long as Apple didnt see it as an opportunity to mine them, and could grow its revenue and margins by creating more and more compelling products. However, Apple hasnt done that. The Apple Watch has languished, the iPad is in decline, and the iPad Pro has been a disappointment. MacBooks, Macs and iMacs have been cash cows for so long that reviving them seems increasingly unlikely, and is driving the company go cheap on components while considering charging more and more for iPhones. The Qualcomm filing basically just says Apple is an assh*le, which is far from an uncommon position from any Apple supplier. It gets interesting on page 46 of the whopping 130-page document. It alleges that Apple not only has been using sub-optimal (read cheap) parts, but also has been threatening to retaliate should anyone point that out. Point 4 on page 46, basically says there are two iPhones in market sold as the same phone: one with cheap parts, and one with good parts but that Apple is crippling so that people cant tell the difference (and thereby avoid the bad phone). However, Apple cant cripple it enough, so people are barred from pointing out that the crippled phone is still better. WTF!?! Here is the thing: Increasingly we live on our cellphones. We depend on them to work if there is an emergency. Our lives increasingly literally depend on them, and folks think that by buying Apple they are getting the best. However, if Qualcomm is correct, they either are getting a substandard phone or worse, an intentionally crippled product. The potential consequences range from poor performance to bad connectivity, which could leave users with a phone that doesnt work when they most need it. Cutting quality while raising prices and aggressively covering that up only works temporarily. Eventually people figure it out and that didnt end well for IBM or for the CEO that shortly thereafter was fired. Like all of the other examples Ive cited here, Apples alleged action is customer abuse. If it turns out to be true, then it means that the only difference between Apple and all the rest of these bad examples is that Apple has taken more money from its customers. I expect that as a reason to buy from a company, that likely falls pretty low on anyones list. Ill add one other element that I think is very similar to the old IBM and the new Apple. Both companies enjoyed and still enjoy phenomenal customer loyalty. Even though IBMs behavior had been going on for years, most customers seemed to give IBM the benefit of the doubt. As a result, when the problem became pronounced it went to nuclear unbelievably fast. Certainly, it was way too fast for the existing management team to respond, and the result was a purge. It eventually saved the company, but it was a very close thing. Apples loyalty is, if anything, greater than IBMs was and todays consumer market certainly can move a ton faster than enterprise computing did back in the 1980s and early 1990s. What this means is that if this alleged anti-customer behavior is left in place too long, the backlash on Apple could be unrecoverable particularly if Google further reduces the migration pain to Android. Given that many of you have huge investments in Apple, Im suggesting you might not want to have all those eggs in that same troubled basket. Diversification may save your ass. Wrapping Up There are times when I wonder if boards and CEOs either are mentally challenged or suicidal. From Samsung, to United, to Apple, this year has been an increasingly ugly example of executives behaving badly. I know I missed the chapter in management school that suggested screwing customers was a great business practice, but I seriously think those pages should be torn into little bitty pieces and tossed out, along with the idiots who adhere to this strategy. In any case, this month has provided a strong teachable moment. Lets hope a lot of executives learn by watching rather than doing. It is never OK to abuse customers. When companies do, they have translated customers into things. We really dont like being mistreated as things. When I last wrote about this product, Id installed two cameras and was impressed that the batteries had lasted a couple weeks. Well, its been over a month, and Im now up to 10 cameras. Ive had to recharge only two batteries, both of which had more than half their battery life left even though they were in very high traffic areas, which suggests these puppies could last for months in low-traffic areas. Weve caught stray dogs wondering in our yard, the gate left open and our dogs sneaking in and out of it, delivery people who have lied about deliveries, pet sitters who werent doing what they said they were doing, and a herd of deer wandering in to munch on our newly planted flowers. This system is AWESOME! Netgear Arlo Pro The Netgear Arlo is my third camera system, and it was by far the easiest to set up. The lack of wiring means I can put the cameras anyplace I want, and I can install a ton of them. My dogs and cats each have their own tracking camera, but my wife had me move the one that was on her. (Thatll teach me to tell her, huh?) I did figure out one thing: It is cheaper to buy the cameras in the bundle then one by one. You can get an Arlo system with four cameras for $350 if you shop around, while the cameras individually cost around $150. Sadly, I didnt figure this out until after Id purchased an additional eight cameras. Further, you get up to five cameras with the free service, but if you want to go to 10 it will set you back $99 a year. However, you then get 30 days of storage for up to 10 GB of data. For 15 cameras, its $149 a year and you get 60 days storage for up to 100 GB. Arlo just launched a $450 camera, and what makes it different is that it has local storage, a 3G/4G connection, and a massive battery. Sadly, this is only available to large companies or the government, and we know they would never use them to spy on you It has been a long time since I was this excited about a product, and that is why the Netgear Arlo is my product of the week again! You could call this the iPod of security camera systems. Uber is now facing a criminal investigation into a software tool it created that can help drivers avoid law enforcement officers and other transportation regulations. According to a Reuters exclusive, Uber is being investigated for criminal conduct regarding its "Greyball" program. While the program was very secretive in nature at first, Uber has since acknowledged its existence and its features. Greyball was used to help identify government officials who were trying to set up sting operations to catch Uber and its drivers operating in places where they hadn't been approved to operate yet. Uber has since prohibited the tool to be used for this purpose shortly after it was made public in March. When a user attempted to request a ride, the tool would analyze the request to see if it was legitimate or not. If it was found to not be, the software would provide false information and obscure the vehicle's location from the requester. Uber has claimed the tool was used to keep drivers safe from fraudulent or dangers riders, but Greyball was part of a larger system called "Violation of Terms of Service." This system analyzed credit card info, device location, and personal identification to determine the legitimacy of a request. The specifics of this is where things start looking bad for Uber. For example, Greyball compared the rider's credit card agency to a known list of police or government affiliated credit unions. It also checked social media profiles to see if a rider was likely to be a law enforcement officer. Officials in Portland conducted an investigation last week and determined the tool was used to evade transportation officials 16 times. In addition to the DoJ probe, Uber also received a subpoena from a Northern California grand jury. Regardless of the tool's original intent, Uber is in hot water and definitely has a lot of explaining to do. The year's biggest event in gaming is approaching and as E3 is open to the public this year, fans may get the chance to experience some of the new games being announced. This year the Nintendo Switch will make its E3 debut, Microsoft's Xbox One successor - Project Scorpio - is being fully unveiled, and Sony will no doubt pack its Media Showcase with some anticipated game debuts. Games confirmed to appear in playable form on the show floor or in demonstration settings include Star Wars Battlefront II, Super Mario Odyssey, FIFA 18, a new Need for Speed title, among others, while a bunch others such as Call of Duty: WWII and Destiny 2 will at the very least get some new trailers to salivate over. For this week's open forum we want to know what are you most looking forward to see on this year's E3? It's not unusual for ice shelves to calve or in layman's term, "split" and collapse. In fact, scientists have seen this happen to major ice shelves in recent decades. There's Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Wordie, Muller, Jones Channel, and Wilkins. However, it usually took months to years for cracks to slowly form and be visibly seen on the icy surface. But this is not the case for the Larsen C Ice Shelf found in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea and extending along the east coast of Antarctic Peninsula. Scientists have noted rapid disintegration on one of the largest ice shelves on the continent at the speed of about 1 meter per day. Here's a closer look at how Larsen C's crack has developed over time. August 2016: Crack Gone Deeper The first threatening crack on the Larsen C Ice Shelf was spotted back in August 2016. Project Midas, which is a group of UK-based Antarctic researchers investigating the effects of a warming climate on the Larsen C Ice Shelf in West Antarctica and has been closely monitoring the rift peninsula for almost two years, said it measured 22 kilometers longer compared to the last satellite images taken in March of the same year. According to them, the rift has grown ominously fast during the austral winter and is now threatening the stability of the Larsen Ice Shelves. January 2017: Primed To Calve At the start of 2017, the long-running rift on Larsen C became worse, with barely 20 kilometers of ice keeping the 5,000-square-kilometer piece, roughly the size of Norfolk, from breaking away. "If it doesn't go in the next few months, I'll be amazed," project leader Prof. Adrian Luckman, from Swansea University, told BBC News. "There hasn't been enough cloud-free Landsat images but we've managed to combine a pair of ESA Sentinel-1 radar images to notice this extension, and it's so close to calving that I think it's inevitable," he continued. If the ice shelves calve, Professor Luckman said Larsen Ice Shelf C will lose more than 10 percent of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded, ultimately changing the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula. February 2017: Suture Zone After a month, a video footage captured by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) showed that the crack in Larsen C growing deeper and longer. It has entered a so-called suture zone, which means it has softer, wetter ice. May 2017: Rift Suddenly Forked The latest satellite images of the 180-kilometer-long fissure that threatens to rip apart Larsen C Ice Shelf suddenly branched out to a different direction. Currently, the 10-kilometer fork doesn't increase the rift. It has just given it a two-pronged tip. "I think what all this means is that the gradual and persistent opening of the rift has put a lot of strain on to this ice," Professor Luckman explained. "But because the rift tip was in this area of basically softer ice that is very difficult to fracture, then the stresses have been transferred elsewhere and something has given, i.e. it has fractured in some of the ice that is more vulnerable to breaking which happens to be about 10km further back than the current rift tip." 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A photo is making its rounds on the internet and people are confused: Is that a newborn baby holding an intrauterine device, a well-known contraceptive? Little Tyler Dexters mother, Lucy Hellein of Alabama, has since clarified that Tyler wasnt born holding the IUD, and that the device was instead found behind her placenta during C-section delivery. Now, the question is: Can you still get pregnant while using an IUD, a long-acting, reversible contraceptive inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy in the first place? Very Rare Occurrence Heres a quick background. Hellein posted the controversial photo of her newborn on Facebook last week, carrying the caption Mirena fail! The photo has since been removed. Hellein told Metro that the object discovered by a surgeon was actually her third Mirena IUD, inserted last summer. In December, though, she found out she was 18 weeks on the way, and her doctors thought the IUD had already fallen out. Women getting pregnant while on IUDs are very rare, Live Science investigated. The IUD has been hailed as one of the most effective birth control methods, with a failure rate of less than 1 percent in the first year of use. This came from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which likened the rate to sterilization techniques such as tube tying. The brand Mirena itself, a producer of a hormonal kind of IUD, stated that fewer than 8 in 1,000 women, which translates to .8 percent, turn pregnant over a five-year period of using the device. Not Entirely Impossible But this doesnt mean pregnancy while using an IUD wont occur. The device can get out of the uterus partly or completely, something that ACOG said could happen in the first year of use. This is likely to occur soon after the IUD is inserted. For its part, Mirena recommends checking once every month the position of the device, which can be done by feeling for threads attached to the IUD extending down from their uterus into the top of their vagina. Another way that pregnancy can happen is when the IUD moves and becomes embedded in the uterus, or when it pierces the uterus. Removal is necessary in these cases, as it could mean severe infection, miscarriage, and even premature delivery. Contraception: Effectiveness And Failure "All methods of contraception have a failure rate," said Dr. Colleen Krajewski, a consultant at nonprofit birth control support network Bedsider, in a Broadly report. It might surprise one to know, however, that a so-called Mirena fail! is rather rare. Krajewski shared, for instance, that 1 in 4 women using condoms gets pregnant, while 1 in 10 using birth control pills also becomes pregnant. Only 2 in 1,000 women become pregnant while on Mirena. This makes Helleins case very rare and puzzling, as her IUD was still inside her when she gave birth. The IUD may likely have been displaced by the pregnancy. But its not life-threatening for the fetus, the expert continued, as the hormone found in Mirena is progesterone, which isnt harmful to a pregnancy. In the end, Hellein might actually have to thank her lucky stars. "This woman is very lucky that when the placenta grew over the IUD it did not disrupt the blood flow to the placenta," Laura Ghasseminia, a nurse with Planned Parenthood stated, pertaining to the unplanned pregnancy. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The high level of participation of young people and women highlights the profound democratization of Nicaraguan society that has taken place in the last fifteen years. | Read More An ad hoc judge refused Friday to force all judges in the 23rd Judicial District Court to recuse themselves from the malfeasance in office case against St. James Parish President Timmy Roussel. Retired state circuit Judge Michael Kirby rejected Roussel's arguments that his role in setting the judiciary's annual funding levels and his political dispute with District Attorney Ricky Babin created an "appearance of impropriety" for the judges. "I find nothing that would frustrate public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary of this district if they were to preside in this case," Kirby wrote in a 12-page reasons for judgment. "Furthermore, I have not seen any evidence that any such judge would allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence his or her judicial conduct or judgment." Kirby found that the fact that the parish projects spending $2.4 million for the courthouse, jail and public buildings in general wasn't specific enough to accept the argument that Roussel's budgetary authority presented an appearance problem for the judges. Kirby also rejected the over-arching argument that Roussel's refusal to fund pay raises for the District Attorney's Office led to Babin's retaliatory indictment of Roussel and that this alleged situation creates a problem for the judges. "The court finds this argument to be quite an overstatement," Kirby wrote. Kirby found that Roussel and the Parish Council have home rule charter-mandated responsibilities with the budget and must fulfill them. "That he discharges his charter-mandated duties and privileges does not make the judges more, or less, likely to favor him, nor does it grant him an economic or financial interest in the case," Kirby wrote. The ruling from the Plaquemines Parish judge was filed Friday afternoon at the Parish Courthouse in Convent. Ralph Capitelli, one of Roussel's defense attorneys, said he had not yet seen the ruling and could not yet comment on its findings. We'll get the judge's opinion, examine it and decide what's our next step, Capitelli said. Ruth Wisher, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, could be immediately reached Friday afternoon for comment. The Attorney General's Office is prosecuting Roussel on six counts of malfeasance over allegations that he directed parish employees to do work on private property during a heated re-election campaign in 2015. Roussel has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The ruling comes a little more than a week after Judge Jessie LeBlanc of the 23rd Judicial District threw out malfeasance counts over largely the same allegations against Roussel's director of operations, Blaise Gravois, after finding prosecutorial misconduct and overreach by Babin's office. Babin previously recused his office from Roussel's case but continued to prosecute Gravois, as well as another parish employee on a separate malfeasance case. Babin's office is appealing LeBlanc's decision in the Gravois case, but Brian Capitelli, another of Roussel's attorneys, has already said that he believes LeBlanc's findings in Gravois' case are applicable to Roussel's case. Judge Jason Verdigets, another judge in the 23rd JDC, has been assigned to Roussel's case. The 23rd JDC encompasses St. James, Ascension and Assumption parishes. Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission Louisianas death penalty is an incredibly expensive, entirely arbitrary, and an error-prone monument to the failures of big government. The L Iron ore's tough week has robbed Treasurer Scott Morrison of a rare budget tailwind for as the commodity surge at the start of the year turns into a slump. And analysts are warning it could get much worse. The price for Australia's biggest export has fallen to the point that it has opened up a pathway for benchmark spot prices to drop back into the $US50s a metric ton, or possibly even lower, as mounting investor concern about rising supplies and tighter financial conditions in China combine to pummel prices. The key price (Ore with 62 per cent content delivered to the Chinese port of Qingdao) fell 5.3 per cent to $US61.73 ($A83.20) a dry ton on Friday, capping the sixth weekly decline in seven, according to Metal Bulletin. Australian actress Val Jellay has died of pneumonia at age 89. Jellay was best known for her role as Nancy Buckley in the television series The Flying Doctors, where she starred alongside husband Maurie Fields. Val Jellay appeared in a number of Australian television series, including The Flying Doctors, Neighbours and Prisoner. Credit:Ray Kennedy In a Twitter post, Jellay's comedian son Marty Fields said his mother died of pneumonia on Saturday. "She lived an amazing life," he wrote. Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi... Fox Newss continuing legal and corporate image problems seem destined to trigger a sort of London Hell Week for the cable outlets parent company, 21st Fox, as well as for 21st Century Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch, and his sons Lachlan, the co-chairman, and James, the CEO. The Murdochs long-planned $14 billion bid to take total control of the highly profitable European television and internet platform, Skyan acquisition thwarted seven years ago by public outrage over the British phone-hacking scandal involving the Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the Worldwill come under a fusillade of opposition starting on Monday from two American lawyers who have alleged that executives at Fox News and its parent company have fostered a workplace culture that tolerated sexual harassment, retaliation and racial discrimination. Los Angeles attorney Lisa Bloom and L.A. radio personality Wendy Walshone of three Bloom clients whose sexual harassment claims against Fox News star Bill OReilly helped force the Murdochs into firing their top-rated cable personality (albeit with a $25 million severance package)are scheduled to testify in London Monday afternoon before the British regulatory agency Ofcom. New York attorney Douglas Wigdorwho represents 20 current and former Fox News employees in two racial discrimination lawsuits against 21st Century Fox, Fox News, the outlets general counsel, Dianne Brandi, and its former comptroller, Judith Slateris scheduled to make his own presentation on Thursday afternoon to the communications regulators. Ofcom will recommend on June 20 whether 21st Century Fox, which owns 39 percent of Sky, is fit and proper to be allowed to acquire the remaining 61 percent of Skyand the decision is expected to be made by Tory MP Karen Bradley, secretary of state for culture, media and sport. The Murdochs have made decision after decision over the last 13 years, starting in 2004 with Andrea Mackriss lawsuit against Bill OReilly, to keep the harassers in place and to drive the women out, Bloom told The Daily Beast. While their testimony to Ofcom will be confidential and not open to media coverage, Bloom added that she is planning television and press interviews for herself and Walsh in London, along with a Monday press conference coinciding with their presentation. Listen, in every battle between my clients and me against a very large and powerful company, the press can be our ally to help level the playing field. Bloom added: I cant compete with the Murdochs billions, but I can publicly shame themand they deserve to be publicly shamed. Wigdorwho staged a dramatic press conference in Manhattan last week featuring one of Fox Newss few black anchors, Kelly Wright, emotionally attacking his employers alleged systemic and institutional racial biassaid he, too, is hoping that the British media will show interest in his appearance. If people want to speak to me, I always make myself available, said Wigdor, who is qualified to practice law in England and Wales. I see my role as being one who has represented 20 individuals who have been discriminated againstand will provide factual evidence of what my clients have gone through so that Ofcom and ultimately members of Parliament can make an informed decision. Neither New York attorney Judd Burstein, who represents fired Fox News personality Andrea Tantaros, nor New Jersey litigator Nancy Erika Smith, whos suing Fox News on behalf of political commentator Julie Roginsky and web personality Diana Falzoneand famously represented Gretchen Carlson in the lawsuit that toppled Roger Ailesare planning a trip to London. Burstein declined to comment, but Smith told The Daily Beast: I cheer them on. The more pressure on the Murdochs, the better. Blooms and Wigdors trek to London comes amid increasing turmoil at Fox Newss Manhattan headquarters, which on Monday experienced the forced resignation of co-president Bill Shine, an Ailes acolyte, and is rife with rumors about future executive departures in the face of mounting litigation and a federal criminal investigation. According to the Wall Street Journal, that investigation has expanded its focus from the potentially illicit payments of millions of dollars to silence the alleged sexual harassment victims of Ailes and OReilly. The Journal reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors are also looking into alleged intimidation tactics authorized by Mr. Ailes, including the hiring of a private investigator to dig up negative information on women who complained. Asked about Blooms and Widgors effort next week to exert public pressure on the British regulatory process, a spokesperson for 21st Century Fox didnt comment for the record or offer a promised statement by deadline. In the past, the corporation has insisted: 21CF has taken prompt and decisive action to address allegations of sexual harassment and workplace issues at Fox News. There is no line that Bill Maher wont cross. It is part of what makes him an exciting, unpredictable comedian, and an at times problematic one. His most glaring blind spots concern transphobiawhere he shares common ground with alt-right fellow traveler Milo YiannopoulosIslamophobia, and casual sexism. Disagree with her politics and shameless opportunism all you want, but repeatedly branding Sarah Palin a bimbo is not a good look. Maher seemed to cross that line again on Friday night. During an exchange with New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman on his HBO program Real Time, the political satirist made an incest joke about first daughter Ivanka Trump and her father, President Donald Trump. What do you make of Ivanka and her efforts to sort of humanize her father? Maher asked Sherman of the first daughter, who is currently flouting ethics rules in promoting her new book, Women Who Work. You see, Sherman has become the leading media voice when it comes to Fox News, and his tireless reporting led to the ouster of Fox News overlord Roger Ailes. We see all this misogyny at Fox News, we see it in Donald Trump himself, continued Maher. A lot of us thought: Ivanka is gonna be our saving grace. When hes about to nuke Finland or something, shes gonna walk into the bedroom andDaddy, Daddy he said, mimicking Ivanka giving her father a handjob. Dont do it, Daddy. Is that how you see Ivanka? Maher asked Sherman. No, replied the red-faced reporter. I think, again, shes on the margins trying to save usto the degree that she canbut Donald Trump doesnt listen to anybody, including his own family. Its not the first time Mahers told his Ivanka-Donald incest joke. On the night of November 2nd, less than a week before the election, the comedian broadcast his stand-up set from L.A.s Largo comedy club on Facebook Live. Towards the end of the 45-minute set, Maher addressed the bizarre relationship between President Trump and his eldest daughter. In the past, the POTUS has said that he might be dating her if she werent his daughter, that he could be sleeping with her if he werent happily married and, ya know, her father in a Rolling Stone interview, and that time he gave shock jock Howard Stern the OK to call her a piece of ass. Cue Maher: Be nice to Ivanka, shes our only hopebecause she seems like she actually knows rationality, but shes [Trumps] kid, and shes the only one who can get to him, and you know he loves her, said Maher. If hes going to do something nutty, were going to depend on Ivanka going into that bedroom. Daddycooed Maher, mimicking Ivanka giving Donald a handjobDaddy, you have to apologize for that tweet where you called Angela Merkela a cunt. You have to apologize, Daddy! Ivanka Trump is a problematic, puzzling figure, but if liberals are going to castigate Donald Trump for his boorish, sexist behavior, they shouldnt behave in a similar fashion. PARISIt was the dog that didnt bark in the night, and its bite may be less impressive still. As a tale of hacking and political subversion unfolded in France on Friday and Saturday, it looked like a re-run of the American experience. But there are some critical differences. In the last hours before midnight on Friday, just before a campaigning blackout imposed by French electoral law in anticipation of the crucial vote on Sunday, somebody dumped nine gigabytes of emails and documents supposedly purloined from the campaign of leading presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. It looked like, and almost certainly was, a last-minute bid to tip the scales in favor of the centrist Macrons opponent, the nativist, populist Marine Le Pen, who has received more-than-tacit endorsements from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who received her at the Kremlin, and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has declared his appreciation of her as the strongest candidate. Macron, by contrast, is favored by those who want a strong European Union, a strong NATO, and a France looking to the future rather than clinging to the fearful and fictional nostalgia promulgated by Le Pen. As the news broke, suspicion focused on the same Fancy Bear Russian hackers who fiddled with the American presidential campaign last year. As The Daily Beast reported 10 days earlier, they have been working hard for the election of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-European Union, anti-euro, anti-NATO, anti-American, Pro-Trump Le Pen. Literally at the 11th hour, before the blackout would silence it, the Macron campaign issued a statement saying it had been hacked and many of the documents that were dumped on the American 4Chan site and re-posted by Wikileaks were fakes. The mainstream French media carried the Macron campaign statement, but virtually nothing else. In addition to the normal proscription of campaign propaganda on election eve, the government issued a statement saying specifically that anyone disseminating the materials in this dump in France could be liable to prosecution, and calling on the media to shoulder their responsibility by steering clear of them. Meanwhile, Wikileaks jumped on the document dump, but didnt seem to be familiar with the material in it. Responding to the Macron statement that some of the items were bogus, Wikileaks tweeted, We have not yet discovered fakes in #MacronLeaks & we are very skeptical that the Macron campaign is faster than us. Ah, but theres the rub. As reported by The Daily Beast, part of the Macron campaign strategy against Fancy Bear (also known as Pawn Storm and Apt28) was to sign on to the phishing pages and plant bogus information. You can flood these [phishing] addresses with multiple passwords and log-ins, true ones, false ones, so the people behind them use up a lot of time trying to figure them out, Mounir Mahjoubi, the head of Macrons digital team, told The Daily Beast for its earlier article on this subject. In the end, whoever made the dump may not have known what is real and what is false, which would explain in part the odd timing. After the disruptive revelations of the Democratic National Committee hacks in the United States, the public is conditioned to think that if theres a document dump like this, it has to be incriminating. By putting it out just before the news blackout, when Macron cannot respond in detail, the dump becomes both the medium and the message. On the alt-right Web, the publicity and the hashtag associated with the dump also provided a matrix for all sorts of wild misinformation that had nothing to do with the documents in question. And the specific contents? So far, cybersleuths have turned up very little, and even Wikileaks started to seem suspicious, offering this tweet: #MacronLeaks assessment update: several Office files have Cyrillic meta data. Unclear if by design, incompetence, or Slavic employee. Marie Claire is trying to make mean moms happen. According to a new 2,500-word feature in the womens mag, a fresh set of troops have entered the great Mommy War: Mean moms are white, theyre privileged, and their tactics are so insidious, writer Anne Roderique-Jones reports, theyre driving droves of others mommies into therapy. At mommy-meet-ups across the country, women have stopped playing nice, Roderique-Jones writes, describing (mostly through a series of anecdotes) a rise in entitled, judgmental, aggressive, mom bullies. After decades of cover stories on the mommy wars , and a rise in mother-specific media to push the hottest and most enduring cat fight in modern times, this advancement in infighting seems hardly surprising. But are mean moms even real or are they just the most recent shot fired in a war in which a truce seems unlikely, the latest iteration of straw-moms we need to feel better about our own parenting? Maybe the moms are all right, after all. The Mommy Wars as we know them officially began 30 years ago, and were first documented in a 1989 Jan Jarboe Russell feature for Texas Monthly . Jarboe opens the feature with an experience of her own: the afternoon when a stay-at-home mother, aggrieved by Jarboes career status, pelted her with a head of lettuce at the grocery store. Throughout that seminal piece, Jarboe tells the stories of women on the receiving end of snide remarks at Girl Scouts meetings and on Little League fields; of carpool drivers asserting their worthiness by wearing T-shirts with passive aggressive pro-SAHM mom quips like, Every mother is a working mother; and women like Susan Reed, a Texas District Court Judge who reported feeling intimidated by the stay-at-home moms at kids parties. Id rather face a notorious drug dealer or murderer in my court than have to go to one of those parties, Reed told Jarboe. I always go home feeling like a social failure. In 1989, the tension between working mothers and stay-at-home moms was simmering but rarely discussed, Jarboe wrote. Three decades later, we cant stop talking about it. In her 1990 book, Women Together, Women Alone , Anita Shreve wrote about the deep division between the two factions. One group feels exploited and/or dismissed by the other, she wrote. Later that year, Newsweek devoted its cover to the conflict. Tension between mothers is building as they increasingly choose divergent paths, it said. And the media, eager to sell magazines to mothers the most coveted of consumers have been all-too-happy to fan the flames. A 2002 cover story in New York magazine, declared working and nonworking mothers are slugging it out in the schoolyard over who's the better parentand who gets to have a sex life. By 2005 , Newsweeks cover was selling us on The Myth of the Perfect Mother. And in 2012, Time famously (and sarcastically) asked readers if they were Mom Enough, to pick sides in the attachment parenting debate, while Anne-Marie Slaughter caused her own uproar with an essay in the Atlantic titled Why Women Still Cant Have It All, which quickly became the most-read article in the magazines history. As hostilities between the camps intensified (or coverage of them increased), the battle lines have spread; the conflict is no longer simply working moms vs. stay-at-homes. Now helpful journalists and experts are giving women entering motherhood types from which to choose (and more importantly, sides to defend). You can be an alpha mom, a tiger mom, a free-range mom, a snow-plow mom, an attachment mom, a mindful mom, or most recently, even a bad mom , who eschews rules altogether and marches to the beat of her own drum. And now, thanks in part to Marie Claire, we have a common enemy. I first heard the concept of mean moms back in 2006, when Rosalind Wiseman, the author of the book that inspired Tina Feys quotable movie masterpiece, Mean Girls, was promoting her new self-help title aimed at parents: Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads . Those picturing a popular girl all grown up who organizes pink-only Wednesdays for playgroup, bars the rest of her cliques babies from wearing gold hoops, and screams You cant sit with us! at story time, arent too far off the mark. We dont leave cliques and peer pressure behind when we grow up or when we become parents, we just graduate to a new level with adults playing the roles, Wiseman writes. Wiseman also helpfully brings us chapters full of new archetypes like the Caveman Dad who sits on his anger and the Best Friend Momshes not a regular mom, shes a cool mom!along with the Queen Bee and Kingpin who sit atop the parenting totem pole and nakedly grab for both PTA clout and world domination. But are these bully momsthe kind whom Wiseman describes as gossiping busybody control freaks, recently fictionalized in HBOs Big Little Liesfor real? I found a few examples online. My favorite is from 2013 when a mom from Boca Raton, Florida, discovered that a secret Facebook group for women looking to unload gently-used babywear had turned into an online baby burn book . According to local news reports, mothers would post baby photos from friends and family to the groupincluding pictures of premature or disabled little onesand others would viciously comment. You can absolutely not fix ugly, one mom wrote under the picture of a pink-bowed toddler standing astride her pink Power Wheels. Another chimed in gleefully: An ugly baby thread. I have died and gone to heaven. Why cant you guys live near me so we can do this over cocktails? But since mommy journalism seems to rest on the anecdote, I decided to fish for my own, by asking my Facebook contacts to virtually raise their hands if theyd ever been personally victimized by another mother. A vocal contingent answered in the affirmative. Almost everyone agreed most of the abuse is happening onlinethe moment a new parenting technique hits the blogosphere, there seem to be mommies ready to scold you for doing it wrongbut some moms had their own IRL mean mom nightmares. One D.C. mom described what she called the Playgroup Mafia, a web of parent groups connected by a mysterious set of rules, procedures, nepotism, and secrecy over admissions. Asking that I not use her name for fear of backlash, this mom said that despite her efforts to join in one of these playgroups, she and her 2-year-old daughter were excluded. Still, she said, she had to face the Queen Bee moms at community events. I started to think about what I should wear to my kids music class, she said. I had flashbacks of middle school when the mean girls were... mean. I wondered if I didnt look the right way or say the right things. I started talking to the nannies, in Spanish, instead of the other moms because they were more friendly. The struggle is TOO real, Mollie Gondi, a 37-year-old mother of one in Safety Harbor, Florida, agreed, going on to explain in a phone call the anxiety over finding her place in new social groups once she became a mother. Im an anxious person and I had a really hard time in high school with these people. After 10 years, I had gotten to a really great place where I no longer feared the judgment of others, and now [after becoming a mom] Im right back there. Others werent buying the mean mom as a phenomenon. I just call them assholes, said Rachael Hebert Pavlik, a 46-year-old Texas mother of two who blogs about mom stuff under the name RachRiot . Others agreed, in less colorful language, that many moms who seem mean at first are later understood to be shy, tired, awkward, or anxious themselves. I wonder how many other moms think Im a jerk, another mom asked. While mean moms as a concept and the mommy wars generally may be more fueled by journalists than rooted in fact, there is kernel of truth beneath it all, which which might explain the mileage such stories like Marie Claires get. American parentingan experience that used to inspire female bondingmay have turned more competitive, according to Paula Fass, a University of California, Berkeley, professor and parenting historian who authored the excellent and comprehensive 2016 book, The End of American Childhood . But village gossip, which served as a way to create norms, keep people in line, and react to insecurity, has existed since colonial days. As for mean moms Fass calls the portrayal a worrisome addition to an already dangerous media narrative. The constant harping on the overstressed mother, now this harping on women doing terrible things to each other, the media itself is undermining them. Its a way of entertaining the public by flailing these women, she said. Making mothers seem like weak sixth graders undermines the idea that women have strength. In the winter of 1538, an Englishman living in Italy travelled to Florence. Cardinal Reginald Pole was a devout adherent of the Church of Rome at a time when the English Reformation threatened to tear the Church apart. He had fled into self-imposed exile from his native shores after opposing King Henry VIIIs divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and settled in Italy. Along with his other business in Florence, Pole had a personal mission. About a decade before this journey, hed had a conversation with Thomas Cromwell, a man of low origins who now served as the kings most intimate counsellor. Cromwell had stopped at nothingor so it seemed to Poleto indulge Henrys lusts and blasphemies. It was this ambitious adviser who, Pole believed, had masterminded the monarchs divorce, put England in a state of war with the Church, had priests and noblemen murderedand had always found some righteous pretext to color these deeds. Contemplating the evils that had driven him from his homeland, Pole longed to get his hands on a book about statecraft that Cromwell had praised when theyd met. The books author was a citizen of Florence. He had died over 10 years previously, so Pole could not meet him in person. But if the cardinal could read that book, it might help him better understand Cromwells mind and Henrys actions, and thereby make sense of what was happening to his poor England. On acquiring a copy, Pole began to read with fascination, then with growing horror. I had scarcely begun to read the book, he later wrote, when I recognized the finger of Satan, though it bore the name of a human author and was written in a discernibly human style. The Florentines text laid bare all the doctrines that seemed to guide Cromwells policies. Princes, it said, should build their states on fear rather than love. Since they live in a world teeming with lies and violence, they have no choice but to practise duplicity. Indeed, the prince who best knows how to deceive will be the most successful. In short, Pole declared, the book Cromwell so admired is full of things that stink of Satans every wickedness. Its author is clearly an enemy of the human race. The book that so appalled Cardinal Pole was the Prince, and the name of its author Niccolo Machiavelli. Aghast and intrigued, Pole was determined to find out more about the man who could write such things. Machiavelli, it transpired, had at one time caused a good deal of trouble for Florences own princely family, the Medici. In 1512, a year before Machiavelli wrote his most notorious work, the new Medici government had ejected him from the civil-service posts hed held for nearly 15 years, then imprisoned and tortured him on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the principality. These fragments of biography must have come up when Pole asked his Florentine hosts about their compatriot. For, he wrote, when he told them his thoughts about the book, they excused the author, answering the charge with the same argument that Machiavelli himself had offered when they had confronted him. Machiavellis reply, the Florentines said, had been that not everything in the Prince expressed his own opinions. Rather, hed written what he thought would please a prince, particularly the Medici prince to whom he dedicated the slender volume: Lorenzo di Piero de Medici, a young man with tyrannical leanings. But, Poles unnamed hosts continued, Machiavellis aim wasnt just to flatter his way into favour: he had a more sinister purpose. This wiliest of writers had no illusions about the utility of his cynical teachings. In fact, he was sure that any prince who put them into practice would soon arouse popular hatred and self-destruct. And this, said Poles Florentine friends, was precisely what Machiavelli wanted. His design was to write for a tyrant those things that are pleasing to tyrants, bringing about in this way, if he could, the tyrants self-willed and swift downfall. In other words, the books most shocking advice was ironic. Its author wore the mask of a helpful adviser, all the while knowing the folly of his own advice, hoping to ensnare rulers and drag them to their ruin. This explanation made sense of something that had bothered Pole while reading the Prince. Though Machiavelli was clearly a man of uncommon intelligence, some of his maxims seemed to show, as the cardinal put it, a crass stupidity. It seemed obvious to Pole that a prince who wins power through fear wont achieve security for himself or his state. The Prince claimed to put hard political facts ahead of moral ideals. But as a handbook on how to secure power, its advice was flagrantly unrealistic. Machiavellis self-proclaimed realism, his books main selling point, was a fraud. And Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII, and England were among its first victims. Cromwell had taken the Prince at face value, Pole insisted, imbibing its devilish doctrines in the belief they were highest prudenceand in doing so had walked straight into Machiavellis trap. If the writer were alive, hed be laughing at his handiwork. The results, though, were no laughing matter. England in 1539 was far along the road to perdition, and other Christian monarchs might soon go the way of Henry, should they or their counsellors fall under Machiavellis spell. Mark this well, rulers, Pole warned; beware of this two-faced writer. For it is the aim of his doctrine to act like a drug that causes princes to go mad, making them attack their own people with the savagery of the lion and the wiles of the fox. Pole was the first of many readers to demonize Niccolo Machiavelli and associate his name with the unscrupulous practices of men like Thomas Cromwell. The Prince as political poison, its author as a cunning fox, Old Nick, Satans emissary, cold-blooded destroyer of kingdoms and of true religion: these images of Machiavelli and his writings soon came to play a big role in the propaganda wars stirred up by the Reformation. The conjurors of this demonic Machiavelli were mostly men of religion, both Catholic and Protestant. The enemies they branded as Machiavellis disciples challenged traditional relations between Church and state. Some were devout Christians like Cromwell who sought to weaken political ties with the Church of Rome. Others called for a new, more secular kind of politics. Some of these sixteenth- and seventeenth-century challengers fought back by defending the Florentine against their opponents smear campaign. And in this way a very different Machiavellithis one altogether human, and humanejoined his evil double on the political stage. His champions found their undevilish Machiavelli mainly in his Discourses and Florentine Histories, much longer books than the fast-paced Prince. This Machiavelli was a thorough- going republican, a eulogist of democracy. His aim was to defend the rule of law against corrupt popes and tyrants. And he sought to uphold high moral standards, not lower them to fit the gritty realities of political life. True, his morality came from ancient writers such as Livy, Plutarch and Xenophon rather than Christian Scriptures, and he loved to ridicule the empty moral platitudes of his day. But he never wanted to sever politics from morality. He simply wanted to put morality on firmer, purely human foundations. But how could this image of a virtuous Machiavelli be squared with everything he says in the Prince? His defenders answer was that the Machiavelli of the Prince is a master ironist, a dissimulator who offers advice that he knows to be imprudent. On this point, though in nothing else, they agreed with Cardinal Pole. But while Pole thought that Machiavelli dissimulated so that he could poison princes minds and drive them mad, his admirers believed he did so only to unmask their deceits and their secret lusts for power. When he writes that Pope Alexander VI never did anything, or ever thought of anything, but how to deceive men, Machiavelli seems to praise the pontiffs obsessive duplicitybut really exposes his pretensions of piety. When he describes how Cesare Borgia scapegoated his own governor, having him sliced in two pieces and laid out in the piazza at Cesena with a bloody knife close by, Machiavelli gives readers an unforgettable image of how far princes will go to hold on to powershowing that the writers true intention in the Prince was to expose the perversities of princely rule. His purpose was to warn people who live in free republics about the risks they face if they entrust their welfare to one man. If Machiavellis writing horrified priests and monarchists, this was because no one else had so daringly stripped away the veneer of moralism they used to hide their tricks. *** When I first started writing about Machiavelli, over a decade ago, I knew little about these early polemics. Like most present-day readers, I assumed that the Princes author was a pragmatist and a patriot. Recent scholarship told me, over and over, that he was devoted to the salvation of his city, Florence, and his country, Italy, at a time when they were being torn apart by war and civil war. If he sometimes excused violence and hypocrisy, he did so for good, patriotic ends. But the more I read, the more I found myself questioning this picture. I began to notice that Machiavellis writings were extremely ambiguous. They seemed to speak in different voices at different times, saying very different things. In one breath hed praise the ancient Romans for using two-faced means to create their vast empire. Then hed say, almost by-the-by, that these policies sparked ferocious resistance and fuelled bitter rivalries inside Rome, rivalries that eventually drove the republic to its ruin. In the Prince, he seems to applaud men who break their oaths at will, caring little for good faith or justice. But he also saysin a passage most scholars pass over without commentthat victories are never secure without some respect, especially for justice. Turning to his Discourses, Id seize on a tough-talking statement about ends justifying unjust means: surely this was the true Machiavelli speaking? But then, a few lines on, thered be a dramatic example showing the exact opposite: that unjust means tend to ruin good ends, including the salvation of ones country. For every cynical Machiavellian argument I encountered, Id come across two or three other arguments that clashed with it. The cynical arguments are louder, and more thrillingly unconventional. But the reasons Machiavelli gives for them are often illogical, or just feeble. At times it sounds like hes parodying cheap rhetorical sleights of hand, the kind one often hears coming from the mouths of politicians and their spin-doctors. But he gives much more powerful reasons for actions we dont normally think of as Machiavellian. Know your own limits. Dont try to win every battle. Treat other people with respect so you can get them on your side and keep them there; observe justice with enemies as well as friends; always uphold the rule of law. These are a few of Machiavellis less notorious but more closely argued maxims. Like Cardinal Polewhose comments I hadnt yet readI soon began to doubt that Machiavelli believed every piece of his own advice. Several years after writing the Prince, he wrote to a close friend that for a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say. And if sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find. I sensed that the political wisdom he held to be truest wasnt encapsulated in eye-catching maxims like Its better to be feared than loved. With statements like these, he seemed to want to get under his readers skin: to irritate them, tease them, make them think and think again about the examples he set before them. As I laboured to figure him out, I began to feel the way Machiavelli says he felt while reading a rather convoluted letter from his friend Francesco Vettori. Your letter, he wrote to Vettori, dismayed me: its organization, its countless lines of reasoning entangled me in such a way that at first I was bewildered and confused. But then, as I became more familiar with it, the same thing happened to me as it did to the fox when he saw the lion in one of Aesops fables. The first time, he almost died of fright; the second, he stopped behind a clump of bushes to take a look; the third, he chatted with him. After conversing with Machiavelli for many years, Ive come to think that his early defenders understood him better than we do today. If we read all his workswhich include political and military writings, histories, personal letters, diplomatic dispatches, poems, and playsthe main voice that comes through, with remarkable consistency, is quite unlike any of the Machiavellian ones weve come to expect. And the more we read, the more obvious it is that Machiavelli enjoyed using his writing to put on a variety of masks, to play with different voices. We shouldnt forget that he was a brilliant dramatist, not just a student of politics. In his own lifetime he became famous not as a political writerthe Prince and Discourses were published only after his death in 1527but for his play Mandragola, a blistering satire of corrupt morals in Florence. Like an actor in one of his plays, Machiavelli assumed diverse voices and personas, allowing him to engage with different audiences without offending them. Yet the man behind the various masks was no chameleon, adapting to whatever the times and the men in power might demand. As his closest friends knew well, no one was less likely to compromise what he believed in. Excerpt from Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli in His World by Erica Benner. Copyright 2017 Erica Benner. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Erica Benner lives in Berlin. She is the author of several books, including Machiavellis Ethics and Machiavellis Prince: A New Reading. Formerly a fellow at Yale University, Benner taught for many years at Oxford University and the London School of Economics. BEIRUTA Syrian rebel famous for single-handedly destroying dozens of Assad regime tanks and even fighter jets has been arrested by jihadists in the northern province of Idlib after posting photos on Facebook mocking their religious proselytizing. Twenty-nine-year-old Suhail al-Hammoud, a fighter for the non-jihadist Faylaq al-Sham (Sham Legion) brigade, is better known as Abu al-TOW (The Father of the TOW) for his extraordinary prowess with American-supplied Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided (TOW) anti-tank missiles, with which he told one reporter in October 2015 he had personally taken out 56 vehicles, including two MiG planes at an Aleppo airbase. An unabashed moderate, Abu al-TOW has never disguised his disdain for the jihadists of the so-called Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, against whom he fought bloody battles while part of the U.S.-backed Hazm Movement in late 2014 and early 2015. And the Abu al-TOW case highlights the enduring resistance to Islamization by the moderate elements of Syrias opposition, whose very existence often is downplayed or even denied in the world press. From the beginning, Suhail was known for his hatred of Nusra Front, Ahmad Barakat, a friend of Hammouds now based in Turkey, told The Daily Beast. Nusra couldnt simply kidnap him, however, because of his popularity and his great effect on the battlefield Regime troops used to get scared when they heard Abu al-TOW was participating in a battle; this was something we would hear on the wireless handhelds. Instead, Nusra tried several times to assassinate him surreptitiously, according to Barakat; shooting at his car one night a few months ago, for example. The attempts failed to kill him and failed to silence him. So when Hammoud recently uploaded photos on Facebook mocking Nusras new coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (The Levant Liberation Committee, or HTS), including one showing him smoking a cigarette in front of a sign reading, Smoking is haram [religiously forbidden], his puritan foes saw a new window of opportunity. Driving Sunday in the village of Ehsim, 30 kilometers southwest of Idlib City, Hammoud was apprehended and issued with a summons by an HTS member, according to a relative of Hammouds in Idlib Province who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity. When he duly went to the HTS pseudo-police center in the neighboring village of Marayan the following day, he was told a number of complaints had been made about him on grounds of his alleged derision of religion. He was detained and later transferred to the HTS security branch, Liwa al-Uqab (The Eagle Brigade), in whose custody he remains. An attempt by a delegation of Hammouds Sham Legion comrades to negotiate his release on Tuesday was unsuccessful. Having initially been promised he would be released within hours, the last thing Hammouds relative was told was that he would appear before an HTS judge this Saturday. There is little expectation of this court session going favorably for Hammoud, according to the relative. In addition to his brazen flaunting of the smoking prohibition, and his history of affiliation with secular-leaning factions (supported by Washington, no less), Abu al-TOW was publicly critical of the recent so-called Four Towns Deal, endorsed by HTS, which led to controversial mass population transfers between pro- and anti-regime towns. A second photo posted on Facebook by Hammoud showed him sealing his mouth ironically in front of an HTS sign that read, No to the truce, for it is fitna [sedition]. Of course, for a sizeable demographic within the Syrian armed and civil opposition, its the jihadists who are guilty of sedition. A demonstration calling for Hammouds release was held Thursday in the city of Azaz, and pro-opposition social media witnessed a wave of support for him, with Arabic hashtags calling HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani an Assad regime agent and declaring, He who arrests a revolutionary is a traitor. The leaders of several Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigades have privately petitioned HTS to release Hammoud, albeit with no success so far, according to FSA political officer Asaad Hanna. The FSA, in its leadership and membership, will continue to demand [Hammouds release], and will use other means as well to this end, and will not stand with arms folded in this regard, Hanna told The Daily Beast. Few expect HTS to be moved by such pleas, however, least of all from a brigade such as Hammouds. Although the Sham Legion has stayed out of recent hostilities with HTS elsewhere in the country, it does still tick a number of boxes of HTS concern, said Charles Lister, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute who has researched Syrias opposition extensively. Sham Legion is a CIA-vetted formation; its the most important component of Turkeys opposition force in northern Aleppo; and it maintains intensely close ties to Turkey and its strategy inside Idlib, Lister told The Daily Beast. There have even been recent negotiations, Lister added, between Sham Legion and other Turkey-backed forces to merge or otherwise coordinate closer with an explicit view to countering HTSs dominance. Probably few people outside the small community of professional Syria-watchers were ever aware that a rebel brigade named the 13th Division peacefully protested against Nusra for over 200 days in a row in Idlibs Maarrat al-Numan in 2016. On the one hand, Hammouds defiance is an encouraging sign that the extremists takeover of rebel-held territories is no fait accompli, and is being confronted by moderates whether the West takes notice or not. On the other hand, the fact that the non-jihadist forces appear powerless to do anything tangible to secure Hammouds release shows how much ground already has been lost. Barakats assessment of the likelihood of him seeing his friend any time soon is bleakly telling. Obviously, all my hopes are that Suhail is fine and will be released immediately. But based on all prior experiences with Nusra arresting the early revolutionaries and people with popular influence opposed to al-Qaedas ideology, I do not expect Suhails release soon. In all previous cases of arrests of this kind of person, and the examples are many, they were murdered, or disappeared in prisons up to the present day. There are many reasons for welcoming the return of Tony Kushners Angels in America to the National Theatre in London, where the epic plays two parts were played together for the first time in 1993, but one stood out at its opening on Thursday. The British producers had imported Broadways Nathan Lane to play the homophobic and gay Roy Cohn, and he brought subtlety as well as mesmeric power to a non-fictional personage described by another gay character as the worst human being who ever lived. Marianne Elliotts production made for a long days journey that lasted well into night. Millennium Approaches started at 1 p.m. and Perestroika ended after 11, with time to gulp supper beside the Thames in between. But if ever a show earned its length, or Kushner his garrulity and occasional repetitiveness, here it was. In the 1980s the American theater seemed determined to keep confirming the critic Kenneth Tynans view that its dramatists had developed a squint from staring too long down domestic microscopes and never looking out of the window. It was Kushners Gay Fantasia on National Themes, as he subtitled Angels in America, that definitively substituted macrocosms for microscopes or, rather, allowed the boldly political and the painfully intimate to coexist on one stage. Moreover, it did so with an inventiveness, a surreal bravado, that made almost every other play seem shrivelled. Though Millennium Approaches had its world premiere in San Francisco in 1991, both it and Perestroika, which followed in Los Angeles a year later, are set in the mid-1980s. And both mainly involve the same people. Prior Walter becomes desperately sick with AIDS and is deserted by his lover, Lewis. A Mormon couple break up, Harper Pitt discovering that her lawyer husband Joe is a closet gay, Joe acknowledging his homosexuality by having a fling with Lewis. Guilt, remorse and recrimination play large parts here, but not in the case of Cohn. In Lanes riveting performance the corrupt lawyer, McCarthy henchman and (so its said) one-time influence on Donald Trump remains defiantly in denial as he slowly, angrily, balefully succumbs to AIDS. With the HIV and AIDS pandemic finally under control, at least in America, Kushners saga might seem dated. Well, it isnt. So-called period pieces have a way of falling asleep, then coming strikingly awake again. Angels in America, though set in an era that clearly had Kushner sickened by Reaganism and fearful of the impending millennium, often leaves you feeling that the characters are talking more about 2017 than 1985 or that relatively inoffensive year, 2000. For those uneasy in the Trump, Putin, and Kim era, line after line resonates. A triumphant Washington apparatchik: Its the end of liberalism, the end of New Deal socialism, the end of secular humanism. Belize, the gay nurse who tends Cohn and reproaches Lewis: Americaterminal, crazy and mean. A demented baglady: In the new century I think we will all be insane. Harper, who is as worried about the ozone layer as about her cut-off husband: The end of the world is at hand. Or Lewis, who is obsessed with the tribulations of democracy: There are no angels in America, no spiritual past, no racial past, there are only the decoys and ploys to manoeuvre around the inescapable battle of politics. That gives the play its overall title but isnt quite correct. Angels appear, first and sensationally to the ailing Prior in what he calls a very Steven Spielberg moment, but they turn out to be impotent. God apparently made his exit in dismay after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and, as an angel says, the world is failing, failing, with more horror than can be borne on the horizon. What AIDS was doing to the gay community in 1985 the world is doing to itself right now. All that gives the play not only a pessimism thats glancingly challenged by a somewhat sentimental coda but size, sweep and imaginative daring. Ian MacNeils set may be a simple matter of thin sliding walls that shift and interlock to become rooms, boxes with windows, even strange grey Rubik cubes. But in slither ant-like creatures bearing Amanda Lawrence as an angel with thistledown hair and a butterfly body between great, gaudy wings. There are other spectacular effects too: explosions, garish light, a huge flame that disconcerts Prior, who has second sight, while his nurse bumbles unseeingly about. As that shows, the two plays can be funny, are often witty and, despite the odd lurch into didacticism, are sharply written. At the National they are also finely staged, with Elliott bringing both fluency and clarity to overlapping scenes and dream characters, and at least as well acted as they were at the same address 24 years ago. Denise Goughs huddled, troubled Harper grows in pluck as she faces her husband, in Russell Toveys performance as buttoned-up in manner as in his dull, grey suit. Andrew Garfields Prior, a bit too apt to pose and flounce at first, leaves you in no doubt of the pain, bewilderment, insecurity, mental anguish, and outrage that threatens to destroy his every aspect. And then theres Nathan Lane, The Producers Max Bialystock reincarnated as Satan. Lane gives us all the demonic bluster of the man who says he cant be a gay man because homosexuals are losers and hes a man with clout, meaning that hes a straight guy who sometimes has sex with men. He opts with relish for four-letter tirades, often to the three or four people hes put on hold on the phone, but then seamlessly becomes sly and sinister, notably when he tries to lure Joe into becoming his man in the Justice Department. His contempt for the law, the system and other people is absolute. But then comes the killer diagnosis he cant, wont accept. After he has harangued and threatened a weary doctor, he pauses, momentarily broods, then reverts to type, pulling up his trademark yellow tie with a confident jerk. Lanes performance is full of such telling touches, some of them exquisitely timed, as when he tells a Washington contact that Joe is married, adding with a miniscule hint of disgust the redundant words he has a wife. But theres also a sense that for him Joe is more than a useful minion. A wished-for lover? A sort of son? Lane lets such notions half-invisibly dangle. And then the fixer comes up against the unfixable. Until the end his slow dying doesnt lessen the venom, even when his room is invaded by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, whom he helped to send to the electric chair. But his face turns beige, his hands begin to flutter, his voice becomes a bleat, the strength visibly evaporates and, with it, perhaps a mite of the evil hell never renounce. He asks Rosenberg for a lullaby, mistaking her for the mother who, its suggested, he remembers as angryand, having declared that he hopes to be reborn as an octopus, the monster dies. The playwright David Hare once said that malign energy tends to upstage, overwhelm, commandeer the audience. It says much for the strength of Elliott and her actors that this doesnt happen, but its such a close-run thing that I wasnt surprised to find she or her author had cut the scene in which the dead Cohn appears in a fiery furnace to offer his lawyers wiles to the Devil. Sue somebody, its good for the soul, was the advice hed given nurse Belize. But had he a soul? As Lane performs the role, just perhaps, but one he had done his very best to murder. Angels in America is at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London, through Aug. 19. Book here. LONDONSir Gyles Isham, MI5s top man in Palestine and head of the security service in Jerusalem, was out of town on Monday, July 22, 1946, the day one of the 20th centurys most deadly terror attacks sent a wall of flame right through his offices. Ninety-one people were killed as a powerful bomb devastated the southern wing of the King David Hotel, which served as the de facto headquarters of the British Mandate in Palestine and should have been the most closely guarded building in the Middle East. Radical factions of the Zionist movement, some of whom openly described themselves as terrorists, were waging a relentless underground war to drive the British out and establish an independent state of Israel. But the mainstream organizations struggling to achieve the same goal apparently were horrified. In London, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency, told a reporter that the group behind the bombing was the enemy of the Jewish people. Scientist and statesman Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, was said to be in an irrational frenzy of anger. In Thurston Clarkes 1981 book on the King David bombing, By Blood and Fire, Weizmann is quoted saying, The Messiah will not come to the sound of high explosives. Among the dead in the shattered hotel were Britons, Arabs, and Jews, including Holocaust survivors, crushed beneath the rubble or blown to pieces. Such was the force of the blast that the head and some of the entrails of one victim remained for hours stuck high on the wall of the YMCA building across the street. An entire corner of the King David Hotel was destroyed by the blast. (Fox Photos/Getty) If Sir Gyles had been there, might he have seen something or done something that could have made a difference, either preventing the attack or investigating its aftermath? He could never know. Less than 24 hours earlier, Sir Gyles had received an urgent cable dispatching him to foil an alleged assassination plot in Beirut which turned out to be bogus. And for decades, as revealed in a 1972 lettter, he was unable to shake the nagging feeling that something wasnt quite right about that order to leave the city. Sir Gyles suspected that the radical Zionists who were behind the King David Hotel bombing had some part in getting him out of the way. What he did not guess and probably could not have imagined was that a Soviet mole high in the upper echelons of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, had played a critical role distracting Sir Gyles and his staff. Then, as now, MI5 was charged with protecting the United Kingdom, its citizens and interests at home and overseas, while MI6 (SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service) gathers intelligence from outside the U.K. The Daily Beast has discovered in recently declassified documents at the British National Archives at Kew in West London, that MI6 mole was deliberately disrupting the work of Sir Gyles and his colleagues who were left to chase faked or utterly implausible plots while very real and very deadly terror attacks took shape. This revelation adds a new chapter to an extraordinary tale of treachery that has been at the center of many a spy novel, and offers a fresh perpective on the Soviet Unions complex relationship with Israel. What was the motive of the Soviet mole? He was almost certainly not inspired by the romance of the Zionist cause. Then (as now) the goal of the Russian secret services was to sow chaos and mistrust among their adversaries. World War II had ended just a year before, and the Cold War had begun. Not five months earlier, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned that an iron curtain had descended across Europe and the Soviets were probing the Wests defenses around the world. By that summer of 1946, Britain was struggling to hold onto a crumbling empire. Just a year later, it would at last relinquish India, the jewel in the crown. And its grip on Palestine, mandated after World War I, had become much more a curse than a blessing as Jews, mostly immigrated from Europe, struggled to establish an independent homeland, and Arabs marshalled their forces to prevent them. All that gave the Russians enormous opportunities to inflict pain on those who would, in Churchills words, defend freedom and democracy from the indefinite expansion of [Soviet] power and doctrines. And Moscow could not have had a more perfect tool to weaken the British defenses than its man in London, MI6 section head and Russian mole H.A.R. Kim Philby, perhaps the most effective, and certainly the most legendary penetration agent in the annals of espionage. *** The great British novelist Graham Greene, who had served in MI6 during World War II, knew Philby and liked him quite a lot, reminiscing about long, drunken Sunday lunches and the way Philby loyally defended his staff, even though his big loyalty was unknown to us. In fact, Philbys treachery had led to the deaths of many British agents in many places, and Greene eventually noted Philbys chilling certainty in the correctness of his judgement, the logical fanaticism of a man who, having once found a faith, is not going to lose it because of the injustices or cruelties inflicted by erring human instruments. Looking at the way Philby undermined and eliminated his rivals in the Secret Intelligence Service (a saga that would serve as the core of John Le Carres Smiley novels) Greene noted the sharp touch of the icicle in the heart. Philby also had a longstanding and rather complicated personal interest in the Middle East. His father, St. John Philby, was one of the last of the great British explorers there. A convert to Islam, St. John had become a trusted adviser of King Abdelaziz Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, and a bitter opponent of Zionism. Early in Kim Philbys career, in 1934, he had married a Jewish communist activist, Alice Litzi Friedmann in Vienna, where one of the witnesses to the small wedding was Teddy Kollek, later to be the long-serving mayor of Jerusalem. During the 1940s, as a senior official in the Jewish Agencys intelligence operations, Kollek often liaised with MI5 and according to an authorized history of the British service, Christopher Andrews Defend the Realm, he helped to disrupt terrorist operations. In August 1945, according the Andrew book, Kollek had told the British the secret location of a Jewish terrorist training camp near Binyamina and suggested it would be a great idea to raid the place, which led to 22 arrests. Described as a "schmoozer" by Chaim Weizmann in an intercepted call recorded in the MI5 archives, Teddy Kollek was a daring intelligence officer decades before he became the celebrated mayor of Jerusalem. (John Cowan/Getty) Philby must have known of Kolleks role and presumably knew that Kollek might implicate him as a Communist agent. He certainly would have known that one of Kolleks main contacts was Sir Gyles Isham, although precisely how Philby acted on that information remains unclear. At a minimum, he might have wanted to discredit Sir Gyles and his Jewish Agency liaison. When searching for answers about Kollek and Philby and Palestine, in fact, one quickly enters the proverbial wilderness of mirrors. While there are many dossiers in the declassified files that touch on Kolleks activities, many pages have been redacted, and several are marked secret cross reference to files labeled B.4.a.which was the Soviet counter-espionage department. Kollek would say, almost 40 years later, that he did finger Philby as a potential Soviet operative, but not until the 1950s, and then only after he came across him by accident while on a visit to CIA headquarters. Evidence that can now be gleaned at the archives in Kew suggests, however, that the revelation of Philbys connections, and treachery, could have been made much earlier. Kollek and Philbyformer comrades from the communist milieus of Viennawere working closely with the very same intelligence operatives active in post-war Palestine. Sir Gyleswho was so perturbed by Philbys intervention before the King David Hotel bombinghad stayed with Kollek at his kibbutz in northern Israel a few months before the attack. On several occasions in the intel files, Kollek was also described as being on very friendly terms with senior British officials such as the head of MI6 counterintelligence and his deputy, Maurice Oldfield (who later became head of MI6). They would meet for meals and drinks in London, exchanged letters and postcards, Oldfield even pledged to allow Kollek to leave Palestine for Europe in 1946 without alerting the proper authorities until Kollek was well under way. I have kept my promise, Oldfield later told his bosses back in London. By 1947, Kollek was head of the Jewish Agency Intelligence Organization for the Anglo-Saxon world (basically U.K. and U.S.), so it was his job to know exactly who was who in MI5 and MI6. Is it really likely that Kollek never heard that a man whose wedding he had attended was working in the very same professional circles? It may be the case that Kollek did not want to share the information with Oldfield and the others at MI6, and told instead an American spymaster, not a British one. After the accidental meeting at the CIA, he informed the CIAs head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, about Philbys background. But, as far as we know, Angleton did not act on the informationor did not seem toleading to epic conspiracy theories.) How Kollek might have used his privileged information in the years just before Israel won its independence in 1948 will remain unclear at least for as long as those pages in the archives at Kew remain redacted. *** Despite much speculation in intelligence circles at the time about the role of the Soviet Union supporting the Zionist militants battle in order to destabilize the shaky British Empire, Philbys own interventions have been largely overlooked. It was known that Philbys signature was on the memo that lead to the top intelligence and law enforcement officials leaving Palestine the day before the King David attack, but no other document had surfaced that would appear to support the idea that Philby was deliberately sabotaging Britains fight against Zionist terror operationsuntil now. Among recently declassified intelligence files at the National Archives, The Daily Beast has uncovered another intel report distributed by Philby that can only be described as a classic disinformation play. Out of the shadows, Kim Philby (on the right). (Keystone/Getty) In a secret memorandum dated May 5, 1946, Philby made a highly unusual and rare personal intervention. He asked permission from MI5 to disseminate to stations across the region a ludicrous intelligence report that detailed a plan for a French soldier to parachute into Palestine in order to seal an arms deal with the terrorists. The official MI5 historian Prof. Christopher Andrew told The Daily Beast that spreading this kind of blatantly false information to confound his colleagues in the British intelligence community was typical Philby mischief-making. The supposed plan by perfidious France made no sense at all. Precisely because the French had excellent existing relationships with the Jewish underground in Beirut and even Pariswhere the two main guerilla groups had their European headquartersthe notion that the French would be parachuting one of their soldiers into British-controlled territory was ludicrous. It is hard to conceive any motive for Philby to spread word of this so-called plot other than his desire to send his colleagues on a wild goose chase. For some more perspective on Philbys intervention, I emailed details of the memo to one of Americas leading terrorism experts. Professor Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and author of Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel 1917-1947, has studied Zionist terror groups in Palestine for more than 40 years. He is a former scholar-in-residence at the CIA; author of the authoritative Inside Terrorism; and served on the U.S. governments 9/11 Commission. When we caught up on the phone a few days after my email, it became clear that this new document might indeed be important. Im kinda bursting, he said I think youre on to something with Philby! It was fascinating what you wrote because it does make sense in a bigger picture. You can see the motive for the Soviet Unionnow that you have more of ityou can see, perhaps, what Philby is doing. Hoffman noted that the Soviets were keen to keep London preoccupied in places like Palestine so it would not focus on the growing battle between East and West in Europe. You can see a definite appeal for the Soviet Union: to divert Britains attention from the center to the periphery. And, of course, stirring the pot with these terrorists, is a great way of doing so, he said. *** Today, terrorist is not a word commonly associated with British or American discourse about the Zionist movement. But in the 1940s, the term often was applied to two specific organizations. One was the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), commanded by Menachem Begin, which carried out the King David Hotel bombing. The other, even more radical splinter group called itself Lehi, a Hebrew acronym for Fighters for the Freedom of Israel. The British called it, pejoratively, the Stern Gang, after its founder, Avraham Yair Stern. But the British shot him dead in 1942, and one of its operational chiefs became Yitzhak Shamir. Both Begin and Shamir eventually became prime ministers of Israel, but that was many decades later. The two organizations, Irgun and Lehi, carried out a series of bombings, ambushes, and assassinations targeting the British and their associates. In November 1944, Lehi assassins directed by Shamir murdered Lord Moyne, Britains secretary of state for the colonies and, as minister resident in Cairo, Londons top official in the region. The killers, as it happened, used a Russian gun. According to Calder Walton, a historian of intelligence at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government, Lehi was one of the last groups in the world to openly describe itself as a terrorist organization. It was also a crucial inspiration for other the international terrorist groups with other causes that would flourish in the coming decades, although most of them followed the lead of Begin and the Irgun who described themselves not as terrorists but freedom fighters. This is the start of something new: the fusion of modern nationalism with political violence that spills over borders, Walton told The Daily Beast. The cat and mouse game between the Zionist networks and British intelligence services continued through World War II and for three years afteruntil Britain finally relinquished its League of Nations mandate to control the territory. What could the Russians do to encourage the violence and unrest? What could Philby do? For starters, many of the operatives hailed originally from what would was, by 1946, Soviet or Soviet-dominated territory behind the Iron Curtain. A top secret memo prepared by British spies described Lehi as being dominated by Eastern Bloc emigres. Most of the members were Jews of Polish, Russian and Bulgarian origin, the MI5 analysts concluded. Lehi and the Irgun had networks all over the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Lehi and the Irgun, as noted, based their European networks out of Paris, where both groups were led by men born inside the USSR itself. This did not, of course, mean that their allegiance must be to Moscow, but it did lay the groundwork for contacts. According to another recently declassified MI5 analysis: Monia Bella headed up the Irguns European operation while Yaacov Eliav held a similar position for Lehi. Eliavs boasts that he had invented the letter bomb helped him to establish a reputation as a ruthless bomb-maker known as the the Dynamite Man. One of his closest accomplices was Betty Knutthe glamorous daughter of a noble Russian family, who had fought the Nazis alongside the French resistance before switching her allegiance to the Lehi and the battle to force Britain out of Palestine. She was the granddaughter of famous Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, who was related to Stalins Communist Party right-hand man Vyacheslav Molotovalthough perhaps not as closely as contemporary newspaper reports or Lehi legend would have you believe. While their brethren wreaked havoc in Palestine, Lehis Parisian HQ became the base for attempts to strike Britain on home soil. One of their most daring plots was cooked up by Eliav. Explosives manufactured in France were smuggled into Britain sewn inside clothing, including the shoulder pads of a coat. Knut was to be the bomber on April 17, 1947. Dressed immaculately in a fine hat and furs, that helped conceal the bomb, she approached the grand entrance to the Colonial Office, a mansion built in the 1750s, which is a few yards to the north of Downing Street in Westminster. She asked the guards if she could use the facilities, but security was relatively high after previous Zionist terror attacks and the guards initially turned down her request when she admitted that she had no identity papers. Knut later explained that she had persuaded the guards by saying: Ive heard that Englishmen are gentlemen, yet here is a woman who needs a few minutes of privacy, and you are asking her to show papers just so you will know how old she is. The men relented and allowed the would-be killer right into the heart of the British government. She planted an explosive device in the toilets before slipping away. Fortunately, the bomb failed to detonate and it was discovered by a member of the cleaning staff. During a recently declassified briefing given to Scotland Yard officers in 1948, an MI5 officer described Isaac Pressman as the only British citizen linked to Zionist terror groups who had managed to acquire explosive materials inside Britain. Twenty-seven grenades were discovered in his modest flat in Stoke Newington, a neighborhood in North London, which MI5 officers believed he had stolen from an RAF airfield in Wiltshire. Like the leading Zionist militant figures on mainland Europe, Pressman had also been born inside the USSR. *** With so many actors from the Soviet Union, its hardly surprising that British and American intelligence agencies suspected that there were Communist links to the terror groups. In the later years of World War II and the immediate aftermath, it was notoriously difficult to travel across borders in Europe, and immigration to Palestine was strictly controlled by the British, yet some Zionist leaders continued to disappear from the East and resurface inside the British mandate. Sir Percy Sillitoe, the director general of MI5, mused on the subject during a series of letters that pinged back and forth between HQ and Dick Thistlewaite, MI5s man in Washington, who was responsible for liaising with the FBI and the CIA. (A few years later, that would be Philbys job as well.) Moshe Sneh, was a Zionist from Poland who was apparently captured by the advancing Red Army before escaping from a camp in the USSR; Sir Percy wrote: It is interesting to speculate what SNEHs experiences were as a prisoner of the Russians and whether his escape in March 1940 was genuine or engineered by the Russians for their own purposes. Sneh would go on to be appointed head of the Haganah, the paramilitary wing of the mainstream Jewish Agency, before eventually becoming a Communist politician in the years after the independent state of Israel was established. Menachem Begin came to the Middle East via a similar route, arriving on Palestinian soil after being allowed to escape one of Stalins gulags. The Polish emigre grew up in Belarus in the Soviet Union before he was rounded up by the NKVD as a Zionist during the war. He was convicted of sedition without trial and condemned to eight years in the gulag. After a deal with the Polish government in exile following the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1940, he was allowed to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East, which was created in the USSR and funded by Moscow. Stalin agreed to allow the army, which contained an estimated 4,000 Polish Jews, to march down through Persia to Palestine. Once in the Middle East, Begin was discharged by the Polish Army and soon rose to the top of the Irgun. His Polish compatriot Nathan Yellin-Friedman also escaped from the Russians only to surface in Palestine where he became one of the leaders of Lehi. Yellin-Friedman, like Shamir, was personally involved in plotting the assassination of Lord Moyne. Despite the speculation, Britain never publicly accused the Soviets and their allies of sending Zionist leaders or trained fighters to disrupt the British mandate in Palestine. But newly declassified intelligence reports show that MI5 believed it had enough evidence to prove that the Polish Army, which was formed in the Soviet Union but was mainly staffed by anti-Communists from the old Polish forces, was doing more than turning a blind eye to illicit Zionist travelersit was secretly working to help establish a terror group that would undermine the British. Alex Kellara flamboyant MI5 officer believed to have inspired John Le Carres man in the cream cuffsproduced a report after a visit to the region in February 1945 that concluded: The part deliberately played by the Polish Army Intelligence in building up the Irgun, an activity which has long been suspected, has recently been conclusively established from an XXX source which has disclosed the name of five Revisionist Jews, among them BEGIN, who were released a year ago by the Polish Army in the Middle East for political and propaganda purposes. The Polish Army was in no way beholden to Moscow but Stalins decision to set up the army and then let it march to the Middle East was a huge help to the Jewish underground. And if destabilization was the aim, the Polish Armys intervention proved to be a masterstroke. The Polish Armed Forces in the East was populated by people who were allowed to escape Soviet internment. (Handout) *** Newly declassified letters home to London from the head of the MI5 delegation in Jerusalempublished here for the first timeshow just how despairing the British had already become by the spring of 1945. After a mortar came within 25 yards of the police headquarters in Jaffa, and two more landed in the Sarona police camp, Lt. Col. Henry Hunloke sounded broken even though no one had been hurt. The usual hopelessness has fallen on me as to what on earth we can do to these brutes, he lamented to Alex Kellar. Remarkably, the Irgun and Lehi also seemed to have convinced Hunloke that their deadly attacks were supported by the Jewish people in the Palestinian territories as a whole, a judgment that may also have reflected a deeper anti-Semitism. I consider it entirely wrong to lay the blame on any single section of the Jewish Community. By their teaching of the youth, by the speeches of their so-called leading politicians, they are all equally culpable, he explained in another previously unpublished letter to Kellar. More serious study of the Jewish population in Jerusalem suggested that these terror groups did not enjoy widespread support. A Middle East security summary drafted by British officials in April 1946 concluded: The Stern Group is still unpopular among the general public. This was very much in evidence when in contrast to a funeral gathering of many thousands in Jerusalem to attend the funeral of a Haganah member killed on the wide-scale operations on the night of 16/17 June, no one attended the funeral of 11 Stern group members killed after the Haifa raid. Hunlokes willingness to ascribe a single motivation to an entire people also was indicative of a growing British sense of panic about the situation on the ground. Global opinion was turning against Britains mandate in Palestine and it was becoming increasingly difficult to prevent illegal Jewish immigration. Britain was forced to increase its military presence until it had 100,000 troops stationed in Palestine, and yet still there were weekly attacks on British police officers, civilians, and a campaign of infrastructure destruction. Some of the attacks were so brazen that Britain was left looking weak and foolish on the world stage. In May 1947, Irgun operatives disguised in British uniforms blasted a hole in the wall of a British prison in the northern coastal city of Acre and helped 28 Irgun and Lehi prisoners escape, while a series of traps and blockades prevented British reinforcements reaching the scene. Three Irgun operatives eventually were caught and executed by the authorities for their part in the prison break. In revenge, the Irgun kidnapped two British police officers, murdered them, and left their bodies hanging in a booby-trapped eucalyptus grove. After the grueling World War II, Britains appetite for more violence was waning, and so were its coffers. There is be no doubt that the relentless terror campaign helped force London to back down. In May 1948, Britain officially began to limp out of the Mandate. As CIA analysts put it with admirable understatement in documents that were published for the first time at the end of last year (PDF): The strategic value of the country to the British has been offset by administrative difficulties. The problems posed by the terror groups were considered overwhelming in London by 1947. But for years the Irgun and Lehi had had to struggle for funding and weapons. The birth of the Cold War had put the quest for weapons, money and influence in Palestine into the context of a battle for supremacy between two superpowers. In his 1968 memoir My Silent Warwhich he wrote after escaping to Moscow (and for which Graham Greene penned the introduction)Philby emphasizes Russias engagement with the Middle East, a region where he worked in semi-retirement from 1956-63. The Soviet Union is interested in a very wide range of Middle Eastern phenomena. Enjoying a wide margin of priority at the top of the list are the intentions of the United States and British governments in the area. Nathan Friedman-Yellin was one of the first Zionist leaders to recognize that coming battle between East and West, according to Joseph Heller, one of the most respected Israeli scholars on the history of the Jewish underground. As one of Lehis leaders, Friedman-Yellin first began thinking aboutand tentatively advocating forthe possibility that the USSR would become a serious sponsor of Lehis paramilitary aims in 1943. Nathan Friedman-Yellin advocated a switch of focus towards the East for Zionist support. (Keystone/Getty) This was a remarkable prospect given the history of the Zionist militant groups which had formed out of the right-wing Revisionist movement in Poland. The politics of Lehis founder, Avraham Stern, unquestionably belonged to the extreme right wing. Indeed, he even offered to cooperate with the Nazis and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, whose troops were advancing through Egypt in 1940. He made the extraordinary calculation that his enemys enemies should be his friendsdespite the anti-Semitic atrocities being carried out under the orders of Adolf Hitler. But in the years after Sterns death in 1942, Friedman-Yellin began dragging Sterns gang to the Left. By the following year, Lehi had adapted one of Karl Marxs most recognizable slogans: Each gives to the nation according to his ability; each receives from the nation according to his needs. The transformation gathered pace as the Red Army continued its formidable march West across Europe in 1944. Friedman-Yellin claimed he could see signs of Moscows attitude to the Zionists warming as he foresaw a moment when the Jewish underground and the USSR could be united in their antipathy for Britain. He and some fellow Sternists began to talk of a Hebrew National Bolshevismwhich was partially aligned with Soviet policy but claimed to have roots among right-wing European radicals as well as those on the Left. At this stage the Irgun remained far more circumspect. In common with the official Jewish Agency and their paramilitary wing Haganah, they stated that they would not break with the British at least until World War II was over. It was in the early postwar years that British intelligence began to suspect that much of the Zionist movement was beginning to look to Moscow for inspiration or even direct help. In a newly declassified speech to police officers in Britain, a senior MI5 official explained: It is impossible to ignore the fact that certain of the left-wing political groups in Palestine under the leadership of Moshe Sneh, the former commander in chief of Haganah, are watching the advantages to be gained by an approach to Soviet Russia, while in the background both the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Group have echoed this policy in their secretly printed newspapers. Another recently declassified intelligence agency dossier, included a telegram that quoted secretly printed Lehi pamphlets from 1947 calling for a re-orientation of Zionist policy to bring it into line with Russian aims against British imperialism. A telegram from the file was sent from Palestine to the secretary of state for the colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, on May 27 that year. It reported a growing co-operation between the local Communists and the Zionist extremists. A noticeable feature has been the dissidents and particularly the Stern Gangs tentative approach to the Communists, in return for which the latter, doubtless on instructions, have ceased to inveigh against Fascist criminals of the Jewish Underground. Heller said it was no surprise that Lehi would have struck a deal with the brutal Stalin regime if they thought it would help them realize the dream of founding Israel. In 1940 they believed they could ally with Hitler, and in 1947-1949 with Stalinwith a Jewish state stretching on both sides of the River Jordan! he told The Daily Beast. They would have allied with Satan himself. Moshe Sneh was recently named as a Russian source in secret KGB files. (Dmitri Kessel/Getty) By 1947, Moshe Sneh, who lead the Haganah during its most aggressive period of activity against Britain, was giving underground speeches in praise of the USSR. British police officers in Palestine reported that they intercepted a call in which SNEH is further alleged to have stated that in Soviet Russia they had a great neighbor behind their doors, and that Russia was the only power which is fighting Anti-Semitism. An intercepted letter dated November 1947 from Samual Lev Hacohen in Paris to Moshe Kolodny, a Jewish Agency executive in Jerusalem read: This letter is very confidential and you should tear it up after reading I spoke with Dr. SNEH after his return from Roumania. His Russian orientation keeps growing steadily He seems to dream about a large pro-Russian party I think that the result of this orientation will be that he wont be able to remain in the General Zionist Party for long. *** So some of the Zionists were leaning towards Moscow, would the Communists respond in kind? The overwhelming reputation of the Soviet Union as almost pathologically anti-Semitic would suggest that was impossible. During the so-called doctors plot in 1953, for example, a group of predominantly Jewish physicians were falsely accused of a conspiracy to murder Soviet leaders in Moscow. KGB documents smuggled into the West by Soviet archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, which were fully opened to the public for the first time in 2014, offer an unprecedented glimpse into the minds of the men running the Soviet intelligence apparatus. The first investigative reporter to immerse himself fully in the Mitrokhin files on Israel and Zionism told The Daily Beast from Tel Aviv that he was stunned by the scale of the anti-Semitism and the extent to which Jewish conspiracy theories were a founding principle of the Cold War itself. One of the things that surprised me most when reading all these documents was how profound was the belief of the chief of the KGB in the unbelievable power of the Jews, said Ronen Bergman, whose book on the Israeli security servicesRise and Kill Firstwill be published later this year. It was not clear who was the dog and who was the tail. Some of the KGB were heavy believers in the Protocols of the Elders of Ziontherefore it is not the United States that is controlling Israel, its the world Jewry, who is controlling the United States and Israel. Israel is just another tool of the world Jewry. The discredited Protocolsthe most notorious literary hoax of the 20th centuryclaimed that there was a secret plan for global Jewish domination. Russias security services apparently believed these absurd notions, first promulgated under the tsarist regime, for decades after the Bolsheviks took power. Given its history of virulent anti-Semitism, its extraordinary to think that the Soviet Union was one of the leading sources of support for the fledging independent state of Israel. But that is exactly what happened. There is no doubt that the Soviets helped the Zionist-Israelis before and during the war of independence, Heller said. I do think they assisted the Zionists in Palestine a great deal both militarily and politically. As a matter of public record, the Soviets backed Zionism at the United Nations and then became the first country to recognize an independent state of Israel on May 17, 1948. As war raged, after the partition plan approved by the United Nations in November 1947, the Soviets poured weapons in through the satellite state of Czechoslovakia to arm the Haganah, as well as the Irgun and Lehi, who had now joined forces to protect the fledgling country during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. A CIA file from 1949, which was declassified in 2013, (PDF) confirmed that the U.S. had been a junior partner when it came to military backing for the new state of Israel. During the 1948 UN-imposed truces, the Israeli armed forces received sufficient arms and military equipment from clandestine sources abroad, chiefly from Czechoslovakia and, to a less extent, indirectly from the US, to enable them to transfer their initial military inferiority into a definite superiority. The importance of the link between Soviet Czechoslovakia and newly independent Israel has largely been played down by both sides but it began with negotiations between Sneh and the communist satellites deputy foreign minister in July 1947. The weapons would eventually include around 50,000 rifles, 6,000 machine guns and 90 million bullets, as well as 25 fighter planes which were smuggled into the country in pieces. The depth of the Soviet backlash against Israel in later years can partly be ascribed to Moscows disappointment and fury that its assistance was not rewarded with closer ties in the years after independence. The timing of the Kremlins decision to back Israel has been hotly contested. Calder Walton, who examined Britains intelligence service in the Postwar era for his book Empire of Secrets, said that while it was widely accepted that Moscow assisted some Zionist groups before the creation of Israelit is thought that the Soviet policy towards the Zionists had not yet crystalized by the time Philby was interfering from inside the British security service. A document highlighted by Heller in Superpower Rivalry, published in November, however, demonstrated that the Soviet Ambassador to London announced in 1943 that they would support Zionismwhich is several years earlier than previously thought. That document can be found in a collection of papers released jointly by the Israeli and Soviet governments, which includes the minutes from a meeting of the Jewish Agency in London on Sept. 14, 1943. It details the conversation between Chaim Weizmann, who would become Israels first president, and Ivan Maiskii, the Soviet ambassador to London, who was soon promoted to become deputy commissar of Foreign Affairs responsible for post-war planning. Chaim Weizmann was one of the most celebrated early Zionists and would eventually become Israel's first president. (Bettmann/Getty) Weizmann reported back to his colleagues that Maiskii replied that he could not commit his government, but he believed that the Soviets would support them He thought that Russia would certainly stand by them. Maiskiis main reservation apparently concerned the availability of viable, habitable space for a Jewish state in Palestine. Ben Gurion, who would become Israels first prime minister, took the Russian official on a tour a few weeks later, which he believed had impressed Maiskii. He asked questions and probed about the kibbutz. I had felt in London that he thought we were making things up, because we are doing something they dont dare do in Russia. He was very impressed by the place; he was amazed when he saw forests, fruit trees and more, he reported to a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive in October 1943. If Russia was broadcasting its nascent Israel policy to London in 1943, Philby almost certainly would have known about it and concluded that his covert assistance to the Jewish underground would be acceptableor even commendableto Moscow. *** Deep in existing Russian files and dossiers there may be definitive answers about the Soviet relationship with some of the Zionist terror organizations, or at least some of their members. But, says Heller, It is difficult to give straight answers because Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, refuses to open the archives. In addition to the Mitrokhin cache, Boris Yeltsin had begun to open up access to Russias historic secrets but Putin slammed the door shut. The latest tranche of documents about British intelligence on the Zionist underground that have been declassified in London show the Western services attempting to evaluate the level of Soviet assistance at the time. A dispatch from April 1948 lists some of the reports the British had collated over the previous six months: Lehi (or the Stern Gang) using Russian weapons in August 1947; Russian aid sent to the Irgun the same month; Polish support for the terrorists two months later; and contacts between Lehi and the USSR or Soviet agents in October 1947 and April 1948. We do have a considerable amount of information which indicates that the Stern Gang, in particular, look to the Soviet Union for support rather than to the Western Powers, the analyst concluded. But these were based on allegations and uncorroborated reports by third parties, and the conclusion was cautious: We have seen no hard evidence that Jewish Terrorists have in fact been in contact with Soviet agents or have received money or arms from the USSR or Soviet satellite powers. What is abundantly clear from the dossier is that the Jewish Agencythe mainstream Jewish authority in Palestine, where Teddy Kollek was a key liaisonconsistently told the British that Lehi was being given assistance from the USSR. MI6 reports explain that Lehi was regarded by the Jewish Agency as definitely under Soviet influence. The Jewish Agency was often Britains best source on the guerilla underground movementat times providing names of active terroristsbut there were also periods when the Agency was working alongside the guerilla groups against Britains rule in Palestine. In October 1947, MI6 officers reported back to London that they had been passed details by the Jewish Agency of a meeting between the Irgun and Lehi, which they still called the Stern Gang, during which terms of engagement against the British in the wider regionwith Soviet supporthad been discussed. To this end numerous groups of members of both organizations would penetrate into Iraq and Syria where they would enjoy the support of pro-Soviet bodies, mainly among the Kurds. Soviet agents would supply money, arms and explosives. The Stern Gang declared that the U.S.S.R. had undertaken to support terrorist action against the British in Palestine from any quarter. The I.Z.L. [Irgun] agreed to the principles outlined, but reserved a final answer until later. The resulting involvement of the I.Z.L. (through the Stern Gang) into the Soviet sphere of influence has disturbed the Haganah. More and more detailed reports about military, training or weapons assistance from the Soviet sphere continued to be collected, however. In July 1948, MI6 reported that a Yugoslav militant was employed as instructor in sabotage operations for Jewish communists and in touch with Lehi. Two years earlier, intelligence reportsnow documented for the first timedescribed a secret organization, headquartered in Constanza on the Black Sea coast of Romania, created for the purpose of selecting and training native and foreign Jews in terroristic activities and sending them to Palestine. Perhaps the most far-fetched intelligence reportdeclassified in an earlier tranche at the National Archives in Londonoriginated from an FBI investigation into Moshe Snehs time in New York. The report alleges that Sneh was receiving payments from Russia channeled through the Irgun from October 1946. This report is given little credence at the time; although Bergmans Mitrokhin archive investigation revealed late last year that Soviet agents in Israel were sending reports to Moscow in the 1950s based on information they said they had be provided to them by Sneh. Snehs son Efraim, an Israeli politician, said in response, This never happened. And denied that his father had been a KGB agent. Formal talks between Lehi representatives and a Cominform representative in Czechoslovakia began soon after Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko announced Russian opposition to British imperial control of the Palestinian mandate at the United Nations in 1947. The following year, Soviet weapons arrivedvia Czechoslovakiato bolster Stern, Irgun and Haganah fighters now united to defend the fledgling state of Israel. Perhaps its not surprising that Lehi was all too happy to emphasize its contacts with the Soviets because it saw Russian support as a crucial step in establishing Israeland its own part as crucial in luring Moscow to pick a side. In a Stern Radio broadcast on May 27, 1948, one of the groups propagandists boasted: The Soviet attitude [that Zionists were British lackeys] did not change until the appearance of the fighters for the freedom of Israel [Lehi] who started the war for the liberation of the Jewish homeland from the foreign yoke. *** Yisrael Medad is a director at the Menachem Begin Heritage Centerso perhaps more loyal to the Irguns version of events than Lehisbut he concurs with some of the Lehi version. Asked by The Daily Beast if the splinter group had secret ties to the Soviet Union, he said: Of course Lehi did. A delegation arrived in Palestine in 1947 to meet and assure arms deliveries and Lehi had strong contacts in Bulgaria (shared childhood school chums). Medad repeats the Lehi claimstill posted in its official historythat Yitzhak Mirkin, a Lehi leader, had saved the life of the man who became the Communist Party chairman (i.e., leader) of Bulgaria, Georgi Dimitrov, who had a strong relationship with Stalin. According to the version of events that you read, Dimitrov secured for Mirkin an audience either with a personal emissary of Stalin or Stalin himself. There may also have been a meeting between would-be bomber Betty Knut and then-Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in Paris. The supposed secret summit is listed in the terror groups online history. Could Betty Knut really have met this manVyacheslav Molotovin Paris? (Harlingue/Getty) But Professor Heller says there is no hard proof to substantiate these direct links. Although former Lehi members insist that they were supported, for example by some communist leaders such the Bulgarian leader Dimitrov, or through Betty Knut; there is no primary source which would prove it! Even if there were no such meetings, however, that would not have precluded Kim Philbys mischief-making. And what we have now for the first time is evidence that this Soviet mole in Whitehall was able to wage a disinformation campaign that helped to thwart or confound Britains ill-fated battle against the Zionist guerillas. Which also brings us back to Sir Gyles. *** H.A.R. Philby was head of Section IX: which was responsible for Soviet counterintelligence and Communismprotecting Palestine was not specifically part of his brief but, as Sir Gyles Isham found to his chagrin, he was in a rare position of power to influence British intelligence work all over the world. In 1972, Sir Gyles wrote a letter wondering if the Irgun had somehow contrived for him to be absent from Jerusalem the day the King David Hotel was bombed. It is quoted in Bruce Hoffmans authoritative book on the Revisionist militants Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel. Hoffman told The Daily Beast he had found it by a stroke of luck among Sir Gyles papers, which had been left to the archive in Northamptonshire at the end of a long career. Born into an aristocratic family, Gyles Isham had been attracted to the theater as a young man, and before his wartime stint in the foreign service, he had appeared as an actor in several films, including Secret Lives and Under Secret Orders, and one, The Iron Duke, in which he played the czar of Russia. After his time in the foreign service, Sir Gyles became a local politician and trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. His papers are housed in a drab single-story municipal building on the ring road south of Northampton in central England. Sir Gyles had been defense security officer in Palestine from October 1945 to November 1946, and in another letter to a former comrade from his army days he described that period in Jerusalem as a more dangerous time than his active military service during World War II. His letter about the King David Hotel bombing was sent to Sir John Shaw, the former chief secretary of the Palestinian Mandate, who was one of those left scrabbling through the wreckage of the hotel looking for friends and colleagues after the blast. Sir Gyles wrote that the proximate cause of his absence was a directive to investigate an assassination plot in Lebanon. He and a colleague were asked to go to Beirut to warn [the British minister] and to see what we could do with the Lebanese Police. We did know that a number of the members of the Irgun were in Beirut. Looking back at the original trail of correspondence at the National Archives in London it seems that Sir Gyles and the MI5 operatives in the Middle East had been irritated, at the time, that Philby had gone over their heads by writing directly to the Foreign Office to warn them about this supposed imminent attack in Beirut. Once Sir Gyles was informed of the concerns from the ministers office in London he wrote back on July 21, 1946, in an unusually forthright manner saying he could see that senior figures suddenly were talking about this threat, but: Owing to complete lack of information here we cannot advise him. Terence Shone, the British Minister for Syria and Lebanon, had already told London from Beirut a day earlier that security had been increased, and he didnt see the utility of any further precautions. But Philby had already stirred up significant interest at a senior level in London, so Sir Gyles and Arthur Giles, the outstanding intelligence officer who ran the Palestinian police forces Criminal Investigation Department, were both dispatched to Beirut. As a result, they both missed the attack attack on the King David, which took place during the postwar period when the two terror groupsthe Irgun and Lehihad begun working alongside the Haganah, the military wing of the Jewish Agency, which was effectively Israels government in-waiting. The bombing was widely condemned by the Jewish community in Palestine, as well as by leaders worldwide. The Irgunwhich carried out the attack under the command of future Prime Minister Menachem Beginblamed the British for failing to evacuate the hotel after they had been sent a warning. British officials have always denied that any warning was ever received. The aftermath of the attackwhich hardened the position of U.S. President Harry Truman against the Zionist extremistssaw plenty of internal recriminations, especially at the Jewish Agency, whose leaders were appalled by the scale of the bloodshed and furious to discover that it had been signed off by the then-head of the Haganahs national staffMoshe Sneh. Although they would not have been able to foil the attack, Sir Gyles felt that he and the missing law enforcement chief were not in place to properly lead the investigation into the atrocity. As he wrote all those years later: I could not help feeling that the Foreign Office report was somehow inspired by Begin. Begin was often celebrated as having outsmarted the British in Palestineusing a relatively tiny guerilla army of a few thousand men to force out the colonial giantsbut there is very little evidence of him employing disinformation campaigns to wrong-foot the British authorities. Reached at the Menachem Begin Heritage Centerthe state-sponsored project to preserve and propagate the legacy of the former Irgun leader in Jerusalem, Yisrael Medad said he had never encountered any such strategy. As far as I know, and I think Ive read almost everything, nothing like that specific instance [of disinformation] ever happened, he told The Daily Beast. Long before he became Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin was involved in the struggle against British control. (David Rubinger/Getty) Hoffman believes Sir Gyless theory of interference was made on justifiable grounds even if the origin of those intelligence reports from Beirut will remain a mystery. We dont know if this was an Irgun disinformation, he said. But I think Philbys seizing upon it plays into his wider strategy of distracting the British in Palestine. The newly revealed Philby memo dated more than two months before the King David Hotel bombing, on May 5, 1946, and declassified by the British government in September last year, suggests a clear pattern. Emphasizing [the fake Beirut plot in July] becomes important if there is a goal of deception and distraction which I think there would have been, Hoffman said. I think Philby saw it as yet another opportunity to distract the British. The previously unpublished memo shows Philby disseminating a spurious report that suggested a French officer would parachute into Palestinian territory to try and sell weapons to the Zionist terrorists. The original dispatch from MI5s Major James Robertson sent to Trafford Smith on April 30, 1946, claimed that Zionist agents had met with a French representative in Beirut and discussed a plan whereby the French drop an officer by parachute into Palestine in order to discuss the sale of arms to the terrorist organizations. Naturally, there is no evidence that the French ever dropped such a sitting duck into Palestine. Some French officials and military figures were indeed sympathetic to the Zionist cause and provided expertise or even weaponry, but there is no reason and no way they would have arranged a rendezvous with terror groups plotting against their allies, the British, on British-controlled territory. Nonetheless, Philby pulled the intelligence report and had this interesting information shared across the agencies in London and the offices that were attempting to deal with Zionist guerillas, including Jerusalem, Beirut, Paris, and the Mideast. At his desk in the heart of Britains clandestine world of intelligence in Whitehall, Philby received thousands of reports of varying veracity from all over the world. This one he seized upon. This was typical Philby said Professor Andrew, who summed up the moles anti-British motivations in the official history of MI5, Defend the Realm: Kim Philby, like his masters in Soviet intelligence, secretly welcomed the terrorist campaign against the British mandate in Palestine as a blow to British imperialism in the Middle East inflicted by progressive Jews of Russian and Polish origin. Kim Philby believed that his upper class background protected him from the suspicions of his colleagues. (Laski Diffusion) MI5 and MI6 historians agree that Philby often interfered to wreck his British colleagues intelligence operations. He was doing his best to try to manipulate British investigations into Soviet agents, so spreading disinformation in that way, Calder Walton said. Often, its just spinning wheels, anything that can assist Soviet intelligence and obfuscate British intelligence would be his marching orders. He wasnt simply a double-agent working for the British and then telling Moscow what he and his colleagues knew; he was actively working against British operations himself. Or, to put that in Philbys own words: All through my career, I have been a straight penetration agent working in the Soviet interest. Given Philbys unnatural interest in Palestinethere's no explanation why he would be so concerned about PalestineI think you can say that it was very useful to divert and distract British attention, but also weaken the British military or at least have them doing things in Palestine that prevented them from working against Communism, said Hoffman. If British intelligence are concerned with hunting down French or Irgun, or Lehi emissaries around the Middle East they have less time to pay attention to Soviet penetration and Soviet activity, they have less manpower. What we will never know is the true motivation of Kim Philby. Was he toying with Britains battle against the Zionist militants under orders from Moscow? Had he developed this strategy for helping Mother Russia on his own? Or was he throwing his colleagues off the scent for some deeper reason now impossible to discernor simply for sport? Whatever inspired his actions, it is now obvious that MI6 efforts to keep control of British territory in Palestine were being undermined by a Soviet agent within. with additional reporting by Christopher Dickey My family didnt know if we had much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving of 2011. I spent most of the day before with a breast surgeon who, upon examining the lump I found in my left breast five weeks prior, sent me to immediately get a mammogram, ultrasound, and multiple biopsies. We werent told anything at that point, but based on her reaction to the exam we expected the worst. We got it the very next day, with a call from the doctor and a stage-two diagnosis. I was 33 years old and my world turned upside down. I had a lumpectomy the next month (and was upgraded to stage one), another one two months after that, four rounds of chemo, a boobal removal (OK fine, bilateral mastectomy), surgery to swap my expanders for implants, and another surgery to remove the implant after an infection. From diagnosis to final surgery, breast cancer took about 13 months of my life. It also took my fertility (which wasnt cooperative to begin with, but still) and left me with deep anxietybut I never feared for my life. I was a small business owner who had stellar insurance thanks to my husbands job. So good, in fact, then when wed call Aetna and they looked up our account, multiple reps would comment, Wow. Your insurance is good. Yeah. We knew. We lived in Brooklyn and had access to world-class care in New York City. We caught the sucker early and I didnt carry the breast cancer gene. I sang songs about it on my pink ukulele (penning The Cancer Card and Everyones Your Friend When You Have Cancer, amongst others) and put a team together to fundraise and walk for Avon39. I figured this whole cancer business was a blip on the radar, and once I was done, I could go back to living my life. In the years that followed, my husband left his job to work as a freelancer. We adopted a 5-week-old girl in June of 2014 and planned a move to the suburbs, looking forward to starting our new life with our new family. However, life had other plans (did ya see that coming?), and my cancer came back, stage three, in September of 2015. I was 37. Last year, I had a surgery to remove the tumor in my chest wall, followed by 16 rounds of chemo, 15 rounds of radiation, and another surgery to remove my ovaries as a precaution to ovarian cancer. Ill be the first to say that Obamacare is not perfect, and its costs are tough on my family. For instance, our premiums each month are almost $1,300 now (including dental and vision), and if we stayed in Brooklyn, it would have been $2,000 (without dental and vision. I know.). Above and beyond that, we spent an additional $10,000 last year on my care and still didnt make my out-of-pocket coverage. Yes, we met the deductible. Yes, I was still going in-network. And yet: $10,000 later, we hadnt hit the ceiling. If not me, then who could possibly reach this crazy number? But the good outweighed the bad in spades. For one, I was able to keep my world-renowned New York City doctors who I had history and relationship with, and who I trusted. And sure, while I would have loved to have taken that money and gone on a sabbatical in Europe or put away money for my daughters college tuition or replaced our HVAC in our new home (sexy, I know), we never thought for a moment that one bill could come in the mail and bankrupt us. We never thought for a moment that my care could be compromised, and thats the stuff that Am-I-going-to-die? nightmares are made of. While expensive for our family, our costs were within our means. That $30,000 my family spent for the seven months of my care was a drop in the bucket to what we could have spent if I had not been covered under the Affordable Care Act. And heres where the math that helped pass the AHCA doesnt make sense to me. If I wasnt insured for my seven months of breast cancer treatmenttwo surgeries, a port placement and removal, 12 rounds of chemo, and 15 rounds of radiationmy family would have been in the hole for $300,000, easy. That doesnt include all my medications, either, or my doctor visits or blood work or scans. Lets make it $500,000, then, because just one blood test costs $650 and Im too exhausted and anxious to go find my old bills and add them up and we know everything is astronomical, right? My cancer scientist friend (yes, I have one of those) told me this is way conservative, but lets just keep the number here, K? So now the AHCA supposedly covers those of us with pre-existing conditions because they added an amendment where therell be an extra $8 billion thatll be used just for us. Ya know, when states opt out of covering us, because who cares about other humans. Im not great at math, but if you divide $8 billion by $500,000and lets say thats what the average breast cancer patient saves in less than a year in treatment, conservativelythat only covers 16,000 of those treatments. And even more incredible? Its $8 billion over 5 years. So, 3,200 extra people in the whole country every year get the health care coverage that people without pre-existing conditions will receive. Thats what flipped enough Republicans to vote Yes to this bill who were voting No in March. Conservatives that have said, No, this doesnt do enough for my constituents with pre-existing conditions are now saying OK, sure, thisll do, to an extra 16,000 treatments for the whole country. An extra 3,200 treatments a year. Who is telling the 236,710 American women who get diagnosed with breast cancer each year that they now have cancer and are bankrupt, since our premiums alone could skyrocket up to $25,700 a year? How will the 133 million other Americans who have pre-existing conditions be covered? Who are the Chosen 16,000? We moved into our dream home in New Jersey in August, just a month after my last surgery. While we are finally living (and loving!) our new life, were scared for that life should the AHCA go through in its current form. Obamacare saved my life and my livelihood. The AHCA is irresponsible and abysmal, and can cause many times more American casualties than any terrorist act. Reaching out beyond my own cancer bubble, I feel pain and sympathy for the elderly, rape victims, drug abusers, arthritis sufferers, those with dementia, cerebral palsy, certain heart conditions, mental health disorders, eating disorders, diabetes, emphysema, epilepsy, sleep apnea, paralysis, Parkinsons, and one of my favoritespregnancy or expectant parent. Yes, these are some of the pre-existing conditions identified by individual market insurers in most states. Very few are spared. How has this become a bipartisan act, instead of a human rights act? How can we be so thoughtless, so cruel to our fellow Americans? These are the questions that have been hard for me to stomach. This is what has made me an activist and fighter for the first time in my life. Now, if youll excuse me, Im off to schedule my six-month CAT scan, a special blood test, and an oncologist appointment. I better hold on to my wallet. The most revealing scene in Risk, Oscar-winner Laura Poitras (Citzenfour) documentary portrait of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, comes during a meeting (in either late 2010 or 2011) between Assange and his lawyer Helena Kennedy. Discussing the sexual assault charges levied against him by two Swedish women, Kennedy pleads with the gray-haired whistleblower to speak more sensitively about the case, which has thrown an unflattering spotlight on him and his mission. According to Kennedy, Assange should employ careful language that helps him explain his points without sounding angry and persecuted by a feminist conspiracy. Assange agrees to follow this adviceat least in front of the cameras, admitting that when it comes to railing against his accusers, Publicly, its not helpful. However, he then confesses his true feelings about the scandal: Privately, its a social democratic party plus general influence from the government. Its just a thoroughly tawdry, radical, feminist political positioning thing. Its some stereotype. As Kennedy grimaces and tries to dissuade him from such vitriol, he continues, stating that one of the accusers is a woman who founded a lesbian nightclub in Gothenburg (shes in that circle)the implication being that this proves shes an untrustworthy liarand then refers to his two accusers as running as a tag team. It is, to put it mildly, an unflattering moment for Assange, and speaks to the public/private dynamic thats exploredalbeit in vague fashionby Poitras film, which is culled from the hours of footage she shot while spending time by his side. It begins when Assange first came to global prominence in 2010 for leaking classified U.S. government documents (acquired by Chelsea Manning). And it concludes just after the 2016 election, which was heavily swayed by WikiLeaks release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign chair John Podesta, which helped smear Clinton and aid Donald Trumps quest for the White House. In-between, what the filmmaker presents is a half-formed sketch, one that lacks the thoroughness or momentum of Alex Gibneys We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, and one thats primarily notable for displaying the odiousnessboth in the media and behind the scenesof its subject. Assange is first introduced espousing his belief that people who take principled stances dont last long, and that to survive, such individuals must invariably balance their convictions with a need to achieve their desired goals. Later on, Poitrasin one of many instances of oh-so-concerned voiceover narrationconfesses, I thought I could ignore the contradictions. I thought they were not part of this story. I was so wrong. They are becoming the story. The fundamental problem with Risk, however, is that it presents no complex contradictions, unless one shares the films bedrock assumption that Assange initially embarked on an inherently honorable course (and/or believed he had), and then fell victim to his own personal (and philosophical) failings. Poitras forwards no compelling evidence or argument in favor of Assanges work as an instrument for the greater good. Consequently, the fact that hes a potential sexual predator, as well as complicit in helping the Russian government sabotage Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, arent at odds with his former nobility; rather, they seem like natural extensions of an idealist who thinks he can act as he likes with impunity, damn the consequences. Throughout Risk, Poitras articulates growing unease with Assange, whom she comes to distrust, and who gets increasingly displeased with her, due to her refusal to share Edward Snowdens NSA secrets with him (and, its clear, his jealousy over Snowdens celebrity). Yet from start to finish, he comes across as the same individual: detached, pretentious, paranoid, nasty, and so sanctimonious its repellent. Assembled from scattered bits and pieces of footage shot in Assanges company, some of it noteworthy and much of it pedestrian, the film stands at a constant remove from the WikiLeaks mastermind. Assange talks about the relationship between risk and opportunity, and about his courageous refusal to rat out his friends upon first being arrested in 1996. Nonetheless, he deliberately keeps his innermost thoughts to himself. Residing since 2012 in Londons Ecuadorian embassy in order to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape prosecution (and, he fears, transfer to the U.S. for violating the Espionage Act), Assange is a man boxed in on all sides, raging against a machine for a cause thatfrom the outsetseems mostly designed to stoke his own massive ego. In a shot of Assange navigating a sea of reporters outside a courthouse, and in a dreadful-for-all-involved visit from Lady Gagawho interviews him about his favorite foods, acts aghast at his embassy living accommodations (Its like Im in college. Where do you sleep?), and generally comes off as an uninformed fangirlRisk suggests the hunger for celebrity that drives Assange. The latter sequence is one of almost staggering cluelessness, but its in keeping with the general, naive cult of celebrity thats emerged around him, compelling one protestor to blindly pledge his allegiance to Assange regardless of the ugly allegations against him. During a clandestine conversation in a wooded area with an associate, Assange orders Poitras to check out a nearby area to make sure no one is spying on him. Coupled with her admission that she had been romantically involved with Assanges buddyand fellow accused sexual predatorJacob Appelbaum (who founded the anonymous web-browsing Tor Project), the incident reveals Poitras to be a complicit partner in Assanges insurgent game. And while she develops regrets when Assanges creepiness becomes too much to bear, and his amoral stance regarding the Russian-hacking scandal becomes indefensible, her film proves less an expose than an embarrassed (and embarrassing) apologia about her own role in Assanges whistleblowing mischief. As supporters rally outside the embassy, their posters eager to turn him into a revolutionary symbol a la Guy Fawkes (whose masks they wear/buy), Assange sticks to his gun. In Risk, though, he barely bothers to even explain his ethos or motivations. For all its proximity, Poitras film never gets beneath his exteriorbecause, one senses, theres nothing really there. Hes merely a true-believer who believes, above all other things, in his own stature as a figure of unimpeachable virtue and world-changing import. Like the spy-movie disguise he dons to sneak into the Ecuadorian embassy, however, hes all phony facade, little substance. Dr. Oz Calls Fetterman to Concede Pennsylvania Senate Race OUT FOR THE COUNT The communications director of the senator-elect confirmed the call on Wednesday morning. The world faces the prospect of more tension with China over trade, security and human rights after Xi Jinping awarded himself another five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party and called for self-reliance in technology, a stronger military and protection of core interests abroad. At a party congress, Xi gave no sign of plans to change the "zero-COVID strategy that has frustrated Chinas public and disrupted business and trade. He called for faster military development and announced no change in policies that strain relations with Washington and Asian neighbors. Xi is tightening control at home and trying to use Chinas economic heft to increase its influence abroad. SMWS celebrates Feis Ile with three releases The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) is releasing three peated single cask whiskies to celebrate its presence at Islay Festival of Music and Malt. For those travelling to the Islay Festival of Music and Malt (Feis Ile 26 May 3 June 2017), SMWS will launch three special single cask Islay whiskies exclusively at the event. The bottles will be available, while stocks last, online at www.smws.com and at the Societys UK venues from Thursday, 1 June. However, those attending the festival will have early access from Friday, 26 May. The whiskies making up the trio of single cask Islay whiskies are called The Crowd Pleaser, Sweet Smoke on the Water and Jazzy Jousting Hastlitude. The Crowd Pleaser is a 10-year-old whisky from a second-fill ex-bourbon barrel from the Societys Heavily Peated flavour profile, described as having notes of old first aid kits and sweet hot smoked salmon. Only 186 bottles are available. Sweet Smoke on the Water is 20-years-old and matured in a second-fill French hogshead. From the Societys Peated flavour profile, it claims the whisky has notes of smoked duck and ribs with sticky glaze. Only 252 bottles are available. The oldest of the three, Jazzy Jousting Hastlitude, is 21-years-old and matured in a first-fill American oak Pedro Ximenez hogshead. Again from the Peated profile, SMWS describe this whisky as having hints of tarte tatin, treacle toffee, herbal smoke. From one of the whisky worlds most iconic distilleries, only 228 bottles are available. All three bottlings will be available at some of the Societys partner bars in France and Germany, which will be offering special Feis Ile-themedwhisky flights and hosting events in celebration of the festival. More information on these events can be found at www.smws.com/events. In addition, the Societys branches in USA and Australia will also be staging special Feis Ile tastings over the course of the Islay Festival to celebrate the festival and the release of these new whiskies. Helen Stewart, senior brand manager for the Society, says: The eyes of the whisky world will be focused on Islay for Feis Ileand we wanted to release some incredible single cask whiskies in honour of the event. These three special whiskies reflect the variety of flavours within our Peated and Heavily Peated flavour profiles and are sure to appeal to fans of peaty Islay whisky. Those attending the festival will be able to purchase the bottles at three Flavour of Islay events hosted by the Society at Islay House, Bridgend throughout Friday, 26 May. These separate masterclasses will feature tastings of different local produce in order to investigate the importance of flavour, which lies at the heart of the Societys approach to whisky. The first pairing is a peaty SMWS whisky with 100% Ecuadorian, organic Pacari chocolate. The second takes a local approach to the old tradition of drinking a Hauf an' a Hauf', by matching three whiskies with Islay Ales. Finally, later in the evening, the drams are paired with half a dozen local oysters. 6 May 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor KANKAKEE -- The suspect in what's known in Coles County as the Airtight Bridge murder was ordered on Friday to provide hand prints to compare to an item found where the victim's body was located. The prosecution wanted Thomas A. Small's prints to test against a cigarette pack found near the body of his wife, Diane Small, almost 37 years ago, according to a news report on Friday's court hearing. The Kankakee Daily Journal reported that police in Bradley, where the couple lived when Diane Small went missing, requested the prints for comparison. Thomas Small, now 70 years old, was arrested on March 2 after what police said was a confession about killing his wife at their home. The body of Diane Small was found along the Embarras River at the Airtight Bridge, a remote location northeast of Charleston, on Oct. 19, 1980. It wasn't until 12 years later that DNA testing identified the body as hers. Thomas Small is charged in Kankakee County with killing his wife there four days before her body was found. According to charges and other reports, he admitted killing her by hitting her in the head with an ax or similar object. He's accused of severing her head, hands and feet and disposing of them in the Vermilion River in northern Illinois. He then allegedly took her torso to the Coles County location about 130 miles from their home and left it there. Friday's court order covered prints of Small's palms, fingers and sides of his hands, according to the Daily Journal's report. His next court hearing was scheduled for June 2. A Kankakee County grand jury indicted Small last month on charges of first degree murder and concealing a homicide. If convicted, he would face a prison sentence of 20 to 40 years, the sentencing range that was in effect at the time Diane Small was killed. Small's arrested followed what was apparently a decision by the Coles County Sheriff's Office to reopen the case and have deputies travel to Kankakee County to question him. What led to that decision or details of what Small allegedly told police during that questioning hasn't been made public. Thomas Small initially filed only an informational report with police, apparently claiming it wasn't unusual for his wife, who was 26 years old at the time, to leave home for several days. In 1992, Virginia Williams, a sister of Diane Small, filed a formal missing person's report. Authorities then based similarities between her description and the body to perform DNA testing, which revealed the body's identity. There's still been no official explanation of how the body ended up in the remote area of Coles County. Taittinger plants vines in Chilham Kent President of Champagne Taittinger, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, has planted his first vines in Taittinger's Domaine Evremond vineyard in Chilham, Kent the first Grande Marque Champagne house to plant in the UK. He was joined by his wife, Claire, daughter, Vitalie, and representatives from Taittingers UK agency and partner Hatch Mansfield, to plant the first of 20 hectares of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier vines at the new estate. Champagne Taittinger acquired the Kent farmland in autumn 2015, announcing the launch of Domaine Evremond that December. The initial planting to bring the Domaine Evremond vineyard to life, will take place during May 2017, with plans to plant a total of 40 hectares over the next two to three years. Taittinger is the only Grande Marque Champagne house to be run by its eponymous family and is the first Grande Marque Champagne to establish a vineyard in the UK to make premium English Sparkling wine. The first English Sparkling wine from Domaine Evremond should be released for drinking in 2023, after three years of ageing in bottle. Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger says: Our family has always had a great affection for the UK and for Kent - my father Jean Taittinger twinned Canterbury with Reims when he was mayor of the latter in the 1950s. We have been very impressed by the quality of English Sparkling wine being produced, and we believe the combination of chalk soils, climate and topography of our site in Kent are ideal for producing quality sparkling wine. These attributes are perfect for grape growing, and are very similar to the terroir in Champagne, for us it was a natural step to do this. The Evremond vineyard is a joint venture between Champagne Taittinger, its UK agency Hatch Mansfield, and friends. Patrick McGrath of Hatch Mansfield adds: Ultimately we will be aiming to produce 300,000 bottles per year of premium English Sparking Wine, but this will not be for six years or more as the vines will take time to reach the stage where they are producing the quantity of quality fruit required. It will be a gradual process. 6 May 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor A 49-year-old Cameron woman has been arrested on accusations she killed her husband in the couple's home Thursday. Leroy Taylor, 52, was pronounced dead at a local hospital Thursday evening just before Justice of the Peace A. Isaacs ordered his body be sent to the Travis County Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy. Shira Taylor was charged with murder, which is a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison and a $10,000 fine. Taylor was being held in the Milam County Jail on $500,000 bond. Cameron authorities said officers responded to the home in the 600 block of E. Sixth Street at about 7:25 p.m. and found the husband unresponsive. The weapon police believe was used in the crime was not identified by authorities, only that one was used during the course of the domestic dispute, according to a statement. Det. Jerry Muhamet said in a statement that he could not release the probable cause affidavit, which officers typically write following a felony arrest to show a judge the allegations before bail is set. He said the case remained under investigation and to "protect the integrity" of it, they would not be releasing the document. Officials with the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation said the document is considered open record under state law and should be released to the public. Authorities said Taylor's death marked the first murder investigation so far this year for the town west of Bryan-College Station that has a population of roughly 5,400. Seven Texas A&M faculty members were honored Friday as Arts & Humanities Fellows for 2017. Each fellowship includes a three-year grant of $15,000 to support a scholary or creative project. According to a press release from Texas A&M, each recipient was chosen by a peer-review panel based on merit and originality, professional qualifications, clarity, benefit to the public and the quality of the overall presentation. Applications were open to all Texas A&M faculty who engage in scholarship in the humanities or in creative work in the arts. The seven honored -- who are all in the College of Liberal Arts -- include: Ira Dworkin, an assistant professor in the department of English who specializes in African American and African diaspora literature, American literature and culture, race and ethnicity studies and translational literatures. Angela P. Hudson, an associate professor in the department of history, focuses her research on American Indian History; race, ethnicity and migration; Afro-native history; history of American Indians in the U.S. South; Mormon history; the history of medicine; comparative border studies; American Indians and U.S. popular culture; historiography; and 19th century U.S. history. Jun Lei, an assistant professor in the department of international studies, conducts research on the history of sexuality and gender issues represented in 20th century Chinese literature, film and visual media. Jeffrey M. Morris, an associate professor in the department of performance studies, composes for traditional instruments, fixed electronic media and interactive electronics. Martin P. Regan, an associate professor and associate head of the department of performance studies, has composed more than 70 works for traditional Japanese instruments and since 2002 has been affiliated with AURA J -- one of Japan's premier performance ensembles of contemporary-traditional Japanese music. Adam R. Seipp, a professor in the department of history, concentrates his research on war and social change in modern Germany, particularly since 1945. Diego von Vacano, an associate professor in the department of political science, concentrates his research interests on political theory, political philosophy, the history of political though, comparative political theory and Hispanic/Latin-American thought. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute on Friday presented the state's first public look at truck platooning technology -- vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems that allow a manually driven truck to lead a platoon of other trucks with inactive drivers in a tight formation -- to close out the second annual Texas A&M Transportation Technology Conference. Researchers with TTI have been working the platooning technology since 2015 as a project sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation. Marco Cameron, project coordinator and transportation engineer with TXDOT, said the successful demonstration on the RELLIS Campus establishes both agencies as leaders in transportation technology research. "Applying the research being done at TTI, it's really on the cusp of a frontier we're going into with connected vehicles," Cameron said. TTI Director Greg Winfree said projected benefits of truck platooning include lowered fuel consumption and a reduction in traffic congestion caused by the vehicles. "It's almost like drafting in NASCAR," Winfree said. "Having trucks come through in a road train within a prescribed lane really benefits efficiency, fuel consumption, throughput and other environmental benefits." Winfree said at this time it is difficult to say when drivers could begin to see the practice out on public roadways. Before the technology can be implemented in the real world, he said policy questions -- such as managing highway exits -- will have to be thoroughly explored. "As soon as the safety and efficacy are proven, we'll see that on our roadways soon rather than later," Winfree said. Nearly one year to the day since Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp announced the RELLIS Campus, he closed out the conference by remarking that much progress has been made over the past 12 months, and TTI's work with truck platooning and other autonomous systems are great examples of what to expect moving forward into the future. Sharp said he participated in a test of the technology earlier this week, taking a ride in the driverless platoon truck as it followed closely behind the lead vehicle. "I thought that was very interesting, going 60 to 70 miles per hour [right behind] the truck in front of me with no driver," Sharp said, drawing a laugh from the crowd. Day Two of the conference also included discussion on the role of safety as automated technology continues to develop. In the opening session of the day, Texas A&M faculty members were joined by representatives from private industry to give their perspectives on the current assessment of the safety landscape for connected and automated vehicles as well as how research is being conducted to ensure its reliability. A&M professor of practice Swami Gopalswamy said while there are certainly concerns for automated vehicles, he pointed out that even today's conventional vehicles are facing safety concerns thanks to the increasingly complex network of systems that operate them. General Motors Chief Information Officer for Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain Ahmed Mamoud said there is a good reason why the vehicles are being developed with complex, multi-faceted systems. "None of those systems are perfect," Mamoud said. "The reason a [manufacturer] puts that stuff there is not because we want to create more complexity. It's to deal with the fact that we need this complexity now because vehicle-to-vehicle communication is not completely there, vehicle-to-infrastructure is not there and vehicle-to-pedestrian is not there All of these things are not there yet, so we need these fancy gadgets that cost a lot of money." Once better communication technology is developed over time, Mamoud said he expects complexity will be able to be reduced. Gopalswampy said looking toward automated vehicles, researchers will have to contend with the even more complex systems. He said while testing to perfection is largely impractical at this time, a reliance on a combination of mathematical models and real-world testing to reach a level of best practices will be necessary. Winfree, who previously served as assistant secretary for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation told The Eagle concerns from the public regarding the safety of autonomous vehicles is also a hurdle still ahead for the technology. One way he said he believes some of the concerns can be better addressed is by using clearer language when talking about autonomous vehicles. "The language we use needs to be somewhat focused," Winfree said. "What people call autonomous vehicles now, they're expecting self-driving cars. I would say that is automated driving, and that's something we have not yet seen on roadways." Rather, Winfree said he and other industry experts consider autonomous to mean features such as lane-keeping, automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and more. "They're systems where the driver is in control but is being assisted by technology," Winfree said. Beyond that, Winfree said another challenge will continue to be the "Hollywood aspect." "They'll always have movies that show some sort of runaway or out of control vehicle," Winfree said. "The testing [we do] is meant to prove the robustness of the system and guard against hacking and bad actors. You build the hardness in at the front end and then it's up to us to convince the public of the benefits." David Fields, 70, of Bryan, joined the Lord on Wednesday, May 3, 2017, in Bryan, TX. David's family will receive guests from 2 pm until the time of service at 2:30 pm on Sunday, May 7, 2017, at the funeral home of Callaway-Jones. Mr. Warren Pustejovsky will officiate the service. Cremation services are in the care of Callaway-Jones Funeral and Cremation Centers Bryan-College Station. David was born in Bay City, Texas to Raymond and Loreta Fields. He and his wife Joyce Elaine Green have shared almost thirty years of marriage and in this union have raised three daughters, Lara, Amanda, and Jessica. After retiring from a successful career with the US Postal Service, David found his love of candle making, and with Joyce, he founded The Candle Box Shop in College Station. He enjoyed traveling to Alaska, London, Paris, and especially Fredericksburg, Texas. David always enjoyed being in the kitchen cooking for his family. He was an avid reader of fiction and his bible, who inspired the girls to enjoy discovering the unknown through reading. His wife says she will miss watching movies with David as they enjoyed this time together. David was proudest of his family as husband and father. He was a devoted Christian, and a member of First Baptist Church Bryan. October 6, 1917 - April 26, 2017 Edna Earle Jackson, 99, of Bryan went to be with the Lord on April 26, 2017. A graveside service will be conducted 11:00 AM, Monday, May 8th, 2017 at Bryan City Cemetery. Edna Earle was born in Temple, Texas to Thomas B. and Edna Pickett on October 6, 1917. She was a graduate of Temple High School and attended the University of Texas. She met and was married to Roger W. Jackson and shared their lives together for 57 years. Edna Earle enjoyed her friends, numerous bridge groups, cooking, and following the Aggies. She was an active member of the First United Methodist Church, Bryan for more than 70 years and a charter member of her Neighborly Sunday School class. Edna was also one of the original members of the Crestview Volunteers serving the residents of the retirement community. Edna Earle was preceded in death by her parents, husband, Roger, daughter Susan Jackson, brothers Garland Pickett of Temple and Tom Pickett of Wharton. She leaves behind her son, Ronald Jackson and wife Susan of Bryan, grandchild Landen Jackson of Kingwood, Texas along with three nieces and one nephew. The family would like to express special thanks to the staff of Crestview Retirement Community and Hospice Brazos Valley for their compassion and care. As an expression of sympathy and in lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial contribution to the Salvation Army, Hospice Brazos Valley, or your favorite charity. Kim Reynolds wins reelection, promises to let Iowans 'keep more of your money' In what was described as one of the most significant separation-of-powers cases in the state in years, the Nebraska Supreme Court found Friday that documents judges get in training sessions are public and should be released. A Lincoln doctor had sought the records in 2015 after State Court Administrator Corey Steel denied his request for judicial training records on parenting and custody matters. Dr. Les Veskrna's attorney, Steve Grasz, had argued they fell under public records as defined by state statute and that allowing public access to them didn't unduly encroach on the judiciary. Friday, the state's high court agreed. "We simply find no undue interference in disclosing the records at issue," the court said. The Nebraska Attorney General's office had argued the records are confidential for two reasons: * Because of an unwritten policy by a judicial advisory committee to consider the judicial training information confidential. * And because it would violate the separation of powers for the Legislature to mandate the judicial branch disclose its own records. Steel argued that judicial education is essential to the integrity of the system and therefore the confidentiality of all of the records is essential. In an opinion Friday, the court said: "We have always supported transparency and the search for the truth." The court said judicial education is an important judicial function deriving from the Nebraska Constitution. "But it does not necessarily follow that all records created in the course of judicial education must be confidential to preserve this important function," the justices said in a per curium, meaning "by the court," order. "If each branch of government could shield its records simply by appealing to the fact that they were created in the course of any number of essential branch functions, the protections of the public interest embodied in the public records statutes would be a nullity," the court said. And it would upset the proper balance between the three branches of government. The decision upheld Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong's ruling in 2015 finding that most of the requested documents are public records and not exempt from disclosure. "By persisting in a two-year legal battle, Dr. Veskrna has achieved a significant victory for transparency in state government," Grasz said Friday. He called it one of the most-significant separation of powers cases in Nebraska in years. "The Supreme Court should be commended for addressing the matter directly and coming down on the side of transparency and open government, even though the case involved the judicial branch," Grasz said. He said the court's language adopting and defining what qualifies as privileged because it involves a judge's deliberations will provide guidance for the foreseeable future. "The court struck the proper balance between public disclosure and protection of judicial independence," Grasz said. Veskrna is a doctor and executive director of the Children's Rights Council of Iowa and Nebraska, which advocates for more shared custody in parental disputes. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NORWALK The public can weigh in on General Growth Properties request to remove a mall from The SoNo Collection during a hearing before the Common Councils Planning Committee on Tuesday evening. I recommend that the public come out to voice their opinions and thoughts on the proposed modifications, said Councilman John Kydes, a District C Democrat who chairs the committee. Were here not to discuss the feasibility of the mall but the modification of the project. The public hearing the first of several on the hotel removal is scheduled for Tuesday, May 9, at 6 p.m., in the Common Council chambers of City Hall, 125 East Ave. Hearings required On April 25, the council advanced the Chicago-based mall developers request to remove the 152-room hotel from the approved site plan for the upscale regional shopping center off West Avenue and Interstate 95. Specifically, the council authorized the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency to modify the citys Reed Putnam Urban Renewal Plan and Land Disposition Agreement to accommodate the hotel removal. The council lent its support to advancing the changes with the stipulation that at least two public hearings be held before the council and Redevelopment Agency Commission vote on the changes. The approved site plan for The SoNo Collection calls for 728,000 square feet of retail space, including anchor stores Nordstrom and Bloomingdales, as well as 80 to 100 smaller retailers, public realm space and the hotel on the dozen-acre site. Commitments questioned On Thursday evening, Planning Committee members questioned Eric D. Bernheim, the attorney engaged by the city to help review the mall plan, on the two anchors commitment to the project. The citys legal counsel had the opportunity to review the lease agreements of both Nordstrom's and Bloomingdales, Kydes said Friday. The details of those leases commit them as the anchor stores if the project is complete by October 2019. GGP Senior Director Douglas T. Adams and Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., a Norwalk attorney representing GGP on the project, were present at the committee meeting to answer questions. Youve got two solid world-class, high-class anchors of high quality that are signed, sealed and delivered, and are coming to Norwalk, Connecticut, for a minimum of 20 years, Cafero said Friday. Questions about the two anchor tenants commitment to the project come after GGP in an additional change asked to expand the definition of high-quality anchor tenants to include such entities as movie theaters and grocery or furniture stores. For some residents, the requested changes are grounds for alarm. The world class mall developer who came before you a few years ago with their expert assessment of how to develop this mixed use designated parcel in a way that was economically feasible and harmonious with Norwalks needs is now admitting that they are floundering and they want you to help them make their numbers work, wrote East Norwalk resident Deb Goldstein in a letter to council members in April. They should be held accountable for their own failure to plan, as all commercial enterprises should. Promised payments The city has always sought to redevelop the last dozen acres of the Reed Putnam Urban Renewal Plan area with various uses, including offices, housing and retail. GGP had committed to building a hotel as a third use, alongside retail and public realm space, but informed the city early this year that neither a hotel, offices nor housing would be economically feasible. Closed-door discussions followed between GGP, the city and the Redevelopment Agency regarding the hotel removal. In April, Mayor Harry W. Rillings office announced that an agreement had been reached whereby GGP would pay the city $3.5 million in anticipated lost property taxes to remove the hotel. Cafero said Friday that GGP has paid the city $550,000 to help create a circulator bus to serve the mall, as required under its development agreement with the city. He said GGP will pay the city by next Thursday $1,022,550 for easements rights needed to build the mall also part of the agreement as well as $348,000 for a foundation permit that will be pulled next Wednesday. In my 59 years here, I am challenged to remember any entity paying the city of Norwalk $2 million, Cafero said. Also, if this goes the way GGP would like it to go, by June 8, if final approvals are received theres another $3.5 million. William D. Ireland, the citys chief building official, said Friday that GGP has scheduled a meeting with him next week regarding the payment for the foundation permit. More hearings scheduled Tuesdays public hearing on the hotel removal request will be the first of at least three such hearings for residents and others to weight in on the requested modifications to the mall plan. The Planning Committee has scheduled a second public hearing for Monday, May 15, at 7 p.m., in Room 231 of City Hall. The Redevelopment Agency has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, May 24, at 7 p.m., in Room A300. rkoch@hearstmediact.com DONIPHAN In the precise sport of trap shooting, routine is king. Going through the same motion, staying calm and relying on what got you there was St. Paul High School student and Grand Island Senior High trap team member Riley Ross strategy as he looked to repeat last years perfect 75 of 75 performance Friday at the 48th Annual Cornhusker Trapshoot in Doniphan. The senior hit 73 targets Friday in the 16-yard seniors competition. A host of competitors finished with perfect marks but Trevin Alberts of Lincoln Pius X hit 174 of 175 targets to shutout nine challengers in a shoot-off to win the overall title. The main thing is staying in the same routine, Ross said. Ive been shooting every day for the past three weeks. This past week, every day weve been shooting a 100 or so targets. Ross, who has been shooting since he 4 years old and has lived in St. Paul his whole life, is already looking forward to tomorrow. We went clean last year and I knew I had it in me. I was crushing targets but I just let two go. Im not super happy with it, but Ill be happy going into tomorrow. Hopefully, do a 75 tomorrow and it will be all good. The national event that is one of the worlds largest, attracts nearly 3,000 competitors from around the country with a host of vendors at the Nebraska Trap Association Home Grounds. Ross said he was certainly pleased to be a part of the event once again. Shooting, its about the best thing Ive ever found, man, he said. Its all I do. Every day, were shooting. Its the best game in the world to me. In the girls competition, Centuras Jade Krolikowski has competed at the state shoot six times now, but that didnt stop her from feeling plenty of emotions before and during the competition. Krolikowski, who won the ladies 16-yard competition last year with 74 targets hit, had trouble sleeping the night before this years event. She missed her first target and said she felt some sad emotions after she finished her first 25 when some reality set in. It was my last year so it was pretty emotional, Krolikowski said. When I dropped my first rock, I kind of just thought Well, there was a miss.. After I missed a couple more, I realized it was my last year and I need to have fun. That kind of took the pressure off of me when I missed the one. Still, Krolikowski hit 72 targets and just missed the top-6 of the ladies competition. I want to shoot a 72 or better and to go in with confidence. If I shoot lower than a 72, Ill still be happy because I had a great year last year. I think Ill be OK. Im still a little emotional because its my last year but Ill be OK. In the 4-H team race, 5 Clovers won its second straight 16-yard title. Papillion-LaVista South won the ladies team title win the ladies team title. Team members are Eva Thummel, Payton DeTavernier, Nicole McCullough, Jade Chapman and Morgan Johnson. Blair claimed the high school team crown. Zolck, Billy Miller, Derek Dishman, Nate Peleska and Courtney Nielsen combined for a 361 of 375. Miller, last years Cornhusker Cup winner as the overall event champion, shot a 72 Friday. Competition resumes at 8 a.m. Saturday with participants take aim at 75 handicap targets. The handicap yardage will be determined by dividing the 16-yard score by three and rounding up any fractions. The minimum yardage will be the 18-yard line. Earlier this week, Randy Stueven and Matt Hudnall of Chapman filed a complaint with the Nebraska attorney generals office concerning an alleged violation of the Nebraska Open Meetings Act by Northwest Public Schools. The complaint alleges that the agenda for the Feb. 13 Northwest school board meeting was not descriptive enough for the actions taken by the board regarding alternative education. This is the second complaint alleging that the board violated the Open Meetings Act. The attorney generals office issued a letter in April saying the Northwest board violated the act on Dec. 12, 2016, when it voted to close Chapman School. However, that letter also said the violation was cured on Feb. 13 when the board approved a motion to repurpose the Chapman building as a K-5 attendance site and pursue an alternative education site. The current complaint deals with actions Stueven and Hudnall believe district administrators have taken regarding an alternative education program. The complaint reads that the rationale in repurposing the Chapman building was stated at the Feb. 13 meeting as: Filling the elementary classrooms across the district has the potential to create a greater overall savings to the taxpayer than totally closing an attendance site. Because growing enrollment will naturally happen in the lower grades first, and because it aligns with the goal of creating a setting where all of our middle grades are together, it makes sense to focus on growing the K-5 population and keeping that part of the Chapman building intact. According to the complaint, the rationale used to address alternative education was: As was discussed at the board retreat, creating a site where alternative education programs can be housed will have long-range benefits for our students as well as serving the needs for other area schools. The complaint goes on to say that the board passed a motion to repurpose the Chapman building as a K-5 elementary attendance site and pursue an alternative education site. But, according to the complainants, the motion said to pursue but did not say to implement anything pertaining to alternative education and did not identify a site. According to the complaint, action was taken again at that meeting to add put an alternative education program in place to the boards goals, but that was not a vote to implement an alternative education program. According to the complaint, Administration is taking action, claiming the board authorized the action of implementing alternative education and its programs in this agenda. The district has removed the sixth through eighth grades from Chapman and is moving forward with implementing alternative eduction at the Chapman School, the complainants said. They also claim that the districts special education director is proposing more space for alternative education at Northwest High School. They claim that, if those actions are taken, it would cost well over $600,000 per year in classroom space and staffing. We are trying to be mindful to the farmers that pay for most of the cost of education at Northwest, Stueven and Hudnall said in their complaint to the attorney general. The taxpayers, or farmers, had no idea Northwest was going to implement this. The agenda was not made out for them to know that. The complaint says, The agenda was not descriptive enough for this action. We feel that possibly the Northwest board violated the Open Meetings Act again. This action of moving forward with this over $600,000 program was missed by many, and (we) feel the agenda was sorely lacking in information and clarity. Superintendent Matt Fisher said he is reviewing the complaint. When our board made the decision to close the Chapman School and then made a decision in February that they will continue to operate Chapman as a K-5 building, we were going to explore the possibility of some alternative programming to serve the needs of some special-needs students there in the remainder of the building, Fisher said. That is what we have done to this point. He said the board has not acted to implement alternative programming for special-needs students at Chapman. All we have done to this point is to explore the possibility, Fisher said. When President Obama made his now infamous 2008 remark that working-class voters frustrated by their economic circumstances cling to guns or religion, his subtext was clear: Religion is a crutch for the poor and uneducated. In fairness, the former president was articulating, however inartfully, what has been the conventional wisdom about faith in modern America that it is, as Karl Marx described, an opiate for the masses and that an increase in education and scholarship erodes belief. To a degree, that last statement has merit. In the U.S., studies indicate that adults with higher levels of education are more likely than their counterparts with less education to identify as atheists or agnostics. Similarly, college graduates are less likely to pray daily or to say that religion is of prime importance in their lives, when compared to people with only a high school diploma or less. But a new analysis by the Pew Research Center challenges the notion that more education leads to less faith and shows that faith and education in many cases are not inversely related. Indeed, among certain religious groups, higher degrees of education are associated with more religiosity, not less. This is particularly true within the world of Christianity. Pews researchers looked at data from a number of different studies and found that while educated people are generally less likely to believe in God (83 percent of college grads versus 92 percent of people with only a high-school degree), that difference all but disappeared among the various sects of Christianity. The relationship between education and religious practice attending services is even more fascinating because it turns conventional thinking about faith and education on its head. When it comes to church attendance, for example, college graduates are more likely than their less-educated peers to fill the pews. Weekly attendance was greater among highly educated Americans than those with less education within almost every Christian tradition 58 percent to 55 percent for evangelical Protestants; 36 to 31 among mainline Protestants; 59 to 52 for traditional black Protestants; 45 to 39 among Catholics; and 85 percent to 66 percent for Mormons. Overall, the study found that about the same portion of Christians with college degrees (70 percent) have a high level of religious commitment (as measured by levels of worship attendance, frequency of prayer, belief in God and the self-described importance of religion in ones life), as those with no college experience (71 percent). Among Muslim Americans, the researchers saw no clear pattern when it comes to the relationship between religion and education, finding similar levels of belief, daily prayer and mosque attendance for both the highly educated and those with minimal education. Only Americans with no affiliation and those who identify as Jewish tend to show a decrease in belief and faith practice as education rises. The Pew analysts do not speculate as to why these patterns have emerged, but even their dispassionate writing cannot completely disguise their surprise. Christianity in the U.S. has been in decline for decades, and the number of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion is growing a reality many have attributed to progressive thought, which in many ways has become a religion of sorts to some on the political left. Why then are we finding that intellectual enlightenment will in many cases enhance religiosity and not hinder it? No doubt, the reasons are as complex as the data, but I offer one thought from a conversation with my college philosophy professor more than a decade ago. The pursuit of knowledge, he postulated, can be a very humbling experience. Those who approach their education with humility often discover that the more they learn, the less they know. Knowledge, properly understood, is the acceptance of the vastness of the universe and how little about it we are capable of mastering. What we are left with, he explained, is faith. A hearty Saturday Salute goes this week to all the businesses and individuals in Grand Island who support Junior Achievement. This partnership between business and education has had a longtime Grand Island presence in kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms, but this is the first year that JA lessons have been taught at Grand Island Senior High. Next year, it will expand to Northwest Public Schools. Junior Achievement partners with 60 Grand Island businesses, which either give financial support or provide employees to teach lessons at local schools. The Grand Island effort involves 174 teachers and 145 community volunteers. JA lessons help young people become financially responsible. They also prepare them for careers and instill in them an interest in business and entrepreneurship. Starting in kindergarten and continuing this exposure to businesspeople from the community throughout their years in school makes a big impact on our children. JA is not federally funded and is not a United Way agency. In Grand Island its major fundraiser is the annual Man Cave Tour set for July 9. But contributions may be sent anytime to P.O. Box 110, Grand Island, NE 68802. We salute the local businesspeople who have been willing to spend 30 to 45 minutes at a time teaching financial responsibility in our schools. Hall, Merrick, Howard and Hamilton counties go big We also salute the people of Central Nebraska who were so generous on Wednesday during the fourth 24-hour Go Big Give fundraiser, which raised a record $604,226. Go Big Give is a joint effort of the Heartland United Way and the Grand Island Community Foundation that raised funds for 110 nonprofits. Special Olympians off to Omaha A hearty salute also goes to all the Grand Island Special Olympics athletes who qualified at the regional track and field event April 22 to participate in the Summer Games in Omaha. Those athletes are: Pam Balderston, Andy Baum, Debbie Beal, Michael Birdsong, Brad Bishop, Mickie Borgal, Steve Clark, Jeff Dondlinger, Steve Durham, Tara Fogelson, Renee Harp, Ted Harris, Amy Herrell, Gary Jantzi, Jay Knutsen, Steve Lane, Trevor Lautenschlater, Eric Luplow, Alicia Martinez, Matt McAuliff, Ken Meier, Maria Perez, Josh Pflug, Tom Reddish, Nate Samway, Bob Steele, Nikki Steele, Marjean Terman, Mark Tesmer, Brian Thomas, Mark Vance, Marty Wheeler, Kasha Wilkie and Bert Willey. Congratulations and good luck in Omaha. Quandt seeking to raise $15,000 A military salute goes to Gary Quandt for his vigil atop the Hall County Courthouse to support veterans. Quandt has taken up Gov. Pete Ricketts 150 Challenge by spending 150 hours on the courthouse cupola and seeking to raise $15,000 to fund the cost for 10 Vietnam veterans to go on the next Hero Flight in the spring of 2018. If the $15,000 goal is reached, Quandt will donate another $1,500 to cover the cost for an 11th veteran. Quandt will come down from the courthouse at noon on Tuesday. Donations to the Hall County Vietnam War Hero Flight can be dropped off at the courthouse, mailed to Five Points Bank, Attn. Linda Green, 2009 N. Diers Ave. Grand Island, NE 68803 or mailed or dropped off at the Grand Island Independent, Attn. Hall County Vietnam War Hero Flight, P.O. Box 1208, Grand Island, NE 68802. Recent flooding has caused 50 to 60 people to be evacuated from the Lake Shore trailer park in Mitchell. Some of them went to a shelter, and some of them went with friends and family, Mitchell Fire Chief Joseph Lee said during an informal meeting Thursday with Madison County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler. Earlier in the week, water crept up at the west side of the trailer park, which until recently had been known as Sunny Shores Mobile Estates. Its not in the trailers, but they have electrical boxes that stand outside and it came up to the bottom of the boxes, Lee said. So for safety reasons, weve had the power and the gas shut off. On Thursday, Prenzler said a family of seven has continued to stay at Hope Lutheran Church, on Wabash in Granite City. Prenzler spoke with Lee at the Mitchell Fire Station, on West Chain of Rocks Road. The slow, steady rain that has hung around the area for days had filled roadside ditches with water, some of which crept into front yards and parking lots. West Chain of Rocks Road runs east through Pontoon Beach and connects with Route 157 in Edwardsville. Prenzler said that in January, shortly after taking office, he began focusing attention on the dozens of pumps and pump stations in the area. We have been doing a lot of preventative maintenance and, guess what, we just got a big test, he said. One of the challenges, he said, has been keeping wells clean and the pumps in working order. They need to be cleaned so they dont stop up, he said. Even so, if you get a big rain, even a well that has been maintained can have a lot of garbage coming out of the distribution lines. That isnt happening now, he added. Still it was a problem during the record flooding that occurred in Madison County in late December of 2015. Lee said that was the first time he had ever had sewer water back up into his basement. I dont have a sump pump but I do have a floor drain, and it backed up through there, he said. Lee praised the countys Emergency Management Director, Todd Fulton, and Deputy Director, Mary Kate Brown for helping Mitchell during the most recent flooding. In recognition of National Historic Preservation Month, Edwardsvilles Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) will showcase some of Edwardsvilles historic buildings in a series of articles during the month of May. 400 Block of East Vandalia Street The William Wheeler cottage profiled on Thursday was one of five Wheeler family homes built on the 400 block of East Vandalia Street between 1875 and 1928 by a pioneer Edwardsville family. Three of the five buildings are still in existence and together they represent a wide diversity of architectural styles. Moving from west to east, the beautiful two-story Victorian house at the first address, 415 E. Vandalia, was built by Annie Wheeler Burton and her husband Charles H. Burton in 1893. (A history of this house was published in this series on May 9, 2012.) It is now home to Finishing Touch, an interior design firm. East of this house, at 419 E. Vandalia, was the childhood home of Annie and her brother, William Wheeler, Jr. No longer in existence, the impressive Italianate mansion (pictured with this article) was built in 1875 by their parents, William and Piety Hatcher Wheeler on property William inherited from his father, Erastus Wheeler. After William Sr.s death in 1901, his wife tried to sell the house when she moved to Indiana to live with her oldest daughter. Although she found short-term renters, she was unable to find a buyer for the house. Beginning in February 1921, she leased the mansion to the Edwardsville School District. In the early 1920s the school district was desperate for classroom space. Edwardsvilles population was fairly stable, but high school enrollment was up as more families began sending their children to secondary school. Wheeler School, as it was called, provided up to eight classrooms for younger children living on that side of town, freeing up space at the Columbus School campus which then included the high school. In 1925 a new Edwardsville High School opened on West Street, and Wheeler School was no longer needed. One can only imagine the condition of the house after being used as an elementary school for four years. Charles W. Burton, (Annies son) a lawyer and partner with his father, purchased the property from his grandmother and had the old mansion torn down in 1928. He constructed a modern brick bungalow in its place, completed in time for his home wedding later that same year. The house was infamously bombed in 1947 when Burton was States Attorney. It was not significantly damaged by the blast, but was torn down in recent years to provide additional parking for St. Boniface Church. The street running along the east side of 419 E. Vandalia (now a parking lot for St. Boniface Catholic Church) was named for the family, Burton Place. On the east side of Burton Place is the fourth Wheeler house, a two-story four-square at 431 East Vandalia. This house was built in 1912 for Raymond and Lady Elizabeth Burton Barnett. Lady Elizabeth, known as Betty, was the daughter of Charles H. and Annie Burton, and sister to Charles W. Burton who built the bungalow at 419 E. Vandalia. The Victorian cottage on the eastern end of the row, at 441 E. Vandalia, the house profiled in Thursdays article, was built for Annies brother William in 1898. The five houses were designed in different styles for each generation and all connected to Edwardsvilles pioneer days through their family heritage. When the earliest homes were built, the Wheelers could not have imagined how the simple dirt road where the family built their homes, would become one of the most travelled highways in America, Route 66. Information for this article was obtained from resources at the Madison County Archival Library, Madison County Recorders Office, Edwardsville Public Library, and from current and previous owners. If you have questions about this article, contact Cindy Reinhardt at 618-656-1294 or cynreinhardt@yahoo.com. In her job as law librarian and Pro Bono Coordinator at the Madison County Courthouse, Angela Warta wears several hats. Whether its handling contract negotiations with legal research companies, or helping redesign the judicial website, or dealing with sometimes upset members of the public, she just does an outstanding job, said Chief Judge David Hylla. Those are vastly different things. Warta has had the job for the past two years. Recently the Madison County Bar Association awarded her the 2017 Liberty Bell Award. The Liberty Bell is given annually to a non-lawyer who helps members of the community understand the rule of law and improves access to justice and an appreciation of the judicial system and how it helps citizens resolve problems fairly. Between the law library and the self-help center, Warta and an assistant help at least 600 self-represented litigants each month, according to Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder, who chairs the courts Pro Bono Committee. More than 350 of those contacts have been in person, while the others were by phone or email. Warta also assists with orders of protection when advocates are busy (or not present), and she gathers information from petitioners to see if they are interested in applying for services with Land of Lincoln after the entry of their initial order. She exemplifies the spirit of helping individuals better understand the court system and is a calming and welcoming image for the court system, Crowder said. Warta, Crowder said, has volunteered to organize programs above and beyond the scope of her job. The award was given recently at the MCBAs annual Law Day Luncheon held at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville. Warta attended the ceremony with her parents, Tom and Barbara Wille, and her husband, Eric Warta. She received a bachelors degree in political science and a masters degree in public administration, both from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Warta worked previously for the city of Ferguson, Mo. In the spring of 2015, she was hired as the new law librarian at the Madison County Courthouse, replacing Betsy Mahoney. Shes been a star here, Hylla said this week. Shes outstanding, shes very professional, shes efficient, and she solves problems on her own. The law library provides free access to legal reference and research materials for the state of Illinois and federal cases. The library also provides public access to Westlaw, a legal research database. The role of law librarian has evolved so that the focus now is more on assisting people who choose to represent themselves in court rather than hire an attorney, a category that has grown substantially in recent years. When Antwan Wilson, the chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools, was first asked to give the commencement speech for Nebraska Wesleyan University, he was humbled. People who grew up like I grew up dont give commencement speeches in the state of Nebraska, he said. At least not when I grew up; thats not the way it was. A Lincoln High School graduate, Wilson was raised by a single mother. Wilson said she moved them to Nebraska so he could be in a school system where students were expected to graduate. Wilson did, then went on to graduate from Wesleyan in 1995. Saturday afternoon, Wilson will deliver his alma mater's commencement address to 489 undergraduate and graduate students. Its been 22 years since Wilsons graduation, but he said it feels like he was just at NWU. "I look back, and I entered this institution almost 27 years ago," he said. "That's crazy to me. It feels like maybe 10." But Wilson has come a long way since earning his college degree. After years of various jobs as a teacher and principal, Wilson spent two years as the superintendent of a troubled school district in Oakland, California. In November, he was named the new chancellor of education in Washington, D.C., in part to help with the achievement gap among students. While he works more than 1,000 miles away, Wilson said he will never forget the education he received in Nebraska, one that helped shape the life he has today. I learned in Nebraska through Wesleyan and starting in Lincoln High School who I am as a person and historically, who we are as African descendants brought to this country ... the way all our history is interwoven into this country and the success of what makes this country what it is, he said. That awakening and that awareness helped build confidence in me, which I did not have when I entered the campus. He also credits Nebraska for giving him a good work ethic. Not complaining and just doing your job. And just doing it hard and enjoying it, he said. Thats very much a Nebraska thing. I take a lot of pride in it. Wilson's time at Wesleyan was especially valued, enough to where he gave no second thought when asked to deliver the commencement address. Wesleyan has benefited my life in so many ways, he said. Its home. It will always be that. Wilson first came to Wesleyan in 1990, believing he would study law to promote social justice. It wasnt until a spring break trip to Chicago his sophomore year that he began to consider changing majors. He visited the Chicago national teacher of the year, Linda Murray, at Hyde Park Career Academy. Wilson said Murray was a teacher who had extremely high expectations for all of her students, regardless of their race or background. While visiting, he saw students begging to get into her class, willing to stand in the back of the room to take notes. For me, it was like, well, why arent all kids getting this experience? he said. Why is the bar lowered so often for young people who look like me? Wilson ended up adding education to a history social-science major. What Ive learned, he said, is that education was a civil rights issue that I needed to focus on. Ensuring that young people had access to a quality education that prepared them for a successful future, thats what my impact would be. And thats what I was being prepared for. As commencement speaker, Wilson plans to go back to his teaching roots to offer advice to the graduates. I want to make sure they understand how awesome it is for them to be graduating, he said. But I want them to know that they didnt do it by themselves. And they have a responsibility now. Wilson said he hopes Saturdays graduates take the time to thank those who helped them get this far. This myth of I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, I overcame all of this stuff on my own is foolish, he said. There were people there, even if it wasnt your parents, there were people there who supported you, who encouraged you. He also wants the graduates to find a young person whom they can inspire. We are dependent upon one another, he said. We are all linked to one another, certainly as Americans. And if this country is going to be what it needs to be, then I need them to be the best they can be. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 13:12 2013 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a08df5c 1 Lifestyle diskoria,disko-pagi-kue-lumpur,kaum-jakarta,Car-Free-Day Free While some people were still in bed, DJ duo Diskoria got ready to make people dance to the beat at Jakartas weekly Car Free Day (CFD) on April 30. Performing at the Disko Pagi Kue Lumpur (Morning Disco Mud Cake) booth near the Tosari Transjakarta bus stop, they played remixes of celebrated Indonesian tracks from the 70s and 90s. Among of the songs were Chrisyes Serasa, Guruh Soekarnoputras Galih & Ratna, The Grooves Dahulu, Chaseiros Rio de Janeiro and other upbeat local music. Some people danced and sang in front of the booth, enjoying the nostalgia evoked by the duo's set. Formed in 2015, Diskoria, consisting of Merdi Leonardo Simandjuntak and Fadli Aat, are known for bringing Indonesian classic songs back to the dance floor. They are inspired by foreign DJs who focus on their local music, especially on how they collect the records and remix the music. tadi pagi di #carfreedayjakarta bersama @kaumrestaurant dan @waste4change #diskoria #diskopagi #diskoriaselekta #indonesianclassicdisco A post shared by Diskoria (@diskoria.selekta) on Apr 30, 2017 at 7:28am PDT Read also: Album Review: Amusement Park by Ikkubaru Merdi explained the reason they specifically chose music from the 70s, 80s and 90s, Back in those years [music] production was hard, so when they released something, the music had to be really good in terms of the lyrics, production and arrangement. Nowadays, its easier to make music, so sometimes it doesnt have so much soul; but we feel that [the music] in the 70s, 80s and 90s had a certain soul that could attract people to have fun. Remixing old songs is not that easy though. The music was produced using analog methods back then, so sometimes the beats sort of change up and down in the middle of the songs, Merdi said, adding that they needed to remember which part of a song they wanted to mix or otherwise they could not mix it properly. Surprisingly, Diskoria has attracted a significant following among the younger generation. They hadnt even been born in those years [when these songs came out], said Merdi. The Disko Pagi Kue Lumpur was held by Kaum Jakarta restaurant that is slated to open this May. During the event, they also served kue lumpur (a pancake-like local delicacy) for people in the CFD area. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 13:26 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec77dd8 1 National inmates,Sialang-Bungkuk-prison,Pekanbaru,flee,Pekanbaru-prison,police,prison-break,prison-overcapacity,prison-riot Free National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Rikwanto has said most of the inmates who escaped from the Class IIB Sialang Bungkuk Penitentiary in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Friday have been caught. Around 200 inmates reportedly escaped during a riot triggered by overcapacity in the prison. Of the total, 171 inmates have been rearrested, said Rikwanto as quoted by kompas.com in a written statement on Saturday. According to the police, 169 inmates were caught in Pekanbaru while the other two were arrested in Seikijang district, Pelalawan regency. (Read also: Inmates flee from Pekanbaru prison) Rikwanto said mediation efforts were underway to encourage inmates who remained at large to agree to return to their cells. The situation is all under control, he said. A clash between inmates and prison officers reportedly occurred before the prison break. The inmates escaped the prison in protest at the overcapacity problem in Sialang Bungkuk Penitentiary, which has only 361 cells to accommodate 1,800 inmates. The Riau Police are calling on inmates who remain at large to immediately surrender. The police have also asked anyone to immediately report to authorities if they see people behaving suspiciously. It would be better for them if they [inmates] surrendered because our officers in the field will take decisive and measured steps, said Riau Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Guntur Aryo Tejo. (mrc/ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 07:56 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec63176 1 National Papua,#Papua Free The majority of indigenous people in Papua reject separation from Indonesia, while less than one-fifth Papuans support the idea of separatism, according to a survey published on Friday. The survey conducted by Indikator Politic research institute showed that 60 percent of Papuans wanted to stay under the control of Jakarta while 18 percent did not. The survey took place from March 23 to April 3 in 24 regions across the Papua. 22 respondents refused to answer the questioner. Most of them are loyal to the country, while 22 percent of them had no opinion, Indikator Politik research director Hendro Prasetyo said to the media on Friday, adding that the survey used multistage random sampling through serial interviews with seven hundred people. 77 percent of respondents are satisfied with President Joko Jokowi Widodos work in the easternmost province. Through the research it was also revealed that basic needs such as clean water, health, education and infrastructure remain the most important issues for Papuans. (hol) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 08:15 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec645c5 1 City community-patrol,siskamling,East-Jakarta Free In a bid to prevent deadly street brawls in East Jakarta, the municipality has suggested community patrols (Siskamling) be increased. East Jakarta Mayor Bambang Musyawardana said Thursday that he had told district and subdistrict heads to execute the policy at the community level. He added that the municipality had coordinated with the East Jakarta Police and the district military command in relation to the policy. Bambang mentioned several areas that were prone to street brawls and needed extra supervision, including Jl. I Gusti Ngurah Rai in Duren Sawit and Klender. "There have been no further street brawls in Klender since officers started monitoring the area," he said as quoted by beritajakarta.id. In February, a recording of students brawling in East Jakarta went viral on social media. The brawl, which took place on Feb. 14, allegedly involved 17 students from SMK Budi Murni 4 and six students from SMK Bunda Kandung fighting with 18 students from SMK Adi Luhur 2. A student from SMK Bunda Kandung was killed in the brawl. (idb) Tucked away just a few meters behind the crowded Jl. Pegangsaan Timur in Cikini, Central Jakarta, the Cikini Flower Market might look like an ordinary pasar, but its line of kiosks contain more than a half-century of the history of religious and celebratory culture in Indonesia. At least 28 florists, some of whom have been in business since the late 1960s, offer a wide variety of flowers brought from nearby cities. Some of the flowers are imported from countries as far away as the Netherlands. The humble market sells flowers from single roses to flower boards worth millions of rupiah. Agus Maskup, 49, said he remembered the first time he saw small stands beginning to sell flowers when he was a kid growing up in the neighborhood. Nowadays, he is working for four different florists at the market. His job is to design wreaths and flower boards, as well as to set up flower decorations. I grew up in a house right there beside the market, he said, pointing at what is now a government building across from his stall. Buyers visit his stall for all kinds of purposes. Some want to have their places decorated for weddings, baby showers or funerals. Some want to send flower boards and bouquets to congratulate their acquaintances. Some others simply buy a couple of roses to brighten up their homes, said Agus. Despite the proliferation of technology, which enables people to send greetings in a matter of seconds from the screens of their smartphones, the market has managed to survive because of the countrys long-standing culture of sending flower boards. The tradition is still going strong today. Last week, citizens sent thousands of flower boards to Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama as a show of support, turning City Hall into a colorful jungle of blooms. Nowadays, people send flower boards to convey congratulations for various occasions, such as weddings, anniversaries and birthdays. People also use flower boards to send condolences to funerals. Flower boards have become a social symbol for Indonesians. If an event has a lot of flower boards, it often means that the event is festive. Most modern flower boards are made of Styrofoam covered in painted foam sheets, but in the past flower boards were made of heaps of leaves easily found on the streets. The leaves were glued to plywood and laced with tahi kotok (Mexican marigold) leaves. In the past, flower boards were known in the Dutch language as steekwerk (stitching). Another vendor, Ahmedina Juanita Putri, 37, said she remembered when her parents used to make flower boards out of leaves. Today, my stall still offers that sort of flower board, but for a much higher price, she said. A regular Styrofoam-based flower board, she said, would cost about Rp 500,000, while customers would have to pay from Rp 1 million to Rp 3 million for the leaf-based or flower-based ones. Selling flowers has been the bread and butter of Putris family, which has been in the business since 1993. My parents put me and my three brothers and sisters through college just by selling flowers, she said. According to 21-year-old Ajrina Diva, a college student from Depok, West Java, who frequents the market to bulk-buy flowers for her online florist, any customer who wants to buy flowers must have good haggling skills. Flowers sold here can get really expensive sometimes, especially during Valentines Day or Christmas. Plus, if you are really keen on paying a lower price for the flowers, you could get them for half the initially offered price, said Diva. (dea) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 15:32 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec79e6c 1 National house-of-representatives,election,election-bill,Tjahjo-Kumolo,Home-Minister,Home-Ministry,#election Free The government is backing a proposal to maintain a provision on the presidential threshold in the election bill being deliberated at the House of Representatives. The provision will provide evidence of legitimate support for anyone looking to run for the presidency it says. Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said a presidential threshold was important to ensure an "effective" election, during which all candidates must have adequate support to get elected. Any candidates running in a presidential election will have to be supported by political parties that have been proven to be capable of garnering support from voters, not merely supported by a party and wealth," Tjahjo said as quoted by kompas.com in Jakarta on Friday. It was previously reported that there was growing support in the House of Representatives for a lowering of the current presidential threshold, particularly from parties in the opposition coalition who say they want an "equal opportunity" for a presidential nomination. Only three of 10 factions at the House are still in favor of the minimum 20 percent voter support requirement for a presidential nomination. They are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Nasdem Party and the Golkar Party. (mos/ebf) In the latest incident reflecting the chronic overcrowding in most of the nations prisons, more than 200 prisoners escaped from the overpopulated Sialang Bungkuk detention center in Pekanbaru, Riau province, on Friday, creating a commotion among local residents. Local police are intensifying efforts to recapture the prisoners, who have reportedly committed a number of crimes, such as theft, since fleeing the prison. Before the prison break, hundreds of inmates, who were accommodated in a single room in the prison, were reportedly involved in a brawl with guards after becoming incensed by the overcapacity of the room. Some of the inmates took advantage of the commotion, breaking down the rooms door and escaping by destroying one of the prison gates. Citizens in Kulim and Tangkerang, two areas near the penitentiary, were returning from Friday prayers when the prisoners entered the vicinity. Seeing the threat, residents were caught in the commotion but immediately formed what a witness described as a barricade to prevent them from running away. Widiarto, a resident of Kulim, said dozens of escaping prisoners were recaptured by citizens, who then handed them over to police officers. Not all of them wore prison attire. Some wore religious attire, claiming to be just returning from a Friday sermon, Widiarto said. Some inmates who were still on the lose had stolen residents motorcycles, said Didi, another witness. They threatened people riding their motorbikes. Some of the inmates even stole motorbikes parked in front of peoples houses, Didi said, calling on the police to immediately recapture the inmates, who he described as dangerous criminals. Pekanbaru Police spokesperson Ipda Dodi Vivino said dozens of armed police officers had been deployed to recapture the escapees, encouraging Pekanbaru residents to remain cautious and report anything suspicious to the nearest police station. More than 120 prisoners have already been recaptured, Riau Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Aryo Tejo said. The number is expected to rise as the hunt is still ongoing. Despite its official capacity being only 361 inmates, the Sialang Bungkuk detention center houses around 1,800 prisoners, who have been convicted of crimes ranging from drug dealing and sexual abuse, to corruption. Ferdinand Siagian, the head of the Law and Human Rights Ministrys Riau office, said his office had sought help from the military and police to secure the region, including its airports and harbors. I dont believe that any of them have managed to escape to another city, Ferdinand said. Ferdinand said he had been informed that the prison break was triggered by the discomfort experienced by inmates because of the inhumane way wardens in the prison treated them. Prisons in Indonesia have long grappled with overcrowding and staff shortages, and the nations tough approach to drug trafficking has only made it worse. An aggressive crackdown on drug traffickers since 2015 has led to an unprecedented spike in the number of inmates. According to data from the Law and Human Rights Ministrys Directorate General of Penitentiaries, there were 82,230 drug convicts in January, up 17.5 percent from the same period in 2016. The figure was markedly larger than the annual increases of 4 to 5 percent in the number of drug-related inmates from 2015 to 2016 and from 2014 to 2015. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 08:45 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec64adb 1 Business Malaysia,agrarian-reform,Indonesia,land-reform Free Indonesia is being advised to take agrarian reform in Malaysia as a model for the ongoing land reform in the country, in which the government is distributing plots of land to small-time farmers. The establishment of farmer groups was the prerequisite to the success of the agrarian reforms undertaken by the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) in Malaysia, said a researcher with the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, on Thursday. Groups with 10 to 15 members enable the government to empower farmers by providing them with guidance or technical assistance, he added. "Farmers must be empowered so that the program will not end with the land distribution. It is useless if plots of land have been distributed to farmers, but they are not empowered and given guidance," Bhima said as reported by Antara news. With farmers working in groups, it will be easier for the government to carry out supervision and ensure that land remains productive and the ownership remains unchanged, he stressed. Indonesia has started an ambitious land reform program this year by, among other things, distributing land to farmers across the country. President Joko Jokowi Widodo has required the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry to issue 5 million land certificates this year and 7.5 million in 2018 to try to accelerate the governments effort to reduce a disparity between the rich and the poor. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Medan Sat, May 6 2017 Student organizations and civil society groups in Medan, North Sumatra, have lambasted the police for allegedly ransacking the office a student organization called the Anti-Repression Students Forum (Formadas). The police ransacked Formadass office on Thursday night and arrested without a warrant a student activist who happened to be at the location. Ten plain-clothes police officers allegedly arrived at the Formadas secretariat at 11 p.m., claiming to be looking for someone, Formadas secretary Ela Julisa said, adding the police failed to show a warrant and began searching the office after being told the person they were looking for was not there. 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 Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 14:58 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec79895 1 National crowdfunding,khofifah-indar-parawansa,KhofifahIndarParawansa,social-media,#crowdfunding,donation Free Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa lamented on Friday an alleged misuse of donated funds by Budi Utomo, a well-known internet crowdfunding organizer, saying the case appeared to have inflicted severe losses on donors. The minister also called on law enforcement authorities, especially the National Police, to take further measures against the alleged fund misuse. Khofifah made the statement in response to information that Budi, the owner of popular Instagram account @CakBudi, had allegedly used money donated via his social media account to buy a Toyota Fortuner and an iPhone 7. Law enforcement measures must be taken to provide legal certainty on crowdfunding activities, said Khofifah, in a press statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday. During a press conference attended by Khofifah on Thursday, Budi claimed he had sold the Toyota Fortuner and handed over Rp 1.7 billion (US$127,618.15) he had received from the sale to crowdfunding agency Aksi Cepat Tanggap (ACT). Budi claimed that both the Toyota Fortuner and the iPhone 7 he bought were used as "operational equipment" to support activities to channel the donated money to poor people across Java. He admitted, however, that he had never made any financial reports regarding his activities. (ebf) A team of 11 student journalists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were recently awarded one of college journalisms top honors from the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation for Human Rights. Several students will travel to Washington, D.C., later this month to accept the award for their Wounds of Whiteclay, a multimedia project detailing the issues surrounding the Nebraska town of roughly a dozen people that sells 3.5 million cans of beer annually. Most of that beer is sold to residents of the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, which has banned alcohol. The UNL students spent nine months traveling to Whiteclay to document residents, as well as the rampant alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome, poverty and the suicide rate. Their work can be found at www.woundsofwhiteclay.com. This is an opportunity to celebrate the summit of collegiate journalism excellence, said Joe Starita, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications professor who led the project. We are very excited; theyve worked like no other depth-reporting class Ive ever had. Leaving after class on Fridays, the team would drive 400 miles to Whiteclay to spend the weekend interviewing residents of the town and nearby reservation, as well as shoot photos and video, before leaving at 5 p.m. on Sunday evening to make the long trek back to Lincoln. Many of the students would get back in town just in time for an 8:30 a.m. class on Monday. Starita said the class made more than a dozen trips west this school year. That kind of tenacity and love of subject matter is the envy of other journalism colleges, he said. We had to lasso them and chain them to the back of the van to get them home. Finding a way to present its findings created a new opportunity for the depth-reporting class to explore as well, Starita said. Previous classes have focused on the role Native American women play in sustaining Native culture through a 150-page magazine dedicated to a single topic, for example. Documenting the ills of Whiteclay was more of a moving target, Starita said. Hearings took place earlier this year to strip the liquor stores licenses, and the issue moved into the court system, which created a constantly changing topic. We knew we couldnt wait a year to put out a magazine, he said. So the team enlisted the help of a website designer to funnel its live ammo reports, photos and videos to its audience in an engaging way, catching a wave of change that took place in Whiteclay this year. We knew we had to have a very fluid delivery system for a very fluid story and it turned out to be a pretty fine marriage between delivery and content, Starita said. The end result was praised by the New York Times, as well as Esquire and Economist magazines. Team members were Alyssa Mae Ranard, Natasha Rausch, Chris Bowling, Jake Crandall, Lauren Brown-Hulme, Amber Baesler, Vanessa Daves, Matt Hanson, Marcella Mercer, James Wooldridge and Calla Kessler. In addition to Starita, Bill Frakes and Rebekka Schlicting led the class. Bowling, Crandall, Baesler, Daves, Wooldridge and Kessler are former or current Journal Star interns. Five team members will put summer internships in places such as Detroit, Tampa, Florida, and Springfield, Missouri, on hold briefly to attend the May 23 award banquet in Washington, D.C. There, they will receive the award from 89-year-old Ethel Kennedy at a ceremony hosted by the Newseum. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6 2017 Prosecutors have demanded that the panel of judges at the Jakarta Corruption Court sentence two defendants in the Maritime Security Board (Bakamla) bribery case to two years in prison. During the trial hearing on Friday, prosecutors also demanded that Muhammad Adami Okta and Hardy Stevanus, both staff members of tech firm PT Melati Technofo Indonesia, be fined Rp 100 million (US$7,495). Prosecutors have indicted Hardy and Adami of bribing four top officials of Bakamla so that their company could win a bid for the procurement of satellite monitoring equipment. 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 (The Jakarta Post) Semarang, Central Java Sat, May 6, 2017 19:52 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec7ca4f 1 National radicalism,radical-movement,Research-Technology-and-Higher-Education-Ministry,students,counterterrorism,bnpt,BNPT-chief,Suhardi-Alius Free The Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry is preparing a regulation to control the spread of radical views on campuses. All academic elements from students to lecturers at universities across Indonesia have been influenced by radicalism, which creates a high risk of national disintegration, the ministry says. We are preparing the antiradicalism regulation as an anticipatory measure. We have included the state defense [bela negara] and the archipelagic outlook [wawasan kebangsaan] into our school curriculum since 2016, said Research and Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohammad Nasir on Saturday. The four state pillars, namely the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia [NKRI], the state ideology of Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution and national motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika [Unity in Diversity] must be guarded, he went on. The minister was speaking in front of thousands of students from Central Java and Yogyakarta during a lecture at Semarang State University on Saturday. Nasir said rectors of universities had to be held accountable if students or lecturers became entrapped in radical movements. This is because radical teachings should have been detected before they spread. Each institution has regulations, which carry sanctions, to prevent the spread of such teachings, he said. National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) head Comr. Gen. Suhardi Alius said students, as the next generation of the nation, had to be kept away from radicalism, drug abuse and other negative influences. Therefore, lecturers, deans and rectors must be able to detect any of their students acting suspiciously, he said. (ebf) Preserving unity: Representatives of universities from across Central Java and Yogyakarta sign a declaration on their allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia and on their commitment to fighting against radicalism, in Semarang on Saturday.(JP/Suherdjoko) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 10:44 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec6eef5 1 National NU,Nahdlatul-ulama,NahdlatulUlama,SaidAqilSiradj,Islam,peaceful-Islam Free The countrys biggest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), has said religion in the archipelago should incorporate local cultures. Religion in the country should not incorporate the culture of another country, the NU further said. NU chairman Said Aqil Siroj said the NU developed in Indonesia by accommodating local cultures. Many traditional practices had been preserved and incorporated with Islamic values. Citing an example, Said stated that NU followers commonly held tahlilan (prayer gathering) to mark the seventh, 40th, 100th and 1,000th day of the passing of relatives. Such a practice could not be found in other Muslim communities around the world. The practice had long existed in local culture when the NU was formed," he said during a work meeting of the Nahdliyin Employers Association (HPN) in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta on Friday. Said further explained that by incorporating local cultures, the NU could help promote peaceful Islam in Indonesia. He asserted that the best way to spread Islam in Indonesia was by conveying Islamic messages through strong culture. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 18:21 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec7c2aa 1 National Komnas,Komnas-HAM,commissioner,commissioners-selection,#KomnasHAM,human-rights Free Three globally acknowledged human rights activists are on the list of candidates selected to enter the next screening stage for new leaders of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) for the 2017-2022 period. Along with 57 other candidates, the three activists passed a written examination held by a government-sanctioned selection team in charge of the recruitment. They are former Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) executive director Rafendi Djamin, who also served at the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) from 2009-2015, HRWGs freedom of religion senior advisor Choirul Anam, who is also the Committee of Solidarity Action for Munir (Kasum) leader, and outspoken activist Haris Azhar, former coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras). (Read also: 60 Komnas HAM commissioner candidates to face public debate) As a Kasum leader, Choirul has taken a lead in efforts to push the government to solve the long-abandoned murder case of prominent human rights activist Munir Said Thalib. To become a Komnas HAM commissioner is a big responsibility, especially amid a lack of public support given to the institution, Choirul told The Jakarta Post on Saturday. I hope I can win the trust of the public to serve the institution and to do what must be done, especially to resolve the prolonged cases of past gross abuse, he added. The three well-known activists and other selected candidates from various professional backgrounds will attend a public debate on May 17 and 18. We invite the public to participate in the process by providing us with information, including on the track records [of the candidates], selection team member Makarim Wibisono said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Cirebon, West Java Sat, May 6 2017 I am often mocked and ignored. Many husbands prohibit their wives from coming to my [Quran] recitations because they think I teach their wives to rebel, said Shinto Nabilah Asrori, a nyai (female cleric) from Magelang, Central Java. Male clerics in the area have said she is too modern, she told the first ever Congress of Indonesian Women Ulema. The leader of the Al Hidayat pesantren (Islamic boarding school) was citing the challenges she faced as a female ulema spreading her understanding of the Quran that teaches females are on a par with men. 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 Sat, May 6, 2017 12:36 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec745f3 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,digital-tourism,tourism,#tourism Free The Association of the Indonesian Tourist Industry (GIPI) together with the Tourism Ministry and event organizer RajaMICE are set to hold the GIPI Indonesia E-Tourism Summit (GETS) 2017 on July 21 in Jakarta. Themed Transforming Digital Marketing to Bring Indonesia Tourism Businesses into the Next Level, this one-day event will focus on strengthening and implementing the concept of tourism that is integrated with digital marketing. The conference will see more than 10 speakers who are experts in the issues of tourism and digital marketing. Read also: Dangers of vicarious travel GIPI chairman Didien Djunaedy said that digital media had a huge role in spreading information on tourist destinations. However, not all tourism business practitioners realize the importance of this platform. Thats why we need a conference where we can have digital marketing experts give an insight into the practice of digital strategy that can be implemented in tourism, he said. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New Delhi Sat, May 6, 2017 19:02 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec7c3ef 2 News India,Airlines,#airlines,passenger,ban,no-fly Free India on Friday announced plans to create a national no-fly list of unruly passengers, weeks after a controversial politician attacked a flight steward. The civil aviation ministry proposed banning passengers based on three categories of unruly behaviour, ranging from lewd comments and sexual harassment to damaging aircraft and murderous assault. Depending on the severity of disruption, a passenger could find himself on the no-fly list for anything from three months to an unlimited period. The move came after Hindu nationalist lawmaker Ravindra Gaikwad made national headlines by repeatedly striking a steward on an Air India flight. The national carrier barred Gaikwad from its flights after he admitted whacking the 60-year-old steward roughly two dozen times with his sandal during an altercation over seating on a flight from Pune to New Delhi. He was forced to take trains to attend sessions at the national parliament, until the ban was overturned last month when the government intervened. Read also: Pakistan airline flies with extra passengers standing in aisles "To have a national no-fly list where we've identified individuals based on unruly or disruptive behaviour, who are jeopardising airline safety, will in fact be quite unique and India is blazing a new trail in this regard," junior civil aviation minister, Jayant Sinha, said at a press conference. Banned passengers, except those identified as threats by security agencies, will be able to appeal their no-fly status to a quasi-judicial committee for review. The list, which will be maintained by the country's civil aviation regulator, will be made optional for other airlines to use and "prohibit that person from flying for that period or any other appropriate period less than the period for which he has been banned". The draft of the no-fly list will be on the ministry's website for one month for expert and general feedback before it is made official. "The whole process is expected to take about two months. By June 30 it should be possible for us to come out with the final decision," civil aviation secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 11:40 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec7342a 1 News MICE,tourism,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Tourism-Ministry,Thousand-Islands-regency,#tourism Free After the successful run of a meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) event in Bangka Belitung last week, Tourism Ministry officials traveled to another 10 new destinations in Bali, the Thousand Islands and Kota Tua in Jakarta. During the latest MICE gathering on May 4-6 at the Novotel hotel in Jakarta, the ministry's head of development acceleration for 10 priority tourist destinations, Hiramsyah S. Thaib, said the event aimed to improve tourism in Jakarta. Read also: Jakpost guide to Kota Tua [Jakarta] has many interesting venues; we can use historic buildings like museums as a meeting room, he said. MICE potential is still at 5 percent and we still have the remaining 95 percent to be developed so were optimistic that MICE tourism can attract a lot of tourists, said Esthy Reko Astuti, the ministry's assistant for archipelago tourism marketing development. Read also: 2018 set to be exciting year for Indonesian tourism Whats good about Indonesia is that apart from the fact that there are so many cities to choose from if you want to hold a meeting, our natural wonders are also an added value for MICE tourism, she added. Apart from the meeting, the MICE event attendees also went on a city tour to the Thousand Islands. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 14:34 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec79377 1 News Shanghai,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism-promotion,tourism,#tourism,Indonesia-Festival Free Partnering with the Indonesian Consulate General in Shanghai and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce in China (INACHAM), the Tourism Ministry will host the Indonesia Festival (Inafest) 2017 to celebrate Indonesia Week from May 20 to 26 in Shanghai. Located at the Oriental Pearl Tower, the event will focus on promoting trade, tourism and investment with activities including an Indonesian products exhibition and art and culture performances. Read also: AirAsia opens new routes from Indonesia to Mumbai, Macau Were going to promote batik by exhibiting Indonesian designers' works at the Yuz Museum, said the ministry's Asia Pacific promotion deputy assistant, Vinsensius Jemadu. This event also aims to promote Indonesian movies by bringing together people from the industry to talk about the possibility of film collaboration, as well as promoting Indonesia for shooting locations, he added. The festival will also host a photo exhibition of 10 tourist destinations in Indonesia and a week-long culinary festival. Read also: Indonesia welcomes more foreign tourists in March According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Chinese tourists accounted for the most tourist arrivals in Indonesia between January and November last year followed by Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Japan and Korea. Our projection for 2019 is to have 20 million foreign tourists coming to Indonesia with half of them, 10 million, from China, said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, May 6, 2017 15:33 2013 a291276806121264c0bd211cdec7a6a0 1 News aviation,flights,Lion-Air,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Arief-Yahya,Rusdi-Kirana,Airlines,#airlines,tourism,#tourism,new-route Free Tourism Minister Arief Yahya made a visit to the headquarters of the country's biggest low-cost carrier, Lion Air, in Jakarta on Thursday. He was greeted by the company's co-founder Rusdi Kirana who was accompanied by Lion Group CEO Edward Sirait, Lion Air CEO Rudy Lumingkewas, Wings Air CEO Achmad Hasan, Malindo (Malaysia) CEO Rama Chandra, and Thai Lion Air CEO Darsito Hendroseputro with whom Yahya met in Bangkok during the WTTC-UNWTO Ministerial Dialogue. The Manado-China route currently has three flights per day and is able to carry 2,400 foreign tourists, Rusdi told the minister. Read also: Indonesia, China cooperate to boost tourist arrivals Rusdi discussed the lack of hotels in Manado, North Sulawesi, to accommodate tourists and recommended state-owned enterprises (BUMN) such as WIKA build hotels in Manado with financing from BUMN banks. Lion Air is willing to book and make sure that those hotel rooms are occupied, he declared. Rusdi also made the suggestion that Boulevard Manado have a daily cultural performance and to make the airport in Gorontalo an alternate port of entry for Manado. Lion Air Groups Batik Air is ready to fly to Silangit Airport in North Sumatra once the runway extension construction is complete, which is slated for September, he said. Meanwhile, Arief urged Lion Air Group to open a new route to Tanjung Pandan in Belitung since the airport has been upgraded to international status. Malindo Air is said to be interested in flying there from Subang Airport in Malaysia. Read also: Culinary destinations should have family-friendly food labels: Ministry The minister also asked the company to open more routes to Bali and Lombok from Kuala Lumpur, as well as a direct flight from India. In 2016 there were 300,000 tourists from India that came to Indonesia even though there wasnt a direct flight available, Arief said. Both the Tourism Ministry and Lion Air Group will also partner in a media placement initiative in countries where Lion Air Group airlines offer their services, such as China and Thailand. (kes) SAN DIEGO -- It seems everyone has a strong opinion about Donald Trump's border wall. But we should at least talk about it in the right way. That is, with clarity, pragmatism and common sense. Not just in terms of how much this project would cost, with estimates soaring beyond $50 billion. Or whether Mexico is going to pick up the tab, as Donald Trump has insisted. Or whether our neighbor will be forced to pay for it indirectly through a tariff on imported Mexican goods. Or whether Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas might be on to something with his attention-grabbing proposal to use the confiscated assets of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to help offset the wall's cost. Not in a partisan way, where the public is expected to swallow whole the fantastical narrative that Democrats harbor some deep-seated moral objection to building structures on the U.S.-Mexico border. Don't be fooled by Sen. Chuck Schumer's phony tears when he talks about how a wall would divide families; the New York Democrat voted in favor of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, as did his then-Senate colleagues Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Most Democrats love border enforcement, especially walls and fences. Not in Washington parlance, where the only thing that seems to interest most of the Beltway media is the question: "Will he, or won't he?" As usual, what reporters in the nation's capital are obsessed with is the politics, not the policy. They never tire of speculating about whether Trump will follow through on building a "big, beautiful" border wall or whether he will ultimately cave to opposition from Democrats. Judging from the reaction on conservative talk radio, Trump supporters are worried about a cave-in. They fear that the outsider they sent to change Washington has, in just over 100 days, been changed by Washington. They're also concerned that the businessman's obsession with getting deals done might soon become a liability if it prompts him to accept bad deals that give away too much to Democrats. White House press secretary Sean Spicer tried to calm fears by telling reporters this week that the wall will indeed be built. Maybe, maybe not. The administration failed to get the down payment it was asking for in the recent $1.07 trillion spending package. But instead of getting bogged down talking about cost, politics and broken promises, there is only one question we should be asking: Is the border wall a good idea or not? The answer is "not." For one thing, the border stretches nearly 2,000 miles from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, and about a third of it is already covered by a wall or fence. Another third is made up of "uncoverable" terrain -- rivers, mountains, Native American land, private ranches, a university. This whole debate is over what to do with the remaining 700 or so miles along the border. Also, even if a wall does go up, it won't do much to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. In the last few years, that flow has become a trickle as the economy in Mexico has improved and the human smugglers have raised their prices. The Trump wall is irrelevant before it's even built, given an existing and sophisticated network of underground tunnels. This could explain why -- in my conversations with Border Patrol supervisors and rank-and-file agents -- they tend to ask for tunnel-detection equipment and not for walls. They also want better roads to make it easier to apprehend border crossers, and the latest technology to help them win what is a battle of wits with smuggling cartels. And, for their own safety, they would rather not contend with 20-foot-high walls they can't see through or around. But what do these experts know? They just walk the line every day. Lastly, a wall could make the problem worse by "penning in" many of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants on this side of the border. Many of them have been separated from their families for so long that they consider it normal. They won't go home for a visit -- at Christmas or Mother's Day -- because they're afraid they won't be able to get back unless they pay a smuggler's new and exorbitant "Donald Trump rate." So they stay here, put down roots, and never leave. Guess what, Mr. President. It's not just health care, Syria and North Korea. Who knew a border wall could be so complicated? There have been some tense moments outside the Masaryk Towers apartment complex this afternoon. The cooperative today carried out a long-expected and controversial plan closing gates on a de-mapped section of Rivington Street, between Columbia and Pitt streets. The closure cuts off a main passageway used by the neighborhood-at-large to travel throughout the community. Were told by people in the area, including District Leader Paul Newell, that the decision is already prompting a big reaction. Newell says the feedback from Masaryk residents is mixed, while sentiment from the larger community is resoundingly negative. Months ago, Grand Street Settlement expressed serious concerns about the closure. The entrance of the non-profit organizations senior center is located just beyond the gates, near Pitt Street. Executive Director Robert Cordero was promised by the co-ops leadership that the community would be advised of the changes well in advance of the closure. There was almost no warning before the gates were shut today. Heres part of a petition Grand Street Settlement is circulating: This closure places undo burden on the 4,000+ children, youth, families, and seniors who visit our center (including those who reside in Masaryk Towers). We are especially worried about our seniors who live in Baruch Houses on the East River and have limited mobility. On May 4th, Grand St. Settlement received the following notice that the gates will be closed from Bernice McCallum, Chair of Masaryk Board of Directors: This is an update regarding the closing of the gates. The Board of Masaryk Towers decided to close the gates. The gate closure is one of the many measures Masaryk has taken to ensure the safety and security of its residents; and while it will take some time getting used to, we trust that our neighbors will understand Masaryks decision. Thanks. Unfortunately, this is all of the information we have. We do not know when the gates will close. Grand St. Settlements Executive Director has been promised multiple times that Masaryk leadership will provide clear communication and coordination regarding the gates, and we are very disappointed that this was not the case. The petition asks Masaryk Towers to provide access to seniors and children and to fully communicate with the community about its plans. We have a call into Masaryk Towers management office. Well let you know when the co-op responds. In late 2015, Masaryk Board President Bernice McCallum told us that, when the gates close, the walkway will be available to the surrounding residents at designed times. The board, she said, decided to close the gates because there have been, a considerable amount of trips and falls. This, she indicated, put the cooperative at risk for not getting insurance or paying at a higher rate. McCallum added, we would like to continue to be good neighbors and assist wherever possible. UPDATE 5/8/2017 See Masaryk Towers response here. (front page) May Day march shows support for Cubas socialist revolution HAVANA Our strength is in unity was the slogan of the banner at the front of the massive May Day march here, carried at the lead of the Cuban youth contingent of some 50,000. There were reminders everywhere of the legacy of Fidel Castro, the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, visible in handmade placards and photos carried by marchers in the first May Day march to take place since his death last November. We reiterate once again our legitimate demand for the elimination of the economic, commercial, financial blockade imposed by the United States government, which has caused our country so much damage and deprivation, and is the principal obstacle to the economys development, said Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, leader of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC) and a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, who delivered the speech that kicked off the procession. We likewise demand the return of territory illegally occupied by the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo, against the will of the government and people of Cuba. Cuban President Raul Castro presided over the march, surrounded by leaders of the Communist Party and the government, leaders of mass organizations and hundreds of international guests from countries around the world, including a 300-strong May Day brigade of participants from 26 countries. For the first time there is a 45-person brigade from the United States. The march will be followed by an international conference to plan stepped-up work in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. Brigade members spent the previous week doing voluntary agricultural labor, meeting with representatives of Cuban mass organizations and in discussions on Cubas relations with Washington and the islands socialist economy. After the conference, most brigadistas will travel to Santa Clara province to learn more about the revolution. A few will join some 200 other delegates at the International Seminar for Peace and the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases, to be held May 4-6 in Guantanamo province. The U.S. base there, notorious for its prison, is the only military base in the world that exists against the will of the people and government of the land on which it is located. Washington has over 850 military bases over five continents. (feature article) 100,000 visit international book fair in Kurdistan As Kurdish parties call 2017 independence vote ERBIL, Kurdish Region, Iraq The 12th Erbil International Book Fair took place here April 5-15. More than 100,000 people from Kurdistan, the rest of Iraq, and elsewhere in the region visited the event, at which more than 200 publishers had booths to sell their books. Visitors included Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Yazidis, Assyrians, and Turkmen, including refugees now living in the area from Syria, Mosul, and other battle-torn areas nearby. Inaugurated by Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the fair was a display of the growing numbers of books written or translated into Kurdish, as well as a chance for workers and youth to purchase titles in Arabic, English, Farsi and other languages. Publishers, most from the Middle East, also met here to make translation and distribution agreements. Kurdish bands and dancers, as well as artists and performers from elsewhere in Iraq, added to the festive atmosphere. Independence referendum The cultural event opened less than a week after the KRGs two main parties, Barzanis Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, announced a joint call for a referendum in 2017 on Kurdish independence from Iraq. Governments and ruling classes across the region from Baghdad to Ankara, Tehran to Damascus condemned the planned vote. Meeting in Italy, the G-7 alliance of Washington and other imperialist governments the same regimes that have spearheaded Iraqs brutal pulverization since 1991 hypocritically called for its unity and territorial integrity. The more than 30 million Kurdish people in the region are spread over parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and the Caucasus. They are the largest nationality in the world without their own country. Since 2015 the Iraqi government has slashed the 17 percent of its budget due to the Kurdish region, on the pretext that the KRG sells oil directly on world markets instead of through Baghdad. In face of declining crude oil prices, spreading war and the global capitalist crisis, the KRG has cut wages and delayed payments to teachers and other government employees. Workers have organized strikes and other protests against both KRG and Iraqi government policies. Several teachers said they couldnt buy as many books this year due to salary cuts. Some 2 million refugees, mostly Syrians, also live in the region. Less than two weeks before the fair opened, U.S. airstrikes killed nearly 300 residents of a neighborhood in nearby Mosul, some 50 miles east of here. The second day of the event, Washington sent 59 missiles against a Syrian government air base in northern Syria, killing both Syrian soldiers and civilians, including children. These developments were a topic of discussion, and often heated debate, over the 11 days. Pathfinder booth For the first time, Pathfinder Books of London participated in the fair. Although books in English were on sale at quite a few booths by bookstores from Kurdish cities such as Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, Pathfinder was one of a handful of exhibitors from outside the Middle East. Under the boot of the Saddam Hussein regime until the early 1990s, Kurds in Iraq were educated from childhood mainly in Arabic, not their own tongue. For the past quarter century, however, schools in the KRG teach in Kurdish, and the speaking and reading of English is rising as use of Arabic declines. Among the some 200 titles Pathfinder had on display was communist and other revolutionary literature on politics, the class struggle and the labor movement in the United States and Europe; Malcolm X and the struggle for Black rights; Cubas socialist revolution; womens emancipation; Marxism and the Bolshevik Revolution; and much more. Although Kurdish national confidence pervaded the fair, it was uncommon for visitors to the Pathfinder booth to start out by asking, What do you have on Kurdistan? Or, Do you have any books about the Middle East? Most were either attracted by the breadth of Pathfinders political titles, or were directed elsewhere in search of Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie novels, an English dictionary, or titles on science, computers or business. Pathfinders best seller was Are They Rich Because Theyre Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning under Capitalism by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. That was followed by The Clintons Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People , also by Barnes; Is Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? A Necessary Debate Among Working People by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters; and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Other titles that sold well included Cuba and Angola: The War for Freedom by Cuban Gen. Harry Villegas (Pombo); Is Biology Womans Destiny? by Evelyn Reed (both in English and Arabic); Che Guevara Talks to Young People ; How Far We Slaves Have Come! by Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela; Lenins Final Fight by V.I. Lenin; and My Life by Leon Trotsky. The Pathfinder booth also featured several shelves of translations of books into Farsi, a language widely read in Iran and Afghanistan. Some 45 Pathfinder titles have been translated into Farsi by the Tehran-based Talaye Porsoo, one of several publishers in Iran producing such translations. During the book fair Pathfinder signed a license with Endese, a major publisher here of Middle Eastern and European literature, to translate 10 titles into Kurdish. The agreement includes books by Jack Barnes, Fidel Castro, Vilma Espin, Che Guevara, V.I. Lenin, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Mary-Alice Waters. We want to encourage reading, explained Hazhar Majeed, owner of Endese, which has a large bookshop in Sulaymaniyah, the Kurdish regions second largest city, and a smaller store in Erbil. So we hold festivals where writers can meet their readers and organize childrens activities. It is important for us to have relations with other publishers, especially from the U.S. Rwafaed, a publishing house based in Cairo, Egypt, has participated in the fair since 2007, except two years due to Islamic State and the war. Its been a very good book fair over the years, said owner Islam Abd El Moady. Apart from general sales, the KRG used to buy five copies of 20 titles for the schools. This year, however, he and other exhibitors of books in Arabic said sales were down. Rwafaed reached an agreement with Pathfinder to publish five of its titles in Arabic. Political discussions Discussions at the Pathfinder stand were wide ranging. A journalism student visited the stand the first day and bought The Clintons Anti-Working-Class Record and three other books, following a discussion of the domestic and military policies of the two main U.S. capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans. I always attend the book fair, she later said. I go the first hour its open, and then maybe four more times. She came back to the stand several other days to buy more books, bringing others along with her. Just what they told me could happen is happening right now, she told a friend, after Washington launched its air assault on Syria. Another student picked up An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism by George Novack. Ive read about many philosophies but not Marxism. How is Marxism different? he asked. A Pathfinder representative showed him a section from The Communist Manifesto explaining that the conclusions of Marxists arent a philosophy but merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. Thats different from Marxism as hed heard it explained before, the student said, as he bought Novacks book. Another visitor identified himself as Yazidi, a religious minority among the Kurds who were massacred and dispossessed by Islamic State a few years ago and have faced persecution for centuries. Picking up The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation by Abram Leon, he said, Im Yazidi, so youll understand why Im interested in this title. A young man took four books on womens liberation from the shelves. Ribbed by one of his buddies, Youre not a woman, he put one back and bought the other three. Advances in the fight for womens equality is a point of pride among Kurds of both sexes. Nearly 500 books in English, Farsi and a few in other languages were sold from the Pathfinder booth during the book fair. Catharina Tirsen represented Pathfinder Books of London at the book fair. Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home This week, iZombie goes back to doing what it does best: murder, mysteries and making Liv eat questionable food. Livs slightly bossy and controlling personality goes up to eleven when she eats the brains of a dominatrix. The only surprise is that it took so long for the show to have Liv eat the brain of a dominatrix. Ravi jokes that its fine since shes already on the bossy side, but even he doesnt realise the full extent of the effect it would have on her. Clive is the most rattled, going as far as to say that this is where you end up when your parents tell you they dont love you. Major is shown during his mission, as we finally see what zombie mercenaries are capable of and where they get their brains from, namely victims of war. While he jokes about whether this is ethical or not, it obviously leaves him rattled, which, along with his injuries and deteriorating health, can only spell trouble for him. Ravis failed experiment doesnt completely go to waste, as they conveniently discover that it makes visions longer and clearer. While that is quite uncomfortable for Liv, given the clientele of previous owner of the brain (which includes the mayor and one of the most influential journalists in town), it turns out to be quite useful because of the sheer number of suspects. Safe words are discussed, making this 40-minute long episode a better commentary on the BDSM lifestyle than other films and shows that talk about the same topic. Meanwhile, the ongoing issue with the murdered zombies still hangs in the air, creating tension between the characters. Detective Cavanaugh who has previously taken over Wallys murder case, warns them to stay away, but that does little to deter them. Liv and Clive have to reach out to private military contractor Vivian Stoll for help in questioning the suspect. What they learn, however, only deepens their fears, as the man reveals that there are many like him, who believe in the existence of zombies, and wont stop at nothing to protect themselves. Vivian Stoll plays him like a fiddle, but this information will only serve to create a bigger rift between the zombie mercenaries and Liv. Despite everything thats going down, this episode is full of lovely funny moments, like Ravi and Liv pretending to be a couple, Donny making a friend, and any of the scenes between Liv and the sketch artist. The end of the episode, however, comes with more serious scenes, when Major finally gets that attack that the writers have been setting up since the first episode. Majors health deteriorates while on the mission after hes stabbed in combat, and the time finally comes around for him to take the new cure. The strength of this episode comes from the show writers impeccable ability to balance humorous situations with heart wrenching drama. Although this weeks case leads to many funny moments, the episode ends on a melancholic cliffhanger as Liv and Ravi say goodbye to the Major they know and love. New iZombie episodes are available on Netflix every Wednesday. MILWAUKEE Several local grocery store bank branches have been shut down as a result of federal officials closing Milwaukee-based Guaranty Bank on Friday. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) as receiver for the bank, which had 119 branches in five states, 107 of which were in retail outlets, such as grocery and general merchandise stores. The branches in those retail outlets will not be reopening, the FDIC said in a release issued Friday. Among those locations are the following in Racine County: At the Burlington Walmart, 1901 S. Milwaukee Ave. At the Caledonia Pick n Save, 5111 Douglas Ave. At the Mount Pleasant Walmart, 3049 S. Oakes Road. Other nearby retail branches that have permanently closed include those located at: Piggly Wiggly, 2201 E. Rawson Ave., Oak Creek; Pick n Save, 1901 63rd St., Kenosha; Walmart 201 S. Edwards Blvd., Lake Geneva; and Piggly Wiggly, W189 S7847 Racine Ave., Muskego. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. in Raleigh, North Carolina, to assume all of the deposits of Guaranty Bank. Guaranty Bank did business as BestBank in Georgia and Michigan. The 12 brick-and-mortar Guaranty locations in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin will reopen as branches of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. during their normal business hours. Among those is the former Guaranty branch located at 6031 Regency West Drive, Mount Pleasant. All depositors of Guaranty Bank, regardless of where they conducted business, will automatically become depositors of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., the FDIC said. The FDIC said deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers in the branches being assumed by First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice that systems changes have been completed to allow First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. branches to process their accounts. For a complete list of branches, visit www.fdic.gov/guaranty-best-branches. ATM access Over the weekend, all depositors of Guaranty Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual. Depositors with accounts at the branches not reopening can continue to use electronic means for conducting their banking business, including online and mobile banking. ATM machines on site at the branches in retail outlets will not be operational. As of March 31, Guaranty Bank had approximately $1 billion in total assets and $1 billion in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. agreed to purchase $892.6 million of the failed banks assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition. More information Customers with questions about the change can call the FDIC toll-free at 800-930-6827. The phone number was to be operational from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday; from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday; and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays thereafter. Information is also available at the FDICs website at https://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/guaranty.html. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $146.4 million. Compared to other alternatives, First-Citizen Bank & Trust Co.s acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDICs. Guaranty Bank is the fifth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year and the first in Wisconsin. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was North Milwaukee State Bank on March 11, 2016. Congress created the FDIC in 1933 to restore public confidence in the nations banking system after numerous bank failures during the Great Depression. BURLINGTON This citys new banquet hall and event center, Mercantile Hall, is proving to be a regional draw for brides and grooms. Its owner thinks the new venue also has great potential to become a community hub, especially for teenagers. Mercantile Hall, 425 N. Pine St., is part of the redevelopment project rising from the ashes of the former Schuette-Daniels Furniture store, which burned in an April 5, 2014, fire and never reopened. Local businessman Shad Branen, owner of Burlingtons Plaza Theater and WIN (formerly Wisconsin Information Network) Media, bought and is redeveloping the building that he calls The Mercantile. Wendy Lynch, owner of Bon Bon Belle Bridal, created Mercantile Hall, which debuted with its first event, a wedding, on April 29. It was also shown off to the public Saturday as one of the 60-plus Open House Racine County sites. (Lynch also plans to move her bridal shop into the buildings second floor sometime this summer.) Mercantile Hall, comprised of 6,000 square feet on the buildings first floor, can accommodate up to 280 people for an event, Lynch said. So far, she and hall Manager Stephanie Heft have booked nearly 70 events. The vast majority of them are weddings, for which hall rental ranges from $2,700 to $3,500. Theyve also booked a class reunion, a fundraiser and a graduation. Lynch also expects to host corporate events. She said her event bookings are coming from as far away as the Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison areas. Spreading the wealth Lynch said Mercantile Hall is showing that, right from its first event, it will have a beneficial impact on other Burlington and area businesses. The venue is served by caterers; clients are given a list of several in the area to consider. The halls first bride came from Madison, and the couple were married at a local barn, Lynch said. The couple held both their rehearsal dinner and a cocktail reception after the wedding at The Coffee House at Chestnut & Pine. And some guests went to a local bar and local restaurant, Lynch said. Each weekend well expose (people) to Burlington, she said. She thinks other complementary shops could see spinoff business, because within easy walking distance of Mercantile Hall are two florists, a menswear shop and a jeweler. Future activities for teenagers In addition to being a banquet and event hall, Lynch plans on Mercantile Hall serving an important function for the local community, as a gathering place, especially for teenagers. Lynch hopes to launch a weekly teenage trivia night before the school year ends. That will be followed by Jimmy Fallon lip sync battle-type competitions and also karaoke-style battle of the bands. Just having that kind of safe place they can go to socialize, hang out and do something different, she explained. I have two up-and-coming teens, Lynch added. My passion is really community, she said, and how (Mercantile Hall) is being received is so neat and fulfilling. The fact that we can have these things for teens is just gravy. For more information about Mercantile Hall call 262-758-6280 or visit www.mercantilehall.com. Phuket motorcyclist dies after colliding with car, minivan PHUKET: A 49-year old Thai man died yesterday night when the motorbike he was riding collided with a car and minivan in Sakoo. accidentsdeathpolicetransport By Eakkapop Thongtub Saturday 6 May 2017, 10:00AM The motorbike and its driver were still stuck under the minivan when police arrived. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub At 8pm yesterday (May5), Sakoo Police were informed of an accident in front of a Family Mart on Soi Bangmahrao 2, Moo5, Sakoo. Lt Thanakarn Auchanaratsamee of the Sakoo Police arrived at the scene with Kusoldharm rescue workers to find a yellow plate minivan with its the front right side damaged. Stuck underneath the front of the minivan was a Suzuki motorbike and the body 49-year-old Mr Panakorn Boonrung. Mr Panakorns body was immediately taken to to Thalang Hospital. The minivan driver, Mr Vitavat Jongsathitchacorn, 38, was waiting for police at the scene. Lt Col Thanakarn said, Mr Vitavat told us that he was driving from Phuket Town taking two Australian passengers to Phuket International Airport. He said that the driver of motorbike suddenly changed lanes and picked up speed as he tried to overtake a car. When the motorcyclist saw his van he slowed down suddenly and lost control his motorbike. The motorbike first hit the car it was trying to overtake and then collided with the minivan. The minivan dragged the motorbike and its driver 30 metres along the road before coming to a stop, he said. The minivan driver was taken to Sakoo Police Station for questioning and the two passengers were taken to Phuket International Airport by other vehicle. The driver of the car was waiting for officers at Sakoo Police Station immediately after the accident, Lt Col Thanakarn added. It is currently unknown whether any charges are to be pressed against any person involved in the accident. RACINE A 21-year-old Racine man accused of driving drunk and causing the fall 2015 death of Robert L. Rob Johnson has pleaded guilty to the most serious charge he was facing. Rob Johnson's inspiration to others recalled as hundreds attend vigil RACINE A Racine man was remembered Sunday for his infectious love of life that left many p Dartavian D. Watson was charged on Oct. 12, 2015, with homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle, and two counts of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with the fatal Oct. 8, 2015 crash. Man charged with homicide in car crash RACINE A 20 year-old Racine man has been charged with homicide as well as two other feloni On Thursday, Watson pleaded guilty to the homicide charge in exchange for a plea deal that saw the remaining charges, including a separate marijuana possession case, dismissed. According to his criminal complaint, Watson was reportedly driving at speeds between 60 and 70 mph when the vehicle he was driving, a 2006 Chevrolet Impala, failed to stop at the intersection of West Sixth Street and Mound Avenue and crashed into a building. Watson was later found to have marijuana in his system and a blood alcohol level of 0.11. The legal limit in Wisconsin is 0.08. Johnson, a 25 year-old Racine resident, was one of the three people inside the car. He suffered head injuries and later died. Watsons attorney, Mark Richards, said Thursday that his client conceded the basic facts of the case, but objected to the rate of speed alleged by the prosecution. We agree that my client was speeding, but to this day I do not know where that 70 mile per hour number came from, Richards told Racine County Circuit Judge Mark Nielsen. Watson faces up to 15 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision for the charge of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, a class D felony. A sentencing hearing in the case has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on July 6. RACINE COUNTY After 16 years, the county will be getting a new Deputy Friendly. Sheriff Christopher Schmaling has announced that Deputy Crystal Venegas, 30, is set to take over the position of Deputy Friendly later this spring. Venegas will assume the duties of Deputy Timothy Graves, who has represented the Racine County Sheriffs Office as Deputy Friendly for the past 16 years. Graves will be taking an assignment with the Sheriffs Office Courts Division. Im very excited, Venegas said. I think this will give me a lot of opportunities to work with the community. Venegas grew up in Kenosha and graduated from Gateway Technical College with a degree in criminal justice. She started her career with the Racine County Sheriffs Office four years ago as a corrections officer. According to Schmaling, Venegas then went to work for the Brookfield Police Department as a patrol officer. She then returned to the Sheriffs Office in January as a deputy and has worked as a road deputy and on many undercover assignments, and most recently has worked in the Jail Division. According to the Sheriffs Office, Deputy Friendlys objectives are: To help students understand their rights, responsibilities and obligations as a junior citizen. To establish a link between students and law enforcement officers. To develop a respectful image of the Sheriffs Office in the minds of students. To provide a role model that is looked up to with respect. This position gives me the ability to shed a positive light on law enforcement to todays youth, said Graves, who has served in the post since September 2001. So many times our youth only see police when something is going wrong. But we are here good, bad or indifferent. We should be role models, not something to be feared or scared of. Charting a new course Graves will continue to serve as Deputy Friendly until June, when Venegas takes over. Crystal will shadow and observe as summer comes up, Graves said. Currently, I talk with kindergarten through second-grade students, but she will be able to decide if she wants to develop or expand (the program). Venegas plans to speak with a wider range of students, and is most excited to work with children ages 8 to 12. That is when children are discovering themselves, learning and able to grasp things going on in their own communities, she said. She is an extremely friendly person, shes very personable, so shell find it very easy to interact with people of all ages, Graves said. I believe she will be absolutely comfortable. Schmaling thanked Graves for his long service as Deputy Friendly and wished Venegas well in her new assigment. Deputy Graves brought an unmatched inspiration and spirit to the Deputy Friendly program and we wish him well in his endeavors, the sheriff said. We are all excited to watch Deputy Friendly Crystal Venegas put her thoughtful ideas and caring approach to work as she transitions to the program. An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand. MADISON The family of Marcel Dandeneau gathered in the state Assembly chambers Tuesday as the Assembly passed a resolution honoring Dandeneaus life and public service. Dandeneau died Feb. 9 at age 85. He served in the state Assembly from 1975-79 and as chief clerk of the Assembly from 1979-81. He also served as town chairman of Caledonia. Dandeneau enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1951 and fought in the Korean War. He was later a teacher in Racine County for nearly 30 years and heavily involved with the local Democratic Party. The Assembly passed Joint Resolution 18 unanimously. It now heads to the state Senate. Representative Marcel Dandeneau was a dedicated public servant, and the people of Wisconsin mourn his passing, the resolution states. His legacy will be remembered as a strong, faithful member of the Democratic Party, lifelong public servant to his community and a teacher who influenced many lives. In February, Gov. Scott Walker ordered flags at all state facilities to be flown at half-staff in Dandeneaus memory. Actress Sana Khaan, who made her Bollywood debut in the Salman Khan starrer Jai Ho, says she wishes to work with the superstar again. "Yes, I do wish to work with him again," Sana told IANS in an email when asked if she would like to share screen space with Salman again. Does she credit her Bollywood innings to the Dabangg star? "I have loads of people to thank who have shown their unconditional love and support to make me a part of their job, and I definitely thank Salman to make me part of 'Jai Ho'. I definitely had a great experience." The Wajah Tum Ho actress says she credits herself first. "I kept following my dream and fighting for it every now. Then, the credit goes to my mom for being patient with me and the way she supported me and to everyone who believed in me at that point of time," Sana added. The actress has lent her support to designer Ritu Seksaria, who has set a week-long discount sale at her store Vyoum. The proceeds from this event will go towards Angel Xpress Foundation, an NGO for underprivileged children. Asked if she thinks actors associating with causes help in spreading more awareness, Sana said: "Yes, definitely. I feel when anyone who is powerful and influential talks, it makes a difference as they have bigger platform to talk n the reach is 10 times more." A dearth of investments, poor infrastructure and lopsided planning affect higher education in the Northeast, though the region has enough potential, meritorious students and teachers, experts and academicians say. However, compared to 2016 when the exercise was first begun, universities and technical institutions in the northeastern states have slightly improved their positions this year in rankings released recently by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). Nine universities, four engineering colleges, two management institutions and two institutes of pharmaceutical sciences and a college in northeast India featured in the best institutions named in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). Former Gauhati University Dean Usharanjan Bhattacharjee said: "The northeastern states have huge potentiality in all respects. Students of this region are doing excellently when they pursue studies and research in other parts of India and abroad." "Lack of proper infrastructure and poor investment are badly impacting the higher education sector in the northeastern region," Bhattacharjee said. Citing an example, the renowned academician said that three decades ago, a study-cum-training centre was set up in Gauhati University for potential candidates for the Indian civil services examinations, but it is almost inactive and unproductive while some retired teachers have been engaged by it. "To demonstrate artificial credit, often without any proper planning, various courses have been started in the universities and technical institutions, but after a few years, these become non-existent," Bhattacharjee said. The observation was echoed by the Tripura government-run Maharaja Birbikram University Vice Chancellor Gautam Kumar Basu. "Investment for the development of infrastructure of higher education institutions in the region is far below expectations. Meritorious students are not properly taken care of by the appropriate authorities," Basu told IANS. "After completion of higher education, there is a huge gap before proper placement or engagement of the youth. During this transitional period there is no suitable scope for study and research, leaving the energetic youth dejected." "Due to the huge development of information technology, knowledge is now accessible at your fingertips (but) after completion of higher education, there must be scope for further studies and research either in the country or abroad," Basu added. He suggested concerted efforts for improving academic standards, filling of vacancies of teachers and giving enough time to top university functionaries for teaching. Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Ram Shankar Katheria had said here earlier that the government will try to bring in foreign faculty to improve the quality of higher education in the northeastern region. "The government will do everything, including bringing of foreign faculty and development of infrastructure, to improve the quality of higher education in the northeastern states," Katheria had told IANS. "The northeast region is a priority area for the central government. We will make all-out efforts for the development of higher educational institutions in the region," he had added. Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (8th), Gauhati University (43rd) and Tezpur University (48th) in Assam, Meghalaya's North Eastern Hill University (77th) and Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management (99th) and Mizoram University (94th) have figured among the top 100 universities across the country in rankings released recently by the MHRD. Silchar's Assam University, Dibrugarh University and Arunachal Pradesh's Rajiv Gandhi University have also found a place. Besides, three National Institutes of Technology in Silchar (Assam), Manipur and Meghalaya also find a place. Among 100 best colleges in India, J.B. College in Jorhat (Assam) is the only college in the northeastern region to feature at 64. Of the eight northeastern states, higher educational institutions of Tripura, Nagaland and Sikkim failed to feature in the rankings. Auto component major Bosch has temporarily ceased operations at its plant at Adugodi, Bengaluru after getting notice from the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB). The company has taken the decision to close the plant after the KSPCB directed closure of all industrial units within the catchment area of Bellandur lake in Bengaluru. "Pursuant to the above notice, the company hereby informs the temporary closure of its facilities at Adugodi, Bengaluru with effect from today," Bosch Ltd said in a regulatory filing. The approximate loss of turnover per day is Rs 393 lakh per day, in case supplies to the customers are affected, it said. The company is reviewing directions of KPSCB and will consider all options for suitable relief in order to re- commerce the operations at the earliest, it added. "The company will also ensure that deliveries to the customers are not impacted," Bosch said. The affected companies would be able to reopen their plants once the KSPCB inspects the facilities. "The company has always upheld highest standards with respect to environment protection and is confident that it has been operating within the prescribed environmental norms at all its facilities," Bosch added. Union minister J P Nadda on Saturday said the government is striving hard to offer affordable and quality healthcare services to all and committed to raise the spending on healthcare to 2.5 per cent of the GDP in a phased manner. "The mission of the ministry of health and family welfare is to reform and manage the health sector effectively and efficiently to deliver comprehensive health and family welfare services that are equally distributed, accessible and sustainable for all across the country," the union health minister said. He was speaking at the diamond jubilee celebration of Family Welfare Training and Research Centre here. Nadda said the government has announced the National Health Policy 2017 after a gap of 15 years and is committed to increase the spending on healthcare to 2.5 per cent of the GDP in a phased manner. "The ongoing efforts of the government aim to promote and understand the quality of care and develop innovative solutions to long standing challenges in the health system of the country to align with sustainable development goals and to ensure good health and well-being of the country," he added. He said that health is an important component of the sustainable development goals and is represented by SDG-3- 'Ensure healthy lives and promote well being for all at all ages'. The minister said, "The rate of decline of our under five mortality has more than doubled from 3.3 per cent in 1990-2008 to 6.9 per cent in 2008-2014." About tuberculosis, the minister said, "Our TB incidence has reduced to 2,172 lakh in 2015 compared to 300 lakh in 1990. There is also a reduction in maternal mortality rate, reduction in incidents of malaria and new HIV infections. Anti-tobacco activists have urged the government to tax 'bidis' at the highest rate under the GST regime. The activists, led by patron of VOTV, put forward their demand in a series of tweets, addressed to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. We are sure that the PM and FM will tax all tobacco products including bidi at the highest category in GST. Bidis are consumed by 9.2% of adult population & cigarettes by 5.7% as per the Global Adult Tobacco Survey," said Dr Pawan Singhal, VOTV and Cancer surgeon, SMS hospital in Jaipur. It is known that bidis account for a very high percentage of tobacco-related deaths and a product leading to 6 lacs deaths cannot be taxed at lower rates, he added. Despite very low trade between India and Mauritania, New Delhi has approved letters of credit worth $65.68 million for a solar-diesel hybrid rural electrification project in the north African country, the Embassy of Mali, which is also accredited to the country, has said. The aid, which is in line with India's policy of assisting African countries, has also another two lines of credit $15 million for developing agro-industries and $6.8 million to support a drinking water project. "Both projects are progressing satisfactorily. The savings from the total project cost are proposed to be used for acquisition of harvesters and agricultural machinery by the government of Mauritania," the embassy said. Mauritania is one of the few African countries to develop full-blown trade with India. Statistics show that from a very low figure of $32.24 million in 2009-2010, it rose to $102.30 million in 2014-2015 but dropped to $76.90 million in 2015-2016. Total exports from India were $30.62 million with imports of $1.60 million. These figures improved in 2014-2015 when exports from India rose to $58.94 million whilst imports from Mauritania increased to $43.36 million. "There is tremendous potential for growth, especially when Mauritania is a resource-rich country with extractive natural resources, including oil that awaits exploration and exploitation," the embassy said, adding: "The Mauritanian government has, on numerous occasions, conveyed its eagerness to increase bilateral economic cooperation with India. The Mauritanian government wants to improve trade relationship with India in ports development, oil exploration, mining, power, agricultural, pharmaceuticals, engineering and educational sectors, the embassy. "The government of Mauritania has recently embarked on a programme for the large scale integrated development of Nouadhibou Free Zone for development of Nouadhibou Bay and is offering huge incentives," it said. It said Mauritania can also make immense use of India's expertise in various sectors. In the area of education, the country has been allocated 15 slots for the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme to enable Mauritanians train in India. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the revised mid-term foreign trade policy (FTP) is to be announced few days ahead of July 1, the scheduled date for the Goods and Services Tax roll out. After holding a meeting with various stakeholders, including exporters as part mid-term review of FTP (2015-20) here, the minister also said that no suggestions were made to scale down the 2020 export target of USD 900 billion, including services. Given the current economic and geopolitical situations globally there are concerns that international trade may be impacted. Sitharaman said suggestions were made that the review should be concluded by July 1 so that it is aligned with the GST implementation. "We found merit in the suggestion that the review of the policy should be well in time to go along with the roll out of the GST. It means I have to announce it well in time for July 1," she said. She further said that there were certain specific suggestions and questions for the GST Council comprising state finance ministers, and headed by the Union Finance Minister. A team including the Commerce Secretary to seek time from GST Council on the specific issue, including one related to duty refunds of exporters. Exporters, especially from the SME sector, have expressed concerns that their funds would be locked up for several months As per the GST norms, 90 per cent of the refund will be given in 7 days and remaining 10 percent will be given in 4-5 months. SME exporters expressed concerns that their funds could remain locked for long time. During the meeting suggestions were also made to explore rupee denominated trade especially in the south east Asian nations and those in the middle east. Suggestions were also made that the FTP should not focus only on exports but on imports as well. Cloud major Oracle has voiced support for US communications regulatory agency Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to roll back its net neutrality rules. Oracle wrote a letter to the FCC and played up its "perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company", hammering the debate over the rules as a "highly political hyperbolic battle", that is "removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality", a report in The Hill said on Saturday. "The stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015 for just one aspect of the internet ecosystem threw out both the technological consensus and the certainty needed for jobs and investment," the letter said. Other companies like AT&T and Verizon that support Pai's plan have made an argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure. Pai has proposed to undo the rules, which subjected broadband companies to tougher regulation from the FCC. According to Oracle, Pai's plan to remove broadband providers from the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction "will eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs internet service providers while enhancing the consumer experience and driving investment." Telecom companies, which have long opposed the rules, are urging Pai to roll them back, the report said. The government on Friday empowered RBI to ask banks to initiate insolvency proceedings to recover bad loans, amounting to over Rs. 6 lakh crore in case of state- owned lenders alone, and promised more measures to resolve the NPA crisis. Acting quickly, the RBI made substantial changes in the norms and also warned banks of monetary penalty for missing NPA resolution timelines. Within hours of the notification on ordinance amending the Banking Resolution Act 1949, the RBI, through a notification, eased the decision making process in the Joint Lenders' Forum (JLF) and Corrective Action Plan (CAP) under the 'Framework for Revitalising Distressed Assets in the Economy'. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier told reporters the ordinance empowers Reserve Bank to issue "directions to any banking company or banking companies to initiate insolvency resolution process in respect of a default under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016". He said the banks have an unacceptably high level of non-performing assets (NPAs) which hinders their capacity to fund economic activities. Toxic loans of public sector banks (PSBs) rose by over Rs. 1 lakh crore to Rs. 6.06 lakh crore during April-December of 2016-17, the bulk of which came from power, steel, road infrastructure and textile sectors. Gross NPA of PSBs nearly doubled to Rs. 5.02 lakh crore at the end of March 2016, up from Rs. 2.67 lakh crore at the end of March 2015. Jaitley further said an amendment is proposed to the prevention of corruption act which has been introduced in Parliament. The Standing Committee has submitted its report on its and will come up for consideration of both the Houses. "Some other steps also being taken, which once decided, will be communicated," he added. Further, the government is also planning to modify MoUs which banks sign at the time of receiving capital from the government. This, he said, would relate to immediate cash release initiatives, like sale of assets, closure of non profitable branches, reduction of overheads, business turnaround steps, and strengthening of credit appraisal process. Emphasising that ordinance has been notified as of today morning, the Finance Minister said, discussions were on for last one and a half months with regard to NPA resolution policy. The government has issued a general authorisation to RBI in this regard in line with the ordinance promulgated by President Pranab Mukherjee last last evening. The ordinance, which amends Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act 1949, will have to be placed in Parliament for approval in the upcoming monsoon session. It has inserted Section 35 AA and Section 35 AB in the Act. "The object of this Act is that the present status quo cannot continue. And the present status quo is that not much was moving and therefore a paralysis in the name of autonomy is detrimental to the economy itself and therefore that really requires to be broken," Jaitley said. He said the move will expedite commercial decision making of the banks. The minister said one of the objects is that "when bankers take commercial decisions on commercial and banking considerations, they must have adequate comfort level". Jaitley further said that interference of the Finance Ministry has not helped in dealing with the problem of the sector. "Whenever North Block has without power interfered in the banking system, it hasn't done very good," he said. The ordinance has also empowered the RBI to set up sector related oversight panels that will shield bankers from later action by probe agencies looking into loan recasts. "And therefore a committee which oversees such JLF (joint lenders forum) arrangements is one step which will give them (bankers) this comfort level," Jaitley said. He further said an amendment is proposed to the prevention of corruption act which has been introduced in Parliament. The Standing Committee has submitted its report on its and will come up for consideration of both the Houses. "Some other steps also being taken, which once decided, will be communicated," he added. Further, the government is also planning to modify MoUs which banks sign at the time of receiving capital from the government. This, he said, would relate to immediate cash release initiatives, like sale of assets, closure of non profitable branches, reduction of overheads, business turnaround steps, and strengthening of credit appraisal process. Meanwhile, in a major restructuring in PSU banking space, the government today appointed heads of various public sector banks including rejig at PNB and Bank of India. The duration of ban under government's draft rules on no-fly list should not be left to the discretion of the airlines, according to experts while an air passenger rights body has called the proposed regulation "vague" and "hurriedly prepared". The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Friday made public amendments to a set of rules on unruly and disruptive passengers and proposed a national-no fly list of such travellers. The rules categorise misdemeanour on the part of a passenger into three levels and also recommend a flying ban for three months to two years and more. "The different categories of unruly behaviour have not been properly defined. The language is very vague. If you say a physical gesture is a level one offence then the rules must clearly explain what constitutes an offensive gesture," said Sudhakar Reddy, founder and national president of Air Passengers' Association of India. Industry experts say that the duration of the ban should be specified by the government and not left to the airline. As per the proposed rules, airlines can impose a ban of "two or more years without limit" for life threatening behaviour. "It appears that the ban duration would be left to the discretion of the airlines. Ideally the duration should be fixed by MoCA or DGCA and then followed uniformly by all airlines," said Amber Dubey, Partner and India head of aerospace and defence at global consultancy KPMG. Dubey also said that the proposed law should ensure that unruly passengers are not able to obtain a stay order against the travel ban. He also suggested that the government should specify the compensation a passenger should get if allegations against him are proved wrong. Dubey mooted installation of CCTV cameras in all flights for recording evidence. APAI's Reddy also added that passengers should be mandatorily educated about what constitutes disruptive behaviour. "Many people don't know whether they are making a mistake. Many are flying for the first time and are illiterate. These rules have been brought out hurriedly," Reddy added. He, however, welcomed the redressal mechanism which allows passengers to approach the government's appeals committee to challenge the decision to ban them from flying. Tata-SIA joint venture airline Vistara welcomed the proposed rules and said that this was an "important step in ensuring safety and well-being of air travellers and is also in the interest of safe and seamless flight operations". Budget carrier Indigo said they will "examine this further to understand the larger implications". Global airlines' grouping International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it was reviewing the draft policy and will be providing its feedback to the government. IATA also urged India to ratify the Montreal Protocol 2014 "as soon as possible to enhance the deterrent against unruly and disruptive passenger incidents". The Montreal Protocol revises Tokyo Convention 1969 and gives greater clarity to the definition of unruly behaviour. There are also new provisions to deal with the recovery of significant costs arising from unruly behaviour. The draft rules released by the ministry is an amendment to the existing Civil Aviation Requirement, or a set of rules, on unruly and disruptive passengers. These are being placed in the public domain for 30 days for comments and feedback from stakeholders following which the government will come out with final amendments by June 30. A US equity firm that bid to buy a stake in Sri Lanka's loss-making national airline has pulled its offer, officials said on Saturday as the carrier scrambled for a new partner. TPG, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, has withdrawn its bid for a 49 percent stake in Sri Lankan, dashing hopes of a quick revival of the airline. "After completing the due diligence, regrettably TPG have informed us they will not pursue a potential investment in Sri Lankan airlines," Sri Lankan Chairman Ajith Dias said in a memo to his staff. "It is their opinion that allocating the human and financial resources to make the airline profitable will not realise sufficient returns compared to the many other investment opportunities that are available to them," Dias said. There was no immediate comment from TPG. Sri Lanka's flag carrier has accumulated debts and losses of over USD 2 billion. Talks are now underway with Dubai's Emirates, which had managed and owned a minority stake in Sri Lankan for a decade and was interested in a new management deal, official sources said. There was no immediate comment from Emirates. Sri Lankan was profitable before Rajapakse cancelled a management agreement with Emirates in 2008 following a personal dispute. The carrier had refused to bump fare-paying passengers and give their seats to Rajapakse's family members. An angry Rajapakse removed the Emirates-appointed CEO of Sri Lankan from the post and replaced him with his own brother-in-law, who had no airline experience, and is now under investigation for corruption. Late last year, in an effort to cut costs, Sri Lankan cancelled the previous government's order to lease four brand new Airbus A350-900 long-haul aircraft after paying a penalty of USD 115 million to aircraft leasing giant AerCap. A separate order for four Airbus A350-900 planes will also be cancelled, the government has said. Rajapakse had ordered all eight planes as part of a USD 2.3-billion re-fleeting programme for the airline, which is now being investigated for corruption. The sector regulator Trai on Saturday said it will soon roll-out an app that enables subscribers to rate the service quality of a phone call. The 'mycall' app would be available by the end of this month, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman RS Sharma said at 'Digital Broadcasting in India Way Forward', a seminar to commemorate the completion of 20 years of the regulator's formation. "We would like the consumers to assess the quality of calls, through 'mycall' app, which will be rolled out by this month end," he said. Put simply, once downloaded, the new app would give the subscribers the choice of assessing the quality of all or a portion of calls. When the call is completed, the users will be able to rate it, and the data will thereafter be analysed by the regulator. "The application will pop up a window and enquire about the quality of the call. The subscriber can give it one star to five stars. There will also be assessment parameters like whether the call was indoors or outside or while travelling," he said. The government and the regulator have refused to lower their guard on the issue of call drops, and have kept a close watch on call quality through initiatives like drive tests and automated call system. Last year, when instances of call drops spiked, the government and the regulator made a co-ordinated effort tackle the issue through deliberations with the industry. The DoT has set up an IVRS or automated call system, which makes random calls to subscribers to check status of call drops. The system is helping the government in identifying blind spots in areas that do not receive mobile signals or get weak ones. Trai through its analytics portal has also rolled out initiatives that measure data speeds and maps call drops in India, which is the world's second largest telecom market with 1.12 billion mobile subscribers. Sharma today said that Trai also plans to "strengthen" the 'Do Not Disturb' or DND service aimed at blocking pesky calls by telemarketers. "We have already done a lot of work in this," Sharma said, but refused to elaborate on the upcoming plans. At present, there is a framework for DND registry that allows telecom subscribers to block unwanted communication from telemarketers. Reaching out to such subscribers can result in a heavy fine for telemarketers. A source familiar with the initiative said that the regulator may look at building specific intelligence features into the system such that pesky messages with certain key words could automatically generate a prompt on whether the users wishes to report the message as a spam. Speaking on the occasion, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said TRAI's regulatory framework has provided a conducive environment for the sector's growth. It has made the sector more competitive and enhanced accessibility of services at affordable tariffs, he added. "Awareness of the some of the main challenges faced by the sector and regulatory framework of today ranging from convergence to the persisting issue of the digital divide is therefore necessary to be better equipped to handle these challenges in future," Sinha said. Bar-owners in the metropolis will now have to keep breath analysers ready and a pool of spare drivers to drive drunken customers back home. The diective was given by the city police during a meeting at Lalbazar police headquarter with about 30 major bars/restaurants/clubs who frequently sought permission for late closing of their premises (for serving liquor) beyond midnight. Additional Commissioner of Police(I) Vineet Goyal told PTI, "In order to assist the police in preventing/ curbing the menace of drunk driving and road-safety, these establishments were directed to keep breath-analyzers in their premises and get potential drunk drivers tested before they leave the premise." "They were asked to keep a pool of spare drivers to drive the customers, found unsuitable for driving as per permissible limits, back home," he said. The police also asked bar-owners to take assistance of cab aggregators like Ola, Uber etc for putting an organised structure in place. "Those establishments were given 15 days time to implement the directive. Late-closing permissions may not be accorded in the event of non-compliance of the directive. The process will gradually be extended to the remaining bars/ clubs/ restaurants serving liquor," Goyal said. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Saturday expressed concern at the "rising caste and communal tension" in the state and blamed the ruling BJP's "communal agenda" as the reason behind frequent tension in the state. "There is no law and order in the state and people are now seeing the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," she said in a statement. She added that the fact that processions were being taken out without the requisite permission of the district authorities and efforts were being made to fan caste and communal tension were indicators that the Yogi Adityanath government in the state was rolling out its agenda of communalism. She also slammed the state government for making "tall promises and hollow announcements by its ministers while no work is taking place on the ground". The Dalit leader accused the government of failing to control criminals in the state. In an incident that is likely to rekindle the debate around cow slaughter, a 58-year-old tribal man accused of slaughtering a bull, allegedly died in police custody in Gujarat's Sabarkantha district. Kodar Gamar was arrested on May 2 for killing a bullock under the provisions of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Gamar was in the custody of Kheroj police and was taken to hospital after he fell ill. He breathed his last on Thursday, police said. "On Tuesday evening, Gamar had an upset stomach and fell in the bathroom. He was rushed to the hospital where he died at around 10.30 pm," police said. Hailing from Kotda village in Khedbrahma taluka of the district, Gamar and two others were arrested from his house after a case was registered against them on April 26 for allegedly slaughtering a bullock and selling its meat as that of buffalo and goat in nearby villages. An inquiry has been ordered into the case. (With inputs from agencies) Several landmines were recovered in a joint operation of the state police and the CRPF in Jharkhand's Lohardagga district, two days after massive arms and ammunition was ere recovered from the same place. At least 53 landmines each weighing 500 gm and one container bomb weighing 10 kg were recovered, a police officer said. Police also seized 20 bundle codex wire, 50 kg powder used for making bomb and other materials. The landmines were recovered from Husru jungle of Lohardagga district. On Thursday, 13 rifles including AK-47, Insas, Machine gun and 5300 live cartridges were seized in the joint operation from the same district. The recovery are said to be on the input provided by the Maoist zonal commander Nakul Yadav who surrendered two days ago before police. Clashes broke out on Saturday between protesting students and security forces in Handwara town in north and Pulwama in south Kashmir, the police said. Several students have been injured in the clashes which were going on till last reports came in. Dozens of students from the government higher secondary school in Newa area of Pulwama district staged a protest against the alleged high-handedness of security forces, a police official said. He said the students were asked by security forces to disperse but they refused, leading to clashes. The students pelted stones at security forces, who resorted to baton charge and tear smoke shelling, the official said, adding that clashes were going on till the reports last came in. Similar protests took place in Handwara town of Kupwara district where students of the government degree college clashes with security forces, the official said. He said the students indulged in stone pelting, prompting the law enforcing agencies to use force. A police raid on government degree college Pulwama on April 15 had triggered widespread protests by students across Kashmir on April 17. The protests have been going on intermittently since then, prompting authorities to suspend class work in the higher educational institutions for over a week last month as a precautionary measure. The students are agitating over the alleged high- handedness of police and are demanding action against the erring personnel for roughing up students. A number of students were arrested during clashes in Srinagar and elsewhere in the valley. The town of Agartala in Tripura is all set to welcome Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah as he will be visiting the Left Front-ruled state on May 6 for two days. The city which during the last two decades, has witnessed red flag of Communist parties is now being decorated with the BJP's flags to welcome Shah. During his two-day visit, Shah will prepare a road-map on how to win the next assembly elections, due in the first half of 2018 and will hold a series of meetings with the party members and senior tribal leaders. On May 7, Shah will leave for Kumarghat in Unakoti district to address a party rally. Having forfeited security deposit in 47 of the 50 seats it contested in Tripura in the 2013 assembly election, the BJP has increased its vote share and its candidates finished second to winning CPI-M nominees in three bypolls held there since. BJP leaders claim the party has emerged as the principal challenger to the Left and pointed to the recent defection of a top Trinamool Congress leader and some others to the party. Less than a week after the BJP formed government in neighbouring Manipur, virtually the entire state unit of the Trinamool Congress in Tripura had joined the saffron party. The BJP chief will visit all states by September-end as part of his campaign to strengthen the party as it readies for another round of assembly polls and the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. (With inputs from agencies) A small moment in cinematic history took place at the close of this years Tribeca Film Festival, staged in New York City. The Godfathers cast, and director Francis Ford Coppola, reunited to celebrate the films legacy, 45 years down the line; reflecting on what its like to be part of whats frequently considered the greatest film of all time. Organised by Robert de Niro, one of the founders of Tribeca, the panel also saw Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire all in attendance. Conversation during the panel was largely dominated by the idea that The Godfather was a significant risk to pull off relying on the talents of a young, untested director, an unknown actor in Pacino, and a source material widely regarded as unfit for the screen. Indeed, Coppola described Mario Puzos bestseller as a bit of a potboiler, stating, I was disappointed in the book when I first read it because its very long. The director was then forced to fight tooth and nail to cast Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, with the actor admitting hed done more screen tests for the role than he could remember, including after he was given the part. But Pacino was the only one right for the role, Coppola insisted, as, I just saw his face. Everywhere we went, all the girls lit up for Al, for some reason. Pacino himself was less enthused by the part, even suggesting to Coppola that he shouldnt fight so hard for him (Its OK. Well work again. There are other things to do.), with him having far more interest in the role of Sonny Corleone (James Caan), a part Robert de Niro also auditioned for before playing the young Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather II. After a shaky start to the shoot, Pacino was convinced, Its over! This is the worst film ever made! Recalling hearing people giggling at his performance, Pacino was taken aside by Coppola for a pep talk, showing him early footage of his performance and telling him, to get your chops together. The director then shifted the films famous restaurant scene up in the schedule, as Paramount looked for reasons to fire Pacino, so that both actor and director could prove the studio wrong which they certainly did. Coppola, too, seemed under constant threat of being given the boot by Paramount; he recalled being told he was going to be fired that weekend, after rumours had spread that the production was troubled. The director reacted by (and he wasnt sure whether this was allowed) finding 12 of his naysayers and firing them on the spot, in true Godfather style. The independent Priyanka Chopra has penned an emotionally touching note after the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of all four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang- rape case. The Indian actress says she is "proud" of the justice system. Priyanka on Friday shared a note, where she said that she refuses to accept the brutality of such heinous crimes. "Yes, it has taken five long years, but today justice finally prevailed. The flame of this verdict should singe not just the dastardly four (of the other two, one is dead and one accused is a juvenile) but such perpetrators in India as well," Priyanka wrote. "'The brutal, barbaric and demonical conducts of the convicts shook the conscience of humanity and they don't deserve leniency' said the Supreme Court while reading out the death sentence to the four accused in the Nirbhaya rape cum murder case. "I'm so proud of the justice system for hearing her voice.. in her dying declaration she appealed that her perpetrators not be spared," she added. The 34-year-old actress said that it was "justice" that the entire country demanded "Each voice that joined the battle was strident and clear the six must be punished. Finally, they will pay. The brutality of such crimes is something I refuse to accept," she said. The former beauty queen also voiced her concerns over the fact that even in 21st century, how can a society allow such heinous crimes taking place against women and expressed that it "never ceases to trouble" her. "Unfortunately, the past can never be undone. So, we move on and make a promise to ourselves. That when an entire country is unified in wanting something, action is taken. This awakening, this unified voice to stop such brutal and demonical crimes, as our Supreme Court said, is what we must never let go onto mute mode," she wrote. "You will never be forgotten Nirbhaya," she added. Early medical traditions encompass those of Babylon, China, Egypt, and India. The Greeks introduced concepts of medical diagnosis, prognosis and adv-anced medical ethics. In fact, the Hippocratic Oath is still taken (albeit, significantly changed from the original), by doctors. The oath was written in Greece, in the fifth century BCE, in the medieval age. The mid 20th century was characterised by new biological treatments, like antibiotics. It was not till 1928 that penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming, a professor of bacteriology, at St Marys Hospital, London. Medieval medicine is viewed with disdain because this chapter had been alluded to the Dark Ages, interpreting that the subject was opaque and, as the Dark Ages signify, it was totally unenlightening to the world of medical science. However, in a volte face in recent times, medievalists and scientists are giving credence to the past; they are in search of clues to create new antibiotics. The search continues because new drugs must be discovered to combat certain microbes that cannot be treated by the antibiotics of these times. But progress is exasperatingly slow. There are reasons for the urgency of discovering new drugs, indeed, to quote PG Wodehouse, Time is of the essence. Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, threatens treatment of the ever increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. AMR has jeopardised global public health that needs the attention of all governments. Without effective antibiotics, the success of surgery and treatment of chemotherapy can be compromised. Resistant infections will impact healthcare costs, due to a longer duration of illness. Globally, people have begun developing multidrug resistant TB; similarly, drug resistance is complicating the fight against HIV and malaria. AMR happens when microorganisms, like bacteria, change when they are exposed to anti-microbial drugs such as, antibiotics and antifungals. Microorganisms, which develop anti-microbial resistance, are often referred to as superbugs. But what really accelerates the spread of microbial resistance? This is a syndrome which occurs naturally, over a period of time, often due to genetic changes. However, misuse or overuse of drugs, will exacerbate this fragile situation. Antimicrobial resistant microbes are in people, animals, food and in the environment, which can spread between people and animals, or even from person to person. A warehouse storing rice or wheat, for example, with damp walls, will cause fungus, that can harbor these drug resistant microbes; the problem needs the attention of governmental agencies in charge of this department. A revolution, against antibiotic resistant microbes has begun, to enable science to find new drugs, to battle microbes that cannot be treated by current antibiotics. Researchers have focused their attention on medieval remedies to combat modern superbugs. A 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infections, appears in a manuscript, in the British Library which has been found to kill a superbug. Christina Lee, has communicated with this writer and she tells us of an ongoing project, related to the Anglo-Saxon era. Research collaboration, at the University of Nottingham, where Lee is an associate professor in Viking studies, has enlisted the help of microbiologists, to recreate a 10th century potion, for eye infections, from Balds Leechbook, an old English leather-bound volume in the British Library. Lee and her colleagues have studied to see if the potion really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is thought to be one of the oldest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments. The results of the magic potion are being tested at Nottingham University and are being described as astonishing. Researchers are now compiling a database of medical recipes, so by studying patterns in the database and referring to ancient medical practices, materials used to treat infections in the past can now be identified. This becomes the first attempt to create a medieval medicines database. The salve, as defined in Balds ancient volume, contains wine, garlic, leek or onion, and ox gall. The recipe states that after the ingredients have been mixed together, they must stand in a brass vessel for nine nights before use. It killed MRSA, or Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which is one of the most antibiotic resistant bugs. Lee has summarised this thought provoking study, saying, The research is a pilot study and shows the potential that such remedies may help but clinical trials are awaited. People have suffered from nasty infections and our studies show that medieval people have tried to combat these infections too. Research will continue and we are hoping for more outcomes in the future. Rabindranath Tagore defied death by transcending time and making his way eternally into the hearts of all Bengalis. Knowing the infinity of this legend, makes his beginning even more interesting to relate. Tagore was born the youngest in 1861, the ninth of 13 children, to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. As a manager of the considerable number of family estates and founder of the Hindu religious organisation Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath used to remain too occupied to pay attention to his children. Rabindranaths mother died when he was very young. This left little Rabi to grow up all by himself amidst an austere silence of Jorasanko, the Thakurbari mansion. He developed under the supervision of his elder brothers and was catered to by the servants of the house. During the evenings, in the faded light of kerosene lamp, he would listen to fairy tales as narrated by an old maid servant. Though mostly confined within the huge mansion, young Tagore was exposed to many intellectual conversations, in his home, where prominent personalities from the community would take part. He grew up in an atmosphere of art and culture. But the ways of life and appearance in Jorasanko Thakurbari left them a bit aloof from the society. When the upper class Bengali elites trifled the language relating it as the household medium for women gossip and boasted in the vanity of English knowledge, the Tagores proudly communicated in Bengali and promoted its glory. Rabindranath was a school drop-out and never sat for examinations. The confines of four walls of the school appeared claustrophobic to him. He was rather drawn to the vastness and freedom outside the windows. As a result of the respect that the family held towards Indian mythology, Tagore from a very little age had fluently read Upanishad slokas every day without a slightest flaw in the Sanskrit pronunciation. When he was 11, he accompanied his father on a tour across India. While on this journey, he used to read rigorously. The works of Kalidasa, a renowned classical Sanskrit poet, was a part of them. Of all his elder brothers, Jyotirindranath Tagore appealed to him the most. As an elder brother, he would never impose restrictions or bear an air of superiority. They would always debate on varied topics and he would respect the opinions of his little brother as if they were of same age. Being allowed this space helped Rabindranath broaden his mind and outlook. Tagore started writing poems from the tender age of eight. Cutting himself to a corner of his room, with all the independence and enthusiasm, he would play with words, fitting or breaking them into rhymes. His head would burst with thoughts and imaginations which he would pen down, till it formed a garland of words. At 20, he wrote one of his most acclaimed poems, Nirjharer Swapnabhanga (1882). Of the few Bengali writers who rose to prominence in his time, Rabi was the youngest and most inexperienced. He would often fall victim to their criticism and laughter, though they were in a sympathetic way rather than mockery. This in fact helped him flourish and render his writings with an identity of its own. Student, Statesman Print Journalism School Aiming to make the nation digitally more vibrant, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday urged that all states should have at least one National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT). The NIELIT is an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology to carry out human resource development and related activities in the area of information, electronics and communications technology. "There is no aspect of human life which is untouched by advances in information technology and electronics. NIELIT has endeavoured to lead by example and is empowering youth through skill development and capacity building initiatives. In addition to digital literacy, the demands for skilling in basic cyber security concepts has also increased manifold, and NIELIT is equitably poised to address this challenge," he said. For effective implementation of skill development programmes, including government's initiatives at pan-India level, he said that NIELIT should strive to ensure that it has presence through at least one centre in each state. Prasad on Saturday inaugurated the NIELIT Bhawan, a new state-of-the-art green building at Dwarka. The NIELIT has pan-India presence through 36 centres and about 9,000 training partners. The Indian Army has apprehended a minor Pakistani boy in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowshera sector of the LoC, whom they suspect might have been sent across to probe infiltration routes, an officer said on Saturday. "A patrol of the Indian Army along the LoC apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) late on Friday evening. He had crossed the Line of Control in Rajouri district," Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta told IANS. The boy, Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, was identified as the son of a retired Baluch Regiment soldier Hussain Malik. They are residents of Dunger Pel village in Bhimber district in PoK, Mehta said. Ashfaq Ali Chauhan was found moving suspiciously near the LoC. On being challenged by the patrol, the boy immediately surrendered, he added. "It is suspected that the boy was sent by the terrorists in connivance with Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC," the Defence spokesman said. The minor intruder has been handed over to the police by the Army for further investigations, the spokesman added. BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday said that his party wants to stop Muslim women from the sufferings related with triple talaq. "Triple talaq must stop it should not continue," he told media persons here, adding that it causes a lot of suffering to Muslim women. "I believe women should get their deserved rights," he added. To a question, he said that triple talaq is a separate issue from the Uniform Civil Code. Shah, on a two-day visit to Tripura as part of his all-India tour to expand the party base, is slated to address a public meeting at Kumarghat in northern Tripura on Sunday. Welcome to KARMABrooklyn! We hope that the news and other information we post on this b log will be useful to residents and merchants in Kensington and Windsor Terrace. If you'd like to contact us, write to us at karmabrooklyn [at] gmail [dot] com. Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday said the party is confident of forming government in the Northeastern state Tripura in the next assembly elections. "Communists were wiped out from the world and the Congress from the country. We are confident that we will form government in Tripura," the BJP chief said while addressing a gathering after launching the party's expansion drive in the state. Shah arrived in Agartala on Saturday afternoon. In his speech at the rally, he appreciated the rich heritage of the state and spoke on Narendra Modi government's demonetisation move and other plans. "Tripura has potential to become a model state of the country," he said. "Demonetisation was a very courageous and successful decision of Modi government," he added. The BJP chief is in Tripura on an expansion drive of the party for two days. During his visit, he will prepare a road-map on how to win the next assembly elections due in the first half of 2018. Shah is likely to hold a series of meetings with the party members and senior tribal leaders. He will leave for Kumarghat in Unakoti district on 7 May to address a party rally there. The city, which in the last two decades, has witnessed red flags of Communist party, was decorated with the BJP's flags to welcome Shah. (With inputs from agencies) Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Saturday said that the government hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all students who were victims of Delhi gas leak incident on Saturday morning. "Government hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident," the Union minister said. "My prayers are with the children and their families at this time," he added. "Around 200 children and 9 teachers have been admitted to four hospitals for treatment, no one is serious. Situation normal now," South East DCP Romil Baniya was quoted as saying by a news agency. "Legal action will be taken. It is a case of negligence, hazardous substance was not handled properly," Baniya said, adding, "Fumes generated from a container containing chemical imported from China, meant for industrial use." According to reports, around 200 students of the Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya were admitted to hospital after gas leakage from a container in Delhi's Tughlakabad area. The incident occurred on Saturday morning as gas leaked from a tanker parked near the school. "Some students complained of irritation in eyes and throat due to gas leak; 50-60 students hospitalised," Vice Principal of the school was quoted as saying by a news agency. (With inputs from agencies) Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said major changes have been brought about to improve the school education system in the country. Inaugurating the North-Eastern Region workshop on 'Innovations and Best Practises in School Education' organised by the HRD ministry here, he listed the changes as allowing detainment in the same class and reverting to examinations for assessing academic progress of students, besides updating NCERT textbooks. The Human Resources Development Minister said a student would be given two chances to pass, with one being in the first examination in March and the second one in June. "If he/she fails there, he/she will be detained in the same class," he said. The second major change "to the joy of parents" is making the class ten board exam mandatory for all students, he said. Explaining the decision on detainment, the minister said "We have taken a very important decision and we will take a call on it this month." "We had a meeting of education ministers from all the states, wherein those from 25 states lamented that they were finding it difficult to improve the quality of education without examinations. "On their demand, we unanimously decided that the right to decide on detention will be left to the states and it will be done anytime soon," Javadekar said. He further added that as NCERT books have not been revised since the last ten years, the HRD ministry has invited suggestions from teachers, parents and all other stakeholders to make changes in the lessons or certain paragraphs in the books. Stating that benchmark and learning capacity outcomes have been introduced for every class and monitored every year, the BJP leader said handbooks have been introduced for teachers to monitor every child and thus reach the benchmark. The government officials of north eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura; NGOs, school principals and teachers took part in the two-day workshop. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that only Prime Minister Narendera Modi can solve the Kashmir issue that is plaguing for the past 70 years. Mehbooba was speaking after inaugurating a Rs.78 crore flyover here. She said Modi is the only hope for solving the Kashmir problem once for all although the previous Prime Ministers also tried their hand on it. She was all praise for Modi when she said that he alone can help the people of J&K in this time of crisis. If anyone can take us out of the dilemma, then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He enjoys massive mandate and whatever he decides, the nation will support him," she said. Her praise for Modi comes at a time when almost all opposition parties in the state, including National Conference, Congress and CPM, were accusing Modi and Mehbooba of having created mess in J&K. Reiterating her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in the valley, Mehbooba said, "The previous Prime Minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. But the surprise visit of Modi to Lahore is a proof of his boldness, abilities and example of his moral authority". Mufti said that her father Mufti Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation, but thereafter no efforts were made by successive governments. "Mufti Sayeed and Vajpayee improved the relations between India and Pakistan by ordering a ceasefire, which were again disturbed due to the lack of initiative taken by the previous governments. Now for the first time after 2005, people have started expressing passion on the matter, she said. Reacting to the statement of Congress leaders on the lack of development in Jammu, she said that a tense situation in Kashmir affected Jammu as well. "Jammu has many tourist destinations and we are trying to develop them," she added. During her recent meeting with Prime Minister Modi, Mehbooba briefed him about the security scenario in the Valley. Thereafter, she told reporters that it was important to resume the dialogue process initiated by former Prime Minister Vajpayee. President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday outlined Indias foreign policy priorities as they addressed the participants of the 8th Annual Heads of Missions Conference being held here. The four-day meet takes place at a time when Indias relations with China and Pakistan, its key neighbours, are under intense strain. The meet is expected to discuss Indias ties with major world powers as well as neighbouring countries. PM @narendramodi addresses 8th HOM Conference at New Delhi, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted along with pictures of the PM addressing the meet, being attended by around 120 envoys posted worldwide. The theme of the conference this year is Effective Diplomacy, Excellent Delivery. The HoMs called on the President at the Rashtrapati Bhavan this evening. While addressing them, the President said the world was tiring of statements and resolutions. Our efforts should be to work with like-minded nations and global institutions to swiftly generate effective solutions and implement them efficiently. Every well conceived effort will have some positive outcome. He said there was a new world order in which the entire humankind was challenged by compelling transnational issues that needed to be urgently addressed collectively and innovatively. Whether it was drug-resistant viruses, environmental degradation, pollution and climate change or energy , water and food security, no single nation could claim to be free of deep concerns on account of these issues. The President said the dynamics of the new world order must be well analysed and understood. As HoMs, they shall have to ensure that India, as a respected and responsible player in world affairs and an emerging economic power, responded to the new challenges appropriately to its best advantage, safeguarding its core interests at all times. He stressed that this was a moment for strategic policy making, leadership, and pursuit of an independent foreign policy based on principle, pragmatism and the time-honored philosophy ofVasudaiva Kutumbakam. Mukherjee said the reforms and recent initiatives of the government had made Indias economy attractive for investors and the industrial sector viable for prospective partners. The renewed emphasis of the government on outcomes rather than processes was also a welcome step. President Pranab Mukherjee was present as the gates of the Bardinath shrine in Uttarakhand opened early on Saturday morning. With this, the annual pilgrimage of the Char Dhaam Yatra became fully operational. The Kedarnath shrine was also opened earlier this week in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after a six-month winter break. Mukherjee prayed before the deity at the sanctum sanctorum amid chanting of hymns and high security. The President earlier went to the Gujarati Dharmshala and had a bath before heading for the rituals. State Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj accompanied Mukherjee during the visit. The President had spent the night in Dehradun on Friday after taking part in an event here. An army band also played as the shrine door was opened for the pilgrims. More than 10,000 pilgrims were present for the darshan of the Lord on the first day, an official told IANS. The Supreme Court has sought the central government's response on a PIL seeking the abolition of the sahayak/buddy system in army which continues despite a parliamentary committee deprecating the practice and recommending its discontinuation. The bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar on Friday issued notice to the government on a PIL by two ex-army personnel Chandrasekhara Pillai and advocate P.J. George, who are the General Secretary and President respectively of the Association of Ex-Army Aviation Technicians. The petitioners have also sought probe into the "unnatural" death of Gunner Roy Matthews, who had appeared on a sting by a TV channel on the practice, and was missing from February 25 till his decomposed body was recovered on March 2, about 50 meters from the staff quarters where he lived. Suspecting foul play in the death, the petitioners have alleged that certain officers were trying to hush up the soldier's death by trying to portray it as suicide. They also have contended that even though air force and navy have abolished the Sahayak system but the army continues with it despite the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence Ministry recommending its discontinuation way back in 2009. A group of activists working for the welfare of Muslims, especially women, have said that apart from triple talaq there are several other serious issues concerning the community that need to be addressed on a priority basis. Activists from different advocacy groups, based mainly in Maharashtra and Gujarat, feel that lack of education and healthcare facilities, sense of insecurity, beef ban, communal riots targeting the minorities and unemployment are some of the issues that Muslims were facing, which need to be addressed. The group, which issued a joint statement recently, included Bebaak Collective, Aawaz-e-Niswaan, Parvaaz Sangathan, Janvikas, Sahiya and Muslim Mahila Manch. "We want what the Constitution says for equal opportunities and human rights to every Indian citizen. End of triple talaq would not guarantee alleviation of all the woes of Muslim women," said Hasina Khan of Bebaak Collective. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stand on triple talaq alone is not sufficient. It needs to go beyond that," Hasina, an intervenor in Shayara Bano case, said. Terming the previous governments at the Centre as merely "vote seekers", she said, "It is good that the Modi government has raised the issue of triple talaq, but it should also be cleared that we do not consider Modi as our hero." "He (Modi) needs to do a lot to instill a sense of social security among us," she said. "Besides, there is a long history of women's movement that raised these issues on the national level; no political party or the conservatives of the community can take the ownership of the cause of Muslim women today. We have their voice in our own right," Khan said. Khairunnisa Pathan of Parvaaj Sangathan said it was good that the triple talaq issue has got some momentum but there are other issues as well, which are creating panic and insecurity among the Muslims countrywide. President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said the world is witnessing dramatic changes in the international order and it is time to find effective solutions to global challenges that have risen. "This year, you have had to address the dramatic changes in the international political and security scenario. The traditional equations of power, 'hyper-power' and global influence have been altered in a manner that few anticipated," he said while addressing the 8th annual heads of missions conference at the Rashtrapati Bhawan here. "There is a new world order. All of humankind is, today, challenged by compelling transnational issues that need to be urgently addressed collectively and innovatively," he added. Calling the conference "a very useful exercise" to make frank assessment of policy, Mukherjee said its theme of "smarter diplomacy, swifter delivery" appropriately reflects the need of the hour. Citing the illegal migration to Europe from Middle East and Africa, the President said that it has brought a once-flourishing European continent to the brink. Referring to his interactions with leaders from the region, he said: "All of these leaders, without exception, had a common vision that peace in their region, imperative for development, was their highest priorityany reform process adopted by them should be owned and led by their own people." He also stressed that lasting peace in the region can only come by abjuring force and choosing tolerance, dialogue and persuasion, he added. The President asked envoys to pursue a definite agenda and address a specific set of bilateral issues, keeping in mind the larger context, both regional and global. Stressing on the significance of the present circumstances for pursuit of an independent foreign policy, the President said that the Indian foreign policy should be based on "principle, pragmatism and the time-honoured philosophy of 'Vasudaiva Kutumbakam'." Terming the doctrine of non-interference in internal affairs of other nations as one of the pillars of the foreign policy, he said this "has helped India to earn the trust of friends and partners across the globe". Highlighting the significant role that India has played in global peacekeeping and how it is viewed by the international community, Mukherjee said: "Virtually every Member of the UN agrees with the logic of India having a permanent seat in the UN Security Council." He also asked the heads of missions to ensure India responds to the new challenges, to her best advantage and while safeguarding her core interests at all times. Earlier during the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also addressed the conference. Its been several days since Left Wing Extremists ambushed CRPF personnel in Sukma, Chattisgarh resulting in the martyrdom of 25 jawans. Much is being written and debated on air on the tragedy and the countrys biggest paramilitary force has been put under the scanner to explain how it lost so many lives. Security experts, retired Generals and many self-styled specialists on anti-Naxalite terror, are seizing this opportunity to remain in focus by highlighting CRPFs failures and seem to be on a fault-finding spree in order to blame almost all concerned for the tragedy. The inquisitors have focused on the delay in posting of a regular Director-General; lack of adequate equipment; failure to adhere Standard Operating Procedures ( SOPs) and not appropriating the experience and services of CRPF cadre officers etc. Such scathing and sweeping criticisms are mostly unfounded, barring some operational issues that require detailed analysis. The sad incident is now a fait accompli and CRPF, currently in mourning, is not in a position to defend itself. There have been repeated attacks and casualties, almost in the same vicinity, so any explanation or justification from the force is unlikely to seem plausible or allay apprehensions. What is needed perhaps is professional introspection and putting in place a fool-proof antiNaxalite plan to prevent recurrence. One should move forward with the positive frame of mind with constructive thoughts instead of hitting out at the force. What comes to mind as an immediate focus area is to tone up intelligence to deal with the nonstop menace. We are not sure if intelligence within the CRPF is at all playing any role though the top brass often talks about this. Its hard to imagine a huge force like the CRPF, with a strength of nearly 300,000, and principally engaged in anti-Naxal operations in a particular region, is without a formidable intelligence set up that is Naxalite-centric. In contrast, lets take the case of BSF. It has a separate Intelligence branch to provide actionable intelligence to deal with threats on the long Indo-Pak and IndoBangladesh borders. This must be paying dividends. It needs to be borne in mind that BSF was founded in 1965 and today has an exclusive intelligence wing under a senior IPS officer. On the other hand, CRPF came into being way back in 1939 and yet it is without a full fledged intelligence set-up. If at all it has one, it looks to be functionally tentative. In view of the reverses suffered recently, it would be advisable for the CRPF leadership to create an earmarked Intelligence wing devoted only to Naxalite-related information for obtaining actionable inputs to counter and neutralise the extremists. CRPF may be constrained by a shortage of officers and men to form the proposed entity. To overcome this, the Ministry of Home Affairs that oversees para-military forces must ensure that any manpower deficit is quickly made up. The force should have a well oiled machine geared with its intelligence machinery to start delivering favourable results. There are any number of retired and experienced intelligence officers available who had in the past dealt with numerous complex problems. A team of retired officers and personnel from Intelligence Bureau ( IB), R&AW and Chattisgarh State Police (Intelligence ) can be drawn up to assist CRPF in forming the Intelligence wing. These retired personnel are proficient in tradecraft and their experience should come in handy. Pooling in all this talent and experience can be the first pragmatic step towards containing the menace. Importantly, there must be CRPF cadre officers too in the team to benefit from the available experience. CRPF has very competent officers on its rolls. Their bravery is unquestionable. Time and again, they have fearlessly borne the brunt of the worst kind of violence in Kashmir and Naxal-infested regions. Hence involvement of retired CRPF personnel is a must. This move would seek to instil confidence in the force. to lift its morale and increase its operational efficacy. Taking the morale of this force to an all time high is the need of the hour. The government has just appointed a DG to head the force. Let him have a free hand to steer its rank and file to new heights as a vigorous, anti-Naxal force that restores the confidence of jawans and of the local populace. Under no circumstances should sacrifices of the valiant CRPF men be allowed to go in vain. That is the first challenge for the new DG. K Vijay Kumar, ex DG, CRPF, and now Advisor to the MHA on Left Wing Extremism, in his address to retired and serving CRPF officers last year had stressed the need for reinforced intelligence. This point merits being carried forward. The nation cannot afford to lose brave and committed policemen every now and then. The extremists must be dealt a devastating blow. These are the operational facets requiring priority. As regards calls by human rights groups and NGOs to integrate extremists into the mainstream and offering them packages, such goodies can wait. First, the menace should be addressed by the CRPF and then the welfare measures can follow. Pro-extremist activists, in the meanwhile, should call upon the perpetrators of terror to shun violence. The writer, a retired IPS officer, is a security analyst and writes on security issues. He is a Senior Fellow with the India Police Foundation. Views are personal. 3 nabbed for launching anti-poll activities Three cadres of Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal were arrested from different parts of the district on Saturday for carrying out activities against the May 14 elections. Jammu and Kashmir is on the boil again, with the situation becoming worse by the day. A solution to the decades-old Kashmir problem remains elusive. While the State Government led by Mehbooba Mufti has been twiddling its thumbs, the Centre has taken a hard line refusing to resume dialogue with either Pakistan or the separatists. The nature of violence has taken on a new dimensions with an Indian army patrol team taken by surprise when a group of Pakistani Special Forces set up an ambush in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district and beheaded two security personnel on Monday. The Indian army has vowed an appropriate response. This grave act of provocation has fuelled the tension further between the two countries with ties already strained over the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav on charges of spying and Islamabads constant raking up of the Kashmir issue. The Pakistan army had denied any ceasefire violation or Border Action team action. There are two sides to the Kashmir problem one is domestic and the other is external, relating to Pakistan. We must not confuse one with the other although they are interlinked. While the problem with Pakistan is complex, successive governments have failed to handle the domestic discontent in the state deftly. There was much hope when the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government took over in March 2015 with the BJP as its coalition partner. The BJP had come to power as a coalition partner in the state for the first time. Mufti called it the coalition of North Pole and the South Pole and after his death in January 2016 his daughter Mehbooba Mufti succeeded him. Though Mehbooba has been in the saddle for more than a year, she is yet to settle down. A few months after she took over came the killing of Burhan Wani by Indian security forces on 8 July 2016, which indicated the growth of home grown militancy. The crisis today is worse than in 1990 as people are angry with both the Mehbooba government as well as the Central government. The youth have taken to the streets to protest against security forces. Almost two generation of children have lost their innocence in the crossfire since 1990 when militancy began. There are various reasons for the domestic unrest. For one, people are disappointed with Mehbooba's lame-duck government. Secondly, there is no homogeneity between the BJP and the PDP at the ground level. The inherent contradictions (ideological) between the two parties continue but they remain together for the sake of power. Had they worked in unison the situation would have improved. Thirdly, Mehbooba has been pleading with the Centre to provide space. She wants the Centre to talk to separatists while Delhi is sticking to a hard line. The basis of the BJP-PDP alliance was "meaningful dialogue" with all "internal stakeholders, which include political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections". The Hurriyat wants the Centre to talk to Pakistan and so goes the merry go round. As expected, after the mutilation of the soldiers, the Government of India has hardened its stand further and had even called the Pakistan High Commissioner to protest against the dastardly act behind which New Delhi sees the hand of Pakistan army. In this no-win situation is there a possibility for some improvement? This should be attempted at diplomatic and political levels and must at least address the domestic discontent. While the government should take the action it feels is necessary, diplomatic efforts should also continue despite provocations. More importantly, the domestic side of the problem needs urgent attention. There is every need for the Centre to review its Kashmir policy and start confidence-building measures to restore faith. Secondly, Delhi should extend full support to Mehbooba so that she has the space she wants. Majority of the liberals advocate dialogue with all stake holders. Former BJP minister Yashwant Sinha who had recently led a delegation and met all players including the Hurriyat has come back with a feeling that dialogue is the only way. While the opposition wants dialogue, the Centre wants to follow a muscular policy and the two are standing at opposite poles. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah has also said, Dialogue is the only way to stop bloodshed and it is imperative to start unconditional talks with all the stakeholders. Mehbooba has also been saying that there is no option but to talk but the Centre has rebuffed her. BJP leader Ram Madhav tweeted recently, the Central government told the Supreme Court categorically yesterday that there is no plan to hold any talks with the separatists and those who are not loyal to India. The Centre should explore other options. The Congress has set up a committee headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to study the Kashmir issue with the opposition parties. The government could use him to start a dialogue not only with the opposition but also with the Kashmiris. The Prime Minister could send an all-party delegation to the state to assuage feelings of Kashmiris who feel alienated. Addressing the concerns of the agitating youth is imperative. It is true that the Kashmir problem cannot be solved in a day but at least the dialogue should resume. Kashmir needs a political solution and not a military solution. As the glitter of the recent One Belt, One Road (OBOR) spectacle in Beijing wears off, some stark, yet concealed, assertions about the project seem to be tumbling out, as the Dawn has reported. This is relevant to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The world viewed the multi-layered Belt and Road projects as a stimulus for Chinas domestic economy as much as a quest for President Xis China dream, indeed a rise to pre-eminence. India on its part has protested against OBORs lack of transparency, questionable economics, negative impact on communities, and for arrogantly ignoring Indias core concern of sovereignty while planning projects across the Gilgit-Baltistan. However sensitive President Xi is about one China, he appears to be remarkably insensitive towards one India. Now is the time for India to give an impetus to its Neighbourhood First policy. All around India, China shares land borders with five SAARC countries, looks over the Chickens Neck at a sixth, and has a long border with Myanmar. China has for long wanted to fill the South Asian space that nature has gifted to India. Viewing Nepal and Pakistan to be critically important for its security and territorial integrity in Xinjiang and Tibet, it has been propping up Pakistan financially and strategically, to make things difficult for India. By hyphenating India with Pakistan, Beijing is anxious to ensure that India never becomes equal to China in the global system. In Nepal, often referred to as the yam between two boulders, China has often tried to intrude into its affairs, political and developmental. A trans-continental rail connectivity is Chinas unique stratagem of statecraft. It is constructing a railway network around Indias neck. Be it road or rail links along and inside Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan, its connectivity initiatives are geared towards Indias encirclement. To that can be added its String of Pearls strategy which envisages a port in southern Sri Lankas Hambantota, the Kyaukpyu deep sea port on Myanmars Arakan coast, the Gwadar port in Balochistan. It has pledged support for constructing a deep-water port in Chittagong. China is trying to attract Indias ring of neighbours. India is perceived more like a poor Lazarus. Having galloped at an average annual growth rate at around 10 per cent since 1991, China today boasts a $10.3 trillion GDP (India: $2 trillion), its exports in 2015 at $2.2 trillion (India: $310 billion), and imports at $1.6 trillion (India: $450 billion). The worlds largest exporting country, having overtaken Germany, it has built a war chest worth $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange (India: $366 billion). True, inscrutable China speaks little; India is voluble. They speak in one voice; we in a babel of tongues. We procrastinate till next year and beyond; they act today. India is seen as chugging along, metaphorically, with a bullock-cart mentality; China has zipped ahead like a Formula One racing car. The tortoisehare fable is no longer valid. That India has no deep pockets is understandable; what is inexcusable is its bureaucratic sloth and inertia. The whole machine here moves slovenly; it doesnt deliver on promises made at the highest levels. Consider how India habitually drags its feet on connectivity projects for the North-east with the mainland via Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bangladesh is critically important for regional connectivity for Nepal, Bhutan and India, as well as for linking South Asia and South-east Asia by road and rail. Take the missing rail link between Agartala on the Indian side and the Akhaura rail-head in Bangladesh, a mere 15 km stretch. During her state visit to India in January 2010, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had signed an agreement on its construction. But it was only on 31 July last year that Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, joined by his Bangladesh counterpart Mohammed Mazibul Hoque, laid the foundation for this stretch in Agartala. After the World Bank pulled out of the $3b Padma Bridge four years ago, India could have stepped in not least because Bangladesh had indicated its keen interest. China stepped in with an offer to complete the bridge on BOT terms, extending the suppliers credit of $2billion. Myanmar is the only ASEAN country which shares a land border with India. For long, India has spoken in terms of improving road and rail connections and the building of a new port on Myanmars Arakan coast, but its slothful style of functioning has discouraged neighbours. The Kaladan multimodal transit transport project has since 2008 had to contend with unacceptable time and cost overruns. This combination of road and riverine transport projects would give the landlocked North-east access to the Indian Ocean and save a distance of about 625 km from the circuitous route through Assam and Siliguri corridor. India had once eloquently acclaimed a grand strategy project off the Persian Gulf, 75 km from Gwadar. Chabahar port in southeastern Iran was first considered during former Iranian President Mohammed Khatamis visit to New Delhi in January 2003. It provides linkage via an Iranianbuilt road to the western Afghan border connected to the ZaranjDelaram road that India has built in Afghanistan. As the Chabahar Free Zone CEO Abdolrahim Kordi has lamented: It is all on paper and nothing on the ground.Questions have been raised as to why India has dithered over a mere 18 km rail link for Biratnagar in Nepal, a 15 km line for Bhairahwa, and reconstruction of JaynagarBijalpura line, and the 18 km Hashimara-Phueontsholing line in Bhutan. Instead of whining at Chinas initiative to extend its rail network to Kathmandu, India could well deliberate with Nepal, which ten years ago had recommended a 174 km rail line to be built, connecting Birgunj with Kathmandu at an estimated cost of NRs 2,965 crore. Besides such projects with bilateral economic and social implications, India needs to work for the fruition of important projects for regional/subregional integration such as the motor vehicle agreement, involving Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal; address the infrastructural deficiency in its east and North-east for the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) corridor; the 1,360 km India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway. India would need to generate confidence for the willing participation of countries, avoiding pitfalls that bedevil the countries that stand to benefit from the OBOR project. The $ 7b cost of the China-Laos railway exceeds half of Laoss GDP. Pakistan is estimated to annually repay $ 5b from 2022. Recall the political and social discontent in Central Asian countries where loans of $10b for Kazakhstan, $4b for Turkmenistan, and $10b for SCO members had enjoined upon the debtors provisions like buy China and employ Chinese. A debt to equity swap affords a questionable option to China owning the strategic assets. Sri Lanka has witnessed protests over the port at Hambantota, in which China had invested. With the ongoing Yunnanisation of northern Myanmar, its forests in north and east chopped down, jade mines of the Kachin Hills denuded, China is termed a plundering behemoth. In 2011 Myanmar suspended work on a Chinesefinanced dam at Myitsone. There have been protests in GilgitBaltistan and Balochistan against Chinese imperialism. Geographically, India commands the centre-stage in South Asia, with 51 per cent of the regions surface area, 71 per cent of the population, and 40 per cent of GDP. Most of its neighbours share borders not only with it, also in most cases with one more country in the region. They perforce depend on India for region-wide connectivity. Not as a big brother but an elder brother, it devolves on India to carry forward the process of improving connectivity in the region with understanding, vigour and speed. Pregnant women are twice as likely to be a victim of an assault-related trauma and die from their injuries than an accident-related trauma like car accidents or falls, compared to women who are not pregnant, new research has found. The findings point to an opportunity for intervention to safeguard pregnant women. "The striking results of our study suggest that widespread screening for violence and trauma during pregnancy may provide an opportunity to identify women at risk for death during pregnancy," said lead study author Neha Deshpande from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. For their analysis, the researchers used data from the Pennsylvania Trauma Outcomes Study database, a comprehensive and validated registry which includes records of admissions to all accredited trauma centres in the state. The analysis focused on admissions from 2005 through 2015, and included nearly 45,000 cases of trauma among victims who were defined as women of childbearing age (14-49). The researchers found that pregnant trauma victims, on average, suffered less severe injuries than their non-pregnant counterparts. However, despite less severe injuries, pregnant women were nearly twice as likely to be dead when they arrived at the hospital, or die in the hospital. In particular, assault-related trauma was about three times more deadly than accident-related trauma. Results also showed that nearly one in five pregnant women reported a psychiatric illness or arrived at the hospital following a suicide attempt. The findings are scheduled to be presented at the American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists' (ACOG) annual clinical and scientific meeting in San Diego on Sunday. "Since the typical definition of maternal deaths includes only those directly caused or impacted by pregnancy, it does not include accidental or incidental causes of death, making it difficult to accurately gauge the burden of trauma-related deaths on maternal mortality," said senior author Corrina Oxford, Assistant Professor at Perelman School of Medicine. "However, evidence presented in our study suggests this is a pervasive issue that requires further attention to ensure these women, and their babies, are being properly cared for," Oxford said. A research team has solved a century-old mystery involving a famous red waterfall, known as Blood Falls, in Antarctica, by pointing to a source of salty water. Blood Falls, found in 1911 by the Australian geologist Griffith Taylor, is famous for its sporadic releases of iron-rich salty water from the tongue of Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of West Lake Bonney in the Taylor Valley of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Victoria Land of East Antarctica, Xinhua news agency reported. The brine turns red when the iron contacts air, a mystery since its finding. In a study published in the Journal of Glaciology, the research team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and Colorado College described the brine's path of 300 feet or about 91 meters from beneath Taylor Glacier to the waterfall, and new evidence linking it to a large source of salty water that may have been trapped under the glacier for more than one million years. The team tracked the brine with radio-echo sounding, a radar method that uses two antenna one to transmit electrical pulses and one to receive the signals. "We moved the antennae around the glacier in grid-like patterns so that we could 'see' what was underneath us inside the ice, kind of like a bat uses echolocation to 'see' things around it," co-author Christina Carr, a doctoral student at UAF, said. "The salts in the brine made this discovery possible by amplifying contrast with the fresh glacier ice," said lead author Jessica Badgeley. UAF glaciologist Erin Pettit said her team made another significant discovery that liquid water can persist inside an extremely cold glacier, against previous belief among scientists that this was nearly impossible. "While it sounds counterintuitive, water releases heat as it freezes, and that heat warms the surrounding colder ice," she explained. The heat and the lower freezing temperature of salty water make liquid movement possible. "Taylor Glacier is now the coldest known glacier to have persistently flowing water." For workaholics who do not like getting disturbed by their colleagues, scientists have invented a desk light that automatically switches from green to red, putting them in a Do Not Disturb zone. A scientist from the University of British Columbia (UBC) got the idea for the FlowLight from working with an international engineering company where employees were resorting to putting road safety cones on their desk when they were coding and didn't want to be interrupted. "The light is like displaying your Skype status it tells your colleagues whether you're busy or open for a chat," said Thomas Fritz, Assistant Professor at the UBC who started work on the invention at the University of Zurich. The light shifts between green and red depending on the keyboard and mouse activity. According to Fritz, it is cumbersome to turn on the light manually or close the door or put a cone on your desk once you are engrossed in your work. "When you're interrupted, it can take a long time to get back into your work and it's more likely you'll make mistakes," Fritz said in a news release published on the UBC's website. The light showed positive results when tested with 450 employees who reported lesser interruptions. The test results also showed a change in the office culture with people being more respectful towards each other's time and work. "FlowLight is designed to only turn red for a maximum amount of time each day despite how hard someone works. That feature is key to preventing employees from feeling guilty for not working hard or getting competitive with one another," Fritz noted. Getting a shot at a clinic? Knowing that the doctor is from your hometown, likes the same food as you, or shares your beliefs may reduce your pain, a new study suggests. "When someone believes that something is going to help relieve their pain, their brain naturally releases pain- relieving chemicals," said Elizabeth Losin, assistant professor at the University of Miamiin the US. "Our hypothesis, based on what we are seeing, is that trusting and feeling similar to the doctor who is performing the painful procedure is creating that same kind of placebo pain relief," Losin said. In the study, participants were given a questionnaire that asked about their political ideology, religious and gender role beliefs and practises. They were then separated into two groups and told that they were assigned to the groups based on their questionnaire answers. The goal was to make people from the same group think they had something in common, which might then manifest itself as more positive feelings, like trust, towards participants playing the role of the doctor or the patient from their own group, researchers said. The participants who played the patients interacted with one doctor from their own group and one doctor from the other group, both of their own gender. During the simulated clinical interaction, the doctors performed a pain-induction procedure on the patients by applying heat to their inner forearm, meant to simulate a painful medical procedure like a shot. After the interaction, both the doctors and the patients were asked how similar they felt to each other and how much they trusted each other. Researchers found that the more patients reported trusting their doctor and feeling similar to them, the less pain they reported feeling from the heat on their arm. The study, published in the Journal of Pain, also suggests that participants who experience higher levels of anxiety on a day-to-day basis experienced greater reductions in pain from feeling close to their doctor. Around 50,000 people in Germany's Hannover city will be evacuated from their homes on Sunday while experts defuse five Second World War bombs, officials said on Saturday. The operation is the second largest of its kind carried out in the country, and will affect around a tenth of the city's population, the BBC reported. The buildings set to be evacuated include seven care homes, a clinic, and a tire plant. Officials hope those affected will be able to return home by the evening. The evacuations will begin at 9 a.m., and residents have been advised to take necessary items like medication with them when they leave, as well as turning off gas and electrical appliances. The city has set up a programme of museum tours, children's films, and sporting events to help those being evacuated spend the day as pleasantly as possible. Tens of thousands of soup portions are also being prepared, according to the German news agency DPA. Allied planes bombed Hannover heavily during the war, killing thousands and destroying much of the city, the BBC reported. The largest bomb-related evacuation in Germany since the war happened on Christmas Day last year, in Augsburg. Some 54,000 people were evacuated after a 3.8 tonne bomb was unearthed during building work. US President Donald Trump has lost another nominee he had put forward to be his Army secretary, after lawmakers said the pick was unfit because of his past stances against transsexuals, Muslims and Latinos. Mark Green, Republican senator for Tennessee, yesterday said in a statement to NBC News he was withdrawing due to false and misleading attacks against me. My life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterised and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain, he charged. Green was Trump's second choice for the post of Army secretary after his first, Vincent Viola, a billionaire, withdrew in February, saying he couldn't overcome conflict- of-interest objections because of certain financial interests. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democrats in the US Senate, said Green should not have been nominated in the first place. He cited Green's record of supporting a law to make it easier for businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, for opposing gay marriage, and for believing being transgender is a 'disease'. Green also supports constricting access to legal contraception and makes deeply troubling comments about Muslims, and was thus the wrong choice to lead America's Army, Schumer said in a statement. Trump, while putting former or current generals in key posts in his administration, has had a hard time in filling politically appointed positions at the Pentagon. The posts of secretaries of the Navy and the Air Force remain vacant. A number of other senior offices are not yet officially set to be filled. The Defence Department says several factors are slowing the process down, including notably an extreme political polarisation in Congress between unbending Democrats and Republicans. Strict financial ethics rules are also problematic for candidates. And then there are internal party conflicts, for instance Trump's refusal to put forward any Republican who derided him or his ultimately successful run at the White House. A member of the high command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) called on dissident members of that guerrilla group to free a UN official they kidnapped two days ago. In remarks to Caracol Radio on Friday, Carlos Antonio Lozada urged those who abducted the official to release him as soon as possible, Efe news reported. Harley Lopez, a Colombian who is employed by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and working on an illegal crop substitution program, was kidnapped Wednesday night by FARC dissidents led by Ivan Mordisco. The abduction occurred in Barranquillita, a remote hamlet two hours by land from Miraflores, a municipality in the southeastern Colombian province of Guaviare. Lozada, a member of the FARC's secretariat, said incidents like these placed roadblocks on a path forged with great effort in recent years, referring to the process that led to the signing of a peace agreement between the national government and the FARC last November. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Thursday that a delegation had traveled to the site where the kidnapping occurred to facilitate Lopez's release. The UN System in Colombia, for its part, denounced the kidnapping and demanded that the official be released immediately. The abduction coincided with the arrival of a group of UN Security Council ambassadors who are visiting Colombia this week to demonstrate their support for the peace agreement and for the process that is to lead to the FARC's full laying aside of its weapons by June 1. The firing by Afghan military in Balochistan has ended after the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of Pakistan and Afghanistan held talks over hotline, during which Kabul "admitted its mistake" in identifying the boundary line in the area, media reported on Saturday. The Pakistan DGMO asked his Afghan counterpart to direct his troops to defuse the situation, Dawn news reported. "Afghan director general, military operations, acknowledged that border is in between villages and not at the ditch," Dawn quoted an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement as saying. During the talk, Pakistan DGMO General Sahir Shamshad Mirza reminded Afghan DGMO that the border line ran through the villages, dividing them between the two countries, and Pakistani security forces and civilians were well within their own territory. "Afghan DGMO agreed to take up the matter and issue necessary orders accordingly," the ISPR said adding: "The exchange of fire ended." Afghanistan's envoy here Omar Zakhilwal said: "Cessation of fire and resolving (the matter) through talks had been agreed upon." At least nine people were killed and dozens injured when Afghan border forces fired at a Pakistani census team in Balochistan on Friday. Age of the armchair activist I vividly remember the fervor that had gripped my hometown in Jhapa during the Jana Andolan of 2006. People descended onto the streets by the thousands, determined to overthrow the monarchy in order to reinstate a federal republic. A law in France which bans featuring extremely thin fashion models has come into effect, the media reported. According to the law that came into effect on Friday, models will need to provide a doctor's certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI) a measure of weight in relation to height, the BBC reported. The Health Ministry says the aim of the law is to fight eating disorders and inaccessible ideals of beauty. Digitally altered photos will also have to be labelled and images where a model's appearance has been manipulated will need to be marked "photographie retouchee" (retouched photograph). Employers breaking the law could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($82,000) and up to six months in jail. France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so. Anorexia affects between 30,000 to 40,000 people in France, 90 per cent women, according to health ministry figures. A 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in England, who secured two points higher than geniuses Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in the British Mensa IQ test, has been invited to join the coveted society as a member. Rajgauri Pawar appeared in the British Mensa IQ Test in Manchester last month, and scored 162 the highest possible IQ for someone under the age of 18. She has been invited to join the coveted Mensa IQ test with the highest possible score. Pawar of Cheshire county is among the one per cent of those who sit in the Mensa test and achieve the maximum mark, with the 'genius' benchmark set at 140. She secured 162, two points higher than Einstein and Hawking. She is one of only 20,000 people to achieve the score worldwide, Mensa said. "I was a little nervous before the test but it was fine and I'm really pleased to have done so well," Pawar said. Pawar joins the elite British Mensa IQ Society as a member after her great performance. Her father Dr Surajkumar Pawar said, "This wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of her teachers and the support which my daughter enjoys every day at school". She studies at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, which also expressed pride at her achievement. "Everybody is delighted. She is a very well-liked student and we all expect great things from her," said Andrew Barry, her maths teacher. A Unesco advisory body has recommended adding Japan's island of Okinoshima, a men-only ancient religious site in Fukuoka prefecture, to its World Heritage list, cultural authorities announced on Saturday. The advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), notified Japan of its decision late Friday night, The Japan Times quoted the authorities as saying. It is likely to be endorsed at a meeting of the Unesco World Heritage Committee in Krakow, Poland, in July. If approved as recommended, the island, which is part of the prefecture's Munakata region, will be the 17th set of Japanese cultural assets to be granted World Heritage status. Including natural heritage items and sites, the addition will see the total number of Japanese assets on the list rise to 21. Okinoshima still follow strict taboos from ancient times, including the controversial ban on women from entering the island, reports The Japan Times. Men setting foot on the island are first required to strip all clothes and perform a cleansing ritual. It was also the site of numerous rituals involving prayers for the safety of ships and successful exchanges with the people of the Korean Peninsula and China between the fourth and ninth centuries. Some 80,000 artefact brought as gifts from overseas have been uncovered on the island, including gold rings from the Korean Peninsula and glass cup fragments believed to have come from Persia. These items have all been designated as national treasures. A computer hacking of emails from the campaign of leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron cast a cloud over Sunday's run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen, but the French poll body has urged citizens not to let it distort the sincerity of the ballot. Late on Friday, Macron's En Marche movement said in a statement that it had been the victim of a major hacking operation that saw thousands of emails and other internal communications dumped into the public domain. The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones "in order to create confusion and misinformation". The data leak came as polls predicted Macron was headed for a comfortable victory over Le Pen in Sunday's election. According to reports, surveys showed his lead widening to 62 per cent from 38. The French Election Commission on Saturday began an investigation into the hacking and urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the emails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges. "On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot," the election commission said in a statement. As much as nine gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called Emleaks to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine. Macron was unable to respond to the attack because of a ban on electioneering in the run up to the opening of polling stations at 8 a.m (local time) on Sunday, the Guardian reported. Five new opinion polls published on Friday suggested that Macron would win the election with a share of 62-63 per cent, comfortably defeating the Front National candidate Le Pen. Macron got an added boost with former US President Barack Obama on Thursday endorsing the 39-year old centrist. "I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don't have to run for office again," said Obama in a video statement. "But the French election is very important to the future of France and the values that we care so much about," he added. "The success of France matters to the entire world," continued the 44th U.S. president, who commended Macron, a former investment banker who espouses socially liberal values and center-right economic views, for standing up for "liberal values" and putting forward a "vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world." The French Interior Ministry said that over 50,000 security personnel will be deployed for the second and final round of the presidential election on Sunday in order to ensure maximum security. Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) said the release of thousands of emails, accounting documents and other files was an attempt at "democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the US". The En Marche! statement said the data consisted of "diverse documents, such as emails, accounting documents and contracts" hacked several weeks ago from the personal and professional accounts of some of the movement's staffers. It said "many false documents" had been added to genuine stolen documents on social media "in order to sow doubt and disinformation" as part of an operation "clearly intended to harm the movement". The authentic documents were all lawful, however, and "reflected the normal functioning of an election campaign", the statement said. Their publication "does not alarm us as to the prospect of any questions being raised about their legality". The WikiLeaks website posted a Twitter link to the cache of documents, saying it "contains many tens of thousands (of) emails, photos, attachments up to April 24, 2017". It indicated it was not responsible for the leak itself. Macron, if successful in Sunday's final vote, would become the youngest President in the history of France and the nation's youngest leader since Napoleon. Voters will be making a decision on France's future direction and on its place at the heart of the European Union. If they opt for liberal Macron, they will be backing a candidate who seeks EU reform as well as deeper European integration, in the form of a eurozone budget and eurozone finance ministers. If instead they choose far-right Marine Le Pen she promises quite the opposite. She wants a Europe of nations to replace the EU. For many, however, the campaign has become less about backing Macron and instead about voting against Le Pen, the National Front candidate. According to experts, Macron has led a remarkable campaign, defying the traditional mainstream parties courtesy of his En Marche movement. Macron has been endorsed by President Francois Hollande, Republican candidate Francois Fillon and the Socialist Party's Benoit Hamon. Macron said on Friday he had decided who would be his Prime Minister if he wins Sunday's vote, but would reveal his government after he takes office. Macron's team has previously blamed Russian interests for repeated attempts to hack its systems during the campaign, saying that it had been the target of unsuccessful attempts to steal email credentials since January. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any involvement and said: "These, like other similar accusations, are based on nothing and are pure slander." Russian officials said they have no preferred candidate in the French vote. The outcome of Sunday's runoff will be clear the same day. The results will be officially proclaimed by France's constitutional council on May 11, BBC reported. May 14 marks the end of outgoing President Hollande's term, and is the latest possible date for the inauguration and official transfer of power to his successor. France is the latest nation to see a major election overshadowed by accusations of manipulation through cyber hacking. French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign has complained of being the victim of a "massive and coordinated hacking attack", a statement said. The socio-liberal candidate's team issued the statement late on Friday saying the hacking has lead to the diffusion of "various internal information" on the social media, Xinhua news agency reported. The leakage happened within the final hours of the last campaigning day. Macron is to face off with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a runoff vote on Sunday. A large trove of documents were released online earlier Friday including emails, accounting documents and contracts from the campaign of the centrist candidate. The files were posted anonymously on a sharing website and the person responsible for the posting remained unidentified. Macron's political movement En Marche! (On the Move) later confirmed that it has been hacked. "The files circulating were obtained several weeks ago by hacking into private and public mailboxes of several leaders of the movement," said the statement. It also said the leaked documents only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but the files posted online mixed authentic documents with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation". "It is not a simple hacking operation but an attempt to destabilise the French presidential election," said the statement, adding that it would "take all necessary initiatives with public and private actors" to clarify the incident. Macron has maintained his position over Le Pen, according to surveys conducted by French pollsters. The latest poll released on Thursday by the French Institute of Public Opinion showed that 61 per cent of votes will go to Macron and 40 per cent to Le Pen, consistent with the poll conducted before. UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Saturday played down her Conservative Party's great showing in the local polls, saying that she will not take it for granted and presume a similar landslide in the June 8 general election. Her party gained 558 seats and seized control of 11 councils in the best local election performance by a governing party in 40 years, with the gains mostly coming at the expense of opposition Labour Party and far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP), which lost all of its 145 local authority seats. "I will not take anything for granted and neither will the team I lead, because there is too much at stake," she said. Referring to her Brexit challenges, she added: "The reality is that today, despite the evident will of the British people, we have bureaucrats in Europe who are questioning our resolve to get the right deal. The reality is that only a general election vote for the Conservatives in 34 days' time will strengthen my hand to get the best deal for Britain from Brexit." Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the local election results, which marked massive losses for the party of 320 seats, as "mixed", and insisted his party was "closing the gap" on the Conservatives. "We have five weeks to win the general election so we can fundamentally transform Britain for the many, not the few. We know this is no small task, it is a challenge on a historic scale. But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, can't afford not to seize our moment," he said in a statement. According to experts, if the results of Thursday's polls in Wales, Scotland and county councils in England were repeated nationally, the Conservatives would be on 38 per cent, Labour 27 per cent, the Liberal Democrats 18 per cent and UKIP 5 per cent. This would not translate into a landslide victory for May but a decisive victory for the Tories looks guaranteed, with an estimated 100-seat majority for the ruling party. Much of the Conservative Party success has been attributed to the UKIP vote switching en masse to the Tories as the anti-EU and anti-immigration party suffered a complete wipe-out in Thursday's polls. Forty-five people, including several officials, were sentenced up to 20 years in jail for their alleged negligence and involvement in a landslide caused by huge waste dump in which 73 people were killed in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Four persons had also gone missing in the landslide in December, 2015. The suspects were tried in three courts from April 26 to 28 and the verdict was delivered yesterday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The suspects, mostly from Hong Ao landfill the Yixianglong company which managed the dump site and local governments were tried in the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen, the People's Court of Nanshan district and the People's Court of Bao'an district. Long Renfu, boss of Shenzhen Yixianglong, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined around USD 1.5 million for bribery and negligence which led to the accident. The dump site had a planned storage of four million cubic meters and a maximum stack height of 95 meters, but when the accident happened, its actual storage reached 5.83 million cubic meters and the waste heaps stood as high as 160 meters. Meng Jinghang, former head of the city administration bureau of Shenzhen, was convicted of abuse of power and taking bribes of 24.9 million yuan and 800,000 Hong Kong dollars. He was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and fined eight million yuan. Peng Shuiqing, former head of the Guangming New District management bureau of the Urban Planning, Land and Resources Commission of Shenzhen, was sentenced to 16 years and fined one million yuan for the same offences. Another 17 government officials were sentenced to three to seven years in jail for negligence and abuse of power, while 25 were slapped with penalties. The landslide occurred when a huge waste pile collapsed. The accident resulted in a direct economic loss of 880 million yuan, and was believed to be caused by mismanagement rather than any geological reasons. Pakistan has summoned the Indian envoy here over non-issuance of medical visas to Pakistani nationals seeking treatment in India, Pakistani media reports said on Saturday. According to Geo News, thousands of Pakistanis seeking treatment for liver and heart-related ailments at major hospitals in New Delhi, Chennai and other Indian cities have been affected due to non-issuance of medical visas. India has made it impossible for Pakistanis to get medical visas," an official was quoted as saying by the channel. Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and expressed concern over the issue, it said. However, there was no official confirmation. Dunya TV also reported that "India is making several changes in the rules to make the visa process more complicated while no visa has been granted to any Pakistani citizen during the last two months." "Islamabad has expressed reservation over the move that will affect thousands of Pakistanis travelling to India for health reasons," it reported. India has decided to put all bilateral engagements with Pakistan on hold after Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav was sentenced to death by a military court on spying charges. Tensions have also escalated between the two nations after two Indian security force personnel were killed and mutilated in unprovoked firing by Pakistan on May 1 in Kashmir. Last week, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and demanded action against Pakistani soldiers and commanders responsible for the beheading of the two security force personnel. Russian President Vladimir Putin has backed an inquiry into reported hate crimes and a crackdown on gay people in Chechnya, the media reported. On Friday, Putin said he would personally ask the prosecutor general and interior minister to help Kremlin rights ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova check the reported abuse, the BBC reported. During a meeting with Moskalkova, the president referred to the reports as "rumours, you could say, about what is happening in our North Caucasus with people of non-traditional orientation", a euphemism for gay people. He was responding to the ombudswoman's request to set up a "working group" somewhere in Russia, but not in Chechnya, to "take complaints from citizens" on the reported abuse. In response, Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he was ready to co-operate with the federal authorities on the issue. But Kadyrov again insisted there were no "people of non-traditional orientation" in the predominantly Muslim republic, part of the Russian Federation. Homophobia is widespread in Chechnya. Last month, Natalia Poplevskaya of the Russian LGBT Network said there was "an organised campaign to detain gay men" in Chechnya. Victims of the crackdown who were either gay or just perceived to be gay were being held at a detention centre near Argun, 20km from the capital city of Grozny, she told the BBC. "All the people arrested are homosexual men or perceived as being gay." A Chechen government spokesman, Alvi Karimov, has denied the allegations. Homosexuality was decriminalised in the Russian Federation in 1993 but concern about homophobia remains high. In 2013, parliament passed a law imposing heavy fines for providing information about homosexuality to people under 18. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has denied that her plan to strengthen economic ties with other countries was to compete with China's new Silk Route project to revive the historic economic corridor. "It is not about competing with China, but about emphasising Taiwan's own advantages and promoting mutually beneficial development as a member of the regional community," Tsai said late Friday. The "New Southbound Policy", launched by Tsai in 2016, focuses on economics and trade and is completely different from China's Silk Route project, the President said. Taiwan has "immense soft power capabilities" in terms of healthcare, education and agriculture, among other sectors, and this could not be hindered by either money or politics, Efe news quoted Tsai as saying. According to the government, the policy aims to boost economic ties with the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members, along with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Australia and New Zealand. Taiwan, which wishes to reduce its economic dependence on China, contributed an accumulated foreign investment of $95 billion to the New Southbound countries by December 2016, according to data from the foreign affairs ministry. Since the policy was implemented last year, the policy has shown results including the increase in tourists and foreign students from the region, as well as a rise in trade with Asean countries, Taiwanese minister John Deng said earlier on Friday. A total of 513,457 tourists from the 18 countries visited Taiwan between January and March 2017, an increase of 33.26 per cent from the same period last year, according to cabinet figures. Trade between the island nation and the 18 countries between June 2016 and March 2017 reached $77.87 billion, a 10.11 per cent year-on-year rise. Cement manufacturers seek govt preferential treatment The Nepal Clinker and Cement Manufacturers Association has urged the government to give preferential treatment to make the country self sufficient on cement and clinker production in 4-5 years. Taliban militants overran Qala-e-Zal district in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said. The district in Kunduz province collapsed to the group after two days of heavy clashes between the militants and security forces, Tolo News quoted a provincial official as saying. However, there were no reports of casualties in the clashes, he said. Qala-e-Zal Governor Mahbubullah Sayede on Friday said Taliban militants attacked Aqtepa and that heavy clashes were on in the area. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the Syrian settlement during a phone conversation, media reports said. The diplomats on Friday exchanged views on the tasks of de-escalating tensions, giving stability to the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terror efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the intra-Syrian negotiation process, said a Russian Foreign Ministry statement. Lavrov and Tillerson also touched upon regional and bilateral issues and agreed on further Russia-US contacts, Xinhua news agency reported. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the statement added. Friday's conversation came three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump agreed to intensify the dialogue between Lavrov and Tillerson on the search for options that help consolidate the truce among conflicting factions within Syria. In a latest move toward a political settlement of the chronic civil war, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on Thursday in the Kazakh capital of Astana on the creation of four de-escalation zones in Syria. Also on Friday, the Russian General Staff said that Russia has stopped operations of its military aircraft since May 1 in regions where the de-escalation zones will be officially established on Saturday. US President Donald Trump's second pick for Army secretary announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration, the media reported. "It is with deep regret today (Friday) I am withdrawing my nomination to be the Secretary of the Army," CNN quoted Mark Green as saying in a statement. Green's move to withdraw came after earlier controversial statements he made over LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues and Islam were revealed. He said his decision to pull out was in the wake of this controversy. "To meet these challenges, there should be no distractions. And unfortunately due to false and misleading attacks against me, this nomination has become a distraction," Green said in his statement. "Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterised and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain," he added. Green, a retired Army flight surgeon, was tapped in April as Trump's pick after billionaire Vincent Viola withdrew over issues related to divesting from his financial holdings, reports CNN. Philip Bilden, Trump's pick to be Navy secretary, also withdrew because he was not able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics' requirements for divestment without "undue disruption" of his assets. Green, currently a state senator in Tennessee, faced rising opposition from LGBT activists and Democrats for his past comments about transgender people. In 2016, Green told a tea party group, "if you poll the psychiatrists, they're going to tell you that transgender is a disease". In 2013, Green blasted former President Barack Obama for supporting what he said were "transvestites in uniform". Green is also a self-identified "creationist" who has delivered a lecture arguing against the theory of evolution. President Donald Trump has signed his first piece of major legislation on Friday, a USD 1 trillion spending bill to keep the government operating through September. The bill cleared both houses of Congress this week and Trump signed it into law behind closed doors at his home in central New Jersey, well ahead of a midnight yesterday deadline for some government operations to begin shutting down. But other budget battles lie ahead as the White House and Congress hammer out a spending plan for the fiscal year that starts October 1. Republicans praised USD 15 billion in additional Pentagon spending obtained by Trump, as well as USD 1.5 billion in emergency spending for border security, though not for the wall he has vowed to build along the US-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration, and the extension of a school voucher program in the District of Columbia. Trump also wants a huge military buildup matched by cuts to popular domestic programs and foreign aid accounts. Trump signed the bill despite his objections to numerous provisions included in the measure. One such provision prohibits the Justice Department from using any funds to block implementation of medical marijuana laws by states and US territories. In a signing statement that accompanied the bill and that laid out his objections, Trump said he reserved the right to ignore the provision. He held out the possibility that the administration could pursue legal action against states and territories that legalise marijuana for medical use. Marijuana remains illegal for any purpose under federal law. The White House previously signalled a looming crackdown on recreational pot use. "I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," Trump said in the signing statement, a tool that previous presidents have used to explain their positions on appropriations bills. Trump also objects to provision governing the transfer of prisoners held at a US facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the White House said his objection should not be seen as a shift in policy, but as a statement of his view that the provision could conflict with his constitutional authority and duties in some circumstances. Trump said during the presidential campaign that he wanted the detention center, known as "Gitmo," kept open. At one point, he pledged to "load it up with some bad dudes." Republicans and Democrats who negotiated the spending bill in recent days had successfully defended other accounts Trump had targeted for spending cuts, such as foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, support for the arts and economic development grants, among others. The sweeping, 1,665-page bill also increases spending for NASA, medical research, and the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. Trump took to Twitter earlier this week to complain about the bipartisan process that produced the measure but later changed his tone and began highlighting the spending that was added for the military and for border security. Ukraine has banned American action movie star Steven Seagal as a part of national security threat, after the actor received Russian citizenship. The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe. The service's press secretary later confirmed the ban to other media, reports guardian.com. The letter said such a decision is made when a person has "committed socially dangerous actions that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine's security". The move comes after the actor received citizenship in Russia, which has backed separatists in a simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin handed Seagal a Russian passport and told him he hoped their "personal relationship will remain and continue" during a meeting in the Kremlin last year, reports guardian.com. After the ban, Seagal is the latest of several cultural figures to be blacklisted, including actor Gerard Depardieu. Ukraine previously banned Russia's entry to the Eurovision song contest that Kiev is hosting next week. The water continues to rise as the rain continues to fall in southern Quebec. Above, a break in the rain in Pierrefonds. Congress defends electoral alliance with ruling Maoists Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Ramesh Lekhak has defended the electoral alliance in some local federal units between his party Nepali Congress and the coalition partner CPN (Maoist Centre) saying that the partnership would facilitate the constitution implementation process. Election candidates' vehicles set on fire Unidentified groups have set fire on vehicles used by candidates contesting the upcoming local level polls. Faded zebra crossings a cause for concern When Suresh Thapa, a student at St Xaviers College, was stopped by a traffic cop at Maitighar recently, he was caught off guard. The traffic cop then told him about traffic rules and asked him to use zebra crossings while crossing the road. IED recovered from NC candidates house, 5 held Police have arrested five persons, including a local journalist, for their alleged involvement in planting an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in the house of an election candidate in Kushma, the district headquarters of Parbat. The Sun Temple Konark and the Khajuraho temple complex will soon have better tourist facilities thanks to funds given by the public sector Indian Oil Corporation. The Indian Oil Fundation, the oil giant's non-profit trust which is collaborating with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the National Culture Fund (NCF) to protect and preserve heritage monuments, will spend Rs 45 crore by the end of this year to augment the facilities at Konark. The earlier approved sum was Rs 35 crore. The board of trustees also approved a spend of Rs 32 crore (as against Rs 28 crore approved earlier) at Khajuraho by December 2018. The decisions were taken at the recent meeting of the board of trustees, chaired by secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas. Senior officals of the ASI and IOC also attended the meeting. IOF is already working on a Rs 10 crore project to build facilities at the Harappan site of Dholavira in Great Rann of Kachh, Gujarat and on a Rs 9.5 crore project at Chittorgarh Fort in Rajasthan. The National Culture Fund, through which private and public entities can help protect and preserve heritage monumnets, was created in the 1990s. Though Samajwadi Party leader and younger brother of Mulayam Singh, Shivpal Yadav, has announced the formation of a separate front (Samajwadi Secular Morcha), past records show that such fronts have had an early demise. In the political history of the country, many such fronts came into existence and died their natural deaths. The socialist forces tried to unite in 1952, but they did not have much longevity. Initially, Socialist Party and Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (headed by J.B. Kripalani) merged to form the Praja Samajwadi Party. It split in 1965, leading to the formation of the Samyukta Socialist Party. But, it did not last long. Even Mulayam Singh, who was initially with Chaudhary Charan Singh, fell out with the latter's son Ajit Singh and formed the short-lived Kranti Morcha. In fact, Chaudhary Charan Singh formed the Janata Party (Secular) after the fall of Janata Party government in 1980. The list continues. Former prime minister V.P. Singh revolted against the Rajiv Gandhi government over the Bofors scam and quit the party. He formed the Jan Morcha along with rebel Congress leaders like Arun Nehru, Arif Mohammed Khan and V.C. Shukla but this tie-up, too, did not do well. Raj Narain founded the Democratic Socialist Party but it did not last long. BJP leader and former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh formed the Jan Kranti Party after he fell out with prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, and appointed his son Rajbir its national president. Kalyan Singh floated Rashtriya Kranti Party, too, after he snapped ties with the BJP in 1999. However, on realising that both the fronts did not have a bright future, he returned to the BJPs fold. Veteran Congress leader N.D. Tiwari, too, formed a new front called Congress (T) when he fell out with the Congress. He had dissident leaders Arjun Singh and K. Natwar Singh for company, but when he sensed that the front was not doing well, he returned to the Congress when Sonia Gandhi took over the reins of the party. The Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi on Saturday sacked Kapil Mishra as the water minister, days after he sided with senior party leader Kumar Vishwas who has been at loggerheads with the party leadership. [File] Kapil Mishra | PTI The party also inducted two new facesSeemapuri MLA Rajendra Pal Gautam and Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gehlot into the cabinet. A senior official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Soon after the move, Mishra claimed he would "expose" the involvement of certain AAP leaders in an alleged scam on Saturday. He said he had met the chief minister earlier in the day and handed over documents related to the alleged scam. "I was not informed of the decision and as per my knowledge, it was taken unilaterally by Kejriwal. The Cabinet or the Political Affairs Committee (the AAP's top decision- making body) was not involved," Mishra said. A senior government official said the decision to remove Mishra was taken after it was found that the minister had submitted several "inflated" bills. Sources in the party said Mishra was sacked because of his poor performance. However, the party had considered him as one of the most vocal and active voices in the government until he sided with Vishwas. The opposition parties trying to cobble up unity among disparate parties for the presidential elections may find it slightly difficult. RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has been pushing for such unity and has been maintaining a strong anti-BJP stance, found himself in an unsavoury controversy. Lalu was caught on tape allegedly talking to jailed gangster Mohammad Shahabuddin. Soon after a TV channel aired the alleged conversation on Saturday, the BJP demanded action against him and even asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to break his silence. Nitish's JDU is in alliance with RJD. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was a case of criminal-politician nexus. Are you going to launch criminal proceedings against your ally Lalu Prasad? Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Nitish Kumar. Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, Prasad rubbed it in, as he questioned opposition unity. I want to ask the secular brigade which is working overtime to form an alternative. I will ask Sonia (Gandhi) and Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Yadav and Sitaram Yechury if they will compromise with such heinous crimes to expand their secular umbrella, Prasad said. The Bihar BJP unit even demanded Nitish Kumar's resignation. The non-BJP parties are trying to bring unity among themselves, and as a first step, they wanted to field a candidate against the official candidate of ruling BJP in the upcoming elections to the President's post. The purported conversation has Shahabuddin asking Lalu to take action against the police SP. As Shahabuddin was lodged at Siwan jail when the conversation took place, it makes it even more questionable that how he got hold of a cell phone in prison. The Supreme Court had last month ordered Shahabuddin to be transfered to Tihar jail in Delhi after families of the victims approached court. Women of today talk about issues like smashing glass ceilings and finding the work-life balance. In decades gone by, one woman managed all that, and in a world which was less tuned in to gender sensitivity. She did it quietly, with an elan that would be the hallmark throughout her career. Leila Seth, who died on May 5 at the age of 86 was a trailblazer. She never wore her feminism on her sleeve. In fact, she remained the ideal'' of Indian womanhood, the sindoor and mangalsutra firmly in place. Seth did not need to shed these symbols to prove that she was different, she did that through the way she lived and worked. [File] Justice Leila Seth | PTI Today's generation knows Leila Seth for two main reasons. As the mother of celebrated author Vikram Seth, whose bestselling A Suitable Boy is being made into a BBC teleseries. More contemporarily, she is known for her contributions as a member of the Justice Verma committee which was instituted in 2013 to recommend changes in the laws regarding violence on women, after the Nirbhaya rape and brutalisation shocked the conscience of the country. If today, the laws on rape have been strengthened, and India has got a nuanced approach instead of the black and white one towards gender crimes, it is largely due to the efforts of Seth, who along with Verma and Gopal Swamy sifted through the reams of suggestions that came flooding from across the country. They took in the general sentiment, which was the need to have stricter laws. Yet, they tempered their suggestions keeping in mind all other aspects of human rights and presented a document which was largely the basis for the new, improved laws. Seth, like Verma, was against the death sentence. They kept their personal views in rein as they suggested as long as India had a death sentence, it should be meted out to rapists. Just a day before Seth breathed her last, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for four of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case. Seth may not have been aware of the news development, but her soul will certainly feel satisfied that justice was served, even though, she remained against the death sentence. Seth's legacy, however, encompasses much more. She will always be remembered as the first woman judge of Delhi High Court as well as the first chief justice of a high court in India (Himachal Pradesh). That, however, is only the official qualification. For all those who chafe at motherhood and domesticity robbing themselves the chance of a successful career, a re-read of Seth's life is enlightening. Her education began after marriage and motherhood. The Lucknow born housewife studied law while being with her husband in the UK. It is part of the lore around Seth that the picture of hers, with a baby in arm, was published after she topped her class, chafed the classmates no end. To be bested by a woman, and a mother of a toddler to boot. As a member of the Law Commission of India, with which she was associated till 2000, Seth had a role to play in suggesting improvements in the Hindu Succession Act. If today, daughters have an equal right to ancestral property, they owe a bit of gratitude to to this five feet tall woman. Seth didn't have a problem in being identified with gender issues. She however preferred to carve out a niche in an area that wouldn't be identified as the go-to speciality for a woman. She chose taxation when she began her practice as a barrister. Her career growth didn't hamper her role as a mother. The fact that she is mother to three children with very distinct beliefs and individualituesone son is a celebrated author who came out in the open with his homosexuality, another son chose to be a Buddhist teacher, and a daughter who chose to go into cinemawould give an idea of the liberal environment in which Seth raised her family. There are many reasons to remember Seth. My takeaway is that professional success can co exist with a fulfilling family life. That you can be a crusader even in a sari. That you don't need stilettos to tower over men. North Korea on Friday accused the US Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's intelligence service of a failed plot to assassinate its leader Kim Jong Un with a biochemical bomb at a military parade in Pyongyang. North Korea has a history of accusing the US and South Korea of planning preemptive military attacks and to target its leaders, but analysts said it could be the first time it has accused the allies of an actual assassination attempt. Pyongyang presented extensive details but offered no concrete proof to back its accusations of the plot, which it said could never have succeeded. The CIA and the White House declined to comment on the statement from North Korea's Ministry of State Security, which accused the CIA and South Korea's National Intelligence Service of bribing a North Korean to target the country's "supreme leadership." The charge came just after a visit to South Korea by CIA director Mike Pompeo and at a time of high tension driven by concerns that North Korea may conduct a sixth nuclear test or further missile launches in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The North Korean statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agencywhich often issues shrill, bellicose threats and accusations against the US and South Koreasaid the foreign intelligence agencies "infiltrated" North Korea "to commit state-sponsored terrorism." It said they had "ideologically corrupted" and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kimthe most common Korean surnameand turned him into "a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership." "They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home," KCNA said. "They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances, including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance, is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months," the statement said. It said Kim received two payments of $20,000 and a "satellite transmitter-receiver." The statement did not make clear the timing of the alleged plot, but North Korea conducted an annual military parade in Pyongyang, featuring a display of missiles overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men, on April 15. The North Korean statement said the plan had "been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation." Pyongyang has accused the US and South Korea in the past of plots to assassinate its leadership. It has described regular US-South Korea military exercises as plans to "decapitate" its leadership. South Korean media quoted South Korea's Defence Minister Han Min Koo as saying on January 4 that South Korea would launch a special unit this year tasked with "removing or paralysing" North Korea's command structure in the event of a war. North Korea warned this week that US hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war. It said the plot was a "last-ditch effort" by US "imperialists" and South Korea that had gone "beyond the limits." Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said it could be the first time North Korea had accused the allies of an attempted assassination. He said North Korea's aim could be to divert attention from the use of VX nerve gas to assassinate the estranged half-brother of Kim Jong Un at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February, or to influence South Korea's May 9 election. The airport attack, blamed by the US and Seoul on North Korean agents, has been cited by Washington in its efforts to persuade countries to minimize ties with North Korea. "The regime may also be seeking to influence the upcoming South Korean presidential election in favour of progressive candidate Moon Jae-in by portraying rising tensions on the peninsula as the result of conservative governments in Washington and Seoul," Klingner said. The Trump administration has said that all options, including military, remain on the table in dealing with North Korea, but that it is not pursuing a policy of regime change. It has said its preferred route is to pressure North Korea to given up its nuclear and missile programs through sanctions. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. US President Donald Trump has signed a $1 trillion spending bill to fund the government through the end of September. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that the President has signed the bill, which was cleared by both houses of Congress this week. Trump signed the bill even as lawmakers left out many of his top priorities in the funding bill, including money for the proposed US-Mexico border wall and a provision stripping federal dollars from "sanctuary cities" that resist federal immigration laws. However, it did boost defence spending by $21 billion without an accompanying spike in domestic spending. The green signal from Trump came ahead of a midnight Friday deadline for some government functions to begin shutting down. In Delhi, Mahat invites investments in Nepal Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat stressed the need for foreign investment in Nepal during his keynote address at a symposium on enhancing bilateral economic cooperation with countries having diplomatic relations with Nepal, organised in the Indian capital on Friday. Paramjit Kaur wants an eye for an eye, or ten heads for a head. After forcing officials to let her see the beheaded and mutilated body of her husband, Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh, the mother of three said, Prime Minister Modi had said that for every Indian soldier who was beheaded, we would bring 10 heads of Pakistani soldiers. We first want 10 Pakistani heads. The village of Vain Poin in the border district of Tarn Taran share her grief. The government should give a befitting reply, said the villagers, raising anti-Pakistan slogans. In half a dozen places in Punjab, Pakistani flags were set ablaze. Congress legislator Ramanjit Singh Sikki said it was raw anger on display. Paramjit Singh was to come home in mid-May, finish the work on his new house and shift his family there. People paid their last respects to the soldier right in that house. It was Paramjit Singhs father, Udham Singh, who ensured that the angry widow and mourners did not delay the cremation. I am proud of Paramjit Singh, said the father, quickly adding that the government should give Pakistan a befitting reply. The villagers of Tikenpur in Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh, also want revenge. They have just cremated BSF trooper Prem Sagar. I am proud of my husband. He is a martyr. We, too, should pay back in the same manner, said his wife Gyanwati Devi. His daughter Saroj was inconsolable and she wanted revenge. For one soldier killed by Pakistan we should get 50 heads, she said. The villagers were so upset that they initially refused to cremate the body. They wanted the chief minister to come to the village. Sensing the mood, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath spoke to the members of the family and promised to build a memorial for Sagar. Missing teacher found dead after eight days A teacher, who had gone missing for the past eight days, was found dead at the Chanp Jungle in Rai Motigada of Udayapur district on Friday evening. Petrol bomb defused at Syauli Bazaar in Chitwan A petrol bomb has been defused at Syauli Bazaar at Bharatpur Metropolitan City 10 in Chitwan district on Saturday morning. A turnaround king and former Tory MP has been appointed as chairman of Marks & Spencer. Archie Norman, credited with saving Asda from bankruptcy, will take over from Robert Swannell, who retires on September 1. Norman, 63, has also been chairman of ITV and fund manager Lazard London. Retail hero: M&S' new CEO Archie Norman is credited with saving Asda from bankruptcy He marks the latest change to the top team at the retailer, where struggling clothes sales have dented profits. This week M&S poached Halfords boss Jill McDonald, 52, to run its struggling clothing business. Chief executive Steve Rowe, 49, took over last year. Cambridge graduate Norman joined then-struggling retailer Asda in 1991 and sold it eight years later to WalMart for 6.7bn. He was chief executive of the Tory party and MP for Tunbridge Wells for eight years, stepping down in 2005. In November Marks and Spencer announced a wide-ranging restructure amid falling profits. Rowe announced that he would shut 53 stores across ten international markets. Clive Black, retail analyst at Shore Capital, said: Mr Norman is a formidable appointment. The oil price has fallen nearly 20 per cent in less than four weeks on the back of a drilling boom in the United States. Crude dropped as low as $46.64 a barrel in London yesterday its lowest level since November having been trading above $56 in mid-April. It later recovered but remained below $50 as hedge funds and other speculators abandoned bets on future oil price rises. Dropping: The oil price has fallen nearly 20% We have well and truly entered the capitulation stage, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. Thursday was one of the busiest ever days for oil trading globally with options on 520m barrels changing hands as prices tumbled. This weeks sell-off described as extremely violent by oil analyst Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix sparked claims that fuel prices are not falling fast enough on petrol forecourts across the UK. Supermarket Morrisons said it was cutting prices by another 2p a litre having already reduced diesel by 2p and unleaded by 1p earlier in the week. The RAC welcomed the move but added that many petrol stations are guilty of rocket and feather pricing where fuel prices rise like a rocket when the oil price goes up but fall like a feather when the oil price goes down. Supermarket Morrisons said it was cutting prices by another 2p a litre RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: The unwillingness to cut further and faster this week sadly is proof that rocket and feather pricing does exist and motorists are being ripped off at the pumps. Motorists deserve to be treated fairly. A surge in production in the US, driven by drillers flocking to American shale basins, at a time of subdued global demand has sent the oil price tumbling in recent weeks. Investors are particularly worried about slowing Chinese demand as shale output in the US soars. US oil production has risen by 840,000 barrels a day since last October to 9.3m barrels, with output up by 28,000 barrels a day in the final week of April, according to the Energy Information Administration. The US Energy Department expects production to hit 9.7m barrels a day in 2018 breaking the record set in 1970. Figures from industry experts Baker Hughes show the number of oil rigs operating in the US has more than doubled in the last year, rising by 450 to 870. Stressed: Speculators betting on rising oil prices have thrown in the towel after awful few days on oil market The rig count in Canada has also risen, by 48 to 85, but it is down by 42 to 943 in the rest of the world. The surge in production in North America has overshadowed efforts by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq to limit production by its members in order to prop up prices. Opec member Libya resumed production from its largest field last week, adding more than 200,000 barrels a day to its production. The cartel is plotting to extend the agreement reached in November to cut production beyond June as the US floods the market with cheap oil from the shale revolution. Star oil trader Pierre Andurand, who runs hedge fund Andurand Capital, recently predicted that the price of crude would rise to $70 a barrel this year. But having suffered heavy losses betting on rising prices, he has now reduced his exposure to oil, according to Reuters. The 1.2bn Andurand Commodities Fund lost 11.6 per cent of its value in the first quarter of the year having delivered gains of 22 per cent last year. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said speculators betting on rising oil prices have thrown in the towel after an awful few days on the oil market. He added: The rout increases the pressure on both Opec and non-Opec members to try and agree something if only to try and put a floor under prices. PM Dahal, leader Oli meet to discuss latest political scenario Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and main opposition CPN-UML Chair KP Sharma Oli held a meeting on Saturday to discuss the country's latest political developments. DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA We know what needs to be done. Let us go and do it. This is the strong message sent out to Swaziland and other countries of the world that have been urged to pursue a path of accelerated economic growth that is sustainable and allows the people to not only share but own the economy. The call was made by the Deputy President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa on the closing day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) yesterday. Leaders have also been challenged to return next year with tangible results towards this objective. Ramaphosa, who paid special recognition to the presence of His Majesty the King at the forum, said more attention needed to be focussed on action and deliverables. inclusive His Majesty had joined other regional leaders and delegates from a variety of sectors for a three day interaction on global economic issues under the theme; Achieving inclusive growth through responsive and responsible leadership. In his closing remarks Ramaphosa challenged the delegates to demonstrate the gains that had been made in expanding economic opportunities for the people at the next meeting in 2018. We need to demonstrate how the economic status of women has improved; how we have expanded youth employment and skills development. We need to demonstrate how our governments are managing public finances and allocating resources more effectively to support inclusive growth. We need to demonstrate the measures we have taken to reduce wastage, corruption and mismanagement. Most importantly, we need to demonstrate how we are massively expanding the provision of early childhood development, education, skills and training, he said. Ramaphosa said to achieve progress in these areas, bold and responsible leadership was required. He said governments needed to give leadership, but so too did the private sector, civil society and labour. collective He said countries needed leadership that puts the needs of citizens first. We need a leadership than can build social partnerships for collective action in removing the barriers to economic inclusion. As we leave Durban, let us leave understanding the urgency of our task. Let us leave understanding that our actions now will determine the fate of our continent for many generations to come. We need to work harder, more collaboratively and with focus if we are to ensure that the millions of our peoples who are today marginalised have access to economic opportunity, said the deputy President. Ramaphosa said the meeting underscored the broad consensus among policy makers, business people, development practitioners, activists and communities about what needed to be done. He said from the discussions that had taken place, there is an understanding of the urgency with which we needed to address exclusion, inequality and unemployment. Underpinning all of these discussions is a fundamental imperative. It is this fundamental imperative that is the critical guarantor of sustained and sustainable inclusive growth on the African continent. It is this fundamental imperative that will transform Africa from a continent of promise into a continent of prosperity, he said. Ramaphosa said this fundamental imperative which must inform every policy and every action was the development of the mind of the African child, for it was in the mind of the African child that the future of this continent resided. intellectual It is only by developing the intellectual capacity of the African workforce of tomorrow that we will be able to effectively exploit our abundant resources for the benefit of our people and seize the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution. The development of Africas children and its youth needs to be at the centre of our economic policies, he said. To achieve this, he advised, countries must give just as much attention to maternal health as they do to the expansion of free trade areas. development It means that we must invest as much in early child development as we do in energy and communications infrastructure. It means we must act with urgency to end AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases of poverty not only so that we may save lives, but also so that the people of this continent may prosper. In the main, we need a comprehensive overhaul of our approach to education, he said. MBABANE Children aged five years and under will not be attended to if their birth cards do not have a bar code attached to them. The bar codes are a new phenomenon that has been introduced by the Mbabane Public Health Unit. This has seen several women being turned away without their children attended to because the childrens card did not have the bar code. My preschooler had missed immunisation so when I took her to the Mbabane Government hospital for ring worms they referred me to the Public Health Unit. When I got there I was turned back because of the bar code, said the mother of a five-year-old. She said since she had never heard about the bar code before, the nurses showed her a health card belonging to another child which bore the bar code. She said they explained that they no longer accepted children who did not have bar codes and advised that they were issued at the clinic. They said I should come with my national ID card, the childs birth certificate and national IDs of two witnesses in order to have the bar code printed and attached to my daughters card. The woman said due to the absence of the bar code, she failed to have her child treated on that day. She also mentioned that she was not the only one who was sent packing on the day. The woman said when she got home she relayed the news to her mother (childs grandmother) who then purchased some medication from the pharmacy. motivator In an interview with the childs grandmother, Dudu Fakudze, she said she went to the local health motivator to enquire about the bar code and she was told that it was true. A health motivator from the neighbourhood said they have been educated about the bar code and said she noted an oversight in terms of relating the message to mothers, she said. Fakudze said she asked around because she had personally never heard of such and she also wanted a clear version of the whole issue. Director of Health Services Dr Vusi Magagula said even if there was a requirement of bar codes, people are not supposed to be turned away without receiving treatment. I am not quite familiar with the bar codes you are talking about but I will try to find out what they are and what their purpose is. He said he had already assigned some officers at the hospital to enquire about the bar codes. Principal Secretary Dr Simon Zwane said the codes were meant for individuals who do not have PINs. Through bar code technology, practitioners can see all the previous notes and medical information tied to the unique bar code linked to each patient. The medical staff can easily access records and see where a patient is in terms of his or her medication cycle and any other care the patient may require. When doctors and nurses can work more efficiently and care for patients more thoroughly during their shift, they are saving the hospital time and resources. eliminate Additionally, as more and more healthcare practices convert to electronic medical records, bar code solutions eliminate manual data collection and allow all patient information to be easily and instantly collected and recorded electronically, further reducing potential human error. MBABANE They should have come to court to say we will pay you or we wont pay you, simple thing. This submission was made by the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) legal representative, Lucky Howe, yesterday who added that governments conduct scared him. This was after government lawyers Nhlanhla Dlamini and Letsiwe Magongo applied that the Ministry of Public Service be allowed to consult Cabinet about the issue of paying school heads of departments (HoDs) their March salaries in terms of Grade E1 as ordered by the court. Delivered Their behaviour and conduct scares me. The judgment was delivered on February 24. I dont care how inefficient their system can be. I dont appreciate their attitude, said Howe. The matter was last time postponed to yesterday after government was directed to pay the school HoDs their March salaries in terms of the scale. Dlamini from the chamber of the Attorney General informed the court that the Ministry of Public Service requested for time to consult Cabinet on the issue because the 2016/17 financial year had expired. He said he approached the Ministry of Public Service and there were issues that arose. Dlamini alleged that he had been in contact with Howe and he advised him about meeting with the ministry. Consult He said on Thursday there was a meeting at the ministry about the issue and officials indicated that they needed to consult Cabinet as a stakeholder. Further he explained that they made calculations and it was established that the allocated E850 million budgeted for the salary review would be exceeded resulting in government paying out money that was not budgeted for. Howe said it was worrying that after the matter was adjourned a fortnight ago for the AG to consult on the issue, Dlamini could only approach the ministry on Thursday. He said it was clear that government had no regard for court orders and expressed disappointment that since the matter was adjourned; they could only approach the ministry a day before going to court. He made an example of two matters, which were heard earlier yesterday that are similar to the HoDs issue. On both issues government is called upon to pay its employees, one of whom had allegedly not been paid terminal benefits since 2005 despite a court order. Emphasise Howe was trying to emphasise that government had no regard for orders of the court. He maintained that government should not be listened to because they refused to comply with court orders. They have no regard for court orders. We are brave enough to say we have had enough. They say they met yesterday (Thursday) yet they came to court in haste. Let them respect the court. The attitude by the Attorney General to run away from issues has got to stop. The day they left the court last time they never went to the Public Service. Its disrespectful. They left with an instruction, said Howe. Dlamini told the court that there were consultations made with the ministry, it was only that Howe was not aware of them. MBABANE The countdown has begun for Swazi Mobile to go online. That is the message from Swazi Mobile management, who on Wednesday switched on their system, signalling that they were scheduled for their July deadline to go online commercially. Already, they have over 25 000 subscribers who will receive their sim-cards as per the companys strategy to gauge the markets reaction to their product. As per their State of Intent, when the company was officially handed its operating licence, that in March its equipment would be delivered, in April have it installed, in May it will be testing, and in June have the pre-launch in preparation to go online in July, they are on schedule, according to Managing Director, Victor Gamedze. This was during a media tour of the Swazi Mobile facilities in Mbabane, where the old Pablos Restaurant used to stand. Gamedze said the tour was to sensitise the public that Swazi Mobile was only not just about talk and no action. We are here to update you on what we promised when we launched. Swazi Mobile made five promises, which included empowering ordinary Swazis by giving them the opportunity to own 33 per cent of its shares through the Swaziland Stock Market listing 2017. It also promised to contribute positively to the growth of the industry. Another promise was to give back to the community and be a responsible law abiding corporate citizen. It also promised to construct a nationwide 2G/3G/4G voice and data network that would make the nation proud and lastly, it promised to encourage small and medium size Swazi businesses to be part of the company. We are not just about lip service. We have achieved quite a lot since we started working about a month and half ago actually its been a couple of weeks. We are here to deliver and show the world that we are working, explained Gamedze. Adding, he said some people have been undermining the company and thinking that they would fail just because they were Swazis. They were saying, these guys will never achieve any, just wait and see. Today we are giving you at least 80 per cent of what we have done and in about three weeks, we will be testing, going online. The company is working and it is there for anyone who still doubts. We will achieve what we set out to do. The company explained that just because they had been quiet over the past couple of weeks, some people were starting to think that they were not doing anything and would fail in their promises. Wandile Mtshali, Swazi Mobiles Chief Technical and Information Officer, stated that civil works started on March 22 and significant strides and high priority focus included the state of the art access control and security systems, which were installed. Prez Bhandari to visit Sri Lanka on Friday President Bidya Devi Bhandari is embarking on a four-day official visit to Sri Lanka on Friday. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Mark Hallum Volunteers from painters union District Council 9 and IUPAT Painters & Allied Trades were in Bayside on Earth Day, April 22, to add a much-needed fresh coat of paint to Tourette Association of Americas headquarters. Businesses from the surrounding areas donated paint and supplies to the April 22 effort to deck the new center in a shade of teal, including Sol Rubin Painting in Famingdale, K.P. Painting of Ronkonkoma and Finishing Trade Institute based in Philadelphia. The Tourette Association of America is absolutely thrilled by this generous Earth Day gesture from Baysides DC 9 volunteers and Sol Rubin Painting in Farmingdale, Miller said. Our TAA resources are dedicated almost exclusively to helping children and families who are coping with tics and Tourette disorders, making this community support from neighbors and TAA supporters like John Shepard, Larry Rubin and the DC 9 volunteers particularly meaningful. Their support helps support our mission and uplifts our employees in the place where they do their best work. DC9 is an organization which represents painters and people working in wall covering, architectural metal and glass work, structural steel and bridge painting, drywall finishing, window filming, metal polishing and sign and display painting. According to DC 9 Business Agent John Shepard, many of the volunteers in the project come from Bayside and neighboring communities. Our team is grateful for the opportunity to be able to support TAA and conduct our work in Bayside, a town where many of us grew up and look forward to making this an annual tradition, Shepard said. We are here for Bayside families and proud to be a part of this tight-knit community. The TAA controls a network of 32 chapters and support groups in the United States and has been in operation since 1972. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Tammy Scileppi An emerging filmmaker behind an NYU short set in Queens hopes her project will contribute to the ongoing conversation about bullying in schools, and the acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Screenwriter and director Miyuki Gaeta, draws on her own difficult high school years in her film, entitled (Be)longing, which explores the struggles and challenges of young people who are learning who they are, and longing to belong. The film follows Leilani, a shy and awkward high school freshman, as she forms an unlikely bond with her Physical Education teacher, Misha, who is rumored to be a lesbian, leading both to be targeted by the popular and closeted Rylee and her mean-girl posse. As the title (Be)longing suggests, all three long to fit in and struggle to find a way to belong in this difficult world and the expectations of society, said Gaeta. Since graduating from NYUs Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA last spring, Gaeta has moved back to California, but she shot (Be)longing over three days in November 2015 in Briarwood, where she cast the locker room, hallways, and fields of Archbishop Molloy High School as her fictional Henderson High. And all four actors playing the films main characters still call Queens home three are from Astoria and one hails from Jamaica. Being a teenager is hard enough, because on top of trying to figure out who you are, youre also influenced by social media and what society considers to be cool at your age. Therefore, its hard to stand up for what you believe in when youre also worried about being liked, said Astoria resident Katheryn Parades, who plays Sunny, one of Henderson High Schools aspiring mean girls, who strives to become one of Rylees bitchy sidekicks. Lifelong Astorian Elanna White, who plays shy, misfit freshman Leilani, said her portrayal of the bullying victim made her recall a time when she also experienced what life is like in a situation where you dont quite fit in. Leilani is on the brink of exploring her own sexuality, which is a story that is so important and relevant for our current social climate. At the end of the movie, she ends up being the one with wisdom beyond her years that she didnt even realize she had, said White. To play the role of Rylee the bullying leader of the schools popular clique Meghan Andrews, another Astoria-based actor, said she drew on her characters hidden vulnerability insecurity about her own closeted sexuality. Her repressed insecurity leads to defensive anger, which she takes out on Leilani. On the outside, she picks on her, garnering laughs and respect from her friends. However, there is clearly a lot of sadness and repression beneath her hard exterior. A large part of me finding Rylees character was identifying her defense mechanisms, digging down to the pain underneath it all, and seeing how I could personally relate to that suffering, said Andrews. What the film really is saying is that, yes, we all want to fit in, but no matter what kind of reputation we uphold, we are all going through some kind of inner struggles. Some people just have more of a well-formed facade than others, Gaeta added. Gaeta grew up openly gay in a predominately conservative-Christian community in Southern California and her struggles in school formed the basis for (Be)longing. In elementary school, my classmates would tease me and casually call me a dyke, but I never knew what any of it meant. So, when I started attending junior high, and there was a big rumor that my PE teacher was gay, I instantly gravitated to her, Gaeta recalled. Her confident, gracious teacher became a role model for Gaeta, and helped her persevere in the face of constant bullying. Whether she knew it or not, she was really a totem pole in me surviving the everyday taunts and slurs thrown at me. If this adult was happily living her life the way she wanted, then that was enough hope for me to get through the day. This is something I really wanted Misha, the PE teacher in the film, to embody. Leilanis relationship with her PE teacher Misha, was the embodiment of my relationship with my PE teacher, and Leilanis relationship with Rylee, the bully, is that of me and my classmates, said Gaeta. Being one of the only out gay kids in my school, definitely put a bulls eye on my back. I was bullied a lot and really felt like a target. I didnt feel wanted, I felt alone. Gaeta said representation of young LGBTQ role models really matters. If I had seen more representations of myself in the media, I think it wouldve made my time in high school a little easier, said Gaeta, I hope that diversity continues to grow in the industry, because I realize how many of us need to hear and see ourselves authentically. It is my hope to continue to make content that I know I needed to see growing up. Though the storyline hinges on the LGBTQ experience, Gaeta thinks her film is relevant to all people regardless of orientation. I think many people can relate to being bullied or the dreaded feeling of having to attend high school as a victim, she said. I cant say the film will have this kind of far-reaching affect, but maybe someone will retink their approach on how they associate with peers. Gaeta said that at the very least, she wants her audience to experience a perspective they probably never thought of. To step into the characters shoes and experience the world as Leilani, Misha, or Rylee. Gaeta has submitted (Be)longing to several film festivals, but fame and glory are not her main objectives with the film. Id also be content enough with it being a small-scale thing, and if someone takes an idea or thought away from it, then I think Ive definitely done my job and will call that a success for the film, said Gaeta, who plans on releasing her project on YouTube and Vimeo. Though some people wont relate to the subject matter, said Gaeta, my hope is that (Be)longing will simply give a voice to those who usually arent given one, and inspire them to share their unique stories because someone out there may really need it. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Naeisha Rose The Queens Economic Development Corporation found a very tasteful way to celebrate its 40th ruby anniversary this year. On Tuesday the non-profit, which supports the growth of Queens-based businesses, held its annual Queens Taste event at the New York Hall of Science in Corona. The affair helps to draw attention to new and old food, dessert and drink vendors from across the borough. This is a great opportunity for restaurants from all over the borough to show their fare. We have 130 languages and 120 countries, Borough President Melinda Katz said. Each one brings their own culture, and food, and tradition. All of that gets melded into this event here. Later she thanked the organizers of the event, the more than 600 guests who came out to support the local businesses and asked that everyone continue to ensure the progress of Queens. People want to come to Queens, Katz said. The reason is because of all of you that have made investments in our borough. Diversity is an honor to have in this great borough of Queens and the United States of America. One of the older businesses to appear at the event was Schmidts Candies, which has been around for four generations and is 50 years older than the QEDC. We are over 90 years this year, said owner Margie Schmidt. My grandfather started it in 1926. Scmidt spends seven months a year and 16 hours a day making candies in Woodhaven. She uses natural ingredients and they are preservative free. The candy that Im making, the dark chocolate, the caramel with the almond thats with 60 percent dark chocolate. The centers are handmade, like the jellys and the creams, Schmidt said. One of the newer installments at the venue is the ecommerce business Little Pleasures, which makes platters from recyclable goods and specializes in desserts and appetizers, like the cucumber slices with goat cheese, basil and bruschetta they brought to the event. We started this company two years ago and ever since then weve been a high end caterer with specialized platters, said owner Scott McCullough. All of these platters are made by us from hand. They are all made of post consumer restaurant equipment. Nothing more than $50 for all of them. Pleasures has heated platters, pool platters, platters with music devices and indoor fireworks platters for every type of event. Giving everyone a taste for Cyprus was Harry Ioannidiis, the manager of Zenon Taverna in Astoria. We are a Greek and Cyprian restaurant, Ioannidiis said. There are very few places out there where you can find influences of Cyprus. Its a small island on the Mediterranean sea, but it has a lot of influences from the Middle East, and other parts of Greece as well. The food that Ioannidiis served included fried Halloumi cheese, Sheftalia (char-grilled meatballs), and Cyprian Souvla (meat barbecued over charcoal). He also cooks his food in rosewater, which is one of the Middle Eastern ingredients, and uses cilantro in his meals, something a lot of Europeans do not. Getting some of the attendees a little tipsy was Pat Lao, an ambassador for Chang beer. Its a pale lager from Thailand, Lao said. This is premium quality. We use barley and hops. The finest. Its very crisp, and citrusy with a slight sweetness to it. Although the beer has been in U.S. markets for a decade, Lao hopes that events like this will bring more attention to the brand. As hundreds of guests circled the room sampling food, treats, beer and wine the borough president made an announcement. This is a proclamation of honor for QEDC, Katz said. May 2nd is now Queens Economic Development Day in the borough. Times' Game of the Week Preview: No. 4 Mapletown vs. No. 5 South Side No. 5 South Side gears up to stop the top-scoring No. 4 Mapletown Maples and star running back Landan Stevenson in the quarterfinal Class 1A matchup. Ruling coalition objects to apex court ruling After the Supreme Court rapped on the knuckles of the ruling coalition by issuing an interim order against an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki, top leaders of the Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Centre) hit back at the apex court, saying Fridays ruling has but confirmed that it is interfering in the executives jurisdiction. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate ROTTERDAM After detectives spent hours reviewing surveillance of a bar fight, they found their suspects: a father and son, town police said Friday. And on Saturday they announced the arrest of a third person. George Mott the 3rd, 48, and George Mott the 4th, 22, both of 5th Avenue Troy were arrested after the month-and-a-half investigation into a March 19 brawl at the Blue Jay Tavern on 2721 Broadway. Police responded to the tavern at about midnight for a fight involving 15 to 20 men but suspects had already fled. Three victims were at the scene, two with minor injuries and one who had to be taken to the hospital for bruises and a cut to his forehead which required staples, police said. Mott the 3rd was charged with felony first-degree riot and his son with first-degree gang assault, first-degree riot and fourth-degree conspiracy. Police said the gang assault charge stems from the seriousness of the victim's injuries and the fact that he was assaulted by three or more people. Both were arraigned and sent to the Schenectady County Jail. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. On Saturday, Jacob H. Meyer, 34, was found near his 4th Avenue, Troy, home and arrested in connection with the fight after a short car chase, police said. Meyer was charged with first-degree gang assault, first-degree riot and fourth-degree conspiracy. He was arraigned and sent to the Schenectady County jail, and later charged with promoting prison contraband after drugs were found on him when he entered the jail, police said. Police said they expect to make more arrests. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Colonie What does New York really think of women? The Times Union and Women@Work magazine sought answers to that question with the recent View on Women survey, and will mull some of the latest results on June 7 at The Women@Work Summit on the New York State of Women. The daylong gathering is open to women from throughout New York who care about equality and empowerment in the workplace. Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in the state, the event will focus on the issues that women face in careers, leadership and education. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver the keynote address. Attendees will also hear from expert speakers and participate in panel discussions on financial empowerment, workplace diversity and how to help other women succeed. The Summit will be highly interactive so participants can have a stake in the discussion and help craft an agenda of specific action items that will carry forward in Women@Work magazine, in the news media and on social media platforms. More Information Women@Work Summit details What: A daylong conference open to women throughout New York who care about equality and empowerment in the workplace. When: Wednesday, June 7; doors open at 8:30 a.m., event ends at 5:30 p.m. Includes lunch and an after-reception with Hearst wine and hors d'oeuvres. Where: Hearst Media Center, 645 Albany Shaker Road, Colonie Cost: $120 Register at: https://www.womenatworksummit.eventbrite.com Not a member of Women@Work? Sign up at TUWomenatwork.com. See More Collapse Fueling the discussions and agenda setting will be newly released data from the Women@Work VOW survey, which highlights attitudes toward women in New York, and is an initiative of the Times Union, created through the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at SUNY New Paltz and conducted by Siena College Research Institute. The June summit will be held at the Hearst Media Center, a state-of-the-art conference center at the Times Union facility at 645 Albany-Shaker Road. The presenting sponsor for the Summit is Bank of America. Additional sponsors include Holistic Wealth Advisors, MVP Health Care and The College of Saint Rose. In addition to Lt. Gov. Hochul, other confirmed speakers include: Dr. Shai Butler, vice president for Student Success & Engagement and Chief Diversity Officer, The College of Saint Rose; Dr. Thomas Caulfield, senior vice president and general manager, Fab 8, GlobalFoundries; Stacy Clifford, president and founder, Holistic Wealth Advisors; Kymlee Dorsey, transgender advocate and owner of STYLE Wellness and Hair Studio; Denise Gonick, president and CEO, MVP Health Care; Corey L. Jamison, president and CEO, Corey Jamison Consulting; Daquetta Jones, executive director, YWCA of the Greater Capital Region; Robbin Jorgensen, founder and CEO, Women Igniting Change; Georgia Kelly, Sr. financial advisor, Merrill Lynch; Francesca LoPorto-Brandow, director, People and Culture, GreyCastle Security; Jennifer L. MacPhee, market president, Bank of America; Nancy Martin, manager, Engineering Leadership Development, GE Global Research Center; Zory Pineiro, EMT-P, Emergency Medical Services educator and owner of MedWise-EMS; Sheilah R. Sable, owner, Call Sheilah! Your Personal Concierge; Dr. Carolyn Stefanco, president, The College of Saint Rose; Leah Threatte-Bojnowski, senior associate at Nixon Peabody LLP; Janeen Uzzell, head of Women in Technology, GE Global Research; Dr. Eve Waltermaurer, director of Research & Evaluation at SUNY New Paltz' Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives; Benita Zahn, anchor/health reporter, WNYT. Almost 20 years after founding Bombers Burrito Bar with money won at a casino, Albany-based restaurateur Matt Baumgartner has sold the business. The new owner, Jimmy Vann, is the longtime vice president of operations for Bombers and has run all of its locations since a Bombers opened in Schenectady, eight years ago next week. Vann started at Bombers, in its original, Lark Street space in Albany, in early 1998, a few months after Baumgartner opened. The two previously worked together at the former Big House brewpub in downtown Albany. "I've always been in love with this brand," Vann tells me. "I love what it stands for, I love our products, and I want to share it." He says patrons will encounter few changes; because he's been in charge for years, with Baumgartner functioning essentially as a hands-off financial partner, Vann says Bombers will continue as it long has, though the menu may be tweaked in small ways later this year with the addition of 20th-anniversary items while keeping customer favorites. The menu is the same in Albany, at 258 Lark St., and Schenectady, at 447 State St. A limited menu is available in a satellite location that opened in September at the Empire State Plaza. "He lives and breathes Bombers. I'm confident this will be seamless," Baumgarter says. He admits to a certain degree of nostalgic wistfulness about no longer being involved with a business he created two decades ago, after a $15,000 win at Turning Stone Casino in central New York enabled him to quit his job as a GE management trainee to open Bombers in October 1997. But the knowledge that his longtime friend and colleague is taking over the company makes the transition easier, he says. The two will continue to work together, as Vann is a minority partner in The Olde English Pub & Pantry in Albany; Baumgartner is the principal owner of the pub, and as part of the deal for Vann to purchase Bombers, Baumgartner is taking over Vann's stake in another brand they created, Wolff's Biergarten. (Vann was invested in Wolff's in Albany and Troy, but not its Schenectady and Syracuse locations.) Neither would disclose financial terms of the sale, which was finalized this morning. Baumgartner tells me he will continue to own the Bombers buildings in Albany and Schenectady. Read the rest and discuss the story on Table Hopping, and continue viewing the slideshow to see more recent developments in the Capital Region dining scene. Thousands of people throughout eastern New York were still without power Saturday morning after high winds downed power lines Friday. More than 1,300 National Grid customers in Rensselaer County were without power. The National Grid power outage map estimated power would be restored by 11 p.m. Saturday. Energy company NYSEG said late Friday night that it was still working Saturday to assist 4,000 customers who were without power in Columbia, Rensselaer and Washington counties. Power is expected to be restored to a majority of customers by 11 p.m. Saturday, but some customers may not see power back on until Sunday, according to a NYSEG news release. There were more than 6,200 people affected by the outages at one point, the company said. Outages in Rensselaer County alone left more than 1,600 people without power as of late Saturday morning, according to the company's website. The weather front, which brought with it winds up to 50 m.p.h., and caught even the National Weather Service by surprise. "It was unusual," said NWS meteorologist Neil Stuart said of the wind storm."You had high pressure that was anchored over Canada and New England while a warm front was moving north." "When the rain ended the atmosphere dried out and allowed some of the heavier dry air to work its way to the surface from just above the ground. The fact that the warm front was there and that the warm front was kind of battling the high pressure to the north and east." Stuart said the Capital Region will likely see sporadic rain throughout the next few days, with a drop in temperature expected late next week. That could mean snow in high-elevation parts of eastern New York like the Catskills and Adirondack mountains. "That'd be unusual too," he said. Here's the five-day forecast for Albany: Saturday: High of 69, low of 48. Partly cloudy. Sunday: High of 54, low of 39 with a 40 percent chance of rain. Monday: High of 48, low of 37. Overcast. Tuesday: High of 53, low of 38. Overcast. Wednesday: High of 59, low of 43. Mostly cloudy. THE ISSUE: The state budget came and went with no ethical reforms. THE STAKES: The governor and lawmakers still have plenty of time to address corruption if they will. More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse Every year there's talk of ethics reform in New York, and every year it largely gets lost in the massive state budget shuffle. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders effectively shrug and say, well, we tried. Baloney. They haven't even broken a sweat. It's all the more baffling in light of another big corruption scandal, this one involving alleged pay-to-play practices at corporations connected to SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and some longtime associates of Mr. Cuomo's, plus the pending appeals of the previous two legislative leaders, who are both facing prison time. If the governor, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and the rest of the Legislature think these issues have faded from public memory, they are mistaken. Yet budget negotiations came and went with no major reforms of either the state procurement process or the billions in pork-barrel spending that New York seems to never quite be able to bring itself to make entirely transparent. Some good ideas were on the table. There was a package of reforms to ensure that the state comptroller's office reviews most state contracts particularly deals with state-affiliated nonprofit corporations like those under a cloud at SUNY Poly. There was a "database of deals" that would show all the state subsidies and tax breaks for private entities. There was a unified economic development budget one place where people could find the state's billions of dollars in spending in the name of job creation. And there was a straightforward rule to require legislators to disclose whether they had any conflicts of interest in any of the many pots of money they steer to pet projects. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. And what did we get? Even more pork barrel spending an estimated $2 billion more, according to Citizen's Union scattered through some 60 different accounts. No database of deals. No procurement reform. Not even a requirement that legislators reveal those possible conflicts of interest. Instead we get proposals that muddy the waters, like Mr. Cuomo's call for more inspectors general and prosecutors to keep an eye on the executive branch but only inside the executive branch, rather than in the independently elected comptroller's office, whose audits could nip shady deals in the bud rather than try to find them after the fact. Meanwhile, billions keep going out the Capitol's door without full accountability. A report from Pew Charitable Trusts this past week identified New York as one of the states that lacks a well-designed plan to regularly evaluate whether major tax incentives are producing the promised public benefits, like jobs. It's this simple: New Yorkers deserve to know where their money goes; whether it's well spent; whether officials are enriching themselves or their friends, family or political benefactors; and that someone is minding the store. There is still more than a month in the legislative session. Plenty of time to get this done. This is not that complicated. In fact, it's got to be easier than coming up with sorry excuses year after year after year. David Brooks cannot accept that his Republican Party is no more. Brooks' column "Fracturing of Western Civilization," April 26, catalogues the decline of the West and its traditional liberal values and decries the rise of nationalism and thuggery. He sees no hope for the world as we know it. He is wrong. There is one thing to celebrate: the rising of the people. Since President Donald Trump's inauguration, people have taken to the streets demanding a return to our basic values. There were Women's Marches at sites worldwide, spontaneous demonstrations at airports protesting Trump's ban on Muslims, Tax Day marches, Earth Day and Science Marches, and the enormous People's Climate March nationwide, demanding government action to save the climate from fossil foolishness and climate chaos. SC stays impeachment motion against Karki The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday issued an interim order against an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki and directed the Legislature-Parliament to put the motion on hold, allowing the first female head of the judiciary to return to the bench. [May 05, 2017] EQUITY ALERT: Rosen Law Firm Files Securities Class Action Lawsuit Against Vince Holding Corp. - VNCE Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces it has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of purchasers of Vince Holding Corp. (NYSE:VNCE) securities from December 8, 2016 through April 27, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit seeks to recover damages for Vince investors under the federal securities laws. To join the Vince class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-1114.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. or Kevin Chan, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action. NO CLASS HAS YET BEEN CERTIFIED IN THE ABOVE ACTION. UNTIL A CLASS IS CERTIFIED, YOU ARE NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL UNLESS YOU RETAIN ONE. YOU MAY ALSO REMAIN AN ABSENT CLASS MEMBER AND DO NOTHING AT THIS POINT. YOU MAY RETAIN COUNSEL OF YOUR CHOICE. According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) during the transition from legacy Kellwood systems, Vince experienced issues related to integrating its new enterprise resource planning systems; and (2) as a result, defendants' statements about Vince's business, operations and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than July 5, 2017. If you wish to join the litigation, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-1114.html or to discuss your rights or interests regarding this class action, please contact Phillip Kim or Kevin Chan of Rosen Law Firm toll free at 866-767-3653 or via email at [email protected] or [email protected]. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn (News - Alert): https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm or on Twitter (News - Alert): https://twitter.com/rosen_firm. Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170505005915/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Proposed Kentucky constitutional amendment to end right to an abortion defeated in vote Stalled Pokhara International Airport Project back on track The international airport project in Pokhara is back on track after stalling for a year as issues over opening an escrow account have been settled. Telcos with Rs50m capital must go public The telecommunications companies with a capital investment of Rs50 million are now required to go public, as per the amended Company Act 2007 that came into effect on Tuesday. Parenting sure can be difficult in this age of ubiquitous technology. But there are ways in which tech can help. Over in our Forums, Sharon M writes: "I want to limit the screen time that children spend on their Android devices. Do you have any good ideas?" So your kids won't stay off their pocket-sized screens? Unfortunately, while Google does build some parental controls into Android and the Google Play store, those controls dont include time limits. Youll have to install a third-party app. If your kids are using Samsung Galaxy smartphones released in the past couple of years, check out the free Samsung Marshmallow app. It allows adults to set app-by-app time limits, so parents can make sure their kids aren't spending too much time in Candy Crush or Chrome. Samsung Marshmallow makes parents and children work together to set reasonable limits on screen time and allowed apps. It runs on Samsung Galaxy S5 through S8 and S8+, Note 4 and Note 5, A5 through A9, and J3 through J7 phones. (Image credit: ESET Parental Control for Android offers time limits for free. Credit: ESET) For those parents whose kids dont have Samsung Galaxy phones, or who want firmer control over their kids app usage, we recommend ESET Parental Control for Android, which works on most Android smartphones and tablets. Its a freemium app, and youll have to pay $30 per year to get all the features, but the time limits come with the free version. Parents can set time limitations for what the app calls Fun & Games apps, and allows parents to designate any app as such. ESET even allows adults to block access to apps during specific times of day, so Junior won't lose sleep staying up all night. Need tech advice? To get answers fast, head straight to the Tom's Guide Forums for the latest tips from our resident experts and fellow members. You can also comment on this article or email us directly at helpme@tomsguide.com. After we sadly had to announce last week that Tash Sultana had to pull out of the Maitland leg of Groovin The Moo due to illness, Tash has announced today that she will also not be appearing at the Bendigo leg of the festival today. Tashs management took to Facebook earlier today to announce the news to fans. Tash will not be performing at GTM Bendigo today due to seeing a vocal chord specialist & getting back to 100%, the post began. Tash is very much looking forward to seeing everyone in Canberra tomorrow & rejoining the tour. Tash will not be performing at GTM Bendigo today due to seeing a vocal chord specialist & getting back to 100%. Tash is Posted by Tash Sultana onFriday, May 5, 2017 While Tash is out of the Bendigo show for today, her management seems to be quite hopeful that shell be able to make it to the Canberra leg of the festival tomorrow. Heres hoping these ongoing vocal chord issues shes suffering from start to improve soon! San Cisco have been kicking around for a number of years now, and in that time, theyve managed to amass a pretty sizeable following in their home country, but theyve also gained a pretty huge fanbase overseas as well, including places such as Norway, Poland, South Africa and even South America and Mexico, two places in which Aussie music doesnt usually make a big impression. When San Cisco first burst onto the scene in 2011 with their quirky pop hit Awkward, fans from all over the world fell in love with them. Awkwards video clip was also a huge selling point as well, going viral, and having gained well over nine million views at the time of writing. The groups fame continued to rise, with fans all over taking notice of them thanks in part to their Like A Version cover of Daft Punks Get Lucky in 2013. Of course, with fans all over the world, a band can become pretty in demand, which is exactly what happened to San Cisco. So, how does a band respond to all these demands from fans in far off countries to bring their live show to them? Well, they do just that. In support of their debut album in 2013, San Cisco embarked on a tour of Europe, which also saw them visit a few other countries such as Russia and South Africa. Then, in early 2015, the group toured the US and neighbouring Mexico, gaining rapturous applause from the fans there. Well, most of the band did, since bass player Nick Gardner was unable to make the trip due to shooting himself in the foot. No, thats not us turning a phrase, he actually shot himself in the foot. So with a young Aussie band like San Cisco making waves in countries like Mexico, and the continent of South America, thats got to give them a pretty big boost of confidence. But the question still remains as to why exactly did San Cisco appeal to fans in these countries, after all, theyre not exactly known as prolific connoisseurs of Aussie music. As for what San Cisco make of the whole thing, heres what Jordi had to say to Tone Deaf: Im not too sure [why we appealed to Mexico and SA]! I can only assume it has something to do with our music. We really appreciate how engaged our Mexico and South American fans are on our social media. How could we not come and say hello? It was crazy, we had no idea it would be such a great turnout. It was very humbling. The fans were incredibly kind, I think they are just some of the more passionate fans that we have had the pleasure to meet. Unfortunately, I dont really have any advice [about how to recreate it] because we sort of fell into this position we were just very fortunate to connect with our Mexican and SA fans. As for future shows around the world, Jordi states theyd like to make it back to Mexico, even if its just for the sake of their bass player. Nick hasnt never been to Mexico City, but he is very much looking forward to our next trip, he says. Likewise, when asked about which other countries theyd like to see more fans emerge from, Jordi responded with a sly I would love to be able to play more shows in Japan. With San Ciscos new album The Water our now, and with their fan base growing as rapidly as it has over the course of their existence, who knows, Jordi might just get his wish, and the next time San Cisco make their way over to Japan, they might just be the next big thing. San Ciscos new album The Water is out now. Stream the record below, and be sure to catch the band when they visit your neck of the woods when their album tour kicks off later this month. San Cisco The Water album tour Ronnie Burt, head of VisitKC, the convention and visitor's bureau in Kansas City, was quoted by The Kansas City Star complaining about an effort by activists to require a vote on the proposed convention hotel. He said, "I think it's irresponsible for a small group of people to try to derail so much success in this city." Overland Park home targeted in drive-by shooting familiar to police OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - When a drive-by shooter unleashed the barrage of bullets at a home Thursday evening, the next-door neighbor was mowing his yard and children were out playing at a house across the street. "There was a lot of them 'pow! pow! pow! pow! pow!' A lot of them. Local news hopes that this spate of bullets is an isolated incident and not a sign of trending trouble. Take a look: "Nick Haines, Dave Helling, Stacey Cameron, Steve Kraske and Bryan Lowry discuss the biggest accomplishments and failures in the Kansas and Missouri legislative sessions, the one year anniversary of the streetcar, the Catholic archdiocese stance on Girl Scouts, the Schlitterbahn settlement, the delay of Verruckt demolition and the implications of Kevin Yoder's vote on the new health care bill." This morning let's take a look at the world according to the last remaining people paid to tell other people what to think under the guise of "journalism" or whatever . . .Description:You decide . . . THE KANSAS CITY TOY TRAIN STREETCAR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY IS TAINTED BY A DESPICABLE ASSAULT ON LOCAL DEMOCRACY AND WIDESPREAD CORPORATE TAX BREAK LOOTING BY THE GREEDY CIVIC ELITE!!! - The secret TDD ballots to establish and now extend the streetcar represent one of the most dangerous assaults on local Democracy that this town has seen in years and pave the way to even more voter suppression down the line given that whenever there's a real vote, Kansas City has REJECTED the toy train . . . So these rigged elections of only a few hundred people are devised to create the illusion of compliance. - The TWO-MILLION passenger count and ridership stats are just as phony and FAKE as Kansas City's 25 million tourist chest thumping. Our TKC Blog Community has constantly chronicled how bigger and better cities mysteriously fall behind KCMO's tiny line with DOCUMENTATION AND EVIDENCE while streetcar loyalists rely on their garbage numbers with no independent verification. - The so-called development along the streetcar line is ALMOST COMPLETELY SUBSIDIZED BY TAX BREAKS. Corporate welfare for lawyers, political cronies and local power players is the top concern for the line and not all of those rapidly aging hipsters they trot out to spread their hype about the creative class or whatever. MOST OF THE BIGGEST TOY TRAIN STREETCAR SUPPORTERS ARE ON THE PAYROLL AS CONSULTANTS!!! Today Kansas City politicos, consultants and their clueless acolytes will present the illusion of public support for one of the most controversial and corrupt development schemes this town has ever witnessed.To wit . . .Still, we don't want to be a total spoilsport soNow some fact checking that conflicted local MSM won't bother to report:Moreover, one of the most annoying aspects of all this hype is an assault on the sensibilities and trust of Kansas City residents...Midwestern folk don't like questioning people's motives and so this fake advocacy is now a hallmark of Mayor Sly's administration which is why these dweebs get so angry and hurt in the comments as political operatives in their late 30s bragging about "youth" and "generational change" is kinda desperate.Nevertheless . . .The party continues . . .Our blog community advocates for more equitable distribution of transit resources across Kansas City and tech innovation that will connect the East Side, urban core and the Northland with all of KCMO and beyond. . . Meanwhile so many greedy and despicable consultants seem only to be worried about delivering more people to a fading luxury shopping district. Get it straight: The hipster "good guys" are nothing more than looters with good style ready to use any rhetorical tactic at their disposal in order to keep their checks coming.Sadly, residents can't weigh in on the fate of this scam because most voters have been cut out of the process whilst, today, a bunch of fools, thieves and politicians celebrate one of the most corrupt anniversaries in Kansas City history.Developing . . . "In 2013 cell phone video shows Ryan Stokes and friends arguing with another group at Power and Light over a missing cell phone until pepper spray went off. Several people, including Stokes, ran from the scene. Police caught up with Stokes in a parking lot near 13th and McGee. According to the certificate of commendation awarded to the police officer who shot him, when Stokes refused to drop a weapon, the officer had no choice but to shoot and kill him. But according to the lawsuit filed by the family, Stokes was unarmed." "Stokes' friends and family have been at every Police Board of Commissioners meeting this year pushing for policy changes . . . So Stokes family and friends will continue to push for changes including equipping all officers with body cameras." Nice round-up of a local debate with authorities that continues . . .Maybe the best round-up of the case we've seen so far in a single paragraph:Aftermath:Right now at least 200 KCPD officers have tested body cams . . . But a department-wide policy has yet to be devised amid privacy and legal concerns.Developing . . . The art of conversation Once, maybe three years ago, on one of those large rickety blue buses that circumambulate the Ring Road, I sat next to a middle-aged man in crisp cotton pants and shirt, holding a wooden walking stick. He started to talk to me as I pulled out a newspaper to read. A tourist plane recently experienced a terrifying incident, leaving its passengers panicking and crying. The aircraft fell down to about 18,000 feet before it made an emergency landing in Crete. According to the Daily Mail, the Nordwind Airbus A321-200 came from Greece and was bound for St.Petersburg. The aircraft flew up to 25,000 feet when suddenly, it began falling to about 7,000 feet over the Meditteranean before making an emergency landing just 40 minutes after taking off. One of the passengers posted on social media and said, "Friends, we nearly crashed. To be more precise, we fell about three kilometers." However, reports state that the drop almost reached five kilometers. According to Express, the cause of the incident was a problem in cabin pressure and not the engines stalling. But despite the pressure problems, the oxygen masks were not released as the plane was falling down. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the passengers were scared and experienced ear pains, especially the children. Also, one of the passengers complained that the flight attendants didn't attempt to control the situation which caused panic in the crowd. The crew also didn't inform the passengers that they were landing. Nordwind hasn't released a statement yet with regards to the incident. But a representative from the Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg said, "We know that the flight of Nordwind aviation company from Heraklion was canceled. Passengers are being brought back on another plane." When the plane successfully performed the emergency landing, local police and emergency personnel took care of the situation. The traumatized passengers were transferred to another flight to Russia while the ten-year-old aircraft was put under inspection. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 US Democratic leader Pelosi arriving today Top US Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is arriving in Nepal on a three-day visit on Saturday, just a week ahead of scheduled local level polls. She is the highest US political leader to visit Nepal in recent past. Wings to fly For Stella Koirala, the next frontier for Nepali women is the sky. In the past decade, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), popularly referred to as drones, have grown into a $1.3 billion industry, New York, May 6 An Indian-American engineer, who suffered prolonged domestic abuse at the hands of her Silicon Valley CEO husband, is outraged that the plea bargain reached with her husband is too lenient and justice is being thwarted as her abuser remains in the US. Neha Rastogi, a former Apple engineer, had told Sunnyvale police in July that her husband Abhishek Gattani, co-founder of customer analytics startup Cuberon and a native of India had beaten her. The two have a three-year-old daughter together. Gattani, 37, had been charged with two felony counts of domestic violence, but pleaded no contest to felony accessory and a misdemeanor count of offensive touching. Prosecutors agreed to a six-month jail term, to be served through a weekend work programme with 30 days of incarceration. With credits, Gattani could spend 15 days in custody. Sentencing is now scheduled for June 15. "The system has shown me that concerns over Abhishek's immigration status have completely trampled rights of my daughter, and my own," Rastogi said in a report in the San Francisco Chronicle. Rastogi had recorded a nearly six-minute-long video on May 17 last year, in which one could hear repeated thwacks in the presence of their then two-year-old daughter. She said Gattani used to verbally abuse her as well. The report said the case offers an insight into California's efforts to shield immigrants from undue harm, including a 2015 law that requires prosecutors to consider ways to head off deportations. The report added that in an April 28 memo to the court, Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Brian Welch defended the plea deal as tough, saying it "struck hard blows, but not foul ones," and took into account several factors, including the strength of the evidence, inconsistent statements in the past by Rastogi, and the likelihood of winning a conviction if the case went to trial. "Rastogi laments that Defendant is once again getting a reduction of felony domestic violence charges because of possible immigration consequences, as he did in 2013, but that is not so," Welch said, referring to Gattani's previous arrest on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) In the 2013 case, Gattani had pleaded to a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace. Welch said his immigration status was only one factor in the decision to offer that disposition, just as it is only one factor in the current case. Rastogi said after the 2013 case, she had hoped that Gattani "could change his ways and that I could give a complete family to our child." But she said she was done defending her husband. Prosecutors noted that Gattani has been in the country lawfully since 2003, has a child who is a US citizen, and employs nine people at his company. Prosecutors sought a conviction "that would hold the defendant accountable but at the same time not make the defendant necessarily deportable," Welch said in an interview to the paper. Gattani's attorney Michael Paez has also called the settlement fair, adding that he too was legally obligated to protect his client's immigration interests. While Rastogi is a US citizen, Gattani is believed to have a green card, according to court documents. Rastogi criticised the deal while making a victim-impact statement to the court. She said in her court statement that her husband of 10 years abused her "for the entire duration" of their marriage by hitting her, pulling her hair, calling her names and threatening to kill her. In a statement to a divorce judge in 2016, Rastogi said she was eight months pregnant when Gattani allegedly beat her during the 2013 incident that prompted his arrest. However, prosecutors said in their April 28 memo, she actually gave birth to her daughter three months before that incident. PTI Muzaffarnagar, May 6 Eight people were injured in a clash between farmers of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana over a land dispute near Mawi village in Shamli district. Trouble erupted on Friday evening after some Haryana farmers tried to encroach upon a piece of land belonging to UP farmers on the banks of the Yamuna. Eight people were injured in the violence. Upon receiving information about the clash, police of both states said they brough t the situation under control. Boundary disputes often arise between the farmers of UP and Haryana of the two states when Yamuna changes its course from time to time, the police said. Meanwhile, some farmers staged a protest outside Kairana police station over the incident. PTI Parveen Arora Tribune News Service Karnal, May 6 Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim today offered all assistance to the state government in making Haryana clean. He said they could clean the whole state in four or five days. I have told the Chief Minister that we are ready to extend full support to the government in making the state clean, he added. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also requested the dera chief to launch more such campaigns in the state. The dera chief along with the Chief Minister launched cleanliness drive Ho prithvi saaf, Mitey rog Abhishaap (cleanse the planet earth to remove disease and curse) at the Committee Chowk here today. It is the 31st cleanliness drive by the dera in the country and second in Karnal, in which lakhs of followers from across the country actively participated to clean Karnal city. According to the administration, around 700 tonnes of garbage was lifted till 5 pm while the city generates around 100 tonnes of waste every day. The city has been divided into four zones and the district administration has made all arrangements for quick lifting of garbage. In 2013, garbage remained dumped in the city for several days. Around 200 tractor-trolleys and 40 JCB machines were engaged in garbage lifting today. Ram Rahim emphasised a good system to ensure cleanliness and asked the government to enact law for it as prevalent in foreign countries. He said his next film Jattu Engineer to be released on May 19 is based on cleanliness. The Chief Minister, meanwhile, announced tax exemption to the film for six months in Haryana. The dear chief said he ventured into films to spread the message of spirituality and goodness, particularly among youths. The dera chief and the Chief Minister urged people to keep their surroundings clean and avoid defecation in the open. Ram Rahim appealed to the people to get toilets constructed at the houses of poor people. He said the dera had been working to conserve indigenous cow and people should serve the cow as its milk and urine are beneficial for humans. He appreciated the initiative of the government to tag cattle. He also asked the youth to say not to drugs. Khattar said 14 districts (rural areas) had become open defecation free (ODF) while other districts would accomplish the target by June 23. Urban areas would also be made ODF by September 25. The Chief Minister appreciated the functioning of the Karnal Municipal Corporation for getting the 65th place in the Swachh Survekshan 2017 and being adjudged the cleanest city in north India in the 2 lakh to 10 lakh population category. On a suggestion of making the dera chief the brand ambassador of Haryana on cleanliness, Khattar said he would think over it. Tribune News Service Ambala, May 6 A special task force under a police officer of IG rank will crack down on trafficking of illicit liquor, narcotics and illegal arms in the state. This was stated by DGP BS Sandhu while replying to media queries at the Officers Institute here today. A plan has been prepared and a special task force will be set up to tackle illegal trafficking. Two officers of SP rank will be a part of the force. They will keep a tab on the NCR region and border with Punjab to stop trafficking, he said. Swift action on public complaints, making the police active, womens safety, implementation of traffic rules, modernisation of control rooms, better vehicles and infrastructure improvement will be our priorities, he said. There is shortage of 15,000 police personnel in the state and efforts are being made to fill all vacancies by 2018. To ensure no police complaint goes unheard, mitra kaksh will be set up at all police stations within six months, he stated. There have been some issues with Operation Durga, but we will make sure that no one faces any inconvenience. It will be reviewed on Monday. On a positive note, there has been a considerable drop in incidents of snatching over the last one week, he added. Asked about blue beacons still being used atop police vehicles, the DGP said, A notification has been issued by the Centre that multi-coloured beacons can be used for emergency services. We will send a proposal to the government on Monday regarding the use of beacons by the police. Coming to power theft cases, he said directions had been issued that house allotment would be cancelled if any official was found using electricity connection in an unauthorised manner. He said directions had been issued to all police stations and institutes to use authorised power connections and clear bills on time. To deal with cyber crime, Sandhu said a cyber police station would be set up in Panchkula and its unit in each district. Specialists would be hired through outsourcing, he added. Earlier, the DGP attended an event at the police auditorium. After the district level, police DAV public schools would be set up at the subdivision level, he said. ADGP RC Mishra and SP Abhishek Jorwal were present. Tribune News Service Dharamsala, May 6 Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Saturday said Amit Shah was not a big shot and that the BJP chief's visit would not have any impact in Himachal. Virbhadra, who is in Kangra, paid obeisance at Chamunda Devi temple and visited Radha Soami sect. Shah was on a two-day visit to Kangra, where he took stock of the political situation in the state. He also interacted with party leaders and told them to refrain from infighting. Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in Himachal later this year. Kangra district, which has one-fourth of the state population with 15 of the 68 Assembly segments, parties cannot afford to ignore it as the district is vital in giving numbers to form the government. Pratibha Chauhabn Tribune News Service Shimla, May 6 Under fire from the BJP over corruption and reports that some Congress leaders could desert the party, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh held talks with party MLAs at an emergency meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) here today. Transport Minister GS Bali and Chief Parliamentary Secretaries Rajesh Dharmani and Neeraj Bharti did not attend the meeting. Most other leaders, including those perceived to be opposed to the CM, were present. The meeting was held at Oak Over, the official residence of the Chief Minister. Kaul Singh, Health and Family Welfare Minister, had not arrived but sent a message that he would join late and was on his way from Mandi while Ayurveda Minister Karan Singh could not attend the meeting as he is under treatment at AIIMS, Delhi. The decision to convene the CLP meeting had taken most by surprise as it is mostly held before the commencement of the session. The CLP meet at a time when the CM is passing through a crisis, both on the legal and political front, is being considered significant. This is also being viewed as a damage-control exercise by Virbhadra loyalists, where an attempt is being made to keep the MLAs in good humour to consolidate the position of the CM. The meeting was convened at a time when speculation was rife that some senior Congress leaders could join the BJP. Talks were held at the meeting as to how to strengthen the party in view of the Shimla Municipal Corporation and Assembly polls later this year. Virbhadra, Sukhu go into huddle Tribune News Service Dharamsala, May 6 Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and son Vikramaditya today paid obeisance at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas centre at Paror and the Chamunda Devi temple in Kangra district. The CM was here on a short trip to Kangra district with his family to pay obeisance at the religious places. He was here despite the fact that a meeting of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) had been convened later this evening. The visit to the Radha Soami centre could be attributed to both political and spiritual reasons. Paror is the second biggest dera of the sect after Beas in Punjab. The two-day congregation at Paror (on May 6 and 7) attracted more than 1 lakh devotees, as per sources in security agencies. Most devotees were from different parts of Himachal and border areas of Punjab. On visit to the Radha Soami centre, the CM was accompanied by Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma and MLA Ajay Mahajan. After his spiritual tour, the CM stayed for some time at the Circuit House in Dharamsala and listened to the grievances of people. Interacting with mediapersons, the CM played down the visit of national president of the BJP Amit Shah to Kangra district. When asked, the CM said, Amit Shah kon si bari top hai (Amit Shah is not a big shot). He further said the Congress was well-positioned in Himachal and the recent visits of the Prime Minister and Amit Shah were not going to have any impact. The Congress would return to power. Asked if he would prefer to change HPCC president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu before the coming Assembly elections, the CM said the internal elections to the state body of the Congress were going on and they would see once the results were out. He blamed BJP MP from Hamirpur Anurag Thakur for the delay in Central University project. As for the progress on the second capital status to Dharamsala, the CM said the shifting of government offices to the second capital would take time. Responding to a query from newsmen, the CM said the Congress would consider new faces for the coming Assembly elections. Hearing in Virbhadra case tomorrow New Delh: A special court would decide on Monday whether to take cognisance of a CBI chargesheet against Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets worth around Rs 10 crore. Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal, who was scheduled to take up the matter on Saturday, put up the case for May 8. The chargesheet claims that Singh had amassed assets worth around Rs 10 crore which were disproportionate by 192 per cent to his total income during his tenure as a Union minister. PTI Jammu, May 6 A 12-year-old boy from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has been arrested by the army after he crossed over into the Indian territory along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district, an army official said on Saturday. The Army strongly suspects that he was sent by the Pakistan Army along with terrorists to conduct probe of infiltration routes and patrol track of the army. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) A patrol of the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) who had crossed over to this side of LoC on Friday evening in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district, a defence spokesman said. The boy named Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, who is the son of a retired Baloch Regiment soldier of Dunger Pel village in PoK, was found moving suspiciously near the LoC on our side, he said. On being challenged by the armys patrol party, the boy immediately surrendered, the spokesman said. It is suspected that the boy was sent by the terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the Line of Control, army sources said. This exposes Pakistan on the human rights front as to how a 12-year-old child has been pushed by them into the Indian territory to probe LoC areas seeded with minefields in a highly militarised belt, army sources said. The boy will be handed over to the police by the Army for further investigation. PTI Dinesh Manhotra and Amit Khajuria Tribune News Service Jammu, May 6 Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday reiterated her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in Kashmir. She said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the mandate of the nation to address the 70-year-old Kashmir issue. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Humein daldal se koi agar bahar nikal sakta hai toh woh PM Modi hain. Woh jo faisla karenge, mulk support karega, she said. Pehle wale PM bhi Pakistan jana chahte the, par zurrat nahin ki. PM Modi Lahore gaye, yeh taqat ki nishani hai, Mehbooba said. She said Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had improved the relations between India and Pakistan, which were again disturbed due to the "lack of initiative" by the previous governments. Read: BJP endorses Mehboobas views on PM Modi, J&K Mehbooba was addressing a gathering after inaugurating a flyover here. The function was disrupted twice following a minor clash between former Congress minister Gulchain Singh Charak and BJP workers. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can resolve the Kashmir problem as he has a strong mandate and appealed to him to pull the valley out of morass. Mufti, whose government is battling spiralling protests in the valley, said the situation is the result of pent up anger due to failure of the UPA government to continue with the policy started by the previous NDA government in Jammu and Kashmir during her father Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed's rule. "I say today with authority and I will be criticised for it also. If anyone can find a solution to Jammu and Kashmir problem, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she said. She gave credit to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former chief minister Mufti Sayeed for starting the "chapter of peace" in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002. "They tried their best to bring out Kashmir out of this unfortunate situation. He was successful to a large extent in shortest of period," Mehbooba said. "There was ceasefire (along Indo-Pak border) during Vajpayee's rule. There were talks with L K Advani (in Kashmir). There was beginning of the process of opening (cross-LoC) roads." The chief minister said militancy declined during that period and there was peace on the borders. "These were not small developments. But unfortunately Mufti was out of the government and Vajpayeeji left, and the process came to grinding halt," the PDP leader lamented. She alleged that the UPA regime at the centre and the state government did not carry forward the process thinking "everything is peaceful and there is no need to do anything further". "There was pent-up lava. It started to come out when the youths were out on the streets in 2008 and then 2009 and 2010. This lava has now spread to the streets and we are forced to face this situation," she said. The CM said while her government is trying to improve the situation in Kashmir, there are some forces which do not want it. "Mufti sahib, who had seen a dream, shook hands with the Prime Minister of our country Narendra Modi, who has got the mandate of the people," she said. With agencies Rifat Mohidin Tribune News Service Srinagar, May 6 A total of 27 students were hurt in the massive clashes that rocked Handwara and Pulwama today as the student demonstrations continued for the third week in the Valley. The Superintendent of Police, Handwara, said:The students of Degree College, Handwara, took out a protest rally on the main road and started throwing stones on vehicles and police personnel, which resulted in clashes. The situation was brought under control. The principal of Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Handwara, said due to the massive teargas shelling outside the school around 50 girls fell unconscious and were admitted to hospital. Our students were inside the school, which is half a kilometre away from Degree College, but the teargas smoke spread inside the school where 1,500 girls were there. Due to the intense shelling around 50 students collapsed on the ground. We admitted them to a hospital as a precautionary measure, the principal said, adding that most of the students were discharged after treatment. Students of Degree College alleged that they were protesting peacefully but the police started throwing teargas shells on them without any reason in which many of them were injured. The students said many girls fainted on the spot due to inhaling of smoke. Chief Medical Officer, Handwara, Dr Khan said 27 injured students were treated after clashes and most of them had minor injuries. One girl had a head injury, but after CT scan she was declared stable. The students were discharged after treatment, the doctor said. The clashes also erupted in south Kashmirs Newa Pulwama when the students of Higher Secondary School threw stones at a nearby Army camp. The minor clashes happened today when the students threw stones at an Army camp but due to the presence of teachers and police the protesters were immediately pacified, said Superintendent of Police, Pulwama, Mohammad Rayees Bhat. Paris, May 6 A law in France, which bans featuring extremely thin fashion models, has come into effect, the media reported. According to the law that came into effect on Friday, models will need to provide a doctor's certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight in relation to height, the BBC reported. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The Health Ministry says the aim of the law is to fight eating disorders and inaccessible ideals of beauty. Digitally altered photos will also have to be labelled and images where a model's appearance has been manipulated will need to be marked "photographie retouchee" (retouched photograph). Employers breaking the law could face fines of up to 75,000 euros ($82,000) and up to six months in jail. France is not the first country to legislate on underweight models - Italy, Spain and Israel have all done so. Anorexia affects between 30,000 to 40,000 people in France, 90 per cent women, according to health ministry figures. IANS SD Sharma Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi is hailed as the John Keats of Punjabi Poetry for taking the genre to a spectacular level. Credited with 10 anthologies of his immortal poetry, the youngest ever recipient of Sahitya Akademi award for his epic Loona, Shiv Batalvi left the world on May 7 at the age of 36. On her visit to India in February, Arun Batalvi, wife of Shiv Batalvi, said, Established educational and cultural organizations must institute annual awards in his name and give scholarships to carry forward his rich legacy. Sahitya Akademies should translate his works in various languages. On his 44th death anniversary, we interact with his contemporary writers, artists and admirers and this is what they have to say A man of modern sensibility A poet of folk consciousness and modern sensibility, Shiv Batalvi excelled with freshness of vocabulary, diction, imagery and rhythmic flow of words which appear to be floating in sea waves or in the air. Gulzar Singh Sandhu, author and Chairman Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi Rooted to the soil Poet and poetry finds space beyond times and Shiv Kumar very much lives in our hearts through his ornate poetry and shall remain etched in the hearts of Punjabi poetry lovers for generations to come. He was undeniably the torch-bearer of main tradition of Punjabi with newer dimensions which is a celebration of love in all manifestations. His poetic idiom represented the ethos of the people and rooted in the soil with language of collective psyche. Rana Nayar, litterateur and scholar Of fragrance & fire Poets like Shiv Batalvi descend on this earth once after centuries. He has shared his own personal pain, agony and heartfelt deception in love. I believe that he is a poet of fragrance and fire both. I have grown up singing and eulogizing his poetry. Satinder Satti, chairperson, Punjab Arts Council He empowered women Shiv Batalvi had visualized and observed aspects of life with diverse angles which influenced his poetic genius. Basically a poet of romance he had the honour of being the king of pathos too. Shiv had empowered the women with a voice and spirit to fight for her rights in his magnum opus Loona. Satish Verma, playwright and secretary, Punjab Sahit Akademi Prateek Chauhan Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 6 Some 450 students of Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya were admitted to four different hospitals on Saturday after they fell ill due to gas leakage from a depot in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area. The depot is located near a school in Railway Colony, Tughlakabad. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Most students were discharged in a few hours, although four of them were kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit of two hospitals. A call was received around 7 am about the gas leakage and seven fire-tenders were rushed to the spot, said a senior officer from the Delhi Fire Services, adding that the source of leakage was not clear. Students were taken to four hospitals Hamdard Institute Of Medical Sciences and Research, Apollo, Batra and ESIC. South East Delhi DCP Romil Banniya said, Some chemical leakage at customs area of Tughlaqabad depot has caused irritation in eye to around 50 girl student studying at the school and they have been admitted to a hospital". School vice-principal said, "Some students complained of irritation in eyes and throat due to gas leak, following which they were admitted to the hospital." Union Minister J P Nadda also directed the Centre-run hospitals to help the victims of a gas leak. Meanwhile, the Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Opposition Leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta visited the victims at ESI Hospital and enquired about their condition. Hitting out at the Delhi government, Gupta sought a high-level probe into the incident. Gupta said it is "negligence" on the part of school authorities. "At the time of opening the school there were signs of gas leakage. Why didn't the school authorities stop the students from entering the school? (sic)," he tweeted. The chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Swati Maliwal, met the children admitted in the Batra hospital and demanded shifting of the container depot. "V (sic) sad. It is a man made disaster as no need for Container Depot to be in centre of Delhi. Shud b imm (sic) shifted, accountability fixed for gas leak," she tweeted. (With PTI inputs) New Delhi, May 6 At least 475 girl students were hospitalised today after toxic fumes spread due to chemical leakage at a container depot near two schools in southeast Delhis Tughlaqabad area. Most students were discharged after a few hours, while four were kept under observation in the ICU of two hospitals. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School (GGSSS) were rushed to nearby hospitals as they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness this morning. I started vomiting and was not able to open my eyes. All other students around me too were coughing, vomiting and feeling uneasy, said Poonam, a GGSSS student admitted to Majeedia hospital. According to the police, a call was received at 7.35 am about a chemical leakage at the customs area of Tughlaqabad depot, near the schools. The chemical in the container, which experts believe was chloromethyl pyridine imported from China, was to be taken to Sonepat. Of 475 students, 400 were discharged by evening. A case has been registered against unknown persons, police said. TNS New Delhi, May 6 Leila Seth died the way she lived in the service of people. The first woman chief justice of a high court (Himachal Pradesh, in 1991), and author Vikram Seths mother, she had pledged to donate her organs before her death. Seth was 86. She died of a cardiac seizure last night. My brother Vikram, sister and our other family members are here, her younger son Shantum Seth said. There would be no funeral as the organs had been donated. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) In Delhi, acclaimed art historian Kapila Vatsyayan described the demise of Justice Leila Seth as a huge loss. For a person with so many public positions to possess, such qualities of humility and humaneness are rare. I had the greatest admiration for Justice Seth and had met her only a couple of weeks ago, Vatsyayan, Life Trustee of the Indian International Centre, said. Vatsyayan said Justice Seth was an extraordinary person, a wonderful jurist, a writer par excellence, a mother of very talented children and a rare human being. She was the rarest of rare persons in the sense of being the first woman chief justice of a high court and also the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court, Vatsyayan said, recalling Justice Seths contributions to IIC in her two terms as an elected trustee. As a longtime friend of Justice Seth, Vatsyayan, a former Rajya Sabha MP, mentioned how wonderful a mother the deceased jurist was to her famous children. Vatsyayan, 88, said their association began 20 years ago when the two came together to serve as IIC trustees. Justice Seth, who led an illustrious life, was most recently hailed for her radical contributions to the Justice JS Verma Commission report on criminal law amendments proposed in the wake of the 2012 Delhi gangrape case. As a member of the commission headed by the late Justice Verma, Justice Seth argued passionately for the inclusion of marital rape as a crime under the IPC and flagged links between missing children and sexual trafficking. Despite an overwhelming opinion against criminalisation of marital rape on grounds that it could be misused and would be difficult to prove, Justice Seth argued for making it an IPC offence, saying it would provide women in abusive marriages a tool to protect themselves. Earlier, Justice Seth turned over a new leaf in womens rights when she contributed to historic changes in the Hindu Succession Act, giving daughters equal rights in joint family property. She was also a vocal critic of Section 377 of IPC, which criminalises same-sex relationships and persistently spoke for LGBT rights. TNS Tribune News Service Jammu, May 6 Calling for a concerted dialogue process, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone could pull the Valley out of the prevailing morass. Kashmir is not problem of a year or two, it is a 70-year-long issue which needs to be solved by addressing all related aspects, she said at a public function here. I know some people will criticise my stand, but I am of the firm opinion that the Prime Minister alone can permanently solve this vexed problem because he has the mandate of the entire nation, she said. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Claiming that Modi had the moral authority as well as the courage to take bold decisions, she recalled his unscheduled visit to Lahore on December 25, 2015, to normalise ties with Pakistan. Without naming a political or separatist group, she said some vested interests were hell-bent on fomenting trouble in the Valley. I am hopeful that the PM, who has the mandate of the people, will take effective steps to restore peace. Invoking the Vajpayee doctrine, she recalled, Vajpayeeji and Mufti Saheb had initiated sincere efforts which yielded encouraging results. Facing immense pressure from within her party (PDP) to convince the Centre to hold parleys, Mehbooba has reason to invoke Vajpayee. It was during the latters tenure as PM that several pro-peace measures, including talks with the Hurriyat Conference and a ceasefire along the 720-km-long international border with Pakistan, were initiated. Also, LK Advani, then Deputy PM, had on January 22, 2004, held talks with separatists. Thereafter, no efforts were made to carry forward the agenda of peace and reconciliation. It was owing to the causal approach of the UPA government and successive dispensations in Jammu and Kashmir that the state saw unprecedented violence in 2008-2010, she claimed. There was pent-up lava. It started to pour out in 2008 and then in 2009-2010. This lava has now spread to the streets and we are forced to face this situation, she said. As the CM was speaking, senior Congress leader Gulchain Singh Charak interrupted her, demanding two civil secretariats, one in Jammu and another in Srinagar. Charak, who later walked out in protest, was heckled by some workers. Anantnag, May 6 Three persons, including a policeman, were killed and three injured when militants attacked a police party in Mirbazar area of South Kashmirs Kulgam district late this evening. The injured were shifted to Srinagar. A militant too died in the incident. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) SP Vaid, DGP, said the militants opened fire on a police party inspecting an accident site along the Srinagar-Jammu highway where civilians had gathered too. A policeman, two civilians and a militant were killed. Another militant was injured. TNS Keki Daruwalla While we applaud the victorious Modi chariot moving from one state and municipal ward to another, we notice the aggression in the air. The day Yogi Adityanath takes over as UP CM, shops are burnt in Meerut. A day after Captain takes over in Punjab, students protesting fee hikes are charged with sedition. On April 9, an MLA from Telangana, T Raja Singh, states he would behead those against Ram Temple. LIKE ants and beavers, mankind is also very busy. I suppose nature has programmed its creatures genetically to take life seriously. Bernard Shaw called this thrust and trajectory Life Force, and Bergson meant something similar when he talked of elan vital. These nineteenth centurions had already bid goodbye to the Lord. What are we busy with, does anyone bother to ruminate on the matter? So while Donald Trump wants NATO to pay for American troops stationed in Europe, and is pondering over how to neutralise North Koreas nuclear arsenal, and the New Yorker and liberal America are pondering over how to neuter Donald Trump; and Mexico is breathing easier that the threatened wall may never be built between Mexico and the US; and while Israel bombs the next arms dump loaned by the Iranians who are pro-Assad and pro-Hezbollah, is something happening outside the field of our perception? For one thing, while all this is happening, planet earth is going round the sun at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour. Imagine this huge planet (and it is not huge, by the way) spinning away and yet circling the sun. Aristotle was a flat earth walah. He thought if the earth was spinning, we all would be falling on the ground all the time, sensible guy! Now all this spinning and circling is happening due to gravity, and our great leaders Zarathustra, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, didnt know anything about gravity. Nor did Rama and Krishna theres no mention of it in the Gita, and Valmiki was innocent of physics and chemistry and the Big Bang that formed the universe, as we know it. But their followers go on fighting, and how! Do we realise that in about four thousand years of our civilisation, we are on the brink of endangering a planet four billion years old? North Korea and America are talking nuclear war. Am surprised no one points a finger at Pakistan, which gave nuclear know how to North Korea, and is still the conduit for Chinese equipment supplies to that benighted country with its insane leadership. Lately the Pakistan army is into beheading! Also, are we seriously tackling climate change which could ruin the planet? Just look at President Trumps stance! Even China and India, the fastest growing economies, must pull up their boot straps in this regard. As war zones go, the most mysterious warring is by Sunnis against Shias. In Pakistan, Sunni youths kill themselves while bombing a Shia shrine and the worshippers day after day. How viciously they must have been indoctrinated. ISIS does the same. Syria is running with blood, look what the Arab Spring has come to. Nearer home, I remember the Indian Charlie of the 1940s asking Hey Bhagwan, what about Hindustan? The clamour between far right and secularists is too loud and accusatory. Mr Amit Shah is already finalising plans to oust Mamata Banerjee in the next Bengal elections, and the cow vigilantes are sharpening their knives under the grinder, waiting for the next Muslim cattle transporter they could kill and get away with. Others of the same ilk are deciding where to beat up Leela Bhansali for that upcoming film on Padmini and Allauddin Khilji. Let us not forget Hashimpura where the PAC shot over forty Muslims and dumped them in a canal, while under secular regimes! While we applaud the victorious Modi chariot moving from one state and municipal ward to another, we notice the aggression in the air. The day Yogi Adityanath takes over as UP Chief Minister, shops are burnt in Meerut. A day after the Captain takes over in Punjab, students protesting against fee hikes are charged with sedition. On April 9, an MLA from Telangana, T Raja Singh, states he would behead those against the Ram Temple. The Prime Minister is very correct when he asks people not to politicise the triple talaq issue. However, the same day, speaking in Basti district, Swami Prasad Maurya, UP Cabinet Minister (formerly in Mayawatis Cabinet) queered the pitch by saying that they (Muslims) use the practice of triple talaq on smallest issues to satisfy their lust and desire. He added, If someone only for satisfying his lust keeps changing his wives and forces his own wife and children to beg on the streets, it is not right. The PM is moving towards a modus vivendi, but what messages do ministers give? Mr Modi again needs to be congratulated for making a special mention of the work of the Vachana Sahitya scholar MM Kalburgi as chief editor of the twenty-three volumes of the Bhakti saint Basaveshwaras Vachanas in 23 languages Now all this is very fine, but Mr Modi didnt say a word when we writers protested against the Sahitya Akademis apathy at the murder of Prof Kalburgi, and returned our awards in 2015. Historians, scientists and artists joined the protest, but the Culture Minister scoffed at us, and the Prime Minister did not say a word. Cynics say that the BJP needs the Lingayat vote in the coming elections in Karnataka, hence the courting of Kalburgi. Yes and while the earth races at 19 miles per second around the sun, heres a sketchy comparison in size, through diameters. The earth has a diameter of 13,000 miles, Jupiter 150,000, Sun 1,400,000, Sirius 2,500,000 and Aldebaran 64,000,000 miles. The sun will collapse, as all stars do, perhaps in four or five billion years and the earth will come to an end. Wonderful, isnt it, that ancient poets like Titus Lucretius Carus (95-52 BC) should have intuitively grasped this inevitable truth. Read just one quatrain from his poem De rerum natura (The Nature of Things). Globed from the atoms, falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift. How puny our animosities look against this backdrop? Yash Goyal Jaipur, May 6 An Indigo plane carrying 174 passengers from Delhi to Jaipur on Saturday collided with an aerobridge after it landed at Jaipur International Airport. All passengers were alighted safely, a senior official of Airport Directorate told The Tribune. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) At 10 am, left wing of the flight 6E-942 got damaged after hitting an aerobridge which connected the plane with the passengers' exit. The damaged plane was later moved aside. More than 150 passengers who were to board the same plane to Delhi were taken by another Indigo flight after a delay of a couple of hours. Airlines would inquire into the mishap, though the high speed of the plane was probably the main reason of collision with aerobridge, the airport official apprehended. Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 6 Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Colombo next week seems to have run into trouble with the Lankan Opposition calling for a black flag protest. The joint Opposition called for the protest alleging that the Sri Lankan government was trying to sell the country to India. Its President Maithripala Sirisena, however, slammed the Opposition calls for the protest. Modi is scheduled to visit Lanka from May 12 to 14 to participate in the Vesak Day celebrations where he is slated to be the chief guest at the opening ceremony in Colombo. This will be Modis second visit to the island nation. In the backdrop of the Vesak Celebrations, which is a traditional holiday celebrated annually on the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha, India will try and reach an agreement with Colombo that will give New Delhi the rights of development of the Trincomalee port. This also came up for discussion during the recent visit of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to India about a fortnight ago. The Opposition protests today that the Lankan government is trying to sell the country to India bears an uncanny resemblance to the protests faced by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa that he was selling the country to China. That was one of the factors that led to Rajapaksas loss in the elections later. For India, getting the rights to develop the Trincomalee port is important to counter the growing Chinese influence in Lanka. Chinese investments in Lanka have increased steeply in the last decade and India will find it hard to match the level. Sri Lanka currently has $8 billion debt to China and in that context Sri Lanka will now find it hard to shrug off China. Mumbai, May 6 A 12-year-old girl died after being hit by a descending lift at a building in suburban Bandra East, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred at Ashiyana Apartment last evening. Kunot Asif Zaveri, the victim, was waiting for the lift on the third floor with one of her relatives. The grill door of the lift shaft had a gaping hole through which she stuck her neck in, trying to see if the lift was coming, thinking it to be on a lower floor. However, the lift, which was on the sixth floor, came down before she had the chance to pull out her head, and hit her. "She was taken to a hospital where she succumbed during the treatment due to heavy bleeding," said senior inspector Vasudeo Jamdade of Nirmal Nagar police station. "We have registered accidental death report. Further investigation is on," Jamdade said. PTI Saba Naqvi Last week I met Masoumeh Ebtekar, one of the four vice presidents of Iran and the most powerful woman in the government of the Islamic Republic. Unlike most Iranians, she was fluent in English that she spoke with an American accent. I was fascinated during the hour-long conversation as she was one of the few women I had met who willfully wore a chador (unlike the stylish head scarves seen across Tehran) even as she radiated power and intelligence. Ebtekar is a figure to remember because she played a starring role in an event that would shape world history and not be forgotten till today. She was the main spokesperson for the group of students who took over the US embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two American diplomats hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, in the wake of the Islamic revolution. Supreme Leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, would later endorse the students actions (although subsequent books by Americans and Iranians have said that he was not involved in the planning). Ebtekars own story is this: her father studied at the University of Pennsylvania and she lived with her parents in the US for six years, hence the perfect English. But she would return to Iran, enrol in university and become influenced by the ideas of Ali Shariati, who focused on the sociology of religion and is considered one of the most important Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century. Thats when Ebtekar covered herself with a chador revealing only her face. Now, 37 years later, shes in a beautiful office with a view of the mountains ringing Tehran, speaking with some pride about the fact that half the work-force in the building are women. Head of the Department of Environment, she spoke mostly about her challenges in controlling pollution, including the air quality in Tehran. Residents of Delhi please note that 10-year-old cars are banned and the country has shifted to petrol and diesel that meets Euro 4 standards. The other polluting agent, power plants are in the process of transformation. And yes, as in India, crop burning remains a problem but the penalties are now strict. It would, I imagine, be far easier to impose strict laws in Iran than in raucous India. Iran is currently in the midst of presidential elections and will vote on May 19. They have televised live debates between the candidates, six of whom were cleared for standing for elections by the guardian council that works under the supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khameini has been the supreme leader since 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Current president Hassan Rouhani is running for re-election and there are two serious contenders (his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was denied permission to run for the third term by the guardian council, a move that he announced against the wishes of the supreme leader). Broadly, they have genuine elections at various levels but individuals fight and not political parties. Supreme leader is, well, the supreme leader! The Islamic Republics system flows from the idea of Vilayat-e-Faqih that gives a jurist custodianship over people (until the twelfth Imam returns as a messiah) hence political and spiritual power both flow from the supreme leader. I would also learn that Masoumeh Ebtekar had considered running for the presidential election in 2009 but decided against it. Broadly, she said that a certain ambiguity remains in the Constitution and the Guardian Council has said that there is no legal restraint against a woman running for president. Still, till now they have never cleared a woman candidate and many do apply. Iranian women are in fact among the most educated in region, if not world, with an 83 per cent literacy rate. They have one of the highest participation in the sciences. Indeed, each year 60 per cent of seats in universities in all streams are filled by women who make up half the faculties as well. Not only is the data impressive, they are visible at every level of the work force while travelling through Iran. Today Iran is stable within its borders and the main issue in the presidential debates is economic growth. The 8 years of war with Iraq after the 1979 revolution and the subsequent sanctions imposed by the US forced Iran to build its own strengths, beyond dependency on selling oil. The resistance economy possibly saved them from being a puppet of the US as they indeed were in the days of the Shah. There is a quiet pride that they produce most things within their borders, unlike other Muslim states, seen as markets for US products including weapons, hence Iranians believe there are clear economic incentives to fuel wars. An Indian diplomat agrees and tells me that the self-sufficiency of Iran is similar to what India built over decades. In the view of the Iran foreign office and in the emblematic and dramatic wall paintings across Tehran there is no ambiguity about holding the US responsible for the problems in the region, indeed world. That is why MasoumehEbtekar has never had to apologize for her part in the embassy siege. Harish Khare Nearly seven months after the horrible Nirbhaya rape episode, I had landed in New York and was on my way from the JFK airport to mid-town Manhattan. Predictably, the cab driver struck up a conversation and once he got to know that I was from Delhi, he challengingly asked me why Delhi had emerged as the rape capital of the world. This was a stunning verbal slap across the face. When asked for the basis of this surmise, the driver simply reminded me of the Nirbhaya case in Delhi. He added that he had watched on news channels all those protests. Suddenly, it dawned that Indias global image had been given a very black eye. Yet those protests were worth the effort because they were a new experiment in the civil society raising its voice against injury and injustice to any citizen. The citizens of Delhi had stumbled upon a collective purpose. A new solidarity got produced out of those days of protests and candlelight vigils at India Gate. For once, the social media was put to good use, beckoning individual men and women to share and discover the power of collective action. The civil society was able to awaken the callous rulers, who had no idea of the enormity of the crime and violence and cruelty to which Nirbhaya had been subjected. The very enormity of the offence made each citizen feel vulnerable and the next possible victim of depraved men, out there on unpoliced streets. Each and every citizen felt the need to be reassured that in this presumably civilised country, we had to remind administrators and policemen of their obligation to protect the life and liberty of one and all. Now nearly five years later, four men stand sentenced to face the gallows. Even those who otherwise doubt the efficacy of capital punishment somehow find themselves nodding in approval of the sentence, so clearly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. A sense of catharsis is palpable. Our sprawling cities are becoming soulless jungles, unpleasant sites of social squalour and moral callousness. In our quest for urbanisation and bullet trains, we are giving short shrift to finer civic virtues and graces; roughness of muscle power and vulgarity of wealth have become the new normal. No safe place for a woman. Thanks to the revulsion caused by the Nirbhaya case, laws have been changed and punishment enhanced. That can only be the beginning of a long journey. Ideally, no woman should feel vulnerable, scared or hunted every time she steps out of her home. An entrenched feudal mindset is at work. For centuries, combatants have felt righteously justified in violating their adversaries womenfolk. Barbaric rites of revenge and retribution include misbehaving with wives, daughters, mothers and sisters. For example, no one in the mainstream media wants to acknowledge that one of the reasons for the persistence of public support for the Naxals is the widespread allegation that policemen prey upon tribal women. The very sad reality is that in conflict zones, rape becomes a statement of individual and collective power. It is this entrenched mindset that remains far from dismantled, years after the Nirbhaya Moment. Nonetheless, this is a battle that has to be joined and waged, not always at India Gate but in our daily life. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ONCE again people the world over are having a good time chuckling about Prince Philip retiring from public duties after reaching the ripe age of 95. The man who for seven decades did provide the consort services to the Queen of England also provided mirthful amusement to at least two generations of millions and millions across the globe. He took his duties as the royal resident buffoon rather seriously. Jokes and jibes apart, it needs to be appreciated that though a monarchy is definitely an incongruity in these democratic times, Britains monarchy was, and, remains the only institution in England that gives the English society a sense of permanence. Queen Elizabeth and all her royal paraphernalia did help the English people come to terms with the loss of an empire. While Britain gradually lost its clout, its royalty remained an object of curiosity and respect. The outside world, especially the former colonies, was always happy to welcome the British royalty; within Britain, the House of Windsor stood above the shabby quarrels of the politicians. All political systems realise the need to have a ceremonial head of state who can be made a symbol of deference and loyalty. It can be argued that Prince Philips numerous gaffes ended up democratising the royalty. That the people could laugh at him without inviting a policemans attention made the incongruous royalty less incongruous. And when, someone like Princess Diana came along, with all her rebellion against the royal trappings, she became the darling of the masses in England and beyond. Prince Philips great contribution to the post-imperial England was that he single-handedly devised and firmly occupied a Chair of Royal Stupidity. A society that can learn to laugh at its rulers, nominal and real, would find it difficult to play host to any kind of authoritarian figure. For five decades, Prince Philip has been a secret ally of the democratic sentiment. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * FILMI news can sometimes be rather revealing. Ms Deepika Padukone, I read the other day, has said that she was not amused that the foreign media often mistook her for Priyanka Chopra, that other filmi star from Mumbai stirring up things in Hollywood. Ms Padukone thought it reflected the foreign medias ignorance and racist biases. Ignorance, yes; because the Americans can easily be certified to be the worlds most self-centered people. They happily subscribe to all the stereotypes about other nations and nationalities (and about themselves, too). Before the culture of globalisation produced a new global norm of political correctness, one of the favourite lines the Americans loved to proclaim, loudly, without any embarrassment or apology, was: Oh, all Chinese look alike. Well that was dealt with during Deng Xiaopings visit to America in 1979. He was the first leader of the Red China to visit the United States in January, 1979. He was accompanied by his third wife, Madame Zhuo Lin. Chinas new helmsman was, understandably, busy meeting President Jimmy Carter and others officials; an equally elaborate programme of engagements was drawn up for his wife. Soon it was noticed that Madame Zhuo kept merrily mixing up names. Mr Johnson would get called Mr Smith, and Mr Jones would get addressed as Mr Johnson, and so on. The protocol people gathered courage to point out the error; nonchalantly, Chinas first lady replied: Oh, all Americans look alike. Touche. A friend of mine from Copenhagen sent me this: A Punjabi was in IKEA the other day. While pushing his trolley around, he collided with a young Swede pushing his cart. The Punjabi said to the young guy, Sorry, but I'm looking for my wife and I guess I wasnt careful where I was going. The young guy says, That's OK It's a coincidence. Im looking for my wife, too. I cant find her and Im getting a little desperate. The Punjabi said, Well, maybe we can help each other. What does your wife look like? The young guy says, Well, she is 24 years old, tall, with blonde hair, big blue eyes, long legs, and shes wearing tight white shorts and a low-cut see-through top. What does your wife look like? The Punjabi said, Doesnt matter lets look for yours. Most Punjabis are helpful Help yourself to a cup of coffee, I may like to offer. kaffeeklatsch@tribuneindia.com WHEN angels fear to tread, heads of government do precisely that. The attempt of President Erdogan of Turkey to hyphenate India and Pakistan was not only misguided; it was offensive. A head of state (with the exception of President Yeltsin and one must measure his words), Mr Erdogan made a well-prepared statement before he set out on his India visit. It was deliberate. It would be stretching credulity rather far to claim that the Turkish President was unaware of the history of the Kashmir issue. In fact he was hawking the Pakistani line. He went as far as to say that he would like to play a role in finding a solution. By Indian standards, Turkey is a small country, both in size and demographically. It is not presumptions for him to want to play the honest broker. Our government in gentle terms conveyed its displeasure to a guest who had crossed the Lakshman Rekha. * * * * * * * * I have recently read In Hot Blood by Bachi Karkaria, whose column in The Times of India is widely read. No one below the age of sixty would know of the lurid and sensational story of naval commander Kawas Nanawati which hit India in April 1959. The commander, a Parsi, was an outstanding officer with a bright future. He was tall, handsome, well decorated and saw action in World War-II. While serving in England, he married a pretty English girl, Sylvia. Theirs was a happy marriage, or so it seemed. Naval officers spend many months on global waters. When Nanawati was between land and sea, his wife was having an affair with a Sindhi philanderer, Prem Ahuja. He had seduced women with red hot passion and then dropped them. When commander Kawas Nanawati was told by his wife about her affair, Nanawati shot dead the lover in his Bombay flat and gallantly surrendered to the police. The Nanawati trial turned into a thriller. The sales of newspapers soared. It was the pre-TV age. Even Nehru, Krishna Menon and the Naval brass got involved on Nanawatis side, who received semi-royal treatment in jail. I attended the first day of the Nanawati trial in a Bombay court. It was not easy to get tickets for entry into the court. I was staying with Krishna Hutheesing, Nehrus youngest sister. She got two tickets. The commander had a truly commanding presence, white uniform, a sword and a row of medals. I shall stop here. Let the reader read on. Bachi Karkaria is a skilful narrator, fine writer, at home with new English slang and the history of the role her community, the Parsis, played in building Bombay. She has written an absorbing and eminently readable book. It should have a huge sale. * * * * * * * * ON May 7, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar will lead a high-powered delegation to Israel. I have known him for four decades and have admired his writings. He has written the best biography of Jawaharlal Nehru in the past thirty years. MJ, as he is called, was one the most well read and exceptionally able and analytical editors. He is familiar with the historical process and understanding of the march of history. For too long we neglected Israel. It is a very small country, with a small population. But it is among the most influential nations. The Jews are an extraordinary race. For over two thousand years, history was brutally unfair to them. No longer so. Narendra Modi-ji will be the first Prime Minister of India to go to Israel. He has no inhibitions. Incidentally Israel and the Vatican run the best and the most sophisticated foreign policy establishments in the world. India is not far behind. * * * * * * * * * * MY autobiography, One Life is Not Enough appeared in mid-2014. Its success was beyond my expectations. It was translated in Hindi, Bengali, Gujrati and Marathi. It set a trend. Since then a number of IFS colleagues have written; memories, straight autos, experiences and single posting episodes. With a few exceptions, these books, regrettably, do not attract much attention and sell poorly. Most lack depth, vigorous analysis, with hardly any attention to the flow of history. * * * * * * * * * * CONGRESS president Sonia Gandhi is spending futile hours to produce a political Mahagatbandhan, with the idea of putting up a common opposition candidate for the elections of the Vice-President and President. Where are the votes coming from? The BJP, having tasted spectacular electoral success in UP, will make sure it gets the VP and President it wants. Jupinderjit Singh in Chandigarh The Punjab government seems to have finally put drug addicts at the centre of its drive against rampant substance abuse in the state. The apparent strategy is that if an addict is not treated fully, hed get back to it given the availability of narcotics. And if one is cured, itd mean breaking a supply chain. In a way, it also means cutting down the demand, so the supply itself would dip. On the face of it, the strategy sounds clever, but it has its own risks: for example, what if a victim is addicted to a treatment? There are 30 government-approved Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST) centres in Punjab 3 in Chandigarh alone. NGOs and doctors say in just about a month, these centres have witnessed a 25% spike in victims struggling to kick the habit, or, living with what best can happen. But why the rush? These centres distribute syringes free of cost to check same needles being tried by multiple users, making them vulnerable to Aids and Hepatitis-C. The counselors and doctors at these centres also offer free, limited dose of the Buprenorphine tablet to the willing addicts, the ones who would like to wean themselves off drugs. The treatment is said to be the last resort to save addicts. Some victims tell us that Buprenorphine is available illegally at double the price along with Tramadol and other tablets. These tablets if taken without prescription can be equally dangerous, says Dr Mehboob Singh, in-charge of the OST centre Mohali Civil Hospital. Lesser evil SK Verma, a retired IPS officer who runs an NGO in Chandigarh under the National Aids Control Organization programme, says the success rate of the counter-narcotic drug usage is limited. Of about 300 victims at a centre, about 60 get treated gradually. The rest get free needles for personal use. That is a lesser evil, taking into account Aids and Hepatitis-C prevention. Take the case of a Khara-based auto-rickshaw driver looking for treatment at a Chandigarh centre: hooked to heroin, his treatment should start with a high dose of Buprenorphine which should gradually come down. But, his dose has increased. He along with three started with 8mg dose of the tablet. They are taking 12mg dose now. The positive is they are not hooked to heroin or smack and are not using needles to take the drugs. The negative is that they are hooked on to another drug a legally prescribed antidote. Then theres another case at an OST centre in Mohali Civil Hospital. The busy aquarium seller got lured into heroin trap. Soon, he was spending Rs 5,000 daily for the dose. The same friend encouraged him for de-addiction as well. Both tried, but had a relapse soon. Then, they came to the OST centre. The aquarium seller began with a 10mg dose of Buprenorphine. He has reduced it to 6mg now. I have a life now, he told The Tribune. Verma says years of handling the addicts have taught him a lesson: the fight against drugs addiction boils down to the addict himself. He is at the end of the drugs supply chain and he is the intended target of the anti-addiction movement of the police and the government. The government can choke supply lines, jail addicts or smugglers and peddlers. But if the addict is not treated, the supply will reach him. Govt machinery moves On the administrative and police front, the nascent Captain Amarinder Singh-led government has launched a renewed fight against drugs. It has formed a Special Task Force (STF) with a mandate to catch anyone found indulging in drugs smuggling. The STF has already arrested around 1,200 persons across the state in a month. Dr Mehboob Singh, who is also a fellow with John Hopkins University on his research on drug treatment, says when he joined the Mohali OST centre a few years ago, he was skeptical about the treatment, But over months, I realized that this therapy is probably the only one with positive results. It weans an addict away from drugs. Drugs like heroin, commonly known as Chitta, make one aggressive in behaviour. But the OST treatment through Buprenorphine, which is mandatorily administered by a doctor, keeps a victim calm enabling him to work. He says there are about 250 registered patients at the centre. Almost half of them are taking regular treatment. Some get registered here but later move to other districts and continue treatment there. Some leave the treatment midway. Ultimately, it all comes down the addict. We and the family provide him counseling and help him in every possible way. Parental care a must As per the established treatment, the first step is a week-long detoxification. The victim then undergoes treatment for withdrawal symptoms. This may take six months or more. Often, parents are forced to stay in the de-addiction centres as they turn violent. Many of them develop hatred for the family. The aquarium seller was one such youth. A little after one-year treatment at de-addiction and rehab centres, he returned to drugs, It was a sort of revenge against my parents for forcing me to stay in a de-addiction centre. But I realized my folly and took treatment again. Eventually, I ended up at OST centres which have changed my life, he said. Tribune News Service Dehradun, May 6 Four pilgrims were killed and six others injured in a road mishap in Tehri district today. A van carrying pilgrims from Maharashtra fell into a gorge in Changora area of Tehri in the afternoon resulting in death of four pilgrims. The deceased were identified as 61-year-old Chandra Kant, his wife Kunda Kalkar (50), Sanjay (57) and Meena (48). According to Tehri district administration sources, all the injured were rushed to a nearest hospital for treatment. Of them, two seriously injured were referred to Himalayan Hospital, Jollygrant, Dehradun. Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has announced Rs 1 lakh as ex gratia to kin of the victims while Rs 75,000 has been announced for those who were seriously injured. The victims, who hail from Amravati district of Maharashtra, were on their way to Uttarakashi from Tehri district to pay obeisance at the Gangotri temple when they met with the accident. Tribune News Service Dehradun, May 6 On the second day of his stay in Uttarakhand, President Pranab Mukherjee today paid obeisance at the Badrinath shrine in Chamoli district of the state. The Presidents visit to Badrinath coincided with the opening of portals of the shrine today after the winter break. As per the rituals, the portals were opened at 4.15 am in the presence of priests and other temple committee members. After taking off from the Jolly Grant airport, Dehradun, President Pranab Mukherjees chopper landed at Badrinath around 8.25 am. After making a brief halt at the Gujarati dharamshala, he straightaway headed to the Badrinath shrine, one of the revered Char Dham shrines of the country. Pranab Mukherjee walked a distance on foot before reaching the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, where he offered prayers under the supervision of priests. Later coming out of temple, the President also waved to local residents who had gathered in large numbers. Members of the Badrinath Temple committee presented a memento the President as a remembrance of his visit. Governor KK Paul and Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat also accompanied the President to the temple. Elaborate security arrangements were put in place by the administration taking into account the Presidents visit. The entire Badrinath temple complex was declared as zero zone for the entire time period the President was in the temple. Earlier, the President, who attended an annual convocation of Indian Forest Service probationers at Dehradun yesterday, made his night halt at Raj Bhawan. From Raj Bhawan, he reached the Jolly Grant airport this morning from where he took a chopper to Badrinath. Before departing from Raj Bhawan for the Badrinath shrine, the President also planted a sapling of Ginkgo biloba on the Raj Bhawan campus. Significantly, Ginkgo biloba which is getting extinct is used for making a medicine for cancer. Meanwhile, a large number of pilgrims thronged the Badrinath shrine on the occasion of the opening of the portals. A contingent of Army personnel also played tunes to mark the occasion. Paris, May 6 A giant yellow banner was unfurled on the Eiffel Tower on Friday as Greenpeace activists protested French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, media reports said. According to NBC News, a photo posted by the official Greenpeace France Twitter account showed climbers scaling the iron structure along with the message: "Let's not let the National Front put our values in danger." Activists for Greenpeace slipped into the Eiffel Tower around 5 a.m. and hung a banner with the French national motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Six activists then rappelled down the tower's archway, USA Today reported. "Marine Le Pen doesn't respect liberty, doesn't push for equality for all and she doesn't show any fraternity for those who need it. So this is our way of reminding everybody they all need to mobilize against the National Front, to defend these values and to go and vote on Sunday," head of Greenpeace in France Jean-Francois Julliard told local television. The sign was removed about 45 minutes after it was unfurled. The protest against Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate, came just two days before France's election. Le Pen will face centrist Emmanuel Macron on Sunday in an unprecedented runoff in which neither of the remaining candidates come from France's two established parties. IANS London, May 6 A 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in England, who secured two points higher than geniuses Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in the British Mensa IQ test, has been invited to join the coveted society as a member. Rajgauri Pawar appeared in the British Mensa IQ Test in Manchester last month, and scored 162 the highest possible IQ for someone under the age of 18. She has been invited to join the coveted Mensa IQ test with the highest possible score. Pawar of Cheshire county is among the one per cent of those who sit in the Mensa test and achieve the maximum mark, with the 'genius' benchmark set at 140. She secured 162, two points higher than Einstein and Hawking. She is one of only 20,000 people to achieve the score worldwide, Mensa said. "I was a little nervous before the test but it was fine and I'm really pleased to have done so well," Pawar said. Pawar joins the elite British Mensa IQ Society as a member after her great performance. Her father Dr Surajkumar Pawar said, "This wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of her teachers and the support which my daughter enjoys every day at school". She studies at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, which also expressed pride at her achievement. "Everybody is delighted. She is a very well-liked student and we all expect great things from her," said Andrew Barry, her maths teacher. PTI Seoul/Washington, May 6 North Korea on Friday accused the US Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's intelligence service of a failed plot to assassinate its leader Kim Jong Un with a biochemical bomb at a military parade in Pyongyang. North Korea has a history of accusing the United States and South Korea of planning preemptive military attacks and to target its leaders, but analysts said it could be the first time it has accused the allies of an actual assassination attempt. Pyongyang presented extensive details but offered no concrete proof to back its accusations of the plot, which it said could never have succeeded. The CIA and the White House declined to comment on the statement from North Korea's Ministry of State Security, which accused the CIA and South Korea's National Intelligence Service of bribing a North Korean to target the country's "supreme leadership." The charge came just after a visit to South Korea by CIA director Mike Pompeo and at a time of high tension driven by concerns that North Korea may conduct a sixth nuclear test or further missile launches in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The North Korean statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency - which often issues shrill, bellicose threats and accusations against the United States and South Korea - said the foreign intelligence agencies "infiltrated" North Korea "to commit state-sponsored terrorism." It said they had "ideologically corrupted" and bribed a North Korean surnamed Kim - the most common Korean surname - and turned him into "a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership." "They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home," KCNA said. "They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances, including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance, is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months," the statement said. It said Kim received two payments of $20,000 and a "satellite transmitter-receiver." Attempt to divert attention? The statement did not make clear the timing of the alleged plot, but North Korea conducted an annual military parade in Pyongyang, featuring a display of missiles overseen by top leader Kim Jong Un and his right-hand men, on April 15. The North Korean statement said the plan had "been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation." Pyongyang has accused the United States and South Korea in the past of plots to assassinate its leadership. It has described regular US-South Korea military exercises as plans to "decapitate" its leadership. South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted South Korea's Defense Minister Han Min Koo as saying on Jan. 4 that South Korea would launch a special unit this year tasked with "removing or paralyzing" North Korea's command structure in the event of a war. North Korea warned this week that US hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war. It said the plot was a "last-ditch effort" by US "imperialists" and South Korea that had gone "beyond the limits." Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said it could be the first time North Korea had accused the allies of an attempted assassination. He said North Korea's aim could be to divert attention from the use of VX nerve gas to assassinate the estranged half-brother of Kim Jong Un at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February, or to influence South Korea's May 9 election. The airport attack, blamed by the United States and Seoul on North Korean agents, has been cited by Washington in its efforts to persuade countries to minimize ties with North Korea. "The regime may also be seeking to influence the upcoming South Korean presidential election in favor of progressive candidate Moon Jae-in by portraying rising tensions on the peninsula as the result of conservative governments in Washington and Seoul," Klingner said. The Trump administration has said that all options, including military, remain on the table in dealing with North Korea, but that it is not pursuing a policy of regime change. It has said its preferred route is to pressure North Korea to given up its nuclear and missile programs through sanctions. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that Washington was working on more sanctions against North Korea if it takes steps that merit a new response. Reuters Islamabad, May 6 Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa have resolved to amicably address the differences over a leaked report that had angered the powerful army, a media report said today. In October, a columnist for Dawn newspaper wrote a front-page story about a rift between civilian and military leaderships over militant groups that operate from Pakistan but engage in proxy war against India and Afghanistan. The army resented the leaked news item and asked for a probe. The military had demanded full implementation of recommendations by a committee which probed a story of a meeting in which civilian leaders confronted the military over its alleged reluctance to halt Islamist groups in the country. Sharif following the findings of the committee sacked his foreign policy aide Tariq Fatemi, but the army rejected the move, triggering speculation about the public posturing by the military. However, the situation was apparently brought under control during a meeting between Bajwa and Sharif. Geo News reported that meeting was held on Thursday night at the PMs wish. It quoted sources that both had a pleasant meeting, adding that matter pertaining to Dawn Leaks, security and border situation were discussed. PTI President Donald Trumps long-awaited executive order on religious freedom got mixed reviews in Tulsa. The order essentially makes it less likely for churches to lose their tax-exempt status for politicking in violation of the Johnson Amendment. The rule has rarely been enforced. Some conservatives were happy about it; others said Trump did not go far enough. Progressives feared it would blur the lines between separation of church and state. Sharon Daugherty, founding pastor of Victory Christian Center, said, Its wonderful. Its an answer to prayer. She said the executive order would give pastors more freedom to speak freely in the pulpit about issues that are important to the church. Theres been an attitude in these last years that has tried to force a secular mindset on our society, and has tried to push the Christians in a corner and make them feel like they couldnt say anything thats offensive, Daugherty said. We have to speak up. We are people of love, but we are also people of principle, she said. The Johnson Amendment has not been a help to the churches; its been a hindrance, Daugherty said. She said she believes Trump sees that theres been a suppression of the Christians and wants to help them. Im thankful that we have someone in this hour who is helping us take our nation back toward God, she said. Ray Hickman, executive director of Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, said the effect of the executive order was unclear and on shaky ground. Congregations and pastors need to be able to speak truth to power, he said, and its important for people to be free to identify with those who share their thoughts and theology. At the same time, we have the separation of church and state for a reason, and its important that that line not be blurred or broken. Politics needs to have respect for the church, and the church needs to have respect for politics. Jackson Lahmeyer, pastor of Sheridan Christian Center, said Thursday at the National Day of Prayer service, I thought it was tremendous. He kept his word. He promised on his platform that that was something he was going to do, and hes done it. So Im excited, and I know most of the leaders here are as well. Its going to be a benefit to our nation, and well as the church here in the United States. Dan Beirute, a Tulsa attorney who has worked with churches for 20 years, said he was glad Trump signed the executive order, but didnt think it went far enough. He said the Johnson Amendment has had a chilling effect on pastors, even though it was not strictly enforced and was rarely used to withdraw a churchs tax-exempt status. Many pastors who are conscientious about following the law feel muzzled by it, he said. Beirute said the language of the order was confusing, even for a lawyer, and it leaves the IRS too much wiggle room. It was a missed opportunity to include language that would have made things much clearer and more decisive, he said. It leaves in place provisions that the IRS could use against churches in future administrations, he said. Beirute said his personal opinion is that the Johnson Amendment should be revoked altogether. I think its better to keep the government out of the pulpit. The government is not telling churches what they can say, but its telling them what they cant say. And I dont think thats appropriate. Its interesting that the one place youre not allowed to speak about campaign politics is in the church. That doesnt make any sense. Beirute said he didnt think revoking the Johnson Amendment would cause churches to move deeply into the political arena. Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, who spoke in Tulsa this week on religious freedom, said in a statement, President Trumps executive order on religious liberty should be both unnecessary and unremarkable. Yet activists have pledged to challenge President Trump in court for supporting the First Amendment. Our country was founded on the promise that its government would respect the religious liberty of its people. A 19-year-old man was killed in a possible drug-related shooting in a north Tulsa parking lot Friday evening, police said. Police were searching for a vehicle that fled the scene after the shooter fired three or four shots at the victim with more than one shot hitting him in the chest, Cpl. Steve Pickett said. The incident started about 8 p.m. in the Las Americas, 2415 E. Admiral Place, parking lot, which was full of witnesses who later told police that some sort of an argument preceded the shooting. Pickett said the shooting took place in the parking lot, but the victim was able to make it to the sidewalk along Admiral Place. He died after arriving at St. John Medical Center, police said. Police were looking for a four-door, black vehicle that fled the scene north on Lewis Avenue, officers at the scene said. Homicide Sgt. Dave Walker said witnesses have cellphone video that showed the suspect vehicle, including the vehicles license-plate number. We know who you are, Walker said. Turn yourself in and make it easy. This ones not going to tax us much. Walker said he was not ready to release any additional suspect information. Asked whether drugs were involved in the parking-lot meeting, Walker said it appears so, but more information on that part of the investigation will require the suspects apprehension. With us knowing as much as we know, yes, Walker said. Drug deals should happen everyday without someone getting gunned down. Leave your guns at home. Holland Hall broke ground Friday at its south Tulsa campus as it launches a capital campaign including $20 million for a new student commons. The private school at 5666 E. 81st St. announced this week that $50 million in fundraising efforts will go toward the new Tandy Student Commons and Chapman Green, with the remaining $30 million funding endowments, special projects and other programming. This campaign brings a deeper level of community to our campus, J.P. Culley, head of school at Holland Hall, said in a statement. With help from donors, alumni, current families and faculty, well be able to raise the funds to build this new campus heart that will bring together the middle and upper schools and make for a great community area for students, faculty and families. The Tandy Student Commons will include a modern dining facility for students in the middle and upper schools as well as provide a dedicated space for health and wellness programming with specialized equipment, according to a news release from Holland Hall. A smoothie and coffee bar will be included, as well as an alumni center with conference rooms. The facility is set to open by winter 2018. The Chapman Green is planned for the exterior of the new student commons as a venue for outdoor campus events. In schools across the nation, including in Oklahoma, children whose school meal accounts arent paid in full sometimes face embarrassment in the cafeteria line. Some schools take away their trays and give them an alternative meal, like a cold sandwich. Others put a stamp on their hand that reads lunch money as an alert to parents but also visible to peers. Practices such as these, called lunch shaming, have triggered parent backlash in some districts, including at least two in Oklahoma. The practice was recently banned in New Mexico, and Texas and California are considering similar laws. A few weeks ago, the Choctaw-Nicoma Park School District halted its practice of stamping the hands of children who owe lunch money after an outcry from parents. Harrah Public Schools faced scrutiny recently when a substitute cafeteria worker took hot meals from children whose accounts were empty; the children received a cold sandwich to eat instead. Oklahoma schools are allowed to take these actions because the state does not have a policy on how to treat non-paying students, letting districts decide for themselves. Chris Bernard, executive director of nonprofit Hunger Free Oklahoma, said inferior meals, hand stamps and chores for students with meal debt unnecessarily humiliate children, which can lead to them being bullied or picked on and cause mental health issues. Schools need to be thinking about practices that are not singling out children for something they absolutely have no control over and potentially putting them in a situation where they dont have the nourishment they need to be successful in school, Bernard said. The students affected by these policies typically dont qualify for the federal free lunch program, although there may be some whose parents decline to apply. Still, there are often family circumstances behind meal debt, such as a parent losing a job, or working intermittently, or other financial setbacks. But some school officials say lunch programs are costly to run, and unpaid meal debt is a problem they have to address. The debt can accumulate into thousands of dollars by the end of the school year. The lunchtime incident at Harrah wasnt handled properly, said Harrah Superintendent Paul Blessington, because students should have been identified before receiving the hot meal. By policy, students with unpaid charges are provided an alternative meal of a sandwich, fruit and drink. The situation is difficult for a district like Harrah where about half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches but the other half pays full price, he said. Nationally, lunches cost about $2.50 each on average. Blessington said the district cant absorb thousands in unpaid lunch bills; the 2,200-student district has accumulated over $2,000 in unpaid meals this year. At Choctaw-Nicoma Park, students hands were stamped only after accumulating a negative balance of more than $5 and the school had taken other steps to let families know of the unpaid charges, a school official said. Parents complained, however, and the practice was discontinued several weeks ago. Unpaid meal debt is less of an issue at large urban school districts where most students receive free meals. All of Tulsa Public Schools elementary students eat free. But middle-school students with more than $8.40 in unpaid charges receive an alternative meal, which is just half a cheese sandwich and water for lunch and a piece of toast or graham crackers for breakfast. High school students who cant pay receive nothing. Thats the official policy, but it is likely not enforced in schools out of compassion for the students, said Emma Garrett-Nelson, a TPS spokeswoman. Our guidance that we give to our cafeteria workers is the dignity of our students comes first, Garrett-Nelson said. Schools are expected to examine their lunch policies now because the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers school meal programs, has asked states to define their policies by July 1. Oklahoma doesnt have a statewide policy, but local school districts will still have to submit a plan to the state Department of Education. One recommendation by the Agriculture Department is to have schools move the cashier to the front of the lunch line to prevent situations where a childs meal is taken away because they cant pay, allowing staff to address the issue discreetly. That practice trashing lunches served to students who cant pay is now banned under New Mexicos Hunger-Free Students Bill of Rights Act. The legislation, which was signed into law in April and is the first of its kind in the country, requires schools to give all students access to the same lunch regardless of ability to pay and prohibits schools from having students to do chores to work off debt. The lawmaker who introduced it, New Mexico Sen. Michael Padilla, had to mop the floors of his school cafeteria when he couldnt afford lunch, according to an NPR story. On Mondays Four Corners, Michael Brissenden reports on Power Failure: Why Australia is being left in the dark. It is remarkable how much we have stuffed up energy policy in this country. Mining lobbyist On Monday night Four Corners investigates how a nation as rich as Australia is in coal, gas, sunshine and wind, has found itself in the middle of an energy crisis. Weve had a catastrophic failure of national policy making. Industry Lobbyist For a decade, the politicisation of energy policy has divided the major political parties and brought down their leaders. Weve had a series of disasters, bad political decisions to end up where we are. Energy Analyst The result is an uncertain energy future and soaring power bills. Well pay about $750,000 this financial year, and next financial year were looking at about a $1.2 million gas billIts an uncontrolled and sudden shock to our business. Manufacturer On the eve of the Federal Budget, the program charts how short term politics has repeatedly overridden the national interest. Blind Freddie could have seen this coming. Only those who are neglectful or deceitful or didnt want to face this problem, wouldnt have known this was coming. Industry Lobbyist Four Corners has travelled across the nation to see how the lack of affordable and reliable power is driving some businesses to the wall, others are going offshore. Were the lucky country but at the moment it seems that were giving away most or all of our competitive advantages. Manufacturer And with experts forecasting that winter will bring even higher power bills as well as blackouts next summer, there are calls to end the politicking and for real action to be taken. Everyone keeps blaming everyone else and I would love as a consumer of electricity, Id love both sides of government to come out and just find a solution. Business Owner Monday 8th May at 8.30pm on ABC. New Zealand actor Jay Ryan (Beauty and the Beast, Sea Patrol, Neighbours, Go Girls) will star in Foxtels upcoming local drama Fighting Season. News Corp reports he will play unit commander, Sgt Sean Collins, in the six part drama about Australian soldiers returning from Afghanistan. The series by Blake Ayshford (Devils Playground, Barracuda) focusses on the impact of war on the invisible men and women who fight for our country, and produced by Goalpost Pictures. The cast also includes ex-Navy diver, Paul de Gelder, who lost his arm and leg in a Sydney Harbour shark attack, in his first acting role, Ewen Leslie, Marco Alois and George Pullar. Foxtel Head of Drama Penny Win previously said: Fighting Season will be a powerful and provocative addition to Foxtels drama slate of great Australian storytelling. The drama explores a masculine world, unpicking the mythology surrounding The Diggers and the reality of being a modern soldier, as they try to live up to the heroic expectations placed on them by society, and themselves. Their transition from a high-adrenaline existence to being loving husbands and partners is both fascinating and incredibly moving. The series will begin filming this week and will air in 2018. If you took Seven Year Switch, Temptation Island, Australias Perfect Couple and Married at First Sight and threw them into a blender, you might end up with something like The Last Resort -but at least it would be more watchable than the dross Nine is serving up this week. Instead we have 52 minutes of television (70 with ads) that is a severe case of TV executives trying to second-guess what viewers and online recappers are looking for. Take 5 Caucasian couples, predominantly aged in their 30s and struggling in their relationships, and whisk them off to a Fijian resort for 3 weeks the scrutiny of Reality TV cameras and two experts. At the end of it all they will have to decide if they want to stay together or not. Its the perfect place to help struggling couples rekindle their love, insists psychologist Sandy Rea (The Verdict). But its not readily clear on whose authority TV can order married couples to split, which is just one of several problems here This sluggish format, in which just about everybody sits down talking for the entire 52 minutes, is poorly cast and poorly executed. The cast comprise cheaters, liars, drinkers, and couples in sexless marriages. The biggest problem is that we struggle to feel any sympathy for the 5 couples, some of whom are more interested in discussing who has fake boobs than realising their own shortcomings. When the couples land on the island they must make their own way to the resort. What seems like an Amazing Race attempt to capture couples-conflict, goes nowhere fast, other than to show us lovely shots of the location presumably as part of the Government of Fiji credit visible at the end. Profiles of the 5 couples reveal all kinds of relationship issues surrounding fidelity, commitment, passion and honesty. No question, this bunch are hardly role models. Most are married, several have children. Bizarrely, after hearing their backstories we are subjected to a lengthy group therapy with our experts in which the 5 then re-state their problems before one another. This could have been much more effective if the information hadnt been divulged earlier. In the hands of producers it is largely-designed to capture shocked reactions. Suddenly tarnished couples are making judgements about other tarnished couples -except we as audience have already lumbered them in the one sorry pit together. In a 7:30 timeslot youll hear some surprising terminology (M classification is allowable at 7:30pm): You want a root? I just saw boobs Of course Im horny, its been over a year Even relationship expert Michael Myerscough contributes: Angry people are not horny people. Thanks for that. As an added bonus theres also a hefty slice of bogan dialogue, manspreading and upward inflections. Shardays the hottest thing Ive ever seen. Here come Barbie and Ken. Its real and its just going to get more realer. Somethink. You just gotta try and move on from it, ay? This is why were here I spose. The mandatory dinner party that has become a cliche of this genre expands on backstories and judgements, in an effort to ignite couples rivalry. Like so many constructs of this premise, weve seen it all before. In fairness, there was a moment with one male participant where I managed to belatedly empathise, which I wont divulge as its probably a spoiler. But alas, not enough to want to see how it plays out. After 52 minutes of talking heads and excruciating pacing, came a teaser for the next episode, in which partners bizarrely undertake fake marriages to different partners. Like thats going to help? Seriously, how do TV psychologists expect us to ever turn to relationship counselling again? The two biggest problems with this show are in the casting of cookie cutter couples who look like they have just stepped out of Seven Year Itch / The Block / Married At First Sight and a format lacking anything unique or creative. At least it lives up to its title, but not in the way it was intended. Why should we care about these people? Why should we give anybody on camera any credit other than a desire to appear on camera? Why are experts ready to annul marriages on the basis of Reality TV challenges? And why do we have to be subjected to it twice a week? Back in 2004 TEN filmed a renovation show called The Resort on a Fijian island but axed it after six weeks due to low ratings. These days that would be a hit. The Last Resort airs 7:30pm Tuesday and Wednesday on Nine. Just two more episodes of UK drama The Halcyon remain on ABC, bringing the short-lived drama to a close. ITV axed the series in March after just 8 episodes, including with a cliffhanger that will remain unresolved. But production company Left Bank is still hoping to find a new home. Producer Chris Croucher told RadioTimes, Andy Harries, [CEO] at Left Bank hopes that there might be somewhere else that we could go. Nothing is confirmed at the moment. I believe he is trying. Its difficult with timeframes, because actually our option period on the actors is about to run out, and we have our beautiful hotel standing in West London, and every week thats costing us and that adds up. So I think a decision would need to be made very quickly. The original plan was for five seasons. I think with any of these things, you always hope that it could continue, Croucher explains. Our plan was to see if we could do a five-year series, with each series being another year of the war. We had storylines for the entire second series and we actually had two scripts ready to go. 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 After the National College Decision Day, most students are already done finalizing their options when it comes to the college they will be attending. However, there are a few more who have not even started the application process and still do not know which school to attend. But there is nothing to worry because, there are still some schools that are still open for applications. The National Association for College Admission Counseling are annually posting the complete list of colleges that are still accepting applications and they usually do it early each May. While May 1 is the traditional deadline for applications, many colleges make an extension because they still have not quite completed or filled out the headcount for their freshman class. Some of these schools include Lawrence University, Colorado State University and Sewanee University. There are also some school which typically have late deadlines such as Texas Tech, and University of Arizona, and they normally accept applications up until June 1. However, this does not mean that high school seniors can just be complacent about processing their applications, but to those who are yet to go through the process, here are the three questions that they should be asking when they contact colleges according to Time. How to apply? When it comes to the second round of applications, it could possibly be easy especially when they have already filled out other applications, although other schools still require extra questions and essays, which is why it is still better to ask. How much aid can be given? There are some colleges which give less aid when the applicants submit their applications late, but give just about the same. Where is a good place to stay? Since it is already a late application, most students might have already reserved most rooms in the dorms, so it is better to explore other housing options. UWs Dellenback Receives Honor for Excellence in Teaching Paul Dellenback An accomplished teacher who has high expectations and the ability to raise students performance to match those expectations is a recipient of a top teaching award at the University of Wyoming. Paul Dellenback, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is one of three recipients of the John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award, established in 1977 by businessman John P. Jack Ellbogen to foster, encourage and reward excellence in classroom teaching at UW. This years other winners are Eric Moorhouse, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, and Yan Zhang, a senior lecturer in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. Dellenback regularly teaches Thermodynamics I, Thermodynamics II and Gas Turbine Engines, in addition to serving as the associate dean for advancement in the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS). Dr. Dellenback is constantly working to improve lectures even after teaching some of the same courses every year, says Carl Frick, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. For example, in every lecture, he strives to relate the course material to real-world applications and current events. He deliberately writes his own new homework and exams each semester to ensure a high-quality learning experience. Student evaluations consistently note Dellenbacks strong command of the subject material and his ability to relate the material to practical situations. He is a great lecturer, cares about students learning and applies real-world applications to every class, one student writes. He made sure students understood the real-world complexities of the course material and helped students become extremely prepared for their futures, another student adds. Former UW student Eric Parish says he views Dellenback as the gold standard as an instructor and professor. His teaching and mentorship shaped my undergraduate degree and postgraduate aspirations, says Parish, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan. I have been inspired to work toward being a university professor so that I can impact future students in the same way Professor Dellenback impacted me. Frick adds that Dellenback possesses the teaching standard that his department strives to emulate. He makes it his personal responsibility to ensure our students are hard-working and well-trained, Frick says. Not only do students repeatedly comment on Dellenbacks enthusiasm in the classroom and his effective teaching style, but they also praise him for his accessibility and willingness to help outside of class time. He is constantly willing to be of service to his students, answering questions and expanding upon class material with his characteristic enthusiasm in order to advance their learning, says Adam Block, a recent CEAS graduate. Dr. Dellenback treats his students with tremendous fairness and respect, earning him their reverence and admiration in return. Dellenback joined the UW faculty in 1990 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. He also has served in the roles of graduate coordinator, undergraduate program coordinator and department head. During his 27 years at UW, Dellenback has received numerous advising and teaching awards, including being honored six times as a Top Prof by members of UWs chapter of Mortar Board, a national college senior honor society. Dellenback received his B.S. in engineering physics (1978) and his M.S. in mechanical engineering (1980), both from Texas Tech University; and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (1986) from Arizona State University. Global music icon, multiple GRAMMY Award-winner and multi-platinum selling artist, the incomparable Janet Jackson, will embark on a four-month North American tour this fall, announced today. Produced by Live Nation, the State of the World tour will make a Las Vegas stop at the Mandalay Bay Events Center Saturday, Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. The legendary entertainer began her sold out Unbreakable tour in August 2015, but just one year ago she reached out directly to fans via Twitter with news of her focusing on starting a family, confirmed months later with the arrival of her first child. Since, she has taken the past year to enjoy pregnancy and motherhood, and is now ready to return to the live stage to give Janet fans everything they could hope for in one epic concert event. The State of the World tour is a continuation of the Unbreakable tour and will include fan favorites from her chart-topping Unbreakable album, an array of her socially conscious music shes released throughout her career, and other smash hits and soon-to-be released new tracks with a state of the art live production! Janet Jackson is one of the most influential entertainers of the modern era. Her music has won her 6 GRAMMY Awards, 2 Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a nomination for an Academy Award along with dozens of American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards. She has received accolades as an actress as well including the NAACP Best Supporting Actor award. Janet is a published author, dancer, businessperson, philanthropist and one of biggest-selling artists in popular music history. With sales of over 160 million records worldwide, Janet Jackson stands as one of the best-selling artists of all time with a string of hits that have left an indelible impression on pop culture. Her music and artistry has opened doors through which other top artists have followed, many acknowledging her impact on their musical perceptions. For more information please visit www.janetjackson.com. An Aeon Ministop store is seen in HCMC. The Japanese retailer has plans to develop 500 grocery stores in Vietnam by 2025 The firm is preparing to open more small stores in emerging Asian markets like Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. In particular, it aims to raise the number of its stores in Vietnam by almost nine-fold to 500 by 2025. Although Aeon is known for its large shopping centers, it is easier and cheaper to set up small grocery stores. By opening a large number of stores here in the country, it expects to facilitate its brand recognition. The company has teamed up with two local store chains to expand the number of its grocery stores in the country to 57. The Japanese retailer began holding 30% and 49% stakes in Vietnamese supermarket chains Fivimart and Citimart respectively in early 2015. Aeon is providing its Top Value products for Citimart and Fivimart supermarkets for sale, and cooperating with the two partners to promote those products as well as consolidate and expand their goods distribution. These partnerships can also help Aeon reduce its initial outlays and at the same time pave the way for it to open shopping malls in Vietnam, according to industry watchers. Aeon, which has four shopping malls in Hanoi, Binh Duong and HCMC, is regarded as a big competitor by other major retail rivals in Vietnam. It plans to build a new mall in Hanoi and another in Haiphong in the short run, and have 20 malls across the country by 2020. Meanwhile, Aeon has been in partnership with Japans Sojitz Corporation to develop Ministop convenience stores. The two firms aim to raise the number of their joint outlets to 800 in the next eight years. Therefore, the venture intends to expand the store franchise and provide business support for employees through partial investment of the parent company of Ministop Vietnam. Aeon Vietnam has been running an e-commerce website at https://aeoneshop.com offering a variety of products like cosmetics, furniture, electronics, household appliances, bicycles, and stationery since early this year. Tisco began making post-tax profit in 2015 with a profit of VND87 billion. Meanwhile, its net profit in 2016 reached VND203 billion. However, the risk is still very high. Tisco is implementing the project on expanding production in the second period with the initial estimates of VND3,843.67 billion and the adjusted estimates of VND8,104.91 billion. The project implementation started in 2007, but the major items of the project in Luu Xa area still have not been fulfilled. The total investment expenses by December 31, 2016 had reached VND4,635.5 billion. A report from the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) showed that on April 25, SCIC (the State Capital Investment Corporation) sold all 100 million Tisco shares it was holding, or 35.21 percent of Tiscos shares. With the transaction, SCIC is no longer a big shareholder of Tisco. SCIC is a powerful state corporation which specializes in making investment in businesses with the states money. The Q4 2016 audited finance report of the Thai Nguyen Iron & Steel Corporation (Tisco) shows that the company had debts of VND6.078 trillion, half of which were short-term debts. The figure is 2.2 times higher than the stockholder equity. The VND1 trillion was invested by SCIC into Tisco when the enterprise issued 100 million shares to raise funds for the projects on expanding production. The shares were then issued at the price of VND10,000, while it is now traded at VND4,000 per share only. Tisco is one of the 12 super projects which have had big losses of trillions of dong which have caused headaches to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT). The other projects include the Dinh Vu yarn plant, some ethanol and fertilizer plants, the Dung Quat shipbuilding yard, and Phuong Nam Pulp. The ministry plans to to submit to the Party Politburo and the government plans to deal with the projects. As the super projects have taken losses, commercial banks have become involved in misfortune. The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has submitted to the government a plan to settle bad debts within five years. MOIT has not revealed how much the 12 projects have borrowed from commercial banks. However, if considering Tisco case, analysts estimate that the figure could be tens of trillions of dong, which accounts for a large proportion of the banking system's bad debts. Besides, the projects also borrowed money from foreign sources, including loans guaranteed by MOF. Meanwhile, the government bond issuance has been relying on banks. The total government bonds issued so far reached 18.8 percent of GDP by the end of 2016, according to MOF. And more than 80 percent of bonds were bought by commercial banks. US$1=VND22,000 British Prime Minister Theresa May's majority in the Commons is only slim, which has led to calls for a snap election to bolster her support as Brexit negotiations begin. (Photo: AFP/Justin Tallis) Final results showed the ruling centre-right party gaining ground across the country, with the main opposition Labour party taking a pounding and Brexit cheerleaders UKIP all but wiped out. Despite the thumping victory, May said there was no room for complacency ahead of the June 8 general election and the negotiations that follow on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. "It's encouraging that we've won support across the whole of the UK but I will not take anything for granted," she said, "because there is too much at stake". "This is not about who wins and who loses in the local elections: it is about continuing to fight for the best Brexit deal. Despite the evident will of the British people, we have bureaucrats in Europe who are questioning our resolve to get the right deal." On the eve of the vote, May lashed out at Brussels over the Brexit talks, accusing officials of hardening their position to affect the outcome of next month's election. Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor at the University of London, said her tough stance seemed to be paying dividends with a realignment towards her party. "The Conservatives have managed to pull in people who voted Leave (in last year's EU membership referendum) while retaining Remainers," he told AFP. After votes were counted in all 88 local authorities being contested, the Conservatives had made a net gain of 558 seats to 1,900. Labour lost 320 to end up with 1,151 - prompting leader Jeremy Corbyn to acknowledge that winning next month's general election would be a "challenge on a historic scale". BREXIT PARTY UKIP FLATTENED The smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats, who had been hoping to soak up anti-Brexit votes with their pro-EU stance, failed to make their hoped-for gains, losing 37 seats to end up with 441. And it was a disastrous day for the anti-EU, anti-immigration UK Independence Party, which lost all 114 seats it was defending, and won only one new one. UKIP's vote was "bleeding off to the Conservatives", Kaufmann said - an analysis shared by party leader Paul Nuttall. He said it had fallen "victim to its own success". The result spells bad news for Nuttall's hopes to secure a seat in parliament next month. But he said: "If the price of Britain leaving the EU is a Tory advance after taking up this patriotic cause, then it is a price UKIP is prepared to pay." The Scottish National Party, which is seeking another referendum on seceding from the UK on the back of Brexit, won 31 seats to end up with 431. The party's success in Glasgow forced Labour out of power in the city for the first time in almost 40 years. Across Scotland, the Conservatives had the biggest gains, up 164 seats to 276 - pointing to a revival for the party which has only one MP north of the border. As expected, Labour won mayoral races in Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, but they were beaten in the West Midlands race, centred on Birmingham. There, the Conservatives' Andy Street, formerly the director of upmarket department store chain John Lewis, claimed a narrow win. 'LABOUR'S HISTORIC CHALLENGE Corbyn said he was "disappointed" that Labour had lost "too many" councillors, but said the party was "closing the gap on the Conservatives". "We have five weeks to win the general election so we can fundamentally transform Britain," he said. "We know this is no small task - it is a challenge on an historic scale. But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, can't afford not to seize our moment." Labour has been languishing more than 20 points behind the Conservatives in national opinion polls, and has been damaged by deep divisions over Corbyn's left-wing leadership and its approach to Brexit. Elsewhere on Thursday, Dave Rowntree, the drummer from pop group Blur, was elected to Norfolk County Council in eastern England, representing Labour. One seat in Northumberland, northeast England, had to be decided by drawing straws, following a tie. A Chinese couple, who were forced to leave their villages upon declaring their love for one another, returned in 2015 to celebrate their marriage in the young man's house, but the parents of the bride refused to attend . (Photo: AFP/Johannes Eisele) Wushan and Yuepu in Fujian province, which count between them some 7,500 inhabitants, used to observe an unusual tradition whereby people who lived on one side of the river were forbidden from marrying those from the other. "Nobody can remember where this ban on marriages came from, we only know that we fought each other around 300 years ago for the right to use the water," Wang Hongdong, Communist Party secretary for Wushan told AFP on Friday. The confrontation led to a curse, which said that marriage with a person from the rival village would lead only to misfortune. The rivalry was passed from generation to generation. "They fought again about 40 years ago, over graves," Wang said. "Then relations started to settle, especially over the last 10 years. We started to build a shoe factory together and the young people were getting on well." But villagers remained forbidden from marrying their rivals until a young girl from Yuepu fell in love with a boy from Wushan, around three years ago. "The families were dead against the marriage on account of the curse," Wang said. "They really believed in it". The young couple married anyway but were forced to leave Fujian and move to another province, some 1,500km (900 miles) from their home. In 2015 they returned to the villages to celebrate their marriage in the young man's house, but the parents of the bride refused to attend. But when the woman later gave birth to two beautiful boys, the inhabitants of both villages stopped believing in the curse, Mr Wang said. To mark the reconciliation and officially abolish the ban on marriages, the two villages this week organised a ceremony in the presence of local Buddhist and Communist authorities. Some 500 people attended. While Ding Tea and Gong Cha outlets are designed in a modern style with black as the main color, Chatime outlets aim at bringing comfort to customers and have purple as the design concept. These major franchise brands have now become fiercely competitive in Vietnams milk tea battleground. Boom in openings Arriving in Vietnam at the end of 2012, Chatime has now developed its franchise model, with ten outlets in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and sells an average of 300 cups a day at each. Chatime is a Taiwan milk tea brand, with over 1,000 outlets around the world. It provides stylish and health-conscious customers with a selection of freshly brewed tea infused with different natural flavors. To make Chatime a global brand, it has modernized traditional tea culture by producing high-tech tea equipment to make fresh tea of consistent quality. Ms. Nguyen Xuan Nga, COO of Chatime Vietnam, told VET that quality and reasonable prices are important factors in retaining customers over the long term. Chatime is asserting its position in the milk tea market with price stability, product quality, and service quality, she said. To expand, Chatime will seek partners in cities and provinces around the country with tourism potential. Mumber of milk tea outlets, by brand Source: VET research Meanwhile, two years after arriving in Vietnam, Gong Cha milk tea from Taiwan has 13 outlets, including eight belonging to the company and five franchises. Mr. Nguyen Hoai Phuong, Brand Representative, told local media that the company will expand its network in many provinces in the future, especially those in the south. We are still trying to build credibility and customer numbers, he said. Ding Tea is the largest Taiwanese milk tea franchise in the country in terms of locations, with more than 90 outlets nationwide, of which 60 in Hanoi belong to the company and more than 30 outside of the capital are franchises. According to Mr. Sean T. Ngo, CEO of VF Franchise Consulting, franchising will be a growing sector in Vietnam as franchisors recognize that its culture of entrepreneurship allows investors to start a business with controlled levels of investment and at reduced risk. Some domestic milk tea brands are also creating competition in the market. Phuc Long is a popular tea and coffee brand among young Vietnamese, especially its milk tea, and has opened 22 outlets in Ho Chi Minh City to date. CEO Mr. Lam Chan Huy told VET that it has not yet fully expanded in the Ho Chi Minh City market and is still to exploit the potential in other major cities. In order for a brand to maintain a niche in the market requires investment and comprehensive market research, he believes, such as in market demand and trends, demographics, and competitors. The long-term development strategy of Phuc Long is in product quality, bringing quality products to the food and beverage (F&B) market in particular and to the milk tea market in general, he said. Mr. Ngo said that consumers are now looking for quality and freshness in the products they consume and can be very brand conscious. Another major Vietnamese milk tea brand, Bobapop, recorded successful business results last year. Sales increased from about $1.2 million in 2015 to $2.9 million in 2016. Its outlets stood at 37 around the country and it is now focusing on expanding its market in the north and plans to have 50 stores nationwide by June this year. Ms. Amy Tran, co-founder and COO of Bobapop, said the company has been promoting franchising to all provinces in the country and will also strike franchise deals in China, Singapore and Thailand in the future. Trend or hype? Milk tea shop chains are not a new trend in Vietnam, as they were first introduced in the country at the end of 2002, but they have developed vigorously over the last decade. Milk tea is not just a popular drink among teenagers; it is also becoming popular among people of all ages and social class. Though not mushrooming like coffee shops, due to lower market demand, milk tea shop chains are nonetheless considered a potential business model in the F&B sector. According to Mr. Ngo, the trend for F&B companies to jump on the bandwagon and get a piece of the action will always be around, whether in milk tea, coffee, or desserts. Milk tea products still have room for development in the local market, because Vietnams F&B sector has been recording stable growth over the past few years and forecasts are positive to 2020, according to Ms. Nguyen Phi Van, Chairman of Retail & Franchise Asia. It is estimated that the sectors growth rate will be at around 5.7 per cent annually, with total revenue by 2020 reaching nearly $24.7 billion. Moreover, in recent reports from Nielsen Vietnam, the beverage category has been the shining light in the FMCG market for continuous quarters, constantly contributing nearly 40 per cent to total FMCG sales. The countrys younger generation (15 to 34 years old), which account for more than 36 per cent of the total population, is where the milk tea market has potential. On the other hand, the boom in milk tea brands also raises a question about their longevity in the market given the departure of some coffee chains in recent years. Long-time players in a market, especially F&B products, depend on a combination of several factors. Brands that tend to have longevity are those that have great and consistent products and services at a reasonable price, Mr. Ngo said. Some brands pop up and those qualities are not there. Consumers are quick to determine which brands are good and where they want to spend their money. According to Ms. Amy Tran, some F&B brands cannot survive in Vietnams retail market not because they are not sufficiently strong to expand but because they did not develop their products in accordance with local consumers taste and demands. Another difficulty, according to Ms. Phi Van, is that franchising in the milk tea market, especially for those from Taiwan, often has distinct policies compared to other traditional franchise brands from Europe. The existing duties on the import of shrimp products from Viet Nam, China, Thailand and India will remain for another five years. - Photo vtv.vn As a result, existing duties on the import of shrimp products from Viet Nam, China, Thailand and India will remain for another five years. Only Brazilian shrimp exports are fortunate to overcome this "barrier." "The revoking of the existing anti-dumping duty orders on the import of frozen warmwater shrimp from China, India, Thailand and Viet Nam would likely lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time," according to an official statement of the commission. This verdict is the outcome of the second five-year sunset review asking the United States Department of Commerce (DoC) to revoke an anti-dumping or countervailing duty. USITCs decision has provoked different reactions. Southern Shrimp Alliances executive director John Williams praised ITCs decision as good news for the United States shrimp industry, then emphasised that if countries were subject to anti-dumping duties focusing on "fair trade," the barriers would be lifted. He also explained anti-dumping orders have not been extended to Brazil because this South American country has not exported shrimp to the United States for a very long time. The American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA) also welcomed the extension of the anti-dumping orders by USITC on shrimp from China, India, Thailand and Viet Nam for an additional five years. However, representatives of the United States major wholesalers, such as the Performance Food Group, Costco and Publix Super Markets, which consume some 100,000 tonnes of shrimp per year, argued that expansion of anti-dumping duties should not be imposed on the import of frozen shrimp, according to the Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Washington. Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has forecast that shrimp export would reach US$3.4 billion in 2017, up 9 per cent from last year. Over one hundred Americans and Cambodian-Americans joined a fundraiser and auction organized by non-profit Caring for Cambodia Thursday in Washington, DC, to support 21 schools in Cambodia's Siem Reap province. Jamie Amelio, founder and CEO of CFC told VOA Khmer that the funds collected from the May 4, 2017 event will be used to continue to supporting the organization's education programs and teacher training, recognized by Cambodia's Ministry of Education. Caring for Cambodia was founded in 2003 to support the education of over 6,000 students in Siem Reap and to improve the quality of teaching. Show more Show less Legal challenges to President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries heat up again next week when two U.S. appeals courts consider whether it is constitutional. The legal fights may end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps in the fall, many months after Trump first issued an executive order in January saying there was an urgent need to halt some immigration to the United States for 90 days while officials reviewed the visa process. Trump dropped the original travel order after unfavorable legal rulings and replaced it with a more limited ban, which is itself now being challenged in appeals courts on two coasts. Arguing that the United States needed to tighten national security measures, Trump's attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office. The fate of the ban is one indication of whether the Republican can carry out his promises to be tough on immigration and national security. A pressing need? Omar Jadwat, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be arguing the case at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on Monday, said the fact that so much time has passed since the ban was issued is proof that there was no pressing national security need for it in the first place. The court fight will give those challenging the order an opportunity to argue that the government never intended for the travel pause to be temporary, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Palo Alto, California, whose firm has been closely tracking the litigation. Now, almost 100 days after the original travel ban, the government says the period of 90 days was reset when the administration issued the new order in March. The Department of Homeland Security "is, and will be, continuously examining ways to enhance the screening and vetting process to shut down terrorist and criminal pathways into the United States," agency spokesman David Lapan said in an email. "Some improvements will be classified, others will be public, but the department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system." Opponents, including states and civil rights groups, say that both the first ban and the revised ban, which also put a halt to all refugee admissions to the country for four months, discriminate against Muslims. The government argues the text of the order does not mention any specific religion and is needed to protect the country against attacks. Two hearings The 4th Circuit will decide the fate of a ruling from a Maryland district judge that struck down a section of the revised executive order barring visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. The hearing will take place before 14 full-time judges of the appellate court. Ten of them were appointed by Democrats, and four by Republicans. Then, on March 15, a three-judge panel at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review a decision from a Hawaii judge that halted not just the travel portion of the ban but also the section that barred refugees. The judges, who will sit on a panel in Seattle, have been assigned, but their identities have not been made public. The 9th Circuit blocked Trump's first ban in February, in a unanimous vote by one Republican-appointed judge and two-Democratic appointees. Trump lashed out at the ruling on Twitter and said he was ready for a fight at the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court is more likely to hear a case if the federal appeals courts reach opposite rulings or if the issue is of great national importance, according to legal experts. But the Supreme Court's session ends in June, and if it takes the case, it would probably not be heard until after the justices return in October. Al-Shabab insurgents in Somalia have beheaded two government soldiers they captured on Saturday near the town of Mahaday, 35 kilometers north of Jowhar, and the provincial capital of Middle Shabelle region, officials and witnesses told VOA. The head of the Somali National Army 30th contingent, which operates in the region, Lt. Col. Omar Ali Adow, told VOA's Somali service about the soldiers beheadings. The militants intercepted a civilian passenger vehicle in which the two government soldiers were traveling. They [the soldiers] were off duty, un-uniformed and unarmed. They [the militants] forced them to get out off the car, took them to a nearby village and beheaded them, Adow said. He added that the soldiers left a government military camp in Biya Ade village and headed to Jowhar for family emergencies. He identified them as Mowlid Hussien and Ahmed Yaqub. The executions took place early Saturday morning at Quraa Madobe village, where dozens of residents, mostly women and children, watched as the militants beheaded the soldiers. They brought the men in front of a tea restaurant in the village. They told the residents they were captured enemy soldiers. One of the militants read a Quranic verse, and then two knife-wielding militants dressed in military camouflage got off a vehicle and beheaded the two men, a witness told VOA on the condition of the anonymity. The beheadings came a day after the militants killed a member of U.S. Special Forces and wounded three other members of an American team assisting Somali soldiers. The Navy SEAL who died in the operation against al-Shabab was the first American service member killed in combat in the country since a battle in 1993 that inspired the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka abruptly changed tack in his battle to remove Finance Minister Andrej Babis on Friday, taking back a pledge to resign and instead seeking only the dismissal of his main political rival. The country is in political crisis over Babis, a billionaire who faces questions over past business practices but is also the most popular party leader before an election due in October. The battle pits Sobotka's center-left Social Democrats not only against Babis's ANO party but also President Milos Zeman who took Babis's side, something Sobotka said could be overstepping the constitutional powers of the presidency. Babis has had good relations with Zeman and they both see Sobotka as their prime adversary. The president's spokesman, Jiri Ovcacek, tweeted: A desperate prime minister is trying to pull the entire country into mud. He also indicated the stalemate is likely to drag on, telling a Czechoslovakia news website that Zeman would consider the dismissal request only upon his return from a trip to China on May 18. Making 'a joke' of the constitution Earlier this week, Sobotka said he would resign along with his whole government as a way to dislodge Babis. But he changed his mind after Zeman indicated he would treat the resignation as Sobotka's own, not the departure of the entire cabinet. In such a situation my resignation does not make any sense. The finance minister, burdened by extensive scandals, would remain in the government, Sobotka told reporters. He accused the president of making a joke of the constitution. Sobotka said Babis, worth $3.4 billion according to Forbes, had failed to clear suspicions he avoided tax by buying tax-free bonds from his chemicals and food conglomerate Agrofert. He has also been under investigation over whether he manipulated ownership of a conference center to unfairly qualify for a 2 million euro subsidy meant for small businesses. Babis says he did not break any laws. He transferred Agrofert, which owns two national newspapers, to a trust this year to comply with new conflict of interest legislation. Dispute may end up in court While a number of lawyers said the constitution implied that if the prime minister resigns the entire cabinet falls, some said it was possible to interpret it so that such a resignation, without a cabinet vote, might mean only the departure of the prime minister. The constitution says the president dismisses ministers at the request of the prime minister, giving the head of state narrow room to maneuver. Babis told Reuters the decision was in the president's hands. If the president accepts this, then we will see what happens next. Of course it (Sobotka's decision) is a breach of the coalition agreement, Babis said. If Zeman refuses to dismiss Babis, the dispute may end up at the constitutional court. There is no deadline, but otherwise (the constitution says that) the president dismisses a government member if the prime minister proposes it, there is no arbitrary power, constitutional law professor Ales Gerloch told Reuters. At least 34 people were killed Saturday when a bus carrying students and teachers in Tanzania crashed, according to local police. Arusha Region Police Commander Charles Mkumbo also said that four others were injured in the accident in Karatu. The bus was carrying students and teachers from Lucky Vincent Primary School in Arusha to take an examination on Saturday. Innocent Mushi, the director of the school, said 12 boys and 17 girls were among those killed. "We lost 29 students and two of our staff, and the driver died too," he said, as reported by the French Press Agency. Police said authorities are still trying to recover bodies from the bus, which is stuck in trees where it crashed. Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had "complete knowledge" of the massive political kickback scheme that centered on contracts at state-run oil firm Petrobras, a former top executive testified on Friday. Former Petrobras engineering and services director Renato Duque, testifying in the first of five corruption trials Lula faces, told a federal judge that Lula had "command" of the scheme. But Duque, convicted on corruption charges in four separate trials for taking bribes in the Petrobras scheme and sentenced to more than 56 years in prison, emphasized during his testimony that he was seeking a plea-bargain deal that would reduce his time in prison. "I would like to make clear my intention here is to act as a collaborator, to tell the truth, to clarify what is possible and within my reach in this case and any others you think necessary," Duque told Judge Sergio Moro, who has spearheaded the anti-corruption drive. Lula's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but they have repeatedly said the former leader is innocent and did not know of the scheme. Lula himself is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, and court officials have said they expect a ruling by July in the case. The Petrobras probe has unearthed the largest corruption scheme known in Brazil. Billions have been paid in bribes, mainly by construction companies, to win contracts with Petrobras and other state-run companies. Over 80 people have been convicted, and the Supreme Court last month approved the investigations of nearly one-third of President Michel Temer's Cabinet, 12 governors and dozens of top federal lawmakers. For the first time in recent history, French voters on Sunday will cast ballots in a presidential election with no candidates from traditional establishment parties. Their choice: Emmanuel Macron, a centrist from the left who is pro-business and pro-Europe and Marine Le Pen, a nationalist who wants France out of the European Union and an end to most immigration, especially from Muslim countries. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from Paris. Voters in France prepared to go to the polls Sunday, ending what observers describe as the countrys most contentious and divisive presidential campaign since the founding of the Fifth Republic. Sunday also could mark the start of a new path for France and its relationship with the rest of Europe, regardless of who wins. Surveys at the official end of campaigning had centrist Emmanuel Macron in a strong lead, with 62 percent support, and nationalist anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen at 38 percent. Macrons campaign late Friday said it had been the victim of a massive and coordinated (computer) hack that resulted in the leak of campaign emails a mixture of both real and fake documents on social media. For the first time in recent history, French voters will cast ballots in a presidential election with no candidates from traditional establishment parties. Their choices are between Macron a centrist from the left who is pro-business and pro-Europe and Le Pen who wants France out of the European Union and an end to most immigration, especially from Muslim countries. In the final week of campaigning, Le Pen made one last push to convince voters she is the one who can best deal with the challenges of a changing Europe. I am best placed to talk to this new world that's emerging, to talk to the Russia of Putin, to the United States of Trump, to talk to the Britain of May, Le Pen said. "Because all of those countries are more or less backing away from the ideology of free trade, of competition and of undermining social protection, so I feel much more in line with their political philosophy, she said on French television. Le Pen came in second in the first round of voting two weeks ago, but she hopes her promises of returning French factory jobs and boosting social benefits will win over the far left. Macron, to his supporters, represents a more balanced and pragmatic approach to a globalization that cannot be reversed. It is not only the intellectual, political and moral heritage of France which is at stake now, but also the future of a united Europe, master of its own destiny, the future of a world that we have decided to take part in, Macron said in an interview on French television. One of the highest unemployment rates in Europe and a string of Islamist terrorist attacks have prompted big questions about globalization and what many perceive as failed policies. Le Pen wants to get rid of the Euro and would like a Brexit-like referendum on Frances continued membership in the EU. The left and center see her as dangerous. In a final debate marred by personal attacks, Macron said Le Pen would provoke a civil war in France. In arguing about Frances industrial policy, Le Pen chided Macron for lecturing her like a teacher would a student, referring to Macrons marriage to his former high school teacher, a woman 24 years his elder. Reports of the hacking of Macrons emails added to the suspense on Saturday. Mainstream media were banned from releasing the hacked emails, in keeping with restrictions that forbid campaigns from making statements or disseminating propaganda within 24 hours of the start of voting. Supporters confident The release of potentially damaging information did not daunt his supporters, who were confident of a solid victory Sunday. Some were troubled, however, that the breach could hurt his numbers. He has no opportunity to defend himself, said Nicolas Brocard, a 19-year-old law student in Paris, who has volunteered to mobilize young voters for Macron. "At this time we are in a period of restriction on campaign propaganda and the mainstream media cannot defuse the [hacked] information, he told VOA. Parts of it are appearing on social media where the information is not reliable, said Brocard. WATCH: Social Media a Double-edged Sword in French Election Campaign Nacron promises reforms in Frances relationship with Europe. His big challenge has been to convince voters he, as a former member of the unpopular ruling Socialist Party administration, will not bring more of the same. Still, he has consistently led in the polls and is widely favored to win Sunday because he managed to present himself as an outsider. As a maverick within the administration, Paris historian Patrick Weil, told VOA. Now, what will be the meaning of this revolution, we dont know yet, he said. France is deeply divided, perhaps more than at any time in its post-war history. Either way, Sundays election will mark a change. The big question is how much of one French voters really want. Game Of Thrones stars Lena Headey and Iain Glen are taking a break from swords and intrigue to tackle a real-world crisis in their latest venture: a low-budget, independent film on Europe's refugees. Both appear as immigration officers in The Flood, which follows the journey of an Eritrean migrant trying to reach Britain. You know what's happening in the world, globally is horrific. And, you know, for it to be dealt in cinematic form, I think is a great thing to do, said Headey, best known for her depiction of the twisted matriarch Cersei Lannister in the TV series. Glen plays exiled knight Ser Jorah Mormont on the HBO series. The film's title is a reference to the often pejorative language used to describe the arrival of large numbers of migrants in Europe. The film's producer Luke Healy said he bypassed the usual funding channels and managed to get financial support from a prospective buyer he was showing round his apartment. She didn't end up buying the flat but she bought the movie. She was our sole investor, he told Reuters. The Hamas Islamic militant movement that controls the Gaza Strip announced Saturday that it had chosen its former Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, as the group's new political chief. Haniyeh succeeds Hamas' longtime exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, and the move comes shortly after Gaza's rulers unveiled a new, seemingly more pragmatic political program aimed at ending the group's international isolation. Hamas is trying to rebrand itself as an Islamic national liberation movement, rather than a branch of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed by Egypt. It has also dropped explicit language calling for Israel's destruction, though it retains the goal of eventually "liberating" all of historic Palestine, which includes what is now Israel. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, after securing an overwhelming victory in legislative elections the previous year and ending 40 years of political domination by its rival Fatah party. Hamas captured the coastal strip by violently overthrowing forces loyal to the Fatah movement, led by Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, along with Egypt, has been enforcing a crippling border blockade against them since then. Though it has softened some of its rhetoric, Hamas' new platform clung to the hard-line positions that led to its isolation. The group reaffirmed it would not recognize Israel, renounce violence or recognize previous interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals the West's long-standing conditions for dealing with Hamas. In its founding charter, Hamas called for setting up an Islamic state in historic Palestine, or the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, which also includes Israel. It also included anti-Jewish references. Attacks on Israel Over the years, Hamas has carried out shootings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel. Since 2008, Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza have fought three cross-border wars. Abbas has been an outspoken opponent of violence, saying it undercuts Palestinian interests. Repeated reconciliation efforts between the Palestinian factions have failed. Hamas has sharply criticized Abbas' political program, which rests on setting up a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. Haniyeh's selection marks the final phase of the secretive Hamas elections. In February, the group chose militant commander Yehiya Sinwar, one of its most hard-line figures, as its new Gaza chief in charge of the group's core power base. Haniyeh, 54, was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza. He was the private secretary of Hamas' founder and spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin. In 2006, after Hamas won the legislative elections, Haniyeh was chosen by the movement to form its first government. He resigned as prime minister after Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government in 2014 a government that has never taken hold. For the past four years, he has served as Mashaal's deputy. Hamas-Fatah friction Haniyeh's first task will be to cope with escalating tensions between Hamas and Fatah. In recent weeks, Abbas has threatened to exert financial pressure, including cutting wage payments and aid to Gaza, as a way of forcing Hamas to cede ground. Gaza resident Rani Abu Samra said he hoped Haniyeh's election could bridge gaps with Fatah and mark "a new beginning for a real reconciliation on the internal Palestinian level." In Gaza, where Haniyeh still resides in his home in a refugee camp, some residents saw his election as a sign that could draw attention to the territory's woes. "If someone is from outside Gaza, he won't talk about Gaza's ordeals and worries properly," said Ahmed Okasha, a Gaza vendor. Since quitting his longtime base in Damascus in 2012, Mashaal has mostly lived in lavish suites in the capital of the oil-rich gulf state of Qatar. Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Gaza's al-Azhar University, said Haniyeh was a natural successor to Mashaal and represented "a continuation for the moderate line in Hamas." Israel had no immediate comment. An old man flanked by young women checks into a hotel, a customer books several rooms on the same floor and no one ever leaves the rooms, another brings guests and walks straight into the hotel lift without checking in. These are all possible signs of human trafficking that hotel staff across Mexico City are being trained to spot and report. An initiative between the Citizens Council of Mexico City, a civil society group, and the Mexico City Hotel Association, which brings together 251 hotels, aims to train at least 2,000 hotel staff this year across the capital. Handful trained so far Staff in at least six, mostly high-end hotels have been trained in trafficking since the initiative started in March, said Luis Wertman, head of the Citizens Council, which provides the training. We view the crime of human trafficking as a chain. And every chain is made up of several links. One of the most used links tools that traffickers have are hotels, Wertman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. If you have trained people at the reception, at the front desk, the cleaners, housekeeping, anyone that works in the hotel, they can easily recognize when someone is in the hotel against their will. Hotel rooms can be used to film pornography, where women and children are sexually exploited, or a base for traffickers and their victims before victims are sold into sex or forced labor and transported to other parts of Mexico, Wertman said. Modern slavery In Mexico, and across Latin America, the most common form of human trafficking involves women and girls forced into sex work. Nearly 380,000 people are trapped in modern slavery in Mexico, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foundation. Wertman said when hotel staff ask guests questions in the right way, it can help detect possible cases of trafficking. Not questions like, Are you here against your will? But more like, Excuse me sir, whats the relationship between you and the guest, he said. From those quick questions and answers you can notice when something is not right. Hotel staff send confidential reports of suspected trafficking to the Citizens Council, which then passes them on to trusted authorities, including police and prosecutors, who investigate, Wertman said. Can you trust every authority? In our experience, the answer will be no. Are there trusted authorities? The answer is yes, he said. Penalty is years in prison Mexicos 2012 anti-trafficking law punishes those convicted of the crime to up to 40 years in prison. Eloy Rodriguez, head of the Mexico City Hotel Association, said hoteliers have a role to play in combating modern slavery. Hotels are open to the public and as such are vulnerable, Rodriguez said. Bad people and criminals use hotels, and being part of this initiative is one way to prevent trafficking. The next initiative is to place tags, with an anti-trafficking hotline number, on 30,000 bottles of water in hotel rooms across Mexico City, he said. Aliyah Hussein and the 25 family members sheltering with her in Mosuls western Mahatta neighborhood are surviving by picking wild greens growing in a park near their home. Hussein mixes the vegetables with small amounts of rice and tomato paste to make a thin soup that is often her familys only meal. Her cousin Zuhair Abdul Karim said on a recent day that even with the wild greens, the food ran out. I swear to God, we are hungry. (The Islamic State group) made us hungry. They didnt leave anything for us, they even stole our food, Hussein said. Her home sits just a few hundred yards (meters) from the front line in the battle for western Mosul. Food running low As Iraqi forces continue to make slow progress in the fight against IS in the city, clawing back territory house by house and block by block, food supplies are running dangerously low for civilians trapped inside militant-held territory and those inside recently retaken neighborhoods. For families like Husseins, safety concerns make them unreachable for most humanitarian groups. Although Hussein has technically been liberated, her neighborhood is still too dangerous for most humanitarian groups to reach. In the past week she said she received only one box of food consisting of rice, oil and tomato paste, barely enough to feed her entire family even for a single day. The women didnt have lunch. Only the children and men have eaten, Abdul Karim said, explaining that he and his family are now living meal to meal. We dont know if well have dinner, he said, maybe or maybe not. No savings, no work, no aid Some families walk several kilometers (miles) to markets that have sprung up in neighborhoods that have been under Iraqi military control longer. But prices there are high. Most families have exhausted their savings and work is almost non-existent in Mosul, a city now been ripped apart by war. The humanitarian world needs to realize that there is a huge gap between people who are in the safe zone and people who are actually trapped in the no mans land between the Iraqi controlled areas and ... Daesh controlled areas, said Alto Labetubun with Norwegian People Aid, one of the few groups operating in neighborhoods close to the front line. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. Some 300,000 to 500,000 people remain beyond anyones reach, trapped in IS-held Mosul neighborhoods, according to the United Nations. For those civilians, siege-like conditions have prevented food supplies from reaching them for more than six months. Most of those civilians are estimated to be in Mosuls old city, where the final battles of the operation are expected to play out. If the fighting there lasts many more weeks, the U.N. warns the consequences for civilians will be catastrophic. We know we have a problem because when people reach our camps the first thing they ask for is food, said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. She said its impossible to measure exactly how many families are facing what she described as serious hunger inside Mosul, but the conditions of the people fleeing the city paint a grim picture of those who remain trapped. Malnutrition in children Hundreds of infants and young children who recently fled Mosul are being treated for malnutrition, Grande said. Separately, she added that the U.N. had received reports that even baby formula in IS-held neighborhoods is now no longer available, If the battle goes beyond (the next few weeks), then we have a catastrophic problem, she said. In the Wadi al-Hajar neighborhood hundreds of people queue for food boxes delivered by Norwegian People Aid. But most of them are turned away because there arent enough supplies to go around. A small crowd of women begged the aid workers for food after the last boxes were handed out. Ibrahim Khalil, also turned away, said his hunger was so intense, he felt like he was starving. Didnt they claim theyd liberate us from Daesh?! he said referring to the Iraqi government, and theyd change our lives from misery to happiness? Opposition parties in Kosovo have filed a motion of no confidence in the government, potentially deepening an 18-month political crisis over legislation to draw a border with Montenegro that is needed to ease travel to the EU. More than 40 deputies, including 12 from parties that are part of the ruling coalition and some independent MPs, signed the motion, which accuses the government of failing to meet its campaign pledges and creating public distrust. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, whose conservative LDK is the second-largest party in the 120-seat parliament, has enough votes to survive the no-confidence motion provided all or most coalition lawmakers support him. Parliaments largest party, the center-right PDK, has yet to give its backing, however. The parliament will debate the motion May 10. The motion noted that the parliament very often ... was not able to have a quorum to vote because of disruptive actions inside and outside the building by opponents of the border legislation. These have included street riots, opposition deputies throwing teargas and the firing of a rocket-propelled grenade at parliament. The situation in Kosovo is not good, I am not happy, people are not happy, said PDK leader Kadri Veseli, who is also the speaker of parliament. Veseli said he would discuss the motion with the prime minister. Border law The government dropped plans in September for a parliamentary vote on the bitterly contested law to establish a definitive border with Montenegro after lawmakers from Mustafas ethnic Serb coalition ally stayed away from the session. A two-thirds majority would have been needed to force through the measure, which the European Union has said is crucial if Kosovars are to join their former Yugoslav neighbors in enjoying visa-free travel to the bloc. Mustafa has said he will call a snap election if the border deal is not passed soon. We cannot continue with this situation, in one way or another the government will soon be brought down, a senior government official told Reuters Friday. Another source said an election was likely to be held in June, a year ahead of schedule. Opposition parties say the border deal would see some 8,000 hectares of territory, mostly forested highland, transferred to Montenegro, although the government and others, including the United States, say this is not the case. Kosovo, Serbia ties The opposition also objects to an EU-brokered deal to improve ties with another neighbor, Serbia. Kosovo broke with Serbia in 1999 after a NATO bombing campaign halted a campaign of ethnic cleansing directed against ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces trying to stamp out a two-year insurgency and declared independence in 2008. It has been recognized by more than 100 countries, including Western powers, but not by Serbia and its ally Russia or several EU members such as Spain. As voters head once again to the polls this Sunday for the second round of France's presidential race, many people in Paris and other parts of the country say they have not made their choice, between candidates Marine Le Pen on the far right and centrist Emmanuel Macron. As the two candidates make their last campaign stops, VOA's Mariama Diallo reports on the general mood. The U.S. Kentucky Derby, the first of three major yearly horse races in the United States, will take place on Saturday with rain in the forecast, adding another variable to an already unpredictable race. The 20-horse field lacks a clear dominant horse following winter preparatory races, and the 40 percent chance of rain predicted for Saturday could create a sloppy track ripe for an underdog victory. The last four Derby races have all been won by the favorite. However, without a dominant runner in the race, spectators and betters are also looking at the possibility of a long-shot win this year. Classic Empire, at odds of 4-1, is the narrow pre-race favorite in the opener of the U.S. Triple Crown, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Two horses, Always Dreaming and McCraken, are the co-second choices at 5-1. The underdogs include Patch, rated 30-1, a one-eyed horse who drew starting gate number 20, the farthest outside gate. Patch will not be able to see any of his competition at the start of the race because of his left eye patch and lane draw. Patchs trainer, Todd Pletcher, also has two other horses in the race, 5-1 shot Always Dreaming, and 20-1 odds Tapwrit. Another trainer, Steve Asmussen also has three horses in the race, all long shots. Bob Baffert, a four-time derby winner not competing in this years event, told the Associated Press there is a lot of parity in this years race, but it was hard for him to pick a winner. I think Classic Empire is probably the best horse in the race. Todd's horse has brilliance, Always Dreaming. If they can get him figured out, he could steal it. The rest are bombers, he said. Thousands of Russian opposition activists held a rally in Moscow on May 6 to mark five years since the 2012 Bolotnaya Square antigovernment protest in Moscow. Moscow authorities approved the rally on a section of Sakharov Avenue in the city center. But city authorities refused to allow an opposition march toward Bolotnaya Square itself. Alec Luhn, a correspondent for The Guardian, tweeted that at least seven protesters were detained at Bolotnaya Square on May 6 after they held up placards with photographs of people who were jailed for taking part in the 2012 protest. The latest May 6 protest in Moscow was named by the organizers: For Russia, Against Arbitrary Practices And Reprisals. Participants chanted slogans like "Russia without Putin!" and "Putin is a thief!" Organizers claimed as many as 10,000 protesters took to the streets for the anti-Putin rally. Independent observers estimated that about 3,000 people took part. According to Russia's Interior Ministry, about 1,000 people attended the rally, with participants listening to speeches and music. "The police and Russian National Guard are ensuring public order and security," the ministry said. Sakharov Avenue was closed for traffic, while those entering the rally area had to walk through metal detectors. Delay to protest Meanwhile, the start of the demonstration was briefly delayed when municipal authorities and police tore down banners from a stage that had been set up for rally speakers. Those banners contained slogans like "'The Case Of May 6," "Shame On Russia," and "Enough With Kadyrov, Enough Despotism" -- referring to Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin head of Russia's Chechnya region. Russian journalist Aleksandr Ryklin, a moderator of the rally, said municipal officials alleged that the banners were "subversive" and tore them down "because they believe that they contradict the purpose of our rally." Meanwhile, demonstrators carried Russian flags, posters, and other banners. Many participants wore badges and ribbons reading: "Five Years Since The Bolotnaya." An 81-year-old rally participant named Alla told RFE/RL that she is "worried sick" about the things happening in Russia since Putin came into power. "I became anxious since the very beginning when Mr. Putin came to power and the first thing he did was to shut down [independent] NTV," Alla said. "It was very scary. Then I remember [the sinking of] the Kursk submarine. Then I remember Beslan [school siege]. I remember everything. I am doing everything [I can] to have this government changed." Another protester, who identified herself as Tatyana, told RFE/RL that the longer Russians accept living in an "isolated country, the harder our life will be in the future." Once the demonstration was under way, Russian opposition activist and former State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov told the crowd that Russia has become "internationally isolated" because of Putin's policies. "The country is in a deep economic and -- actually -- systemic crisis," Gudkov said. "The system of our governance is good for nothing. The country is getting involved in ever new armed conflicts. We lost 42 million [people] during World War II. Do we want to risk our lives, the lives of our family members and loved ones, the future of our children again?" Russian Yabloko Party leader Sergei Mitrokhin said "the main danger for Russia today is a weak, cowardly, and dangerous government." On May 6, 2012, several thousand Russians demonstrated on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow against Putin's reelection, and there were clashes with police during the event. Between 400 and 700 people were detained. Dozens have been prosecuted and many have spent time in pretrial detention or been sentenced to prison. Some remain behind bars. Fearing persecution, several other people, who had not yet been officially accused, left Russia and were granted asylum in Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, and Germany. 2012 protest Participants in the 2012 protest blame police for the violence and say that the severity of the charges laid against demonstrators has been grossly disproportionate to their actions. The reaction of Russian authorities after the 2012 demonstration also included a crackdown against the country's opposition leaders. Nikolai Kavkazsky, an opposition activist who was jailed after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protest and only recently was released, told the Moscow rally on May 6 that "Kadyrov has been de facto waging genocide in Chechnya." "Should we allow this to happen, it will begin in other [Russian] regions as well, because Chechnya is a certain testing ground of totalitarianism," Kavkazsky said. "Russia may be transformed into one big Chechnya in the future. I believe we must resist. We must help political prisoners. We need to stand up against all sorts of repression." A U.S. Senate committee investigating allegations that Russia interfered in recent U.S. elections has ordered several of President Donald Trump's former aides to turn over information about possible ties with Russians. One of those being scrutinized, Carter Page, who is a former foreign policy adviser to Trump, lashed out at the Senate intelligence committee in a letter made public Friday, calling the probe a comically fake inquiry. Page said in his letter that if committee members wanted details about his communications with Russians, they should ask former President Barack Obama. He said the material he has is minuscule in comparison to information the Obama administration collected as part of what he called a completely unjustified secret warrant to put him under surveillance. Manafort, Stone, Flynn also named The Senate panel has also asked for records from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former Trump adviser Roger Stone, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of its investigation. Both the Senate and House intelligence committees along with FBI officials are investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. On Thursday, FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers discussed the investigation with members of the House intelligence committee for more than two hours behind closed doors. The House committee's work has been stalled since the panel's chairman, Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican and a member of the president's transition team, recused himself from the probe. Trump named Page as an unpaid adviser in March 2016. Officials say that Page submitted policy memos to Trump's campaign but that the two never met. Page left Trump's campaign in September 2016 after a trip he took to Russia drew criticism. Relative calm prevailed Saturday in wide parts of Syria despite sporadic violations and clashes in the countrys center after a deal by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up de-escalation zones in mostly opposition-held areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said. There were no immediate reports of casualties after the plan the latest attempt to bring calm to the war-ravaged country kicked in at midnight Friday. The establishment of safe zones is the latest international attempt to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement, and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy. Plan not final for weeks Details of the plan must be worked out over the next several weeks. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, and the southern province of Daraa, areas expected to be part of the de-escalation zones, activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. It is not clear how the cease-fire or de-escalation zones will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now. Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established. Syrias government has said that although it will abide by the agreement, it would continue fighting terrorism wherever it exists, parlance for most armed rebel groups fighting government troops. The armed opposition delegation to the talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana said in a statement released early Saturday that the truce should include all of Syria. It said some maps of the de-escalation zones that were released are not accurate and will not be accepted because the armed opposition did not negotiate them. Situation improved Still, opposition activists in southern, central and northern Syria told The Associated Press on Saturday the situation is by far much better than previous days, with no airstrikes reported. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has activists around the country, said the governments helicopter gunships dropped three barrel bombs on the rebel-held Latamneh area in central Syria where fighting was reported between rebels and troops. It added that government forces shelled rebel-held neighborhoods of the capital Damascus. Despite some violations the situation is much calmer than before, said opposition activist Mohammed al-Homsi, speaking via Skype from northern Syria. Ahmad al-Masalmeh, who is based in the southern province of Daraa that borders Jordan, said there were six breaches in the province when government forces shelled opposition-held areas. Al-Homsi, al-Masalmeh and opposition activist Osama Abu Zeid said government warplanes have not carried out any airstrikes on rebel-held areas since Wednesday, a day before the deal to set up the zones was signed in Kazakhstan. US not part of agreement Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft sometimes operate in the same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flight paths of coalition warplanes battling Islamic State group militants and other radical groups and whether the American air force would abide by a diminished air space. The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. Russia and Iran, two of the plans three sponsors, are key allies of President Bashar Assads government and both are viewed as foreign occupation forces by his opponents. Rebels fighting to topple Assad are enraged by Irans role in the deal and blame the Shiite power for fueling the sectarian nature of Syrias conflict, now in its seventh year. Turkey, the third sponsor, is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria, drawing the ire of Assad and his government. Yet troops from the three countries are now expected to secure four safe zones. An official with Russias military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Taliban militants captured a district just outside the northern Afghan city of Kunduz Saturday, officials said. Mahfouz Akbari, a police spokesman for eastern Afghanistan, said security forces pulled out of Qala-i-Zal district, west of Kunduz city, Saturday to avoid further civilian and military casualties after more than 24 hours of heavy fighting. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents had taken the police headquarters, the governors compound and all security checkpoints. He said several police and soldiers had been killed and wounded. Taliban there before Over the past 18 months, Taliban insurgents have twice succeeded in seizing the town center of Kunduz for brief periods and the latest fighting underscores warnings that Afghan forces face another grueling year of fighting. A shopkeeper, whose name is also Zabihullah, said the situation was reminiscent of last October when Taliban forces entered the city before being driven back after days of fighting and air strikes. I am extremely worried. There are security forces everywhere, he said. Everyone in my family is worried and if the situation gets worse, well have to leave. Heavy fighting According to U.S. estimates, government fighters control about 60 percent of the country, with the rest either controlled or contested by the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster. Although the Taliban made a formal announcement of their spring offensive last week, there had been heavy fighting from the northern province of Badakhshan to the Taliban heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar in the south. In the Helmand province Saturday, Gen. Aqa Noor Kentoz, provincial police chief, said at least four police officers were killed Friday night at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. The four might have been attacked by an insider, Kentoz said, and an investigation is underway. No one immediately claimed responsibility. There have also been several operations against Islamic State militants in the eastern province of Nangarhar, which have also involved U.S. special forces and air strikes. More than 1,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed since the start of the year, according to Afghan officials and figures cited by U.S. Congressional watchdog SIGAR, along with more than 700 civilians. Also, more than 75,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the first four months of the year, according to United Nations figures. More troops needed Earlier this year, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, said he needed a few thousand more international troops to boost the Resolute Support training and advisory mission and break a stalemate with the Taliban. The U.S. military is due to make its formal recommendations to President Donald Trump within the next week, a senior official told a Senate committee last week. In late November, a member of Donald Trump's transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request: Could the incoming team get a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States? Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted the information for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. To the Obama White House, Billingslea's concerns were startling: a member of Trump's own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary. The request now stands out as a warning signal for Obama officials who would soon see Flynn's contacts with the Russian spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor's administration. Grew distrustful In the following weeks, the Obama White House would grow deeply distrustful of Trump's dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team's ties. The concern -- compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak -- would eventually grow so great Obama advisers delayed telling Trump's team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. Obama officials worried the incoming administration might tip off Moscow, according to one Obama adviser. The Trump White House declined to comment. This account of the closing days of the Obama administration is based on interviews with 11 current and former U.S. officials, including seven with key roles in the Obama administration. The officials reveal an administration gripped by mounting anxiety over Russia's election meddling and racing to grasp the Trump team's possible involvement before exiting the White House. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive national security information. The Obama White House's role in the Russia controversy will come under fresh scrutiny Monday. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are slated to testify before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of three committees investigating Trump's associates links to Moscow. Trump has said he has no nefarious ties to Russia and isn't aware of any involvement by his aides in Moscow's interference in the election. He's dismissed an FBI and congressional investigations into his campaign's possible ties to the election meddling as a ``hoax'' driven by Democrats bitter over losing the White House. To testify Yates, an Obama administration official who carried over into the Trump administration, is expected to tell lawmakers that she expressed alarm to the Trump White House about Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador. Trump fired Yates days later, after she told the Justice Department to not enforce the new president's travel and immigration ban. Flynn was forced to resign three weeks later for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about the content of his discussions with Kislyak. Yates's warnings about Flynn in January capped weeks of building concern among top Obama officials. The president himself that month told one of his closest advisers that the FBI, which by then had been investigating Trump associates' possible ties to Russia for about six months, seemed particularly focused on Flynn. Obama aides described Flynn as notably dismissive of the threat Russia posed to the United States when discussing policy in transition meetings with outgoing national security adviser Susan Rice and other top officials. Officials also found it curious that Billingslea only ever asked Obama's National Security Council for one classified leadership profile to give to Flynn: the internal document on Kislyak. The CIA compiles classified biographies of foreign officials, known as leadership profiles. The profiles include U.S. intelligence assessments about the officials, in addition to biographical information. Refused to comment When reached by the AP, Billingslea refused to comment. Last month, Trump announced his intention to nominate Billingslea to serve as assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department. Trump has accused Obama officials of illegally leaking classified information about Flynn's contacts with Kislyak. He's also contended, without evidence, that Rice asked for the names of Trump officials caught up in routine intelligence monitoring to be improperly revealed, a charge Rice has denied. The distrust in the other camp was clear months earlier. In late December, as the White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the in the U.S. in retaliation for the hacks, Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of two compounds the U.S. was shuttering, one official said. While it's not inappropriate for someone in Flynn's position to have contact with a diplomat, Obama officials said the frequency of his discussions raised enough red flags that aides discussed the possibility Trump was trying to establish a one-to-one line of communication -- a so-called back channel -- with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama aides say they never determined why Flynn was in close contact with the ambassador. Even with the suspicion, the officials said they did not withhold information. The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team's handling of classified information. Documents copied, removed After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition's Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama's national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government's contingency plans for crises. Some White House advisers now privately concede that the administration moved too slowly during the election to publicly blame Russia for the hack and explore possible ties to the Trump campaign. Others say it was only after the election, once Obama ordered a comprehensive review of the election interference, that the full scope of Russia's interference and potential Trump ties become clearer. Top U.S. and Russian military officials say they have agreed to revive a previous agreement intended to prevent midair incidents by warplanes from the two countries flying over Syria. Statements in Washington and Moscow on Saturday said General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, had spoken by telephone with his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, and that they had agreed to fully restore the agreement on using Syrian airspace that had been in force from late 2015 through most of last year. The two senior generals also discussed the recent Astana agreement, in which Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed on a Kremlin-proposed plan to reduce the violence in Syria through "de-escalation zones" areas of the war-torn country where clashes between Syrian rebels and forces of the Damascus government have been particularly intense. No U.S. participation The United States had a representative at the talks in Kazakhstan but did not participate in the negotiations, largely because of Iran's involvement. A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said Gerasimov and Dunford "affirmed their commitment to de-conflicting operations in Syria," and that they also agreed to remain in contact. Russian authorities said the de-escalation zones in Syria went into effect at midnight Friday (2100 UTC), and that those zones were now closed to aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition. No details of how the zones will operate or how aircraft exclusions will be enforced have been announced, and other reports quoted Russian officials as saying full details of the plan would not be available for at least a month. Syrian, Russian, Turkish and U.S.-led coalition aircraft sometimes operate in the same area in Syria, and it is uncertain whether American aviators will agree to abide by the airspace restrictions Russia has declared. Pentagon officials told The Washington Post the de-escalation measures would not affect the U.S.-led campaign against militants from the Islamic State group. Separately, U.S. officials reported multiple airstrikes targeting Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq on Friday. A news release on the air assault said 18 strikes, consisting of 59 sorties by warplanes, were carried out. The strikes destroyed IS oil storage tanks, weapons systems, supply caches and a "factory" that assembled car bombs and truck bombs. Russia, Turkey and Iran said they signed their Astana agreement on Thursday. It's aimed at reducing bloodshed in Syria, where a six-year civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people. The four areas set for de-escalation are parts of Syria where rebels not associated with IS terrorists control significant territory. Representatives of the Syrian rebels who attended the Astana talks said in a statement early Saturday that truce efforts should be extended throughout all of Syria. The rebels said they would not be bound by the Russian-Turkish-Iranian declaration, since they had no part in negotiating it. However, reports from Syria itself on Saturday gathered from activist groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and news reporters indicated there was relative calm in many areas, with fewer airstrikes and less shelling than in recent days. U.S. cautious The U.S. State Department said this week that "the United States supports any effort that can genuinely de-escalate the violence in Syria, ensure unhindered humanitarian access, focus energies on the defeat of [Islamic State] and other terrorists, and create conditions for a credible political resolution of the conflict." However, a statement issued Thursday in Washington said U.S. diplomats would be cautious in assessing whether the Astana agreement could offer such hopes, "in light of the failures of past agreements." "We expect the [Damascus] regime to stop all attacks on civilians and opposition forces, something they have never done," the U.S. statement said, adding that Washington expects Russia to ensure compliance by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government. Iran's involvement in the de-escalation effort together with Russia and Turkey is a particular concern, the U.S. statement noted: "Iran's activities in Syria have only contributed to the violence, not stopped it, and Iran's unquestioning support for the Assad regime has perpetuated the misery of ordinary Syrians." In the trillion-dollar budget signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, Congress has authorized a new $100 million effort to counter "Russian influence and aggression" and to support civil society organizations in Europe and Eurasia. U.S. lawmakers also backed a measure imposing new restrictions and oversight on Russian diplomats in the United States -- a measure that Moscow had angrily warned Washington against. Both efforts were included in the $1.1 trillion budget to fund the federal government for 2017 that was approved by Congress earlier this week and signed by the president on Friday. Perceived interference The $100 million fund is the product of several proposals that have circulated in the House and Senate in recent months as lawmakers looked to push back against Russias perceived interference in Europe and elsewhere. A growing number of Democrats and Republicans have pointed to the spread of fake news, foreign funding of political parties, outright propaganda, and other covert activities as indications of an aggressive Russian effort to meddle in or subvert governments seen as hostile to Moscow. Election campaigns in France and Germany have been shadowed by suspicions of Russian involvement, as well as last years presidential election in the United States. The $100 million allocation, called the Countering Russian Influence Fund, is aimed specifically at Europe, earmarked for "civil society groups involved in rule of law, media, cyber, and other programs that strengthen democratic institutions and processes, and counter Russian influence and aggression," according to the legislation. The money will go to "support democracy programs in the Russian Federation, including to promote Internet freedom, and shall also be made available to support the democracy and rule of law strategy" under State Department policies. The legislation also directs the money be made available to so-called Eastern Partnership countries -- a European Union program with the ex-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The funds will help "advance the implementation of Association Agreements and trade agreements with the European Union, and to reduce their vulnerability to external economic and political pressure from the Russian Federation." Intelligence measure Also tacked onto the budget legislation passed by the Senate was an intelligence authorization measure that tightens oversight of Russian diplomats in the United States. The section requires the State Department, the FBI, and the Director of National Intelligence to set up a procedure that would essentially obligate Russian diplomats to give the FBI advance warning about travels beyond the embassy and consulates immediate geographic territory. Last year, when word first emerged that U.S. lawmakers were contemplating such restrictions, Russias Foreign Ministry complained loudly and threatened retaliation against U.S. diplomats in Russia. The Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, charged at the time that the legislation was part of a "witch hunt" against Russia by outgoing President Barack Obama's administration. Privately, U.S. officials brushed off the threats of retaliation by Moscow, saying the movements of U.S. diplomats in Russia had already been severely curtailed for some time. The intelligence measure also calls for the creation of a new interagency committee to counter what it calls Russian efforts to manipulate foreign opinion. That is a reflection of the growing bipartisan consensus that emerged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, when the intelligence community concluded that Moscow actively meddled in the election campaign in support of Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which originally drafted the measures, is one of several House and Senate panels investigating those Russia efforts. The United States said Friday it will continue attending United Nations climate change meetings, even as President Donald Trump considers pulling the U.S. out of a global emissions-cutting deal. While U.S. representatives are in Bonn, Germany, next week for the U.N. talks, Trump's advisers will meet Tuesday to discuss what to do about the global pact known as the Paris agreement, officials said. The conflicting signals suggested the administration was trying to keep its options open while Trump decides whether to withdraw, a move the international community would strongly oppose. Though Trump's inclination has been to leave the agreement, he's allowed his daughter, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, to set up an extensive review process, a senior administration official said. The goal is to ensure Trump receives information from both government experts and the private sector before a making a decision. To that end, Ivanka Trump will hold a separate meeting Tuesday with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the official said. Pruitt is a chief proponent of leaving the deal and has questioned the science that says humans are contributing to global warming. And the decision to participate in next week's U.N. climate talks shouldn't be construed as a sign that Trump has decided to stay in the Paris pact, a State Department official added. To the contrary, the U.S. will be sending a "much smaller'' delegation than it has in years past, the official said. The officials weren't authorized to discuss internal deliberations publicly and requested anonymity. Under the Paris deal, brokered by former President Barack Obama and world leaders in 2015, nations agreed to non-binding pledges to cap or reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The pact helped solidify a global consensus about addressing climate change that environmental groups worry may be undermined if the world's largest economy withdraws. "If the U.S. pulls out, it will be a pariah,'' said Andrew Light, a climate adviser at the World Resources Institute. 'It will be on the sidelines, and that's going to hurt American businesses.'' Trump, as a candidate, threatened to "cancel'' the deal, but since taking office has said he's studying it and plans a final decision soon. U.S. officials say the timeline is being driven by the Group of 7 summit, which Trump will attend late this month in Italy. Trump needs to announce a decision before that summit so that leaders can determine whether and how to address climate change issues during the G-7. The State Department official said that the U.S. was focused on ensuring that no decisions are made in Bonn next week "that would prejudice our future policy,'' undermine competitiveness for American businesses or restrict U.S. economic growth. The U.S. delegation will be led by Trigg Talley, the U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change. The Trump administration has left the special envoy role vacant after the official who held the position in the Obama administration departed. Under the Paris deal, the U.S. committed to cut its emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, compared to 2005 levels. Since Trump took office, the U.S. has started deconstructing the set of regulations and climate policies that Obama put in place to help achieve the U.S. target. But former Obama administration officials argue that because the targets are non-binding and can be updated, the Trump administration could remain in the Paris deal even if it acknowledges it will not achieve the 2025 target that Obama set. Though the agreement envisioned updated targets being more ambitious not less there's nothing prohibiting a country from downgrading its targets, the Obama officials have said. Even if Trump announces his intention to withdraw, the lengthy divorce process and other stipulations in the deal mean that the U.S. would remain in the pact at least until November 2020 around the same date as the next U.S. presidential election. A white police officer in the southern U.S. state of Texas who shot into a car of teenagers, killing a 15-year-old African-American boy, has been charged with murder. Roy Oliver of the Balch Springs Police Department turned himself in to authorities Friday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, police officials said. Oliver had been fired from his job earlier in the week in connection with the shooting of Jordan Edwards on April 29. Several teens in the car Edwards and his two brothers, along with two other teenagers were leaving a rowdy party in Balch Springs when Oliver opened fire on their car. The Dallas County Sheriffs Office said in a statement the warrant for Olivers arrest was based on evidence that Oliver intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death. Oliver said the car was backing up aggressively on him, but video of the incident contradicted his story. Shooting one of several The fatal shooting is the latest in a string of shootings of African Americans by white police officers across the U.S. in recent years that have stirred outrage and protests. A statement from the Edwards family lawyer asked supporters to avoid holding any protests or vigils until the teenager is buried. Hundreds of women dressed in all white marched in Venezuela's capital Saturday, continuing more than a month of demonstrations against President Nicolas Maduro. Saturday's protesters, led by opposition leaders and lawmakers, marched to the Interior Ministry to denounce "repression" over the past month as demonstrators have been hit with tear gas by security forces. Police in riot gear prevented the protesters from reaching the ministry. Isolated clashes between protesters and police took place in Caracas, media reports said. Protesters were demanding that delayed state elections be held and that the 2018 presidential election be moved up. Maduro has accused the opposition of trying to stage a coup and is working to rewrite the constitution. Similar rallies were also held in several other cities. The march came one day after a young man was shot in the head during clashes between demonstrators and security forces, bringing the death toll from such clashes over the past five weeks to 37. More than 700 others have been injured. Also on Friday, a group of young men in Venezuela's Zulia state destroyed a statue of the late leader Hugo Chavez. U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, met with Venezuelan National Assembly President Julio Borges in Washington on Friday to discuss the ongoing crisis and need for the government to adhere to its constitution. "They agreed that there is a strong need to bring the crisis to a quick and peaceful conclusion," a readout of the meeting released Saturday by the White House said. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also released a statement on the protests, calling on Maduro's "regime" to respect the constitution. "We are deeply concerned about the Maduro government's violent crackdown on protesters in Venezuela," the statement said. "President Maduro's disregard for the fundamental rights of his own people has heightened the political and economic crisis in the country." In a call with the president of Peru, U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. A statement from the White Houses Office of the Press Secretary said Trump underscored to President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski that the United States will work together with Peru in seeking to improve democratic institutions and help the people of Venezuela. The demonstrations started after the Venezuelan Supreme Court's March 30 announcement that it would strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its legislative powers. The court reversed its position in the wake of domestic and international outcries about an attempted power grab. A 20-year-old Venezuelan protester died on Friday after being shot in the head, authorities said, taking fatalities from a month of anti-government unrest to at least 37 as the opposition geared up for more demonstrations. Hecder Lugo was hurt during fighting between demonstrators and security forces in Valencia on Thursday that also injured four others, the local opposition mayor Enzo Scarano said in a series of tweets. The state prosecutor's office, which keeps an official count of deaths since protests began against socialist President Nicolas Maduro in early April, confirmed he died after being shot in a protest. Another 717 people have been injured and 152 are still in jail from the hundreds rounded up in widespread unrest around the volatile South American OPEC nation of 30 million people, according to the office's latest tally. There has been violence and widespread looting this week in Valencia, a once-bustling industrial hub two hours from the capital by road. Venezuela's opposition, which now enjoys majority support after being in the shadow of the ruling Socialist party since Hugo Chavez's 1998 election win, says his successor Maduro has become a dictator and wrecked the economy. Vowing to stay in the streets for as long as necessary, opposition leaders announced nationwide women's marches for Saturday with the biggest planned for the capital Caracas. The president says they are seeking a violent coup with U.S. support, and is setting up a "constituent assembly" super body to shake up public powers, change the constitution, and possibly replace the existing legislature. "President Maduro has made a big call to national dialogue," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez told diplomats at a meeting on Friday, showing them images of violence and vandalism on the streets caused by youths at the front of protests. "They are not peaceful, the opposition leaders share big responsibility in these acts of extremism and vandalism." Fatalities on Both Sides Opposition protests have often started peacefully but degenerated into violence when security forces block marchers and masked youths fight them with stones, Molotov cocktails and fireworks shot from pipes turned into homemade mortars. Fatalities have included supporters of both sides, bystanders and members of the security forces. Gunshot wounds have been the most common cause of deaths. The opposition is boycotting Maduro's constituent assembly process, saying it is a ploy to keep him in power by setting up a body with mechanisms to ensure a government majority. Having failed to trigger a referendum on his rule last year, the opposition is calling for delayed state gubernatorial elections to be held as soon as possible, and for the next presidential election slated for 2018 to be brought forward. Polls show the ruling Socialists would badly lose any conventional vote due to four years of economic crisis that has led to debilitating food and medicine shortages. While Maduro says opposition ranks include armed hoodlums, activists accuse the security forces of using excessive force including firing teargas canisters directly at people and allowing pro-government gangs to terrorize demonstrators. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Friday that 85 members of the military in Caracas had been arrested for opposition "repression," adding that their relatives had asked him to publicize the detentions. "Cousin, it's enough!" Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino's cousin, Ernesto Padrino, wrote to him in an open letter. He was following in the footsteps of the state human rights ombudsman's son who surprised the country by publishing a video begging his father to "end the injustice." "Eighty percent of Venezuelans want elections as a way out of our nation's grave economic and political crisis," wrote Ernesto Padrino on Facebook. "Sooner or later, the Venezuelan people will make you pay." In Uganda, the case of a university lecturer jailed last month for allegedly insulting the president on Facebook has revived concern over what civil society groups say are growing efforts to limit freedom of expression in the country. Civil society groups in Uganda continue to campaign for the release of Stella Nyanzi. She remains behind bars awaiting a bail hearing, charged over allegedly calling President Yoweri Museveni a pair of buttocks in an online post. The university researcher had been on a public campaign to urge the president to fulfill his promise to provide sanitary pads to poor school girls. We are seeing a state that is increasingly becoming intolerant of free speech, of right for association and so we demand that Stella Nyanzi is freed, explained Catherine Kanabahita, the Executive Director of the Development Network of Indigenous Voluntary Association. Ugandas constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression, which the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Debora Malac, pointed out during an event Wednesday for World Press Freedom Day. Dr. Nyanzis case, however, shows that such constitutional rights and freedoms apparently have limits particularly when those opinions are critical of the countrys leaders, said Malac. But deputy government spokesperson Colonel Shaban Bantariza told VOA social media must be regulated. If you write insults for example in this newspaper, I can sue you, but am I able to sue you if you throw something on social media. Is there any law that would protect me and I would use to defend myself if I went to court against you? Its still hazy. Anybody who wants to insult others using social media, certainly the law must shut his mouth. If thats stifling, thats justified, he said. The Public Order Management Act of 2013 limited public gatherings and demonstrations, something that rights activists say has pushed more Ugandans to express themselves online. And the number of smartphone users has grown to 22 million, according to government statistics. Jeff Wokulira Ssebaggala is the Chief Executive Officer of the Unwanted Witness, which seeks to create secure, uncensored online platforms in Uganda. In a span of less than year, we have seen over five citizens have been arrested, have been summoned, have been interrogated, have been charged. And the popular charge has been offensive communication, he said. Uganda is not alone. Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia are among the other African countries that have begun policing online discourse. During the contested 2015 elections, Uganda cut access social media sites for days at a time. The government cited national security reasons. Last month, parliament passed an amendment to the Uganda Communications Commissions Act that gives the Minister for Information, Communications and Technology enhanced power to regulate and restrict social media use without needing to seek the approval of parliament. That new law is currently before the president for his signature. Ugandan human rights lawyer Nicholas Opio said attempts to police the internet may prove futile. Presently what they are using is a raft of laws including the Computer Misuse Act, including Penal Code Act. So there is no single legislation yet, so what they are doing is resorting to other criminal laws to try and restrict social media, but I dont think people are going to be cowed away. They can threaten a few people but many more people are going to come, said Opio. He pointed to the emerging use of pseudonyms to post online about the government and controversial topics in Uganda. Attempts over the past two years to identify the person behind one of the most well-known accounts, "Tom Okwalinga Voltare," have failed. French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign said on Friday it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign mails online 1-1/2 days before voters go to the polls to choose between the centrist and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen. Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of it was genuine. In a statement, Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked. "The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said. An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight French time on Friday (2200 GMT). Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close on Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT). Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting, in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 percent of the vote. Former economy minister Macron's team has complained in the past about attempts to hack its emails during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks. On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data. In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine. In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said that the documents released online showed only the normal functionings of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation." "The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk," it added. The French presidential election campaign is not the first to be overshadowed by accusations of manipulation via computer hacking and cyber-attacks. U.S. intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Hillary Clinton's Democratic campaign to influence the election on behalf of Donald Trump, her Republican rival who went on to win the U.S. presidency. On Friday night as the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of the National Front, asked on Twitter; "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?" Macron spokesman Sylvain Fort, in a response on Twitter, called Philippot's tweet "vile." We accept many different kinds of announcements. Just click on the button below and submit a form. Go to forms Steven Seagal. Photo: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images Ukraine has banned Steven Seagal from its borders, labeling the martial-arts star a national security threat. Seagal is barred from the country for five years, a consequence enacted when a person has committed socially dangerous actions that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraines security, according to a letter from the Ukrainian security service that was published by Apostrophe and translated by the Guardian. The sanction comes in the wake of Ukraines and Russias rising tensions over a separatist movement in Eastern Ukraine and Seagals increasingly close ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Seagal was granted Russian citizenship and a Russian passport late last year. At the time, Putin expressed his hope for their bond to be a sign of a gradual normalization of the relations between Russia and the United States. Flood damage in the past two years has left two popular Waco-area state parks hobbling into this spring and awaiting about $5.6 million in remaining repairs. But the fate of those repairs at Mother Neff State Park and Lake Whitney State Park depends largely on whether the state Legislature this month raids the state park fund to plug other gaps in the state budget. If legislators decide to divert money from the sporting goods sales tax fund, which appears likely, up to $4.6 million of remaining flood recovery efforts may have to be deferred at Lake Whitney State Park. Parks officials had requested that money to replace a destroyed group dining hall and repair other facilities damaged when a flood last May and June swamped the Whitney park with 28 feet of water. Meanwhile, Mother Neff State Park is seeking $977,000 to replace and repair facilities along the Leon River, which flooded in May 2015. A $200,000 contract was recently awarded to clear a large logjam that formed on the river during that flood. These projects are part of $582.5 million in backlogged maintenance needs across 91 state parks, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Josh Havens said. TPWD had sought $49.2 million in the 2018-19 biennium for weather-related repairs, along with $86 million to address deferred maintenance and new development, including the new Palo Pinto Mountains State Park in North Texas. Through the years, we have had to defer many of these needed repair and maintenance projects to later dates while waiting for appropriate funding, Havens said. However, eventually those critical repair projects will need to be addressed. Parks advocates two years ago cheered when the Texas Legislature pumped an additional $83.6 million into parks-related appropriations for the 2016-17 biennium. The record appropriation of $375.9 million was a 28.6 percent increase over the previous biennium. That boost came with a commitment to dedicate the sales tax received on sporting goods to parks. The Legislature had made that sales tax stream a key source of park revenue starting in 1993, but lawmakers in subsequent sessions have diverted that money during the appropriations process. In the 2015 Legislative session, House Bill 158 specified that 94 percent of the sporting goods tax revenue would go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, with the remainder going to historic sites. But in the same legislative session, a little-noticed Senate bill essentially undermined that provision, giving legislators the discretion not to appropriate the full amount to parks-related purposes. Last session, everyone thought we got it done, state Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, told the House Appropriations Committee in testimony Thursday for a new bill that would reaffirm the dedicated tax. It wasnt until months later that we realized it got repealed in another bill. . . . Media reports across the state talked about how we had dedicated this money, and most people believed this has already been done. George Bristol, a former State Park Advisory Commission chairman, reminded legislators that the original bill passed almost unanimously, signifying public support. Everybody slapped each other on the back and said what a good job had been done, Bristol said. They have watched this deterioration of our parks. Some House Appropriation Committee members suggested that a dedicated tax would limit their flexibility in meeting other state priorities, especially during a natural disaster. Committee member Donna Howard, D-Austin, said she was conflicted about the issue, but she doesnt want to deprive parks of the money they need. I do believe Texas Parks and Wildlife Department does not have the funding they need to carry out a critical role in what this state values in terms of parks and wildlife, Howard said. Theyve had cuts over the years, and there was this perception that this money was going to them, but it hasnt been. Guillens bill was left pending in the committee Thursday. State Rep. Charles Doc Anderson, R-Waco, said he supports dedicating the sporting goods sales tax revenue to park-related needs, and parks such as Mother Neff are in urgent need of repair money. But Anderson said he doesnt see much of a chance of the bill getting to the House floor, and it doesnt have a Senate sponsor. There wasnt a lot of warmth in the room when Ryan presented this, he said. I think its an uphill battle. $92 million shortfall The House so far has approved only $221 million of the sporting goods sales tax revenue for parks use over the next biennium, leaving a shortfall of $92 million. Texas Parks and Wildlife officials have already started planning and design for park projects across the state for the biennium, but they havent determined which projects would be cut if the funding doesnt come through. In the Waco area, work is already under way on some park projects funded in the 2016-17 biennium, while planning is under way for others. For example: At Lake Whitney State Park, about $915,000 of funding is already being used to restore three damaged restrooms and to repair and replace up to 30 shelters with the help of volunteer labor. About $400,000 of planning and design work is under way for the remaining recovery effort, which will cost $4.6 million. The remaining work includes a new dining hall, replacing shade shelters, repairing boat docks and addressing wave erosion. At Mother Neff, planning has started for replacing restrooms and repairing the historic stone tabernacle that was built near the Leon River during the Great Depression. In the meantime, the park has upgraded electrical connections and added a natural playground at a cost of $125,000. Fort Parker State Park is in the final stages of renovating group cabins, a dining hall, two restroom facilities and a staff facility, at a total cost of $2 million. Work is expected to start this summer on a $560,000 project to replace the boat ramp and parking lot and add a handicap-accessible toilet. At Meridian State Park, about $50,000 of work is under way for exterior building repairs and air conditioner replacement. State park officials said even facilities like Meridian State Park that dont have large capital projects planned still need constant maintenance and attention to keep big problems from appearing. Austin Meek, a Waco entrepreneur who volunteers with the Friends of Meridian State Park and recently served a term as the parks official ambassador, said fully funding state parks makes sense in a growing state. I think investing in parks is of incredible importance in 2017, Meek said. As we have begun to spend more of our lives indoors and weve become more sedentary, its necessary to have funding from the state and federal levels showing that our government realizes that having life in nature is important. . . . Theres an increasing need for people to disconnect from the virtual world and get in touch with the physical world. Growing up in Kentucky, Mary Alice Birdwhistell never imagined she would become the pastor of a Baptist church. In fact, she did not dream that any woman would lead such a congregation, given the denominations long-standing conviction that only men should fill the pulpits of Baptist churches. But she said Gods conviction, a class at Georgetown College in Kentucky and a remarkable woman named Julie Pennington-Russell changed her perspective and her life plan. Birdwhistell, 30, has been chosen the new senior pastor of Wacos Calvary Baptist Church, which broke the gender barrier in 1998, when it named Pennington-Russell the first woman to serve as senior pastor of a Baptist congregation in Texas. Pennington-Russell, meanwhile, has moved on to lead the historic First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C. Birdwhistell said shes excited about her new opportunity at Calvary, 1001 N. 18th-A St., where about 250 people worship on most Sunday mornings. She served as Calvarys childrens minister while attending Baylor Universitys George W. Truett Theological Seminary, later becoming associate pastor. I preached about once a month, and preaching is what I love, Birdwhistell said. To be good at it, you have to know people, so I envision the congregation, where each person is sitting, and imagine what they are experiencing in life. Its fulfilling to be able to speak a word of hope. Birdwhistell said she has been away from her Kentucky home eight years but now considers the congregation at Calvary her family. People have me over for Thanksgiving and other occasions, and weve developed a really rich relationship, she said. Birdwhistell said she spends eight to 10 hours preparing her sermons, using Scripture and commentaries. But her study goes beyond applying her English degree from Georgetown College to write the message she hopes to bring home to listeners. I cant write a sermon without going on a walk. I have to let things simmer in my mind, she said. I also cant write without going to a coffee shop and watching people interact. When Im ready to form my sermon, I figure out the different pieces, saying this one is important or that one is important, and the last phase is putting it all together. I like to write in a way thats authentic to my voice. A lot of times while reading what I have written, I ask myself, Is that what I would say if I were having lunch with you today. Birdwhistell said she likes to tell stories to illustrate concepts because she believes they make a lasting impression on congregants, but primarily because Jesus was a storyteller. He would be asked a question, and his reply would be, Let me tell you a story. We dont always remember facts and figures, but telling a story about who God is and who God is calling us to be is very important. Thats why I so enjoy crafting a sermon. Kevin Tankersley, a member of Calvary Baptist Church, said the soft-spoken Birdwhistell has captured the hearts of Calvary members with her kindness and confidence. We have a good number of Truett professors and Bible scholars in our congregation, people who are very knowledgeable of Scripture, and their respect for Mary Alice is obvious, Tankersley said. The vote to make her our next senior pastor was nearly unanimous. Jodi Heston, co-chair of the churchs nine-member pastor search committee, released a statement on the committees choice. We are thrilled to have Mary Alice Birdwhistell as our next pastor, Heston wrote. Not only is she a gifted preacher but she is also very gifted in pastoral care. We are looking with great hope for all God will do in our congregation under her leadership and vision. Birdwhistell replaces Jim Coston, who left Calvary in 2016 after seven years as senior pastor. Baylor University Chaplain Burt Burleson has served as the churchs interim pastor. I know Mary Alice to be an exceptional leader. She embodies the best of what a pastor is called to be, Pennington-Russell, who has been a mentor to Birdwhistell the past five years, said in a statement. Its a wonderful combination of a visionary, courageous pastor coming alongside a visionary, risk-taking church. The potential for gospel goodness is just exponential here. Pennington-Russell herself has faced challenges in the ministry as she advocated for women in leadership positions. She first attracted national attention in 1993, when Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco called her as pastor. The California Southern Baptist Convention refused to seat messengers from the congregation because it was led by a woman, according to reporting from baptistnews.com. In 1998, when she became pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, protesters picketed the churchs Sunday morning worship service. And in 2009, the Georgia Baptist Convention ended its 148-year relationship with the First Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, finding the decision two years earlier to call Pennington-Russell as pastor outside the parameters of the Baptist Faith and Message statement adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, according to baptistnews.com. Pennington-Russell resigned as pastor of Decatur First Baptist in 2015, saying in an open letter to the church she was aware of persistent tensions and divisions within our fellowship. Im afraid that today our church has become stuck. The sticking point for more than a few appears to be me and my leadership. Birdwhistell said she heard Pennington-Russell speak at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, during her junior year at college. I was absolutely mesmerized and I turned to my professor and said, I think I want to do that someday, Birdwhistell said. I stood in line to greet her after her message. Little did I know that in two years I would be interviewing in the church where she served as pastor. At Truett, we are required to find a mentor, and Julie became mine. I was able to spend an entire semester with her, and it was an incredible experience. I watched her in pastor care situations, staff leadership and preaching. She invited me into her whole life, and it was nice to celebrate my recent news with her because Calvary is a place she loves so dearly. In just 100 days, President Trump has damaged American democracy while simultaneously accelerating democracys global decline. No, Trump is not a dictator or a fascist, as some wrongly claimed. But he certainly has authoritarian tendencies and a baffling admiration for despots. He has a penchant for attacking democratic institutions and appears willing to sacrifice them in a heartbeat on the altar of his ego. And he has spouted several dangerous lies that a sizable portion of his political base unfortunately believes to be true. As a result, he has already managed to do major damage to democracy at home and abroad in five important ways. First, he has undercut the integrity of U.S. elections. Trump falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally last year. Thats not true. Every serious study into voter fraud has concluded that it is a minuscule problem. North Carolina conducted a vote audit for 2016 and found one case of in-person voter impersonation out of millions of ballots cast. And yet tens of millions of Americans now wrongly believe that millions voted illegally. That is a serious challenge to public faith in the bedrock of American democracy. Trump also actively solicited and took advantage of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. He invited Russia to hack and publish Hillary Clintons emails. He mentioned WikiLeaks 164 times in the final month of the campaign (Trumps CIA director subsequently labeled WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence service). The hacking of the Democratic National Committee was a brazen cyberattack on U.S. democracy and yet Trump has consistently been an apologist who plays down the hack rather than working to ensure it never happens again. (By the way, there is still an active FBI investigation into whether he or his campaign colluded with Russia in that attack). Second, he has attacked democratic institutions such as the free press and the independent judiciary. He has repeatedly dismissed credible, corroborated, truthful reporting as fake news. But Trump has also maligned judges in highly personal and reckless ways simply because they ruled against his administration. His White House claimed that some judges (who were simply doing their jobs) provided a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country. He has called others so-called judges and claimed that it would be the fault of the courts if a terrorist attack occurred during his presidency. This incendiary language is unacceptable and erodes public trust in checks and balances that are at the core of the U.S. democratic system. Third, he has brazenly violated basic standards of transparency and government ethics. Democracy requires transparency. If citizens are not informed about the workings of their government, they cannot hold it accountable. Just take his continuing refusal to release his tax returns something that has been done by every presidential candidate since the 1970s. At first he used the extraordinarily flimsy excuse of an audit, but now he has even abandoned that fig leaf. Till Trump issues his tax returns, we dont know whether he is governing for American interests or his bank account. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has announced that it wont release White House visitor logs so nobody can see who is coming and going to meet the president. Is there an endless stream of lobbyists? Or perhaps some high-profile foreign agents, like the ones he previously hired for his campaign? We have no clue, because Trump reversed an Obama-era policy to tell the American people who is coming to the taxpayer-funded White House. This lack of transparency also bleeds into ethics violations and conflicts of interest that have gone unpunished from using taxpayer dollars to promote Trump businesses to currying favor with foreign leaders apparently to receive lucrative trademarks abroad. Fourth, Trump has hurt democracy abroad by leaving pro-democracy reformers out in the cold. When protesters took to the streets in Belarus and Russia demanding democratic reforms, Trump said nothing. That was a strategic mistake. These were protests in favor of democracy and against regimes that oppose the United States, so it should have been a no-brainer. Instead, Trump stayed silent as protesters were beaten in the streets. It was a missed opportunity and a gift to the forces that seek to undermine democratic reform abroad. Fifth, Trump has endorsed and applauded dictators and despots, giving awful rulers a free pass to destroy democracy and violate human rights. He uncritically embraced President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi of Egypt, a military dictator who routinely tortures dissidents. He called to congratulate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on winning a rigged referendum that dismantled democracy in a NATO member state. Those signals have certainly not been lost on authoritarian rulers around the world who recognize that Trump does not care about democracy or human rights abroad. As a result, a decade of decline for democracy around the world will almost certainly accelerate. Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy in a way that we havent experienced before. Initial fears may have been overblown, but its clear that he already is slowly but meaningfully eroding democracy at home and abroad. We must be vigilant. There are 1,354 days left. The political professionals in Austin trying to kill my effort to improve Texas nursing homes by calling it a granny tax should be ashamed of themselves. Lets set the record straight. No one is talking about taxing anyones grandma. But facts like that can hurt real people if left unrefuted. So I am writing this to set the record straight. I am a family practice doctor from a small, rural community called Gatesville, not a career politician. I know my neighbors in Gatesville. Ive watched kids grow up and adults age. Some of my patients age into decline and require assistance despite their best plans. My grandmother lived in a nursing home for many years. For me like a lot of Texans the quality of long-term care is very personal. There is no argument that long-term care is underfunded in Texas. For more than two decades now, Ive seen the nursing homes I visit face the same struggles: low staffing levels and turnover as high as 90 percent for registered nurses, caused by the states low Medicaid reimbursement rate. This legislation, House Bill 2766, would bring in much-needed funding to improve Texas nursing homes without increased state spending. This new money would enable nursing home owners across the state to raise wages, improve training and invest to enhance their facilities. HB 2766 would help nursing-home owners retain good staff, and that will improve the quality of care more than any other thing I can think of. In a long-term care setting, a familiar face with personal knowledge of a residents needs and routines can make all the difference in the world. HB 2766 would do this by creating the Nursing Facility Reinvestment Allowance or NFRA. The NFRA will allow nursing-home owners to put up their own dollars to pull down additional funds from the federal government. The plan is simple: Each nursing home would put up the same amount per resident day. When the federal dollars are returned, nursing homes would see an increase in their Medicaid payment. Under the NFRA, nursing homes would have the opportunity to earn additional reimbursement if they meet certain quality metrics. The wording of the bill expressly prohibits nursing homes from passing on the allowance to their patients, either directly or indirectly. The fee comes from the nursing homes revenue not the residents. Near the end of life, many Texans deplete their financial assets and, for the first time, they need help. That includes many of us and from both political parties. These are schoolteachers, small-business owners and community leaders who spent their lives building a future for us. They are veterans who defended our freedoms and the police and firefighters who kept us safe. Talking about Medicaid and nursing homes isnt just a discussion about poor people but about the elderly who have outlived their savings. It affects middle-income Texans as well. In fact, a majority of nursing-home residents rely on Medicaid. For patients in a nursing home to be eligible for Medicaid, they must spend down to an income of less than $2,200 per month and have assets of less than $2,000. They may have a house, car and a burial policy. By law, these patients on Medicaid cannot be assessed any extra payment or bill from the nursing home. The NFRA is an idea brought forward by long-term care providers themselves. It does not expand Medicaid. It does not add to our state budget. It allows Texas to capture federal dollars to supplement health-care funding just like 43 other states are doing. Its a smart way to improve long-term care and avoid using state revenue. Its also the only viable plan on the table right now to improve Texas nursing homes. For me, that makes it a no-brainer. Shame on the political professionals who would hurt elderly Texans with their cute phrases and misinformation. The more than 90,000 Texans who will go to sleep tonight in nursing homes are more important than these misleading political games. As a Christian, I want to ensure our elderly receive quality care in the final stages of life. As a conservative Republican, I want to see that we meet the needs of Texans in a fiscally responsible way. The NFRA meets both these obligations, and that is why I am proud to work for its passage. Immigrants among us As a sign of my incredibly exciting life, I spent the evening of March 25 glued to the Waco City Channels live airing of the city plan commissions hearings on homeowner requests to operate short-term vacation rentals out of their properties. The debate was intriguing, with one side arguing for freedom to do what they want to do with their homes and the other side pleading for a level of control over the type of neighborhood they want to live in. There were strong and valid points from both sides and I did not envy the choices plan commission members had before them. But mostly, I was excited to see there are so many Wacoans who love and care about their neighbors and neighborhoods. Because my eyes were opened to the depth of neighborliness in our city, I look forward to seeing many of the faces from that hearing at the Waco Immigrants Rally in Heritage Square at 5 p.m. today. The vitriolic tone coming from elected officials and certain segments of our population regarding our immigrant neighbors threatens to destabilize many Waco neighborhoods at least as much as AirBnB is threatening others. I am certain that those concerned about the dangers of having numerous Fixer Upper fans from around the country staying a night or two next door will be equally concerned about the negative effects on our neighborhoods with families potentially being ripped apart by deportation and because of the stigma placed on many of our neighbors by the fear-mongering rhetoric about their presence. Let us all unite as good neighbors to promote healthy neighborhoods! Craig Nash, Waco Illegal immigrants, out! For the past 16 years, our presidents would not support enforcement of our immigration laws. Now we have one who does and too many people are upset. He will build a wall. He has not directed new laws, only enforcement of existing ones. I praise him for doing so. But we need to take it one step further. Anyone who is here without a proper visa is illegal and violating our laws and should be deported. Furthermore, businesses are making increased profits by violating our laws and employing these individuals. These businesses should be confiscated and all assets should be auctioned to help pay for the wall. All wire transfers of cash should be eliminated and, last but not least, any city, county or state that refuses to support existing federal immigration laws should forfeit all state and federal funds, something reinforced by the Texas Legislature. We are a nation of laws that must be enforced. Legal immigration should be streamlined but not with blanket amnesty. No criminal should be allowed to immigrate into our country. We have enough criminals already. Fix the problem and support our president. He wants the best for all Americans, first and foremost. Rusty Cosper, Gatesville Frieda Woitzel Very few teachers spend most of their career at one school. Frieda Woitzel was an exception. She was born in 1904 on a farm near Syracuse. When she was four she and her family moved to a farm one-half mile south of Greenwood. She graduated from Greenwood and attended Peru State Teachers College and earned her bachelors degree. She received her masters degree from the University of Nebraska. She taught at several schools before she went to Greenwood to teach. She taught there until 1938 and then came to Ashland. She taught Latin, English, vocal music, band, orchestra and Spanish. She studied Spanish in Mexico so she could be fluent in the language. She also was the high school media director from 1950 to 1971 when she retired. Frieda died in 2003 at the age of 99. There is a mystery we cant solve. What happened to the orchestra? It seemed to disappear. In the photo it appears to be large and healthy. It was in existence in 1952 and gone the next year. - Submitted by the Ashland Historical Society. For more information on other items from Ashlands history, visit the Ashland History Museum at 205 N. 15th St., Ashland. The museum is open May through September on Thursdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. ASHLAND This years Drive 4 UR School event, sponsored by the Ashland-Greenwood Public Schools Foundation and the Ashland Greenwood PTO in partnership with Lee Sapp Ford, will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 6 in the parking lot across from the dealership at 1602 Silver Street. All community members and supporters of AGPS are invited to take part by completing a quick 10 minute test drive of a brand new Ford with one of our foundation and PTO volunteers. For every test drive completed, Ford Motor Companies will donate $20, up to $6,000 total. No purchase necessary is necessary and drivers must be 18 years of age or older with a valid drivers license and valid automobile insurance. There is a limit one donation per household. Funds raised through this event will support student scholarships, teacher grants, playground renovations, student incentives, author speakers and much more. Again this year, a golden ticket competition will take place, where the two elementary school classrooms whose families return the highest percentage of tickets during their test drives will receive an ice cream sundae party. A secondary competition will also take place between the elementary staff and the middle school/high school staff, where lounge treats and district bragging rights will be on the line, with the building returning the highest percentage of golden tickets will be declaring the winner. The middle school/high school staff are the defending champions from the 2016 event. This is the fourth year that these organizations have teamed up to sponsor the Drive 4 UR School event. Each year, they creep closer and closer to the maximum 300 drivers that are allowed by Ford Motor Companies. In 2016, the PTO and the foundation were able to share $5,360.00 from the one-day event, with 268 drivers taking part. London: Anna Wintour, the British-born editor of US Vogue, was made a dame by Britain's Queen Elizabeth on Friday for services to fashion and journalism. Wintour, 67, has been at the helm of the magazine for almost 30 years, a reign that has made her one of the most influential voices in high-end fashion. Dame Anna Wintour with her daughter Bee Schaffer. Credit:WPA Pool Wintour told reporters that the queen had struggled to pin her award to her clothing. "She couldn't find where to put the brooch," she told the BBC. Washington: A draft of President Donald Trump's new counter-terrorism strategy demands that US allies shoulder more of the burden in combating Islamist militants, while acknowledging that the threat of terrorism will never be totally eliminated. The 11-page draft, seen on Friday by Reuters, said the United States should avoid costly, "open-ended" military commitments. Allies: Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull in New York. Credit:AP "We need to intensify operations against global jihadist groups while also reducing the costs of American 'blood and treasure' in pursuit of our counter-terrorism goals," states the document, which is expected to be released in coming months. "We will seek to avoid costly, large-scale US military interventions to achieve counter-terrorism objectives and will increasingly look to partners to share the responsibility for countering terrorist groups," it says. A top United Nations' human rights investigator has warned that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs would only unleash more problems including rampant killings, vigilante crimes and an overall breakdown in law and order. "The war on drugs does not work," Agnes Callamard, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, told a human rights conference in Manila. "Badly thought-out, ill-conceived drug policies not only fail to address substantively drug dependency, drug-related criminality and the drug trade, they add more problems, as has been well documented around the world," she said. The comments came after US President Donald Trump provoked an avalanche of criticism for inviting Mr Duterte, a foul-mouthed firebrand former provincial mayor, to the White House, and praised his efforts to rid the country of drugs. Tatum's 39 points help Celtics hold on to beat Grizzlies 109-106 Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 02, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 02, 2017 | 12:47 PM | PADUCAH, KY The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce says applications for the 2017-18 Leadership Paducah program are now available. The chamber of commerce coordinates the annual leadership program. Applications are available on the Chambers website, paducahchamber.org, by contacting the Chamber at info@paducahchamber.org or (270) 443-1746. The completed applications are due to the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce by 5 pm on Thursday, May 25. Established in 1984, this upcoming class will be the 31st class. The program begins in August with an overnight retreat and continues through graduation in early June. Leadership Paducah is a professional development experience that fosters an in-depth understanding of Paducah and McCracken County. In the monthly day-long sessions, participants will learn about the community through hands-on experiences and visits to see more about local government, industry, tourism, education, history, health, transportation and education sectors. Classes include enrichment sessions to develop the leadership potential of men and women in the area. Individuals who live or work in the Paducah-McCracken County area are eligible to apply. Selection of class participants is conducted by a committee representing the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and the Leadership Paducah Foundation Board of Directors. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 04, 2017 | 03:14 PM | PADUCAH, KY Retired McCracken County teacher and principal Dan Pope has stayed busy: he just published his first book.Pope taught in middle schools and elementary schools for 22 years, then served as principal at two schools over a 12-year period before retiring in 2016. Along the way, he learned and shared ways to grow as an educator and leader.Now that he's retired, Pope has written a book to share these ideas with a wider audience. It's called, "If You're Comfortable, You're Not Growing: Finding Your Tremendous."Believing that every person can be a leader, regardless of their title, profession, or place in life, Pope said in the book's introduction that he hopes what he has written can help others develop those skills.Early in his teaching career, a man came to help Pope in his professional development, and encouraged him to find one word to use regularly to encourage others.Pope said, "the word that he used was 'tremendous,' so if something was exceptionally good, he'd use the word, 'that is tremendous,' so that became my word. My teachers - by the time that I retired - they were ready for me to replace that word."The book is full of everyday examples of principles that can lead to personal growth and success, with chapters covering topics like, "Don't Live for the Weekend," "A Fire Won't Start Without a Spark," and "Shout it from the Rooftops."Another principle that became a chapter title is, "Don't Be a Bystander," where Pope encouraged his teachers not to just let things happen. Instead they should reach out and find new ideas they could put into practice."I encourage people to not just let your life roll by. Don't be a bystander, get involved, participate. Be that person that wants to try a new idea," he said.Pope attended Murray State University, and is now one of their adjunct professors of education.The book "If You're Not Comfortable, You're Not Growing: Finding Your Tremendous," by Dan Charles Pope is available at Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle format. On the Net: Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 05, 2017 | ULLIN, IL By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 05, 2017 | 11:45 PM | ULLIN, IL Shawnee Community College continues to move toward naming a new president, according to a press release. The presidential search process has resulted in interviews with four candidates, each of which have attributes that could serve the college well. The Board of Trustees has focused on narrowing the field of applicants to the most qualified, and the next steps include reaching out to one candidate to ensure that person is still engaged, and if so, the board will begin the formal negotiation process. The Board attorney will prepare an initial draft of a contract and then formal negotiations will begin with the selected candidate. In an effort to be as transparent as possible with those associated with the college and the public, material terms of the contract will be made available for the public. Each candidate has exhibited very strong qualities and the board has worked to narrow the list and arrive at a selected candidate. Feedback received from the various staff and public forums has been received and seriously considered. Each board member received a packet of information on each candidate, which has generated a great deal of discussion. The board hopes to be in a position to hire the next president by July 1, but that will ultimately depend upon the outcome of the negotiations. By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 05, 2017 | 10:43 PM | CALLOWAY COUNTY, KY A Hazel store owner faces wanton endangerment and other charges after a shot was fired Friday afternoon in Calloway County. According to the Calloway County Sheriff's Office, deputies received a call concerning a shoplifter at the KY C-Mart in Hazel. While deputies were responding to the call, dispatchers received a second call with the report of shots fired at the same location. While deputies were responding, the store owner, 32-year-old Ghanshyam N. Patel of Cadiz, followed the suspects outside and attempted to detain them until deputies arrived on the scene. Police said Patel fired a warning shot into the asphalt parking lot beside the vehicle. The suspects quickly left the area and were later found in Puryear, TN. Patel was charged with wanton endangerment, terroristic threatening and menacing. Deputies say other charges are pending and the investigation is ongoing. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. When legendary ballerina Evelyn Hart takes the stage next week during the Royal Winnipeg Ballets world premiere of James Kudelkas Vespers, the former principal dancer will be home. And Hart has never felt freer, with her deeply expressive artistry honed over decades of experience still burning as brightly as ever. There no need anymore to prove anything, the dancer, 61, says during an interview at the RWB studios. Of course, theres a desire to do well, but I dont feel that same kind of pressure that I did before. Im really going onstage because I want to feel that conduit, and be that conduit for artistic expression. And to be given that opportunity is huge. Its a soul gift. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Evelyn Hart, the former principal dancer of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, teams up with Liam Caines, who plays Horse in Vespers, which opens Wednesday Hart, who retired from the RWB in 2005 and has since nurtured an independent dance career from her new home in Toronto, last appeared with the RWB as a guest artist in the 2015 production of Giselle. She also performed as Winter Woman during the companys 2014 staging of Kudelkas 1997 masterpiece, The Four Seasons. This time around, Hart, who officially hung up her pointe shoes in August 2006, and will be wearing soft ballet slippers for the five-show Vespers run, is notably stepping into a brand-new role created especially for her portraying an all-knowing everywoman able to communicate with the mythological-infused ballets animals portrayed by 10 company members, with its five-week creative process having begun in earnest last August. Its truly a gift for our dancers to be able to work with her, says RWB artistic director Andre Lewis, who originally commissioned Kudelka, the former artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, to create the full-length work after the success of The Four Seasons. Lewis also partnered with Hart himself as a principal dancer for more than 10 years. Evelyn commands an audience, and always has, with her talent combined with a beautiful instrument, great musicality, technique and an expressive artistry. Having her in our midst has been tremendous, as she brings a richness and a depth of understanding of the art form that has absolutely inspired our dancers. One of those is corps de ballet member Liam Caines, who performs as the proud Horse in the ballet set to Monteverdis Vespers, where humans happily co-exist in nature with animals, until the Fall, in which they lose their innate connection with each other. During one scene in the second act, Caines, wearing an imaginative animal mask designed by Karen Rodd, lifts the willowy dancer while standing atop a large banquet table. One might assume that Caines, who also performed the lead role as the Man in The Four Seasons, has experienced more than few jitters partnering one of the greatest ballet dancers ever produced in this country. Working with Evelyn is indeed an honour, the New Brunswick-born artist says, adding that his first year at the RWB School was Harts final one with the company. I used to hear all these wonderful stories about this amazing woman, and what she had done for the company, and how much recognition she had brought to it. Working beside her has been awe-inspiring, he states. She has also been very kind to work with, and very quick to share her wealth of knowledge from her very successful career. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Caines, Dmitri Dovgosolets and Hart rehearse a scene Hart immediately joined the RWB after graduating from its School Professional Division in 1976, and was promoted to soloist in 1978, and then to principal dancer in 1979. She received critical acclaim for her willowy physique, dramatic intensity and sublimely lyrical sensibility, mentored by the RWBs artistic director Arnold Spohr, who cast her in lead roles in such classical story ballets as: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet, as well as more contemporary fare, including Jiri Kylians Nuages. She notably became the first Canadian to win a prestigious gold medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition in 1980 the Bulgarian competition is hailed as the Olympics of ballet for her searing performance of Norbert Vesaks Belong with David Peregrine, which skyrocketed her to worldwide fame and put the Prairie fresh ballet troupe squarely on the international map. Hart still speaks with love and devotion for Spohr, who died in 2010, and credits him for the pivotal role he played in nurturing her career. Who I am as an artist is completely attributed to Arnold, Hart says. He saw my soul, because I think there was deeply spiritual side about him, and his belief in the art form was such that the power of dance was worth everything, she adds. And that was also my belief. Thats why you work to do everything you can, because its not about you in the end, its about what you give to others. She muses about returning once more to the company where she first found her footing as an internationally acclaimed prima ballerina, which also led to her being designated an Office of the Order of Canada in 1983, and a Companion in 1994. Shes eager to perform for her legions of fans, including her 90-year mother travelling from Stratford, Ont., for her opening-night performance. Im so happy. Ive never been happier, Hart says, her enthusiasm palpable. Being here is like being in a little womb. The dancers have been incredibly hard-working, respectful, open-minded and have made me feel such a part of everything. I couldnt ask for anything more wonderful than to be immersed in an experience with beautiful people, and humble people, and people that are open and joyful. The essence and the heart of the company that I first joined in 1976 is still here, and it always feels like coming home. holly.harris@shaw.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The unanswered question in the case of the thirsty pigs making headlines last week remains: where was the industrys leadership? In a case that should never have gone to court, an Ontario judge ruled against the notion giving water to pigs in the back of a truck on their way to slaughter breaks the law. Animal-rights activist Anita Krajnc was charged with mischief and interfering with personal property in June 2015, after a vitriolic exchange with a truck driver all captured on video and posted to YouTube as she poked her water bottle in through the sides for pigs on their way to slaughter at a plant in Burlington, Ont. Elli Garlin / THE CANADIAN PRESS files The prosecution of animal-rights activist Anita Krajnc made headlines around the world. Krajnc, who works for a group that promotes a vegan lifestyle, routinely stands vigil at the site as trucks line up to enter the plant. There are multiple videos posted of bystanders offering bottled water to what appear to be heat-stressed pigs. On that day, one driver took them on, getting out of the truck and yelling at her to stop. Theyre not humans, you dumb frickin broad! the driver shouts. Krajnc yells back: Show some compassion. He threatens to slap the water bottle out of her hand and says he is calling 911 making the activists happier than a proverbial pig in poop. There are, of course, two sides to this unpleasant exchange. The driver didnt know what was in that water bottle and whether it would potentially interfere with the marketability of the pigs drinking it. However, the pigs, which cant sweat and which are prone to heat stress, were eagerly consuming the water offered to them. After a prolonged legal process and a six-day trial that attracted international headlines, Ontario Justice D.A. Harris dismissed the charges, saying the Crown had not proven Krajnc committed a crime. Likewise, he dismissed many of the defence counsels arguments, including comparisons of the accused to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. He called defence counsels Holocaust analogy offensive. But the damage to Canadas pork industry is done in a case that now serves as a legal precedent as well as an unmitigated public relations disaster. Was there no better way to resolve this than through an exchange bordering on violence and then dragging it into the courts? Canadas pork industry leadership should have intervened early and decisively, doing whatever it took to ensure this case never made it to trial. For starters, either give the driver some PR training or give him the boot. Every face of the pork industry is a public one in this digital age the farmer, the driver, even the pig snouts poking through the openings of a livestock trailer. There is not much animal agriculture can do to appease the people who dont eat meat and who dont want anyone else to either. But every time the sector gets drawn into one of these incidents, it creates more doubt among the people who would like to keep it on the menu. Instead, the industry stood by as one of its representatives relied on the folly of seeking vindication in the courts, as if that would cause the Anita Krajncs of the world to pack up and go home. Farm and Food Care Ontario, Ontario Pork, Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario issued a statement saying they were extremely disappointed with the ruling and fear it will encourage activists to escalate their activities in ways that are a growing threat to animal welfare, food security and human safety. Really? They also trotted out the usual line about complying with federal standards, producing safe food and employing lots of people. The irony of all this wasnt lost on Judge Harris, who noted in his May 4 ruling Krajncs vigil initially didnt attract much attention. The act of prosecuting Ms. Krajnc has led to enough bad publicity for the pork industry that it might be said that the prosecution actually accomplished what they accused Ms. Krajnc of trying to do, he said. Laura Rance is editorial director for Farm Business Communications. She can be reached at 204-792-4382 and laura@fbcpublishing.com Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. When the lunch rush comes to downtowns skywalks it arrives not as a wave, which implies something solid and swollen and landing with force. Staying with a water theme, it swirls more like a tide, a steady unstoppable rise. So as the clock ticks toward noon, the tide fills up quickly. At 11:40 a.m. on a Wednesday, the Subway restaurant along the skywalks eastern reach is empty, save for a corner table of police officers gabbing about the minutiae of their jobs. By 12:02, the lineup for sandwich artistry is 15 deep. Five minutes later, the corridor outside is alive with the clip of brisk footsteps, as office workers flow from of the towers near Portage and Main, hunting for lunch. Its nice outside now, so maybe this lunch rush isnt as busy as some. In suits, in shirt-sleeves, in durable maintenance crew duds, people spill out onto Graham Avenue, into forgiving air and a welcoming sun. Still, if we were to chart a day in the life of Winnipegs skywalks, this would be its apogee. By nightfall, these corridors will be silent; when they open near dawn, they are sleepy. The life of this place is mostly lived at lunch. PHOTOS BY PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg's downtown skywalks offer two kilometres of space set above and apart from the rest of the city's streets. Which is what made it so unsettling when, exactly 48 hours earlier and during the same lunch bustle, police shot Josh Pardy in this stretch of skywalk. It would have been about this busy then, with this much human flux. Two days later, the yellow police tape is gone. The Subway where police were first called is filling up. Inside Dr. Robert Leckers optometry office, where Pardy was shot, a woman bends down to inspect eyeglass frames. Life happens quickly in cities, and just as quickly moves on. (I will think about this again the next day, in downtown Toronto, passing by the King Street West spot where an underground hydro transformer exploded on Monday. Im a visitor, and in the rush-hour crowd it feels as though Im the only one spooked.) PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Still, 48 hours after Mondays shooting, it was not forgotten. As passersby march past, a few crane their necks to peek into the optometry office. Most look away quickly, so as not to gawk; if they speak, their voices are hushed. Sometimes, they dont even finish the sentence. This is the one woman begins to say, as she passes. Her colleague nods. Yeah. Right there. Another nod. Yeah. Others are somewhat more frank: The guy was in here walking with literally a spear, one man says, gesturing to a colleague as they breeze past the spot. His voice is tinged with a shiver of shock. And it is shocking, partly because police shootings in Winnipeg are relatively rare; in 2016, police discharged a firearm once, but hit no one. The last time a person was struck by police bullets in the city was in 2015. That incident, which came after a tense public standoff near Kenaston Boulevard and Grant Avenue, may hold some lessons. Earlier this year, the Independent Investigations Unit of Manitoba issued its finding that 24-year-old Mark Di Cesare, laid off from the oilfields and struggling, initiated the standoff with a realistic-looking air rifle in order to entice police to kill him. If there is any link to be drawn between that and this latest shooting, it will perhaps connect a story of mental illness and addictions; witnesses to Mondays shooting described Pardy as undone, displaying erratic behaviour. BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Optometrist office off the skywalk between the Millennium Library and the Police headquarters building. Yet any such incident breaks the usual flow of the skywalks, and so after the shooting the Downtown BIZ pledged to step up its watch patrols, to provide an extra visual presence until normalcy was restored. If that move was largely for show there is, after all, nothing to suggest that this incident was anything more than isolated, a terrible collision of unpredictable events its time may pass quickly; normal didnt take long. Yet the shock to that Monday lunch-hour rush draws the mind back to the skywalks. For more than 30 years, the mid-air arteries have linked Winnipegs business core to itself, connecting a two-kilometre route through downtown. The skywalks are many things: a convenient thoroughfare for people who have reason to be there, a way to speed them on some pre-determined journey; they are a conduit to food, to a Jets game, to office supplies. They are also a world apart. Although they are not restricted, as such, they are still private space. Consider the businesses that stake a claim along these arteries: an insurance agency, a hair salon, a currency exchanger. The Graham Avenue route is bookended by Robins Donuts: a small one at the east end, before the walkway plunges underground to Winnipeg Square, and a big one in Cityplace en route to Portage Place or the MTS Centre. Taken together, it is a whole private economy, separated and shielded from the wide-open life of the street. Whatever tensions simmer downtown are not supposed to happen in these enclosed and antiseptic halls. (Here, I recall the Facebook post that dented Gord Steeves 2014 mayoral campaign; in the 2010 post, Steeves wife Lorrie focused her ire on drunken native guys in the skywalks asking for money. That she named the skywalks specifically seems more than just incidental. If the skywalks are set apart from the full story of Winnipeg life, including its most struggling people, then their presence here is taken as intrusion.) Yet for all the convenience of the skywalks, there is also something missing. If one traverses the network towards Portage Place, skirting around the edge of MTS Centre, that picture comes into focus more clearly. When this span opened in 1987, amputating the view west down Portage, it was supposed to bring new life to downtown Winnipeg, and to its shiny new mall. But the mall never lived up to its hopes, and neither did its skywalk. Now, the Portage skywalks blue glass storefronts sit empty. The shops that survive sell mostly kitsch; chunky jewellery, t-shirts emblazoned with such slogans as, Its not a bald spot, its a solar panel for a sex machine. Without the life of thriving public commerce, the skywalk at that point becomes a place solely for bodies in transit. It is not a place where the unexpected is supposes to happen; their design resists such vivification. For instance, the skywalks are not a place where people are encouraged to linger. There are no places to sit and build bonds with people, nowhere to pause and consider the city that spreads out below the windows. Try it sometime. Stop at the windows, lean on the railing and wait. Even when theres plenty of surrounding space, it is impossible to do without the sense that one is disrupting the normal flow of events. In reporting Mondays shooting, the photo on the front page of Tuesdays Free Press captured this perfectly: blocked by police tape, emptied of people, the skywalk spreads out as a featureless cuboid, a void of blank geometric space. And perhaps thats OK, if we accept the skywalks as nothing more than things to get us from point A to point B. But could there be some merit in considering another vision for the skywalks, one that imagines appropriate sections as more colourful, more fostering of a true downtown culture, more unexpected and vital? It could be done, I think, without impacting the skywalks core transit or business functions. Its just a thought. If we were forced this week to consider a shocking event in the skywalks, maybe we should consider dreams for them, too. By night, the skywalk is empty. Footfalls echo, slightly. A lone security guard paces the corridor that hangs over Garry Street, hands clasped behind his back. Occasionally, he stands vigil at the window, watching headlamps pass below. In a few minutes, the big doors between skywalk sections will close and lock. The corridors will sleep for a while and awaken again near dawn. The skywalks will start another day, this one likely much like the last. Two kilometres of space set above and apart: that is how the tides of the day rise in Winnipegs heart. melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS - Walkways : Over Hargreave looking North. - May 4, 2017 PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS - Walkways : Portage at Vaughn looking North - May 4, 2017 PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS - Walkways : Newport Centre 330 Portage. - May 4, 2017 Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FRESH honey could be as close as your backyard before long. A city hall administrative report is recommending hobby beekeeping be allowed as an accessory use throughout Winnipeg with only a permit and without the need for public notices or hearings. Despite its own recommendation, the administration is proposing a public hearing to determine where hobby beekeeping would be allowed and which conditions, if any, should be imposed. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Files A city hall report recommends beekeeping be allowed by permit only and without a public notice or hearing. The proposal will be considered by the property and development committee at its meeting Tuesday. Currently, hobby or small-scale beekeeping is allowed only in the downtown area. Commercial apiaries are a conditional use, through a public-hearing process, in industrial and agricultural areas on the citys fringe. The proposal marks a complete reversal for the city on urban beekeeping. As late as 2013, a civic committee had banned hobby beekeeping in Winnipeg. Then, after lobbying from local beekeepers and a hotel operator, in January 2016 council voted to permit small-scale beekeeping downtown. In March 2016, the planning committee instructed staff to reconsider the practice citywide, which led to meetings with stakeholders and public consultations. The public service observed overwhelming support for expanded urban beekeeping, the report states. In a cross-jurisdictional review, the city found only Winnipeg and Ottawa-Gatineau prohibit urban beekeeping through zoning. In most Canadian cities, backyard beekeeping is either permitted or not even regulated by the municipality. The report states the public hearing would determine what kind of controls, if any, city hall might impose on backyard beekeeping. Any changes would not affect regulations for large-scale commercial operations. The administration is recommending small-scale, hobby beekeeping be allowed in all areas across the city with a permit, including requirements for fencing and restrictions on size. The administration said other options for a public hearing could include: complete deregulation; beekeeping as a permitted use in only non-residential zones; or beekeeping as a conditional use, which would require public notice, public hearings and an appeal process. The public generally expressed a preference to either permit or deregulate urban beekeeping, the report states. The committee will determine what options will be considered at the public hearing, if it agrees to hold one. Along with the hearing, the administration is recommending that if hobby beekeeping is permitted, the city should alter its mosquito-fogging buffer zone policies. Right now, there are 300-metre buffers around registered bee operations, but staff are recommending these be reduced to 90 metres the same for residential buffer zones. After a public hearing, the committee would then make a formal report for councils consideration. aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca Beekeeping report Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. His case sparked an uproar after he damaged a cell at the Emerson port of entry, uttered threats and allegedly assaulted an officer. The case prompted the national union for border guards to declare half of all asylum seekers crossing into Canada to be serious criminals and the Canada Border Services Agency to refute that, saying about two per cent pose a threat and are held in detention. After spending more than two weeks in the Winnipeg Remand Centre, Ahmed Aden Ali, 37, is out on bail and desperate to stay in Canada. JEN DOERKSEN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ahmed Aden Ali, 37, is waiting to get a work permit so he can support himself while his immigration application is considered. He also volunteers as an interpreter at the inner-city shelter where he lives. In an interview with the Free Press, he talked about what happened the night he arrived in April and the series of bad choices and bad luck that got him to where he is today: a man weighed down with troubling baggage who has become Canadas problem. Authorities here cant send him or any other asylum seeker whos slipped over the border back to the United States, because the U.S. wont take them, said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Canadian authorities cant keep him locked up unless hes a danger, because its a human rights violation and is too costly. Dench called Alis case very uncommon. The federal government is trying to identify better solutions for people who dont need to be in detention, so were not wasting taxpayers money keeping people locked up, she said. If his removal order is issued, he cant just be sent back to Somalia. He has no travel documents and there are no commercial flights from North America to the African country. Ali was 11 years old when civil war broke out and Somalia degenerated into chaos. By the time he was 14, he and other boys his age were walking around with AK-47 assault rifles. You find a gun when you see dead people on the street. Everybody gets it its for protection, he said in an interview Thursday at his lawyers office. When he was 17, his parents and six siblings moved to Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. There, Ali learned to speak English. At 19, an older sister living in the U.S. sponsored his family, who moved to Minneapolis in 1999. Everybody was excited, said Ali, who was keen to continue his education. I was good at math and English. He went to live with an aunt in Madison, Wis., got his GED and started attending classes at a liberal arts college. Just when it seemed like he had it all together, everything began to unravel. I was having flashbacks, he said.The memory he tried hardest to forget kept resurfacing. In it, Ali is 14 years old and in Somalia, with no school and at loose ends with a buddy, each carrying an AK-47 and watching the world go by. We see a lady walking down the street. He said, Im going to shoot the lady. And he did it he shot her! I jumped up and went to see her. She was dead. Her face was covered by her niqab, so he pulled it back to see who she was. He recognized the woman as someone who had been kind to him. I felt it was like my own mom. He said he shot the boy who had killed her, and injured him. That episode replays over and over in his head even 23 years later and half a world away. I shouldve grabbed his gun, said Ali, who wishes hed asked for help sooner as an adult in the U.S. Ali said he wouldnt talk to anyone about what he was going through because of the stigma of mental illness in the Somali community. They call you crazy, he explained. He moved back to Minneapolis to be close to his mother. There, he was charged with grand theft auto after taking his uncles vehicle without permission. Ali said his uncle didnt know who took it and reported it stolen. Ali said he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. In 2013, he suffered a brain aneurysm, spent more than a month in a coma and underwent surgery, leaving long, wide scars across his scalp. He underwent physical therapy, then went into treatment for chemical dependency and mental health issues. Then he spent more than three years in immigration detention. Finally, he was released. When Donald Trump became president, I felt fear, he said. Ali had heard about people being deported to Somalia. A friend working in Edmonton encouraged him to head north to Canada. So did his mom. He paid a smuggler US$200 for a ride to the border near Emerson. Late on a Friday night, he and five other people were dropped off further away from Canada than they were told and they had a two-hour walk to the border. A van picked the migrants up when they crossed into Canada and took them to the Canada Border Services Agency at Emerson. I had my first interview and it was really good, said Ali. He had a second interview and then noticed the group he crossed into Canada with had finished their interviews and were being driven away towards Winnipeg. He started to worry. For the third interview, another officer a woman told him to wait and came back with two other officers. They put me in a little room and locked the door, Ali said. She said, Youre going to get deported. Ali said he panicked and started banging on the door and yelling. One of the officers told him to settle down. Ali pulled out a lighter he had in his pocket and held the flame next to the sprinkler in the ceiling until it started spraying water in the cell. The officers returned, cuffed him and sent him to the Winnipeg Remand Centre. He was charged with uttering threats, mischief over $5,000 and assaulting a peace officer. Ali said he didnt assault anyone and his lawyer, David Davis, said there are questions about the strength of those charges. Hes back in court May 23 to answer to them. The Customs and Immigration Union did not respond to repeated requests for comment. For now, Ali has to abide by release conditions, including a curfew and staying away from alcohol and trouble. Hes waiting to get a work permit so he can support himself as his immigration case moves through the system. Meanwhile, hes volunteering at the inner-city shelter hes staying in, interpreting for other asylum seekers and helping them find their way around. I have to stay busy, he said. He said he poses no threat to anyone. If they give me a chance, then Im going to show them. Im trying to do good in my life. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Quietly, with no fanfare or photo ops, a delegation from North Korea arrived in Manitoba Wednesday night for meetings arranged by their humanitarian hosts. The five North Korean men are here until Sunday, said Chris Rice, the Mennonite Central Committees (MCC) northeast Asia representative, who is accompanying them. Were hosting a delegation of North Korean counterparts who we work with in our humanitarian work in North Korea, Rice said, adding theres no way theyd have been given visas to enter the United States right now. SUPPLIED Chris Rice is the Mennonite Central Committee's northeast Asia representative who lives in South Korea and is accompanying the North Korean delegation visiting Manitoba until Sunday. It is rare and in the current climate its very difficult for this kind of mutual, face-to-face encounter to happen its very significant, Rice said, carefully choosing his words so as to not jeopardize the relationship. I think we have to be very sensitive. MCCs primary focus in this work is serving vulnerable people in North Korea and being ambassadors of peace and reconciliation. Sometimes that work is better done in ways that are quiet. The current climate is rising global tension with North Korea threatening another nuclear test and the U.S. increasing its military presence in the region and pushing for tougher sanctions. Canadas stance on North Korea is its a destabilizing force in the Asia Pacific region and it discourages travel and commerce with the isolated nation. The MCCs focus on North Korea is to help feed people and plant the seeds for peace, Rice said. The American lives in South Korea, where he grew up with missionary parents and now works for the MCC. He travels north to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea three times a year to meet with non-governmental organizations the MCC supports there. The MCC has been in North Korea for 22 years, Rice said. Through its U.S.-based partner, Christian Friends of Korea, the MCC provides canned meat for tuberculosis and hepatitis patients and meets up to 50 per cent of patients protein needs at nearly 30 hospitals, rest homes and clinics. The faith-based organization says its helping feed the most vulnerable in North Korea, where tens of thousands of people died from hunger in the 1990s. In 2015, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said 10.5 million North Koreans nearly 42 per cent were undernourished and that 81 per cent of households surveyed in 2014 didnt have access to enough nutrients, especially fats and proteins. Food is on the minds of the North Korean visitors in Manitoba, Rice said. We are visiting farms. Theyre very interested in agriculture. Were working with them on conservation. Theyre also meeting university representatives to see what kind of academic exchanges might be possible, he said, without offering any specifics. The major focus has been agricultural learning, Rice said. And sharing a meal. Were eating at local restaurants, and people are hosting us at their homes, said Rice, who wouldnt disclose details of the groups itinerary. Theyll be sightseeing, but one major tourist draw in Winnipeg the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is not on the agenda, he said. We dont have plans to do that. Human Rights Watch lists North Korea as one of the worlds most repressive authoritarian states. It says the country generates fearful obedience by using public executions, arbitrary detention and forced labour. The rights group says North Korea is tightening travel restrictions to prevent North Koreans from escaping and seeking refuge overseas and systematically persecuting those with religious contacts inside and outside the country. But that doesnt appear to be the case for the Manitoba delegation and the MCC which, Rice said, has hosted North Koreans in the past. This is a rare opportunity, said Rice, who thinks Americans and Canadians might be surprised if they got to know some ordinary North Koreans. Theyre human beings who laugh. They enjoy food and tell jokes. Theyre people who know Americans and Canadians much better than we know them, he said. Im talking about the people we work with: there are limits to what were able to see and do when were there, but theres a desire of ordinary people to engage us and be with us. This is really a channel of engagement thats really missing these days. Human encounters and serving vulnerable people are planting the seeds for the future. Seventy years after the nation split, a unified Korea is not too much to hope for, he said. My hope is that miracles can happen, and they have happened in history, he said. No one thought South Africa would change without violence, and it did Things are fragile. And things can get worse. I believe that God is at work in history and sometimes miracles happen. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A university professor in the United States is moving back home to Canada after a series of racist encounters left her and her family feeling threatened and unwelcome. Were closing on our house sale on the 31st of May and then driving back to Winnipeg after that, so pretty soon, Robin Attas said. Well have all our stuff with us. Attas, from Pinawa, is an assistant music professor at Elon University near Burlington, N.C., a job she took in 2013. SUPPLIED Prof. Robin Attas and her Nicaraguan-born husband, Nicolas Narvaez Soza, are moving back to Winnipeg from North Carolina next month with their two children after several racist incidents. The couple have two children, aged two and five. They brought a house in Burlington two years ago and expected to settle down. Her husband, Nicolas Narvaez Soza is originally from Nicaragua. The two met while they were both volunteers at an orphanage. But since they moved into their home, the artist and carpenter has weathered small daily slights. Then, those subtle things people being rude or grumpy with him and not her escalated into outright racism, which explains the familys decision to leave. The large-scale ones? There was the time my husband was standing on the front lawn with our children and somebody drove by in a pickup truck and shouted, Fing Mexican, go home and threw a bottle. That happened in the summer of 2015, Attas said in a phone interview Friday from her university office. Another similar incident followed a couple of weeks later at a playground. But the incident that frightened them into their flight involved a police officer. Narvaez Soza was stopped for the third time last fall by police in nearby Greensboro, N.C., and the officer at first accused him of not wearing a seatbelt but he was. Then Narvaez Soza told the officer he had to get his ID from the back seat. As he got out of the car and reached into the back for his ID, the officer reached for his gun. That account made news in the Herald Sun Durham, N.C.s newspaper as part of an account of the familys decision to leave for Canada. We decided we were out of here for good after that police incident. Wed been debating it for a while because we understood what was happening was racism, Attas said. With the police incident, it was physical. It was a question of life or death, Attas said. My husband has been traumatized by whats happened. He stays home and looks after the kids; Attas goes to work and is now wrapping up her final semester of teaching. Plenty of people, media and friends have asked the family if their decision is related to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president or if they feel a kinship with Americans who reacted to the election by saying they want to move to Canada. Trumps election only served to reinforce their decision to leave. People have asked us, Is it because of Trump? Im clear with everyone. This has been going on since 2013, Attas said. When the election happened, we kinda said, Well leaving was the right choice, she added. The family put their house on the market in February, even though neither of them has a job in Winnipeg. For us, its desperate enough to make the leap even though we dont have anything lined up yet. Thats part of why we chose Winnipeg. Its close to my parents who still live in Pinawa but then I have an extensive network of friends and family and friends of friends, Attas said. She is hoping that network will lead to work, either teaching music part time in one of Winnipegs universities or working in arts administration. Well live in Pinawa with my parents. Finding a house and jobs are two big priorities once we arrive. Were fortunate, we have a house were selling here and well land on our feet and figure something out once we arrive. Weve visited my parents a lot in the summer, with our kids. My husbands fallen in love with the landscape and getting to run off the dock and jump into the river. We go to the Winnipeg Folk Festival whenever we can. Those kinds of Manitoba experiences are dear to his heart, as well as mine. For both of us it feels like a safe comfortable place where well be able to feel home, Attas said. alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Premier Brian Pallisters government was embarrassed last fall when the University of Manitoba went public with a wage offer of seven per cent over four years just as Finance Minister Cameron Friesen first spoke publicly about controlling spending. University of Manitoba associate vice-president of human resources Gregory Juliano testified at a Manitoba Labour Board hearing Friday. He said Rick Stevenson, assistant deputy minister of labour relations, said the situation was embarrassing for the government. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Premier Brian Pallisters government moved to control public-sector wages last fall. It was highly likely the government would be moving on public-sector wage controls, he said. The university had just disclosed its Sept. 13 offer of seven per cent over four years by posting it on the university website. That disclosure coincided with a Sept. 30 Free Press article headlined Theres a New Sheriff in Town, in which Friesen first spoke about controlling public-sector spending. The University of Manitoba Faculty Association has filed an unfair labour practice charge against the university over bargaining last fall, which led to a one-year government-mandated wage freeze and improved working conditions agreed upon after a three-week strike. Juliano said that in the initial contact with Stevenson on the evening of Sept. 30, the university was told not to offer anything more than it had tabled Sept. 13. Stevenson had told him not to disclose anything about the provinces consideration of public-sector wage controls to the faculty association. By Oct. 6, the government had ordered a freeze, Juliano testified Friday. He met that day with Stevenson and Gerry Irving, secretary of the planning and priorities secretariat. I had no idea the bomb they were going to drop on us, Juliano said. Juliano said the two officials made it clear not obeying would lead to consequences not favourable to the U of M. It wasnt very specific it would lead to some financial consequences for the university, Juliano said. I dont think the tone was meant to be threatening, but there was a clear indication that anything other than compliance would be damaging. Juliano testified he told Stevenson at the Sept. 30 meeting, We couldnt go backward in our bargaining unless we had an order to do so and he agreed with my sentiment. Even after that first contact from the province, the union could still have accepted the Sept. 13 offer. The next bargaining session was Oct. 3 a Monday said Juliano. Under aggressive questioning Friday from UMFA lawyer Garth Smorang, he would not agree the university was not legally obligated to follow Stevensons directions and would not agree fair labour practice legislation required the university to tell the union what the government was doing. We had not made that determination at that point, Juliano said. He said in the Oct. 6 meeting, Irving and Stevenson told him while the faculty association is a small bargaining unit, it could not be allowed to have a wage increase because it would establish a precedent for far larger bargaining units such as the Manitoba Nurses Union, whose own bargaining was yet to come. The hearing is expected to continue in June. The wage-control Bill 28 goes to public hearings Monday and Tuesday and will become law by June 1, though it will be retroactive to March 20. It imposes on 120,000 public-sector workers in their next collective bargaining agreements a wage freeze in the first two years, a maximum increase of 0.75 per cent in the third year and a maximum one per cent in the fourth year. nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 05/05/2017 (2014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Violent crime is up, and so are the number of police vehicle pursuits, two trends Winnipeg Police Service chief Danny Smyth said he cant explain. Smyth told the police board Friday violent crime has been on the rise over the past year, in Winnipeg and across western Canada. The alarming trend for me is personal robberies or what we often call strong-arm robberies, Smyth said. We saw a dramatic increase in that. Smyth said the incident of violent crime has steadily increased for the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2016. January saw a three per cent increase, February a four per cent spike and March a six per cent increase. It had been falling down for the better part of five years, and last year we saw a bit of an uptick, and this year were seeing an uptick again, Smyth told reporters. Its something that were monitoring. The target of the robberies appears to be mostly young people with expensive personal electronic devices and accessories smartphones, headphones and ear buds. When Im out and about in the community, I see a lot of people who are zoned out with their hand-held devices and their headphones, Smyth said. It makes people unaware of whats going on around them and can make them vulnerable. In response to the climbing numbers, Smyth said the WPS has made a video focusing on creating awareness and crime prevention that is being made available to schools to post on their websites. The video can also be seen on the WPS website and its YouTube channel, WpgPoliceService. In addition to an increase in violent crimes, Smyth said the WPS has been seeing a steady increase in the number of vehicle pursuits for the past few years. Im not a fan of vehicle pursuits, Smyth said. Theyre dangerous for our members, dangerous for the public. I dont like to see an increase. Im trying to get a sense of whats going on there. Smyth said that, 10 years ago, pursuits involved mostly kids stealing vehicles for the excitement, but now most of the pursuits involve suspects involved in other crimes, such as break-ins or robberies using stolen vehicles for their getaways. Its a very different dynamic than what we had in 2005. Primarily young kids had figured out how to steal cars, and they really werent involved in any other crime, Smyth said. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Chief of Police, Danny Smyth, talks to Police board members and chair, David Asper, during meeting in council chamber building at City Hall Friday. This is different. Advances in technology have made it difficult to bypass a vehicles ignition system, Smyth said, but vehicle owners are sometimes making it easier for thieves by either leaving their vehicles running, or with keyless ignitions, leaving their fobs in the vehicle. If they can steal a car and use it, in another crime, thats the difference in this trend, Smyth said. Thats a very different dynamic than 10 years ago. Smyths monthly report to the board also revealed the number of tickets issued through photo radar and red-light cameras is increasing. The number of tickets issued for reduced school zone violations is up 18 per cent, tickets for speeding through an intersection up 13 per cent, and red-light violations are up 28 per cent. aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca WPS+Dashboard+April+2017+Report Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 06/05/2017 (2013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. So what are universities looking for when they offer big bucks to speak at graduation ceremonies? The best speakers remember the day is about the people theyre speaking to, so they manage to combine their hard-won wisdom with a message of hope and optimism to the people who are graduating, said Melissa Connolly, vice president of university relations at Hofstra University. Killer commencement speeches tend to follow a classic formula, said Daniel Benaim, a visiting professor at New York University who was a speechwriter for former United States vice-president Joe Biden and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Typically, speakers congratulate the class, share their own stories, say something insightful about the world theyll graduate into and end with a call to action challenging students to do something. Jason R. Henske / The Associated Press Conan O'Brien delivers the Commencement Address at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., Sunday June 12, 2011 after receiving an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the school. Start by acknowledging notable people present, such as top university officials, local politicians and maybe even the student class president. But Benaim said reading a list of names can be a missed opportunity. Find a way to make it personal, he said. If you know people, dont give them a compliment anyone could find on a Hallmark card. If you can, say something specific and uniquely true about them. If youre not sure, start Googling. Conan OBrien, for example, recognized former president George H.W. Bush in the opening of his 2011 commencement speech at Dartmouth by saying: Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired president of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, have been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today. Next, congratulate the students on their achievements. The people in front of you have worked extraordinarily hard and they deserve specific recounting of what theyve accomplished and the community theyve built to make sure they feel recognized, Benaim said. But while its important to tell the students theyre special, its also important, he said, to let them know theyre not that special that an awful lot of hard work is ahead to become successful professionals and good citizens and lead meaningful lives. This first part of the speech should include retail politics and an acknowledgement of what makes the university unique. If you dont have a personal connection to the school, dont worry. Researching [students] experience is a sign of respect, and when someone outside their community knows their favourite bars and inside jokes, that can be an easy source of humour and a way to connect, Benaim said. As Arianna Huffington introduced herself to Vassar grads in 2015, Ive spent a lot of time in recent weeks getting to know you following you and your activities on social media, on Vassars website, in The Miscellany News, and in other ways Im not prepared to disclose that will remain between me and the folks at the NSA. It feels a little like Ive been checking out your online dating profile, and now were finally meeting. Next, share some wisdom. Its best told through personal stories of both your successes and failures. The best stories of all are the ones youve lived through, where youve dealt with adversity like the students will face and found a way to make something remarkable out of it, Benaim said. What makes a commencement speech different from the kinds of talks senior executives typically deliver is that it isnt meant to be a lecture on your area of professional expertise, Connolly said. Whats important is that youre sharing a little of yourself. The moral of the stories is often how to be a good human being. It gets existential pretty fast, Benaim said. But the speech should also be funny. Benaim said self-deprecating humour is an easy place to start. Stephen Colbert, for example, told University of Virginia graduates in 2013, Out of courtesy, if anyone has a cellphone, please take a moment to make sure that it is turned on. I wouldnt want any of you to miss a text or a tweet while Im giving my speech. Benaim also suggests looking at books of jokes and past commencement speeches delivered by comedians. You cant steal good lines, of course, but you can quote, paraphrase and draw inspiration from them. Then, test out jokes on friends. The bar for funny is sometimes surprisingly low, he said. People give you points just for trying, especially if youre important. Finally, you should leave students with a challenge to do something specific. This might be something you wish youd known or done when you were in their shoes. As Sheryl Sandberg told Barnard grads in 2011, Dont let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face and there will be barriers be external, not internal. And as the late David Foster Wallace concluded his famed 2005 address at Kenyon College, I wish you way more than luck. Kara Alaimo is an assistant professor of public relations at Hofstra University and author of Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication. She previously served in the Obama administration. Bloomberg Thaddeusz Kosciuszko helped Thomas Jefferson formulate our United States Constitution. He then went back to his homeland and helped formulate Polands Constitution which was approved by the Polish Parliament on May 3, 1791. Though this constitution lasted only four years due to the aggression of Prussia, Russia and Austria and the resulting dissolution of Poland as a Sovereign Nation, it was never forgotten or ended. Preserved in the hearts of those oppressed people for 123 years, it was re-awakened in 1918 as Poland regained its independence at the end of WWI. By this time Winonas Polish immigrants had already left the oppression of their occupiers (they owned nothing, couldnt fish, hunt, or even pick firewood from the woods of their occupiers) and the nastiness of Chancellor Otto Von Bismark: Bash the Poles, til theyve had enough..its the only way for us to survive. They arrived in the United States to work at menial jobs, living close together for security. They celebrated their feasts, their faith, their heroes, their new lives and actually began to thrive all the while keeping the memory of their homeland in their minds and hearts. Today, five and six generations later, Polish-Americans still respect and honor the people who generated not only their hair and eye color, but also their personalities and abilities; along with their traditions, faith and food. Winonas Polish Constitution Day memorial service and banquet begins with the 4:00 p.m. Mass on May 6 at St. Stanislaus Basilica complete with Polish Choir singing, Polish marchers in procession and a great Polish homilist, Rev. Bill Kulas, preaching and neighboring clergy concelebrating. The Mass will be followed by a 5:30 p.m. social at the Polish Heritage Museum Annex with a pork roast, sauerkraut and buchta authentic Polish dinner served at 6:10 p.m. Following the dinner, Dr. Joseph (Bambenek) Hughes will present one of his anecdotal accounts of travel in Poland followed by Sherry Pringles poetic version of the last group trip to Poland. Tickets are available at the Polish Museum or at Midtown Foods. Sunday will celebrate a traditional May Crowning at the Polish Heritage Museum. An opening Polish hymn will be followed by Sister Clare Korte leading the recitation of the Rosary and Litany of the Blessed Virgin. A tiny Polish choir will sing Serdeczna Matko their first public appearance and lead in singing English and Polish songs capturing the spirit of the day. A crowning processional will follow as the costumed and specially attired marchers bring the floral crown for the statue of the Virgin. The program will conclude with two National Anthems- one in English honoring our U.S. citizenship and the second in Polish honoring our 6,000 ancestors who braved the unknown and forged the people we are today. Always a little lunch to follow its Polish. Prosecutors Friday charged a La Crosse man with claiming to be a police officer to intimidate the parents of a teenage girl he is accused of sexually assaulting. Brandon Adams, 30, is charged in La Crosse County Circuit Court with impersonating a peace officer, sexual intercourse with a child and exposing genitals. He returns to court May 15 for a preliminary hearing and is free on a $5,000 signature bond. Adams on April 28 confronted the girls parents and said he was an officer after they tried to catch him meeting their 16-year-old daughter at the Onalaska Burger King, according to the complaint. He showed off a badge and handcuffs and told the girls father that he would arrest him. Adams previously had texted her parents claiming to be an officer and told Onalaska police that he was a bail bondsman in Minnesota, the complaint stated. Police told him not to contact the teen anymore. Early the next morning, police caught Adams and the girl in a car together during a traffic stop, according to the complaint. Wisconsins unemployment rate dipped to 3.4 percent in March, lowest its been in 17 years, according to state labor reports. Unemployment rates decreased in March in 71 of 72 Wisconsin counties, according to the state Department of Workforce Development. The number of active unemployment compensation claims is at its lowest rate in at least 30 years, the state reported. Unemployment nationally averaged 4.5 percent in March, 1.1 percent higher than Wisconsin. The March unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in Buffalo County, 4.4 percent in Pepin County and 3.7 percent in Trempealeau County. Dane County continued to lead the state with an unemployment rate of only 2.5 percent. Calumet and Ozaukee counties also had jobless rates under 3 percent. Among Wisconsin cities, Madison is ranked best in the state for finding a job. Madisons jobless rate is only 2.3 percent. Fitchburg is second best at 2.4 percent. The jobless rate in La Crosse was just 3.4 percent and Eau Claire County was down to only 3 percent. The highest population city in the state, Milwaukee, had an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent. Workforce Development says 25,100 non-farm jobs and 22,100 private-sector jobs were added from March 2016 to March 2017, and 6,100 jobs in health care and social assistance. Among all 50 states, Wisconsin was ranked 11th place in lowest unemployment. Minnesota was ranked 15th at 3.8 percent. Unemployment was only 3.1 percent in Iowa and Nebraska. The jobless rate was 2.8 percent in North and South Dakota. Colorado took honors across the country with an unemployment rate of 2.6 percent. Hawaii was 2.7 percent. The worst unemployment was in New Mexico, 6.7 percent, and Alaska, 6.4 percent. Alabama and the District of Columbia were just under 6 percent. A financial technology company ranked Buffalo County first among the top 10 counties in Wisconsin in best overall value index. SANTA FE, N.M. If a restaurants parking lot is typically full, then the food inside is typically good. That rule of thumb certainly applies at Marias New Mexican Kitchen. And while deciding what to eat can be tough everything from green chile meatballs to tamales is offered deciding what to drink is even tougher. With more than 140 types of tequila and 200 margaritas, the drinks menu is staggering. The choices with intriguing names such as Happy Camper, Moonglow and Platinum Crow will have you feeling lightheaded well before the first round arrives. We started with 16 margaritas, said Al Lucero, who bought Marias in 1985 because no restaurants were serving the tasty New Mexican food the Santa Fe native had enjoyed as a child. As he tried more and more food and tequila both his knowledge and the menu expanded. Lucero, author of The Great Margarita Book, could easily be nicknamed Mr. Margarita. Spaniards traveling El Camino Real brought tequila to Santa Fe more than 400 years ago. And while the margarita wasnt born in Americas oldest state capital, it definitely matured here. Fittingly, the city launched the Santa Fe Margarita Trail (www.santafe.org/margaritatrail) last year where custom-created cocktails can be enjoyed along with a wealth of art galleries and museums. Stop by the downtown visitor center (201 W. Marcy St.) to invest three bucks in the Margarita Trail Passport. In exchange for inclusion, the 31 featured bars and restaurants have developed special concoctions. Their recipes, plus a trail map, are included in the informative booklet. Holders get $1 off each of the listed margaritas and earn stamps good for free gifts with each purchase. Start sipping at the La Fonda on the Plaza hotel, the only place providing stamps at three venues: La Plazuela restaurant plus two bars. In warm weather, locals enjoy after-work cocktails at La Fondas Bell Tower Bar, a rooftop gathering spot overlooking the city. Its new offering, the Bell Ringer, comes with a kick; its made with Tanteo jalapeno tequila, Cointreau, jalapeno juice and lemon-lime juice. Its no wonder that city fathers are encouraging responsible drinking by limiting the number of stamps to two a day. Just off the lobby, La Fiesta Lounge serves a new margarita as well as a tequila flight containing four types of Herradura tequila. Server Andrew Alas first offers the Silver, aged for 40 days. It has a soft taste, he explained. Its really, truly light. Under Alas tutelage, guests then try varieties of reposado and anejo before he proffers a small glass of double-barrel tequila. It comes from individually numbered bottles bearing the hotels name. Its aged for 11 months to give it a different taste, he said. The liquor is smooth as silk on both the tongue and the back of the throat. Were now on our third barrel, so its been really successful, said Shawn Murphy, La Fondas food and beverage director. People associate tequila with margaritas. I dont drink it that way. I sip tequila, he added. The tequilas they come out with now are as good as any brandy or cognac. Theyre just as smooth. Its amazing. Peppers are a big deal in New Mexico. The village of Hatch, in the southern part of the state, is famous for its green chiles. No wonder another locals favorite, Del Charro Saloon at Inn of the Governors, puts an emphasis on super-spicy ingredients in both its food and drink. Del Charros new special, the Santa Fe Trail margarita, will knock the socks off a timid out-of-towner. In addition to green chile-infused tequila, bartenders add green chile powder and red chile flakes. With that much spice, the Cointreau, lemon and lime juices almost seem like afterthoughts. If thats not enough to make a gringos eyes water, there are always the quesadillas topped with New Mexico green chile. Tourists who forgot to pack their antacid pills can always opt for the Cowgirl Cadillac margarita at Cowgirl, an indoor-outdoor rib joint near Santa Fes up-and-coming Railyard District. The restaurants special is a gentle spin on the classic margarita. Its made from organic blue agave tequila, Grand Marnier, and sweet and sour mix, as well as fresh squeezed lime and orange juice. This conjures up, in my mind, this sexy cowgirl lounging in her Cadillac Eldorado with the big steer horns up front and her boots up on the dashboard, Cowgirl co-owner Nicholas Ballas said. The creation, he added (only partly tongue-in-cheek), is the result of more than 30 years of trial and error. It was night after night after arduous night of researching margaritas in Santa Fe, he said. I finally found out how to make a good margarita. About a mile away at Marias, where the passport drink is named for former owner Lucero, dont be surprised to find Robert Redford sitting nearby. A Santa Fe homeowner, the legendary actor has been dining here since he filmed The Milagro Beanfield War in nearby Truchas in the late 1980s. Redford praised Marias in his forward to Luceros book. Is it fancy? No. Is it chic? No. Is the food good? Yes. But the margaritas they are the best, he wrote. Just try to avoid asking for a frozen margarita. That will make the bartenders wince. When youre doing a frozen margarita, Lucero pointed out, youre getting a slushie, and its mostly ice. April 25th marked the second publication of Cardinal Composers. Students in kindergarten through 12th grade were recognized for outstanding written and art compositions. Over 100 students were included in this years edition. Students attended a ceremony at Columbus Middle School and received a copy of the book along with a trophy. Selection for Cardinal Composers is based on recommendations from classroom, art and language arts teachers. The project is coordinated by CMS reading specialist Martha Fallis. This years speaker highlighted the composition of music, both the lyrics and the melody. Jeanne Bindley shared three songs she wrote and spoke of the process used to do this. She compared it to writing stories and poems. Bindley is a former music teacher from Sun Prairie Area School District. Charlie Cardinal was on hand for photo ops and many kids stopped to have their picture taken with him. Copies of Cardinal Composers will be found at the school libraries and in waiting rooms around Columbus soon. Take a look at the writing and art. You will be amazed at the talent found in Columbus schools. Embraer S.A. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells aircrafts and systems in Brazil, North America, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, Brazil, Europe, and internationally. It operates through Commercial Aviation; Defense and Security; Executive Jets; Service & Support; and Other segments. The Commercial Aviation segment designs, develops, and manufactures a variety of commercial aircrafts. The Defense and Security segment engages in the research, development, production, modification, and support for military defense and security aircraft; and offers a range of products and integrated solutions that include radars and special space systems, as well as information and communications systems comprising command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. The Executive Jets segment develops, produces, and sells executive jets. It also leases Legacy 600 and Legacy 650 executive jets in the super midsize and large categories; Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 executive jets in the midlight and midsize categories; Phenom family executive jets in the entry jet and light jet categories; Lineage 1000, an ultra-large executive jet; and Praetor 500 and Praetor 600, disruptive executive jets in the midsize and super midsize categories. The Service & Support segment offers after-service solutions, support, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for commercial, executive, and defense aircrafts; provides aircraft components and engines; and supplies steel and composite aviation structures to various aircraft manufacturers. The Other segment is involved in the supply of fuel systems, structural parts, and mechanical and hydraulic systems; and production of agricultural crop-spraying aircraft. The company was formerly known as Embraer-Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica S.A. and changed its name to Embraer S.A. in November 2010. Embraer S.A. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers a range of skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, cleansing devices, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. The company also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. It offers its products under the Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, Kilian Paris, Too Faced, Dr. Jart+, DECIEM, and The Ordinary brands. The company sells its products through department stores, specialty-multi retailers, upscale perfumeries and pharmacies, and salons and spas; freestanding stores; its own and authorized retailer websites; third-party online malls; stores in airports; and duty-free shops. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Motorola Solutions, Inc. provides mission critical communications and analytics in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Products and Systems Integration, and Software and Services. The Products and Systems Integration segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories, and video security devices and infrastructure, as well as the implementation, and integration of systems, devices, software, and applications for government, public safety, and commercial customers who operate private communications networks and video security solutions, as well as manage a mobile workforce. Its land mobile radio communications and video security and access control devices include two-way portable and vehicle-mounted radios, fixed and mobile video cameras, and accessories; radio network core and central processing software, base stations, consoles, and repeaters; and video analytics, network video management hardware and software, and access control solutions. The Software and Services segment provides repair, technical support, and hardware maintenance services. This segment also offers monitoring, software updates, and cybersecurity services; and public safety and enterprise command center software, unified communications applications, and video software solutions through on-premise and as a service. It serves government, public safety, and commercial customers. The company was formerly known as Motorola, Inc. and changed its name to Motorola Solutions, Inc. in January 2011. Motorola Solutions, Inc. was founded in 1928 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. 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 Little Falls was a surprisingly attractive and reliable spring-fed waterfall in the Mt Charleston area despite its name. Not only did this roughly 30-50ft waterfall tumble over multiple drops, but it sat within a tightly-squeezed canyon beneath Cathedral Rock further adding to its scenic allure. Unlike the popular but typically trickling Mary Jane Falls further up Kyle Canyon, Little Falls showed itself as a more legitimate waterfall with good flow even well into Summer. Case in point, I visited this waterfall in mid-August 2020, and as you can see in the photo above, it still put on quite a show. In fact, Id argue that it was way more scenic than it was during my late April 2017 visit when a lot of snow covered it up. Of course, given my observations, if I had to time a visit for maximum flow and minimum snow, then Id guess that late June or early July would be best. That said, the narrow canyon that Little Falls sat in tended to be in shade most of the day so conceivably it tended to hold onto its accumulated Winter snow. Id imagine that also helped enhance the reliability of this waterfall, especially since I noticed water pipes in the area. Such piping infrastructure was a sure sign that someone else thought this spot had enough water to justify setting these things up here. As for accessing Little Falls, there were two approaches one from the Cathedral Rock Trailhead and another from the Echo Trailhead. Hiking to Little Falls from the Cathedral Rock Trailhead The most obvious and popular way to access Little Falls was by starting from the Upper Parking Lot for the Cathedral Rock Trailhead (see directions below). According to my GPS logs (at least before both my GPS devices started going crazy), the hike was between 0.7-0.8 miles in each direction with a 300ft gain over that stretch. From the end of the upper parking lot I followed an obvious trail past a trash container that followed the contours of the northern base of Cathedral Rock. It followed this path west as it followed Kyle Canyon Road until it ascended to a trail junction almost a quarter-mile from the start. I kept right (west) to continue heading towards Little Falls (ignoring incoming spur trails coming up from private properties). The path on the left switched back towards the Cathedral Rock itself. Anyways, as I continued on, I reached a signed trail junction in about 500ft, where the trail from the Echo Trailhead came in from the right. Note that this sign at the trail junction was the first mention of Little Falls on this hike. I kept going straight ahead from this junction, which continued a gradual climb as the trail also started to narrow the higher up it went. Eventually, the path was pretty much within the tight canyon containing Little Falls, where I also started to notice water pipes as well as graffiti on the cliff walls. Id imagine that it was in this narrow canyon that my GPS devices started acting crazy as they couldnt get a line-of-sight to the GPS satellites for a fix. After another quarter-mile or so, the trail eventually went around a bend to the left, where it reached its dead-end right in front of the Little Falls. According to my trip notes, it took me about an hour away from the car to complete this hike, including the moments I had enjoying the waterfall. Hiking to Little Falls from the Echo Trailhead When I first visited Little Falls, I actually started from the Echo Trailhead (see directions below). Even though this trail was about 1.7 miles round-trip, I actually got lost trying to find Little Falls because there were lots of false trails conspiring to lead me astray. In fact, I managed to find a bonus waterfall that I called Medium Falls during that moment where I was going the wrong way in pursuit of Little Falls. Anyways, the way I ultimately did this hike correctly was by first crossing a dry wash next to the Echo Trailhead. Right across the wash was an easy-to-miss sign pointing the way east saying Trail. Note that I had previously made the mistake of following the wash to the west (in the direction of Mary Jane Falls). In any case, I followed the trail as it climbed and then reached another fork where another Trail sign pointed to my right. The trail continued to climb somewhat gradually before reaching a confusing trail junction with an Echo Trail sign pointing in both directions (left and right). It turned out that I had to go left at this junction, but I did briefly explore going right from that sign, which degenerated into a very steep scramble and caused me to turn back. Eventually after making it about 0.6 miles from the Echo Trailhead, I then finally reached the signed junction where the Little Falls Trail continued on the right. Like with the Cathedral Rock Trailhead approach, this sign at the trail junction was the first mention of Little Falls (though Im not even sure if that sign was there when I did it back in late April 2017). In any case, I then followed the remaining 0.3-mile uphill to the end of the trail and the Little Falls as described earlier. Authorities Little Falls resides in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest near Las Vegas in Clark County, Nevada. It is administered by the USDA Forest Service. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting their website. Mary Jane Falls had to have been hands down the most popular hike in the Mt Charleston area. Given that this waterfall featured at least three parallel segments that were each too tall to try to capture in a single photograph (maybe at least 200-300ft tall), it certainly seemed like the natural antidote to Las Vegas. Indeed, as you can see from the photo above, pictures really dont do this place justice, especially considering this waterfall even had waterflow deep into Summer (something I learned on my August 2020 visit). In addition to the waterfalls, there were also little caves or alcoves to further add to the fun. So I guess given all these things that Mary Jane Falls had going for it, its popularity was certainly understandable. Case in point, I had to have counted dozens of large hiking groups each time Ive done this hike, especially as I made my way back down from the falls after getting an early start. Perhaps its proximity to being only an hours drive away from the Las Vegas Strip (without traffic, of course) had a lot to do with that popularity. Who knew that such a wonderful natural attraction could be so close to the bright lights and sleaze of Sin City? While this place wasnt exactly my favorite in the world, I definitely had to reconsider my attitude towards coming here as I could now look forward to a waterfall in addition to some of the other Nature that can be found in Southern Nevada. Timing Mary Jane Falls Even as I wax poetic about how there can be this tall waterfall so close to Las Vegas, I do have to temper expectations a bit by explaining that this falls performed its best in the early Summer. When I first came here in late April 2017, Mary Jane Falls had at least four segments, but they were hard to photograph because the flow was limited. Upon coming back here in August 2020, only three of the segments flowed, but it was more of a sprinkle as the snow was long gone this deep into Summer. So in my mind, if I wanted to time a visit here correctly, I should have come in June or as late as early July depending on the Winter snow pack. Indeed, in order to properly time this waterfall to see it at its photogenic best, I had to pay attention to two main things. First, there has to be a lot of snow accummulation in the Mt Charleston area, especially on the slopes surrounding Kyle Canyon. Second, with the presence of snow, the weather would have to warm up quickly to maximize the flow over the waterfall. If neither of these things happen, then the transition from a frozen column of water (assuming there was snow to begin with) into a trickling waterfall would be quick, but the falls never really seemed to go dry thanks to being fed by springs. In fact, on my August 2020 visit, I noticed quite an extensive grove of foliage at the waterfalls base, which seemed to thrive in its perennial flow. It was just another example of how Nature managed to surprise me even despite this place being smack in the middle of the deserts of the Great Basin. Hiking to Mary Jane Falls In order to access Mary Jane Falls, I had to go on a hike that was at least 3 miles round-trip (my GPS logs suggested it was more like 3.2-3.4 miles round trip). Given that this hike began at an elevation of over 7,700ft while gaining another 1,100ft, this was a deceptively strenuous hike, especially if youre not acclimated to the thin air. Overall, I spent about 2 hours and 45 minutes away from the car on my first time visiting in late April 2017, and I could have spent as little as 2 hours on my August 2020 visit. This included some additional hiking to explore some caves as well as all the time I spent taking pictures. I could have also extended this hike to include the Big Falls, which would have added another 1.6 miles round trip. However, I wound up not doing that extra excursion because it would have involved boulder scrambling and even traversing snow. Anyways, given the popularity of this hike, I made sure to get an early start (around 7am; when I was only one of a half-dozen cars here). When I returned to the trailhead at around 10am on my April 2017 visit, I was very surprised at how quickly the parking lot filled up! Mary Jane Falls Trail Description from the trailhead to the start of the switchbacks From the well-signposted trailhead parking lot (see directions below), I followed a pretty obvious trail gently ascending what appeared to be either an old road or a combination of road and dry wash. After about 3/4-mile, the trail reached an unsigned fork, where there was a fallen log on the left. I kept right at this fork to continue on the Mary Jane Falls Trail. The wider trail veering left, which would eventually go into a dry wash was actually the start of the spur to Big Falls. Near this wash was supposedly where a road used to lead to a campground that had been washed in a flash flood and never rebuilt. I didnt do this hike on my first visit in late April 2017 due to the presence of heavy snow, but I did do it when I came back in August 2020, which illustrated that it wasnt too difficult to combine these hikes. Anyways, later in the Mary Jane Falls hike, I would learn that it was not easy to look across the canyon towards Big Falls because it sat in a fairly concealed and shaded canyon. Mary Jane Falls Trail Description ascending the switchbacks to the waterfall Anyways, just a couple of minutes past the fork with the Big Falls spur trail, the Mary Jane Falls Trail started to ascend several switchbacks gaining most of its 1,100ft. Given the high altitude of the trail, this was a surprisingly strenuous stretch. Id imagine that if you came up from the lower elevations like Las Vegas, where your body would not have had a chance to acclimate to the thin air, the altitude sickness can be an issue here. Further adding to the strenuous nature of climbing in high altitude, the switchbacks were also full of false trails and shortcuts. This made things confusing and dangerous for novice hikers less aware of their surroundings. Except for one potentially confusing part at one of the switchbacks (where the main trail traversed a rocky section while a false trail ascended immediately before it), the main trail should be pretty obvious to follow. I happened to see a few people take the shortcuts, and it was clear that some of them bit off more than they could chew as theyd easily slide down and kick down loose rocks for every step or two theyd take. On top of that, they caused more erosion and damage to the area impacting the ability of other people to use this trail. I was also aware that the forest service had to close the trail in the recent past to mitigate the effects of trail erosion thanks to these false trails. Once I made it past the last of the switchbacks (according to my GPS logs, I counted at least 11 of them), the trail hugged the base of some tall limestone cliffs. It also offered up views across Kyle Canyon towards the snowy mountains backing the opposite side of the canyon. During this stretch, I was finally able to get high enough to see across the canyon the Big Falls and its hidden and shaded ravine. It was merely a streak of wet walls from my distant vantage point when I was doing the Mary Jane Falls Trail in late April 2017, but it was dry when I came back in August 2020. Anyways, on that first visit, I decided then and there that I wouldnt bother extending the hike to get close to the Big Falls due to the snow. Eventually, after another quarter-mile of relatively flat hiking (at least compared to the switchbacks), I finally made it to the sloped clearing at the base of the Mary Jane Falls. Mary Jane Falls Trail Description exploring the waterfall and beyond I happened to show up to the Mary Jane Falls pretty early in the morning before 8:30am on my first visit, and I showed up before 8am on my second visit. During both times, I was fortunate that the morning sun had not breached the tall cliffs neighboring the falls. That meant that I was able to take photos of the Mary Jane Falls without harsh light and shadows compromising the ability to capture the scene. The morning sun didnt really start to wreak havoc on the lighting for the area until around 9:15am when I stuck around that long during my late April 2017 visit. Its conceivable that the lighting could be bad even earlier than this in the latter months as the sun would be higher on the horizon. Anyways, on the underlying cliffs between two of the waterfalls, there were little caves or alcoves. The most accessible of these alcoves was actually a short distance beyond the Mary Jane Falls on an established trail. This alcove or cave offered a gorgeous view back towards the snow-capped mountains flanking Kyle Canyon. Given these alcoves, it made me wonder whether the name of the waterfall might have had something to do with folks who might go into some of these things and smoke pot. After all, with the presence of graffiti and empty beer bottles, it wouldnt be out of the question to see traces of a bong or two here and perhaps inspire the name Mary Jane or marijuana in Spanish. That said, I can also easily envision a careless forest fire running through the canyon so please refrain from having a smoke regardless of what form it is. The return hike went far faster as it was pretty much all downhill to the trailhead. On my first visit in late April 2017, it only took me 45 minutes to complete the return hike, where it took me nearly double that time on the way up. On my second visit in August 2020, I had been acclimated from extensive hiking in the Rocky Mountains so I actually spent far less time on the Mary Jane Falls Trail than the first time (and even added the hike to Big Falls). Authorities Mary Jane Falls resides in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest near Las Vegas in Clark County, Nevada. It is administered by the USDA Forest Service. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting their website. North Wales Police POP Awards to Celebrate Safer Communities This article is old - Published: Saturday, May 6th, 2017 Innovative approaches to community safety are being celebrated across North Wales with the first NWP POP Awards. North Wales Police will host the first Problem Orientated Partnership (POP) awards at the Quay, Deganwy, in September when the best projects from across the region will be in the running for prizes of 1,000, 750 and 500 to invest into continuing their work. Problem Orientated Partnerships (POP) is a proactive approach to problem solving in a systematic and routine fashion. Rather than responding to crime and incidents only after they happen POP encourages agencies to work together to develop solutions to the immediate underlying conditions contributing to public safety problems. Assistant Chief Constable Richard Debicki said: There is a huge amount of fantastic work going on within North Wales that our police officers, staff and partners can be proud of which is really making a difference and keeping our communities safer. Chief officer teams are extremely proud of these achievements and its time to celebrate them. In September we will be hosting the first NWP POP Awards to highlight and celebrate the best and most innovative local initiatives from across the force. ACC Debicki added: We know that the remedies often lie beyond the reach of the police alone and that we have to work with partners and other agencies and, at times, the commercial world to succeed. There are examples of POP across North Wales and we want to hear about them. Tell us how youve worked with partners to bring about innovative solutions that have worked to make your communities safer and you could be one of the award winners Organisations who have worked with North Wales Police on projects can enter on line here. Local council and mayoral elections held Thursday in England, Scotland and Wales were characterised by widespread abstention, as only around a third of those eligible turned out to vote. The ruling Conservatives were the main beneficiaries from the low turnout, making significant gains at the expense of Labour and, even more so, the far right UK Independence Party (UKIP). UKIPs vote completely collapsed. Projected national vote share for the Tories is 38 percent, 11 points above Labour's 27 percent, with the Liberal Democrats at 18 percent and UKIP 5 percent. Some 4,851 seats in 88 councils, mostly outside the UKs largest cities, were being contested, including all 32 councils in Scotland, 22 in Wales and 34 county councils and unitary authorities in England. Election of Metro Mayors were held in six areasWest of England, Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region, the West Midlands, Tees Valley, and Cambridge and Peterborough. The local election campaign was a non-event and generally invisible until election day, due to Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, last month, calling a snap General Election for June 8. Local elections are usually held on the same day as a general election, but Thursdays ballot was held nearly a month earlier. With all results declared across the country, the Tories gained 563 seats with Labour losing 382 and the Liberal Democrats down 42 seats. UKIP lost 144 seats. In England, the Tories took 10 councils, with Labour losing 150 seats and losing one council overall. The Liberals lost 29 seats. UKIP lost 145 seats and gained just one. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) remains the main party in local government, but did not do as well as expected, losing seven seats. The Conservatives won 164 seats to become the second party, displacing Labour, which lost 133 seats. Labour lost overall control of Glasgow City Councila council it had held since 1980to what will be a minority SNP administration. In Wales, Labour lost seats in a number of the South Wales heartlands, including Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil, in which Labours founder Keir Hardie won his first seat. In Merthyr Tydfil, Labour council leader Brendan Toomey lost his seat to an Independent candidate, with the Independent group taking 16 seats to win. Despite projections of even bigger defeats at the hands of the Tories, Labour held control of Swansea, Cardiff and Newport councils and remains the largest party overall. The Liberal Democrats failed to win any significant support, campaigning as the party committed to overturning the governments decision to leave the EU following last years referendum vote. In councils such as Somerset and Dorset in South West England, where it was previously a force in local governmentbut where the electorate voted to Leave in the EU referendumthe Lib Dems lost out to the Tories. The mayoral elections also saw significant defeats for Labour, with the Tories winning four of the six regions being contested. Although comfortably winning in two of their strongholdsGreater Manchester and the Liverpool City regionLabour lost to the Tories in the solidly working class West Midlands, which has the largest urban population outside London. It also lost in the Tees Valley in the northeast of England, an area which has been de-industrialised, leading to the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs, and which voted heavily to leave the EU. The low turnout nationally was reflected in the mayoral elections, with less than a third of those eligible turning out. In Greater Manchester, the turnout was under 29 percent, while in the West Midlands it was 26 percent and in the Tees Valley just 21 percent voted. The results are a massive indictment of Labours nominally left leader Jeremy Corbyn and his backers among Britains pseudo-left groups. Since his election in 2015, Corbyn has refused to oppose the partys right wing, repeatedly kowtowing to them on every policy. Just weeks after winning re-election with a landslide vote on a ticket opposing austerity and war, Corbyn allowed a free vote on military strikes in Syria. A third of Labour MPs voted in favour, allowing the Tories a comfortable majority, with air strikes going ahead straight after. Corbyn then instructed Labour councils, which run the vast majority of the UKs main urban areas, to continue imposing austerity. Labours continued enforcing of austerity played a central role in its defeat. Many councils they run have imposed massive cuts in adult social carehitting the elderly particularly hardand enforced huge council tax increases. Labour lost Derbyshire council to the Tories, in an area which covers a parliamentary seat the party has held since 1935. Labour councils in the county have imposed more than 100 million in austerity measures Many people in Merthyr Tydfil had already protested cuts by the Labour-run council of more than 15 million prior to Corbyn becoming leader. These have continued since. On why he was defeated, Labour leader Toomey said, We've had to take some tough decisions and unfortunately I've had to pay the price for that Following the Brexit referendum and resignation last July of Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, his successor May adopted the anti-EU programme of UKIP root and branch. As a result of the Tories taking UKIPs mantle, the vast majority of its voters deserted the party in favour of Mays Brexit means Brexit agenda. Financial Times political editor George Parker could barely contain his glee as he told Sky News, This is a government that has been implementing an austerity programme for seven years and yet here they are gaining hundreds of seats across the country at the expense of Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems and UKIP. On UKIPs collapse, Parker said May had been using the language of UKIP, adopting some of the policies of UKIP and at the same time flattening UKIP. Douglas Carswell, the Tory turned UKIP MP who then left the party in March this year said, Speaking as UKIPs first and last Member of Parliamen t I would not want to say anything unkind, but we all know that its over. Labours heavy defeat was utilised by the partys right wing, which has plotted to remove Corbyn since his election, to step up calls for his ouster. Despite Corbyns refusal to fight the rightmany of whom would rather see Labour defeated in the General Election than have Corbyn as prime ministerhis association with Labours past reformist programme is unacceptable. Stephen Kinnock, the son of the former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, said Friday, [M]y vision of the Labour party is not one where we are anywhere near the hard left. Andy Burnham, who won the contest for Greater Manchester mayor, refused to meet Corbyn when the Labour leader arrived in Manchester late Friday. As Corbyn made a speech to Labour supporters to congratulate Burnham, the new mayor reportedly chose instead to quaff champagne in one of the citys upmarket restaurants just a few hundred yards away. Burnham was one of the three Labour right-wingers who Corbyn resoundingly defeated to become leader. An agreement to impose an additional 3.6 billion in austerity cuts has been reached between Greeces Syriza-led government and European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials. Tuesdays agreement is the latest brutal component of the 86 billion austerity for loans package signed by the Greek government in August 2015. Its commitment to further austerity was conditional on the EU releasing a tranche of 7.5 billion, needed to pay off debt due to mature in July. The talks were drawn out over a period of six months, which increased speculation that an agreement would not be reached in time for Greece to meet its obligations on its overall debt burden that remains around 300 billion179 percent of GDP. This would lead to a crisis similar to the one in the summer of 2015 when the country verged on default and banks were forced to close. The financial markets reacted positively to the new agreement, with Greek equities jumping 3.1 percent. Announcing the deal, Syriza Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos declared, The negotiation is finished with agreement on all the issues, adding, We now have a decision that the Greek government will be called to enforce with laws and decisions. What Syriza will now enforce is further devastating attacks on pensions, wages and workers rights. Pensions are set to be reduced by up to 18 percent from 2019, affecting some 1.1 million pensioners receiving more than 700 ($767) a month. The pension cuts are worth around 1.8 billionaround 1 per cent of GDP. For low-income pensioners these are the highest cuts since the first austerity package was signed in 2010. There have been a staggering 23 reductions in pensioners incomes since 2010, which have cut pensions by an average of 40 percent. According to the United Pensioners Network, these amount to a total of 50 billion. Speaking about the cuts, Network president, Nikos Chatzopoulos said, Its not only the cuts to our pensions, but also the hikes in social security contributions and taxation, which have reduced pensioners incomes by more than 50 percentThere are people who cant afford to pay for their medicines. We no longer have money to pay for electricity and phone bills. The tax-free threshold will be reduced from 8,636 to 5,681, which will take many low-income workers and pensioners out of the tax-free band. The measure is also set to hit low-income pensioners earning as little as 500 a month. For those who are just covered by the current threshold, this will amount to a cut of about 650 to their income. The reduction to the tax-free threshold also equates to fully 1 percent of GDP and is set to come into force in 2020, provided current budget surplus levels remain on target. If not, then they will be brought forward to 2019. Additional austerity measures worth 450 million are set to come into force next year, including 50 percent cuts in the heating allowance, unemployment benefit and a cut in tax relief on medical costs. There are also plans to sell off coalmines and coal power stations owned by the Public Power Corporation (PPC), amounting to approximately 40 percent of its capacity. At the centre of the agreement was an acceptance of a large part of the IMFs demands for further attacks on workers rights. While the IMFs demand for allowing lockouts of workers by employers was kept off the table for now, the agreement took one-step closer towards repealing legislation against arbitrary mass sackings. Although these are still limited to 5 percent of a companys workforceup to a maximum of 30 workers a monththey no longer have to be pre-approved by the Finance Minister and the Supreme Labour Council (ASE). Under the new process, the ASE will only be able to audit whether all legislative requirements are being followed. The agreement also includes a commitment to introduce anti-strike legislation including a fast-tracked judicial process to rule on the legality of industrial action. The government has until May 18 to get the agreement passed in parliament in time for the meeting of the Euro group council of EU finance ministers on May 22. The impact of the new measures, disproportionately hitting some of the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the population, will be catastrophic. Since 2010, Greeces economy has shrunk by about 27 percent under the weight of the successive austerity measures imposed by the EU and the IMF in agreement with PASOK, New Democracy and Syriza-led governments. Unemployment in Greece stands at 23.5 percent and is at nearly 50 percent among youth. According to a recent study by the non-profit research organisation, Dianeosis, nearly 1.5 million Greeks13.6 percent of the populationcurrently live in extreme poverty. This compares to 2.2 per cent in 2009. According to the study, a family of four just at the cusp of the extreme poverty limit can spend only 7 a month for their childrens school expenses, 12 for shoes for the entire family and just 24 for hygiene products. Those that fall within the zone of extreme poverty cant even afford the above. The disastrous economic situation in Greece, without precedent in peacetime, is a devastating indictment of the pseudo-left Syriza, which came to power in January 2015 on an anti-austerity ticket. Just months later this pro-capitalist party ditched its previous rhetoric and signed Greeces third bailout package, betraying the overwhelming rejection of austerity in the July 2015 referendum. An EU/IMF statement praised the Greek government stating, This preliminary agreement will now be complemented by further discussions in the coming weeks on a credible strategy for ensuring Greeces debt is sustainable. The IMF has insisted that Greeces debt is not sustainable unless some debt relief is implemented. This has been a sticking point for the IMF, which is not participating financially in the austerity programme agreed with Syriza in 2015. The German government has been central in resisting calls for implementing any form of debt haircut since it would bear the brunt. This accounts for the reticent response to the latest agreement from Berlin. A German Finance Ministry spokesperson described it as an important intermediate step, but added that work is still needed. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble warned that The [Greek] government has not yet fulfilled all the agreements. There remains scepticism as to whether agreement on any debt relief is possible. Stephen Brown, an economist at Capital Economics, said, As such, worries about default and the potential for Grexit seem set to fade for a while, but not disappear. In response to the measures, Greeces private and public sector trade union federations have called for a 24-hour general strike on May 17 to coincide with the date that the austerity bill will be passed through parliament. There have been countless such actions in the last seven years, all designed to allow workers to let off steam while the measures are passed. There is, however, a sense that this well-worn path has run its course and that the bureaucracy will be unable to contain the social anger that the new measures will impose. The head of the Adedy public sector union, Odysseas Trivalas, told the Guardian, It will be a very hot spring. We have yet to see the details of this agreement, but what we know is that it will mean further cuts. There will be a lot of strikes and a general 24-hour lockdown when the measures are brought to parliament for vote. Trivalas posturing is designed to conceal his and the unions complicity in the implementation of austerity. His is a typical journey of union bureaucrats who were originally aligned with the social democratic PASOK partyarchitects of the first raft of austerity, which saw them wiped out in successive electionsand who have moved into Syrizas orbit in recent years. Asia Bangladesh: Police attack protesting garment workers At least 20 garment workers were injured when police, using batons, attacked their demonstration which had spilled onto the Dhaka-Tangail Highway on April 27. Workers from the Shed Fashion factory in Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka, were demanding unpaid wages and other arrears. One worker said they had not been paid since January and decided to demonstrate after management failed for the fifth time to pay wages before a promised deadline. Dhaka garment workers protest Around 700 garment workers from the factories of Hexa Garments and Alif Textiles demonstrated on the Elephant Road in Dhaka for about four hours on April 27 over outstanding wages. Workers decided to strike after management refused to discuss rumours that the factories would close without paying outstanding wages and entitlements. Workers ended their demonstration after management convinced them that the factories were not closing and wages would be paid at the end of the month. Pakistan: Disabled Punjab government workers demand wages Visually-impaired workers in the special education and social welfare departments of the Dera Ghazi Khan Municipal Corporation protested on April 29 over non-payment of their wages. Most of the workers are on daily contracts and said they had not been paid for four months. Workers demonstrated outside the commissioners office in the city centre, blocking traffic for several hours. The government ignored a similar protest over the same issue in March. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hospital workers strike Health workers at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar boycotted duties and protested inside the hospital on April 26 over several issues, including a government bill to lift restrictions on the termination of employees. Other demands were for job permanency for contract workers, a wage rise and payment of a professional allowance. Their action was the latest in series of limited strikes and protests since last August over these issues and the professional allowance in particular. Workers demanding the allowance include doctors, nurses, paramedics and 20,000 other technicians. While the government has promised on numerous occasions to grant the allowance, it remains unpaid to most workers, including those already entitled to it. Punjab retired municipal workers demand pension About 1,400 retired workers of the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation and 600 former Rawalpindi Division government employees issued a warning on April 29 that they planned a series of protests, including occupation of government offices, if four months outstanding pensions are not paid immediately. Current municipal workers are supporting the retirees. According to a media report, the district government has given orders to stop the payments of pensions due to lack of funds. Federal government public expenditure cuts have curtailed payments to provincial governments and city administrations. India: Madhya Pradesh ambulance workers on strike Around 3,000 108 Ambulance Service workers employed by contract company Ziqitza Healthcare in Madhya Pradesh have been on strike since April 26. They are demanding same-work same-pay, an eight-hour work schedule and regular salary payments. The workers have held a 24-hour ongoing protest outside the companys headquarters at the TB Hospital in Bhopal. Workers began a hunger strike on Tuesday, following failed talks with the government and Ziqitza the previous evening. The company has begun advertising for replacement workers, while the government has begun imposing charges against workers who fail to attend traffic accidents. Maharashtra municipal garbage and water workers protest About 200 employees of firms, contracted by Kanak Resources Management to collect garbage door-to-door and maintain the water supply of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, demonstrated outside the corporations executive engineers office on April 27 to demand the minimum wage. A union spokesman of the Nagpur Mahanagar Palika Theka Kamgar Sanghthana said that the workers are unregistered immigrants and so are easily exploited. The spokesman said that the unskilled and skilled workers are only paid between 7,280 to 8,500 rupees ($US132) a month. The official minimum wage for these workers is between 11,500 to 14,000 rupees ($218) a month. The workers are also not paid entitlements such as rent and dearness allowances. Indonesia: Freeport mine workers strike Around 8,000 workers from Freeports massive Grasberg copper mine in West Papua rallied in the town of Timika (close to the mine) on Monday to begin a month-long strike over mass lay-offs. Employees of contractors and affiliated companies will join the strike on May 9. The workers are organised by the Chemical, Energy and Mining Workers Unit of PT Freeport Indonesia's All Indonesian Workers Union (PUK SP-KEP). Freeport has laid off 10 percent of its 32,000 workforce and warned that it could cut another 5,000 due to reduced production as a result of the ongoing dispute between the company and the Indonesian government over its contract. New government rules require Freeport to obtain a new mining permit, divest a 51 percent stake, build a second copper smelter, relinquish arbitration rights and pay new taxes and royalties. One aspect of the new laws is to restrict the export of minerals mined in the Indonesian archipelago in an attempt to divert them to domestic industries. Freeport estimated that its production at Grasberg could be reduced by 60 percent. Australia and the Pacific Freight train drivers in Victoria locked out Members of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU), employed by Pacific Nationals (PN) Rural and Bulk division in Victoria walked off the job for 48 hours on Monday in a dispute over the companys proposed enterprise agreement (EA). The company immediately announced it intended to lock the workers out for the week. Thousands of tonnes of produce from Victorias rural areas have been transferred onto road transport, with one company claiming it has increased truck trips by 634 a day. PN is Australias largest freight rail company. The drivers enterprise agreement expired last December. The union claims that PN wants drivers to take pay cuts of up to $19,000 per year and give up travel conditions that will force them to start and finish up to 120km away from their home at their own expense and on their own time. The union says that PN is also seeking pay cuts of up to $10 an hour. The current hourly rate for experienced drivers is $52.74. This is an aggregate wage incorporating shift penalties, weekend penalties and various allowances. The company wants to remove all penalties, shift loadings and annual leave loading from the aggregate wage, which the union said would reduce the wage to $42.58 an hour. In addition PN is demanding that guaranteed work be reduced from 40 to 38 hours a week. The RTBU is also opposing PNs increasing use of labour hire workers. It has placed a ban on training labour hire workers, which began on March 22 and continues indefinitely. Victorian plywood mill workers remain locked out Over 200 workers at Carter Holt Harvey plywood mill at Myrtleford in Victorias northeast remain locked out since April 19 in a dispute over a new work agreement. The workers, who are members of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Electrical Trades Union of Australia and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, are currently picketing the mill but have been isolated by the unions. The current union claim is for a 3 percent pay rise annually over three years, one weeks annual leave allowable in the Christmas holiday period, and better access to income protection insurance. A CFMEU spokesman said the company wanted one nationwide agreement for all its sites and has imposed a 2 percent pay increase at its Tumut and Morwell mills. New South Wales dock workers escalate bans Two hundred Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members at Patrick Stevedores Port Botany terminal in Sydney have stepped up existing work bans on certain containers to cover all rail freight movement through the terminal. The industrial action follows a 24-hour strike last week. Patrick responded by beginning to stand down MUA members who are defying a Federal Court injunction against their action. The dispute began last month when Qube Logistics, which took over Patrick last year, began shipping containers through what was previously an unused part of the terminal. The terminal is not covered by the MUAs current enterprise agreement and truck drivers are performing the work. The MUA insists that Patrick is outsourcing work traditionally performed by wharfies, including forklift, reach stacker, clerical and foreman duties. Patrick has begun legal action against the union claiming the unprotected industrial action is costing it $500,000 per day. The union, which has opposed joint industrial action by other MUA members, has a long record of using threats of draconian legal action by employers to shut down industrial action and doing back room deals that accommodate to employers demands. Victoria: Fletcher Insulation workers strike in tenth week Ninety workers at Fletcher Insulation in Dandenong, Victoria are maintaining strike action begun on February 17 and have established a 24-hour picket outside the company plant. The Australian Workers Union (AWU) members walked off the job after being offered an enterprise agreement that cuts working conditions and imposes a four-year pay freeze. The union told the media that Fletcher Insulation wants to increase working hoursthe current glass industry standard is 35 hours a weekand remove minimum manning levels from the agreement. Workers are also concerned that Fletcher wants unlimited use of casual workers and slash existing redundancy provisions. Fletcher applied to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in March to terminate the workplace agreement which if successful would reduce workers pay by over 50 percent. Saipan casino construction workers continue protests Employees of a subcontractor building the multimillion-dollar Imperial Pacific Resort on the Pacific island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas, marched to the Garapan construction site on April 28. They were protesting unpaid wages, sub-standard living conditions and broken promises. The Chinese workers said they had not been paid by Gold Mantis Construction Decoration (CNMI) since February. Over 90 Chinese workers at the construction site, managed by contractor MCC International Saipan, a unit of state-owned Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd, began protesting in early April over the issues. The unstable, crisis-ridden North Korean regime is increasingly under siege on all sides, as the Trump administration ramps up its threats of war on the Korean Peninsula and pressures Beijing to compel Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programs. While formally an ally of North Korea, China has already voted for a series of UN resolutions imposing harsh sanctions and is currently discussing further UN penalties with the US. A commentary published this week by the Norths official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) lashed out at Beijing, accusing it of insincerity and betrayal and warning of grave consequences entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK [North Korea]-China relations. The KCNA reiterated that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons, setting it on a collision course not only with the US and Washingtons allies, but also China. The Pyongyang regime, which depends heavily on China economically, is reacting to growing pressure from Beijing to bow to US demands. In February, China announced the suspension of coal imports from North Korea for the remainder of the year, and last month reportedly turned away a fleet of North Korean cargo ships laden with coal. Beijing is deeply concerned that Pyongyangs weapon programs have created the pretext for a US military build up in North East Asia aimed against China. The US threat of war on the Korean Peninsula has deepened the debate within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus over North Korea, including suggestions that Beijing should pre-empt Washington with its own regime-change operation in Pyongyang or support its integration with South Korea. Such is the gulf between the two allies, once described as being as close as lips and teeth, that since taking office in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The US has maintained sanctions against North Korea since the 195053 Korean War, in which millions of civilians and troops from the two Koreas, China, the US and its allies died. While an armistice halted the fighting in 1953, no peace treaty was ever reached. North Korea is still effectively at war with South Korea and the US. North Koreas isolation worsened following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which had provided economic and military aid and accounted for around 60 percent of the countrys international trade. Pyongyang was compelled to turn to Beijing for assistance and trade. It relies on China for oil and food, as well as industrial and consumer goods. The Pyongyang regimes own shift to capitalist restoration and pro-market relations has been significantly hampered by the US-led blockade, which has only intensified in the past 25 years. Free trade zones were established with South Korea at Kaesongcurrently closedand with China. North Korea has also engaged in the export of cheap labour, with an estimated 20,000 workers in China, Russia and the Middle East. As the US has heightened its confrontation with North Korea, several articles in the American and international press have noted the widespread market economy that has greatly exacerbated the social divide between a wealthy elite, along with private traders, smugglers and red capitalists, and the majority of impoverished workers and farmers. A lengthy article in the New York Times on April 30 noted an estimate by the South Korean intelligence agency that at least 40 percent of the population in North Korea was now engaged in some form of private enterprise. While his father reportedly attempted to crack down on marketplaces, they have flourished under Kim Jong-un, doubling to 440 and, based on satellite imagery, expanding in size. Wealthy donju or money owners invest in construction projects, establish partnerships with resource-strapped state factories and bankroll imports from China to supply retailers in the marketplaces, the article explained. They operate with covers, or party officials, who protect their businesses. Some are relatives of party officials. Others are ethnic Chinese citizens, who are allowed regular visits to China and can facilitate cross-border financial transactions, and people with relatives who have fled to South Korea and send them cash remittances. These political and economic elites, concentrated in Pyongyang, have access to luxury goods, including at ski and beach resorts, while most of the population eke out an impoverished existence under police-state conditions. The New York Times article was headlined, As the economy grows, North Koreas grip on society is tested. It undoubtedly reflects efforts in Washington to identify discontented social layers that could provide the basis for regime-change in Pyongyangeither through a colour revolution or the elimination of the top leadership by other means. Yesterday the North Korean ministry of state security issued details of what it claimed to be a CIA plot to kill Kim Jong-un and other leaders. While it is impossible to corroborate such accusations, a number of American political figures and analysts have advocated assassination and regime-change in Pyongyang to achieve US ends. Washingtons broken promises Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, successive US administrations have pursued the barely-disguised aim of bringing about the collapse of the North Korean governmentand thus undermining China, which has maintained the country as a buffer to South Korea and Japan. In 1994, the Clinton administration was on the brink of launching a military attack on North Korea, on the pretext of the threat posed by its nuclear program, but pulled back at the last minute in the face of potentially huge casualties, including among US troops in South Korea. Instead, Washington struck a deal with Pyongyangthe Agreed Frameworkunder which North Korea shut down its nuclear facilities and allowed UN inspection in return for supplies of bunker oil, the construction of two light water nuclear power plants and promises of diplomatic normalisation. The agreement was the basis for the so-called Sunshine Policy in South Korea that envisaged the transformation of North Korea into a cheap labour platform for South Korean conglomerates. European powers offered their support, viewing North Korea not only as an investment opportunity but the means for establishing transport links across Eurasia to South Korea and Japan. The US, however, failed to keep its side of the dealconstruction of the nuclear reactors never began and it was only in the dying days of the Clinton administration that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a highly-publicised visit to Pyongyang. The incoming Bush administration rapidly overturned the Agreed Framework and in 2002 declared that North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, formed an axis of evil. Any rapprochement with North Korea that led to an end to the US economic, diplomatic and military blockade of the country would undermine Washingtons pretext for maintaining military forces in North East Asia and its ability to use Pyongyang as a means of putting pressure on Beijing. North Korea resumed its nuclear and missile program and exploded its first crude atomic bomb in 2006. Bogged down in its military occupation in Iraq, the Bush administration turned to China to put pressure on North Korea and reached a deal in 2007 to dismantle North Koreas nuclear facilities and allow UN inspections in return for vague US promises to normalise relations. The US political and media establishment constantly accuses North Korea of bad faith, but the Bush administration reneged on the bargain and eventually sabotaged the agreement. Pyongyang shut its nuclear reactor, and even began the process of dismantlement, and allowed UN inspectors into the country. Washington took just one stepthe removal of North Korea from the State Departments list of state sponsors of terrorism, before insisting on far more intrusive inspections than were specified in the agreement, which quickly broke down in 2008. In contrast to its steps to reach a deal with Iran, the Obama administration made no moves to restart talks with North Korea and ramped up sanctions in response to further North Korean nuclear and missile tests. In the final days of his administration, Obama reportedly advised Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing foreign policy issue confronting the US. The North Korean regime, which rests heavily on the military and its police-state apparatus, has responded to its growing isolation and US threats with its own bellicose warnings and an acceleration of its nuclear and missile programs. Having few other bargaining chips, it has attempted to use its nuclear arsenal to reach a deal with the US that would end the blockade and allow the regime to attract foreign investment by transforming the country into an ultra-cheap labour platform. Despite the bluster of North Korean leaders, their limited stockpile of nuclear weapons, far from defending the North Korean people, is transforming the country into a target for US imperialism. Its nationalist demagogy only sows divisions between workers in North Korea and in South Korea, Japan and the United States and undermines the unity of the international working classthe only social force capable of halting the drive to war. The regime in Pyongyang is facing an economic and political crisis, as low levels of economic growth, compounded by aged and outmoded technology, equipment and industrial plant, and growing social inequality fuel divisions within the ruling elites. To consolidate his grip on power, Kim Jong-un has reportedly carried out a series of purges, including of top officials such as his uncle Jang Song-thaek, killed in 2013, who had close ties with Beijing. The Trump administration has greatly heightened the crisis in Pyongyang and the danger of war. Besieged on all sides, it is unclear how the North Korean regime would respond to a provocation or military attack by US imperialism or South Korea. The American and international press has not only demonised Pyongyang but greatly inflated the threat posed by the North Korean military. While on paper, North Koreas army (KPA) is the worlds fourth largest with more than one million troops, and another seven million in reserves, much of its equipment is badly outdated and, in the event of war, would quickly be hit by fuel and other shortages. A 2015 US Defence Department report stated: The KPA has not acquired new fighter aircraft in decades, relies on older air defence systems, lacks ballistic missile defence, its Navy does not train for blue-water operations, and recently unveiled artillery systems that include tractor-towed rocket launchers. A former US military officer told the Financial Times: Once the Korean Peoples Army starts or stumbles into a decisive conventional war, they will run out of something critical like fuel or bullets or parts in 30 days tops. Based on numbers from a corps-sized unit I saw, it may even be as early as two weeks. North Koreas lack of a credible conventional military response heightens the danger that it could try to use nuclear weaponswith catastrophic results. The Trump administrations reckless brinkmanship has created a tinderbox on the Korean Peninsula, where a miscalculation or provocation could quickly escalate into a conflict that could draw in nuclear-armed powers such as Russia and China. The class gulf separating Pabloite New Anti-capitalist party (NPA) and the Parti de l'egalite socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), could hardly be sharper. While the PES calls for an active boycott in the second round of the presidential elections to mobilize the working class against both candidates on an independent revolutionary perspective, the NPA intervenes to subordinate workers and youth to the banker Emmanuel Macron. In the main election statement published on its web site, the NPA declares: Marine Le Pen and the FN [National Front] are a mortal danger for the collective rights and the social movements. They want to suppress and ban social opposition, demonstrations, and trade unions and social opposition. This means even greater divisions of the oppressed between Frenchmen and foreigners, heterosexuals and LGBTI. It threatens women's rights. While it admits that Macron is the most direct representative of the free-market policies pursued over the last 30 years, it adds: We understand the workers and youth who vote for Macron in order to block the National Front. This is a cowardly evasion of fundamental political responsibilities raised by the historic crisis in France. Seventy percent of voters are angry at the choice between a neo-fascist and a representative of extreme austerity and European Union (EU) militarism; a poll of supporters of defeated presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon showed that two-thirds of them reject support for either candidate. Yet the NPA gives no indication of what workers should do to oppose an election that gives voters the choice between the plague and cholera. Instead, the NPA says it understands why voters would vote for Macron against Le Pens FN. Indeed, it is obvious who is pushing voters to back Macron: the ruling Socialist Party (PS), the right-wing The Republicans (LR), and the corporate media have all unleashed a massive campaign insisting that voters, whatever their reservations, are morally bound to vote for Macron against the neo-fascists. The NPAs own statement echoes this official campaign for Macron, which it clearly understands and agrees with. There is no question that an FN government would be a mortal enemy of the working class. The NPA points out that it would seek to ban demonstrations, move to smash workers basic social rights, incite nationalist hatreds, and threaten the democratic rights of women and sexual minorities. Yet for this to be an argument to support a Macron voteor, as the NPA puts it evasively, to understand a Macron voteit would have to be that a Macron vote would produce a substantially different outcome. But to imply that Macron is a lesser evil, because he would not ban protests, attack basic social rights, incite nationalist hatreds, or threaten democratic rights, is to blatantly falsify his record. Macron is the former economy minister of outgoing PS President Francois Hollande. As such, he bears political responsibility for the PS imposition of a state of emergency, which he intends to prolong as president. The state of emergency suspended basic democratic rights and was the pretext for massive police raids on Frances Muslim community, as well as Hollandes legitimization of anti-Muslim racism with his repeated invitations of Marine Le Pen for talks at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron's plans to militarize France and re-introduce the draft are clearly based on an intensification of the drastic PS austerity policies he helped plan under Hollande. In order to carry out these austerity policies and impose the PS hated labor law, the PS banned protest marches and replaced them with stationary gatherings, and threatened to ban rallies altogether. Macrons plans to use the labor law to impose drastic changes in social legislation via decree will doubtless provoke mass opposition and new attempts by police to ban and crush working class opposition. He has pledged to slash 120,000 public sector jobs, deregulate the labor market, and destroy the health and pension systems to make France more competitive. Together with the draft, these policies aim to prepare France for an epoch in international relations where war is again a possible outcome of politics. As for any attempt to preserve the PS gay marriage policy by voting Macron, this is a bankrupt strategy. The exploitation of gay marriage to attempt to give the PS broader anti-worker policy left colors is reactionary and threatens the rights of homosexuals themselves. It simply fuels a right-wing backlash. Indeed, it was under the PS that the Christian right finally managed to build an anti-homosexual movement in France, the Protest for All, around opposition to the gay marriage and gender legislation of the PS. In fact, the NPA itself admits that a Macron vote will not block the FN, but pave the way for it to come to power and potentially impose the violently right-wing social views represented in its ranks. Discussing Macron in its statement, the NPA declares: His program? Ending the 35 hour work-week, smashing Social Security, cutting the number of public sector workers, going even further in smashing the Labor Code. The policy he wants to implement is precisely the one that helps the National Front grow, by constantly accelerating the destruction of our social rights. In other words, the NPA is orienting to Macron, fully aware that he advances right-wing and anti-working class policies and supports him on this basis. For anyone familiar with the political history of the NPA, this reactionary orientation is hardly a surprise. Speaking for the interests of affluent layers of the middle class hostile to revolutionary Marxism, the NPA has been oriented to the PS anti-social and pro-war policies since its founding in 2009. Already in the runoffs of the 2012 presidential elections, the NPA called for a Hollande vote and thus gave its support to one of the most reactionary governments in French history. On the international stage, the NPA supported the pro-austerity Syriza government in Greece and played a key role in promoting NATO imperialist interventions in Libya and Syria. Calls for military escalation have been at the heart of the NPAs 2017 election campaign. At the party's final election rally in Paris last month, NPA spokeswoman Christine Poupin launched a hysterical attack on European and US imperialism for not having intervened more aggressively in Syria to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Prior to the meeting, NPA presidential candidate Philippe Poutou issued a statement defending Trumps April 7 missile strike on Syria and slandering opponents of the war for regime change as defenders of Assad. In recent days International Viewpoint, the web publication of the Pabloite international to which the NPA is affiliated, ran articles and interviews with titles such as Assad must fall and Trump's unbelievably small attack on Syria. To support pro-war policies while at the same time seeking to keep in check mass social anger between the two rounds of the elections, the NPA is now launching yet another pro-capitalist regroupment project including discredited forces from the PS and its periphery. A recent statement (Defeat Le Pen, fight Macron, and rebuild a vibrant Left) published on International Viewpoint calls for the building of Beyond that, Ensemble! The movement stands for common candidacies of the forces of the Left (France insoumise, Parti de gauche, French Communist Party, Ensemble, NPA, the Greens, dissident Green and PS activists, grassroots activists...) on a platform that breaks with social-liberalism, for a majority opposing Macron's policies, and for a front against the far-right and the rights. We seek to implement this orientation nationally, as well as locally with due consideration for the diversity of local situations. The statement calls for voting and defeating Le Pen on May 7that is, voting for Macron. It praises the campaign of Jen-Luc Melenchon, which has served to channel social anger back into the political establishment, calling for this campaign to get strong, but also broader. Workers and youth looking for a way out of the dead-end of the presidential election and French parliamentary politics must reject this perspective. What the working class needs to build is a genuine Trotskyist party, not another broad left ally of the PS that will only betray the workers, impose austerity and war, and ally with anti-worker, pro-austerity parties like Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain and the Left Party in Germany. These parties have been in power at various levels of government for many yearsholding the position of prime minister in Greece and joining regional governments in Berlin and major Spanish cities including Barcelona. They imposed austerity and crushed strikes called in opposition to their reactionary policies. In France, the bankruptcy of the perspective of building broad left parties is precisely the lesson of the experience of the PS itself. The PS, founded nearly a half-century ago, was the original model of a broad left party. Hollandes presidency and his right-wing government, which paved the way for both Macron and Le Pen, is the end product of the project of building a broad left party, instead of a proletarian vanguard party in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky. In its election manifesto, the PES characterized the PS as follows: The PS was founded in 1971, after the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) discredited itself by refusing to take power during the 1968 general strike. It was not a socialist organization, but a tool of the most reactionary social forces. A loose coalition of social democrats, social Catholics, ex-Stalinists, ex-Trotskyists and former officials of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime, it functioned as an electoral vehicle for a leading ex-Vichy politician, Francois Mitterrand. In 1981, Mitterrand became Frances first PS president. Since Mitterand's austerity turn in 1982 and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR by the Stalinist bureaucracy in 1991, the entire Green and pseudo-left milieu historically oriented to the PS has shifted ever further to the right. The PS collapse in the 2017 elections is the outcome of the bankruptcy and anti-working class character of its perspective. The struggle of the PES to build a genuine Trotskyist party in the working class will take place in a ruthless struggle against all attempts by the NPA and others to set up yet another trap for the working class. The decision by Maryland prosecutors to drop charges against two immigrant youth charged with raping a classmate exposes the Trump administrations efforts to whip up a violent anti-immigrant hysteria to advance his plans for mass deportation. According to the Washington Post, Montgomery County prosecutors dropped the charges because they uncovered evidence proving the alleged victim was not telling the truth. The original charges cannot be sustained and prosecution is untenable because of substantial inconsistencies, a prosecutor said. In March, 18-year-old Henry Sanchez Milian and 17-year-old Jose Montanoboth undocumented immigrantswere arrested after a 14-year-old classmate told police and school officials the two boys pushed her into a bathroom, forced her to undress, and assaulted her. Prosecutors announced they would seek life sentences for the two boys, and Montano, a minor, would be tried as an adult. A judge ordered that both be held without bail, ruling that they were dangerous and flight risks. Shortly after the boys were charged, officials published details of the young mens lives, including the fact that they were living in the US without documentation. The Trump administration threw the full weight of the state against the two boys, amplifying their case as proof that immigrants are rapists and criminals, as Trump previously claimed. Just days after their arrest, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers targeted and arrested Montanos 43-year-old father, Adolfo Sanchez-Reyes, placed him into deportation proceedings, and locked him up in an immigrant detention center. Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced in a nationally televised press conference: Its horrendous and horrible and disgusting what this young woman in Rockville [Maryland] went through. He said Trumps mass deportation plan was a priority because of tragedies like this and that immigration pays its toll on our people. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said, As a mother of two daughters and grandmother of four young girls, my heart aches for the young woman and her family at the center of these terrible circumstances. Fox Newss Ainsley Earhardt said those who fail to denounce immigrants are telling our little girls that this little girls life doesnt matter as much as these illegal immigrants lives matter because they dont want to spread a negative story. A Fox guest said immigrants are raping and killing our people. Breitbart featured banner headlines about the Rockville Rape, claiming the story generated national outrage. This campaign mobilized extreme-right wing forces and was aimed at sparking acts of violence against immigrants. A spokesman for the school district said he was receiving many phone calls from people who threatened that theyre going to shoot up the illegals in our school. In fact, the boys are innocent. According to prosecutors, text messages sent by the 14-year-old classmate show she planned on having consensual sex with the two boys and had sent them lewd photos. In addition, security video and medical and computer records were inconsistent with the girls accusations. Prosecutors are still charging the boys with possession of child pornography because of the photos the girl voluntarily sent. Andrew Jezic, an attorney for Sanchez-Milian, called the charges selective prosecution of elective promiscuity, and said that sending lewd text messages is hardly uncommon behavior for teenagers. The two immigrant youth have spent the last several weeks in jaila tragic climax of their thousand-mile escape from their violent homelands. Jose Montano was born in El Salvador, where he was orphaned as a child. He made the journey to the US in roughly August 2016 as an unaccompanied minor, but was stopped at the border. He had been living in the US for just seven months before his arrest. Henry Sanchez Milian is from Guatemala and entered the US also as an unaccompanied minor in July 2016. The boys were both in ninth grade, likely because they received little formal education in Central America and were held back in the US, where ninth graders are typically 14 years old. Both face likely deportation and now have a drastically reduced likelihood of winning asylum. Lawyers say the two were fleeing persecution at the hands of dangerous drug cartels, which torture and murder thousands and specifically target young men. The toxic climate in which the Trump administration launched its campaign against these two immigrant youth was prepared through the marriage of anti-immigrant xenophobia with years of campaigns aimed at attacking the legal rights of criminal defendants accused of sexual crimes. Womens rights advocate Bridgette Stumpf, the Director of Network for Victim Recovery of DC, told a Baltimore CBS affiliate that even though the Rockville girl consented to have sex with the two immigrants, Consent is not ongoing, and whether or not its true that explicit pictures were sent, those do not themselves convey in any way that this young woman was or was not raped, as shes claimed. This case is the latest in a string of attempts to whip up a tough-on-crime fervor against individuals accused of sexual crimes to advance the right-wing political aims of the ruling class. At the New Year 2016 celebration, police in Cologne, Germany claimed immigrant men sexually assaulted dozens of German women in an attempt to generate antipathy toward refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. Later that year, a network of feminist groups, police, prosecutors and Democratic Party politicians attacked California Judge Aaron Persky for issuing what they called an excessively lenient sentence on Stanford student Brock Allen Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at a fraternity party. As the World Socialist Web Site wrote on June 11, 2016, The American political and media establishment has, through long practice, made a science out of turning tragedies into profitable sensations and political opportunities ... Hysterical sexual violence campaigns, such as the one now underway with respect to the Stanford case, are designed to pollute the political atmosphere, prevent an objective and rational discussion of the most pressing issues. The professors and tough-on-crime politicians who attacked Persky for his leniency sought to capitalize by directing attention away from public discussion of inequality and war and toward gender identity and college sexual assaults. But their anti-democratic method coincides with those of the fascistic elements around the Trump administration who attempt to scapegoat immigrants by mimicking the Nazi presss 1930s ravings about the Criminal Jew. It is significant that no major Democratic politician publicly defended the democratic rights of the two innocent immigrant boys or condemned the witch-hunt against them. Last week, Sri Lankan cabinet minister Rajitha Senaratne informed a press conference that President Maithripala Sirisena was proposing that former army commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka should take responsibility for disciplining the country for a period of two years. Sirisenas extraordinary proposition was made in the context of growing strikes and protests throughout the country against the governments attacks on living conditions and on social and democratic rights. This is no small matter. Fonseka is notorious for having presided over war crimes, particularly during the final years of the governments military offensives against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). During that period, thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. Fonseka was also allegedly involved in attacking any journalists who made even the slightest criticism of the war, and branding as traitors workers and others engaged in protests to defend their democratic rights. Former President Mahinda Rajapakse and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse considered Fonseka as sufficiently ruthless to implement their repressive measures, until he was deemed their political enemy. Some ministers, nervous about the impact on ordinary working people of Sirisenas proposal for a police state, tried to dismiss it as a passing remark. One minister claimed it was a joke, while another said that the proposal, made lightly, had been exaggerated out of all proportion. Replying to a question raised in the parliament, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe denied that the government had decided to set up a special army unit. In the same breath, however, he admitted that the governments attention was only focused on how to maintain essential services without interruption or disruption but refused to reveal what was discussed at the cabinet meeting. Nevertheless, the campaign for anti-democratic measures, along with threats against working class strikes and protests, is proceeding. The Minister of Megapolis Champika Ranawaka insisted during his speech at a May Day meeting that a small group of people would not be allowed to rule the country. Only the government has a peoples mandate for that, he said. More sinister is the role being played by the upper middle class layersthe so-called civil society, the media and the fake leftwho helped Sirisena and Wickremesinghe come to power. They are now providing cynical justifications for authoritarian rule and police-state measures against striking workers and students, by branding them as political operators who are seeking to overthrow the government. One such person is media pundit Ranga Jayasuriya, who has shamelessly argued that Fonseka is an ideal candidate to head an emergency mechanism to confront strikes. Jayasuriya wrote a column in a Colombo-based newspaper, the Daily Mirror, titled Why is SF [Sarath Fonseka] good enough to confront strikes? Jayasuriya was an acting editor of the now defunct Colombo weekly, Lakbimanews. He is currently a regular columnist for the Daily Mirror, Sri Lankas main privately-owned English-language daily. He was among the milieu that rallied behind the US-orchestrated regime-change operation in the January 2015 presidential election to replace Rajapakse with Sirisena. The fraternity of pseudo-left, media and NGOs worked to cover up Washingtons role in exploiting the mass opposition to Rajapakses rule to bring Sirisena to power. Ten days after the change of government, Jayasuriya showered praises on Sirisena, claiming that under his presidency, Sri Lanka may be experiencing a democratic spring. He highlighted various cosmetic changes and called on the population to rally to him on the basis that Sirisenas presidency risked being overturned by Rajapakse. In defence of Sirisenas anti-democratic agenda, Jayasuriya makes a series of desperate arguments in his recent column. He notes that apparently Sirisenas proposal is tantamount to reversing the democratic reforms upon which he has embarked, but, in fact, this is not the case. Sometimes, he writes, one has to stifle democracy by introducing authoritarian measures, in order to defend it. He ridiculously tries to compare Muhammadu Buhari, a Nigerian military dictator who ousted another military ruler during the 1980s, and Sirisena coming to power in Sri Lanka. He says that Buhari took power to discipline the country, but that it paved the way for dictatorship and counter coups. Jayasuriya makes this comparison, not because it has any historical validity, but to argue that Sirisena came to power in order to dismantle Rajapakses dictatorial rule. The strongmans [Rajapakses] rule was dismantled and now it is patently clear that the government is handicapped by the relative freedom it ushered in. He laments that it has not led to social stability. Jayasuriyas claim about Sirisenas dismantling of the strongmans rule and the establishment of relative freedom is bogus. Sirisena made a few minor changes, such as introducing the 19th Amendment to the constitution, which limited the powers of the Executive Presidency and set up independent commissions to appoint top bureaucrats and judicial officers. Jayasuriya failed to mention, however, that Sirisena has not kept his limited promise to abolish the widely hated executive presidency. His government has maintained the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and is now preparing to replace it with harsher legislation. Jayasuriya also fails to mention the unleashing of military, police and repressive laws against protesting workers, students and the poor. The government suppressed a strike, for example, by contract workers at the Hambantota Port, who were demanding job permanency. Naval soldiers were deployed against them last December, while protests by workers, farmers and students in Colombo are frequently met with riot police, tear gas and baton charges. Jayasuriya tries to justify these attacks, by branding them as acts of groups with vested interests, exploiting the limited state power and political will of the current administration to advance the most minimum interests. According to him, these are not protests, but blackmail. Ironically, in the guise of criticising the Rajapakse governments police-state measures, Jayasuriya is, in fact, praising them. He claims that a telephone call from then Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse was enough to stop a protest of the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA). Villagers protests were also stopped and Colombo slum dwellers moved to alternative houses after just a nominal protest, out of fear of Gotabhaya Rajapakse. Similarly, university student protests were not continued. Jayasuriya has pointed out how former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the late Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene crushed working class struggles and implemented ruthless and exploitative measures. His entire argument is aimed at legitimising the use of such methods against workers, youth and the poor in Sri Lanka, in order to maintain capitalist rule. He is frustrated about the governments failure to confront the rising wave of protests. He advises: The bottom line of state power, in any state, be it democratic or authoritarian, lies in its ability and willingness to use coercive means to achieve legitimate ends, when a negotiated solution is not forthcoming. Sarath Fonsekas legitimacy derives from his role as the war-winning army chief, Jayasuriya argues, adding that he should act as Gotabhaya Rajapakse did to suppress the class struggle. If such coercive rule were not established, the alternative to this is the gradual breakdown of governance, which to put it bluntly, for a country at our economic and social level, is more dangerous than the breakdown of democracy. The real fear expressed by Jayasuriya is that, if the growing struggles are not suppressed, they will transform into a social upheaval, creating a revolutionary crisis. The government should do something to fix this mess. If it doesnt, it will not last much longer in office. The popular protests are not just outbursts of pent-up emotions, accumulated during the Rajapakse regime, he writes. It was precisely their deep concerns about the developing social opposition that drove the upper middle class groups, including elements such as Jayasuriya, to vigorously intervene to bring to power the pro-US Sirisena regime in Colombo, while hailing it as an attempt to establish good governance. Jayasuriya is not alone. Those who assisted Sirisenas ascension to the presidency, including the pseudo-left Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), the Citizens Power group, and the Ravaya newspaper, are now leading the attacks on workers and students protests against the government, branding them as the means for Rajapakse to return to power. Last Thursday, NSSP leader Karunaratne attacked a strike called by the GMOA and several trade unions as a fascist attempt to overthrow the government. The strike was called by the unions in order to deflect mass opposition to the governments attacks on public education, health and privatisation. Last month, when people in and around Colombo protested against an environmental disaster and the threat to their lives from a major garbage problem, Karunaratne demanded that they should be suppressed by the police, in the same way that students were. These upper middle class layers are deeply hostile to the working class and the poor. They sense that the growing economic crisis and political instability throughout the country is driving the development of mass social upheavals, which threaten their own selfish class interests and those of the capitalist class as a whole. They are now assisting right-wing forces to bring to power a dictatorial regime to save capitalist rule. US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull conducted an effusive and chilling display of unity on board a former World War II aircraft carrier in New York harbour on Thursday night. A ceremonial dinner to highlight the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea against Japan became a platform for vows that Australia would unconditionally support America in its present wars in the Middle East and future wars. Turnbull was so intent on consummating a bond with Trump that he flew to the other side of the world for what turned out to be a 40-minute face-to-face meeting aboard the USS Intrepid, followed by gushing speeches of mutual gratitude. In what was meant to be an intensely symbolic event, in front of a tuxedo-wearing audience featuring Australian billionaires with major investments in the US, Trump declared that the US had no better friend than Australia, extolling ties that were sealed with the blood of our fathers and grandfathers. Turnbull reciprocated by making clear that his government is committed to Washington both militarily and economically. Invoking every war over the past century from World War I to the present, Turnbull pledged: From the mud of Hamel to the waters of the Coral Sea to the sands of the Middle East today, Australians and Americans stand shoulder to shoulder defending our freedoms. Against a backdrop of escalating US militarism in Syria and Afghanistan and threats of military action against North Korea, Trump said he would look to Australia for continued support on security threats in Asia and the Middle East. Security also requires friends that you can truly count on, that is why I was pleased to meet with Prime Minister Turnbull and why I am so glad to be here with you tonight and we had a great meeting just a little while ago. In his speech, Turnbull left no room for doubt of his willingness to join any US military action. Fiercely competitive, we always want to win, but we know we are always more assured of winning when we are fighting together, he stated. Today together we condemn and resist North Koreas reckless provocation. We fight together in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat and destroy the terrorists who threaten our way of life. It was a disgusting spectacle. Outside, thousands of protesters denounced Trump. Inside, Turnbull identified himself completely with a hated US administration that is hell-bent on using military might and aggressive America First protectionism to pursue the interests of Wall Street and the entire US corporate elite. As if to make plain the Australian ruling classs dependence on the US alliance, Trump kept Turnbull waiting for three hours while Trump celebrated in Washington the initial passage by the US House of Representatives of his draconian health care legislation. Undeterred by the delay, Turnbull eagerly took the opportunity to congratulate Trump on his victory, underscoring his alignment with Trumps reactionary domestic agenda as well. The pairs back-slapping media conference began as follows: Turnbull: Congratulations on your vote today. Trump: Thank you very much. It was great. Big day. Turnbull: Big day. Every vote counts. Trump: You got it. We had a couple left over and we wanted them, we didnt need them. It was a very big day. ReallyI appreciate your waiting. Turnbull: Well, I know the feeling. We have challenges with our parliament too. We have only 29 seats in a Senate of 76 so you need a lot of work to get legislation through. Trump: That means youre doing a good job. Asked by reporters about his terse phone call with Turnbull in January, the US president claimed that reports of the call, while testy, had been exaggerated by the media as a little bit of fake news. In reality, by berating Turnbull, then abruptly ending the call, Trump sent an unmistakeable message that US policies would be implemented at the expense of its enemies and allies alike. Exactly what Trump and Turnbull discussed at their meeting was not revealed, but there is no doubt that war plans were at the top of the agenda. According to the White House readout of the meeting: The President and Prime Minister Turnbull discussed the enduring bonds, deep friendship, and close alliance between the United States and Australia that have been critically important to the maintenance of regional and global peace and security. Together, the United States and Australia are building a more secure and stable world. This involves cooperating to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups, and shaping a more peaceful Asia-Pacific, including by addressing the threat posed by North Korea. Earlier in the day, Turnbull met with Admiral Harry Harris, commander of US Pacific Command, who would lead any attack on North Korea. Expressing the view of the Pentagon, Harris provocatively told a Congressional hearing last week there was no doubt that the North Korean regime would acquire nuclear weapons capable of striking the US within a few years unless stopped. Significantly, Thursdays event on board the Intrepid underscored the intensifying investment ties between the US and Australian ruling classes. Turnbull stated: We are confident and we trust each otherthat is why the United States is the largest foreign investor in Australia and the United States is our largest overseas investment destination. Along with various celebrities, and a handful of Coral Sea veterans, the event showcased prominent Australian corporate figures with major operations in the US, including media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, shopping mall magnate Frank Lowy, Dow Chemical chief Andrew Liveris and packaging empire boss Anthony Pratt. Trump ostentatiously gave Pratt a standing ovation for saying he would invest $US2 billion over the next decade on new packaging plants in the US Midwest. Assigned the role of introducing Trump to speak, Murdoch summed up the coming together of the military, economic and domestic agendas of the US and Australian financial elites. He insisted on the need for political leaders to be intrepid in todays dangerous times. They had to be bold and unafraid to think differently, he said. Turnbulls obsequious performance was not simply an individual act. It reflected the conclusions drawn by the dominant sections of the Australian capitalist class that their interests are inextricably tied to those of their US counterparts, despite concerns about the implications for their profit-making in China, their biggest export market. Back in 2011, when in opposition, Turnbull voiced reservations about the Gillard Labor governments doe-eyed fascination with the leader of the free world and openly speculated that China would displace the US as the hegemonic power in East Asia within a few decades because of a massive realignment of economic power. Today, however, despite ongoing debate and nervousness in Australian ruling circles over the bellicose America First trade and military policies of the Trump administration, Turnbull and the political and media establishment have decided they have no choice but to intensify the military and strategic relationship with the US, as the best means for defending Australian capitalisms economic interests. Todays editorial in Murdochs Australian hailed as a resounding success Turnbulls mission to establish a mutual embrace with Trump. It concluded: It is still too early to judge the trajectory of the Trump presidency but, regardless of the challenges or his ultimate place in history, there is no doubt Australias interests are best served by having an intimate and frank rapport with the leader of a nation that will long endure as our strategic and economic partner. The author also recommends: Report documents extent of US-Australia economic ties [23 March 2017] TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL)--Preparations got underway Friday afternoon for law enforcement officers heading out to the Police Unity Tour. The 250-mile bike ride honors those who died. The officers loaded up their bikes, helmets, and equipment needed for the tour that starts in Portsmouth, Virginia and ends in Washington D.C. at the law enforcement officers memorial wall. More than 20 people from our area are participating. They leave Tallahassee early Monday morning. The ride is three days. It begins Wednesday. The group of support staff and officers from the Tallahassee area raised $60,000 with the help of the community. The Police Unity Tour honors the fallen and also raises money for the National Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial and Museum. If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules: Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy. The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party. We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters. Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month. BERLINThere is no doubt that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is committed to the uniqueness of her countrys relationship with Israel, both in words andmore importantlyin actions. Merkel cannot, therefore, afford a situation in whichon her watch, which may come to an end in Septembers federal electionsthe relations between Israel and Germany will deteriorate to the low they have reached, following pressures from interested parties working to shake off Germanys responsibility for the Holocaust and its outcomes. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in his typical sophistication, put Merkel in a catch-22 situation. Two weeks before extremely important local elections in North Rhine-Westphaliathe most populous state of Germany, which is home to large Muslim immigrant populations and is considered a traditional social-democratic strongholdGabriel created a conflict with Israel, which could only strengthen his Social Democratic Party in the elections and impact the general elections. A victory in North Rhine-Westphalia could start a political snowball that may secure the social-democrats victory in the federal elections. Merkel had no choice but to back Gabriel in his dispute with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so as not to harm her partys chance in the regional elections. German Chancellor Merkel with Foreign Minister Gabriel, who put her in a catch-22 situation (Photo: AFP) Internal political considerations and regional elections have motivated Merkel in the past to make decisions that contradicted the policy she had been elected to implement. For example, her dramatic decision six years agofollowing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disasterto shut down all the nuclear reactors in Germany. This zigzagging, which is the result of Germanys complex federal political structure, has caused many people to refer to Merkel is a spineless political opportunist. But in a country which holds regional elections almost annuallyelections in which the elected government could lose the majority required to governMerkel, like all other chancellors before her, has no other choice if she wishes to secure her ability to keep leading. Nevertheless, the issue of the relationship with Israel must not be used for internal German political needs. Merkel was the first and only European leader to declare her recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state unhesitatingly and unconditionally. She included this recognition in the platform of her party and of her governments, and stated at the Bundestag, at the United Nations General Assembly and at the Knesset that Israels existence and security were part of Germanys supreme national interest. Precisely because of Germanys huge commitment, it has been under a great amount of pressure from elements in the German establishment, in the German public opinion, in the European Union, and even in the Israeli Left, to enter a conflict with Netanyahu and his government. Merkel should deal with these pressures by demonstrating leadership rather than being dragged. Germany, like the EU, must realize that the Middle East has changed dramatically in the past few years, and that the traditional diplomatic mantras on the two-state solution have become irrelevant under the current circumstances. Merkel admitted that herself, while standing next to Netanyahu. Instead of trying to impose suicidal solutions on Israel, Germany should stop supporting groups that are interested in Israels destruction. Merkel should stop listening to the bad advice she is receiving from some of her advisors and reconnect to comments she made only a decade ago, before and after her election: Germany must adopt a policy which, when there is doubt, supports Israels stance and does not allow neutrality considerations. If Germany and Israel are interested in preserving their mutual relations, they must develop a real, sincere and open dialogue. It is unthinkable that Germany would impose on Israel a reality it is not interested in. Merkel should take this issue very seriously. Eldad Beck is the author of "The ChancellorMerkel, Israel and the Jews, which was published in Hebrew by Yedioth Books. (Translated and edited by Sandy Livak-Furmanski) Palestinian sources estimated Friday that the election to the top spot in the terrorist organization turned political party Hamas Political Bureau will be held on Shabbat, instead of Khaled Mashaal, who announced last year that he would not run for reelection. According to the sources, the finalists are Deputy Chief of the Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzuq and Hamas member Mohammad Nazzal. It is estimated that Haniyeh will win out, with Mashal becoming the next head of Hamas's consultative Shura Council. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The former Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh currently holds the number two position in Hamas and is the most powerful and dominant Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip. He is considered a very charismatic figure, a gifted public speaker and a man who can successfully market and capitalize on his modest way of life. L to R: Nazzal, Haniyeh and Abu Marzuq (Photos: Ap, Reuters) Over the years, Haniyeh has created a network of contacts and allies among the other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, first and foremost the PAlestinian Islamic Jihad. He is a well-known figure in Qatar (the main donor to the Gaza Strip), Turkey (Hamas's main Islamic patron) and even Iran. L to R: Mashal and Haniyeh (Photo: AP) Abu Marzuq was the first to serve as head of the Hamas Political Bureau in the early 1990s. He is seen among Hamas members as being a strategic thinking with an extensive network of connections among Islamic leaders in the Arab and Muslim worlds. His strength lies in his diplomatic capabilities, and especially in his good relations with the leaders of the political and security leadership in Egypt, who traditionally prefer to talk to him when dealing with Hamas. L to R: Nazzal, Abu Marzuq and Mashal in Qatar (Photo: AFP) In recent years, Abu Marzuq has become the de facto a link between Hamas and Egypt, moving between Cairohis home in recent yearsand the Gaza Strip. He also had a direct connection with the leadership in Iran and Hezbollah, though his ties with them suffered severe damage this year after an unknown sourceapparently an Arab intelligence agencyleaked a recording of a telephone conversation in which Abu Marzuq attacked Iran and accused it of lying and not aiding Hamas. Abu Marzuq also has good relations with Hamas's military branch, which does always not see eye to eye with the organization's political leadership. He additionally holds an important role as the person heading the reconciliation attempt between Hamas and with Fatah, which is headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He therefore has a relatively good relationship with some of the leadership in Ramallah, a fact that could prove invaluable, particularly in light of Abbas's recent promise to take painful steps against Hamas. Out of the three candidates, Mohammed Nazzal has the lowest chances of being elected. Nazzal, 54, joined Hamas a year after the organization was founded. He acted as a Hamas official in Jordan in 1992, back when the Hamas Political Bureau was still based in Amman. He was later elected to be a member of the Hamas Political Bureau and in 1999 moved to Syria after Jordan decided to close the organization's offices in its territory. In Damascus, Nazzal was responsible for Hamas's propaganda and became one of its spokesmen. During this period, Hamas established the Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds radio and television stations, which are completely affiliated with the organization. Nazzal and the other leaders of the organization left Syria due to the country's devolving civil war, and these days he has no permanent residence, though he can usually be with other leading Hamas members in the Qatari capital of Doha. Whoever will be elected in place of Mashal will work with Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip and current Palestinian Prime Minister Yahya Sinwar, who was elected in February to replace Haniyeh. Sinwar was one of the most senior prisoners to be released in the Shalit deal. A Russia-backed deal to set up "de-escalation zones" in mostly opposition-held areas in Syria has come into effect. The implementation of the deal, backed by Turkey and Iran but opposed by Syria's opposition, began at midnight Friday. The deal lacks specifics. But for the first time in attempts to install a cease-fire in Syria, it envisages armed monitors on the ground. The armed monitors are expected to be from Russia, Iran and Turkey. But it is not yet clear when and where they will deploy. The Russian deal, signed in Astana on Thursday, says maps of the new "de-escalation zones" will be ready by June 4. The Syrian opposition has criticized the deal, saying it lacks legitimacy. The US was not part of negotiating the deal and it said there is "reason to be cautious." The UN supports the deal. The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were no reports of violations in the first minutes past midnight. Hardline rivals challenged President Hassan Rouhani in a pre-election debate on Friday over the lack of economic revival since his nuclear deal with big powers, but he said oil exports had resurged and the economy only needed more time to recover. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Rouhani accused unnamed hardliners of trying to derail the nuclear deal, reffering to a ballistic missile launch in 2016 by the IRGC in which "Israel must be wiped out" was written on the missiles, according to Iranian media. Irans overall economic outlook has improved since the nuclear accord. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts between 4 and 5.5 percent growth in 2016, well up from the 1.3 percent it forecast before the deal was clinched. Iran pre-election televised debate (Photo: AP) Clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a hardliner who holds ultimate authority on matters of state in Iran, guardedly endorsed the nuclear accord but has said Rouhani's economic follow-through has fallen short. Analysts say many foreign firms remain hesitant to invest in Iran for reasons including lingering unilateral US sanctions imposed over human rights violations and alleged Iranian links to terrorism, and the dominating role of clerical and security institutions in the Middle Easts second largest economy. International rights groups and activists in Iran say Rouhani has done little to bring about greater social freedoms. Dozens of activists, journalists, bloggers and artists have been jailed by a hardline judiciary beyond Rouhani's control. But first Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri, who is also running for election but will campaign alongside Rouhani, warned of a return to outright authoritarianism in Iran and isolation abroad if a hardline candidate was elected in May. "Dear people of Iran, what do you want? Do you want limitations or more freedom? Do you want international tension or peace? Isolation or integrity? By casting your vote you will determine Iran's path," Jahangiri said. Despite his vulnerability on the economy, analysts say Rouhani retains a strong chance of re-election as he is the only candidate supported by a pro-reform camp while hardliners have failed to unite behind one candidate. Al-Hayat newspaper reported that the American administration had rejected an Israeli proposal to postpone the visit to the region by US President Donald Trump to early June, coinciding with the anniversary of the Six-Day War. According to the sources, the White House rejected the proposal both because of the timing, which could harm the US position, making their stance appear biased, and because Trump's visit to Europe to participate in the NATO summit and the G7 summit, as well as his visit to Saudi Arabia, are the primary objective. It was also reported that Trump is expected to meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Western sources allegedly claimed that Donald Trump's government rejected an Israeli offer to postpone his visit to the region to June, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. This was reported in the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat on Saturday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The same sources claimed that the Israeli side proposed to change the date of the visit, which is expected to take place on May 22, to the beginning of June, but the White House refused the proposal. They argued, among other things, that the timing could harm the American position because it places the United States in a very biased position alongside Israel. They noted that another reason for the refusal was constraints related to his visit to Europe. According to them, Trump's visit to Europe to participate in the NATO summit and the G7 summit is the main agenda on his first diplomatic trip. The same sources also said that his visit to Saudi Arabia and the preparations for this are another key issue, and that Trump is expected to meet in Riyadh with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The sources added that preparations for Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia have been underway for several months in high-level coordination between the parties. Trump's first stop will be Saudi Arabia. From there, he will continue to Israel, and then fly to the Vatican, and meet Pope Francis on May 24 in Rome. Senior officials in the White House said that Trump's choice of Saudi Arabia as the first stop was meant to make a fresh start with the Muslim leadership "to join forces and fight extremist Muslims and terrorist organizations together." Trump's objective during the visit is to start the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Trump will visit Bethlehem and is expected to meet with Mahmoud Abbas. According to White House officials, the goal of visiting Israel is to advance the peace process. "We are optimistic and realistic," said one senior official. "The president intends to invest a lot of time and effort to promote peace. He has had good talks with leaders in the region." (Translated and edited by N. Elias) Police arrested a resident of east Jerusalem in his 20s, on suspicion of stealing bags and purses from tourists in the region. The police reported that the young man used to ride an electric bicycle and escape quickly after the incident. The State-Religious education division in the Education Ministry held a first of its kind seminar on Wednesday for principals of yeshivas and ulpanot (Jewish high schools for girls), which dealt with issues relating to the gay community. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In the event, which was held in Tel Aviv, the attendees listened to personal stories, experiences with the difficulties of sexual identity and held an "open conversation from the heart of the debate." The conference was attended by some 50 principals of yeshivas and ulpanot from the State-Religious schools in the Jerusalem district. The seminar dealt with sexual identity under the title: The other is also a creation of the same Creator. Pinkas-Arad (Photo: Reuven Kopitchinski) The meeting was supposed to take place at the Gay Center in Meir Park, but was eventually moved to a neutral location. "You have to know what to fight for," said a source in the gay community. Rabbi Avraham Lifshitz, director of the State-Religious Department, told Ynet: "The State-Religious education system aims to teach values, Torah, and Zionism. Alongside these values, we are also working to strengthen public religious education, and in doing so, to provide a response to its populations. In issues of identity as well, it is important to us that the educators of the State-Religious schools learn and recognize the reality in which we live, listen attentively and know how to provide the right educational solutions that are suitable for our students." Tel Aviv city councilor member Itay Pinkas Arad, who serves as chairman of the gay center in Tel Aviv, opened the event: "The unique conference held today was of the highest level of professionalism I have encountered. The very existence of this statusunder state sponsorship attests to the great distance that the national-religious sector is undergoing in relation to the LGBT community "Clearly, we do not agree on everything, but the very ability to conduct a dialogue in a respectful and sensitive manner is to the credit of the organizers and the participants. I hold quite a few lectures and meetings pertaining to the community, I admit that the meeting today was probably the most touching for me personally, since it specifically encapsulates the saying that every person was created in His image." After praying Mincha (Jewish afternoon prayer service) and having lunch, the participants met with LGBT youth, graduates of the state religious school system, and heard their stories, including speaking about the concept of 'conversion treatments' and the dangers involved in it. Adir Ben Tovim, the director of HereIsraeli Information Workshop project and one of the organizers of the meeting, who studied at the hesder yeshiva in Maalot (a yeshiva that combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the IDF) and came out of the closet, said excitedly: "It was just crazy. Fifty rabbis, principals of institutions from the State-Religious system, congregated for a seminar on issues of sexual identity. They called us to talk to them and the main message I conveyed to them is that educators have to be careful not to make human sacrifices while maintaining their ideology." Ben Tovim noted that he met a principal who admitted that he had a student who "cuts his veins out of frustration on the subject, and he himself is in a dilemma about what to say and how to guide him on the right path." Galit Yitzhaki-Dreizan, an organizer of the meeting, said at the end: "It was an important event, it was very exciting." (Translated and edited by N. Elias) So to all those who doubted Bar Refaeli's ability to be an Israeli ambassador, Refaeli received recognition from the Spanish Conde Nast Traveler magazine with the influencer award following her photo shoot for the May issue showcasing Tel Aviv Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The evening, which was also held in the presence of Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, was moderated by the actress Rossy de Palma, mostly known for her roles in Pedro Almodovar's films. The supermodel came on stage in an elegant black evening gown, showing off her baby bump. In her speech, she apologized for not really understanding Spanish and then continued saying in English: Refaeli and her mother (Photo: ABACA) "It's a great honor for me to be here and receive the prize. Don't be jealous but yes, I think I have the best job in the whole world where I get to travel around the globe, but I'm here because this issue is dedicated to Tel Aviv, the city where I live, the city I love, and in the pictures, you can see how beautiful, pleasant, modern and innovative it is." (Translated and edited by N. Elias) Three soldiers who fought in the Six-Day War in 1967 received Medals of Distinguished Service for their role in combat, for displaying initiative and resourcefulness in actions that culminated in the saving of lives. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Ehud Aviran: An artillery officer who became a battalion commander On the 9th of June, in preparation for the difficult battle on the Golan Heights, Lt. Ehud Aviran was dispatched to join the 8th Armored Brigade of the legendary battalion commander, Col. Aryeh Dayan ('Biro'). "On the way, there was an accident and my half track crashed into a car and I injured my knee. The injury was nothing compared to the fact that they told me that my cousin was killed. That's how I went to war," he recalls. Six Day War; marking 50 years During the battle, Dayan was seriously injured. Some of the tank officers in the battalion were wounded and some were killed. Aviran sustained a head injury. "I saw that Biro was hurt but he refused to leave. They bandaged his face, but in the end, they had to pull him out," Aviran said. Ehud Aviran The number of casualties eliminated most of the brigade's chain of command. Despite his injury, Lt. Aviran decided to remain in battle and refuses to be evacuated. "After Biro was wounded, someone took command and was killed. Another one took over and was killed (as well)," Aviran recalls. "I was near the blockade and decided that because the battalion was stopped, I was going to find a way around the blockade. I was surrounded by officers and they basically told me, 'You are the battalion commander!' It was clear to me that I could do it." In the fog of battle, a wounded Aviran became, in practice, without proper professional trainingthe commander of the Armored brigade. He commanded over the battle, assisted in the rescue and evacuation of the wounded from the battle-torn area, and organized the unit at the end of the battle. For this act he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service. Yossi Shain was caught in a deadly ambush and rescued the wounded On the night of June 5, a Res. Lt., Yossi Shain, was deployed with the reconnaissance company of the 45th mechanized brigade to lead the battle in the Dotan Valley in northern Samaria. "On the first day of the war, the Jordanians began bombing the Ramat David air force base and the 45th Brigade was ordered to enter the Dotan Valley," said Shain, who was a team commander. Fifty years after the legendary battle, we meet at the outpost of Havat Dotan overlooking the green and pastoral valley where one of the most difficult battles took place in the Six-Day War. "My team received reinforcements from the tank division, but because the streets were too narrow we had to enter the Dotan valley without the tanks," he recalls. Yossi Shain The Armored Corps patrol troops who used unarmed jeeps and vehicles had to face the attack of the Jordanian tanks without proper equipment. "We received instructions on where to move using a code map but there was a mistake in the code. It turned out that we were standing under a cliff on which there was a Jordanian ambush that opened fire." Dotan Valley At the Qabatiya junction, the reconnaissance team under the command of Lt. Yosef Shain stumbled upon an ambush of six tanks and a Jordanian infantry force within a few meters, killing two soldiers and injuring seven. "My half-track was very close to the Jordanian tank and he didn't manage to hit it," Shain said. Shain quickly assembled the soldiers to return fire and treat the wounded, at great risk for their lives and under effective fire. After realizing that they had to escape the area of the Jordanian ambush, Shain jumped on the only uncompromised half-track and stood within 10 meters of enemy tanks, activated it and evacuated his men, despite being wounded in the head from a previous clash. "There was little chance for this move, but it succeeded. We all boarded that one half-track, along with the wounded," he said. For this act he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service. Shmuel Dror: Destroyed three Egyptian tanks Upon receipt of the order on the first day of the war"Red Sheet"Sgt. 1st Class Shmuel Dror, armored corps commander in the 82nd Battalion of the 7th Brigade, was deployed to the southern front. During the battle against the Egyptian army forces in Gaza, a significant gap was created between the rapidly moving tanks that fought at the head of the force in the Rafah area, and the unprotected supply and ammunition convoy that lingered in the Khan Yunis area, many kilometers behind. "The main force broke into Khan Younis and Rafah and took over the place, but it didn't stay in place and advanced forward. I stayed behind with the supply convoy," Dror said. Shmuel Dror In the confusion of the battle, the convoy of trucks entered a deadly ambush in close proximity to the Egyptian army. "Inside Khan Yunis, I see an Egyptian soldier with a bazooka running and lying down seven meters from my tank. I was with the Uzi in my hands and I fired the entire magazine at him," Dror said. During the battle, the commander of the only Israeli tank securing and leading the supply convoy was killed. "The tank was stopped and it blocked the path of the entire convoy (preventing them) from advancing. I got out of the jeep and climbed into the tank, and I started leading the convoy behind me. My quartermaster took my place in the jeep and within a minute, he was shot in the head." Six Day War Dror decided to replace the commander of the tank. He led the convoy of trucks that were cut off under enemy fire all the way to the Israeli armored forces in Rafah. "I started running into Egyptian soldiers, between 15 and 20 people. A tank came down from one of the alleys within 50 meters of me, fired a shell and missed. I saw the commander and his crewman loader trying to flee from the tank, I fired at them and hit Then, I proceeded to fire at another tank, which I hit from a 150 meters distance. All the while, the convoy, with soldiers who had an almost non-existent combat training, kept driving behind me. These battles were like the Wild West, duels. Whoever drew the fastest was the winner. I felt I had a great responsibility to lead the whole deal." Up until he joined his company in Rafah, Dror destroyed three enemy tanks and a Bazooka crew from very short range. In the course of the fighting, he operated efficiently and made sure that the ranks and damaged tanks were repaired in time. For this act he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service. (Translated and edited by N. Elias) The crisis in Hadassah Medical Center worsens, as three more doctors from the Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Department tended their resignations, following the six others who resigned last March. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Two resident physicians filed their resignation on Friday, while the third did so last week. In practice, their resignations will take effect in one month, at which point there will be no doctors left in the department, leaving many children without proper medical treatment. Protestors claim the doctors 'are killing our children to get more money.' (Photo: Yisrael Hadari) Dozens of parents worried for their children have protested in front of Hadassa hospital on Friday, calling on Minister of Health Rabbi Yaakov Litzman and Hadassah Medical Center's director general, professor Zeev Rotstein, to act, while carrying signs saying: "Don't let greed kill our children." The crisis broke out after a decision by the hospital director to perform bone marrow transplants for children at another department for adults caused the department's physicians to resign in protest. (Photo: Yisrael Hadari) The doctors believe the decision is fundamentally wrong and does not allow them to provide patients with the best care. Despite talks between the sides, the doctors and the hospital's administration failed to reach an agreement to resolve the crisis. Officials at the Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Department explained the decision to resign came as a result of "fundamental professional disagreements" between the department's medical staff and the hospital administration. The medical staff has complained of a serious shortage in manpower, which they say puts the department on the verge of collapse. (Translated and edited by Lior Mor) High housing costs, difficulty in finding work that matches their skill set and cultural differences are the classic challenges faced by new immigrants to Israel. Shmuel Trigano, a Paris University emeritus professor of sociology of religion and politics, meanwhile, says that another less obvious challenge is the intellectual one. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Trigano, 69, was born in Algeria and moved to France as a teenager at the conclusion of the Algerian War of Independence. He co-founded the non-profit organization Dialogia with Max Benhamou; the two are both French citizens who immigrated to Israel French immigrants landing in Israel last year (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Dialogia seeks to create an intellectual bridge between French immigrants and Israeli society. The two say that the number of immigrants from France to Israel is on the decline , despite the rise in anti-Semitism in their country and continent of origin. Their data show that a third of those who do end up immigrating dont remain. They instead liquidate their assets in the Jewish state and return to French. They bring with them negative stories of their failed integration into Israeli society, which circulate amongst potential immigrants and may dissuade them from immigrating themselves. French immigrants landing in Israel (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Trigano spoke with Ynet on the subject. What failures do you identify in the absorption process? Of course, this is made up of a number of elements, but one of the most prominent failures in the absorption of immigrants from France is its unique character. This is not an immigration of distress, but rather of middle class people who come from a country that is one of the most developed and civilized in the world, with a magnificent intellectual history. This population is drawn to geographical areas with a concentration of the Israeli middle classmainly to the Dan regionwhere the housing crisis is reaching huge proportions. Today, none of the immigrants wants to buy another apartment at exorbitant prices, or alternatively to put down roots in a system that has no protection for tenants, when every year the landlord can remove the tenant from their home or raise the rent. Thats a hard way of life for many families. The Lanker family, who immigrated from Nice to Israel But youre describing a problem that concerns the whole of Israeli society. Even young Israeli-born couples face the same problem. True, this is a general Israeli social problem that affects the new immigrants directly. There are a number of problems in Israeli society that concern new immigrants and make it difficult for them. The immigrants have ideals and thoughts about the Jewish stateideas that are not realized in Israel. Israel is very dear to the immigrants hearts. They dont describe to themselves the real situation. They have an idea in their hearts in terms of a Jewish people, and the Israelis do not connect to it. Many Israelis dont make an internal determination about their identity. Its enough for them that they are Israelis, Jews and that they live here. For those who come from abroad, carrying a much more complex identity, this country doesnt always suit their idea. A French Jewish family arrives in Israel (Photo: The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews) (Those engaged in liberal professions) are finding it difficult to get recognition, as if France were a Third-World country in relation to Israel. The professional future that the Israeli market offers young university graduates, or those who are still lacking a profession, apart from elite technologies or media centers, is also a problem. The difficulties of the younger generation are also expressed among secular young unmarried people. As the survey conducted by Masa Israel showed: 36% of them would prefer to leave the country. A problem of identity The past few years have seen record highs for the number of immigrants from France, where more than 450,000 Jews live.Many immigrant communities have flourished in Netanya, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Raanana. Trigano claims that Israelis are misunderstanding French Jews. They come from a French, not an Anglo-Saxon, world, which is more similar to the Israeli way of thinking, he elaborated. Their Judaism does not always find its place in Israeli settings. This challenged has not been sufficiently addressed. The Jews of France did not really know that they existed as a group, that they were different from Israelis. The expectation was that the Jewish people would be realized within the nation of Israel, and that expectation requires profound clarification. They have an identity problem in Israel that requires a solution. A person cannot succeed in his immigration if he doesnt know who he is, who the Israelis are that hes facing and where we are going together. A smaller French immigrant (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Is this a clarification that they can make even before immigration? An identity that they could form in France? Its important to prepare people from this perspective, as well. Of course theres a material aspect that needs to be dealt with, but there is also an internal, an identity-related experience here, in which a man asks himself, Where do I belong? To which country do I belong? What do I expect from the Jewish people? And how will I respond when its not exactly as I had thought? French immigrants landing in Israel last year (Photo: Motti Kimchi) I think that if the immigrants succeed in this, they can also bring a fresh and innovative cultural-social message for all of Israeli society. I hope we can be an intellectual bridge to Israeli society. French Jewry has a lot to contribute in these respects, and it would be a shame to lose an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. Immigrant Absorption: a critical challenge for Israel The elections in France, where the far-right leader Marine Le Pen got through to the second round, could be another catalyst for French Jews to emigrate. Trigano commented, , You are wrong to think that the Jews of France are fleeing from anti-Semitism. Thats not accurate. Theyre leaving France because French society no longer carries the Jewish identity model they once held. In their view, the countrys leadership has long denied the danger threatening them and abandoned them in the field. You have to understand this, and if Israel doesnt want to lose this immigration, the government must be able to formulate a comprehensive national absorption program and deal with some of the main problems affecting immigrants. The challenge of absorbing the Jews of France joins the deciding challenge of Israel's future, and for this future they can make an existential contribution to its social and intellectual dimensions. Translated and edited by J. Herzog) MK Mickey Rosenthal (Zionist Union) said on Saturday that according to information he got from reliable sources, the police have decide to recommend that an indictment will be served against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter "The police was also asked to complete their investigation on some levels, but they have definitively decided to recommend an indictment against the Prime Minister, charging him with two countsaccepting illicit gifts and breach of trust," said Rosenthal. Netanyahu (R) and Milchan (Photo: Gettyimages) "I say this based on facts that were shared with me; I'm not just saying things with no basis," he added. Rosenthal mentioned that "between a recommendation by the police and an actual indictment stands the attorney general. There have been cases in the past, in the Amedi Affair and others, where the police recommended that Netanyahu be charged, yet it ended in a public report and no indictment. "I don't know how it will end this time, but I know what the police are aiming to recommend. You'll be able to check me on that in about two and a half months." MK Rosenthal made these claims two days after Liat Ben Ari, the prosecutor in Netanyahu's illicit gifts case, said in a panel arranged by the Israel Bar Association that "when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of shekels given to a public representative, it's hard for me to accept that it can possibly be just a present from a friend." Liat Ben Ari (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Ben Ari then responded to the question of whether small gifts are considered a serious bribery offense: Everything depends on the circumstances. She added, The question of friendship comes up in every case. I know about myself and my friendsnone of us demands receiving hundreds of thousands of shekels as a gift. The interests in such a situation must be examined. There are a lot of bribery cases now. Every case is a whole world for us, and there is no doubt that it is very interesting for us to examine the relationship between the giver and the recipient. The prime ministers office issued a response to Ben Ari that reads, There is no basis to claim that something was improper with the relationships between the prime minister and his colleagues. Firstthe close friendship between the families is an unequivocal and indisputable fact, including during periods that the prime minister was a private citizen. Secondwe deny the amounts that are given, and in any case, it was cigars that were given on multiple occasions over 17 years of friendship. Therefore, the claim that one gift was given at a value of hundreds of thousands of shekels or many gifts worth thousands of dollars each were given is simply not true. Thirdduring all these years there were no interests, and no compensation was given. We repeat: There was nothing, and therefore there will be nothing. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara (Photo: Itay Beit-On/GPO) The prime minister's office also issued a response concerning Rosenthal's claim, sarcastically saying "what a surprise," adding that "after the police leaked for months that they intend to recommend that charges will be filed, did anyone really think that they'll have the courage to step down from their soapbox and admit they have nothing so support it?" It further went to specifically call out Rosenthal, saying "and as for the newly self appointed police spokesman, Mickey Rosenthal, we say to him and his friends in the left: look for salvation elsewhere." (Translated and edited by Lior Mor) Russia's Defense Ministry says its military chief of staff and the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff have confirmed their readiness to restore a communications channel aimed at preventing midair incidents between Russian and US warplanes over Syria. Generals Valery Gerasimov and Joseph Dunford also discussed setting up further conflict-avoidance measures in a Saturday telephone call, the ministry said in a statement reported by Russian news agencies. The call came as a Russia-initiated plan to set up safe zones was to take effect. Russia suspended the communications channel last month after the United States fired a barrage of Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in response to the Syrian military allegedly using chemical weapons in an attack. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom Saturday supported her countrys vote in favor of a UN cultural agency resolution declaring Israel an occupying power in Jerusalem. She held that the resolution was balanced and emphasized the importance of Jerusalem to the three monotheistic religions. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Wallstrom said her government had acted properly in the vote, explaining that there was supposed to be a consensus among European countries in the vote but it had been broken. Following the vote, the Swedish ambassador was summoned to a reprimand in the Foreign Ministry. Wallstrom meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Stockholm (File photo: Reuters) But the Swedish move drew criticism not only from Israel but also from many in Sweden. The leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Jan Bjorklund, slammed the government and said: Sweden reached an agreement with the dictatorships of the Arab world, according to which it will come out with result in hostile statements against Israel. This is a disgusting move. Israels ambassador to Sweden, Isaac Bachman, published an article on the independent Swedish website Nyheter24, in which he attacked the Swedish government under the title Sweden has lost its moral compass. The Swedish foreign minister is a vocal critic of Israel and has made several controversial statements in the past. Her government regularly supports Palestinian causes. Wallstrom has previously accused Israel of conducting extrajudicial executions of Palestinians in the midst of attacking Israelis and seemed to imply that there was a connection between Islamist terrorism in Europe and the desperate situation of the Palestinians. She has been snubbed by the Israeli government on two separate trips to the region when no member of it would agree to meet with her. Local citizens turned in thousands of pounds of paint, pesticides, household chemicals, and more at recent hazardous household waste collection events held in Seward and York on Earth Day, April 22. Four Corners Health Department received grant funding from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality to host both of the events. Each year, Four Corners applies for this funding to host collection events in two of the four counties they serve. If funding becomes available, collection events will be held in Butler and Polk counties in 2018. This years events in Seward and York Counties brought in the following combined totals from 1,045 households throughout Seward and York counties: 18,520 pounds of appliances 16,640 pounds of paint 3,560 pounds of pesticides 350 gallons of motor oil 240 gallons of antifreeze 2,040 pounds of batteries 1,860 pounds of recyclable materials 969 bulbs Electronics: 2800 pounds in York 118 TVs & 32 computers in Seward Four Corners Health Department would like to thank the many volunteers for their hard work to protect the environment, soil and groundwater. This years volunteers included (but not limited to) Concordia University students, York College students, Seward Optimist Club, York High School ACES program, Four Corners Board of Health members, York Physical Therapy and Fitness Worx, UNL Extension Offices, York Lions Club, UTC Aerospace Systems, Boy Scouts Troup 173, Cornerstone Bank, Agri-Products, church groups, and many other people. These volunteers were key in unloading, sorting and collecting the hazardous waste, and in helping to make these events run smoothly. Four Corners would also like to acknowledge the communities who hosted their own clean up days to partner in this event. The City of Seward and the City of York graciously allowed us to use city property for the events and setting up these properties to meet our needs. The York/Seward Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) was instrumental in finding volunteers. We appreciate the partnership with the Seward County Chamber & Development for their partnership in the Seward event. For more information on how to dispose of household chemical waste, please call Four Corners Health Department at (877) 337-3573, by e-mail at info@fourcorners.ne.gov, or visit our website www.fourcorners.ne.gov. Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. YORK Fourteen men from the York area share a common bond: All served and survived the Vietnam War and went on to live long and productive lives. Earlier this week they were a small part of the massive troop movement of 654 men and women who were flown in four passenger jets to visit the wall that commemorates comrades whose lives ended decades too soon in that years-long struggle with communism. This is the most recent of many such flights hosted by Bill and Evonne Williams of Omaha and paid for entirely by private donations. The couple has declared it will also be the last in a series of flights for World War II, Korea and now Vietnam vets. Among the group from the York area was Rich Hankel, a Navy veteran who served offshore aboard a 174-foot mine sweeper protecting against attacks from sea along the coast of the bitterly divided, embattled Southeast Asian nation. Hankel said it took a full months sail to get to the war zone and another months journey back home when his hitch was up. It was an amazing thing, said Hankel of Mondays trip during which he shook hands with all of Nebraskas congressional delegation with the lone exception of Congressman Adrian Smith. Senator Ben Sasse, he said, ignored pre-dawn rain to properly greet and visit with the Nebraska delegation. Others from York on the trip manifest were: Eugene Buhman, Kirby Chapman, Adam Broughton III, Marlin Hartig, Max Hoover, Larry Joy, David Rea and Fred Stuertz. The roster included Jim Staehr and Clinton Buller from Utica, Eugene Cotter and Dallas Puntney from Stromsburg and Bradly Sundberg of Polk. This flight marked the largest group of Vietnam veterans from any single state to ever visit the wall en masse. Many of these men and women have waited better than 50 years to be remembered themselves and also to pay tribute to those who died and whose names are etched on the wall. The iconic Vietnam Wall is approximately 500 feet long and nearly 11 feet tall at its highest point. Unlike the 2016 flight to D.C. this years final salute was a three-day affair with an optional early registration on Saturday, April 29 followed by a video entitled The Vietnam War. Registration continued last Sunday, followed by a pre-flight dinner that evening at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in La Vista. Monday, said Hankel, Reveille sounded at 2 a.m. and it was non-stop for the veterans from their Omaha departure to when they returned home that evening to Lincoln. The massive group was divided into four groups one for each of four airliners and designated Red, White, Blue and Uncle Sam. Each group wore its distinctive colored shirt for ease of organization. The veterans also visited the Lincoln Memorial, Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown, Arlington Cemetery as well as the World War II and Iwo Jima memorials. While the veterans were on their adventure a day of activities were laid out for spouses and other family members Monday. As wonderful as the journey certainly was, the best part of it for Hankel was the reception he and others received when they walked down the boarding ramps and into the Lincoln Airport. They were swept away upon seeing the thousands of people who waited to cheer, cry, shake hands, wave flags and at long last give these patriot warriors a proper Welcome home! It was an absolutely awesome day, declared Hankel. Tiring, but so rewarding. It was an emotional thing, he said, struggling to get the words out through the tears of memory. With a sheepish grin and a helpless shrug he stated the obvious. It still is. Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh SSC Results 2017, AP Board 10th Results 2017, BSEAP 10th Class Results 2017, BSE AP SSC 10th Results 2017 are set to be announced on Saturday. The Board of Secondary Education of Andhra Pradesh (BSEAP) will release the Andhra Pradesh Results 2017, AP Board 2017, AP SSC Results 2017, BSEAP Manabadi AP SSC Results 2017, Andhra Pradesh Class 10 Results 2017, BSE AP SSC 10th Results 2017, AP Board Class 10th Examination Results 2017 at 3 pm today. Check bseap.org and manabadi.com to get AP 10th class SSC examination results 2017, AP Class 10 Result, AP Board 10th Result 2017. 7,10,450 students are waiting for the AP SSC 10th Supplementary results 2016, AP SSC 10 Results 2017, AP class 10th X matric exam result 2017 How to check Andhra SSC Results 2017: - Open any of the official websites mentioned above. - Click on the AP SSC Class 10th Result 2017 button. - Enter details like hall ticket number etc. - Press the 'Enter' button. - Download AP 10th Result 2017. Take a printout. About Board of Secondary Education of Andhra Pradesh Established in 1953, the BSEAP is an autonomous body under the Andhra Pradesh government's Department of Education. The board has been entrusted with the task of regulating and supervising the system of Secondary Education in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The BSEAP used to conduct examination across undivided Andhra Pradesh but after bifurcation and creation of Telangana, its control is limited to the 13 districts remaining in the truncated state of Andhra Pradesh. The BSEAP devises the course of study, finalises the syllabus, conduct exams besides carrying other statutory tasks like granting recognitions to schools in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Zee Media wishes 'Best of Luck' to all those who appeared for the exams. Islamabad: After a cross-border fire in the Chaman area that killed nine Pakistanis and injured 40 on Thursday, senior Pakistani and Afghan military officials have reached a consensus to defuse border tension. "Hotline contact between Pakistan and Afghan Director General Military Operation established. Director General Military Opeartions (DGMO) Pakistan Army Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza condemned unprovoked firing on Pakistani villagers and security forces which caused casualties," the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement. The statement also stated that the Afghan Director General Military Operations acknowledged that the border was in between villages and not at the ditch, which is well inside Pakistan, as was being perceived. Mirza further asked the Afghan DGMO that their forces should stay on their side of the border and defuse the situation. The DGMO Pakistan Army told his counterpart, "We shall continue our work within our border." A local commander-level Border Flag meeting was also held to ensure de-escalations along the border. Earlier on Friday, Pakistan summoned the Afghanistan Embassy`s Charge d` Affairs to lodge a strong protest over the unprovoked firing by Afghan forces in the Chaman area, which it said has resulted in the martyrdom of several Pakistani citizens and injuring many, including women and children. Pakistan`s Foreign Office called on Kabul to take immediate steps to bring an end to the unprovoked firing from the Afghan side and demanded action against those responsible for the violation.Pakistan also apprised that firing from Afghan side not only led to the loss of precious lives, but also disrupted the census process in areas on the Pakistan side of the border and caused damage to properties. Three persons were killed and 21 injured, as Afghan forces fired at Frontier Corps (FC) personnel detailed for the security of a census team, early on Friday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said. During the cross-border attack, mortar shells fired from the Afghan side hit houses in a village of Kali Luqman.At least three children are among the injured and two of the victims are said to be in critical condition. Mumbai: Actor Sanjay Dutt attended the wrap-up party of his comeback film "Bhoomi" here along with wife Maanyata and actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Shekhar Suman. The film's shoot has been completed after the extensive work of two-and-a-half months. Aditi, who will seen portraying the character of Sanjay's on screen daughter, said she never thought of getting an opportunity of working with the actor. "I never thought that I would ever get an opportunity to work with Sanjay Dutt. It's a beautiful story of a father and daughter. When you do a film like this, you actually live that character for some time. So, it was very special to have Sanjay Dutt around. "He is amazing to work with and very funny on set, but at the same time really focused and natural. So, it gets easy to react to him while shooting," said Aditi on the sidelines of the get-together here on Friday night. The actress also spoke about Agra city, in which major part of the film has been shot. "Agra has a lot of positive and beautiful vibe. There is a reason why the film is set in Agra," Aditi said. Shekhar, who will be seen as Sanjay's on screen friend, said Sanjay is "fantastic". "He is a director's actor and a very emotional person. He will surprise you all with his performance in this film, the way he had done in films like 'Vaastav: The Reality' and 'Naam'. The udience will love him as he has come back just with a right role," said Shekhar. About his own character in the movie, Shekhar said: "I am playing a tourist guide in Taj, and Sanjay has a shoe shop. We both are friends and life is going on, until suddenly something happens which changes everyone's life." "Bhoomi" is directed by "Mary Kom" fame Omung Kumar and produced by T series and Legend studios. Yokohama: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out any surprises in the tax rates in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is proposed to be rolled out on July 1 and also asserted that there will be no cascading in goods and commodities, which can even see tax rates coming down a little. "Officers are working on rate fixation. No surprise because we have said that in the first round rather than take anyone by surprise, you take the existing level of taxation and fit them closest to the bracket. "My impression is that in goods and commodities, there will be no cascading. So it will come down a little. Service tax will increase a little. That`s a balancing act that will have to be done so that the quantum of taxes remains the same," he told NDTV. Jaitley, who is here to attend the Asian Development Bank`s meeting, hoped that the GST would roll-out as scheduled by July 1. "July looks likely because state after state is approving State GST. By the end of May all state laws approval looks likely." He said the GST Council would be meeting on May 18-19. "The state laws would have been approved, the constitutional amendment approved and the Rules would have been approved. So, it`s not a matter of surprise." The minister also ruled out the possibility of levying tax on agriculture. "One, it`s a state subject and the Centre cannot levy such a tax." "Even as for states are concerned they can see stress in agriculture. This is hardly the time to throw out this idea. Look at the size of land holdings in India. The size of richer farmers would hardly be 1 percent. Bhubaneswar: In what could be termed the biggest reshuffle in the last 17 years of the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government in Odisha, as many as 10 ministers resigned on Saturday while 11 ministers will be inducted in the cabinet on Sunday. The swearing-in ceremony would be held on Sunday at Raj Bhavan here and 11 new ministers would take the oath of office, sources said. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) lawmakers Surya Narayan Patro, Niranjan Pujari, Maheswar Mohanty, Bijay Nayak, Pratap Jena, Sushant Singh, Sashi Bhusan Behera, Prafulla Samal, Nrusingha Charan Sahu, Chandra Sarathi Behera and Ananta Das are likely to be inducted in the council of ministers, sources said. Earlier, 10 ministers tendered their resignation to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. A day before, Assembly Speaker Niranjan Pujari had resigned from the post. He is likely to get a ministerial berth in the cabinet. Finance Minister Pradip Amat, who resigned along with nine other ministers, is likely to be the Speaker of the state assembly, sources said. Amat was the Speaker in the third term of the BJD government. The nine other ministers who put in their papers are Sanjay Dasburma, Pranab Prakash Das, Arun Sahoo, Pradeep Panigrahi, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Lal Bihari Himirika, Sudam Marndi, Jogendra Behera and Debi Prasad Mishra. Patnaik expressed the hope that the ministry reshuffle will contribute to the growth and development of the people of Odisha besides strengthening the party. "I am grateful to a number of ministers who have resigned voluntarily to work for the party. All of us in the party are very grateful to them," said Patnaik. He said the revamp would help the ruling BJD serve the people better. STEPANAKERT, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces made 45 ceasefire violations on May 5 and overnight May 6 in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. The Azerbaijani military used different caliber firearms and fired more than 580 shots at soldiers of the Artsakh Defense Army. Azerbaijani forces also fired 11 mortar shells (60mm) in the eastern and northeastern sections of the line of contact. The defense ministry of Artsakh told ARMENPRESS the Defense Army took countermeasures to suppress the Azerbaijani aggression. Artsrun Hovhannisyan, spokesman of the Armenian defense ministry, notified that gunfire has been recorded along the Armenian border as well, although little and mainly from small arms. Currently the situation is relatively calm. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Investors of St. Petersburg, Russia are interested in almost all Armenian-made products. Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of St. Petersburg, told reporters his visit to Yerevan was very short, but very busy and most importantly quite productive. During this short visit of mine I met with the President of Armenia, the Prime Minister, and in my opinion we discussed important issues regarding the further cooperation of St. Petersburg with not only Yerevan, but with Armenia, the Governor said. According to him, the Armenian leadership praised the work which they are carrying out with Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan. Poltavchenko also highlighted the fact that during the meetings with the President and the Prime Minister the directions which they are working on have been confirmed. The directions are related to business development in the tourism sector and importing products from Armenia to St. Petersburg. As well as the most important directions, which will help us to develop industry and production in the future not only in St. Petersburg but in Armenia, he said, adding there were proposals for St. Petersburg companies to participate in the FEZ along the Armenian-Iranian border. According to him the proposal is very interesting and they will work on it. The Governor said during this time, those delegates who had arrived in Yerevan earlier, had many negotiations. They have signed a cooperation deal in the education and healthcare sectors. Under one of the agreements, exchange of experience will be organized in the best hospital of St. Petersburg, he said. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Within the frames of St. Petersburg Days in Yerevan, Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan and Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko attended the concert of BILLYs BAND held in Yerevans Northern Avenue in the evening of May 5, the Yerevan Municipality told Armenpress. The Russian band for already 15 years carries out an active work by giving concerts in different countries of the world. The concert brought together blues, jazz and rock lovers. Thereafter, the St. Petersburg Governor toured in Yerevan at night. He thanked the Yerevan Mayor for the warm reception and for personally presenting Yerevan to him, stating that Yerevan at night has really a unique charm which covers the citys beauty, warmness and hospitality. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. St. Petersburg is interested in the Armenian products and is ready to host the Armenian goods to its market, Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko told reporters in Yerevan, reports Armenpress. We are very interested in almost all products which can be imported from Armenia. The people of St. Petersburg deserve to use a quality product in food, and Armenia produces such goods. We will also accept such products which have always been of high quality. Previously when we were living in a one country, many Armenian products, such as light industry products, shoes, household items have always been of high quality. I am convinced we will definitely acquire goods and quality products, he said. Speaking about the potential for exchange of goods, the Governor said at the moment it comprises 40 million USD. I believe this number is not final, and we can set a task before us to reach this number up to 100 million USD in the coming 2-3 years, and this is also not an end, Poltavchenko said, adding that the most important issue is the transportation of goods since Armenia has problems in terms of entering a foreign market, and in this case it will be much more easier to increase the potential. Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan stated that the cooperation between the two cities supposes not only an exchange of experience, but also a practical work with specific directions. In the last 3 years we recorded great achievements, not only an exchange of practices, familiarization, but also concrete works are being carried out. I can surely state that the result of our work will be visible in a short period of time, he said. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan visited the EU delegation to Armenia on May 6 on the occasion of Europe Day. The President congratulated Ambassador Piotr Switalski, head of the EU delegation, the staff of the delegation and the big EU family on Europe Day, and wished success. Recently leaders of European countries celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Treaties, with the realization of which European states, and first of all the peoples of Europe, achieved great success in the honorable work of protecting human rights, dignity, democracy, spread and realization of common ideas. The further strengthening of the EU stems also from the interests of small countries like Armenia. We are sure that the challenges which the EU and European states face lately will definitely be overcome. I am very happy that during the recent period we have recorded great successes in the development of our relations with the EU, and we wish for those successes to be continuous. We are grateful to the EU, personally the delegation and you, Ambassador Switalski, for this kind of cooperation and assistance for Armenia, the President said. On behalf of the EU delegation and himself, Ambassador Switalski thanked the President of Armenia for the visit and warm congratulations. Your visit has a very important and symbolic meaning for the entire delegation of the European Union, because it encourages us to work even more fundamentally in the direction of developing our cooperation. This year is full of events. We already have an initialed agreement, agreed cooperation priorities and we also have an agreement on the overall circle of assistance. Mr. President, your visit to Brussels was successful, and it brought additional arguments to the EU, that it must be involved in Armenia more and with greater devotion. We received very important signals both from the Armenian government and the EU, which was very important for us in order to be able to continue our work with great enthusiasm. Mr. President, we are grateful for your assistance to the activities of the EU delegation in Armenia, the Ambassador said. The sides emphasized that both Armenia and the EU are open and willing to continue developing cooperation, and expressed confidence that by realizing the new agreements provisions, the Armenia-EU mutually beneficial cooperation will be able to be significantly expanded in all direction. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The national academy of sciences of Armenia and the union of ICT employers (Information and Communication Technologies) have formed new prerequisites for the development of innovations in all branches of the economy by using IT. President of the national academy of sciences Radik Martirosyan and president of the union of ICT employers Armen Baldryan signed a memorandum of understanding on May 6. By signing this memorandum, we aim to cooperate closer and create new projects, Martirosyan said. Baldryan mentioned that this memorandum will have great impact on all branches of the economy. It is very important for us that young specialists pass academic school, because the behavior of an analyst is formed in early years. It is also important to use the potential of the NAAs system. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) met Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) officials to discuss launching direct flights between the United States and Armenia, ANCA reported. The discussions with LAWA Chief Executive Officer Deborah Flint and Deputy Executive Director and Chief of External Affairs Trevor Daley provided an opportunity for a positive and constructive exchange of views about the practical steps needed to establish direct air service between LAX and Zvartnots Airport (EVN) in Yerevan. We welcome our constructive engagement with the senior leadership of LAWA and value their willingness to facilitate discussions among a diverse set of U.S. and Armenian public and private stakeholders to realize our goal of direct LAX to Yerevan flights, ANCA representative Raffi Hamparian said. The ANCA called on the U.S. Department of Transportation to support a public-private partnership regarding establishing U.S. to Armenia flights, involving U.S. airlines and relevant government agencies YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Culture minister Armen Amiryan signed an order on May 6 whereby on May 9 and May 28 the museums which operate under the ministry will be open for visitors 10:00 18:00, while during the Night of Museums event of May 20 from 18:00 until midnight. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. More than 30 people sought medical treatment after a fire in a multi-storey building in south-eastern Moscow, Russia, a source told Interfax. 31 people sought medical treatment as result of the fire, 6 of whom are children. 11 are hospitalized, including three children, the source said. Earlier it was reported that 70 people had been evacuated from the building as a 54 meter long wire set ablaze. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The delegation of US Congressmen will visit Armenia in September, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo told the Voice of America, reports Armenpress. The delegation of Congressmen plans to visit Armenia in September, and if there is nothing important in my congressional district which will require my presence, I hope I will also visit Armenia at that time, she said, adding that when she arrived in Armenia among the presidential delegation on the occasion of 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, all hosted here with open arms. I felt as in my own family she said. The Congresswoman also talked about the recognition process of the Armenian Genocide, stating that the Armenian Genocide recognition bill has not achieved success yet in the Congress. This process is not finished yet, and I will not stay calm until our country recognizes it since we know in terms of history that if something is not recognized, it means that it doesnt exist. But this is unacceptable. I think our country is strong enough to resist the so-called huge opposition which in fact is not so huge, Anna Eshoo said. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh Ombudsmans interim report on the Azerbaijani atrocities during the 2016 April War has been widely disseminated, Artsakhs Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan told a press conference. The report includes the atrocities and human rights violations committed by Azerbaijani forces during April 2-5 against both the civilian population of Artsakh and the military. This report has been subject to discussion in many structures. A fact finding mission was carried out within the circles of our functions, it was summarized and presented to the international community. We were able to make sure that the report gets widely distributed, many of our colleagues helped us in this, he said. Speaking on the lawsuits in the ECHR against Azerbaijan, Melikyan said 23 lawsuits are communicated. The cases relate to gross human rights violations by Azerbaijan against people who were under their control. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian-Russian joint (unified) troops are designed for providing border security for the Republic of Armenia, Major General Andranik Makaryan, commander of the joint troops told reporters on May 6. The commander of the joint troops is appointed from the Armed Forces of Armenia during times of both peace and war. I report to you, in accordance to the Armenian-Russian joint agreement, which was signed on November 30, 2016, the commander of the Armenian-Russian unified troops is appointed from the staff of servicemen of Armenias Armed Forces. The commander is appointed and discharged under the order of Armenias commander-in-chief agreeing it with Russias commander-in-chief, Major General Makaryan said, emphasizing the unified troops will operate only under the orders of the Armenian commander-in-chief. Asked whether the unified troops will intervene in case of border escalation in the direction of Artsakh, the Major General said the troops will intervene during any threat, and in case of Artsakh it has no right to wait or delay also. Asked to specify whether Vladimir Putin cant order not to launch operations, Makaryan answered: No, he cant. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is not threatened by war in the near future. Azerbaijan is sitting on an oil pit, and the probable war will first of all be crucial for Baku, Hero of Artsakh Liberation War, Major General Arkadi Ter-Tadevosyan told reporters. According to him, in case of war significant human losses are unavoidable. Speaking on the liberation of Shushi, the Major General said this victory isnt only his victory, but rather the victory of everyone. Every time the successes are attributed to me, but first of all this is the work of our paramilitary soldiers, he added. Arkadi Ter-Tadevosyan was happy to state that the April War showed that the spirit of our youth is quite strong. Although the adversary was rather prepared, our men were able to overcome everything, he said. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. The statement released by Azerbaijans Defense Ministry on May 5 according to which the Armenian intelligence service agencies and special forces initiated large-scale provocations towards the Azerbaijani units and settlements located in the Terter region which was revealed and prevented on time as a result of the Azerbaijani sides effective and preventive measures, is another slander and doesnt correspond to the reality, the Defense Ministry of Artsakh Republic told Armenpress. Lets note that by spreading such disinformation, the Azerbaijani side is unsuccessfully trying to conceal the frequent death cases recorded in its armed forces due to non-statutory relations. Moreover, if the Azerbaijani side so much trusts on the reliability of its information, we propose to invite representatives of international structures to carry out an investigation to reveal the authenticity of their statement, the Artsakh Defense Ministrys statement says. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh takes countermeasures in response to Azerbaijans the so-called black list, Ombudsman of Artsakh Ruben Melikyan told a press conference in Armenpress on May 6. When Azerbaijan announced criminal prosecutions against people who visited Artsakh, in addition to the MEPs, it also included the Azokh expedition group members. This is unacceptable for us, currently we are making examinations on this path. We are going to be actively engaged in this issue in near future. We believe that the so-called black list is itself an impermissible activity. This limits certain rights since many famous professors, doctors will not visit Artsakh given the fact that they will be included in the black list. On the other hand, this is also a restriction of freedom of speech, a vivid example is arrested blogger Lapshins case, the Artsakh Ombudsman said. He said Artsakh looks at this phenomenon with open eyes and takes countermeasures. Currently the group of specialists deals with that black list. As for the level of relations with the international community, Melikyan said it is not enough for them. By refusing to enter Artsakh, those prominent international structures in fact support the stance of one of the conflicting sides rather than maintain neutrality. We will try to change this situation. The situation of today, consciously or not, is a support to the Azerbaijani stance, Ruben Melikyan said. YEREVAN, MAY 6, ARMENPRESS. Head of the European diplomacy Federica Mogherinis spokesperson has issued a statement on the closure of OSCEs Office in Yerevan, Armenpress reports RFE/RL's Armenian Service informs. Below is the full text of the announcement. We appreciate the continuous efforts of the OSCE chairing countries, Germany and now Austria, aimed at resolving the problems over the formulations that found place in OSCEs decision on prolonging OSCE Yerevan Offices mandate. We have shown support in that issue. Reaching an agreement over the prolongation of the mandate is of great importance. The OSCE mission plays a vital role in bringing into life the principles of the OSCE. The European Union is fully committed and supports the activities of the OSCE. OSCEs Yerevan Office, which has a great value for the OSCE in general, is now under risk. The Yerevan Office is the last representation of the OSCE in South Caucasus. The EU supports the substantial presence of the OSCE in all the countries of the South Caucasus. The Yerevan Office plays an important role in terms of meeting the needs of its host country, Armenia. The concerns raised by Azerbaijan that the Yerevan Office should not be involved in the processes over the conflict have been reflected in the formulations of the Austrian chairmanship, while the host country has accepted that solution. The fact that even that gave no results is disappointing. The issue of the formulations that has led to the stalemate situation should not become an obstacle for the prolongation of the mandate of Yerevan Office. We call on the sides to demonstrate extra will for finding a solution to the issue as soon as possible. LOS ANGELESChanel Preston returns to the Dogfart Network, here fans can see her filled to the brim with big black cock. This is my second gangbang for Blacks on Blondes, and I'm excited to be back! said Chanel. I did not do a DP in the first one, but if you have been waiting to see me get DP'd by a big black cock, you are in for a treat with this scene. Chanel takes on five cocks at once, but cant really please them until she passes her oral exam. The guys grill Chanel, and once satisfied with her answers, they rail all three of her holes. She's even "air tight" through a lot of the scene. Joining Chanel in the scene are Chris Cock, Isiah Maxwell, Moe Johnson, Ricky Johnson and Rico Strong. See the NSFW trailer here. To join all 22 Dogfart Network sites for one low price, click here. 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 so called "Democracy" does exists. ASTANA (Reuters) - Syria's armed opposition on Thursday rejected a Russian plan to create safe zones in Syria, calling it a threat to the country's territorial integrity, and said it would also not recognize Iran as a guarantor of any ceasefire plan. Turkey, which supports Syrian rebels, and Iran, which backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, agreed earlier in the day to Russia's proposal for "de-escalation zones" in Syria, a move welcomed by the United Nations but met with scepticism from the United States. "We want Syria to maintain its integrity," opposition delegate Osama Abu Zaid said after Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on creating safe zones. The three countries are sponsoring talks in the Kazakh capital Astana aimed at ending Syria's fighting. "We are against the division of Syria. As for the agreements, we are not a party to that agreement and of course we will never be in favor (of it) as long as Iran is called a guarantor state," Abu Zaid said. He also cited what he called "a huge gap" between the promises of Russia, which intervened militarily in 2015 on Assad's side and gave him back the upper hand in the conflict. "We have an agreement already (in) our hands, why isnt it implemented?" he said, referring to a truce deal announced by Russia in December that was largely ignored on the ground. "Why are we jumping now to safe zones?" "Russia was not able to or does not want to implement the pledges it makes, and this is a fundamental problem." Russia, Turkey and Iran did not immediately publish the memorandum, leaving its details unclear. But the safe zones appear intended to be conflict-free to help widen a ceasefire, and would potentially be policed by foreign troops. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it was skeptical of Iran's involvement as a guarantor of the accord and Damascus' track record on previous agreements. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was encouraged by the proposal but cautioned it must "actually improve the lives of Syrians." Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said while on a visit to Washington, D.C., that the kingdom supported creation of safe zones but he wanted to see more details. Russian negotiator Alexander Lavrentyev said that under the plan Russia could send observers to safe zones. He said third-party monitors could be invited provided Iran and Turkey agreed. (Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Raushan Nurshayeva; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin, Mark Heinrich, Toni Reinhold) FRIDAY, May 5, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- People who tend to ruminate and dwell on the same anxious thoughts could benefit from mindful meditation, a new study finds. Mindful meditation involves purposefully paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, found that just 10 minutes daily of mindful meditation can improve focus among people suffering from anxiety. "Our results indicate that mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals," said researcher Mengran Xu, a Ph.D. candidate at Waterloo. "We also found that meditation practice appears to help anxious people to shift their attention from their own internal worries to the present-moment external world, which enables better focus on a task at hand," Xu said in a university news release. The study involved 82 people with anxiety. The participants were asked to perform a computer-based task. As they completed their task, the volunteers were interrupted in order to assess their ability to remain focused. Then, the people were randomly divided into two groups. One group was asked to engage in a brief meditation exercise while the other group listened to an audio story. Once this was completed, all of the participants were re-assessed. The researchers found that mindful meditation, which increases awareness of the present, reduced episodes where the participants would lose concentration and be distracted by repetitive thoughts. "Mind wandering accounts for nearly half of any person's daily stream of consciousness. For people with anxiety, repetitive off-task thoughts can negatively affect their ability to learn, to complete tasks, or even function safely," Xu said. "It would be interesting to see what the impacts would be if mindful meditation was practiced by anxious populations more widely," Xu added. The report was published in the May issue of the journal Consciousness and Cognition. More information The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has more about meditation. As United States policymakers debate how to devote money and resources to the Zika virus outbreak, understanding the potential economic impact of the virus in the US is key. Now, using a new computational model described in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, researchers have calculated that Zika, depending on the rate at which it infected people in at-risk states, could result in total costs ranging from $183 million to over $1.2 billion. Since 2015, a strain of Zika virus originating in Brazil has been spreading internationally, with cases now confirmed in more than 40 countries, including the US. Six states -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas -- are at greatest risk of local Zika emergence. Zika can lead to a range of symptoms including fever, muscle pain, and headaches that have repercussions on medical costs and productivity. In addition, the virus has been linked to more serious Guillain-Barre Syndrome and severe birth defects. In the new work, Bruce Lee of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Alison Galvani of Yale School of Public Health, and colleagues developed a computational model of the economic burden of Zika in the six most at-risk states under a range of hypothetical scenarios. They were able to calculate economic costs to the country under different infection rates, and determine what infection rates would be needed to reach certain cost thresholds. Across the six states, they calculated that an attack rate of 0.01% would cost society $183.4 million, including both direct medical costs and lost productivity. An attack rate of 0.025% would cost $198.6 million, 0.1% would cost $274.6 million, 1% would cost $1.2 billion, and 2% would exceed $2 billion. For comparison, the attack rate of Zika in French Polynesia and that of chikungunya -- a similar virus--in Puerto Rico have both exceeded 10%. The numbers reported in this new study did not include any potential impact on tourism or travel, any impact beyond the six most at-risk states, nor lost productivity and medical costs associated with fear of Zika or infected family and friends. "As we aimed to be conservative in our estimations, our model in many ways may underestimate the economic burden of Zika," the researchers say. "Our analyses indicate that the health and economic burden of even low attack rates of Zika in the Continental US would be both substantial and enduring." ### 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.0005531 Citation: Lee BY, Alfaro-Murillo JA, Parpia AS, Asti L, Wedlock PT, Hotez PJ, et al. (2017) The potential economic burden of Zika in the continental United States. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 11(4): e0005531. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005531 Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH U01 GM087719, U01 GM105627, U54HD070725, U01 HD086861). Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ R01HS023317), and USAID via grant AID-OAA-A-15-00064. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. SOLOMONS, MD (MAY 5, 2017)--A new study by scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Cornell University and Duke University is the first in a series to understand how marine mammals like porpoises, whales, and dolphins may be impacted by the construction of wind farms off the coast of Maryland. The new research offers insight into previously unknown habits of harbor porpoises in the Maryland Wind Energy Area, a 125-square-mile area off the coast of Ocean City that may be the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. Offshore wind farms provide renewable energy, but activities during the construction can affect marine mammals that use sound for communication, finding food, and navigation. "It is critical to understand where marine mammals spend their time in areas of planning developments, like offshore wind farms, in order to inform regulators and developers on how to most effectively avoid and minimize negative impacts during the construction phase when loud sounds may be emitted," said Helen Bailey, the project leader at the UMCES' Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science used underwater microphones called hydrophones to detect and map the habits of harbor porpoises, one of the smallest marine mammals. Bailey describes harbor porpoises as "very shy" ranging 4 to 5 feet long with a small triangular fin that can be hard to spot. They swim primarily in the ocean, spending summers north in the Bay of Fundy and migrating to the Mid-Atlantic, as far south as North Carolina, in the winter. There are about 80,000 of them in the northwestern Atlantic. "There was so little known about them in this area," said Bailey. "It was suspected they used the waters off Maryland, but we had no idea how frequently they occurred here in the winter until we analyzed these data." Porpoises produce echolocation clicks, a type of sonar that hits an object and reflects back to tell them its distance, size and shape. They use it to navigate and feed. The researchers used hydrophones anchored 65-145 feet deep, and about 10 feet off the bottom of the ocean, to pick up these clicks over the course of a year. "We found that harbor porpoises occurred significantly more frequently during January to May, and foraged for food significantly more often in the evenings to early mornings," said study author Jessica Wingfield. Scheduling wind farm construction activities in the Maryland WEA to take place during summer months (June to September) could reduce the likelihood of disturbance to harbor porpoises. "We were certainly surprised by how frequently we detected harbor porpoises because there had not been a lot of reported sightings," said Wingfield. Maryland Department of Natural Resources secured the funding for this study from the Maryland Energy Administration's Offshore Wind Development Fund and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. "Year-round spatiotemporal distribution of harbour porpoises within and around the Maryland wind energy area" was recently published in PLOS ONE. ### UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science leads the way toward better management of Maryland's natural resources and the protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. From a network of laboratories located across the state, UMCES scientists provide sound advice to help state and national leaders manage the environment, and prepare future scientists to meet the global challenges of the 21st century. Motley Fool While the number of stocks on "sale" seems to be growing exponentially in 2022, the three businesses we'll look at today have dipped to valuations that buy-and-hold investors should consider. First, with Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), we have two of the biggest names in technology, trading with price-to-free-cash-flow ratios they haven't seen since 2013. Meanwhile, SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) now trades at around $5 per share, despite having over $3 worth of tangible book value per share on its balance sheet, and rapidly growing revenue. At the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) annual shareholders meeting, CEO Warren Buffett spoke more about Wells Fargo (WFC) and its 2016 scandal, in which up to 2 million credit card and bank accounts were created without customers permission. At Wells Fargo, there were three very significant mistakes, but there was one that dwarfs all the others, said Buffett. At some point if theres major problem, the CEO gets wind of it. And the CEO has to act. According to Buffett, the Wells Fargo scandal evoked the Salomon Brothers incident, where the CEO underestimated a flim-flamming scandal involving treasury bonds as a traffic ticket. In reality, it was more of a ticking time bomb. This failure to address and solve the problem was far worse than setting up the system for incentives that would inevitably cause bad behavior. And in the case of Wells Fargo, the activities had gone on for years and resulted in the termination of 5,300 employees, something a CEO would notice. The third mistake shines light on the second big mistake, in Buffetts view, and its one of hubrisWells Fargos traffic ticket response. They totally underestimated the impact, said Buffett. People get fined billions in the industry, so they measured the seriousness of the problem by the dimension of the fine and they thought $185 million [was small]. They were totally wrong on that. The news broke last September, but Buffett, whose company owns just under 10% of Wells Fargo, maintained a relatively low profile when discussing the San Francisco-based bank. In an interview with CNNMoney, Buffett said the quiet response came from his promise to regulators to be a passive investor in the company. Still, the famous long-termist did take a measured look at the scandal, and has only sold the banks stock of late so that Berkshire could get below 10% ownership, the threshold that would turn Berkshire into a bank holding company. How does Berkshire handle whistle-blowing? The question that sparked Buffetts comments, which retired Fortune editor Carol Loomis asked, came from a reader who noted that the Wells Fargo investigation had found the decentralized structure of the bank had been a factor in the scandalsomething the shareholder saw in Berkshires own model. Story continues Its true that we at Berkshire certainly operate on a decentralized plan, Buffett admitted. Instead of rules, however, Buffett added, We count very heavily on principles of behavior. Along with this, however, Buffett noted the Berkshire Hathaways hotline. At Berkshire the main source of information about anything being done wrong is the hot line. We get 4,000 hot line reports a year and most of them are frivolous, but there are a few serious ones and the head of our internal audit looks at all those, said Buffett. Anything that looks serious I will hear about. And that has led to action, more than once, and weve spent real money investigating some of these. It has uncovered certain practices that we would not at all condone. I think its a good system. Im sure they have an internal audit and hotline at Wells Fargo. At the bank, there was a hotline, and there were reports of retaliation for people who tried to blow the whistle. In the independent investigation of Wells Fargo, there was scant reference to whistleblowers and retaliation, something that has been criticized. Im sure they have an internal audit and hotline at Wells Fargo. I dont know the facts but I would have to bet a lot of communications came in on that. I dont know who did what, but it was a huge huge error if they were gettingand Im sure they werecommunications and ignored them or sent them down. Still, Buffett is optimistic that the hotline is the best way to do things, when done correctly. Frankly I dont see any better system than hotlines and anonymous letters. And Ive gotten about three or four of them in the past years that have resulted in major changes. There will be no retribution obviously if they call our attention, said Buffett. As we sit here, quite a few people are doing something wrong at Berkshire, but when it gets to some sales practice like was taking place at Wells Fargo, you can see the kind of damage it will do. Follow our Yahoo Finances coverage of Berkshire Hathaways annual meeting at Finance.Yahoo.com/BRKLiveStream. Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com. Read more: Airlines are giving crews leeway to hand out money when necessary Banks take just 90 seconds to approve a credit card. Heres what they look for. Ubers new tipping dilemma: low prices or smooth experience Zuckerberg at Facebook conference: if you take one thing awaythis is it The cost of unifying North and South Korea The trick to getting credit card fees waived? Just ask Chases Sapphire Reserve is very worth it, even with its slashed bonus VCG | Getty Images. All eyes are on the skies at Shanghai Pudong International Airport as the maiden test flight of China's C919 airliner lifts off, and lands, successfully. The maiden test flight of the C919 airliner made a successful takeoff, and landing, after a 90-minute flight from Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Friday, according to a livestream via Twitter carried on China 's official news agency Xinhua. The plane's flight was watched by a large crowd gathered at the airport. The C919 has more than 150 seats and a range of 4,075 kilometers (2,532 miles), and is meant to compete with the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, among the most popular commercial planes flying in the skies. Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, the state-owned company behind the plane, said 21 customers had placed orders for more than 500 planes by the end of 2016, and it expected sales to exceed 2,000, state media said. China is making a big push to become a global aviation player, looking to compete with the likes of Airbus (: ) and Boeing (NYSE: BA). Establishing itself in this industry has been hailed a "strategic move" by President Xi Jinping , according to written remarks published by state media outlets. Beijing has also identified domestic development and production of engines and planes as a major goal. Friday's maiden flight will be a key milestone for the C919, which has been plagued by delays. Final ground tests only concluded a few weeks ago, much later than the original schedule of a first flight in 2014, and aircraft delivery in 2016. Still, it will still be a while before travelers can board the plane the C919 still needs to undergo other safety and certification checks. China is expected to beat the U.S. as the world's largest aviation market by 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association. And it's going to be big business for a range of sectors, from tourism to airplane makers as the country's airlines buy more planes and add more routes. Boeing has estimated that China will need to buy up $1 trillion worth of planes about 6,810 sets of wings over the next two decades in order to meet demand. Barry Huang contributed to this story. More From CNBC Investors in shares of Orchids Paper Products Company TIS need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the Put which expires on Apr 21, 2017 for the $35.00 strike price had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today. What is Implied Volatility? Implied volatility shows how much movement the market is expecting in the future. Options with high levels of implied volatility could mean that investors in the underlying stocks are expecting a big move in one direction or the other. It could also mean there is an event coming up soon that could cause a big rally or a huge sell off. However, implied volatility is only one piece of the puzzle when putting together an options trading strategy. What do the Analysts Think? Clearly, options traders are pricing in a big move for Orchids Paper Products shares, but what is the fundamental picture for the company? Currently, Orchids Paper Products is a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) in the Paper and Related Products industry that ranks in the bottom 37% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Over the last 60 days, no analysts have increased their earnings estimates for the current quarter, while 2 have dropped the estimate. The net effect has taken our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter from 30 cents per share to 11 cents per share in that period. Given the way analysts feel about Orchids Paper Products right now, this huge implied volatility could mean theres a trade developing. Often times, options traders look for options with high levels of implied volatility to sell premium. This is a strategy many seasoned traders use because it captures decay. At expiration, the hope for these traders is that the underlying stock does not move as much as originally expected. Looking to Trade Options? Each week, our very own Dave Bartosiak gives his top options trades. Check out his recent live analysis and options trade for the LULU earnings report completely free. See it here: Big Winning Options Trade on Lululemon (LULU) or check out the embed video below for more details: Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Orchids Paper Products Company (TIS): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The World Economic Forum estimated that up to 5.1 million jobs could be displaced by 2020. Microsofts CTO for Data, Raghu Ramakrishnan, says hes not too concerned about the artificial intelligence revolution thats supposed to displace millions of jobs over the next few years. If I take the employment side of it, Im not even sure its on top of my list of things to worry about, Ramakrishnan told Yahoo Finance at this weeks tech-focused Collision conference in New Orleans. Regardless of his attitude, some critics are extremely worried, fearing technology will come for many jobs that workers currently rely upon. The World Economic Forum released a report in January 2016 that predicts AI, machine learning, and other nascent technologies will spur a so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution that replaces 5.1 million jobs by 2020. According to the report, jobs across every industry and every geographical region in 15 of the worlds largest economies Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, the UK and the US, among others will be affected. Microsoft CTO for Data Ragu Ramakrishnan. Source: Microsoft Ramakrishnan, who runs Microsofts (MSFT) team for cloud, data management and analytics services, pointed to the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries to back up his optimistic attitude despite these recent reports of a robot revolution. By comparison, on a percentage basis, the impact of that is vastly greater than what were talking about now, and if you look at the history of it, yeah, I think the world ultimately came out ahead, Ramakrishnan explained. For every single thing you displace, the nature of the beast is, some other opportunity opens up, and it is beyond me to think about all the common permutational aspects and combinations. But realistically, we are in a far better place than we were 200 years ago or 2,000 years ago. Its been these episodic functions something hugely disruptive that settle, and typically, they settle on a higher platform. How AI helps (not hurts) Ramakrishnan joins a chorus of high-profile members of the tech community who believe the AI revolution will be a force for good even if it upends some of the methods and processes we presently use to get things done. Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer told Yahoo Finance this January at CES that the focus by some critics on job displacement overlooks the larger benefits AI and other technologies. As one example, he pointed to AI reducing the number of car accidents that happen every year thanks to intelligent auto-breaking systems. Story continues Likewise, Ramakrishnan suggests newer technologies can benefit workers by connecting them to users in new ways. Thats what I think is going to happen, Ramakrishnan added. Were talking about, oh, my god, if technology displaces a number of people, who are roofless, whats going to happen? Well, there will be a Handyman.com that will create a new way of connecting for them, that will create a pathway into jobs that were previously not economically harvestable. Unexpected, new things like these, will help make this transition easier than some might think. JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook. More from JP: LEAKED PHOTOS: Fitbits new headphones and troubled smartwatch Why it doesnt matter that Amazons most popular service costs it billions RBC: Amazon has a potential mega-hit on its hands How Uber can fix its reputation Silicon Valley star: This theme will dominate Season 4 Facebook exec: How Messenger can improve your social life Carter Page The Senate Intelligence Committee appears to have sent Carter Page and other Trump associates a letter on April 28 asking them to provide extensive information about any contact they had with Russian officials or representatives of Russian business interests since June 2015. Page, an early foreign-policy adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign, volunteered to be interviewed by the committee in March as part of its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump's associates colluded with Kremlin officials. The committee, led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, asks Page to make himself available for a "closed interview with designated committee staff to be scheduled for a mutually agreeable time," according to the letter, a copy of which Page sent to Business Insider. Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone received similar letters, according to the New York Times. Manafort served as Trump's campaign chairman and Flynn was Trump's former national security adviser. Stone is an informal adviser to Trump. Ahead of the closed interview, the letter asks Page to provide "a list of all meetings between you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017," including "the date, location, all individuals present, and complete copies of any notes taken by you or on your behalf." It also asks for information about any financial holdings Page had in Russia between June 2015-January 2017. Trump announced his presidential campaign on June 15, 2015, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. It is unclear whether Flynn, Manafort, and Stone were asked to provide the same information. Page was also asked to submit "all communications records such as email or text messages, written correspondence, and phone records, of communications which took place between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017, to which you and any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests was a party." Story continues Additionally, the committee asked Page to provide a fuller look into whether anyone else in the Trump campaign may have spoken to or about Russians or Russia. It requests "all communication records ... related in any way to Russia, conducted between you and members and advisors of the Trump campaign," as well as "a list of all meetings of which you are aware between any individual affiliated with the Trump campaign and any Russian official or representative of Russian business" between June 16, 2015, and January 20, 2017. The letter is dated about four days after reports surfaced that more than three months into the committee's investigation, it hadn't issued any subpoenas or requested any key documents such as emails, memos, and phone records from members or associates of the Trump campaign, according to multiple media outlets. According to Yahoo, Burr had "failed to respond to requests from the panel's Democrats to sign letters" asking for such documents. Burr's signature appears on the letter to Page. Richard Burr Mark Warner Page sent a lengthy response, a copy of which he provided to Business Insider. "Although you set a range of suggested deadlines for the various extensive administrative tasks on your list over the coming weeks, I instead decided to initially get back to you today on the National Day of Prayer," Page wrote to the committee in a letter dated May 4. "Having survived the hate crimes committed against me by the Clinton/Obama regime which were in some part pursued due to my Roman Catholic faith ... finding strength through prayer in my church and by myself has remained a core source of support throughout this ongoing comically fake inquiry," he said. Page addressed the committee's requests, which he referred to as "cumbersome chores." He said that while he remained "committed to helping the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in any way that I can ... please note that any records I may have saved as a private citizen with limited technology capabilities will be minuscule in comparison to the full database of information which has already been collected under the direction of the Obama administration during last year's completely unjustified FISA warrant that targeted me for exercising my First Amendment rights." On Friday afternoon, Burr and Warner released a joint statement saying that "the committee will consider its next steps" if Page does not provide the requested materials by listed deadlines. "Mr. Page has indicated in correspondence to the Committee that he looks forward to working with us on the matter, and that our cooperation will help resolve what he claims are false allegations," the senators wrote. "For that to happen, Mr. Page must supply the requested documents to the Commmitee." The FBI obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last summer to monitor Page's communications, The Washington Post reported in April. The FBI reportedly is investigating Page's trips to Moscow and contact with at least one Russian official last year. "As a lone individual, I can assure you that my personal administrative capabilities pale in comparison to the clerical juggernaut represented by the numerous staff in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the US government which have heretofore been allegedly involved in this unscrupulous surveillance for many months on end," Page wrote. Page previously told Business Insider he thought the FISA requests were "unjustified." But the government's application for the warrant targeting Page has been renewed more than once, The Post reported, and "included 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." NOW WATCH: Yale history professor: Trump's path to tyranny is unfolding More From Business Insider For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available on iOS and Android. President Donald Trump issued his first statement on medical marijuana since he took office. Trump on Friday signed a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that will keep the federal government funded through September 30. The congressionally approved bill includes a rider the Rohrabacher - Blumenauer Amendment that disallows the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from using federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana businesses in states where medical marijuana is legal. Marijuana is illegal at the federal level, though 29 states have varying degrees of medical marijuana legalization on the books. The amendment doesn't extend to recreational marijuana, which is legal in eight states. Trump, who has stayed mum on the topic of marijuana since the election, finally gave an indication as to where he stands on the issue in his statement after he signed the bill: "Division B, section 537 provides that the Department of Justice may not use any funds to prevent implementation of medical marijuana laws by various States and territories. I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Tom Angell, the founder of Marijuana Majority, an advocacy group, told Business Insider he thinks that Trump's statement is the federal government's way of "asserting their right" to go after certain medical marijuana businesses if they choose to at a later date. "[M]y read is it's basically saying they reserve the right to do whatever they want and enforce prohibition regardless of the statutory prohibition on doing so," Angell said, though he doesn't think it necessarily indicates a federal crackdown on medical marijuana is coming. A variety of medicinal marijuana buds in jars are pictured at Los Angeles Patients & Caregivers Group dispensary in West Hollywood, California U.S., October 18, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni A federal court the 9th circuit, which has blocked two of Trump's high-profile executive actions ruled last year that the amendment protects patients and providers acting in accordance with state medical marijuana laws, despite the Justice Department insisting the opposite, notes Angell. Story continues Michael Collins, the deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in an email that Trump continues to send "mixed messages" on marijuana. "After stating during the campaign that he was '100%' in support of medical marijuana, he now issues a signing statement casting doubt on whether his Administration will adhere to a congressional rider that stops DOJ from going after medical marijuana programs," Collins said. "The uncertainty is deeply disconcerting for patients and providers, and we urge the Administration to clarify their intentions immediately," Collins added. Robert Capecchi, the director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in an email that Congress is growing "increasingly comfortable" with states adopting medical and recreational marijuana policies. "Unfortunately, spending prohibitions like these expire at the end of the fiscal year, so there is still a need for a long-term solution," Capecchi added. Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, told Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper during a private meeting in April that prosecuting state-legal marijuana businesses wouldn't be a priority for the Justice Department. NOW WATCH: Yale history professor: Heres why it's useful to compare Trump's actions to Hitler's More From Business Insider RENO, Nevada and TOKYO, May 04, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ORA) and ORIX Corporation (TSE:8591) (NYSE:IX) announced today that ORIX will acquire an approximately $627 million ownership stake in Ormat by purchasing approximately 11.0 million shares of Ormat common stock from FIMI ENRG Limited Partnership, FIMI ENRG, L.P. (collectively, "FIMI"), Bronicki Investments, Ltd. ("Bronicki"), and senior members of management, representing in the aggregate an approximately 22.1% ownership position in Ormat. The per share sale price to be paid by ORIX at closing (subject to satisfaction of customary conditions, including regulatory approvals) is $57, which was the prevailing market price at the time that ORIX, FIMI and Bronicki reached agreement on the commercial terms of their transaction. The parties expect closing (including with respect to the agreements described below) to occur in the third quarter of 2017. Under terms of a new Commercial Cooperation Agreement between the two companies, Ormat will have exclusive rights to develop, own, operate and provide equipment for ORIX geothermal energy projects in all markets outside of Japan. In addition, Ormat will have certain rights to serve as technical partner and co-invest in ORIX geothermal energy projects in Japan. Also, ORIX will assist Ormat in obtaining project financing for its geothermal energy projects from a variety of leading providers of renewable energy debt financing with which ORIX has relationships in Asia and around the world. Under related agreements, ORIX will have the right to designate three persons to be appointed to an expanded nine-person Ormat board of directors and also propose a fourth person to be mutually agreed by Ormat and ORIX to serve as a new independent director on the Ormat board. In addition, for so long as ORIX is entitled to board representation, ORIX will be subject to certain customary standstill restrictions, including an effective 25% cap on its voting rights. ORIX will also have certain customary registration rights with respect to the shares of Ormat common stock that it will own. A Special Committee of the Ormat board of directors was formed to evaluate and negotiate the shareholder arrangements proposed by ORIX. The Special Committee received independent legal counsel from Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. The agreements between ORIX and Ormat were executed by Ormat following the unanimous recommendation of the Special Committee and the unanimous approval by the Ormat board of directors. "We are excited to partner with ORIX, one of the worlds leading diversified companies with operations in 36 countries, to advance the interests of both companies," commented Gillon Beck, Ormat's Chairman. "With ORIX's significant presence around the world, access to capital and strong positioning throughout Asia, we believe Ormat can enhance and accelerate its strategic growth plans in the renewable energy market. We expect this collaboration will expand the number and quality of growth opportunities that Ormat enjoys around the world, particularly in Asia." Mr. Beck added "These past years have been exciting ones characterized by continued growth and strategy execution. I would like to thank the devoted management and employees of Ormat for their relentless efforts. ORIX is joining an amazing company and I am confident that Ormat will continue to excel and reach new highs." We are delighted to be partnering with Ormat to support the companys expansion in the global geothermal energy market said Mr. Yuichi Nishigori, Head of Energy and Eco Services Business Headquarters of ORIX. As one of Asias leading investors in the renewable energy sector, and with a growing portfolio of renewable energy investments around the world, we recognize the importance of having clean, reliable, baseload power such as that which geothermal provides, and we believe that the geothermal sector has the potential to become an increasingly large component of the worlds overall energy mix. Given Ormats technological leadership and increasingly global portfolio of operations, we believe the company is well positioned to help lead this expansion, and we look forward to working with the Ormat board and existing management team to facilitate the companys future growth and value creation. Following the meetings and discussions I had with ORIXs management in the last several weeks, I am confident that this significant cooperation agreement will support our strategic plan to expand our geographical footprint as well as technological and customer base said Isaac Angel, Ormats CEO. We expect that the comprehensive capabilities and track record of Ormat together with ORIXs commitment to expanding the scope of its geothermal and other renewable energy activities will accelerate our growth. I look forward to leading our cooperation with ORIX on future opportunities. About Ormat Technologies With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal company and the only vertically integrated company engaged in geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG), with the objective of becoming a leading global provider of renewable energy. The company owns, operates, designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and REG power plants primarily based on the Ormat Energy Converter a power generation unit that converts low-, medium- and high-temperature heat into electricity. With 73 U.S. patents, Ormats power solutions have been refined and perfected under the most grueling environmental conditions. Ormat has 474 employees in the United States and over 700 overseas. Ormats flexible, modular solutions for geothermal power and REG are ideal for the vast range of resource characteristics. The company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling 2,200 MW of gross capacity. Ormats current 727 MW generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Kenya, Guatemala, and Guadeloupe. About ORIX ORIX Corporation (TSE:8591) (NYSE:IX) is an opportunistic, diversified, innovation-driven global powerhouse with a proven track record of profitability. Established in 1964, ORIX at present operates a diverse portfolio of businesses in the operations, financial services, and investment spaces. ORIXs highly complementary business activities span industries including: energy, private equity, infrastructure, automotive, ship and aircraft, real estate and retail financial services. ORIX has also spread its business globally by establishing locations in a total of 36 countries and regions across the world. Through its business activities, ORIX has long been committed to corporate citizenship and environmental sustainability. Safe Harbor Statement Information provided in this press release may contain statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally relate to the parties plans, objectives and expectations for future operations and are based upon the parties' current estimates and projections of future results or trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and neither party undertakes any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. - Reno Omokri has dropped a word for Joe Igbokwe - He shared a photo of a young man who tattooed Ojukwu's face on his back as a sign of solidarity Reno Omokri, the spokesperson to former president Goodluck Jonathan shared a photo to prove that the Igbo people are interested in Nnamdi Kanus case. Omokri called out Joe Igbokwe who said Igbo people are not interested in Nnamdi Kanus case by showing him how far ardent supporters of the race are willing to go. In a picture posted by Omokri, a young Nigerian man whom he termed as a young, educated and successful Nigerian youth from the Southeast tattooed his back with the picture of Ojukwu and a map representing Biafra. A successful Nigerian youth tattooes Ojukwu's face and Biafran logo on his back. READ ALSO: Woman, 28, who is Harvard Law School's first deaf-blind graduate See the post made by Reno Omokri on his Facebook page: READ ALSO: NYSC member meets his wife, buys his first car while serving Finding someone who would go that far to support a cause is incredible. Omokri said he believes in Nigeria and urged people not to be blind to reality. Meanwhile Nnamdi Kanu is now a free man; he has been released from the prison where he has been locked up for months. Watch the Legit.ng video below to learn how he became a free man: Source: Legit.ng On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ... Smartphones have largely replaced portable media players for most people. Its been a few years since Apple bothered to update its iPod touch, and its been even longer since Ive seen any other company try to offer a good Android-powered alternative to Apples touchscreen media player. Sometimes it can be useful to have a device that doesnt make phone calls, send text messages, or do anything else that requires paying a monthly fee. Sure, you could pay $199 or more for an iPod touch. But you could also just buy a cheap Android phone and then not activate it. That option could save you as much as $180, because Walmart and Best Buy are each selling surprisingly decent Android phones for as little as $20. Walmart sells this for just $19.88. It features a 4.5 inch, 854 x 480 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, a microSD card slot, front and rear cameras, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor, a 1890 mAh (6.76 Wh) battery, and Android 6.0 software. Its not going to win any speed awards, but its more than capable of functioning as a small, cheap media player, web browser, or handheld device for casual games. I actually picked one up recently, and it suffers from limited screen viewing angles and the audio quality from the headphone jack isnt superb, but its certainly acceptable for a $20 device. Best of all, if you disable WiFi and enable Androids battery saver mode, you can get stellar battery life. After playing music for more than 5 hours with the screen on, the Pixi 4 was reporting that it still had 63 percent of its battery capacity left to burn through. Oh, and the battery is user replaceable, something thats not true of many phones that are significantly more expensive. So whats the catch? This phone is locked to Walmarts Family Mobile service. So if you do plan to use this $20 Pixi 4 smartphone as, well, a phone then your only choice is to use it with Walmarts pre-paid wireless network (with plans starting at $25 per month). The $20 price is also technically a discount. The phone has a list price of $40, and other stores are selling similar Alcatel smartphones for even more. So you may not always be able to pick up a Pixi 4 for this price. At $20, its a steal. But Im not sure Id recommend this phone for $60 or more when there are significantly better phones available in that price range. ZTE Midnight Pro 4G LTE Best Buy sells this 5 inch smartphone for just $19.99. Like the Walmart Pixi 4, the ZTE Midnight Pro 4G LTE is locked to a budget wireless carrier. In this case, the phone is designed for use with Simple Mobile, a pre-paid carrier with plans that start at $26 per month. But like the Pixi 4, this is a phone you should be able to use without activating the cellular service. The ZTE Midnight Pro 4G LTE has a Snapdragon 210 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, an 854 x 480 pixel display, a microSDHC card reader, and a 2,300 mAh battery. Its a little larger than the Alcatel phone, but has a bigger battery. On the down side, the ZTE phone ships with Android 5.1, which is an older version of Googles mobile operating system. I wouldnt really expect either phone to get any major software updates. Both phones include the Play Store These phones both support Google Mobile Services, and come with the Google Play Store pre-installed. That means you have access to millions of Android apps out-of-the box. If youd prefer not to login with a Google account or use the Play Store, you could also set up the phones with a third-party app store like F-Droid. That way if you lose the phone while out on a run, you dont have to worry about someone gaining access to your personal data. Or you could give the phone to a kid without worrying that theyll start purchasing paid apps without your permission. A few other notes I havent personally used the ZTE Midnight Pro 4G LTE yet, so I cant say how it compares with the Pixi 4 in terms of audio quality, screen viewing angles, or battery life. But there is one thing the Midnight Pro has going for it: Best Buys website allows you to buy as many as 5 phones, while Walmart will only let you purchase 2 Pixi 4 phones. The reason I know that is because, as I mentioned recently, Ive been in the market for some cheap MP3 players to use as part of an upcoming multimedia exhibit in Philadelphia. While I really like the super-cheap Simplicity Fashion Pocket MP3 Player, it doesnt have a display. And ultimately we decided a portable music player with a screen would be preferable. After looking for a good portable media player in the $20-or-less price range, I ultimately realized that a cheap phone would be the best option since it would have a larger, easier-to-read display and the ability to run a variety of apps. Its also more likely that Ill be able to find a use for these phones after the exhibit closes. Look, Im not saying these are good phones, or even particularly good portable media players. But they meet my needs at the moment, and theyre way more versatile than any $20 device really has a right to be probably because theyve got more than $20 worth of hardware under the hood. A big part of the reason theyre sold this cheap is because Walmart, Best Buy, and Simple Mobile expect you to sign up for cellular service. But you dont have to. Ill update this post with some notes about the ZTE phone after Ive had a chance to test one. It's long been said that many of Trump's insults of others are really him projecting his own perceived faults upon others. Some more examples from this post: OUTA is pursuing legal avenues which will compel the RTIA and relevant metros to withdraw all unlawfully-processed traffic fines. This follows the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) losing its application to appeal a Gauteng High Court judgement which found that all traffic fines issued since 2008 did not comply with the conditions outlined in the AARTO Act, and should be cancelled. OUTA said the authorities have not applied themselves in accordance with the legal processes and regulations under the AARTO Act. As per the judgement, the public now has every right to challenge authorities refusing to renew vehicle and drivers licences, said OUTA. This judgment is a win for the people and a sign that active citizenry, when applied effectively, holds authorities accountable for unjust actions, said OUTA Chairperson Wayne Duvenage. He said it is important the RTIA shifts its policy of treating traffic enforcement as a revenue generating tool to one of addressing road safety issues. Now read: Outa lays charges against Hlaudi Motsoeneng Swedish parliament will vote to change constitution for NATO membership on November 16 Reactor at nuclear power plant in southern Sweden stops unexpectedly due to turbine malfunction Margaret Thatcher's dressing table case sells for $145 Zakharova comments on Azerbaijani attacks on Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh Israel may reconsider its position on military aid to Ukraine because of threat from Iran Tehran expresses readiness to play role in resolving conflict between Russia and Ukraine Zakharova: Russia closely coordinates with Armenia and Azerbaijan on preparation of peace treaty U.S. cut its oil production forecast in 2023 Gen. of Justice: Armenia is already going to abyss MFA says Russia promotes comprehensive settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations Australia to ban former military pilots from working in China Ministry: 1,034 participants of 44-day Karabakh war declared disabled Russian Security Council Secretary accuses Western intelligence services of organizing unrest in Iran Niagara Falls is illuminated in colors of Azerbaijani flag through efforts of Azerbaijani Embassy to U.S. 'Armenia' bloc: Authorities going to peace at any cost legitimize change of power Dollar falls, euro rises in Armenia FT: Taiwan plans to establish drone production, allocated $1.6 billion Azerbaijan's 'Horst Wessel' for Iran: Baku media replicates 'murder story' Tesla recalls 40,000 electric cars because of problems with power steering Sky News: Russia handed over Javelin, NLAW and Stinger missiles to Iran in exchange for drones Russia has record number of Armenia migrants outflow Stoltenberg says NATO summit will be held in Vilnius on July 11-12, 2023 Iranian Interior Ministry: Organizers of riots in Iran were trained in 8 unfriendly countries Europe fills its gas storage facilities almost 100% before cold season Greece MPs visit Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan Strasbourg city council adopts resolution on supporting Armenia Ohanyan: We see hope in Armenia-Russia-Azerbaijan format regarding Karabakhs future Turkey says it will not focus only on Russian gas David Babayan says Azerbaijan makes propaganda against Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh Former ECHR judge: UN Security Council does not consider Karabakh's separation illegal Shavarsh Kocharyan says current PM took step of declaring Armenia aggressor AraratBank underwrites FINCA UCO bonds First ombudsperson says current Armenian authorities are illegitimate Armenian National Committee of America: Dr. Oz Defeated in Pennsylvania Senate race Head of Turkish Ministry of Agriculture: 10.1 million tons of grain exported from Ukrainian ports Putin and Lukashenko discuss upcoming CSTO meeting by phone Armenia legislature discusses issues of residents of Karabakhs Kashatagh region handed over to Azerbaijan President pays tribute to martyrs of 3rd Artsakh war Australian pedophile sentenced to 129 years in Philippines Japan says North Korea launches alleged ballistic missile British cabinet minister resigns after recent harassment allegations Eleving Group member Mogo applies the best practices in Armenia Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan will have to take new realities into account in near future Iran MFA. Azerbaijan president's reaction is incomprehensible Parliament speaker considers transit visa requirement for Armenia citizens at Poland airports worrisome Pashinyan: Armenia-Cambodia warm relations have great prospects for development Karabakh state ministers advisor: Aliyev statement was once again filled with confessions of use of force Javier Colomina: NATO supports normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations Copper falls in price Iran official: Goal of $3bn trade with Armenia will be realized under this government Karabakh FM: Azerbaijan has become more aggressive, brazen with Turkeys support MOD: Artsakh army units did not open fire towards Azerbaijan positions Oil prices go down Armenia Security Council chief briefs Poland Senate vice-speaker on regional developments Azerbaijan fires at Armenia positions Gold prices go down Newspaper: Armenia law enforcement agencies operative intelligence teams to enter several officials houses US midterm elections virtually over, counting of votes underway US State Department: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agreed to continue meetings, direct dialogue India's Supreme Court releases men sentenced to death for rape and murder Global South needs $2 trillion year to fight climate crisis McDonald's releases chair for gamers with burger stand The Telegraph: Rishi Sunak to announce major natural gas deal with US after COP27 summit U.S. officials secretly ask major banks to continue doing business with some Russian firms 19fortyfive: Is America tired of the war in Ukraine? EU replaces pipeline Russian gas with imported Russian LNG Kommersant: China split the 'unity' of the West Expert estimates level of Azerbaijan's information attack on Armenia in September, comparing it to 44-day war UK wants to work more with the U.S. on gas supplies Donald Trump votes in Florida midterm elections 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 Sales skills are must-have for Armenian hi-tech startups, Mr Jesus Lozano, strategic consultant with Silicon Seeds, told Armenia News NEWS.am correspondent. Lozano, who attended a startup competition in Yerevan, is a member of a business angel (early-stage startup investor) network based in Spain, noted that while Armenian engineers are at home with engineering or coding, they dont think too much about how to sell their product. Your engineers are good all-rounders, which is not always the case for other countries. Every engineer can do some coding, while in Spain, for example, electronic and software engineering courses dont have much to do with each other. But on the other hand, they might make a smart chair, or a smart toothbrush, and think people are going to buy it somehow, he said. 20 years back, when Lozano started out, there were much less networking events and almost no business angels. But those startups which focused no customers and sales were making it through. As an investor, I ask startups whos going to buy what they make. Show me one hundred interviews with customers. Have you asked them do they want that device or that app? If not, then why? Stop thinking about investors or grants all the time. Just go on selling. They validate your business case. No sells, no investors. Simple as that, he stressed. STEP (Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program) innovation forum, which took place in Yerevan on May 4-5, was organized by the EU4Business initiative of the European Commission, GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation), and the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF), based in Yerevan. YEREVAN. The date and location of the first-ever brandy festival, which is organized by the Fund for Tourism Development in Armenia, is unchanged. The event will be held on Sunday, in Tsaghkadzor town, the fund informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The objective of this open-air festival is to increase the international recognition of Armenian brandy, and to advertise it in traditional and new markets. Leading brandy manufacturers of Armenia will take part in this event, and with individual stands. Armenian national cuisine also will be represented at the festival. In addition, there will be numerous stands displaying souvenirs, handicrafts, artwork, jewelry, clothing, etc. A musical show also will take place during the event. The brandy festival will end with a fireworks display. Admission to this event is free. Between May 1, 2016 and February 28, 2017, a total of 20 people were killed in Artsakh, from the shots fired by the adversary. The Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman), Ruben Melikyan, stated the aforesaid at a press conference on Saturday. We consider this a very large number, added Melikyan. We regularly voice that Azerbaijan continuously allows violations of the ceasefire regime. Our task is to present the situation in an understandable language for the international community, [and] present information about these violations, [and] which we are doing. In recent months, the border tension was unstable, added Artsakhs ombudsman. But () this tension should be used in order to get stronger. In his words, their priority is the work towards the human rights violations as a result of the war in April 2016when Azerbaijan had unleashed a large-scale military aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh, and the respective interim report is published. The important thing here is what we can do, [and] what our mandate is, noted Ruben Melikyan. We conducted a fact-finding mission, presented it to the international community, [and] raised the matter. Around 23 cases already have been communicated by the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights], which is not little. The human rights defender of Artsakh added that the material was prepared with international standards, and that human rights activists have used it as information source. The function of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (KSOR) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) includes elements of struggle against international terrorism, which supposes that the subunits can be activated in that direction. Director of the Armenian branch of the Institute of CIS States, political scientist Alexander Markarov told the aforementioned to Armenian News NEWS.am, referring to the statement of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov on the possibility of activating the Russian bases abroad. The political scientist recalled that the Russian military base in Armenia, which is an element of security of the republic, at the same time plays a role in the struggle against international terrorism. What is the link between ISIS and Armenia? I would like to remind that Syria is not that far, terrorism knowing no borders, he noted. Theoretically, the mentioned functions are enshrined by agreements and all the resources can be used, if needed, Markarov concluded. Prior to joining the Eurasian Union, Armenia did its own study and compared what kind of economic effect it would get after having DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement) with the EU and joining the EEU, Armenian Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan said in an interview with editor-in-chief of emerging-europe.com, Andrew Wrobel. Actually, theres a good saying, If you want to gain your own benefits, do not blame your counterpart for not having to taking that opportunity. Instead of blaming others, you need to think about what you need to do in order to gain your own benefits. Frankly speaking, prior to joining this Eurasian Union, we did our own study and compared what kind of economic effect we would get after having DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement) with the EU and joining the EEU. The economic short-term effect of an EU DCFTA membership was estimated to be around, hopefully, 1.06 percentage points of our GDP. For a long-term period it was about two percentage points, without the multiplier effect, the minister said. Referring to the benefits of the EEU membership, he noted: Well, we did this study, with support from the World Bank, about joining the ECU. We estimated that we were going to get at least 2.4 percentage points, annually, because of it. Today, people are critical because exports to Russia declined in 2015 but that was because of the depreciation of the Russian exchange rate vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar and appreciation of our currency vis-a-vis Russian rouble in real terms, as well as a dramatic decline in local demand in Russia. If we only count the impact of gas prices, which we buy from Russia, the 30 per cent export tariff does not apply here because we are a member of the EEU. The nominal effect is around $140 million per year. $140 million is almost 1.4 percentage points of our GDP and I am not talking about the second round effect of energy tariffs. The price of gas translates into energy prices, which have an effect on the cost of supply that is covered by Armenian companies, and for sure, it could harm their competitiveness. In Aramyans words, there is also the political aspect of the EEU membership. Yes, many politicians say that being part of the EU could foster reforms, as the EU is more advanced, but we are working closely with both the EU and the EEU. Actually, the EEU is a custom union at this stage. However, we have a much broader aspect of cooperation with the EU. We are seeing reforms in good governance, reforms in our human rights; judiciary and business environment and we are going to continue that, he said. YEREVAN. - The document initialed with the EU reflects the essence and the depth of the Armenia-EU cooperation. Foreign Minister of Armenia, Edward Nalbandian, noted the aforementioned in his opening speech before the concert of the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra entitled Europe for Peace on the occasion of the Europe Day. The event organized by the EU Delegation to Armenia was held at the Aram Khachaturyan Concert Hall in Yerevan. Below is the text of the opening speech of the Armenian FM: Mr. Ambassador, Dear friends, I congratulate you on the occasion of Europe Day and express my gratitide to the EU Delegation to Armenia for organizing this concert. Since its independence Armenia has built strong relations with the EU, which are based on efficient cooperation and mutual respect. With the assistance of the EU we have implemented reforms in a number of sectors, most notably in the public administration, justice, electoral system, and many others, that are aimed at the strengthening of the fundamental freedoms and welfare of our society. Many joint programs are still in the implementation stage, while many will be implemented in the future. We highly value people to people contacts and attach great importance to the projects that bring our societies closer. It is noteworthy that the current year began with a quite intensive European agenda. President of Armenia and President of the European Council announced the end of the negotiation process of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement in Brussels, in February, and already in March it was initialed in Yerevan. It is a document that reflects the essence and the depth of the Armenia-EU cooperation. In the coming days, we will endorse the Armenia-EU Partnership Priorities for 2017-2020 that will set new guidelines for our cooperation. Ladies and Gentlemen, After the victory over the Nazism in the Second World War, Europe has become a criterion of peace, solidarity and sustainable development anchored on universal values that up to now serve as an example for many. Europe Day signifies exactly this high system of values that we pay a special tribute to by celebrating tonight. Happy Europe Day! The article published in Georgian media on the situation emerged around the Holy Mother of God Shamkhoretsots Armenian church of Tbilisi has sparked heated discussions in social networks. Various citizens have rebuked the competent city authorities, especially the Tbilisi municipality, for allowing to build a three-storey building near the church, Alik Media reports. Georgian periodical Liberali.ge has already published the second large article on this topic, expressing concern over the fact that the project of the high residential building near the Armenian church has been approved by the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection. According to points 1 and 2 of Article 41 of the [Georgian] Law on Cultural Heritage, the issue on the construction permit of the residential house at Isan 28, Tbilisi, was transferred to the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection, which gave a positive response to it, the Tbilisi municipality informed in response to the inquiry of the periodical. The topic has raised a dust in social networks, where hundreds of citizens shared the article, admonishing the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection and Tbilisi Municipality. "This is the justice and tolerance of Georgia," the users write, qualifying the occurrence as impudence. "Everything is destroyed according to the decisions of impudent people," "I am afraid to stay out longer in the street: a building may be built on me as well" and various similar posts have flooded the social networks these days. Armenian Shamkhoretsots or Karmir Avetaran Holy Mother of God church, which is the tallest Armenian church located in once densely Armenian-populated Avlabari neighborhood, is considered one of the six disputed churches. The Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection has repeatedly announced that the work aimed at the restoration of historical monuments has been launched, giving the priority to those, which are in the worst state. Currently, only the eastern wall of Shamkhoretsots church is steady, which, according to the specialists, will most probably collapse during the construction underway at a distance of 5-6 meters from the church. Shabaab Posts Alleged Identity, Photo of Fallen U.S. Soldier in Somalia African-American Death Rate Drops 25 Percent A new CDC report shows a decline from 1999 to 2015 According to the CDCs Vital Signs report, the death rate for African-Americans declined 25 percent from 1999 to 2015. However, the life expectancy for African-Americans is still 4 years less than that of Caucasians. The biggest point of concern in the study discusses the effects of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. African-Americans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are more likely to live with or die from these conditions, while Caucasians typically suffer from the conditions later in life. The most dramatic decrease occurred in African-American deaths among 18-to 49-year-olds due to HIV. That number decreased by 80 percent from 1999 to 2015. We have seen some remarkable improvements in death rates for the black population in these past 17 years. Important gaps are narrowing due to improvements in the health of the black population overall. However, we still have a long way to go, said Leandris Liburd, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.A., associate director, CDCs Office of Minority Health and Health Equity. Early health interventions can lead to longer, healthier lives. In particular, diagnosing and treating the leading diseases that cause death at earlier stages is an important step for saving lives. For more information on the report, click here. Its really true that a rising tide lifts all boats. And when the water level in the Milwaukee River rises, as it has done this year, it also lifts all Downtown bridges more often. We stopped in at the Michigan Street Bridge house to talk to Bridge Operations Supervisor Timothy Thompson and Bridge Operator Chris Neldner, both 26-year veterans of Milwaukees upward swinging bascule and vertical lift bridges (these moveable bridges are so associated with the city that they are informally called "Milwaukee bridges"), which have been opening at a record rate this year thanks to the high water levels. Chris Neldner at the Michigan Street controls. Here, they tell us about the various facets of the bridges and their jobs... Opening the bridges Tim Thompson: The remote panels we have are equipped to operate six bridges at a time. But that gets a little bit hairy after a while. And this is the only bridge house that has the swing-around arm: the whole control panel moves (so the operator can look to the south or to the north). The system is redundant, so what it means is that you can go to St. Paul Avenue and operate Michigan Street or be on Michigan and operate St. Paul. Wisconsin Avenue operates Clybourn. Michigan operates St. Paul. Water Street operates North and South 6th and Kilbourn. Broadway operates Emmber, which is down by Potawatomi, and Plankinton, and then KK operates South 1st street. Milwaukee actually leads the nation in remote control. One of our old bosses goes around, when he gets called, and advises different cities on how to set theirs up. Usually what happens on third shift, if I have an opening or an emergency where we need to get a fireboat through, I will call one of the other guys, and theyll hop in the truck and hot foot it up here. Or sometimes Ill walk up there myself. It depends on how fast they need to get up here. If its a pleasure craft, most of the guys dont mind (waiting for him to walk up to the next bridge), but if its something like a fireboat and they need to get up there, well call everybody up. This (bridge house) is a little bit smaller. As you go down the river Clybourn is about the same size as this one. St. Paul is awful: its about half this size. And the sad part about that is if the streetcar comes through, these guys will very possibly wind up there. Theyre getting more into the electronic age with the fiber optics and everything. Ive got an upgrade coming through here: were finally getting a fax machine. This is the equipment that actually raises and lowers the bridge. I would say KK (is the Cadillac of bridge houses). Because thats the largest one we have. The problem is they build a bigger bridge house and then we have more things that theyve got to bring in, because were going so much more with electronics touch screen, fiber optic equipment controls stuff like that. Increased activity Tim Thompson: Right now it would be Wells, Wisconsin, Michigan (are the busiest bridges). And I want to say St. Paul because the water is 29 inches higher than what it is normally, so what we end up with is, we end up have to open up for the Edelweiss boats, and also the pontoon boats. (At Water Street) they are very busy. Last week we had about 1,100 openings with seven bridges. The week before that we did 1,336. The numbers here are huge. They really are. I think over the past three years weve had a 48 percent turnover in personnel, so we basically have a whole new crew. So to have the kind of numbers were having, and were not getting many breakdowns, weve been very fortunate that we dont have any accidents whatsoever. Everything has been going pretty good. Tuesday morning I was on vacation, I took a telephone call at 7:30 in the morning from the U.S. Coast Guard out in Cleveland, he told me, "I have a complaint." And I say, "whats the complaint?" And he goes, "Well, Ive gotten a call from pedestrians, Ive gotten a call from the Girl Scouts, Ive gotten a call from traffic" and he says, the bridges are open now too much." The rules of the bridges Tim Thompson: KK (Kinnickinnic Avenue), South 1st, Broadway, Water, all the way up to Wisconsin Avenue are all on demand (there is no limit to how many times or how often they can open). North of Wisconsin Avenue, you got to have a two-hour notice. This one (Michigan Street) is the heartbeat. These guys get busy. They are answering marine radio, trying to operate two bridges, trying to answer calls from operators, trying to answer calls from boaters, answering the radios, trying to fill out paperwork. So do have a tendency to get a little overloaded. Some are manned around the clock. Wisconsin Avenue, right about now, were trying to keep that one manned 24 hours a day, because of the amount of traffic, but Michigan, Water, Broadway and KK are manned 24 hours a day. This ladder takes you about 30 feet below the surface of the river, where some mechanicals are located. Its been crazy busy. I would be surprised if we didnt hit 17,000 openings this year. We do maybe 14, 15 (normally). I think the last three years we did 13, and then we did a low 14 and a 14. And last years is still being tabulated, we are probably looking at about 15 for last year a high 15. The water started to come up again last year, but this year its really, really high. Thats our measuring device below. When the river strokes back up, it shifts to that bottom bumper. Then the Edelweiss one and two need openings. The Brew City Queen one and two. The crew Tim Thompson: There are 28 guys. First shift is usually nine or 10. Second shift varies depending on who we have in for overtime. And right now, with the water level the way it is, we are practically manning Wells Street every single night. It all depends on the workload. With everything thats been going on, this weekend we have (someone at) State Street which is normally never manned. Tim Thompson "below decks." And then next Saturday, we have State manned on overtime. Its just the amount of traffic. Everybody grabs overtime, because about eight of our people get laid off, usually the week before Thanksgiving, so theyll usually try to grab as much overtime as they can. Get bills paid ahead of time, if they can. Weve been fortunate. Weve been able to get them back. I think once or twice weve lost people, but for the most part, everybody has come back. I remember, when you and I started, we were only laid off for three months out of the year, now they are laid off five. The electricians are the guys that are under the gun when we have bridges out. These guys literally get called out of bed. There is no limit to when we call them. When a bridge is stuck in the air. Its a good crew, and they make my job a whole lot easier. The off-season Tim Thompson: Once we go into what we call our winter schedule, we then the river requires a 12-hour notice to come up through, if you have a pleasure boat. If were not busy well accommodate you, but if it starts getting a little busy then well enforce the 12-hour rule. Weve had to do that in the past, but not very often. The facilities. We have the bridges that we have to maintain and keep the sidewalks clear so that people dont slip and fall. Its a lot of work shoveling these slippery roads. You start getting some of these storms and youve got high-traffic areas like Wisconsin and Michigan and we try to keep them as clean as possible without using a lot of salt and that stuff. This year, were going to have a 48-inch brush on a small tractor (to clear snow). Along with that, rather than using a broadcast salt spreader, we have a drop spreader. And the little bit we used last year, I think we easily foresee us using 50 to 70 percent less salt. And thats good for the bridges. We also have two maintenance personnel and we do a lot of maintenance during the winter time. I have painters come in and refresh the bridge houses now, and thats what I started doing last February. Two reasons: one, they do take a beating over summer; and the other part of it is when you get the new people and when people come back, a fresh coat of paint and dressing that up a little bit makes the attitudes a little bit better. You know, everyone has had that long winter lay-off and theyre going "argh I dont wanna go to work." Well, if you bring it back and its bright and cheery and clean, then they go, "Oh... okay it not so bad." The stairs up to the control room. Looks a bit like a lighthouse. The operators job Tim Thompson: The hardest part of the job is getting up in the morning. For these guys, to be honest with you, the most challenging part is that they work six days on, two days off and they rotate in shift for three shifts every eight days. And hes been doing it for 26 years. The view south from the control room. An array of video monitors helps the operator remotely operate a bridge two blocks away. Chris Neldner: Its catching up with me over the years. It takes a toll on you. You do find that you cant keep friends. Ive found Ive missed so many things with my kids. Its real hard to plan anything. Tim Thompson: Thats their work schedule. When you want to figure out vacation you literally have to have three calendars. Its crazy. Chinese internet giant Tencent said Saturday its messaging app WeChat had been blocked in Russia, adding it was in touch with authorities to resolve the issue. WeChat, known as Weixin in China, is the world's most popular messaging service, with 889 million global users by the end of 2016. As well as messaging, it also offers payment, ride-hailing and other services, and Tencent has ambitions to spread the app beyond China. It is unclear how many users WeChat has in Russia. "We're experiencing a block and we're deeply sorry," a Tencent official said on a company microblog. "Russian regulations say online service providers have to register with the government but WeChat doesn't have the same understanding (of the rules)," the official added. A spokesman for Russia's telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor said the messaging service "did not provide its contact information for the register of information distribution organisations." "We are sending letters to iTunes and Google Play to block the app. We await a reaction. If it does not follow, access to the messenger will be limited through telecom providers," Vadim Ampelonsky told state-run RIA Novosti Friday. Earlier in the week, Roskomnadzor placed Blackberry Messenger and Line on its list of banned services for the same reasons, RIA reported. A law passed in 2014 requires foreign messaging services, search engines and social networking sites to store the personal data of Russian users inside Russia. Sites that breach the law are added to a blacklist and internet providers are obliged to block access. The law prompted criticism from internet companies but entered into force in September 2015, with professional networking site LinkedIn blocked after it was found to have broken the law. China also has strict internet regulations. Communist authorities censor online content they deem politically sensitive, while blocking some Western websites and the services of internet giants including Facebook, Twitter and Google with a vast control network dubbed the Great Firewall of China. Tencent became China's most valuable firm in September, beating state-owned telecom behemoth China Mobile and nearly reaching half of Apple's valuation. 2017 AFP US President Donald Trump has previously called climate change a 'hoax' perpetrated by China For the first time since Donald Trump's ascent to the White House, UN negotiators gather next week to draft rules to take forward the climate-rescue Paris Agreement he has threatened to abandon. The mid-year round of haggling in Bonn is meant to begin work on a crucial rulebook for signatories of the pact. But it risks being sidetracked by mounting uncertainty over the world's number two carbon polluter, with Trump at its helm. "This was supposed to be a highly technical and uneventful meeting to flesh out some of the details in the Paris Agreement. But, obviously, the speculation coming out of Washington is now at the top of our minds," the Maldives environment and energy minister, Thoriq Ibrahim, told AFP. He chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a key negotiating bloc in the UN climate forum which will meet from May 8-18. The deal was sealed at the 21st so-called "Conference of Parties" (COP 21) in the French capital in December 2015, after years of haggling. A diplomatic push led by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, and China's Xi Jinping, saw 195 countries and the EU bloc196 parties in totalOK the deal to the popping of champagne corks. Palestine has also since joined. The agreement sets the goal of limiting average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levelsand 1.5 C if possible. This will be done by curbing planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions from burning oil, coal and gasan objective to which countries have pledged voluntary, nationally-determined "contributions". Scientists project that on current pledges, Earth is on track for warming of around 3Ca scenario that would doom the planet to potentially catastrophic droughts, floods, and rising seas. Distraction Widely hailed as the last chance to stave off worst-case-scenario global warming, the Paris pact was savaged by Trump during his presidential campaign. He called climate change a "hoax" perpetrated by China, and promised to "cancel" the deal as president. With the rest of the world on tenterhooks ever since, Trump has said he will make his decision before the next G7 meeting on May 26-27 in Sicily. "The question of whether this creates a difficult backdrop for the negotiations is clearly a 'yes'," said Paula Caballero, who heads the climate programme at the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI). Historic climate deal to enter into force A State Department official confirmed a US delegation will travel to Bonn, though a "much smaller" one than in recent years. "We are focused on ensuring that decisions are not taken at these meetings that would prejudice our future policy, undermine the competitiveness of US businesses, or hamper our broader objective of advancing US economic growth and prosperity," said the official, asked about the negotiators' brief. Some fear a US withdrawal from the agreement would dampen enthusiasm for ramping up national emissions-cutting targets, required to bring them in line with the 2C target. "I can see some countries... saying: 'Well, why should we do more if the US is doing less?'," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a veteran observer of the climate negotiations. Funding cuts The Trump administration has already proposed slashing funds for the UN's climate convention, which hosts the negotiations; for the UN climate science panel; and for the Green Climate Fund that helps poor countries combat global warming. There has been a chorus of appeals from business leaders, politicians and NGOs for the US not to abandon the agreement. Much of the pressure is at home, where businesses, majors and governors have pledged to pursue a clean energy track with or without Trump. Observers say the momentum, politically at least, is unstoppable. At the last COP, held in Marrakesh in November, news of Trump's election served to spur countries into reaffirming their commitment to the pact. "International leadership on climate is more diffuse than before, and other countries are stepping up to lead both within and outside of negotiations," said Caballeropointing at major polluters China and India cutting back on coal. In fact, the US may stand to lose the mostin both political and economic influence. "It would leave America behind while other countries are benefiting from the huge economic opportunities of a transition to cleaner economies," said Caballero. Negotiators in Bonn, while attempting to take the pulse of the US delegation, must make progress on the "rulebook" which has an adoption deadline of end-2018. The guide must clarify what kind of information countries include when they report on emissions, for example, and what counts as a contribution to climate finance. The next COP, chaired by Fiji, will be held in Bonn in November. 2017 AFP - Some APC governors are reportedly making moves to take over the leadership of the party - The move follows concerns that President Buhari may have lost his popularity to help them win 2019 elections - One of their major concerns is the controversy trailing the president's health Governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are reportedly making moves to take over the leadership for fear that President Muhammadu Buhari might be too frail for their re-election campaigns. Vanguard reports that the governors claim they cannot depend on President Muhammadu Buhari for re-election or to position loyal successors in the 2019 round of elections. The governors under the aegis of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) are said to have commenced a monthly meeting of themselves and the National Working Committee (NWC) during which party policies and programmes are rehearsed. READ ALSO: CSOs, lawyers, give presidency ultimatum to reveal Buharis health status They had a meeting with the NWC on April 26 following which Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state told newsmen that. However, one of the north-west governors reportedly expressed concerns about Buharis health. A top-level party source who was privy to the meeting said: "He (the governor) reminded his colleagues that with the exception of perhaps Imo, Plateau, Lagos, Benue and one other state, all the other APC governors rode on the back of the president to clinch their current positions. He said since the president would have to take care of his health, it will now be an On Your Own situation for them. The source disclosed that the governors resolved to effectively take over party financing, with a condition attached to it. The condition is that partys leadership would cede more influence to them in terms of party processes and decisions. READ ALSO: Presidency refutes rumours of State House permanent secretary's suspension By implication, the governors are moving to seize the political reins of the party, since the president has failed or is unable to provide leadership for the Party at the national level, the source added. According to an earlier report by Legit.ng, the APC National Working Committee and the 24 governors elected on its platform held a meeting on Wednesday, April 26 at the party's national headquarters. Speaking to newsmen after the meeting Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna state said there was no cause for alarm over the presidents health. He said it was not compulsory for Buhari to preside over the Federal Executive Council meeting. Our prayer is that the president gets better and well. But the reason why he has the vice president is precisely for this reason. It may not be because he has any medical challenge that he didnt attend FEC meeting. He may have other pressing matters to attend to," he said. Buhari made his first public appearance in two weeks as he attended Fridays Juma'at service. Watch celebration that occurred in Daura, Buhari's home town in Katsina, after he returned from his mdeical leave in London after 51 days. Source: Legit.ng A judge on Friday ordered the release of a Colombian army general from prison, the first case involving a top official to be reviewed by a court system set up by the government's peace deal with the FARC rebels. Retired general Jaime Humberto Uscategui was first jailed in 1999 for failing to prevent a massacre by paramilitary commandos that killed at least 49 people. Uscategui, who professes his innocence, was the first general to be convicted because of paramilitary violence. He was granted "conditional" release after he was deemed to have met the requirements of the court system -- the Special Jurisdiction for Peace -- according to the government's judicial branch. Created by November's deal to end a half-century conflict, it was instituted to try crimes committed by rebels, government forces and some civilians. The agreement provides for the provisional release of convicted officials who have served a minimum of five years. Their release is contingent on their agreeing to testify at a truth commission. The court reviewed Uscategui's case in late March. The general had been serving 37 years for colluding with a right-wing paramilitary force that killed at least 49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in the village of Mapiripan in July 1997. A court acquitted him in 2007. However, a Bogota superior tribunal reinstated his sentence two years later. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction and the 37-year sentence in 2014. "I am not afraid of the truth," Uscategui said in a statement on Friday. "I see in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace an opportunity to prove my innocence and reclaim my good name." Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said Friday that 20 members of the security forces have already been freed and that judges have a list of 900 more set for release under the peace deal's framework. As part of the agreement, courts in February also began amnestying rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who had been sentenced only for minor crimes. Colombia's conflict -- which also involved other guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and government forces -- killed some 260,000 people while 60,000 have vanished, and 6.9 million been displaced within the country. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka withdrew his planned resignation on Friday, calling instead for the dismissal of his billionaire finance minister, a popular political rival, over suspicions of fraud. The move deepened a political crisis triggered by Sobotka's shock resignation announcement earlier this week amid a high-stakes row with Finance Minister Andrej Babis. The 62-year-old Babis is head of the centrist ANO party which is tipped to win parliamentary elections scheduled for October 20-21 in the EU and NATO member of more than 10 million people. "I will not present my resignation. I will soon ask the president of the republic to recall the finance minister," Sobotka told reporters in Prague. Sobotka changed his mind about quitting after President Milos Zeman made it clear he would opt to only replace him as prime minister and leave intact the rest of the government, including his arch-rival Babis. Last week Czech media reports had been rife with speculation that Sobotka, who heads the flagging CSSD Social Democrats, was poised to sack Babis himself. But saying he did not want to make the tycoon look like a "martyr", Sobotka tendered his entire government's resignation instead, a move that appears to have badly backfired on him. Presidential spokesman Jiri Ovcacek said Friday that Zeman "was in no rush" to push through changes, adding that he would be travelling from May 9-18, including a visit to China. "We'll analyse the situation after that," he added. - 'Huge error' - Babis called Sobotka's manoeuvring "ridiculous", telling reporters Friday that "the prime minister has changed his mind for the fourth time in a few hours, I dont get it". Czech politics were plunged into crisis on Tuesday when Sobotka, 45, said he would tender his government's resignation amid the row with Babis over alleged financial fraud, which the tycoon has flatly denied. Ranked by Forbes as the Czech Republic's second most wealthy citizen, Babis ran the sprawling Agrofert conglomerate before putting his assets into a trust earlier this year to ward off conflict of interest allegations. Sobotka has questioned the way Babis had raised money to buy tax-free bonds for Agrofert and insisted that as a finance minister fighting tax evasion, Babis should not benefit from tax loopholes. Zeman waded into the crisis on Thursday saying he would likely tap either the foreign or interior minister -- both members of Sobotka's CSSD -- to replace him as prime minister, making it clear Babis could remain finance minister. The tycoon for his part told reporters Friday that he would "leave it up to the president" to decide his fate. Prague-based political analyst Tomas Lebeda told AFP that Sobotka had become the victim of his own "ill conceived decision", calling his move to quit a "huge error" just months ahead of a general election. "Instead of putting pressure on the president and the finance minister, the prime minister put himself under pressure," Lebeda said, adding that it was "extremely difficult to make any predictions." Babis is the Czech Republic's most popular politician, with a 56 percent approval rating according to an April CVVM poll, compared with 39 percent for Sobotka, in sixth place. The Slovak-born self-made businessman has worked to present himself and the ANO (Yes) party he set up 2012 as being tough on corruption, something voters perceive as pervasive in often murky Czech politics. Sobotka has been in office since 2014, with his CSSD Social Democrats sharing power in a coalition government with the ANO and the smaller centre-right KDU-CSL Christian Democrats. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday upbraided Switzerland for allegedly monitoring German finance inspectors who hunt cross-border tax cheats. In a further sign of Germany's anger over the affair, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible" but hoped it would not "wreck" the countries' good relationship. On April 28, German prosecutors said they had arrested a Swiss man, identified as Daniel M., 54, who was accused of carrying out espionage activities since 2012. According to the German media, his alleged mission was to identify German tax investigators involved in purchasing stolen data on German residents who illegally stashed their money in Switzerland. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio on Saturday, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible." He said he had discussed the affair with Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who assured him that monitoring of German tax inspectors was not ongoing, as it had stopped in 2014. Gabriel also reacted strongly to arrest warrants issued by Switzerland for German tax inspectors. He described this move as "scandalous," adding that Germany had not yet received the warrants and would not reply to them anyway. Since January 2006, several Germany states have bought CDs or USB sticks containing stolen data on German tax cheats, which come from Switzerland or Liechtenstein. As a result, many of Germany's rich, powerful and famous have had to issue public apologies and paid back-taxes and fines. Switzerland, where secrecy has been a cornerstone of the banking industry, reacted with outrage to the theft. Berlin on Tuesday asked the Swiss ambassador, Christine Schraner Burgener, to clarify the case. Gabriel on Saturday said he hoped that light would be shed on the affair and that German-Swiss relations would not be hurt. "We do not wish to wreck our relationship with Switzerland, which is excellent," he said. According to a report in Bild daily on Tuesday, the alleged Swiss spy was a former police officer and a double agent who at one stage had spied for Germany on Switzerland. In a joint report, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and public broadcasters NDR and WDR added the spy had run a paid informant inside the finance ministry of North Rhein-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. The information reportedly helped Swiss authorities file charges of breaching Swiss banking laws and economic espionage against three German tax investigators. In May 2015, the EU and Switzerland signed an agreement on exchanging bank data from 2018 that will effectively end the Swiss tradition of bank secrecy for members of the bloc. Tens of thousands demonstrated in Warsaw against Poland's government on Saturday, saying the rule of law was at stake after a slew of controversial reforms and appointments to public broadcasters. The protest -- called by the country's main liberal opposition party -- came shortly after an opinion poll showed pulling it ahead of the rightwing nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government. Since winning power in October 2015 elections the PiS has pushed through a string of changes that have led to mass protests at home and a threat of EU sanctions. Supporters of Civic Platform (PO) flooded into the sun-drenched capital, calling the protest a "Freedom March", with many carrying red-and-while Polish and yellow star-spangled blue EU flags. "I'm afraid that the European Union will fall apart -- there's already Brexit, and there's a risk that if Poland doesn't respect democracy and the rule of law it could be thrown out of the EU," Anna Szadkowska, who marched wrapped up in an EU flag, told AFP. "It could all lead to a new war in Europe," she added. PO leader Grzegorz Schetyna, referring to PiS party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski, told the crowds: "Chairman Kaczynski says Poland is a free country and that nothing threatens that freedom. This isn't true and we know it. "We want a democratic, pro-European and proud Poland that seeks partners and friends in the European Union, not enemies. "We know how to stop the bad PiS government and we'll do it." - 'Like an octopus' - Kaczynski, widely regarded as Poland's de facto decision-maker despite holding no senior government post, rejected the accusations, insisted that rights were being respected. "We have democracy, everyone can believe what they want, everyone can protest, everyone can vote how they like, everyone can write what they like," said Kaczynski during a shipyard visit in Szczecin, northern Poland. But protester Tadeusz Kazimierczak said that "right now we have the beginning of a dictatorship." "The tentacles of power will squeeze more parts of our lives like an octopus," the retired dentist told AFP. "I want to oppose it all." While local government officials allied to the organisers said the march drew 90,000 people, police put the number at 12,000. AFP journalists on site estimated 50,000 marchers in the sunshine, before rain came. The PO liberals accuse Kaczynski's populist government of using its "good change" policy to undermine the independence of the Constitutional Court and other public institutions, such as television and radio stations. The PiS, which swept back into power partly by playing on fears of an immigration influx, has also come under scrutiny for installing loyalists as directors in state-controlled enterprises. The party had been out of power for almost a decade. Kaczynski has said refugees bring "cholera to the Greek islands, dysentery to Vienna, various types of parasites". But latest polling shows the PO scoring 31 percent, ahead of the PiS (29 percent), the first time the opposition has led since the October 2015 election. The ultimate guide to paying with your smartphone in Singapore Note: This article was first published on July 16, 2016, updated on 17th April 2017 (DBS PayLah adds QR code payments), 12th June 2017 (OCBC Pay Anyone adds QR code payments), and 10th July 2017 (PayNow). From Apple Pay to Samsung Pay, from Dash to MasterPass, there are more ways than ever before to pay using your smartphone in Singapore today. There are, in fact, so many options that it can get downright confusing. I know I was confused many times over while writing this article and thats why we decided to compile this one stop, easy to understand guide to mobile payments. Before we continue, lets define what I mean by mobile payments, because there are a lot of terms floating around. What were going to cover is how to use a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) to pay for things, either through a physical payment terminal or through the internet. The 4 kinds of mobile payments There are many ways you can classify the different ways you can pay via mobile (hardware versus apps? telcos versus banks?), but one easy way to group them is simply by where the cash is being deducted from. When you do that, you can classify mobile payments into four kinds: Paying via credit/debit card Paying via a mobile wallet Paying via a linked bank account Paying via an NFC SIM card Grouping them into four kinds is an easy way to understand mobile payments, but you should also know that there are also overlaps. In this guide, we split the various mobile payments in Singapore this way: Paying via credit/debit card Android Pay Apple Pay Samsung Pay Paying via a mobile wallet Singtel Dash DBS PayLah Paying via a connected bank account OCBC Pay Anyone Paying via an NFC SIM card M1 Mobile Wallet Singtel Dash StarHub SmartWallet 1. Mobile payments via credit/debit cards The first kind of mobile payment is where your smartphone basically acts as your credit or debit card. Any purchases made will be charged to your card. If you want to do this, you can use the three big Pays in Singapore: Story continues Android Pay Apple Pay Samsung Pay NFC-enabled smartphones running Android 4.4 or above iPhone 7/7 Plus iPhone 6s/6s Plus iPhone 6/6 Plus iPhone SE iPad Pro iPad Air 2 iPad mini 3/4 Apple Watch Galaxy S8/S8+ Galaxy S7/S7 edge Galaxy Note 5 Galaxy S6 edge+ NFC NFC NFC MST DBS POSB OCBC Standard Chartered UOB DBS POSB OCBC UOB Standard Chartered American Express DBS Maybank POSB OCBC UOB Standard Chartered Citibank Up to S$100 per transaction (except for UOB) Up to S$100 per transaction (except for UOB) Up to S$100 per transaction when using NFC Up to the cards credit limit when using MST Unlimited 8 10 What you need To run Android Pay, you need an Android smartphone with NFC running Android 4.4 KitKat and above. Apple Pay only works on compatible Apple devices (as listed above), Samsung Pay only works on compatible Samsung devices (as listed above). Youll also need a participating bank's credit or debit card. What can you use the Pays for? Android, Apple and Samsung Pay are mainly used to buy things over the counter in brick and mortar stores, via a contactless payment terminal. Android Pay and Apple Pay can also be used to pay in participating apps. More apps, and online payment on websites, is expected to arrive. Heres a deeper comparison between Apple and Samsung Pay. Why use them? If you have a compatible device, Android, Apple and Samsung Pay are an easy way to try using your smartphone to pay for things. There are three reasons: Theyre widely accepted Theyre easy to use Apple and Samsung Pay are secure 1. Theyre widely accepted If a store already has a contactless payment terminal set up for NFC credit/debit cards, it should work with Android, Apple and Samsung Pay, even if it doesnt have the services respective logo. If you see this logo on a contactless payment terminal, you should be able to use Android, Apple and Samsung Pay on it. Whereas Android and Apple Pay only support NFC payments, Samsung Pay supports both NFC and MST payments. MST replicates a physical card swipe by transmitting magnetic waves from the Samsung smartphone, so if you can swipe a card to pay, its likely you can also use Samsung Pay. NFC payments for Android and Apple Pay are limited up to S$100 per purchase (except for UOB), but MST payments using Samsung Pay go up to the cards credit limit, so you can pay for more expensive items with it. 2. Theyre easy to use The three services are also easy to use; for example, all you need to do to activate Apple Pay is to hold it over the payment terminal when asked to pay. Once the graphic of your registered card appears, you confirm the purchase by holding your fingerprint over the Home button, just like how you unlock the iPhone using Touch ID. See it in action in the video below. 3. Apple and Samsung Pay are secure Apple and Samsung Pay are also secure. Neither Apple nor Samsung store your credit card number on the phone, or transmits it during transactions. Check out how Samsung Pay works and why it's secure:- The one reservation we have with Android Pay is that it doesnt require you to unlock your phone for up to three purchases. You can pay up to S$100 per purchase, so in theory, a thief can make off with your Android Pay smartphone and spend up to S$300 of your money before being locked out. 2. Mobile payments via mobile wallets A second way you can pay using your smartphone is via cash stored on a mobile wallet inside an app. Its like having a digital cashcard inside your smartphone, which you have to top up in order to spend. There are two mobile wallet services in Singapore: Singtel Dash DBS PayLah Singtel Dash You can say that todays Dash is Singtels third version of a mobile payment app. The first, mWallet, was launched in 2012, and has since been retired. Singtel and Standard Chartered Bank released the first version of Dash in 2014, and the app received a major update in May this year. Confusingly, there are still two versions of Dash you can download, one from Singtel and one from Standard Chartered. Singtel recommends you get theirs. The app is available on iOS (Singtel, Standard Chartered) and Android (Singtel, Standard Chartered). What you need While Dash is from Singtel, customers from other telcos can also use it. You dont need a credit or debit card, but you do need a bank account with the participating banks. Dash is a mobile wallet, which means you have to top it up with cash in order to pay for things. You should know that once your cash is in Dash, you cant transfer it back to your bank account. What can you use Dash for? You can use the Dash app to make purchases over the counter if the store has a Dash terminal. Dash terminals arent the same as the NFC contactless payment terminals being used by Android, Apple and Samsung Pay, or NFC cards like Visa PayWave. Dash terminals are Singtels proprietary terminals, so you have to find them in order to pay with Dash. The NFC chip on Apple devices can only be used by Apple Pay, so you need to key in the Dash terminals counter code to use Dash to pay on an iOS device. You can also pay for online purchases on Lazada using Dash. You can send money to friends. You can also remit money overseas to people using Dash (youll need to sign up at the Singtel stores in Lucky Plaza and City Plaza first). Dash can also be used to manage an EZ-Link NFC SIM card and pay for public transportation, which we cover in a later section. Why use Dash? Dash is one way you can use mobile payments if you dont have a credit or debit card. Dash also has another interesting feature if youre a Singtel customer. Instead of topping up your Dash mobile wallet via your bank account, you can also choose to top it up using your Singtel bill. In other words, you can top up the mobile wallet first (up to S$999), spend the money, and pay for the top-up later at the end of the month, when your consolidated Singtel bill comes in the mail. DBS PayLah PayLah is a mobile wallet app from DBS that: Lets you send money to your friends. Lets you pay on some online sites. The app is available on iOS and Android. What you need PayLah works for both DBS/POSB and non-DBS/POSB account holders. Non-DBS/POSB account holders can use PayLah if they have a savings/current account with a bank which offers FAST (Fast and Secure Transfers) services in Singapore. Once youve registered, you can top up funds into the PayLah mobile wallet, with which you send money to friends, and pay for things online. You can also receive funds into the mobile wallet, and transfer it into your linked bank account. You can also use the PayNow service to transfer funds to your contacts, using just their mobile phone number or IC number. What you can use PayLah for Once youve linked your bank account, you can transfer funds into PayLahs mobile wallet, where you do all your transactions. This also means that you dont need a credit/debit card to use PayLah. You can send money to contacts via SMS without having to know their bank account numbers, you only need their mobile number. Unlike OCBCs Pay Anyone service, the recipients of PayLah fund transfers will need to download and register with the PayLah app within 14 business days after the transfer is sent. If they dont, the sender will be refunded the full amount. PayLah can also be used to pay on some online sites, like Qoo10.sg, comGateway and AXS. Starting April 2017, DBS PayLah can also generate QR codes to receive and pay for things. To receive payments, you can generate a QR code to send to others, and to pay, you simply use the app to scan the QR code and make a payment from the digital wallet. Starting June 10, 2017, PayLah users can use the PayNow service to transfer funds to someone using just the recipients mobile number or identity card number. Recipients must register their mobile phone or IC numbers with their banks PayNow service to receive money, and senders can use the PayLah app to transfer money from their DBS/POSB account or the apps mobile wallet. Why use PayLah? PayLah is one way for people to send money to friends and family, even if they dont have a DBS or POSB account. You dont even need to know their bank account number, you only need their mobile number or IC number. 3. Mobile payments via a linked bank account Heres another way to pay straight from your bank account. Technically, you could also say that mobile payments via debit cards are a way to pay straight from your bank account, but this method doesnt require you to have a debit card to do so. Pay Anyone Whereas previously it was a feature inside the OCBC Mobile Banking app, OCBC Pay Anyone is now its own standalone app. Pay Anyone lets you pay at participating stores via QR code, as well as transfer money to your contacts, even if you dont have their bank account details. The app is available on iOS and Android. What you need You need to have an OCBC bank account to send money out. If youre the receiver, you dont need to have an OCBC bank account or the OCBC Pay Anyone app. What you can use Pay Anyone for You can use Pay Anyone to send money to your contacts, without needing to know their bank account numbers. A URL to collect the money can be sent to the recipient via SMS, email or Facebook. To keep the transfer secure, a passcode is generated on the senders end, which he needs to share with the recipient in order for her to authenticate the transfer. The receiver doesnt need to have an OCBC account, they just need an account from any of the 14 FAST (Fast And Secure Transfer) participating banks. You can send money using the Pay Anyone e-payment service through voice commands on Apples Siri, or through text messaging in iMessage. Youll need an iPhone running iOS 10 and the latest version of the OCBC Pay Anyone app to do it. Herere detailed steps on how. You can also pay by scanning QR code at more than 1,000 merchants in Singapore. Scan the QR code on the NETS terminal or printed receipt using the app, authenticate the transaction via fingerprint, and the payment is deducted from your OCBC account. Starting June 10, 2017, Pay Anyone users can use the PayNow service to transfer funds to someone using just the recipients mobile number or identity card number. Recipients must register their mobile phone or IC numbers with their banks PayNow service to receive money, and senders can use the Pay Anyone app or OCBC website to transfer money from their account. Why use Pay Anyone? Its an easy way for OCBC customers to transfer funds to someone. One bonus point is how recipients dont have to download the Pay Anyone app to get their money, nor do they need to have OCBC bank accounts. 4. Mobile payments via NFC SIM cards from telcos The fourth way you can pay with your smartphone in Singapore is by using an NFC SIM card from your telco and its companion app. Singapores three big telcos first launched their mobile payment solutions in 2012; some things have changed since then, and each telco offers different features. We have: There are three main things you should know first about getting an NFC SIM card: Unlike Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, which cost you nothing to set up, you need to pay extra for an NFC SIM card from your telco, and there might be additional registration fees The NFC SIM card introduced in 2012 has been replaced with a new EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card in 2016 The new NFC Transit SIM has the same mobile payment features as the previous SIM card, and introduces the ability to pay for public transportation in Singapore via EZ-Link M1 Mobile Wallet Together with an EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from M1, the M1 Mobile Wallet is two mobile wallets in one app. Like the mobile wallets previously mentioned, you need to top up cash value into these mobile wallets in order to pay for things. The EZ-Link mobile wallet lets you pay for public transportation as well as pay at EZ-Link terminals. The M1 NFC Prepaid MasterCard mobile wallet lets you pay at NFC contactless payment terminals. The M1 Mobile Wallet app is available on Android. What you need First, you need to be an M1 customer. Youll also need a compatible NFC smartphone to use the M1 Mobile Wallet services. Then, youll need to get the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from M1 to use either the EZ-Link and/or the M1 NFC Prepaid MasterCard mobile wallet. If you want to use the M1 NFC Prepaid MasterCard mobile wallet, you can register for it in the app. What you can use M1 Mobile Wallet for With the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card, you can use the EZ-Link mobile wallet to pay for public transportation, as well as at payment terminals that accept EZ-Link. With the M1 NFC Prepaid MasterCard mobile wallet, you can make payment from the mobile wallet at contactless NFC payment terminals that accept MasterCard Contactless or MasterCard PayPass. Why use M1 Mobile Wallet? If youre an M1 subscriber with a compatible NFC smartphone, this is one way for you to pay for public transportation and over the counter using your smartphone. Singtel Dash Singtel first launched its mWallet app in 2012, and its since been succeeded by the Dash app. You dont actually need the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel to use Dashs other payment services, which were detailed earlier in this article. The one thing youll need the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel for is if you want to use Dashs EZ-Link mobile wallet to pay for public transportation in Singapore. Like we previously mentioned, there are two versions of Dash you can download, one from Singtel and one from Standard Chartered. Singtel recommends you get theirs. The app is available on iOS (Singtel, Standard Chartered) and Android (Singtel, Standard Chartered). What you need First, you need to be a Singtel customer. Youll also need a compatible NFC smartphone to use Singtel Dash. Then, youll need to get the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel to use the EZ-Link wallet in the Dash app. Once youve set that up, your Dash app will have two separate mobile wallets, one for Dashs other payment services like paying at Dash terminals, one for the EZ-Link function. What you can use Singtel Dash for Together with a compatible NFC smartphone and the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel, you can top up value into the EZ-Link mobile wallet inside Dash, and use that to pay for public transportation in Singapore, as well as at payment terminals that accept EZ-Link. Again, this is only if you want to use Dashs EZ-Link wallet to pay for public transportation. If you only want to use Dashs mobile wallet for its other payment features, you dont need to be a Singtel customer or to have the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel. Why use Singtel Dash? If youre a Singtel customer who wants to pay for public transportation using your smartphone. StarHub SmartWallet StarHub SmartWallet first launched in 2012 with DBS One.Tap, but that has since been removed. Now the app only supports paying with the EZ-Link mobile wallet. StarHub SmartWallet is available on Android. What you need First, you need to be a StarHub customer. Youll also need a compatible NFC smartphone to use StarHub SmartWallet. Then, youll need to get the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from StarHub to use the EZ-Link wallet in the SmartWallet app. What you can use StarHub SmartWallet for Together with a compatible NFC smartphone and the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from StarHub, you can top up value into the EZ-Link mobile wallet inside SmartWallet, and use that to pay for public transportation in Singapore, as well as at payment terminals that accept EZ-Link. FAQ for paying with your smartphone Still with me? I told you it would get confusing. In case your head is still swimming with info, heres a quick summary of how you can pay for what with your smartphone. 1. I want to buy things in the store using my smartphone as if its my credit/debit card To pay for things over the counter, using your smartphone as if its your credit/debit card, you can use: These services are linked directly to your credit/debit card, and charge the purchase accordingly to the card. Of course, you can only pay using these services using contactless NFC payment terminals that support them (which should be most of them). Samsung Pay has one advantage, in that it can also work with MST credit card terminals. If you can swipe your credit card to pay at the terminal, you can also use Samsung Pay to pay. Just hold your Samsung smartphone close to the device and it will broadcast magnetic waves which replicate a physical card swipe. Android and Apple Pay are limited to a maximum of S$100 per purchase (except when using UOB cards), whereas MST payments are limited to the cards credit limit, so you can pay for more expensive items using Samsung Pay at MST terminals. 2. I want to pay for things in the store using my smartwatch You can only use an Apple Watch (using Apple Pay) and Samsung Gear S3 (using Samsung Pay) to pay for things in a store. Android Pay does not let you pay with smartwatches for now. 3. I want to buy things in the store, using my smartphone, but I dont have a credit/debit card If you want to pay for things over the counter, but you only have a smartphone and no credit/debit card, you can use: M1 Mobile Wallet Singtel Dash DBS PayLah Pay Anyone With M1 Mobile Wallet, you need to be on M1, and you need the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card, on a compatible NFC smartphone. Once you have these two, you can set up two different mobile wallets with two different ways to pay. One is the EZ-Link mobile wallet, which you can use to pay for public transportation, as well as in stores which accept EZ-Link payment. The other is the M1 NFC Prepaid MasterCard mobile wallet, which lets you pay at contactless NFC payment terminals. Neither wallet requires a credit or debit card, but they need you to top up funds into them. Heres how you can top up the mobile wallet inside M1 Mobile Wallet. You dont have to be a Singtel customer to use Dash to pay over the counter. You can download the Dash app on iOS and Android, whether youre on Singtel or not. Once you top up funds into the Dash mobile wallet, you can use the app to pay at Dash terminals across Singapore. Dash terminals are not the same as the contactless NFC payment terminals that everyone else is using for mobile payment. If you get the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM card from Singtel, you can use it in tandem with Dash to pay for public transportation, as well as at stores which accept EZ-Link payment. The DBS PayLah and OCBC Pay Anyone apps now let you pay at select stores via QR codes. PayLah deducts the amount from the apps digital wallet, so youll still need to top up funds into it. Pay Anyone treats like a NETS transaction, and the amount is deducted from your bank account. 4. I want to pay for things online using my smartphone To pay for things inside your smartphones app or through online shopping, you can use: Android Pay Apple Pay DBS PayLah These three apps support paying within apps or on online sites to some degree. No single service covers everything yet, though. You can also sign up for MasterPass and PayPal. These are not, strictly speaking, mobile payment solutions, but you can use them to pay on participating websites, which means you can use them inside your mobile browser. MasterPass, for example, lets you pay on Shaw Theatres online booking website, Lazada and AXS. 5. I want to send money to my friends from my smartphone You can use: DBS PayLah OCBC Pay Anyone PayNow With DBS PayLah, you dont need to have a DBS/POSB account to use the service, but your recipients will need to download and register for PayLah to receive payment. With OCBC Pay Anyone, you need to have an OCBC account, as the service is a feature within the main OCBC SG Mobile Banking app. However, your recipient doesnt need to have an OCBC account, nor does she need to download the app to receive payment. Both recipients will, however, need an account with a bank which offers FAST (Fast and Secure Transfers) services in Singapore. Starting July 10, 2017, PayNow is a service supported by seven banks that let you transfer funds from one to another using just the recipients mobile phone number or IC number. The seven banks at launch are DBS Bank/POSB, OCBC Bank, UOB, Citibank, HSBC, Maybank, and Standard Chartered Bank. Receivers must link their mobile numbers or IC numbers to their bank accounts, but senders dont. To send money, use the PayNow feature within the banks app or website. 6. I want to pay for public transportation using my smartphone Youll need to get the EZ-Link NFC Transit SIM from your respective telco, whether M1, Singtel or StarHub. Then youll need to download your telcos mobile wallet app, and top up funds into the EZ-Link mobile wallet. A UN official has been kidnapped in Colombia by renegade FARC rebels just ahead of a visit Thursday by the UN Security Council to review progress in a peace accord with the guerrillas, authorities said. The official, with the UN Office on Crime and Drugs, was kidnapped Wednesday in the southeastern department of Guaviare while on a tour to promote replacing coca with legal crops, according to the United Nations. His name and nationality were not given. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said after meeting the UN Security Council ambassadors on Thursday: "I hope he will be with us very quickly." The UN office in Colombia said "we are working with the authorities for his immediate and secure release." There was no immediate public confirmation or comment from the leftwing rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But the abduction cast a shadow over the landmark peace deal signed in November between the leftwing rebels and the government that calls for the FARC to transition its 7,000 fighters to civilian life. - 'Cowardly act' - Some FARC dissidents have refused to lay down their arms and still maintain links to drug trafficking. An estimated 300 of these dissident guerrillas are believed to be active in Guaviare, Kyle Johnson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said. Johnson said the visiting UN ambassadors will leave with the impression that "things are not going as well" as the Colombian government had been saying. Elbio Rosselli, Uruguay's ambassador to the United Nations and a leader of the UN delegation, suggested the kidnapping was intended as a signal to the international community. "There was an intention behind this cowardly act and it simply won't change the attitude or interest of the UN Security Council in contributing to the process that the Colombians have begun," he told Blu Radio. Rafael Pardo, a senior adviser to Santos, called the kidnapping "completely unacceptable." "We hope that he is safe and sound and that they free him soon," he told Radio Caracol. He added that FARC dissidents had announced they were to free the UN official at midday (1700 GMT) on Thursday. But that hour passed with no notification of a release. - Cocaine trade - A police source told AFP that an elite anti-kidnapping brigade had gone to the area Guaviare and was coordinating with military forces. The UN Office on Crime and Drugs is active in Colombia, which is the world's biggest producer of cocaine, with an output of 646 tonnes in 2015. The peace deal is seen as a way to promote development in areas currently dependent on coca-growing, and to curb drug trafficking. Under its terms, the FARC agrees to detach itself from the cocaine business that helped finance its five-decade-old armed struggle. The dissident rebels resisting that will be fought as common criminals, the Colombian government says. The UN mission overseeing the implementation of the peace accord said that as of this week it has received and securely stored 1,000 weapons handed in by the FARC fighters. Cyber crime is on the rise and small businesses are increasingly becoming the target of hackers. New data from Symantecs 2016 Internet Security Threat Report shows that small businesses have become a big target for phishers. Last year, phishing campaigns targeted small businesses (PDF) 43 percent of the time. Thats up 9 percent over 2014 and a stark contrast to the mere 18 percent of attacks that focused on small businesses in 2011. Cyber Attacks Target Small Business Symantecs report shows that about 1 in 40 small businesses are at risk of being the victim of a cyber crime. That pales in comparison to the 1 in about 2 large businesses which are targeted every year multiple times with a cyber attack. Still, the report indicates that hackers are indiscriminately choosing their victims. Its not a matter of who theyre targeting but what theyre targeting your money. These phishing attacks target employees largely responsible for the finances of a small business. Malicious email messages sent to these employees that are opened could hijack an entire companys financial information and gain access to funds and personal information. Furthermore, Symantec also notes in its Internet Security Threat Report that ransomware attacks are also on the rise and targeting not only employees but any devices connected to a companys hacked network. Symantec says it has instances on the record in 2015 of attacks on the Internet of Things, too. That includes attacks on smartphones, smart watches, and a smart television. In these attacks, there is a demand for some type of payment before a device may be freed by its attacker. Digging a little deeper into the data from Symantecs report reveals a 55 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 in the amount of spear-phishing campaigns that target employees of a business of any size. Symantec classifies small businesses as any with up to 250 employees. Small Businesses Need To Prepare for Cyber Attacks So, what should small business owners do with this information? Be prepared is the simple advice. Its clear that hackers will continue to target small businesses with phishing attacks. And since these attacks are targeting employees mostly, implementing a proper training and informational program on phishing schemes within your company is prudent. This type of training will hopefully help reduce the likelihood that an employee of yours will open a suspicious email by helping to better identify one. Since cyber attacks target small business, its more likely your small business will become the target or victim of a phishing attack. Develop a plan for dealing with such a situation. Consult with your IT team or an IT expert on a comprehensive plan for mitigating the impact of a phishing or other cyber attack against your company. Finally, with the rise in attacks on devices connected to your companys network, its best to limit the amount of those devices employee smartphones and other IoT devices you allow on it. Usefulness Content Freshness Are you committed to launching your business? If you can dedicate just 24 hours, Steve Fies can take you from idea to a better business plan (complete with an executive summary, competitor analysis, and sales strategy) with his new book, 24-Hour Business Plan Template: How to Validate Your Startup Ideas and Plan Your Business Venture. His book is designed to help uncertain entrepreneurs validate their ideas for an even stronger launch. If you buy something through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more. Yes, you read the title correctly. Steven Fies wants to help entrepreneurs who are ready take their startup ideas to the market in 24 hours (or even less) in his new book, 24-Hour Business Plan Template: How to Validate Your Startup Ideas and Plan Your Business Venture. The book details how startup business owners itching to launch their business can quickly validate their ideas for an even faster launch than any person has ever dreamed. What is the 24-Hour Business Plan Template About? There is a book for launching your startup in 7 days. If thats too slow for you, you could try 48 hours. If thats too slow for you, Fies book, 24-Hour Business Plan Template, says it is even faster. An important point to note, however, is that the book focuses on the validation of a potential business idea. It doesnt spend a lot of energy focusing on developing business ideas. Why does Fies believe that you only need 24 hours to validate a business idea? He wants prospective entrepreneurs to break up with the idea of a perfect business plan. No matter how much you plan or how detailed your idea, according to Fies logic, its still just a guess. Every business plan will evolve and morph over time, especially in the first few critical months. While many prospective business owners are still drafting their 50+ page business plans, Fies believes they should be earning money. By jumping into the market now with a business idea that has shown some promise, you are in better position to focus on what really matters: execution. Execution is what distinguishes the success of a plan, not how many PowerPoint slides or Excel spreadsheets you have. By speeding up the launch process. Fies believes entrepreneurs avoid getting emotionally tied to one idea. The more time and resources an entrepreneur invests in an idea, the harder it is for an entrepreneur to remain objective about that idea. Using the strategies in Steven Fies book, entrepreneurs shouldnt have that problem. By launching an idea quickly, they can quickly modify or scrap ideas that wont lead them to the success they want. Fies is a serial entrepreneur, author, president at ThinkPlanLaunch (a talent management consulting agency) and owner of S. MICHAEL Creative Branding. Besides his work, he enjoys playing guitar, surfing, breakfast burritos and taking care of his family, which includes a chihuahua. What Was Best About the 24-Hour Business Plan Template? The caveat to Fies book is the business idea. If you have a legitimate business idea that you are ready to execute on, this book can lead you through the steps to flesh out the idea into a workable plan that includes an executive summary, company objective, sales and logistics. This kind of fast-paced planning reinforces Fies central point that you dont require a lot of planning to get started launching your dream. Of special note, Fies focuses in on sales, one area that many start your business in x days books do not. What Could Have Been Done Differently? The downside to Fies book is again the business idea. There isnt a lot of help in this book for entrepreneurs who arent confident about their business idea. The book also may be a little intimidating to someone who is not familiar with the business world. That being said, for Fies intended audience (entrepreneurs who have a business idea but are afraid to pursue it), this book will emphasize how to calm their entrepreneurial fears through proactive validation. Why Read the 24-Hour Business Plan Template? 24 Hour Business Plan Template is best suited for prospective entrepreneurs (in their first or next business) who want to maintain the structure that comes with a business plan but dont want to wait months to execute that plan. The book walks readers step-by-step through a template that they can print off, fill out, and follow along with the book. That combination of guidance and emphasis on speed may be just the thing for the entrepreneur who needs that final push to move his or her business idea one step closer to reality. Get discounts and special offers on new and classic business books with an Audible Premium Plus membership. Learn more and sign up for an account today. Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now... Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) has announced that it has, together with Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), completed initial construction activities for Unit I of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant and the turnover of all plant systems to Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) for testing and commissioning, in preparation for safety-led nuclear operations. The completion of initial construction work of Unit I was preceded by the successful completion of the Hot Functional Test (HFT) at the end of 2016, said a statement from Enec. The HFT is one of the major testing requirements under the Construction License for Units 1 and 2, which was granted by the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) in 2012. Enec signed the prime contract with Kepco in 2009 for the construction of the Barakah Plant. The handover of Unit Is 277 systems from Kepco to its unit KHNP for commissioning marks the end of initial construction activities of Unit I and the start of the preparatory phase for nuclear operations. The Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant is the largest single nuclear energy new build project in the world, with four APR-1400 units under simultaneous construction. Construction of Unit I began in 2012 and at full operational capacity, the four units will deliver up to a quarter of the UAEs electricity needs from carbon-free nuclear energy. According to Enec, the project as a whole is now 79 per cent complete, with Unit I being 95 per cent complete. Commenting on the achievement, Enec CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi, said: "The completion of Unit I's construction activities and the handover of all systems for commissioning are important milestones in a project that is critical to the future energy mix of the UAE, and they reflect the professionalism and dedication of everyone involved in the project." Following the satisfactory completion of commissioning activities by KHNP, Nawah Energy Company (Nawah), a joint venture between Enec and Kepco established to operate Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant Units 1 to 4, will assume operational responsibilities for Unit 1. However, as per UAE regulatory law, the construction, start-up and operations of nuclear energy plants are subject to regulations issued by the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), and the loading of fuel and actual operation of Unit I will require the approval of FANR and the issuance of an operating licence. According to him, FANR is conducting a rigorous and stringent review of the operating licence application, which was submitted by Enec in March 2015, and carrying out numerous inspections of construction and operational readiness to support this review. In addition to the extensive review by FANR, senior nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) will also conduct a series of voluntary, but independent assessments of the robustness of the operating infrastructure and the proficiency of the operations personnel that will ultimately bring Unit 1 into full commercial operation. Only after the successful conclusion of these legally-mandated and voluntary reviews, and upon FANR approval of the Operating Licence for Unit 1, will Nawah proceed with Unit I fuel load and plant start-up. Mohammed Sahoo AlSuwaidi, the acting CEO of Nawah, said it is currently working with the IAEA and WANO on the approach and timetable for their operational readiness assessments at Barakah later this year. "These assessments will take place before we anticipate being granted our Operating License by FANR and begin the process of loading fuel assemblies into the reactor. The entire Nawah team is fully aligned around the objective of safe, reliable, and efficient operation of the first nuclear energy plant in the UAE, he added. Enec also announced the approval by its board of a timeline update for the start-up of Unit 1, driven by a desire to achieve the highest possible nuclear quality and safety standards. The approval follows a series of assessments by Enec, Nawah and international experts, as well as lessons learned from Shin Kori Unit 3 in South Korea, the reference plant for Barakah. The timeline includes an extension for the start-up of nuclear operations for Unit 1, from 2017 to 2018, to ensure sufficient time for international assessments and adherence to nuclear industry safety standards, as well as a reinforcement of operational proficiency for plant personnel.-TradeArabia News Service Leading regional and international companies are showcasing their latest large-scale and high-valued projects in Egypt, including The New Capital of Egypt and the New El Alamein City at a key property show in Dubai, UAE. The Egypt Property Show (EPS) is a premier exhibition for regional and global investors to explore promising real estate opportunities in the top Arab nation and the rest of the region as well as network with their like-minded peers for possible regional and global co-operation, said the organisers. It was opened by Sultan Butti Bin Mejren, the director general of Dubai Land Department, yesterday (May 5) in the presence of Dr Mustafa Madbouli, Minister of Housing, and other officials at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The event, which concludes tomorrow (May 7), is particularly designed to bring the Egyptian real estate market closer to the global stage, paving the way for local property developers to showcase opportunities in the country, gain strong brand exposure, globally promote their products and turnkey solutions, and attract potential buyers at the regional and global levels, said the organisers. During the one-stop-shop event, visitors will be able to link with the Egyptian real estate markets top developers and discover promising local prospects, while potentially gaining valuable insights on what investment will offer the best return on investments (ROIs). Additionally, visitors will have access to special offers and terms provided by the exhibitors exclusively for the exhibition, he stated. Hisham Lotfi, the chairman of Al Ahram Establishments, said: "Dubai is an excellent starting point for the 2017 EPS, with the emirates outstanding reputation in hosting global events and key international activities. It is also the ideal place to promote Egypt, its beauty, and growth potential given its global reach." :"During the course of the exhibition, both visitors and exhibitors will be exposed to an array of learning and networking opportunities, in addition to generation of new leads that will help propel their success," noted Lotfi. The New El Alamein City and The New Capital of Egypt projects will be among the events highlights. The New Capital of Egypt, which will rise 45 km east of Cairo, will become the new administrative and financial capital of Egypt, housing the main government departments and ministries, as well as foreign embassies. The New Al Alamein City, on the other hand, will be part of a downtown area and is being touted as the countrys next tourist spot. Around $59.6 billion have been allocated for the project. Wahid Attallah, CEO of Spectrum Consultants, said: "We launched the 2017 EPS in Dubai because of its renowned global reputation and a large expatriate base with high disposable income." "Property buyers in the UAE are continuously seeking high-potential markets such as Egypt where their investments are safe and which offer considerable ROIs. This event is a chance for us to showcase what our country has to offer. The EPS is the first premier Egyptian real estate show organized by Tawasol in cooperation with Al Ahram Advertising Agency. From Dubai, the show will be brought to Kuwait, the UK, and the US. With its rich history and culture and famous tourist sites, Egypt attracts a number of overseas investors who are looking to invest in markets with high growth potential at reasonable prices.-TradeArabia News Service Batelco Group, a top regional telecom group, has reported gross revenues of BD89.7 million ($237.9 million) for the first quarter (Q1) of the year, marking a marginal one per cent decrease year-on-year and 5 per cent drop over Q4 2016. Revenues continue to be impacted by competitive pressure in a number of markets across the Group, it said in a statement. EBITDA for the period was BD32.3 million ($85.7 million), representing a margin of 36 per cent. Despite an 8 per cent decline over Q1 2016, EBITDA increased by 7 per cent from the previous quarter. The Group continues to sustain its robust EBITDA margin as a result of its cost containment programmes. For the period, the Group net profit was BD8.2 million ($21.8 million); a 14 per cent decline compared to Q1 2016 but up by 58 per cent over the previous quarter. Net profit during Q1 2017 was impacted by a BD1.5 million ($4 million) share of loss from the companys associate in Yemen, the statement said. The Groups balance sheet continues to be strong with net assets of BD525.8 million ($1,394.7 million) and substantial cash and bank balances of BD180.1 million ($477.7 million). Earnings per share for the first quarter of 2017 are 4.9 fils. The telcos subscriber base reached 9.2 million, an increase of 2 per cent year-on-year. Batelco Group chairman Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said: We continue to be responsive to changes in the various markets we operate in and strive to deliver relevant services and solutions that most suit our customers in each location. Strengthening our digital capabilities remains high on the agenda in a number of the Groups operations; accordingly we are investing in fibre networks and the development of our digital solutions portfolio. Batelco Bahrain aims to provide high speed internet for the majority of Bahrains homes, businesses and government bodies in line with the Government of Bahrains 4th National Telecom plan. We are focussed on playing our part in ensuring that Bahrain is among the best connected countries in the wider region, Shaikh Mohamed added. Batelco Group CEO Ihab Hinnawi said that customers needs continue to evolve in line with global trends towards a digital world marked by smart home and smart city living. This is reflected by growing subscriber numbers for mobility and broadband in a number of our operations, leading to a 2 per cent overall increase in the groups customer base compared to 2016, he said. It is pleasing to note that Batelco Bahrain posted YoY increases in fixed and broadband customers of 4 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. We are also delighted to note that Dhiraagu, our operation in the Maldives continues to report growing customer numbers with 5 per cent and 8 per cent YoY increases in mobile and broadband subscribers. Similarly, Sure in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man reported increased YoY fixed line and broadband subscribers of 4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. We have a number of Group-wide initiatives in place as well as programmes specific to each geographic location. We endeavour to enable the best-in-class products, services and solutions for consumers and businesses and anticipate that these efforts will boost performance across the Group going forward, Hinnawi added. For the period, 59 per cent of revenues and 54 per cent of EBITDA was attributable to operations outside of Bahrain, the statement said. Hinnawi continued by stating that in Bahrain the availability of superfast fibre services is having a positive impact on customer numbers with broadband subscriber numbers up by 9 per cent over Q4 2016 and 33 per cent year over year. Our fibre rollout continues to be very successful as we push to reach all areas of the Kingdom including new residential and business locations and replacing out of date infrastructure with the latest technologies, he explained. Partnerships continue to be of high value to us and during the first quarter we announced a mobile network enhancement deal for 2017-2018 in collaboration with Ericsson. The agreement will have a huge impact on the user experience through improved Mobile internet coverage and service quality and furthermore, it will enable Batelco to start the journey to 5G and IoT by providing network virtualization services and improved 3G and LTE indoor capacity for customers. Bahrain is a very cosmopolitan location with residents travelling far and wide; to support their communication need whilst on the move, Batelco now offers Data Roaming bolt-on services in over 50 locations, delivering unlimited Data at reasonable fixed rates. This service is proving to be very popular and we continue to add new countries regularly, noted Hinnawi. Batelco Bahrains digitisation goals will continue to take high priority throughout 2017 as we develop our portfolio for all customers, with a strong emphasis on the evolving needs of the business sector in line with our role as the Kingdoms foremost enterprise solutions provider, added Hinnawi. By building on the strength of the Group, through pooling of resources, technologies and expertise, we have the capability to enhance our competitiveness and boost customer numbers and financial performance. Batelcos teams throughout all our operations are committed to working together to deliver on the Groups strategic aims in order to exceed customer expectations and grow value for our shareholders, Shaikh Mohamed concluded. TradeArabia News Service Luxury Swiss watchmaker Raymond Weil announces a new addition to its series of music special edition timepieces, which celebrate influential and iconic musicians, with the launch of the Buddy Holly maestro watch. Recent partnerships with The Beatles and Frank Sinatra cement the brands continued commitment and credentials as supporters of the music industry and charities, said the Swiss group in a statement. Designed in collaboration with Maria Elena Holly, the limited edition maestro pays tribute to legendary musician Buddy Holly, who is recognized as the pioneer of Rock n Roll and who influenced and inspired so many artists, including; The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Elton John. Raymond Weil has designed a truly unique Buddy Holly watch with distinctive features and references to the artist. The 39.5 mm maestro has a polished stainless steel maestro case houses an automatic mechanical movement RW4250 with a 38 hour power and polished stainless steel bracelet. The silver galvanic dial has highlights of pale blue (Buddys favourite colour) encircling the rim, and on the secondary second sub dial, which also wears a miniature pair of glasses (the iconic emblem of the musician) on the sweep of the second hand. The oversized number 9, featured as a reference to Buddys lucky number, is balanced by the date dial at the 3 oclock, said the statement. Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas on September 7, 1936 and this limited edition maestro watch pays tribute to the 80th anniversary of his birth. A contribution from each watch sold will be donated to the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation, a charity set up to provide music education and opportunities to young people worldwide. The Foundation also lauded BMG Rights Management (US) LLC, the steward of Buddys intellectual property rights, for its assistance in the project.-TradeArabia News Service The US is trying to push through a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia ahead of US President Donald Trumps visit to capital Riyadh, according to a report. The President is set to visit the Vatican, Israel and Saudi Arabia this month, as part of his maiden international trip. Trump's administration is keen to repair the relationship with the regional power following tensions caused by the Obama administrations nuclear deal with Iran, reported The Independent. The arms sales contracts are likely to comprise Lockheed Martin program packages with a Terminal Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system worth $1bn, a C2BMC software system, and a package with satellite capabilities, it stated. Provided by BAE Systems, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and an M109 artillery vehicle are also under consideration as part of the deal. In addition, a $11.5 billion package made up of four multi-mission surface combatant ships, which had been approved by the US state department in 2015 but never made it to final contract, will also be revisited, the report added. By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Thirty-two schoolchildren, two teachers and a minibus driver where killed in Tanzania when their vehicle plunged into a roadside ravine in the northern tourist region of Arusha on Saturday, a senior police official said. "The accident happened when the bus was descending on a steep hill in rainy conditions," Arusha regional police commander Charles Mkumbo told Reuters by telephone. "We are still investigating the incident to determine if it was caused by a mechanical defect or human error on the part of the driver." The students killed in the accident, which occurred at about 9:30am in Karatu district, were standard seven pupils, aged 12 to 13, from the Lucky Vincent primary school on their way to visit another school, Mkumbo said. President John Magufuli described the accident as a "national tragedy" in a statement. Tanzania, the second-largest economy in east Africa, has a poor road safety network, but buses remain the main form of public transport between towns. More than 11,000 people were killed in road accidents in Tanzania between 2014 and 2016, according to government data. (Editing by Clement Uwiringiyimana and Hugh Lawson) SANTA FE Attorneys for Gov. Susana Martinez asked New Mexicos highest court Friday to uphold her authority to eliminate funding for higher education and the Legislature itself. But they also stressed that the veto of funding isnt permanent: It can be restored in some form during a special legislative session, and no one is in danger of running out of money before then, her attorneys said. University presidents across New Mexico also weighed in Friday. They told the Supreme Court that budget uncertainty is already harming recruitment and retention efforts for faculty and students in some fields. Some of the damage caused by the vetoes is irreparable; some students have already been discouraged, the New Mexico Council of University Presidents said in a friend-of-the-court brief. The brief was filed on its behalf by Kevin Washburn, a former law school dean at the University of New Mexico and former head of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The legal filings came in response to a Friday deadline issued by the state Supreme Court, which is considering an emergency petition to invalidate Martinezs line-item vetoes of funding for higher education and legislative agencies. The lawsuit was filed last month by legislative leaders. In a response filed Friday, attorneys for Martinez said the state constitution empowers the executive branch to reject all or parts of spending bills passed by the Legislature and theres no prohibition on using that power the way she did. Furthermore, her attorneys said, the dispute isnt ripe for a court decision yet. The governor already has called a special legislative session the appropriate venue to craft a new spending plan for higher education and the Legislature, according to the filing, signed by private attorney Paul Kennedy. The governor never stated that she is abolishing the Legislature or any state educational institutions, the governors response said. Neither the legislative agencies nor the educational institutions have run out of funds, and there is still time to appropriate funds for the next fiscal year. The court, then, should wait to make a decision, the governors legal team said. The New Mexico Council of University Presidents, meanwhile, didnt take sides in how the budget impasse should be resolved but asked for a quick resolution. The presidents said financial uncertainty has harmed staffing and recruitment at their institutions hospitals and health-care organizations, which, in turn, has a very real impact on the lives of some of the most vulnerable citizens of New Mexico. Some students say they fear their schools may close or wonder whether they would be better off finishing their degrees out of state, according to the brief. Legislative leaders sued the governor last month, arguing that she doesnt have authority to reject funding for an equal branch of government or for educational institutions established in the constitution. They accused her of trying to effectively abolish the legislative branch of government and higher education. The state Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing May 15 for oral arguments. The legal tussle comes as Martinez, a Republican, and the Legislature where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers remain at odds over a state budget crisis, triggered in part by a downturn in oil and gas prices. State lawmakers passed a $6.1 billion budget package that includes about $350 million in tax increases necessary, supporters said, to avoid damaging cuts to public schools and other state services. Martinez responded by vetoing the entire tax-increase package and using her line-item veto authority to remove funding in the budget for higher education and the Legislature itself. She has since said she has a plan to fund higher education without tax increases. The state should balance its budget, Martinez argues, without tax increases that will raise the cost of living on New Mexico families. No matter who wins the lawsuit, Martinez and the Legislature will almost certainly have to negotiate a new budget agreement of some kind. If lawmakers win and the line-item vetoes are invalidated the basic operating budget of the state would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million out of balance, according to one estimate by the director of the Legislative Finance Committee. Thats because the tax increases vetoed in a separate bill, which isnt the subject of litigation are necessary to pay for all the spending. And if Martinez wins, the Legislature and governor would still have to agree on how to fund higher education and legislative agencies. The fiscal year starts July 1. The governor has called a special session of the Legislature to consider the budget and taxes. The session starts May 24. You know that emotionally satisfying feeling you get when you help someone in need? Aaron Negherbon gets that feeling every day. And now hes doubling down on his generosity. In 2010, Negherbon established TroopsDirect after a college friend serving as a Marine commander in Afghanistan told him of the dire need for lifesaving supplies and equipment. Uncle Sam, he was told, had sent U.S. troops to fight on foreign soil without essentials like adequate body armor, medical supplies and footwear that lasted in the desert heat. Negherbon (pronounced: NEAR-bon) sent a care package to his friend filled with gun stethoscopes, gauze and gun lubricant among other items and was soon inundated with requests from other in-theater U.S. commanders. To date, Negherbons TroopsDirect charity has shipped about 3 million pounds of requested supplies to military personnel all over the world. I, as a civilian, assumed our troops had what that they needed to do their jobs, Negherbon told me. But I realized they didnt so if our military needs it, we ship it out. And he ticked off a random list. Uniforms, sturdy boots, helmets, stethoscopes, stretchers, sniper supplies, helicopter life-support kits He pays for the items with charitable donations, steep vendor discounts and sometimes outright gifts from manufacturers. Not content with that monumental feat, Negherbon has now turned his attention to helping beleaguered police and sheriffs departments across the United States, especially those in small towns. After learning that officers in cash-strapped departments also go to work without lifesaving equipment Negherbon established a new organization called CopsDirect. His plan: to do for cop shops what hes already done for troops in need. It is sickening that there are police departments that are actually having to do community bake sales and barbecues to try to get funds for things they need, he said. And then, with his rapid-fire enthusiasm, Negherbon recited another list: this one of law enforcement groups his new charity has already helped. Were supplying departments in the Carolinas, Massachusetts, Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, he said. In early April, Negherbon says, CopsDirect sent the police department in Taos 50 first-responder trauma kits the police were not able to buy for themselves. Since officers are often the first on the scene of an accident, these kits are stocked with all sorts of life-saving items including a tourniquet, bandages, trauma shears, gauze, a pressure cup for wounds and rubber gloves. How a gunshot or other serious injury is treated in the first 60 minutes is crucial to survivability. We believe what we are providing to these police departments is going to save the lives of the public and, God forbid, the lives of police officers as well, Negherbon said. Many departments have reported that they dont have funds to stock Naloxone (the antidote for drug overdose) or supplies for their K9 units. Theres just not enough money for new communications equipment, body cameras, Taser guns, specialized helmets, night vision goggles or enhanced body armor. I hadnt realized that a bullet-proof vest has a shelf life and is degraded by sweat, water and regular human wear and tear. They should be replaced every five years for maximum safety. The founder of these two unique charities and I had a frank discussion about how tough it is to be in law enforcement these days. The situation in even a small community can turn into a war zone in an instant. One never knows when civil unrest, catastrophic weather, a dam burst or a forest fire might strike. Or where another mass shooting or act of terrorism might occur. Some departments are diligently working to create a first-responder kit for mass shootings, Negherbon told me. Lots of departments just dont have equipment to take on these bad guys who take over schools, theaters or start shooting in malls, he said. The great thing about CopsDirect, its founder said, is if another (disaster) happened again we could tap into our channel of vendors and get supplies out the next morning. We all probably assume that our tax dollars are enough to pay for what our police officers need to do their jobs. But, obviously, it is not. Negherbons organizations are duly registered 501(c)(3) charities, and his open financial records boast that more than 90 cents on the donated dollar goes toward supply fulfillment, not administrative costs. He says he quit a rather lucrative job in the real estate industry to concentrate full time on his mission. I take a salary, but compared to other originations, my salary is very modest, he said. Sometimes theres a higher calling in life than how many zeros are on the end of your W-2. I thought youd like to know that a man based in San Ramon, Calif. someone you will probably never meet might be helping make your community safer. www.DianeDimond.com; e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.com. Nearly two years ago, Don Moya, then Albuquerque Public Schools Chief Financial Officer, filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the district, alleging he was placed on paid administrative leave for alerting administrators to wasteful audits backed by the new superintendent, Luis Valentino. Both Moya and Valentino left APS amid controversy not long after, but the case is still working its way through the court system. Two law firms are handling the districts defense German & Associates and Robles, Rael, and Anaya. Their bills add up to nearly $680,000 to date, though insurance caps APSs out-of-pocket costs at $350,000. I think that APS is cutting off its nose to spite its face, said Kate Ferlic, Moyas attorney. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case, and theyve had every opportunity to let the truth be known. Ferlic said APS has buried her in nearly 100,000 pages of meaningless documents, but valuable evidence has been destroyed text messages between Valentino and several administrators, including former top deputy, Jason Martinez, as well as New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera, who was named in the lawsuit but dropped in December 2015. Valentino and former APS chief of staff Toni Cordova also claim they lost notes that could be relevant to the case, according to Ferlic. That is disturbing, particularly because these are public records that deal with public business, and I think the public has the right to know whats in them, Ferlic said. An APS spokeswoman declined to comment on the litigation. Moyas case is a reminder of one of the darkest times in the districts history, a four-week stretch that included a notorious errant text, child sex abuse charges, and, ultimately, an $80,000 payout to Valentino. The unraveling began on Aug. 7, 2015, when Valentino recently hired from San Franciscos school district tried to text Skandera about going after Moya for running roughshot. He accidentally sent the text to Moya himself. Later that day, Valentino placed Moya on paid administrative leave. The two were reportedly friendly when Valentino began the job in May 2015, but tangled over proposed audits Moya believed were wasteful and unnecessary. Martinez, a curriculum expert from Colorado, also supported the audits. Less than two weeks after Moya was placed on paid leave, Martinez resigned amid allegations he had skipped a mandatory criminal background check to conceal child sex assault charges against him filed in Denver. He was later found not guilty. Valentino stepped down at the end of August 2015 with an $80,000 buyout and positive reference letter from the APS Board of Education. Luis Valentino and Jason Martinez took APS for a ride, Ferlic said. Don Moya stopped that, but then his entire life was uprooted. Moya filed the whistle-blower lawsuit in Santa Fes First Judicial District Court in August 2015 to encourage fiscal watchdogs to keep public officials accountable, Ferlic said. In fall 2015, he broke both legs in a motorcycle accident. His contract with APS was not renewed in April 2016 because he did not return in a new position financial systems architect after his annual and sick leave ran out. Moya now works as a finance director for Santa Fe County, but misses education, according to Ferlic. That is his passion, Ferlic said. Its been a tough few years. Albuquerque BioPark officials wont follow the social media craze set off by a New York zoo that live streamed, for weeks, the pregnancy of their giraffe, April, and the birth of her baby. But that wont lessen the excitement over the pregnancies of three of Albuquerques giraffes. BioPark officials arent sure they want to pester the animals or keep them contained enough to live stream the pregnancy and arrival of the calves, which are expected make their appearance between May and October. The publicity is not our goal, said BioPark marketing coordinator Greg Jackson. The pregnant giraffes are Camilla, June and Naira, and the father of all three babies is the zoos only adult male giraffe, Buccaneer. Zoos across the nation and world follow guidelines for breeding to ensure genetic health and diversity, including the breeding of Buccaneer with the three females at the BioPark. He is the father of Kumi, the most recent calf to be born at the BioPark, about two years ago to June, who is the most experienced of the three expecting giraffes. We are very excited to welcome more members to our giraffe herd, Paul Huang, BioPark senior zookeeper, said in the announcement. We are monitoring their health closely and hoping for the best. Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, N.Y., live streamed the long pregnancy of giraffe, April, and ultimate birth of her calf, prompting a social media frenzy with people tuning in daily. She had her own website, an apparel line, a GoFundMe page that raised more than $125,000 for the care of the zoo animals, in addition to a dozen other April-related but unaffiliated fundraiser pages. People even wrote songs about awaiting the birth. We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com. The president of a national government accountability group said Friday that the legislative approval of an independent New Mexico ethics commission after years of failure was a huge win for state voters. And, she said, it was no coincidence lawmakers approved the measure just two months after President Donald Trump took office. Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a nonprofit group thats pushed for years for creation of an ethics commission, was in New Mexico this week and said national awareness of ethics-related issues has spiked since Trump was elected. When people dont have faith the laws will be enforced, it breeds cynicism and disengagement in the process, she told the Journal. New Mexico lawmakers approved the framework for an ethics commission during this years 60-day session it will go before statewide voters in November 2018 after years of debate on the issue. If approved by voters, lawmakers would have to pass enabling legislation during the 2019 legislative session to determine the powers and procedures of the seven-member body, which will investigate complaints against state officials, candidates, lobbyists and government contractors. New Mexico is currently one of eight states without an independent ethics commission. Gov. loses key staffer: One of Gov. Susana Martinezs deputy chiefs of staff is leaving the Governors Office next week to work for a private law firm in Albuquerque. Jeremiah Ritchie, who has worked in the Governors Office since 2011, has been one of Martinezs top legislative negotiators and helped craft a new 22-year gambling compact between the state and five Indian tribes that was signed in 2015. In a Friday statement, Martinez lauded Ritchies tenure, saying, I appreciate so much all that he has done for our team and our state, and I wish him and his family the best in the future. With Martinezs second term set to expire at the end of 2018, the Governors Office has seen turnover in several high-ranking positions in recent years. After Ritchies departure, his job duties will be temporarily handled by Chief of Staff Keith Gardner, who has held the position since Martinez took office, and the governors other deputy chief of staff, Nick Piatek. Dan Boyd: dboyd@abqjournal.com A fundraising event to help provide tutoring for students at Maggie Cordova Elementary School takes place next week. The McTeachers Night fundraiser will be from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9, at the McDonalds on Unser and McMahon. Albuquerque Isotopes mascot, Orbit, will be on hand. Area McDonalds restaurants have teamed up with Rotary Club of Rio Rancho and Rio Rancho Public Schools to provide tutoring for K5th graders through its McTeachers Nights fundraisers, according to a news release. In the fundraisers, the owner and operator of the restaurant donates 25 percent of all McTeachers Night sales from the three-hour period. The fundraisers benefit four Rio Rancho elementary schools that participate in the Rotary Clubs Dick Hillier Tutoring Program. The schools are Puesta Del Sol, Maggie Cordova, Colinas del Norte and Sandia Vista. The Rotary Clubs program is unique in that it uses the students own teacher as the tutor, the news release says. Parents whose children participate in the tutoring program notice how much confidence the children gain, which builds constructive learning patterns down the road, Rotary Club of Rio Rancho member Beth Miller said. Clemy Garza, the owner and operator of several Rio Rancho McDonalds along with her father, Julian Garza, said, We want to help this program continue to be successful by supporting these teachers who are making a huge impact in the lives of kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks. In April, the Garzas held McTeachers Nights for Puesta del Sol and Colinas del Norte elementaries, and one on May 2 for Sandia Vista. For information about the Dick Hillier Tutoring Program, visit rioranchorotary.org. Times Internets publisher network, Colombia Audience Network has welcomed Network18 to its premium publisher community. With over 60 publisher partners, the network now occupies over 55 per cent page views across Top 10 News Content publishers on mobile, along with reaching over a quarter of a billion users per month worldwide. The platform serves personalised content and video recommendations in addition to branded content serving more than 9 billion native recommendations per month. That translates into millions of hours of engaged time spent by consumers reading content and watching videos via the Colombia Audience Networks in over 11 languages. Along with Times Internets owned properties, the other properties that are working with Colombia include: Network18s premium publications such as News18, Firstpost.com, and other leading news publications like Punjab Kesari, Sandesh, Dinakaran, Udayavani, The Tribune, India TV, Bartaman Patrika, Andhra Jyothy and more. The Colombia Audience Network generates its personalised content recommendations via Times Internets proprietary advertising technology, which reviews more than 4,000 data points across the 250 million user base to generate personalised recommendations. Colombia Audience Networks continued expansion of its publisher network across all major verticals in India elevates the content marketing opportunity for brands and publishers. It significantly increases a publishers ability to strengthen their relationships with the biggest marketers, including the Top 500 brands in the country. Brands, on the other hand, benefit by getting their content discovered via a large network. The platforms increased consumer relevant advertising not only helps publishers earn more revenue, but also helps elevate their publications brand value for top marketers of the country. The platforms deep analytics that go to the extent of providing key audience information, such as what audiences are responding to chosen content and one of the largest user reach, make it the most preferred platform for marketers. While talking about the partnership, Gulshan Verma, Chief Revenue Officer, Times Internet, said, We are very excited to see Colombia Audience Network reach over a quarter of a billion users globally driving further engagement for marketers and publishers. Today, the Colombia Audience Network is not only the largest content discovery platform in India, but also is directly powering majority of the page views in the 10 largest publisher groups in India. This will allow marketers to feel comfortable working with the platform not only in terms of the scale and the products we offer but also the quality of our premium publisher network. In line with the channels commitment to bring diverse offerings and innovative formats for its viewers, News18 India had launched a special feature Lapete Mein Netaji during the 5 states assembly elections. A series of Hasya Kavi Sammelan, the unique show brought together politicians, poets and people together on the same platform. After its great success, the channel is bringing back the much-appreciated show and making it a part of its regular programming. Starting 6th May, the show will air on weekends. The unique live-audience based show will see some of the wittiest Kavis recite satirical verses on various issues faced by our nation. Politicians will also form an integral part of the show as they come face-to-face and interact with these renowned poets. The show will bring some sharp sarcasm, satire and a sense of humor to the daily discourse. The inaugural episode of the show will see the presence of prolific Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan. Watch Lapete Mein Netaji every Saturday at 6PM & 10PM and Sunday at 8PM from 6th May 2017 I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored - Sir David Attenborough He is the Legend who gave voice to the Wild. Sir David Attenborough, who has spent 60 years of his life exploring the wildest species, turns a year older on May 8th 2017. And Sony BBC Earth celebrates his legacy by premiering Attenborough Special stories from May 6, 2017 in the weekend slot Earth Specials at 9PM. Sony BBC Earths brand promise of offering never seen before visuals with positive and insightful stories, comes alive with two of his most popular shows, Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild and Attenborough's Big Birds. David Attenboroughs unique narrative style seamlessly exemplifies the positive storytelling with a completely new perspective of the planet. In Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild, Sir David Attenborough focuses on three areas which transformed profoundly in course of his career; film-making, science and the environment. Attenborough's Big Birds on the other hand takes you through the oddest of birds like kiwis, emus and elephant birds of Madagascar who look like the court jesters of the natural world. They are birds that have never and will never fly - the ratites. Fondly addressed as the Godfather of Natural History, he is the only person to have won BAFTA awards across formats Black & White, Colour, HD and 3D. So spend this weekend with some extraordinary stories told by one exemplary man only on Sony BBC Earth #FeelAlive. Google has emphasized the actions it has taken and what G Suite administrators and users could do in order to curb phishing attacks in the future. The blog post came after a widespread phishing attack circulated in Gmail this week, wherein an email containing a link to a fake Google Docs app was used to fool users to give hackers access to their email without asking for the users password, which circumvents 2-factor authentication. In order to prevent any future phishing attempts using fake applications, Google has taken certain measures to improve the security of its platforms, especially its Gmail service, and also asked users and admins to take additional steps to help avoid future attacks. To prevent phishing and other malicious attacks, Google uses certain tools to ensure customers security. Among them is using machine learning to detect spam and phishing emails and scanning email attachments for possible malware. In addition, Google is utilizing its Safe Browsing initiative to prevent users from accessing potentially malicious links and additional challenges are provided in case of suspected unauthorized log-ins of Google accounts. However, there are occasions that these measures are not enough to prevent phishing and malware attacks given that machine learning algorithms do not guarantee 100% detection of phishing emails and malware scanning is limited to a certain file size. These limitations call for quick action from Google when major phishing attempts happen, like what happened this week. In this weeks case, Google claims they were able to fully resolve the phishing attempt in an hour, with updates pushed to Safe Browsing, Gmail, Google Cloud Platform and other counter-abuse systems Google is using, while also taking down fake pages and applications. Given that there are scenarios where hackers were able to circumvent Googles efforts to prevent phishing, users and G Suite administrators are asked to take additional steps to make their accounts more secure. Some of the steps that G Suite administrators could take in order to secure accounts include reviewing of third-party access to email accounts and running security checklists once an account is suspected to be compromised. For users, especially those who are using their personal accounts, Google is also recommending certain actions to improve account security. Among others, Google is advising users to take a security checkup, with users looking out for old or unrecognized devices, as well as paying attention to warnings from Google and reporting possibly malicious emails. This weeks attack is not the first time that the 2-factor authentication was circumvented, exposing Google account users to hackers, and it might not be the last, so it is advisable for users to follow the steps provided by Google. Mobile service provider US Cellular on Friday posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2017, revealing an operating revenue of $936 million a three-percent decline compared to Q1 2016 and a reduced handset churn rate that now amounts to just over one percent. The fifth largest wireless carrier in the United States fell short of analyst expectations in terms of operating revenue as most industry watchers believed that the companys performance will drop by approximately 1.5 percentage points, and not double that amount, but not all of the results posted by the Chicago, Illinois-based company were disappointing. US Cellulars earnings per share amounted to 18 cents during the first quarter of the year, which is significantly more than 11 cents per share that analysts expected. Likewise, the companys phone churn rate was extremely low, with the firm attributing that achievement to its new unlimited data plan that it introduced in February, thus mimicking AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Regardless, US Cellulars postpaid net losses amounted to 27,000 over the course of the three-month period ending March 31, with the firm losing around 28,000 phone customers and adding just 1,000 of other connected devices, the earnings report revealed. Likewise, the company lost 4,000 prepaid customers in Q1 2017, though it expects that trend will be reversed in the current period thanks to its new unlimited data plan that managed to prevent further losses during the recently ended quarter. The companys President Ken Meyers admitted that the losses posted in Q1 2017 could have been further reduced had the firm reacted to the rise of unlimited data plans sooner, but has ultimately decided to wait for Verizon before launching such an offering itself. Despite being somewhat late to the unlimited data race, US Cellulars new plan was reportedly received by consumers in a positive manner, with approximately 11 percent of all of the firms postpaid lines transitioning to it within the first five weeks of its launch, Meyers revealed. Following the release of the companys mixed financial results, its shares rose by more than eight percent when the market closed on Friday. While it remains to be seen whether US Cellular manages to maintain that value, this latest turn of events indicates that the wireless carrier is now even more unlikely to sell itself than it previously was. The ZenFone 4 Max bearing the model number ZC554KL was listed on the official support pages of ASUS on Friday, though the Taipei, Taiwan-based consumer electronics manufacturer delisted the device only hours after accidentally revealing its existence. In light of the companys previous naming conventions, the model number of the handset indicates that this variant of the ZenFone 4 Max will ship with a 5.5-inch display panel and one of Qualcomms Snapdragon-branded chips that will be compatible with 4G LTE networks. The chip itself will likely be either the Snapdragon 625 or the Snapdragon 660 that the San Diego-based semiconductor manufacturer is scheduled to announce on Tuesday, May 9. Another mysterious ASUS-made device was listed by popular mobile benchmarking tool GFXBench on Friday, and the basic specs of the ASUS X00ID seemingly correspond to the ZenFone 4 Max. According to yesterdays listing, the Taiwanese tech giant will launch an Android-powered smartphone boasting a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels and powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon system-on-chip (SoC) with eight cores clocked at up to 1.4GHz. While the model numbers of the two devices indicate that they arent one and the same, benchmark listings can easily be fooled, especially in terms of device names and model numbers. In any case, it seems that the ZenFone 4 Max will be at least a small upgrade over its predecessors, and the Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer will likely opt to release at least several variants of this particular device. Recent rumors indicated that the ASUS ZenFone 4 lineup will be unveiled this month, which may imply that the upcoming smartphones will be announced at Computex Taipei 2017 thats scheduled to start on May 30. The companys ZenFone family is traditionally updated on an annual basis with a broad range of new devices, and the ZC554KL model that was now accidentally listed and quickly delisted by ASUS almost certainly isnt the top-tier member of the upcoming lineup, though it remains to be seen how will it compare with its siblings. Given the steadily increasing number of rumors regarding the ZenFone 4 family, an update on the availability of upcoming ASUS-made devices may follow soon. YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS. The coalition agreement between the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) will be probably signed after May holidays, ARF faction secretary Aghvan Vardanyan told the reporters during the ceremony of receiving parliamentary mandates at the National Assembly. Aghvan Vardanyan also commented on the media reports that allegedly the ARF has some problems with the Premier of Armenia Karen Karapetyan. Such reports are absolutely groundless, Armenpress reports Vardanyan saying. The MP gave no more details on the coalition memorandum. He advised the reporters to be patient for a short period after which they will receive the answers of all the questions. Boeing is looking at offering derivatives of the 737 MAX to replace NATO militaries fleets of aging and thirsty Boeing 707s, according to a report by Aviation Week. The Boeing 707 was the starting airframe for 140 special observation aircraft still in use around the world (including the E-6, E-3, E-8, RC-135, OC-135 and WC-135). The most produced military variant of the 707, the KC-135 Stratotanker, is being replaced by the Boeing KC-46A, which is derived from the Boeing 767 platform. Many of the Boeing 707 variants entered service in early 1960s. Boeing currently makes the P-8 Poseidon, a 737-based system, for the U.S. Navy as a Multimission Maritime Aircraftin addition to observation roles, it can drop sonar buoys, depth charges, torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Boeings next target is the contract to replace the E-8 J-Stars, after which they hope savings in maintenance infrastructure, pilot training and purchasing volume discounts will begin to cascade. Jim Eisenhart, a Boeing Defense, Space, and Security executive, told Aviation Week, Starting with J-Stars, because thats the oldest and probably most crippled, we devised a strategy where the savings from one platform would flow into the acquisition of the next. These savings would then flow into the next, and so on. Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin also intend to compete for the J-Stars replacement contact using commercially available airframes, but those companies have based their solutions on much smaller business jetsthe Gulfstream G550 and the Bombardier Global 6000. Boeing says the reduced fuel costs of the smaller aircraft wont add up to the savings generated by 737-sized production volume. A replacement windscreen for a 737 costs around $5,000, versus around $70,000 for a Gulfstreamits just a matter of economy of scale. Chinas long-awaited C919 single-aisle airliner flew for the first time on Friday and completed an 80-minute low-altitude and low-speed loop around the Yangtze River delta area before landing in Shanghai. The Chinese government, which built the airliner through its wholly owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), issued a statement saying the flight went well and all systems worked. The project, which is about three years behind schedule, is a marquee initiative in Chinas bid to free itself from reliance on Western technology for the sophisticated products its burgeoning middle class demands, but China had plenty of help to get this aircraft into the air. The engines are French CFM LEAP-1C high-efficiency turbofans, the avionics are from Honeywell and GE built the flight management and reporting systems. Michelin makes the tires. The airframe borrows heavily from the designs of the A320 and Boeing 737. Although it was widely portrayed as a direct challenge to Boeing and Airbuss duopoly in that market segment, it will likely be some time before there is any tangible effect, if at all. The C919 will make a dent in the other companies domination of the Chinese domestic airline market but the aircraft has made virtually no inroads in other markets. The company says it has 530 orders for the twinjet but its apparently under no illusions about the difficulty of cracking the export market. Banners at the assembly plant urge workers to endure hardship, dedication and struggle to get the jet to market. Russian pilots have sent a petition to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) alleging that Rosaviatsiya, the government agency responsible for crew certification, is canceling the credentials of hundreds of pilots who trained at private schools rather than those run by the government department. The pilots claim the move is aimed at eliminating competition and could end up invalidating the licenses of 25 percent of the nations pilots. Theyre asking ICAO to intervene and stop arbitrariness on the part of Rosaviatsiya regarding aviation experts and training centers. Rosaviatsiya spokesman Sergey Izvolsky is quoted in Russian media as essentially confirming the pilots complaints but said its anything but arbitrary and all in the name of safety. He said the 400 pilots suspended in the last five years were flying on forged credentials from the private schools. The pilot profession can only be given by those educational institutions that have a commercial pilot program approved by Rosaviatsiya. Such programs exist only in flight schools and higher educational institutions of civil aviation, subordinated to Rosaviatsiya, he said. Vladimir Tyurin, head of the board of AOPA-Russia, is quoted as saying Rosaviatsiya has a clear conflict of interest. Ulyanovsk and St. Petersburg universities of civil aviation are subordinate enterprises of the Federal Air Transport Agency. And Rosaviatsiya finances them. At the same time, it certifies [commercial] aviation training centers. A clear conflict of interest appears. Obviously, they will force these centers out of the market, he told RBC. He said that when the government schools couldnt meet the demand for pilots, private schools were encouraged but now that demand has subsided the government is getting rid of the competition. Trump's pick to serve as Army Secretary, the former Army doctor Mark Green, who is currently a Tennessee state senator, has withdrawn his name from consideration over statements he has made over LBGT issues, Islam, and his beliefs in creationism, according to CNN. What's causing the uproar: He said if you ask psychiatrists they will tell you "transgender is a disease." He said "we will not tolerate" educating people on Islam in textbooks. He's a self-proclaimed "creationist" and gave a lecture arguing against evolution. Green purports that the attacks against him are "false and misleading." He concluded: "this nomination has become a distraction." The trend: Trump's first pick for Army Secretary, Vincent Viola, also withdrew over complications with conflict-of-interest rules, and Trump's Navy secretary pick, Philip Bilden, also withdrew his name from consideration, that time over financial holdings. 6 May 2017 12:06 (UTC+04:00) "We are ready to invest in the fields of logistics and trade in Azerbaijan, head of the Turkish Eastern Black Sea Exporters Association Ahmet Hamdi Gurdogan has told journalists on the sidelines of an Azerbaijani-Turkish business forum, Azertac reported. He said Turkey's eastern Black Sea region is the closest region to Azerbaijan. There is a great potential to strengthen trade ties between this region and Azerbaijan. And we should consider revitalizing this potential, Gurdogan added. -- 6 May 2017 17:10 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijani ambassador to Indonesia Tamerlan Garayev and chair of the Regional Representative Council of the Indonesian Parliament Oesman Sapta Odang have discussed cooperation between parliaments of the two countries. The two noted the role of reciprocal visits in strengthening the bilateral cooperation, Azertac reported. They pointed out the importance of an event commemorating the 25th anniversary of Khojaly genocide, which was held at the Indonesian parliament. Sapta Odang reaffirmed Indonesia`s continuous support for Azerbaijan. The two also discussed the possibility of launching air flights between the capitals of Azerbaijan and Indonesia. --- 6 May 2017 18:15 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Organized by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) a plenary session The Muslim-Arab legacy in the West has been held as part of the 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue. The event was moderated by Amina Hamshari representative of Intercultural dialogue section, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO. Other speakers at the event included Myriam Chopin, Medievalist at the Haute-Alsace University and President of the Stratsbourg-Mediterranee Festival, Gerardo Bautista, Director of Editions des Archives contemporaines. --- 2 reasons Christians should never dabble in the occult The death of a loved one is a pain that no one wishes to experience. When the loss of a friend or family member happens, even Christians are sometimes tempted to engage in occult activities just so they can have another chance to communicate with the spirits of their loved ones. However, world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham is strongly discouraging believers from doing so. When believers are offered the opportunity to contact the dead, Graham said they should stand their ground and turn their backs on evil. "The Bible clearly states that occult activities like this are not from God but from the demonic powers of darkness," he wrote in his column for the Bowling Green Daily News. Graham gave two important reasons why believers should not engage in occult practices. First, it's because the occult is "fraudulent and deceptive." He said these practices claim to have powers that do not really exist, and practitioners only pretend to have them to get money. The other reason is that the occult has ties with Satan. "The main reason is because occult practices like this may bring us into contact with spiritual powers that are not from God, but from Satan," he warned. Instead of seeking comfort in occult practices, Christians should find peace and comfort in Jesus Christ, for He alone can fill whatever emptiness or grief people feel, Graham said. "Remember: for the Christian, death is not the end, because by His resurrection from the dead, Christ conquered death and opened Heaven's door for us. He alone can give us hope and He will, as we open our hearts and lives to His love," he said. Graham earlier warned people not to use Ouija boards as well, even though society is making its use seem cool and fun. "Dabbling in the occult not only leads you away from God, but it could also entangle you with spiritual forces that are not from God but Satan," he warned. Archbishops: Religion must be central in general election to avoid extremism The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are calling on politicians to take faith seriously if they are to defeat terror and extremism in their first major intervention on the general election. Justin Welby and John Sentamu's three-page letter to churches says religion must play a central role in this election as they urged voters to 'set aside apathy and cynicism'. Addressing immigration, housing, education, the economy as well as backing the commitment to spent 0.7 per cent of government income on foreign aid, the wide-ranging letter put the importance of religion in public life as its central message. 'Contemporary politics needs to re-evaluate the importance of religious belief,' they write, demanding an 'improvement of religious literacy' among politicians and journalists. 'The assumptions of secularism are not a reliable guide to the way the world works, nor will they enable us to understand the place of faith in other people's lives,' they write. In an implicit defence of Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and other politicians who have been criticised for their beliefs, the Anglican leaders say a politician's religious faith must 'not be treated by opponents as a vulnerability to be exploited. 'We look forward to a media and political climate where all candidates can feel confident that they can be open about the impact of their faith on their vocation to public service.' The evangelical Lib Dem faced repeated questioning after refusing to say whether he thought gay sex was a sin. He eventually said that he did not think it was. But attacking religion in politicians will only fuel extremism and terrorism, the Archbishops warn. 'Political responses to the problems of religiously-motivated violence and extremism, at home and overseas, must also recognise that solutions will not be found simply in further secularisation of the public realm,' they say. 'Mainstream religious communities have a central role to play; whilst extremist narratives require compelling counter-narratives that have a strong theological and ideological foundation.' The letter to be read across the Church of England tackled issues such as immigration housing and education but was cautious not to give away any political leaning. They say the election is set against 'deep and profound questions of identity' and post-Brexit Britain offers a rare opportunity 'to renew and reimagine our shared values as a country'. They write: 'The Christian virtues of love, trust and hope should guide and judge our actions, as well as the actions and policies of all those who are seeking election to the House of Commons and to lead our country.' Urging churchgoers to back a 'deeper concern for the weak, poor and marginalised, and for the common good' at the ballot box the Archbishop say 'education for all', 'solutions to our housing challenges' and a 'flourishing health service' are all crucial. They say parties must look to build an 'outward looking and generous country, with distinctive contributions to peacebuilding, development, the environment and welcoming the stranger in need.' They warn against an 'economy over-reliant on debt', in an apparent jibe at Jeremy Corbyn's plans for mass borrowing but also said the 'need for a just economy is clear'. On immigration the Archbishops say: 'Offering a generous and hospitable welcome to refugees and migrants is a vital expression of our common humanity, but it is not without cost and we should not be deaf to the legitimate concerns that have been expressed about the scale of population flows and the differential impact it has on different parts of society. 'The pressures of integration must be shared more equitably.' The letter comes 33 days before the UK goes to polls on June 8. Christian man sentenced to life in prison in Pakistan for sending 'blasphemous' text messages A court in Pakistan has sentenced a Christian man to life imprisonment under the country's blasphemy law for allegedly sending "blasphemous" text messages from his mobile phone. After the court in the city of Rawalpindi in the Punjab province sentenced Zafar Bhatti on Wednesday, legal advocacy group CLAAS, which is based in the United Kingdom and run by Christians from Pakistan, said it will challenge the decision, according to the news website Christians In Pakistan. The court overlooked lack of evidence, the group said. Bhatti has been in Adiala Central Jail since the accusation was made in 2012. The bar association at the time passed a resolution saying no lawyer would represent the Christian man. However, CLAAS represented him. "The lower court's judges always hesitate to make decisions on the merit, or free people accused of blasphemy, and instead transfer their burden to the higher court without realizing how their decision will impact the accused and their families' lives," Nasir Saeed, director of CLAAS-UK, said in a statement. "Bhatti is innocent and will be freed by the higher court. But it will take several years for his case to be heard by the High court, and until then he and his family will continue suffering needlessly." The Center for Research and Security Studies in Pakistan estimates that at least 65 people have been killed over blasphemy allegations since 1990, and dozens more convicted of the crime are on death row. Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which are embedded in Sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, carry the death penalty, and yet there is no provision to punish a false accuser or a false witness of blasphemy. Allegations of blasphemy often stem from the Muslim accuser's desire to take revenge and to settle petty, personal disputes, according to Christian groups working in the country. In January, a 70-year-old Christian grandpa was arrested and beaten by police in an attempt to extract a confession after he was accused of writing letters that were deemed insulting to Islam. Now he could face years in prison or possibly death. Mukhtar Masih and his family were taken into custody in the village of Lambanwali in the Punjab province on Jan. 28 after police stormed his home around 10 p.m. and informed him that a blasphemy case had been lodged against him. According to the accusation of local Muslim residents filed at the Rahwali police station, Masih allegedly wrote blasphemous messages with derogatory comments toward the Muslim prophet Muhammad and the Quran. The London-based charity British Pakistani Christian Association reported at the time that that Masih was accused of pinning the notes on Gulzar Mosque. Qadri Shahbaz, the imam of the mosque, claimed to have found the note on Jan. 26 and two other local Christians were initially accused of writing the notes. But having been pressured, the two Christians reportedly incriminated Mukhtar and claimed he was the man who penned the note. Meanwhile, in a more high-profile case, Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death in 2010 on accusations of blasphemy, is awaiting appeal proceedings to begin. In June 2009 while picking berries with a group of Muslim women in the town of Sheikhupura in the Punjab province, the women got upset that she drank from the same water bowl as them. An argument ensued, and the women went to police and accused her of saying something along the lines of "My Christ died for me, what did Muhammad do for you?" She was promptly arrested. Her appeal hearing was delayed again after the nation's Supreme Court rejected a request for her case to be heard in early June, according to reports. Irish police are investigating Stephen Fry for blasphemy over 'God is a maniac' comments Irish police have launched an investigation into whether Stephen Fry broke Ireland's blasphemy law when he described God as 'capricious, mean-minded and stupid' in a 2015 TV interview. Fry's comments on The Meaning of Life, hosted by Gay Byrne, were in answer to a question about what he would say to God at the pearly gates. In a reply that was widely reported, he said: 'How dare you create a world in which there is such misery? It's not our fault? It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?' If he were met by Greek gods, he said, he would be more accepting because 'they didn't present themselves as being all seeing, all wise, all beneficent'. He added: 'Because the god who created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish.' Under Ireland's Defamation Act of 2009, it is illegal to publish or utter blasphemous material. According to Independent.ie, a member of the public reported Fry at the time, not because he was personally offended but because he believed Fry had broken the law. He told the website: 'In late 2016 I wrote to the Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan asking if the crime I reported was being followed up - a few weeks later I got a standard "we have received your letter" from her secretary.' A few weeks ago the complainant was told his complainant was being investigated, though a source told Independent.ie it was 'highly unlikely' Fry would be prosecuted. The offence carries a maximum fine of 25,000, though there have been no cases brought before the courts so far. Ireland is the only country in the developed world to have introduced a blasphemy offence this century. Mark Woods: Stephen Fry, eye-worms and bone cancer - how Christians can still believe in the goodness of God Is the eye-worm the knock-down blow to Christian faith that atheists believe it is? Stephen Fry seems to think so. In an interview with Irish TV host Gay Byrne last week, Fry was asked what he would say to God at the pearly gates of heaven. The ensuing rant articulate, polite but savage was widely shared. "I'll say, 'Bone cancer in children? What's that about?' How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil." And the eye-worm? It's this to which he refers when he says: "Yes the world is very splendid but it has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. It eats outwards from the eyes. Why?" So do the worm, and the bone cancer, and all the other ghastly conditions that disfigure the biological world not to mention the multitude of horrors human beings inflict on other members of their own species make it impossible for a reasonable person to believe? Tell me about this worm, then. He seems to have borrowed it, so to speak, from David Attenborough, who said in 2009 that he got hate mail from creationists complaining that he didn't credit God enough for the wonders of nature. He told the Radio Times: "I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs." In fact it seems that no such worm exists. According to the New Scientist, Attenborough probably meant the Loa Loa eye-worm, which it says are "endemic to the swamps and rain forests of central and west Africa, and, contrary to my horror-movie vision of bursting eyeballs, are rarely life-threatening and no more harmful than the myriad other human parasites in the region". So, no problem? Hardly. Fry may be weak on biology, but that isn't to say that there aren't nasty, nasty things out there. For instance another candidate is Onchocerca volvulus, a parasitic worm that causes 'river-blindness'. It is spread by a biting fly and causes a range of horrific conditions including blindness; whole communities can be affected and there are thought to be around 37 million infections worldwide. Parasites sound absolutely horrible. They are, and the idea that something depends for its life on living on and weakening or killing another creature, sometimes effectively eating it alive, presents something of a challenge for theology. However, Christian scientists point out that in the case of animal or insect suffering we shouldn't be swayed too much by the 'yuck' factor: lots of creatures depend for their survival on the deaths of others, after all. But what about human suffering? Indeed. Fry also mentioned bone cancer, for instance. It is the idea, no less powerful for being very common, that the depth and extent of human suffering makes any idea that a good and loving God could exist untenable. It's a pretty strong case, isn't it? You make a very important point. Really? Yes. One of the problems with what is called "theodicy" justifying the righteousness of God in the face of evil is that many of his defenders don't recognise the power of the contrary argument. So their attempts work within the closed system of religion, but don't carry the slightest conviction outside it. Such as? There's the "Narnia defence", for instance: in C S Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew", Digory's mother is dying of cancer and Aslan, the Christ-figure, doesn't heal her but cries "great shining tears". The idea is that God doesn't stand aloof from suffering, but mourns with us. That's all very well, but it cuts no ice with the mother of the child with bone cancer: she just wants her child to get better. Sympathy, divine or human, doesn't do that. Any others? Lots. Pointing to the death of Christ is another: preachers like to say that when Jesus was crucified God was sharing in the suffering of his creation. It is a powerful preaching point from a devotional point of view, but as an argument defending the goodness of God it makes no sense at all. If your child is infected with Onchocerca volvulus you don't want a doctor to say, "Look, I've got it too!" You want her to cure it. You are a Reverend, aren't you? Indeed, and I'm not saying there are no answers, just that we need to think very hard before we presume to offer them. Job's three comforters were arguably at their wisest when they sat with him and said nothing at all; things went downhill the moment they opened their mouths. On the other hand, saying nothing is not really an option, because these issues are so sharp and painful. This is particularly the case with diseases which are no one's fault, but just built in to the nature of things Onchocerca volvulus again but in reality all innocent suffering poses the same question. Either God could stop it and doesn't want to, in which case he isn't wholly good, or wants to and can't, in which case he isn't all-powerful. That seems quite hard to answer. It is. So some theologians have tried to re-imagine what omnipotence actually means. For instance, a few years ago the evangelical theologian Clark Pinnock wrote a book called 'Most Moved Mover: A theology of God's Openness' in 2001. He argued that the conventional idea of God comes from Greek philosophy and that the Old Testament has a much more "human" conception of him; he doesn't have everything mapped out, and knows what might happen rather than what will. Not everyone agrees, obviously; it is rather too theologically daring for most evangelicals. What are the alternatives, though? There are those who argue that God intended the world to be good and that humans spoiled it through the Fall, but this doesn't solve anything. Even if you believe in a literal Fall in 4004 BC, God still had to allow it to happen, knowing all the dreadful consequences that would follow. (There is also the small point that Genesis 3 doesn't mention disease, parasites etc, aside from the scientific objections to this view.) If you don't, then evolution over aeons is God's chosen method of creation, and death and disease are built into that. That's quite hard: for instance, Tennyson in his poem 'In Memoriam' wrote not long after Darwin about those "Who trusted God was love indeed/ And love Creation's final law/ Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw/ With ravine, shriek'd against his creed" the natural world is not aways a warm and cuddly place. But couldn't there have been evolution without parasites like Onchocerca volvulus? That is problematic, to say the least. The only way that we can conceive of developed life evolving is through the mechanism that we actually have. You can't just say "I don't like this bit" and magic it out of biology, any more than you can say that earthquakes won't knock down cities or fires won't burn people: physical laws work whether we want them to or not. Knowing what we do of the laws of the physical universe, it is arguable that this is the only one that he could create. But don't we believe in miracles? Most Christians do, but most would say that they're rare. We can't expect God to catch us in mid-air if we fall off a cliff. However, admitting even the possibility of miracles is a problem, because you have to ask why they are rare so it's back to square one. God has chosen to create a world in which it's possible for really bad things to happen, as well as really good things. So a Christian has to say something like, "Well, he must have thought that it would be worth it, taking the long view and all in all." A world in which there is freedom for human beings to grow and change, to meet and overcome challenges, and in which the depth of suffering calls out the height of love and self-sacrifice, is better than the world not existing at all. I still worry about Onchocerca volvulus. You should, because one of the problems with arguments like this is that they tend to lose all their traction when they come up against real people in real pain. But arguably, when we're face to face with such things, our instinct shouldn't be to discuss them, but to get angry and do something about them. Part of our discipleship is to work for human flourishing in body, mind and spirit: we should make the world better, as far as we possibly can. You seem to have fairly limited aims when it comes to the whole problem of evil thing. Yes. If anyone says that they've solved it, don't believe them. The best that theodicy can do is to create a space for faith to exist without it being completely incoherent or irrational. In that space it can grow stronger, so that when personal challenges come we can meet them still believing in a God of love. We shouldn't expect to be exempt from the laws of the natural world, but sickness and death don't mean that God doesn't care. Instead, we should try to learn and grow through what happens. And it's alright to be angry - there's plenty of anger in the Psalms, after all - and it's alright to grieve. Follow @RevMarkWoods on Twitter. Rowan Williams responds to Stephen Fry The former Archbishop of Canterbury has responded to Stephen Fry's criticism of God, saying only a "stupid and insensitive" person would never question God in the face of suffering. In an interview on BBC's Newsnight, Lord Williams told Evan Davis that the Bible is full of people grappling with the issue. "It's interesting that already in the Psalms and the book of Job, you're beginning to have that kind of protest voice within religious communities," he said. "It would be a very, very stupid and very insensitive person who never felt that. But to me what's mysterious is the fact that people in the heart of suffering, people who are alongside children with bone cancer still, somehow, maintain a faith, a trust of some kind." Lord Williams insisted that there is something so "mysterious" about that, that one has to "draw back a little bit from simply saying well 'it's all God's fault and that's it'." "And I'd also rather like to hope that if Stephen Fry actually met God, he'd wait for the reply," he added. Fry condemned God as "utterly evil, capricious and monstrous" on an Irish religious affairs programme at the end of January. Asked what he would say to God were he to meet him, Fry replied: "How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?" His comments inspired both praise and criticism. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev Justin Welby, defended Fry's right to criticise God as an act of religious freedom. "Taking responsibility for someone else's freedom is as important as protecting my own," Archbishop Welby said at the launch of the Religious Liberty Commission last week. "It is as much the right of Stephen Fry to say what he said and not to be abused by Christians who are affronted, as it is the right of Christians to proclaim Jesus Christ as their Saviour. That is his freedom to choose, that is given to us in creation." Fry told BBC's Radio 4 programme on Friday that he was "absolutely astonished" by the response to his outburst. "I don't think I mentioned once any particular religion and I certainly didn't intend to say anything offensive towards any particular religion," he said. "I said quite a few things that were angry at this supposed God. I was merely saying things that Bertrand Russell and many finer heads than mine have said for hundreds of years, going all the way back to the Greeks." Stephen Fry astonished at response to 'monstrous God' comments Stephen Fry has revealed he was "absolutely astonished" by the enormity of the reponse to his attack on on God. Fry, who recently married his partner Elliot Spencer, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme he had not meant to cause offence. "I don't think I mentioned once any particular religion and I certainly didn't intend to say anything offensive towards any particular religion. "I said quite a few things that were angry at this supposed God. I was merely saying things that Bertrand Russell and many finer heads than mine have said for hundreds of years, going all the way back to the Greeks." A storm of controversy erupted worldwide after Fry condemned God as "utterly evil, capricious and monstrous" on the Irish religious affairs programme The Meaning of Life on RTE television. In an imaginary conversation with God, Fry said he would challenge him: "How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?" Among responses across social and print media, a comment based on Christian apologetics by Krish Kandiah for Christian Today proved one of the most popular. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby declined to comment on Fry's specific criticisms but defended the "freedom" of atheists to make such statements. The next leader of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, Rev Ian McNie, accused Fry of "spiritual blindness". Welby and UK's top faith leaders back anniversary campaign for Jo Cox The UK's top faith leaders are throwing their weight behind a campaign to unite different communities and religious groups in memory of murdered MP Jo Cox. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, as well as senior Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist figures are supporting 'The Great Get Together' a weekend of events aiming to bring people together on the anniversary of the Labour MP's death. Launching the move her widower Brendan Cox said he wanted the memorial to be a joyous occasion that helped bring communities together. 'Elections are huge moments of national importance and deserve to be taken seriously. But we also need to get a better balance,' he said. 'We spend way too much time fixated on the areas we disagree with each other and need to create more moments where we come together as a country. That's what I'm focused on and after polling day, I am sure that's exactly what people all over the UK will be crying out for.' The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the weekend was an 'excellent opportunity for all of us to strengthen the ties that bind us'. He urged churchgoers to get involved saying: 'The Great Get Together is a fitting tribute to the life and legacy of Jo Cox MP, her public service and her commitment to the inclusion and flourishing of all people in society.' Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis described the event as an 'invaluable opportunity for community engagement on an unprecedented scale'. He said: 'Breaking bread with those we care about has been a cornerstone of Jewish culture for millennia. That is why I believe that there is no better way than the 'Great Get Together' to share what we have in common with those of all faiths and none. This will be a most appropriate tribute to the memory of the late Jo Cox MP.' The Great Get Together will take place on June 16-18 and is an invitation to host street parties, BBQs, picnics, coffee mornings, tea parties and iftars in local communities. To find out more click here. Chicago, IL (May 6, 2017) -- A new study finds that individuals struggling with obesity who are not candidates for weight-loss surgery can benefit substantially from non-surgical endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2017, the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. Patients who underwent ESG -- a procedure performed through the mouth with an endoscope to "accordion" the stomach by suturing pleats to reduce its size -- achieved greater weight loss than laparoscopic banding, but less weight loss than laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy surgery. Patients who received treatment endoscopically had shorter hospital stays and lower costs than those who had laparoscopic surgery. "Obesity continues to be a problem in America and it is an epidemic rapidly spreading around the world," said Reem Z. Sharaiha, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and attending physician at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the study's lead author. "Our research -- the first to compare these treatments -- demonstrates that endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is safe and effective in helping patients lead healthier lives. It should be considered as another tool available to clinicians and patients in the fight against obesity." Dr. Sharaiha followed 278 patients who underwent ESG (91 patients), laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (120 patients) or laparoscopic banding (67). During the one-year follow-up period, patients went to an academic bariatric center of excellence as part of their treatment. At one-year follow-up, patients who chose laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy surgery achieved the greatest percent total body weight loss at 29.28 percent, compared to 17.57 percent for endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty patients and 14.46 percent for laparoscopic banding patients. Researchers found that patients who received endoscopic treatment had lower complications (1 percent) than those who received surgical treatment (10 percent for laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and 11 percent for laparoscopic banding). Dr. Sharaiha noted that these findings do not suggest that endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty will replace the two surgical treatments as weight-loss interventions. Instead, these results show that endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is another possibility that patients and health-care providers should consider when discussing options. While endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty is performed with an endoscopic device through the mouth, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy involves a small surgical incision in the belly to place a tube in the abdomen, allowing doctors to reduce the stomach's volume. With laparoscopic banding, doctors insert a tube through an incision in the belly to place a band around the stomach, restricting food intake. The team also reported that endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty patients customarily left the hospital on the same day of treatment, while laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy patients stayed for about three days and laparoscopic banding patients for a day and a half. When examining cost, researchers reported endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty resulted in the lowest-cost, with an average institutional procedure cost of $12,000, compared to $22,000 for laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and $15,000 for laparoscopic banding. "For years, patients seeking weight-loss interventions had limited options because they could not tolerate or did not want surgery, or it was not even an option for them," added Dr. Sharaiha. "Our research shows that endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty can be the treatment they've been looking for. It's less invasive than surgery and helps them reach their health goals." Obesity is associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers, and researchers estimate that it is the second-leading cause of preventable death, after tobacco use. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than one in three U.S. adults is obese, having a body mass index of 30 or more. The CDC estimated the medical cost of obesity in the U.S. at approximately $147 billion in 2008. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 600 million people were obese in 2014. ### Dr. Reem Z. Sharaiha will present data from the study, "Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty, Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy, and Laparoscopic Band for Weight Loss: How Do They Compare?" abstract 334, on Saturday, May 7, at 11:54 a.m. CT, in S504 of McCormick Place. For more information about featured studies, as well as a schedule of availability for featured researchers, please visit http://www.ddw.org/press. Dr. Sharaiha did not have any disclosures for DDW research. Digestive Disease Week (DDW) is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy, and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT), DDW takes place May 6-9, 2017, at McCormick Place, Chicago. The meeting showcases more than 5,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. More information can be found at http://www.ddw.org. Chicago, IL (May 6, 2017) -- Genotyping of patients with advanced cirrhosis from hepatitis C virus could help health-care professionals predict the likelihood of improvement after successful hepatitis C treatment, thus minimizing the need for liver transplants. This study was presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2017, the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. "Our findings further the move toward precision medicine, because we can potentially use a person's genetic makeup to identify individuals who can benefit most from hepatitis C treatment, even at a very late stage in the progression of their liver disease," said Winston Dunn, MD, the study's lead author and associate professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Most patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be cured by direct-acting antiviral agents, but some of those with the more serious decompensated cirrhosis, or liver damage, fail to improve or experience further deterioration even after treatment. Features of decompensated cirrhosis include confusion, swelling and jaundice. Dr. Dunn and his team focused on the Rs738409 single nucleotide polymorphism (RSP), which is a variation in a single base pair of DNA in the PNPLA3 gene; patients possess one of three genotypes -- CC, CG, or GG. The PNPLA3 gene is the most important genetic risk factor for both alcoholic liver disease and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The team followed 32 patients with decompensated cirrhosis at the University of Kansas Medical Center who had initially achieved sustained virologic response (SVR). They had become essentially virus-free, using interferon-free direct-acting antiviral medications, such as sofosbuvir/ledipasvir and sofosbuvir/simeprevir. Twelve to 48 weeks after SVR, researchers tracked changes in two measures that assess the severity of chronic liver disease, the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and the Child-Pugh (CPT) scores. Following the antiviral treatment, researchers found that five of the 16 patients with the CG or GG genotypes experienced worsened MELD or CPT scores. In comparison, only one of the patients with the CC genotype worsened in either CPT or MELD scores. "These findings suggest screening for the Rs738409 CG and GG genotypes in hepatitis C patients with decompensated cirrhosis can help to identify individuals who are less likely to recover after achieving a 'cure' of their hepatitis C," added Dr. Dunn. "Until now, we have not had a method to distinguish between the individuals who would recover given equal severity in baseline disease." As next steps, Dr. Dunn noted that his team will examine the underlying mechanisms that may explain why the presence of these genotypes lead to worsened health outcomes. They'll study how fatty liver and insulin resistance impact clinical recovery after treatment with direct-acting antiviral medications, and if these findings correspond to that of the genetic marker for fatty liver (Rs738409). ### Financial support for this study was provided by the Frontiers Pilot and Collaborative Studies Funding Program. Dr. Winston Dunn will present data from the study, "Rs738409 SNP of PNPLA3 Gene Predicts Clinical Recovery in Patients with Decompensated Hepatitis C Cirrhosis After Attaining Sustained Virological Response" abstract Sa1535, on Saturday, May 7, at 9:30 a.m. CT, in South Hall of McCormick Place. For more information about featured studies, as well as a schedule of availability for featured researchers, please visit http://www.ddw.org/press. Digestive Disease Week (DDW) is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy, and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT), DDW takes place May 6-9, 2017, at McCormick Place, Chicago. The meeting showcases more than 5,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. More information can be found at http://www.ddw.org. Vienna, Austria: Doctors have found that treating prostate cancer with a single, high dose of radiation delivered precisely to the site of the tumour results in good quality of life and fewer trips to the hospital, with adverse side effects that are no worse than if the radiation treatment had been given in several lower doses. Dr Alfonso Gomez-Iturriaga, from the Hospital de Cruces, Baracaldo, Spain, told the ESTRO 36 conference that results were encouraging from the phase II trial of high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy, delivered in a single fraction of 19Gy [1], to 45 patients with prostate cancer that was at low or intermediate risk of spreading elsewhere in the body. "Our study demonstrates that patients do not suffer higher toxicity or a worse quality of life than might be expected with other methods of delivering radiation treatment. In fact, patients are very satisfied with this single outpatient treatment, which they find convenient and which allows them to return rapidly to normal activities. "It is too early to say that this strategy can be used outside the trial setting, but it seems quite clear that the toxicity and impact on quality of live are very low. Longer follow-up for at least five years is needed to demonstrate definite cancer control." HDR brachytherapy involves the very precise positioning of catheters, with the aid of ultrasound, at the site of the tumour while the patient is under spinal or general anaesthetic. A radioactive source (iridium-192) is delivered via the catheters to the target, avoiding other structures such as the bladder and the bowel, so that they deliver the maximum dose precisely to the target. The treatment usually takes about 30 minutes. "The combination of a short lapse of time, real-time 3D visualisation of the target and needles positioning using ultrasound, and the ability to optimise the dose (high doses to target and low doses to surrounding organs at risk), allows for an extraordinary control over the dose administration. To the patient the main advantage is to get the radiotherapy in just one day. Although the brachytherapy is done in an operating room, it is an outpatient procedure and the patient avoids daily radiation treatment," said Dr Gomez-Iturriaga. Although it has been thought that HDR brachytherapy could be used for treating prostate cancer, until now there has been limited evidence of its safety and efficacy. In this study, 45 consecutive patients received HDR brachytherapy at the Hospital de Cruces between January 2014 and July 2016. The patients had low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer, mild to moderate symptoms, a tumour volume that was 60cc or less, and had not yet had surgery or androgen deprivation therapy. After a follow-up time that ranged from three to 31 months (median average was 16 months), there were no serious (grade 3) adverse side effects from the treatment; six patients had moderate (grade 2) bowel or bladder problems (diarrhoea or needing to pass urine frequently or urgently). In terms of quality of life, the need to pass urine urgently declined significantly between the first and sixth month after treatment and had returned to normal after a year. There were no significant changes in bowel movements, sexual or hormonal functioning. Sixty percent of patients who had normal sexual functioning before the treatment continued to function normally afterwards. Six months after the radiation therapy, 77% of patients said they were "extremely satisfied" with their treatment and quality of life and 23% were "very satisfied". Dr Gomez-Iturriaga said these were excellent results in terms of patient satisfaction, quality of life, toxicity and tolerability, as well as safety. "The precise control over dose delivery inherent in HDR brachytherapy is not readily achievable with low-dose rate (LDR) brachytherapy because of several factors: movement of the radioactive seeds away from the target site, swelling of the prostate after the implant and uncertain dose delivery outside the prostate, which can all contribute to less than optimal dose distributions," he said. "With LDR brachytherapy the actual dose distribution achieved is not known until the post plan quality assurance is completed, several weeks after the treatment. In contrast, with HDR brachytherapy, what you plan to treat is exactly what is actually administered." President of ESTRO, Professor Yolande Lievens, head of the department of radiation oncology at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, said: "As radiation oncologists we are working constantly to try to reduce the impact of radiation therapy on patients' lives while maintaining and improving the efficacy of the treatment. Although these results are preliminary in that it is too early to affirm the actual control of the tumour, they suggest that it may be possible to reduce the number of trips to hospital for patients and, at, the same time, to target the treatment more precisely, thereby avoiding adverse side effects. However, we need to follow these patients for longer to ensure the cancer continues to be controlled successfully." ### Abstract no: OC-0270, "Prostate 2" proffered papers session, 10.30-11.30 hrs (CEST) on Sunday, 9 May, Room Stolz 1-2. [1] Radiation dose is measured in units called grays, with one gray (Gy) equivalent to absorbing one joule of radiation energy per kilogram of body tissue. Researchers comparing leading treatment approaches for patients with severe uveitis have discovered that systemic therapy with oral corticosteroids and immunosuppression can preserve or improve vision in the long term better than regional implant therapy can. The results, published in the May 6, 2017 issue of JAMA, should reassure physicians about the relative safety of this approach, and may lead ophthalmologists to change their treatment protocol for better and safer outcomes. Douglas Jabs, MD, MBA, Director of the Eye and Vision Research Institute, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, and Professor of Ophthalmology and Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, chaired an international team of researchers as they examined the long-term effects of two treatment approaches for patients with vision-threatening uveitis. Uveitis, the fifth leading cause of vision loss in the United States, is a collection of more than 30 diseases characterized by inflammation inside the eye that damages the tissues; without appropriate treatment, it will often lead to visual impairment or blindness. For more severe cases, treatment generally calls for taking oral corticosteroid and immunosuppressive medications. The alternative is regional therapy, either with repetitive corticosteroid injections or with a surgically placed fluocinolone acetonide implant that releases corticosteroid medication over three years. Since most of the more severe uveitis cases are chronic, long-term therapy is typically needed. The Multicenter Uveitis Steroid Treatment (MUST) Trial Follow-up Study followed 215 patients from the original MUST Trial for seven years. The MUST Trial and Follow-up Study were conducted at 21 medical centers across the United States, along with two sites in the United Kingdom and Australia. Patients in the Trial had been randomized to receive either systemic treatment with oral corticosteroids and immunosuppression or regional therapy with the fluocinolone acetonide implant. At the seven-year mark, the findings showed that patients taking oral medications had better vision on average, compared to those in the implant group. The results differ from the initial MUST Trial findings and from the earlier five-year results of the MUST Follow-up Study, in which the same patients had similar visual outcomes at both time points. The MUST Trial and Follow-up Study also showed that there was no significant increase in the risks of systemic side effects for the systemic therapy group compared to implant therapy, with one exception: patients in the systemic group were more likely to receive antibiotics for infections. These outcomes suggest that systemic treatment, if used properly, may be given relatively safely for up to seven years. "The implication of these data is that oral corticosteroids and immunosuppression may be a preferable initial choice for therapy of the more severe uveitides," explained Dr. Jabs. "They have better visual outcomes long-term, fewer ocular side effects, and no apparent significant increase in the risk of systemic side effects, except for the greater use of antibiotics." While the large majority of both groups maintained good vision at the end of seven years, some patients with the fluocinolone acetonide implant did worse in terms of visual acuity. Results of the follow-up study show vision loss occurred more often in the implant group due to damage from inflammatory lesions in the back of the eye, which occurred at the time of relapse of the uveitis. Even though the implant is designed to release corticosteroid medication for three years, the study found that the benefit lasted approximately five years, with relapses beginning at that time. Relapses can be treated with an implant exchange or by switching to systemic therapy. "Although both treatment approaches control the inflammation in the large majority of patients, for the first five years the implant was better than systemic therapy at controlling inflammation. Hence it has value for those patients where systemic therapy cannot control the inflammation or for those patients who cannot tolerate the oral medications," said Dr. Jabs. He notes the implant has an important role to play in the management of these diseases. "The visual loss that occurred in the implant group with relapse of the uveitis emphasizes the need of sustained control of inflammation in order to optimize visual outcomes in patients. These patients need close follow-up for reactivation of the inflammation, so that appropriate adjustments to treatment can be made." ### The National Eye Institute (NEI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, supported the MUST Trial and MUST Trial Follow-up Study. About the Mount Sinai Health System The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient services--from community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care. The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 12 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is in the "Honor Roll" of best hospitals in America, ranked No. 15 nationally in the 2016-2017 "Best Hospitals" issue of U.S. News & World Report. The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked as one of the nation's top 20 hospitals in Geriatrics, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Ear, Nose & Throat, and is in the top 50 in four other specialties. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 10 nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report in "Best Children's Hospitals." For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Scientists have discovered the genetic mutation that causes the rare skin disease, keratolytic winter erythema (KWE), or 'Oudtshoorn skin', in Afrikaners Scientists have discovered the genetic mutation that causes the rare skin disease, keratolytic winter erythema (KWE), or 'Oudtshoorn skin', in Afrikaners. Researchers at the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Division of Human Genetics at Wits, in collaboration with peers in Europe, the US and Canada published this research in the May issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. KWE causes a redness of the palms and soles with consecutive cycles of peeling of large sections of thick skin, often exacerbated during winter months. Oudtshoorn is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa where the disorder was present in large families. KWE causes a redness of the palms and soles with consecutive cycles of peeling of large sections of thick skin, often exacerbated during winter months. Oudtshoorn is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa where the disorder was present in large families. Afrikaners are Afrikaans-language speakers descended from predominantly Dutch, German and French settlers, who arrived in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Afrikaners have a high risk for several genetic disorders, the best known being familial hypercholesterolaemia (inherited high cholesterol leading to heart attacks early in life) and porphyria (sensitivity of the skin to ultra-violet exposure and adverse reactions to specific drugs). These disorders are common because of founder mutations brought to South Africa by small groups of immigrants who settled in the Cape of Good Hope and whose descendants are now spread throughout the country. KWE is one of these less well-known founder genetic disorders. KWE was first described as a unique and discrete skin disorder in 1977 by Wits dermatologist, Professor George Findlay. He noticed that it occurred in families and had a dominant mode of inheritance -- i.e., on average, if a parent has the condition about half the children inherit it in every generation. In addition to identifying the genetic mutation for scientific purposes, this research now enables dermatologists to make a definitive diagnosis of KWE in patients. It further enables researchers to understand similar skin disorders and is a starting point for developing possible treatments. GENE MUTATIONS Since the late 1980s, three MSc and three PhD students at Wits University researched the disorder, firstly under the supervision of Professor Trefor Jenkins and from about 1990 guided by Professor Michele Ramsay, Director and Research Chair in the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience. In 1997, Wits MSc student Michelle Starfield and a group in Germany mapped the KWE trait to a region on the short arm of chromosome 8. The researchers showed that it was likely that the South African families all had the same mutation, but that the German family had a different mutation. This research preceded the sequencing of the human genome and subsequent research focused on characterising this region of the genome and examining good candidate genes. The KWE mutation remained elusive. In 2012 Thandiswa Ngcungcu, then a Wits MSc student in Human Genetics whom Ramsay supervised, chose KWE as a topic for her PhD. Ngcungu's research involved large-scale DNA sequencing during an internship on the Next Generation Scientist Programme in Novartis, Basel. The mutation was not detected by conventional data analysis so copy number variants (genetic changes) -- where regions of the genome are duplicated or deleted - were investigated. Ngcungcu and the researchers then discovered a mutation in a region between genes that was present in all South African KWE-affected individuals studied. During this time Dr Torunn Fiskerstrand, University of Bergen, Norway, independently discovered the genetic cause of KWE in Norwegians. Ramsay and Fiskerstrand collaborated. The different DNA duplications in the South African and Norwegian families overlapped at a critical genomic region called an enhancer (which 'switches on' the gene) - providing strong evidence that this was, in fact, the KWE mutation. For over a year the scientists researched how this duplicated enhancer caused KWE. They demonstrated that the mutation causes a nearby gene to produce more protein than normal and that this abnormal expression was the likely cause of the skin peeling. Exactly twenty years after determining that the KWE mutation lies on chromosome 8, the mutation that causes KWE was identified and published. Solving the mystery of KWE was a journey of data analysis, ancestry mapping, genomic comparison and global collaboration. Ngcungcu continues her work as a postdoctoral fellow examining the genetics of another skin disorder, albinism, and as a lecturer in the Division of Human Genetics at Wits from July 2017. ### Place Your Advert Register or sign in to advertise your job Earlier this year, the now-former Federal Reserve governor in charge of regulatory matters, Daniel Tarullo, made a subtle but significant announcement that could free Bank of America (BAC -1.01%) and other big banks up to return more than 100% of their earnings to shareholders. Since the financial crisis, the nation's biggest banks have had to ask for the Fed's permission to increase their dividends and stock buybacks. The regulator's newfound veto power over bank capital plans came as part of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which significantly scaled up banks' compliance burdens. The Fed could reject a bank for one of two reasons. First, on quantitative grounds, if the bank wasn't projected to have enough capital to remain well-capitalized through the most extreme version of the annual stress test. And second, on qualitative grounds, if the Fed concluded that a bank didn't have an adequately sophisticated capital planning process in place. Few banks have problems with the quantitative aspect, as they can forecast relatively accurately the impact on their capital given the underlying stress test assumptions. It's the qualitative grounds that banks take issue with, as they're fuzzier and more subjective. Wells Fargo's new CEO Tim Sloan made this point at an industry conference last year: When you step back and think, should large financial institutions be stressing their balance sheet and their business model before they decide how much capital to pay out to shareholders? Of course, they should. I mean, it makes all the sense in the world. But we've moved from an objective standard to now maybe subjective [standards] are more important than objective. That would be something that you look at. Bank of America's Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan echoed these remarks at the same conference: For us as a company, just because of where we are, it's about capital return. ... It's about getting certainly around the ability to have access to your capital return once you've met all the hurdles. And whether those hurdles move up or down because of various peoples' points of view, the issue is the industry's above them, and now we need to be able to get the capital out. The good news for banks, in turn, is that this aspect of the test could soon go away. Former Fed governor Tarullo made this point on his way out the door earlier this year, suggesting that it may be time to end the qualitative part of the annual stress test. And it seems safe to say that the people most likely to be selected by President Trump to fill the three open seats on the Fed's governing committee will agree, given his vow on the campaign trail to reduce regulations on banks and other financial service providers. Of all the banks that would benefit from this change, few would welcome it as much as Bank of America. Its efforts to meaningfully increase the amount of capital it returns to shareholders have been throttled since the crisis in large part because of the qualitative portion of the stress tests. If that were to go away, it would enable the North Carolina-based bank to purge its balance sheet of an enormous surplus of pent-up capital, easily translating into a total payout ratio in excess of 100% beginning as early as next year. Mumbai : Amid the heightened tension at the border after the mutilation of the bodies of two Indian soldiers, the Shiv Sena today said merely angry rhetoric against Pakistan was not enough and it needed to be crushed now. In a scathing editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena also said despite India having given substantial proof to Pakistan over Hafiz Saeeds involvement in the 26/11 terror attack, the Pathankot airbase attack, the Uri attack and the recent beheading of two jawans, the neighbouring country has shirked all its responsibility. It is poking fun instead at India saying we have a habit of blaming Pakistan for everything that happens here, it added. This is going on for many years now. Everybody knows that the ISI, the Pakistani military and the terror outfits based there are behind the terror attacks in India, the Sena mouthpiece said. Despite throwing ample proof on their face each time, the terrorism emanating from Pakistan and violence in Kashmir has refused to cease. The banks are being looted in the valley and the soldiers are being killed. But the government only summons (high commissioner of Pakistan to India) Abdul Basit, gives him proof against his nation and lets him off with a warning, it said. It said the nation is tired of hearing about the revenge that will be taken against Pakistan. The anguish of the families of the martyred soldiers numbs all senses. Had the families of the martyred jawans been called when Basit was summoned to the External Affairs Ministry, they would have peeled his skin off. He would not be able to smile in front of the mediapersons then, it said. The continuous use of words like shameless for Pakistan will not be enough now. It needs to be crushed. The country was expecting 50 heads (of the Pakistani soldiers) for every Indian killed. But here, it seems that revenge is only taken by summoning Basit and warning him, the Sena said. Source : Zee News The Supreme Court will begin hearings this month on the legal validity of triple talaq, which the government wants to abolish. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself has fronted the debate on triple talaq, while asking for it not to be politicised. Taslima Nasreen , noted Bangladeshi author living in exile in India for over two decades, spoke to Rohit E David on the issue, explaining if the practice is an essential part of Islam and the position taken by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on it: AIMPLB has called for a social boycott of those misusing triple talaq, even while terming it an eligible form of divorce. Your comments ? AIMPLB was forced to take this stand in the face of searing criticism from different quarters for not ending a regressive practice like triple talaq. It wants to save its credibility. So, it asks for a social boycott of people divorcing wives through pronouncement of triple talaq in a single sitting. The decision to ask for social boycott is a slap in their face as it proves that the practice is despicable. But still they dont want to dispense with it, perpetuating misogyny in the name of religion. If the law board wanted reform of Islam, it could have done so but it has always opposed reforms. This is nothing more than posturing. The truth is that AIMPLB is full of misogynists and it is an anachronism in a modern secular society which pulls the Muslim community backwards. Why does triple talaq need to be reformed ? It is an unfair thing for Muslim women because women do not have a similar right to divorce their husbands by saying talaq talaq talaq. The problem is not triple talaq: the real problem is womens financial dependence on men. If women become educated and independent, talaq or divorce wont scare them. It is hell for dependent women who wont find any place to stay or any money to survive. If several Muslim countries have already removed triple talaq, why cant India ? Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Indonesia and Algeria banned triple talaq. Bangladesh banned triple talaq before I was even born. India is not able to do this because of the politics of appeasement. The fear of the minority community can be addressed and they can be assured of their freedom of religion which is guaranteed by Article 25 of the Constitution of India. Mullahs and maulvis have become self-styled representatives of the Muslim community who keep stoking insecurity. Mullahs are stuck in a medieval mindset blocking progress of their own community. Is triple talaq an essential part of Islam ? Many Muslim countries have abolished it. I do not think any law or system which reduces dignity of human beings should be essential. Even if triple talaq were an inseparable part of Islam, it should still be discarded because women do not have the same right to divorce their husbands. What is your response to PM Narendra Modis comments that all efforts should be made to provide justice to Muslim women ? I appreciate it. I hope Muslim women would get justice not only in India but all over the world. They have been suffering for too long. They should take off their burqa, hijab and go to school, college, university and live life as they like. Whoever oppresses women should be heavily punished. Women have to liberate themselves. They cannot expect obscurantist mullahs to emancipate them. What is your view on AIMPLB ? This is an organisation of Sunni fundamentalists which does not take into its fold Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims. Its duty is to protect Muslim personal laws which are based on Sharia. It supports the antediluvian system of triple talaq, child marriage, and opposes gay rights. It objects to any change in the divorce laws to confer parity to Muslim women. This board issues fatwas against reforms in Islam and all kinds of progressive ideas. The misogynistic law board should be abolished for the sake of Muslims. Muslims need no other laws but modern civil laws based on equality and justice. There is a demand from right wing groups to disband AIMPLB. Your comments ? It is an irony that the demand of abolishing the board comes from Islamophobes whereas it should have come from Indian left-liberal groups. The hypocrisy of left-liberal groups is unimaginable. Instead of supporting Muslim womens human rights, they want them to suffer under misogynistic religious laws. The marriage between the left wing and Islamists is one of the worlds biggest tragedies. I oppose the right wing but I am for the abolition of AIMPLB. Source : Economic Times iHire Earns Two 2017 Alliance for Workplace Excellence (AWE) Awards Posted by Press Releases on Saturday, 05-06-2017 4:31 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes Award recognizes companies who show an outstanding commitment to overall workplace qualityFREDERICK, MARYLAND (PRWEB) MAY 04, 2017iHire has been acknowledged for their exceptional workplace practices in the form of two AWE Awards: Workplace Excellence Seal of Approval Award and Health and Wellness Seal of Approval Award. This is the fifth consecutive year iHire has been recognized by the AWE.The Workplace Excellence Seal of Approval Award recognizes companies who show an outstanding commitment to overall workplace quality. They are evaluated on programs in communication, diversity, employee growth, work-life balance, and more. iHire is a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), evaluating employees on their performance (rather than their presence) and focusing on results, self-management, and flexibility.The Health and Wellness Seal of Approval Award is given to organizations that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to employee health and wellnessand have led the way by developing inno... 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 News China Seeks up to 85 Percent Stake in Kyaukphyu Port A jetty for oil tankers is seen on Madae island, Kyaukphyu Township, Arakan State. / Reuters RANGOON China is looking to take a stake of up to 85 percent in a strategically important sea port in Burma, according to documents reviewed by Reuters, in a move that could heighten tensions over Chinas growing economic clout in the country. Beijing has been pushing for preferential access to the deep sea port of Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal, as part of its ambitious One Belt, One Road infrastructure investment plan to deepen its links with economies throughout Asia and beyond. A consortium led by Chinas CITIC Group has proposed taking a 70-85 percent stake in the $7.3 billion deep sea port, according to negotiating documents seen by Reuters and three people familiar with the talks between the Chinese state-owned conglomerate and Burmas civilian government. The size of the proposed Chinese stake is substantially larger than the 50/50 joint venture proposed by Burma late last year, an offer rejected by CITIC, said two people involved in the talks. Well-placed sources told Reuters last month that China had signaled it was willing to abandon the controversial $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project in Burma, but would be looking in return for concessions on other strategic opportunities in the Southeast Asian nationincluding the Bay of Bengal port. Kyaukphyu is important for China because the port is the entry point for a Chinese oil and gas pipeline which gives it an alternative route for energy imports from the Middle East that avoids the Malacca Straits, a shipping chokepoint. The port is part of two projects, which also include an industrial park, to develop a special economic zone in Burmas western Arakan State. CITIC was awarded the lead role in both initiatives in 2015. Beijing-based CITIC, Chinas biggest and oldest financial conglomerate, did not respond to several requests for comment on Friday. Chinas Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment. Talks to Start Negotiations between Burma and CITIC, which sources said were set to start next week in the countrys commercial hub Rangoon, come amid a Chinese diplomatic push to forge better ties with its resource-rich neighbor. Burmas leaders have traditionally been wary of domination by China. But the country last month signed an agreement that will see oil pumped through the pipeline from Kyaukphyu across Burma to southwestern China, while leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due to visit Beijing for a summit on One Belt, One Road, President Xi Jinpings signature policy, in mid-May. One of the sources, who declined to be named, said CITIC was in the driving seat on the port project, and that Burma was unlikely to ask for a stake of more than 30 percent due to opposition from the Chinese firm. Some people worry that China would have the power to do anything they want and control the project if it owns 85 percent, said the person, who is familiar with the thinking of policymakers in Burma. But Burma doesnt have other options, the person added, citing the Burma governments financial constraints. The source did not specifically mention a quid pro quo over the Myitsone dam. A second source close to Burmas policymakers corroborated that account, adding that Burma has agreed to choose from one of four options proposed by CITIC, leaving it with a stake ranging from 15 to 30 percent. Burma has no other choice but the four options given by CITIC, said the second person, who is involved in the talks. Funding would be split between Burma and the CITIC-led consortium in proportion to the stake agreed, the two sources said. Soe Win, who leads the management committee of the special economic zone, confirmed negotiations would start next week but declined to comment on the deal, citing the confidentiality of the talks. Special Economic Zone The nearly $10 billion Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, which Burmas government has said would create an economic hub akin to Singapore covering 4,289 acres, is part of Burmas plan to boost the economy in one of its poorest regions. A second consortium led by CITIC has also proposed taking a 51 percent stake in the $2.3 billion industrial park, an offer Burma has agreed to, said the two people involved in the talks. Soe Win said environmental and social impact studies would soon be conducted by Burmas environmental ministry, with construction due to start in 2018. The economic zone faces opposition from activists and residents who criticized the tender process and said the development would have a negative impact on local people. Around 20,000 people are at risk of losing their homes and livelihoods due to land acquisition for the zone, according to the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights watchdog. CITICs consortiums include China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd, China Merchants Holdings, TEDA Investment Holding and Yunnan Construction Engineering Group. The only non-Chinese state-owned company involved is Thailands Charoen Pokphand Group. Photo Contest Celebrates 'Emotional Power' of Study Abroad Sean O'Carroll's stunning photo of a Saharan camel trek won the Judge's Choice award. May 4, 2017 BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Illinois Wesleyan University's semiannual study abroad photo contest celebrates students and the art form they used to capture the "emotional power" of study abroad. "Each photo contest is a wonderful opportunity to see the wider world through the eyes of our students to share in the fun, touristy stuff, to hunger for the tasty new foods they are trying, and to enjoy the magic of seeing some place so different and meeting new people," said Stacey Shimizu, director of the International Office. Just as important, however, are the descriptions of the location and the student's reflections that accompany each photo. "In these short narratives, students tell us about the emotional power of study abroad," Shimizu said. Study abroad is a period of enormous personal growth, she said. "Students challenge themselves in new ways, discover unknown competencies and stretch their imaginations," said Shimizu. "They come back with a new sense of who they are, what they value, and what they are able to do." "Snowdon Whiteout" by Zoe Bouras '18 won the award in both the "People's Choice" and "Road Less Traveled" categories. Contest winners included: Sean O'Carroll '18 (Arlington Heights, Ill.), an international business major who was selected as the "Judges' Choice" winner for his photo of a young boy leading a camel trek in the Sahara Desert, and Zoe Bouras '18 (Aurora, Ill.), an international studies and political science double major, whose photo taken in Snowdonia National Park in Wales won both the "People's Choice" and "Road Less Traveled" categories. O'Carroll's photo of the John Lennon Wall in Prague, Czech Republic, won the "Urban Art" category; Bouras won the "Sense of Place" category for her photo of Mandilara Street in Rhodes Town, Greece; and Katherine Henebry '19 (Springfield, Ill.), an environmental studies and international business double major, won the "Humans of the World" category for her panoramic view of Paris from behind the face of the Musee d'Orsay's iconic clock. "cog-nizant" by Katherine Henebry '19 won honors in the "Humans of the World" category. Bouras is currently studying in England as part of Oxford University's Pembroke College Visiting Student Programme. Bouras noted that as an immigrant to the United States, she has been lucky to spend a considerable amount of time abroad. "Being abroad has definitely changed who I am," said Bouras, who also spent two months in Seoul, South Korea, last summer as an IWU Freeman Asia intern. "You go to a place where you understand very little and have to work things out, from small cultural differences like siesta and table manners, to structural issues like race relations. The discussions politicians have about international relations, refugees, immigrants, and development really mean something to you. Living abroad, whether it's the first time out the country or the 10th, offers a huge scope of opportunities to change the way you see the world and the way you see yourself." Shimizu noted research shows that students who study abroad perform better academically than their peers in the semesters after they return, graduate on time and at higher rates, find employment sooner and on average have higher starting salaries. Study abroad is an educational investment that pays off, she said. Illinois Wesleyan offers more than 300 programs in over 70 countries spanning six continents. Traditionally about half of Illinois Wesleyan students participate in an international education experience. Reddit Email 140 Shares Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | Iraqs Sunni Muslims desperately need their politicians to present a united front and act in their interests. But the politicians cannot agree on a vision for the post-Islamic State future. Last Sunday, Iraqi parliamentarians voted to ban their colleagues from participating in conferences held outside the country, if the politicians had not received prior approval from the appropriate parliamentary authorities. It is yet another sign of the deepening divisions within the Sunni Muslim bloc in Baghdad and it comes as a result of the increasing competition between Sunni politicians trying to work out how to rule over Sunni-Muslim-majority provinces that were, until relatively recently, under the control of the extremist Islamic State group. The resolution was mooted after a controversy about two conferences inviting Sunni Muslim politicians to discuss the future, were held outside the country, one in Geneva, Switzerland, in February this year and one in Ankara, Turkey, in March. Both conferences were supposed to help bring Sunni Muslim politicians closer together in the interests of reconciliation after the Islamic State, an extremist group that bases its ideology on Sunni Islam, was driven out of Iraq. Al-Malikis divide and conquer policies meant he was able to present those Sunnis as representatives of all of Iraqs Sunnis to the international community. Unfortunately, the controversy over the conferences appears to unintentionally had the opposite effect. This is clear from ongoing accusations and insults being traded by the Sunni politicians, who say their opponents are trying to divide the country. The fact that the extremist Islamic State has caused these kinds of divisions is not unexpected; infighting has also had an impact on the Shiite Muslim and Kurdish political alliances. But the scrapping appears to have affected the Sunni Muslim politicians worst, although maybe this is also not surprising. After all, it is the people they represent who have been hardest hit by the brutal extremists. The different Sunni political groups compete with one another for power and influence and act more like enemies than allies. For example, the party led by Salim al-Jibouri, the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, competes with Osama al-Nujaifis party for influence in Ninawa and its capital, Mosul. Other Sunni Muslim parties joust for influence in Anbar and Salahaddin. Other senior Sunni politicians include Saleh al-Mutlaq, Jamal al- Karbouli and Ayad Allawi; all three lead their own political parties. Al-Jibouri heads a fairly broad Sunni alliance that partially derives its strength in Parliament from its closer relationship with the Shiite Muslim politicians, who make up a majority in Baghdad. Al-Jibouri has chosen to fly his colours alongside former Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and this often brings him into conflict with other Sunnis. Another Sunni Muslim grouping includes Osama al-Nujaifi, who often works with a Sunni businessperson, Khamis Khanjar; the latter used to act mainly behind the scenes but he is now playing a more public role in Iraqi politics. Closely behind these two figures comes al-Mutlaq, a secular Sunni Muslim who heads another coalition of Sunni MPs. The third group of Sunni Muslim politicians is made up of the MPs who have walked out of their original Sunni alliances and declared their allegiance to Shiite Muslim forces. The biggest names among them are Ahmad Abdullah al-Jibouri, Abdul Rahman al-Luwaizi and Sadoun al-Dulaimi. There are also others that have joined this third movement and they include a number of clerics and religious institutions, all of which are seeking to compete in the next Iraqi elections. What this third group have in common is a closeness to the countrys Shiite Muslim parties. This has come about partially as the result of former prime minister al-Malikis policies, which aimed at dividing and conquering the Sunni Muslim politicians in Baghdad. The policies appealed to the weaker Sunni MPs, brought them closer to al-Malikis government when he was in power and allowed the controversial former leader to present those Sunnis as representatives of all of Iraqs Sunnis to the international community. This support from the more powerful and wealthier Shiite Muslim parties has given the weaker Sunni Muslim parties the freedom to form their own militias as part of Iraqs alternative fighting force, the mostly-Shiite Muslim militias. For example, Sunni Muslim religious leader, Mahdi al-Sumaidaie, a hard line cleric who is well known for issuing extremist-style fatwas, now has an armed force under his control numbering in the thousands and that is even though he is not generally acknowledged in mainstream Sunni political circles. And what are these three main Sunni Muslim political groups fighting about? There are several main points for debate. But mostly these are about what happens after the Islamic State group has been driven out of Sunni Muslim-majority areas that they controlled for months or years. They include what system of governance should be used, which alliances should be formed and how Sunni Muslim policy should be redrawn in this post-IS era. Previously disputes tended to be limited to the political but the disagreement between Iraqs Sunnis has also reached religious circles now. For example, Parliamentary speaker al-Jibouri has said he supports the broad plan presented by the Shiite Muslim political alliance around national reconciliation after the IS group. But al-Nujaifi was not so keen and has presented his own guidelines. These ask that Sunni Muslim politicians currently accused of terrorism by the Shiite Muslim politicians, be allowed to take part in any projects around national reconciliation. Often these accusations came about for mostly political reasons. The proposals for national reconciliation can certainly be debated, Ahmed al- Mashhadani, a Sunni Muslim MP, told NIQASH. But the most important thing we need to discuss is how some Sunni MPs have been targeted for political reasons. That must be corrected and there should be dialogue, in order to ensure this happens. The biggest difference between the various Sunni Muslim groups though, has to do with the future of Iraqs Sunni Muslim-majority provinces. Al-Nujaifi and his ally, Khanjar, have said they believe that a semi-autonomous Sunni region which works in a similar way to Iraqi Kurdistan is the best answer. Iraqi Kurdistan is home to most of the countrys Kurdish ethnicity, has its own borders, military and legislature, and works a little bit like a state within the state. Al-Nujaifi would like to be able to form a region, or perhaps several regions, out of the Anbar, Salahaddin and Ninawa provinces. This is a constitutional solution that responds to citizens needs, al-Nujaifi has argued. They would only strengthen the unity of the country. However al-Jibouri and his allies disagree. They believe that things should go on in a similar way, with the different provinces and provincial councils in charge. More power needs to be given to local governments but the country should not be split into regions, they argue, and the best way to ensure this is to get closer to the Shiite Muslim political forces currently in charge of the Iraqi government. The disagreement between Iraqs Sunnis has also reached religious circles now. Previously disputes tended to be limited to the political but recent manoeuvring by Sunni religious figures in the political arena has seen conflict arise here too. Up until very recently, almost all the Sunni Muslim politicians had approved of the cleric who headed up the Sunni endowment the endowments are bodies tasked with running and maintaining, respectively, Shiite or Sunni mosques and shrines and they are very important institutions within their own sectarian communities. In 2015, the current Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi appointed a Sunni cleric, Abdul-Latif al-Hameem, to head the Sunni endowment. Al-Hameem was somewhat controversial as he had lived in Jordan since 2003, after he was accused of cooperating with former Iraqi leader, Saddam Husseins regime. Al-Hameem had no real links to contemporary Sunni Muslim political forces though. However since his appointment he has started to become more political and to present himself as a potential candidate in upcoming elections. The existing Sunni Muslim politicians do not approve of this and some have been openly hostile towards al-Hameem in the local media. Other Sunni religious figures who have closer ties to political parties such as Ahmad Hasan al-Taha, who heads an all-important Sunni Muslim religious council have also been unsupportive of al-Hameem, after his political ambitions became more apparent. But in the end, it is the Iraqs ordinary Sunni Muslims who will pay for the current disarray. So many Sunni Muslim- majority areas have been impacted by the actions of the Islamic State group, so many locals have been displaced, killed or wounded and had their property destroyed. These civilians desperately need their politicians to represent them rather than fighting amongst themselves, in order to push forward the reconstruction and reconciliation that must happen. Via . Related video added by Juan Cole: VOA News: Mosul: Final Offensive Reddit Email 224 Shares Human Rights Watch | License for Actions Harmful to Women, LGBT People (Washington, DC) An executive order issued by President Donald Trump on May 4, 2017, opens the way to overriding regulations that protect womens health, Human Rights Watch said today. While media attention has largely focused on the orders efforts to roll back limits on political speech by religious leaders, its other and less sensational provisions could harm the rights of millions of women. President Trump described the executive order on promoting free speech and religious liberty as an effort to defend the freedom of religion and speech in America. Its signing was timed to coincide with the National Day of Prayer. But the order also invites agencies to issue regulations that would allow the conscience-based objections of employers and insurers to override regulations that protect womens health. Its shameful to target life-saving womens health services and call it an act of conscience, said Amanda Klasing, senior womens rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. This order will take away many womens access to affordable family planning options. Its shameful to target life-saving womens health services and call it an act of conscience. This order will take away many womens access to affordable family planning options. Amanda Klasing Senior womens rights researcher The Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty invites the secretaries of the treasury, labor, and health and human services departments to consider issuing amended regulations to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate as it pertains to women and women only. The mandate was introduced as part of the Affordable Care Act. It states that: A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall, at a minimum provide coverage for and shall not impose any cost sharing requirements forwith respect to women, such additional preventive care and screenings not described in paragraph (1). Preventive care and screenings under this provision currently include breast cancer screening for average-risk women; breastfeeding services and supplies; contraception; screening for cervical cancer, gestational diabetes, HIV, and interpersonal and domestic violence; counseling for sexually transmitted infections; and visits to health facilities for preventive care, known as well women visits. Religious employers are already exempted from the contraceptive mandate while religious non-profits and certain closely held corporations have also been extended accommodations to address religious objections to contraception. Yet, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price quickly responded to the order by welcoming the opportunity to re-examine the contraception mandate, promising swift action. The order also instructs the attorney general to issue guidance to all agencies interpreting religious liberty protections in federal law. This vague provision seems to invite new interpretations of existing law that recognize new religious exemptions, which is deeply alarming given that both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have signaled support in public statements for broad religious exemptions aimed at facilitating discrimination. As the governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence signed a religious exemption law that drew widespread criticism from the LGBT community. On the campaign trail, President Trump repeatedly indicated he would sign the First Amendment Defense Act, a bill that would prohibit the federal government from taking action against those who discriminate or refuse service based on their opposition to same-sex marriage or sex outside of marriage. In South Dakota and Alabama, state governments have recently enacted religious exemptions that facilitate discrimination against LGBT people in adoption and foster care. This order attacks the rights of women using religion as a pretext, Klasing said. Even as the House guts health care, the President struck a real and immediate blow with this order, giving free reign to restrict the contraceptive mandate that benefits millions of women in the US. Via Human Rights Watch - Related video added by Juan Cole: Al Jazeera English: Trumps new executive order relaxes rules on religious advocacy North Korean leader Kim Jong-un waves during a military parade on April 15 in Pyongyang to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea and grandfather of incumbent leader. / AP-Yonhap By Park Si-soo North Korea's state media has accused the United States and South Korea of attempting to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-un with a "biochemical substance." In an extraordinarily long, 1,800-word report, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Friday afternoon a "hideous terrorist group" conspired with the CIA and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) to "commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership" during major events including a recent military parade. The report claimed a North Korean citizen was involved in the plot, using "biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance" to kill Kim. The KCNA claimed the plot was "recently uncovered and foiled," and accused members of the CIA and NIS of working with a North Korean citizen to provide money and weapons to carry out "state-sponsored terrorism." Seoul's prosecutors said Saturday that they have launched an investigation into possible election law violations surrounding a recent television news report that appeared to slander presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in. On Tuesday, private broadcaster SBS reported that the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries was suspected of attempting to collude with Moon while intentionally delaying the salvaging of the ferry Sewol, which sank off the southwestern coast in April 2014, killing more than 300 people aboard. Citing a ministry official, the broadcaster said the ministry was suspected of delaying the operations to win favors from Moon in terms of expanding its staff number and affiliated organizations. SBS later offered an apology to Moon and the bereaved families and deleted all the relevant reports on its website. Moon's liberal Democratic Party immediately dismissed the report as groundless and filed a petition with the prosecution. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said it has allocated the case to its public security department, which is in charge of investigations into election law violations. Prosecutors said the case will be dealt with in accordance with the routine procedures, though some watchers forecast a full-scale investigation could be put off until after the May 9 presidential election. Following the broadcaster's apology, the ministry has said that the official quoted in the news report just delivered what he read on the Internet. The National Election Commission said it has opened its own probe into the TV report to determine whether the broadcaster or the official violated election laws by disclosing false information to prevent the election of a particular candidate. In a related move, conservative presidential candidate Hong Joon-pyo and his Liberty Korea Party have filed a separate petition, asking prosecutors to open investigations into whether Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Kim Young-suk and ministry officials violated the principle of political neutrality in elections. Hong and the conservative party also asked prosecutors to investigate whether Moon's camp strong-armed SBS into deleting the Sewol ferry report and issuing a public apology. (Yonhap) Denver, CO Many state legislatures in the US spent the first quarter considering reform proposals that increased coverage for Business Insurance. Many state legislatures in the US spent the first quarter considering reform proposals that increased coverage for first responders who suffer mental stress injuries, according to "Several states took up legislation aimed at increasing coverage for first responders by lowering the bar for receiving benefits for mental health injuries or establishing presumption for PTSD and certain cancers," according toAccording to the article, New York included a provision in its 2017-18 budget that would make it easier for first responders to receive workers' comp benefits for mental injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Montana passed a bill, later tabled by the House of Representatives, that would provide specific coverage for firefighters for presumptive illnesses, conditions caused in the course of firefighting duties.The dangerous and often deadly work of first responders such as police officers and firefighters can lead to numerous illnesses and injuries including mental stress, heart attack and other injuries. Some states already allow first responders to possibly be eligible for workers' compensation due to injuries stemming from on-the-job duties.California Labor Code 3212 allows law enforcement and corrections officers, firefighter and other types of first responders to possibly be eligible for benefits under the California workers' compensation system.In California, former first responders, including those who are retired, might also be eligible to receive workers' compensation benefits. Surviving family members of a loved one who died of a heart attack or other cardiac event may also be eligible for certain death benefits through California workers' compensation.The recent flurry of workers' compensation reform proposals may have been at least in some part politically driven, according to Adam Brackemyre, vice president of state government relations at the Washington-based Self-Insurance Institute of America Inc.I would say generally we see more reform attempts in the legislative period just after an election, Brackemyre told. The bigger issue is the exploding cost of workers comp. If a program is growing, they need to address how to fund it. by Sarah Mahoney @mahoney_sarah, May 6, 2017 With Utahs Bears Ears National Monument in the Trump administrations crosshairs, Patagonia has come out swinging, taking out full-page newspaper ads in Western states to urge people to defend public lands. And the companys president and CEO also fired off a letter to Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior, just as he kicks off a tour of national monuments this weekend in the Beehive State. Patagonia says the ad is running in newspapers in Utah and Montana, urging readers to text their support for the 1.35 million-acre area, designated as a monument by President Barack Obama shortly before leaving office. Bears Ears has more species diversity than Yellowstone National Park, the ad says, as well as greater ecosystem rarity than Grand Canyon National Park President Trump is attacking your public lands. (Patagonias previous ads, made before the executive order, focused on the area itself, and in a statement following the order, it said it would consider legal action to defend monuments.) advertisement advertisement The letter to Secretary Zinke objects to the terms of President Trumps executive order calling for a review of monuments and its 120-day window for deciding if monuments should be shrunk or rescinded absurd.Given the unique and complex histories of each monument, there is simply no way to meaningfully review dozens of individual monuments in such a short period. It also takes both Utah politicians and the administration to task for claims that opening public lands up to fossil fuel development would benefit local economies. These lands are not locked up, as the Trump administration has repeatedly declared they are extremely productive. It says the recreation economy drives $887 billion in consumer spending every year, and supports 7.6 million jobs, more than oil, natural gas and mining combined. Rescinding or shrinking the National Monuments under review would significantly impact the strength of the outdoor recreation economy. The letter is signed by Yvon Chouinard, Patagonias founder, and Rose Marcario, president and CEO. Utahs politicians, especially Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican who pushed hard for the executive order, have been fierce in denouncing the monument designation a federal land grab, but local opinion is harder to read. A January poll from the Salt Lake Tribune-Hinckley Institute of Politics found 52% oppose the regions monument status, while 34% are in favor of it. Those numbers don't square with polling Patagonia cites in its letter, including a Colorado College poll, which says 68% of voters in seven Western states prioritize the protection of land, water and wildlife for recreation on public land, compared with 22% who prioritized increased production of fossil fuels. Monument status has gotten widespread endorsements from tribal leaders, including Navajo, Ute and Hopi. Politicians have dismissed those as being driven by outsiders and environmentalists. While theres no telling yet if Patagonias move will spark a Trump tweet storm, other outdoor brands are taking a softer approach. Just after Trump signed the executive order, REI responded to the threat with a beautiful spot (see below) called Our Public Lands, now running on all its channels. A spokesperson for the retail co-op tells Marketing Daily that the video, which took just 24 hours to complete from concept to execution, captures the sentiment of our position well. This goes beyond politics. It's about the American way of life. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500 urban office real estate investment trust ("REIT"), is the first, longest-tenured, and pioneering owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of December 31, 2020, and an asset base in North America of 49.7 million square feet ("SF"). The asset base in North America includes 31.9 million RSF of operating properties and 3.3 million RSF of Class A properties undergoing construction, 7.1 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects, and 7.4 million SF of future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, technology, and agtech companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns, and greater long-term asset value. The Allstate Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty, and other insurance products in the United States and Canada. The company operates through Allstate Protection; Protection Services; Allstate Health and Benefits; and Run-off Property-Liability segments. The Allstate Protection segment offers private passenger auto and homeowners insurance; specialty auto products, including motorcycle, trailer, motor home, and off-road vehicle insurance; other personal lines products, such as renter, condominium, landlord, boat, umbrella, and manufactured home and stand-alone scheduled personal property; and commercial lines products under the Allstate and Encompass brand names. The Protection Services segment provides consumer product protection plans and related technical support for mobile phones, consumer electronics, furniture, and appliances; finance and insurance products, including vehicle service contracts, guaranteed asset protection waivers, road hazard tire and wheel, and paint and fabric protection; roadside assistance; device and mobile data collection services; data and analytic solutions using automotive telematics information; and identity protection services. This segment offers its products under various brands including Allstate Protection Plans, Allstate Dealer Services, Allstate Roadside Services, Arity, and Allstate Identity Protection. The Allstate Health and Benefits provides life, accident, critical illness, short-term disability, and other health insurance products. The Run-off Property-Liability offers property and casualty insurance. It sells its products through call centers, agencies, financial specialists, independent agents, brokers, wholesale partners, and affinity groups, as well as through online and mobile applications. The Allstate Corporation was founded in 1931 and is based in Northbrook, Illinois. The following companies are subsidiares of Caterpillar: Advanced Tri-Gen Power Systems LLC, Anchor Coupling Inc., Asia Power Systems (Tianjin) Ltd., AsiaTrak (Tianjin) Ltd., Banco Caterpillar S.A., Berg Propulsion International Pte Ltd., Bucyrus, Bucyrus Australia Surface Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Holdings Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Limited, Bucyrus International (Chile) Limitada, Bucyrus International (Peru) S.A., Bucyrus Mining Australia Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Mining China LLC, Bucyrus UK Limited, Cat Rental Kyushu LLC, Caterpillar (Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar (China) Financial Leasing Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Machinery Components Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (HK) Limited, Caterpillar (Huainan) Machinery Service Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Langfang) Mining Equipment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Luxembourg) Investment Co. S.a r.l., Caterpillar (NI) Limited, Caterpillar (Newberry) LLC, Caterpillar (Qingzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Suzhou) Logistics Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Thailand) Limited, Caterpillar (U.K.) Limited, Caterpillar (Wujiang) Ltd., Caterpillar (Xuzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar (Zhengzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar Acquisition Holding Corp., Caterpillar Americas C.V., Caterpillar Americas Co., Caterpillar Americas Funding Inc., Caterpillar Americas Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Asia Limited, Caterpillar Asia Pacific L.P., Caterpillar Asia Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Asset Intelligence LLC, Caterpillar Belgium S.A., Caterpillar Brasil Comercio de Maquinas e Pecas Ltda., Caterpillar Brasil Ltda., Caterpillar Brazil LLC, Caterpillar Castings Kiel GmbH, Caterpillar Centro de Formacion S.L., Caterpillar China Limited, Caterpillar Commercial Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Commercial LLC, Caterpillar Commercial Northern Europe Limited, Caterpillar Commercial S.A., Caterpillar Commercial S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Commercial Services S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Communications LLC, Caterpillar Corporativo Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Cote DIvoire, Caterpillar Credito S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., Caterpillar DC Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Digital Services & Solutions SARL, Caterpillar Distribution International LLC, Caterpillar Distribution Services Europe B.V.B.A., Caterpillar East Real Estate Holding Ltd., Caterpillar Emissions Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Energy Solutions GmbH, Caterpillar Energy Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions S.A., Caterpillar Energy System Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Engine Systems Inc., Caterpillar Equipos Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Eurasia LLC, Caterpillar FS (QFC) LLC, Caterpillar Finance France S.A., Caterpillar Finance Kabushiki Kaisha, Caterpillar Financial Acquisition Funding LLC, Caterpillar Financial Aftermarket Solutions Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Australia Leasing Pty Limited, Caterpillar Financial Australia Limited, Caterpillar Financial Commercial Account Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Corporacion Financiera S.A. E.F.C., Caterpillar Financial Dealer Funding LLC, Caterpillar Financial Funding Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Caterpillar Financial Leasing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Financial New Zealand Limited, Caterpillar Financial Nordic Services AB, Caterpillar Financial Nova Scotia Corporation, Caterpillar Financial OOO, Caterpillar Financial Receivables Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Renting S.A., Caterpillar Financial SARL, Caterpillar Financial Services (Dubai) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services (Ireland) plc, Caterpillar Financial Services (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services Argentina S.A., Caterpillar Financial Services Asia Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Financial Services Belgium S.P.R.L., Caterpillar Financial Services CR s.r.o., Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Services GmbH, Caterpillar Financial Services India Private Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services Leasing ULC, Caterpillar Financial Services Limited Les Services Financiers Caterpillar Limitee, Caterpillar Financial Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Caterpillar Financial Services Netherlands B.V., Caterpillar Financial Services Norway AS, Caterpillar Financial Services Philippines Inc., Caterpillar Financial Services Poland Sp. z o.o., Caterpillar Financial Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, Caterpillar Financial UK Acquisition Funding Partners, Caterpillar Financial Ukraine LLC, Caterpillar Fluid Systems S.r.l., Caterpillar Fomento Comercial Ltda., Caterpillar Forest Products Inc., Caterpillar France S.A.S., Caterpillar GB L.L.C., Caterpillar Global Investments S.a r.l., Caterpillar Global Mining America LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Equipamentos De Mineracao do Brasil Ltda., Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Europe GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Expanded Products Pty Ltd, Caterpillar Global Mining Germany Holdings GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining HMS GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Holdings GmbH, Caterpillar Global Mining Hong Kong AFC Manufacturing Holding Co. Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining Hong Kong Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Global Mining SARL, Caterpillar Global Mining U.S. Parts LLC, Caterpillar Global Services LLC, Caterpillar Group Services S.A., Caterpillar Holding (France) S.A.S., Caterpillar Holding Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Holdings Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Hungary Components Manufacturing Ltd., Caterpillar Hydraulics Italia S.r.l., Caterpillar IPX LLC, Caterpillar IRB LLC, Caterpillar Impact Products Limited, Caterpillar India Private Limited, Caterpillar Industrial Inc., Caterpillar Industrias Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Industries (Pty) Ltd, Caterpillar Insurance Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Insurance Company, Caterpillar Insurance Holdings Inc., Caterpillar Insurance Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Finance Designated Activity Company, Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg I S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg II S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Product SARL, Caterpillar International Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Services del Peru S.A., Caterpillar Investment Limited, Caterpillar Investment One SARL, Caterpillar Investment Two SARL, Caterpillar Investments, Caterpillar Japan LLC, Caterpillar Latin America Services S.R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Panama S. de R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Servicios de Chile Limitada, Caterpillar Latin America Support Services S. DE R.L., Caterpillar Leasing (Thailand) Limited, Caterpillar Leasing Chile S.A., Caterpillar Leasing GmbH (Leipzig), Caterpillar Leasing Operativo Limitada, Caterpillar Life Insurance Company, Caterpillar Logistics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Logistics (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Logistics Inc., Caterpillar Logistics ML Services France S.A.S., Caterpillar Logistics Services China Limited, Caterpillar Luxembourg Group S.ar.l., Caterpillar Luxembourg LLC, Caterpillar Luxembourg S.a r.l., Caterpillar Machinery Nantong Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence, Caterpillar Marine Power UK Limited, Caterpillar Marine Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Maroc SARL, Caterpillar Materiels Routiers SAS, Caterpillar Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Mexico S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Mining Canada ULC, Caterpillar Mining Chile Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Motoren (Guangdong) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Motoren GmbH & Co. KG, Caterpillar Motoren Henstedt-Ulzburg GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Rostock GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Verwaltungs-GmbH, Caterpillar Netherlands Holding B.V., Caterpillar North America C.V., Caterpillar Operator Training Ltd., Caterpillar Overseas Credit Corporation SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Investment Holding SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Limited, Caterpillar Overseas SARL, Caterpillar Panama Services S.A., Caterpillar Paving Products Inc., Caterpillar Paving Products Xuzhou Ltd., Caterpillar Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Poland Sp. z o.o., Caterpillar Power Generation Systems (Bangladesh) Limited, Caterpillar Power Generation Systems L.L.C., Caterpillar Power Systems Inc., Caterpillar Power Ventures International Ltd., Caterpillar Precision Seals Korea, Caterpillar Prodotti Stradali S.r.l., Caterpillar Product Services Corporation, Caterpillar Propulsion AB, Caterpillar Propulsion International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Italy S.R.L., Caterpillar Propulsion Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar Propulsion Production AB, Caterpillar Propulsion Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Singapore Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar R&D Center (China) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe LLC, Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe Servicios S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Reman Powertrain Indiana LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Drivetrain LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Renting France S.A.S., Caterpillar Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar SARL, Caterpillar Services Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Servizi Italia Srl, Caterpillar Shrewsbury Limited, Caterpillar Skinningrove Limited, Caterpillar Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd., Caterpillar Special Services Belgium S.P.R.L., Caterpillar Switchgear Americas LLC, Caterpillar Switchgear Holding Inc., Caterpillar Tianjin Ltd., Caterpillar Torreon S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Tosno L.L.C., Caterpillar Transmissions France S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Tunneling Canada Holdings Ltd., Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, Caterpillar Tunnelling Europe Limited, Caterpillar UK Employee Trust Limited, Caterpillar UK Engines Company Limited, Caterpillar UK Group Limited, Caterpillar UK Holdings Limited, Caterpillar Undercarriage (Xuzhou) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Underground Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Used Equipment Services Inc., Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc., Caterpillar Work Tools B.V., Caterpillar Work Tools Inc., Caterpillar World Trading Corporation, Caterpillar Xuzhou, Caterpillar of Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar of Canada Corporation, Caterpillar of Delaware Inc., Centre de Distribution de Wallonie SPRL, CleanAir Systems, Downer Freight Rail, ECM Railway Evolution Romania s.r.l., ECM S.p.A., EDC European Excavator Design Center GmbH, EMC Holding Corp., EMD International Holdings Inc., ERA Information & Entertainment (BVI) Limited, ERA Mining Machinery Limited, Electro-Motive Diesel Limited, Electro-Motive Locomotive Technologies LLC, Electro-Motive Technical Consulting Co. (Beijing) Ltd., Energy Services International Limited, Equipos de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Eurenov S.A.S., F. G. Wilson (Proprietary) Limited, F. Perkins Limited, FG Wilson (Engineering) Limited, GB Holdco (China) Inc., GFCM Comercial Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., GFCM Servicios S.A. de C.V., Gremada Industries - Assets, Hong Kong Siwei Holdings Limited, Inmobiliaria Conek S.A. de C.V., JCS Co., Kemper Valve & Fittings Corp., Leo Inc., Locomotive Demand Power Pty Ltd., Locomotoras Progress Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Lovat, M2M Data Corporation, MGE Equipamentos & Servicos Ferroviarios, MWM, MWM Austria GmbH, MWM Benelux B.V., MWM Energy Australia Pty Ltd, MWM France S.A.S, MWM Real Estate GmbH, MaK Americas Inc., MaK Americas Inc. (Canada), Magnum Power Products LLC, Marble, Maschinenbau Kiel GmbH, Mec-Track S.r.l., Metalmark Financial Services Limited, Motoren Steffens GmbH, Nippon Caterpillar LLC, P. T. Solar Services Indonesia, PT Caterpillar Finance Indonesia, PT. Bucyrus Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia Batam, PT. Caterpillar Remanufacturing Indonesia, Perkins Engines, Perkins Engines (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, Perkins Engines Group Limited, Perkins Engines Inc., Perkins Group Limited, Perkins Holdings Limited LLC, Perkins India Private Limited, Perkins International Inc., Perkins Japan LLC, Perkins Limited, Perkins Machinery (Changshu) Co. Ltd., Perkins Motores do Brasil Ltda., Perkins Power Systems Technology (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines LLC, Perkins Small Engines Limited, Perkins Technology Inc., Progress Metal Reclamation Company, Progress Rail Arabia Limited Company, Progress Rail Australia Pty Ltd, Progress Rail Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Equipamentos e Servicos Ferroviarios do Brasil Ltda., Progress Rail Equipment Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Holdings Inc., Progress Rail Innovations Private Limited, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems GmbH, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems S.r.l., Progress Rail International Corp., Progress Rail Leasing Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Progress Rail Locomotivas (do Brasil) Ltda., Progress Rail Locomotive Canada Co., Progress Rail Locomotive Chile SpA, Progress Rail Locomotive Inc., Progress Rail Maintenance de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Progress Rail Manufacturing Corporation, Progress Rail Raceland Corporation, Progress Rail Rocklin Corporation, Progress Rail SA Proprietary Limited, Progress Rail Services Corporation, Progress Rail Services Holdings Corp., Progress Rail Services LLC, Progress Rail Services UK Limited, Progress Rail Switching Services LLC, Progress Rail Transcanada Corporation, Progress Rail Welding Corporation, Progress Rail Wildwood LLC, Progress Rail de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pyroban Group, Pyroban Group, Pyrrha Investments B.V., Pyrrha Investments Limited, S&L Railroad LLC, SCM Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., SPL Software Alliance LLC, Sabre Engines, Servicios de Turbinas Solar S. de R.L. de C.V., Shandong SEM Machinery Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines (Beijing) Trading Services Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines (Thailand) Ltd., Solar Turbines CIS Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Canada Ltd./Ltee., Solar Turbines Central Asia Limited Liability Partnership, Solar Turbines EAME s.r.o., Solar Turbines Egypt Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Europe S.A., Solar Turbines India Private Limited, Solar Turbines International Company, Solar Turbines Italy S.R.L., Solar Turbines Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Solar Turbines Middle East Limited, Solar Turbines New Zealand Limited, Solar Turbines Saudi Arabia Limited, Solar Turbines Services Company, Solar Turbines Services Nigeria Limited, Solar Turbines Services of Argentina S.R.L., Solar Turbines Switzerland Sagl, Solar Turbines Trinidad & Tobago Limited, Solar Turbines West-Africa SARL, Tangshan DBT Machinery Co. Ltd., Tecnologia Modificada S.A. de C.V., Towmotor Corporation, Traction & Mining Motor Repairs Pty Ltd, Turbinas Solar S.A. de C.V., Turbinas Solar de Colombia S.A., Turbinas Solar de Venezuela C.A., Turbo Tecnologia de Reparaciones S.A. de C.V., Turbomach, Turbomach Endustriyel Gaz Turbinleri Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited, Turbomach France SARL, Turbomach GmbH, Turbomach Netherlands B.V., Turbomach Pakistan (Private) Limited, Turbomach S.A. Unipersonal, Turbomach Sp. Z o.o., Turner Powertrain Systems Limited, UK Hose Assembly Limited, Underground Imaging Technologies Inc, United Industries LLC, VALA Inc., Vasky Energy Ltd., Wealdstone Engineering, Weir - Oil & Gas Division, West Virginia Auto Shredding Inc., Western Gear Machinery LLC, Wetland Sustainability Fund I LLC, Williams Technologies, Yard Club, Zhengzhou Siwei Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Sales Co. Ltd., and okyo Rental Ltd.. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Centene: AT Learning Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AT Medics Holdings LLP an English and Welsh LLP, AT Medics Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AT Technology (Private) Ltd. a Pakistan private company, AT Technology Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AWC of Syracuse Inc. a New York corporation, Absolute Total Care Inc. a South Carolina corporation, AcariaHealth Inc. a Delaware corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #11 Inc. a Texas corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #12 Inc. a New York corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #13 Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #14 Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #26 Inc. a Delaware corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Solutions Inc. a Delaware corporation, Access Medical Acquisition LLC a Delaware LLC, Access Medical Group of Florida City LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Hialeah LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Lakeland LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Miami LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of North Miami Beach LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Opa-Locka LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Perrine LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa II LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa III LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Westchester LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition Direct Contracting LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers II LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers II LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers III LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers IV LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers LLC a Hawaii LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers V LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VII LLC an Arizona LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Florida Partners LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Georgia LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland Primary Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Accountable Care Coalition of North Texas LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Georgia LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Partners LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northwest Florida LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Prime Health LLC an Oregon LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health II LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health III LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health LLC an Oregon LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Partners LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Physician Partners LLC a South Carolina LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin LLC a Wisconsin LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Tennessee LLC a Tennessee LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Agate Resources Inc. an Oregon corporation, AirLogix, Ambetter of Magnolia Inc. a Mississippi corporation, Ambetter of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, Ambetter of Peach State Inc. a Georgia corporation, America's 1st Choice California Holdings LLC a Florida corporation, American Progressive Life and Health Insurance Company of New York a New York corporation, Apixio, Apixio Inc a Delaware corporation, Arch Personalized Medicine Initiative LLC a Missouri LLC, Arkansas Health & Wellness Health Plan Inc. an Arkansas corporation, Arkansas Total Care Holding Company LLC a Delaware LLC, Arkansas Total Care Inc. an Arkansas corporation, B2B Gestion Integra S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., B2B Salud S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., BMI Healthcare Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Hospital Decontamination Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Imaging Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Southend Private Hospital Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Syon Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Bankers Reserve Life Insurance Company of Wisconsin a Wisconsin corporation, Bishopswood SPV Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Bridgeway Health Solutions LLC a Delaware LLC, Bridgeway Health Solutions of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Buckeye Community Health Plan Inc. an Ohio corporation, Buckeye Health Plan Community Solutions Inc. an Ohio corporation, CCTX Holdings LLC a Texas LLC, CEF Holding Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, CMC Real Estate Company LLC a Delaware LLC, CT Poprad s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., CT Presov s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., California Health and Wellness Plan a California corporation, Cantina Laredo Clayton LP a Delaware limited partnership, Cardium Health Services, Care 1st Health Plan of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Care1st Health Plan Administrative Services Inc. an Arizona corporation, Carolina Complete Health Holding Company Partnership a Delaware partnership, Carolina Complete Health Inc. a North Carolina corporation, CeltiCare Health Plan Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts Inc. a Massachusetts corporation, Celtic Group Inc., Celtic Group Inc. a Delaware corporation, Celtic Insurance Company an Illinois corporation, Cenpatico Behavioral Health LLC a California LLC, Centene Center I LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Center II LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Center LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Company of Texas LP a Texas limited partnership, Centene Europe Finance Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, Centene Health Plan Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Centene Institute for Advanced Health Education LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene International Financing Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, Centene International Ventures LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Management Company LLC a Wisconsin LLC, Centene Technology Europe S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Centene Technology UK Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Centene Venture Company Alabama Health Plan Inc. an Alabama corporation, Centene Venture Company Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Centene Venture Company Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, Centene Venture Company Indiana Inc. an Indiana corporation, Centene Venture Company Kansas Inc. a Kansas corporation, Centene Venture Company Michigan Inc. a Michigan corporation, Centene Venture Company Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Centene Venture Insurance Company Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Centro Inmunologocia De La Comunidad Valenciana S.L. a Spanish S.L., Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico LLC a New Mexico LLC, Centurion Detention Health Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Arizona LLC an Arizona LLC, Centurion of Delaware LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Florida LLC a Florida LLC, Centurion of Indiana LLC an Indiana LLC, Centurion of Kansas LLC a Kansas LLC, Centurion of Minnesota LLC a Minnesota LLC, Centurion of Mississippi LLC a Mississippi LLC, Centurion of New Hampshire LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Pennsylvania LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Centurion of Tennessee LLC a Tennessee LLC, Centurion of Vermont LLC a Vermont LLC, Centurion of West Virginia LLC a West Virginia LLC, Centurion of Wyoming LLC a Wyoming LLC, Chrysalis Medical Services LLC a New Jersey LLC, Circle Birmingham Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Clinical Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Harmony Health Ltd. a Hong Kong private company, Circle Health 1 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 2 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 3 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 4 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Holdings Ltd. a Jersey private company, Circle Hospital (Reading) Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle International an English and Welsh PLC, Circle Nottingham Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Rehabilitation Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Clinica Santo Domingo De Lugo S.L. a Spanish S.L., Collaborative Health Systems IPA LLC a Florida LLC, Collaborative Health Systems LLC a New York LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Maryland LLC a Maryland LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Virginia LLC a Virginia LLC, Community Medical Group, Community Medical Holdings Corporation a Delaware corporation, Comprehensive Health Management Inc. a Florida corporation, Coordinated Care Corporation an Indiana corporation, Coordinated Care of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, DELMARVA Collaborative Care LLC a Delaware LLC, Discare CZ a.s. a Czech Republic A.S., District Community Care Inc. a Washington D.C. corporation, Dr Magnet s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Elche-Crevillente Salud a Spanish S.A., Envolve Benefits Options Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Dental IPA of New York Inc. a New York corporation, Envolve Dental Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Dental of Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Envolve Dental of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Envolve Health, Envolve Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Optical Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve PeopleCare Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Pharmacy IPA LLC a New York LLC, Envolve Pharmacy Solutions Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Total Vision Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision Benefits Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision IPA of New York Inc. a New York corporation, Envolve Vision Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision of Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Envolve Vision of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Essential Care Partners LLC a Texas LLC, Fidelis Care, Forensic Health Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Foundation Care LLC a Missouri LLC, GHG (DB) Pension Trustees Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Healthcare Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Intermediate Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Leasing Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Mount Alvernia Hospital Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Group Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Holdings 2 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Holdings 3 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Generale de Sante International Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Golden Triangle Physician Alliance a Texas not-for-profit corporation, Granite State Health Plan Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, HHS Texas Management Inc. a Texas corporation, HHS Texas Management LP a Texas limited partnership, HLM Strategic Investment Fund L.P. a Delaware limited partnership, Hallmark Life Insurance Company an Arizona corporation, Harmony Health Management Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Harmony Health Plan Inc. an Illinois corporation, Harmony Health Systems Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Health Care Enterprises LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Access Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net Community Solutions Inc. a California corporation, Health Net Community Solutions of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net Federal Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Health Plan of Oregon Inc. an Oregon corporation, Health Net LLC, Health Net LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Life Insurance Company a California corporation, Health Net Life Reinsurance Company a Cayman Islands corporation, Health Net of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net of California Inc. a California corporation, Health Plan Real Estate Holdings Inc. a Missouri corporation, HealthSmart Benefit Solutions Inc. an Illinois corporation, HealthSmart Benefits Management LLC a Texas LLC, HealthSmart Care Management Solutions LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Information Systems Inc. a Texas corporation, HealthSmart Preferred Care II LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Preferred Network II Inc. a Delaware corporation, HealthSmart Primary Care Clinics LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Rx Solutions Inc. an Ohio corporation, Healthy Louisiana Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC , Healthy Missouri Holdings Inc. a Missouri corporation, Healthy Washington Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Heritage Health Systems Inc. a Texas corporation, Heritage Health Systems of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Heritage Physician Networks a Texas not-for-profit corporation, Home State Health Plan Inc. a Missouri corporation, HomeScripts.com LLC a Michigan LLC, Hospinet S.L. a Spanish S.L., Hospital Polusa S.A. a Spanish S.A., Hospital Povisa S.A. a Spanish S.A., Illinois Health Practice Alliance LLC a Delaware corporation, Infraestructuras y Servicios de Alzira S. L. a Spanish S.L., Integrated Mental Health Services a Texas corporation, Interpreta Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Interpreta Inc. a Delaware corporation, Iowa Total Care Inc. an Iowa corporation, Kentucky Spirit Health Plan Inc. a Kentucky corporation , LifeShare Management Group LLC, LifeShare Management Group LLC a New Hampshire LLC, Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc. a Louisiana corporation , MH Services International Holdings (UK) Limited an English and Welsh private company, MHM, MHM Correctional Services LLC a Delaware LLC, MHM Health Professionals LLC a Delaware LLC, MHM Services Inc. a Delaware corporation, MHM Services of California LLC a California LLC, MHM Solutions LLC a Delaware LLC, MHN Government Services LLC a Delaware LLC, MHN Services LLC a California LLC, MHS Consulting International Inc. a Delaware corporation, MHS Travel & Charter Inc. a Wisconsin corporation, MR Centrum Melnick s.r.o. a Czech Republic S.R.O., MR Poprad s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., MR Zilina s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Magellan Health Inc, Magnolia Health Plan Inc. a Mississippi corporation, Managed Health Network LLC a Delaware LLC, Managed Health Network a California corporation, Managed Health Services Insurance Corporation a Wisconsin corporation, Marina Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Maryland Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Maryland Collaborative Care Transformation Organization Inc. a Delaware corporation, Mauli Ola Health and Wellness Inc. a Hawaii corporation, Medicina NZ spol s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Meriden Hospital Advanced Imaging Centre Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Meridian Health Plan of Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, Meridian Health Plan of Michigan Inc. a Michigan corporation, Meridian Management Company LLC (a/k/a Meridian Administration Company LLC) a Michigan LLC, Meridian Network Services LLC a Michigan LLC, MeridianRx IPA LLC a New York LLC, MeridianRx LLC a Michigan LLC, MeridianRx of Indiana LLC a Michigan LLC, Michigan Complete Health a Michigan corporation, Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Mount Alvernia PET CT Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Nations Healthcare Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Nebraska Total Care Inc. a Nebraska corporation, Network Providers LLC a Delaware LLC, New York Quality Healthcare Corporation a New York corporation, Next Door Neighbors Inc. a Delaware corporation, Next Door Neighbors LLC. a Delaware LLC, North West Cancer Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Northern Maryland Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Novasys Health Inc. a Delaware corporation, OB Care a Czech Republic S.R.O., OB Klinika a.s. a Czech Republic A.S., Ohana Health Plan Inc. a Hawaii corporation, Oklahoma Complete Health Holding Company LLC a Delaware LLC, Oklahoma Complete Health Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, One Care by Care 1st Health Plans of Arizona Inc an Arizona corporation, Operose Health (Group) Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Operose Health (Group) UK Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Operose Health Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, OptiCare Health Systems - Managed Vision Business, PANTHERx Rare Pharmacy, PRIMEROSALUD S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Panther Pass Co LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Panther Specialty Holding Co LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Pantherx Access Services LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Pantherx Specialty LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Parker LP LLC a Nevada LLC, Peach State Health Plan Inc. a Georgia corporation, Penn Marketing America LLC a Delaware LLC, Pennsylvania Health and Wellness Inc. a Pennsylvania corporation, Preamed s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Premier Marketing Group LLC a Delaware LLC, Primary Care Partners Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Pro Diagnostic Group A.S. a Slovakia A.S., Pro Magnet CZ s.r.o. a Czech Republic S.R.O., Pro Magnet s.r.o a Slovakia S.R.O., Pro Nuclear a.s. a Slovakia A.S., Pro RTG s.r.o a Slovakia S.R.O., Progress Medical A.S. a Czech Republic A.S., Prowl Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, QCA Healthplan Inc. an Arkansas corporation, Qualchoice Life and Health Insurance Company and Arkansas company, Quincy Coverage Corporation a New York corporation, Rhythm Health Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Ribera Diagnostics S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Healthcare S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Lab S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Management S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Salud II a Spanish UTE, Ribera Salud Proyectos S.L. a Spanish S.L., Ribera Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Ribera Salud Tecnologias S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Slaud Infraestructuras S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera-Quilpro UTE a Spanish UTE, Runnymeade SPV Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Salus Administrative Services Inc. a New York corporation, Salus IPA LLC a New York LLC, Secure Capital Solutions 2000 S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., SelectCare Health Plans Inc. a Texas corporation, SelectCare of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Servicios De Mantenimiento Prevencor S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Shanghai Circle Harmony Hospital Management Limited a Chinese private company, SilverSummit Healthplan Inc. a Nevada corporation, Social Health Bridge LLC a Delaware LLC, Social Health Bridge Trust a Delaware trust, Specialty Therapeutic Care GP LLC a Texas LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care LP a Texas limited partnership, Sunflower State Health Plan Inc. a Kansas corporation, Sunshine Health Community Solutions Inc. a Florida corporation, Sunshine Health Holding LLC a Florida LLC, Sunshine State Health Plan Inc. a Florida corporation, Superior Health Management Advisors LLC, Superior HealthPlan Community Solutions Inc. a Texas corporation, Superior HealthPlan Inc. a Texas corporation, TKH Holding Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Terapias Medicas Domiciliarias S.L. a Spanish S.L., The Pavilion Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, The Practice Properties Limited an English and Welsh private company, The WellCare Management Group Inc. a New York corporation, Three Shires Hospital LP an English and Welsh limited partnership, Torrejon Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Torrevieja Salud S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Torrevieja Salud UTE a Spanish UTE, Transplant Health Solutions IPA Inc. a New York corporation, Trillium Community Health Plan Inc. an Oregon corporation, UAM Agent Services Corp. an Iowa corporation, US Script, Universal American Corp. a Delaware corporation, Universal American Financial Services Inc. a Delaware corporation, Universal American Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, Vivamed s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., WCG Health Management Inc. a Delaware corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of America an Arkansas corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Kentucky Inc. a Kentucky corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Louisiana Inc. a Louisiana corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Nevada Inc. a Nevada corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Hampshire Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Oklahoma Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Connecticut Inc. a Connecticut corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Hawaii Inc. a Hawaii corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of New York Inc. a New York corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Southwest Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, WellCare Health Plans, WellCare Health Plans Inc. a Delaware corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky Inc. a Kentucky corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Massachusetts Inc. a Massachusetts corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Missouri Inc. a Missouri corporation, WellCare Health Plans of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Rhode Island Inc. a Rhode Island corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Vermont Inc. a Vermont corporation, WellCare National Health Insurance Company a Texas corporation, WellCare Prescription Insurance Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare of Alabama Inc. an Alabama corporation, WellCare of Arkansas Inc. an Arkansas corporation, WellCare of California Inc. a California corporation, WellCare of Connecticut Inc. a Connecticut corporation, WellCare of Georgia Inc. a Georgia corporation, WellCare of Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, WellCare of Indiana Inc. an Indiana corporation, WellCare of Maine Inc. a Maine corporation, WellCare of Michigan Holding Company a Michigan corporation, WellCare of Mississippi Inc. a Mississippi corporation, WellCare of Missouri Health Insurance Company Inc. a Missouri corporation, WellCare of New Hampshire Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, WellCare of New York Inc. a New York corporation, WellCare of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, WellCare of Ohio Inc. an Ohio corporation, WellCare of Oklahoma Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, WellCare of Pennsylvania Inc. a Pennsylvania corporation, WellCare of South Carolina Inc. a South Carolina corporation, WellCare of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, WellCare of Virginia Inc. a Virginia corporation, WellCare of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, Western Sky Community Care Inc. a New Mexico corporation, Windsor Health Group Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Winning Security S.L. a Spanish S.L., and Worlco Management Services Inc. a New York corporation. Read More Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. The company offers general purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers; HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy; and solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking, and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays and HPE XP. It also offers HPE Apollo and Cray products; and HPE Superdome Flex, HPE Nonstop, HPE Integrity, and HPE Edgeline products. In addition, the company provides HPE Aruba product portfolio that includes wired and wireless local area network hardware products, such as Wi-Fi access points, switches, routers, and sensors; HPE Aruba software and services comprising cloud-based management, network management, network access control, analytics and assurance, and location; and professional and support services, as well as as-a-service and consumption models for the intelligent edge portfolio of products. Further, it offers various leasing, financing, IT consumption, and utility programs and asset management services for customers to facilitate technology deployment models and the acquisition of complete IT solutions, including hardware, software, and services from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others. Additionally, the company invests in communications and media solutions. It has a partnership with Striim, Inc. to offer high performance and mission-critical solutions with real-time analytics. It serves commercial and large enterprise groups, such as business and public sector enterprises; and through various partners comprising resellers, distribution partners, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, systems integrators, and advisory firms. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: Akasol AG, B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Asia Inc., BorgWarner Automotive Asia Limited, BorgWarner Automotive Components (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Brasil Ltda., BorgWarner Chungju Co. LLC, BorgWarner Comercial e Distribuidora de Pecas para Veiculos Automotores Ltda., BorgWarner Comercializadora PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Componentes PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Cooling Systems (India) Private Limited, BorgWarner Cooling Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Diversified Transmission Products Services Inc., BorgWarner Drivetrain Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Drivetrain Management Services de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Drivetrain de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Electric Motors L.L.C., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems Holding LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Emissions Systems LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Portugal Unipessoal LDA, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Spain S.L.U., BorgWarner Emissions Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Emissions Talegaon Private Limited, BorgWarner Engineering Ketsch RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Engineering Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Esslingen GmbH, BorgWarner Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Europe Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Gateshead Limited, BorgWarner Germany Holding GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Holding Services GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REH GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REM GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, BorgWarner Global Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Heidelberg I RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg II RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg REH GmbH, BorgWarner Heidelberg REM GmbH, BorgWarner Holding Inc., BorgWarner Holdings Limited, BorgWarner Hungary Kft., BorgWarner IT Services Europe GmbH, BorgWarner India Holdings Inc., BorgWarner Investment Holding Inc., BorgWarner Ithaca LLC, BorgWarner Ketsch Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Ketsch REH GmbH, BorgWarner Ketsch REM GmbH, BorgWarner Kft., BorgWarner Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Korea Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Korea Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Korea LLC, BorgWarner Limited, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg GmbH, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf REH GmbH, BorgWarner Markdorf REM GmbH, BorgWarner Massachusetts Inc., BorgWarner Mauritius Holdings Ltd., BorgWarner Mexico Holding BV, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings II LLC, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Morse Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Morse Systems Italy S.r.l., BorgWarner Morse Systems Japan K.K., BorgWarner Morse Systems Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Muggendorf RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner NW Inc., BorgWarner Netherlands Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Oroszlany Kft., BorgWarner PDS (Anderson) L.L.C., BorgWarner PDS (Changnyeong) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Indiana) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Livonia) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Ochang) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner PDS (USA) Inc., BorgWarner PDS Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., BorgWarner PDS Irapuato S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Technologies L.L.C., BorgWarner Poland Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Pyongtaek LLC, BorgWarner Romeo Power LLC, BorgWarner Rzeszow Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Shenglong (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner South Asia LLC, BorgWarner Southborough Inc., BorgWarner Spain Holding S.L.U, BorgWarner Sweden AB, BorgWarner Systems Lugo S.r.l., BorgWarner Thermal Systems Inc., BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Tralee Ltd., BorgWarner Transmission Products LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Arnstadt GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Korea LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Tulle S.A.S., BorgWarner Trustees Limited, BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems France S.A.S., BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems LLC, BorgWarner Turbo Systems Worldwide Headquarters GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Turbo and Emissions Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner UK Financing Ltd., BorgWarner UK Holding and Services Ltd., BorgWarner US Holding LLC, BorgWarner USA Industries L.L.C., BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Waterloo Inc., BorgWarner Wrexham Limited, Cascadia Motion LLC, Creon Insurance Agency Limited, Delphi Technologies, Dytech ENSA, Gustav Wahler GmbH u. Co. KG, Haldex, Kuhlman LLC, Kysor Europe Limited, M. & M. Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III Scots L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Aoba Life Insurance Company Ltd., Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI Ireland L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI US L.P., Dale/P Minerals Limited Partnership, Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Horizon GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sprint GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Harvest Asset Management LLC, Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd. Kabushiki Kaisha Kyouei Nenkin Home, LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., Lotus Reinsurance Company Ltd., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Montana Capital Partners, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Northbound Emerging Manager Fund A LP, Northbound Emerging Manager Fund II - A LP, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Desert Falcon Farms Manager LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI River Bend Ranches LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PG Friendly Partners Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM AC Co-Invest GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory Shanghai Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Australia Pty Ltd, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Feeder VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM Custom Harvest LLC, PGIM DC Co-Invest GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM DC JV GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM DC Solutions LLC, PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM Holdings Limited, PGIM Hong Kong Ltd., PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM IRELAND LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments Ireland Limited, PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management Shanghai Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital Ireland Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM QUANTITATIVE SOLUTIONS LLC, PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Global Master Fund GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles II S de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Japan Ltd., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. CORE Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate UK Limited, PGIM Scots Limited, PGIM Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Shanghai Company Ltd., PGIM Singapore Pte. Ltd., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM Taronga Investor GP LLC, PGIM U.S. Agriculture Fund LP, PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Wadhwani LLP, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings UK Limited, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP SCOTS FEEDER LLP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF Debt Fund Manager LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica Business Consulting Shanghai Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Hong Kong Holdings Limited, Pramerica Insurance Agency China Company Ltd., Pramerica Luxembourg CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate Scots LP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP Scots Feeder LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I Scotland Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Scots Feeder LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V Netherlands GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Scots CP GP LLP, Preco III Scotland Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Inc., Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd. Prudential Gibraltar Agency Kabushiki Kaisha, Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Select Strategies LLC, Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Tax Services LLC, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service, Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy US Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., VIP Australia Holding Company LLC, VIP Australia Trustee Pty Ltd, Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I Ireland L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I US L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC. Read More Schlumberger Limited provides technology for the energy industry worldwide. The company operates through four divisions: Digital & Integration, Reservoir Performance, Well Construction, and Production Systems. It offers software, information management, and IT infrastructure services; consulting services for reservoir characterization, field development planning, and production enhancement; petro technical data services and training solutions; reservoir interpretation and data processing services; asset performance solutions; open and cased-hole services; exploration and production pressure and flow-rate measurement services; pressure pumping, well stimulation, and coiled tubing equipment for downhole mechanical well intervention, reservoir monitoring, and downhole data acquisition; and integrated production systems. The company also provides mud logging and engineering support services; drilling equipment and services for shipyards, drilling contractors, energy companies, and rental tool companies; land drilling rigs and related services; drilling tools; well cementing products and services; and well planning and drilling, engineering, supervision, logistics, procurement, contracting, and drilling rig management services, as well as supplies engineered drilling fluid systems; and designs, manufactures, and markets roller cone and fixed cutter drill bits. In addition, it offers well completion services and equipment; artificial lift production equipment and optimization services; valves; process systems; and integrated subsea production systems comprising wellheads, subsea trees, manifolds and flowline connectors, control systems, connectors, and services, as well as designs and manufactures onshore and offshore platform wellhead systems and processing solutions. The company was formerly known as Societe de Prospection Electrique. Schlumberger Limited was founded in 1926 and is based in Houston, Texas. Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. produces and distributes specialty plant nutrients, iodine and its derivatives, lithium and its derivatives, potassium chloride and sulfate, industrial chemicals, and other products and services. The company offers specialty plant nutrients, including potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, sodium potassium nitrate, specialty blends, and other specialty fertilizers. It also provides iodine and its derivatives for use in medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and industrial applications comprising x-ray contrast media, polarizing films for LCD and LED, antiseptics, biocides and disinfectants, pharmaceutical synthesis, electronics, pigments, and dye components. In addition, the company offers lithium carbonates for various applications that include electrochemical materials for batteries, frits for the ceramic and enamel industries, heat-resistant glass, air conditioning chemicals, continuous casting powder for steel extrusion, primary aluminum smelting process, pharmaceuticals, and lithium derivatives, as well as ingredient in manufacturing of gunpowder. Further, it supplies lithium hydroxide for the lubricating greases industry, as well as cathodes for batteries. Additionally, it offers potassium chloride and potassium sulfate for various crops, including corn, rice, sugar, soybean, and wheat; industrial chemicals, including sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, potassium chloride, and solar salts; and other fertilizers and blends. The company operates in Chile, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North America, Asia, and internationally. Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile. The following companies are subsidiares of Sysco: 2234829 Alberta ULC, 2234842 Alberta ULC, A. M. Briggs Inc., A.M. Briggs, Almacen Fiscal Frionet Caldera S.A., Almacen Fiscal Frionet Limon S.A., Appert's Foodservice, Arnotts (Fruit) Limited, Asian Foods, Bahamas Food Holdings Limited, Bahamas Food Services Limited, Brake Bros, Brake Bros Foodservice Ireland Limited, Brake Bros. Foodservice Limited, Brake Bros. Holding I Limited, Brake Bros. Ltd., Brakes Foodservice NI Limited, Buchy Food Service, Buckhead Beef Co., Buckhead Meat & Seafood of Houston Inc., Buckhead Meat Company, Buckhead Meat Midwest Inc., Buckhead Meat of Dallas Inc., Buckhead Meat of Denver Inc., Buckhead Meat of San Antonio LP, Buzztable Inc., CAKE Corporation, Central Seafood Co., Christys Wine & Spirits Limited, Clafra Aktiebolag, Colorado Boxed Beef Co - Specialty meat-cutting division, Corporacion Frionet Sociedad Anonima, Crossgar Foodservice, Crossgar Foodservice Limited, Crown I Enterprises Inc., Cucina Acquisitions (UK) Limited, Cucina Finance (UK) Limited, Cucina French Holdings Limited, Cucina Fresh Finance Limited, Cucina Fresh Investments Limited, Cucina Lux Investments Limited, Curleys Quality Foods Limited (Third Party), Davigel Belgilux S.A., Davigel Espana S.A., Desert Meats & Provisions, Distagro, Doerle Food Service, Doughtie's Foods Inc., Dust Bowl City LLC, Eko Fagel Fisk o mittemellan AB, Enclave Insurance Company, Enclave Parkway Association Inc., Enclave Properties LLC, European Imports, European Imports Inc., Figg Inc., Freedman Meats, Freedman Meats Inc., Freedman-KB Inc., Fresh Direct (UK) Limited, Fresh Direct Group Limited, Fresh Direct Limited, Fresh Holdings Limited, FreshPoint, FreshPoint Arizona Inc., FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., FreshPoint California Inc., FreshPoint Central California Inc., FreshPoint Central Florida Inc., FreshPoint Connecticut LLC, FreshPoint Dallas Inc., FreshPoint Denver Inc., FreshPoint Hawaii LLC, FreshPoint Inc., FreshPoint Las Vegas Inc., FreshPoint North Carolina Inc., FreshPoint North Florida Inc., FreshPoint Oklahoma City LLC, FreshPoint Pompano Real Estate LLC, FreshPoint Puerto Rico LLC, FreshPoint San Francisco Inc., FreshPoint South Florida Inc., FreshPoint South Texas Inc., FreshPoint Southern California Inc., FreshPoint Tomato LLC, FreshPoint Vancouver Ltd., Freshfayre Limited, Fruktservice i Helsingborg AB, GHS Classic Drinks Limited, Gilchrist & Soames Inc., Gilchrist & Soames UK Limited, Guest Packaging LLC, Guest Supply, Guest Supply Asia Limited, Guest Supply Singapore Pte. Ltd., International Food Group, Isakssons Frukt & Gront AB, J & M Wholesale Meats, J. Kings Food Service Professionals, J. Kings Food Service Professionals Inc., Kent Frozen Foods, Les Ateliers Du Gout, Liquid Assets Limited, M&J Seafood Holdings Limited, M&J Seafood Limited, Manchester Mills LLC, Mayca Autoservicio S.A., Mayca Distribuidores S.A., Menigo Foodservice AB, Mitshim Etatu Supply LP, Newport Meat Company, Newport Meat Northern California Inc., Newport Meat Pacific Northwest Inc., Newport Meat Southern California Inc., Newport Meat of Nevada Inc., North Star Holding Corporation, North Star Seafood, North Star Seafood Acquisition Corporation, North Star Seafood LLC, PFS de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Palisades Ranch Inc., Pallas Foods, Pallas Foods Farm Fresh Unlimited Company, Pallas Foods Unlimited Company, Pauleys Produce Limited, Promotora del Servicios S.A. de C.V., Restaurangakdemien AB, Restaurant of Tomorrow Inc., Rohan Viandes Elaboration SAS, SMS Bermuda Holdings, SMS GPC International Limited, SMS GPC International Resources Limited, SMS Global Holdings S.a.r.l., SMS International Resources Ireland Unlimited Company, SMS Lux Holdings LLC, SOTF LLC, SYY Netherlands C.V., SYY Panama S. de R.L., Serca Foodservice, Servicestyckarna I Johannes AB, Servicios Ameriserve S.A. de C.V., Shenzhen Guest Supply Trading Co. Limited, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Bianchi Montegut, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Boiseau, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Garcelles, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) J.D. Lanjouan, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Le Dauphin, Specialty Meat Holdings LLC, Stockflag Limited, Stockholms Fiskauktion AB, Supplies on the Fly, Sysco Albany LLC, Sysco Asian Foods Inc., Sysco Atlanta LLC, Sysco Autoservicio S.A., Sysco Baltimore LLC, Sysco Baraboo LLC, Sysco Bermuda Partners L.P., Sysco Boston LLC, Sysco Canada Holdings S.a.r.l., Sysco Canada Inc., Sysco Central Alabama LLC, Sysco Central California Inc., Sysco Central Florida Inc., Sysco Central Illinois Inc., Sysco Central Pennsylvania LLC, Sysco Charlotte LLC, Sysco Chicago Inc., Sysco Cincinnati LLC, Sysco Cleveland Inc., Sysco Columbia LLC, Sysco Connecticut LLC, Sysco Corporation, Sysco Corporation Director's Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Employee's 401(k) Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Executive Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Good Government Committee Inc., Sysco Corporation Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Executive Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Unemployment Benefits Plan Trust, Sysco Detroit LLC, Sysco Disaster Relief Foundation Inc., Sysco EI VI S. s.r.l., Sysco EU II S.a.r.l., Sysco EU III S.a.r.l., Sysco EU IV Capital Unlimited Company, Sysco EU IV S. s.r.l.., Sysco EU V S. s.r.l., Sysco Eastern Maryland LLC, Sysco Eastern Wisconsin LLC, Sysco Foundation Inc., Sysco France Holding SAS, Sysco France SAS, Sysco George Town II LLC, Sysco George Town Limited S. s.r.l.., Sysco Global Finance LLC, Sysco Global Finance LLP, Sysco Global Holdings B.V., Sysco Global Resources LLC, Sysco Global Services LLC, Sysco Grand Cayman Company, Sysco Grand Cayman II Company, Sysco Grand Cayman III Company, Sysco Grand Rapids LLC, Sysco Guernsey Limited, Sysco Guest Supply Canada Inc., Sysco Guest Supply Europe Goods Wholesalers LLC, Sysco Guest Supply Europe Limited, Sysco Guest Supply LLC, Sysco Gulf Coast LLC, Sysco Hampton Roads Inc., Sysco Hawaii Inc., Sysco Holdings II LLC, Sysco Holdings LLC, Sysco Indianapolis LLC, Sysco International Food Group Inc., Sysco International Inc., Sysco Iowa Inc., Sysco Jackson LLC, Sysco Jacksonville Inc., Sysco Kansas City Inc., Sysco Knoxville LLC, Sysco Labs Europe Limited, Sysco Labs Pvt. Ltd., Sysco Leasing LLC, Sysco Lincoln Inc., Sysco Lincoln Transportation Company Inc., Sysco Long Island LLC, Sysco Los Angeles Inc., Sysco Louisville Inc., Sysco Memphis LLC, Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Canada Inc., Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Inc., Sysco Metro New York LLC, Sysco Minnesota Inc., Sysco Montana Inc., Sysco Nashville LLC, Sysco Netherlands Partners LLC, Sysco North Central Florida Inc., Sysco North Dakota Inc., Sysco Northern New England Inc., Sysco Philadelphia LLC, Sysco Pittsburgh LLC, Sysco Portland Inc., Sysco Raleigh LLC, Sysco Resources Services LLC, Sysco Riverside Inc., Sysco Sacramento Inc., Sysco San Diego Inc., Sysco San Francisco Inc., Sysco Seattle Inc., Sysco South Florida Inc., Sysco Southeast Florida LLC, Sysco Spain Holdings SLU, Sysco Spokane Inc., Sysco St. Louis LLC, Sysco Syracuse LLC, Sysco Technologies Cayman Ltd., Sysco Technologies LLC, Sysco UK Holdings Limited, Sysco UK Limited, Sysco UK Partners LLP, Sysco USA I Inc., Sysco USA II LLC, Sysco USA III LLC, Sysco Ventura Inc., Sysco Ventures Inc., Sysco Virginia LLC, Sysco West Coast Florida Inc., Sysco Western Minnesota Inc., The SYGMA Network Inc., Upsys, Victua SAS, Walker Foods Inc., Waugh Foods, and Wild Harvest Limited. Read More The Nationals have placed righty Shawn Kelley on the 10-day DL with a lower back strain. Kelley has been out with illness, but his back flared up while he was warming up to see if he felt well enough to pitch tonight, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com explains. Hell be replaced on the active roster by southpaw Matt Grace. While it seems reasonable to hope that Kelley wont be out for too long, the news means the team will be without its de facto closer for at least another week. The DL placement was backdated to May 2. Of course, now that the move has been made, the Nats will no doubt make sure hes not activated until fully healed. The Nats closing situation is as questionable as ever. While Kelley has been unusually homer prone through his ten innings, he has looked himself in the K/BB department (13:3) and is probably the teams best option. But it has never been the organizations preference to utilize him in that capacity. Youngster Koda Glover is nearing his own return from the DL, and may be the favorite to take over the ninth when hes back. Until hes activated, the club could be forced to turn over their ninth-inning leads to Enny Romero, Matt Albers, or one of the teams two struggling relievers (Blake Treinen and Joe Blanton) who had been expected to handle high-leverage work. Its arguable that the injury could increase the pressure on the Nats front office to strike an earlier-than-usual deal for a replacement. With the team playing well anyway, though, paying a major premium to get a closer now still seems unlikely. At some point, though, Washington figures to boost its late-inning mix via trade. By Stephen Wandera The European Union has cautioned President Yoweri Musevenis on his plans to have express implementation of donor funded projects as a risk for shoddy work and escalating corruption. The World Bank and European Union are some of the major funders of agriculture and infrastructure projects like roads, electricity dams and distribution lines among others. The president told the World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban, South Africa that international financial agencies are unserious and one of their biggest problems is triviality. He particularly made stinging remarks over criticism over flowed procurement procedures like tendering. They take small things, say tendering; when you go for tendering they bring all sorts of jokers, and then at same want a same ground field for tenderers; then when the small ones dont win, then they appeal.then you find a project taking like five years to start, said. Adding, Why cant you (financial lending institutions) look for serious groups and are the ones which tender for business instead of wasting time with these jokers. We shall be democratic (in terms of business) later after we have had some of the infrastructures. However, the European Union ambassador to Uganda Kristian Schmidt says single hand sourcing is a risk for shoddy work and breeds corruption. I read the story, the President was not referring to EU projects, we strictly follow and monitor our projects. But what I can say is that if you do not want to flow procurement procedures like tendering, you can sign a contract with one company but you may end up paying four times the market value. This is when you find minister single handily signing deals, Mr Schmidt. Several huge infrastructure projects have been rocked with corruption scandals with the Katosi road resulting into prosecution former Minister for Works Eng. Ibrahim Byandala among others. He was speaking at a conference to mark 30 years of EU Erasmus+ Program at the Uganda Manufactures Association in Kampala on Friday. Johannesburg (AFP) - A South African High Court Thursday ordered President Jacob Zuma to reveal the documents he used to justify the controversial sacking of a widely ected finance minister, sparking economic turmoil. The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) went to court to force Zuma to explain the shock March 30 cabinet reshuffle in which Pravin Gordhan and his deputy removed were from their jobs. Gordhan's axing was said to be based on an "intelligence" report that showed he was allegedly plotting against Zuma. Judge Bashir Vally gave Zuma five days to provide the records. Vally said Zuma must give "the record of all documents and electronic records...that relate to the making of the decisions." Zuma has maintained that the axing of ministers were within his presidential powers, as stated in the constitution. Gordhan's removal triggered unprecedented criticism from within the ruling African National Congress top brass and its allies and spawned massive public protests for Zuma's ouster. His sacking caused the rand currency to plummet and the country's sovereign credit rating was downgraded to "junk status" by global agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch. The intelligence report which Zuma is said to have used to fire Gordhan has been dismissed by politicians as fake and Security Minister David Mahlobo last month said he had no knowledge of it. Gordhan was at loggerheads with Zuma for months, receiving support from several ministers and major foreign investors, as well as many ordinary South Africans. Critics have stated that the fired ministers were replaced by perceived Zuma allies. Durban (South Africa) (AFP) - Africa's flagship business and political summit being held in Durban this week has been overshadowed by a bitter fight exposing deep divisions at the heart of South Africa's ruling ANC. The African National Congress (ANC) was plunged into crisis when President Jacob Zuma dramatically fired respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a March cabinet reshuffle that saw the promotion of people who are perceived as Zuma loyalists. Hundreds of African business leaders, politicians and experts were gathering in the Indian Ocean coast city of Durban for the continent's Davos when a high court judge ruled on Thursday that Zuma must justify his reshuffle. The ruling followed an application by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) that he release documents related to the shake-up -- a significant blow to the president. "Not long ago I had a reshuffle of government. I put in a lot of young people... and of course some people would have different views -- that's democracy," Zuma told an audience at the World Economic Forum on Africa which he is hosting and which will conclude on Friday. Within days of the reshuffle, two of the world's major rating agencies -- Fitch and Standard & Poor's -- downgraded South African sovereign debt to junk status which caused the rand to tank. 'Dire consequences' "The president ought to have reasonably foreseen the dire consequences of this reshuffle," DA shadow minister James Selfe said in a statement ahead of the court judgement. Several hundred demonstrators marched on the WEF meeting on Wednesday to protest Zuma's alleged corruption and to call for his resignation. South African Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba insists President Jacob Zuma would win any parliamentary vote of confidence over his controversial reshuffle Also present at the summit was Gordhan's replacement Malusi Gigaba, who told journalists that he is "tired of answering that question" on whether Zuma could lose a parliamentary vote of no confidence over the reshuffle. Opposition parties are seeking a secret ballot of lawmakers which they believe could see Zuma ousted. "The ANC holds 62 percent of the vote in the national assembly. There is no chance in hell that the vote of no confidence is going to succeed. There have been so many votes of no confidence since 2009 -- and none of them has been successful," said Gigaba. "The government of South Africa remains intact and it's going to remain intact until 2019 when we hold the next general elections." Gordhan, who has warned that the ruling ANC party could lose power in 2019, attended the WEF in a personal capacity but declined to comment when approached by AFP. International businesses attending the summit of Africa's great-and-good have voiced concerns about the impact of the reshuffle and its aftermath. "I am nervous due to the reshuffling and the surrounding developments," said Alexis von Hoensbroech, head of sales and products at German air freight giant Lufthansa Cargo. "Investors are not seeing the stability they want." "There are some concerns given the environment," Ulrich Spiesshofer, chief executive of Swiss industrial giant ABB, told one WEF forum. "It's the elephant in the room," said an international banking executive attending the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity. Despite their concerns, Signal Risk political analyst Ryan Cummings said that political tensions, though a distraction, would not affect South Africa's ability to stage events like the WEF. "Political controversy in South Africa is not something new... It's never curtailed our ability to host large-scale events," he said. Ahead of the WEF in Durban, South Africa's recently appointed deputy finance minister Sifiso Buthelezi said he hoped political tensions would not overshadow the gathering. "We are faced by very, very pressing issues as a country, as the continent and the world. My hope is that it doesn't (get overshadowed)," he said. At the Durban meeting, Zuma spoke for the first time about being booed at a Mayday rally organised by the powerful Cosatu trade union federation which is in a political alliance with the ANC -- highlighting the growing tide of opposition that he is facing. 'People haven't understood' "The problem is that people haven't understood what democracy is all about. Protests, booing and debate are part of the culture of a democracy. Unfortunately, people misunderstand and misread this," he said. After being heckled by the large crowd of workers in the central city of Bloemfontein, Zuma was spirited away by his security detail, forcing the cancellation of the event. A growing number of leading ANC figures have accused Zuma of being authoritarian and corrupt. South Africa has seen several protest marches in recent weeks and even some ruling ANC members fear the party could perform badly in 2019 polls Several protest marches have drawn crowds of thousands onto South Africa's streets in recent weeks with opposition parties joined by ANC members dissatisfied by Zuma's performance and fearful of electoral prospects in the 2019 polls. The party slipped to 55 percent of the vote in last year's local elections -- its worst-ever result. Galamsey 06.05.2017 LISTEN Mineral resources belong to the Ghanaian people in common, and their stewardship is entrusted to the President in accordance with the governing provisions of the Constitution. Under this framework, the Parliament of Ghana may make specific laws regulating rights and interests in minerals. Last week, this column dealt with Sections 1-5 of Act 703 of 2006 as amended in 2015 (Minerals and Mining Act, 2006). I would want to skip Sections 6, 7 and 8 of the law and begin from Section 9 onwards for the purposes of this article. Section 9 of the Act 703 deals with Mineral Rights and states that Mineral activities require mineral rights. Again, my understanding of the above is that for anyone or group of people to be able to mine, they should have been granted mineral rights. Section 9(1) 'Despite a right or title which a person may have to land in, upon or under which minerals are situated, a person shall not conduct activities on or over land in Ghana for the search, reconnaissance, prospecting, exploration or mining for a mineral unless the person has been granted a mineral right in accordance with this Act'. Sub-section (2) states that 'Activities conducted under a mineral right shall be limited to the activities permitted by the mineral right, and sub-section (3) says, 'subsection (1) does not prevent a government institution or agency from conducting geological activities in accordance with its powers under an enactment'. This section of the law precludes anybody from beginning a process with the view of engaging in mining unless that person has been given a Mineral Right, with the exception of the government institution or agency clothed with powers under the law. The question again is, in all instances where individuals, group of individuals or corporate bodies had engaged in any of the pre-mining activities anywhere in Ghana, did they obtain mineral rights to embark upon their activities? If they did not, what was the Minister in whose hands Presidential powers lay, do to stop them? We saw people who had no mineral rights in the first instance engaged in mining activities but we did nothing about it, in this case the Minister and the Ministries. Section 10 of the Act is even more explicit on who qualifies to be granted a mineral right. It states 'Unless otherwise provided in this Act, a mineral right shall not be granted to a person unless the person is a body incorporated under the Companies Code 1963 (Act 179), under the Incorporated Private Partnership Act 1962 (Act 152) or under an enactment in force'. My understanding of the above, once again, is that if a person does not meet any of the three legal requirements stated in Section 10 of the law, that person cannot be given a mineral right to even begin 'reconnaissance, prospecting, exploration, or mining for minerals'. Section 11 requires that prospective miners must apply for mineral rights. 'An application for a mineral right shall be submitted to the minerals Commission in the prescribed form and shall be accompanied with a statement providing, (a) Particulars of the financial and technical resources available to the applicant for the proposed mineral operations, (b) An estimate of the amount of money proposed to be spent on the operations, (c) Particulars of the programme of proposed mineral operations, and, (d) Particulars of the applicant's proposals with respect to the employment and training in the mining industry of Ghanaians. The Law, on the face of it, does not prohibit mining in this country but requires a formal process for the purposes of knowing and identifying those in whose hands the state has entrusted our collective resource for our collective good. Operators in the mining sector are also supposed to abide by certain rules, regulations and guidelines for the good of all. The question again is that, have we been insisting on the above? If yes, then it should not be too difficult for those who did not follow the law to be known, since their activities are done in the open and in broad day light. The data of those who operate legitimately must also be available to the authorities to monitor their activities. Section 12 of the Act also outlines the processes the applications must go through. 'The Commission shall, unless delay occurs because of a request for further information from an applicant or a delay is caused by the applicant, submit its recommendation on an application for a mineral right to the Minister within ninety days of receipt of the application. Section 13 (1) 'The Minister shall within sixty days on receipt of recommendation from the Commission make a decision and notify the applicant in writing of the decision on the application and where the application is approved, the notice shall include details of the area, the period and the mineral subject to the mineral right'. Sub-section (2) 'The Minister shall, not less than forty-five days prior to making a decision under sub-section (1), give a notice in writing of a pending application for the grant of a mineral right in respect of the land to a chief or allodial owner and the relevant district Assembly'. Subsection(3) 'A notice given under subsection (2) shall (a) State the proposed boundaries of the land in relation to which the mineral right is applied for, and (b) Be published in (i)a manner customarily acceptable to the areas concerned, and (ii)the Gazette and exhibited at the offices of the District Assembly within whose district, a part of the area is situated. Sections 12 and 13, just as others above, give a lot of powers to the Minister to act on any applications submitted through the Commission to his office. Indeed the laws oblige the Minister to act on the recommended applications within stated periods and exhibit transparency in his decision to grant such applications by stating the proposed boundaries as well as public publications to inform direct and indirect stakeholders, particularly in areas where the mining rights are being given. One of the most important aspects of the Act, in my view, is section 14. Section 14 (1) states 'A mineral right shall not in whole or in part be transferred, assigned, mortgaged or otherwise encumbered or dealt in, in a manner without the prior approval in writing of the Minister, which approval shall not be unreasonably withheld or given subject to unreasonable conditions. By this, even a mineral right holder cannot appropriate part of such right to a third party without a written approval from the Minister, the Minister and Parliament would not also approve a right application which intends to use the galamsey or any unapproved methods to mine in the country. Indeed, the Commission would not recommend galamsey operators' applications nor applications which did not meet the requirements as stated in Section 11 of the Act to the Minister for consideration and approval since they are not likely to meet the requirements of Section 11 of the Act. How did the galamsey operators get the courage to do what they did in the full glare of the state without anyone blinking an eye until now? Is it that some mineral right holders, in violation of the law, partly transfered, assigned or mortgaged their mineral rights to third parties without reference to the Minister? Or is it also the case that the illegal miners have a means of knowing the existence of minerals in any part of the country and then move in to mine? I am emphasizing the role and inactions of the Minister because the law gives him all the powers to deal with the matter of minerals, who should mine or who should not mine and where. What measures have been put in place to ensure that those who hold mineral rights do not part or assign portions of those rights to other parties without such rights to engage in any form of mining activities when the Minister has not authorized that in writing? Did the Minister or his Ministry not see the open degradation of the mass of land and the pollution of water bodies by the illegal operators? Why was nothing done about it? Will be back. Johannesburg (AFP) - Three South African former presidents for the first time issued a joint call for action Friday to end the nation's "worsening" political crisis, the latest campaign targeting President Jacob Zuma. In an unprecedented move, all living former heads of state - Thabo Mbeki, F.W. de Klerk and Kgalema Motlanthe, joined by ex-deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka - announced a national dialogue to try to end the "destructive" crisis. "Practically it is impossible for anyone in our country to argue against this reality of national sickness in our politics, in our economy," said Mbeki on launching the national talks, sponsored by their respective foundations. Calls have intensified in recent months for Zuma to step down following a mounting series of scandals. "Our country is immersed in a general and worsening crisis," said Mbeki. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki "So it is that the rose our people planted, as represented by the victory of 1994, is indeed sick," Mbeki added, referring to the year that marked the end of apartheid. De Klerk, who was the last apartheid president, said the country "is in the grip of the most serious challenges that have confronted it since the establishment of our non-racial constitutional democracy 23 years ago". Former South African president Frederik de Klerk Squarely blaming Zuma for the crisis, he said "the core problem is that our president is not carrying out his duties in terms of ...the constitution." Zuma is facing a slew of corruption allegations and an ongoing crisis over a controversial cabinet shake-up in which he removed a respected finance minister. The reshuffle caused the rand currency to plummet and the country's sovereign credit rating was downgraded to "junk status" by two global agencies. It also triggered unprecedented criticism from within the ruling African National Congress top brass and its allies, and spawned massive public protests for Zuma's ouster. A court on Thursday ordered Zuma to provide records behind the rationale to reshuffle the cabinet. Motlanthe insisted the time had come for action to reclaim the country. "If we allow this unwholesome character of politics to continue while we wallow in silence, history will never forgive our generation," he said. "This gathering becomes a national call. It seeks to be a turning point in the way people of our country relate to the political process," he added. "It is only the beginning". President Akufo-Addo has arrived in Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou to begin his 2-day tour of that country. His visit to the country will see him hold talks with his counterpart on the country on issues surrounding infrastructure especially transportation between the two countries. At a State Dinner held in his honour, and in responding to the remarks made by His Excellency Roch Marc Christian Kabore, President of the Republic of Burkina Faso, President Akufo-Addo indicated that the most important of these initiatives are the regional projects in the area of infrastructure, and especially transportation. According to President Akufo-Addo, it would be, for me, perhaps, the highlight of my presidency if, indeed, I was able, together with you (President Kabore), to launch the beginning of the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. His commitment to this project, he told the Burkinabe leader, is evidenced by the fact that right at the beginning of my government, I decided to establish a special Ministry for Railways Development in Ghana. In fact, the Minister himself is here to give testimony to the seriousness with which we look at this project. I would be very disappointed if the two sides are unable to find a solution to how we can get the Accra-Ouagadougou railway going. Akufo-Addo stated that the concern we have in Ghana, that you know about, is about the control of the water resources of our two countries, adding that these are matters that we are going to be able to address. The President was referring to the yearly opening of the Bagre Dam spillway, which causes flooding in the 3 Northern Regions of Ghana, resulting in the destruction of lives, farmlands, livestock, and property. The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Kofi Adda, MP; the Minister for Works and Housing, Hon. Atta Akyea, MP, and the Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, all accompanied the President on his visit to Burkina Faso. By: citifmonline.com/Ghana 06.05.2017 LISTEN GHANA INSTITUTE OF GOVERNANCE AND SECURITY/FAIR TRADE OIL SHARE GHANA-PSA CAMPAIGN MAKES MATTERS CLEARER ON THE OIL AND GAS LAW ACT 919 (2016) FOR REGULATING GHANAS UPSTREAM OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY PRODUCTION SHARING AGREEMENT VRS GHANA HYBRID SYSTEM It is a bizarre and abysmal state of affairs Ghana finds herself in after 60 years of independence, that our developmental and socioeconomic policies have to be dictated from outside, which in the long run do not inure the intended benefits to us but to the foreigners. Our petition to the President of the Republic of Ghana, with copies to the Vice President, the Sector Minister (Oil and Gas), to Parliament (the Speaker and all Parliamentarians), the National House of Chiefs and the Council of State, who are currently working on the Petition at stake, we at GIGS/FTOS-GH PSA Campaign Team in Ghana wish to share with the general public the facts on which we are petitioning the current government, as we have done to the previous government of Ex-President John Mahama. We submit to the general public that it is now established and without any contradictions and doubts, that PNDC Laws 64 and 84 (1984) which form the legal framework for managing the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry before the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 2007 supported PSA (Production Sharing Agreements). That, the basis of these two laws being PSA, the laws were crafted and modeled to represent the most progressive, equitable and fair fiscal regime for sharing petroleum revenue in the 21st century between the host government and the foreign company (contractors). All the 34 countries in Africa into Oil and Gas Upstream Industry have adopted PSA. That, the Model Production Sharing Agreement of 1995 between Ghana government, the GNPC and the Contractor was based on these PNDC Laws 64 and 84. Records available at Oxford Institute of Energy Studies and Barrow Company Inc. indicated earlier agreement entered into by Ghana in the 1990s based on these laws were PSA. That, one of such contracts is Production Sharing Contract between the Government of Ghana, GNPC and Santa-FE Energy Resource of Ghana in respect of Block Onshore and Offshore KETA Basin dated 25th June, 1997. That, in a post on Saturday January 30th 2016 at 1:45am to a supporter of the Hybrid System by Mr Kwame Mfodwo, copied to the following, Glu-Ghana-leadership forum, Okyeame forum, The Statesman, The Daily Guide Newspaper, The Insight Newspaper, Mr Seth Terkper, Mr Ekow Spio-Gabrah, etc., Kwame Mfodwo vouched: I can back the claim that the original Ghana petroleum agreements were production sharing agreements. I was one of a team of people who provided many worldwide examples that provided the basis for these agreements to be put together by Tsatsu in the 1980s. That, contrary to the existing PNDC Laws 64 and 84 all agreements and contracts entered into by the previous NPP and NDC governments and approved by Parliament from the year 2000, have been modeled after the Royalty Tax/Hybrid System which was not in existence and on our statute books as laws. That, therefore, all the agreements were not in conformity with the tenets of the two PNDC Laws which supported the PSA. That, all the agreements and contracts were hanging in the air without any legal legs to support them despite the fact that they have been approved by Parliament. That, the passage of Act 919, the Hybrid System Law, was giving retrospective legal backing to illegal agreements which were void from the beginning. That, the past Governments and Parliament erred in law. That, in a mail sent to Dr Anthony Dotse, a supporter of the PSA who resides in the U.S.A., by Mr Kwame Pianim a member of the Petroleum Commission on September 3rd 2016 at 7:22pm he wrote: It took a major review tweaking of the oil and gas regime as structured by Tsatsu Tsikata by President Kuffour with support from the Commonwealth Secretariat. That, the implication of this action was the reversal of PSA Oil and Gas Regime structure put in place by Tsikata that would inure an equitable and fair share of the oil revenue to Ghana, to the revenue losing Royalty Tax System under the wrong notion of creating a conducive climate to attract foreign investment into the sector, that has brought about the colossal loses of over US$ 6 billion in five years. That, in the estimation of the Campaign Team, Ghana is on the way of losing almost US$ 7 billion plus in another five years ending 2020. That, in another mail sent by Kwame Pianim to Dr Anthony Dotse on 17th October, 2016 at 3:50pm he wrote: Let us be clear what my position is: I am for the introduction of the PSA. The fact that the Ghana system has been under adjustment from the Royalty based system to some Hybrid system should be evidence enough that it is inferior to a properly structured and implemented PSA. A) Our question is, if Mr. Kwame Pianim knew about this (TRUTH) that, the PSA is a superior fiscal regime, why should the Petroleum Commission, joined by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, GNPC, ACEP, CSO Platform on Oil and Gas and other Think Tanks, keep on opposing the introduction of PSA Fiscal regime into Our Petroleum Exploration and Production Laws? B) Our next question is, what is peculiar with Ghanas Upstream Oil Industry that we cannot adopt PSA whiles countries with lesser stature and status than Ghana on the African continent are adopting it? For example, Togo, Chad, Mali, Niger, Republic of Benin, Sierra Leone, Liberia and South Sudan. Are their political leaders and technocrat in charge of their oil and gas sectors better educated, learned and well informed than their counterparts in Ghana? NOTE: Tullow and Kosmos have signed PSA with almost all the newly emerging countries into the Upstream Oil Industry in Africa except GHANA. WHY? Examples are Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Senegal, Cote DIvoire, etc. C) What is the motivating factor influencing our POLITICAL LEADERS and the TECHNOCRATS in resisting and opposing the adoption of PSA in Ghana when they are aware PSA would accrue more than 50% of total production revenue to Ghanaians as against the Royalty Tax/Hybrid System which would accrue less than 25% of total production revenue? These are questions TRUE GHANAIANS must ask and find answers to. NOTE: The situation, in our humble opinion, is more of LEGAL issues than ECONOMIC because it is the LEGAL that has bearing on the economics of our nation. It is also our humble opinion that, for this National issue to be properly addressed and settled, the Council Of State should initiate a National Workshop bringing all the stakeholders for and against the Ghana Hybrid system to state their case for a National consensus to be reached as to which Fiscal regime Ghana should adopt to maximize her economic benefits from her sovereign property or resource. NOTE: In conclusion, Dr Raymond Atuguba the past Executive Secretary to Ex-President Mahama and supporter of the PSA has declared Act 919 as GARBAGE at the Ghana Oil Conference held at Labadi Beach Hotel from 11th 13th January 2017. What do you say about this National issue? Act 919 supports contracts that have no legal backing from the start of Ghanas Upstream Oil and Gas Industry. Besides, it does not give Ghana a fair produce share of our sovereign oil and gas resources. Ghanaians deserve better as the sovereign owners of the oil and gas resources as well as other natural resources. Go for PSA - Production Sharing Agreements, which is provided for by PNDC LAWS 64 and 84 contained in Ghanas statutory books since 1984. It will give us more than 60 % of total production revenue accruing from the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry if Ghana participates. Please sign up in support of GIGS/Fair-Trade Oil Share-Ghana PSA Campaign. We speak for posterity and we demand justice and fairness in governance. Join the Fight NOW or NEVER. Imam Adam Abubakar Rev. C.E Gyaban-Mensah (Advocate) Tema Metropolitan Chief Imam Tema Metropolitan Industrial Chaplain National Leader, FTOS-Ghana PSA Campaign Advocate of FTOS-Ghana PSA Campaign Tel: 0200041249/0246195370 Tel: 0279565574 Solomon Kwawukume Senior Research Officer, GIGS National Co-ordinator FTOS-Ghana PSA Campaign Tel: 0246449104 Rabat (AFP) - A former radical preacher is the unlikely instigator of a debate on a topic long seen as off-limits in Muslim-majority Morocco: women's inheritance rights. The country's Islamic family laws allocate female heirs half the amount men receive on the death of a relative. Abdelwahab Rafiki, a former hardline cleric who served time in jail following jihadist bombings in Casablanca, says it is time that changed. "I invite... religious scholars, sociologists and human rights actors to open a dialogue, primarily in order to uphold justice," he said. Rafiki, also known as Abou Hafs, was one of around 100 male writers, journalists and artists who published a book in April called "Men defend equality in inheritance". He also appeared on a prime-time television show on the popular 2M channel, arguing that the social roles of men and women had changed since the early days of Islam, meaning it was time for a debate on inheritance rules. Since his TV appearance, he said, "I have been threatened with death and excommunicated, but I also received many messages of support". The 43-year-old was once regarded as a leader of the Salafist-jihadist movement in Morocco. He was among 8,000 people arrested after jihadist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 killed 45 people. Death threats Sentenced to 30 years in prison, he was pardoned in 2012. Last year he stood for election to parliament representing Istiqlal, a conservative nationalist party. His efforts to spark a debate on inheritance have won him plaudits from the liberal media and condemnation from his former peers. "Thanks to 2M and Abou Hafs, a new step has been taken in Morocco: equality between men and women in matters of inheritance can now be raised in the public sphere," local site Medias 24 said. Weekly magazine TelQuel said he had begun "dismantling one by one the dogmas of radical Islam". But Abou Hafs has also received anonymous death threats on social media and been expelled from a national organisation for religious scholars. He has been denounced by the likes of Mohamed Fizazi and Hassan Kettani, preachers who were also jailed and later pardoned after the Casablanca attacks. "He didn't just turn his coat inside out, he tore it up," Fizazi said. Kettani said inheritance rules were not just a "red line" but an "impassable wall". Islamic scholars argue that the Koran allocates women half the inheritance given to male heirs because men are responsible for protecting women and providing for them. Religious interpretation They say the rules were a major improvement on women's rights in pre-Islamic Arabia. But Abou Hafs argues that the issue is open to "ijtihad" -- the process of interpretation by religious scholars. "The issue of inheritance must be consistent with evolutions in society" in order to "protect" Islam, he told AFP. It is not the first time the subject has triggered controversy. In 2015 Morocco's official National Council of Human Rights (CNDH) called for women to be guaranteed the same inheritance rights as men, arguing that "unequal inheritance legislation" made women more vulnerable to poverty. Outraged conservatives rejected any debate on the issue and the ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) slammed the organisation for its "irresponsible recommendation". But Nouzha Skalli, a former women's rights minister, said the lines are moving. "Until recently, the question was taboo -- you couldn't even debate the subject," she said. "As soon as you said the word 'inheritance' you were accused of blasphemy. Today, the debate can be held openly." "The time has come to break the taboo, which hides major injustices against women," she said. "The Koran says that God is against injustice." The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 convene a special Stakeholders forum on the theme: Ensuring Inclusive Governance in Ghana. The event will be held at the Catholic Guest House in Tamale at 9am prompt. The MFWA recognises that inclusive, accountable, and democratic governance is critical for building peaceful, just and inclusive societies that respond to the needs of all people by securing their equal participation and engagement in national processes. At the forum, stakeholders will discuss the crucial nature of inclusive governance as a prerequisite for building strong institutions and how the government can demonstrate its commitment to creating an enabling governance environment that is responsive to the needs and interests of the most disadvantaged and marginalized in society. The forum will be chaired by Professor Agnes Apusigah, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Development Studies and will feature presentations from key stakeholders such as Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), women's groups, youth groups, and the media. The forum is being organised with funding support from Ford Foundation. HEAD TO HEAD: The two heads of state in an extra-ordinary show of camaraderie President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Thursday arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of the Republic of Burkina Faso, to begin his two-day tour of that country. The agenda of the official visit is to develop the initiatives that will bring prosperity to the people of both countries. At a state dinner held in his honour and in response to remarks made by Roch Marc Christian Kabore, President of the Republic of Burkina Faso President Akufo-Addo indicated that the most important of these initiatives are the regional projects in the area of infrastructure, especially transportation. According to President Akufo-Addo, It would be, for me perhaps, the highlight of my presidency if, indeed, I was able, together with you (President Kabore) to launch the beginning of the Accra-Ouagadougou railway project. His commitment to this project, he told the Burkinabe leader, is evidenced by the fact that right at the beginning of my government, I decided to establish a special Ministry for Railways Development in Ghana. In fact, the minister himself is here to give testimony to the seriousness with which we look at this project. He continued, I would be very disappointed if the two sides are unable to find a solution to how we can get the Accra-Ouagadougou railway going. President Akufo-Addo stated that the concern we have in Ghana, that you know about, is about the control of the water resources of our two countries, adding that these are matters that we are going to be able to address. The president was referring to the yearly opening of the Bagre Dam spillway, which causes flooding in the three Northern Regions of Ghana, resulting in the destruction of lives, farmlands, livestock and properties. It is for this reason that the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Kofi Adda, the Minister for Works and Housing, Atta Akyea and the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, accompanied President Akufo-Addo on his visit to Burkina Faso to find lasting solution with their Burkinabe counterparts. The water from the spillway could be channeled from the dam into productive ventures for the mutual benefit of the two countries. 'Africa Must Stand Together' President Akufo-Addo noted that the new crop of African leaders have come into office at a critical time in the lives of the African people, where old alliances are having to be reshaped, and therefore, implying that Africa has to look for new sources and new areas of committing the development of the continent. The most important thing is to recognize the need for us to stand on our own two feet and resolve African problems with African resources and African personnel. We cannot and will not accept that other people can come and develop the continent of Africa for us. It will not happen, and the sooner all of us work together and recognize the necessity of collaborating on a platform that will lead to the prosperity of our peoples, the better, he added. Touching on the fight against terrorism, President Akufo-Addo assured President Kabore that in Nana Akufo-Addo and in his government, the people of Burkina Faso have a strong and steadfast friend. He expressed the appreciation of the people of West Africa for the sacrifices the Burkinabe people, who are in the frontline of the fight against terrorism, are making to guarantee the peace and security not just of their own country, but the region as a whole. To this end, he reiterated Ghana's commitment to standing beside you in that fight and want you to know that whatever, within our modest means, we can do to promote the success of that struggle, you can count on us. With the relations between the peoples of Ghana and Burkina Faso dating back to several centuries, President Akufo-Addo stressed that even though there has been a change in direction and leadership in Ghana, our fundamental commitment to a close and sustaining relationship with the people of the Republic of Burkina Faso remains unchanged. Ghana continues to be by your side and continues to seek a relationship of intimacy and friendship. Richmond Amponsah, the newly elected District Chief Executive (DCE) for Birim South (Akyem Swedru) in the Eastern Region, has hinted that his mother nearly aborted him when she was pregnant, had it not been a pastor who advised her against it. The former Presiding Member who made this known in his acceptance speech after he had been given 97% endorsement by the 38 assembly members, underscored, My thanks go to my mother. She was seriously sick when she got pregnant and decided to abort me. It was a certain pastor who advised her that she shouldnt do so because I would become a great person in future; and truly, I have been honoured today. Forty-five assembly members, including government appointees, were expected to cast their votes, but only 38 were presented. At the end of the poll, 37 members voted 'YES' (representing 97.37%) and one voted 'NO.' There was wild jubilation at the assembly hall when the EC official declared Mr. Amponsah a teacher by profession the confirmed DCE. He thanked President Akufo-Addo for appointing him and also the assembly members for the confidence reposed in him. He said his vision is to help uplift the image of the district and also play a meaningful role in making the area have its share of development, adding that he would work hard with the members to address the challenges facing the district. Eric Kwakye Darfour, Eastern Regional Minister, thanked the members for endorsing the president's nominee. He said he has confidence in the new DCE as a hard worker and urged the members to cooperate with him as he discharges his duties. FROM Daniel Bampoe, Akyem Swedru By Steven Ariong A section of the starving Karimojong in Moroto district in Karamoja sub region in the north eastern Uganda have appealed to members of opposition to extend their hand of distributing relief food to Karamoja. This is the first time for the Karimojong to openly appeal for relief food from the opposition. Many families in the region cannot afford a meal while others have fled the region to Kenyan camps where they are registered as refugees. Ismail Mohamed Speaker for Moroto Municipal Council and a member of National Resistance Movement says the people of Karamoja are in dire need of food relief from any well-wisher regardless of their political affiliation. We need food and if our brothers in Opposition have food please bring for us we are ready to receive without any fear, he said. Muhammed specifically appeals to the FDC that has been distributing relief food to the hungry people in some parts of the country to extend their helping hand to Karamoja since they are not sure when government will deliver food to them. Mr. Simon Nangiro the FDC Coordinator for Karamoja region wandered why government is refusing to declare state of emergency for other parts of the country that has been hit by hunger. He also wandered why governments attention is taken by feeding on refugees than its own People. Since the president has shown no interest in distributing relief food to the hungry people because of so called tarmac and electricity cable let any opposition give people food without being interrupted by the state organs, he said. President Museveni has been quoted in several functions discouraging distribution of relief food in the country saying it will affect other sectors. A month ago Police blocked the distribution of relief food to the people of Katakwi delivered by FDC on claims that government was not sure of the safety of food. In the process of blocking distribution of food, two people were injured after the East Kyoga regional police commander ordered for the dispersal of people who had gathered to receive relief food at Toroma Sub-county headquarters in Katakwi District. Mr. Francis Tumwesigye, the regional police commander Kyoga region told the media that they needed to examine the food before they allow the FDC party members to distribute it. However, Mr. Nangiro said the police will pay heavily with the angry Karimojong should they try to block any opposition member or well-wisher from delivering food to the Karimojong. They will get to know the true colors of Karimojong you deny any one giving us food when you are eating it will not happen in Karamoja, he said. Ghanaian soldiers serving in Mali came under intense fire yesterday with some of them sustaining injuries, DAILY GUIDE has learnt. The UN Compound in Timbuktu is where more than 100 Ghanaian soldiers drew fire. Director of Public Relations at the Ghana Armed Forces, Colonel Aggrey Quarshie, has confirmed the attack but denied Ghanaian soldiers were injured. He said only one Ghanaian soldier sustained minor injuries but had been treated and discharged, even though pictures of bloodied soldiers purported to be Ghanaian soldiers, have gone virile on social media. It cannot be established whether the soldiers being treated by UN medical staff are Ghanaians. The military spokesperson is unable to say where the fire came from. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Once a UN facility is attacked, the whole world has been attacked, he stated. On Wednesday reports suggested the compound was under severe multiple rocket attacks from the desert of Timbuktu. The Dorfor Traditional Council in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region has condemned the paramount stool father of the area, Godson Kwaku Amekah, for attempting to usurp the powers of the acting paramount chief, Togbe Adela Titriku Anaze XII. According to the council, there is no customary law at Dorfor which stipulates that the paramount stool father becomes the regent on the demise, incapacitation or abdication of the substantive paramount chief. The stool father at a press conference a week ago April 26, 2017 directed Togbe Adela Titriku Anaze XII to step down immediately and within 14 days hand over all paramount stool properties and documents in his custody until a new substantive paramount chief is installed. In a press statement signed by 21 divisional chiefs and queen mothers of the area led by the regent, Togbe Ananze XII the council contended that the stool father has no customary, traditional or legal right to challenge the legitimacy of the acting paramount chief. The statement, issued at Juapong last Wednesday, maintained that the regent is customarily recognised as the chief of the area until a new substantive chief is installed. The statement pointed out that the stool fathers directive was borne out of utter malice and mischief The traditional council has given Mr. Godson Kwaku Ameka a 7-day ultimatum to render an unqualified apology to Togbe Ananze XII and also retract his call for him (Togbe) to step down and hand over all stool properties and documents in his custody. Gibril Abdul Razak, Juapong ( [email protected] ) 06.05.2017 LISTEN There are jobs in the Volta Region for masons like me, but they are not too many. It is the big construction firms that get all the contracts and pay us the masons as they want, 23-year-old Divine says. Divine, a mason from Tsitsito in the North Tongu District in the Volta Region of Ghana, migrated to Accra because of poor salaries and low frequency of jobs in the Volta region. Like many migrants who move from rural areas of the country to the cities, Divine says his family members consented to his migration and gave him their blessings. I financed my migration from Tsitsito to Accra. I do not owe anyone in my village. I have a purpose to make enough money and go back so I can start my own business Unlike Divine, other migrants use loans from family members and friends to finance their relocation. Divine says the intention to stay in Accra permanently or acquire assets in Accra is not part of Divine's plan. He considers himself a 'hustler' and, therefore, sees Accra as a temporary place, a survivalist strategy to save money and return home. I did not come here to spend heavily on food. No way! I have plans to save enough of what I earn so I can go back to Volta Region and establish my own work. Here is not my home, he says. Background In Ghana, both skilled and unskilled migrant workers seek greener pastures in the highly concentrated city of Accra and its sprawling peri-urban areas. Most of these migrants end up working in the informal and insecure sectors as domestic and construction workers. Usually, the migrant construction workers are practising craftsmen masons, carpenters, and steel benders. A study by Yaro et al (2015) indicates that migrants skilled in construction work spend years perfecting their trade at home before migrating, due mainly to the surplus of crafts persons in their originating communities. Migrating out of poverty global qualitative study in Ghana also found that the livelihood options in origin areas, though diverse, are of limited benefits to the emerging youth. The towns and peri-urban areas have limited construction projects mainly provided by the state, the Ghanaian diaspora and residents. It was also found that the non-farm sector has blossomed but with limited profit margins due to poor purchasing power and low populations. Given the above local origin context, rural-urban migration for skilled work is encouraged by the entire household. Migration Incentives The study further found higher wages in Accra are a major attraction for migrants. Also, the waiting time for moving between contract jobs is shorter in Accra. Added to this is the fact that the desire for housing as reflected in the aspiration of the middle classes desire to own houses drives the demand for the services of construction workers. Global processes of industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation also provide the opportunities and conditions for migration. It also found that migration of skilled workers is encouraged by the entire household as it holds promise for moving them out of poverty. Reality Migrants seek jobs wherever they perceive jobs are possible and so did Divine, when he arrived in Accra. He found an opening for a mason with conditions advantageous to the employer but he greed verbally to the offer because it was better than what he was receiving back home. Masons in the construction industry earn between GH 30-40 a day with workers only paid days worked. They are not provided with sick pay, except in cases where a worker falls ill on the job and cannot continue for the rest of his/her hours that day. Construction workers tend to labour throughout the week from 7:30 to 5:00pm, with one day off on a Sunday. The six-day work regime is used across all categories of construction work and there are high levels of flexibility for the non-formalised sector where the rule is fulfilling one's contract rather than the time used. A mason in Accra is expected to lay 100 blocks a day or plaster two walls a day. A good worker is capable of achieving this task in five hours (also called 'finish and go'). I can lay more than 100 blocks a day. Masa, when you start, there is no rest for you. You see the difficulty involved? It is a work for the strong not the weak, Divine puts it. Benefits Recent evidence from a study by Awumbila et al (2014) indicates that evidence of the linkages between urbanisation, rural-urban migration and poverty outcome is mixed. Although there is a widely held perception as emphasised in a number of policy documents that rural-urban migration cannot lead to positive outcomes for migrants, their areas of origin, or destination, the relationship between rural-urban migration and poverty reduction is not adequately understood nor explored. The findings suggest that, despite living in a harsh environment with little social protection, an overwhelming majority of the migrants believe that their overall well-being has been enhanced by migrating to Accra. The migrants are also contributing to poverty reduction and human capital development back home through remittances and investments. I am able to save enough to send money to my family, back home, he says. Policy Implications The study raised a number of policy issues, including government upgrading of its existing national policy document such as the National Urban Policy Framework, 2012 and Draft Migration Policy. It states that government needs to recognise rural-urban migration and its impact on urbanisation as inevitable and that policies at the city level continue to discourage rural dwellers from moving to Accra. Examples of policies that indirectly and directly control migration to cities, the study indicated, is the 'decongestion exercise', which has been implemented in the last decades with numerous attempts to provide female potters from northern Ghana with artisanal trade, with the explicit intent of resettling them back to their places of origin. However, the study noted that the policies are bound to fail, unless spatial inequalities in development are addressed, because as demonstrated in this study rural-urban migrants hold the view that despite the harsh conditions of urban life their households are still better off under conditions of migration. Consequently, slum upgrading becomes an imperative condition requiring urgent attention by the state. Neglecting informal urban communities would not simply deter rural-urban migrants from settling in these areas, as the existing conditions. By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri WORKERS ON government payroll, among them are nurses, teachers, agricultural extension workers and journalists, whose April 2017 salaries did not reflect in their accounts due to anomalies with their social security numbers, have inundated the Brong-Ahafo regional office of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust ( SSNIT) to have the anomalies corrected. The workers, who expressed misgivings about the unpaid April salaries, said they had been mistaken for ghosts by the Controller and Accountant General's Department as their names had been punched out of the government payroll. According to some of them who spoke to DAILY GUIDE, although they have SSNIT numbers and have been contributing to the fund, they don't understand why the problem this time round. A driver with the Ghana News Agency, Adams Mohammed, lamented to DAILY GUIDE, I am living but they say I am dead, can you imagine? Officials at the regional SSNIT office would not explain to the paper what actually the problem was, claiming that they had not been authorized to talk to the media. They however, asked this reporter to call the corporate director of SSNIT, Eva Amegashie, for explanation. When she was reached, she told the paper that she was in a meeting and so couldn't have any discussions with the reporter. Her deputy, Victoria Abaidoo, offered some explanation on the phone. Explaining, Madam Victoria Abaidoo said SSNIT had no problem with workers' unpaid salaries but the fund was only making sure that their SSNIT contributions were paid by their employers. She said if an employee has SSNIT number but fails to provide the correct numbers to the employer to pay for their SSNIT contributions, the trust cannot be held responsible; but if you fail to do that or give wrong numbers to your employer, then SSNIT cannot be blamed because it will not tally with our figures hence, we see you to be ghost. Ms Victoria Abaidoo said most employees also quote their SSNIT numbers wrongly to their employers, which means when SSINT keys in the figures, they do not correspond with what they have. Now that the Controller and Accountant General's Department is using SSNIT numbers to validate workers before they are paid, they have been found to be ghosts she remarked. She said the trust started the biometric registration two years ago and all workers ought to have 13 digits biometric figures. Any number less than 13 or more than that is wrong. She said those who have 12 digits on their pay slips must know it is wrong and so they must change it to 13 digits. According to Ms Abaidoo, some workers have 13 digits all right both on their pay slip and with the controller but in writing them, they make mistakes with the figures and so cannot be validated. Old workers who have 8 digits too are being told to change to 13 biometric figures. She disclosed that some workers registered for the biometric all right but failed to come for their cards and so could not be validated. In the Sunyani office alone, about 400 biometric cards registered between 2014 and 2015 are still lying with the trust. Now that their salaries are not coming, they are rushing to claim them, according to an insider who spoke to DAILY GUIDE on condition of anonymity. FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani [email protected] It comes as a bit of a shock to me to realise that there is a 'Water Research Institute' in Ghana. For many of our mighty rivers have fallen foul of the galamsey operators. I speak of Tano. Birem. Densu. Offin. Prah. Ankobrah. And many others which, like those named, have dried up in part, are currently drying up or are in danger of drying up. All around the country, we see a relentless and conscienceless assault upon our water bodies by the galamsey operators. We see rivers turned upside down by excavators that dig up riverbeds in order that the sand and gravel the riverbeds contain might be panned or washed in search of gold. With such a devastation of our water resources taking place, one would have thought that our Water Research Institute would be issuing constant report on how our water resources are being ruined. If this were in some other countries, we could expect, in the face of such a national disaster, that the research institute set up to study the quality of the water in our rivers and streams and tell the public what changes were being observed in it by scientists, on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis, depending on how seriously the water quality was deteriorating. Has the Water Research Institute being doing this? No! The last report I can find in which anyone from the Institute said anything note-worthy to the public about our water quality was almost exactly one year ago. On 16 May 2016, Graphic.com.gh reported that: QUOTE: Research conducted by the Water Research Institute (WRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has established that Ghana's water treatment systems are incapable of removing algae toxins. Briefing the Daily Graphic on the report, the Director of the Institute, Dr Joseph Addo Ampofo, explained that Ghana had the conventional type of water treatment system that was unable to remove the algae toxins. He said that most of the sources of fresh water drawn to the treatment plants were high in algae growth. He, therefore, called for an immediate review of the country's water purification systems to ensure that the toxins were removed, adding that algae were harmful to human health. Dr Ampofo said the algae infestation was the result of human activities such as illegal mining (galamsey), farming along river banks and bathing in the rivers. He urged all stakeholders, including the Water Resources Commission and the public, to do their part in protecting water sources from algae growth. He said the less the algae growth, the less the toxins to be removed. He [explained that] although the current water purification mechanism used by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) met World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, the guidelines were accepted at a time that Ghana did not have problems with algae growth in water sources. He explained that the GWCL only tested the treated water for bacteria, not toxins from algae, and that was why the company said its water was potable. If you look at the water in the Weija Dam, for instance, gradually the water is increasing in blue-green algae. With such water, if you want to treat it for drinking, you must also take into consideration the removal of the algae because algae toxins can cause kidney, liver, nervous system and heart problems..We do not have that technology for our water treatment now,. UNQUOTE In the one year that has elapsed since Dr Ampofo was good enough to brief the Daily Graphic on the dangers caused to our water by algae toxins, the Institute, as far as I can discover, has not made any more public pronouncements on the issue. Bur scientists ought to appreciate that in our part of the world, politicians tend not to be able to fully grasp issues that constitute a danger to the public. Scientists ought to take it upon themselves to engage in information-sharing, especially where public health is threatened by ignorance. The Institute has not been doing this. But now, according to Joy FM, the Institute has come out of the woodwork. QUOTE: The Water Research Institute (WRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says government will be effective at monitoring activities of small scale miners if it legalizes galamsey. At a media encounter on galamsey held by the International Association for Impact Assessment [on 4 May 2017] WRI Director, Professor Osmund Ansa-Asare appealed to government to legalise the practice instead of clamping down on it. The argument by WRI is in sharp contradiction to the army of critics who have been calling for a complete ban of the activity. Some media and religious groups have been pressurizing the government to end the practice because of the damage it has done to the country's environment. Many of Ghana's water bodies have been destroyed. The Tano River in the Brong Ahafo Region, that serves several communities, has dried up for the first time in 40 years. The Brim and Densu Rivers in the Eastern Region and Ankobrah River in the Western Region have been muddied to an extent that [it] will cost the Ghana Water Company more money for treatment before consumption. The country's forest reserves continue to be destroyed due to the indiscriminate and illegal mining by some citizens. UNQUOTE. Indeed, Prof Ansah-Asares views are extremely naive, to say the least. The evidence before our eyes makes it abundantly clear that the Ghanaian galamseyers and their Chinese patrons have absolutely no scruples in ignoring all the laws of the country, the laws of decency and common sense in their quest for gold. For our ancestors dug for gold and won so much of it that our country was named 'The Gold Coast' by the Europeans who came here. But the traditional methods used to dig gold did not end in rivers and streams being deliberately destroyed. The pits used to dig gold were often far away from rivers and streams, and their mouths were not wide enough to scar the land in the way that the huge open pits and craters dug by the galamseyers have done to our land at the present time. People deliberately pollute river and stream water with poisonous mercury and cyanide, and you want to be 'monitored'?. The person has defined himself already as a wicked person and will either kill or maim a 'monitor' if the 'monitor' tries to obstruct his operations. This has, in fact, happened in communities where the people have thought it necessary to confront the galamseyers. At best, the galamseyers will try to bribe Ansah-Asares so-called 'monitors'. The minister of Land and Mineral Resources was recently forced to discipline on the spot, nine 'monitors' whom he discovered to have ignored their duties, when he paid a surprise visit some areas devastated by galamseyers. It was extremely unwise of Prof Ansah-Asare to ignore the fact that the galamseyers have challenged the government of Ghana to ban their activities if it dares. The situation cannot be dealt with academic theories about smuggling and legalisation. It is a test of strength between the elected government of Ghana, and a group of insolent, machismo-fired individuals, to whom community and traditional morality mean nothing. How can one monitor murderers or rapists? Are galamseyers not murdering our land and its rivers and streams? www.cameronduodu.com By Cameron Duodu 06.05.2017 LISTEN The late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom, the mother of the Otumfo, buried a few months ago in Kumasi, was laid to rest under the impressive symbols and power the King on the Golden Stool empowers in his very own person, the Otumfo Osei Tutu II. Palace Staff often argued that the Traditions of the Ashanti Kingdom make the Kingdom powerful until today to the extent that he King was able to order 40 days of silence in the city and a curfew the day his mother was taken to her final resting place, orders in secular and non-traditional societies only a Body can give that is legally and democratically elected and instituted by the citizen, based on a passed bill. Queen Elizabeth II of UK, a Monarch with no legal power but a symbol of an impressive past of the British, a stable factor in often uncertain political and spiritual times, on the eve of the much loved Princess Diana s funeral, was about to open the flood gates to destroy the Monarchy, but as opening up her heart in a live broadcasted tribute from Buckingham Palace to demonstrate her sorrow for the late Princess, saved her position in the hearts of the people of UK; assisted by the fact that one day Prince William, second in line to the throne, would become King which they know would shape and modernize the face of the Kingdom to their hearts desire lifting it up into its next momentum. Based on tradition the British have come to accept that Prince Charles, for a few years, will be their King only to wait for their final really wanted King to come for them. The Swedish, in their own history, often turned to other European countries to look for appropriate Kings to rule over them. More often than not, they turned to German royal families to find the right candidates. Queen Silvia currently next to King Carl on the Swedish Throne, is a German from Munich, a former Translator. Hamburg (Germany), like Bremen and Luebeck, carries the title Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg) with no tradition of royal families but with people that governed over themselves for thousands of years in various forms making the cities in their times, when Federal Governmental structures were not yet in place, great, wealthy and strong. These cities never called themselves a form of small republic or Democracy, but cities of self-governance under different structures. When analyzing History of the world it becomes obvious that it is not the power a Kingdom has that makes it great and strong. A Kingdom like the British Empire by Queen Victoria collapsed not entirely only due to the changes in demands by the Colonies and the inside demand for a greater participation in Governance, but a vital element can be seen in the Personalities that followed her on the Throne. By Tradition a Kingdom can be strong based on time passed, symbols, wealth acquired, size, numbers of population and political influence on outside countries; still, when the successor of a King himself is not strong in wisdom to rule his people for the time ahead and lead them into a much better deserved future, the door are wide open for outside ideas and spirits, over time and generations, to weaken the Kingdom and subsequently destroy it. The question arises when, and under which conditions, a Kingdom is superior to a Republic and vis-versa, and whether it is most appropriate in modern times to switch between both concepts to serve people well, as a sign of appreciation that life is constantly changing and needs the right tools in all aspects of society to be the most effective society that it can be. Democracy has put Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Ghana and most African countries into economic, political and social hardship; Communist Dictatorship in North-Korea is bringing the country unto the brink of another war. Under the last King, Afghanistan had seen peace, economic prosperity and freedom in absence of Taliban terror and misuse of Human rights. Democracy has seen in Russia a Renaissance of Zar mentality without the great intentions of Zar Peter the Great or Katharina the Great, a title given for their service to the Russian people. Alexander the Great of Greece had served his people well, the way they had asked for, as an absolute Ruler. No political system is superior to any other but it all depends on the structures, the details, the people involved and the right timing and period for which it is used; if not stepping aside to pave way for a better system with better people to drive a Nation forward unto its next much needed level in History, it will be taken out by force subsequently and naturally. A Nation can be truly called wise and most effective that constantly keeps an open mind towards its Governance by looking into the tool box history and human minds have provided us with, while using human intelligence to adapt what was for what is to come at times of change for generations of the future to have a better and better life for themselves and others around them. NB: GOD has not created us to please people but to do what is rightto perform on his will! Author: Dipl.-Pol. Karl-Heinz Heerde, Sakumono, Tema West, phone +233(0)265078287, [email protected] , 30.04.2017 Tripoli (AFP) - Gunmen mugged 129 migrants on a rubber dinghy headed for Europe and also stole the craft's motor, abandoning them off the Libyan coast, Libya's navy said Saturday. Navy spokesman General Ayoub Qassem said the gunmen in a speedboat chased the dinghy on Friday, boarded around five nautical miles off the Libyan town of Zuwara and stole the migrants' possessions. The migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, including 27 women and two children, were stranded at sea for several hours before being rescued by Libyan coastguard alerted by a local fisherman, he told AFP. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Lawyer for Okyehene, Osagyefo Amotia Ofori Panyin, has criticised an intercepted National Security report that says the paramount chiefs palace is perceived to be turning a blind eye to illegal mining and engaged in activities that promotes the practice. Kwame Boateng says contrary to claims by the government agency against the paramount chief, Osagyefo Amotia Ofori Panyin has been a torch bearer demanding an end to the practice popularly referred to as galamsey. If we are dealing with perception and not an intelligence report, then we should have been a bit careful in putting out names out there, especially that the report is just speculative, he said. The intercepted report said in part that, the Okyehenes palace is perceived to be behind illegal mining activities in the Kibi area. It is further alleged that the Okyehene has constituted a task force, as part of its environmental foundation, who allegedly extort monies from illegal miners in the area. However, Kwame Boateng said Saturday on Joy FM/Multi TVs news analysis programme Newsfile that the report is not accurate. We all know the effort that the Okyehene has put in to fight this social and economic and whatever canker of galamsey...he actually started this whole fight against galamsey, he adds. He said although there is a deliberate effort to mud-sling the renowned chief in the destructive mining phenomenon, it will not wash. "It will be extremely preposterous for a person of his calibre who has used every energy in his fibre to fight this canker just to go around it and undermine the forces that will fight this canker," he said. Some chiefs and political figures in the country have been cited in a report by the Bureau of National Investigations for involvement in illegal mining. Read: Chiefs, politicians, others cited in BNI report on galamsey The 31-page report details districts in eight out of the 10 Regions of Ghana where galamsey is taking place. The BNI report intercepted by Joy News revealed the growing prevalence of illegal mining with its accompanying destruction of water bodies has been a source of worry for the citizens. National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Talensi in the Upper East Region, Benson Tongo Baba (B. T. Baba) are among those cited in the report, however, Mr Baba has since denied any involvement in the illegal mining menace. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | GN Accra May 6, GNA - A Defence Counsel for the two alleged killers of the late J. B. Danquah Adu, Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North has prayed an Accra High Court for a firm date so that jury would be empanelled and his address be taken by the court. Mr Muneeru Kasim, who held brief for Mr Augustines Obuor, the substantive attorney, said they have just received a hearing notice and his instructions were that he should take a date for empanelling of the jury and his address. Ms Sefakor Batsa, a Senior State Attorney, said they were ready for the trial. The Court presided over by Mr Justice L.L. Mensah, a Court of Appeal judge, sitting with additional responsibility, adjourned the matter to May 16 for the trial to commence. Appearing for the first time before the High Court on April 28, it was noted that the state attorney assigned to the court had officially written to it indicating that state attorneys were undergoing a training programme as such could not be in court. However, when the court asked the accused persons about their concerns, Asiedu told the court that he has not heard from his lawyer Mr Augustine Obuor and could also not get access to him. In the case of Vincent Bosso, he still stood by the assertion that he was innocent and was only picked up by the police. The court told Bosso that he would be given the opportunity to speak when the time comes. The court informed the accused persons to alert their lawyer of the new dimension in the matter so that they could appear in court. It further asked the case investigator to assist the accused persons to get in touch with their relations. On March 15, this year, the Accra Central District Court committed Daniel Asiedu aka sexy Dondon and Vincent Bosso aka Junior Agogo to stand trial at the High Court. This was after they were served with the bill of indictment and summary of evidence. Asiedu has been charged with murder, conspiracy to rob and robbery. His accomplice, Bosso, is being held on a charge of conspiracy to rob. At the District Court, Asiedu, who has given seven different statements on different dates to Police, denied killing the late MP. At the District Court Asiedu gave different account on how he was picked up by the Police at Agbogboloshie. He admitted that he deals in the sale of mobile phones at Agbogboloshie and he sometimes engaged in swapping of mobile phones at Kwame Nkrumah Circle. According to the court based on the inconsistencies in the statement of Aseidu, it was committing him to stand trial. Asiedu's accomplice, Bosso, who intermittently wiped off his tears, admitted that he and Asiedu decided to embark on a robbery spree on February 8, 2016. He said they all travelled to East Legon, however, they parted ways over a disagreement over which house they were to rob. According to Bosso, Asiedu took from him some weapons such as the cutter and knife from him and he (Bosso) boarded a car and left the vicinity. Mrs Yvonne Attakorah Obuobisa, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), told the District Court presided over by Mr Stephen Owusu that Asiedu resides at Agbogboloshie and Bosso is his friend. She said the deceased Joseph Boakye Danqauh Adu was the MP for Abuakwa North Constituency in the Eastern Region. Mrs Obuobisa said Asiedu had held discussions with Bosso on undertaking some robbery acts and on February 8, last year, at about 2330 hrs, Aseidu and Bosso armed themselves with various implements such as a screw driver, a cutter, and knife and left Agbogboloshie to East Legon to actualise their plan. The accused persons, she said, walked around to see which house they were going to rob and eventually selected the house of the deceased as a targeted option. Mrs Obuobisa said Bosso did not agree with the selection and this resulted in a misunderstanding between the two. The misunderstanding was so sharp that Asiedu asked him (Bosso) to hand over all the tools and they parted ways. Mrs Obuobisa said Asiedu entered the house of the deceased and noticed that there was light in the MP's bedroom upstairs and more so, he could not enter the room through the window easily. She said Asiedu looked round for a ladder and with the aid of it he climbed onto the porch and entered through the window. Meanwhile, around that time 2340 hrs, the deceased went to bed and Asiedu on seeing lights off in the deceased's room, entered and began to search the room. In the process, the MP woke up and attempted to stop Asiedu. Mrs Obuobisa said Asiedu, who had a knife stabbed the deceased several times in the neck and chest. The MP bled and collapsed. Mrs Obuobisa explained that while Asiedu was stabbing the MP, he (Asiedu) also sustained various cuts in his palm and chest. Asiedu found in the room three mobile phones and he escaped through the adjourning house and fled the area. The DPP said a security man in the deceased house later found that the ladder was on the wall to the deceased room. The security man raised an alarm and he and other occupants in the house entered the MP's room and saw the deceased in a pool of blood. Mrs Obuobisa said autopsy report indicated that the MP died of excessive bleeding. When Asiedu returned to Agbogbloshie, he requested for some warm water to dress his wounds and took the deceased phones for unlocking. Whiles unlocking, the DPP, said a witness saw blood stains and he got alarmed. The witness waited until he heard the news about the death of the MP and saw that the pictures on the deceased phone matched those that had been displayed in the media. The DPP said blood samples were taken at the crime scene and finger prints lifted at the crime scene were identical to Asiedu, DNA analysis conducted also marched with Asiedu and the deceased. In the case of Bosso, he allegedly conspired with Aseidu to embark on the act. Prosecution has tendered a post mortem report of the MP, Forensic DNA Report, Blood stained T-shirt of Asiedu, a knife used by Asiedu, the three Iphones of the deceased. Asiedu's pair of slippers which he left at the crime scene, his prison records, and radiology report determining his age, his medical report has also been tendered. The court has remanded the accused persons into prison custody. GNA Accra, May 6, GNA - The governments of Ghana and Burkina Faso have pledged to work towards strengthening the ties of co-operation that exist between them, after the Presidents of both countries expressed satisfaction with the current state of the relations between them. In a joint communiquA issued at the end of the 2-day official visit to Burkina Faso by President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, it was resolved that the two countries reinforce their co-operation in the areas of railway transport, road transport, agriculture, water, security, trade, works and housing and energy. Both countries re-affirmed the crucial need to rapidly establish the railway interconnection project in order to realize an increase in the movement of goods and persons, and the corresponding economic and commercial benefits long the rail corridor of Ghana and Burkina Faso. To this end, the two countries have agreed to reactivate the Joint Expert Committee to examine the various feasibility studies already undertaken, and define the modalities and conditions of the selection of a technical and financial partner for the project. On agriculture, and in order to curb the smuggling of agro-chemicals across the borders of both countries, the Heads of State agreed to put measures in place to stop the illegal movement of agro-chemicals from Ghana into Burkina Faso. They also agreed to formalize Government to Government trade in cereals from Ghana, and vegetables from Burkina Faso. With the annual opening of the spillways of the Bagre dam destroying lives, farmlands, livestock and property in Ghana, President Akufo-Addo and President Roch Marc Kabore agreed to extend cooperation in the utilization of the excess water from the dam for irrigation purposes in the two countries. The decision to reactivate the Joint Technical Committee on Integrated Water Resource Management (JTC-IWRM) to oversee and manage the annual spillage, so as to reduce the perennial flooding downstream, was also taken. Touching on the issues of security, it was agreed that a framework to exchange and share information in tackling terrorism, violent robberies and organized crime be established. The activities of trans-humans from Burkina Faso into Ghana were identified as a security concern, and in this regard, both countries decided to hold frequent consultations to address this issue. 'To efficiently address the issue of illegal activities at the borders, notably corruption and racketeering, both sides agreed to hold regular meetings in order to put an end to these practices,' the communiquA noted. It continued, 'Both sides agreed to assist companies from their respective countries to export their products under the Protocol of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS). They further agreed to collaborate, with the support of ECOWAS, to establish a Joint Border Post to facilitate trade and free movement of their peoples, goods and services. The two leaders also decided to work together in support of the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) under the auspices of the Africa Union (AU).' The Ghanaian government also agreed to collaborate and learn from the best practices of the Burkinabe Bank for Housing to enable the reactivation of the Bank for Housing and Construction in Ghana. In the area of energy, Ghana and Burkina Faso 'decided to cooperate further to ensure the completion of the Ouagadougou-Bolgatanga Power Interconnection Supply project, to enable the importation of 85 megawatts into Burkina Faso by the close of 2017. Both sides also commended the completion of the Bolgatanga - Bingo Pipeline Project.' In addition to this, both sides commended the completion of the feasibility studies concerning the extension of the ECOWAS Gas Pipeline Network, the first connection of which would be between Accra and Ouagadougou. President Akufo-Addo and President Kabore reiterated the attachment of their respective countries to the ideals of ECOWAS, the African Union, and the United Nations. They, therefore, decided to increase consultations between their countries within international bodies to further harmonize their views on regional and international issues. Prior to the issuing of the communiquA, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore decorated President Akufo-Addo with the highest national award of Burkina Faso, the Grand Croix de l'Ordre National. GNA By Ivan Ssenabulya The Uganda Christian Universitys Vice Chancellor Dr.John Ssenyonyi has challenged the elites to steer the country into the right direction. He says its the intellectuals who solicit bribes and engage in corruption among other evils, underscoring the need to prepare university students to be upright and be led through the Godly path. Dr. Ssenyonyi was addressing over 300 students who are yet to join university during the Pre-Campus Summer Camp at the UCU main campus in Mukono. The National Democratic Congress legislator for the Wa Central constituency, Rashid Pelpuo has described as mysterious results of the 2016 polls. According to him, the NDC did everything possible to fulfill the needs in the country yet the people of Ghana kicked them out from power. He made the comment on Citi FM's News analysis programme The Big Issue, on Saturday in defence of former President John Mahama's recent remakr on the cause of the NDC's defeat. Mr. Mahama while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Durban, South Africa on Thursday, noted that he had an incumbency disadvantage hence his abysmal performance in the poll. He also accused Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of promising Ghanaians heaven. I knew what the economy could give the people and I told the people the truth that we need more hard work to be able to get out of where we are; my opponent promised heaven and you have the constraints of not being able to promise all the rosy things he was doing, he added. Meanwhile, Mr. Pelpuo noted that this is one of the elections that have been very difficult and mysterious to understand. You have a government that is responsive to the needs of the people, you have a government that built schools, they [Ghana] wanted roads, we built roads, they wanted hospital, we built hospitals, they wanted water, we supplied water, we did everything that was possible to ensure that the people of Ghana know that this is a government that is responsive and responding to their basic need and creating conditions for them to be able to develop themselves individually and creatively. In the end the same people voted against us as if we didn't do anything at all. We built and international airport harbours. It has never happened in the history of this country for a single government to even build about 50 secondary schools at a go within a space of four years After doing all these things we thought we had touched the mind, the thinking and we are striking a chord with Ghanaians. In the end we got the worst votes that had ever been recorded since 1992, he lamented. Mahama loss by about a million votes to Akufo-Addo in the polls. The NDC also lost hold of a number of Parliamentary seats to the New Patriotic Party. By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @AlloteyGodwin Tripoli (AFP) - Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Saturday held talks in Tripoli with top Libyan officials on peace efforts for the war-wracked country and ways to curb illegal migration to Europe. Alfano met Government of National Accord head Fayez al-Sarraj and his vice president Ahmad Meitig to discuss "efforts being made towards national reconciliation", the GNA said in a statement. Alfano's trip to Libya came hot on the heels of a two-day visit Thursday and Friday to the oil-rich North African nation by his British counterpart Boris Johnson. Johnson met Sarraj on Thursday and congratulated him on meeting earlier this week in Abu Dhabi with Libyan military strongman Khalifa al-Haftar, who does not recognise the GNA's legitimacy. Italy, too, has welcomed the meeting between Haftar and Serraj. The foreign ministry has said that Alfano's visit was aimed at renewing Italy's support for peace efforts to ensure Libya's stability. Alfano and Libyan leaders also discussed ways of curbing the influx of migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya, as authorities Saturday said that hundreds of migrants were rescued by the Libyan coastguard. The Libyan judiciary in March suspended a deal struck the previous month between Libya and Italy aimed at bolstering joint efforts to stop the flow of migrants. In April, the Italian government said that a dozen of rival tribes in southern Libya had agreed to cooperate on securing the country's borders to prevent illegal migration. Sarraj has struggled to impose the authority of his fragile government, which continues to meet resistance at home despite its backing by many political and military leaders. Six years after a revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Each year, thousands of people, mostly from sub-Saharan countries, board boats operated by traffickers in the country's west heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) away. In the first three months of 2017, more than 24,000 migrants arrived in Italy after making the perilous crossing from Libya, up from 18,000 in the first quarter of last year, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. By Laudia Sawer Ada (GAR), May 5, GNA - Mrs Elizabeth Afoley Quaye, Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MOFAD) has inaugurated in pilot Fisheries Watch Volunteers groups for the Greater Accra Region. The group made up of 25 members each for all the fishing communities in the Region, would work with the Fisheries Enforcement Unit, Marine Police, Ghana Navy, Judiciary and other agencies to combat illegal fishing. Inaugurating the group, Mrs Quaye said the mandate of the volunteers included educating and creating awareness on illegal fishing activities, reporting of fisheries infractions, assist as witnesses in prosecution, embark on sea and land patrols as well as ensuring registration of canoes. Mrs Quaye advised them to be strong and courageous in carrying out their mandate according to the guidelines in their operational manual and the laws of Ghana. She reminded fishing communities that the level of decline in fish production was as a result of the rampant use of unauthorized fishing gear such as monofilament nets, light fishing and the use of poisonous substances in fishing. This, she indicated needed required a communal approach in dealing with it, she therefore implored communities to provide the necessary support and encouragement to the Fisheries Watch Volunteers to help achieve an impacting success of the programme. The Minister stated that her outfit has adopted the National Marine Fisheries Management Plan (2015-2019) to reverse the trend of stock depletion and rebuild it to support the socio-economic development and food security of present and future generations of Ghanaians. Mrs Quaye therefore commended Greater Accra branch of the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council for their request to participate in fisheries enforcement to support the Fisheries Enforcement Unit leading to formation of the Watch Volunteers. Mr Kofi Agbogah, Fisheries Advisor to the USAID Sustainable Fisheries Management Project (SFMP) as part of measures to replenish the fish stock, USAID with support from American People and the World Bank West Africa Regional Fisheries Programme organized a tour for fisherfolks and other stakeholders to Philippines to study their practices. Mr Agbogah reiterated that the Fisheries Watch Volunteers programme would support the efforts of the Fisheries Commission's Monitoring Control and Surveillance Unit to combat illegal fishing by Ghanaian and foreign fishing vessels, as well as the illegal fishing practices from canoe landing beaches, such as the use of light, chemicals, undersize mesh, unapproved nets, illegal transhipment of fish, oil bunkering, piracy, human trafficking and child labour. The Volunteer program is based on the Filipino model called 'bantay dagat' (meaning guardians of the sea). Filipino and Ghanaian consultants were engaged to review and adapt the 'bantay dagat' model to the Ghanaian context and organize a series of workshops for local fisheries officials, canoe fishermen and women. GNA By Laudia Sawer Tema, May 6, GNA - Miss Dorcas Afia Sarpomaa Aborga, Greater Accra Best Midwife award winner for 2016 has appealed to the media to dedicate part of their space and airtime to the promotion of women's health. Miss Aborga said it was sad that instead of promoting good health among women especially those in the reproductive ages, a lot of airtime was being allocated for the promotion of alcohol consumption and political issues. She made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency to commemorate the International Day for the Midwife which is celebrated annually on May 5. The United Nation's Population Fund's (UNFPA) theme for this year is, 'Midwives, Mothers and Families: Partners for Life!' She noted that the growth of the country was dependent on women therefore 'if we don't make a lot of noise on women's health, our nation will be in trouble' The UNFPA award recipient said women must receive education on their reproductive health in order not to give birth without planning for the care of the children, this she said would have repercussions on the country. Miss Aborga, who is a Senior Staff Midwife at Aplako Family Fitness Clinic in the Ga South District, touching on her duties said, midwifery involves pre-natal care, antenatal, delivery and post-natal care. She said being in the profession for seven years, she believed midwifery was a calling and not a joke therefore there was the need for practitioners to have passion for the job as one mistake could lead to the death of a mother and child. Miss Aborga who has never lost a mother or baby during delivery said some of the major challenges faced by them included lack of logistics, multitasking due to lack of enough staff, and knowledge base of clients. She also noted that some pregnant women reported to antenatal late in pregnancy sometimes in their eighth months therefore not getting enough education to prepare them for safe delivery. She advised pregnant women in their ninth month not to wait until they see the show (discharge of mucus mixed with blood), break their water or have severe contractions before reporting to the hospital for delivery. The midwife explained that some women do not have any of the labour three signs but rather vomit excessively or experience diarrhea while they dilate, that she said could affect a safe delivery if they don't report early to the hospital. On the issue of the limited antenatal visit catered for under the National Health Insurance Scheme, Mis Aborga challenged couples to financially support their health care instead of fully depending on the scheme. Miss Norteli Lanyo, a Senior Staff Midwife at the Tema Polyclinic, on her part, suggested to the NHIS to cut down on the number of births it cater for and increase the number of antenatal visits. Miss Lanyo said currently there was limit to the number of deliveries the scheme caters for leading to some delivering beyond what they could cater for. She advised pregnant women to religiously take their medications and follow instructions from their midwives as it was sad and depressing to lose a mother and child during delivery. She further urged women to plan for themselves by putting away some money and having emergency plans to take care of complications instead of fully depending on their partners. GNA 06.05.2017 LISTEN Akim Swedru (E/R), May 5, GNA - Mr. Richmond Amponsah, the former Presiding Member at the Birim South District Assembly and the the President's nominee for the District Chief Executive (DCE) position, has won 37 votes out of 38 votes during an election by assembly members. The election was held at the Akim Swedru Roman Catholic conference hall. The Birim South District, created from the Birim Central Municipality in the 2008, has two constituencies which are Achiase and Akim Swedru constituencies. It also has 45 assembly members including government appointees, presiding member, district chief executive and members of parliament. Out of the 45 members, the Members of Parliament were exempted from the election on the District Chief Executive (DCE). Thirty-eight members including the government appointees were therefore present for the voting and out of which Mr Amponsah got 37 votes representing 97.3 percent against one vote, 2.3 percent for his challenger. Mr Eric Kwakye Daffour, the Eastern Regional Minister, who confirmed Mr Amponsah as the D.C.E reminded him that, without the support of members he might have not reached that far so he should ensure participatory planning and democracy at the district level. In another development, the Birim South District has elected Mr Daniel Prah as the new Presiding Member for the Assembly. Mr Prah contested with Mr Aboagye Gyimah and got 32 votes while the contestant had six votes. Mr Prah was sworn in by Mr Alexander Owrae, the Akim Swedru Circuit Court Judge. GNA Accra, May 6, GNA - An Accra Circuit Court hearing the case involving four persons who allegedly robbed Madam Akua Donkor, founder of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), has denied a bail application made for the four accused persons. The court, presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh, in its ruling on the bail application, said it had taken into consideration the plea for the accused persons as well as the opposed view of the prosecution, and has concluded that it was still premature at the stage of the case and trial to grant bail. He said granting of bail is solely at the discretion of the court in all cases, and that what is important is to ask whether or not the exercise of the discretion is in a vacuum or not. 'In this case, the guidelines set up for the court in arriving at a decision include, the facts and charges of the case, and whether or not the accused persons would avail themselves for trial'. He said: 'I have examined the facts and charge of the case, authority cited by the law as well as the submissions by councils for the grant of bail, and concluded that granting of bail is still premature.' Mr Tandoh, however, noted that, the court would proceed with the trial in order for the case not to be unduly delayed to the detriment of the accused persons, saying the ongoing trial would proceed and must go on expeditiously without delay. The case has since been adjourned to May 8, 9, 10 and 12 for continuation of cross examination of the third prosecution witness, Sargent Yesulom Atsutse. The accused persons are Yakubu Yusif, trader and Central Regional Chairman of the GFP; Banabas Kayase, her driver and secretary of the party; Opoku Agyemang, trader; and Abdul Razak Shaibu, a member of a GPRTU taskforce. Two others, Joe and Nuamah aka Lion, are currently on the run. The accused persons are on remand. The prosecution said on the day, Akua together with Yusif and Kayase were on board her vehicle - a Mitsubishi Pajero - from Taifa heading towards the Kotoka International Airport to catch a flight to the United States of America. Chief Superintendent Duuti Tuaruka, prosecuting, said on December 30, 2016 at Taifa in Accra, the six persons conspired to rob Madam Akua Donkor. The prosecutor said the accused persons at about 0230 hours at Sowutuom, a suburb of Accra, robbed Madam Donkor at gunpoint and snatched her travelling bag containing plane ticket, Ghanaian passport, voter ID card, $30,000 and GH3,000.00. 'Akua decided to pass home and on reaching Sowutuom immediately after the Agbeve Herbal Clinic area, Opoku called Kayase on phone and asked where they have reached while Razak, Joe and Lion were waiting to execute their agenda,' Chief Supt Tuaruka told the court. He said the three, armed with guns on board an unregistered motorbike, appeared behind the vehicle, and 'as soon as Kayase spotted the armed men, he reduced the speed of the car, showing double hazard indicators that the complainant was in the car.' Kayase, according to the prosecutor, parked the vehicle and the armed men attacked the complainant with guns and took the monies and items and then dragged her from the vehicle and escaped with the booty. The prosecution said on 31st December, last year, Razak was arrested when he was called by Yusif to come for his share of the booty. When Razak was searched, US$4,900 was retrieved from him. He said upon interrogation Razak admitted the offence and mentioned Joe and Nuamah as his accomplices. He said that after the operation, they shared the monies and threw the bag into a nearby bush at Anyaa. He led the police to retrieve the bag together. GNA By Hafsa Obeng, GNA Tamale, May 6, GNA - Influential youth of Bunkpurugu in the Northern Region have been trained on basic principles of conflict and peace, dialogue, mediation and negotiation as part of efforts to promote lasting peace in the area. The two-day training, attended by 50 participants, was also to reorient the youth of Bunkpurugu on the need for peace and stability for agricultural development and food security. It was dubbed: 'Enhancing Youth Capacity to Facilitate Dialogue in Bunkpurugu,' and formed part of the implementation of the Northern Ghana Governance Activity (NGGA). Participants came up with action plans on how to facilitate dialogue/peace at Bunkpurugu, which has been enjoying relative peace for more than a year now after years of conflicts. Mr Albert Yelyang, National Network Coordinator of the West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP-Ghana), who addressed the training in Tamale, urged participants to be the wheels on which peace would prevail in the area. Mr Yelyang said peaceful coexistence at Bunkpurugu would ensure that the people of the area would benefit from the NGGA's agricultural governance, food security and wealth creating programme to improve their lot. NGGA is a five-year project supported by United States Agency for International Development and implemented by a consortium of non-profits, led by CARE International, ActionAid Ghana, SEND Ghana and WANEP-Ghana. Mr Yelyang said the training was also to ensure a peaceful environment this year for increased agricultural activities in the area and urged all especially youth of the area to control their emotions and be tolerant of one another. He said 'you must not inflame passions by recalling the painful past. However, you must also regret the past and consolidate concrete efforts at peace such as the recent celebration of blood burial, and revival of the Tidamtidaan festival.' Mr Yelyang expressed the hope that the training would help create a new generation of non-violent actors rather than emotional and exuberant youth who truncated their lives and future, wealth and wellbeing through violence. GNA By Albert Futukpor, GNA Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Scores of Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released, multiple sources told AFP on Saturday, with unconfirmed reports that at least 80 have been freed. "I can confirm they have been released," said a senior government minister, who asked not to be identified, adding that an official statement would be released later. A military and a civilian militia source in Banki, near the border with Cameroon, said "at least 80" girls were brought to the town late afternoon on Saturday. "The girls are now lodged in the military barracks and will be flown to (the Borno state capital) Maiduguri tomorrow (Sunday)," said the military source. The civilian militia member gave an identical account. Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose two daughters were among those kidnapped, said he was told of the release by the Bring Back Our Girls pressure group and an official in Maiduguri. He added: "This is good news to us. We have been waiting for this day. We hope the remaining girls will soon be released." Bring Back Our Girls said it was awaiting an official statement but added: "Our hopes and expectations are high as we look forward to this news being true and confirmed." Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok on the evening of April 14, 2014 and kidnapped 276 girls. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the hours that followed but the remaining 219 were held by the group. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed in a video message that they had converted to Islam. The audacious kidnapping brought the insurgency to world attention, triggering global outrage that galvanised support from the former US first lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood stars. Twenty-one girls were released in October last year after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss government. Three others were also found. At the time of the release of the 21, President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman Garba Shehu said the government was hoping to secure the release of 83 others being held by a different Boko Haram faction. Last month he said in a radio interview that there were ongoing negotiations involving "some foreign entities" to release the 195 girls believed still held. He told BBC Hausa the ICRC and Swiss government "have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations". Other countries were also involved, he added, without elaborating. Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Scores of Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released, multiple sources told AFP on Saturday, with unconfirmed reports that at least 80 have been freed. "I can confirm they have been released," said a senior government minister, who asked not to be identified, adding that an official statement would be released later. A military and a civilian militia source in Banki, near the border with Cameroon, said "at least 80" girls were brought to the town late afternoon on Saturday. "The girls are now lodged in the military barracks and will be flown to (the Borno state capital) Maiduguri tomorrow (Sunday)," said the military source. The civilian militia member and a resident at the camp in Banki for those displaced by the Boko Haram conflict gave an identical account. Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose two daughters were among those kidnapped, said he was told of the release by the Bring Back Our Girls pressure group and an official in Maiduguri. He added: "This is good news to us. We have been waiting for this day. We hope the remaining girls will soon be released." Bring Back Our Girls said it was awaiting an official statement but added: "Our hopes and expectations are high as we look forward to this news being true and confirmed." Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok on the evening of April 14, 2014 and kidnapped 276 teenaged girls who were preparing to sit high school exams. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the hours that followed but the remaining 219 were held by the group. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, whose fight to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has left at least 20,000 dead since 2009, claimed in a video message that they had converted to Islam. The audacious kidnapping brought the insurgency to world attention, triggering global outrage that galvanised support from the former US first lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood stars. Ongoing talks Twenty-one girls were released in October last year after talks between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss government. Three others were also found. The first had a baby and was accompanied by a man she said was her husband but the military said was a Boko Haram suspect. Boko Haram has previously said it would release the girls if militant fighters held in Nigerian government custody were freed. It was not immediately clear whether a prisoner swap was involved in the latest round of releases. At the time of the release of the 21, President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman Garba Shehu said the government was hoping to secure the release of 83 others being held by a different Boko Haram faction. Last month he said in a radio interview that there were ongoing negotiations involving "some foreign entities" to release the 195 girls still believed held. He told BBC Hausa the ICRC and Swiss government "have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations". Other countries were also involved, he added, without elaborating. The ICRC has not yet commented on the latest release. Parents and supporters of the missing girls last month marked the three year anniversary of the abduction, describing the situation as an unending "nightmare". But they said previous releases had given them strength. On Friday, Britain and the United States issued a security alert warning of a Boko Haram plot to kidnap foreigners in the Banki area, which led to the suspension of aid flights to the town Saturday. Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war, seizing thousands of women and children, including the Chibok girls, and forcibly recruiting young men and boys into their ranks. In a less publicised attack in November 2014, some 300 children were among about 500 people kidnapped from the town of Damasak, on the border with Niger, in the far north of Borno state. Most are still missing. Smallest country in Africa by population and by land mass Which is the smallest country in Africa? Read on to find out more details about the continent's smallest countries by the metrics of landmass and population. - An ultimatum has been issued to the presidency to publicly disclose the true state of health of President Muhammadu Buhari - The presidency has until May 29 to put a rest to speculations that the government has been hijacked by a cabal - Civil society organisations and some lawyers are threatening to protest against the alleged cabal in the presidency - Some others are threatening to take the matter to court - Some have called on Buhari to resign if he is unfit to rule the nation Civil society organisations and some lawyers have given the presidency till May 29 to disclose the true state of health of President Muhammadu Buhari. Legit.ng gathered that they have threatened to hold protests throughout the country if the presidency fails to do so on or before May 29 which marks Buharis second anniversary in office. Expressing disappointment with the way information surrounding the Presidents health status is being managed by his handlers, these groups and individuals warned against a repeat of Nigerians experience during the government of the late President Umaru YarAdua. The president, Campaign for Democracy, Bako Usman, said hiding Buharis health status has not been helpful, The Punch reports. READ ALSO: EFCC named best anti-corruption agency in Africa by northern youths (Photo) He added that there is nowhere in the constitution where the presidents health status should be treated as classified information. Buhari made his first public appearance in two weeks as he attended Fridays Juma'at service Usman said the group is giving the presidency a two-week ultimatum for it to declare Buharis health status. On his part, the spokesperson for Free Nigeria Coalition, Ariyo-Dare Atoye, said his group was giving the presidency till May 29 to fully disclose Buharis health status. He said the group would organise a rally and even reach out to Nigerians to protest against the handling of Buharis health in the days to come. Also speaking, the publicity secretary of Youth Arise for Nigeria, Liborous Oshoma, called on the president and the cabal to do the right thing on or before the administrations second anniversary in office. He said: Can Nigerians, in all honesty, declare the person that appointed them incapacitated because it will mean they may also be packing their bags? We employed him. He came to us to seek employment and he campaigned. Then we employed him with our votes collectively. So he is answerable to us as his employers. So if he is resting, we need to know why he is resting." READ ALSO: Ajaokuta steel company to create 500,000 upstream, downstream employment Reacting to a recent statement by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, that the president was resting until he was fit to resume work, a lawyer and human rights activist, Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa, said it was an admission that Nigerias leader was unfit. By May 29, all of these issues should be sorted out, he said. Also, a constitutional lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), said he is fully in support of the May 29 ultimatum and will join the protest, anywhere, anytime, any day. The board chairman of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, popularly called Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, also declared his support for the May 29 ultimatum. He said it was obvious that some people are bent on holding the country to ransom because of money. READ ALSO: Cabals misleading Nigerians over Buharis health status Group On his part, the president of the National Association of Nigerian Students, Chinonso Obasi, warned that if a cabal continues to keep secrets as regards the Presidents health, the group would have no option but to protest. Meanwhile, the Ondo State Trade Union Congress has said those keeping the health condition of the president secret are not doing the country any good. The state chairman of the TUC, Soladoye Ekundayo, said Nigerians have the right to know the state of health of their president. The president of Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Malachy Ugwummadu, described the situation as unfortunate and regrettable. He said: Our disposition to take a position, canvass that position, and protest is never in dispute. We have a long history of that, so our disposition and capacity to protest is never in dispute and has never been in doubt. And our protest is not only on the street, we also go to court. Legit.ng asked Nigerians who the would vote for between President Buhari and Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state. Watch their reactions in the video below: Source: Legit.ng - The presidency has addressed a rumour that has been floating in the media space - There had been reports that the Permanent Secretary, State House, Mr Jalal Arabi, has been suspended - The presidency has however denied the report The presidency has addressed a rumour that has been floating in the media space concerning the permanent secretary, State House, Mr Jalal Arabi. The presidency denied media reports that Arabi had been suspended. The denial was contained in a statement sent to journalists and seen by Legit.ng, signed by Abiodun Oladunjoye, Deputy Director (Information) in the State House. The State House Permanent Secretary was cited in the Aso Villa Jumat service yesterday, May 5 READ ALSO: Ohanaeze Ndigbo warns on consequence of Ike Ekweremadus humiliation The statement affirmed that Arabi is not on suspension as erroneously reported in some quarters. Arabi remained at his desk dutifully attending to important state matters and is not under any probe, neither is he a subject of any enquiry. Also, there is absolutely no truth in the spurious allegations levelled against the Permanent Secretary and his office in the fictitious report published by an on-line medium. The statement quoted the Permanent Secretary as saying: I remain committed and dedicated to the professional discharge of my duties and I refuse to be distracted by adversarial forces. READ ALSO: No person should go into government with empty mind - Obasanjo Legit.ng cited the Arabi and other Muslim faithfuls attending the Jumaat prayer at the State House mosque with President Muhammadu Buhari in a video shared by presidential aide, Bashir Ahmad. Source: Legit.ng - The health crisis of President Muhammadu Buhari is still a major topic in Nigeria - Analysts continue to express their opinion on Buhari's health and the implications for Nigeria - Soma OJ thinks it is better to allow Buhari stay in office, no matter how sick he is - To read more about President Buhari's state of health and other news about the Nigerian leader, please visit: https://www.legit.ng/tag/buhari-news.html An analyst simply identified as Soma OJ has argued that President Muhammadu Buhari should remain in power no matter how sick he is. Writing on Ynaija, Soma stated that Nigeria owes the North/Muslims a president given that the region lost power after the death of Umaru Musa Yar'adua in 2010. He noted that this was a contributing factor to President Buharis emergence as president in addition to the fact that ex-President Goodluck Jonathan had had his run and Nigerians were legitimately done with him. READ ALSO: CSOs, lawyers, give presidency ultimatum to reveal Buharis health status President Buhari was cited at the Aso Villa Mosque on Friday, May 5 after two weeks of staying indoors He wrote: 'Electing Buhari was our first step to repaying the debt we owe the Muslim-North; we placated the Christain-Southwest with Osinbajo as the Vice President. ''To accept a resignation from President Buhari and having Osinbajo as the president can only be interpreted by our creditors/overlords to mean that we are snatching the turn away from the North again. ''A situation that can only cause so much anarchy. It has not happened yet but weve already had a lunatic threaten to kill hundreds if the president dies in office.'' He further argued that losing President Buhari, especially under any unnatural circumstance will leave us vulnerable to explosive situation. ''The only other option, the one we are experimenting with is to fold or collective arms and watch as the cabal compel us to live in limbo with an ailing president who may or may not be able to fathom the amont of corruption going on under his nose by his own political appointees even as the hallmark of his administration remains anti-corruption,'' he concluded. READ ALSO: Presidency refutes rumours of State House permanent secretary's suspension The president had spent almost two months receving medical treatment in London. The presidency had first announced that he was there for a 10-day leave. But he extended the leave on medical grounds. President Buhari failed to address Nigerian workers today, Monday, May 1 as they joined their counterparts all over the world to celebrate International Workers Day. But the president attended the Jumaat prayer at the State House mosque on Friday, May 5. Source: Legit.ng - Popular Nigerian pastor drops bombshell about Buhari - A Nigerian pastor has dropped revelation about President Muhammadu Buahri - The cleric said that Buhari would not die in office - He noted that he received the revelation from God A clergyman, Obinna Omerie, has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari would successfully pilot the affairs of the country till 2019 in good health. Legit.ng gathered that Omerie, the founder of Grace and Great Kings Christian Ministry, Egbu, Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo, made the declaration while addressing journalists in Owerri on Saturday May 6. READ ALSO: Wike unfit to be governor APC God revealed to me as His prophet that Buhari will complete his tenure in 2019, he said. He said that those expressing concern over President Buharis health are spiritually blindfolded and speaking from revelations backed by satanic sources. President Muhammadu Buhari The man of God also said that the economic recession in the country was divinely motivated, saying Nigerias economy will emerge stronger at the end of the recession. For children of God this economy is not so much felt now. The situation is fast opening prosperity doors for some cities like Owerri, Port Harcourt, Lagos, and Calabar, because things are positively changing in these cities now. The clergyman derided those predicting that the 2019 elections would not be peaceful, noting that those saying the election will be bloody are wrong. For me, the Lord has not shown me any blood, the election will be peaceful as usual irrespective of all the doomsday prophecies from some altars and pulpits. Omerie asserted that Nigeria is a nation loved and blessed by God. He said no evil would befall the nation before, during and after the next general elections in 2019. He noted that pockets of crisis recorded across the country, according to him, were caused by evil men challenging the supremacy of God. On the impact of fake prophecy, the man of God observed that the activities of fake religious ministers had created some discords and crises in many families. He, therefore, appealed to the government and church leaders to evolve means of curtailing the activities of doomsday clerics. Omeire, popularly called `Authority, noted that people who seek solutions to their problems sometimes play into the hands of fake pastors by carelessly disclosing their problems during counselling, which such fake take advantage of. READ ALSO: 3 medical doctors reportedly arrive in Aso Rock to treat Buhari People meeting men of God should stop giving `expo to these ministers; allow God to reveal things worrying you to the man of God, that is the way God works, he said. Watch celebration that occurred in Daura, Buhari's home town in Katsina, after he returned from his mdeical leave in London after 51 days. Source: Legit.ng - The Department of State Service said oil magnate, Ifeanyi Ubah is in its custody - He was arrested on Friday over his alleged engagements in acts described as inimical to national security - He was also accused him of stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm - The DSS spokesperson, Tony Opuiyo, put the cost of the oil at more than N11billion Ifeanyi Ubah, the managing director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited has been arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS). In a statement issued on Saturday, May 6, by its spokesman, Tony Opuiyo, it said the oil magnate was in its custody over his alleged engagements in acts which the security outfit described as inimical to national security. Ubah who was arrested on Friday was accused of stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the Nigeria Petroleum Products Corporation (NNPC). The cost of the oil was valued at more than N11billion. READ ALSO: Government officials should steer clear of religious matters - Bishop Adegbite Ifeanyi Ubah has been arrested by the Department of State Services Opuiyo said such acts amounted to economic sabotage and had the capacity to negatively impact on national economy. The statement read: It is instructive to note that UBAH has further engaged in other activities inimical to national security and public order. In furtherance of his gimmicks to undermine the government and people of Nigeria, he has incited members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a critical player in the downstream sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry, to refuse/stop the lifting of products. This is part of his plans to curry their sentiments and cause them to embark on strike and also stage protests in his favour with the ulterior motive of arm-twisting the NNPC to abandon the cause of recovering the stolen products. The implications of this on law and order is, in fact, a common knowledge. It is consequent upon this that the Service arrested and will prosecute him forthwith. READ ALSO: One dead, others injured as militants invade marine police base Opuiyo assured the public that the service would collaborate with appropriate agencies bring to book individuals or companies involved in any criminal act that undermines the nations economy. Weeks ago, reports surfaced that Ubah had been arrested. In a swift reaction, he denied the report that operatives of the DSS arrested and detained him. Watch this Legit.ng TV video of a former NNPC group managing director Andrew Yakubu arraigned in court by EFCC over fraud allegations. Source: Legit.ng - United States of america has warned Westerners about Nigeria - The Foreign Office says the sect is is actively planning to kidnap westerners to raise ransom money The Foreign Office has warned westerners travelling to Nigeria to be careful as the Islamic terrorists, Boko Haram is actively planning to kidnap westerners to raise ransom money for their fight. The foreign office, according The Telegraph, says the sect is planning to kidnap foreign workers in Bama local government area of Borno state. Part of the foreign office statement read: We have received reports that Boko Haram is actively planning to kidnap western foreign workers in Bama local government area of Borno state, along the Kumshe-Banki axis, said the Foreign Office advice. The foreign office says the sect is planning to kidnap foreign workers in Bama local government area of Borno state If you are working in areas where there is a Boko Haram presence, especially in the north east of Nigeria, you should be alive to the potential risk of kidnapping as a means by the terrorist group to raise funds. Recall that Legit.ng had reported several of the kidnappings of the dreaded Boko Haram sect. One of such was the 3,000 women and girls who were confirmed missing in Nigeria's north eastern state. According to the Non-violent Peace Initiative (NPI), the non-governmental organisation that came up with the finding, Boko Haram insurgency has been responsible for the displacement of the females since they started terrorising the country. Mallam Sahanu Mohammed Idris, the group's coordinator, during a visit to the Abuja headquarters of Media Trust Ltd, explained that some of these missing persons were abducted from schools offering both Islamic and Western education, women teachers' and Arab teachers' colleges. Recall that Legit.ng reported that not fewer than nine Chadian soldiers have been killed after Boko Haram attacked an army post in the Lake Chad region. According to the report, the attack occurred on Friday, May 5. The report said not fewer than 40 Boko Haram fighters were also killed by troops who responded sharply to the attack on the Kaiga post. Watch this touching Legit.ng TV video of child survivors of Boko Haram activities in the northeast narrating their ordeal. Source: Legit.ng - President Muhammadu Buharis anti-corruption war has yielded positive results - Since he assumed office on May 29, 2015, many top Nigerian politicians have been docked for alleged fraud - Some of the accused have allegedly returned part of the monies they stole while in power President Muhammadu Buharis fight against corruption, which has been borrowed by many state governors using federal security apparatus, has shoved many politicians, senior military officers and technocrats into various cells. Daily Trust reports that though most of the accused are now out of incarceration on bail, it analysed some of the big men who have experienced life in detention, at a time when lawyers and security experts are calling for new laws that would reduce encumbrances hampering prosecuting of corruption cases in Nigeria. READ ALSO: Pastor T.B Joshua drops shocking revelation about source of his power Legit.ng also reports that President Muhammadu Buharis ascension to power will mark two years on May 29, 2017. These are the Big- men who have been docked by Economic and Financial Crime Commission as reported by Daily Trust: 1. Former governor of Adamawa State, James Bala Ngilari The anti-graft crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari scored a major goal in March, this year when Mr. Ngilari was surreptitiously investigated, taken to court where he was found guilty and sentenced for five years by a Federal High Court. The prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Ngilari violated the Public Procurement Act of the state by awarding contracts for the procurement of 25 vehicles for his commissioners at the cost of N167 million without following due process. 2. Ex- Sule Gov Lamido The former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido was earlier this week remanded at the Kiyawa Prison over alleged inciting statements ahead of local government elections in Jigawa. SEE the list of Big men arrested for alleged fraud under Buhari In July, 2015, the former Jigawa governor and his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, were before a federal high court, for allegedly receiving N1.35 billion kickback from a government contractor. They were remanded in prison custody but later granted bail. Like many other politicians, Lamidos handlers attributed his arrests to his rising profile. Around this time in 2016, the former Jigawa State governor said he will vie for the presidency in 2019. If my party (PDP) finds me worthy of the partys presidential ticket to serve Nigeria, I will thank God and oblige, he said. 3. Gabriel Suswam A former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, has been in detention of the Department of Security Services (DSS) since February 27, this year on alleged possession of some unlawful items said to be found at his property in Abuja. The items included firearms, several Certificates of Occupancy (C of Os), 23 luxury watches and 45 keys of various cars among others. 4. Babangida Aliyu A Minna High Court on Wednesday, March 3 granted bail in the sum of N150 million to former Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger who was also remanded in Minna prison for some days. He was charged alongside Umar Nasko, the Chief of Staff under his administration on a six-count charge of misappropriating N4.568 billion. 5. Sambo Dasuki Ex-National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki has served the longest time in detention by any a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) held by the Buhari government. He was arrested in in November 2015 and for nineteen months now, has been held at the detention facility of the DSS headquarters in Abuja. READ ALSO: Revealed! How prominent Nigerians are plotting civil coup against Buhari 6. Alex Badeh On March 2016 , a former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh was arrested and thereafter paraded at the Federal High Court in Abuja. He was arraigned for allegedly corruptly enriching himself with N3.9 billion. Operatives of the EFCC had claimed they found over 1 million dollars in hidden safes during a search at the house and he was later sent to Kuje prison. 7. El-Zakzaky The Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, has been in detention since 14th December, 2015 when men of the Nigerian Army raided his house in Gyellesu following his members altercation with the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai. 8. Nnamdi Kanu The self-styled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, who is facing charges bordering on treasonable felony, equally got a taste of jail time before he was granted bail just over a week ago. He was arrested on 14th October, 2015 over alleged treasonable felony. 9. Musiliu Obanikoro A former minister of state for defence, were taken into custody by the EFCC and DSS but later released Others are: 10. Ex-ministers Bala Mohammed Bala Mohammed was invited by the EFCC but later released for alleged land racketeering. His son was also arrested by the EFCC, paraded before a Federal High Court in Abuja and later remanded at Kuje Prison on a 15-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N1.1billion. 11. Fani Kayode Separately, Justice Suleiman Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos in June remanded Femi Fani-Kayode, Nenadi Usman (a former minister of finance) and Danjuma Yusuf, who were arraigned before him by the EFCC over an alleged fraud of N4.9bn. The case is still lingering in court. 12. Nenadi Usman READ ALSO: Popular Nigerian pastor drops bombshell about Buhari 13. Reuben Abati Abati was invited by the EFCC for allegedly receiving N50 million from ex-NSA Dasuki which was reportedly spent on media activities ahead of 2015 elections. Watch celebration that occurred in Daura, Buhari's home town in Katsina, after he returned from his mdeical leave in London after 51 days. Source: Legit.ng - Nnamdi Kanu's father says his son will actualise Biafra. - He also insisted that the south east governors have failed their people by not intervening on the issue of his child's detention - He however call on Namdi Kanu to be guarded in his utterances Egwukwu 11 of Afaraukwu Ibeku, HRM (Eze) Israel Okwu Kanu, father of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) says his son will actualize Biafra. The Monarch said this while reacting to a question from The Sun. According to the respected father of the IPOB agitator, south east governors have failed their people by not intervening on the issue of his child's detention. READ ALSO: Stephanie Otobo gives her life to Christ Says Jesus died for my humiliation, pain, ugliness The monarch also said he would not tell his son to back down from his struggle for Biafra. "I have been to London and to Germany also. In these countries, what I found out was that immediately your child is up to 18 years, he was man enough to stay on his own and decide for himself what he wanted. According to the respected father of the IPOB agitator, south east governors have failed their people by not intervening on the issue of his child's detention "So, what Im trying to say is that since Nnamdi, my son is above 18 years, it is left for him to decide what to do and I always support whatever decision he takes. It is natural; it is Igbo custom for a child to listen to the advice of his parents. "But to tell you one thing, since Nnamdi was born, he has never for once disobeyed me, but for this issue of Biafra, I am solidly behind him till I die. I am urging him to go ahead with what he is doing, so far he has the support of his people and God will be with him, because he has told me on several occasions that even if he dies in the Biafran cause he will be happy. Going further, he said he believes Biafra will be actualized under the leadership of his son, Nnamdi Kanu. "Why I am so optimistic that Biafra will be actualised under my sons leadership is that what he is doing, many people are supporting him, not only here in Igbo land, but outside this country. "For instance, when I went to Germany and saw the crowd that came in support of Nnamdis cause, I became afraid. I started wondering why the agitation was so hot in a place like Germany, but when you come to this part of the world, it will appear as if nothing was happening. "German reporters and photojournalists queued up to take photographs of his wife and I and were interviewing us and the police had to be invited before we were given breathing space. While praising the likes of Governor Fayose of Ekiti state and former Aviation minister, Femi Fani Kayode, Nnamdi Kanu's father lambasted governors from the region. "I pray God to bless those who in one way or the other contributed to the release of my son, Nnamdi. "Having said that, I must also say that I am not happy the way governors from South East kept quiet over my sons case since. Could it be they were afraid, afraid of what and who? This type of attitude is condemnable, I am not happy about that. I had hoped that they would have been together and made move for his release, but they stayed aloof. READ ALSO: Revealed! How prominent Nigerians are plotting civil coup against Buhari "It was rather the Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose and the former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode who showed interest, God will bless them. I will not in anyway forget the former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, who when other Igbo leaders were afraid to talk about Nnmadis problem, visited my son in prison and also came to my palace here in Umuahia to see me, God will also bless him." Going father, the monarch encouraged the IPOB leader to take things easy and by guarded in his utterances. "Yes, my advice to my son is that he should take things easy; he should be careful on the things he will say. I am saying this, because there are people who are experts in distorting facts and what someone says, for selfish reasons. One will say something and they will turn it to another thing to curry favour. Speaking on President buhari, he said: I wouldnt say enemy of the family, but that of the Igbo race because I have never seen this type of hatred of a people before. Court will rule to set a person free and the president who is supposed to be the father of all will say no, making a mockery of the judiciary in the process. However, watch this Legit.ng video of the Jewish Rabbi who stood surety for Nnamdi Kanu speak: Source: Legit.ng - 82 Chibok girls have been reportedly freed by the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists - The release of the Chibok girls is coming after more than three years in captivity -Details have emerged that the girls were released as part of prisoners' exchange deal by the federal government. - Nigerians have however reacted positively to the release of the girls According to Sahara Reporters, the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has released a batch of more than 80 of the Chibok high school girls who were abducted in mid-April 2014. Sahara Reporters had earlier reported that 80 girls were freed but sources close to the deal however insisted that only 62 girls were released. READ ALSO: My son will actualize Biafra Nnamdi Kanus father blasts south-east governors, says Buhari is enemy of Ndigbo The report said the release abducted school girls came after further negotiations between the Islamist group and the Muhammadu administration. Sources also told @saharaReporters that latest release of Chibok girls involved prisoner exchange. However the presidency has confirmed that 82 girls were released with President Buhari congratulating all the agencies who participated in the hostage deal that led to the release of the girls. Legit.ng learnt that the source was not in a position to disclose the terms of an agreement that led to today's mass release of the Chibok school girls. READ ALSO: Stephanie Otobo gives her life to Christ Says Jesus died for my humiliation, pain, ugliness The 62 girls who just regained their freedom are said to be currently in Banki town in Borno state awaiting airlift to an unknown destination. It is believed that once the girls are secured in a new location they would be debriefed, undergo a psychological and medical test and then be reunited with their families. Meanwhile, recall that Legit.ng had earlier reported that the America's foreign Office has warned westerners travelling to Nigeria to be careful as the Islamic terrorists, Boko Haram is actively planning to kidnap westerners to raise ransom money for their fight. The foreign office, according The Telegraph, says the sect is planning to kidnap foreign workers in Bama local government area of Borno state. Part of the foreign office statement read: We have received reports that Boko Haram is actively planning to kidnap western foreign workers in Bama local government area of Borno state, along the Kumshe-Banki axis, said the Foreign Office advice. Meanwhile, watch this touching Legit.ng TV video of child survivors of Boko Haram activities in the northeast narrating their ordeal. Source: Legit.ng - Leader of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign group, Dr Oby Ezekwesili has reacted to the report of release of 80 Chibok girls - She said she was praying hard that the report is true - Meanwhile, Nigerians are also reacting to the release of the girls by the dreaded insurgents Former Minister of Education and foremost campaigner of the Bring back our girls group, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, is rejoicing over the release of another 80 Chibok girls by the Islamic terrorists. Legit.ng gathered that a top military source told Sahara Reporters that the Boko Haram, released a batch of more than 80 of the Chibok high school girls who were abducted in mid-April 2014. READ ALSO: UPDATED: 80 Kidnapped Chibok girls freed by Boko Haram in prisoner exchange deal According to the source, the release of the 80 abducted school girls came after further negotiations between the Islamist group and the Muhammadu administration. Fomer Minister of Education and foremost campaigner of the Bring back our girls group, Dr Oby Ezekwesili The source he was not in a position to disclose the terms of an agreement that led to today's mass release of the Chibok school girls. Mrs. Ezekwesili on her social media account said: You CAN'T imagine how HARD my heart is beating right now as I furiously PRAY that this news of release of 80 of OUR #ChibokGirls is true. Legit.ng had earlier reported that a top military source has confirmed the release of eighty of the abducted girls. None of us CAN EVER imagine how 80 Parents of OUR #ChibokGirls would feel should that news be TRUE. NO. ONLY THEY CAN KNOW THAT FEELING, she added in another tweet. Meanwhile, the Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District at the Senate, Senator Shehu Sani has said that only Federal Government could confirm the release of the Chibok girls. Official sources in Presidential Villa also declined to speak on the matter claiming they have no information on it. READ ALSO: Forget politics, check out cute photos of Governor El-rufai playing with his children A highly dependable military source confirmed the release of some abducted Chibok girls but was not how many were freed. But according to reports, one of the 82 girls is said to be carrying a baby. Meanwhile, watch this touching Legit.ng TV video of child survivors of Boko Haram activities in the northeast narrating their ordeal. Source: Legit.ng Composure was the key as England held off stubborn Samoan resistance to record a dogged 30-10 win in front of a bumper crowd of 18,271 at Campbelltown Stadium. England led from start to finish on the back of superior discipline to join Papua New Guinea and Tonga as winners in another terrific instalment of the Pacific Tests triple-header. Match Draw Widget [2017] Internationals - Round 1: England vs Samoa It took just three minutes for England's much-vaunted forward pack to click into gear with James Graham and Sean O'Loughlin combining to send prolific try-scorer Ryan Hall over for the opener. Wayne Bennett's men continued to look the more threatening of the two sides and finally extended their lead 11 minutes before the break when Luke Gale knocked over a simple penalty goal courtesy of a ruck infringement close to the line. England finished the half as they started with Stefan Ratchford hot-footing his way through some woeful defence to score under the posts to give his side a deserved 14-point cushion at the break. They might have produced an underwhelming first half but Samoa exploded out of the blocks after the break with barnstorming centre Joey Leilua spinning his way to the line moments after Ratchford had been belted into touch by Antonio Winterstein. Momentum was well and truly with the crowd favourites but it was England who wrestled back control of the contest when Josh Hodgson backed up a break down the middle to open up a 14-point margin. Samoa refused to go away and were soon back in it when Anthony Milford got on the outside of his man and then straightened to set up a grandstand finish with 13 minutes remaining. That's as close as they'd get however as the British Bulldog, James Graham, bashed his way over from a metre out before Jermaine McGillvary dotted down to put the exclamation point on an impressive English win. England 30 (Ryan Hall, Stefan Ratchford, Josh Hodgson, James Graham, Jermaine McGillvary tries; Luke Gale 5 goals) def. Samoa 10 (Joey Leilua, Anthony Milford tries; Anthony Milford 1 goal) at Campbelltown Stadium. Half-time: 14-0. Crowd: 18,271 A. R. Penck, a leader in the German Neo-Expressionist movement of the 1970s and 80s, which brought a new sense of historical and political drama to figurative painting, died on Tuesday in Zurich. He was 77. The Michael Werner Gallery, which has represented him since the 1960s, said the cause was complications of a stroke. Until 1968, Mr. Penck was known in East Germany by his real name, Ralf Winkler. That year, in an effort to confuse arts officials, with whom he had had numerous run-ins, he adopted the name of the eminent geologist Albrecht Penck, an expert on the Ice Age, whose works he had been reading. He first attracted attention with a series of paintings and sculptures, made in the 1960s and early 1970s, that he called Standarts, a conflation of standard and art, with an echo of the German word for banner or flag, standarte. Peter Spier, an award-winning childrens-book author and illustrator who depicted Noahs biblical journey, told the story of the Erie Canal to the words of the song Low Bridge, Everybody Down and gave voice to the sounds of hundreds of animals like hippos (RRUMMPF) and starlings (FEE-YOU), died on April 27 in Port Jefferson, N.Y. He was 89. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Thomas. Mr. Spiers dozens of books are filled with meticulously drawn and brilliantly colored images, like the elephants, horses, seals, acrobats, clowns and trapeze artists in Circus! (1992) and the myriad pairs of animals in Noahs Ark (1977). He imbued Noahs Ark with the cinematic sensibility of a Cecil B. DeMille epic, filling it with a cast of creatures that seems animated on the page. He showed Noahs toils, like pulling a donkey onto the ark and trying to snatch two bees out of a swarm. He tossed in visual jokes, like sheets flapping on a clothesline and rabbits who enter the ark as a couple and leave it as a herd. Since it has no text, you have to give the story in the drawings, mine showing the work, the mess, he said in a video made in 2012 by his publisher, Doubleday. Also, the animals were bored on board. Noah picked eggs from his chickens. As a federal court judge, Laura Taylor Swain has played a role in two of the highest-profile financial criminal cases of the past decade. Now she will preside over one of the biggest local government financial failure cases ever filed. In a terse one-line order on Friday, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the Supreme Court tapped Judge Swain, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, to preside over Puerto Ricos filing for a form of bankruptcy relief from its many creditors. It was up to Chief Justice Roberts to pick a federal judge to preside over the case based on a law passed last year by Congress for handling instances of financial insolvency involving United States territories, including Puerto Rico. He offered no explanation for his selection. Judge Swain has handled prominent cases in recent years. She was the presiding judge who accepted the guilty plea of SAC Capital Advisors, the giant group of hedge funds that the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen led. And she presided over the lengthy criminal trial of several former employees of Bernard Madoff, who ran a huge Ponzi scheme. Ivanka Trump will continue to promote her new book on Twitter and Instagram, according to a spokeswoman, weeks after President Trumps adviser and daughter pledged not to draw publicity through a promotional tour or media appearances. Ms. Trump, who recently took an unpaid job in the West Wing, raised eyebrows on Thursday when she plugged the book, Women Who Work, to her millions of followers on social media. In a Facebook post last month, she had pledged to abstain from other types of publicity out of an abundance of caution and to avoid the appearance of using my official role to promote the book. A spokeswoman said that Ms. Trump had decided to promote her book solely on social media after consulting with the Office of Government Ethics, and that her decision was consistent with the offices guidance. A spokesman for the office declined to comment. Federal ethics rules prohibit government employees from using their positions for private gain. On Thursday, Ms. Trump posted a short video of herself dancing with her children, along with a link to a recent article about her career advice book. In contrast to their usual opposition to regulations, Republicans were the group defending these federal guidelines. Before the vote this week, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said the state rule undermines a private retirement savings system that millions of Americans have counted on for decades. Five states have already passed laws allowing for these privately managed, state-sponsored savings accounts. Dozens of others are considering versions of the legislation. If President Trump signs the bill, and the White House had said he would, the experiment would take a hit. This current Congress seems to want to put fingers in their ears and covers over their eyes, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan and the chief economist at the Labor Department from 2010 to 2011. There are some really hard problems with retirement, but this is an easy one. Approximately 55 million Americans lack workplace retirement accounts. Inertia and ignorance are among the reasons many do not enroll in employer-sponsored retirement plans. So the Obama administration constructed the Labor Department rule to encourage states to set up these savings plans on their own, without being subject to Erisa. J. Mark Iwry, a senior adviser to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, was a co-author of a paper proposing an automatic individual retirement account, a precursor of the automatic enrollment programs states devised. Mr. Iwry said that when he was developing the concept, he thought: Hey, this is kind of cool. This is something for which people might be able to cross the ideological chasm. Mr. Rahimi is also accused of a bombing in Seaside Park, N.J., that did not cause any injuries, and of planting other explosive devices in Manhattan and New Jersey. He has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attacks. Image Investigators interviewed Ahmad Khan Rahimi over three days as he was in a hospital bed with gunshot wounds. Credit... Union County Prosecutor's Office, via Associated Press In his own affidavit, also filed with the court, Mr. Rahimi said that he could recall very little of the sessions. Days blend in my memory, and I cannot distinguish one day of questioning from the next, he said. At one point, investigators from the F.B.I. and the New York Police Department could not understand an answer that Mr. Rahimi was mouthing to them, nor could he write down a response when given a pen and paper, the summaries said. The agents gave him a sheet of paper that showed the alphabet and told him to point at letters with a pen, but he could not accomplish that, either. A prosecutor told the judge late last year that Mr. Rahimi had made statements across multiple days after his arrest. But the prosecutors said at the time that the government did not plan to use the statements in its direct case at trial. That left open the possibility that the government could use the statements to try to impeach Mr. Rahimi if he were to testify and contradict something he had said during his interrogation. The defense motion seeks to block the government from using the statements altogether. Neither the United States attorneys office in Manhattan, which is expected to file a response to the motion, nor a lawyer for Mr. Rahimi would comment on Friday. Maranda Lynn ODonnell, a 22-year-old single mother in Harris County, Tex., was arrested last year for driving without a valid license. The judge set her bail at $2,500. She couldnt afford anything close to that, so she spent three days in jail even though she posed no risk of skipping town or endangering anyone if she were released. In our society, the Supreme Court has held, liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception. Yet across America, poor people like Ms. ODonnell are held in jail for days, weeks or even months solely because they dont have the cash to bail themselves out. All of them are presumed innocent under the law, and many may in fact be innocent, yet most plead guilty just to get out (usually with a sentence of time served). Its a repulsive practice, and last week, in a case that could have national implications for bail reform, a Federal District Court judge in Houston ruled that it was also unconstitutional. In a 193-page ruling that followed a lengthy trial, the judge, Lee Rosenthal, said that money bail should be used for people charged with misdemeanors only in the narrowest of cases, and even then only when there are strong safeguards in place to ensure that defendants receive due process before being locked up. But who needs context anyway? All we need are these soothing words of wisdom to help us get through the day. Heres a good one, in Women Who Work: If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission. Eddie Colla, street artist One wonders if Ms. Trump put this on a magnet for her father before he started signing executive orders barring immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and ruining our health care system: If family comes first, work does not come second. Life comes together. Anne-Marie Slaughter What does that even mean? It doesnt matter if you feel inspired by it. Nor does it matter that Ms. Slaughter has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration. Shes not here to control how her words are used, nor are the other liberals and commentators who count themselves among the resistance, like the actor Cynthia Nixon and the Girls Who Code chief executive Reshma Saujani, who took to Twitter to protest her inclusion in the book. Ms. Trump does occasionally, and one assumes accidentally, hit upon some sympathetic figures to quote: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Edith Wharton The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. Coco Chanel Wharton, despite being one of the great American writers, was a rabid imperialist, as she called herself, and she had a bad habit of touring corners of the French empire and praising the French for taming the savage natives who inhabited them. She might have a good for you pat on the back for President Trumps bombing in Syria. As for Chanel, biographers say she used the Holocaust to her advantage, both dating a Nazi intelligence officer and trying to cheat Jewish businessmen she had dealings with. One imagines she wouldnt balk at the Trump administrations failure to mention Jews in a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January. Ms. Trump writes about the importance of curating authenticity. Not experiencing or developing authenticity, doing the hard work of figuring out what your personal values or philosophy is, but simply surrounding yourself with the authenticity of others and hoping it rubs off. The reader can feel her frantically trying to associate herself with greatness in all areas of her life, to the point where she is blind to the deeper meanings in peoples words or actions, like the part of the book where she quotes Toni Morrisons Beloved and then four pages later asks her reader, Are you a slave to your time or the master of it? Later, she quotes unironically from one of the greatest minds of history, who demanded you question every assumption, every firmly held belief. As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. Socrates Indeed. Americans live to work, while the French work to live. Thats the cliche, and its time to retire it. If Emmanuel Macron defeats Marine Le Pen in Sundays election lets pray the polls are right this time the message from voters will be: The vacation in Martinique will have to wait. First, wed like to work. Thats the real story of this election, the most stunning aspect of which isnt that the French might possibly install a crypto-fascist in the Elysee Palace. Its that they seem strongly inclined to elect a former Rothschild investment banker who evinces no sense of guilt about his elite pedigree, capitalist profession and market-friendly economic inclinations that include tax cuts for corporations and an easing of the 35-hour workweek. And no wonder. The French are desperate. Jobs are the No. 1 election concern, ahead of terrorism and the migration crisis. As of March, the unemployment rate was 10.1 percent. Youth unemployment: 23.7 percent. These figures would be shocking in the midst of a recession. But this is France seven years into a recovery. The last time the growth rate surpassed the 3 percent mark was 17 years ago. SAN FRANCISCO An inquiry by the United States Department of Justice into Ubers use of a program to deceive some regulators has expanded. The ride-hailing company has been under scrutiny from the Justice Department over a tool called Greyball, which The New York Times reported on in March. The Greyball tool allowed Uber to deploy what was essentially a fake version of its app to evade law enforcement agencies that were trying to clamp down on its service in cities including Portland, Ore., Boston and Las Vegas. The Justice Department earlier opened an inquiry into Ubers use of Greyball in Portland, city officials there disclosed in a transportation audit last week. Portland was also moving ahead with subpoenaing Uber on Greyball, an official there said on Friday, affirming that the federal action was a criminal investigation. Now the inquiry has widened to include Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Parking Authority, a state-governed transportation agency, said on Friday that it was contacted by the Justice Department and asked to hand over information regarding Uber and its use of special software to enter and operate in certain markets. Prosecutors in Maryland said on Friday that they would drop rape charges against an undocumented immigrant and another high school student, adding a new twist to a case that the White House had held up as evidence of the need to be tough on illegal immigration. The allegations originated at Rockville High School in March, when the police accused the two male students of raping a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom stall. The case quickly ascended to the national stage when Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters that President Trump had prioritized cracking down on illegal immigration because of tragedies like the situation in Maryland. Days later, the father of the undocumented student was detained by the federal authorities for entering the country illegally, placing additional scrutiny on the case and stirring further debate. But on Friday, John J. McCarthy, states attorney for Montgomery County, said his office had concluded that the facts of this case do not support the charges originally filed against the two students, Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, 18, and Jose O. Montano, 17. WASHINGTON Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has removed himself from some of the most contentious cases facing it, including challenges to the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan and a controversial rule related to the Clean Water Act. Mr. Pruitts decision to recuse himself, announced in a memorandum dated May 4, involves legal cases he had been a part of during his prior tenure as Oklahomas attorney general. In that role, Mr. Pruitt had been one of the most active state officials in bringing lawsuits against the agency he now leads, challenging federal environmental rules. His recusal had been demanded by Democratic lawmakers. The memo was obtained by E&E News, a site that focuses on environmental and energy reporting. During his confirmation hearing in January, Mr. Pruitt came under pressure from Democratic senators, who urged him to recuse himself from any cases he had filed against the agency while serving as the attorney general. What the American people are expecting here is that the E.P.A. doesnt turn into every polluters ally, Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts told him then. The only way to do that is for you to recuse yourself from every case you brought. During the hearing, Mr. Pruitt said he would not commit to removing himself from all the cases he had brought, though some might be subject to a one-year period of recusal. WASHINGTON Rumors that the Republican health care bill counts rape, domestic violence and ulcers as uninsurable pre-existing conditions are circulating among opponents of the bill. But these claims are overly simplistic. The claims conflate what the bill says and its potential outcomes. While the bill could weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions and result in much more expensive insurance, the effect ultimately rests on states and insurers. More important, the bill does not specify what a pre-existing condition is, nor does it allow insurers to deny coverage outright, although potentially they could set premiums beyond the reach of some sick consumers. Here is an assessment. Several liberal websites, like the Resistance Report, suggested that the bill allows insurers to discriminate against rape victims. Under Trumpcare plan, rape would be considered a pre-existing condition. THIS NEEDS CONTEXT. The bill does not define rape as a pre-existing condition, and neither did insurers before the Affordable Care Act. It is possible that sexual assault victims could see higher insurance costs, not because of assault itself but because of resulting trauma or sexually transmitted diseases. Iterations of the claim began to circulate year ago during the debate over the Affordable Care Act. Internet searches on whether rape is a pre-existing condition started to spike again on Wednesday, the day before the House voted to repeal and replace the health care law. From the moment the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a plan to overhaul the health care system, an onslaught of opposition to the bill has been focused on a single, compact term: pre-existing conditions. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running digital ads warning that the legislation would leave no more protections for people with a history of illness or injury. Pointing to the power that states could have to set the terms for insurers under the G.O.P. bill, Democratic leaders announced they would make pre-existing conditions an issue in every gubernatorial and state legislative race in the country. Groups on the left posted graphics online listing pre-existing conditions that could, in theory, threaten health care coverage, with some shared hundreds of thousands or millions of times. In one exaggerated claim circulating widely on social media on Friday, a post from a group called The People for Bernie Sanders listed nearly 100 conditions, from AIDS to ulcers, and said that for anyone who suffered from them, Republicans had voted to end your health care. Individuals took up the call, too: More than 100,000 people posted on Twitter using the hashtag #IAmAPreexistingCondition, with many naming their own long-term illnesses or medical conditions. WASHINGTON President Trump hosted Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, at the White House this week with all the usual bonhomie he displays for foreign leaders. Within hours, he wrote on Twitter that it had been an honor, adding, Hopefully something terrific would come out between the Palestinians & Israel. But then something odd happened. Within a day, the message vanished from Mr. Trumps Twitter feed. The White House said it had no idea why that happened and that it stood by the original message. But stakeholders in the peace process have seen the unexplained disappearance as a sign of uncertainty from a president who has presented himself as Israels greatest friend but has then called it an honor to meet with its adversary. As Mr. Trump embarks on what he vows will be a historic effort to do what no president has done before and make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, he finds himself under pressure from his hard-line pro-Israel supporters. They worry that he and his aides are listening too closely to Arab and Palestinian arguments and diluting what they hoped would be uncompromising support for the current Israeli government. They are particularly concerned about the role of one of Mr. Trumps closest Jewish friends, the New York billionaire Ronald S. Lauder, who is prodding Mr. Trump to forge an alliance with Mr. Abbas. Mr. Lauder is in frequent contact with Mr. Trumps chief Middle East negotiator, Jason D. Greenblatt, who attended a dinner at Mr. Lauders Georgetown home with Mr. Abbas the night before the Palestinian leader went to the White House. The House health care bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate, which seemed likely to soften some large cuts outlined in the House version that were put in to make the legislation more palatable to conservative Republicans. Still, the prospect of cuts of any size has challenged hospitals to try to provide lower-cost care while preparing themselves to absorb the loss of paying patients. Many health systems say their expenses are climbing much faster than the payments from government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. This month, Advocate Health Care, one of the Chicago areas largest employers, announced plans to cut expenses by $200 million. Advocate Health blamed the cost of providing care for which it was not reimbursed. Our expenses must be adjusted to meet current and projected Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurance payment rates, Jim Skogsbergh, the chief executive, said in a memo to employees. Atlantic Health System in Morristown, N.J., which benefited from the expansion of Medicaid and the falling number of people without insurance, faces the possibility of losing $65 million a year in revenue. The systems chief executive, Brian Gragnolati, talked to his staff on Thursday about the possible impact of the House bill. What I worry about in our organization is how are we going to lean into the changes we need to make while we have this uncertainty hanging there, he said. But Mr. Gragnolati also worried about the health bills potential effects on patients, some of whom have gained access to care for the first time. What is going to happen here is when people dont have access now to care, they will go back to the emergency departments for their primary care, waiting and waiting and waiting to get a condition treated, Mr. Gragnolati said. I just feel like were going back in time to a place where we were a decade ago. Its an absolute shame. Mr. Johnson admitted to Mr. Ayala that the Volkswagens contained a defeat device. Mr. Ayala was furious. Volkswagen had knowingly squandered California taxpayer dollars, and allowed polluting vehicles to stay on California highways. They wasted our time, Mr. Ayala said. It had a very significant, very real impact on us all. A lawyer for Mr. Johnson, who has not been charged, declined to comment. In a statement, David Massey, a lawyer for Mr. Schmidt, said: At its core, the governments case against Mr. Schmidt is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened on two occasions when Mr. Schmidt spoke to regulators in August 2015. As word spread inside Volkswagen that the regulators knew about the illegal software, employees began trying to cover their tracks. At an Aug. 31 meeting, an in-house lawyer suggested that engineers in attendance should check their documents. Several of those present interpreted the comment as a signal that they should delete anything related to the emissions issue in the United States. In the weeks that followed 40 employees at Volkswagen and the companys Audi division destroyed thousands of documents. On Sept. 3, 2015, Volkswagen formally admitted to regulators that 500,000 diesel vehicles in the United States had two calibrations, one for tests and one for normal operation in other words, a defeat device. Mr. Winterkorn resigned before the end of the month, while insisting he had no knowledge of the wrongdoing. The research begun with a $70,000 grant eventually cost Volkswagen more than $22 billion in fines and legal settlements, far more than the cost of equipping the cars with adequate pollution control equipment in the first place. No one was more surprised at the outcome than the team at West Virginia University. We never set out to get crosswise with anyone, said Dan Carder, who oversaw the Volkswagen research as director of the universitys Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions. We were just kind of doing our jobs. Farrar Lee Fitzgerald and Thomas George Lannon are to be married May 7 at the Morton Memorial Library in Rhinecliff, N.Y. The Rev. Richard McKeon Jr., an Episcopal priest, is to officiate. The couple, both 38, graduated from Bard College. The bride, who will be taking the grooms name, is a freelance archivist and researcher for galleries and artists estates in Manhattan. She received a masters degree in art history and museum studies from the City College of New York. She is a daughter of Holly B. Bealmear of Santa Fe, N.M., and James W. Fitzgerald of Manhattan, and a stepdaughter of Brad Bealmear. The groom is the assistant director for manuscripts, archives and rare books at the New York Public Library. He received a masters in library and information science from the Pratt Institute. Dr. Meredith Harrison Sellers and Dr. Michael Warren Pelster were married May 6 at St. James Cathedral in Chicago. The Very Rev. Dominic Barrington, an Episcopal priest and dean of the cathedral, performed the ceremony. The couple met at Vanderbilt, from which they both graduated summa cum laude; the bride was valedictorian, and the groom salutatorian, of the College of Arts and Science. They also received medical degrees at Vanderbilt. The bride, 30, is a chief resident in internal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She is also pursuing a masters degree in clinical investigation from Northwestern. In July, she will begin working as a primary care physician at the St. Louis V.A. Medical Center. She is the daughter of Sheilah Maples Sellers and Benton A. Sellers of Cleveland, Tenn. The groom, also 30, is a chief resident in dermatology, also at Northwestern in Chicago. In July, he will begin a fellowship in Mohs micrographic surgery and dermatologic oncology at St. Louis University in St. Louis. I am now feeling much better and am employed again, largely due to the ACA. I cannot imagine this flawed bill is a solution to the widely understood (and solvable) issues with the ACA. Any legislation that does not explicitly bring those with pre-existing conditions under the tent can only be a retreat and puts the lives of millions of Americans in jeopardy. Chris in San Francisco, reacting to an article about the vote yesterday by the House of Representatives to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. This comment received more than 300 reader recommendations. Awe, experienced when you witness something astonishing, unfathomable or greater than yourself, ventilates and expands our concept of time. As Wallace J. Nichols, the author of Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do, says, water meditates you. In research published in Psychological Science in 2012, Melanie Rudd, Kathleen D. Vohs and Jennifer Aaker found that experiences of awe bring people into the present moment, and being in the present moment underlies awes capacity to adjust time perception, influence decisions, and make life feel more satisfying than it would otherwise. We are wrong to think of exercise only as something to build muscle and ease anxiety. If we can, we should force ourselves out of gyms and off machines into the natural world, knowing, or hoping, that we may stumble upon awe. According to the social psychologist Paul Piff and colleagues, studies have shown that people who regularly feel awe are more likely to be generous, helpful, altruistic, ethical and relaxed. When dwarfed by an experience, we are more likely to look to one another, care for one another. No Yes, a light case Yes, two or more light cases One serious case Two or more serious bouts Vote View Results ISTANBUL With some 163 of their fellow journalists in jail, the men and women of Turkeys news media are understandably fearful. Many of those who avoided prison as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans sweeping crackdown on alleged enemies after a July coup attempt have lost their jobs at media outlets taken over by Mr. Erdogans cronies. Some of those still working censor themselves in self-defense. In such an environment, even getting together to talk about challenges to the fast-fading press freedoms in Turkeys ever-shrinking democracy is an act of courage. That happened on Wednesday when Platform24, an Istanbul-based nonprofit fighting for journalists right to do their jobs, held an event to celebrate World Press Freedom Day with a lecture honoring the late Mehmet Ali Birand, one of the countrys most admired journalists. Given Mr. Erdogans tendency for retaliation, the Swedish consul general, Therese Hyden, also deserves credit for hosting the event. The mood this year, however, was anything but celebratory, and for obvious reasons. Under Mr. Erdogans authoritarian rule, not just an independent press but many rights and freedoms have sharply deteriorated. Instead, the mood was somber as Platform24s staff performed a kind of dirge, reading the names of imprisoned colleagues one by one. Thats what we have here in China: The self-silenced majority, sycophants of a powerful regime, resentful of people like me who speak out, are doubly bitter because they know that their debasement comes by their own hand. Thus self-defense also becomes self-comfort. Because the censorship system needs cooperation and tacit understanding from the censored, I disagree with the common view that the censored are simply its victims. Voluntary self-censorship brings benefits to a person, and the system would not work if the voluntary aspect were not there. People who willingly censor themselves are vulnerable to moral challenges of many kinds. They have never been victims and never will be, despite their occasional show of tear wiping. Each time they display their servility, they bring warmth to the hearts of the authoritarians and harm to people who protest. Their craven stance, as it becomes widespread, also becomes the deeper reason for the moral collapse of our society. If these people believe that their choice to cooperate is the only way to avoid victimhood, they are embarking on an ill-fated journey in the dark. The system rewards ordinary people for their cooperation automatically; there is no need for them to compete for the rewards. Managers of artistic and cultural projects, though, need to do more than that; they need to show proactively that they get it and will accommodate the authoritarians and protect their public image. They know that if anything causes unhappiness higher up, a project, and perhaps an organization, will be scrubbed. In this kind of system, where works of art rise or fall not in free competition but by corrupt criteria, any creator of art that has any genuine vitality must act dumb and agree to tacit understandings. It is well known that I cannot speak in any public forum. My name is expunged everywhere in the public media. I am not allowed to travel within China and am banned from the state media, where I am regularly scolded. Commentators in the state media pretend to be evenhanded, but thats impossible, given where they sit, behind the states protective curtain. They dont address topics like the right to free speech or the quality of life for the vast majority of Chinese. Their special expertise is in unscrupulous attacks on voices that have already been repressed. My virtual existence, if we can call it that, exists only among people who notice me by choice, and those people fall clearly into two categories: those who see my behavior as strengthening the meaning of their lives and those who see me as obstructing their roads to benefit, and for that reason cannot pardon me. To the Editor: David Leonhardt states, Crucially, many charters are open to all comers, which means their success doesnt stem from skimming off the best (School Choice Works While Vouchers Dont, column, May 2). In fact, charter schools do skim in several ways: Parents with the wherewithal to apply, which must often be done well in advance and by filling out many forms, have to be organized, aware and English-speaking and have the time to devote to it. That description may not apply to very poor, single-parent or struggling families. Second, although charters often use a lottery system, many do not accept special-needs students on the grounds that they cannot meet those needs. In addition, charter schools such as the Success Academy network in New York City expel students whose behavior does not meet school standards standards that have been shown to be punitive, harsh and controlling. Charters do take money from the public education system; dollars follow each student who attends a charter. Many have additional funds from private sources, such as hedge funds, that public schools do not have. Since success is largely measured by test results, charters often spend inordinate amounts of time on test preparation and drill, to the detriment of other subjects and the well-being of young children. Even in the modern era, religion has taken a more complex view of abortion than is generally realized. In the 1960s, ministers and rabbis formed the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, advising pregnant women how to obtain abortions. More than 100,000 women sought their services. In 1968, a symposium held by Christianity Today suggested that family welfare concerns were good enough reasons for an abortion. The Southern Baptist Convention passed resolutions in 1971, 1974 and 1976 calling on church members to work for the legalization of abortion in some situations. In 1972, a Gallup survey found that Republicans were more likely (68 percent) than Democrats (59 percent) to say abortion should be a decision between a woman and her physician. Thats partly because abortion was seen as a Catholic issue but not a Protestant one, and most Catholics were Democrats. I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, the Rev. W. A. Criswell, one of Americas Southern Baptist leaders, said in agreeing with the Supreme Courts legalization of some abortions in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Yet today its taken as self-evident among conservative Christians that life begins at fertilization without realizing that this would have astonished many Christians throughout the ages. Parker accepts that a fetus is alive but says that life doesnt begin at conception, because an egg is alive as well, and so is a sperm. Life is a process, he writes. It is not a switch that turns on in an instant, like an electric light. Parker is outraged at the profusion of laws around the country chipping away at abortion rights, and he objects that much of the critique of abortion is based on bad science yet doctors are sometimes legally obliged to provide incorrect information to patients. Medical opinion is that a fetus cannot feel anything like pain until about 29 weeks, long after most abortions occur, he notes. To understand how this might work, it helps to understand a little bit about Senate procedure. The Senate effectively requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, but Republicans hold only 52 seats. However, Senate rules allow for the passage of certain types of legislation using a process known as reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority. Republicans planned to use the reconciliation process to go it alone on both health care and tax reform. But that process comes with conditions. Theres a ticking clock; the reconciliation instructions that allow for the passage of the health care bill expire as soon as the next budget resolution is introduced. And the process does not allow for the passage of legislation that raises the deficit outside the 10-year budget window via a simple majority. This, for example, is why the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush in 2001 were set to expire after a decade. For tax cuts to be permanent, they must be deemed revenue neutral. That is where the American Health Care Act comes in: It would eliminate roughly $1 trillion in taxes used to pay for the additional spending in Obamacare. As a result, it would significantly lower the federal governments tax revenue baseline. The baseline is an important figure in congressional budgeting, because it sets expectations for how much the government is projected, on paper, to spend and raise if current law remains the same. The trick, then, is to make the health care bills tax cuts part of that baseline by passing them into law before a tax-reform package. This would provide Republicans with far more room to permanently cut taxes later in the year. In short, Republicans would be able to devise a tax bill that collects about $1 trillion less in revenue but that would still qualify as revenue-neutral under Senate procedure. This is why Republicans put health care reform at the top of their agenda. Without the bill to reset the federal governments baseline tax revenue, Republicans would be much more constrained when it came time to overhaul the tax code. The White House Correspondents Dinner is one of the most repulsive social events in Washington. And you should go once, if you get the chance. You are packed like sardines into the 1950s-style basement ballroom of the Hinckley Hilton (where Ronald Reagan was shot), eating hotel-banquet food and trying to be heard above the din, while the person youre talking to looks over your shoulder for someone more important. This occasion brings out the worst in the Washington press corps. The official purpose of the dinner is to promote First Amendment values by awarding scholarships. A semiofficial purpose is creating an opportunity for too many people to take their First Amendment values out for an excessively long walk. The ostensible nonofficial purpose of the dinner is to impress the bosses by sponsoring the biggest big shot. (We had Hitler at our table. Hell give us an interview now for sure.) The actual purpose is to show the world that journalists can clean up pretty good. Things started getting out of hand in 1987, when a reporter named Michael Kelly (later editor of The Atlantic who, sadly, was killed in 2003 while covering the war in Iraq) brought as his guest Fawn Hall. Shes the woman who, as secretary to Lt. Col. Oliver North, said she helped him throw a shredding party to destroy evidence during the Iran-contra scandal. In his victory speech early on Nov. 9, President Trump told the nation: Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country. I mean that very sincerely. Now its time for America to bind the wounds of division, adding that the country had to get together. In her concession speech hours later, Hillary Clinton said: Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. That was then. Six months on, both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are still waging last years campaign, undermining their promises to help America heal. This is particularly offensive and more than a little pathetic coming from Mr. Trump, who after all has a nation to run. Nearly four months after his inauguration, he has filled fewer than 30 of the top 500 Senate-confirmed positions in the federal government, is mired in challenges to his domestic agenda and a bog of ethical problems, and faces increased belligerence abroad. Yet he continues to hack away at Mrs. Clinton in remarks and on Twitter, and to rhapsodize about his campaign. Foreign allies have begun ridiculing Mr. Trump for this fixation, diplomats say, advising one another that the way to gain advantage is by flattering him on his historic Electoral College win. THE NEW YORK TIMES likes to proclaim its supremacy over all competitors in all categories. But its barely on the scoreboards in the journalistically fashionable realm of fact-checking. Newsrooms across the continents have been building rapid-response reporting teams to evaluate the statements of political figures and assert whether theyre telling the truth. Turkey barely has a democracy, but it has a fact-checking site. Argentina has one that has helped seed others across Latin America. So do parts of Eastern Europe and Africa. Even some journalists in war-ravaged Syria started one. In the United States theyre everywhere, most of them attached to larger media organizations. But one is only just now arriving at The Times, and so far it has one employee. Her name is Linda Qiu. Shes 24 years old, and she has a reputation for searching out pertinent facts with the skill and speed of a greyhound. Three months into the job, Qiu is turning out two to three pieces a week, analyzing everything from President Trumps claim that he only recently met his senior adviser, Stephen Bannon, to an assessment of every accomplishment the president claims to have made in his first 100 days in office. Ideally, The Times would have two or three people, but for now its me, said Qiu without exasperation. WASHINGTON Obscured by the furor over surveillance set off by the investigations into possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia during the election, a major debate over electronic spying that defies the usual partisan factions is quietly taking shape in Congress. The debate centers on the National Security Agencys incidental eavesdropping on Americans via its warrantless surveillance program, which spies on foreigners abroad whose communications pass through American phone and internet services. Its legal basis, the FISA Amendments Act, is set to expire at the end of 2017. A bipartisan coalition of privacy-minded lawmakers has started to circulate draft legislation that would impose new limits on the governments ability to use incidentally gathered information about Americans who are in contact with foreign targets. Many of those lawmakers are veterans of a fight two years ago over the U.S.A. Freedom Act, a law that ended an N.S.A. program that gathered Americans calling logs in bulk. They won that fight against security hawks because the statute on which the program was based, part of the Patriot Act, was expiring and they were unwilling to extend it without ending the bulk collection. WASHINGTON In a suburban Chicago district, Kelly Mazeski, a breast cancer survivor, used the day of the vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act to announce her House candidacy, vowing to make Representative Peter Roskam pay for his vote to make Americans pay more and get less for their health care. In western New York, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul has stirred talk of a congressional race with her slashing criticism of Representative Chris Collins, who rallied fellow Republicans to vote for the health measure, then conceded in a national television interview that he had not read the bill. And in suburban Philadelphia, Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran challenging Representative Ryan A. Costello, said she would make Mr. Costellos decision to support the bill in committee, before opposing it on the floor, a central issue. It is far too early to determine whether 2018 will bring a political wave, but the Houses approval of a deeply unpopular health care bill on Thursday has handed Democrats a potent line of attack for the midterm elections. While Republicans believe that fulfilling a seven-year promise on health care will energize their base next year, Democrats are anticipating a backlash that may put in jeopardy a Republican House majority that once seemed unshakable. Just days after a May Day strike sent tens of thousands of people to the streets in a protest that turned violent, people gathered at work, in parks and their homes in never-ending debates over the uncertainties. At the Rio Piedras terminal where Mr. Rivera works, the drivers and cleaning crews huddled to gripe about waning business and pensions, as well as ever-rising fees and water and electricity bills. Although the move on Wednesday was hardly a surprise, it left a sense of gloom and anxiety here, as civil servants question whether their pensions will ever be paid and private companies suffer the consequences of the brutal domino effect that results when taxes rise, salaries drop and the middle class takes off on a mass exodus for Florida. Im going to stay here, even if I make only $1, Mr. Rivera said. The government plans sweeping austerity measures in the coming months that will hit teachers especially hard. On Friday, Puerto Ricos education secretary announced a proposal to close 184 schools. Teachers may see their hours trimmed by two days a month. So while the government seeks protection from lawsuits from the hedge funds and other financial firms that invested in Puerto Ricos risky debt, residents of this United States territory are taking the squeeze. Fines for parking and other traffic violations have doubled. Dozens of government agencies are on the chopping block, while perks like the annual Christmas bonus and pay for unused sick time make for wistful memories. DAKAR, Senegal Dozens of the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants just over three years ago in the Nigerian village of Chibok have been released as part of an exchange for detained suspects from the militant group, a statement from Nigerias president said early Sunday. The release of the girls is by far the biggest breakthrough in a tragedy that has come to define the nearly eight-year war against Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group that has burned, killed and kidnapped its way across parts of West Africa, killing thousands and causing millions to flee for their lives. The government, after lengthy negotiations, handed over some Boko Haram suspects held by authorities in exchange for 82 of the girls, according to a statement from a spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari. The statement credited the government of Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross, local and international nongovernmental organizations, the military and security agencies with facilitating the exchange. The girls were expected to arrive in Abuja, the capital, on Sunday to meet with Mr. Buhari. The president has repeatedly expressed his total commitment towards ensuring the safe return of the #ChibokGirls, and all other Boko Haram captives, the statement said, referring to one of the social media campaigns on behalf of the girls. Religion has become politicized in local elections, and we saw that emerge in a big way in the election for governor in Jakarta, said Melissa Crouch, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney who researches Asian legal systems. Democracy gives a greater space to everyone, including greater space for radical Islam. While the ultimate goal of those promoting such laws is an Islamic state, that prospect seems distant. Indonesia remains mostly tolerant and moderate. In Jakarta, the capital, many Muslim women socialize freely with men, ride motorbikes and decline to wear head scarves. Islamist parties have not fared well in national elections. But the Islamists have kept up the pressure on a variety of fronts. There have been efforts to change national laws: A bill before Parliament would ban alcohol nationwide, while the Constitutional Court is hearing a petition by an Islamist group demanding that gay sex be outlawed and that the adultery law be broadened to criminalize sex between any unmarried people. The blasphemy law, rarely used before 2004, has been deployed in more than 120 cases, helping build support for the Islamists and silence dissent, said Andreas Harsono, the Indonesia representative for Human Rights Watch. A self-appointed morality brigade called the Islamic Defenders Front, best known for smashing up bars, has recently attacked people for selling food on Ramadan or wearing Santa outfits at Christmas. While such efforts by hard-core activist groups are not new, what stood out in the governors election was their tacit acceptance by moderate Muslims, many of whom took offense at a perceived insult to their religion. BEIJING Jared Kushner has said that he has stepped away from the day-to-day business of his familys real estate company while he serves as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, President Trump. But Mr. Kushners relatives are working feverishly to solicit overseas money for projects in the United States, and they are highlighting their ties to Mr. Kushner as they court investors. On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Kushners sister Nicole Meyer made a pitch to attract $150 million in financing for a Jersey City housing development, known as One Journal Square, to more than 100 Chinese investors gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Beijing. The money would be provided through a much-criticized government program known as EB-5 that awards foreign investors a path to citizenship in exchange for investments of at least $500,000 in American development projects. After months of trying to move the political needle in favor of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, American far-right activists on Saturday threw their weight behind a hacking attack against her rival, Emmanuel Macron, hoping to cast doubt on an election that is pivotal to France and the wider world. The efforts were the culmination of an extended campaign against Mr. Macron after his candidacy began to gain steam this year, with digital activists in the United States and elsewhere sharing tactics, tips and tricks across the English- and French-speaking parts of the internet. It is unclear whether the leaked documents, which some experts say may be connected to hackers linked to Russia, will affect the outcome of the election on Sunday between Ms. Le Pen, the far-right candidate from the National Front, and Mr. Macron, an independent centrist. But the role of American far-right groups in promoting the breach online highlights their growing resolve to spread extremist messages beyond the United States. Its the anti-globalists trying to go global, said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow of the digital forensics research lab at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, who has studied the far rights recent efforts against Mr. Macron and others in France. Theres a feeling of trying to export the revolution. The campaign of the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was hit on Friday by a large dump of leaked emails and other documents on a file-sharing website. Far-right groups in the United States were promoting the leaked information said to contain both real and fake documents to cast doubt on the election, pivotal for France and the European Union at large. Mr. Macron has a roughly 20-point lead over his opponent, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front, in the polls. What We Know About the Breach The data related to Mr. Macrons movement, En Marche!, that was leaked on the internet Friday night was dumped hours before a legal prohibition on campaign communications went into effect. The experienced politicians were rejected and now we have a new category of candidate, said Dominique Bussereau, a member of the mainstream right party Les Republicains. But for all the turmoil, whether either candidate will be able to muster broad legislative or popular support is in doubt raising the real possibility that an election intended to shake the status quo could still result in stasis. Can either candidate, as an outsider, really be effective as president? Neither has ever held national elected office. Each lacks any real base of support in Parliament and will be trying to build one from the ground up. The president of France is powerful only if he or she has a majority in Parliament to help push through his or her partys program. That uncertainty may ripple through Europe, which will be watching closely to gauge both the strength of far-right forces in France and the depth of the anti-European Union sentiment. The differences between the candidates are so deep that the winner will surely be seen as a harbinger of Europes future. Resentment of European Union rules and the failure of the bloc to wrestle with immigration and border controls were major issues in the campaign. Beyond France, the election will be critical in determining Europes openness to the world and the fate of its generous social welfare benefits. It is being especially closely watched in Germany, which holds parliamentary elections in September, as well as in Italy, which could also hold elections this year. In particular, a close eye will be kept on Ms. Le Pens share of the vote, which will serve as a gauge of the current strength of the populist tide that last year ushered Britains vote to leave the European Union and Donald J. Trump to power in the United States. The balance of power within Hamas, which Israel, the United States and much of the West define as a terrorist organization, has been shifting to Gaza, according to experts. The group seized control of the Palestinian coastal enclave in 2007 after beating its main rival, Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, in parliamentary elections a year earlier. In the decade since, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at civilian centers in Israel, survived three wars against the Israeli Army and, according to Israeli officials, continuously built up its military force. The group first gained prominence for its terrorist acts, mostly deadly suicide bombings in buses and cafes in Israeli cities during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s. Juggling militancy with a desire for international recognition, Hamas last week unveiled a new document of principles that it said would guide the group. The paper, meant in part to improve ties with Egypt, waters down the anti-Semitic language of the groups charter, and accepts at least a provisional Palestinian state, though it still rejects any recognition of Israel. Analysts said that in trying to create a compromise among opposing factions, the new document failed to fully satisfy any of them. Mr. Haniya, as the leader of Hamas in Gaza since 2006, was associated with the political wing of the movement that, at least nominally, is more involved with diplomacy and governance and less directly with armed struggle. Federal regulators closed Milwaukee-based Guaranty Bank on Friday night, saying the bank is significantly undercapitalized and has not come up with an acceptable way to shore up its finances. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., named as receiver, said First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., of Raleigh, North Carolina, will take over Guarantys deposits and most of its loans. Guaranty Bank had 119 branches in five states, including three locations at Pick n Save grocery stores in the Madison area: 261 Junction Rd.; 3010 Cahill Main, Fitchburg; and 6540 Monona Dr., Monona. At the Fitchburg store on Saturday morning, a representative from the FDIC was posting signs about the bank failure while a Dane County sheriffs deputy sat outside the banking desk. The 107 branches in retail outlets will not reopen, the FDIC said. But 12 brick-and-mortar locations in Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota will reopen as branches of First-Citizens. All depositors of Guaranty Bank, regardless of where they conducted business, will automatically become depositors of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., the FDIC said. The three Dane County branches held $20 million in deposits, as of June 30, 2016, the most recent data available from the FDIC. Guaranty, a four-generation family-owned bank founded in 1923, has been struggling financially for years since the Great Recession. As of Dec. 31, 2016, the bank reported assets of $1 billion with a net loss for the year of $4.2 million. Delinquent loans made up 5 percent of its total loans and leases. Guaranty had a total risk-based capital ratio a sign of its financial cushion of 4.3 percent, well below the level regulators consider adequate. The U.S. Treasury Departments Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had issued orders to the bank in 2009, 2014 and, most recently, in February 2017 to improve its finances. In the February prompt corrective action order, Guaranty was told to develop a capital improvement plan within 90 days, create a three-year strategic plan and form a compliance committee of outside directors. The order said the bank was critically undercapitalized and ordered it to boost its total risk-based capital ratio to at least 12 percent. In its announcement Friday night, the OCC said it closed the bank after finding that the bank had experienced substantial dissipation of assets or earnings due to unsafe or unsound practices. It said Guaranty did not submit an acceptable capital restructuring plan. Guaranty also was doing business in Michigan and Georgia under the name BestBank. Customers with questions about Guaranty and its takeover can call the FDIC at 800-930-6827 or go online to www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/guaranty.html. Guaranty is the fifth FDIC-insured U.S. financial institution to fail this year. The last bank closure in Wisconsin was North Milwaukee State Bank, Milwaukee, in March 2016. By Linn Washington and Dave Lindorff Justice Castille,Judge Tucker and Mumia Abu-Jamal (Image by ThisCantBeHappening!) Details DMCA A Philadelphia judge has issued a stunningly powerful order requiring the city's District Attorney's Office to locate and release all documents related to the involvement of a former top prosecutor in the most contentious murder case in Philadelphia's history. Because that former DA, Ronald Castille later became- a state supreme court justice and ultimately chief justice, the order could shine a light onto the dark legacy of ethics shredding misconduct by members of the state's highest court. It also opens the door a crack to the possibility that Mumia Abu-Jamal, currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole, could have his 1982 murder conviction for the killing of a white Philadelphia police officer overturned. The order, issued earlier this past week by Common Pleas Judge Leon Tucker, comes in an appeal filed by attorneys for celebrated jailhouse journalist Abu-Jamal. It represents yet another setback for the Philadelphia's District Attorneys Office, an office already reeling from federal corruption charges filed recently against the city's current DA Seth Williams. Philadelphia prosecutors have spent decades fighting to sustain Abu-Jamal's murder conviction for the 1981 shooting death Philadelphia police officer, Daniel. Since Abu-Jamal's conviction by a mostly white jury in 1982, entities as diverse as Amnesty International, state and federal government officials and prominent individuals around the world have condemned his trial, conviction and appeals process as a miscarriage of justice fraught with misconduct by prosecutors and judges, including members of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court. The current Abu-Jamal appeal centers on the legal unfairness of actions taken by former Philadelphia DA Castille, who as top prosecutor, oversaw the legal effort to keep Abu-Jamal on Pennsylvania's death row, and then later served as a top judge ruling on appeals of those very actions by his former office. Years after his election to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1994, Castille joined four other judges in rejecting an appeal by Abu-Jamal for a new trial based on documented evidence of egregious misconduct by police, prosecutors and the judge who presided over Abu-Jamal's original 1982 trial and over his initial Post Conviction Relief Act hearing in 1995. Abu-Jamal's legal team recently argued that Castille's vote in the court's 1998 rejection of their client's appeal violated ethics provisions covering judges in Pennsylvania --- a basic legal rights issue brushed aside by Pennsylvania's high court in its 1998 ruling. This latest Abu-Jamal appeal centers on a 2016 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v. Pennsylvania granting convicted murderer Terrance Williams a new trial because of Justice Castille's refusal to recuse himself from a decision on Williams' appeal of his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court in that case blasted Castille because he had, as DA, approved the decision to seek the death penalty against Williams" [A similar and briefer article was first published in Inside Syria Media Center] Following the results of the fourth round of Syrian talks in Astana the representatives of guarantor-states, Iran, Russia and Turkey signed a memorandum on de-escalation in a diplomatic effort to bring peace to war-torn Syria. According to the agreement, "de-escalation zones" of the slaughter in Syria are to be created in the provinces of Idlib, Hama, Aleppo, northern part of Homs, Eastern Ghouta, Daraa and Quneitra for six months, with the option of further prolongation. Russia Today (RT) reported that the UN special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, welcomed the deal, calling it "an important, promising, positive step in the right direction in the process of de-escalation of the conflict." "Unfortunately, the Americans are still ignoring our attempts to establish closer military cooperation, but we will keep trying," the Russian chief negotiator said. Nor are the U.S. backed Islamic groups interested in peace, instead they are being intransigent to a U.S. policy that 'Assad has to go'. "We saw several members of the opposition delegation stand up furiously condemning what was going on," Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Astana, said. The memorandum, which came into effect on May 5, envisages the cessation of hostilities between the sides, creating conditions for the safe return of refugees, restoring destroyed vital urban infrastructure and providing safe access for humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to those made homeless and refuges by the war. Moreover, checkpoints would be established to facilitate the movement of civilians and create a ceasefire regime along the de-escalation zone borders. This was one of the objections that U.S. backed Islamic militants complained about, saying it would "hinder" the movement of their fighters. The memorandum of agreement does not apply to the terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists, it doesn't depend on whether they are inside a zone or not. Press TV reported that "Russia says the de-escalation zones agreed to be formed in four conflict zones across Syria will be closed for warplanes of the US and its coalition allies." The airspace will be also controlled by the guarantor-states. The treaty caused positive reaction of the world community. In general, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highly appreciates the achievement of the guarantor-states. He also believes, that the memorandum should really improve the citizens' lives. The head of the Syrian delegation in Astana Bashar Jaafari expressed gratitude to the efforts of Kazakhstan, Iran and Russia, as the memorandum opens new opportunities for the political settlement of the crisis. Even Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir supports the creation of de-escalation zones. Unfortunately, during the signing of memorandum a number of the opposition delegates opposed the peacekeeping initiatives. The actual initiatives of the opposition are unknown. As a mark of protest, a number of the opposition delegates decided to leave the room, referring that the adoption of the document violates the territorial integrity of Syria. In addition, the armed opposition insists that Iran can't be a guarantor state and they don't adduce any weighty arguments. It sounds strange that the opposition has rejected the memorandum. The primary target of guarantor states' initiative is the protection of civilians, and as it is temporary, it won't affect Syria's sovereignty. This was an opportunity missed for the U.S. backed armed opposition to show to the world community that they are interested in a diplomatic settlement of the crisis. This makes it hard to distinguish the difference, if any, between U.S. backed "moderate" opposition from ISIS or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The guarantor nations Iran, Russia and Turkey have taken the initiative, as has the Syrian government to bring an end to the war that is a heavy burden for the country in which innocent people keep dying and the civilian infrastructure is being completely destroyed. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Former Secretary of State John Kerry asserted that "human values are universal values" on Wednesday. He spoke of the need for the United States to engage in the world rather than retreat, to commit to long-term plans, and to exhibit good governance. He speaks from a record that includes diplomatic breakthroughs with Cuba and Iran, and a priority on our threatened oceans. And he appeared to speak to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who shocked an auditorium of State Department employees earlier that day by saying the United States should sometimes "separate values such as freedom, human dignity, and 'the way people are treated' from foreign policy." Perhaps this was a poor attempted justification to the major cuts to the Department of State and international institutions? Values (Image by burrows.nichole28) Details DMCA Regardless, we must fight to define, preserve and advance core underlying American values. The huge disconnect between what's been proposed by the administration -- whether in tax reform, health care, the environment and climate -- and core values that represent caring for our population, with a commitment to their rights and dignity. This must be highlighted deftly. Values can't just be dismissed. They ground all organizations. The consulting firm McKinsey's famous 7S model places "shared values" at the heart of an organization: its structure, strategy, system, style, skills, and staff all reflect them. This administration recognizes that few of its actions pass the "values test." Thus they've created a flurry of activity, bouncing like toddler with ADD from topic to topic, aiming to keep the public from examining their policy initiatives. That's why Donald Trump has his "forbidden love" -- single-payer health care -- grounded in, as he said, universality, a higher quality of life, taking care of others, and affordability. (A friends-first approach of getting better acquainted and advancing its worthy cause would make sense.) Recent White House statements have changed tone. They've spoken against discrimination and for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestine crisis. But it is far too early to see if this represents a commitment to action, even in these limited areas. 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). This article is adapted from an earlier version that first appeared on Dissident Voice As bombs rain down on Mosul unable to distinguish friend from foe, civilian from combatant, in a close urban environment with a population hostage to extremist occupiers, one may be forgiven for disputing the concept of 'civilized' when society accepts without question the bombing of civilians -- incessant reminders of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden (immortalized by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five), Cambodia, Vietnam, etc., notwithstanding. Yet civilization is cross-pollinated, debts owed by many to an oft-forgotten few as in the 'little' example that follows illustrates: Babylonians -- oh yes! it's the bombed-out Iraqis -- developed a zero about 300 B.C. It was represented by two slanted wedges on their clay tablets and served as a place holder in the sexagesimal (base 60 unlike our current base 10) system they used. By the way, there is something to be said for base 60 because it is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 5, so one can get halves, thirds, etc. without going to a second or more decimal places. Our base-10 system forces us into two decimal places for a quarter and an infinite number for a third, wasting computer time and leading to inaccuracies because of approximations that have to be fudged for such mundane computations as calculating interest in savings accounts. Over time the zero seems to have traveled to India -- perhaps elsewhere too but evidence for that has not been unearthed yet. A dot carved on the wall of the fifth-century A.D. Chaturbhuja Temple in Gwalior is the earliest evidence. The seventh-century Indian Mathematician Brahmagupta expanded on the remarkable properties of zero: multiply anything by it and lo and behold, it, too, becomes nothing. Credit where it's due ... the Mayans in the Americas also developed a zero independently to ease calculations in their astronomical investigations. Muslim mathematicians picked up on the usefulness of the zero and brought it back to Baghdad whence it spread throughout their civilization into Spain. Europeans preferred to stick to Roman numerals until the Italian mathematician, Fibonacci, reminded them of their idiocy in a textbook published in 1202 A.D. What we know now as Arabic numerals (incorporating zero) were eventually adopted. Without a zero, differential equations would be impossible to solve and much of engineering would grind to a halt; negative and imaginary numbers would have no meaning; neither would the 0, 1 binary system, the mainstay of our computers. And you would not be reading this on yours. Humans learning from each other to improve the lives of humankind -- something we seem to forget as we reinforce prejudices based on fictitious or anecdotal data. Imagine if we could incorporate the Jain attitude to non-violence, the Buddhist aspiration to self-denial and improvement, the Christian belief in forgiveness, the Jewish focus on law, the Muslim prescription to mercy, the Confucian predilection for respect and harmony, Hindu philosophy, etc., etc. Unfortunately trust is absent ... and, some might say, for good reason. Is that our challenge then -- to replace mistrust with deserved trust? The alternative might literally be a zero future. Quicklink Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them. To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here. Progressive Content Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing. To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here. by eslkevin Paraphrased BY KEVIN A. STODA Paraphrased BY KEVIN A. STODA The following is largely a paraphrase of an address given at IMPROVING TEACHING QUALITY 1: a SYMPOSIUM held at ROTANA RESORT, SALALAH, and Oman on 10 April 2017. (The English Language Center at Salalah College of Technology, under the guidance of Mr. Saeed Al-Mashikhi, Head of the ELC and the Chairman of the Steering Committee, had organized the symposium at Salalah Rotana Resort, entitled "Improving Teaching Quality 1".) Dr. Faical Hamadi Ben Khalifa, the Director of Foundation Programs at Dhofar University, spoke on the need for more awareness, training, and growth related to emotional intelligence in Oman's curricula development and in Oman' s practices in education at all levels in the country. We all have at least two parts of our brains functioning at all times: (1) the thinking brain as well as (2) the emotional brain. In our mind there is a great link evident between these two areas of brain functioning. Emotions are typically instinctive. Thus, the emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than does the thinking brain or thinking mind. On the one hand, the "thinking mind" may be 'thinking' about emotions that are perceived while, on the other hand, feelings have already been acting out on this emotion and our connected thoughts at those same moments. We educators--when in the classroom--are dealing with all kinds of individuals with their thinking and feeling components in action, too. Students for example come in to any class with some sort of idea as to what their "best-teacher-ever was"--and sometimes we are being called on to emulate them. 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). In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the unwitting observers of shadows perceived as reality were called prisoners. Those who projected the shadows were the prototypes of the Deep State. The New York Times today reported: " The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, provided his first public explanation Wednesday of why he revealed days before the election that he had reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton 's emails, saying he could not risk concealing newfound information from Congress." This is a bald-faced lie, since he had not examined the emails to determine if there were pertinent, and therefore had no "newfound information" to conceal, as a later examination proved that the emails were irrelevant copies of emails already examined. Since the FBI had these emails for week before the disclosure they could have determined they were irrelevant, but then there would have been no pretext for opening a new investigation and then claiming it would have been catastrophic not to disclose that fact. The entire defense collapses before the fact that Comey claims he had no knowledge of the contents of the emails yet opened the investigation, which he felt obligated, he claims, to disclose, based on his further claim that the emails, unexamined, "seemed pertinent to our investigation." They did not seem pertinent because they were not even read, and the investigation had been closed, with no charges, long before. The reason to open the investigation was fake (they could have looked at the emails and determined IF they were pertinent, but that would have removed the excuse to reopen the case should they have found, as they did later, that they were not pertinent. Thus the entire investigation was fake since it was opened with no newfound information at all. FBI chief Comey, with no knowledge of what was in the new emails discovered on Anthony Wiener's computer, 10 days before the election, disclosed that the investigation into Clinton was being reopened, based on zero evidence that the new emails, which had not been examined by Comey, had any incriminating information. This led, according to an ABC poll, 1 of 3 likely voters agreed they would "be less likely to vote for Clinton," as a result. That is 40 million voters, and she lost the Electoral College vote by 100,000. Only 1 in 400 had to decide to not vote for her. Likely means more than 50%. At the time of the announcement of a new investigation, no warrants to search the computer on which the investigation was based had been issued. Newsweek reported: Dick Cheney - Has a Heart | Richard Bruce Cheney, aka Dick C. | Flickr840 -- 600 - 256k - jpg (Image by flickr.com) Details DMCA From Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney "Health problems Cheney's long histories of cardiovascular disease and periodic need for urgent health care raised questions of whether he was medically fit to serve in public office.[186] Having smoked approximately 3 packs of cigarettes per day for nearly 20 years,[187] Cheney had his first of five heart attacks in 1978, at age 37. Subsequent attacks in 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2010 have resulted in moderate contractile dysfunction of his left ventricle.[188][189] He underwent four-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting in 1988, coronary artery stenting in November 2000, urgent coronary balloon angioplasty in March 2001, and the implantation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in June, 2001.[188] On September 24, 2005, Cheney underwent a six-hour endo-vascular procedure to repair popliteal artery aneurysms bilaterally, a catheter treatment technique used in the artery behind each knee.[190] The condition was discovered at a regular physical in July, and was not life-threatening.[191] Cheney was hospitalized for tests after experiencing shortness of breath five months later. In late April 2006, an ultrasound revealed that the clot was smaller.[190] On March 5, 2007, Cheney was treated for deep-vein thrombosis in his left leg at George Washington University Hospital after experiencing pain in his left calf. Doctors prescribed blood-thinning medication and allowed him to return to work.[192] CBS News reported that during the morning of November 26, 2007, Cheney was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and underwent treatment that afternoon.[190] On July 12, 2008, Cheney underwent a cardiological exam; doctors reported that his heartbeat was normal for a 67-year-old man with a history of heart problems. As part of his annual checkup, he was administered an electrocardiogram and radiological imaging of the stents placed in the arteries behind his knees in 2005. Doctors said that Cheney had not experienced any recurrence of atrial fibrillation and that his special pacemaker had neither detected nor treated any arrhythmia.[193] On October 15, 2008, Cheney returned to the hospital briefly to treat a minor irregularity.[194] On January 19, 2009, Cheney strained his back "while moving boxes into his new house". As a consequence, he was in a wheelchair for two days, including his attendance at the 2009 United States presidential inauguration.[195][196] On February 22, 2010, Cheney was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after experiencing chest pains. A spokesperson later said Cheney had experienced a mild heart attack after doctors had run tests.[189] On June 25, 2010, Cheney was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after reporting discomfort.[197] In early July 2010, Cheney was outfitted with a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) at Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute to compensate for worsening congestive heart failure.[198] The device pumped blood continuously through his body.[199][200] He was released from Inova on August 9, 2010,[201] and had to decide whether to seek a full heart transplant.[202][203] This pump was centrifugal and as a result he remained alive without a pulse for nearly fifteen months.[204] On March 24, 2012, Cheney underwent a seven-hour heart transplant procedure at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, at the age of 71. He had been on a waiting list for more than 20 months before receiving the heart from an anonymous donor.[205][206] Cheney's principal cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, advised his patient that "it would not be unreasonable for an otherwise healthy 71-year-old man to expect to live another 10 years" with a transplant, saying in a family-authorized interview that he considered Cheney to be otherwise healthy.[207]" How would Dick Cheney have fared if he'd only had coverage under the American Health Care Act? I Chalan Mona One of my greatest joys is being a parent to two wonderful kids. I must admit that raising my toddler son gives me some anxiety. Raising him o Read morePondering CHamoru manhood PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-02 08:50:38 Press Information Published by ACN Newswire +65 6304 8926 e-mail https://www.acnnewswire.com/ # 1073 Words ACN Newswire+65 6304 8926 Strong global industry support and expanded size attest to the show's continued importance in the Asia-Pacific maritime security and defence landscapeSINGAPORE, May 2, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The 11th edition of the International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (IMDEX Asia), Asia-Pacific's premier international maritime defence show, will be held from 16 to 18 May 2017 in Singapore at the Changi Exhibition Centre. IMDEX Asia 2017 looks set to be the biggest ever, and the stellar line-up of events and activities underscores the phenomenal participation and support for this year's show.Strong global support and increasing exhibitor participationAsia-Pacific is expected to drive global demand for innovative maritime and naval technologies and products amid a global spike in defence spending. By the year 2020, 19 Asia-Pacific countries will account for nearly one-third of global defence budgets and more than one-third of all active duty military personnel. Asia-Pacific economies are also projected to drive 60 percent of the global increase in defence acquisition, R&D, and 30 percent of the total global defence acquisition budget by that year.Attesting to the importance of the Asia-Pacific region, and the show's role as the premier regional maritime defence platform, 2017 will witness the biggest maritime security and defence presence ever with 27 Chiefs of Navy, 4 Directors-General of Coast Guards and Heads of Maritime Agencies in attendance. Representatives from another 12 Navies and the China Coast Guard will also be participating in IMDEX Asia 2017.With the China Pavilion making its debut this year, and the India Pavilion having doubled in size from 2015, and increased participation by exhibitors from countries including France, Germany and Italy, 2017 is the biggest ever IMDEX Asia with total exhibition space expanding by 23% over the 2015 edition.IMDEX Asia 2017 will welcome returning exhibitors including DCNS, Damen, Lockheed Martin, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Rheinmetall, Austal, Saab, L3 Technologies, Wartsila, ST Engineering, Leonardo and Privinvest Shipbuilding Group. Visitors can also look forward to meeting exciting new exhibitors including Baglietto Navy, Controp, Ferretti Security & Defence Intermarine, IMI Systems, Ingalls Shipbuilding, Nova Systems, Orbit Communication Systems and Tractors Singapore Limited among others.Organised in conjunction with the Republic of Singapore Navy's 50th anniversaryIMDEX Asia provides a global platform for navies, maritime agencies and industry players to come together and address challenges, and will be held in conjunction this year with the Republic of Singapore Navy's 50th Anniversary (RSN50) celebrations. Considering the transnational nature of maritime challenges, the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) needs to continue to work in close partnership with other agencies both at the national and international levels. The RSN50 events and IMDEX Asia 2017 will bring international government officials, military and industry representatives together in Singapore to interact and exchange ideas on how nations can cooperate to ensure safe and secure seas for all.Platform for Singapore's first-ever International Maritime ReviewLeading up to IMDEX Asia, expect to see the largest gathering of naval and coast guard ships from around the globe that Singapore has ever hosted. The ships will be representing their home navies in Singapore's first-ever International Maritime Review (IMR). The newly-commissioned Littoral Mission Vessel (LMV) RSS Independence will make its debut during the IMR as the inspecting ship for the reviewing officer, Singapore's President Tony Tan Keng Yam, and high ranking officers of the navies participating in the IMR.Largest number of warships to participate in IMDEX AsiaWith 30 warships from 20 navies confirmed, the largest number of foreign warships to ever participate in IMDEX Asia will be showcased during the ever-popular Warships Display. Visitors will have the rare opportunity to get first-hand experience of the on-board operations and rub shoulders with senior naval officers from various countries. Visitors will also be able to view the impressive array of amphibious crafts as well as unmanned aerial vehicles and helicopters on display.Another key attraction of the show is the technology seminars and demonstrations where attendees will get in-depth understanding of the design and technological considerations behind the products and solutions on showcase and be able to exchange ideas with presenters face-to-face. Strategic conferences to push discussions on key global agendas to the next level IMDEX Asia 2017 will host two strategic high-level conferences, namely the International Maritime Security Conference (IMSC 2017) and International Naval Engineering Conference @ IMDEX Asia (INEC@IMDEX Asia 2017), where leading experts and academia from around the world will discuss issues related to maritime security and present the latest technologies on naval platform design and developments.International Maritime Security Conference (IMSC 2017)The IMSC is a platform for Chiefs of Navy and Directors-General of Coast Guards around the world to discuss threats to maritime security and safety, as well as develop frameworks and solutions to deal with the security challenges that threaten and disrupt sea lines of communication. The fifth edition of the conference is themed "Safe and Secure Seas: A Vision for a Maritime Region", focusing on a cooperative security approach to create critical capabilities that will enhance the safety of our complex maritime landscape. The conference will feature two interesting panels viz. Pursuing Common Maritime Objectives and Responding to Maritime Terrorism.International Naval Engineering Conference @ IMDEX Asia 2017 (INEC@IMDEX Asia 2017)IMDEX Asia will once again play host to the Asian edition of the prestigious International Naval Engineering Conference. With its attendant naval delegations, industry participation and trade visitors, INEC@IMDEX Asia 2017 will generate high level exchanges and discussions on a wide range of naval technical topics relevant to the Asia Pacific region. The theme at this third edition is "Robust Designs, Flexible Capabilities", and the conference will address the multiplying effect, flexible platforms, underwater technology and effective support solutions. Besides keynote addresses, plenary and concurrent discussions, there will also be an exclusive tour to the LMV for the conference delegates this year."The continued strong support from the global industry has been truly heartening," said Mr Leck Chet Lam, Managing Director of Experia Events. "As the Asia-Pacific region continues to be the growth engine of the world economy with maritime commerce remaining a key driver, IMDEX Asia is increasingly serving the maritime security and defence community by providing the ultimate avenue for high-profile stakeholders, key industry players and naval engineering professionals to network, exchange ideas, forge partnerships and do business." Organised by Experia Events, IMDEX Asia is supported by the RSN, the Defence Science and Technology Agency, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). EAU CLAIRE, Wis. Peter A. Samb passed away unexpectedly Wednesday, May 3, 2017, at Mayo Health System in Eau Claire. Pete offered a life full of humor and practical wisdom to all those who were fortunate to know him. He was born in Aug. of 1949, in La Crosse, to Albin and Verona Samb. Pete and Cindy Giese married in 2002 and have been together for 29 years. Pete and Cindy made Mondovi, Wis. their home, loved their time together, their trips to Arizona and the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and welcomed German Shepherd rescue dogs into their home, Peters Nicki II & III, Thunder and Herschel. Pete was Cindys greatest supporter in her career. Pete served his country in Vietnam receiving a bronze star medal. He was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army Military Corp and was a member of one of the most decorated Military Police Units in U.S. Army history, the 18th Military Police Brigade. He then began his career in law enforcement in 1972 in La Crosse, as a police officer, and later, detective. He attained accreditation as a Certified Fire Investigator, continued his career as an arson investigator and also served 16 years as the Buffalo County Coroner from 2001 to present. Pete was a member of Central Lutheran Church, the American Legion Post 154 and the Wisconsin Coroners and Medical Examiners Association. Those blessed with memories of Pete are his wife, Cindy Giese; his daughter Rochelle Williamson (James); his grandson, Joshua Peter Steele; as well as his loving granddaughter, Cassondra Steele and her friend Josh. Pete is also survived by his sisters-in-law, Pat Kapper (Ron) and Deb Schultz (Jim). Pete made it clear to his only nephew, Matt Larson (Janell); that he is charged with ensuring Aunt Cindy does something more than work, and that will likely entail spending as much time as possible with great-nieces, Aubrey, Paisley and Finley. Pete was truly proud of Matt, and the father he has become. Pete was so thankful to be part of his life. Pete particularly liked music, reading, prime rib, Mc Ts breakfast sandwiches and ice cream. Also important was the fond way he honored his loving mother-in-law, Irene Giese; when he chose to prefer his bonus name, Peter Giese Samb. Family and friends will gather at Talbot Family Funeral Home in Mondovi for visitation from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with a memorial service at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 7. Memorials may be given to the Buffalo County Humane Association or Central Lutheran Church in Mondovi. Visit www.talbotfuneralhomes.com to express online condolences. Drug manufacturers were holding a market share of 66% in 2014 of the entire Diabetic Care market. The other segments of ecosystem include Device manufacturers and Mobile application developers. Diabetic Care Market PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-06 23:41:20 Press Information Research N Reports 10916, Gold Point, Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064. Mr. Sunny Denis (Sales Manger) +1-888-631-6977 email http://www.researchnreports.com # 695 Words 10916, Gold Point, Dr,Houston, TX,Pin - 77064.(Sales Manger)+1-888-631-6977 Global Diabetic Care Market: Focus on Diabetes Types, Ecosystem Players (Drug, Device & Mobile Application Developer), End-Use Applications & Geography - Estimation And Forecast, 2015-2022 Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977.Diabetic Care Market is expected to grow at 9.16% CAGR from 2015 to 2022. The other type of diabetes includes Type 1 diabetes, and gestational diabetes. Observing current trends, gestational diabetes segment is expected to grow at a high CAGR of 11.13% from 2015 to 2022. The gestational diabetes cases are increasing since in this disease, during pregnancy, the insulin hormone secretion gets misbalanced.Global Diabetic Care Market Report 2017Drug manufacturers were holding a market share of 66% in 2014 of the entire Diabetic Care market. The other segments of ecosystem include Device manufacturers and Mobile application developers. Observing the current pattern of trends, Healthcare ITs/Big Data companies are collaborating and entering into partnerships with healthcare providers, academic institutions, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology companies to support the growth of the Diabetic Care market.Get Sample Copy of This Report @: http://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=53873 In Americas, existing players are integrating with new start-ups through partnerships and collaborations to capture the North American segment. North American local players are also aiming to capture the South American Diabetic Care market. Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, regulatory bodies are implementing policies to keep a check on latest technologies. The Americas is the largest contributor in the overall revenue generation in Diabetic Care, followed by the European region, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.13% from 2015 to 2022. The Middle Eastern region is expected to show the fastest growth globally, and is expected to grow at 14.79% CAGR from 2015 to 2022. The APAC region is focusing more on technological development and introduction of new advanced tools into Diabetic Care systems, in order to develop specific therapies and solutions.Get 20-30% Discount on This Report @: http://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=53873 Governmental regulations and standards are playing a major role in sustaining the growth and development of the Diabetic Care market. The main aim of these regulations is to make Diabetic Care more adaptable and focused towards different types of diabetic diseases and also provide modern mobile technologies to the diabetic population. The patients benefit indirectly through these regulations as it helps them save time and cuts-down the overall cost as the patients receive the required treatment for the disease. The Diabetic Care market growth is propelled by due to factors such as: increasing demand for non-invasive treatments, technological innovation and advancement, development of artificial pancreas, and government support and regulations.Complete Report Available at @: https://www.researchnreports.com/pharma-healthcare/Global-Diabetic-Care-Market-Research-2022-53873 Some Related New Research Reports:Global Diabetic Care Market Report 2017-2021: The global Diabetic Care market on the basis of end-use applications is classified into: patient monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, healthcare management, education & awareness, and prevention & wellness, among others. At present, patient monitoring is dominating the market and is expected to reach $24.03 billion by 2022.Get Sample copy of Global Diabetic Care Market Research Report @:Global Precision Medicine Market Report 2017: According to the New Research Report, the global precision medicine market is expected to grow over $88 billion by 2022 at an estimated CAGR of 12.60% from 2015 to 2022.Get Sample copy of Global Precision Medicine Market Report @: http://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=53875 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 United States 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. 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. Norwegian ship owner and tour operator, Norled, progresses plans for new express boat connection for excursions between Cayo Largo and mainland Cuba. 1 2 3 4 5 IMG_6753 IMG_6751 Lars Jacob Engelsen Express boat manager Bjorn Egil Sondena Kjell Ove Hatlem BW_LR End -- Norled, a market leader in Norway within fast passenger vessels, revealed during The International Tourism Fair FITCUBA that the company is progressing their plans for a new express service in Cuba. The new planned boat service, called Cayo Largo Express, will bring tourists between Cayo Largo and both Havana/Varadero (via Batabano) and Cienfuegos/Trinidad and is organized together with Cuban partner. This new travel product will facilitate more and new round trips on Cuba, and is also an excellent fit with the Circuit focus of the Tourism Fair.Today's transport options in this area are limited, and with the new planned express boat in place, the connection will be regular with an estimated journey time of 3 hours one way - offering tourists a safe, reliable and comfortable service between the main island of Cuba and the beautiful island of Cayo Largo with all its attractions.Deputy CEO of Norled, Lars Jacob Engelsen, thinks the new service has great potential: "We believe this type of express service will be attractive and of significant interest for tourists. We have conducted some market studies, which confirm the interest in a connection like this. Our new initiative fits perfectly with Norled's mission to give people 'great travel experiences' and our plans for expanding our services internationally. We see great potential in Cuba."Kjell Ove Hatlem, Norled's Project Manager for International Transport, is in dialogue with relevant authorities in Cuba to progress the plans: "International connections like this are part of Norled's strategy to leverage on our long experience to expand into new markets. Given relevant permits and partner agreements, the intention is for us to start transporting tourists to and from the island as early as winter season 2017/2018. Norled is also in dialogue with local Cuban partners to advance further plans for the service, including options for combining boat and bus services offering tourists round trips and packages. The plan is to commercialize these excursions via, one of the major Cuban travel agents, in addition to sales on Norled's own web page."The number of foreign tourists to Cuba is increasing, and with approximately 4 million tourists visiting Cuba each year (2016), Hatlem expects many will find the Cayo Largo Express service and add-on products like round trips and packages attractive: "We believe many tourists visiting Cuba will be interested in seeing Cayo Largo as part of their trip, and vice versa. Cayo Largo Express will connect Cayo Largo to mainland Cuba to the benefit of not only tourists, but also other partners involved and local businesses like hotels, restaurants and other companies connected to the travel industry," says Bjorn Egil Sondena, Express Boat Manager of Norled.Norled AS proud of their seamen traditions tracking back to 1855 has a total fleet of around 80 vessels. 30 are fast passenger vessels (catamarans)and 50 are combined car and passenger ferries. The company, with its 1100 employees and revenues (2015) of 250 MUSD, is a market leader in Norway within fast passenger vessels, one of three major players within combined car and passenger ferries, and a leading operator within Fjord tourism. Internationally Norled has gained significant attention for an innovative and environment friendly approach.For more information about Norled, see https://www.norled.no/ en/about-norled/ End -- Missouri Search and Rescue Ground Team is working to bring America's missing persons home, safely. While we are based out of Missouri, we will deploy nationwide provided we have adequate funding. Born out of our Carl DeBrodie (Fulton, MO) rescue efforts, we realized we simply could not walk away from search and rescue. We have found our calling in life, and we will not fail your lost loved ones who need our help. Contact us at www.MOSARGT.com to find out more about our organization or to contact us with any questions.Born out of the Carl DeBrodie (Fulton, Missouri) search and rescue efforts, our rescuers realize we simply coud not just walk away from America's missing persons. We realized we are not only good at search and rescue, but we have a passion for it. This is our calling in life.For any questions or concerns, you may contact us at kebodle1@mosargt.com or you can contact us directly via our website at https://www.mosargt.comPlease remember we will deploy nationwide if we have the funding to do so. The Latin America subsidiary of broadcaster Turner has tapped Prime Focus Technologies CLEAR Broadcast Cloud for media resource planning. CLEAR will support work order and supply chain management, along with end-to-end process monitoring of critical tasks, with reports and dashboards. The platform will effectively bring Turner Latin Americas ecosystem of creators, partners and customers of long and short form content onto a single system.We chose CLEAR for three reasons: it is cloud native, multi-platform and easy to integrate through a solid service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach, said Luis Esparza, vice-president of technology and operations, Turner Latin America . The industry is undergoing rapid change, and we believe Turner is uniquely qualified to lead the transformation of the media business in Latin America through our innovative thinking and ability to adapt seamlessly to a location-independent but consumer-centric model.Operations at Turner Latin Americas main content processing hub in Buenos Aires will be seamlessly connected with all other supply-chain locations through the CLEAR hybrid cloud architecture. This will support multi-location distributed workflows such as subtitling and dubbing, compliance mastering, promo operations, archival, playout delivery as well as schedule-driven distribution for over-the-top (OTT) and video-on-demand (VOD).CLEARs interoperability feature also allows seamless integration with Aleph (software used for schedule, contract, rights and traffic management) and other applications at Turner, thereby leveraging existing investments and lowering the total cost of operations. The integrations are accomplished through CLEARs open APIs, providing users a with an end-to-end view of the entire distributed workflow from CLEAR Optimal end-to-end workflow orchestration with work order automation across the supply chain is critical to our roadmap, added Gabriel Basabe, technology and operations country manager, Turner Argentina. Pop star Luis Miguels official series is to exclusively premiere on Telemundo for US audiences and on Netflix across Latin America. The exclusivity agreement means an important win for both Telemundo and Netflix over their respective competitors. In fact, Univision and its ally Televisa have stated they are preparing their own Luis Miguel series, still under development.NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and Gato Grande Productions, a joint venture between MGM and Mexican entrepreneurs Miguel Aleman Magnani and Antonio Cue Sanchez Navarro, announced the agreement, giving Telemundo exclusive US broadcast rights to the TV series. MGM's Mark Burnett has helped develop the series and lead Gato Grande in its first scripted project designed to tackle the growing US Hispanic market."For decades, I have been asked to tell my story - many have created their own versions, now I have decided to tell the true story of my life, said Miguel. I am ready to revisit my past and its many aspects that have sparked so much curiosity and speculation. People will travel alongside with me through a surprising, unexpected and emotional journey that has shaped the artist and the person that I am today.The same hook has been used by Netflix, which decided to make the announcement through a short video shared on social media, saying: There are many versions, but only a single truth."Its not the first time Telemundo and Netflix have shared content, as the NBCUniversal company has lately become one of the main sources of US Hispanic series for the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service.Though there are no official premiere dates yet, its likely that Telemundo will the worldwide premiere at some point during 2018 and Netflix will release the full series on demand afterwards. The U.S. Senate has approved the funding of 2,500 additional immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters and support staff who have helped U.S. troops and government officials in Afghanistan. The financing was included as part of a $1.1 trillion bipartisan spending bill that provides funds to keep the U.S. government running through September while lawmakers try to come to an agreement on a new federal budget. The Senate approved the spending bill on May 4 after the House of Representatives passed the bill on May 3. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat-New Hampshire) has called the approval of the 2,500 additional immigrant visas a "potentially life-saving development." The Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program was designed specifically to help Afghans who face threats to their lives from extremists because they have helped the U.S. military or were support staff for the U.S. government in Afghanistan. The International Refugee Assistance Project, a New York-based advocacy group for refugees trying to enter the United States, has estimated that the Taliban or other extremists in Afghanistan kill one Afghan every day who is eligible for protection under the SIV program. But in March, the process for interviewing and vetting Afghan applicants was put on hold. That's because the number of applicants in the final stages of the program already exceeded the 1,437 visas that remained available at the time. Without additional funds for more visas under the program, the U.S. State Department says the remaining visas will run out by the end of May. "Going forward, it's critical that Congress overcome obstruction to this program and regularly replenish the number of visas available to avoid future brinkmanship," Shaheen said on May 1. "The lives of Afghan interpreters and support staff literally hang in the balance." Some 15,000 Afghan applicants are still at some stage of the process under the program. Those who apply include Afghans who have served as translators in the battlefield with U.S. or NATO forces, as well as support staff for intelligence or other operations within U.S. military bases or U.S. government facilities in Afghanistan. In order to qualify, Afghan applicants must go through a difficult and lengthy vetting process that usually takes at least five years and requires letters of recommendation from senior U.S. military officers or U.S. government officials in Afghanistan. Applicants also must be interviewed by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as part of the vetting process before actually receiving the special visas. With reporting by Mark Najarian in Washington Taliban militants captured a district near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on May 6, officials said. Mahfouz Akbari, a police spokesman for eastern Afghanistan, said security forces had pulled out of Qala-i-Zal district, west of Kunduz city, on May 6 after more than 24 hours of heavy fighting. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents had taken police headquarters, the governor's compound, and all security checkpoints. He said several police officers and soldiers had been killed and wounded. Over the past 18 months, Taliban fighters have twice succeeded in seizing the town center of Kunduz for brief periods. In a separate incident, at least four police officers have been shot to death in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province, according to a police official. General Aqa Noor Kentoz, provincial police chief, said on May 6 that all four had been killed the night before at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Kentoz says the four might have been attacked by an insider. An investigation is under way, he said. No one immediately claimed responsibility. According to U.S. estimates, government troops control only some 60 percent of the country, with the rest either controlled or contested by the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster. More than 1,000 members of Afghanistan's security forces have been killed since the start of the year, according to Afghan officials and figures cited by U.S. congressional watchdog SIGAR, along with over 700 civilians. According to the United Nations, some 75,000 people have also been forced to flee their homes in the first four months of the year. Earlier this year, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, said a few thousand more international troops are needed to boost the Resolute Support training and advisory mission and break a "stalemate" with the Taliban. Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa The cruise-missile strike launched by the United States against an air base in Syria in the early hours of April 7 was a specifically targeted attack and not a precursor to war against that Mideast state, according to analysts. The launching of 59 Tomahawk missiles from two U.S. Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea at Syria's western Shayrat Airfield was President Donald Trump's most ambitious military order since becoming president. But analysts said Trumps message with the strikes was likely aimed at stopping the use of chemical weapons, and not a prelude to deeper U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict. "Tonight's strikes may deter Assad, compel Russian cooperation w/ US interests, not lead to deeper US military involvement, Micah Zenko, an expert on military intervention at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an April 7 tweet. "Trump's statement makes it clear U.S. cruise missile strikes are for enhancing [international] norm against CW [chemical weapons] use, not protecting Syrian civilians, he added. The attack, in retaliation for a suspected nerve-gas attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 that killed more than 80 people, was the first U.S. assault explicitly targeting President Bashar al-Assads government in six years of civil war that has killed more than 300,000 Syrians, displaced millions of people, and threatened to pit regional and global powers against each other. "It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," Trump said in announcing the U.S. action. "There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons and violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council. Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed, and failed very dramatically." Trump cited the ongoing refugee crisis and regional instability "threatening the United States and its allies." Officials in Damascus insist their forces did not use chemical agents in Khan Sheikhoun. It remains unclear whether the United States plans to strike further targets in Syria. I suspect it depends also on what President Assad does," Tomas Valasek, director of think tank Carnegie Europe, told RFE/RL. "The trigger for the strike and the reason for the strike was quite obvious. It was obviously to make the point that chemical weapons are not to be used, that they really are off limits. So I suspect that whether force will be used again depends on whether President Assad takes that message to heart or not." Valasek said he doubts the strikes are part of any plan to broaden U.S. involvement on the ground in Syria. Nor does he think it will push the NATO security alliance into action in the region. The U.S. missile attack raised the ire of the pro-Assad Kremlin, which was reportedly informed of the offensive ahead of time, with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling the strikes against a sovereign state a "violation of...international law" that will "inflict major damage" to U.S.-Russia relations, according to spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Russia has lent Assad crucial diplomatic and military support throughout the war, including advanced air-defense equipment and an air campaign by Russian warplanes beginning in September 2015. Russia has a military area at Shayrat Airfield, but Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said precautions were taken by U.S. officials to ensure that area was not hit during the strikes. Russia's Defense Ministry said on April 7 that "a set of measures will be taken in the immediate future to reinforce and raise the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces' air-defense system," according to TASS. Moscow also said it was suspending an agreement with Washington that is aimed at preventing midair incidents over Syria. Many U.S. lawmakers have feared any intervention in Syria could drag American forces deeper into the conflict, a scenario they are loathe to repeat with open-ended commitments with the memories of Iraq still fresh in their minds. "The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again," Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said. "The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated." In being careful to call the strikes "targeted" and "to prevent and deter the spread of chemical weapons," Trumps order may not threaten Assad directly, but it is "still a shock to the regime's system," said Jeff White, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. Andrew Exum, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy, said that while there is still much to be learned over the impact and reasoning behind the strikes, "the U.S. hand in negotiations over the fate of Bashar al-Assad is now strengthened." President Barack Obama in 2013 declined to engage the U.S. military directly in Syria after officials and outside experts concluded that Assad had used chemical weapons in an even deadlier attack on civilians. Obama had warned the Syrian government to avoid crossing a "red line" of "a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." At the time, Trump, a billionaire real-estate developer and reality-TV celebrity, directed tweets at the U.S. president saying "do not attack Syria" and warning "there is no upside and tremendous downside." Trump also argued that "the President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria." "The fact that the Obama administration didnt actually strike Syria when there was a major use of chemical weapons some years ago has been hotly debated since, and frankly Im not surprised by what we have seen," Ian Lesser, an analyst and vice president for foreign policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, told RFE/RL. "It's not so much about Syria, in a sense, as it is about the norms surrounding the use of weapons of mass destruction, and the United States and its allies have a very strong interest in upholding those norms." Still, the strikes caught many observers off-guard, even though they are not the first by U.S. forces in Syria. In September, a military base in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour was targeted. Sixty-two people were killed in the offensive and over 100 government soldiers were wounded. However, the Pentagon said the strike was meant to hit Islamic State (IS) militants and not a government installation, making the last U.S. military operation directed at an Arab government the 2011 intervention in Libya. Nonetheless, the April 7 attacks, which came just 77 days into the Trump administrations tenure, reinforce signals of a major shift in U.S. policy with respect to Assad. As recently as last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested Assads fate should be left to the Syrian people to decide. "Conversations are already under way," Tillerson said just before the strikes. "There would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people." Belarus is believed to have carried out its first execution of the year. Homel resident Syarhey Vostrykau, who was found guilty of rapes and murders involving extreme brutality, was most likely executed last month on either April 13 or April 29, the Belarusian human rights center Vyasna said in a report posted on its website. "Representatives of the group Human Rights Activists Against the Death Penalty in Belarus have learned that the death sentence handed out to Homel resident Siarhei Vostrykau has been carried out. His mother has received a relevant report from the Homel Regional Court," Vyasna said on its website on May 5. Judges in the regional court in the southeastern city of Homel found Vostrykau, 33, guilty in May of last year of kidnapping, raping, and murdering two women in 2014 and 2015. The case was heard behind closed doors. Belarus remains the only country in Europe which still applies the death penalty. The execution is carried out by firing squad. The European Union issued a statement reaffirming "its strong opposition to capital punishment in all circumstances." "The continued application of the death penalty goes counter to Belarus's stated willingness to engage with the international community, including the European Union, on the matter and to consider the introduction of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty," EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said in a May 6 statement. "The European Union urges Belarus...to commute the remaining death sentences and to introduce without delay a moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition," Kocijancic said. Belarus carried out four executions last year. Before 2016, an execution had not been carried out under the Belarusian legal system since November 2014. With additional reporting by TASS and RFE/RL Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said late on May 5 that he is "ready to closely cooperate" with Kremlin officials looking into reports of alleged persecution of gay men in the republic. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier in the day that he would personally "talk to the prosecutor-general and the interior minister" to ask them to help Kremlin rights ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova check out the reports, which have drawn international condemnation. "Chechnya is keen to make it known to Western politicians who speak out on this topic, including Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, that all their statements on the matter are baseless," Kadyrov told Russian media. But while he is ready to cooperate with the investigation, he said, "the West has been inflating this topic," and asserted -- as he has before -- that Chechnya doesn't have any gay people. "Chechen society does not have the phenomenon called nontraditional sexual orientation. Its people have lived for thousands of years according to different rules laid down by Allah," he said. Based on reporting by AP, AFP, TASS, and Interfax Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine. But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown. The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes dual-use technology. The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case. The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war. At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products. But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States. A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers. These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations. To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components. The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China. Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU. "Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL. In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24. "Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions. Chinese Cameras, California Chips Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets. Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media. "The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019. The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components. One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone. Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers. Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military." The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology. Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone. Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication. Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone. Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran." "TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said. Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California. According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions. "This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes. AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. 'No Authorization' Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia." "As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. . But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020. The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries. The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine. BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward." The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes. "For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations." BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines." Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report. Russia has launched multiple suicide drones on Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding people and damaging civilian facilities, the head of the regional military administration said, as fierce battles are under way in the eastern Donetsk region and in the south. "The occupiers attacked the area massively with kamikaze drones. Our air defense destroyed five barrage ammunition. They also attacked the city of Dnipro with drones, targeting a logistics enterprise. Four employees were wounded; three of them are in serious condition in the hospital," Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Russian forces also bombarded the Nikopol district in the region with Grad missiles and heavy artillery. Reznichenko said the shelling damaged private houses, a factory, and a power line, but no one was injured. A fire spread over more than 3,000 square meters but was extinguished, Reznichenko said. Russian troops regularly shell the Dnipropetrovsk region with various types of weapons, in particular the Nikopol, Kryvorizky, and Synelnyk districts. In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed Ukraine will not "surrender a single centimeter of our land" in Donetsk, and he thanked Ukrainian troops who are holding positions in the Donbas region. The epicenter of the battle for the industrial region of Donetsk is around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar, and Avdiyivka. "The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level -- dozens of attacks every day," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on November 8. "They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same: to advance on the administrative boundary of Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimeter of our land," he said. Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it annexed in September following referendums considered a sham by Kyiv and its Western allies. Fighting has taken place there between Ukrainian military and Kremlin-backed separatist forces since 2014, the same year Russia illegally annexed Crimea in the south. Zelenskiy said the goal of the Russian troops is to push to the administrative border of the Donetsk region. "We clearly understand the enemy's plans, so we act accordingly: carefully, thoughtfully, and in the interests of the liberation of our entire territory. We are strengthening our positions, breaking Russian logistics, and consistently destroying the potential of the occupiers to keep the south of our country under occupation," Zelenskiy added. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said the most intense battles were taking place in Bakhmut and Soledar where the Ukrainian military repels dozens of Russian attacks per day. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the region's military administration, said the city of Bakhmut was badly damaged, and there is not a single surviving house in Avdiyivka, Maryinka, or Krasnohorivka. Russian troops are trying to wipe the cities "off the face of the Earth," he said. Fierce fighting was also going on on the edge of the town of Snihurivka, in the southern Mykolayiv region, according to Yury Barabashov, the town's Russian-appointed mayor, as cited by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in the southern Kherson region, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had tried to advance on three fronts, including Snihurivka. Vitaly Kim, the Ukrainian governor of the Mykolayiv region, apparently quoting an intercepted dialogue between Russian troops, suggested Ukrainian forces had already pushed the Russians out of the area. "Russian troops are complaining that they have already been thrown out of there," Kim said in a statement on his Telegram channel. The information could not be independently verified. The Ukrainian military said it destroyed two Russian ammunition depots in southern Ukraine on November 8, one in Snihurivka, and one in Kostromka, in the neighboring Kherson region. WATCH: Paratroopers with Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade say they're holding positions around the small city of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine despite daily Russian attacks. Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists in recent months seeking to stave off an offensive launched by Ukraine to regain Russian-occupied territories. Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said on November 8 that 21 Russian conscripts had surrendered to Ukrainian forces around Svatove in the eastern Luhansk region. "These poor mobilized men -- really poor, they had had nothing to eat or drink in three days -- of course they decided to surrender," Zhdanov said on his YouTube channel. In the southern Kherson region, a battle between advancing Ukrainian forces and the Russian occupiers has been looming for weeks in the city by the same name, the only regional capital Russia has captured intact since its unprovoked invasion in February. Kherson is arguably the most important of the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia says it annexed. It controls both the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also commented on the fighting in eastern Ukraine on November 8. He was quoted by TASS as saying that information released about casualties among Chechen fighters near Lysychansk, a city in the eastern Luhansk region, was false. "Not a single fighter of ours was killed in the aforementioned area," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that he didn't want to comment on "such falsehoods" but found it necessary "to reassure all sane and concerned people." Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, released video footage that it said showed a drone strike obliterating a Ukrainian tank that was hiding in an urban area and shelling Russian troops. "A Russian squad of unmanned aerial vehicles spotted the Ukrainian tank and destroyed it using a precision strike," the ministry said on November 8, according to TASS. The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Russian troops used drones and artillery on November 8 to shell communities along the Sumy region's border with Russia in northeastern Ukraine. The only damage reported was to utility poles. Sumy borders three regions of Russia: Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod. The border regions of Ukraine are regularly shelled by Russia. Neither side's battlefield claims could be independently verified. The Ukrainian military has accused Russian troops of more looting and destroying infrastructure in Kherson. "A convoy of trucks passed over the dam of the Kakhova hydroelectric station loaded with home appliances and building materials," the military said. Russians were dismantling mobile phone towers and taking equipment, it said, adding that near the city of Beryslav, Russian forces "blew up a power line and took equipment from a solar power station." With reporting by Reuters, AP, and CNN Estonia on May 5 said that a Russian passenger plane carrying Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to neighboring Finland briefly violated Estonian airspace this week. The incident on May 3 was the first alleged airpace violation of Estonia, a NATO member, this year after the Baltic nation reported seven similar air intrusions last year. Russia's Foreign Ministry denied any intrusion, saying Lavrov's plane followed a previously agreed route and did not receive any warnings that it strayed from it. But Estonia's military said the plane hadn't filed a flight plan and made no radio contact. Estonian media said the Rossiya Airlines plane briefly traveled over northern Estonia near Vaindloo island, a place where Russian military planes previously have intruded in the past. Estonia's Foreign Ministry sent a note on the incident to Russia's embassy in Tallinn. Most Estonian airspace intrusions have been caused by Russian military aircraft flying in the narrow air corridor from Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad to the Russian city of St. Petersburg. In the past year, NATO and Russia have discussed reducing the risk of air accidents in the crowded skies over the Baltic Sea by agreeing on common practices and using aircraft transponders. Based on reporting by AP and TASS Amid accusations and denials -- of Russian meddling in Frances presidential election, one thing appears likely: At least one and possibly two pro-Kremlin candidates will head into a runoff vote. Though Moscow has constantly denied accusations of interfering in the campaign, a wave of fake news reports and computer hacking attacks on independent Emmanuel Macron, the only major candidate to distance himself from Russia, have brought about a sense of deja vu with last years U.S. elections. French voters head to the ballot boxes on April 23 in the first round of voting with four candidates -- three of whom are pro-Russia -- within a range of 4 percentage points in opinion polls. Macron, a centrist, and nationalist firebrand Marine Le Pen are in the top two spots, but both have lost ground in recent weeks, allowing conservative Republican Francois Fillon and Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, who also both advocate closer ties with Russia, to make the race too close to call. With countries across Europe holding elections this year, concerns of possible meddling by Russia have grown amid claims that Moscow systematically undermined the U.S. presidential election in November, leading to the surprise victory of Donald Trump, the Kremlins supposed preferred candidate. "Were on the brink of potentially having two European countries where Russia is the balance disruptor of their leadership," U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (Republican-North Carolina) said at a news conference on March 29. "A very overt effort, as well as covert in Germany and France, [has] already been tried in Montenegro and the Netherlands." According to an April 19 poll by Cevipof for the newspaper Le Monde, Macron has 23 percent support, followed by Le Pen at 22 percent, Fillon at 19.5 percent, and Melenchon at 19 percent. Adding to the tight race is the fact that an estimated one-quarter of the electorate is undecided. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff on May 7. France would no doubt be seen as an important target in any outside efforts to influence the direction of European politics. Its a pillar of the European Union and a key member of the NATO security alliance, both of which President Vladimir Putin perceives as impediments to Russias influence. Far-right leader Le Pen, the daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, is seen by many as the Kremlins first choice in the race. The 48-year-old has campaigned on an anti-immigration, antiglobalization platform that jibes well with Putins drive to weaken the EU and NATO. Le Pens campaign, which has stressed the need for closer ties to Moscow, has been financed in part by Russian sources and she visited with Putin in the Russian capital on March 24 during the height of the campaign. "[Russia] has provided direct open support for Marine Le Pen in France in the hope that that support would boost her standing in France. It supported forces in Greece and Italy," said David Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute in Washington. "So Russian interference in other countries politics and elections is not a new phenomenon and it has moved beyond just Russias immediate borders." A former prime minister who struck up a friendship with Putin while he was in power, Fillon also wants to put curbs on immigration and has called for an alliance with Russia to battle "Islamic totalitarianism." He also has said he believes the West provoked Russia by expanding NATO so close to its borders and that it is futile for the West to try to convince Russia to leave Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. Once the front-runner, the 63-year-olds campaign has been hurt by reports that he received 50,000 euros ($53,600) for setting up a meeting between a Lebanese billionaire, a French oil executive, and Putin in 2015. Fillons aides have acknowledged the payment but have denied any wrongdoing. Melenchon, a veteran Socialist who has used fiery rhetoric to make a late surge in opinion polls, has advocated a $106 billion tax-and-spend economic program, while also stumping for France to pull out of NATO and renegotiate Frances EU membership terms. He has also supported Russias military operations in Syria and Ukraine. The French government has said it is taking the threat of Russian meddling in the vote seriously, with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warning Moscow in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche that "this kind of interference in French political life is unacceptable." For its part, Moscow has consistently denied any interference. It characterized accusations that it was behind a flurry of cyberattacks in February on the campaign website and e-mail servers of the 39-year-old Macron as "absurd." Russia also denies it interfered in the U.S. presidential campaign in order to help Trump defeat his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. But a U.S. intelligence report concluded the Kremlin had, indeed, attempted to influence the outcome of the November 8 vote, and the U.S. Congress is currently conducting its own investigations. While saying after meeting Le Pen that he wished the candidate luck, Putin was quick to add, We by no means want to influence the current events, but we reserve the right to communicate with all representatives of all political forces of the country, as do our partners in Europe and the United States, for example. Mark Galeotti, senior researcher at the Institute for International Relations in Prague, said that while Le Pen may be the closest candidate to wear the pro-Russia tag, none of the candidates should be seen as a Kremlin proxy. And while Russia would naturally seek to influence the campaign, including through slanted media coverage by French-language Russian news outlets in France such as Sputnik and Russia Today, he doesnt think the meddling has been "especially extensive." "There's also a serious question as to the effect of Russian disinformation. Does it really change many people's minds, or is it essentially recycled by people already disillusioned with mainstream politics?" he said. Voters in France cast their ballots on May 7 in a tense presidential election that could determine whether the country embraces its status as a leading member of the European Union or moves on the path to a "Frexit." The runoff vote comes after a divisive race marked by negative campaigning and a last-minute hacking attack targeting Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister and investment banker who has never held an elected post. Macron, a 39-year-old centrist who topped the first round of the election on April 23, has campaigned on a pro-EU platform while anti-immigration nationalist Marine Le Pen, 48, wants France to leave the 28-nation bloc and abandon the euro currency. Voting began at 8 a.m. in more than 66,000 polling stations. Most will close at 7 p.m., except some in big cities, which will stay open an hour longer. Macron voted in the coastal town of Le Tourquet in northern France alongside his wife, Brigitte Macron. Le Pen, who is looking to post a surprise victory that would come on the heels of Britain's decision to leave the European Union and U.S. President Donald Trump's shock win in November, cast her ballot in Henin-Beaumont, a small northern town controlled by her National Front party. She was able to vote without any incident after feminist activists were briefly detained a few hours earlier for hanging a big anti-Le Pen banner from a church. Turnout stood at 28.23 percent at midday on May 7, down from 30.66 percent at the same point in the 2012 presidential ballot, the Interior Ministry said. Polarizing Campaign The election is the culmination of a polarizing campaign in which Le Pen has portrayed Macron as an elitist who is soft on Islamic fundamentalism and other potential threats to her vision of the French state. "Le Pen's only strategy is to harm Macron, to paint [him] as a globalist candidate whose political approach and policies are dangerous for France," Martin Michelot, deputy director of the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, told RFE/RL. Macron has enjoyed a lead in opinion polls since the first round of the presidential election on April 23, with the former investment banker holding a 62 percent to 38 percent lead over his rival in the polls on May 5 -- the last day of campaigning. "As a matter of fact, the polls haven't moved that much, which indicates the fact that Marine Le Pen has never been able to...impose her themes in the campaign,... the themes that would carry voters towards her," Michelot said. Belgium's Le Soir daily reported on May 7 that Macron had an overwhelming lead at polling stations located in France's overseas territories and in the United States. Macron called Le Pen "the high priestess of fear" at a fiery May 3 debate between the candidates in Paris that the daily Le Monde labeled "brutal" and "violent from start to finish." Accused of being overly emotional during the debate, Le Pen told RTL radio that "my words were nothing but the reflection of the anger that will explode in this country." Macron countered: "Madame Le Pen speaks for no one. Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred." In a sign of how high tensions were running on voting day, the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where Macron was due to speak after the polls close on May 7, was briefly evacuated after a suspect bag was found. Police said they made security checks of the area as a precaution and later added that the situation there had returned to normal. Le Pen, the head of the National Front party founded by her father, has advocated abandoning the euro for the French franc, saying the euro is "the currency of bankers, it's not the people's currency." Macron called his opponent's euro policy "the big nonsense of Marine Le Pen's program." Foreign-Policy Differences While differing on almost every domestic policy, the two candidates also have very divergent views on foreign policy. "Le Pen would want to have a much closer cooperation with Russia on fighting terrorism in the Middle East and also...would reopen lines of political negotiation with Iran which, for example, goes completely counter to the goals of the United States...[and] could lead to a clash with the United States and President [Donald] Trump," said Michelot. "[She] would want to take France out of NATO's military command and she would largely put an end to the French military operations in Africa." Macron's foreign policy would largely be a continuation of the course set by current President Francois Hollande, a Socialist in whose government Macron served as economy minister from 2014 to 2016. "Macron is a politician who has never in his career dealt with [foreign policy] issues...so you can expect lots of predictability on the Macron team," Michelot said, ticking off a list of EU points of emphasis vis-a-vis security and Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine and continuing support of separatists there prompted Western sanctions: "the same strong position on Russia, the importance of respecting the Minsk agreements, on not recognizing the illegal annexation of Crimea," and a strong commitment to NATO. He added that if Le Pen wins the election, "you would have a France that is more shriveled up on itself...which would largely take France outside the liberal world order in which Macron believes." Since the first round of the election -- in which Macron edged Le Pen by 24 percent to 21.3 percent -- the leader of the En Marche! (Forward!) political party has accused Russia of meddling in his election campaign with cyberattacks and has refused to accredit Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik, accusing them of issuing fake news stories. On May 5, Macron's campaign said it had been the target of a "massive" computer hack that dumped its campaign e-mails online 1 1/2 days before voters were due to go to the polls. The documents were spread on social media just before midnight on May 5 in what Macron's team said was an attempt at "democratic destabilization, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States." Moscow has rejected accusations of interfering in the election campaign, as it has rejected similar charges out of Berlin and Washington. Russian Loan Le Pen, whose National Front party received a multimillion-dollar loan from a Russian bank in 2014, has defended Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and has met several times with Russian President Vladimir Putin -- most recently in Moscow in late March. Macron has been endorsed by the overwhelming majority of French politicians, many European leaders, and by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Though claiming not to have endorsed her, Trump has called Le Pen the "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France." Polls showed some 18 percent of French voters were still undecided in the days leading up to the May 7 election. On May 5, dozens of students protested outside of 10 high schools in Paris, holding signs that read, "Neither Le Pen nor Macron, neither the fatherland nor the boss," a reference to the nationalist stances of Le Pen and the pro-business Macron. The French president is elected to a five-year term. There are nearly 48 million eligible voters and turnout is expected to be high, as 77.8 percent of the voters cast ballots in the first round. Russian state media and Kremlin-connected political pundits are hammering home a nearly identical talking point about France's presidential election -- French candidates and the Fifth Republic ain't what they used to be. In the run-up to and aftermath of the April 23 first-round vote, Kremlin-loyal media outlets joined in remarkable unison to declare the candidates unworthy of comparison to former French leaders such as Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mitterrand, and Jacques Chirac. In what resembles a coordinated messaging campaign, television personalities and political analysts have been delivering variants of the same thought and phrasing. "France looks adrift," news anchor and state media executive Dmitry Kiselyov, famous for his colorful anti-West diatribes, declared on election day. "There is no one among the current politicians of the stature of de Gaulle, Mitterrand, or Chirac." The first-round vote sent the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen into a May 7 runoff. Opinion polls show Macron, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow's interference in Ukraine, is favored to defeat Le Pen. Le Pen has spoken positively about Putin and backed lifting EU sanctions against Moscow over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on April 24 that suggestions that the Kremlin wants Macron -- whose campaign has accused Russian media and hackers of trying to undermine his election chances -- to lose are "completely untrue" and "primitive." "We will approach whomever the French choose with respect," Peskov was quoted by the state-run TASS news agency as saying. But Russians who stick exclusively to a Kremlin-friendly outlets might get the impression that France has no one worth voting for. 'New Page In History' Echoing Kiselyov, Vyacheslav Prokofyev of the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta wrote on April 24 that "the current candidates don't compare to the political figures of the not-so-distant past, like Presidents de Gaulle, Mitterrand, and Chirac." A report by state-run Rossia-1 said the same day that Macron had "rejected many decades of French culture" and constituted "a new page in the history of the Fifth Republic." "The golden age -- de Gaulle, [Georges] Pompidou, [Valery] Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand, Chirac -- has been relegated to the history books," the report said. "They have been replaced by politicians of a different stature -- Nicolas Sarkozy and [current French President] Francois Hollande." Will Vernon, a senior producer with BBC News in Moscow, noted similar language delivered by journalist Vadim Glusker of the national NTV network and by the prominent Rossia-1 news anchor Ernest Matskyavichyus. Meanwhile, Frants Klintsevich, a senior member of Russia's upper house of parliament, told Rossiiskaya Gazeta on election day that "the time of colossal figures like General Charles de Gaulle, it seems, is gone for good." And political analyst Aleksei Martynov, who backed Putin's election in 2012, wrote in an op-ed for the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper that France was waiting for its "new de Gaulle." "But he doesn't exist," Martynov wrote on April 24. "There is no such person, no such figure of that stature among the candidates." One of the first examples of this talking point over the past week came from political analyst Timofei Bordachev, program director with the government-sponsored Valdai Discussion Club. He wrote on the Lenta.ru website on April 21 that the French are disappointed there is "no clear figure on the horizon who could compare with the stature of the great presidents of the past -- de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing, Mitterrand, and even Chirac," he wrote. Bordachev, an associate professor with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment about whether he was working from a talking point prepared for him. 'Hands-On Approach' The Kremlin has long denied that it dictates how state-owned media outlets should cover major stories, most recently when Putin's spokesman dismissed reports that it had ordered news outlets to tone down its positive coverage of U.S. President Donald Trump as "complete nonsense." Numerous veterans of Russian state media outlets, however, have publicly described the Kremlin's hands-on approach to influencing news coverage, including at purported regular meetings with senior editors and media executives. Vladimir Frolov, a well-connected political analyst in Moscow, told RFE/RL that this talking point is hitting the wrong notes and that the Kremlin would be wise to prepare for a potential Macron presidency. "They need to open a back channel to Macron through the business lobby," Frolov said. "Perhaps they are shooting already for the parliamentary election in June in the hopes of creating a right-of-center-majority." Frolov added, however, that he has "no idea" what the "actual thinking is" behind the messaging. Gov. Scott Walker kicked off his tour of the states tourism industry in La Crosse on Friday with a visitor center ribbon-cutting on Interstate 90. Walker participated in the event at the rest area and visitor center on French Island, and released highlights from new tourism numbers that show Wisconsin tourism continues to grow. Replacing the rest area that opened in 1977 was a longtime goal of retired La Crosse County Convention and Visitor Bureau Executive Director Dave Clements. Clements worked hard with La Crosses Democratic legislators, Sen. Jennifer Shilling and Rep. Jill Billings to get state support for the project, which included buy-in from the Republican governor in 2014. Construction of the $3.5 million facility began in 2016. It includes a visitors building, restrooms, playground, pet exercise area, picnic tables and seasonal walking paths. Clements attended the ribbon-cutting and said the project was one of the last things on his bucket from his days as tourism director. The facility is a great boon for the state and the city, he said. This is like my little baby here, he said. I couldnt be more proud. Dozens of representatives of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the county visitors bureau and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism and local visitors bureaus packed the rest visitors center for the celebration. During his remarks, Walker spoke about the growth of the tourism industry during his tenure as governor. The tourism industry reached $20 billion in 2016, Walker announced, an increase of more than $5 billion from six years ago. The number of visitors is up as well, with 107.7 million people coming to Wisconsin in 2016. La Crosse had the ninth-largest volume of tourism for the second year in a row, visitor bureau executive director AJ Frels said. And visitor spending rose to more than $248 million. This helps support more than 193,000 tourism industry jobs in Wisconsin, which Walker said were a big boost to the state economy. Tourism isnt just a lot of fun, he said. It is a really important economic impact for the state. Walker again said he was not yet ready to weigh in on the GOP transportation bill. He did speak about the half-cent premier resort area tax La Crosse County voters supported in an April 4 referendum that the La Crosse County Board is pursuing to help fund road improvements. He said he had spoken with Shilling about the proposal, and said he would be looking for a binding referendum from voters as a requirement before he could get on board. The proposal would require legislative approval, and previous tax proposals have included similar referendum requirements. There should be a definitive vote, he said. At a minimum, the taxpayers have to have their say. Opposition parties in Kosovo on May 5 filed a motion of no confidence in the government, in a new attempt to bring down Prime Minister Isa Mustafas coalition government. More than 40 deputies, including 12 from parties that are part of the ruling coalition and some independent members of parliament, signed the motion, which accuses the government of failing to meet its campaign pledges and creating public distrust. Mustafa, whose conservative LDK party is the second-largest in the 120-seat parliament, has enough votes to survive the no-confidence motion if all or most coalition lawmakers support him. Parliament's largest party, the center-right PDK, has yet to give its backing, however. The parliament will debate the motion on May 10. The opposition will need at least 61 of parliament's 120 votes to force Mustafa out. "This is a democratic step that serves the country's benefit. I hope that when the parliamentary session is held the government will be overthrown," said Pal Lekaj, head of the opposition party Alliance for the Future of Kosovo. Fueling the move is opposition to legislation proposed by Mustafa's government to establish a fixed border with Montenegro, a move the European Union has said is needed before it will grant visa-free travel to citizens of Kosovo. Opposition parties say the border deal would transfer some 8,000 hectares of territory, mostly forested highland, to Montenegro. The government and its supporters in the EU and United States say that is not true. In the two years since the border change was proposed along with a raft of other measures aimed at furthering Kosovo's bid to join the EU, opponents have used various tactics to block the legislation. Opposition deputies have frequently disrupted parliament, throwing tear gas within the chamber, while opponents on the street outside staged riots. At one point, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the parliament building. Opposition to the border deal from Mustafa's own coalition members prompted the government to withdraw its bid to pass the legislation in September. It would have needed a two-third's vote to pass. "The situation in Kosovo is not good. I am not happy. People are not happy," said PDK leader Kadri Veseli, who is also the speaker of parliament, after meeting with opposition lawmakers on May 5. Veseli said he would discuss the no-confidence motion with the prime minister. Mustafa has said he will call a snap election if the border deal is not passed soon. With reporting by Reuters and Balkan Insight Turkmenistan is holding a presidential election on February 12. Incumbent Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is seeking to be elected president for the third time, and there is every reason to believe he will succeed. While the result seems guaranteed, the reasons for holding the election are not as immediately obvious. But there are reasons. RFE/RL assembled a Majlis, or panel, to discuss Turkmenistans presidential election: Who the competitors are, how the so-called campaign has progressed, and most importantly, what is at stake for Berdymukhammedov and what, if anything, can we expect from him after he wins a third term in office. Moderating the podcast was RFE/RL Media Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir. From Washington, Victoria Clement, a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, who lived in Turkmenistan and is writing a book on the country, joined the Majlis. Our friend Dr. Luca Anceschi, lecturer in Central Asian studies at Glasgow University in Scotland and author of the book Turkmenistans Foreign Policy: Positive Neutrality And The Consolidation Of The Turkmen Regime, participated. From Prague, Farruh Yusupov, the director of RFE/RLs Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, took part. I had to have my say on this topic, also. There are a few new things about this presidential election. Berdymukhammedov faced five competitors when he was first elected in 2007, seven in 2012, and this time is running against eight opponents. For the first time, two political parties -- the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Agrarian Party -- are participating, though both parties were created precisely so Turkmenistans government could claim it was a multiparty race. And this time the candidates are running for a seven-year term, not five years, as was previously the case. WATCH: Vote-Buying In Turkmenistan? As Yusupov explained, not much is known about Berdymukhammedovs challengers. "We do see limited footage of the other candidates, but without their voices, only the [news] presenter saying that this candidate met with people in this district of this region, and they only show them for a few seconds," he said. Yusupov added, "The election campaign itself was not obvious until three of four weeks ago, almost nothing was published in official media..." Yusupov said that in contrast, "State TV isshowing President Berdymukhammedov running around the country meeting with voters, with different groups of people, giving out gifts, and people saying, not only [they] but their friends and families, 'We will vote for you.'" Clement said, "This is all heavily scripted and the people who participate in the meetings with the candidates are hand-selected by the government, but I think part of the reason the government bothers to do this is so that it can have a veneer of support. It wants to be able to claim a popular mandate." No one outside of Turkmenistan seems fooled by this "heavily scripted" election campaign. Human Rights Watch (HRW) just published a statement about Turkmenistans presidential election, in which it said the country's "appalling human rights record undermines the possibility of a free and fair presidential election." Probably very few inside Turkmenistan are fooled, either. Anceschi spoke for many when he said, "I can no longer make sense of why they keep [holding presidential elections]." Speaking about Berdymukhammedovs second term in office, the one just coming to an end, Anceschi pointed out this sudden interest Berdymukhammedov has in campaigning, in happily meeting voters, and ini making great promises about the future, seems a bit ridiculous. "You cannot have five years of extreme authoritarianism and then have a couple of weeks of democracy," Anceschi said. "It doesnt work like that." So what is driving Berdymukhammedov and state medias newfound enthusiasm for this weekend's presidential election? The answer is the dire economic situation into which Turkmenistan has plummeted in the last two years. Not even in the early days of independence was Turkmenistans economy in as bad a shape as it is today, and though it is impossible to get any sort of accurate poll as to the popularity of Berdymukhammedov, it is surely lower than it was just a few years ago. The panelists agreed that external factors have caused many of the problems Turkmenistan faces today. Natural gas is Turkmenistans major export, and the price of gas is half what it was just a few years ago. There are security problems along Turkmenistans border with Afghanistan, something else for which Berdymukhammedov and his government cannot be blamed. At the start of this year, Turkmenistan lost the second of what were once three gas customers when Turkmen authorities demanded back payments from Iran and cut off gas supplies to that southern neighbor, almost exactly one year after Russias Gazprom said it was canceling its contract for Turkmen gas. Turkmenistans only customer now is China, a country that has loaned Turkmenistan billions of dollars to develop its gas industry and now expects some of the Turkmen gas it is receiving in repayment for those loans. Anceschi said the Turkmen government does bear responsibility for failing to act in the face of all the negative economic indicators. "The economy has been unchanged and this is no longer sustainable," Anceschi explained, adding, "There will have to be a point at which someone in Ashgabat starts telling the president that change needs to come, otherwise the whole house just falls." But with no solutions in sight, the Turkmen people have instead been treated to state television covering events such as "Berdymukhammedov...driving around in his pickup truck, driving to the shepherds in Akhal region [to campaign]," Yusupov noted. Clement said the campaign and the election are not a complete waste of time. "I do think that its worth pointing out that the election process in and of itself is an important stage in a countrys path, and if theyre to progress in any way, this kind of activity needs to be normalized," she said, sounding a possibly optimistic note for the future. Listen to this week's Majlis podcast to hear more about these issues in greater detail and to explore other aspects of Turkmenistans 2017 presidential election, the reasons for it, and what might come next. Listen to or download the Majlis podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes. MOSCOW -- The film, shown at Vladimir State University earlier this week, pulled no punches: charismatic opposition leader Aleksei Navalny is a nationalist, a corrupt criminal, and worst of all, a Nazi. The university students, however, were having none of it, hooting at the presenters trying to convince them of the perils of trusting Navalny and the opposition in its battle against the Kremlin. Is it really OK for you to be comparing Navalny with Hitler? one student is heard asking in a cell phone video posted online. You say we dont know anything about the man, but what do you know about him? Last months massive nationwide protests attracted throngs of young Russians, a move that attracted the attention of many veteran observers of Russian protest movements, and stoked speculation that a coherent opposition may be coalescing around Navalny. That fact appears to have also stoked concern for the Kremlin and its allies, judging by the growing number of incidents at schools where teachers call on young people to shun opposition activities and the so-called fifth column. The video shown in Vladimir, and another slickly produced one anonymously posted on YouTube, suggest also that Russian authorities are opening another line of attack against Navalny. The latter video, titled Hitler 1945/Navalny 2018, zeroes in on Navalnys well-known nationalist tendencies: in particular, his attendance several years ago of Russky March, an annual nationalist parade in Moscow attended by right wing, anti-immigration Muscovites and xenophobic, racist ultranationalists. Amid climactic music, the clip ends with an image of Navalny morphing into a dead Nazi soldier engulfed in flames as the narrator proclaims Navalny to be "doomed" because "a political corpse starts to decompose as soon as he raises his arm in a Nazi salute." On the same day the video was posted to YouTube, the independent channel TV Rain cited four unnamed officials as saying the Kremlin had decided to launch a coordinated campaign to discredit Navalny. After the video was posted, Navalny supporters took to social media networks to scoff at the logic of comparisons with Hitler, and the clip's conspiratorial tone. Hitler had a moustache, Navalny doesnt: he shaved specially so no one would guess hes Hitler. What more evidence do you need? one Twitter user, Boris Fogel, posted. Oleg Kozyrev, a media analyst and writer, posted a parody video in response, comparing Navalny with Gandhi. Another Twitter user wrote mockingly: Navalny observes fasts. Do you know who else doesnt eat meat? HITLER! Valery Solovey, a Moscow-based political analyst, criticized the authors of the smear video. "Stupidity or treachery? The campaign against Navalny is an absolute fail. ALL the possible mistakes have been made. NOT ONE single correct step was taken." Russias famously-fractious opposition has been targeted by smear campaigns in the past, many of which have been effective. One year ago, Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who is now an opposition leader, was secretly filmed having sex with his assistant. The video was broadcast on the national NTV station, causing divisions in Kasyanovs party ahead of parliamentary elections. As of April 20, the YouTube video comparing Navalny to Hitler had garnered about 1.5 million views. The vast majority of responses, however, were negative: 11,000 liked the video, while 10 times as many -- 113,000 -- disliked it. By contrast, a film Navalnys organization made about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev -- asserting that Medvedev used charity and nonprofit organizations to collect donations from oligarchs and state banks -- has garnered 19.45 million views since being posted on YouTube on March 2. TV Rains sources said the decision to smear Navalny was taken because of the success of the Medvedev video, which has dented his popularity in recent weeks. Navalny has said he intends to run for the presidency next year and is hoping he can overturn an earlier criminal conviction which currently rules him out of the race.President Vladimir Putin is expected to do run -- and to coast to victory. On April 19, meanwhile, Medvedev denounced the allegations leveled in the Navalny film, telling the lower house of parliament that they were the absolutely lying product of political rogues." He did not name Navalny. More than 30 people have been injured in a fire in a 40-story apartment house in southwestern Moscow, Russian news agencies reported on May 6, quoting sources in the local ambulance service. Eleven people were taken to hospitals. "A total of 31 people, including six children, sought medical attention. Of these, 11 people were taken to hospitals, including two children," the sources said. The fire in the 40-story building, which began late on May 5, was fully extinguished about 90 minutes later. A source in the Russian Emergencies Ministry's Moscow Directorate said that rescuers had evacuated 155 people. The incident comes after a major fire on March 22 in an apartment building in the northeast of Moscow killed two people and injured 19. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax MOSCOW -- Any hopes that Kremlin opponent Aleksei Navalny may have had for a dramatic photo-op following his release from jail were effectively quashed by his longtime nemesis: the Russian authorities. Navalny, a prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin whose recent arrest drew international condemnation, was freed on April 10 after serving a 15-day sentence in connection with an anticorruption demonstration he organized in Moscow. But as reporters, camera crews, supporters, and a few detractors waited for him to exit a holding facility in northwestern Moscow, a key Navalny aide informed the crowd that he had learned of a last-second change in plans. Leonid Volkov, head of Navalnys anticorruption foundation, told the gathering that Navalny had called him and said he had been taken to another police station in Konkovo, in southern Moscow. "They released him precisely at 2:28 p.m. (1128 GMT), as they should have. Apparently [authorities] got scared or something," Volkov said. Volkov likened the move to another switcheroo in December 2011, when Navalny was moved to a different facility shortly before his release after a jail term connected to protests he helped lead against parliamentary elections marred by fraud allegations. This time around, there was some initial confusion about Navalny's whereabouts, with his spokeswoman saying shortly after his release that his associates "haven't been able to get in contact with him." But shortly before 4 p.m. Moscow time, a freed Navalny tweeted out a photograph of himself with the caption: "Hello everyone." Navalny said in a post on his website that he was taken to the Konkovo precinct at around noon for a "prophylactic conversation" with police prior to his release. "No one gave me a chance to warn anyone (apologies to those who were waiting for me)," he wrote. "And I didnt have any money, keys, or a telephone." He said that after his release a police officer allowed him to call his wife and then drove him to a subway station and bought him a ticket. Navalny was sentenced on March 27, one day after he was arrested near the site of the anticorruption demonstration he organized in central Moscow, where more than 1,000 people were detained. The government says the protest was illegal because it had not been authorized by city authorities, and contends that it disrupted public order. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in dozens of cities across Russia on March 26, the largest street protests against the government since a series of rallies in 2011-2012 that Navalny helped lead. Russia's response to the demonstrations drew criticism from both Washington and Brussels, with the U.S. State Department saying it was "troubled" by Navalny's detention and that "detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values." The EU called on Russia to allow people "basic freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the criticism, accusing the West of applying a "double standard" concerning protests in Russia. Navalny has been aggressively raising his profile nationwide in recent months ahead of his planned run for president in March 2018. That election is widely expected to result in a new six-year term for Putin. Navalny has been setting up campaign offices across the country, though he may be prevented from running if his appeal against a felony conviction is rejected. Navalny has twice been convicted and handed suspended sentences in separate criminal cases involving fraud and financial-crimes allegations. He denies the charges, calling them Kremlin-orchestrated retribution for his political activism. The March 26 protests that Navalny spearheaded followed an investigative report by his anticorruption organization alleging that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has used corrupt practices to amass pricey assets such as luxury real estate in Russia and abroad. Both the Kremlin and Medvedev have brushed off Navalny's investigation. Medvedev last week for the first time responded to Navalnys report, calling the allegations "rubbish" and "nonsense" but not offering specifics. With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service in Moscow. It's a place where a toddler can be thrown in jail for crimes committed by a tribe member; where people can spend years behind bars without ever being charged; and where the authorities can oust entire communities from their homes without explanation. Justice in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is a throwback to another era -- a colonial one. For more than a century, human and legal rights have taken a back seat under a set of laws introduced by the British Raj in 1901 in an effort to bring resistant Pashtun tribes on a contested frontier to heel. But now plans are in motion to bring residents of the restive region along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan under the umbrella of the central government by ending the old legal system, offering voting rights and greater government representation, and raising living standards. The inclusive approach, in theory, will end FATA's isolation and help lure locals away from joining the various militant groups that thrive there. Legal 'Black Hole' A number of tribes voluntarily agreed to the laws, known as the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) when they were introduced. But the system did not die with the end of British colonial rule -- it was incorporated into Pakistan's legal system upon its founding in 1947, and remains more or less intact today. Residents of the seven tribal areas that make up FATA have suffered immensely under the system, and have seen few of the benefits of being part of a state. They were granted only minimal political representation; were not allowed to vote in national elections; infrastructure modernization such as electrification largely passed them by; unemployment rates jumped to as high as 80 percent; and millions have been displaced by fighting and natural disasters. The FCR was originally intended to quell fierce Pashtun opposition to the British Indian empire in the late 19th century. The system gave unchecked power to tribal leaders, who were given partial autonomy in exchange for quelling rebellion and protecting British interests. The FCR suppressed the locals while keeping the area extremely isolated. The British created FATA and the neighboring Northwest Frontier Province (known today as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province) as a buffer zone following the creation of a 2,400-kilometer border with Afghanistan known as the Durand Line in 1893. The border, which Kabul does not recognize to this day, divided the Pashtun tribes who lived in the region. The draconian laws allowed the British Raj -- and later presidentially appointed bureaucrats known as "political agents" -- to punish an entire tribe for the crime of an individual, jail residents for up to three years without cause, and forcibly relocate people and have their property searched and seized. In one notorious case, a 2-year-old was jailed in 2004 along with her mother and two siblings for a crime committed by the girl's father. In another, the entire Mehsud tribe was subjected to collective punishment in 2009 after the government moved against the Pakistani Taliban, which was led by 35-year-old tribesman Baitullah Mehsud. The political agent in FATA's South Waziristan tribal agency ordered the detention of tribe members and the seizure of their property. The lack of formal law and writ of the state in FATA has led many activists to label the area a "black hole." For residents of FATA, the proposed reforms are essential to establishing law and order, and ridding their homeland of the moniker. Nation-Destroying Sayid Kabir has been incarcerated numerous times in FATA without charge or explanation. "I was put in jail seven times under the FCR," says the 37-year-old, who now lives in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, under which FATA would be subsumed under the reforms. "I did not commit any crime. I only protested for more provisions of water and electricity in my community." It's a common story in FATA. Former resident Qayum Afridi says he was jailed for years in dismal conditions. The FCR, he says, "destroyed us" and must be abolished. If and when the reforms go into effect, he may get his wish. Supporters of the proposed changes have staged several protests calling for the government to adopt the reforms immediately. The reforms, recommended by the government-appointed FATA Reforms Committee, were approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his cabinet on March 2. Pakistan's president also endorsed the reforms. For the reforms to take effect, the plan approved by the government on March 2 must now be codified as a draft constitutional amendment that requires approval by two-thirds of the lawmakers in both chambers of Pakistan's bicameral legislature. There are 104 members of the upper chamber of Pakistan's parliament, the Senate, and 342 lawmakers in the lower chamber, the National Assembly. In 2016, both chambers of Pakistan's legislature approved a draft version of the plan. Under the plans, FATA would be merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province within five years. The jurisdiction of Pakistan's national courts would be extended to FATA, and tribal law enforcement would be incorporated into the national security forces. The merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would also give FATA access to Pakistan's main parliamentary body, the National Assembly, something it was denied under the FCR. Afrasiab Khattak, a senator and the president of the secular Awami National Party (ANP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, says the reforms would bring about significant change. "If properly implemented the reform package for mainstreaming FATA can not only empower the local population by providing them with the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution but can also bring the area under full state control and deprive the terrorists from enjoying the safe heavens in the area," he said. Only Closer To Fine Others say the planned changes, collectively known as the Riwaj Act, do not go far enough. Mustafa Qadri, a Pakistani human rights activist, says the proposed reforms are "far from perfect," but can be an "important step toward a new, positive phase in FATA's history." "There are other concerns with the proposed legal setup in FATA: enshrining so-called 'tribal laws' into legislation is a recipe for further abuse of rights," Qadri notes. He refers to the "jirga" legal system in which unelected tribal councils dominated by elders mete out justice. Qadri says this system is "dominated by political interests" and fails to meet "even elementary aspects of international fair-trial standards." Under the reforms, the jirga system would work in tandem with Pakistani courts, which would have jurisdiction in the area, thereby creating an opening for disputes. Qadri also says that women are excluded from defending themselves under the patriarchal system in which tradition-bound village elders decide their fates. This, he says, has made them particularly vulnerable to rulings that allow sexual and other forms of abuse to be perpetrated with impunity. He also laments that under the changes the country's powerful military -- which has been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and torture during recent campaigns in the region -- is still above the law and will retain sweeping powers. FATA is a heavily militarized area where around 100,000 Pakistani troops are stationed. Mohammad Taqi, a U.S.-based Pakistan political analyst, says there are major constitutional, political, and administrative challenges that must be addressed before the changes go into effect, but that the plan is doable. "All tribal agencies and frontier regions are contiguous to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa," he says. "Expanding the administrative machinery will be a major task but not an insurmountable one." Divided Over Reforms FATA residents appear to be divided over the proposed reforms, although a majority want to eradicate the FCR and merge with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The FATA Research Center, an Islamabad-based nonprofit organization, conducted a poll in February that found that 68 percent of respondents approved of abolishing the FCR; 74 percent of respondents (54 percent fully; 20 percent partially) endorsed merging FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, 26 percent of residents wanted FATA restructured into separate province. This is in keeping with the positions of some religious and nationalist political groups that have voiced opposition to the reforms, saying the changes could undermine local tribal traditions and Islamic law that is dominant in FATA. In March, five tribal leaders challenged the proposed reforms in the Supreme Court, saying they were "illegal and unconstitutional." The tribal leaders noted that only the president, and not the prime minister, can decide a merger of the tribal areas even though the president has already backed the reforms. They said a jirga should decide on the merger. One of the most prominent critics of the proposed reforms is Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a hard-line Islamist who leads the largest faction of the Jamiat-e Ulema Islam (Society of Muslim Clerics, JUI). Mainly led by traditional Sunni clerics, the JUI wants to turn Pakistan into a Shari'a state. Rehman has accused Islamabad of "bulldozing their wishes" upon FATA's residents. Another critic is Mahmood Achakzai, the head of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, who has also alleged that Islamabad is enforcing changes in FATA without the consent of residents. Both men have been accused of opposing the reforms for personal and political gain. What would prompt a group of Pakistani university students to turn on a classmate, strip him naked, and beat him to death on the grounds of their campus? Investigators are still seeking answers to that very question, but Mashal Khan's outspoken views and social-media presence offer some possible clues. The mob that lynched Khan on April 13 accused the 23-year-old of posting "blasphemous content" online, a crime that is punishable by death in Pakistan under colonial-era laws that have long been criticized by human rights groups. Blasphemy is a highly serious and sensitive charge, and even unproven allegations can lead to vigilante justice, including mob lynchings and violence. Twenty-two people have been arrested so far over the killing, and police have said they have found no evidence to prove that Khan had committed blasphemy. Khan, a journalism student at Abdul Wali Khan University in the northwestern city of Mardan, was an outspoken critic of conservative Islam and an apparent admirer of communist revolutionaries and controversial national figures. The walls of his dorm room were adorned with posters of Karl Marx, Argentinian Marxist Che Guevara, and Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, who was assassinated in 2006. Well-Read, Intelligent Those who met Khan describe him as a well-read and intelligent student who openly professed his Islamic faith. Yet he also questioned the role of religion in society, condemned sectarian violence, and was an open admirer of the region's pre-Islamic culture. His outspokenness led RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal to invite him to participate in its Voice Of The Youth program just weeks before his death. In his March 24 appearance on the show, Khan was critical of Pakistan's political system and censorship in the country. WATCH: Funeral For Student Lynched Over Blasphemy Allegation Khan, who studied engineering for four years at the Moscow Business School in Russia, said he returned to his homeland to serve and enlighten his people. "My mind opened after I started reading," said Khan, who was a fervent student of Western philosophy. "I began to understand the root of our problems in Pakistan." Khan, who had traveled widely in Europe, was fiercely opposed to the feudal system still dominant in some areas of Pakistan. He was an advocate of social equality and was a self-confessed admirer of humanism, which places importance on the individual over the divine. He also lamented peoples' lack of knowledge of the region's pre-Islamic history. "We have thousands of years of history. We were once worshipping fire," he said, referring to Zoroastrianism, a religion that was dominant in the region before the spread of Islam in the 7th century. Attracting Threats And Abuse Khan shared his views online, especially on Facebook, attracting abuse and threats from deeply conservative Muslims. He posted photos of the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong, and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, better known as Bacha Khan(Frontier Gandhi), who advocated for the rights of his fellow Pashtuns in the British Raj in the early 20th century. Khan knew he had made enemies with teachers and other students for his secular views and for not following a religious code of life or attending Friday prayers. Khan appeared to be aware that he could be accused of blasphemy, sharing a post in December 2016 that warned his followers that fake accounts had been created in his name. "[They are] trying to blackmail me," he warned, adding that "someone is trying to taint my image." The brutality of the attack shocked the Pakistani public and led to widespread condemnation, including from prominent Islamic clerics. WATCH: Students Want 'Radical Elements' Expelled After Killing Graphic video footage of the killing showed dozens of men outside the dorm kicking and hurling objects at a body sprawled on the ground. Rights activists have held protests in several Pakistani cities to condemn the killing, and the United Nations has called the killing "unacceptable." On April 18, Pakistan's parliament passed a resolution calling for the reform of blasphemy laws, the first time it has ever done so. At least 65 people have been killed by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990. At age 17, Tahira Muhammad attends college, teaches English, and designs software for her local government in Pakistan's Swat District. The young coder was struggling to pay for her studies, but after RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal first reported on her work, donors stepped up to support Tahira and her mother. PLEASANTVILLE, Iowa, When 60-year-old Owen Golay talks about the two Confederate flags he flies in his front yard, he sounds like many Southern defenders of such symbols. It stands for heritage; its a part of our history, Golay said. But its not really his history. Golay lives in rural Pleasantville, Iowa, about 40 miles from where he was born. He still carries a small Confederate flag that his father gave him as a child. But aside from some people way back in his family tree who fought on both sides in the Civil War, he has no real ties to the South. Golay says his interest in Civil War history and symbols deepened during the Obama administration, when he felt President Obama was overstepping his executive authority. He says he feels a resonance today with 19th century Southerners resistance to what they saw as federal overreach. Those people were fighting for states rights, and the freedom to make their own way and to choose their own way against a tyrannical federal government, Golay said. Owen Golays friend Bruce Peterson, 65, shares his fascination with Civil War history and memorabilia. Peterson spent part of his childhood in Louisiana, but now he lives about an hour away from Golay in the small town of Earlham, Iowa, where he sometimes flies the Confederate flag. During a recent visit to his friends front porch, Peterson says most of the Iowans hes known who are into Confederate symbols also feel a solidarity with the Confederate South. They wanted their independence, they wanted a smaller government. I find that a lot in people, its just that rebelliousness, Peterson said. Golay insists the South was misunderstood, and rejects the consensus among professional historians that slavery was the primary driver of the Civil War. He says the flag isnt about race for him. As far as the racism goes, I dismiss it, because Im not racist whatsoever. That flag doesnt mean that to me, Golay said. But it does for many others, including historian Randal Jelks, professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. Jelks says the Confederacy was set up to protect slavery, and its flags will always represent that. It is about a certain way of life that people have a nostalgia about, and thats always dangerous, Jelks said. Because as I tell my kids all the time, the good old days werent as good as people claim they were, they just imagine them to be. Still, that nostalgia seems to be growing. Last year, there were reports of several incidents where supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump displayed Confederate symbols at pro-Trump events nationwideincluding in the North. In one case, a police officer in Traverse City, Mich. was forced to resign after pulling up to an anti-Trump rally in a truck displaying a Confederate flag. Protestors said he revved his engine at them. They have sort of appeared in places that I didnt ever imagine them to be, said Jim Downs, a history professor at Connecticut College and author of Sick From Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Hes also observed an increase in Confederate symbols north of the Mason-Dixon line. Downs grew up and went to college in Philadelphia, and says he doesnt remember ever seeing those symbols in his youth. He now notices them on the backs of trucks and in dormitory windows far outside the Deep South. The Confederate flag as a symbol has sort of appeared throughout the North, and its actually quite contradictory to the whole point of what it represents, Downs said, noting that many Northerners died defending the Union in the Civil War. Sales of Confederate memorabilia underline the northward trend. Dewey Barber, owner of Dixie Outfitters in Odum, Ga., which sells a variety of items, from coasters to tote bags emblazoned with Confederate symbols, estimates only about 5 percent of his customers were Northerners when he started his business three decades ago; now they make up about 20 percent. Barber credits the Internet and alternative media with spreading interest in Southern history and Confederate symbols beyond the former Confederate states. The rebel flag is a manifestation of that, I think. Its taken on a larger meaning and its not just from people that live in the South anymore, Barber said. Barber says he saw a 10-fold spike in sales after a white supremacist known for his embrace of the Confederate flag shot and killed nine people in a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. He says he was disturbed by the murders, but says the controversy was great for business. Alexandre Grant was relaxing in his Moscow hotel room last week, watching one of the cookie-cutter political talk shows on Russian state TV in which pro-Kremlin pundits slap down straw men brought on to defend the West. Grant, a Russian-language journalist who has covered crime in New York for decades, noticed a familiar face among the punching-bag panelists: Gregory Vinnikov, a Soviet emigre who ran a successful travel agency in Manhattan before allegedly stiffing clients and fleeing the country in 2012. "I was very surprised," Grant tells RFE/RL. "But at first I can't see in what capacity he's there. He's talking, defending Trump, explaining why America is right. And then I see written there 'Greg Vainer, Journalist, United States of America.'" Vinnikov's reappearance -- under a new name -- as a pro-American analyst has created a buzz among Russian-language social-media users, including political junkies mocking state-TV tropes and emigrants in the United States recalling claims that he absconded with his clients' money. The furor was kicked up on April 25 when Gennady Katsov, a veteran Russian-language journalist in New York, recounted Grant's discovery in a wry Facebook post noting Vinnikov's scandal-ridden past and his transformation into a Western counterbalance in television debates. "As Grant noted with irony, 'He represented the U.S. position on Russian television commendably,'" Katsov wrote. "After that, who would dare say that Russian television is biased?" Prime-Time Punching Bag Russian political talk shows in recent years have regularly featured analysts and journalists -- including foreigners -- to take on pro-government voices in debates that frequently descend into shouting matches and, sometimes, actual fisticuffs. Perhaps the most recognizable is Michael Bohm, a U.S. political watcher and former opinion editor with The Moscow Times whose demand on such programs skyrocketed in 2013 after he angered his opponents and the audience by calling Russia "primitive" on the issue of gay rights. The respected Russian television critic Irina Petrovksaya earlier this month described Bohm as "a pear being smooshed by repeated blows" during his appearances. Bohm has said he is trying to challenge misconceptions about the United States and U.S. policy. Kremlin supporters defend the shows as an example of free speech, while critics say the format is aimed at giving a veneer of pluralism while legitimizing Kremlin policies. Exactly how Vinnikov, 59, became a go-to foreigner on the Russian political talk-show circuit remains unclear. A native of St. Petersburg, he emigrated to Canada in 1980 and later moved to the United States, where, Grant says, he initially sold frames for eyeglasses by telephone before embarking on a career in journalism. Vinnikov, who did not respond to a Facebook request for comment, later launched a travel agency based in Manhattan that, according to clients and acquaintances, thrived by offering cheap airfare, visas, and hotel bookings. In 2012, however, Vinnikov effectively vanished, allegedly leaving numerous clients in the lurch. Vladimir Kozlovsky, a well-known Russian-language journalist in New York, says he lost $1,000 for a plane ticket he'd purchased through Vinnikov's company. Kozlovsky, who counted Vinnikov as a friend, wrote in 2012 that his disappearance "saddened me deeply." Grant tells RFE/RL that dozens of Vinnikov's clients contacted him after the businessman left for Russia and asked him to help them get a criminal case launched. Brooklyn prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to go on but that a civil suit would be possible, Grant says. "It didn't go anywhere," Grant adds, noting that Vinnikov had an excellent business reputation before he left the country. "They didn't have the enthusiasm to pursue it." Katsov, the journalist whose Facebook post this week ignited the commotion over Vinnikov, claimed in a 2012 article that the travel agent had called him, saying he'd put his apartment up for sale and pledging to "return all the money to people." Enter 'Greg Vainer' Vinnikov began making appearances on national Russian television as "Greg Vainer" as early as November 2016, following U.S. President Donald Trump's victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. He has made six appearances on the show Open Studio on the St. Petersburg-based Channel 5, owned by a holding company controlled by Yury Kovalchuk, a longtime associate of Putin who was sanctioned by Washington over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. During his spots on the show, Vinnikov has pontificated on Ukrainian politics -- taking some light ribbing for boasting that he is Facebook friends with former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk -- as well as on the conflict in Syria and Trump. Vinnikov, whom Open Studio host Inna Karpushina identified as a member of the Republican Party, has repeatedly defended the U.S. president and spoken positively about Trump's policy proposals, including the controversial construction of a wall along the Mexican border. Karpushina did not respond to a request for comment about Vinnikov sent to her account with the popular Russian social-networking site VKontakte. Vinnikov last week also appeared on the popular Sunday evening talk show on state-owned Rossia-1 hosted by Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russia's most famous television personalities. Vinnikov's appearances on Channel 5 have been largely free of the yelling, interruptions, and stern rebukes that punctuate the most popular political talk shows on the two major state television networks and the Kremlin-loyal network NTV. But Vinnikov got a dose of this debate style in his appearance on the talk show First Studio, broadcast on April 18 on state-owned Channel One. During the program, which was focused largely on Washington's escalating standoff with North Korea, he was shouted down as he argued that the United States was the "guarantor of democracy" in the world. Following Katsov's Facebook post, which was accompanied by a screenshot from Vinnikov's Channel One appearance, Vinnikov took to his own Facebook page to defend his use of the journalist moniker. He posted several links to interviews he'd done more than a decade ago with Russian-language media outlets, including the respected Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy. "I think it's enough to convince of my 30 years of journalistic experience," he wrote. He did not explain why he was using the name "Greg Vainer." Amid the controversy over Vinnikov's reemergence in the public eye, Facebook users recalled both his controversial U.S. business dealings and his new role in the Russian political landscape. One Facebook user claimed to have lost $900 to Vinnikov, but that the businessman still clicks the "like" button on his Facebook posts. The prominent Russian journalist Oleg Kashin, meanwhile, weighed in with: "The new Michael Bohm!" Solovyov, for his part, appeared to defend Vinnikov's credentials, saying on Twitter: "He's an American citizen. Worked in the media in the U.S. So what kind of journalist is he?" Want to avoid the censor's wrath for offending the Russian Orthodox faithful? Don't suggest Russia's last tsar preferred a ballerina with a face like a "rat" to the "classic European" beauty of his tsarina. That's a conclusion endorsed by a Russian lawmaker trying to quash the release of an upcoming biopic focused on a love affair between the future Tsar Nicholas II and a teenaged ballet dancer. Natalya Poklonskaya, a former Moscow-installed prosecutor-general in Crimea and current member of parliament, escalated her battle this week, saying she has handed prosecutors an analysis by four "experts" who denounce the film, Matilda, as a sordid smear against Nicholas and Russian Orthodoxy. Among the myriad complaints levied against the film by the authors of the report is that the ballerina at the center of the story, Matilda Kshesinskaya, was too ugly for the tsar. Directed by Aleksei Uchitel, the film is slated to be released in October but has already stirred outrage among conservatives in Russia over trailers featuring steamy scenes between the characters of Nicholas and Kshesinskaya. WATCH: Trailer For Matilda (In Russian, No Subtitles) Poklonskaya, a member of President Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party, has said the film "scorns our saints," a reference to the canonization of Nicholas and his family as Russian Orthodox saints in 2000, eight decades after they were executed by the Bolsheviks. She has also said it "clearly" stokes religious hatred and has asked Russia's prosecutor-general to investigate whether the film violates a controversial law allowing the imprisonment of those convicted of offending the sensibilities of religious believers. 'Utterly Homely' Poklonskaya, who was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2014 in connection with Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, said that she submitted the analysis of the trailers and the screenplay by three academics to the Prosecutor-General's Office, and she has posted a copy of the report online. The 39-page document concludes that public showings of the film would be "completely unacceptable," alleging that it disparages "the human dignity of Russian Orthodox believers" and "deeply insults their religious sensibilities." Among the numerous complaints in the report, the four authors say the film portrays Nicholas as a dullard and criticize the choice of German actor Lars Eidinger to play the tsar, citing his previous work in the 2012 Peter Greenaway film Goltzius and the Pelican Company, which they call "pornographic." They also say the film perpetuates the "myth" of "passionate romantic relations and (repeatedly consummated) sexual relations" between Kshesinskaya and Nicholas, who in 1894 married the German princess who became Empress Aleksandra. The authors, all men who claim decades-long careers in academia, appear to be baffled that Nicholas could have embarked on an affair with Kshesinskaya, at one point veering off into a dissection of her appearance. They write that the film builds a "negative image" of the tsar by having his character choose "an utterly homely" woman, qualifying this assessment by saying it is based on "classic European and, in part, Russian perceptions of female beauty." The authors write that old photographs show Kshesinskaya, who had a Polish father, with "protruding, crooked teeth," an "ungainly figure," and a face that "resembled a mouse or a rat." This, they write, "contrasts with the objectively classic, vibrant European beauty" of Empress Aleksandra. For good measure, the report adds that the choice of Polish actress Michalina Olszanska to play Kshesinskaya does not mitigate this alleged smear of Nicholas. While Olszanska has "satisfactory looks," audiences will associate the tsar with the real Kshesinskaya, the authors write. The report is kinder to future viewers of the film. Noting that the analysis is based on the trailers and a copy of the screenplay for Matilda, the authors note throughout the document that they are avoiding revealing spoilers. 'Hysterical Sectarianism' Commenting on the document, Uchitel, the film's director, told Current Time TV in an interview this week that "there's something terribly feeble-minded and obscurantist when a love story is considered shameful." "As if romantic relationships are banned by some religion," he told the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. "You know, all of this resembles some kind of hysterical sectarianism, and it seems to me there's nothing to discuss here." Addressing Poklonskaya's beef with Matilda, Uchitel said not even he was in a position to offer a final judgement on the film given that it hasn't been released. "I haven't seen the film. She hasn't either," he said. That echoed a comment by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who noted on April 17 that Matilda had not yet been released, "as far as I understand the situation." "And trying to judge a film that isn't finished is strange, to say the least," Peskov said. On April 19, Uchitel filed a complaint with the ethics committee of Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, where Poklonskaya has served as a deputy since October 2016, the RBK news agency reported. He wrote in the complaint that Poklonskaya, who was widely mocked last month for claiming that a bust of Nicholas in Crimea was seen weeping on the centennial of his abdication, had "potentially" violated parliamentary ethics with her "baseless" accusations against him, RBC said. MOSCOW -- A decision by the Russian prosecutor-general to blacklist three foreign-registered organizations tied to former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky could restrict the opposition's options in looming elections. The government on April 26 officially added the U.K.-registered Open Russia and Open Russia Civic Movement and the U.S.-based Institute of Modern Russia to the list of "undesirable" foreign organizations whose activities are banned in Russia. The Russia-registered Open Russia organizations are not directly affected by the decision. However, Maria Baronova, head of the Moscow branch of the Russian Open Russia group, reported on April 27 that law enforcement officials were nevertheless searching her group's offices. The moves against the Khodorkovsky organizations, analysts say, could hamper Open Russia's election-related activities. "Clearly this decision was made on the eve of the next election campaign, as well as with an eye toward all the subsequent elections," said Nikolai Mironov, head of the Moscow-based Center for Economic and Political Reform. "Open Russia has already begun work preparing for the September municipal elections in Moscow, and these elections are a stepping stone toward the Moscow mayoral election in 2018. Candidates will need the support of municipal deputies in order to get on the ballot." Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to seek a fourth term as president in an election slated for March 2018. "This campaign can also be viewed as a preparatory stage for the upcoming federal elections -- the presidential election and the next round of Duma elections," Mironov said. The government's decision to blacklist the foreign Khodorkovsky entities means that they will be unable to conduct training or consultations or provide organizational or financial support to any candidates or election-monitoring organizations. By restricting such opposition activities, Mironov argued, the government reduces its own need to abuse so-called administrative resources or to falsify results. "All three organizations are registered outside of Russia," Moscow-based political consultant Vycheslav Smirnov said, "so they didn't really have legal grounds to operate in Russia. Most likely, we are talking about the financing of political processes or of concrete politicians by these organizations." The prosecutor-general's move against the foreign Open Russia groups comes as the local Open Russia is organizing a national protest in Russia against corruption on April 29, aimed at keeping up momentum generated by large demonstrations organized by opposition politician Aleksei Navalny in late March. Organizers of the April 29 protest say it will proceed as planned. The protests have been approved in 11 cities, although not in Moscow or St. Petersburg. One of the leading demands of the protest is a call for Putin, who has ruled Russia since 2000, not to seek another term. Human rights lawyer Natalya Taubina told RFE/RL that the government's decision could complicate the work of the Russian Open Russia group, as activists could be detained under suspicion of "working for an undesirable organization," a potentially criminal offense. "And then there would be the long and complicated process of proving that the Russian Open Society is not connected to the three organizations on the 'undesirable' list and that the protest call was made by individual people and not by the English or American organizations, and so on," Taubina said. "If you want to guess how judges might respond to this, just look at how they respond to the defense arguments in cases of organizations blacklisted as 'foreign agents' or in cases of people detained at demonstrations." Aleksandr Solovyov, head of the Russian Open Russia group, said the blacklisting could have an impact on his organization despite the lack of a legal tie to the blacklisted groups. "Unfortunately, considering that Russia has an almost complete absence of the rule of law," Solovyov told Current Time TV, a project of RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. "In fact, the fact that it is possible to take illegal actions against any organization is exactly what the Open Russia movement is fighting against." MOSCOW -- Keri Guggenberger describes her old life as "apolitical" and "girly" -- chilling out in her pink-walled apartment with her six cats, going to the gym, and saving up for beach holidays in the Mediterranean. But after her home was targeted for demolition as part of a program to raze Soviet-era housing blocks known as "Khrushchyovki," the 35-year-old IT manager transformed overnight into the consummate street activist. She now oversees a resistance group on Facebook that boasts 20,000 members and has earned her enemies. With surprising calm, she recounts how she was assaulted last month near her home -- hit in the back by assailants who fled after threatening to "beat out her spirit" to campaign. "They tried to scare me, but it didn't work," she says. "They want to take away what is most valuable to me. I could now lose my only property, which I earned through extremely hard work and which I renovated myself." The Moscow renovation program -- or "deportation" program, as opponents know it -- has rapidly become one of the most closely watched political stories in Russia as the authorities and a powerful construction lobby face off against thousands of angry Muscovites ahead of mayoral and presidential elections in 2018. At first, the program seemed commendable: Knock down 8,000 dilapidated Khrushchyovki, the five-story housing blocks mass produced under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and resettle their 1.6 million tenants in new homes. When President Vladimir Putin approved the ambitious plan at a February meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, it was widely seen as a populist move to shore up support in the capital and rid the city of its cookie-cutter housing blocks. The prefabricated Khrushchyovki were erected on an industrial scale across the country in the 1950s and '60s to alleviate a huge housing crisis brought on by the rapid urbanization overseen by dictator Josef Stalin. They were designed for rapid assembly, and some versions were considered to have a shelf life of only 25 years. A state poll has claimed 80 percent support Putins initiative, but a deep current of anger and confusion is also evident. Over the last month, local rallies have been held in Khrushchyovki courtyards with families and old residents wrapped up in warm clothes chanting, "Leave us in peace!" and holding posters saying, "We're against the demolition": Activists are giving public seminars on "Renovation: How To Defend Your Rights" and have won authorization to hold a demonstration against the program on Prospekt Sakharova in central Moscow on May 14. For many, the incursion into the sanctity of the home has touched a nerve, while others are shocked at loosely worded legislation under discussion to streamline bureaucracy for a program that, opponents say, allows for an assault on basic property rights. The legislation passed its first reading on April 20 with almost unanimous support, despite lawmakers promising to push for changes in later readings. The bill says that evicted residents will be offered housing of equal size -- not of equal value -- and that the offer is final. There will be no options to choose from and residents cannot appeal for a different apartment in court. The legislation also opens the door for the demolition of other buildings deemed to be structurally similar to Khrushchyovki or other buildings located in designated "renovation zones." I'm amazed myself how the Facebook group is growing. The first day I was really scared I'd be the only one in the group -- that everyone is in favor and that I'm the only one against. I'm happy that's not the case." In a sign the Kremlin has taken note of the public outcry, Putin on April 26 publicly told officials that the legislation should not violate property rights and that he would not sign a bill that does. Moscow authorities this week decreed that 4,500 apartment blocks listed for "renovation" will only be demolished if two-thirds of the apartments vote in favor. But activists protest that dwellings that do not vote will be considered to have voted "yes" and worry about the likelihood of falsification. On April 27, Yelena Zalterova, 41, who lives in the district of Savyolovsky, was in a line of Muscovites on Pushkin Square waiting to sign a petition against the program. She expressed astonishment that Muscovites are being asked to vote on whether to keep or demolish their residences without knowing the terms of the legislation or where they will be told to move. "How can you be expected to vote without knowing what youre voting for?" she asks, saying she fears her home will be targeted in the program, even though it is in good condition. PHOTO GALLERY: The Clock Is Ticking For Russia's 'Khrushchyovki' (click to enlarge) She says she moved to the five-story block because she likes the area and that her two children go to school locally. "[The authorities] live completely separately from us," says Zalterova. "They don't see us. They don't notice how people are and how they live. They don't know what a five-story building is. They've never been in one or else they have forgotten. You have the impression they live in the clouds." Activists organizing the petition believe the real plan is to demolish their low-rise housing tracts in order to free up land for high-end developers, and then resettle those evicted to unlivable high rises in more remote areas. Guggenberger lives on the fifth floor of one the city's many Khrushchyovki. She described her previous apartment on the fringes of Moscow as being in a "ghetto" of new high-rise blocks with no green space. She says she actively sought out one of the low-rise Khrushchyovki which typically are surrounded by ample green space -- and bought her apartment in 2010 with help from her relatives after scrimping and saving for six years. She says the members of her Facebook group have different motives. Some have mortgages on their homes, some have just finished lengthy and expensive renovations, others are attached to a home that once belonged to their grandparents. "I'm amazed myself how the Facebook group is growing. The first day I was really scared I'd be the only one in the group -- that everyone is in favor and that I'm the only one against," she says. "I'm happy that's not the case." On the heels of major opposition protests on March 26, observers are watching closely for signs that the issue will be politicized. Guggenberger says she wants her Facebook group to remain issue-focused and nonpolitical. She says she has never taken an interest in politics or even voted, but makes no bones of her disillusionment with the authorities. "I don't believe a single word in the press or a single word of Sobyanin and Putin. I don't believe it," she says. "I've completely lost trust, although of course I realize they couldn't care less." Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, says that although the public reaction poses no direct threat to the authorities because it is "scattered" and "disorganized," he sees it as a sign of "growing irritation, frustration, and disenchantment." "They are a symptom of how there is growing misunderstanding between the authorities and the population," Oreshkin says. The opposition, meanwhile, is making overtures to the activists. Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, who intends to run for Moscow mayor in September 2018, has taken up their cause by widely criticizing the plan, while allies of opposition leader and staunch Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny have invited them to appear on their online Kaktus talk show on May 4. The Parnas and Yabloko parties on May 5 called for a rally and march on May 21 and 28, respectively. Some analysts, however, suggest the public outcry could actually suit the Kremlin. Pavel Salin, a Moscow-based political analyst, says the wave of media attention over the renovation program has put the Kremlin back in control of the political narrative and has distracted from Navalny's bid to run for president in March 2018. Salin said authorities lost control of the narrative on March 26 when Navalny, whose guilty verdict in a controversial embezzlement case placed his ability to run for president in question, brought tens of thousands to the streets in a nationwide protest against alleged government corruption. "After the protests on March 26, the authorities lost control of the agenda and they had to somehow get it back under control," says Salin. "One-off moves like arresting governors [over alleged corruption] bore no results. The public didnt see this as signs of a battle against corruption, so they had to switch the public's attention to a different issue," Salin says, "and there was this whole unfolding problem around five-story buildings." The activists themselves are digging in for a protracted battle. "Whether I will be able to return to my girly world, I don't know," Guggenberger says. "Probably not. I think the situation has gone too far. You can't even go on holiday. You want to close the whole affair and go on holiday, but you can't. Every day there's the threat your house will be knocked down." MOSCOW -- Thousands of Russian opposition activists held a rally in Moscow on May 6 to mark five years since the 2012 Bolotnaya Square antigovernment protest in Moscow. Moscow authorities approved the rally on a section of Sakharov Avenue in the city center. But city authorities refused to allow an opposition march toward Bolotnaya Square itself. Alec Luhn, a correspondent for The Guardian, tweeted that at least seven protesters were detained at Bolotnaya Square on May 6 after they held up placards with photographs of people who were jailed for taking part in the 2012 protest. The latest May 6 protest in Moscow was named by the organizers: For Russia, Against Arbitrary Practices And Reprisals. Participants chanted slogans like "Russia without Putin!" and "Putin is a thief!" Organizers claimed as many as 10,000 protesters took to the streets for the anti-Putin rally. Independent observers estimated that about 3,000 people took part. According to Russia's Interior Ministry, about 1,000 people attended the rally, with participants listening to speeches and music. "The police and Russian National Guard are ensuring public order and security," the ministry said. Sakharov Avenue was closed for traffic, while those entering the rally area had to walk through metal detectors. Meanwhile, the start of the demonstration was briefly delayed when municipal authorities and police tore down banners from a stage that had been set up for rally speakers. Those banners contained slogans like "'The Case Of May 6," "Shame On Russia," and "Enough With Kadyrov, Enough Despotism" -- referring to Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin head of Russia's Chechnya region. Russian journalist Aleksandr Ryklin, a moderator of the rally, said municipal officials alleged that the banners were "subversive" and tore them down "because they believe that they contradict the purpose of our rally." Meanwhile, demonstrators carried Russian flags, posters, and other banners. Many participants wore badges and ribbons reading: "Five Years Since The Bolotnaya." An 81-year-old rally participant named Alla told RFE/RL that she is "worried sick" about the things happening in Russia since Putin came into power. "I became anxious since the very beginning when Mr. Putin came to power and the first thing he did was to shut down [independent] NTV," Alla said. "It was very scary. Then I remember [the sinking of] the Kursk submarine. Then I remember Beslan [school siege]. I remember everything. I am doing everything [I can] to have this government changed." Another protester, who identified herself as Tatyana, told RFE/RL that the longer Russians accept living in an "isolated country, the harder our life will be in the future." Once the demonstration was under way, Russian opposition activist and former State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov told the crowd that Russia has become "internationally isolated" because of Putin's policies. "The country is in a deep economic and -- actually -- systemic crisis," Gudkov said. "The system of our governance is good for nothing. The country is getting involved in ever new armed conflicts. We lost 42 million [people] during World War II. Do we want to risk our lives, the lives of our family members and loved ones, the future of our children again?" Russian Yabloko Party leader Sergei Mitrokhin said "the main danger for Russia today is a weak, cowardly, and dangerous government." On May 6, 2012, several thousand Russians demonstrated on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow against Putin's reelection, and there were clashes with police during the event. Between 400 and 700 people were detained. Dozens have been prosecuted and many have spent time in pretrial detention or been sentenced to prison. Some remain behind bars. Fearing persecution, several other people, who had not yet been officially accused, left Russia and were granted asylum in Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, and Germany. Participants in the 2012 protest blame police for the violence and say that the severity of the charges laid against demonstrators has been grossly disproportionate to their actions. The reaction of Russian authorities after the 2012 demonstration also included a crackdown against the country's opposition leaders. Nikolai Kavkazsky, an opposition activist who was jailed after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protest and only recently was released, told the Moscow rally on May 6 that "Kadyrov has been de facto waging genocide in Chechnya." "Should we allow this to happen, it will begin in other [Russian] regions as well, because Chechnya is a certain testing ground of totalitarianism," Kavkazsky said. "Russia may be transformed into one big Chechnya in the future. I believe we must resist. We must help political prisoners. We need to stand up against all sorts of repression." With reporting by Interfax, Reuters, and TASS U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow on April 12 appeared to do little to smooth relations between the two superpowers, with a clear rift remaining over a suspected chemical-weapon attack in Syria and confusion over the direction of U.S. foreign policy. After the highest-level face-to-face talks between the two under President Donald Trump's administration, officials said both sides cautiously backed efforts to improve ties that were at "an all-time low." But blaring headlines and analysts' comments from around the world suggested there was little common ground when Tillerson met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and then President Vladimir Putin. Under the headline Tillerson And Putin Find Little More Than Disagreement In Meeting, The New York Times wrote that the two men appeared unable even to agree on the facts surrounding the alleged chemical-weapon attack in Syria last week that prompted Trump to order U.S. forces to fire 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an air base in that war-torn country. "Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's trip to Moscow on Wednesday was further evidence of how low Russian-American relations have sunk," the Times' editorial board wrote in a commentary. "One important question is whether the chill in the relationship will make it harder for Mr. Trump to engage Moscow in the struggle to defeat the [militant group] Islamic State in Syria; cooperation on that front, always questionable, now seems impossible." Tillerson's trip to Moscow on Wednesday was further evidence of how low Russian-American relations have sunk. There was no indication that the two sides changed their positions on the issue of Syria, which triggered a spate of mutual rebukes in the run-up to -- and during -- Tillerson's visit. Tillerson said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government had carried out more than 50 chemical attacks throughout the six-year war in Syria, and that the Syrian leader could face charges of war crimes. Lavrov, meanwhile, described the U.S. missile strike as an "unlawful attack against Syria" and said such actions must be prevented going forward. Even Trump himself sounded less convinced of the prospects for improved relations between Washington and the Kremlin. He expressed hope on improved ties with Putin, but quickly added, "We're going to see what happens." "The sides had been conducting themselves as if they owed each other," Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper. "Now no one is acting like anyone owes anything." Russia Unsure What U.S. Will Do Many analysts argued that the strikes in Syria represented a U-turn in U.S. policy that has taken not only the Russians but much of the world off guard. This role reversal, according to Mark Galeotti of the Institute for International Relations in Prague, has confused Moscow, which used to feel as though it knew the course that U.S. foreign policy was following. They're suddenly now finding themselves in a very reacting role. They honestly don't know what to do. "Up to this point, they [the Russians] had already relied on the fact that they could play the role of the unpredictable one because they felt, with considerable grounds, that they had identified the real red lines of U.S. policy and they knew what the Americans would do in response," Galeotti said. "They're suddenly now finding themselves in a very reacting role. They honestly don't know what to do." Further muddling the outlook, Trump said later on April 12 that NATO was now doing more to fight terrorism and was "no longer obsolete," a shift from previous statements that the security alliance no longer served a purpose and a move that is sure to antagonize Russia. "In Putin's eyes, we are an out-of-control hyperpower that must be opposed," Michael O'Hanlon, a senior foreign-policy fellow at the Brookings Institute, wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "His view is warped, but it appears to be sincere." Trump could try to deescalate tensions with a broad agreement between NATO states, Moscow, and the neutral countries of Europe whereby NATO would vow not to expand further, O'Hanlon wrote. Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director and a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, suggested that a lack of predictability in U.S. foreign policy under the Trump administration is exacerbating the deteriorating level of trust between the countries and could lead to deeper problems. "Of course, there's also the in-some-ways-more-existential issue of the fact that a direct clash between the U.S. and Russia could be extremely dangerous, given the military -- specifically nuclear -- capabilities of both sides," he said on The World Today radio show. "And while I don't think that that kind of a clash is likely, it's certainly something that has to be lingering in the minds of anybody who is looking at the relationship." In the background is the disappointed retreat of Russia's euphoric reception of Donald Trump's election victory. Trump's November 8 election victory was followed by expectations of a rapprochement between the two countries, given the Republican nominee's praise for Putin during the election campaign. Since then, a series of issues ranging from U.S. investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the campaign to the Syria bombing have altered the political landscape. "In the background is the disappointed retreat of Russia's euphoric reception of Donald Trump's election victory. It brought expectations of a relationship reset, perhaps a grand bargain that would lead to lifting the sanctions imposed over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine," wrote BBC State Department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher. "Trump's top officials eventually burst that bubble." A Russian city administration has backed its official newspaper in an escalating dispute over a homophobic slur and accused hackers of breaching its website to publish a fake apology. The scandal in the Artic city of Murmansk erupted in late March when the city government's official print publication, Vecherny Murmansk, published an opinion piece calling local opposition activists "militant faggots." It comes amid what activists and Western governments call Russia's deteriorating LGBT-rights situation in recent years, including a 2013 law banning the spread of gay "propaganda" among minors that critics say promotes discrimination. The article, titled "Terribly Tired Of Being Civil," was published on March 28 on the website of Vecherny Murmansk. It drew outrage from LGBT activists and the attention of Russia's state media watchdog, though the newspaper was not issued with an official warning. Then, on May 4, a one-paragraph announcement appeared on the city administration's website apologizing for the "abusive language" used by the author, Dmitry Malyshev. That apparent act of contrition was short-lived, however. The announcement was subsequently deleted (a cached version is available here), and the city issued a statement saying its website had been hacked and that there was no reason to apologize for the article. Editorial Decisions The statement noted that Russian law bans officials from dictating how media outlets cover events or censoring their content. Natalya Rikhter, a spokeswoman for the city government, told RFE/RL in a telephone interview that, as the founder of the newspaper, the Murmansk administration does not have a right to interfere in editorial decisions. Asked whether the city supported the use of the homophobic phrase published by Vecherny Murmansk, Rikhter said that the administration couldn't "support it or not support it." "Any interference is censorship," she said, adding that law-enforcement authorities were investigating the alleged hack. Vecherny Murmansk also said on May 4 that hackers had breached its website and posted a fake apology from the author of the article that was quickly deleted. A woman who answered the phone there said no one was available to comment, and the paper did not respond immediately to an e-mailed inquiry. 'Providing Cover' Editor in Chief Viktor Khabarov, however, was quoted by his newspaper as saying the site may have been hacked by opposition protesters or LGBT-rights activists "upset with publications by Vecherny Murmansk." Violetta Grudnina, an opposition and LGBT-rights activist mentioned in the article, said she believes the city administration is "providing cover" for Vecherny Murmansk to attack government critics in print. "It's a message from local authorities that anyone who is against the positions of the government is a faggot," she told RFE/RL in a telephone interview. She said she believes she and her colleagues are being targeted for their support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who is seeking to run for president next year in an election widely expected to hand President Vladimir Putin another six-year term. 'Not A Bad Thing' Asked about the article, which was published two days after nationwide anticorruption protests spearheaded by Navalny led to hundreds of arrests, Murmansk Mayor Dmitry Filippov said last month that he did not know the protesters and "couldn't gauge their [sexual] orientation." He added that the government takes the battle against corruption seriously, and that "it's not a bad thing" that the issue of graft is drawing public attention. Russian authorities in recent years have stepped up prosecutions of individuals accused of online hate speech, and Grudina in late March filed a complaint with prosecutors asking them to investigate whether the Vecherny Murmansk article violated Russian laws on extremism. Local prosecutors found, however, that the article with the phrase "militant faggots" did not contain elements of hate speech, according to a copy of an official response Grudina received on May 3, a copy of which she provided to RFE/RL. Throughout the day on May 4, a banner headline on the newspaper's website read: "URGENT! Militant Fag**ts Attack Vecherny Murmansk's Website." The leader of a radical pro-Kremlin group says police plan to question him and his colleagues over an attack on Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny that has impaired his eyesight. Igor Beketov, leader of a group calling itself the South East Radical Block (SERB), told RFE/RL on May 5 that Moscow police contacted him "a few days ago" concerning the April 27 attack in which Navalny's face was splashed with a green antiseptic. "They said that we'd be called in for questioning," Beketov, an actor who goes by the nom de guerre Gosha Tarasevich, said in a conversation via the popular Russian social-networking site VKontakte. The attack on Navalny comes amid his push to run in next year's presidential election, which is expected to hand President Vladimir Putin another six-year term. Russian opposition activists have repeatedly faced similar attacks with the antiseptic, known as "zelyonka," and other substances in recent years with few repercussions for the assailants. The attack on Navalny, however, has drawn wide attention in Russia and triggered denunciations -- including from officials loyal to the Kremlin -- after Navalny said he had suffered potentially permanent eye damage due to the incident. Amid mounting pressure, Moscow city prosecutors said on the evening of May 4 that a criminal battery investigation had been launched on April 29, two days after the attack. The case is being investigated by city police investigators, said Yelena Rossokhina, a spokeswoman for Moscow prosecutors. At least one SERB member, Aleksei Kulakov, was caught on video appearing to film the April 27 attack on Navalny, in which an unidentified man runs up to the presidential hopeful and tosses zelyonka into his face. The Russian newspaper RBK, which first reported that police had contacted SERB members about the attack, quoted Kulakov as saying late on May 4 that a "police probe is being conducted into specific people," including himself. Kulakov has admitted to being at the scene, though he and Beketov have denied that SERB was involved. Navalny and his supporters accuse another SERB activist, Aleksandr Petrunko, of tossing the liquid in his face, though Beketov has said that Petrunko has an alibi. A video of the attack published by the Kremlin-friendly network REN-TV blurs the assailant's face as he runs toward the camera. Beketov told RFE/RL that he believes police contacted Petrunko as well but that he could not confirm that this was the case. He declined to comment further, saying he did not want to "harm the investigation." A lawyer for Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, said neither his client nor the lawyers had been officially notified about the probe yet. Navalny has accused Putin's administration and Russian security services of complicity in the attack and demanded that authorities prosecute the assailant. He said his doctors believe the antiseptic was mixed with another substance that caused a chemical burn to his right eye that has left him partially blinded. On May 4, Navalny said he obtained his passport after five years of refusal by the Federal Migration Service, and expressed hope that he might now travel abroad to treat the damaged eye. However, his lawyer said Russian correctional authorities then warned him not to leave the country. Navalny has been convicted three times of financial crimes at trials that he contends were baseless, politically motivated reprisals for his opposition activity. He is serving two suspended sentences, which requires him to visit the corrections office twice a month. Another lawyer for Navalny, Vadim Kobzev, said Russian law allowed him to travel outside the country for medical purposes as long as he provides a written explanation to authorities ahead of time. With reporting by RBK, Interfax, TASS, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, and The Moscow Times Wide parts of Syria have enjoyed relative calm despite sporadic clashes after a deal to set up "de-escalation zones" mostly within opposition-controlled areas went into effect, opposition activists and government media outlets said. There were no immediate reports of casualties after the plan -- sponsored by Russia, Turkey, and Iran -- went into effect at midnight. Also on May 6, a text detailing the agreement was published by Russia's Foreign Ministry. The establishment of safe zones after talks held in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, earlier this week is the latest effort to reduce violence amid a six-year civil war that has left more than 400,000 dead and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. However, the United States is not part of the deal, and the Syrian armed opposition refused to sign it, saying that Iran, which it considers a party in the conflict, should not be a guarantor. According to the text of the document published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on May 6, Russia, Turkey, and Iran agreed to establish four separate de-escalation zones in Syria for at least six months. The largest safe zone includes Syria's Idlib Province and adjoining districts of Hama, Aleppo, and Latakia provinces. The other three zones are in northern Homs Province, the Eastern Ghouta region east of the capital, Damascus, and along the Jordanian border in southern Syria. Russia, Turkey, and Iran will finalize maps of the de-escalation zones by June 4, and the agreement can be extended automatically if the three guarantors agree. The memorandum provides for halting the hostilities between Syrian government forces and armed opposition groups within the safe zones, allowing humanitarian access, medical assistance, as well as the return of displaced civilians to their homes and the restoration of damaged infrastructure. The three guarantor states will continue fighting Islamic State, the Al-Nusra Front, and other groups both within and beyond the de-escalation zones, according to the document. Russia and Iran are key allies of President Bashar al-Assad's government. Political and armed opposition groups in Syria have rejected the proposal, saying Russia has been unwilling or unable to get Assad and his Iranian-backed militia allies to respect past cease-fires. Turkey is a major backer of opposition factions and has also sent troops into northern Syria. It is also not clear how the safe zones will be enforced. Russian Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi told reporters on May 5 that personnel from Russia, Iran, and Turkey will operate checkpoints and observation posts. An official with Russia's military general staff said other countries may eventually have a role in enforcing the de-escalation areas. Meanwhile, there were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, and the southern province of Daraa, areas expected to be part of the "de-escalation zones," activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Still, opposition activists in southern, central, and northern Syria said the situation so far is better than previous days, with no air strikes reported. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media reported there was "relative calm" in the "de-escalation zones" nine hours after the deal went into effect. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has activists around the country, said government helicopter gunships dropped three barrel bombs on the rebel-held Latamneh area in central Syria, where fighting was reported between rebels and troops. Government forces also bombarded rebel-held neighborhoods of Damascus, the observatory said. "Despite some violations, the situation is much calmer than before," said opposition activist Mohammed al-Homsi, speaking via Skype from northern Syria. Syrian, Russian, Turkish, and U.S.-led coalition aircraft sometimes operate in the same areas in Syria. It is not yet clear how the new plan would affect flight paths of coalition warplanes battling IS militants and other radical groups -- and whether U.S. warplanes would abide by a diminished airspace. The Pentagon said the de-escalation agreement would not affect the U.S.-led air campaign against IS. A previous cease-fire agreement that went into effect on December 30 helped reduce overall violence in Syria for several weeks but eventually collapsed. Other attempts at a cease-fire in Syria have all ended in failure. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Ukraine began the trial of former President Viktor Yanukovych on charges of high treason. Yanukovych is not at the trial, but will give evidence via video link from Russia. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service) U.S. jets have intercepted two Russian Tu-95 bombers accompanied by two Su-35 fighters that flew near the Alaskan coast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) says. This was the first time in several years that Russian bombers flying by were accompanied by fighter aircraft, officials said. The Russian aircraft flew within 80 kilometers of the Alaskan coastline on May 2, officials said on May 4. That was outside U.S. territorial airspace, which begins 20 kilometers from shore, but within a 320-kilometer zone where the U.S. military requires aircraft to identify themselves. The four Russian aircraft, including the nuclear-capable bombers, were intercepted by two F-22 Raptor fighters. NORAD spokesman Captain Scott Miller described the interaction with the Russian aircraft as "professional," and said that had historically been the case in encounters with Russian military aircraft off Alaska. The Russian Defense Ministry said the flight over neutral waters of the Pacific Ocean along the Aleutian Islands was "routine" and in compliance with international airspace rules. After a two-year lull, Russian military activity has increased significantly off Alaska's coast this spring. Russian military aircraft flew four flights near Alaska in four consecutive days the week of April 17, triggering various responses by NORAD. Based on reporting by ABC News, the Washington Examiner, and TASS A Baycrest Health Sciences researcher and clinician has developed the first group language intervention that helps individuals losing the ability to speak due to a rare form of dementia, and could help patients maintain their communication abilities for longer. Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a unique language disorder that involves struggles with incorrect word substitutions, mispronounced words and/or difficulty understanding simple words and forgetting names of familiar objects and people. With PPA, language function declines before the memory systems, which is the opposite of Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Regina Jokel, a speech-language pathologist at Baycrest's Sam and Ida Ross Memory Clinic and a clinician-scientist with the Rotman Research Institute (RRI), has developed the first structured group intervention for PPA patients and their caregivers. This intervention could also help treat patients with other communication problems, such as mild cognitive impairment (a condition that is likely to develop into Alzheimer's). The results of her pilot program were published in the Journal of Communication Disorders on April 14, 2017. "This research aims to address the needs of one of the most underserviced populations in language disorders," says Dr. Jokel. "Individuals with PPA are often referred to either Alzheimer's programs or aphasia centres. Neither option is appropriate in this case, which often leaves individuals with PPA adrift in our health care system. Our group intervention has the potential to fill the existing void and reduce demands on numerous other health services." Language rehabilitation has made headway in managing the disorder, but there are limited PPA treatment options, adds Dr. Jokel. Dr. Jokel is one of the few researchers in the world studying this disease. She was motivated to acquire her PhD. and devise the intervention after encountering her first PPA patient more than 25 years ago. "When I realized the patient had PPA, I ran to the rehabilitation literature thinking that he needed to start some sort of therapy. I ran a search and came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing," says Jokel. "That's when I thought, 'It's time to design something.'" The 10-week intervention included working on language activities, learning communication strategies and receiving counselling and education for both patients and their caregivers. During the pilot program, patients either improved or remained unchanged on communication assessments for adults with communication disorders. Their caregivers also reported being better prepared to manage psychosocial issues and communication challenges and had more knowledge of PPA and the disease's progression. "In progressive disorders, any sign of maintaining current level of function should be interpreted as success," says Dr. Jokel. "Slowing the progression and maintenance of communication abilities should be the most important goal." For the study's next steps, Dr. Jokel has received support from a Brain Canada-Alzheimer's Association partnership grant to assess the therapy's impact on the language skills of PPA patients. With support from the Ontario Brain Institute, she is also collaborating with RRI brain rehabilitation scientist, Dr. Jed Meltzer, to explore the effect of brain stimulation on patients also undergoing language therapy. Visits by teens to a Colorado children's hospital emergency department and its satellite urgent care centers increased rapidly after legalization of marijuana for commercialized medical and recreational use, according to new research being presented at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco. The study abstract, "Impact of Marijuana Legalization in Colorado on Adolescent Emergency Visits" on Monday, May 8 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. Colorado legalized the commercialization of medical marijuana in 2010 and recreational marijuana use in 2014. For the study, researchers reviewed the hospital system's emergency department and urgent care records for 13- to 21-year-olds seen between January 2005 and June 2015. They found that the annual number of visits with a cannabis related diagnostic code or positive for marijuana from a urine drug screen more than quadrupled during the decade, from 146 in 2005 to 639 in 2014. Adolescents with symptoms of mental illness accounted for a large proportion (66 percent) of the 3,443 marijuana-related visits during the study period, said lead author George Sam Wang, MD, FAAP, with psychiatry consultations increasing from 65 to 442. More than half also had positive urine drug screen tests for other drugs. Ethanol, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, opiates and cocaine were the most commonly detected. Dr. Wang, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said national data on teen marijuana use suggest rates remained roughly the same (about 7 percent) in 2015 as they'd been for a decade prior, with many concluding no significant impact from legalization. Based on the findings of his study, however, he said he suspects these national surveys do not entirely reflect the effect legalization may be having on teen usage. "The state-level effect of marijuana legalization on adolescent use has only begun to be evaluated," he said. "As our results suggest, targeted marijuana education and prevention strategies are necessary to reduce the significant public health impact of the drug can have on adolescent populations, particularly on mental health." Dr. Wang will present the abstract, "Impact of Marijuana Legalization in Colorado on Adolescent Emergency Department (ED) Visits," from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Numbers in this news release reflect updated information provided by the researchers. Much is known about flu viruses, but little is understood about how they reproduce inside human host cells, spreading infection. Now, a research team headed by investigators from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is the first to identify a mechanism by which influenza A, a family of pathogens that includes the most deadly strains of flu worldwide, hijacks cellular machinery to replicate. The study findings, published online today in Cell, also identifies a link between congenital defects in that machinery -- the RNA exosome -- and the neurodegeneration that results in people who have that rare mutation. It was by studying the cells of patients with an RNA exosome mutation, which were contributed by six collaborating medical centers, that the investigators were able to understand how influenza A hijacks the RNA exosome inside a cell's nucleus for its own purposes. "This study shows how we can discover genes linked to disease -- in this case, neurodegeneration -- by looking at the natural symbiosis between a host and a pathogen," says the study's senior investigator, Ivan Marazzi, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Influenza A is responsible in part not only for seasonal flus but also pandemics such as H1N1 and other flus that cross from mammals (such as swine) or birds into humans. "We are all a result of co-evolution with viruses, bacteria, and other microbes, but when this process is interrupted, which we call the broken symmetry hypothesis, disease can result," Dr. Marazzi says. The genes affected in these rare cases of neurodegeneration caused by a congenital RNA exosome mutation may offer future insight into more common brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, he added. In the case of Influenza A, the loss of RNA exosome activity severely compromises viral infectivity, but also manifests in human neurodegeneration suggesting that viruses target essential proteins implicated in rare disease in order to ensure continual adaptation. Influenza A is an RNA virus, meaning that it reproduces itself inside the nucleus. Most viruses replicate in a cell's cytoplasm, outside the nucleus. The researchers found that once inside the nucleus, influenza A hijacks the RNA exosome, an essential protein complex that degrades RNA as a way to regulate gene expression. The flu pathogen needs extra RNA to start the replication process so it steals these molecules from the hijacked exosome, Dr. Marazzi says. "Viruses have a very intelligent way of not messing too much with our own biology," he says. "It makes use of our by-products, so rather than allowing the exosome to chew up and degrade excess RNA, it tags the exosome and steals the RNA it needs before it is destroyed. "Without an RNA exosome, a virus cannot grow, so the agreement between the virus and host is that it is ok for the virus to use some of the host RNA because the host has other ways to suppress the virus that is replicated," says the study's lead author, Alex Rialdi, MPH, a graduate assistant in Dr. Marazzi's laboratory. A new study by scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Cornell University and Duke University is the first in a series to understand how marine mammals like porpoises, whales, and dolphins may be impacted by the construction of wind farms off the coast of Maryland. The new research offers insight into previously unknown habits of harbor porpoises in the Maryland Wind Energy Area, a 125-square-mile area off the coast of Ocean City that may be the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. Offshore wind farms provide renewable energy, but activities during the construction can affect marine mammals that use sound for communication, finding food, and navigation. "It is critical to understand where marine mammals spend their time in areas of planning developments, like offshore wind farms, in order to inform regulators and developers on how to most effectively avoid and minimize negative impacts during the construction phase when loud sounds may be emitted," said Helen Bailey, the project leader at the UMCES' Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science used underwater microphones called hydrophones to detect and map the habits of harbor porpoises, one of the smallest marine mammals. Bailey describes harbor porpoises as "very shy" ranging 4 to 5 feet long with a small triangular fin that can be hard to spot. They swim primarily in the ocean, spending summers north in the Bay of Fundy and migrating to the Mid-Atlantic, as far south as North Carolina, in the winter. There are about 80,000 of them in the northwestern Atlantic. "There was so little known about them in this area," said Bailey. "It was suspected they used the waters off Maryland, but we had no idea how frequently they occurred here in the winter until we analyzed these data." Porpoises produce echolocation clicks, a type of sonar that hits an object and reflects back to tell them its distance, size and shape. They use it to navigate and feed. The researchers used hydrophones anchored 65-145 feet deep, and about 10 feet off the bottom of the ocean, to pick up these clicks over the course of a year. "We found that harbor porpoises occurred significantly more frequently during January to May, and foraged for food significantly more often in the evenings to early mornings," said study author Jessica Wingfield. Scheduling wind farm construction activities in the Maryland WEA to take place during summer months (June to September) could reduce the likelihood of disturbance to harbor porpoises. "We were certainly surprised by how frequently we detected harbor porpoises because there had not been a lot of reported sightings," said Wingfield. Maryland Department of Natural Resources secured the funding for this study from the Maryland Energy Administration's Offshore Wind Development Fund and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. "Year-round spatiotemporal distribution of harbour porpoises within and around the Maryland wind energy area" was recently published in PLOS ONE. The third annual Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium met at the University of Alabama at Birmingham last month, a gathering of noted physicians and scientists who share the goal of creating new tissues and new knowledge that can prevent or repair heart disease and heart attacks. Talks ranged from the cutting-edge translational work of Phillippe Menasche, M.D., Ph.D., professor of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, Paris Descartes University, to the basic biology research of Sean Wu, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. Menasche's work pioneers human treatment with engineered heart tissue. Wu's work opens the door to generating heart chamber-specific cardiomyocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells, which act similarly to embryonic stem cells, having the potential to differentiate into any type of cell. Menasche has placed engineered heart tissue derived from embryonic stem cell-derived cardiac cells onto the hearts of six heart attack patients in France in an initial safety study for this engineered tissue approach. Wu has used single-cell RNA sequencing to show 18 categories of cardiomyocytes in the heart, differing by cell type and anatomical location, even though they all derived from the same lineage. "We are creating a new community of engineer-scientists," said Jay Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., chair and professor of the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering. In their welcoming remarks, both Selwyn Vickers, M.D., dean of the UAB School of Medicine, and Victor Dzau, M.D., professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine and president of the National Academy of Medicine, spoke of the growing convergence between scientists and physicians that is leading to tremendous possibilities to improve patient care. The tissue engineering field is moving fast. Cardiac progenitor cells that can contribute to growth or repair injury in the heart were only discovered in 2003, says symposium presenter Michael Davis, Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Tech College of Engineering and Emory University School of Medicine. In 2006, the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka first showed how to transform adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. This potentially provides feedstock for tissue engineering using either pluripotent cells or specific progenitor cells for certain tissue lineages. advertisement One example of the pace of change was given by Bjorn Knollman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Knollman noted an "ugly truth" that everyone recognized in 2013 -- that cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells were nothing like normal adult cardiomyocytes in shape, size and function. He described the improved steps like culturing the derived cardiomyocytes in a Matrigel mattress and giving them a 14-day hormone treatment that have led to derived cardiomyocytes with greatly improved cell volume, morphology and function. His take-home message: In just four years, from 2013 to 2017, researchers were able to remove the differences between induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes and normal adult cardiomyocytes. In other highlights of the symposium, Joao Soares, Ph.D., a research scientist for the Center for Cardiovascular Simulation, University of Texas at Austin, explained how subjecting engineered heart valve tissue to cyclic flexure as it is grown in a bioreactor leads to improved quantity, quality and distribution of collagen, as opposed to tissue that is not mechanically stressed. Sumanth Prabhu, M.D., professor and chair of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease, UAB School of Medicine, talked about the role of immune cells in cardiac remodeling and heart failure. He noted the distinct phases after a heart attack -- acute inflammation and dead tissue degradation, zero to four days; the healing phase of resolution and repair, four to 14 days; and the chronic ischemic heart failure that can occur weeks to months later. Prabhu described experiments to show how specialized spleen macrophages -- specifically marginal-zone metallophilic macrophages -- migrate to the heart after a heart attack and are required for heart repair to commence. Nenad Bursac, Ph.D., professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University School of Medicine, described his advances in engineering vascularized heart tissue for repair after a heart attack. Bursac said a better understanding of how to grow the tissue from heart tissue progenitor cells has allowed formation of mature "giga" patches up to 4 centimeters square that have good propagation of heartbeat contractions and spontaneous formation of capillaries from derived-vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells. These patches are being tested in pigs. Duke University's Victor Dzau gave a perspective of the paracrine hypothesis over the past 15 years. In 2003, researchers had seen that applying mesenchymal stem cells to a heart attack area led to improved heart function, with beneficial effects seen as early as 72 hours. However, there was little engraftment and survival of the stem cells. Thus was born the hypothesis, which has been worked out in detail since then -- that stem cells do their work by release of biologically active factors that act on other cells, similar to the way that paracrine hormones have their effect only in the vicinity of the gland secreting it. Joseph Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, showed how heart cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells could be used to develop personalized medicine approaches for cancer patients. The problem, he explained, is that some cancer patients are susceptible to a deadly cardiotoxicity when treated with the potent drug doxorubicin. Hence, the drug has a black box warning, the strictest warning mandated by the Food and Drug Administration. Wu was able to use a library of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes to associate certain genotypes and phenotypes with doxorubicin sensitivity, in what he called a "clinical trial in a dish." From this knowledge, it will be possible to look at the transcriptome profile in patient-specific cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells to predict patient-specific drug safety and efficacy, thus fulfilling the definition of precision medicine -- the right treatment at the right time to the right person. In all, UAB's Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium included more than 30 presentations. The entire symposium will be summarized in a paper for the journal Circulation Research, expected to be published shortly, Zhang says. Presentations of the 2015 Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, and the presentations of the 2016 Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium were published in the journal Circulation Research. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe The U.S. Air Force, faced with tight budgets and overwhelming evidence that smart bombs and UAVs get the job done more effectively and cheaper than manned aircraft are looking at obtaining new version of Vietnam War era ground attack aircraft like the OV-10 and the A-1 Skyraider (nicknamed "Spad", after a famous World War I fighter). The A-1 was one of the inspirations for the 1970s A-10 but was a lot cheaper to build and operate and quite effective before cheap smart bombs became widely available. The A-1 was the most popular ground support aircraft during the 1960s. Developed at the end of World War II, the A-1 was an 11 ton, single seat, propeller driven aircraft that carried 3.5 tons of bombs and four 20mm autocannon. The four 20mm cannon could, altogether, fire 40 rounds a second. Cruising speed was 320 kilometers an hour (versus 560 for the A-10), and the average sortie was about four hours (a little longer than the A-10). The A-10 could go as slow as 220 kilometers an hour, which was nearly as slow as the A-1 could manage but the A-10 had a max speed of 700 kilometers an hour, more than a third faster than the A-1. The OV-10 is a 6.5 ton, twin prop aircraft that could carry over two tons of weapons and stay in the air for three hours per sortie. Wingspan is 40 feet (12.2 meters), and length is 41.6 feet (12.7 meters). The first one was delivered to the U.S. Air Force, for use in Vietnam, in 1968. The last one was produced (for export to Indonesia) in 1976. The U.S. Air Force and Marines were the primary users of OV-10s, and the last of these was retired, by the marines, in 1994. Over a hundred were exported to Germany, Thailand, Colombia, Venezuela and Indonesia. Several dozen of these are still in use out of over 300 manufactured. In Vietnam, the OV-10 was used more for reconnaissance and directing air and artillery strikes, than in using its own firepower. But that's what irregular warfare was all about, finding an elusive enemy, and killing him. That's what the OV-10 was designed to do, and did it well. Resurrecting the OV-10 or a new A-1 is a side effect of the success the air force has had with large UAVs, especially the Predator. Prop driven aircraft are much cheaper to operate than jets. A Predator costs less than a tenth, per hour in the air than the F-16. The OV-10 provide similar economies, especially since it could also carry lightweight (128-227 kg) GPS guided JDAM bombs and 50 kg (205 pound) Hellfire missiles or similar smaller (25 kg) missiles. Smart bombs and guided make aircraft like the OV-10 and A-1 a lot more useful, and economical. The OV-10 could also carry a targeting pod, like the Sniper XR, which weighs about 205 kg (450 pounds). This gives the aircraft superb reconnaissance capability, backed by smart bombs and guided missiles to immediately attack targets found. The trouble is these manned aircraft are facing competition from more capable UAVs. Then there is the problem of replacing the popular A-10 ground attack aircraft, which is a Cold War era design that turned out to be the most popular ground support aircraft, at least for the ground troops. The air force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 and eventually was resigned to maintaining the trusty old hog for as long as they can (another decade or two at least). But the experience with the A-10, especially after it was upgraded to handle JDAM and laser guided missile, got people thinking. Cost was not the only problem. Since the 1990s the kinds of wars the United States has been involved with involve more surveillance than actual use of weapons. In fact, since 2001 only about seven percent of sorties resulted in a weapon being used. When you make that adjustment the ability of a heavy bomber (B-1B or B-52) to carry a lot of smart bombs backfires, because most, if not all, of those bombs will return unused. While an F-16 carries fewer bombs or missiles, it is still more expensive per flight hour to operate (about $23,000 versus $58,000 for the B-1B). Even the A-10 costs about $18,000 per flight hour. A UAV like Predator or Reaper costs one to three thousand dollars an hour. The smaller aircraft or UAVs become more than 90 percent cheaper to use. This was a major embarrassment for the fans of big bombers and fast jets. It got worse in Iraq and Afghanistan where the U.S. successfully adapted civilian aircraft like the Cessna Caravan 208B and Air Tractor AT-802 to use laser guided missiles. This arrangement was cheap and easy to use, which suited allies like the Afghans and Arabs (not just the Iraqis). The 208B is a large, single engine, aircraft that is mainly used to carry up to 14 passengers or 1.3 tons of cargo. The four ton 208B has a cruising speed of 317 kilometers an hour and can stay in the air for about six hours per sortie. The 208 has been in service since the mid-1980s and over 2,000 have been built. New ones cost about $2 million each but there are lots of much cheaper used 208Bs out there. It was found that equipping 208Bs with laser targeting equipment and two Hellfires it was very effective at providing ground support. Even more effective was a militarized crop duster, the Air Tractor AT-802. Cruising speed of the AT-802 is 356 kilometers an hour and endurance is about three hours. The militarized version has lightweight armor around the cockpit and key components. There was also a bulletproof windscreen. The frame was strengthened to give the aircraft a useful life of 12,000 hours in the air. It can carry military sensors (like the Sniper XR targeting pod) as well as a variety of weapons. These include the GAU-19 three-barrel 12.7mm machine-gun, the M260 launcher (for seven 70mm unguided or laser guided rockets), Hellfire laser guided missiles and the Mk 82 227 kg (500 pound) bomb. Militarized commercial aircraft like the 208B or Air Tractor are more like a UAV when it comes to flight hour cost. Now the air force is conducting a search for what they call OA-X. This is to be an inexpensive dual use (training/attack) aircraft. The air force would prefer a jet, and many new jet trainers are designed with this alternate attack duty in mind. Some new aircraft, like Scorpion, have been designed for the competition but there are existing aircraft like the AT-6C that can do the job. Non-jets like the A-29 Super Tucano are also proposed. While the 208B and AT-802 are OK for impoverished allies, the American aviation leaders want something more, well, presentable. Aircraft the U.S. is looking for are usually armed trainers, either powered by jets or turbo-props. The Brazilian A29 Super Tucano already has most of the market for such warplanes. This five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft was built for pilot training, but also performs quite well for counter-insurgency work. The Super Tucano is basically a prop driven trainer that is equipped for combat missions. The aircraft can carry up to 1.5 tons of weapons, including 12.7mm machine-guns, bombs and missiles. The aircraft cruises at about 500 kilometers an hour and can stay in the air for about 6.5 hours per sortie. One of the options is a FLIR (infrared radar that produces a photo realistic video image in any weather) and a fire control system for bombing. Several nations are using the Super Tucanos for counter-insurgency work. The aircraft is also used for border patrol. The Super Tucano costs $9 million each, and come in one or two seat versions. The bubble canopy provides excellent visibility. This, coupled with its slow speed (versus jets), makes it an excellent ground attack aircraft. The South Korean FA-50 is the combat version of the locally designed and manufactured T-50 jet trainer. This aircraft was developed since 2000, at a cost of over two billion dollars. The first test flight of the T-50 took place in 2002. The 13 ton aircraft is actually a light fighter and can fly at supersonic speeds. With some added equipment (radars and fire control) the T-50 becomes the FA-50, a combat aircraft. This version carries a 20mm auto-cannon and up to 4.5 tons of smart bombs and missiles. The T-50 can stay in the air about four hours per sortie and has a service life of 8,000 hours in the air. American manufacturers quickly developed jet trainers like the Scorpion but cheaper alternatives like FA-50 and A-29 may have more operational experience but there is a strong aversion to buying foreign aircraft. Another reason the U.S. military are seriously investigating aircraft like this because money has become a big issue these days. If you currently have jet fighters and bombers spending over 10,000 hours a year over Afghanistan and Iraq, at a cost of over $40,000 an hour, when you could have OV-10s do it for a few thousand dollars an hour, what would you do? We're talking some serious money here, and the air force, and even the navy (which used dozens of OV-10s off carriers during the Vietnam War) is definitely interested. But the air force would rather put more money into UAVs, which they believe can do everything a manned, prop driven aircraft can, and more (no crew risk, higher endurance). Better sensors and greater reliability have eliminated one of the major advantages of manned COIN aircraft. Its become popular to depict American UAVs as some kind of super weapon and a danger to world peace. Anyone who understands how modern warplanes operate knows this is not true, but the mass media and many politicians who find it useful to follow whatever idea the mass media is behind have created a fictional reality in which UAVs do unspeakable things that are unique in human history. The facts are more mundane. UAVs (and inexpensive trainers and commercial aircraft) can use the same sensors (high-res video cameras and night vision all with zoom) as fighter aircraft and the same guided weapons as well. By 2007 the U.S. Air Force recognized this and began sending its new MQ-9 Reaper UAVs to Afghanistan and Iraq, not as reconnaissance aircraft, but as replacements for F-16 and F-15 fighter-bombers. While the manned aircraft can carry five or six times as many bombs as a Reaper, this does not matter when you are using guided weapons. The Reaper can carry up to four 228 kg (500 pound) JDAM smart bombs. While over 300 JDAMs were dropped per day during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, by 2007 the average number per day was, at most, 3-4 bombs. More JDAMs were dropped in Afghanistan, but even there, half a dozen a day, over the entire country, was a lot. Thus a half a dozen Reapers can easily replace half a dozen F-16s or F-15s. This saves a lot of money, as the two man crews for the Reaper (pilot and sensor operator) are back in the United States, and operate the UAVs via a satellite link. The UAVs have a major advantage over manned fighter-bombers, in that they can stay over the target area longer, and do so with relief crews, so that there are always alert eyes using the powerful sensors (similar to the targeting pods on fighters) carried by the Reaper. The major disadvantage of the Reaper is its slow speed (about 500 kilometers an hour). Speed is a factor if you have a situation develop on the ground somewhere, and warplanes have to be rushed in. For that reason, some "fast movers" (jet fighters and heavy bombers) remained in Iraq and Afghanistan, ready to rush to an emergency at twice the speed of a UAV. While the earlier Predator was a reconnaissance aircraft that could carry weapons (two Hellfire missiles, each weighing a 38 kg/106 pounds), the Reaper was designed as a combat aircraft that also does reconnaissance. The Reaper can carry over a ton of GBU-54 GPS/laser guided 228 kg bombs, as well as the 114 kg (250 pound) SDB, or the even lighter missiles. There is even a version of the Hellfire missile (Brimstone) developed in Britain and now selling to many other air forces. The Predators cost, fully equipped, about a fifth of what an F-16 does while the Reaper goes for about a third of what the F-16 costs. The Reaper can only stay in the air for up to 24 hours, versus 40 hours for the Predator. But experience has shown that few missions require even 24 hours endurance. For that reason, the air force decided not to give the Reaper an inflight refueling capability. The Reaper carries sensors equal to those found in targeting pods like the Sniper XL or Litening, and flies at the same altitude of most fighters using those pods. This makes the Reaper immune to most ground fire, and capable of seeing, and attacking, anything down there. All at a third of the price of a manned fighter aircraft and even lower cost per flight hour (about a tenth of what it costs to keep an F-16 up there). The targeting pods, packed with electronics and sensors, are very popular with fighter pilots, mainly because they contain FLIR (video quality night vision infrared radar) and TV cameras that enable pilots flying at 6,200 meters (20,000 feet) to clearly make out what is going on down on the ground. The pods also contain laser designators for laser guided bombs and laser range finders that enable pilots to get coordinates for JDAM (GPS guided) bombs. Safely outside the range of most anti-aircraft fire (six kilometers up and up to fifty kilometers away) pilots can literally see the progress of ground fighting and have even been acting as aerial observers for ground forces. These capabilities also enable pilots to more easily find targets themselves and hit them with laser guided or JDAM bombs. In effect, a fighter pilot in an F-16 has the same capabilities as a UAV. Both have someone flying the aircraft who can see clearly what is on the ground and launch a smart bomb or missile to hit what they see. The only difference is that the UAVs all have a two person crew (pilot and senor operator watching what the camera trained on the ground sees). While the F-16 pilot has to fly his aircraft as well as look at the video display of what the targeting pod sees, larger fighters like the F-15E have a crew of two, with the same crew arrangement as UAVs. The U.S. also installed targeting pods on heavy bombers (B-1 and B-52) where the crew arrangement is similar to UAVs. While the UAV stays in the air longer than fighters or bombers that is mainly because of pilot fatigue. An F-16 can (with aerial refueling) stay in the air as long as a UAV but the pilot would wear out after six or so hours of flying and using the targeting pod. The UAVs change crews every six hours, something fighter pilots cant do unless they land. But the UAV crew and the fighter or bomber crew see the same images of what is on the ground and often launch the same weapons to attack the target. The targeting pod grade sensors are also used in smaller aircraft and UAVs and are the result of smaller and more capable electronics being made available in the 1990s and later. But the military does not like to buy a lot of inexpensive aircraft, which was one reason why the armed Predator was first used in combat by the CIA and that forced the military to pay attention. If there is another major war the cost and speed (of manufacture and delivery) advantage of unconventional bombers like crop dusters (Air Tractor), trainers or light commercial aircraft of all sorts will force the issue. Until then the military and the politicians who vote to provide the money prefer the high-end stuff. Congos governmental predicament continues to smolder. President Kabila is still in office and seems dead set on retaining the presidency. He has already exceeded him constitution-mandated limit of two terms in office. The opposition coalition group, RDC (Rally for Congolese Democracy, also known as Rassemblement), has continued to hold mass protests. However, one scheduled for April 10 failed to attract the large crowds seen in previous demonstrations. That may or may not mean anything, but Kabila supporters noted it. It is now doubtful that there will be new elections by December 2017. That was key element in the December Accord, the agreement mediated by Catholic bishops and reached on December 31, 2016. The agreement also specified that Kabila would not to alter the constitution and his government would free all political prisoners. The bishops belonged to the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO), which gave the agreement its backing. Yet in March CENCO said that continuing negotiations with Kabila had collapsed. Why does Kabila want to hold on to power? One obvious reason: Corruption in the government Kabila controls has made his family and associates rich. Kabila and his family are wealthy and that fortune could be lost or severely depleted if a reform-minded new government decides to recover stolen billions. Another theory is that Kabila, some of his key supporters, members of his personal security forces and Kabila loyalists in the military fear they would be subject to war crimes prosecution. As long as Kabila remains in power they are protected. This, too, may be explanatory. Another possibility: Kabila likes power and intends to keep it, no matter what harm it may bring to his country. Could he face a rebellion? Of course. It appears he is already facing an uncoordinated but spreading rebellion in southern Congo. The so-called Kamuina Nsapu rebellion that began in Kasai-Central province in July 2016 has now spread to three other nearby provinces, Kasai, Lomami and Sankuru. At least one report indicates that a militia fighting under the banner of Kamuina Nsapu is also operating in Kasai-Oriental province. The militias appear to be operating independently and are motivated by local issues. However, all of them distrust Kabilas government. (Austin Bay) April 30, 2017: Five UN peacekeepers are facing new sexual misconduct allegations. The group includes a Romanian military observer charged with sexual abuse and exploitation of a minor. He fathered a child with an underage Congolese girl. Two men are accused of fathering a child with adult women. The women seek paternal recognition. UN officials are investigating other complaints as well. April 29, 2017: The UN is seeking an additional $65 million to aid one million people displaced by fighting in three southern Congolese provinces. The army is fighting militias in Kasai, Lomami and Sankuru provinces. The funding request is in addition to the $750 million budgeted for aid in Congo. April 28, 2017: At least 29 people have died in a series of battles in North Kivu province between two factions in the Mai-Mai Nyatura militia over the last three days. At least 11 of the dead are militiamen. The Mai-Mai Nyatura is a Hutu self-defense militia organized to protect ethnic Hutus in their struggle with the Nande tribe. The Nyatura factions are both trying to take control of the village of Bweru, which is a Hutu enclave. April 27, 2017: Uganda is willing to provide Central African Republic (CAR) security forces with military training assistance. Since April 19 Uganda has been withdrawing its troops in CAR that had been fighting LRA ( Lords Resistance Army) rebels since 2009. By 2016 Uganda announced it would end its operations against the LRA. April 25, 2017: A grenade attack in Burundi (north of the capital, Bujumbura) killed one person and wounded four. The attack took place in Kamenge. The attacker was on a motorbike and he approached a car and threw a grenade into the car. Burundi has been plagued by sporadic violence since April 2015 when president Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term in violation of the constitution and the Arusha Agreement which ended the civil war. Poachers hunting elephants in Congos Garamba National Park killed two park rangers after a brief battle. This all began after the rangers heard gunshots and went to investigate. They tracked and caught six poachers butchering an elephant. Apparently at least one poacher was killed. Congolese officials are still investigating the incident. April 23, 2017: The Central African Republic has held a series of talks with 14 armed groups in the capital, Bangui. The armed groups come from throughout the country. CAR officials are seeking a disarmament agreement as part of a UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program. April 22, 2017: A group of Congolese Catholic bishops publicly defended their decision to halt mediation efforts between the Kabila government and the opposition. The bishops said politicians must be blamed for the collapse of the talks. The Catholic Church is a major institution in Congo. About two-thirds of Congos 71 million people are Roman Catholics. April 19, 2017: The UN confirmed that an investigating team found 17 more mass graves in Kasai-Central province. The team found the graves during a three day deployment (April 5-7). The graves are located in an area where the army has fought several battles with the Kamuina Nsapu militia. UN investigators have concluded Congolese Army soldiers dug the graves in late March (possibly starting on March 26). That was right after a major clash in which at least 70 civilians were killed by government forces. UN investigators also visited Kananga. Between March 28 and 30 Congolese soldiers killed an estimated 40 people and wounded 21 more. April 18, 2017: The government fired general Celestin Kanyama, the senior police commander in Kinshasa. The government did not give a reason. However Kanyama is notorious, so much so that in 2016 the U.S. sanctioned him. The individual sanctions included freezing his assets in the U.S. The sanction charged him with targeting civilians for violent attack and kidnapping civilians. He was in charge of the police unit that in January 2015 attacked opposition political demonstrators. At least 40 people died in the violence and at least half the dead were killed by police. Sacking Kanyama may be an attempt by Kabila to placate his Congolese political opponents and donor nations that are demanding he cede power. April 15, 2017: The government turned over the body of Kamuina Nsapu to his family and supporters in Kasai-Central province. He was killed by government security forces in August 2016. Kamuina Nsapu led the militia force that bears his name. Since July 2016, least 400 people have been killed in fighting between the government and the militia. The government also confirmed it now recognizes Kamuina Nsapus successor, Jacques Kabeya Ntumba, as a customary chief in the region. The governments decision to deny Kamuina Nsapu the title helped spark the rebellion. April 14, 2017: Police arrested two men suspected of involvement in the murder of two UN investigators. One of the men arrested subsequently escaped police custody. Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a Swede, disappeared on March 12. They were travelling in Kasai-Central province. In late March their bodies and the bodies of four Congolese who were working with them were discovered in a hastily dug grave near the village of Bunkonde (Kasai-Central province). The suspect still in detention was described as an insurgent. April 12, 2017: The U.S. has imposed individual financial sanctions on two militia leaders in the CAR. One man leads a Muslim militia, the other leads a Christian anti-balaka militia. The reason for the individual sanctions was rather surprising: the two men are accused of collaborating to destabilize the country. April 10, 2017: Congolese media reported scheduled opposition political rallies drew sparse crowds. The government had beefed up police patrols in Kinshasa, which may have deterred some demonstrators. April 8, 2017: President Kabila has appointed Bruno Tshibala as prime minister in a transitional government. The transitional government is tasked with organizing the next presidential election that will ostensibly select Kabilas successor. The European Union said Kabila was not fulfilling the December 31, 2016 agreement. The December Accord supposedly gave the power to pick the prime minister to the opposition coalition, not Kabila. The opposition had selected Felix Tshisekedi as prime minister. Felix Tshisekedi replaced his father, Etienne Tshisekedi, as coalition leader after Etienne died. Tshibala was a major figure in the opposition coalition. However, he has split with Felix Tshisekedi. Several opposition leaders said Kabila is trying to further fragment the coalition. April 7, 2017: The UN has given command of its South Sudan peacekeepers to a Rwandan. General Frank Mushyo Kamanzi. Kamanzi had served as commander of the African Union-UN hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID) April 6, 2017: Congos prime minister Samy Badibanga resigned from office. The resignation followed an announcement by President Kabila that he (Kabila) would appoint a new prime minister. Kabila appointed Badibanga in November 2016 and he took charge on Dec. 21, 2016. April 3, 2017: In Congo fighters in a militia claiming loyalty to Kamuina Nsapu launched several attacks near the town of Luebo (Kasai province). Eight people died in the violence. Luebo is the capital of Kasai province. April 1, 2017: A senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) said that recent atrocities in Congos Kasai-Central province could be prosecuted as war crimes. The prosecutor was referring to reports that Congolese security forces shot 70 civilians in one incident and a militia group killed and beheaded 42 police officers in a retaliatory attack. The retaliatory attack took place outside the city of Kananga, the capital of Kasai-Central province. March 30, 2017: The UN confirmed that two bodies found in a grave near the village of Bunkonde (Kasai-Central province) are those of two missing UN workers. The bodies were those of Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan. They disappeared March 12. The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial products and services in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases. It also provides credit cards and payments; real estate secured lending, auto finance, and consumer lending services; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, and advice to retail and institutional clients through direct investing, advice-based, and asset management businesses; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking products and services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to corporations, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,061 branches and 3,381 automated teller machines (ATMs) in Canada, and 1,148 stores and 2,701 ATMs in the United States, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. It has a strategic alliance with Canada Post Corporation. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. President Donald Trump is dismantling many of President Barack Obamas climate actions. Trump has threatened to pull out of the Paris accords on climate due to his belief that it could damage the economy. He is missing the far larger and very real threat. The effects of climate change are becoming apparent to even a casual observer. The increase in violent storms and the freak winter storms we experience are becoming increasingly common, but they are still relatively new phenomena. This kind of unsettled weather was predicted by climate models more than two decades ago. Its here now. The loss of most of the glaciers of Europe, the melting of glaciers in Greenland and South America, the melting of the sea ice, and the opening of the Arctic Ocean in summer all are geological-scale events. They are the sort of major Earth events that should take thousands of years. Things that happen that fast are usually caused by cataclysmic disasters such as meteor strikes or volcanoes. According to Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the militarys Joint Operating Environment statement of 2010, climate change is a real threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagons assets everywhere. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and World Meteorological Organization reported jointly that 2016 was the Earths warmest year ever recorded. These same organizations reported last year that 2015 was the Earths warmest year since reliable record keeping began. And the past 10 years were the warmest decade ever recorded. The previous decade is second. We already have exceeded temperatures not seen for the past 10,000 years. The last time temperatures rose like this we were thawing out of the Ice Age, but that temperature rise was about a hundred times slower than what we are experiencing today. The Earths climate is certainly warming and fast. Scientists, skeptics and even deniers all agree on that. The big question then becomes why. What natural phenomenon could suddenly be cranking up the heat on the Earth? Skeptics like to say it is due to some unexplained natural causes. If its a natural process, then we have no control over it, and are helpless, so we can carry on as usual and just ignore it. If its human-caused, and we know what drives it, we can then begin to solve the problem. There is no natural process that can be shown to be responsible, other than the effect of the sudden increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past couple of centuries. The heat trapping effect of this carbon dioxide can be calculated and shown to cause exactly the temperature increases we are seeing. The evidence is clear, both from a scientific and an observational viewpoint, that the climate is changing. And we are seeing the damaging results. Droughts, increased storm frequency and severity, polar and glacial thawing, and increasing weather extremes are all predicted by climate models and are being experienced worldwide. We need to get real, recognize the facts and do something about it. Precious time is being wasted by all the political arguing. We already know what to do. We only need the political and cultural will to get it done, for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and the balance of all life on this shrinking planet. On the subject of abortion rights, the 2016 Democratic Party platform language prepared for candidates was as firm as ever. Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights and justice, it noted. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured. Most of the partys candidates agreed on other implications of that statement, from legal third-trimester abortions, taxpayer-funded abortions and gender-selection abortions, which usually means aborting females. Most Democratic candidates backed that platform but not all. Thus, it stunned some Democrats, especially in heartland and Bible Belt states, when Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez drew another bright line defining who participates in the work of his party. Every Democrat, like every American, he said, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. This is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state. In fact, he added, every candidate who runs as a Democrat should affirm abortion rights. Needless to say, these were fighting words for Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America. I am glad this conversation is taking place, she said in an interview this week. It would help if the partys chairman sat down and talked with us, because we are obviously feeling left out. ... Tom Perez needs to know that what he is saying isnt what lots of Democrats are thinking. Its not what Democrats are thinking in places like Nebraska places between the coasts where Democrats are trying to find candidates who are the right fit for their congressional districts or people to run for governor who fit their states. Top Democrats also need after the brutal lessons of the 2016 campaign to take seriously the blunt reactions to Perez by major Catholic leaders, she said. Cardinal Timothy Dolan called for Democrats of all stripes to urge Perez to recant this intolerant position. The party that for decades was the political home of urban, blue-collar and labor union Catholics already endorses abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy, even forcing taxpayers to fund it; and now the DNC says that to be a Democrat indeed to be an American requires supporting that extreme agenda, said the New York archbishop, who chairs the U.S. Catholic bishops Pro-Life Activities Committee. A progressive Jesuit writer, James Martin, hailed Dolans comments and, in another Twitter message, added: Abortion is proving that the Democratic Party can outdo Republicans in self-destruction. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput urgently linked the Perez statement with other hot-button issues in American politics compassion for refugees and immigrants. Theres something irrational, something deeply contradictory, in (admirably) arguing for the rights of our nations foreign newcomers while (wrongly) allowing and even sacralizing the systematic killing of a different kind of foreigner, the child in the womb, the newcomer to life itself, wrote Chaput. The church teaches that immigrants, refugees and unborn children all have dignity and human rights that must be defended, he added, although the difference today is, we dont recognize and applaud anyones right to kill an immigrant. Obviously, Day said, she knows Democratic Party leaders face pressures from activists and donors who are committed to an ironclad stance on abortion rights. However, she also noted a Pew Research Center survey showing that 30 percent of Democrats still believe that abortion should be illegal in most cases. The question is whether its still possible to find room for the beliefs of Bible Belt Democrats, African-American church leaders, Latino Catholics and others who, at the very least, want to see centrist policies that limit the number of abortions. The Democratic Party is pretty weak in large parts of America, said Day. Can we really afford to push people away right now? Im not sure that New York City and West Coast values are going to work with lots of voters in the heartland and down South. ... Its like no one is listening to each other. Its like theres no room for dialogue and compromise. In the midst of her whirlwind rise as a coveted photographer and curator in New York, Petra Collins just brought things down to earth back home. Since leaving Toronto with two bags of negatives and a couple hundred bucks four years ago, the 24-year-old has modeled and shot for Gucci, devised intimate photo spreads of Selena Gomez and Kim Kardashian, directed a music video for Carly Rae Jepsen, published two books, and established herself with half a million followers on Instagram. Back now with her first solo show on Canadian soil, Collins gets ultra-personal with Pacifier, a peek at her family life and upbringing, featuring shots of her parents, sister, cousins and friends, as well as a mural of her childhood home in North York. Its a featured exhibit at the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival, on until June 24. For me, home isnt like a place; its more the people that Im with, Collins said in an interview at the opening of the exhibition here last weekend. The New York-based artist still feels at home in Toronto, the place where her mother, father and sister still live. But she also feels deep ties to her mothers roots in Budapest, Hungary, where many relatives reside. Those two locations are where the images from her latest show were shot. Collins father is British-Canadian and her mother is a Hungarian refugee. Her younger sister Anna, who is doing the joint teacher training program at Canadas National Ballet School, is a face that is surely well-known to those familiar with her older sisters work. Before Collins was a photographer, she, like her sister, was a dancer. As someone who struggled with reading and writing growing up, she launched herself into movement as a way to express her feelings. While in high school she dislocated her knee and was told by her doctors to stop dancing. As a young girl, you already have so many insecurities about your body, but to physically not be able to do something you love and that you think youre going to be doing for the rest of your life . . . was so scary for me, she says. It really changed a lot. Then she picked up a camera. When trying to explain her life, Collins stumbled a bit in her own thoughts, admittedly exhausted from her non-stop schedule. What is the opposite of permanent? she asked, thinking out loud. Photography became a way for her to capture and keep feelings that might otherwise slip away. Im sort of, like, always scared of losing everything. In her early 20s she figured it time was right to make a move in search of opportunities to pursue her art. After consulting with her parents she dropped out of classes at the Ontario College of Art and Design. I basically packed two suitcases of negatives and I left, Collins said. Her father, Ian Collins, said she did this without a safety net, not asking for a dime. He takes some credit for giving her confidence. The thing with Petra is that everybody found her, he said. She does her art. Collins (very proud) parents and younger sister were at the packed and sweaty opening of the Toronto show last Saturday, a gathering that in many ways felt more like a big family reunion than anything else. It was hard to speak with any of them without being interrupted by a hug or hello from friends. Meanwhile, fans flocked towards the familys eldest hoping for a photo and an autograph. Something about the experience seemed almost therapeutic for the Collins family. When speaking to the Star in separate interviews, both parents and Collins sister brought up difficult times from their past. For them, their former home on the wall served as a reminder of both good and bad memories. It feels full circle in a way; its a really nice feeling, Anna Collins said. And our family is in a really good place right now, so its nice. Collins work is close-up, powerful and feminine, but hasnt come entirely without controversy. An American Apparel t-shirt depicting a drawing of a menstruating vagina and an Instagram photo of her own unshaven bikini line both stirred up a fuss. Looking back, Collins remembers joining American photographer Ryan McGinley (who had his own solo show at the Whitney Museum at the age of 26) on one of his legendary creative road trips. That experience helped make her brave, she said. I guess I had to do everything that scared me and after that I wasnt scared of anything, she said. Humble yet aware of her massive following, Collins wants people who follow her to know that her life is not perfect or unattainable. Treading carefully with how she addresses it, Collins said being taken seriously as young woman in her role still isnt easy. Pointing to a time when an assistant congratulated her on doing a good job, she said she often gets comments from people on sets that she doesnt think would be made to a man working in the same role. Its like, did you not think I was going to do a good job? asked the artist who now has a long list of big-name clients and decade of professional experience to her credit. Its hard to be taken seriously and to be myself at the same time, Collins said. (People) want a boss, or whatever, someone in charge to be one certain way and I dont really fit into that box. In the face of those who doubt her, she said a combination of persistence and confidence has helped her move forward. The most important thing she ever did, she says, was not let any of the negativity get to her. Darcy Killeen, executive director of the Contact festival, said organizers wanted a Canadian artist they could invest in as a headliner. Seeing an immensely talented young female artist at the height of the beginning of her career is very rewarding and were thrilled to see whats next for Petras artistic journey, she said. Collins next endeavor is to venture into filmmaking, which is not to say shell ever abandon her signature practice of shooting 35-mm stills. She also has a new book in the works, a project she hopes can mark a turning point in her life: wrapping up her coming of age and moving ahead to . . . something else. But for now, she calls the timing of her hometown show serendipitous. The work is so personal and so based in Toronto and based in my growth that it was kind of just perfect, she said. A homecoming that allowed her to tell her story through her own lens is probably the most natural way it could have happened, she thinks. Its special because its me being able to (say), this is whats happened to me. Pacifier is showing at the CONTACT Gallery, 80 Spadina Ave., Suite 205, until June 24. The show is open on Tuesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturdays from 12 to 5 p.m. Correction May 8, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to Darcy Killeen as female. SHARE: Collaboration (the definition): the action of working with others to produce something. Collaboration (the complicated reality): working with people who may be in other fields, with different interests, speaking different jargons, compiling data in different ways, producing something for different audiences. Collaboration (the payoff): a mingling of expertise, methods and ideas that can lead to more resources, more innovation, more diverse insights, more successes. A powerful notion and a tough thing to pull off. There are great divides to cross when different kinds of partners try to work together. News organizations and universities have long had partnerships of sorts. Journalists rely on academics for news from their fields, expert insights and social analysis; academics need journalists to bring their research to a broader audience. But the work often takes place amid, and almost despite, a mutual distrust. Consider how different their worlds are: Peer-reviewed journals (dotted is, crossed ts, footnotes) are the antithesis of the daily deadline newsroom (frantic phone calls, could not be reached for comment, next-day follow-ups). Each side has a stereotype of the other the ivory tower snob versus the grubby headline hunter, the snail-paced researcher versus the slapdash reporter, the data-obsessed scholar versus the adjective-obsessed storyteller. But while methods differ, researchers and journalists can be seen as two sides of the same coin each working to establish and publish truths and facts. When they work together, the resulting journalism benefits from academic rigour, and the academic work benefits from journalisms timeliness and popular focus. In recent years, some researchers and universities have been stepping further into the journalism world, both to work more deeply with news organizations and to create forms of journalism themselves to join the public conversation. And thats exciting at a time when the digital revolution is creating a news ecosystem that anyone can contribute to, for better and for worse. Two aspects of this are particularly interesting under this years Atkinson Fellowship for Public Policy, which is examining alternate sources of civic or community information to help fill a growing gap as the news industry in Canada shrinks. Read other parts of the seriesRead other parts of the series First, as the amount of professional journalism decreases (an estimated one-third of Canadas journalists have lost their jobs since 2010), we need other reliable and community-minded institutions to help keep us informed. Second, academics contributions what they focus on and the methods they use could broaden the way we think about civic or community information. One of the most valued characteristics of professional journalism is its ability to hold governments and other powerful interests accountable. This is key in upholding democracy, and its a difficult role for anyone else to play. But other kinds of information also knit communities together and spur our curiosity. Will this replace the journalism were losing? No. Certainly not in quantity, and generally not in the kind of stories that are created. But with training, support and a shift in priorities, this could add something different to the evolving information ecosystem something smarter and more diverse. Could add is a deliberate wording choice. While the different academic tradition is a strength, its also something that has kept scholars from contributing more in the past. Ann Rauhala, associate chair of Ryerson Universitys school of journalism and a former journalist, has lived on both sides of the fence. She has also taught workshops to anyone at Ryerson interested in learning how to work with the news media, both as interview subjects and as opinion columnists. Academics generally are people who have spent their lives pursuing some idea that animates them, and they want the world to appreciate it, Rauhala says. But the way scholars think, in my opinion, is really quite different from how journalists think. Journalists, she says, are looking for something no one else has ever said or done. They want the newsiest of the news. But academics start with what others have done before them and add to it. Scholars build their work, they build their hypotheses, based on other peoples hypotheses. So right from the get-go, the set of assumptions is quite different. The university world is also very different in what it values and rewards, Rauhala notes. Except for people who have gone to grad school, many, many of us dont really understand what scholarly life is like or what the expectations are. Traditionally, when considering hires or promotions, universities have valued a research article read by a couple of hundred people in an academic journal over a piece appearing in a large-circulation newspaper that might be read by tens of thousands. The difficulty is that many of the universities, I get that impression, are still stuck with this idea that your value as a scholar and a prof is primarily on the number of journal articles you have published and the number of times other people have cited your work, Rauhala says. As though that is the only measure of your efficacy as a public intellectual. It would be really nice if the universities actually genuinely rewarded people and recognized people for playing a public role, a true public role. Changing priorities At the University of Ottawa, Michael Kempa is trying to move in that direction. A criminologist, Kempa found he was spending more and more time responding to reporters questions as policing and security issues dominated the news. He was happy to do it but as a professor hes expected to spend 40 per cent of his time teaching, 40 per cent on research and 20 per cent on administration. The interview requests were starting to take up as much as a day a week. Where did the media work fit in and how valuable was it to the university? Wanting to figure out how to be more effective and also more proactive with the news industry, Kempa spent eight months in 2012 in an innovative journalism program, the Munk fellowship at University of Toronto. In addition to learning how to produce material himself (he later wrote an investigative feature for The Walrus magazine about civilian oversight of the RCMP that was a finalist for a 2015 Canadian Magazine Award) he returned to U of Ottawa with a strong sense that journalism can be combined with academic research work. He began offering columns and ideas to news outlets rather than just responding to journalists and sometimes used the journalism as a way to advance his research thinking. Now he wants to teach some of the same skills to other academics at the university. He ran an experimental lab this year with masters students in criminology to test the idea, and hopes to expand it to faculty. He believes every academic researchers data has the seeds of one news feature; and that with support and feedback in a class, the researcher can produce it for popular consumption. The idea is for the academics to think about their field in a more journalistic way. What part of it is often in the news? What can they add to that public debate? Then theyre taught how to write an opinion column and a short feature. What motivates them to learn this? What Kempa has found, like Rauhala, is a desire to have people exposed to the stuff that they find so interesting in their areas of research. He cites his own field: Criminological social science is all about power and human benefit versus suffering inherently interesting themes. But unfortunately the way we write a lot of it up for an academic audience is of no interest to anybody. Some academics might stick with the training when the course is over and produce more media pieces; others might just want to do the one that theyve had in mind for years, he says. I think the younger generation of academics is much more interested in consistently engaging the media over time but they dont have the skills or really any idea of where to get started. But as researchers learn more about the media, Kempa hopes they will start thinking about it right from the start of their research projects setting that focus for themselves, or perhaps collaborating with a journalist at the beginning, designing the research with both academic and mainstream articles in mind and leaning on each others expertise. Very often the social sciences stop at exactly the moment that investigative journalism begins, he says. And what I mean by that is, the academics look at the structure and the ideas that enable all kinds of bad things to happen, and then the investigative journalists pick up and say, Who are the people who pulled the strings who did the bad things? Together we kind of cover the whole picture. ** About the series The Atkinson Fellowship awards a seasoned Canadian journalist with the opportunity to pursue a yearlong investigation into a current policy issue. This award is a project funded by the Atkinson Foundation, the Honderich family and the Toronto Star. Catherine Wallace is exploring the future of journalism at a time when the news industry is in a financial crisis. Canada has lost a third of its journalists in the last six years. What role can the community play in helping to fill the gap in information and storytelling? Wallace is a former Montreal Gazette managing editor who has also worked at the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Her stories will run periodically. SHARE: When Jesse Sullivans grandmother Jadwiga Koziarski died, she left behind a will that if it were written today would entitle her children and their children to her estate. But a court ruled on Monday that Sullivan, whose father died before his grandmother did, is not entitled to the estate because Sullivan was born out of wedlock. With a good deal of regret, I hold that in this case the respondent, who was a child born out of wedlock, is not entitled to share in the estate of his grandmother, wrote justice for the Ontario Superior Court, Douglas K. Gray. There should be no reason in principle why such a child should be treated differently. However, in this case the court is confronted with a policy choice that appears to have been made by the legislature that is contrary to the intuitive result. Jessica Feldman, an adjunct professor of wills and estate planning at the University of Toronto and an estate lawyer at Bales Beall LLP, said the decision, though unfortunate, is technically correct even though it offends our modern definition of children and issue. This case is a good reminder to review wills made a long time ago, said Feldman, who recommends taking out wills every three to five years to make sure they still meet their objectives and suit the family situation. The person at the centre of the case, 28-year-old Sullivan from Toronto, was the only child from a loving six- or seven-year relationship between his father and his mother, he said. Both his parents had been married before they met, so they were in no rush to get married again. After their relationship ended, his father moved to Florida and remarried and his relationship with Sullivan languished, along with Sullivans relationship with his grandmother. The legal process and the ruling have been difficult for him, he said. For me, this process hasnt been about a dollar value at all. Its more about the principle, he said. I want the right thing to be done. I wanted justice going in. The result left him shocked, he said. I felt sort of let down by the justice system. This is my grandmother and if she was here today she would have absolutely wanted me to get my fair share of the estate. The legislation that has divided the family is in the Succession Law Reform Act, which states that wills made on or after March 31, 1978 in Ontario that use terms like issue or child will include people born out of wedlock. Sullivans grandmother, whose first language was Polish, had her will made in December 1977, when common law dictated that terms like issue and child referred only to children born in wedlock. Sullivans lawyer, Rochelle Cantor, said she doubts a lawyer told her any illegitimate children would be excluded from the will, in fact, she said, she doubted his grandmother fully understood the will as it was written. In her will, Sullivans grandmother left her estate to be divided amongst her living children, and, if any of them died before her, she left their share to be divided amongst their issue. If her will were written today with the same language, or even if it was written four months later, on or after March 31, 1978, her grandson would have been legally entitled to her estate without question. But, there was a question, and so the case was brought forward by Sullivans uncle, his grandmothers only living child, Henry Koziarski, as the estate trustee. He wasnt looking to exclude his nephew, said Koziarskis lawyer, Jasmine Sweatman. But, in his duty as an estate trustee, he had to have the will looked at by the court, she said. Cantor said the judges decision was disappointing. Even if Sullivans grandmother had updated her will following the changes in legislation, or had even signed it four months later, there would have been no need to change the language of the will because after March 31, 1978, child and issue would have included all children, she pointed out. The world changes and we hope when decisions are made theyre decided in todays world not yesterdays world, said Cantor. Correction May 6, 2017:The headline of this article was updated from an earlier version that incorrectly stated Jesse Sullivans father was born out of wedlock. SHARE: April 21 passed by Torontonians without much, if any, notice. No pomp, nor any circumstance. It was a momentous anniversary though, 20 years to the day that Bill 103 made its way through the Ontario legislature for its third and final reading, after which then-lieutenant-governor Hilary Weston signed it into law. It would radically change Toronto. Sometimes called the City of Toronto Act of 1997, it took effect on Jan. 1, 1998 and amalgamated the six municipalities of Metro Toronto, a municipal entity created in 1954, into what we still sometimes call the Toronto megacity, though as time passes the idea of megacity means less and less. This is simply Toronto now. Metro Toronto, for those who werent here or have blurry municipal memories, had six municipalities with their own mayor and councils: the old city of Toronto as well as York, Etobicoke, North York, East York, and Scarborough. They took care of most local issues, while a seventh, Metro level of government took care of bigger issues such as sewers, police and the TTC. Amalgamation was initiated by the Mike Harris Conservatives, and some of those who look fondly on the Metro era remain convinced it was a plot to water down the more progressive Toronto council with right-leaning councillors from the more suburban areas and that Rob Ford was the penultimate result of amalgamation. It sounds conspiratorial, though every time a councillor from well outside the core meddles with downtown bike lanes or a scramble crossing far from his or her ward, that conspiracy theory comes to mind. Amalgamation happened fast. Rumours were circulating in the fall of 1996 when then-North York mayor Mel Lastman appeared on TV saying it would be impossible to amalgamate Toronto. However, as Julie-Anne Boudreau points out in her 2000 book Megacity Saga, amalgamation in Toronto captured media attention and political life from December 1996 until the passage of the provincial legislation enacting municipal consolidation just four months later. Opposition mobilization was swift. An incredibly organized and politically savvy ad hoc group called Citizens for Local Democracy formed, and numerous public meetings were held. Co-founded by Premier Kathleen Wynne, it was sometimes called Rebellion 1997, a play on William Lyon Mackenzies Rebellion of 1837. John Ralston Saul said the Harris Conservatives were governing in the Napoleonic Tradition and at one meeting, Margaret Atwood read aloud her short story The Big, Bad Megacity Monster. During the debate in the legislature, the NDP and Liberals filibustered Bill 103 by filing about 12,000 amendments that each had to be debated and voted on, 24 hours a day, taking 10 days in total. Many motions were the same, but just had a different street name swapped in, and every one was voted down except the one mentioning tiny Cafon Ct., found near the intersection of Albion Rd. and Kipling Ave. It slipped through, meaning it had to be consulted on any change to city regulations, but was later nullified too. Outside the legislature, massive demonstrations were held. To this day, at or after nearly every big protest in Toronto, whether it was against the Gulf War in 2003 or the recent anti-Trump marches, somebody will say, this is as big as megacity, remembering when people marched against Bill 103. The vast majority of Metro residents were against it: in a poll conducted March 3, 1997, a resounding 76 per cent said no to amalgamation. Twenty years is a long time, but traces of the Metro era are all around us. At Metro Hall, considered for a time to serve as the new city hall for the amalgamated city before old Torontos new one was wisely chosen, theres an awards wall that only goes up to 1997. At the five other former city halls, now civic centres of one sort or another, references abound to municipalities that no longer exist, accidental memorials to this era. Some call for a return to the old Metro days, like Alan Redway, former mayor of East York, who argues for de-amalgamation in his 2014 book Governing Toronto: Bringing back the city that worked. Though divisions between downtown and suburb have been cranked up in recent years for political gain, there isnt much political will to de-amalgamate, though theres certainly room to tweak how were represented nowadays. The citizens are likely still for local democracy. Ive argued here de-amalgamation talk is a rejection of the very multiculturalism and idea of equality that Toronto seems to celebrate in theory, but perhaps not in practice. Breaking Toronto up nowadays would mean severing the wealthy core from vast areas of poorer Toronto, a Toronto where most newcomers land, a move that seems, again in theory, un-Torontonian. Had I lived in Toronto in 1997 I might have been out in the streets too, protesting Bill 103, but this is the city weve got now, and the thought of breaking it up is incredibly depressing. In a world that seems to be tearing itself up in the style of Brexit and other isolationist movements, here we are in Toronto, almost three million strong yet tiny in the global context. Twenty years later, if we cant make this little, extremely prosperous place work, what hope is there for national and international unity? Shawn Micallef writes every Saturday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef SHARE: Paul Snider has everything he needs in Parkdale, except for housing security. We are hanging on by a thread, said Snider, 42, who lives in a rooming house in the rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood. I have this feeling that in 10 years Parkdale is going to be unrecognizable and I wont be here and I want to be here. Snider moved to Parkdale three years ago and has fallen in love with a community where he has access to the programs and services he needs to remain fed, feel well and still have enough money to keep a roof over his head. I can survive in a way that is not completely degrading, said Snider who relies on Ontario Disability Support Payments, in part, he explains candidly, because of mental health issues. Sniders housing and the homes of more than 800 people in similar properties are under immediate threat, according to a new study by the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust. The report, entitled No Room for Unkept Promises, Parkdale Rooming House Study reviews the impact real estate speculation, upscaling and conversion is having on rooming houses and similar properties. Snider was part of a community-based research team, hired by the trust, who surveyed Parkdale, knocking on doors and speaking with owners and tenants to identify and count buildings and occupants. The entire research team also scoured city records and spoke to landowners, city officials and area support workers to determine how buildings were being used. The results show that in Parkdale alone there are 198 rooming houses, bachelorette buildings, community non-profit buildings and possible rooming houses, that fit that criteria and are capable of holding as many 2,715 people. Bachelorettes are what are sometimes called micro-apartments. Almost 60 of those properties were at risk of being sold or converted into higher cost housing, or repurposed, meaning up to 818 people could lose their homes, over the next few years. To preserve the units, the land trust is proposing a 10-year plan with tougher tools to slow or stop evictions, the acquisition of properties by non-profit groups and partners who would run the buildings, including the city, developing more affordable housing and policies and planning tools that support development, but not at the risk of pushing out marginalized people. They also want strict safety and cleanliness standards and more oversight, or better tracking, by the city. We are concerned, in private hands, that the stock is not secure, so we think there is a unique opportunity as the sector transitions to bring at-risk, private rooming houses into non-profit ownership so we can stabilize sites, improve and restore the housing, and assure that this affordable housing will be available in perpetuity, said Joshua Barndt, development co-ordinator with the land trust. Barndt explained that bachelorette apartments, which are particularly at risk, came to be because city council recognized landlords were already renting out the tiny spaces and rezoning would offer tenants more protection, both in terms of oversight and through the preservation of low-cost housing. What the city did not anticipate is that in 2017 the real estate market would be so hot that these bachelorette units would be attractive to middle and higher income renters, he said. Barndt said since September, 15 properties that served as rooming houses have gone up for sale. Over the past 10 years, he said, 31 have been vacated, sold, shut down, or repurposed. The proposal will be presented at City Hall next Friday, to staff from multiple divisions, including shelter, support and housing administration, the affordable housing office and city planning. Councillor Gord Perks, who reviewed the findings on Wednesday, said any proposals on how to preserve low-cost housing in Parkdale are welcome. What we know for sure is the private real estate market is not only failing to provide new deeply affordable housing it is also gobbling up deeply affordable housing, said Perks. We are going to need some blend of public and social housing providers if we are going to keep Toronto available to people in all income groups. As part of a pilot project, the land trust is exploring the potential purchase of a 17-unit building, in collaboration with the Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre (PARC). One possible scenario, if the project goes through, could be PARC leasing the building and overseeing operations and the land trust buying and preserving the property. Executive director Victor Willis said the last thing Toronto needs is to lose affordable housing and the 2,700 units must be protected. It is enormous for Parkdale but it is enormous for the city because there is nowhere for these people to go, said Willis. But they will be leaving and that is a problem, unless there is a strategy. The properties already are a public investment, Barndt points out. Tenants on Ontario Disability Support Payments received a maximum of $479 to use towards rent and people on Ontario Works received up to $374, in 2016, according to the report. If three out of four tenants in the properties surveyed paid that in rent it would add up to more than $650,000 per month, or $7.8 million each year. A better estimate, based on rental rates, is about $500 to $800 per month, or about $9.5 million, the report states. It seems fiscally responsible that public investments in affordable housing generate long-term impact and be recycled, said Barndt. It is also far less expensive to keep people off the street. In Toronto, it costs $75 per night to provide a shelter bed, or $2,250 per month, according to information provided by the city to the land trust and included in the report. Lynne Sky, 67, lives in the same property as Snider and is on the community-based research team. There has to be some kind of place for us in the middle, for all of us to come together because you cannot push the most marginalized any further than they are already stretched, said Sky. Even if the city committed tomorrow to building enough housing to replace what could be lost it would be years before it was habitable, said Sky. I cant imagine how many people are going to die between now and then. The fastest, most cohesive way to house the most people and get services to them is the very form that the land trust is suggesting. Working with Snider and Sky was Trevor Hardy, 48, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment he was connected to through the citys Streets to Homes program. Hardy has lived in rooming houses and said safe, clean and stable housing has allowed him to become self-sufficient, volunteer and plan for his future, possibly helping people obtain housing. I see a lot of homeless people out there, members of the community, who are not so fortunate and their health is really deteriorating from being out in the elements. He wants security for everybody in Parkdale, a community he describes as vital as an artery. It is a lifeline. SHARE: Is Andrea Horwath coming home again? After wandering astray for years as a false prophet of populism, the leader of Ontarios New Democrats is slowly circling back to her movements progressive roots. And getting a hearing. Horwath made headlines with a pharmacare program for all Ontarians that won cheers at the NDPs latest convention. Earning plaudits from experts, it pre-empted the governments own pharmacare plan in the spring budget. The NDP also prodded the government to extend rent controls. And it proposed a 30-per-cent cut to hydro rates, grabbing the spotlight just days before the government announced its own 25 per cent cut. Horwaths new-found fidelity to the party faithful may be bearing fruit. She scored an impressive 89-per-cent endorsement from delegates in an automatic leadership review at last months pre-election convention. That vote of confidence from the party rank and file contrasts with the recriminations she faced two years ago when Horwath sought absolution for her uneven performance in the 2014 election. And it beats the dismal 48 per cent vote that sank federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair in 2016. Horwath remains the most popular of the three major party leaders in public opinion polls. And with the Liberals flirting with third place in party preferences, the NDP is getting a second wind, albeit far behind the resurgent Progressive Conservatives who are coasting on vim more than vision. Which is why Horwath kept repeating, as she spoke to the partys true believers last month, that New Democrats are running to win in 2018. The exhortation to win cropped up no less than 20 times in her speech as she unveiled the partys 40-page vision document for the next election. That vision is anchored in pharmacare and hydro care. But also bolsters unionization and boosts the minimum wage. This is the bold and progressive change you can expect from a bold and progressive NDP government, she promised delegates. That marks a change from the partys recent past, when Horwath strayed from NDP orthodoxy by courting small business at the expense of the working class and lost its voice on the minimum wage. But the NDP may be late to the progressive game, playing on a more crowded field. As Horwath discovered in her unsuccessful 2014 campaign, Premier Kathleen Wynnes Liberals are always mowing her lawn. In the last election, Wynne grabbed hold of pension reform after the NDP dropped the ball. Now, the Liberal government is running hard on pharmacare while planning major workplace reforms to support unions and a higher minimum wage. But providence is smiling on Horwath. After eight years leading Ontarios NDP she has a higher profile and better ratings than her elusive opposition rival, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown. And she is profiting from public disenchantment with 14 years of uninterrupted Liberal rule. The true godsend, as Horwath finds religion again, has been Wynnes slow sell-off of Hydro Ones transmission lines, which progressives deem a breach of faith. The NDP has also reaped a harvest of hydro confusion, because many voters believe its the old Ontario Hydro that is being sold (it was broken up years ago by a PC government, leaving Hydro One primarily as a transmission company that owns power lines). Horwath claims rates will soar in private hands, conveniently ignoring the Ontario Energy Boards role in regulating rates. But alls fair in politics and war, and the NDP is bracing for the battle ahead. After the disarray of 2014, Horwath has surrounded herself with a more professional team, led by party warhorse Michael Balagus, that is making fewer mistakes. Deft convention organizers dodged a few bullets, such as an inflammatory resolution proposing a boycott of the Zionist state, and a perennial appeal to eliminate separate school boards. The party also averted a vote on a new technologies corporate tax that would target innovation and automation, avoided debate on the Leap manifesto that would stifle the oilsands, and took no position on a law requiring menstrual hygiene products . . . free of charge in all workplace washrooms. Does all this mean Horwath can strike a better balance between old-style New Democrat dogma and her electoral expediency of 2014 easing up on pocketbook populism while pushing more progressive policies? As the NDP leader braces for her third (and perhaps final) provincial election, Horwath is hewing closer to home. Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn Read more about: SHARE: BELLEFONTE, PA.Eighteen Penn State fraternity brothers have been charged with crimes ranging up to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a pledge who authorities say repeatedly fell down a flight of stairs after he and others were made to run a gantlet of drinking stations guzzling vodka, beer and wine. Beta Theta Pi members resisted getting help for 19-year-old Timothy Piazza, causing him to suffer for hours and possibly making his injuries worse, a prosecutor said Friday in announcing the results of a grand jury investigation. This is a very sad day for Centre County its been sad ever since we lost a child for reasons that are totally preventable, District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said. Eight of the fraternity brothers and the chapter were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Other charges include aggravated and simple assault, evidence tampering, alcohol-related violations and hazing. An attorney for the chapter didnt immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The grand jury, aided by security camera footage, said the fraternity was heavily stocked with booze for the Feb. 2 ceremony at which Piazza, a sophomore engineering student from Lebanon, New Jersey, and 13 others accepted pledge bids. The pledges were pressured to chug vodka, shotgun beers and drink wine. Piazza tumbled down a flight of stairs that night and fell several other times, injuring his head, Miller said. The next morning, he fell down the stairs again and was unconscious when help was finally summoned. He died Feb. 4 as a result of a traumatic brain injury. Miller said doctors estimate Piazza had a blood-alcohol content of nearly 0.40 per cent; the legal limit for drivers, for comparison, is 0.08 per cent. The investigation found some frat members tried to conceal what happened. It found that a text message recovered by police urged pledges to get rid of evidence of alcohol and that conversations discussing deleting conversations from a messaging app were discovered. Piazzas father, Jim Piazza, blamed a flagrant disregard for the law and said the death didnt have to happen. Sadly, the dad said, were never going to see his smile again except in pictures. Penn State permanently banned Beta Theta Pi on March 30, accusing it of a persistent pattern of excessive drinking, drug use and hazing. University President Eric Barron called the report heart-wrenching, sickening and incomprehensible. It is numbing how an atmosphere that endangers the well-being and safety of another person could occur within an organization that prided itself on commitment to each other and to its community, Barron said. Miller said video footage turned over to investigators provided evidence of what occurred and contradicted stories some witnesses had told. The cameras recorded Piazza drinking vodka and beer and an hour later needing help to walk from an area near the basement stairs to a couch. Piazza later is shown trying unsuccessfully to open the front door, then severely staggering drunkenly toward the basement steps, the grand jury report said. He was found at the bottom of the steps after apparently falling face-first. Four brothers carried his limp body upstairs, where some poured liquid on him and one slapped him in the face, the grand jury said. Fraternity members put a backpack containing textbooks on him so he wouldnt suffocate on his own vomit, the grand jury wrote. When a brother insisted Piazza needed medical help, he was confronted and shoved into a wall, the report said. When that brother insisted again that Piazza required help, he was told others were biology and kinesiology majors so his opinion wasnt as valuable as theirs, it said. Piazza tried to get up later but fell backward and hit his head on the wooden floor, the report said. He also fell onto a stone floor before being found in the basement hours later, it said. Timothy was lying on his back with his arms clenched tight at his sides and his hands in the air, grand jurors wrote. During the next 40 minutes, fraternity brothers shook him, tried to prop him up, covered him with a blanket, wiped his face and attempted to dress him before one finally called 911, the grand jury said. Ten of the defendants were arraigned Friday and were released on bail. The remaining defendants will be arraigned next week. SHARE: TOPEKA, KAN.When Adrian Jones was murdered, the 7-year-old boy was supposed to be getting schooled at his Kansas home by the mother and stepfather who have since admitted to killing him. Authorities arent sure how long he had been dead when his remains were finally found, and they believe he was subjected to months of horrific abuse that went unnoticed by the outside world. Now, Adrian Jones grandmother, Judy Conway, wants answers from the state and tougher rules for home schools. But despite Adrians death, the GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature is wary of stepping on parental rights or what goes on in homes. I just wanted some oversight, said Conway, an Emporia State University administrator whose contacted legislators about Adrians case. I dont think Im asking too much. Kansas does little to regulate home schools beyond requiring parents to register them with its Department of Education and directing them to provide competent teachers. Some lawmakers are pursuing legislation in response to Adrians case, and some want to discuss oversight of home schools. But a serious debate isnt likely until at least next year. Authorities believe Adrian died in September or October 2015, and Conway said she has seen photos of videos of him being tortured and starved. His remains were found in the familys pig sty only after officers learned the boy was missing while responding to a report that the boys dad, Michael Jones, had attacked his wife, Heather, at the Kansas City, Kansas, home. The father, 46, has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and is scheduled to be sentenced Monday. Heather Jones pleaded guilty in November. Conway last saw her grandson who called her Nana in 2012, when Michael Jones took custody of the boy and his two siblings. She says shes determined to make sure vulnerable children who are home-schooled have some contact with the public school system or other agency. Kansas City, Kansas, Democratic Rep. Louis Ruiz is having legislation drafted to deal with cases in which family members witness abuse but dont report it. Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, said she wants the court system to review and propose changes in how records are sealed, as they are in Adrians case. But attempting to ramp up oversight of home schooling could spark a backlash. Republican Rep. Kevin Jones, a conservative Wellsville Republican, said the horrific nature of Adrians case naturally causes people to look to the government to do something. Its a liberty issue, said the local school board member, who also home schools his seven children. To say somebody should be able to come into my house that would be huge governmental regulation. The state doesnt specifically authorize home schools but treats them as non-accredited private schools. The Department of Education doesnt have a good estimate of how many children are home-schooled and acknowledges that its list of several thousand registered schools contains many that have ceased operating. Conway also is strongly critical of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which investigates child abuse and neglect complaints. The agency said its last contact with the family was February 2012. Department Secretary Phyllis Gilmore issued a statement Friday saying reports involving Adrian were thoroughly investigated. Missouri officials also monitored the family, which moved frequently. It is very difficult to assist families who are constantly transient, especially those who move across state lines, Gilmore said. Conway believes that greater oversight by Kansas of home schooling would have helped. She said abusive parents can use home schooling as an excuse to isolate their children. Conway said she didnt know that the Joneses were claiming to home-school Adrian until his remains were discovered and, That would have been a major red flag. SHARE: ROCKVILLE, MD.Prosecutors are dropping charges against two Hispanic teens accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a restroom at a suburban Washington high school, a case cited by the White House as an example of why the president wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Montgomery County States Attorney John McCarthy said at a Friday news conference that the rape and sex offence charges were being dropped after a painstaking investigation of the girls claim that the two teens raped her in the bathroom at Rockville High School. Defence attorneys said the sex was consensual. They pointed to text messages in which the girl agreed to a sexual encounter; an explicit video the girl sent one of the teens; and security camera footage, which they said shows the girl running to meet one of the teens and willingly entering the restroom with him. McCarthy said the girl was interviewed multiple times and the investigation revealed a lack of corroboration and substantial inconsistencies. The original charges cannot be sustained, and prosecution is untenable on those charges, McCarthy said. He refused to answer any questions after reading a statement. While dropping the rape charges, prosecutors brought child pornography charges against the two male teens. McCarthy said 18-year-old Henry Sanchez will be charged with possession of child pornography, which carries a potential sentence of up to five years. He declined to say what charges the 17-year-old would face, because that case has been transferred to juvenile court. But the younger teens lawyers said the boy would face charges of distributing and possessing child pornography. They said the charges carry a possible sentence of 10 years or more. The AP does not typically identify juveniles charged with crimes and is not naming the 17-year-old now that he is charged as a juvenile. Defence lawyer Maria Mena said the pornography charges stem from the video the 14-year-old girl sent to the 17-year-old, which he then shared with Sanchez. She called it egregious that her client was being charged, while the girl who made the video and sent it to him is not being charged. The purpose of the child pornography statute, she said, is to deter adults from engaging in predatory conduct against kids, not to criminalize sexting between two minors. Another defence attorney, David Wooten, said the primary reason they were able to prove the 17-year-olds innocence was by producing the evidence of explicit text messages and the video that the girl had sent. Those very text messages and images that vindicated him are now being used against him, he said. The 17-year-old came to the U.S. from El Salvador to live with relatives who are U.S. citizens after his adoptive grandmother died in El Salvador, leaving him alone there, his lawyers said. Mena said Friday that immigration proceedings have been initiated against him, but they will fight to keep him in the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the 18-year-old was stopped by a border patrol agent in Texas last year after arriving from Guatemala and that an immigration detainer has been placed on him. After the initial charges were filed in March, White House spokesman Sean Spicer, in response to a reporters question, called the allegations shocking and disturbing, saying Part of the reason that the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this. The county school system later became the subject of anti-immigration protests and counter protests. Officials said they were besieged by hundreds of racist and xenophobic calls and comments, and had to increase security. At Fridays White House briefing, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether the White House unfairly jumped to conclusions in the case. She said Spicer was speaking about what he knew at the time. SHARE: Steven Seagal, the American actor best known for his role in 90s action movies such as Hard to Kill and Under Siege, has been blacklisted from Ukraine as a national security threat. Seagal is banned from entering the country for five years on grounds he has committed socially dangerous actions . . . that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraines security, according to a Ukrainian security service letter published by the news site Apostrophe and reported by the Guardian. The 65-year-old actor has for years cultivated a friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, bonding over their love of martial arts and shared macho images. Though the Ukrainian security letter does not outline specific statements that got the actor banned, Seagal once participated in a pro-Putin motorcycle rally in Crimea, a disputed peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a revolution. In an interview then, Seagal defended Russias annexation of Crimea, saying that Putins desire to protect the Russian-speaking people of Crimea, his assets, and the Russian Black Sea military base in Sevastopol . . . is very reasonable, the Moscow Times reported. Seagals Crimea comments made him persona non grata in another country, Estonia, where organizers of a 2014 music festival there cancelled his set after backlash from the Estonian public. We hope that Estonian public will primarily view Seagal as an actor and musician, said Raul Ukareda, program director for the festival, according to the Hollywood Reporter. But, as it turned out, everyone sees him only as a politician and Putin loyalist. During the Obama administration, Seagal often praised the Kremlin while criticizing U.S. foreign policy. In a 2013 interview with the Russian news channel RT, Seagal called Putin one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader alive today. The feeling seemed mutual. Putin would later propose that Seagal become an honorary Russian envoy to the United States. In November, Putin granted Russian citizenship to Seagal, presenting him with a Russian passport in a formal ceremony. Read more: Putin grants U.S. actor Steven Seagal Russian citizenship It was an ending fit for Hollywood, The Washington Posts Andrew Roth reported then, one that consummated an odd-couple bromance that has blossomed despite years of dark relations between the two mens respective countries. Seagal, who openly supported Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, has appeared in numerous direct-to-video films since breaking out as an action star in the 1990s. He also starred in his own reality show on the Reelz Network, Steven Seagal: Lawman, in which showed him teaming up with law enforcement organizations in Louisiana and Arizona. I think our biggest problem is the open border, Seagal told ABC15 News in a 2014 interview about the Arizona season of the show. I think this is a tremendous oversight by our current administration. As Ronald Reagan once said, if we dont have security on our borders, we dont have a country. Read more about: SHARE: When Evans Ray Jr. stood in a U.S. federal courtroom in 2007 after arranging a drug sale, a judge explained, at length, that he didnt want to hand down the mandatory life sentence required by law. It is my desire not to sentence you to life, Judge Alexander Williams Jr. said in his Greenbelt, Md., courtroom, according to transcripts. I believe that the circumstances justify a sentence shorter than life. I further believe that there is some disproportionality between what youve done and the sentence of life. Ray, 47, a barber with a wife, four children and two prior drug convictions, initially refused to arrange the sale. He was a middleman pushed into the transaction by a friend who turned out to be a government informant, and didnt profit from the deal. The other defendants involved in the sale received lighter sentences. Williams tried to sentence Ray to a shorter term of 27 years, but prosecutors appealed. The conviction was what is commonly called a third strike, which can trigger a mandatory minimum sentence. In Rays case, a life sentence it would be. After his sentencing, Ray thanked the man who ensured he would die behind bars. I have to own up to my own responsibility. The law says life. Im not in agreement with it, not at all, and I know you werent, Ray said, according to transcripts. But I just want to thank you and the courts for at least trying. Ray now considers himself blessed, he said he was granted clemency in 2016 by former president Barack Obama. After 12 years, he is out, and he and the judge who gave him life are joining forces to condemn mandatory-minimum sentences. It had to be said, Williams, now retired, said of his comments from the bench during a recent meeting with Ray at his office. It didnt sit right in my stomach. Ray, meanwhile, is adjusting to a life he thought he would never return to. Now in his 50s, he is living with his parents in Prince Georges County, Md., getting to know his children, holding down a job and speaking out against the law that sought to keep him behind bars for life. Mandatory minimum sentences have long troubled drug-reform advocates. First instituted by Congress during the war on drugs in the 1980s, they prevent judges from considering other factors, such as past behaviour, when handing out prison time. Some judges dont like them, either. Kevin Sharp, a former federal court judge in Tennessee who recently stepped down after six years, said he didnt sleep for several nights in 2014 when he sentenced a minor player in a drug deal to life. I dragged out the sentencing so that I wouldnt have to say these words and sentence him, said Sharp, now a civil rights attorney in private practice. In Maryland, Williams said he presided over about 1,000 criminal cases before stepping down, and certainly a couple hundred involved mandatory minimums. None of the judges like having their hands tied, he said. The Maryland U.S. Attorneys Office, which prosecuted Ray, declined to comment on the case. But Del Wright Jr., a prosecutor in Rays case who is now a law professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana, said he didnt think Rays sentence was fair even though Wright worked for the office that asked for it. After Ray declined a plea agreement and was convicted at trial, Wright said, prosecutors had no choice but to ask for a mandatory life sentence. The threat of a mandatory minimum is what can induce people to accept plea bargains to lesser charges, he said. I use that as (an example) in my classes sometimes, he said of the case. Its our role. Its not something you necessarily want to do. Ray was thrown into the federal prison system with a hefty sentence, serving hard time. Although he had never fired a gun, he said, he was sent to Big Sandy, a high-security penitentiary in Kentucky also known as Killer Mountain. Some killers and rapists were serving shorter sentences than him, and peace between races was kept by the constant threat of violence. Theyve got knives, weve got knives, Ray said. Ray kept out of trouble, working toward lower-security institutions, and applied for clemency in 2014. Obama made it clear that he was no friend of mandatory minimums, eventually granting clemency to more than 1,700 people. Ray was the type of candidate the Obama administration had in mind: He had limited criminal history and arguably was pulled into a conspiracy. Sapna Mirchandani, a Maryland federal public defender, said she learned of Rays case during a review of hundreds of mandatory minimum sentences while searching for possible clemency applicants. His jumped out at me, she said. Mirchandani helped put together Rays clemency petition. Among the letters submitted on his behalf were some from prison officials, and one from Williams, the judge in Rays case. As I stated at the time of sentencing, and as I believe even more strongly today, imposing a life sentence on Mr. Ray for the single sale of 60 grams of cocaine base . . . amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, the judge wrote in April 2016. Ray was granted clemency in August. He was so nervous about reading the letter when it arrived that he asked a fellow prisoner to read it for him. I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around, Obama wrote. Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity. Since he stepped out of prison, Ray says he has done just that. Its like a long black tunnel, but you cant let that beacon of light go dark, he said. Its not clear whether President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions embrace mandatory minimums. The Justice Department didnt respond to requests for comment. Kevin Ring, president of the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums and a former prisoner, isnt optimistic, saying, Were going backwards. Some prosecutors disagree. Larry Leiser, president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, a professional association for prosecutors, declined to comment, but referred to the organizations 2015 white paper on mandatory minimums that concluded they help reduce violent crime and persuade defendants to co-operate with prosecutors. Behind the sentimental appeal of the circumstances of some defendants serving long mandatory sentences is the rest of the story, it read. In nearly every instance, the defendant has been convicted multiple times before and could have avoided a longer sentence . . . Instead they elected not to assist law enforcement and instead protected fellow co-conspirators. Ray and hundreds of other offenders granted clemency by Obama, meanwhile, are struggling to adapt to a reality that many thought they would never see: shaking off a life sentence and learning to survive outside prison, in some cases at an age when others may contemplate retirement. David Carroll, 64, was convicted of distribution of crack cocaine in 1995 in Virginia. He served 22 years before Obama commuted his sentence, and was released last fall. Twenty-two years takes a toll, whether youre inside or out, he said. His first stop was Hope Village, the maligned D.C. halfway house with a history of security issues and problems connecting residents with jobs. Some guys would rather stay in jail than go to Hope Village, Carroll said. In an interview, Hope Village Director Jeff Varone referred to Washington Post stories about problems at the halfway house, saying he shared Trumps opinion that the Post offered fake news. No matter what we say isnt going to be good enough, Varone said. We do the best possible job with these guys. They think were miracle workers. I think we do a really outstanding job for our community. Carroll is sleeping on his nieces couch in Falls Church, Va., with limited job prospects. He wants to start a hauling business with his Ford truck, but said hes had trouble getting a drivers licence because of complications with a 32-year-old outstanding traffic ticket. Unlike less fortunate former prisoners, he is surrounded by friends and family to support him as his new life begins, but wants to get back to work. I hope to be halfway stable so I can give a better forecast for next year, five years, Carroll said. I have to make money. Ray is helping to care for his mother, who recently had a mastectomy, and his stepfather, who lost both his legs to diabetes. He makes a little more than the Districts minimum wage at the Toni Thomas Community Empowerment Training Academy, a jobs program in Southeast Washington. Hes also able to help his children for the first time, taking some of the slack off their moms, he said. I didnt have any memories, said Thea Ray, his 14-year-old daughter who was 2 years old when her father was locked up. Just pictures. Among sentencing reform advocates, Rays voice is valued, but interviews and speaking engagements dont pay, and he sometimes misses paid work for them. I just cant forget where I came from, he said. The day you stop fighting for your life is the day you give up. Among those cheering for him is the judge who sent him away. Its a happy ending, Williams said, and Im just glad I could play a small part. Read more about: SHARE: : , , , , - 28 . Out with the old, in with the young? Thats certainly been the thinking for generations of workers who wanted to retire early and were happy to give way to younger, more energetic employees. But things have changed. Canadians are living longer, healthier lives. Many want to remain actively engaged. At the same time, many are concerned they wont be able to afford retirement because of inadequate pensions or savings. No wonder a growing number of seniors would like to continue on in the workforce, as many surveys have found. Yet a perverse system of incentives discourages seniors from working. This is a problem not simply for older people who want to stay in the workforce, but for the economy as a whole. Despite valid concerns about current youth unemployment, as the population continues to age economists say there wont be enough young people to fill jobs in the workforce in coming years. That would entail a number of economic costs, including a loss of productivity and consumer spending power. It would also cause a worrying diminution of the tax base. This, at a time when a growing portion of the population would be living off often-meagre pensions and requiring more help from social services, not to mention putting an ever-greater burden on the health system. There is some urgency on this front. This week Statistics Canada confirmed that the percentage of Canadians over 65 (16.9 per cent) is now greater than those aged 15 and under (16.6 per cent). Fifty years ago, at the height of the baby boom, seniors comprised less than 8 per cent of the population and the youngest group was fully 34 per cent. By 2031 those over 65 are expected to make up about 23 per cent of the population, similar to todays Japan, the worlds oldest country. With all of this in mind, the Trudeau governments economic advisory council recommended earlier this year that Ottawa raise the age of retirement eligibility to keep seniors in the workforce longer. The Harper government tried to do just that, raising the age when old-age benefits kick in from 65 to 67, but the Trudeau Liberals rightly overturned that policy. They should stay the course. Government policy should not penalize seniors who dont want to work by making them wait longer for their pensions. Nor does providing seniors with pensions discourage them from working as much as one would think, says Andrew Jackson, a senior policy adviser with the Broadbent Institute, which has studied the issue. Instead, the government should encourage Canadians to stay in the workplace with carrots, not sticks. One inducement, sensibly recommended by the economic advisory council, would be to allow Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan deferrals beyond age 70 and ensure that deferrals past 65 are more attractive than they are now. As it stands, deferrals barely increase the amount of guaranteed income pensioners will have over their lifetime. A second suggestion is to make it easier for older workers to go back to school to upgrade their skills or learn new ones to adapt to a changing workplace. The council recommended spending $100 million a year over the next five years to establish a new, arms-length national organization to develop new approaches to retraining workers. Other solutions, proposed in countless studies, speak directly to making the workplace more attractive to older workers so theyre more likely to choose work over retirement. To some extent, this means labour policies that promote decent work and would benefit all workers, including older ones. One example: policies that encourage a decent wage or allow part-time or flexible hours without a loss of protections. But abundant research has also shown that encouraging older workers to stay in the labour market will require significant culture change. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found negative stereotypes about older workers were a significant barrier to their continuing to work. Tackling this problem involves changing the mindset of human resources policies so that employers focus on retaining seniors, and even hiring them, rather than pushing them out the door. As The Economist has argued, performance rather than age should be the criterion for employing people. On this, governments can begin by setting a model in their own practices with the hundreds of thousands of public employees across the country. Canada can also learn from countries in Europe and Asia that have aged more quickly than we have. Keys to weathering the demographic storm, according to one study that looked at 46 countries in Europe and Central Asia, are keeping adult populations active, providing high-quality education, and ensuring seniors dont live in poverty. For too long there has been a culture of pushing seniors out the door or encouraging them to leave through buyouts to make room for the young. That may have seemed necessary in the past, but it doesnt reflect our current challenges. For seniors, for the economy, for all of us, the government must adapt its policies to the changing demographic reality. The steps government has already taken, both by rolling back the age of eligibility for Old Age Security and beginning to expand public pension coverage, are a good start but only a start toward ensuring that older workers who want to retire can. Now the government must act to ensure that the many seniors who want to stay in the labour market are also able to do so. SHARE: Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. operates as bank holding company for the Prosperity Bank that provides financial products and services to businesses and consumers. It accepts various deposit products, such as demand, savings, money market, and time accounts, as well as and certificates of deposit. The company also offers 1-4 family residential mortgage, commercial real estate and multifamily residential, commercial and industrial, agricultural, and non-real estate agricultural loans, as well as construction, land development, and other land loans; consumer loans, including automobile, recreational vehicle, boat, home improvement, personal, and deposit account collateralized loans; and consumer durables and home equity loans, as well as loans for working capital, business expansion, and purchase of equipment and machinery. In addition, it provides internet banking, mobile banking, trust and wealth management, retail brokerage, mortgage services, and treasury management, as well as debit and credit cards. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 273 full-service banking locations comprising 65 in the Houston area, including The Woodlands; 30 in the South Texas area including Corpus Christi and Victoria; 63 in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area; 22 in the East Texas area; 29 in the Central Texas area, including Austin and San Antonio; 34 in the West Texas area, including Lubbock, Midland-Odessa and Abilene; 16 in the Bryan/College Station area; 6 in the Central Oklahoma area; and 8 in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area doing business as LegacyTexas Bank. Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in Houston, Texas. Chevron Corporation, through a network of subsidiaries, engages in integrated energy and chemicals operations worldwide. The company is the 7th largest integrated oil company worldwide, the 2nd largest in the US, and has been in operation since 1879. Chevron was part of the original Standard Oil Company and is one of the 34 successor companies that were formed when it was broken up. Today, the company brings in roughly $160 billion in annual revenues and is the last remaining oil and gas component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Originally called Standard Oil Of California the company grew quickly via mergers and acquisitions. It was hailed as one of the Seven Sisters to dominate the US and global production throughout the mid-20th century and became even bigger in 1985 when it merged with Gulf Oil. The merger with Gulf Oil resulted in the rebranding from Standard Oil Of California to Chevron (a brand used by the company outside its California jurisdiction) and then ChevronTexaco Corporation in 2005 when that merger took place. The company rebranded again in 2005 to what we know today as Chevron Corporation. Chevron Corporation is now based in San Ramone, California, and has operations in 180 countries. The company employs more than 42,500 people who operate 5 refineries and 8,000+ Texaco, Chevron, and Standard Oil service stations in the US alone. The company's Exploration and Drilling operations produced a record 3.1 million barrels per day and its US refineries process more than 1 million barrels per day. At the end of 2021, the company has more than 11.3 billion barrels of proven oil and liquid-equivalent reserves and boasted a 112% reserve replacement rate. The company operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment explores new reserves, develops known reserves, produces petroleum and gas products as needed, transports, processes, pipes, stores, and markets petroleum worldwide. The Downstream segment refines and markets the full line of petroleum-based products including but not limited to fuels such as gas, diesel, and aviation fuel, as well as lubricants, petrochemicals, and plastics. The company transports products via pipeline, rail, marine vessels, and truck. Chevron recognizes the need to lower the worlds carbon output and is working toward that end. The companys strategy is two-pronged and includes reducing its own carbon output while investing in green and lower-carbon technologies. The companys goal is to invest $10 billion or more into lower carbon energy sources and technologies by 2028. Chevron is a Dividend Aristocrat. The company has been paying a dividend since 1989 and it has raised it every year since its inception. The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Alverix Inc, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience Inc, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. 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Read More Kuwait remains committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 in oil & gas sector and in other sectors by 2060, said its foreign minister at the UN climate summit COP27, adding that it had executed several projects to preserve the environment and cut emissions. The Opposition has threatened to take the Government all the way to the Privy Council over o Militants launched 63 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, militants used 120mm mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to shell Ukrainian positions near Pavlopol. In addition, the enemy fired at ATO troops near Hnutove, using grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Ukrainian strongholds outside Maryinka came under 82mm mortars, grenade launcher and heavy machine gun fire. In addition, the enemy fired at ATO troops in Vodiane (16km north-west of Donetsk), using 82mm mortars, grenade launchers. In Donetsk direction, terrorists used 120mm mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to shell Verkhnotoretsk and Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk). Militants also launched attacks on ATO troops in Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk) and Butovka coal mine (11.4km north-west of Donetsk), using 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. In Luhansk direction, Russian-backed militants shelled Ukrainian positions near Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk) and Novozvanivka (70km west of Luhansk), using 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. ATO troops also came under antitank grenade launcher fire outside Novooleksandrivka. ish Ukraine has banned American action movie star Steven Seagal from entering Ukraine for 5 years. This is said in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe. The services press secretary later confirmed the ban to other media. "Guided by Part 1 of Article 13 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons" and Article 7 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Fundamentals of the National Security of Ukraine," the Security Service of Ukraine has decided to ban Steven Seagal entry to the territory of Ukraine for five years," the SBU said. As noted, Seagals friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his outspoken support for his policies are the reason behind the Ukrainian action. ish US Secretary of Defense James Mattis in a telephone conversation with Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz confirmed his support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. This has been reported by the Ministry of National Defense of Poland. "The ministers discussed the security situation in the region given the threat to the so-called eastern flank [NATO], Poland, the Baltic countries and Romania, and the deployment of US troops in Poland. The US Secretary of Defense confirmed his support for the independence and integrity of Ukraine," the report said. The parties also discussed the issues related to the terrorist threat and actions of North Korea. ish In the Estonian city of Johvi, located in the north-eastern part of the country, a photo exhibition dedicated to the ATO heroes opened in the church of St. Michael. Activist of the Ukrainian diaspora Tetiana Ivushkina said this to an Ukrinform correspondent. Representatives of the local Georgian diaspora, the Embassy of Ukraine to Estonia and Chairman of the Congress of Ukrainians in Estonia Vira Konyk attended the opening of the exhibition. The video about ATO was presented. The exhibition will work in Johvi until mid-May. "I would like that on May holidays all Estonians, regardless of their nationality and language of communication, come and see how Ukrainian heroes in modern Europe defend the independence of their country. The war continues," the activist of the Ukrainian diaspora summed up. ish The Chinese navy on Friday handed over a notorious pirate leader captured last month after a failed hijack attempt. Abdikarim Salah "Aw Koombe" and two other pirates are now in the custody of Puntland security officials at the Red Sea port of Bosaso. The three, who were in handcuffs and wearing flotation jackets, were brought to the port in small rubber boats. Colonel Yasin Ali Nur, commander of security forces at Bosaso port, told VOA Somali reporter Fadumo Yasin Jama, the three will be tried on piracy-related charges. "These three prisoners, their weapons, will be kept here at the prison at the port until they are transferred to the central prison, until they appear before a court," Nur said. Dozens of hijackings One of the three prisoners was involved in up to 26 hijackings, said Abdimajid Samatar, director of Regional Ministry of Ports and Marine Transport which overseas anti-piracy activities in Puntland. It's believed Samatar was referring to Aw Koombe. The pirates attacked the Tuvalu-flagged ship on April 8 off Socorta Island. The crew had locked themselves in a safe room making it impossible for the pirates to steer the ship toward the Somali shores. Chinese and Indian navy ships reached the scene and rescued the ship. Pirate leader Aw Koombe spoke candidly about what happened on the ship in an exclusive interview with VOA after his handover by the Chinese navy. He told VOA that three of them boarded the ship in an attempt to hijack it. He said they ran into difficulties after the crew locked themselves in the safety room. To avoid being captured by Chinese crewmen who were deployed on the ship by helicopter, Aw Koombe said he and the two others hid on the ship. "I was sleeping 12 hours throughout the night. The next day, they [the Chinese navy] heard a bit a of noise. They find out where we were hiding, then they apprehended us," he said. "Im back home, the sight is pleasant, my mind is good, I'm back with my people, I'm not missing anything," he said. Poverty blamed Aw Koombe is a well-known pirate leader who authorities say was involved in many maritime attacks against ships over the years. But, in a VOA interview, he denied being involved in any other attacks. Asked what drove him to try to hijack this ship, he said: "Whatever reasons that were given ... poverty. Is there any other reason?" A report released this week by the maritime group Oceans Beyond Piracy said declining vigilance is giving pirates an opening to renew their attacks on ships traveling near the Somalian coast. The report said after several years of decreased pirate activity, ships are sailing closer to shore and the number of naval vessels patrolling the waters near Somalia has dropped. Fadumo Yasin Jama contributed to this report from Bosaso, Somalia. President Jacob Zuma has five days to explain himself to a court and by extension, to his country over his widely unpopular decision to fire a well-respected finance minister and reshuffle his Cabinet in March. On Thursday, a High Court approved an opposition party demand that Zuma provide all of his records to explain why he fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as part of the controversial reshuffle. The move prompted widespread outrage and caused a major ratings agency to downgrade the nation's sovereign credit rating to "junk" status, citing political instability as its cause. It's just the latest twist in an ongoing political drama that has besieged the increasingly unpopular president, who has long governed under the cloud of long-simmering corruption scandals. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of South Africans, encouraged by a newly unified opposition, held marches demanding his resignation. Earlier this week, Zuma was booed offstage at a political rally held for union workers. The president's political predicament further deepened Friday when three of the nation's former presidents, F.W. de Klerk, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, spoke against him in an unprecedented show of unity. They join a growing list of luminaries, including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who have criticized Zuma. During a public talk with the three leaders in Johannesburg, Mbeki, who preceded Zuma, said, "No person or institution should have more authority than the will of the people." Court involvement Whether the third branch of government should get involved in politics is itself politically divisive. Zuma's ruling African National Congress on Friday panned the ruling as "unfettered encroachment of the judiciary into the realm of the executive." The opposition Democratic Alliance, which has filed numerous court cases against Zuma, hailed it as "a victory not only for the DA but for all South Africans who deserve to know on what basis the President made this disastrous decision." Politics professor Daryl Glaser of the University of the Witwatersrand described this as an "exceptional circumstance" for South African politics, where "the judiciary is having to, as it were, put out fires and pick up pieces because the other parts of the state are not functioning effectively." "A lot of people will excuse or justify the court's role in that way," he said. "But I don't think it's ideal that the court should be extending itself too far into the domain of other branches of government. I think, however, on the whole, interventions in relation to Zuma have been healthy for our constitutional democracy. So it's a difficult call." 'Fair and reasonable' South Africa's Constitution gives the president power to make changes to his cabinet as she or he sees fit, but also stipulates that decisions should be fair and reasonable. That's why this case got to court initially, Zuma and his allies said they fired the minister because of a widely discredited intelligence report that accused him of plotting against the president. Glaser said the court's decision could have a major impact on South African politics because "what has to be decided is whether there are other elements in play, whether the executive is required to give some account of its decisions. But then, does it mean it has to account for all of its decisions ... in the future?" "You wouldn't want to give the impression that the court is taking sides in a political dispute," he added. "So such a principle would have to be impartially applied. And it would probably be quite unusual amongst the world's political leaders to have governments, or presidents or prime ministers, who have to publicly explain every Cabinet reshuffle." Political pundits say it's likely and legal that the president will appeal the ruling and thereby avoid a courtroom confession. It's also likely, they say, that the president's drama is far from over. A European Union official in Rwanda says President Paul Kagame is likely headed toward re-election, and says he doubts the EU will send monitors to observe the vote. Michael Ryan, head of the EU delegation to Rwanda, spoke to journalists in Kigali Thursday, a day after a 35-year-old woman whose father was killed under unclear circumstances said she would challenge Kagame in the August election. I think you would not lose any money if you bet on Mr. Paul Kagame, Ryan said in response to a question posed by VOA's Central Africa Service. We have a leader who has evidence of his work in front of everybody. And you have candidates who have to prove [themselves]. They are untested and they have to prove," he said. Kagame has effectively ruled Rwanda for 23 years and is widely credited for stabilizing the country after the 1994 genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people. Critics say Kagame's rule is autocratic and intolerant of opposition. They are outnumbered, however, and some observers think Kagame's popularity is the reason the EU is not sending election monitors to Rwanda this year. Ryan maintained Thursday that the decision is mainly a financial one. It is a very expensive exercise, he said, adding that there are fewer reasons to be in Rwanda than in other countries where elections could be more controversial. Challenger announces candidacy Diane Rwigara announced Wednesday that she would challenge Kagame, becoming the first female to announce her candidacy. She is the daughter of a prominent businessman who was killed when his car was rammed by a truck. The Rwanda National Police called it an an accident but his family believes it was foul play and has appealed to Kagame to investigate. Other Rwandans face similar problems, not just my family alone and therefore I have to end their misery," Rwigara said. She said she knows how it feels to be a victim. Having dissenting views shouldnt be a crime, she said. There are two other declared presidential candidates, one from Rwanda's tiny opposition party and another independent. Election process In order to be allowed to run, the candidates must gather 600 signatures, including at least 12 from all of Rwanda's 30 voting districts. Once they make the ballot, candidates will have only three weeks to campaign. Ryan says the EU told Rwanda's election body that the rules are limiting to presidential challengers. Having to register only a few weeks before, having three weeks to campaign and if you are an independent having virtually no opportunity to raise money and to show yourself to the people... Its that environment in which I suspect the outcome will be fairly predictable. A volcano in the south of Guatemala was spewing hot ash high into the sky Friday, threatening nearby villages, according to local authorities. Guatemala's volcanic monitor, Insivumeh, said the Fuego volcano was spitting thick columns of black ash more than 5,000 meters into the air, some of which traveled more than 20 kilometers. It said the ash was accompanied by loud explosions and new lava flows. Three hundred people were evacuated as a precaution from the village of Panimache, the French news agency AFP reported. Falling ash forced the suspension of classes in 10 schools in the southern Escuintla district. The Fuego volcano is about 30 kilometers southwest of the country's capital, Guatemala City. The volcano has already spewed ash several times this year. The last major eruption was in 2015. At that time, the volcano's activity forced the closure of the capital's main airport. After six months of intensified repairs, Iraqi officials claim the massive Mosul Dam has been saved from impending disaster. But experts say it will always be at risk of collapse and will need constant maintenance. "There remains no danger to the dam now," Hassan Janabi, Iraq's minister of water resources, told VOA. "It is with overwhelming happiness to announce that it is going back to normal operation." The 13-kilometer-long dam on the Tigris River in northern Iraq is the Middle East's second-largest dam. Concerns over its instability have been persistent since its construction in 1981 when it was known as the Saddam Dam due to the fact that it was built on a soft landscape, and there have been continuing questions about shoddy work when it was built. Located 60 kilometers north of Mosul, the dam received international attention after Islamic State took control of it for several weeks in 2014. After U.S.-backed Kurdish peshmerga forces pushed IS from the dam area, experts warned it was in dire condition and could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water on 1.5 million people in Iraqi's two largest cities, Mosul and the capital, Baghdad. 'No significant signs of distress' Italian company Trevi started repairs in October 2016. Carlo Crippa, the project manager, said the dam structure now shows no significant signs of distress. However, constant maintenance will be necessary, as "the rocks of the foundations are prone to dissolution due to the circulation of water." The five waterways that control the flow of water into the dam are open, after being closed for over 12 years, and Minister Janabi said water levels are now at the highest level since 2005. Despite these assurances, experts who have studied the dam structure say it remains far from safe. "There is always a chance that water is going to migrate," said Azzam Alwash, an Iraqi-American civil engineer who has served as an adviser on the dam. He said 24 sinkholes remain in the dam's reservoir, making it vulnerable to pressure from water flows. "This is a dam tantamount to a nuclear bomb," Alwash said. "Are you going to take the risk of keeping your family in a place where it can sink under as much as 15 meters of water in a matter of hours? I'm not." More serious risk Nadhir al-Ansari, professor of water resources and environmental engineering at Lulea University in Sweden and a published expert on the Mosul Dam, agreed that the risk is serious. "There is no guarantee the dam will ever be safe. Studies done on the dam all show that its collapse is imminent," he said. "The minister may say it's safe because Iraq is already past the flooding season, which peaks in April and ends in May. You will have the same problem every year in April." To fill the cavities that form underneath the concrete, engineers have injected the dam with more than 50,000 tons of grout, a liquefied mixture of cement and other additives, since it opened in 1986. "The grouting solution by the Italian company is only a temporary measure for emergency fixes," al Ansari said. "When they block a cavity in one place, it appears in another place. This is something that can't be stopped. The only solution is to build another [dam] close to it." Such an effort began in 1988 with the construction of Badush Dam, 12 kilometers away. It was 40 percent complete before work was halted in 1992 due to U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Apart from building a new water-containment system to relieve the strain on Mosul Dam, Alwash said "the solution is to empty the reservoir." To do that, Iraq would have to reach out to neighbor states upstream on the Tigris River especially Turkey to control the influx of water. "Don't put more money into repairing it," he said. "Put political will to work with neighboring countries on water management." For now, Janabi said teams of experts will continue to monitor the dam's stability. He said he is confident "in our ability to manage the dam under all difficult circumstances." North Korea on Friday accused the governments of the United States and South Korea of carrying out an unsuccessful assassination attempt against leader Kim Jong Un. State media reports quoted the country's security ministry as saying it would "ferret out and mercilessly destroy" the agents in the U.S. and South Korean spy agencies it accuses of plotting the attack. A cash deal According to the Ministry of State Security, American and South Korean spies coerced a North Korean citizen into carrying out the assassination attempt in return for money and supplied the would-be assassin with satellite equipment to track Kim's movement. The cooperation between spies and the North Korean man, identified only by his surname, Kim, allegedly began in 2014 when agents approached him while he was working in Russia. Upon returning home, the spies allegedly had repeated contact with the man, and last month informed him he would use a biochemical weapon to carry out the assassination. No details revealed The North Korean statement did not provide details about how it allegedly broke up the assassination plot or if anyone else involved was in custody. North Korea regularly lashes out at the U.S. and South Korea, though the allegations lodged Friday were more specific than usual. The CIA declined to comment on the allegations. Earlier this year, Kim's exiled half-brother was assassinated at a Malaysian airport in a similar fashion to that described by the security ministry. The chemical attack, using the VX agent, is largely believed to have been carried out by North Korea, though the country denies involvement. U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be Army secretary has withdrawn his name from consideration due to complaints about comments he has made disparaging minority groups, including gays and transgender people. The White House confirmed Friday that Mark Green was no longer being considered for the top civilian leadership position in the U.S. Army. Green, a state senator in Tennessee, said in a statement that opposition to his appointment was based on "false and misleading attacks." The former Army physician was criticized as an unsuitable leader for the nation's largest military service based on a widely seen video of him speaking last September in Tennessee to a group affiliated with the Tea Party, a group of fiscally and socially conservative Republicans. In his remarks, Green said people who are transgender - those born as members of one biological sex who identify themselves socially as the other gender - suffer from a "disease." Green also assailed what he contended is the "indoctrination of Islam" in some American public schools, and said his "life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized" by his opponents. Critics: 'Green unfit to lead Army' Secretary of the Army is not a Cabinet-level post, but reports to the secretary of defense, but the appointment is made by the president and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The post of Army secretary also is different from that of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking uniformed position in the U.S. military. Gay activist groups, the Human Rights Campaign, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a number of Democratic senators have spoken out against Green. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a combat veteran in Iraq who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in the military, said that despite his own military service, including three tours of duty in the Middle East, Green has since shown himself to be unfit to lead the Army. There was no formal reaction to Green's withdrawal by the Pentagon, but earlier in the day a spokesman declined to say whether Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, still supported the president's nominee, The Washington Post reported. Green's withdrawal is 'good news' - Schumer The Tennessee physician was President Trump's second nominee for Army secretary. His original choice, Wall Street billionaire Vincent Viola, because of what he said were difficulties in complying with Pentagon rules forbidding potential conflicts of interest involving officeholders' financial interests. Following that episode, Green was nominated on April 7. Trump's original choice to be Navy secretary, Philip Bilden, withdrew from consideration in February, for similar reasons, but no replacement has yet been named. The Democratic Party leader in the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, welcomed Green's decision to withdraw on Friday, saying this was "good news for all Americans, especially those who were personally vilified by his disparaging comments directed toward the LGBTQ community, Muslim community, Latino community and more." The U.N. special envoy on extrajudicial executions Friday issued a veiled rebuke of Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes deadly campaign against illegal drugs, saying world leaders have recognized that such an approach does not work. Agnes Callamard told a forum in Manila that badly thought out policies not only fail to address drug abuse and trafficking, they also compound the problems and can foster a regime of impunity infecting the whole justice sector and reaching into whole societies, invigorating the rule of violence rather than law. She did not mention the Philippines by name. Early critic of anti-drug campaign Callamard is an early critic of the Philippine presidents anti-drug drive, and has been challenged by Duterte to debate his war on drugs that has left thousands of suspected drug dealers and users dead since he took office in June. Human rights groups say 7,000 to 9,000 have been killed, but the government refutes that, releasing data this week showing nearly 4,600 people were killed in police operations and homicides found to be drug-related. In 2016, the general assembly of the worlds government recognized explicitly that the war on drugs be it community based, national or global does not work, Callamard said. She said that other factors exacerbate the problem, including poorly conceived policies, extrajudicial killings, deaths by criminal gangs, vigilante crimes, detention in rehabilitation centers without trial or evaluation and the breakdown of the rule of law. She said U.N. member countries, in their joint commitment last year to counter the world drug problem, called instead for a multifaceted, scientific approach that promotes the dignity and human rights of individuals and communities. No meeting with officials Duterte spokesman Ernesto Abella expressed disappointment that Callamard did not contact the government before her visit, saying she has sent a clear signal that she is not interested in getting an objective perspective of issues that are the focus of her responsibility. He said the government sent a letter to Callamard in September inviting her to visit and meet with officials to get their perspective on the drug menace. Abella failed to mention that Duterte earlier rejected Callamards proposal to hold a private meeting and instead insisted on a public debate with her. Callamard refused to answer questions from media except to say that she was in the country in an unofficial capacity, solely to attend a two-day academic conference at the invitation of the University of the Philippines and human rights lawyers. She invited all parties, including the government, to participate fully and take stock of what is going to be debated. Haruki Murakami is a master of the open-ended mystery. Whether in complex, dreamlike novels like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore or the more realistic short stories in his latest collection, Men Without Women, Murakami is drawn to the abiding strangeness and unfathomability of life. His meandering, mesmerizing tales of profound alienation are driven by puzzling circumstances that neither his characters nor readers can crack recalling existentialist Gabriel Marcels assertion that Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced. Most of the perplexed middle-aged men in these seven plainspoken tales have lost the women in their lives to other men or death. This lands them in a condition Murakami labels Men Without Women always in a relentlessly frigid plural. These subdued, unemotional creatures of habit bear little resemblance to the bullfighters and prizefighters who populate Hemingways Men Without Women, published in 1927. Detached from their feelings and missing pieces of themselves, Murakamis lonely souls struggle to understand whats hit them. Unexpected connections with strangers shed light, though the illumination is often indirect or partial. The title story although too abstract to move us provides a key to the book. A man is awakened at 1 in the morning by a jarring call from the husband of a former girlfriend, who tells him that she has committed suicide. He had not been in contact with the woman for years, and he ponders the motivation for the husbands baffling, brief call. It seemed his intention was to leave me stuck somewhere in the middle, dangling between knowledge and ignorance. But why? To get me thinking about something? This suspended state dangling between knowledge and ignorance is common territory for Murakamis characters. [Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruki Murakami] The thematically connected tales in Men Without Women are generally more developed, more realistic and more sentimental than the surreal stories in Murakamis 2006 collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, many of which blurred the line between dreams and reality. Jazz, cats and Western culture Murakamis recurrent obsessions are still featured, albeit less prominently. Two of the strongest stories borrow Beatles titles. In Drive My Car, a successful actor who has lost his wife to cancer hires a competent, young female driver when his license is suspended after a minor accident involving, significantly, a blind spot in his vision. The woman is deft at shifting both automotive and conversational gears. After months of driving in silence, she reveals aspects of her unhappy childhood, and he opens up about his painful discovery of his wifes multiple affairs and his frustration that he will never fully understand her, even after pursuing an odd relationship with the last of her lovers in the hope of finding some answers. Author Haruki Murakami (Elena Seibert) Yesterday is one of two stories in which a writer named Tanimura recalls people who made an impact on him years earlier. Kitaru was a rare friend during Tanimuras lonely sophomore year in college. A brilliant eccentric who had failed the college entrance exams twice and alienated his girlfriend, Kitaru spent his time mastering a provincial Japanese dialect and making up weird alternate lyrics to the titular Beatles song. It feels as though these things happened just yesterday, Tanimura writes. Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt. Would that the story had ended here, before Murakamis schmaltzy, winceworthy coda: For no one knows what kind of dreams tomorrow will bring. Several stories intriguingly involve men hiding against unexplained danger. In Scheherazade, a young man confined to a distant safe house looks forward to visits from his assigned support liaison, a housewife who delivers groceries and library books followed by impassive sex, which is in turn followed by mesmerizing stories performing each act as if completing an assignment. We become as hooked on her tales as her captive audience and as uneasy about his uncertain future. The surreal Samsa in Love, Murakamis humorous twist on Kafkas Metamorphosis, also involves an unlikely emotional connection set against a dark background. When his protagonist wakes to discover that he had undergone a metamorphosis and become Gregor Samsa, Prague is in the midst of its own upsetting change a military takeover and Gregors family is apparently among those who have been rounded up. But the newly molted man finds walking, dressing and most hilariously physical arousal as wrapped in mystery as the foreign troops and tanks he hears about from the beguiling hunchbacked locksmith who arrives for a service call. Amid the mysteries, Murakami sprinkles morals. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart, declares the petite locksmith. Samsa goes further: To unravel the riddles of the world with her. . . . Just thinking about her made him warm inside. . . . He was glad to be human. As the members of Murakamis lonely hearts club band discover in these affecting stories, life, however baffling, is better shared. Heller McAlpin reviews books regularly for The Washington Post, NPR and other publications. Washington resident Kyla Whitmore is one of many museum visitors who miss Miros fantastical piece, one that is intimately tied to her childhood memories. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Everything about the work its bright colors and bold shapes, its massive size grabbed visitors attention as they entered the National Gallery of Arts East Building. Woman, a garish but beautiful tapestry by Spanish modern master Joan Miro, anchored a wall of the I.M. Pei-designed building for decades, bringing color and vibrancy to a far corner of the atrium. The 20-by-35-foot abstract was one of four works commissioned by the museum for the East Building, which opened in 1978 as a home for its modern art collection. Pei, museum officials, and benefactors Paul and Bunny Mellon were involved in the commissions, which included the playful Alexander Calder that animates the atrium. The National Gallery even celebrated the Miro work with a short documentary. But the tapestry was replaced in 2003, when another modern giant, Ellsworth Kelly, lent his work Color Panels for a Large Wall to the museum. And when the East Building reopened last fall after a three-year renovation, Kellys work was still in the tapestrys spot. [Subtle changes make a big impression at the National Gallery East Building] "Woman," (1977), Joan Miro, woven by Josep Royo, installation in 1978. (National Gallery of Art, Gallery Archives) Washington resident Kyla Whitmore is one of many museum visitors who miss Miros fantastical piece, one that is intimately tied to her childhood memories. We had four or five pieces we had to see, and then we went for french fries, Whitmore, 24, said of the weekly outings with her mother and brother. That tapestry was definitely one of the more memorable objects. It was my first impression of light and color and movement as a small kid. Now a college graduate, Whitmore was back in Washington for a journalism internship and she decided to investigate by digging into the museums archives for information about the tapestry. Visitors routinely voice opinions about missing works or those on view, museum officials say. But Whitmores search illustrates the deep emotional connections people have with art and what happens when art that is beloved by visitors falls out of favor with museum officials. It was something that was really meaningful to a lot of people, said Whitmore, who said she spoke to other visitors during each visit. She contacted the current curator of textiles, and heard back from a museum publicist, who explained that the tapestry was taken down for cleaning and rest from long-term light exposure. Its replacement, the Kelly work that the NGA has subsequently acquired, is a classic-period work from this key figure in postwar art, and it is well-suited for the East Building Atrium, the National Gallery spokeswoman said. Influenced by many factors Whitmores query highlights a question that arises frequently in museums: How do curators decide what to display? Such decisions are the cornerstone of a curators job, said Harry Cooper, head of the National Gallerys department of modern and contemporary art. Generally, its a fun kind of puzzle to put together, he said. It can be fraught with tension, however, especially because only a small fraction of any museums collection ends up on display. The National Gallery of Art has almost 148,000 works in its permanent collection, and only 2,834 are on view. The decision about what to display begins with quality, Cooper said. Aesthetic quality what is good and what is great that we have thats got to always be in the foreground, he said. Cooper, who has written a book about Kelly, was not on staff in 2003 and therefore not part of the Miro decision. He spent several years working on the re-installation of the East Building galleries ahead of the reopening in October. [For National Gallery, a building reopening means rebirth] Curators are influenced by many factors, from personal taste I love yellow, am I hanging everything yellow? to the story the exhibition wants to tell, to stipulations donors place on works. A lesser work from an important movement might be selected to complete a narrative, he explained, while a great work from a particularly strong area of the gallerys collection might be passed over. Art world trends influence choices, too, as artists reputations grow or recede. Theres a whole apparatus that creates reputations, Cooper said, adding that curators are part of a complicated system of influence. But I may pull against that, he added. If every museum has a work by X, Y and Z, that gets boring. I think its important to have surprises, to have artists on the wall that people have never heard of. National Gallery of Art director J. Carter Brown, left, with architect I.M. Pei atop the roof of the East building of the National Gallery of Art in Feb. 1975. (Ellsworth Davis/The Washington Post) Preference for Kellys blocks of color eclipsed the Miro tapestrys historical link to the buildings design. In her research, Whitmore discovered interviews and correspondence detailing the involvement of Pei, the Mellons and even Henri Matisse (who served as a go-between in the multiyear process from commission to installation). She also learned that Miro initially suggested a ceramic piece but that Pei didnt like that idea. They agreed on a tapestry. Museum officials commemorated the opening of the modern building with four commissions and five purchases. The three other commissions Calders gigantic mobile, Anthony Caros site-specific sculpture National Gallery Ledge Piece and Henry Moores sculpture Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece are still on view. Of the five purchases, three are on display, including Robert Motherwells Reconciliation Elegy. [Soon to rule the roost: A 15-foot blue chicken] The 1979 documentary emphasizes the connection between Pei and his design and the Miro commission. The art would have to have a capacity for monumental concepts, with a sense of color and scale appropriate to the site, intones narrator Lary Lewman. A unanimous choice was Spanish artist Joan Miro. The documentary ends with admiring crowds gazing at the massive work and a smiling museum director J. Carter Brown saying: I just love it. It is everything we had hoped. But some critics and curators judged it harshly. Joan Miros huge tapestry might please at posterscale, but its whimsy is too slight and its colors too garish for its enormous size, Washington Post art critic Paul Richard wrote in May 1978, before the buildings opening. It seems a heavy, mirthless joke. Curator Jeffrey Weiss told the New York Times in 2003 that the National Gallery had been seeking to replace the tapestry. Fortunately, we had a large wall looking for a great work of art and Ellsworth [Kelly] had a large work looking for a big wall. It was a perfect marriage, said Weiss, who was Coopers predecessor. (Weiss, now a curator at the Guggenheim Museum, declined to comment for this article.) The Posts Blake Gopnik weighed in on the change, too, writing in 2003 that the tapestry had been the butt of gibes in the Washington art world. Macrame with a runny nose is one comment Ive heard. He added, We wont have that old girl to kick around anymore. Education curators Although the documentary attributes the tapestry to the Spanish artist (and shows him in the studio as it was woven), the National Gallerys online catalogue credits the work as after Joan Miro, woven by Josep Royo. The gallery also has the 8-by-5 foot oil painting that served as the model for the tapestry in its collection. It is attributed to Miro. The distinction doesnt make sense to Rosa Maria Malet, the director of the Fundacio Joan Miro, a modern art museum in Barcelona, who described Miros textile work as his last expressive adventure. Of course Miro did not directly weave the tapestries. But his indications about the final result he wanted to achieve were precise, and his follow-up of the process, exhaustive, Malet said in an email. She pointed out that the signatures of both artists are woven into the tapestry and said, Miro always avoided the direct transposition of his works into textile. He didnt want just a copy. Miro created about 50 works, including seven tapestries, between 1970 and his death in 1983. The National Gallerys work is the only tapestry in the United States; another was destroyed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. At least four are on view in Spain, including two in museums in Barcelona and Tarragona. [Timeline: A look back at the National Gallery of Art] Cooper says he hears from members of the public frequently about what they like and what they miss. He said he considers their suggestions but gives more weight to education curators, who interact with large groups and who let me know that certain works are important to what they do. Whitmore, meanwhile, is disappointed in the reasons for the change and the fact that the piece is still in storage. The museums publicist encouraged her to enjoy the Miro paintings in the permanent galleries and left open the possibility of the tapestry being reinstalled. But that is small consolation. To me, the tapestry was far more memorable and inspirational than any painting hanging in the collection, Whitmore said. I still miss the tapestry a lot, and without it, the atrium feels kind of staid. Daniel Oreskes, Michael Aronov, and Anthony Azizi, foreground, with Daniel Jenkins and Jeb Kreager, background, in "Oslo" at the Lincoln Center Theater. (T Charles Erickson Photography) Hes what you might call the perfect Washington playwright, a man of wide and deep curiosity who takes on complex global matters in a voice pitched for an audience that demands its theater be as entertaining as it is sophisticated. The political act of my work, I would argue, is to expand outward who and what is being discussed on the American stage, J.T. Rogers says. Not because I have a civic duty to do it, but because I think its f---ing interesting. That kind of enthusiasm no doubt arises, in part, from the childhood the 48-year-old dramatist spent in diverse locales such as Missouri, Manhattans East Village and rural Malaysia, where his father, Marvin, a political science professor, did research. And his colorful characterization certainly is also applicable to his latest play, Oslo, which was nominated Tuesday for seven Tony Awards, including best play. It also easily qualifies as one of the most riveting experiences of the theater season. Although an earlier play of his, The Overwhelming, about the Rwanda genocide, was featured in 2009 at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, W.Va., Rogers, to his consternation, hasnt had any of his full-length plays produced by a major D.C. company. Maybe that will change with the success of his Broadway debut via Oslo, a play that unravels the knotty story of the unlikely pair of Norwegians who, in 1993, managed to get Israelis and Palestinians to a secret bargaining table and hammer out an agreement to begin creating a Palestinian state. Having started as a Lincoln Center Theater commission workshopped by a Philadelphia company, PlayPenn, that eventually made its way to the centers Tony-eligible Vivian Beaumont Theater, Oslo is that rare new play that spins into art the painstaking process of achieving consensus. Theatergoers leave the Beaumont, and the 14 actors who, in some cases, double or triple in roles, feeling refreshed by the spirit of the plays valiant central characters, Terje Rod-Larsen and Mona Juul, portrayed by the Tony-nominated Jefferson Mays and Jennifer Ehle. Plays concerned with geopolitical bargaining sessions are difficult to enliven witness Arena Stages trouble with another play about Middle East accords, the all-too-dry Camp David so the fact that the nearly three-hour Oslo whizzes by in what feels like two is especially remarkable. The effect is attributable in part to the fleet use of the stage by director Bartlett Sher (also Tony-nominated) and a storytelling structure built on short supercharged scenes. More than 60 of them, actually. [Tony Award nominations 2017] I like to call it an intellectual thriller, says Sher, who staged it in Lincoln Centers smaller, off-Broadway space, the Mitzi Newhouse Theater, last year, before the company decided to move it upstairs to the 1,200-seat Beaumont. Or, as Rogers puts it: Its a story about people who have to sit across from their enemy, and are changed by that. Its just the sort of scenario in which Rogers specializes. Earlier plays such as Madagascar, set in Rome, and Blood and Gifts, which focuses on a CIA agent working with Afghans against the Soviet occupation, are globe-trotting affairs whose subjects more often parallel those raised in British plays, by writers such as David Hare and Tom Stoppard. No surprise then, that his work has been championed in London, where Sher directed Blood and Gifts and where Oslo is also due to be staged. Although Rogers grew up wanting to be an actor, his interest shifted to playwriting while he was an undergraduate at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where Ehle was a fellow student at the time. It wasnt that I wasnt getting something out of acting, Rogers says of his transition to dramatist. But the experience of writing and seeing the play happening it was like, after having baked the whole pie, having just a slice was not satisfying. Henny Russel (center) with Daniel Jenkins, Dariush Kashani, Jefferson Mays, Daniel Oreskes and Anthony Azizi in Oslo. (T Charles Erickson Photography) Based on real people and events, Oslo revolves around a daring act of co-opting. It takes place mostly in the Norwegian castle where Terje, (pronounced TIE-ah), an academic, and Mona, a foreign ministry official, manage to lure the finance minister of the Palestine Liberation Organization and, initially, low-level, unofficial representatives of the Israeli government to clandestine encounters. The goal is to jump-start negotiations stalemated in Geneva. Soon, as Terjes strategy gets traction, and the enemy sides become acquainted and gradually warm up to each other, the talks make progress, and the Israelis send in higher-level negotiators. The agreements reached in Oslo were memorialized in a White House signing ceremony in September 1993, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and President Bill Clinton. History records that the efforts did not end the hostilities. Still, Rogers has composed a play less concerned with the results than the profound act of seeking them, and what that pursuit means to the men who gather around the table and to Terje and Mona, too. As symbolized by the ordinary table that rises out of the floor of Michael Yeargans set, the thoroughly mundane ritual of forging relationships rises to the level of something sacred. [Oslo has exhilaration and Tony written all over it] A friendship initiated Oslo, too. Sher got to know Rod-Larsen after he and Juul moved to New York, and their children attended middle school together. In 2012, Sher, directing an earlier play by Rogers, Blood and Gifts, arranged for the playwright to meet Rod-Larsen, who was by then working for the United Nations. Over drinks at P.J. Clarkes in Manhattan, the idea for a play was hatched. Its like that little ping that goes off, Rogers recalls, about hearing from Rod-Larsen how the Oslo accords came into being. I was stunned, because I knew nothing about the back channel. According to Paul Meshejian, artistic director of PlayPenn, a play development group that worked with Rogers on The Overwhelming and Blood and Gifts, the playwright came to Philadelphia with the half-finished Lincoln Center commission in fall 2014 and while there completed the first full draft of Oslo. A reading, with actors at music stands, ran four hours evidence of the volumes of research and interviews Rogers had amassed. Remarkably, not a soul left the theater, Meshejian said by email. It was, simply put, thrilling. And ultimately, thanks to Rogerss concerted efforts, shorter. Mays and Ehle participated in later workshops. They would have opportunities to meet Rod-Larsen and Juul as they fleshed out their performances. Mays, a Tony winner for Doug Wrights I Am My Own Wife, builds the portrait of an intense pusher of envelopes, a man who isnt fully cognizant of the feathers he is ruffling. Hes quite a showman, Mays says of Rod-Larsen, brash and audacious. Hes singular for a Norwegian, having risen from rather lowly beginnings in a stratified society. So hes risen above his station and constructed this Pan-European personality. Ehle, a two-time Tony winner herself, for Tom Stoppards The Coast of Utopia and a revival of his The Real Thing, provides a necessary core of warmth to Mona, a character, she says, who is inspired more by the Mona in Rogerss script than the actual woman. You cant help but feel a responsibility to explore who the real person is, Ehle says, adding, however, that the play doesnt intend audiences to see the actors as providing impersonations. People whove come to see the play, who were there, say it isnt exactly what happened, but it is the spirit of what happened, Ehle says. And I think that is what Jefferson and I as Terje and Mona try to do. We are representing the spirit of these people. Oslo, by J.T. Rogers. Directed by Bartlett Sher. Tickets, $87-$147. At the Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., New York. Visit lct.org or call 212-239-6200. With no running water in the home where he rents a basement room, D.C. resident Michael Wilkerson, 55, brushes his teeth using store-bought water. He is disabled by cervical degeneration and is on a list for a city rent voucher. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Just before her 100th day in office, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser stood before a packed house at the citys historic Lincoln Theatre and called on taxpayers to make an unprecedented investment in the poor. For the first time, she announced, the District would devote $100 million in city funds each year to the Housing Production Trust Fund a lifeline for families struggling to find a place to live in one of the least affordable cities in the country. If were going to be a city where families can stay and grow, we must do more to create opportunity for them, Bowser (D) said during her State of the District address in March 2015. But at the city agency entrusted with producing homes for the poor, officials were giving up millions of additional dollars from another essential source of affordable housing money: the federal government. The D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development was forced to forfeit $15.8 million in the past three years after repeatedly missing key spending deadlines meant to ensure that federal housing money is properly managed at the local level, The Washington Post found. The spending problems predate the Bowser administration, but most of the bills came due soon after the mayor took office and launched her affordable housing plans. No other housing agency in the country returned more affordable-housing money to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development between 2014 and 2016 than the Districts which forfeited 22 percent of all the money that was sent back to HUD in the three-year period, an analysis of federal data shows. The $15.8 million sent back could have provided rent vouchers for a year to roughly 1,000 of the citys poorest families. This is insane, said Will Merrifield, a lawyer at the nonprofit Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. That they would allow this money to go to waste is absurd. The funding came from the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which for 25 years has provided seed money to developers willing to build or renovate low-income housing. HUD, which oversees the program, estimates that $1 in HOME funds can leverage $4.28 from other funding sources. HOME money can also be used to provide down-payment assistance to buyers or to fund vouchers for families that cannot afford rent on the private market. The program the largest federal block grant for affordable housing has produced 1.2 million affordable units across the country in the past quarter-century. The Districts housing department was forced to return millions in HOME dollars even as the homeless population soared, more and more families moved into shelters, and the waiting list for rent vouchers remained closed to new households. Nearly 40,000 families are waiting for vouchers those near the top of the list signed up well over a decade ago. My kids say: Mommy, whats wrong? Are we going to be homeless? said 31-year-old Carolyn Harrison, who took three buses to a $10.75-an-hour cashiers job in Maryland before losing the position. Though her husband works nights in a residential facility for veterans, the couple can afford only a $300-a-month unit subsidized by a homelessness-prevention nonprofit group. Now, the lease is up, and Harrison doesnt know where she and her husband will go with their three young children. She has been waiting for a voucher for nearly 10 years. Im not looking for anyone to do it for me, she said. Im just looking for guidance and assistance to get my life back on track for my kids. Carolyn Harrison, 31, with children Makhi Harrison, 2, Madison Banks, 9, and Malik Harrison, 4. The family, including Harrisons husband, Samson, does not know where to go now that the lease on its subsidized apartment is up. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Samson Harrison, 40, lifts son Makhi, with wife Carolyn and their other children, Malik, left, and Madison nearby. The couple cannot afford market-rate rent in the District. Carolyn Harrison applied for a rent voucher nearly 10 years ago. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) City officials acknowledged the loss of HOME money and said they have taken steps since Bowser became mayor two years ago to strengthen the operations of the housing department. We knew that we inherited something that wasnt functional in the way that it needed to be, and the team has been very good at turning that ship around, said Andrew Trueblood, chief of staff to the deputy mayor for planning and economic development. The housing agencys director, Polly Donaldson, said that when she took over in 2015 the department had 40 vacancies, management issues and a shortage of housing developers willing to take on HOME-funded projects. Top staffers met weekly to discuss HOME deadlines, find ways to recruit nonprofit developers and communicate with HUD, she said. Sending money back to HUD, Donaldson said, really incentivized and mobilized us even more to get this system fixed. Federal funds continue to be a very important source of funding for us in the District, she said. We must use these funds, and that is my mandate. Despite the loss of federal funds, Donaldson said, the housing department in the past year allocated $20 million in new federal dollars, including money from the HOME program, and $106 million in local dollars from the Housing Production Trust Fund. All told, the District has spent $600 million of its own money since 2001 on housing, producing more than 9,500 units, according to the city. But the housing departments management of that money has drawn sharp criticism. D.C. law requires the housing department to spend 40 percent of trust-fund dollars on extremely low-income families those earning no more than $32,580 for a household of four and another 40 percent on very low income households those earning up to $54,300. City auditors reported in March that the department has spent far less: In 2014, only 32 percent of the trust-fund dollars were allocated to those two groups. In 2015, it was 49 percent. The majority of that money does not go to the people most in need, said Amber Harding, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. Auditors also found that the housing department over the years did not verify the income levels of residents who did receive housing. And although the city has reported that thousands of homes have been built or renovated with trust-fund dollars since 2001, auditors found the departments records too unreliable to know for sure. Auditors are now trying to build a database that tracks the trust funds spending and production levels. Information (i.e. number of units, number of projects, and award amounts) from DHCD was constantly changing, auditors wrote. The housing department is supposed to commission an annual independent audit of the fund, but no audit has been done, the Districts auditors found. We were told . . . that they lack resources to oversee many aspects of the [Housing Production Trust Fund] program because they must devote resources to the federally-funded housing programs . . . and they do not want to risk the loss of federal funds, auditors wrote. But the housing department ended up losing federal money anyway. Carolyn Harrison sits with her husband, Samson, who holds their son Makhi, at a financial literacy workshop hosted by the D.C. arm of the nonprofit organization Operation Hope as part of a homelessness prevention program. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Hurting the most vulnerable Housing groups said the HOME money could have been used to renovate blighted, dangerous rental apartments in the District, 2,000 households live in units without kitchens or plumbing. In Fairfax County, Va., and Montgomery County, Md., housing officials have used some HOME money to give out rent vouchers to cash-strapped families. Neither county has returned money to HUD in the past three years. The HOME program is critical to the work we do, said Shauna Sorrells, a former HUD administrator who is the director of legislative and public affairs at Montgomerys nonprofit Housing Opportunities Commission, which has used HOME funds to pay for vouchers. We dont leave any money on the table. In the District, the housing department considered plans similar to those in Fairfax and Montgomery. In a 2014 department memo obtained by The Post, administrators acknowledged that HOME money could be used to fund rent vouchers. To do so, the department would have to modify its policies and a consolidated housing plan it submits to HUD every five years. The money would then be turned over to the D.C. Housing Authority, a separate agency that oversees the citys stock of 8,400 public housing units. The Housing Authority manages the citys waiting list for public housing units and the citys more than 11,000 rent vouchers. At current funding levels, only about 100 vouchers become available each year for new families. Although families needs can differ, an average voucher covers about $1,250 a month in rent, according to housing officials. The Housing Authority had a vehicle in place, said lawyer Michelle Christopher, a former compliance manager at the housing department who is a staff attorney at a health-care agency in Louisiana. We didnt have to do anything but give that money over to them. We would have helped people. Nathan Simms, former deputy director of the housing department, said officials in 2014 were poised to transfer $3 million in HOME funds and had proposed an amendment to the citys consolidated plan. But the plan was set aside in 2015 when Bowser became mayor and Donaldson took over the housing department, he said. We were moving in that direction, and then the administration changed, and that was something they didnt want to move forward with, said Simms, a former U.S. HUD official who worked at the housing department from 2011 to 2015. They had different thoughts. They wanted to put it into projects. Donaldson said the housing department has since listed rent vouchers as an eligible use of HOME funds in the citys newest consolidated plan, which has been approved by HUD. But there are no plans to spend the money on vouchers this year, because other projects are more pressing, officials said. I can only say that, going forward and looking forward, we are making that possible, and we are, again, increasing options as best we can, Donaldson said. Housing advocates said the delays and struggles at the department over the years have hurt the citys most vulnerable residents. Michael Wilkerson, a 55-year-old former security officer disabled by cervical degeneration, has been waiting seven years for a voucher. He pays $300 a month to rent a basement room in Northeast Washington with a crumbling floor of dirt and concrete, no running water, and cracks in the ceiling that allow urine from the dogs upstairs to drip into his room. With no gas to warm the place, the winters are frigid. Wilkerson is desperate to move out, but so far, he has not received a rent voucher, and his only income is $1,415 a month in disability payments from Social Security. Im not asking for anything more than I need, said Wilkerson, who washes with $1 jugs of water from Dollar Tree. Just a comfortable place to lay my head. Michael Wilkerson rides a Metro bus for his daily dinner at Miriams Kitchen, a charitable organization in Northwest Washington. Wilkerson, disabled by cervical degeneration, has been waiting seven years for a city rent voucher. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Wilkerson pays $300 a month for a basement room with a dirt-and-concrete floor, no running water and ceiling cracks through which dog urine drips from upstairs. His only income is $1,415 a month in Social Security disability payments. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Losing unspent money HUD allocates about $950 million a year in HOME funding, but it is up to hundreds of local housing agencies to decide how to spend their share of the money. In exchange, housing agencies must meet two major deadlines: HOME funds must be placed under contract for a project within two years and be spent within five. In 2015, the rule changed, eliminating the five-year deadline and requiring that all projects be completed within four years. President Trumps 2018 budget proposal calls for eliminating the HOME program part of $6 billion in potential cuts at the embattled federal agency. Housing advocates in the District and across the country said the loss of that money would devastate communities that for years have successfully leveraged HOME funds. Nationwide, 72 percent of about 640 housing agencies did not have to return any money to HUD from 2014 to 2016 spending a total of $2.9 billion, The Posts analysis found. All told, about $72 million went unspent. The bulk of that money $43 million was concentrated at 16 housing agencies that each returned $1 million or more, including those in New Orleans, Seattle and Colorado Springs. Prince Georges County, Md., returned $1 million. HUD officials provided historical and financial data but declined to comment about the returned money. In Newark, which sent back $4.4 million because of missed deadlines in prior years, blighted houses with broken windows and crumbling front porches languish in the shadows of the nearly century-old Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. About 20,000 people in the city are on a waiting list for affordable housing. It was really challenging to come into office and see we were about to lose funds, to be honest, so I fought HUD hard not to take that money, said Baye Adofo-Wilson, who became Newarks deputy mayor for economic and housing development in 2014. But they have their rules and deadlines to keep. Those funds should have been used and projects should have been started. In the District which returned three times more than Newark and 22 percent of all the money that was forfeited nationwide in the past three years spending problems date back years. In April 2011, shortly after Vincent C. Gray (D) became mayor, former HUD official John Hall took the helm of the housing department, with a $144 million annual budget and about 140 employees charged with using local and federal money to produce housing and revitalize neighborhoods. The department had long been troubled: It had had more than 20 directors in 30 years and had been criticized by the HUD inspector general for improperly spending millions in HOME money on three stalled or substandard development projects. Hall took stock of upcoming construction projects. What do we have in our pipeline? he recalled asking the department. The answer stunned him: Few new projects were lined up. One of the least-affordable cities in the country was at risk of losing $7 million in HOME funds because of looming spending deadlines. Projects werent ready, said Christopher, the departments compliance manager at the time. The developers didnt have all their sources of funding and so you couldnt even really run numbers to see if there was a feasible, viable project. Hall eventually readied eight projects just before HUDs spending deadline that October, and then held orientations for developers to encourage new construction. The loss of money, Hall said, would have been catastrophic to the community. My objective was to use every available resource to pour into the community that needed the help and the uplift, he said. I looked at it as a blessing that we had all these resources . . . that I could leverage. In June 2012, Gray moved Hall to the deputy mayors office and appointed housing veteran Michael Kelly to head the department. Kelly promoted former HUD official Simms to deputy director. Simms said he found that HOME money from years earlier had been promised to developers who had not yet acquired land or to projects that were going to miss HUDs deadlines. So the department had to cancel the projects, he said. In November 2013, HUD wrote to the District, records obtained by The Post show, warning of a nearly $12 million loss in HOME money if the deadlines were not met. Simms said the housing department continued to make changes, engaging developers and lenders and overhauling underwriting practices. In 2014, the housing department returned $400,000 in HOME funds to HUD. We were getting a lot of languishing projects out the door, said Simms, who worked as a debt restructuring specialist at HUD before taking the job at the housing department. There was just a lot of coordination all the way around. But the deadlines were still coming due. Carolyn and Samson Harrison take a quick break after errands, house hunting and a financial literacy class as their children entertain themselves. Carolyn Harrison is among 40,000 rent-voucher applicants on a D.C. waiting list. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Waiting for better In March 2015, two months after becoming mayor, Bowser appeared at the Lincoln Theatre for her first State of the District address, flanked by the Ballou High School drum line. She pledged to make good on her campaign promise by pumping $100 million into the Housing Production Trust Fund, up from $63 million the year before. Bowser had just appointed housing department director Donaldson, who had built a career working with local nonprofit groups. Dr. [Martin Luther] King challenged us to develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness, Bowser told the crowd. We will do that by giving a little more to create and preserve affordable housing, to care for our homeless neighbors. That year, the housing department was forced to return $6.6 million to HUD for missed spending deadlines. In 2016, the housing department returned $8.8 million. Housing department officials said that spending problems from prior years came to a head just after Donaldson became director but that the agency is moving swiftly to ensure that no more money is returned. I feel like were in a far better position today than we were a year ago or a year and a half ago, because we have better systems in place, said Allison Ladd, the departments deputy director. As the housing department works to prevent future losses, 27-year-old Mareesha Branch waits for a better place to live. Two years ago, a bullet tore through the living room window of her one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington. It traveled through two walls before dropping to the floor a few feet from where her 2-year-old daughter was napping in a room filled with Barbies and unicorns. Branch lives in the tiny apartment thanks to a program for the formerly homeless run by another city agency, the Department of Human Services, which oversees the citys homelessness services. Shes grateful for the place she and her daughter once spent nights at a shelter when Branch could no longer afford to rent a basement room on a $9-an-hour cashiers salary. But she cringes every time she hears gunshots outside or finds the street blocked off with crime-scene tape. Inside the apartment, she has covered white walls that have turned a dull shade of yellow with her daughters alphabet drawings, but she is hoping to move someplace else. She cant sign up for a rent voucher, which would give her more choice about where to live, because the waiting list closed more than three years ago and has yet to reopen. I want to let my daughter play outside, said Branch, who is planning to take a nursing aide course at the University of the District of Columbia. I want to know that I can go to work and she can go to school, and we can come home and be safe. Nona Tepper and Jingzhe (Kelly) Wang with Northwestern Universitys Medill Justice Project and Alice Crites of The Washington Post contributed to this report. Bowman is with the Medill Justice Project; Byington and Eberhardt are with George Washington Universitys School of Media and Public Affairs. Jordan winemaker Rob Davis inspects a barrel of the 2016 cabernet sauvignon blend. Jordan Vineyards & Winery has tweaked the style of its popular cabernet sauvignon, moving toward using French oak barrels exclusively. (Dave McIntyre) Most people with a successful product dont want to fiddle with the formula. Why fix what aint broke, after all? That didnt stop John Jordan and Rob Davis from tweaking their popular cabernet sauvignon at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Sonoma Countys Alexander Valley. Davis has been the winemaker at Jordan since Tom and Sally Jordan, Johns parents, founded the winery in 1972. For three decades, he made cabernet that was a sort of Franco-American mash-up of styles. Tom Jordan loved bordeaux, and wanted to produce wine in the French style. But it was a Napa Valley cabernet the Georges de Latour Private Reserve from Beaulieu Vineyards that convinced him quality cab could be made in California. The Georges de Latour was aged in 100 percent American oak, so Tom Jordan decided his cabernet would split the difference: half aged in French barrels, the rest in American. And he hired BVs celebrated winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff as a consultant. The formula worked, and Jordans cabernet became a standard-bearer for California in general, and Sonomas Alexander Valley in particular. They kept to the French style, maintaining alcohol levels under 14 percent when California cabs crept up to 15 percent and higher. But when John Jordan took over the winery in 2006, he and Davis decided they needed to up their game. The estate vineyard was producing inconsistent quantity vintage to vintage, and the wines had some underripe green flavors of bell peppers. So Jordan and Davis began purchasing cabernet grapes from farther up the valley, closer to Geyserville, as well as smaller amounts in Dry Creek Valley and Mendocino County. Today, the only grapes they use from the original Jordan vineyard come from a block of petit verdot vines that performed consistently well over the years. Over time, they realized the fruit they were purchasing interacted differently with the French and American oak barrels. The new fruit had riper tannins and not so much of the green flavors. American oak is aggressive and has a large impact on the wine, Davis told me when I visited the winery recently. It adds coconut and dill flavors, which can mask underripe, vegetal flavors in the wine. Tannin isnt a taste. Its a feel, he said. The French oak tannins bond with the tannins in the fruit to make a longer tannin molecule, creating a velvety texture in your mouth. The key, Davis said, is the wines finish the impression it leaves on your palate as the flavor fades. The finish is the memory of the wine. If the finish is rough and bitter, thats what you remember. French oak knits the fruit together, orchestrating the flavor statement so it is round and soft, and the finish is supple. Such realizations dont come quickly. When Davis persuaded John Jordan to source grapes from other growers, it took a few years to negotiate long-term contracts and secure reliable sources of fruit. Davis had already increased the percentage of French oak he used in blending the flagship cabernet sauvignon. But the epiphany didnt happen until early 2015 when trial blends of the 2013, already in barrel for a year, showed the wine tasted better when only French oak barrels were used. Hands down, the finish was longer and the wine was better, Davis recalls. So with the 2015 vintage, Jordans cabernet sauvignon is aged exclusively in French oak. With the improvement in our fruit sourcing, it would be a shame to mask such wonderful fruit with American oak, John Jordan explained in an email. Jordan has always striven to deliver value to our customers, and moving to 100 percent French oak is the culmination of a 10-year effort to improve the quality of our wine. By abandoning the estate wine model and the 50-50 oak regimen, he and Davis have moved closer to Tom Jordans original ideal of producing a Bordeaux-style wine in California. The decision to go all French oak is costly. French oak barrels cost at least double the price of American oak, but John Jordan decided to keep the cabernets price steady at about $55 a bottle. We wont be able to buy that 2015 for another two years, however: That 2013 vintage, with 83 percent aged in French oak, is the current release. Davis poured me a sample of the 2016 cabernet from a barrel manufactured by Nadalie, a French barrel maker. The wine was lovely supple and long, with a velvety texture. It had been in barrel since December and will remain there for 12 months. Early next year it will be blended, then bottled in the summer before being released to the market two years later. Davis opened a few older bottles for me to try. The 2012 has bright fruit and impeccable balance; Davis said it was his favorite of recent vintages. But the 2003 and 2002 had aged gracefully, showing some of the aggressive woodsy characteristics of American oak, perhaps, but also some delicious, elegant fruit. Those wines were worth waiting for. And the new cabernets will be worth waiting for too, as one of Californias favorite wines keeps getting better. Congresswomen flank American University student government president Taylor Dumpson, second from right, as she delivers a news conference Thursday about a racist incident at the college. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press) Adonis Billizon-Johnson sat amid a sea of empty blue chairs one recent afternoon, patiently waiting for a town hall forum at American University. I want to make sure that I have a seat, said Billizon-Johnson, a 19-year-old from New Orleans. Im pretty sure it will be filled today. He was right. Soon enough, a crowd packed the space at the Mary Graydon Center on AUs campus, some standing in the back. Earlier in the week, a disturbing racial incident had disrupted the campus, and they had come to talk about how the school and its students could respond. At this very moment, people are waiting to see what we do. All eyes are on us right now, everyone, Taylor Dumpson, Americans new president of student government, told the crowd. There are children, parents and students alike, looking to us across the country, to figure out how were going to address these issues on our campus. We have to use this microcosm that is AU to set an example for others to follow. (WUSA) [Unprecedented effort by white supremacists to recruit and target college students, group claims] On Monday, just days earlier, bananas hanging from string in the shape of nooses had been found at three locations on the Northwest Washington campus, school officials said. The bananas were marked with the letters AKA, the initials of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a predominantly black sorority. I regret this happened, apologize to everyone offended, and state emphatically that this incident does not reflect what American University truly is, read a memo on the matter, issued by AU President Neil Kerwin. The discovery came as the university wrapped up its academic year and students at American, a private school with an enrollment of about 13,000, tried to focus on final exams. It also occurred as Dumpson who is a member of AKA and the first black woman elected as the schools student government president was just beginning her term. I called this town hall because as the first African American female president, I am appalled; as a student second, I am outraged; as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, I am nauseated; and as a target, I am numb by the vile act that a member of our community decided to take during a historic moment for our campus, Dumpson said Thursday. She called the event a tipping point that officially caused everyone to say enough is enough. Though racist incidents are not a new problem on college campuses, said Kevin Kruger of NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, there seems to have been an increase recently. This academic year has seen racially offensive posters on many campuses, as well as other charged incidents. A student wore a gorilla mask to taunt Black Lives Matters protesters at one Southern college. Just this week at St. Olafs College in Minnesota, a racist note was left on a students car. At the University of Maryland, a noose was found in a fraternity house. [Slurs, blackface and gorilla masks: The academic year opened with racial ugliness] Some speculate that national political rhetoric and controversial speakers who come to college campuses have emboldened people to say outrageous things, Kruger said that they feel as though they have been given permission to say things that offend others. I think its been a tiring week, said Asha Smith, a senior from Indianapolis who is African American. I think its particularly difficult because I feel like black students on campus have been robbed of the ability to spend their time focusing on finals. Thursdays town hall was not a meeting filled with angry outbursts. Students came with questions, concerns and suggestions about what might be done differently at AU. As the afternoon continued, the crowd filled a whiteboard with ideas. Some suggested more public-safety foot patrols at night; others wondered whether such a policy would disproportionately affect students of color. Some spoke up about diversity among members of the universitys faculty, or about training that faculty and staff receive. AU is about to get a new president, said one person will this entire conversation repeat itself when she arrives? It was an hour and a half, and I think that every bit of that hour and a half was well spent in terms of getting ideas and writing them down, said Kris Schneider, secretary of AUs student government. If there was somebody that disagreed, they voiced that disagreement, and well definitely be taking that into consideration, as well. Earlier this week, a $1,000 reward in the AU case was announced. University police released videos showing a person walking through the empty campus. The FBI is assisting in the investigation, which was still ongoing late last week. The incident created a period of great difficulty and great distress for the campus, Kerwin said Thursday. And were determined to ensure that the rest of the campus and the entire community and in fact the nation and the world understands that what occurred here has nothing to do with the fundamental values of this university, he told reporters. Still, the situation spiraled. On Friday, the university announced that a white supremacist had encouraged online followers to digitally harass Dumpson. Earlier this week, the threats were on campus. They continue online. American University will not allow any member of our community to be intimidated, Teresa Flannery, AUs vice president for communications, said in a statement. We are working closely with Taylor to ensure her security and to support her throughout this process. Falyn Satterfield, a freshman from Indianapolis, said she remained very confident and pleased with how the university had handled the matter so far. She said that though she hoped the school would make changes, she didnt feel as though this was Americans fault. It just feels so empty, said Satterfield, when asked about the mood on campus. Me, as a black student, walking around, I see people who are white, and Im wondering what they think of me. And Im wondering what their opinions are about it, and if they support me. Susan Svrluga contributed to this report. A Maryland flag was placed on all 141 desks of the delegates during their swearing in ceremony in Annapolis, Md. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) In the final hours of the 2017 Maryland legislative session, five male senators tried to hash out an agreement on a bill that would allow a woman who becomes pregnant during a rape to terminate the attackers parental rights. At least 21 other states have adopted similar laws. But in Annapolis, the bill failed for the ninth time in as many years, with key members of a conference committee panel balking at the idea of terminating rights if the alleged rapist has not been criminally convicted. This time, the bills defeat made headlines and triggered an outcry from advocates. The two committee chairmen who appointed the conference panel were blasted for waiting until the very end of the 90-day legislative session and for not including any women in the group. The criticism in some ways has overshadowed what advocates describe as victories on other bills that address the way rape is prosecuted and the options available to survivors of sexual assault. This was an important year for rape crisis centers, for rape survivors. . . . I dont want that to be lost on the demise of this bill, said Del. Kathleen M. Dumais (D-Montgomery), sponsor of the parent rights legislation. Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) There is a much stronger awareness of the victims of sexual assault and a better sensitivity to the issue overall, she said. Its happening nationally and Im glad to see it happening in Maryland. After two failed attempts more than a decade ago, Maryland lawmakers this year passed a no means no bill, which says no evidence of physical resistance is needed to prove sexual assault. The General Assembly also approved a measure that changes the definition of rape by including all nonconsensual sexual violations and eliminating any reference to gender. And it passed bills increasing the amount of time people who were sexually abused as children have to sue their abusers and requiring law enforcement to preserve the evidence in rape kits for 20 years. Lisae Jordan, the executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said advocates made substantial progress for sexual assault survivors during the recent session. Del. Shelly L. Hettleman (D-Baltimore County), who sponsored the bill to preserve rape kits, said she pushed for a statewide standard after news reports last year showed a huge disparity in how long the kits were preserved. Some law enforcement agencies kept the evidence forever, while others destroyed it after nine months. Having the preservation of this material gives some of the decision-making power back to the survivor, Hettleman said, by giving rape victims more time to decide whether to file charges. The no means no bill was necessary, advocates say, because police and prosecutors were not adhering to a 2010 state Court of Appeals ruling that a victim saying no and pushing an assailants hand away was enough to meet the states force or threat of force requirement for proving sexual assault. Montgomery County Delegate Kathleen M. Dumais. (Mark Gail/THE WASHINGTON POST) Under the new statute, that force or threat of force threshold no longer exists. Advocates say the threshold is one reason Baltimore County has one of the highest rates in the country of law enforcement officials declaring rape allegations unfounded. An audit last year showed that one-third of cases closed as unfounded in the county between 2013 and 2015 were categorized that way after victims told police they had not fought their attackers. There is a clear cultural shift between 2004, when the no means no bill was originally introduced, and this year, Jordan said. This year, many said that absolutely should be law. There was no similar shift, however, among legislative leaders charged with deciding the fate of the paternity-rights legislation. The primary reason, according to advocates of the bill and those are skeptical of it, lies in the differences between civil and criminal court. Civil procedure is looked at differently, Dumais said. Thats where there is still some misunderstanding, I guess is the softer way to characterize it. There is a mistrust of the civil system. Under the bill, a woman who sought to terminate a mans parental rights would have to prove through clear and convincing evidence, the standard used in civil court, that the man had sexually assaulted her. The burden-of-proof standard is higher in criminal court, where charges must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County), chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, said he was troubled with the idea of a man potentially losing his parental rights without being convicted of sexual assault. Its a complicated bill, Zirkin said. There are protections in criminal law that do not apply in civil cases. But advocates argue that the state allows parental rights to be terminated in child-abuse cases even when there is no criminal child-abuse conviction. The same standard should apply, they say, in cases of sexual assault. They also say that most rape cases go unreported and unprosecuted. If the bill applied only to convicted rapists, victims who chose not to file criminal charges would not be able to terminate the parental rights of their attackers. Advocates say women rarely seek to terminate an attackers parental rights, even in states that have laws allowing them to do so easily. Jordan said she suspects that victims who become pregnant as a result of an assault instead choose to abort or go into hiding. She said if the bill had passed, she would expect more women in Maryland to try to terminate the parental rights of their assailants by taking legal action. The House unanimously passed the rights-termination bill on March 9. The Senate did not take up the measure until April 6, five days before the end of session. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee struck language from the bill that said that courts could not require publication of the name of the mother or child and added language that said the father could refuse to testify or offer evidence in court. Those changes meant that a conference committee, composed of delegates and senators from the committees that had first considered the bills, would have to negotiate final wording that could then be taken up again by the full House and Senate. Zirkin appointed himself, Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) and Sen. Michael J. Hough (R-Frederick) to the conference committee, passing over the two female lawmakers on the judicial proceedings panel. Zirkin declined to say why he did not place Sen. Delores G. Kelly (D-Baltimore County) or Sen. Susan C. Lee (D-Montgomery) on the panel. Instead, he noted that Smith was a co-sponsor of the bill and one of the strongest advocates for it on his committee. That doesnt mean that you shouldnt have women on a conference committee discussing rape and pregnancy, Jordan said. Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince Georges), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, waited until late afternoon on the final day of the legislative session to name himself, Del. David Moon (D-Montgomery) and Del. Brett R. Wilson (R-Washington County) to the conference committee. He was absent when the group finally convened at 10 p.m., two hours before the legislature would adjourn. Vallario, who voted for the original version of the bill when it passed the House, did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article. He told the Baltimore Sun that the makeup of the committee was coincidental. Moon, a strong proponent of the legislation, said he thought the panel was set up for an impossible challenge, lacking enough time and commitment from members to resolve differences between the House and Senate bills and get the legislation back to each chamber for a vote. Dumais said she doesnt think the makeup of the panel defeated the bill, given the support from Moon, Smith and Wilson. Still, she said, said Zirkin and Vallario should have included women in the group. The optics of an all-male panel are horrible in the year 2017, Moon said. It was politically tone-deaf. Kathleen Matthews is the new chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post) Maryland Democrats, hoping to capitalize on a surge of anti-Trump activism to help unseat Gov. Larry Hogan (R) next year, elected Kathleen Matthews, the former Marriott International executive and onetime congressional candidate, on Saturday to lead their state party. Matthews, 63, who enjoyed the backing of the partys senior elected officials, was the overwhelming choice of the more than 170 county central committee members who gathered in Greenbelt. She had been interim party chair since March 1, when Bruce Poole stepped down. The election of a state party chair, who traditionally leads fundraising and candidate recruitment efforts, is a nonevent for most voters. But Saturdays decision carried added significance for a Democratic Party still reeling from Hogans upset victory over then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown in 2014 and stunned by Donald Trumps defeat of Hillary Clinton last year. Matthews said the party must call Hogan, who seldom criticizes Trump, to account for the Republicans policies in the White House. We must defeat a governor who is silent at every turn, said Matthews, who added that Thursdays House vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act just made me sick to my stomach. Matthews promised to renew a state party infrastructure that has deteriorated in recent years, especially outside traditional Democratic strongholds in Baltimore City and Prince Georges and Montgomery counties. She promised to pursue an all-Maryland strategy to recruit and support candidates. Matthews, who last year lost a bid to be the Democratic candidate for Marylands 8th Congressional District, campaigned aggressively for the unpaid party post, contacting party leaders in all 24 counties and Baltimore City. She has also met with members of grass-roots groups resisting Trumps and the congressional GOPs agendas in an attempt to bring those groups into the party tent. But progressives, including many who supported the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), charged that Matthewss rise was emblematic of the status quo maintained by longtime party insiders such as Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer. Left-wing activists are also angry with the Democratic establishment for not supporting what they saw as key bills in the most recent General Assembly session. Matthewss lone opponent in Saturdays vote, Montgomery County party activist Tony Puca, voiced the skepticism of those on the left. We do have a broken party right now, and thats what this is all about, said Puca, a former Montgomery County central committee member and congressional candidate who drew expressions of surprise and a few laughs when he declared himself not only the best choice for state chair, but also probably more qualified for chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee than new chair Thomas Perez. His work in state and national politics dates to 1964, when he organized New York City high school students for Lyndon B. Johnson. Puca said the party will not win over groups such as Our Revolution and Indivisible by turning to the same old people running it the same old way. The meeting opened with a pep talk from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who urged Democrats to become active in this years Virginia gubernatorial race as a warm-up drill for 2018. I will tell you that the outcome of the governors race in Virginia will set the political psychology for the first year of this new [Trump] administration and how were fighting back, Van Hollen said. Solveig Cox, a Northern Virginia potter and ceramist who was known in the artistic community as the cat lady for her whimsical ceramics of cats on plates, cats driving cars, cats in bed, cat bowls, cat trays, cat vases, cat teacups, cat soap dishes, cat cookie jars, and cat birdbaths, died March 13 at a memory care unit in Northampton, Mass. She was 86. The cause was dementia, said a daughter, J. Alden Cox. For five decades, Mrs. Cox was a self-employed potter with studios at her home in the Hollin Hills community in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, Va., and at Alexandrias waterfront Torpedo Factory, which was converted into an arts center in the 1970s. She learned her craft in Munich, where her husband was posted as a clandestine operative of the CIA under an Army officers cover in the late 1950s. They then settled in Northern Virginia, and Mrs. Cox began firing her own work. Within a decade, her pottery was selling in more than 100 shops. Her husband, his CIA cover having been blown in Germany, was assigned to a desk job at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He retired, leaving the spy business for a new career helping market his wifes pottery. They would collaborate on cat-themed furniture. Mrs. Coxs drawings would appear on T-shirts, dresses, calendars, daybooks, cards, and tote bags, always with a touch of humor and whimsy. On occasion she experimented with other media, glass blowing, for example, but lighthearted pottery was mostly what she was known for. Her works were sold nationally. Solveig Peterson was born in New York City on Feb. 3, 1931. Her father was a radio producer, and her mother, an immigrant from Hungary, was a couture designer. As a child, she and her sister modeled childrens clothing. They lived in the city and spent weekends at a goat farm. She attended Bennington College in Vermont. Her husband of 57 years, Wendell Cox, died 2009. Five years later, Mrs. Cox moved to Northampton from Alexandria. Survivors include her daughter, of Amherst, Mass., and a son, David M. Cox of Los Osos, Calif. The shapes and movements of Mrs. Coxs own pets, she said, were what inspired her to be able to see the endless artistic potential in cats. One of the better known of her works is a black-and-white cat driving a car that is shaped like a red mouse, complete with a tail and tires. Its called Meals on Wheels. A District ex-Marine has been charged with federal firearms offenses, U.S. prosecutors said, after his military training and Facebook posts expressing pro-Islamic State and extremist-racist ideologies made him an object of an undercover FBI investigation. Clark Calloway, 38, a divorced construction worker, was arrested Thursday after purchasing an AK-47 automatic rifle and ammunition for $250 in two installments from a paid FBI informant who had posed as an ISIS sympathizer. The FBI disabled the weapon beforehand. According to an arrest affidavit by FBI Special Agent Adam Pool, Calloway told the informant, the third paid FBI source to approach him in a year-long investigation, that he was thinking about attacking police and preparing for a race war. Calloway allegedly mentioned a police station in Washington such as the First District substation near his work near Pennsylvania Avenue SE, although he did not want to target Muslim officers, Pool wrote. The source, Pool wrote, asked Calloway what he planned to do. Calloway responded he has to go to the police and he does not want to target brothers but stated, if they dont get out of the [expletive] way Calloway has not entered a plea, and his newly assigned federal defender could not be immediately reached for comment. He was charged by criminal complaint with possession of a firearm or ammunition by a felon and transportation of a firearm with the intent to commit a felony, namely assault with a deadly weapon. Both carry a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, prosecutors said. Calloway in December 2002 pleaded guilty to felony counts in a stabbing and was sentenced to one year in prison, and ordered to receive mental-health and substance abuse treatment, authorities said. Calloway made his first appearance Friday, where U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey of the District ordered him held pending a May 10 hearing. According to the FBI affidavit, Calloway waived his Miranda rights and allegedly said he wanted to have the assault rifle for a rainy day and for a race war, but denied that he planned to carry out an attack and characterized many of his Facebook posts as propaganda and talking trash to his followers. The 30-page affidavit said the investigation began in June when an undercover FBI employee found pictures related to jihad and terrorism and the ISIS flag on Calloways Facebook account, and referred to dozens of related posts and incendiary comments against white people. Prosecutors did not bring any terrorism-related charges. Typical Washington rowhouses line the north side of the block, and a D.C. public school occupies the south side. The street lies about half way between Logan Circle and the U Street NW corridor. Near two Metro stops, it seems an example of the convenience and proximity that have attracted many people to the District in recent years. But an event that occurred on that street, the 1100 block of S Street NW, a little after lunchtime Friday afternoon suggested that it also could be the site of the unexpected kind of event that also forms part of everyday life in a large city. In the incident, according to a police report, a woman was walking past two men about 2 oclock in the afternoon, when one of them tried to grab the cellphone from her hand. According to the report, she pushed him away, and he punched her in the face. Then the woman ran. The two men, the one who punched her and the second man, ran also. Only hours after the event, it was not immediately clear, a police official said in an email Friday night, why the incident apparently ended in just that way. I am not sure why the suspects gave up and ran off empty handed, said Cdr. Stuart Emerman, who leads the third police district. Guesses might be made. It is certainly possible that in the calculus of robbery, a limit exists to the time available for a street crime. It is possible that only a limited window of opportunity exists, which decreases depending on the neighborhood, the time of day and the number of people walking or driving nearby. This may be particularly so if it is in daytime, even if the day is gray and wet. At any rate, a description of the two would-be robbers was broadcast over police communications channels, police said. Police stopped two men about a half mile away, in the 900 block of Florida Avenue, according to Margarita Mikhaylova, a police spokeswoman. After further investigation, police said, they made two arrests. They said they charged one man with assault with intent to commit robbery. The second man arrested was carrying a pistol, police said. They said they charged him with assault with intent to commit robbery while armed. He was also charged with carrying an unregistered gun, they said. The pistol was described by police as a CZ-52. An online reference calls it a semi-automatic designed more than 60 years ago for the Czechoslovak military. No firearm was displayed or mentioned during the robbery attempt said Emerman, the police commander. Northern Virginias local governments are sharply divided among themselves and with the District and Maryland over a proposed regional sales tax to fund Metro. The discord was evident Thursday night at a transit policy meeting in Tysons Corner. It was an early sign of how difficult it will be to achieve a regional consensus on how to raise the billions of dollars of additional funds Metro needs in coming years to provide a safe and reliable system. At a regular meeting of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, county and city officials spoke strongly against a recent recommendation for a uniform, penny-per-dollar tax for Metro. They objected that Northern Virginia because of its large population and high volume of sales to be taxed would pay more than the District and Maryland combined. In addition, a split was evident between transit-friendly inner suburbs such as Arlington and Falls Church and the outer suburb of Loudoun over how the burden should be shared within Northern Virginia. Its inevitable, because theyre two different worlds in terms of usage of the Metro, Fairfax Supervisor John W. Foust (D-Dranesville) said afterward. [How best to pay for Metros needs? A regionwide sales tax, say local officials in major report.] The disagreements were especially telling, because they arose shortly after former U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood told the commission that his goal in leading a new study of Metro was to broker a regionwide compromise on funding and governance. It was LaHoods first meeting with the commission since Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) tapped him to head a panel to report by this fall on how to fix the transit system. The commission is responsible for Northern Virginias funding and stewardship of Metro. In one of the sessions more pointed exchanges, Del. David A. LaRock (R-Loudoun) accused the Districts chief financial officer, Jeffrey S. DeWitt, of trying to stick Northern Virginia with the bill for the Districts fiscal challenges. DeWitt had just laid out the recent proposal for a regionwide sales tax endorsed by administrative and budget experts of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, or COG. LaRock, like others on the commission, criticized the plan because it provides that Northern Virginia would contribute 51 percent of the $650 million raised annually by the tax. [Virginia Gov. McAuliffe taps Ray LaHood to head panel to study Metro.] By contrast, the Districts share would be 23 percent. The two Maryland counties served by Metro Montgomery and Prince Georges would account for 26 percent. How is this not Washington, D.C., passing off its financial liabilities to Virginia? LaRock asked Dewitt. DeWitt responded that the tax proposal was designed to start a dialogue rather than be a final solution. Im not selling Virginia a bag of goods, DeWitt said. This is throwing it out there so we all have facts and can find a solution. DeWitt and the COG report said the imbalance between Virginia and the other two jurisdictions could be solved by changing how the tax is administered. That could include refunding some sales tax revenue or other money to Virginia. Foust suggested making the sales tax a half-cent per dollar in Virginia, while keeping it a full penny in the District and Maryland. [Metro GM proposes new business model and $500 million a year in extra funding to save D.C.-area transit agency.] However, the COG panel saw a public relations value in charging everybody in the region the same rate. Also, any refund to Virginia or a lowering of its tax rate would generate less revenue. The COG panel reported April 26 that Metro needs an additional $7.5 billion over the next 10 years beyond what the District, Maryland, Virginia and the federal government are currently providing to buy new rail cars, buses and other equipment as well as to keep up with necessary maintenance. It considered numerous other taxes, such as a property levy, but recommended a uniform sales tax as the simplest, most effective way overall to raise the funds. The proposal drew the most scorn from Loudoun representatives, who called a regional sales tax a non-starter in their jurisdiction. Loudoun would contribute 10 percent of such a tax, even though the county doesnt even have a Metro station yet. It is scheduled to get three in 2020, including one at Dulles International Airport, when the second phase of the Silver Line opens. Loudoun Supervisor Ron A. Meyer (R-Broad Run) said residents in the countys rural, western section will use Metro seldom if ever. But David F. Snyder (R), a member of the Falls Church Council, countered that Metro encourages economic development in the inner suburbs that spins off tax revenue that helps the entire state. The inner jurisdictions are supporting the schools in rural Loudoun County, Snyder said. Seeking a possible solution to the impasse, Sharon Bulova (D), chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, suggested that the counties and cities first agree on what a fair contribution would be for each. Then each jurisdiction would decide for itself what kind of tax or other dedicated funding source to use. Earlier, LaHood told the commission he was not doing yet another in-depth study of Metro but was focused instead on finding common ground among Virginia, the District and Maryland about how to fix it. He said major issues to be resolved included funding, the structure of the board of directors and revising the Metro Compact or governing document. LaHood also was open to proposals to replace the current board of directors with a control board having extraordinary powers to make changes in finances and governance. He pointed to the success of the federal control board that took over the Districts finances in the 1990s. The truth is, it worked, LaHood said. It took politics out of the governance and got the District back on track, financially, in terms of a lot of things. I think you all ought to look at that. Alex Scott, 45, who has cerebral palsy, was moved to a nursing home Saturday after 38 days at Inova Loudoun Hospital in Leesburg, Va. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) After being stranded for more than a month at a hospital, a 45-year-old man with cerebral palsy went to a nursing home Saturday and could, per a judges order, eventually return to the less-restrictive group home where he had lived for more than two decades. At an emergency hearing Friday night, a Loudoun County judge denied a request from Alex Scotts family to immediately send him back his Northern Virginia group home but also ordered that the group home take steps in the next two weeks toward accepting Scott back into its care. The decision was seen as a partial victory for Scotts family in a standoff over a feeding tube that has captured the attention of disability rights advocates and an online community that has followed Scotts plight. While we are disappointed Alex is not going home today, we are encouraged that Loudoun County has been ordered by the court to take specific measures to make sure Alex goes home as soon as possible, Scotts sister Samantha Tunador said late Friday. On Saturday, Scott, who cannot speak, had spent 38 days in the hospital while his family and caregivers at Kentwell Group Home argued over what is best for him. Heartbreaking: Medical standoff leaves man with cerebral palsy stranded at hospital Scotts relatives said the group home, where he lived for more than two decades, told them it would not take him back without a feeding tube. His family has maintained that the medical procedure is unnecessary and would benefit Kentwell employees more than Scott. Scott cannot feed himself, has difficulty swallowing and can take as long as 30 minutes to eat, according to a complaint filed by the familys attorney, John Whitbeck, in Loudoun Circuit Court. But cerebral palsy is not a progressive disease, and the severity of his needs has remained the same the entire time he has lived at Kentwell Group Home, the complaint says. Scott had excellent care and was very happy at the group home until 2014, when his longtime caregiver retired and a new caregiver took over, according to the complaint. Now Alex faces leaving the only home he has known for 23 years because Kentwell personnel do not wish to continue to give him the same care he has had for the entire 23-year period, the complaint reads. It also says his physicians have opined that a feeding tube is not only unnecessary, it would be dangerous for Alex as his stomach and intestines are abnormally located in his abdomen. The hearing came after Medicaid denied further funding for Scotts hospital stay, and he was set to be discharged. His family expects his stay will be temporary at the nursing home, one that the complaint described as more restrictive and unnecessarily intensive in care. Loudoun County Attorney Leo Rogers said Saturday that privacy laws limit what he can say about the case. But he said the steps the county will take in the next few weeks were proposed at the hearing by Margaret Graham, the director of Loudouns Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services, which oversees the group home. They include training the group home staff on how to care for Scott. It has been our intention from the beginning to get him to a point where he can be at the group home, and the group home staff are prepared to handle his needs as a patient, Rogers said. Were going to make sure his safety and care is paramount, he said. The physical location is not as critical as his safety. [Virginia woman with Down syndrome seeks power to live the way she wants] Scotts relatives want him to return to the group home, they said, because he has formed relationships there and that is the home he knows. It is clear that the judge agreed that sending Alex home was the best thing for him, and her ruling showed thoughtful consideration of how to do that, Whitbeck, the familys attorney, said Saturday. If the county does not follow through on the requirements of the ruling, the judge has cleared the way for us to take this case back into court on an emergency basis, and we most certainly will. Scott was admitted to Inova Loudoun Hospital on March 31 for having low oxygen levels, according to the complaint. Tunador, his sister, said that she and her parents expected that he would be discharged after a few days. When it became clear that the group home was not planning to take him back, Tunador turned to social media to catalogue Scotts hospital stay, using the hashtag #TakeAlexHome. Day 11, Tunador wrote on Facebook on April 10. I promise you Alex, we are doing everything we can to get you out of the hospital and back to your home. Day 20, she declared in a video. We really are not much further. Day 37, she wrote Friday, please keep sharing and sending emails. We have not been heard yet. Hours later, she learned of the judges decision. Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, Corey Stewart, gestures at a campaign kickoff rally at a resturaunt in Occoquan, Va., Jan. 23, 2017. (Steve Helber/Associated Press) By embracing Confederate symbols and flirting with the alt-right, Corey Stewart seems, to many political analysts, to be handing the GOP nomination for Virginia governor to rival Ed Gillespie. Some also think Stewart is damaging the Republican brand in a way that could hurt Gillespies chances in November in a general election that could reverberate beyond the Old Dominion. The rest of the countrys looking at us and saying, Look at these hicks in Virginia! said Brian W. Schoeneman, a Virginia political analyst and blogger who served in the George W. Bush administration. They dont realize that hes not representative of the broader GOP and the vast majority of us including Ed are looking at him with horror. But Stewart says defending Confederate symbols against political correctness is not just a cause, its a winning strategy in an off-year primary. Its a very small turnout election were talking maybe 4 or 5 percent of the entire voter base, he said. So youve got a certain percentage of the electorate who are going to vote on abortion. Youve got a certain percentage of the electorate who are going to vote on illegal immigration. And then theres going to be a percentage who will vote on the historical-monuments issue. Pretty soon, you add them all up and its a significant portion of people. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie, right , speaks as he participates in a debate with Corey Stewart, left, and state Sen. Frank Wagner, center, at Goochland High School in Goochland, Va., April 22, 2017. (Steve Helber/Associated Press.) As for damage to the Republican brand, Stewart contends that Gillespie and other establishment Republicans have hurt the party by cutting deals with Democrats and refusing to stake out bold positions on tough issues. Its the Bush family and other establishment Republicans who hurt the Republican brand so badly that we got Barack Obama, he said. Virginia hasnt had a statewide candidate stand accused of being too cozy with the Confederacy since George Allens Senate reelection bid in 2006. The issue resurfaces now in a particularly high-profile race at a chaotic moment in American politics. Virginia is one of just two states the other is New Jersey with a governors race this year. The contest is drawing national attention as an early referendum on President Trump and as an example of the populist/establishment tug of war within both major political parties. Trumps surprising path to the presidency could embolden more politicians to seek office as provocateurs, political analysts said. Yet the lesson here could be that only Trump, by virtue of his celebrity and personality, can get away with it. Hes made the mistake of saying, This [monument removal] is whats going on. Im going to go big, Jennifer Duffy, senior editor for the Cook Political Report, said of Stewart. But he might have fallen off the cliff. When were dealing in an atmosphere of deeply Southern states starting to remove their Confederate monuments, maybe its not the issue to go crazy on. But Kyle Kondik, who analyzes elections at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said he thinks the strategy could work for Stewart, whose rallies sometimes draw more counterprotesters than supporters. He noted that polls show many voters have not made up their minds or even tuned into the race. During the Old South Ball in Danville, Va., then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart said on April 8, 2017, that he was proud of Virginia's heritage and would fight to keep Confederate memorials around the state. (Corey Stewart/Facebook) If youre an underdog candidate looking for something to get attention with, Stewart has certainly gotten attention for this, he said. Just the name ID can be more than half the battle. . . . Sometimes it matters not so much what your own position is, but who your enemies are. Maybe Stewarts calculation is if he can fire up these protesters, those are people that conservative Republicans think are riffraff. Therefore, he becomes an enemy of the left, and that generates more support on the right. Stewart and Gillespie started the primary race along with underdog state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (Virginia Beach) as seemingly perfect symbols of the GOPs intraparty angst. Stewart cut a brasher-than-Trump figure as someone who had led a crackdown on illegal immigration in Prince William County a decade ago. He was such an over-the-top Virginia chairman for Trump last year that the campaign fired him. Gillespie was the cautious establishment type, a former lobbyist, Republican National Committee chairman and White House counselor to Bush who kept his distance from Trump. Which one would sell in an off-year contest in Virginia, a state that favored Hillary Clinton by 5 points in November but also gave Trump a narrow primary win? That looked like an open question at first, when Stewart aimed to attract populists energized by Trumps surprise White House victory. Then Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, took his campaign in an unexpected direction. The impetus was a vote early this year by the Charlottesville City Council to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. Stewart saw an opening and rallied to oppose the monuments removal. The move brought him considerable attention after news videos showed counterprotesters shouting him down. [Protesters mob provocative candidate for Va. governor] From there, he made Confederate monuments the centerpiece of his campaign one that allowed him to skewer Establishment Ed for what he deemed a mealy-mouthed stance: While the former RNC chief is also opposed to removal, he said its a matter left to local authorities, not the governor. Stewart held multiple rallies for the monument, unfurled the Confederate flag at other events and attended an Old South ball in an outfit approximating a Civil War dress uniform. [Did a Republican running for Va. governor really dress up like a Confederate gent?] Along the way, he gave an interview to Mike Cernovich, the alt-right Internet figure who helped popularize the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The alt-right is a small, far-right movement that seeks a whites-only state. Adherents of the alt-right are known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view. Stewart also attended a Charlottesville news conference with Jason Kessler and Isaac Smith, founders of Unity and Security for America (USA), a fledgling group that calls for defending Western Civilization. Smith has sometimes introduced Stewart at events and appeared at his side with alt-right symbols, such as placards with Pepe the Frog and a gladiator-style shield. At one raucous rally with Stewart at the University of Virginia, Smith used a shield to push against counterprotesters. Stewart said he does not condone white supremacy but welcomes support from anyone who wants to upend the GOP establishment. Theres a revolution going on here in conservative circles, and these young people are coming up very social-media savvy and they are shaking things up, and their views are very disparate, he said. Ill take support where I can get it. But that doesnt mean I believe in everything they believe in. Smith, 20, said he enjoyed needling liberal activists with Pepe signs and shields at Stewarts events, although he rejects the alt-right label. The term I might use is dissident right. Its the part of the right wing that has fun, Smith said. And part of the fun is just getting a rise out of these sensitive and Id say sensitive for no good reason people. . . . Its a frog. Its not like Im sending a picture of a member of the Ku Klux Klan holding a noose. Its a smiling frog. Why does this upset you so much? The provocations have succeeded in some ways. Late last month, as Stewart railed against the removal of a New Orleans monument, he wound up in a Twitter war with musician John Legend and others. But the attention has not translated into support, as measured in recent polls. [In fog of Twitter war with musician John Legend and others, GOP candidate seems to defend anti-Semite] Even at the recent Shad Planking, a springtime political confab in the piney woods of Southside Virginia that was open only to white males until the late 1970s, support for Stewart was lukewarm. When a supporter flew overhead in a plane streaming a Confederate flag and a Stewart sign, it drew eyerolls. Hes relevant in the sense that were all talking about him, but were talking about him because he gobsmacked us all at how extreme his campaign has become, said Quentin Kidd, a Christopher Newport University government professor and pollster. [Trumps mini-me struggles to find an audience in Virginia] Stewarts support slipped further in recent weeks, when all that Confederate stuff led Stewarts local sheriff and longtime ally to yank his endorsement. Four of the five Republican supervisors who serve with Stewart came out for Gillespie, abandoning plans to stay neutral. [All that Confederate stuff leads to endorsement switch in Va. governors race] Stewart knows people are counting him out but says they are wrong. The last time liberals got mad at someone & said his campaign is imploding we took back the White House, he tweeted. If he makes it to the general election, Stewart said that he would start emphasizing more kitchen table issues with broader appeal. You dont change your political position, just what you talk about, he said. Obviously Ill be talking more about bringing back jobs and reducing taxes. Most political strategists and observers dont think Stewart will be in the race after the June 13 primary. They say the leader of Virginias second-largest jurisdiction, someone who had managed to win reelection four times in racially diverse Northern Virginia has turned himself into a fringe candidate. This is manna from heaven for Gillespie, said Bob Holsworth, a former Virginia Commonwealth University political scientist. On the one hand, [Stewart] has basically ceded much of his home turf to Gillespie, which is remarkable. And secondly, the other benefit it provides Gillespie is that the campaign is so outrageous that it captures all of the media attention and ensures that Frank Wagner gets no traction, too. Political analysts are more divided on whether even a badly defeated Stewart would give the GOP a black eye that lasts through the general election. Many think that come fall, Gillespie will have to worry more about being tied to Trump than to Stewart. But Democrats would like to yoke him to both. They are already criticizing Gillespie for not condemning Stewarts far-right appeals, a line of attack that echoes their complaints about Gillespies reluctance to speak out against Trump. Not even a Confederate apologist trying to use racism to score political points can draw condemnation from @EdWGillespie. Says it all, tweeted former congressman Tom Perriello, one of two Democrats vying to succeed term-limited Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). Abbi Sigler, a spokeswoman for Gillespie, declined to comment on Stewarts campaign or Democratic criticism of his silence. Candidates speak for themselves, she said. Ed is speaking about how we make this a stronger economy for all Virginians, and its very clear that his positive message is resonating with voters statewide. Some Republicans wish Gillespie would condemn Stewart among them Schoeneman, editor in chief of the conservative blog Bearing Drift. Maybe you lose some general-election votes, but at least you can look yourself in the mirror in the morning, he said. I think it has a negative impact on the party as a whole. . . . This is not something that is even remotely reasonable. But Chris LaCivita, a top adviser at the RNC for the Trump campaign, does not think Stewarts Confederate antics will do any lasting damage. And he thinks Gillespie is smart to stay mum about him. The first rule in politics is not to engage the idiot, LaCivita said. Let the idiot be the idiot. An artist's rendering of a monument that the Satanic Temple plans to erect at a park in Minnesota. (Courtesy of the Satanic Temple) Veterans Memorial Park in tiny Belle Plaine, Minn., is packed with remembrances for the towns men and women in uniform. Soon, it will get one more: A solemn black cube holding an upturned helmet, its sides adorned with upside-down pentagrams. The Satanic Temple announced Friday that it had received approval to install the monument, which is in production. Within a couple of months, it is expected to take its place alongside a flag-lined walkway, a marble plaque and a retired UH-1H Iroquois Huey helicopter positioned as if it is hovering above the ground. The approval of the monument brings a new twist to a long-running battle that began last summer, when someone put up a metal silhouette of an infantryman kneeling before a cross. A resident objected, calling it a religious symbol that violates the principle of the separation of church and state. After months of acrimony, the city decided to make part of the park a public forum, open to virtually any group that wants to honor the towns veterans. The Satanic Temple took them up on it. It is not the first such effort from the Satanic Temple, a provocative organization that often pushes the boundaries on free speech and religious liberties to prove a point about religion in public spaces; last year, it started its After School Satan clubs as a way of challenging Christian evangelical groups that sponsor after-school religious programming. But this is the first time that the group has succeeded in having a monument placed on public land, said Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the organization, which is based in Salem, Mass. [An After School Satan Club could be coming to your kids elementary school] Belle Plaine officials didnt offer any resistance, to their credit, said Greaves, who also goes by the name Doug Mesner. We genuinely want something that will honor the veterans. Its not about being shocking or upsetting the locals, though its an inevitable byproduct. (The Satanic Temple) City officials considered that the new policy could invite provocateurs, but approved it anyway. It was discussed during our city council meeting when we authored the policy that groups that were unpopular or otherwise would put monuments in the park, said Michael Votca, the city administrator. The flare-up in this town about 45 miles southwest of Minneapolis comes as the country is mired in a heated battle over religious freedom and the rights of people of faith, particularly conservative Christians, to opt out of activities that support same-sex marriage, abortion or birth control. On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at expanding religious protections that, among other things, soften enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which bars tax-exempt houses of worship from engaging in political speech. But as the Satanic Temple has tried to demonstrate, expanding religious liberties can have unintended consequences. Because the Constitution bars the establishment of a national religion, it requires that the same protections be extended to people of all faiths, including those who profess no faith and those who practice faiths with disturbing connotations such as satanism. Greaves said that his organization is now considering applying for the same tax-exempt status that churches and synagogues enjoy. It previously avoided doing so to freely engage in politics. But with Trumps executive order, he said, theres absolutely no advantage to not be tax-exempt. A lot more organizations should apply and put it to the test. He said that his organization does not worship the devil. Rather, he said, it is a nontheistic religious organization devoted to art, free speech and individuality, whose values are no less deeply held than those professing a belief in God. In its application to the city, the organization described the monument as a black steel cube with embossed inverted pentagrams with inlaid gold on four sides. An inverted helmet rests on the top of the cube. A plaque on one side of the cube reads: In honor of Belle Plaine veterans who fought to defend the United States and its Constitution. Fearing a lawsuit, the city of Belle Plaine ordered the removal of the cross from the statue affectionately dubbed Joe, above, at Veterans Memorial Park. City officials allowed its return as part of a limited public forum allowing all groups to display a statue honoring vets, opening the way for the Satanic Temples proposal. (Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune) Belle Plaine has been grappling with its park policy since last summer, when the two-foot statue of the kneeling soldier appeared. Katie Novotny, a Belle Plaine resident and veterans advocate, said it was created by a local vet who died shortly after it was put up. It is affectionately dubbed Joe. Novotny contends that it is not a religious display. Joe, she said, is simply kneeling at a headstone fashioned into the shape of a cross, which is a common way for gravestones to be depicted. I dont think 90 percent of people see it as a religious symbol when its in that context, she said. Nevertheless, fearing a lawsuit, the city ordered the cross removed in January. Someone from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars group was tasked with sawing it off the statue, she said. The person given that job said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do, she said. The decision immediately prompted protests. People fashioned their own crosses and defiantly installed them next to the statue. Around the town, Novotny said, citizens who supported the original display put replicas in their windows including the cross. The city eventually hit upon a compromise. It established a limited public forum within the park in which groups could erect, with city permission, a monument honoring the towns veterans. The permits last for a year, and no more than 10 monuments may be displayed at a time. The cross was welded back onto the statue. Joe and his cross returned to the park last month. Novotny said she does not object to the Satanic Temples plans. If they want to come here from Massachusetts and put something up to honor our veterans in Belle Plaine, go for it, she said. They deserve to be honored. Some other places have opted to ban all religious displays when faced with this type of conflict. In 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a monument of the Ten Commandments had to be removed from its grounds for violating a state prohibition against use of public property to promote one religion. Another group planning to apply for a spot at the Belle Plaine park is the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which objected to the cross display. It is planning to commission a stone tribute to atheists in foxholes a take on an old saying suggesting that everyone finds God when faced with death. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, predicted that city officials will come to regret opening the park to all displays. Theyre going to run out of space, she said. It will just be littered. . . . One day, they will look at everything and decide, was it really worth it? Old Glory, Stars and Stripes, the Star Spangled Banner. No matter what you call it, it is our flag. It is the best-known symbol of any country on the planet. It is ours, and it means something. It stands for something. Lately though, just what it stands for has been diminished to the point it has become inconsequential. I see a real need to defend our flag. Between Dec. 9, 2016 and April 20, our flag was ordered lowered to half-staff nine times. Do people have any idea of whom or why our great flag was lowered? I know only because seeing that great flag lowered so many times greatly disturbed me, so I looked it up. Nine times in five months we lowered the flag to half-staff. Thats ludicrous. From Fort McHenry to Khe Sanh our flag flew high and proud, but by todays standard that means nothing. When Francis Scott Key wrote the words to what later became the Star Spangled Banner, there was great pride in seeing that flag flying high over Fort McHenry through the bombs and rockets. For 77 days our Marines withstood everything the North Vietnamese could throw at them in Khe Sanh. My squadron, the 776th, helped supply those Marines, and not once did that proud flag dip. It never wavered. The last few times Ive seen the Colors at half-staff Ive asked the folks involved, why? Most folks dont know; they get some notice that states the flag should be lowered to half-staff and they dutifully go out and do it. Our great flag lowered and they dont know why. Or they are afraid that if they dont do it the flag police will come and get them? I urge you to read U.S. Code Title 4, Chapter 1: The Flag. In it, you will see President Dwight Eisenhower made it clear that proclamations to lower the flag are specific to federal institutions, federal buildings, etc. There is one sentence that states the rules for lowering the flag may be used as a guide by the people of the nation. There is no question that proclamations coming from Washington, DC are specific to federal buildings. The same applies to proclamations from Madison, where the half-staff edict applies to state-owned buildings. There is no law stating that every flag that flies has to be lowered simply because someone in Washington, DC or Madison says so. Think back over the past few years, weve lowered those great colors so many times that the real meaning of doing it has been diluted. Coming into Portage northbound on Highway 51/16 there are two beautiful flags, huge symbols of our country, and those wonderful flags should be flown high, wide and proud all day, every day. The same with those wonderful flags in Blue Star Park on the near north side, featuring the symbol of our country and proud symbols of our military services. They need to fly high and proud all day, every day. And the big beautiful flag that flies over the Portage Daily Register building that we see entering Portage from the west. I challenge every business, every service organization, and every individual to fly your flag full staff, high, wide and proud all day every day. There is no law nor is there a flag police forcing you to lower your flag. Our flag means something, and lowering it to half-staff at the slightest whim has chipped away at the solemn promise and the reassurance that our flag offers. Chris Schutz is a resident of Columbia County and a Vietnam War veteran. One night last fall, Victoria Rodriguez, a pediatric hospitalist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago, was paged from the emergency room for a consultation on a case. An ER doctor had evaluated a 4-week-old infant, and although he couldnt find anything wrong with the baby, he hesitated to send the anxious family home. His concern? During the night, the parents had received an alarm on their phones that the babys heart rate and blood-oxygen level were low. The alarm had been triggered by the babys high-tech sock, one of a new class of devices that continuously measure babies vital signs, but the ER doctor wasnt sure how to interpret this information. There is no peer-reviewed research on the accuracy of these devices, and they have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Without having testing for this device, its really hard to make sense of the alarm, Rodriguez said. These new monitors are a far cry from the simple sound monitors that have been a nursery staple for decades. They come in several forms, with wireless electronics integrated into socks, leg bands, buttons, onesies or diaper clips that send data to parents smartphones using Bluetooth technology. Some use motion sensors that purport to detect if a baby stops breathing, and others use pulse-oximetry probes, which shine a light through the skin to measure blood-oxygen levels. The devices can be purchased online and at major retailers for $90 to $350. [] The monitors track infants vital signs, but its not clear how accurate this information is or how it should be used by parents and medical providers. In the case Rodriguez was consulted on, she felt she had to recommend that the baby be hospitalized for more testing. After bloodwork, an EKG and 24 hours of heart-rate and oxygen monitoring none of which revealed problems the infant was cleared to go home. The child was completely fine, but those 24 hours were very nerve-racking for the parents, Rodriguez said. Alarms go off Eric Coon, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, has overseen the care of three infants with similar stories in the past few months, all admitted to the hospital from the emergency room after parents reported an alarm from a high-tech baby monitor. In each case, he said, the infants hospital stays were of questionable value, and he worries that this new class of monitors is causing unnecessary medical interventions. People think, Oh, all youre doing is getting more data more data on your child. How could that be bad? Coon said. But hospitalization carries a whole host of potential harms to children, including the risk of hospital-acquired infections and side effects of medical procedures, he said, along with stress and anxiety for the family and the cost of the hospital care. Every single medical technology has the potential to harm patients, and really the only way to know if the benefits outweigh the harms is to study it, Coon said. Parents might assume that a monitor that measures vital signs could prevent their baby from dying of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, but theres no hard evidence for this. And studies from the 1980s and 1990s of hospital-grade heart-rate and breathing monitors prescribed for home use for babies thought to be at high risk for SIDS found that the monitors didnt reduce babies risk of dying of SIDS. These older monitors were more cumbersome not wireless like the commercial monitors available today but they collected similar data, and some studies reported that their use increased parental stress and fatigue. In its guidelines on SIDS prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics says, Do not use home cardiorespiratory monitors as a strategy to reduce the risk of SIDS. Its peace of mind Manufacturers dont claim that new monitors prevent SIDS or other sleep-related deaths, only that they offer peace of mind for parents and caregivers. For example, Baby Vidas website says its oxygen monitor offers vital peace of mind while your baby sleeps. The companys website also states, The Baby Vida Oxygen Monitor does not prevent SIDS. It is not a medical device. . . . Its only intended use is to provide additional information to caregivers. Snuza says its movement monitors, which detect the slightest of movements, monitoring your baby when sleeping, provides peace of mind and supports you when you need it the most. Because the devices do not claim to be medical equipment, they do not fall under FDA regulation, which requires manufacturers to show that devices are safe, effective and accurate. Christopher Bonafide, a pediatrician at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, says its a problem that the new monitors have not been evaluated by the FDA. Bonafide was lead author of an editorial on the monitors that was published in JAMA in January. Theres no role for any type of home monitoring of healthy infants, and there are further risks with using these sort of non-FDA-approved devices in that we dont know how accurate they are and we think there could be risks of harm if parents do choose to use them, he said. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said that the agency is reviewing Bonafides paper. Reiterating whats in his editorial, Bonafide says that potential risks include burns from the devices electronics or other skin damage caused by many hours of wear, but hes most concerned about indirect harms such as unwarranted medical interventions. Temporary pauses in breathing and periods of low blood oxygen occur occasionally in healthy infants, but if this normal variation triggers an alarm of a home monitor, it could lead to a cascade of unnecessary actions and parental anxiety, as Rodriguez and Coon saw in their patients. Other types of constant monitoring have been shown to be unhelpful and even harmful. For example, the AAP no longer recommends continuous pulse-oximetry monitoring of children hospitalized for bronchiolitis. Studies found that when monitoring detected periods of low blood oxygen, children stayed in the hospital longer, but longer stays didnt improve health outcomes. Likewise, continuous fetal monitoring during an uncomplicated labor was found to increase a womans chances of Caesarean delivery and associated risks with no health benefit to the baby. Its so hard for medical providers not to react to data that is slightly abnormal, and sometimes its better that we didnt know it at all, Coon said. Unregulated devices With the new generation of infant monitors, data is being streamed to parents from unregulated devices. This kind of thing could lead people to try and make a clinical decision from a device that is really more like a toy in the way its being regulated, said David Jamison, co-author of the JAMA editorial and executive director of health devices at the ECRI Institute, a nonprofit organization that reviews medical procedures and devices. The institute will be testing the safety and accuracy of home infant pulse oximeters this year, Jamison said. Owlet, maker of one of the monitors, says it has done internal safety and accuracy testing and plans to publish results soon. Meanwhile, 80,000 families are using Owlets sock pulse oximeter. Jane Putman, the companys public relations director, said in an email, A number of our current customers are physicians and healthcare providers, who have expressed support for the product and the information it provides through its continued use with their own children. She added that due to innovations developed by Owlet to lessen false alarms, many users will use the Owlet Sock for several months without ever getting a false alarm, greatly reducing the risk of over diagnosis. Owlet also has an FDA application pending for a medical version of its pulse oximeter, available by prescription, she said. Snuza founder Greg Gallagher said in an email that his company also is working with the FDA on a product that would be available by prescription. A Snuza monitor that detects breathing cessation has been approved as a medical device in Europe. A small, easy-to-use, wireless pulse oximeter could be a welcome improvement over current hospital-grade devices, Bonafide said. With evidence of their safety and accuracy, these products could be truly innovative to those patients who do need monitoring, he said, though he would recommend their use only for sick infants under the care of a physician, not for routine monitoring of healthy infants. Some pediatricians worry that home use of vital sign monitors might falsely reassure parents about SIDS, defined as a sudden death with unexplained cause during the first year of life, and other sleep-related deaths such as those caused by suffocation. Parents may become complacent if they are using a monitor and figure that, since the monitor is on the baby, its okay to place the baby on her stomach to sleep or to otherwise not follow the safe sleep recommendations, Rachel Moon, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, wrote in an email. She was the lead author of the AAPs policy statement on safe sleep. What doctors think [Updated guidelines on infant sleep highlight danger of parent tiredness] Moons concern hasnt been formally studied, but Alexis Dubeif, founder of a 30,000-member Facebook group focused on infant sleep, says she believes complacency is not uncommon. I have seen, anecdotally, a significant portion of parents who feel that its okay to use unsafe sleep practices because they are protected by their monitoring device, she wrote in an email. To reduce the risk of SIDS, Bonafide emphasizes proven strategies. There are things that we know help in terms of prevention of SIDS, like the bare crib and the flat mattress with a tight crib sheet. These are not sexy. These are not smartphone-integrated things, but they are effective, he said. The AAP also recommends that babies sleep in their parents room (but not in the same bed) for the first year of life and that parents place babies on their back for sleep, avoid tobacco exposure, breast-feed, offer a pacifier and immunize babies on schedule to reduce the risk of SIDS. Victoria Rodriguez understands the anxiety associated with SIDS. In addition to being a pediatrician, she is a mother who checks on her year-old daughter while she sleeps. When Rodriguez talks with parents, she says, she tells them to follow the AAP guidelines and not to bother with vital-signs monitors because they dont seem to prevent bad things from happening and can cause emotional distress for families. health-science@washpost.com When Faithe Craigs temperature spiked a few weeks ago, she turned to an urgent-care clinic for cancer patients in Dallas. (Courtesy of Faithe Craig) One afternoon a few weeks ago, Faithe Craig noticed that her temperature had spiked to just above 100 degrees. For most people, that might not be cause for alarm, but Craig is being treated for Stage 3 breast cancer, and any temperature change could signal a serious problem. She called the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her nurse there told her to come in immediately for urgent-care services at the hematology oncology clinic. I thought Id be waiting there all night, said Craig, 33. But the clinic had lined up a blood draw before she arrived and then sent her directly to get X-rays. Clinicians had details of her case at their fingertips. They already knew my story and knew everything about me, she said. The bloodwork showed she had severe anemia and required a blood transfusion, pronto. It has been more than a year since the Dallas medical center began providing same-day urgent-care services to cancer patients. Its an effort to help them avoid the emergency department and admission to the hospital, said Thomas Froehlich, medical director of all the centers cancer clinics. Cancer treatment clearly carries a lot of side effects and toxicity, and there are also complications of dealing with the cancer, Froehlich said. Many of these things, if you can intervene early, you keep patients at home and out of the hospital. A small but growing number of hospitals and oncology practices are offering cancer patients urgent care in which specialists are available, often for extended hours and sometimes around the clock. Keeping cancer patients out of the emergency department makes sense not only because many of them have compromised immune systems that put them at risk in a waiting room full of sick people, but also to provide the most efficient and appropriate care. What we hear from cancer physicians and administrators is that in the emergency department not all emergency physicians and nurses feel equally confident in their ability to treat cancer patients, said Lindsay Conway, managing director of research at the Advisory Board, a health-care research and consulting firm. So they may admit them [to the hospital as inpatients] when its not necessary. Severe pain, nausea, fever and dehydration are not uncommon side effects of traditional chemotherapy. Newer immunotherapy treatments that activate the immune system to fight cancer can cause serious and sudden reactions if the immune system instead attacks healthy organs and tissues. It can be difficult for physicians who are not cancer specialists to evaluate what these symptoms mean. Targeted therapies are wonderful, but if you dont know the drug, youre going to have a hard time managing the person, said Barbara McAneny, chief executive of New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants, whose three centers around the state provide urgent care for more than a dozen cancer patients daily. Offering same-day services fits in with a broader shift in oncology toward patient-centered care, said J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. Theres a general sense within the practice of oncology that we need to do a better job of managing pain and side effects, and we need to provide a higher level of care, Lichtenfeld said. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is encouraging these efforts through new payment and delivery models, Lichtenfeld said. And starting in 2020, hospitals may be penalized financially if outpatient chemotherapy patients visit the emergency department or are admitted to the hospital, according to a final rule issued in November. Avoiding the emergency department makes financial sense for patients and insurers, too. Johns Hopkins Hospital opened a six-bed urgent-care center next to its chemotherapy infusion center a couple of years ago. Of the patients who land there, about 80 percent are discharged home, at an average total hospital charge of $1,600, said Sharon Krumm, director of nursing at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. (The patient and the insurer would divvy up that charge based on the patients insurance coverage.) Only 20 percent of cancer patients who visit the hospitals emergency department are discharged home, with an average total hospital charge of $2,300. The others face the ER charges plus the hefty cost of a hospital admission. Rebecca Cohen has been a frequent visitor to the Johns Hopkins urgent-care center. Diagnosed more than two years ago with Stage 4 lung cancer, Cohen, 68, is receiving immunotherapy. She has been treated or checked for dehydration, electrolyte abnormalities, low hemoglobin, low sodium, blood clots and infection, among other things. Before she started going to the cancer urgent-care center, you sat in the waiting room at the emergency room with people who had the most extraordinary diseases, Cohen said. Having Stage 4 lung cancer, the thought of being exposed to pneumonia or bronchitis is more than scary. This column is produced by Kaiser Health News. KHN, an editorially independent news service and is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. When people click on a new message in their email inbox, the first thing many read isnt the body of the message. Its the to field. When multiple recipients are listed, the receiver may be seeing an extra message, Georgetown linguistics professor Deborah Tannen explains in an article in the Atlantic adapted from her new book, Youre the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Womens Friendships. Everyone who receives it can see not only who else is getting the message but also what order you put the names in, she writes. According to some of the dozens of women Tannen interviewed as part of her research, they often assign meaning to where each person lands in the lineup. To be first is special. To be last? As one interviewee puts it: Its like they were thinking, Who am I forgetting? Tannen describes this nuance as part of the metamessage, or overall meaning, of the email. In spoken language, the same words can convey entirely different things depending on variables such as volume and tone. As technology has shifted more conversations online, Tannen notes, were developing new ways of expressing our metamessages. But were still in the process of working out the kinks, which can lead to plenty of miscommunication. One example Tannen highlights is the use of silence such as deliberately not responding to a text to indicate annoyance. Of course, you might also be silent because your phone battery died or you just dont have the time to deal with it right away. To avoid sending the wrong metamessage, another interviewee extols the virtues of ghost reading, which means previewing the text without opening it. By doing so, shes not triggering the read receipt and potentially starting a countdown clock. Another land mine: the sign-off. Tannen is a believer in xoxo as a comfortable middle ground between Best and Love. She recognizes that it strikes some people as phony or overly cutesy, but good luck finding a suitable alternative. As she notes, Any choice you make will send metamessages that you may not intend or suspect. PENNSYLVANIA 18 fraternity members, chapter charged in death Eighteen fraternity members were charged in the death of a 19-year-old Pennsylvania State University student who fell multiple times after consuming toxic levels of alcohol and whose own friends failed to get help for him for many hours, authorities said. The fraternity brothers actions, and inaction, were detailed in grand jury investigation findings released Friday by Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller. The Beta Theta Pi chapter was charged as well. Timothy Piazzas death led to the permanent banning of the fraternity from Penn State, and strict new rules for Greek organizations on campus. Penn States president called the grand jurys findings sickening and vowed to enforce the new rules. The Beta Theta Pi chapter house was celebrating with Piazza and other students who had just accepted bids to join the fraternity one night in February. During the pledging party, Piazza fell down the stairs after drinking excessively, but no one called for help for almost 12 hours, according to police, who found him unconscious and took him to a hospital. He died the next morning. Susan Svrluga Creator of child-porn site sentenced: A Florida man who federal prosecutors said was the creator and lead administrator of whats thought to be the worlds largest child-pornography website has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, the FBI announced Friday. Steven W. Chase, 58, of Naples, Fla., was sentenced this week in a federal courtroom in North Carolina on multiple child-pornography and child-exploitation charges. Two codefendants who also were identified as administrators of the website Michael Fluckiger, 46, of Indiana, and David Browning, 47, of Kentucky each received 20-year prison terms earlier this year. The website Playpen Chase, created in August 2014, had more than 150,000 users around the world, the FBI said. Tenn. governor signs law on natural meaning of words: Gov. Bill Haslam (R) on Friday signed legislation requiring words in Tennessee law to be interpreted as having their natural and ordinary meaning. Gay rights groups call it a sneaky way of denying same-sex couples the legal rights and protections granted to a husband, a wife, a father or mother. Haslam says he believes the law will do nothing to change how state judges comply with the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. From news services How do you measure racial hostility? There are ways to establish how well African Americans are doing compared with whites in, for instance, education, health, economic opportunity and social justice, as the National Urban League documented in its State of Black America 2017 released this week. But how do we document progress, or the lack thereof, in the ongoing struggle against racial animosity? To bring that question closer to home, what degree of animus would lead someone to hang bananas on strings in the shape of nooses at three locations on the campus of American University in Washington this week? It was a specially targeted act of bigotry. The bananas were marked with the letters AKA, the letters of the nations oldest predominantly African American sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. It was also no accident that racially based stunts with bananas occurred on the first day in office of Taylor Dumpson, AU student governments first female African American president and also an AKA member. But how do you calculate the depth of disdain expressed in this latest AU incident? Oh, didnt you know? This weeks thing with bananas was not a first on the AU campus. A black female student reported last September that white students threw a banana at her, prompting a large protest on campus, according to AUs school newspaper, the Eagle. Is such hostility even quantifiable? What, a small still voice cries out, is really changing? The AU incidents, if anything, draw attention to a particularly noxious aspect of racial hostility: the misogyny against African American women a development, by the way, that is neither new nor limited to the halls of academia. Item: Former Fox News host Bill OReillys insulting statement about a speech on the House floor by 26-year House veteran Maxine Waters (D-Calif.): I didnt hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig. If we have a picture of James, its the same wig. Ah yes, focus on a black womans hair and dismiss her based upon how it looks. How many African American women have been down that road? Observed one woman on Twitter: Bill OReilly demonstrates a challenge all Black women have to deal with: we must appeal to White mens tastes before we are taken seriously. Item: President Trumps press secretary Sean Spicers chastisement of April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, for what he deemed an inappropriate shake of her head. The African American woman dared to publicly get out of line with him. He had to put her in her place. Item: Trumps condescending request to Ryan, at a February news conference, that she arrange a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus. Are they friends of yours? he asked the reporter. Trump couldnt recognize Ryans standing as a journalist. He couldnt see past her gender and skin color. He couldnt resist the taunt. Item: The statement by the director of a government nonprofit in West Virginia who, after Trumps election as president, wrote on social media: It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House, adding, Im tired of seeing a Ape in heels. The director, Pamela Taylor, eventually lost her job. OReilly, Trump, Spicer, AUs banana wielders and Taylor: cut from the same cloth and motivated by the same objective to denigrate African American women considered too uppity or prone to get out of line. It takes a herculean effort for accomplished African American women not to succumb to the secret fear of being rejected, knowing that unfair humiliation is always waiting around the corner. Just as many African American men live in anticipation of the police officer out to prove his name and the potential employer itching for reasons to say no. Such things come with the territory of being black. Theres something enduring about racism. It rears its head in different forms and sometimes from the least expected directions. But it seems always to be there. In the form of a nasty putdown, a rejection slip or a banana. Its all beyond measure. Read more from Colbert Kings archive. President Trump speaks while flanked by House Republicans after they passed legislation aimed at repealing and replacing Obamacare at the White House on May 4 in Washington. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Regarding the May 5 front-page article House approves health-care bill: Shame on House Republicans who voted to repeal Obamacare. A heavy political price might be paid; in the words of Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), Republicans will rue the day. While in the short run Republicans can declare a Pyrrhic victory, boasting that the Republican-controlled Congress was able to pass a bill, in 2018, voters in their districts will remember that they voted for what several Republicans, most nonpartisan analysts and nearly every major health organization believe is a bad policy that will seriously hurt their constituents and its legislation that likely wont survive in the Senate. Ironically, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) in 2009 criticized Democrats for trying to push through health-care legislation to meet an artificial deadline. House Republicans havent learned a lesson from what happened to President Barack Obama in the off-year election. A Democratic-controlled House in 2018 now seems more probable. Richard Cherwitz, Austin The House of Representatives has passed a bill to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Those representatives who voted for it cannot return home and tell their constituents that it is a good bill, because they did not allow the Congressional Budget Office the opportunity to analyze it. Instead, they punted a half-baked hot potato to the Senate, where we can only hope it will receive the intensive examination and thoughtful due diligence that responsible legislation requires. What kind of representatives do this? Ones who are unworthy of the publics trust. Karen Imler, Arlington POLLS SHOWING that centrist Emmanuel Macron will comfortably win the French presidency in a runoff with far-rightist Marine Le Pen on Sunday probably are more reassuring than they should be. First, an upset is still possible: Ms. Le Pens voters tend to be more motivated than those of Mr. Macron, and many on the French left may stay home, having judged a neo-fascist xenophobe and a former investment banker to be equally offensive. Some on the traditional right may also defect to Ms. Le Pen: Shamefully, Pope Francis and the Catholic Church have declined to take a stand against her, despite her anti-Muslim demagoguery. More fundamentally, even a comfortable win for Mr. Macron would merely paper over the fact that popular support for values such as religious tolerance, and for French participation in Western institutions such as the European Union and NATO, is alarmingly attenuated. In the elections first round, just short of half of voters chose candidates outside of that political mainstream. Three of the top four were favorably inclined toward Vladimir Putin. If Mr. Macron, a self-described radical centrist and unapologetic defender of the European Union, nevertheless emerges triumphant, it will be in part because he managed to position himself as another outsider battling the establishment. Though he served as economy minister under the deeply unpopular outgoing president, Francois Hollande, Mr. Macron quit and founded his own political party a year ago. He has crusaded against the sclerotic statism that has mired the French economy in low growth and double-digit unemployment even as Britain and Germany outperformed. At 39 years old , he would be the youngest French president ; even his marriage to a woman 25 years his senior makes him appear refreshingly unconventional to some voters. Mr. Macrons challenge, if he wins, will be to provide solutions for those who have rallied around Ms. Le Pen, as much as for his own voters. He cannot cater to religious or racial resentments, but must be effective in fighting terrorism; he will have to increase employment through reforms of the labor code, not by protectionism or restriction of immigration. This will be particularly difficult if his new party fails to win a substantial place in Parliament in legislative elections next month. Yet failure would likely make Ms. Le Pen or another extremist the favorite in the next election. In that sense, a Macron victory would offer the current French establishment, along with the European Union, a last chance. The centrist center appears to be holding on the continent following Britains E.U. exit vote and the U.S. presidential election. The defeat of Ms. Le Pen may help constrain the more radical impulses of President Trump, who has hinted at his sympathy for her. But unless the new government in France, and one to be elected later this year in Germany, can mitigate the negative effects of globalization and make E.U. institutions more democratic and accountable, the reprieve may be short-lived. A girl looks out of her makeshift hut on the outskirts of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement in Kenya in 2011. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Richard Cohen should be thanked for writing about the camp at Dadaab, on the Somalia-Kenya border [Lady Libertys torch burns less bright, op-ed, April 25]. Last year, a friend gave me the excellent book City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the Worlds Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence, which describes the lives of residents of Dadaab. I soon realized that almost no one seemed even to know of the camps existence. As the crisis of Syrian refugees receives much news coverage, if little help, Dadaab goes on, under the radar. I agree with Cohen: The United States reputation for being welcoming and for goodness is threatened if not destroyed by this president. Ruth Skjerseth, Reston Dear reader, we're asking for your help to keep local reporting available for all today on the final day of our fall fundraiser. Your financial support keeps stories like this one free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. Your donation today will be matched dollar-for-dollar, so your gift's impact on local news will be twice as strong! Thank you for investing in your neighborhood. Start your day with LAist Sign up for How To LA, delivered weekday mornings. Subscribe If a restaurant is really just a story we experience through all of our senses, chapter one of Botanica, the new restaurant and market in Silver Lake, begins online. But before the beginning, the prologue, begins elsewhere: in Chicago. Emily Fiffer and Heather Sperling, co-founders and co-owners of Botanica, spent years in Chicago in the online food world. Fiffer served as editor of Daily Candy (r.i.p) before leaving for London to train in restaurant kitchens. Sperling, meanwhile, was editor of Tasting Table before relocating to New York City to consult for food halls. In 2015, the two reconnected in order to start Botanica. "We narrowed it down to New York or Los Angeles," Fiffer told LAist. "But New York is so oversaturated with restaurants, and it's so expensive to open there. One day we were at a farmers market in L.A. It was February and we were feeling these amazing fruits with our hands. It was 70 degrees. We knew that we had found our home." And so, Botanica would be born in Los AngelesSilver Lake, more specifically. Fiffer adds, "the first time we came to Silver Lake it immediately felt like home." The idea for Botanica is grand: a three-pronged approach to engage with people in the widest possible way. Before a single table was ever set inside Botanica's Silver Lake Boulevard shop, a digital magazine was launched. "We wanted to start sharing recipes to gauge response," Fiffer said. "A brick-and-mortar is not enough. The magazine is a way to connect beyond four walls." Botanica Magazine, which debuted in late November 2016, already pulls an international readership. "All the food we're serving in the restaurant will appear online. Nothing is secret, there is no proprietary information. We want to share," Fiffer confers. "Our dream was to have a home cook in Sweden find our recipes online, and then one day come visit L.A. and try our food in the restaurant." The next chapter of Botanica, which soft-opened in restaurant form on May 3, plays out mainly around a table. The space's aesthetic is a sort of manicured minimalism. The white walls and nature-based decor set the mood for the meal about to be presentedone of lightly prepared vegetables, quality ingredients, and traditional flavors. (Photo by Oren Peleg/LAist) A dish of romesco (a Spanish nut and red pepper-based paste) and vegetables draws the nuance out from each ingredient. The romesco is rendered sweet with peppers, yet rich and complex with tomatoes and almonds. The broccolini is only slightly grilled, and coated with salt and lemon. The soft potatoes and charred leeks add further balance to the dish. A garnish of cilantro flowers brings a pop of bright white to an otherwise darkly colored plate of greens, blues, umber, and beige. The "Fattoush-y Salad" is the perfect marriage of California's produce and Middle Eastern flavors. The greens are bright, the labneh is tart, the sumac-flavored bread ties the plate together with a savory finish. (Photo by Oren Peleg/LAist) You would be wise to order the Southern California Delight for dessert. The spread includes fresh medjool dates with a tahini dip, salty Manouri cheese drizzled with some version of a honey-strawberry reduction, and pistachios, almonds, and sliced strawberries to boot. The mini-feast is as much a celebration of Southern California's natural pantry as it is a tour around the tongue and its taste receptors. Attached the dining hall is Botanica's market. Here, you can buy prepared foods to take home, a bottle of organic wine, or any of the ingredients used from the menu. In addition, a barista serves up coffee drinks using Coffee Manufactory beans. In the end, it only seems natural that Botanica would find its home in Los Angeles. The fruits and vegetables the restaurant serves and the lifestyle it promotes find their roots in California's rich soil. And if Angelenos tend to take the quality and bounty of our produce for granted, Botanica succeeds in elevating them once more. Botanica Restaurant and Market is located at 1620 Silver Lake Boulevard in Silver Lake. The restaurant is open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (last seating at 1:30 p.m.) and 5:30 to 10 p.m. (last seating at 8:30 p.m.) and Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (last seating at 1:30 p.m.) and 5:30 to 11 p.m. The market is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (323) 522-6106) Ezekiel Emanuel is chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. The Republicans health bill is an act of supreme hypocrisy and insensitivity to the experience of Americans. It will damage not improve the U.S. health system. Obamacare was a failure because it passed with only Democratic votes so charged Republicans. All through 2009, Democrats tried to get Republicans to engage in discussions about health-care reform. Remember the Gang of Six or the Gang of Eight that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) ran to try to craft a bipartisan bill? After Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted for the bill in committee, she reversed herself under extreme Republican pressure. Now, given their own opportunity for a bipartisan health reform bill, Republicans passed a totally partisan bill, and they never even tried reaching out to Democrats to see if there could be consensus. Democrats are giving insurance companies bailouts so charged Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). The Affordable Care Act contained risk corridors, which were a way to spread the risk across insurers when the exchanges just started and no one knew who would buy insurance. In 2014, Republicans voted to block funding for these risk corridors a main reason that premiums on the exchanges went up so much in 2016 and 2017. Now, in their own bill, Republicans have included tens of billions of dollars for insurance companies. A bailout? No, Republicans re-labeled this a stability fund. Republicans promised they would never allow insurance companies to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. Well, so much for that. House Speaker Paul D. Ryans (R-Wis.) bill allows states to grant companies the ability to charge exorbitant fees to people with preexisting diseases. The Republican claim that no state will pass such bills is ridiculous. Why have the option then? More important, we know states have done much worse in the past. Remember Arizona denying bone-marrow transplants to patients with curable cancer on Medicaid? Who would have thought that could happen? And those high-risk pools Republicans claim will protect people with preexisting conditions? They dont work. Even with Rep. Fred Uptons (R-Mich.) amendment offering an extra $8 billion to the stability fund, the pools would be totally underfunded. Just do the math. Insuring patients with serious illnesses will cost about $10,000 each (a conservative estimate), so Uptons money covers fewer than 200,000 Americans. Not even a modest fig leaf. Other Republican axioms: Obamacare is collapsing; the exchanges are dying; premiums are skyrocketing; and a third of counties have only one insurer. Lets put aside that the Congressional Budget Office and Standard & Poors concluded that the exchanges are stable. Lets put aside that Anthem just announced it is doing well in the exchanges. If they wobble, it is the Republicans doing. A few fixes would enhance the exchanges functioning: 1) Enforce the mandate so more healthy Americans buy in the exchanges; 2) guarantee funding for subsidies to consumers so insurance companies can lower premiums; 3) fund the risk corridors and reinsurance payments; and 4) increase targeted advertising so more people know about the subsidies and the requirement to get insurance. Republicans passed exactly one fix: The stability fund does provide some reinsurance help. But thats the only thing their bill does to help fix the system. Republicans are undermining and not enforcing the mandate. Republicans decided not to appropriate money for subsidies. And Republicans have severely limited advertising. This bill will make things worse. It will not improve the number of insured; estimates show that the bill will force tens of millions of Americans to lose coverage. This bill will increase costs. Cutting essential benefits means people must pay for those uncovered services whether thats maternity care, mental-health care or dental care for children. With more uninsured people, hospitals will increase what they charge to cover the uncompensated care they give, driving up premiums. And there is no provision to reduce deductibles. Most important, this bill has no serious cost control ideas in it. No change in how doctors and hospitals are paid to improve quality and lower costs. No measures to reduce drug prices. No attempts to lower Medicare costs through site-neutral payments that is, paying the same price regardless of where a procedure is performed or to prevent hospitals from buying up physician practices to increase their bargaining power and raise their costs. Republicans promise cost control later, in future legislation. But any additional health-care legislation will require support from Democrats in the Senate. After this hyper-partisan bill, there is no chance a single Democrat will collaborate before the next election. Desiring to do something, Republicans have only shown hypocrisy and callousness. As polls suggest, they wont have to wait long to see the repercussions of their actions only until 2018. A GEYSER of misinformation, colored by reflexive immigrant-bashing, inundated the public commentary over a pair of undocumented Hispanic teenagers charged with raping a 14-year-old girl, their classmate, at a Montgomery County high school in March. From the White House to the statehouse in Annapolis, and in an outpouring of online opprobrium, the case was seized on as a convenient tool with which to reinforce the stereotype, popularized by President Trump, of illegal immigrants as sexual predators. Fast-forward seven weeks. Prosecutors have now dropped rape and sex offense charges against the 17- and 18-year-old students for the incident, which defense lawyers have insisted was consensual. However tawdry the episode, however odious the conduct of the two young men who abused a vulnerable young girl, it did not constitute a crime at least not one prosecutors felt they could make stick given what prosecutors called major inconsistencies from witnesses. Given the new information, will there be any climb-down from Marchs rush to judgment? Will White House spokesman Sean Spicer retract his statement that immigration pays its toll on our people if its not done legally, and this is another example? Will Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan rethink his epically confused comment that because of President Barack Obamas amnesty program, the teens had been sent . . . to Montgomery County with no one being provided information? (No amnesty covered the teenagers; they werent sent to the county they joined relatives there of their own volition; and the Supreme Court has ruled that public schools are obligated to educate students ages 5 to 21, regardless of their immigration status.) No doubt, the county school system should be held to account, and made to review its security policies, for an episode that, whatever the circumstances, should not have occurred in a public building during a school day. That no crime may have been committed does not excuse the fact of what was apparently an extended encounter in a bathroom at Rockville High School, under the nose of teachers and other school authorities. Nativists were primed for such an incident, their quick-draw condemnation ready at hand. Never mind that evidence shows illegal immigrants are no more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans; the fact of their existence and their otherness is enough to set the bigots fulminating. Prosecutors still plan to charge one or both undocumented teenagers with possession of child pornography, apparently for having received and forwarded photos sent by the girl herself. That may be a stretch one of the defense lawyers termed it selective prosecution of elective promiscuity given the nationwide epidemic among teenagers sharing inappropriate images, few of whom face criminal charges. Whats been lost in the incident, and in the blinding speed with which partisans wielded it as a weapon in the national debate, is any empathy for the young girl. That may be the real tragedy in this sad tale. Having bestowed the presidency on a candidate who described their country as a hellhole besieged by multitudes trying to get into it, Americans need an antidote for social hypochondria. Fortunately, one has arrived from Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason Universitys Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek. He has good news: You are as rich as John D. Rockefeller. Richer, actually. Some historians estimate that on Sept. 29, 1916, a surge in the price of Rockefellers shares of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey made him Americas first billionaire. Others say he never reached this milestone and that Henry Ford was the first. Never mind. If Rockefeller was the first, his billion was worth $23 billion in todays dollars. Boudreaux asks if you would accept this bargain: You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you consent to live in 1916. Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefellers riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but un-air-conditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a sluggish chore. Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing. If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology. And dont even think about getting a 1916 toothache. You can afford state-of-the-art 1916 dentures and probably will need them. Your arthritic hips and knees? Hobble along until you cannot hobble any more, then buy a wheelchair. Birth control in 1916 will be primitive, unreliable and not conducive to pleasure. You could enjoy a smattering of early jazz, but rock-and-roll is decades distant, and Netflix and Google even more so. Your pastimes would be limited, but you could measure the passage of time on the finest Swiss watch. It, however, would be less accurate than todays Timex or smartphone. As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle-class American; an unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American of any means. Intellectually, your 1916 range of cultural choices would be paltry compared with todays. And your moral tranquility might be disturbed by the contrast between your billionaires life and that of the normal American. Last year, a Bureau of Labor Statistics paper described the life of workers in 1915. More than half (52.4 percent) of the 100 million Americans were younger than 25, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8) and less than 5 percent of Americans were 65 or older. One in 10 babies died in the first year of life (today, 1 in 168). A large majority of births were not in hospitals (today, less than 1 percent). In 1915, only about 14 percent of people ages 14 to 17 were in high school, an estimated 18 percent age 25 and older had completed high school, and nearly 75 percent of women working in factories had left school before eighth grade. There were 4 renters for every homeowner, partly because mortgages (usually for just five to seven years) required down payments of 40 to 50 percent of the purchase price. Less than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915 were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1915 had: General Motors Frigidaire debuted in 1918. So, thank Boudreaux for making you think about this: How large would your net worth have to be to get you to swap the life you are living in hellhole America for what that money could buy in 1916? Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook. The May 2 news article Trump: Jackson could have prevented the Civil War said that states right to allow slave ownership was the central dispute of the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln repeatedly conceded that the Constitution gave the federal government, including the president, no authority to interfere with slavery within a state. He also declared that he had no objection to the Corwin Amendment, which would have amended the Constitution to so state expressly. The war was instead fought over the refusal of the North to guarantee the expansion of slavery into Western territories. That is the point on which negotiations broke down over the Crittenden Compromise. The article should not have called totally bizarre President Trumps statement that Andrew Jackson might have taken action to avoid the Civil War. President James Buchanan took no action when the Southern states started seceding. By contrast, in 1830 when President Jackson was faced with a secession threat over a tariff unpopular in South Carolina, he threatened that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach. Arthur G. Sapper, Silver Spring Regarding James W. Loewens May 3 op-ed, Why was there a Civil War?: The American Civil War cost the combatants $6.7 billion. If the country, in 1860, had agreed to a financial settlement, whereby all 4 million slaves were bought from their owners at market value and provided with 40 acres of land in unsettled areas of the country, this would have cost $3.1 billion, according to the book America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, by David Goldfield. The white Southerners who insisted that slavery was necessary for their economy did just fine 15 years after the war. Cotton exports from the American South were greater in 1880 than they were in 1860, according to Sven Beckerts book Empire of Cotton . We ought thus to consider the war a terrible tragedy, brought about by those whose shortsighted greed prevented them from envisioning other possibilities for living their lives. I wonder what will be said about us a few centuries from now. Joseph F. Riener, Washington James W. Loewens predictions about what would have happened if the South had prevailed ignored events after World War I specifically, the worldwide collapse of cotton prices. Contrary to the bold predictions of success for what would have been the Confederate States of America, the economies of those states dominated by cotton production did poorly in the 1920s and worse in the Depression. Could they have survived the Depression, or would they have rejoined the Union for the assistance to be offered under the New Deal? What might have been the fate of the Confederate States during World War II, had it survived the Depression? Would President Franklin D. Roosevelt have given the Confederate States an ultimatum: either rejoin the Union without slavery or suffer forcible occupation to prevent contact with or penetration by Germany? Secession and the consequent Civil War occurred because President Abraham Lincoln promised to resist expansion of slavery, which meant that, with admission of Western states as free states, slavery could and likely would be voted out of existence in Congress. J.M. Sonies, Herndon From Capitol Hill to Rangoon, the question is whether the Trump administration will continue to support de facto Burmese leader Aung Saan Suu Kyi and her country as the nation transitions to democracy. (Maurizio Brambatti/European Pressphoto Agency) As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson welcomed officials from 10 Southeast Asian nations this week, a Burmese representative handed him a personalized letter. The author was Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto leader of the nations civilian government, who wanted to express her regret for being absent due to a scheduling conflict, U.S. officials said. The note represented rare direct communication between Suu Kyi and the Trump administration. As President Trump has made a flurry of calls to foreign leaders, he has yet to speak with Suu Kyi, who twice welcomed Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, to her lakeside villa in Rangoon as a powerful symbol of U.S. support for Burmas slow, fitful transition from authoritarian military rule to fledgling democracy. The Burma project remains fraught political reforms have ebbed, and Suu Kyi has faced international criticism for failing to speak out more forcefully against ethnic violence directed toward the Muslim minority. And China continues to exert economic and political pressure on the neighboring nation of 54 million, also known as Myanmar. From Capitol Hill to Rangoon, the question is whether the Trump administration will continue to nurture Burmas transition or turn its back at a crucial juncture. The country wants it. It gives them a sense of confidence, Derek Mitchell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Burma from 2012 to 2016, said of political support from Washington. But the focus on things we care about, such as values and democracy and human rights, they dont feel that with Trump. Theres a cost in losing all of that. Behind the scenes, Burmas ambassador to Washington has been pressing the White House for more attention from high-level officials, a sign of Suu Kyis uncertainty about Trumps public silence. Trump aides emphasized that the presidents failure to contact her is not intended as a slight. On Friday, national security adviser H.R. McMaster hosted the Southeast Asian officials, including Burmas representative, at the White House. Trump aides said the president, who was away at his estate in Bedminster, N.J., would have stopped by had he been in town. The questions over Trumps approach to Burma come as the administration is starting to formulate its broader policy stance toward Southeast Asia and what role the countries there may play in the U.S. effort to further isolate North Korea diplomatically and economically. Administration officials pointed to several signals in recent days that were intended to reassure the region that the White House would maintain a focus there even as it scrapped the Obama administrations Asia rebalance policy aimed at deepening U.S. security and trade ties. In Indonesia last month, Vice President Pence announced Trump would attend a trio of security and economic summits in Vietnam and the Philippines this fall. Tillerson emphasized to the Southeast Asian officials that the administration would make a sustained commitment to the region, said W. Patrick Murphy, the State Departments deputy assistant secretary for Southeast Asia. In a conference call with reporters, Murphy added that the administrations relationship with Burma would be enduring. In a separate interview, a senior White House official was more emphatic, emphasizing that Trump views Southeast Asia as the most exciting component in an emerging administration strategy for the broader Asia region. This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the presidents thinking, pointed to the combined population of more than 600 million among the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their fast-growing economies as key reasons for sustained U.S. engagement. The Trump aide jokingly referred to the countries as the swing states of Asia. This is a region that is fairly firmly rooted in a liberal order, the aide said. Some of those countries have I wouldnt call it a Jeffersonian democracy, but theyre facing in that direction. Burma is an amazing success story that we want to build on. Yet the administrations failure to produce a coherent foreign policy strategy has alarmed members of Congress who fear Burma will be neglected or mishandled as the White House focuses on containing North Koreas mounting nuclear weapons threat. In his first meeting with Tillerson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told him, Dont forget about Burma, according to people familiar with the conversation. But McConnell, who helped shepherd the U.S. economic sanctions that prodded Burmas military regime toward reforms, has been left trying to piece together where the administration is headed from scant public or private signals. A Senate Republican leadership aide said that as the administration attempts to coax Beijing to do more to change North Koreas behavior, it is unclear where Burma, whose opening to the West was once viewed as a hedge against Chinas economic and military muscle, fits in. Its a work in progress, the Senate aide said. Its going to be slow going. Experts said Southeast Asian capitals remain wary of Trumps motives, even as they were encouraged by his commitment to attending the regional summits. Theres a lot of concern over the way theyve been engaged, said Ernest Z. Bower, a Southeast Asia analyst and business consultant affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Officials in the region view Trump as very transactional, Bower added, and they fear Trump is wooing them solely to build international support for his administrations push to further isolate North Korea. Murphy, the State Department official, said the Southeast Asian representatives proactively raised the issue of North Korea in their meeting with Tillerson. We have heard from countries that they are taking steps, looking at the size of North Koreas diplomatic presence and activities and commercial transactions, Murphy said. North Koreas provocations threaten the peace and prosperity of the entire region. . . . We think more can be done. But some experts said the risk is that the Trump administration would reduce the emphasis on free speech and human rights as it pursues security cooperation. For example, Trump invited President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose administration has overseen a ruthless extrajudicial campaign that has killed thousands of suspected drug dealers, to visit the White House. In Burma, the military, which retains 25 percent of the seats in parliament under the constitution, has long had ties to North Korea, including buying arms from Pyongyang. Erin Murphy, a former State Department official who accompanied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a historic visit to Burma in 2011, said the Trump administration could seek to boost ties with the Burmese military as leverage against Pyongyang, an effort that could set back democratic reforms if not handled carefully. If you want to put the screws on North Korea and the Trump administration has declared that a policy priority youd look at countries that are partners, she said. And if you look at that list, you would see Myanmar. President Donald Trump, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., left, and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., speaks during a meeting with House and Senate leadership, Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at the White House in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP) President Trumps administration was still in its first hours when Mitch McConnell snagged an open seat next to him for a private chat at his inaugural luncheon. For more than 15 minutes, McConnell did most of the talking. The new president listened keenly. Eleven days later, McConnell had a front-row seat as Trump announced Neil M. Gorsuch as his pick for the Supreme Court, the culmination of the Senate majority leaders advice during the campaign on how to handle the court vacancy: Consult the Federalist Society, and make a list of prospects. Trump did that. For months, McConnell, the consummate political insider, has been dispensing his counsel to Trump, the ultimate outsider, who has been absorbing the Kentuckians words. The dynamic has provided a degree of stability in the still-forming relationship between the low-key Senate leader and the loquacious president, who are starkly different types of people. But cracks have also emerged in their partnership, most notably when Trump has casually suggested that McConnell change the long-standing rules of the Senate and McConnell has bluntly brushed him off. Their fragile alliance is about to face its biggest challenge yet in the next phase of the Republican effort to overhaul the nations health-care laws. The work of revising major parts of the act known as Obamacare is now in the Senates hands after the House narrowly passed its own bill following months of destructive Republican infighting. Trump, then the president-elect, walks through the Capitol Building with his wife Melania, left, Nov. 10 after meeting with McConnell, right. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) At stake is the long-term future of the American health-care system and the near-term future of the new Republican-controlled government which has yet to shepherd any major legislative proposals into law. Whether or not they are able to forge a positive, personal and working relationship will be one of the early tests of this, said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. [Health care is now set to be a defining issue in the next election cycles] It will be as much a make-or-break moment for McConnell as for Trump. The Senate leader has so far been able to fly below the radar on health care as House Republicans worked through their disagreements before ultimately passing a bill. If he cannot do the same, he is likely to be blamed for the collapse of the effort to fulfill a signature GOP campaign promise. McConnell is cool and deliberative while Trump is hot and impetuous. But they have privately developed what people close to them say is a respectful relationship. In the 75-year-old majority leader, Trump, 70, sees a senior player in navigating the ways of Washington, in both age and experience. He views him as someone on his level or at least more on his level than many other Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). In some regards, McConnell has become a tutor to Trump. The two men speak regularly, with McConnell initiating some calls to guide the novice president. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) Leader McConnell has been a great resource in giving guidance and counsel on a myriad of issues in the first few months, said one senior administration official talking generically about McConnell who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the relationship candidly. It was McConnell, after all, who helped hand Trump his only major congressional victory during his first 100 days in office: the confirmation of Gorsuch to the high court. In nominating Gorsuch, who won wide praise in conservative circles, Trump also aided McConnell by helping him pay off his gamble to hold the seat open during the presidential campaign. Those close to McConnell say that his relationship with Trump is rooted in trying to accomplish the things Republicans campaigned on last year no more, no less. The funny thing everybody used to ask McConnell if he got along with Barack Obama, said Josh Holmes, McConnells former chief of staff. And he said its irrelevant if he got along. Its, Can we work together? But Holmes said McConnell is allergic to drama and does not see the business of governing as a soap opera. Its a business that should be handled professionally. That ideal has been complicated time and again by Trumps controversial policies and pronouncements. That is one area where McConnells private lobbying has made little difference. In an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year, McConnell made it clear that he was not a fan of Trumps hostile Twitter habits. He said that he liked what Trump was doing a lot more than what he was writing on social media. Weve had very candid conversations about that. And as you can see, my advice has not made a bit of difference, McConnell said. [The Take: Can the GOP sell its health-care proposal to a skeptical public?] The health-care debate in the Senate is expected be a more-complicated endeavor than Gorsuchs confirmation or the short-term government-spending deal the White House recently reached with Congress. It will test McConnells ability to influence Trump behind the scenes as never before. McConnell aides and allies are hoping that the White House will let the Senate work through its differences on health care without setting artificial deadlines or trying to hurry the process ahead. Were not going to rush it, said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), one of McConnells top lieutenants. Senate Republicans have shown little regard for the controversial House bill, signaling that they are going to write their own measure. A working group of 13 GOP senators from different parts of the ideological spectrum is meeting twice a week to talk about how to move ahead. The Senate is the place, still, in my view, where you deliberate, you have a say, you vote, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). The Trump administration has been working with the Senate and House along dual tracks on health care, according to the senior administration official. McConnell aides and allies said that they expected the presidents team to be heavily involved in the process moving forward. But part of McConnells challenge will be convincing Trump that the methodical pace at which the Senate moves is necessary. Here [in Congress], its just the slow pace that is very hard for anyone coming out of the private sector as a CEO to become comfortable with, said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) a Trump ally, in a recent interview. But some of the long-standing Senate norms and customs to which McConnell claims to be committed have been shrugged off by Trump as mere inconveniences in the lawmaking process. Trump suggested Tuesday on Twitter that it might be time to do away with the 60-vote Senate threshold on legislation, which empowers the minority party. Were not going to do that, McConnell said dismissively later that day, arguing that it would fundamentally change the way the Senate has worked for a very long time. Even as the relationship between McConnell and Trump has seen its share of tensions, it has generally been better than Trumps relationship with Ryan, who wavered in his support of Trump during the campaign. McConnell was never Trumps biggest cheerleader in 2016, but he supported him and generally kept his criticism narrowly focused on words Trump spoke or actions he took that bothered him. [Republicans health-care plan could launch some ugly political battles in state legislatures] That small measure of loyalty in the trenches has been remembered in the West Wing. McConnell, unlike Ryan, has not been saddled with a reputation as a fair-weather friend. McConnell never took his eye off the ball and lost sight of the fact that at the end of the day, no matter what individual issue was happening, it was going to be Trump or [Democratic nominee Hillary] Clinton, said Scott Jennings, a former McConnell strategist, noting that he far preferred Trump. Even in Trumps administration, which is filled with political newcomers, the reach of McConnells vast network of former staffers and allies from more than 32 years in the Senate can be felt. McConnells wife, Elaine Chao, is Trumps transportation secretary. Amy Swonger, Trumps head of the Senate legislative affairs team, is a former McConnell aide. So is Andrew Bremberg, director of the Domestic Policy Council. On the whole, though, Trumps team is largely bereft of experienced Senate tacticians. In addition to dealing with Trump, McConnell deals mainly with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, budget director Mick Mulvaney and Vice President Pence, according to a person familiar with the situation. For Trump, the health-care debate in the Senate will not only depend on how well he can work with McConnell. It is also likely to rest on his interaction with rank-and-file Republican senators. As the House was working on its health-care bill, Trump held meetings with centrist and conservative GOP members as he sought to build support for the measure. But some McConnell allies doubt that kind of courtship will work as well in the Senate. Im not sure that U.S. senators that have been in office for a long time and have their own opinions and ideas on legislation need some hand-holding from outside entities, said Jennings, the former McConnell strategist. In the House, he added, maybe they needed a little more prodding and guiding. Ever since Donald Trump proved last November that anything is possible in the topsy-turvy new world of Western politics, May 7 has been circled on European calendars with a mix of giddy anticipation and existential dread. To right-wing populists, the presidential election in France a country scarred by unemployment and terrorism seemed to offer the next big opportunity to remake the postwar global order in their own nationalist, nativist and protectionist image. To the mainstream, it looked like a possible third strike after Trump and Brexit one with the potential to doom the European Union, NATO and other pillars of the trans-Atlantic alliance. But as tens of millions of French voters prepare to cast ballots Sunday, indicators suggest that the populist wave is likely to bypass Gallic shores. [Macrons strong finish in the French election shows populist wave may be ebbing] (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) In final pre-election polling, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron held an overwhelming advantage of about 25 points over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen up from 20 points days earlier. Even with the last-minute release of thousands of hacked Macron campaign documents, analysts said the scale of his lead gave Le Pen little hope of eking out a victory. Her chances are very weak, said Olivier Rouquan, a political analyst at Pantheon-Assas II University. A Le Pen loss, however, will hardly be a knockout blow for populism or a ringing vindication of the establishment. If anything, the French campaign has solidified the new fracture lines in modern politics, which bear little relation to the relatively modest differences marking the old left-right divide. Instead, the choice voters face on Sunday illustrates the profound new chasm in the West: between those who favor open, globalized societies and others who prefer closed, nationalized ones. Whats the common ground between Macron and Le Pen? There is none. What were seeing is historic: a choice between two completely different modes of organizing a society, said Madani Cheurfa, a professor of politics at Pariss Sciences Po. The world is focused on France because France has managed to encapsulate almost to the point of caricature the debate underway across the world. Already knocked out of the presidential race are the two mainstream parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, which have led France for much of its recent history. Both had allowed their messages to become muddled and strained as they attempted to straddle the new divide. The candidates who are left are unapologetic champions of their respective camps. They rarely try to reach across to those in the other. Their supporters see the world in ways that often seem diametrically opposed. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Macron, a 39-year-old former banker and economy minister, celebrates immigration as a cultural and economic force for good. Flags with the E.U.s blue field and gold stars are a common sight at his rallies, and he enthusiastically endorses the bloc as the continents best guarantor of peace. His supporters tend to be educated, urban and optimistic. [Marion Marechal-Le Pen: Weve won the battle of ideas] Le Pen, the 48-year-old leader of a far-right party that her father founded in the 1970s, rails against the evils of mass immigration and warns that France is losing its identity amid a tide of mostly Muslim newcomers. She has called for the dismantling of the E.U., threatened to take France out of NATO and heaped praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her backers tend to be rural, white, less educated and, without a radical shift in direction, gloomy about Frances future. Until recently, the option embodied by Le Pen wasnt even on the ballot for votes like the one Sunday. When it was her father, convicted Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, made the final round of the French presidential vote in 2002 it was defeated by a massive margin. But Marine Le Pen has kept this years contest reasonably competitive until its final days and is on track to more than double her fathers vote share from 15 years ago. That trend explains why, even if Macron claims the presidency on Sunday, his supporters say they will be more relieved than exultant. If we win, we have five years to do something with it, said Aurelie Quartier, a former elementary school teacher who was handing out Macron fliers near a subway stop in a working-class neighborhood of eastern Paris this past week. Otherwise [Le Pen] will be elected in the first round in 2022. Quartier, 38, said she had never been involved in politics until this year, when she realized that Le Pens National Front could actually take hold of the Elysee Palace. The thought chilled her, and galvanized her. So shes been out on the streets every day for the past month, talking to her neighbors and trying to convince them that regardless of how they feel about Macron, they need to vote for him to block Le Pen. She was nervous enough about the result that on Friday, she started her work at 8 a.m. and didnt plan to stop until 11:59 p.m. the final minute that campaigning was legally allowed. I want to be able to say I did everything I could, she said as she stood beside a poster of a grinning Macron and the name of his movement, Onward. To Quartier, Le Pen and her movement represent an affront to the multicultural way of life that Quartier has come to know in a neighborhood where the smell of Turkish spices wafts from the weekly market, and the corner grocery store is run by an Arab owner who specializes in Serbian fare. The choice on Sunday, Quartier said, is elemental. Do we remain ourselves, or do we give in to the worst inside us? she asked. To feel fear and rejection is human. But do we surrender to that and say, I dont like you because you dont look like me? Or do we try to bring out the best in ourselves? Its the best versus the worst. [A youth revolt in France boosts the far right] For Eve Froger, a 20-year-old law student, Sunday presents France with an equally dramatic decision. But its Macron whos the threat, and Le Pen whos the countrys would-be savior. Im worried about unemployment and housing and security and the defense of French identity, she said. France comes from a Judeo-Christian culture, and we have to defend it on a daily basis. Too often we deny our identity in favor of globalism. She decided at the age of 18 that the only party that spoke to her concerns was the National Front. Froger has been campaigning for the party ever since, handing out leaflets, blasting pro- Le Pen messages on social media and only taking time out from this springs presidential contest to study for exams. Raised by a single mother in a hardscrabble Paris suburb, Froger said affluent and cosmopolitan city dwellers have little idea of the problems facing ordinary French citizens. She was pleased when Macron won a place in the second round against Le Pen because Froger sees him as the sharpest contrast to her champion, the ultimate symbol of an out-of-touch, globalized elite. Hes a man of the financial system with no compassion for the people of France, Froger said. He only cares about himself and the E.U. What defines this election is on one side the defense of the E.U.s interests and on the other side the defense of Frances interests. Rouquan, the analyst, said its unlikely a majority of French voters will agree this time, at least. But assuming he wins, Macron will be under immediate pressure to do something he hasnt during the campaign: reach out to Le Pen voters and convince them hes committed to making their lives better. Otherwise, their ranks could soon grow. Marine Le Pen is making progress, step by step, Rouquan said. Next time, she could make it to power. Virgile Demoustier contributed to this report. Read more Marine Le Pen wants to be Frances future. But can she escape the past? French election could bring a jolt to Western security, no matter who wins In Shakespeares home town, a house divided as the U.K. plunges unto the Brexit breach Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Emmanuel Macron, French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! (Onward) political movement, is cheered as he delivers a speech Friday during an election campaign rally in Albi, France. (Frederic Scheiber/European Pressphoto Agency) The French call it the past that will not pass. This years election in France has proven that phrase first coined by prominent French historian Henry Rousso to be more than prescient. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, Frances complicity in the Holocaust and, to a profound degree, its colonial crimes have been defining themes of the most contentious presidential campaign in recent memory. When voters go to the polls Sunday, they will choose between warring interpretations of Frances past as much as between different visions for its future. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the two candidates in the final round of the vote, are distinct in many ways. Macron, a former investment banker and the darling of Parisian and academic elites, is a boyish acolyte of cosmopolitan Europe; Le Pen, a hard-line nationalist, is an advocate of economic protectionism and closed borders. But rarely are the two more opposed than when they talk about history, as they have done frequently throughout a long and bitter campaign. [In French debate, insults fly] (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) For Le Pen the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a convicted Holocaust denier who repeatedly has dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a detail of history the past is nothing to be ashamed of. Last month, she remarked on national television that France bore no responsibility for an infamous Paris roundup during the Holocaust, when French authorities arrested some 13,000 Jews, soon deported to their deaths. Approximately 76,000 Jews were deported from France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Most never returned. If there were those responsible, Le Pen said, it was those who were in power at the time. This is not France. Versions of Holocaust denial and revisionism have clouded Le Pens National Front party throughout the 2017 campaign. In early March, a party official in Nice was caught on camera saying that there werent mass killings as its been said. In late April, Jean-Francois Jalkh, Le Pens appointed deputy of the National Front during the closing days of the campaign, was reported to have said in an on-the-record interview in 2000 that the Nazis never used the poison gas Zyklon B to exterminate millions of Jews and others. From a technical point of view its impossible, Jalkh allegedly said in that interview, although since then he has claimed he cant remember saying so and sued the Le Monde newspaper for presenting him as a Holocaust denier. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Macron, by contrast, has chosen at significant political risk to confront head-on other dark chapters of Frances past, especially colonialism. Some say the tactic stems from his early days as an assistant to the late French intellectual Paul Ricoeur, whose work often examined the intersections of history and memory. [Emmanuel Macron could fight off French populism. But it wont be with his ideas.] In one of Macrons most controversial decisions on the campaign trial, he went in February to Algeria, which France had annexed for 132 years, and called on the French state to apologize formally for its crimes as a colonial power, especially in the bloody war for Algerian independence between 1954 and 1962. Frances history in that war, Macron said in an interview days later, represented crimes and acts of barbarism that today deserve to be labeled crimes against humanity. For months, Le Pen has harped on Macron for those three words, accusing him once again in a televised debate Wednesday of insulting the French people. In a high-profile case, her father, in the 2002 presidential campaign, was accused of torture during the Algerian War charges that the elder Le Pen vehemently disputes. Benjamin Stora, Frances preeminent expert on colonial Algerian history and a founding member of Pariss National Museum of the History of Immigration, said in an interview that the outcry over Macrons declaration has highlighted the ways in which, at least in this election, the past remains present. For many people, colonialism has always been a distant abstraction, a peripheral problem, he said. But no one today who is honest can see it that way anymore. The question of immigration is a central question in our society and in many ways, the question. So many of the problems in French society today, Stora said, stem from the aftermath of Frances colonial history and the French states struggles to integrate immigrants from across the once-expansive French empire. If you dont know the history of Algeria, you cannot understand France in 2017, he said. This years election has widely been regarded as historic, with both principal candidates representing parties outside the center-left and center-right that have governed the country since 1958. Many even have pondered the degree to which this election represents a departure from the statist model envisioned by Charles de Gaulle, with a president as a powerful executive who embodies the dignity of the nation. For some, however, the prospect of a National Front victory at the presidential level is the opposite of a new development. When you place them within the framework of the continuity of French history, you cannot find one single new element brought by the Le Pen family and their movement, Zeev Sternhell, a prominent historian of French fascism, said in an interview. This is classic hard-right nationalism with the usual xenophobia, the hatred of the other and the cult of the people against the elite. [Frances National Front forced to replace party leader who denied Nazis used poison gas] That ideology, Sternhell added, has been a constant in French history since 1789, manifesting throughout the 19th century. It appeared, Sternhell said, in episodes such as the Dreyfus affair, when a Jewish military captain was wrongly accused of treason, and later during the Vichy government in World War II, when a long-dormant far right capitalized on military defeat to take power. A Le Pen victory in 2017, Sternhell said, would be an anti-Enlightenment and anti-liberal revolution. For Rousso, who recently was detained in the United States during President Trumps travel ban, one of the many issues at stake in Frances election is the politics of memory especially complicated in a diverse society that blends a multitude of immigrant experiences. A principal challenge for the next president of the republic will be to try and find a way to reconcile different memories, he said. And more importantly, divided memories. In the meantime, he said, the past is here to stay. Read more: As France heads to the polls, there is little enthusiasm but a feeling that a lot is at stake Marine Le Pen rarely mentions gender issues, unless shes talking about Muslims French voters face choice between hope and fear in runoff for presidency Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news The event was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors. (Emily Rauhala/The Washington Post) The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you. That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushners sister Nicole Kushner Meyer to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors in Beijing. Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure whats known as an investor visa. The potential investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case visa rules change under the Trump administration. Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules, one speaker said. The tagline on a brochure for the event: Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States. The reception desk at the Ritz-Carlton. (Emily Rauhala/The Washington Post) And the highlight of the afternoon was Meyer, a principal for the company, who was introduced in promotional materials as Jareds sister. The event underscores the extent to which Kushners private business interests have the potential to collide with his powerful role as a top official in his father-in-laws White House, particularly when it comes to China, where Kushner has become a crucial diplomatic channel between Beijing and the new administration. While Kushner has reported divesting from elements of the family business, including the specific project that his sister pitched in Beijing, the session Saturday demonstrated that the company is perceived as enjoying close ties to the Trump administration. Ethics laws prohibit government officials from profiting personally from their public-sector work. Watchdogs and ethics experts on Saturday criticized the Beijing event as an attempt to cash in on Kushners newfound proximity to power. Its incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate, said Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in President George W. Bushs administration, who has become a vocal critic of the Trump administration. They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . Theyre [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course theyre going to want to invest. Among the wealthy elites in China, family, business and politics are all deeply intertwined. Every branch of the Communist Party, every province and city often operate as a fiefdom for those in power, allowing leaders special, lucrative access to policy, land and government contracts. There is even a name for second-generation sons and daughters of wealthy business executives and government officials such as Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner who have access to power through family ties. They are called fuerdai. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post) The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program that Meyer discussed Saturday allows rich foreign investors who are willing to plunk down large investments in U.S. projects that create jobs to apply to immigrate to the United States. Bloomberg News reported in March 2016 that the program has been used to the benefit both the Trump and Kushner family businesses. Before joining the White House, as chief executive of his familys real estate company, Jared Kushner raised $50 million from Chinese EB-5 applicants for a Trump-branded apartment building in Jersey City, according to the report. Blake Roberts, an attorney at the WilmerHale law firm who serves as Kushners personal counsel, said: Mr. Kushner divested his interests in the One Journal Square project by selling them to a family trust that he is not a beneficiary of, a mechanism suggested by the Office of Government Ethics. As previously stated, he will recuse from particular matters concerning the EB-5 visa program. The EB-5 program has been criticized by members of Congress from both parties who have said the program in essence sells visas to the wealthiest foreigners. The program has been extremely popular among rich Chinese, who call it the golden visa and are eager to get their families and their wealth out of the country. The fact that some use it to move their money out illegally, however, has made the program unpopular with the Chinese authorities. The program was launched with the goal of securing investment and creating jobs. But instead, in recent years, many real estate developers have used the program as a source of cheap financing by using foreign investors, especially from China, for flashy projects in Manhattan and other city centers. A Government Accountability Office report in 2015 found the EB-5 program carried a high risk of fraud, was rife with counterfeit documentation and had no reliable method to verify the source of the funds of petitioners. Since Donald Trump became president, rumors have circulated among the wealthy of the world about the future of the EB-5 program, given Trumps repeated vows to crack down on immigration and the increased congressional scrutiny of EB-5s. That has sent many high-rolling foreigners flocking to apply. The program, however, is especially popular in China, with estimates in recent years showing that more than 80 percent of EB-5 visas were issued to Chinese investors. Saturdays event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors. Qiaowai is working with the Kushner company to secure funding for Kushner 1, the New Jersey project presented to investors, also known as One Journal Square. Promotional materials tout the buildings proximity to Manhattan and note that the project will create more than 6,000 jobs. This project has stable funding, creates sufficient jobs and guarantees the safety of investors money, one description reads. Although there was no visible reference to Trump, the materials noted the Kushner familys celebrity status. White House officials declined to comment. A spokesman for the Kushner company also declined to comment. Kushners personal financial disclosure form reflects that he divested his interest in K One Journal Square LLC. The form described the asset as undeveloped real estate in Jersey City. Because the asset was already divested, Kushners filing does not reflect its estimated value. But he did report between $1 million and $5 million in income connected to the project. At Saturdays event, attendee Wang Yun, a Chinese investor, said the Kushner familys ties to Trump were an obvious part of the projects appeal. Even though this is the project of the son-in-laws family, of course it is still affiliated, Wang said. Wang reasoned that the link to Trump would be a boon if the presidency goes well but could be disastrous if it does not: We heard that there are rumors that he is the most likely to be impeached president in American history. Thats why I doubt this project. Many of the people who attended the event declined to be interviewed, citing privacy concerns, or were blocked by organizers from speaking to the news media. Although the event was publicly advertised in Beijing, the hosts were exceptionally anxious about the presence of reporters. Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public-relations representative asked The Washington Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the stability of the event. At one point, organizers grabbed a reporters phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organizers physically surrounded attendees to prevent them from giving interviews. Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a PR person who declined to identify herself said simply, This is not the story we want. Read more China policy is now a (Kushner) family affair Kushner has a singular and almost untouchable role in Trumps White House I worked for Jared Kushner. Hes the wrong businessman to reinvent government. Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Wan reported from Washington. Amy Brittain and Jonathan OConnell in Washington and Congcong Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report. It was only the latest plot twist in a long, bitter campaign defined by rancor and uncertainty. The day before Frances most momentous presidential election in recent history, authorities were still investigating the massive and coordinated piracy action that independent candidate Emmanuel Macron reported just minutes before the campaigns official end Friday night. The data dump, the Macron campaign said, involved thousands of nonincriminating emails and other internal communications some of which, the campaign insisted, were fake. In a year of populist upheaval, this was the nightmare scenario for many observers, immediately reminiscent of the American election in which, as U.S. intelligence agencies recently concluded, Russian President Vladimir Putin commissioned an influence campaign to benefit President Trump. The identity of the hacker remains unconfirmed, but the parallels were clear enough in Paris and Washington: Macron, an independent centrist candidate and staunch defender of the European Union, is facing off against Marine Le Pen, a far-right populist whose party has relied on Russian banks in the past and who favors pivoting Frances foreign policy toward the Kremlin. In March, Le Pen met personally with Putin on a visit to Moscow. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Intervening in the last hour of the official campaign, this operation is obviously a democratic destabilization, as has already been seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign, the Macron campaign said, stopping short of assigning blame. The sentiment was echoed across the Atlantic, with Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warning that the hacking, if successful, would represent yet another dangerous escalation of cyberinterference in a Western nations democracy. But amid Frances government-mandated day of silence that always precedes election day when candidates are strictly prohibited from campaigning in any way the impact of the leaks on the election remained to be seen. In the French press, the leaks received comparatively little coverage: In keeping with French campaign law, reporting on the emails contents could result in criminal charges. On Saturday, Frances electoral commission urged journalists and media organizations to heed the sense of responsibility they must demonstrate, as at stake are the free expression of voters and the sincerity of the election itself. Ben Nimmo, a research fellow with the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, said in an interview that enthusiasm for the leaks was scarcely discernible beyond the far-right, pro-Le Pen online circles that had circulated them in the first place. It doesnt seem at this stage that there are lots of high-profile non-Le Pen accounts jumping in and spreading the message around, he said of social-media patterns surrounding the leaks. They have kept their constituency and they have galvanized their constituency but they haven't necessarily stepped outside of that constituency. Most French voters interviewed on the streets of the capital the day before the vote shrugged off the hack. The stakes are much too high to be bothered by compromising internal campaign documents, they said. (Sarah Parnass,Dani Player/The Washington Post) Paul Lotere, a 29-year-old civil servant, said he was most upset that Macron had no chance to respond given the strict campaign curfew. He plans to vote for the former finance and economy minister and said he has no interest in the documents until their veracity is confirmed. Ah, yes, hashtag Macron leaks, sneered Alain Chappotteau, a 51-year-old psychologist, repeating the Twitter tagline popularizing the news. With all the fuss, all the tricks, in this campaign, whats one more? Im voting for my childs future. This doesnt matter. Although the hacker remained unknown, Nimmo said, the social-media campaign following the Macron data dump originated in the United States, in a well-known network of Twitter accounts used by members of the alt-right, a small, far-right movement that seeks a whites-only state. The #MacronLeaks Twitter storm notably in English, not French largely began with the account of Jack Posobiec, a Washington-based correspondent for the alt-right website TheRebel.media, Nimmo said. Posobiec has written that he served, in 2016, as Special Projects Director of Citizens for Trump, the largest Trump grassroots organization in the US, according to an article Nimmo wrote on the Macron case. From there, Nimmo said, news of the Macron leaks allegedly containing details of offshore accounts and tax evasion was retweeted by William Craddick, another alt-right activist known to have spread in December a fake news story about German Chancellor Angela Merkel tolerating Islamic State terrorists to deploy an E.U. army to subdue her country's neighbors. Eventually, Nimmo added, the leaks began to be retweeted by well-known National Front accounts reaching 47,000 tweets in just three hours. Despite Frances strict prohibition on campaigning after the deadline, Florian Philippot, the National Front's deputy leader, tweeted early Saturday morning: Will #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed? For months now, Le Pen has also received exceedingly positive coverage in Russian state media. Meanwhile, those news outlets have pilloried Macron, accusing him of being secretly gay and of embezzling public funds. To date, most of those rumors seem to have had little effect on French voters. Throughout the election, Macron has frequently said that his campaign has been the target of Russian meddling, though the Kremlin has repeatedly denied those accusations. In a report issued last month, researchers at the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro linked intrusions into the Macron campaigns online network to Russian hackers operating as an arm of Kremlin intelligence. The Tokyo-based firm said it was the same group known variously as Pawn Storm, APT28 and Fancy Bear that hacked the Democratic National Committee and officials tied to Hillary Clintons unsuccessful campaign for president. In the specific case of the leaked documents, a Russian connection was not immediately identified. But according to analysis conducted by Flashpoint Intel, a digital risk firm, it appears to be linked to the Russian state-sponsored campaign by APT28. Nicolas Vanderbiest, an expert on social-media information dissemination and the author of the well-known blog Reputatio Lab, said in an interview that there were significant connections in the Twitter storm following the leaks to accounts linked to Sputnik and Russia Today. In a paper published several weeks ago, he studied many of these accounts, some 40 percent of which were involved with spreading the news about the Macron scandal early Saturday, he said. In any case, analysts say, the French government has taken the threat of cybersecurity in the election very seriously. In March, for instance, Frances National Cybersecurity Agency said that there was an extremely high risk of cyberattacks and hacking of the countrys electoral process, which prompted the government to suspend electronic voting this year for French citizens overseas. Alexander Klimburg, an expert on cyberwarfare at the Hague Centre for Security Studies who has been in regular contact with French civil service officers, said he believes the French government is sufficiently prepared for Russian cyberattacks, especially after Russian hackers nearly destroyed a French television network, TV5Monde, almost exactly two years ago. The sense was, If this happens again, were going to be ready, Klimburg said. I expect there to be a massive escalation in the covert information environment. Polls show Macron, a former investment banker and Socialist finance minister, with a considerable lead over Le Pen, at 63 percent to 37 percent of the vote, according to the latest analysis from the Ipsos firm, released Friday. For many, the hacking and subsequent data dump represented a desperate, last-dash attempt to thwart Macrons considerable lead in the polls a lead that has actually grown in the final days of the campaign. Its so obvious, and you can make all the connections so easily, said Vanderbiest. It's very amateur. Obama endorses Macron in French election, taking a side in Europe again Emmanuel Macron is 39 and his wife is 64. French women say its about time. As French elections loom, one town offers hints of what far-right rule would look like Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news The French campaign watchdog on Saturday began investigating the massive and coordinated piracy action that presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron reported just minutes before the official end of campaigning in the most heated election for the presidency that France has seen in decades. Late Friday, the Macron campaign said in a statement that it had been the victim of a major hacking operation that saw thousands of emails and other internal communications dumped into the public domain. At the end of a high-stakes race, the news quickly stoked fears of a targeted operation meant to destabilize the electoral process, especially after reports of Russian hacking in the U.S. presidential election. Macron, an independent centrist, is facing off against the far-right populist and National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who for years has benefited from considerable Russian financial support and from favorable coverage in state-run Russian media. Voters are set to decide Sunday which candidate becomes Frances next president. [The dark history at the heart of the French election] (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Intervening in the last hour of the official campaign, this operation is obviously a democratic destabilization, as has already been seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign, the Macron campaign said. It was not immediately clear who was being blamed for the hacking, which the campaign said had led to the leaking of documents via social media networks. The campaign could not be reached for further comment late Friday. The exact contents of the documents were not specified, although the campaigns statement said real documents such as emails from personal and professional accounts, contracts and accounting statements were mixed in with false ones. The ambition of the authors of this leak is obviously to harm the movement En Marche! in the final hours before the second round of the French presidential election, the Macron statement read. En Marche (Onward) is the centrist political movement that Macron founded a year ago with a platform that blends certain aspects of fiscal conservatism with social liberalism. The campaign immediately filed complaints with Frances National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing. Unlike in the United States, campaigning in France comes to a hard stop a day before voters go to the polls. The official end of campaigning was midnight Friday, and candidates may not actively campaign after that time. [WorldViews: A guide to Frances presidential runoff] (Sarah Parnass,Dani Player/The Washington Post) The disclosure of the leaked documents just before the end of Friday means the Macron campaign will not be able to address the matter substantially Saturday. Candidates and their aides are strictly prohibited from giving interviews to the press on the day before and the day of the vote. Despite the prohibition, Macrons opponents quickly capitalized on the news. Florian Philippot, the National Fronts deputy leader, tweeted early Saturday: Will #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed? On Saturday, Frances Electoral Commission urged journalists and media organizations not to report on the contents of the leaks. The commission called on news outlets to heed the sense of responsibility they must demonstrate, as at stake are the free expression of voters and the sincerity of the election itself. Throughout the campaign, Le Pen has been an outspoken advocate of pivoting Frances foreign policy toward an improved alliance with Vladimir Putins Russia. During a March visit to Moscow, she met with the Russian president. For years, a complex web of financial ties has also linked Le Pen to Russian lending sources. When French banks refused on principle to lend to the National Front in 2014, Le Pen sought and received the backing of a Russian lender. The banks lending license was ultimately revoked late last year, forcing her to seek alternate funding sources. For months, Le Pen has also received exceedingly positive coverage in Russian state media. Meanwhile, those news outlets have pilloried Macron, accusing him of being secretly gay and of embezzling public funds. To date, most of those rumors seem to have had little effect on French voters. But the cybersphere has remained a continual source of anxiety for French authorities and voters. Throughout the campaign, Macron has frequently said that his campaign has been the target of Russian meddling, though the Kremlin has repeatedly denied those accusations. In March, Frances National Cybersecurity Agency said that there was an extremely high risk of cyberattacks and hacking of the countrys electoral process, prompting the French government to suspend electronic voting this year for French citizens overseas. On Wednesday, hours before the beginning of the last televised debate between Macron and Le Pen, various Twitter accounts began spreading rumors that Macron maintained offshore bank accounts. Le Pen then repeated the allegation in the debate, causing Macron to say that she was subject to the diktats of the Kremlin. Polls show Macron, a former investment banker and Socialist finance minister, with a considerable lead over Le Pen, at 63 percent to 37 percent of the vote, according to the latest analyses released late Friday. Read more Obama endorses Macron in French election, taking a side in Europe again Emmanuel Macron is 39 and his wife is 64. French women say its about time. As French elections loom, one town offers hints of what far-right rule would look like Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Attorney General Jeff Sessions who opposes the Justice Department forcing reforms on entire police departments has indicated a willingess to prosecute individual officers suspected of wrongdoing. Hes learning that the law makes it very hard to do so. (Peter Foley/EPA) When the Justice Department announced this week that it would not charge the officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling, officials used a familiar script. The acting U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge called a news conference and outlined a vivid description of the encounter, caught on video, that ended when an officer fired three bullets into Sterlings back. He pointed to federal civil rights law as making it impossible to substantiate a case. There are no winners here, and there are no victories for anybody, acting U.S. attorney Corey Amundson said. [Federal prosecutors announce they will not bring charges against police in fatal shooting of Alton Sterling] It was a scene that played out a number of times under the Obama administration: The Justice Department declines to press charges in a high-profile police shooting. Federal law makes charging police officers with civil rights violations extremely difficult. And because Attorney General Jeff Sessions is critical of broader reforms targeting entire departments, that suggests that very little work on police accountability is going to get done, at all, said Chiraag Bains, a former federal prosecutor and senior official in the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. We have an attorney general that doesnt believe in that work, Bains said. I think thats a recipe for more shootings and more avoidable deaths. Where the Obama administration felt that police shootings pointed to deeper cultural problems in law enforcement, Sessions is more inclined to see them as the result of a few bad officers. So far in 2017, nearly 340 people have been shot and killed by police, according to a Washington Post count. The Balch Springs, Tex., police department recently fired an officer who shot into a moving vehicle, killing a 15-year-old passenger. Local authorities later charged him with murder. It is still early in Sessionss tenure, and analysts cautioned against reading too much into the departments handling of one case. His views are also well received in law enforcement circles. James Pasco, a senior official in the Fraternal Order of Police, said while there was an awful lot of conjecture about what Sessions might do on policing issues, the union was encouraged by the direction that hes inclined, it looks like, to take. He said that he believed even the Obama administration would not have prosecuted the officers involved in Sterlings shooting. This is not some bolt out of the blue caused by the election of Trump, Pasco said. This is the Justice Department doing what it does. Even in the Obama administration, prosecutors turned down far more civil rights cases than they prosecuted. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, prosecutors brought 222 cases from fiscal year 2012 to 2016 involving deprivation of rights under color of law the civil rights charge which is normally contemplated in police use-of-force cases. But in each of those years, they never prosecuted more than 10 percent of the referrals they received. In the case of Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, the Justice Department found no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilsons stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety. Investigators reached a similar conclusion in deciding not to prosecute anyone in the fatal 2015 shooting of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis. Amundson said prosecutors in Sterlings case would have had to prove that officers knew what they were doing was unreasonable as they scuffled with and then shot the 37-year-old. Investigators were stymied in particular, he said, because they did not have a video that showed whether Sterling was reaching for a gun, as officers claimed he had just before the shooting. Video of the encounter shows one of the officers yelling Hes got a gun! before shots ring out, but the Justice Department said that Sterlings hand was obscured in all the footage investigators had reviewed. Police did recover a loaded, .38-caliber revolver from his pocket. Bains said he thought the Sterling case would have come out the same way under the Obama administration. Essentially, you have to disprove the officers stated belief that he thought he was in danger, Bains said. Its not even enough to show that the officers belief was unreasonable. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said she believed the standard in the civil rights law was very flawed, but it was not outside the realm of rationality to think that it was possible for federal charges to go forward in this case. On May 2, Officer Michael Slager pleaded guilty in federal court in South Carolina to a federal civil rights charge. He had been caught on video shooting Walter Scott, an unarmed black motorist, in the back as Scott ran from a traffic stop. I can say independently that the statute is deeply problematic, and the standard in the statute is deeply problematic, but I can also say there is a videotape that shows what it shows, and certainly, for me, raises deeply troubling questions, Ifill said. She said civil rights leaders in the past had mulled pushing to change the law, though with a Republican-controlled Congress, the likelihood of that now was slim. It is still possible that the officers involved in Sterlings death could be charged with state crimes, which do not require proof of willfulness. Louisianas attorney general has said that state police will now conduct their own investigation. Sessions has said that the Justice Department is willing to prosecute police officers when they do wrong and he has distinguished such cases from consent decrees that impose reforms on entire departments. Earlier this year, he ordered Justice Department officials to review all such decrees, which discourage the proactive policing that keeps our cities safe, he wrote in USA Today. The Department of Justice agrees with the need to rebuild public confidence in law enforcement through common-sense reforms, such as de-escalation training, and we will punish any police conduct that violates civil rights, he wrote. But such reforms must promote public safety and avoid harmful federal intrusion in the daily work of local police. That is a marked difference from the Obama administration, which had launched large-scale pattern or practice investigations in places such as Chicago, Cleveland and Baltimore. In Ferguson, Mo., where prosecutors could not make a case against the officer involved in shooting Brown, the department still issued a scathing report about the city and eventually won a legal agreement to prompt sweeping changes. The criminal prosecution tool is a very limited one; its important, but its much more limited and carries such a high bar, said Vanita Gupta, who headed the Civil Rights Division in the previous Justice Department. The place where the Justice Department has much greater impact at affecting police culture and changing policing norms and ensuring constitutional policing is in the systemic civil work, the pattern and practice work, that the department does. Ron Davis, who ran the Justice Departments Office of Community Oriented Policing Services during the Obama administration and spent eight years as chief of the East Palo Alto Police Department in California, said that he does not think Sessions recognizes or understands the systemic problems within policing. Hes taking a position that the problems were having are based on individual rogue officers, which I think is insulting as a former officer, Davis said. The real challenge is not individual officers, but the systems were operating in, and the policies we provide them, and the training we do and dont give them. Even good officers can have bad outcomes. Its all about the systems we give them to work in. The Justice Department declined to make current officials available for comment for this report. Sessions still has one key decision looming over his head: whether to prosecute the officers involved in the videotaped takedown of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old whose 2014 death at the hands of New York City police officers sparked the iconic police abuse protest phrase I cant breathe. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had decided to let investigators again present evidence to a grand jury after a heated dispute between prosecutors in the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division prosecutors and those of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York about whether charges were appropriate. She did so late enough in her tenure, though, that the matter fell to Sessions, who has yet to voice his opinion publicly. Wesley Lowery contributed to this report. One week after the arrest of the right-wing First Lieutenant Franco A., evidence is mounting that the terror suspect was part of a substantial neo-Nazi network whose existence had been covered up by German authorities. The 28-year-old was arrested last week after being caught by the Austrian police in February when he sought to pick up a gun from Vienna Airport, which he had previously hidden there. It was then established that he had registered as a Syrian refugee in Bavaria and had apparently planned terrorist attacks against politicians and left-wing activists using a false identity. In the last few days, new details have come to light that leave no doubt as to his racist and fascist attitudes, and terrorist intentions. His right-wing extremist opinions had long been known to his superiors and were at least covered up, if not encouraged. Franco A. had been transferred to the German staff group in Fontainebleau in France in September 2009, where he began studying social and political sciences at the Saint-Cyr French military academy. In December 2013, he delivered a masters thesis entitled Political Change and Subversion Strategy. The work was so openly nationalist and right-wing that the French school commander, Antoine Windeck, marked it as not successful and told his German colleagues, If he were a French participant in the course we would replace him. Franco A.s superiors then commissioned an independent historian to examine the work. This evaluation fell into the hands of the daily Die Welt, which cited the following overall assessment, The text, in its method and content is demonstrably not an academic qualification work, but a radical nationalist, racist appeal, which the author seeks, with some effort, to underpin in a pseudo-scientific manner. In some parts, the text reads like an instruction manual for racist propaganda, it says. Franco A. utilizes the well-known racist interpretation of genes and crude environmental determinism. In some places in his masters thesis, Franco A. also warned against an intermixing of the races or intermarriage. The majority of society cannot have any interest in the spread of human rights, he says, describing their infectious character. Only minorities, he said, were interested in human rights. In the emancipation of women, Franco A. sees a threat to the family and thus also a deliberate weakening of the people (Volk), the expert records. In conclusion, the historian notes that the work is a call to bring about a political change that adapts the given situation to the supposed natural law of racial purity. This unambiguous opinion was completely rejected by the responsible military disciplinary attorney, a sort of army prosecutor, following a conversation with Franco A. Because of the personality profile acquired, doubts about the necessary attitude towards the set of [social] values are not only not verifiable but can be excluded, wrote the attorney, and enthused about the intellectual ability of the student. For this reason, the preliminary disciplinary proceedings were discontinued. Neither the military disciplinary attorney nor Franco A.s superior reported the incident to the Military Intelligence Service (MAD). Franco A. was able to prepare a new masters thesis, passed the examination and continued his officers career. In view of the openly fascist content of the masters thesis, the behaviour of his superiors can only be understood as providing support and encouragement to radical right-wing positions. This is also underlined by the fact that Franco A. wrote to the same disciplinary attorney when he was arrested by the Austrian police in February. First Lieutenant A. wrote me an email in which he recalled our meeting at that time, in which I insisted that he should write to me if he was in trouble, the attorney said in a letter sent Friday to his superior, Lieutenant-General Martin Schelleis. In it, he summarizes email exchanges between himself and Franco A. and declares that the emails have been irretrievably deleted. The fact that Franco A.s superiors knew about his right-wing views is also evident from the Wehrmacht (Nazi-era German army) memorabilia and Nazi symbols that were found in his possession. In an open area of the barracks where Franco A. last served, the so-called bunker, there were large murals glorifying Hitlers Wehrmacht. Clearly, Franco A. did not have to hide his radical right-wing attitudes on the base. On the contrary, it seems that he was regularly recruiting for his far-right terrorist group in his infantry battalion, which was stationed at Illkirch. According to media reports, the investigating public prosecutors office now assumes Franco A. had a number of accomplices. Die Zeit reports another first lieutenant, Maximilian T., from the battalion, who had drawn up a list of possible targets for terrorist attacks found in Franco A.s possession. The list includes high-ranking politicians, such as former German President Joachim Gauck, Justice Minister Heiko Maas, and Thuringia state Premier Bodo Ramelow, left-wing activists such as Philipp Ruch from the Centre for Political Beauty, but also institutions such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany. According to Die Welt, a notebook found in Franco A.s apartment revealed key points regarding concrete actions. Amongst others, there is a proposal to commit an attack in the guise of a refugee: Group Antifa: asylum seeker throwing grenade, film it. The officer also mentions the 88-year-old Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck. If Mrs. Haverbeck goes to prison, then liberation action, the notes read. On Thursday, the Defence Ministry informed the Bundestag (federal parliament) that about 1,000 rounds of ammunition, including for pistols and rifles, had been found in the possession of a presumed accomplice of Franco A. This followed earlier reports of irregularities in the documentation of the dispensing of ammunition at the barracks. The Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, and broadcasters WDR and NDR also reported the statement of a soldier who knew of a group of soldiers who had stashed weapons and ammunition to fight on the right side in a civil war. It is not the first time that fascist terrorist groups have emerged within the Bundeswehr (German army) and have been covered up by their superiors. Uwe Mundlos, who, together with other right-wing extremists, later formed the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and killed at least 10 people, had come to notice as a radical right-winger during his military service in the Bundeswehr. During Mundloss military service between 1994 and 1995, he was arrested by the police for possessing a Hitler portrait and illegal right-wing propaganda material, and was later sentenced by a civil court. However, a decision by his captain to order seven days disciplinary detention was quashed by the South District Military Court of Appeals. Mundlos, in spite of his obviously right-wing views, was even promoted to corporal. Like Mundlos, it now appears that Franco A. also enjoyed official protection. It was not until later that it was revealed that attempts had been made during this time to recruit Mundlos as an operative for military intelligence. The recruitment attempt was followed by a long series of initiatives by various police authorities and secret service agencies to protect Mundlos and the NSU from prosecution, thus enabling their terrorism. According to different estimates, there were up to 150 members or sympathizers of the NSU. The fascist network which has now appeared at Franco A.s barracks in Illkirch could be similar or even larger. Tomorrow, tens of millions of people across France will vote in the presidential runoff election in the midst of an unprecedented political crisis and under a state of emergency that suspends democratic rights. The candidates of Frances two discredited traditional parties of government, the Socialist Party (PS) and The Republicans (LR), have been eliminated. However, the choice voters face constitutes an unanswerable indictment of Frances ruling elite. On the one side there is Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist National Front (FN), the descendant of Frances Nazi-collaborationist regime in World War II. She has hailed Donald Trumps election on a nationalist America First program of war and protectionism, and called for France to abandon the European Union and the euro currency so as to do maximum economic damage to Germany, Frances main trading partner. At home, she would use the Socialist Partys state of emergency and the mass electronic spying apparatus to set up a fascistic police dictatorship, ban immigration, carry out mass raids and end free schooling for non-French children. Le Pens opponent, the PS-backed banker and current favorite Emmanuel Macron, is not an alternative to the FN. An ally of Berlin and the Democratic Party in Washington, Macron supports NATOs war drive against Syria, North Korea and Russia, which threatens to provoke war between nuclear-armed powers, and is calling for a return of the military draft. At home, he intends to maintain the state of emergency and use it, together with the PSs hated labor law, to tear up contracts and social rights, including public health care and pensions, won by European workers over generations of struggle in the 20th century. Whichever candidate wins, France will be ruled by a government that represents the interests of finance capital and is dedicated to a program of class war within the country and imperialist war beyond its borders. With seven in ten voters angry at the choice of candidates, class conflict of revolutionary dimensions is being prepared in France and across Europe. After a quarter-century of war and EU austerity following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, two-thirds of the French people say the class struggle is a daily reality of life. Among young people, who have known nothing but the social and economic collapse that has unfolded since the 2008 Wall Street crash, an unmistakably revolutionary mood is building. In the EUs recent Generation What survey of hundreds of thousands of European youth, 61 percent of Frenchmen under 34 said they would be willing to participate in a large-scale uprising against the political system. Over 60 percent of youth gave the same answer in Britain, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. The Parti de legalite socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), is calling for an active boycott of Sundays second-round ballot. This position is very different from a call for individual abstention. The PES call for opposition among workers and youth to both candidates is grounded in fundamental political principles. The entire experience of the international class struggle, extending over more than a century, has demonstrated the politically fatal consequences of entering into electoral alliances with a bourgeois party. Time and again, the subordination of the working class to one reactionary party of finance capital in order to prevent the victory of a supposedly more reactionary bourgeois party has led to political disaster. It will be no different this time. There is a political logic to such politics. If Macron wins the election, the workers will be told that they must not fight for the defeat and overthrow of his government, lest the FN come to power. There is no clever electoral maneuver that can solve the political crisis that confronts the working class. The call for a boycott is correct because it raises the political consciousness of the working class and prepares it for the struggles that lie ahead. The key issue is to provide a Marxist and internationalist perspective and build the revolutionary leadership in the working class required for these struggles. Many workers in France have drawn conclusions from the last time virtually the entire political establishment, including the so-called far left parties aligned with the PS, united behind a right-wing politician supposedly to block the FNthe 2002 runoff between Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Chirac. The result has been an intensification of attacks on the working class, a further lurch to the right by the traditional ruling parties and a steady growth in the influence of the neo-fascists. It is necessary to reject the entire reactionary framework of this election and the political system that produced it. The working class must advance its own independent political alternative, beginning with an active boycott of Sundays runoff. The PES warns that to the extent that forces like Jean-Luc Melenchons Unsubmissive France (UF) movement and the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) adapt themselves to the lesser evil argument and succeed in blocking revolutionary opposition to Macron from the left, they only strengthen the FN. The position of these pseudo-left forces in the election will only bolster the neo-fascists efforts to present themselves as the sole antiestablishment party, increasing their authority in the event that Macron is elected and provokes mass social opposition as a result of his anti-working class policies. Melenchons position is a cowardly abdication of political responsibility. He received 20 percent of the vote. Yet while he declines to explicitly support Macron, fearing that this would discredit him with his voters, he is doing everything he can to prevent a mobilization of the working class against Macron and Le Pen. After calling for UF to run in the June legislative elections, Melenchon announced that he is willing to become Macrons prime minister. Such a statement, making clear that Melenchon is willing to oversee domestic policy amid a mass military buildup and an aggressive foreign policy led by Macron, shows that UF and its allies are a dead end for voters seeking peace and social equality. As the old political setup around the PS and LR collapses, the only way forward for workers is a conscious political break with the PS and its periphery and a return to the revolutionary road. The complete dead end of the French political establishment is rooted in a mortal crisis of the world capitalist system, which is plunging into the abyss of war and dictatorship. To mount a revolutionary counteroffensive in opposition to the PS, Macron and the FN, the working class needs its own party and political leadership. On this centenary of the October Revolution, the PES advances itself as the representative of the irreconcilable socialist and internationalist program of the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 and the heritage of Trotskyism defended by the ICFI. It appeals to workers and youth who agree with its analysis of the elections to support the PES, study its program and join the struggle to build it as the political vanguard of the working class in France. This adorable otter owes its life to a group of utility workers who stumbled upon the animal while it was desperately trying to get out of a canal in Phoenix this week. It was just a normal day for the team from the Salt River Project until someone noticed the animal struggling in the water. Read: Rescued Sea Otter Settles Into New Home at Aquarium But Still Needs a Name He was calling for his mama, we assumed, Salt River Project carpenter Craig Boggs told KPNX-TV. It would go back underwater and fight and come back up. He was about to give up. He was pretty exhausted. The 4-week-old otter was in pretty bad shape, suffering from dehydration and hunger, and it was overrun with fleas. But workers at the Arizona Game and Fish Wildlife Center were able to nurse the animal back to health. Read: 2-Day-Old Sea Otter Pup Is Reunited With Mother After Being Swept Away by Strong Tide Now, the little guy is likely counting his blessings that the crew from the Salt River Project was in the right place at the right time. "Just one of nature's thing[s]," Boggs said. "You can't let it go. I mean, if you can save it. It's the right thing to do. I mean, didn't want to let the little fella die on its own. It's not right." Watch: Abandoned Sea Otter Spends a Day Traveling to Meet New Friends Related Articles: A Kentucky woman who was pulled over for an alleged DUI reportedly told cops her name was Hillary Clinton. In Pennsylvania, a state that helped Donald Trump shock the world with his November election win, Holly Lynn Donahoo allegedly used the two-time presidential also ran's name after crossing into the Keystone State from Maryland early Tuesday. Watch: Woman Busted for DUI Hours After Posting New Mercedes Pic on Instagram: Cops Cops say the 36-year-old was being chased by sheriff's deputies from Garrett County, Md., and Maryland State Police when she drove into Wharton Township in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State Trooper Robert Politowski says he arrested the woman, who then gave the false name, The Associated Press reported. Politowski said Donahoo only stopped after he used spike strips to flatten her tires. Donahoo was reportedly taken to a hospital, where cops say she refused drug and alcohol testing. Watch: Woman Driving With 15-Foot Tree Stuck To Car Gets Arrested For DUI She is being held on several charges, including driving under the influence and fleeing or eluding police. There's no word yet on why she identified herself as the failed presidential candidate. She's due in court on May 9. Watch: Video Emerges of 'Dynasty' Star Linda Evans Getting Arrested For DUI Related Articles: Buenos Aires (AFP) - Argentina's government on Saturday publicly rejected a Supreme Court ruling that trims the sentences of those convicted for crimes committed during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship. "We reject the '2-for-1' concept and we reject that it be applied to crimes against humanity," cabinet chief Marcos Pena told radio Nacional. He was referring to the ruling that an offender's prison sentence must be reduced by the time spent in custody awaiting trial, with each day served in detention being counted as two days in the calculation. The decision could affect around a thousand people convicted for dictatorship-era crimes, and another thousand being held pending outcomes of trials. "We consider the '2-for-1' to be a symbol on impunity in Argentina," Pena said, arguing its scope should be limited to a handful of cases at most. The Supreme Court upheld the "2-for-1" application last Wednesday, applying it to the 13-year sentence of an ex-paramilitary fighter convicted in 2011 for crimes including torture and kidnapping. On Friday, however, a prosecutor disputed its application in another case. Human rights groups in Argentina have denounced the measure. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group highlighting the confiscation of babies born to suspected dissidents during the dictatorship, called the court's ruling "disgraceful." President Mauricio Macri has not as yet expressed his position on the Supreme Court decision. By Tsvetelia Tsolova SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's new prime minister Boiko Borisov promised to spur economic growth and increase incomes in the European Union's poorest member state as his coalition government was endorsed by parliament on Thursday. The vote was seen as a formality after Borisov's GERB party, which won a snap election in March, sealed a coalition deal with United Patriots (UP), an alliance of three nationalist parties, to form a one-seat majority government. The small populist Will party voted to support the new government, while leftist Socialists and ethnic Turkish MRF party voted against. Third-time Prime Minister Borisov pledged to build more highways and fight smuggling to steer the economy. That should lead to an increase of the average monthly salary by 50 percent in four years, while maintaining income and corporate taxes unchanged at 10 percent, he said. "We will lead policies and apply measures to increase the incomes of the people," 57-year-old Borisov told parliament, ahead of the vote. Borisov pledged to set up a special body to tackle high-level graft, but analysts remained cautious on his reformist drive. Bulgaria ranks as EU's most corrupt country according to the index of Transparency International and its failure to uproot wide-spread graft have kept the country out of EU's passport-free Schengen travel zone and scared away foreign investors. ONE-SEAT MAJORITY Borisov said the government would allow for some fiscal loosening to raise the minimum state pensions, among the lowest in the EU, but plans to gradually reduce fiscal deficit and achieve a balanced budget by 2020. On his first day in office, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said the economy would grow 3.3-3.5 percent this year, faster than previously forecast, and outlined that planned social spending would not push the fiscal deficit beyond 1.4 percent of GDP in 2017. He said the budget shortfall may be smaller, given plans to boost tax collection and because of slower use of EU funds. The average monthly salary, at 962 levs ($538), remains the lowest in the 28-nation EU and compares with a minimum wage in Germany - of 1,440 euros ($1,573). The new government that brings the nationalists to office for the first time will respect Bulgaria's commitments to its allies in Brussels and Washington. Borisov, a former bodyguard and fireman, triggered the election by resigning after a GERB-backed candidate lost a presidential election in November to Rumen Radev, a Russia-friendly ally of the Socialist party. Despite its fragile one-seat majority, the government is expected to last at least until July 2018, as the opposition are unwilling to excite political instability while Bulgaria takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency as of January. (Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Ralph Boulton) An International New York Times opinion piece criticising the powerful Pakistani army was censored by its local publisher Friday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to speak out against the military establishment. The online version of the piece by Mohammed Hanif, a high-profile satirist and novelist whose critiques of Pakistani society regularly appear in the New York Times, was trending on Pakistani social media by Friday afternoon. In the article, entitled "Pakistan's Triangle of Hate", he savaged the military for parading a former Pakistani Taliban spokesman before television cameras to claim that the militants are bankrolled by Islamabad's arch-nemesis India. "With his appearance, the Pakistani Army seemed to be sending this message: You can kill thousands of Pakistanis, but if you later testify that you hate India as much as we do, everything will be forgiven," Hanif wrote. "Do we really need to enlist our children's killers in our campaign against India?" A note on the blank page clarified the decision to censor the article was taken in Pakistan, and the newspaper "had no role in its removal". "While we understand that our publishing partners are sometimes faced with local pressures, we regret and condemn any censorship of our journalism," a spokeswoman for the New York Times told AFP on Friday. The former Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, is the man who claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in Swat Valley in 2012. He also spoke for the group in claiming responsibility for Pakistan's deadliest ever extremist attack, in which gunmen stormed a school in northwestern Peshawar and killed more than 150 people, most of them children. Last month the army announced that Ehsan had given himself up to the military, but gave no details on the circumstances or timing of his surrender. Story continues It later released a video of Ehsan stating the militants were given financial and logistical assistance by the intelligence agencies of India and Afghanistan -- a claim often made by the army. Hanif's words echoed the feelings of many in Pakistan repulsed by the publicity surrounding Ehsan -- though others have rejoiced at the accusations against India. Friday's censorship was the second day in a row that the Express Tribune had blanked out a piece in the Times. On Thursday, it removed a piece on an anti-gay crackdown in Chechnya entitled "Chechnya's anti-gay pogrom". In 2016, it censored a Times image of a man in China giving his boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. Later that year it blocked an article in the paper entitled "Sex Talk for Muslim Women". London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives made sweeping gains Friday in local elections, handing her a big boost going into next month's Brexit-dominated parliamentary vote. Final results showed the ruling centre-right party gaining ground across the country, with the main opposition Labour party taking a pounding and Brexit cheerleaders UKIP all but wiped out. Despite the thumping victory, May said there was no room for complacency ahead of the June 8 general election and the negotiations that follow on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. "It's encouraging that we've won support across the whole of the UK but I will not take anything for granted," she said, "because there is too much at stake". "This is not about who wins and who loses in the local elections: it is about continuing to fight for the best Brexit deal. "Despite the evident will of the British people, we have bureaucrats in Europe who are questioning our resolve to get the right deal." On the eve of the vote, May lashed out at Brussels over the Brexit talks, accusing officials of hardening their position to affect the outcome of next month's election. Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor at the University of London, said her tough stance seemed to be paying dividends with a realignment towards her party. "The Conservatives have managed to pull in people who voted Leave (in last year's EU membership referendum) while retaining Remainers," he told AFP. After votes were counted in all 88 local authorities being contested, the Conservatives had made a net gain of 558 seats to 1,900. Labour lost 320 to end up with 1,151 -- prompting leader Jeremy Corbyn to acknowledge that winning next month's general election would be a "challenge on a historic scale". - Brexit party UKIP flattened - The smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats, who had been hoping to soak up anti-Brexit votes with their pro-EU stance, failed to make their hoped-for gains, losing 37 seats to end up with 441. Story continues And it was a disastrous day for the anti-EU, anti-immigration UK Independence Party, which lost all 114 seats it was defending, and won only one new one. UKIP's vote was "bleeding off to the Conservatives", Kaufmann said -- an analysis shared by party leader Paul Nuttall. He said it had fallen "victim to its own success". The result spells bad news for Nuttall's hopes to secure a seat in parliament next month. But he said: "If the price of Britain leaving the EU is a Tory advance after taking up this patriotic cause, then it is a price UKIP is prepared to pay." The Scottish National Party, which is seeking another referendum on seceding from the UK on the back of Brexit, won 31 seats to end up with 431. The party's success in Glasgow forced Labour out of power in the city for the first time in almost 40 years. Across Scotland, the Conservatives had the biggest gains, up 164 seats to 276 -- pointing to a revival for the party which has only one MP north of the border. As expected, Labour won mayoral races in Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, but they were beaten in the West Midlands race, centred on Birmingham. There, the Conservatives' Andy Street, formerly the director of upmarket department store chain John Lewis, claimed a narrow win. - Labour's historic challenge - Corbyn said he was "disappointed" that Labour had lost "too many" councillors, but said the party was "closing the gap on the Conservatives". "We have five weeks to win the general election so we can fundamentally transform Britain," he said. "We know this is no small task -- it is a challenge on an historic scale. But we, the whole Labour movement and the British people, can't afford not to seize our moment." Labour has been languishing more than 20 points behind the Conservatives in national opinion polls, and has been damaged by deep divisions over Corbyn's left-wing leadership and its approach to Brexit. Elsewhere on Thursday, Dave Rowntree, the drummer from pop group Blur, was elected to Norfolk County Council in eastern England, representing Labour. One seat in Northumberland, northeast England, had to be decided by drawing straws, following a tie. Rome (AFP) - From waves of dinghies setting off from Libya to the appearance of privately-funded rescue ships, the face of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean has changed greatly over the past few years. - Overcrowding dinghies - Up until 2014, people traffickers took migrants headed for Europe out into international waters on "mother ships" before transferring them to smaller boats. But when Rome launched Mare Nostrum in late 2013, Italy began to catch smugglers in international waters, forcing the criminals to change tactics, stay in Libyan waters and put people out to sea in expendable rubber boats which easily sank. Their business model changed too. In early 2015 many Syrians -- who had previously accounted for about 25 percent of passengers departing from Libya and could afford to pay more for the journey -- switched to the Balkan route. To recover their loses in the central Mediterranean, traffickers upped the number of passengers per vessel. They also largely stopped issuing satellite phones, meaning those in trouble could not call for help. In 2015 Italy's coast guard registered 676 dinghies -- 80 percent of which had a satellite phone on board -- carrying an average of 103 people. By 2016 the number of dinghies had risen to 1,094 -- with only 45 percent carrying a satellite phone, but each with an average of 122 passengers. Mass departures stretched rescue resources to the limits: over 13,000 people were saved in five days at the end of May 2016, another 14,000 in four days in August -- including a record of 7,000 in one day -- and 10,800 at the start of October. - Tragedies bring rescuers - In 2014, about 70 percent of migrants were rescued by the Italian navy and coast guard, and 24 percent by commercial ships. But amid complaints it was serving as a "bridge to Europe" for migrants, Italy axed Mare Nostrum. The safety line was cut, but departures continued, and after two shipwrecks killed 1,200 people in April 2015 the European Union beefed up its Frontex border control's Operation Triton and launched the Sophia anti-smuggling operation. Story continues The tragedies also prompted the launch of privately-funded rescue vessels, with up to a dozen boats taking part at present. The larger boats combined rescued 26 percent of migrants in 2016, while the smaller ones handed out life jackets and gave emergency care to those in distress while help from bigger vessels arrived. Italy's navy and coast guard still perform 40 percent of rescues, while the Sophia operation carries out 13 percent and Frontex 7.5 percent, according to the coast guard. Despite their efforts, over 4,500 migrants died or were missing and feared drowned in 2016, and another 1,000 have met the same fate this year. Some succumb to the cold or dehydration, or are suffocated by fuel fumes, or trapped in overcrowded boats. - A profitable business - In total, nearly 550,000 migrants arrived in Italy between 2013 and 2016, and 37,000 have landed in the country so far this year. According to Sophia, some Libyan coastal areas derive 50 percent of their income from smuggling migrants. A dinghy with 100 passengers can fetch up to 67,000 euros ($73,000), while a wooden boat with 400 people can earn up to 380,000 euros. Frontex estimates the business has a turnover of between four and six billion euros. - EU's strategy - The European Union is in the process of training and equipping Libyan coast guards so they will be able to prevent departures or at least stop boats reaching international waters. So far this year over 4,000 migrants have been intercepted, according to the International Organisation for Migration. The idea is that they be escorted back to camps in Libya, and then returned to their home countries where possible. But human rights organisations have said the chaotic situation in crisis-hit Libya makes it impossible to declare it a safe place to return migrants, while many of those fleeing war or persecution cannot be simply returned home. cameronabadi Theres a new kid on the aviation block. Chinas first-ever domestically designed and built civilian airliner took its maiden flight Thursday in a watershed moment for the countrys aviation industry and new competitor to Western giants that have the market cornered. On Friday, a crowd of some 3,000 Chinese officials and industry execs gathered at the Shanghai airport to watch the test flight of the C919, Chinas answer to the Boeing-737 and Airbus-320, the workhorse planes for global airlines. The C919 landed safely after an hour-long test flight, marking a major milestone in Chinas long-term ambition to crack into the global civilian airline market. Built by state-owned aircraft corporation Comac, the C919 is designed to seat 155-175 with a range of 2,530 miles. U.S.-based Boeing and Europe-based Airbus Group have in essence dominated that market from the beginning, but Western executives may not be sweating the C919 just yet. The Chinese project was riddled with technical problems and delays from the outset (the test flight Friday was originally scheduled for three years ago) and it relies heavily on foreign technologies to function. Comac also still hasnt proven itself capable of producing high quality planes that can pass toptier Western safety inspections on part with the Boeing-Airbus duopoly. Comac announced its already received 570 orders from 23 customers, but nearly every sale comes from Chinese companies. (The plane also has one U.S. buyer: General Electric Capital Aviation Services, a supplier to the C919 program, ordered 20 planes from Comac.) And thats a small drop in the bucket compared to Boeing, which can roll out 400-500 Boeing 737s a year. Still, industry experts agree Boeing and Airbus are watching Comac with a wary eye. The International Air Transport Association estimates China will overtake the United States as the worlds top aviation market by 2024. Over the next 20 years, the IATA forecasts there will be an additional 817 million passengers from China alone, making it the worlds fastest growing market. And Comac has the home-field advantage. Photo credit: GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images Friends, this is what happens when you watch Mission: Impossible too many times. Two students at the University of Kentucky are facing burglary charges after crawling through campus ceiling ducts to steal a statistics exam from their professor's office. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, 21-year-old junior Henry Lynch II dropped into the room through the ceiling, let in his friend Troy through the door, then started to rummage around for the test. SEE ALSO: Teacher finds her fourth grade students passing secret, feminist notes Imagine writing a test so hard that your students pull a Mission Impossiblehttps://t.co/oUa7RumLVx TieTuesday (@TieTuesdayLP) May 4, 2017 Unfortunately, their professor had only gone out for a snack, and when he returned to a barricaded office door, he called the police. And, uh, that was the end of that heist a disappointment considering the two dudes had successfully pilfered another exam earlier that semester. Not to be a Boring Adult or whatever, but perhaps they should have studied instead. Republicans must be reaching for their blood pressure tablets each time their President utters some new blasphemy against the bedrock philosophies of their party, routinely insisting that his words matter less than the deeds that follow. If its a Monday, he is going to pull out of Nafta, the free-trade treaty with Canada and Mexico. If its a Tuesday, he is not. Right now, it seems that he will not. And so they pray, it will turn out with the cosying of Donald Trump with his counterpart from the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Recently, they had a friendly discussion by phone which ended with Trump inviting him to Washington. The White House said the two men had discussed how Manila is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs. Thats one way of putting it. Since taking power, Duterte has unleashed a bloody war on his own citizenry that has given police and vigilante gangs free reign to terrorise whole neighbourhoods and conduct extrajudicial killings. It is a violent strategy that has already claimed the lives of an estimated 7,000 people. His actions have earned him the nickname Duterte Harry: he is now an international pariah. (By the by, he also once called Trump a bigot and Barack Obama the son of a whore). It didnt help when Trump mused during an interview with Bloomberg that Duterte, elected last year, cant be all that bad because of his political prowess. You know, hes very popular in the Philippines, Trump said. He has a very high approval rating in the Philippines. Video not available for syndication Duterte: 'Give me a terrorist and I'll eat their liver with salt and vinegar' Perhaps even more preposterous was Trumps suggestion last week that he would be honoured to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the keeper of the worlds last gulag prisons, to discuss his nukes. At a very young age, he was able to assume power, he said of Kim, almost flatteringly. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie. Story continues Is this further proof of Trump having the warm and fuzzies for strongmen dictators? Recall his admiring words for Vladimir Putin last year and the welcome he extended last month to the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, on his first visit to Washington since seizing power in a coup four years ago. Then there was his congratulatory call to Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after he won a referendum last month, allowing him further to tighten his grip on power. Read more This is how Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump could start World War III Who knows what drives Trump, sometimes? We may not be able to guess what hes thinking. We can talk, however, about the damage he is doing to Americas reputation for pursuing though not consistently, its true a foreign policy underpinned by respect for human rights, freedom and democracy. Call it the doctrine of Woodrow Wilson, if you like, or of Franklin Roosevelt, who, after no little hesitation, came to the assistance of the allies against Hitler, or indeed of Ronald Reagan, whose call to Gorbachev to tear down this wall helped propel the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump seems not to care about any of that. We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash, Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator, observed in a Twitter message after hearing Trumps Duterte and Kim musings. Most affronted, though, are those Republicans who believe their party still belongs to Reagan (or, at least, it should). This is a dramatic departure, Senator John McCain told MSNBC, citing Reagan. We are proud Republicans and we stand for human rights. The statements, and the comments, obviously fly in the face of everything that Ive stood for and believed in all my life. The senator, who recently dined with Trump and insists he wants to help him, also warned that praising the likes of Duterte will have consequences. I dont think that the President appreciates the fact that when he says things like that it helps the credibility and the prestige of this really outrageous strongman. You cant praise that kind of behaviour and not raise concerns around the world. What should worry McCain is that Trump has company in his administration de-emphasising human rights in global relations. It is not NAFTA bluster: there one day, gone the next. Last week saw Rex Tillerson, his Secretary of State, using a pep talk to diplomats in the State Department auditorium to explain precisely why America has been too concerned about propagating American values overseas when it really should be worried first about protecting national interests. Its the foreign policy expression of Trumps over-arching America First proposition. It is really important that all of us understand the difference between policy and values, he lectured. Our values around freedom, human dignity, the way people are treated those are our values. Those are not our policies. In some circumstances, if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably cant achieve our national security goals. Read more Trump and Putin build their new world order, starting with Libya No one could argue that America has always put human rights or democratic freedoms at the heart of all its foreign policy actions: the joining of hands by the allies with Stalin against Hitler is perhaps the clearest example of its failure to do so. Churchill famously explained it thus: If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. Sometimes, needs must. Its also true that Americas aversion to tyrants hasnt always worked out so well. Think Saddam. But Washington explicitly de-emphasising the proliferation of its values across the board of foreign policy is a profound and unnerving shift. America is the country most able to punish those who subjugate or terrorise their own populations. If it steps back, bullies worldwide will be emboldened. Moreover, the argument can still be made that Americas national security, as well as its trade and economic interests, are precisely advanced by encouraging others to adopt its values. Divorcing our interests from our values in foreign policy is like trying to plant cut flowers, John Kirby, a former State Department spokesman, noted despairingly. We can only hope that McCain and other Republican leaders, as well as Democrats, do what they can to counter these dangerous new instincts from the White House by using the power that Congress still has hopefully, with the help of the UN and Americas allies to isolate and pressure the likes of Kim and Duterte, not to suck up to them. Donald Trump has signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund the Government for the remainder of the fiscal year. It includes no money for a Mexican border wall, despite it being one of the biggest promises of his campaign. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, speaking to reporters at a regular media briefing, confirmed the president had signed the bill. The bill cleared both houses of Congress this week an Mr Trump signed it behind closed doors at his home in central New Jersey, ahead of a midnight deadline for some government functions to begin shutting down. But other battles over government spending lie ahead. Among those are the border wall, as well as a promised military buildup. Read more US Congress passes $1.1 trillion spending bill to avert shutdown Negotiators on the bill dropped Mr Trump's demands for a down payment on his oft-promised wall along the US-Mexico border, but his signature buys five months of funding stability while legislators argue over the wall and over Mr Trump's demands for a huge military buildup matched by cuts to popular domestic programmes and foreign aid accounts. The House passed the measure Wednesday on a big bipartisan vote, though 103 of the chamber's conservative Republicans opposed the bill. The White House and its GOP allies praised $15 billion in additional Pentagon spending obtained by Mr Trump and $1.5 billion in emergency border security funds but was denied funding to begin construction work on the border wall. After years of an administration that failed to get serious on border security, this bill provides the largest border-security funding increase in a decade, said Senate Majority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell, a key negotiator. And Democrats and the pragmatic Republicans who negotiated the bill successfully defended other accounts targeted by Mr Trump such as foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, support for the arts, and economic development grants, among others. Story continues The sweeping, 1,665-page bill also increases spending for Nasa, medical research, and the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. Democrats also praised the measure as an example of bipartisan cooperation in the handling of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. It reflects bipartisan culture among congressional appropriators, who long ago sorted out many of the spending fights Trump wants to renew this summer over foreign aid, funding for the arts, Amtrak subsidies, grants to state and local governments, and development agencies like the Appalachian Regional Commission. On a bipartisan basis, we rejected President Trump's ill-considered proposal to slash domestic programmes by $15 billion, including deep cuts for NIH and low-income energy assistance. Instead, this bill includes a $2 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health, said a top Democratic negotiator, Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who called the bill a good deal for the American people. Mr Trump took to Twitter earlier this week to complain about the bipartisan process that produced the measure but changed course to crow about additional spending for the military and border security. The White House has said he'll sign the bill. One of Trump's tweets advocated for a good shutdown this fall to fix the mess that produced the bill, though he appeared at the White House just hours later to boast that it was a big win for him. Congressional Republicans motivated in great measure by fear of a politically damaging government shutdown worked closely with minority party Democrats to produce the measure, which made only small changes to most accounts covered by the measure. But many rank-and-file Republicans saw the bill as a lost opportunity for a fight that could have produced victories on the wall and punishing sanctuary cities that fail to cooperate with immigration authorities. It is a win for Democrats and a loss for conservatives, said tea party Representative Dave Brat We have a Republican in the White House and control of both chambers of Congress yet this legislation fails to include key conservative reforms Republicans have long-advocated. Even supporters of the bill dislike the secretive, closed-door negotiations that produced it and delivered it seven months behind schedule while denying anyone the opportunity to amend it. Is there any member of the United States Senate that has read this? asked Senator John McCain of Arizona . And many of us are going to be compelled to vote for it because we don't want to shut the government down. The signing by Mr Trump came as twelve athletes began swimming across the border from the United States to Mexico in an effort to call attention to immigrants. The swimmers kicked off their journey from the city of Imperial Beach, California, and headed south toward a fence that juts into the Pacific Ocean. Kayakers paddled alongside for safety. Mexican immigration officials and schoolchildren prepared to greet them on a beach in the border city of Tijuana. Supporters held on to the swimmers' passports during the 6.2 mile swim. Organiser Kim Chambers of New Zealand insisted the swim isn't a protest against President Donald Trump's border wall or government policy but says an air of negativity after last year's US elections was the catalyst. Associated Press Joaquin El Chapo Guzman at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. (Sketch: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters) Friday morning, Joaquin Guzman Loera was taken from his solitary confinement cell in lower Manhattan and escorted by a police motorcade across the Brooklyn Bridge to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where heavy security signaled the impending arrival of someone important. Well before Guzmans hearing began, reporters had already filled the courtrooms press box and much of the overflow room across the hall, where a live feed of the proceedings played on two TVs and a large projector screen. The main attraction was the sight of Guzman himself, the infamous Mexican drug lord known by his nickname, El Chapo (or Shorty), who eluded both Mexican and U.S. authorities for decades and, after being captured, escaped twice from maximum-security prisons in Mexico. But for Guzman, under tight detention measures that forbid him from receiving visitors other than his attorneys, Fridays hearing was his first chance to chance to see his wife, Emma Coronel, in person, since his last court appearance in February. For the majority of the hearing, Guzman faced away from the judge, leaning back in his chair as he scanned the crowd, his eyes darting between Coronel and Rosa Isela Guzman, the oldest of Guzmans 18 children. Guzman listened through headphones as the interpreter sitting behind him translated the conversation among Judge Brian Cogan, the prosecutors and defense attorneys. On Thursday, Cogan had denied a request by Guzmans attorneys to allow Coronel, a former beauty pageant winner, to visit her husband in person or even talk to him over the phone. Instead he allowed the two to communicate via written messages subject to approval by law enforcement officials. The family reunion was bittersweet and brief, as Cogan concluded Fridays hearing by setting an aspirational trial date of April 16, 2018 acknowledging the likelihood that it would be delayed even further. Outside the courthouse reporters waiting in the rain to hear from Guzmans attorneys were treated to an unexpected press conference by Guzmans daughter and Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, who identified himself as one of Guzmans lawyers from Mexico. Story continues Unlike Guzmans court-appointed attorneys, the animated Gonzalez Meza referred to the cartel boss by his nickname, El Chapo, and ignored repeated pleas from reporters to answer questions in English. Gonzalez Meza expressed outrage over what he suggested were tighter restrictions than those imposed on Nazis during the Nuremburg trials. Even then, he said, Nazis had lawyers and had direct contact with them. During the hearing Cogan agreed that the current requirement that Guzman and his attorneys communicate and review evidence through a plexiglass window would make preparing for trial cumbersome if not impossible, and agreed to send a magistrate judge to visit the jail in person and explore alternative options. Daughter Rosa Isela Guzman made only a few brief remarks in Spanish, mainly to thank her supporters. I feel sad about what is happening, said Guzman, who lives in Los Angeles and first revealed her relationship to the infamous drug lord in a controversial interview with the Guardian last year. Guzman said her fathers incarceration is upsetting to all of her siblings, as well as her grandmother and aunts. We are all worried, she said. Rosa Isela Guzman, a daughter of jailed drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, speaks with reporters outside federal court in Brooklyn. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images Still, she said she would prefer for her father to remain in the United States rather than be returned to Mexico, saying that she believed he was treated poorly in his home country. Guzman confirmed at Fridays hearing that he will continue to be represented by his court-appointed attorneys. Outside, one of his lawyers, Michelle Gelernt, defended Guzmans right to a public defender despite his purported wealth. I think that as has been clear in the press, at this point hes had no access to see if he has any assets at all or if there is anybody willing to pay for him to hire a lawyer, said Gelernt. Though the U.S. government alleges that Guzman, as head of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, is worth billions, Gelernt said, the government hasnt shown that he has even a single dollar. Gelernt also said that, despite Cogans denial of their requests to alleviate some of Guzmans restrictive prison conditions, his attorneys will continue to fight for humane treatment for Mr. Guzman. We think its widely accepted that solitary confinement has long lasting serious consequences, both mentally and physically, she said, adding, thats true no matter who you are and what youre accused of. The defense now has until May 26 to file a motion seeking documents related to Guzmans extradition to the Eastern District of New York, which they suggest may have been done illegally. Whats clear to everybody is that the U.S. government petitioned for Mr. Guzman to be extradited to either the western district of Texas or the southern district of California, she said. As you can all see, were standing here in Brooklyn. Read more from Yahoo News: Beirut (AFP) - After six years of conflict in Syria, government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey have signed a deal to create four "de-escalation zones" in the country. Here are some questions and answers about the deal and the planned zones: - What are 'de-escalation zones?' - The zones are four areas located across eight of Syria's 14 provinces. The first includes Idlib in the northwest, which is controlled by a coalition of Islamists and jihadists including a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, along with neighbouring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo, each of which have rebel-held areas. The second is in the north of central Homs province, where rebels hold a stretch of territory, with the third covering the Eastern Ghouta area, a rebel stronghold outside the capital Damascus. The fourth zone covers southern Syria, particularly Daraa and Quneitra province, which both have large rebel-held areas, though a jihadist faction close to the Islamic State group is also present in Quneitra. The zones do not cover the three areas held entirely by the government, Damascus city, Tartus and Sweida, or areas in the northeast held by IS or a Kurdish-Arab alliance fighting the jihadist group. Along the lines of the "de-escalation zones" will be "security zones" with checkpoints and observation posts to monitor and secure access. Senior Russian military commander Sergei Rudskoi said Friday that some 2.67 million civilians and 41,500 rebels are in areas covered by the plan. Syria expert Fabrice Balanche said it would cover around 20 percent of the non-desert territory of the country. - What's the timescale? - The memorandum agreed during talks in Astana does not specify a start date for the implementation of the zones, but calls on the signatories to form a joint working group within two weeks. The group will then "take steps to complete by 4 June 2017 the preparation of the maps of the de-escalation areas and security zones and to separate the armed opposition groups from the terrorist groups." Story continues The document defines "terrorist groups" as IS, the former Al-Qaeda affiliate previously known as Al-Nusra Front, as well as groups or individuals affiliated with them. Once established, the zones will be in place for an initial period of six months, but may be extended. - How will it look on the ground? - Government forces and rebels who have signed onto the deal will agree to halt all hostilities, including the use of warplanes, in the zones. Several forces have carried out air strikes within Syria, including Russia and a US-led coalition battling IS. A Russian diplomat confirmed Friday that the terms would prevent the coalition from carrying out strikes in the zones. The deal calls for "rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access" in the areas in question, as well as measures to restore basic infrastructure and allow the "safe and voluntary return" of displaced people and refugees. Access to the areas will be controlled via security zones complete with checkpoints and observation posts. The deal calls for security to be "ensured by the forces of the guarantors by consensus," adding that "third parties might be deployed." - What chance of success? - The deal builds on a ceasefire agreed between Russia and Turkey last December that reduced violence for a period but gradually fell apart. This proposal is significantly more ambitious, involving the deployment of forces from the guarantor countries and seeking to ground all warplanes. But it also calls for the continued fight against IS and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh Al-Sham Front, which could pose challenges. In Idlib province in particular, Fateh al-Sham is a leading and powerful component of the opposition forces controlling the region, and a key ally for other rebel groups against the regime. Noah Bonsey, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the agreement "looks more serious than previous Astana efforts." But, writing on Twitter, he warned it would probably "unravel" over the fight against Fateh al-Sham. Florence (Italy) (AFP) - The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator said Friday that Britain was to blame for the uncertainty facing millions of expatriates in the run-up to the country's departure from the bloc. And he warned that Brussels would demand "iron-clad," life-long guarantees on citizens' rights as a condition of any overall divorce settlement. "Some in the UK have tried to blame (EU) Member States for the continued uncertainty that citizens have been confronted with for ten months now (since the Brexit vote last year)," former French minister Michel Barnier told a conference in Florence. "That is wrong. The only cause of uncertainty is Brexit. "And the only way to remove uncertainty and to protect rights properly is through an Article 50 agreement." In an apparent nod to EU President Donald Tusk's call for a cooling of this week's cross-Channel sniping over Brexit, Barnier cut a reference to "political hot air" that had been included in an earlier draft of his speech. But he cautioned that it would be extremely complex to reach a deal on the detailed residency, social security, pension, education and other rights of 3.2 million EU citizens living in Britain and 1.2 million Britons on the continent. He said the EU 27 would insist on maintaining existing rights for its citizens and their families, including relatives who do not hail from EU states or live in an EU country. These guarantees would be written into a withdrawal agreement that will be subject to the jurisdiction of the EU's Court of Justice (ECJ), he said. Barnier also insisted that the EU would make public the content progress of the negotiations -- contrary to Britain's desire for closed door talks, which Prime Minister Theresa May believes will make it easier to do an overall deal. Barnier said he anticipated citizens' rights being easy to agree in principle but hard to write into a legally precise text. Story continues "We will not discuss our future relationship with the UK until the 27 Member States are reassured that all citizens will be treated properly and humanely," he said. "Otherwise, there can be no trust when it comes to constructing a new relationship with the UK." Barnier went on to cite a series of examples illustrating the range and complexity of the issues involved. One involved a Polish car worker laid off in Britain. Should he be allowed to return home to look for work while receiving British unemployment benefit, as he currently could? Another was of a self-employed photographer from Manchester who lives in Malaga and goes bankrupt. What will her rights to healthcare be in Spain and what about her social security situation if she returns to Britain, Barnier asked. You've probably already seen The Oatmeal comic in your social media feed several times now. Its beautiful illustrations are paired with an elegant, clever explanation about something called the "backfire effect." Basically, it describes why people double down on their beliefs when presented with contradictory information. SEE ALSO: What Facebook must do to prepare its 3,000 new moderators for the trauma they'll face The cartoon is powerful because we can all relate to that feeling of using facts to inform a heated political debate or sway someone's opinion and getting nowhere. And that's exactly the problem the comic's author, Matthew Inman, wanted to address, especially in the wake of Donald Trump's election. You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you https://t.co/XwFjK9EOyl pic.twitter.com/QRSalVfuKK Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) May 2, 2017 The only problem is that political scientists aren't sure the backfire effect is a real thing, and if it does exist, it may be rare. We know what you're thinking: Why do the fact police have to ruin the best thing that happened to your social media feed all week? The cartoon is pretty, funny, smart, and even hopeful about the importance of finding common ground when we vehemently disagree. That's all great stuff, and very important. But what you should keep in mind while reading the cartoon is that the backfire effect can be hard to replicate in rigorous research. So hard, in fact, that a large-scale, peer-reviewed study presented last August at the American Political Science Associations annual conference couldn't reproduce the findings of the high-profile 2010 study that documented backfire effect. Story continues FWIW idea that backfire fx always happen = not even true in our initial study. But I've revised my priors a lot as we & others did more work Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) March 26, 2017 Tom Wood and Ethan Porter, political scientists and assistant professors at The Ohio State University and George Washington University, respectively, and co-authors of the recent study, say they came to the subject of backfire effect as "acolytes." They found this particular explanation of human behavior so compelling that they wanted to dedicate a good portion of their research to understanding and identifying it. So they challenged 8,100 people's knowledge of abortion, gun violence, undocumented immigration, fracking pollution, and dozens of other issues that stir intense emotions. But study participants didn't demonstrate the tendency to embrace falsehoods even more after being told the truth. Technically, they did observe a backfire effect when people were questioned about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but even that finding came with caveats because of the question's complicated wording. "We were desperately looking for any evidence ... and to our dismay its impossible to replicate," says Wood. This is important, Wood and Porter say, because if the backfire effect exists, it means something really depressing about our politics. After all, if sharing objective facts with someone leads them to believe the falsities you challenge more intensely, then what's the point? "If we believe that everybody is backfiring all the time, theres very little hope for political engagement," says Porter. Now, this doesn't mean that Inman's comic is inherently wrong. Brendan Nyhan, the political scientist who co-authored the 2010 study, has found evidence in subsequent research that people may insist on false beliefs despite being presented with new information. At the same time, Nyhan has since collaborated with Porter and Wood on research that shows fact-checking can be effective. Whether or not there is a backfire effect, the behavior Inman describes is real; political scientists know it as motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. These well-researched psychological phenomena mean that we can be prone to choosing information and data that support our worldview while diminishing or dismissing evidence that contradicts it. To be clear, that's a lot different than learning something is false and endorsing that lie or half-truth even more. Moreover, Porter and Wood's study indicates people do actually heed corrective information. Fun comic - labeled as being about the backfire effect, but really considers disconfirmation bias more generally https://t.co/UWRAjVMlYi Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) May 3, 2017 The trouble is that even when we learn that something is false, we may be able to acknowledge those facts without changing our political position accordingly. A person's political identity, say Porter and Wood, isn't easily influenced by learning, for example, that Trump routinely spreads false information about pretty much everything, or that Hillary Clinton has told her share of half-truths. You can sum up that tension like this, says Wood: "My guy happened to tell a fib sure no one is perfect but Im not going to go out and vote for the other guy." That still leaves the rest of us trying to figure out how to talk through our dueling beliefs, which is where Inman's comic shines. "The emotional core of this is about this idea of how we resist things and how do we get [people] to soften," he says. Image: matthew inman / the oatmeal Inman knows from his own experience on the internet that marshaling all the facts in the world can't, for example, convince some people that climate change is real. If the backfire effect is real, nihilism might be the most appropriate response to the prospect of influencing anyone's attitudes or beliefs with facts. But Inman rejects that approach and instead invokes our common humanity and ends with a bipartisan plea to listen. "I'm not here to take control of the wheel," he writes. "Or to tell you what to believe. I'm just here to tell you that it's okay to stop. To listen. To change." Those common sense words of wisdom are the best part of the comic, and you don't really need science to confirm that the ability to listen and change is essential to a more civil, informed politics. From Woman's Day Brian and Brittany Schear were traveling home from a family vacation in Hawaii when an official told them they had to give up their 2-year-old son's paid-for seat-or risk jail time. ABC 7 reports that they were on a midnight Delta flight from Hawaii when the incident occurred, and it forced them to spend $2,000 on a hotel room and new plane tickets. When they traveled to Hawaii, they were on the flight with Brian's 18-year-old son, Mason, along with their two small children, ages 1 and 2. Little Grayson, 2, did not have his own seat, and the family struggled to keep him quiet and calm during the 5+ hour flight. Luckily, a seat was open on that flight, so they put Grayson there in his car seat so he could sleep. On the way back, the family paid to send Mason on an earlier flight so they could use his seat on the later flight for Grayson. But the flight was apparently overbooked, and officials told the family they had to give up Grayson's seat and put him on a parent's lap, because Mason-the original passenger whose name was on the seat-was not on board. Brian told ABC 7 that he was told, "You have to give up the seat or you're going to jail, your wife is going to jail, and they'll take your kids from you." An official told them it was against federal regulations to even have Grayson in a car seat at all, because he was too young. But this may not be true, as the FAA and Delta both have policies on their websites urging parents to buy separate seats for young children in safety seats, according to ABC 7. "We want you and your children to have the safest, most comfortable flight possible, for kids under the age of two, we recommend you purchase a seat on the aircraft and use an approved child safety seat," Delta's website reads. The Schear family started filming their encounter and posted it on YouTube. "We never thought it was going to get to the point where they were actually getting us all off the flight," Brian told CBS Los Angeles. "As we were leaving the plane, there's four or five passengers waiting for our seat. The bottom line is, they oversold the flight." Story continues Eventually, Brian relented and said they would put Grayson on their lap, but it was too late, and officials kicked them off the plane. They told ABC 7 they had to pay for a hotel room and buy entirely new plane tickets, this time on United, setting them back $2,000. Delta has not yet responded to a request for comment, but released the following statement to local news outlets: "We're sorry for what this family experienced. Our team has reached out and will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution." Brian told CBS Los Angeles that he doesn't want a refund from the airline-he just wants an apology. Update, 5/4, 2:15 p.m: The Federal Aviation Administration has issued the following statement in response to the incident. The agency noted the official was wrong to claim the 2-year-old should not be seated in a carrier, but added they do not control what airlines do in cases of overbooking. "The safest place for a young child under the age of two on an airplane is in a child restraint, not on a parent's lap. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strongly encourages parents to secure children in a separate seat in an appropriate restraint based on weight and size. If a seat is purchased for a child, an airline must allow that child to use the restraint as long as the child meets the restraint manufacturer's height and weight criteria, it is properly labeled and says that it is approved for use on aircraft, is not in an exit row, can be properly installed in the aircraft seat, and the child holds a ticket for the seat. FAA safety regulations do not address airline policies for overbooking or boarding procedures. For information on flying safely with children go to http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/" Update, 5/4, 5:25 p.m: Delta has responded with the following statement: "We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we've reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation. Delta's goal is to always work with customers in an attempt to find solutions to their travel issues. That did not happen in this case and we apologize." You Might Also Like The first American soldier since Black Hawk Down has been killed in Somalia. The soldier was killed in action during an advising mission with Somali National Army Forces, and two others were injured, the Department of Defense confirmed to the Independent. It is the first US service member death since 1993 when two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down on a one hour long mission, forcing the American military to stage a rescue operation that lasted through the night and resulted in 18 American deaths. The Department of Defense declined to disclose which branch of the military the soldier was in, since the next of kin had not yet been notified, but they are believed to a US Navy SEAL. Two soldiers who were injured are currently receiving medical care. Read more Somalia drought: the choice between freedom and hunger The incident occurred during an operation roughly 40 miles west of Mogadishu, according to US Africa Command. The US assists partner forces there to counter the efforts of al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate in the region. Al-Shabaab is known a terror organisation and has been known for attempts to inspire attacks against the United States and its western allies. American forces assist Somali allies in order to degrade the al-Qaeda affiliates ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and in America, according to the release The failures in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu more commonly known as Black Hawk Down had sweeping impacts on American foreign policy that endure today. The deaths of a dozen and a half soldiers, and the broadcast of brutal footage of American corpses being desecrated stateside, ultimately led the US to pull troops out of the country, leaving a vacuum and safe haven for extremist groups to grow. Withdrawing from Somalia also allowed Osama bin Laden to start the narrative that the US isnt used to hardship so if extremists inflict pain on American troops, they will withdraw from that area. His message hoped to encourage extremists who may have otherwise been deterred by Americas military power. By Bernie Woodall (Reuters) - The Florida Senate on Friday narrowly passed a measure that would allow more people to object to textbooks and classroom materials used in public schools, a move opponents warn could result in censorship of controversial topics. The bill lets any resident seek a hearing to have what they see as objectionable textbooks, library books or material removed from schools. Under current law, only parents of public school children can object to school materials. The new measure would provide for an unbiased third party to advise local county school boards hearing such challenges. The Republican-controlled Senate voted 19-17 to approve the measure, largely along party lines, with two Republicans voting against it. The legislation, which passed the House of Representatives last month in a 94-25 vote, now goes to Republican Governor Rick Scott. Scotts office would not say whether he plans to sign the bill into law. Similar measures have been considered by dozens of state legislatures in recent years, typically backed by conservative organizations and politicians, and viewed by critics as targeting evolution, climate change and sexually explicit material. Were not trying to ban books," said Keith Flaugh, founder of the Florida Citizens' Alliance, which pushed for that state's bill. He said his group is seeking balance in school instruction, including teaching both evolution and creationism and the various arguments about climate change. Republican Senator Rob Bradley said during the floor debate on Friday that there was no reason to "fear the debate" by taxpayers on what schools teach. But Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said parents and residents should not make decisions about what is taught in schools. 'Balance' is a code word for 'censor,'" she said. "It means they dont like what is being taught, and they want something else being taught. Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Education Association, a teachers union, said, "Our biggest concern is that people with a political viewpoint may be able to get stuff tossed out that is sound educationally but unacceptable to some." (Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis) Rome (AFP) - At a time of a record-high number of people fleeing their homes due to violent conflicts, the UN food agency said Friday a global crisis in food supplies is causing even more migrants to cross borders. "Each one percentage increase in food insecurity in a population compels 1.9 percent more people to migrate," a new report by the World Food Programme (WFP) said. In addition, 0.4 percent more people flee a country for each additional year of conflict, it said. Little or no access to food and other humanitarian assistance compel people to keep moving. and then they also often find due to the hardship of their journey that migration itself can cause food insecurity. "At WFP, we are doing everything we can to care for refugees who are hungry or starving across the world, said David Beasley, WFP executive director. By understanding the dynamics that compel people to move, we can better address what lies at the heart of forced migration and what must be done to end their suffering, he said. The WFP report includes some accounts that give a sense of the food crisis facing migrants. A woman who fled Syria to Jordan with her family told the UN: We had to eat grass to survive. My kids stayed up all night crying because they were hungry. A man from Deir Ezzor in war-torn eastern Syria told of the suffering he had witnessed: They made people hungry, stole our produce, closed schools, and prevented people from working. The total number of migrants worldwide reached 244 million in 2015, and among them a record 63 million were forced to leave their homes, including refugees, displaced people within their countries and asylum seekers, the Rome-based UN agency. The WFP study also found that armed conflict was what triggered migrants to cross borders, and to a lesser extent natural catastrophes and economic factors. The report also said that displaced people don't want to move away and try to stay close to their place of origin. "Nearly eight in ten Syrian refugee families interviewed had been internally displaced inside Syria at least once, and 65 percent twice or more," the WFP said. The report recommended that the international community invest in food supplies and livelihoods as close as possible to the displaced peoples homes to reduce further displacement and further migration. By Emmanuel Jarry and Dhara Ranasinghe PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - Independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron appeared to cement his position as favorite for the French presidency on Thursday as the dust settled on a rancorous final televised debate with far-right rival Marine Le Pen. Three days before the final round of France's most important election in decades, the premium investors demand to hold French bonds over German ones reached its narrowest point in six months, reflecting perceptions that Le Pen, the markets' nightmare scenario as French president, had missed her last chance to unseat Macron. At stake are two diametrically opposed views of Europe and France's place in the world. Le Pen would close borders and quit the euro currency while Macron wants closer European cooperation and an open economy. According to a snap poll by Elabe for BFMTV, 63 percent of viewers found Macron the more convincing of the two candidates in Wednesday night's debate, reinforcing his status as favorite to move into the Elysee Palace. A second poll by Harris Interactive found that 42 percent of people found the 39-year-old Macron more compelling in the debate, during which the candidates traded barbs over the economy, the euro and how to combat terrorism. Twenty-six percent found Le Pen, 48, more persuasive, while 31 percent chose neither candidate, Harris said. And on Thursday, a survey of voting intentions by Ifop-Fiducial showed Macron extending his lead over Le Pen to 61-39 percent from 60-40 the previous day. The first poll on the June parliamentary election, published on Wednesday, showed Macron's year-old En Marche! (Onwards!) movement also set to emerge as the largest party in parliament, suggesting he would be able to push through his program. "In France, we still talk about tail risk but that appears to be subsiding after the TV debate," said Commerzbank rates strategist David Schnautz. Meanwhile, the rancour, accusations and counter-accusations of Wednesday night's two-and-a-half-hour debate between the two candidates continued into Thursday. The French prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the Macron camp's complaint that fake news was being spread to influence voting. Macron had earlier denied allegations that he used a foreign tax haven as claimed on social media and referred to by Le Pen during the debate. He accused her of spreading lies. Separately, Le Pen's campaign issued a statement saying its web site had been regularly attacked by hackers throughout the election race and that it had filed a complaint with the police. But signs that Macron was more firmly in the driving seat than ever pervaded the day. Le Pen's niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a National Front lawmaker, said in an interview with L'Opinion magazine and financial website Boursorama that if Le Pen won more than 40 percent of Sunday's vote it would be "an enormous victory" that would position the party "as the only real, credible opposition." And a small group of protesters threw eggs at Le Pen as she arrived for a campaign event in Brittany on Thursday, shouting "Out with the Fascists!" Former U.S. President Barack Obama endorsed Macron in a video message released by En Marche! on Thursday, praising him for appealing "to people's hopes and not their fears". CRITICAL FATHER Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was critical of his daughter's performance, saying most viewers would probably have found the first part of the debate incomprehensible. "That may have benefited Emmanuel Macron, but it didn't work to the advantage of Marine Le Pen, who perhaps lacked gravitas," the founder of the National Front told RTL radio. Macron has promised to stimulate economic growth with training programs and a relaxation of labor laws, while reducing state expenditure. Campaigning on an anti-EU, anti-globalisation platform, Le Pen has sought to portray Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, as part of an out-of-touch elite responsible for France's ills, including unemployment of about 10 percent, low growth and a two-year spate of Islamist violence. On the subject of the alleged fake news, Macron's camp said that, two hours before Wednesday's debate started, an anonymous account posted documents on an Internet forum purporting to prove that Macron had an offshore account, and the information was quickly distributed on Twitter. Macron's team released a screenshot of what it said was a falsified signature on documents purportedly proving "Macron's secret tax evasion" as well as a trail of tweets spreading the information. Le Pen told BFM TV on Thursday that she had no proof Macron had an offshore account, but did not want undisclosed funds to come to light when it was too late. Feike Hacquebord, a researcher with security firm Trend Micro, said last week he had found evidence that Macron's campaign had been targeted by a cyber espionage group linked by some experts to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. Russia has denied involvement in attacks on Macron's campaign. (Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas and Myriam Rivet; Writing by Adrian Croft; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Andrew Callus/Mark Heinrich) Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday upbraided Switzerland for allegedly monitoring German finance inspectors who hunt cross-border tax cheats. In a further sign of Germany's anger over the affair, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible" but hoped it would not "wreck" the countries' good relationship. On April 28, German prosecutors said they had arrested a Swiss man, identified as Daniel M., 54, who was accused of carrying out espionage activities since 2012. According to the German media, his alleged mission was to identify German tax investigators involved in purchasing stolen data on German residents who illegally stashed their money in Switzerland. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio on Saturday, Gabriel said the episode was "incredible." He said he had discussed the affair with Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who assured him that monitoring of German tax inspectors was not ongoing, as it had stopped in 2014. Gabriel also reacted strongly to arrest warrants issued by Switzerland for German tax inspectors. He described this move as "scandalous," adding that Germany had not yet received the warrants and would not reply to them anyway. Since January 2006, several Germany states have bought CDs or USB sticks containing stolen data on German tax cheats, which come from Switzerland or Liechtenstein. As a result, many of Germany's rich, powerful and famous have had to issue public apologies and paid back-taxes and fines. Switzerland, where secrecy has been a cornerstone of the banking industry, reacted with outrage to the theft. Berlin on Tuesday asked the Swiss ambassador, Christine Schraner Burgener, to clarify the case. Gabriel on Saturday said he hoped that light would be shed on the affair and that German-Swiss relations would not be hurt. "We do not wish to wreck our relationship with Switzerland, which is excellent," he said. Story continues According to a report in Bild daily on Tuesday, the alleged Swiss spy was a former police officer and a double agent who at one stage had spied for Germany on Switzerland. In a joint report, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and public broadcasters NDR and WDR added the spy had run a paid informant inside the finance ministry of North Rhein-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. The information reportedly helped Swiss authorities file charges of breaching Swiss banking laws and economic espionage against three German tax investigators. In May 2015, the EU and Switzerland signed an agreement on exchanging bank data from 2018 that will effectively end the Swiss tradition of bank secrecy for members of the bloc. Washington (AFP) - With US Republicans relishing a win in the Obamacare repeal process, Democrats Friday girded for battle, warning that despite President Donald Trump's optimism, the health bill's fate is far from certain. Republicans took major political risks by backing a deeply controversial bill, and Democrats hope to make them pay at the polls in midterm elections next year. Wrangling now shifts to the Senate, where Republicans, who hold a slim majority there, say they are readying their own health care measure. The end result could look quite different from what narrowly cleared the House of Representatives Thursday. Democrats seized the offensive, insisting it was a pipe dream to think the Republican plan forecast to push 24 million people off insurance could become law as it stands. "This Republican health care bill needs to either be flushed down the toilet or thrown in the garbage. It's not getting through the Senate," Senator Bernie Sanders fumed on Twitter. "Trumpcare battle is just beginning," added House Democrat Joe Kennedy III, urging liberal senators like Elizabeth Warren to lead the upcoming fight. Moderate Senate Republicans are expected to reject or tweak several elements of the bill. Several have expressed concern about the House plan's rollback of Medicaid, limited assistance for low-income Americans, and a provision that allows insurers to increase premiums for people with pre-existing conditions -- a practice the current law prohibits. The White House insisted Friday that negotiators are focused on "big principles" such as lowering costs and empowering states, and that tweaks were inevitable. "I feel like there will be some changes, that is part of the process," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. Trump raised eyebrows after the House win when he praised Australia's government-funded health care system during a meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Story continues But Trump backpedaled Friday, tweeting: "Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do -- everybody does." But with the replacement of Obamacare, he added, "our healthcare will soon be great." It was Trump himself who proclaimed in January that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act will lead to "insurance for everybody." But the House bill falls short of that goal, and Democrats have warned that it exposes millions of vulnerable Americans. House Republican Conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers highlighted her son's Down syndrome to show that the Republican goal of protecting people with pre-existing conditions was "a personal mission" for her. "Despite what people are saying, House Republicans aren't seeking to strip these protections or anyone's protections away," she wrote in the Washington Post. Democrats have taunted Republicans about possibly losing their House majority in 2018 because of their votes. The Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for 20 Republican districts in the 2018 elections to reflect improved Democratic chances. Most ratings went from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican" or from "lean Republican" to "toss up." By Peter Szekely NEW YORK (Reuters) - Heavy, wind-driven rain soaked the New York City area on Friday afternoon, causing local flooding and an array of transportation delays across the heavily populated region. The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for much of New York City and several suburban counties as a weather system that stretched across much of the Eastern Seaboard dumped three inches of rain on the metropolitan region in three hours. The rain forced the closure of Manhattan's West Side Highway, a major thoroughfare along the Hudson River, for at least 10 blocks, and caused extensive traffic delays citywide, New York City's Office of Emergency Management said. While the intensity of rainfall had diminished shortly before the evening rush hour, water in flood-affected areas was expected to take several hours to recede. The weather service received reports of flooding across all five boroughs of New York City, prompting some vehicle rescues, spokesman Tim Morrin said. "The problem was the rain came down so heavy and so fast that the drainage couldn't keep up," Morrin said. "Roads became quickly impassible." Many flights in and out of New York airports experienced long delays and there were many cancellations. Hardest hit was LaGuardia Airport, where more than 34 percent of departing flights were delayed and 14 percent canceled, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks air travel. The PATH rail service that connects New Jersey to Manhattan suspended service on two lines on Friday, citing a power problem. Flooding forced the temporary closure of the main entrance to Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, according to local media. The reports could not be immediately confirmed by Reuters. The weather-related disruption was especially aggravating for commuters from New Jersey and Long Island suburbs who have endured hours-long delays in recent weeks after derailments and other incidents at Penn Station. Claire Jones, 19, who commutes from her home in New Jersey to New York, said her New Jersey Transit line running in and out of Penn Station was delayed at least six times this month. "It's difficult," Jones said. "The main thing about time transit is that it's convenient so you know if you get on this train at this time, you'll get where you need to go, and when that doesn't happen, it's extremely inconvenient." Amtrak, which owns and operates New York's Penn Station and leases tracks and space to NJ Transit and the Long Island Railroad, is planning to close some tracks for weeks and months at a time as it undertakes repairs The station, with its decaying, century-old rail tunnels extending underneath the Hudson River, is a chokepoint on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which runs from Washington to Boston. The storm also caused inconvenience at the New York's Oculus transportation hub in lower Manhattan, which opened only last August. Its roof began leaking, scattering hundreds of travelers, a Twitter-posted picture showed. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Oculus at the World Trade Center complex, could not immediately confirm the leak. (Reporting by Laila Kearney, Gina Cherelus and Jonathan Allen; Writing by Peter Szekely; Editing by Leslie Adler) Photo credit: Getty From Woman's Day Parents of newborn premature babies often find themselves feeling helpless when they see their baby hooked up to countless machines in the NICU, with their child's life entirely in others' hands. But one UK hospital is working to change the situation so that parents are more involved with their baby's care in what they're calling a "family integrated care system." The system trains parents to care for their preemies so that in a matter of weeks, will be pros at handling everyday care such as temperature taking, feeding, and even inserting nasogastric feeding tubes, according to the BBC. While some may worry about the dangers of placing this sensitive care in the hands of parents, the nurses and medical staff ensure that the parents receive thorough training and are watched carefully until they do everything just right. Dr. Liz McKechnie, a neonatologist at St. James's University Hospital in Leeds, told the BBC that the family integrated care system was not created to cut costs for the hospital and that no one has been laid off. On the contrary, nurses are spending more time training the parents than they would have caring for the babies themselves, but so far, the results have been worth it. Breastfeed rates have increased, long-term development of the babies is improving, and families are bringing their preemies home from the hospital much sooner, simply by placing the parents "at the very center of the team caring for the baby," McKechnie told the BBC. "It is not rocket science, it is such a straightforward thing to do, to allow parents to look after their babies." Photo credit: Getty While this family integrated care system may seem new and innovative, the idea was actually sparked in the 1970s at a hospital in the Soviet Union. Facing an influx of premature babies and not enough nurses to care for them, the hospital began giving parents a greater role in NICU purely out of necessity, only to find that the babies were thriving from regular "skin to skin" contact with their mothers, according to the BBC. Thirty years later, other hospitals around the world are beginning to adopt the system, which has already been implemented in countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Story continues "The fact is that families are going home more confident and more able to care for their babies, and that means a lot," McKechnie said. "Nobody wants to stop it; it is definitely here to stay. Everybody can see the benefits of it." (h/t Babble) Follow Woman's Day on Instagram. You Might Also Like A pod of killer whales is stalking baby grey whales off Monterey Bay in California, but a patrolling group of humpback whales is doing everything in its power to foil the killer whales' attacks. At this time of year, gray whales and their calves are making their way up the California coast as part of their annual migration from Mexico to Alaska. A bounty of young, harmless grey whale calves is an irresistible lure for the top ocean-predators. [Watch Video of the Humpbacks Trying to Save the Gray Whale Calves] Killer whales (or orcas) can always be found in the area off Monterey, but this year has been particularly grim for the killer whales' prey. One orca gang, led by an adult female named Emma, has been camped out in Monterey Bay for the past few weeks, said marine biologist Nancy Black, who works with Monterey Bay Whale Watch, a whale-watching outfit. In the last 12 days, the deadly orcas have killed seven gray whale calves, she said. Meanwhile, humpbacks have been in the area to feed on anchovies. They do not appear to be fans of the orcas' deadly onslaught. Whenever they see an orca attack a gray whale calf, they rush in to stop it. A pod of killer whales is stalking baby grey whales off Monterey Bay in California. Monterey Bay Whale Watch "Humpbacks have been charging in, probably because killer whales are the natural predators of the humpbacks also," Black said. "They are charging in and trumpeting and trying to get in the way, using their tail flukes to try to slash them and push them away," and being as boisterous and annoying as possible in the area, she said. Savior instinct It's not clear why humpbacks are trying to save the day, but it may just be a byproduct of their natural "hatred" for killer whales. Killer whales also prey upon humpback calves (though not adult humpbacks), Black said. Around this time of year, though, humpbacks don't have their calves with them, so stepping in isn't a matter of self-defense. "They're probably instinctually just trying to push away their predator from the area, whether it's a different species of animal doesn't matter, they just want to get them away," Black told Live Science. Story continues This isn't the first time scientists have documented this phenomenon. A study in 2016 found that humpbacks band together to fight off killer whale attacks, no matter the species involved. Humpbacks are probably lured to the area by killer whale vocalizations, Black said. So far, Black hasn't seen a humpback whale successfully stop a gray whale kill, but they have made feeding on a gray whale calf carcass more stressful, Black said. However, humpbacks are often successful at saving sea lions or other small mammals from the killer whales' jaws. Humpbacks "have prevented killer whales from catching seals and sea lions," Black said. "They push the sea lion out of the way and save it." It's not clear exactly why the humpbacks play the hero, as no other creature on Earth seems willing to stand up to killer whales and certainly not for a different species. "Other whales like blue whales, when they hear killer whales, they flee," Black said. " Blue whales take off in the opposite direction." Blue whales are the largest animals on Earth. Originally published on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations Tehran (AFP) - Iran's armed forces warned President Hassan Rouhani against discussing the country's defence programme after he criticised the anti-Israel slogans written on the side of ballistic missiles, local media reported on Saturday. During an election debate on Friday, Rouhani took the rare step of criticising the elite Revolutionary Guards for the provocative messages they wrote on ballistic missiles before testing them. "We saw how they wrote slogans on missiles and showed underground (missile) cities to disrupt the JCPOA (nuclear deal)," he said during the debate, which comes ahead of the May 19 election. Armed Forces spokesman General Masoud Jazayeri responded that the missile programme had "no connection" to the nuclear deal. "We again stress and recommend the presidential candidates to avoid controversial entries into important and sensitive military and defence issues of the country and giving false information to people," said Jazayeri, according to the website of state broadcaster IRIB. "The existence of underground missile sites are an important deterrent factor against the sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the nation," Jazayeri added. Iran says its ballistic missile tests are part of its legitimate defence programme and are not a violation of the 2015 deal, under which it agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to certain sanctions. But Washington has used them as a pretext for fresh sanctions, saying the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future. All six candidates in the presidential election support the nuclear deal since it had the tacit backing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Rouhani has accused his conservative opponents of trying to derail it during negotiations. "Tell people clearly, what will you do regarding (the nuclear deal)? You were all against it," he said during the televised debate. "When (US President Donald) Trump took office you were celebrating because he said he would tear up the deal. Today people should know whether sanctions and confrontation are coming back or not," he added. By Isabel Coles HULAYLA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces pushed further into Mosul from the north on the second day of a new push to speed up the nearly seven-month attempt to dislodge Islamic State, commanders said on Friday. Islamic State tried to block the troops' northerly advance into their de facto Iraqi capital with suicide car bombs and sniper fire, Brigadier General Walid Khalifa, deputy commander of the 9th brigade, told Reuters in Hulayla, west of Musherfa. His troops had killed about 30 militants, destroyed five car bombs before they could be used against them, he said. U.S. air support has proved vital for spotting suicide car bombs and for avoiding targets where civilians are trapped. Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the joint operations command, told Reuters the militants "didn't have time to make barriers, the advance since yesterday has been good". An army statement said the Second Musherfa district as well as the Church and Mikhail's Monastery area had been retaken. The U.S.-backed Iraqi forces' new foothold aims to open escape routes for the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines and, in turn, help troops' progress. Rasool said Iraqi forces rescued 1,000 families on Thursday. Footage taken by a drone operated by the Iraqi 9th Armoured Division over the northwestern suburb of Musherfa and seen by Reuters, showed the militants had scant defenses there, unlike in other parts of Mosul where streets are blocked by anti-tank barriers and vehicles. U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Browning, the partnered adviser to the 9th, said the militants had tried to keep some streets open in order to use suicide car bombs. Islamic State was probably expecting the attack, he said, "but they can't defend everywhere". Only two months ago, the militants would be firing 200 rockets or mortars at Iraqi forces in Mosul on any given day, Browning said, but in the past two days it dropped to about 30. "When you open up more fronts it becomes harder for (Islamic State) to be able to defend. There are certainly some challenges. There are defenses in place," he told Reuters. WHITE FLAG Islamic State had taken up positions in the homes of civilians in Musherfa, said one man who came out of Mosul carrying his handicapped son. "They knocked on our door but we did not open it. When the army came we raised the white flag," he said. He was among several dozen people walking out of Musherfa with the full beard that Islamic State makes men grow in places where it holds power. The 9th Armoured Division and the Interior Ministry's Rapid Response units are aiming for the Tigris river bank to complete their encirclement of the Islamic State-held Old City center. Their progression should help the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and Interior Ministry Federal Police troops who are painstakingly advancing from the south. The militants are now besieged in the northwestern corner of Mosul which includes the historic Old City, the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, and its landmark leaning minaret where their black flag has been flying since June 2014. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" spanning parts of Syria and vast swathes of Iraqi territory from the pulpit of the Grand al-Nuri Mosque nearly three years ago. The Iraqi army said on April 30 that it aimed to complete the battle for Mosul, the largest city to have fallen under Islamic State control, in both Iraq and Syria, this month. However, even defeat in Mosul would not be the end of the hardline Sunni group, which still controls parts of Syria and large amounts of Iraqi territory near the Syrian border. (Reporting by Isabel Coles; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Louise Ireland) The swirling cloud-tops of Jupiter have been revealed in their full glory in a new image snapped by NASAs Juno spacecraft. The image, released by the space agency on Friday, was taken by the JunoCam instrument a high-resolution color camera specially designed to work on a spinning spacecraft from an altitude of about 32,400 miles above the gas giants atmosphere. This enhanced color view of Jupiters south pole was created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset using data from the JunoCam instrument on NASAs Juno spacecraft, the space agency said in a statement accompanying the image. Oval storms dot the cloudscape. Approaching the pole, the organized turbulence of Jupiters belts and zones transitions into clusters of unorganized filamentary structures, streams of air that resemble giant tangled strings. Read: Hubble Snaps Stunning New Image Of Jupiter A previous image of the south pole, captured when the spacecraft was roughly 58,700 miles above the polar region, shows that unlike the belts and zones found in the equatorial regions, the region is mottled by clockwise and counterclockwise rotating storms of various sizes. Jupiter Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gabriel Fiset Friday's photograph was released almost a year after Juno beamed back the first-ever images of Jupiters north pole taken during the first of its three dozen flybys. The images, captured last August, show storm systems that are unlike anything seen on the other gas giants of our solar system. First glimpse of Jupiters north pole, and it looks like nothing we have seen or imagined before, Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement at the time. Its bluer in color up there than other parts of the planet, and there are a lot of storms. There is no sign of the latitudinal bands or zone and belts that we are used to -- this image is hardly recognizable as Jupiter. Were seeing signs that the clouds have shadows, possibly indicating that the clouds are at a higher altitude than other features. Story continues Juno, which completed its most recent flyby of Jupiter (which was its fourth science orbit) on March 27, was launched in 2011. The primary goal of the mission is to investigate whether the biggest planet in the solar system has a solid core, and whether there is water in the planet's atmosphere. So far, in addition to snapping stunning images of turbulent weather systems in Jupiters dense atmosphere, the solar-powered spacecraft has also revealed that the planets magnetic fields and aurora are bigger and more powerful than originally thought. On the gas giant, solar winds carrying charged particles known as coronal mass ejections compress Jupiters magnetosphere, shifting its boundary inward by more than a million miles. This gives rise to energetic X-rays in Jupiters aurorae, which cover an area bigger than the surface of Earth. Junos next close flyby is scheduled for May 19. Juno is providing spectacular results, and we are rewriting our ideas of how giant planets work, Bolton said in a statement released in February. Related Articles Bogota (AFP) - A UN official kidnapped in Colombia, allegedly by a renegade faction of FARC rebel, is just hours from being freed, military leaders here said on Friday. The official with the UN Office on Crime and Drugs was kidnapped Wednesday in the southeastern department of Guaviare while on a tour to promote replacing coca with legal crops, according to the United Nations. Colombian Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas told reporters Friday that a military delegation dispatched to the southeastern region where the abduction occurred has worked out the terms of UN official's release with his captors. Authorities did not identify the UN worker, other than to say that he was a Colombian national. A landmark peace deal signed in November between the leftwing rebels and the government calls for the FARC to transition its 7,000 fighters to civilian life. But a rump group of some 300 FARC holdouts have refused to lay down their arms and still maintain links to drug trafficking. Cinco de Mayo, which is widely recognized as a time to drink margaritas, eat guacamole and celebrate Mexico's cultural heritage, is celebrated to honor the Battle of Puebla that took place on May 5, 1862. However, the celebrations have been marred this year by President Donald Trump's stance on undocumented immigrants and the U.S.-Mexico border wall, reports said. This year, the celebration across U.S. is reportedly lesser as Trump steps up federal immigration enforcement. His immigration policies and rhetoric have compelled some Mexican-Americans and immigrants to go low with celebrations. Some immigrant enclaves have canceled or reduced Cinco de Mayo celebrations fearing that party-goers could be exposed to possible deportation. For example, in Philadelphia, a Cinco de Mayo-related celebration was canceled after organizers thought turnout would dip considerably over concerns about immigration raids. Read: 7 Facts About Cinco De Mayo Celebrations For 25-year-old Mexican-born Yazmin Irazoqui Ruiz, a medical student in the U.S., Cinco de Mayo is a reason to eat tacos and listen to Mexican music. However, she said that she is hesitant to take part in the festivities this year due to Trump's tough immigration policies. Irazoqui Ruiz said: "I mean, what is it about? You want to eat our food and listen to our music, but when we need you to defend us, where are you?" ABC News reported. The other reason of people refraining from attending Cinco de Mayo parties is that they could take a worse turn. In the aftermath of Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, Mexicans can be attacked and mocked at. In Waco, Texas, a college fraternity at Baylor University was suspended after throwing a Cinco de Mayo party, where students were reportedly dressed as construction workers and maids, shouting slogans, "Build that Wall," referring to the president's promise of building the border wall. The party sparked an investigation and a campus protest, reports said. Story continues Joanna Renteria, a Mexican-American blogger in San Francisco said: "I don't like to be so angry or shut people down for celebrating. But when anyone makes an ignorant comment about my culture, it does affect me." In the White House too, for the first time in 16 years, Cinco de Mayo celebrations have been canceled, reports said. Instead of a White House celebration this year, Vice President Mike Pence hosted a reception celebrating Cinco de Mayo in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, according to La Opinion. The celebrations were initiated by former President George W. Bush. Speculations were rife that Trump would not continue the tradition of celebrating Cinco de Mayo in the White House this year amidst his stance against undocumented immigrants from various countries, the Washington Examiner reported. Cinco de Mayo honors the Mexican army's unlikely victory over France at the Battle of Puebla. During the battle, also known as El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla, a group of only 2,000 Mexicans were outnumbered by 10,000 French troops. However, only 100 Mexican soldiers had died during that war, while the French lost about 500. Related Articles By Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Conservative Party made strong gains in local elections on Friday, suggesting Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit strategy is winning over voters who should hand her an easy victory in a parliamentary poll next month. Partial results from the local elections, which voters often use to punish the ruling party, showed May's Conservatives had instead gained more than 500 council seats. The main opposition Labour Party lost control of councils in strongholds in Wales but the biggest losses were suffered by the anti-EU UK Independence Party, which after two decades of campaigning to leave the European Union has struggled to find a new raison d'etre since Britons voted for Brexit last June. By calling an early national election for June 8, May has made the local votes a gauge of her leadership, and many Conservative candidates have campaigned in recent days using her campaign mantra of "strong and stable leadership". But turnout was low and the Conservatives were careful not to overplay their expected victory next month. May said she was taking nothing for granted. "Only a Conservative vote at the general election will strengthen my hand to get the best Brexit deal," she told supporters. Labour played down its losses. Finance spokesman John McDonnell described the results as tough, but "it hasn't been the wipe-out that some people predicted or the polls predicted". SCOTTISH GAINS The Conservatives also did well in the vote for six metropolitan area mayors. Former retail sector boss Andy Street won a tight contest with Labour for the West Midlands area around Britain's second city Birmingham, although former Labour cabinet member Andy Burnham won Greater Manchester. In Scotland, which since the late 1990s has largely shunned the governing party, early results showed the Conservatives gaining to the detriment of both Labour and, to a lesser extent, the Scottish National Party, which still looked likely to win the lion's share of votes overall. That would mirror a trend predicted in polls for next month's national election, showing the Conservatives becoming the party of choice for many of those who reject Scottish independence. Opinion polls give May a runaway lead in the national election of around 20 percentage points, which could hand her more than 100 more seats in parliament and bolster her hand in divorce negotiations with the EU. May has accused EU officials of seeking to sway the outcome of the election by issuing threats over Brexit, and warned voters that the other 27 member states were lining up against Britain to win a deal that "works for them". 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05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (5) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (6) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (4) May 13 (9) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (5) May 09 (4) May 08 (3) May 07 (5) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (1) May 02 (5) May 01 (7) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (4) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (2) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 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(2) Jun 25 (2) Jun 24 (1) Jun 23 (2) Jun 22 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (3) Jun 12 (1) Jun 11 (1) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 05 (1) Jun 04 (1) Jun 03 (1) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (1) May 27 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (1) May 23 (2) May 22 (1) May 21 (1) May 20 (2) May 19 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (2) May 14 (1) May 13 (1) May 11 (2) May 10 (2) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 06 (1) May 05 (1) May 04 (1) May 03 (3) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 29 (1) Apr 28 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (2) Apr 17 (1) Apr 15 (1) Apr 13 (1) Apr 10 (2) Apr 08 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 24 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (1) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (1) Mar 04 (1) Mar 03 (2) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (2) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (1) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 23 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (1) Feb 02 (1) Jan 31 (1) Jan 22 (1) Jan 18 (1) Jan 16 (1) Jan 09 (1) Jan 01 (1) Dec 20 (2) Dec 15 (1) Dec 13 (1) Dec 11 (1) Nov 30 (1) Nov 27 (1) Nov 20 (1) Nov 11 (1) Nov 10 (1) Oct 23 (1) Oct 20 (1) Oct 01 (1) Sep 30 (1) Sep 29 (1) Sep 24 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 02 (2) Aug 31 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (2) Aug 24 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (1) Aug 18 (3) Aug 16 (1) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 11 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 03 (1) Jul 27 (1) Jul 26 (1) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (1) Jul 21 (1) Jul 19 (1) Jul 15 (1) Jul 14 (1) Jul 13 (3) Jul 10 (1) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (1) Jul 06 (1) Jul 03 (1) Jul 01 (1) Jun 28 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 19 (1) Jun 18 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (2) Jun 11 (1) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 06 (1) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (3) May 30 (1) May 29 (1) May 28 (2) May 26 (1) May 25 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (1) May 15 (1) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (2) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (1) Apr 19 (1) Apr 18 (1) Apr 12 (1) Apr 11 (1) Apr 09 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 05 (1) Apr 01 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 27 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 19 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 16 (1) Mar 15 (2) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) By Mathieu Rosemain and Andrew Callus PARIS (Reuters) - Centrist French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron extended his lead in the polls over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Friday, the final day of campaigning in a tumultuous election race that has turned the country's politics upside down. Sunday's election is seen as the most important in France for decades, with two diametrically opposed views of Europe and France's place in the world at stake. The National Front's Le Pen would close borders and quit the euro currency, while independent Macron, who has never held elected office, wants closer European cooperation and an open economy. The candidates of France's two mainstream parties, which have alternated in power for decades, were both eliminated in the first round of voting on April 23. An Ifop-Fiducial survey on Friday afternoon, hours before official campaigning closed at midnight, showed Macron on course to win 63 percent of votes in the second round and Le Pen 37 percent, the best score for Macron recorded by a major polling organization since mid-April. Four other polls earlier in the day put the centrist on 62 percent and Le Pen on 38 percent, and a fifth showed Macron on 61.5 percent, as his second-round campaign gained ground following a stuttering start last week. Pollsters said Macron had been boosted by his performance in a rancorous final televised debate between the two contenders on Wednesday, which the centrist was judged by French viewers to have won, according to two surveys. Macron's strong showing in the debate, and another poll this week showing his En Marche! (Onwards!) movement likely to emerge as the biggest party in June legislative elections, have lifted the mood among investors worried about the upheaval a Le Pen victory could cause. The gap between French and German 10-year government borrowing costs hit a new six-month low on Friday. European shares eased after a week of gains that were partly driven by easing political worries in France. "Despite that almost nobody expects a surprise, meaning Macron is the overwhelming favorite to win and become the new French president, traders seem to favor (taking) a bit of money off the table," said City of London Markets trader Markus Huber. LE PEN BOOED Le Pen was booed by several dozen protesters, including some brandishing Macron posters, as she visited the cathedral in Reims, northern France, where French kings were crowned in the Middle Ages. Macron toured the small town of Rodez in southern France. Paris's police chief called emergency talks on security before the election after Greenpeace activists scaled the Eiffel Tower on Friday and unfurled a political banner. Separately, police arrested a man suspected of having radical Islamist beliefs near an air base at Evreux, western France, during the night after spotting a suspicious vehicle, police and judicial sources said. Counter-terrorism prosecutors were investigating. Security is a key election issue after attacks by militant Islamists killed more than 230 people in the past two years. Macron was already looking ahead to being in power, telling RTL radio he had decided who would be his prime minister if he wins. He did not reveal a name, saying he would only announce the make-up of his government after he took office. The anti-immigration, anti-EU Le Pen was not giving up. "My goal is to win this presidential election," she said on RTL radio. "I think that we can win." Le Pen was criticized by some pundits for her aggressive approach to Wednesday's presidential debate, seeing this as a setback to her attempts to rid the party of the fringe, extremist image it acquired under the nearly 40-year leadership of her father, Jean-Marie. Defending her forceful stance, Le Pen told RTL: "My words are only the echo of the social violence that is going to explode in this country. "People talk about my aggressiveness, but the terrible aggressiveness is that of Mr. Macron's plan ... which is a plan for social deconstruction and deregulation," she said. ABSTENTION A poll on Friday by Odoxa said a quarter of the French electorate was likely to abstain in Sunday's vote, many of them left-wing voters disappointed after their candidates missed reaching the runoff. The projected abstention rate would be the second-highest for a presidential election runoff since 1965, underscoring the disillusionment of many voters at the choice they now face. The turnout for the first round of the election was close to 78 percent. A poll on Friday showed French voters to be among the most polarized in the European Union, with one in five describing themselves as "extreme" and only about a third as "centrist". The survey from the Bertelsmann Foundation also showed an unusually high level of dissatisfaction in France with the direction of the country, underscoring the challenge that a new president will face. (Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Paris, Danilo Masoni in Milan and Abhinav Ramnarayan in London; Editing by Andrew Roche) (This version of the story corrects the name of subsidiary in 10th paragraph) By Jackie Cai and Adam Jourdan SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's home-grown C919 passenger jet completed its long-delayed maiden flight on Friday, a major first step for Beijing as it looks to raise its profile in the global aviation market and boost high-tech manufacturing at home. Under overcast skies, the white, green and blue aircraft, with "C919" emblazoned on its tail, touched down at Shanghai's international airport after an 80-minute flight to cheers from thousands of dignitaries, aviation workers and enthusiasts. The jet is a symbol of China's ambitions to muscle into a global jet market estimated to be worth $2 trillion over the next two decades, as well as of Beijing's broader "Made in China 2025" plan to spur home-made products, from medicines to robots. "Seeing the C919 take off into the sky made me quite emotional. This is a moment we have waited to see for a very long time," Wang Mingfeng, 42, who witnessed the maiden flight at the Shanghai airport, told Reuters. "I believe that in the not too distant future, we will be neck-and-neck with Boeing and Airbus." At the moment, though, Boeing and Airbus remain far ahead in terms of sales, technical know-how and order books. And the C919, whose test flight was pushed back at least twice since 2014 due to production issues, may need years of tests to get certified in China, as well as in the United States and Europe. On Friday, the C919 flew north over the Yangtze River delta, carried out maneuvers and then returned south along the coast before landing, according to aircraft tracker Flightradar24. State media said the plane flew at around 3,000 meters and at speeds of 290-300 kilometers (180-186 miles) per hour. The crew of five pilots and engineers, all wearing orange jump suits and aviators, were applauded as they disembarked. The plane, which can carry 158-168 passengers, had no passenger seats installed for the maiden flight. Story continues A letter from China's ministerial cabinet, read out after the plane landed, said the successful flight marked a "major breakthrough" and milestone for China's passenger jet industry. The industry ministry said in a statement the flight went smoothly and that all the systems functioned properly. The C919, made by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) [CMAFC.UL], relies on overseas technology from firms including General Electric , France's Safran , Honeywell International Inc and United Technologies Corp subsidiary UTC Aerospace Systems. China Eastern Airlines <600115.SS> is the launch customer for the plane, which COMAC says has 570 orders from 23 customers. HARDSHIP, STRUGGLE Conceived in 2008, China wants the C919 to eventually take market share from Boeing and Airbus in the lucrative narrow-body market which accounts for more than 50 percent of the aircraft in service worldwide. For a TIMELINE on the C919, click "Every year we spend billions on buying planes," a COMAC promotional video showed President Xi Jinping saying during a site visit. He added China should become more self-reliant. However, the jet likely faces a lengthy journey from first flight to commercial usage. China's first home-made jet, the regional ARJ-21, received its type certification in December 2014, six years after its first flight and more than 12 years after it was conceived. It made its maiden passenger flight in June last year. Then there is also the daunting task of selling the jet in a global market dominated by Boeing and Airbus. "Aviation is a complex market and you need experience over a long time. Boeing has 100 years, Airbus has over 40 years," said Sinolink Securities analyst Si Jingzhe, adding COMAC still lagged far behind in terms of supply chain know-how. China is aware the path won't be easy. On a media visit on Thursday to COMAC's C919 assembly plant less than 10 kilometers from the airport, large red banners could be seen in giant hangars calling for long-term "hardship", "dedication" and "struggle" to meet the firm's goals. China is pushing for recognition globally of its certification by European and U.S. regulators as without their certification, it would only be able to sell the jet to a handful of countries that accept its certification standards. But Beijing is already looking beyond the C919, with plans to develop a wide-body long-haul jet with Russia. In November COMAC and its partner United Aircraft Corp said they have started the hunt to find suppliers. (To view a graphic on 'Passenger jets compared' click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/25/49/index.html) (Reporting by Jackie Cai, Adam Jourdan and Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by SHANGHAI newsroom; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) By Chris Kenning (Reuters) - Call it a 'kid'-napping. When St. Paul, Minnesota, police early Friday searched a GMC Yukon Denali that had crashed following a chase, they found an unlikely victim in the cargo area. Four people fled the sports-utility vehicle, but Gordy the goat was found lying down with an orange electrical cord around his neck. Police said Gordy had been abducted at Indian Mounds Park from a herd of goats that had been rented by the St. Paul Parks and Recreation department. Their job: To eat invasive plants on a difficult-to-reach bluff along the Mississippi River. It was the St. Paul Police Department's first known case of goat-thieving, said spokesman Steve Linders. The motive is still a mystery. "I wish I knew," said Clare Cloyd, a spokeswoman from St. Paul Parks and Recreation, which was only three days into its experiment with the goat herd when the theft occurred. Linders said two 29-year-old men were arrested on potential charges of gross misdemeanor theft and fleeing police. Gordy was returned unharmed to the park. Some of his herd had escaped through a damaged fence and were rounded up, according to park officials. Since then, a police Facebook post about the incident has gotten an usual amount of attention with comments like "stealing really gets my goat." (Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Andrew Hay) cameronabadi On April 13, the U.S. military dropped a huge bomb on caves and tunnels used by Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan. The resulting blast reverberated several miles away, reportedly killed dozens of terrorists, and exposed the poverty of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. The mother of all bombs was devastating but it was used against the wrong target, for the wrong reasons. Analysts and Trump administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have suggested that the bomb was targeted more at intimidating North Korea and Syria than battlefield objectives in Afghanistan. Its true that Islamic State-affiliated militants in Afghanistan have claimed a series of attacks over the last few years including, most recently, a hit on a NATO convoy in Kabul on May 2 that killed eight civilians. Still, theyve struggled to carve out a major presence in the country. Theyve alienated locals with their savagery and made the Taliban look gentle in comparison. Punishing and sustained U.S. strikes, often undertaken jointly with Afghan forces, have already killed their leaders and badly degraded their ranks. But the Islamic States savagery has drawn eyes away from the true danger: the Taliban and al Qaeda, which continue to sit pretty after nearly 16 years of unsuccessful efforts at elimination. Although dethroned by U.S. military action in 2001, the Taliban has remained a tenacious opponent. Now, according to top U.S. officials, that threat is backed by another old foe, Russia. On April 24, Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said during a visit to Kabul by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that he was not refuting multiple reports that Moscow is funneling arms to the Taliban. In congressional testimony back in February, Gen. Nicholson had already said that Russia is overtly lending legitimacy to the Taliban. But his allegations of direct material aid this time went much further. Story continues The Taliban threat, now perhaps backed by Russian arms, is rising as rapidly as that of the Islamic State is declining. The Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001, civilian casualties are the highest theyve been since these figures were first tracked in 2009, and fatality rates of beleaguered Afghan security forces are soaring. An April 21 assault on an Afghan military base in the province of Balkh, which killed nearly 150 Afghan troops in a region far from the Talibans traditional bastion in the south, underscores the serious nature of the threat. Alongside (and not to be confused with) the Taliban is another persistent foe, al Qaeda. Its been six years since the death of Osama bin Laden, but the group remains a powerful threat. Back in 2012, Gen. John Allen, then head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said that al Qaeda had reemerged in Afghanistan. Media reports stated that the group was fighting U.S. troops, spreading propaganda, fundraising, and recruiting young Afghans. That was confirmed in 2015, when the U.S. military discovered an al Qaeda training camp in southern Afghanistan stretching a whopping 30 square miles. The extent of al Qaedas presence in Afghanistan today can be gleaned from Gen. Nicholsons recent congressional testimony. He reported that in 2016, U.S. forces killed the al Qaeda leader in eastern Afghanistan, his deputy, and more than 200 al Qaeda and affiliated fighters. He also said that about 50 al Qaeda and affiliated leaders, facilitators, or key associates were killed, captured, or transferred to the Afghan government. The pattern has continued into this year. The Pentagon confirmed that a March 19 drone strike had killed Qari Yasin, who was implicated in a 2008 attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, that killed more than 50 people, including two Americans. And on April 19, Afghan officials announced that airstrikes had killed three al Qaeda members. Some might seize on these figures to argue that the al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan is being robustly tackled, or at least being kept under control. While that may be true on a short-term, tactical level, it misses a broader, more troubling point: Battlefield successes against al Qaeda wont make the group go away any more than it did in 2001. In other words, killing off al Qaeda fighters and leaders wont kill off the organization. The same goes for the Taliban. The war in Afghanistan cant be won militarily; 100,000 U.S. troops couldnt end the insurgency during the height of the surge in 2010 and 2011. Today, with far fewer U.S. troops in theater, the Talibans battlefield successes give it few incentives to launch a peace process with Kabul. Meanwhile, both groups have benefitted in paradoxical ways from the emergence of their more extreme rival, the Islamic State. Hundreds of U.S. airstrikes targeted the Islamic State in Afghanistan in 2016, with U.S. troops and Afghan special operations forces continuing to fight them fiercely this year, leading to the deaths of three U.S. servicemen in April. Although there have been simultaneous pushes against other groups, the presence of the Islamic State has given al Qaeda and the Taliban some breathing room. Terrorism analysts Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Nathaniel Barr have written how the emergence of the Islamic State has enabled al Qaeda to rebrand itself as a more moderate outfit. While the Islamic State is unrelenting and indiscriminate in its use of terror, al Qaeda has increasingly demonstrated a more refined targeting strategy that singles out worthy targets that appeal to potential recruits. Those murdered include progressive and secular thinkers and those harshly critical of Islam. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr also note that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on regional leaders in Syria to cultivate better ties with local communities. We dont typically associate terror groups with marketing campaigns, but al Qaeda is clearly trying to reinvent itself. In the words of counterterrorism expert Ali Soufan, writing in the Wall Street Journal on April 21, al Qaeda has transformed itself from a close-knit terrorist outfit with a handful of struggling affiliates into a vast network of insurgent groups spread from Southeast Asia to northwest Africa. According to Soufan, this is part of al Qaedas broader goal, originally implemented in 2011, to shift away from a focus on the United States (the far enemy) and instead join the popular battle to bring down local regimes. The hope of the late Osama bin Laden, Soufan contends, was to strengthen al Qaeda for an eventual showdown with the United States. And what better ally for al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) to pursue this hearts-and-minds strategy than the Afghan Taliban, one of the worlds most effective insurgent organizations? As Gartenstein-Ross has pointed out, AQIS has already engaged in insurgent-style warfare in Afghanistan to help support Taliban goals. Al Qaedas resilience there can also be attributed to its relationships with powerful local partners. It enjoys close ties to the most active and lethal terror groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. These actors include the Haqqani Network, a branch of the Taliban that has committed several high-casualty attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan in recent years. The sustained alliance between the Taliban and al Qaeda isnt just a threat to Kabul, but also to U.S. interests far beyond Afghanistan. In April 2013, members of a secret committee formed by al Qaedas core leadership, known as the Khorasan Group, traveled to Syria to investigate the growing rivalry between their then-affiliate, the Nusra Front, and the Islamic State, which was expanding its presence in Syria. After reporting to Pakistan-based al Qaeda leader Ayman-al Zawahiri, the Khorasan Group focused its efforts on stemming the tide of defections and by 2014 was planning out-of-area terrorist attacks. In September 2014, Khorasan Group members were targeted in one of the first U.S. airstrikes in Syria an indication of the deep concern with which the Obama administration viewed this faction. U.S. air power hit them again there in 2016. And while all eyes are on the Islamic State, al Qaeda still has very real potential to target the United States directly. Nearly 16 years after 9/11, it still poses a bona fide threat to the U.S. homeland. Al Qaeda may be trying to pass itself off as your local friendly insurgent group, but it continues to subscribe to the ideology of global Islamist terrorism and theres no reason to believe the organization has given up on its long-standing desire to stage another spectacular attack on American soil. With the Taliban controlling large swaths of territory in Afghanistan, opportunities abound for al Qaeda to reconstitute its former sanctuaries and plot another attack on the United States. To be sure, a safe haven doesnt necessarily facilitate the ability to coordinate faraway attacks, and particularly if one has to worry about defending territory from state security forces. However, consider the current state of play in Afghanistan: Overmatched Afghan forces and depleted foreign troops have been unable to penetrate many areas of Taliban control, some of which are located in difficult-to-navigate terrain in places like Uruzgan, Helmand, and Kandahar provinces. One of Americas mistakes after waging war on Iraq in 2003 was taking its eye off the ball in Afghanistan following early successes. This time around, Washington needs to maintain a laser-like focus on depriving al Qaeda of new Taliban-shielded sanctuaries in Afghanistan. In so doing, it must make a better effort to understand what makes al Qaeda tick these days and particularly how it has undergone a strategic shift that aims to win over populations it may have previously preferred to ignore. More attention must be paid to the ideologies of hate that fuel terrorism, no matter how many terrorists are shot down or smoked out. While ample analysis has rightly been dedicated to understanding the success of the Islamic States use of social media to radicalize Westerners, there remains a need to better understand the continued clout of al Qaeda ideology in the developing world, both in Afghanistan and beyond. But the relentless campaign being waged by Afghan and U.S. forces against al Qaeda on the battlefield shouldnt be put on hold. On the contrary, it should be intensified. Short-term tactical victories against al Qaeda matter, but they cant be the endpoint of strategy. Ramping up the counterterrorism fight shouldnt be difficult. U.S. military officials have urged Washington to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and President Donald Trump should send several thousand more. When he announces the decision, he shouldnt justify it merely on the grounds of providing more support to Afghan forces. Such a rationale wont sit well with an understandably war-weary American public. Instead, he should underscore that more troops are being sent to Afghanistan to help prevent another attack on the U.S. homeland. Thats an America First justification if there ever was one. And its a more prudent move than dropping the mother of all bombs on a declining threat, just to telegraph a message of bravado to faraway foes. Photo credit: NOOR MOHAMMAD/AFP/Getty Images By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Robin Respaut FRANKFORT, Ky./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - For nearly three years, Democrats and former President Barack Obama pointed to Kentucky as one of the Affordable Care Acts biggest success stories. A poor, rural state that straddles the North and South, Kentucky was an early adopter of the healthcare law commonly known as Obamacare and saw one of the countrys largest drops in the uninsured rate. Now Kentucky is poised for a new distinction: to be the first state to save money by reducing the number of people on Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled and a central tenet of Obamacare. If successful, Kentucky would provide a roadmap for other states who are worried about paying an increasing share for people on Medicaid. A new Republican health law that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, along with state initiatives like Kentucky's, would dramatically change the national healthcare system and cut more than $800 billion from Medicaid over the next 10 years. The Republican bill still faces a long road ahead in the U.S. Senate and its final passage is far from assured, making initiatives like Kentucky's all the more important. Kentucky has proposed to lessen its financial burden before it grows by reducing the number of residents on Medicaid by nearly 86,000 within five years, saving more than $330 million in the process. (For a graphic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2on0HVK) Kentucky's plan also calls for new work requirements for able-bodied adults to get insurance. Plus, it would establish new fees for all members based on income and lock out some people who miss a payment or fail to re-enroll. By following these proposed rules, Kentucky believes Medicaid enrollees will over time graduate from Medicaid to private and employer insurance plans. One of the most remarkable lies that has perpetrated in recent years in the healthcare community in America is that expanded Medicaid was working well in Kentucky, Republican Governor Matt Bevin, who is leading the state effort, told Reuters from the governors mansion in Frankfort, Kentucky. That view is in line with President Donald Trumps administration, which has criticized Obamacares Medicaid expansion and urged states to pursue similar Medicaid reforms to what Kentucky is now attempting. "If Kentucky is successful, youll see this spread through the more conservative-leaning states. Its possible even a Democratic blue state could do it, said George Huang, director and senior municipal healthcare research analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. Its the flexibility that some states are seeking. INSURING THE POOR AT A PRICE Kentucky, a state Trump won handily last November, has been devastated by the loss of coal mining jobs and an opioid epidemic. The state sits near the bottom of health rankings for smoking rates, cancer deaths and diabetes. To me, morally, it was the right thing to expand Medicaid, but I had a responsibility to not to do something that would bankrupt the state, said former Governor Steve Beshear, a Democrat, referring to the increased costs of caring for a larger population with Medicaid insurance. More than 30 states, about a dozen of which are led by Republican governors, expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. In Kentucky, more than 400,000 people gained health insurance through the program, the highest growth rate of Medicaid coverage of any state. Beshear commissioned independent studies by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte on the financial and health impacts of expanding Medicaid. Both studies found health and economic gains. Deloitte reported that 90,000 newly covered residents received cholesterol screening and 80,000 got preventative dental care within a year. It estimated Kentucky would see an economic boost of $30 billion and 40,000 new jobs by 2021. Beshears successor, Republican Governor Bevin, was elected in 2015 on a promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law on the view that thousands of Kentuckians had unaffordable premiums and only one health insurer to choose from. He dismissed the projections in the Beshear-commissioned studies as preposterous, and says the states share of expanded Medicaid - $74 million in 2017 and totaling $1.2 billion over five years - was too expensive and unsustainable. We want this to be a helping hand for people at a time when they need it, but then be able to return to the commercial marketplace, Bevin said. Last year, Bevin submitted the waiver to restrict Medicaid eligibility by requiring enrollees to work or volunteer at least 20 hours per week and to pay monthly premiums based on income. He's still awaiting approval. Bevin said he has spoken with several governors about the waiver and has had extensive conversations with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price about fast-tracking the approval process in order for other states to quickly adopt similar programs. Such conversations are occurring across the country in response to encouragement from the new administration to reform state Medicaid programs, said Alleigh Marre, a Health and Human Services spokeswoman. Louisiana and Wisconsin are considering work requirements for Medicaid enrollees. The Obama administration rejected previous attempts by other states, including Ohio and Arizona, to require work programs and monthly premiums for Medicaid, historically a free program for those eligible. "Every state is watching this to see what happens, said Bevin of Kentuckys waiver. Its the first one in the queue. SIGNS POINT TO YES FOR KENTUCKY WAIVER The odds look good for Kentucky to get the waiver in the coming months, based on the track records of health officials that Trump named after his inauguration. Seema Verma, the new head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which approves Medicaid waivers, said during congressional testimony that the agency will usher in a new era of state flexibility and leadership. Verma helped craft Kentuckys waiver, but said she will recuse herself from the approval process to avoid conflicts of interest. She and Tom Price wrote a letter to governors in March encouraging Medicaid reforms that more closely resemble commercial insurance plans. In the letter, they suggested features such as premium fees, health savings accounts, and emergency room co-payments that encourage the use of primary care. CMS declined to comment on Kentuckys waiver and said it does not speculate on the process while ongoing. Under federal law, waivers must promote Medicaids objective of delivering healthcare services to vulnerable populations who cannot otherwise afford them. Waivers have never been used to cut people from the rolls, said Emily Parento, associate professor at the University of the Pacifics law school and the former executive director of Kentuckys Office of Health Policy. But Vermas office is encouraging changes to Medicaid that make the government program look more like private insurance policies - goals that are similar to Bevins in Kentucky. I think what will happen is that other states will look at it and go, We want everything they got, Bevin said. (This story has been refiled to fix spelling in paragraph 3.) (Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in Kentucky and Robin Respaut in San Francisco; Editing by Caroline Humer and Edward Tobin) (Reuters) - After a months-long grand jury investigation, a Penn State University fraternity and 18 of its members were charged on Friday with manslaughter and other charges stemming from the death of a teenage student during an alcohol-fueled hazing session in February. Centre Country District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller charged the Beta Theta Pi fraternity with manslaughter, hazing and alcohol-related violations in the death of 19-year-old Timothy Piazza. The 18 Beta Theta Pi members face an array of charges, including involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, assault, hazing and alcohol-related violations. Eight of them were arraigned on Friday afternoon, while the rest are scheduled to be arraigned next week, prosecutors said. Piazza, a sophomore from New Jersey, died on Feb. 4 after getting intoxicated and at least twice falling down the basement stairs of the frat house two days earlier, Miller's office said. He was one of several students who were seeking membership in the fraternity, a process known as pledging. The pledges consumed large amounts of alcohol as part of their initiation, prosecutors said, and were required to run "a gauntlet," going from station to station and drinking a different alcoholic beverage at each one. After Piazza's falls, fraternity members brought him up and placed him on a couch, but no one called for an ambulance until late in the morning of Feb. 3, prosecutors said. He died at a hospital early on Feb. 4. Forensic pathologist Harry Kamerow told the grand jury that Piazza's death was a direct result of traumatic brain injuries. Kamerow calculated that when he fell down the stairs, Piazza had a blood alcohol content of 0.36 percent, a life-threatening level. (Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York, editing by G Crosse) MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday his telephone conversation this week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss the Korean peninsula crisis was at the behest of his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump. Duterte said he spoke with Xi on Wednesday to convince him to play a bigger role in defusing tension in the Korean peninsula after North Korea test fired another missile early on Saturday. Duterte discussed the North's test with Trump later on Saturday, at the end of a summit in Manila of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which he is chairman this year. "So, I called President Xi Jinping, 'I am calling you at the behest of the president of the United States'," he said in a speech in his hometown in Davao City, "'We have all agreed in the ASEAN, and even President Trump, that you can do something. Actually, the biggest contribution of all other is your intervention'," he said, recalling the conversation. Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang confirmed that it was Duterte who made the request for the call. The United States has urged China, North Korea's only major ally, to do more to rein in the North's nuclear and missile programs, which have prompted an assertive response from the Trump administration, warning that an "era of strategic patience" is over. "Definitely they are getting the help of everybody here," Duterte said, referring to U.S. diplomatic efforts in Asia to contain North Korea. Xi and Duterte spoke for about 26 minutes, a source at the Philippine president's office told Reuters, and exchanged views about regional developments and how some concerns could be addressed. Duterte said if asked by Trump, he would happily relay what was discussed with Xi. The maverick and wildly outspoken Duterte has in the past week emerged as an unlikely collaborator in global efforts to prevent regional tension from escalating. As ASEAN chairman, he said last week he would urge Trump not to be provoked by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warning of a catastrophe if the situation intensified and that Kim "wants to end to the world". Trump and Xi have also formed a relationship lately that would have been unthinkable last year, when verbal attacks on China were central to the American billionaire's election campaign. But Trump has been criticized for going beyond the phone call and inviting Duterte to the White House. Trump was condemned by human rights groups and some U.S. legislators for what they see as tantamount to an endorsement of Duterte's bloody war on drugs, which has killed thousands of people since he took office 10 months ago. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez) An island cult who worship Prince Philip as their God may believe his retirement has triggered a tropical cyclone, according to an author who has lived among the villagers. Residents of the remote village of Yaohnanen, on the Pacific island of Tanna, hailed a 2015 cyclone as a sign the Duke of Edinburgh would visit the islands. Now, just as the Duke announced news of his retirement, another storm is on the way, which may be interpreted in a similar way by the villagers. Author and journalist Matthew Baylis, who lived among the villagers, said the cyclone could indicate the Duke has reached a higher sacred status. They told me that they see Philips living in a palace, surrounded by guards, and travelling in a car with darkened windows, as evidence of his taboo status, he told The Telegraph. So they may well see his withdrawal from public duties as connected to that having attained some higher rung of taboo, sacred status. Equally, they might think he is preparing to come back to Tanna, in some form, spiritually or bodily. The cult known as the Prince Philip Movement emerged in the 1950s but grew after Queen Elizabeth II, along with her husband Philip, visited the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu in 1974. Islanders believed the Duke was the incarnation of the son of a volcano spirit who, according to island legend, travelled abroad to marry a powerful woman. Tropical cyclone Donna may intensify further by the time it reaches the region this weekend. It is going to be severe, category three at least and maybe category four, but only time will tell, Neville Koop, from the Nadraki Weather Service, told ABC. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, speaks via video link during a press conference on the 10-year anniversary of the controversial organization. (Photo: Axel Schmidt/Reuters) When documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras began work in 2011 on Risk, her portrait of WikiLeaks and its hugely controversial founder Julian Assange, the organization had spent months working with news outlets to publish stories based on more than 700,000 U.S. classified documents leaked by U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning. It was so important to see publications that were exposing what was happening with U.S. foreign policy, which is something that I cared about and was working on in my own work, Poitras, who had previously made documentaries on the American presence in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, said in an interview with Yahoo News. Poitras said that the documents from Manning comprising U.S. diplomatic cables and war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan opened up a more adversarial chapter in journalism after a decade of failure to report what the U.S. government was doing. By the end of filming in early 2017, WikiLeaks looked very different from an upstart operation devoted to bringing to light the inner workings of American diplomacy and overseas military activities. Over the course of six years, two leading members of WikiLeaks, including founder Julian Assange, were accused of sexual assault; Assange hosted a show on Russian state television from his self-imposed exile in Ecuadors London embassy; rogue NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided reams of classified documents to Poitras and others before settling in Russia with the help of WikiLeaks; Manning entered prison after being convicted under the Espionage Act (she later received clemency from then President Barack Obama); Russian intelligence leveraged WikiLeaks in an influence operation to damage Hillary Clinton; CIA chief Mike Pompeo called Wikileaks a hostile nonstate intelligence agency; and Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the U.S. would pursue criminal charges against Assange. Poitras, who moved to Germany in 2012, acknowledges the increasing turmoil facing WikiLeaks and its enigmatic leader. But she is more concerned about the U.S. governments reaction to WikiLeaks over the last six years. Story continues The film feels a bit like a tragedy, which unfolds over many years, beginning with maybe a moment of optimism and ending at a moment of more despair, Poitras said. And I think it encompasses that. And I dont mean that to surround WikiLeaks or Julian, but politically where we fit today. Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras. (Photo: Courtesy of Risk/Laura Poitras) Risk is an attempt by Poitras to present WikiLeaks actions as a noble endeavor, while also providing intimate portraits of the people behind the organization. As the film unfolds, the actions of the primary characters put the organization in a less flattering light. Risk begins in 2011, with Assange attempting to reach then Secretary of State Clinton to inform her that 250,000 diplomatic cables were about to be published, unredacted, on the open Internet. Jacob Appelbaum, known as the American WikiLeaks hacker, is shown confronting Egyptian telecom officials over the blocking of Twitter during the Arab Spring. Poitras introduces the two men as heroes on the front lines of the government transparency movement. Then Assange is accused of sexually assaulting two women in Sweden. He is shown telling lawyers that the charges are part of a radical feminist conspiracy. He adds that it would better if it were only one woman, as that would make it easier to pressure the accuser by impugning her character. Later in the film, Appelbaum is accused by former co-workers and acquaintances of sexual assault and bullying. The accusations led to Appelbaum being disowned by the privacy community. (Poitras notes that he denies any criminal conduct.) Poitras acknowledges that she had to alter the story as the sex scandals tarnished the men behind WikiLeaks. I thought I could ignore the contradictions; I thought they were not part of the story, she narrates as Assange is shown at a court hearing related to the sexual assault allegations. I was wrong; they are becoming the story. After the accusations against Appelbaum arose in June 2016 weeks after Risk premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Poitras adjusted the film further. I had to address it. I couldnt not address it, Poitras told Yahoo News. So it did shift the direction of the film. Nevertheless, Poitras insiders view including the revelation that she dated Appelbaum and he subsequently bullied someone close to her did not sap her support for the cause. I didnt want to pull punches but I also think that what WikiLeaks does is very important to journalism, Poitras said. I think that they publish information that is newsworthy and that is in the public interest. I dont agree with all of their choices of what to publish, what not to publish, but I absolutely support their right to publish. WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange. (Photo: Courtesy of Risk/Laura Poitras) The question of whether Assange practices journalism or a kind of guerrilla espionage under the guise of journalism has always been complicated. Guardian reporter Nick Davies, who worked with Assange on the Manning leaks, claimed that he did not care about redacting names of vulnerable sources listed in U.S. military documents: I raised this with Julian and he said, If an Afghan civilian helps coalition forces, he deserves to die. He went on to say that they have the status of a collaborator or an informant. Recently WikiLeaks has published classified documents, collectively called Vault 7, which detail CIA hacking tools down to the source code. Poitras, who published Snowden documents detailing NSA hacking tools, posited to Yahoo News that the Vault 7 leaks are in the public interest. Amid the ongoing disclosures, American officials are increasingly questioning WikiLeaks motives. This week FBI Director James Comey, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, argued that WikiLeaks published classified documents with the primary intention of damaging the U.S. To my mind, it crosses a line when it moves from being about trying to educate a public and instead just becomes about intelligence porn, frankly, Comey said. Just pushing out information about sources and methods without regard to interest, without regard to the First Amendment values that normally underlie press reporting. And simply becomes a conduit for the Russian intelligence services or some other adversary of the United States, just to push out information to damage the United States. Comey added: And I realize, reasonable people as you said, struggle to draw a line. But surely we can all agree theres nothing that even smells journalistic about some of this conduct. But Poitras does not agree, and its not hard to see why. She, like WikiLeaks, drew the ire of the U.S. government through actions interpreted as adversarial. She co-founded the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which was created to raise money for WikiLeaks. She spent huge blocks of time with Assange and his inner circle. She asked Appelbaum, whom she met in the mid-2000s, for advice when she was dealing with an anonymous source that turned out to be Snowden and subsequently co-wrote articles with him based on the classified documents in Der Spiegel. Over the course of making Risk, she and WikiLeaks became intertwined. Ultimately, the film and Poitras herself make clear that she is far too invested to admit that WikiLeaks has strayed from its ostensible mission. Risk premieres in theaters on May 5. Read more from Yahoo News: Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Friday said it had already stopped bombing in areas of Syria set to be designated safe zones under an agreement it inked with Iran and Turkey. The three key powerbrokers signed off on a Russian plan Thursday to establish four "de-escalation zones" in rebel-held territory of the war-torn country in a bid to shore up a shaky ceasefire. Under the pact -- which Moscow said comes into force from Saturday -- the three sides have a month to define the exact borders of the safe zones where fighting and air strikes should be halted. Moscow -- which is flying an air campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad -- said that in order to ease the deal it has stopped bombing the proposed zones. "From 00:00 May 1 the use of Russian airforce aviation in areas corresponding to the de-escalation zones was halted," senior Russian military commander Sergei Rudskoi told a news briefing. The safety zone initiative is the latest attempt by Moscow to forge an end to the six-year conflict after its military might turned the tide of the conflict in favour of Assad. Rudskoi outlined the proposed zones in the northwestern Idlib province, the north of central Homs province, Eastern Ghouta near Damascus and an area of the south involving Daraa and Quneitra provinces. Along the frontiers of the "de-escalation zones" will be "security zones" with checkpoints and observation posts to monitor and secure access run by the three guarantor countries. Moscow said that it was talking to "Jordan and a number of other countries" to sign up as backers of the initiative. Russia's military underlined that it will keep on fighting against the Islamic State group and the former Al-Qaeda affiliate previously known as Al-Nusra, including inside the "de-escalation zones". Rudskoi said that Syrian government troops freed up after the safety zones come into force will be sent to fight IS in central and eastern Syria and along the Euphrates river with Russian air support. Photo credit: Yuri Smityuk / Getty From Popular Mechanics Four Russian aircraft flew near the Alaskan coast last night, including two of Russia's most advanced fighter planes. The flight, which was intercepted by U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighters, came a week after Russian military aircraft flew near America's Arctic territory four days in a row. Wednesday evening's incident involved two Tu-95MS "Bear" strategic bombers and a pair of Su-35 "Flanker-E" or "Super Flanker" heavy fighters. Although the presence of the Bear bombers was not unusual, it was the first time that Super Flankers had been seen off the coast of Alaska. The Super Flanker is an updated version of the 1980s-era Su-27 "Flanker" and Russia's most advanced fighter jet, with an improved radar and powerful, thrust-vectoring engines. The Super Flankers were reportedly unarmed. According to Fox, the Russian flight was intercepted about 50 miles southwest of Chariot, Alaska by a flight of F-22 Raptor jets already patrolling the area. The Russian jets were unarmed. Although they entered the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone, which requires them to state intent and destination, the Russians remained outside of U.S. airspace. The flight comes days after a streak that saw Russian aircraft visit the Alaskan coastline four days in a row. Two of the visits involved a pair of Tu-95MS bombers, while two others involved Il-38 "May" maritime patrol aircraft. Photo credit: Via Globalsecurity.org. Where the Super Flankers flew from is a bit of a mystery. Bear bombers make the 2,500 mile trip from Ukrainka Air Base in the Russian Far East to Chariot, Alaska with ease, but Super Flankers have a much shorter range. The fighter jets would have had to take off from a base much closer to the U.S. and possibly still have to refuel in midair. Source: Fox From Popular Mechanics Four Russian aircraft flew near the Alaskan coast last night, including two of Russia's most advanced fighter planes. The flight, which was intercepted by U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighters, came a week after Russian military aircraft flew near America's Arctic territory four days in a row. Story continues Wednesday evening's incident involved two Tu-95MS "Bear" strategic bombers and a pair of Su-35 "Flanker-E" or "Super Flanker" heavy fighters. Although the presence of the Bear bombers was not unusual, it was the first time that Super Flankers had been seen off the coast of Alaska. The Super Flanker is an updated version of the 1980s-era Su-27 "Flanker" and Russia's most advanced fighter jet, with an improved radar and powerful, thrust-vectoring engines. The Super Flankers were reportedly unarmed. According to Fox, the Russian flight was intercepted about 50 miles southwest of Chariot, Alaska by a flight of F-22 Raptor jets already patrolling the area. The Russian jets were unarmed. Although they entered the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone, which requires them to state intent and destination, the Russians remained outside of U.S. airspace. The flight comes days after a streak that saw Russian aircraft visit the Alaskan coastline four days in a row. Two of the visits involved a pair of Tu-95MS bombers, while two others involved Il-38 "May" maritime patrol aircraft. Photo credit: Via Globalsecurity.org. Where the Super Flankers flew from is a bit of a mystery. Bear bombers make the 2,500 mile trip from Ukrainka Air Base in the Russian Far East to Chariot, Alaska with ease, but Super Flankers have a much shorter range. The fighter jets would have had to take off from a base much closer to the U.S. and possibly still have to refuel in midair. Source: Fox You Might Also Like Photo credit: Getty From Redbook Salma Hayek loves being a mom to daughter Valentina, but, while she believe every woman has an inherent maternal instinct, she doesn't think that means every woman should be a mother. The actress was recently featured in HOLA! magazine alongside her own mother, and she spoke about their different approaches to parenting. "What my mom taught me was very important to me, but I don't pass that on to my daughter because she needs the opposite," she said, adding that Valentina is "growing up in different circumstances." Hayek also said she wants to be an example for her 9-year-old daughter. In addition to her work as an actress (her film How to be a Latin Lover is out now), she is a producer, activist, and owner of her own beauty brand. She and her high-powered husband - French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault - have set the stage for their daughter to pursue whatever she wants. While Hayek has wholeheartedly embraced motherhood, she doesn't think her choice is universal - not every woman is meant to be a mom. What's important, she says, is giving a part of yourself to something else. "Every woman has a maternal instinct inside and I think that it's important that all humans try to have that experience and apply that maternal instinct to some living creature," she says. "You don't have to have children, but be responsible and take care of animals or a plant. Take care of another being." To her, leaning into this instinct and caring for another living being is essential to one's development as a person. "That's very rewarding. You learn a lot about yourself when you do something for someone else." [h/t People] Follow Redbook on Facebook. You Might Also Like Photo credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation From Popular Mechanics On the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica, there's a glacier gushing water the color of blood. The oddity, first discovered in 1911, was understandably named Blood Falls. What makes it happen? Scientists have now mapped the glacier's innards, allowing for a clear scientific explanation of the seemingly biblical phenomena. There's always been a rough understanding of how Blood Falls works: The water is loaded up with iron oxide, the same as rust. Previous studies, like one in 2015, hinted that Blood Falls might be aberration stemming from unseen underwater network. Now, that network has been found. The Taylor Glacier, named after its discoverer, Australian explorer Thomas Griffin Taylor, "defies conventional definitions of a cold-based glacier" scientists say. These scientists, which include Jessica Badgely of Colorado College and Erin C. Petit of University of Alaska Fairbanks, write in the Journal of Glaciology that the glacier has water systems both below and within. To track that system, Badgely, Petit and team used radio echo technology, similar to the echolocation of bats. As the radio waves bounced back at the team from the glacier, they showed water and ice moving at a variety of speeds. The "artesian character of the Blood Falls system," as the scientists describe it, "is due to localized subglacial channeling, trapping, and pressurizing of brine," a salty solution of water. Blood Falls is a "pressure-release valve" for the entire network, the scientists say. It's a seemingly unique system worldwide, meaning that if you want to see a river of blood you've got to go way down south. Hopefully, by the time you get there, Antarctica will still exist. Source: Popular Science via Smithsonian From Popular Mechanics On the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica, there's a glacier gushing water the color of blood. The oddity, first discovered in 1911, was understandably named Blood Falls. What makes it happen? Scientists have now mapped the glacier's innards, allowing for a clear scientific explanation of the seemingly biblical phenomena. Story continues There's always been a rough understanding of how Blood Falls works: The water is loaded up with iron oxide, the same as rust. Previous studies, like one in 2015, hinted that Blood Falls might be aberration stemming from unseen underwater network. Now, that network has been found. The Taylor Glacier, named after its discoverer, Australian explorer Thomas Griffin Taylor, "defies conventional definitions of a cold-based glacier" scientists say. These scientists, which include Jessica Badgely of Colorado College and Erin C. Petit of University of Alaska Fairbanks, write in the Journal of Glaciology that the glacier has water systems both below and within. To track that system, Badgely, Petit and team used radio echo technology, similar to the echolocation of bats. As the radio waves bounced back at the team from the glacier, they showed water and ice moving at a variety of speeds. The "artesian character of the Blood Falls system," as the scientists describe it, "is due to localized subglacial channeling, trapping, and pressurizing of brine," a salty solution of water. Blood Falls is a "pressure-release valve" for the entire network, the scientists say. It's a seemingly unique system worldwide, meaning that if you want to see a river of blood you've got to go way down south. Hopefully, by the time you get there, Antarctica will still exist. Source: Popular Science via Smithsonian You Might Also Like cameronabadi With Adam Rawnsley No U.S. troops in Iraq, exceptThere will be no U.S. combat troops in Iraq once the battle against the Islamic State wraps up, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi said Friday, even as U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that negotiations between the two countries over the issue continue. Abadis comments likely refer to American Special Operations Forces who carry out raids against militants, as he appeared to remain open to some troops staying behind to train and advise Iraqs security forces. Just hours before Abadis announcement, a U.S. official told the AP, there is a general understanding on both sides that it would be in the long-term interests of each to have that continued presence. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is involved in the talks, which revolve around what the long-term U.S. presence would look like, the American official said, adding that nothing has been finalized. There are over 5,000 American troops currently on the ground in Iraq, the vast majority of which are training Iraqi troops, or are working in non-combat roles. There are about 200 Special Forces troops advising Iraqi forces in and around Mosul. Add it up. As the Iraqis look to gradually reduce the U.S. footprint in their country, more American troops may be heading to reinforce the nations longest war in Afghanistan. Theresa Whelan, a senior Pentagon official who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, said the Trump administration was actively looking at adjustments to the U.S. commitment in the country, and I expect that these proposals will go to the president within the next week, and the intent is tomove beyond the stalemate. More conventional forces that would thicken the ability to advise and assist Afghan forces that would absolutely be to our benefit, said Gen. Tony Thomas, head of U.S. Special Operations Command who testified alongside Whelan. President Trump is attending a NATO summit in Brussels on May 25, and a decision is expected by then. Story continues Investment. The commander of the 9,800 U.S. and 5,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, has said several times he could use more troops to help train the Afghan forces. Defense officials have put the number at somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000. Washington has spent about $71 billion training and equipping the Afghan army over the past 16 years, and despite that investment, the Taliban remains in control of large areas of the country and outside terrorist groups like the Islamic State have moved in. Last month, two U.S. Army Rangers were killed fighting ISIS in Eastern Afghanistan. No fly? Under a plan agreed to by Russia, Iran and Turkey on Thursday, U.S. aircraft would be barred from flying over four safe zones in Syria, save for carrying out operations against ISIS or al Qaeda-affiliated groups. The memorandum would also ban flights by the Syrian air force. Russian official Alexander Lavrentyev added on Friday in televised remarks that all military aircraft including those from Russia and Turkey would also be banned from the designated zones. Lavrentyev added, the operation of aviation in the de-escalation zones, especially of the forces of the international coalition, is absolutely not envisaged, either with notification or without. This question is closed. The U.S. Central Command has not yet commented on the proposal, which the United States was not a party to. Kremlin has a new weapon in Syria. Russia has kept its ground presence in Syria relatively low-key up to this point, insisting that most troops are maintaining aircraft, or training and advising Syrian forces. But that might be changing. FP contributor Neil Hauer notes that the Kremlin has now deployed an unprecedented Russian weapon to Syria: several units of Chechen and Ingush commandos hailing from Russias restive North Caucasus region. More: The ongoing deployment of the Chechen and Ingush brigades marks a strategic shift for the Kremlin: Russia now has its own elite ground personnel, drawn from its Sunni Muslim population, placed across Syria. This growing presence allows the Kremlin to have a greater role in shaping events on the ground as it digs in for the long term. Such forces could prove vital in curtailing any action taken by the Assad regime that would undermine Moscows wider interests in the Middle East while offering a highly effective method for the Kremlin to project power at a reduced political cost. Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley. Sanctions. Congress is taking aim at North Korean shipping, with the House passing a bill to sanction its maritime commerce industry as well as companies that trade with Pyongyang. The move adds weight to recent threats from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the U.S. is preparing additional penalties if it turns out North Koreas actions warrant additional sanctions. China, which would likely be affected by any new sanctions on North Korean commerce, responded with a boilerplate statement about opposition to unilateral sanctions from the United States. The legislation now moves to the Senate, but it is unclear when or if the upper chamber will move on the bill. Pleas. Federal prosecutors have struck a plea deal with the U.S. Naval officer they accused of spying for Taiwan and China. The AP reports that the government has walked back its most severe allegations against Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, dropping charges accusing him of espionage and instead copping a plea deal admitting to mishandling classified information and disclosing secrets to a foreign national. Despite the plea deal, Lin still faces a potentially stiff sentence with the possibility of up to 36 years in prison. Syria. An unnamed Western intelligence agency tells the BBC that the Assad regime is still producing chemical weapons, despite a 2013 deal struck by the Obama administration for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons capabilities. An intelligence report shared with the news outlet says production is continuing at three separate facilities in Hama province and near Damascus. Inspectors for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons visited two of the sites recently but intelligence officials believe weapons work is still continuing in secret sections of the sites. Intercepts. Russias hijinks off the coast of Alaska continue, with Moscow sending Tu-95 bombers and Su-35 Flanker fighter jets into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, Stars and Stripes reports. The incident marks the debut of Russias Su-35, the Russian air forces latest and greatest fighter, in such operations. The U.S. in turn sent stealth F-22 air superiority fighters to intercept the aircraft, but officials described the interaction as routine as safe. Collateral damage. An investigation by U.S. Central Command has found that American drones and military aircraft struck a mosque in Syria back in March, sources tell CNN. The admission is an about face for the command, which initially claimed that its forces it had hit another building some 40 feet away from the mosque and denied the existence of any civilian casualties. The U.S. typically tries to avoid hitting mosques, placing them on a no-strike list unless theyre empty or being used by terrorists. Officials wouldnt tell the cable news outlet whether the mosque was on a no-strike list. Up to 40 people were killed in the attack, which reportedly took place during a meeting of the local Tabligh religious group. The king is dead. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is declaring war on the Whopper. Speaking at the Army and Navy Club, Milley said the American habit of installing the comforts of home in the form of fast food at forward operating bases abroad will come to an end. We have got to condition ourselves to operate untether ourselves from this umbilical cord of logistics and supply that American forces have enjoyed for a long time, Milley said. He argued that future wars will likely pose threats to troops at U.S. facilities abroad in the form of electronic warfare, necessitating a force thats more accustomed to harsh conditions. Photo Credit: NOORULLAH SHIRZADA/AFP/Getty Images Theres no shortage of stories about clashes between science and politics throughout history, and there are plenty still being written today. Scientific evidence has been distorted and manipulated in the name of ideology since Galileo suggested the earth revolved around the sun. But perhaps few battles may be as dramatic as the one that unfolded in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century, under the rise of the Bolshevik regime. In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin tried to turn science into an arm of the Russian state, putting researchers under strict political control to ensure their obedience. He sought the kind of research that validated political doctrine, not the kind that relied on the scientific method. At one point, Stalin supported a scientist who denied the existence of genes but had promised that his germination theory would yield many crops and pull the Russian people out of famine. Recommended: Why Americans Smile So Much Turns out, though, thats not how science works, and for years, scientists would pay the price. They were praised, promoted, and well-funded if the Bolsheviks saw use for their specialties, and fired, interrogated, or jailed if they didnt. They became swept up in deadly purges. The stories of some of these scientists, mostly young men, are told in Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953, by Simon Ings. Ings follows Soviet science from the early days of the revolution until Stalins death, an era of political terror that somehow managed to produce formidable technological achievements, like the Russian space program. You were safe only as long as you could demonstrate your powerlessness, Ings writes. And if Stalin raised you, it was inevitable that, sooner or later, he would cut you down. I spoke with Ings about this period in Soviet history. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Marina Koren: So your book is called a history of triumph and tragedy, but there seemed to be a lot more tragedy than triumph for the scientists you describe. If the state didnt kill you, famine would, and if you were lucky enough to be doing work, your lab was poorly supplied or your home could be overrun with refugees. How did anyone get anything done? Story continues Simon Ings: Before the [October Revolution in 1917], what you had were a remarkable generation of scientists and a handful of well-educated capitalists who wanted to produce a new kind of education for a new kind of Russian state. So even before the revolution was happening, there were institutions being set up along the lines of the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. The reason the Bolsheviks reacted so strongly against that generation, against liberal academics, is that these were not simply people who had a sort of general opposition to the communist project. These were themselves revolutionaries, who had conducted a failed revolution in 1905, who were capable of running a state. They were serious competition for the control of the state, and so one of the reasons people were able to get things done is they were surprisingly well-organized even before the revolution [in 1917]. Recommended: How The Gospel of Prosperity Explains the American Health Care Act Looking a little bit later, you had the Bolshevik desire for education. Its rather like the saying, he did terrible things, but he made the trains run on time. The Bolsheviks did terrible things, but they really believed in public education. There were something like 80 institutions running in the immediate, post-October Revolution period, most of which was set up under the Bolshevik regime. They didnt have money to give you, but they had buildings and they had a bit of furniture. And for a generation that couldnt actually get much done under the Tsarist regime, to have the support of the government was an extraordinarily exciting time. The final reason people were able to get things done is they were thrown into prison. And they were thrown into the kinds of prison that enabled the state to rely upon your good works, because you had no political voice. This is the system known as sharashka, or sharashki, plural. The idea actually came from academics themselves. A party of engineers did not want to be sent to Siberia and had written to [senior official in the Soviet secret police] Lavrentiy Beria, saying, look, if you dont send us to Siberia, give us a problem and well solve it for you. Just let us stay in the warmth and give us some pencils and well work for you. Beria took them up on this. Koren: So some of the Soviet science and innovation came straight from prisons? Ings: They wouldnt have won [World War II] without it. There were a lot of engineering marvels created through the sharashka system, and perhaps the biggest marvel of all was the worlds most reliable space program. Recommended: Seven Reasons the Left Is Losing Koren: How did Stalins system create a foundation for that space program, and allowed the Russians to launch Sputnik into space in 1957, four years after he died? Ings: It was Stalins regimentation of the state that made Sputnik possible, which is a very unfair thing to say, because what really made Sputnik possible was the talents of the people who actually did the work. Stalins regimentation created the sharashka system, which gave people the space to do work. Nowhere else wouldve given people the space to work like that. Tasked with [building] the atomic bomb, tasked with producing a space program, only the sharashki could deal with such a project. In the American experience, its not wildly different. At the same period, you start having Lockheed create and hide groups of researchers [to develop fighter jets during World War II]. The idea of a small team working within an organizationthat is a very good way of solving technical problems. Its a very good academic idea, but it came out of imprisonment. Koren: Isnt that kind of crazy? Ings: Well, it speaks to, how do you want to get science done? What you need to do is give people a lot of money and leave them alone. And thats a very difficult sell if youre dealing with public money. How do you justify handing money over without very obvious returns? When you look at the hoops that todays researchers have to jump through, in terms of impact of their research, and what this research is likely to achieve, and what the applications of this research areit astounds you that anything ever gets discovered at all. You arrive at a solution of, throw a bunch of people in prison and leave them alone, you know? But to have got there after the deaths of how many millions of people, it makes one pause for thought. It really does. Koren: What were sharashki like? Ings: One that plays the biggest part in my book is the one geneticist Ressovsky Timofeev ended up in. He found himself in a gulag, nearly died, was rescued, and put in a sharashka. He ended up on this island in this rather beautiful part of the country, on a very beautiful lake with the Ural Mountains in the background and flowers awaiting him on his doorstepand far in the distance, men with dogs and some barbed wire. He was working for an economist who knew nothing about science, but Timofeevs research was supported to the point where he was producing data that is still used by the United Nations today to measure the radiobiological load of radioactive releases in the soil. If youre working at how serious a nuclear accident is, youre using figures that Ressovsky Timofeev was coming up with in the sharashka. Koren: Stalin sought to, as you write, make science over in the service of the state. What was his vision for Soviet science? Ings: The entire Bolshevik project is premised on the idea that you can make government scientific. There is that wonderful moment in the 1870s, when everything seemed as if it was about to be explainable in terms of everything else. Marxism is supposed to be that science, the science that will actually put all the other sciences in the science of the state. But the clever, scientific community is realizing it doesnt work, that scientism doesnt work. Theres an immediate crisis. Stalins response is to conceal it, to talk over it, to look for practical solutions. Koren: How did the scientists and engineers fit into that? Ings: He tried to get the young educated as fast as possible in batches, in brigades. On the other hand, he tried to wipe out generations that were operating under the old patronage system [that funded scientific research.] Stalins attempt was to do away with the patronage system by becoming the only patron. By making the state the only possible patron, you have this absurd situation in which even as engineers are being paid more than theyve ever been paid before, youre also getting show trials in which engineers are shown the door or exiled or shot. Koren: It did seem like someone could be running a medical institution one day and sentenced to hard labor the next. What happened to scientists when the state liked them, and when it didnt? Ings: Each specialism lost people during the Great Purge [ordered by Stalin to scare and eliminate opposition between 1936 and 1938]. When that happens, people want an explanation for what happened. They think, if genetics got it in the neck, it must have been because of the genetics. But most of the purges were to do with bureaucracy, not with learning. We tend to look at the research and think, how did the research rub people up the wrong way? Where we should be looking is, what patrons they had, what clients they had, what institutions did they run, whose ear did they have. The astronomers at Pulkovo were important because of whose ear they had, because of where they were getting their funding. It wasnt because they were spotting things in the stars that were rubbing the Stalinist regime up the wrong way. Koren: Many scientists seemed to move in and out of exile, and it didnt always seem like a bad career move. Ings: The classic example of that is Alexander Luria, who led what on the surface looks to be a normal life. He never betrayed anyone, he had foreign visits, he had good correspondence with colleagues all over the world. But he did this by ducking and diving, and he moved from institution to institution. He was never exiled, but he simply jumped before he was pushed. It was possible to land on your feet, to make exile work you. To be pushed out of the center, from Moscow to Odessa, could actually play to your hand. It could be out of your advantage to be out of the limelight. Koren: There was a lot of deception and back-stabbing among scientists themselves. Im thinking of Trofim Lysenkos decision in 1939 to send his rival Nikolai Vavilov on a expedition to the Caucasus so he could replace Vavilovs departments staff. Can you tell me more about those dynamics? Ings: You have these big organizations that are stuffed full of people who were alive before the Revolution, who hold more to a liberal democracy scheme than to a socialist scheme, and so you have these internecine rivalries between generations. Its made worse by the fact that at the time in Russia, you didnt have a retirement age, and thats a really big problem. People were staying in posts until they dropped dead, and these guys lived quite a long time. So unless you stabbed people in the back, there was no way move forward in your career. Koren: You write that Soviet science was extraordinary, and ought to have delivered many more miracles than it did. What were some missed opportunities? Ings: Genetics. Only America was ahead of the Soviet Union. Germany was recruiting Russian geneticists in order to catch up. The ability to square evolution and natural selection was a Soviet development, if you trace it back. The problems the Americans were agonizing over simply werent known to the Russians, so the Russians got a bit of paper and worked it out. They werent aware that this was supposed to be difficult. All the pieces were in place for the Soviet Union to become streets ahead of everyone in genetics, even the Americansand thats saying a lot, because the Americans were amazing. Koren: So what happened? Ings: The people running the vernalization project, [a failed attempt to boost crops by regulating the temperature of seeds], like Lysenko, could simply turn around and say, youre sitting in the lab with fruit flies and were generating this many more crops. What are you doing for the state? Have you not noticed theres a famine going on? Genetics was doomed because it could not lie to the extent that Lysenko could lie. Lysenko just had to point at these mistaken figures and say, look, vernalization works. Genetics seemed to have no practical consequences. Koren: So Lysenko basically used his powerful position to push genetics out of favor. Ings: And it was because he couldnt do math. His philosopher sidekick, Isaak Prezent, couldnt do math either. He made it a point of principle that math should not be part of biology. The moment you mix up political discourse and scientific discourse, youre at a very, very dangerous point. It makes these conversations incredibly hard. It makes fact impossible. It makes truth impossible. Koren: You write at the end of the book that we are all little Stalinists now, convinced of the efficacy of science to bail us out of any and every crisis. What do you mean? Ings: Lets take an example reasonably local to you, whats happening with the EPA. The EPA has over the years, on the basis of international work, come up with this set of data which are troubling to oil-based industries. Global warming is another example. We look for scientific solutions that arent going to upset the apple cart, and the thing about scientific solutions is that they do always upset the apple cart. Time and again we look for scientific solutions that arent scientific at all. We look for quick fixes, and we expect science to come up with quick fixes. Politics deals with the human world, and most people are reasonable. Science doesnt. Science deals with the world out there, which is profoundly unreasonable. Theres not another earth to go to, and were not going to be able to bail ourselves out through a technological fix. And well blame the scientists for this. Well blame the scientists for this every time. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Sri Lanka's foreign minister on Friday accused the previous administration of using its embassies abroad as "safe houses" for murderers accused of perpetrating human rights abuses during the civil war. Mangala Samaraweera told parliament a deputy ambassador posted to Brazil and two staffers sent to Germany were among those suspected of murders and war crimes that were sheltered in embassies by the former government. "Many of our embassies had become safe houses for criminals involved in killings as well as grave human rights violations at home," Samaraweera told parliament. "They were rewarded by giving places in our embassies abroad." The minister said the envoy sent to Brazil by the Mahinda Rajapakse government was accused of murdering another embassy employee and committing human rights abuses in the dying days of the decades-long conflict, which ended in 2009. Meanwhile the two given postings in Berlin were key suspects in the 2009 high-profile assassination of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, a Rajapakse critic, he added. Both have since been remanded in custody over the murder, which triggered international outrage. Local media have reported that another suspected criminal was nominated for a diplomatic posting in Thailand shortly before Rajapakse's re-election in 2010. The former president and several members of his family are under investigation for large-scale fraud and murder during his presidency, which ended in 2015. Sri Lankan criminal investigators have told an ongoing court hearing that a death squad overseen by Rajapakse's brother was responsible for targeting the president's political opponents and critics, including Wickrematunga. The Rajapakse family have denied any wrongdoing and have accused the new government of a political vendetta. Rajapakse's regime faced international censure after it was caught smuggling into Britain a pro-Colombo Tamil warlord, Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, in September 2007 using a Sri Lankan official passport. Muralitharan who is also known as colonel Karuna was sentenced for nine months imprisonment and the incident soured relations between the two countries and led to Sri Lanka's isolation by Western nations over its rights record. U.S. government officials may require visa applicants to provide information on the social media accounts they used in the past five years, the Department of State said in a note posted Thursday. The move is in line with President Donald Trump promise throughout his campaign to implement extreme vetting procedures for those entering the United States. Read: Melania Likes Tweet That Mocks Relationship With Donald Trump, Then Removes It The State Department proposed requesting social media platforms and identifiers, also known as handles, used during the last five years. The request for social media identifiers and associated platforms is new for the Department of State although it is already collected on a voluntary basis by the Department of Homeland Security for certain individuals, the State Department said. State said applicants will not be asked for passwords and officials will not engage with visa seekers via social media. Consular officers will not request user passwords and will not attempt to subvert any privacy controls the applicants may have implemented on social media platforms, the note said. Consular officers are directed not to engage or interact with individuals on or through social media, not to violate or attempt to violate individual privacy settings, and not to use social media or assess an individual's social media presence beyond established department guidance. When people apply for a visa, they also could be asked for employment and travel history and former addresses covering the past 15 years, as well as names and birth dates of siblings, children, and current and former spouses or partners, plus phone numbers and email addresses. Read: How To Secure Your Social Media Accounts To Protect Yourself From Hackers Most of that information previously had been requested from applicants by U.S. officials but for a shorter time period, for example, five years rather than 15 years. The new requests for visa applications described in the note, including the one regarding social media accounts, has yet to be finalized. Story continues The proposed request for social media accounts follows a December report that foreigners coming into the United States were being asked to provide their Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts when arriving in the country. Individuals coming into the U.S. under the visa waiver program, which allows citizens of 38 countries to travel and stay in the United States for up to 90 days without a visa, had the option to enter information associated with their online presence. The request includes a drop-down menu when filling out the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which lists social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+, and has space for applicants to input their account information. The request was designed to detect potential terrorists. Related Articles Beirut (AFP) - Fighting subsided in Syria on Saturday after a deal signed by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey to create four "de-escalation zones" began to take effect. The multi-phase plan, signed Thursday in the Kazakh capital Astana, is one of the more ambitious efforts to end Syria's six-year conflict. It provides for a ceasefire, rapid deliveries of humanitarian aid and the return of refugees after "de-escalation zones" are created across stretches of eight Syrian provinces. Those zones would see a halt to hostilities, including air strikes. The plan also proposes the deployment of "third-party" monitoring forces. It began coming into effect at midnight (2100 GMT Friday), according to Russia, but co-sponsors have until June 4 to finalise the zones' borders. The four main battlegrounds covered are the northwestern province of Idlib, parts of central Syria, the south, and the opposition enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Some of those areas had already seen a drop in violence by Saturday, and Russia's defence ministry said Syria was "stable" at the end of the deal's first day. "We noticed there are fewer airplanes, almost none. People are buying and selling more," said Abu Qais, a 26-year-old trader in Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province. "Psychologically, residents are relieved," he told AFP. - 'Hostilities have dropped' - Syrian government warplanes could be heard from Eastern Ghouta around midday, according to an AFP correspondent in the rebel-held town of Douma. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces were clashing with rebels in the central province of Hama, dropping barrel bombs and firing artillery at opposition-held villages there. "Despite these violations, we can still say that hostilities have dropped," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. The Britain-based Observatory said a child was killed in government shelling in parts of Homs province that fall within the de-escalation zones, the first civilian death in the zones since the deal began coming into effect. Story continues Another seven rebel fighters were killed in other areas, up from an earlier toll of four. Several ceasefires have been agreed since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011, but they have failed to permanently stem the fighting. The new deal was penned by opposition backer Turkey as well as Russia and Iran, which both support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was reached during negotiations to shore up a faltering truce deal brokered in December. The agreement would initially last six months but could be extended by the guarantors. It does not specify that the safe zones take effect immediately, but gives the three guarantor states two weeks to form working groups to delineate them and then until June 4 to come up with definitive boundaries. Access to the areas will be controlled by security zones with checkpoints and observation posts. - US-Russia calls - The deal also calls for a continued fight against the Islamic State group and former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, which could pose challenges. In Idlib province in particular, Fateh al-Sham is a major component of the rebel forces that control the area. The Syrian government and rebel groups are not signatories, and both sides spoke vaguely Saturday about "violations" of the agreement. A senior military source in Damascus said the army had noted breaches but was waiting for the zones to be fully delineated. And a member of the rebel delegation to the talks said the opposition was "recording violations of the deal committed by the regime and its militias". "We will send this list to the Russians via the Turks," the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. Germany said it was worried by reports of violations but that successfully implementing the deal could be the first step towards a real ceasefire. US officials have given the deal a guarded welcome and have followed up its signing with several phone calls with Russia. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasimov on Saturday. World powers are hoping success on the ground could pave the way for a new round of political talks in Geneva this month. More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with demonstrations against Assad. The National Coalition, a leading Syrian opposition body, elected prominent dissident Riad Seif, 70, as its new head on Saturday. Seif, who spent eight years in Syrian prison for his opposition activities, will replace Anas al-Abdeh. The former Tennessee high school teacher who allegedly kidnapped one of his students may have learnt how to evade capture, by staying in remote areas, from television shows that portray people surviving in the wild, his wife told Inside Edition. Tad Cummins, 50, was arrested last month after he ran away with his 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas in March this year. After almost a month away from the public eye, Thomas was reunited with her family in April and Cummins was arrested. He is facing charges of kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines with the intention to engage in sexual activity. He would watch Off the Grid and things like that and talk about living out in remote areas, Cummins wife Jill Cummins told Inside Edition. She filed for divorce from her husband soon after he disappeared with his student. Read: Tad Cummins, Elizabeth Thomas Case To Feature On 20/20 Show A never-before-seen video of the teen just as she was leaving her home to join Cummins was obtained by ABC News and released Friday. The video shows Thomas exiting her house as the family dog stands around her, wagging its tail. Thomas, who had two bags with her at the time, then leaves to sit in a car that reportedly took her to Cummins. Cummins and Thomas, who was facing a hard time adjusting in school after years of home schooling, were reported to be very close. According to Cummins wife, he admitted to sleeping with his student. I said, Well, did you sleep with her? And he said, Yes I did, Jill said, in an interview with Inside Edition. And I didn't want any details, but I knew the truth. I just wanted to hear it from him to me. Jill also said he asked her for forgiveness and claimed he loved her. Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas Photo: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation ABC News 20/20 show on Friday traced Cummins and Thomas steps during their time on the run. The networks correspondent Eva Pilgrim talked to people at the secluded California commune where both of them stayed at one point while they were missing. Story continues Residents reportedly asked them to leave as they never did their share of work, only spending time with each other. Pilgrim told the publication, There were only a small number of residents and their fear of Tad Cummins made them wait until more people came so they could confront him. They didn't want to confront him when they only had a few people there. Read: Teen Allegedly Kidnapped By Ex-Teacher Tad Cummins Gets Counseling After Being Found After being forced out of the commune, both of them went on to live at a cabin in the woods in Cecilville, California. According to the ABC report, Thomas had not showered for weeks when she and Cummins were captured from the cabin last month. According to court documents, Cummins allegedly planned to take his student to Mexico eventually using a small watercraft, and reportedly also conducted a test run to cross into Mexico from San Diego. His wife, however, was surprised at these allegations, claiming that he had no prior experience in this. Related Articles Former teacher Tad Cummins was being transferred to Tennessee from California to face charges related to the alleged kidnapping of his teen student Elizabeth Thomas, reports said Wednesday. Cummins was detained in California, where he and 15-year-old Elizabeth were found on April 20 after being on the run for over a month. The 50-year-old is facing charges for kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines with intention to engage in sexual activity. The latter charge carries a minimum of 10 years of jail term. Read: Tad Cummins Tells Wife He Slept With Teen Student Elizabeth Thomas Ben Galloway, assistant federal defender told ABC News Wednesday: "I can confirm that he left at about 7:30 [10 p.m. EDT] on Tuesday evening. I don't have details about his travel that information is generally not disclosed." "I can only tell you what we have seen in other cases: that the U.S. Marshals transport detainees by bus and plane through county jails, private correctional facilities, and often through the federal transfer center in Oklahoma City," Galloway told the news outlet. It remained unclear when exactly would Cummins arrive in Tennessee. But Galloway reportedly said: "He will appear in court in Tennessee shortly after his arrival there. I don't know when that will occur." Cummins and Elizabeth were found April 20 in Northern Californias remote Siskiyou County. The pair is reported to have spent a night at a cabin before being found by local law enforcement officials after a tip-off. While the former teacher was arrested, Elizabeth was taken back to her family in Tennessee. Last month, Cummins 26-year-old daughter Ashley told Inside Edition she would be standing by her father and would visit him in the jail. He was the definition of what a good father should be and he still is, she told Inside Edition. I believe that. He needs to at least know that everybodys not against him. In March, Cummins wife Jill filed for divorce a few days after reports about the alleged kidnapping emerged. The couple has been married for 31 years. In an interview with Inside Edition, she said her husband exploited and brainwashed the teen. However, she also said she felt betrayed by Elizabeth for getting romantically involved with Cummins, who was a health science teacher at Maury County Culleoka Unit School where the girl studied. Jill also said she warned her husband to stay away from the student. Story continues "He was getting really close to her," Jill told Inside Edition. "A father-daughter close, a friendship close, and I knew that. I discussed that with him. And explained to him, 'She's your student, you can't be so close to her.'" However, she added: "Never did I think there was a romantic thing between the two of them. There were no signs of that." According to the criminal complaint filed against Tad, Jill told investigators her husband was prescribed Cialis, an erectile dysfunction drug, and that he took two refills of the drug prior to his disappearance. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is reunited with her family and is undergoing counseling at an undisclosed location. Related Articles By Mohammed Mukhashaf ADEN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Yemenis protested in Aden on Thursday against President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's sacking of the provincial governor and a cabinet minister widely praised for helping drive Iran-aligned Houthis from the city in 2015. The two men sacked, Aden provincial governor Aydaroos al-Zubaidi and cabinet member Hani bin Brek, are both seen as supporting separatism for southern Yemen, while Hadi is determined to tighten his grip over a unified country. Zubaidi was one of the leaders of the Southern Resistance that helped expel the Houthis from his city. Diplomats and some analysts say Hadi is uncomfortable with the fact that among the forces trained and supported by the United Arab Emirates are some pro-secessionist fighters. Zubaidi and Brek are also seen as close to the UAE, a powerful regional military player. Witnesses described convoys of buses and cars carrying hundreds of people that had been arriving since Wednesday from around southern Yemen in Aden, the capital of the former South Yemen, for a rally billed as "a gathering of millions". "Hadi is going along partisan objectives and deepening divisions in the country," said protester Hamed Faraj. He said many people believe that the dismissals show the president is caving in to pressure from the Islamist Islah party, Yemen's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which also opposes the secessionist movement. Zubaidi told the protesters that he intended to work with all parties to push for independence for the south. "May 4th represents a turning point in the Southern nationalist movement's struggle for independence," he told the protesters in Aden. Formerly Marxist South Yemen merged with the North in 1990. Secessionists failed in a civil war in 1994 to reverse the unification, but secessionist sentiment has picked up again in recent years. Separatists accuse Hadi's government of failing to provide public services to Aden nearly two years after local fighters, backed mainly by forces from the UAE, expelled Houthis in 2015. (This version of the story adds dropped word "are" in paragraph 2 to say "are both seen as supporting separatism".) (Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Mosquito and tick season is upon us once again, and with it a new roster of diseases to worry about. Zika may have faded from the headlines, but yellow fever (which is spread by the same mosquito as the Zika virus) and Powassan (which is spread by ticks, but like Zika also causes neurological symptoms) seem poised to take its place. Powassan has emerged in Maine, where three cases were recently confirmed. And, for the first time since the 1940s, yellow fever has made its way to Brazil, where more than 200 people have been killed by the virus in the past three months. How far and wide either of these diseases will spreadand how many human victims they will ultimately claimis still anyone's guess. Scientists have been trying to develop ways to forecast infectious disease outbreaks the same way they forecast the weather, but it's tricky work. "It's really difficult to predict when or where an outbreak will occur," says Rebecca Eisen, Ph.D., a research biologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Whether a given mosquito- or tick-borne disease strikes depends on a complicated mix of factors that can vary greatly from one locale to the next. "The best, most important thing you can do is to avoid getting bitten in the first place," Eisen says. "And part of that is knowing what bugs are in your area, and knowing what pathogens they transmit." Here's a breakdown of the insect-borne diseases that are likely to make headlines this season, along with some tips for protecting yourself from the bug bites that transmit them. New Threats Emerge Powassan is not the only emerging tick-borne illness that infectious-disease experts are keeping an eye on this season, but it is certainly the one to garner the most headlines so far. Story continues The virus is spread by the same tick that carries Lyme, but is not nearly as common: on average, there are seven reported cases for Powassan each year (and just three, all in Maine, so far in 2017), compared with about 300,000 for Lyme. Still, despite its rarity, Powassan does have some features that make it frightening. It is transmitted very quickly. The infection can pass from tick to human in less than an hour (Lyme disease is believed to take 24-36 hours to accomplish the same feat). And it can be deadly: Powassan causes fatal brain swelling in about 10 percent of cases, and permanent neurological damage (vision trouble, facial tics, blurred vision) about half the time. There is no vaccine against Powassan, and no treatment for the disease. Some scientists have predicted an uptick in cases of Powassan and other tick-borne diseases this season, owing to warmer winters and earlier springs. But it remains to be seen when, where, or whether those larger outbreaks will emerge. In the meantime, as Eisen says, the most important thing to do is prevent ticks from biting you in the first place. See our tips for keeping bugs away. An Old Scourge Returns Yellow fever (which is spread by the same mosquito that spreads Zika and dengue) once ranked as the largest public health threat in the western hemisphere. At the start of the previous century, before the vaccine to prevent it had been developed, this virus periodically decimated cities from New Orleans to Philadelphia. In most cases, yellow fever cause no symptoms, or triggers only mild flu-like ones. But 15 percent to 20 percent of those infected can develop high fevers, jaundice, and bleeding, and those more serious cases are often fatal. So it's understandable that the virus's re-emergence in Brazil earlier this year has public health officials deeply concerned. So far the outbreak there remains "sylvatic," which means it is spread mainly between forest-dwelling mosquitoes and monkeys, with humans only occasional victims. But experts worry that this may change, because the affected regions are dangerously close to dense urban centers. According to Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, it's "highly unlikely" that we will see a yellow fever outbreak in the continental U.S., though it's possible in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Island, and other U.S. territories. There may also be isolated cases in the Gulf Coast region and among people who have recently traveled to the tropics, as there were with Zika. For information on how to protect yourself abroad, see our primer on travel vaccines. The Usual Suspects Persist While the emergence of something newfangled, or the return of something long-forgotten, can inspire fear, Eisen and others say that the biggest insect-borne threats by far will be the same this year as they have been every year for the past decade or so. West Nile virus first emerged in the U.S. in 1999. Since then, it has established itself in all 48 of the continental states, triggering outbreaks across the country every summer for the past two decades, and infecting an estimated 2,000-plus people in that time. The virus (which is spread by the Culex mosquito), causes no symptoms in most people, though about a fifth develop flu-like symptoms. Most people recover completely, but fatigue and weakness can persist for months after the initial infection. Less than 1 percent of patients develop severe illness, with neurological symptoms that include brain swelling (encephalitis), high fevers, disorientation, meningitis, seizures, and paralysis. About 10 percent of those patients die; the rest take weeks to months to recover, and can suffer some permanent neurological damage. West Nile outbreaks are most common between June and December, and are influenced by a range of factors, including the weather, the mosquito population, the number of infected birds, and as always, human behavior. The best way to protect yourself is to properly apply an effective insect repellent. Lyme disease remains the single largest insect-borne disease threat in the continental U.S. Each year, the CDC logs some 30,000 new case reports, though the agency suspects that the actual number of human Lyme infections is actually 10 times higher. The disease is caused by a bacteria that is spread by the infamous deer tick. The vast majority of cases occur in just 14 states (see our map below). Early symptoms of Lyme infection can include a bull's-eye-like rash around the area of the bite, but many people experience a different rash pattern, or no rash at all. In fact, it can also take as long as thirty days after a tick bite for any symptoms to appear, and those symptoms can often be so mild as to be overlooked or mistaken for flu. In rare cases, Lyme can cause severe long-term neurological effects. The best way to protect yourself from Lyme Disease is to prevent tick bites from occurring at all. The good news is there are several proven ways to accomplish that. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Copyright 2006-2017 Consumer Reports, Inc. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke by phone on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about efforts to reduce the violence in Syria and move to a political solution to the civil war, the State Department said in a statement. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the State Department said. (Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Walsh) By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Thursday to do more to help cut funding streams for North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and to minimize diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. In his first ministerial meeting with all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Tillerson also called on nations with competing claims in the South China Sea to cease all island building and militarization while talks aimed at creating a maritime code of conduct were under way. Patrick Murphy, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said Tillerson stressed Washington's security and economic commitment to the region, amid doubts raised by President Donald Trump's "America First" platform and withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. Tillerson called on ASEAN countries to fully implement U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang, which is working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States, and to show a united front on the issue, Murphy said. "We think that more can be done, not just in Southeast Asia," he told reporters. "We are encouraging continued and further steps across all of ASEAN." Last week, Tillerson called on all countries to suspend or downgrade diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, saying that North Korea abuses diplomatic privileges to help fund its arms programs. Tillerson also warned that Washington would sanction foreign firms and people conducting business with North Korea if countries did not act themselves. All ASEAN members have diplomatic relations with North Korea and five have embassies there. Murphy said Washington was not encouraging ASEAN states to formally cut ties, but to examine the North Korean presence "where it clearly exceeds diplomatic needs." He said some countries were already doing this and also looking at the presence of North Korean workers, another significant revenue earner for Pyongyang. KEEPING TENSION FROM INCREASING Some officials of ASEAN members, speaking to reporters, acknowledged concerns about North Korea, but also cited concerns about trade relations with the United States. Philippine acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, whose country currently chairs ASEAN, said of the U.S. call to minimize relations with Pyongyahng, "We haven't really discussed that among the ASEAN countries, so that's probably something we will look at. "Our immediate concern is to try and ensure the tension on the peninsula doesn't increase. ... The last thing we would like to see is to have a conflict break out due to some miscalculation," Manalo said. Singapore's foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said sanctions would have to be fully implemented, but North Korea's presence in his country is already minimal.Asked if that could be further reduced, he said: "I won't say never, but at this point in time that's not the issue - we will stick with the U.N. Security Council's resolutions." Balakrishnan, whose country signed the TPP, stressed the importance of U.S.-ASEAN business ties - annual trade of $100 billion supporting half a million U.S. jobs and $274 billion of U.S. investment. "Southeast Asia is replete with economic opportunities and it's too big to miss out on," he said. His remark highlighted growing concern in Asia that Trump has ditched former President Barack Obama's economic "pivot" to the region by abandoning the TPP, something analysts say has led to more countries being pulled into China's orbit. Murphy said Tillerson stressed that ASEAN remained a "very important ... strategic partner," which is shown by Trump's commitment to attend regional summits in the Philippines and Vietnam in November. Manalo called the meeting with Tillerson and Trump's travel plans "encouraging" signs. "ROOM AND SPACE" Washington wants ASEAN countries to crack down on money laundering and smuggling involving North Korea and to look at restricting legal business too. It has been working to persuade China, North Korea's neighbor and only major ally, to increase pressure on Pyongyang. U.S. officials are also asking China to urge more China-friendly ASEAN members, such as Laos and Cambodia, to do the same. U.S. efforts have included a flurry of calls by Trump to the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. Diplomats say U.S. pressure has caused some irritation in ASEAN, including Malaysia, which has maintained relations with Pyongyang in spite of the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half brother at Kuala Lumpur International airport in February/ On the issue of the South China Sea, ASEAN has adopted a cautious approach recently, with a weekend summit avoiding references to China's building and arming of artificial islands there. This stance coincided with moves by China and ASEAN to draft a framework to negotiate a code of conduct. Murphy said Tillerson had stressed that this process needed "room and space" through avoiding fortifying existing claims. The United States has conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge South China Sea claims, angering China, but not yet under Trump. Murphy said such operations would continue, but declined to say when the next might occur. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump was simply saying nice things to an ally when he called Australia's universal healthcare system better than the U.S. system, and he does not think his country should adopt a similar approach, the White House said on Friday. "The president was complimenting a foreign leader on the operations of their healthcare system," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a news briefing. "It didn't mean anything more than that." Trump raised eyebrows when he told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday in New York, "You have better health care than we do." Trump spoke shortly after he led a White House rally with Republicans from the House of Representatives, who had just passed legislation to overturn much of former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law and move further away from a guarantee of universal coverage. That measure, opposed by Democrats, must clear the Senate before Trump can sign it into law. "Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do - everybody does," Trump tweeted on Friday. "ObamaCare is dead! But our healthcare will soon be great." Independent scorekeepers at the Congressional Budget Office have not yet analyzed the bill, but they estimated an earlier version would have led to 24 million fewer Americans with insurance coverage than under current law. Australia's government plays a larger role in its health system. The country provides free hospital treatment and subsidized medical care for all residents through a publicly funded program. Roughly half of Australians choose to buy private coverage, which provides them with greater choices. Huckabee Sanders said Trump's remarks do not mean he thinks the United States should adopt a similar system. "I think he believes that they have a good healthcare system for Australia," she said. "What works in Australia may not work in the United States." (This version of the story in third paragraph, corrects name of Australian prime minister) (Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Cynthia Osterman) President Trump declared Friday that everybody on the world stage has better health care than the United States, but suggested that the GOPs health care plan will change that. Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do everybody does. ObamaCare is dead! he exclaimed on Twitter. But our healthcare will soon be great. Trump had raised eyebrows the day before, when he praised Australias health care model while meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New York. The meeting was just hours after House Republicans pushed through Congress a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Prominent liberals, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., swiftly pointed out that the Australian health care model provides publicly funded health care with private sector options. In other words, something that more closely resembles the model of Trumps predecessor, former President Barack Obama, than unencumbered free-market capitalism. Earlier on Friday afternoon, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to downplay Trumps comments to Turnbull. President Trump boards Air Force One before his departure from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Thursday, May 4, 2017. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) I think he was simply being complimentary of the prime minister, and I dont think it was anything more than that, she said. But Trumps tweet apparently doubled down on his original argument. It wasnt immediately clear if everybody refers to all countries, representative democracies, developed countries or some other category. Regardless, Trump is correct that the U.S. lags behind other countries in health care service among industrialized nations. But its somewhat ironic that the countries outranking the U.S. in general reports on this topic, such as the Commonwealth Fund, tend to provide health care for their citizens regardless of their wealth or economic status Canada and Norway, for instance. Its also open for debate whether House Republicans health care plan will move the U.S. closer to countries like Australia. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reviewed an earlier version of the bill and found that it would leave 24 million more people uninsured by 2026 than under current law. Read more from Yahoo News: Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump will work with "whoever the people of France decide to elect" as their leader, his spokeswoman said Friday. The comment offered no support to either Emmanuel Macron, who polls favor to be France's next president after elections on Sunday, or his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, whom Trump has hinted should benefit from attack-related security fears. "The president is committed to working with leaders across the globe to combat a whole host of issues and certainly would do that with whoever the people elect," Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. She said, however, that "I have not had a conversation about whether he supports any particular candidate." The non-commitment contrasted with the position of Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, who this week released a video statement backing Macron, a centrist who he said "appeals to people's hopes and not their fears." Le Pen was one of the first politicians to congratulate Trump on his election last November, and she has lauded his protectionist stance on trade. She has also traveled to Moscow, where she met Russian President Vladimir Putin and was photographed with him. Trump has said he hoped for improved relations with Putin, though both men have admitted that US-Russia ties have worsened in recent months. By Ryan Woo and Sanjeev Miglani BEIJING/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - When Donald Trump was elected in November, the Dalai Lama said he was keen to meet the incoming U.S. president, but since then Trump has cozied up to China's leader Xi Jinping, making it less likely the man Beijing deems a separatist will get an invite to the White House anytime soon. The United States has long recognised Tibet as part of the People's Republic of China, and does not back Tibetan independence. But that has not deterred all the recent U.S. presidents before Trump from meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. The United States is widely seen as the last major Western power that has still held meetings with the Dalai Lama despite Beijing's objections that such encounters foment separatism. In past meetings, the U.S. had consistently voiced support for the protection of human rights of Tibetans in China, and called for formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama and his representatives. At a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday, China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China resolutely opposes any foreign country allowing the Dalai Lama to visit or any foreign official having any form of exchange with him. He did not say whether China had specifically requested Trump not meet the Dalai Lama. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman and a White House official referred Reuters to the Dalai Lama's office when asked whether the Tibetan spiritual leader and his representatives had asked for a meeting with Trump and whether any such meetings were planned. "His Holiness was supposed to go (to the U.S.) in April, but it was postponed," Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, told Reuters. That trip has been delayed until June due to a hectic schedule in the preceding months that had left the Dalai Lama physically exhausted, Sangay said, adding that Washington D.C. wouldn't be part of the June itinerary. The office of the Dalai Lama hasn't reached out to Trump to arrange a meeting yet, he said. The Dalai Lama is taking a more considered approach with regard to any meeting with Trump, said a source with knowledge of the thinking of the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. The unpredictable U.S. president upset protocol in December when weeks before being sworn into office he took a telephone call from the leader of self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, only to last week rebuff Taiwanese suggestions of another call. [nL4N1I03TN] In the interim, Trump has met and phoned Xi, and says he has built a strong relationship with the Chinese leader. He called Xi "a friend of mine" who was "doing an amazing job as a leader" in an interview with Reuters last week, and praised him for trying to rein in nuclear-armed North Korea. In return, the Chinese president has invited Trump to visit China this year. In mid-2008, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met the Dalai Lama, to the anger of Beijing. Months later, the British Foreign Secretary at that time David Miliband ditched Britain's near century-long position on Tibet, describing it as an "anachronism", and explicitly recognised Tibet as part of China. Based on treaties signed at the turn of the 20th century by British-administered India and Tibet, Britain had previously said it would recognise China's "special position" in Tibet on the condition that Tibet was given significant autonomy. SILENCE FROM TRUMP Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a "peaceful liberation". Nine years later, the Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive uprising and set up a government in exile, which China does not recognise. China sees the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist in a monk's robes, even though the Dalai Lama says he wants autonomy for his homeland, not outright independence. There have been no formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's representatives since 2010. International rights groups and exiles say China stamps on the religious and cultural rights of Tibetans, accusations denied by Beijing. China says its rule has ended serfdom and brought prosperity to a once-backward trans-Himalayan region. Trump has been silent on Tibetan issues. "The main change is that the U.S. approach on Tibet seems likely to become more transactional and therefore less consistent," said Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University. "It seems set to become more a question of contingency, dependent on how he calculates his relationship with China at any one moment." Earlier this week, Democratic U.S. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts called for a new U.S. policy towards Tibet to safeguard the identity of the Tibetan people and hold China accountable for human rights abuses. The Dalai Lama will next week receive a U.S. Congressional delegation led by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi at his base in northern India, his government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, said on Friday. The visit represents a bipartisan gesture of support that is likely to rile Beijing. The prime minister of the government-in-exile said he is still hopeful that the United States will continue to support Tibetan issues and push for talks between the Dalai Lama's representatives and Beijing. But he said they were prepared for any upsets. "We are Buddhists, we believe in impermanence. You just go with your karma and whatever happens, happens, because we have seen the worst, the occupation of our country," said Sangay, who is planning a trip to Washington at the end of May. (Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING, Douglas Busvine in NEW DELHI and David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON D.C.; Editing by Martin Howell) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Thursday to tighten sanctions on North Korea by targeting its shipping industry and companies that do business with the reclusive state. The vote was 419 to 1. Supporters said the legislation was intended to send a strong message to North Korea, amid international concern over the escalation of its nuclear program. The measure would have to be approved by the Senate before it could be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law. Although legislation addressing North Korea has been introduced in the Senate, there was no immediate word on when or if the Senate might take up a bill. Any new U.S. sanctions against North Korea would likely affect China, the North's most important trade partner. While China has been angered by North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, it has signed up for increasingly tough U.N. sanctions against it, and says it is committed to enforcing them. Asked about the latest U.S. legislation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China opposed other countries using their own domestic law to impose unilateral sanctions. With the situation tense on the Korean Peninsula, all sides need to exercise restraint and not irritate each other to avoid the situation worsening, he said. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Leslie Adler) By Patricia Zengerle and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The leaders of a House of Representatives probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election said they had a "successful" hearing on Thursday, projecting unity after a partisan division had threatened to derail their investigation. Representatives Mike Conaway, the new Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee probe, and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat, addressed reporters together after Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, testified at a classified hearing. "We had a very successful hearing," Conaway said. Schiff said the witnesses had provided "some additional insights," and the committee was working together very well. Neither responded to questions. The committee's Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, recused himself from the investigation and was replaced by Conaway last month after a dispute caused Democrats to question whether Nunes could credibly lead a probe of possible Russian attempts to influence the election in favor of President Donald Trump. Russia denies the allegations. Nunes had infuriated Democrats by telling reporters, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump - before informing committee Democrats - that he had seen documents showing that the communications of Trump associates had been caught up in surveillance. It later emerged that Nunes, a close Trump ally, obtained the information at the White House, after the Republican president pushed back against suspicions that Russia boosted his campaign by making the unsubstantiated accusation that former President Barack Obama had ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower in New York. Schiff and Conaway later issued a joint statement on Thursday's classified hearing saying they remained committed to working with the FBI as it continues its investigation. They said they are currently sending out invitations for witnesses to testify and requesting documents. They said they were looking forward to the next steps of the investigation, including an open hearing with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and John Brennan, who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama. Nunes canceled that hearing when it was originally scheduled in late March, frustrating Democrats, but the committee has now promised it will take place at a still undetermined date. Yates and Clapper are due to testify in the Senate on Monday. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Jonathan Landay; editing by Phil Berlowitz) Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged his South East Asian colleagues on Thursday to take further steps to isolate North Korea's pariah regime. President Donald Trump's top diplomat met foreign ministers and top envoys from the 10-strong Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Washington. North Korea is under UN sanctions targeting its efforts to develop a nuclear missile arsenal, but Washington wants its Asian allies to do more. Deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Patrick Murphy told reporters that North Korea's foreign missions are suspiciously large. These embassies, he suggested, are not just diplomatic bases but serve to help Pyongyang illegally to evade sanctions and to carry out other "nefarious acts." And he cited as an example the murder with a nerve agent in February of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's brother Kim Jong-Nam in a Malaysian airport. "And so countries have agreed, and in some cases have limited the size or reduced the size of the North Korean diplomatic presence in their countries," Murphy said. "Some countries are taking a look at the presence of North Korean workers, which, again, is another revenue stream for North Korea, and is this appropriate." Murphy stressed ties with Pyongyang are a sovereign matter for ASEAN states, but confirmed that Tillerson had urged them to review their positions. "I do believe some countries are taking a look at their presence in North Korea and trying to assess if it's appropriate or not," he added. (Reuters) - A power outage at a Valero Energy Corp refinery and resulting smoke on Friday forced residents to remain indoors for several hours in the San Francisco Bay city of Benicia, California. The dense, black smoke from the Benicia refinery, as it flared off hydrocarbons it could not process normally, also caused traffic to back up on Interstate 680 and forced evacuations from the industrial park where Valero's plant is located, according to local news media reports. By noon PDT (1900 GMT) orders to remain indoors and evacuate the industrial park had been lifted, according to the Benicia Fire Department Valero said the 145,500 barrel-per-day refinery lost its power supply at about 6:45 a.m. PDT from Pacific Gas & Electric on Friday, forcing it to use the flare system. Energy industry intelligence service Genscape said all monitored units at the refinery were shut down on Friday following the power outage. Power was restored to the refinery within a few hours. Two people were treated for respiratory distress, the fire department said. (Reporting by Nithin Prasad in Bengaluru and Erwin Seba in Houston; editing by Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman) BANGKOK (Reuters) - An heir to the Red Bull fortune wanted in Thailand for his alleged involvement in a deadly hit-and-run has left Singapore after abandoning his private jet and disappeared, Thai police said on Thursday. Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya left Thailand for Singapore on April 25, two days before he had been ordered to report to prosecutors to be formally charged in court, police said. He faces charges of speeding, hit-and-run and reckless driving causing death over an incident in 2012 when he allegedly crashed his Ferrari into a policeman on a motorcycle in Bangkok and fled the scene, dragging the officer's body for several dozen meters with his car as he did so. It was the eighth time he has missed a summons since legal proceedings against him began in 2016. The case is being closely watched in Thailand where it has fueled complaints that the justice system favors the rich and famous, allowing them to break the law with impunity. Police said Vorayuth had traveled to Singapore on his private jet and stayed there for two days. "Vorayuth left Singapore on April 27. The private jet he arrived in is still there," senior police official Apichat Suriboonya, who heads Thailand's Interpol bureau, told Reuters. "We have no further details." Apichat said his team was working with Singapore police to try to determine where Vorayuth had gone. Singapore police confirmed he had left the city state and said they would do what they could to help their Thai colleagues. A Thai court issued an arrest warrant for Vorayuth last Friday and police said they had asked the Foreign Ministry to revoke his passport. The ministry said it would do so as quickly as possible. "Having his passport revoked will pressure Vorayuth to travel back to Thailand, as no country would allow him to enter without it," another senior police official, Sarawut Detsri, told Reuters. Vorayuth is a grandson of the late Chaleo Yoovidhya, creator of the Kratin Daeng, or red bull, energy drink. Chaleo, 88, was listed as the third richest person in Thailand at the time of his death in 2012, with an estimated net worth of US$5 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Vorayuth has spent much of the past five years abroad, including in London, where his family owns a home, and Singapore, according to social media posts. He has previously cited work commitments abroad as a reason for not showing up in court. (Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat and Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK; Additional reporting by Fathin Ungku in SINGAPORE; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Robert Birsel) The near-certain winner of South Korea's presidential election next week is a former special forces soldier, pro-democracy activist and human rights lawyer. Left-leaning Moon Jae-In of the Democratic Party has held what appears to be an unassailable lead in opinion polls for months. Victory will cap a political career that began with student activism in the days of military rule, when he was convicted of taking part in illegal protests. The election comes after millions of South Koreans took to the streets in candlelit demonstrations to demand the removal of Park Geun-Hye, who was sacked by the country's top court in March over a corruption scandal and is now in custody awaiting trial. "Our efforts to create a country worth living in started with candlelights and must end with votes," Moon told an audience this week. The irony is that he was once chief of staff to liberal president Roh Moo-Hyun, who committed suicide in 2009 after being questioned over graft allegations. "Corruption is the biggest issue in South Korean politics," says Robert Kelly of Pusan National University. "That's absolutely true. Every South Korean president has gotten into trouble for corruption and bribery and graft and things like that, of varying degrees." But Moon boasts a clean image himself, said Kim Neung-Gou, president of online newspaper Polinews, and has been "riding on waves of protests against Park and accumulated corruption". - Arrested and expelled - Moon was born on the southern island of Geoje in 1952 during the Korean War after his North Korean parents fled to the South. His father was a menial worker at a prisoner-of-war camp while his mother peddled eggs in the nearby port city of Busan, with the baby Moon strapped to her back, the politician wrote in his autobiography. He entered law school in Seoul in 1972 but was arrested and expelled for leading a student protest against the authoritarian rule of dictator Park Chung-Hee -- the ousted president's father. Story continues Moon returned to school in 1980 only to be arrested again. His close friendship with future president Roh began in 1982 when they opened a law firm in Busan focusing on human and civil rights issues. Both became leading figures in the pro-democracy protests that swept the country in 1987 and led to South Korea's first direct presidential elections the same year. When Roh entered politics, Moon continued with his legal practice in Busan, defending students and workers arrested for leading protests and labour strikes. But a year after Roh's unexpected election victory in 2002, Moon joined the administration as a presidential aide, tasked with weeding out official corruption and screening candidates for top government posts, before rising to become his chief of staff. "I was always happy due to the fact that I was able to help others with what I had been trained to do," Moon said in his autobiography. - Deeper rifts - The 64-year-old has promised to curb the concentration of economic power in the hands of the chaebols, the family-oriented business groups whose ties to government have been exposed in the wide-ranging scandal that saw Park impeached. But his opponents say he is narrow-minded and surrounded by jealous loyalists, whose strong factionalism has contributed to the main opposition party splitting. "When he becomes president, the rift between liberals and conservatives will deepen all the more, and national reconciliation would be further off," former Yonsei University political science professor Kim Syng-Ho said. Conservative critics also accuse him of being too soft towards nuclear-armed North Korea. Moon advocates dialogue and reconciliation with the North to defuse the situation and eventually lure it to negotiations that have been at a standstill for years. Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang over the latter's weapons and missile programmes have risen in recent weeks, with cycles of threats on both sides raising fears of conflict. But in December Moon said that if elected, he was willing to visit North Korea ahead of the United States, the South's security guarantor. He has shown ambivalence over the US missile defence system THAAD, which has been deployed in the South to the fury of China, saying it should be up to the next administration to decide. But it was declared operational last week, potentially presenting him with a fait accompli. That could all lay the ground for a difficult relationship with US President Donald Trump -- who has demanded that Seoul pay for the "billion dollar" system. NASAs Cassini spacecraft continues to delivery some truly jaw-dropping photographs from Saturn, and its most recent Grand Finale dive between the planets rings has produced some of its most striking eye candy yet. But whats most interesting about the newest crop of photos isnt necessarily the images of Saturn and its rings those are also really, really cool its the snapshots that Cassinis lens managed to capture of the planets moons Rhea and Titan. Don't Miss:Theres one thing that really has me worried about the iPhone 8 The photos, which were captured before, during, and immediately after the second of Cassinis over 20 planned dives, were sent back to NASA from the spacecraft on May 3rd. The collection of new images was just released to the public in a huge media dump by the agency. They include shots of the moons Rhea (above) and Titan (below), shot at distances of Of course, Saturn itself is Cassinis most important photography subject, and the craft spent some time snapping some really fantastic new shots of the planets complex ring structure as well. The photos, especially the one below, are so incredibly detailed that they honestly look fake. The sharp lines you see are actually made up of all kinds of dust and debris that has been circling Saturn for ages, forming the strikingly beautiful pattern. Cassinis next Grand Finale dive will take place on May 9th, when it will make its way from the northern end of Saturn to the south, flying through the rings as it goes. Lets hope its next 20 dives produce just as much fancy photography as its first two. For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Does the US want to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un? If real, a plan like that would certainly address a bunch of problems for the Trump administration, and for the rest of the world. Or, it would be just the kind of pretext the totalitarian regime north of the wall needs to start a nuclear war. Well, it turns out North Korea really believes that the US and South Korea have been working together to kill Kim by using biochemical weapons. Don't Miss: New iPhone 8 design leak may bring some very good news According to CNN, North Korean state news agency KCNA uncovered a hideous plot by a terrorist group that attempted to kill the supreme leader. In a 1,800-word report, the agency said that the plot involved a North Korean citizen and the use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance to target Kim during a major event such as a military parade. No evidence whatsoever was provided in the report. This CNN paragraph tells the whole story and reads like a synopsis for an action movie that Hollywood should really consider making. KCNA laid out the alleged plot in great detail, saying it was hatched in 2014 when the South Korean and US intelligence agencies recruited a North Korean working in the timber industry in eastern Russia. Further contacts were made over subsequent years, and the assassination attempt was to have taken place at a military parade, KCNA said. The report didnt say when the plot was foiled, but only that it was uncovered and smashed recently. CNN points out that South Koreas plans to kill Kim arent secret well not all of them. There is at least one retaliatory plan that includes targeting North Koreas leadership if South Korea feels threatened by nuclear attack. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Samsung could already be working on the ruggedized variant of the Galaxy S8 based on a very recent leak thats alluding to the existence of the flagship phones heavy-duty version. Also, this variant, dubbed as the Galaxy S8 active, will likely be restricted to AT&T much like its predecessor. This Friday, SamMobile spotted a Samsung handset with model number SM-G892A in a User Agent String. After making the discovery, the Samsung-centric news site linked the device to the latest flagship Android phone from Samsung, which is the Galaxy S8. The site believes that the model number is of the AT&T-branded Galaxy S8 active. SamMobile admitted that it doesnt have much information on the ruggedized variant of the S8 at this point, but the MIL0STD-810G standard compliance and IP68 certification are said to be a given for an outdoor phone. The site was also uncertain if the device, currently codenamed Cruiser, will sport the same internal components as the regular Galaxy S8. READ: Will Galaxy X overshadow Galaxy Note 8? When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S7 active last year, the company made it clear that the variant would be mostly the same as the regular Galaxy S7 with the addition of a few tweaks. Aside from the rugged and very different appearance of the active-branded version, the larger 4000mAh battery was also its good selling point. Moreover, the ruggedized variant came in Camo Green, Titanium Gray and Sandy Gold color options instead of the regular S7s Black, White, Gold, Pink Gold and Silver color models. It wont be surprising if the Galaxy S8 active would follow in the footsteps of its predecessors. After all, the Galaxy S8 already comes with impressive specs and features. The flagship phone has a 5.8-inch screen (Infinity Display), a Snapdragon 835/Exynos 8895 processor, a 12-megapixel back camera, an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter and a 3,000mAh battery. Its very likely that among the mentioned specs, the battery would be the one to get a boost. Story continues The new leak may seem to confirm that AT&T is releasing the ruggedized variant of the Galaxy S8, but its clear that consumers need to wait a bit longer for the handsets official release. The carrier usually unveils the active variants of Samsungs flagship phones in June. Whether Samsung and AT&T would still follow the same time frame remains to be seen at this point. READ: Samsung testing self-driving cars in South Korea? Meanwhile, the different features of Samsungs Bixby-named smart assistant are slowly arriving. Just this Wednesday, Verizon rolled out a software update that enabled the shopping capability of Bixby Vision, which is the image recognition technology of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ cameras. With this feature getting activated, users may now point their handsets to real-life objects and buy similar items from Amazon through the links that are automatically generated by Bixby Vision. Some aspects of Samsungs Siri rival did not ship with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, since its taking some time before the South Korea giant could perfect the service. Samsung said early last month that features like Vision, Home and Reminder will be available at launch, while the voice assistant and a couple more features wont be. Consumers need to wait until later this spring before they could have access to these features. Samsung Galaxy S8 Photo: Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji Related Articles The human rights group Amnesty International has condemned laws governing the Internet in Bangladesh. In a report released on Tuesday, the group called the laws that attempt to silence government critics in the country draconian, or very severe. Amnesty said members of the media are under attack by both police and armed groups. Olof Blomgvist is the reports lead researcher. Between the violence of armed groups and repression of the state, [non-religious] voices in Bangladesh are being silenced, Blomgvist said. Not only is the government failing to protect peoples freedom of expression, it is blaming them for the threats they face and criminalizing the work of [internet writers] and journalists. The Amnesty report lists a communication technology law passed in 2006 as the main tool that the Bangladeshi government uses to silence critics. The government strengthened that law in 2013, giving police the ability to arrest journalists without permission from a judge. The report says that, since then, several well-known writers and editors have faced politically motivated criminal charges. Most of those charged, the report continues, have worked with media organizations that are critical of the government or supportive of the political opposition. Some journalists, Amnesty reports, say the governments repression today is the worst that reporters have faced since 1991, when the country returned to civilian rule. Non-religious internet writers in Bangladesh are also facing threats of violence from religious extremists, the report says. It claims that police almost never take action against these extremists. The report lists the 2013 murder of internet writer Rajib Haider as the first of several murders of non-religious writers and activists that had limited police response. Several non-religious internet writers told Amnesty that they had received death threats because of their publications. They say they tried to receive help from the police. But the police just suggested that the writers leave the country. Government officials have rejected the claims of the Amnesty report. Rashed Khan Menon, the Civil Aviation Minister, called the report old and recycled. He told BenarNews on Wednesday, [It] is not a reflection of the latest situation in Bangladesh. We cannot accept this. BenarNews and VOA are each part of the U.S. government-supported Broadcasting Board of Governors. Im Pete Musto. Joshua Fatzick reported this for VOA News. Pete Musto adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. We want to hear from you. How does the government in your country treat critical voices? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story journalist(s) n. a person whose job is collecting, writing, and editing news stories for newspapers, magazines, television, or radio motivate(d) v. to be a reason for something recycle(d) v. to use something again reflection n. something that shows the effect, existence, or character of something else China has organized an alliance of Asian universities to compete with western educational institutions. The alliance will share resources and increase exchanges of students and teachers. The new organization is called the Asian University Alliance (AUA). It was launched in late April at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The Chinese university was elected as chair of the group that includes a total of 15 universities from 14 countries and areas. A goal of increasing Asian wisdom Chinas Vice Premier Liu Yandong spoke at opening ceremonies at of the AUA on Saturday in Beijing. She said the new organization was important to China. Liu said the educational alliance will provide Asian wisdom to resolve regional and global problems. She added that the group will combine outstanding global talents with an international perspective and to serve regional development. Other universities included in the alliance are Peking University, the University of Tokyo, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the National University of Singapore, and Seoul National University in South Korea. The Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, King Saudi University in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates University, Malaysias University of Malaya and the University of Indonesia are also in the group. Others members of the alliance are the University of Yangon in Myanmar, the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, and Nazarbayev University of Kazakhstan. People who attended the first board meeting of the AUA confirmed that Tsinghua University has offered to fund the organization with $1.5 million dollars. Members currently pay a fee of $5,000. Rankings and research seen as very important The goal of the group is to help Asian schools rise in the world rankings. The top universities in the world are mainly in western developed nations like the United States and Britain. High rankings are important to attract research money from private business and international organizations. Rankings also help in attracting the best teachers and students from around the world. Tan Eng Chye is Deputy President and Provost of the National University of Singapore. He said, Ranking is invariably based more on research because, if you look at educational outcomes, it is harder to gauge. He also said research spending is important. And if you pool in a lot of money into research, then, I think, you will go up quite quickly (in the rankings). Tan said that governments should play an important part in funding research. Only five percent of the research has an immediate application, he said. So industry often does not want to support the other 95 percent that does not lead to new products immediately. The desire to pool research and develop a greater exchange of students and teachers caused several Asian universities to join the AUA. This alliance will help us refocus on Asian universities in a lot of areas like student mobility, faculty exchange, and joint research, said Prasanna M. Mujumdar, director of IIT, Bombay. China could gain from reducing its dependence on western institutions for high technology and it is looking towards Asian universities. Some observers compare the move to Chinas creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2014. The bank has increased Chinas leadership position in Asia and expanded its international influence. Im Mario Ritter. Saibal Dasgupta reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story Rankings n. a list of something ordered according to quality, size or some other characteristic Gauge v. to make a judgment about something Pool v. to combine money collected from others to be divided among the group International students attending American colleges are required to have test scores showing the ability to speak and write in English. Many universities require a minimum score on the TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, [of] between 79 and 100. The score is calculated in four parts: reading, speaking, listening and writing. According to the 2016 Open Doors report, there are over 328,000 students from China out of a million international students in the United States. However, some students who want to come to the U.S. may not be able to score that high on the tests. This, in turn, has launched an industry to meet their demand. This week, police arrested four students for cheating on their TOEFL. Yue Wang, a business school student in Massachusetts, received $7,000 to take the tests for three other students. Those three students were admitted to Arizona State University, Penn State University and Northeastern University. William Weinreb is the acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. He said the students broke the rules of the exam and took spots at universities that could have gone to qualified students. The students in the case face charges of trying defraud the United States because they used false results to receive student visas from the U.S. State Department. It is not the first time something like this has happened. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice charged 15 Chinese students who planned to have others take the college admissions test for them. Earlier this year, the College Board canceled the results of the international SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test] for some students after concerns of cheating arose. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report from Reuters. Hai Do was the editor. What do you think about the TOEFL cheating? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story minimum - adj. the lowest number or amount that is possible or allowed usually singular calculate - v. to find (a number, answer, etc.) by using mathematical processes defraud v. to trick or cheat someone or something in order to get money : to use fraud in order to get money from a person, an organization, etc. arise - v. to begin to occur or to exist U.S. President Donald Trump, in an interview with the Washington Examiner this week, wondered, Why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out? The United States fought the civil war from 1861-1865. The war began after 11 southern states left the United States and formed the Confederacy. Over 600,000 soldiers lost their lives before the Confederacy was defeated. Now, over 150 years later, the battle is still fought in some communities over calls to remove flags, statues and other public displays connected to the Confederacy. What was the Civil War about? Civil War historian James McPherson wrote that "the Civil War was caused by differences between free and slave states over the power of the national government to stop slavery in western territories. It is the Confederacys connection to slavery that recently led the southern city of New Orleans, Louisiana, to begin removing four monuments, or statues, connected to the Civil War and its aftermath. Slavery was the buying and selling of Africans and other blacks who were forced to work in America, mostly in the South, without pay. Many were separated from their families and treated terribly by their owners. Mitch Landrieu is the mayor of New Orleans. He believes that monuments connected to slavery should not be given an honored place in his majority African-American city. He said, The removal of these statues sends a clear and unequivocal message to the people of New Orleans and the nation: New Orleans celebrates our diversity, inclusion and tolerance. Removal of Confederate monuments The first monument, removed on April 24, recognized the Crescent City White League. League members fought against a racially integrated police department in the 19th century. Jarvis DeBerry is a columnist for the Times-Picayune, a New Orleans newspaper. He said the four monuments the city is removing went up after the U.S. government dropped control of the southern states. Control by the federal government lasted from 1865 to 1877. It was a time when African-Americans, not only integrated the police departments, but also gained political power, DeBerry said. There were black people in positions of power. And yet when the Union armies withdrew and the South was allowed to govern itself again they created hell for black people. And again I think part of the hell they created was the erection of these monuments to remind anybody who might think otherwise that no, you are not a real citizen and no, you don't have the rights that white people enjoy. There has been some opposition to removing the Confederate monuments from New Orleans. Officials were so concerned about violence that workers covered their faces, so they could not be identified while removing the first Confederate Monument. Pierre McGraw is president of the Monument Task Committee. He said on Facebook that New Orleans should have added information about the Confederacy to the monuments, instead of removing them. People across Louisiana should be concerned over what will disappear next, he said. Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor, rejects the idea his city is covering up its history. Confederate monuments belong in a museum, where more information can be provided about the Confederacys evil history, he said. Confederate displays are not just an issue in New Orleans. Racial shooting leads to removal of flag In 2015, then South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley ordered the removal of the Confederate Flag from the state Capitol. She acted after a white man shot and killed nine people at an African-American church. The shooter said he wanted to start a race war. Thomas Berger is a professor at Boston University who has written about how nations deal with horrible actions in the past. For a long time, he said Confederate soldiers were seen as misguided people wanting to protect local control and traditions, rather than as defenders of a violent, racist system. But that is changing. University of Tennessee Knoxville Professor Derek Alderman said Middle Tennessee State University is moving to change the name of a school building. It is now named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate Army general and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan carried out violent attacks against African-Americans. The move away from naming buildings for people connected to the Confederacy or slavery is not limited to the South. Yale University is located in the Northeastern state of Connecticut. The university is renaming Calhoun College, one of the schools 12 undergraduate residential colleges. Yale President Peter Salovey announced the decision in February. He said John C. Calhoun, for whom the college is named, had said that slavery was good for society. His opinion goes against Yales most important values, Salovey said. I'm Dorothy Gundy. And I'm Bruce Alpert. Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and share your views on our Facebook Page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story display - n. an arrangement of objects intended to inform people about something monument - n. a building, statue, etc., that honors a person or event unequivocal - adj. very strong and clear diversity - n. the quality or state of including different races and ethnic groups tolerance - n. willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own integrated - adj. including different races hell - n. lots of problems and difficulties erection - v. installing a structure such as monument or statue museum - n. a building in which interesting and valuable things, such as paintings and sculptures or scientific or historical objects, are collected and shown to the public Welcome back to Words to the Wise. I'm Caty Weaver. Bryan Lynn is in the studio with me. Hi Bryan! Hi Caty! Last month, Zerrouq from Morocco sent us a suggestion for a topic. He said he would like to learn terms connected to emotional and mental health. So today, we will explore the vocabulary of the human psyche. But before that, we had another question from website visitor Kufre Etuk. Kufre wants to know the difference between toward and towards. Easy answer --- nothing! The words are interchangeable and an issue of personal choice. I always use toward, and that is the more common usage, I think, among US and Canadian speakers of English. Towards is heard more in countries that speak British English. That's a good question, Kufre. Now you do not have to feel any stress about which word to use. Stress I see you used the word stress there, Bryan! That is one of the terms Zerrouq asked us about. Stress is a state of mental tension. It is the opposite of calm or peaceful. Mental stress might happen when a person is being judged or measured like with school or work. Or if you're on trial! Talk about being judged! Yes, if you have to go to court you would probably be stressed about it. Sometimes people use the phrase stressed out. That means they feel more stress than they can deal with. They are overstressed. If you are a parent of a teenager you might hear this expression pretty often: Mom, youre stressing me out. That is especially common after you tell the teen to clean her roomor study for his testor just get out of bed! But stress can lead to -- or be a sign of -- more serious mental disorders, like depression. Depression: a mood disorder Yes, that is true. Merriam Webster defines depression as low in spirits. Other dictionaries describe it as a feeling of sadness. Depression can be a short-term reaction to something bad that happens. But it can also be long term condition. U.S. mental health officials define it as a serious mood disorder that affects how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, like sleeping, eating, or working. Mood. That is a good word for us to talk about. Your mood is an emotional state. If you are enjoying a walk in a pretty park on a warm, sunny day, you are probably in a good mood. If you are watching a sad movie, it might bring your mood down. If you are stuck in traffic, you might get in a really bad mood. Anxiety and phobias Yes, bad traffic can cause anxiety, especially if you are trying to get somewhere at a certain time. Anxiety is a state of worry and unease. The adjectival form is anxious. For example, "I am anxious I will be late for the wedding." Do you get anxious when you are flying on a plane? Oh yes, flying can cause stress for a lot of people, including me. Some suffer from a fear of flying. The medical term for that is aviophobia. A phobia is an extreme or unreasonable fear or dislike of something. A couple common conditions are acrophobia, which is a fear of heights; and claustrophobia, a fear of small spaces. And a few years back there was a horror movie called Arachnophobia. That was about an invasion of deadly spiders. That is my phobia! I am terrified of spiders! I actually had a panic attack watching that movie. Ive never had one before. What is it like? What does it mean? Panic attack Well, panic is sudden, uncontrollable fear or anxiety. It can cause wild, sort of, unthinking behavior. A panic attack is a period of extreme anxiety. It might even become hard for a person to breathe. Which is what happened when I watched Arachnophobia. People who have phobias or other disorders often seek mental health therapy. Therapy is a term that can be used for any kind of continuous medical treatment. People might go to physical therapy after a knee operation, for example. But when people just say therapy alone, they often mean mental health or psychotherapy. Another word for such therapy is counseling. Counseling or therapy can come in all kinds of settings. You can meet with a group of people that share a common problem, or you can have private visits with a doctor called a psychiatrist. You might also have a longer-term stay at a medical center. Rehab Yeah, like when movie stars check themselves into rehab. Rehab stands for rehabilitation. To rehabilitate means to restore to a healthy condition. There are many rehab centers in the U.S. that treat drug addiction, for example. That's another term worth explaining, Bryan, drug addiction. This means a dangerous, unhealthy dependence on a drug or drugs. This can include alcohol. Although, a dependence on alcohol is often called alcoholism. I think I might be addicted to caffeine. I cannot do much of anything before I have my morning coffee. This addiction does not seem to cause me real problems, though. But, I do get a bad mood if I dont have coffee! Yes, Caty, I definitely do not want to work with you on a day you missed your morning coffee. OK...very funny. Please comment on our webpage and let us know what you thought of this show. And, tell us what youd like us to talk about in a future Words to the Wise. Im Caty Weaver And Im Bryan Lynn. Caty Weaver wrote this story. Ashley Thompson was the editor. What puts you in a good mood? Do you have any phobias? Tell us in the comment section. And let us know where you are from! _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story psyche - n. the soul, mind, or personality of a person or group stress - n. a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc. depression - n. a state of feeling sad; also a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way mood - n. the way someone feels : a person's emotional state anxiety - n. fear or nervousness about what might happen phobia - n. an extremely strong dislike or fear of someone or something panic attack - n. a sudden state or feeling of extreme fear that makes someone unable to act or think normally therapy - n. the treatment of physical or mental illnesses counseling - n. advice and support that is given to people to help them deal with problems, make important decisions, etc. rehab - n. a program for helping people who have problems with drugs, alcohol, etc. often used after in or into addiction - n. a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble) caffeine - n. a substance that is found especially in coffee and tea and that makes you feel more awake Armed groups in the Central African Republic have killed at least 45 people and burned villages in the last few months. Several years ago, a civil war in the C.A.R. left thousands of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Now, aid workers warn that the country may be returning to conflict. Since September, more than 100,000 people have fled their homes. The conflict is between the mainly Christian anti-balaka rebels, and the mostly Muslim former Seleka rebels. In northern C.A.R., anti-balaka rebels used the village of Bambara as a base. However, the soldiers stole cows from nearby nomadic people. A militia of former Seleka rebels reacted by attacking the village. They killed about 25 people and burned more than 600 houses. The militia killed the older brother of Alexi Finicule, a member of the village, and burned his house down. "My father died of old age," Finicule said, "but when my big brother was killed, I was very shocked by that. I will always remember what happened here." The former Seleka also shot and wounded Finicule. He fled to the nearby forest and hid. Finicule later returned to Bambara and received supplies from the U.N.'s International Organization of Migration to rebuild his house. However, his family does not want to live in it because of the killing there. In the hands of God The new violence has been a major setback for aid workers. According to I.O.M. operations assistant Fabrice Tiro, the villagers have no food nor seeds to grow some. They also lack clean water. "Everything was destroyed in these events. They are starting from zero." Even the towns school was burned to the ground. "We don't have anything," said village member Apaulinere Horouro. At a displaced persons camp in nearby Ndim is a group of ethnic Puehl. They have been displaced twice due to fighting over the past few months. Alazi Makouri is the village chief. "The future for us is truly in the hands of God," he said, "because the population of the nearby village are the ones protecting us. We don't have any say in the matter." Makouri said the anti-balaka attacked his village not the former Seleka. The attackers also stole about 150 of their cows. After the attack, the villagers moved a short distance and started to regrow crops. But, they were attacked again. Finally, they went to the camp. Homeless in their own home More than 400,000 people are displaced in the Central African Republic about a fifth of the country's population. The medical aid group Doctors without Borders said that civilians in the Central African Republic are being attacked in the country at levels not seen in years. The group supports a hospital in Paoua in the northwest of the country. The project coordinator at the hospital said it is difficult for the organization to get distant rural areas in need. "Central African [Republic] is one of the poorest countries in the world and needs to be supported but the people are focusing on the conflict," said Abdel Kader Tlidjane of MSF. "But it takes time for people to solve it. During this time we should be able to carry on with normal activities to give this access and it's not easy." Currently, the biggest problem at the Paoua hospital is malaria. Medical workers are also seeing and treating war-wounds. Since the crisis of 2013-2014, more than half of the population depends on humanitarian aid. However, officials say aid levels for the year for the Central African Republic are at only 10 percent what they should be. UN officials told VOA the "disastrous" lack of support hurts the chance of peace. Im Phil Dierking This story was originally written for VOA News by Zack Baddorf. Phil Dierking adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. How do you think the Central African Republic can find peace? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story graze v. to eat grass or other plants that are growing in a field, pasture, etc. humanitarian adj. a person who works to make other people's lives better nomadic adj. to move from place to place instead of living in one place all the time scar n. a mark that is left on your skin after a wound heals Wear a hat to church to mark spring FILER The summer mission trip of United Methodist Magic Valley Ministries to UMCOR West in Salt Lake City is July 16 through July 20. Registration and deposit of $50 are due to the MVM office by May 10. Contact the office for information. There is space for four people to attend. The Rev. Michael Holloman will launch a new program of the study of scripture at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday in the Friendship Room of Twin Falls First United Methodist Church, 360 Shoshone St. E. He will also lead worship beginning at 9:30 a.m., which will include Holy Communion. There will be a celebration of spring and everyone is invited to wear a hat to church on Sunday. Simply Worship will be at 6 p.m. on Sunday in the Wesley Chapel. The recipients of the First Sunday Food Drive will be Voices Against Violence, a domestic violence shelter in Twin Falls. In addition to food, the shelter needs a variety of supplies. A list of those needs may be obtained from the church office. A new study When Christians Get It Wrong, based on the book by Adam Hamilton, is at 7 p.m. on Mondays in the Friendship Room of First UMC. When young adults talk about the problems they have with Christianity and the church, they often name certain attitudes and behaviors that they believe are practiced too often by Christians. These attitudes and behaviors include judging others, condemning people of other faiths, rejecting science, injecting politics into faith and being anti-homosexual. Hamilton tackles these issues and addresses the hows and whys of Christians getting it right when it comes to being Christ in the world. The study is led by Karen McCarthy, Ron Jones and Cathy Poppino. Books are available at the church office. Labyrinth Walk; Bishop Brian Thom visits Ascension Today, Saturday May 6th, is World Labyrinth Day. All in the Magic Valley community are invited to Walk as One at 1 p.m. on the outdoor Labyrinth at Ascension Episcopal Church. Newcomers are welcome; explanation of labyrinths and walking meditation will be available. Ascension welcomes the Right Reverend Brian Thom, Bishop of the Diocese of Idaho, for his annual visitation. Holy Communion will be celebrated at 8:00 and 10 a.m. on Sunday. Childcare will be available from 9:30 a.m. until after the 10 a.m. service. A fellowship coffee hour will be held after the 10 a.m. service. Ascension Cafe will be held from 9:10 to 9:55 a.m. All are invited to meet and greet the Bishop. On Monday, May 8th, Djembe Drumming (simple drumming in community) is offered at the church from 6:45 to 7:30 p.m. For information or if you need a drum supplied, please call 208-961-1349. On Wednesdays, Knit-Us-Together, the handwork group, meets from 1 to 3 p.m. Choir practice is at 7 p.m. Wednesdays. All are welcome for worship, study and fellowship. Ascension Episcopal Church is handicapped accessible and is located at 371 Eastland Dr. North, Twin Falls. More information about Ascension can be found at www.episcopaltwinfalls.org or call 733-1248. Unitarians welcome Humanist Alliance guest speaker TWIN FALLS The Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship welcomes guest speaker Jason Carlson from the Southern Idaho Humanist Alliance at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Vendor Blender and Event Center, 588 Addison Ave. W. Carlson will lead the discussion of the moral philosophy of secular ethics without limits that bind to a theistic or supernatural dogma. What does a person do with their ethics when they are not in use? Can we stay morally sharp when the world may dull the senses? Newcomers of all religious paths or none at all are always welcome. We are handicapped accessible. Please park in the rear of the building. Child care is available. Boy Scout troop to serve Mothers Day brunch JEROME The Rev. Evelyn Erbele and the Rev. Walter Erbele will be speaking at the Jerome Methodist Church at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. They have served in many various places and are currently pastors in Alaska. The United Methodist Women will observe 111 years of continued service to missions and mission studies on May 14. They will assist with the worship service and Carol Ash will be the guest speaker. Ash has recently retired from the National Park Service in Hagerman. She has an interesting program on famous and not so famous women through the years. There will be special refreshments at 11 a.m. and worship starts at 11:30 a.m. with Rev. Mike Holloman. Boys Scouts Troop 139 will serve Mothers Day brunch at 12:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public and will help with troop expenses to England next year. The scouts have been sponsored by the Jerome Methodist Men since the early 1940s. Deacon Yard Sale scheduled BURLEY The First Presbyterian Church at 2100 Burton Ave. in Burley will hold its annual Deacon Yard Sale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on May 12, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 13. Information: 208-678-5131. TWIN FALLS First Presbyterian Church will celebrate the centennial anniversary of its sanctuary building at 11 a.m. on Sunday. An ice cream social will take place in the Fellowship Room followed by Sunday worship services. Established in 1904, the congregation of First Presbyterian laid the cornerstone for their current sanctuary at Fifth Avenue N. and Gooding Street on May 6, 1917. This was the first of three building sections that make up todays First Presbyterian Church. This building and our local congregation have seen innumerable changes in Twin Falls and in the world over the course of this past 100 years, said the Rev. Phil Price in a statement. On the centennial anniversary of our sanctuary building, we are called to remember what has remained constant our intention to be a living example of Gods love in the world. The public is invited to attend the centennial anniversary at 209 Fifth Ave. N. in Twin Falls. For more information, go to twinfallsfpc.org. Cassia County Felony sentencings Joshua C. Clark; felony controlled substance (conspiracy) to manufacture or deliver, or possess with intent to, dismissed on motion of prosecutor, 40 months probation; felony controlled substance, manufacture, or deliver, or possess with intent to manufacture or deliver, guilty, $285.50 costs, 40 months probation, two years determinate time, four years indeterminate time, three days credited, penitentiary suspended Sarah J. Rich; felony conspiracy to manufacture or deliver or possess with intent to, $50.28 restitution, dismissed on motion of prosecutor, Albert Max Herrera; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $285.50 costs, $328.91 restitution, one year determinate time, two days credited; misdemeanor drug paraphernalia, dismissed by court, $328.91 restitution, 36 months probation. Joshua Blaine Webster; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $535.50 costs, 30 months probation, two years determinate time, two years indeterminate time, 34 days credited, penitentiary suspended. Felony dismissals Logan John Arrizaga; felony battery aggravated by use of a deadly weapon or instrument, dismissed on motion of prosecutor. Driving under the influence sentencings Thomas M. Ridley; misdemeanor driving under the influence, guilty, $200 fine, $202 costs, 90 days drivers license suspended,12 months probation, 90 days jail, 88 days suspended, one day credited. Alejandra Favela; misdemeanor driving under the influence (excessive), misdemeanor amended driving under the influence, guilty, $400 fine, $205.50 costs, 90 days drivers license suspended, 18 months probation, 180 days jail, 178 days suspended, one day credited, two days community service in lieu of jail. Timothy J. Lawson; misdemeanor driving under the influence, guilty, $400 fine, $202.50 costs, 180 days drivers license suspended, 180 days jail, 178 days suspended, one day credited, two days community service in lieu of jail time. Minidoka County Felony sentencings Jose Luis Dominguez; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $285.50 costs, one year determinate time, four years indeterminate time, retained jurisdiction; misdemeanor driving without privileges, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor flee or attempt to elude a policeman in a motor vehicle. Joshua Ross Wilkinson; felony controlled substancemanufacture or deliver or possess with intent to manufacture or deliver , guilty, $535.50 costs, $201.14 restitution, one year determinate time, six years indeterminate time, 220 days credited; misdemeanor driving without privileges, dismissed on motion of prosecutor, $201.14 restitution. Joshua Ross Wilkinson; felony controlled substancemanufacture, deliver or possess with intent to manufacture or deliver, amended felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $285.50 costs, $201.14 restitution, one year determinate time, four years indeterminate time, 19 days credited, retained jurisdiction; felony destruction, alteration or concealment, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; $201.14 restitution. Matthew Nathan Sayles; felony possession of controlled substance, guilty, $285.50 costs, $201.14 restitution, 40 months probation, three years determinate time, four years indeterminate time, penitentiary suspended; felony alteration, destruction or concealment of evidence, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor resisting or obstructing officers, dismissed on motion of prosecutor, $201.14 restitution; misdemeanor drug paraphernaliause or possess with intent to use, dismissed on motion of prosecutor, $201.14 restitution. James Michael Conner III; felony burglary, guilty $145.50 costs, five years determinate time, five years indeterminate time, retained jurisdiction; misdemeanor battery, dismissed on motion of prosecutor; misdemeanor petit theft, dismissed on motion of prosecutor. Felony dismissals James Michael Conner III; felony flee or attempt to elude a police officer, dismissed on motion of prosecutor. Joshua Ross Wilkinson; felony possession of controlled substance, dismissed on motion of prosecutor $201.14 restitution. Joshua Ross Wilkinson; felony fail to register as sex offender or give false information, dismissed on motion of prosecutor. Araceli Rocha-Rivas; felony possession of a controlled substance, dismissed on motion of prosecutor. Driving under the influence sentencings Therese Marie Watkins; misdemeanor driving under the influence (excessive), guilty, disposition withheld. Gary Lee Smith; misdemeanor driving under the influence (excessive), disposition withheld. Twin Falls County Thursday arraignments April Marie Cloward, 24, Elko, Nev.; possession of paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, own recognizance release, public defender appointed, pretrial June 20. Devin C. Glisson, 21, Spring Creek, Nev.; possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, possession of paraphernalia, $5,000 bond, public defender appointed, preliminary hearing May 12. Jeremy S. Minick, 21, Twin Falls; false information, own recognizance release, public defender appointed, pretrial July 18. Vladimir Manuel Garcia-Coria, 20, Eden; possession of marijuana, failure to appear, own recognizance release, public defender appointed, pretrial June 13. Francisco David Jasper, 33, Jerome; possession of a controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, $5,000 bond, public defender appointed, preliminary hearing May 12. James Sydney Dillman, Jr., 47, Kimberly; felony possession of marijuana (more than 3 oz.), $10,000 bond, public defender appointed, preliminary hearing May 12. Friday arraignments Lauren Amanda Shepherd, 28, Twin Falls; petit theft, $500 bond, public defender appointed, pretrial June 20. Jayton Clay Smith, 32, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, felony destruction of evidence, $10,000 bond, public defender appointed, preliminary hearing May 12. Leisha Lynn Marler, 49, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance, $25,000 bond, public defender appointed, preliminary hearing May 12. TWIN FALLS An influx of lookie-loos wanting to see the downtown construction meant many Main Avenue businesses saw little or no change in business the week of April 24. But the second week of construction was another story, and business owners are upping their game to make sure theyre not forgotten. Restaurants are flooding social media with photos of construction. A clothing store used the activity as a backdrop for a fashion photo shoot. And back-door entrances have been painted and lined with signage and flowers to encourage anyone parking on the Second Avenues to come on in. And so far, the strategy seems to be working, as several business owners reported that things are not as bad as theyd expected. You definitely need to be proactive, said Kinsey Ringenberg of The Brass Monkey. Its not business as usual. At Guppies Hot Rod Grille, construction workers have helped to keep staff busy. Which is why owner Aaron Gupton decided this week to kick off Hard Hat Hump Days. Every Wednesday, anyone wearing a hard hat will receive a free item like a soda or a milkshake or a discount. The deals will vary each week. His goal has been to keep the curiosity alive and continue getting people downtown. Ringenberg agrees so she organized a block party May 13 for downtown businesses. Its like an old-school hangout neighborhood block party, she said. The event will take place from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the parking lot behind The Brass Monkey and other businesses. Those participating include Guppies, Twin Falls Sandwich Co., Slice, Mi Tierra Mexican Restaurant, Hands On, HiPs and The Cookie Basket. There will be food, bands including Still Drunk Sunday and games such as beer pong and giant Jenga. Most of the businesses on Main Avenue between Gooding and Shoshone streets have back-door entrances, and using the event to promote them and the parking lots in the back. All of the businesses down here on Main are locally owned, Gupton said. Were relying on our community to keep us afloat. Heres what others had to say about the ongoing construction, which is expected to last on this block until at least June. We have extremely faithful customers, The Cookie Basket employee Keyene Wood said. Were trying to be as accessible as possible and accommodating. The store is helping people get orders out to their vehicles. I didnt find it a problem to get down here as long as you know (about the construction), said Bonny Ross of Hagerman. She and her granddaughter had lunch at ODunkens Draught House on Thursday and planned to do some shopping. ODunkens owner Bev OConnor said that shes seen a 25 percent loss in business, but Its not been as bad as I thought it would be. Were hanging. Its absolutely hurt our business, terribly, Slice owner Tim Stastny said, estimating a 35-40 percent drop in sales. He delivers with Twin Falls Food Express, which has been helpful, he said. The Twin Falls Sewing Center informed customers about its back door, and even moved employee parking, owner Larry Himple said. So far, hes seen no major changes in business. We knew this was coming, he said. Rudys A Cooks Paradise Manager Donna Okarma said that curiosity and Art & Soul kept visitors coming during the first week. She aims to keep a more positive vibe going with visitors. Construction workers have been checking out the local stores, Okarma said. This week weve been slamming busy, Sav-Mor Drug Store pharmacist Karen Henry said. Owner Dave Nelson thinks the business is going to be just fine. KIMBERLY Kimberly fifth-grader Jackson Funk is the winner of an annual Idaho Tar Wars poster contest. Judging for the contest, organized by the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians, was held March 28 at the Idaho capitol building. Funk will receive $500, a personalized t-shirt and his poster will be featured in the 2018 Idaho Tar Wars calendar. Jacksons teacher Heather Reed will also receive $500 for school classroom needs. Tar Wars is a nationwide tobacco-free education program geared toward fifth-grade students. This appeared in the Lewiston Tribune: When Congressman Mike Simpson could not get his Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness package through a gridlocked Congress, critics suggested they had a better idea. Prevail upon then President Barack Obama to declare the area a national monument much as President Teddy Roosevelt had acted to preserve the Grand Canyon or President Franklin Roosevelt had proceeded to protect what eventually became Grand Teton National Park. At the very least, discussing a national monument provided Simpson with some leverage. The Idaho Republican sought and got Obamas promise to withhold a proclamation while he made one last effort to pass the bill hed been working on for 15 years. With the help of Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the measure wound up on Obamas desk for signature two years ago. Even then, there was talk that Simpson had given up too much. A national monument would have covered at least twice the 275,000 acres Simpsons measure designated among the 238-square-mile Hemingway-Boulders Wilderness, the 142-square-mile White Clouds Wilderness and the 183-square-mile Jim McClure-Jerry Peak Wilderness. But any monument is subject to shifting regulations, revised management plans and court challenges. An act of Congress is the gold standard. Its provisions are final. You can literally take it to the bank. Which, at the moment, has to sound pretty good, even to those who were disappointed with Simpsons product. Thats because every declaration, dating back to President Bill Clintons 1996 declaration of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and continuing through Obamas Bear Ears National Monument just as he was leaving the White House, is under siege. President Donald Trump has ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine those monuments with an apparent eye toward reduction or recision. Nowhere in the Antiquities Act will you find authority for a presidential reversal. In fact, FDRs attorney general concluded his boss could not take that step short of passing an act of Congress. Congress reiterated that view when it passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Theres no groundswell of support behind Trumps apparent drive to open more public lands to natural resource extraction. Quite the contrary. National monuments tend to become more treasured with each passing decade. Until you get a final court decision, all of this is speculation. But at the very least, this president has invited future whipsawing about monument designations as the White House changes hands between Republicans and Democrats. All of which could have created political uncertainty on a matter involving general consensus within the Gem State. Never was there any real doubt about Idahoans desire to preserve and protect the Boulder-White Clouds. It had been discussed as potential wilderness, even a national park, since the 1970s. So give credit to those, including Simpson, Risch and Johnson, who spared Idaho from this battle. Trumps decision to unleash war on Obamas natural resource policies makes their choice look better all the time. I was born in 1956 in Madison, Tennessee, while my parents were attending Madison College. I grew up along the Front Range in Colorado, attending schools in Longmont, Brighton, Boulder and Loveland, Colorado. Two years after graduating from Campion Academy, I married my sweetheart, Regina. We lived in Loveland, Colorado for six years before moving to Mena in western Arkansas. I love the people of Mena and the friendly easy going way of life here. I have owned and operated my own business since moving to Mena. I enjoy the natural beauty of western Arkansas and being out of doors. Attempts at raising human rights issues were voted down at the official dialogue between the European Parliament (EP) and Azerbaijani parliamentarians at their second meeting after years of strained relations, humanrightshouse.org writes. May 6, 2017, 09:57 Human rights voted down in EP-Azerbaijan dialogue STEPANAKERT, MAY 6, ARTSAKHPRESS: The European Parliament should pursue dialogue with any parliamentary delegation transparently and in line with its principles. With the Azerbaijani parliament, it instead silenced itself. The purpose of dialogue is to look into issues in good faith and find a path to address those issues, which is far from what the European Parliament did his time around," commented Florian Irminger, Head of Advocacy at HRHF. On 23 May 2017, the EP hosted the 14th meeting of the European Union (EU)-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (PCC) to discuss bilateral cooperation. Dialogue between the parliaments was previously interrupted when the EP adopted resolutions on Azerbaijan in September 2014 and September 2015. These resolutions called on the Azerbaijani authorities to cease harassment and intimidation of civil society organisations, opposition politicians and independent journalists. The resolutions also listed names of numerous civil society activists unjustly imprisoned. This contributed to increase the international pressure on the authorities, which ultimately led to the release of several political prisoners. The key concerns of the 2015 resolution are still valid, yet they are now absent from the EP dialogue with the Azerbaijani parliament. Starting up the dialogue in September 2016, the co-chairmen of the EU-Azerbaijan PCC, Sajjad Karim and Samad Seyidov, issued a statement affirming that the PCC and all other interactions provided an opportunity for areas of mutual shared understandings to be explored and areas where disagreement had occurred to be examined and views of both sides shared. The statement also reads that Co-Chairs are equally committed to ensure that circumstances do not arise again whereby dialogue between the European Parliament and Milli Majlis is interrupted on any future occasion. As testified by the statement above and by the absence of public reaction to human rights abuses in Azerbaijan in the last months, the EP, for its part, has accepted being less vocal in order to resume inter-parliamentary cooperation. However, at the recent PCC meeting, there were no signs that the Azerbaijani parliament is willing to compromise and engage in real dialogue. MEP Heidi Hautala (Greens/EFA/Finland) tabled amendments to the final joint statement of the PCC to highlight that the upholding of the rule of law, democracy and good governance, as well as the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms must be key values at the core of the new agreement under negotiation, and that the announcement of Azerbaijan to leave the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) weakened the EU-Azerbaijan strategic energy partnership. These amendments were voted down in block by the Azerbaijani delegation supported by EP rapporteur on Azerbaijan, MEP Norica Nicolai (ALDE/Romania), who also praised the judicial reform in Azerbaijan and current legislation that in her view makes judges fully independent. It is disappointing that one of the few attempts to transform this exercise of whitewashing of Azerbaijans human rights abuses into a real discussion was voted down, commented Florian Irminger. Human rights and rule of law concerns raised mainly by the European External Action Service (EEAS) representative were also rapidly dismissed as partial or incorrect information by the members of the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation. As an example, Azerbaijani MP Azer Karimli accused the EU and the Council of Europe of using lists of so-called political prisoners that are actually mainly composed of radical Islamists. MEP Iveta Grigule (ALDE/Latvia) suggested that information provided by NGOs on cases of human rights violations is far from always being correct, and this fuelled rants by Azerbaijani MPs against those providing such information to the EP. The EP cannot allow itself to be further silenced in the name of a futile dialogue. Such practice risks to compromise the important work done by the EP during the years of denouncing human rights violations in Azerbaijan, and to damage the institutions image as a beacon of freedom for oppressed human rights defenders, political activists and journalists in the country," concluded Florian Irminger. Paraguay is eager to hike trade and investment volume with United Arab Emirate (UAE), countrys president has announced revealing plans to open a first commercial representative office in the Gulf country. President Horacio Cartes made the announcement during a recent meeting in Asuncion with a delegation from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Emirati media Arabian Business reports. President Cartes hopes through this move to see investment and trade between the Latin American country and UAE boosted, the media notes. The Latin American country boats a stable economy, natural resources and represents a gateway to markets in the region. The meeting which took place in the framework of the Global Business Forum on Latin America roadshow, organized by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, enabled Emirati companies to get a glimpse of business opportunities and environment of the Latin American country. Trade between the two countries is largely dominated by oil. Dubais non-oil trade with Paraguay surged to AED102.8 million in 2016, almost doubling since 2010, Arabian Business reports. President and CEO of Dubai Chamber Hamad Buamim noted that Paraguay is a lucrative market full of investment opportunities, and hailed the countrys agriculture produce as one of the worlds best qualities. The two countries can scale up trade in the area of agriculture, Buamin noted, adding that UAE currently imports more than 85 percent of its food needs. After the war, Australia successfully argued and won the right to administer north-east New Guinea on behalf of the League of Nations; Papua in the south-east was already a territory. After World War II, Australia continued to administer Papua New Guinea until its Independence. PNG and Australia have a shared history that goes back to the late 19 th century. During World War I, we fought and defeated the German garrison defending the then German New Guinea. But due to the limited media coverage in Australia, few people in this country seems to have any idea that the results of the election may well be very important to Australias future relations with PNG and our region. What is often not remembered is that Imperial Japan, an ally during World War I, wanted to assume control of all previous German colonies in the Pacific including New Guinea. This was resisted by Australias then prime minister, the so-called little digger William Morris (Billy) Hughes. When at the Versailles peace conference after World War I, Hughes was denigrated as coming from a small insignificant nation, he reputedly said: I represent 60,000 dead, sir. Imagine if Japan had assumed control of New Guinea in 1919 and had two decades to fortify it as a potentially hostile base of operations. Australias war in the South Pacific from 1942-45 would have been that much harder to win. At this years commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea, an old Australian veteran alluded to the similarities between Japanese actions before World War II and Chinese expansionism today. The large scale soft power Chinese infrastructure aid and loans to PNG have created a huge debt that will have to be repaid in some way in the future. Chinese investment in mining and natural resources has steadily increased over the last decade. PNG is the largest recipient of Australian overseas aid. Yet it is reportedly facing virtual bankruptcy. PNG is the largest South Pacific nation and is hoping to become a full member of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and will host next years APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation) meeting, It sees itself as the South Pacific regional leader. PNG has requested Australia help finance the 2018 APEC meeting and has agreed to continue to allow the deployment of Australian police in the cities of Port Moresby and Lae. Australian police will also help with the planning for the meeting and assist local police maintain law and order. There is some consternation however that the continued deployment of Australian police in PNG is actually achieving very little in the way of curbing problems with law enforcement. These unarmed officers have no formal policing functions and reports of non-investigated murders and tribal fighting using high powered weapons seem almost a daily feature of the local news. While the potential for earning revenue from abundant natural resources is high, the riches have failed to trickle down to landowners and Papua New Guineans in general. In PNG, land ownership is communal and the failure to payment mineral royalties is a hot issue. The large scale extraction by foreign companies of valuable timber resources is also widespread. Often, once timber has been removed, promised development evaporates. Corruption is an everyday occurrence in PNG. Former prime minister Michael Somares throw-away line that a six pack is all thats required to get something done applies all the way to the top of the ministry and the public service. Individual members of the government are reputedly supplied with funds to keep them loyal. Overall its a troubling and bleak scenario which few observers see as ending any time soon. While more than 3,000 political aspirants have nominated for the 111 seats in parliament, many of them motivated by the reputed riches that a successful candidate will be able to access. There are signs that a better class of politicians may be emerging, depending upon the will of voters of course. Gary Juffa, previous head of PNG Customs and now a provincial governor is recontesting his Oro seat. Former prime minister Sir Mekere Morauta has nominated as has a previous head of the PNG Defence Force, retired General Jerry Singirok. Bulolo MP and Deputy Opposition Leader Sam Basil, who now leads a revamped Pangu Pati, is standing again. Some senior members of the government have, on the eve of the election, distanced themselves from current prime minister Peter ONeill. Most prominent amongst them is Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch who now says PNG is effectively broke yet doesnt admit that any culpability rests with himself. A notable lawyer, who has been linked with ONeill over alleged fraudulent payments, has established his own party which is contesting all 111 seats. The job of fingering the corrupt was made much harder by the ONeill government disbanding the corruption busting task force he had earlier established after its investigations seemed to move to close to him and his cronies. People in Australia who are able to see past sport and domestic politics now await the results of the PNGs election. Where will they take our next door neighbour to a better or a worse place? And, if the latter, will this weak and corrupt state become a Chinese proxy which will seriously threaten Australias strategic interests? A farmworker dies in 109-degree heat in a lemon orchard in California, in 2015. In Missouri, hospitalizations for heat-related illnesses skyrocket in 2006, a year of unusually high temperatures. And since the arrival of Asian tiger mosquitoes in Memphis in 1983, the insects capable of spreading Zika, dengue and West Nile Virus have invaded 37 states. In the densely populated Northeast, Asian tiger mosquitoes are poised to triple their range before 2045 doubling the number of people potentially exposed to these diseases from 18 million to more than 30 million. In every case, the root cause is climate change. But were not helpless against such threats, according to a recent report co-authored by researchers at Stanford University. A few weeks before the 2016 election, the authors presented the report to the two presidential transition teams. Titled Health: The Human Face of Climate Change, Perspective and Recommendations for the Next U.S. President, the report recommended that a future administration initiate a formal, decade-long emergency response to climate change, managed by the U.S. State Department, and frame climate change as a global health security issue in other words, an acute public health threat to populations across the globe. The Human Face of Climate Change report was one of a series of 14 climate reports that came out of a 2016 conference at Stanford titled Setting the Climate Agenda for the Next U.S. President. One of the reports three authors, Katherine Burke, MM, MSc, who is deputy director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford, said that when she and her co-authors set out to write the report, they believed it was an extraordinary opportunity to make an impact. Her co-authors are Michele Barry, MD, a Stanford professor of medicine and director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health; and Diana Chapman Walsh, PhD, senior adviser to the center and president emerita of Wellesley College. Although the report has received no response from President Trump or his administration, the advice it contains still provides a valuable framework for tackling climate change and health, said Walsh. Defining the problem Experts agree that the Earth is warming dangerously and that this warming is due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. The damage in ecosystem disruptions, rising sea levels and ever-more intense storms are all well-documented. So, increasingly, are the rapidly changing climates effects on human health. Over the three years that Stanford medical student Kimberly Souza worked on her research project, which entailed traveling back and forth to burn wards in Nepalese hospitals, she got to know the story of one of the children in her study well. I met him when he was 4. His arms were burned and both hands, said Souza, who presented her project May 4 at the 34th annual Medical Student Research Symposium at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge. When he was 2 years old he was walking in his moms shoes and tripped and fell in the fire where she was cooking. Souzas project resulted in the Handhero, a $20 retractable hand splint that she and her colleague Jana Lim, a PhD student in neurosurgery, hope to market to nonprofit health care agencies working in developing countries. The low-cost medical device is designed to prevent contracture of the fingers of post-surgery burn patients. The annual symposium showcases medical student research. Faculty and staff judges select the 10 best poster presentations, of which Souzas was one. This years event featured nearly 50 projects from medical students whose work reached across a variety of fields of medicine, from oncology to neurology to heart disease. Projects delved into such topics as stem cell research, health care policy, bioinformatics and global health. They explored diseases such as pulmonary arterial hypertension, sepsis and carcinomas. The range of projects is terrific, said Laurence Baker, PhD, director of the Scholarly Concentration Program, a required program of study for medical students that promotes in-depth learning and scholarship. Each Stanford medical student is required to complete at least one quarters worth of research, but most do more, he said. Some, like Souza, take a research year away from medical school to work on their projects. Three of the most corrupt and self-serving politicians in American history are Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. All have helped turn California into a massive Mexican welfare state. Feinstein and Boxer have over and over and over again attempted to add a massive amnesty for illegal farm workers despite the fact that one- third of these exploited workers end up on California welfare roles as soon as they make their anchor babies. The corrupt dual of Feinstein and Boxer have long filled their corrupt pockets with bribes from BIG AG BIZ donors. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN, HUBBY LOOTER RICHARD BLUM AND LAP B ITCH, BARBARA BRIBES BOXER. Along with Nancy Pelosi, four of the most corrupt and self-serving plunderers of America FOR YEARS THEY HAVE SUCKED THE BLOOD OUT OF A DYING NATION! Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite. ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com Chasing the Harvest: Migrant Workers in California Agriculture By Gabriel Thompson Verso, 320 pp. Paperback, ISBN: 1786632217, $16.34 Kindle, 1711 KB, ASIN: B01ILZISUY, $7.99 Book Description : The Grapes of Wrath brought national attention to the condition of Californias migrant farmworkers in the 1930s. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers grape and lettuce boycotts captured the imagination of the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Yet today, the stories of the more than 800,000 men, women, and children working in Californias fieldsone third of the nations agricultural work forceare rarely heard, despite the persistence of wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and uncertain futures. This book of oral histories makes the reality of farm work visible in accounts of hardship, bravery, solidarity, and creativity in Californias fields, as real people struggle to win new opportunities for future generations. Reform Birthright Citizenship .... OR 18 YEARS OF GRINGO-PAID WELFARE??? NumbersUSA.com, December 20, 2016 . . . Veteran legal scholar John Eastman believes that Members of Congress who passed the 14th Amendment never intended that it include Birthright Citizenship in its current form. Eastman points to the wording of the 1866 Civil Rights Act as providing the key to the meaning of the 14th Amendment and the intent of the Framers. The act provides that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." This formulation makes clear, Eastman writes, that any child born on U.S. soil to parents who were temporary visitors to this country and remained a citizen or subject of the parents' home country "was not entitled to claim the birthright citizenship provided by the 1866 Act." But for now, the constitutional meaning of the amendment as it applies to illegal immigrants will remain uncertain until the Supreme Court interprets it. The expansive interpretation of the 14th Amendment currently in effect has potentially troubling national-security implications. In a CIS backgrounder, a retired government employee with extensive national security experience, points to Anwar al-Awlaki -- a terrorist with links to jihadists including Umar Farouk Abdulmutullab, who attempted to bomb a jetliner with a bomb hidden in his underwear as the plane prepared to land near Detroit, and Nidal Malik Hasan, who massacred 13 people in 2009 at Fort Hood, Tex. -- as an example of how Birthright Citizenship has the potential to benefit enemies of the United States. Awlaki was born on April 22,1971 in Las Cruces, N.M. to non-immigrant parents while his father was studying as a foreign student in the United States. He left the United States with his parents when they returned to Yemen but later re-entered the United States, using his American passport, where he became spiritual mentor to several of the 9/11 hijackers before returning to Yemen and becoming a senior al-Qaeda operative. Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Sept. 30, 2011. The Birthright Citizenship Act, H.R. 140, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act - not the Constitution - to consider a person born in the United States "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States for citizenship at birth purposes if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is: (1) a U.S. citizen or national; (2) a lawful permanent resident alien whose residence is in the United States; or (3) an alien performing active service in the U.S. Armed Forces. https://www.numbersusa.com/solutions/reform-birthright-citizenship Return to Top WE ARE MEXICO'S WELFARE SYSTEM .... A Glimpse... $640,000 and breeding anchor babies like bunnies MURDER, RAPE, LOOT and VOTE DEM FOR MORE! EACH ILLEGAL WILL COST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE $640,000 and then they go breed anchor babies for more! JAMES WALSH - THE HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico: Washington Times The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole. MEXIFORNIA (Formerly California) NOW UNDER NARCOMEX CONTROL Suspected Illegal Alien Marijuana Farmers Held Workers Hostage: ICE MEXIFORNIA.... welcomes Mexico's DRUG CARTELS... but first register to vote DEM! THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Let the Mexicans Destroy America . Amnesty will destroy the GOP, white and black middle America, keep wages depressed and build the LA RAZA SUPREMACY DEMOCRAT PARTY According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non- reimbursed tax on the system. "Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income." STUDY OF MEXICANS FEEDING OFF THE AMERICAN GRAVY TRAIN: While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another $12,000 for their two "anchor babies." While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor public support and uninsured medical costs. In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. "The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen." According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system. "Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income." In addition, the report says, " many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease. " While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent. Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care. Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement. "Government imposes viciously stiff fines and penalties on any physician and any hospital refusing to treat any patient that a zealous prosecutor deems an emergency patient, even though the hospital or physician screened and declared the patient's illness or injury non-emergency," says the report. "But government pays neither hospital nor physician for treatments. In addition to the fiscal attack on medical facilities and personnel, EMTALA is a handy truncheon with which to pummel politically unpopular physicians by falsely accusing them of violating EMTALA." According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure, the author writes. "American hospitals welcome 'anchor babies,'" says the report. "Illegal alien women come to the hospital in labor and drop their little anchors, each of whom pulls its illegal alien mother, father, and siblings into permanent residency simply by being born within our borders. Anchor babies are citizens, and instantly qualify for public welfare aid: Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor babies annually become citizens because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside." Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America's medical systems, according to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the National Council of La Raza, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Jose Herria emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker. He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently. But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa had yet another child, Cristian. The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400.While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor public support and uninsured medical costs.In addition, the report says, "" While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent. Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care. Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement. "Government imposes viciously stiff fines and penalties on any physician and any hospital refusing to treat any patient that a zealous prosecutor deems an emergency patient, even though the hospital or physician screened and declared the patient's illness or injury non-emergency," says the report. "But government pays neither hospital nor physician for treatments. In addition to the fiscal attack on medical facilities and personnel, EMTALA is a handy truncheon with which to pummel politically unpopular physicians by falsely accusing them of violating EMTALA." According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid.Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America's medical systems, according to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center,George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Because drug addiction and alcoholism are classified as diseases and disabilities, the fiscal toll on the health-care system rises. When Linda Torres was arrested in Bakersfield, Calif., with about $8,500 in small bills in a sack, the police originally thought it was stolen money, explained the report. It was her Social Security lump sum for her disability -- heroin addiction. "Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards," writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. "Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases." Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report. "That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin," says the report. "TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000 with toxic side effects. Each illegal with MDR-TB coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later. TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to 'foreign born' people who have up to eight times higher incidences apparently, 66 percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam." Other health threats from illegals include, according to the report: Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or "kissing bug disease," is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, Trypanosoma cruzi, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. The disease also infiltrates America's blood supply. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs. No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico. Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Mexico. Recently, according to the report, there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills. Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants as do intestinal parasites, says the report. Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas. The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for protecting the health of Americans: Closing America's borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops. Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of "anchor babies." Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime. An end to amnesty programs. @JeremySWallace House Speaker Richard Corcoran is not sweating the idea that Gov. Rick Scott could veto the entire state budget the Legislature is expected to pass on Monday. "If he vetoes the budget, we have the votes, we'll override," Corcoran told reporters late Friday. Scott has said that vetoing the entire budget is one of his options, but has stopped short of threatening it. The Legislature is preparing to send him a budget that cuts Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida and ignores his request for $200 million to speed up work on the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee - his stated three biggest priorities. "I'm going to look at my options," Scott said on Wednesday during a stop in Tampa when asked if he would veto the entire budget. "Thats an option I have. But what I do every year is I go through (the budget) and say what's good for our Florida families? I represent everybody in the state, so I'm going to do what's best for every family in the state." PHOTO CREDIT: Gov. Rick Scott delivers his State of the State Address in March with House Speaker Richard Corcoran watching on. (SCOTT KEELER/Tampa Bay Times) Michael-in-Norfolk disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, reliability, operability, or availability of information or material displayed on this site and does not claim credit for any images or articles featured on this site, unless otherwise noted. All visual content is copyrighted to it's respectful owners. Information on this site may contain errors or inaccuracies, and Michael-in-Norfolk does not make warranty as to the correctness or reliability of the site's content. If you own rights to any of the images or articles, and do not wish them to appear on this site, please contact Michael-in-Norfolk via e-mail and they will be promptly removed. Michael-in-Norfolk contains links to other Internet sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience and are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information or content in such site has been endorsed or approved by this blog. New business Maren Lorenz has started Bean-An-Ti, a handmade clog business. Bean-An-Ti specializes in wood-bottom clogs with hand-dyed leather uppers in a variety of styles and colors. Lorenz was one of 32 entrepreneurs and small-business owners in Montana to receive a loan from the Missoula-based nonprofit Montana & Idaho Community Development Corporation in 2016. Each pair of Bean-An-Ti handmade clogs takes about three days to complete, including drying time. They are now available online and in select boutiques, including Bettys Divine. Lorenz plans to begin donating a portion of the proceeds from each pair of clogs she sells to a local nonprofit. For more information about Bean-An-Ti, visit bean-an-ti.com/ or call 808-782-5863. New associates Jordan Thomas is an intern with Advanced Technology Groups Software and Quality Solutions team. His skillset includes data analytics, systems analysis and design, and information infrastructures. Prior to joining ATG, Thomas was a marketing intern at Chicago Music Library where he ran all social media platforms for the company. Thomas is a junior at the University of Montana, where he is pursuing bachelors degrees in Management Information Systems and International Business and a Data Analytics Certificate. Lane Colyer is a managed services analyst with ATGs Missoula Solution Center. His background is in data analysis, data mining, marketing analytics, consumer behavior and business intelligence. Prior to joining ATG, Colyer worked for onXmaps and Bob Ward and Sons. He is currently pursuing his masters degree in business analytics from the University of Montana. Meagan Damrow is the talent acquisition specialist for ATGs Missoula Solution Center. Her background is in recruitment, human resources, customer service and employee training. Prior to joining ATG, Damrow worked for Community Medical Center, Allegiant Travel Company and Barclaycard. She has a bachelors degree in business administration with a concentration in HR management from Goldey Beacom College in Delaware. Susie Carr joins the respite and homemaking services team at Missoula Aging Services as a housekeeping assistant. She brings many years of experience serving the public, most recently at Providence Center. The Respite and Homemaking staff provides in-home assistance, including housekeeping, to give family caregivers a break from their caregiving responsibilities. Kevin Tompkins became a faculty member at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Tompkins just finished a 30-year career as an award-winning director and producer at KREM-TV in Spokane. Before that, he worked for four years at KRDO-TV in his hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1982 with a communications degree in radio, television and film. The School of Journalism hired Tompkins to teach intermediate videography/editing and intermediate television directing. Promotions Dusty Eaton has been promoted from partner to CEO with A&E Architects, P.C., a regional firm with offices located in Billings, Bozeman and Missoula. Recognition Jennifer Peacock was salesperson for the month of April at RE/MAX All Stars in Missoula. Peacock has been a full time licensed Realtor for 12 years and specializes in residential real estate. She can be reached at 406-546-6343. Greg Lukasik, PE of Great West Engineering has been selected as the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Fuller Award winner. Located in Great Wests Billings office, Lukasik has over 19 years of professional engineering experience in water and wastewater services. The George Warren Fuller Award is presented annually by the AWWA to selected members for their distinguished service to the water supply field. Great West Engineering, Inc. multidisciplinary civil engineering and consulting firm with offices in Helena, Billings, Missoula and Boise, Idaho. Kris Hawkins was the top producer for the month of April. Hawkins specializes in residential real estate. She has been licensed since 2002 and is a Broker/Owner of Properties 2000. Messiah Lutheran Preschool, 3718 Rattlesnake Drive, will host an open house Saturday, May 6, from 4 to 6 p.m. The preschool for 3- to 5-years-old offers classes two, three or four days a week, Monday-Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to noon with an option for extended hours. Come see the exceptional indoor and outdoor facilities. Messiah's preschool provides a quality education with Montana licensed teachers for more than 40 years. Children are provided a nurturing and positive learning environment preparing them to be ready for kindergarten. Parents frequently share they love the hands-on-learning and creativity the program provides and feel that their children are more than adequately prepared for kindergarten. Children also have the opportunity to learn about the special love of Jesus Christ and to trust in the Lord for all things. For more information, call 406-544-6327 or email messiahlutheran@bresnan.net. The campaign, costing millions of kina, is run by a group of Australians who are taking their cue from a handful of coconuts and oreos who dont really understand Papua New Guinea themselves. Policies come second and people come last. It really doesnt matter what is said on their Facebook page. SO FOR Peter O'Neill's Peoples National Congress, its not about policies and the people but about staying in power. The tone of the Facebook page is elitist and blatantly suggests that Papua New Guineans are simple creatures who respond to bright warm colours and a hashtag #PNC4PNG plagiarised from the students they suppressed in the #UPNG4PNG/UOT4PNG campaign. In one of the pictures, Peter ONeill, is hugged by a supporter. The text reads: We love our Prime Minister, dont we folks? Another post praises Justin Tktachenko for his dance moves while another proclaims that PNG and Tewai Siassi is with Mao Zeming, the deputy leader of the PNC. What tops it all is a post that rivals Kim Jong Uns propaganda statements. This is the one that says: The World Loves Peter ONeill. Never before has Papua New Guinea had a Prime Minister that is so respected and appreciated on the world stage. Under his leadership the world is starting to take notice of Papua New Guinea. Whether it is rubbing shoulders with Barack Obama, negotiating with Xi Jinping or laughing with Justin Trudeau, Peter ONeill is the first PNG Prime Minister to be taken seriously by the worlds leaders. A 39-year-old Missoula man who cut off his GPS tracker and ran away last summer while out on probation from a 1996 attempted homicide conviction has been sentenced to 25 years in the Montana State Prison. Working with local law enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service caught up with Chad Earl Williams who had a $1 million warrant out for his arrest in Arizona last month. In August, Williams, who had been in and out of the Missoula jail throughout the year for a series of probation violations, cut off his GPS monitor while out on bail awaiting sentencing on those violations. On Thursday, after Williams was brought back to Montana, District Court Judge Robert Dusty Deschamps imposed a new 25-year prison sentence on Williams for absconding, in addition to weapons possession, methamphetamine use and other release violations he had collected throughout 2016. Williams originally had been convicted of attempted deliberate homicide in 1996 after shooting a Missoula man in the head while trying to rob him. In June, while out on probation, Williams was involved in a seven-hour standoff in Bozeman because there was a warrant out for his arrest. Williams was brought back to town after surrendering, but posted a new bail in July. Days before he was set to be sentenced for drug use and weapon possession both violations of his probation Williams fled. Per Deschamps' order, Williams also must pay just over $1,500 for the cost of extraditing him back to Montana from Arizona. MISSOULA Tuition and fees for students at the University of Montana would jump 13 percent for resident freshmen and sophomores, but those costs at UM also would be equal to Montana State University, unlike the current setup. And, the total annual cost of tuition and fees in Montana still would be $1,500 less than the regional average, according to the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. The proposal for tuition equalization between the flagship campuses came Thursday from the Commissioner's Office to the Montana Board of Regents. The regents will consider final and possibly modified tuition recommendations later this month. The recommendations include tuition increases at some but not all campuses, flat mandatory fees, and restructuring to equalize tuition and fees at the flagships. Commissioner Clayton Christian said the budget strategy also includes cuts to programs and services. "I think that this is a budget that is not going to be overly pleasing to anyone in particular," Christian said. The proposal comes after a tight budget season at the Montana Legislature that reduced funding across the board. The recommendations also come in response to the previous trend in higher education that generally froze tuition and increased overall state support, according to Kevin McRae, deputy commissioner for communications in the Commissioner's Office. "We will continue to advocate as strongly as we can for state funding in the future, but it would be irresponsible for us to just assume that state funding will continue to rise at the level it has in Montana," McRae said Thursday after the public conference call with regents announcing the recommendations. "Tuition revenue is going to be much more important than it has been over the last 10 years." So it's especially important to have clarity of price, he said. In the past, UM charged different rates for lower division freshmen and sophomores than upper-division residents, and UM and MSU didn't have the same tuition and fees. The initial recommendation from the Commissioner's Office is that the flagships have the same tuition and fees across the board for resident undergraduates: $7,047. The total includes a freeze on mandatory fees. The proposed amount represents a 13 percent tuition increase for lower division residents at UM, who this year paid $6,238; it represents a 5.2 percent increase for upper division residents, who this year paid $6,699. The amount represents a 2.3 percent increase for all MSU students, who paid $6,887 this school year in tuition and fees. This time around, the equalization recommendation is limited to the flagships. The Commissioner's Office has recommended tuition and fee bumps of varying degrees at most of the other campuses, and it recommended costs remain flat in a handful of cases. As proposed, the highest increase in tuition and fees would be at UM-Western; the hike would be 28.4 percent, from $4,284 to $5,502. The goal for the long run is that all similar campuses in the Montana University System charge the same tuition and fees, McRae said. As planned over the next six years or so, he said, the four-year regional schools will cost the same, as will the two-year colleges. (McRae said the exception is Montana Tech, a highly specialized science and engineering institution that includes a mining school.) Currently, he said some of the differences create a system that is cattywampus within Montana and in the region. For example, he said tuition and fees at MSU-Billings, a four-year school, cost nearly as much as they do at MSU in Bozeman, a doctoral research university. "It's sensible from both a management perspective but also a public expectation perspective that we pay attention to peer institutions," McRae said. "And like institutions should have like funding streams." The proposal aims to fill an $18.8 million gap in funding for the university system, McRae said. In the most recent fiscal year, educational units received roughly $193 million from the state, he said. However, they will receive less in 2018 and 2019, at $189 million for each fiscal year. He broke down the gap as follows: $13.3 million in inflationary costs, $300,000 for the pay plan increase, $1 million due to system-wide enrollment projections of a 2 percent decline in residents and 1 percent increase in nonresidents, and $4.15 million less from the state. On the conference call, Christian said Montana is one of only three states that have not experienced significant reductions to higher education in recent years. But he said campuses must be committed to efficiency, and the Commissioner's Office is looking for ways to consolidate services. "Revenue in the future remains challenging, and while I would like to think that what we experienced in the 2017 budget in terms of reductions is the exception, not the rule, I certainly lay awake a bit concerned that may be more of the rule," Christian said. Christian also said campuses must not lose sight of prioritizing programs, and Regent Bill Johnstone stressed the importance as well, especially for "campuses that are more challenged." UM has been challenged with enrollment for a decade. "I hope that the board is committed to that, and the commissioner and campuses are committed to moving forward on that program prioritization initiative as urgently as possible," Johnstone said. In an email, UM spokeswoman Paula Short said the plan outlined Thursday by the Commissioner's Office represents only a slight change in UM's budget projections. She said UM's general fund for the upcoming fiscal year is estimated to be $145 million, down from $146.6 million in the current fiscal year based on an "apples to apples" comparison. The Commissioner's Office will be taking comments on the proposal at tuition@montana.edu, which should be active by Friday afternoon. Regent Martha Sheehy also recommended in-person listening sessions at the campuses. AUBURN A fire at an Auburn duplex displaced two families Saturday. The fire, at 137-139 Osborne St., was reported at about 4:47 p.m., and firefighters first on the scene quickly called for additional assistance. Smoke was billowing at intervals from the home as neighbors and other onlookers gathered near the scene at the corner of Lake Avenue. The Auburn Fire Department said that the fire started on the first floor of the residence at 137 and made its way into the second floor there. That home suffered extensive damage, and the four residents were assisted with emergency housing by the American Red Cross. The residence at 139 was not heavily damaged, the AFD said, but the two residents there would not be able to return right away, as utilities had to be disconnected during the firefighting effort. The fire department said that the fire was brought under control in about 30 minutes and that firefighters remained at the scene until after 8 p.m. as an investigation into the cause of the blaze was underway. The cause had not been determined Saturday night. Police cars blocked traffic into the area as four AFD vehicles and two ambulances crowded the road near the home. At least 14 firefighters were at the scene, going in and out of the house frequently and accessing the second floor with ladders. A hose was hooked up to a nearby fire hydrant. The fire department said that there were no injuries in the incident. MISSOULA The U.S. Interior Department announced a public comment period for reconsidering designation of 21 national monuments, including Montanas Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument. A public comment period is not required for monument designations under the Antiquities Act, according to an unsigned DOI press release on Friday. However, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and President Trump both strongly believe that local input is a critical component of federal land management. The public comment review also applies to the expansion of the 87,563-acre Katahadin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine and five marine national monuments in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Trump called for the monument review in an executive order issued on April 26. It only applies to monuments larger than 100,000 acres created or expanded since 1996, by presidents Bill Clinton (12), George W. Bush (4), and Barack Obama (11). Presidents have the power under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create national monuments, but only Congress can undo such a designation. Todays action, initiating a formal public comment process, finally gives a voice to local communities and states when it comes to Antiquities Act monument designations, Zinke stated in the press release. There is no pre-determined outcome on any monument. I look forward to hearing from and engaging with local communities and stakeholders as this process continues. The order considers whether the designated areas are" the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of protected interests; properly classified as objects or lands of historic, prehistoric or scientific interest; how the designation affects available use of federal lands inside and outside the monument boundaries; how the designation affects use and enjoyment of non-federal lands within or beyond monument boundaries; availability of federal resources to properly manage the monuments, and other factors the secretary of Interior deems appropriate. Comments can be submitted online after May 12 at http://www.regulations.gov by entering DOI-2017-0002 in the Search bar and clicking Search, or by mail to Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240. Comments on the most controversial of Obamas monument designations, the 1.3-million acre Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, must be submitted within 15 days of that date. Comments for all other reconsidered monuments must be submitted within 60 days. Coincidentally, the Interior Department also postponed several regional Bureau of Land Management Resource Advisory Council meetings scheduled for this spring and summer. Resource Advisory Councils are volunteer groups of local stakeholders who advise on land-management issues. They included the John Day-Snake RAC in Oregon, the Albuquerque Dsitrict RAC in New Mexico, the Dominquez-Escalante National Conservation Area Advisory Council and three other resource advisory councils in Colorado. Montanas North Central Montana RAC, which oversees the 377,346-acre Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument, has no meetings scheduled beyond its March 2017 session. Monuments affected by Executive Order 13792, with the president who created them, the location and year, and their acreage: Basin and Range (Obama), Nevada 2015, 703,585 Bears Ears (Obama), Utah 2016, 1,353,000 Berryessa Snow Mountain (Obama), California 2015, 330,780 Canyons of the Ancients (Clinton), Colorado 2000, 175,160 Carrizo Plain (Clinton), California 2001, 204,107 Cascade Siskiyou (Clinton & Obama), Oregon 2000/2017, 100,000 Craters of the Moon (Clinton), Idaho 1924/2000, 737,525 Giant Sequoia (Clinton), California 2000, 327,760 Gold Butte (Obama), Nevada 2016, 296,937 Grand Canyon-Parashant (Clinton), Arizona 2000, 1,014,000 Grand Staircase-Escalante (Clinton), Utah 1996, 1,700,000 Hanford Reach (Clinton), Washington 2000, 194,450.93 Ironwood Forest (Clinton), Arizona 2000, 128,917 Mojave Trails (Obama), California 2016, 1,600,000 Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks (Obama), New Mexico 2014, 496,330 Rio Grande del Norte (Obama), New Mexico 2013, 242,555 Sand to Snow (Obama), California 2016, 154,000 San Gabriel Mountains (Obama), California 2014, 346,177 Sonoran Desert (Clinton), Arizona 2001, 486,149 Upper Missouri River Breaks (Clinton), Montana 2001, 377,346 Vermilion Cliffs (Clinton), Arizona 2000, 279,568 Katahadin Woods and Waters (Obama), Maine 2016, 87,563 Marianas Trench (Bush), CNMI/Pacific Ocean 2009, 60,938,240 Northeast Canyons and Seamounts (Obama), Atlantic Ocean 2016, 3,114,320 Pacific Remote Islands (Bush), Pacific Ocean 2009, 55,608,320 Papahanaumokuakea (Bush & Obama), Hawaii/Pacific Ocean 2006/2016, 89,600,000 Rose Atoll (Bush), American Samoa/Pacific Ocean 2009, 8,609,045 WAPELLO, Iowa Mark Wehrle readied his five smokers. He bought enough charcoal and wood to fill them and enough meat to feed a 150-person crowd. His trailer, complete with a full kitchen and fridge, is also ready. Today, he will wake up at 5 a.m., and drive the trailer smokers, meat and all from Wapello to Muscatine to compete at the fourth annual Pearl City Picnic regional barbecue cook-off. Last year was his first time competing at the cook-off, and he did well, taking first place for Best Sauce and Peoples Choice and third place for Rib and Chicken. Wehrle wants to take the gold again today, preparing food for the Chicken, Rib and People's Choice competitions. Wehrle, who is a part-time pitmaster, also teaches social studies at Louisa-Muscatine Junior High School. But when he isn't teaching, he's smoking meat. "Any day above freezing, you go out and cook," he said. He began experimenting with barbecue in the early 2000s. First, he smoked ribs in his back yard, feeding his friends, family and neighbors. Several years later, he tried his hand at his first competition, with the help of his mentor, Darren Warth, who owns Smoky Ds BBQ in Des Moines. He took first place at that first-ever competition and he was hooked for life. I like creating a product and watching people love the product I created, he said. Theres some instant gratification to watching someone eating your ribs and ask for more. Between competitions, Wehrle owns and operates a part-time catering company, which his family members and friends help run. Its a hobby-job," he said. "We do it as a business, we cater and vend, we have full-service catering and vending." He named that company Cynful Smokers BBQ, after his wife, Cynthia, who will also be helping out at the competition. Today, he will put his skills to the test once more, experimenting with new variations on old favorites, always including a secret spice rub that his mentor helped him create. But hell leave the final decision on what types of rib to make for the judges to just moments before it is time to cook. Ill unpack each (piece) and Ill inspect it for the best quality of meat and then Ill decide, he said. He already knows that he will make pork ribs for the Peoples Choice award, though hes still not sure what sides hell serve with the ribs. Whatever hell serve, he said, will be smoked low and slow for maximum flavor. He encouraged people to come check him and the other competitors out. Im planning to serve 150 people, I hope theres 300 people there I hope I guessed wrong, he said. Johnnie Jackson Wins the Arnold Classic Africa 2017 Written by Team MD 06 May 2017 Johnnie Takes Johannesburg Veteran Johnnie Jackson Sweeps Arnold Africa Its a good thing Johnnie Jackson didnt actually retire last year as he had announced he would, because today he scored his fifth win in a pro career that began in the 2001 season and has spanned an incredible 78 contests so far. The 11-man lineup wasnt the deepest, but Johnnie did have some serious competition today in Johannesburg, South Africa. In sixth place was Jeff Beckham, who turned pro by winning the 2012 Team Universe. Jeff is on the taller side with long limbs. His wheels are pretty much where they need to be, but he still needs more upper body thickness to move up the ranks. In terms of shape and symmetry, his physique flows very well. Beckham is also an excellent poser, who incorporates plenty of classic and lunging poses in his routine, which always includes a split as well. His condition could have been a good 15-20% sharper. In fifth place was Kuwaits Ibrahim Fahim, a new guy who shows excellent potential for the future. Structurally, he has some of the widest clavicles Ive seen since Dennis Wolf and Jay Cutler. I saw no weak bodyparts (though he could use more quad sweep to match those mega-wide delts), and his condition was on point. All he needs is more muscle maturity and detail, which should come in time. Fourth place went to Victor Martinez. This was only a disappointment because had Victor been on his A game, he would have taken this show today. The trademark shape and symmetry were there, but Martinez was off enough on his condition to knock him down a couple notches from where he could have and should have been. As is often the case, he looked much better from the front, but the hams and glutes were a bit soft. The other Dominican from New York, Juan Diesel Morel, took the third-place slot. For a while in the judging, I thought he was fighting Johnnie for the win. He is taller and wider, and carries about 35 pounds more mass. His standout shoulders and back really wowed in shots like the rear double biceps, front, and rear lat spreads. As in Brazil two weeks ago, his condition wasnt quite where it needed to be. Also, his right leg, noticeably smaller than the left, was distracting. Still, Juan has an incredible V-taper due to his wide back and shoulders and this small waist not something you see often on the bigger men today. The runner-up was Michael Lockett, who showed the very best condition of the 11-man lineup, with crisp, clear muscle separations and striations from traps, to glutes, to his bulging calves. Lockett has some of the roundest muscle bellies in the sport today, which are showcased to perfection in shots like the side chest and front double biceps. Stellar condition has the ability to make you somehow look past otherwise obvious flaws. For instance, Locketts back is quite weak compared to Victor, Juan, and especially Johnnie. He also has a smaller right quad, and his posing needs a lot of work, appearing amateurish at times. Still, the guy has a certain freak factor that impresses. And finally, Johnnie Jackson, who probably will retire for real after this 2017 season, was awarded first place. Not too shabby for a man who turned 46 in January and who has been competing since some of the guys he beat today were in grade school! Like Dexter Jackson, his body shows none of the typical ravages of age we usually seen in bodybuilders over 40. He still has those incredibly thick and round shoulders, lats, traps, chest, and arms. Though his legs have never matched his upper body, today in this particular competition that wasnt a liability. It was a well-earned and well-deserved win. If indeed this is his last season, the question now is, will he take this win and Mr. Olympia qualification and lay low until September, or will he finish out his final season as a pro with a few more shows, and maybe score another win or two? Time will tell. In the meantime, congratulations to Johnnie O. Jackson! DISCUSS HIS WIN ON THE MD FORUM SEE PHOTOS & VIDEOS FROM THE 2016 ASC AFRICA FOLLOW MUSCULAR DEVELOPMENT ON: FACEBOOK: MuscularDevelopment Magazine TWITTER: @MuscularDevelop INSTAGRAM: @MuscularDevelopment YOUTUBE: http://bit.ly/2fvHgnZ Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life! 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 [] Strolling from the back of the store, from her Reserve Room, she glides past the racks of carefully selected wines that she has personally chosen and greets a regular customer along the way. Hi Sam, said Margaux Singleton, proprietor of Enoteca Wine Shop on Lincoln Avenue in Calistoga on a recent weekend day. Sam Spencer, with his two young sons, Dodge and Oliver in tow, tells Singleton he is looking for roses. She points to where he can find more than what he is already looking at. Spencer asks, Whats good? and Singleton doesnt hear him as she is moving about, but no matter, he answers the question himself. You tasted it. You picked it out, so its all good, he said, grabbing two or three bottles of each as he moves through the racks. That may pretty much sum up why Singleton is celebrating her 20th year in business as a wine shop owner she knows her stuff. And she has a good sniffer, she said, one that is accompanied by the palate that is behind all the wines in her small shop that feels like a wine cave thanks to the interior painting commissioned by world-renowned trompe loeil painter, and Calistoga resident, Carlo Marchiori, whose work she insisted he sign both inside and out. And please, keep the warm Calistoga air outside, her signs beg, because this is someone who babies her wine bottles. The temperature inside the shop is always just a bit chilly, rather cave-like as it should be, and you can always find Singleton wearing multiple layers of clothing, usually a long-sleeve shirt, maybe a turtleneck, and an outdoor vest. It can be 95 degrees outside, but inside its between 55 and 58 degrees. Singletons passion for wine began long before she was a shop owner, which began in 1997 in a small space across the street from her current store, and long before she managed someone elses fine wine store both here and in Santa Fe, New Mexico. An ardent wine collector for more than three decades, over the years she sought out personal experiences at storied wineries in France where she lived and studied wine for a year Italy and other wine growing regions in Europe. So deep was her thirst for knowledge that before she lived in Napa Valley shes now a St. Helena resident she was willing to sleep in her car or in a vineyard to make sure she didnt miss an appointment with a winemaker in the mornings when she was on a month-long excursion in the region that would one day be her home. In fact, she was not even looking for a job when a server at Catahoula a restaurant that closed more than a decade ago recognized her from when they knew one another in Santa Fe and told her about the wine shop at All Seasons Bistro needing a new manager. Singleton explained she was not on the trip to look for a job, she was exploring wine. The server persisted. Singleton pushed back saying she didnt have a resume with her. The server grabbed a pad of yellow legal-size paper and insisted Singleton write out her qualifications. Barely able to clean her hands of hamburger juice, she obliged. By the time she got back to Santa Fe, which was home for about four years, there was a message from Gayle Dierkhising, co-owner of All Seasons, saying that she was interested in talking to Singleton about managing the wine shop that has since closed. That led to Singleton opening Enoteca in the space 27 steps up from the sidewalk on Lincoln Avenue now occupied by Domaine Somm, and above Blackbird. Six years later she moved to the current location at 1348-B Lincoln Ave., a store that has been written about by Lettie Teague in late 2015 for the Wall Street Journal, and is listed on the website of Travel and Leisure. She rubs shoulders with some of the finest winemakers in Napa Valley, including one whose winery Chateau Montelena brought worldwide attention to the region when its chardonnay bested French wines in the famed Judgment of Paris in 1976. On an average sunny day when Singleton stepped outside her store for a moment, Bo Barrett of Chateau Montelena strolled past on his way to meet his wife, Heidi Barrett, at Calistoga Roastery. Singleton mentioned she needed more of his wine because shed sold the last bottle just the day before. Great, he said, thats always good to hear. He couldnt stop to chat just then because Heidi was waiting, but hed get more wine to Enoteca right away. That type of relationship is a way of life for Singleton. Shes been working at it for years and has connections in the wine industry all over the world giving her access to extremely hard-to-find wines. When she first moved to Santa Fe she started working at a hotel, and then impressed the owner of a newly opening wine shop adjacent to a high-end restaurant with her knowledge gaining the role of manager of La Casa Sena Wine Shop. The restaurant had a 50-page wine list; a study manual of sorts for Singleton. She was part of three tasting groups in Santa Fe, including an exclusive invitation-only group that included brainiacs who worked at Los Alamos National Labs and were geeky about wine, too. Among the nuclear chemists with whom she enjoyed wine was John Balagna, who created a wine in 1993 called La Bomba Grande to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Manhattan Project, to which he was a contributing chemist. They were a high-powered group of collectors, she said, from whom she learned a lot. Another tasting group was for women in the wine business that included restaurant owners, chefs, retailers, wholesale reps, and the like. It was really a fun group, a geeky wine group, she said. During her years of experiencing and tasting wine she said she learned that wine could ascend to heights and reach to great art. Enoteca would never have happened though, without the financial and moral support of her family, she said. A loan from her cousin and parents, with whom she insisted on drawing up a contract and paying them back with interest, and did so within two years, gave her the start for which she is still grateful. Singleton recalls a touching moment when a customer stopped in to the store one rainy day and insisted she step outside with him. No, she said, its raining, I dont want to get wet. But if he hadnt persisted, and she hadnt acquiesced she might have missed the double rainbow that ended seemingly on top of her store. Later she would learn it was the same day her cousin died. Singleton also ventured into making her own wine under the MX label, which is available at her store. She makes a cabernet sauvignon from Beckstoffer To Kalon (120 cases of the 2009 vintage) vineyard in Oakville, and a zinfandel (78 cases in 2010) from H and L Vineyard in St. Helena. A quote on her website reflects her philosophy: Dedicated to ferreting out and offering the finest savory wines in the world by small artisanal producers. Napa Smith Brewing says it remains committed to finding a location for a taproom in its namesake city six months after the company moved its entire operation to a new brewery in Vallejo. Shortly after the company closed its Napa brewery in December, spokeswoman Angela Evans had said they hoped to open a downtown tap-room with a small brewing setup attached sometime in the spring. Now that timeline has extended, perhaps sometime this year, she said recently, but the issue remains on the table daily for the companys new owners, Tennessee-based R.S. Lipman Brothers, a beverage manufacturer and distributor that bought the brewery in 2016. A taproom at the Vallejo brewery opened in late April, and the company is planning a grand opening party on May 20. Despite the fact that it has no current facility in Napa County, the company fully intends to keep using the Napa name, Evans said. New labels approved by federal authorities in December do note that the beer is brewed in Vallejo, but use the slogan Napa Valley Original and other mentions of Napa. One of the beers uses a photo of the Bale Grist Mill, a historic landmark between St. Helena and Calistoga, and others feature generic images of vineyards and wine production. The beer was created in Napa County and the Napa name is part of our trademark, Evans said. Were very straightforward about where the beer is brewed Vallejo were willing to own up to it. The company also uses some non-Napa material, including the slogan California original and non-wine images on some labels and marketing materials, including pictures of hops and of the Golden Gate Bridge. The companys position on the name, however, isnt going over so well with the Napa Valley Vintners, the wine trade association, which has zealously guarded the names Napa and Napa Valley on any alcoholic beverages. Spokesman Rex Stults said the association had an agreement with the original owners of the brewery that the association wouldnt challenge the Napa Smith name so long as the beer was brewed in the county. That is no longer happening and there is no legitimate connection whatsoever to Napa Valley right now for Napa Smith beer other than close to a dozen mentions of Napa Valley on its labels, he said. While Stults wouldnt explicitly threaten a lawsuit over the name, the association has not been shy about taking legal action. Most famously, it waged a six-year battle to force the Ceres-based Bronco Wine Company, maker of the famous Two-Buck Chuck bargain wine, to drop the name Napa from several of its brands that were not in fact produced with the required 75 percent of Napa-grown fruit. When your entire economy is built on the reputation of the product, in our case wine, it makes sense that the board of directors of the association would die on the hill to protect the integrity of the Napa name, he said. Truth in labelling has become an issue in several unrelated beer cases as well. In March, a group of California beer drinkers filed a class-action lawsuit against Kona Brewing, owned by the Craft Brew Alliance, accusing it of misleading consumers into thinking its product was brewed in Hawaii. Although Kona has a small brewery in Hawaii, and it uses Hawaiian names and images for its products, all of the beer sold in the continental United States is brewed at facilities in Oregon, Washington, New Hampshire and Tennessee. Beer giant Anheuser-BuschInBev agreed in 2015 to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit by consumers saying they were misled into believing the Becks brand was still brewed in Germany, even though the company had switched production to the United States in 2012. In 2016, a group of consumers sued MillerCoors for suggesting that Coors is a product of the Rocky Mountains when it is in fact brewed at several facilities around the country far from its Colorado headquarters. Evans said, however, that Napa Smith doesnt fear any such suits, from the Vintners or from consumers. We have already taken appropriate measures to make sure that is not an issue, she said, though she declined to say what legal steps that might include. The Vintners say they are considering commissioning a marketing survey to see if the use of the Napa Smith name creates confusion among consumers. Even though wine and beer are different products, they are both sold in the same stores, or the same sections of stores, and use of the Napa name on beer or distilled spirits is therefore a concern to the wine industry, said J. Scott Gerien, an intellectual property attorney for the firm of Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty, which assists the Vintners on brand cases. If the two products appear in the same store, he said, You get the value of the brand that the wine industry has created and use it to sell beer. The real test is, if you show this to someone and say, hey, where do you think it is produced? What do you think the answer is going to be? Is it going to be Vallejo? WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at weakening the enforcement of a law that bars churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates. A look at the law in question, known as the Johnson Amendment: WHAT IT DOES The law prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. That means no donations to candidates' campaigns and no public statements explicitly on behalf of or against a candidate. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO It doesn't stop religious groups from weighing in on public policy or organizing in ways that may benefit one side in a campaign. Plenty of religiously grounded organizations or movements Roman Catholic bishops, the Christian Coalition, you name it have delved fiercely into political causes, and preachers of the left and right are not shy about exhorting their followers to political action. The law requires them to stop short of endorsing candidates, but their leanings are often not a mystery. WHY IT MATTERS To supporters, the law is central to the constitutional separation of church and state. To opponents, it's a gag on the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. WHAT TRUMP DID Trump said his action is meant to ensure that people are not penalized for their "protected religious beliefs" and that religious institutions are not "unfairly" targeted for political speech. In effect, the order discourages the IRS from going after churches aggressively for their political expression. But the law stays on the books; an executive order cannot change it. The order also promises "regulatory relief" for groups with religious objections to the preventive services requirement in the Affordable Care Act, according to a White House official. Those requirements include covering birth control and the move could apply to religious groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have moral objections to paying for contraception. GENESIS: IN THE BEGINNING ... A Republican Congress and Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, brought the law into effect in 1954, but it was the handiwork of Lyndon Johnson, then a Democratic senator from Texas and later president. LBJ was no altar boy for the Constitution's edicts on church and state. He was livid that a few nonprofit groups attacked him as a communist in a Senate campaign. His amendment was meant to slam such organizations by revoking their tax-exempt status if they went over the line in the partisan fray. His amendment was not focused on religious groups, but covers them. FITFULLY ENFORCED The IRS has not been particularly aggressive in enforcing the law. Revoking a religious organization's tax exemption risks accusations that the government is crushing religious freedom. But the fact it possesses that power has kept interference in partisan politics in check, as the law's supporters see it, and represents government overreach in the mind of critics. In September, Gov. Matt Bevin, R-Ky., told preachers the law was a "paper tiger" and they should embrace political speech more boldly. "There is no reason to fear it," he said. "There is no reason to be silent." Lisa Runquist, a California lawyer who specializes in nonprofit and religious tax law, said it is a law with a lot of gray area, but she counsels clients to stay on the safe side of it. "Do you want to be the test case that goes forward?" she said she asks them. WHAT A VIOLATION LOOKS LIKE Runquist cites a case in the 1990s when a New York church bought full-page newspaper advertisements that called on Christians not to vote for Bill Clinton. The organization Americans United for the Separation of Church and State lodged a complaint with the IRS. The IRS investigated, denied the church's exempt status and a federal court upheld that decision. You can read the full "Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" at whitehouse.gov. Associated Press writers Dylan Lovan and Claire Galofaro in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report. This is an invitation to the Napa community to attend a very special NVUSD school board meeting. The date is Tuesday, May 9. The location is the Napa High District Auditorium. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. It was promised that this meeting would be strictly for input from the Napa community concerning the Napa High symbol/mascot. Please attend this important meeting, be respectful and patient, and let your support for our symbol/mascot be known. The Napa County Supervisors recently returned from their retreat and announced they intend to do something about wineries and vineyards that have potentially evaded existing laws and ordinances. They should look no further than to their own county administrative staff and their past feeble enforcement practices which have for years been generally ineffective. It's been an open secret that for years there were no serious teeth in the countys weak attempt to maintain its own ordinances and Agricultural Preserves. Now they're trying to shut the barn door after the cows are out. Perhaps in the past nobody screamed loud enough for staff to pay attention, or more likely as we have discovered, staff just turned a blind eye and -- with a wink and a nod allowed, if not overlooked, violations. A client of ours recently took over a winery in a remote region of Napa. We found 2 inches of code violations dating back to the '90s in the county files. After many were filed, the same code violation would be re-documented, put in the file, and either forgiven or forgotten. Now, our client is determined to make things right and has been working for a year and a half with the county staff to make things better. From Engineering to Building Department to Environmental, the staff has been uncooperative and downright obstructionist. As architects, we understand code violations and the need for mitigation, but there's little hurry or desire by the county to make things better. Standard building conditions that were code compliant 20 years ago, are now code violations because of reinterpretations of regulations and new state requirements. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for building owners and vineyard managers to keep up with the latest and greatest. What was legal yesterday are code violations today. While I can't condone, I can understand why some property owners in the Valley would rather ask forgiveness than permission. Rude Napa County code enforcement officers and staff often act with impunity, arrogance, and aggression making cooperation a serious challenge for the average property owner. Now the County Planning and Environmental Departments are suffering from staff shortages and musical-chair transfers. It takes forever to gain an approval but minutes to write-up a code violation. The Building Department has changed heads numerous times in recent months. The latest regime seems willing to work better with applicants, but if under-staffing continues, only time will show if the Building Department can clean up its act while others remain uncooperative. If the county is looking for someone to blame, they should simply turn around and recognize it is themselves. Chris d. Craiker Napa Youve seen her sitting at a picnic table or in Lyman Park or on the bench at the corner of Adams Street and Railroad Avenue. You may have heard her, too, as she often yells out, sometimes at the top of her lungs. On some afternoons, her voice is so loud that I can hear her yelling from Lewis Station Park, across the railroad tracks from my office. Once, frustrated, I got up from my desk, went to the door and yelled out for her to shut up. Yolanda Irby is 60 and homeless. She was born in Vacaville and grew up in the Bay Area. For the past few months, she has been a fixture in St. Helena a rare homeless woman in one of Napa Valleys most expensive places to live. Although there is often a family begging for money in Safeways parking lot or at church after Sunday services, we are not used to seeing homeless people here. Jenny Ocon, executive director of the UpValley Family Center, said she knows of Irby and her plight. There have been offers of help. Many organizations are aware of her, have reached out to her, but no one can force her to get help, Ocon said. Irby doesnt want help. Unless shes a danger to herself and to others, she cannot be forced to get mental health services, Ocon said. Although she regularly appears in the police log for spitting, yelling and causing a disturbance, Irby isnt breaking the law; shes just homeless. Irby said she went to Arizona State University, transferred to Georgia Tech and studied architecture. According to Irby, she graduated, maybe in 1992, and is a Class 4 designer. She said she worked for an architectural and engineering firm in Sacramento. After working for the firm for three weeks, Irby was laid off. Thats when her troubles began. I was living in Sacramento for a while, but shortly after I got laid off, my house got burned down, she said. Her house was paid for, she had a grant deed for it but then a loan company thought they had the right to foreclose on my house. When I got back they took a bulldozer to it. I lost my house, I lost everything, she said. On a picnic table at Lewis Station Park, Irby was using a camp stove to cook a skillet full of potatoes. Coats, tarps, bags, an umbrella and her hat were spread on the table. The rest of her belongings were in a 4-wheel cart. She had pulled cooking utensils from a plastic tub. Journalists are trained to interview people, quote them and believe what they say. With Irby, you have to suspend that belief. There are only partial truths with her. All of these people pissing on my life are Iranians of the Bahai faith, she claims. Theyre keeping me in the street. Shes been homeless since 2007. I really am having a hard life, where I was beaten the crap out of, where I have a concussion, thats why my eyes look dilated. They werent. Irby is clear about why shes having such a hard life. I got someone doing magic on me. I was picked off this picnic table, where I am sitting right now, thrown on the ground and my head was jammed into the concrete, she said. Who is the culprit? Irby answered, Magic. Theres nobody here. The police showed up 15 minutes later, she said, and Irby claims her glasses were broken and she was bleeding with blood running down her face. According to Facebook postings a year ago, Irbys family has been searching for her for years. Last October, the family writes they found out Irby was living homeless in the Napa area. She seems happy and has a routine that from a distance seems safe. Her family loves her and wishes this were not her life, but understand that making contact may make it worse. We will monitor her from afar and pray she stays safe. By law the only time we can step in, is when she is not able to sustain herself, dire illness or is a danger to herself or others. Please continue to pray Irby has answers for every question. Where do you sleep at night? Im not telling anybody. You can stay at the Presbyterian Church. I dont stay in shelters. I almost got raped in a shelter in Sacramento. This is a really harsh life. Its been rainy this year, how have you dealt with it? It hasnt rained as much as last year. How do you deal with the rain? I find a place where its dry. I dont tell anybody where. What is your routine every day? I normally get up at 5 and then I get some coffee and go where I can sit and hopefully, someone helps me out a little bit. I do need to get off the street and I dont mind working retail, but I cant do hard labor. Im old but I dont mind working. (During the interview, a person listening to the conversation gave her a $100 bill. What a gift!) Irby goes to her pile of belongings, pulls out a laptop from a plastic bag and turns it on. We wait while it begins and she peers intently at the dim screen. She opens house plans that she has designed. She describes the house: Its a large house. I have a living room, my big patio is out here, my large dining room, and then I have an arcade over here, whats considered a chefs kitchen with a nook, family room, then I have two bathrooms and a laundry room. This is a three-car garage, she said pointing with a dirty hand at the screen. It has two sets of stairs and a nice upstairs with bedrooms. Its actually an extremely large house, more than 3,000 square feet. For the homeless Irby, the woman who finds a hidden dry place to sleep and sits on a bench on the street corner in the early morning, the irony of her telling of her dream home couldnt be much greater. (Natural News) Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH), a Boston hospital and one of Harvard Medical Schools biggest teaching affiliates, has agreed to pay $10 million to settle allegations of research fraud in a 2012 cardiac stem cell study, BostonGlobe.com reports. BWH settled with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), which alleged that the hospitals researchers used falsified data in applying for federal funding from the National Health Institute (NIH). The NIH then funded the study with awards that amount to $42 million, the article said. The study, led by top cardiologists Piero Anversa and Joseph Loscalzo, and published in the American Heart Associations journal Circulation in October 2012, was seen as groundbreaking when it boldly posited that the human heart had the ability to regenerate and heal itself. However, in April 2014, Circulation issued a notice of retraction following an internal investigation that raised questions about the reliability of the data. An ongoing institutional review by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Womens Hospital has determined that the data are sufficiently compromised that a retraction is warranted, the retraction statement said. In the wake of the retraction, a former research fellow who worked in Anversas lab wrote on RetractionWatch.com about what it was like to work in the lab, which they described as a scientific nightmare and conducted under a severe information embargo where those who dared question the findings worked in fear of losing their jobs and being unable to find new ones. In practice, all data that did not point to the truth of the hypothesis were considered wrong, and experiments which would definitively show if this hypothesis was incorrect were never performed, the source, who opted to remain anonymous, wrote. The general game plan of the lab was to use two methods to control the workforce: Reward those who would play along and create a general environment of fear for everyone else. The incentive was upward mobility within the lab should you stick to message. As ridiculous as it sounds to the average academic scientist, I was personally promised money and fame should I continue to perform the type of work they desired there, the source said. The stem cell lab where the study was conducted was shut down in 2015, and Anversa, along with co-authors Annarosa Leri and Jan Kajstura have left BWH. BWH is committed to ensuring that research conducted at the institution is done under the most rigorous scientific standards and has made significant enhancements to research integrity compliance protocols as a result of this event, the hospital was quoted as saying in the same BostonGlobe.com article. Leri and Anversa, according to their attorney Tracy Miner, are now working at a research institute in Switzerland. The two doctors have sued BWH and Harvard regarding the investigation though no verdict or settlement has been made yet. Stem cell research fraud The controversial study was one in several prominent stem cell-focused research studies that were found to be questionable or fraudulent. Aside from Anversas study, another relatively recent high-profile case of research fraud was that involving, Japanese scientist Haruko Obokata, who was exposed for falsifying findings on what was initially heralded as a revolutionary study. According to a story on TheGuardian.com, the young Obokata, then touted as Japans scientific wonderchild, published two papers in international science journal Nature. The papers detailed how she and her fellow researchers used blood cells from mice to explore simpler ways of reprogramming cells. The findings she presented showed how she was able to transform ordinary body cells into embryonic stem cells by simply dropping them into a citric acid bath. The results were groundbreaking, but turned out to be too good to be true. Within days of publication, the veracity of her study was called into question after images appeared to be doctored and some text found to be taken from other publications. Obokota, whose other studies were also found to be fraudulent, eventually resigned from the research center where she worked. Keep up with the latest scientific research and news on Scientific.news. Sources include: BostonGlobe.com Circ.AHAJournals.org RetractionWatch.com TheGuardian.com (Natural News) Is Monsanto, the corporate scourge of the Earth, finally going to pay for its crimes? If the International Monsanto Tribunal has any say in the matter, the answer to that question appears to be an emphatic Yes. The tribunal, based in Hague, Netherlands, describes itself as an international civil society initiative to hold Monsanto accountable for human rights violations, for crimes against humanity, and for ecocide. Five internationally acclaimed judges heard the testimonies of 30 witnesses and experts from five continents, and their goal was to deliver their legal opinion on the deplorable actions, environmental and health damages perpetrated by Monsanto. And after much deliberation, the tribunal has finally come to a conclusion: Monsanto is guilty on all three counts. The judges who preside over the initiative have declared that the biotech behemoths activities do not just adversely affect the worlds access to food, but also negatively affect the human right to health and that the company is also guilty of perverting scientific freedom. As reported by ANH USA: The tribunal stated that the companys seed empire adversely affects the worlds access to food, and that by manufacturing and distributing substances such as PCBs(polychlorinated biphenyls) and glyphosate, Monsanto has infringed on our right to high standards of health. Additionally, the tribunal found that Monsanto perverts scientific freedom by practicing forms of intimidation, pressuring governments, and discrediting legitimate scientific research that supports public health and environmental protection. As the tribunal explains, Monsanto has been profiting from their creation of destructive and harmful compounds since the early 20th century. These toxic products, like PCBs, Agent Orange, Lasso and Roundup, have created untold damage to the environment and made thousands upon thousands of people sick. In addition to spreading poisonous chemicals around the globe, Monsanto also advocates and promotes deleterious and unsustainable farming practices that contribute to the following problems: Soil degradation, depletion of water resources, species extinction, reduced biodiversity and the displacement of small farms. On top of all that, Monsantos business of seed patenting threatens food freedom and sovereignty. Youd think that alone would be enough to bring the corporate giant to its knees, but as we all know, Monsantos controversies dont end with their actions that have destroyed the environment and wreaked havoc on the food supply. And as critics point out, the biotech company has spent enormous amounts of money to defend itself against lawsuits brought by their victims but legal action has not yet inspired the company to change their ways. Monsanto is also guilty of lobbying governments and regulatory agencies to keep their products on the market, and to keep scrutinizing eyes at bay. The company has even colluded with US government agencies to keep the toxic nature of their products hidden. Their strategy to stay afloat seems to be one of concealment; in addition to lobbying, the company has also reportedly funded fraudulent studies on product safety and has coerced independent scientists and manipulated the media into standing behind their wrongdoings. One way or another, it seems that Monsantos judgment day is coming. In addition to the tribunal, lawsuits against the corporation for their lies particularly regarding the glyphosate-cancer connection continue to pile up. While the ruling from the International Monsanto Tribunal is not legally binding, there is hope that their verdict will inspire other governments and agencies to get on board. The fact that an international body has found Monsanto guilty of crimes against humanity, violations of human rights and for ecocide is a tremendous step forward towards the goal of ending the corporations reign of terror. Whether or not further action will be taken remains to be seen, but it seems that the global condemnation of Monsanto is well underway. Sources: ANH-USA.org ANH-USA.org Monsanto-Tribunal.org (Natural News) On March 11, 2011, terror struck northeastern Japan in the form of a massive magnitude-9 earthquake, which in turn unleashed a devastating tsunami that wiped out virtually everything in the city of Sukuiso. The effects of the earthquake were felt around the entire world, and even years later, the people of Japan were still finding debris washing up on shore. According to the Japanese government, the total damage caused by the earthquake cost the country an astonishing 25 trillion yen, the equivalent of roughly 300 billion U.S. dollars. A few years later, it was discovered that radioactive water was being leaked from the Fukushima power plant, which experienced a level 7 nuclear meltdown following the tsunami. According to Japans Reconstruction Agency, as of 2015, 230,000 people whose homes were destroyed in 2011 were still living in temporary housing. Also as of 2015, according to Japans National Police Agency, a total of 15,891 people were confirmed dead. But perhaps one of the most devastating long-term consequences of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed was, and continues to be, the cooling system failure at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Even two years after the event, the Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that an astonishing 300 tons of radioactive water was flowing into the Pacific Ocean every single day. Fukushima was created by the tsunami. The earthquake was not a factor, explained Vasily Titov, director of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administrations Center for Tsunami Research, based in Seattle, Washington. Fukushima was designed for a tsunami smaller than the one we saw. (RELATED: Read about the brutally honest way this nuclear engineer describes Fukushima). Incredibly, small amounts of radioactive chemicals have even been discovered along the western coasts of the United States and Canada. In 2014 and 2015, trace amounts of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 were collected from the ocean. But even after all of this, Japans problems may still be far from over. Neil Hyatt, a professor of nuclear materials chemistry, claims that the cleanup process at Fukushima could take generations. Somewhere between 40 and 100 years for the Fukushima cleanup and complete decommissioning is probably a reasonable estimate, he predicts during an interview with TRT World, a government funded public broadcaster of Turkey. Hyatt goes on to say, So right now work is proceeding to target and to plan, and they have an ambitious goal to retrieve some of the core material by 2020. They have a lot of different approaches to doing that. (RELATED: Read about the unimaginable levels of radiation detected at Fukushima) One concern is there could be a resumption of the nuclear chain reaction and there are systems in place that would allow us to detect that, Professor Hyatt added. While the threat of a nuclear chain reaction is certainly legitimate, Tokyo Electric is still working tirelessly to reach the cores of the nuclear reactors. The problem they are having, however, is getting past a lethal wave of radiation that has the ability to kill a human in less than one minute. In order to get around this, Tokyo Electric pumps 400 tons of water nonstop each day through the reactors in order to cool melted fuel that is too radioactive to move. The water passes through into storage tanks, which Tokyo Electric has to continuously build as the amount of stored water accumulates. Currently, a total of 1,000 tanks hold a total of 920,000 tons of contaminated water. A new problem may soon be appearing over the horizon, however, as the workers are quickly running out of room to build new storage tanks. Its clear that the Japanese certainly have their hands full, and it is unfortunate that they may be forced to continue the cleanup process over the course of the next century. Our thoughts and our prayers are with all of them. Stay informed about radiation effects at Radiation.news. Sources ENEnews.com LiveScience.com PHOENIX Lonnie Swartz will go on trial in federal court on Oct. 12 for shooting and killing a teen across the border in Mexico. U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins set the date on Friday, months after rejecting the contention of the Border Patrol agent he cant be tried in his court. Collins said he will resolve all remaining pretrial issues at a hearing on June 19. And he set a deadline for any plea deal of Sept. 22. Swartz, on duty at the time, has not disputed that he fired shots through an opening in the border fence at 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez who was on the Sonora side of the line. An autopsy concluded 10 of them hit the teen in the back. But Swartz, now on administrative leave, contends he fired in self-defense, saying the boy was throwing rocks across the border. That explanation has been in dispute, if for no other reason than the Mexican side of the border sits around 25 feet lower than the Arizona side. His attorney had attempted to have the case thrown out of federal court, contending that the case should be tried in state court. But Collins, in a ruling earlier this year, said Swartz was standing in a 60-foot zone adjacent to the border at the time of the incident, land he said is federal property. Meanwhile, a separate civil suit against Swartz by the youths parents remains on hold. The issue there is whether federal courts in this country have jurisdiction to hear the complaint as Elena Rodriguez was shot and died in Mexico. Attorneys for his family have argued to federal appellate judges that the incident originated in the United States, making it appropriate to have it heard in courts in this country. But the judges in this case said they won't decide that issue until there is a ruling in a similar case out of Texas where a Border Patrol agent in 2010 shot and killed a Mexican teen playing in a culvert that separates El Paso from Juarez. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled the parents cannot pursue their claim against Jesus Mesa Jr. because the boy, Sergio Hernandez, was a Mexican citizen who was on Mexican soil at the time he was shot. But that case is now on review to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whatever the justices rule in that case likely will determine whether the civil case against Swartz can continue. (Natural News) The 2016 Presidential election was a gigantic wakeup call for the corporate press in the U.S. not so much because Hillary Clinton lost, but because it represented the end of mainstream medias ability to seamlessly force feed narratives down the throats of a gullible and pliant American public. The marketplace of ideas had been flooded by the internet and the people made a decision. The media wars came and went, and the corporate press lost, badly. (Article by Michael Krieger republished from LibertyBlitzkrieg.com) The election of Donald Trump was as much a middle finger to the U.S. corporate press as anything else, and the corporate media didnt take too kindly to that. Rather than admit failure, refocus and compete within the freewheeling information age, the corporate media has resorted to endless whining and support for tech-overlord censorship. It simply knows it cant win a fair fight, so it has decided to cheat. As Robert Parry of Consortium News explains in his recent post, NYT Cheers the Rise of Censorship Algorithms: Just days after sporting First Amendment pins at the White House Correspondents Dinner to celebrate freedom of the press the mainstream U.S. media is back to celebrating a very different idea: how to use algorithms to purge the Internet of what is deemed fake news, i.e. what the mainstream judges to be misinformation. The New York Times, one of the top promoters of this new Orwellian model for censorship, devoted two-thirds of a page in its Tuesday editions to a laudatory piece about high-tech entrepreneurs refining artificial intelligence that can hunt down and eradicate supposedly fake news. Since the Times is a member of the Google-funded First Draft Coalition along with other mainstream outlets such as The Washington Post and the pro-NATO propaganda site Bellingcat this idea of eliminating information that counters what the group asserts is true may seem quite appealing to the Times and the other insiders. After all, it might seem cool to have some high-tech tool that silences your critics automatically? But you dont need a huge amount of imagination to see how this combination of mainstream groupthink and artificial intelligence could create an Orwellian future in which only one side of a story gets told and the other side simply disappears from view. As much as the Times, the Post, Bellingcat and the others see themselves as the fount of all wisdom, the reality is that they have all made significant journalistic errors, sometimes contributing to horrific international crises. For instance, in 2002, the Times reported that Iraqs purchase of aluminum tubes revealed a secret nuclear weapons program (when the tubes were really for artillery); the Post wrote as flat-fact that Saddam Hussein was hiding stockpiles of WMD (which in reality didnt exist); Bellingcat misrepresented the range of a Syrian rocket that delivered sarin on a neighborhood near Damascus in 2013 (creating the impression that the Syrian government was at fault when the rocket apparently came from rebel-controlled territory). These false accounts and many others from the mainstream media were countered in real time by experts who published contrary information on the Internet. But if the First Draft Coalition and these algorithms were in control, the information scrubbers might have purged the dissident assessments as fake news or misinformation. The Times quotes the promoters of this high-tech censorship effort without any skepticism: Algorithms will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting misinformation, said Claire Wardle, head of strategy and research at First Draft News, a nonprofit organization that has teamed up with tech companies and newsrooms to debunk fake reports about elections in the United States and Europe. Its impossible to do all of this by hand. The article continues: So far, outright fake news stories have been relatively rare [in Europe]. Instead, false reports have more often come from Europeans on social media taking real news out of context, as well as from fake claims spread by state-backed groups like Sputnik, the Russian news organization. Beyond failing to offer any evidence of Russian guilt in these fake news operations, Tuesdays Times story turns to the NATO propaganda and psychological warfare operation in Latvia, the Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, with its director Janis Sarts warning about an increased amount of misinformation out there. The Stratcom center, which oversees information warfare against NATOs perceived adversaries, is conducting a hackathon this month in search of coders who can develop technology to hunt down news that NATO considers fake. Sarts, however, makes clear that Stratcoms goal is not only to expunge contradictory information but to eliminate deviant viewpoints before too many people can get to see and hear them. State-based actors have been trying to amplify specific views to bring them into the mainstream, Sarts told the Times. The key thing to understand about this push, is that it has nothing to do with fighting back against actual fake news, i.e. stories that promote total fabrications. The existence of truly fake articles is simply being used as a smokescreen to disappear alternative opinions from the public debate. That is the real intent of the fake news meme. With the myth of the American dream rapidly being exposed as a sham, the corporate press needs to be able to efficiently propagandize the public in increasingly absurd ways, but the problem is much of the public no longer believes its nonsense. How can corporate media push Americans to support things against their interests and better judgement such more war, billionaire worship, and the surveillance state without silencing the opposition? It cant, which is why it needs to marginalize intelligent and thoughtful people espousing a different perspective. I know for a fact that the corporate press doesnt care in the least about truth or fairness in reporting following my own personal experience with The Washington Post. Recall that last November, in the aftermath of the medias panic at Hillarys loss, the paper pushed forth slanderous accusations against 200 alternative websites including Liberty Blitzkrieg. For more on that truly deplorable episode, see: Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of Russian Propaganda Websites. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (which couldnt find a bank executive to imprison if its life depended on it), is hard at work trying to institutionalize attacks agains the non-corporate press by going after Wikileaks and Julian Assange. As Glenn Greenwald observed earlier today: Who wants the FBI & CIA Directors to be the arbiters of what is and is not real journalism? Apparently, many people do. https://t.co/YbeexhKuHG Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 3, 2017 The battle against alternative ideas is truly picking up steam now, and the fight is happening on multiple fronts. Its not just through algorithms and the DOJ though, it is also very much an economic battle. Im sure you all know by now what is happening to political commentators on YouTube of all stripes. Their videos are being demonetized en masse. There is an attempt to hurt alternative voices through technology, the legal system as well as via revenues streams. We will lose this battle unless decent citizens of all political leanings rally around us to support our right to have a voice. Read more at: LibertyBlitzKrieg.com Science, the arts and social justice formed the foundation of a remarkable four years for Caroline Holmes, whose passionate pursuit of knowledge and service earned Emorys highly selective McMullan Award. Made possible by a generous gift from Emory alumnus William Matheson 47G, the award recognizes Emory College of Arts and Sciences graduates who show extraordinary promise for future leadership and rare potential for service to their community, the nation and the world. The McMullan Award includes $25,000 to be used as the recipient chooses. Holmes, who graduates with highest honors in physics and biology, heads to Princeton University next year to begin a doctorate program in physics, where she will do research in theoretical biophysics. She brings with her a track record of research achievements that would be the envy of many accomplished graduate students. As a popular peer tutor in physics, she actively shared her love of science with others, and she also organized speaker events that brought notable scientists to campus for public talks. But science is just one sphere where the Westchester, New York, native devoted her time at Emory. What attracted me to Emory initially, and what I found as a student, is that this is a community open to new ideas, with a deep appreciation for questions and curiosity, and great faculty who facilitate that kind of learning, Holmes says. Its also a place where a person can do science and also be involved in the arts and social justice, and no one finds that strange or says you cant do something. Creative writing was an interest early on. As a first-year student, Holmes participated in a seminar with former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey that nurtured a passion for poetry and led to her involvement with Alloy, a student-run literary magazine. Eventually, though, her research in physics and biology took precedence (there are only so many hours in the day). Throughout her time at Emory, Holmes also played viola in the Emory Symphony Orchestra. She shared her musical talents through weekly service trips with Volunteer Emory to work with the Atlanta Music Project, which gave her the opportunity to provide instrument lessons and exposure to classical music to children in underserved communities in the city. That experience led her to become more involved with Volunteer Emorys social justice efforts. This past year, Holmes served as director of the Social Justice Dialogues program, which holds regular community discussions around class, race and socioeconomic differences and how to navigate them as students. We saw the dialogues as an opportunity to move away from just academic discourse and theory to something more practical, where we all get together and just talk, and develop reasonable action steps that will help improve the Emory community, Holmes says. Its an ongoing process. Paradigm-changing research It is in the realm of scientific research, however, where Holmes is likely to turn her passion for knowledge into a path-breaking career in the relatively new interdisciplinary field of theoretical biophysics. She has already made a mark as the co-author of several papers, including one published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that her professors described as paradigm-changing. Working in the group of Ilya Nemenman, professor of physics and biology, and in collaboration with a graduate student in the lab of Sam Sober, assistant professor of biology, Holmes conducted research that discovered that skeletal muscles in vertebrates (using a songbird model) are controlled not by the rate, but by the precise timing patterns of neural action potentials (the electrical signals that the brain uses to processes information). This upends current knowledge about how the brain controls behavior, and may have serious applications to brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthetic devices, Sober explains. Carolines accomplishments are absolutely exceptional given that she performed this work as an undergraduate; I can think of only one other student who produced such groundbreaking work while also excelling in the College, says Sober. Caroline has tremendous potential and Im looking forward to watching her career unfold. Holmes career in science started when she first got to campus as a Woodruff Research Scholar. Nemenman didnt quite know what to do with the first-year student who showed up at his door two weeks into the school year, saying she wanted to work with him doing research. He told her that until she could code and handle high-level computer programming, he didnt have a space for her. A month later, Holmes was back ready to code after teaching herself the necessary technical skills to work in Nemenmans theoretical physics lab alongside graduate students and post-docs. She has an intense curiosity and zest for knowledge about everything. She is not buying it just because it comes from the mouth of a professor or a textbook. She always asks why, Nemenman says. That drive to always want to know more is what makes her an extraordinary undergraduate with high potential to have an impact in her field or whatever she chooses to do. Her junior year, he urged her to expand her scientific perspective by working with another professor who could give her a fresh approach to scientific questions and problems. That brought her to the lab of Daniel Weissman, assistant professor of physics, who oversaw her honors thesis in physics, which modeled how the role of males in sexual reproduction allows populations to adapt more quickly to changing conditions. I am blown away by Caroline's talent and maturity as a researcher. In her thesis, she thought deeply not just about the specifics of her problem, but why it's important and how it's relevant to the big questions in evolutionary biology, says Weissman. She essentially already has all the skills that most budding scientists go to graduate school to learn. Oxford College will observe its 172nd Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 6. The ceremony honors approximately 320 Oxford students, who will celebrate their Oxford experience before completing their undergraduate degrees at Emory Universitys Atlanta campus. Following their two years at Oxford, students enter Emory College of Arts and Sciences, the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing or the Goizueta Business School for the completion of their undergraduate degrees. Dignitaries Emory University President Claire E. Sterk and Interim Dean of Emory College Michael Elliott will join Oxford College Dean Douglas A. Hicks in presiding over the ceremony, which will begin at 10 a.m. on the Oxford quad.* Students, families, and others in attendance will hear the keynote address delivered by Teresa M. Rivero 85Ox 87B 93MPH. Golden Robes Marching in procession with the Oxford graduates and faculty will be members of the Oxford College class of 1967, the newest members of the Golden Robes, alumni whose graduation year was 50 or more years ago. Awards A highlight of the day will be the awarding of the Emory Williams Teaching Award, presented to a faculty member, and the Virgil Y.C. Eady Sophomore Award, presented to a student in recognition of outstanding service to Oxford College. Keynote address Teresa M. Rivero, lead senior program officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an Emory University trustee, will deliver the keynote address. As part of the Gates Foundations College-Ready Team, Rivero focuses on systems grant-making that strives to raise the national high school graduation rate and help all students graduate prepared for college. Rivero is a graduate of Emory, where she earned a BBA in finance and a masters degree in public health. She has also served on the Emory Alumni Board, including a term as president. Baccalaureate service On Friday evening, May 5, an interfaith baccalaureate service will be held in historic Old Church, just north of the Oxford campus. Following the event, graduates and their families are invited to join a dinner on the grounds of Haygood residence hall. Live streaming For the first time, Oxford will offer live streaming of Commencement exercises. View the live ceremony at 10 a.m. EDT on Saturday, May 6 (livestreaming starts at 9:30 a.m.). Further information For complete details on the weeks events, visit the Oxford Commencement pages. * An inclement weather advisory will be implemented, should weather present a problem on May 6. 21:34 Strict action will be taken against those found guilty in the gas leakage incident that led to the hospitalisation of around 450 girl students in southeast Delhi's Tughlakabad area today, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said most of the girls, who were hospitalised after they complained of irritation in eyes and breathlessness, were discharged, adding that a few of them were kept under observation. "The Delhi government has asked the district magistrate to investigate the matter and find out how the gas leaked at the depot. "We have asked the DM to take strict action against those found guilty of negligence," Kejriwal told reporters after meeting the students at one of the hospitals. Sisodia said a team from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was carrying out a study on the medical impact of the gas leakage incident. IMAGE: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal with Dy CM Manish Sisodia visits victims of gas leak at a hospital in New Delhi. Photograph: PTI Photo Flagstaff City Manager Josh Copley was recently honored as a 2017 Community Hero by the International City/County Management Association. ICMA launched Community Heroes last year to highlight those staff members who work with professional city, town, and county managers to improve the quality of life in our communities. In November, managers sent in descriptions of their star performers from public works to parks and rec and everything in between. Copley was nominated by Coconino County and selected as one of the 10 winners who will be profiled with a video story and featured with the other winners honoring those who dedicate their lives to public service. A husband-wife officer couple of Himachal Pradesh who have offered to bear the educational expenses of the school-going daughter of an Indian soldier who was killed and mutilated by the Pakistan Army earlier this week met the family of the slain soldier in Punjab on Saturday. The officer couple -- Yunus Khan, an Indian Administrative Service officer and his wife Anjum Ara, an Indian Police Service officer, visited the family of Paramjit Singh at their native village Voin Poin in Punjab's Tarn Taran district, close to Pakistan border, around 255 km from Chandigarh. "It is a salute to the soldier who sacrificed his life for the country," Khan, who is posted as Deputy Commissioner of Kullu, told reporters after meeting the family. He said this was a small gesture on their part to the slain soldier's family. The couple met his younger daughter, Khushdeep, whose expenses they will bear. "We all should come forward to help the families of the martyred soldiers. Our country needs the thinking of brotherhood. This is a small initiative by us," he said. Naib subedar Paramjit Singh was killed near the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati area of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir on May 1 along with Border Security Force trooper Prem Sagar and their bodies "mutilated". Khan's wife Anjum Ara, a 2011-batch IPS officer who is posted as Superintendent of Police in Solan, said the girl, Khushdeep Kaur, 12, would continue to stay with her family. "The children need emotional and financial help. Their mother will help them emotionally. I am also a mother and will help them emotionally," Ara said. "She (Khushdeep) will remain with her mother. We will keep coming here. We will help her as a member of the family," an emotional Ara said. Khan, who is born in Punjab's Malerkotla town, said the family agreed that "we would bear the entire education expenses of this girl". "It was my and my wife's feeling (to support the family of the soldier). This family also needs our emotional support. So we are here," Khan, a 2010-batch IAS officer, told IANS over the phone. "We will help this child in shaping her career. We will give her freedom, proper guidance and moral and financial support. We will take care of her entire education," Khan said. He had a narrow escape in 2013 when a tractor-trailer tried to ram his official vehicle thrice while he was checking illegal quarrying. The officer couple has a four-year old son. Ara said that bearing the educational expenses of the child was the initiative of her husband who had seen emotional pictures of the victim's family on a news channel. "So we have decided to help the family." "Many officials have adopted children (of slain soldiers) and they are helping them," she added. Khushdeep, a Class 7 student, has elder 15-year-old brother-sister twin siblings -- Simardeep Kaur and Sahildeep Singh. The soldier's wife Paramjit Kaur said: "For us, this couple is like a god. We are grateful to them for this gesture." --IANS vg/js/rn ( 524 Words) 2017-05-06-18:58:13 (IANS) The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe. The service's press secretary later confirmed the ban to other media, reports guardian.com. The letter said such a decision is made when a person has "committed socially dangerous actions... that contradict the interests of maintaining Ukraine's security". The move comes after the actor received citizenship in Russia, which has backed separatists in a simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin handed Seagal a Russian passport and told him he hoped their "personal relationship will remain and continue" during a meeting in the Kremlin last year, reports guardian.com. After the ban, Seagal is the latest of several cultural figures to be blacklisted, including actor Grard Depardieu. Ukraine previously banned Russia's entry to the Eurovision song contest that Kiev is hosting next week. --IANS nv/rb/bg ( 184 Words) 2017-05-06-18:38:08 (IANS) According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new footage of the flick 'Red Sparrow,' shown at a special Fox event, highlighted the adult nature of the film. The director, Francis Lawrence, told during the event that this movie is definitely going to be R. He also revealed that when he pitched the idea of his approach for the movie, nobody chickened out or got cold feet, everyone was up for it. "It is a Hard R." The film, which also stars Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary Louise Parker and Charlotte Rampling, sees Lawrence reuniting with her 'Hunger Games' director. The film is heavy on sex, with the Oscar-winning actress' character trained to seduce the individuals deemed as enemies of the Russian state. Talking about working with the 'Passengers' star, he said, she was willing to take some risks in this movie, but might not have been willing to do for somebody she didn't know. While Lawrence revealed that there was just one week's worth of shooting left to do, with production taking place across Europe and now in London. 'Red Sparrow' is due for a release in March 2018. (ANI) The intruder, identified as Ashfaq Ali Chauhan and the son of a retired Baluch Regiment soldier Hussain Malik - resident of Village Dunger Pel, Tehsil Samani of Bhimber District in PoK - was found moving suspiciously near the LoC. After having been challenged by the patrol, the boy immediately surrendered. It is suspected that the boy was sent by terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC. The boy has been handed over to the Police for further investigation. (ANI) The faculty members of the Tripura (Central) University gheraoed Vice Chancellor Professor Anjan Kumar Ghosh last night demanding strong action against the accused involved in illegal appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff and financial corruption. To succumb the pressure, vice chancellor has debarred dean, arts and commerce from his post and ordered for initiating departmental proceeding against him accusing him of involvement in the irregularities. The decision against the dean has further aggravated the situation that a group of faculty members raised voice against VC stating that whatever allegations of corruption and irregularities were brought against the university in each and every case VC prof Ghosh himself is involved. How can he debar dean for his mischief? A group of faculty members' yesterday afternoon submitted a memorandum to VC seeking his clarification on the delay of announcement and implementation of the enquiry committee formed three months ago for alleged malpractice in screening process of a few post of associate professors in some departments. According to report, with the instruction and guidelines issued by the VC, the committee where deans were the members had cleared the applications of a few candidates who are not belonging to leftist teachers' organisation. The particular case which was later found not suitable was recommended by dean in-charge and all the files were cleared by VC. However, to manage the situation VC took action against dean arts and commerce at late night and made an attempt to save his skin and the corrupt lobby of the university. However, the teachers alleged that committee was formed to probe into undue favours that would be granted to certain teachers of the Institution. There were allegations of illegal promotions and recruitment held during the tenure of the incumbent vice chancellor prof Ghosh. They also alleged nepotism in the promotion into senior positions and direct recruitments in the department of rural management and development, department of microbiology and department of education and added, "VC has also adopted corrupt means in appointment of Register of the University and also initiated process of interview in Delhi to recruit his own people." Followed by the decision of action against a dean, director of internal quality assurance cell prof B K has resigned from all the additional responsibility and raised voice against VC Prof Ghosh. He made it clear whatever has been happened in the university good or bad was done by the instruction of VC and registrar but now both of them desperately trying to probe themselves clean. Instead of cancelling the controversial interviews, vice chancellor has secretly arranged to have the interviews at Delhi on May 24, 25 and 26 next. He has been accused of illegally appointing finance officer, as many as 73 under qualified non-teaching staff, procured e-book worth of Rs 10 crore and a huge purchase and engagement by corrupt means. However, prof Ghosh and registrar O S Adhikari are neither meeting with media nor picking up phone call to clarify their stand in regard to the allegations and subsequent development, Recently, Ministry of HRD has ordered special audit in Tripura University along with a few others to probe the allegation of financial corruption. UNI BB AKM 1029 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-882449.Xml Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only hope to address the 70-year-old Kashmir issue once and for all. Mufti came out in strong support of Prime Minister Modi saying he alone can help the people of the state in these troubling circumstances. Speaking at the inauguration of a much-awaited flyover in Jammu, the chief minister said, "If anyone can take us out of this quagmire, then it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has the mandate. Whatever he decides, the nation will support him." Reiterating her stand of initiating the dialogue process to restore peace in Kashmir, Mufti said, "The previous prime minister also wanted to visit Pakistan, but could not. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lahore is a proof of his abilities, an example of his moral authority." Mufti said that her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also tried to resolve the Kashmir situation, but since then no efforts were made by subsequent governments. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had improved the relations between India and Pakistan, which were again disturbed due to the lack of initiative taken by the previous governments. Now after 2008, for the first time, people have started expressing passion in the matter," she added. Reacting to the statement of Congress leader G.S. Charak on the lack of development in Jammu, the chief minister said that a tense situation in Kashmir affected Jammu as well. "Jammu has many tourist destinations and we are trying to develop them," she added. Last month, Mufti met Prime Minister Modi at his residence in New Delhi and briefed him about the security situation in the Valley. After the meeting, she told reporters that it was important to resume the dialogue process initiated by former prime minister Vajpayee. (ANI) Police said here today that the step father Santosh Ram threw his two year daughter Saira Kumari to her death apparently in an inebriated condition. Santosh had married one Sanju Kumari only four days back after she was deserted by her first husband Munna Dusadh. Villagers after badly thrashing the accused handed him over to the police. The body has been sent to Ara Sadar Hospital for autopsy, police added. UNI DH AKM 1305 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-882581.Xml Police Superintendent Nishant Kumar Tiwari said that the team seized nine quintals of ganja from a truck and arrested three peddlers from the spot. The consignment worth nearly Rs 23 lakh was intercepted when it was being carried from Tripura. Mr Tiwari said, while two peddlers were natives of Tripura, the third one hailed from Meerganj police station area in the district. An intensive interrogation of nabbed smugglers is on to nab other members of their gang. UNI DH AKM 1318 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-882592.Xml Noxious fumes from the container caused eye and throat irritation, and dizziness to the students of Rani Jhansi Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Number 2, in Tughlaqabad area, in the morning. Around 30 students had fainted. After first aid, many of the students were released. "Over 310 students were treated at different hospitals after Chloro (methyl) diphenylsilane, a chemical, leaked from a container depot here in Tughlaqabad," a senior police officer told IANS. "We are investigating to see how the chemical leaked," the officer said, adding, "The chemical was imported to India." The officer said a case is being registered in the matter. The students were rushed to four nearby hospitals -- Batra Hospital, Apollo Hospital, Majeedia Hospital and ESI Hospital. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who visited the hospitals, said he had spoken to the doctors and the condition of the students was "normal". He also said the District Magistrate has been ordered to probe the leak. "I have spoken to the Union Health Minister. He has set up a team of doctors under AIIMS to ensure care in case of any emergency," he told reporters. He announced that schools in the area were ordered shut for the day, and exams postponed. Sisodia said the situation would be reviewed on Monday. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal later visited Majeedia Hospital. Delhi Fire Service received a distress call about the gas leak at 7.43 a.m. Three fire tenders were rushed to the spot, an officer said. Seventeen ambulances from the Centralised Accident and Trauma Services (CATS) were also rushed to the schools. --IANS aks-am/in/rn ( 319 Words) 2017-05-06-14:56:08 (IANS) The Government today directed all Central hospitals to provide all help to the students affected by a gas leak in the Tughlaqabad area of the capital."Central GoI hospitals have been instructed to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident,'' Union Health Minister JP Nadda tweeted."My prayers are with children &families,'' he said.As many as 173 students and nine teachers of a Government school were admitted to different hospitals here this morning after they complained of severe irritation in their eyes, which was found to be caused by a gas leak in a container depot adjacent to the school.UNI NAZ SNU 1402 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-882630.Xml PHOENIX In a bid to get votes for the state budget, Republican lawmakers are picking a new legal fight with charter cities. The state House voted 31-28 Thursday to limit the ability of cities to ask voters for a sales tax increase to just even-numbered years, and only during the regular November election. Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler, said turnout soared after his city went to that single election date. More to the point, he said higher turnout may keep elections from being hijacked by special interests. You don't have that little group of people, of insiders, that you're only catering to in an election anymore, Weninger said. You're going to your entire populace. Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, was more blunt about cities that hold the off-cycle elections. They obviously want to suppress the votes, she said. But Barry Aarons who lobbies for Prescott, told lawmakers the council has decided that its odd-year elections make the most sense and lawmakers should not intercede. The reason for the late Thursday hearing is political: Legislative leaders agreed to push the measure through in an effort to buy votes of some lawmakers who have been opposed to the $9.8 billion state budget and a companion proposal to allow universities to borrow up to $1 billion for 25 years. But if a 2014 Court of Appeals ruling is any indication, the legislation may be doomed from the start. That year the three-judge panel voided a 2012 law requiring cities to have their elections only in even-numbered years. The judges said that is trumped by state constitutional provisions which allow charter cities to set their own local policies, including election dates. Judge Michael Miller, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, acknowledged that lawmakers in enacting that statute cited various reasons for wanting cities to have their elections at the same time as federal, state, legislative, county and school board candidates are on the ballot. That includes saving local taxpayers the cost of a separate election. But Miller said that's not of the state's concern. If only city costs are implicated, then the Arizona Constitution delegates to the city's voters to determine whether its costs actually would decrease and, if so, whether the decrease is worth the trade-off in loss of off-cycle benefits, he wrote. And Miller said attorneys for Tucson, who challenged the law, and those of Phoenix that joined the case, presented arguments in favor of keeping their odd-year elections arguments that are contrary to what Republican lawmakers claimed on Thursday in approving the measure. An off-cycle election allows a city to obtain the full focus of the electorate, Miller wrote. And he said it also insulated the process from the influence of partisan issues that are inevitably interwoven with federal, state and county elections. Rep. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, predicted this new law will be challenged and meet the same fate. Having fallen short on people's mandate in the case of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday organised a meeting where Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai asserted that AAP is renewing its policies for the state and party. "After the MCD elections, the AAP is renewing its policies for the state and party. Over this month, 14 round meetings have happened with the workers in regards to improvement of the state. Today, we will be organising a joint meeting at Arvind Kejriwal's house. If the government feels that an investigation or notices should be made compulsory for us funding illegally in the state, then we will accept the notice," Rai told reporters here. "Every AAP leader is standing with the party and its supporter. We never believed in groupism nor amended it in our party. The party is primarily focussing on growth and development for the state. We are also happily accepting the feedback and will put them forward in the meeting today. Only after that the party will make a comprehensive policy and will discuss it with the minister," said Rai. Meanwhile, the AAP cried foul over the Union Home Ministry's issuance of a notice to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led party asking it to provide information on overseas funding it has received. Accusing the Centre of 'witch-hunting', AAP leader Ashutosh said that the Union Government was practicing political vendetta. "This is nothing but witch-hunting, this is political vendetta. The Home Ministry once under Manmohan Singh and the other time under Narendra Modi has already conducted an investigation and submitted the report of the same to the Delhi High Court citing that nothing has been found wrong in the funding of the AAP," Ashutosh told ANI. "This is nothing but political vendetta. I will say that with which ever agency they want to appoint to investigate the matter they can, I know they will able to find nothing," he added. Triggering yet another AAP vs Centre face-off, the MHA had yesterday sent a notice to the AAP, asking it to provide information in connection with its overseas funding. The Home Ministry in its notice asked the AAP to disclose the source, nature and the amount of donation as well as the foreign equity in the shareholding pattern of the corporation, company or source from where the donation is received. (ANI) Meanwhile, the ESIC Hospital said, "Received 103 children (all girls) and three adults, five with pre-existing illnesses referred to Apollo, 69 handed over to their guardians." Hours after the students of a school in Delhi's Tughlaqabad area were admitted to four different hospitals following a gas leakage from a container truck, Delhi Education and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia stated that the District Magistrate was ordered to investigate into matter, while assuring that the students were safe. "I spoke to doctors, who told me that the students were fine. I will visit the children soon in the hospital and have spoken to a few on the phone. I have also asked the DM (District Magistrate) to investigate. The students are being properly taken care of," Sisodia said. Nadda stated that Delhi hospitals were instructed to help all victims. "The Central Government has instructed the hospitals to be ready to help all victims of Delhi gas leak incident. My prayers are with children and families," said Nadda. Earlier this day, as many as 173 students and nine teachers were admitted to four hospitals after a gas leaked from a container truck parked near a school in Delhi's Tughlaqabad area. "A total of 173 students and nine teachers are admitted to four hospitals. No student is critical," Romil Baaniya, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South-East, said. The local police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), fire, and Centralised Ambulance and Trauma Services (CATS) teams have reached the spot. The incident occurred near the Rani Jhansi Girls School in Pul Prahladpur, Tughlaqabad. (ANI) After an English news channel played a recorded conversation into the working relationship between Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and criminal-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday described it as a 'saddening day of democracy' in Bihar. BJP leader Sambit Patra told ANI the democracy was strangled in Bihar and that the Chief Minister should come up with an explanation on this. "It is a saddening day of democracy in Bihar. Today, the democracy has been strangled in Bihar. CM Nitish Kumar is dependent on Lalu Prasad Yadav, because he has the numbers. Lalu Prasad infact takes dictation from inside the jail from the don Shahabuddin," he said Patra said that today one can say that "Shahabuddin has emerged as the new Chief Minister of Bihar." "The criminal mastermind is giving dictation to the Chief Minister of Bihar. Nitish Kumar should come out and explain this," he added. Meanwhile, denying to respond on the matter, RJD functionary Jagdanand Singh blamed the Tihar jail if such a incident took place under their administration. "I have no idea because I have not seen the tape. I have come here for other work. You should ask the owner of the Tihar jail if such a thing took place," he said, adding that "the party will never expel Shahabuddin from the party." "Shahabuddin is part of the party and it is not hidden," he added. The channel earlier had played a recorded conversation which it claimed took place between Lalu Prasad and Mohammad Shahabuddin. (ANI) Police arrested a navy jawan on the charge of killing his lover from his hideout here late last night. Senior Police Superintendent Manoj Kumar said here that the navy jawan Braj Bhushan was arrested from his hideout here following a specific intelligence input. He said that the navy jawan faced charges of killing his lover Sunita Kumari (20) with his two other associates by attacking her with bricks and stones. Raids were being conducted to nab navy jawan`s other associates. The girl, a graduate student was done to death inside TNB College premises here yesterday. The navy jawan, a native of Kishnapur village had a love affair with the girl but refused to marry her later. He confessed to his crime during interrogation, police added. UNI XC DH KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-882748.Xml The government is ready to share whatever it has with the people, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said today during his maiden visit to Churachandpur district, which has been reeling under a prolonged stir. The government of Manipur also wants to resolve the Churachandpur crisis and as a fall out of the series of negotiations an agreement may be signed soon he further said. Biren who was warmly welcomed by people of Churachandpur and representatives of Editors Guild Manipur, Manipur Hill Journalists Union and District administration at the Churachandpur Press Club expressed sorrow over the death of ten people during a stir in the district in Aug 2015. He said he can the sorrow and grief of the bereaved family members. The time for reconciliation has come as serious inconveniences have been caused to the people by the stir which has completed 600 days he added. The government will stand by the people of Churachandpur and the time has come to wash away all differences he further appealed. Problems will continue to haunt humankind however we should think of the youths, the children who can't afford to lose valuable time he added. All should also understand that there are people who have no proper houses , clothing and food and hence those calling stirs should also have the magnanimity to forgive and forget also he added. The government exists for the people and as India is a democratic country everybody has a right to demand and the government should be ever ready to listen to the grievances of the people he added. Beside Meitei, Meitei Pangal there are 34 recognised tribes and four unrecognized tribes in Manipur coupled with the large numbers of people from the rest of the country hence Manipur is a mini India he said. As there are large numbers of different communities following different faith and religions we have to learn to make our state and country a beautiful, peaceful land following the path of learning to forgive and respecting each other he further said. Taking opportunity of the visit of the Chief Minister large numbers of students, government officials, public leaders and NGOs submitted memoranda . Biren said the government will extend all help to construct a Press Club building in the district, provide proper connectivity and other basic amenities within a time frame. He further said all those who submitted memoranda have to understand that the government will act to resolve their grievances. The government has decided to review works in every district. He said the works taken up at Tamenglong and Noney districts were discussed and the progress reports were pathetic he said. Road connectivity, internet facilities, health etc were found to be almost absent hence all top functionaries have been sent to the two districts to furnish reports of every work and he will personally monitor all works he said. Similar activities will be taken up in other districts also he said as there should be equality in development also. He said the government has also prioritized the works to be taken up within the first 100 days and all potholes in the state capital and district headquarters have been repaired. He further said mobile phones have been allowed in all government offices to ensure that anybody can take photographs of any wrongdoings . Some employees must be unhappy with it but the honest officials must be happy he added. Biren also handed over a cheque of Rs 5 lakhs each to kin of two persons who died in firing in the border last month. Sothing Simrey, President of Manipur Hill Journalists Union said the government is taking up people friendly projects. Yumnam Rupachandra, Gen Secy of Editors' Guild said it is time to use the strategic importance of Manipur to develop . V Hangkhanlian, Minister Agriculture, TT Haokip, Chairman of Hill Areas Committee, Parliamentary Secretaries, MLAs, Chairman of ADCs were also present in the function. A seminar on communal harmony, bridging the gap was held after the function in which various papers were presented . UNI NS KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-882756.Xml WASHINGTON The 12 million people who visited national parks in Arizona last year spent more than $995 million with nearby businesses, a $63 million increase from the year before, the National Park Service said. The services annual Visitor Spending Effects Report said that spending supported more than 15,000 jobs and generated $1.5 billion in economic activity for the state. That was part of a national record 331 million visitors to the 471 National Park Service sites across the country in 2016. They spent $18.4 billion on lodging, food, gas, admissions, local transportation and other fees, generating an estimated $34.9 billion in economic activity. National Parks are Americas treasure, which provide magnificent outdoor recreation opportunities and serve as economic engines for local communities, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement with the April report. With continued record visitation its time to start thinking about accessibility and infrastructure. But experts in Arizona said its past time to think about improving infrastructure, saying long-overdue maintenance could ultimately put Arizonas cash cow at risk. And one said that early indications on Trump administration plans to spend on Interior and the National Park Service arent good. The tourism and dollars related to tourism in Arizona are really the backbone of our states economy, said Roger Clark, program director for the Grand Canyon Trust. Yet, neither state nor federal agencies really invest what is needed to make sure that the Grand Canyon remains the desirable destination it is today. A Senate bill introduced in March would dedicate more than $10 billion over the next 30 years to park maintenance, but it has yet to get a hearing. Clark said the investment in infrastructure pales in comparison to the value parks bring to the states economy. Were enjoying the economic benefits of the park without making investments necessary to ensure its quality and availability for future generations, he said. He said the aging water system in the Grand Canyon is in dire need of redesign and replacement, an issue he called one of the most-pressing among all the parks in the nation. The park service is looking at options so that the constant breaking of the canyon pipeline due to intense pressure and the really old piping system needs to be replaced, said Clark, adding that the system is holding on without the budget to really fix it. At times during busy seasons, he said, the park has almost had to shut down due to the failing water system, noting that if that happens, the people that rely on the tourism economy are going to lose lots of money. Kevin Dahl, Arizonas senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, echoed Clarks concerns. The pipeline that supplies all that water is 50 years old, its long past the time when it should have been replaced, Dahl said. That is just one of many serious infrastructure needs that should be addressed at the canyon, Dahl said. Despite those problems, however, Dahl said he is optimistic about the future of the parks. He pointed to a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would dedicate funding for parks maintenance for the next 30 years. President Trump has talked about the need for infrastructure and renewal in our country, Dahl said. Thats just as true in the national parks as it is elsewhere. We hope the very special places get the attention they deserve. T.P. Senkumar on Saturday took charge as Kerala police chief, a day after he was reinstated as the Director General of Police by the state government. Senkumar was unceremoniously shunted out the day Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan assumed office in May last year. After taking charge, Senkumar told reporters that at the moment he will not comment on the ongoing legal issues with the state government including the contempt petition he has filed against Chief Secretary Nalini Netto which is coming up on May 9. "At the moment my priority as an important head of a department is towards the state government's policies, especially issues concerning security of women and children. I don't expect any sort of confrontation from anywhere," Senkumar said, adding that he will meet the Chief Minister at the earliest. In the afternoon, Senkumar told media that he has got his reinstatement order and will assume charge as state police chief later in the day. At 4.25 p.m., Senkumar, in police uniform, arrived at the police headquarters and was given a ceremonial welcome by an impressive guard of honour. Later, taking the baton from Loknath Behra, who replaced him last year, Senkumar took his seat. Meanwhile, a miffed Vijayan told reporters in Alappuzha that the state government went to the apex court because some clarifications were needed. "The Supreme Court is the last word and hence the reinstatement has been made," said Vijayan. Former State Congress President V.M. Sudheeran said this is the biggest setback for the arrogant Vijayan government. "All wish that through this setback, Vijayan will understand how to behave," said Sudheeran. Former State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief P.S. Sreedharan Pillai said the law has won and Vijayan has suffered a major setback. Senkumar was moved out of office the day Vijayan assumed charge in May last year for the "poor handling" of a firecracker tragedy at a temple and the Jisha murder case. After Senkumar's petition against his removal was turned down by the Central Administrative Tribunal and subsequently by the Kerala High Court, the Supreme Court on April 24 directed the Kerala government to reinstate him. However, the Vijayan government failed to implement the order in time. Finally, on Friday morning, the apex court, hearing a clarification petition about its April 24 order slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on the state government for wasting the court's time. The court said they knew what to do if its orders were not implemented. Hours after the order, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday night reinstated Senkumar as the police chief. Now all eyes are on the contempt petition filed by Senkumar that Chief Secretary Nalini Netto was delaying his posting and this petition is coming up on May 9. Senkumar is set to retire on June 30. --IANS sg/lok/bg ( 476 Words) 2017-05-06-18:42:11 (IANS) Justice Leila Seth, mother of renowned writer Vikram Seth and the first woman judge of the Delhi High court, died of cardiac arrest this morning, aged 86, family sources said.Part of the Justice J S Verma committee that was set up to re-look at rape laws in India after the December 16, 2012 gang rape, Justice Seth passed away at her residence in Sector 15 A in Noida.She was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in Delhi a few months ago but was discharged following recovery. She was admitted again a few weeks ago with a femur fracture but was treated and discharged .She became the first woman chief justice of a high court and later headed the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Leila Seth was appointed the first woman judge of the Delhi High Court in 1978.Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the passing away of Justice Seth."Saddened by the passing away of Justice Leila Seth. Her remarkable contribution to the legal field will be remembered. My condolences", the Prime Minister said in his message. UNI AR RSA RP 1918 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-883196.Xml The students of Rani Jhansi School and Government Girls Senior Secondary School were admitted to different hospitals here after they complained of severe irritation in their eyes and breathlessness. "As many as 300 students and nine teachers were admitted to hospitals.Their condition is stable and no one is serious. The incident has occurred due to negligence. Strict action will be taken against those responsible for the incident," a Delhi Police official said. The Aam Aadmi Party government has ordered a probe into the matter while the police have registered an FIR against unknown persons under different sections of Indian Penal Code and the Environment Protection Act. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with his colleague Manish Sisodia met the students and enquired about their health. "Maximum students have gone back to home. A few are still under observation in hospitals. AIIMS team is working on medical impact study," Mr Sisodia tweeted later. In another tweet, he said, "Have spoken to the Union Health Minister, he has created a team of doctors under AIIMS to ensure relevant care in case of any emergency." Leader of Opposition of Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta have also visited hospitals to meet the sick children and demanded a high level inquiry by Delhi Government into the incident. Earlier, Union Health Minister JP Nadda directed all Central hospitals to provide all help to the students affected by gas leakage. According to fire official, a call was received at around 0735 hrs regarding the incident. A team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and police also rushed to the spot immediately for rescue operations.UNI DS RSA SHK 1932 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0177-883182.Xml The trouble started when some youths pelted stones on vehicles passing through village Churat Devsar in Kulgam district. However, security forces allegedly fired pellets in which the teenager was injured. He was rushed to hospital at Qazigund from where he was referred to Anantnag for specialised treatment. As the news spread in the adjoining villages, people took to the streets raising slogans against the security forces. Additional security forces were rushed to the area as the situation got very tense with people from other villages joining the protests.UNI BAS SB SHK 2047 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0094-883379.Xml A court in Kerala's Ernakulam has sentenced one year imprisonment along with fine of Rs 60 lakh to KS Chandrasekhar, then Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Air Cargo Complex of Nedumbassery Airport for accepting gratification, a CBI statement said today. Two other persons--Raju Mathew and George Bastin, partners of M/s Mars Cargo Agencies located in Cochin were also sentenced two years imprisonment by the Court along with fine of Rs 30 lakh each in connection with case, it said. The CBI said that the investigation had revealed that Chandrasekhar while working as Deputy Commissioner of Customs entered into a criminal conspiracy with Mathew and Bastin, and favoured the Agencies without any public interest, in the matter of clearing of goods without imposing applicable customs duty. The then Deputy Commissioner habitually obtained illegal gratification on eight occasions for a total amount of Rs 3,79,350 in the form of Demand Drafts issued from Syndicate Bank of Angamaly Branch in favour of M/s Basaveshwara Temple Committee, Sakleshpur, Karnataka from the representatives as a reward for the favours shown to said firm. After investigation, a chargesheet was filed against the accused, it said.UNI DS SHK 2056 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0177-883380.Xml Juncker and Tusk will meet and greet Donald Trump prior to the NATO summit scheduled for May 25, announced European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva on Friday. Trump's visit to the European Union's capital will take place during his first international diplomatic tour since he took office in January, Xinhua news agency reported. Before heading to Europe, however, Trump is scheduled to touch down for a visit to Saudi Arabia. It marks a break in tradition, as US presidents have always tended to choose either Canada or Mexico as their first port of call. After Saudi Arabia, Trump is due to travel on to Jerusalem where he is expected to meet with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas, according to a White House press note. On May 24, Pope Francis is to welcome Trump at the Vatican. Once Trump has met Tusk and Junker and attended the NATO summit in Brussels, he is due to fly back to Italy in order to attend the G7 Heads of State and Government Summit in Sicily, slated for May 26-27. --IANS vgu/ ( 226 Words) 2017-05-06-03:48:09 (IANS) The Express Tribune said citing reports that Sharif and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif held a low-key meeting with General Qamar Bajwa at the PM House on Thursday. During the meeting, the leader assured the Army Chief that the military's reservations on the notification would be addressed and a fresh notification would be issued. Earlier, the Pakistan Army rejected the federal government's notification on Dawn leaks inquiry, saying that it was incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board after the federal government released a notification stating that Prime Minister Sharif had approved the recommendations of the inquiry committee. The Dawn leaks report pertains to Pakistan's English daily The Dawn staffer Cyril Almeida's story 'Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military' published on October 6 last year, which came under fire for reporting that the civil leadership allegedly criticised the military's policies on militancy. (ANI) According to Tolo News, Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher of HRW in Afghanistan said Hekmatyar, like other warlords, does not feel accountable for what he has done in the past. Gossman also criticised Hekmatyar's repeated remarks against the media and said the achievements of the past 15 years should be preserved. Hekmatyar returned to Kabul city on Thursday after 20 years after a 25-point peace deal signed in September 2016 with President Ashraf Ghani. Under the agreement, the Hezb-e-Islami leader will adopt a political role. The peace agreement between the Afghan Government and the terror group gives Hekmatyar and his followers' immunity for past actions and grants them full political rights. Hekmatyar was a prominent anti-Soviet commander in the 1980s. He is accused of killing thousands of people when his fighters fired on civilian areas of the capital city during the 1992-1996 civil war. (ANI) PHOENIX The $9.82 billion state budget is being billed by Republican lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey as the best outcome given the money the state has to spend. Legislative budget analysts predict revenues this coming fiscal year of $9.79 billion. That, coupled with $171 million anticipated to be left at the end of this budget year on June 30, plus $8.2 million in transfers from other funds, gives the state its structurally balanced budget. What's not mentioned is that the state might have had more money to spend had there not been a series of corporate tax cuts approved by lawmakers half a decade ago which are still kicking in. For just this coming budget year, those changes will reduce state revenues by another $107.2 million. But that's not all of it. When Republican legislative leaders needed to buy votes for the plan they agreed to cut another $10 million from state revenues by allowing Arizonans to exempt another $100 of their income from state taxes. But that move likely has a greater psychological impact than stimulative of the economy: The highest-paid Arizonans -- those making more than $150,000 a year -- will see a difference of just $4.54 when they file their taxes in April; the tax relief for those below that figure is even less. Democrats, for the most part, say the state could have done more. That goes beyond their belief the state should have financed a 4 percent teacher pay hike versus the 2 percent approved. They also said the state is short-changing other needs, like providing adequate payments to those who provide direct services to the developmentally disabled. Gov. Doug Ducey and Republicans said the state has to live within its means. That, however, leaves the question of whether those tax cuts, which ultimately will reduce corporate payments by $400 million from where they were in 2015, actually stimulated the Arizona economy or simply threw away needed revenues. Economist Alan Maguire said there's no simple answer. "You've got a lot of moving parts,'' he said. "There are monetary, financial effects,'' Maguire said. "And you have psychological or confidence kinds of effects. People feel better or don't feel better.'' And, in general, when consumer confidence rises, so does their willingness to spend which, in turn, stimulates the economy. The biggest part of the tax cut was a 30 percent reduction in the corporate tax rate, taking it from just a hair below 7 percent to 4.9 percent. There's also a special provision that allows multi-state corporations to compute their Arizona income based on the percentage of sales made in the state. That option makes no sense for retailers. But it provides a major tax break for firms that manufacture everything from computer chips to missiles where the number of sales to Arizona consumers is small to nonexistent. Jan Brewer, who was governor at the time and signed the tax-cut legislation, told Capitol Media Services that, in hindsight, the size of those cuts were a mistake. "Of course it was a little bit too aggressive,'' she said. The result, Brewer said, has been a reduction in revenues needed for state services. "Sooner or later, you have to pay the fiddler,'' she said. But Brewer said she signed the package as a political compromise, saying "the boys at the legislature ... wanted more.'' Economist Dennis Hoffman of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University said what he's been able to see leaves him with doubts about whether those cuts have had the advertised effect. "There is no discernible evidence that corporate economic activity accelerated in response to the cuts,'' he said. "Indeed, net corporate collections this fiscal year will likely be less than 60 percent of the net flows observed in fiscal year 2012 or 2013 despite the moderate growth we have seen in the overall Arizona economy since then.'' Put another way, if the cuts were supposed to convince more corporations to move to Arizona and start to pay taxes, that hasn't been the experience. Hoffman cautioned, though, that he -- and all economists -- are working without sufficient data to determine the true impacts, as state law makes the taxes paid by any individual corporation confidential. Economist Jim Rounds agreed there's no way to say for sure what have been the effects of the corporate tax cuts. "You can not go back and just do some simple math, like a lot of economists will tell you, and say 'This study proves that this had a massively positive impact,' '' he said, if for no other reason than it doesn't take into account other variables. One of those variables, Hoffman said, has been that corporate revenues have always tracked with real estate construction. And that section of the economy has yet to recover from the recession. But Rounds said even if an exact economic impact can't be measured, there's reason to believe some corporate tax cuts were a good idea. He pointed out that Arizona's corporate income tax rate at the time was just a hair shy of 7 percent, among the higher rates of surrounding states. He said it needed to be around 5 percent to be competitive; the actual new tax rate is 4.9 percent. But Rounds said there's a danger of going too far. "If we cut taxes too much to the extent we can't build roads, we can't have any economic development, we can't address other things, it will have a negative effect on the economy,'' he said. Rounds said the state needs to find the balance of "providing enough revenue to pay for all the other stuff that businesses and the public want to make a nice environment to live in.'' But you're not going to get any apologies from Ducey for cutting taxes, including that late-enacted $100 increase in the personal exemption. "Any time you're improving the tax code and letting people keep more of the money they earn, you're going to see an impact,'' said gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato. "This is money that people will be keeping of their own and putting into the economy rather than just going into government.'' The de-escalation zones deal, signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey, went into effect in Syria at midnight on Saturday, media reports said. Earlier on Friday, Russian media reports cited Russia's head of the main operational directorate of Russia's military, as saying that the agreement brokered by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to establish "de-escalation zones" in main battlefields in Syria will go into force at midnight on Saturday. According to the agreement, the government and opposition forces will halt fighting for six months in four zones: the northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Homs, the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus and areas in the Daraa and Qunaitera provinces in southern Syria, local al-Watan online newspaper reported. Under the deal, the safe zones, or de-escalation zones, will be free of battles and airstrikes. On Thursday evening during the Astana talks, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on the creation of four or more safe zones in Syria. "The cease-fire guarantor states announce that the memorandum on the establishment of de-escalation zones in Syria provides the creation of security zones to stop violence, improve humanitarian situation and create conditions for the advancement of the process and political settlement of the Syrian conflict," Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov said. The deal excludes the terror-designated groups such as the Islamic State (IS) group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, as the battles against those groups will continue, Xinhua news agency reported. On Wednesday, Syria's Foreign Ministry announced the acceptance of the Syrian government to the safe zone plan. However, some factions of the Syrian opposition refused to accept it, saying the pact threatens Syria's territorial integrity. --IANS vgu/ ( 286 Words) 2017-05-06-07:20:08 (IANS) Roy Oliver, a patrol officer in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs, has not been arrested, but a judge on Friday signed a murder warrant and his bond has been set at $300,000, The Washington Post quoted the Dallas Morning News as saying. Oliver, who had been with the department since July 2011, is accused of opening fire on a car full of teenagers leaving a party on April 29, killing Jordan Edwards. If convicted of murder, Oliver could face life in prison. "The warrant was issued due to evidence that suggested Oliver intended to cause serious bodily injury and commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused the death of an individual," Melinda Urbina, a public information officer with the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, said in a statement. "The investigation into the death of Jordan Edwards will continue and does not conclude with the arrest of Roy Oliver," the statement added. Oliver was fired by the Balch Springs Police Department on Tuesday, three days after he responded to a call about intoxicated teens at a house party, reports The Washington Post. Police said that as officers dispersed the party they heard gunshots outside. Then, when officers went outside to investigate, they saw a car backing out of a parking spot. As they approached the vehicle, it began to drive away. Oliver opened fire, striking Jordan, who was in the passenger seat. Jordan is the youngest of the 333 people shot and killed by police so far in 2017, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings. At least 10 people shot and killed by police this year were under 18. --IANS ksk/vm ( 310 Words) 2017-05-06-15:16:12 (IANS) The operation is the second largest of its kind carried out in the country, and will affect around a tenth of the city's population, the BBC reported. The buildings set to be evacuated include seven care homes, a clinic, and a tire plant. Officials hope those affected will be able to return home by the evening. The evacuations will begin at 9 a.m., and residents have been advised to take necessary items like medication with them when they leave, as well as turning off gas and electrical appliances. The city has set up a programme of museum tours, children's films, and sporting events to help those being evacuated spend the day as pleasantly as possible. Tens of thousands of soup portions are also being prepared, according to the German news agency DPA. Allied planes bombed Hannover heavily during the war, killing thousands and destroying much of the city, the BBC reported. The largest bomb-related evacuation in Germany since the war happened on Christmas Day last year, in Augsburg. Some 54,000 people were evacuated after a 3.8 tonne bomb was unearthed during building work. --IANS ksk/vm ( 225 Words) 2017-05-06-15:46:11 (IANS) Syrian government forces bombed several areas in Homs and Hama provinces, which are included in the safe zone agreement that came into force early Saturday, a British war monitor reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bombed areas in the towns of al-Lataminah and al-Zalaqeyat in Hama, as well as a rural area between the two towns, Efe news reported. Explosions were heard in the north of Homs, according to officials cited by the NGO. There were no human casualties in those areas 11 hours after the agreement came into effect, according to SOHR. After the pact came into force, there were clashes between Assad's forces and Islamic factions near the city of Homs, though no casualties reported. The agreement for the creation of these de-escalation zones was reached on Thursday in the negotiations conducted by the Syrian parties and the three guarantors of the ceasefire in that Arab country (Russia, Turkey and Iran) in Astana, Kazakhstan. The guarantor countries agreed that the areas would be established in the province of Idlib, north of Homs and Hama, Eastern Ghouta and the south of the country; all areas controlled by rebels and Islamic factions. Russia announced that the agreement would be valid for six months and be automatically extendable if there was consensus among the signatory countries. The Syrian opposition rejected the agreement as it opposes any role for Iran in the peace process and considers it an aggressor. --IANS ksk/bg ( 259 Words) 2017-05-06-15:58:08 (IANS) YANGON, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has permitted 20 more investment enterprises, creating 3,424 more job opportunities recently, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Thursday. The 20 enterprises include 11 Myanmar enterprises, seven joint ventures and two foreign-owned enterprises, the Myanmar Investment Commission was quoted as saying. Over 160 million U.S. dollars of investments of 17 enterprises entered Myanmar, creating 9,478 job opportunities in the first week of April, the start of Fiscal Year 2017-18. In the last fiscal year, the country attracted over 6.8 billion dollars' foreign inflow with the transport and communication sector topping the investment with 3.08 billion dollars, followed by manufacturing with 1.18 billion dollars, power with 909.883 million dollars, real estate with 747.62 million dollars and hotel and tourist with 403.646 million dollars, according to figures of the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration. The country is expecting over 6 billion dollars of foreign direct investment in Fiscal Year 2017-18. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-05 18:14:58|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close Asha Devi, mother of 2012 Delhi bus gang rape case victim Nirbhaya, leaves Indian Supreme Court after its verdict in New Delhi, India, May 5, 2017. India's Supreme Court Friday confirmed the death sentence given to four men convicted of the brutal and fatal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, a case that triggered nationwide protests and led to stringent anti-rape laws. (Xinhua/Stringer) NEW DELHI, May 5 (Xinhua) -- India's Supreme Court Friday confirmed the death sentence given to four men convicted of the brutal and fatal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012. The case has triggered nationwide protests and led to stringent anti-rape laws. The four men - Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh - were found guilty in the case by a special court in September 2013. The death sentence of the four men was upheld by the Delhi High Court in March 2014, following which they had appealed in the Supreme Court. Three years on, confirming the death penalty of the four men, a three-judge bench of the apex court said: "Taking note of the serious injuries, the severe nature of offense committed by the convicts, we are upholding the sentence." Lauding the judgment, the father of the victim, who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (braveheart) in India, said: "These men should be hanged. There is no crime more barbaric than this. I'm certain about that. The Supreme Court has given justice to my daughter and we are happy." On December 16, 2012, the medical student was attacked and then gangraped on a moving bus by six men while she was returning home after watching a film. The male friend she was with was also beaten up. After the gangrape, the woman was brutalized with an iron rod. She died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later. The fifth adult suspect in the case, Ram Singh, the driver of the bus, was found dead in his prison cell during the trial. Prison officials said they believed he hanged himself, but his family alleged that he was murdered. And the sixth member of the group, a juvenile at the time of the crime, was tried by a juvenile court and sentenced to three years in a reforms facility. He has now been released after completing mandatory probation period in a remand home. The gangrape shocked Indians and prompted protests across the country, and sparked a national debate on the treatment of women. Tough new laws were also introduced which allowed death penalty - carried out very rarely in India - to be handed down in the most serious cases of rape. YANGON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups will cooperate in mine clearance in accordance with the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA), said Secretary-2 of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC)-union level Colonel Wunna Aung Friday. The mine clearance will be initially carried out in southeastern Kayin state and coordination is being made with the Kayin National Union (KNU), Wunna Aung told media at the end of a three-day meeting of the JMC held at the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) in Yangon. Wunna Aung added that technology for mine clearance will be sought from foreign countries. The JMC meeting also discussed demarcation of areas and formation of JMC-regional level, among others, he said. The regional-level JMCs will be set up in area where most conflicts take place, selecting Shan, Kayin and Bago states and region to form one JMC each, he added. Myanmar's previous government and eight armed groups signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015 in accordance with which the JMC-union level for ceasefire was then formed. As part of its efforts for national reconciliation and domestic peace, the first meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Conference was held in Nay Pyi Taw in August 2016 and the second of its kind is scheduled for May 24. The dialogue is open to all ethnic armed groups. The government is also making efforts to bring in those non-NCA signatories to join the signing and enable them to be included in the peace process. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-05 22:53:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close PYONGYANG, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Friday condemned the U.S. test launch of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this week. The test-fire of an ICBM on May 3 followed an earlier one on April 26 "at a time when the situation on the Korean Peninsula has reached an extremely dangerous phase due to the largest-ever joint military drills" between the South Korea and the United States, the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. "The U.S. claims the two ICBM test-fires conducted just in a little over one week were planned one year ago and they have nothing to do with the DPRK's nuclear and long-range ballistic missile launch, but many world media are concerned that the consecutive ICBM tests by the U.S. can push the acute situation on the Korean Peninsula to a graver phase," said the spokesman. "The U.S. maintains it may carry out missile launches but the DPRK can not and that its launches are a 'contribution' to peace and security while the DPRK's are a 'provocation' straining tension. This sophism is the height of double-dealing standards," he said. For the second time in a week, the U.S. Air Force test launched another unarmed ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear warhead from an air base in California Wednesday morning. The DPRK describes the test launch as a simulation strike against it. Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (R) welcomes Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 23, 2017. (Reuters photo) CAIRO, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has recently paid state visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to refresh ties with the leading Gulf allies amid regional disorder in several Arab states including Syria, Libya and Yemen. TIES AMID CHAOS Ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia have gone through ups and downs over the past year, mostly because of their different views on some regional issues particularly the situations in Syria and Yemen. While Saudi Arabia seeks removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Egypt sees that a political settlement in Syria is the best option. Egypt is not so much involved in the Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen but its naval forces is still protecting Red Sea's Bab al-Mandab Strait to maintain national security. "Sisi's tour came in the framework of continuous consultation between Egypt and the UAE on strategic issues. He may have also updated Emirati leaders with the progress in Egypt's relations with Saudi Arabia and the differences they have overcome," said Motaz Salama, researcher and head of the Gulf Studies Unit at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. According to Salama, the structure of Egypt-Gulf ties is strong despite some hardships, noting that "the future of Arab national security" is one of the focal topics of discussion during Sisi's visits. "The Egyptian-Gulf approach is considered the general umbrella of Arab relations, as it reflects the general conditions of inter-Arab ties," he said. Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor at Cairo University, believes that there is improvement in the Egyptian-Saudi relations but their differences have not yet been all cleared for natural strategic ties. "So, Abu Dhabi's active role at this stage is important," he told Xinhua. Sisi's visit to the UAE aims at boosting mutual cooperation and coordination over the challenges facing the Arab nation "with the purpose of enhancing joint Arab work and protecting the Arab national security," according to the Egyptian official news agency MENA. Since Sisi led the ouster of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 with the support of his Gulf allies excluding Qatar, Cairo's relations with Doha have been on edge particularly as the latter hosted fleeing members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group, which has eventually been designated by Sisi government as a terrorist organization. "I do not rule out the possibility that the UAE attempts to play a role in bringing Egypt and Saudi Arabia closer on the one hand and in fixing ties between Egypt and Qatar on the other hand, especially amid such overwhelming regional chaos," Nafaa told Xinhua. While Egypt seeks a settlement in chaotic neighboring Libya to maintain the security of the Egyptian western border areas amid growing terrorism and security challenges, the UAE has recently hosted a rare meeting between Libyan national army chief Khalifa Haftar and head of Libya's unity government Fayez Serraj, the two key rival figures in the country. "I believe that Abu Dhabi tries to play a role in some key Arab issues and it was not a coincidence that it hosted such a high-profile Libyan meeting, which is an important development because the Libyan issue is extremely important to Egypt," Nafaa pointed out. IRAN EXPANSION The leading Gulf states are undoubtedly concerned about any possible future interaction between Egypt and Iran in case of awkward relations between Cairo and Riyadh. After Saudi Arabia led Gulf support for Sisi's post-Morsi administration with billions of U.S. dollars and tons of oil supplies, Aramco, a Saudi national oil company, resumed in early April its delivery of oil shipments to Egypt after six months of suspension. "Gulf support is very important and essential for Egypt to face the current challenges including terrorism and general economic conditions. Emirati and Saudi support for Egypt have not stopped in the first place," said Salama of Al-Ahram Center. "I believe there is a development in the Egyptian understanding of the concerns of Gulf states over Iranian regional expansion that poses a threat to their political stability. This is a positive aspect in the Egyptian-Gulf ties," he said. For his part, Nafaa argues that the Gulf states care about keeping Egypt away from Iran, noting there is now some understanding between Egypt and Saudi Arabia because of the active Emirati role to overcome their differences. "This will surely keep the distance between Egypt and Iran or at least prevent their approach that was apparent on the horizon," the professor explained. Nafaa said Donald Trump's election to the White House boost interaction between Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the U.S. president must have urged both to overcome their rift amid his effort to integrate Israel in the region and achieve an Israeli-Saudi closeness to face Iran. The professor sees that the United States seeks an Egyptian-Saudi approach and even an Egyptian-Turkish approach to establish a Muslim Sunni axis supported by Israel in confrontation of Iran, but he said it would not be that easy given the complicated situation in the Middle East. "I believe that the developments in Syria will be the basic indicator of what the regional events will be like in the near future," Nafaa told Xinhua. TUNIS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- A recent survey shows 80.1 percent of Tunisians are pessimistic about the current situation in the country, the highest level since 2015, Tunisian Arabic newspaper Al-Maghreb reported on Friday. The survey, which was carried out by Tunisian survey institute Sigma Conseil, also found the pessimism rate among Tunisians aged between 18 and 25 exceeded 93 percent. According to the survey, 13.7 percent of respondents expressed disappointment about President Beji Caid Essebsi, while 10.4 percent said they were dissatisfied with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. Among the main reasons behind the discontent of Tunisians is the government's mishandling of hot issues such as regional injustice and underdevelopment in the inner regions of the country, said the survey. Meanwhile, 56 percent of respondents showed sympathy for the recent social movements in southeastern Tunisia, particularly in the province of Tataouine which borders Libya. On the political side, 62.4 percent of respondents said they supported the dismissal of former finance minister Lamia Zribi. According to the poll, only Abdelfattah Mourou, first Vice President of the Assembly of the Representatives of the people, is among the top five popular figures in Tunisia's political landscape. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 03:36:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed the Syrian settlement during a phone conversation on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. They exchanged views on the tasks of de-escalating tensions, giving stability to the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terror efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the intra-Syrian negotiation process, said the statement. Lavrov and Tillerson also touched upon regional and bilateral issues and agreed on further Russia-U.S. contacts. Friday's conversation came three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to intensify the dialogue between Lavrov and Tillerson on the search for options that help consolidate the truce among conflicting factions within Syria. In a latest move toward a political settlement of the chronic civil war, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on Thursday in the Kazakh capital of Astana on the creation of four de-escalation zones in Syria. Also on Friday, the Russian General Staff said that Russia has stopped operations of its military aircraft since May 1 in regions where the de-escalation zones will be officially established on Saturday. N'DJAMENA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Nine Chadian soldiers were killed during an attack on their position early Friday by Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram attackers in the Lake Chad basin, one source from Chadian army told Xinhua. About 40 attackers were shot dead by the Chadian army, the source said. Chadian army spokesman Azem B. Agouna said the attack took place at 5:00 am (4:00 GMT) on Friday, at a position of the Chadian army based at Kaiga-Kindiria, on the border with Nigeria. He added the attackers were repulsed by the Chadian army. On Nov. 1, 2015, three Chadian soldiers were killed and 14 others wounded in two simultaneous terrorist attacks at the army positions in Bohama and Kaiga-Kindiria. During these attacks, 16 attackers were also killed. KAMPALA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Experts attending a business forum in Uganda have urged African states to take advantage of the global business trend to fast track their development. Pan Li, Co-Chair of Technical Advisory Board, Made in Africa Initiative told the one-day China-Uganda business meeting on Friday that the quota and tariff free market access to Europe, United States and China, and the Belt and Road initiative proposed by China offer Africa massive opportunities. Made in Africa Initiative aims at Africa's industrialization drawing from China's experiences and other emerging economies. Under the American Growth Opportunity Act, African countries can export their products to the United States tariff and quota free. Similarly, under European Union's Everything but Arms initiative, African countries can export their products to the European Union duty-free and quota-free, with the exception of armaments. China, under the Belt and Road initiative, will link Asia, Africa and Europe. The initiative envisions a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa. Pan argues that this again offers opportunities for Africa. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is another initiative that positions Africa to benefit from its cooperation with China, the world's second largest economic power house. Under the FOCAC framework, Chinese President Xi Jinping in late 2015 while attending a FOCAC meeting in South Africa announced 10 strategic areas to boost cooperation with Africa within three years. The areas included industrialization, agricultural modernization, infrastructure, financial services, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security. To ensure smooth implementation of the outcomes, Xi announced, China will offer 60 billion U.S. dollars of funding support. IN-HOUSE ORGANIZATION The experts argue that in order for African states to benefit from all these initiatives, they need to position themselves strategically. They argued that Africa needs to take advantage of the massive Chinese investment in the continent's transport and energy infrastructure to stimulate production. "We have to blend these investments with China beyond infrastructure to look at the actual production, skills development so that at some point we have equilateral trade," Fred Muhumuza, an economic expert said. The experts argue that top on agenda should be industrialization. The industrialization should be driven by comparative advantage each country has over the other. Pan said that in order to achieve industrialization, each country may set up different industrial parks each specializing in a unique sector. In the industrial parks, governments need to provide the necessary infrastructure and a one stop center where investors can go to access any information regarding policies on investment. He said that governments need to provide several incentives to attract investors to set up factories in the industrial parks. He added that in this way, the countries would have stimulated massive production and increased exports to the quota and tariff free markets and thus earning the country huge foreign exchange. African countries like Ethiopia have adopted this industrialization model. Jolly Kamugira, Executive Director of Uganda Investment Authority, a state run investment agency said learning from China and Ethiopia, Uganda is adopting the industrial park model. She said over the next five years, Uganda plans to build over 22 industrial parks spread all over the country. Emely Kugonza, Chairperson of the UIA Board argued that since the industrialization policy through industrial parks is already in place, China and Uganda should start negotiations with the view of benefiting from the 60 billion dollar funding supporting China pledged to boost cooperation with Africa. KIGALI, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi are coming face to face with survivors to openly ask for forgiveness in a country where reconciliation is now preached by the state and religions. At Nyamata Parish in Bugesera District, eastern Rwanda, Pierre Butoki, a former genocide perpetrator in the area knelt down holding a candle, was sprinkled with spiritual water and listened to hymns and praise by clerics and other Christians. The man was former police officer having served from 1960 to 1973. He was an active member of Interahamwe militia, responsible for mass slaughters during the genocide. Butoki recalled participating in attacks at Ntarama Church in the district and other places, killing many Tutsi, including a priest. He said he was "forgiven after going through heart-healing process." "I was tired of burying my head in shame. I decided to ask for forgiveness though it's not as easy, just like forgiving someone who committed grave crime against you or your relative." Butoki lived with guilt for more than two decades. But six months ago he attended a heart healing course where he spoke openly about his crimes. "I was shunned even in church and looked at as a genocide perpetrator. I have a terrible history. I felt a spiritual void." he said. Genocide perpetrators who are yet to reconcile with survivors are many in Bugesera district. While there are no official statistics, officials say the reconciliation journey is still long in the area. Nyamata Parish's head priest, Emmanuel Nsengiyumva said the number of genocide perpetrators who have so far come out remorsefully are few. Bugesera district is one of the areas which witnessed mass killings during the genocide. Churches where people could go for purification, blessings, prayers and holly communion turned into slaughter houses in 1994. Chantal Niwemugeni, a survivor recalls the gruesome massacres that took place at Ntarama church specifically. "I have fresh memories of the massacres like it happened yesterday. Bitter memories stuck in my mind. I can't forget the church choir who used to sing for us -- its members were killed with machetes, clubs, and other sorts of traditional weapons," she said at a recent commemoration event in the district. She particularly recalled the militias draped in banana leaves racing up and down shouting on April 11 in 1994. Niwemugeni survived with her brother and father Deogratias Munyarugarama who was a teacher then. Her father later died of trauma related illness. Up to 5,000 people were killed in the former Ntarama church in the district, now turned into a national memorial site. "At some point some of us preferred to commit suicide than facing gruesome murder but due to God's mercy we were rescued by (RPA) Rwanda Patriotic Army soldiers," she recalled. RPA then became the ruling party in 1994. Reconciliation is inevitable, she said. Butoki, just like about 60 other former genocide perpetrators said after going through heart healing since July 2016, they asked for forgiveness from survivors, and it was granted. He was part of a larger group of 247 former convicts who underwent the healing course. The first group of 166 completed the course and were reconciled with survivors on in January 2017. But nearly 30 others are yet to complete the due process. Angelique Mukabukizi, a survivor from Bugesera district said after showing remorse she no longer sees the former genocide perpetrators in the lenses of Interahamwe militia. "I now feel relief after knowing the person who killed my father. I forgave him," she said of Butoki. "All former perpetrators should come forward in the name of love." Apart from the church, other reconciliation efforts are spearheaded by Rwanda's National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. The 2016 Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer done by the commission indicated that 92.5 percent of Rwandans believed that unity and reconciliation had been achieved and that citizens lived in harmony. However, the report also showed that 27.9 percent of Rwandans still viewed themselves through ethnic groups. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 07:28:43|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday "strongly condemned" the attack against the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) two days ago in Leer, South Sudan. "The members of the Security Council expressed appreciation for the actions taken by UNMISS peacekeepers to repel the attack," the 15-nation UN body said in a press statement. "The members of the Security Council recalled that individuals who, directly or indirectly, engage in attacks against United Nations missions, international security presence, or other peacekeeping operations, or humanitarian personnel, may be designated for targeted sanctions," said the statement. The council members further condemned the continued violence committed by all parties in South Sudan, including the ongoing military offensives, and called on all parties to immediately adhere to the permanent ceasefire as called for in the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan and to remove all obstacles to delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance, the statement added. Between 11 pm and midnight on Wednesday, the UN Mission's Temporary Operating Base (TOB) in Leer town in the former Unity State came under small arms attack from the direction of the nearby government-held town. The Ghanaian company of UNMISS peacekeeping forces based there quickly and robustly returned fire, deterring the attack. Currently, there is no confirmation of which party to the conflict carried out the attack. UNMISS is continuing to investigate the incident and will examine whether the TOB needs to be further strengthened. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 07:43:47|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close WASHINGTON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday discussed with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov about efforts to reduce the conflict in Syria, the U.S. State Department said. "The Secretary of State spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov today about the efforts to de-escalate the ongoing conflict in Syria," according to a State Department statement. "The secretary looks forward to further meetings with the foreign minister to discuss the respective roles of the United States and Russia in de-escalating the conflict and supporting the talks in Geneva to move the political solution forward," the statement added. The exchange occurred one day after Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on the creation of four safe zones in war-torn Syria. In another statement on Thursday, the U.S. State Department voiced concerns about Iran's role as a guarantor of the new memorandum to reduce violence in certain areas of Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 07:59:08|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, May 5 (Xinhua) -- A research team has solved a century-old mystery involving a famous red waterfall, known as Blood Falls, in Antarctica, by pointing to a source of salty water. Blood Falls, found in 1911 by the Australian geologist Griffith Taylor, is famous for its sporadic releases of iron-rich salty water from the tongue of Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of West Lake Bonney in the Taylor Valley of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Victoria Land, East Antarctica. The brine turns red when the iron contacts air, a mystery since its finding. In a study published in the Journal of Glaciology, the research team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and Colorado College described the brine's path of 300 feet, or about 91 meters, from beneath Taylor Glacier to the waterfall, and new evidence linking it to a large source of salty water that may have been trapped under the glacier for more than 1 million years. The team tracked the brine with radio-echo sounding, a radar method that uses two antenna -- one to transmit electrical pulses and one to receive the signals. "We moved the antennae around the glacier in grid-like patterns so that we could 'see' what was underneath us inside the ice, kind of like a bat uses echolocation to 'see' things around it," co-author Christina Carr, a doctoral student at UAF, was quoted as saying in a news release. "The salts in the brine made this discovery possible by amplifying contrast with the fresh glacier ice," said lead author Jessica Badgeley. UAF glaciologist Erin Pettit said her team made another significant discovery that liquid water can persist inside an extremely cold glacier, against previous belief among scientists that this was nearly impossible. "While it sounds counterintuitive, water releases heat as it freezes, and that heat warms the surrounding colder ice," she explained. The heat and the lower freezing temperature of salty water make liquid movement possible. "Taylor Glacier is now the coldest known glacier to have persistently flowing water." Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 08:14:12|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Senior Pakistani and Afghan military officials have agreed to defuse tensions along the border after an earlier exchange of cross-border firing that killed nine Pakistanis and injured around 40 others. "Hotline contact between Pakistan and Afghan Director General Military Operation was established. Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Pakistan Army Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza condemned unprovoked firing on Pakistani villagers and security forces which caused casualties," the Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement on Friday. Afghan Director General Military Operations "acknowledged that border is in between villages and not at the ditch which is well inside Pakistan as being perceived by them," the statement said. The Pakistani DGMO required its Afghan counterpart that their forces stay on their side of the border and defuse the situation. "The DGMO Pakistan Army told his counterpart that we shall continue our work within our border," the army said. A local commander-level Border Flag meeting was also held after the DGMOs contact to ensure de-escalations along the border. The Afghan DGMO agreed to take up the matter and issue necessary orders accordingly. The Pakistani army spokesman said earlier that the Afghan Border Police "opened fire" on the border forces Frontier Corps (FC) detailed for security of a population census team in Balochistan province. Afghan media has quoted Afghan officials as saying that exchange of firing started after "Pakistani forces entered Afghan side of the border." Afghan Tolo TV quoted Kandahar Police Chief Lt. Gen. Abdul Raziq as saying that four border police forces were killed and 14 others were wounded in the clash. The GSLV-F09 rocket carrying India's GSAT-9, or the South Asia Communication Satellite, blasts off from the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India, May 5, 2017. (Xinhua/Stringer) NEW DELHI, May 5 (Xinhua) -- In its biggest space diplomacy push, Indian launched a South Asia communication satellite on Friday from the spaceport of Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The State-owned Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) rocket, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), carrying the 2,230 kg satellite GSAT-9, lifted off from the launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota at 4:57 p.m. local time (1127 GMT). ISRO, which has built the satellite for use by countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, said GSAT-9 has been launched with an objective to provide different communication applications in Ku-band with coverage over South Asia. The satellite was originally named SAARC satellite, but was later changed to South Asia satellite after Pakistan opted out of the project, stating "it has its own space program." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the country's scientists for the successful launch. "We are a united family of South Asian countries, united in our pursuit of peace, progress & prosperity of our region & the entire humankind," he tweeted soon after the launch. Later joining the five heads of state of SAARC nations -- Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Maldives President Abdulla Yameen, Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena -- Modi hailed the launch. "Today is a historic day, one without precedent. We extend our close links into Outer Space. Space technology will touch the lives of our people in the region. Convinced when we join hands and mutually share fruits of knowledge, technology and growth, we can speed up development," he said. On his part, Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani said: "This is an extremely important step to know nature and nature's patterns. Development must be citizen centric. Today's development is child centred and women centred, it makes governance accessible." Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the opportunity to thank India. "On today's auspicious occasion, I congratulate the Government of India (for the successful launch). Betterment of our people can happen through fruitful engagement," she said. Modi, who had first announced the project during the 2014 SAARC Summit in Nepal as a gift to the regional countries, spelled out the date of launch of the satellite in his monthly radio program, Mann ki baat (talk from the heart) Sunday. The satellite has 12 Ku-band transponders. It is cuboid in shape and built around a central cylinder has a mission life of over 12 years. It is expected to help communicate during disasters and also focus on telemedicine and education. Each country can beam its own TV programs while there will be the possibility for a common South Asia programming. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 10:15:58|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close CARACAS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela confirmed Friday the death of a 20-year-old man during an opposition protest not far from the capital city Caracas, bringing the death toll to 37 since the protest broke out early April. According to a statement of the prosecutor-general's office, Hecder Lugo was found "wounded by a gun shot" on Thursday in a protest that took place in San Diego in northern Carabobo State, which is about two hours by car from Caracas. "Immediately, the victim was taken to the Valle Medical Center in San Diego, where he later passed away," read the statement, adding that Jose Lopez, a prosecutor from Carabobo, was investigating the affair. According to the document, Valencia and Naguanagua, two other municipalities of Carabobo, have seen waves of looting in recent days. Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Nestor Reverol, visited Carabobo on Friday, saying there was evidence of "attacks by terrorist gangs." In a twitter post, Reverol also said "45 criminal gangs have been identified, and we have issued arrest warrants to police...to go find these delinquents." ABCNews.com(NEW YORK) -- Rep. Tom Reed of New York, who was among the Republican members of Congress to vote for a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, held a string of hometown forums on Saturday where he was lambasted by crowds of angry voters and signs that read, "GOP Disaster" and "Why do you want to kill my daughter?" Reed, whose district in upstate New York includes the cities of Ithaca and Corning, held three town hall meetings where the overwhelming majority of attendees had questions about health care. The congressman was met with boos and jeers throughout the forums, with people repeatedly chanting "Shame!" and "Vote him out!" At the event in the town of Busti, a couple hundred people packed into a small firehouse holding up signs that read, "Agree," "Disagree" or "Lies," depending on Reed's answers. Some of the harsher signs read, "This is not a victory lap. This is a walk of shame" and "Fire Reed." One man, who had recently donated his kidney, said he was told he's now considered to have a pre-existing condition. "Now that I have a pre-existing condition, my cost of health care could go up significantly or I could lose health care," he said to Reed in front of the crowd in Busti. Another person in the room interrupted the man, calling him a "hero" for his kidney donation and then said he was being "punished" for his good deed. On Thursday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the the American Health Care Act on a 217-213 vote, with all Democrats and 20 Republicans voting no. The measure, which would repeal large parts of former President Barack Obama's legacy legislation, is now before the Senate. In a statement Thursday, Reed hailed the House's passage of the health care plan as "a great victory" that will provide property tax relief for New Yorkers "who are unfairly forced to foot the bill for Medicaid." "Today is a great victory for the American people. We are finally on the path to fixing our broke and broken health care system," Reed said. The congressman also said the American Health Care Act "upholds protections for pre-existing conditions and the expansion of Medicaid, which help our most vulnerable populations," although one of the most controversial provisions of the bill would give the states the option of seeking a waiver to allow insurance companies to raise premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Reed was among the first Republican House members to confront angry constituents at town hall meetings this weekend. Other Republican as well as Democrat House members are scheduled to hold more town hall meetings in their home districts around the country in the coming days. Photos posted on social media show Reed addressing his first town hall of the day in Dunkirk, with some people holding signs declaring: "Keep your profits off my healthcare," "So long farewell Tom Reed" and "No conscience no heart." At Tom Reed's town hall meeting. NY-23 is in an uproar over his vote to repeal the ACA pic.twitter.com/lEPITBQ20r Walter Robertson III (@wrobertson3rd) May 6, 2017 Reed tweeted photos of him engaging with attendees and thanked people for coming to the morning and afternoon meetings in Dunkirk, Busti and Hinsdale. Thanks to everyone who came to my Town Hall in Dunkirk this morning pic.twitter.com/6agBNCcVKU Tom Reed (@RepTomReed) May 6, 2017 Stop two of three for our town hall meetings. Thanks to all who joined me in Busti. pic.twitter.com/AfDDFn77gY Tom Reed (@RepTomReed) May 6, 2017 Final stop of the day in Hinsdale. Thanks to all who came out. pic.twitter.com/vpL2jJe67O Tom Reed (@RepTomReed) May 6, 2017 'Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care' An Idaho Republican congressman is facing criticism for a comment about the health care bill that he made at a town hall in his district Friday. A video posted on YouTube shows the Republican congressman responding to a woman who suggested that people die from a lack of access ti health care. That line is so indefensible, Labrador said. Nobody dies because they dont have access to health care. His remark sparked an uproar at the event in Lewiston. 'If you want to run for Congress, you had your chance' It doesn't appear to be only the House Republicans who voted for the measure who are taking heat. Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker got into a heated exchange with a Democratic county official in his state over the House bill at an event Friday to promote tourism. A video of the exchange shows Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson approaching the Republican governor as he was about to speak with reporters. Nelson claimed that 300,000 people in northeast Wisconsin could lose their insurance if the American Health Care Act becomes law. "This is a big deal. Three hundred thousand people in Northeast Wisconsin," Nelson told the governor. "If you want to run for Congress, you had your chance," Walker said, repeating essentially the same reply several times during their exchange. Nelson, a Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year, losing to Republican Mike Gallagher, who voted in favor of the American Health Care Act. Walker also told Nelson that the House bill is not something that Wisconsin has to deal with at this point. "It's not in front of us right now. It's not in front of this stage," Walker continued. "The plan is, I'm going to wait for what the Senate and the president do and see from there." Their conversation was captured on video by ABC affiliate WBAY-TV and continues for several minutes. Next steps for the health care bill The American Health Care Act is now before the Senate, and the Senate Budget Committee must review it to determine which portions are in compliance with the rules of reconciliation, under which the bill only requires 51 Senate votes for approval. Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate but several members are already wary of the health care plan. At the end of the day, I think it'll be a Senate bill and then those two bills at some point will have to come together and we'll get started on that Senate bill immediately, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, a member of Senate leadership, told ABC News on Thursday. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn said the Trump administration has its work cut out for it to push the bill through the Senate, but he doesn't think they'll be starting over on the legislation. "I don't think there's a start from scratch," Dearborn told ABC News' Political Director Rick Klein and Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. "Will there be some changes? Of course, the Senate is a different animal than the House," he continued. "But I think we feel really good where we are. There's a proposal that will now go the Senate. We'll work with Senate leadership and the committee chairmen and the rank and file." Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. A team of Pakistani border guards patrol by car the border area near the Khyber Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan July 31, 2003. (Xinhua file photo/Zhang Ning) ISLAMABAD, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Senior Pakistani and Afghan military officials have agreed to defuse tensions along the border after an earlier exchange of cross-border firing that killed nine Pakistanis and injured around 40 others. "Hotline contact between Pakistan and Afghan Director General Military Operation was established. Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Pakistan Army Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza condemned unprovoked firing on Pakistani villagers and security forces which caused casualties," the Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement on Friday. Afghan Director General Military Operations "acknowledged that border is in between villages and not at the ditch which is well inside Pakistan as being perceived by them," the statement said. The Pakistani DGMO required its Afghan counterpart that their forces stay on their side of the border and defuse the situation. "The DGMO Pakistan Army told his counterpart that we shall continue our work within our border," the army said. A local commander-level Border Flag meeting was also held after the DGMOs contact to ensure de-escalations along the border. The Afghan DGMO agreed to take up the matter and issue necessary orders accordingly. The Pakistani army spokesman said earlier that the Afghan Border Police "opened fire" on the border forces Frontier Corps (FC) detailed for security of a population census team in Balochistan province. Afghan media has quoted Afghan officials as saying that exchange of firing started after "Pakistani forces entered Afghan side of the border." Afghan Tolo TV quoted Kandahar Police Chief Lt. Gen. Abdul Raziq as saying that four border police forces were killed and 14 others were wounded in the clash. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 10:41:14|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of netizens in Mexico lambasted authorities on social media after officials blames a young woman's murder on her lifestyle. The overwhelming reaction has already led officials to respond by removing the offending Tweets, which described the 22-year-old victim as a college drop-out who abused drugs and alcohol. According to local media, the victim was strangled on Wednesday night with a telephone cord on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). After the victim's body was found, Mexico City's Attorney General's Office, responsible for investigating murder cases in the capital city, turned its focus on the victim herself. It posted on Twitter a barrage of negative information, including that "her mother and boyfriend said she had not studied since 2014," and that she and her boyfriend had met earlier in the day with friends to "drink and do drugs." Soon netizens were responding with the hashtag #IfTheyKillMe, followed by the many, often inane, reasons authorities might use to justify the crime. "#IfTheyKillMe it's because I like to walk alone at night, drink beer, smoke and tattoos," one Twitter user posted. Another said, "#IfTheyKillMe they'll say it was because I was very flirtatious, because I traveled alone with my friends or because I said NO when he wanted me to say yes." Well-known personalities also voiced their disagreement. Journalist and writer Lydia Cacho wrote "#IfTheyKillMe the voice of the attacker or the 'witness' will be the one to judge me without scientific evidence. The authorities will have a summary trial because I am a woman." Following the torrent of online criticism, Attorney General Rodolfo Rios ordered the removal of the "inappropriate" Tweets and issued an apology. On Friday, students, teachers and university employees marched to protest violence against women at UNAM. Members of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) march during the commissioning ceremony held in Singapore's Changi Naval Basw on May 5, 2017. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey) SINGAPORE, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Singapore celebrated the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) Golden Jubilee which commemorates 50 years of the RSN being the maritime force on Friday, the Ministry of Defence said. In conjunction with the celebration, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong officiated the commissioning of the RSN's first-of-class Littoral Mission Vessel (LMV), RSS Independence, at Changi Naval Base. The RSS Independence is the first of the RSN's next-generation warships to be completely designed and built in Singapore, in close collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Agency. According to the ministry, the warship "pushes the boundaries of engineering and design in delivering a more capable, faster and mission-flexible ship with better seakeeping and endurance that can be manned with a leaner crew." In a speech delivered at the commissioning ceremony, Lee emphasized the RSN's vital role as the frontline of Singapore's maritime defense and its vital mission in protecting Singapore's sovereignty. Lee also said that it is apt for the LMV to be named RSS Independence. "It is a significant and historic name. Significant because protecting Singapore's independence has always been a core mission of the RSN. Historic because the name Independence carries the legacy and spirit of the navy's pioneers," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 12:01:43|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China will host the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation on May 14 and 15. Following are some keywords on the Belt and Road Initiative. -- Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative -- China's proposal to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in cooperation with related countries -- was unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visits to Central and Southeast Asia in September and October 2013. The initiative focuses on promoting policy coordination, connectivity of infrastructure and facilities, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and closer people-to-people ties through extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, with the goal of bringing benefits to all. By the end of 2016 over 100 countries and international and regional organizations had expressed an interest in participating, and more than 40 of them had signed cooperation agreements with China. -- Silk Road Economic Belt The proposed economic belt is considered the longest economic corridor in the world -- and potentially the most dynamic -- connecting the Asia-Pacific region in the east with developed European economies in the west. -- 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Starting with the launch of individual projects that are expected to help spur a wider range of cooperative activities, it envisions a network of interconnected markets linking the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, South Asia, West Asia, North Africa, and Europe, and a strategic partnership for the South China Sea and the Pacific and Indian oceans. -- Spirit of the Silk Road Throughout the millennia, interaction along this route has shaped the Silk Road spirit, which is embodied in solidarity and mutual trust, equality and mutual benefit, inclusiveness, a disposition to learn from each other, and cooperation in finding win-win solutions. -- Silk Road Fund The Silk Road Fund was established in Beijing on December 29, 2014, following President Xi Jinping's announcement on November 8 that China would contribute 40 billion U.S. dollars for this purpose. The fund will support infrastructure and resource development and industrial cooperation in the countries along the land and sea Silk Roads. -- Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is a regional inter-governmental development institution focused on supporting infrastructure development. It is the first multinational financial institution sponsored by China. As of the end of March 2017, the bank's membership had reached 70, second only to that of the World Bank. -- Steering Group for the Belt and Road Initiative A steering group for the Belt and Road Initiative has been established at the national level to study important issues related to planning, policy, and projects, and to provide guidance and coordination in the implementation of the initiative. -- Joining Hands to Build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road -- Vision and Actions The document explains the background of the initiative, and outlines its guiding principles and broad objectives, and the priority areas and mechanisms for cooperation. -- Five-Pronged Approach In his speech at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev University on September 7, 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed building a Silk Road Economic Belt by promoting policy coordination, road connectivity, unimpeded trade, currency convertibility, and closer people-to-people ties. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 13:11:59|Editor: Mengjie Video Player Close MOSCOW, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Friday banned the access to Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, saying its operator failed to register with the appropriate authorities. Vadim Ampelonsky, spokesman of Russian telecommunication watchdog Roskomnadzor, said WeChat "did not provide the contact information necessary for registration with authorities." WeChat is the most popular messenger app in China and is widely used by Chinese living overseas. It is produced by China's IT giant Tencent. Currently, some WeChat users in Moscow have been unable to log in or send messages. Tencent's spokesman Zhang Jun responded on Friday, saying the company is in contact with related Russian agencies. Earlier on Tuesday, Roskomnadzor also blocked Messenger, Line and Vchat for the same reason. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 13:47:17|Editor: Mengjie Video Player Close BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A Long March-5 carrier rocket has arrived in Wenchang in south China's Hainan Province, for the launch of the Shijian-18 communication satellite, scheduled for June, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said Saturday. It will be the second mission of the Long March-5 which made its maiden flight from Wenchang in November. During the mission, the rocket will further test its core technology, accumulate data and provide support ahead of the launch of the Chang'e-5 lunar probe in the second half of this year. Fuelled by liquid hydrogen, kerosene and liquid oxygen, the Long March-5 can carry a payload of 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit, over 2.5 times the capacity of current Long March carrier rockets. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 13:52:24|Editor: liuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Over 40 students from a government-run school in Indian capital city were hospitalized and more than 100 others evacuated Saturday following a gas leak from a container in the vicinity, officials said. The students complained of breathlessness and irritation, following which the school authorities raised an alarm and sought help from authorities. No casualties were reported in the incident. "Everyone here is safe. We have evacuated all the students from the school and some have been taken to hospital for a check-up," a police official monitoring the incident, told Xinhua. "The students complained of irritation in the eyes and throat." Police suspect the gas leak from a depot located near the school. Authorities have rushed police and fire service officials to the spot to control the leak. However, until late the source of gas leak was not known, officials said. School authorities told media that the normal classwork was underway, when the leak was reported. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 13:52:26|Editor: Mengjie Video Player Close LHASA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has banned visitors from passing through a state nature reserve to access other areas, as an environmental protection measure. In a circular released Friday, the regional forestry bureau said that any crossing at the Changtang National Nature Reserve (CNNR) will be illegal. It specifically mentions that people should not pass through the CNNR to reach two other state nature reserves, one in Xinjiang and another in Qinghai. The CNNR covers six counties in Tibet's Nagqu Prefecture. With an area of 298,000 square km and an average altitude of 5,000 meters, it is China's biggest and highest reserve. The area is a wildlife paradise, and home to a variety of wildlife species and numerous lakes. The circular called on tourists, adventure enthusiasts and tourism agencies to comply with the reserve's laws and regulations to "protect the last pure land on earth." Tibet has increased protection efforts at the CNNR. In 2015, the regional government established 73 management stations at the reserve and hired a total of 780 farmers and herdsmen to patrol, manage and protect the reserve at a cost of 300 million yuan (43 million dollars). Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 15:38:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Taliban militants after heavy fighting overran Qala-e-Zal district in the northern Kunduz province on Saturday, a local official said. "Center of Qala-e-Zal district fell to the Taliban rebels this morning," head of Development Council in the restive district, Hajji Mohammad Hassan told Xinhua. He also confirmed that district headquarters and police department had fallen to the Taliban militants at 10:00 a.m. local time Saturday. Taliban militants launched multi-pronged offensives on Qala-e-Zal district on Friday morning and both sides are said to have suffered huge casualties. Meanwhile, police spokesman in Kunduz province Masoudullah Akbari said the security forces "have made tactical retreat" and fierce fighting has been continuing in the area. According to local observers, the fall of strategically important Qala-e-Zal district 80 km northwest of Kunduz provincial capital the Kunduz city would enable the Taliban militants to mount pressure on the neighboring Chardara and Imam Sahib districts to expand their grab. Zabihullah Majahid who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit in contact with media also claim the capture of Qala-e-Zal district, adding operations to consolidate positons have been continuing. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 16:28:35|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TOKYO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government has begun examining the possibility of deploying cruise missiles in the future, local media reported on Saturday. The government is keen to allocate funds to look into the possibility of acquiring the capability to strike enemy launch sites, with the spending possibly coming from the government's budget for fiscal 2018, Kyodo News quoted a government official as saying on condition of anonymity. The official said the type of cruise missile in the government's forecast is a long-range Tomahawk cruise missile that could be deployed on Maritime Self-Defense Force's Aegis-equipped ships. Security experts within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have been looking into ways of improving Japan's current defense capabilities with one of the mandates being to help the government look into the idea of a strike capability option. Critics of such military moves in Japan have been quick to point out that Japan's pacifist Constitution forbids it from maintaining any war potential. A key clause of the Constitution states that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 16:38:38|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar have launched a probe into claims that rats have consumed thousands of liters of confiscated alcohol. Bihar banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in 2016, as an effort to reduce domestic violence, harassment and poverty. Since then, police have seized more than 900,000 liters of liquor and arrested over 40,000 people for storing and selling liquor. The seized liquor were stored in bottles and kept in police stations as evidence. Some police stations even rented private storage facilities for storing the bottles. "Now, a probe has been ordered after some officials in police stations across the state claimed that much of the seized liquor was lost to rats. These police officials are not above suspicion. We will not spare anyone found guilty," a senior police official said Saturday. Police have also said cops in police stations will now be routinely checked for drinking. "We will conduct routine breath analyser tests. Anyone found drunk will be booked under the state's stringent laws and they may even lose their jobs," said another police official. Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced the ban after coming to power for the second five-year term last year, despite estimations that the state will lose nearly 50 billion rupees (752 million U.S. dollars) in tax collection due to the move. Alcohol is completely banned in the western state of Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the southern state of Kerala and some other Indian states have imposed a partial ban. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 17:14:00|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao Yemenis suffering from cholera get treatment at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. A total of 69 new cases of cholera were registered to a state-run hospital in Yemen's capital of Sanaa over the past week, according to a hospital official.(Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed) SANAA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A total of 69 new cases of cholera were registered to a state-run hospital in Yemen's capital of Sanaa over the past week, a hospital official has said. Two of the laboratory confirmed cases have died, Nasr al-Kadasi, director of al-Jomuhory hospital, told Xinhua on Friday. The new cholera cases were received by the hospital between April 28 and May 4, he added. Last October, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 51 confirmed cases of cholera from nine governorates in Yemen, with more than 1,180 suspected cases. Some 7.6 million Yemenis are living in affected areas in the conflict-ridden country, whose health system has collapsed due to a prolonged civil war, according to the WHO. The impoverished Arab country in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, was plunged into a civil war two years ago, leaving more than 10,000 dead with half of them civilians, and over 2 million people displaced, according to humanitarian agencies. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 17:44:13|Editor: Tian Shaohui Video Player Close A woman holds a placard during a demonstration to protest against the revision of the pacifist Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution in Tokyo, Japan, April 11, 2015. Some 30 people participated in this protest. (Xinhua/Stringer) TOKYO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Japan's pacifistic Constitution has played an important role in the country's postwar development and to forcibly revise it will do no good to Japan, said Akira Ishii, a historian and professor emeritus of Tokyo University. Japan's current Constitution, drawn up under the Allied occupation following World War II, is best known for its Article 9, by which Japan renounces its right to wage war and promises that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." Ishii said the Constitution, time-tested in the past 70 years, has been well accepted by the Japanese people. "Most people in Japan believe that the pacifistic Constitution have played a big role in the fast development of Japan after World War II," he said in a recent interview with Xinhua. "The war-renouncing Constitution has also been the premise for Japan to be reaccepted into the international community after World War II," he added. Revising the Constitution has long been a goal of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Ishii said that the LDP has been advocating constitutional revision as part of its platform since the party was founded in the 1950s, because it believes that the Constitution was imposed upon Japan by the United States. As for the Abe administration, which has been keener on revising the Constitution than the previous governments, Ishii said that one of the reasons for Abe to push for constitutional revision is to secure support from the conservative forces in Japan. He also pointed out that the Abe administration has been pushing for de facto Constitutional revision by changing constitutional interpretations. For example, Japan has forcibly enacted the controversial security laws to expand the role of the Self-Defense Forces overseas despite strong public oppositions. He stressed that Japan's recent move of allowing the Imperial Rescript on Education in school textbooks is also unconstitutional as the prewar rescript preaches sacrificing one's life for the emperor. According to Ishii, with Abe's ruling LDP and other forces in favor of revising the Constitution having a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the parliament now, revising the Constitution has become more realistic than ever. However, Abe's attempts still face a lot of challenges, as to revise the Constitution needs the approval of a referendum while a lot of people in Japan oppose such revisions. A recent poll by Japan's Kyodo News showed that 51 percent of respondents were against any constitutional amendments under the Abe administration, while 45 percent were in favor. As the nation marked its 70th Constitution Memorial Day on Wednesday, some 55,000 people rallied in Tokyo to protest against Abe's attempts to amend the pacifist Constitution. Another obstacle would be a possible split inside the pro-revision camp. For example, the LDP's coalition partner the Komeito Party hopes to retain the Article 9 while adding clauses on environment and privacy rights into the Constitution, said Ishii. Ishii also expressed concerns that revising the war-renouncing Constitution would hurt Japan's relationship with its neighboring countries, which had fallen victim to Japan's invasion and brutalities before and during World War II. "Japan's neighbors would have all kinds of guesses on what's behind Japan's move of revising the war-recouncing Constitution," he said. "To revise the pacifist Constitution will meet a lot of challenges and to forcibly do it would do no good to Japan," he added. Students are seen at the newly commissioned Shamva Mingchang Primary School in Shamva, Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe, March 11, 2016. The primary school which was funded and built by a Chinese mining company operating in the area can accommodate up to 500 students. The Chinese companies investing in Zimbabwe have taken up their social responsibilities to aid the local communities, in terms of building schools, houses, cash or material donations. (Xinhua/Xu Lingui) HARARE, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's Zhejiang Province has offered 200 scholarships to students from the Harare Metropolitan Province following the establishment of sister relations between the two provinces. Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress Wang Huizhong said the scholarships would cover graduate, post-graduate and vocational studies in China. He did not indicate in what fields the scholarships will be offered. Photo taken on April 29, 2017 shows the night view of the downtown area and the West Lake scenic area in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua/Xu Yu) He was speaking at the Zimbabwe-China Zhejiang Province Investment Conference where he signed a Memorandum of Friendship between the two provinces with the Minister of State for Harare Metropolitan Province Miriam Chikukwa. "We are also willing to work together with Harare to establish the Zhejiang Industrial Park in the spirit of Special Economic Zones," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 18:44:36|Editor: Tian Shaohui Video Player Close China's homegrown large passenger plane C919 makes its maiden flight in Shanghai, east China, May 5, 2017. (Xinhua/Ding Ting) by Xinhua Writer Guo Shuang LOS ANGELES, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's first indigenously-designed large passenger aircraft, the C919, successfully completed its maiden flight on Friday in the eastern city of Shanghai, providing a win-win cooperation for both China and the global market. "The C919 not only generates a great source of pride for China, but also represents mutual benefits and cooperation between China and the rest of the world. For this reason, the C919 program also carries the pride and hopes of people across the globe," Ye Wei, executive director and president of COMAC America Corporation, told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday at his office in Los Angeles, California. The successful flying of C919 is a crucial step in earning its manufacturer, COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China), a position alongside Airbus and Boeing as a major player in the large passenger aircraft industry, where the three players could become known as the "ABC" of aircraft manufacturing. AVIATION INNOVATION Out of the overall design of the C919, the airframe is, from its initial design to calculations, testing, and construction, independently researched and developed in China. The research and development of the airframe gave rise to multiple technical breakthroughs, such as the unique design of the supercritical wing and different applications of new construction materials. While some may consider the airframe to just be the shell of an aircraft, Ye emphasized that the development of the airframe represents a major technical component of large aircraft manufacturing. As one of the most difficult steps in the aircraft design process, the C919's airframe technology represents a major step forward for China's aircraft manufacturing industry. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION At the same time, the C919 can be considered a paragon of global cooperation. Major components such as the engines, avionics, control systems, and more are sourced from numerous joint ventures and partners across Europe and the United States. With major suppliers such as General Electric and Honeywell, the C919 project can be said to cover the world. The C919 features major components from 17 Level 1 suppliers around the globe, with Level 2 and 3 suppliers numbering in the hundreds. "This is why the C919 is more than just China's pride. It also represents mutual benefit that stretches far beyond China's borders," Ye said. In order to succeed in an increasingly globalized business world, international cooperation is a must. From this point of view, the C919 provides significant economic benefits to each of its international suppliers and their nations. In posts on its social media accounts, Honeywell stated that with nearly 1,000 of their employees across the world working to support the C919 project, the entire Honeywell workforce shared COMAC's pride at the success of the first flight. Darius Adamczyk, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell was one of the first to send his congratulations to COMAC Chairman Jin Zhuanglong, which read: "We are extremely proud that COMAC chose Honeywell to provide four major systems for this sleek and modern aircraft. We are proud of our partnership with COMAC and eager to continue to help advance aviation capabilities in China." NO THREAT TO BOEING, AIRBUS At the moment, China's large passenger aircraft have a long way to go before they can truly compete with Boeing and Airbus on the international market, much less present a genuine threat to either manufacturer. Over a considerably long timeframe, the C919 is planned to mainly be used in China's domestic market, helping to meet its demand. In the short term, production of the C919 will be limited and its numbers will be far from enough to make a significant impact. At the moment, the C919 has a total of 570 orders, the vast majority of which were made by domestic Chinese customers. In fact, at the moment Boeing and Airbus are enthusiastically cooperating with COMAC, making use of the Chinese company's manpower and resources to develop the Chinese aviation market. As one of COMAC's major international partners, Aviage Systems is responsible for three avionics work packages on the C919. Immediately following the first flight of C919, company Chairman and CEO Alan Jones sent COMAC his best wishes, stating "Aviage Systems is very proud to be COMAC's close partner as both sides worked with common purpose, encouraging each other and overcoming obstacles along the way. We are honored to be a part of this historical occasion." Regarding the significance of the first flight and the road ahead, Robert Morefield, a senior aeronautical engineer with over 40 years of experience in the industry,said, "The success of the C919's first flight is a critical step in the comprehensive test flight process. This milestone opens the path for a multitude of required future test flights that will ensure the aircraft is safe and ready for public service." However, among congratulations from all over the world, there were some who used the occasion to politicize the C919 program and treat it as if it was a threat to the rest of the world. "This is a very shortsighted way of looking at it," said Ye, referring to these criticisms. "With cooperation comes mutual benefit. I think this is something people of every nation would like to see," he said. "If other countries were to refuse this cooperation and place unnecessary embargoes and limitations on these kinds of projects, it would only harm the idea of a fair and open market and ultimately damage the economic welfare of individuals throughout the world," Ye said. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 19:19:56|Editor: xuxin Photo taken on May 5, 2017 shows the construction site by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a Chinese company undertaking the first phase of the Vision City project, which is part of the Rwandan government's efforts to solve housing challenges in the capital city Kigali. The first phase of the project, the biggest housing project in Rwanda, is consisted of 504 units of villas and apartments. According to the plan, after all the four phases are completed, the project will have the capacity to accommodate over 22,000 people. (Xinhua/Lyu Tianran) by Lyu Tianran KIGALI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Located on one of the hills at "The Land of a Thousand hills," the Vision City project is part of the Rwandan government's efforts to solve housing challenges in the capital city Kigali. The first phase of the project, the biggest housing project in Rwanda, is consisted of 504 units of villas and apartments. According to the plan, after all the four phases are completed, the project will have the capacity to accommodate over 22,000 people. "Every time I came here to work, I see the project, I wish I can live here, I'm going to work hard," said Umubyeyi Sandrine, a Rwandan working at the site for China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a Chinese company undertaking the first phase of the project. "I hope they call it a vision city, because it's going with a vision and a plan," said the 25-year-old secretary. "It's a vision city because everyone can look at this and say 'we have a vision, even me I have a vision'." Kigali could have a housing deficit of up to 350,000 residential units in 10 years, if nothing is done to address the current shortage, a study conducted by the Rwandan government and European Union in 2012 showed. At least 43,436 social houses and 186,163 affordable houses are required annually by 2022, reflecting 54 percent housing demand, according to the city master plan of Kigali. "This is the first kind in the country, the best one, with good view and good planning, everything is the first here," said Uwifashije Emmanuel, a 31-year-old electrician of CCECC. "It is called Vision City, and this is the city of vision exactly, which has a good vision. It brings changes to the country, and helps development of Rwanda slowly by slowly. After finishing the entire project, it will be very good for our country," said Emmanuel. Like Vision City, other projects of CCECC also have good changes to the landlocked country in terms of development, according to him. "CCECC has built many landmark buildings in Rwanda," General Manager of CCECC in Rwanda Wang Lei told Xinhua."including a major stadium of Rwanda the Amahoro stadium, the tallest building in Kigali Kigali Tower City, the biggest business center of Kigali M. Peace Plaza and etc." CCECC has been committing to fulfilling its social responsibility like providing free training to Rwandan workers, offering them opportunities to learn skills at the project site. The Chinese company also helps create jobs for local people, said Wang, adding that there were 3,000 local people working in the vision city project throughout the year of 2015. CCECC has cultivated many local workers into skilled workers under direction of the company's Chinese staff, he said. "CCECC taught me electrical and mechanical knowledge," said Emmanuel, who has been working in CCECC since 2008. Local people retrieve dead bodies and rescue survivors from a school bus that plunged into gorge in northern Tanzania's district of Karatu on Saturday morning. The pupils were heading to Karatu Township for inter-school mock examinations with their counterparts in the district.(Xinhua) ARUSHA, Tanzania, May 6 (Xinhua) -- At least 31 people, including pupils and three teachers, were killed after a school bus plunged into a gorge in Tanzania on Saturday morning, authorities said. The accident involved pupils and three teachers of the Lucky Vincent English Medium Primary School located on the outskirts of northern Tanzania's safari capital of Arusha. Theresia Mahongo, Karatu District Commissioner, said that the mishap occurred after their school bus plunged into the Marera gorge located more than 150 kilometers from Arusha city, the main gateway to Tanzania's northern tourist destinations of Ngorongoro crater and Serengeti National Park. Enditem According to Mahongo, the school bus had 35 people on board, mostly pupils, and their teachers, who left Arusha at around 7 a.m. local time to Karatu Township. The pupils were supposed to participate in inter-school mock examinations with their counterparts in the district. Reports say that later, after the examinations, the pupils planned to have an excursion into the Ngorongoro Crater. However, when the bus went past the Rhotia Hill Township, speeding downhill to the road section known as 'Kwa-Karani', eye witnesses saw the vehicle catapulted into the air and nose dive into the gorge adjacent to River Marera, in Karatu District. Charles Mkumbo, Arusha Regional Police Commander (RPC) confirmed the accident, though he was not in a position to establish the actual figure of dead people and survivors. "We are yet to establish the exact number of those who died in the accident," the regional police chief said. People hold candles during a night vigil commemorating the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda at Amahoro National Stadium in Kigali, Rwanda, on April 7, 2017. Lighting the flame of hope and laying the wreath at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre marked the start of the 23rd commemoration of the 1994 genocide in which more than one million people in Rwanda, mainly Tutsi and moderate Hutus, were killed. (Xinhua) KIGALI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi are coming face to face with survivors to openly ask for forgiveness in a country where reconciliation is now preached by the state and religions. At Nyamata Parish in Bugesera District, eastern Rwanda, Pierre Butoki, a former genocide perpetrator in the area knelt down holding a candle, was sprinkled with spiritual water and listened to hymns and praise by clerics and other Christians. The man was former police officer having served from 1960 to 1973. He was an active member of Interahamwe militia, responsible for mass slaughters during the genocide. Butoki recalled participating in attacks at Ntarama Church in the district and other places, killing many Tutsi, including a priest. He said he was "forgiven after going through heart-healing process." "I was tired of burying my head in shame. I decided to ask for forgiveness though it's not as easy, just like forgiving someone who committed grave crime against you or your relative." Butoki lived with guilt for more than two decades. But six months ago he attended a heart healing course where he spoke openly about his crimes. "I was shunned even in church and looked at as a genocide perpetrator. I have a terrible history. I felt a spiritual void." Genocide perpetrators who are yet to reconcile with survivors are many in Bugesera district. While there are no official statistics, officials say the reconciliation journey is still long in the area. Nyamata Parish's head priest, Emmanuel Nsengiyumva said the number of genocide perpetrators who have so far come out remorsefully are few. Bugesera district is one of the areas which witnessed mass killings during the genocide. Churches where people could go for purification, blessings, prayers and holly communion turned into slaughter houses in 1994. Chantal Niwemugeni, a survivor recalls the gruesome massacres that took place at Ntarama church specifically. "I have fresh memories of the massacres like it happened yesterday. Bitter memories stuck in my mind. I can't forget the church choir who used to sing for us -- its members were killed with machetes, clubs, and other sorts of traditional weapons," she said at a recent commemoration event in the district. She particularly recalled the militias draped in banana leaves racing up and down shouting on April 11 in 1994. Niwemugeni survived with her brother and father Deogratias Munyarugarama who was a teacher then. Her father later died of trauma related illness. Up to 5000 people were killed in the former Ntarama church in the district, now turned into a national memorial site. "At some point some of us preferred to commit suicide than facing gruesome murder but due to God's mercy we were rescued by (RPA) Rwanda Patriotic Army soldiers," she recalled. RPA then became the ruling party in 1994. Reconciliation is inevitable, said Niwemugeni. Butoki, just like about 60 other former genocide perpetrators said after going through heart healing since July, 2016, they asked for forgiveness from survivors, and it was granted. He was part of a larger group of 247 former convicts who underwent the healing course. The first group of 166 completed the course and were reconciled with survivors on in January 2017. But nearly 30 others are yet to complete the due process. Angelique Mukabukizi, a survivor from Bugesera district said after showing remorse she no longer sees the former genocide perpetrators in the lenses of Interahamwe militia. "I now feel relief after knowing the person who killed my father. I forgave him," she said of Butoki. "All former perpetrators should come forward in the name of love." Apart from the church, other reconciliation efforts are spearheaded by Rwanda's National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. The 2016 Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer done by the commission indicated that 92.5 percent of Rwandans believed that unity and reconciliation had been achieved and that citizens lived in harmony. However, the report also showed that 27.9 percent of Rwandans still viewed themselves through ethnic groups. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 20:05:17|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close NEW YORK, May 5 (Xinhua) -- It is critical and important for kids in the United States and Europe to learn Chinese nowadays, as a booming China generates a huge demand for Western employees speaking both fluent English and Chinese in the years to come. This was the consensus among teachers, students and experts at the Experience China Open Day held by the Chinese Consulate General in New York City Friday evening. The function attracted more than 200 U.S. teachers, students and parents to the Chinese Consulate General, participating in various cultural immersion games such as paper cutting, making Chinese knots, calligraphy and playing Guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. "This event aims to motivate students' interests in learning Chinese language, understanding its culture, which is part of the increasingly close people-to-people exchanges that lay a solid foundation for strong China-U.S. relations," Acting Consul General Cheng Lei said. Showcasing their appreciation of Chinese language and culture, a group of Bayside High School students performed traditional Kongzhu (Chinese yo-yo), and Montville Township High School students staged a short drama titled Shared Values of China and the United States in both English and Chinese. "It is critical and important for kids to learn Chinese nowadays, as the awareness and visibility of China have tremendously increased through different channels," Liao Shenzhan, American director of the Confucius Institute at China Institute, told Xinhua. "Parents here can see it very clearly that how the Chinese language and understanding of Chinese culture will be helpful and useful for their kids in the future," she said. "It fundamentally opens their minds..., especially for kids in Europe and America," and "also opens a different window for them to see the world differently," she said. "These are two very fundamental reasons for kids to learn Chinese language and culture as young as possible," Liao said. Liao praised the Chinese Consulate General for "doing a great job" in helping locals access the rich resources for learning the Chinese language and culture by organizing events like Friday's Open Day. "This is the second year, and I heard a lot of teachers talked about how they enjoyed last year, and they are bringing back their students this year, and I am looking forward to this kind of consistency," she said. Lauren Musan, a student from the Bayside High School, said Chinese is a useful language "though a bit difficult to learn." "It will help us in finding a better job in the future," Musan said. To many people's surprise, Jayson Baptiste from Medgar Evers College Preparatory School shared his story about learning Chinese in perfect Mandarine from the beginning to the end. "I hope everybody got his own Chinese Dream from today on," Baptiste said. "Culture could be a very good entry point to generate interest, to provide sort of access to something that would motivate students to go on studying the Chinese language," said Daisy Zhongbei Wu, an associate professor of Performing Arts Center at Alfred University. Wu is also associate director of Confucius Institute at the university, which is dedicated to promoting the study of Chinese language, culture, ethics and philosophy, and furthering the understanding of China today. She said more than 100 Alfred University students have studied Guzheng with her since the university offered the courses in 2011. Daniel Tizol, assistant principal of Bayside High School, also encouraged his students to make a long-term commitment to learning the Chinese language and culture. "Continue to connect your lives to Chinese culture, continue to learn, integration is the key to learn a second language, to partner with your communities, whether on line or in local community," he suggested. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 20:35:12|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A rare rough-toothed dolphin which beached itself in south China's Guangdong Province has been rescued and will soon be released back into the sea, a nature reserve said Saturday. Police received reports on the dolphin being stranded on the coast of Heisha Bay in the city of Jiangmen Wednesday, and called the Pearl River Estuary Chinese White Dolphin National Nature Reserve for help, said Chen Xi of the reserve. Chen, who helped in the rescue, said the 2.2-meter dolphin was an adult male and was suffering from breathing trouble, low temperature, muscle injuries and malnutrition when it was found. Rescuers then helped the mammal with its breathing, gave an injection of antibiotics, and fed it stomach medicine and food before it gained strength, said Chen. The dolphin is currently in a pool designated for dolphin rescue at the reserve and will soon be released, said Chen. Although the rough-toothed dolphin, listed as the country's second class protection animals, can be found in deep tropical, subtropical and temperate waters around the world, it is a rare visitor to Guangdong waters. In 2014, a stranded rough-toothed dolphin died in Guangdong despite rescue efforts. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 21:10:51|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Emmanuel Macron, French presidential candidate for the On the Move (En Marche) movement, delivers a speech at a rally after the first round of French presidential election in Paris, France on April 23, 2017.(Xinhua/Jose Rodriguez/File photo) PARIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- French voters are preparing to return to the polling stations on Sunday to decide which of the two candidates will take the country's presidency for the next five years. Unlike the neck-and-neck race in the first round of votes on April 23, the margin between centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-rightist Marine Le Pen in the runoff vote is estimated to be quite large, according to opinion polls. Various polls released on Friday, the last campaigning day, estimate that Macron will win with 61 to 62 percent of votes, while only 38 to 40 percent will go to Le Pen. A Harris Interactive survey for French television network LCP indicates Macron will garner 62 percent, and Le Pen 38 percent. The same figures were given by an Odoxa-Dentsu Consulting poll for Le Point magazine and a Elabe survey for BFMTV and newspaper L'Express. Meanwhile, an Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll for France Televisions and Radio France also estimates a clear victory for Macron with 61.5 percent of voting intentions, against Le Pen with 38.5 percent. The almost unanimous estimations have put pressure on Le Pen and her far-right party National Front (FN). Although the polls are consistent with those conducted right after the first round, the margin between the two has indeed further widened after a final television debate, which many analysts have dubbed as "aggressive" and "inappropriate." Media reported that many viewers were disappointed by the performance of both candidates, but a poll conducted afterwards showed that 63 percent found Macron more convincing, while 34 percent supported Le Pen. Even her farther Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of FN, said that he was not satisfied with the performance of his daughter in the debate in a radio interview on Thursday. Le Pen was greeted by a hail of eggs on Thursday at a factory in Dol-de-Bretagne, where she had received a high score in the first round, and was heckled by protesters as she visited the cathedral in Reims. However, it is yet too early for Macron and his En Marche! (On the Move!) party to be at ease. If the abstention rate on Sunday is high, then Macron's victory would come with a narrower margin, making it difficult for the centrist to establish his authority to govern, several pollsters have said. One of the frontrunners in the first round, far-leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon refused to endorse either of the candidates, which could lead to not voting or casting a blank vote on Sunday among the 19.2 percent of voters who supported him. Moreover, the refusal to endorse Macron by several representatives from the Republican party and right-wing activists also added to the risk of high abstention and blank vote rate. A daily poll of FIFG indicates a possible decline in the turnout of the second round, with only 71 percent of voters, a decrease of seven points compared with the first round. Ipsos-Sopra Steria also said in its survey published on Friday that 48 percent of those who plan to vote blank or void are certain to do so. According to Le Pen's niece and fellow FN lawmaker Marion Marechal-Le Pen, even if her aunt loses, receiving 40 percent of the vote in the runoff would be already "an enormous victory." "The objective is winning, and if not, 40 percent would position us particularly well to be the opposition or maybe even the majority in the National Assembly," the lawmaker said in a recent interview. "The FN is now a party that, in the mind of French people, a party like the others," she added. Regardless of the results of Sunday's vote, Le Pen has already made history for the far-right party by not only being qualified for the second round, but also breaking the record of FN in the presidential race with 7.5 million votes in the first round. French President Francois Hollande, who has openly endorsed Macron, said on Friday that "there must be the highest score for Macron and therefore, the lowest for the far-right." But that decision is in the hands of the French people on Sunday. Related: French media warned not to republish Macron campaign's leaked documents PARIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The French electoral commission, which supervises the country's presidential race, on Saturday warned local media not to republish data and information hacked from centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign staff. In a statement, the commission asked media not to report the content of the leaked documents on their websites, stressing that publishing false information would be punished under criminal law. Full story Macron's campaign team says it suffers "massive, coordinated hacking attack" PARIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said in a statement late Friday it had been the victim of a "massive and coordinated hacking attack," leading to the diffusion of "various internal information" on social media. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 21:35:49|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao A bomb squad works around the area where twin blasts occurred in Manila, the Philippines, on May 6, 2017. Two people were killed and four others injured, including a policeman, in twin blasts that rocked Quiapo District in Manila on Saturday, police said. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali) MANILA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed and four others injured, including a policeman, in twin blasts that rocked Quiapo District in Manila on Saturday, police said. The first explosion went off around 5:50 p.m. local time in Norzagaray Street in Quiapo District, while the second blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. local time near the same site, police said. Police have yet to determine the type of explosives used in the twin bomb attacks. No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts. Last Friday, 14 people were injured in a blast in the same district as the Philippines was hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 21:40:51|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao The body of Min Bahadur Sherchan is seen at the airport in Lukla, Solukhumbu, Nepal, May 7, 2017. Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, 86, who had sought to reclaim the crown of the world's oldest Qomolangma summiteers, died at the mountain base camp on Saturday evening. (Xinhua/Dev) KATHMANDU, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, 86, who had sought to reclaim the crown of the world's oldest Qomolangma summiteers, died at the mountain base camp on Saturday evening. Shivraj Thapa, managing director of the Summit Nepal Trekking, told Xinhua Saturday that Sherchan died at the base camp at 5:14 p.m. local time. Officials of the Nepali Department of Tourism which issues climbing permits has not confirmed his death so far. Thapa said the cause behind Sherchan's death is yet to be confirmed as the doctors accompanying the expedition team are examining it. Thapa said Sherchan left for the mountain on April 16. Born in Nepal's western Myagdi district, Sherchan stood atop the mountain in 2008, becoming the oldest climber to reach the summit of the mountain at the age of 76. But five years later, Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura snatched the title of the oldest summiteer from Sherchan as the Japanese senior citizen summitted the peak when he was 80. Since then, Sherchan had sought to reclaim the title. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 21:46:11|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson Saturday called on Taiwan to investigate immediately the shooting of mainland fishermen by Taiwan coast guards. A fishing boat from Guangdong Province was seized Saturday morning by Taiwan coast guards in waters near Penghu County of Taiwan, local authorities said. Two fishermen were injured by rubber bullets fired from the coast guard ship. They were sent to a hospital in Penghu for medical treatment. The other five are detained. An Fengshan, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, called on the Taiwan side to respect the fact that fishermen from both sides of the Strait had long been fishing in the area. He said that Taiwan should respect the rights of mainland fishermen and stop seizing fishing boats for no sound reasons. An also requested the Taiwan side to seriously handle the case, release the fishermen as soon as possible and prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents in the future. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 21:56:14|Editor: Tian Shaohui Members of a French aerobatics team load their lightplane at Shangjie airport in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, May 3, 2017. A Zhengzhou-Hamburg freight train carrying eight lightplanes which were displayed at Zhengzhou Airshow departed in Zhengzhou on Saturday. (Xinhua/Feng Dapeng) ZHENGZHOU, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Aircraft from Europe left China via a China-European train on Saturday, after attending an airshow in central China. Eight light airplanes from Britain, France and Italy were disassembled and put in containers before being carried away by the train at 5:10 p.m. from Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province. The train is bound for Hamburg, Germany. The planes attended the Zhengzhou Airshow 2017 from April 27 to May 1. Most of them will continue to perform in late May in Europe. The train journey will take about 17 days, at least one month less than by sea, giving them sufficient time for more shows, said Jiang Siyu, an official in charge of acrobatic performances at the Zhengzhou airshow. Adam Shaw, a pilot of France's acrobatic team The Captens, said that the journey by train was safer and faster. He said that the planes arrived in Zhengzhou safe and sound by a China-Europe train last month. "We are going back by train to attend airshows in France, Switzerland and Italy," Shaw said. Pilot Tom Cassells from Britain said the planes would be flown home after arriving in Hamburg. Cassells attended the airshows in China's Zhuhai and Hong Kong in 2014, when there were no train services to deliver aircraft. Another five planes from Lithuania and Australia will embark on the train journey in the next few days. There are currently 51 routes for China-Europe trains, reaching 28 cities in 11 countries. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 22:01:02|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close CAIRO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian police killed two militants on Saturday in a shootout in the Delta city of Gharbiya northwest of the capital, the interior ministry said in a statement. The two wanted militants were senior leaders of Islamist militant group Hasm Movement, the statement said. The national security sector was tipped off that they had been hiding in Gharbiya, it added. "A large amount of weapons and ammunition were seized," the statement noted. Egypt has been battling waves of terrorist attacks centered in North Sinai since the army-led ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 in response to nation-wide protests against his rule. However, some of the attacks have extended to Cairo and other cities. Most of the terrorist attacks have been claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State group. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 22:06:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAIROBI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan wildlife authorities said they have arrested 18 suspects in anti-poaching sting operations conducted in Nairobi and eastern Kenya. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) spokesman Paul Gathitu said the operations were conducted in the last week of April in Meru, Nairobi, Kitui, Makueni and Runyenjes regions. "A total of 18 suspects were apprehended for crimes ranging from dealing in wildlife trophies to logging, and accordingly booked at various police stations," Gathitu said in a statement issued on Friday night. The conservationists have decried the entry of organized crime syndicates into the illegal wildlife trade, most notably of rhino horn and elephant ivory, which they said, has created a crisis situation in many African countries. The KWS has expressed fears that the recent spike in poaching which has contributed to the depletion of wildlife including elephants, lions and rhinos, are threatening many years of conservation efforts and animal populations that had started to balloon. Gathitu said during the operations, various wildlife trophies were recovered over the period including one leopard skin, three python skins, 24 pieces of elephant tusks whose combined weight was 191 kg and bush meat of 33.5 kg, an assortment of crude weapons and two torches. "Three motorcycles were also confiscated including one belonging to a County government," Gathitu said. In the past month, Gathitu said 38 suspects were arraigned before various courts, charged with offences ranging from the possession of government trophies, dealing in wildlife trophies and attempting to export prohibited goods. According to Gathitu, five cases were concluded in court between April 17-30, while 15 cases are still pending before court for the offences of being in possession of wildlife trophy and dealing in wildlife trophy. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 22:16:23|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LAGOS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's secret police Saturday said Ifeanyi Ubah, the owner of Capital Oil, has been arrested over an acts of economic sabotage. Spokesperson for the Department of State Security Tony Opuiyo said in a statement made available to Xinhua in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub, that the businessman and politician was arrested on Friday in connection with the theft of petrol kept by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in his tank farm in Lagos. The product was valued at over 11 billion naira (about 34 million U.S. dollars). Ubah's action amounted to economic sabotage, with "capacity to negatively impact on national economy," Opuiyo added, noting that the businessman has further engaged in other activities inimical to national security and public order. The DSS spokesperson said Ubah incited members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), a critical player in the downstream sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry, to refuse or stop the lifting of products in furtherance of his gimmicks to undermine the country. Nigeria's state run oil giant had on March 17 revealed that about 100 million liters stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot and over 30 million liters in MRS Limited depot, all in Apapa area of Lagos, were not found when needed. Ubah has described the allegation of theft against his company as mischievous and misleading. He said the NNPC also failed to tell the public that it also owed Capital Oil billions of Naira from their mutual business transactions. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers hold ivory at the KWS headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 15, 2016.(Xinhua/Pan Siwei) NAIROBI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan wildlife authorities said they have arrested 18 suspects in anti-poaching sting operations conducted in Nairobi and eastern Kenya. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) spokesman Paul Gathitu said the operations were conducted in the last week of April in Meru, Nairobi, Kitui, Makueni and Runyenjes regions. "A total of 18 suspects were apprehended for crimes ranging from dealing in wildlife trophies to logging, and accordingly booked at various police stations," Gathitu said in a statement issued on Friday night. The conservationists have decried the entry of organized crime syndicates into the illegal wildlife trade, most notably of rhino horn and elephant ivory, which they said, has created a crisis situation in many African countries. The KWS has expressed fears that the recent spike in poaching which has contributed to the depletion of wildlife including elephants, lions and rhinos, are threatening many years of conservation efforts and animal populations that had started to balloon. Gathitu said during the operations, various wildlife trophies were recovered over the period including one leopard skin, three python skins, 24 pieces of elephant tusks whose combined weight was 191 kg and bush meat of 33.5 kg, an assortment of crude weapons and two torches. "Three motorcycles were also confiscated including one belonging to a County government," Gathitu said. In the past month, Gathitu said 38 suspects were arraigned before various courts, charged with offences ranging from the possession of government trophies, dealing in wildlife trophies and attempting to export prohibited goods. According to Gathitu, five cases were concluded in court between April 17-30, while 15 cases are still pending before court for the offences of being in possession of wildlife trophy and dealing in wildlife trophy. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-06 23:37:00|Editor: ZD Video Player Close China's Finance Minister Xiao Jie (R) shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso during the sixth China-Japan bilateral finance dialogue in Yokohama, Japan, May 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Ma Ping) YOKOHAMA, Japan, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The finance ministers of China and Japan exchanged views on deepening cooperation at the Sixth China-Japan Finance Dialogue here on Saturday. Xiao Jie, China's minister of finance, and Taro Aso, Japan's deputy prime minister and minister of finance, co-chaired the dialogue, with senior officials from finance ministries and central banks of both countries attending. The two finance ministers agreed that the dialogue is of important significance to both sides, as it contributes to deepening exchange of macroeconomic situations and policy measures and helps strengthen financial cooperation between the two countries. Both sides recognized the necessity of promoting economic restructuring through enhancing communication on macroeconomic policies and agreed to maintain consultation on major international economic and financial issues. The two sides also emphasized the need to further deepen pragmatic cooperation in financial field to support the collaboration between the two countries in economic, trade and investment fields. Both sides welcomed the successful close of the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting and the China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting, which were held just before the dialogue. The two ministers also agreed to hold the Seventh China-Japan Finance Dialogue in China next year. Both sides agreed to launch a joint research on issues of mutual interests and report the outcomes to the dialogue. A voter casts ballot during the French presidential election in Paris, France, April 23, 2017. Millions of French voters began casting their ballots in the first round of the presidential election Sunday morning amid an atmosphere of uncertainty. (Xinhua/Li Genxing) PARIS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- French voters in overseas territories started their voting for the decisive second round of presidential elections on Saturday, a day before it is scheduled in the mainland. But the results will be only know after all votes are casted on the French mainland. Official campaigning period ended Friday night, signalling the start of a blackout on any campaigning and media coverage, according to French electoral laws. The polling stations in French mainland are scheduled to open at 08:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) and close at 20:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) in big cities, and at 19:00 (1700 GMT) in other places. According to French law, no exit poll or early counting results of the vote is allowed to be released until all polling stations are closed. Nearly 47 million voters are expected to cast their ballots on Sunday in 66,546 polling stations in the French mainland, where final preparation work is being carried out on Saturday. Opinion polls indicate that pro-European Union (EU) centrist Emmanuel Macron is on course to become the country's youngest ever leader, after a tense campaign against his anti-EU challenger far-rightist Marine Le Pen. An Ipsos-Sopra Sterna poll released on Friday showed Macron widening his lead to 63 percent of votes, up by two points compared with the previous poll, while Le Pen dropped to 37 percent. This is Macron's best score in polls since the first round of votes on April 23. Analysts say Macron has been improving his performance since a final and harsh televised debate between the two contenders on Wednesday evening, in which he was more convincing to French viewers, according to surveys. Unlike the 2012 election, which was a race between candidates from France's right and left parties which had dominated the country's political mainstream for decades, this year, two anti-establishment candidates emerged as the frontrunners in the first round. Macron, never held an elected office, aims to build a democratic front involving faithfuls from different political views, as well as new, talented faces. A pro-market advocate, the 39-year-old ex-investment banker has been campaigning for a stronger eurozone and further economic openness to bolster domestic economy and create wider business opportunities for millions of people without work. His rival, Le Pen proposed the other face of the coin via a nationalist project aiming to install internal borders to slash immigration which she considers the main cause of rising security risks and rampant unemployment. The 48-year-old lawyer from the far-right party National Front (FN) also proposed to restore national security and to put a France exit from the eurozone to a referendum. After a campaign overshadowed by a series of twists, the 2017 French election is one of the most unpredictable in the country's modern history, as growing public disenchantment forced many voters to turn their backs on the mainstream parties or even refuse make a choice. An Odoxa survey released on Friday said a quarter of the French was likely to abstain in Sunday's vote, making the predicted abstention rate second-highest for a presidential election runoff since 1965. The pollster estimates a turnout at 75 percent, compared with 77.8 percent in the first round. "Traditionally, the turnout is higher in the second round, but this year's election does not follow the usual rules," the polling firm said. WARSAW, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Andrzej Duda has expressed hope for broadened multi-faceted cooperation with Qatar, while meeting with visiting Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. Following the talks on economic cooperation and investments, Duda and the Qatari emir held a meeting with reporters on Friday. Duda said Qatar was the biggest supplier of gas to Poland's Baltic coast gas terminal in Swinoujscie, and stressed that thanks to this year's agreement these supplies will be enlarged two-fold against levels included in 2009 gas delivery contract. The president also expressed hope for further broadening of cooperation in the fields of economy, culture and health protection. Referring to Polish-Qatari Economic Forum held on Friday, Duda informed that there were talks on food processing and pharmaceutics cooperation. He also wished that Polish domestic companies, especially the construction branch could take part in the huge investment development taking place currently in Qatar. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also expressed hope for more intensified bilateral relations in various fields, informing about the signature of an annex to a Polish-Qatari LNG agreement. The talks also concerned the peace process in the Middle East, as informed. Later this day, The Emir of Qatar was also to meet with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. President Duda and the Emir were also to witness the signing of a cooperation memorandum between the two governments, including the setup of a joint committee for cooperation between the two states. Emir of Qatar started his visit to Warsaw on Friday, the second day of Qatar-Poland Business Forum. A series of events have been held within May 4 and 5 during the forum, mostly investment-business relations building, connecting entrepreneurs and scientific circles, as well as governments' administrations. MOGADISHU, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire on Saturday opened a three-day national consultation conference on ICT to seek ways for the country to reap benefits from the sector. The conference brought over 70 delegates from the ICT stakeholders, including the Parliamentary Committee on ICT, ministers from federal states, telecom operators, ISPs, and university associations, are attending the conference. In his opening remarks, Khaire stressed the significance of the sector and highlighted the contributions of the ICT sector to the local economy. "ICT is an integral part of every economy. I urge the delegates to discuss sector priorities in the future, focusing on cooperation among the sector to ensure that all citizens have better access to quality and cost-effective ICT solutions to bring socio-economic development," he said. The Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and Technology, Engineer Abdi Ashur Hassan said this consultation was chosen as part of ministry's keenness to build confidence, exchange information and ideas through direct communication, and share ministry's annual plans for the sector. "In line with the government's vision for new Somalia, we want to draw a new path for the sector because we want to achieve more and better results. And this starts with building the confidence of the stakeholders and everything else will follow," Hassan said. Swiss President Doris Leuthard speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Bern, Switzerland, on Jan. 12, 2017. She is expected to attend the Belt and Road forum for international cooperation in Beijing on May 14-15. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan) GENEVA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- "The Belt and Road Initiative will strengthen well-being and contribute to poverty reduction in concerned regions. It will improve 'connectivity' between Europe and Asia, and help develop trade and the exchange of people," Swiss president Doris Leuthard told Xinhua in a recent interview. Leuthard is among the heads of state and government leaders who accepted China's invitation to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation slated for May 14 and 15 in Beijing. The trip to China reflects Switzerland's support for the Belt and Road Initiative. It also highlights the very positive relations prevailing between Switzerland and China, she said. Leuthard noted that Switzerland was among the first non-Asian countries to become a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), whose mandate involves, amongst other things, financing infrastructure projects along the Belt and Road. The improvement of transportation and communication links between Europe and Asia is also important for Switzerland, she said. According to Leuthard, the Belt and Road Initiative has the potential to strengthen Sino-Swiss relations. By using the know-how and innovation of Swiss businesses, Switzerland's private sector can play an important role in the implementation of infrastructure projects. As an example, Switzerland boasts globally recognized expertise in the green energy sector, as well as in the construction of tunnels. "Only a few months ago, we opened the world's longest and most modern railway tunnel in the Swiss mountains," Leuthard said. Leuthard stressed however that the initiative must integrate meticulous risk management for it to succeed. This entails respecting internationally recognized norms and standards, something Switzerland already encourages within the AIIB in terms of social and environmental benchmarks. It's also important to guarantee transparency with regards to project-financing mechanisms and legal measures guiding bidding procedures and attributions. Finally, concerted planning on an international scale is crucial to carry out the projects in question. Speaking of the relations between Switzerland and China, Leuthard said that they were characterized by "friendship and mutual respect." The state visit of China's President Xi Jinping in January this year, she said, underscored the quality of bilateral relations, while highlighting that despite numerous differences "in terms of size, economic model and political system, healthy relations and successful cooperation is both possible and necessary". Switzerland has always shown a pioneering and innovative spirit when it comes to its relations with China. The confederation was one of the first Western countries to recognize the People's Republic of China in 1950, and among the first European countries to recognize China's market economy status, Leuthard said. Switzerland was also the first nation in continental Europe to establish a free-trade agreement with Asia's economic powerhouse. Today, China is Switzerland's top trading partner in Asia, and its third biggest after the European Union and the United States. "This pioneering character is indeed an important feature of the bilateral relations between our countries, and Switzerland counts on consolidating and pursuing these good relations," the Swiss president said. Switzerland and China are working together on a series of projects in areas of common interest such as culture, research and education, the environment and energy, finance, intellectual property and human rights. Over 20 bilateral mechanisms of dialogue and cooperation are currently in force between Berne and Beijing. "This highlights the maturity of our relationship and the trust that our governments have fostered. This is further reflected by the numerous high-level visits in both Switzerland and China," she added. WINDHOEK, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Award-winning Namibian musician Martin Morocky has called on Namibian women to convince their male partners to be circumcised. Morocky is an ambassador of the five-year Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision campaign launched by Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, dubbed the "Smart Cut" campaign. "I call on all the ladies to help us convince their male partners to be circumcised. It's their men and they know what they want," he said in an interview with Xinhua on Saturday. "The benefits for females with circumcised male partners include reduced chances of getting cervical cancer. When a man is circumcised, spread of sexually transmitted infections is also lower," he said. The campaign targets to circumcise 20,000 men this year in a quest to reduce HIV and AIDS. This is in addition to a figure of 16,341 men circumcised since May 2014. As part of the campaign, the team will visit the Erongo, Zambezi and Oshana regions in May. In 2014, the Zambezi region recorded the highest HIV prevalent rate of 23.7 percent. "We are starting off with the regions that are hard hit by HIV more than others. We hope that by introducing Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision, with the combination of condom use and others, we will further reduce the burden of HIV and AIDS," said Johannes Haufiku, demand creative manager of the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision at the Ministry of Health and Social Services. In Namibia, about 215,000 people are living with HIV. A survey carried out in 2014 shows that in Namibia 131,103 people are currently receiving anti-retroviral therapy. The Ministry aims to circumcise 330,000 men between 2014 and 2018. DAR ES SALAAM, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli said Saturday his government was ready to work with the private sector which he described as the engine of the economy. Magufuli made the assurance in a meeting with members of the private sector under the Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC) at State House in Dar es Salaam. The meeting was held following reports of weakening investor confidence due to concerns about the economy, policy unpredictability and tax crackdown targeting big companies. Magufuli dispelled sentiments that his government was "anti-business," saying he was pro-business, but his administration would not tolerate tax dodging, which was rampant in Tanzania in previous years. The president ordered the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and other key government institutions to start operating 24 hours a day effective from next Monday to boost business activities in the country. Along with TRA, the president also instructed the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) to operate 24 hours, saying the state-run bodies should emulate the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) in working around the clock to facilitate trade. Magufuli issued the order after some members of the business community complained at the meeting about extreme delays in clearing of cargo for up to 14 days, which they said was partly caused by poor coordination of government authorities responsible for issuing various permits. The president said Tanzania can not compete effectively with ports in neighboring countries for international transit trade if it does not improve efficiency at Dar es Salaam port, the country's main gateway. "The private sector is an important ally for my administration in its quest to develop the nation," he said. He dismissed claims from some members of the business community that there appeared to be a lack of trust on the government's part towards the private sector. The TNBC is a 40-member dialogue forum with equal representation from both the private sector and the government. The agenda for the meeting included a review of Tanzania's business environment, policy measures to fast-track industrialization and development of industrial parks. The meeting also discussed transformation of the country's agriculture sector and establishment of official ministerial public-private dialogue structures. A U.S. student shows her paper-cutting works in the "Open Day -- Experience China" event at the Chinese Consulate General in New York, the United States, on May 5, 2017. (Xinhua Photo/Wang Ying) NEW YORK, May 5 (Xinhua) -- It is critical and important for kids in the United States and Europe to learn Chinese nowadays, as a booming China generates a huge demand for Western employees speaking both fluent English and Chinese in the years to come. This was the consensus among teachers, students and experts at the Experience China Open Day held by the Chinese Consulate General in New York City Friday evening. The function attracted more than 200 U.S. teachers, students and parents to the Chinese Consulate General, participating in various cultural immersion games such as paper cutting, making Chinese knots, calligraphy and playing Guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. "This event aims to motivate students' interests in learning Chinese language, understanding its culture, which is part of the increasingly close people-to-people exchanges that lay a solid foundation for strong China-U.S. relations," Acting Consul General Cheng Lei said. U.S. students learn Chinese language during "Open Day -- Experience China" event at Chinese Consulate General in New York, the United States, on May 5, 2017. (Xinhua Photo/Wang Ying) Showcasing their appreciation of Chinese language and culture, a group of Bayside High School students performed traditional Kongzhu (Chinese yo-yo), and Montville Township High School students staged a short drama titled Shared Values of China and the United States in both English and Chinese. "It is critical and important for kids to learn Chinese nowadays, as the awareness and visibility of China have tremendously increased through different channels," Liao Shenzhan, American director of the Confucius Institute at China Institute, told Xinhua. "Parents here can see it very clearly that how the Chinese language and understanding of Chinese culture will be helpful and useful for their kids in the future," she said. "It fundamentally opens their minds..., especially for kids in Europe and America," and "also opens a different window for them to see the world differently," she said. "These are two very fundamental reasons for kids to learn Chinese language and culture as young as possible," Liao said. Liao praised the Chinese Consulate General for "doing a great job" in helping locals access the rich resources for learning the Chinese language and culture by organizing events like Friday's Open Day. "This is the second year, and I heard a lot of teachers talked about how they enjoyed last year, and they are bringing back their students this year, and I am looking forward to this kind of consistency," she said. Lauren Musan, a student from the Bayside High School, said Chinese is a useful language "though a bit difficult to learn." "It will help us in finding a better job in the future," Musan said. To many people's surprise, Jayson Baptiste from Medgar Evers College Preparatory School shared his story about learning Chinese in perfect Mandarine from the beginning to the end. "I hope everybody got his own Chinese Dream from today on," Baptiste said. "Culture could be a very good entry point to generate interest, to provide sort of access to something that would motivate students to go on studying the Chinese language," said Daisy Zhongbei Wu, an associate professor of Performing Arts Center at Alfred University. Wu is also associate director of Confucius Institute at the university, which is dedicated to promoting the study of Chinese language, culture, ethics and philosophy, and furthering the understanding of China today. She said more than 100 Alfred University students have studied Guzheng with her since the university offered the courses in 2011. Daniel Tizol, assistant principal of Bayside High School, also encouraged his students to make a long-term commitment to learning the Chinese language and culture. "Continue to connect your lives to Chinese culture, continue to learn, integration is the key to learn a second language, to partner with your communities, whether on line or in local community," he suggested. LAGOS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A head-on collision between two buses along Nigeria's southwest Lagos-Ibadan expressway on Saturday left at least 26 people dead, a road safety official said. The two 18-seater buses caught fire immediately after a head-on collision on the expressway, Yusuf Salami, the Oyo State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps, told Xinhua on the phone. On his part, the state police spokesperson Adekunle Ajisebutu said 26 people were burnt to death before any intervention arrived. He said 11 people including children were injured in the crash and were being treated in the hospitals. Eyewitness said the passengers in the two buses were burnt beyond recognition. Nigeria has one of the highest fatality rates for road accidents in the world mainly due to shoddy highways, poorly maintained vehicles, violation of traffic rules by inept drivers and lack of monitoring. The photo provided by COMAC shows that China's first domestically-built large passenger jet C919 at a hanger of the Chemmercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) in Shanghai, China, on May 5, 2017. The plane completes its maiden test flight on the same day. (Xinhua/Photo) by Xinhua Writer Guo Shuang LOS ANGELES, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China's first indigenously-designed large passenger aircraft, the C919, successfully completed its maiden flight on Friday in the eastern city of Shanghai, providing a win-win cooperation for both China and the global market. "The C919 not only generates a great source of pride for China, but also represents mutual benefits and cooperation between China and the rest of the world. For this reason, the C919 program also carries the pride and hopes of people across the globe," Ye Wei, executive director and president of COMAC America Corporation, told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday at his office in Los Angeles, California. The successful flying of C919 is a crucial step in earning its manufacturer, COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China), a position alongside Airbus and Boeing as a major player in the large passenger aircraft industry, where the three players could become known as the "ABC" of aircraft manufacturing. AVIATION INNOVATION Out of the overall design of the C919, the airframe is, from its initial design to calculations, testing, and construction, independently researched and developed in China. The research and development of the airframe gave rise to multiple technical breakthroughs, such as the unique design of the supercritical wing and different applications of new construction materials. While some may consider the airframe to just be the shell of an aircraft, Ye emphasized that the development of the airframe represents a major technical component of large aircraft manufacturing. As one of the most difficult steps in the aircraft design process, the C919's airframe technology represents a major step forward for China's aircraft manufacturing industry. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION At the same time, the C919 can be considered a paragon of global cooperation. Major components such as the engines, avionics, control systems, and more are sourced from numerous joint ventures and partners across Europe and the United States. With major suppliers such as General Electric and Honeywell, the C919 project can be said to cover the world. The C919 features major components from 17 Level 1 suppliers around the globe, with Level 2 and 3 suppliers numbering in the hundreds. "This is why the C919 is more than just China's pride. It also represents mutual benefit that stretches far beyond China's borders," Ye said. In order to succeed in an increasingly globalized business world, international cooperation is a must. From this point of view, the C919 provides significant economic benefits to each of its international suppliers and their nations. In posts on its social media accounts, Honeywell stated that with nearly 1,000 of their employees across the world working to support the C919 project, the entire Honeywell workforce shared COMAC's pride at the success of the first flight. Darius Adamczyk, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell was one of the first to send his congratulations to COMAC Chairman Jin Zhuanglong, which read: "We are extremely proud that COMAC chose Honeywell to provide four major systems for this sleek and modern aircraft. We are proud of our partnership with COMAC and eager to continue to help advance aviation capabilities in China." The COMAC provided picture shows that China's homegrown large passenger plane C919 makes its maiden test flight in Shanghai, China, on May 5, 2017. (Xinhua/Photo) NO THREAT TO BOEING, AIRBUS At the moment, China's large passenger aircraft have a long way to go before they can truly compete with Boeing and Airbus on the international market, much less present a genuine threat to either manufacturer. Over a considerably long timeframe, the C919 is planned to mainly be used in China's domestic market, helping to meet its demand. In the short term, production of the C919 will be limited and its numbers will be far from enough to make a significant impact. At the moment, the C919 has a total of 570 orders, the vast majority of which were made by domestic Chinese customers. In fact, at the moment Boeing and Airbus are enthusiastically cooperating with COMAC, making use of the Chinese company's manpower and resources to develop the Chinese aviation market. As one of COMAC's major international partners, Aviage Systems is responsible for three avionics work packages on the C919. Immediately following the first flight of C919, company Chairman and CEO Alan Jones sent COMAC his best wishes, stating "Aviage Systems is very proud to be COMAC's close partner as both sides worked with common purpose, encouraging each other and overcoming obstacles along the way. We are honored to be a part of this historical occasion." Regarding the significance of the first flight and the road ahead, Robert Morefield, a senior aeronautical engineer with over 40 years of experience in the industry,said, "The success of the C919's first flight is a critical step in the comprehensive test flight process. This milestone opens the path for a multitude of required future test flights that will ensure the aircraft is safe and ready for public service." However, among congratulations from all over the world, there were some who used the occasion to politicize the C919 program and treat it as if it was a threat to the rest of the world. "This is a very shortsighted way of looking at it," said Ye, referring to these criticisms. "With cooperation comes mutual benefit. I think this is something people of every nation would like to see," he said. "If other countries were to refuse this cooperation and place unnecessary embargoes and limitations on these kinds of projects, it would only harm the idea of a fair and open market and ultimately damage the economic welfare of individuals throughout the world," Ye said. Shareholders attend Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, the United States, on May 6, 2017. The event attracts over 40,000 shareholders from around the world as well as a wide variety of media agencies. (Xinhua Photo/Yin Bogu) OMAHA, the United States, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's chairman and chief executive, said on Saturday that his company preferred reporting investment losses this year for the tax advantage. "We would rather take losses than gains because of the tax effect ... and there's probably just one touch more emphasis on that this year," Buffett said at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, often known as Woodstock for Capitalists, held at the CenturyLink Center in downtown Omaha of Nebraska. "There's some chance of that rate being lower, meaning the losses would have less tax value to us after this year," he said, pointing to the tax cuts proposed by the Trump administration. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that the administration would work with congress to pass the ambitious tax reform this year, which would cut the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent. "It may get to be more of a factor in deferring any gains and perhaps accelerating any losses as the year gets closer to Dec. 31," Buffett said, noting the company has unrealized investment gains worth of 90 billion U.S. dollars. Berkshire reported on Friday that its net earnings for the first quarter of this year fell by 27 percent to 4.06 billion U.S. dollars, driven by underwriting losses at Berkshire's insurance business. About 40,000 investors around the world over the weekend came to Omaha to attend Berkshire's annual meeting. The main focus of the meeting is the question-and-answer session, during which the 86-year-old billionaire and his 93-year-old partner, Charles Munger, take questions from financial journalists, analysts and shareholders, ranging from Berkshire's business, the economic outlook, the stock market to the investment philosophy. http://en.mehrnews.com/news/125212/De-escalation-zones-take-effect-in-Syria MOSCOW, May 06 (MNA) Safe zones across Syria have officially gone into effect as of midnight May 6 in the country. Diplomatic efforts in Astana, Kazakhstan, between Russian, Turkish and Iranian delegations have resulted in an agreement to enact safe zones in Syria in what observers hope will be a big step toward peace in the war-torn country. Moscow, Ankara and Tehran emerged as the guarantors of the strategy and authorized the memo creating the safe zones. The zones are located in the Idlib province, an area north of the city of Homs, in eastern Ghouta, and in southern Syria, and while they have taken effect, it will be about a month before all details of their establishment are finalized, Russian officials have said. The zones are intended to provide refuge for displaced persons and help in the distribution of humanitarian aid. Syrian government and opposition forces are barred from engaging with each other in the de-escalation zones, a rule to be enforced with checkpoints and security buffers, Sputnik has previously reported. "The work of combat aircraft in zones of de-escalation, especially of the international coalition planes, is not expected at all, with or without notification," said Alexander Lavrentyev, Russias Special Presidential Representative for Syria. The decision to usher in safe zones was "supported by all principal players," according to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, among them the United Nations, the US administration, Saudi Arabia and other nations. This led him to conclude "there is a certain degree of guarantee that the memorandum will be implemented." Iranian, Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministries and intelligence services cooperated during "working sessions" to bring about a de-escalation of violence, Fomin said. "The position of the United States, which welcomed the steps towards reducing the level of violence in Syria, improving the humanitarian situation and creating the environment for resolving the conflict," Fomin said, "has played a positive role." Nevertheless, political analyst Evgeny Kutikov wrote in a recent report that the new policy shouldnt be regarded as a "concession to Washington." One hope is that safe zones will free up more resources for Damascus to fight Daesh, says Sergey Rudskoy, head of Main Operations of the Russian General Staff. "Within the borders of de-escalation zones, military actions between the warring sides stop, including the use of any weapons," and of course, "including airstrikes," Lavrentyev noted. On Thursday, the US State Department announced that it appreciates the efforts of Turkey and Russia for brokering the deal. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, a phone call between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson provided a platform for both sides to discuss the situation in Syria and the prospect of establishing peace. "The sides discussed the de-escalation for the situation in that country, stabilizing the ceasefire regime, increasing anti-terrorism efforts, and intensifying external assistance to the inter-Syrian negotiation process," the ministry said May 5. The original document of Hamas, published one year after the group was established in 1988, writes that the group was "an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood." (Reuters photo) CAIRO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday unveiled a new policy document that would end its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, a move likely to improve its ties with Egypt. "The move is apparently aimed at improving ties with the Gulf countries and Egypt, which considered the Muslim Brotherhood a threat to security and stability in the region," said Ambassador Mohamed Al-Oraby, former Egyptian foreign minister. The new 42-provision document identifies Hamas as "an Islamic Palestinian national resistance and liberation movement that aimed at liberating Palestine." The document stated Islam is its main reference, without any mention to the Muslim Brotherhood. The original document of Hamas, published one year after the group was established in 1988, wrote that the group was "an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood." Egypt has outlawed the Brotherhood as a "terrorist group" and banned its activities following the ouster of the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Since then, the ties between Egypt and Hamas have been on hot edge. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia also classified the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization because both countries deemed the Islamists as a threat to its inherited royal rule. Hamas' separation from the Brotherhood, Al-Oraby said, is "a positive step" to melt the ice in ties with Egypt, whose Rafah border crossing is Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip's main gateway to the outside world. Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt destroyed a once-thriving network of cross-border smuggling tunnels used by Hamas, robbing the group of its main economic lifeline and a key source of weapons. Egypt's state-run media have repeatedly accused Hamas of collaborating with militants in Egypt, a charge the group always denies. In Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas since 2007, years of Egyptian restrictions, coupled with an Israeli blockade and three wars between Hamas and Israel, have devastated the economy and weakened the Palestinian Islamist group. "Hamas realized it has lost a strong strategic ally like Egypt, and decided to reopen communication channels with Cairo" under severe pressure amid uncertain conditions in the region, said Al-Oraby, who is also a member of the Egyptian parliament. The Palestinian group understood that "the Brotherhood and its allies suffer troubles currently," Al-Oraby said, adding that Egypt is a strong and stable country that could present support and aid to the strained Palestinian people in Gaza. Furthermore, many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. Saeed al-Lawendy, expert with state-run Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said "Hamas' split from the Brotherhood will lead to lifting its name from the terrorist group list and will beautify the group's image that has been seen as bloody by some world powers." The political expert added that Hamas' link with the Brotherhood has become an accusation that the Palestinian group should "deny and regret" all the time. He said if Hamas would "seriously" consider dropping connections with the Brotherhood, it would improve ties not only with Egypt but also with its U.S. and Arab Gulf states allies as well. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-07 05:55:29|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao People attend a rally organized by female supporters of the opposition in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 6, 2017. Female supporters of both the government and the opposition called for major protests for Saturday in Caracas, continuing weeks of demonstrations that have left 37 dead since April 1. (Xinhua/Gregorio Teran/AVN) CARACAS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Female supporters of both the government and the opposition called for major protests for Saturday in Caracas, continuing weeks of demonstrations that have left 37 dead since April 1. Followers of President Nicolas Maduro, mostly militants of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), called for the march to be "for peace and life" and against "terrorism." Women who support the opposition party Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), however, called to mobilize against the "repression" which they say has oppressed the country. At 10 am on Saturday, the opposition "March of the Women" began, being led by Lilian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, according to TV station, NTN 24. In a message on Twitter ahead of the march, Tintori said that the women should dress in white and hold up signs, saying "No More Repression." These competing marches on Saturday will likely further stoke tension in Venezuela, as the opponents continue to hold Maduro responsible for the country's political, economic and social crisis. However, Maduro's administration this week blamed the opposition for carrying out "terrorist acts" to destabilize the nation under the guise of "peaceful" marches. On Friday, the government confirmed the death of Hecder Lugo, 20, who was injured Thursday during an opposition protest in the town of San Diego, Carabobo, bringing the total of deaths to 37 since large-scale protests broke out in early April. According to an investigation by the prosecutor-general's office, Lugo was found Thursday, "where the protest took place, when he was wounded by a gun shot." A wave of looting occurred in the central state of Carabobo on Friday. According to the Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, Nestor Reverol, at least 135 shops have been looted with security organisms having identified 45 criminal gangs "hired by the criminal right." Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-07 06:00:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUENOS AIRES, May 6 (Xinhua) -- China is a key partner for the agricultural sector of Argentina, the third-largest economy of Latin America, as the country seeks to enter more international markets. In an interview with Xinhua, Argentina's Secretary for Agricultural Markets, Marisa Bircher, spoke about her expectations about the upcoming SIAL China 2017, Asia's largest food innovation exhibition, to be held in Shanghai from May 17-19. For this event, Argentina has been named the guest of honor, in celebration of the 45th anniversary of the establishing of diplomatic ties between both countries in 1972. "Argentina will have a stand of over 400 square meters, at the disposal of a total of 60 countries who want to exhibit their products," said Bircher. Bircher mentioned that the Argentinean delegation will present alcoholic beverages, dairy, baked goods, organic products, oils, frozen products, fruits and vegetables, gourmet products, grains and seeds, and poultry, among others. "The challenge is to expand our exports and, at the same time, broaden the products being exported with added value. The idea is to reach the shelves of Chinese supermarkets," she added. In its 2016 edition, SIAL was held in Paris, gathered 2,942 exhibitors from 67 countries and regions, while receiving 76,986 visitors. China is Argentina's second-largest trading partner and the main importer of the country's agricultural products. In 2014, both countries announced they would elevate bilateral relations to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership. On Tuesday, Argentina's Agency of International Investments and Trade (AAICI) signed a deal with Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, so that products from Argentinean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) could be sold on Alibaba's electronic platform. "This is great news for small and medium companies in Argentina. It is a platform which will reach the Chinese consumer, which always seeks more quality," added Bircher. She emphasized that "China is in line with the Argentinean government's agenda of integration with the world. The relation is very good. Furthermore, China has a huge market. It is a key partner for Argentina," she concluded. Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-07 06:05:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish army is bracing to enter Syria's northwestern province of Idlib as part of the "de-escalation zone" deal reached recently between Russia, Iran and Turkey, pan-Arab Mayadeen TV reported on Saturday, citing "activists." According to the report, the Turkish side sent a telegram to the armed rebel factions in Idlib, informing them that Turkish forces will enter the border area in Idlib province, near Turkey. The Turkish side told the rebel factions not to consider the Turkish forces as forces of occupation, and not to resist them, according to the report. The telegram was reportedly conveyed by a Turkish envoy, who met with leaders of the rebel factions in Idlib, and included "security warning" from the Turkish side to the rebels of not resisting. According to the telegram, "the Turkish forces will temporarily deploy inside the border villages with armored vehicles and infantry forces as a first step" as the areas will be free of any presence of Syria or Russian warplanes. Maintenance workers will also enter the area to fix the water and electricity network as well as rehabilitating the infrastructure of that province, according to the telegram. Regarding the presence of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which is deemed as a terrorist group that is excluded from any deal, the telegram suggested that the Turkish forces will not attack that terror-designated group, but will resolve their situation "diplomatically" by pushing them to hand over their positions to the Turkish army and evacuate Idlib. Meanwhile, the report cited a breakaway Syrian officer with the rebels as confirming the Turkish army's preparation to enter Idlib to establish military bases there. The report said that tension has prevailed Idlib since Friday with the news of Turkish military buildup near the borders. The de-escalation zones' deal went into effect in Syria at midnight Saturday. On Friday, Russian media reports cited Russia's General Sergei Rudskoi, head of the main operational directorate of Russia's military, as stating that the agreement brokered by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to establish "de-escalation zones" in main battlefields in Syria will go into force as of midnight Saturday. According to the agreement, the government and opposition forces will halt fighting for six months in four zones, in the northwestern province of Idlib part of Aleppo countryside, the central province of Homs, the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus, and areas in the Daraa and Qunaitera provinces in southern Syria. On Thursday evening during the Astana talks, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a memorandum on the creation of four or more safe zones in Syria. Syria's Foreign Ministry announced the acceptance of the Syrian government to the safe zone plan. However, some factions of the Syrian opposition announced it would not accept it, saying the pact threatens Syria's territorial integrity. 6 years for stealing Lochan pleaded guilty to the charges of warehouse breaking and larceny. Prosecutor Cleyon Sedan told the court that at about midday on April 10, a business owner secured his warehouse along Farrah Street, San Fernando and left for the day. When the businessman returned at about 5 pm on April 24, he observed that the warehouse was broken into. Sedan said a door was prised open. Checks were made and $57,300 in equipment and other items were missing. Following investigations by PC Mohess, Lochan was arrested on April 5 and subsequently charged. He confessed to police that he along with another man stole the items over a period of days. Lochan said he sold the items on the streets. Lochan who was unrepresented asked the magistrate to be placed on a bond so he could work to compensate the warehouse owner. The magistrate declined his request. In reviewing Lochans criminal record Magistrate Antoine said he has 17 convictions over the last ten years. Denied bail for shooting at police Christoph Grenville, 20, of Tarodale, San Fernando was granted $500,000 bail by Magistrate Cherril- Anne Antoine in the San Fernando First Magistrates Court to answer to the charges. On Thursday, Christopher Meade, 29, was brought before the same magistrate to answer to the same charges and was refused bail. The charges read to Grenville yesterday alleged that on April 27, he shot at PCs Dario Ramlal; Melissa Suchit, Cheryl Ann Roberts; Clevon George and Michael Ragoonanan at Union Park East, Marabella. Other charges read to Grenville were that he was in possession of ammunition to endanger life and possession of a firearm. Another charge read to him alleged that he broke into a house of a man and robbed him of $2,000, an iPhone and US$1,000. He was not called upon to plead to the charges. Attorney Indira Binda held for Subhas Panday. The exhibits were also produced before the court. Court prosecutor Cleyon Sedan said the accused man had no previous convictions. Sedan did not object to bail. The magistrate in granting bail ordered that Grenville hand over his passport and report to the Ste Madeleine Police Station to sign bail. Mexican murdered in Pt Fortin Police say that at 3.30 am, 36-year-old Socorro Serrano Sandoval was returning from a lime with his friend and work colleague Fernando Camacho, 24, who is originally from Colombia. As the two walked along Church Street not far from the St Anthonys Roman Catholic Church, they were approached by a man of African descent who wore a dreadlocked hairstyle and a bandana across his face. He called out to them. When the pair turned around, the dreadlocked man shot at them, hitting Sandoval several times. Sandoval collapsed a short distance away while Camacho ran away. Residents who heard the gunshots alerted the police who later took Sandoval to the Point Fortin Area Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police say Sandoval and Camacho worked at Pace Construction Services Limited, a contracting company contracted by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC ) to build units at the Lakeview Housing Development in La Fortune, Point Fortin. Sources say Sandoval worked as an engineer at the company for more than four years. Sandovals murder did not appear to dampen the spirits of thousands of people who were making their way to Point Fortin to kick off the weekend celebrations as dozens of music trucks and scantily clad promotion girls could be seen at almost every street corner yesterday afternoon. No arrest has been made but police say they have strong leads in determining the identity of the killer. Point Fortin police are investigating. No work, no pay This was the ruling of High Court judge, Justice Margaret Mohammed who held that the workers, having chosen to follow the guidance of their union, must now bear the consequences of the advice given to them to stop work. The workers filed an action seeking payment of wages during the period June 24, to September 1, 2014. They also sought a declaration that the work stoppage complied with Section 15 of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act. In their action, the workers complained of health and safety risks at their offices at Balisier Avenue, Couva, including inadequate ventilation, presence of excessive dust, mould and fungus, an infestation of cockroaches and other vermin, inadequate toilet facilities, a deficiency in water supply, exposed electrical installations, congested office space, unsafe stairways among other complaints. The workers were represented by attorneys Rajiv Persad and Kyle Taklalsingh while Senior Counsel Russell Martineau and attorneys Rishi Dass and Alisa Khan represented the SILWC. Justice Mohammed was asked to determine if the work stoppage complied with the OSH Act and should the 33 workers be paid for the period they did not work. In her 64 page judgment delivered at the Port-of-Spain High Court, Justice Mohammed held that it appeared the workers were ill-advised by the PSA to invoke section 15 of the OSH Act, in particular in circumstances where it was not warranted and where they knew their allegations could not be substantiated. She said the workers were hasty since it was clear they engaged in the work stoppage, under the guise of actual health and safety concerns when admittedly they knew such action was all part of the PSAs action in the wider public service to close down government offices at the time. In dismissing the workers claim and granting the counter-claim by the SILWC, that the workers not be paid for the days they did not work, the judge also ordered the 33 workers to pay the committees costs of defending the action. TDC in injunction hearing The CWU filed an injunction on Thursday seeking to restrain the TDC from terminating the contracts of workers until the determination of an industrial relations complaint filed in the Industrial Court as well as to restrain the TDC from making any offer for voluntary separation (VSE P) without consulting the union. Presiding over the injunction yesterday were President of the Industrial Court Deborah Thomas-Felix and members Albert Aberdeen, Kyril Jack, Kathleen George-Marcelle and newly appointed judge Azeem Mohammed who sat on the panel as an observer. Representing the CWU were attorneys Douglas Mendes SC and Imran Ali while Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein and Rishi Dass represented the TDC. In submissions before the court against the injunction application, Hosein said there was no evidence of the TDC offering any VSE P to workers. He said no company can treat with workers unless it deals with the union and anyone who does so would have to be a mad man. Hosein suggested that if any VSE P is offered to workers before May 31 without consulting the CWU, the union is free to come to court seeking relief. He dismissed as dishonest claims by the union that the management of the TDC was speaking with workers directly and not engaging the union on the future of the company. Mendes earlier sought an undertaking from the TDC in lieu of an injunction being granted that the company will not offer to workers VSEP without consulting the union. He said the union has been told that the termination date for the TDC was June 9. He also said the CWU was heartened by Hoseins submissions that no VSE P offer will be made to workers before consulting the union, although he did not get the undertaking sought. The union filed two previous complaints relative to a decision to shut down the TDC without consulting the CWU and the development of VSE P packages to be considered by the Cabinet. The three matters concerning the proposed dissolution of the TDC will come up for hearing on May 31. A decision to dissolve the TDC was announced at a post-cabinet media briefing on March 9. President of the CWU Joseph Remy said the union only received a call on the decision in a telephone conversation with the companys line-minister, Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe shortly before the announcement was made and after the decision was already taken by Cabinet. TDC currently has approximately 114 employees - with both fixed contracts and month-to-month employment Police leak file sent to DPP Yesterday head of the division Senior Superintendent Kenny Mc Intyre said he was eagerly awaiting the DPPs instructions because he is of the view that the perpetrator or perpetrators should be brought to justice for their actions. Mc Intyre, prior to the Easter weekend, compiled a list of duties which included road blocks and searches starting from Holy Thursday to Easter Monday. The information was passed to a typist and copies of the duties were made available to other police officers in the division. However on Good Friday (April 14) Mc Intyre was informed that the document was leaked via social media and ordered an investigation. This resulted in the cell phones of at least eight police officers being seized. Several others were also questioned and statements recorded. The phones are yet to be returned Cops seize guns, ammo, drugs under pirogue According to reports, at about 3 am, Sgts Brown and Gibbons and Cpls Superville, Nicombe, Dominic and others went to the area. They found a .38 revolver with nine rounds of ammunition and a Sig Sauer with 14 rounds of 9mm ammunition and one kilogram of marijuana. Although no one was arrested, police believe the guns and drugs were hidden under the pirogue by members of a gang. The guns were sent to the Forensic Science Centre yesterday for ballistic testing to ascertain if they were used in any recent murders or serious crimes. More police coming to a community near you Senior Superintendents Glen Charles and Carlisle Huggins will be responsible for the North and South regions respectively. In a media statement yesterday, Rural Development and Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein said a pillar of local government reform was to increase the numbers within the Municipal Police Service and the new heads would ensure cohesive leadership across all municipalities. This initiative was born when we were in opposition in 2012, Hosein said. We wanted to restore the notion of the police being respected in the community and providing a service that makes the families, which make up our country, feel safe in their homes and on their streets. It is finally coming to fruition with the 541 potential police constables who have recently taken the exam and the appointment of these well-seasoned officers who have a long history of dedicated service. Hosein said his ministry is relying on the officers to make the distinction between hard and soft policing and restore the community relation which existed in the past. Meanwhile, Headley said the intention was to bring back foot patrols throughout every municipality so that officers could reconnect with the communities. He lamented that the municipal police seemed to have lost its connection with the public. Charles stated his intention to focus on the customer service of the TTMPS and improve the way they interact with the public PNM councillor robbed The mall, built in 2005 by deceased former prime minister Patrick Manning, is the property of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC). Yesterday, Parris slammed the HDC for a lack of proper security and poor maintenance at the plaza. This is the third armed robbery at the mall this year. I am shaken up by what happened but I am more alarmed and hurt by the fact that residents of Pleasantville cant go the village mall and shop peacefully because of the escalating crime, Parris said. He called on HDC to implement better security measures at the busy shopping centre and spoke of a number of criminal activities that occur at the mall but often go unreported. Police reported that at 5 pm on Thursday, three gunmen entered the supermarket and announced a holdup. They proceeded to rob the cashier and then ordered customers to lie on the floor and, empty allyuh pockets. The bandits later escaped with cash and jewelry. During the ten minute ordeal, Parris said he prayed for his safety and that of the other customers some of whom were women. On March 25, Christopher Wells, 32, a barber of Hibiscus Drive, Pleasantville who was gunned down while sitting outside the barber shop at the mall. On February 14, truck driver Kern Joseph, 35, of Parakeet Boulevard, Pleasantville was shot dead at the plaza which is not far from his home. Customers and tenants alike feel like sitting ducks because when the plaza was built, Mr Manning built it with a certain amount of standards which included security. But everything has fallen apart, Parris said. Newsday was told that for the past seven years security cameras installed on the perimeter of the mall have not been working despite many complaints to HDC. A tenant said: Cameras dont work, fire hoses dont work, drains are not cleaned, something must be done because persons are scared to return to the mall. HDC head of Corporate Communications Maurisa Findlay said yesterday the armed robbery on Thursday was brought to the attention of the agencys internal security. We have also spoken to the Ministry of National Security and will continue to have discussions with senior officers of the Southern Division to increase patrols in the area. Findlay said while the HDC has security measures in place, store operators must also implement their own safety systems to safeguard their properties. Moves to market Tobago as a premier travel destination British Airways Holidays provides an entire combined holiday package to the island from booking a British Airways flight to hotel accommodation and transportation. The Ministry of Tourism said in a statement to the media that British Airways Holidays destination executive Rikki Partridge and its destination manager David Weatherson discussed improved travel to Tobago. Weatherson said Tobago is one of their travellers top five chosen destinations in the Caribbean. Cudjoe said, Marketing and educational awareness is paramount to making tourism an important driver of diversification for our economy. She said this would be done by improving the tourism product and by positioning Tobago as a preferred leisure destination. Achieving this, she explained, would involve continued collaboration with the Tobago House of Assemblys Division of Tourism, Culture and Transportation, Tobago hoteliers and stakeholders, and the development of a strategic marketing approach in a customer- oriented environment. Cudjoe also informed the company about the proposed re-tooling and re-engineering of the national tourism strategy; one entity specific to Tobago, the other to Trinidad. She said this approach will enable each island to be marketed according to their differing target markets. Tobago is a fertile and fresh travel market with relatively cheap rates compared to other Caribbean islands, Weatherson said. A boost in the promotion of the island will greatly position Tobago in the minds of the UK traveller. The company has over 5,000 booked rooms so far for 2017, compared to 2016 which ended the year with 7,500 booked rooms. Partridge said Tobago has been showing continuous double-digit growth for British Airways Holidays in spite of the devaluation of the British Pound since June last year. Gopeesingh: Garcia must take blame On Thursday at a press conference, Garcia placed blame for the errors on the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC). In a statement to the media yesterday, Gopeesingh said Garcia has direct and total responsibility for the education sector and cannot pass the buck to a regional institution. He said the ministry has representation, at a senior administrative level, at the Barbados-based CXC and ought to have ensured the crucial examination was error-free. In fact, on the eve of the examination, Mr Garcia confidently assured that everything was in place for a smooth running of the test and that the ministry had played its appropriate role, Gopeesingh said. He said the ministrys Division of Education Research and Evaluation and Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan, should have ensured an error-free examination. He said the errors added further stress to the more than 18,000 students who wrote the examination and, raised burning questions about the integrity of the examination process. Mr Garcia must apologise to the students and must launch a full and complete investigation into the obvious and critical failure of the ministrys officials who serve at the CXC. This foul-up in the latest in a series under Mr Garcias watch, which have served to undermine and otherwise negatively impact the education sector in Trinidad and Tobago, Gopeesingh said. Garcia: An eye on the final SEA He added, the ministry does not set the examination slips. Garcia also said the Chief Education Officer attends meetings with CXC with respect to all exams under its ambit. Opposition MPs expressed their disgust as Garcia said, I am not aware that students were traumatised yesterday. He chided his predecessor, Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh, who he said was fully aware of the procedures involved in these matters. Deyalsingh slams predecessor over shares owned at private hospital On April 28, former health minister Dr Fuad Khan told Newsday there was no conflict of interest in him holding shares in St Augustine Private Hospital Limited while he served in the Peoples Partnership (PP) administration from June, 27 2011 to June 17, 2015. According to the Certificate of Incorporation for the St Augustine Private Hospital Holdings Ltd, dated December 20, 2012, Khan is listed among 29 shareholders of the company. He is classified as a medical doctor and is listed as having 250,000 ordinary shares. Registrar-General documents dated October 26, 2007, list Khan as holding those shares since that date. Documents dated February 8, 2013; January 7, 2014; January 8, 2015; July 17, 2015 and July 14, 2016 also list Khan as a shareholder. When Khan asked Deyalsingh if there was any increase to access to CT scans at the St Augustine Private Hospital, Deyalsingh replied, I am aware that no minister of health who owns shares in a private facility, can sign a certificate under the Public Hospitals Act to issue to a licence to a facility in which they are a shareholder. How can a minister owning 250,000 shares in a private facility in the first place be conducting operations in that facility and issuing a licence to the same facility that he has shares in? He said under the Integrity in Public Life Act, There should be an investigation. Speaking afterwards with reporters, Khan said he had been a shareholder in the company since 1999. I have always declared my interests to the Integrity Commission. They have all the information there. Khan said as minister he recused himself from anything to do with the hospital and the chief medical officer dealt with those matters. While he had no intention to file a matter of privilege against Deyalsingh, Khan said, This is a silent attack on myself but I dont believe it is coming from the PNM. Asked if the attack could be coming from the United National Congress (UNC), Khan said he had certain information and would do his own investigations. Earlier in the sitting, Deyalsingh said Government saved taxpayers $190 million on the Arima Hospital because of overinflated costs on the project under the PP. He said the country owes Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi a debt of gratitude for that. Share 4G, 5G, and 5G were the prevalent topics of conversation this week in Next Generation Communications. As Web Editor Alicia Young reported, PeopleNet has announced its rollout of 4G LTE (News - Alert) connectivity. PeopleNet is a Trimble company that specializes in fleet mobility solutions. To ready themselves for 5G and the future in general, many carriers have been working to amass more spectrum. But not all of the big players snapped up spectrum during the recent 600MHz auction in the U.S. Verizon came away from the auction with no licenses, according to contributing writer Steve Anderson. But, he said, T-Mobile bought a bunch of spectrum, spending $8 billion. (Meanwhile, Comcast (News - Alert), which was expected to be a big spender at the auction, purchased half the amount of bandwidth it had been anticipated to buy. The dream of a national facilities-based cable build is dead, telecom financial analyst Craig Moffett wrote in the wake of the 600MHz auction results). Anderson this week also wrote about efforts to make new spectrum available across the pond. He reported that by 2020 mobile operators in the European Union will have access to new spectrum in the 700MHz band. Both Anderson and I also wrote this week about AT&Ts (News - Alert) new 5G Evolution service. Although AT&T uses the term 5G to promote this offering, it is in fact not based on 5G technology. The 5G standard is still being standardized, and 5G equipment is not yet available, so 5G services are not yet possible. Like AT&T, Verizon (News - Alert) recently announced a new offering with a name that does not accurately reflect the actual service. That is Verizons new Fios Gigabit Connection service, which actually serves up megabit-speed connectivity. In other Next Generation Communications news this week, Finnish company HMD has licensed the Nokia brand and is introducing the Nokia (News - Alert) 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6, and Nokia 3310 phones in India, reports contributing writer Michael Guta. The sales of these devices in India, the worlds second largest mobile market, will begin on a staggered basis in June. Meanwhile, in Greece, Cosmote has tapped Nokia to supply its long-haul 9500 Microwave Packet Radio technology. The effort involves upgrading the carriers SDH microwave trunk network so it can reuse existing passive radio equipment. That will save the company a lot of money, Guta reports, and it will enable the mobile operator to better serve users on the many islands that make up Greece. Criminal charges have been filed in the death of an inmate at the Tecumseh prison. That marks the first such action in five slayings at the southeast Nebraska facility in two years. While it represents a benchmark for the troubled Nebraska Department of Corrections system, it also represents a tragedy of overcrowding that forced two inmates into the same cell who should never have been paired. One was a lifer charged with murder, the other a check forger who was days short of a parole hearing and within months of being released. The murderer was charged with yet another murder for allegedly strangling the check-forger. Explanations from the department were incomplete. The results are pending investigation. Sure. Just like the investigation into the deaths of two inmates on March 2 and two more inmates on Mothers Day 2015. How do you suppose the families of the five dead inmates are coping? No, I dont envy the Department for having to get information from people who are programmed not to snitch. But I do blame the Department for fostering an atmosphere of deplorable living conditions that lead inmates to riot the Department prefers to call them disturbances to make themselves heard. I do blame the Governor and the Attorney General and the Department for failing to address overcrowding issues that led to the housing of a convicted murderer with a check-forger. The same overcrowding issue that led to an April incident at the Diagnostic and Evaluation facility in Lincoln where there are nearly three times as many inmates as the facility was built to handle. A fire erupted in a housing unit after an inmate assaulted a staff member, a department spokeswoman said. In a letter received by the Lincoln Journal-Star, a number of inmates wrote that words were exchanged with a staff member who joined two other officers in the glassed-in bubble (turnkey) where the three pointed at the inmates and joked and laughed. One allegedly flipped the bird at inmates and the inmate-set fire ensued. The Department said that Nebraska State Patrol troopers and Department of Correctional Services emergency teams quelled the disturbance at the prison about two hours after it began. The inmates wrote that they were locked in their cells with smoke pouring in and water from the sprinkler system accumulating under-foot. The emergency doors, which would have allowed them to go to the yard, away from the danger, were kept locked. Following the incident, the Department reported that the staff had been accounted for and were reported to be safe. The staff member who was assaulted did not appear to be seriously injured. Thats good news for their families, but what about the inmates families? Do you suppose they were concerned? Their loved ones (the state calls them inmates or felons or incarcerated people) are at the mercy of the state. In a recent news release announcing his veto of a voting rights bill (LB75), Governor Pete Ricketts said Nebraskans are kind-hearted and do not wish to permanently punish convicted felons. The distinction, however, between the restoration of rights versus privileges must be noted. While the Legislature may restore certain privileges, such as driving privileges, to convicted felons, the Legislature may not circumvent the Nebraska Constitution to automatically restore a voting right in state law. The measure would immediately restore the voting rights of felons on their release. Proponents say it is an important element to helping them re-establish their role in society. Remember, they are humans too. They are sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. Consider them among the least of these referred to by Jesus in Matthew 25: 40. The King will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Ricketts rightfully said that the issue requires an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution. Heres hoping that the proponents will come back with a proposed constitutional amendment next year to allow voters to decide. It shouldnt be a big deal. The right to vote is referred to more than any other in the U.S. Constitution (five times). But, given Nebraskas experience with the death penalty: repeal passed by lawmakers; vetoed by the Governor; reinstated by voters in a campaign largely funded by the Governor; its not clear if restoration of voting rights would prevail. Besides, Ricketts said, while the rehabilitation of criminals is an important goal of the criminal justice system, the immediate restoration of voting rights is not the answer. Treating incarcerated people like humans should be a goal of the criminal justice system. Lets reduce overcrowding by actively supporting alternate courts and sentencing. Lets ensure the safety of those were institutionalizing with the same fervor as we do those who work there. 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. Malawis Foreign Minister, Francis Kasayla, has put another nail in the coffin of the Polisario by announcing his countrys withdrawal of recognition of the Algerian-sponsored SADR entity. The Republic of Malawi has decided to withdraw its recognition of SADR which it recognized on March 6, 2014, and to maintain a neutral position vis-a-vis the regional conflict over the Sahara, said Francis Kasayla following talks in Rabat with Moroccos Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita. By withdrawing its recognition of the Tindouf-based separatist entity, the Malawi has joined its voice to more than two thirds of African countries who support Moroccos sovereignty and territorial integrity. The land has shifted once more under the feet of the Polisario separatists who see support for their separatist thesis waning in Africa and at the international level. This comes after the Polisario suffered several setbacks, the latest of which was the humiliating withdrawal from the buffer strip in the Guerguarat area on the borders with Mauritania and the adoption by the UN Security Council of resolution 2351, which reiterates support for the autonomy plan as a credible basis for reaching a mutual solution. With Moroccos return to the African Union, the Polisario sees gloomy prospects for its propaganda in the continent. Last July at the African Union Summit in Kigali, 28 African countries submitted a motion demanding to freeze the Polisarios membership in the continental organization. A course that is set to continue as more countries in the African Union see the Polisarios membership as an aberration in contradiction with international law because the Polisario is not a state and lacks state attributes. Recently, several African countries that once supported the Polisario separatist endeavor are backtracking. After a diplomatic offensive coupled with win-win partnerships led by King Mohammed VI in Africa, several countries have ceased to support Algerias plot to create a separatist entity in Morocco and affirmed support for the UN-led political process. These countries include African heavyweights such as Nigeria and Ethiopia, which now see new cooperation opportunities with Morocco. Overall, Moroccos return to the African Union has set the tone for a gradual demise of the Algerian-sponsored separatism in the Sahara as the Kingdom and its friends will act as a bulwark against any attempt to use the pan-African body to simmer tension and instability in the region.